Cheeseburger Pie....yummo!
Well, here I am doing one of my favorite things: pouring over books and websites trying to organize next year's curriculum. Yeah, you heard me right!!!
Am I the only one who starts to get excited about a particular theme that you know you're going to be doing next year, and then can't wait to start planning it? Phew, good! Next year, according to the time table that Waldorf Education generally agrees upon, next year DS8 will be studying about Norse Mythology in grade 4.
This is really exciting to me, because I really enjoy the subject matter quite a bit! If you go on pinterest, you can find all sorts of resources for Waldorf Grade 4 Norse Mythology - which is a big part of where my research has led me. I am gathering all kinds of info and ideas, and tucking them away on my pinterest board, in folders, etc. By the time I get around to planning things more officially, I should have most of the resources I'll need to make a nice curriculum up for my son.
This year I've (I think?) talked myself out of purchasing another year of Waldorf Essentials curriculum. I find that I only refer to the curriculum a few times a year, and it really therefore is not worth the expense to me. I can find pretty much everything I want and need online, and since we're somewhat eclectic to begin with, I often veer away a bit from the curriculum Melisa Nielsen uses. It has been great to get me started on this journey, but I feel ready to break free and do this on my own now. Thankfully, sooooo many moms before me have posted their ideas online, so I really do have the world at my fingertips in that regard.
I have decided I will still do a journal-style recording system (on top of math worksheets from Math U See and a few grammar worksheets along the way). My son is still very slow to master the use of his hands, while at the same time finding this method to be the most useful and comfortable of all of the methods I've tried in the past to get him to improve his writing and pencil grip. The great part about writing, especially with copy work, is that they automatically start to get a good idea about sentence structure, syntax, spelling, punctuation, etc especially if I correct any mistakes he does along the way.
I know some folks might think it a bit silly to start so far in advance in the planning of next year, but I actually find this to work well for me. It's not as though I'm putting in any hard-and-fast lessons quite yet...but rather it's more of a resource gathering and idea gathering exercise. It will help me shape a more cohesive plan later on, once I know all of the elements I'll want to use. In the long run, it will save me heeps of time later on and make putting things together (hopefully) run more smoothly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
In other news, my pic above is of the Cheeseburger Pie I made today. I have finally bitten the bullet and purchased the Trim Healthy Mama book and the accompanying cookbook (both on kindle format, which I managed, after some tweaking, to get my computer to read aloud for me). I have been dawdling with this way of eating off and on for some time now. My body does best on a lower-carb eating plan, and this plan is all that (minus a bag of chips). It has both S (savory) meals and E (energizing) meals. The basic premise is that you shouldn't mix your fuels. You should have protein with each meal, but if you include a lot of fats, you shouldn't have very many carbs, and if you have some carbs (still keeping them to a reasonable level), you shouldn't have much fat. So, basically, don't mix fat with carbs!
There is a little more to it than that, but that's the general idea. The recipes so far have been amazing - I've loved everything I've made so far. The great thing is that I'm not denied anything. I can have cake, chocolate (!!!), pizza, you name it....all of my favorites. The catch is, of course, that you don't use real sugar. They advocate Stevia, which is a NATURAL sweetener (please don't confuse that with artificial sweeteners, as some people do). They also don't use real flour for things like cakes, cookies and breads - and instead use things like almond, coconut, and flax meal.
It can be hard sometimes to take the time to plan ahead and make lots of things up ahead of time so I'm not tempted to just grab something I shouldn't when I'm hungry. That's always been my downfall.
I haven't been doing this plan 100%. I'm at about 60% currently. My next goal is to move closer to 75%, but I'm not sure how feasible that will be until the holidays are over. I'm just being honest with myself. This isn't setting myself up for any failure. I figure, every "clean" meal I eat is a bonus. I will be striving to do the best I can this holiday season, while setting myself up for success come January (when I will have fully read both books, slowly purchased the items needed for the recipes, etc).
I have lost about 10 pounds since I started back in September - which for ME is phenomenal, because I lose weight incredibly slowly. I have also been swimming about 3x/week at our local pool, so that is helping a bit as well. I've upped my daily water intake, and in general increased my activity level. These are all getting me to a better place on the health-o-meter.
The other thing that can be challenging is the so-called Frankenfoods on this eating plan. I love to take an egg, a small piece of steak, slap them into the frying pan with some stewed tomatoes in butter, and call it breakfast (with a large cup of coffee - which IS on plan - of course). So, I'm great with a breakfast like that. Today I tried a Frankenfood for breakfast - a lava-cake-in-a-mug. Well, it wasn't the success I was hoping for. The taste was only "OK", and the texture wasn't the best. Maybe I did it wrong? Anyway, maybe I should stick to more simple foods. The good news is that this plan doesn't have to include any of the Frankenfood recipes - they are simply there to help those people who get bored with simple ol' bacon-and-eggs or roasted chicken salad with veggies.
Anyway, that's the news of the moment. Still waiting for our apartment to be ready, and therefore still living with the in-laws. Yeah. Need I say more?
No comments:
Post a Comment