melissa

About melissa

I am "a hippie with a minivan". A mom of four who has chosen to take the less travelled roads in parenting. We are a unschooling family and learn through life without punishments or rewards. I am a Needle Felting Artist, I love being in the Kitchen, and love to share my passion of Natural Parenting through Workshops and Mentoring. We have a big dream of living on the road and we are in the process of converting a bus!

Meals for the week…

Over the years I have tried to start this as a weekly thing but I only do a few weeks and then I forget.

So here is to another try… and as a bonus I will add last week’s meals also.

Last week we had an all vegetarian week which is something I love to do because I feel so much better eating vegetarian meals, however, my family is not as much on board. We have figured out that pork and chicken just doesn’t agree with any of us much anymore, so we will not be making many meals with those ingredients except for a few exceptions. However, we do enjoy beef, and I have a good butcher, so this week I am adding back a bit of meat so that the rest of the family is happier.

Last week:

Homemade Baba Ganoush (or hummus as I made it with eggplant and chickpeas) with homemade pita chips
General Tso Tofu (using this recipe but with Tofu)
Spinach Salad with Roasted Veggies and Garlic Bread
Homemade Pizza
Spinach Salad and Perogies
Snack for supper (bread, cheese and other snack things)

This week:

Homemade Poutine (request from the boys) while Simon and I made do with other things
Hamburgers made with local beef, my homemade buns and Salad
Pasta with meatballs and tomato sauce
Beef, Red Pepper and Udon Noodles
Salad, Roasted Veggies and Garlic Bread
Tofu and Coconut Quinoa
Falafel with Taratoor Sauce

Do you plan your meals in advance? If you are interested in knowing more about my menu planning, check out this post.

More than 2 weeks in…

I am now on day 16 of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) in which the goal is to post a blog post a day for a whole month.

Surprisingly it hasn’t been too hard up to now. I think the habit of writing everyday is sinking in slowly and now I find myself thinking about posting and trying to find things to post about. I used to look at the my blog dashboard and shy away because it was no longer a habit and now it is feeling natural again. (though I do look forward to having a small break)

I have been wanting to write a few parenting posts and I have a few subject that I know I want to touch on, or go back on, since many of my posts are now a bit outdated. (for me) But, each time I sit down to write one I have trouble getting the words out. It is like that idea is there, but the passion that I need to write it is just not there at the moment.

That got me to thinking of why. I think that one of the ways posting was made easier over the years was to participate in online forums. If you have even been active on an online forum you will know that not only are they a “time-suck” but they are also breeding grounds for drama. I would read or participate in a post and then I would come here and rant and let all of my opinions out. That is of course how and why my blog started in the first place.

I need to find a way to find that voice somewhere else now. I don’t want to be sucked into the drama anymore, but I enjoy sharing my parenting views and I believe that there are people that like reading them also. So I am going to make an effort to find that passion in another way so that I can get these posts out of my head and onto the blog where they belong. I am also going to go back to a few of my older posts and re-work them and include the parenting experience that I have now.

Stay tuned…

Too much of a good thing…

I have fond memories from childhood, making popcorn with my mom and then with friends and topping it with tamari and nutritional yeast. It was one of my favourite snacks as a child and still is.

And now it has become a favourite for my children as well.

Popcorn drizzled with Tamari and sprinkled with Nutritional Yeast

Not only do the kids like the Nutritional yeast on popcorn but they also love it on rice and other savoury dishes I make and I have to admit, there is not much that it doesn’t go with. Wilhelmina especially loves it and has been known to sneak a handful when I am not looking.

This morning I hadn’t noticed that she was already up when Khéna came and got me out of bed way before the usual time saying that Wilhelmina was in the yeast jar. I got my glasses on, got my house pants on and came upstairs and took the jar away and cleaned up the mess. I helped them grab a quick bowl of cereal, got my coffee and sat down and then I looked at Wilhelmina. I saw a bit of red on her face and thought that it was strange that she still had raspberry on her from yesterday… I mean, she did have a bath.
When I glanced again the red had spread and her whole body was become beet red. OMG! I thought about Khéna’s hives from a few days ago and brought her to the bathroom to check her out more. But there were no hives, just red all over and she was itchy and she wanted to wash her hand which still had a bit of yeast stuck to it.
The yeast! I went to the computer to see if there are cases of Nutritional yeast reactions and a post on a forum mentioned Niacin Flush. I have never heard of it so I looked into that quickly and guessed that it was probably what was happening.

Nutritional Yeast is very healthy and contains Niacin. Niacin is great for cholesterol levels by raising good cholesterol and therefore decreasing bad cholesterol. Niacin also helps dilate blood vessels and can cause a warm feeling which is the “Flush”. This is a very common side effect of having too much Niacin. Some people do this on purpose taking enough Niacin that will dilate the blood vessels enough for them to go beet red. If you haven’t taken too much, the flush will last about 10 minutes and will go, but if you take too much it can last up to an hour. Either way, it is a vitamin and though it could overload the kidneys if there is a problem with the kidneys, it will just be flushed out of the body naturally.
Wilhelmina’s Flush lasted about 10 minutes and then disappeared.
Though I knew that nutritional yeast was healthy along with being completely delicious, I never though that you could have this reaction from eating too much of it…

She knows that she became red because of the yeast and I think she knows better now… I hope!

(Just as the Flush was leaving… a minute or two before this, her whole face and body were the colour of her cheeks… you can still see her neck is pink)

A few things that caught my eye…

First Check out Mark…

Today he left from BC and is hitchhiking across the country hoping to arrive at the Stanfield’s Factory in Nova Scotia in 21 days to raise money. What is so special about that? He is doing it in his underwear, in November, in Canada… to raise money for “Below-the-Waist” Cancer research.

You can support him by donating or even picking him up for a ride along the way! Gitchhiker.com

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This is Disturbing..

I know it dates from last year but it popped up in my Facebook news feed today and it still quite disturbing: Genetically modified cows produce ‘human’ milk. I really can’t get my head around it.

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Here is one about birthing:

“The low-tech approach to delivering babies in one Amish community may offer clues on how to safely reduce the rate of Cesarean-section deliveries in the United States, researchers say.”

Amish offers clues to lowering US C-section rate

Is this really news? Hospital have been failing women and jeopardizing their health and the health of babies for years. Pregnancy and birth are not diseases and the more hands-off a caregiver is the better the outcome! It isn’t rocket science, it’s Nature! Why go to the Amish? they could have looked at most midwives and the natural birthing community has been saying for years! Of course, this won’t change a thing.

Update on the braided table runner…

I am loving how this table runner is coming together!

After I had bought the fabric and was putting it together I thought that I had made a mistake with the choice I made but once I brought the colours together in a different way, I knew that it would turn out pretty and it is even better than I would have imagined it would be.

The top is now finished and I have sandwiched it with the batting and the backing and “all” I need to do now is to quilt them together and then finish the edges. I have the “all” in quotations because though I know I will like it when it is finished, actually putting the needle down and figuring out how I am going to quilt it is the hard part.

There are some definite mistakes in it but I don’t think it all that bad for a first try at the design with no pattern or instructions. I also think the overall look of it can make the mistakes seem quite minimal…