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Faithr

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Posts posted by Faithr

  1. I just finished reading Resisting Throwaway Culture; How a Consistent Life Ethic Can Unite a Fractured People.  The author is a professor of ethics at Fordham University.  I thought it was excellent.  He's got me convinced!  Even though it is not a long book, because the issues are thought provoking and very serious, it took me a few weeks to read through it.  I had to be in a certain mood.  But it is a very worthwhile read.  Now I am starting on book three in the Little Britches series, The Home Ranch. I loved  Father and I were Ranchers and Man of the Family.  I'm really happy to have such a wonderful series to read through!    Hey, I just realized the whole Little Britches series is bildungsroman!  Isn't it?  

    Btw, I can't believe I am actually on track with the 52 Books challenge still.  I'm on book 31 on the 31st week.  I need to celebrate this somehow.  An extremely rare occurrence that is not likely to continue for much longer!

    Wait!  LOL.  I totally forgot I am more than halfway through Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer.  A piece of fluff, swashbuckler romance set in Elizabethan times.

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  2. I really dropped the ball!  We just had one thing after another happen that kept disrupting any planning.  So it's been very slap dash.  One day I'll really rock it and the next I'm scrambling.  I think so much of it is I am just burned out with all the crazy dietary restrictions.  But anyhoo, I did come across a really good Salmon Salad recipe that my family actually liked and that checked all the dietary restrictions.  I got it from Eat Nourishing.  Here's the link:  http://eatnourishing.com/recipe/canned-salmon-salad-with-cucumber/

    I really liked this recipe because it only called for two small cans of salmon (I suppose you could use one big can).  It makes a surprising amount of salad.  It fed all 7 of us.  So this one is a keeper for us.  

    So have you tried any new recipes that met with success on your healthy menu planning adventures?

    • Like 1
  3. I finished my marathon of Georgette Heyer's murder mysteries.  All 12 of them!  I started at the end of April and had a few other books interspersed, but mostly I chugged along with Heyer.  The last one I just read wasn't actually a mystery but more of a study in the psychology of a dysfunctional family.  A lot of people don't like it because it is so different but I actually found it really good!  I blogged about it.  https://strewing.blogspot.com/2019/07/penhallow-book-29.html

    I read the first book in the Little Britches series, Father and I Were Ranchers by Ralph Moody a few weeks ago.  My dh read it to the kids a long time ago.  I had heard about it forever in homeschooling circles but never read it myself.  Well, I loved it and now I plan to read that whole series.  So I am now about 1/4 of the way through the second book, Man of the Family.

    I'm also trying to read all of Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barcetshire novels this year.  Next up is The Small House at Allington.  The thing is I listened to it on audio not that long ago and it is such a poignant story.  I get a lump in my throat just thinking about how sad it was.  So I might skip it and read the next one, whatever it is!  Can't recall right now.

    For non - fiction I am stalled halfway through Resisting Throwaway by a professor of Ethics at Fordham.  I do plan to finish it!  Just as soon as I get through my insatiable novel reading mood.  I am at the beck and call of my moods.  Sometimes only novels will do, sometimes only non-fiction and sometimes I need a nice mix.  

    • Like 9
  4. So I was trying to start with healthy menu planning challenge and everything got off to a bad start.  Monday we had torrential rains that closed out the roads around me so I couldn't grocery shop (we'd just gotten back from a week at the beach and had spent Sat night and Sunday eating through what was left in the house).  Tuesday I did make it to the store to do partial shopping but I was fighting a nauseating migraine the whole day and didn't get much accomplished.  Yesterday I wound up having no car to shop with.  So my menu planning has not been particularly effective!  Also my family is in and out so I really never know who is going to be home for dinner.  I will cook up a huge delicious meal for all, just to have 2 show up at the table.  Or on a night when I'll assume no one will be home suddenly I'l have 7 voracious appetites with not enough to satisfy.  Boo hoo.  It's like herding cats.

    This a.m. I valiantly tried to make a green smoothie that was palatable to me (and thus hopefully to my dh).  I had kale, aronia berries (grown in my own garden!  Woot!  Really proud of that!), coconut milk (which unfortunately was vanilla and sweetened.  I like the vanilla flavoring but I'd rather add that myself and use unsweetened milk, but, alas, that is what we had. ) then I added in a small bananas about 4 strawberries and some plain sheep yogurt.  The flavor was good!  But I can't stand the little bits of chopped up kale that I can't seem to ever get liquefied enough.  We even bought a Magic Bullet blender which supposedly would be much better than my not so great old blender.  Still find that the consistency makes me gag.  Smoothies seem like such a great way to get greens into breakfast but they just don't seem to work for us.  

    I have no idea what I'm planning for meals today.  I've just completely dropped the ball. So I am posting here to try to get myself in gear again, despite the smoothie failure this a.m.  

    How is everyone else doing on the healthy menu planning?  Better than I, I hope!

  5. 1 hour ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

     

    Yes.  But as I stted up thread, I have a different view on learning languages.  If I was going to use a text like Henle's, I wouldn't do any Latin before it. (and tried with 3 kids but each time, Latin completely fizzled out.)  I do not relate to the long drawn out incremental exposure to learning Latin.  Wheelock's can be jumped into directly for a student who really wants to or definitely as a high school student.  My kids have started Latin in 6th/7th and Wheelock's just wasn't a good fit for them without a teacher (I don't really teach my kids Latin.  They learn it from the text and I go over it with them.) LP engaged them.  My dd who used Wheelock's  did so in either 8th or 9th grade (can't remember) and did it after 2 solid yrs of high school Latin grammar.  (She dropped Latin after poetry bc she wanted to focus more on French and Russian.)

    FWIW, I think Wheelock's lines up pretty closely with the vocab of the NLE .  (LP does as well.  My kids had no problems with the NLE.)

    If your kid did Wheelock's the NLE was probably easy peasy!  I'd say by the time you complete Wheelock's Ch 11 (I have an old 6th edition), you've learned more than you need for the NLE one.  Wheelock's is the gold standard.  I like it better than Cambridge which is funky when it comes to introducing grammar.  I just don't like the way it breaks it down into, to me anyway, incoherent chunks.  And it throws in tons of vocabulary.  You need lots of prep and teacher aids for it. Now some kids might love it because you are immersed a story and that might be what they need.  But to me it is kind of like the Suzuki music method.  Often when it comes time to really integrate the grammar, like having to suddenly learn to read notes, that's when the students get discouraged.   I just don't think it works well in the homeschool arena, unless you are taking an outside class.  If people want to wait to high school and their kids can dive right in to Wheelock's that's great.  I just think that for a lot of people that wouldn't work so well.  I agree that if you start Latin really young it becomes such a long out drag.  If you start Prima Latina and then move on from there and you are marching the kids through these workbooks year after year (and especially if you as the mom aren't really learning alongside of them) I think that is why Latin bites the dust a lot.  The OP of this thread wanted to start in 4th grade.  I've seen a lot of success doing gentle exposure up to 6th, then a gentle intro in 6th grade and then to me speeding up the process with Henle which actually moves faster than most high school (not college) level texts like Cambridge.  So you get the basic grammar done in 7th and 8th and then in 9th you are pretty much equivalent with what most high school consider AP.  To me that is going faster.  But everybody finds their own way.  I just found it exciting that these co-op kids, regular kids who didn't want to do homework for the most part, were actively winning against the best high schools around here (maybe I had 25 --30 kids in total over the years)  And it wasn't because I was a super great coach or anything remotely like that. I always felt super inadequate about that aspect.  No, it was the kids themselves and confidence they had from using a tried and true age appropriate method.  That was my conclusion anyway.  

    A bell just went off!  Does LP stand for Lukeion Project???  Because I do know a family who used their classes and they absolutely loved it!  So yeah that is a definite other way to go!  

     

  6. 45 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

    I would add that Wheelock's is equally used by people who are proficient in Latin.  Wheelock's is solid (and I think less tedious then Henle.)

    Wheelock's goes much faster than Henle.  It is a college text vs. Henle which is an early 1950's high school text.  

  7. At the risk of seeming weird, but since I fell in love with Latin while learning alongside my older kids (with a great teacher - not me!), I thought I would expand on how I'd do things with the benefit of hindsight and my own experiences.

    4th grade/5th grade - I'd use Lingua Angelica from Memoria Press to just memorize a hymn or prayer a quarter (fall, winter, spring) but make sure the memorization sticks and the student sees it and hears it.  I'd do this right alongside the student - something you do together.  Then I'd also use English from the Roots Up flashcards.  I'd stick them up on the fridge once a week and together we'd learn English roots (I actually did this with my own kids).  I am referencing older programs because that is what I used and had available to me when I had 4th graders).

    While you are doing this, take yourself through Getting Started with Latin and then begin Henle.  You can use Memoria press but honestly I think they are overkill.  I prefer Mother of Divine Grace syllabus and just use your notebook to write out paradigms and exercises as you need to.  This way you will have the knowledge and the confidence to help your student learn Latin.  I think a lot of frustration in learning Latin in the homeschool is that moms just want to shove the material at the kids and say learn this!  But Latin is hard and a child needs a coach for sure to get through it, unless they are especially gifted or self-motivated.  So in order to coach the child you need to at least be a bit ahead of student in terms of the language.  If you come across something that you don't understand in Henle you can always ask here or there are lots of Latin learning support groups out there you can access as well.

    If your child has six hymns/prayers memorized and a solid intro to word roots by 6th grade, he or she is set up for success to tackle Getting Started with Latin which can be taught in a very casual, relaxed way.  Lessons can last anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes.  Just work through it at your child's own pace.  It's all good!  Keep it light and fun!  It's adventure you are doing together!

    Then to go hard core - start Henle.  This is the way I taught it (and in fact I am leading a couple women from my church through Henle right now, though we are on summer break due to vacation schedules).  

    The way to do it is dedicate one hour a week to sitting down and actually teaching it like a teacher in a classroom.  The student will do homework the rest of the week (I assumed at least 3 other times during the week - about 20-30 minutes a pop.)

    For the hour session:

    1)  Begin with fun hook (5 minutes)  You can get creative here and follow your student's interests or what would appeal to him/her.  I use 3 word mottoes, Latin expressions,, quotes, etc.

    2)  Review paradigm on whiteboard (3 to 10 minutes)  Student writes it up on the board and you chant together

    3) Review and correct homework (you can review everything or just pick out the ones you struggled with using the handy dandy answer key).

    4) Learn new material (read through what Henle says and refer to the blue grammar book)

    5)  End with something fun (usually this meant doing 3 to 5 questions from a National Latin Exam) (til the hour ends)  All kids I ever taught, my own and my students from the co-op all loved working through the NLE.  In fact, you could make it goal for your own homeschool to take it.  It is a nice concrete goal that gently keeps the pressure on so that you don't slack off.  The ladies I am working with at my church also love the NLE.  

    Then assign homework for rest of week.  Henle can be dry and feel like drudgery at times.  The repetitive exercises are necessary though.  What I would do was have kids do what Henle considered 'essential' and then anything above that, they could pick 5 or 10 or whatever to do.  You are aiming for them to just work for 20 or 30 minutes or so 3x a week.  However, they should also work on memorizing paradigms and vocabulary.

    You can take a notebook and make the front part where your student writes out paradigms and the back section (the bigger portion) where he writes out his exercises.  My kids hated having to write out vocabulary so instead we used Quizlet.  Make sure they go at least once a week to review vocabulary.  Or you can quiz each other.  Occasionally use the MODG syllabus for periodic quizzes.  And you might feel the need to supplement those quizzes as well.  For instance MODG doesn't have a quiz for the 4th and 5th declension so I just say ok write out the declensions everyone!

    Ok, that's my 2 cents.  One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling for me was that it gave me this great love for Latin.  I started in my early 40s learning it so I have to keep up my study to retain it.  I'm still a student myself and have never reached true proficiency but as a fun mental exercise, I really enjoy it.  It's become a hobby and a social thing for me.

     

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  8. I'll tell you my background.  I didn't know a lick of Latin and learned alongside my oldest children who took lessons from a Latin teacher near us.  Then I taught my youngest two Latin.  I also wound up teaching Latin for 4 years at a homeschool co-op.  They had the most effective way of teaching I've seen (in my limited experience).  They exposed the younger children to Latin through hymns and prayers and root words for English. Then in 6th grade they used a program very similar to GSWL (perhaps bit meatier).  In 7th grade (which is the grade I usually taught) they did the 1st half of Henle's first high school text.  Then in 8th grade they taught the second half.  By 9th grade the students were pretty much ready to read both Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico (at least the redacted one Henle has for his 10th grade level book) plus significant portions of the New Testament (which is written in pretty simple Latin - still with a lot of glossing.)  The co-op's team regularly won awards in the certamen competitions (like a Latin quiz bowl) in our area, even against charter schools, classical schools and g&t high schools!  The old way of teaching Latin, like Henle, does the trick in the quickest way, imo.  The Commentarii de Bello Gallico is what the AP exam focuses on and yet these co-op kids were studying it in 9th grade! 

    From my experience, I think you get more accomplished if you start a bit later (6th grade) with a really clear and gentle intro.  The kids don't get burned out, they are up to the challenge, they've got a better understanding and facility with their own language so they have something to build on when learning Latin.  I just think you get farther quicker if you start later but then get hard core fast!  That gets them through the difficult, drudgery part and into the really interesting and feeling accomplished part the fastest!

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  9. Getting Started with Latin by William Linney is hands down the best intro to Latin. I've used it with little kids and I've used it with adults.  Afterwards, I've found the Mother of Divine Grace syllabus using Henle to be a good next step.  You need to spice Henle up a bit, but there are lots of fun helps out there.  Two of my favorites are Latintutorials.com (I just find the tutorial video that matches what we are learning) and http://bestlatin.blogspot.com/  My kids and students loved learning the 3 word mottos, etc.

    The other really fun thing to do (but wait until 7th grade or something is the National Latin Exam.

    All that said, I think it is far more effective to wait until 6th grade for GSWL and then move to Henle in 7th.  If I were you and knew nothing about Latin, I'd recommend you start teaching yourself now to prep for 6th grade.

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  10. Well, nothing went right today!  We had a huge deluge which flooded out all the roads leading to the grocery store I planned to shop at.  So after sitting in horrible traffic and then being forced to turn around because they closed the road, I've just been making do.  I am cooking up some brown rice in chicken broth as well as browning up some ground beef I had in the freezer.  We are just going to eat leftover salad and carrot sticks along with it.  C'est la vie!

     

     

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  11. Here's the scoop.  I'm done homeschooling my own kids after 21 years.  Just graduated my last 18 yo.  I'm now 59 years old.  My first grandchild is due 8/8.  I'm going to be nanny to him.  We also took in a homeless woman and her baby 3.5 years ago and she's become like a daughter to us and her baby is like our grandson.  I'm also going to be nanny to him, hopefully as soon as she gets a steady job in IT (she's studying to get certified).  This little guy is a bursting with energy and doesn't nap anymore.  He'll be going to preschool 5 mornings a week but I"ll have him all afternoon and into the evening most likely.  Because he's an only child and such an active little boy, I need things to keep him engaged.  I was wondering if the Simply Charlotte Mason Our Preschool Life boxes would work well.  Has anyone tried these?  I'd like to have fun things to do just at my finger tips without any planning.  I just don't have the energy for planning that I had when I was younger!  I'm trying to limit screen time drastically, but at the same time I'll have an infant and my own slower metabolism to deal with!  

  12. My mantras for today:  eat the rainbow and make half of our plates veggies for lunch and dinner.

    Breakfast:  omelets with fresh herbs (I have basil and oregano in the garden I think) with goat cheese, plus a piece of fruit

    Lunch for dh:  I thought I was going to get another meal out of my dh's rotisserie chicken we had for dinner last night, but it was yummy and people were hungry!  So instead I think I'll pick the remaining meat off the bones and using the leftover corn on the cob, some lettuce and other salad fixings, I'll cob together a salad for dh to take to work.  As for the rest of us, I'm going grocery shopping in the a.m. so I'll figure out what's for lunch then.

    Dinner:  turkey sage sausage crumbled in brown rice that's been cooked in homemade chicken broth.  This is my own invention.  To stretch meat I regularly mix it in with rice, pasta or quinoa.   I have a lot of carrots so I'll probably just make carrot sticks (everybody eats those) and then steam some kind of veggie that I get at the store this a.m.  

    Here's the turkey sage sausage recipe I first made it for Easter brunch.  A complete hit with everyone!  I am not generally a fan of ground turkey but this recipes works.  This is from the IFM Core Food Plan Recipes:

    Sage Turkey Sausage

    4 servings (the original recipe but I always double this to feed 7.  If there are leftovers, someone will eat it for lunch).

    1 lb ground turkey breast (I actually think the turkey I get has dark meat in it as well).

    1/4 cup finely chopped apple

    2 tbsp finely chopped red onion

    2 tbsp finely minced fresh sage*

    1/2 tsp finely minced chopped thyme

    3 tbsp evoo

    1/2 tsp sea salt

    1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

    * I just use whatever herbs I have on hand and have used dried as well as fresh herbs, just flavoring to taste.  Sage, though, does make this really good!

    1) In a large bowl, mix together turkey, apple, onion, sage, thyme, 1 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper.

    2)  Make 8 patties from the turkey mixture (I do this if using for breakfast but if mixing in with rice, I just cook up the mixture without forming patties)

    3)  Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat (I use my cast iron pan) and add 2 tbsp of olive oil, cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side (if patties).or until the mixture looks done!

    4)  Eat immediately or store in airtight glass container in fridge for up to 3 days.

    So what are your meal plans for today?  

  13. 3 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

    As far as putting veggies in muffins being healthy, with my kids feeding issues, a zucchini muffin could well end up being the only veggie they eat all day.  Other than DD8 eating bananas, they don’t eat produce.  We have spent a lot of years with food chaining, feeding therapies and more.   So, if it takes a muffin or a bread or pancake or whatever to get veggies in them, then I am ok with that.  

    😎

    First I want to apologize cuz I think I sounded kind of judgy in my post.  I have 5 kids and a really difficult dh.  My kids have all kinds of LDs, etc; one has been diagnosed ASD.  They are older now (it got better!  It really did!) but I remember the struggles back in the day.  I was really coming at the muffin thing from my dd's nutritionist's point of view.  I really like her and she has given me a whole new grasp on food.  She kind of revolutionized my perspective.  Our food culture right now, especially for kids is just awful.  It has nothing to do with health at all.  And to be counter culture with kids is so dang hard!  But I think taking things from her perspective, the worst thing you can feed kids is refined carbs and sugar.  I know when I was forced to remove these from my own diet because of my dd's health, everything got better!  Mood, sleep, sense of well being, etc.  All that crappy refined stuff gets us addicted, literally addicted, and it messes up our insulin and hormones, etc.  So from her perspective it is better to detox kids from that stuff as much as possible and idea of putting veggies in a muffin would counter any possible benefits.  Or maybe then they'll only eat the veggies if they are sweet.  Like my dh with sweet potato casserole. He'd only eat it with marshmallows on top!  Took me years to get him to just enjoy sweet potato without added sweeteners.  

    Anyway, I feel I am treading on ice because the last thing I want to do is get judgy.   I am in full sympathy for dealing with difficult children and food!  Just wanted to clarify where I was coming from.  I know everyone is out there fighting a battle!  

    • Like 1
  14. I just thought I'd post the recipe I've been using for sweet potato fries.  This is from the Hashimoto's 4 Week Diet plan.  I am just writing out the recipe as given in the book, but I always double it to feed my crew.   https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BLDN182/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

    2 sweets potatoes, unpeeled and cut into 1/4 inch sticks (this takes so long but it's how I get my youtube videos watched!)

    2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

    1 tsp sea salt (I'll sub kosher salt or Himalayan salt)

    1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

    1.  preheat oven to 450 F

    2.  In large bowl, toss the sweet potatoes with the oil, salt and turmeric.

    3.  Spread the potatoes in an even layer on a large baking sheet (I find this important to making them crispy - so I wind up using at least 3 different cookie sheets)

    4.  Bake in preheated oven, turning twice during cooking, for 25 to 30 minutes or until potatoes are crisp and lightly browned on the outside.

    Even my picky eaters will eat these!  This recipe has been a keeper for us.

  15. I'm making tomorrow the first official day of my own personal challenge.  Today, I am getting in the proper mindset!  It's a psychological thing with me.  I have to feel like I have a realistic grasp on the rules and limitations before I can get started.  

    For those who are joining -it might be nice to introduce yourself and say 1) what your healthy eating rules are 2) How many people you are cooking for 3) What particular restrictions or complications you face. 4) goals

    My healthy eating rules are from this guide.  I posted in my initial post but it is such a great guide I'm a bit evangelical about it!  http://centerforfunctionalmedicine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CoreFoodPlan-ComprehensiveGuide_v3.pdf  Because of my dd's Hashimoto's (and another son living at home and my dh both also have Hashimoto's) we need to avoid gluten and soy.  We also avoid processed foods, cow dairy and tree nuts.  Dd was also suffering from anemia and mold poisoning.  She was one sick puppy; after an almost two year struggle I am happy to report she is on the mend.  She cheats a lot, so one goal for this is to keep her on course for at least the rest of July.  She's going away to college at the end of August and I want to have her eating really well until then.  I know things will slip because of dorm life.  Additionally, my dh was just diagnosed pre-diabetic.  I have until this point been completely unable to get him to go along with dd's diet.  But I think he's finally a bit freaked out and so seems more willing at this point.  He's also got a host of other health issues.

    Currently I'm cooking for 7 people, mostly adults with a three year old thrown in there for good measure!  However, I never know who is going to be home for what meal.  This can make things tricky.

    Restrictions are:  no gluten, no cow dairy, no soy, no nuts, no sugar, no refined carbs, for dd no mushrooms or canned tomatoes or anything that might contain mold.  In addition to this, I try to be zero waste as possible.  This is hard because gluten free stuff tends to come in plastic!  Also, meat from the CSA is always packaged in plastic.  But I have developed the habit of noting how much waste each meal creates.  I make a separate lunch for my dh to take to work, unless he has a lunch meeting or he's in court and can't haul a lunch with him.  

    Goals are to optimize everyone's health in this family!  And to prevent burning myself out!  

    Biggest mindset change to work on right now is going no sugar.  I've had to do this a couple times in the past two years.  Sugar/refined carbs always creep back in, so then I have to restart at some point.  That's where I am now.  So my no sugar strategy has become:

    1)  Get rid of any candy, sugary items, refined carbs in the house so one can't easily eat the crap if one gets a craving.  Currently 2 exceptions are Annie's Mac & Cheese for the 3 year old. Also I do buy 1 loaf of sandwich bread a week for him to have toast with his breakfast.  He's not gluten free.  Neither of these tempt me because they have gluten.  The bread though will tempt my dh. . . . I might take to hiding it!

    2)  I need to get into gourmet cooking mode where I cook up a storm making delicious, savory, well balanced, appealing meals 3x a day.  If I am full and satiated I don't experience the terrible sweet tooth cravings nearly as much.  Hoping this proves true for everyone else!  That's one reason I am doing this menu planning challenge.

    3)  Have not-sweet --standbys to deal with initial cravings.  Popcorn in coconut oil and herbal teas are my go to's when getting a craving. (no sweetener in the teas)

    4)  The first few days I let myself eat limited amount of bananas (extremely sugary!) and unlimited low sugar fruits (green apples, berries, peaches, grapefruit)  I find that I'll naturally cut back to 1-3 servings of low sugar fruit a day once I get over the initial withdrawal from sugar/refined carbs.  

    5)  Already this week we have exceptions to the no sugar thing.  Friday is youngest dd's 18th birthday.  So we'll have gluten/dairy free brownies instead of cake.  And on Saturday we are hosting a baby shower for my oldest dd who is due August 8th.  I think youngest dd is planning to make meringues for that, but then we are just going to have heavy hor d'oeuvres like gf swedish meatballs, goat cheese and gf crackers, fruit platter, homemade guac with tortilla chips, etc.

    Anyway, this  is super, super too long!  I'm leaning on you all to keep me motivated.  There's something about putting it all out there to the public that helps me want to stay the course!  So thanks for being there!  I hope we can help each other!

     

  16. I just want to report back on the delicious steak salad we had for dinner tonight.  One thing we are doing according to the health guide my dd's nutritionist's uses is to buy grass fed meat directly from a local farm.  However, this is very expensive so I'm always dealing with the issue of making a little meat go a long way.  Also if you buy directly from a farm, you get the weirdest cuts of meat, not like typical cuts from the grocery store.  So I had 4 very small steaks in the freezer.  How to make these stretch to feed 7 people? 

    ]To prep steaks:

    I quick sauted the steaks up in onions, garlic and olive oil and salt so they were still a bit rare on the inside. Then I let them cool a bit and sliced them thinly.

    For the salad:

    I had a big head of romaine lettuce and another big head of red leaf lettuce.  I washed these and broke into bite size pieces, then I seeded and chopped a tomato (I have to cut it up small so my tomato avoiding husband doesn't realize tomatoes are in the salad!), Did the same thing with a red pepper, sliced up a cucumber, shredded a big carrot, chopped up two pretty big green onions, added in some sunflower and pumpkin seeds.  I also had a tiny bit of raw goat cheddar cheese (my dd can't do cow dairy but can do goat or sheep dairy), so I grated that up and added it in.

    For the salad dressing:

    3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tbsp of ACV, some kosher salt, a dollop of dijon mustard and one garlic clove pressed and chopped finely and all whisked together to emulsify.

    Mixed all this together and it was insanely delicious!  

     

     

    • Like 1
  17. My kids are all older now, but back when they were younger and pickier one way they would eat zucchini or yellow squash would be if we brushed with garlicky olive oil and grilled in a chicken kabob or if we chopped it up and roasted it in the oven, again with olive oil and garlic and tossed with other veggies like red pepper, onions, tomatoes,mushrooms etc.  There's something about grilling or roasting that made it more palatable, whereas just steaming or sauteing turned them off it.

    I will say that after we saw that movie Ratatouille, my oldest dd took to making the dish and to this day that is one of her favorite vegetable dishes to make.  And I still have a 24 year old son that won't touch summer squash (though he is ok with the winter variety).  

    I'm laughing a little because I really think putting this stuff in muffins isn't really healthy to my mind.  Is it?  That just seems to go to desperate lengths when I don't even think the vegetable is all that nutritious to begin with.  

    This past week at the beach, my sister in law made zoodles out of zucchini and pesto sauce.  It was delicious. BUT it did have dairy in it.  I think there might be a vegan pesto recipe out there though.  I'm going to look into that.  Maybe I'll ask for one of the zoodle machines for Christmas.

     

  18. I'm back from the beach. Left at 6:30 a.m. just got in about 30 minutes ago.  Whew.  

    But I brought back a lot of fresh salad makings.  I think for tonight's dinner I will cook up some little steaks we got from our CSA, slice them up and make a big meat salad for dinner.  That will be nice after all the junk we've been consuming all week.

    Tomorrow morning will be eggs, sausage and fruit salad

    Not sure about snack/lunch (usually on Sundays we eat a brunch after church and then eat an early dinner so I just need a substantial snack to get people through).

    Dh is going to rotisserie a chicken on the grill for dinner.  I might make sweet potato fries and more salad (we'e got a lot to eat through).  I should be able to hold out and do an actual grocery shopping on Monday.

  19. Hello fellow readers!  I've been doing a marathon read of all of Georgette Heyer's murder mysteries this summer.  She wrote 12 in all and I just finished #11.  Starting now on 12.  I'm pretty stinkin' happy with myself, because I finally caught up with the Read 52 Books challenge!  That hardly ever happens.  Here's a link to all the Heyer mysteries if anyone is interested.  https://www.cozy-mystery.com/georgette-heyer.html

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  20. Ok.  I was out on the beach but it's gotten super windy.  Came back to read on my kindle but it needs charging, so I thought I'd get back on here.  We are on our last day at our vacation rental. We've been trying to eat up leftovers all day.  We might supplement with some gf pizza tonight as well as trying to consume more leftovers.  Then the big clean up will begin and I"ll have to decide what gets thrown out and what I'll haul back home in coolers.  Tomorrow I'll be up at the crack of dawn for the long drive home.  I doubt I'll be able to do any serious grocery shopping before Monday.  

    For anyone who is interested in one healthy eating guide,  this is the one my dd's nutritionist uses: http://centerforfunctionalmedicine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CoreFoodPlan-ComprehensiveGuide_v3.pdf   This is modified for my dd because she can't do soy or nuts.  But I have found it to be really helpful.   

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  21. Hello everyone!  I graduated my last homeschooler last month!  21 years gone in a flash!  The thing is I miss the camaraderie of this board.  Facebook is ok except my kids follow me and so I can't complain about them there.  LOL.  

    Anyway, for the last two years we've been spiraling through lots of diet issues.  My dd was diagnosed with Hashimoto's and then mold poisoning.  She's been on this really strict diet.  I went on it with her and discovered that being gluten free meant my arthritis went into remission.  (I also lost 15 pounds and just have a sense of well being I haven't experienced for a while. So it's been painful but actually good for me.)  I think we are basically keto at this point?  No sugar, no refined carbs, no gluten, no soy, no nuts (dd developed an allergy after switching to almond milk) no cow dairy (we've discovered goat and sheep seem fine),  Added to this my dh just found out he is pre-diabetic.  He refused to go along with her diet but now he sort of has to.  I am so burned out!  I need help.  We are on vacation at the beach this week and have been cheating like crazy, but once I get home I need to tighten up.  I need to get into the zone where I can really get creative and focused on making meals from scratch and cooking lots of healthy, tasty meals.  Luckily it is the high season for fresh veggies from the farmers market.  And we actually started a big garden in our yard this year which I am loving so much.  I think gardening might become my thing to fill the no homeschooling hole in my heart.  But I just get stymied when it comes to menu planning.  It just taxes my little ole A.D.D. brain too much.  So I thought it might be a shot in the arm if I had people joining me on this project.  Anyone interested in focusing on healthy menu planning for the rest of July????  Please join me!  I'll post every day (starting Monday - July 8th) and just say what I'm doing food-wise that day and anyone else who wants to join in can post as well.  Anyone game?

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