Morning Shift

Life has shifted.

Fall of 2013 has been the first season in his entire life when my son has been consistently getting up on his own in the mornings (and not at 4am as in years gone by) and getting dressed and ready for the day independently. I'm very proud of him.

For me, this has meant a major shift. Mornings are now quiet. Peaceful. And I now have the luxury of getting up on my own schedule rather than being woken by someone else's morning displeasures that continue until they leave the house - and sometimes beyond ;-) 

What a change! And very healing for the body, mind, and soul.

Calm and peace are first on my list in the morning. I often find myself coming out of a dream when I become aware of being awake in the morning, though not always. Sometimes I take a bit of time to remember what I've dreamt about but otherwise I start my exercises by watching the tree branches outside my window.

After a quick washroom break, I clean my teeth (baking soda, water, sometimes coconut oil, sometimes a natural toothpaste), and drink either a glass of plain water or water with baking soda. Then I move into the rest of my morning. My exercise time is for body, mind, and spirit. I meditate, do various stretches, exercise my focus, take time for creative free-flow thought, exercise my breathing, and purposely take time to feel a sense of wonder.

Then I indulge in my first breakfast. I'm a big fan of "smoothies" because I can toss all sorts of good stuff into the blender and drink it down: http://richesofsimplicity.blogspot.ca/2013/11/toss-anything-in.html.

This morning's first breakfast started with a pumpkin smoothie (frozen,/cooked pumpkin, banana, hemp hearts, water, chia seed, dehydrated kale, dehydrated spinach, maple syrup, cinnamon) followed by almonds followed by tomato juice:

My second breakfast was mashed chickpeas (garbanzo beans) that had been soaked (from dried) then cooked, mashed raw garlic mixed in with the chickpeas (a sort of hummus), cucumbers slices, and green tea.

My son is usually up by the time I've had or am having my second breakfast, and then our day together begins.



Making Holiday Memories

Simple living brings with it many gifts, the greatest being a natural continuum of appreciation.

As we distance ourselves from consumeristic trappings, the more our mind and soul are free to breathe, to see good, to create, to participate in our existence.

Each year I grow further away from the consumerism that polluted my life when my children were small. Each year I am aware of a greater degree of inner peace.

How are we celebrating the holidays? My son and I are purposefully doing one special thing each day in addition to our usual family time:

Paper snowflakes, nature photography walk, making fudge, picking up a "new" board game at the thrift shop then settling in for an afternoon of playing and popcorn, playing music at local residential homes/shelter/seniors' homes, repainting canvases, an afternoon of sketching memories from family life, a "kitchen experiments" day, learning to knit, a minimizing day of clearing out items that could be better used elsewhere, felting, a "downtown" photography day, making a cookie train, and a movie evening which was a gift from a friend. We did the movie evening last night and saw "Hugo" - an interesting film highlighting the works of Georges Méliès. ***My son has reminded me that we'd also decided that we'll be making a special treat in the kitchen every day!

We're aiming to go for a walk every day. We usually put any food cuttings/scraps into our  small compost bag on our deck but during the winter we put some out in our yard every day for the squirrel and birds. We've been watching the History of Canada on vhs tapes we found at the thrift shop - they have so much information that we're looking forward to watching bits of them frequently throughout the holidays. My grand-daughters will be stopping by to spend part of a day here and there, when I'm sure much teadollspuzzlesstories-
windowwatchingwaterplayingsnacking will take place. We're going to play Christmas lp's, now that I finally found an affordale record player ($15 at our thrift shop!), including one that's the same as one I had when I was a child. On Christmas morning, we're looking forward to enjoying a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and mandarins before my son opens his stocking. At some point we'll walk over to one of the local residential homes for adults living with disabilities and we'll share some music. We haven't decided yet whether to have our Christmas dinner around noon or later in the day. We're also considering picking up some ice skates at the thrift shop and trying to stay upright on the local outdoor rink across the road from our house.

No malls, no shopping stresses. We're giving a few small gifts - some purchased at a couple of local shops within walking distance from our home, a few purchased online, and a few homemade.

A simple, peaceful Christmas.

Holiday Treats

Gluten-free, Casein-free

I was reminded this morning that there are folks looking for quick and easy gfcf holiday recipes. At our house, quick and easy is a favourite when it comes to treats. I've done quite a bit of experimenting with food to find what works for my son's needs as well as our finances. Here are some of our favourite sweets....

Chocolates

 

 

 

Melt bakers chocolate with a bit of natural honey to taste (I usually do 2 squares of chocolate and a dollop of honey that just covers the tip of a regular wooden spoon then add as needed. Don't overdo the honey though or you'll just end up with chocolate-honey soup. Add enough honey to "just" sweeten the chocolate)

 Drop by spoonful onto waxed or parchment paper and enjoy! These can be eaten as is OR wait til they're cool enough to roll into balls then dip them in chocolate and roll in hemp seed, coconut, crushed gfcf cereal, crushed nuts, cinnamon, or whatever else your heart desires.

Chocolate Cereal Drops

Melt whatever you usually use for melting chocolate. Because we're very careful with our shekels and have become used to eating few sweets, we can afford to purchase a nice bar of fair trade, high cocao, cane sugar chocolate for these. For the cereal, we use gfcf puffed millet or gfcf puffed rice (both of which we've been able to find on sale for 99cents a bag so stocked up). Gently stir cereal into melted chocolate and drop by spoonful. Try not to eat them all before they've set.

Potato Candy

Potato candy is very simple to make - and if you've never made it before, it's also an interesting process to observe. This has been a tradition in our family for generations.

Ingredients: Mashed potato, icing sugar, optional peanut butter, optional peppermint extract

Although the bulk of the food preparation in our home is gfcf, I do not purchase gfcf store products. I view them as being in the same category as any other boxed/ prepared/processed food. We have, however, occasionally received gfcf icing sugar from our food bank. I've also recently learned that icing sugar is just sugar and cornstarch blended together, so will be experimenting in the new year with cane sugar and gfcf cornstarch. All in all, we generally don't use sugar or icing sugar. Potato candy, however, requires the latter.

I use about 2 heaping tablespoons of mashed potato, then slowly continue sprinkling in icing sugar til I have a firm dough. This sounds simple enough, and it is, but if you're new to the world of potato candy, you'll likely be surprised or possibly even concerned when you first start adding the icing sugar and realize you have what looks to be a liquid mess in your bowl. What's happening is that the sugar is breaking down the starch in the potato. Bravely carry on.

Once the dough is ready, sprinkle some icing sugar onto waxed or parchment paper and place the dough onto the paper. Knead, adding more icing sugar as necessary. Once you think the dough is firm enough, roll it out into a rectangle, spread with peanut butter (or other nut butter), roll it up as you would for a jellyroll. Some folks then wrap the roll in waxed or parchment paper and refrigerate then slice. I just let mine sit for a bit on the table before cutting it into deliciously lovely little slices.

**Alternative 1: I usually put a couple of drops of peppermint extract into the palm of my hand then gently rub my hands together then knead the dough. If I forget, then I just gently rub my peppermint hands over the finished roll before slicing. The roll is good without the peppermint as well.

**Alternative 2: Instead of rolling dough out into a rectangle, just form small balls. These can be eaten as is or dipped in chocolate.

Enjoy!

Almond Pudding, Living with Autism, Train the Brain, Thrift Shop Stained Glass, Red Squirrel

TODAY AT THE THRIFT SHOP
I'm not into consumerism. I believe in reusing, and find no shame (a bit of a thrill, actually!) in finding ways to reuse thrift shop items. For my son, our treks to the thrift shop provide him the opportunity to peruse an abundance of items and maybe even take some of them home with him - most frequently, movies for $1. and board games for $2.  It also allows me to address my son's ongoing clothing needs on bag sale days and replace the numerous items that often need replacing in our home. As an added bonus, we often see a few folks we know there on Saturdays which makes for a nice social outing.  Today's little gem is going to be cleaned up and hung on an old barn door I have on my deck. Yes, that's a $1.00 price tag at the top!

OUTSIDE OUR FRONT WINDOW
Last September, we noticed a small red squirrel in our front yard. This was the first I'd seen in this area and hadn't expected to see much of him/her. I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that he or she seems to appreciate the neighbourhood and seems quite at home in our evergreen trees. This little gift is providing us with much viewing enjoyment. Stayed tuned for apple stories.

INSIDE MY SON'S WORLD
Training the Brain
For children whose brains did not either fully develop in utero or developed differently than "the norm", daily functioning can be an ongoing challenge.  While visual and/or verbal prompts are helpful to many, my son has repeatedly rejected the idea through the years because he often doesn't remember to use the visual prompt and usually doesn't want to have to be reminded.  What's one left to do? Train the brain! My son either takes some quiet time to himself or shifts into brief physical exercise in order to help him focus and train his brain to think about what he needs/needed to do. In addition, there's repetion repetition repetition! Learning by rote is one of the strongest tools my son has been able to use.

TODAY'S BIT OF ART

"Living With Autism"

Acrylics on 20"x20" gallery-wrapped canvas

TODAY'S RECIPE:
Amazing Almond Pudding
This is one of our favourite foods! It's light, made without dairy and without processed sugar, and everything about it is adjustable to your personal tastes. The following makes four just-right servings, about 1/2 cup each.
Ingredients: 1 cup almonds, 2.5 cups water, honey or maple syrup to taste, vanilla (optional), cinnamon (or other spices) to taste, cornstarch
Mmmmmaking it!
1.Toss 1 cup almonds into your blender. Add 2.5 cups of water. Don't forget the lid! Blend on high for a couple of minutes until well-blended then strain the liquid into the top pot of a double-boiler. You can also use a regular pot on the stove, but you'll have to be very careful not to let it burn. (Keep the "almond mash" for future use - cereal topping, add honey to it and just enjoy, etc.)
2. Add melted honey or maple syrup to taste.
3. Sprinkle a bit of spice to taste. We use either cinnamon or a pumpkin pie spice blend.
4. Add about half a teaspoon of vanilla, or to taste. (Optional)
5. Heat the mixture to bubbling, constantly stirring/whisking while thickening with cornstarch blend (about 1.5 Tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 0.5 Tablespoon of water   -    repeat if you prefer a thicker consistency) or whatever you prefer to use as a thickener (tapioca starch doesn't work - we tried!)
6. Pour into ramekins or other small serving dishes. Can be eaten warm or cooled. To keep the pudding from forming a rubbery skin on top, place a small square of foil or parchment paper onto each dish so it is in contact with the entire surface of the pudding. When serving, I often sprinkle a bit of added cinnamon on top and/or a square of Fair Trade chocolate.

Enjoy!