Happy 4th of July!

Photo credit: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Eating_Drinking_g369-Child_Eating_Ice_Cream_p10052.html

I wish everyone a happy 4th of July.  I hope that you all have the opportunity to spend time with friends and family and enjoy the freedoms that we have been given as citizens of the good old United States of America.

When I think of the 4th of July there are a few things that always come to mind.  Fireworks, food on the grill, watermelon, and ice cream.  Because I am now the proud new owner of an ice cream freezer it seems that nothing is safe from becoming a frozen treat but for this holiday I thought I would share about the all-American favorite, vanilla ice cream.  This post will have something for everyone to enjoy as it includes a fun kids hands-on (or impatient adults) 10 minute version of the treat as well as a great grown-up 2 day custard-based version for more discerning palates.

First the fun. No ice cream maker required!

This was found on allrecipes.com.  Check it out to read the comments as many questions you may have will be answered there.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Speedy-Ice-Cream/Detail.aspx?prop31=3

                   Ingredients 

•                     1 cup half-and-half cream
•                     1/4 cup sugar
•                     1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
•                     4 cups coarsely crushed ice cubes
•                     3/4 cup salt

            Directions

In a small resealable plastic bag, combine the cream, sugar and vanilla.  Press out air and seal.  In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the ice and salt; add the sealed small bag.  Seal the large bag; place in another large resealable plastic bag and seal.  Shake and knead for 5-7 minutes or until cream mixture is thickened.  Serve immediately or freeze.

Note: many comments suggest that you rinse of the salt from the outside of the bag before opening and serving.

This is a perfect activity if you have a few kids at your holiday gathering.  It is something of a group activity, as everyone is making ice cream, but each can individualize their ice cream with a flavor addition like fruit, or chocolate chips, chopped candy or anything your imagination can create.

The ingredients listed are for the amount of one person so be sure to have enough on hand to make one for each kid.  3 kids = 3 times the ingredients list.

Now for the long version.

The basic recipe for this also came from allrecipes.com.  You can check it and all the comments out here http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-vanilla-ice-cream/detail.aspx but I will share my version with you below.

            Ingredients

•                     2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
•                     1 cup sugar
•                     1/4 teaspoon salt
•                     2 1/2 cups whipping cream
•                     2 cups half-and-half cream
•                     1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract

                    Directions

In a heavy saucepan, combine the first five ingredients. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat a metal spoon and reaches at least 178 degrees F.  Heat slowly being careful not to scorch.  Remove from the heat; cool quickly by setting pan in ice and stirring the mixture. Cover and refrigerate overnight. When ready to freeze, pour custard and vanilla into the cylinder of an ice cream freezer. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Note: I have a 1 1/2 quart Cuisinart  ice cream freezer and although it looks like this amount will fit comfortably in the machine it does expand and will eventually overflow as it freezes.  Best to separate into two batches and freeze first one half, then the other to save yourself a mess.

Sorry, no pictures, but you can imagine the good parts and save yourself from the rest.

If you try either one of these please let me know how it went.

Happy 4th to all!

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The Beautiful Day Song

Singing in the car ritual

Photo credit http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

“Family” rituals are very important and often come about in the most unplanned ways.   Our Beautiful Day song is a great example this.  It came to mind as I was writing the post Beautiful Blogger Award telling of the Navajo prayer about walking in beauty.  I filed that thought in the back of my mind but did nothing about it.

A few days ago, it came to mind again as I was reading a fabulous blog post at Help4YourFamily titled,  The Importance of Delight,  that talks about creating moments of joy (delight) with your children so that you both had something to draw on to help smooth life through the times of the mundane or times that are  less than ideal.  That post felt like a little light bulb going off for me and I suggest you check it out and see if it speaks to you also.  Still I did nothing.

Today, I read a blog post by Ken Lauher titled, Morning Sing-Along: Rituals To Make You Happy Right Now,  about a family whose ritual was a car sing-along on the way to school to Bohemian Rhapsody.  It has a fun video that really lets you feel how the energy you experience is lifted through singing.  It really is joyful to watch and you can do that by clicking on this link.  After you watch it I would ask you to take the time to scroll down to the comments because there is a wonderful exercise that is easy to do that will help you re-frame your thinking to allow you to be less reactive to negative behaviors (think kids specifically here) from others.   Please check these links out and let me know what you think.

Okay universe, I guess you win…today I am doing it.  I am sharing these great resources and I will add my story about the Beautiful Day Song.

I have the good fortune of having many children in my life and this story is about two who are dear to my heart.  When they were five years old, yes, they are twins, they decided that going to school was not what they wanted to do and the trip to school was a marathon of complaints, pouting and all round unpleasantness. Mornings were not a fun time at this stage of the game and to up the ante the trip to school took about 30 minutes on a good day.

One morning, as the protests from the back seat were escalating, I was wondering what I might do to shift the energy from unhappy to happy.  I found myself singing about the happy things that I  saw around me, making it up as I went.   It’s a beautiful day, it’s a beautiful day….the birds are singing and the butterflies are flying….It’s a beautiful day, It’s a beautiful day….. next verse….and so on.

The funny thing was that although my singing is not the best, it really is hard to feel unhappy when you are singing a happy song in an unrestrained way. The shift in my energy seemed to shift the feeling of the journey enough to get  the kids’ attention.  The mood lightened and the trip was more pleasant.

The next day as things escalated from the back seat, I broke out into the Beautiful Day Song and by the time I started in to the second verse I hear no, no, no, I want to sing it.  So from that point on they took turns singing their own verses of the song.  The trip to school had actually been fun.  Nice change.

The next day, it was raining.  We in Southern California do not respond well to rain so there was a bit of gloom floating around in the car that morning.   A short time  into the ride I decided to break out the Beautiful Day Song.  I hear from the back seat, what do you mean , it is not a beautiful day, it is raining!  I told them that yes, it was raining, but it could still be a beautiful day if we wanted to make it one.  They thought that was a good idea and took the idea further to use their imagination to sing about beautiful things that were not there at the present.  We got to school.  I enjoyed the ride home alone, with a happy song in my heart.

The next day, from the back seat I hear, let’s sing the Beautiful Day Song.  I started with the first verse and they took  it from there.  I guess you could think of this as the day the Beautiful Day Song became a ritual for us.

I no longer take the kids to school, but even today, once in a while, they will break out singing the beautiful day song and flash me a wink and a great smile.

What joyful rituals do you and your family practice?  Maybe you will be moved to share them, I would love to hear about them.

I’ve Been Tagged – A (Spider) Web Game

Oh, I have been tagged.  I thank Kate of help4yourfamily for the fun and I am so glad it came with instructions. The instructions are simple.

• Answer the question the “tagger” listed for you in their post
• Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer
• Choose 11 people to tag and link to them in the post
• Let each blogger know that you have tagged them

What I love about this (the Anthropologist in me is talking) is that the game works somewhat like this.  You bring together people with similar interests as well as adding to the mix with people whose interests have not yet been discovered by others.  It is like weaving together a beautiful cloth.  The Navajo express this as the Spider Grandmother speaking and weaving the world into existence through her web. I guess the nature of the web has changed, but the results are much the same.

For this post I will choose from Kate’s list of 11 great questions.

The winner is…# 10.What is your favorite blog post ever, and why (you can include your own)?

First I have to say that when my grand kids ask me which one of them is my favorite I tell them that they are all my favorites equally but for different reasons.  So in the same spirit, I am going to focus on several posts (woven together) that deal with very different aspects of a favorite subject that I have been contemplating lately.  Listening.

I have come to believe that listening is best practiced as an active endeavor.  It is not something that is done with just your ears.  It is not passive, it can become an act of creation.  Creative listening is best accomplished by engaging all your senses,  hearing, seeing, touching, smelling, feeling, even tasting.

The following list includes a few posts that focus on different ways to listen.  I encourage you to read them as they provide inspiring insight into the art of listening.  (Listed in no particular order.)   Here,  I will share a story about using taste to listen and how that lead to building trust.

I had the pleasure of spending time with a 5-year old who often displayed acting out behaviors. One night, she had a pretty bad cold and I wanted her to take some medicine.  The medicine was what her mother had provided.  When I presented the medicine the child refused it.  I remained calm and encouraged her to go ahead and take it.  She made a half effort and then refused to take it.  She told me it tasted bad.  Well, not too many medicines taste great so I that did not seem like the best reason not to take it to me.  It quickly was becoming a battle of wills and you know how that always ends.  Of course I had to point out that it was grape flavored , and that she liked grape flavor etc., etc., etc.

The turning point came when I decided to really listen to what the child was saying.  She said it did not taste good.  So I tasted it so I could say see, it does not taste that bad, it is grape, and exert my will on her.  Oh boy, I tasted it alright and I kept tasting it for hours.  It was the most horrible thing I had tasted in recent history!  I said you know, you are right.  This tastes awful.

The sunshine that came over her face at that moment said everything.  Because she was being heard she could now trust me.  Amazingly, from that moment on, that child began to listen to me too.

So here are the blogs that have recently inspired me to look at listening creatively (the post that inspired this is specifically named)  as well as some that I just enjoy reading.   (I am new to the blogosphere so if you have a blog to recommend please send me a link in the comments.)

1.  http://edrobinson.wordpress.com  -Leadership thought #346 Are you listening?

2.  http://ollinmorales.wordpress.com  –  The Toa

3.  http:// declutterorganizerpurpose.wordpress.com  -Raising a well-rounded kid how now

4.   http://helpyourfamily.com/   -4-Rules parents can live by

5.   http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/  – Low-hanging fruit is all gone the future is about teamwork humility innovation

6.   http://essaykaywrites.wordpress.com/    -Instilling self-esteem to children how much is too much

7.   http://christyspad.wordpress.com/ – The lessons I’ve learned from Grandma Pie and Buried Treasure is always fun to find

8.   http://semiswede.com/

9.   http://donnaonpalawan.wordpress.com/

10. http://somekindoflovelyride.com/

11. http://maggiesonebuttkitchen.wordpress.com/

Here is the list of 11 questions for those tagged.  Choose the one that moves you.

1.  What is the last thing that made you laugh out loud?

2.  What is your favorite quote (today) and what does it say to you?

3.  You once found a marvelous treasure.  What was it?

4.  What is your favorite question to ask?  What is your favorite question to answer?

5.  Why did you start blogging?

6.  If you could solve one mystery what would it be?

7.  Vanilla or chocolate?

8.  What scent transcends you to a happy time?

9.  What technology could you live without?

10.  What obstacle held the key to your greatest reward?

11.  What is your fondest memory of your Grandmother?

Happy Blogging!

Photo by Luc Viatour / http://www.Lucnix.be

Unconditional Love – 101

(Photo by Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot)

I was thinking about a previous post I made called Are you a Remote control Mom?.  It was written at the request of a friend who was amazed at the change in behavior her daughter displayed when I visited one day.  She couldn’t figure out why the child was so compliant and showed her best behavior with me.

I must say I completely related to that feeling.  When I was much younger, I had not a clue how to help guide children so that they could feel the freedom of unconditional love and the security of loving boundaries at the same time.  Because this is not a subject often taught nor commonly modeled often Kismet becomes the source of this information.  While thinking back on that post, I realized that while applying the techniques embedded in the example would be helpful, there might be some value in exploring the concepts that they are based on.  Kind of like moving from following a recipe to being able to apply the principles of cooking to whatever you happen to have handy in the kitchen.

Kismet was the source of the first, and I feel, and most important concept that I picked up along the way.  This idea was in a magazine advice column.  It was that you must separate the person from the behavior because people can’t change who they are but people can change the behavior that they choose.

So, if you first provide a safe place for them of unconditional love, by saying I love you and I will always love you not matter what you have given them a powerfully safe place to act from.  Of course this does not mean you do not give them loving boundaries. You then add, however, I do not like it when you choose not to do what I ask you to do, or insert whatever the situation dictates here, hit your sister, to use that whiny voice, etc. They do want to please you and rather than asking them to change who they are, you are asking them to make a different choice of behaviors.  This is a much easier task.  You are not saying that you are bad or you are lazy, it is the behavior that is disapproved of, not the person.

Recently, I have noticed that many are expressing a fear of unconditional love.  I believe that this maybe be in reaction to the practice of parents and schools bestowing approval on all behaviors equally.  Naturally this can create a sense of entitlement that will not serve the children well in later life. Unconditional love should not be confused with giving license to bad behavior and the crossing of your personal boundaries by others.  But this is a different post.

Often, the loving boundaries we wish to provide are for the safety of the child.  When we ask that they hold our hand in a parking lot they may see this as a restriction of their freedom.  This is a good opportunity to remind them that you love them and that you would feel so sad if they got hurt from running in the parking lot and getting hit by a car.  You do not like it when they choose to not listen when you ask them to hold your hand in the parking lot.  This also demonstrates that feeling of love and safety that we all need and search for.

Do you have a favorite tool to lovingly guide your children that you would like to share?

Photo Credit: <p><a href=”http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1786″>Image: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Because Life Can’t be all Baby Carrots and Tofu

A Sweet Addiction

One of the great secrets I have learned over the years is that to enjoy your kids while dashing from one place to the next (in our oh so scheduled lives)  you must make sure that you pay attention to keeping their blood sugar levels on an even keel.  How do you know you are accomplishing this without a blood test you ask? When no whining and no contact sports are heard from the back seat.  There is peace and all is well.

And how do you execute this magical feat you ask?  The best way I know is to have healthy, (or at least mostly healthy), snacks ready and with you at all times. A less perfect plan might find you pulling into the drive-thru once again, (putting a hole in your budget and who knows what into your kids).  Of course plan A only works if the snacks are eaten so on occasion rather than fixing baby carrots, graham crackers, or sliced apples, I prepare a special “treat”.  Here is one of my favorites, (found on a cereal box), because while it is sweet , but not too sweet, it offers fiber, grains and protein.  Who says brown food can’t be fun?  Oh, and did I mention that it only takes 6 minutes cooking time?

For those of you who don’t have kids you can dress this up in a party gown (your own unique packaging) and you have a great hostess gift or even a little gift for yourself.

Caramel Nut Mix

6 tbsp. – (3/4 stick) butter or margarine

1/2 cup – packed brown sugar

3 tbsp.- light corn syrup

4 Cups – Safeway® Rice, or Corn Pockets™  cereal

5 cups – popped popcorn

1 1/2 cups nuts, such as slivered almonds, pecans, walnut halves or chopped peanuts

In a medium microwave-safe bowl, combine butter or margarine, brown sugar and corn syrup.   Microwave on HIGH (100%) for 3 minutes or until boiling, stirring after 1 minute, 

In a large microwave bowl, stir together cereal, popcorn and nuts.  Pour butter mixture over and stir until all pieces are evenly coated. 

Microwave uncovered on HIGH (100%) for 5-6 minutes.  Spread on waxed paper to cool. (I add salt here, because sweet and salty is always a good idea.) Store in airtight container.

(Due to differences in microwave ovens, cooking time may vary.  These directions were developed using a 625 to 700 watt oven.)

Recipe developed by cookbook author Marlene Sorosky Gray.

If you prefer the directions to cook this in a conventional oven,  just make a request in comments and I will email them to you.

This recipe features a store brand rather than a national name-brand product.  In my experience, quality is what determines the difference between a bargain and waste of time and money when making buying decisions, and the process of trying out all the options can be expensive and sometimes down-right painful.  That gives me an idea!  I will start a page that reviews and compares store brands with national brands, and because I can’t possibly review them all, you can help.

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