A Peek At Our Life

June 15, 2008

Updates

I'm now in a season of modified bed rest. For every 2 hours of being up-and-about, I have to be horizontal for 2 hours. Now you know why I haven't been posting! ~wink~

The Buzz Around Me

Dad and the boys hustling through some projects to help make the weekdays easier for us.

Kitchen Happenings

That experiment didn't last long... Mr. Visionary bought me another big fridge courtesy of Craigslist. We don't go to town/shop often enough to live without fridge space.

In Our Schoolroom

School has been rearranged to fit into one of Mom's 2 hour blocks of *down time*. This is neat...I can pay much closer attention to the little ones from here. We set up a small *desk* for them right beside the couch.

The Garden View

The sunbox plants were destroyed by some stray puppies who managed to wiggle in. The garden looks pretty shabby. A few tomato plants, and what's left of the sugar snap peas after the baby goats got into the garden. Sigh. Not everything is easy to manage from the couch.

In The Sewing Room

Can I just say that I am in love? My new sewing machine has changed my life! (At least my sewing life.) I can manage about an hour at a time here and there in my *up time* to finish whittling away at some projects. I know I won't have time to finish them after the babies are here... at least not for a long time.

Home-keeping Agenda

Just the 3D basics: Dishes, Diapers and Duds... and sometimes we clean the bathrooms.

Simple Joys

Forced couch time means more cuddle time with my Littles.

Preparing for Twins

I add this link below only because local folks have asked. These are the things that we will be trying to buy before the babies arrive. So, while matching outfits are fun, these things are the priorities for us. (P.S. Anyone who knows me in real life knows that used items are perfectly OK... well...just not the diaper liners. *grin*) I will remove stuff that we have already gotten.

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My 2008 Goals

Well...my hopes anyway


~Deliver two healthy new babies safely and not too early.

~Switch to cloth everything...napkins, wipes, diapers, etc.
**Napkins, diapers & wipes done!

~Switch to non-electric kitchen appliances...grain mill, blender, food processor, etc.
**Got the grain mill with the money I made from selling junk stuff on eBay!**

~Learn how to make cold-process soap
**I did it! I really did it! I made Rosemary shampoo bars, Lemon-Calendula soap bars and Spearmint-Peppermint-Tea Tree soap bars. It smells so good in my closet where they are curing!**

~Keep a hand-written journal

~Begin putting our family photos into scrapbooks

~Maintain a "no backlog" policy with my sewing projects

~Purposefully put together an emergency plan and kit for our family with batteries, radio, canned food, clothes, etc. and have it packed and ready to *go*

~Begin building traditions, recipe files, scrapbooks, etc. for our family's celebrations of the Biblical feasts: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles

~Read some fiction for a change!

Archive for 'Recipes & Kitchen Fun'

Yummy Homemade Toothpaste!

If you are like me and use flouride-free toothpaste without SLS and other yucky ingredients, you are likely paying a lot for toothpaste. Any of the brands we have found that meet the criteria we are looking for cost about $5.00 per tube, for a not-so-family-sized tube. (If you don’t understand why someone would want […]

Homemade Prenatal Vitamins

I stopped taking prenatal vitamins a few pregnancies ago because I don’t really feel comfortable with singled-out vitamins (out of their naturally occurring form, i.e. “food”). I looked around for a natural supplement as well, reading lots of ingredient lists and testimonials, but I either didn’t like the company well enough to buy from […]

Nutrition During Pregnancy

I’ve been asked several times recently about nutrition and supplements for pregnancy, and have also been reviewing my own notes for my own pregnancy, so I thought I’d share here about this timely-for-me topic for my own benefit, too. I have done much research on this and had a bit of experiential data (i.e. I’ve […]

I’ve Gotta Tell *Someone*

My seven year old son is particularly adept at dragging a day’s lesson of Explode-The-Code out for several hours. If I could find any verses referencing it (which, to his chagrin, there are none), I might be able to call it a spiritual gift. However, I am convinced that it is a gift to be […]

Leftover Oatmeal Transformed

After going through the trouble of making yogurt to save a jar of whey, buying from a co-op 50 pound bags of organic oat groats, rolling it into oatmeal, soaking the grain overnight in the whey mixture, cooking it and adding organic butter and coconut oil… I can not bear to throw the stuff away. […]

Cincinatti Five-Way Chili

In honor of it being:

a) finally cold outside
b) Kitchen Day at our house (per the Large Family Logistics Plan)
c) a dish my family has been asking for,

I am posting my recipe for Cincinati Five-Way Chili. My Mother-In-Law came home from a work trip with this recipe about 12 years ago. While in Cincinati, she […]

Tincture Time!

I promised a post on making herbal tinctures, and here it is!

Everybody’s doing it. The more folks learn about natural health, and taking seriously the stewardship of their health, the more folks are learning about herbal medicine. Making your own herbal medicine is combining health stewardship and financial stewardship. Even Martha (who surely doesn’t view […]

Redeeming Lunch

Nesting seems to be covering many aspects of the daily workings of our home these days. I’ve been painting, cleaning, ditching stuff, and reworking systems to be more automated. Reinventing the wheel on a daily basis is not as efficient for me as reading a previously thought-out list of ideas. Read that: I don’t think […]

Loaves, Fishes and New Pants

It is a fact. Life is not predictable.  The weather doesn’t always do what I would like, nor does the IRS. Diapers flood on the way out the door, and children don’t always grow at the rate I expect. Growth spurts happen typically when I least expect them. The first evidence of their arrival is an increase […]

Our Idea of Family Bonding?

Folks spend their weekend evenings in all manner of ways. Some go out, some stay in. Some relax in front of the TV, others get a head-start on their weekend chores. Our family doesn’t have a set pattern for Friday night activities-we wing it based on whatever is going on at the moment.

This Friday night, […]

All Available Resources

Our second child, The Flower Child, was out this morning for her birthday breakfast with Dad. Tradition is, that while the birthday child is away, the rest of us scurry around to get party preparations in order, as well as start on any other weekend work.

Since I was missing one of my biggest kitchen helpers, others […]

Live It Up Meals

The more folks you have in your family, the more variables there are. Three toddlers increase the odds of being late to church more than one toddler. Three boys sharing a room create a higher likelihood of finding crusty dried critters under the bed than one lone boy. Life is like this.

In some ways […]

This Ain’t No Kool-aid

I can’t even pronounce the word, and I have no idea what it will taste like, but I’m game. I’m always up for trying something new in the kitchen. Especially something that comes with so much “good press” and favorable research about it’s healthful properties.

And just like any other kitchen experiment at our house: […]

Scoreboard for Mothering Success

I have at least one proof of my success in mothering. It happened tonight at dinner.

First, a little background. I am a crunchy type- you know, really into healthy eating: grain mill, Nourishing Traditions, raw milk and all that. I don’t hug trees, I just believe in good stewardship of our health. My kids have […]

Gargling Ketchup

These substances were never meant to be drunk. Gulped, guzzled or gargled, they miss their intended use. On the list of “Things-I-Never-Thought-I’d-Say”, is the frequent injunction to my children (namely those of the male persuasion), “It’s a condiment, not a beverage”.
I have never been a stickler for the purist mentality in feeding small children. […]