A Lesson from Bread

I have always feared yeast. It seems like this crazy, living ingredient that I cannot control. And I have never known what a bread recipe means when it says to use "warm water". Seriously. It sounds so ambiguous. So I skip those kinds of recipes and have been content that I just can't make bread.

Well wouldn't you know that I randomly decided to make this bread in my bread machine, and it comes out perfect every time. I couldn't believe it.  I credited my bread machine.

Then my niece came down for a visit during Thanksgiving and mentioned that she makes artisan bread. I asked her to come over to my house to teach me to make this "artisan bread in five minutes a day". I had checked that book out from the library a few years ago and it had felt too intimidating to me. After she taught me, I have successfully made beautiful free-form loaves ever since!

Two of my friends have been making sourdough bread for years. I tried it once, and again, it felt too hard. But now with my newly found success with bread-baking, I tried to make it again. Success!

So now I have three different kinds of bread that I can make and my children love it. I am told almost daily, "Mom, you make the best bread!"

I tell you this whole story to simply say, "Try, try again!" So many times we give up on learning new things whether big or small when we face failure, obstacles, or believe the lie "I just can't do this." I have learned this in SO many areas, I CAN do it...if I am willing to be humble, ask questions, fail, and try many times.

I hope that I am modeling to my children to never give up on learning new skills or believe that they can't do something. With good instruction, time, practice, most of us can learn most things.  That's really cool.

How To Take A Homeschooling Holiday Break

I believe in a lifestyle of learning and seek to create that atmosphere every day no matter the season, but we all need a break from the more formal look of learning and a chance to just be and dream and do whatever. I think I told you a while back that we are doing a three month on/one month off homeschooling "schedule" this year. I made sure that the "one month off" would be December! I wanted our Advent season to be filled with unstructured days to allow for baking, movies, making, playing games, decorating. As December came along though, all of our "schoolish" stuff in our dining room kept staring at me and I felt this vague sense of guilt that we weren't having structured learning.

How to remedy that?

We brought down all of our holiday decorations that are stored in big Rubbermaid bins. We emptied the bins and into those bins went anything resembling "school" :) And it was all whisked away to the attic! In place of all the books and manipulatives that lined the shelves in our dining room, we put decorations, a Christmas CDs and board games!

It truly *feels* like a vacation now. And come January I think all those school-y things will look new and interesting again. Until then, we can simply operate as a home and not a homeschool. I like that!

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Advent Simplicity

I am amazed at how easily and quickly I can be overwhelmed and stressed by this season. With all of the wonderful ideas floating around in the blog world and on Pinterest, it's easy to make the mental to-do list way too long and place on myself unrealistic expectations to create deep spiritual moments, make super-cute crafts, have an awesome Christmas music play-list, bake an amazing array of cookies, wrap presents with beauty, and plan for daily moments of Advent fun for all six of my children. Holiday inspiration overload!

It's so important to reign all of that in and say "no" to many fantastic ideas and only say "yes" to a few things...things that are easy, light, meaningful and don't create stress for the mama. I was supposed to bring cookies to a swap this evening, but yesterday I realized that the thought of baking 6 dozen cookies was causing much stress in my heart and probably wasn't even wise because I am battling a cold. So I declined and that was that.

We must feel the freedom to not be enslaved to others' or our own crazy expectations of what it should all be like. We need to be flexible and realize that every tradition we love may not work for our family every year. It's okay to let go and only do the things that bring joy and peace and simplicity to our lives. The thought of doing the Jesse Tree this year was giving me a stomach ache. I am not even kidding. My kids didn't love it the past two years and much of it was going over their heads. Then a friend posted a link to the Advent Event and it immediately seemed like the perfect fit for us.

I was amazed though that I felt like I HAD to do the Jesse Tree, and that if we didn't, I was depriving us of a meaningful tradition that focuses on Jesus. I had to get to the place of realizing (again!) that I have GREAT freedom in Christ and that He wasn't upset if I didn't do Advent devotionals! He is just as "pleased" and accepting of me when I bake cookies as when I sing hymns. I bring Him glory as I sit at my sewing machine making cards just as when I read a devotional. All of life is worship...I had been separating the "spiritual" parts of Advent from the "material" parts and feeling torn between the two.

And so I continue to make things. Simply. We read lots of great holiday books. I have a few favorite cookie recipes that I will bake and not try anything new this year. We'll watch holiday movies and light candles and make our own decorations. Slowly. No stressing that the tree HAS to be up by Saturday. Keeping creating materials at-the-ready for whenever we feel the prompt to make. No daily plan of what we are going to do, but a purposeful vision of the atmosphere I want to create.



And I get to do all of this with this little darling by my side. The sweetest gift of 2011, for sure.