Tending the Home

There was a time in early motherhood when I embraced the advice of others to not care so much about keeping the house clean while I cared for the more important needs of my young son.  Of course I couldn't get anything done when he was an infant with all the diaper changing, feeding, and laundry.  When he was a toddler I was running around after him and his messes and always fell behind!  And all this time, even through the preschool years, my son would demand most of my attention, for I was his very best playmate.  Well, he is 6 years old now, at an age where I'm not as fun to play with and there is no excuse for him not to help clean up more.  I can clearly see that his disregard for the messes he makes is a direct reflection on what he's seen me do.  I want him to take care of his things and for the house we live in, just as I have taught him how to take care of his body, heart, and mind.  I need to place more importance on cleaning our abode for it to become meaningful and a good habit for him.  Now how do I make this change and how do I involve my family?

1.  Adopt a cleaning calendar
There are several of these on Pinterest and certainly other bloggers have shared their suggestions.  Here's my schedule, which was inspired by Pig&dac.com

2.  Make cleaning manageable & fun

Simply having a cleaning schedule makes the process much more manageable.  And from there, tasks can be divided up between family members.  With dusting, a task I despise and gladly delegate, I can clear away clutter and my son can come along with a polish-coated rag to do the actual dusting.

Using essential oils in our cleaning solutions is a safer alternative than mainstream cleaning products.  It's also super fun for kids to pick out the oils to use (after giving them an appropriate panel to choose from) or let them mix the solutions that you've chosen.

This is also a great time to put on some great music and DANCE!  Get into it...


From Recipe-Prodigy.com


3.  Be mindful of how and where we place our things

There is a saying in the yoga community that how you do yoga is how you do everything.  If you rush from pose to pose, ignore important feedback that your body is giving you, vent negativity, and disregard the space of others in the room, there's a pretty good chance that you do the same in your everyday life outside the yoga studio.  We watch closely in our yoga practice and notice our habits without judgement so we can honestly see ALL without reacting.  Then we can make a conscious effort to change our habits, the way we approach our practice and everything else in our lives.  This housecleaning endeavor is becoming an extension of my yoga practice where I try to be mindful and treat everything I own as something precious that should be handled with care and respect.

This is how I found our kitchen towel hanging this morning:

Really?  I think we can take the time to fold the towel and put it back nicely, which leads to the final suggestion:

4.  Be a model for your family and be clear on how you'd like them to help take care of the house

It is obviously not important to my husband that the towels are hung nicely.  And he really doesn't care that the kitchen table is cluttered with mail.  He was always so supportive of me when I let the house devolve into a sty too!  Having a clean house really does matter to me though and seriously affects my mood when I'm in a cluttered space, especially if I feel like I'm the only one making the effort to keep the house picked up.  I need to constantly communicate how I'd like my family's help in maintaining order.  But I also need to make sure that I walk the walk.

When I come in the house, I hang up my keys, place my shoes in the closet, and hang up my purse.  If I start leaving my shoes out in the entry way, very soon there are ~ 10 pairs that have accumulated because I have implied that it's okay to do it.  It's fine every once in awhile, but then I end up being the one to put all the shoes away which causes even more needless emotional distress.  Let's just put away our own shoes, just the one pair we're wearing at the moment, in the closet.  Done.

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We are 3 weeks into our mindful house cleaning commitment and I love how it feels!  A friend could stop by at any moment and I wouldn't have to explain with embarrassment how our house is small and gets cluttered easily.  I don't need to scramble to the bathroom to make sure it's "presentable".  The three of us are much more happy being able to sprawl out in our spacious, clutter-free rooms.  A clean, organized home complements a clean, organized lifestyle and the effort to get there is certainly worth it.

Sourdough Bread Making: A Labor of Love

I've always enjoyed baking from scratch.  It is hugely satisfying when I create something grand from just a few basic ingredients.

I thought making sourdough bread would be no different than making a cake.  After all, haven't people been baking with sourdough for thousands of years?  How complex could it be when many mastered the technique before Kitchen Aids?  Well, I can say after several attempts that it's certainly not easy.

I recently tried making sourdough bread with a wild starter for the 4th time.  I am proud to say that it was a success!  The starter is robust and really sour.  It's my new baby; one that I only need to take care of a few times a week!

The starter was cultivated with the bacteria and yeast present in my kitchen, and based on instructions from Mike at Sourdough Home.  I thought the starter was ready after a week since it was bubbly, even though it wasn't doubling in size.  The bread that resulted from the first bake was small and dense, but nice and sour.

Cultures for Health provided more information and answered many questions that I had.  If anyone is  interested in making sourdough bread, I suggest going to this site first and watching their videos.  First timers may actually want to purchase one of the several starters that they sell instead of cultivating it from scratch.  Following the Basic Sourdough Bread instructions from one of the videos, my bread dough did not double during the proofing, but resulted in a bread that was less dense than my previous attempt once baked.

I tried the recipe again a week later.  Since I keep my starter in the refrigerator, I have to feed it 3 times, 12 hours apart, so it takes 1.5 days just to get the starter ready to bake with.  This time, it was as bubbly as ever and doubled within a few hours during the feedings alone.  After adding the flour, salt, and water, the bread dough rose nicely while proofing and baking.  It was light and sour: the consistency and flavor our family desired.

I suspect that it has taken 3 weeks for the starter to mature, which is why my first couple of batches were not impressive.  So please, if you do embark on this journey, DO NOT GIVE UP!  Be patient and persistent!  And with a mature, well cared for starter, you can make sourdough bread for years to come.  (I'm trying not to think about the previous 3 times I tried baking with a week old starter - I threw them out when not satisfied with the loaves.)

My shaping and proofing steps still need to be fine-tuned, and I would like to explore making different shapes of artisan bread.  Linked here is a video from FiveFlourFingers that has been helpful.

One can see, based on my experience, that there are many ways to make sourdough bread and tons of guidance on the web.  It can be very confusing!  I'm getting close to making my ideal recipe though; one that is mine but influenced by countless bakers before me.

Nutritional Healing With Pumpkin

Pumpkin Custard, Hold the Dairy by llsimon53 

I wrote earlier about my love of Autumn and how it's necessary to change our activity level, diet, and lifestyle in order to stay healthy through the seasonal transition.  When it comes to diet, I think most everyone in the US would agree that pumpkin is THE food of Autumn.

Pumpkin is also a valuable remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine dietetics.  According to the Tao of Nutrition by Maoshing Ni, Ph.D., C.A., pumpkin has a cool and sweet nature.  Therefore, it can help with many "heat" or inflammatory conditions such as dysentery, diabetes, eczema, and stomachaches.

Our family is fond of roasting sugar pie pumpkins and using the pureé for loads of recipes we've collected over the years.  While canned pumpkin is affordable and very convenient, we try to avoid canned foods due to BPA in the lining.

Here is a super easy way to roast & pureé a pumpkin.  Use the pureé in you favorite pie, custard or pancake recipe.  Or better yet, add it to yogurt, oatmeal, or simply season it with cinnamon & honey and eat it as is!

Roasted Pumpkin
1) Heat oven to 400°F.
2) Cut out a hole at the top of the pumpkin and just like you're going to carve it, go ahead and scoop out the insides, placing the seeds into a bowl of water if choosing to save them for roasting separately.
3) Place pumpkin on baking sheet and cook for 40 minutes.
4) Fit top back on pumpkin and bake for another 20 minutes or until tender.
5) Remove top again and cool until easy to handle.
6) Scoop out the pumpkin and either mash, run it through a food mill, or pureé in a blender/food processor.

Enjoy!

Introduction

Hello friends, this is my first post in the blogging community. I have resisted starting one for 2 1/2 years now, when my husband first suggested that I use it as a way to document my life as a new mom. Now is the time, but it's not just my need to talk about my wonderful son that is urging me on.

I have been teaching yoga for over 10 years now. At one point, I had close to 10 group and private classes a week. When I became pregnant with my son, I would tell curious students that my postpartum plan was to start teaching again right away and also slowly try to build up my acupuncture practice (I graduated from Traditional Chinese Medicine school when I was 3 months pregnant). Most would say that the plan sounded great, but their expressions were doubtful. Boy, was I naive! These students knew me well, and I think I became the type of mom that they thought I would be. I dropped everything but one private session per week. The rest of my time has been devoted to caring for my son, husband, and our home. I see yogic lessons from homemaking and parenting every day! I am living my yoga now. Still, I miss my old students and the lessons that I would share during our contemplative yin yoga practice.

I am still not ready to teach group classes. My acupuncture practice is really, really small and I don't have office space ( I do house calls). So, I'm not where I thought I would be, but my life right now feels really good regardless. I am balanced, except for this urge I have to relay yogic insights of my life to others and share what I'm learning as I continue to study TCM. I've decided to place my insights and teachings right here in this blog space. It will ease my mind and perhaps someone, somewhere, may appreciate a story or more!