fun – Peaceful Reader

Did you know that we are about to get hit with a major snowstorm here in the Midwest? Yes. Lots of snow, high winds, crazy kind of weather. We’ve had two smaller storms but no snow days. We are due and I am ready. Hot chocolate and pancakes, lots of reading here we GO. Sadly we are not wusses though so it takes a major snow to cancel school. I checked out a few snow books to get me in the mood. Here are a few of my favorites from our public library.

Hooray for SNOW! by Kazuo Iwamura: Sweet squirrel family learns to play in the snow altogether. Lovely illustrations.

Here comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara: A young boy, feeling blue during winter, has a chance meeting with Jack Frost and makes a new friend to play with all winter long until Spring begins to sprout. Lovely woodcut illustrations.

Snowman’s Story by Will Hillenbrand: Sweet wordless picture book with forest animals and a snowman with a treasured book sharing the love of reading. I love the Bear and Mole series by Hillenbrand also so no surprise that this one is a hit as well.

Peter and the Winter Sleepers by Rick de Haas: Peter lives in a lighthouse with his grandmother and his dog Leo. During a particularly snowy week the lighthouse becomes a makeshift home for many forest animals! Peter and his grandmother welcome a freezing rabbit, an owl, birds, bats, a squirrel family, and finally one lone, cold fox. The house is starting to smell, there are droppings everywhere but worse yet they think fox might have eaten Gull. My teacher brain says this book is great for empathy, grit, kindness, and problem-solving.

First Snow by Peter McCarty: I love Peter’s work! Pedro comes to visit his bunny cousins and snow arrives the very next day. Pedro doesn’t like the cold so he’s unhappy to see his first snow. Poor Pedro complains as all the neighborhood bunnies frolic in the snow but, of course, he sleds down a big hill and loves it. No more complaining! Lovely illustrations.

Cheers to a snow day. Our traditions include hot chocolate and chocolate chip pancakes, Gilmore Girls, reading, and lots of cuddling under big blankets. I’m ready like I said.

{Rise and Shine Juice}

For the last few months I’ve kickstarted my day with hot water and lemon. It is refreshing and a great way to cleanse the body before you eat breakfast. My inspiration was an article I read in my Yoga Journal magazine. I plan to keep this habit up even as the temperature starts to heat up (anytime soon would be great!) and recently I was reminded of an old routine I once had.

My friend Patty started juicing recently and she practically glows at work! She shared some of her morning juice with me last week and I liked it. She and I share food recommendations back and forth as we chat at school because we both try to eat healthy. Her juice was so yummy I decided to dust off my Juiceman Jr. this morning and whip up some morning time juice.

I could not locate the exact recipe Patty shared with me from the Just on Juice website but a quick web search gave me this recipe at Giada De Laurentis’s Food Network page for what I thought were close ingredients.

Rise and Shine Juice

Ingredients:

5-6 ounces baby spinach leaves, rinsed
2 apples, cored and halved
2 medium carrots, scrubbed and halved
2 celery sticks
1/2 large lemon
One 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled
Ice

Directions:

Pass the spinach, apples, carrots, celery, lemon juice and ginger through a juice maker, according to the manufacturer’s directions. Pour the juice into 2 ice-filled glasses and serve.

It tasted great and it was more orange than green. My husband tried it and said it was far better than he though it would be. Groovy Girl surprised me and backed away as if I were her worst nightmare. Suffice it to say she won’t be borrowing the juicer for awhile.

I used to juice and then I quit because I felt bad for all that pulp (fiber from the veggies) I dumped into the compost bin. It seemed like a lot of work for one beverage-a delicious and healthy one but still isn’t it better to actually eat your veggies I concluded. Plus I had a toddler roaming at my heels and it was hard to keep up. The glow my friend Patty has developed is appealing though.

While I drank my orange glassful of juice and after she’d backed up from me Groovy Girl said “Now look you’ve had all those veggies and it isn’t even lunchtime!” So wise that little one.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme even though there was absolutely no cooking done for this post. Click her link to find many other food-related posts.

Tag: fun

Snow days coming our way…

Weekend Cooking; Juicing