Saturday, August 29, 2009
Butter-making fun
I thought that i can buy 250gr a week of milk cream and make butter for the week instead of buying it, we don't use a lot of butter, so that amount it's enough to butter bread, season pasta or cook something special. It's not to save money. It's not because it's healthier ( milk-cream is anyways store-bought, we don't have cows to milk or know anybody owing cows for fresh cream ). It's because i love making it with my hands. It's because i want to teach the kids something more, and different. It's because i want to set an example for my kids, that a more simple and plain life is possible, everywhere in everytime if you're ready to listen the call in your heart. But well, talked too much as usual. Here the pics :)
Friday, August 28, 2009
Che giorno è
Well, after lunch we headed back downstairs and kids started writing with my inks and nibs and had some fun again. Then as every friday, we have a special family night. The kids take turns in hosting the 'soireè' choosing the dinner ( usually fried junk food - just for on night and i take care of cooking it of course ). Today for example was Seba's day. He chose a movie, had to clean the living room, set the table in a 'fast-food' kind of way, and then serve the others. Everybody else usually take some coins and 'pay' for the dinner. I was quite pleased of this added bonus Gaia and Seba planned for tonight. We hardly ever buy fruit juices now, but in the last weeks the two of them menaged to have me buy 4 small bottles. Well befor starting cooking the dinner they asked for our centrifuge, and with my help they made fruit juice ( apple, peach,pear) and poured it in the bottles pretending they had store-bought juices, so each of them could also ask a 'soft drink' with the dinner :) i'm so proud of them :))
Anyways the day was good and i look forward tomorrow, to read a bit more, watercolour and use inks :) Some pics from today and my best wish for a lovely weekend with your loved ones !
May God bless you all.
The four posters together
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Tea-fun
Well this was something we really needed. I pointed to papaF that everything happened at the right time. And since we are in a situation in our life in which we can only wait and see i told him i am sure also in our *general* life everything will happen at the right time. I've never been a person of faith, instead i find myself now witnessing how SomeOne is really and continuosly taking care of us and our needs not when we shoertmindedly would want things to happen, but when it's the right moment for them to happen . Thank God.
Il fico non germoglia più,
le vigne non danno più uva,
gli ulivi non producono niente.
I campi non forniscono raccolto,
le greggi scompaiono dai recinti,
i buoi dalle stalle.
Ma io trovo la mia gioia nel Signore,
sono felice perché Dio è il mio salvatore.
Dio, il Signore, è la mia forza,
egli rende i miei piedi agili
come quelli delle cerve,
mi fa camminare sulle vette dei monti.
(dal libro di Abacuc)
Maybe i'm getting more naive instead of wiser. Maybe i'm just giving up the idea that we're made only of this world and for this world. Anyways i find peace thinking that i'm in good Hands instead of thinking everything is going down the drain.
To end this a pic of the kids when we got back home, Gaia wanted to share with her brothers and sister the little something she got from our trip today : the smallest, cutest tea set for dolls made in real pottery :
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Homeschooling : points of view
I spent the morning and the early afternoon organizing our 'homeschool closet'. I put all the books and tools and odd stuff i plan\hope\want to use during this school year in there and i'm quite satisfied with it. Even if homeschooling might be a short adventure of one year or two ( depending where we're gonna move kids might gonna go back in school at some point ) i'm sure we'll enjoy it at the fullest and i want to keep all the 'fun' stuff stored and organized that way from now on :)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Butter-making
Then of course we had to try it... excellent ! You can't really compare with the store bought one ! It's so creamy, with this delicate milk taste, wonderful, and with the buttermilk i could finally try one more Amish recipe 'Buttermilk cookies' : GREAT!!!
I know i know i get over excited with this little things, but sure they make me feel so so loved. I realized if i just let my heart and spirit lead me i find out i've been given all the right skills to live in this world. I only needed to give up all the 'ideas' about how i should or should not live in order to be a modern and liberated woman and follow my heart and listen to my children to find a real treasure God gave us, the world around us, the nature, the work of our hands. Next time i promise i'll take pics of our buttermaking session !
Have a blessed and lovely week you all !
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Back home !
I wish you all happiness and faith and joy in your life.
In the woods, walks, slides, making friends ( four legged and two legged, but i won't post the pics of the 'two legged ones' since i didn't ask permission to their parents ) finding interesting and huge worms, building 'loghomes'
He was looking as an angel isn't it ?
Learning how to start a campfire and cooking meat over it
More woods
Bagni S. Filippo, natural thermal water coming out from the rocks in the woods. Kids had so much fun here. And it was so ... weird... this is one of the first places me and PapaF visited as a young couple with no kids(yet) and now we went there as parents of 4 kids old enough to fully enjoy the place. Time goes by, but i'm so grateful for all i had in my life.
In the medieval Castle of Piancastagnaio, and the view from it. The last one is the Radicofani tower. That day we were meant to go there, but since Milla was recovering and Seba had just started fever himeself we opted for a closer place.
p.s. health problems are slowing getting better even if not solved yet. Milla Seba and me caught some kid of flu\cold during our stay in Tuscany but it seems it was just a 'regular' flu\cold and i hope we'll all get rid of it without more medicines.
p.s.2 Kitchen garden is quite ok. A bit wilder then i left it, but we got 5 more kilos of tomatoes ( now sauce) and plenty of eggplants, greenbeans, salad, pepperoni, basils and other herbs. Thank you God!
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Update and bye bye for a while
But back to the update part. It seems that i'm slowing recovering from this nasty nasty infection i got that gave me all kind of breathing problems, very very scary. I must say the fear i lived in for several days helped me to put my life in perspective again, think well to my priorities, grow in my faith, so probably some way it was what i needed, even if i hope and pray never to live this awful experience again.
As for the family, we're fine, some minor health problem for Seba, but nothing bad. I see we're getting in the homeschooling mood. The kids have started doing school work just for fun while i do my chores or cook. We're very relaxed about it at the moment, first of all i want that they start loving school ( meaning *learning* ) again. And then i must say that now i trust that everything will turn out just fine. I just know this is the right thing to do now and i only want to enjoy it now. I don't know how long it will last, depending on the path our lives will take, but NOW i know is the thing for us. As it's beautifully said in the documentary A Journey Home what we need right now is to go back home, united as a family .
And then one of my pride and joy, my garden. We're having a bountiful harvest this year thank God. I think i've already canned ( beside what we've eaten daily ) some 6 or 7 kg of tomato sauce, maybe 4 or 5 kg of eggplants, almost one kilo of pesto sauce and 4 or 5 kilos of cucumber and half kilo of greenbeans beside many herbs drying. I'm so so grateful and amazed by all this. Working the land is so beautiful i so hope this will be my future or at least a part of it. I know i'll be worried for my garden the 10 days we're gone, but we should have taken care of everything and we'll find more ripe vegetables once we'll be back.
But now let's do the images do the talking, some pics of the last week.
Our wonderful harvest, of vegetables and herbs. I can't help but feeling so grateful and provided for. Is such a warm feeling.
Gaia and Seba wanted to clean our *pantry* (not really, just that white cabinet in which we keep our supplies ). This is just a part of the canned goods we have.
And this is just i little treat i bought ouselves when i last went doing grocery shopping. Here we use corn only as flour and it's kinda hard to find it in its natural state. So when i found corncob (? is this the right word ? ) at 69 cent i bought 2 . Kids found them so fun and nice :)
Well i think this is all. As i said we're leaving tomorrow morning and we won't have any internet over there on the mountain, so see you all ( or better read you all ;) ) in 10 days !
Have a lovely summer everybody, enjoy your family, hug your kids and kiss their heads and don't forget your dear spouse :)
Monday, August 3, 2009
Eccomi qui
Due kg di pomodori da sugo maturi....
Tramutati in polpa odorosa e in seguito in conserva, per condire le nostre paste invernali, condirle di sole, di amore per la terra e per la vita, e per il lavoro umile delle mani.
E per concludere la nuova passione bislacca di Seba, i castelli di carte. Qui di seguito la foto di quello che hanno realizzato lui e PapaF ieri mattina , un lavoro certosino durato quasi un' ora.
Per finire una riflessione. Mi rendo conto che ci sono tante cose che ho sempre dato per scontato. E che invece sono un grande dono che ci è stato fatto.