Listening Hearts: Day 89

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

Subscribe to our blog (or follow our Twitter account @familyfoxhole) to have them appear in your inbox or Twitter feed daily.

Today’s question:

Would you rather be famous or rich?

Baked Oatmeal, custardy bottom version

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Channeling your Depression Era ancestors during a time of economic collapse? Pandemic boredom/anxiety have you cooking with more staples? Just love oatmeal?

Baked oatmeal is one of my favorites. Prep takes about 10 minutes, so I like to put it in the oven, then get a shower or go for a walk, then return for a delicious warm breakfast.

This version makes a baked oatmeal with a custardy base, which I love. If it’s not your thing, don’t give up on baked oatmeal, though, as other versions are a more consistent in their texture. You can also add apples or dried fruit.

Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 c. oil
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 3 c. oatmeal
  • 1 1/4 c. milk

Directions:

  • Grease a 9×13 pan. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Beat oil, eggs, and sugar until well blended.
  • Combine remaining dry ingredients separately, then add to wet and mix further.
  • Stir in milk and mix until smooth.
  • Pour into 9×13 pan and bake for 30 minutes.

 

Listening Hearts: Day 88

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

Subscribe to our blog (or follow our Twitter account @familyfoxhole) to have them appear in your inbox or Twitter feed daily.

Today’s question:

What is your favorite physical characteristic of your body?

Our perpetual diary

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

We began a perpetual diary last year as a family, starting on the day we purchased our new house. It was symbolically important for us–a start to a new life, and one we wanted to remember.

It works this way: You fill a recipe card box with index cards. Add dividers for each month. Every day, you write the date (but not year) at the top of a new card. Then, you write the year on the first line. Next to it, write a bit about the day. I tend to focus on just one moment of the day. They can be short, like the example below (March 22–2020: Made strawberry pretzel dessert for the kids. Laughing a bit at old recipes.), or they can be longer. Different members of our family write (or dictate) it, which helps me see what different people think is important.

If we have friends over, we may ask them to make an entry for the day.

Above, a wooden box is filled with notecards, divided with dividers with the month written on them. The card for March 22 is lifted from its place in the year to show the words written on it.

By next August 16, we will have completed a full year–and will then add the 2021 entry below the 2020 entry. One goal is to preserve small memories of our daily life, but another is to help us see the big changes that can happen in a year.

This present moment is hard, and there is no guarantee that a year from now, things will be easier. But, even in that case, I think this perpetual diary will help us remember what we have gone through–and that amid the hard things, there have also been sweet moments worth remembering.

Listening Hearts: Day 87

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

Subscribe to our blog (or follow our Twitter account @familyfoxhole) to have them appear in your inbox or Twitter feed daily.

Today’s question:

What is something you enjoy doing by yourself?

Prayers during a Pandemic: For people experiencing homelessness

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family is taking time daily to pray about the current global health crisis. Our prayers will likely reference the Christian tradition, but we’ve written with an ecumenical and agnostic audience in mind.

If you’d like us to pray for you, let us know. If you’d like us to write a prayer for you or for a concern you have and share it here, just ask. You don’t have to share your name if you don’t want to, and we won’t share it or any other identifying details about you here or elsewhere.

Today, we are focusing our prayer on people who do not have adequate permanent homes.

Today we remember those who are homeless, who live in camps, who live in motels, who live in homeless shelters, who live in unsafe housing, or who live in unstable conditions. We especially pray for the 1.4 million school children in the US who are homeless as well as all children birth to 5 who are without a stable and safe home of their own.

We pray for those we don’t know, and we pray for those we do know, including [insert the names of friends, family, neighbors, and others who live or work in care facilities]. We pray for all those who support them, including shelter workers, social workers, and advocates for people living without homes.

We pray for those who lack access to shelter, food, water, sanitary showers and toilets, and other basic human rights. We pray that their material needs would be met and that all forms of injustice that keep them oppressed fall. We pray for the resources to provide and the courage to demand care for our most vulnerable. We seek to always rebuke systems of oppression that prevent every person from resting in safety, no matter the personal risk of doing so, and pray for their eternal dismantling.

Our hope for people without safe and stable housing of their own is that all would have the care and the community they need and that all those who seek shelter would find it. We hope for them warmth, good rest, an opportunity to retreat, and safety.

We stand in solidarity with those who lack safe, stable housing, and we are thankful for their presence among us.

A painting shows two children sleeping.

Above, Albert Anker’s 1895 Two Sleeping Girls on the Stove. Every person deserves a safe, warm, stable place to rest whenever they need it, without worry of eviction and without regard to money.

Listening Hearts: Day 86

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

Subscribe to our blog (or follow our Twitter account @familyfoxhole) to have them appear in your inbox or Twitter feed daily.

Today’s question:

What’s the best book you’ve read or had read to you recently?

Prayers during a Pandemic: For Teachers

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family is taking time daily to pray about the current global health crisis. Our prayers will likely reference the Christian tradition, but we’ve written with an ecumenical and agnostic audience in mind.

If you’d like us to pray for you, let us know. If you’d like us to write a prayer for you or for a concern you have and share it here, just ask. You don’t have to share your name if you don’t want to, and we won’t share it or any other identifying details about you here or elsewhere.

Today, we are focusing our prayer on people teachers at every letter.

Today we remember teachers, including childcare center teachers, those in pre-K centers, those teaching kindergarten through 12th grade, and those who teach college and beyond.

We pray for those we don’t know, and we pray for those we do know, including [all those who serve as teachings, including ourselves]. We pray for their families, friends, and neighbors who support them, the administrators who guide them, and the students who learn from them.

Our hope for teachers is peace in the midst of rapid transition and change, clarity of mission and role when they may feel overwhelmed, energy and strength when they are challenged, and support as they care for themselves and others around them. We pray for them assurance that the lessons they have taught so far will be put to good use and that the students they love will be safe and cared for.

We are grateful for all teachers, for their work with vulnerable students, and for their roles as leaders in our communities.

Above, Jan Steen’s School Teacher (1668) shows four young pupils working, two of them writing and others with papers in their hands, and their school teacher works with one of them, a child rubbing their eye with one hand and pointing to a word on the page with the other. In the next room, visible through a curtain, a person in a red cap has their back to the viewer.

Listening Hearts: Day 85

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Our family has been working on a new daily practice: listening. Active, reflective, engaged listening that says to the other person. My desire is to understand you as you are, not to correct you or improve you or educate you.

To that end, we’ve been writing questions to help us get to know each other better. Some of these questions are serious; many are silly. Sometimes we laugh at things that are meant to be serious, and sometimes our silliness leads us into serious places. Our goal is to publish one each day on our blog. We hope you find them useful, either as prompts to think about yourself or as questions you bring to the car ride or the dinner table. They’re written by all of us, and you’ll see the diversity of our thoughts and interest in them, so in the questions themselves, you’ll get to know us a little better too.

Subscribe to our blog (or follow our Twitter account @familyfoxhole) to have them appear in your inbox or Twitter feed daily.

Today’s question:

What is your favorite time of day?

Blood Orange Curd

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

We recently had a porch visit from friends who gifted us with pickles (our favorite!), olives (also our favorite!), and blood oranges, which are nearing the end of their season so you must enjoy them while you can. I mostly use them in salads, but since we hadn’t recently gone out for our once-a-week trip to the grocery store, we were short on greens. Instead, we made blood orange curd. It’s delicious snuck out of the jar on a spoon (no double dipping, of course!) or spread on soft slices of white bread or stirred into oatmeal. Or, let’s be honest, topping vanilla ice cream, with a sprinkle of black pepper. (Trust me.)

Ingredients:

  • 8-10 blood oranges, or enough to yield 1 1/2 c. juice (If you need to supplement with other citrus, do)
  • zest of 4-5 blood oranges
  • 2/3 c. sugar
  • 5 egg yolks
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 7 Tbs butter, cut into pats

Directions:

  • Reduce juice to 2/3 c. on stove.
  • In mixing bowl, combine zest, sugar, and egg yolks. Mix until pale yellow.
  • Slowly add juice to mixing bowl, continuing to mix. Add salt and mix further.
  • Return to stovetop and heat over medium high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until curd is thickened. To test, lift spoon from curd and run a knife down the back of the spoon to create a line. The line should remain, revealing the wooden spoon.
  • Remove from heat and add butter, stirring constantly until melted.
  • Store in glass jars in the refrigerator.