Carey Jane Clark

November 3 in 30

October 31, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

I just spent one of those weekends that makes you take a second look at your life and wonder if your priorities are completely in the right place. Not that they’re dramatically off-center, just that I wonder if there are some things I left behind along the way that I need to spend more time on–a lot more time on. It’s all very personal at the moment, and nothing I want to go public with, but it did make it a challenge to prepare my 3 in 30 post for November.

I can tell you what I’m NOT going to do. I’m not going to participate in NaNoWriMo. Much as I’d love to, it’s not the right time for me. Maybe next year. I’m not doing it with my kids this year, either, although last year’s experience was wonderful, and I heartily endorse it.

There are three reasons for this:

I’ve spent so much time in recent months concentrating on After the Snow Falls that I need to give myself a reprieve to recharge my creative juices.
We’re planning a big trip later this month. More on that really soon. I’m so excited! It’s a surprise for the kids that I’ll unveil here when I tell them.
We’re gearing up to move back to China! Again, excited beyond words, and so. much. to. do. Already reading moving blogs and advice because I’m determined to make this one less stressful!

This may require some future revision, but here are my goals at this moment:

Get my personal schedule on track. For me this means getting up before everyone else in the house, spending some devotional time, and then exercising and showering before breakfast preparations.
Begin moving preparations.
Pull off a successful birthday celebration for Sweetpea, and have a blast on our trip.

Conquering the Picky Eater

October 25, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

I was never a picky eater, so I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of patience for those who are, but seemingly coinciding with our move to China and continuing forward from there, our Sweetpea, in particular, has decided that most breakfast foods are not her thing.

And yet some years ago, after talking to someone about concerns about allergies, the advice I received was to have a lot of variety in our food choices. Up until then, our kids had pretty much eaten oatmeal every morning.

Funny enough, one of the things Sweetpea now has challenges with is oatmeal. So I created a new breakfast food: “Buffet Oatmeal.”

We pull just about everything out of the pantry and they’re allowed to “dress” their oatmeal in whatever they like. The only rules: eat everything you take and everyone has to help clean up.

Here are our favorite formulas:

Me:

bananas
walnuts
coconut
honey
peanut or almond butter
cocoa

Pumpkin:

raisins
coconut
almond milk
maple syrup
peanut butter
almond butter
cocoa
walnuts

Sweetpea:

maple syrup
honey
almond milk
peanut butter
cocoa

Sprout:

bananas
peanut butter
honey

What’s for breakfast at your house today?

Chef’s Hat and Apron

October 19, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

Did you see the chef’s hat and apron in yesterday’s post? If not, here’s another peek at it:

I made these for my kids last Christmas, because they were getting into doing chores in the kitchen, particularly washing dishes, but Sprout didn’t like it when her clothes got wet.

So I took an old McCall’s pattern for an apron I had lying around and made it from vinyl-coated cotton. I used a fabric that would be acceptable for both boys and girls, omitted the pocket from the pattern, rounded the edges, and used binding all around to finish the edges and make the ties and the loop around the neck. Then I found this fabulous tutorial for a chef’s hat. The same site also has an apron tutorial, if you’d rather make one from fabric.

The chef’s hat involves a lot of pinning, but otherwise, it’s very easy. I enjoyed it so much, I made aprons and hats for my niece and nephew as well.

Enjoy!

Going Gluten-Free

October 17, 2011 by Carey Jane Clark

It is with great reluctance that we head down this path. In addressing some of our health issues, it seems I can’t escape the suggestion that our family go gluten-free (dairy free has also been suggested—for the most part we eliminated that years ago, but while we’ve been in Canada, where it’s a little easier to get our hands on cheese, I must admit to a little—no a lot—of cheating in this area.).

This is not the first time this course of action has been suggested. I have resisted for several reasons:

We already eat a gluten-reduced diet, since we use flours like Kamut and Spelt that are low in gluten. That was something of an adjustment in the first place, but now something we’re very comfortable with (read: something we don’t want to change).
I want to eat whole grains, and many gluten-free recipes aren’t whole grain or use grains/flours I am not excited about using, like potato and corn.
It means saying goodbye to some favorite foods, and it seems unfair to “penalize” other members of the family whose diets don’t necessarily need altering.
This kind of diet is very hard to sustain when we move back to China, so what’s the point of shifting everything? It’s a lot of learning and unlearning for the family cook. (Sigh.)
Just how do you live without bread? Really. Some of the baked goods are easy enough to get rid of—they’re not necessary items. But say goodbye to toast AND sandwiches AND garlic bread…this seems a bit crazy, and hard to explain to a child. I’ve made attempts at baking gluten-free loaves before, and in China managed to gather up all the necessary ingredients (which meant importing my own xanthan gum), but all my loaves failed miserably. They looked glorious when I pulled them out of the oven, but moments later they crashed in the middle and were a disgusting mess. We sold our bread machine when we packed up for China, so I need old-fashioned bread-making recipes, and almost all the gluten-free baking recipes seem to be made for the breadmaker.
I can’t help feeling there is a better way. Is eliminating most of a food group really the best way to handle this situation?

Note: I had planned this post to this point until this past weekend when we had two experiences that changed my heart on this matter:

The kids and I made a successful and tasty gluten-free bread for home economics on Friday. I’ll share more about that tomorrow.
On the weekend, we visited with some friends we haven’t seen since college. Another friend was present who is violently allergic to gluten, so the subject came up. The friends from college shared their experiences going gluten-free for two years to help their daughter, who was having difficulties with attention in school and behavior at home. The problems they described were severe, but we have seen shades of every issue they described in one of our children. JavaMan, one of the biggest holdouts in this whole gluten-free thing immediately became more supportive to the idea.

So we’re going gluten-free. It was tough on the weekend, because I’m still not thinking that way completely, and after church there was cake and I had arranged no substitute. With our motivation firmly in mind, though, we’re going to make this work. I welcome suggestions and advice!

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