Burrrr!

Well, we asked for winter weather and boy we sure got it! However, it's not quite the weather I think most of us were dreaming of (i.e. actual snow!!!!) but, it adds that certain element that had been missing. Nonetheless, this cold and wet day is the perfect day to stay cozied up inside and bake, bake, bake!

After years of fiddling with our oatmeal cookie recipe, I think I've managed to come up with something that is crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, and chock full of spices that will warm up even this cold, wintry day! Also....... on days like today we tend to always make hot chocolate, which, in my opinion, isn't all that bad, but.......we're out of regular milk sOoOoOoOo we'll make homemade chai tea instead! It's sweet, warm, spicy and really good for you, plus, it tastes better when you use an alternative milk like soy or almond, which I happen to have on hand. Gotta keep it simple!

Thank you for spending your moments reading what's happening over here on It's a Simple Life. We enjoy your comments and feedback so keep it coming! Stay tuned for tomorrow's post which will have both recipes from today's baking frenzy!

New Post on SEE

Visit our SEE page to 'see' what we were up to on our winter walk the other day. Aside from a walk we have a lovely micro-tutorial craft idea! Give it a try and let me know what you think!!!

Click here to read our New Post on SEE

New Post on DO

Share with us in the celebration of our 4 year old's birthday. Her crown, her cake, her smile.

New Post on DO

*A tutorial for the crown and recipe for the cake will be posted as soon as possible.

Sunday

Here is my Sunday pictoral post. A little late, and not all the photos I had intended. However, the vision of our beloved Christmas tree standing in our barren garden is a beautiful sight. Our tree will provide a home for birds and other critters. Our tree's branches hold little balls of birdseed and peanut butter as a bountiful treat for our woodland friends. So, not only has our tree offered us such beauty within our home but now it will outside our home. We feel so blessed.

To shine Above

It's been a bit quiet on Rhythmic Silence. Once the children returned to school we had become riddled with all the new germs and illness that arise during the new school year and being around friends, old and new. Not to mention the children being cooped up for 6 hours a day which is diametrically opposed to how they spent the summer months, out of doors, breathing the fresh, warm air, getting dirty in the garden, and bathing in a pond or stream. Life is so different when you follow the rhythms of the 'school year'. In years passed, we've been lucky enough to be a part of the local Waldorf school, and then home school, and then public school (supplementing as much a possible the rhythms and loveliness learned through Waldorf education). This year, either for all the illness and other distractions that have come up as of late, we have had a bit of a hiatus. In many ways it shows. I won't go into how we each have missed out on the crafting, baking, less outside time, stories, songs, etc. because that would take several months worth of lamenting, so, I'll just let out my *sigh* of relief in knowing that Epiphany marks the end of our 'family rhythm celebrations hiatus'. Epiphany marks the day that we return to our simple celebrations of life and living in our rhythmic silence.

To begin our march into this reverent silence, we've quietly taken down all the little beauties that adorned our beloved Christmas tree as well as around our home.Quietly, tonight after my husband returns from work, we will watch as he brings our tree outside, into the unseasonably warm Northeast winter, and place it in the center of our garden. Our evening activity will be baking biscuits and bird seed snacks to hang on our tree as a winter's garden bounty for our bird friends, and whatever else may need a snack in these bleak mid-winter months. A simple celebration in merry-making as we end the Christmastime season, sip some warm homemade cider, refocus our hearts on being together and sharing this time, that slips away so quickly, in ways that are growing more and more in meaning. It is my wish that our hearts are so full, everyday, that not a moment goes by where we feel as though we've missed out on sharing ourselves with each other.

I look forward to redirecting our lives, not necessarily back on a path we've been together before, but returning to the familiar place of being,of living, of not getting washed up in our daily struggles but 'shining above' it all to be better, do better, feel better, love better.

"My path is not clear though I follow the star;

Come, be my companions it cannot be far."

*Sundays will be just photo posting days. I will post our events from this evening to tie it all together then! 

New Post on HEAR

Then I saw him clutching the limb

in an island of shade

with his red-brown feathers

all trim and neat for the new year.

First, I stood still

and thought of nothing.

Then I began to listen.

Then I was filled with gladness -

and that's when it happened,

when I seemed to float,

to be, myself, a wing or a tree -

and I began to understand

what the bird was saying,

and the sands in the glass

stopped

for a pure white moment

while gravity sprinkled upward

like rain, rising.......

~ Mary Oliver

Click here to read the latest on Rhythmic Silence

New Post on Touch

Be a model of love and compassion in your life......here is my life lesson this week on TOUCH

http://rhythmicsilence6.blogspot.com/