2010 – a hippie with a minivan

Holiday stress…

I love this time of year… the lights, the snow, the decorations, the mood, the stories, the crafts…

I hate the stress. I don’t know why, but the holidays have always been a source of stress for me. Even as a young child I would retreat from parties or actually feel physically ill after an hour or two. I am not a fan of crowds, they make me quite anxious, but I can manage well when it comes to friends.

The expectations…or perceived expectations are a big problem for me now. I enjoy having friends over, but when it comes to family I always feel like there is criticism. It might not be overt, and it might not even really be there consciously, but I always feel like it is. And of course I expect it to happen so I am often defensive.

What makes it hard is that no one (family wise) is used to having a lot of kids around. One child, two maybe… but with four kids in the house, things are rarely quiet. Throw in the excitement of a holiday, and having people over who are adults then there is mayhem.

I say adults because when there are other families over it is so much easier. With families, there may be double the amount of people but the kids are off and having fun on their own, we might not even see them for periods of time, but when just adults are over, the adults talk and the kids want attention, negative or positive, and when you have a very strong willed child around it makes things even harder.. It feels like whatever their behaviour is at the time is a direct reflection on our parenting and then it almost always leads to some topic that they don’t agree with…

This year there was an added stress to the holidays.

My mom and Grandmother came over on Xmas eve an we had a great time. We were supposed to head to my grandmother’s house on Xmas day as my uncle Marc was preparing a traditional Supper. However, when my mom and grandmother got home they found my uncle unconscious. My mom took his blood sugar and it was so high that it was not registering. They called 911 and he went into Coma, his body temp was 88, and his blood sugar was 64. His kidneys stopped working and he stopped breathing and needed to be put onto a ventilator. He was in bad enough shape that we were pretty unsure if he would survive or not and I headed to the hospital to be with my family. It was a very weird atmosphere to be there on Xmas day with a Santa Clause and an accordion player visiting the emergency room and people laughing and wishing each other Merry Xmas while he lay in a Coma.It has been a rough few days but finally we had a bit of hope today and he is starting to recover though he has a long road ahead and there are still many uncertainties.

Now, Simon will be going to work for two days, then we will Welcome the new year and then head to the Winter Unschooling gathering where we will be hanging out with like minded families for 4 days.

I have a feeling that it will be a great ending to the stress of the holidays…

Uncle Marc’s Roasted Sirloin Tip…

In the past, on New Years day, we would head to my grandmother’s house and have supper there.

Every year my uncle would prepare a Roast Beef. I would sit in the kitchen and talk to him and watch him while the others sat in the living room. When I moved out on my own, I started to make his recipe and I have never looked back. It is not exactly his recipe anymore as it has evolved, and I have made it my own, but it is inspired from his…

This is meant for a Sirloin tip roast or simular. I’ll share my recipe for a rib roast soon…

Take the roast out of the Fridge at least an hour before you want to start roasting it.

In a small bowl combine…

Equal parts of Dijon Mustard and Butter. (about 1/3c of each)
Add a good dose of coarsely ground pepper (about 2 Tbsp)
A Tbsp of Kosher Salt if a bit more according to taste.
a Tbsp of Garlic powder

Then, add flour to the mixture until it becomes a thick paste and set aside.

Heat the oven to 500F

In a shallow pan, place some whole carrots on the bottom creating a rack and place the roast on the carrots.

If the roast has a fat layer, you want the fat side up.

Lather the mixture on top of the roast. (you can wet your hands to make this easier)

Sprinkle a bit more salt and pepper on top for good measure…

Place an oven proof thermometer in the roast for optimal results. It takes so much of the guess work out of the equation and the roast ends up perfect each time!

Place in the hot oven, let bake for 10 min at 500 and then put the temp down to 350. Bake until the roast is at the desired temp, not forgetting the temp will rise while sitting.(for a med-rare roast I take it out at 135F)

Let sit for 15-20 min before serving.

Serve with Mashed Potatoes and gravy (my favourite Red wine/Rosemary gravy recipe to come soon) for a perfect winter meal…

Winter banner…

I have been wanting to get more into embroidering and I thought that this would be a great project.

Not only did I start, but Xavier also joined in and helped… So it has become something that we can share…

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These mitten shapes are all the sizes of their hands….

It is a work in progress but there are enough to put up now and I will be adding more once in a while as I make them…

I love what it adds to the space.

Just two days later…

She is so much more stable…

Salt dough ornaments…

I thought that making some Salt-dough ornaments would not only be fun for the kids and I to do but of course would add colour and more variety to our tree and create some great memories…

I loved doing this project also, so I got my hands dirty and had fun (which is why there are not many pics of the process)

To make the Salt-dough you will need

2 cups of Flour
1 cup of Salt
1 cup of water

Mix the Flour and Salt together and the add the water. (start with half of the water and keep adding until you get the right texture… like pie dough)

I also took half of the dough and added cocoa powder to it so that I had a brown dough also.

We rolled the dough and started to cut out shapes…

I made holes in the shapes with a straw so that we could string them up after and then put them on a lined pan and baked them in the oven at a low temp for a few hours until they were dry.

You can also leave them air dry for a few days….

Next was painting…

The boys and I all had a blast painting all of the shapes… we had about 3 dozen to do!