Tag: rest

Merry Everything

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I am not feeling very well tonight. I think I worked so hard to get Christmas ready that I may have overdone it a bit. There will be no Christmas dinner tomorrow. I have promised a pie each to my two favorite guys, but tomorrow, for the first time in a long time, I am mainly just going to rest.

I am looking forward to it. Rest. It’s what humans should be doing right now, and I am overdue.

We have hard things coming for us, dear readers–at least I think so. I do not know what 2025 will bring, but I have a lot of worry about it. I also know that I am going to need my strength, and 2024 was not a strong year for me at all.

So, tonight, on Christmas Eve, I am just feeling thankful and not letting myself worry about next year. I am going to concentrate on a few days of rest, try to heal my body, celebrate the return of the light, and be cozy with my family.

It has been a lovely Christmas Eve. I got to see my daughter and her partner today. I worked on a quilt for my son. I made good treats for the chickens since they were cooped up for most of the day due to the snow, delivered presents to my neighbors, and received one of the best gifts I have ever received on Christmas. It is an ice lantern! Isn’t it beautiful?

My kind neighbor carried it to our house while I was out delivering presents in the neighborhood. Ron was shoveling snow in the driveway when our neighbor delivered it. He put the ice lantern in the most beautiful spot ever. It is up high, by the gate near the chicken coop, and it is just magnificent. It reminds me of how much I love Maine and how beautiful winter is here.

We have not had a wintery white Christmas here in Maine in some time. Tonight, as I look out the window at my lantern and see the snow on the ground and feel the warmth of the wood stove, I am grateful.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Happy Hanukah to all who celebrate! And happy return of the light to everyone!

The Shortest Day

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I have been so busy this week with all the work that goes into Christmas-ing and all the work that goes into parenting and all the work that goes into homesteading and all the work that goes into, well, work, that I haven’t been able to write, though I have started two blog posts that will remain unfinished.

However, despite today being the shortest day of the year, I can the light–and it’s coming, isn’t it?

The holiday season is a lot of work for so many of us. I can’t help but think I am definitely doing this wrong. As a professor, my work picks up greatly in December, and as a cello mom, I get extra busy in December because that’s when all the music things happen. It’s joyful, of course, but between my long COVID and my son’s long COVID, it’s just extra hard to keep up this year. My son, the cellist, has been in a borderline crash state for at least a week, but his whole semester of work has been bearing fruit this week. I had to keep him going with good food, lots of support, and lots of nagging about the importance of rest (something that is harder for a teenage boy that one might think). Dear readers, I am happy to report he made it–and he played so beautifully.

Last night, he played a gorgeous piece of music with a violinist partner, and it was breathtaking, but honestly, the whole night was breathtaking. It was a winter concert featuring Swedish folk songs, Vivaldi, Bach, poetry, and warm, wonderful people. The night ended with some Swedish hot cider that was so perfect on a snowy night that I am determined to find out what it was and get the recipe. I’ll keep you posted on that because I think it was elderberry, and elderberry is so good for you in the winter. It was definitely spicy.

I talked to a violin mom before the concert, and she expressed her desire for rest. We talked about how hard the holiday season can be on moms, and she told me a story about the years she lived in Sweden. She said, when she got there, she was given a book with instructions on how to prepare in November for rest in December. “Rest in December,” I said out loud with longing. We agreed that there must be some way to get some of that here in the states, but we agreed that we didn’t know how. Still, I need that book because, well, maybe one day…

In the meantime, I have much work tonight, but after I finish grading some essays, I am getting a bit of a break. I am also treasuring a lovely day I have had.

I woke up this morning still hanging onto the beautiful concert from last night. I shoveled snow before breakfast and then finished the Solstice cake you see pictured here. It came out perfectly! I was super thankful because, when you make something just once per year, you forget some of the strategies. I took my son to a cello recording, took a gift to a loved one, and then came home to find one egg when I put up the chickens for the evening. Ron made dinner and cooked up some of his purple cauliflower. It was so pretty.

Tomorrow, the light begins its, but tonight, I am going to finish grading my students’ essays and enjoy this warm fire in the wood stove and reflect on a lovely evening last night and day today.

The cycles continue, and I am reminded that I am a very fortunate human. I am tired in my bones, but rest is coming. I hope you all have a lovely Solstice.

I’m sharing my recipe for my Solstice cake below. It’s from Volume II of the Farmer-ish annual.

Ingredients

Cake

¾ cup unsalted butter, slightly melted
1 ½ cup sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cardamom
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup buttermilk

*Please note that my version of this recipe is a much milder spice cake. The recipes I adapted this from use more ginger, cardamom, and nutmeg. Some also add a small amount of black pepper. Our family, especially our youngest, prefers a milder spice cake. You can adjust if you like spice cake a little more spicy.

Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
¼ cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1 to 2 cups powdered sugar (just add until your frosting is the thickness you want)

Decorations/Toppings

For the toppings, you can use anything you want. I sometimes use plain gingerbread cookies (to match the ginger-colored cake) with the berries. I have added golden candied ginger in the past as well, but the berries are everyone’s favorites. I use raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, and the colors are lovely.

I also have these two little handmade snowmen candleholders that make an appearance every winter Solstice, and I adore them.

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans thoroughly and set aside. 

With a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue mixing. Add in your vanilla. In a separate bowl, add all of your dry ingredients, whisk them together. Then, in little bits at a time, add your dry ingredients and buttermilk to your egg, butter, and sugar mixture. Pour your batter evenly into your two pans and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Be sure to check early and often on your cake. You do not want this cake to be dry. 

Allow your cakes to cool a bit. When they are cool enough, remove them and let them sit on wire racks to cool further. During that time, mix your frosting ingredients with your mixer. Just make sure to add enough powdered sugar that your frosting is the right texture to work with. Tasting is encouraged. 

For decorating, I followed the method of leaving the sides of the cake exposed to show the pretty ginger color. Add your frosting and colorful toppings in whatever way makes you happy.

Enjoy on the Solstice with some warm tea or cold milk. 

Pick a Card

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

After an intense year in 2023, I was looking for ways to calm my mind and rest my body. Over the holidays, Ron suggested playing cards and asked if I wanted to learn how to play Gin Rummy. I said I did, and I am so glad. I love it so much. Gin Rummy has that perfect combination of luck and skill that make a game fun for me.

If a game is all skill, I’ll never win around here. Ron and Ronan (our son) are both incredibly competitive, like family game nights are not very possible kind of competitive, so if there is a skill to be learned and some kind of “win” at the end, both of them will master said skill and then make it so no one (and by no one, I mean me but probably any other human as well) will want to play with them.

Thankfully, I can win sometimes at Gin Rummy. I have pretty good luck, and I’ll take it.

Every morning and often at night for the past month, I find Ron, especially after morning chores, and hold up the cards as if to ask if he’ll play again, and he almost always obliges. It has been especially fun some evenings to allow our son to play online with his friends while Ron and I sit by the fire, play cards, and listen to classical music. The best is when we listen to videos of our son playing cello.

The other night it hit me pretty hard. Soon, our boy is going to be gone, and our lives are going to be so different. Our son’s plan is to attend a conservatory for cello, and I do believe that’s likely to happen for him. I have wondered: What will I do with myself when I am not being a full-time mom? I have been a full-time mom for nearly 27 years. What do I do next?

It will be just me and Ron and our cards and the fire and videos of our boy on his cello. When this hit me, I started to cry thinking about the youngest leaving the nest, but then Ron said something funny, and I remembered how very much I love this man, this amazing human I get to know, and I realized I’m going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.

I’ve often worried about our son taking the music with him when he goes, but we will have recordings that I will treasure for the whole of my life, and I’m sure he’ll just keep making more. In the meantime, I’m thinking some about what I want to do with the rest of my life when I am not a full-time mom anymore.

I don’t know what I’ll do, but it definitely involves Ron, cards, music, farm animals, and, hopefully, calm.

And, hopefully, I’ll keep my good luck.

photo credit: Laine Cooper, Unsplash

Rest

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 189 of 365

I have never been very good at resting, which is one of the reasons I have loved homesteading and learning to live closer to nature. If I let it, the seasons will teach me how to be. I used to really struggle through the winters in Maine, but after a few years of homesteading, I came to love them. I just had to learn how to embrace the rest of the winter season, which is somehow what I have needed to do my whole life, I think.

There’s work in the winter, of course. If there are snow storms, it can be epic taking care of the animals, and then there’s the ice busting, though I have come to see that as a kind of meditation. But, for the most part, unless I am working too much with my teaching, winter is a time of coziness that I am looking forward to extra this year.

It just now turned cold, finally. It was so warm last week that I was wearing capri pants and no jacket in Maine in November. Isn’t that wild? But now it is cold, quite cold, and this reminds me that winter is coming, and I am determined to rest.

Today, my editor for a scientific journal wrote and asked me to take an assignment. I wrote back and kindly said no. I also had an offer for two extra writing courses in January. This was very hard for me to do, but I declined the courses.

I am determined to get some rest. I know most everyone reading this must feel the exact same way. Almost everyone I know is so overworked, so over tired, so over worried, so in need of rest. If you are reading this and need some rest too, I hope you can find it. I hope you can find a way to make it happen.

I have decided to take a long break from one of my jobs (I have too many, though I know so many of us do), and I have promised myself that I will never take another course design project again. They always turn out to be more work than I can possibly imagine they are going to be. I am trying to re-think Farmer-ish. I have to streamline things. I have also decided that we’re just having a roast chicken from our farm for Thanksgiving, and I’ll make a few pies–but that’s it, nothing too fancy this year. And, for the holidays, we are keeping it simple and small. I’ll write about that later.

In the meantime, I finished two big projects last week, so today, I feel a little bit joyful and a little bit hopeful. I hope to have good rest coming. When I have been working too much and get so wound up, it can take me a few days to adjust to a slower pace, but I am making progress. This morning, I quilted, had tea, took pictures of the puppy and the kitties. I didn’t grade papers or answer emails, and it was lovely. Ron and I sat down this weekend and made a financial plan that will make it so I can have more mornings like this. Ron is a master of frugality. I swear, sometimes I think he’s Thoreau reincarnated. He reminds me that the most precious thing in the world is time, and, as long as our basic needs and our animals’ needs are met (and we are very fortunate in that ours are), what else do we need? And isn’t that just the truth?

photo credit: Sdf Rahbar, Unsplash