When the Morning Comes

It is impossible to be in a bad mood after watching this video.  I dare you not to smile in the first 30 seconds.  What's even better, is that after you have seen this a few times, forever after it will only take the first few opening beats of the song to make you happy.

Not just a little bit happy.  A lot happy.  It is my Monday gift to you.

It was a day filled with goodness.  A good song.  Good news about a friend.  There are daffodils blooming in the front yard, the side yard, the back yard,  everywhere.  There was plenty of quiet time this morning to exercise, to read scripture, and to read my favorite daily moment of beauty.  Nobody cried during learning time today.  (Not even me).

I didn't have the heart to tell her she had jam all over her face.  She said, "Mama, was I pretty in the picture?"  I said, "Baby, you were beautiful in the picture."

Fresh Pear and Blue Cheese Salad

The busier things have gotten around here lately, the more I find myself creating new, necessary rhythms to see us through our days.  It helps to set some things on auto-pilot so that there are fewer tasks to remember, and less details to tend to.  Less things to forget.  Less items to cause stress.  

~~ Groceries are picked up on the way home from meetings with clients on Thursdays.  

~~ Laundry is done on specific days.  Showers on alternate days.

~~ The coffee maker is reloaded every evening when the dinner dishes are washed.

~~ The bread machine is set up every Friday afternoon to make pizza dough for dinner.

~~ Lessons are planned a week in advance, with worksheets copied and books obtained (ahead of time) from the library.

~~ Soup, salad, and baguette are the standard for Saturday night dinners.

~~ Extra dark chocolate is purchased and hidden in the cabinet for emergencies.

Oh, the humdrum of the routine can be thrown out at a moment's notice to take advantage of a friend's perfect idea to combine families for an evening of chaos and stove-sharing and laughter, and nothing ever has to be set in stone, but knowing that there is grace in this weekly rhythm is comforting, grounding even, when schedules start spinning out of control.

Grace is good.  

I have already prattled on enough about my love for the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special, but it has been such an ideal winter cookbook these past weeks, keeping our Saturday evenings warm with nourishing soups, and providing a welcome rhythm in knowing I will naturally reach there for my inspiration for new soup & salad recipes and pairings.  

There have been hits and misses, of course.  Tonight's soup was perfectly dull and disappointing.  Last Saturday's salad was head-scratchingly odd.  But the winners have been divine, and tonight's salad of arugula, pears, blue cheese, and a bracingly acidic vinaigrette was downright stunning.  Gorgeous to look at, and worth fighting each other for the last few bites.  

It was so simple to make, and the lack of extra ingredients in the recipe allowed each individual flavor to shine brilliantly.  The arugula was sharp and bitter, the pear slices were firm and sweet, the blue cheese was meltingly rich and savory, all of it drizzled over with a bright, tart vinaigrette.  I have known good salads, but this was one of the very best.  No extraneous textures, no flavors thrown in for complexity's sake.  Just four perfect notes.

As suited as it was for a first course followed by soup and bread (the bread all the better for mopping up the leftover bits of blue cheese swimming in vinaigrette), it would be extra winsome served alongside a good, fatty fish like salmon, or with a rich omelette topped with sauteed mushrooms, really anything full-bodied or creamy enough to act as a foil to the bright, clean flavors and crisp textures of the salad.

I live for salads like this.  And given the squabbling at the table over the last few bites, so do The Carnivore and The Boy Wonder.  

*****

FRESH PEAR AND BLUE CHEESE SALAD, serves 4 as a side dish
(adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special)

• 4 cups arugula (or other salad greens if you are averse to the assertive flavors of arugula)
• 1 large firm Bosc, Bartlett, or red D'Anjou pear
• 3 Tbs fresh orange juice
• 2 Tbs fresh lemon juice
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup (or more, to taste) crumbled blue cheese

1. On a large platter, arrange the greens.
2. Core the pear, slice it thinly, and lay the slices atop the greens.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and salt.
4. Immediately before serving, drizzle the dressing over the platter of greens & pear slices.
5. Sprinkle the crumbled blue cheese on top.

Beauty is only Fork Deep

Have you ever been excited about a recipe you just couldn't wait to try?  So excited that you wanted to run right out and get the ingredients you would need?

And then it turned out to be really rather easy to make, and it was absolutely stunning to look at?

But it tasted, uhhh, you know, meh?

Or you make the perfect souffle, suffering through the agonizing oven time, watch as it deflates slightly around the edges, but still looks handsome, and then you can't quite get past the distracting fact that it has the texture of baby food?

Happens to me all the time.  And every time it happens, I wilt with disappointment.  I calculate the cost of the ingredients, I look with distrust upon the source of the recipe, and I leave the table still a little bit hungry.

Especially when it wastes one of my favorite ingredients.

{sigh}  There should be a special graveyard for food photographs that are yummier than their recipes.

Warm Lemon/Lime Gingerade

I try to make it a regular practice to blow my kids' minds.  It is a necessity in our sort of household, I think.  A household in which TV time is strictly limited, video games are even more limited, candy is rare, and high-fructose corn syrup is viewed as suspiciously as if it were poison.

Being my child cannot be easy.  Too much 'no' zaps the fun out of life, so we actively seek out the yeses.

Stove-top popcorn, hot cocoa made with real cocoa and raw sugar, spicy roasted chickpeas, crispy kale chips: these are the sorts of things that thrill both the kids and mama.  Addictive, fun snacks do not have to be either unhealthy or highly-processed.  And there is a time and place for everything, of course, with sweets free-for-alls around birthdays and holidays, and kids' movies from the library for lazy Sunday afternoons spent lounging on the couch.

It is a delicate balance.

Hence, the great fun we have when mind-blowing moments arise.  The first time the kids had kale chips?  Minds successfully blown.  The occasional batch of homemade vanilla ice cream?  Epic blowing of the mind.  A tea party with a warm, sweetened lemon-lime ginger drink that mama views as actually healthy?  Hip, hip hooray to a brand-new mind blowing.

Oh, truth be told, I wasn't even sure the kids would enjoy this concoction.  I made it for myself, as part of my usual wintertime quest for restorative foods and drinks, and I thought it would be lovely for those days around the learning table when I am feeling frustrated and chilled and out-of-sorts.  It was, of course, lovely for all those reasons.

I found the recipe at Beauty That Moves, and her description - 'please fix what ails me beverage' - was exactly the sort of turn of a phrase that calls my name.  So I quickly made a batch, knowing a friend was on her way over, and she and I could tuck into a small pot of this in no time.  It was a beautiful kind of perfect.  Barely sweet, just a wee bit tart, and slightly spicy from the fresh ginger.  It was calming and warming, clean-tasting and bright, and if it were a perfume, I would dab it behind my ears.

I made the first batch using honey, as called for in the original recipe, but when I made it again the next day, I used agave nectar, and I liked it even more.  Agave nectar is a thing of wonder, if you are not familiar with it.  Often used in place of honey, with a similar but slightly more neutral taste, agave nectar has a low glycemic index, thus having less of an effect on blood sugar than many other sweeteners.  It is also vegan and unrefined, making it a fabulous ingredient to keep on hand in a natural foods pantry.

It also helps that I do not feel terribly guilty letting my children guzzle down a drink sweetened with a just a wee bit of agave nectar.  Which is good, because once they tried this drink, they were hooked.  With vitamin C from the lemons and limes, and the anti-inflammatory effects (amongst other health benefits) of ginger, I can make this for them almost as often as they want, and we can all feel good about it.

I think natural sodas might be next on the child-mind-blowing agenda.  Stay tuned, kids.

*****

WARM LEMON-LIME GINGERADE (adapted from Beauty That Moves), serves 4

• 4 cups water
• 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated fine
• juice of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 to 3 Tbs agave nectar, or 1/4 cup honey, sweetened to taste

1. Pour water into saucepan, and bring to a boil.
2. Add grated ginger, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Turn off heat, add lemon and lime juice, and the sweetener, and cover the pan.  Let steep for 10 minutes.
4. Strain if desired (I do not bother - we rather enjoy the tiny wisps of ginger left in the mixture).  Serve hot, warm, or cold.  It is delicious at every temperature.

~ Yes ~

It was a trying week.  Full of the sort of days in which I question the sanity of homeschooling, when I wonder if I will ever have the time to do all of the work on my desk, and when I fear I will never have time to sit and chat with my girlfriends again.

So silly, I know.  Because of course everything in life comes in phases, and these days will change into new challenges and new hurdles, and it is all good.  Even the bad days are not really all that bad.

I gave up on the never ending list of Things That Must Be Done yesterday, and I said no to my desk and the housework, and yes to a friend.  Yes is really the only thing I ever want to say to my friends.  Yes to an afternoon watching our kids play (and fight) in the sandbox.  Yes to a batch of cookies.  Yes to a cup of tea.  Yes to time spent with one of my very favorite people.

Yes is such a lovely word.

Yes, children.  You can let your pet lizards run all over the table while I work on lesson plans for next week.  Yes, I will make you some more of that yummy warm lemon/limeade that I made yesterday.  Yes, then let's go through the woods to my sister's house and spend time with a whole lot of our family around a gorgeous bonfire.  And yes, little brother, let's play with all the settings on my camera together until we find the one that takes the best photographs of a fire at night.

(ISO 3200, in case you were wondering).

Yes, dear son who took five hours to clean his room today and who really shouldn't be kept up past his bedtime when we must get up early tomorrow, you may eat a hot dog.  And some potato chips.  And a few marshmallows.  Yes to lemonade.  And yes to hot chocolate.  Whoops.  Yes, that is my big bloodhound in your house, dear sister (sorry about that).

Yes, this is a lovely way to spend a weekend in January.  What else should we say yes to in the coming days?

Roasted Red Pepper and Cauliflower Salad

Rain has been rare around here for so long, that we do not complain when it comes.  Even when it arrives and stays for days and days, bringing with it fog and thunder (in January, no less).  Even when it then brightens up for a day or two, and begins to rain again.

We'll take it.

To be sure, rain in the winter just kind of works for me.  The trees are already bare and gray, and we are mostly inside anyway, so days of rain make me want to cozy up in my yoga pants, living on soup and hot tea and the dreary, yet ethereally beautiful, view through my windows.

Glorious, isn't it?  Misty mornings, foggy views, and the pitter-pattering sound of the rain on the tin roof. It's no wonder I'm digging the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special cookbook right now.  Soups and salads and good, crusty bread are just perfect for warming the belly and soothing the tired mind at the end of the day.

This past weekend, after a full day of heavy rain and busy little projects around the house, I made Moosewood's Celery Roquefort Soup, and served it with a companion dish from the same cookbook, Roasted Red Pepper and Cauliflower Salad.  The pairing was sublime, marrying the rich, velvety soup with the vibrant flavors and varying textures of the salad.

And such a salad it is.  The pepper is roasted, peeled, and then sliced; and the cauliflower and potatoes are tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted just until tender.  The roasted vegetables are then spooned atop a mixture of crisp, fresh lettuces, and the whole shebang is drizzled with a homemade, just-tart-enough, vinaigrette.

I adore salads with unexpected elements, like roasted vegetables served over crisp lettuce, everything tangy with vinaigrette.  This recipe called for fennel, which wasn't suiting my mellow mood at the moment, so I made it with a mixture of rosemary, parsley, thyme, and basil, but you can do whatever you wish there - I don't think it would hurt to use a gentler hand with the herbs altogether.  There is a lot going on in this salad, with the sweet, silky roasted peppers contrasting nicely with the savory flavor of the roasted potatoes and cauliflower, and the pure flavors do not need to be smothered with a lot of extras.

So perfect.  And so easy on the eyes.  Composed salads with warm vegetables and cold greens are my idea of heavenly, you see, and even The Carnivore ate a double helping.  This sort of salad is decidedly not the sort of thing that keeps well, so plan on eating the whole thing at once.  And it does not require a soup alongside.  It would do just as well served with baked salmon, or even as a main-course lunch if topped with a crumbled feta or blue cheese, and served with a good rustic bread.

I felt a sublime sort of love for our first meal from this cookbook, and I plan to make the Creamy Onion and Fontina Soup with the Wilted Spinach and Sauteed Portobello Mushroom Salad this weekend.  I do hope it rains again.

*****

ROASTED RED PEPPER AND CAULIFLOWER SALAD, serves 4
(adapted from Moosewood Daily Specials)

• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 small head cauliflower, cut into bite-size florets (about 4 cups)
• 1 large russet potato, sliced into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
• 6 Tbs olive oil, divided
• salt & pepper
• 1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
• 1 Tbs apple cider vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 scant tsp dried herbs (mix of rosemary, thyme, fennel, basil, and/or parsley)
• 4 cups torn leaf lettuce - butter lettuce worked beautifully here

1. To roast the pepper, you can place it over the flame on a gas stove, turning until it is blackened on most of it's surface.  Or, you can put in the oven, on broil, turning it every minute or so until most of it is blackened and charred.  Remove it from the heat, wrap it in a kitchen towel, and leave alone for 5 or 10 minutes.  Unwrap the pepper, peel off and discard the skin.  Cut in half and discard the seeds and membrane.  Slice lengthwise into thin strips and set aside.
2. On a large rimmed baking sheet, toss the cauliflower florets and potato slices in 2 Tbs olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and arrange in a single layer.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until tender but not falling apart, and the cauliflower is browned and getting crispy on the edges.  Give the pan a stir every 5 minutes or so during roasting.
3. To make the dressing, whisk together the remaining 4 Tbs olive oil, lemon juice, cider vinegar, garlic cloves, herbs, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Set aside.
4. Lay the greens on a large platter or in the bottom of a large, wide bowl.  Arrange the roasted cauliflower and potatoes on the greens, and top with the red pepper strips.  Drizzle with the dressing.  Serve immediately.

The Looming

Do you see that ladybug on the wall in the lamplight?  We are currently enjoying our annual ladybug invasion.  They are everywhere in the house, marching across the sunny windows, holding meetings in the laundry room, congregating on the ceiling in The Boy Wonder's room, and lolling about on the houseplants.  Princess Hazelnut likes to sing songs to them.  It's ridiculous.  The sort of cuteness overload that makes your heart hurt.

I have a silly amount of recipes I have been stockpiling to share here when time allows.  Alas, there are only so many hours in the day, and only so many neurons continuing to fire properly in my (scatter)brain by the time the kids are in bed, the lights are turned off in my office, and I find my way to my favorite corner of the living room.  Or the bedroom.  God bless that warm, comfortable bed.

This weekend, I finally cooked from Moosewood Daily Special, and I think I might have fallen in love with the cookbook.  A few months ago, I ran across an entire box of incredible vegetarian cookbooks at a yard sale, and this was one of my finds from that day, but as with so many of the finer things in life, it got put on the back burner while the rest of life swirled around in its busy way.

It is a lovely cookbook, full of the soups and salads that Moosewood Restaurant would have as their popular - wait for it - daily specials.  So you turn to a page for a Creamy Onion Soup (be still my beating heart), for instance, and at the bottom of the page, it lists three or four of the salads that marry well with it.  Menu planning at its absolute best.  When I simply cannot bear to take the time to think through multiple components for a meal, I can turn here and know that all I will need to add is some fresh focaccia bread or a baguette from the bakery I am so blessed to have as a client.

Don't hate me because I have beautiful clients.  With offices in perfectly wonderful locations.  And more work than I know what to do with at the moment.

And tonight's dinner - oh my - of blue cheese ravioli made with wonton wrappers (because I barely had the time to be stuffing the wrappers much less time to make pasta dough from scratch this afternoon).  So delicious.  I really, truly should have been in my office rather than carefully sealing those ravioli, but a girl must have her priorities.

Recipes to come.  All in due time.  With pictures and descriptions and my usual absurdities.  And my newest and best-yet recipe for natural deodorant.  For now, I leave you with my new favorite album to listen to online - perfect for a rainy day indoors (I would know, we just had four days of grey skies and rain - it was a minor miracle and we loved every soggy minute of it).  If you need me, I will be in my office, madly and hilariously attempting to finish these infernal W2s and 1099s before that looming IRS deadline.

Honey Facial Wash

Honey is such a miracle product.  I love to purchase raw honey from local farmers, using it to sweeten the kids' oatmeal, to soothe sore throats and coughs, to dab on tiny boo-boos, to drizzle on homemade biscuits slathered with butter, and to make granola.  Such a simple, pure, amazing product.

Studying bees during The Boy Wonder's science lessons only added to the honey idolatry around these parts.  It's just good, good stuff.  And honeybees are perfectly amazing creatures.

Honey has antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, and because local flowers are used by the honeybees, it is thought (but unproven) that the consumption of local honey can help with allergies.  The fact that it tastes like heaven doesn't hurt.

Last summer, Crunchy Betty wrote a detailed series of posts on using honey as a face wash, and I was stunned by the idea.  I had never even heard of it, and here she was suggesting that honey was good for acne, for aging skin, for dry skin or oily skin, for sensitive skin and for normal skin, and it was healing to boot, and would even help heal acne scars.

See, I have bad skin.  For many, many years I fought a losing battle with cystic acne that cost absurd amounts of money, wreaked havoc on my self-esteem, and resulted in scars over most of my face.  It has only been in the past seven years that I have found a cocktail of cleansers and creams that do not aggravate my skin, but I have long been uncomfortable with the amount of chemicals in these products.  And it has occurred to me more than once that all these drying products would possibly exacerbate the onset of wrinkles as I age.

There is no end to the injustice.

I do not care to speak about this usually, for even as the intervening years have softened the blow of that decade in which I wore heavy makeup to cover my blemishes, I get a little nervous still about the thought of changing my cleansing routine and possibly causing problems to resurface.

But this honey face wash had my interest piqued.  So I went for it.  And I haven't looked back in months now.

Using raw honey is important (Crunchy Betty explains the reasons here), and I have easy access in my area to local, raw honey, but you can find raw, truly unheated honey at most health food stores as well.  I have also used regular old store-bought honey in a pinch, and found it worked just fine.

I follow Crunchy Betty's routine almost completely.  In the mornings, when there is no makeup to be removed, I simply wet my face with warm water, rub about 1/2 tsp of honey onto my face, and then rinse off.  I follow that with a tinted moisturizer that contains sunscreen, and some loose powder, and I'm good to go.  No need for toners or acne creams or anything else.  {Well, there is usually mascara and eyeliner involved, but that has more to do with vanity than with skin, so we'll skip the boring parts about how I do my eye makeup}.

At night, to make sure I have completely removed my makeup, I again follow one of Crunchy Betty's routines: I wet my face, squeeze about 1/2 tsp of honey into my palm, and then add about 1/2 tsp of baking soda to the honey, mixing it up with my finger.  I apply the scrub to my face, and rinse with warm water.  Following that, to rebalance the pH of my skin - because the baking soda will alter the balance somewhat - I use a homemade toner comprised of 50% water and 50% apple cider vinegar.  I then apply a little bit of tea tree oil and jojoba oil to my face for moisturizing and blemish-preventing protection.

I've followed this cleansing routine for the past six months now, and I cannot help but think it's a whole lot of fabulousness.  Facial cleanser is one more item crossed off the shopping list, and yet another notch that can be added to the belt of consumer anarchy.

Gah.  That might be my worst metaphor yet.

Homemade Almond Milk

Sometimes, when I find out how easy it is to make something that I never thought twice about purchasing at the store, I feel like a Class-A dummy for not having figured it out sooner.  Did you know all it takes to make your own almond milk is a few almonds, some water, and a wee bit of vanilla extract?

This, my friends, is another feather in the hat of consumer anarchy.

Or something like that.  My metaphors rarely make sense.

Almond milk is silly good stuff, as creamy as whole milk, but much lower in fat and calories, and loaded with a variety of vitamins and minerals.  I stopped using regular milk in my cereal a few years back, partly because I was mildly alarmed at the processing involved in creating skim milk, and also because cow's milk simply stopped tasting good to me.

For a while, I used soy milk, and then I switched to rice milk or almond milk, but I wasn't big on the over-processing or the stabilizers that were used, so I did what I generally do when presented with options I'm not crazy about:  I walked away and said "Aw, just forget it."  I say that more often than I would like.

Hence the water in my oatmeal, and the lack of granola in my diet lately.

Then I overheard someone talking about making their own almond milk.


Well, good grief.  That had not even occurred to me.  You take some almonds and soak them overnight in a bowl of water.  Then you drain the almonds, put them in a blender with water, add a little vanilla extract and some sweetener if you need it, and voila.  You have almond milk.  Thick, creamy, fresh, almond milk with the purest flavor imaginable.

Want to blow your kids' minds?  Get them to help make it.  And then serve it with their cereal instead of regular milk.  Princess Hazelnut actually cried this morning when she found out I had not soaked some almonds overnight to make more almond milk for her breakfast.

There are solids left over after making the almond milk, and I could not bear the thought of throwing them away, so I put them in a jar in the fridge for a day or so and did a little searching.  There are, as should be expected, some wacko ideas online for what to do with the leftover paste, but my favorite, by far, suggested laying the solids out on a cookie sheet and baking it for about an hour until it is dried out and it becomes - Ta Da - almond meal.

See that little jar of clumpy almond solids up there?  Yeah, that's going straight into the oven now.  I have big plans for the resulting almond meal.  Cookies, I think...

*****

ALMOND MILK (yields 3 cups)

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 3 cups water (in addition to the water used to soak the almonds)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional
• 2 pitted dates or 2 tsp agave syrup, optional

1. Soak the almonds in water for six hours or longer.
2. Drain the almonds, discarding the soaking water.
3. Place the almonds, 3 cups water, vanilla extract and dates or agave syrup (if using) in a blender and blend until almost smooth.
4. Pour through a strainer to remove the solids (and save the solids for other uses).
5. The almond milk will keep in the fridge for 3 or 4 days.  Shake before using.

Space Held for The Morning

I have overbooked myself again, taking on another new client slightly in advance of the end of a large project with another client, and I feel our family's pace picking back up now, just as The Carnivore has entered his busiest period in months.  The good news always seems to be that the busier we are, the more we are able to accomplish.  Tasks constrict or grow to fill the space they are given, I think, so when I attempt to cram a growing pile of clients into a day already filled with the children's learning time, pressing household duties, and a couple of personal pursuits as well, I find that efficiency can go through the roof.  In a good way.

But then again, my ability to take this all in stride might have more to do with recent enhancements to my morning routine than with any sort of brilliant insights into competency that I may have to offer.

Waking myself up, it turns out, is far preferable to that jarring feeling of being shaken awake by a child who already has a list of demands that need to be met.

I just don't work well under those circumstances.  This new habit of being the first one up (on purpose, no less) has been nearly perfect.  And I recently took away the kids' morning cartoons during the week, so the absence of advertising and bright colors and loud noises has had a positive effect on the overall tone of the morning as well.

I should have done this a year ago, but I had grown so fond of the electronic babysitter handling the first few minutes of the day that I sunk into a rut without giving it much thought.

The days are beginning to flow a little more smoothly now.  I arise at seven, and I practice yoga, get myself dressed and ready for the day, get some quiet time, and then, at eight, I wake up the kids, snuggling and playing with them for a few minutes before racing them to the breakfast table and getting some protein and fiber in them first thing - before they have a chance to let hunger affect their delicate temperaments.

I do not say that disparagingly, mind you.  When I have not eaten enough protein, I feel weak and a little bit dumb.  When I haven't consumed enough fresh fruits and vegetables, I feel sluggish.  A lack of whole-grain fiber makes me moody.  Have you ever kept a food diary and tracked the way your moods and energy levels change according to the types of food you eat?  I highly recommend it (and it beats blindly trusting the FDA or a faddish diet book for generic nutrition advice).

We listen to classical music during breakfast and lunch, and that too has been a pleasant addition to our daily rhythms.  It calms the kids when they are getting feisty; it settles mama when I start feeling edgy.  Our history lessons this year are focused on the Baroque period, so I chose Bach and Vivaldi for our composer studies, opting to fully immerse in only two composers rather than cramming in as many as we could.  Such a lovely part of our day.  Especially when we were listening to Vivaldi at dinner one night, and The Boy Wonder schooled The Carnivore and I on some facts he learned about Vivaldi in music class at his homeschool academy.

Homeschooling in our family is two parts frustrating, one part challenging, and one part rewarding.  That moment landed solidly in the rewarding column.  I need to keep a running list of those events as they happen.  They do not occur as often as I originally assumed they would, but when they do, it is pure magic.

And so the mornings are beginning to improve.  An earlier and less distracted start time allows us to move more deliberately and intentionally through breakfast and our lessons, which in turn keeps all of our moods in check so that the afternoon lies ahead of us with just a little bit more promise and a lot less frustration.

Deliberate.  Intentional.  Those are good goals for the day, I think.