Upcoming Holidays, Festivals, and Symbols

I do a newsletter for my sister's online fantasy store, Just Another Sunset. One of my ideas was to put together a list of upcoming holidays, full moons, etc. I'm going to start sharing that list because I think a lot of my friends will appreciate having it. -Alisa

Full Moon:August 6

"Full Sturgeon Moon - The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon."

-Farmers' Almanac

Sign: Leo (July 23 to August 22)

Element: Fire

Planet: Sun

Celtic Tree: Holly (July 8 to August 4)

Birth Stone: Peridot

Flower: Gladiola

Holidays and Festivals:

July is National Ice Cream Month!

We don't need to tell you how to celebrate this one.

Moon Day: July 20

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong took mankind's first step on the moon.

August is National Picnic Month

Put together a basket of fruit, bread and cheese and head to a park with your loved ones and leashed pets.

Lughnassadh or The Festival of Bread: August 1, or sometimes the first full moon of Leo

Named after the Irish sun god, Lugh, Lughnassadh is a harvest festival celebrated with grains, breads, and berries.

To celebrate, try catching your own yeast for sourdough starter. Fill a small cup or jar with 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour. Place a cloth over the top to keep bugs out but let air in, and set it on your counter or even outside in the shade, perhaps undera tree or special flower. Every day, add 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup water and stir it. Within a few days it will bubble - once it is actively bubbly, you have yeast! Bring it inside and add a little flour and water every day to feed your yeast, and in about 2 weeks you will have a strong fermentation that will make the starter sour. You can find tons of recipes for using your starter on the internet or in baking books at the library.

Book Lovers Day: August 9

Some resources place this day on August 9th, some in November, and some all over the place. All we can say is, the more chances to celebrate one of our favorite hobbies, the better.

National Tooth Fairy Day: August 22

There is some debate over whether this is celebrated on February 28th or August 22. We say, do both!

Monday Nature Day: Challenge #2, AND The Creation of Daily Homeschooling Themes

Challenge #2

"Challenge yourself to take another 10-15 minute "excursion" outdoors in your own yard again this week. Before setting out on your walk, sit with your children and explain to them that when you remain quiet during your nature time, you are more likely to hear interesting things. Brainstorm some sounds they might hear and build some excitement about remaining quiet during their nature walk this week. Take your walk and if they get rowdy, use the universal finger over your lips sign to get them to quiet down. Set a good example and be quiet yourself, modeling how to listen carefully. After your walk, challenge your children to come up with words to describe the following things:

One word to describe something they heard. (For example: rustling, snapping, crunching or chirping)

Two words for something they saw. (For example: tall trees, frozen water, red birds)

Three words for something they felt. (For example: freezing cold wind, rough sticky pinecone)"



Because of visiting family and then the passing of my step-father, we put our homeschooling activities on hold. Now we hope to get back to some of our developed routine, not just for the children's sake, but for mine, because I do better with a certain level of predictability.


As you can see from the poll on the right, we've been wondering about some sort of order for subjects. I've decided that we should designate one subject a day, because something I'm working on with Connor is days of the week, and it's a very abstract concept, especially with Bryan unemployed, playgroup being inconsistent, and every day but Sunday being the same.


If we designate Monday as nature day and show the nature card that Bryan designed for our "All About Today" wall hanging, it will be easier for Connor to understand that Monday comes after a certain number of days, comes after the day we go to Church (though we need to get better about that, too) and before the day we have designated for practicing writing letters and drawing shapes.


Writing day comes after nature day and before art day. Art day comes after writing day and before numbers day. Numbers day comes after art day and before music day. Music day comes after numbers day and before bread-making day. Bread-making day comes after music day and before Church day.


7 days, different focuses, an easier way of grasping the passage of a week, an easier way for Mom to get organized without being overwhelmed or falling into the trap of spending too much time on lessons with a 3 year old. Preschool needs to be informal and organic and flexible. Learning needs to be woven into the life of the child, not the other way around.


So...for Monday we had our nature activity in a pet store, which for a small child is like a visit to the zoo. Birds, ferrets, chinchillas, rats, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, turtles, lizards, snakes, hermit crabs, and all kinds of fish make for easy entertainment and instant fascination. Instead of trying to remember what words they were using, I simply asked Connor to tell me about what he was seeing - the colors, the type of skin (furry or scaly), were they sleeping or moving, were they making a sound...


As an added bonus, when we left we found a grasshopper on the sidewalk, which they poked to make jump.

Le Jour de Bastille!

When Bryan and I were dating, we had a picnic for Bastille Day, with French bread, good imported cheese, grapes, Orangina and chocolate. We have repeated this tradition almost every single year of our marriage.

Bastille Day is NOT French independence day. It commemorates the storming of the Bastille Prison during the French revolution. Bastille was known as a holding place for political prisoners arrested for writing and talking out against the monarchy.

In France, the day is celebrated with a parade and party in Paris. In Southern France where I was living as a missionary, it is celebrated with drinking, fireworks, and vandalism. ;-)

We won't be having our picnic until tomorrow, but today we are listening to French music, and I am reminiscing.

Homemade Shampoo: The Adventure Continues

The olive oil soap did not gel up overnight, as you can see in this picture.

For comparison, this is my jar of Fels Naptha soap, with only 1/4 cup grated soap to a quart of water.

All is not lost. I poured some into a squirt bottle and used it on the kids. It gets sudsy, but the kids were too giggly and wiggly for me to get a clear picture. It was a little drying when I tried it on Deirdre, so I added a squirt of the sweet almond oil before using it on Connor. So far, no rashes. Connor will break out within just a few minutes if he is going to break out at all. So, that is good news.

I have concluded that next time it would be worth the effort to order plain, already liquid olive oil soap (otherwise known as castille soap). Sunflower Market said they could order it for me, but by the time I need it we should be in Bellingham and I have my fingers crossed that it will be easier to find unadulterated ingredients there.

Shampoo Experimentation

So, my soap didn't jell up at all. Very watery. Add that to herb water and you get ... water. I didn't mind -I mixed everything up, used it in the shower, and came out soft and smelling herbal. In fact, some people prefer it that way and put it in a spray bottle to use on their hair and bodies. However, I have two children who hate getting their hair washed and I need the soap to be a little thicker. Plus, when it is watery, you need a lot of it.

So...I put everything back into the pot, herbal water and all, grated the other half of the soap into the pot with a few more calendula flowers and sprigs of rosemary, and simmered everything for 20 minutes. Then I strained it back into the jar. And now we wait. The color is nice and dark and the smell is strong and earthy. If it doesn't jell up, I'll just use it on myself. And maybe the boy.

When I used to make my own shampoos, I didn't have any sensitivities, so I could just get some lavender Dr. Bronner's liquid soap and throw in anything I wanted. When I liquify Fels Naptha, it jells up. I've never tried to liquify olive oil bar soap before. So, this is a little new. Luckily, I personally can use whatever results I get, regardless of consistency or strength.

Bryan tried it and didn't like it all that much, but he wants that squeeky clean feeling, and you won't get it with really natural soaps, because they aren't out there to strip the oils off of your hair, especially if, like me, you add a little bit of oil, like sweet almond or grapeseed. Hopefully I can convert him because he has exzema and the most sensitive skin of anyone in the house.

The Beginnings of Homemade Shampoo

In high school and early college, before I was very crunchy at all, I liked to make my own homemade skin care. It made me happy and made me feel connected to the earth. I stopped when I became depressed - I stopped a lot of the things that made me "me" when I became depressed.

The "me" that is turning into a gardener wants to get back to making my own hair and body care, with my own organically homegrown herbs and flowers, specialized for the care of my own family.

My children and husband have SUPER sensitive skin, and it is generally difficult and expensive to find products with a minimum of ingredients.

That, and creating things helps me feel useful and appreciated. Nothing like working your butt off to do something and failing anyway to make you keenly aware that your best is sometimes not good enough, that your concerted efforts don't make the cut (and sometimes cost you...). I've had quite enough of thos failures this year. I need some things I know I am good at to help me brush off those things that I am not good at. I am good at crocheting. I am good at growing broccoli. I am good at making bread. I am good at making homemade shampoo.

So, this picture shows components of shampoo in their beginnings.

I could not find liquid castille soap that didn't have other oils and things in it, so I bought a bar of it and coverted it into liquid soap. The large jar is that soap. I grated a half bar (2 oz) of the soap into a pot filled with 2 quarts of gently boiling purified water. I took it off the heat and whisked it for a minute, then poured it into this jar. By morning it will be mildly congealed if I got the proportions right.

The shorter jar contains dried calendula petals, a sprig of rosemary, and a sage leaf, all from organic seeds that I started and grew myself this spring and summer. I put them in the jar and poured 16 ounces of boiling purified water over them. I'm going to let them steap over night and then strain out the liquid to use.

Calendula is a healer. It can be used on burns, open wounds, rashes and bruises. I always buy diaper cream with calendula in it. I am going to make calendula salve, but it takes two weeks of steaping the petals in oil in a sunny window before it's strong enough to use. Rosemary is antimicrobial, stimulating, and helps dandruff and hair thinning/loss. Sage is also antimicrobial, cleansing, and conditioning.

When I am ready to mix ingredients, I will be adding sweet almond oil because it is very gentle on sensitive skin, and possibly a bit of sesame oil, which is good for brittle hair or hair that has been permed or color-treated.

I don't intend to add anything else, though most recipes suggest various beneficial essential oils. I like to be able to add essential oils as needed, such as bergamot if I need a pick-me-up, or eucalyptus if the kids are sick.

The nice thing about making the liquid castille soap without adding anything to it is that I can start using this to make my insecticidal soap instead of the Fels Naptha liquified soap I was using. Bryan discovered that Fels Naptha actually contains chemicals that are dangerous if inhaled. Very disappointing!! I don't know if those chemicals will get into my fruits and vegetables like commercial pesticides do, so I don't want to use it anymore.

Ratatouille Recipe and Tutorial

Ratatouille is essentially stewed summer vegetables. I learned this recipe while living as a missionary in southern France. I've had it over rice, couscous, and pasta. Tonight we added herbed chicken breasts.

· 1 medium egg plant, cut into 1 inch thick slices, then into cubes. Sprinkle well with salt and let drain in a strainer for 30 minutes
· 2 large zucchinis cut into 1 inch slices. Sprinkle with salt and add to the draining egg plant



· 2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded and cut into cubes (I don't have these on hand this time, but if you have them, do include them. They really do make a difference)
· 4 medium tomatoes, cut into eight wedges each
· 2 onions, diced
· 2 cloves of garlic, chopped or minced
· Olive oil
· 1 bay leaf
· 4 whole peppercorns
· 1 tsp dried thyme
· Juice of 1 lemon
· Fresh chopped parsley


1. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns, and thyme. Cook ten minutes or until onions are translucent. I don't like having to fish out the peppercorns and bay leaf at the end of cooking, so I usually leave them out, but there is a noticeable difference in taste if I go through the trouble of including them.

2. Add tomatoes (and red pepper) and cook covered for another 20 minutes.



3. These ingredients by themselves make a great pasta sauce.


4. While this sauce is simmering, sauté zucchini in 2 tablespoons of olive oil for ten minutes, then add it to the simmering sauce.


5. Repeat with the eggplant.

6. Stir and cover, let everything simmer 10-15 minutes more. When ready to eat, remove bay leaf and peppercorns, add the lemon juice, and sprinkle with fresh parsley.