tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29617770948417995182024-02-20T01:17:49.391-05:00Whirling Leaves"Like a hurricane,
there's calm in your eye."cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-59071387410737907902016-10-15T11:44:00.003-04:002016-10-15T11:44:24.744-04:00elephantWe went through a big change almost two years ago now, which I haven't really known how to talk about here. But I miss blogging, and the big change made me feel like I couldn't blog here. It was the elephant in the blog or in my mind.<br />
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The big change is that my kids are in public school. Eldest started going part-time in February 2015 and continues. I was just too overwhelmed and I wasn't being the kind of homeschooling parent I needed to be, and I thought that having him out of the house most days would help. I'm not sure it helped, but it hasn't hurt. Then we discovered an amazing kindergarten teacher at the school, with a Reggio-inspired approach, so we sent Youngest there full-time for JK and this year for SK. Eldest spends two days a week at the outdoor school and the rest at public school, now in grade 5. I struggle with the public system, as does he, but we are muddling through.<br />
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The next big change was a year later, last February. I realized we needed more money and the job I ended up finding was a full-time 12-month contract quite similar to my old job. I would definitely prefer part-time work but that is no easy thing to find. So just like that I'm leading a life I had kinda wanted to leave behind.<br />
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When my kids started back into the public system, I found myself with a bit of a social media dilemma. I had some time ago identified myself as an unschooling parent on most of my profiles because I thought it would help explain my perspective on a lot of the stuff I was sharing. But when my kids went into public school, I was no longer unschooling. But I was the same person with the same thoughts and perspective on school, it's just that I wasn't able to carry it out. At this point, I'm simply not able to live according to my values. So that sucks pretty big for an idealist like me.<br />
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I also had shingles in April 2015 and ever since then I've been struggling with fatigue and exhaustion. I'll go a couple of days feeling reasonably well and hopeful the difficulty is behind me, then I feel flu-ey and exhausted for a couple of days or weeks. Now that I'm working full-time, that means pretty much everything else has been squeezed out. I'm not sewing much, I'm not parenting as well as I'd like, although full-time work has allowed me to call on some wonderful professionals to help fill in some of the gaps (although sadly finding after-school childcare has been almost impossible so I'm having to juggle my hours a lot for that). And we are mostly eating really, really poorly. Luckily, just before I started working, my husband got a new job with less than half the previous commute so he's able to be home on time to do most of the cooking during the week, when he has the energy.<br />
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So that all means I haven't felt like I have a lot to offer this space, which was meant to be all about making stuff and growing stuff and cooking good food from scratch. But I am still the same critical thinker, and I still have stuff to write about, so I'm just going to start sharing that stuff here. Expect lots of feminism and some fat activism and perhaps some trauma-based stuff, because we've been dealing with that in our family.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-53730908107317610552015-03-29T13:17:00.000-04:002015-03-29T13:17:54.873-04:00loveI've just started reading "<i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17607.All_About_Love">all about love: New Visions</a></i>" by bell hooks. It's my first time reading anything by her, and I'm very much enjoying it.<br />
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Her first task in the book is to find a good working definition of love. She rejects the notion, popular among many authors, that love is indefinable. Instead, she finds a satisfactory definition in M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, where he defines love as the will to extend one's self for the purpose nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Boy does that up the ante on this thing called love.<br />
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It strikes me that this definition of love really fits with unschooling. When you reject an authoritarian, coercive style of parenting (mostly, in theory anyways, when not caught in your own knee-jerk responses), what you have left is a bunch of people living together with different and sometimes conflicting needs. So you just have to solve the problem of ensuring everyone's needs, including personal or spiritual growth, are met.<br />
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It also strikes me, in reflecting on other relationships in my life, that they don't meet the standard bell hooks proposes. I think it takes a big, whole self to be able to extend oneself in the way that hooks and Peck call for, and so many of us are too wounded to do it.<br />
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Imagine if everyone were healed enough to love properly, though. I've been to a few <a href="http://www.guelphresiliencefestival.ca/" target="_blank">Resilience Festival</a> events this week, put on by <a href="http://www.transitionguelph.org/" target="_blank">Transition Guelph</a>, and I've just this moment realized that that may be the very thing they're working towards. Huh.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-89525986332158899662015-03-01T11:06:00.002-05:002015-03-01T11:06:35.639-05:00{moments}It's been an intense several weeks. Lots of changes and stress and although the stress is mostly past, I'm still waiting for some sense of space, of opening up. I hope it comes soon.<br />
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But here are a few moments that made me happy in recent weeks.<br />
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<br />cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-41875717501958956252015-02-08T10:21:00.001-05:002015-03-01T11:09:51.082-05:00public service announcement: banana cake with chocolate ganache icing<i>Oops! I just discovered this in my draft posts… we made this cake again last night for Eldest's birthday party today. When I went to link to the recipe, I couldn't find it… anyways, here it is. The recipe is so well-loved by us that the book, which was pretty much pristine when I bought it, has come apart at the seams at just this recipe.</i><br />
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This post is way, way overdue. Last May, a few days before Youngest's birthday, I didn't know what kind of cake to make him. He had all kinds of requests, not all of them coherent or applicable to most cakes I knew about. So I was a bit stumped. My usual standby is carrot cake with cream cheese icing, but we can't tolerate cream cheese anymore.<br />
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Then in a usual spin around my favourite thrift store, I discovered <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/153136.The_Cake_Bible" target="_blank">The Cake Bible</a>, </i>a few days before his birthday. I decided to try the Cordon Rose Banana Cake with the recommended Sour Cream Ganache. I was a bit skeptical about a banana cake with lemon zest AND vanilla, but it was amazing, and worked great with gluten-free flour. And the icing… it is now my favourite icing. To me it seems so decadent and rich and fancy, but it only has two ingredients: melted bittersweet chocolate (lots of it) and sour cream. I cannot recommend this recipe enough.<br />
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It so happens that my husband baked this for me on my Boxing Day birthday this year, and it was such a treat. So here is the recipe.<br />
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(This picture is from Nana's birthday last September… we made it for her too.)
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<b>Cordon Rose Banana Cake</b><br />
1 cup mashed ripe bananas<br />
2 tablespoons sour cream<br />
2 large eggs<br />
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest<br />
1.5 teaspoons vanilla<br />
2 cups sifted cake flour (we just use our own all-purpose, gluten-free mix)<br />
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar<br />
1 teaspoon baking soda<br />
3/4 baking powder<br />
1/2 teaspoon salt<br />
10 tablespoons softened, unsalted butter<br />
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1 9x2 inch cake pan or 9-inch springform pan, greased, bottom lined with parchment, and then greased again and floured<br />
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Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix the banana and sou cream until smooth. Add the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and mix briefly just to blend. (The book says to use a food processor but I just use our mixer.)<br />
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In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend. Add the butter and half the banana mixture. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed (high speed if using a hand mixer) and beat for 1.5 minutes to aerate and strengthen the cake's structure. Scrape down the sides. Gradually add the remaining banana mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and develop the structure. Scrape down the sides.<br />
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Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a spatula. Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until a wire cake tester inserted in the centre, comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the centre. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven.<br />
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Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides with a small metal spatula and unsold or remove the sides of the springform pan. Allow the cake to cool completely before wrapping airtight.<br />
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<b>Sour Cream Ganache</b><br />
12 ounces of bittersweet chocolate<br />
1 2/3 cups of sour cream<br />
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In a double boiler set over hot water or in a microwave on high power, stirring every 10 seconds, melt the chocolate. Remove from the heat and add the sour cream. Stir with a rubber spatula until uniform in colour. Use at once or store, and when ready to use soften by placing the bowl in a water bath or a microwave for a few seconds, stirring gently.<br />
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(The first time we made this cake for Youngest… we also made the blueberry sauce in the book, because he wanted the cake to have blue on it.)<br />
<br />cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-42131661928028046772015-01-16T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-16T08:00:01.018-05:00{this moment}<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/15651545353/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe>
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(Ok, so there's two. We had some good moments, ok?)cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-3822330995793145782015-01-15T21:44:00.002-05:002015-01-15T21:44:44.566-05:00RIP sourdough starterI let my sourdough starter die.<br />
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This morning, I finally dug the bowl out from the back of the fridge and spooned the remains into the garbage. I didn't really want it to die, but every time I thought about feeding it, somehow I just couldn't face it. I guess I'm grieving. Not the starter but the <a href="http://whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2013/12/sourdough-buckwheat-pancakes.html">pancakes</a> I made one or twice a week with it, pancakes that have become a much more complicated endeavour than they used to be, so I've stopped getting around to it and that just makes me so sad. I loved those pancakes.<br />
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In the fall, I went to see the <a href="http://whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2013/01/where-have-i-been.html">dietician</a> about Youngest's behaviour. He ran away more than once from me in the fall (though none as bad as <a href="http://whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2014/10/so-this-just-happened.html" target="_blank">the first time</a>, because I generally kept a grip on him at all times after that), and each time he would get into this weird state afterwards, like all spaced out. So we ran his bloodwork again, and it wasn't too bad considering how many iron and B12 supplements we've missed giving him. The dietician suggested he might be very sensitive to blood sugar changes, so we should only give him fruit with meals, no juice ever, and small treats should be followed within 10 minutes by protein.<br />
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So this kind of changes everything, again. We're still discovering what works and what doesn't, but we've definitely seen an improvement in his behaviour, and we've watched him spiral after even so much as a dried apricot. As well, I had run my own bloodwork and in December I finally met with the dietician to go over the results. Everything is perfect, except my blood sugar. So I need to follow the same advice. No sugar in my tea (sob!). Any sweetness must be accompanied or immediately followed by protein. Fruit only with meals. Given that I have a pretty sweet tooth and that I've already almost entirely cut out refined sugar (except for tea and homemade muffins), this has been a bit hard to swallow. I mean, I'd much rather be uncomfortable now and prevent myself from getting into pre-diabetic territory, but still…<br />
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Anyways, back to the pancakes. We can still have pancakes, but they have to be accompanied by either eggs or sausage now (not to mention being dressed with considerably less maple syrup), and that is just too much to organize in the morning. And so… since I haven't had the time to discover a gluten-free sourdough bread recipe that I like enough to take the time, the starter had to go.<br />
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I'll miss it.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-20258350282717859542014-12-29T14:41:00.000-05:002014-12-29T14:41:34.716-05:00new addictionIf you follow me on <a href="http://instagram.com/kbwilhelm/">Instagram</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/peripherlvision">Twitter</a>, you already know that I've developed a bit of an addiction to sewing. After my <a href="http://whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2014/03/i-made-pants.html" target="_blank">first</a> and <a href="http://whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2014/04/first-bag.html" target="_blank">second</a> sewing projects, I made curtains for the kids' room this past August. And a bag made out of old wool blazers.<br />
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Then I discovered the Charley Harper fabrics come in a knit. I usually try to get my kids new pyjamas every year for Christmas Eve, but last year I couldn't find any decent ones. I hate putting my kids to sleep in polyester drenched with flame retardant. Anyways, when I saw the Charley Harper knits, I wondered if I could make my kids' pyjamas this year. It was a lot of work, especially because I wanted to surprise them with it, so I had to wait until they were in bed every night. And it was a major learning experience: I really felt like the pants and the curtains were beginner's luck, as this time I had needles break and tension problems and I lost screws and various other challenges. But I did it, with two days to spare.<br />
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And they loved them more than I could have imagined. I really didn't think they'd be that excited but they were. When Youngest woke up on Christmas morning, one of the first things he said, as he looked down at his new pyjama shirt, was, "This shirt has a lot of love in it."<br />
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I also wanted to make things for my nieces and nephews, but I ran out of time in a serious way. And now Eldest's birthday is just six weeks away and I have a ton of things I want to sew for him. No rest for the wicked I guess. cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-9202141976920295082014-12-23T09:54:00.002-05:002014-12-23T09:55:57.561-05:00solstice<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/15456768993/in/photostream/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe>
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I’ve been wanting to celebrate winter solstice for years now. But every year it seems to sneak up on me and suddenly it’s the day and I’ve given no thought to what, specifically, I want to do. Last year we ate dinner by candlelight but I wanted something more intentional.<br />
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This year, we are lucky to have people in our lives who already celebrate solstice. We were invited to two different solstice parties weeks ahead of time, so the day didn’t sneak up on me. However, last week I realized we had a major conflict. My dad’s side of the family, which has been prevented from getting together at Christmas for the last several years by bad weather, was having its annual gathering a couple of hours away from our home; for once the forecast was totally clear, so we had to go.
Eldest, who had made arrangements with the host of one of the solstice parties to light the solstice fire, was disappointed when we discovered the conflict.<br />
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As we were preparing to head off, though, I thought about where we were going. My uncle lives in the country with ponds and woods behind his house. Surely he would have an outdoor firepit and we could at least light a fire, even if it was short.
And we did.<br />
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It took much longer to light (Eldest hadn’t brought enough milkweed fluff and we didn’t have a good bridge from the milkweed to the kindling at first, so we had to forage a bit), and by the time we had a fire going, it was dark. The timing turned out more perfectly than we could have planned. So we enjoyed the fire in the dark for an hour or so before dinner was ready and then we feasted indoors.<br />
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It was lovely. I would have liked to burn a paper with my wishes or intentions for the next year, but it was lovely as it was.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="500" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/15890672917/in/photostream/player/" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-70130181266982551182014-12-14T10:44:00.000-05:002014-12-14T10:44:27.034-05:00Home GrownI thoroughly enjoyed <a href="http://benhewitt.net/">Ben Hewitt's</a> latest book, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20176373-home-grown" target="_blank">Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World</a></i>. It's a meandering kind of book, at times almost magical. Each chapter is followed by a different sort of piece, a meditation I guess? They're like a reflection or experience that crystallizes the rightness of all Hewitt's decisions that got him to the place (literally and figuratively) where he is today.<br />
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For a while it seemed to me that the book wasn't really very much about his kids' education. It was at least as much about Ben's own education and ideas and experience. But about a third of the way in, I realized, that IS unschooling. It's a whole family living, in the place and time they're in, with parents reflecting critically on their own experiences and using that reflection to support their kids' lives and interests.<br />
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Much has been made about the external facts of his kids' education. How they're out in nature so much, developing survival skills like hunting and trapping and tanning and basket-weaving; and Hewitt himself puts a lot of emphasis on the impact of their place in Vermont on his family. But a lot of the story seems familiar to me, if you remove the details of what specifically the kids are engaged in. When parents pay attention to their kids' interests and give them the time to go deep in them, the kids go deep. And in so doing, the parents' assumptions or beliefs are challenged in a serious way. For Ben and Penny, it was how much their young children wanted to kill wild animals, whether by bow or by trap, and their use of knives and guns.<br />
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From some of the comments I've seen online about the book and <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/nature/Unschooling-The-Case-for-Setting-Your-Kids-Into-the-Wild.html" target="_blank">his related <i>Outside</i> piece</a>, I think a lot of people (non-unschoolers?) who have read about the Hewitt family are conflating unschooling with the particulars of his family (which are beautiful). But in other families and in other environments, unschooling can look quite different. That said, I think unschooling always involves a critical view of the status quo of most or all of our society's institutions. Once you start questioning the value of school, it spreads to everything else. Or, once you start questioning another societal institution (for me it was industrial food and conventional medicine), it can easily spread to school.<br />
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All in all, I heartily recommend Home Grown to anyone interested in alternative education or kids in nature, or for that matter any kind of DIY stuff. It's just a great book. Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the book:<br />
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p 25 "They are big and graceful trees, overseers of decades and generations, and I cannot help thinking of all the cows that have loafed in their shade. […] And every year, they give their sap. Am I honouring or exploiting them by accepting this gift? Strange how it can sometimes seem as if there's not much difference between the two."<br />
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p 73 "Penny and I believe in presence, not praise. We are here to support and facilitate, but not to cajole and manipulate, through either threat or incentive. The boys' unhampered curiosity is incentive enough. The learning is its own reward.<br />
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"Can the same be said of schooled learning? Of course it can. Loving to learn and being compelled to learn from a prescribed curriculum are not mutually exclusive. But there is little question that the overwhelming majority of institutionalized learning occurs in isolation from the tangible realities of place and form, of how the world feels and looks, tastes and smells and sounds. I believe it is crucial for children to learn in ways that are not held in isolation, that involve the body as well as the mind, and that result in something real and tangible. Even better, something of service: a shelter where once there was none; food in a freezer that was previously empty; or even just a piece of clothing mended by their own hands. Interestingly, this is precisely the sort of learning that is rapidly disappearing from public education in the wake of diminishing budgets and immersion in the abstraction of technology."<br />
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p 104 "It has always bothered me to see how some parents chase their children away from productive jobs. I have seen it many times, and while I understand the impulse, I have little empathy for the shortsightedness of it, because the truth is that long before they are capable of truly helping, kids desperately want to contribute.<br />
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"Like all of us, children just want to be needed. It's our job to make sure they actually are."<br />
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p106 "Sometimes the greatest blessings come disguised as inconveniences."<br />
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p137 "In hindsight, I see now that our boys had done precisely what children will do: they'd surprised us, an din full candour, we struggled for a time with not being disappointed by this surprise. Where had their passion for hunting and trapping come from? Not from Penny and me. Not from their grandparents, or the parents of friends. We knew people who hunted and trapped, but most of these people were on the periphery of our lives. They were not part of our immediate culture, and we were fine with that. From birth, we'd immersed them in nature, expecting this immersion to install in them our particular idea of reverence for the natural world. It was a version of reverence that did not include bows and bullets and pack baskets loaded with traps."<br />
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p138 "Still, none of this prepared us for the reality of our children on the land, traps and weapons in hand. None of it prepared us for the possibility of examining our own feelings about such practices. Once again, our children were forcing us to learn and unlearn, to reach outside our comfort zone."<br />
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p140 "The role of mentors in our culture seems to have been reduced to programs intended for youth "in need," those unfortunate children whose parents are not fully able to embody healthy, stable role modelling. But of course all children are <i>in need</i> to a certain extent. As present, attentive, and well meaning as Penny and I are, Fin and Rye were in need of someone to guide them through the skills and ethics of trapping. They needed someone to validate their interests and instincts, someone whose words carried the authority of experience and respect. Because let's face it: children don't always consider their parents to be fonts of wisdom, and it was not long before the phrase "Nate says" became a common refrain in our home.<br />
"Mentors are disappearing across the landscape of contemporary childhood learning and development. And how could it be otherwise? Because how many adults even have time to mentor anymore? Furthermore, after school and after-school activities, and after homework, television, and texting, how many children even have time to be mentored?"<br />
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p147 "We do not allow our children to learn at home simply so we can learn from them. Such a thing would be selfish. But in allowing them the freedom to learn as they grow, an unanticipated and beautiful thing has happened: We have allowed ourselves the same freedom."<br />
<br />cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-2097770628814557302014-12-05T08:08:00.002-05:002014-12-05T08:09:11.323-05:00{this moment}<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/15914275125/player/" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-51754143780726784042014-11-06T13:29:00.001-05:002014-11-06T13:29:26.883-05:00in my kitchenThis week has been too busy to see a lot of action in my kitchen during daylight hours. But I fell behind a bit on the series, so here are some from the week before.
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<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/15516518087/player/" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-58709546721102755682014-10-31T20:52:00.002-04:002014-10-31T20:52:59.997-04:00{this moment}<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/15450400310/player/" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-17502799609651727452014-10-17T17:18:00.003-04:002014-10-17T17:18:25.168-04:00{this moment}<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/14916104143/player/" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-57595783457548223082014-10-16T18:44:00.003-04:002014-10-16T18:44:57.550-04:00This!"Put simply, the freedom to self-determine how to pass so much of their time has cultivated a certain sense of entitlement in my sons. […] Fin and Rye are enormously particular about how they pass their time. In the absence of school's daily schedule and demands that they must adhere to it, they have come to believe that their time belongs to them, and they are not always eager to deviate from whatever task they've set their minds upon.<br />
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[…]<br />
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"Often, Fin and Rye do what is asked of them willingly, but often they do not, and my anecdotal observations suggest to me that they are uncooperative somewhat more frequently than many of their peers. Some of this, I think, is simply the result of temperament. My sons are fiercely passionate creatures, afflicted by a degree of willfulness that can fray my patience until only a single, slender strand holds it together. In these moments, my patience hanging int he abyss, I find it helpful to remind myself that this did not just happen. Our boys did not just decide to be opinionated and occasionally obstinate. Oh, no. They learned it from us."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://benhewitt.net/" target="_blank">Ben Hewitt</a>, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20176373-home-grown" target="_blank">Home Grown: Adventures in Parenting off the Beaten Path, Unschooling, and Reconnecting with the Natural World</a></i>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-64645419837778725452014-10-16T18:37:00.000-04:002014-10-16T18:52:17.418-04:00this week in my kitchenWe had a big feast on Monday… Canadian Thanksgiving. This was my first time being responsible for the whole feast, although it was really a trial run, since we only had our wee nuclear family plus one friend to feed. We had a ridiculous amount of food and it was really nice. Since then I've made turkey soup, extra turkey broth, turkey curry and tonight will be a sort of made-up shepherd's pie with (what else?) turkey.<br />
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<br>The cranberry sauce rocked, if I do say so myself. I added pear, apple cider, cardamom, garam masala and ginger. I will definitely do that again.<br>
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I made a gluten-free version of the Party Plum Cake in <i>More Food That Really Shmecks</i>. Pretty good, although I won't do the crumb topping next time.<br>
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Playing along with <a href="http://beautythatmoves.typepad.com/beauty_that_moves/this-week-in-my-kitchen-blog-hop/">In My Kitchen</a>.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-16334566404088018122014-10-11T13:00:00.002-04:002014-10-11T13:00:46.486-04:00So this just happenedI've just come home from the farmer's market. My husband and I have been going there every Saturday morning pretty much since we met in 1999. Over those fifteen years, we've watched people's kids grow up, and people have watched our kids grow in my belly like a strange watermelon, arrive outside, and grow up to the active and curious eight and three-year-olds, respectively. The last few weeks I've noticed a new crop of watermelons and pumpkins bulging under women's shirts. It could be a great way to steal something big and round like that.<br />
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I used to whine that we have no community, because we don't really have the kinds of friends you go away with for fun weekends or who you can call when you need help suddenly. But I've been realizing that we do have community. Not great friends, but maybe that is partly the stage of life we're at with our young children. But we go to the market and say hi to the people we see every week. Eldest buys his own breakfast sandwich from the in-house vendor, and conducts his own transactions. I know he's safe there.<br />
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Other ways I see community have been at our community garden, where on work days they let Eldest push full wheelbarrows (that's one of his favourite jobs) and they truly appreciate his contribution. Or at our CSA pick-up, where Eldest unloads the truck with a dolly and does at least as much work as me to set up and take it down as part of our work share. And again, the people who run it honour his contribution.
This is it. This is the stuff.<br />
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But today my hands are shaky and my eyes are hot and there is a deep, terrified ache in my chest. My three-year-old and I went to buy the tortilla chips we buy every week as a treat. He ran ahead and I was a bit concerned because he can move among the crowd much faster than me, but I kept seeing his bright orange shirt and I figured he'd stop at the chips. But he didn't. He ran right past them and kept running. I called out that he'd ran past them but he was too far ahead to hear.<br />
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Then suddenly I couldn't see him anymore. He had to be in the building, right? But there was a wide open door right next to where I'd last seen him, which opened to the sidewalk of a very busy street, and another wide open door on the other side of the building that led to the parking lot with more vendors and then anywhere. My mind couldn't go there. Of course he wouldn't go outside. I looked out anyways but didn't see his little orange shirt anywhere.<br />
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I started yelling his name and a woman near me, a vendor, heard me and started looking. When I started describing him, she said, “Oh I know your son!” like I didn't even need to describe him. Even though I don't think I've ever bought anything from her. She started looking too.<br />
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I went outside... maybe he could have gone there after all. I called but I couldn't see him. Went back inside and thought I needed to get my husband looking too, but he was all the way at the other end of the building and I couldn't leave the spot I'd last seen Youngest. I'd left my phone at home so I couldn't even text him.<br />
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I yelled louder, to anyone who might listen and help. “Ive lost my three-year-old! He's got a bright orange shirt on and brown curly hair!”
And then a friend of mine was in front of me. “He's outside, I think. I just saw him.” And she took me outside and he was around the corner a bit just sitting on a bench on the sidewalk. He looked totally calm. My friend said she had noticed him but hadn't recognized him without me there. She had wondered who he was with though. And when she heard me say I'd lost him, she knew immediately.<br />
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I would never have looked there, I'm sure. The only way I found him was because someone knew him. That's the stuff.<br />
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As for me, I'm sure I'll recover eventually, although mothering this kid seems to just keep traumatizing me again and again. But that's a whole other story.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-47768061090694960542014-10-10T20:31:00.000-04:002014-10-10T20:31:09.595-04:00in my kitchenI'm going to play along with <a href="http://beautythatmoves.typepad.com/beauty_that_moves/" target="_blank">This Week in My Kitchen</a>. It seems to be the only place I'm taking pictures these days, although soon that will likely stop when the days get too short to prepare dinner in natural light. For now, though… here are a few.<br />
I've just realized that every single one of these photos has at least one and often several of my thrift store finds… <br />
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The start of <a href="http://www.frenchvillagediaries.com/2013/08/courgette-chutney.html?showComment=1377828051761#c293296588994814983">zucchini-plum chutney</a><br />
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<br />cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-73301961680885344882014-08-21T22:08:00.003-04:002014-08-21T22:08:45.249-04:00outdoor storiesEldest has now spent three weeks over the summer at the Guelph Outdoor School, and each week got even better than the last. He told me yesterday that last week may have been the best week of his whole life. He lit fires and tended them endlessly. He shot arrow after arrow, and even hit a bull's-eye. He played games and watched and listened. He identified plants and helped forage for food. One night a week or so ago, I came into his room to tuck him in and he said, "I have my eyes closed and I'm just listening to my surroundings. I can hear a cricket outside my window." I don't know that I've ever known him to just listen before.<br />
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It feels to me like it's been a transformational experience for him. He seems to have grown up and found some kind of new confidence. And I've become hooked on the smell of woodsmoke in his hair.<br />
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With last weekend being so cold and damp, we cuddled up indoors and started looking through the books I've been collecting from thrift stores. With his new passion for archery, <i>Robin Hood</i> was one of the first to come to mind, and we had a version of that from the vintage Dandelion Library series. He was rapt. We went to read <i>Peter Pan</i>, but I was disappointed to discover that the Dandelion version was abridged. I wanted to read him the original. So that will have to wait. With his interest in castles and medieval history, <i>The Sword in the Stone </i>by T.H. White is also on the list, although I don't have a copy yet.<br />
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I feel like his newfound skills also give rise to a whole genre of stories of boys surviving in the woods. (He's already a big fan of the <i>Swallows and Amazons</i> series, and although we've only read two of them so far, I recommend them highly.) Yesterday, I happened upon <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2014/08/15/read-aloud/" target="_blank">this post about reading aloud</a>, which also lists all kinds of titles. I made notes last night, including a number of titles I'd never heard of before, like <i>My Side of the Mountain</i>. I'd figure I'd look for them at thrift stores or the library over time. Today I went to a thrift store and in a lovely spot of synchronicity, there it was. When we read the description, he was keen so we started reading it that night. It is such a lovely book! Very well written, great for reading aloud, and so perfect for Eldest at this moment in time as he integrates all the new skills and knowledge he gained at the outdoor school. We're only about a third of the way through it, but we're all enjoying it so much, I know it's worth recommending.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-21538405403704180132014-07-02T22:58:00.000-04:002014-07-02T22:58:46.862-04:00good newsYoungest has been going to the paediatric dentist every three months for the last year. We haven't been very successful in implementing <a href="http://whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2013/05/tooth-decay.html" target="_blank">our plans to help his tooth decay</a>, but we have been steadfast in giving him the zinc and halibut liver oil our dietician prescribed to heal his gut. It so happens that the vitamins and minerals that heal the gut also heal tooth decay.<br />
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In February the dentist said she felt she needed to try drilling and filling, and we were going to try it without putting him under but we chickened out at the last minute. I was worried about him freaking out, and once you start you have to finish. Anyways, the dentist was fine with waiting and continuing to monitor. She said as long as he wasn't experiencing pain, it was ok to leave it, but if it abscessed we'd have to act.<br />
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Today he had another check-up. He was so confident he just ran into the exam room and sat himself down on the seat. (Normally he wants to sit on my lap.) He smiled wide and opened his mouth up and did everything he needed to with a smile. The dentist said she was surprised his teeth were still holding up and she wanted to extend the visit dates out to five months apart rather than the three months we'd been working on up to now. I'm considering this a win!cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-2354505235069513782014-06-24T22:47:00.002-04:002014-06-24T22:47:37.484-04:00garden frustrationUgh. I have not had enough time to properly tend to my garden plots. I haven't even finished planting it. But already my carrot, beet, lettuce, chard and cabbage seedlings have been totally defoliated. Given that I had lousy germination rates, there's basically nothing left. I think at this point I may just plant a cover crop in the one bed and just focus on celeriac and potatoes, which don't seem -- at this point anyways -- as tasty to the pests.<br />
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Then I'll switch my energy from ferrying back and forth to the community garden to building some raised beds on the only sunny bit of our yard so we can't plant some stuff at home next year. And maybe clearing a sunny spot for some asparagus or rhubarb or raspberries. I think I'll have a better chance of taking proper care of veggies if they're in my yard and I can tend to them without having to get the kids in the car.<br />
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This decision feels good. Much better than the frustration I was feeling before figuring that out.cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-82725639176789234972014-06-20T19:52:00.001-04:002014-06-20T19:52:32.858-04:00{this moment}<i>A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, dreamy moment I want to remember.</i><br />
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About a month ago, we went and looked at a couple of potential homesteads in a part of the province we would consider moving to. It was a little bit dire, what's available in our price range. The whole experience caused my to question the whole concept, and I came back to town with a renewed appreciation for all the wonderful people and things in Guelph. I began to wonder, how much energy should I put into engineering my life to be a certain way and how much should I put into living the life I have, right now? I suspect better results may come from leaning towards the latter.<br />
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Anyways, this is the Big Question I've been pondering for the last few weeks. And that book's title, Radical Acceptance, really spoke to me, especially in the low moment that brought me to the thrift store.
So I bought it. And it's good. 100 pages in, here are some of the passages I want to remember and ponder.<br />
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<i>"The rest of the world is merely a backdrop as we struggle to get somewhere, to be a better person, to accomplish, to avoid making mistakes. As in a dream, we take our stories to be the truth -- a compelling reality -- and they consume most of our attention. While we eat lunch or drive home from work, while we talk to our partners or read to our chidden at night, we continue to replay our worries and plans. Inherent in the trance is the belief that no matter how hard we try, we are always, in some way, falling short."</i> p.6<br />
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<i>"Our imperfect parents had imperfect parents of their own. Fears, insecurities and desires get passed along for generations. Parents want to see t heir offspring make it in ways that are important to them. Or they want their children to be special, which in our competitive culture means more intelligent, accomplished and attractive than other people. They see their children through filters of fear (they might not get into a good college and be successful) and filters of desire (will they reflect well on us?)."</i> p.14<br />
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<i>"…creating an enemy imparts a sense of control -- we feel superior, we feel right, we believe we are doing something about the problem. Directing anger at an enemy temporarily reduces our feelings of fear and vulnerability."</i> p.18<br />
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The author tells the story of Mohini, a tiger who was kept in a small, concrete-floored enclosure of a zoo for many years. All she did was pace back and forth on a 12-foot-long path. Eventually, her keepers created a proper habitat, with acres of grass, trees and a pond. But when they let her into it, she just found a dark corner and paced a 12-foot-path back and forth, until the area was worn free of grass.<br />
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<i>"Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns. Entangled in the trance of unworthiness, we grow accustomed to caging ourselves in with self-judgment and anxiety, with restlessness and dissatisfaction. […] we grow incapable of accessing the freedom and peace that are our birthright. We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small. Even if we were to win millions of dollars in the lottery or marry the perfect person, as long as we feel not good enough, we won't be able to enjoy the possibilities before us."</i> p.25<br />
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<i>"As happens in any addiction, the behaviours we use to keep us from pain only fuel our suffering. Not only do our escape strategies amplify the feeling that something is wrong with us, they stop us from attending to the very parts of ourselves that most need our attention to heal."</i> p.57<br />
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She also includes some really great quotes.
<i>"Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvellous error! --
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures"</i>
~ Antonio Machado, translated by Robert Bly<br />
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<i>"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." </i><br />
Carl Rogers (who, incidentally, wrote a book called <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220862.Freedom_to_Learn?from_search=true" target="_blank">Freedom to Learn</a></i> in 1969. I haven't read it yet, but my husband did, and I think Rogers influenced proponents of unschooling like John Holt and <a href="http://www.whirlingleaves.blogspot.ca/2013/12/free-to-learn.html">Peter Gray</a>. My husband definitely recommends it.<br />
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This one really struck me. Hard.<br />
<i>"Poet Rainer Maria Rilke expresses a deep understanding of the dragons all of us face: 'How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races -- the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beautify and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.'"</i><br />
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This year I have finally figured out that May is my absolute favourite month of the year. And with no rain for days, the fallen blossoms from our crabapples lasted so long.
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<br>(Our kitchen is currently under construction, so I got to barbecue pancakes, one at a time, last Sunday morning while snatching bits of <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15745753-eleanor-park">Eleanor and Park</a></i> - most enjoyable.)cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-65247245354512925892014-05-23T07:47:00.000-04:002014-05-23T07:47:00.600-04:00this moment<i>A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, dreamy moment I want to remember.</i>
<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/14025870989/in/photostream/player/" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2961777094841799518.post-90714380510965856022014-05-09T19:38:00.003-04:002014-05-09T19:39:14.282-04:00this moment<i>A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, dreamy moment I want to remember.</i>
<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cinnamongurl/13917313488/player/" width="500" height="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>cinnamon gurlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363288586285868779noreply@blogger.com0