Conundrum and a {small} Recipe Round-up

Seems like there's always a holiday or a special occasion out there that we celebrate with candy. From the number of posts I've seen from people wondering what to do about friends and relatives who won't respect their food choices, I'd guess I'm not alone when I sometimes feel guilty for not allowing my kids to "cheat" on their diet to partake of the cupcakes, donuts, candy and such that come into their Sunday School classes, and it must be even harder when your child is in school!

Growing up, I had a sort of middle-of-the-road mom. She was real concsienctious about how much sugar and processed junk we had. We were the kids who brought our lunch from home, didn't eat doritos, barely knew what soda was, never tasted chocolate milk ... dessert at home was 2 oreos, or applesauce with mini marshmallow smileys. I felt wierd and left out. At the same time, I was kinda jealous of my friend Mavis. She had a real cruchy mama! She ate bean sprouts sandwiches on homemade whole wheat and really enjoyed it! They had an enormous patch of sunflowers in their backyard with a group of beehives in the middle of it, and a honey spinner in the basement. It was so cool!!

I guess I say that to say I understand both sides of the argument personally. I thought when I grew up I was NOT going to be the mom that limited her kids to 1 Kool-Aid at a party... turns out I am that mom. And worse! I have my kids on GAPS, for crying out loud!. It's for their own good, and they know it, and they understand it -- to a degree. That doesn't make it any easier on them when their class is having Krispy Kreme and they have to turn it down to eat the banana I packed for them! For the most part that doesn't happen, and generally the snack is animal crackers or something that they don't have much trouble turning down for a Larabar. But what about those parties? What about those ball games in the summer when everyone around them is sucking on a lollypop? What about EASTER??? No jellybeans, or Cadburry Cream Eggs, or Recees Peanut Butter Eggs?

We've really never been an Easter Bunny family, but we've always had a few chocolate eggs or maltballs and jellybeans in a bowl on the counter for easter, and generally we have a spring-like dessert of some sort, whether its a lemon cake or something else light and yummy. So I've been doing a lot of thinking about what to do for Easter treats. Of course I don't want to go overboard because even with these recipes that can be good for you -- full of gelatin and butter and other goodness, they also have honey. And while honey has wonderful healthful properties, it is sugar. But I've been searching the web and I've come up with what I think are some pretty good options, and I thought I'd share them with you, maybe you can make healthier choices this Easter season, too and feel better about the sweet treats you're sharing with your kiddos!

Let me preface this list by saying that chocolate is NOT legal on GAPS intro, but small ammounts once your digestive symptoms have subsided are allowed. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride had this to say on her website gaps.me:

“Cocoa is SCD illegal. However, I find that many people can start having it occasionally on the Full GAPS Diet, once the digestive symptoms are gone. Find pure organic cocoa powder. Mixing the powder with some honey and sour cream makes a delicious dessert, and you can add it to your homemade ice cream or cakes. After trying it for the first time, observe your patient for any reactions. Cocoa is very rich in magnesium and some essential amino acids and, unless your digestive system is not ready for it, there is no need to avoid it.”

Also, the peanut butter cups recipe uses her recipe for GAPS legal chocolate, which seems a bit complicated and requires purchasing cocoa butter (which I'm really interested in trying, actually) but for the time being, we have found that using unsweetened bakers chocolate and adding about 1-2 T of honey and 1t of vanilla per oz of chocolate makes a delicious dark chocolate that hardens quite nicely at room temperature. ;) And almost ANY of these recipes would be delish if dipped in chocolate, methinks.

Happy Easter and happy treat making :)

Cinnamon Buns from The Urban Poser

Homemade Marshmallows from the Mommypotomus
Gummy Candies from the Mommypotomus
Coconut Almond Candies from GAPS Diet Journey
Salted Caramels from Diary of a Small Town Earth Muffin
Lemon Bars from Gutsy
Peanut Butter Cups from Nourishing Our Roots

Cultured Butter, Why You Should Eat It, and How To Make It

This is my youngest at 18 months. He
grabbed a spoon, pulled up a chair,
 and dove into the butter I had
softening on the counter. Little ones
know what's good for them!

I first tasted butter as a sophomore in high school.  Like most public schools, mine sold lunches every day. Not as typical, they also offered some “breakfast” items before school in the morning. These items consisted of chocolate chip cookies, cartons of milk and juice, and … buttered hard rolls. Not exactly ideal morning fare, but a friend offered me a piece of her hard roll one morning and that was the beginning of the end. I started bringing spare change about once a week to buy one of those hard rolls. I can still taste it! It was soooooo good!

I grew up eating margarine. Not that my mom ever bought into the whole no fat/ low fat mantra, it’s just that margarine was cheaper, and she didn’t really know anything was wrong with it. She did her best by us ,and I have her (and my dad) to thank for my ability to think objectively and make choices about food regardless of what popular culture tells us. We didn’t eat much sugar and ate as many real or whole foods as a single income would allow a family with 10 kids. We just couldn’t afford butter is all, and I never knew what I was missing.

We’ve been “in the know” on butter for such a period time now that I was sort of shocked a few weeks ago, at Sam’s Club when I overheard a man ask his wife if she wanted him to grab the margarine. Sometimes when we know something, it seems sorta strange that everyone else might not know it, too, doesn’t it? That was a good wake up call for me. Even though conventional wisdom is coming around and demonizing trans fats (of which margarine is definitely one) they have not also accepted butter as the healthful alternative and so most are left with a conundrum. What to do? Butter?? Margarine?? Which is least bad?

Well, in case you don’t know already, butter is unbelievably good for you. When cows are healthy and grazing on rapidly growing green grass, the butter is at its best."Dr. Price thought [this kind of butter] could heal rickets and that it brought blood serum and calcium ratios toward normal". (Cure Tooth Decay p.38) It is rich in vitamins A, D, E, K2 which, by the way is design perfection since we need the fat in butter to absorb these vitamins.

Most people are aware that vitamin A plays a key role in vision, most are not aware of it's role in reproductive health, bone and tooth growth, and cell division. Most people are also under the false impression that we can get plenty of vitamin A by eating carrots. Not so. The water soluable carotenes found in vegetable foods are not the same as vital, fat soluable vitamin A. These carotenes must be converted by the body into retinol, but it is a difficult process for the healthiest of bodies and requires stunning ammounts of the carotenes.

Vitamin D assists in the metabolism of trace minerals in the body, especially calcium and phosphorus. Adequate levels of vitamnins A and D help the body to ward off infectious diseases like the flu! There is a common misconception is that we can get all the vitamin D we need from the sun. Well, yes, our bodies do have the ability to convert sunlight into vitamin D, but only if we have high levels of fat in our diets and have access to both UVA and UVB rays. How many of us are blocking those with regular sunscreen application? (don't even get me started on sunscreen!)

Vitamin E strong antioxidant and aids in ridding the body of free radicals. According to Adele Davis it also assists with skin elasticity

K2, or as Dr. Price called it Activator X, is what makes grass fed butter yellow, and it isn't easy to come by. Perhaps the best source is butter from cows feeding on spring grass. Next would be the livers of these same animals. The Swiss of the Loetschetal Valley used to have a religious service of thanks to God for the first butter and cheese of the year because of it's life giving properties. It is essential for tooth health and remineralization. It also plays a key role in protecting heart and brain. Activator X works synergystically with Vitamin D, A and calcium. It is uncommon to find poor bone or dental structure, and cavities in the ancient exhumed skeletons of the Loetschetal Valley.

When I first started making my own butter from the rich cream skimmed from our jersey milk, I found it nearly impossible to wash all of the buttermilk out of it, and it would get a sour taste fairly quickly, even when kept in the refrigerator. I found it frustrating and eventually I sort of gave up on the butter making and just bought sweet cream butter from the store.(which is really not that great since it's made with pasturized milk from cows in confinement) Then my 2 year old developed a lactose intolerance and I couldn’t use butter in cooking anymore. I decided it was time to take another look at butter making. Since raw milk contaise Lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, most people with lactose intolerance can drink raw milk and eat raw milk butters and cheeses with no problem. I had been hearing wonderful things about Kerrygold cultured butter and mentioned it to my husband. We love cultured things! Yogurt, milk kefir, water kefir, Kombucha, and sauerkraut are all regulars in our kitchen. We both wanted to know WHY it was so delish and started doing some research. What exactly makes cultured butter cultured??  I’ll let you in on a little secret. Ready? It’s made from soured cream! That’s it!

Now, I had seen the recipe for cultured butter in my Nourishing Traditions Cookbook a hundred times and passed it up because it sounded gross. I mean who wants sour butter? Ewwwwww! But after all the research and forum reading, I decided what the heck? I might as well give it a shot with a bit of the cream. If you never try, you’ll never know, right? Oh my word! It is so good!! The butter is still very sweet, and what’s more, even if you don’t get ALL the buttermilk out, it stays good for quite a while just sitting out on the counter. Of course, I don’t advise you to leave it out on the counter. That’s just what I do. On top of that, the buttermilk you’re left with  is just like what you would buy in the store, except it’s raw. You can use it however you would normally use buttermilk. Do you make buttermilk pancakes, for instance? I really like it for marinating venison roasts. It makes them more tender and less gamey. SCORE! Two for the price of one! J  And what I have discovered is that the longer you let your cream set to sour, the thicker the buttermilk is, but it really affects taste very little. Of course you don’t want to leave it until it’s clabbered, but if you don’t get to it right away, no worries. It’s not going bad on you.

Lest you worry about  bacteria in the sour cream, let me put your mind at ease. If you have a good local source of raw milk from healthy cows, rest easy.  The milk is loaded with beneficials that actually protect the milk. In fact studies have shown that raw milk from healthy cows, when inoculated with a pathogenic strain, actually killed off the pathogenic bacteria or virus, and the only side effect was that the milk soured more quickly. It was not, however, any less safe to consume! 

***I can not vouch for what would happen with pasturized milk. Those animals are not healthy and any good bacteria that might be present has been killed by the pasturization***

Traditional cultures prized dairy and rarely drank it sweet and fresh the way we do today, especially those cultures in temperate climates. They relied on souring to protect their milk products! Souring is the process of beneficial bacteria (lacto-bacilli) consuming the sugars and protein in the milk, making it safe to consume for longer periods of time. Amazing, isn’t it, how God provides the means of protection right in the milk? And in the process, the milk becomes more healthful, providing beneficial bacteria to populate your gut!

Not only does the culturing process make it easier and safer to digest milk by prediegesting the lactose and casein, it also intoduces enzymes that help the body absorb the minerals already present in the milk, while at the same time increasing B and C vitamin content! Isn't that magical?
 

OK, so now that all that’s out of the way, how do you make this fantastic stuff?

Equipment you’ll need:

·         Fresh raw cream

·         Something to beat or shake it in. Hand or stand mixer, blender, or just a jar with a cover for shaking.

·         Strainer of some sort with small holes. A typical colander probably won’t work here.

·         Wooden spoon (wet so it won’t stick to the butter) and a bowl.

·         Salt to taste (optional)

 If you are blessed to have the ability to buy quarts of cream from your local dairy, you can start there, or simply skim the cream off the top of your milk with a ladle or a turkey baster and  allow it to sit on the counter for about 8 hours, or overnight. Depending on how warm your house is you may need more time or less. Keep an eye on it. Whenever it smells sour you can go ahead and begin with the next step.

Now you can form your butter in any number of ways. If you have a traditional churn, that would work, or a stand mixer, or hand mixer, even a blender. I personally prefer to just shake a jar by hand. Make sure your container, whatever you choose, isn’t too full. That’s key. You’re cream has to have plenty of room to slop around in order for the butter to form. Then just start shaking, whipping or whirling away. When it’s done, you won’t have any trouble knowing it. There will be globs of yellow butter floating around in your white buttermilk.

At this point you will need to strain your buttermilk into a jar. Use a canning funnel for this. It makes the job a heck of a lot easier, trust me! Now you’ll be left with a strainer full of butter. It will look something like this:

I just got this strainer in the kitchen section of Walmart. It’s not fancy but it does the job.

Now  you can just run this butter under cold water from the kitchen faucet. Alternately you could put it back in your blender or stand mixer with cold water and turn it back on. Repeat this rinsing several times until the water runs pretty clear. I usually put mine in a bowl here and press out as much water and buttermilk as possible and rinse as needed.

Once it’s running clear or pretty near to it you can optionally salt it, or just press it into bowls, or just slap lumps of it onto plastic wrap to store in the fridge or freezer. That’s it! Pretty easy, right?

Give it a try! Then let me know how it turns out!

 

source
source
source: Cure Tooth Decay, Ramiel Nagel
source: Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig PhD

There and Back Again -- a Tale of Decision

I come from a family of 12. Yes, I am the second of 10 children. And I always swore I would not have an enormous family! But, by today's standards, and the comments I get at the grocery store, my family is already enormous with 4 kids. Sooo, we've decided to add another bundle of JOY. That's right, we'll be adding a new member to our family in October. It was a weighty and somewhat difficult decision for us to make, but we're excited about it. Want to know why? Read on.
 
When my youngest son was imminently expected, I was ginormous and miserable! There's a picture of what I looked like. I promise, that is NOT a basketball under my shirt; it is a 8 lb. 9 oz. baby boy.

 We had been transferred with the Railroader's job and were living in a tiny apartment, that felt hopelessly cramped with our too-big furniture and half our stuff was in a storage unit. And even though I had already done this twice, I felt completely overwhelmed! COMPLETELY! I was scared out of my mind about money for some reason, despite the moving package we get. I just knew we weren't going to have enough to move and our house in MS would never sell and we would be pinching nickles and pennies. I spent a lot of time crying, but I can't honestly say I was crying out to God most of the time; I was just in tears -- emotional and hormonal, and stressed about not getting enough homeschool done, and how I was going to contribute financially from home.

I felt like a "bad mother". Especially after Wyatt was born, and I had PPD for the first time, and came THIS CLOSE to giving up on breast feeding for the first time ever. I desperately wanted to be a good mother. A "super mom" who has it all together and never has an off day or loses it with her kids.  ( I have since realized that those don't exist this side of heaven. And really, would I be any less emotionally thin with no kids, or even one, without leaning on my God?)

On top of that, I was tired of feeling fat, tired of the cycle and the zillions of different sizes of clothing in my closet that I didn't even like hated -- all so that I could go from preggo clothes to non-preggo, back to my "skinny" jeans and then back again.

And in that state, that emotional, spirit empty, worried, frazzled state, I made a decision. A big decision: I would not have any more children.

The Railroader and I have stood by that decision for 3 1/2 years, but in those years, the Lord has been doing a work in our hearts. Individually, then together.

I began to think about and hear more and more stories of extremely difficult pregnancies, with terrible morning sickness, dehydration, placenta previa, extreme weight loss, and other miseries, while the most difficult thing about any of mine has probably been the heartburn. I have friends who want babies with all their hearts, but aren't able to conceive, or had extreme difficulty conceiving, while here I am, evidently "Ms. Fertile", and not willing to conceive again. I've shared before that I'm motivated by guilt ... well ...

Then there's the command to multiply and fill the earth in Genesis.  We've both been mulling this over quite a bit, since we learned that our race literally cannot sustain itself at the current rate of birth. If every person were to get married and have two children, who were guaranteed to get married and also have two children ... the population would just barely stagnate. But not all couples CAN have two children, or even one! Some people God chooses to remain single. The command to fill the earth is given to married couples. Now, we could really say we've done our part; We have 4! And we were inclined to do so, at first, but it just kept coming back to us as something we couldn't ignore. As if God were imploring us, specifically, to do more. And we began to wonder if it was really our decision to make. And so began to bathe it in prayer. Please don't misunderstand me. I still believe in responsibility and timing children appropriately, but I think sometimes we get caught up in US and WE and our PLANS or what is exactly the right time and we miss the bigger picture. We miss the calling that is parenthood, sometimes until it is too late. And we get caught up in the work children make for us, or how they interfere with our work, when really, they are our most important work!

We also hope and pray that another baby will be good for Wyatt. He is our only mama's boy. He is attached to me at the hip,and while I love it, even thrive on it, I think he might need a wake up call. He needs to learn to help take care of someone more helpless than himself. Besides, some of the other boys have been asking for quite some time for another baby. You know, the Lord often speaks to use through our children.

Lastly, we simply enjoy our kids. They're fun, and funny, and sweet, and precious memory makers. They cause us to get outside of ourselves, and teach us daily more about ourselves, and the love of the Father. In particular we are enjoying our 3 year old in a way I think we have never had the opportunity to enjoy the others, because there is no baby to distract us from him, but our enjoyment of him makes us desire another. So we decided to go for it. In fact, this is the first time the Railroader has been really, truly excited about a pregnancy. I think he actually may have gotten a case of baby fever (which is curious, since he doesn't do that well with them until they're old enough to interact with him) That gives me confidence that we made the right decision. And if this one is a girl, so much the better! :D

Beans and Whey Soup

Because we're starting GAPS again, and because I have some idea of what to expect of it from the last time, I decided 2 things. #1 I'm going to use my crockpot as much as humanly possible for dinner preparation, and #2 lunch will be soup. Period. I have WAYYY too much to do during the day to be preparing 3 GAPS meals from scratch every day, and I know my boys are going to fight me on drinking broth, which is an intrgral part of the diet. They'll fight me on soup, too, but there's more variety in hearty meal soups than in meat broth day after day. Soup is easy to prepare in large quantities and freeze in smaller portions, and besides that, since Nathan will be joining us on the diet, I need to have something easy for him to carry with him. That means soups and salads will have to be mainstays in his lunch repetoir.

So, needless to say, I have been scouring Pinterest and the Internet, at large for soup recipes that are either GAPS friendly, or can be tweaked to suit our needs. The other day I had a large quantity of Whey leftover from making some Whole Milk Ricotta. Whey is a nutrient dense food and I knew that I didn't want to throw it away! I also know that I will be making large quantities of Kefir Cheese while we're on GAPS and I will have lots of whey left over from that, so I needed to find a good way to use it up. That led to a search for soups with a whey base. This is one of the recipes I found. I tweaked it quite a bit because of what I had on hand. It ended up delish, and I will definitely be making it again! Here's my recipe:

BEANS AND WHEY SOUP (with greens)

Ingredients:
1 cup white beans
1tsp. vinegar or lemon juice
good quality bone broth
1 bay leaf
1 lb. ground meat of choice (I used venison)
1 tsp dried rosemary
pinch red pepper
pinch sage
salt and pepper to taste1 md. onion, coarsly chopped
2 carrots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
whey (about 1-1 1/2  quarts)
1-3 bunches leafy greens, coarsly chopped, or 1 can cooked greens
1/4 cup grated hard cheese such Parmesan or Romano, optional

Directions:
Cover dried beans until water is about 1" higher than the beans. Add 1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice and let soak at least 12 hours, or overnight. Drain, rinse and put in a pot. (Alternately you can follow the directions for fermented white beans in the GAPS book and then continue with the recipe)

In a large soup pot, just cover the beans with bone broth. I used turkey, because that's what I happened to have on hand, but beef, venison, chicken, fish, goose, duck ... you get the picture  ;) ... will be fine. Add the bay leaf and bring to a boil, cover, lower temp and simmer for up to 8 hours, or more if you like. Peak in on them once in a while to make sure your broth hasn't boiled away!

Meanwhile, in a large heavy pan, brown your ground meat with the spices, salt and pepper. Add onion, carrots, and garlic. Cook until the carrots start to soften. Remove bay leaf from the beans and discard. Add meat mixture to beans, and stir in your whey. The ammount isn't exact. Just get the soup to the consistency you want. Put the greens into your heavy pan over med-low heat and cover until wilted. Add wilted greens to soup pot, stir. Allow to simmer for a few minutes before serving. Just before serving, add optional cheese.

Optionally serve with a dollop of cultured cream, sauerkraut , or other cultured vegetable.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! If you try it and like it, leave me a comment :D

How about you? If you have any really great soup recipes I'd love to see/try them! Leave a link in the comments!

Belatedly ... Back-to-School

When I was a kid, we never took first-day-of-school pictures! I don't know why.I'm sure my mother had plenty of other things on her plate.  It probably never crossed her mind to do it! So, anyway, I didn't think to take first-day-of-school pictures either. I didn't even know such a thing existed! But since Pinterest and Facebook and the Blogging world, at large, have come into my life, I have realized that there are a whole heck of a lot of people who take these pictures. At first, I thought "Its too late! Silas is already in the 3rd grade!" Then I thought "I'm not a scrapbooker! What will I do with all those pictures?? They'll get misplaced, forgotten, and out of sequence." But I love traditions! I really, really do! I stretch my brain to think of new ways to create memorable traditions for my kids, especially during the holidays. Things that define this family, and that maybe they will want to bring into their families when they get married. Ideally they will be God-Treasuring traditions. Things that have meaning, not just things to do because we do them every year. But some traditions just for fun are good, too. So, the more I think about it the more value I see in it. I mean especially since, as homeschoolers, we don't do "school pictures" like they do in traditional schools. What a great record of their growth year by year!

So anyway I started seeing some really cute ways of doing it on Pinterest and I decided to do it this year. And then right before school started this post came out from one of my favorite bloggers gracefullmama.com about some ways to make transitioning from summer to school more fun and less stress. I didn't do many of them and we started school 3 days later than planned b/c my wonderful hubby decided to finish that closet for me last minute :D But what I did do was follow this link to find these adorable  printables. I saved every one of them on my computer because I'm planning on doing this every year. And I printed them out on cardstock for durability.

 

I took it one step further, too. You know all those cute "interviews" people pin to do with your child at a certain age? Well I looked at every one I could find and picked out the questions I liked best, tweaked some, and added a few of my own and printed that on the back. Then i sat down with each of my kids individually the day before school started, asked them the questions, and wrote down exactly what they said. They said some of the cutest stuff!!! I'm keeping a 2" binder so every year I can put their interview/grade sign across from their pictures in sheet protectors so they won't get lost ... or destroyed.

And then maybe I'll put them into matching frames to hang on the wall until the end of the year when they can stand in the same place, holding their picture from the beginning of the year like this:

click picture to take you to the original site

The end of year pic would then take its place in the frame until the next first-day-of-school photo shoot. As they are replaced on the wall they take their place in the binder with the Sign and Interview for that year. So cute!


I have to be honest, though, this post comes late because I didn't get FIRST-day-of-school pictures. Not even SECOND or THIRD-day-of-school pictures! These pictures were taken today. Saturday. A full three WEEKS after school started. Oh well. They were taken and that's what matters! I'm only sorry I didn't start when Silas was 3!

Well, what about you? What are your back to school traditions? What are you planning on starting for the future?

Say What?? Natural Cleaning

My hubby has been working really hard lately. There's something major about to happen at work, which is neither here nor there, except that normally, since the promotion, he doesn't do a whole lot of "hands on" getting dirty stuff, but this weekend he was in the trenches. He got DIRTY! When he came home Saturday night he didn't even come in and say hi. He went straight to the Laundry room, stripped his clothes off, hung them over the sink, and took a shower. I didn't even go in that room all day Sunday. On Monday I went in and, I kid you not, I almost fell over from the smell in there! It was bad.
When I told him about it he said "So what you're telling me is that it wasn't B.O. it was beyond B.O., it was B.B.O.!" Funny. You are a funny man. :) (in case you didn't catch it -- Seinfeld ... there's this one episode about the valet ... and "what am I hard of smelling?")
Anyway, I'm sure you can guess that the first thing I did, after opening the window, was throw them in the washer! They came beautifully clean, but this is what I was left with:

Yeah, that's the grease like from train wheels ... and it's thick too. I was afraid to put another load of laundry in, but what to do? I had some affresh tablets so I ran that cycle. It didn't even touch it. So I had hubby look at it when he came home last night. He tried scraping it off with his fingernail. Not much happened.

I thought maybe I could try my softscrub, but I was afraid of what the suds would do to the machine, you know? He said maybe the wipes he keeps in his truck that all the guys clean their hands with would work. It's some auto mechanic thing. So I said "good idea!! just leave me some in the morning." He forgot.

I had to get some laundry done, there was a big pile!

Then it hit me. It was an epiphany from the Lord.  That's all it could be!

Like dissolves like. The most basic principal in chemistry -- a class that I never took! I just read it somewhere when I was researching the Oil Cleansing Method. Wait. I never posted about that? ...

Anyway, I have this pledge orange oil for dusting and polishing furniture. It's in a spray bottle, so I just sprayed some on there and let it sit for a few minutes. Then I went and got some paper towels -- had to be disposable (I didn't want to end up in the same predicament when I washed the rags) and started wiping away. Do you know it came right off??? No elbow grease required --  and it's a good thing too! You know I'm not quite 4'11" right? It's tough just reaching in to get the laundry out ... Here's the after picture:

There are still a few light gray "stains" on the bottom where the plastic is permenantly discolored, but can you believe it? After I got the oil and grease up with the paper towels I sprayed it down with distilled white vinegar and wiped that up too.  Good as new!

How's that for natural cleaning? Awesome!

Back to Blogging

Sad isn't it? I made a resolution in January to blog every 2 weeks at the very least. Then we moved, and ... what happened?? My last post was in May! I got discouraged, actually. I started thinking about all the other blogs out there in blog land that are prettier than mine, and who simply do it better. I'm gonna be honest with you, I can't blog every 2 weeks--at least not right now. I tried. It didn't work.
I started thinking about how many other blogs there are that are doing the same thing my blog is trying to do. I guess mine isn't really needed.
Then I started thinking about my mission statement. Remember that? And I was wondering if blogging actually fits in with my mission statement. Initially I had categorized it under things that I enjoy and keep me refreshed, but I wasn't enjoying the panicked feeling I was having, or feeling like I should apologise when I didn't get a post up in time.
I started thinking how embarrassing this blog is.  It's really been nothing but trial and error from beginning to present.  Stuff started and not finished ... like GAPS that we had to give up on for now ... or the running that I couldn't keep up with ... etc. And I seriously considered just deleting the whole thing.
But then I had a sweet friend tell me that she missed my blog posts. She actually misses my blog! I cried.
And then I started thinking that maybe I do have something valuable to share. And maybe I'll never get a hundred million followers who love my blog and pin stuff up on pinterest. And maybe I don't have to post on a schedule, at least not yet. But maybe none of that matters! And so, I'm back, yet again. To post when I have time and will enjoy it. About our lives, and what I'm learning, and homeschool and anything else that finds its way to these pages. :)

A GAPS for Everyone

I was introduced to GAPS by my sister, who's husband and young son were having fairly severe digestive health issues. And GAPS is for diegestive health, but it's for so much more! I personally believe that every person could benefit from GAPS. Everything stems from the gut. That's the premise behind Gut And Psychology/Physiology Syndrome. If you're gut is not healthy it cannot digest the foods you put into it properly and your body will not function optimally. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride believes that we can heal our guts and allow our bodies to function in ways they never have before, but it takes dedication, preparation, and a commitment, because it can be pretty expensive.
Due to the fact that my husband and I are on completely different pages, I have decided to put GAPS on hold for a while. But we are continuing with several of the principals and doing the best we can, because in the 3 months that we've been following this diet I have discovered some interesting and unexpected things.
I knew Wyatt was having issues with dairy, but I guess it took stepping back from it to realize how severe the symptoms were. At my husband's insistance, I allowed the boys to have the sweet potatoes and biscuits I had made for him. I wasn't thinking about the fact that there was a bit of butter on the potatoes. Before the meal was over, Wyatt was complaining of stomach pain and then he had diahrrea for 3 days. While we were on vacation Wyatt had french fries twice. I'm not sure yet whether it was the potatoes themselves, or the rancid oil they were fried in, but he had excessive, painful gas and bloating, so that he couldn't sleep afterwards. No wonder he'd been waking several times a night for well over a year!
I've also discovered that Liam loses complete control and absolutely cannot focus when he eats wheat. I've had some minor concerns about him in the past, and noticed that he had calmed down while we were on GAPS. His schooling had also started to go much better. His attitude was better and he focused on the lesson. We've made more progress in these last couple months than I had in an entire year previous! He tends toward hyperactivity by nature and is still a free spirit, but the change has been remarkable.  I wasn't sure what caused the difference until I allowed him to have crackers one day last week. OH. MY. WORD! The next day he was off the wall. He was quite literally bouncing off the walls! he wasjumping on, and otherwise abusing his brothers. He wasn't angry, in fact he was being silly, but he couldn't stop when I told him to. Even when I disciplined him he couldn't seem to control it.  Our school lesson was full of tears and took over 2 hours to complete. He just hasn't acted that way in months. It used to be a common, every day occurance.
Silas and Shamus I haven't noticed much difference in except that Shamus is not complaining of a stomach ache every night at bedtime anymore.  He did last week, though, but I didn't make a connection to anything in particular.
I have noticed a sharp decline in my severe headaches, but once again, I didn't make a distinct connection to any particular food.
So many people are so used to their symptoms that they don't even notice them, or see them as abnormal, but GAPS can identify them, and heal us so that we can go on to live normal lives. GAPS really is for everyone, or almost everyone :D

Just Let It Go.

I have been married to the same man for almost 10 years.  I have always done his laundry. Wash, fold, put in drawers, hang in closet whatever. I'm pretty particular about things. He jokingly gives me a hard time because I can't stand it if the covers are wrinkled and I'll get out of bed in the middle of the night to fix them if necessary. Glasses and mugs need to be in neat rows in the cupboards etc. So it stands to reason that I'd be pretty particular about how I arrange clothes in the closet and dresser drawers, right? I can't help it that it makes me want to scream when I see two shirts with their plackets facing each other hanging in the closet! It just does, ok? So I always hang all shirts facing to the left. I also arrange them by type, fabric and color in that order. I have a little more difficult time on my side because I have so many different kinds of shirt, but Nathan has oxfords, polos -- long and short sleeved, and then special breathable golf polos. His side of the closet looks like a rainbow. Literally.
I have spent the last 9 years in various levels of irritation and disbelief when I walk into the closet, or open dresser drawers to put things away because something is always out of place. And really. How much effort does it take to reach just a bit further to the right to hang that shirt up with the long sleeved polos than in the middle of the short sleeved ones? And so I would sigh and maybe grumble and hang it where it belongs. But one day, in the not too distant past, my darling hubby was desperately searching for a particular shirt. Finally he called to me in frustration "do you know where my _____ shirt is?" "It should be hanging right there in your closet" I call back.  Still he can't find it. So I walk in and immediately pick it out "It's right here with the rest of your blue polo shirts" I say. He gives me a vacant look. "You mean to tell me, that in all these years you have never once noticed that your shirts are organized and arranged by color?" "They are?" he says staring at the shirts in disbelief. "They are" I say.
And there it is.  He's not doing it to spite me, or to be lazy. He doesn't realize he's making more work for me. It just never occured to him to even notice! He still doesn't notice.  I could harp on him and nag him until I'm blue in the face.  It's not going to change anything. He is who he is.  And so, I just let it go. :) Sometimes I still get irritated, but mostly I just chuckle and move the shirt.
What about you? What have you had to let go in order to avoid hard feelings or constant irritation?

Why I STOPPED Boiling Eggs

photo credit

Boiled Eggs. They have so many, many uses! And we have been eating a LOT of them in the last month or so, since we started GAPS. They are a super easy and nourishing breakfast for my crew, especially if I make them the night before. My kids love deviled eggs. They're great as egg salad, and when we're not eating GAPS I like to put them in potato salad, macaroni salad and more.
My success with boiled eggs, however, has been inconsistent at best.  I don't know if anyone else has this problem or not but if I follow the typical "bring to a boil, turn off heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes" The yolks typically turn out an unappetizing greenish color on the outside. If I take them off the heat and cover for 10 minutes the whites are usually less firm and I'm picky about how things feel in my mouth. If it's slimy at all -- BLEH! Not happening! Sometimes they're hard to peel, sometimes it's easy, but more often than not lately they've been really hard to peel. For our road trip last week, I put 5 dozen eggs in a stock pot, covered with water and boiled. I do not, I repeat N.O.T. recommend doing that! what a pain. None were easy to peel. and the ones at the top we really soft, while the bottom were fairly firm. BLEH.
So then we stay at a Holiday Inn Express and their hard-boiled eggs are perfect. And obviously easy to peel. How do they do that??? Well, I finally concluded that they use an egg boiler. I'm pretty sure I've seen those before. But they're probably not cheap. And do I really want another appliance cluttering up my countertop? I don't think so! So what's a girl to do?
I think I finally found the answer.
Last the other day I stumbled upon it on pinterest. Don't boil your eggs; BAKE them!
So I tried it out. Two days in a row and it's a-mazing.
Here's how you do it: Place eggs directly on rack in center of oven. Like so:

Turn the oven on 350 and set your timer for 30 minutes .Have a pair of tongs and a bowl of cold water waiting.
Take them immediately from the oven and drop them in the bowl of cold water.
When they're cool enough to handle you can peel them.
Can I just tell you  they slide right out of the shell! and the yolks are a beautiful yellow color! and the Whites are so nice and firm! The perfect boiled egg! With no boiling involved

You can make as many as your oven will hold! It's fantastic :D This is definitely the method I will be using for coloring Easter Eggs this week!
As info, some of the eggs do get brown spots on the shell, which I can only assume is liquid from the eggs coming through the shell, but I tested and if you dry them with a (paper) towel as you take them out of the water it comes right off. If any sticks you can use a Scotch Brite Green pad to buff any residual spots off and they will be beautiful for Easter coloring.

Real Food on a Road Trip

We recently started the GAPS diet.  GAPS is pretty restrictive. You can't eat just anything. Most of what you eat needs to be home cooked or raw.  Ideally it would all be organic, grass-fed, free range ... we can't make that happen right now, so we're doing the best we can. We avoid as many chemical additives as we can, no sugar or artificial sweeteners are allowed, except honey; no grains or starches either. You'd be surprised where you find sugars and grain additives!
But here's the deal: we're driving to the Grand Canyon from Alabama. 24 hour drive. 2 1/2 days driving. Yeah. I thought about just throwing in the towel and starting over when we get home, but the reason I started was the discomfort my two year old was experiencing and I wasn't going to go back on the progress he's made, so ... I just had to come up with a way to make the road trip and the diet work together! Not gonna lie, I took cues from a couple other blogs www.passionatehomemaking.org and another one I cannot for the life of me remember right now. I spent 2 days cooking up some chicken and cutting up veggies. Here's most of what I put in the cooler on ice.

In the 4 gallon sized bags: 5 dozen hard boiled eggs, 16 pounds of roasted chicken drumsticks, 10 pounds of marinated, baked, chicken breast tenderloins.
In the 7 quart sized bags: 8 cucumbers cut into "sticks", 6 sweet bell peppers (yellow, red and orange) sliced, bunches of carrots, I couldn't even tell you how many, peeled and sliced into discs,and some cuties.
Then there's Bubbie's dill pickles, sauerkraut (which I actually tasted and ended up leaving home, homemade yogurt and bananas.
I also packed a jar of ghee, for cooking at the campsite,raw honey and a half gallon of raw milk I had left in the fridge. We stopped at Sam's Club and picked up a bunch of Pink Lady apples, more bananas, some strawberries, and a box of Larabars. 
To be honest, I'm not sure we're going to make it.  We've already gone through half the carrots, about a third or so of the cukes, half of the peppers, all of the tenderloins, and slightly less than half of the drumsticks! The milk is gone, and so are most of the Larabars. And we're only 2 days into the week long trip.  We haven't touched the eggs yet, because the hotel we stayed at last night had hard boiled eggs at the breakfast and we can always stop and get more fruit and veggies, but the meat might be a problem. I'll have to think about how I can cook some up at the campsite to bring with on the way home.
What are some ways you deal with eating real food on the road?

Home Management Notebook: Downloads and Links

Our Home Management Notebook is well under way. I've given you the overview and the general idea to hopefully get you thinking about what would be most helpful for you to have at your fingertips. And I've given you access to a few downloads. With this post I will give you the last of my downloads and then link to some resources that I loved and gave me a lot of ideas. :)
Menus: "They" say that most women have about 21 meals in their rotation, so many women make a list of their 21 meals and draw from that when they make their Monthly or Weekly meal plans.  I chose to go about that a little differently.  I am in the process of making a Recipe Binder that contains basically everything I make on a fairly regular basis or that we really like. This is still ongoing and probably will be forever, but I had to start over recently because of the new healing diet we undertook here. More on that another time. But I'm taking that Recipe Binder and using it to put together Master Meal Plans. Plural because I have one for spring/summer type recipes and one for fall/winter type recipes with more soups and stews and such. And then I'll use these master plans to make my Monthly Meal Plans less stressful and also to help me purchase things in bulk or ahead of time.  This way I can just line my current month up next to the master and rotate things in based on a recipe I just found that I want to try or Holiday meals or whatever. Once my Monthly Plan is complete I'll use my Weekly Meal Plan with the shopping list to plan not only my dinners but also breakfasts and lunches.  It doesn't have a snack section. I'm thinking of adding one. Or two. If I do, I'll update.
Planning: I watched "I Don't Know How She Does It" the other night.  I thought it was pretty cute, but I kept saying to myself  "why doesn't she write her list down???".  I have to say, I make a lot of lists in my head. Not in the middle of the night. I generally sleep like a rock, but in the shower I'm on autopilot and I plan a lot.  But if I don't write it down as soon as I get out, I am going to forget. There is no question about that! So I have an ongoing Master To Do List for all those things that always need to get done. Like extra cleaning, organizing, stuff to get, things to tell Nathan ... and on and on and on. I also have some specific To Do Lists. One for Personal Growth Goals, One for Home Improvement Projects, one ofr Crafting Projects that I want to complete--can we say Pinterest?? :D, and a special Christmas in July list.  I think most of these are pretty self-explanatory.
Shopping: Simple it's a shopping list, but it matches the rest of my downloads so I like it :D
Notes: Just a place to write down stuff I don't want to forget while I'm on the phone, or making notes while I'm researching something online etc.
Maintenance: Here's where I keep a written record of maintenance done to the van, and to the house. So when something comes up, I know exactly where to find out what we've had done, when, how much it cost, and who did it.
Inventories: I'm keeping an inventory of my pantry and freezer so I never run out of staples, and so that I don't buy duplicates. A quick check to these lists when I'm making my shopping lists will keep me from wasting money, or from frustration when I go to make a meal, only to discover I don't have what I thought I did.
Account Info: This one I went back and forth on for quite a while, I wasn't sure I wanted to keep it in something I carry everywhere, but I need it with me in case I'm out. I you struggle with remembering all my user names and passwords for websites that I use? I'm afraid to ever change them for fear I'll forget what they are and I tend to use the same 2 or 3 for everything. More mental clutter trying to remember all that stuff all the time! I keep another copy in my Bill Pay Binder just in case my HMN is ever lost or stolen, I can quickly change all my passwords and not worry so much about hackers and identity thieves.
Spending Tracker
One more thing about the downloads, for some reason some of them look like half sized sheets and some look like they'll print in the center of and 8 1/2 X 11 sheet.  When you go to print, just make sure you look at the printer set up and set it to print 2 per sheet.  They will print out just fine :) Let me know if you have any issues in the comments section and I will do my very best to make it right!
This is just a list of blogs that I have found with Home Management Notebook resources:
mommytracked.com -- she's got some really cute printables
accordingtotonya.com
a mom after God's own heart
create order
desiring virtue -- really like her printables and her heart. nice blog
design finch -- a collection of printables from various blogs
delicate construction -- printables
Keeper of the Home
Life...Your Way
List Plan It
Miss Poppins
The Nest Effect

The 10 Second Rule



Click on the book to read the author's summary of the
10 second rule

You know how sometimes, particularly during a missions emphasis month, preachers will harp on being a missionary in your own community?  They rant about the lady in front of you in the grocery line, or the guy in the cubical next to yours at work, or the people you see every day going to and from work, your secretary, your boss, your neighbors.  It's terribly convicting! But here's the deal; I don't work outside the home.  My sphere of influence seems very small! And really, how should I go about approaching the lady in front of me in the check out line with the Romans Road, when I've got 4 hooligans I'm trying to keep in sight and in check?
In the past I've reasoned with myself that my children are my mission field right now. And that is very true!! They are perhaps the most important mission field I will ever encounter! The way I raise them could eventually influence hundreds or thousands of people for Christ, depending on how sold out they are for God. Talk about responsibility! But what if they never see me in action for Jesus? I'll say that again. What if they never see me in action for Jesus??? What kind of example am I setting for them to follow later in life, or even right now?
Last night and this morning I read a small book called The 10 Second Rule by Clare DeGraaf. The premise goes like this "just do the next thing you're reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do." That's it.  I got it in the mail from the Sonlight Curriculum office as a Christmas gift this past December and put it on the shelf.  I wanted to read it, but I was afraid. I don't like change. Can I be honest?  A lot of times I'm afraid to look at a book like this for fear I'll be called to evangalize a third world country.  Doesn't that sound horrible?  I hate that about myself, but it's true!
So, anyway, yesterday was Sunday. It was also the end of a "real church conference" at the church we've visited the last 2 Sundays.  I don't really understand how it is that they "plant" churches in other areas of the country and around the globe.  It's not by commissioning a member of the main church to go start one.  I guess that's not important.  At any rate, once a year they have this conference and invite members from these "church plants" and have a conference, and this past Sunday was the last day of it for 2012. It was amazing. It was all about evangalism and having the Gospel preached, and walking worthy of the Lord.  It was about the Goodness and the Majesty of our God. In short, it was one of those services that completely lifts your spirits and at the same time causes you to feel like a complete wretch. So when I got home and saw this book in the diaper bag (something told me to pull it off the shelf before the movers grabbed it -- go figure) I knew I needed to read it; so I picked it up and started.
It makes so much sense! It bridges the gap between what seems possible and what I feel a general sense of conviction about during mission services. It's not about enormous descisions, it's about sensing the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit and acting on it, before you can rationalize your way out of it. I don't have to make the decision to go knock on every door in our neighborhood and hand out tracts, or decided that I won't leave a grocery store before I speak to someone about Jesus, no matter what the boys are behaving like that day.  All I have to do is ask God to show me what He wants me to do and then do it.  Now, He could ask me to knock on my neighbors' doors, or he could simply ask me to wish the person beside me a good morning, or hand they guy on the corner a five dollar bill. They key is listening and obeying.  Being Jesus to someone when they need it.
I'll tell you what my first step was. Writing this post and putting the little vinyl clings with "10s on them in prominent reminder spots.  Then next is heading back over to Olive Garden where we had lunch yesterday.  I had a gift card that paid for the boys' lunches but most of my meal I paid for on my card. When the waiter brought the check back, for some reason I calculated my tip based only on the money that came out of my pocket, not the entire bill. I realized what I had done when I got to the car, but rationalized myself out of going back in. The boys are a good excuse for a lot of stuff. The only thing I could think about the whole time I was reading was that waiter and his tip.  He was friendly, and great with the boys and I'm pretty sure he saw us bowing to pray over our food.  Then I gave him an insulting tip. It woke me up at 5:30 this morning. I told God I would go.  I just hope he's working today!