What you have here are some great ideas for coming together as a family, having real conversations, especially if that seems awkward (when you have teenagers, talking together as a group can often feel awkward).
Who would have guessed that this little box of simple questions could become such a fire conversation starter. The only reason I mention fire, is not due to incendiary topics, but because it was when our family started to intentionally increase our communication levels we gathered around our firepit.
The deceptively unassuming appearance of a little round box with the picture of a homey lattice topped pie belies the power of asking the the right questions.
When it comes to helping people share their thoughts, particularly when we aren’t used to it, many of us are at a loss. With these little round boxes of questions, that o longer needs to be the case.
Filled to the brim with small round cards that are printed with questions, these starters help immensely when you are sitting down and trying to talk.
You know, it’s a little like trying to relax: you overthink it.
But with some coaxing from ready made topics, you are bound to strike upon a few that really get the communication going.
 What About Your Family?
Family Game Night Is Fun And Brings Your Family Closer Together
How our family makes time for a family game night and how we choose various games and activities to do.
 Do You Have A Family Game Night Set Up?
 We get together regularly to play games
 We occasionally pull out the games and have a go
 I am sad to say, that we don’t play games together
 We do, but our family plays more physical games like touch football
 Not since the kids were little, but I think we might try it again
You might be thinking: that is an odd thing to lift someone’s mood. Or you might completely understand, since aprons make you feel happy when you see them,too. There are different reasons why I feel sentimentally cheerful when I see an old fashioned apron.
There are the happy memories
My grandmother always wore an apron at home during the day it seemed. She owned all sorts of aprons: Plain Jane ones, frilly sheer ones, calico, and bibbed ones. A veritable wardrobe of aprons. And there always seemed to be something good cooking in her kitchen. Coincidence you say? Something in my little child’s memory says differently. For me, the production of good food and the use of an apron are inextricably tied.
Not only did she have aprons, but my mother had many, as well. And it seemed inevitable that there were several little child sized ones for me. Sometimes to help out while making cookies or perched on a stool washing dishes. Sometimes I had my own little work apron for paint projects at my easel. Each activity added up to a good memory, and aprons seem to connect them all. A new take on the “apron strings”?
All in all, a well worn apron or a pretty retro style… it all means homemaking that is of the exciting cookie baking kind in my mind. Or that most artistic of baking activities: decorating the cookies with frostings and sprinkles.
The good feelings from good food
In my own life as a mother and wife I don’t use an apron everyday, when I do put on my favorite apron it means I am about to cook or bake seriously. That is usually the holiday meal or Christmas preparations (cookies!). It means good food in my mind, when I don that no-nonsense bibbed cooks apron. I bake my cardamon rolls while wearing that apron, the roast turkey, the cookies, like Moravian Spice cutouts, and others. For an everyday event that seems like it could get messy I have in inherited assortment of regular half aprons- the type my mother most often wore. ( Because most of them are probably her old ones!
There is just something cute about an apron
It’s true. Maybe it is a throwback to a more naive time, or maybe it is all the adorable prints or funny sayings. I like many of the new handmade ones that seem to be something like the those
Like a smock or a jumper, but just for working around the kitchen. I know I’m not the only one who think that aprons are cute. There is a whole group of people who are rediscovering the usefulness of these useful utilitarian garments
… But it is probably more about fun than usefulness. Like a little bit of playing dress up (and some of the fancy aprons might qualify for the term!). I do remember my mother having some hostess-style aprons that were sheer white and ruffled.
Maybe it is homemade artistry
Old aprons, or handmade ones are something like quilts in the way they can express the makers sense of artistry and fun. Bright colors and skillful pattern combining rule in many of these creations, but there are some pretty sleek creations as well.
Looking over the aprons on a site like http://apronaday.blogspot.com/ or in the etsy.com shopping place is to be in a happy place and just a little addicting.
The sturdier ones can even do double duty as a gardening smock. To work well for the gardener it must have pockets.
Do you like aprons? do they carry some happy memories of the past or a favorite grandmother or aunt?
I had a favorite Aunt ( I was named after her) who had a great deal of joie de vivre. She had a way of living that celebrated in daily ways, and that made her a very charming person. She was also very accomplished, in almost everything she set her hand to, actually. She was a concert pianist, a smart business woman, and at one early point had worked for a hotel and could keep a home that Martha Stewart would have envied. I was always a little in awe of her.
During a short period of my life I lived in her home and during one winter day she surprised me with a pretty pottery container filled with pebbles and six bulbs halfway submerged in them. With the directions to place it on the windowsill and keep it watered, I experienced the discovery of how beautiful and fragrant blooming paperwhites could be.
Forced paperwhite bulbs bloom for a long enough time to really enjoy, but half the fun is watching them sprout from their plump brown globes to form the straight spears of bright green, then form their stalks of flower buds that burst open with the most elegant white blooms. They remind you of life and beauty every day that you see them perched on the window’s ledge.
Photo by Shelley Noble of notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com
While making a trek into Hocking Hills country I stopped and picked up some Laurelville homemade apple butter. If you haven’t tasted apple butter that is made with the taste of all outdoors, cooked in the open over a wood fire…well, you have missed out on something truly special.
My grandmother always had a jar of this treat on the breakfast table, and I well remember the smooth spiced brown apple butter that we put on fresh bread toast points with our soft boiled eggs in egg cups. My grandfather would read us a selection from “Our Daily Bread” and then we would dig into this homey and sustaining breakfast repast. It was such a good memory to take through the years, and the delicious taste of real homemade apple butter always resurrects it in my mind.
This might be close, Apple Butter: McCutcheons 4 Pack, but I would look for a roadside farm market or stand – or maybe you have apple butter festivals going on near you ?
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, but I would look for a roadside farm market or stand – or maybe you have apple butter festivals going on near you ?
