My Country Cupboard

Winner Announced!! :: Home Management Binder

2012-01-26T07:13:00.004-05:00

And the winner of the Home Management Binder from Getting Freedom is...

#26: Julie With her comment:
"I would love to win this binder. I have a notebook all ready for the pages!"

Julie, Congratulations!!! Please email me at mhbrem (at) yahoo (dot) com to claim your Home Management Binder.

:: Winner has 48 hours to contact me before a second winner is chosen. ::

:: Winner was selected using random.org. ::

Didn't win? Don't worry, you can still get a copy! The Home Management Binder is being offered to my readers for a reduced price of $5 (from $8.95) through the end of January. Use discount code CNTRYCUPBRD at checkout.

*This post contains affiliate links.

Home Management Binder Giveaway {ends tomorrow!}

2012-01-24T08:25:00.005-05:00

{Giveaway Closed. Winner will be posted Thursday morning.}

Hi y'all! I just wanted to post a quick reminder that if you haven't scrolled down my blog lately, I have a great giveaway going on right now from Phoebe at Getting Freedom!! One person will win a copy of her new Home Management Binder!

Click on the image below for more information and to enter the giveaway.

Another First for Susannah!!

2012-01-21T21:36:00.003-05:00

A post dedicated to Susannah is long over-due. I feel badly for not recording more about this year of her life and all the little things she says, does and milestones reached. She is currently 22 months (and some days) old. It is hard to believe that it's been almost 2 years since she was born!

Her speaking vocabulary is increasing by leaps and bounds these days. She still uses one word at a time (though once she did say "Go bye!"), but she is learning new words probably on a weekly basis. Instead of signing "more" she now says "more" most of the time. She says it very slowly and drawn out: "mooooooore". She has also started saying "please" instead of signing it. I usually have to prompt her to verbalize it, but she can say it. Her S's are said at the back of her mouth, so more of the "sh" sound than "s" but it's a long step from not saying "s" at all :)

For Christmas we gave her two wooden puzzles, one is of the alphabet and one is the numbers 0 - 9. She LOVES her "puffle" and most days we spend some time on the couch together dumping them out and putting them together. I usually hand her the letters or numbers one at a time and have her find the right place for the piece to go. I also tell her the letter and ask her to say it. I think this has really helped her with learning how to make some of the consonant sounds, and I think she is also learning the alphabet even though she doesn't verbalize it yet.

One thing I especially want to remember is her translation of the letter "R". If you show her the letter R and ask her "what does R say?" or "can you say R?", she says "hop!" Everything for the letter R is "hop!" I think this comes from trying to get her to "say Rrrrr... like rrrrrabbit!" And if she sees a rabbit (stuffed or in a book), she refers to it as "hop!" She doesn't really say the R sound yet, which is why we are trying to get her to say "R". It is very cute, though, to hear her say that "R" says "hop!" I'm sure one day she will say "R" and not "hop!", and that specific cuteness will become a thing of the past.

Getting rides from my aunt
with her 2nd cousin.

She still enjoys reading and being read to. Her favorite books right now are "Go Dog. Go!" (P. D. Eastman) and "I'm A Big Sister". Her request to read is saying "wee?" or "book!" and she often asks for "Go!", the Go Dog. Go! book.

Singing :) She has always liked music. She still doesn't sing very much herself, but she sure does like us to sing to her! We have recently started singing before her bedtime, and now it is a must. Her current favorites are "This Little Light of Mine" ("Miiiee") and "The Wise Man (Built His House...)". Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man is not too far down on the list. Some others that she likes are Joy To The World, Jingle Bells, Ho-Ho-Ho-Hosannah, and usually not requested but one she enjoys is Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

It is very sweet to snuggle her in the rocking chair and sing to her. Some nights she doesn't want us to stop. If Daniel is holding her, it is very sweet for me to sit in the other chair and watch her snuggle on her Daddy. Upon request, she willingly gives us each a hug and kiss after we finish singing and before we put her in her bed. Sometimes we can get her to give the baby a kiss, too.

I think she is somewhat aware that there is a baby inside my belly. Lately if we are sitting together and the baby starts to move a lot, I help her feel the baby move. This afternoon I was putting her down for her nap and she wanted to sing a little bit first. While I was singing, the baby gave some big moves. Susannah was snuggled on me, and when that happened she sat upright and her eyes got big and she smiled :) I asked her if she felt the baby wiggle and her smile got bigger. She finally has the correct "bump" on the front me identified as the baby in my belly.

Recently I heard "hep! hep!" coming from the kitchen.
I found her stuck, sitting on the step-stool
that she had backed up against the cupboards :)

For the past couple months she has been thoroughly fascinated with the toilet. When her fascination first began, I thought maybe she was ready to potty-train. After doing some reading and observing, I realized that being fascinated with it was the only "indicator" and that she really wasn't ready yet. Lately her fascination has resumed, so on bath nights while I draw her bath water, she sits on the potty (with a reducer seat). This is the first time she'll sit there for more than 5 seconds, but she is still usually ready to get down long before her bath is ready :)
I am not pushing potty training at this point, especially being so close to the new baby being born, but I figure this exposure (no pun intended) to sitting on the potty certainly won't hurt anything, and if she figures out how to go potty, well, I won't mind that either!

Up until tonight, she had never done anything on the potty. But sometimes as soon as her feet hit the bathwater she would start to pee (and it would surprise her). That told me that she really wasn't controlling her bladder yet, so she wasn't sitting on the potty purposely not going. Tonight, though... tonight she PEED ON THE POTTY!! I hadn't even started the water yet, I was getting a towel out of the closet when I heard her going. I think my excitement and her surprise cut things short, though. After she finished, she wiped herself (I was going to, but she took the paper and did it herself!) and then we had an impromptu, short lesson on "no, we do not pick the toilet paper back out of the potty! That is eww!" Then we went to the kitchen to celebrate with a very special treat of a few mini-marshmallows. I also called Daniel in from the addition to help celebrate the special occasion.

I don't know if she made the connection between the "very special treat", all the happy cheering and hugs, and what she had just done on the potty, but it was fun :) After the marshmallows, we went back into the bathroom to get in the tub (I should move some of the marshmallows closer to the bathroom...), and as soon as her feet hit the water she went some more. My guess is that her going on the potty was more a random occurrence, but it's a start.

Before it gets much later, I need to wind this post up. I'll close by saying that this week Susannah has had the worst cold she's had in a long time. Usually our colds don't go beyond a day or two of sniffles, but the poor little dear had a full-blown, several miserable days, plenty of nose-running and lots of coughing cold. As she never ran a fever or showed any signs of being seriously ill, I just put on my Dr. Mama hat and helped her the best way I could. We realized she was sick Saturday night when she woke up several times coughing and crying, and Thursday morning was the first time she was acting somewhat like her usual bubbly self again. Yesterday and today she's acted and looked herself and has been sleeping much, much better (for which I am VERY grateful!!). But last night and this evening she has fussed about her one ear. Still no fever, so I'm guessing it's just an ear-ache and treating it with ear drops. She has had enough coughing and nose-running/blowing that it does not surprise me that her ears might be bothering her. I am hoping this clears up quickly and doesn't get worse.

Right now I am eager to be able to go to church again tomorrow after having to stay home last week! I know Susannah will be happy to see her friends again, too :)

Home Management Binder - GIVEAWAY!!! {CLOSED}

2012-01-21T10:28:00.007-05:00

{Giveaway Closed. Winner will be posted Thursday morning.}

You all know I'm a fan of lists :) I have my goal list for this year. I have a folder on my desktop that contains my annual goal list, my monthly goal list, weekly goal lists, and my daily to-do list (which changes each day when I make out a new one). I like my lists neat and clean. If I write it by hand, I want it on a clean, neat piece of paper. I love the neatness of something printed.

I have long been tossing around the idea of a Home Management Binder. I've read so many positive things about them, but have never taken the time to sit down and create one. All that important and makes-life-easier information all in one place? Yes, please! Nice, neat forms to write out lists and menus? Yes, please! Clean calendar pages to see at a glance what is going on that month or week? Yes, yes, yes!

My friend Phoebe from Getting Freedom from Debt has recently published a wonderful and thorough Home Management Binder that contains everything you need to keep your home running smoothly and efficiently. I've seen her HMB, and she did not leave out anything! All the way from cleaning your gutters to menu planning to budget worksheets! I can't wait to get mine printed off and start using it. I know with the new baby coming my brain is going to go out the window for a while, so having everything I need to remember in one place is going to be a lifesaver.

The exciting news is that Phoebe has given me one copy of her Home Management Binder to GIVE to one of you!!!

So you can see a little taste of what her HMB is like, here is a free downloadable copy of the Weekly Menu Plan from the binder you can print off and start using right away.

Giveaway Details

You have TWO opportunities to enter the giveaway:

#1: Leave a comment on this post.
#2: Leave a comment on this post telling me what area of your home
you would like or need to better manage this year.
Giveaway will close Wednesday, January 25th.
I will post the winners' names, so be sure to check back!!

Phoebe is also offering her Home Management Binder for $8.95, but through the end of January my readers can get it for $5 if you use the code CNTRYCUPBRD at checkout. Remember, this code is only good through the end of January, so if you want to take advantage of the sale, do it soon :)

I am excited to do my first giveaway from another great site here on my blog!! Feel free to tell your friends about it, too :)

*This post contains affiliate links.

Wordless Wednesday {Big Sister Susannah}

2012-01-18T07:00:00.001-05:00

Ahh, I can't really leave this wordless and not tell the story behind these pictures!

In doing some going-through and cleaning in Susannah's room, I unearthed the baby carrier. It has a bazillion buckles, which totally fascinate her. I told her how it is used to carry a baby, and helped her get it on with her dolly inside. She wore it for probably about 5 minutes, walking around feeling special, before she got frustrated with it's too-big-ness. Later in the day she wanted to wear it again, but didn't last as long that time.

The headband (mine) was another find that she wanted to wear for a while that day :)

The Simple Woman's Daybook

2012-01-16T08:13:00.003-05:00

For Monday, January 16, 2012

I am thinking... That last week was a very good week and I would love to have another one this week. Last week went smoothly and productively. I also need to think about "what do I want" for our anniversary (in March). Daniel asked me that late last night. Hmm, I'll have to think about it a bit. I told him it very well might be for HIM to feed the new baby all night and let me sleep ;) (But that wouldn't really happen since I plan to nurse the baby and probably won't have him or her on a bottle yet.)

I am thankful for... Being able to sleep really well lately. That so far I'm not having any of the swelling (feet, ankles, hands) like I had with my first pregnancy. That currently the aches and pains of pregnancy are pretty mild. I am very thankful for all of these :)

From my kitchen... I think I will make some waffles for Susannah's breakfast. I hope to enjoy a nice, hot mug of coffee with some hot cocoa mix stirred in a little later :)

I am reading... I am making myself read all the way through More Hours In My Day by Emilie Barnes. I've read it before so it's easy to speed read the high spots, but I don't want to miss anything new I might learn from it this time around.

I am hoping... That Susannah's cold is short-lived as our colds usually are. She came down with it Saturday night (she and I stayed home from church yesterday), and last evening she looked pretty miserable. I'm also hoping that I don't get it!

I am creating... If I run out of things to do this week (haha!) I think I might dig out the sewing machine and see if I can finish or almost finish the kitchen curtains.

I am hearing... I turned on a soft, quiet instrumental praise CD this morning. Very peaceful, and provides some "white noise" for Susannah to hopefully be sleeping by as I make some noise.

Around the house... Susannah's new plastic blocks (I can't think of what they are called right now!) are scattered on the kitchen floor; her new-to-us "Go Dog, Go!" book and "I'm A Big Sister" book are beside the couch where we read them last night. They are probably her favorite books right now :)

A few plans for the week... A few of the things on my goal list for this week: To finish wiping down the kitchen cabinets (I only have the bottom ones to do), that has been on the list for a while; to clean off the desk; to clean the bottom shelf - which is really the floor - in the pantry.

A picture... One I have shared before, my kitchen windowsill where I like to keep a candle burning in the mornings and evenings through the cool winter months. Days like today, when it was 18° at 7:30 this morning, I lit it right away. It makes the kitchen feel more cozy :)

On The Other Side of The Hump

2012-01-08T22:42:00.002-05:00

Whew!! I wasn't sure what was going on yesterday and the worst part was not knowing when it would end. I called my mother-in-law briefly yesterday afternoon and she asked if I was in labor. I said "no, but if I was at least I'd know it was going to end soon!"

As it turned out, by late last night - while I was still worn out - I was getting my appetite back and getting hungry. I made an egg sandwich about 10:30 and Daniel said it smelled like breakfast :) I wasn't counting on feeling up to going to church this morning, since I had no idea how well the food was going to sit on my stomach or if I was going to be able to sleep, but lo and behold, everything was fine!

I didn't bounce out of bed, but I did rest pretty well and felt like it would be pure laziness to skip Sunday morning church... especially since my stomach was roaring hungry, which felt completely different than it had all of the previous 24 hours! By the time we arrived to church I just wanted to go back to sleep, but I yawned and sipped water and think I stayed awake the whole service :)

After a good lunch and a decent nap this afternoon, I felt rejuvenated. I even made up a list for tomorrow and put down a few goals for this coming week. Tomorrow morning is MOPS and I am really looking forward to this meeting and hearing the guest speaker.

I am just happy to be on the other side of yesterday so quickly. Since I was never officially (stomach) sick, I was afraid it was going to be a couple day ordeal of feeling bad and getting rested back up from apparent lack of sleep (which would be strange for me, anyway!). Since then I've heard of a few people having a 24 hour stomach bug, and since my misery lasted pretty much exactly 24 hours, I'm pretty sure it must've been the same thing just without the throwing up (which is OK by me!!).

So here's a "hip-hip, hooray" for feeling better and hopefully a splendid week ahead.

A Crazy Week's Re-cap

2012-01-07T18:23:00.002-05:00

Boy, oh boy, has this week been a humdinger! Nothing really huge, just several things that have piled up and eventually overwhelmed. Daniel had his official "New Years Day" day off of work on Monday and it was nice to use that to recover and get back into a normal swing of things here at home after a big week of mega busyness. I felt confidant about the week and had high ambitions of really grabbing the world by the tail and starting 2012 off with a bang of productivity, doing some needed cleaning and all that kind of "new year" stuff.

God allowed several kinks into my plans though. All of them relatively minor, but again when there are multiple kinks, it seems to turn into one enormous pile quickly.

Kink #1: Tuesday night I woke up at 4am and absolutely could not go back to sleep. Thank you, pregnancy insomnia! I used those almost 2 hours of being awake to pray, think, plan, and wish I could just.go.back.to.sleep. I eventually got up at 5:45, took a shower and drank some coffee to get me perked up and alive for the rest of the day.

Kink #2: Wednesday morning at 4:39pm, Daniel's pager (which was on our dresser) went off at top-notch volume (he is on call this week). Of course I woke up. He returned the call, the person didn't answer, he crawled back in bed. As soon as he crawled in bed the person called him back. Not knowing it was going to be a 15 minute conversation (at 4:30 in the morning!!) he stayed in bed to talk (which was fine... except it was a LOT longer than either of us anticipated!). Then it took me a bit to go back to sleep.

Kink #3: Wednesday morning our laptop decided it didn't want to start up. So we are crippling along with our pre-historic desktop which is horribly inconvenient as it's in Susannah's room, not hooked to the printer, doesn't have any of our regular documents on it, etc. I actually did our bookwork and budget update with paper and pen this week :P

Kink #4: Last night the dog barked and barked and barked and barked, non-stop from 11:30pm to almost 4am. Daniel sleeps through it, I can't. On top of the dog barking, from the time I ate supper until just late this afternoon I had a really bad stomach-ache that was worse any time I was moving. And I was/am just plain down right exhausted and feel like something the cat dragged in. I don't know if it's something I ate, a mild stomach bug (I sure felt like if I could just throw up I would feel better, but I never felt nauseated), or my guess is that my body just decided to take a time-out from not enough sleep, a busy Christmas & New Years, and just needed a break.

Needless to say, I spent 98% of today in bed wishing I felt better and could just SLEEP. I did rest, and did doze some, but most of the time I just laid there feeling yuck. Daniel is still on call, but thankfully his pager never went off and he was able to take care of Susannah while I took care of me. Finally around 5pm I didn't feel like throwing up and was able to eat a little, and as time went on felt better enough to eat a tiny bit for supper.

I am hoping to sleep really well tonight (I may even take some Tylenol PM if it's on the "OK List" from my Dr.) and feel much better tomorrow. Going to church is not at the top of my list of priorities for tomorrow unless I wake up so refreshed and energetic I can't help it! Haha!!

In the meantime, know that I'm still here :) The pregnancy is still going amazingly well. Other than some minor aches and pains (bones and muscles), I feel pretty good most of the time. This week was 32 weeks. I am getting really eager to meet our little baby who is very wiggly inside of my quite a bit lately :)

December Goal Review {& new goals for this week}

2012-01-03T21:07:00.000-05:00

Considering all that goes on in the month of December, I don't feel that I did too badly in trying to meet my December goals. I am really glad I made them and didn't say "December is crazy, I can't make a goal list!" Even though I didn't hit each target date right on, I was pretty close to most of them and it was helpful to have self-imposed "deadlines."

December Goals:
~~~Finish & mail Christmas cards by Dec. 15th~~ (Remember that I started working on them in Nov.)
~~~Write Christmas letter (to go in some of the cards)~~
~~~Take Susannah's Christmas picture and get prints~~ I do this myself and it took 2 "sittings" but I managed to get 1 good picture from each sitting.
~Finish all Christmas shopping by Dec. 15th (includes ingredients for homemade gifts, excludes perishable food gifts). I can't remember for sure, but I think I was SO close to being finished by the 15th. I ordered 1 or 2 gifts online after that.
~Wrap all non-food gifts by Dec. 20th. I think I had 3 wrapped by the 20th, and most of the others wrapped well before the different get-togethers. No crazy, last-minute wrapping here, which was my ultimate goal :)
~~~Put 2+ meals in the freezer~~ I put in exactly 2
~~~Make donuts for neighbors~~ We did it! Whew! It came right down to the wire because Daniel was so busy, but the evening before Christmas Eve I mixed up the dough and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator. With Daniel's help they were all fried and glazed by early afternoon of Christmas Eve. We delivered most of them Sunday after lunch :)

Donuts rising in the oven.

~Clean out the ~~refrigerator~~ and refrigerator freezer
~Wipe down kitchen cabinets and clean out spice drawer
~~~Plan Christmas Day menu & grocery list~~
~Re-home the dog Still didn't happen*

I don't have goals down for January yet, but I do have a few things in mind. In the mean-time, here are my goals for the rest of this week:

Goals for Jan. 2 - 7:
~Clean out refrigerator freezer
~Wipe down kitchen cabinets
~Write 1 hand-written note
~Do bookwork
~Freeze 1 meal (still trying to thing what it will be!)
~Plan gifts for the last "Christmas" for this season (2 weeks away)
~Email a former co-worker who just became a SAHM with the New Year :)
~Start a list of things to do before the baby comes
~Re-pot my violet plant

A few of the goals for this week are keeping up with my goals for this year. I have to say that I'm pretty excited about (hopefully) keeping up with my goals this year by creating weekly and monthly goal lists. The past two years I have made an annual goal list, but honestly it is a piece of paper that hangs on the side of the refrigerator that I often forget about. Breaking it down each month/week and implementing it into my daily to-do list helps me stay focused on what my goals are, and working to meet them.

*We have tried pretty much every possible avenue for finding our dog a new home, all the way from our local advertising to regional rescues for his breed (that CLAIM to take "owner surrenders" but then tell me they rescue from shelters and humane societies first and are always full...). I am taking this off the goal list but it is still something we hope will happen soon.

A New Year's Goals {2012}

2012-01-03T07:41:00.004-05:00

I am still working on a recap of last year's goals, but this morning I have finally put together a list of goals for this new year.

Keeping in mind that we will be welcoming a new baby to our family in a few months, I have kept it fairly simple (I think!). I didn't want to keep it TOO simple, though, and not have much to aim for. After our baby is born we will see how it goes.

**************

Personal (the one I've kept the most simple)
7 - 8 hours of sleep at night regularly (I know that for a while this simply won't happen, but I do want to keep the habit going when I can!).
Be intentional about looking nice for Daniel, even if I'm staying home the entire day.
Intentionally exercise to lose baby weight (maybe another round of The Shred?).
Mail hand-written notes/letters regularly - I'm thinking weekly or monthly.
Visit my paternal grandmother more often.

Family
Swimming lessons for Susannah.
Inexpensive family vacations (might translate into "stay-cations").
Monthly date-nights, in or out.
1 or 2 weekends of getaway, just Daniel and myself.

In the Kitchen
Purchase a meat slicer (hopefully with swagbucks).
Finish sewing and hang curtains.

Financial
Do bookwork weekly (updating checkbook/budget) along with a weekly business meeting.
Make and maintain a needs/wants list of things to save for.
Restart Baby Step #4 (retirement/investing) and maybe Baby Step #5 (kids savings/college fund).
Start saving for Baby #3 (for if/when we have a #3 :) )
Put $1,000 into the Emergency Fund
Start a Cow Fund

Miscellaneous
Clean out/purge bathroom closet.
Work on photo project(s) regularly.
Keep the bedrooms clean.
Paint the kitchen trim.

**************

Looking over the list it doesn't look that simple, but I do like to have a target to aim for. Having these written down will help me remember things I need and want to work on. Towards the end of this past year when I started writing down my monthly and weekly goals, I was amazed at how much I was able to accomplish just by having a written, visual reminder of things I wanted to do.

If you're still looking for goal ideas, maybe this post will give you some. If you have a list already and are willing to share, I'd love to read it and maybe I'll get some inspiration, too :)

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T21:30:00.007-05:00

I am painfully aware that I haven't posted here for... a while :) I had high hopes of doing a cute "Merry Christmas!" post on Christmas Day and all that fun stuff, but a relaxing day trumped that.

Then the week between Christmas Day and New Years Day was full of celebrating, relaxing, being away from home, and getting ready for my family's "Christmas" on New Year's Eve.

Here's some quick catch-up.

This picture would've been on my annual "Merry Christmas!" post on Christmas Day:

This picture would've been in my post about our Christmas Day:
Our Christmas Day was preceded by no less than two Christmas Eve services back to back. One at Daniel's parent's church where his family had been asked to sing, and then the one at our church where we had been asked to please be there if we at all could since many of the choir members were going to be out of town that evening. So we hurried and scurried and were able to be at both. We could have gone to our church Christmas Day (it was the service only, no Sunday School), but our general rule of thumb is to STAY HOME on the 25th. Plus after the day before, we were ready to spend some time as a family at home. So that's what we did. It was a wonderful, relaxing day.

Another "rule" for our Christmas Days is to have special munchy foods instead of cooking and baking. This year we added a shrimp ring to our simple menu - yum! Other than that, I had made ahead a quiche for breakfast and made some easy Monkey Bread that morning to go with it. I had also made 3 different pies - each of our "favorites" - Coconut Cream, Peanut Butter and Pumpkin. We also nibbled on a summer sausage with crackers and cheese.

We happily broke our "stay home" rule that evening and went to Daniel's parent's house to enjoy a casual but delicious dinner with his parents, grandma (Susannah's great-grandma), brother and his family. It was also a fun excuse to watch Daniel's Christmas gift, The Jungle Book, that for some reason doesn't play in our cheapy dvd player.

The following Monday was the official "Christmas" with Daniel's family, then it was back to work for Daniel on Tuesday. Tuesday evening we had dinner with his family again before his brother and his family headed back home on Wednesday. It was a fun few days of visiting, being together and some goofing off (that's what brothers do, right?) :)

Thursday Susannah and I ran some errands that included getting a few last-minute food gifts for my side of the family. I also finished cleaning the house for the week. Then Daniel and I packed up everything to head to my parent's for the weekend.

All day Friday I spent getting things (food-related) ready for Saturday for "Christmas" with my family. My oldest sister was able to come and help, and my mom finished doing some cleaning. Earlier in the week different ones of my sisters (who live locally to my parents) had gone up and done some prep-work, too, so it didn't all have to be done at once. Over the years we have discovered that the more detailed and organized the preparations are, the smoother the function goes. With my parents, grandma, siblings, sibling's spouses and the grandkids, it is a total of 26 people (I think...). This year we stream-lined things even better: we pre-cooked the turkey and ham, and picked or sliced them the day before. It was SO nice to be able to have more leisure time to visit Saturday morning instead of spending it bent over the turkey.

Susannah "helped" me a lot on Friday.
One thing she enjoyed doing was unwrapping
63 tea bags to make 8 gallons of tea :)
(I made the tea in 2 gallon batches, so
she didn't unwrap ALL 63 teabags at once.)

The day of our "Christmas" went off without too many hitches. After the noon meal (the big meal for the day) we did gifts. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures (I hope to get some from my sister who was taking several), but here are a few.

Susannah's uncles (my 2 brothers) gave her a grocery basket
of plastic fruit and vegetables. Here she is in her new pink chair
saying "Mmmm!" about the plastic grapes :)

Enjoying her very first lollipop :)

The day was full of food, fun, games and visiting with each other. Susannah had more "junk food" that day than she's probably had in her entire life, but that's what special days are for :)

One cute thing from the day that I want to remember is how Grandpa (my dad) shared his chips with Susannah. He had gotten a bag of potato chips as a gift, and she LOVES chips ("bip!" in her vocabulary). He opened the bag to sample them, and she noticed right away that he was eating "bip!" and went over to investigate. She spent probably 10 minutes at his side helping him taste-test his chips :) I think they both enjoyed it!

Getting Ready for Christmas

2011-12-23T19:35:00.003-05:00

This evening, December 23rd, after a yummy supper of scrambled eggs, bacon and fried taters, we put up our Christmas Tree.

We really don't have a good place for a regular sized tree, so for the past several years we have used our tiny fake tree from WalMart. Of course they don't make a light-string that tiny, so we have the tree wrapped in lights and then a big wad that hangs down and is tied up on the floor :)

The little table that we put the tree on is part of Susannah's Christmas present, but we didn't put out the 2 chairs yet. We'll put those out when we put out the wrapped presents.

Last year one of her grandma's gave her a Little People Nativity Set for Christmas. She has played with the people and animals all year, but we had the stable and trees packed away. Tonight we got them out, found as many people and critters as we could, and put that up with the tree. She figured out really fast how to push the knob on top so it would play "Away In A Manger"... over and over :)

Before taking her bath tonight, she wanted to push the knob one last time. And the same right before going to bed :) I'm sure she will get every bit of life out of those batteries!

I am excited to experience Christmas through her eyes again this year. Last year was very special and fun, our first Christmas as parents, but this year she is a year older and of course much more aware and into the pretties and presents! She watched and "helped" me wrap some gifts the other evening and was very fascinated with the tape. We helped her put some tape on some of the gifts - some of it made it to the right place, and some of the gifts have random, wrinkled up tape stuck to them :)

Tiny Talk Tuesday {I...Love...YOU!}

2011-12-20T15:02:00.003-05:00

Susannah continues to learn new words, which most of the time don't really sound like the actual word, but it's how she says it and we know what she's saying (most of the time!)

One of her words is "Paul." One day she was looking at her picture Bible, and was pointing to different things in pictures (and I would then tell her what/who it was). She pointed to a picture of Paul (who started out as Saul), and I told her it was "Paul." She immediately picked up on who "Paul" is in that book, and when she looks at it she often finds the pages with Paul on them, and says "Paul!" "Paul!" "Paul!" Of course she says it in a high, sing-song voice, so that makes it extra cute to hear. She also has a cousin, Paul, and this past weekend we were together. She finally figured out that his name is Paul, too, and I heard her calling him by name a few times.

In one of her toy boxes with 2 bears,
looking at her Bible (with "Paul!" in it).

Susannah continues to be bothered if there is a mess that she discovers. Now, her toys scattered all over the floor in a mess doesn't bother her, but other things out of order sure do! And she likes to fix them NOW! The other night it was raining a little bit when the cat came in for the evening. Susannah went to pet the cat, and was very bothered that she was wet (damp). She made her "uh! uh!" noise (which sounds likes something is a major disaster!) and right away went over to the drawer were I keep my kitchen towels. She pulled out a towel and attempted to dry kitty off!! I was glad my camera was right there on the counter so I could grab it quickly to get a picture. Needless to say, the cat didn't really appreciate Susannah's concern :)

And saving the best for last (for this time), Susannah started finishing "I love you!" for us when we say it. Of course we tell her "I love you!" many times a day. For a while now I've been asking her if she could say "I love you" or "I love you, Mama!" Most of the time I say it very slowly, separating the words so it's not just one long string of sounds for her to try and repeat. Yesterday I was doing that, and she started saying "you!" after I say "I... love..." This is another word she says in her high, sing-song voice, so all together it comes out as (me) "I... love..." (Susannah) "EEEEUUUU!!!" Of course now that she will finish the sentence for us, we say it even more often just to hear her :)

Christmas Day Menu

2011-12-19T09:01:00.000-05:00

I don't have any pictures to go with this post because Christmas Day is not yet here, and I don't ~~feel like taking pictures~~ think you want to see pictures of stuff scattered around in my freezer, fridge and cupboards :P

One of my goals for this month (to get done before Christmas, obviously) was to figure out the menu for Christmas Day and get any groceries that we needed for it. Done and done! Last week I did a huge shopping trip and aside from milk, orange juice and a few last-minute food gifts, I won't need to grocery shop again until next year! What a nice sense of "ahhh!"

First I want to share a little about our non-traditional Christmas Day food. Growing up, most years Mom and/or my older sisters slaved away in the kitchen making THE Christmas Dinner with the turkey, mashed potatoes and all the things that go with. Then one year we decided that no one (a) had time or (b) want to. No "want to" to fix the huge meal, and no "want to" to clean up from it! So that year we had special finger type foods and some special jello salad. We did start the day off with a REALLY special breakfast of bacon (a rare treat in a house of 12 people!), fried 'taters, gravy, biscuits (I think?), orange juice (another rare treat!), and a couple other things. That was the big meal for the day. After that it was fend for yourself with stuff like cheese, crackers, party mix, and so on.

I am typically all about making big days simple, so when Daniel and I got married we adopted that Christmas Day tradition for our own. It is one of our family "rules" to stay home all of Christmas Day, or most of it, and just enjoy the time together. (Our families get together later anyway.)

This year our menu consists mostly of special splurge foods. Many of them are way more processed than I would typically buy, but this is a very special day so we enjoy the treat of very special food :)

Breakfast:
Monkey Bread
Quiche
(both of these I will make)

Munchie Foods:
Li'l Smokies wrapped in homemade biscuit dough like tiny pigs-in-a-blanket
Shrimp and Cocktail Sauce
Summer Sausage, Cheese and Butter Crackers
Peaches and Cottage Cheese (I had to put something healthy and not salt-laden on the menu!)

Dessert:
Peanut Butter Pie (Daniel's)
Coconut Cream Pie (mine)
Pumpkin Pie with CoolWhip (Susannah's)

For the dessert, I am borrowing a Thanksgiving tradition from a friend of ours, where you make each person's favorite pie (or whatever pie they request). Susannah isn't old enough to have a favorite (or at least to tell us what it is if she has one!) and since we all like pumpkin pie and I don't make it often enough, that is the 3rd pie. Of course we will all share our pies with each other and I'm sure we'll be taking leftovers to share with Daniel's family!

Welcome December and December Goals!

2011-12-05T14:59:00.003-05:00

Isn't that a pretty picture? It's an old one, though. There hasn't been any snow here so far this winter. I'm hoping for some snow this December. Last year we had a white Christmas and I really liked that :)

I was pretty happy to get to the end of November with just one thing not crossed off my list. This past Saturday (Dec. 2nd) I put a good hurtin' on that last item, though, and only have a tiny bit left to do.

My November Goals:
~~~Get Christmas cards addressed and ready to mail~~ Done!! They are not stamped yet, but they are all addressed, have return labels on them, and are ready to be finished up.
~~~Make a list of Christmas gifts to make or purchase and start shopping~~ Daniel is responsible for shopping for "his guy" (the person whose name he has), but I've got a good start on the shopping for "my guy," and a good idea of what I need to make or purchase yet to be finished with all gifts.
~~~Pack up Susannah's too small clothes~~
~Pack up my clothes. The one I can't cross off :) So close I can smell it, though!
~~~Mend Susannah's jumper that she will wear for her Christmas picture~~ She and I did this Thanksgiving Day evening.

~~~Clean out kitchen ceiling light covers~~
~~~Dust ceiling fans~~
~~~Clean return vents~~ Whew, they were so dusty! I think this needs to be a quarterly task. It only took a minute or two per vent to take the cover off, take it outside and wipe the dust off with a cloth.

Goals for December
~Write Christmas letter (to include in the cards for people whom I'm not in contact with regularly through internet communication)
~Take Susannah's annual Christmas picture and get it printed
~Mail Christmas cards by Dec. 15th (and get my overseas sister's card in the mail ASAP!)
~Finish all non-food gift purchasing by Dec. 15th, including purchasing any needed ingredients for homemade goodies that will be gifts
~Wrap all non-food gifts by Dec. 20th
~Don't wait till the very last second to make/assemble food-gifts :)
~Put 2+ meals in the freezer for when the baby comes (I have a few frozen already)
~Make donuts to take to the neighbors
~Thoroughly clean out refrigerator and refrigerator freezer
~Wipe down kitchen cabinet fronts, and wipe out spice/measuring spoon drawer
~Plan Christmas Day menu/grocery list
~Re-home the dog (This past month one of my weekly goals was to begin this process, and we did get started. We would really like to have him re-homed by the end of this month.)

Whew, that's a lot of bullet points on my list and for a typically busy month to boot! Hopefully many of these will keep the stress and chaos at bay and let me get some other things done besides running around like a headless chicken.

Tiny Talk Tuesday {What Do The Big Dogs Say?}

2011-11-22T13:41:00.003-05:00

Susannah has been saying "woof-woof" for a long time now, in fact it was probably one of her first words.

Recently we have re-discovered one of our board books, Moo, Baa, La! La! La! by Sandra Boynton. In this book there are "little dogs" and "big dogs." We have had fun with the two, and Susannah is starting to be able to correctly answer us when we ask her "what do the little dogs say?" and "what do the big dogs say?"

It's much cuter in person, but here's a little video I took this morning. (And goodness, I need to talk slower!)

(Our camera must shoot in a different frame size than blogger uses, I really did have her centered in the screen :) )

Goldfish and Goals

2011-11-21T08:16:00.005-05:00

This past week was full of various and sundry things. I stayed up late more nights than I should have and could tell a difference in my energy level and "get things done" level. I should know this by now, right?!

Susannah had some fun times this past week. One was eating goldfish crackers off the kitchen floor. Literally. She had accidentally spilled her little bowl of crackers, and when I heard her making sounds that didn't correspond with picking them up, I turned around to see this:

I had swept and washed the floor the night before so I wasn't worried that she was going to get vast amounts of dirt ingested (plus you eat a pound of dirt before you die anyway, right? :) ). She had fun doing it, and it was fun to watch her experience something "new" all on her own.

One thing that made this past week "short" for me was being gone all day Friday. In my brain I knew we were not going to be home at all on Friday, and yet I still planned the week as if I had every day to get something done. Heh-heh. It was a great day (Bible Study in the morning, then driving a couple hours to help celebrate my nephew's birthday), even if I didn't get anything "done" here at my own house, and I'm glad Susannah and I went. She had fun playing with her cousins and I enjoyed the chance to visit with my sister while we worked on the birthday supper.

Last week my goals were:

~~~2 hours bookwork~~ I did this in a couple chunks of time.
~1 - 2 hours working on Susannah's Baby Book. I hoped to do this Saturday but Saturday was full of cooking for my husband and brothers who were working on the addition, so I didn't get very much done outside the kitchen! I did work on it for about 20 minutes last evening.
~~~Address rest of Christmas Cards~~ Yes! I am waiting on 2 addresses, but I am considering this D.O.N.E! Now to wait a couple weeks to mail them :)
~Shop for 1 Christmas gift. I thought I had the wish list for this person, but I don't. And I never had time at a good time to call and get ideas from his mommy.
~~~Dust ceiling fans~~
~Start sorting and packing my clothes I won't need until next summer.
~Clean off desk. I made good progress but it needs a little fine-tuning.
~~~Check with SPCA about finding a new home for our dog.~~ I went on their website last night - I was DETERMINED to get this crossed off! - and since we've tried all other routes for re-homing him ourselves, I was able to apply for an "admissions" appointment. I should hear from them today about when that appointment will be.
~Get serious about my bedtime and wake-up time. Like I said earlier, I was up past my 10pm bedtime more nights than I wanted to be, but I think 3 nights and 3 mornings I was up close to 10pm and 6am... just not the same nights/mornings :)

I also didn't get any exercising done like I'd wanted to last week. I'll try again this week and see if I can squeeze it in somewhere.

This weeks goals:

~1 - 2 hours on Susannah's Baby Book
~45 min. bookwork - I am all caught up with our main account, so now it will just be maintenance and catching up the much-less used savings accounts that should be pretty easy and fast to do.
~Shop for 1 Christmas gift - which means I need to call and get a list of ideas for this person :)
~Work at sorting and packing my clothes that I won't need until next summer
~Finish cleaning and organizing the desk
~Mend Susannah's jumper - This is part of my November goals list, and I want to get it finished soon so I she can wear it for her annual "red jumper and piano" Christmas picture.
~Thoroughly clean the living room. - I was digging a toy out from under the couch last evening and seeing everything under there was a good reminder that it's been a while since I've given the room a good going over.
~Learn from last week that I really do feel better and get more done when I call it a day and go to bed at 10pm instead of staying up later to "get more done." I am not a morning person, but when I do get up at 6am and get started on the day, I do enjoy the quiet morning hours before Susannah wakes up.

One thing that is making this week less-stressful for me is that aside from a reunion on Saturday, we don't have big plans for Thanksgiving. We will be having lunch with Daniel's parents on Thursday, but we decided to keep it low-key this year and stay home to allow Daniel some more free time to work on the addition (which reminds me, I need to take some pictures and post a long over-due update!).

A few things I would love to get done this week if I run out of other things to do would be to get all of the Goodwill things loaded up, taken to Goodwill and out of my house, and the other would be to get the Christmas letter written that will go in some of the Christmas cards. But, like I said, those are at the bottom of the list for this week and I am not going to stress over them.

Wordless Wednesday {Susannah Licking Beater}

2011-11-16T07:25:00.001-05:00

November's 3rd Week Already!

2011-11-14T08:01:00.005-05:00

Wow, if Thanksgiving and Christmas aren't creeping closer and closer! While I fully know and understand that they happen every year at the same, exact time, somehow the days fly past faster or something right now. Maybe it's the shorter days since it gets dark earlier that seems to make time go "faster?"

I am happy to have figured out a few things I wanted to do before the end of November this year... and I figured them out BEFORE the end of November! Haha! I am feeling like I will be more ready for this Thanksgiving and Christmas season than I have in a very long time, I think. The biggest things I want to do are: Be proactive in getting gifts, cards, etc. purchased, made or put together BEFORE it becomes a mad rush, and do some fall cleaning. This year I did my first intentional spring cleaning (mostly just the kitchen), and I think as a good steward of our home and as a good housewife, it would also be a good idea to do some fall cleaning. A few of those things are on my November Goal List that I am slowly whittling away at as the days go by.

Last week my goals were:
~~~2 hours bookwork~~
~~~Address 16 Christmas Cards~~ This was depending on if I could get by a store to pick up some more cards. We stopped by WalMart on our way home from church Wed. night, and Thurs. I addressed 18, a whole pack, while in the waiting room at my Dr's office for the 1 hour sugar test. Multi-tasking at it's finest :)
~1 - 2 hours working on Susannah's baby book. Didn't happen. I did pick up the pictures I ordered last week, though.
~~~Finish packing up Susannah's too-small clothes~~ Now they are just waiting for Daniel to put the boxes away :)
~~~Clean off hot-spots in the kitchen~~ Whew, it is SO nice to have a little more counter space and not eye-sores :)
~~~Start shopping for a Christmas gift I have in mind.~~ Shopped AND ordered!! Yay!
~Continue aiming for 10pm/6am bedtime and get up time, at least 3 times this week. *Cough*cough* I did alot better than previous weeks. Most days I was in bed before 10:30, and only a couple mornings didn't get up until 6:45 or 7. Getting more sleep is really making my days go easier!

After last week, and having MOPS this morning, I made it a point to sit down last night (Sunday) and put together my goals for this week and the to-do list for today. After doing that, I felt one step ahead, and it wasn't even Monday yet!

This week, my goals are...

~2 hours bookwork - I think this will be the last week for 2 hour stints :)
~1 - 2 hours working on Susannah's baby book
~Address remaining Christmas cards
~Shop for and purchase 1 Christmas gift
~Dust ceiling fans
~Start sorting & packing my clothes I won't be wearing until next summer. AKA, everything not maternity/nursing friendly that I won't be wearing until after we're moved into the addition.
~Clean off desk
~Check with SPCA about finding a new home for our dog - For real and for serious. I've tried other avenues in the past with no success. Time to try a little harder. He's a nice dog, but just not "us."
~Get serious with 10pm/6am bedtime and up-time! At least 3x this week.

I don't have it written down, but I would like to try to exercise in some way, shape or form twice this week. Either a workout DVD or taking a walk. Hopefully the weather will be pleasant enough, and Daniel's work schedule will work out that I can walk when he's home. Our road isn't the most stroller-friendly, especially when I'm pregnant, walking to keep the kinks out and don't really want to be shoving the stroller out of the side-ditch after every car goes past.

Salvaging the Week

2011-11-08T07:33:00.002-05:00

Well, I think if nothing else, the start to this week should be a lesson to me that I need to get my to-do list in order by Sunday night. Especially if Monday starts off with anything other than a normal morning at home (i.e., MOPS).

I didn't have a list yesterday, and I felt silly feeling "lost" without it. But on the other hand I needed to focus myself towards talking to God (I'm tellin' ya, it was a rough day!) instead of sweeping my feelings under the rug and getting lost in the easy-to-become-an-idol List of Things To Do. So I turned on a worship CD and spent the afternoon having a pour-my-guts-out conversation with the Lord over a sink-full of dirty dishes. At the end of the day I was feeling better (emotionally and spiritually) even though I really hadn't gotten much done. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't have a list already made...

This morning - which has already gone much smoother :) - I am ready to get the train back on the track and start chuggin' away again.

Last week, my goals were
~ ~~2 hours of bookwork~~
~ ~~Address 16 Christmas Cards~~
~ ~~1 - 2 hours on Susannah's Baby Book~~ I spent a little over an hour (the remainder of Susannah's afternoon naptime) and found and ordered quite a few pictures for 6 or 7 "months" in the book.
~ Purchase tubs for Susannah's clothes and ~~start sorting/packing~~ I decided that frugality trumped OCD right now, and used the abundant supply of large diaper boxes. I got 2 boxes packed and had Daniel put them away, and have about 2 boxes worth left.
~ ~~Clean off return vents~~ This was SO easy and simple to do! It may have taken me 10 minutes??
~ Continue aiming for 10pm bedtime - 6am wakeup time for myself. I think I was close to successful some nights, I know it wasn't every night, though.

For this week...
~ I want to continue with 2 hours of bookwork.

~Address 16 Christmas Cards This will somewhat depend on if I can get to the store to get more. I thought I had more on hand than I did. I prefer to buy them on sale after Christmas for the following year :)
~ 1 - 2 hours on Susannah's Baby Book
~ Finish packing Susannah's too-small clothes
~ Clean off hot-spots in the kitchen
~ Clean out the kitchen light covers
~ Start shopping for a Christmas gift I have in mind (it will be online shopping)
~ Continue aiming for 10pm/6am bedtime & get-out-of-bed time, at least 3x this week

Giving Thanks

2011-11-05T22:17:00.003-04:00

But my God shall supply all your needs
according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:19

While I think that we should always be thankful, during November it is easier to remember since this is the month we celebrate thankfulness with Thanksgiving Day. One of my goals for this month is to write down every day some things I am thankful for. I hope to post those here weekly through the month.

November 1
~This morning when I got Susannah up, I especially noticed how she smells, like a sweet little baby. It's just the way she smells, but I was soaking it up today, sniffing her often and tucking her baby scent away in my memory. I am thankful for the opportunity and blessing it is to be her mama!
~I am also thankful that Susannah is affectionate. She wasn't a cuddly baby, but now she freely gives "squeezes" and sometimes will actually cuddle. One way she shows affection is to rub you, generally on the back or arm. Today we were working in the kitchen quite a bit, and she was on the stool watching me work. Many times through the day she would look at me with her beautiful brown eyes, seriously jabber something in her all-vowel jabber, and then smiling, rest her head on my arm and give my back a little rub. I like to think she was telling me "I love you, Mama!"

November 2
~I am thankful for the beautiful weather we've been having most days, and the gorgeous colors God is splashing our world with through the leaves changing from greens to yellows and golds and oranges and reds.
~Another reason I'm thankful for this beautiful weather is that it is a wonderful time to go outside most days after lunch and walk around with Susannah. We meander in a large circle, going from the house to the mailbox, then to the garden, usually the hammock to swing for a few minutes, down to the shed to "drive" the lawn mower, and then back up to the house. It is fun to see things through my daughter's eyes.

November 3
~Today I am thankful for a Heavenly Father who cares about "the least of these" and allowed me to feel Baby Gus wiggling a LOT today. He (or she) had been moving around quite a bit the previous week, and then for a couple days I was barely feeling any movement. I was starting to get worried that maybe something wasn't right, and went to sleep last night praying that God would let me feel my baby moving. This morning I still hadn't felt anything and put in a call to my Dr's office. While waiting for them to call me back, I ate breakfast and drank some orange juice (which is normal). While I was finishing my orange juice, Baby Gus just started wiggling and wiggling. What an answer to prayer! (And he has been moving quite regularly since then :) )
~Back to the doctor, though, I am also very thankful for my OB who talked to me personally on the phone this morning. I'm thankful for her knowledge and confidence, her "bedside manners" and the way she treats me as a real person she cares about, and not "just another patient." (And her suggestion, which was reassuring and I had wondered about, was that most likely the baby had shifted into a position where I just couldn't feel the movements as well.)

November 4
~Today I am thankful for the promise in Exodus 20:6. I have probably read or heard it before, but never like I have seen it this past week. Usually you hear Exodus 20:5 quoted and it can be very oppressing if you don't know verse 6 that follows!
~I am thankful for godly women in my life who I can look up to and learn from.
~I am also thankful for the Bible Study group I am with this fall - an amazing study alongside amazing women.

November 5
~I am thankful for my husband who is the very best husband to me and who is a wonderful daddy to our Susannah. I love watching him play with her and love on her.
~I am thankful that mouths heal quickly! Poor Susannah bit the side of her tongue quite badly this evening.
~I am thankful for an abundant harvest of bell peppers this year. This afternoon I picked the very last ones (the leaves on the plants froze with the first frost a couple nights ago) and got a grocery bag full! It was a pleasant surprise :)
~I am thankful for fresh-from-the-oven, hot, buttered bagels :)

A Taste Through Time {Try New Adventures Thursday}

2011-11-02T08:08:00.007-04:00

**I wrote this post on a Wednesday. The most mixed-up day I've ever had, I think! I woke up Wed. morning thinking it was Tuesday. Then somehow I realized it was not Tuesday, it was Wednesday. Then I sat down to write a post and my brain started thinking it was Thursday. All day yesterday I kept checking Alicia's Homemaking, waiting for her Try New Adventures Thursday post to go up so I could link, and I was thinking that she must be really busy since she didn't have it up already. Last night I was checking one more time when it dawned on me that it was not Thursday yet!! So, now that it IS Thursday, and Alicia DOES have her TNAT post up, I'm going over to link my Try New Adventures Thursday on a Wednesday post :) **

If you know me very well at all, you know I love to cook and bake. My kitchen is "my place" in our house. It is my favorite room to be in (unless I'm sleeping in bed, or curled up on the couch with a book or movie :) ). When I'm asked what my hobbies are, "cooking and baking" are always at the top of the list. If I had nothing else to do in this world, I think it would be great fun to open a little restaurant and bakery.

With that, it is no surprise that I have my "own" cookbook. Side note: I'm also a little OCD about my kitchen :) I don't like having recipes scattered between 20 different cookbooks. If I use them regularly, I want them all in the same place so they are right at my fingertips. I don't want to flip through a cookbook of 1,000 recipes to get the only one I use out of that book.

Daniel and I have been married for a little over 7 1/2 years. When we were first married my recipe collection was pitiful. Not because I didn't know how to cook or bake, I had just never taken the time to gather recipes for myself. That first summer I spent a lot of time copying recipes into 2 small binders, and I used them alot. Over time I was discovering that I also had a lot of recipes that while I knew what they were, I just didn't use them because they weren't favorites.

Three or four years ago those two original binders were starting to not be as efficient as I wanted them to be. So I spent another hunk of time copying down (by hand) only my favorites and the ones I knew I wanted. And by that time I'd added quite a few new favorites to the group. My current recipe book is a 2" full sized binder full of recipes, with plenty of bits and pieces of paper scribbled with even newer favorites stuffed in the side pockets.

When my youngest sister announced her engagement this summer, I knew immediately what I wanted to give her for a wedding gift. A copy of my cookbook. Many of the recipes she will be familiar with, because they are ones that we made and ate growing up. For the rest of them, hopefully we have similar tastes and she'll like them just as much as I do :)

I knew I didn't have time to hand-write each recipe, plus I wanted to make something that was cleaner and neater than handwriting on note-book paper. I love the way a clean, neat, freshly printed page looks, so I decided that typing and printing everything was the way I wanted to go.

Over the past few months, I spent spare time here and there going through my cookbook, typing up many of the recipes. I found some more to cull out, and plenty to add. I also learned the hard way to proof read before printing anything! I think I had printed 2 or 3 sections of the cookbook before I started proof-reading, discovering a lot more mistakes than I wanted to!

My sister was married this past Sunday, and last week I spent much of my spare time and a few late nights finishing it up. I had been thinking that I wanted a name for this cookbook, but nothing had ever jumped out at me or suddenly popped into my head. The word "taste" kept coming to mind and I was pretty sure I wanted to use it in the title somehow. The last day that I was working on it, I kept thinking over and over different titles including the word "taste." I came up with one I liked that didn't include the word "taste", but it reminded me too much of a very, very popular early 90's wedding song (Through The Years, anyone?). I just couldn't bring myself to name the cookbook Through The Years when all I could think of was that song. But I loved how it fit what the cookbook represents: recipes all the way from my grandparents generation to now.

With a little more grinding of brain gears, I finally had a name that represented the recipes collected and used over the years, A Taste Through Time. After a little more playing around with fonts and layouts, some whirring of the printer had the cookbook finished. I am very happy with the way it turned out. It was hard to wrap it up and give it away, not only because it was so neat and clean and pretty that I wanted to keep it for myself, but having it printed (even though just from my home printer) is something I've wanted to do for a long time.

I am very happy that my sister gets the first printed edition, and I hope she will get as much joy and as many miles out of her copy as I do mine!

~ A letter I wrote to my sister. ~

~ Alphabetical Index for the 231 recipes ~
One recipe per page, and the recipes in each
category are in alphabetical order. I did it this
way so that if recipes get added in the future,
it could still be kept in alphabetical order.

~ Tabbed dividers for the categories ~

They are in alphabetical order, too. :)

Even though I tried to remember all the recipes I use less frequently (that haven't made it into my own copy yet), this week I have been making a list of recipes that I missed! I will get them typed up and printed off, along with an updated index, and give them to her the next time we see each other.

Hello, November! {and New Goals}

2011-11-01T08:14:00.005-04:00

Wow! November already :) That means I only have approximately 4 more months until we meet our little baby!

Last week this was my only post. Thankfully that cold, as miserable as it was for about 24 hours, was short-lived and I am far down the road to being fully recovered. I think alot of my scratchy throat and tickle-y nose now is probably from leaf allergies and drier air.

I did not have any written goals last week, at least like the usual goals. I did have two goals. Two things with deadlines. Two things that while I had not procrastinated until the last minute, I did need to spend most of my spare time working on them to finish them up in time.

The most crucial item on the list was making a 9" cheesecake for my sister's wedding (for them to cut). I had already made and frozen just under 300 miniature cheesecake cupcakes in past weeks, but I wanted this one to be completely fresh... plus I didn't have room for it in my freezer! {I was quite occupied with Susannah on the day of their wedding and didn't get a picture of the cheesecakes.}

The second most crucial item on the list was my gift to my sister and new brother-in-law. This:

I plan to do a separate post about this in the future, but it is a cookbook of recipes from our years growing up, and then recipes I've added to my own collection so far during my married years.

With both of those out of the way, yesterday (Monday) was recover-from-the-weekend day. Susannah and I were both tuckered out so I took a nice nap during her nap-time instead of doing anything extra.

Now that today is November 1st, it seems very appropriate to start the month with a fresh list of goals. I have some goals that I want to get done this month, and others that I just want to continue working on each week.

Goals for November:

~Get Christmas cards addressed and ready to mail.
~Make a list of all Christmas gifts to make/purchase, and start.
~Each day make a list of things I'm thankful for.
~Pack up all of Susannah's too-small clothes.
~Pack up all of my clothes (again) that I won't be wearing again until next summer/winter.
~Mend Susannah's red jumper (it is brand new, and when I washed it before I was going to have her wear it, one of the seams came apart!) so she can wear it for a Christmas picture.
~Clean out light covers over kitchen ceiling lights.
~Dust ceiling fans.
~Clean off return vents.

Goals for This Week:

~2 hours of bookwork
~Address 16 Christmas Cards
~1 - 2 hours on Susannah's baby book
~Purchase tubs/bins for Susannah's too small clothes and start sorting
~Clean off return vents
~Continue aiming for 10pm bedtime and getting up at 6am. Last week that went out the window several nights as I was up later than that working on Katie's cookbook after Susannah went to bed. And if I don't sleep well I don't bust myself to get out of bed at 6am, and instead sleep/rest until I need to get up and make Daniel's breakfast and lunch (usually about 6:45 or 7am).

I am eager to see how this week goes. I'm hoping that it goes smoothly and I'm able to get many or even all of these goals met!

Wordless Wednesday {Buy Stock In Puffs Plus}

2011-10-26T22:51:00.002-04:00

Can I Have A Do-Over?

2011-10-18T14:54:00.003-04:00

Oh boy. This week started off with a clang, bang, clatter... and not much sleep (thank you, pregnancy!). Yesterday, Monday, was a non-day in every way.

Long story short, we had to get some septic up-grades for the addition we are building.
Disaster A: The guy digging accidentally snagged the main sewer line from the house, ripping it off right underneath the toilet. What a racket that was! Thankfully Susannah and I were at MOPS all morning, so bathroom-ing wasn't an issue.
Disaster B: Said sewer pipe being ripped off the toilet meant no functioning toilet all day yesterday.
Disaster C: Miss Utility failed to mark the underground phone line (for internet) and that was dug up. I know it is so very wimpy that "no internet" equals "disaster" but I needed to do some online stuff that had a deadline of today.
Disaster D: To fix the toilet/sewer line situation, the guy was working in and under the bathroom, which is right next to Susannah's room, making lots of noise. So she woke up 45 min. into her nap. Then I knew I was going to have to "go" before the toilet was fixed, so we went to my in-laws for the rest of the afternoon, where Susannah took a little bit more of a nap and I wanted to but couldn't get comfortable on the bed enough to fall asleep.

On top of all that, I have been sleeping terribly the past several nights and just wanted to be by myself, alone, no housework, no cooking, nobody to entertain or feed or keep out of trouble, and SLEEP. I was so exhausted - mentally more than physically, I think - that by suppertime last night I just wanted to sit down and bawl.

So, needless to say, even though I spent some time on Sunday jotting down some menu ideas, I didn't really get a menu plan pulled together like I wanted. And my to-do list for this week looks like this:

I actually wrote the header for it just this morning. Before we trooped off to the in-laws again so I could get my online stuff done before the deadline. Right now I am in catch-up/salvage the week mode. I know that a bad Monday does not equal a bad week, but it sure doesn't help it get off to a good start, that's for sure. Especially when I got NOTHING housework-wise accomplished.

I did ok with my goals last week. I didn't get them all completed, but I did what I could and I'm not worrying about the rest. Last week's goals were:

*Bedtime - I really need to have more self-discipline and simply get my rear in bed at a decent hour, esp. if I'm going to take forever and ten days to fall asleep, or wake up for 3 hours in the middle of the night!

*Write a note to Daniel's Aunt & Uncle - This is really so easy, simple and fun to do. And only takes a couple of minutes!

*4 - 6 batches of cheesecake cupcakes - I got all 6 batches made!! Woot!

*Susannah's Clothes - Some progress?? I got through everything that was in her room, and have enough outfits to get through a week with a few pieces to spare (I do her laundry once a week). I have a tub of clothes from a friend I need to go through, and of course get all the too-small stuff sorted and packed up (from several sizes ago as well!)

*2 hours on wedding gift project - 1 hour. And not nearly as much progress in that 1 hour as I wanted. This may end up being a Christmas gift.

*1 hour bookwork - I think I spent more than 1 hour, maybe 1 1/2, but I was able to make some good progress and rediscover the balance-the-checkbook groove I work in.

*1 hour working on Susannah's Baby Book - Didn't happen.

********

Thinking about it a bit, I do have some things I want to get done this week. I know this will be another short week as we have something on Saturday, so I am going to keep it short and sweet.

For this week, I would like to:

~Go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 6am. - I'm not stealing this from Alicia, I promise ;) I thought about it over the weekend, and I think if I crawl in bed earlier rather than later, I might be able to fall asleep better. And I really do want to get up early so I can get a good start to the day with having my quiet time in the mornings (leaving more time in the afternoon to work on other stuff). In an effort to help myself stay accountable, I have set an alarm on my phone for 9:45pm for each day this week. That will be my reminder to close up shop and go to bed.

~Get caught up with my Bible Study homework AND spend some "independent" time in the Word a little each day. - I fell behind on the homework since our last session and I need/want to get caught up before we meet again on Friday. And it's a really good study that I am benefiting from, so it would just be a good thing all around! (It is Beth Moore's Breaking Free study.)

~Iron tablecloths for Friday's Bible Study and choir robes. - We are both in the choir at church and over the summer break I brought our robes home to wash them. This Sunday is the first Sunday wearing them again and I need to get them ironed!

~Finish baking the Cheesecake Cupcakes for my sister's wedding. - I don't know off the top of my head how many batches I have left to do, but I know last week I hit the half-way point plus a batch.

~Do 1 hour of bookwork. - Hopefully since I got back into the groove last week it won't take me a whole hour to do one bank statement! (I said it had been a while, didn't I?)

~Work on Susannah's baby book for 1 hour. - This one is really aiming high because I don't think I'll get that far, but if I do, it will be nice :)

And with that, I am off to go throw some laundry in the dryer and camp out on the cough with my Bible Study for a bit. Supper stuff is thawing on the counter (Beef & Bean Burritos, though I have no idea how to make them...) and should be simple enough to put together.

By the way, about 10 minutes after we got home from using the in-laws computer this morning, the phone guy showed up and 45 minutes later had everything working again! That was a big sigh and "Praise the Lord!" because we were thinking they were going to have to come in and do some major under-ground work.

Pregnancy Update - 20 Weeks

2011-10-16T22:39:00.003-04:00

Yikes. I haven't posted anything about this pregnancy with "Baby Gus" since the announcement post! That was at 13 weeks, now I am almost 21 weeks. I had to take this picture fast and get it posted before Davene sends me those dreadful goggly-eyed glasses that I dared her to wear (and she said she would if I would!), haha!

Two weeks ago we had "the" ultrasound where we could have found out our baby's gender, but like we did with Susannah, we have chosen to wait and be surprised at the birth :) So, we do not know if we're having a boy or girl. The 19 week appointment went very well. So far it's another "perfect" pregnancy. On the ultrasound we could see our baby moving around some, looking cute, holding one of it's hands up to his or her face. I wonder if he or she was sucking a thumb? A few days ago I was feeling very excited to meet this little person growing inside me. Oh, I do hope he or she stays put for another 19 or 20 weeks, but that doesn't put a damper on my eagerness to see and hold our baby in my arms!

I am feeling fantastic most of the time! Aside from feeling the baby move and my baby-bump starting to get in the way sometimes (like when I'm standing at the counter), I usually forget I'm pregnant! I am more tired with this pregnancy, but I attribute that to not having the "freedom" to sleep as long as I want whenever I want since I do have to continue being a mama to our Susannah :) I have even taken up drinking the dreaded "coffee" ~~some~~ most mornings to give me the pep to get through the day. If I stay up too late at night, I usually end up dragging through the day or taking a nap, regardless. So sleep is a priority right now. (And I know sleep will go out the window for a while once the baby comes!)

The one pregnancy side-effect that is still cropping up occasionally is throwing up. It has certainly gotten better, but sometimes if I don't have enough food in my stomach and I drink water, within a couple minutes I start to feel sick and then it all comes back up. For a while I couldn't drink water between meals unless I ate a substantial snack a bit before. Now I can usually drink freely throughout the day, but if it's been a while since I've eaten, I drink slowly and munch on something. That has been the ONLY "sickness" I've experienced with this pregnancy since going off vitamins. I occasionally take a gummy-vitamin or drink some Emergen-C. I haven't tried more powerful vitamin pills yet because I don't want to feel awful. Gummy-vits finally don't make me feel bad anymore, and since they have all the important stuff in them (Folic Acid and DHA) I'm happy to eat a gummy bear once in a while and include lots of veggies, fruits and occasionally fish in our meals.

It is hard to believe that I am already 1/2 way through this pregnancy. Time has flown past! I am already thinking in my mind things like "ok, by this time I want to make sure and have my bag packed and ready to go." And I need to start thinking about freezer meals. At the same time... I'm starting to think about my garden next year :) I guess I am feeling rather well and ambitious at the moment! Haha!

Hopefully I will remember to post another update before another quarter of the pregnancy goes past :)

New Week, New Goals

2011-10-10T08:00:00.004-04:00

Oh boy. My goal list from last week looks like a total flop. I should've taken much more into consideration than I did when planning them. The week started out well, but in all reality I only had Mon - Wed to really work on anything I was going to really get done above and beyond normal housework.

Thursday I had my 19 week appointment and ultrasound (another blog post later this week, hopefully :) ), which meant the visit took twice as long. Then after that I had an impromptu dentist appointment so he could remove a piece of something that had gotten jammed up beside one of my molars earlier that week and was not budging.

Friday I had Bible Study in the morning, and then the afternoon was spent getting the house straightened up and everyone packed for Daniel and I to leave Friday evening for our Sunday School's annual beach retreat (and for Susannah to spend the weekend with her Grandma and Papa).

All in all, I have ONE goal crossed off on my list:

Bedtime! I don't think I did too bad... except on the retreat, of course, where we were up past 1am both nights :0

Sort Through Susannah's Clothes I had made lots of progress in this department, seriously! I don't know that I would've gotten it ALL finished with everything else that was going on, but I had too small stuff pulled out of her drawers (and piles, a-hem), new boxes of clothes gone through and sorted into piles of sizes, outfits, etc. And I had a HUGE load of fits and doesn't fit laundry that needed washed. I washed it all Wednesday and Thursday, and piled it on the couch for my MIL to fold while Susannah napped on Thursday. What I forgot to tell Grandma was DON'T PUT IT AWAY!! When I got home from all my appointments Thursday, Grandma had folded all the laundry and put it back in Susannah's drawers. I know she was being helpful and it was my fault for leaving out that one tiny tidbit of crucial information. Now at least all the clothes are clean!

1 hour bookwork I did get 45 minutes done :)

De-clutter dining room table and china hutch Didn't happen

2 hours on wedding gift project Didn't happen

Make 3 batches of cheesecake cupcakes (sister's wedding) I did make FOUR batches! But only 2 of them turned out because I made the mistake of freezing most of the cream cheese (which I do all the time when I stockpile cream cheese)... and frozen cream cheese has a different consistency that I learned makes terrible cheesecakes. Oops.

~~1 handwritten note~~ Woot! THIS is my "one straight line" for last week :) I wrote it while in the waiting room on Thursday.

1 hour on Susannah's babybook Didn't happen. I'd hoped to squeeze it in one evening, but that just never worked out.

******

So new week, new goals, right? Yup :) And hopefully this week will be more tame, normal and successful.

*Bedtime - still just a visual reminder to get my rear in the bed at a decent hour.

*Write a note to Daniel's Aunt & Uncle

*4 - 6 batches of cheesecake cupcakes - I'm meeting my sister Tuesday morning to pick up more cream cheese - that I will NOT freeze - and reimburse her for the stuff I froze. I won't need to stock up on cream cheese this winter like I usually do :)

*Susannah's Clothes

*2 hours on wedding gift project

*1 hour bookwork - last week in my working on this, I discovered the last time I balanced the checkbook was... way, way, way too long ago.

*1 hour working on Susannah's Baby Book

There is much, much more I want to put on my list, but the reality is that I don't want to make a lengthy list that is unreasonable. I hope you all have a wonderful, successful, productive week! I know I'm looking forward to one :)

{Mostly} Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-05T13:30:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure how this linking to youtube will work... I couldn't load the video from the computer to my blog, so I had to load it to youtube then put the link in my blog. I hope it works for everyone!

One of Susannah's favorite things to do lately is to unload the utensils from the dishwasher. She figured this out on her own (children are so observant!) and did it twice on Saturday. No, not all of the utensils go in THAT drawer, but I didn't mind :)

*Please excuse my allergy-caused sniffing and stuffy-nosed voice :)

Allergies and Goals

2011-10-03T08:52:00.005-04:00

Two things I'm working on lately. One because it happens and one because I have decided to, want to or need to.

Springtime finds Daniel sneezing and blowing his nose. And every spring I'm thankful that my allergies are very mild. Then THIS time of year rolls around when ragweed is in full bloom and the leaves are starting to drop from trees. I groan and think "ugh, I DO have allergies. Now it's MY turn" to sneeze my head off and blow my brains out. Seriously, some days I come this close to stuffing a cotton-ball up each tickling, drizzling nose-hole and calling it a day. My fall allergies weren't this bad until I started living in this area of the state. I think I should buy stock in Puffs Plus tissues.

My goals for last week, well, I need to improve on some of them. This past weekend was my sister's bridal shower and I had some extra busy-ness preparing some food for that. My goals were:

*BE in bed by 10:30 - 10:45 each night. *ahem* Yeah... that didn't happen very many nights. Waiting for biscotti to finish baking is partially to blame ;) I'm taking it off the "blogged list" but it is still at the top of my list hanging on the frige for visual reminder.

*Declutter the dining room table and china hutch. I did work on the table for 1 chunk of time. One day. And made a small dent.

*Write 1 hand-written note. So easy and fun to do!

~~Spend 1 hour on bookwork.~~

~~Spend 1 hour on Susannah's baby book.~~ I spent alot of my 1 hour this past week looking for bits of information I'd recorded and writing it in the book.

~~Order my birthday present from Daniel.~~ And it came :) I hope to do a blog post soon :) I can now cross one more thing off my "Goals for 2011" list!

Now for my goals this week:

*Sort through Susannah's clothes. My biggest and highest priority goal for this week. Wow. Friday we were wearing shorts and short-sleeves. Saturday morning it was chilly outside and I had to dig out warm clothes for her. I need to go through the clothes, get them organized and see how we're fit for the winter season.

*1 hour of bookwork. I know this has been on my list each week now, but seeing it on the list helps me stay accountable (hmm, pun anyone? ;) ).

*De-clutter dining room table and china hutch. And hopefully be able to cross this off this week!!

*2 hours on a special project. Wedding gift for my sister, so I can't post what it is in case she reads this ;)

*Make 3 batches of cheesecake cupcakes. I'm making these for my sister's wedding and need to have 300 made by the end of the month. I'd better get started so I don't have to put life on hold for a big chunk of time to get them all made in the nick of time!

*Write 1 hand-written note.

*Spend 1 hour working on Susannah's baby book. It is coming along nicely and I think I will be able to have it filled out up-to-date by the end of the year. Hopefully much sooner than that, really. This week I'll probably pick out and order pictures to paste on the different pages I've written on.

And those are my goals for this week! Do you enjoy or benefit from reading these? I enjoy reading Alicia's posts each week about her goals and get inspiration from them. I almost didn't post this week... but after reading her post, I came back to finish and and press "publish".

What A Difference Some Milk Makes

2011-09-28T21:27:00.006-04:00

I want to blog about this time in Susannah's life mostly for memory's sake, but also to share some cute pictures :)

Susannah and her Uncle Luke

From the very beginning of Susannah's life, people have told us over and over, "she'll eat when she's hungry". But we have eventually figured out with each "stage" that for Susannah, that's not exactly true.

When she was just a few days old, she would cry and scream from hunger, but be too impatient to nurse. People told us "she'll eat when she's hungry"... but she WAS hungry, and wouldn't eat. With lots of patience, some help from a friend, and lots of practice on both mine and Susannah's part, she learned to nurse.

Fast forward to several months ago, and she started occasionally basically refusing to eat anything that wasn't pureed to smithereens. She had been eating chunkier foods, but wouldn't. Again, people told us "she'll eat when she's hungry". That time we figured out that she was teething... and pureed all of her foods which she would then eat heartily. Eventually once her teeth stopped bothering her (and you would never know she was teething), she started eating her usual non-pureed foods again.

To rewind a bit, from the time she was weaned on, about 95% of her liquid intake was whole cows milk. I grew up drinking milk all the time - I actually preferred milk over water - and I just think that milk is the best drink for growing kids. (I know some of you may have different ideas, thoughts or perspectives. I'm not on a "drink milk" campaign in this post.) I didn't think twice about our kids NOT drinking milk most of the time - at least for every meal - while growing up.

Back this summer Susannah started occasionally going through phases where she just would. not. eat. She would take two or three bites of each food and then say she was all done. Sometimes we could get more in her, but sometimes she would just fuss and refuse to eat. It just didn't seem right to me, but trusted people told us "she'll eat when she's hungry". She was drinking milk, so I wasn't extremely worried that she was going to dry up and blow away, but my mama-gut just felt that it wasn't right for her to only eat a couple tablespoons for a meal... or two, or three in a row. It was never consistent enough for me to think I should take her to the Dr., or that something was REALLY wrong... I was just puzzled.

Then she started what we thought was a "sensitive gagger" stage. Sometimes she would just throw up on the most random foods. And throw up EVERYTHING. And then not want to eat anymore (who would?). We started being very careful how much and what she/we put in her mouth. Cleaning up throw-up is not fun. Cleaning a high-chair with it's cracks and crannies full of throw-up is even less fun. I learned really quickly how to get the high-chair clean with little effort:

Run it through the "high-chair car wash"

Susannah's phases of not wanting to eat very much were becoming more frequent, as was her throwing up. Some days she would eat fine, but others - and for a couple days in a row - she would eat like a bird. She was still drinking milk, and drinking plenty of it (she would go through about 1 1/2 gal. a week). And she was still having plenty of wet diapers and a normal amount of dirty ones.

A couple weeks ago we went on a weekend vacation, and she threw up TWICE during that time. She would act hungry, but then only eat a little bit. Cheerios were about the only thing she would eat. A few days after we got home, she was not wanting to eat. It was day 3, I think, of her barely eating at each meal and I was really pushing her to eat more food (she was down to eating 1, maybe 2 Tbsp. of food at a meal) because I just knew that she needed the food. No one can convince me that she was eating enough. Getting enough milk, yes. Getting enough FOOD, no. She still wasn't looking sick or like she wasn't healthy, she just wouldn't eat. Anyway, back to the meal... I pushed her to eat one more bite, and as soon as it went in her mouth ALL of her supper and then some came back up.

Because my stomach wanted to flip-flop, too (pregnancy!), because I was frustrated with myself for having pushed her one-bite-too-far, and because I was frustrated that she wasn't eating (though not frustrated AT Susannah), I called for Daniel to come take over right away. I went outside and sat on the steps for some fresh air and eventually cried for a bit.

My mama-gut just knew something wasn't right. I just could not for the life of me figure out what. Was she going through a picky stage? But on good days she would eat just about anything. Does she have a sensitive gagger? But why so sensitive? WHAT was making it so she didn't want to eat?? WHAT was making her throw up?? I was frustrated and did not know what to do. Should I take her to the Dr? Do I call a friend and see if she has any suggestions? Do I just assume that "she'll eat when she's hungry" and not worry about her only eating maybe 1/4 cup of food a day?? (And she wasn't snacking, either... she would ask for a cracker but then not eat it, which was also strange to me.)

I finally realized I had not done the one thing I should've already done: I had not prayed about the situation. In desperation (why do I seem to always wait for the situation to get desperate?!) I silently cried out to God asking Him WHAT is the matter? WHAT am I doing wrong? WHY isn't she eating? WHY is she throwing up? I don't know what to do!! HELP!!! Show me!!!

Within 5 minutes, Daniel came out to gently ask if I was ok. I told him I didn't know... I was frustrated and didn't know what the problem was or what to do. Out of no-where he said "I wonder if it's the milk."

It was as if God answered my prayer right then and there. Is it the milk? But she drinks milk... and likes to drink milk. But she drinks a LOT of milk. And Daniel's family (and Daniel himself) have some sensitivities to milk (and yogurt and ice cream). I had never thought of milk before.

That evening Susannah did not have any more milk to drink. Of course she had emptied her stomach contents (which obviously included the milk she'd had after her nap and for supper), so she was starting with a "clean" stomach. We gave her water for the rest of the day.

The next morning when she woke up, the first thing she did was sign "eat". I cannot tell you what my heart and emotions did to see her asking to eat. I gave her some juice - instead of milk - while I fixed her breakfast and she chugged down the entire sippy cup full. And then ate more food at that breakfast than she had eaten in all 3 meals the day before. I continued to give her water instead of milk over the course of the morning, and by lunch-time she was persistently asking to "eat" again. I fixed lunch for her, a finger-food lunch, but it was the same amount as I usually fixed. But usually she would only eat 2 or 3 pieces of each food, and maybe 1 cracker before declaring "all done". This is what she ate for her first no-milk lunch:

When I saw her putting the food into her mouth... and she kept eating... and it stayed down... and she kept eating... I wanted to cry from happiness and in praise to the Lord.

Since then we have not given her milk to drink. That has been about 2 weeks ago, now, and she continues to amaze me with how MUCH and how WELL she will eat!! Her sensitive gagger issues seem to have gone away, too. It used to be that if her mouth was very full at all, she would gag and throw up. Now she stuffs her mouth TOO full sometimes (before we notice and intervene) and she'll just chew it up and swallow it down! It makes sense to me that if her stomach was feeling "off" she would gag & throw up much, much easier. She has not thrown up once since we took her off milk, either. There have been a few times that she's started to swallow something too soon, and has to "work it back up"... and I nervously wait for her to throw up but she doesn't.

My only regret is that I didn't weigh her when we first took her off milk. Again, there was no noticeable weight-loss (She's always been in the 50th - 90th percentile range for her size/age.), she was not thin or sick looking, and there hasn't been any noticeable weight-gain, but I'm sure she's put on a few pounds in that short time just because she is eating so much more than she ever did before!

I am starting to research other options for milk for Susannah. Goats milk and almond milk will probably be my first experiments. If milk, period, is an issue I am content with letting her get her calcium from non-dairy sources, but milk is my no. 1 choice. Milk products (yogurt and ice cream, two things that bother Daniel if he has too much) will only be trial and error, or taking it easy on those foods until she is able to communicate if they bother her stomach or not. Currently yogurt is one and only thing she refuses to eat. She will ask for a taste but then won't touch the first taste. I think that probably is a mind thing ;)

Again, her issue with milk is totally a home-diagnosis. It's not a "proven" fact, but her 180° turn-around is evidence enough for me. I will probably mention it to her Dr. at the next visit, just so he is "in the know", but I don't plan to have any testing done.

Now I just praise the Lord for answering my prayer so quickly, for giving Daniel the thought that "maybe it's milk", and that Susannah is EATING again!!

Susannah and her dolly early one morning.
She used to hate wearing a hat, but after we gave her a dolly
(who has a hat), she likes to wear her own hat :)

My two lessons from this are:
~Pray! Before the situation gets "desperate".
and
~Trust my mama-gut feelings.

*I want to add that Daniel and I did talk through his own sensitivities to milk to hopefully get a grasp of how milk might be affecting Susannah. Daniel said that he grew up eating cereal & milk every morning for breakfast... but it wasn't until he went away to college and then came back home (and started eating cereal and milk for breakfast again) that he realized his stomach hurt every time he had milk. And he said "I didn't want to eat, either, when my stomach hurt." Now Daniel can have a bowl of cereal or ice cream occasionally, but if he has them two days in a row it starts to bother his stomach. Milk or milk products in things don't seem to bother him, unless it's something like white sauce, a breakfast casserole with lots of milk in it, or something similar that is mostly milk. He gets cheese every day on both his breakfast and lunch sandwiches, and it doesn't bother him, so cheese is becoming more a part of Susannah's diet.

New Goals For 9/26 - 9/30

2011-09-26T08:20:00.002-04:00

Last week, inspired by Alicia, I wrote out a short list of goals that I wanted to accomplish or at least aim for over the course of the week. I even wrote them out on a pretty, new, magnetic note-pad that I'd gotten inexpensively and hung it on the frige so I could see my goals right under my nose.

Not only were they visual reminders of what I wanted to get done (above and beyond the normal housework), but it was motivation to DO them so I could cross them off and know that task was behind me. I liked it! I got some extra things accomplished that otherwise I may have just shoved off "till another day" or might have only done one or two of them.

This week I have some new goals, but I am also continuing some from last week, too, for longer projects.

*BE in bed by 10:30 - 10:45 each night. I discovered last week that "go to bed" was really "start getting ready for bed" (which if you read Davene's post about going to bed, you know that it can take a while to actually GET there!). So this week my goal is to BE IN THE BED by that time.

*De-clutter the dining room table and china hutch. 2 flat surfaces. Need I say more?

*Write 1 hand-written note. I don't know if I will do this every week, but I do have another thank-you note I need to write :)

*Spend 1 hour on bookwork. Updating the budget weekly is one of my goals for this year, and as I still need to balance the checkbook... I need to spend some time getting on top of everything.

*Spend 1 hour working on Susannah's baby book. Another project that I want to have finished by the end of this year, so I need to just work on it regularly.

*Order my birthday present from Daniel :) Back before my birthday, he asked what I wanted. I gave him a list of ideas, but he hasn't had a chance to go shopping yet. One of the things on my list is on a pretty significant sale right now, and it's also something I was going to get anyway... so when I was talking to him about getting it, he said "well, I was going to get it for you for your birthday, do you mind ordering your own birthday present?"

This week's list is not as long or time consuming as last weeks, because I do have some extra things that I have to do that will take some time. But I think this list is manageable and hopefully achievable!

A quick review of last week's goals and my progress:

*Go to bed between 10:30 and 10:45 each night. - This did not happen each night. It DID happen a couple nights, and most nights I was in bed by 11 or 11:30. It was still progress, just not all the way where I want to be right now. Surprisingly, though, I did not feel any more rested ... some nights I just didn't sleep well, and others I don't know. So, more rest is certainly something I should strive for.

*~~Make an appointment to get the cat fixed.~~ - This DID happen! Yay! The cat goes next week for her fix.

*~~Organize freezers.~~ - This was my BIG, BIG project for the week, and I managed to get it done! I discovered that we only have 4 beef roasts left :( But we have several packages of steaks, enough strawberry jam to feed an army, and I have decided that I will be taking cherry or blueberry baked goods to any Bible Studies or food occasions. We have a LOT of cherries and blueberries in the freezer! I am so happy that we have them, but I often forget that they are there.

*~~Write 1 handwritten note.~~ - Done!

*~~Spend 1 hour on bookwork.~~ - Over the course of 3 days and collectively about 1 1/2 hours I managed to get the budget on the computer up to date. Yay!

*~~Spend 1 hour working on Susannah's baby book.~~ - For some reason I dreaded sitting down Saturday afternoon to do this, but once I got into it, I enjoyed it. And didn't want to stop when 1 hour was up :) I still need to go back and upload and order the prints I picked out for the pages I worked on (they were loading too slow on Saturday), but that will hopefully be quick and easy.

*~~Put away canned pears.~~ - This took me a couple days, but I managed to do it. Most of them squeezed into the last empty space in the pantry, and 7 quarts ended up on top of the frige. But THEY ARE OFF MY COUNTER!! Woot!!

*~~Blog.~~ - Done :)

Making Some Goals

2011-09-19T21:08:00.007-04:00

Photo Source

I can be a list maker. I enjoy being able to draw a line through a task and see the progress I am making with what I need to do. This summer and fall lists fell by the wayside as I was busy with the garden, freezing produce and canning fruit.

Now that I think that is all behind me (finally, shew!) I need to start using lists again. They help me keep on track and overall, my days go better and I get more done when I use a list. (Staying focused and not getting distracted makes a big difference, too, huh? :P) I have my daily to-do lists pretty much memorized: laundry, kitchen, etc. I know what day of the week I do what laundry and basically what cleaning. I make those lists mostly for the enjoyment of crossing things off, and to help me stay focused and keep things prioritized if the day gets out of sorts.

Alicia recently posted about making lists of goals. I have a list of goals for this year, and I look over it from time to time and think "yikes, I need to get busy on ____!"... and then forget about it until I look at that list again (which hangs on the side of the frige). Anyway, Alicia's post made me think that I would probably benefit from making some weekly goals and writing them out... and actually try to accomplish them. I don't know that I would do this EVERY week, but since there are some things I really do need to do, and have just been putting off, it can't do any harm.

This evening marks the end of a vacation period for us. So, tomorrow starts a "new" week (on a Tuesday - that'll throw me off for several days!), one that I have some goals for. As soon as we were home and settled in a bit, I grabbed a sheet of paper and made a list. I wanted to make a long list of everything I need/want to do, but I made myself keep it reasonable. I hope. I should at least get SOMEthing done!

For fun and for accountability, here are my goals for this week:

*Go to bed between 10:30 and 10:45 each night. With the idea that I'll rest better, get more sleep and feel all energetic and bubbly and want to jump out of bed in the mornings :)
*~~Make an appointment to get the cat fixed.~~ Yeah, major procrastination here. If it doesn't happen soon we'll end up with a winter litter of kittens!
*~~Organize freezers.~~ Oh boy, are they ever out of sorts and full! To the point that I dread digging through the chest freezer for food that I know is in there but don't want to get out. This is my BIG goal for this week.
*~~Write 1 hand-written note.~~ Because hand-written is nice, and I have some grandparents and great-aunts/uncles that would enjoy a note.
*~~Spend 1 hour on bookwork~~. Looooong overdue. Like, barely touched for... months.
*Spend 1 hour working on Susannah's baby book. I started it this spring, I fully plan to finish it (at least as much as possible since I think it goes on for a couple years) by the end of this year.
*Put away canned pears. Which really means, figure out where in the world I'm going to put them and put them there. They have been taking up a large section of counter-space ever since I canned them, and I just need to figure out where they are going to be stored.
*Blog. :) Something that I think about way more than I really do. So, once I hit "publish" I'll be able to cross this off my list! I do hope to get another post up this week, but if I don't I will still have blogged!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

2011-09-13T07:50:00.001-04:00

Sleeping in the frog position one night :)

Wanting to post more about our sweet Susannah, I thought a Tiny Talk Tuesday post would be fun. Susannah is now 18 months old (wow, how time flies!!) and is changing every day.

One thing she has learned recently (all on her own) has been to imitate a rooster's cockadoodle-doo. Her version is quite cute, of course, since she says it "gogn-gogn-gogn!" ("o" having the same sound as the "o" in "ostrich") Sometimes if we ask her "what does the rooster say?" she'll respond with her rooster sound, but usually she makes that sound when we are listening to a specific song on one of her Cedarmont Kids CDs that has a rooster sound in it.

One of her secret fun things to do is to dig through the bathroom drawers. That is not allowed, but she does get in them from time to time before I realize she is being too quiet. I had to move the Q-tips out of the drawer after finding her "cleaning her ears" with them one day. She has never seen Daniel or I use Q-tips to clean our ears, so she is only picking up on that from the occasional time that I use one to clean her ears during baths!

She is obviously very observant. Last week she was "helping" me load the dishwasher and saw that something had dripped onto the dishwasher door. She started making "eww, yuck!" exclaiming-type noises and reaching for the sink. I figured out that she wanted the dish-rag, and after handing it to her (and I pushed the bottom basket in) she wiped up the drips! That was a new thing for her, too, to ask for the dish-rag and want to wipe drips!

Singing. Oh, does she love to listen to singing!! And she can be picky about what she listens to as well! She loves the Cedarmont Kids CDs (Bible songs) the most. Often when we are riding in the car she will start asking for something, and motioning to the front of the car. It took us a while to figure out that she was asking for her music! Sometimes she sings along, which is fun to listen to. If we sneak in a different CD, after a while she will ask for HER music back!

She loved the rocking chairs at our cabin.

Along the lines of music and singing, this past weekend we had a mini-vacation with some of Daniel's family. The first night we sat around singing with Daniel and his dad playing guitars. Susannah walked into the middle of it all and holding onto a chair, started dancing and singing - and singing fairly loudly, too! For her dancing, she mostly bounced up and down and shook her head, but would throw in an occasional rear-end wiggle. It was sweet to hear and fun to watch!! And no, she did not learn to dance from me :)

A Week For History Books!

2011-08-28T22:46:00.005-04:00

Oh, what an exciting week it has been!!

Tuesday afternoon I put Susannah down for her nap, then went into the laundry room to start a load of laundry. I pulled the knob to start the washer, and was pouring the soap in when it felt like the washing machine was spinning out, out of control! Amid loud rumbling, I immediately realized it COULDN'T be the washing machine... the dishwasher was running, but it doesn't spin out!... had the pressure tank under the house exploded? That all went through my head in a split second. I hit the knob to turn the washing machine off, and when the shaking was continuing and the loud rumbling kept rumbling, I realized we were having an earthquake!

I could hear jars rattling, and my first thought was that all my newly canned jars on the pantry shelves were going to crash to the floor and burst and all that hard work was going to be wasted. Then I realized there was nothing I could do about that and dashed into Susannah's room to be with her. She looked a little puzzled, but that was about it.

The quaking lasted about 20-30 seconds, but my heart didn't stop pounding for about an hour. A quick phone call to my mother-in-law confirmed that it had indeed been an earthquake (I had cut the TV on, but it was too soon for any breaking news to be going up). Then the phone service went dead for a while.

I was finally able to get through to Daniel, who was about 30 minutes east of here, and he was like "yeah, I felt it too". I still didn't know where the epicenter was, but when I found out and told Daniel he said "no wonder you were so freaked out!" - because it was about 20-25 miles from us as the crow flies (actually 400 yards behind the house of family in our church!) and about 45 miles from where he was at the time. If you watch the news at all, you probably know it was a 5.8 (or 5.9, depending on who you talk to) earthquake.

There was no damage here immediately around us, other than me feeling like I needed some heart pills :) We heard a few aftershocks and felt one that was a 4.8 in the middle of the night that night. Of course, now every time I hear low-toned rumbling I immediately wonder "earthquake?" Log trucks rumble by here frequently, so rumbling isn't a completely unusual sound to hear.

That was very exciting. But, then we had Hurricane Irene coming our way!!

We are far enough in-land that we were out of any big danger, but our county was under a "Hurricane Watch". Friday evening the first bands of rain reached us, and it started drizzling steadily Saturday morning. About 3pm in the afternoon the power went out for good after blinking and "browning out" several times, and it did get pretty windy at times. Again, no damage immediately around us, praise the Lord! We have a lot of trees on our property and I was hoping they all had nice deep roots and strong trunks!

We had leftover pizza for supper Saturday, but when I was ravenously hungry about 9, we broke out our gas camp stove and made fried taters (what I was in the mood for). We did have windows and a door open for ventilation, since these are not to be used in a closed area. This morning I made pancakes, bacon and eggs on the stove, we had sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner I cooked up an Italian one-pot meal of Risotto with Chicken (Rice with Chicken, and I threw in green beans for a vegetable). While the camp stove has it's inconveniences, I quickly realized how much more I like cooking on gas instead of electric.

As we were driving home from church tonight, coming down the last couple miles we kept pointing out "they have lights!"... "they have lights!"... "they have lights!". Then we turned onto our road and I was getting more excited, seeing lights on in people's houses. When we pulled in our driveway I cheered quite loudly, seeing a light on in our house :)

Our power was out for roughly 27 hours. We do have a generator that we were able to run the refrigerator and 2 chest freezers on, and we could also charge our phones and run the toaster as needed. But using candles and oil lamps for light, and jugs of water for toilet flushing... well, it's just not as convenient :)

I am happy to be able to flip the light-switch and the light actually come ON :) And be able to get a drink of cold water from the frige. And be able to run water and wash my hands when I want to.

I am looking forward (sorta) to tomorrow when I can run the dishwasher and do laundry again :)

This has been a week I'll not forget for a long time. The hurricane wasn't a huge deal, but the earthquake - being the first I've experienced - certainly was!!

Now I am looking through my post labels and wondering which one is "earthquake" and "hurricane" relevant! I think I need a new one, but what to call it?

Happy News :)

2011-08-25T15:44:00.004-04:00

We are very excited to announce to the bloggy world that we're going to have another baby!!

almost 10 weeks

"Baby Gus" is due to arrive late February/early March of 2012.

I'm about 13 weeks along.

I'm feeling fine most of the time. More tired, and occasionally my stomach feels "off", but overall mostly normal. And pregnant :)

For a couple weeks I felt absolutely awful. Then we figured out the prenatal vitamins were the cause, so I've been off those (with the Dr's blessing) and will try again in a few weeks when the 1st trimester changes should be leveled out.

Oh yes, we did want this baby, he or she was not a surprise :) We were pleasantly surprised to find out from the first ultrasound that we were 2 weeks further along than we thought.

We got to hear the heartbeat at the 12 week appointment :) Daniel was able to be there and it was very special.

Susannah will turn 2 very soon after the baby is born, unless this baby holds out for a couple weeks overdue! So I guess in all reality we'll have "2 under 2" for a tiny bit :)

We are calling the baby "Baby Gus" but that is only a nickname for now (Susannah was "Baby George").

I Survived Canning Season 2011

2011-08-23T00:31:00.002-04:00

Ahhh.

{big sigh}

There is a slim chance that there may be some tomatoes out on the tomato twigs that are still good that I may can, but that will be small potatoes compared to the past 2 weeks.

4 bushels of apples.
4 bushels of peaches.
2 bushels of nectarines.

In 2 weeks.

The entire house is about to fall down around my ears (or pile up around them, one or the other!), but I made it.

I'm so relieved to have it done. I can't wait to get my house back into some semblance of routine and order. I know Daniel and Susannah will be happy to have "me" back, too :)

I'm also eager to get back to blogging a little more regularly. I also need to find my camera cord that is somewhere in this house... I've been able to keep up with reading blogs for the most part, but my brain power just hasn't been enough to lend some to blogging, too :)

I am so excited to wake up tomorrow, er, later this morning and know that I don't have do CANNING tomorrow! Yippee!!!! And I won't have to stay up late waiting for canner timers to go off so I can crawl in bed.

Quick Post

2011-08-09T23:15:00.002-04:00

I know I've been sparse here lately... I had a comment waiting for me this evening wondering where I'm at :) Not blogging very much, that's for sure! It hasn't been for lack of blogging fodder, I just haven't had time or energy.

The garden is about ka-put for the season. Except for the corn, it looks like a bunch of twigs. Oh, the peppers are still hanging on, and I need to go pick them again - maybe tomorrow. I think I'll pick the tomatoes one more time (tomorrow) and that will be it. They are pretty much toast. I haven't gotten nearly as many tomatoes canned as I wanted, but some is better than none.

The 1st planting of corn had a nice 1st picking, but the 2nd set of ears were not worth it. I'm hoping the 2nd planting will produce nicely - I only have 4 qt. in the freezer so far! I'm debating buying corn to freeze, but I have a full plate already and cannot handle corn at the moment.

Remember the post about Daniel's work having slowed down? That was for one week. Since then, until this week, he has been leaving the house between 7 and 7:30 in the mornings and not getting home until usually around or after 9, sometimes as "early" as 8 or 8:30. This week the weather is a smidge cooler and he's been home before dark both days so far! He's also on call this week, so there's no guarantee that once he's home he won't have to go back out, but so far so good :)

My days have been full of parenting and canning/freezing what produce we do get. On a typical day I spend the morning doing housework (dishes, laundry) and the afternoon working on getting tomatoes or apples ready to can, and then run the canner in the evening. Last week I did tomatoes and salsa. On Friday I went and picked up 4 bushel of apples that I had ordered from an orchard, and every day but Sunday I've loaded both crockpots and a stock pot full in the mornings, and then Daniel and I run them through the Squeezo in the evenings.

I did buy a steam canner this summer, and since I've figured out how to make it work on my glass top stove, it IS faster than waiting for the whole waterbath pot to heat up. I'm sure I'll especially like in in another week or so when I'll be getting 4 bushel of peaches to can!! I imagine I'll have the steam canner AND waterbath canner going if I can keep the jars filled and ready.

If you haven't seen it already, over on my side bar to the right I have been listing, just for fun, what I've been canning and freezing this year. All of the fruit I bought, but all the vegetables are from our garden.

So I am still alive and kicking :) Once the applesauce and peaches are over, I really do hope to get back to blogging more frequently. And maybe once in a while, like tonight, I'll just sit down and peck out something while I wait for the canner to finish.

Wordless Wednesday - Susannah

2011-07-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

{After trying to get into them by herself,
Daniel helped Susannah stand in her Uncle Linden's boots.}

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-07-14T22:20:00.004-04:00

Oh my. Somehow it has been over two whole weeks since my last post! Sorry, dear readers, for giving you the short end of the stick. My excuses would be "wedding cake" and "garden".

Friends of ours were married last weekend, and needed a custom wedding cake (completely lactose free). I had made the wedding cakes for both of the groom's sisters, so even though I had "vowed and declared" I wasn't making any more wedding cakes, I didn't feel right turning this couple down (not to mention we love the groom's parents!).

I made and froze each cake (6 total) ahead of time, working here and there as I had a chunk of time. Then the weekend of I had to transport everything 2 1/2 hours away to assemble and decorate. My sister lives about 5 minutes from where the wedding was being held, and graciously allowed me to invade her kitchen and dining room for a couple days. I don't know if it was just experience or that this frosting had no butter in it, but the cake iced and decorated easily and beautifully.

The actual decorations on the cake were simple - (real) ribbon around the bottom of each tier with a bead border on the top and bottom. The white hydrangeas and roses with their green leaves finished it off. I think this is my favorite finished product yet. Simple yet so elegant. Even though I cut and put the flowers on the cake RIGHT before the wedding, they still wilted to about 1/2 their size by the time the reception started. The flowers originally FILLED the space between each tier. If I work with real hydrangeas again, I will get some of those little stem vases, I think, so they will hold their full look longer.

The weeks leading up to the wedding I had to let go of everything but the bare minimum in the garden. Weeds have grown into jungles that I still haven't gotten around to taming. The green beans were getting going good right before I left. Ugh, it was hard to need to pick and process green beans AND need to get everything packed and ready to go all in the same 24 hour period. I ended up not being able to do anything with the tomatoes, even though there were several ripe and ready. I picked them hurriedly right before I left and shoved them in the refrigerator. I did get a picture of a couple of them - they are gorgeous :)

If I remember right, these are the Big Beef variety. I grew them just because I found the seed packet marked down to $.25 and figured "why not". But I LOVE these tomatoes! They have a beautiful, round shape, they are nice in size (see that almost 4" tomato?!) and relatively meaty inside. I like a big tomato for sandwiches, but many of the "big" varieties are very juicy and end up all bulbous and weird shaped. I think this is a variety I will grow again. So far I have canned 5 pints of plain, diced tomato (peeled and seeded).

My first green bean picking after the wedding weekend yielded about 5 gallons of beans! It took me an entire morning to pick - and of course that included breaks for meeting Susannah's needs. I wasn't sure how I was going to get all of those beans done, and then my MIL offered to snap them for me Wednesday evening while we were at church! I was so very grateful for her help. Since then I've picked about 1 1/2 gal, the beans are winding down pretty quickly. If history repeats itself, though, they should produce a second round if I leave them in the ground. I would like to get more beans, so I'm hoping this will happen.

Susannah just woke up so I need to go get some breakfast for her. Hopefully I will post again before 2 weeks go past again.

From Garden to Freezer

2011-06-30T14:48:00.004-04:00

I am really excited to be putting so much produce into our freezers for this fall, winter and next spring. In years past, yes I have gardened with the intent of canning and freezing, but this year I am really trying. I didn't realize until this year how ho-hum I have been in the past. I am hoping that this year is the beginning of our relying on the grocery store much, much less. Not only is this saving money, but the food is so much better for us since we are growing it ourselves and know exactly what is on it (which, so far has been next to nothing).

Right now the squash and zucchini are producing more than we can eat fresh. We have been eating it pretty much every night with dinner. Fried Zucchini, Zucchini Patties, Cooked Zucchini, Cooked Squash (I haven't tried fried squash?), with Roasted Vegetables... but it is still piling up in our frige.

Canning the squash and zucchini are not an option for us. Neither of us like canned squash very well, and I'm not sure you can can plain zucchini (I think it would be mushy gross-ness). We don't eat alot of relish, so zucchini relish wouldn't be a good idea unless I just wanted to fill my shelf space (which I don't). So I began thinking of the freezer options. What would I do with shredded zucchini? I'm not a huge fan of chocolate zucchini cake or zucchini breads (they are fine, just not my favorite way to consume vast amounts of calories!). Can I freeze sliced squash? I can BUY frozen sliced squash...

I decided to go ahead and freeze shredded zucchini. This morning I pulled out my food processor with it's shredding blade and went to town. I ended up with a big bowl full that I let drain through a colander for a bit before I packaged it up (since it gets so watery when frozen). So far I have 19.5 cups of shredded zucchini frozen.

Then I called one of my sisters who I thought had frozen squash before. After picking her brain and finding out that yes, you can freeze it and it's still edible, I sliced up all the squash that was waiting for something to happen to it. I got 3.5 quart Ziplocs to freeze.

Some ideas that I have for using these (but haven't tried) would be:
Create a casserole
Add to lasagna or spaghetti
Zucchini Patties

Do you have any experience with frozen zucchini or squash, or recipes that you use them in? Share in the comments section!

Finally the Slow Season. For Income.

2011-06-24T07:00:00.005-04:00

I never thought I would look forward to Daniel's work slowing down like I have this year. In past years it's been a test of faith when the slow time kept going... and going... and going. And the bills didn't stop coming just because our income dropped drastically.

This year, though, we were anticipating it. And when things got BUSY instead of slowing down, we were thinking "Ok... it's nice overtime, I guess he'll work on the addition ... sometime!" Then last week he started getting home at more reasonable hours. And this week early.

He didn't have to go to work yesterday at all, and has off again today! Usually the slow time is much earlier in the year so I was thinking maybe it had skipped over his company this time. Now that this week has turned into a 3 day work week, it's kinda nice. I'm not anxious about getting through the slow season this year. I know that God will get us through financially, and we're also better prepared than we have been in the past.

While we have no way of knowing if this will last one week or several, here are ways I'm planning to make our household budget stretch:

Making meals strictly from what we already have on hand. We bought 1/2 a side of beef this spring, I have 2 turkeys in the freezer from the Easter sale (one is cooked and picked, the other one is still whole), sliced ham for sandwiches also from the Easter sale, and a couple weeks ago I stocked up on chicken when it was on sale and marked down. We are getting plenty of squash and zucchini from the garden plus there are plenty of peas in the freezer and some other frozen vegetables that I picked up here and there. I have been keeping more flour on hand so bread won't be a problem. The only thing we will need to get weekly will be milk, and maybe orange juice or eggs.

Ban use of the clothes dryer. I'll be honest and say that this week I have used it instead of hanging clothes out on the line because I felt I had so much going on. But I can rearrange priorities even more and start hanging out laundry again. I might save electricity by using my time to hang out the laundry instead of running the vacuum cleaner... :P I'm working on a wedding cake this week, so my already prioritized priorities are even more not the norm.

Use cloth diapers. Disposables are so not cheap when you're not sniffing out the best deals possible. Ok, "sniffing out" probably wasn't the best choice of words! Ha! I have really slacked off on the cloth diapers lately because I haven't made folding the flat diapers a top priority. Since I bought the FuzziBunz - which I could use day in and day out! - I have grown to really dis-like the flat diapers that require about 5x the work. I was actually considering buying more FuzziBunz (we only have 5, enough for 1 day), but of course that is going to go way back on the burner now. What we do have works just fine, I just need to take the time to use them.

I know none of this is new to me and probably not to you. I'm putting it in writing because somehow this makes it more do-able and more of a commitment on my part. I've done pantry challenges before. I've been strict about line drying everything before. I've been strict about using cloth diapers before. I can do it again.

I'll be posting again soon, I hope, with some new pictures of progress actually being made on the addition! It has been so long since Daniel's been able to make any real progress, this is exciting!

How I {don't} Do It All

2011-06-18T15:37:00.004-04:00

Click on the picture to read the captions.

While I do try to keep up with the housework, continually staying on top of it and keeping everything cleaned up, washed up, folded up, put up... does not put food in our freezers, pantry or bellies. So, many times I turn my focus to the garden instead of the housework.

I do enough to squeak by, and some days I really DO housework and get an area cleaned up like it should be. But for the sake of keepin' it real, this is what my kitchen looks like today. And yesterday. And maybe the day before. Except for the banana peels - they weren't there Thursday.

I know many of you look at my garden pictures and say "I don't know how you do it all". Well, here ya go! My secret: I don't.

Now, I know some of you would never be able to stand the clutter. Sometimes I can't either. Today at lunch I was frustrated because I had to shove some stuff around to make a clear spot to put together a sandwich. That means it's time to get the kitchen cleaned up again :) And I won't work in the garden this afternoon (I hope to at least go pick squash and zucchini this evening), but nothing is super pressing out there today.

This is a season of my life. One where my time is cheaper than our money. It's easier for me to let the housework fall behind than to try and squeeze produce out of our grocery budget for another year. I would make it work if I needed to, but I don't need to. And I'm enjoying my garden :) And not minding the clutter. Too badly. Most of the time.

Just another Real Housewife Reveal :)

Quick Garden Update

2011-06-15T22:24:00.003-04:00

I need to run out and help Daniel with something so this is a quick update:

Notice anything different?
The garden looks empty :) The peas are finished, we tore them all out 2 Saturdays ago (6/4), and in total I froze 37 quarts, we ate some and gave away 3 quarts. I'm happy to have the peas over with for this year! They were a LOT of work and extremely time consuming. I think next year I will see if there's a pea sheller around here that I could haul my peas to and use. That would save boatloads of my time.

The broccoli and cauliflower were pulled out yesterday. I got 3 pints of broccoli frozen, and the cauliflower never did anything. I didn't realize it until too late, but worms were keeping what would've been the "heads" eaten off. By the time I pulled the plants, they were riddled with worm holes. Next year I'll be proactive in keeping worms at bay. Only 1 broccoli head had very many worms, and overall they weren't too bad on the broccoli.

We do have some volunteer peach trees growing :) I hope to transplant 1 or 2, to add to our current 1-tree "orchard".

The tomatoes are still doing well, though I'm not sure what the browning of the bottom leaves is. I know the plants have aphids on them, so that might be it. I have had terrible problems with thrips in past years when I bought my plants, but this doesn't look like thrips. I plan to spray with an insecticidal soap and hopefully that will be a "cure-all". It doesn't seem like a blight.

Blossom End Rot is something I discovered recently, and yesterday I sprayed all the plants with BER spray (calcium). I hope to get some powdered calcium nitrate to side dress the plants with so that I don't have to juggle spraying for both bugs and BER. Last evening I found my first tomato horn worm. He surprised me very much and I let out an "Eeee!" I removed him with a stick and piece of cardboard - and did you know that they spit green spit and make a clicking noise? Me either. They are uuuuuugly! I let Daniel "take care" of him. *shudder*

Here is my corn! The first 2 double rows (very right) I planted before the peas were out. The rest of the rows are where the peas were. You might be able to see little black upside-down "u's" at the far end of each double row. I have 14 rows in all (7 double rows). I am hoping to be proactive in ear-worm deterrent and am waiting to hear back from our county's extension office about what "safe" options might be. I know Sevin dust works, but I'm hoping I can use insecticidal soap.

The bare area is newly tilled yard that we're going to sew buckwheat in to start amending the soil for next year. (Buckwheat will also be sewn where the broccoli/cauliflower was.) The garden is still a bit snug and if I can keep a good garden like this one going in the future, more room will be nice.

My beans :) I weeded the left row yesterday - it took me most of the day since it hadn't been weeded yet this year. It was a lot of grassy stuff (1st year garden space) and was a LOT of weeds! There are some bugs on the beans doing some damage, but not too badly yet. From past years I know it will get much worse, so I plan to spray them with soap spray, too (and the squash, zucchini, peppers and eggplants). Since it's a safe spray, I don't mind using it.

Here are my surprise yellow pepper plants! I have more than I have space for so I'm giving some of them away.

And my surprise Eggplants :) I've never grown them before so we'll see how they do.

The pea vines, broccoli and cauliflower plants. Hopefully this will break down into some nice compost.

The lettuce is finished - I got 2 nice dishpans full and it is keeping well in the frige. We're getting zucchini and squash now :) It is so nice to be enjoying vegetables from the garden!

I know this is a hurried update, but it's been 2 weeks and I wanted to post :) Gotta run!

This post is linked to the Frugal Gardening 101 series hosted by Phoebe, Connie and Amy. Check it out!

Menu Plan 6/13 - 6/19

2011-06-13T01:45:00.004-04:00

I have jumped back on the menu planning bandwagon recently. I was getting burnt out with the day to day "what to make", and especially being busy with the garden I was finding it hard to find even the motivation to fix supper.

One big help is that over the past several weeks I've decided what kind of meal to have 3 nights a week.

Monday is something in the crock pot so I can spend more time recovering from the weekend (not me recovering, but me helping the housework recover!), or getting a good start to the week.
Wednesday is a casserole. A one-dish type meal since we have an earlier dinner before going to church.
Friday is pizza night, of course :)

It's almost 2am Monday morning as I write this. I took a Sunday afternoon nap and it must've been a really good one. I crawled in bed ready to go to sleep at 11:30pm and just tossed and turned until I decided to do something productive with my wide-awake brain at 1am.

Monday - Roast Beef, Garlic-Parmesan Potatoes, Zucchini (from the garden!)
Tuesday - Pork chops, Cornbread, Vegetable
Wednesday - Turkey Turnovers, Vegetable
Thursday - Apricot Chicken, Rice, Vegetable
Friday - Pizza, Salad
Saturday - Taco Salad
Sunday - Leftovers

All the "vegetables" will either be salad or whatever I'm in the mood for when I go digging in the freezer :) I have a couple turkeys in the freezer from the Easter sale and I'll be roasting one this week to make a little room in the freezer for garden produce :)

I think after this I am more ready to fall asleep :) Hopefully I'll wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!

Normal, Again.

2011-06-11T18:37:00.004-04:00

NEW normal, again, is probably more like it.

The peas are finally done and out of the garden (garden post coming next week, I hope!), and while pea season only lasted a couple weeks, it sure threw "normal" out the window.

This week we shelled the last of the peas Monday night, and every day since then I'm pinching myself to make sure it's not a dream that there are no more peas to pick or shell. Tuesday and Wednesday any free time was spent trying to undo what two weeks of almost 100% neglect had done to the house since my sister and her baby were coming for a couple days. Kudos to my husband for all of his help!!

Since the peas are done, I have resumed doing laundry, dishes and cooking on a regular basis. While my sister was here she washed dishes one evening and they are finally all caught up. There haven't been any over-24 hrs - old dirty dishes the past two days! Wow!

I haven't done anything in the garden other than water since Thursday morning, and the weeds are rejoicing at their delayed death sentence. Next week is supposed to be considerably cooler so I hope to get on top of it again :)

Susannah is LOVING the outdoors and gets very excited if you ask "do you want to go outside?" Daniel has been home early enough a few evenings this week that she was able to "help" him with some outside work.

Last evening he went out the door and she noticed, and got a very sad "You didn't take me with you!" expression on her face and voice. After checking with Daniel to make sure it was ok, I took her out to be with him. She loves her Daddy, that's for sure!!

On Monday we were ready books on the couch, which turned into looking out the window. I was playing with her hair, and was able to get her to hold still long enough for me to put in her first pony-tail. (And yes, she was wearing a pajama top for a shirt that day.) She looks super cute with her little whale-spout :)

Today was the 3rd day watching my niece while my sister went to the home school convention, and everything was finally going smoothly enough that I was able to get several things done. I made bread and a meatloaf for the freezer, and also worked on pureed foods for Susannah. I had frozen some things last evening so I bagged those up and froze some more. I still have a huge sweet potato that I cooked this afternoon to puree and freeze, and we'll have a nice supply again.

Daniel just pulled in the drive so I should go heat up some supper for him. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend! I'm looking forward to Sunday and then starting a fresh, clean, new work week on Monday :) I printed off my Motivated Moms sheet and everything!

Simple Woman's Daybook - May 31, 2011

2011-05-31T09:46:00.004-04:00

For today, the last day of May.
It is very hot this week, today it's supposed to be
mid 90°'s with a heat index of 100° - 105°.

I am thinking... Mmm, not a whole lot this morning. A little of this, a little of that, and nothing hard-core or major. It's hard to believe tomorrow is JUNE already!

I am thankful for... Air Conditioning! And my HVAC Service Tech. husband who checked out our equipment yesterday and it's all working smoothly.

From my kitchen... The refrigerator is full of peas, peas and more peas. We've been shelling in the evenings until 11:30 or midnight and just shove them in the frige. I need to get them bagged up and in the freezer today. I might make another batch of bread.

I am reading... I started Loving God With All Your Mind by Elizabeth George (again). It's good. Hopefully I'll make it all the way through this time. I haven't had much time for reading lately!

I am hoping... That today will go smoothly and the house will look better at the end of the day than it has in several weeks.

I am hearing... The dishwasher, the washing machine, and Susannah :)

A few plans for the week... Pick peas tomorrow, grocery shop on Thursday, pick peas Friday, probably work in the garden Saturday either pulling weeds or pulling out the peas if they're finished by then. Daniel wrote "Date Night?" on the calendar for Thursday... I guess I should see if Grandma wants to keep Susannah :)

A picture...

Susannah, probably like every normal 14 month old, is fascinated with any writing utensil. If she finds a pen or pencil and a paper, she goes through the motions of putting the pointy end to the paper. I had the idea that if I let her draw (supervised) that maybe it would keep ink/lead off of things that it doesn't go on. So every once in a while I pull out her paper and pencil (a very SHORT pencil) that I keep in a drawer, and she sits in her high chair and "draws" for a couple minutes. Sometimes she gets some marks on the paper, sometimes she doesn't - she hasn't figured out how to hold the pencil consistently in a good position yet - but she has fun :)

Ask The Readers

2011-05-26T08:37:00.003-04:00

Good morning faithful readers. This morning I am sending up some S.O.S. flares. I hope you can help me!!!

Where can I buy rennet to make cheese? I'm looking to buy it locally if possible (meaning, not buy it online and have it shipped and taking several days to get here). I have some milk that I want to make cheese with. We have your usual grocery stores, along with Tom Leonards, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Good Foods Grocery (local store) and... that's all that comes to mind right now. I'm in the Central - Va. -ish area if that helps?

Update: I've found rennet. Whole Foods carries it! However they are out of stock today (will be getting more in a couple days), so I think I will freeze the milk until I (a) have the rennet and (b) have time to make cheese.
HOW. can. I. keep. ants. OFF! MY! WASHLINE!!! ? I have put (used) motor oil on the bottom of the posts and it worked for a very brief time. Last night Daniel brought in the laundry and it was CRAWLING with ants. And he'd dumped it all on our bed before he realized it. I was not happy (about the ants being on MY! BED!). I don't know why, but the ants in the yard are TERRIBLE this spring!

If you have the answers or even suggestions, or just want to say "wassup?", just leave it in the comments :)

Thank!

The Little Peas That Could

2011-05-25T07:47:00.008-04:00

Good morning!

Remember when I posted about my garden, and showed you my 6 beautiful rows of peas? These little guys?

Then I posted another update, and they had grown. See those pea fence panels (actually stock panels)? They are shoulder height for me, and I'm 5'3" with my shoes on.

These are my peas today (well, yesterday).
God is blowing me away through His handiwork with these peas. Yes, I prayed that He would make them grow tall and strong and bear well. He is answering with a resounding "YES!" I don't know that I've ever prayed over my garden as earnestly or seriously as I have this year. They have only done this well (or somewhere close) once before and that has been several years. Yes, there were many things I did on my part to give them the best opportunity to grow big and strong. I can water and fertilize the dirt all I want, but I can't make the plant grow. Only God can do that.

Picking peas this enormous is an adventure. The first two pickings I did most of it on my knees. The vines are entwined and I do not want to just ram my way through - that would damage the vines and they would most likely die. Picking peas this enormous is also like giving your 2 year old the toilet brush and hair dryer and asking them to fix your hair. You come out looking like a wild woman. I don't have a 2 year old, so I might be wrong. Just guessing ;)

Yesterday was my third picking, and so far I have frozen about 15 quarts. There are still LOTS of pods on the vines that need to mature, but the weather this week is supposed to be in the 90's each day. Peas do NOT like hot so I don't know how many more I will get before the vines die. I know one thing, though: God is good. So, so good. I am so thankful for each pea that He gives us from these vines.

On to the rest of my garden, it's looking pretty good! I am happy with my garden this year :)

Saturday I weeded the cauliflower and broccoli. Earlier last week I planted the Amish Paste Tomatoes and finished caging all my plants. Once the peas come out I will have stakes to stake the rest of the cages.

Susannah was happily playing in the shade yesterday while I picked. It was VERY warm and humid yesterday, so we both looked a little stroogly. At least she was cute stroogly and not scary stroogly like her mama ;)

I found a baby broccoli growing!! Yay!! I haven't found any baby cauliflower yet, but hopefully soon?

My Summer Heat Tolerant head lettuce. It needs weeded :) Saturday I also planted more beets and a little heat tolerant spinach. I don't know if they'll grow since they didn't last time, but I wanted to try again.

Saturday was a garden day for me. Daniel got the tiller to run like it's supposed to, and tilled up for my first corn planting. This is 2 double rows. There's about 2 1/2+ feet between each big row, and about 12" between the "doubles". I'm hoping to get more corn in more space doing it this way. I'll still have room to walk and pick from each side. As soon as the peas come out and we get that part tilled, I'll plant the rest of the corn.

Hard to see, but my Tenderette Beans came up! This is 1st year garden space, so the grass is growing abundantly and needs removed. The bean plants are a little sparse in some areas (3 double rows), but I'm leaving them as is and will plant a later planting if I need to.

Peppers :) The yellow peppers I replanted don't look like they're doing anything. I think I'm stuck with all green peppers this year :)

Zucchini and squash plants. I can't wait to eat some!!! I did plant Nasturtiums between the hills of Zucchini and Squash, it is supposed to deter the squash bug (or vine bore beetle? can't remember). I hope it works :)

I had replanted eggplant seeds a couple weeks ago after ~~I killed the starter plants~~ the plants died, and I think I saw a few of them growing yesterday! I will have to check again in a couple days to see if it's really eggplants or just weeds :P I also planted a hill of cucumber plants on Saturday, they are looking ok.

This year has been a big learning experience for me, but this post is long enough already I'll save all that for later :) Thanks for stopping by my garden! Please check out Phoebe's, Amy's and Connie's gardens - they're the real hosts!!!

Real Housewife Reveal

2011-05-18T10:12:00.006-04:00

After I wrote this post, and then read what Amy wrote on her blog, I thought it would be fun to once in a while post a "real" post.

Yesterday I:
Started a load of laundry.
Made a batch of bread.
Ground up already cooked roast beef, chicken and corn for baby food and froze it.
Made a strawberry roll (the cake part).
Made a batch of Monster Cookies (Arrrg!!!)
Picked peas.
Shelled peas with Susannah climbing all over me and "helping".
Picked up shelled peas that she dumped on the floor.
Read a couple books (to Susannah).
Fed Susannah meals x3.
Helped her get a drink countless times throughout the day.
Changed 6-ish diapers.
Did online stuff (mail, blog, blog reading, facebook).
Asked Daniel to bring home a free pizza for supper.
Gave Susannah a bath.
Watched the NCIS and NCIS L.A. Finales.
Asked Daniel to put the wet laundry in the dryer right before we went to bed.
Folded and put away the 1 load of clean laundry that was piled on the bed.

Yesterday I didn't:
Take a shower.
Wash any dishes.
Pick up or sweep any floors.
Do any cleaning, period (except for cleaning out a couple diapers).
Do any baking or cooking that was actually for a meal yesterday (breakfast was leftover pancakes, lunch was leftovers from Monday).
I did brush my hair yesterday morning, but after picking peas I looked like this:... and didn't brush my hair again until evening time shortly before Daniel got home.
I didn't exercise.
I didn't take a nap.

Today the kitchen is piled high with dirty dishes (mostly baking utensils, bowls and dirty sippy cups). The floors are in bad need of a picking up and vacuuming. The trash cans are overflowing and the slop is starting to smell. Laundry needs folded. Laundry needs washed - and then folded. And put away. I need a shower. I hope to get a little more on top of the inside housework, but there's much of the day left yet, we'll see what happens... there's always the chance that something will come up that changes the course!

Peas!!

2011-05-17T15:36:00.003-04:00

Yay!! Yesterday when I was out in the garden I noticed that the peas looked mighty close to being ready to start picking. So I checked a pea - and ate the contents! - and they were ready.

The weather has been nice with random thunderstorms throughout the day and night the past couple days, and today was no exception. This morning it was raining with occasional lightening, so I didn't want to go into my garden which is full of metal! Mid-morning the rain stopped and I went out and picked. It is a major, major jungle out there! Most of the pea vines are probably 6' tall, and the rows intertwined with each other. But they are doing well and I praise the Lord!

It took me about 1.75 hrs. to pick, but I did come in several times because I had bread rising and baking.

Susannah was fascinated with the peas! After lunch I planned to shell them right away, and after thinking about it a moment I knew it would be more stressful for both of us if I tried to do it anywhere but on the floor. So I sat on the floor and shelled peas, tossing the empty pods into a pile - on the floor *gasp* - and Susannah had fun playing with the full and empty pods. Once I had one bucket emptied the empty pods went into a bucket.

Susannah was very happy watching and occasionally would shell a pod or two. I would open the pod and pull the 2 halves apart, and she would pick off each pea and drop it into my bowl one at a time. It took me about 1 1/4 hrs. to shell them all, and when we were done we picked all the
empty pods up off the floor.

Picking peas is not for beauty pageant contestants.
I did brush my hair this morning!

In the end we had about 1 1/2 quarts. Enough for a meal and I'll either share some or freeze them.
Yum :)

Simple Woman's Daybook - May 16, 2011

2011-05-16T07:58:00.002-04:00

For today, Monday, May 16, 2011

I am thinking... a family in our church has been weighing heavy on my heart yesterday and today - they lost a husband/dad/granddad 2 weeks ago.

I am thankful for... my husband! All the rain we've gotten and are supposed to get. Our church family. The Word and our pastor's expository preaching.

From my kitchen... Pancakes. With butter. And powdered sugar. And strawberries!! Taste-bud heaven! Later today I must make bread, and hope to make Monster Cookies (Daniel's request).

I am reading... last week I read "Light From Heaven", by Christmas Carol Kauffman. Based on a true story, it was not the most easy book to read, but it was encouraging to read about the life of such a godly woman who taught her children to love the Lord amidst their trials.

I am hoping... to finish Spring Cleaning the "Master Bedroom" (Ha! Such a grand name for our tiny space!) This Spring Cleaning may end up being "Spring and All Summer Cleaning", but I am enjoying the results even if it's taking me a while.

I am hearing... the birds :) Yesterday while Susannah was eating breakfast she heard a bird who was singing quite loudly. She got her "what is that?!" look on her face. The bird was sitting on the electric line outside the window so I was able to show her the bird - and she was pretty fascinated by it until it flew away :)

A few plans for the week... Probably same old, same old. I need to work in the garden, but it may be amid mud. I have tomato plants and cucumber plants that I need to get in. Oh! And if all works out, maybe this week will be the week that Daniel gets home from work early and can watch Susannah while I go do some desperately needed shopping! That has been a "plan" for several weeks now :)

A picture...

What I saw one afternoon when I heard some noise
and turned around from washing dishes.
Susannah is a Daddy's girl because I detest! Dr. Pepper!

I Figured It Out

2011-05-11T07:57:00.005-04:00

I figured out how other people (moms) have so much time. Time to do all the things that I think "dude, hoooow do you do all that and still have a clean house, clean clothes, clean car, clean kids... and stay sane?"

They buy all or almost all of their food ready to use (canned or frozen).
They buy all of their bread.
They buy all of their sandwich meat already cooked and sliced.
They use the dryer.
They probably even have a clothes folder and just haven't told me about it...
Since they buy all of their food (including bread) they probably don't make the enormous messes in their kitchens like I do.
They probably put eeeeeeverything in their dishwasher. I'm picky.

Since they buy all of their food they can just come home from the store, put all the cans, boxes and bags in the cupboards, frige and freezer and VIOLA! A million hours already saved! No need to spend several hours in the garden planting, weeding or picking. No hours upon hours spent peeling, shelling, blanching, canning or freezing.

I bet if I logged every minute that I spend doing something that I could just "go buy" the finished product instead, I'd have more available time, too!

Please know that this isn't a rant or a rave or a "I'm better than you" or a "woe is me" or any such thing. I'm just thinkin' out loud. This is also very much my perspective from the outside :)

**I know this could generate alot of comments on how I am wrong - I'm open to friendly discussion, but please let's keep it fun and friendly! I'm not looking to start a war!**

P.S. After reading this, Amy wrote an amazing post over on her blog. You gotta go check it out.

The Growing Garden

2011-05-04T16:09:00.004-04:00

*Lots of pictures ahead!*

What's growing in the garden is doing great! My bean seeds that I planted (which would be 3 double rows along the far right edge of the garden in the picture below) didn't come up. I'll have to replant :(

Except for the peas, the garden still doesn't look like much, but hopefully in another month that'll change! In this picture is all my peppers, squash, zucchini, eggplant and space for corn or cucumbers.

The bottom part of the garden, with a trusty wandering through cat. This part doesn't look like much either. But believe me, I'm gonna fill it up!

My peas! They have grown considerably since my last post. A few stalks are even as tall as the fence! Yippee! Since my last update, I did side-dress each row with 5-10-10 fertilizer and gray lime. I've also been watering regularly with a Miracle Grow water-er. I wouldn't normally use the Miracle Grow watering system, but I am really counting on this year's garden to give us as much as it can.

The pea vines are blooming beautifully :)

And even making pea pods :) I think I will be very busy in a few more weeks picking and shelling peas! Oh yummy! No more store-bought peas, I hope!

The tomato plants are doing well. The broccoli and cauliflower that survived are looking good, too. I'm not sure why some of the plants croaked. I still have the majority if my tomato plants (Amish Paste) to put out yet. I need to get that done very soon.

Of my little rows of beets, spinach and lettuce, only the Summer Heat Tolerant Head Lettuce is growing. I'm not sure what happened to the other stuff, but it did not grow. I may try replanting with the rows going the other way - I think having them vertical to the "usual" way might've caused the dirt to wash when I watered.

Last evening I had a few hours of daylight left (I'd been gone all day helping a friend on bedrest), and I saw that it was supposed to rain alot last night, so I put it in high gear and did some planting. I planted 11 more peppers (Golden California Wonder), 10 Eggplant, 6 squash and 4 zucchini. I'm not sure that starting them indoors was a good idea. They got VERY leggy before I got them in the ground and today they are all laying over. 2 of the squash plants snapped off, even though I buried them deep. I think I'll just poke some seeds in the dirt and see what happens.

These are my pepper plants. They've grown quite a bit, too. Some of them don't look very good, but hopefully they'll pull through and produce enough for us and maybe some to share.

One thing I'm possibly behind on is getting corn in the ground. It seems like everyone else has corn in and I don't. I'm always afraid of getting it in too soon and it not growing (it likes warm dirt), and another thing is that until this year I had to wait until the peas came out. I still don't have enough room for all my corn this year WITH the peas, so some of it will have to wait for the peas to come out.

This year I'm also adding lime to each row/hole when I plant. I'm hoping the plants will like that and bear well. It's been such a struggle to get very much and very good produce from our garden previous years, and I'm really trying this year to get a good crop of everything.

Oh - remember how I had Daniel add 2 more tiller rows (big tiller) to the garden? He said our garden is now the same size (sq. ft.) as our house will be when the addition is finished!

This post is linked to Phoebe's Frugal Gardening 101 series over at her blog, Getting Freedom.

Monday Morning Bullet Points

2011-04-28T10:11:00.003-04:00

We're home from a whirl-wind vacation, spending a few days with Daniel's brother and his wife.

I am not convinced that a "dry pail" (for diapers) stinks less than a wet pail. I tried a dry pail last week with a loose lid on top. Whew-wee, the ammonia like odors that wafted out threatened to singe my nose-hairs! I used mostly cloth diapers while we were gone, chucking the dirty ones into a plastic grocery bag, that too is emanating terrible, nose-hair-singeing odors.

I haven't gone out to look at my garden since we got home, but the squash and zucchini plants in the kitchen grew 5-6" while we were gone!

Our cats have fleas. Our cats are all outside, but the fleas jump onto us and come inside. GRRR. I need to try and treat the kittens (and adults) again and hopefully the mama cat won't lick it off this time.

More rain is on it's way! The sky is getting darker and it's very rumbly. I should probably get off here and grab a few more things from the car before the skies open up.

The highchair fits in the dishwasher. It's in there because Susannah threw up in it three whole times yesterday. I don't know why, though.

Typing one more bullet point meant it's raining now. On my garden =D Yay!!!

Tuesday Afternoon Blog Fodder

2011-04-19T17:02:00.002-04:00

In gardening this year I am rediscovering muscles I forgot I had. Many nights Tylenol or Ibuprofen is my BFF. Because if I don't take any I just lie awake aching and tossing and turning trying to get comfortable.

I must be getting old. I don't like getting old. I like being about 21 or 2 or 3, instead of being 26. And a half. *crosses eyes and sticks out tongue* It's all in how old you FEEL, right? In that case, most nights I feel about 75.

My garden is coming along quite nicely, though! I can't wait to do an update post later this week :)

We got our tax refund. A very hefty one. We might need to have more kids.

No, I'm not pregnant.

I don't recommend having kids just for the sake of keeping more of your money. You should only have kids if you really WANT kids.

I haven't gotten any further in my spring cleaning since I finished the kitchen. I thought about doing the bathroom this afternoon. Thought.

The addition is coming along ve. ry. slow. ly. I'm not sure if Daniel's work is going to have a slow time this spring... it seems like it jumped from winter-busy to summer-busy. But busy is not a bad thing. Unless you want to work on the addition :)

It all boils down to time and money, and you can't have both at the same time.

I have lots of stuff I want to blog about but this'll have to do for now.

I need to go get some meat outa the freezer for supper, and get started on that.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2011-04-12T08:05:00.003-04:00

Susannah and I went to MOPS yesterday morning, and when we got home we hit the ground running. We hurried through lunch and then headed out to the garden to get some much needed work done.

Last week we were finally able to borrow the tractor and big tiller, and Daniel tilled the rest of the garden. I forgot to ask him to add a new stripe or two to the (far) end, so he'll do that before we return the tiller.

Yesterday my #1 goal was to get my broccoli and cauliflower plants in the ground. I started them from seeds - my first year starting everything - and we'll see how they do! I didn't realize I had twice as many cauliflower plants as broccoli - 14 cauliflowers and 8 broccoli. This is also my first year for growing either of these so we'll see how it goes.

My #2 goal was to get some greens in the ground. From left to right:
(2) rows of head lettuce
(2) rows of Romaine lettuce
and then the 3 close together rows are beets, spinach and beets.
I assume the beets and spinach will do ok like that :) They don't require as much space as the lettuces, so after I planted the 2 rows of beets I decided the spinach would fit perfectly right down the middle.

It took me two weeks of working on it here and there, but I finally got all the pea fence up. We use fence panels which are MUCH easier to handle than box-wire. It is a hefty investment up front because they are not cheap, but they should last all of my gardening lifetime and beyond. This year I doubled the amount of peas and we were blessed with the opportunity to buy more t-posts and panels very inexpensively from a farmer who wasn't using them anymore.
(A top item on my Christmas list this year is going to be a post driver!! My arm muscles and wrist got way more of a workout than I ever wanted, pounding those posts in with a sledgehammer!)

After I finished all the planting I had a little daylight left and decided to start pulling the weeds from the first row of peas. There was about a foot-wide strip on one side that hadn't been worked at all this year and I managed to get all the weeds pulled from that before it was time to quit. It looks so much better now!

I have pepper plants eager to get into the dirt, tomatoes are waiting for consistently warm temperatures, and I started some eggplant last week. I need to get squash and zucchini started, and I need to get beans planted very soon, too.

This is the biggest garden I've done in a while - I hope I can keep up with it and help it produce all that I want to get from it. Of course only God can make it grow and bear!

I am linking to Phoebe's Frugal Gardening 101 Series - 3 moms sharing their frugal gardening experience! Check it out!

Some Days...

2011-04-09T19:34:00.003-04:00

As long as it isn't poisonous...

... or dangerous...
... whatever keeps her busy and happy is fine with me!!

(Somebody was doing some cleaning and donated their "leftovers" to me since they no longer need them. They haven't gotten further than the kitchen floor.)

This weekend I'm decorating a baby shower cake, and Daniel has been gone all day and will not be home for a while yet. Thus the "if she's happy, I'm happy I can work on the cake" status of things around here!

*Under normal circumstances I wouldn't let her play with such things :)

PS - I'm disappointed in the uploaded quality of these pictures. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I don't have time to play with it now.

It's Been A Long Week

2011-04-02T22:08:00.004-04:00

This week has been full of ups and downs... and hopefully we're on the up side instead of the down side! Monday I woke up feeling fine but by mid afternoon I had a whopper of a sore throat. Strep has been going around here lately and I was hoping very much that wasn't what I had. I self-medicated with lots and lots of Pineapple Juice. On top of me feeling bad, Susannah had an ear infection and was feeling pretty cruddy herself. We were both miserable. Needless to say, we functioned on the bare minimum all the way around most of the time.

On Tuesday Susannah was fussy all.day.long, and even more so in the evening. Then right before her bed time she perked up and was wide awake and wanted to be UP. I put her to bed but she just would not go to sleep. After several attempts to get her to settle down and go to sleep, I went in and snuggled with her in the rocking chair. She didn't want to snuggle, she wanted to wiggle. Then I put her in the bed and sat in the chair. She wiggled around and managed to sit up by herself... and then with lots of effort and repeated tries, she pulled up all by herself! Her first time doing it all by herself :)

That meant that project "lower the mattress sometime soon" immediately became "do it tonight yet". By the time that was done and she actually laid down and went to sleep it was 11pm.

Friday Susannah finally resumed eating her normal amounts of food again - whew! I was afraid she was going to dry up and blow away, she was eating so little (or so it seemed). And she's also acting her normal self again which is nice.

Last night I went to bed VERY early and a long night's sleep did wonders. I wasn't tired today and got quite a bit done. I made 2 batches of bread, too. The second batch I experimented, trying to imitate some store-bought herb flavored bread and I think I nailed it on the first try! My MIL even said I had it right, and she's the one who buys the store-bought version :)

Tonight Susannah went to bed late (we had company stop by) and I need to get to bed very soon. I think we'll all be getting baths in the morning so I need to get to sleeping so I can get up early and get all of that done.

Ugh... and I just remembered I washed a load of laundry that needs to go in the dryer!

So, yeah... we're still alive over here! And hopefully I'll stay that way if I can keep from coughing my lungs out :)

My Sweet Susannah

2011-03-28T13:13:00.003-04:00

Oh my, oh my. I can't begin to put into words how much I love my little girl!! She is sunshine to my soul every single day, no matter what the real weather is - I always have my sunshine.

I want to blog just a bit to journal a few things about her so I don't forget.

Picking her up from the nursery at church. Oh my, the other kids get excited to see their parents, but not like Susannah!! Her arms and legs become windmill blades and she bursts into a grin bright enough to light the whole city!

Saying "uh-oh". Last week my MIL kept Susannah for the day, and after lunch she and Susannah were playing the "drop it" game in the high-chair (only at Grandma's! LOL), and she taught Susannah how to say "uh-oh". Susannah says it more like "uh-uhhhhh" or "uh-ewwww", but she knows what it means and uses it correctly! Sometimes she says it just for fun, too :)

Snuggling with her blankie one morning.

She is improving her core motor skills by leaps and bounds! I don't think the Dr. has anything to worry about with her slower than some kids development. I did show her a few things - how to pull up from a sitting position, but that was about it. All on her VERY OWN, she has gone from tummy to sitting (not much, but she has done it several times), she's starting to get up on her hands and knees from her tummy - that is something she would not or could not do, even if we tried to help her, she loves to stand holding on to something and will try to pull up on things (from her tummy). I think in all reality, she was/is just doing this stuff in her own time.

Grandma's coffee table is just right for
cruising furniture practice!

Susannah signs :) As in sign language! Many families in our church teach their babies sign language. At first I wasn't keen on the idea, but watching other children began to see the vast benefits from it. We started out using the "all done" sign (and saying it verbally, too) when she started solid foods at 4 months. Just in the past couple of weeks she has started to sign "all done". We were occasionally throwing in the "please" sign once in a while and recently started showing it to her more regularly. On Saturday Daniel was eating potato chips and she wanted one... he helped her sign "please" and a chip or two later she was signing "please" upon request! Yesterday and today she was signing "please" during her meal, wanting her drink or bread that was on the table. She never really fussed or whined for things, but this will really help her communicate with us much better until she can orally communicate. I want to teach her more signs, like "more", "drink", "eat" and "thank you." Those are ones I want to teach for sure, we'll see how far we get.

On a non-progress note, Susannah has her 2nd ear infection. Friday evening she was running a fever, and that came and went throughout the weekend. We could tell she wasn't quite her usual self, but she wasn't exhibiting lots of sick symptoms. Thankfully she is happy to drink lots of water, even though her solid food appetite isn't up to normal. We're eager for Daniel to come home with her prescription later today so she can start getting better. Last night's sleeping had a big hiccup in it when she woke up with another fever, and she isn't sleeping very well this afternoon, either.

Happy as a bug in a rug - right before I
realized she was running a 101.6 temperature!

And that's what's going on with Susannah currently :)

Spring Cleaning: Kitchen Edition - After

2011-03-27T15:18:00.005-04:00

Ahh... Friday afternoon I started Spring Cleaning the Kitchen. I had a long list (and a few "before" pictures) and my goal was to get it all accomplished in 2 days. I came very, very close. Susannah has not been feeling well this weekend, running low grade fevers now and again, so she and I stayed home from church this morning. While she napped I listened to last Sunday's message and finished cleaning.

And now, without further ado, here are my "After" pictures:

What is really on the counter between the stove and frige:

This is the first time I have completely gone through almost every inch of this kitchen since we moved into it. 3 bags of trash and 1 bag of stuff for Goodwill later, my cupboards are much more orderly. They weren't BAD, but they certainly needed a good going through. I threw away a bunch of "high sugar dog food" cereal I had gotten either free or very, very cheap that was outdated ... because we didn't like it enough to eat it. With each thing I handled, I thought "do I like it? do I want to eat/use it?" and if the answer was "no" it went into the trash.

This is my in-kitchen "pantry" cupboard
where alot of spare groceries (like... chocolate chips?) are kept.

This cabinet needed some serious reorganization.
I'm in it pretty much every day.

Now my cookie sprinkles are contained (top left),
granola is at an easier-to-reach level (mid-left),
and the bottom shelf isn't crammed with whatever.

And underneath the sink. Oh, how I wish I had a "Before" picture to show you! It was almost to the point of "throw the item in and slam the door quickly before it falls out."

There is no longer an out of control plastic bag collection,
my smaller cleaning supplies are all corralled in a nice basket,
and it's just way nicer all the way around.

Obviously I didn't take a picture of each cupboard, I didn't want to bore you to death. But believe me that each one is much cleaner and better now!

A few things I learned or realized through this:

Very, very soon I am just going to go buy a new dish drainer and drainboard. My current set was retired from my MIL, I've repaired cracks, it's saggy and grows scum and mold where water doesn't drain from it completely, it drives me batty... and well, I'd say since I've had a new set on my Christmas list ever since we got married and I haven't gotten one yet, I'll just have to take the plunge and buy it myself.

2 full days is about all the willpower I have for sticking with one room before I start to burn out.

I need to make more jello salads :P We have lots of jello that I bought (for next to nothing) for the purpose of making jello salads... I just need to remember to make them!

I hope to continue my Spring Cleaning this coming week. I'm not sure what room will be next, probably either the pantry or the bathroom & hall closet. Both places need a serious overhaul.

Spring Cleaning: Kitchen Edition

2011-03-25T14:05:00.020-04:00

I am giving in to my deep desire to give the house a thorough Spring Cleaning, and am starting today, with the kitchen. I'm not sure how long or how far I'm going to get, but I'm starting out with great intentions and high expectations!

I took these pictures yesterday before I did any general, daily clean-up, so it doesn't look the same today (actually a little better!). Missing is also the wall where I was standing to take these pictures - which is what we call "The Island" that really isn't an island - it is the hot spot for collecting "stuff". If I make it far enough to take "after" pictures I'll be sure to include it :)

My list of what I want to get done between today and tomorrow:

Saturday noon-time update: Still going strong! I think I can finish up today :)

~~Dishes: Wash, dry & put away~~
~~Counters: Move and wipe off/under everything~~
~~Wipe & dust trim and ceiling fan~~
~~Wipe & dust cupboards (outsides)~~
~~Clean off and wipe down refrigerator (outside)~~
~~Clean out and wipe down inside of cupboards (upper)~~
~~Clean out and wipe down inside of cupboards (lower)~~
~~Clean microwave inside and out~~
~~Clean oven/stove inside & out (including polishing the glass-top)~~
~~Wash and disinfect trashcan~~
~~Clean out, wipe out and organize under sink~~
~~Wash and disinfect dish drainer/drainboard and sinks~~
~~Clean out from under stove~~
~~Pull out refrigerator and clean under/behind, sweep off coils (??)~~

Saturday night update: I only have the floor and windows to do, but for now I'm going to bed.

~~Pick up, vacuum, wash floor~~ and apply grout sealer
~~Wash Windows (I can't believe I forgot this one...)~~
~~Wash light fixtures~~

I'll be stopping back by occasionally to cross things off as I get them done. I have the list pretty much in execution order. It's a long list so I'd best get crackin'! Maybe I should put on some peppy music to clean by...

Do you spring clean? I have never officially done it - at least as the chief homemaker. Please share any tips, tricks or experiences you might have!

5 Little Peppers (or kittens)

2011-03-24T14:44:00.003-04:00

We're still the proud owners of 5 little kittens :) I love seeing them all lined up like this. I moved them out from under Susannah's dresser and right now they are in our room, but I think I will move them out into the main part of the house eventually. Kittens like to play and I don't think I want them playing in my room while I'm trying to sleep :)

Better Than Hate Mail!

2011-03-22T11:40:00.003-04:00

You know how sometimes you just put something somewhere and tell yourself you'll move it later? I found one of those things today. It's been right under my nose for over a month now... and I've just gotten used to it and haven't paid any attention to it.

We had company over on Saturday. Today I was walking through the dining room and right at eye level I saw this:

The Valentine's Day card I gave Daniel and that he put on our china hutch. LOL! At least if any of the company saw it they know that Daniel is all mine. And that I don't send him hate mail ;)

Susannah's 1st Birthday Party

2011-03-21T08:11:00.003-04:00

This past Saturday, a week and 1 day after her real birthday, we had some friends over and celebrated Susannah's birthday with "style". Since we would've been rather squeezed to all fit around our dining room table IN or dining room, we borrowed a folding table from Daniel's parents and we ate out in what will be the new living room.

It was a fun little party. Daniel's mom was here (his dad had to work), and 2 families from church who are like family to us were here, too. Betsy is my "church-mom" and I've decided that Alyssa gets the fun role of being my "church-sister" :)

I made 2 big pizzas - 1 "Meat Lover's Supreme" with hamburger, sausage, bacon, pepperoni, onions, peppers and black olives (and of course sauce and lots of cheese!), and 1 Chicken and Shrimp (with homemade alfredo sauce), and then we also had fruit on the side.

I decided to keep Susannah's birthday cake simple this year, and I made her a cat cake. If you know how much she likes cats, you'll know this was perfect for her :)

Fitting with the "cat theme" (lol), I brought our in-house cat family out from under Susannah's dresser for people to see. I'd originally only brought out the kittens, but they were protesting quite loudly and the Mama cat came and climbed right into the basket with her babies and they shushed right up! She is such a good mama cat! We joked that the kittens were the party favors :)
After the party, Susannah was tired but wired. She had a hard time going down for her nap Saturday afternoon. I was plumb tuckered out from a crazy, crazy week and too many short nights so I was in sore need of an afternoon nap. Daniel was wonderful and took care of Susannah's needs while I rested. It was a good, fun day. I know Susannah won't remember it aside from pictures, but we wanted to do something fun for her first birthday :)

*****

On another note, fitting with Susannah's first birthday, would be the "stats" from her 1 year checkup. She is:

20lbs. 11oz. (50th percentile)
30" tall (75th percentile)

The Dr. strongly hinted at wanting her core motor skills to improve by her 15 month visit, since she isn't crawling (she scoots - which IS normal), walking, cruising furniture or pulling up. Since then she has sat up by herself once (one moment she was on her tummy and the next time I turned around she was sitting!), and after showing her how to pull up on a (very heavy) portable file box, she loves to do that! She is still very unstable on her feet if she's not being supported, but she's making progress. She hasn't figured out how to pull up from being on her tummy, but she has it down pat going from sitting to pulling up.

After the checkup I was a little anxious about "what if she doesn't improve like he wants?" but in all reality, I am positive that she is just doing it her way. She is SOOOO laid back, just like her Daddy (and I'm not high-strung, either), and has taken her good time in everything she's learned so far. She's just now starting to sign "all done" with some consistency. She was "late" in learning how to roll over, and in learning how to scoot forwards on her tummy. She's VERY smart. She has great dexterity - she can take her finger and poke it straight up my nose and not miss! - and I just don't think that her core motor skills being "behind the normal" is unusual for HER. We'll just have to show that Dr. a thing or two when we go back :)

Happy Birthday, Susannah!

2011-03-11T16:34:00.006-05:00

It is hard to believe that an entire year has gone by! These past few days I've been remembering the weeks and days before Susannah was born. My anxiousness... how we didn't get her room painted until the weekend before she was born... how we didn't know if we were going to have a boy or a girl... wondering what life would be like with a baby in our family...

And I wouldn't have it any other way!! I would most definitely do it all over again, every single part of it.

Now I am Mama to a one year old. Wow. It's a whole different ball game than being Mama to a one month old :) But I still love it!!

This morning Susannah woke up happy, and had a happy day. That was very welcome after a couple days of her being out of sorts.

Late this afternoon I mixed up some cupcakes for her birthday, and she got to lick her first beater when she woke up from her nap. She wasn't too sure about the beater at first, but I licked one so she could watch, then gave her a taste of hers and she went right at it! She didn't want to give it back, either :)

For a little specialness, I found some balloons and hung them from the kitchen ceiling fan, low enough that she could bat at them.

We had a fun little party with just the three of us. It was fun to watch her looking at her cake and candle, and then eating her cake :)

She didn't make too much of a mess, either!

Gifts will happen next week when we have a couple friends over and celebrate with more formality, but we wanted to make this day special, too.

Just for fun, tonight I measured her and with all her squirming, wiggling and wanting to grab the measuring tape, she measured 30" tall. I might try and get a weight tomorrow. She just barely has 8 teeth! Her 8th tooth cut through between yesterday and today.

She is well aware of what "no" means, and is usually quite happy to not obey :P Her favorite things to do that she's not supposed to is play in the cat's water and food, dig in the kitchen trash, and open the cupboards underneath the sink. We have plenty of teachable moments every day! She is so cute, though, when she will look at us while she's contemplating the crime, and then shake her head "no".

She has finally figured out how to "walk" if we are holding her hands, similar to how she walks in her walker. But she won't hold her arms up and hold our hands, she holds her arms by her sides and bent at the elbow. Awkward for us, but cute :) That is not her normal mode of getting around, but we do it sometimes for fun.

She is our Ladybug and Sunshine, so very special to us. It is an honor to be her Mama, and I pray that we'll teach and raise her to be a wonderful, lovely, Godly, young lady.

Cloth Diapering: Take 2

2011-03-10T16:28:00.003-05:00

So, barely a week into using cloth diapers most of the time (except for night-time or going away), we're back to using disposables until Susannah's nasty diaper rash goes away. I've been looking at "how to kill yeast in diapers" searches this afternoon, and everybody has their own way. Which one to pick, which one to pick??!! Arrrrg. I don't know that what she has is yeast, but she's had more and worse diaper rash since I started cloth than she's had in the entire 51 previous weeks of her life.

I've been changing her more often. I've always wiped her clean regardless of wet or wet & poopy. I've been using Desitin very liberally and with verrrry slow results. I started using Coconut Oil, too. I'm not sure if that's making a difference or not but I figure it can't hurt. By the way, is it just me that get's aggravated at who.ev.er designed the Desitin can so you have to stick your WHOLE HAND in it to use the bottom half of the cream?!?!?!

This morning at Kroger I stood in an embarrassing section of the store - which is directly in line with the cashiers! - trying to figure out which box of Monistat-like product would get me just a TUBE of the grease. I think every single box has all sorts of things I don't need with it. Arrg. And price ranges from $6 to $26. I suspect that Susannah has a yeast infection instead of just diaper rash, and a friend recommended Monistat. I put some on her before her afternoon nap, we'll see if there's any improvement here in a bit when she gets up.

I had no earthly idea what a big can of worms switching to cloth would be. I'm trying to decide if I want to stick it out or just avoid all the headache and go back to disposables. Regardless, I need to de-yeast the diapers. What does that mean? From the best I can figure out, I need to use HOT, HOT, HOT water and some sort of oxygenating bleach. Or I could use Tea Tree Oil. Or Grapefruit Seed Extract Oil. Or Motor Oil*. Or rub them with organic compost*. Or send them into outer space and do a handstand while facing the equator with one eye closed and both shoes untied while I wait for the diapers to re-enter and come back to Earth*. And then hang them in the sun to dry (which I'm already doing).

*Ok, yes, I'm exaggerating, but there's a billion different theories. I just want to kill the dad-blamed stuff!

*Don't do these things. I was joking.

So yeah. Here I thought I was going to be adding a cutesy little "super-domestic-mom-who-CDs" button to my hat and all it's done is add headache. On top of that, I thought surely this week was going to go great. I mean, Daniel and I had a mini-getaway for our anniversary (that never got blogged about... sigh) with lots of R&R, and I was rearing to go Monday morning. I think Monday went great, Tuesday went good... and Wednesday, well, I'm about to go bury my head in the sand again.

And on that note, I need to get off and go empty the slop that is stinking up the place.

Oh, and not to mention that Susannah's first birthday is tomorrow and I have done ZERO to prepare for it. I want to do something fun tomorrow for her!

Wednesday Morning Randomness

2011-03-09T08:52:00.005-05:00

We made the switch to all wireless phones to save about $40-$50 a month. When we first moved here we had terrible cell phone service in the house, but then they put a tower in just a mile or two from here and now we have service all the time. Plus most of the people I talk to most frequently are "in" so I won't be using minutes most of the time :) Moving to wireless meant that yesterday we were without Internet while everything was straightened out. I didn't realize how much I rely on the Internet for social interaction! Maybe I need to unplug every once in a while.

*****

Our camera bit the dirt, er, sand. Somehow I had a little bit of sand in my coat pocket, and when I put the camera in my coat pocket the two mixed. Sand got down in the lens cracks. Not good. Daniel tried to get it out. I tried to vacuum it out. Daniel tried to take the camera apart but that wasn't working. We started to consider our options: Getting the camera fixed vs. buying a new one. Monday I spent a large portion of the afternoon finding local places that even repair cameras, and then getting estimates. Estimates were at least 1/2 of what we paid for the camera 6 years ago and would take several weeks, so we decided to replace. More time on the Internet :) Say hello to my new friend:

Photo Source

A Nikon Coolpix P100. I have been longing and desiring for a Nikon DSLR 300, but spending that much wasn't prudent or wise at this time. So we went middle of the road. And we discussed what dollar amount we would spend BEFORE we decided. This one has more bells and whistles than our old camera, and already I'm liking what I've figured out so far. I have a LOT of reading, experimenting, learning and practicing to do, but somehow I don't think I'll mind :) (And this camera came with a lens cap - no more sand accidents!)

*****

Monday late afternoon I heard teeny, tiny mewing coming from Susannah's room. Uh-oh. Did she really?! She didn't. She did. She did?? She did!! Our mama cat, Chubby, had her 5 little kittens underneath Susannah's dresser. We knew she was about ready to pop, but Daniel was guessing later this week. I highly suspected that she was going to do her best to have them indoors, but I really hoped she would find a nice cozy place down in our shed or in the carport that she liked better. Haha, the joke's on me!

Less than 24 hrs. old

The fun thing is that they are right in Susannah's line of sight when she's (awake) in her crib. The amazing thing is Chubby's dedication to her babies! She did not leave them once from the time they were born (Mon. afternoon) until Tuesday morning. And that was to run outside quick, get a bite to eat and then she went back to them. Now she'll go outside for a little longer, but when she comes back in, she RUNS into Susannah's room to her babies. I feel a little badly that we will be getting her "fixed" after the kittens are weaned - she's such a good mama cat! - but we can't keep running a baby factory.

*****

On the laundry front, except for cloth diapers, we've entered the season of drying all the clothes in the dryer. Daniel's allergies are starting up already. He sneezed probably 10 times this morning. On the cloth diaper front, I'm getting along pretty good, I think! I figured out that I need to change Susannah a little more often, but aside from the 1st major flood, we haven't experienced any leaks. I only have enough diapers for 2 1/2 days, though, so I think I'll be getting some more.

And that's all the "exciting" stuff that's been going on lately :) Time has flown by this morning and while the laundry has been going, I haven't gotten very far with other stuff. Gotta keep movin'!

I Can't Lose

2011-03-04T14:48:00.004-05:00

Ugh, some days I just want to bury my head in the sand. Or at least become a hermit and live in a cave where dishes and clothes wouldn't matter.

Since I can't do either of those (well, I guess I could do either one), I just have to tough it out.

If I am going to win the war against the dirty dishes, I must fight the battle and wash them.

If I am going to win the war against the mountain of clean clothes piled at the foot of my bed, I must fight the battle and fold them. AND put them away.

If I am going to win the war against the stuff that piles on the table and counters, I must fight the battle and keep the stuff put where it belongs. And "file it instead of pile it."

If I am going to win the war against not getting enough sleep, I must fight the urge to stay up late and just go to bed. And go to sleep instead of reading.

If I am going to win the battle and do my Bible Study Homework, I must fight and make it a priority and just. do. it.

*****

These are some things I have been struggling with a lot this year. I cannot use Susannah as an excuse. I cannot use being a mama as an excuse. I know this because looking through my lists LAST YEAR, when Susannah was only months old, I accomplished these things fairly regularly. I know I can do it again. I just have to be the boss of my "don't want to's" and tell myself that "oh, yes, I AM going to do those things!"

Just another post, keepin' it real here.

Plus, I can do ALL things through Christ, right (Philippians 4:13)? As Steve Green says, "not just some things, but ALL things."

Cloth Diapering: Take 1

2011-03-02T10:29:00.004-05:00

For a while now I've been slowly warming to the idea of using cloth diapers. My initial reasons for not using cloth was

(a) I do not want to scrub poopy diapers in the toilet. No way. My mom did it - good for her, but I do. not. want. to. End of story. Oh, and I do not want poop in my washing machine. I know people do it, kudos to those who do, but I don't want to. My washing machine isn't a toilet, Haha!

(b) With coupons and sales I was getting Huggies (my fav. brand) really cheap, so I was thrilled to use disposables.

Now that Huggies isn't ~~trying to give away the old style with the old packaging~~ offering the rock bottom sales and coupons on every corner like they used to, I've been paying more and more closely to the shelf price when I buy diapers. And I'm starting to dread having to pay another $20 for a big box of diapers.

When I got to thinking about it, I usually only change Susannah 5-6 times a day, and most of those times she's just wet. And when she does have a dirty diaper it's no longer the ooey, gooey breast-fed baby poop, but stuff that would be a lot easier to get off the diaper with minimal cleaning.

So... I thought I'd take the cloth diaper plunge, at least part-time. My SIL had given me a huge grocery bag full of cloth diapers back when Susannah was born, so I already had diapers. Friends have loaned me diaper covers and a Snappi.

Yesterday I washed and line dried everything, and this morning I could not figure out the best way to fold the diaper to get it to fit well. These aren't the pre-fold diapers, but the enormous, huge, single-layer diapers. I was a little bit ashamed that I couldn't remember how Mom folded hers! I managed to get it on Susannah, but I think I need to experiment a little and see if I can improve.

I'm not sure what Susannah thinks of it. She has been a royal crab this morning (she's down for a nap now) and I don't know what the deal is. She is not usually this way. I'm hoping it's not the diapers, cause she'll just have to get used to it if that is her problem!

But now that she's wearing a cloth diaper, I'd better go find something to use as a makeshift diaper pail until I can find something suitable...

If you use the huge, non-prefolded diapers, please comment and tell me how you fold it! I think I could do ok with the way I did it this morning if I was going to use diaper pins, but I like the idea of the Snappi better than poking my fingers or Susannah.

28 Days of Love - Day Whatever

2011-02-28T15:45:00.004-05:00

My Grandma

Yesterday we celebrated Grandma's 90th birthday. Ninety!

Grandma and Granddaddy lived within hollerin' distance of our house when I was a kid, and I know her better than any of my other relatives, I think. Grandma has ALWAYS, always, always, always made me feel special. Granddaddy was a member of different dairy associations and sometimes traveled overnight for meetings and conferences. If he was going to be away for more than a night, Grandma would invite one of us kids to spend the night with her. Oh boy, THAT was special!! Even though they lived so close, it was SOOOOO special and made me feel SO IMPORTANT to spend the night with Grandma!! Spending the night at her house meant I could pack my little, hard-sided, "Going to Grandma's" suitcase and well, it was just THE THING!

Grandma was an excellent cook, she could make anything delicious, so eating supper and breakfast with her was always fun, too. Sometimes she would ask what I wanted for supper or breakfast. One time I asked her to make Johnnycakes like in the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Lo and behold, she made Johnnycakes for me for breakfast!

There are so many things about Grandma that make her so special to me, I could write and write and write. Getting together yesterday to celebrate her 90 years was very special. Watching MY daughter get to know her Great-Grandma, and watching MY Grandma get to know MY daughter - Wow. (I didn't know any of my great-grandparents.)

Grandma no longer lives in her trailer on the farm, she has moved into an assisted living part of a nursing home. She doesn't remember details sometimes, but she is still Grandma. Kinda reminds me of the book, Love You Forever.

Ok, before I start bawling and snotting all over the place...

I have decided that instead of trying to play catch-up with my 28 Days of Love project, I'm going to let it end where it is. The camera is still not working and I don't want to leave this hanging in limbo.

I really enjoyed doing the 28 Days of Love, even though it didn't quite make it the whole 28 days! I will admit that some days I had to think and look for things to post. Other days I had lots of ideas. I still have some that I never got around to. One thing that I did learn - and I thought I would learn this - is that there IS love around me, if I just look for it. Some days it's easy to feel unloved, but when I start looking... there's lots of evidence that I am very, very loved. By my Heavenly Father, my husband, my daughter, my church family, my Grandma ;) ... and it doesn't end there. Sometimes it's not the big flashing neon sign that says "I Love You" - which is what we see the easiest - and instead it's the little things that we don't notice or think to pay attention to.

Just look for it. It's there.

Just Like The Old Cow's Tail (And a garden update)

2011-02-24T22:17:00.006-05:00

Ugh. I am way behind (2 whole days) on my 28 Days of Love Project. I just haven't been able to get pictures taken and blog posts written. I have a list of things, I just need to find time to get them photographed and written about.

Actually... I just realized that it might end up being OLD pictures, since the camera has accidentally been handicapped and isn't working right now :(

Yesterday my pea seeds came :) This afternoon while Susannah took her nap I went out - in the drizzling rain - and planted peas! It wasn't supposed to rain until this evening - I guess the weather man was wrong! I knew if I didn't get out there and plant them today, it was only going to get more muddy and be harder to do. So I pulled on my faithful Tingly boots that Mom gave me for Christmas (yay!) and tromped on out there.

Daniel helped me measure off the corners of the garden so I'd be sure to get the first row square in the garden, and then I measured off of each row for the following one. Then I used some string, a stick and a shovel to pull a straight line for me to follow with the hoe to get straight rows. (I am OCD about having straight rows - it makes the garden look much nicer.) After I went through each row twice, I sprinkled in some fertilizer. Then I found a piece of discard lumber from the trash pile (plenty of trash lumber with the addition project going on!) and dragged it through each row to stir the fertilizer in a bit.

1 lb. of pea seeds later, Tada!

I had just the perfect amount of dug up space to fit 6 rows :) The rows are roughly 3' apart.

I'm so tickled to have the peas in the ground already! Last year we planted the Tuesday (3/9) before Susannah was born on Thursday, and I knew I wanted to get them in a little earlier this year. As early as possible is best for our area since it can get too hot for the plants if we wait even until mid-March.

So, all the garden stuff on top of maintaining barely the bare necessities of housekeeping, the house looks like a tornado went through. One of my sisters is coming for a quick weekend visit and I hope to lasso her into helping me do some whirlwind cleaning and get the place whipped into better shape.

So that's where I'm at! I might be on top of getting my peas planted, but I am way, way, way behind in so many other departments. The title of this post comes from an old diddy we used to sing sometimes while we were waiting for somebody. One of line is "Always behind, just like the old cow's tail."

For now, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow's another busy day, getting together with a friend to try some new recipes, picking my sister up from the airport, and hopefully getting some of these dishes and laundry piles under control.

28 Days of Love - Day 22

2011-02-23T14:59:00.003-05:00

A very cute, cuddly little girl
who almost always wakes up happy!

*ahem* Please pretend like I'm not more and more frequently getting a day behind on this project, ok? Thanks.

********
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I Procrastinate So Well

2011-02-22T15:42:00.004-05:00

Does anyone besides me do this? Just procrastinate away even when you know you shouldn't?

My #1 "Goal" for this year is to GET ENOUGH SLEEP AT NIGHT!!!

Do you have any idea how well-rested I'm feeling lately? Ha! Not very much. (And no, I'm not pregnant for any of you who might wonder if my being tired is because I'm pregnant.) Whose fault is it that I don't crawl in bed until 11, or 11:30... or 11:45 at night, and then have to bust out of bed before 7am to start the day. 6-ish hours of sleep just doesn't cut it for me. 7 is decent, but I function and feel 100 times better on closer to 8.

Susannah goes to bed between 8:30/45, so I should easily be able to crawl in bed by 10, right? The problem is, I have no excuse most nights. None. I don't stay up late cleaning up the kitchen, or finishing the dishes, or sweeping the floors, or folding laundry. I mean, I might piddle around here and there working on something but not really.

I do better going to bed earlier, feeling alive!! when I wake up, and then I have more spunk, self-motivation, and energy to do what I need to do. Otherwise I feel like something the cat drug in.

So, I know today is Tuesday. It's not the start of a new week, or month or year. Shoot, it's even the middle of the afternoon, so it's not even the start of a new day. But tonight I'm going to get a new grip on this goal and see if I can't master it again. All I have to do is go to bed! I love crawling in bed! I love sleeping! So what's the big deal?

28 Days of Love - Day 21

2011-02-21T15:19:00.003-05:00

My rings from Daniel

The engagement ring that Daniel gave me has a story :) It was his great-grandmothers engagement ring from her 2nd husband (she was widowed). I think it's from the 1960's if I remember right? It fits me perfectly! Daniel proposed to me January 1st of 2004. But he didn't have the ring yet as it was still at the jewelers to be cleaned. That was a Friday, I believe. The next Thursday he surprised me by driving 2 hours just to bring me the ring!

We picked out our wedding bands together of course. That was fun and exciting to do! We chose to have them engraved on the inside with our initials joined by a heart, our wedding date and the words "In Him" ("Him" being Christ).

These rings are very special to me, of course. They are visible proof of Daniel's love for me, and his promise to always love me. That is what we tell Susannah, too, when she notices our rings, "that means Daddy (or Mama) loves Mama (or Daddy) very much, and promises to always love her (or him)." And usually we go on to tell her how much we love her too!

So yeah, that's my love for today :)

Growing Up

2011-02-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

Dear Susannah,

I love you, my little girl! It is hard to believe that you are already 11 months old, and not a teeny baby anymore. You have finally figured out how to scoot yourself forward, and you are quite happy being able to get around on the floor better. You still get around the best in your walker - cruising around the small space we have here, going down the hallway, turning around and coming back, going over to the piano and stretching as tall as you can so you can reach the keys, digging all of my dishcloths and hot-mats out of "your" drawer in my kitchen, and then carting them off to other areas of the house leaving me with an empty drawer! You also like to steal the hand towel from the stove handle :)

The most recent milestone for you is that you are now weaned. To borrow a line from my friend, Rachel C., I was committed to nursing you to one year old. I didn't mind nursing you and gladly did so for you to eat and grow, but it wasn't something I longed and desired for. For the first couple months of your life you were such a sloooow eater, I was eager for the day to come when I wouldn't have to spend 1/2 of every day feeding you. You took a long time to eat - usually up to 1 hour. It was wonderful when you started finishing in 45 minutes... then you got it down to about 1/2 an hour when you were 6 months and that was even better :) Around 9 months you had it down to about 10 or 15 minutes, you were fast.

About the time you turned 10 months old you started not wanting to eat a meal some days, usually either the supper feeding or bedtime feeding. But when offered a drink from your sippy cup you would drink quite a bit. By 10 1/2 months it was normal for you to not want the bed-time feeding, and sometimes even either the lunch or supper-time feeding. I suspected that you were starting to self-wean and confided with a friend who said that was most likely the case. That's when I started offering you cows milk :) Oh boy, you didn't like it one bit. It took about a week of trying different things - warm, cold, very warm, sippy cup, bottle... and finally you would drink very warm cows milk from a bottle. I was still committed to nursing you as much as you would until your first birthday, but I wondered if you would keep going that long.

I knew my milk supply was quickly dropping because the times you would still nurse - always breakfast and lunch - it wasn't taking very long at all and you were still thirsty afterwards. You finally gave up the lunch feeding about a week before you turned 11 months. You hung on to the breakfast feeding until February 12th. I was guessing that any day would be the last time I would nurse you. Sure enough, that morning you were only half-heartedly interested and after a minute you were done and didn't want any more.

It was bittersweet. It didn't bother me so much that I wasn't ever going to nurse you again as much as it was confirmation that you are growing and changing. I still cuddle you and snuggle you. And rock you in the same rocking chair. I hope that you will love to rock as much as I do. Rocking is therapy for the soul, I believe.

You are growing up. Before I know it you will be crawling and then walking one day. One thing I promise for sure, I will love you all the way. Forever. And always.

Mama

28 Days of Love - Day 20

2011-02-20T17:56:00.003-05:00

It is hard to believe there are only 8 days left!

"Little" gifts from Daniel.

Daniel pays attention to the little, very minor things that I mention wanting, and then sometime later gives me a gift of "that thing"!

I think the first one was a 1-cup Pyrex measuring cup that he gave me a few months after we were married. We had a 2-cup and an 8-cup. No big deal except I grew up with a 1-cup and kept forgetting that what I had NOW was a 2-cup!! Lots of batches of pancakes, muffins and other recipes calling for "1 cup" ended up as double batches out of mistake! He was working at a house that was preparing for a yard-sale and noticed the 1-cup measuring cup that was going to be for sale. He bought it, just for me.

I think the same yard-sale is where he bought the old-style, 25lb. kitchen scales that he gave me. I think I had thought of buying a kitchen scale but was terribly disappointed to find only itty-bitty, few pound ones in today's market. What if I wanted to weigh a dishpan of produce, or a turkey, or something bigger than 5lbs??

This past Christmas I had "a little cooking pot" on my Christmas List. The one I had - which he had given me - was wearing out. I wanted something nice and small to cook a few eggs in, make a little bit of gravy in, or whatever. He found and gave me the cute little blue pot I have pictured! It is the perfect size for hardboiling 2 eggs and that is what I use it most for. Since it is so small, it comes to a boil pretty quickly and doesn't take much heat to keep it boiling for the 10 minutes.

Daniel makes me feel VERY loved, and not just by showering me with gifts.

28 Days of Love - Day 19

2011-02-20T17:41:00.002-05:00

Reading.

It will be no surprise to any of my family that reads this, I love to read. To the point of pretending like I could read before I could read. Yes, I really did it. I picked out a book from our vast, bursting at the seams "library" - I think it was the 1st book in the Grandma's Attic series, sat in a chair and "read" the book. I looked at each page for what I deemed an appropriate amount of time (there were no pictures, just words!), slowly making my way through the book. I don't remember if I made it all the way through or not, but I remember doing it and wishing I knew what the words were!

From the time I actually did learn to read until I got married, I had my nose buried in a book as often as I could. Now I don't read as much, but it is certainly not from lack of want! Mostly because of time, but also because 99% of my books are boxed up and in the attic from lack of space for them in our living area. A good friend of mine has given me a few books lately and I have been devouring them when I allow myself.

I hope I am passing along my love for reading to Susannah. From the picture above (taken in January), it looks like I might be succeeding :)

SQUEEE!!! Seeds!!!

2011-02-18T14:09:00.003-05:00

Guess what the mail-man just dropped off?? Guess-oh-guess-oh-guess!

My garden seeds!! I still don't have my pea seeds yet, which I would reallyreallyreally like to come ASAP, but I am very thrilled to have these so fast! I ordered them... Tuesday I think?

Here's the list of the loot:
*3 kinds of spinach: Giant Winter, Bloomsdale and Long-Standing Summer Perfection

*2 kinds of lettuce: a heat tolerant head lettuce and a Romaine

*Yellow and Zucchini Squash

* Cucumbers

*Black Beauty Eggplant

*Broccoli

*Beets

*Yellow Sweet Peppers

*Amish Paste Tomatoes

I think this afternoon will find me working at getting some of these started. Oh joy!!

28 Days of Love - Day 18

2011-02-18T13:40:00.002-05:00

What's not to love??!!

We're wearing short sleeves and have the windows open over here!! It is a MOST gorgeous day :)

28 Days of Love - Day 17

2011-02-17T07:42:00.003-05:00

Line-dried sheets.

Ahh, there is nothing like crawling into a freshly made bed that smells like fresh air! I always loved it growing up, and I still love it today! Because of where we live and Daniel's allergies, pretty soon I'll have to go back to using the dryer while we go through the season of green dust. It's always hard for me to use the dryer when spring is finally here, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts and be eager for the spring pollen to finish doing it's thing so I can enjoy it some more :)

I apologize for the poor quality of the picture! I knew I wanted to take it but it completely slipped my mind when we came back inside and I put Susannah down for her nap.

28 Days of Love - Day 16

2011-02-17T07:31:00.004-05:00

Beautiful Sunrises

I wish I knew how to take pictures of sunrises so they could look like what I see with my eyes. The sunrise this morning was soooo pretty. And different friends on Facebook said they had noticed it too. Now, I am not a firm believer of getting up before the sun. I will be the first to admit that I enjoy my bed and sleep! But, if I do have to get up before the sun, I sure do love watching the sunrise! God is an amazing Creator. He could just have the sunrises look the same, every.single.day. Or He could've only given us black & white vision, or not even created colors. But He did and He gave us eyes that can see His beautiful creation! When I think of it like that, how can I not feel loved?

28 Days of Love - Day 15

2011-02-15T09:37:00.000-05:00

My Church-Mom, Betsy

I love Betsy! I don't think I knew her before I started singing in the choir at church, and it just worked out that my seat was next to hers. We hit it off right away and have been singing and laughing together ever since. She is wonderful! I love her so much, and she always makes me feel loved every time I see her. We are so much alike. She is very wise and I love learning from her. She is a woman far more precious than rubies, I want to be like her when I grow up.

28 Days of Love - Day 14

2011-02-14T18:49:00.003-05:00

*mushy picture alert*

Kisses from Daniel

I don't need to say much else... :) They always let me know that he loves me, and they always make me feel loved.

This picture is from our wedding day - no kiddin! - when we kissed for the first time, in front of a bunch of people. He can still turn my heart into a puddle...

28 Days of Love - Day 13

2011-02-14T18:38:00.002-05:00

Valentines Gifts from Daniel

I posted on day 12 about going on dates with Daniel. That evening we went on a "date" with a bunch of other couples from our Sunday School class for a Valentines Social. It was a great evening of fun - with each other and with our friends. Daniel's mom came over and kept Susannah here. When we got home and parked the car I thanked Daniel for the fun date night. "It's not over yet!" was his reply, quickly followed by "Stay right here." He got out of the car and soon returned with the bear and chocolates! He had even bought these ahead of time! Daniel ~~doesn't often~~ ~~rarely~~ almost never gives me gifts outside of Christmas, maybe my birthday and maybe our anniversary, so this was a sweet (no pun intended) surprise! The box of chocolates has a spotted puppy dog on the front and it says "You have a spot in my heart!" That is SO Daniel, and he makes me feel so loved.

28 Days of Love - Day 12

2011-02-12T22:52:00.003-05:00

Going on dates with Daniel.

THIS is something I really love :) It's been a while since we went on a date, and we had a wonderful time this evening. Just because we are married we have NOT stopped dating. We feel it's important to not only our relationship, but to the health of our whole family that we keep dating each other. It helps keep our relationship strong - and helps us stay "in love" ;), which in turn helps keep our family solid.

28 Days of Love - Day 11

2011-02-11T22:32:00.002-05:00

Something that I love seeing:

My white-board calendar

I like this white board calendar anyway, but I have extra fun being a little artsy when I fill out each month. This month I put hearts. Every time I look at it I just kinda feel a little giggly because I have the best Valentine in the whole world!

Nourishing Foods - Grocery Shopping

2011-02-10T17:11:00.005-05:00

This is my last post for this series, showing what our current "Nourishing Foods" grocery shopping looks like. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them as best I can!

(Just for kicks, I'll throw the prices in today as a bonus.)
Organic Romaine Lettuce - $2.99
Stonyfield Organic Yogurt - $3.99
Kroger Orange Juice - $3.49
(2) 1/2 gal. Local Milk - $2.99 ea.
Bananas - $1.50
3lb. Cara Cara Oranges - $3.99
King Arthur All Natural White Wheat Flour - $4.69
Kroger All Natural Peanut Butter - $1.89
(2) T-bone Steaks - $10.48
Private Selections Beef Roast - $10.39
Reg. Roast - $10.08
Chicken Breasts - $8.28
Pears - $1.96
Avocados - $2.00
Naturally Preferred Brown Eggs - $2.59
Pepsi & Dr. Pepper - $4.00 ea.

Total: $83.92

I didn't think my total was too bad considering all the meat I bought and for getting more "delicious toxins" for Daniel (aka his sodas). I saw the steaks marked down and thought they would make a birthday dinner extra special next month.

The Private Selections roast was also marked down from just under $18. Ever since watching Food, Inc. a second time I have been getting more and more leery of feeding Susannah generic meat. I have heard that Private Selections is a high quality brand (they have a high quality price tag, I know that much!), so I am hoping that they really are. Anyway, this roast will be specifically for Susannah, and Daniel and I will eat the other one (most of it will probably go towards his sandwich meat).

I was excited to see the bananas marked down, too :) Daniel likes Banana Pudding or Banana Cream Pie and I haven't made either of those for him in forever. I'll make one of those for him and the rest of the bananas I'll freeze to add to smoothies. They are nice bananas for being mark-downs!

To keep this post from getting too long, I'll do a "grocery shopping wrap up" post later, with what I've learned from these first few weeks of our journey.

28 Days of Love - Day 10

2011-02-10T10:39:00.004-05:00

Day 10:

Fresh Snow

I don't think there's anything nature-wise, in the winter, that I love more than snow. Well, actually, I love to see snow falling. There is something so magical about falling snow. But since it snowed while I was asleep, this picture is of the next best thing :) I enjoy wintertime, and I can appreciate cold weather, but when it snows it makes it so much more fun. And snow is such a beautiful reminder of what Christ did for me: though my sins were as crimson, they are white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). I always think of that verse when I see snow. I love how God uses His creation to remind us of His promises.