To celebrate their 1,000th online class, Craftsy is giving you the chance to get 50% off the most commonly ‘wishlisted’ classes! That class you have had their eye on for a while might just be on sale. This sale starts February 9th. Just around the corner.
I had a previous post about this awesome website. Read it here and check out the list now!
I love this site and hope you do too!
A Tribe is defined as:
“A group of persons having a common character, occupation, or interest”
“A large family”
These are definitions found on the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
Seth Godin in his book “Tribes” says,
“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea….A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.”
We all have several tribes we belong to; family, work, social. For this post, I am going to focus on a specific tribe of mine. The Mothering Tree Mamas.
We all found ourselves in the same position 11 years ago; we were all pregnant and due in the same month. None of us knew each other prior to when we all joined a due date group on the MotheringDotCommunity forums. I cannot remember the exact number of people in that group at the time, there were quite a few from all over the world, but we all had a common interest in natural parenting.
Within the forum, we all discussed the normal growths and fears that pregnancy brought to us. For some this was their first. For some of us this was our last. We spanned 20 year age gaps (yes, I was close to 40 at this point) and had different plans on where and how we were giving birth. Out of all these women, a few of us began banding together more and more. Our discussions started growing from the obvious pregnancy commiserating to more personal topics. One of these beautiful women, my dear friend Amanda emerged as our leader and started a website forum just for us, a way to communicate. We became known collectively at that point as The Mothering Tree….we were the Tree Mamas!
Our group spoke almost everyday at some point or another. We all exchanged gifts to each other (we had a monthly exchange for awhile recycling items we no longer used but wanted to gift to the next mama), listened to our problems together, we fought, we cried and we cheered each other on. We had become a family…a sisterhood. We had never met each other in person at this point, but we knew we could rely on each other. When one member was sick or in a dire situation, we all banded together sending care packages, financial help when we could, even phone calls of support. We had a bead exchange and all made nursing necklaces for our babies, knowing we were all using the same beads. We all knew each others secrets and fears, and still do. We had a commonality of all wanting the most natural births and lives possible. We never judged each other on our decisions. I remember a particular phone call the day my dear friend Michelle gave birth to her super huge baby boy by c-section. I cried with happiness that he was healthy and she was fine! We cried together about miscarriages, last babies, fertility problems and relationship issues. We laughed about our own short comings, our children’s antics, our own private jokes. And in all those 11 years, not a day has gone by that one or more of us hasn’t checked in with someone in the group.
Over the years we have had the privilege to meet several of each other in person. And many of us speak on the phone regularly. The beautiful thing about meeting is it’s like this enormous gift because we finally get to hug each other in real life. I nearly broke down the hotel room door when Jill showed up to the convention we were both attending for our oils business. Our other team mates just laughed and laughed at our sheer joy of finally getting that hug! And spending several days at a knitting retreat with Michelle will still be one of my most favorite journeys. I can’t imagine my life without these strong, beautiful mamas walking beside me.
Mothering magazine started back in 1976. Peggy O’Mara became editor in 1980. The magazine’s web forum, MotheringDotCommunity or “MDC” began in the 90’s and has 160,000 registered members as of February 2011. Peggy’s goal was to bring a natural, alternative and beautiful rhythm of ideas and support to mothers and fathers within the pages of the magazine. The forums provided a place where people could discuss these ideas, for many it was the only place to do this. The magazine’s last print issue was the November-December 2010 edition. The magazine announced it would end online publication with it’s March-April 2011 edition and become solely the Mothering website. By this time Peggy had moved on but her legacy remains within the tone and strings of lives brought together during her years with the magazine. The forums are still the meeting place for women looking for their tribe and support. I don’t know if Peggy realized she was creating amazing, life long sisterhoods when she first sanctioned having an online presence, but this is the most beautiful part to come out of Mothering, in my opinion anyway. I gained a whole new group of sisters.
All of us Tree Mamas are getting older, and I am so looking forward to one day all of us getting together and dancing in unison that we have each other. We may be super old ladies by then, but it won’t matter. We are strong! We are loved! We are a tribe! We are the Tree Mamas! And I love them all!
The mamas, well a few of them anyway:
Between the busy holiday season and the first flowers of spring lies the perfect time for creativity. Celebrate with BIG savings on supplies at Craftsy, at up to 50% off! Get great deals on art supplies, fabric, yarn, baking tools and more. Sale ends tonight, so browse the sale prices now before the best products are gone! I am definitely taking advantage of this! Ends tonight at midnight…
*contains affiliate links. See disclosure statement.
This is just a brief list of some of my favorite sites. There is no particular order of favorites, just beautiful blogs and sites that I love to read and wanted to share with you all. And this is by no means a complete list. Some of them I am sure you know about already as they have been around for years. Some of them will be new to you! I hope you find something you love in each of them. So take a break and enjoy just a few beautiful blogs…
I want to believe.
By now you have heard that The X Files has rebooted for a 6 episode mini series, bringing back Mulder and Scully along with a new batch of paranormal supporting characters to glue us to our TV’s. Back in 1993 when Chris Carter introduced us to our favorite FBI special agents, The X Files was something completely different than anything we had seen in a series. We all had heard of Roswell, UFO’s, and secret military bases. We read about abductions, sightings, some of us even listened to Art Bell! Yes, I was one of them, athough I can say I was never experimented on…LOL But like many, it was a fun and fascinating topic of “what if”. So along comes this show that fed us all of this and it took off and became an entity all it’s own. My son and I watched every Friday night religiously. And when Mark Snow, the music composer for the series, showed up at the local comic store, we showed up too with soundtrack in hand for him to sign. Yes, you could say we were big fans.
So when Mr. Carter announced a continuation arc, I was thrilled. Mulder, Scully and Skinner were coming back! What strange things had happened to them since we last saw them in 2008 “The X Files; I Want To Believe“? Excited to find out, I watched the new episode (Hulu) and I have to say I appreciate the fact that they allowed these characters to change and age. The movies answered several questions about their personal lives and if you watched the series you know these 3 had been through the ringer. So now we have older and more jaded characters, which is to be expected. There is a lot of fear in their actions, which punctuated their new lives well. It was as if they still want to believe but after everything they have been through in the past, they also are also terrified of believing again. Long gone is the wide eyed Mulder chasing after that dream of aliens, now he is almost hermit like and bitter. Scully seems bored and unsettled in her career as a surgeon. Only Skinner seems ready to find the truth. 5 more episodes for us to experience. Is it really out there? I want to believe…..
(all photo credits Twentieth Century Fox Television, also some interesting trivia for other geeky types on why the original “I want to believe” poster changed during the run of the show)
She Knows has published another article of mine! I originally wrote this as a post for this blog, this is the revamped version for the site.
Our brains are amazing, and the idea that knitting can help in all areas of our brain is facinating! I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Please leave me a comment here or over at She Knows.
Enjoy!
Cat
I love this time of year when the weather is cold and soup is hot! The other day I made the best soup! Chicken and Wild Rice using Young Living oils. The flavors blended beautifully. I have to say I even impressed myself. The real test came with my youngest. She is super picky, but loved it so much she went back for more! I coupled it with Pamela’s brand gluten free bread mix for a homemade bread. This is definitely a new staple in our home.
Here is the recipe. I promise you will love it!
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup cooked wild rice blend
2 cup chopped yellow onion
2 cup diced carrots (from 4 medium)
2 cup diced celery (from 5 stalks)
14 Tbsp butter, diced, divided
2 clove garlic, minced
2 lbs shredded chicken
9 cups chicken broth
2-3 drops each thyme, marjoram, sage and rosemary oil
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
2 lbs chicken, shredded
1 cup flour
3 cups milk (I used Milkman Instant Powdered milk according to package directions)
1 cup heavy cream (I didn’t have heavy cream, so to make soup richer I added 3/4 cup of Milkman milk with 1/3 cup melted butter)
2 tsp lemon zest
Directions
Prepare rice according to directions listed on package.
Halfway through the rice cooking, in a separate large pot, melt 2 Tbsp butter over medium heat. Add onion, carrots and celery and saute until slightly tender, about 4 minutes, adding in garlic during last 30 seconds of sauteing. Add chicken broth, thyme, marjoram, sage, rosemary and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Increase heat to medium-high, add chicken and bring mixture to a boil. If chicken is uncooked, cover pot with lid and allow mixture to boil 12 – 15 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through (rotating chicken to opposite side once during cooking for thicker chicken pieces – if they don’t fully immerse in broth). Remove chicken and set aside on cutting board to cool 5 minutes then shred into small bite size pieces. If chicken is cooked then just shred it and add it and continue from here… Reduce heat to low and add cooked rice.
In a separate medium saucepan (I just rinsed and wiped out the rice pan), melt remaining 12 Tbsp butter over medium heat. Add flour and cook 1 1/2 minutes, whisking constantly. Then, while whisking vigorously, slowly pour milk into butter/flour mixture. Cook mixture, stirring constantly until it thickens. Add milk mixture to soup mixture in pot and cook about 5 minutes longer, or until soup is thickened (at this point, you can simmer the soup for a longer period of time if you want the rice to soften more, just cover with lid first and stir occasionally. You can also add more chicken broth if desired). Stir in heavy cream and lemon zest and serve warm.
Original recipe can be found here.
I did modify it and double it for my large family. I also boiled a whole chicken with onions, celery, carrots, rosemary and salt and pepper and then shredded the meat for the soup and continued boiling the bones for the broth. Yum!!!
Perfect meal for even the skeptics in your house. Enjoy!
~Peace and Love,
Cat
Trying to raise caring, selfless children in today’s age isn’t always easy. There are many objects that stand in our way that we never faced as kids. Objects like cellphones, computers, video games, etc.. In the world of selfies, how to raise a child who will think of others first?
My kids are not perfect. Most days one of them is mad over me saying no to whatever whim they have at that moment. They bicker between themselves, hate cleaning up messes, do NOT ask them to do laundry unless you are prepared for a 5 minute folding session to last an hour or more, with grumbling. But every once in awhile I see that we are doing alright by them. They always have each other’s backs, even when they are professing their disdain towards each other. And they really are selfless in their daily acts where they don’t brag about helping the shy girl at school feel welcome, or comforting their friend who just got her heart broken, or playing with the disabled boy when no one else will. I know these things because others tell me about them. And I see it in the girls’ eyes, that gratitude and love. I also see it in their choice of friends.
So Xiola spent the day yesterday with her best friend. These two have been friends since they were toddlers. When Xi came running in after being dropped off, I expected to hear about all the fun she had doing the things she loves. What I was greeted with was a gift bag and a smile on her face. She promptly asked me to open it and stated it was from both her and her friend. While I figured it would be a drawing or something they love and thought I would too, I never expected what I pulled out of that bag. Those girls bought be the journal I had been wanting. A leather bound, beautiful handmade book with an embossed Tree of Life on the cover that matches the tattoo on my forearm. It is a journal for a story…not daily lists like some of my others hold. It is for a glorious story that will hopefully flow from my pen to it’s gold edged pages. Can you tell I really love this journal? The day before I had taken the two of them out for the day and we ended up at the bookstore. I realize now they had been keeping a close eye on me while we were looking at the journals. When I pulled it out of that gift bag, I started to cry. My daughter was face-timing the whole thing with her friend. When I was a kid face-timing was actually facing and talking to a friend, but I digress. They both were laughing and telling me they love me. Through my tears, I saw her eyes…..the eyes of a girl who, even though she loves her selfies, loves making others happy most of all. And hearing those two laughing with love over making mama cry with happiness was the best part of the gift.
Every once in awhile I get a glimpse that we are doing alright with these kids….So now to fill that book with a story for her…
Oh yes I did! I finally got to experience VooDoo Doughnuts Austin, located at 212 E. 6th Street. What a treat it was too! I dare say it lives up to the hype. The doughnuts were fresh and fun, the atmosphere eclectic and kitschy, and the service was suburb. Even the coffee was good! Now I admit, I went in with a ton of excitement and a little skepticism. I mean, come on, all the hype was on such a grand scale that no way could the shop live up to it all. But I am pleased to say that my excitement was justified and my skepticism not. Good things really do come in pink boxes!
If you want a fun, destination doughnut shop, VooDoo has you covered! Make sure you get the jelly filled voodoo doll doughnut too….yum!!!
Okay….let’s get real. You see me talk about oils, the health benefits are astounding, really. My local friends come to me with questions and we all know how obsessed I am with my hippie voodoo conconctions…so why not just dive right in? You know you want to. You won’t be alone….I will give you tons of support and help with your new wonder bottles, I have a ton of testimonials on exactly what these beautiful bottles of elixirs can do for you, and I would love to help you find a happier, less stressed and healthier you!!! and to get you started, I am offering $20 credit for everyone who decides they want a healthier year this year! What are you waiting for? Self care before health care! 🙂 Check out your selections here and leave comments or questions! UPDATE: Oils are still amazing, offer is over but look for the next one!!!
Peace!