Leadership Education Family Builder

In my last post I mentioned a new resource I recently learned about, Leadership Education Family Builder.  I'm a huge fan of this program.  A new online group, mentored by Diann Jeppson, co-author of TJED Home Companion, is beginning this month and you can join it if you want to.  Here is what Diann says about it:


Are you ready to significantly improve the education of your family? Then…


I invite you to join with me, and parents from many communities, as we meet monthly to help YOU…

1.           Create your own unique family vision

2.           Develop a family master education plan

3.           Design and implement your own custom made family systems

The Leadership Education Family Builder program is designed to mentor parents who wish to implement Leadership Education in their homes. (This methodology is also known as Thomas Jefferson Education, or “TJEd”).



It is ideal for the homeschooling family; both beginner and veteran, and also for any parent wishing to improve the quality of their family’s education.



Click HERE for information about the Family Builder Program, and for registration details.

You, Not Them is the Way To Begin

I love helping people learn about and live TJED principles.  TJED is a lifestyle and for most people it takes a lot of conscious effort to develop a TJED lifestyle in their own home and family.

A lot of people read one of the TJED Books and then ask, “But how do I really do it?”  There are a lot of really great answers to that question.  Some of my favorite answers are in the books Leadership Education and The TJED Home Companion. 

Family Builder

I’ve also learned of a new resource that aims to mentor families and groups of adults through the process of developing a TJED lifestyle:  Family Builder.  It is amazing.  I whole-heartedly recommend it.  The first 3 audio downloads are free.  Listen to them and you’ll know if Family Builder is for you.  The program consists of audio lectures and worksheets that take you through the Family Builder process.  Ideally, you would be part of a local Family Builder group, led by a Family Builder Facilitator that would meet regularly to work through the Family Builder program together.  I hope to get trained as a Facilitator and lead a group in my area someday.  You can also do the program on your own or with an online group. 

I have my own way of answering the question, “But how do I really do it?” and my way really isn’t different from what all those other resources say but sometimes it is helpful to hear the same information in a variety of ways.  My thoughts draw heavily on the TJED books and an audio lecture titled, Adult Phases, given by Julie Earley at a TJED Forum. You can buy it here.  So here is how I answer the question, "But how do I really do it?"

A Shiny New Dream

Most often (definitely not always) it is the mother in a family who discovers TJED and decides she wants to “use it” with her family.  My thoughts apply to fathers and singles who want to “use” or “do” TJED too.  My imaginary narrative will be about a typical aspiring TJED mom.  Mom has usually discovered TJED at an event or after talking to a good friend who “does” TJED.  She is really excited and dreaming of a home cleaned by her children who spend their afternoon studying Calculus, Greek, and Philosophy and then relax with a family reading of a novel like Les Miserables.  When her children grow up, they save the world in half a dozen different ways.  Her dream really inspires her and she wants to see it become a reality, tomorrow. 

I think that dream sounds lovely and living a TJED lifestyle will very likely yield some if not all of those results but that is not what TJED is about.  TJED is about building leaders, also known as statesmen.  Building leaders works best when the future leader grows up in a certain kind of home environment with a certain kind of family lifestyle that inspires and helps them to progress through the phases of learning.  An individual who progresses through the phases of learning will become a leader no matter how old they are when they begin the process.  Success is not limited to children, homeschoolers or farmers. 

Reality: a Rocky Start

Mom comes home with a stack of classics and half a dozen plans for how to start “doing” TJED.   She begins to share her dream with her family, sure that they will feel just as inspired by it and get right to work on fulfilling it.  But they aren’t and they don’t.  And she isn’t even sure what to tell them to do.  She is sure that if she can just figure out what “they” should do, it will all come together.  At this point she is seriously tempted to give up and go back to what she was doing before she heard about TJED. Or, she may ask, "But how do I really do it?"

The answer is one of the 7 Keys of Great Teaching, from A Thomas Jefferson Education:

You, Not Them, is the Way to Begin

If you want to develop a TJED lifestyle for yourself and your family, you must begin with yourself and leave everyone else alone.  You must progress yourself through the phases of learning, beginning with Core Phase.  You cannot inspire someone to pursue a Core Phase or mentor them through it if you haven’t experienced it yourself.  This is hard to swallow for most people and it probably sounds all wrong but I know it works.  It doesn’t just work, it shoots the moon.  You won’t believe the results you’ll see if you give this a try.  I’m talking totally transformational, revolutionary results.

But it will sound so simple you might be tempted to dismiss it.  I beg of you, just try it.  You will probably be able to do steps 1-5 in an evening.  One week of working on step 6 will probably convince you the process works.  Here’s the specific steps I recommend:

1.  Don’t change a thing.

Whatever your family has been doing, don’t change it, just let them keep on keepin’ on.  Whatever routine your family has right now, maintain it.  Of course if someone in your family is in a dangerous or harmful situation then get them out of it immediately but don’t make them do anything else.  Even if you’ve pulled your kids out of school and the default routine is for them to play all day, let it happen.  Sometimes nothing really is better than an inferior something.  A little detox time with lots of play will not hurt your family while you figure out what you are going to do.

2.  Determine your Core Book and Authority Figure.

Fundamental to TJED and Core Phase is a learning good/bad, right/wrong, true false.  Your Authority Figure and Core Book define these for you.  An Authority Figure is often a higher power or a transcendent human being.  Someone like God, a Prophet, a Political Leader, a Philosopher etc. that you turn to for answers to Life’s Big Questions.  A Core Book does the same kind of thing and some people use a Core Book as their Authority Figure.  Some examples of Core Books are The Bible, The Bhagavad Gita, The Torah, The Koran, Shakespeare’s Collected Works, The Declaration of Independence, and The Humanist Manifesto.  Some people use a combination of 2 or 3 books/documents as their Core Book.  What is your Core Book and who is your Authority Figure? 

3.  Assess your current routine.

Write down your current personal daily and weekly routine. We are creatures of habit.  Most of what we do every day, we do on autopilot, out of habit.  What do you habitually do every day?  Every week? What time do you wake up?  When do you eat and what do you eat?  When do you work?  When do you play?  When are you home?  When are you somewhere else?  What else do you do?  When do you sleep?  Do not include anything you are not personally involved in. It is important to focus on your routine, no one else’s.  Write it all down, in chronological order.

4.  Determine an ideal routine.

Now remember, we are talking about your routine, the things you will do daily or weekly in an ideal world, not what you hope anyone else in your family, workplace, etc. will do. 

An ideal TJED Core Phaser routine includes:

•       Time to read your Core Book
•       Time to pray, meditate, or otherwise communicate with your Authority Figure
•       Time to work (This includes your responsibilities inside and outside of your home)
•       Time to play
•       Time to be inspired
•       Time to eat
•       Time to sleep
•       Time for relationships
•       Time to take care of personal needs and hygiene

There will be other things in your ideal routine.  What are they?  It’s also important to note that I’m using the word routine, not schedule.  If you are most comfortable with a minute-by-minute schedule, I suspect that is routine for you.  But it isn’t necessary.  A routine is a flow of events that happens habitually.  It is good for a routine to be flexible and allow for deviations.  Specific activities take more or less time on a given day.  Where people and their needs are concerned, it is especially important to take the time it takes to meet those needs.  Often you will be doing two or more basics at once. For example, most of my work and play is also time for relationships. 

Now review your current routine and compare it to your ideal routine.  What do you notice about your current routine?  What is good about it?  Are there important things missing from it?  How happy are you with this routine?  How happy do you think you would be if you were following your ideal routine?

5. Begin Implementing Your Ideal Routine

Proceed with caution.  Remember three things as you begin. 

• We are only talking about your routine, not what your family, roommates, or coworkers are doing.  Just leave them alone. 
• You will be successful if you focus on 1 or 2 small changes to your routine at a time.  If you try to change a lot of things all at once, or you try to make a drastic change you are unlikely to stick with it.  I know limiting yourself to 1 or 2 small changes seems like it won’t work.  I promise that it does. 
• The process is more important than what is accomplished.  This is another way of saying, Trust the Process.  Something magical happens when you consistently work on something small – it becomes a habit.   If the change is a good one, the positive effects ripple throughout your life and world.  Say for example, that time to study your Core Book is not part of your current routine but you decide to work on developing the habit of reading your Core Book for 5 minutes every day.  Even though it is only 5 minutes, it will take a tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy to work this into your routine.  It will take at least 3 weeks of tremendous daily effort to make this a habit.  But, you will experience positive results after just 1 day of reading for 5 minutes.  Some of those results will likely be that your family and/or those around you will see your example and be inspired to do likewise.  Seriously, it will happen. The positive results will make you feel great.  They will motivate you to keep working at it.  They will increase with each successful day.  Resist the urge to start requiring more of yourself.  Define your daily success by whether or not you read your Core Book for 5 minutes.  If your ideal goal is to read for 30 minutes each day and on day 2 you kept going and read for 10 minutes, that is just fine but what really matters is that you read for at least 5 minutes.  Developing the habit is the point.  Once reading your Core Book for 5 minutes a day is a habit, you can work on increasing the amount of time.  Going from 5 minutes to 10 minutes won’t be such a stretch.  Going from no minutes to 10 minutes would be a big change.  And bigger changes are a lot harder to turn into habits.  I was once told that it is our habits that determine our destiny, and I believe it.

After you have made one permanent (habitual) change to your routine, you can begin working on another one.  Keep working at making new habits until your current routine matches your ideal routine, most of the time.  Please note I said, most of the time, not every single day.  Unless you are perfect, you will never be able to follow the ideal routine every day.  If you obsess about perfection you will prevent yourself from fulfilling your potential and you will teach those around you to do likewise.

Depending on how different your current routine and your ideal routine are, this process may take a few months or a few years.  Your definition of ideal is likely to evolve, especially as you progress through the phases.   And you will fall out of some habits and have to make them again.  I have a pretty good personal routine that I’ve worked on for years but I am continually improving it.  This week I’m recreating the habit of making my bed before breakfast.

When you don’t have to think about your ideal routine to make it happen, you can begin working on Creating an Inspiring Environment.  And that’s a post for another day…

American History Dates

I'm at the tail end of the American History class I'm taking through George Wythe University, online.  For this class we read and discussed the following books:

John Adams by David McCullogh
A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
Abraham Lincoln by Lord Charnwood
Great Speeches by Native Americans
Great Speeches by American Women
Great Speeches by African Americans
Famous Documents and Speeches of the Civil War

For part of the written final, I'm supposed to memorize 100 dates from American History.  The class mentor supplied half the dates and each student chooses the other half of the dates they'd like to memorize.  Each student's list of 100 dates will be unique.  Based on my love of books and authors, I chose a lot of book publication dates.  For the curious, here is my list of 110 American History dates to memorize.  When I started making my list I had about 200 dates that seemed important to me - it was tough to cut it down.  I knew hardly any of these at the start of the class but I'm almost there on memorizing them all and even better, based on the books we read and discussed, these dates actually mean something to me - I know what the events were. If you were to make up a list of your own, what would it include?

1492-1599 (1-8)

1.     1492: Columbus discovered the New World

2.     1497: John Cabot begins British Colonial presence in the Americas

3.     c.1514: Ponce de Leon “discovers” Florida and enslaves the inhabitants

4.     1520s: Spaniards, led by Cortes, invade and destroy ancient Mexican civilizations

5.     1539-1542: Hernando De Soto explores areas of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina

6.     1540: Chief Acuera refuses to treat with De Soto

7.     1587: Roanoke Island colony founded by Sir Walter Raleigh

8.     1590: John White finds Roanoke Island deserted

1600-1700 (9-18)

9.     1607: Jamestown colony settled

10.  August 20^th 1619: Yeardly and others at Jamestown purchase the first Africans as slaves.

11.  November 21^st 1620: Mayflower Compact

12.  December 11^th 1620: Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock

13.  1636: Roger Williams founds Rhode Island and Providence plantations

14.  1649-1650s: Maryland passes the Toleration Acts

15.  1675-1676: King Philip’s war

16.  1676:Bacon’s Rebellion

17.  1686-89: New England directly governed by Britain until the Glorious Revolution

18.  1692: Salem Witch Trials

1700-1799 (19 – 40)

19.  1730s-1740s: First Great Awakening led by Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield

20.  1754-1763: French and Indian War

21.  March 5, 1770 Boston Massacre

22.  December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party

23.  1774: First Continental Congress

24.  1775-1783:  American Revolutionary War

25.  April 1775: Paul Revere’s Ride

26.  April 19, 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord

27.  June 17, 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill

28.  July 4^th, 1776:  Declaration of Independence

29.  Oct 19, 1781: Surrender of Cornwallis

30.  Sep 3, 1783: Treaty of Paris

31.   1787:  Constitutional Convention

32.  1787: Northwest Ordinance

33.  March 4^th 1789:  U.S. Government under the Constitution begins

34.  1791:  Bill of Rights

35.  1791:  First Bank of the U.S. chartered

36.  1794: Whiskey Rebellion

37.  1795:  Jay’s Treaty

38.  1798:  John Adam’s signs the Alien and Sedition acts

39.  1798: XYZ Affair

40.  Dec 14, 1799: Death of George Washington

1800-1899 (41-83)

41.  1803:  Marbury v. Madison establishes Judicial Review

42.  1803:  Lousiana Purchase

43.  1809: Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle

44.  1812-1814:  War of 1812

45.  1820: Missouri Compromise

46.  1823:  Monroe Doctrine

47.  1825: The Corrupt Bargain

48.  1826: James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

49.  1830: The Book of Mormon

50.  1831: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia

51.  1831: Edgar Allan Poe, Poems

52.  1832: Jackson vetoes the 2^nd Bank of the US charter renewal

53.  1832: Nullification

54.  1836: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

55.  1836: McGuffey Readers

56.  1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

57.  1850: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

58.  1850: Fugitive Slave Law

59.  1851: Herman Melville, Moby Dick

60.  1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

61.  1854: Repeal of Missouri Compromise

62.  1854: Founding of Republican Party

63.  1854: Henry David Thoreau, Walden

64.  1855: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha

65.  1855: Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

66.  1857: Dred Scott decision

67.  1859: John Brown Hanged

68.  Nov 6, 1860: Lincoln elected President

69.  Dec 20, 1860: South Carolina secedes

70.  1861-1865:  Civil War

71.  1862-1863:  Emancipation Proclamation

72.  April 14, 1865: Lincoln assassinated

73.   1865-1877:  Reconstruction Era

74.  Dec 6, 1865: 13^th Amendment abolishes slavery

75.   July 9, 1868: 14^th Amendment allows Former slaves to become citizens

76.  1868: Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

77.  1869:  First Transcontinental Railroad completed

78.  February 3, 1870: 15^th Amendment gives all men the vote

79.  1875: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

80.  1881: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady

81.  1884: Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

82.  1889: Washington State admitted to the Union

83.  1890:  Wounded Knee Massacre

1900-1999 (84-110)

84.  1901-1909:  Theodore Roosevelt’s progressivist presidency

85.  1906: Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

86.  1911: Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

87.  1913: Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

88.   1914-1918:  World War I

89.  1915: T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

90.  1916: Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

91.  1918: Strunk and White, The Elements of Style

92.  1919: The Education of Henry Adams, receives a Pulitzer Prize

93.  Jan 16, 1919: 18^th Amendment establishes prohibition

94.   Aug 18, 1920:  19^th Amendment gives the vote to women

95.  1925: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

96.  1929:  Stock Market Crash begins the Great Depression

97.  1932: Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Little House in the Big Woods

98.  December 5, 1933: 21^st amendment repeals the 18^th, ending prohibition

99.  1936: Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

100.                 1939: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

101.                 1940: Ernest Hemingway, For Whom The Bell Tolls

102.                 1940: Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book

103.                 1941-1945:  US Involvement in World War II, Pearl Harbor to Atomic Bomb

104.                 1947-1991:  Cold War

105.                 1952: E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

106.                 1957: Dr. Seuss:  The Cat in the Hat

107.                 1955-1975:  Vietnam War

108.                 1960-1965:  Civil Rights Movement

109.                 1966-1969:  Hippie Movement

110.                 1973:  AIM seizes the trading post at Wounded Knee

Being a TJEDer

As most of my family, friends, and acquaintances know, I am a big (and loud) fan of TJED or A Thomas Jefferson Education, also known as Leadership Education.  It’s the philosophy my family uses for our home schooling efforts.  You can read about it in A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver VanDeMille and in Leadership Education by Oliver and Rachel DeMille.  You can also learn a lot about it at www.tjedonline.com.

I am working with parents and teachers in the Puget Sound area to build a local TJED Community.  I’ve had several conversations this week that have made me think about what it is to be a “TJEDer.”

I think the idea of being a “TJEDer” is widely misunderstood and the term is much abused.  

What TJED is

First, let me clarify what TJED is (my understanding of it, you are welcome to disagree with me):

TJED is a set of principles codified by Oliver and Rachel DeMille.  They (like me) like lists and have organized the principles into 6 lists:

•      3 Types of Education
•       2 Views of Childhood
•       7 Keys of Great Teaching
•       4 Phases of Learning
•       5 Environments of Mentoring
•       8 Education Trends of the 21^st Century

The DeMilles call these the TJED Basics.  You can listen to them discuss the basics in 2 free lectures and a Q&A with Oliver and Rachel here.  In my mind this is it – this is TJED.  If you want to learn about TJED, find those lists in the books mentioned above and study them.  The 8 Trends is an article, not in either of the books.  You can get it free here, along with other TJED Basics info.   There are lots of additional articles, books, lectures, seminars and other vehicles people have used to share the TJED Philosophy and I find them helpful and inspiring but only if used as a toolbox of resources in helping me apply the TJED principles contained in those 6 lists.  These other resources have a lot of examples of how different people and families have successfully applied TJED principles. 

Principles vs. Methods

Too often, people confuse application methods for the principles themselves.  For example, one prominent TJED family has found it works well in their home to have their bookshelves organized in a specific way.  This method or application is rooted in the TJED principles but it is not a principle itself.  I’ve actually heard someone express the concern that because they don’t organize their bookshelves this way, they aren’t a “real TJEDer.”  What?!  I consider this friend of mine an experienced and very successful TJEDer.

Guess What?  TJED is Not a Religion.

Too many people have erroneously concluded that to be a TJEDer one must accept and agree with every single principle in the philosophy. You can be inspired by and apply just some of the principles of the TJED philosophy.   There are no TJED authorities to monitor or evaluate how much or how well you live the principles.  I don’t know anyone who lives the principles 100%, including those, like myself, who buy the whole philosophy.  I personally believe the closer I get to knowing and applying all the principles, the more my family will benefit but that doesn’t mean there’s no benefit if you just learn and apply 1 principle from the philosophy.

No “Inner Rings” for Me, Thanks

In terms of building a TJED community I don’t think everyone has to agree with all the principles.  The last thing I want is an exclusive community of people who label themselves as TJEDers and consider themselves better than non-TJEDers and compare their TJEDness.  What would be the point and what does that even mean?  Who honestly is qualified to decide who "does TJED" or who doesn't? That would be an "Inner Ring" in C.S. Lewis terms (read his essay “The Inner Ring” in The Weight of Glory) and I don't have any interest in that.  I think the principles of the TJED philosophy are inspiring and useful and could change the world, and I want to band together with anyone who appreciates and tries to apply any part of the philosophy so we can all help each other - that's what I mean when I talk about a TJED Community. Membership in the community is self-declared - no one else can decide who is or isn't part of it.  

Guess What?  You Don’t Have to be a Homeschooler to be a TJEDer.

Members of my local TJED Community (and I suspect the worldwide TJED Community) are lots of things besides TJEDers. Joining the community does not mean someone has to renounce their affiliations with other philosophies, schools or education groups.   For most people in my local area, I suspect our TJED Community is not going to meet all of their families’ education or home school community needs.

What it should do is help inspire, teach, and coach families who want to learn about and apply any of the TJED principles.  It should also be a community of friends.  There’s not even a membership fee or a registration form.  Joining is as simple as coming to a bookclub, class or workshop and saying, “Hi, my name is Jen and I’m a TJEDer.”


Update as of 2/1/11:  The TJED Community organization I serve with just launched our own website.  We are hosting an event on 2/19, TJED Basics Workshop.  Check it out!  www.leapsnw.weebly.com

Clearing Out For Christmas

I’m a big fan of purging my stuff throughout the year.  This is one of the regular times that I have my kids purge their toys.  For many reasons this would probably be ideal around Thanksgiving, before the Christmas decorations go up, and with time for purged toys to get on the shelves at the Goodwill before Christmas shopping really gets underway, but better late then never.  Here’s how I do it:

This is not a Mommy job.

If you’ve never done this before it probably sounds scary.  If you’ve done it before on your own, involving the kids probably sounds daunting.  I choose to have my kids purge their toys because of all the things they learn from it.  Ok, the twins are too young to know what I’m talking about so I purge their toys but as soon as we can have a conversation about it, they will participate, probably next year.  Since we've been doing this regularly I've noticed Isabel, now 7, placing less value on possessions, taking better care of the stuff she has, and her room is a whole lot easier for her to clean.

Give clear limits.

I have given Isabel 2 giant, clear, plastic bins, with lids and she is allowed to keep all the toys she can fit in them.  Everything but puzzles, games, craft supplies and large stuff like a Doll House (of which we have very few) goes in the bins.  We don’t sort tea sets, blocks, collectible collections, stuffed animals etc. into smaller containers or otherwise organize it – it is all tossed in there together.  This makes clean up really easy and fuels creative play.  Kids don't typically want to play with one "set" of toys -- they like to mix it up-- as evidenced by the giant mess they make with all their toys.  This was really hard for me to do at first but we all love it now.  If I had an older child that wanted to keep his/her toys in separate labeled containers and who would manage this all on their own, I would allow it – but I’m not willing to do it for them.  When new toys come into the house, Isabel has to make room for them in her toy bins first.  So, birthday and Christmas are the times when she is most motivated to purge.  She gets excited about it now as she dreams about all the new toys she’ll be getting.

Put the kids in charge.

I let my daughter choose what to get rid of.  This was hard for me at first.  It is also eye opening.  She usually purges things I would’ve kept and keeps things that make me scratch my head.  But why keep things I like if she won’t play with them?  Occasionally she purges something I consider an heirloom.  When that happens I put the heirloom into my storage (shed outside).    She knows she can ask me to put special things she doesn’t play with anymore into the heirloom box in storage but I am very selective about what I allow in there.


Rescue rather than reject.
I find it easiest to dump the whole toy bin out on the floor and then have my daughter put back her very favorite things.  What's left on the floor is trash, broken and used up toys, things she forgot she had and a few favorites she overlooked.  She sorts through the remaining pile and rescues the few things she can't live without.  The rest goes to the trash or donation bin.  It is so much easier to find favorite things and rescue them than it is to try and find something to get rid of.  At first I sat with my daughter and coached her through this process.  Now I can send her to do it on her own.  In fact that is what she’s doing while I write this. 

Move it so you’ll lose it.

When she’s done I take the pile of purged toys and put it in a box/bag for the Goodwill and throw away the trash.  I try to get it all out of sight and to the donation center ASAP so that neither of us suffers from “purgers remorse.”  This time around Isabel asked if she could give a small purged toy to Chloe for Christmas.  I said yes and she had a great time wrapping it up.  I think this is a great idea for young kids who don’t have their own money and want to give siblings or friends a present.  You do need to make sure your child understands that a purged and gifted toy doesn’t belong to them anymore.  This can be a tough concept to get.  Isabel has been doing it long enough that this isn’t a problem anymore.

Celebrate the space and possibilities.

When the purge is done I think it’s important to congratulate the child on a job well done.  I also try to call attention to the good feeling we get from having more space and less stuff.  Isabel loves to talk about and imagine what wonderful new things will fill the space soon.  It’s frightening how fast this happens – I swear toys breed.

Cranberry, Apple, Pumpkin Crumble

Inspired by what was in my farm box this week, I made this crumble.  It was soooo good.  The kids gobbled it up.  I've been experimenting with wheat-free and sugar-free baking and this is a great option.  I think it's good enough for a Holiday dessert.

Cranberry, Apple, Pumpkin Crumble

Base

1 small sugar pie pumpkin, peeled and cubed

4 apples, peeled and cubed

1 pint fresh cranberries

2 T pumpkin pie spice

½ t salt

Toss ingredients and place in a 9X13 pan.

Topping  (I like a lot, you could do less)

1 ½ c butter

2 ½ c rolled oats

1 c maple sugar

1 t salt

Cut butter into oats with sugar and salt in a food processor.  Distribute evenly over pumpkin mixture.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until pumpkin is very soft.  Drizzle 1/3 c of maple syrup over the top when it comes out of the oven and serve.

Here's a picture before I put the topping on.

I Heart Euclid

I NEVER expected this to happen but my semester of Classical Arithmetic and Geometry with George Wythe University has helped me fall in love with Euclid. We are reading Book I (there are a total of 13).

If I had just read the proofs on my own I'm sure this wouldn't have happened but for this class we (the students) have to take turns teaching proofs to the rest of our classmates.  Our mentor is there to catch us when we fall and straighten us out when we tangle ourselves up (this is key!) but we do most of the work on our own.  And that is how you really learn something inside and out.  The first couple proofs aren't so difficult but as they get more complicated they get very tricky to follow.

I was inspired by one of my classmates who made cool color-coded diagrams for all the proofs she taught (using Corel Draw - I want that program!) and I started to do likewise (in Powerpoint, sufficient but inferior).  Making these diagrams is what I find really fun and the process really, really helps me learn the proof inside out.  Even better, when you make a good, clear diagram it's really easy to follow Euclid's logic and the stuff he proves is clever/cool.  Without a color coded, easily labelled diagram you spend all your mental energy trying to follow which two angles, triangles or parallelograms Euclid is talking about and I can never keep it all straight in my head long enough to follow the logical argument the proof is making.  But when all you have to remember is the blue triangle and the pink triangle, it's easy.  Here is an example.

Check out this proof with a rendering of Euclid's diagram

Then look at the version I created.  Do you get it?  Can you follow it?  So much fun!  If anyone wants to study Euclid Book I, I'd LOVE to help you.  I think it's cool that Abraham Lincoln credited Euclid with teaching him logic and his grasp of logic was hugely instrumental in helping him win the Lincoln/Douglas debates.

Superparticular Craziness

For my classical arithmetic and geometry class I'm studying Nicomachus's Intro to arithmetic.  It's pretty funky stuff.  Today I studied superparticular numbers - really mind bending.  Not sure of their significance but cool!

Check this out

If 

x = the superparticular number

n = the number being compared to x, or the subsuperparticular number

y = the fraction of n that is a factor of x 

Then 

x= n + yn

For example when y = 1/2 the equation would be 

x = n + ½ n or 6 = 4 + ½ (4).

If y is 1/2 the equation will work with the following pairs of numbers

3:2

6:4

9:6

12:8

15:10

If y is 1/3 the equation works with these numbers

4:3

8:6

12:9

16:12

20:15

If y is 1/4 it works with these

5:4

10:8

15:12

20:16

25:20

If w is 1/5 it works with

6:5

12:10

18:15

24:20

30:25

Look at these number pairs arranged this way

(n is 1/2)            3:2         6:4         9:6        12:8        15:10

(n is 1/3)            4:3         8:6         12:9      16:12      20:15

(n is 1/4)            5:4        10:8        15:12    20:16      25:20

(n is 1/5)            6:5        12:10      18:15    24:20      30:25

For the # below        +1          +2            +3         +4           +5           

Whole Wide World

I'm in love with the song Whole Wide World by Mindy Gledhill.  I made a music video for the Teen Bookclub I'm helping to mentor.  Check it out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arqqhuLZvUw

Vegetable Bacon Pot Pie

Today I made a delicious Vegetable Bacon Pot Pie.  I was inspired by a recipe I saw Ina Garten make on the Food Network (Lobster Pot Pie) and the vegetables I had on hand from recent Farm deliveries.

I found Ina Garten’s recipe for vegetable pot pie here and adapted it.

Here is my adaptation.

In a large sauce pan over medium heat sauté

1 large sweet onion

5 T butter

until soft and just starting to caramelize.  Reduce heat to med-low and add

1 c flour

and cook for a couple minutes.

Slowly add

5 cups of vegetable broth

letting the flour and onions absorb each cup of broth and bubble before adding another cup.  Turn the heat up if necessary to get the sauce to bubble a little.

Season to taste with

¼ t nutmeg

kosher salt

pepper

Taste and keep adding s & p until it tastes right.  It should be intensely flavored.  Add a dash of cream or whole milk.

I let the sauce sit at this point while I did the rest and it was fine.  You could certainly do all the other stuff in advance – even a day before.

Lay a ½ lb of sliced bacon over a cookie drying rack that is sitting in a jelly roll pan. This is the only way I cook bacon anymore  - it’s so easy!  Put the pan of bacon in a cold oven, turn the oven on to 450 and check the bacon after 10 minutes.  Let your nose and eyes tell you when it’s done.  I like mine extra crispy, especially when it’s going into something wet like this dish.

Meanwhile, wash, peel, and dice into bite-size pieces

3 carrots

3 small heads of broccoli

3 large red potatoes

1 large beet

When the bacon comes out of the oven wrap the pieces in a towel to absorb the grease.  Put the cookie drying rack in the sink.  Don’t pour out the bacon grease!  Dump the veggies you just chopped into the jelly roll pan of bacon grease, season with s & p, toss to coat.

Roast in the oven at 450 for 10-15 minutes, until the veggies are tender.

While those cook add the following to your sauce.

1 lb of washed and torn spinach, no stems

the cooked bacon, crumbled

½ large zucchini, peeled and diced

Stir until the spinach wilts down.  Season with more s & p, if needed. 

When the roasting veggies are tender, take them out of the oven and let them cool a few minutes.  Scoop them into the sauce and stir to combine.

I let my sauce sit again while I made the pie crust.  You could make yours ahead of time or buy some at the store.

Here’s Ina’s recipe for the crust.  Scroll down and you’ll see it in there. I did it mostly her way except,

1.     I didn’t have shortening and substituted with butter. 

2.     I don’t have a food processor so I cut the butter really small, used my kitchen aid, and made sure the water was truly ice-cold.  Seemed to work fine.

3.     I don’t have a pastry brush so I used my fingers to wet the dough w/egg wash so it would stick to the pans.  I didn’t put egg wash over the top or the salt and pepper.  Seemed fine without, though not as pretty.

While the dough chilled I scooped the sauce into individual serving dishes (must be ovenproof).  I had enough sauce for 7 small dishes. When the dough was ready I rolled it out (with lots of flour) and cut it into rough circles to cover each of my dishes.  There was plenty of dough.  Mine look more rustic and less professional than Ina’s.  As she suggests, secure the dough to the sides of the dishes with an egg wash and cut 2- 3 slits in the top of the crust.

Bake at 375 for an hour.  Let cool for at least 20 minutes.

Yum!

I’m sure I will make variations of this in the future when I have lots of miscellaneous veggies around.  Try it with whatever you have on hand.  The only veggie I consider critical is the onion.

Information, Perspiration, and Inspiration

I think successful parenting takes a lot of information, perspiration, and inspiration. 

My twins, now 21 months old (yikes!), were born 4 months early at 25 weeks gestation and each weighed about 1lb. 5 oz. at birth.  They are some of the smallest born babies to have ever survived such a rocky beginning.  As such, they were invited by the hospital where they were born to participate in a National Health study on very-low-birth-weight babies.  The tricky part is, they were born in Utah and we live in Washington.  The hospital said the study involved an evaluation a few months before or after the twins were 18 months old, adjusted age.  I told them if we were somehow magically in Utah during that window, we would participate.

Well it just so happens we were.  So last week we took a break from our family vacation and went to Salt Lake City to have the twins tested as part of the study.  We owe the Universe for how miraculously our babies have recovered from their early health challenges and we know they have benefited from all the research and work that has been done in the past.  We hope our participation may help other babies in the future. 

A bonus for us was hearing what the Drs had to say about how the twins are doing now and what the future looks like for them.  The twins were a month old when we found out about them and were chosen to adopt them by their birth-mother.  So, we missed the really scary first days and weeks.  They spent the first month on ventilators and struggled to gain a few grams of weight.  When we met them, they were still each under 2 lbs, on oxygen, and very fragile.  Here’s a separate blog with pics and all the details of their NICU stay:  www.jarrettfamilyadventure.blogspot.com.

Liam had a few additional problems: a little hole in his heart (PDA) that hadn’t closed yet, urinary reflux, and he had suffered severe brain bleeds on both sides of his head.  We were told he was at serious risk for developing cerebral palsy due to the brain bleeds.  Both kids would have delayed development and be at risk for cerebral palsy and learning disabilities. 

We studied about all the ways to address these issues, prayed a lot, were blessed with very talented specialists and hoped the twins would escape early death and maybe even severe developmental deficiencies. We had no idea just how miraculous their recovery would be. 

Liam’s PDA is almost gone now, so small it’s not really of concern, his urinary reflux is gone, and his brain appears to have recovered almost completely from the bleeds.  The study evaluated their cognitive, fine motor, and large motor ability.  Chloe is 100% caught up to her real age of 21 months in every area!  Liam has caught up to his real age in cognitive and fine motor.  He is behind his adjusted age 3 months in large motor.  The Dr. said this large gap between Liam’s understanding of what he should do with his body and what he can make it do, like when playing with a toy, causes immense frustration.  We have certainly observed this.  Liam will get frustrated and fight with a toy for an hour sometimes.  The Dr. who evaluated the twins said he was amazed at how well both are doing, but especially Liam.  He said he fully expects Liam’s large motor development to catch up and doesn’t expect him to have any problems in the future. 

AMAZING! 

He also commented that if we had not provided the right kind of stimulation and environment for the twins, their brains could easily have turned to mush – scary.  This comment really had me reviewing the past and thinking about the stimulation and environment we’ve given them.  There’s one thing I keep coming back to.  This spring I listened to a TJED Forum lecture by Keri Tibbetts called A Journey through Core Phase.  I blogged about my response to this lecture here. 

Based on what I learned from her, I decided to get rid of the majority of the twins toys, especially battery toys.  I had mixed feelings at the time.  I wrote:  “I guess I'm struggling right now with the fact that my little boy LOVES toys with music, sounds, and lights.  I do see though that by playing with these he uses no creativity and does no work, just gets entertained.  I don't want to stifle his natural ability and desire to think and play creatively.” 

I have a new perspective on this now.  I think Liam loves toys with buttons, lights, and sounds so much because they are easy.  It is so hard for him to play with “plain and lifeless toys.”  It’s a lot easier to push a button and let the toy do all the work.  I’m sure I’d feel the same if I were in his shoes.  But, having those “easy” toys around eliminates Liam’s motivation to wrestle with the toys that make him do the work.  Working at it and giving his body a chance to learn and develop is what he needs most.  I am SOOOOO grateful I was inspired by that lecture to get rid of the battery toys.  I think they would have damaged or at least slowed Liam’s brain and development if I’d continued to let him play with them. 

From my own faith-based perspective, I see God’s hand in this as well.  We are so blessed.  To all you mothers out there who are trying to do what’s best for your kids: I know you are seeking good information and sweating like crazy as you raise and care for them.  Don’t forget to listen to the inspiration you receive.  Do what you think is right even if you don’t totally understand it.   There is someone out there who knows more than you and cares deeply about your children.