Food & Whine

Scrapbooking

2012-02-06T14:05:00.008-05:00

OK, so we're going to start at the end since that's how I uploaded the pictures.
These two layouts (above and below) are my first attempts at paint splatters. I splattered and dripped paint on several pieces of paper to see if it was easy or hard and also to see how big of a mess it would make.

It does make a big mess but I had a splat mat under the paper I was splattering on. Both of these are pictures from when we went to the zoo in 2008.

The rest of these are from when I went to the scrap marathon two weeks ago. I had been going twice a year to scrap, in January and June, but had to miss the last June one for a wedding. So it had been a long time since I'd had any dedicated scrap time. These layouts below are the ones I did that day.

I had a list of pages that I needed to fill in gaps in our albums, so I had pictures divided into piles like "Sam summer 2008 1 page." This helped me stay focused. I also tried to match pictures and papers so I didn't have to take so much with me.

This layout (above) is a scraplift from a layout I found on Pinterest. I'd link you but sometimes this computer acts weird about letting me highlight things. That's why sometimes there's links and sometimes there's not.

She wanted to pose with the layout since she's holding the same panda in the layout.

This was supposed to have stitching on it but I poked the holes all wrong. So I had to fix it with a patch. This one is also a Pinterest scraplift.

I don't know why she's trying to get in the picture with this one since it's Sam's layout.

These ones, above and below, have a 6-photo picture holder in between the layouts - a trick I've seen and used when there's a lot of pics from one event but too many for layouts.

Birth announcement from my new niece, Trillian. I added the "it's a girl" when I got home - I went through an added some kind of embellishment to almost every layout (the primary reason being I have massess [I mean massess] of stickers, quotes, ribbon, embellishments, etc., etc., etc. and was trying to move some of it); this is the only one that I sort of am not entirely happy with the addition.

No paper. All ribbon.

The letters on these two are cut with the Cricut. I think I went a little overboard on the BCM one but . . . it's done so I'm not that unhappy with it.

And finally, Polis (that's what Kate called her pacifier). I'm not thrilled with the picture of me on the layout but I'm holding the polis which I think is kind of funny. For about 2 1/2 years we had them everywhere and then she grew out of them . . . so I had to scrap it.

Hopefully another year doesn't go by before I have more to show you.

Love is Eternal

2012-02-03T20:34:00.004-05:00

Last fall (fall 2010), I took off my engagement ring and wedding ring because I was getting a callus from lifting weights. My finger is much bigger than when I got married, and once they were off, they weren't going back on. I was kind of sad but figured we'd get them sized sooner or later. And I had a ring to wear, an aquamarine that fit my ring finger.

But time dragged on, and sizing the rings kept being moved down on the priority list of spending.

Meanwhile, last summer, I read I Do but I Don't by Kamy Wicoff (very interesting read; it looks at all aspects of the wedding, and why we do what we do as far as wedding traditions and expectations). In one part she talks about why she doesn't wear her engagement ring: she goes into the whole "being chosen" thing vs. being the chooser; the diamond industry in general; how the ring says things that maybe the wearer isn't wanting to say; and how gauche women can be, wanting big rings to "prove" they're "worth" more.

I realized I missed my rings and that some of her reasons for not wearing her ring were reasons I wanted to wear my rings. These rings represent our love and our vows and I wanted even the casual observer to see that.

Finally, finally, we took our rings to Barmakian in Nashua and I picked them up today. They are so shiny and glossy . . . like new. And they fit. Craig got his done, too, and we keep marvelling to each other how nice they look, how nice it is to have them fit and to be wearing them.

And the engraving survived . . . the bands were stretched and we didn't know if we'd lose the engraving. But it's there.

Love is Eternal. 10-21-00.

Took Long Enough

2012-01-29T10:45:00.005-05:00

Not long after we finished the headboard, I found this cool old window at an antique store. It hung for a long time just the window (before pic here). Two weeks ago I (we) finally got around to putting the map behind it . . . the maps I bought off of ebay 7 or 8 years ago - the humungo maps of the coasts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire that were so huge I did not know what to do with.

It took a little planning to get all the panes filled (we couldn't just stretch the map across the back and call it a day, we cut each pane separately) and then Craig cut up cardboard to hold them in and went to a huge amount of effort to tape up the whole back (but I didn't take a picture of that).

This was Craig's idea for this window, but in the days before we did it I saw a cabinet door done like this with a map on pinterest and I was like, oh man, that was our idea. But it was the motivation I needed to get off my butt and do something.

We love how it turned out . . . I have to say, I do like it better filled than empty. It does annoy me that you can see reflections in these pictures . . . like me standing on the bed there. But glad to have another DIY crossed off the list.

In which I improve upon a good thing

2012-01-27T21:56:00.001-05:00

(OK, I started this post on the 14th. I'm hoping to post it tonight.)

Our dining room chairs are falling apart. They creak, sway, and generally are not stable. Two of them already broke apart. We sort of half-talked about getting a new set but there's so many other things above new dining room set on the priority list.

I saw a great pic (pic 3) in Country Living of a dining room with slipcovered chairs and found them for $30 each. Plus I don't have a big white room and a big dark table like the pic, but I thought slipcovered chairs could work for us. Sure Fit had these for less so I asked my MIL for them for Christmas. She, being a generous gift giver, gave me 4 (many, many thanks).

I was thrilled and immediately put one on a chair. After looking at it for several days I began to think I should hem it to make it shorter. I realized it needed to be pulled up from the top of the chair back.

(near chair is straight-out-of-package [well, not really, I washed it]; far chair is tailored.)

First, I washed and dried the slipcovers so they if they were going to shrink, they would be shrunk. Then I measured how much they needed to be pulled up and took them down to my craft cave.

They had this funny kind of tuck in the top so I pulled that out with my seam ripper.

I marked my machine (with the water-soluble quilt marker, which smudged but lasted long enough for this project) 3.5 inches from where the seam would be - so I would have a straight seam.

Somehow those pictures are a big block that I can't space apart but I'm sure you can figure out that I sewed a seam, lining the top of the slipcover up with the marker line, and then I re-did the funny little fold thing.

Craig braced up the chairs:

And now they are covered and the whole thing is lovely. Next up, refinishing the table. Wish us luck.

Wanting to Want to

2012-01-09T13:07:00.002-05:00

I never want to do my housework (shocking confession, I know). Never. There is always something better to do, like pinning, or reading, or crafting, or using the power tools (those things are heavy), or just whatever.

But then I get so discouraged because my house is a mess and doesn't look a nicely lit and whitewashed like those pictures on pinterest.

Last week, I thought, man, I wish I wanted to do my housework. That I wasn't always trying to avoid it and feeling bad that it wasn't done. I want to want to do it. And it was like a voice said, Just ask Me.*

*Don't get all worked up that I said I heard a voice. I didn't "hear" a "voice," but it was like a still, small voice in my soul. A quiet prodding. A reminder.

So I did. I prayed, "Lord, help me to want to want to take care of my home. I want to want to do these things before I flake off and check out."

And He answered me. He gave me what I asked for, a peace and motivation to do what needed to be done. A lovely, quiet peace about carrying on with my duties, a statisfaction of a job well done. A dedication that's lasted through this last week. If I feel it lagging, I bring it back to Him. "Thank you, Lord, for helping want to do housework. Help me still."

It's been so encouraging, too, to be reminded that I can bring everything to God; He loves me and wants to give me the things I ask for.

And wow, is my house clean.

2011

2011-12-30T22:05:00.000-05:00

So, since my laptop quit (monitor), I haven't been able to post from Craig's laptop. Then I thought, I'll try scheduling it to post and see what happens.

Our Christmas was lovely, thank you for asking. It was bookened by some of us being sick, my son on Christmas Eve and my husband and I the day after Christmas. In between we managed to remember the precious Baby in a manger, the promise of life for the whole world.

2011 was a good year; nothing outstanding, nothing awful. Average but lovely in its averageness. I feel like (by God's grace and strength) I became more purposeful in my parenting, more forgiving of my mistakes, less critical of others, and more disciplined in my routine. Even in tiny increments, those are big steps for me.

I'd like to make some kind of list of highlights from the year but am moderately discouraged by the thought that this might not post . . . also trying to thing right now is daunting. Hmmmm . . .winter, spring, summer, fall. The year cycles by so fast; the days lengthen and shorten and goodnight kisses are given before it seems possible another day has passed.

God is faithful. If there's any theme I see as I look back over the year, it's that our loving Father, God, is faithful.

And will continue to be.

Shortest Day of the Year

2011-12-21T17:34:00.007-05:00

I like Christmas songs that talk about Jesus as the light. Barlow Girl "Hallelujah, Light Has Come;" The Martins "Light of the World;" Point of Grace "Let there be Light."

Part of the wonder celebrating Christmas, for me, is that we pause at this time of year, when the world is cold and dark and turned from the sun, to remember and rejoice that God sent His Son, the Light, as the greatest gift. We don't know when Jesus was born to celebrate His actual birth day, but I love how celebrating now represents why He came. To bring light and rescue us from our sins.

Lobster Mac & Cheese

2011-12-17T18:09:00.005-05:00

Remember when we went to Abe & Louie's?

'course not. I didn't tell you about it.

It's in Boston. We went there after we saw Blue Man Group in the spring.

Great night.

Abe & Louie's serves a Lobster Mac & Cheese. Craig found a recipe online and made it for me tonight.

It was fantastic.

Because of computer problems I can't link anything. So let your fingers do the googling . . . Lobster Mac & Cheese on Food.com.

Real Life

2011-12-16T20:03:00.003-05:00

I've been focusing on actual life lately and not the version of my life that I would like to have presented here or on facebook. It's amazing how much more laundry gets put away, dishes moved out of the sink into the dishwasher and then back into cupboards, and patience I have with my children telling me random anecdotes.

Here's a winner: Kate told us there's a girl at her school who has a ipod4. This thing can talk . . . and walk. If she needs a pencil, she tells the ipod and it gets the pencil for her.

I do have a bunch* of pictures to post, of all the pinterest/stumble** inspired stuff I did . . . and the hilarious collapse of our gingerbread house (you may have seen it on FB already).

* by "bunch" I mean 3 or 4.

** I still like Stumble. Because you get to see the whole website. There's some good reads out there . . . and some lame ones. Also I can't install the 'pin' button so I can't pin the stuff I find on Stumble. Sometimes I have them both open at the same time because the computer loads so slowly and I have a very short attention span.

Overall I cannot believe that Christmas is 9 days away. I have my South Carolina presents wrapped and in a box to go but nothing else wrapped. And not even everything bought. I want to do a bunch of baking . . . so little to do, so much time, right?

Maybe I'll stumble for awhile, just in case there's a craft I haven't seen yet that I can squeeze in before Christmas.

Reality, Kindergarten Style

2011-12-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

Sweet Baby K was telling me the difference between fiction and non-fiction, something she learned at school.

Later on, she asked if the Muppets were fiction or non-fiction.

"I think they're fiction," I answered.

"But there are real people in it," she countered.

Since I had kept her home from school because her pinkeye has blossomed from just a little gunk in the corner of her eye to a swollen, red, oozing mess and I could not plausibly plead ignorance of her condition, I thought I should answer her honestly so the day could be slightly educational. I tried leading her to the right answer without telling her directly.

"The Muppets are puppets," I said, hoping I wasn't destroying her childlike belief in magic.

She gleefully exclaimed, "Then they're REAL!"

Childlike wonder win.

2011-12-06T12:45:00.000-05:00

It started with these ruffle trees. How cute, right? So I bookmarked it and stashed it away in my mind to make this year. Then I saw this variation on the Craft Catwalk and thought how much easier that would be.

So in between printing Lego party stuff and sanding another project, I did this one afternoon:

I used my 1.5" circle punch on this graphic from the Graphics Fairy (also a Craft Catwalk find, I think). I used 4 for this but had to print 5 since apparently Kate needed one. I used my glue gun to attach them and sort of arranged them in a random pattern, overlapping to cover the styrofoam. I sealed it with glossy modge podge and sprinkled on some glitter. I finished it with some hemp from Close to my Heart and two little rusticy bells that I've had forever.

The wooden topper and stand came from the wood stuff aisle at AC Moore. I spray-painted them black and since that's flat, I did a coat of glossy sealer. I just hot glued those on and could not BELIEVE how great it looked. I am just thrilled it turned out great with such little effort. I was all I love it when a craft comes together and since I thought that was so clever I put it as my FB status.

Since I was high on success, I made a ruffly one. This one was a little more work (it's hard to ruffle burlap and I don't have a fancy ruffler foot [doesn't that thing look cool?] like Shanty 2 Chic has); I kept having to yank ruffles off the melted styrfoam to re-arrange the layers AND the hot glue was messing up my manicure. But I LOVE how it turned out:

I was pulling one of the threads in the burlap to make a straight line to cut (saw this idea online but don't have the link) and realized it was ruffling as I pulled so I ran it through the machine and straightened the edges. I got the muslin in the remnant bin a JoAnne's and frayed the edges of that, too. I ruffled that the old-fashioned way, by doing a running stitch and then pulling the bobbin thread. Same topper and "trunk" as the other but painted off-white (with really old trim paint).

That fully awesome advent calendar came from Country Treasures in Maine and I have to say I've been wanting something like that for longer than I can remember, but everything was either wildly expensive (I'm looking at you, Pottery Barn) or gaudy or cheesy or just not right. But that one? Perfect. I put the bow on it and like some of my mother-in-law's friends suggested, I could use it for more than Christmas by switching out the bow. It's a teeny bit sparkly and perfect.

So what are you waiting for? Go grab some styrofoam cones (I got mine at AC Moore but I later I saw some at the dollar store) and make your own.

Sam's Lego Party

2011-12-05T07:44:00.001-05:00

Seriously, I wasn't going to plan and host another party here, ever, after the Halloween Party. Did I mention there were 17 kids here? It was a lot of work, and fun, but I thought I'd need a year or two to recover.

Craig and I were discussing options for Sam's birthday and Sam said he wanted a Lego party. We'd done one two years ago, with the kit from the store, but I thought we could make this one more of a games and free-build party.

I looked all over the web (and Pinterest) for ideas. I started with Birthday Party Ideas but the party at Delia Creates was where I got most of my ideas. I didn't do a lot; these two parties are amazing to me, how thorough they are with their design concepts, but I really wanted to stick to primary Lego colors.

I'm not sure exactly where I saw this idea, it's gotta be one of those links above:

I filled this jar with two little "City" Lego sets (minus the three pieces that were too big for the jar) and the guests guessed how many; the closest won the legos (and the instructions to build!).

I saw these somewhere, too; maybe pinned on Pinterest. There were a few things I saw that I could recreate without following the link. I just used my 1.5" circle punch and glued "studs" on the bags. (That punch got quite a workout last week, as you'll see in a later post). (The "8" on the baseplate pictured at the top of the post was a Pinterest idea, too.)

I was really determined to have a banner, and even after hanging red, blue, yellow, and green crepe paper all over, I still felt the need to use all the stuff I printed and cut out to make one. I found the Lego brick paper printable here (cut into 2x4 bricks) and the heads . . . not sure. (OK, I've looked and looked. It's a pdf I downloaded, called "Lego straw" and the idea was you could make a slit in their mouths and slide them on a straw. I suspect I found it on the Brickipedia photo gallery . . . guess how many images are there. Go ahead, guess. Wrong. 42,041. That's a lot of images to search.)

The party was after school on a Friday, so when the kids got here, I had a bunch of snacks for them. We invited 6 kids and four ended up coming . . . it was the perfect number (primarily because it's distance from 17). All his good buddies. I did wrap a few juice boxes to look like bricks, but didn't think all the kids would want juice. The wrap threw them off . . . "can we drink this?"

We ended up not using some of the games I planned because the kids were playing so well without structure or intervention. They played Mario and Cars . . .

(blurry pic of kids in Sam's room with Mario figures) and later transitioned to Jedi light saber battles.

We did two organized things:

I printed big ol' minifig heads (again with the not bookmarking where I got this. Blogger FAIL.) I erased the features (leaving a weird yellow blotch on the side where it was shaded) and had the kids draw themselves.

Then they cut them out and played "pin the head on the minifigure." This minifigure image came from one of the coaches at our school's Lego League that Craig enlarged 400% and I colored.

My first idea was for these heads to be masks they held up with paint stirrers but the day I was at Lowe's there were none on the counter and no one around to ask for 6 paint stirrers. So I said, "Cut out eyes when you get home and have a mask," and then somoene taped his head on his face so they all (minus one) did it and I took their picture:

They played some more, then had pizza and cake.

Variations of this Lego cake are all over the interwebs. I made Nigella Lawson's Buttermilk Birthday Cake (oh my word) and some Almost Homemade Buttercream (My computer freezes when I go to CL so you'll have to google it yourself. It uses fluff.) from Country Living. It is literally too much. Like, fall out of your face. I made a double batch of the cake so I would have some cupcakes for the studs.

Blue smiles all around.

In the favor bags were a little bag of corresponding color M&Ms, a minifigure, a cake pop (I made them for Sam to take to school; "we can make them look like something," he said, but there was not enough time for that), and a Lego magazine. When I was the Lego store getting the box of 650 bricks (it is HARD to find straight up Lego bricks, everything's a set now), the guy gave Kate a magazine so I asked for 7 more and that was in there, too.

It was so fun and low-key, the cake was yummy, and Sam had a good time with his friends. The recovery from this party should be much shorter . . .

Eight

2011-12-01T13:58:00.005-05:00

He's eight.

My baby boy is eight.

I really don't know how this is possible . . . it seems like "just yesterday."

He's funny, smart, athletic, artistic, kind, thoughful, and affectionate.

I just don't know where the time went.

Love you, little man.

Thanksgiving Review

2011-11-26T12:30:00.004-05:00

So, no before pictures, but some after ones.

The table.

The sides table, with some hors d'oeurves.

Goofy kids.

Group shot - after which my camera battery died and we couldn't do other groupings. Craig's dad (in the back, on the left) joined us for a few hours and my parents (back row on the right) were here for the week.

It was a lovely day.

Coming Up Empty

2011-11-19T19:46:00.002-05:00

After a flurry of posts here, I have to say that I am at a loss for words or time to do anymore right now. I've got a few drafts that just keep limping along despite all my rehab efforts. I have a few projects in the works but real life is pressing its reality on me from many directions and I struggle anyway with doing something because I want it to be done and doing something just to have a post about it. This next week will be consumed with preparing a huge feast to be consumed in a fraction of the time it took to prepare. I'll try to snap a shot for you.

Not only will I try to snap a shot, I'll try to post it.

May your week be blessed with family and food. I am thankful you take the time to read here.

{Top Ten Tuesday} Thanksgiving

2011-11-15T08:33:00.003-05:00

I have never cooked the Thanksgiving dinner; we either go to my mom's or my mother-in-law's. When we were first married and didn't have kids we went to Craig's aunt and uncle's. I did roast a turkey one year in like March and a bunch of Craig's cousins came over and that was fun, but it wasn't official Thanksgiving. This year, my parents are coming here and I am beyond excited to be planning and making my first Thanksgiving meal. Here are ten things on the menu:

1. Turkey, of course. I have a lovely large pan and rack I got all those years ago for the other turkey.

2. Mashed Potatoes: my fave.

3. Green Bean Casserole: the classic. Craig loves it.

4. Pennsylvania Dutch Potato and Bread Filling: maybe I'll share. It's from my Grandma Reidenouer.

5. Crescent Rolls: you know, the ones from the pop can. This comes from Craig's side of the family; my family never really had bread with the meals but now I love 'em.

6. Pumpkin Pie: It is not Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.

7. Pecan Praline Pie: the Leland family classic

8. Pumpkin-Almond Cheesecake: because it looks good and why not? I use the springform pan once a year; this could make it two times.

9. Hot Curried Fruit Compote: another Reidenouer tradition

10. Another veggie, probably those carrots with caramelized onions

Probably some stove-top stuffing (Craig likes it from a box so that's easy) and of course a lovely and simple gravy from pan juices. Maybe a spinach-artichoke dip for an appetizer/pre-dinner snack.

What are you planning?

Linking to Top Ten Tuesday at ohamanda.

Pumpkin Cookies

2011-11-13T14:59:00.003-05:00

'Member when I tried the pumpkin snickerdoodles and didn't think they were pumpkin-y enough? I mentioned I had a pumpkin cookie recipe that was the pumpkin cookie standard for me.

Old Bedford Village Pumpkin Drop Cookies. I can remember being there, walking around, and having these for the first time. I don't know if the recipe was there to pick up or buy or if my mom had to ask for it. I don't make them often because Craig doesn't really like pumpkin things (appalling!) and also because he thinks it's not a cookie if it doesn't have chocolate in it.

These are perfect, cakey and pumpkiny and soft . . . if you like pumpkin. Sam and I have been enjoying them very much.

Old Bedford Village Pumpkin Drop Cookies, as handwritten on a recipe card by my mom:

1 cup margerine (I used unsalted butter)
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin (1 lb)
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg (I used 1/2)
pinch salt
1 tsp. lemon juice*
1 cup coconut*
1 cup broken nuts*
4 cups flour

(* I didn't have any of these so didn't add them)

Mix everything in order given. (I used my mixer, creaming the butter and sugar first, and then adding the other ingredients as I measured them.)

Be sure to mix flour last.

Use two teaspoons or a cookie scoop to place dough on cookie sheets.

(I used my largest P. chef scoop.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Mine took 14 - 15 minutes, until they looked done and were slightly brown around the edges.

I scooped some out and chilled them in the fridge for about half an hour and then rolled them in the leftover sugar/spice mix from the pumpkin snickerdoodles. This didn't make any noticeable difference in the taste, but it did make me feel good for using the rest of that mixture.

My mom added at the bottom "Recipe can be doubled - double each ingredient." I think that's hilarious because it would take hours to bake that many cookies. But if you do need masses of pumpkin cookies, it's good to know.

Apple Squares

2011-11-10T08:49:00.000-05:00

This recipe comes from the Mousam Lake Cookbook, a cook book of contributions from people on the lake where my in-laws have a camp. I don't have one, I think they were printed before I met Craig. Despite their official name, in my mind I refer to this as "Sandra's Apple Cake" since my first experience with them were when Craig's aunt (Sandra) made these and added the chocolate chips.

I scribbled down the recipe on this lovely piece of Sal's stationery. I keep recipes I print from the internet or write down or pull from magazines in page protectors in binders. If I had more energy or initiative I might make the whole thing matchy-matchy and incorporate some system for adding new recipes other than waiting until the pile of new ones is so big I have to sit down and add 56 new pages. But this system works well enough; I found this in the "breakfast/bread" binder in the "bread" section so it's not that disorganized.

For some reason we did not go apple picking this year. It was never really convenient or we didn't have energy when it was, so I bought the apples at the grocery store. I got a Granny Smith to add in but in the final product you can't tell that I mixed it up like that.

Mix ingredients, spread in pan. Spread brown sugar and mini chocolate chips on top.

Craig thought my pumpkin pancake pictures needed some powdered sugar so I sprinkled some on for these.

Lovely, huh?

Here's the recipe:

Apple Squares (a.k.a Sandra's Apple Bread)

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup salad oil (this ingredient makes me laff; salad oil? dates the recipe for sure. I used 1/2 cup canola because it's better than veg. and half a cup of applesauce [unsweeteened] because that's how I roll when a recipe says 1 cup of oil)

3 cups flour (I used 2 all-purpose and 1 whole wheat 'cause that's my new thing, dividing the flour measurement up between all-purp and WW)

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg (I did 1/2 because I have nutmeg issues)

3 cups chopped apple

3/4 brown sugar

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix the sugar, eggs, and oil (or oil & applesauce) in a large bowl and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients and the chopped apple. (I mixed the dry in a separate bowl and added to the wet with the apples.) Spread in greased/sprayed 9x13 baking dish.

Top with 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (add more if coverage is spotty), and the walnuts, if you have them (I did not).

Bake 35 - 40 minutes at 350 degrees until baked (not gooey).

I didn't really write down the directions word-for-word but these should get the job done for ya.

Enjoy!

Shelf

2011-11-06T21:32:00.001-05:00

I know. Try not to faint. The shelf is up. I'm going to have to figure out if I want another candy jar for the shells or if they'll both be canning jars.

Decisions, decisions.

As much as I like it I keep thinking, another thing to collect dust.

And obviously the shiny towel ring to the right, closer to the sink, is gonna have to be switched.

Alright - so what else is on that list? oh stink! This shelf isn't even on the list. But there's two books there I forgot about that I can read. The crib sheet quilt is pieced and layered; the pieces of the Christmas quilt are cut out; the bedroom furniture was painted and constructed; and I think I'm going to let go of the ruffly tree skirt but maybe not.

Halloween Party

2011-11-05T11:50:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday we hosted a Halloween Party here at our house. My neighbor and I planned it together. Most of the pictures are crummy and have lots of other people's kids in them so I'm not going to post them (I don't know how they'd feel about that).

The big story of the party was how nothing is as easy to make as it looks like it will be. For example:

Cheese Finger Food: Those lines aren't just sliced into the cheese, they're carved. And the space under the green pepper is carved. And cream cheese doesn't like to be applied or stick in small amounts.

Edible Eyeballs: Again with the cram cheese not wanting to stick. Apparently a real pain to assemble. (My neighbor made these first two.)

Apple Bites (attempted by another friend): The almonds wouldn't stick in or broke all over the place. I believe the word "shattered" may have been used.

I struggled with the 48 cupcakes I baked (one white mix, one chocolate). I wanted to make spider webs on them with icing, which worked OK, but would have been much better if I had gotten a teeny-tiny icing tip and more icing. I just used one (one! what was I thinking?) of those little tubes of icing gel to make the circles on top and a chopstick (those of you with toothpicks could use that) to swipe out lines from the center. That part worked on the 5 cupcakes I had black icing for.

I also had some cupcake stencils I got at Crate and Barrel a lot of years ago (so I have slightly different patterns from those on the link) and they didn't work at all except to be the straw the broke my camel's back and I let Kate loose with orange sprinkles and candy corn to decorate the rest.

On a successful note, I purchased and chopped my first jicama. Sam, Kate, and I all tried a piece. It tastes almost exactly like nothing. I used it for this Hallow-bean Salad which ultimately I didn't try at all due to eww, black beans and pepper?

We also did Jar-o-Lanterns. This was moderately successful (I'd say less stressful should you choose to invite and thus expect fewer than 20 children and not have to solicit and goo-gone* a dozen jars from various friends and then at the last minute empty a few in your own fridge just to be sure you have enough) but when we pulled the tape off, some of the paint came off around the edges. Maybe because I picked up "glossy" acrylic craft paint (I think that's what I got) because who knew they made that and that I should look further than the end cap display? The bottle said it was for wood, glass, and a host of other materials one might want to paint orange. Glossy orange.

We also divided kids into pairs and had the wrap each other up like mummieswith toilet paper. This was pretty funny, although the cheap-o single ply I bought kept ripping and they got frustrated with that, but the hilarity outweighed the irriation. Another activity we had was for the kids to make fingerprint animal scenes (ink the finger, put on paper, and draw on antennae or legs or eyes or whatever). They also decorated their goody bags (brown paper bags, $1 stickers) which were filled with glow bracelets, pencils, earasers, dorito/cheeto-type snacks, and some** candy. We finished up with a candy bar where they could help themselves to candy corn and M&Ms (note to self, have more plain M&Ms for next time).

My sister-in-law made some witch's brew which was oh so very good and sadly didn't last long in the non-cool fridge once the power went out . . . I should have drunk it all right after the party.

All in all it was really fun. I was extraordinarily stressed in the days leading up to the party, especially as the number of children coming grew and grew. We ended up with 17 children and some parents. It was super fun and we are already talking about what we'll do next year . . . . first off is to not invite children (I'm kidding . . . sort of . . .).

*I can tell you from first-hand experience that imitation goo-off products do not compare to goo-gone. It's the best by far.

**We were slightly neurotic/stingy with the sugar so the candy distribution was kept minimal. This did not stop the kids from being loud and wild; apparently all they need is each other for that.

Apothecary Jars

2011-11-04T14:18:00.001-04:00

So this is what I ended up doing with my homemade apothecary jars:

I put some of those fake tealights behind them to flicker which looked cool (the two times I turned them on). I got the candles for $2.50 at the Christmas Tree Shop. I wanted black ones but couldn't find them in the 3 or 4 stores I remembered to look. I forgot to light them the night of our Halloween party but they did come in handy during the ensuing power outage.

That's my formerly-white-now-black thrift store plate and candlestick stand holding the pumpkin. Kate decorated that gourd at school. Its name is Little Curly Top.

Some of the jars have water with food coloring in them. For the "deadly nightshade" one, I modge podged in the inside and added black glitter.

I took these one morning when we had no power, which is why we have a fire.

On November 1, I took all this down, emptied the ones with liquid, and packed it away for next year. Now I have a whole year to collect more jars.

Cupcake Conspiracy

2011-11-03T07:08:00.000-04:00

Because of the widespread power outages in Southern New Hampshire, school was cancelled 3 days this week. After catching up on Wii and TV time, the sibling picking on each other began and we were ready to rip our hair out.

Fortunately, my neighbor had a better idea for yesterday afternoon. She suggested the library and a stop at new (to us) place in Merrimack, Cupcake Conspiracy.

The cupcakes were normal-sized, not huge. The icing was good but not outstanding. I'd say I was most impressed by my neighbor's choice, orange cranberry, because of its layers of flavor. My choice, pecan pie, was nice and the candied pecan on top was really yummy.

(front to back: pecan pie, chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting, vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting, and orange cranberry, Sam)

I defnitely will go back to try other flavors and because I like icing and it's close.

We capped off our afternoon with a trip to Target to look for half-price costumes. Success came in the form of Bumblebee for Sam, Cleopatra for my neighbor's girl, and another set of cat ears for Kate.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2011-11-02T07:12:00.001-04:00

I have lived in New England for 14 years. Or 13. I can't really remember at this point. Two weeks ago, for the first time, I had a pumpkin pancake. With my love for all things fall and pumpkin, I can't believe I hadn't encountered them before.

Since we're recovering from the black-out (school in cancelled so my children are catching up on TV watching and I'm online) I thought I would make some pumpkin pancakes for lunch. I strongly recommend not being really, really hungry when this thought strikes. It makes it all so much harder.

I used this recipe here with one change: I did one cup of whole wheat flour and one of all-purpose.

Dry ingredients (notice the random nature of how I added them; I vacillated between trying to add them in an orderly way for a picture and forgetting about that and dumping them in.).

There's no picture of the wet ingredients or of them all mixed together. But there is a cooking shot:

And then I styled this for you:

OK, actually I ate a bunch first. Then I thought about styling these. I got out a piece of wedding china and trimmed the butter and all that.

This is what was really going on:

Food styling is not easy. But since I was the only one eating them, I had lots of extra.

They were good pancakes and has a nice texture, but weren't pumpkiny enough for me.

And now the question is, what to do with the rest of this can of pumpkin?

Thankful {Top Ten Tuesday}

2011-11-01T11:23:00.002-04:00

The things I am thankful for today are mundane and yet newly remarkable; we had no power for almost 2 full days (45 hours, if you must know) so all the modern conveniences that I take for granted are bringing joy to my heart today.

1. I'm thankful for our furnace and not having to worry about keeping the house warm with actual physical intervention (a.k.a. keeping a fire going in the fireplace).

2. I'm thankful for the washer and dryer and loads of laundry.

3. I'm thankful to give Kate a tubby and now worry that she'll be too fridgid when she gets out.

4. I'm thankful for a refrigerator and freezer keeping cold things cold.

5. On the same note, I'm thankful for the snowbank outside where we kept the milk for the last two days.

6. I'm thankful to be able to vacuum.

7. I'm thankful to be able to flip a switch and have a room flood with light.

8. I'm thankful that even while we had no power, we had running water and hot water, that we could light our gas cooktop to cook, and could charge ipods and the DS in the car with car chargers.

9. I'm thankful to be able to be on my laptop (only works when plugged in, the battery doesn't hold a charge at all).

10. Did I mention the heat? and the lights? oh, and the dishwasher? How they all work now?

Linking (for the first time in ages) to oh amanda's top ten Tuesday post.

I have all I've waited for . . .

2011-10-21T12:17:00.004-04:00

. . . and I could not ask for more.

It's our 11th anniversary. Neither one of us wears our wedding rings 'cause we need to size them (larger, but thanks for thinking we got skinny). Words don't really do justice for how fantastic a husband Craig is {insert mindless but well-meaning cliche here}. Love you, babe.

Sparkly Ornaments

2011-10-16T16:03:00.008-04:00

Last year around Christmas, I saw on Just a Girl or maybe Vintage Dutch Girl some sparkly ornaments. I'm not sure where I saw it because I can't find the post on Stumble or in my favorites but it's not original to me. It is easy enough so maybe that's why I didn't save a link, but usually if I think I'm going to do something I try to save the link even if it's easy to give credit for where the idea came from.

Anyway, I've put in some time searching and can't find the inspiration post so we're just gonna go ahead with what I did.

I've been on a Halloween decorating craft kick, if you haven't noticed. So while I do have some (great) old(ish) Christmas ornaments I want to glitter (given to me by my PA sister-in-law), I thought black sparkly ones would be a cool addition to my so far pumpkin- and candy corn-based decorating scheme.

Halloween cookie cutters, $6.99 for 12 (or however many are in there) from Home Goods. (I didn't think to take this picture until after the project was done.) I thought this was a good deal for cookie cutters I don't plan to cut cookies with.

First, I spray painted (as I did this I was thinking, how JaG of me to think, of course the first step is to spray paint).

This is my flat black paint from the jar lids.

Then I moved them inside and painted on Modge Podge. I mean, not the same day or anything. But within a week, I'd say.

Those are the same gloves I used when I did the shelf. They were all sticky so I tossed them after this activity. But it does explain why there's a red spot on one of the glittered cutters.

I put glitter (Recollections brand from Michaels) in a zip-top bag and after the cookie cutters were covered with glue I shook them in there to cover them with glitter.

The coffin shape was one I tried with just glue and glitter; it doesn't have the black spray paint underneath. I definitely think the spray paint gives them a better look and fills in any little spots where the glitter didn't stick. You can see silver through the glitter on the coffin, which, if you were using a white or clear glitter wouldn't show.

I was going to make a garland type thing with some woven ribbon and black grosgrain ribbon but it was not working for the space I thought I wanted it so this is what I ended up doing:

Kind of random, but at the same time I like it.

(Both of these pieces of art covered by sparkly ornaments are from my brother-in-law.)

I have one ornament hanging with my apothecary jars and the others on other pictures. They add just a little touch of sparkle and black to Halloweenify our house.

Linking to the Craft Catwalk at Embellishing Life.

Trial and Error

2011-10-10T14:41:00.005-04:00

There's something about the fall, the warmer weather, and being at home more that increases my baking efforts. I've been in the kitchen a lot trying things out.

My sister-in-law really liked the pumpkin snickerdoodles but I didn't have hers so can't say if they were similar or different from what I did.

I'd been looking at this Garlic Parmesan Pull-apart Bread for awhile and finally made it one night when we had lasagna (because why stop at the excessive steps of a lasagna? Might as well throw a yeast bread into the mix). It wasn't the dream come true lusciousness that I wanted it to be. It was average, but worth another try with more butter and garlic.

These Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes were good. I think I overbaked them a smidge because they were a tiny bit dry. My husband asked me to make some frosting so I whipped (literally) up some chocolate buttercream which made it all worthwhile. My kids didn't eat them, but then I didn't offer them any. Kate helped me bake them and after her first taste of Nutella asked, "Is mutella a fruit?"

Oh, and when I printed the recipe from Feisty Cook, I didn't see a "print recipe" button and it printed ev.er.y.thing. So beware.

These Fudge Drops were really, really good. I don't have espresso powder but went ahead anyway and didn't notice anything amiss.

Oh, and these Cake Batter Blondies were D.lish.ous. I could go mix some up right now and eat the batter but I'm going to show Sam my legendary Tetris skills. It's nice to be admired for something.

Aging in a Day

2011-10-03T20:56:00.005-04:00

Awhile back I found this post about weathering a board for projects. I've been wanting to try it and I did try it awhile back but used brown as my first coat and it didn't work as well; when I checked out some actual aged wood I noticed it is grayish where the paint has worn away.

So, when Craig and I actually got our act together to put up a shelf in the bathroom (it's not up yet, but the shelf board is almost ready), I thought, this treatment is perfect to try.

First I used gray paint:

I'm pretty sure it's Behr paint from Home Depot but apparently we keep it in plastic food storage containers. It might be called Fforde Abbey. Or not, since it didn't show up when I searched.

So that was my first coat.

For my next coat, I grabbed an unlabeled paint can that I thought was whiter but was kind of cream; it turned out just fine anyway.

I wanted the board to be blue but the little sample bottle I thought was blue turned out to be brown and that is not what I wanted. So I pulled out this:

which has been lurking in the basement for six years.

Yes, you heard me right. 6 years. We have a random can of red paint that hasn't been used for years.

In between layers, after the gray layer and then after the white layer, I used a votive candle to rub wax on the edges and corners and some on the board itself. I did one layer each of gray and white and two of the red (it was flat paint but that wasn't a conscious choice, I just used what was here).

Then I sanded it with some sandpaper, grit unknown. Less gritty than the grittier brown sandpaper, the one I used was purple. I concentrated on the corners and edges but pretty much just sanded all over.

So pleased with the result:

How cool is that?

We're going to seal it with some kind of stain and then install it sometime in the future. But you know us. Don't hold your breath. Just marvel at how it went from a new board to "looking like it came from the dock" (Craig's words) in a day.

A Tale of Two Books

2011-09-30T17:19:00.000-04:00

So I'm proceeding with great alacrity through Choosing Gratitude. I'm finished with the chapters and have the 30-day devotional left.

I've talked about how I know I'm approaching this with prejudice. I bring a lot of baggage to the table and then read through that lens (while simultaneously mixing metaphors). Once or twice I think NLDM gets it: "like every other sanctified character trait, it does nothing to make us more loved and accepted by God" (p.69); "no one should ever make you feel as though gaining victory over your hardships requires acting like they don't exist, as if refusing to speak about them or make reference to them will cut off their blood supply" (p. 145).

But I get the feeling that's what she wants us to do, shove down the "bad" feelings and "offer the sacrifice of praise." At one point she says if we don't "give thanks" we'll never be right with God. I can't find the quote right now but she uses the word "never." The context might be more if we do it half-heartedly we'll never be right with God, but it gives off the feeling of if we don't do what she says, we won't fit into her definition of what a Christian is.

Because sometimes a halfhearted "thanks" for something trivial triggers a more sincere thanks for something bigger. Or, starting half-heartedly is better than not starting at all.

I also really get the feeling like she thinks "gratitude" is a destination we'll arrive at. She does finish off with a glancing reference to our continual sanctification, but following her 30-day plan isn't going to help me arrive at a place of perfect gratitude where I never complain again. Because I'm a human being. Sometimes things bother me, or I'm hurt or grumpy or in pain and I need to share. or vent. or whatever you want to call it.

In fact, I find when I'm complaining about something absolutely trivial or ridiculous that I am most able to laugh at myself, step back, and be thankful for what I have. Like that comedian clip where he talks about being on a plane and freaking out that the wifi doesn't work (a commentary on how we as Americans are spoiled rotten) (google it if you haven't seen/heard it; it was going around FB awhile back). First-world problems and all that.

But at the same time, if it's bothering me, it's bothering me. If my wrist hurts, I know it's not cancer and it'll be over in a day or two, but it still hurts. I can't pretend it doesn't, and I can give thanks that I have a wrist, and health insurance, and not a bigger problem, and lots of hobbies that bother my wrist to give me carpal tunnel in the first place, and splints to wear at night, etc. etc. etc., but the truth is it still hurts. And I want your sympathy (which may be a curious side effect of social media, that I can announce my trivial pain and elicit your sympathy, but I digress).

At one point (p. 129) she refers to the "stigma of social motherhood," which really makes me think she lives in a bubble or doesn't get it. Maybe in Fundystan there's a stigma, but a single mother doesn't need our stigma but our grace. Our sympathy. Our love. Is there a stigma to single motherhood? I guess in her world.

Right before the 30-day how-to, she offers a "p.s." saying she struggled with publishing a book telling us to do something she hadn't arrived at yet. But I say, none of us arrive there. There's an ebb and flow to life; there's seasons of joy and ones of despair; we're never going to "arrive" until we arrive in heaven. Sometimes I complain. Sometimes I give thanks through gritted teeth. Sometimes I raise my hands in praise to a holy and wonderful God who loves me in my sin and failure (not just loved enough to die for my sins, but loves me now). Sometimes I'm frustrated and grouchy, sometimes peaceful and grateful.

The truth is God loves me through all of that. He uses my complaining to show me how to turn it around to gratitude. At least I think so . . . I'm not going to wallow in my grumbling, but I'm also not going to beat myself up that I have a negative thought or two.

Twice now people have mentioned One Thousand Gifts so I would like to get that next.

I'm also re-reading Grace Based Parenting. It's fantastic and if you are a parent and haven't read it you should. Grace doesn't leave at the foot of the cross. It can be a lifestyle; when NLDM uses "grace," I hear "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." in my head.

I think I'd get arrested for violating copyright laws if I quoted everything I wanted to from this book. One part I really love and that really helped changed my perspective is where he talks about Proverbs 22:6 - the "train up a child" verse.

Looking at it through our 21st-century lens, we see (and I've read in other books), the idea that if we make this kid do what we think he should do and what we want him to do (or what we think we can justify the Bible telling us we want him to do), he'll be an awesome Christian when he grows up. Kimmel points out "The 'train up a child' part has an interesting usage when you break down the Hebrew text. The expression 'train up' is used in other Hebrew literature to describe a maneuver that ancient midwives used to cause newborns to begin the sucking impulse" (p. 111). He goes on: "The writer is saying we should use childhood as an opportunity to build a clean and healthy thirst for life that God has uniquely designed for that child." Because "in the way he should go" could be translated "train him up his way." Kimmel: "One of the most accurate English synonyms for derck would be the word bents. This is how the same word is translated in Psalm 11 referring to the bend of a bow."

He then explains when making a bow, the bow maker works with the bend of the wood rather than against it (pp 111-112). So we know our children and their strengths and gifts and "[this] also means that we should study them enough to know which natural bents they have that push them in the wrong direction. They might struggle with [list of negative personality traits] . . . We can't make these liabilities disappear, but we are to raise them in such a way that we account for them and give them tools to help process them properly."

To me this means not snapping "no whining" when asked for a snack or a drink by my child who is helpless to get it him/herself (another of Kimmel's points); it means being aware of what Sam's grumpy triggers are and helping him recognize to and work to give him tools to deal with those emotions; it means not just rebuking, correcting, punishing, lecturing, or just plain yelling at Kate and her impulsivity and button-pushing, but giving her the tools to be a more agreeable child.

Hopefully. Prayerfully. Not just paying lipservice to "God made her this way and He has something great for her," but knowing her and her bents ("good" and "bad") and teaching her (by words and example) to rely on God "for [His] power and help." (I struggle with this with Kate more than Sam because, well, I don't know. She's a girl and I know what it's like to be a girl and not a boy, or because she doesn't fit into the prissy, mild-mannered girl definition society like girls to be, or just because.)

So now we come up against the primary problem of writing a post about this book: it's all so good. It's not what I came from ("My family's early relationship with Jesus was less about His love for us and more about His disappointment in us. This notion, of course, led my family down the on-ramp to legalism." [p. 128]). It's not what I thought parenting would be. But it is hopeful and encouraging ("You may feel extremely inadequate and fragile in key areas of your life, but God comes alongside you in those very areas of weakness and carries you through with His grace." [p. 21]).

As I'm reading, I think, "that's a great quote, I should put it on facebook" and then seven paragraphs later realize I'm just quoting the entire section. So I tell you again: read it. Get your own copy, because I tried loaning mine to my sister and immediately regretted it and wanted it back. So you can't borrow mine.

Pumpkin: Snickerdoodles & Muffins

2011-09-29T13:56:00.002-04:00

The other day, my sister-in-law put on facebook that she'd seen a recipe for pumpkin snickerdoodles and was packing for a trip or she'd make them. I thought about them almost non-stop for two days and decided to try making them without waiting for her to test them first.

First, I did some research, comparing the recipe I found online (everyone seemed to go back to this one) to the snickerdoodle recipe in my Cookie cookbook (a gift from the same SIL). These are called the Best-Ever Snickerdoodles, and the truly are the best snickerdoodles, ever.

I took a picture of this step but it was entirely pointless since I don't know enough about the science of baking to know why one called for baking soda and the other baking powder; I did add 1 tsp cream of tartar since in the post from Recipe Girl (the recipe I printed) she mentions adding it the next time she made them.

First I made them with my little Pampered Chef scoop:

These I didn't flatten with a glass as RG suggests, they were still cold from being chilled and didn't spread much.

Next I used the medium scoop to make the whole thing go faster:

and I flattened those.

My verdict: eh.* Just, eh.

I wouldn't say they were good but they weren't exactly bad, either. They didn't have much pumpkin taste at all and I think the cream of tartar made them dry and gave them a weird aftertaste. Or maybe they're just a dry cookie, or I baked them too long. I baked three sheets (about 3 dozen) and then tossed the rest of the unbaked dough since a) I was hot and wanted to get out of the kitchen and turn the oven off and b) they weren't good enough (in my opinion) to give away.

I used the rest of the can of pumpkin for muffins:

These turned out really, really good: very moist, which must be from the extra 1/4 of pumpkin in them (this recipe calls for 1 cup of pumpkin which is half a can, so I usually double it or have half a can of pumpkin in the fridge until I throw it out. Since the cookies used 3/4 cup, I just put the rest of the can in the muffins).

I'm curious to see how Andrea's pumpkin snickerdoodles turn out. I have a recipe from my mom for "Old Bedford Village Pumpkin Cookies" and they're just so yummy and pumpkiny so maybe I'll add the sugar-spice coating from the snickerdoodles to the pumpkin cookies and see how that works out. But I'll wait for a cooler day to do that.

*Update since I wrote this yesterday: the cookies seem to be better after being in a tin (with some muffins, I had too many muffins for one tin) for a few days. They are moister and more pumpkiny; funny aftertaste is slightly reduced. They're still not the spicy, snickerdoodley pumpkin perfection I was hoping for.

Kate on Multi-tasking

2011-09-28T14:26:00.000-04:00

"It's hard to dance and vacuum."

More Stuff

2011-09-27T16:42:00.002-04:00

I've been clearing a lot of junk out of my house which is leaving more room for me to add new stuff. I think ultimately I'm ending up with less stuff or at least things I really like as opposed to lots of stuff that is driving me nuts.

Anyway. Here's the apothecary shelf now:

I used flat black spray paint on the lids. I also used the black paint on this cake stand and love how it turned out (you can kind of see it, the 'earthworms' jar is on it).

And a wreath I made after my sister showed me this picture (the black ribbon one, #7)(oh my gosh I just noticed there's a link for the tutorial. Going to read it now):

OK, looks like the original came from here.

No, I didn't make a tutorial. Because all I did was tie a bunch of ribbon on a wire wreath frame I found at AC Moore. I cut the ribbon to 6" but if I do it again I'll cut it longer and make square knots. So basically I did it nothing like the original, since I used three colors, a wire frame, and only did one crossover on my knots to give it a random look. I guess this was more inspiring, but she used fabric.

I did get black and orange ribbon to make a Halloween one so maybe that'll happen and I'll take a picture.

Pumpkin Harvest

2011-09-22T18:07:00.003-04:00

I saw this pattern in the Keepsake Quilting catalog and thought it would be great to get and make adorable fabric pumpkins.

Then last week, this was posted at the Craft Catwalk at Embellishing Life. Or maybe One Pretty Thing. Or maybe Stumble. I can't find where I found it. But this is the tutorial I used to make these:

It's kind of addictive. I want to make a few more with that mustardy paisley fabric but I was playing around with sizes before I cut up any more of it.

You know, because when you keep a half yard of fabric for 4 years and don't do anything with it, it's important to hang onto it a little longer.

Another fun thing I've been doing instead of folding laundry is printing labels from the interwebs and modge-podging them on jars. I saw a jar on a stand at TJ Maxx with a "essence of bat breath" label on it. Cute, I thought, but I can get this $2 jar and do my own. None of these jars below is the $2 jar because once I started finding labels, I decided to do a whole apothecary shelf.

Here are sites where I found labels:

Graphics Fairy

Amazon (OK, not a graphic, but I right clicked and printed)

Fantasy Jr

Love Manor

And there's another one but I'd have to get up to try to find it. I'll add it if I can find it. It's where I got that little read and white one that says "deadly nightshade."

Basically I just googled "vintage labels," "potion labels," "poison labels," etc.

I can't wait to make more. I'm going to paint the lids black and fill them with random things, probably not edible stuff because I think the labels will come off. I might try to seal them or something. or not. I might find a new thing to obsess over.

Consignment Stores

2011-09-19T07:13:00.000-04:00

Alright, I didn't want to keep you waiting.

I think what it ultimately comes down to is the area I live in is kind of, hmm, how should I say it? unfashionable? Because I hear about people getting good deals at consignment stores and I like consignment stores, but every time I set foot in one around here I get aggravated by what a hunormous waste of time it is.

First of all, the stuff on the racks is poor quality. All of it. I am willing to look, but pilled sweatpants and streched-out target t-shirts are not what I'm in the market for.

Secondly, there's the price tag on these worn-out clothes. I can buy new sweatpants at Old Navy or new t-shirts at Target for less than what the places around here want. So even if it was something I wanted to buy, I don't want to pay that price (for crying out loud, if you're willing to look, you can get things at Gymboree for 3 or 4 dollars. I mean, if we're looking, why not do it in a clean, organized, pleasant-smelling store?)

And the straw that breaks my camel's back is that I never make money from consigning clothes. Remember those pilled sweatpants? I'm not bringing in pilled hanes sweatpants. And they're not taking my stuff .

Last week I took two handle bags of stuff to Lots for Tots. I left with 90% of what I took in and $13. So I guess I had 13 more dollars than I began the day with, but I had to pay a dollar toll. Both ways. The good part is the place is two doors down from Hobby Lobby so I could wander around finding things to spend my consignment haul on before I got it.

I wonder (but am not really willing to test my theory with a day trip) if closer to Boston the things in consignment stores get nicer. I'm so blessed to have a friend who gives me masses of hand-me-downs for Kate, and for everything else I guess I'll stick to shopping sale and clearance racks when I have a coupon for an extra percent off.

Just Some Random Thoughts

2011-09-17T07:30:00.006-04:00

I worked 4 days this week and it occurred to me that that hour each day that I work must have been the time I would have otherwise dedicated to blogging. It (the job) is super-easy, as I thought it would be, and I walk away thinking, "I'm good at that."

It's weird in a way. I think I'm good at a lot of things, but something about not getting any external affirmation for housewifery is difficult for me. No one's giving me a high five or a paycheck for cleaning the bathroom (even though I'm good at it), and for the most part no one says "thank you" when I'm finished for the day, like this little boy's mother does when I'm heading out the door. So even though I haven't had any kind of formal evaluation from the organization that hired me, I feel a sense of affirmation from being from professional setting and doing something that I'm good at.

Also getting dressed in decent-looking clothes every day helps me feel less schlumpy.

Yesterday I was a little tougher on the child, having him sit for longer periods, asking for eye contact or signs, and having him clean up, and he spontaneously waved "bye bye" to me in the middle of an activity. That was a nice unprompted social connnection.

I cooked every night this week - 5 days in a row. Do you know what that means? Leftovers until they're gone.

I would like to acquire some gourds and decorate for fall. Also I want to try to make a burlap wreath for our front door but am concerned it will take more than the 8.5 minutes I want to dedicate to it.

Since I'm working I can't go to the Ladies Bible Study at my church. Well, I guess technically I could go to the evening one but I have a hang-up about going out at night (and my kids have issues with it, too) so it's not an actual option. I did get the book, though, despite some apprehension . . . the last book I read by Nancy Leigh DeMoss triggered a anxiety-filled season of shame and sadness that not only was I now aware of the things she was telling me to do/not do, I was also not following her directions.

But that was before I knew God loves me.

(coming back to this after 12 hours . . . where's that train of thought?)

Anyway. So I approached this book with some apprehension. I am praying for an open heart and mind but also a discerning one; there's too much "do this to be right with God" in the world I came from. I'm afraid she's going to miss the point and say "be happy because you're supposed to be!!" and suggest the repression of all emotion she deems "negative."

The first red flag came in the introduction: "Nancy leads you, step by step, through those select Scriptures and insights that are your journey into heaven-sent joy." Did you see it? I bolded it for you. "Select Scriptures" sounds suspiciously like "proof text" and we all know proof texting is the quickest way to form a personal opinion about an out-of-context verse and then impose that opinion on others like it's God-breathed Law.

Second red flag also appeared in the introduction: "[when asked a question] Dr. Gruden responded, 'Honestly, I don't often become discouraged. I continue to see evidence of God's work in my life and the lives of those around me, and I am simply overwhelmed with thankfulness to Him' (italics added)." He may genuinely not feel discouragement, but most people do. To me this answer reeks of "I'm so holy and if you were, you would not be discouraged either. My holiness has helped me rise above normal human emotions."

Several years ago, I read The Blessing of Skinned Knee (it's pretty remarkable). I still pick it up from time to time. One thing that really stood out to me was in Chapter 5: The Blessing of Longing: Teaching Your Child an Attitude of Gratitude. "Jewish tradition encourages adults to say 100 blessings of gratitude a day. To fill a blessing quota this huge, you have to be vigilant about looking for things to be thankful for." She talks about observing this ritual by being thankful you woke up, that your "tubes and passages" are open so you can use the bathroom, etc. I never counted, but this encouraged me to be more aware of how much there is to be thankful for, even when "nothing" is happening.

This mindfulness of thankfulness led to me changing my attitude in the middle of the night when woken by one of my children. I'd be staggering down the hall thinking why is this child waking me up?! and then stop that thought train and say, "Thank you Lord that I have healthy children who can communicate their needs."

So maybe on top of my skepticism and fear of this author, I think, I'm already working on this attitude of gratitude, is there really much more to learn? "Not that I have already attained," and all that (look at this version). Each day before I open the book I pray again for my heart to be soft and teachable, for my critic radar to be turned off.

I was going to finish this up with a rant about consignment shops, but I'll save that for another day.

Thank you for reading.

Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?

2011-09-11T07:36:00.003-04:00

The tragedy fell out of the clear blue sky. It's always there in stories of that day, what a beautiful day it was.

You remember that, don't you?

I was in my second week training with Building Blocks. First thing in the morning we had a meeting at the office and as I was leaving I heard one of the supervisors say, "all the top floors are on fire," but it meant nothing to me until we got to the first house and I heard from the mother that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

As I drove to the next house, I listened to the radio in stunned disbelief. We (I was following a veteran BB employee) were pretty amazed and rattled at the next visit; they had the television on and were good friends with the family of one of the pilots of one of the planes. If I remember correctly, they had us leave early so they could be with their friends on their farm.

Our last house also had the television on, and at that point there was a lot of confusion and speculation. I still didn't have a clear picture of what had happened and when; I knew I was not able to call Craig and so wanted to be home with him and hold him (we were married not quite a year then). The fear of what had happened and the uncertainty of what might happen next really distilled for me what was important: my family. I was unspeakably grateful that I had the prospect of going home to him when I knew so many were in shock and only beginning their grieving.

I can't believe it was ten years ago. My life was in such a radically different place then; we were newlyweds and were not even thinking about children. Although I wasn't touched personally (or even once-removed, as in, knowing someone who knew someone who died) by the tragedy, I feel a quiet, hollow place of grief for what happened that day. In an "America the Beautiful" book we have, there's a picture of the WTC site as it was at the end of the day on September 11, 2001.

who more than self their country loved

and mercy more than life

I get choked up trying to explain what it is to my children; we haven't yet gotten into the bigger aspects of what it represents, what impact it had on America, why we take off our shoes in airports. But it will be part of our conversations, not just today but as time goes on. It is so important to remember.

Ten Years. A Decade. Where were you?

(I thought I had set this up to auto post yesterday. Did you watch the memorials? I think the new memorial at Ground Zero is a lovely commemoration.)

In Other News

2011-09-09T09:20:00.001-04:00

::I've been reading Marley and Me. It is significantly better than the popularity of the book and movie led me to believe. But it was at the used bookstore so I picked it up. It's very well written, funny, and moving. And I cried so very much at the end.

::I made a little scrapbook/guest book for my in-laws' 40th anniversary and remembered how much I love to scrap. I haven't scrapped in awhile . . . last year I had a couple friends who'd come over and scrap on Friday mornings; we were pretty regular through the fall but we slacked off in the spring. Since I have a job, we might do afternoons . . . but I think it's important to my mental health to set aside some time to scrap.

::I bought three new OPI nail colors. I don't know which to use first. Light my Sapphire, Overexposed in South Beach (Kate's pick), and . . . something about black cherry.

::I sold Kate's toddler bed on Craigslist for $40. It's the first time Craigslist was good to me.

::Sam was sick on the third day of school and had to come home early. I hope it's not a sign of how this year will go.

::I cleaned out my car. I vacuumed beach sand off the floor and pulled snow boots from under the seat. Maybe I should try to clean it out on a more regular basis.

::My left wrist, which got the steroid shot, feels significantly better than the right wrist, which did not. Thanks to a vasovagal reaction, I have to wait a few weeks to have the right one done.

::The brochure for Merrimack continuing education lists two blog-writing courses. One was about planning the focus for your blog and storytelling in about 400 words. It made me think: people think these things through? Then I threw the brochure away.

Before You Even Ask

2011-09-07T17:13:00.007-04:00

Last week at this time I wasn't looking for a job. Today I got a part-time gig.

It's one hour a day, five days a week, working in-home with a child diagnosed with autism. I did this for two years before I had Sam. While I don't know if I could ever go back to a classroom to teach (what with the hours, the parents, the administrative issues, and the planning and correcting), this is something I can do again. Especially these hours. Morning kindergarten is 2. 5 hours; Target is not hiring people for two hours a day.

In fact, if I was looking for a job to pay the bills or keep us solvent, I wouldn't look twice a job offering only 5 hours. I imagine it's hard to fill a position offering only 5 hours. And trying to find a job that offers only 5 hours . . . well, no one does that. They look at you like you're crazy if you ask to work one hour a day (I guess).

So. I wasn't looking. I didn't know that option was out there. Craig's cousin (and my friend) has kept in touch with Building Blocks and was telling me last week about a possible placement they called her about and would need someone to watch her youngest if she took it. That ended up not working out, but later that day she e-mailed me the link for an ABA/Floortime specialist position in my town.

So, I worked on my resume (with some non-help from my husband) and sent it over the holiday weekend. They called yesterday and said they wanted someone to work in the morning; I went in this morning to formalize it. I keep saying that they are as excited to find me as I am to find them. It's really perfect for me . . . fits right in to my "free" hours, no outside prep or anything, something I'm pretty familiar with and confident doing, and (dare I say?) easy. Even if it's difficult, it's over in an hour. Building Blocks did 2 or 2.5 hour sessions. And for them, I have exactly the experience and availability they were looking for.

I thought we'd make it through this year, with Kate in morning kindergarten, and then next school year I'd (hopefully) be able to work as a substitute. I've had a sort of unformed prayer for the last few months: "Please Lord. Let us catch a break somewhere. Give us some relief from this seemingly never-ending financial tension." I assumed the answer would be that Craig's work would pick up and his commission checks would go up.

But this answer . . . I so thankful for all the pieces that were in place for this opportunity to work out for us. Thankful for a Father who loves me and knows how to give good things; who knows what we need before we ask (oh, read it in this version).

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

2011-08-31T16:33:00.011-04:00

I guess technically what I did on my Summer Vacation was to take pictures of what my family was doing . . . so here's What We Did on our Summer Vacation:

:: learned to play cribbage

::hit golf balls off the dock

::transported a large number of nerf and water guns across state lines

::jumped off boats

::went to fireworks

::convinced Kate it was OK to go fast in the boat

::looked at the baby loon

::roasted marshmallows (and peeps) with cousins

::went to the ocean

::gave assorted people a pie in the face

::went to the fair

::ate fried Snickers at the fair

::visited the beaver dam

::let Sam play with the point-and-shoot on "hikes"

::celebrated my in-laws' 40th wedding anniversary

::celebrated Kate's 5th birthday

::skiied outside the wake

Not pictured:

::Museum of Science

::Clark's Trading Post

::Swift River

::Funtown Splashtown

::the pool

::the hailstorm

::the splashpad

::attempts to take a decent picture of the cousins (not a good picture, just a decent one).

So what did you do this summer?

Summer Job

2011-08-31T07:57:00.000-04:00

I think I told you about one of my on-campus jobs, the Art Gallery. I had another job one year, at the "child development center." That's a story for another day. While I got to be an unemployed, not-scrambling-to-pay-my-school-bill prima donna during the school year, during the summers I worked a variety of jobs.

I worked at McDonald's in high school, and then I got a job in the men's department at Sears; whatever other jobs came and went the Sears one I worked on and off until I graduated and moved to Bloomsburg to teach.

The summer after my freshman year I worked at EDS; a friend of my parents suggested the job. First I interviewed for a sales position but I wasn't aggressive enough and ended up as a "independent third party verifier" for people switching long distance. (How totally does that date me? Remember switching long distance to get a better deal? Oh, this company offers 4 cents a minute! After 5 PM! or 7, I can't remember. What a waste of time and energy. We should have just skipped ahead to now when we just use the computer to interact to people; now if there's an awkward silence, we can walk away until we think of something clever, witty, or insincere to say. My husband just said he doesn't think long-distance carriers exist anymore.)

I read a script of questions when my phone rang and occasionally people freaked out even though I had no interest in whether they switched or not. Towards the end of the summer, the work really slowed down and I was "let go" a week before I planned to leave.

The weird thing was (well, not weird if you know my parents) is I rode over there (across the river) with the guy from the church who recommended the job. Kevin. He talked a lot and I wished to be anywhere else. I was in love with John-John and didn't know he'd broken up with me before I left to come home for the summer. I waited every day for him to write to me (again with the ancient history references! All through college we [my friends and I] wrote letters. Some were works of art, collages from magazines interspersed with self-centered ramblings and earnest but misguided lamentations on the difficulty of following [or finding] God's will, and occasional drawings or even pictures, if we'd remembered to get double prints [because yes, our cameras used film.]) but he only wrote once, at the end of the summer, and put a cowrie shell necklace in an envelope and that's when I knew he didn't love me because the necklace was broken and also ugly.

Since I rode with the guy I got there an hour before I had to be there so I sat in the cafeteria and read David Copperfield. It was awful but I kept slogging through and kept track in my journal of how many pages I read a day.

I thought about becoming a vegetarian and I think I taught Sunday School at my parents' church. My parents wouldn't let me go to Washington DC for July Fourth even though Kelly and Greg and probably a few other really cool people were going to be there. I was very depressed (not just about that but the whole summer, which I can see now but at the time I'm sure I thought I wasn't being holy enough) but I made money. Between EDS and Sears it was enough to make it possible for me to not work while at school. Which freed up a lot of time for cheerleading and flirting.

Sweet Baby K

2011-08-29T21:43:00.005-04:00

Five pictures of my five-year-old:

I and Love and You

2011-08-23T13:21:00.004-04:00

Kate: "The guy in the song says, 'three words became hard to say, I and love and you,' but those aren't hard to say: I and love and you. See?"

So I try to explain it to her: they're easy to say when you love someone and if you stop loving someone they become hard to say.

But, I add, I love you and always will. You can't do anything to make me stop loving you. And God loves you. And you can't do anything (ever) to make God stop loving you.

Oh, but baby girl. I hope that you never find yourself where you think I and love and you are hard to say to someone. Or that you are not the one being told they're too hard to say to you and your beautiful, trusting heart is broken. I pray that you grow up loving and respecting yourself so your heart doesn't break but maybe is hurt for awhile and recovers. That you are secure enough to wait for life and time and God to bring you the right one and you can say I and love and you directly and wholly and without reservations and for the right reasons and for ever.

Summer Afternoon

2011-08-19T09:51:00.000-04:00

Hey, guess what I did? I took some pictures of the making of my clam chowder with the thought that I'll do a post on it.

Don't hold your breath. But it could happen.

Summer is winding down and I am really sad about that. I love fall, and winter has some nice parts, and spring can be lovely (OK, what I'm trying to say is I like having seasons), but summer. . . Who was it, Henry James?

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.

I love how carefree and relaxed we can be in the summer. I love that my kids get to run wild in Maine. I love being able to go places and do things we don't have time for the rest of the year.

I guess it's the limited nature of it that makes it so special . . .

from Emily Dickinson:

Water, is taught by thirst.
Land -- by the Oceans passed.
Transport -- by throe --
Peace -- by its battles told --
Love, by Memorial Mold --
Birds, by the Snow.

from Joni Mitchell:
don't it always seem to go/that you don't know what you got till it's gone

. . . although with summer, we know what's coming and that it needs to be enjoyed because we'll be snowed in soon enough. But I still like that lyric.

Things I Never Heard in Fundamentalism, Part 2

2011-08-17T09:06:00.002-04:00

From Daring to Draw Near: "Perhaps we should . . . [concern] ourselves less with the form prayer takes than with the attitudes underlying the form."

This quote is from the "David" chapter. White says prayer here, but as the chapter goes on he is talking more about worship.

"There is [no] evidence that the disinhibited praise (David's dancing while the ark was being brought back to Jerusalem) offended God. It might not have been compatible with some people's ideas of dignity, but who should be concerned with our dignity before the Most High? It is God's dignity that matters. And God's dignity consists in his innate worth and majesty, not in his capacity to disguise his deepest emotions. The dignity that can only be maintained by always concealing what I feel is not dignity. It is known as being a stuffed shirt. We were not made in the image of a Stuffed Shirt."

The Best Intentions . . .

2011-08-14T19:59:00.000-04:00

I'm making a blueberry buckle and it smells yummy. I *thought* this afternoon that I would take pictures and share the recipe because the other year when I wanted to make it in Maine I couldn't find this specific recipe online and I wanted to share the yumminess with the world. But maybe another time. I did make a half-hearted stab at getting the camera out to take a picture before I put it in the oven but alas, the camera was upstairs.

And there was dessert to put in the oven.

We had a lovely, lovely vacation (thanks for asking). I didn't take the camera to Funworld (huge step for me, to go have fun and not make it about taking pictures). There was something else we did that I didn't take pictures of but I can't think of it right now.

Oh right. Blueberry picking.

My timer just went off so this post is finished.

Vacation

2011-08-09T20:15:00.003-04:00

My husband is on vacation this week. For a long time he'd be "on vacation," as in, we were able to have a week in Maine at my in-laws' camp, but he was still on the phone and sometimes even worked 2.5 days of the week he was "off." This is the second year in a row (!!) that he's been able to have the phone off (or at least on vibrate most of the time).

It is truly lovely. It's so nice to have him here, and for him to be able to relax, hang with the kids, make me breakfast sandwiches, and only occasionally check his phone. Maybe I'll tell you all about it when we're done.

Whine Production

2011-08-01T16:15:00.000-04:00

Whine production has been greatly increased lately. Sam is eating fine but Kate has objections every night. We give her a time limit and tell her she can eat by that time or go to bed at that time.

So that's really (not) fun.

There's a great deal of complaining about non-food things too, things awful parents would suggest, like going to the pool (at home) or taking a boat ride (at the camp). We noticed it particularly after I got back from South Carolina and would look at each other, eyes wide, wondering when did these spoiled children arrive?

I was working on a big lecture in my mind when a friend posted this link* on facebook. Craig and I talked about how, instead of insisting they be more grateful, we show them what we mean when we say "appreciate all that we have."

*yeah. there's no link. I can't find the post. I've been through the whole month of July and can't find the one I want. I invite you to head over to A Holy Experience and look yourself; it's a post that begins by saying "what if all we had each day were things we gave thanks for the day before" and then there's pictures of sticky notes on a window and she talks about how they write down something they're thankful for on the sticky notes at lunch.

So we've tried. Writing this now, I realize it's been a week. We did this last Monday with my parents and not since. But (thankfully), we have tonight.

For beautiful, heart-squeezing, choked up moments of amazement, this can't be beat. We each get a little piece of paper and write one thing on it that we're thankful for. More often than not we each write three or four. Sam covers both sides sometimes. Kate draws pictures or we spell for her the word she wants. Then we read them out loud.

(insert cool, well-lit, short depth-of-field shots of their papers here that a good blogger would have)

Because we have a lot. It's so easy to look around and see what we don't have so this stopping and thinking about what we do have . . . it's sweet. It usually ends with hugs all around.

I'm thankful for my healthy, verbal children who can communicate effectively (if not always pleasantly) . . . and thankful, too, for this new path of thankfulness God is direcitng us to.

'Cause I was having no luck bottling that whine.

Big House

2011-07-20T13:35:00.000-04:00

My kids are at "Camp Kids Way" this week and loving it. We got a CD with some of the songs that they are singing there and one of the tracks is labeled "bonus" and is called Big House (OK, on that link it's the second song). Sam requested it on the way home today.

Every once in awhile, I'm caught off guard with a reminder that God loves me. I was driving along, listening to this song, and I got choked up. As in, crying. With joy.

It's a big, big house
With lots and lots of room
A big, big table
With lots and lots of food

We are all welcome 'cause there's plenty of room. I don't have to wear certain clothes, act a certain way, read certain versions of the Bible, follow institutionally-sanctioned sanctification or extra-biblical standards. God loves us the way we are. He sent His Son while we were still sinners. He knows our weaknesses. And He loves us.

So.

Come and go with me to my Father's house.

Babies

2011-07-13T15:26:00.004-04:00

Let me tell you, getting to snuggle my tiny new niece was fantastic. She is a sweet, calm little thing and so adorable. I don't have pictures (yet) because I didn't take my camera but I will share when my sister sends the ones she took. I got to play with Belle and marvel how quickly the time has passed since I was down visiting after she was born.

Last night I was washing dishes at my in-laws' camp, gazing out at the lake, and saw a pair of loons. This was surprising enough since we haven't seen the loons very much this year and not two of them together, when I noticed another tiny little wake next to the two bigger wakes of the floating loons. I stopped what I was doing and found the binoculars - there was a baby there!

We haven't had a baby loon here for years. The last time there was an egg, I was pregnant, and that egg didn't hatch. These loons must have a different nesting place than the one we could see from our camp all those years ago. Baby loons are fuzzy little puffballs and sometimes one of the parents will carry the baby on its back. It's really cute. I hope to get a good picture and I'll share with you when I do.

Gone to Carolina

2011-07-08T09:18:00.000-04:00

But not in my mind.

Fo' realz, yo.

I'm going to visit my sister and my new neice.

So I'll be MIA for awhile.

Just wanted you to know there's a reason and it's not just one of those random times I don't feel like blogging so I don't.

I found it

2011-07-07T08:57:00.000-04:00

Good news!

I found the "before" picture of my dresser. It was in the "Kate dentist" file, an obvious place for it to be (right?). I was going through the pictures, deleting ones I don't need or won't print and realized entirely too many albums are named "random" or some variation on that. I need a better system. Currently my system has been to take fewer pictures. Fewer pictures, less to organize. And less to scrap (since I'm so far behind anyway).

Summer School

2011-07-06T06:20:00.000-04:00

So, one summer (I think the summer after my freshman year), I stayed in Greenville for two weeks because my cousin (there's no page for her so that's her husband) was getting married two weeks after school and my parents weren't going to drive down to get me and drive home and then drive down again in two weeks. Neither were they going to pay to fly me home, so instead of staying with my grandmother or aunt (she's the fourth one down) and uncle for those two weeks, I infringed on my relatively new friendship with Jan and stayed with her family.

She might have been in summer school, or at least some people we knew were in summer school, so we went to have lunch with them. When we came out from lunch, the air looked weird. Like we needed to clean off our eyes or our glasses were foggy or something.

Later we found out there had been a partial solar eclipse and that's why it looked weird.

(Yep, that's it. A completely random story about thinking we needed to windex our eyeballs because no one watched the news. Not that the summer school students in the dorms would have had a chance to, anyway. My point is, it wasn't all bad. I made some great friends and some funny memories, and while now I wish I could reach back through time and shake the then-me out of her clueless kool-aid coma, I can also happily accept everything that went before as making me who I am today. Whether it makes me cringe or laugh or sigh, it's from a gracious Father's hand.)

Summertime . . .

2011-07-05T18:12:00.000-04:00

and the livin' is easy . . .

Barge

2011-06-29T07:49:00.001-04:00

"Barge" is what we called the hospital at BJU.

My freshman year I got kind of sick and had to spend a few days there. Anyone who went there was diagnosed with "upper respiratory infection." I slept a lot. It was during Bible Conference so the services were piped in for our benefit.

You couldn't miss class for being sick unless you were in Barge.

Real Moms Guest Post

2011-06-27T12:56:00.005-04:00

So, I wanted the injera and wot post to post tomorrow but since I don't know what day it is, I posted it this morning. ha.

Today I have a guest post over at Simple Mel. I met her years and years ago, in another life, when I was roommates in Derry with her cousin and I was teaching at Calvary Christian School. Then a couple years ago (2? or 3?), a friend in Hudson invited me to a playgroup she was running and Melissa was there - with two adorable little girls. We reconnected and even though neither of us does the playgroup anymore, we stay in touch on facebook.

Head over there to read my confessions of being a "real" mom with a messy house and kids who have their own ideas about what to wear. There's several real mom posts you can catch up on and then you can stick around for awhile reading her archives about her new baby and homeschooling. Plus she's looking for a few more moms to finish out the summer; contact her to participate.

Injera and Wot

2011-06-27T08:05:00.002-04:00

A long time ago, I was in a great bookclub. But everyone lived a good 45 minutes away and after awhile it became a lot to drive that every month, so I left. I tried to start my own and it didn't really take off; then a new friend on facebook tagged me in a note about her bookclub and I invited myself to join.

The book for last month was Cutting for Stone. As I read along, occasionally the characters mentioned eating injera and wot.

I let my fingers do the walking* to a google search and found out injera is Ethiopian flatbread and wot is stew. Fantastic, I thought, I'll make some and take it to bookclub. No biggie.

First, I had to assemble some items I didn't posses. I put out on facebook that I needed a mortar and pestle to borrow. My neighbor came through. Then Elizabeth, my Zumba instructor, had the spices I needed (coriander, cardamom, and turmeric) plus a coffee grinder she used for spices. I skipped the whole fenugreek thing. This was getting really out of control already.

For the injera, I needed teff, a grain indigenous to Ethiopia. Fortunately on my searches around the web, someone had posted a picture of Bob's Red Mill teff, so I thought my chances of finding it at the grocery store were pretty good. I picked up this whole grain teff and had to grind it . . .

which made a big mess.

Then I mixed up the injera.

This had to ferment for 1 - 3 days. So far so good.

I toasted and ground the spices.

I also made some niter kebbeh, a spiced butter for the wot. I could have just used butter, but I had all the spices already (except the cinnamon stick that I had to run over to my neighbor's for), so I went for it.

Craig came home at this point and requested I not make any more ethnic food. It was a little fragrant.

This is the niter kebbeh after simmering.

And at this point, I stopped taking pictures.

I mixed up some bebere, too. The recipes I researched (I checked out a couple, that's one) said I could use a mix of paprika and red pepper but that option felt less authentic and also didn't involve borrowing spices from my Zumba instructor (who is now affectionately referred to as "the spice girl" for my husband's clarification [sorry, E]).

The Friday of the book club, I put the doro wot in the crock pot and that afternoon cooked the injera. Once I started cooking the injera, it smelled so bad I almost puked. It was awful. The method was kind of a cross between a pancake and crepe; the smell was somewhere between rancid rubber and decaying flesh. The wot smelled "different" but not gross.

I took it all to the bookclub meeting anyway and told them how gross the bread was and how I didn't think I could eat it (I couldn't; I got it in my mouth and spit it out). Two of the women ate it and thought it was fine. The rest thought it was awful, even dipped in the wot. Everyone agreed with wot was fine, even good.

As for the book, I loved it. I thought it was exceptionally well-written and beautiful, a fantastic examination of family, brothers, fathers, life, and love. I also learned a lot, looking up Ethiopian food, Disclaced Carmelite nuns, Shiva, and St. Theresa.

I had a lot of fun with this process but I'm not sure I'll be so excessively ambitious next month.

*when is the last time you heard that phrase?

Big Day

2011-06-24T21:26:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow's the big day.

Craig's cousin is getting married.

So it's a big day for the cousin and the cousin's fiance.

But it's the "big day" for me because it was this wedding coming that motivated me to want to lose weight. I think everyone in Craig's family has been exercising and weight watching and all of that.

It was weird for me to think that this was the day I was working for because the exercise/fitness thing has become such a part of my life I kind of forgot why I started. I feel a little bit of "where do I go from here," with the answer being I'll probably just keep going.

I didn't lose any weight that I can tell. I definitely reshaped by body; I have muscles on my arms and legs and have a waist, but I also still have a belly pooch and booty that I guess I will always have. I have pants that are too big but lots of pants that are still too small.

I don't feel disappointed that I didn't lose weight (OK, maybe I'm a teeny bit sad because having a number to say would make my improvements seem more tangible) because I feel like the gains of how fit and strong I feel, the improvement in my mood and outlook, and the community of fun women I've met when I go to a class are an unexpected and better bonus than just having a number to say.

Best wishes to the bride and groom on your big day . . . I did my best to not look horrible in pictures.

Combination

2011-06-22T08:20:00.000-04:00

One of the recurring dreams I have about being at Bob Jones U is that I have to get something out of my PO box and can't remember the combination. I can remember the box #, 50618, and even picture where it was in the room of PO boxes, but in the dream I need to get my chapel seat assignment or my class schedule or I'd be trying to get my ID to get lunch and I can't remember the combination.

At Christmas, my sister was showing me the random things in her Bible and she had a piece of paper with my PO box combination on it. I was thrilled. The anxiety of not being able to open it was gone. I flied it away carefully in my subconscious so if the dream comes back, I'm armed with the information.

Desk Re-do

2011-06-20T17:35:00.002-04:00

I woke up early on Saturday (two weeks ago) with a migraine, took a fioricet, and went back to sleep. I woke up again at 10 (do I have a great husband or what?) and Craig took Sam to soccer while I stayed home with Kate. Browsing through the Merrimack Journal, I noticed the Boy Scouts were having a yard sale and decided to go.

I found this treasure:

I offered the guy $10 for it and when I had twenties and $9 in my pocket, he said $9 was fine. Two boy scouts (who expressed astonishment that anyone wanted the old desk) loaded it into my car and I giddily drove home. My sister-in-law had redone one awhile back so I knew this had possibilities.

After church the next day, we hit the Home Depot Store for supplies:

I am so glad my husband wanted to help me, because he took the top of the desk off and filled it in for me.

We had our chalkboard paint tinted "moonstone" and used that on the desk top.

Sanded and ready to go:

While Craig made another trip to Home Depot, I taped up the wooden parts so we could spray paint. Starting with the primer:

Our top coat had a "hammered" finish and we were both really pleased with it. I would have loved it if we could have sanded and stained the wood, but the desk top was pretty ravaged so we went with paint. The seat was painted Martha Stewart Living Wrought Iron (I just randomly selected this color because it looked dark blue and there were those eeny little 3 oz samples available). (Looking back through, I see the paint sample we got says "glidden" but the paint chip I selected says it's a Martha Stewart paint. Not sure why that is.)

So our afternoon pretty much went paint, let it dry, paint, wait, paint, sand, paint something else, paint again too soon, decide to wait and then paint some more. The chalkboard paint took several coats and it didn't help that I was using the good brush. Once I finished and let Craig have it, it went better, and we noticed over the next day or so that it seemed to smooth out some.

It's in Sam's room and he stashes some of his stuff in it.

I totally cleaned up the room to take the pictures - it's actually kind of funny because there's always something on the floor in there . . . but you know me and staging.

So far he's written in his journal twice, all on his own. He's quite pleased with it.

The Necessity of Selfishness

2011-06-17T07:05:00.002-04:00

Today I have a treat for you: a guest post! It's like a great big icing covered cupcake without the sugar or calories. I wish you could hear her in person and know how genuine, enthusiastic, and positive she is . . . but you don't totally have to take my word for it, here's her just-for-readers-of-food-and-whine post. Enjoy!

Hi there Food & Whine readers! My name is Elizabeth and blog over at FitwithLizzie.com. I'm so excited to be doing a Freaky Friday Switcheroo with Sarah! I love her posts and her thoughtful comments over on my blog.

As nice, civilized people, we are taught that selfishness is a Bad Thing we must avoid. As Christians, we are certainly taught that selfishness is a sin and we are exhorted to selflessly love our neighbor.

As a fitness professional, the number one reason I see for women putting their own physical fitness on the back burner is because they feel it is selfish, self-indulgent even, to spend 30 minutes to an hour a day pursuing physical improvement when there are children to raise, husbands to encourage, homes to run, churches to support, meals to cook, laundry to fold and friends to nurture. It is selfish to spend money on gym memberships, weight loss programs, fresh produce and workout attire when gas is hovering around $4 a gallon, soccer camp costs money and growing kids need new shoes and clothes all the time.

My response: You owe it to your families to be selfish. We usually believe selfishness means actions or whims that gratify our lusts at the detriment to others. Selfishness, in another sense, means “the values required for human survival.” I would like to refine that point a littler further – selfishness are those acts which are required in order for your family to survive and thrive. Your family needs you to be selfish in ways that promote their well-being. It is, in fact, selfish of you (the bad selfish) to do things that take away from your health and life expectancy because this deprives your family of your contributions. It deprives them of YOU.

Your health and vitality is the biggest gift that you give to your children now and when they are grown. Your kids need you to be able to chase after them at the beach and climb the bleachers at the baseball stadium. And their need for you doesn't end when they head to college. Who will be there to coach your kids through their early years of marriage? Through parenthood? Hopefully, if you're eating right and exercising, it will be you. However, type II diabetes, heart disease, stroke and other debilitating physical conditions are on the rise in wealthy, industrialized countries like ours. A person suffering with these conditions will see her quality of life affected. More importantly, her ability to contribute to her family and community will be affected as well. She may come to depend on her adult children to be medical caretakers, which takes them away from their own children, spouses and communities.

When your children are grown, they not only need your advice and expertise, but your grandchildren deserve to draw on your wisdom and experiences as well. Eventually, you will be responsible for passing on your family's traditions and history. The only way you can do this effectively is by being around and engaging with your children and their children.

Motivational speaker Dr. Wayne Dwyer has said, “You can't give what you haven't got.” It's such a profound statement. You can't share peace if you lack peace yourself. You can't share wealth if you are poor. You can't share wisdom if you're not wise. You can't share Christ if you don't know Him. But let's assume that you have peace, prosperity, wisdom and a relationship with Christ. Can you share these things with your family if you don't survive and thrive to a ripe old age?

I encourage you to start seeing healthy eating and physical fitness as things you do, not for vain shallow reasons, but out of a sense of obligation to your family. You are irreplaceable. They will never get another mother, wife, sister or aunt like you. They need you to take care of yourself! And if you get certain vain and shallow benefits out of being a hot and sexy mama, well, no harm done!

Funky Junk Inspired

2011-06-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

'Member how I told you I'd done a project inspired by Funky Junk? Well, I finally took a picture for you.

It hangs in the stairwell to our basement so it's impossible to take a picture with natural light there. I have little clothespins (from A. C. Moore) that hold Sam and Kate's artowrk onto the jute (not sisal) twine (from Home Depot).

Oh wait! I took pictures. (Lemme find 'em. They're really lame. Here's one.) I got the frame at Building 19 for $10; it's just the frame, no glass or art or anything. Then I used some watered down paint to paint it (two coats). I used thumb tacks to hold the twine in place.

Then it was propped up on the ledge there for what, 2 months? Until Saturday, when I hung it (I used a level!) and took that first picture. I love that there's a dedicated place to put lots of their creations.

Baby Quilt

2011-06-13T06:27:00.000-04:00

This quilt is for my sister's baby (due any day now).

(yes, that's Kate in a bathing suit and Rapunzel hair to the side . . . I forgot I had to crop this.)

This fabric is called Fresh Cut by Heather Bailey (it's discontinued, boo hoo). I was at a fabric sale thing and fell in love with it - so gorgeous and unlike anything else I've used. When I went to pay all the fat quarters were half off - even better!

I made up a pattern because I was so eager to get going. Then I had to add fabric to some edges to make it even. In the future I'm going to (perhaps) begin with an end in mind.

I made some burp cloths, too, with some of the extra fabric.

Now all we we need is the baby!

Frugal Pajamas

2011-06-11T09:50:00.000-04:00

Kate had this adorable pj set from Carter's that she cut the leg of one morning when she was supposed to be watching TV and letting me snooze)(by "morning" I mean 6:15 AM or so). I kept them around for awhile, trying to think of how to fix them or maybe cut them off (but short pants with long shirt bothered me).

Then it came to me: I'll cut the sleeves off, too. She needs shorty 'jamas anyway.

First I cut the sleeves off. Then I pulled them a little to curl them up (below, the right sleeve is pulled and the left sleeve is not)(I know, I'm so proud of myself for my detailed process pics).

Up close shot of scissor damage (somehow there's tulle involved):

Cut off as straight as possible:

I was going to sew a straight line and let them fray but the silky stuff was fraying too easily so I folded a little hem and sewed it with a zig zag stitch. Then I finished taking pictures in my poorly-lit basement (which has recently gotten brighter light bulbs; it's like a whole new room).

And here they are: she'll be able to wear them all summer now.

Painting Glass

2011-06-10T06:29:00.000-04:00

I forget where I saw this idea. It might have been Just a Girl or someone like that. (It kind of stated with this, the idea of gluing two things together and painting them, but I really can't find the source of the original idea). I thought I'd try it out; I could use some better spray painting skillz anyway.

When I went to the local Salvation Army and got really skeeved out and frustrated with wasting my time when I couldn't find anything. I zipped into the SalVal in Harrisburg in April and found some plates and candlesticks to use to make little cake stands, or cupcake stands, or whatever you want to call them.

So I googled "painting glass" (or something) and found this article. Then, I got my supplies, waited for a decent day when I had time to spray paint, and took a picture for you:

I glued my candlesticks on the plates. Then I started painting and noticed they were not centered.

First coat of primer (or paint. I can't remember):

Finished product, also featured in the pie bird post.

The short one ended up in the bathroom with a bar of soap on it and the soap pulled off some of the paint. So, so much for that . . . at least I went into it thinking this was an experiment to see how it would go.

My friend Melissa just did a post along these lines; check out her creations.

Bad Kitty

2011-06-09T08:07:00.004-04:00

This was the plan:

Picture is from bakerella.

Obvi. I mean, when have I had a picture that good?

I wanted to make these for Kate to take to school to celebrate her birthday before school got out for the year. Of course, I thought about this a lot more than I acted on it and waited until there were only 2 days left in her school year to make my move.

The basic steps are easy (just reading through it now, I see I didn't use enough frosting. I used 1/3 cup which I imagine I read somewhere; also hers are tiny (!!) - quarter sized. I used my middle-sized Pampered Chef scoop.

I chilled them for almost two hours and started attaching ears.

So far, so good.

Then I started dipping and carnage ensued.

They fell off the sticks and broke into pieces. It was discouraging.

Here you see my main problem: they were cracking (that'd be the not enough icing at work).

I was ready to quit but thought, I'll see how they finish off and then decide if I'll keep going or not.

I got out the food markers I'd gotten that morning at A. C. Moore.

sigh. This was not meant to be.

So not only is the marker not black, it didn't work right. I'll have to click on Bakerella's link to see what markers she uses. But the nose and the bow turned out cute, huh?

So I let Kate go crazy with the embellishments. I showed her how to use the melted candy melts as "glue" and she had a ball.

Last night I was finished forever with cake pops shaped like cats. Today, I'm actually thinking of trying again someday . . .

Things I Never Heard in Fundamentalism (Part 1)

2011-06-08T11:18:00.005-04:00

I got that phrase from Camille and it crosses my mind a lot . . . hey, that's something I never heard growing up. or, That's something I never heard at Bob Jones or any of the Calvary Baptist churches I went to through the years.

Reading Daring to Draw Near this morning, I had another such moment. Concluding discussion on David's prayer, Psalm 51: "[David saw] that outward religious observances were no substitute for a right attitude toward God and sin."

In my experience, fundamentalism is all about outward religious observances. How many services attended a week (we don't care if you have 167 research papers to grade and what's taking you so long anyway? Just pass all the church members' children), how long your skirt or big your white collar, how big your Bible or long your public prayers. Are you "busy" to the point of thinking you have mono? Well, you're not doing enough. Maybe God will look your way if you try harder. Maybe you can do enough one of these days to not feel so guilty and weighed down. Maybe. You're not really good enough for God to love.

White: We ourselves forget this. We try to compensate for sin by our twentieth-century sacrifices. We atone by trying harder, by being extra kind to someone we have hurt, by praying longer and more frequently. Yet none of these things are acceptable to God. . . . He wants us simply to say, "There is nothing I can do to make up for what I have done." (pages 78-79)

And this, the giant weight lifting off my heart, the chains of guilt that drag me down breaking: all that is needed is to show God the spot and say, "I cannot make it clean."

I can't. But He can. And He loves me.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

2011-06-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

These pie birds make me think of "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie."

As with everything, there's a story.

Which I'm going to tell you.

Two Thanksgivings ago, Craig and I watched an episode of Good Eats the Wednesday night before Turkey Day. Alton made an apple pie (among other things, I think) and used a pie bird. The next day, I saw my mother-in-law had a pie bird on her window sill. It was so adorable and unbelievable that there was one just after learning what they were; I didn't think an average person had them. I wanted to collect them.

As with many things, easier said than done.

Most place I ask don't know what they are. And I could get them off ebay but the hunt is part of the fun, right?

A few weeks ago (when I procured the window above our bed), I found one in an antique store near here. And then last week, my mother-in-law got the other one for me . . . I was so excited. Two is better than one; two is a pair! Two is a . . . collection! yay!

My children keep asking "Why do you have two?"

What will they think when I have four and twenty?

This is the Short Answer

2011-06-05T10:11:00.000-04:00

A friend from Bob Jones put on facebook for "country music fans" to post their top ten or top five favorite songs so he could add some country music to his playlists. I like country music. I like how they take a cliche or a phrase and give it a twist. I like Sugarland's and Natalie Maines's twang. I like the songs about how good life is right now. But songs to suggest in a public forum? I know I have appallingly unsophisticated taste in music; I like what I like irregardless. In my typical obsessive way, this got me thinking: What are my favorite country songs?

It's a complicated question. My favorite songs are the favorites because of the memories they invoke: walking down the aisle to meet Craig to "Cowboy Take Me Away;" or singing at the top of my lungs with my sister to "Man, I feel like a Woman" (I haven't heard that in a long time); sobbing the first time I heard "Something in Red" (I was pregnant, alright? I cried at the craziest things); pulling away from a wedding where I saw an old boyfriend and hearing "Bye, Bye" on the radio - how often does the radio cooperate so nicely with what you want for the soundtrack of life ('cause for sure I had the rearview mirror torn off and I was not looking back)?

I don't know that I'd really say, "add these to your playlist," and this is by no means comprehensive (because you could pull out some random song and I would immediately say, "that's my favorite song!").

(editorial note: I'm not going to punctuate the song titles with quotation marks because I'm lazy and don't feel like doing it over and over. The song is first, the artist second. Also, no links because that will take forever and I've got books to read. Except "Something in Red." I had to google it to find out who sings it, so she gets a link.)

Favorite Country Breakup Songs:

1. Little Goodbyes, SheDaisy
2. Blame it on Your Heart, Patty Loveless*
3. Picture to Burn, Taylor Swift
4. The Dance, Garth Brooks
5. Bye, Bye, JoDee Messina

Favorite Dixie Chicks songs**:

1. Wide Open Spaces
2. Cowboy Take Me Away
3. Ready to Run
4. The Long Way Around
5. You Were Mine
6. Goodbye Earl
7. Don't Waste Your Heart
8. Long Time Gone
9. Favorite Year
10. Truth No. 2

Favorite Songs by a Man:

1. Drive, Alan Jackson
2. The Good Stuff, Kenny Chesney
3. Unanswered Prayer, Garth Brooks
4. Live Like You were Dying, Tim McGraw
5. You're Gonna Miss This, Trace Adkins

Songs that remind me of Dating Craig:

1. Breathe, Faith Hill
2. Cowboy Take Me Away, Dixie Chicks
3. This Kiss, Faith Hill
4. Fearless, Taylor Swift***
5. I Could Not Ask for More, Sara Evans (but Edwin McCain did it better)

Songs that make me Cry:

1. Something in Red, Lorrie Morgan
2. Streets of Heaven, Sherrie Austin
3. Highway 20 Ride, Zac Brown Band
4. Already Gone, Sugarland+
5. Come On Come On, Mary Chapin Carpenter

Songs my Children (mostly Kate, Sam usually wants no part) will Deign to Listen to:

1. Love Story, Taylor Swift
2. Best Days of Your Life, Kellie Pickler
3. Chicken Fried, Zac Brown Band
4. Picture to Burn, Kellie Pickler
5. Cowboy Casanova, Carrie Underwood

Favorite Country Songs by People you would not expect to be signing country:

1. This, Darius Rucker
2. First Cut is the Deepest, Sheryl Crow
3. All Summer Long, Kid Rock
4. Perhaps Love, Placido Domingo++

(yes, I am ending with a 4-point list. My brain is exhausted from digging out song titles and artist names. And Craig is sick of answering my questions ['cause it's easier to ask him instead of thinking] and thought I was buying every song I was asking about. As if. He knows my ipod is full [clearly I'm going to have to be pickier about what's on it, like no more Backyardigan episodes].)

* (not, as I thought, Trisha Yearwood)

**Because they do get their own category

***Right. It wasn't out then. But something about "you take my hand and drag me headfirst, fearless" totally takes me back to that time.

+oh come on, you can't tell me that "it's our whole life down to one box" doesn't get you.

++OK, I tricked you a little with that one. It's a duet with John Denver

I Can't Find the Before Picture

2011-06-02T07:04:00.000-04:00

I know I took a before picture because I took it really long ago - like, in January. When I first decided I wanted to paint these. But I can't find it.

So here's the after and as a consolation prize, a few other pics of our bedroom.

My dresser. I chose this shot to post because in all the others you could see, reflected in the mirror just to the left of the dresser, the laundry basket I moved so it was out of the picture.

We also painted the mirror but didn't sand it so when I tried to wipe off the watered-down paint for a "weathered" look it just smeared off so I had to slap more on and let it all dry. The dressers got two coats of an antique-y white and then a "rub" of watered down wall color. Also we got new hardware, which you can't compare to what was there due to no before shot.

Window I found at an antique store. I love it. Craig wants me to fill in the windows with maps and photos and maybe I'll get to it but it's not on the list. His main problem is that you can see the wire used to hang it but I say, you can't, because the wire is almost the color of the wall. Also I think it looks cool as is.

Shelf high up on the wall. Just recenlty my mother-in-law got me the dark stars (I thought they were blue [this room is supposed to be red, white, and blue, with emphasis on the blue and white] but I think they're black) and the wooden star; the bottles Craig found while diving in the lake. I'm slowly filling this in; I want and Americana/cottagey look but ahve trouble focusing.

Craig's dresser. I debated not moving the piles of clothes he keeps on the floor in front of it but in the end photo styling won over reality.

There you have it. Another New Year's goal met.

Thoughts from the weekend

2011-05-30T20:47:00.008-04:00

:: Letting Craig draw rabbits on Kate's sheet quilt might not have been such a good idea.

:: I'm going to need cortisone shots.

:: If the garment has a hood, the hood should be up.

:: The Barbie fishing rod is preferred because the fish is purple and sparkly.

:: We are in big trouble.

:: I love my kids. And my camera.

:: Ethan was having a good time.

:: I do not know what I was thinking with this shot. Maybe checking the light? Or maybe this is when I gave it to Craig.

:: Sam is learning to play real cribbage (not "kids' cribbage" which is based on adding). He won his first game vs. Nana today. I grabbed the camera and took about 8 shots before I realized they were overexposed.

:: My family needs more training in holding still, waiting, and staying out of the frame (if not the subject of the picture) while I play with lighting, composition, and focus. I didn't even get to try Sam in focus and cribbage board out of focus. sigh.

Fit With Lizzie Giveaway

2011-05-27T11:39:00.005-04:00

So you know about my "affair" with Tony Horton in the fall. And maybe you've picked up on my girl crush on Chalene.

Well, in the midst of that, I met a real-life fitness goddess right here in the Granite State. I did piyo with her in the fall and it was, the the beach body vernacular, a butt-kickin' good time. I'm gonna Zumba with her tonight if I don't lose motivation by then (so far this always happens and I haven't tried it yet, but since I've had some success learning the choreography in Turbo Fire, I think I might be up to the challenge); I told Craig I was going to go so that's a big step in the right direction (planning ahead, as it were).

She's doing a giveaway on her blog for a book, so check out Fit With Lizzie to see how (but don't enter because I want my chances to be good).

update: I won!

Oxymoron

2011-05-25T11:28:00.003-04:00

I made a trip down to Trader Joe's (it's just far enough past the mall to require special planning to go to) for one-ingredient peanut butter.

I mean really. It never occurred to me that peanut butter should be made from, you know, only peanuts. But then I read a blog post (somewhere, I forgot to bookmark it; oh wait! maybe it's on stumble) about how "natural" peanut butter from the big brands like Jif or Skippy still use some kind of hydrogenated oil to make it shelf stable and had a link to Krema peanut butter, which has one ingredient.

Peanuts.

It was a big 'duh' moment for me, kind of like watching Food, Inc., and realizing indeed cows are not supposed to eat corn. Or hormones that make them be fat enough for market a year earlier than their more normally fed counterparts.

Ugh. It makes my stomach turn thinking about it. The e.coli, the washing the meat with ammonia, etc. If you thought Super Size Me was a gastronomical turn-off to fast food, Food, Inc. will have you asking waiters where your beef came from: a containment and feed lot or a field.

But I digress. What was I talking about? oh right. Peanut butter.

So. I trek to Trader Joe's and find my one-ingredient PB. Not even salt for me: one ingredient. I forget to get the low-sugar jelly (because it's not everywhere; I don't want the no sugar one. Why, you ask, did I not get jelly at TJ's? I have no idea. Habit, I guess.) and Sam agreed to a PB and fluff sandwich.

I whip his lunch together (because it's the end of the school year and I'm running out of steam here . . . there's just so much to remember in the morning, like, eat, drink coffee, and pack a lunch) and as I'm cleaning up I realize what an oxymoron I have: I went to all that effort for the peanut butter and then paired it up with fluff.

Is there anything less natural than fluff?

rofl @ mpt

2011-05-24T11:54:00.002-04:00

I've been wanting to read Churched and even had it in my Amazon cart just before Christmas (the cart I didn't order because one of the things was going to cost $62 to ship 2-day. or something like that. I think they had cloned a Dodo bird and that was going to deliver it and that's what was jacking up the delivery fee).

Anyway.

Last Sunday (being the Sunday before 2/7, which is when I began this post) I saw a girl (woman? lady?) in my church, my small group leader from LBS, with the book. I asked if she was reading it and she offered to let me borrow it and gave it to me Sunday.

I finished it Monday.

I read about half of it sitting in Sullivan Tire waiting for my car to be inspected, trying to not laugh out loud and failing.

It was funny, it hit close to home, and made me thankful my fundy upbringing wasn't infested with that much crazy.

So, since 6 of these have been sitting here neglected for 3 months, here is an almost-top-ten list of thoughts from the book.

1. About his father: "Pursuing God through self-discipline came naturally to him." (knowing smile and nod from me) My dad, too. He likes rules, and believes following certain rules a certain way will bring about the perfect result. While this worked and continues to appear to work for him, it caused me a lot of unhappiness and anxiety. Since I was never "right," I must not be following the right rules or doing them correctly.

2. "Being perfect, separated, and content with living in the dark ages helped us feel born again." I didn't know I was living in the dark ages (or at least a throw-back to when the world was good, like the 1950's) until later. Perfect and separated, yes. It wasn't until I was in my late 20's that I had any friends who were not only not Christians, but not religious in any way. I didn't know how to relate to them. I thought not ordering an alcoholic drink at our team meetings at Chili's was a "good testimony." I was so sheltered I operated under the assumption that drinking = not saved, not drinking = saved. I didn't even know there were perfectly legitimate reasons a non-saved, non-churched person would have to not drink.

3. "Feeling born again was much more difficult that being born again, but to us they seemed equally important." Feeling saved is the key. One thing I could identify with in the book was how scared of hell he was. Just being afraid of hell, or being freaked out by A Thief in the Night, was enough to make me feel not saved.

4. "I needed hell to exist. It helped me focus. It kept me striving toward being a good fundamentalist." That sums up my the first quarter century of my life. I wanted to be a good fundamentalist. Not a good person. Not even a good Christian. A good fundamentalist. I didn't know that's what I was (it's only recently I've been able to label that box and start putting experiences and beliefs in there) but I worked really hard at having the longest skirts, the highest necklines, and the most cliche-ridden prayers.

5. "God, I thought, Do you help sinners? Do you even like sinners? If you do, please help me. P.S. You are awesome." I could sing multiple verses of "Jesus Loves Me" but I never really got it, or knew, or understood that He did. He. Loves. Me. He loves the sinners and gave his life because of that love.

6. "The older I got, the more I began to realize that the life I lived was not only difficult, it was strange and fearful. When I skipped reading my Bible or praying, I feared that God would punish me." I thought that's how God was: He was going to get me because I couldn't do anything right. I was afraid of the house burning down, that my family wasn't saved, that we were going to burn down in the house . . . if I could just get it right, I could keep us all safe.

7. Toward the end of the book, he goes door-to-door with his teen group and talks to a woman who kind of shatters all the fear-based get-saved-quick dogma he's been fed: she tells him nobody can know beyond a shadow of a doubt if they're going to heaven. Because that's where faith comes in. It's a work of God, not of me.

8. This woman, Mrs. Johnson, goes on to say "I don't believe God gives us fear. God gives us hope. Now if I'm his child, why would he want me being fearful and scared all the time?" If I'm afraid all the time that I didn't get saved the right way, I'm not going to go anywhere in my walk with God. I kept trying and trying to be good enough to be saved. Letting it all go also released all that fear that I thought was part of "Christian" life.

9. He finishes the book by describing a meeting with his pastor and telling him he was "not very good at doing church." I spent a lot of years being good at church. Every once in awhile I feel that persona sneaking over me . . . the catchphrases, the mannerisms, the legalistic judgementalism . . . and I hate it. I am getting better at not swinging the complete opposite direction in reaction but to pause and think about what Jesus really calls us to. But now, I'm not very good at "doing" church. And I'm fine with that.

There's no 10. I told you it was an almost-10 list, remember?

My plan all along has been to make this a top-ten Tuesday and a way-back Wednesday post. Two birds with one stone and all of that.

update: I forgot to link to ohamanda's top ten Tuesday but you know where to find her. Also, Matther Paul Turner has a website titled Jesus Needs New PR but everytime I go there my computer freezes so I can't link. Mostly insightful, a lot of funny.

Other update, 2 minutes later: The linky's not closed. So I'm in.

Why I Blog

2011-05-21T16:22:00.000-04:00

Stumbling around the web, I found a website where the girl described her blog as a "sometimes" blog* - sometimes it's about life, sometimes about crafting, sometimes about cooking and I thought that's what I do on my blog. It was either that blog or another one where she had a page titled "why I blog." I can't seem to find this (or these) blog(s) but take my word for it, there was a source of inspiration for the following thoughts.

*I thought she was going to say because "sometimes" she blogged and sometimes she didn't, which would also about sum up what's going on here.

I'd been pondering why I blog. I thought (and still do) that the word blog sounds like retching. I thought that blogs were just self-centered ramblings with no point other than to waste time. Then I started reading some MckMama; at the same time Julie and Julia came out and one night thought, if I started a blog I'd call it food and whine and write about trying to feed my children real food.

I didn't do any research, read any blogs, or even really think about it that much. I just started in writing.

I found I liked writing, and as my sister said, it was a good outlet.

I thought it would be easier to get readers and then (of course) a huge following and then (of course) advertisers wanting to pay me to ramble incoherently and then (of course) a book and/or movie.

I imagined it would take 3 months, tops.

Once I started I realized how much time it took MckMama to post every day or Big Mama to put together the Fashion Fridays.

And then I found craft blogs. And craft memes (or linky parties or whatever you want to call them). And it began to dawn on me that there were a lot of blogs out there, some good, some really good, some borderline lame, some really little like mine, some with great writing, some with awful writing . . . but lots and lots of blogs. Lots. There's a whole other world of blogging. I'm not sure I'm up for it.

Some days I feel like writing. Some days I don't. Sometimes I take pictures for a project that doesn't work so the next time I do a project I don't take pictures and it works great and I semi-wish I had process pictures.

So. Having talked in a big circle, I arrive at the place I started. Why do I blog? I don't know. But now I have a post for a "why I blog" button.

Of course I didn't

2011-05-20T15:52:00.004-04:00

I can't believe I went to Market Basket this morning, bought a lunchable for Sam, and then took it to the school for him to have a lunch.

I mean, of course I didn't.

Because I believe that eating whole foods, minimally processed, is the healthiest way to eat.

Because I would be prepared for an entire week of packing lunches, even if it was pb&j (all-natural peanut butter that only contains peanuts, less sugar jelly, and whole grain bread) with banana in it.

Because I wouldn't try to talk him into buying the school lunch of pizza even though he no longer eats the school pizza (sometimes it has too much sauce and sometimes too much cheese, according to him).

Because I wouldn't let him have a lunchable in the first place (right?) so that he decided he likes them and requests them for the days he's not buying.

Because I saw Food, Inc., and am looking to locally source all our food or just move out rural and grow it ourselves.

Of course I didn't do that. I just imagined I did, right?

"Craig Liked It"

2011-05-19T19:00:00.004-04:00

For awhile, I marked my recipes the way my mom did, with the date and a check mark, or check plus, or check plus plus. Then I realized I owned these books or that it was a page ripped from a magazine or something photocopied and who cared what I wrote on it?

So I started writing more descriptive things like, "really good" or "super yummy" or "dry/don't try again." I also write what changes I made or what changes I want to try the next time.

Tonight's recipe had "Craig liked it" written by it. This concerned me a little as that usually means I didn't like it.

But I soldiered on anyway, burning the bacon on the first go-round yesterday (due to starting too close to the time I need to meet the bus and not paying attention) and deciding to do something different last night and put the beef carbonnade* together to have tonight.

It turned out great. I put the beer in right before putting it in the oven tonight and for the last 20 minutes I threw in some carrots (not part of the recipe); they were a nice addition.

The kids didn't eat it but at the same time our whine production is greatly reduced. They ate the noodles and a little bit of beef and overall it was a success because no one cried.

*This recipe is slightly different from the one I used from Cooking Light 5-Star Recipes; mine said to cook in the oven for 2 hrs and 45 min.

For Some Reason

2011-05-17T20:50:00.003-04:00

I could not access blogger for a few days. It was annoying and I thought, maybe I'll just quit the whole thing. Then I decided to "ask" for help and found a forum or something that mentioned clearing my history and cookies, and a post that implied this might have to happen twice, and then I thought I should shut down the computer, so I did all of that and it was still acting up so I changed my password and here we are.

Good, because I have so much riveting information to share and I'd hate for you to be deprived.

Sarah versus the Laundry

2011-05-11T20:32:00.000-04:00

I have a bunch of pictures on the camera that I need to put on the computer and then organize into a post. Or, like 8 posts. I just haven't been feelin' the blog lately.

The dressers are painted and I keep waiting for a sunny day that coincides with a day when there's not clean laundry all over the bed or dirty laundry all over the floor to take a picture and post. I also picked up a window that is now hanging over the bed so there's that to show you, too. The laundry just won't quit, or, if the room is approaching clean, it's overcast.

It occurred to me today that it's a lot like "Leiningan versus the Ants" here: Sarah versus the Laundry. Or, more accurately, as I gaze around the living/dining room, Sarah versus the Clutter. I keep thinking if I can just get a system for this clutter, I could keep it under control. Almost every other area of housekeeping has a system, whether I follow it or not, but the clutter . . . the papers from school and the craft supplies (they have a home but they overflow) and the costumes and the stuff that just won't go away . . .

The Fly Lady calls it putting out the fires. I just have slacked on that while plowing through laundry, I guess. I should set up a plan for tomorrow: wake up, coffee, pack lunch; get Sam up, dressed, fed, and out the door; put out brush fires; go to used book store; make more piles of clutter; catch up on laundry (it will have mulitplied while I was out); exercise. Oh, and somewhere in there have some quiet time, empty the dishwasher, play with Kate, and make dinner. That should leave just enough free time to start a new quilt.

And dig a big ditch for the ants to drown in.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T04:45:00.001-04:00

:: to my mother, whose commitment to being a godly wife and mother through the years still amazes me.

::to my sister, for whom I'm praying "baby sweetheart" lets you get some rest and stays put to 36 weeks (at the least) or maybe June 1 (since you so don't want another May event).

::to the women who "mothered" me through my teaching years, providing comfort and solace and a glimpse of grace in the torrents of ungrace that define those years.

::to the women I knew as girls who are now mothers themselves; who are loving, creative, and inspiring in ways I could not have imagined back when we were young and spent a lot of time complaining about our own mothers.

::to the mothers whose Mother's Day is one (or two, or more) hug short of complete; and yet who love on, knowing these absent babies are with the only One who will ever love them more.

::to the not-yet mothers who are waiting for God's timing or direction, may your arms and hearts overflow.

::to my mother's helpers who take care of my children and let me get out to run errands or have night out.

::to all the mothers in my life, older and younger, the ones I see frequently and the ones I see rarely, the ones I'd like to see more often, the ones I've just met, and the ones who may not know it but have encouraged me: thank you for sharing your hearts, your time, the blessing of your company and your book recommendations; and for allowing me to know and love your children.

::to my mother friends who do it (all) every day and make it look good.

This post has a lot of pictures

2011-05-03T16:43:00.007-04:00

And while there's a lot of pictures in this post, it's not even half the ones I took (or tried to take).

I thought Easter would be a great time to get a picture of my kids together. Dressed up, nice day . . . I had high hopes for a good shot.

Close, but no. After several attempts along this line, we had a mini egg hunt and I tried a close up, arms around each other.

OK, not so much.

After church, around the side of my parents' house:

I knew he had chocolate all over his face. I just thought he was so cute anyway.

How about me with the kids?

Thanks, Kate.

One more try with the two of them in their church clothes:

The main thing wrong with this is that gross fence.

Now we'll try after the egg hunt . . . they'll be in a good mood then, right?

Anyway. I wasn't ready to give up yet. A few days later we went down to the Pennsylvania Governor's Residence, where my mom is a docent. While we waited, I thought, how about some shots against this cool brick wall?

Not too bad.

Not sure what's up with that pose.

The thing is, they don't want to stand or pose or whatever while I play with camera settings and angles and all that. Sam is good for smiling great in the first few shots but then gets tired of it; by the time Kate is looking and smiling he's done.

I really like this one.

How about me with the kids again?

"Dad, was Kate looking?"

"Oh yes, I wait for her to look and then I snap it."

(He gives me the camera.)

"Dad, she's not looking."

Very sunny so Kate's squinting, but I really like it . . . I even like how I look in it.

We Saw a Panda

2011-04-30T20:50:00.003-04:00

I thought, oh, we'll see the panda, no biggie. But man, it is so cool to see a panda. He (or she) was sitting very close to the front of the enclosure and drinking out of a bottle. Last time we were at the zoo we didn't even walk up to the panda area because my friend said there was a chance they wouldn't be out. So not only were they out this time but this one was right out in the open where we could see it.

Hands down, the best part of spring break.

The Easter Bunny Told Me to Give this to You

2011-04-20T12:46:00.004-04:00

We never really did anything for Easter other than getting dressed up in "Easter clothes" and having a lily; at church Mr. Higgins sang "He's Alive" to mark the occasion. But no candy or baskets.

My first spring at BJU, I made an Easter basket for my mega-crush of the time and guy auction purchase, John-John. I met him for the sunrise service at the stadium and gave him the basket of candy on top of which I had tied his tie into a bow.

I had his tie because we (my XK girls and I) were obsessed with wearing ties as belts thanks to the influence of Phinny in A Separate Peace. I guess he needed his tie back due to having to wear ties every day.

When I gave him the basket I said, "I met the Easter Bunny on the way here and he told me to give this to you." This must have been before we were socialled (a unique punishment invention of Christian colleges that says the punished student cannot talk members to the opposite sex and a story I may or may not get around to telling) because we went to breakfast afterwards.

Later he gave me a polaroid* of him with the Easter Bunny at the mall. Because he was a town student and could go to the mall on Sunday.

*blogger wants me to capitalize polaroid and I don't want to.

Feast or Famine

2011-04-18T21:33:00.003-04:00

Today I did a version of this. That is not my picture, it's Funky Junk's. But I will show you my version if I get around to it. I seem to either write lots of posts back to back or just leave this poor blog to languish . . . I have no real plan for the foreseeable future to be any more predictable. (I do not know what is up with the spacing! I drive myself crazy trying to put in paragraph breaks that just won't take.)

Broccoli Breakthrough

2011-04-12T20:27:00.003-04:00

Tonight for supper we grilled some beef, made some noodles from a package, and steamed some broccoli. Kate loves the broccoli. Sam usually doesn't. I was thinking a few months ago about how all the advice when moms start feeding the baby solids says you have to introduce it something like 15 times. I realized I was taking their word for it that they didn't like something when they'd only tried it 2 or 3 times. So I kind of went back to basics with Sam and the broccoli (and other things, but I can't think of them right now): I put a little piece on his plate every time we had it and he had to eat it and that was all. Last week we had an amazing moment: broccoli in something with a sauce and Sam said he liked it. Then tonight, he ate his stalk and said he liked it. Then he ate all his meat and noodles and asked for more. Actually last week on a few nights he said he was hungry before bed and ate again. He must be growing or actually realizing what hungry feels like and can pay attention to it long enough to eat.

Disappearing Nine Patch

2011-04-07T10:37:00.012-04:00

One of the first pages I stumbled upon was this one from Cluck Cluck Sew. I immediately became obsessed with the disappearing nine patch. With a few simple steps the quilter ends up with a complicated looking quilt. I ended up making three and I might not be finished with this method. The one I took pictures of was the second one I made. Craig's aunt gave me this fabric years ago when I first started quilting. There was about 1/4 yard of each and I never really knew what to do with it. Since I'd already made a randomly arranged disappearing 9-patch, I made three identical nine patches and rotated them all in the same direction.

Observe:

sew together

cut vertically and horizontally through the middle

rotate the same direction

Finished project: runner. I did go buy the dark green for the binding. Oh, and I didn't make three identical squares, I made two. But you can see how making the squares identical and rotating them the same way makes a pattern.

Contrast:

This fabric was leftover from the doll bed bedding I made before Christmas. I was thinking about trying to make pjs for the dolls for the girl's birthday but seriously doubted my skillz in that department. For this one, each 9-patch had a brown center (which when cut made the small brown squares) and then randomly rotated them. I tried to recreate a new mitering (is that the word?) technique for the corners that I found on the internet but since I didn't go back and re-read the directions and it didn't work nearly as well as the method I typically use.

Having practiced disappearing the 9-patches twice, I started in on some fabric I've had lying around for a really, really long time. Last summer I gathered these fabrics together and went with my mother-in-law to pick out a neutral to go with them. At the time I didn't have a real plan but I love how this turned out (excuse the ghastly picture, I realized as I started to write this I needed one and snapped it quick so I could get on with my life).

I know what you're thinking: Yes, we got new curtains. You might not have noticed because they look stunningly like the old ones, but I'm soooooo happy with them.

Back to the quilt, I love how it turned out. It is my first all-machine done quilt: machine pieced and machine quilted (a road I might not have tried except for the carpal tunnel syndrome). I wanted to do a blog post on the walking foot titled "this foot was made for walking" but I never took a picture of it in action.

There was a small amount of planning when laying out the fabrics and planning what each 9-patch would contain, most of it revolving around the dark pink and where in the 9-patch it was placed (if in the center, it would be cut into 4 small squares; if in the center of the rows or columns, it could be cut into rectangles; and if in the corners, it would stay as a big square). My other thought was to keep all the 9-patches different.

These cut 9-patches were all rotated randomly, again with a little bit of moving around to try to spread out the dark pink, which I think is the strongest color. Then I threw on the biggest borders I could with the fabric I had and ordered my walking foot.

While I was working on the quilting part, I felt like the quilt was becoming too puckery as quilt lines crossed each other but I carried on, as is my style, because finished (to me) is better than perfect. Then I washed it and 90% of the puckers that were bothering me were gone. I think with more practice and a little more patience I can get better results. Or I'll risk my wrists and hand quilt; it's easier to get the fabric taut and flat.

I backed this with fabric bought years ago (5 years, to be exact; when I was pregnant with Kate and found this at Marden's and I bought the 2 bolts they had for when she gets a room, this could be her curtain fabric. My MIL made her crib bumper and skirt from this fabric) and made the binding from the same fabric.

I used a bowl to draw the corner curves, something I read somewhere, and I love how they turned out. I put the pink and green squares in the corners before I remembered that I wanted to round them. I might not have done that if I had remembered but also I was cuttin' it close with that neutral. Irregardless*, I like the result.

Maybe if I get some energy I'll take and post better pictures and close-ups.

**not a word but oh-so-funny to say

Linking (first time!) to Show and Share at Just a Girl.

One Shining Moment

2011-04-06T09:19:00.004-04:00

The spring I was president of CRC*, I was in the A&O** with a bunch of other people on the night of the NCAA*** championship. The Student Body Council was working on something, or not really, and I was helping, or not; Grog (student body president/not his real name) decided we needed to stay up late to see the "One Shining Moment" montage at the end of the game. Someone made a call to Jim Berg (or whomever one calls there to get permission to do what any other 20-yr-old on the planet is capable of deciding for oneself) and we were granted permission to continue working on the project past light bell**** . . . project being done, or unimportant enough to stop, or possibly non-existent in the first place, we watch the end of the game, soaked up the montage of highlights from games none of us had seen, and then headed to our dorms, elated to be elite enough to stay up late. *Community Relations Council **Activities and Organizations Office ***I do not know what these letters stand for ****prayer group 10:30-10:45, light bell at 11. PM.

Boden knock-off

2011-03-24T08:37:00.000-04:00

When I was in PA for Christmas, my mom and I went shopping for clothes for her to get the kids. This plain purple t-shirt was on sale and while not my favorite I figured we can always use a shirt.

{imaginary picture of purple shirt before.}

She wore it a few times and in the meantime I saw these in the Mini Boden catalog (there were cuter ones than the chicken; there was a cat and another thing that was super-cute).

{click on the link, I don't feel like saving and uploading.}

So I decided to make my own using the same method for the number t-shirts.

I printed out a flower shape and cut it out.

I ironed the fusible web onto some purple-patterned fabric I have and traced the flower onto that.

I cut out the flower, ironed it onto the shirt, and zig-zag stitched in purple around it.

I add a yellow circle to the middle in the same fashion.

You have to ignore how cute they are and look closely at her shirt. This was my first attempt to take a picture of her new quilt; you'll notice the other ones are better staged.

I love that this is so cute and so much cheaper than an actual Boden shirt.

And it rescues the plain purple shirt from being, you know, plain purple.

Quit your bellyaching, you anemic worm

2011-03-23T04:23:00.000-04:00

Walking back from the dining common with Diana and Jan, Diana admonished us with "Quit your bellyaching, you anemic worm."

I promptly fell over laughing.

She claimed she meant to say "quit bellyaching you sickle-cell anemia" (being, of course, a pre-med major), but what she really said was so much funnier; it entered the pantheon of frequently-used inside-joke catch phrases.

I still say it sometimes to Craig and laugh to myself.

Am I the only one . . .

2011-03-22T11:27:00.004-04:00

Who can't stand this

and has to do this?

Who wonders what was going on in a child's head to do this?

But then that (above) explains this:

Beth Moore

2011-03-16T09:44:00.004-04:00

Praying God's Word by Beth Moore was one of the books I wanted to read this year (it's only March and I've finished* or at least begun** some of my goals/"resolutions" for the year . . . it's like, I've finally learned to cut myself a break [it's OK to not do it all] and I'm willing to go ahead and do something, even if it's not everything. Which weirdly*** enough is what this post is going to be about).

*finished: headboard, Testimony, playing Harry Potter

**started: painting bedroom furniture, Praying God's Word

*** in that, I planned where the post was going but not the introduction and the intro fits in with where I wanted to go.

To me, Beth makes things accessible. She gives simple steps that lead to the big, overwhelming things that I think the Christian life "has" to be about. I'm about halfway through the book; I read the chapters and pray the prayers. Some of the chapters I go back to daily to pray, and as I go on I see how some are more pertinent now than others. Yesterday I read "Overcoming Food-Related Strongholds" and thought, I'll read this but it's not really where I am right now. But that chapter caught me off guard with the most encouraging and blessing-giving sentences yet.

To quote (p. 151):
I'd like for you to see one more very important truth encased in 1 Thessalonians 5:24. Thank goodness the Word says, "The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it." You and I cannot get our bodies and souls under continued control. Cease trying to "get yourself together" and be disciplined in your own strength. It is useless. We might make it work for a little while, but failure is imminent."

I've been struggling with not being disciplined with my "free" time and "doing the right things" and all that . . . what I have to do vs. what I want to do vs. what I think I should do . . . I get anxiety-ridden about it and don't do anything at all.

Then I blame it on Bob Jones for not teaching us to think and for having rules all the time about everything that provided external structure but not an ounce of inner discipline. I feel like I'm so old to be at such loose ends about what to do . . . everyone else seems to know what to do.

But this book, this chapter . . . it's not up to me. I don't have to get myself together. She used the exact words that I berate myself with.

She continues on p. 152:

"Victorious living is not an instant arrival."

Which is, of course, what I want. Or was taught was attainable (whether it's my perfectionist personality or the message I heard at school and home, or a combination of these): getting everything right at the same time and then things will stay that way with little effort on my part. Like a recipe: put all the right ingredients in and you end up with something perfect that doesn't have to be remade or redone.

"A daily recommitment is not to ensure that we'll never fail, but to help us develop the mentality that every singel day isa new day. A new chance to follow Christ. Obedience to God is not some diet we suddenly blow. It is soemthing to which we recommit every single day."

" Stop feeling guilty becasue you don't ahve any self-discipline on your own."

Those words stopped me. WOW. I know she's specifically talking about self-discipline regarding food, but how those words apply to me and my feelings of guilt. I've been saying in my head, "what is wrong with me that I don't have self-discpline?"

She also talks about how Joshua's challenge of "choose you this day whom you will serve" is not a one and done thing . . . choose this day. "The concept of rededicating our lives to Christ only at infrequent revivals or conferences can prove disappointing and defeating."

For me, this made it possible for me to take a deep breath. This day is committed to the Lord. He will show me the plan for today. I don't have to trudge under fear and guilt, dragged down in failure and inconsistency, unable to live up to what I think I should already have attained. It's not all up to me. I'm learning to be OK with life as a process and journey. God doesn't fault me for being on a journey, for being a work in progress. He's not resentfully, grudgingly helping because I can't seem to get it right and it's taking too long.

He loves me. He invites me to walk with Him, to, as Beth put it earlier in the book, "dialogue" with him about the areas where I'm weak and vulnerable to failure. Everyday I can recommit to to Him, trust His plan (the big, overarching plan for my life and His creation but also just "the plan" for the day. Breakfast. Bus. Cleaning. Quilting. Whatever.)

Victorious living is living, not a finish line. And I'm thankful for that.

Just so you Know

2011-03-11T19:51:00.004-05:00

It's been a week since I posted? Where has the time gone?

I had a big rush of ambition and words last week. Then I got a stomach bug that wiped me out for 2.5 days. So the words stayed in my head.

I really enjoyed the sitting in bed and reading uninterrupted while Craig was home on Sunday.

I did not enjoy dragging my energy-deficient self around in a semblance of normal behavior because life must go on regardless of whether or not I can think about eating without gagging.

But that's all over and things are slowly getting back to normal . . . whatever that is.

Quilt How-To

2011-03-03T21:01:00.001-05:00

I will tell you how to get your own quilt like this in 5 easy steps.

1. Marry someone whose mother quilts.

2. Start before this child is even born, asking for a quilt for the older child to "match his room," setting up a pattern where the grandchildren get quilts when they move into big beds.

3. Fall in love with a pattern in a magazine and stash that nugget of knowledge in the part of your brain that remembers random, non-essential pieces of information.

4. When this child moves into a "big girl bed," ask her (at the quilter's request) what she wants her quilt to be. Pass on the answer: Pink and brown and green with flowers and butterflies and tubas. Ignore her and ask for this pattern.

5. Be blown away by the amazing results.

Sorry, I guess that doesn't really help you.

She's amazing, isn't she (my mother-in-law)?

That first picture? I used the tripod and the manual setting, just like Layla told me to. I did for the rest but that first one, especially, I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Thank you, Nana.

Bloomsburg

2011-03-02T05:26:00.003-05:00

After I finished at BJU, I got a job (through the BJU career office, whatever it's called) at a Christian school in Bloomsburg, PA. Bloomsburg Christian School.

I started in the middle of the year since I finished in December. I had no idea what I was doing. For awhile I lived with a family in the church, until I got a tiny, tiny apartment. I taught 7th and 8th grade English, 7th PA History, 8th grade Bible, and I'm sure other things. That's only 4 classes. There was another junior high teacher and we team-taught, so she did science and math.

Did I mention I had no idea what I was doing? Pretty much every night I'd come home from school and plan out the next day.

I was there for a year and a half, finished out the 97-98 school year (lest you think I lost my mind and left in the middle of a school year), and moved to New England.

Turns out, the 8th grade class that I started with thought they had gotten their former teacher fired. They were very full of themselves, in that rebelliously entitled way Christian school kids can be, and thought they could send me on my way, too.

I was quite busy being a good BJ graduate and trying to figure out what in the world was going on with a place that wanted to know if I could say the books of the Bible in the interview, didn't believe in Christmas trees, and talked about being a B.A.P.T.I.S.T.

One day, the students were talking about something, who knows, and I said something, and one of the kids was replied, "I'm telling the principal," and I laughed and said "Go ahead, what do you think they'll do, fire me?"

A few weeks later I found out that they did indeed think they'd been instrumental in the previous teacher leaving and I laughed to myself that I'd said what I said not knowing what had gone on in the fall.

Sally's got a blog!

2011-03-01T09:08:00.004-05:00

Well, I found the camera. On the bottom shelf of the former-train-table-now-Lego table, on the back side, near the window, not where one could see it when walking in the door.

That is not one of my usual places to put it. I was taking pictures of Legos for a post and forgot that I had been doing so.

I think maybe the lead paint had addled my brain (that's another project I want to post).

Anyway. I was going to post pictures of Kate's new quilt (gorgeous, you'll want to protect your keyboard from the drool) but the camera battery died. I'm charging it now and will upload them later*.

Last fall (to change subjects sans transition), I was invited to do a study with my mentor/friend (she's got a new merea so now we're just friends and I can't tell you how abundantly blessed I am to have her in my life; I'm a little embarrassed to go on about her because I know she'll read this but she's been so amazingly kind and giving and God has really used her to encourage, inspire, and motivate me). We read The Ministry of Motherhood and it was very good. We did feel like she painted a super-rosy picture of her children, especially the one who was like 8 in the book and talked like a 24-yr-old grad student but overall, a blessing.

Just today, this link was posted on facebook:

First time obedience, really?

It's a little long and the comments are even longer; I didn't read all the comments. I struggle with the mothering thing; I like results that I can see. And there's not instant results with this. We have good days and bad days. I see progress and regression. We get something under control and something else comes up. They both can be so needy at the same time and then they can play wonderfully for whole 10-minute segments at a time.

But this post let me take a deep breath and trust that God has it all in HIS hands. He's made my children unique and exactly the way he wants them, and He's made me (you guessed it) unique and exactly the way He wants me. Besides the good/bad day balance, the clean/dirty house balance, (etc., etc.) there's also the balance of me grabbing control and then releasing it to God, who never let it out of His hands anyway.

Since not sure where I'm going with this, here's a list of a few things that stood out to me on my first reading:

1. There is no formula (I mean, I know this, but that doesn't stop me from looking). I want formulas. I want to do steps 1, 2, and maybe 3 and have my kids eat the right quantity of appropriate food. I want to mix the right steps and have a clean house all.the.time. And certainly there's got to be a formula where I end up with compliant children who don't get on my nerves even if I'm tired.

2. I like her gracious writing style. I like her reminders to understand my children's developmental stages and their limits. If my expectations are not age-appropriate, I'm going to drive myself crazy punishing them for something they're not capable of doing.

3. She had a blog? I love it. I'm going to have to toss out my to-do list and read it while Kate tears the house apart and my arms fall asleep.

4. Yay! Heartfelt Discipline will be back in print this summer!

Well, my wrists hurt. I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I feel like it's a super un-trendy thing to have, like it was the thing to have in the late-80's (Craig pointed out that that was the start of personal computers and everyone had to learn how to use them ergonomically so that's why, in my mind, CTS is linked with that time period) and now the trendy medical issue is a concussion.

Not that I want one of those.

The physical therapist told me to look up online about correct posture/etc. when on the computer. You mean slouched on the couch is not good for me?

The point of these last paragraphs is, I want to wrap this up with some pithy, clever statement, but it's not coming to me and my train of thought keeps being interrupted by the "mother polar bear/panda bear (kind of creature that buries the mama/breaks the nest)" A.K.A. Kate, who is hatching an egg (I think) and now my writst hurt so I have to stop.

*are you keeping track? That's three (3) posts I have planned. Where are my carpal tunnel braces?

Monopoly

2011-02-27T13:41:00.006-05:00

On Monday, my neighbor taught him to play.

On Tuesday, we got the game at Wal-mart and played for 90 minutes after supper. We packed up our money and wrote down what space we were on to continue playing (leaving the board out with Kate in the house is out of the question).

On Wednesday, we continued. Craig was raking in the money and property and I was getting tired of it so I sold my property to Sam for $50.

On Thursday, Craig and Sam finished that game, with Craig letting Sam win.

On Friday, I played with Sam, and we tried out the "speed version," with the new dice. It made it more interesting and fun (to me). At bedtime, I suggested we count our money and the person with the most would win . . . after I hid $500 under my leg so Sam would win.

On Saturday, I played another game with Sam. Despite mentioning to Craig that one of us could win the next game (no funny business), Sam creamed me. The "speed dice" actually dragged the game out a little; if you roll Mr. Monopoly, you move your counted spaces and then move to the next property owned by the other player. This meant Sam would pass "go," collect $200, then have to move to Pacific Ave. and pay me $52. Finally I gave him Pacific for one of the rents I owed him and the game wound down from there.

I think it's Craig's turn to play.

update, 7:25 PM: Sam wanted to play with Craig. Kate wanted to play Monopoly Jr. with Craig. I agreed to start the game with Sam and Craig would swap out when he was finished with Jr. We were pretty evenly matched, although at the beginning I made some poor choices trying to set up Craig to not cream Sam, but then I kept playing and Craig made the kids supper.

The point is: I didn't exactly let him win. I rolled quickly before he could move to my 2-house yellow property (there was a mix up of which piece he moved and how far to move) and landed on 4-house Boardwalk. It was all down hill from there.

'Round Here

2011-02-22T21:33:00.004-05:00

It's school vacation week. I found out last year that I can't go into these things without a plan or I go crazy. This year my friend mentioned a week-long class at the Y for Sam. It's been great; he's gotten exercise and it fills up the morning AND today I got to run around the track almost 4 times (with Kate and her little buddy Abby).

I haven't written anything for awhile, not because of a lack of things to write about or absence of projects going on around here . . . I had a bunch of posts set up to post and then just kind of ran out of steam.

So I thought I'd do a way-back Wednesday post but couldn't think of a good story.

It's that time of year when Craig works late most nights so "kids' choice" is a common occurrence. Sam seems to have crested some kind of hill and eats what is served most nights sans complaints.

I mean the nights where I make real food and not do the short-order cook routine.

Kate is in a particularly ornery stage and rejects almost everything I offer to eat and disagrees with pretty much everything I say. When she's asleep, I go in her room and stroke her hair and pray for her.

I do the same for Sam but it's harder to get close to him without waking him up.

My nails are breaking very easily and are very short right now and still break. I think it's from my carpal tunnel syndrome brace things; I think they're reducing the circulation to my fingers.

I should eat some jello.

Beauty and the Beast

2011-02-16T08:48:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I took S & K to see Tangled. Kate loved it.

loved, loved, loved it.

I wasn't quite ready for how much she loved it.

I mean, obviously she was the model for Rapunzel's hair.

This is actually the before picture from when we took her for her first haircut.

But I digress. What was I talking about?

Oh, after Tangled, I realized she had never seen any of the Disney Princess movies. There's a few reasons for this: Since Sam is the older child, we were more about Thomas and Lightning McQueen by the time Kate came along. I mentioned my issues with the whole princess thing, and also, in every one of those movies, there's something scary (Ursula, anyone? or "Kill the Beast"? ).

My point is, without actively trying, we had avoided watching the movies that are typically a big part of little girls' vocabularies.

So I got Beauty and the Beast (on videotape!) from the library. Kate refused to watch it.

Her older friend came over and I suggested watching it and the friend was super-enthusiastic so they did. Almost all of it; we stopped it before the Beast's transformation so Kate has no idea what really happened.

I was kind of excited to watch it with her, snuggle up, and sing along with these songs that are embedded in my head. But once Belle's first song started ("there goes the baker with his tray like always"), I had a major flashback to Bob Jones University.

Feelings of dread, anxiety, unhappiness . . . PTSD. OK, I get it. Not PTSD to the level of war vets, but the symptoms* are there.

*distressing memories, dreams, guilt

It took me back to my freshman year and watching the movie in the FMA (edited, of course [seriously. There was a part or two that they silenced so we would not be corrupted by whatever ghastly ungodly word snuck into a G movie. from 1991.]). Plus we listened to the soundtrack all the time because there was very little listenable music that checked (but of course not the last song on the soundtrack, where some celebrity du jour sang the title song).

It was weird; usually I can tell when an unpleasant reminder is coming (like my mom's continuing ardent love for the place) but this caught me off guard.

(singing) "look, there she goes that girl is strange but special . . . " I imagined I was Belle. The Bob Jones community were the townspeople singing about me. But no. Not special. Just another rule-breaker to them.

"Barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly" I thought any minute I was going to meet my true love . . . I went through a lot of boys looking for approval and it was such a waste . . .

Maybe Kate will see the end of the movie. Maybe she won't sit that long for awhile yet. But in a larger sense I hope she learns it's just a movie, a fairytale, a story.

Happily Ever After is for heaven.