I remember a friend had given us some watermelons. Maybe as a gesture of thankfulness I wanted to show that we didn’t take the gift for granted and wanted to use up every bit. Maybe I was panicking about how we would feed all these children and wanting to put at least something aside for later. More likely I was prideful and wanted to either show off how frugal I was (this kind of relish or pickle is made with the rinds- the part that we would normally throw away) or that I could still manage to do things like that while pregnant with twins. I cannot know now, I no longer remember. What I do remember is that I was on bedrest, almost nine months pregnant with twins. I was allowed two hours up to manage life in between every other two hours being horizontal. The fact that making and canning this ridiculous relish was how I chose to spend my precious two hours up makes me sick.

How I wish this was a random act of idiocy on my part. Sadly, it is all too often the way I in particular, and we women in general walk through life. Making foolish choices that have no value in eternity while neglecting the better things that will be investments in the Time to Come has been my modus opperandi . Father, could you save me from myself, please?

I love one-subject notebooks and use them daily for lists and those thousand things I write down to clear brain space. As I was spiffying my desk the other day, I was purging old lists from my notebooks, ripping and discarding page after page of To-Do Lists. Glancing over the lists was humbling as I saw time and time again how they each had far too much unnecessary activity.  Evaluating item after item on the lists I found myself again wondering incredulously, ‘What was I thinking?’ Why did I think I needed to do X and Y with a husband, home and nine children to care for? Who’s big fat idea was it to add this to my list?

The reason for each thing may have been the same or I could have had some different excuse reason each time. Who knows? I have an educated guess based on my past performances that there was sin involved in each decision to add excess stuff-to-do on my lists. Pride, Fear of Man and Unbelief by not trusting my Father to take care of my needs have all been major players in the past. Whatever the reasons have been, I have to choose to walk differently these days. The fruit of this lifestyle is stress and bitterness because life does not work out the way I plan it and the things on the list never get done. I remember that the children helped me make the relish, but knowing that we only had a two hour window to pull it off explains how I know it could not have been fun. The relish turned out to be really yucky, too.

May our Father give us the grace to know when to just have a picnic and feed the watermelon rinds to the cows… figuratively for you, but literally for me.

Our tax assessment lost $40K in this last year, tempting us to freak out because we will only purchase with cash from here on out. Assuming the selling price is affected, that $40K just cost us greatly. I said tempted because we have not freaked out yet, but you cannot trust that ol’ flesh, you know. It simply means that we will end up living in the bus longer than planned and likely be able to afford only an earth bag house when all is said and done. Mr. Visionary and the children are thrilled about this option and go around calling us the Dirt Bag Family. Me? I flip-flop between terror and adventurous enthusiasm about living in the bus with eleven of us and I still cannot figure out how the earth bag house won’t be full of mildew. (I don’t get how wool diaper covers work, either, but I love them, so we’ll see.)

Our future plans seem very far away and I spend a lot of time asking Father about what we should be doing now. It appears to be a season for preparation in some way, but in what way? We have the last of our cows sold or in the freezer, the goats and chickens have been gone for some time now and I cut off the electricity at the barn. Lots of closure.

Our home fellowship has all but disbanded, so we have our Shabbats free to spend praying and studying as a family, which is good and bad. The busyness of hosting the group kept us from having time to think about our future too much, but our newly quiet Shabbats have stirred the questions awake again.

Do we list the house again, or wait until Spring? Is YHWH limited to the “good season for selling”? Do we make it For Sale By Owner, or find another realtor? Our old realtor marketed it as a gentleman’s estate, but we think it should be marketed as a home for a large family. (How else do you show a house with eleven people living in it?)

What do we do, Father?

How many, many times we have repented and grieved over ever getting a mortgage! We truly are in bondage - not free to go where He calls when He calls.  He will redeem even this situation to grow us and to bring glory to Himself, for sure…but the regret is painful. Praise YHWH that His mercies are new every morning.

I’m just sayin’…I don’t have any answers for what to do while living in limbo, except to continue to seek His face and thank Him for this season. The While I’m Waiting song from Fireproof has been on our lips during this season, but even that is a partial answer. “I will worship while I’m waiting, I will serve You while I’m waiting”…can still be personalized into specific answers to specific questions, but I suspect that the answers to what we should do during this season will only be apparent after the season is over and we’re looking back. Hindsight, you know.

Rebekah has spent the last few years of her life (while many others her age partied and goofed off) working to get herself to India to minister in an orphanage there over and over again. She has such a servant’s heart! Together she and Michael are equally passionate about this, and will be investing the first 8 1/2 months of their married life in this ministry. Bekah has also ministered to me by caring for my children, and they all adore her.

If you get a minute, please drop by and vote for her and Michael to win the free wedding photography. Here is the link to vote.  We can cast votes until November 30, 2009 @11:59 EST to vote and it will only take a second. Thanks to everyone who helps!

P.S. I’ll be back. I think I really just needed a reason to start blogging again. :)

4 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced (you want about three cups worth)

2 small onions, finely chopped

finely chopped bell peppers of any color to taste (we use roughly 1/4 of a pepper per quart)

6-8 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and minced

1/4  bunch cilantro, chopped

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 Tablespoon sea salt (Do not skimp here! This is the key to getting the bad bacteria to not grow while waiting for the lactic acid preservation to complete!)

4 Tablespoons whey (not powdered, use only the real stuff - you know, the watery stuff that is sometimes in yogurt) [Note: if you don’t have this available, use an additional 1 Tablespoon of sea salt, for a total of 2 Tbsp. per quart]

filtered water

Optional: Finely chopped hot peppers to taste. We have used jalapenos, chilies, etc. Use what you have available, and go easy until you see how the peppers react to lacto-fermenting. Some seem to get spicier.

Here’s what you do:

Peel the tomatoes. (Google instructions if you have never done it before.) Chop all the veggies, then mix all veggies into a large bowl along with the lemon juice. We then fill each jar with the veggie and lemon juice mixture, leaving a full 1.5 inch headspace above the tops of the veggies. Smush the veggies down lightly with something non-metal  (your fingers, a wooden spoon, a plastic spatula, etc.). On the top of the veggie mixture, add your sea salt, whey (remember: extra salt if you don’t have this), and filtered water to bring the total volume up to 1 inch below the top of your jar. (Tip: Often you will not need to add any water; the volume will already be high enough.) Cover the jar tightly and shake until the sea salt is dissolved and thouhroughly incorporated into the jar contents. Set them on the counter, and leave at room temperature for about 48 hours. When the time is up, transfer jars to cold storage(i.e. your fridge). Try them after they are cool! The flavors will blend more, and mature after more time in cold storage, but this salsa is also delicious immediately!

Now, go get some Green Mountain Gringo chips (or make your own if you are ambitious) and dig in!

Also, I just came across this other recipe for Lacto-Fermented Salsa last week.

Enjoy!

My template does not like words and pictures intermingled, so I will list the captions here:

1) Sweetie, formerly known as ‘Baby A’. Six teeth and a smidge of curly hair. 22 1/2 lbs of pure bulldog. We call her ‘Truck’, as she isn’t concerned with obstacles - even if the obstacle is her sister.

2) Honey, formerly known as ‘Baby B’. Two teeth with just a sprinkling of peach fuzz. 22 lbs and a good fake fusser. We call her the Drama Queen.

3) Sisterly affection.

4) Morning cuteness.

5) Camera Schmamera. Can you put that thing down and help me, please? (He really is much happier in real life than he ever looks in pictures.)

P.S. I forgot to tell you that the girls are 9 months old now!

I actually never did stop blogging totally. I just never wrote it down. I often blog in my head as I go through the days. I silently mull over what things I would say to no one in particular if there were ever an arena to articulate them.  Most of the time what I would say is just complaining anyway, so I skip the leaving evidence writing it down part on purpose. I also  struggled with the question of audience in blogging. Who exactly is reading this and who exactly am I writing this for? The less I know about who is reading, the better off I imagine myself to be, that way I am not worrying who I will offend or what So-And-So will think of what I write. Regarding who it is for…well, while I would like to say very assuredly that I am writing this for ‘the Lord’, I suspect that it is really just for me. I usually feel better after writing things down, and for now, I am OK with that being the only reason.

A few months ago, after I was once again lamenting that I can never get everything done, a friend lectured exhorted me that there is always ample time in the day to everything ‘that the Lord really wants (me) to do’. Ever eager (unfortunately) to latch on to a dose of condemnation and guilt, I saw this advice and raised it a bit. My self-imposed rules for what needed to be done before I could ____ (blog, paint my toenails, sit still and quiet for five minutes, etc.) never left any room for anything fun whatsoever. After finally (why did I not think of this sooner?) consulting Mr. Visionary about the question of blogging, we discussed how the To-Do List never ends and that my work could conceivably never be done. His advice? Blog anyway.

The truth is, there really are a few folks whom I really do like to have read here. Our schedule is so hectic, and I see Mr. Visionary so little four days out of the week, that I really like it when he catches up on my blog sometimes and then wants to discuss something I wrote. A post Holly put up a few days ago reminded me of the other audience I especially love - my children. I thought about how wonderful it will be for her children to look back at that video (and that post). The things you want to say do not always get said in the hustle and bustle of normal days in a large family. I want my children to be able to look at this (online now, but on paper years from now) and see what my thoughts were toward them. I suspect that there are parts of our life now -especially my thoughts toward them- that they just will not fully understand until they are Mommas and Daddies themselves.

So, without further long, drawn-out explanation, I’m back. I hope to be able to pop in more often now. And I’ll be sure to give you an update on the family, the happenings, and  all the luscious baby chub around here!

It is perfectly alright to say, “Well I was wondering where you were!” And if you’re reading this on Bloglines, I updated the sidebar finally - come see.

Have you ever wanted to learn how to make a healing salve?  Would you like to know how to make an effective cough syrup?  Want to brew a cup of healing tea?  Does the word tincture scare you…bewilder you?  If you answered yes to any of these, keep on reading!

This is where I learned the most about making herbal medicine, and I cannot recommend it enough! Tell Cheri I said, “Hi!” when you visit her!

As much as in years past, this kind of statement would make me roll my eyes and sigh with irritation at folks who did the same, our examination led us to completely revamp our celebrations of our Saviour’s birth. We no longer observe Christmas, even though at one time I snickered at my impression of others who did not, assured that they were sanctimoniously “holier than thou”. I was sure folks were making too big a deal of small issues and were highly uptight. Oh brother.

I’ll not go into all the reasons why we no longer observe Christmas, but will instead share a few links that intrigued us in the beginning of our journey back to the beginning. Those that are interested may study further and those that are not can go on without feeling judged. I do not begrudge anyone else celebrating Christmas - it is definitely a personal decision - but I wanted to share because I was glad to have my eyes opened to what I was doing, and how it appeared to Yahweh. There may be someone else who will one day be glad I shared.

Assuming that they do not care enough to ask, it hurts our feelings some that close family members have never asked about our reasons for changing our practices.  But should you wonder, we still celebrate the birth of our Saviour, but now it is during the Feast of Tabernacles when the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. We also now celebrate His conception during Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights (the biblical Feast of Dedication), because Yeshua is the Light of the World. We praise Yahweh for Yeshua’s birth, life, death and resurrection all through the year as well.

From our Torah Class studies by Tom Bradford, here is a short message that may help anyone who is wanting to dig a little deeper. It will at least give you some stuff to Google. Blessings!

Hanukkah Is For Christians (text file)

Hanukkah Is For Christians (MP3 file -about 30 minutes)

Since I read your follow-up to my comment on your twins I have been researching hydrogenated oils and their effect on breast milk and our bodies. I guess this is a little new to me as I haven’t really thought or heard much about this before, but I am very glad you brought it to my attention. (I am kind of ashamed that I haven’t been awakened to it sooner as I try to be reasonably attuned to our nutritional needs, but I don’t normally do a lot of researching in this area). I intend to make some changes right away. I think it will be tough in some ways, though…I mean, we go through a LOT of peanut butter and I don’t know if it is reasonable to think that we could just start making our own since we don’t even have the equipment to do so…(what do you do? Do you have a grain mill and an attachment to make your own p-nut butter?) What do you use for cooking oils? I read here that canola, corn, and safflower oils should be avoided, so I am curious about how you do it and would appreciate your input to help me get started, when you have time. Do you use coconut oil? I purchase 50# pails of it for my soap making business, but have never once used it for cooking (although it is food grade). Do you use lard in place of shortening? Do you make your own bread, and if so, what do you use for the oil? We actually sell a lot of honey wheat bread since my oldest dd has gotten quite proficient at it, and we took it to sell at our local farm market every Saturday this summer. I’m realizing that perhaps my baby’s birth weight was noticeably lower so that I would come to learn about this nutritional concern for our family. But if you have any links to share or helpful info, esp. on how you do it. I’d love to hear it!

I kept putting off answering this until I had some time to do a little research and post links, etc., but  realize that may not happen for some time still. But it is an interesting subject to Google should you be interested, and anyone can do it (Google stuff, that is). The basic gist is that hydrogenated oils, partially hydrogenated oils and trans fats all have a deleterious effect on breastmilk - production and the actual constitution of the milk.

What I’ll do instead is just answer the basic questions and share our experience.  :)

When I first started learning about oils, which ones are health-supporting and which ones are not, I could not afford to just change everything we did overnight. Firstly, I did not know how, secondly, it would cost too much and be wasteful of what we had on hand. So, like every other change we made in our diet and lifestyle, when something ran out, we replaced it with something better… never to go back except in an emergency. When the canola oil ran out, (that the media had told me was so good for us), I bought extra virgin olive oil. When the margarine was gone, I started buying real butter and have not looked back.

It was more expensive to replace the bad stuff with the good stuff, but we squeezed money from somewhere else to make it work. We purposely canceled our health insurance policy and used the money to add to our grocery budget and to learn about our health. We also changed around how we shopped by buying in huge quantities in order to save more money to put into healthier ingredients.

Now, we only use three main things as oils for cooking. I use extra virgin olive oil for anything raw like mayonnaise or salad dressings (because it is unstable when heated). I use coconut oil and butter for cooked foods. Coconut oil is very stable at high temperatures, so it is what I use for anything fried. I also use coconut oil for most things that call for shortening. Pie crusts turn out best for me with butter, though. I buy the coconut oil in 5 gallon buckets, too. With grocery prices going up so much recently, I stepped back to expeller-pressed coconut oil (a lot cheaper) instead of the virgin coconut oil that I had been buying, because it was going to overly stress my grocery budget. I purchase butter 36 pounds at a time from a local food co-op.

We do not use lard (pork fat) at all because it is not part of what YHWH has called food for us. Trust and obey… for there is no other way, right?

We make our own bread (gotta love that Zojirushi!) and use either butter or coconut oil in our bread recipe. The coconut oil seems to make the bread keep a bit longer, too.

Peanut butter is a tough one. We use it a ton, too, but I do not think I have it in me at this time to actually make it. (I have to be honest and admit that it never crossed my mind before.) Too many other irons in the fire, I guess. What we have done in the past is buy 5 pound containers of peanut butter whose only ingredients are peanuts and salt from our food co-op. That is a great plan if you really want to cut back on usage, because it does not taste as good (at least to us). A better plan that actually works out to be very close in cost is to buy Smuckers brand natural peanut butter from the grocery store. If you have a Trader Joes nearby, they also have a good price on healthy peanut butter. If the cost is still an issue, spread really thin.  :)

[EDIT: Be sure to check the comments below, where Amy tells us how she makes peanut butter from scratch with just a food processor!]

So, I hope that helps. I’d be happy to help with more questions, too, if you need!

Caleb Waller (with the hat) is holding our Sweetie and Josh - his twin, is holding her twin, Honey.

The proud future in-laws parents, Mr. Visionary & Me, and Tommy & Sherri Waller and both our sets of twins

On a side, but related note, if you have ever wondered what could increase your “odds” (otherwise known as the observed past working of Yahweh) of conceiving twins, I think I’m on to something.  For a minor health issue, I had been taking an herb called Chaste Tree Berry  (Vitex agnus-castus) the few weeks before I found out I was expecting. I had asked my midwife for a recommendation, without checking into it myself (very odd for me).

In a new herb book (Prescription For Herbal Healing by Phyllis A. Balch) that I got during this pregnancy, I recently looked up this herb just out of curiosity, and found this:

“Women of reproductive age must use vitex with caution, since it has been known to stimulate the release of multiple eggs from the ovary, potentially resulting in multiple births.”

So now we know. Yahweh still uses means.