Monthly Archives: May 2010

The excitement is building….

homeschooling

Today we saw the first signs of the hatching process!

The first part isn’t visible – it’s called internal pipping and what it means is the duckling pushes its beak through the membrane into the air sac at one end of the egg.   You can actually hear the little ducklings inside cheeping.

The next sign is the external pip, when there is a visible crack in the egg.  Only one so far has an external pip, but there’s a lot of cheeping going on and it’s so exciting!  When you hear them you realize that there really are baby ducklings in there.

Tomorrow we’ll head to the feed store to pick up food and whatever other supplies we’ll need for them.   It’s going to be a busy weekend. 🙂

Avivah

Putting together high school transcripts

homeschooling

A couple of nights ago I suddenly realized that I needed to immediately complete the transcripts for my two high schoolers who are graduating in a month.  I’m ordering the diploma from a printing service because even though it’s lots more expensive than getting a standard one, it will look so much more professional and I’m also ordering a matching leather case for it to be presented in.  A diploma can only be granted by a legitimate administrator of established schools, including parents who are extended this status under compliance to state law regarding homeschooling.   So obviously a printing service can’t grant you a diploma (unless it’s one of the fake diploma mills that will give you the piece of paper you want – for a price), and this particular company will  only accept orders from legitimate sources.  Part of how they ascertain that is that they require your child’s transcripts before they’ll print your diploma for you.   I like that they’re being responsible and am happy to send them our official transcripts.  It’s just that I thought putting the transcripts together was for the far off future back in the winter when I realized we’d be graduating the kids early this year, and the far off date is already upon me!

You know how you can look at the date and not mentally correlate the date to an event?  Well, that’s what I was doing.  I know that they’re graduating on June 6, but I wasn’t mentally connecting it with needing to have my paperwork finished by now.  But I suddenly realized I have to order the diplomas (and gowns) with enough time that they arrive in time for the ceremony, and I can’t do that without their completed transcripts!

Yikes, was I feeling pressured, figuring out what official titles for their classes were, credit hours, state requirements!  Fortunately I have all the info organized as to what they’ve done educationally over the last years so it was mostly a matter of officially filling in the blanks, once I figured out what the format needed to be, how to compute credit hours, how many credits were needed in our state to graduate, etc.

I’m getting close to having them completed – I still have to compute their GPAs, and I’m finding a minor formatting issue annoying because it’s affecting some of the spacing so my dh will have to see if he can help me figure that out when he gets home.  But I feel so relieved to be finishing it so I can get this out of the way – I’m pretty good at paperwork and technical details but what  I enjoy about it is having it finished!

I’ve been so busy with putting together the Torah Home Education Conference, researching options for the two oldest kids for next year, trips I’m arranging for our homeschool group, and trying not to neglect my other kids and responsibilities, that I haven’t had much time to reflect on the significance of these transcripts.  What it means is it’s the official end of homeschooling for these children and the beginning of letting them go to start their independent lives.   It’s starting to hit me that two of my kids probably will be away next year and…well, I have mixed emotions.  I’m so happy for them that they’ve grown up so well – you can’t imagine the gratitude I feel to see the the wonderful people they are.  But watching them get ready to take the next step in their lives, away from home, is  tugging at my heart.

Avivah

My poor unsocialized homeschooled child….

homeschooling,

Sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or shake my head at questions/comments like below.  They aren’t uncommon, so I’m going to answer it here.

>>The only concern I have is the culture shock she will experience from being homeschooled and around you every day, to going away for (a year? how long will it be) a long, long time away from her family, and having this as her first real social experience. Wont it be a huge transition and a huge jump? Instead of local school, which you eschew for personal reasons, she’s jumping all the way to going to another country, away from her family? I’m confused, there’s a dichotomy here.<<

I’m not sure what you mean by dichotomy in this context, but what I think you’re politely saying is that I’m not consistent, correct?  This sentiment reminds me of people who feel I’m hypocritical because I don’t send my kids to school but I allow them to go to summer camp.  Because 12 – 15 years spent daily at school regardless of the child’s interest, and short term experiences at camp when the child chooses to be there, are obviously exactly the same thing.  🙄

The trust people have in schools to build healthy social skills in children is beautiful.  And so well-earned, too, since schools do a magnificent job in developing children with self-acceptance, confidence, and emotional maturity.  That’s why all kids who go to school are so well-balanced and socially adept – it’s because the framework has been thoughtfully created with the deep and sensitive needs of a child in mind, and much study has been done about the most effective way to help each one blossom in his own individual way.  Institutions are known to be deeply concerned about the individual and accomodate them even when it’s inconvenient.

Unfortunately, being the overprotective and shortsighted mother that I am, I keep my child out of school and thereby from any and all social opportunities that would allow her to develop independence and maturity of any sort, preventing her from being able to appropriately function in society.  If only she had the support of the school system instead of actively involved parents, how much better prepared for life she would be.  😆

In all seriousness, the unquestioned assumption that I’m seeing here is that school is where kids develop good social skills.  What support do you have for that position?  I strongly disagree with school as a positive breeding ground for good social skills, and believe that when kids develop good social skills, it’s in spite of being with their equally immature and inexperienced peers all day, not because of it.  Healthy social skills are developed much more effectively by the constant role modeling of adults.  Interesting that gang behavior, teen pregnancies, bullying, etc – are all found in significant numbers in schools – but very few take this path who have close ties with a parent.  Are the schools really getting better results than involved parents?

The next assumption is that schools prepare children for life because they are offered more opportunities to have new experiences.  This is almost breathtaking in its inaccuracy.  The kids in school have an incredibly limited life – dd has sometimes commented that when her schooled friends get together, there’s only one topic of conversation – school, which means talking about the students and teachers.  That’s it. They literally don’t have enough other experiences to draw on to keep the conversation going more than ten minutes or so before it comes back to school.

On the other side is the homeschooled child, who is much less limited in the experiences they can have.  Their learning can be more creative, they can have more trips and outings to interesting places, they can interact with those outside of their immediate peer group.  When dd gets together with friends, she always has plenty to talk about – her first year in camp (I think she was ten), it was a bit unsettling to her when girls would suddenly stop talking to their friends to listen in on her conversations because what she had to say was so much more interesting than the conversations they were having.  I realize this is hard for those who went through the school system to conceptualize, since our lives revolved around school – so it’s very hard to picture anything but a lonely child sitting at a dining room table when thinking of a homeschooled child’s social opportunities.  The inability of adults to picture the possibilities outside of school is a reflection of how stunted our imagination in this area is.

I believe that homeschooled children tend to be much more prepared to effectively interact with others in the real world, because they’ve had so many more chances throughout the years.  The opportunities will be different for different people, but there is always much more than the home itself to draw on if that’s what the family desires.  Outside of school, children learn to value others based on who they are, not how exactly they fit the ‘ideal peer profile’ (ie who’s cool).  They can become friendly with those of all ages – on Weds. when I wrote this, dd13 spent an hour shopping with a 20 year old for a family who needed the help, then babysat for several hours for a 9 year old who was home sick from school, and still had plenty of time to interact with her siblings when she returned.  Our recent Shabbos guest was someone dd introduced herself to in shul and invited over – she is in her mid thirties- and dd was able to have relaxed and friendly conversations with her week after week without either of them ever discussing age.  How many hours in school are spent having meaningful conversations or really getting to know someone?  How many 13 year olds are comfortable socially with a 35 year old – or a 9 year old?  Or their siblings and parents?  Do you think that someone who has more breadth of experience socially will be more prepared for new social situations?  I do.

By the way, I don’t ‘eschew’ schools.  I choose to focus on the positives homeschooling has offered our children rather than to make negative judgments about the educational alternatives.

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

menu plans

I noticed my freezer is getting full so this week will be using up some things I have in there that are taking up lots of space – mainly sliced yams, bananas, and lots of cauliflower.  I won’t be doing my monthly shopping until next week so whatever I’m using is what we have on hand – usually breakfasts are supplemented with fruit and milk, but I’m almost out of milk and low on fresh fruit (though I have plenty of frozen and home canned).  Lunches and dinners are supplemented with salads or cooked vegetables, and I’m going to be making a conscious effort to include greens from our garden.

Sunday – breakfast – homemade whole wheat bread, peanut butter and mulberry jam (homemade), grapefruit; lunch – broccoli cauliflower quiche, potato pudding, coleslaw; dinner – Greek lemon egg drop soup

Monday – b – sweet potato rounds with almond sauce; l – cheesy cauliflower soup; d – oat walnut burgers

Tuesday – quinoa porridge (I’m trying a new recipe but the link is for the old one); l – (picnic) carrot millet cake bars, vegetable sticks; d – vegetable pizza with whole wheat crust

Wednesday – b – buckwheat granola; l – baked potatoes, eggs; d – black bean quinoa burgers

Thursday – b – banana pancakes (grain free); l – main dish salad; d – vegetarian meatloaf

Friday – b – cashew butter muffins (grain free); l – leftovers

Snack – banana nut pudding (banana, nut butter, yogurt – blended and refrigerated)

At the end of last week I realized that I haven’t been harvesting the greens in my garden enough.  It’s a funny thing – I’ve been subconsciously avoiding picking our vegetables because I didn’t want to use them up!  But we have so many wonderful greens growing and soon the weather will be warm, so I really need to use them before I plant the summer vegetables!  I’ve been enjoying sauteeing onions, chives, and garlic with spinach, turnip greens, beet greens, and kale from the garden, then having it together with my eggs for breakfast (I eat slightly differently than the menu plan I post for my family). And this is also the season to harvest wild greens, like dandelion and plantain – they are much less bitter when the weather is still cold, and I see them sprouting everywhere.

I also have lettuce and chard growing abundantly, so I’ll be using those more this week as well.  The strawberry plants in the garden are starting to ripen and the kids have enjoyed picking and eating the freshly picked berries.

You may assume that I have loads of yard space when I mention gardening, but I really don’t.  I live in the city on a small lot, and while I’ve converted a lot of the yard to garden space (about 1/2 the available space – the other half I left for the kids play area), but I also try to maximize the planting space.  In the past I used to think that someone with a small yard had no chance of harvesting enough vegetables to be significant or to make it worth the effort, but I was really wrong on this.  I’ve done this by building raised beds and using the square foot gardening method, using vertical planting as much as possible (takes less ground space), and by improving the soil so it’s more productive (ie lots of composting of kitchen scraps!).

I planted some tomato and cucumber seeds last week, which were given to me by a lovely guest who had some left over after doing her planting, and hopefully they’ll be ready to be transplanted by the beginning of June.   My lasagna garden bed has begun sprouting some volunteer plants (when I compost, I basically just bury the veggie scraps in a hole and cover it), so I now have some potato plants, a cabbage, and a few squash plants that have popped up.  I’ll probably move them to a different location since they aren’t exactly where I want them to be, but it’s so fun to see things growing without me having done anything!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Avivah

Fun astronomy lesson

homeschooling

A week and a half ago I took my kids to the NASA Goddard visitor center for a trip on Earth day- very appropriate, don’t you think?  🙂  Today was Space Day, and so it seems like a good time to share with you a fun activity we made up last week.

Following the trip to NASA, we were doing some reading on the solar system.  As I was reading about the rotations and revolutions of the planets and moon, I was thinking that understanding what revolved and what rotated was confusing, since we tend to think of those terms as meaning the same thing, but they’re quite different regarding the planetary orbits.  I took out a globe and showed them the axis, and then had them spin it so they could see it rotating.  Then I took the spinning globe and with the globe, walked around one child who I designated as the sun so they could see the rotating Earth revolving.

Then I thought it would be fun for the kids to all be the ‘bodies in motion’.  😆  I chose one child to be the sun, one to be the Earth, and one to be the moon.  This is where things got fun.  Earth rotates once every 24 hours on its axis, and revolves around the sun once a year.  So the child who was ‘Earth’ walked around the sun once to show the revolution cycle.

Now, the moon rotates and revolves around earth at the same pace – once a month.  So at the same time the ‘Earth’ child was slowly revolving around the sun, I had the ‘moon’ child revolving around Earth.  This was a lot of choreography!  The moon had to circle the Earth twelve times in the time it took for the ‘Earth’ to circle the sun once.  A lot of laughing and fun.

Then I had them change positions so they could each experience being the moon and the earth.  I explained to them that the planets would be rotating at the same time they were revolving, but that it would be too much for us to try to demonstrate all it combined.  Instead, I had the Earth child rotate on her ‘axis’ thirty times to demonstrate the monthly rotation of the Earth (I felt a month was enough to demonstrate, as rotating 365 times to show a yearly rotation schedule would be way too nauseating!).  She quickly understood why it would be hard to rotate 365 times while revolving once around the sun!

I involved three children in this, but you can do this activity even if you have only one child.  Choose a stationary object to be the sun, and you and your child can each represent the moon and the Earth.  One you start your real life demonstrations of revolutions, you’ll see other ways to take the same principle and apply it to more parts of the solar system, if you and your child/ren are still having fun!

(This post is part of the Carnival of Homeschooling.)

Avivah

A frugal Mother’s Day gift

frugal strategies

I prepared a Mother’s Day gift that was so easy but so nice that I wanted to share it with you. And it was really frugal, too.  🙂

I got this idea from Craig’s List – someone was advertising a window herb garden for Mother’s Day.  It occurred to me that I could make my own, and since my mother doesn’t have a yard and just a few days ago told me her attempt last year to grow microgreens failed, I think she’ll really appreciate it!

I took a window garden box that I already had (we got this for free when the kids found someone had put out a pile of several brand new gardening items with tags still on for give away in the alley), and decided to fill it with four different herbs.  I didn’t think that I could fit more than that.  I dug up oregano, sage, and chives from my garden (the chives are flowering and look especially pretty right now).  I bought two lavender plants three weeks ago that I hadn’t yet put into my yard, and decided to put one in my mother’s herb garden – it’s not edible, but it smells so nice and looks attractive so it will be a pleasant addition.  I have basil seeds but since I wanted to give her plants that were already heartily growing, I didn’t include that.

I planted it so that the tall and short plants were alternated – oregano, then sage, then chives, and then lavender.  All of these plants look attractive on their own, but together lined up in this way they visually enhance one another.  I prepared this several days in advance since plants that are transplanted sometimes experience stress and I wanted them to have a chance to get used to their new home and perk up before giving it to my mother.

My only cost were the lavender and sage plants (since I had chives and oregano in the garden), which I paid .50 cents each for, and the Mother’s Day helium balloon ($1 at the dollar store) to tie onto the box itself to make it look more festive.  So $2 and less than a half hour spent to put it all together!  This is a nice gift for someone who enjoys plants but doesn’t have time, space, or energy to grow their own – all they need is a window with some sun, and they can continue to enjoy having fresh herbs for months!  (And these plants reseed themselves and will come back on their own next year.)

(This post is part of Thrifty Thursday, Frugal Fridays and Make it From Scratch.)

Avivah

Chicken Chickpea Chili

frugal strategies, recipes

Here’s a frugal and delicious new recipe ds10 made for us a couple of nights ago – this is a main dish recipe that serves ten.  (See cost breakdown below.)

Chicken Chickpea Chili

  • 2 T. coconut oil or rendered chicken fat
  • 1 c. chopped onions, leek, or scallions (I used chives from my garden)
  • 3 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 2 t. cumin
  • 2 lb. ground chicken/turkey, cooked (can also use cubed soup chicken)
  • 1 lb dried chickpeas, cooked (soak these the night before or even further in advance if you want to sprout them – you can also use 4 cans of cooked chickpeas)
  • 6 c. chicken broth
  • 4 – 8 c. kale, chopped (optional – I have this in the garden right now but you can leave it out)
  • 2/3 c. barley (optional – if you leave this out you can either decrease the broth or enjoy this recipe as a hearty soup; I left it out)

If your chickpeas aren’t cooked when you begin, put them up to boil while you prepare the rest of the dish.

Saute the onions and garlic in oil for about 5 minutes, until translucent.  Stir in cumin, mixing in thoroughly.  Add chicken, chickpeas, broth, and kale.  Bring to a boil and cook until the barley is soft, if you’re using it.  Otherwise, cook until the kale is soft.

This is a really quick recipe to put together if you have cooked chickpeas, broth, and cooked chicken on hand – which I did.  I prepared (ie soaked, sprouted, and cooked) the chickpeas in advance since I knew I’d be making this, had broth in the freezer, and had canned ground chicken in my pantry.

My cost breakdown:

  1. organic scallions – free – from garden
  2. organic garlic – .10
  3. ground chicken – 1.29 lb x 2 (bought a lot on sale and canned it)
  4. dried chickpeas – .59 lb
  5. broth – free (made with turkey bones I got free)
  6. organic kale – free – from garden

Total cost for our family of 11 – $3.27/.33 per person (which included more than one serving each) – as I’ve often said, eating well doesn’t have to cost a lot!

(This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday and Fight Back Friday.)

Avivah

Raisin Walnut Scones (grain free)

recipes, ,

I was speaking to a friend yesterday who recently took gluten out of her family’s diet and mentioned how challenging it can be to make foods the kids enjoy.  Though we’re not officially gluten or grain free, most of what I cook is, so I shared with her some recipe ideas.  I also mentioned the scones we had just had for breakfast which are gluten and sugar free, and am posting it here for everyone else to enjoy!  I made four times this recipe for our family of 11, so it’s suitable for a small family as written.

Raisin Walnut Scones

  • 2 1/2 cups almond flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, mix the wet ingredients in the other, and then combine the two mixtures.  Mix.   Add in the raisins and walnuts.  Drop by spoonfuls on a greased or lined baking pan.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, and enjoy warm with butter.

(This post is part of Slightly Indulgent Tuesday and Real Food Wednesdays.)

Avivah

More about Israel high school option

homeschooling, parenting,

I’ve had some questions about the program I mentioned considering for my daughter – I’d be engaging in wishful thinking if I said the response of most people to this idea has been positive. There seems to be widespread disbelief that I would consider this option, and I think part of this is because I haven’t addressed some understandable concerns so people think that I haven’t considered them.

First of all, I want to be clear that nothing has been decided.  She hasn’t been accepted yet and we haven’t decided if we’ll definitely let her go if she is accepted.  It’s possible I’ll learn new information that will totally change our current view and shift our decision in the opposite direction, but at this point it’s heavily leaning toward sending her.

>>I don’t understand why you would send your child to high school when she’s already graduating this year.  She doesn’t need it and it seems like a waste of her time.<<

Not only have I been asked this several times, but this is definitely the response dd is getting from all her friends.  This response underscores a major difference in how I look at education and how most people look at it.  Dd will have her high school diploma in 2 months.  She doesn’t NEED to go to more school to earn credits.  However, we see learning more as a positive, as something more than just transcripts, credits, and tests.  Although this is definitely a high school program, dd sees it more like a post-high school option for her, a chance to experience a different culture, learn a new language, meet new people – very much like a foreign exchange or transfer student.  She sees the value of the learning itself and the inherent gain in becoming a better educated person, and loves the idea of getting to travel and have new experiences.  She was planning to attend community college in the fall and this is a nice time to take a break without setting herself back significantly with her college plans.

>>Isn’t she going to be bored ?<<

No, because high schools across the world (and this country!) have different curricula; they’re not all teaching the same information.  I expect that most of what she is taught will be new to her.  History and geography will be of a different country, writing skills can always use improvement, and she’ll be doing intensive language studies for Hebrew.  The science and math classes are supposedly at a higher level than here in the US; if the testing she did last week at her screening is an accurate indication, then she feels it will be very challenging.  Additionally, math is taught using the spiral approach rather than the strictly linear approach that we have.  To my understanding, she’ll also be taking math class in Hebrew, which in and of itself will be challenging since she doesn’t yet have much experience with conversational Hebrew.  There are also three options regarding the difficulty of the classes that she can choose from.  And of course there’s the experience of being in a new country, going on trips, meeting new people – it’s not all about academics by any means!

>>And about your daughter…Bnei Akiva is also different…talk about future values…come on, you protected your kids until now….from all that I have gathered about you and your family, this is not what I would have thought you would choose for your kids…<<

You don’t use the same tool in every situation – a hammer is a great tool, but sometimes you need a screwdriver.  Different goals necessitate different choices; we view this as primarily an academic experience with spiritual possibilities, not a spiritual experience with academic possibilities, and are discussing it and preparing her for this accordingly. As an academic choice in a religious girls setting I feel that this program has the potential to be a very positive experience for her on a number of levels.  While it’s true that there are differences in worldview between us and those running this program, I don’t believe they’re inherently as significant as they they may seem.  (I’m not naive and I lived in Israel for ten years; I think I have a fairly accurate sense of what the differences in perspective are.)

I also feel that you can learn and grow from all people.  The people running this program have solid values; they’re good people.   I’m not afraid of the differences – I think learning to embrace differences and respect others who make different choices, while maintaining your sense of who you are, is a sign of maturity; at least for me it has been.  This is something that has been part of how I’ve raised my kids; that you can and should have strong beliefs but that shouldn’t mean looking down on others.

>>AND, at 15 years old???  Really young and vulnerable to send away.. Please – rethink this!  The(y) have totally different tznius (Avivah’s translation – modesty) standards…can she keep to hers withstanding peer pressure?<<

I went to Israel to study for a  year when I was 16, but because I graduated 12th grade along with my (older) peers, not one person ever commented to my mother with any concern about my age.  I agree that 15 is very young, but I also don’t think that there’s a magic number when a child is ready.  I was a dorm counselor in a girls seminary abroad, and I saw how many 18 and 19 year olds were immature and not ready to appropriately handle the independence from their families.  It’s not about the number, it’s about the readiness of the person to handle the experience.  Dd will be almost 16 when she goes; we wouldn’t consider sending a child of any age who hadn’t already demonstrated the necessary maturity and levelheadedness, but dd has proven she has these qualities time and again.

We’ve discussed some challenges that will probably be part of her experience, and part of that is that we have different expectations for her than what some of her peers may be allowed, particularly regarding level of immersion in secular culture and mores of dressing.  However, she’s also experienced this in camp for the last three summers – she’s been very grounded in her response and handled it gracefully.  I realize that there’s a difference between being away for four weeks and for ten months – but as parents, after we’ve done the best we can to inculcate them with our values, we have to gradually let them try out their wings. Trusting our kids is more than lip service; to trust them means we give them opportunities to make choices.  That can be scary for a parent because there’s no guarantee that they’ll choose what you want, but this is part of the growing up process.

In my opinion, peer dependence is the biggest concern for any parent in an environment in which kids are surrounded by same age peers all day – including your average local schools.  Dd not only hasn’t been immersed in a culture that pressures kids to conform to whatever their peers are doing for the last ten years (thereby making her less susceptible to doing things just because her peers do), but will be one of the oldest in her class and tends to be socially confident.  The combination means that I’m significantly less concerned about peer pressure/dependence than I’d be if she were one of the youngest.   She knows that you can be a fun and well-liked person without compromising your values.  Again, she’s been in this role before and is comfortable with it.

>>I know the free schooling is enticing but at what price???<<

Important decisions can’t be made based primarily on the dollars involved, even for a super frugal person like me.  There are things you do not because it’s cheaper, but because it has a value to you.   For example, I spend much more on alternative doctors, herbs, supplements rather than take my kids to the doctors/give them medications covered by my insurance.   I also spend a lot more on food than I would if health weren’t a priority to me.  We pay for homebirths out of pocket though I could have my entire pregnancy and hospital stay paid for by insurance.  So obviously getting something for free isn’t the most important criteria to me, since I’ve repeatedly demonstrated with other choices that our decisions are made based on if it matches our goals.

Not only that, free tuition in and of itself isn’t necessarily a significant savings over the alternative for dd.  I’ve successfully homeschooled for almost a decade now and spent less than $7000 on all six of the school age kids during that time ($5500 of which was for religious studies tutoring for my oldest ds).   So you can see that the costs of homeschooling aren’t exactly breaking me financially – it’s cost me less than $50 this past year for her academic costs.

In fact, sending dd to this program will be more expensive than keeping her here.  Thanks to financial aid and scholarship money (just got a message a couple of days ago about a $500 scholarship she needs to claim in the next two weeks before it goes to someone else),  community college tuition and books will be entirely covered if she stays home for the coming year.   Just the ticket and passport expenses necessary for travel overseas will run about $1500, and she’ll certainly need some kind of spending money for the year!  I overheard a couple of parents at the screening talking about how they could use the money they’re saving on tuition for a family trip to Israel to visit their child, or to buy the child a laptop with Skype so they can easily keep in touch – but that’s not my reality.  I’m considering this in spite of the costs to me, because technically the more frugal thing to do would be to keep her home.

I have so many, many thoughts on aspects of this decision and there are a number of points that could be discussed in depth (certainly I’ve thought about them in depth!).  One crucial factor in making this decision is that we know our daughter – and we have a lot of confidence in her.

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

gardening, menu plans

It’s been so busy around here that I haven’t posted my weekly menu plans for the last two or three weeks – generally I do my planning for the week on Saturday night but now that Shabbos is over so late, there’s not much time to do it and I have to get used to setting aside time on Sunday mornings.  I’ve said it before, but life runs so much more smoothly when I have the menus decided on in advance!

Sunday – breakfast – fruit, bread and cheese; lunch – split pea soup; dinner – squash apple bake, tomato salad, zucchini in sauce, and something else I still have to decide on 🙂

Monday – b – breakfast tacos; l – rice with pigeon peas; d – chicken chili

Tuesday – b – raisin walnut scones; l – lentil tomato pie; d – chili con carne

Wednesday – b – muesli; l – lima bean patties, salad; d – pizza, salad, fries

Thursday – b – almond muffin loaf; l – CORN (clean out refrigerator night/day); d – black bean tamale pie

Friday -b – polenta; l – leftovers

Breakfasts are supplemented with fruit and milk; lunch and dinners with some kind of fresh or cooked vegetables.  Now that the weather is turning hot, my kids have really been enjoying main dish salads for lunch – I make a huge amount of salad, and then we throw in eggs, nuts, chicken, or cheese, and top it with a nice dressing.  There are many variations to what you can put in and everyone likes how satisfying but still light it is.  Ironically, making a huge salad like this takes more work than things that seems much more complex – all that checking and chopping!  I may end up substituting a main dish salad for one or more of the planned lunches, depending on the weather this week.

I mentioned several weeks ago that I was seriously considering the GAPS program for my kids stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome, a dietary protocol that restores optimal digestive functioning), but dh felt that I shouldn’t do it.  Our diet is pretty good and most meals above actually fit according to the GAPS recommendations (GAPS doesn’t include grains and some beans, which I still use a bit, but most recipes above use nut flours); he has been doing GAPS for over two months and felt it was unnecessarily burdensome  to limit the food options for them when they’re all thank G-d healthy and not in need of it (though of course it would benefit everyone).

Something else that is different now that the weather is warm is that the beans need less time to sprout before being used in their respective dishes.  Today I’ll be soaking pigeon peas, lentils, and chickpeas so they’ll be available for the meals they’re called for on Monday and Tuesday, but I’ll be soaking the limas on Monday and the black beans on Wednesday – in the winter you need more time to think ahead but two days is enough for beans to sprout now that it’s so warm.

In my garden, I have kale, chard, spinach, and lettuce, which I’ll be using this week.  I’m also thinking of using the last of the turnip greens and pulling them up so I can plant something else in that spot.  When you use your garden space effectively, you can get three seasons worth of crops out of each planting space – that’s what I try to do.  When I did my monthly shopping I saw some small pepper and tomato plants at such a good price (.50 each) that I decided to get them even though it’s really too early to transplant them.  Yes, I did transplant them. 🙄  I cover each of the tomato plants on cold nights with a five gallon bucket and so far they’re looking great.  It will be nice to have tomatoes earlier in the season than in the past (usually I don’t transplant until the end of May, so this is a month in advance).  I got four kinds of peppers (4 banana peppers, 2 Big Bertha, 2 CA Wonder, 2 of something I can’t think of right now), and a couple different tomatoes – they only had grape tomatoes and First Ladies – I got four or five of each.  I included all of them in my grocery budget for last month. I also picked up a couple lavender starts and two sage for the same price (there wasn’t much of a selection beyond what I got) – I couldn’t remember if sage came back up on its own last year or not.

I also just sent off for an order of seeds on Friday, and am really looking forward to getting those.  I should get the tomato and cucumber seeds planted this week so they’ll be ready to transplant as soon as possible, but there seem to be so many things to do right now (particularly with graduation plans for dd and ds, their plans for next year, and the conference) that I can’t say with confidence that I’ll really do that this week.  I’m pretty relaxed about the garden piece  – you do what you can when you can, and if the plants go in later or not at all, it’s not the end of the world.  I also want to put up a fence this next week or two, which is a big project.  Got to keep in mind priorities!

My strawberry plants look amazing!  Last year I bought 25 of them and hardly got more than 10 strawberries, but this year they’ve spread, plus I got about another 20 plants for free from someone last year, and there are signs of lots of berries forming.  Now if I could just keep my two year old from picking them and telling me they’re dandelions.  🙂  When I bought blueberry bushes last year, I got three kinds that would bear fruit at different times, and this year the early bearers are showing signs of blueberries – we can’t yet eat them this year (have to check this with a rav) since they are only three years old, but it’s still nice to see them blooming.

Have a wonderful week!

(This post is part of Menu Plan Monday.)

Avivah