52 books :: book 45 :: The Element



It took me over a month to read this book! I really enjoyed it and took many notes. The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson is thought provoking and inspiring. Here are a few of my favourites passages from this book, from various chapters:

"Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play."

"The Element: the place where the things you love to do and the things that you are good at come together."

"Education is the system that's supposed to develop our natural abilities and enable us to make our way in the world. Instead it is stifling the individual talents and abilities of too many students and killing their motivation to learn."

I could feel that I am in my "element"  in three different areas, when I am learning and discovering new things with my children (homeschooling/unschooling), while I sew and quilt and the whole process involved in designing, choosing fabrics, preparing, etc... and the last area is photography. Whenever I am involved in any of these areas, I can easily loose track of time, I am the most happy and I feel recharged. 

 

52 fridays and BAM ~ week 47

I am late! We were away this weekend. Here I am in the car with Celeste! We went to Ohio to celebrate an early Christmas with my husband's family. The highlight for me, besides first spending time with family, was to visit a Joann's fabric store for the very first time! So much more selection than anything around here!! Fun!

reversible placemats and banana chips

I am almost finished our reversible quilted holiday placemats! They just need binding, which I don't have any fabric for at the moment, so these will have to wait for a little bit.

We have had a dehydrator for about five years now, and we love making banana chips with it. Celeste has been helping me a lot with this lately, she cuts the bananas and places them neatly on the trays. They cook in there all day long and our house smells like bananas! My kids and myself love these inexpensive little healthy snacks!

Here are they are all ready!

52 fridays and BAM ~ week 46 ~ ouch!

Here I am this morning, after going to the dentist, one tooth gone and half of my mouth frozen still. I did take the gauze out of my  mouth for the photo at least!

Wordless Wednesday :: 6 little holiday trees and more wip (with my constant companion too)..

Wheat-free chocolate chip cookies...mmm

I guess this cookie would fall into the category "good for them", but I did have a couple myself. The sugar (3/4 cup in total) is a little high, but it's not an overwhelming sweet cookie. And it has ground flaxseeds, so that means it's good for you...right?!!

It has oat flour, which I didn't have but made from pulling out my little food processor and blending some regular oats for a couple of minutes.

These cookies were super easy to make and came out with a nice combination of crunchy and soft.

I found the recipe in Veganomicon (I talked about this book briefly here). You see all those little pieces of paper at the top of the book, they are marking all the recipes I would like to try out!

This book is great! I love all the tips throughout and all the variations they give along their recipes. Each recipe has a symbol that lets you know if it is soy free, gluten free, low fat, under 45 minutes, and supermarket friendly.

I can't wait to try more recipes from this book! I have marked the Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Seed Rice Paper Rolls, the Broccoli-Millet Croquettes, and the White Bean Aioli in the Snacks and Appetizers section, which is the first recipe section. I am putting this book on my wish list at amazon! I haven't been too excited about cooking for the last few months, but this got my attention again and I am looking forward to trying some new meals!

yummy for them and yummy for me!

I have been watching what I eat for a long time now, always keeping the artificial out, but also  extra sugar and the dairy. I can't call myself a vegetarian because I do eat chicken once in a while, but I would rather not. I would be very happy and probably a lot healthier if I was a vegan 100 % of the time.

When fall comes, we are in the mood to bake more. I have taken a few books from the library about gluten-free baking and vegan cooking. I want to be able to bake yummy things for my family too, so often I will try to make something they will like and something that I will.

Today, Celeste and I baked Double Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe is very simple and uses the mint chocolate chips. Chocolate and mint is a great combination in my opinion. Whenever I can, I stop at Starbucks and get a soy hot chocolate with mint shots in it...yumm!!

Anyway, here is the recipe I found at That's My Home:

Double Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies:

1 1/2 cups mint chocolate chips

3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour (we used unbleached all purpose)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped nuts (we didn't use nuts)

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Melt over hot (not boiling) water, 3/4 cup of the mint-chocolate chips; stir until smooth. Remove from heat; cool to room temperature.
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, sugar, and vanilla extract; beat until creamy. Add melted chocolate and egg; beat well. Gradually blend in the flour mixture. Stir in remaining 3/4 cup of mint-chocolate chips and nuts (if you add them). Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375ºF for 8 to 10 minutes. Allow to stand 2 to 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely on wire racks.


 One of the books I found at the library was Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. They also wrote other cookbooks, one of them I also checked out, it's called Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free recipes for Everyone's Favourite Treats. Lots of yummy looking recipes in there!
 
Anyway, I have tried two recipes so far from this book, the Veganomicon. The first one was a soup. I love making a big batch of soup for me to eat during the week for lunch. This one was a Double Pea Soup with Roasted Peppers. I don't have a photo to share with you unfortunately, but it is delicious! I might just have to share in another post...
 
Today I baked their banana bread. I wasn't sure how it would turn out because it includes molasses. Even if it doesn't look that yummy on the photo, it is!!
 
Here are the result of our baking for today, yummy for them and yummy for me!
 

 
 

Fog and Sweet Scents

We have had a few days of fog now. It stays most of the day, it was even around last night. I never get tired of photography fog. I find it is very soothing and interesting looking.

This one below was on Thursday, earlier during the day.

For the sweet scents, I wanted to share a link with you.

I don't like chemical stuff in my house, especially air fresheners and scented candles.

I found out about this site this week and tried one of the recipes.

It's the old fashion way of making your house smell lovely, the only downfall is having your

stove on for a longer period of time.

I left mine on for about four hours I think on the lowest setting.

I stirred and added water as necessary.

The stirring really helps spread the smell!

The one recipe I tried had vanilla and orange peels.

For more recipes, visit 13 simmering pots recipes.

Our house smelled lovely all afternoon.

52 fridays and BAM ~ week 45 ~ I ♥ Canada!

Little Homemade Christmas Ornaments

Wordless Wednesday :: NaNoWriMo & Sewing & Snacks..

52 fridays and BAM ~ week 44

Simple fun for today's selfie!

My kids joined me for this one.

We ended up taking a few,

so I put them together in a very short video,

see it below.

road trip!

We decided at the last minute to take a little road trip today, not really far, about forty minutes from our home. Here are a few random shots from the road and in the town...

A few windmills on the way...

The sky looked a little threatening..

But it turned out fine:

Celeste and her doll, singing away in the car, as usual:

We thought this was the cutest name for a children store:

Look at the details on that building!

One of the streets we drove through...

November and Evolution...

Maybe it is because of NaNoWriMo. I remember feeling this way in 2008 and last year too, for a little bit. November feels like a time for change, or evolution. I have spent the last three days at my new laptop (thanks to my mother-in-law who passed her "old" one to us), writing away for NaNo, watching my children doing the same, and pausing often to think.

I have taken long walks with my dog and listened to music and podcasts. I also have taken the time over this past week to research different things for my novel.

A lot of pausing, thinking, writing, more thinking...which leads me to think of our family, my children, our lives. 
Which leads me to evaluate, which usually leads me to evolve. I guess you could say I am not good with the status-quo. Or maybe I am always questioning everything.

I am always learning, trying something different or new, evolving. I like it that way, I can't imagine doing the same thing again and again, every day for years on end. Even when I find something I love, like photography, quilting, even homeschooling, I am always wanting to try something different, learn a different technique, try something new. Evolving..trying to work out something better if it's needed. Assessing what works and what doesn't. Always changing. I wouldn't have it any other way.

NaNoWriMo and Me

NaNoWriMo has started. It's day two, I have 4,663 words. I need 50,000 by November 30th. I prefer to be done early, so I try to go crazy at the beginning and then not sweat it towards the end of the month.

My two older children (13 and 11) are also participating, which surprised me. Last year, I didn't give them a choice much, I just told them that this was what we were doing. I had done and won NaNoWriMo the year before (2008) and thought it would be a good experience for them. They had set their own word counts, around 7,000 if I remember correctly.

We all failed last year, but I am happy to see it didn't stop us from trying again this year. I didn't tell my children they had to participate this year, but they both told me they wanted to. My mother-in-law is also participating this year, and a few online friends (hi!!) as well. I hope we all win!

For me, NaNoWriMo is a personal challenge. I don't plan on trying to publish what I write at all. Only a couple of people have read my first NaNoWriMo novel "Annabella's Quest". I do this to push myself, to see how far my imagination can take me.