Foods, Voltron, etc.

Today I made blueberry banana muffins.  They're sort of a staple around here.

I had a splash of guilt.  Bananas are bad.  This is because, according to the book I've been reading, they are unreasonably cheap.

Think about it this way - bananas have to come from far away to get into our supermarkets.  It must cost an awful lot of fuel and preservative conditions to get them here intact...  so why are they the cheapest fruit around?  Well, the money loss has to be from somewhere, and according to my latest reading, it's lost on the workers.  I'm not so surprised.  This is so often the case.

Bananas will probably not be leaving our menu any time soon.  They are the best egg replacement I've managed to find, and since most of my baking has to be vegan (my son has egg and dairy allergies), it's tough to say we won't be using bananas.

It does have me thinking about my foods.  Their sources.

Blueberries are NOT in season.  They must travel far and wide to arrive here in my grocer's produce section as well.  So what to do?

The jury is still out as far as what our family will decide.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to the farmer's market openings come April around these parts.  I can't wait to have fresh produce in the house that I can feel great about.

Jonah is still rebelling.  He had a fit this morning because we got the organic rice milk rather than the vanilla kind he's used to.  He told me in the past he prefers to have the original when up against the vanilla flavored, but today that was not the case.  He still used it on his cereal, but not without protest.

I had this thought that I'd like to move into a big old farmhouse and go ahead and do the homesteading thing.  Whole hog.  Just go for it.  Grow all our own produce, raise chickens, make friends with the neighbors and share things, knit like crazy...  It seems great in a dreamy sort of way - but when I think about it I'm not sure I have that kind of self-discipline.

I'm getting there.

Today I spent a good amount of time thinking about the spring garden I'm hoping to plant.

We don't have a lot of space, but I'm hoping to plant tomatoes, peppers, and squash - some of our family favorites when it comes to what we use in our cooking.  Jonah will have his own little plot where he can plant the veggies or flowers of his choice.  I'm going to get some seeds for native flowers to attract butterflies and bees and a handy bird feeder because I love to watch the birds and the bees and butterflies will be great for the garden as they pollinate the flowers on all kinds of blooms.

I've learned a lot about gardening in the last year through reading and experience.  Perhaps this year's harvest will yield a bit more than last year's.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to impose on Jonah's Voltron marathon long enough to head out to the library tomorrow, get some healthy food into his belly, and spark some interest in Valentine baking and garden planning.

We'll see how that goes.

On another note - with our tax return we will be just $13 away from paying off our car and one step closer to living debt free!

$

I hate to post about money, but it's what's on my mind right now.

We are doing so much better than we were a year ago today.  And a world better than two years ago today.  Two years ago today we were subsisting on homemade bread and canned beans and pasta.  I learned to be creative with those three things.  And I learned other things too - like being thankful, and a little bit about humility, and that when you need something and someone offers it to you, it's alright to take that thing.  The last lesson was the hardest of all.

Last year at this time we were able to change things, upgrade our food situation a little, pay off some debt.

This year we are attacking our debt with as much vengeance as possible and putting all the extra cash toward getting out from under these monetary chains.

Sometimes it doesn't feel that great.

When you work hard to make some extra money and then you write a check for the total amount and dump it into your car payment instead of a vacation or new clothes or art supplies or a new computer for your kid or books or...  sometimes that hurts.

I KNOW it's going to be worth it in the end.

And we have put the money we were paying for Montessori toward unschooling and it has made a world of difference.

We've been motivated to re-arrange the house, and it finally feels...right.  Like these rooms belong in a house that is our family's.

We now have an art studio and a library - constructed from things that we already own.  I love the new additions.  I'm glad for the deletion of the old ones.

We still need to replace the water damaged carpet in the library, re-touch all of the paint, and we'd like to get some wood floor for the art studio, but I'm happy with the replaced light-bulbs and the use of so much random stuff in a cooperation for something new.

Netflix.

A couple of months ago we invested in Netflix streaming.

As many of you know, we gave up TV service in order to save money about two years ago - maybe more than that now - maybe 2.5 years ago, not sure...regardless, we gave it up and I really feel it was a GOOD decision.

Another decision was this Netflix streaming thing.

We thought it would be a good way to access quality movies and programming for the kids and for us without having to pay for the TV service again.

I'm not sure this was the best decision - looking at it now.

It's sort of like the kids still have TV.

Granted, we can monitor what is viewed very closely by using our queue and teaching the kids from where they are allowed to choose their programming, but TV has sort of crept back into the house like a monster on tiptoe.

I'm not sure what to do about this.

Some days, I just want to throw the TV out the window.

Other days, when I'm snuggling with my kids eating popcorn and watching a great movie - I'm so glad we did what we did!

A lot of people have been telling us we just need to invest in an antennae for the house so we can watch local broadcasting.  This is a thought, but it is an item for which we would need to budget.  It will have to make it onto our list of priorities and make it to the top.  I'm not sure it's looking so good for that particular item.   Our budget is TIGHT.  I'm not sure everyone around us understands just how tight we're talking about here - but it's a tight budget.  I don't know how to better describe it without giving you the numbers to the decimal places.

We are doing better than we were in the past.  When I first started this blog we were having trouble putting food on the table.  Period.  We've moved passed that point now and we are okay with getting food on the table, but buying clothing, for example, is a struggle.  So dropping $25 - $50 on an antennae is a tough call.  I know it will pay for itself if we drop Netflix.  I get it.  But it's still a line item on the budget that is more than double the cost of the monthly Netflix fee.  Yes.  I realize that the antennae would be a one-time fee.  But what if it doesn't work?  At our old house we did this and the antennae picked up zilch.  That's when we first got Direct TV.

I think that, in all honesty, we WILL get an antennae one of these pay periods.  I'm not sure when that will be.  Right now I'm focused on getting the kids into warm clothes for the fall.

In the meantime, I'm having hard time maintaining diligence when it comes to TV watching.

All of my unschool peeps seem to feel that TV watching is positive, and that kids can benefit and that restricting the amount of TV kids can watch is detrimental to the whole philosophy (I know that  you non-unschooling parents feel differently - you don't need to tell me all about it - I know, I promise.).  I see the point in this - but Jonah is SO emotionally connected to the television.  He's started a fear of ghosts because I allowed him to watch Scooby Doo - thought - what's the harm?  Obviously, I was wrong about that.  He's SO sensitive.

And the tantrums have started again.  From Maeryn this time.

Her favorite activity seems to be watching Dora or The Wonder Pets.

I know these are great shows for kids - but really?

I'm working on being more attentive.  Taking my creativity more to the table and brainstorming better ideas for keeping the kids occupied and making "real life" more interesting than television.  But I've got a long way to go.

So I guess what I'm wondering now is - do we keep the Netflix?  Or do we cancel it so our kids won't have the access?  Do we go back to library DVD rentals?  Do we chuck the TV out the window?

I know this is a question of my own self-discipline.  I know that I should have more than I do.  But when it comes right down to it, I need to step up to the plate and just come out and say - I am sometimes lazy.  I sometimes allow the television to babysit my kids so that I can get things done around the house, so that I can read in peace, so that I can yes - write on this very blog.  Maybe I need to cancel the Netflix subscription for ME.  So that I can get off my duff and be a better mom.

I think that's the bottom line here.

It's not them.  It's me.

And that is my argument with myself for the day.  See - I learned something!

Stay-cation: Entry 4.

On Friday we decided to spend the day in DC, which is about an hour north of us.  We drove the 45 minutes to the Metro station and then hopped on and headed to the Smithsonian.

We spent the morning at the Air and Space Museum (albeit after a lengthy time trying to get out of the house and get everything packed) and ate a packed lunch in their food court.  Interesting to see everyone else with their McDonalds and us with our sandwiches and raisin boxes from home.

Michael and Jonah - reading and taking in EVERYTHING.

Maeryn - she needed to touch the airplane to have the full experience.

After lunch we saw a few more bits in the museum and then we walked across the Mall to the National Gallery of Art.

I'm pretty sure I had an easier time of it than Michael.  He was pushing Maeryn in the stroller, who insisted on yelling everything she said so that she could hear herself echo in the vast chambers of the museum.  She didn't want to stop and look at things, just to keep moving.  Jonah and I explored the Renaissance area and Jonah found several paintings of interest and wanted to know EVERYTHING about them.  We spent between two and ten minutes on each painting, just taking it all in.

The kids and me in the Grand Foyer of the Gallery.

Jonah in front of one of many Renaissance oil paintings depicting Biblical stories.

One of my favorite pictures of Maeryn to date.  Pure joy in front of the fountain in the Grand Foyer as we prepared to leave the gallery.

After the National Gallery we moved on to American History and stayed until they closed.  We found a kids' area about inventors and inventions and both Jonah and Maeryn had a blast.  They built blocks and created new pathways and experimented with wind power.  I also got the experience of changing a poopy diaper on a marble slab in the very fancy restroom.

Maeryn with the blocks and "tipsy table" at the American History Museum.

When we finished at the American History Museum, it was time for dinner.  We strolled through the Ronald Reagan plaza to the tunes of a fantastic band and waded through a sea of people swaying and dancing to the music to arrive at Ollie's Trolley - a locally owned diner.  We weren't sure they were veg friendly, so we checked out the surrounding chain restaurants, but all of them served tree nuts or peanuts or didn't serve actual dinner food, so we went back to Ollie's.  I am SO glad we did.

The restaurant itself is a little run down, but the food was amazing.  Best veggie burger I have ever experienced, great fries, and super thick milkshakes.  Jonah said it was the best hamburger of his life and Maeryn wolfed down everything we put in front of her.  It was a nice change of pace in the day and we all left feeling full and happy to jump back on the Metro and head for home.

When we arrived at the Metro station, however, we realized it was ten minutes until the rates changed (to a much cheaper fare), so we decided to take a stroll past the White House and show the kids where the president resides.  We got to see Marine 1 landing and snapped a photo of Jonah and me in front of the back entrance.

We arrived home well past bedtime after a REALLY great day in the city.

Stay-cation.

A staycation (also spelled stay-cation, stacation, or staykation) is a neologism for a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions.

(above is the actual definition from a web-based dictionary.)

This is our plan for the next week.

Originally, we had planned to spend this week at a cottage in Chincoteague Island, but our plans were foiled by lack of funds.  No real surprise there.  In light of this, we decided that a staycation is where it's at.

We didn't really make plans for the week, just figured we'd do things as they came along - which is a big step for me when it comes to giving up any type of control, but it's natural for Michael, so he helps me out along the way and I make sure the things we say we're going to do in the end actually happen.

In our thinking about the week, my parents presented the opportunity to go and visit them for a couple of days and Dad said he would pay for our gas, so we've decided to head to Pennsylvania this evening and stay until Wednesday morning.

The rest of the week is sort of up in the air, but I'll update you as we move through this new sort of experience.  :-)