The weekend has just disappeared and I am not sure what I have done really, though I did enjoy a glass of wine last night. Also got to meet up with a friend for lunch and some good conversation. After that though, it was unloading a trailer full of wood for our fireplace, which was a Christmas gift from two years ago. We don't use wood to heat our home often, but we do have a fireplace that we use in the winter, or for some mood setting and, our sauna is woodfired. We haven't had a sauna for a long time though, mostly to save on the wood. What we did do though is what we do every Christmas.
Bake Gingerbread.
This is a premix gingerbread dough that comes "fresh" from the freezer and is also gluten-free, which is a must for Smallsteps and my wife. We had it last year also as a test, and it is pretty good. however, none of the premixes are great. They don't do "soft" gingerbread in Finland either, as they do in Germany. It is all crispy, which is good too - but I have a bit of a tooth for ginger, so it is all passable for me.
But, the gingerbread itself is not really the point of this exercise, it is just a nice way to spend a couple hours together as a family. Rolling out the dough, cutting the shapes, putting the first batch in the oven while moving onto the second and then, making silly things out of the leftover scraps.
My wife praying to her god ^
And of course, the smell is fantastic! The entire house smells like gingerbread now, which is perhaps one of the smells my heaven would have in it, as it is glorious. Though, I am not going to heaven - I am not allowed in.
One of the other things that stands out each year, is how Smallsteps is advancing as she gets older. Each year there is more confidence and greater capabilities, as she looks to increase her independence. Just last year she needed help with the tube of decorating glue, now she was getting into it, boldly making her own design that actually looked like she meant it to look. And then, she is so much more precise with placing the decorations. It almost takes some of the fun out of it that she doesn't get messier.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot more about how I want my life to look and it has been influencing me in many ways. One of the things is that while we as a family spend a lot of time together doing things, I want to spend more of that time creating something. It doesn't have to be anything fantastic, or anything that is overly useful - but just something that we have made together, whether it be gingerbread like today, or some origami cranes like the other day.
I want Smallsteps to stay in touch with her creative side where she applies her imagination at a practical level, because I believe that this is something that will be important for her future, whether it be from a working perspective, or just for personal satisfaction. These days, with so many distractions and draws on our attention, it is very easy to neglect building the parts of our persona that actually matter. If we don't develop our abilities to create, all we become, is another cookie cutter.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I was just thinking back to your last year’s gingerbread crafting post and thinking how much Smallsteps has grown and developed since then. It’s always so amazing seeing the difference.
When I saw the title of your post, I thought that you were talking of people who were always posting slight variations of the same post. No, it was literal today.
Does Smallsteps read your blog sometimes? Did you show her all these pictures?
Is it because you think that only believers will go to heaven? 😃
This reminds me. I don't mind people revisiting ideas and building upon them, but some seem to have a very short cycle of thoughts, without even bothering to evolve it into something more engaging.
Yes - literal today!
That is the rule, right? ;D
I am a non-believer, but I am open to finding out I am wrong after death. However, most religions seem to take the stance that God has a very large and very human ego that needs to be constantly satisfied and worshipped. That it has no more important things to do, other than care about whether I believed or not. I find this view interesting, because if that insecure and petty God is what is in heaven. Something that would keep a good person out of paradise, because they didn't believe - I wouldn't want to be there. However, the other interesting thing is that hell accepts all, no matter their sins.
I am not much of a theologist though :)
I lost my faith when I was 50 years old.
Sounds like there might have been a specific event. Care to share?
My parents were professional Catholic. One brother of my father was a priest, and one of my brothers is also a priest.
For a long time, I had doubts. But, losing faith seemed to me a betrayal of my culture and education. And a betrayal of my father, even though he had already died.
I don't remember the title, but it was a book that triggered my decision to no longer believe in a personal god, one that judges each one of us and to whom we can ask for help or forgiveness.
I also noticed that religious people are not better than non-religious ones.
My mother died in 2018. So, for more than 15 years, I have been a non-believer while she was still living. We never spoke about it. I know that she knew, and she never tried to save me. During my sojourns in France, sometimes I would go to church with her, but not to communion.
We are 10 living siblings. In addition to my brother the priest, I believe that only my two eldest brothers are practicing. When I travel with my brother Philippe, I go to church with him too.
I love it as a family activity. Here we are due between the 20th and 22nd of December. “Mabel's Bar” is as good and traditional as you can get in any Canadian home. I wonder if Smallsteps lets them cool?
Blessings to the whole family, full of health and abundance. An early happy holiday hug.
I had to search for Mabel's Bar - Nanaimo?
It is funny, because she is the opposite to me - hardly any sweet teeth!
Have a good week ahead :)
Sometimes I also don't understand how the week passes by. It is like a week has become a day. And I feel unproductive for myself on Sundays :)
When young, a week is a larger percentage of life - when old, it is tiny fraction.
You are just old. ;)
This is really sweet. I love that shot of your wife praying to her god.
She doesn't know I took it ;D
I'd be more worried about the caption if I were you.
:)
Heaven is within you. When you make cookies with the whole family. When you think about it. When you dream about it. When ...
I see heaven as a type of non-event - like imagining dragons.
Move over Santa/Jesus, I have an in-wall oven!
If only she prayed to be a better cook.
I think you have things right and that sounds like a busy weekend to me.
As we wrangle our professional lives to match the life we envision for ourselves, We are probably programmed to recognize moments of sub, optimal productivity. Spending our days stacking task on task of physical and social labour usually puts me in a mindset to enjoy a very quiet weekend. With a social activity of physical labor, gone into support the household, and a heartwarming tradition for a young one sounds like the holy trinity really.
It takes a little bit of parenting and luck to be able to get someone of that age to not bite on all the distractions that we as adults have a tough time battling. by the looks of things you did a pretty damn good job. That creative connection with the fact that she is creating food and it makes it extra special. Being a few years ahead of you along that path I would highly recommend encouraging the kids to take cooking classes in high school. She will probably get a good mark from her previous experience, will hone a good survival skill, and she will come home with some tasty food to share with the family that you won’t have to cook yourself.
Here’s to a triumphant weekend, downtime, and all.
An interesting way to look at it!
Is Home economics are normal class there? When I was in high school, we had to do it for a couple of years. I enjoyed the classes a lot, but I have been preparing food for myself since I was 7 or 8, otherwise I didn't eat. As you said, a survival skill - I won't win any culinary awards.
Did you have a good one?
It seems the gym, home ec and other classes have been broken out into Cooking class, weight training and more focused curriculums. Seems to me my little ones are coming home with better foods than I brought home from home ec.
Whoa! Is this a rare photo of Taraz? I think the only other photo I've seen of you was from a Hivefest or similar.
I think not only is imagination and creativity important for your daughter's future... it also makes life more fun.
I'm coming up on Sunday night and have no idea what I did this weekend... which I guess means its been pretty relaxing.
I try to space them out. Even at this rate, there are too many of me :D
Do you get out with the camera much these days?
Hahaha, I think all your loyal followers would agree that there aren't enough...
I haven't! I've been meaning too, but between work and preparing our place for sale (in 5ish months) I haven't created the opportunity to take photos. I don't have a studio here, so it would be landscape photos (which I still really enjoy), but yeah, just haven't made the effort in a while. I'll have to get out when spring hits.
You had a wonderful family activity❤️
I remember our attempt at making gingerbread.
We were at a friend's house, where his wife brought out beautifully decorated gingerbread cookies (stained with lemon juice with sugar and food coloring) for serving.
We were delighted with their taste and took the recipe.
We bought different shapes of cake cutters, all the necessary ingredients and we tried to make them.
And we had a real negative weekend experience...
The recipe didn't work for us, the dough stuck to the molds, we couldn't get the desired shapes at all.
Not a star, not a deer, not a Christmas tree or the moon... Nothing.
It looked like a faceless mass and the dough almost ended up in the garbage can.
If my wife had asked, it would have been so. But I didn't give up. I stretched the dough again to the required thickness, cut it with a knife into strips, then into squares, rectangles, triangles, trapezoids or rhombuses and baked.
They were served to our guests with written formulas for the surfaces of geometric bodies, instead of pictures with a Christmas theme.
The most important part about gingerbread, is how it tastes! So the real question to ask is, were they good? :)
@tarazkp I am in love with your post. It is a great post, from a simplicity and beautiful photos you manage to convey a spirit that we all need to keep and that is to spend time with family, and make those who depend on our teachings and guides, a better human being in every way. Thank you for this so beautiful. And a big greeting from Havana.
I think this is the first time I've seen your picture. Finally getting a face behind the posts. I am really happy you are able to spend quality time with your family, and enjoying activities like making cookies. I don't think we did a lot of these when I was growing up. If you want to build more with your family, there are easy options like art/paintings/drawings, you can also do musical instruments. You can find what smallsteps likes, and do them together.
I love the fact that you and your wife are training Smallsteps in a way that she can be able to do something or things by herself even without you people there and she’s very helpful to the family