2011 Advent Festivals

ADVENT

This year for Advent I am using a book called "The Christmas Countdown" by Margie J. Harding. Our days focus on a daily devotion, story or poem, and activity. .

Advent wreath during week 2

Resources:
The Mitten
Tales From Martha B. Rabbit
Winter Eyes (poems and paintings)
Coming Through the Blizzard
The Polar Express
A Cold Snap! (poems)
Who Lives in the Snow?
A Chill in the Air (poems)
Floss
While the Bear Sleeps

Nature table

An Advent excerpt from All Year Round: 
   "As the cycle of the natural year comes to a close, the Festival of Advent opens a new Christian Year. We move from a season of remembrance for the dead, into a time of preparation for that which is to be born. Our dictionary explains the word 'Advent' as: "the coming of an important person or event." If we are expecting visitors, or an important occasion is approaching, we usually like to prepare ourselves - to trim the hearth and set the table as the old carol expresses it. So Advent is more of a time for making ready, than for celebration. Years ago it s was used for fasting, for inner reorientation, for taking the little flame that began to shine brightly at Michaelmas on an inner journey through the darkness of the soul towards the Divine Light of Christmas. Today, this long festival (23-28 days) still offers the space for peaceful contemplation, for finding oneself, even among all the outer preparations which may occupy us. 
   Advent  begins on the Sunday nearest to November 30th, St. Andrew's Day. This saint was renowned for his selflessness, and it is he who stands at the doorway through which we approach the deep mystery of God's Gift, reminding us that to receive can be a selfless deed. At the other end of the journey we come to Adam and Even Day, December 24th, and realize that we have had to retrace our origins in order to reconnect with the purpose of Christmas. The self-will of humankind called forth the need for redemption, and in the ideal of Christmas the answer to the deepest longings of the human heart can be found. To receive lovingly the apple, the symbol of the Fall from Paradise, to carry it willingly along Life's path, to enable the bright fire of the human spirit to rise out of it and gradually lighten the path for others - this is the reality of the Advent deed. Those who are closer to the mystery of birth - the young children - understand this without effort, and will joyfully participate in such Advent festivities.
   It is not unusual for the adult to experience times of struggle and isolation during Advent. Then we appreciate the children's facility for confident anticipation , their innate trust in life

Week 1:  "Getting Ready"
Examine the ways we get ready for the coming of the Messiah. This week we slowly taper down our activities outside the home in order to tune out all outside "noise." This helps us tune into God.
During the first week, we read poems and stories that focused on waiting. Most are about animals getting ready for the upcoming winter and families preparing for cold weather and snow. Each day had an activity planned to further our focus on Advent.
Day 1: Making the Advent wreath. We made dipped beeswax pillar candles and even colored them purple by melting a Stockmar beeswax crayon in with them. Then, we cut some pieces off our Christmas tree to make the wreath. During week 1, we only have shells and rocks near the wreath.

Day 2: Family secret angel gift exchange.The children and I made art for each other and exchanged "gifts."
Day 3: Make your own wrapping paper. We cut up paper grocery bags and decorated them with paint, stickers, and more.
Day 4: Make the Jesse Tree. Granted this should be done at the beginning of Advent, we chose to do this a few days into Advent, so we could add more than one decoration to it. It was fun cutting out the first week's worth of decorations, punching holes, and hanging them. I collected a branch from the woods that had a nice spread of branches shooting out from a main stem. Then, I stuck the branch in a pot with dirt in it.

Day 5: Create a gift basket. We gathered items around the house to donate to the Sudanese Lost Boys. We donated warm clothes, toys, food, and blankets. Then, we went to the thrift store and picked out a few nice items to add to the box (or bags, really).
Day 6: This is St. Nicholas Day in our home, so we celebrate all day. Today we made honey cake and mostly spent the day outside in the beautiful weather making more pine cone bird feeders to share with our animal friends. The children left out their shoes and woke up to a surprise. St. Nicholas left them bird song water whistles and dark chocolate. They also enjoyed viewing the crumbs and left over clementine peels that were left behind by St. Nicholas and his helpers. I made a little wool/felt St. Nicholas with a simple stick staff to leave behind.

Day 7: Make something sweet. Instead of gingerbread cookies or a house, we made cake pops because the children love making them. We make a chocolate cake batter, cook them in tea cake molds, and then dip them in melted chocolate once cooled. As a final touch, we add lollipop sticks to them. Not the prettiest but very yummy.

Week 2: "Who is Waiting?"
Explore those who waited for the Christ before he was born and those who waited for his return.
Day 8: Place lighted candles around your windows. We actually placed homemade beeswax candles around the house but not in windows. The important take away is to display light around the house to symbolize that Jesus came to be the Light of the World. Each night through Christmas, we will light all of the candles after dinner and sing together as a family.

Day 9: Christmas caroling in a nursing home or hospital. My children are still very young, so this year we sang carols together as a family and danced. We also took this day to prepare for St. Nicholas Day. We spent the morning with other Waldorf friends in our area to celebrate St. Nicholas Day as a group. We read a St. Nicholas story, made pine cone bird feeders in the woods, and did a secret gift exchange.
Day 10: Made Christmas cards to be given to close family and friends. We used card stock paper, and the children decorated the front of the cards. I added some final Christmas touches.

Day 11: Since we had the grandparents and uncle in town, we all spent the day together.
Day 12: In preparation for St. Lucia Day, we made cinnamon rolls and began telling the story of St. Lucia from the book While the Bear Sleeps. 
Day 13: St. Lucia Day This is a Swedish Christmas tradition that we decided to celebrate this year for the first time. During the time of St. Lucia, Christians had to worship in secret, so they went to pray in caves at night. St. Lucia would carry as much food as possible to them. To free up both hands, she wore an evergreen wreath on her head lit by candles. One version of the celebration describes the oldest daughter of each family dressing in a special white dress with red sash. The brothers dress as stars wearing white shirts and pointed hats. On the morning of Dec. 13, the oldest daughter brings buns and coffee to their family. I mainly chose to celebrate this holiday because of the story and less the tradition of celebrating. Since I have all boys, and my children are all under 5, we celebrated differently. We woke up and ate the cinnamon rolls baked the previous day and told the story of St. Lucia. That evening we lit candles all around the home, and each child walked with a candle in hand into dark rooms. This was a symbol of what St. Lucia had to do when she walked through the woods.
Day 14-25: After St. Lucia Day, things began to slow down with the Advent Celebration. Beyond our daily devotional and candy canes behind the Advent doors, we weren't as festive. We had family in town, and the celebrations were morphed into family time with grandparents and their uncle. Five days before Christmas, the boys began to receive smaller gifts left under the tree by Santa's elves. Most of these gifts fed in to our activity for that day. For example, one morning they woke up to a candle-making kit, so we rolled beeswax candles that day. Another day, they opened up a potholder loom, so I taught them how to make them. On Christmas Eve, we went to church, made cookies for Santa, and opened up a present from Mom and Dad. On Christmas Day, the children were each greeted with three gifts each left by Santa. The three gifts symbolize how many gifts Jesus received from the three Wise Men.

Next year I hope to celebrate Three Kings Day (Jan 6) more. This year we read a devotional and talked about what the day meant. Next year I hope to incorporate more festivals into the day to make it more memorable for them. It seemed like a sad day for them because we took our Christmas decorations down that evening. Next year I will wait to take the decor and tree down in the days following and also wait until they are sleeping. It's too sad for the children to take down decorations. I remember being saddened by it greatly as a child.

All in all, we had a festive Advent season and hope our celebrations become family memories for us to look forward to each year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

IgG Test Results

Today I went in to get the results of my IgG test. My naturopath had me tested a few weeks ago via blood sample. I wasn't surprised to find my sensitives include casein, dairy, and eggs. Now I finally have a reason to cut those items.

I was surprised to learn that I have sensitivities to garlic, onions, apples, bananas, strawberries, almonds, kidney beans, amaranth flour, string beans, peanuts, rice, and cocoa. I showed very little reaction to wheat (gluten) and whole wheat, which is interesting. My naturopath still feels that gluten should not be consumed by anyone, but at least I have some leeway with wheat and gluten. As for the garlic, I consume it raw daily as an immune booster, and I have obviously been eating too much of it. How's that for an opposite reaction to what I intended for my immune system? I am switching to oil of oregano, vitamin c, and small amounts of garlic each week. A rotation will keep my immune system from going into attack mode.

I did not have this test done on my three children yet, because accuracy can be difficult for children under 5. However, it is a fair assumption that they share many if not most of the sensitives with me since we eat the same food. Of course that's an over generalization, but it is a good place to start in our preventative medicine efforts. So, we will be reducing our raw milk share. I still want to get some of the raw milk...maybe I will eventually wean my family completely off of it. Eggs will be a tough one since I eat about 4-5 eggs per day. I sprout almonds and eat them almost daily. This is going to be a tough change.

That brings up another good point in this whole IgG testing. Foods that we consume repeatedly tend to develop into food allergies over time. The immune response views repetitive food consumption as an attack on the body and rejects the food. It makes sense for some of the items be represent a food allergy because I do eat a repetitive amounts of raw cheese, eggs, almonds, bananas, apples, and of course, chocolate. Man, this is going to be a tough shift. I am still researching if my next purchase will be the Ninja Blender, which works similar to a Vitamix but only costs $100. Unless I can track down a used Vitamix, which is always a possibility. I mainly need to be able to make alternative milks.

On to how this IgG test works. The company states:
   "As you review your results, you will notice one of the two types of measurements, one for the IgA antibody and/or one for the IgG antibody. Elevated IgA antibodies above normal standards may have a protective role against detrimental reactions to food allergens. The effects of an IgG mediated response are usually delayed hypersensitivity reactions, sometimes hours or even days after exposure. Symptoms produce as a result of specific type of antibody vary from person to person and very often affect how we function and feel. Even though you may have the same food sensitives as another person, your symptoms could be entirely different.
   Rotation-style eating is designed to encourage diversification of the diet and prevent the development of new food sensitives from repetitive intake."

So a good rule of thumb is to avoid consuming one single food item more than three times per week.

Here's the report.

Raw Food Eating

I wanted to share my passion with raw food eating by posting an excerpt from Mark Johnson's Rapid Raw. I am not pushing any of his products. I just enjoy the book and want to share some of his words. I am not a raw "foodist", but I do try to eat as much raw as possible with some exceptions. I like Erica Steele's outlook on raw food. She is a trusted resource for naturopath medicine in Virginia Beach. Her rule is 80/20. 80% raw, 20% cooked. A nice goal to strive for and achieve. I also must note that her raw food cafe inside Essential Wellness Center is delicious!

After being mostly raw for about 6 months, I have noticed a shift in my body fat content as Mark notes in his book. As I flush out more toxins, I have noticed a gain in lean muscle mass. My body has made more of a major shift in the last 6 months than any other time during my previous fitness and health journeys. I am even more lean and muscular now than I was back when I was immersed in triathlon training 4 hours a day (pre-kids)!I have also noticed a shift in my energy levels. Even with poor sleep due to 3 children waking up throughout the night, I no longer feel the low dip and desire to take a nap in the afternoons. These are all good things!!


An excerpt from Rapid Raw:
   "Thanks to the growing popularity of eating raw and live foods as a primary source of ones diet, there has been an increasing amount of information to help us better understand their benefits and implement their use. So I definitely suggest exploring as in depth as you care to go, but since the intent of this book is to get you raw "rapidly", I will summarize some of this information and give you the basics to get you started.
   The first and probably most reliable resource to use in the effort of understanding what we should eat in accordance to our biological design, is our common sense. Just ask yourself, "was all this beautiful looking, tasty and health promoting food put on this planet with me, for me to eat?" Or was it meant to be heated, processed, transformed, denatured, etc., then regurgitated into some package for consumption on a later date. It's also interesteing to note that we are the only species on the planet to consume cooked foods. I guess we're the smart ones?

What are raw/live foods?
   Generally a raw or live food diet consists of exclusively plant foods. However, any food that is not cooked is raw, including raw dairy, fish, and meat. Of course, as with any food, you should know and be comfortable with the safety and source of your food, as well as try to determine its effect in your body and how it may accumulate to effect your overall health.
  Trying to eat all of your food raw is fairly simple, that is until you add processed store bought foods into the mix. Depending on your knowledge of food sources and of the manufacturers themselves, it may take some investigation to determine if foods are in fact raw. One example is soy or nut milks. They may seem raw because they are served cold, but soy beans are initially cooked to destroy toxins and all milks have been cooked to destroy everything (good & bad) for a safe long life on a shelf. Other foods can be labeled raw, but the companies that manufacture them may be using their own definition of raw (for some it's heating well beyond 120 degrees).

It's all about the Enzymes:
   We all know that cooking destroys much of the vitamin content in most foods. But did you know that cooking (at 115 degrees) destroys all of the enzymes in all foods? Enzymes provide the life force for all living things as they are the spark of life found in every living cell. No plant, animal, or human could exist without enzymes. For us they are essential for everything that goes on in our body, including thinking, breathing, digestion, circulation, and the prevention of inflammation and other deteriorating influences responsible for aging.
  In its raw state, each food not only contains the enzymes that the body requires to digest and assimilate it, but it also contains a surplus of enzymes to enhance the body's abilities, energy, and in a sense, its own life force. Once cooked however, the body must expel energy to make and use it's own enzymes to digest and assimilate food properly. So even though the body is capable of processing just about anything we put into it, it seems to make sense that a diet high is raw foods will only accumulate bodily energy and longevity instead of  detract from or lessen it.

Where's The Protein
   We have been trained that protein only comes from meat, eggs, and dairy, but a well rounded plant food diet that contains a variety of foods can easily supply the protein needs of most individuals. This is especially true of a raw plant food diet due to the retention and total assimilation of nutrients. The amount of protein that a food contains does not necessarily correlate to the amount of protein that is left after it is cooked and/or processed. Research has found that the amount of usable protein in raw food is about double that of cooked food. This is because when proteins are heated to anything above 118 degrees some of the amino acids that they contain become destroyed causing some of the protein content to become denatured. To the body denatured proteins are unusable and toxic (are of no use but still exist in the body). This secondary effect of toxins in the body not only forces the body to produce more body fat in order to store the toxins, but their accumulation also prevents the body from properly absorbing the only protein and nutrients still left in the food source.
   With the nutrients in raw foods being total bioavailable and the fact that they clear toxins, the body can actually add lean muscle mass and reduce its body fat stores. This is partly due to an increase in energy and activity as well as body fat stores dissolving...as they are no longer needed to store toxins.
   Here are a few examples of the amount of protein in raw foods according to their caloric intake.
Almonds 12%   Broccoli 45%   Buckwheat 15%   Cabbage 22%     Honeydew 16%   Kale 45%

Pumpkin 15%   Spinach  49%   Walnuts 13%        Watercress 84% Zucchini 28%

Organic Exceptions
The following foods are reported to receive the least amount of pesticide are are said to be safe:
- Avocado
- Citrus
- Coconuts
- Figs
- Garlic
- Mangoes
- Nuts (Except Peanuts)
- Papayas    
- Watermelon
Organic is still best for many other reasons, so shop from stores you trust or look for trusted labels."

Wow!

Herb link is working

 I created the Herbs A to Z page. It's still coming along, but I wanted to get some information out there.
View it here
Enjoy!

Food Budget for Hampton Roads Whole Foods Eating

I added the Food Budget Sheets so the top tab works (below the header). I based the spreadsheets on $1500, $1200, $1000, and $800 per month food allowance. I also added in the itemized price lists from each shopping location. I have been saving receipts for many months so I can fully capture purchased items and the current price in Hampton Roads. Since prices change, I will keep the itemized lists continuously updated.

A dedication

As a mother of 3 boys, I have unlocked a hidden, instinctual maternal intelligence deep within my soul. The inherent hunger for wisdom has led me to a deeply rooted passion for natural family living and homesteading.

For growing families the journey begins during pregnancy and birth, where the woman allows herself to fully connect with her child. She avoids medical interventions to the utmost of her ability, and remains close to her tribe to have her baby. By doing so, she allows herself an immediate spiritual connection with her child, and the child begins life in full trust of his surroundings. Touch is a nutrient inherent for human beings and begins immediately upon birth by the mother breastfeeding and choosing to hold her baby close to her heart without the infringement of clothes. From then on, maternal instinct drives the baby close to the mother constantly through work and play, both dancing in a rhythm together that encourages trust and independence.

As the journey continues, yet another instinctual discovery occurs that the body has an innate capacity to heal itself when given proper nourishment and love. The immune system functions beautifully when the mother nurtures her children free of judgment and pressure. She infuses her home with respect while always remaining focused on the children and their natural desire to cooperate. She feeds the children wholesome food and provides a natural home environment. She limits excessive stimulation and heartens open, free-spirited play. She encourages the creative bond with the earth elements to flow liberally within her children and herself.

From then on, each day comes more naturally than the day before, all the way up to the current day that is still full of questions, mysteries, successes, and failures.

In Virginia, families have a strong hunger to return to the land, and this passion will ultimately result in strong, thriving roots. So, for my local friends, this blog is dedicated to you. I have decided to devote myself to answering questions in a tangible manner. My focus is to offer cultural reconsiderations and to reach out to you. I want you to walk away with peace of mind to the many questions that ultimately shape you.

I will:
- “Crunch” numbers and create spreadsheets to help you live on wholesome food within your budget.

- Maintain an up to date “What’s in Season” list for the Mid-Atlantic Region for both gardening and market consumption.

- Design organic garden plans encompassing food and herbs for any amount of space ranging from a balcony to a large field plot.

- Provide substantial ways to detoxify your home with the underlying goal to consume less.

- Implement unpretentious methods to live simply and sustainably.

- Offer the most up to date holistic research and anecdotal successes and failures on my journey as a growing family.

- Encourage family celebrations and share ideas centered on spiritual-based homeschooling.

-Avoid labels to ensure the content remains free flowing and untainted by negative pressures.

- Open myself to frank conversation as long as all involved follow the basic premise of respect for each other, and most importantly, for children.