'Oh you are lucky to be a Catholic,' some people say, as if my Premium Bonds had paid a handsome dividend. Well, yes, but the constant failures are painful, when not just laughable, and boringly repetitive. A few years ago, on Ash Wednesday, standing in line to be smudged on the forehead with ashes, as is the custom, a small boy of about seven was immediately in front of me. In front of him shambled a man probably in his late eighties. Behind me stood a very pretty young woman. Each of us, as the ashes were imposed, would hear the words, 'Remember man, that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.' Caesar, the Pope, the small boy, one's friends and oneself, all destined to be blown away, recycled or reconstituted. I cannot see much to grumble at. Others coming after us will love much of what we have loved and many new beauties besides. The ashes imposed on our heads are the burned, pulverized and blessed palm branches leftover from the previous year's Passion Tide; and another Easter is always on the way.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Ash Wednesday Quote
From Alec Guinness's first memoir, Blessings in Disguise:
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Getting Ready for Lent
Happy Mardi Gras!
It snowed during the night here and the temperature is quite cold. I do hope I can go grocery shopping this afternoon. I hope the plow guys are out doing their job. God bless them!
The plan is to have pancakes and sausage for dinner tonight. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and thus Lent begins.
Lent is going to be a bit complicated food-wise. I am giving up sugar and refined carbs and Becky is also. But Sean decided to give up meat. I can't dissuade him. So I've got to do some planning. I've done this before, we've gone through periods of being vegetarian, except for Sean. It really will be a sacrifice for him because he lives for cheese burgers, his absolute favorite food and also he lives for Chipolte's chicken. We've been in the very bad habit of having Chick fil e every Tuesday for lunch and eating out at Chipotle every Friday. I suppose he can now just go vegetarian at Chipotle but it will be hard to go there and not eat his beloved chicken!
I've been trying to cut back on sugar and refined carbs and doing a very poor job at it. So, hopefully, with the extra muscle that Lent lends to will power, I can conquer my stupid cravings.
I am still going eat fruit and I am still going to use honey on my yogurt or occasionally in tea. But that's it. All bread and pasta will be whole wheat and all rice will be brown. Except on Sundays!
Because we aren't cutting out dairy, eggs or fish though, it really isn't as bad as all that.
Breakfast:
oatmeal
breakfast cereal (not for me but for others)
eggs
plain yogurt with fruit
breakfast sandwiches (whole wheat English muffins and no ham, etc)
cheese, bread and fruit
bagels and cream cheese
Lunches:
peanut butter and honey (or just plain pb on whole wheat crackers)
peanut butter and fruit (bananas or apples)
vegetarian soups
grilled cheese
cheese quesadillas (whole wheat tortilla)
tuna salad
salad with nuts, cheese
vegetarian burrito (whole wheat tortilla)
egg salad
snacks:
nuts
fruit
tortilla chips
popcorn
veggies with hummus
Dinners:
It snowed during the night here and the temperature is quite cold. I do hope I can go grocery shopping this afternoon. I hope the plow guys are out doing their job. God bless them!
The plan is to have pancakes and sausage for dinner tonight. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and thus Lent begins.
Lent is going to be a bit complicated food-wise. I am giving up sugar and refined carbs and Becky is also. But Sean decided to give up meat. I can't dissuade him. So I've got to do some planning. I've done this before, we've gone through periods of being vegetarian, except for Sean. It really will be a sacrifice for him because he lives for cheese burgers, his absolute favorite food and also he lives for Chipolte's chicken. We've been in the very bad habit of having Chick fil e every Tuesday for lunch and eating out at Chipotle every Friday. I suppose he can now just go vegetarian at Chipotle but it will be hard to go there and not eat his beloved chicken!
I've been trying to cut back on sugar and refined carbs and doing a very poor job at it. So, hopefully, with the extra muscle that Lent lends to will power, I can conquer my stupid cravings.
I am still going eat fruit and I am still going to use honey on my yogurt or occasionally in tea. But that's it. All bread and pasta will be whole wheat and all rice will be brown. Except on Sundays!
Because we aren't cutting out dairy, eggs or fish though, it really isn't as bad as all that.
Breakfast:
oatmeal
breakfast cereal (not for me but for others)
eggs
plain yogurt with fruit
breakfast sandwiches (whole wheat English muffins and no ham, etc)
cheese, bread and fruit
bagels and cream cheese
Lunches:
peanut butter and honey (or just plain pb on whole wheat crackers)
peanut butter and fruit (bananas or apples)
vegetarian soups
grilled cheese
cheese quesadillas (whole wheat tortilla)
tuna salad
salad with nuts, cheese
vegetarian burrito (whole wheat tortilla)
egg salad
snacks:
nuts
fruit
tortilla chips
popcorn
veggies with hummus
Dinners:
Potato cheese soup with salad and whole wheat bread on side
Mac and Cheese (whole wheat macaroni), veggies and applesauce
Salmon fritters, potatoes, salad
Broiled fish, rice or potatoes, veggies
Baked fish, baked with veggies, rice or potatoes (maybe sometimes I'll sub sweet potatoes)
Shrimp
Egg fried rice, stir fried veggies
Omelets with fried potatoes and fruit salad
Stuffed potatoes, with vegetarian chili, broccoli
Beans and rice, lots of Mexican toppings
Quinoa salad - this will be a new recipe
Fettuccini Alfredo with caesar salad and some good wheat bread from bakery
Gnocchi (frozen from TJ's) with veggies
Vegetarian lasagna
vegetarian ravioli
Peanut butter/sesame noodles
As you can see from above. we aren't really going to be too deprived! But I will have to plan better. I would like to cut out white potatoes too but my whole family will go into revolt. So the no sugar, no meat, only whole wheat thing is enough for now.
The big thing I have to do is pay more attention to cooking vegetables well. Actually most in my family like raw veggies, but you can only eat so many sliced cucumbers, baby carrots and the occasional celery stick. They don't even like tomatoes. They will eat sauteed mushrooms and sometimes will eat some roasted veggies. Lately though they have been eating hardly any salad, which used to be something I could count on. So I need to somehow freshen up the veggie department here. I need to remember to eat the veggies first and to make sure they are half the plate. And I need to have plenty of either fruit or veggie at each meal. And while I will eat some whole wheat bread, I plan to cut down on bread altogether. Also, while I don't plan to cut out butter and such, I should be very careful with portions. I go way overboard with butter!
Tomorrow for Ash Wednesday I plan to start two new books: Year of No Sugar to help with my fast and Jesus: A Pilgrimage by Father James Martin. I am looking forward to reading both of them.
I wish I were strong and could give up something like coffee for Lent. That would be so hard! But I am not quite up to that!
Monday, February 16, 2015
The Shallows - Book 8
I got this audio book, The Shallows; What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, out of the library and had to renew it twice to listen to the whole book. The subject matter is interesting but I, at turns, found the book intriguing, annoying and depressing. It took me so long to listen to the whole thing because 1) many times I had other people in the car with me and so didn't listen 2) I had to be in the mood.
However, all that said, it is a really illuminating look at what the internet is doing to humankind. Carr starts off the book with his own personal story of how he came to be interested in the topic, enough to want to write a book about it. Then he moves into a long and thorough history of the relationship between man's intellectual and cultural history and technology. It is quite informative and thought provoking. Carr starts with the invention of the alphabet and travels forward in time all the way to the present (the most recent studies cited in the book are from 2009).
He also thoroughly examines all the neuroscience related to internet use and reading as well. He cites many, many studies. My kids hated when I would talk about this book. They do not want to hear how it is proven that lots of internet use shortens attention span and effects the ability to reason in a linear way. Like Carr I have noticed my own capacity for focus and concentration change the more I am on line. This is one reason why I have gotten into the habit of regular, intentional reading. I don't want to lose that capacity to sit and be immersed in a book. As Carr said at the beginning of the book, "I want my old brain back!"
While Carr is a very thorough writer who really studies the whole phenomenon quite deeply, he also annoyed me at times. Even as he is citing Socrates and Plato he seems to be a modernist who thinks we are all somehow smarter than our ancestors. This bugged me. He talked about how literacy and the access to books actually made people smarter. But if this is so, why are there so many stupid people in the world even though we have an extremely high rate of literacy now? When I see or read any ancient Greek plays, for example, I am always blown away at how profound and complex the stories and moral issues are. And the Greeks made huge amphitheaters so that everyone could come and see these plays. Somehow I think folks who weren't literate were still able to enjoy the drama and muse over the poignant and hard questions raised by what they saw. I think we now have the advantage of all the genius and discoveries of the past as our foundational point of reference. They who went before us, didn't. They were the discoverers upon which we build our own knowledge. I don't think we are smarter; we just have the advantage because of the legacy they have left us. So that modernist point of view kept popping up and it nettled me quite a bit at times.
The other thing about this book is how it acknowledges the dangers and losses we are suffering as a culture because of the internet. It is a great gift and a great curse. And we can't reject it. So we have to embrace the bounty it does deliver and figure out how to deal with the very profound downside of life on the internet. The internet changes everything. And we don't really know how or what the repercussions will be. On Amazon there is a quote about this book, that it is 'The Silent Spring of the literary mind.' This is such an eloquent way to put it. If you fear and dread what pollution is doing to our world, this book puts that same fear into what the internet is doing to our literacy and our intellectual culture.
Three practical things I got out of this book: 1) off line reading - that is, reading regular books is good for your brain. Do it regularly. 2) we've stopped memorizing stuff and that's bad. The less you use your memory, the dumber you are. Carr's cites a speech that Page, the inventor of google, gave somewhere where he (Page) talks about how no one will need to memorize things because they can just look it up and that will free our brains for other things. But it turns out making connections, which involves using our memory, IS intelligence. And the more you memorize, the better your brain gets at it. So now I really want to incorporate memory work into our daily lives. 3) Take regular screen breaks and go out into nature. Going on a nice walk through the country really does clear your head. Scientific studies have proven that people think better when they've been out in nature.
The internet is here to stay but we have to figure out how protect ourselves from the negative repercussions of its use. We have to counter its bad effects on us and our society. Time to get proactive!
This book was really interesting, very well researched and well written. I was a bit prickly about it as I was listening but I am glad that I persevered to the end. It is definitely a very worthwhile read.
(One of the best books I read in 2014 was Strange Gods by Elizabeth Scalia. I just checked out her blog at The Anchoress and she has a post up about how too much internet is destroying her ability to read real books).
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
However, all that said, it is a really illuminating look at what the internet is doing to humankind. Carr starts off the book with his own personal story of how he came to be interested in the topic, enough to want to write a book about it. Then he moves into a long and thorough history of the relationship between man's intellectual and cultural history and technology. It is quite informative and thought provoking. Carr starts with the invention of the alphabet and travels forward in time all the way to the present (the most recent studies cited in the book are from 2009).
He also thoroughly examines all the neuroscience related to internet use and reading as well. He cites many, many studies. My kids hated when I would talk about this book. They do not want to hear how it is proven that lots of internet use shortens attention span and effects the ability to reason in a linear way. Like Carr I have noticed my own capacity for focus and concentration change the more I am on line. This is one reason why I have gotten into the habit of regular, intentional reading. I don't want to lose that capacity to sit and be immersed in a book. As Carr said at the beginning of the book, "I want my old brain back!"
While Carr is a very thorough writer who really studies the whole phenomenon quite deeply, he also annoyed me at times. Even as he is citing Socrates and Plato he seems to be a modernist who thinks we are all somehow smarter than our ancestors. This bugged me. He talked about how literacy and the access to books actually made people smarter. But if this is so, why are there so many stupid people in the world even though we have an extremely high rate of literacy now? When I see or read any ancient Greek plays, for example, I am always blown away at how profound and complex the stories and moral issues are. And the Greeks made huge amphitheaters so that everyone could come and see these plays. Somehow I think folks who weren't literate were still able to enjoy the drama and muse over the poignant and hard questions raised by what they saw. I think we now have the advantage of all the genius and discoveries of the past as our foundational point of reference. They who went before us, didn't. They were the discoverers upon which we build our own knowledge. I don't think we are smarter; we just have the advantage because of the legacy they have left us. So that modernist point of view kept popping up and it nettled me quite a bit at times.
The other thing about this book is how it acknowledges the dangers and losses we are suffering as a culture because of the internet. It is a great gift and a great curse. And we can't reject it. So we have to embrace the bounty it does deliver and figure out how to deal with the very profound downside of life on the internet. The internet changes everything. And we don't really know how or what the repercussions will be. On Amazon there is a quote about this book, that it is 'The Silent Spring of the literary mind.' This is such an eloquent way to put it. If you fear and dread what pollution is doing to our world, this book puts that same fear into what the internet is doing to our literacy and our intellectual culture.
Three practical things I got out of this book: 1) off line reading - that is, reading regular books is good for your brain. Do it regularly. 2) we've stopped memorizing stuff and that's bad. The less you use your memory, the dumber you are. Carr's cites a speech that Page, the inventor of google, gave somewhere where he (Page) talks about how no one will need to memorize things because they can just look it up and that will free our brains for other things. But it turns out making connections, which involves using our memory, IS intelligence. And the more you memorize, the better your brain gets at it. So now I really want to incorporate memory work into our daily lives. 3) Take regular screen breaks and go out into nature. Going on a nice walk through the country really does clear your head. Scientific studies have proven that people think better when they've been out in nature.
The internet is here to stay but we have to figure out how protect ourselves from the negative repercussions of its use. We have to counter its bad effects on us and our society. Time to get proactive!
This book was really interesting, very well researched and well written. I was a bit prickly about it as I was listening but I am glad that I persevered to the end. It is definitely a very worthwhile read.
(One of the best books I read in 2014 was Strange Gods by Elizabeth Scalia. I just checked out her blog at The Anchoress and she has a post up about how too much internet is destroying her ability to read real books).
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Christmas with the Savages - Book 7
I know, I know, it's February! It is not Christmas anymore! But when I ran across a review of this book on a book blog, I just had to have it. It was just after Christmas day. I am Catholic so Christmas Eve is the official start of the Christmas liturgical season and it doesn't end until the Baptism of Jesus some weeks later. And some people are old fashioned and don't end their own private Christmas liturgical season until February 2nd, Candlemas. So I thought I would be safe to read a Christmas book well after Christmas Day. Unfortunately it didn't arrive until Feb. 3rd. I seriously wondered if I should just put it aside until next year, but then I thought I'd kick up my heels and live a little! LOL. Anyway, so at least I got it read before Lent started!
This book is a charmer! It is a fictionalized account of Lady Mary Clive's memories of one Edwardian Christmas from her childhood. Evelyn, the main character is used to living alone with her nanny and sometimes her parents (when they aren't traveling). She longs to be sophisticated and grown up. One year while her parents are off in Scotland without her, her father falls sick and has to stay in a sanatorium for a few weeks. Her parents decide she'll spend Christmas at the country estate of one of their good friends, Lady Tamarlane who has many grandchildren. Evelyn meets one set of grandchildren on the train from the London, the Savages. Thus begins her exciting visit, though perhaps it is a lot to adjust to for a quiet girl who is used to being mostly with grown ups.
The narrator is honest and the children's characters and behaviors all ring true. The situations are comical and the whole book is just a delightful read. This would be suitable for late elementary on up to read independently. It would also make a cozy read aloud to the whole family during the Christmas season.
Two thumbs up! For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
This book is a charmer! It is a fictionalized account of Lady Mary Clive's memories of one Edwardian Christmas from her childhood. Evelyn, the main character is used to living alone with her nanny and sometimes her parents (when they aren't traveling). She longs to be sophisticated and grown up. One year while her parents are off in Scotland without her, her father falls sick and has to stay in a sanatorium for a few weeks. Her parents decide she'll spend Christmas at the country estate of one of their good friends, Lady Tamarlane who has many grandchildren. Evelyn meets one set of grandchildren on the train from the London, the Savages. Thus begins her exciting visit, though perhaps it is a lot to adjust to for a quiet girl who is used to being mostly with grown ups.
The narrator is honest and the children's characters and behaviors all ring true. The situations are comical and the whole book is just a delightful read. This would be suitable for late elementary on up to read independently. It would also make a cozy read aloud to the whole family during the Christmas season.
Two thumbs up! For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Why Parents Should Be Friends with their Children
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| Jesus is telling this child right now: You must write 25 times, I will not hit my brother. And you are not leaving your room until you are finished!!! |
This post could also be entitled: Why I Don't Buy Punitive Parenting.
When I started having children I discovered that I was a terrible disciplinarian. I either took the disobedience personally and overreacted or if I was in a more sanguine mood, I was a pushover who let the child get away with naughtiness. I knew I wasn't doing things right! I read parenting books that basically made me feel guilty. I tried those reward charts but they never lasted longer than a day or two. I am too A.D.D. to keep up with something like that.
Anyway, all the discipline advice felt so phony to me. But since my oldest was very strong willed, I had a real discipline issue to deal with. Every, and I mean every, little thing turned into a power struggle with her. I never would see it coming! It would just be there, bam! All of sudden a huge tug of war of wills. And I never would win. Never. Because honestly I didn't care about having the power per se, only often I was annoyed at the unpleasantness and frustrated that we couldn't get anything done without a tantrum or melt down. It took me years to figure this out, but I remember when my oldest was about 12 and I was ranting to my husband about how she just wouldn't obey me and how first she had had this consequence (used as euphemism for punishment) and then she had been grounded and she still blah, blah, blah. And my husband said in a very droll voice, Well, I guess it is the death penalty next. This was a jibe at me because I used to work for the Death Penalty Defense Public Defenders office. Rick hardly ever punished anybody. Very rarely if someone had done something mean, he'd banish them to their room until they could be nice again. Usually though he just cajoled them out of misbehavior by joking with them. He's kind of magical that way.
Anyway, his remark got me thinking. Things just always escalated. This cycle of disobedience and punishment just kept cycling higher and higher and I felt so deeply resentful and alienated from my own child who I knew I loved with all my heart, even though I couldn't feel that love because I was too busy being put out with her. It occurred to me that something was very very wrong. I had a lightbulb moment when I suddenly thought: punishing doesn't work. It doesn't! If it did, why do we have to keep punishing our kids over and over again? The only time punishment works is if your kid is really afraid of you. If your kid is really afraid of you then forget about trust or feeling close. Don't expect your kid to come to you when they are a teenager and confide in you about anything. Expect more rebellion and unpleasantness because that is what you have sowed with never ending time outs, taking away privileges and groundings.
So then I thought what would Jesus do? Did Jesus punish? Remember the parable of the Lost Sheep. Where the Good Shepherd goes out and finds the one lost lamb. Did Jesus give that lamb a good spanking to teach it not to wander off or ground it so it wouldn't get lost again? Hmm. The story certainly doesn't seem to convey that.
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| Jesus, the punisher |
How about the Prodigal Son? Did the father punish his oldest son who really did a lot of bad, bad stuff? Nope, he had a party when the son, all on his own, came home.
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| Look at the father. He is all set to do his duty and punish his son so he'll never sin again. |
Then I thought about the woman being stoned for adultery. Jesus STOPS the punishment, even though the punishment was Mosaic law!
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| Jesus is saying here: We've got to teach her a lesson! We can't let her get away with this! |
How did Jesus teach us to follow him? 1) He showed us how to live by his own life 2) When people went astray, he pointed their mistake out to them; he even warned them beforehand (Peter and denying Christ three times) 3) He told stories to illustrate what he was trying to teach 4) He explained things to people when they didn't understand 5) Sometimes he got justly angry. 6) He praised them when they did good (Woman, your faith has saved you). 7) He always emphasized forgiveness and the Father's love. 8) He called us his friends.
I know some people say things like: "I am their parent, not their friend. " I think though this is not a very Christian approach to parenting. If Jesus, God himself, can humble himself to become human, take on all our sins, suffer and die for us and then call us his friends, surely a parent can be a friend to their child without somehow giving up authority. Friendship from a Christian point of view is a relationship of love, trust and closeness. What kind of friendship depends on the connection - siblings, classmates, neighbors, spouse, best friend - but they are all kinds of friendship. I think when people say that phrase: We can't be friends because I am the parent, they really mean I can't be their peer, which is very true. But I think they confuse 'peer' with 'friend.' Frankly, I think it is used as a bit of an excuse to justify alienating their child's affections in the name of discipline. I think that is putting the cart before the ox. Just as God wants to be friends with us and loves us unconditionally, we should want to be friends with our children and try, in our limited fashion to love them as unconditionally as we (poor, wretched sinners that we are) are able.
So I don't believe in punishing unless it is a very, very last resort. I admit that sometimes if your kid does something so appalling the best thing to do might be to be like Jesus and turn over a table or two and chase them around with a whip (well, I am being figurative here, but sometimes you just have to respond right away and with great passion!). But he did that once. The other 99% of the time he taught them about how to be good and how much God loves them.
And so I do want to be friends with my children. I think I should try to be as patient with my kids as God is patient with me. Of course I fall incredibly short of this every. single. day. I lose my temper, I get cranky, I resent having to deal with the same disobedience over and over again, I get exasperated and burned out and just plain fed up! But then I remember the phrase from the Our Father, 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'. And then I start all over again, trying to be creative and patient. Pointing out when behavior is less than charitable, reminding children of their duties, telling or reading stories to give them solid moral foundations, praying for them and with them, talking about noble things, exposing them to the good, the true and the beautiful, gently correcting misbehavior, firmly and authoritatively admonishing the disobedient, reminding them that I love them. Praising them when they get it right. Working as much as I can on always being close to them. I especially need to work on this when I am feeling less than affectionate towards one because that child is going through a trying phase. My kids are not perfect, not by any long shot. My youngest especially is pretty lippy to me. But honestly she came out of the womb with a sassy attitude. She's actually better than she used to be. Oh my, she was incorrigible! But she loves me. She tells me everything. She is a great girl. She is slowly learning to be be more respectful in her tone. She's getting it. It is unfortunately her abiding sin. We, all of us, have abiding sins we will have to struggle with all our lives. Hers is a sharp tongue and an inclination to be bossy. Good thing she has a lot of other wonderful qualities that make up for that little shortcoming. Children can definitely be trials! But a quote I saw by St. Jose Maria Escriva just the other day serves well for this:
Don't say that person gets on my nerves. Say that person sanctifies me.
And that is what happens when we parent our children. We are being sanctified. I don't want to say, that child is driving me nuts! How do I control him? Instead I want to say: that child is teaching me to love as God loves, how can I show that child how much I love him?
I tell you when I stopped using punishment as a reaction to bad behavior my kids got better and I got better. Our home became more peaceful. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but somehow the atmosphere relaxed, our relationships deepened and there was a lot more joy in every day living (even in spite of crises like deaths and mental illness). And a home of love, acceptance, centered on Christ, is to my mind, going to raise up saints a lot easier than a home where the parent sees himself primarily as judge and arbiter.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Trader Joe's Chicken Tacos Recipe
I made really yummy chicken tacos the other day. I had never made chicken tacos before, only the ground beef variety. And when I made these I was in a rush and wasn't working from a recipe. But fortunately since I go to Trader Joe's every week, I just happen to have all the ingredients. I rushed in the door at about 6:50 p.m. And had dinner on the table before 7:30.
Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts ( defrosted - luckily I had some previously defrosted from Monday's chicken Parmesan). Trader Joe's has a nice bag of frozen chicken breasts in their freezer section.
Some oil for cooking (I used sunflower oil)
Garlic salt (a couple of good shakes)
About a 1/2 a jar of Salsa Autentica (the red variety; though the green kind would be good too!)
Less than a 1/3 of TJ's Taco seasoning (it is spicy and some of my kids don't like that so I am sparing)
Topping for tacos: chopped lettuce, tomatoes, grated cheese, guacamole and Greek yogurt.
Taco shells
First I heated the oven so I could toast the taco shells.
I quickly sliced up the chicken breasts into thin slices and small chunks. I browned them quickly in the hot oil, seasoning with some garlic salt. Then I added the salsa and taco seasoning, stirred it all up, covered it and let it simmer for a few minutes until the chicken was cooked through.
I popped the taco shells into the oven on a cookie sheet. This is always a dangerous point for me because I forget to get them out in a couple of minutes and then render them inedible by burning them. But this time I used a timer.
Next, I chopped up some romaine lettuce and some cherry tomatoes.
Then I grated some cheese ( I used mozzarella but you could use Monterey Jack or cheddar).
Then I got out Trader Joe's reduced guilt guacamole ( which I love!)
I also got out some plain Greek yogurt to substitute for sour cream.
It was delicious! I am definitely making it again! I made it for four people - Sean had three tacos, Josh and I each had two, Becky had one and I still had a little left over for lunch the next day. I served some chilled peaches for a side dish.
Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts ( defrosted - luckily I had some previously defrosted from Monday's chicken Parmesan). Trader Joe's has a nice bag of frozen chicken breasts in their freezer section.
Some oil for cooking (I used sunflower oil)
Garlic salt (a couple of good shakes)
About a 1/2 a jar of Salsa Autentica (the red variety; though the green kind would be good too!)
Less than a 1/3 of TJ's Taco seasoning (it is spicy and some of my kids don't like that so I am sparing)
Topping for tacos: chopped lettuce, tomatoes, grated cheese, guacamole and Greek yogurt.
Taco shells
First I heated the oven so I could toast the taco shells.
I quickly sliced up the chicken breasts into thin slices and small chunks. I browned them quickly in the hot oil, seasoning with some garlic salt. Then I added the salsa and taco seasoning, stirred it all up, covered it and let it simmer for a few minutes until the chicken was cooked through.
I popped the taco shells into the oven on a cookie sheet. This is always a dangerous point for me because I forget to get them out in a couple of minutes and then render them inedible by burning them. But this time I used a timer.
Next, I chopped up some romaine lettuce and some cherry tomatoes.
Then I grated some cheese ( I used mozzarella but you could use Monterey Jack or cheddar).
Then I got out Trader Joe's reduced guilt guacamole ( which I love!)
I also got out some plain Greek yogurt to substitute for sour cream.
It was delicious! I am definitely making it again! I made it for four people - Sean had three tacos, Josh and I each had two, Becky had one and I still had a little left over for lunch the next day. I served some chilled peaches for a side dish.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
How to be a Relaxed Homeschooler
Relaxed homeschooling borrows from both traditional homeschooling ideas and unschooling ideas about how children learn. There is an impossible, and seemingly contradictory, tension between these two approaches to education but relaxed homeschoolers are intrepid folk, refusing to be pigeon-holed. The operating question is: what works best for our family. Ideology be damned! Relaxed homeschooling suits Catholics very well because we are a both/and people rather than an either/or people!
Can't children benefit by both being allowed to follow their delight, their interests, their passions as well as being taught via loving and mindful instruction? Why not? In the real world aren't we always learning from both informal and formal methods?
In Catholicism there is a virtue called 'docility.' This does not mean being a door mat; rather it comes from the Latin word to teach. Someone who is docile is open to being taught. If a child is truly docile they will learn in both informal and formal ways. How to cultivate the virtue of docility in children? Well it is hard! But a child who trusts you, is bonded with you, feels respected by you, the teacher/parent, will be open to learning from you.
Some relaxed homeschoolers are 'tidal learners.' This was the way Melissa Wiley described her homeschooling. At different times of the year how learning happened in their household varied. At times it might be more formal and at other times it might be more unschoolish. It depended what was going on in all sorts of other areas in the family's life.
Other relaxed homeschoolers would rather work on the basic 3 R's in a more formal manner at a pretty constant rate but leave the learning of any other subjects up to the child's interests.
My own family varied wildly in how we got things done. We would swing back and forth. Some years were really unschooly and then, in reaction to that, we'd swing back to being much more structured. Neither end of the spectrum lasted for long because we found both unsatisfactory in some way, shape or form.
But if I were to boil things down to their essence - the skeleton of our homeschooling life, was this:
1. Prayer/learning the faith - this was an ever changing but also consciously thought about element in our homeschool. Regular prayer times, regular reading out loud about something to do with the faith, regular participation in the liturgical year, regular involvement in some kind of group or activity that promoted learning the faith.
2. Copy work - We've been homeschooling for 20 years and for at least the last 10, copy work has been a mainstay of our homeschool. Copy work is versatile and efficient in teaching many things at once.
3. Read alouds - This has always been a huge deal in our family. We read aloud about everything, usually over meals and then before bed at night. At times I was too tired and preoccupied with having and then caring for babies, so audio books and my husband took over for me. But this has always been the core of our home learning life.
4. Outside activities - we have been involved in various co-ops or classes over the years. The kids have also been involved in scouts, Little Flowers, Blue Knights, American Heritage Girls, 4-H, youth groups, scripture studies, art classes, music lessons, gym classes, tennis and soccer and swim lessons, track, Irish Dance, etc. In high school the kids have studied math with a tutor, taken science classes and occasionally literature classes in the homeschool community. The oldest two opted to study at the community college in their 12th grade year. Every year we figure out what we are doing outside the home, plug that into our weekly calendar, and then work around those things to develop our weekly routines.
5. We definitely get much more formal as the student enters high school. This is because we, the parents, want to say with confidence that our children are high school graduates. We want them to be poised to be ready for college if they choose to go. Also, we have found that kids need more structure during those teens years.
The five elements above all developed organically from who we are as a family. The two examples of relaxed homeschooling, tidal homeschooling and my own family's style are just that, examples! There are a million variations on relaxed homeschooling. That is because it arises organically from each family's personality. Remember that famous quote from St. John Paul II, "Families, become what you are!" Let that be your guiding principle!
So how to be a relaxed homeschooler? I would say find your own elements. How does your family click? Look to those things and build from that, mixing formal and informal in whatever amounts best serve you and yours at any given time.
Can't children benefit by both being allowed to follow their delight, their interests, their passions as well as being taught via loving and mindful instruction? Why not? In the real world aren't we always learning from both informal and formal methods?
In Catholicism there is a virtue called 'docility.' This does not mean being a door mat; rather it comes from the Latin word to teach. Someone who is docile is open to being taught. If a child is truly docile they will learn in both informal and formal ways. How to cultivate the virtue of docility in children? Well it is hard! But a child who trusts you, is bonded with you, feels respected by you, the teacher/parent, will be open to learning from you.
Some relaxed homeschoolers are 'tidal learners.' This was the way Melissa Wiley described her homeschooling. At different times of the year how learning happened in their household varied. At times it might be more formal and at other times it might be more unschoolish. It depended what was going on in all sorts of other areas in the family's life.
Other relaxed homeschoolers would rather work on the basic 3 R's in a more formal manner at a pretty constant rate but leave the learning of any other subjects up to the child's interests.
My own family varied wildly in how we got things done. We would swing back and forth. Some years were really unschooly and then, in reaction to that, we'd swing back to being much more structured. Neither end of the spectrum lasted for long because we found both unsatisfactory in some way, shape or form.
But if I were to boil things down to their essence - the skeleton of our homeschooling life, was this:
1. Prayer/learning the faith - this was an ever changing but also consciously thought about element in our homeschool. Regular prayer times, regular reading out loud about something to do with the faith, regular participation in the liturgical year, regular involvement in some kind of group or activity that promoted learning the faith.
2. Copy work - We've been homeschooling for 20 years and for at least the last 10, copy work has been a mainstay of our homeschool. Copy work is versatile and efficient in teaching many things at once.
3. Read alouds - This has always been a huge deal in our family. We read aloud about everything, usually over meals and then before bed at night. At times I was too tired and preoccupied with having and then caring for babies, so audio books and my husband took over for me. But this has always been the core of our home learning life.
4. Outside activities - we have been involved in various co-ops or classes over the years. The kids have also been involved in scouts, Little Flowers, Blue Knights, American Heritage Girls, 4-H, youth groups, scripture studies, art classes, music lessons, gym classes, tennis and soccer and swim lessons, track, Irish Dance, etc. In high school the kids have studied math with a tutor, taken science classes and occasionally literature classes in the homeschool community. The oldest two opted to study at the community college in their 12th grade year. Every year we figure out what we are doing outside the home, plug that into our weekly calendar, and then work around those things to develop our weekly routines.
5. We definitely get much more formal as the student enters high school. This is because we, the parents, want to say with confidence that our children are high school graduates. We want them to be poised to be ready for college if they choose to go. Also, we have found that kids need more structure during those teens years.
The five elements above all developed organically from who we are as a family. The two examples of relaxed homeschooling, tidal homeschooling and my own family's style are just that, examples! There are a million variations on relaxed homeschooling. That is because it arises organically from each family's personality. Remember that famous quote from St. John Paul II, "Families, become what you are!" Let that be your guiding principle!
So how to be a relaxed homeschooler? I would say find your own elements. How does your family click? Look to those things and build from that, mixing formal and informal in whatever amounts best serve you and yours at any given time.
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