A Winter Sunday

Yes, I am alive and well. I think the last article you have all seen from me was in December from my WEEK ON GIVING! And a good one that was! My family received loads of joy, gratitude and happiness from that week.

I work at my business, The Healing Arts Center, six days a week the month December all the way up until Christmas. Aside from getting ready for Christmas, chasing Gavin around to ball games and all of the other daily life things we all partake in. On December 23rd my family (mom, sister and friend) arrived from Southern Missouri for a holiday time visit. They stayed about a week so my busy then went from work to regularly cooking for 8 people. It was all great but left me no time for writing.

On Monday December 29th, Gavin and I headed out for southern Texas. We usually take a trip every winter. Its what he wants for Christmas. To travel. I definitely got the soul that I  ordered for a son!

We arrived home on Saturday, January 3rd at midnight. And the month of January has been spent catching up on soap making. Trying to establish another back up supply for customers. In October and November I went crazy making a stock pile for Christmas time and thought I probably went a little overboard. I had approximately 300 bars of soap made ahead of time and by about December 22nd, all of my soap was sold out. Crazy! Great! Shocking! All of that!

Also, once we headed into January I took a good long look at my Nutritional Therapist program that I am enrolled in and realized that I need to really crack down on working my way through that. I have until January 2016 to complete it and with the way time flies by I don’t want to find myself with six courses left and only four months to complete them. I think I just panicked a bit just typing that out!

SO, I dedicated some extra time In January and worked my way through my Anatomy course. I loved every second of it. I am a total body junkie! It was so great to review the total miracles that we are! I could go on and on about this! At 11:30 pm on Satruday January 31st I completed my exam and submitted it! Totally jumped up and down, screaming with my 4 year old. Yes, I let my 4 year old stay up til he’s tired. Go ahead and judge. I got a 98% on my exam and that was good enough, even for this perfectionist!

So, I started out my day totally exhilarated! Ready to pluck away at that long list of what has been calling to me.

So, for me….what’s next? Its always what FEELS best to me as to whats next! And so, I started the morning off with a cup of hot herbal tea. Today was Lemon Light. One of my favorites! I could talk more about this tea but I think I will save it because I intend to do an acticle soon on herbal teas! Stay tuned for that!

And a usual Sunday routine for me at home is cooking! REALLY! GOOD! FOOD! And its a food prep day. I work on not only feeding my family great meals for the day but also do batch cooking for the week. I would like to say I cook all my meals for the week but with a 6 ft 3 in 15 year old growing athlete in the house, my food prep usually lasts til about Wednesday! Good thing I take a day off during the week. And then, I do it all over again!

Gavin worked hard plowing snow for us today. We had a winter snow storm move in last night and its still snowing as I write this at 6 pm on Sunday.

My morning started off with tea, then cooking a large pan of paleo breakfast casserole. Simple. grass fed pork, our own eggs, organic spinach, our own potaotes, Gavins onions, and seasonings. Easy. Healthy. Paleo. Yep, if you think it looks great, ask for the recipe. Ill do a blog on it!

Today is one of the rare Sundays that we did not bring a chicken or two in the house to play with. They are not fans of snow so we left them sulking about the weather in the chicken house. They didnt rebel too badly. They still gave us eggs today, which we are thankful for!

Right around the noon hour I logged on my school website trying to work on my next course but the webpage was down. I took that as a sign that I was suppose to rest my brain today. So, then my whole family laid down for a rest. If that wasn’t heaven on Earth, Im not sure what is!

This afternoon Gavin worked on putting away all of his ice fishing equipment from a full day of ice fishing yesterday. He came home with nine fish. One bass and eight bluegill. He cleaned them in the kitchen last night. The mess made me cringe, although he cleaned it all up, but the fact that my son loves to fish and forage for food makes this cavewoman’s heart super happy!

As the afternoon rolled on, I continued with food prep. I took out pork chops and grass fed goat chops to thaw for dinner later this week. I think I have only cooked chops once in my life! I am ready for something new! I did some research to get an idea of what I want to do with them. Going to go with a Balsamic Glazed baked pork chop with some sort of vegetable on the side.

Laundry, dishes and cleaning is always a regular event here on Sundays too.

This afternoon I also set up a class schedule for classes that will be offered/taught by myself at The Healing Arts Center. This has been on my to-do list for some time as well but my massage therapy license is coming due for renewal by the end of February so I needed to make sure I updated my CPR certification, amoungst many other things that needed to be done to get my renewal pulled off.

The rest of the afternoon was spent on weighing, wrapping and labeling soaps, and more food prep.

I cooked a large pot of grassfed beef and vegetable soup. Also took out a package of frozen organic pumpkin from the freezer. These were pumpkins that Gavin grew in 2014. And I processed them for freezing so they are ready for dishes. This package will be made into Paleo Pumpkin Waffles and a Paelo Pumpkin Pie.

So, there you have it!

This is what a typical Sunday looks like in my house! When we sit down to eat together for family meals, we say what we are currently feeling thankful for. Really taking time to connect to one another and also talk about the upcoming week. Whats going on, which directions we are headed and upcoming events. It’s important for me to keep our Sundays sacred. We rarely ever leave home on Sundays. In a busy rat race world, if we each don’t take charge of our schedules, its easy to get caught up in the beehive of our society and the next thing we know, we find ourselves tired, run down and exhausted, wondering when we are going to get a break or some down time. Being victims of our own decisions, wondering where all of the years have gone, and wishing that we would not have let life just pass us by.

I am grateful for my Sundays. My family. My homestead. Good food. Great friends. Keeping my feet on the ground. A slower pace. Reflection. Now.

What are you grateful for?

*True Blessings
*SHODI