The Altar
The Altar
Tide-Me-Over Tuesday
Smoothie Boys, Jan. 12, 2012
12 in 2012: January
I thought it would be fun to start a project here about very realistic ways to enrich our lives in 2012. I want to choose simple things from our own lives that can easily be incorporated into your life, without making a drastic change or asking you to give up something. Instead of saying, “Do this, not that,” I’m saying, “Here, have a cookie.”
January: Common Prayer
If you’re not familiar with the term or practice of liturgy, or if you have a strong reaction against it, let me share with you why it’s worth giving a try.
“Participating in the liturgy of the worldwide Christian community, whether on a Sunday morning or at another time, is more than attending a service or a prayer meeting. It is about entering a story. It is about orienting our lives around what God has been doing throughout history. And it is about being sent forth into the world to help write the next chapter of that story. Wandering the world in search of meaning and purpose, we may not even realize how desperately we need a story. But we know we’ve found something priceless when we find ourselves in God’s narrative.
“Liturgy is soul food. It nourishes our souls just as breakfast strengthens our bodies. It’s sort of like family dinner. Hopefully you’ll get some nutritious food, but more than nutrition, family dinner is about family, love, community. Liturgy is kind of like our family dinner with God.” (from Common Prayer, p. 11)
So how can you incorporate liturgy into your daily life? We use a book, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. But what’s great is that you don’t have to have the book to join in the prayer. The daily readings are available online for free.
Even when you’re not hungry, there’s something wonderful about sitting down to a meal with loved ones, with God’s family. Please, whether you feel full or empty, pull up a seat and join God’s church worldwide in common prayer.
To get started, visit commonprayer.net.
Weekend Reading (with photos!)
- DHA and micronutrients may prevent brain shrinkage with age from Disease Proof by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
So who on earth was this mother I saw in the mirror? The one with that constricting feeling growing in my chest, the one slamming a door, the one with “that tone” in her voice, or worse, the one shouting?
I honestly didn’t know that stuff was there until motherhood uncovered it.
If you’re not living the life you want or need you can change it. The next time you hear yourself say “I wish … ” stop yourself right there and ask yourself: “What little thing can I do right now to start making it a reality?”
- Sweet Potato Pecan Cinnamon Rolls [Vegan] at Healthy Food for Living: I made these for Christmas morning. YUM! Next time, I’ll reduce the sugar in the filling and the glaze (or maybe try it with maple syrup instead of refined sugars). Totally decadent, lovely, and special.
- Don’t forget to check out this week’s Your Green Resource for lots of thrifty, fresh, and fun ideas.
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I’d love your feedback and ideas on yesterday’s post, Frugal Winter Fun with Toddlers. And since we finally have snow here, maybe we’ll try some outdoor winter fun — sledding on the big hill by our house!
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“Children will not remember you for the material things you provided
but for the feeling that you cherished them.”
-Richard L. Evans
Frugal Winter Fun with Toddlers
Back in 2010, I posted about “When there’s nothing to do,” a post all about fun activities from my childhood.
Now, two years later, I’m recreating that list, specifically with toddlers in mind. With sub-zero temps outside and three toddlers stuck in the house, I need some inspiration!
As I said two years ago: “If my children and I are to spend most of our winter days car-less and indoors, what can we do to make winter a season as special as summer?”
SLIME! Mix corn starch and water in equal parts. Add more water if it dries out; more corn starch if it's too runny.
- Homemade playd0h, gak, and slime. Skip the artificial dyes for real green (and safe) play.
- Homemade crayons. Gather up all those stubby, broken crayons. Build SUPER (toddler-proof) crayons by melting in lined muffin tins in the oven at a low temp.
- Artwork. It’s a favorite activity of ours. Paints, crayons, markers, chalk, construction paper masks, stickers, just about anything that involves color is artwork in our house.
- Salt drawings. Pour salt into a baking dish and use fingers or kitchen utensils to draw.
- Baking and cooking, real or fake. Our mantra: “Nice and slow. Keep in the bowl.”
Fresh snow: mittens and taste-testing recommended.
- Bringing the outside in. Bowls of snow are fun and fairly clean for indoor play. Plus the snow gets wet and is very moldable; ideal for making tiny indoor snowmen and villages.
- Boxes, laundry baskets, storage totes. For building, crashing, hiding, and driving.
- Forts. Our easel is the current hot spot for hiding out. But the kids also like a blanket over the crib or high chair. I’m saving my elaborate fort-making energy for their post-toddler years.
- Collage. Ainsley, at age 3, loves to take paper scraps and glue away with the handy glue stick.
- Write a book. We stapled together some pages of scrap paper, Ainsley illustrated, and I transcribed her narration to each page. She beams with pride each time we read it.
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- Crafts. Try Fabric roads, popcorn garland (for the birds), and homemade flowers.
- Music. Turn up the music and get groovin’! So simple, so fun, so frugal.
- Instruments. Paper plate tambourines, toilet paper roll horns, cereal box guitars, and pots and pans are simple, at-home ways to start your family band.
- Dress up. Even with a box of dress-up stuff, the kids seem to love Mama and Daddy’s clothes best.
- Water play and indoor pool. Fill up an under-the-bed (or other shallow) storage container with water. Toss in some unexpected play things (rocks, apples, sticks), and see what happens. (You could also try an indoor sandbox.) For those of us less inclined to mopping up water all afternoon, see below.
Splash the wintery gray away!
- Mid-day bath time. My kids think it’s so fun to take a bath. A daytime bath gives them the extra time to (and me the energy to let them) play and splash.
- Bubbles! Hours of fun in one little bottle.
- Sidewalk chalk — inside! With a large roll of easel paper (or old wrapping paper??), you can make a sidewalk inside. A hallway (with hard floors) would be the perfect length to bring this summer activity to life in the harshest of winter days.
- Books. The best way to pass the time, if you ask me. A regular trip to the library ensures we always have something fresh to read in between the daily readings of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Barnyard Dance. Don’t forget to check out some of those giant books, picture books with accompanying CD, and fun musical books (like the book/CD combos by Sandra Boynton).
Do you have any fun winter activities for little ones? I would love to hear from you!
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This post is part of SortaCrunchy’s weekly “Your Green Resource.”
in which i admit my shortcomings
After so many posts recently about progress, growth, and resolutions, I feel I need to admit something to you.
I am failing.
Let’s see….
I’m staying up way too late.
I’m getting up way too late.
I’m barely keeping up my home calendar, and therefore, forgetting all kinds of things. Like paying bills and renewing library books.
I’m spending too much time on this brain-sucking, time-wasting computer.
I’m not dressing in a way that helps me wake up and get moving.
And then there are the things beyond my control: a teething boy who is up for hours at a time overnight, a girl who has found a spot in our bed every night at about 12:30 a.m., and a mama who, when trying to still get up early after nights like these, falls asleep while sitting on the couch reading a book to Ainsley at 6:00 p.m.
Thank God for grace. And mission. And peace. And for faith to keep moving forward.
Tide-Me-Over Tuesday: 18 Months
What better way for our climbing one-and-half year-old boy to celebrate his half birthday than to climb the giant hill by our house!
Ainsley at the top of the hill
Beating sticks against a metal pole. What fun.
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Remember one year ago?
6 months old
One year ago
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Happy 18-month-a-birthday, Thaddeus!
We love you!
For some extra fun, check out Ainsley’s 18-month photos.
Weekend Reading
- The Power of Eliminating Distractions from Steady Mom: “Ask yourself today–what is distracting me, my family, from living our best life? Then just try getting rid of it.”
- Facebook Is Making Us Miserable by Daniel Gulat, NY Times: “Gone are the days where Facebook merely complemented our real-life relationships. Now, Facebook is actually a winning share of our core, offline interactions.”
- When parenting means steering into the skid from simple mom by Megan of SortaCrunchy:
We’ve been going through a rough patch lately, and I know this season is universal to the experience of parenting. It’s easy to get caught in a frustrating cycle: the more she pushes, the more I pull back.
A few weeks ago, I had a bit of an epiphany when my father’s advice about navigating hazardous road conditions began to ring in my ears: “You’ve got to steer into the skid.”
- Becky shares a great Colbert video, Jesus Is A Liberal Democrat: “Jesus was always flapping his gums about the poor, but not once did he call for tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Romans.”
- Thanking God for Grace in Others from In view of God’s mercy by Courtney Reissig: “It’s hard, isn’t it? There is always someone who is more creative, more organized, more physically fit, more kind, more whatever than us. If we let ourselves, we can easily spiral out of control with discontentment, jealousy, and discouragement over what we are not and what we wish we could be.”
-Emily Dickinson
2012: Resolutions
2011 was a year of “becoming” for me. In 2012, I’d like to do a few things to help me continue becoming more the person I want to be, that person I imagine myself being as I near my thirties.
Scott and I do not really do “resolutions”, but for the past couple years, we’ve sat down, just the two of us, over coffee to reflect on the past year and revise our individual and family goals. We fill pages with ideas, hopes, specific tasks and objectives, and from that we cast a vision for ourselves and our family. This year, a few personal resolutions stood out to me.
So in the spirit of renewal that comes with a new year and with hope for continued personal growth, I’m sharing with you (some of) my 2012 commitments.
2012 will be the year I…
practice “early to bed, early to rise”: I believe I can be a morning person; I just need to learn how. This year, I’m working toward a 9:30 p.m. bedtime, and 6 a.m. rise and shine.
roll my eyes less: I don’t envision myself being an eye-roller in my thirties, so now is the time to break that bad habit. It’s not really something I want to model to my kids, and I think it can be somewhat disrespectful to others, even when done in jest. It does not reflect who I really am to the world around me, and it’s time for me to be who I really am.
Our little family, hiking the tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park
spend quality time with my children and my husband (rather than with my house and my stuff): I have the ability to set the tone and pace of our home life. It’s time for me to stop blaming everyone and everything else for our feeling busy and overwhelmed. While life can be both busy and overwhelming, I can still choose how I respond to those two things. Rather than choosing stress and constant “doing”, I am going to start choosing peace and being. (Remember that field?)
This also means I have to create a home environment that doesn’t require me to spend all my time cleaning, organizing, and devoting attention to my possessions. So this means it’s time to bring simplicity back to our lives through less stuff, better organization, and routines (for myself and our kids) that allow us to keep up with our dishes and laundry without detracting from family time.
Finally, this commitment means setting aside time in each day to spend with my children, just being with them. And I need to set aside time, intentionally and consistently, to spend with my husband — date nights that are always on the calendar and quality, TV-free time at home.
I think that if I’m fulfilling commitment #3, I’ll discover that I have more energy and time for being in community with others, which is an important goal of ours as a family for 2012.
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Resources for your New Year
- Simple Mom’s Intentional Living posts
- Steady Mom’s Retaining Enthusiasm posts
- SortaCrunchy: One Word for 2012: OPEN
- Not a fan of resolutions? Read Unplugged Sunday’s Seasonal Resolve.
- Small Notebook: How I Make Goals for My Kids (Printable)
- Passionate Homemaking: My Personal Goals for 2012
- Well Grounded Life: My unpopular view of resolutions and why I believe you still need them…
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How do you mark a new year? What are your hopes for 2012?
2011: Becoming
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- Hiking the tundra with Thaddeus, Rocky Mountain National Park
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- Colorado Rockies game
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- My Ainsley Roo
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- My Bomar
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- My hunny
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- Miles and me doing dishes
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As the minutes turn to hours and then into days, it can be hard to see progress in myself. To see the ways I’m growing and reaching unspoken goals… hopes, really.
So before I move ahead to resolutions for 2012, I want to look back at 2011. I loved Katie’s posts at Making This Home (here, here, and here). And like Katie, I think I’d call it my year of Becoming; although, I didn’t realize she called 2011 a Year of Becoming, so now I feel like a copycat. 
Here are some of the ways, superficial and otherwise, that I feel I’m becoming.
1. Personal Style: Sweats and pj’s are great. But dressing like that leaves me unmotivated and lacking confidence. For less than $100 (thrifting!), I’ve recently updated my wardrobe with high-quality and coordinating pieces I love to wear at home and out. Now I just need to add this signature look.
2. Getting mentally organized: With inspiration from Steady Mom and Simple Mom, I’m finally keeping a regular calendar. I love having a place to focus my thoughts, to-do items, scheduled activities, and meal planning.
3. Humility: I CANNOT do it all. I need help to raise kids, to rest, to have a healthy life. So when offered help, in whatever capacity, I’m learning to accept it. I’m also learning to live with what I often perceive to be “imperfection” — dirty dishes, 7 loads of unwashed laundry, and toys strewn about.
4. Community Living: In September we moved into a house in Frogtown with our friend Becky. Rather than planning and organizing all the details beforehand (my nature), we’re learning organically how to share life with another person (turns out, that’s also my nature).
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As you look back on 2011, what were ways you found yourself becoming the person you want to be?
