Tree of Life Mothering

We’ve had a lot of baseball around here lately, what with two practices and two games a week for one of my boys since the beginning of May. Last year, we had two boys doing ball. We’ve had some years where four kids do it (plus Shakespeare play practice, dance recitals, and soccer, yikes!).  Dutifully, I go and watch to support my child, but I have to admit, it’s not something I really like. At least it’s not watching bowling. Baseball has its moments, but most of it is boring.

A rare, non-boring baseball moment.

It’s not constantly fast and zippy like basketball. So, I bring a book and have a private party, just me and a book. I’ve read a lot of books this way. One spring/summer of baseball games I read this pair of books about Louisa May Alcott and her mother, both by Eve LaPlante, an award-winning author who is related to the Alcotts.

Now that was a wonderful baseball season! I felt like I was transported back to Transcendental New England in the 1800s. I was amazed at how much Louisa was influenced by her mother’s mentoring. I was blown away by how strong and determined and wise Louisa’s mother was. I was also mad at how lazy and insensitive to his wife that the dad, Bronson, was. Mr. March from Little Women he was not. No wonder Louisa did not have the dad at home in Little Women, she didn’t know what it’s like to have a model male father figure working productively while living at home. She shipped him off to the Civil War for the book.

OK, enough of the Alcotts’ dysfunctional family wounds and back to this summer. Recently, I read Julie Andrews wax eloquently about baseball in her poetry collection, pictured below:

Gushingly unabashedly, she describes a grandson who loves baseball. This love has spread to her whole family as they support him in games and umping all through spring and summer. In true Julie/Maria/Mary Poppins fashion, her cheery enthusiasm has infected me. I’ve decided to let the sport grow on me. Here’s the poem she shares in the book, called Analysis of Baseball by May Swenson.

I have to admit that as a mom of five boys, I haven’t always shared their passions for things that I’m not wild about. Like for Boy Scouts, or baseball. I won’t go into all the details. Let’s just say two things. First, it has never seemed fair to me since I first got the crushing news at age 8 that scouting through the LDS church was just for boys. Why only for boys and not girls? I always felt marginalized by this. I can hardly contain a daily happy dance after decades of “Why not  church-sponsored Scouting for girls?” and almost 13 years of monthly Pack Meetings (because of 5 boys). This announcement here has me giddy. It could not have come sooner! Second, baseball is sooooo s-l-o-w. I’ve sat through A LOT of ball games, for both my sons and daughters. As I said before, I always make sure to bring a few great books to read when my kid’s not up to bat.

We had this great moment in baseball, however, a few weeks ago at my son’s game. Here’s my husband’s description of it:

In the bottom of the last inning, we are behind by four points. We score four points and tie the score. There is a runner on third base. There are two outs. S. approaches home plate. He was up to bat once before during this game, but struck out. He takes his place in the batter’s box, and raises his bat over his shoulder.

Pitch after pitch speed past him. Finally the count is full, three balls and two strikes. It looks like another strike-out in the making. As the last pitch approaches, S. begins to swing. Because his swing is late, the ball is destined for right field. A line drive! The ball drops to the ground between the first baseman and the right fielder. As S. runs toward first base, his teammate runs toward home plate. S. is safe on first!

When his teammate steps on home plate, his coach shouts, “We won the game!” His team rushes out of the dugout and jumps up and down hugging each other. S. doesn’t understand what just happened. He is so surprised to have hit a ball and to be safe at first his brain doesn’t process anything else. His whole team rushes S. and piles on top of him. L. carries him off the field!. One of his teammate’s grandmother gives S. a ten dollar bill!

I have found the best books for boys, and even girls who are into adventure, blood and gore. Especially if any of them are reluctant readers. These books are the Hazardous Tales Series from Nathan Hale. The one pictured above is about WWI. All of these books are graphic novels, a fancy name for comic books.

What I love about these books is that the author and illustrator, Nathan Hale, has such a knack for visual storytelling. He is so ingeniously creative! So as you read, you are painlessly learning history at the same time. In the WWI book above he uses a different animal to represent each nation involved in the war. So, Britons are bulldogs, Serbians are wolves, Russians are bears, Austrian-Hungarians are griffins, Germans are eagles, and Americans are…bunnies! (That’s right, not bald eagles!) That innovative feature, combined with the cool maps that Nathan includes in the book has allowed me to remember how the war got started and who was on which side. Even though I’ve taught a class about it, and passed the AP History Exam, I would get confused by all the nations involved and who was on which side. Since I am a visual learner I will remember from now on that the Serbs were against the Germans and Austria-Hungarians, because of the animals and the maps in the book.

I highly recommend this book, along with the other books Nathan has written and illustrated, featured below. They all have 4.5 to 5 stars on Amazon, and I give them 5 stars too! If you care about going in order when reading a book series, you will want to read the book below first. It sets the stage of the three main characters who appear in each book: Nathan Hale (the real person who was caught spying in the Revolutionary War, who coincidentally has the same name as the author, although they are not related), the Hangman, and the Provost.

After that, it doesn’t really matter what order you read them in, unless you want to go in historical order, of course. I have had so much fun coming up with different voices for these characters as I read One Dead Spy aloud to the kids. Trying out British, German, and Russian accents for the WWI book has also been delightful.

This one is about the Revolutionary War, called One Dead Spy, about Nathan Hale. Again, the maps have helped me better understand the history I’ve heard over and over through the years since my public school classes.

This one is about the War Between the States, aka the U.S. Civil War, called Big Bad Ironclads. I was disappointed it only covers navy battles. It’s still great though! I guess I will have to wait for Nathan to do one about the land battles.

This one above is about the Donner-Reed Party. Nathan managed to pull off his balance of mixing tragedy with comedy without being offensive. We are talking about cannibals here, after all. He is such a gifted storyteller!

The one pictured above is about WWII and Jimmy Dolittle’s Raid. We haven’t read it yet but I’m confident it’s just as grand as the others.

Then this one is about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. It is heart wrenching to see all of the abuse she underwent, yet inspiring to see her rise above it as a hero. I didn’t know she had fainting spells from being hit in the head until I read this book.

We are reading this one about Texas history and the Alamo. I had no idea so many people were involved in the early history of Texas. Now I understand the Six Flags thing. Santa Anna, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, Stephen Austin, there are all here.

The newest one, due out October 2018, is also about the Revolutionary War. Feauring the Marquis de Lafayette, the French nobleman who was Washington’s buddy in training the colonial soldiers, it’s sure to be another hit. I can’t wait!

You can read one interview here and another with him here.  Then here is his blog. He hasn’t added to it in over a year, hopefully that means he is hard at work!

Enjoy these books! They are especially great for reluctant readers, like my 13 year  old son, back when he was 9. I started reading Big Bad Ironclad for bedtime. He snuck off with it the next day to read it in secret and finished the book! That was probably the fourth chapter book he was been motivated to read on his own. Hooray! Show your kids that history is not boring with the Hazardous Tales. Get your kids reading these books and they will get hooked on history and want to know more! He also does other books, as shown below:

This first week of June makes me think of my grandma. For many years when I was young, after school got out in the end of May, my sisters and I would spend a week with her and Grandpa in my dad’s hometown while my parents had a business trip. Grandma was a high school home economics teacher who taught us how to sew. Her motto was “She who dies with the most fabric wins!” Because of those times with her in early June, sewing and summer go together for me. I still remember the pink and purple striped shorts she taught me how to make using fabric I picked out from her overflowing shelves of material. I paired it with a pink shirt that had a Strawberry Shortcake applique. I thought I was really stylish! “Sew”…. with love and dedication to Grandma, haha, I am posting a bunch of sewing tutorials here on my site. Check out more on my page over here, Fun to Make and Do.

I never did get any stories up to celebrate Memorial Day the week before last so I am repenting and putting them up now. This one I am about to relate is one of my favorites. It is the story of a young man who found out that he had a great uncle who died in WW2 as a jet fighter pilot during a flight. His Great Uncle Jerry died when he was 20, unmarried and without children. So he had no descendants to leave a legacy to or remember him. Nevertheless, this young man became determined to learn more about him and tell his story. He found his picture in an old high school yearbook and was surprised how much he looked like his uncle. He found out more details of his story and shared them in this article here, from the February 2015 Ensign.

My favorite lines from the article are these:

Those who have gone before us can still greatly bless our lives, but only if we don’t forget them. My great-uncle Jerry has now become one of my most powerful role models.

Like Jerry, many people who lived on this earth never married or never had children. They have no direct descendants to honor their memory. We need to learn their stories so they can be told. Like those who have descendants, they too deserve to be remembered.

Coming to know and love this member of my family has given new meaning to the scriptural promise, “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6).

As I do family history research and temple work, I love to find those “forgotten people” who had no children. I agree, they deserve to be remembered as well. May we all find them and remember them too. As we do so we are able to draw upon their strengths.

(This is an example of the many stories I have curated in my Celestial Guide to Family Devotionals ebook, which you can buy here for $4.99 before the price goes up to $9.99 on June 6.)

So by the photo above you may be thinking, “Great, she’s going to tell me to get away from it all at a lake or beach this summer and go buy a bunch of toys to play in the sun. I don’t have time or money for that!”  Nope.  Those are all fun ways to enjoy the sun for sure, but not doable for me every day as a busy, frugal mom and probably not doable for you either. I took that picture today on our family fishing outing with the Cub Scouts but this was a rare occasion. Most weekends we stay home, even in the summer.

For my typical, near daily “summer fun in the sun” I stay home and enjoy a super easy “outing” by stepping out my front door in a swimsuit. That gives me the “sun” part of the equation. I’m talking about good old-fashioned sunbathing, or “heliotherapy” if you want a fancy word for it. For the “fun” part I take a stack of books and some tunes.

Then I go enjoy my “tanning bed” by simply lying out in the sun in my yard. I used to do it on the grass or patio. Last year the bugs got really bad on the patio, so this year I am happy to advance upwards by being able to lie out on the trampoline that we got the kids last Christmas. The bugs haven’t figured out how to climb up there I guess. Shhh, don’t tell them! Ahh, it is blissful peace with a light breeze, my view of God’s creations (through the trampoline net): the trees, blue skies, mountains; and no biting ants!

I have been spending the past few summers getting out in the sun conscientiously and safely to increase my Vitamin D levels. I started doing this when I lived in Utah. After getting my Vitamin D level in my blood tested, I found out it was shockingly low. I had it tested through a nutritional therapist. She said that my level was among the lowest she has ever seen. Then I read the articles by Mommypotamus over here and here. I agree with her, that sunshine equals happiness! That prompted me to write this blog post here and here. So then I started lying out in the sun. I did this for one summer and was sad to quit doing it when it got too cold. Then I moved to AZ so now my season of lying out in the sun has increased! Hooray! Instead of my tanning bed season being May to August it’s now more like April, even March, to October!! Since I don’t live in the super hot parts of AZ, it is actually comfortable to lie out in the sun for a short time (not all afternoon of course).

I started gradually increasing my sun exposure, since I easily burn. As a kid I was envious of all the cheerleader-type girls who tanned when I didn’t. Then I realized that hey, actually my arms are tanned from regular sun exposure while playing outside (typical farmer tan), so maybe my legs could get tanned too, and maybe tanned skin isn’t necessarily damaged skin? I started out with just lying out in the  middle of the day, between 10 AM and 2 PM (the exact times most people say to avoid the sun, LOL) in my swimsuit. That way at least 60% of my skin is exposed, which is needful to get the best Vitamin D synthesis, according to Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, below.

I started out in my swimsuit with just 5 minutes of the front part of my body exposed, my upper chest, arms, and shoulders, and legs, then 5 minutes of my back parts exposed. I brought out a beach towel, a watch and a book, and I would just lie right out on the towel, on the ground, with a hat and sunglasses to protect my eyes while I am looking upwards. Then I went inside. I gradually added 5 minutes a week, going out every day, until I was doing 20 to 30 minutes on each side, almost every day. The result: no burning, even though I didn’t use sunblock and was out in the middle of the day. It was hard to get out there every day, truthfully, what with child rearing, homeschooling a big family, gardening, errands, homemaking, family vacations and reunions, etc. so on average I probably got 2-3 days a week. The result? I feel better and my Vitamin D level went up. My cortisol (a stress hormone) has decreased as well. (More on getting those tested in another post, or just go read the book The Blood Code.) I also haven’t had a cold or flu in about three years, maybe because of my increased Vitamin D levels. The flu is actually a symptom of Vitamin D deficiency, according to Dr. Eisenstein in the above video.

I spent three seasons of carrying out an armload of books, water bottle, phone and  beach towel for my sunbathing. I dropped my phone, thus cracking its screen. So now I sanely put everything in a box and carry it out to the trampoline. Lately I’ve been leaving my phone in the house and just taking out my ancient iPod. That way I can have some music but I unplug from the WiFi and screen. As Elder Ballard says, it is important to unplug in his April 2018 General Conference address:

Too many allow themselves to almost live online with their smart devices—screens illuminating their faces day and night and earbuds in their ears blocking out the still, small voice of the Spirit. If we do not find time to unplug, we may miss opportunities to hear the voice of Him who said, “Be still, and know that I am God.”⁸ Now, there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of the advances in the technologies inspired by the Lord, but we must be wise in their use.

He was talking about unplugging on the Sabbath Day, which I heartily recommend (Elder Ballard also suggested here to put your phone in airplane mode during the three hour church block of meetings), but I also recommend unplugging at least once during the middle of the day.

So here are the contents of my “Summer Fun in the Sun Kit”:

1. Beach towel

2. Swimsuit that you wear of course

3. Watch, so you can time the exposure, building up 5 minutes at a time, if you are fair skinned and feel like you are super sensitive to burning

4. Hat

5. Sunglasses for when you’re facing the sun. The Healthy Home Economist says that it’s good to go without sunglasses when you can (like when you are not driving into the sun or looking right into the sun) so you can absorb sulphur more.

6. iPod with earbuds (somedays I go without just to hear nature around me. I think my iPod has a clock too but this thing is so old I don’t dare rely on the clock in it)

7. Water bottle with straw. A straw is important, so you don’t have to tilt your head back when you drink, you can just lie there and relax and drink.

8. Books, books, books! (See *footnote below if you need help on reading the titles in my picture)

9. Box to carry it all in. I used the box that my Trim Healthy Mama Workins Exercise Kit came in, which I asked for and got for Mother’s Day from hubby and my adult kids (Thank you, dears! Btw, there is no shame in asking for what gift you want for your birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s and Mother’s Day! I learned this by reading Ramona Zabriskie’s Wife for Life book. Maybe I will do a book review sometime.)

10. Instructions to the kiddos inside as to where I am going, who’s in charge, what I expect them to have finished by the time I get back, what the consequences will be if they aren’t done, and to only come get me if there’s blood or fire. Lately I’ve been inviting them to come out too with their books but they aren’t interested, which is fine by me, haha. More peace and quiet! I thought it was funny that Karen Andreola, in this talk over here on mother culture, confessed that she would hide from her kids in the afternoon. She would put them in their rooms for “Quiet Time” and then go to her room for her mother culture time and set the timer. Then towards the end she would leave and go hide. When the timer went off they would go seek and find her, which would buy her more time for mother culture.

I guess it’s because I’m a secondary Carol Tuttle energy type 1 that I always have a stack of books I’m into. I also like to read a bunch of books in the hour and not just one. I thrive on having lots of ideas going on in my head!

I read in the Spring 2018 issue of the WAPF journal that the best time to access the sun for Vitamin D synthesis is when it’s at an angle of at least 50 degrees, which is in the middle of the day, but it varies according to where you live. To figure out the time for your latitude where this happens, go here.

Happy sunbathing! Remember, the right amount of sunshine = happiness! Enjoy absorbing those free elements that God gives us in sunlight. Slather on coconut oil or beef tallow afterwards if you feel like your skin is getting too dry.

*list of books in the picture, starting on the lower left and going clockwise:

Receiving Answers to Prayer by Elder Gene R. Cook

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn, see my cautionary note about a risque part in the book here

Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen

The Read Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers by Kevin Gutzman

Whence Came They? by Vaughn Hansen

How to Hug a Porcupine by Julie Ross for help on relating to my challenging teen

This post contains amazon affiliate links.

Here’s what I asked for and got for Mother’s Day from my hubby and adult children! I am so excited! I started working out (or in) with these DVDs last week. (Hint: if your DVDs are skippy like mine were, ask your husband to watch a YouTube video on how to clean your DVD player and have him do that, then they won’t skip anymore!) Who wants to do it with me? The promise made by the creators, Serene and Pearl, is that you will get fit from the inside out with just four 20 minute sessions a week. They have special exercises to strengthen the female pelvic floor, and core muscles, including fixing diastasis recti (fancy term for separated abdominal muscles).

I love how Serene and Pearl are so real and “homeschool mama friendly” in these DVDs: no fancy spandex or revealing clothes, and they use ketchup and salsa bottles and jugs of water for weights. They also show their kids appearing in and out and talk about how it’s OK to be interrupted to answer a child’s question. Well, at least Pearl does. Serene says when she’s in exercise mode she doesn’t answer kids’ questions, LOL. I’ve experienced that many times! They are so used to having me available all the time. It’s ok that mom isn’t available while she’s exercising, OK, guys?

I also like that after you get tired of hearing their jokes and banter, you can mute their talking and still know what’s ahead because of the text reminders that appear on the screen.

I also like that they have three levels of fitness to follow and also show moves to do while pregnant.

Get your kit here and take the challenge with me!

This is my challenge: Measure your biceps, thighs, waist and hips before you start doing the workins. Do the workins DVDs at least four times a week (each DVD session is approximately 20 min.)  Eat following the THM Plan as well. (Here’s a quick start guide for that from Gwen’s Nest.) Then measure after six weeks and see if you’ve lost inches! Ready, set, go! After I do this for a full six weeks I will do a complete review of the exercise kit here on the blog and share my results.

Somehow I recently stumbled upon this book at my local public library. I give it five out of five stars! I came home weary from being gone from home all day, and this book was the perfect pick me up to help me recover as I perused the pages and got engrossed in the beautiful combination of poetry and whimsical illustrations by Marjorie Priceman. It is a collection of poetry chosen by Julie Andrews, the famous actress of Mary Poppins/Maria Von Trapp fame, and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton. Anytime you want to feel that “spoonful of sugar” magic to help your work go by faster, recite some poetry from this book!

Photo Credit: southhamptonsagharborbooks.com

I love that they have picked poems suitable for each month and season of the year. They also include poetry for birthdays, a new baby’s arrival, and the Sabbath Day. I looked up a few that are in the public domain and listed them with links in my Family Devotional Ebook. I wanted to list and link every single one they had included from the public domain, but I was so close to press time, I had to limit myself, LOL! These poems are so delightful! Some of the poems are in the public domain, some aren’t, and some are written by Julie and Emma themselves. They are not afraid of mentioning God, so they include poetry to go with religious holidays of Easter, Christmas, Hanukkah, and the Sabbath, as I just mentioned. The video below shows them reciting a poem from their first collection of poetry, “The King’s Breakfast.” I have checked that book out too, but I have to say, I prefer this newer collection with the seasonal and monthly themes and Ms. Priceman’s bright, colorful, whimsical illustrations.

I was never much into poetry until I got introduced to the power of it from LaDawn Jacob in her videos below. I mean, I dutiful studied poetry in my honors and AP English classes in high school but I didn’t feel any joy about it. But now I do! Poetry delights the brain. It helps us connect to others,  it teaches us, and it gives us something to do with our mind if we ever find ourselves in captivity, without a book, a screen, or a toy. LaDawn mentions that in the book, Seven Years in Hanoi, the author who was imprisoned kept sane by reciting poetry. As my homeschooling mama friend Martha Levie says, “Poetry is wallpaper for the mind.”

You can request access to the collection of poetry LaDawn has made here. Scroll down the page and click on the link with the title “Favorite Family Devotional Poems.”

(This post contains amazon affiliate links.)

For the last day of our amazing homeschool group (a liberal arts-based family academy, aka  a “liber family school”) we got to enjoy ice cream made with liquid nitrogen. My thanks to one of the moms, Jani, whose idea this is! She brought the tank of liquid nitrogen and supervised the making of it. Each family pitched in about $4 to pay for the ingredients and liquid nitrogen. We got to watch ice cream made in 5 minutes flat! I’ve included the pics from when we made it. It was so yummy and creamy and wonderful to see the liquid ingredients thicken and freeze in 5 min. There’s no need for ice or rock salt. Jani brought her Bosch mixer to mix the cream while the liquid nitrogen was being poured over the top of the ingredients but you can also just use an old-fashioned spoon and a bowl. I was just reading in a book on family traditions about how the Victorians had a traditional “School’s Out, Summer’s In” ice cream party every year at the beginning of summer vacation. So this was our de facto School’s Out, Summer’s In party. Who knew that we were carrying on a Victorian tradition?

The main advantages to making ice cream this way are:
1. Better texture, and therefore taste
2. Super fast

3. More entertaining as you see the “smoke,” or nitrogen gas

4. You also get a science lesson as kids ask how the nitrogen gas makes the liquid ingredients freeze

The main disadvantages are:

1. You have to first find and buy a container to hold the liquid nitrogen
2. Then you have to find a place to buy the liquid nitrogen and then pay for it. The article referenced at the bottom explains how to do that. Jani told me that her family bought the liquid nitrogen tank off of craigslist.

This video explains why liquid nitrogen ice cream has a better texture.

Then here’s a video on how to make it.

Here is a link to Steve Spangler’s web site with his instructions on how to make it. The photo below shows what Jani’s nitrogen tank looks like.

Finally, here is my page with links to lots of ice cream recipes, and then my Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream here. Yes, ice cream is my favorite dessert!

I found this podcast over here by Katie of wellnessmama.com fascinating. It is with Michael Tyrrell, founder of Wholetones. You can read the transcript here. He says that music when calibrated to A being at 444 hz is more healing than the traditional A at 440 hz. Did you know that Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s right hand man, was the one who initially calibrated the A to be 440 Hz, in order to exercise control over people? That is what Michael claims. I find that worth looking into. You will find this interview intriguing! Just as there is healing power in whole food, there is healing power in whole sound.

I have seen this summer book club the past two years and signed up for it with grand ambitions, thinking the kids will avidly gobble up all the book suggestions. I have to admit, after two years, this club is more for me than my kids. That’s OK, if I am keeping my “Mother Culture” alive I can do things just for me, when they don’t want to join along. This book club is basically taking a virtual trip around the world via reading books about different places and cultures. You get a copy of Give Your Child the World and use it to find books for those places. Right now the Kindle version is only $2.99! It’s an indispensable resource for finding what Charlotte Mason calls living books of stories from around the world. Go read my review here.

Each week has a different geographical theme, like Asia, Europe, Africa, etc. It’s lots of fun for me even if my kids don’t feel inclined to join me! I enjoy getting the picture books and reading them to my youngest for bedtime stories. (The older ones prefer to read on their own in bed.) I just may “force” the older kids to listen to the picture books for our summer homeschool devotionals in the morning. The chapter books suggested are harder to get through of course because they are longer. I have found some gems of chapter books from this guide, like Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan for the Africa portion. I was in such a suspense to see how it ended! We had been reading it before Grandma came to visit two summers ago. So when she came, we finished reading it aloud with her. It definitely had a satisfying ending with justice served up to the bad guys!

You can get details and printables for the club here. Summer is for travel! If you can’t do it in person, do the next best thing! Go read living books about different places. I plan on bribing my kids to read books from this list/club over the summer, again. I hope that the third time’s the charm. I know Charlotte Mason said not to use bribes, but she didn’t have any biological children of her own, facing a busy household to manage with the complexities of a modern era with electronic distractions.

P.S. You can read my review of Give Your Child the World here.

You can see my resources of LDS-themed geography stories and resources to go with three of the different weeks/areas by clicking these links:

• Multiculturalism, click on these excellent articles: 1. This General Conference April 2016 talk, “Whoso Receiveth Them Receiveth Me” from Elder Neil L. Andersen 2.This talk from Elder Patrick Kearon’s talk, “A Refuge From the Storm” from last General Conference 2016
• Europe
• Africa

That’s all I’ve completed so far! Maybe this summer I will compile the rest!