A semi-local Passover

Keeping kosher and pesadik (Passover-like) and local is an impossible affair, at least around here. There are things scattered across the globe that meet upon my Passover table (and many many others) My matza and matza products are from Israel, as is my tea, some of my cheese, chocolate, coffee and a few other sundries. Most packaged goods are from New York, especially the dairy. The meat, is, thankfully, at least from this country and processed here as well, so I don't have the concerns about South American meat and all the myriad of problems that stem from that.

But at least I have the fresh goods taken care of at the local level. Now that spring is here, the market is fairly bursting with fruits and vegetables. My bill at yesterday's farmer's market was staggering ($70), but included 5 dozen eggs, 1/2 a flat of strawberries. 10 lbs of potatoes and onions combined, kohlrabi, apples, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, basil, tomatoes and persian cucumbers (! how can you not love living in California. They are from 15 miles away.)

Funny story about the eggs. Last week, instead of the farmer's market, we did a drive into LA, so I ran out of eggs and needed to pick up a dozen from Trader Joe's. And throughout the entire weekend, DH and I kept hitting the eggs much too hard to crack them because the eggs from the market have such thick strong shells. The eggs from TJ's shattered under the same force we use to just crack the other eggs.

Back to cleaning.

Preparing for Pesach

Another week has raced by. There is so much to do each day that I often have to choose what gets left behind. My laundry is complaining about living in baskets. And the dryer. And the washer (although I try not to do that one too often.) And don't ask about meals. *sigh* At least they are usually at home. Usually.

And Passover is coming up. In honor of that - and the fact that we live in an area where Passover food is scarce - we headed to the local megalopolis, Los Angeles, to do the shopping. With 2 small children in tow. First we stopped off at Hanna Andersson at the mall to pick up a few things because B is learning to use the potty and I wanted some of their training unders for him. I spent too much there and then we headed on to the park for a little hiking and playing to burn off the veeeeeerrry long drive. We saw loads of birds, some we had never seen before, and the kids really got to explore a little bit of the wild right in the middle of the city. Very cool. After hours of that, because we checked out the archery field, the wildlife reserve and the model airplane field, we headed off to do the Passover shopping at a place in the Valley that I thought would be great (after all, I had been to it's sister store many times and thought that was just great) But it didn't have the things I am used to buying at Passover, so I headed across the street to the Ralph's with the good Passover section (wish we had one of those) and picked up some stuff and then headed to a place a friend recommended when I called her in desperation after the 1st place didn't work out. And of course it was closed.

So we have had to regroup and I'll be heading out again to a different place, slightly closer, but not tons, to see what I can pick up there. So instead of an hour and a half, it'll just be 45 minutes drive. Yay. Hopefully I can get the most important things.

Homeschool - no excuses

None whatsoever. Not because there aren't any, but because I'm tired of the same ones. Ear infections. Strep throat. Crowns. Root canals. Everyone in the family has gotten a little something into the list. Mine is the strep and the crown.

We've done so much though. I just haven't had the energy to put it here. Here's some photos of our lives the last few weeks. in homeschooling:

First from today. We are in another Math Block starting this week. We are hitting addition and subtraction lightly this week and will move onto multiplication next and division the week after, just sharing some stories, doing some artwork, movement exercises, etc. Today on our walk we counted 100 steps forward and then turned around and counted 100 steps backward from 100. Well, I walked backwards, Z did the counting.

When we got home we had morning verse and then headed outside to fill our sidewalk with the number family for 12.

Here's what that looks like in progress:

And Z wanted his picture taken with his accomplishment because it was quite the work of will for him (although he wouldn't call it that.)

Over the last few weeks we finished up the Language Arts block, focusing on lower case letters and handwriting. He's made enormous progress over the last few months

Nosh Nosh a Hamentash

Part of Homeschool Wednesday today was getting ready for Purim (which starts tomorrow night) and so, after we finished writing and came back from today's drop-in class and ate lunch, we settled into making hamentashen. Z made lemon (with my homemade lemon curd), B made blueberry jam, and then I made nutella, because the kids got loopy at the mere idea of chocolate. Then after the kids petered out, I made the things on the little plate - they would be peanut butter cups, but I'm allergic to peanut butter, so they are sunflower seed butter cups. And the other thing that I am including in our Mishloach Manot baskets this year is fresh strawberries from the farmer's market today.

We're in the 2nd and last week of our Spring Nature Block. Last week Z and I brainstormed about one of the birds he's been learning about and this week he has been working on writing an essay based upon that brainstorming. We've also been working on the garden. We dug in the compost. Turned the soil a few times over the last week and yesterday we took a field trip to the organic gardening store in the next city over and bought some potting soil, seedlings, seeds and ogled the chicks. They were so adorable!

Homeschool Wednesday

Should I start calling this HS Thursday? lol First some photos from the 1st grader:

The park where our HS Group meets:

And this is a self portrait (I should let him know he should take the strap off of his neck 1st!)

We preempt the regularly scheduled homeschool Wednesday...

For birthday Wednesday!

My littlest is now 3. 3! (although if you ask, his answers range from 4 to 35) We had playdates at the park, and a trip to the farmer's market for birthday strawberries, and presents and a dinner out where he got chocolate cake. And balloons

As for homeschool, well, It was much of the same this week. The week got past me really quickly. We did a lot of math and form drawing and spent as much time out of doors as possible. We did form drawing in the sand at the beach, we practiced division with driftwood, we did all sorts of things, but we didn't have a whole lot to show for it to turn in except some worksheets and the essay Z just finished writing on our trip to Red Rock Canyon. I am so proud of how well he did writing it. It was a major handwriting accomplishment.

Homeschool Wednesday

Ah homeschool. Sometimes you can plan and something as simple as lunch can screw up your whole day. Poor B cut himself deeply with a butter knife at lunch today. You know, because you can't tell an almost 3-yo anything. They just need to experience it. And this time it was thisclose to being the experience of stitches. As it is, he only needed steri-strips and a few days of quiet to keep the wound from reopening, but it was close.

So our homeschool Wednesday was brief, with only a short drop-in class and a map of the neighborhood, drawn to appease the ISP coordinator.





Earlier in the week, before The Injury, we had been planning a week of all outdoor school. Monday was a day at the river, with math and form drawing and singing and bird watching. We saw a sandhill crane - truly an amazing bird. The photo is from a backpool at the river. The boys are "fishing." We were keeping an eye out for the steelhead trout that are supposed to be making a comeback in this river, but we didn't see any at the fish ladder (and we watched for quite awhile. Well, I did.)

Tuesday we spend the morning at the beach watching the high surf (because when better to go to the beach then when there is a high surf advisory, right?) and using the sand as our chalkboard practicing division and multiplication and later some form drawing. We also took a bit of time to build sand "Titanics" and to go hunting for cool rocks, shells and beach glass. At lunch we headed over to another local park because we didn't want sand in our picnic lunch. And then we rode on the swings for 40 minutes followed by some reading and bird watching - this time we saw a red tailed hawk and an acorn woodpecker.

An actual FO report

And it is sewing again. Remember when I used to knit?

Anyway, today it is the Charming Handbag from Bend-the -Rules Sewing. I want to love this book. I really do. The projects are adorable and I have made 3 of them so far since I got the book and 2 of them had serious errata issues and one of them was extremely difficult to follow (this one) The directions were spotty. It produced a very cute handbag, but required me to do a lot more thinking about construction and a bit of investigation on the internet for the errata (like missing pieces of the pattern errata)

In other news, I think this handbag is a little too cute and little for me. Tim Gunn, Fashion Guru, says that bigger women should have bigger handbags, and this one is just tiny and adorable. With a bow!

The fabric is Moda from my Local Fabric Store. Don't ask me the specific type.

Homeschool Wednesday

I would like to keep a bit of homeschool on here regularly just to keep family (Hi Grandma K!) updated. We are most definately full time homeschooling now. Come Parent/Teacher conference week (early next month) we'll do an exit "interview" of sorts with his former teacher and the academics administrator.

The photos above are from today's main lesson. We are covering the Four Processes. Z is already ahead of basic addition and subtraction, but I want to tell the stories so I can use the squirrels for more advanced math later on, so we are hitting these as a review and then working on some worksheets to advance his skills afterwards.

He is still having trouble with the drawings sometimes and especially with spacing his work appropriately on the page and writing his number sentences clearly. I am trying to slow down his tendency to rush through by requiring different colors for different things in the equation (each symbol has its own color plus= green, minus = red, equals = purple, etc.) Having to pick up the different crayons requires him to at least approach it with a touch more thought.

We are also practicing skip counting in preparation for multiplication which begins tomorrow. He can already skip count through 2s, 3s, and 4s.

We are doing a Form Drawing lesson during this week and we are working on standing forms - especially circles and squares. Today we're going to get the big chalk out and hit the sidewalks instead of the paper. And then we're going to walk the forms we draw on the sidewalk.

Then this afternoon - more knitting. My goal is to have him continue working on a large project to help him build up his ability to work towards a larger goal. It is slow going.

A FO and a peek into my house

I took this photo because I realized I don't have a Completed Projects 2008 section yet (or I didn't) and since I just finished this... I'm not even going to do a real FO report on this. It *is* just a Ball Band Washcloth. The funny part is the photo. I took the photo while the kids were sitting down to snack and I had sat down with a few things to read and saw the washcloth sitting over to the side and so I grabbed my camera to take a photo. So you have a photo of the table, the cloth, the knife used to spread the almond cream cheese on B's crackers, dripped spots from B's cup of tea which he drank exactly two sips of, but had to have a full cup like me, my Southern California Day Hikes book (with page held open by a matchbox car), the catalog from Paper, Scissors, Stone (I'm obsessing about recorders again in addition to some other art supplies), and my copy of Living Crafts magazine's 1st issue that a friend of mine put together. I love this magazine, BTW. I highly recommend it. And I need to order my subscription! The 2nd issue is out.

We're off to letterbox this afternoon as soon as DH arrives back from Mexico. Should be any time now. Yay!

Homeschool this week

R Rapunzel Chalkboard Drawing
Originally uploaded by woolfairy

Well, the end of this week anyway.

Today we finished the 1st Language Arts block and here is the chalkboard drawing from that block. And then here is Z's representation of that and our representation in braided challah. Yum!

Gone to Vegas

We headed off to Vegas this past weekend for a family wedding. It was a first trip for all of us except DH who is an old hand at Vegas. First off - it is a crazy long drive. Or maybe that is because we missed a turn off and went waaaay out of our way and travelled 352 miles instead of 316 miles (but got to see Edwards AFB) Yikes. We fixed it by the time we were headed back though. No fools we!

We got there later then we intended therefore and weren't able to hook up with the family that night. Instead we took in the sights of Paris and even went to the top of the Eiff-faux Tower. Gah! Don't look out the windows as you are going up in the elevator. Just saying. At least we chose to eat dinner afterwards.

Saturday morning after breakfast we headed out to Red Rock Canyon for a little hiking/letterboxing. This place is truly amazing. The boys watched some climbers in full gear climbing some of the rocks there and even practiced a bot of rock climbing themselves. We then took the 13 mile scenic drive and stopped off around mile 7 so Z and I could hike into ice box canyon after a letterbox. And when they say Ice Box Canyon, they aren't kidding. It must've been 15 degrees cooler there then at the car and we found a waterfall that was iced over. Z was so amazed that he couldn't stop talking about it and lists it as the very best part of the entire trip.

We raced back to the car and then back to the strip because we didn't want to be late for the wedding. We made it with minutes to spare and then proceeded to have a wonderful time and I reacquainted myself with relatives I hadn't seen in more than 2 decades. Turns out my cousin and I have most everything in common! Except that she has girls.

Sunday we hit the Shark Reef at Mandelay Bay. What a fantastic place. And then we joined the family again for a little Superbowl time. By the time we were done there, the boys had bonded with their cousins and Great aunts and uncles and we had all had a marvelous time and were exchanging contact information.

Then Monday, as if we hadn't had enough fun, on the drive home, we hit the Calico Ghost Town outside of Barstow and the boys and their dad had a blast. The Mystery Shack was the pronounced favorite, but I think they liked the rock shop pretty well too!

Been awhile, huh?

There's a bunch that has been going on thoug. In December I got pretty sick. I started with bronchitis, got a bit better, went on a cruise and came home with walking pneumonia, a son with strep throat, a littler son with a bit of a tummy bug and a husband with his very own cold. Yay us. And then a birthday for my newly 7yo boy, oh and don't forget Hanukkah in there and school vacation and then DH's 2 weeks off... Well you get the picture.

So now our lives have gotten back to normal. Well a new normal. We are now homeschooling. Z had some trouble at school with bullying and social inclusion issues and so we had some discussions with his teacher and the administrator and agreed that we would try out a half homeschooling/half regular school (basically mornings at home and school from lunchtime on) This lasted for 2 weeks until the head of the independant study department freaked out on us and put the kibosh on it by phone until furter notice and then scheduled a meeting to discuss it a week later. Now, in the meantime, DH and I both noticed that Z is doing much better. He still has plenty of growth to make up in order to be as socially mature as his peers, but things are improving. His work is improving. His handwriting has grown by leaps and bounds. His artwork has also.

We took a trip last week to the Carpinteria Bluffs to see the Seal Rookery preserve :





This trip involved a couple mile hike, a chance to explore tar seeping from the ground (it is pretty close to Carpinteria's Tarpits park) And of course see some seals out near the shore from the bluffs above. The birthing and baby rearing doesn't really hit it's peak until the end of next month though, so we'll be going back late February or early March to check it out again.







And here is some of his artwork from this week:

Dark Days Dinner Challenge Week 8

Back to the ocean for this week's dinner.


Dinner: before

Since we live so close, we are lucky to be able to turn to the fisherman's market for the occasional dinner as well. This week we picked up some locally caught white sea bass and prepared it potato crusted with some pretty Yukon Gold potatoes from today's market I boiled up a few more potatoes for the possibly finicky younger set and then prepared some pan braised rapini. Yum! The only one who didn't like it was the 2 1/2yo, and bitter greens to a toddler is a tough sell.


Dinner: after



DH and Z at the summit of their climb

Last weekend we went out letterboxing again, which we try to do once or twice a month. This time we went after a box that was a bit of a cipher and that nobody had found yet. I finally figured out the clues and the specific location and the 1st chance we got ( weeks later!) we headed out and we were indeed the 1st finders on the box. So amazing! And these are the views from right near there. Ocean to one side and mountains and valleys to the other. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Dark Days Dinner Challenge Week 7

This week we are trying the honey baked lentils and roasted delicata squash that have been making the rounds in the challenge. I had all the ingredients on hand (even local ginger! but I had to use fresh) The challenge here, which I haven't gotten to yet, is whether or not my kids will eat the food prepared for them. They are funny about beans and funnier about winter squash. So I have leftovers (yet another batch of potato, leek and sorrel soup) to pull out in the case of a miss. But since I am a fan of all things lentil and squash-ish at least I will be happy with dinner. (except this one squash and black bean burrito recipe I made one time. Oh what a disaster) Of course, it is SOP around here that if Mommy likes it, no one else does. Why is that? And, BTW, on a related note, how is it even possible to dislike tortilla espagnol?

This weekend is a local smorgasbord though of food and craft. We need to head to Ojai on Sunday for farmer's market and toy store action (and a little tea shop thrown in for the heck of it. And it is not one of those frou frou afternoon tea kinds of places, but rather an old-fashioned place where you go in for breakfast and get beans and toast and potatoes and tomatoes and a pot of strong tea. Or a regular fry-up if you are so inclined. I love that place.) Then back home to head out to the Holiday Craft fair where I hope my favorite potter is going to have a booth. I have a few things I want to pick up.

And then next week: Hanukkah! Tons to do and latkes to eat. And although Food on the Food's Daikon potato latkes look scrumptious, I will never get DH to go for them. This is the man who is horrified by the thought of a blueberry bagel! I wonder if I can buy potatoes by the bushel and if it would be cheaper? I have a whole giant drawer in my kitchen devoted to them and they really don't go to waste around here. I wish I had the room to plant potatoes here. But my little 20' x 3' garden is already chock full and has no room for potatoes. Now if only my artichoke would bear. It is huge, but so far, nothing this fall. Ah well.

ETA: Surprised again. I hardly got any of the squash because the kids wanted it all! No lentils though. Yay leftovers.

Dark Days Dinner Week 6

No photos tonight, although if the light is good tomorrow when the leftovers come out, I will try to take some. This is not a particularly photogenic meal. Maybe I should have taken photos of the ingredients instead.

Tonight's dinner was Potato Sorrel soup. It is a variation on the old standby Potato Leek soup, but leeks are nowhere to be found at the market lately and I have plenty of storage potatoes and onions bought from there. So I picked up a bunch of sorrel last week and added it to the soup this evening. Is it strange to have an almost 7yo and 2 1/2yo cheering the addition of leafy greens? Not that I'm complaining. Actually I like the soup better with the greens as well. They give a brightness that really is missing without them.

Dark Days Dinner Week 5

Usually I do this later in the week - specifically the day after I go to the farmer's market - but this week I had things to use up, so Monday was the day. It doesn't photograph well, and I had to get in a photo before my 2 hungry children scarfed down all the hard-boiled eggs. This is the only one of 6 that lasted long enough for a photo op. Also on the menu is locally made pugliese bread spread with the last of our goat cheese in oil and a trio of roasted root vegetables (potatoes, turnips and parsnips) with local olive oil and rosemary from the garden.

The children, picky fellows that they were tonight, wouldn't touch the parsnips and turnips with a 1o foot pole so I had to pick through theirs and remove the offending pieces so that they would eat the vegetables at all. I remember the good old days when Z would eat roasted turnips straight and beg for more. And B. Well B will eat whatever Z does and won't eat whatever Z won't. 2 year olds are like that I suppose. Although he'll tell you he's 6.

Dark Days Dinner Week 4

This week our dark days dinner was chicken pot pie. Made with leftover chicken from the market and leftover, frozen veggie broth from last week, and of course the requisite fresh veggies - carrots, celery, potatoes, turnips, onions - and one major cheat - frozen puff pastry. It was from the freezer and had been there awhile, if that helps! LOL But so far as I know, there are no flour producers in our general regional area, so any flour product is a cheat. Plus, I've made homemade puff pastry and it is a major PITA to do. The photo is actually from the leftovers that I am heating up for lunch for B and myself for lunch. Usually there aren't leftovers when I make this, but DH worked until 11:30 last night and so he didn't want it when he got home. More for the rest of us!

This recipe is one I have adapted from several recipes and my own trial and error over the years and have jotted down notes onto a recipe pad. Very few of my recipes are actually mine. Mostly they are the bits that I have pulled from this or that cookbook, of which I seem to have fewer of than ever. I used to love to buy and collect cookbooks and all other manner of books, but here in my frugal age of motherhood, I hardly ever buy anything for me anymore. Just one of those things I guess. So as a result, I have a smallish collection of cookbooks that are almost falling apart from use.

I read an editorial a few months ago talking about family dinner and how regardless of whether it is homemade or made using the myriad of prepackaged frozen foods available, dinner takes about the same amount of time to prepare. It was based on a study published in the British Food Journal and performed right here in SoCal by UCLA's Center on Everyday Lives of Families (no really) called "Dinner preparation in the modern United States". (no really)

Basically it found that 70 percent of the dinners analyzed were made at home, meaning of course no restaurant food. But nearly every one of those "homemade" meals did include commercially prepared food (i.e. Hamburger Helper , frozen stir fry mix, jarred sauces, etc) Only 22% used none or very little of those types of foods. Only 3 times were recipes from cookbooks used and none - none! - used hand written recipe cards or recipes clipped out of newspapers. Best part? The dinners averaged a "statistically insignificant difference" in the amount of time it took to prepare, from start to finish - an average of 52 minutes.

The editorial goes on to say how strange this is when food based television shows are so highly rated and cookbooks are such best-sellers.

And I think that this isn't how I was raised or how I live my life. Sure we have convenience foods in our house, but they are expensive and for occasional use, unless you count our scheduled Tuesday battered halibut from TJ's. If they ever stop carrying it, my kids will have their week completely thrown off. They mark time by it, LOL! I remember as a teenager having a friend come over to dinner and remarking about how amazing it was that my mom made mashed potatoes from real potatoes. Funny thing is, I never had the boxed kind until I was an adult and had some at a friend's house. It never seemed like that much of a time savings to me to not just use actual potatoes.

Off to serve lunch!

Harry Potter and the Painted Cave

A post in two acts.

Act I Halloween

Z wanted to be Harry Potter for Halloween. Since he is a big fan after having read Sorcerer's Stone recently (about 5 times!) I figured he would want to have robes he could really use for pretend play, so here we have Hogwarts robes fully lined (and reversible so he could theoretically pretend they are Quidditch robes as well) There aren't any actual branded Harry Potter robe patterns, so it is necessary to take another pattern and alter it so you can have something similar. I used Simplicity Pattern 3597, because Simplicity patterns were on sale for 99 cents. I'm sure there is another pattern company's pattern that is equally able to be altered. This one was pretty simple to adjust. I change the sleeve shape, and, instead of doing the facing I fully lined it. All in all it wasn't too difficult, but I totally zoned on the sleeves and they are a bit wonky, but not bad.

Here he is.



Act II

The Painted Cave



This cave is up in Santa Barbara and it a relic of the Chumash Indians who lived in this area (they still have a reservation nearby) This cave retains paintings created in the late 1600s using shells, red ochre and charcoal. On the left there is a painting that is believed to depict a solar eclipse that occurred on November 24, 1677. I really can't believe you can walk right up to it, peer in through the bars blocking total access and see this. All these pictures are taken with a flash, because otherwise you would be able to see nothing.



Here are the guys, goofing off in some of the nearby niches.




And here is B, looking for all the world like the cover of a Hardy Boys, the Toddler Years book.

Week 3 Dark Days dinner

Our dinner this week, well the local one anyway, is courtesy of living here in Sunny SoCal at the ocean. It is Fisherman's Stew, made with kid-caught (from the ocean) rockcod. DH and Z went out on an all day fishing expedition on the ocean and caught quite a bit of sand dab and rockcod. Here they are with the rockcod from tonight's meal.



In addition to the fish, the stew contains homemade veggie stock (from farmer's market veggies) and fish stock (from the aforementioned fish) and of course veggies (even tomatoes still!) also from the farmer's market and some locally made pugliese bread. Served in a locally made pottery bowl. That has to count for something. Actually, that is one of my favorite things - handmade (and locally made) pottery. I loooove my beautiful bowls. When Z was in Waldorf kindy a couple of years ago, the teacher had handmade pottery bowls and cups for use each day at snack and I loved them. They had such a beautiful weight and a special feel to them. So much more then a machine made bowl has ever appealed to me. I never knew where to pick some up, but on the 4th of July, I ran into a couple of potters at a local fair and I snapped up this bowl, an omelet bowl and a berry bowl (with drainage holes). Since then I also have picked up another bowl, but I am always on the lookout. It is a slow process since the items aren't cheap, although they aren't expensive either. They are fairly priced, but in a one-at-a-time kind of way. One of my favorite local potters is http://www.ginagart.com/ My berry bowl is one she made.



On the downside of the challenge, I put up some oven dried tomatoes in olive oil a couple of months ago and went to use some this week (using things put by and all) and they had gone bad. One jar had some tomato sticking out of the oil and had starting to grow fuzz, so I tossed it, and the next was just slimy and wrong textured and I wasn't comfortable after the batch before being bad, so I tossed that too. Thus ends all of my put by oven dried tomatoes. Bummer.