Easy as Pie

My first from scratch, apples I picked, dough rolled by hand pie.

Good flavour. Things to note: I love hot right out of the oven pie BUT this pie needed to rest for 1 hour for the juices to distribute. 1 hour does not mean 39 minutes.

Pie dough wasn't rolled thin enough or else I should use more apples, about double what I used.

Local mamas: if you'd like to try a piece, we're home all day Friday! I'll be baking more pies. Lots more pies. Call me and come over!

Monday, Monday

Blah. I have the sniffles complete with sinus headache and scratchy throat.

I love Mondays lately. Despite my frustrating weekend, Monday leaves me with a clean house because Sunday morning we clean it as a family to prepare for Dearest to have band practice. Clean house is good. Usually I am also caught up with laundry because that's what Lil'Bug and I do while Dearest is playing music downstairs, but Blueberry was fussy last night and I still have about 5 clean loads to fold and put away.

Mondays are also free train rides for members at the zoo, wading pool park day, and a good day to go to the Historical museum (it used to be closed on Mondays so everyone thinks it still is).

With all of that available we will likely only go to the library today, clean out the car again, and try to buy an apple picking tool to prepare for our orchard trips. Very busy day.

Oh, and I'm going to attempt to make shortcake today.

Whew.

Serious Consideration

We have planned for many things. What we have not planned for is a long term educational plan if something were to happen to one or both of us. It is important to me that my children are cared for, respected, and allowed to learn joyously.

A couple things were churning in my brain as of late. One our our local moms was killed in a car accident this summer. I'd only met her once, but the incident stirred in me a sudden urgency to document our choices and discuss plans with each other and our family.

Until this summer the RU term has been lightly and quietly spoken. After all, MIL is a public school administrator and while our homeschooling "whim" has thus been tolerated, concerns over curriculum and socialization are already rising to the top of the brine.

So what is to follow is a series of posts on unschooling and how we have adapted it to our learning and lives. For me at this point in time it is not enough to have ring links in the sidebars.

Evie also sent a comment a while back wondering how we do it (RU), how it works for us. At the NBTS party I ranted and raved about how anything, (YES ANYTHING,) can be a unit study. No really, anything. Name it and I can get at least three "disciplines" to go with it naturally (not forced).

So, you've been warned. The posts are coming.

Sunkissed

I have a confession to make. We stopped wearing sunscreen this year. I was worried and nervous as we are all fairly fair skinned BUT I had a gut feeling moving me. Don't get me wrong, I educated that gut feeling and then stepped into it slowly.

Here's the thing: sunscreens have lots of chemicals in them that are not FDA approved. Fine and well since you don't eat the goo right? Wrong. Skin in your body's largest organ and it absorbs those chemicals, many of them KNOWN cancer causing and banned substances. Well, golly gee, sun causes skin cancer too. What's a girl to do?

Vitamin D is a known cancer fighter. Your body makes that when exposed to the sun, real sunlight. So does it make sense to slather on cancer causing agents to block out a cancer preventing vitamin? Right. Moving on.

I burn. I burn bad. When I take a hot bath or get overheated the burn lines from the summer I was 14 reappear. That's why I was nervous.

I read that eating berries helps build up your skin from the inside out.
I read that being hydrated properly will reduce your chance of burning.
I read that adding coconut oil to your diet and beauty regiment would help.
I bought hats.
I favoured shady spots.
I wore appropriate clothing.

It is August. I've gotten rosy a couple times. Yesterday Lil'Bug did not stop to take water breaks and played for 5+ hours in her swimsuit in a fountain. She got a little rosy too. I slathered her with Shea Butter before bed. Today, she has no evidence of tenderness or discomfort. Me either. We went to the Fair without slathering up. We've spent most of our time outside this summer. No burns.

Huh. The experiment continues.