I hope you have a fabulous week!
Holistic Living
Kairos
Kairos—“a right, opportune, or supreme moment in which something special and unique happens”
The Gift of Homemade
The season of gift-giving is upon us, and this year we have decided to take a different approach to our most-loved holiday. We hope to create many of our gifts with our very own hands, thus giving our friends and family something truly from deep within our hearts. Here is a bit of what is in the works right now…
Late Fall Planting
The week of Thanksgiving, we abandoned the warmth of our kitchen to do a bit of gardening. We recently acquired asparagus and rhubarb crowns, and wanted to get them into the ground before the first major freeze of the season. So, we took advantage of a seasonably warm afternoon, stepped into our gardening shoes, and dug our fingers into the cool, damp soil.
First on the docket was to sort through our worms from our compost. The girls and Tyler picked out each individual wormy (as the girls like to call them), and placed them into a fresh compost bin that would be moved inside for the winter. Then the amazing, black gold was used in the trenches that would house the asparagus roots.
The girls then helped me to separate the asparagus roots, which we concluded look just like how we imagine aliens to look, and placed them deep beneath the surface of the soil. We did the same with the rhubarb crowns, burying them underneath the black earth in hopes they will produce delicious spring vegetation in a few months.
Thanksgiving 2012
For about six years now, my hubby and I have been the proud hosts of our family’s annual Thanksgiving celebration. We prepare for this day all year long, with our next year’s theme in mind before the current year’s festivities have concluded. We gather the necessary ingredients from farmer’s markets, local farmers and our own garden throughout the year, and take the necessary steps to preserve that food until the big day.
The week of Thanksgiving, the whole family assembled in the kitchen to fashion the meal. This year we faced a few road blocks, like a daddy who was sick the entire week prior to the feast, and I can’t leave out the fact that my oven broke on Wednesday. Yes, the oven. It is a wonderful blessing that I live so close to my parents. I just strapped on my running shoes and ran pies back and forth the whole day. So really, it worked out quite nice. I got in a bit of a work out, so that I could eat more of the pie 🙂
The theme of this year’s event was “An Ancestral Celebration,” so we spent the day honoring those members of our family who are no longer with us. We feasted upon recipes from their recipe boxes, and relished in the grateful bliss of food, family and fun.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and are enjoying this beautiful Christmas season that is now upon us.
Kairos
Kairos—“a right, opportune, or supreme moment in which something special and unique happens”
Family
This past week, I was so fortunate to spend a great deal of time behind the lens to document four days of outdoor fun, crafting, and most importantly, family. My husband’s cousins from Idaho came to visit and our whole family gathered at my in-laws’ home for an amazingly wonderful time.
The kids spent their days crafting with Grandma Mimi and playing outside, while the adults enjoyed one another’s company, laughed, and cut down some trees. I mean really, what family gathering is complete without a little chain-saw action?
As we move into Thanksgiving week, I am reminded of what really matters in life. It is not the objects one possess, the clothes one wears, or how much money one has in the bank. Instead, it is family and the health and well-being of those closest to us that truly matters.
I will surely go into this next week with gratitude in my heart for the family I have in my life.
I wish you and yours the most blessed of Thanksgiving weeks!
Kairos
Kairos—“a right, opportune, or supreme moment in which something special and unique happens”
Walk With Us
This afternoon, the girls and I went for a hike in one of our favorite places in Rockford. Come along with us through this beautiful haven in the middle of our city…
Outside Versus In
On this sixth day of November, the day greeted us with the first signs of yet another change of season. The first flurries of the year fell from the gray sky, melting into ice old pools of water in the garden, school parking lot and curbsides.
Although it is quite nasty outside, when we peered under our temporary greenhouse we found it teeming with life and vibrancy. We do plan to eventually put in an actual hoop house, but for the time being our little makeshift project seems to be doing just fine and is supplying our family with fresh verdigris for our dinner this evening. I do believe I see a fresh arugula salad with dandelion vinaigrette dressing in our very near future 🙂
Making of a Home 