i love the church calendar. in a conversation with rowan earlier today (about how long it will be cold and snowy) i remembered that this tuesday is indeed, groundhog day. in the same hour, my dad said something that reminded me that it’s also the feast of the Presentation of our Lord.

so i ran to google to see if there were certain traditions around the Feast of the Presentation and i was then reminded that it’s ALSO candlemas! (who said liturgists were boring? they’re forever having FEAST days!). so this is what i found on candlemas, the presentation of our Lord, and the strange tie-in it all has with….groundhog day.

All information was found here.

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The name Candlemas comes from the activities associated with the feast….the beeswax candles in the church are to be blessed somewhere other than where the Mass is held. During the procession to the church (holding the blessed candles), the Nunc Dimittis is sung, with the antiphon “Lumen ad revelationem” (Luke 2:32). This procession into the church for Mass commemorates Christ’s entrance into the temple. Since Vatican II, the feast is reckoned a feast of the Lord (as opposed to a feast of Mary), and officially designated “The presentation of the Lord.”

Candlemas Day was also the day when some cultures predicted weather patterns. Farmers believed that the remainder of winter would be the opposite of whatever the weather was like on Candlemas Day. An old English song goes:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,
Go winter, and come not again.

Thus if the sun cast a shadow on Candlemas day, more winter was on the way; if there was no shadow, winter was thought to be ending soon. This practice led to the folklore behind “Groundhog’s Day,” which falls on Candlemas Day.

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For our family’s celebration, our family dinner will include the lighting of candles, a sung Nunc Dimittus, and we’ll make a note of the weather and learn the rhyme (above) in our school lessons. I plan on buying some new candles to be used for our family feast days (birthdays, anniversaries, Sunday Dinner) for a family blessing.

I think I’d prefer celebrating the presentation of Jesus in the temple followed by a blessing of our home’s candles for the enhancement of our family meals than watching a silly ol’ groundhog find or not find his shadow.

…over at our homeschool blog.

it may sound oddly familiar to smithical readers. we’re (read: “I am”)  having a rough january. but i know there is light ahead of us. i’m just documenting for the sake of looking back on year number 2 of homeschooling and seeing just how God carried us through.

i’d love to hear from other mothers -homeschooling or not – about “getting back into the groove.” because there are some days/weeks/months that just seem so bleak. it helps me to hear from other moms. and maybe there are other moms who need to read your comments too!

i enjoy our family sabbaths.  it has a different look and feel every week, but some very regular habits that i hope we keep as a family for a long time to come.

first, i’d like to open up a dialog to anyone who is comfortable participating: what do your family sabbaths look like? do you have rituals? traditions?

secondly, i’d love to recommend a great read that touches on sabbath-keeping and other disciplines called Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner (hey locals – if you’re interested in reading it, I have a copy if you want to borrow it).

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unlike every other day of the week, our family starts sunday off the exact same way every single week….we are in church. we’re not there out of a guilty conscience…feeling as though that’s where we SHOULD be. we’re there because we want to be there. i can’t tell you in english words what an incredible feeling it is to be in a place, weekly, with the same group of fellow worshippers, who are worshipping from their hearts and minds the same God…who are being challenged and learning from the same inspirational teacher and savior. i couldn’t imagine being anywhere else on a sunday morning.

before you think i am sounding self-righteous, i need to explain that i don’t feel better than anyone else because of this. it’s where we want to be, and not where we think we should be on sunday mornings. and if you don’t want to be in church, nobody should make you feel otherwise. except that same inspirational teacher/savior spoken of above.

sunday afternoons are generally busy  in our home. when it’s warm out, we’re working or playing in the yard. we’re in the barn, or the garden…mowing grass or pulling weeds. it’s not work to us. we enjoy spending our time outside together when the weather allows us. its how we love to sabbath – to rest, and play, and worship with our hands, our voices, our together-time.

if we’re especially fortunate, we spend the afternoon or evening with friends, over dinner while our kids run circles around us. when i was growing up, my mom cooked a big afternoon lunch (roast beef, mashed potatoes or beef stew, etc…). often, we had guests for dinner. we hope to have more guests over an early-afternoon dinner on a more regular basis soon.

so back to our dialog: do sundays look similar or way different to you? do you keep the sabbath? try to keep the sabbath? don’t think it’s very important in this modern day?

…i don’t know about you, but i’m eager for the temps to go above 60. i can’t wait to get the grill going again – i’m dreaming of our grilled dinners with fresh-from-the-garden greens: a glass of wine on the deck while kenny grills and the boys play; dinner under a hot summer-setting-sun; cookouts at moraine after a dip in the lake, or at the local pool.

i know it’s only the end of january, and the farmer’s almanac is predicting a cold, snowy february. so i am merely dreaming.

this week, i’m preparing for the cold and snow to return…warm bellies, happy kids!

Monday:  Ground turkey breast “sliders”, cumin sweet potato fries with lime dipping “sauce”, green vegetable (the ground turkey can be dry, but this recipe adds moisture to the mix…SO good!)

Tuesday: Red Lentil Coconut Curry over rice

Wednesday: Beef Barley vegetable soup, beer biscuits

Thursday: Spaghetti with Red sauce, breadsticks, salad (i make the breadsticks using my pizza dough recipe.)

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Chicken tenders (aka “popcorn chicken’), butternut squash soup, salad

Sunday: Sweet and Sour Meatballs over rice, steamed edameme

despite having a five year age difference, kenny and i both remember growing up on the star wars movies as kids. he and his brothers were assigned an action figure and they stuck with that action figure for years, so i’m told. my brothers all had action figures and x-wing fighters, etc while i was proud to be the only one to play with princess leia.

our boys have great imaginations (as all kids their age do) and are constantly giving character assignments to their stuffed animals, action hero figures, train set “guys” – anything that resembles a living entity is turned into a character born in their minds. kenny has long thought they would love having star wars action figures, and would love the movie. but…rowan, being only 6 1/2 years old, we think it’s a might early to introduce them to the actual movie.

one day before christmas, kenny went to a vintage toy store on the southside and found original packages of star wars action figures. he brought them home and we decided to wait another year to give them to the boys…thinking that another year might give them more courage to get through the movie.

but rowan found them in our “hiding place” and the boys, having no idea what they actually were, wanted them. bad. they knew the could concoct a great adventure with these strange looking robots and gorilla-type figures. we decided to just give them to them, without seeing the movie first.

and ever since that first week in january, our boys have been playing “star wars” every day. sometimes for hours on end. but our star wars adventures are much different than george lucas had in mind.

rowan, the ring-leader of all the boys’ adventures, assigned each boy their own figures. rowan has C-3PO and R2-D2, sawyer has chewbacca and darth vader, and adam has luke skywalker and han solo. they are ALL “good guys.” so here are the conversations that i hear on a daily basis:

darth vader/sawyer: “help me, help me!”

chewbacca/sawyer: “i’m coming to save you, darth vader!”

darth vader/sawyer: “yay! thank you!”

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luke skywalker/adam: “this train is FUN!”

han solo/adam: “yes, it goes FAST. i WUV it!”

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C-3Po/rowan: “come on guys…let’s get in the fire truck and put out the fire!”

(all characters pile in a plastic firetruck and head to our stairway, aka “mount everest”).

R2-D2/rowan: “we can make it up the mountain…let’s TRY HARDER can we do it?”

chewbacca, darth vader, luke skywalker, han solo, C-3PO all answer: “YES, WE CAN!”

we almost don’t want to introduce them to the movie now. poor sawyer will find out that his darth vader is kind of scary and mean in the first movie….he’ll notice that chewbacca kinda of wails and grunts instead of speaks, and rowan will see that his two droids aren’t really “the leaders.” they’ll begin fighting adam for luke skywalker and han solo and the funny, imaginative adventures of our star wars characters will end.

maybe we can wait until they’ve grown out of the action figures? or maybe we should have found a better hiding place for them in the first place.

it’s monday again – a new week, a new menu!

monday - pizza! with salad. my pizza crust recipe is this one. i use all bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. you can certainly use whole wheat for half the flour it calls for but my thought on that is that if you make your pizza instead of getting greasy shop pizza, you’re already doing yourself a huge favor, so you can splurge a bit on the white flour. we put green pepper, onion, mushrooms on our pizza.

tuesday - african chicken stew, steamed edameme

wednesday - tomato sauce with butter and onion over angel hair, salad (the sauce recipe is being lauded over foodie blogs, and i’m eager to give it a try. seems simple enough! this one is from smitten kitchen).

thursday - katie’s potato soup with irish soda bread

friday - leftovers

saturday - homemade rotisserie chicken breasts, baked rice, salad

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during the winter months, i find it really important to have lots more fruits and veggies than i normally have on hand. we always have oranges, clementines, bananas (stacy…your comment just came to mind about bananas in january!), and frozen fruit for smoothies on hand. i sometimes set out a plate of carrots and cut-up green peppers with salad dressing dip before dinner or lunch for the boys to snack on. i figure that by having afternoon tea with bread and honey more regularly makes me want to fill them with the raw stuff too.

what are your cold-month snack ideas for your kids? or for yourself?

facebook used to be such a nice place to reconnect, converse, catch-up, and view pictures of your friends’  kids, vacations, weddings, and pets. i am still so glad to be a part of facebook and connected to so many of my friends and family in this way.

however…there is a social networking trend that is rather bothersome to me.  how many of you have been shamed by facebook recently? have you felt bad that you hadn’t updated your status with the latest cancer statistic, color of your bra, or “i am not ashamed of jesus” claim? have you not joined the case to make your state the first state to reach 1 million fans? have you not “joined the million not afraid to save the rainforest” cause yet?

let’s say your best-friend-from-grade school and your brother in law (aka BIL) share a birthday. you wish your best-friend-from-grade school happy birthday (even though you haven’t seen her for 26 years) but you are interupted by The Boss, or The Baby or The Weather and forgot to wish your dear brother in law (BIL) a happy birthday.  because of the way facebook works, the inviters of these causes, birthday wishes, awareness spreaders will THINK that you forgot to wish them a happy birthday, are ashamed of jesus, and don’t care one lick about spreading cancer awareness.

i have been shamed, but refuse to be ashamed anymore! facebook friends and family…i do care about finding a cure for cancer. i love jesus more than anyone,  and i’m not ashamed to tell you that i, too, am an environmentalist conservative.

i love a good political, social-justice, or religious conversation.

but i will not join your cause (because i have no idea what that actually means on facebook), i probably will forget to wish you a happy birthday and please just let me update my status with things like my boys’ funny sayings or the cookie i’m baking at the moment.

i really am a nice person inside.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

1 lb ground beef (or chicken, turkey, pork…whatever)

1 egg

1/4 cup dry bread crumbs

1 onion, diced

1 cup brown sugar

3 T. flour

1 1/2 cups water

1/4 cup white vinegar

3 T. soy sauce

Combine meat, egg, bread crumbs, and onion. Shape into golf-ball sized balls. Bake in 350-degree oven for 20-25 minutes on baking sheet.

Meanwhile, in large saucepan, combine brown sugar, flour, water, vinegar and soy sauce. mix thoroughly. Add meatballs and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring often 20-30 minutes.

Serve over rice.

Wild Rice Vegetable Bake (or Sweet Potato Barley Bake)

1 cup wild rice (I use brown rice for this as I’m never able tfind wild rice here)

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup pearl barley

2 cups EACH sweet potatoes, winter squash, parsnips (peeled, and cut into 1″ chunks)

1 pound mushrooms (i omit. i don’t eat fungus)

1 cup apple cider or 100% juice)

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth.

Rince rice in cold water and drain. Boil in 4 cups water for 10 minutes (2 1/2 cups if using regular or brown rice). Drain (if necessary).

Saute onion in 2 T olive oil or butter. In large casserole dish (9×13), mix drained rice, sauteed onions, and barley. Stir.

Spread potatoes, squash, and parsnips over grains (along with mushrooms if using). Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Pour cider or juice and broth over top. Cover tightly with foil. Bake at 375 for 1 hour.

Whole Wheat Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

this is a long recipe, so i just included it as a link to the one i’ve been using lately because it is easier than the one i’ve been using for years AND the boys LOVE it (especially with butter and honey drizzeled over).

ENJOY!!!

our kettle is getting a major workout these days. i’m glad that my boys enjoy a good cup of tea just as much as a good cup of hot chocolate. of course, they drink it “muddy” like their momma.

i’ve been baking a few loaves of whole wheat bread these weeks as we have been eating a lot of buttered toast with our cups/mug of tea. so our oven is getting just as big a workout. i’m SO THANKFUL for a good, working stove/oven during these coldest days of the year.

this week’s menu…

monday: coconut chicken curry over rice, samosas (the samosas are from the indian grocer across from kenny’s office in oakland)

tuesday: crockpot beef lasagna, homemade breadsticks, salad

wednesday: sweet and sour meatballs over rice, steamed edameme

thursday: leftovers

friday: dinner group…make appetizer large enough to serve 10 adults, 9 children (suggestions anyone? anyone?)

saturday: clean out the fridge/leftovers

sunday: pork roast with sour kraut, macintosh applesauce, mashed potatoes

i get to be the thing  i’ve always wanted to be today.

i’ve been a mom since the moment rowan was beginning to be knit together – 40 weeks before his birth, over 7 years ago. it’s the only thing i’ve ever wanted to do: tend to a home, love on a husband, and raise children.

then why am i so crappy at it most days? why is it that i look forward to my kids’ bedtime more than i look forward to dinnertime together? why do i wake up feeling as though the day ahead of me is a huge chore to accomplish before i can crawl back into bed?

i know the answer to these questions. i know that putting myself and my needs first feels like the right thing to do….isn’t that what’s pounded into our minds day after day? i have to admit…i fell for it. and it hasn’t done me a lick of good.

our church is in a time of corporate prayer. our pastor recommended a week-long fast of the congregation last week. of course i didn’t fast…that would mean i’d be hungry AND cranky and my kids don’t need a daily double-whammy from me! i understand this early monday morning that was the wrong way to approach last week’s recommendation. but my mind is beginning to focus more on prayer, and less on me.

i think mother theresa says it well:

A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.

i welcome peace to my home. my (god-willing) new outlook is to look at each day as the gift that it is: i get to be a MOM today. i get to live in a house that’s our HOME. i get to make my husband one of his favorite dinners. i am blessed. i am spoiled!