Gratitude List for Thanksgiving

It is Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and in keeping with my one little word for 2013, I would like to share all the things I am grateful for this year.

• I am grateful for the health of my loved ones. This has been a very hard year for my mother, who has had one major health crisis and now is working through another one. We have also had cancer in our family two times over the past several years, and I have worried about my own children's health at one time or another. It is very clear to me that good health should never be taken for granted.

• I am grateful for the Canadian health care system, especially after needing it for the well being of my loved ones. It may not be perfect but it is there for us when we need it. I am also grateful for all the people who work in the health care system and make the best of it even when it is underfunded.

• I am grateful to be a mother. There was a time when I thought I couldn't be one, so I am thankful to be a mother to my three beautiful daughters, who bring me joy, and keep me on my toes when I need it. 

• I am grateful for my husband who knows me so well, puts up with my crap when I dish it out, and supports me when I get a bee in my bonnet or a crazy idea in my head.

• I am grateful for my backyard garden. It has provided me with fresh, organic food right outside my door and hours of enjoyment in the sunshine.

• I am grateful for where I live, in my community and in my country. I feel safe, peaceful and happy here.

• I am grateful for the delicious, organic meal we had this weekend. It was a group effort and we pulled it off well. 

Growing and Harvesting Quinoa

After seeing a very wise gardener friend's photo of her quinoa harvest on Facebook last summer, I knew I had to add quinoa to my garden this year. I direct sowed the seeds into the end of one of my raised beds nearest my patio (mistake #1) completely unaware of what quinoa looks like when growing (mistake #2).

The seedlings came up fairly quickly and grew rapidly. Within a few weeks I had tasty baby greens similar in texture to spinach that I used in salads. However, it soon became clear that the quinoa was going to be tall. I decided to google what quinoa looks like when it is growing and I discovered, much to my surprise, that it can grow to over six feet tall! I was suddenly aware that I had planted it in the wrong spot in my garden, because it quickly blocked my view of everything else growing in the beds behind it. While it is lovely when growing, I wanted to see my cucumber trellis, mustard greens, chard and beets when I sat on my patio. Note to self: grow quinoa at the back of the garden if possible.

It certainly was a conversation piece in my garden, and I enjoyed sharing what quinoa plants look like to anyone who paused long enough in my garden to listen to me (or anyone that I could drag into my garden to listen to me).

By August the quinoa was developing the "flowering" tops where the seeds would eventually grow.

It became infested with aphids. Luckily ladybugs set up shop and happily feasted on them. My girls loved watching them and they learned about the life cycle of ladybugs as a result (yay for inquiry based learning).

By the end of August the tops turned a "calico" colour of reds and yellows and the leaves were falling off the stalks.

At this point I cut the tops off and let them dry before removing the seeds. However, I made mistake #3 when I left them on my patio table; shortly after this we had a rain storm and I had to rush out to move them to a covered area of my patio.

Now let me say right up front that I had (still have?) no idea how to remove the seeds from the bitter saponin covering. I did some online research and asked my amazing gardening friend how she did it. Then I improvised my own method based upon what I had learned.

I started by running my fingers along the stalks to pull the seeds off. When I was done I had a fairly large bag!

Because the seeds sink and the twigs and saponin float, I used a food processor to agitate on high speed and separate everything.

I knew that the saponin of soap nuts is what is used to clean clothes, but it was still surprising to see the foamy, soapy water when agitating the quinoa!

I poured off the chaff, refilled the container and put through the processor several more times for each batch until nothing floated, and put the seeds aside. I did this until there was no more left to separate.

When I had nothing but seeds remaining, I put them into the processor again and agitated on high speed to ensure that I had all the saponin removed.

When nothing was left floating I washed the seeds with fresh water until the water was no longer murky.

This is what I had left.

The total chaff is on the left and the cleaned seeds are on the right.

The next step was to dry the seeds. My friend mentioned to me that she had a problem with her seeds going moldy despite thinking they were completely dry. I don't own a food dehydrator to help with this so I decided to dry them on a low heat in the oven, which took several hours. My husband thought the house smelled amazing, but my youngest daughter kept on asking, "What that bad smell?"

This is how much I had after drying.

I learned a great deal going through this process. I know what I will do differently next year, and I am going to do some more research into the best way to dry the cleaned quinoa seeds.

What amazes me, and what intrigued me from my friend's photo of her quinoa harvest last summer, is how little I ended up after drying. I had approximately ten plants and I was left with a very small bowl of seeds, probably enough for 2 - 3 meals for my husband and myself (my daughters won't eat it).

It really brings home the idea that we should be more grateful for all of the food we eat that other people grow for us. Our food is worth more than we pay for it and yet we think it is too expensive now. My small bowl of quinoa is like gold to me. It took about three hours doing this by hand, for a small bowl. I kept saying to my husband that I am now willing to pay whatever they charge for organic quinoa.

Growing my own food has taught me so many lessons - patience, planning, acceptance and gratitude. I can now expand my understanding of gratitude to being thankful for all of the people in this world who grow organic food for us.

One Little Word

For the fourth year I am participating in One Little Word. I have been living with my word, gratitude, for almost a month now, and I think it is my favourite One Little Word so far.

On and off in 2012 I kept a daily gratitude on my iPhone, and I do believe that it made a difference for me personally. Finding something that I was grateful for each day, even on those days that just need to end, definitely did turn things around in my mind. I said that I would do something with my list, but after emailing it to myself it languished in my in box and I may have even deleted it by accident. But I suppose it is the thinking that is important, not the documenting.

Including my family in a daily gratitude is part of my 2013 intentions list. It is all too easy to complain about how the day went, the mishaps and unfortunate things that happen. I want my daughters to be resilient in the face of hardship because life does not go smoothly for very long; things always happen. I don't want my girls to have their steps backward overshadow their steps forward. Or even better, I want them to see that the backward steps in life are perhaps just nudging us toward a different path. And if I want them to believe this, I must also believe it. Yikes!

Instead of losing my cool (which I never do, by the way) on a particularly trying day in late December, I had a flash to do a family daily gratitude. I made a gratitude box (because pretty things are motivating) and announced to my family that every night, after dinner together, everyone has to write one thing for which they are grateful, then put it into the gratitude box. I never said anything about sharing, but this is sometimes part of the routine now. Surprisingly everyone (including my husband) agreed. In fact, my daughters were very excited. Pat on the back for me!

We haven't written a daily gratitude every night, because occasionally we are busy and don't all sit down together for a family meal at the end of the day. But because I leave the gratitude box on the kitchen table it is a visual reminder for us all and we do it the majority of nights.

This is a random sampling of some of our daily gratitude writing. I love my husband's:

"I am grateful that the NHL is back", and my daughter Ella's: "I am grateful for my loud screaming voice."

It hasn't been a full month yet, but I can already see some positive spin offs:

• My five year old is sometimes so excited to write her gratitude that she does hers before dinner. A few times she has even said part way through the day that she knows what she wants to write for her gratitude, or if another thing comes along she asks if she can write two for the day! 

• If someone has a stinker of a day we have fun guessing what they are going to be grateful for; sometimes it lightens the mood because we make up funny ones for each other. 

• Once or twice my daughters have said that they have nothing to be grateful for that day, and I appreciate the discussions we have had about their lives and others they know. This has been good for my five year old, who naturally seems to be more of a glass half empty sort. I worry about this and I'm glad that doing a daily gratitude forces her to think of positive things. 

• My almost three year old was in emergency last week with a sore leg and we were all worried it was broken (thank goodness it wasn't!). My older daughters were quite anxious about this so our discussion for the daily gratitude expanded from this into the importance of health. I find that this is hard for young children because unless they have had direct experience with someone who has been seriously ill or died, it doesn't resonate with them. They think in terms of catching a cold or the flu and because they always get better they don't think to be grateful for good health.

• I am grateful that my eight year old is starting to understand that our deepest gratitude should come from non-tangible things in life. Happiness does not come from stuff. 

• I love how doing the daily gratitude makes my girls write more. My eight year old is starting to discover journaling and making personal lists and so independently seeks opportunities to write at home, but my five year old is an emergent writer. When she has to write her gratitude she asks us lots of questions about sounds in words and I love the invented spelling she does on her own. Yay for motivation!

I don't know what I'm going to do with all the slips of paper in the gratitude box at the end of the year. Perhaps they can be glued into a scrapbook? Or put into envelopes by month and into a scrapbook? I'm open to suggestions. 

I am grateful for my One Little Word.

......................................................................

Gratitude Box D.I.Y.

To decorate my gratitude box I used a shoe box, scraps of decorative paper from my scrapbooking stash, chipboard letters (magazine letters or letters cut from paper could be used as well) and modge podge (I don't like the glossy look for this project so I used matte modge podge).

First I carefully measured the paper to fit on the five visible sides of my shoe box.

Then I applied a thick layer of modge podge to one side and carefully placed the piece of paper to top.


After slowly smoothing the paper to remove any air bubbles or wrinkles, I applied a layer of modge podge on top of the paper and smoothed the paper with my fingers one more time. *

I repeated this for each side of the box (excluding the bottom - I don't need it covered).

* Immediately after applying the layer of modge podge to the top of the box I placed the chipboard letters directly on top, then added one more layer of modge podge over the letters.

New Year Intentions

At the end of the year I wrote about how I am proud of myself in what I accomplished in 2012, as a highlight reel for the year. Now that it is the new year people tend to look at the year ahead and plan what they hope to accomplish. I'm not big on making new year resolutions because we all know how those turn out, don't we? Instead, I will be participating, unofficially, in Ali Edward's One Little Word for 2013, as a guiding principal for the year, as something that I want to remember to guide my actions.

For now, however, I want to list some intentions I have for 2013. Or perhaps these things I want to learn are for the next two, five or ten years, because I'm not into beating myself up if I don't accomplish them. That would be too much like resolutions, and once resolutions are broken it is too easy to give up and forget about them.

Here are my intentions:

1. Learn about canning: we no longer have BPA in water bottles in Canada, but for some reason it is ok to still have BPA lining cans of soup and tomatoes. I want to learn how to can so I can have yummy home cooked meals with tomatoes that I know are free from BPA.

2. Learn how to use my sewing machine: I promised myself that I would do this in 2012, but alas it did not happen. Perhaps it is from high school trauma in sewing class when I almost failed home economics because the hem on my apron didn't line up evenly. My mother has known for a while that I wanted to overcome this as she gave me my sewing machine quite a few years ago, but she has used it more than me. I have this notion that I must sew one Hallowe'en costume for my children before they grow up because my own mother always made the most amazing outfits for me and my brother. There are so many eco projects I want to do that require sewing so I am determined to do this one in 2013. Ooops, this sounds eerily like a resolution.

3. Continue with my biking goal, as discussed here and here.

Biking in the summer with my wee one in the bike trailer. 

4. Expand my abilities with knitting and crocheting: I made infinity scarves for Christmas presents this past Christmas. I also gave my older daughters knitting needles and they are currently enjoying learning how to knit. After posting my 2012 Highlight Reel on Facebook, a friend, who is an amazing knitter, offered her services as a teacher/mentor. I look forward to taking her up on this!

A butterfly dish cloth and gnome knitted project I recently completed.

5. Try geocaching: I enjoy getting outside for fresh air and exercise, and just for the joy of being outside, but sometimes it is hard to get kids to go outside as reward in itself on less than perfect days. I know several people who love geocaching and they say their kids love it so I'm wondering if this might be the hook to get them outside with me. I've downloaded a beginner geocaching app for my iPhone but haven't started using it yet.

6. Learn about winter gardening: I am slowly learning about backyard vegetable gardens but I was too late to have a winter garden this year. I purchased a winter gardening guide at the UBC Botanical Garden this past summer when we tried out their rainforest canopy walk for the first time (I highly recommend it - my girls loved it) and I am going to read it again and be prepared mid summer to organize and prep a winter garden.

Some reading to keep me busy over the winter.

7. Make more whole food meals: When I became a mother I lost my cooking mojo. Perhaps it was because I was up every one to three hours feeding a newborn. Or maybe it is because my children are very fussy and would not eat all the delicious whole food meals that I used to enjoy cooking. I want to reduce the amount of processed, quick foods that we have had around our house to help us cope with being tired from long days (and nights) and busy schedules. I need to remember that we are literally what we eat and food is the best medicine. I also know how time consuming preparing whole food meals can be; before having children I was on a very restrictive candida diet that eliminated all processed foods and I was able to spend a large portion of time each day preparing meals (especially on my summers off). I can no longer devote that amount of time to prepping and cooking meals. I also know that it will take time for my girls to be receptive to trying new foods.

Delicious quinoa salad with avocado, cucumbers, carrots, sprouted beans, chickpeas, 

sunflower seeds and amazing  organic thyme garlic vinegar made by the Sharing Farm.

8. Mediate: Before children I used to mediate on a regular basis (perhaps not daily but certainly weekly). I felt more grounded and at peace when I did this and I am missing it. I know this will be difficult because finding even five minutes to myself in a home with three young children and a husband who works from home is close to impossible. But if something is important I should find the time for it.

9. Cut back on, or eliminate, coffee: I love almost everything about coffee. I love the smell of freshly ground and brewing coffee. I love the ritual of brewing coffee. I love the social aspect of sitting down to chat over a coffee. But I don't love how I have become a prisoner of coffee. I am no longer a functioning person until I have that first mug each morning and I am noticing that I have built up a tolerance to the effects of coffee. I don't like feeling like something controls me as coffee does. For a number of years I eliminated coffee from my life and I didn't miss it. Knowing I am an all or nothing person I think I need to cut out coffee for a while, then make it an occasional drink rather than a daily drink.

10. Be grateful: Resilience is the one of the new buzz words in parenting and education circles and resilience helps people carry on and even thrive in the face of adversity. One of the ways to help develop resilience is to have a sense of gratitude for what one has. Even though something unfortunate, or even tragic, has occurred, we still be happy because of all the good in our life. Research shows that people who have a well-developed sense of gratitude are happier in life. Over the past year intermittently, I kept a daily gratitude list. I would like to continue this for myself and expand this to my family.

Our family gratitude box -  after dinner each member of

our family writes one thing we are grateful for that day.

11. Find natural and eco alternatives to disposable and commercial goods: I want to reduce the need to recycle things by making reusable wax food coverings instead of plastic wrap (which I have almost eliminated the need for) and cloth bags instead of plastic baggies. I want to learn how to make my own washing machine detergent, dishwasher detergent and toothpaste.  As a family we are seeking ways to reduce our toxic load in our personal care products, such as make up and shaving cream.