Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Blessings all Around

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Every year that we’ve lived here in this college town, we’ve loved getting to know the YC students. We’ve often offered students to do their laundry at our house, come do homework here, hang out with us, eat home cooked meals.

Some have taken us up on our offer, but none of them have just made our family their family…and our home their home away from home.

Until this year. Woohoo! 

This year we have a young dating couple who has really believed that we WANT them to hang out at our house as much as they would like to! They do their laundry here, work on homework, join us for meals, play with our kids. We love how they are showing our boys what a healthy, Christian dating relationship can look like. (Not that our boys have a clue that there are girls out there and that girls are CUTE…but they’ll figure it out soon enough and we love that they are seeing such a good example.)  We are very honored to have them in our home.

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Often when they call to see if it’s a good day for them to do laundry, they ask if Matt and I would like to go on a date while they are here to keep the kids. Blessings all around!

Last week during the college fall break they were able to join us for several meals since the cafeteria wasn’t open. It was great! Then on Sunday, they insisted on cooking for us! So nice!

I’m so grateful that God has put Adam and BryAnna in our lives and pray that we are as much a blessing to them as they are to us!
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What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re thankful for!

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Menu Plan for the Week…mixed with Randomness

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I have a few different things to share, which is turning this menu plan post into a random post. Wow…starting the week off with a bang, aren’t we? :)

First, I know a lot of you have been waiting to hear how our Potato Container Garden experience went. I was SO excited to dump out the container last week and see how many (hundreds of) pounds of potatoes we grew in that one little space. I KNOW this idea works because I’ve read many testimonies from people who say that it does. But ours? Nope. We got enough potatoes for about a meal and a half. Such a bummer! We will try again next year. 

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Feel free to feel sorry for me if you want to and say things like, “Awww, Laura…after you worked so hard…that’s all the potatoes you got? Bless your heart.” And then I will nod pitifully at you.

On a much happier note, we planted lots of potatoes elsewhere, so we still have tons of potatoes for the year! We will not be potato-less. Not even close. :)

Second, last week my oven broke. Wanna know how I discovered that it was broken?

I put a chicken and some veggies in a roaster, stuck it in the oven, turned it on, then left for soccer games. Came home at 7:15 from soccer games hungry, cold and ready to eat a hot dinner…and found a raw chicken and hard vegetables in the oven. :(  I quickly made my “fall back meal” of salmon patties, creamy mac and cheese and peas…and put the chicken and veggies in the crock pot for the next day!

It was just the heating element and Matt was able to get it fixed for me three days later…but that was three days without my oven. SO if any of last week’s meals look a lot like this week’s meals…it’s because I couldn’t bake last week and I had to change my meal plan!

Third, well…I have a LOT of extra things going on right now in my home that I’m trying to get organized for (details coming later), and so I feel a bit short on time to write out a detailed menu for this week. THIS WEEK, I’m just going to “jot down” meal suggestions for me to reference through the week because I don’t have time right now to organize it all. A random post deserves a random menu, right?

Breakfasts:  Sweet potato streusel muffins, scrambled eggs, whole wheat waffles, homemade whole wheat donuts, smoothies, peanut butter honey toast, chocolate chip muffins

Lunches or Dinners:  Sweet beans and hot dogs, Alphabet soup with homemade soft pretzels, Chicken and noodles, Lamb burgers, Spaghetti, BBQ chicken with ranch potato wedges, Meatloaf, Grilled cheese sandwiches, Sourdough pancakes, Taco potatoes, Chicken enchiladas, Deer steak

(Meals will be served with lots of fruits and veggies…yada, yada.)

Oh, and Tuesday night I’m feeding the YC Women’s soccer team a lasagna dinner. Ever since I fed them the first week of practice back in August, they’ve been asking for my lasanga again. How sweet are they?

Bless YOUR heart if you kept up with these ramblings. Thanks for allowing me some crazy, unorganized writing this time. I’ll try to write normal posts this week. We’ll talk more about grain mills, have a giveaway, talk about Christmas budgets, Gratituesday, and hopefully little boys hair cuts!!!
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Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu planning inspiration!

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One Last Day…

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Saturday, October 17  is the final day for the Holiday Hospitality E-book special sale in the Shop!

Here’s an email I received from Janna after she purchased these e-books earlier this week:

Laura –

I have spent many years trying to follow various holiday organizational plans ( I am sorely lacking in organization skills and motivation) only to fail badly in my attempts. I just purchased your package, and I have to tell you that I have discovered what was missing in trying to follow the other plans. It was JESUS! I know it seems too obvious, but I was not motivated because all of the plans focused on presents and decorating. The way you have included scriptures, prayer ideas, and general suggestions (along with manageable tasks) has made the difference for me. 

Thank you,
Janna

That’s the kind of email that makes my day! Thank’s Janna for letting me share what you had to say!

If you haven’t purchased Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Holiday Hospitality and/or Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Holiday Hospitality for Kids and you want to grab them at a great sale price, you have until 11:59 Saturday night!

Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Holiday Hospitality…$5.00
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Heavenly Homemaker’s Guide to Holiday Hospitality for Kids…$5.00
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Holiday Hospitality E-book Package (includes BOTH e-books!)…$8.00

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Grain Mills Pt. 1: Should You Buy One? Does it Save Money?

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I’ve been grinding my own flour for about four years now and I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! I can’t say enough good about freshly ground whole grain flour. The taste is NOTHING like store bought whole wheat flour. The freshness is unbeatable. Because it is fresh, the nutritional value is much higher. I love my grain mill!

If you do a lot of baking and you want to bake with whole grains…I very much recommend saving up for a grain mill. (I sold baked goods at our farmer’s market one year to pay for mine!)

Here’s the investment payoff I calculated:

I have a Nutrimill, which cost me about $250…

I buy organic hard white wheat berries, 50 pounds for about $33.00, which lasts me about two months. I make all of our bread, tortillas, muffins, rolls, pretzels, crackers, cookies, cakes…everything that requires flour.

If I were to go to the store and buy the amount of bread and tortillas our family of six needs in two months, my rough calculating tells me that I would spend about $56.00. JUST ON BREAD AND TORTILLAS. That doesn’t include all the muffins and other grain products I make with my $33.00 bag of grain in two months.

AND…the products I bake are a bajillion (scientifically proven  :) ) times healthier than what I can buy at the store.

Looking at those figures…it would seem that my grain mill paid for itself in about 10 months…although it’s really much less than that because again, my figures only included the cost of bread and tortillas and I get MANY MORE baked goods out of my bag of grain than just those (plus I was being conservative in my calculations).

So, I would say my grain mill paid for itself in about six months…and the savings just keep on keeping on! In fact, while I had my calculator out I figured out that I’ve saved approximately $552 in four years by grinding my own flour and baking whole grain food from scratch for my family. THAT was exciting to calculate!

There now. Would you like me to write a letter to your husbands, convincing them to buy you a grain mill for Christmas? I’d do it. :)

This post begins a short little series on Grain Mills and grinding and baking with whole grain flour. Coming up I’ll share about:

  • Different kinds of grain mills, which ones I recommend and where to purchase them
  • Where to buy grain and what kind to buy
  • Tips on baking with whole grains
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A Day in the Life…sort of

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Ever since I wrote this post about our homeschool schedule and promised to do a “Day in the Life” post…I’ve been TRYING to take pictures of a day in our life.

Wow…I didn’t realize how tricky that job would be. The days of our lives are um…eventful. Especially during soccer season. I had a hard time taking a picture journal of one entire day.

Long story short…I couldn’t make it happen. SO…instead I decided to use all the pictures I’ve taken in the past several days of our lives to give you a feel for what our days look like. You’ll see that they really don’t look very much like this schedule…ever. That’s okay…that’s the beauty of homeschooling and being flexible and letting go of the idea that everything will be blissful and perfect and charming when you are a parent. (That was me doing a little self talk…telling myself that it’s okay to let some things go and realize that not everything will be blissful and perfect and charming as I parent my children.)

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Here are all the boys eating pancakes for breakfast. Even though our days can look quite different when it comes to the schedule…we always work to make time for our Breakfast/Bible Reading time. 

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After breakfast we try to do some of our “together” work. On Mondays and Wednesdays this is usually the time we work on our Geography Packets. On this particular day, the boys were learning more about the natural resources in each state. Guess what? Nebraska produces a lot of corn. Bet you never knew that, huh? :)

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I let the boys choose a quiet activity while I read History to them. Of course…the day I took this picutre they decided to color. Probably because I had mentioned in this post that my boys almost NEVER sit quietly and color. Had to prove me wrong, didn’t they?

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Next, the boys work on some of their individual work. Here, Elias is working on his handwriting. This can take anywhere from five to twenty mintues.  Five if I don’t remind him that the point of working in a handwriting book is to LEARN TO WRITE NEATLY. Twenty if he uses his handwriting book to learn to write neatly. ehem

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Elias (2nd grade) usually needs help with his math…so here we are working on it. A special thanks to photographer Justus. And I suppose after looking at this picture it’s apparent that I don’t usually take the time to do anything with my hair on a typical school day? Yeah, it’s not in the schedule.

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I actually got some Pre-K time with Malachi on this day. I sort of sat in the middle between Elias and Malachi and worked with both of them at the same time. 

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Asa hides out in an upstairs bedroom to work on his math. We found that it cuts his math time in half if he’s alone in an upstairs room vs. if he’s down in the kitchen where there are always lots of distractions.

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One day after Justus finished his independent work…he mixed up cookies for a post-season soccer party he was to have with his team. The party wasn’t until the weekend, but we talked about how busy our upcoming weekend was going to be and decided to make them mid-week and freeze them. MAYBE he’s learning to plan ahead? Maybe.

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Sometime in the afternoon everyone sits down for reading time. From the quality of this picture…it kind of looks like I make everyone read in the dark, doesn’t it? 

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Elias was sitting across the room and I couldn’t get all of the readers in one picture. This cutie is going to town with chapter books this year!

 

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By the time school was over one of the days last week, Malachi had managed to empty the contents of two (or three) toy bins. Here he is (ever so cheerfully) picking up 300 toys. sigh

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I think this picture sums up our days quite nicely. I took this last Wednesday right before I tried to cook dinner in this mess. It was our last 70 degree day before we knew it was going to get cold. SO…I left the dishes and the rest of our school work and all afternoon we worked outside to pull in all of our peppers and tomatoes and okra and potatoes. Oh, and we went and picked apples at someone’s farm too. After working for HOURS outside, then bringing it all in…here’s what the kitchen looked like. Shew!

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This picture with Malachi and the produce is much cuter than the whole messy kitchen picture. See…that box there is tomatoes. We picked three bags of apples…three buckets of peppers. Somehow the potatoes didn’t make it into the pic. Just when I thought I was done canning for the year…woohoo more applesauce and salsa! :)

Some of you have asked how long our school day takes. Every day is different. Sometimes reading History takes ten minutes…sometimes it takes an hour. Usually we are finished by 2:30 or so (if we start about 9ish). That’s with taking a lunch break and a short play break. Often it depends on how focused the boys are on their independent work.

And there you have it. A day (or so) in our lives. Although there were lots of things I didn’t show you like  lunch and dinner and evening and cleaning up and answering the phone and going to soccer games and sliding down the stairs on sleeping bags…

 Really, you should all just come for a visit. 

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Non Toxic Soaps and Sundries

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Okay, so let’s talk sundries. I kind of like that word, don’t you? Sunnnndreeees. It’s one of those words that I never use in actual conversations…but I kind of think I might start. “Oh my, I do believe I’m running out of sundries. Perhaps I should order various and sundry items…”

Many of you have asked if I make my own soaps, etc and what kind I use. While I realize that making my own detergents and soaps would save  a little money, it  has not reached the top of my list yet…although it is on my list. Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking has several good recipes you may be interested in if you want to make your own laundry detergent and deodorant. I think it’s awesome, but I just haven’t made the time to figure it all out yet. With the exception of inventing my own dusting solution (one part water added to four parts old rag), I’ll continue at this point to purchase the brands of soaps and lotions that I trust.

I check the EWG website to see if a product is safe and non-toxic. Also, if it comes from Tropical Traditions…I completely trust it. Their products are always pure and safe.

All of the soaps and lotions I buy are unscented and without dyes. Our littlest guy, Malachi, can not tolerate any kind of scent or dye with his eczema and strong scents really irritate my asthma.

Here’s a list I came up with of sundries in my home:

  • Laundry soap – I use Shaklee. It’s the ONLY detergent I found that does not make Malachi break out. I have family members who are Shaklee distributors who helped me finally find this detergent that works for us. You have no idea how thankful I am. It seems pricey…but I can make a box of detergent last a long time. I love that our clothes smell like…nothing. :)  If it smells like nothing…that means CLEAN. I don’t use fabric softener. What’s a little static?I’ve been researching and may try using these soap nuts. They seem to be one of the most economical non-toxic “laundry detergent” around. My Shaklee costs about .25 per load of laundry. Soap nuts are at least half of that. I’ll let you know what comes of my experiment!
  • Dish soap– For the past three years I’ve used Ecover. Love it. Love it. Love it. I use the lemon dish soap and the powdered dishwasher detergent. Love it. No spots on glasses. Clean, clean dishes. No fear of icky, toxic soap residue on our plates. Love it.

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  • Body soap – I love the Unscented Bar Coconut Soap from Tropical Traditions. I even use it to wash Malachi’s hair. Again, it leaves us smelling like nothing….which is clean. I LOVE smelling Malachi’s hair after a bath.
  • Shampoo – The bigger boys and I use Giovanni 50:50 shampoo. I buy it by the gallon. The boys use such a small amount…the gallon lasts us a LONG time (well over a year). I’m the only one at our house who uses conditioner, and I use Giovanni Smooth as Silk. Matt uses Home Health Medicated Scalp Wash.

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  • Toothpaste – We’ve been using Creme de Peppermint from Nature’s Gate. I’m not a fan of fluoride. I suppose that’s another post for another day. We really like this toothpaste. The Creme de Mint is a little less spicy than the Peppermint, so we get the mint one for the boys.

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What are your favorite sundries? Isn’t it fun to say sundries?

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Gratituesday: Too Many

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Sometimes I get grumpy. Just ask my kids.

I get grumpy when I have too much to do. Too many messes. Too many deadlines. Too many responsibilities. Too many.

I struggle every day against letting my circumstances determine my mood. Lately I’ve been trying to focus on what makes me grumpy and to put a STOP to it.

Here’s what I realized:  I complain too much about having too much and too many.

  • Too many dishes to wash
  • Too much laundry to do
  • Too many hand-me-downs to sort through
  • Too many emails to answer
  • Too much food to preserve
  • Too many people who need something from me
  • Too many messes all over the house

SO…as I was sorting through EIGHT huge rubbermaids of hand-me-downs and figuring out what warm clothes fit which boy this year…I was starting to feel discouraged and overwhelmed.

And then I realized:  LAURA! You’re complaining about having SO MANY FREE CLOTHES you hardly know what to do with yourself! Listen to yourself!! STOP it!

It seems that the things I complain about the most are the things I love the most.  I LOVE my children…even if they do make messes. I can’t even express how happy I am to have four loud boys around to make messes!!!

I love all this garden produce that takes me hours to preserve. I REALLY love it in the winter when all I have to do is grab a jar out of the pantry, open it and eat it! I love hand-me-downs. I love all the emails I get! I love having people around me that need me. I love being a homemaker. I’d rather be at home doing mountains of dishes and laundry than anywhere else in the world!

So, I’m working on recognizing the times my heart turns sinful and wants to complain and whine about the blessings around me. That really is what I’m doing when I complain about everything around me…complaining about TOO MANY BLESSINGS. 

Today…I choose to be thankful for “too many”. Too many is really, really good.
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What are you grateful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then link up here so we can all come read about how God is working in your life! If you don’t have a blog, please be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Menu Plan for the Week

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Nothing says “Welcome to Autumn” in Nebraska like falling snow mixed with falling leaves!! Brr! 

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I actually think it’s sorta pretty. 
Green grass, brown and yellow leaves, white snow. 

We got our fireplace going for the first time this season. Toasty! It is definitely soup weather here! Here’s our menu for the week:

Sunday, October 11
Oatmeal, peaches
Lamb chops, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans
Cream cheese salsa dip with chips, apples

Monday, October 12
Honey whole wheat bagels, pears
Chili, carrot sticks
Roasted chicken, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli

Tuesday, October 13
Scrambled egg sandwiches, clementines
Alphabet soup, homemade soft pretzels
Sloppy cornbread, peas

Wednesday, October 14
French toast, blueberries
BBQ chicken, ranch potato wedges, carrots
Beef garden casserole, tossed salad

Thursday, October 15
Creamy vanilla soother, fruit
Chicken tostadas, cantaloupe
Spinach quiche, tossed salad

Friday, October 16
Breakfast cookies
Tortilla wraps, carrot sticks, apples
Hamburgers, onion rings

Saturday, October 17
Fried eggs on toast, oranges
Bean dip with chips, fruit
Three cheese garlic chicken pasta, green beans
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Visit Organizing Junkie for more menu planning inspiration!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Don’t Know Much (A Poem by the Heavenly Homemaker)

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Don’t Know Much

I don’t know much about American Girl Dolls.

I know way too much about wresting matches that start on the couch
and end up on the floor and all the way down the hall.

I don’t know much about little pink dresses.

I know way too much about all of the episodes of Star Wars.

I don’t know much about hair bows.

I know way too much about friendly
(and not so friendly) competition.

I don’t know much about fingernail polish.

I know way too much about nerf gun wars.

I don’t know much about little purses.

I know way too much about toots.

I don’t know much about having leftovers.

I know way too much about toots at the lunch table.

I don’t know much about princesses.

I know way too much about toots-on-demand at the lunch table.

I don’t know much about ballet slippers.

I know way, way, way too much about toots-on-demand
at the lunch table that cause extreme excess laughter
and disrupt the quiet calm of what could be
a peaceful family lunch.

I don’t know much about how to make that problem go away.

I know way too much to even try
because if I did that that would prove that

I don’t know much.

Written with love on this day, October 2009 by the Heavenly Homemaker after deciding, “If I have to sit here and experience ONE MORE TOOT followed by gales of laughter at the lunch table I am SO gonna lose it.”

(It’s likely that someday a few years down the road when they all have homes of their own…I’m going to sit at my lunch table where it’s way too peaceful and quiet.  Then I’ll sigh and think wistfully, “Oh if only they could be little once again and come toot at my table just one more time….”)

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Chocolate Swirl Bread (Oh Yes I DID Just Say Chocolate!)

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After showing you how to make Cinnamon Swirl Bread…I got a notion to try Chocolate Swirl Bread. (I get chocolate notions all the time.)

Let me just say that I’m very glad I got that notion. Now we can all have chocolate for breakfast!!! What a great start to the day…

Chocolate Swirl Bread is just as simple to make as the Cinnamon Swirl Bread…you pretty much just substitute cocoa powder for cinnamon!

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Yum

I used this bread recipe, then rolled out the dough before shaping the loaf. Then I spread butter over the dough and sprinkled on about 1/4 cup sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice) mixed with 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder. Roll it up and bake as directed.

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Do you think it would be too much to have this Chocolate Swirl Bread with Hot Cocoa? I think I could handle washing down my chocolate with a little chocolate.

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