Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Gratituesday: Fireproof the Movie

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Sunday, Matt and I were priviledged to go see the movie Fireproof. 

Hearing that this movie was coming to town, our church lovingly bought out an entire matinee so that anyone from our congregation could go for free. AND, they arranged the teens to babysit for free at the church fellowship hall.

What a blessing.

I’m usually not a big fan of movies and often feel disappointed after watching one. Not this time. I thought this movie was excellent and recommend that everyone go see it if you can. 

Have you seen this movie? Are you planning to? Be sure to take kleenexes!

I’m so grateful for the producers of this film…and grateful that Matt and I were able to see it together….and I’m grateful for my marriage. 
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What are you grateful for this Gratituesday?  Read the details here, blog about your blessings, then come and link up with us so that we can all read about how God is working in your life!

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Such a Sweet Post, Sort Of…**UPDATED!

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I’ve told you how much I love Rapadura to bake with. (If you’ve never eaten a brownie made with rapadura…you haven’t had a brownie…well in my chocolate loving opinion…which is just an…opinion.) (Oh dear, now I’m hungry for brownies.)

Rapadura is unbleached, unrefined dehydrated cane sugar juice. It bakes just like sugar (you substitute it one for one)…has a wonderful molasses-y taste and it is SO yummy! Because it is unrefined, it still contains nutrients from the sugar cane.

Many of you have asked if Sucanat is the same thing as Rapadura and if it was just as good for you. I looked at the label of Sucanat…which happens to be named for “SUgar CAne NATural” (very clever), and it appears that Sucanat too is dehydrated sugar cane juice.

I’ll admit to being (more than) a bit confused about Sucanat. It appears to be practically the same as Rapadura…yet my trusty Nourishing Traditions book tells me to avoid Sucanat like I would avoid other processed sugars. It says that Turbinado, Sucanat and Florida Cyrstals “are all refined sugars from which the nutrients have been removed. Small amounts of molasses may be added back to give a light brown color.”

The Sucanat package says that it is “dehydrated whole cane sugar that has not been separated or blended”. THEN, it says that “basically nothing has been added and nothing taken out!”. What does “basically” mean?! Is that something like “Sort of”? Has stuff been added or taken out…or hasn’t it? Oh, I’m so confused.

I googled this subject, researched for way too long and found more confusion. Sigh. Like I need this kind of confusion. I have a hard enough time staying on my feet sometimes.

Here’s what I’ve decided for our family:  I order my Rapadura from Azure Standard. It is cheaper than the organic Sucanat from Azure. I love Rapadura. I’m going to stick with Rapadura.

NONE OF THIS WOULD EVEN MATTER IF BROWNIES WEREN’T SO STINKIN’ YUMMY!!!!

(I’m sorry for yelling.)

What have the rest of you learned about the great Sucanat vs. Rapadura mystery?

**UPDATE**

Valerie commented that I should check out the Weston Price website for information on this. THANK you. (Why did I not think of that before?)  I trust this website. In fact, Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions bases her nutritional information on Weston Price’s research. Here’s what I found there:

Q. I’m confused as to which type of sugar is better, Sucanat or Rapadura?

A. Both are fine; both are made by dehydrating cane sugar juice. For a while Sucanat changed the way they made it and were using white sugar, so we stopped recommending the product. But they are now making Sucanat the old fashioned way, so we can recommend it again.

Sooo, there you have it. NOW what do you think? :)
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Menu Plan for the Week

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I survived the big shopping trip!! I loved all the guesses you made about what my “exciting purchase” was going to be…and NO it wasn’t maternity clothes. :)  Guess I set myself up for that one!! As a matter of fact, none of you got it right. No, what I’ve been needing for a while and finally found the chance to buy…was SOCKS. I know, how pitiful am I? Are you feeling terribly let down and disappointed? They are very nice socks. In a variety of colors. It made me very happy. Really, rejoice with me over my socks. I did get a few other fun things too for Christmas presents. 

Here’s what’s on the menu this week:

Sunday, Nov. 16
Oatmeal, apples
Beef stew with carrots, potatoes and gravy (This almost turned out to be a disaster this morning…wanna hear about it?)  (Okay, maybe later this week, if you’re good.)
*Help with Sunday Night Suppers! See question below. :)

Monday, Nov. 17
Whole wheat waffles
Hamburger patties, stir fried rice and veggies
Chicken noodle soup, carrot sticks

Tuesday, Nov. 18
Scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, oranges
Homemade pizza pockets, peaches
Veggie soup, cornbread muffins

Wednesday, Nov. 19
Homemade granola, fruit and kefir smoothies
Spanish rice with meat, pineapple-orange slushies
Chicken enchiladas, tossed salad

Thursday, Nov. 20
Peanut butter honey toast, applesauce
Baked potatoes, cottage cheese and peaches
Beans and rice with salsa and kreme fresh

Friday, Nov. 21
Cream cheese pastries, apples
Homemade mac and cheese, lima beans
Homemade pizza

Saturday, Nov. 22
Whole wheat cinnamon rolls
Bean dip with chips, pears
Spaghetti squash with chicken in cream sauce

On the blogging menu this week:  I’ll answer some of your questions about rapadura…share more about our schedule (specifically homeschooling)…and I am planning to share a new recipe with you (I just have to figure out which one first!!).

*Okay, so here’s what I need your help with. I never feel like cooking on Sunday nights (yes, this from the girl who loves to cook). We need something quick so that we can rush out the door to our small group fellowship time. What do you feed your families on Sunday nights? Have some good ideas for me? Matt and the boys would really appreciate it.  :)
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Making Cultured Buttermilk, Kefir and Sour Cream

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Wanna know how EASY it is to make cultured buttermilk, kefir and sour cream? Yeah, it takes about 30 seconds of your time. (Don’t tell anyone that though…they think it’s impressive when you make your own.)  :)

The beauty of making your own cultured dairy products is that once you make one batch, you can save the last cup or two to start a new batch. It saves a lot of money to do this, and it is so easy!

I buy my buttermilk, kefir, and sour cream (also known as kreme fresh) starter online. Here are some great starter packet options:

  • Buttermilk and Sour Cream Starter Culture (yep, you can use the same one for both products)
  • Kefir Starter Culture

To Make Kefir:

How to Make Kefir

Yum

I begin with just under a half gallon of raw milk in a glass jar. (You can make this with pasturized milk too as far as I know.)  I pour the packet of kefir starter into the milk, shake it up, and put a lid on it. Then, I set the jar in the cabinet above my refrigerator for about 24 hours (in the winter, it takes a little longer in my COLD kitchen!). You’ll know it is done “culturing” when it is thick and has some bubbly looking bubbles all through it. And when you tip your jar over, it kind of…glops. (see how helpful I am?)

To Make Buttermilk:

How to Make Buttermilk and Sour Cream

Follow the same instructions as for the Kefir, only use the Buttermilk Culture Starter.

To Make Sour Cream (aka kreme fresh):

Use the Buttermilk Culture Starter with one pint of cream. Follow the same directions as above.

Now, to make more batches of each of these…

Save about a cup each of kefir or buttermilk (or about a third cup of sour cream) from your initial batch.

Use this remaining kefir, buttermilk or sour cream to shake into more raw milk or cream (1/2 gallon of milk…or 1 pint of cream) to begin a fresh batch. Just put it in, shake it up, and let it sit out for 24 hours or so. (Until you’ve got the glop thing going on.)  You can do this up to eight times before you need to begin with a new starter package. (I’ve continued it more than eight times when I’m feeling rebellious. It still works.)

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Here’s the tail end of one jar of buttermilk,
ready to be poured into a fresh 1/2 gallon jar of milk.

 

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Here’s a jar of milk with a cup of buttermilk shaken into it,
ready to begin the culturing process.
(Yes, I know it looks like a plain ol’ jar of milk.
You’ll have to humor me and act like you can tell .
Nod and say, oh…very nice.)

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And here is my milk turning into buttermilk in the cabinet above my fridge. (With my Chrismas dishes.)
I’ve been advised that this spot is the best one in my kitchen to culture things because it has a fairly consistent temperature.

Oh, and when I do put my culturing dairy products in this cabinet, I LEAVE THE CABINET DOOR OPEN so that I can see it. It’s a bad idea to forget you have buttermilk or kefir or sour cream culturing in a cabinet. A bad, bad idea.

Now you have really, really healthy kefir for smoothies, and really, really healthy sour cream for your tacos, etc, and really, really healthy buttermilk for drinking or for making Creamy Orange Cooler.

See how easy it is?! :)

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Have I Ever Told You About Malachi’s Quilt?

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My mom loved making quilts. She would spend hours piecing together tiny bits of fabric to hand sew beautiful, beautiful quilts. 

She made one for us when we got married and it is my most treasured wedding gift. Each time when she found out I was expecting another baby (or that my sister-in-law was expecting) she would start planning and cutting and piecing and sewing so that when the baby was born, a quilt would be ready.

Asa, Justus and Elias…as well my brother’s oldest kids, all have special quilts from Grammy. (As a matter of fact, they each carried them as we walked into her funeral because they are such a precious part of who she was.)

In the final months before my mom died, she continued to get weaker and weaker…and I remember laying on my bed one day crying out to God. I asked him to help me to feel joy again. I had been feeling so sad for so many months as I watched my mom die…and I didn’t know how I could feel happy again. How any of us could feel happy again.

It was just a few short weeks later that we found out that we were expecting (Malachi). The news of our pregnancy gave our whole family something exciting and fun to look forward to and talk about. The joy of this news was a refreshing relief and joy in the midst of sorrow and pain.

I remember how my mom looked when I told her. We were both smiling at each other…and then we suddenly started to cry at the same time…both of us knowing that she wouldn’t live to meet this little one. 

Three months later, she died.

About two months after Malachi was born…I received a box in the mail from Pat, a neighbor and friend of my mom’s. Inside the box was a quilt…with embroidered squares that I remembered watching my mom stitch years ago. The quilt was complete and beautiful. I sobbed as I looked at each beautiful stitch. I had not been expecting to receive this gift.

Pat had enclosed a note letting me know that after my mom had found out that I was going to have this baby, she had directed her to go down to her craft room and get the quilt she had started years earlier. She asked Pat to please finish it for her and give it to me after the baby was born. She also told Pat to be sure to tell me to USE the quilt…and that it was alright for the baby to spit up on it! (My mom never lost her sense of humor!!)

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What a priceless gift that quilt is. All of her quilts are.

Last weekend when I was in Kansas going through my mom’s craft room…I looked through pieces and pieces of fabric she had bought to make more quilts before she got sick. I brought most of the fabric home with me. I’m not much into quilting…but someday, I’d like to make each of my boys another quilt from Grammy.

And…for Christmas this year, I’m going to make my nephew, Austin, a quilt from Grammy’s fabric. It won’t be nearly as fancy as one she would have made. I’ll only tie it and bind it, instead of piecing it and spending hours hand quilting it.

But it will be special and it will still be made with love.

And it might be stained with tears.

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Homeschool Hubbub at Our House: Our Teaching Philosophy

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We love reading books together. We love learning together.

We love stuffing the ourselves into our small bathroom with the light off, so that we can look into the mirror with a flashlight through prism glasses to see how color is dispersed through the light (and then laughing our tails off together because we are so crammed into the bathroom that we can’t open the door to get out without practically falling together into the bathtub.)

We don’t spend hours of our time filling out workbooks at our house. We used to and it didn’t work. It was grueling for the boys and I found myself nagging all day at them to finish their pages. Yeah, not so much a fun way to learn.

We want our boys to love learning. (Not that is always has to be fun…but we want them to be curious and creative and excited about learning new things.)  And we don’t want them to think that learning begins and ends with the opening and closing of a workbook or a textbook. We’ve begun to take more of an “un-schooling” approach to homeschooling over the past couple of years. (I’ll try to share more often some of the ideas we’ve used to teach our kids spelling and writing creativity and math and science…)

But beyond all of that…

Our family’s homeschool philosophy is that there are some things that are much more important than others:

Matt and I feel very strongly that teaching our boys to love and serve others is far more important than learning the states and capitals. We feel like teaching our boys about God’s kingdom is more important than learning all of the past presidents of the United States in chronological order. And we think that if they learn to be hard workers, but they don’t learn all the dates of history…we will not have failed as parents (or educators).

Our kids still learn all of these factual things…but we don’t focus on them nearly as much as we try to focus on spiritual matters and areas of the heart. Because of this philosophy…there are some days we don’t open very many books at all.

Some days our boys simply learn about life. And caring. And loving. And serving. And about being patient. And about how to talk to an elderly person. And about working hard until you are so tired you can’t see straight.

We’re constantly working to figure out all of this education stuff. And discipline stuff. And the most effective ways to train our kids to be like Jesus. Never have we been so thankful for grace as we have been as we raise our boys.

I’m very curious about what your opinions are on this subject (whether you homeschool or not).  If you do homeschool…what are some of your philosophies? Are you a workbook-y family? Does that work for you? What do you think are the most important things for our kids to know?

 

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Gratituesday: One Day at a Time

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I mentioned here that Matt’s job future was a bit uncertain. Matt’s boss has a definite moving date now, so his final day of work with him was last Monday. 

We have known for over a year that this would happen, so we’ve been planning for it. We feel very strongly that God wants us to stay in this town to continue building on the relationships we have here. 

Matt has decided that as long as it works, he’ll just continue to do construction/home repair work on his own (plus soccer coaching in season). He’s already lined up several jobs and every day another possibility comes up for more work. 

He also purchased a nice snow blower at an auction and has been talking with various downtown business owners (and homeowners) about snow removal. Already, he has some contracts worked out to remove snow for people. (Sorry fellow Nebraskans…never thought we’d say this…but our theme song around here is “Let it Snow!”.)

Beyond these two things, we also plan to continue to cater auctions and are looking into other possible catering ideas. (Since we know a thing or two about food and enjoy it so much.)  :)

We’re excited about the possibilities. By doing a little of this and a little of that…it should add up to enough.  God always gives us enough.

Sometimes I look too far into the future and get a little nervous. Sure, he has jobs lined up for now. What if the jobs stop coming in? What if it doesn’t snow much this winter? What if, what if?

I finally decided…Focus on one day at a time. That’s all any of us can really do anyway, right? Each day has enough worry of it’s own. One day at a time…God will provide.

I love being able to rest in his promises.
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How is God working in your life? Write about it on your blog, read the Gratituesday details here, and come link up with us! We all want to read and share together about God’s greatness and care for us! God is so good!

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Proving That There’s Nothing Boring About Kansas

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We are friends with a blind man who told us once that driving through Kansas was the most boring trip he’d ever been on because there was nothing to see. Mmmhmm. Think about that one for a minute.

And now I’m here to prove to you that our trip to Kansas was not at all boring and there was plenty to see.

We left home Thursday night…sold concessions at an my dad’s auction (did I ever tell you that my dad is an auctioneer?) all day Friday…went to my nephew’s fifth birthday party Friday night…and spent all day Saturday going through stuff in my dad’s basement. (May I never have so much stuff in my house for my kids to have to clean out.) (Dad + Auctioneer = SO MUCH STUFF)

Okay, that was the brief overview. Now allow me to tell you some of the highlights of our trip.

1. While we were driving there Thursday night, all the boys were sleeping…so Matt and I were engrossed in an uninterrupted conversation (remember what those are?). So engrossed were we in the conversation…that we were thirty miles past our turn off before we realized that we were thirty miles past our turn off. Good grief.

2. At the auction Friday I met many nice farmers who are regulars at my dad’s auctions. One particularly friendly fella stood visiting with me while I served up some sloppy joes and the conversation was enjoyable. Then he suddenly said, “Did you see that nice port-a-potty out here? That’s my son’s. He takes it around to auctions and other events.” 

 *awkward pause* *say something Laura!* *longer awkward pause* *respond! say something nice about the traveling toilet!* *okay, but there are people waiting for their food and I can’t think of anything to say about the nice potty on wheels that wouldn’t cause a loss of appetite*

So I finally say, “Well…now…that’s not something everyone can brag about.” *good one, Laura* 

And he says, “People say they’ve never been in a port-a-potty that smells as good as this one does.” *blink, blink…smile…* *say something!* 

“Well, it was very impressive when I took my son earlier.” *can I get anyone a brownie?* 

And the man nods, smiles proudly and walks away.

Well…what would you have said? Did I mention there was a loud generator running just outside and I had to yell everything I said? Okay, moving on…

3. At the birthday party Friday night, I was happily holding my little baby nephew Austin (who is already almost 3 months old!) so that his mommy could serve cake and ice cream. I was holding him with my left arm when I was handed my plate of cake, which I took with my right hand. It’s tough to eat cake without any hands…so my friend suggested I set it on the cooler that was behind me and then sit on the chair so that I could eat it. I didn’t really listen very well to those instructions…so I sat my cake on the chair (duh) and sat myself down on the cooler. That would have been a fabulous plan, except that THE COOLER WAS ON WHEELS. I ended up right on my booty on the floor within about a half a second….still holding my nephew….who (thankfully) was not effected by the fall. Talk about feeling like an idiot. Like I needed anything else for my brother to tease me about. 

*everyone is looking at me* *stop looking at me…I feel ridiculous!* *quick, divert the attention off of yourself and the fact that you are flat on the floor with a cooler flying off behind you and a baby in one arm * *Hey, have you all heard about the cleanest port-a-potty around?* *ah well, at least this is good blogging material*

And no…except for my pride, I wasn’t hurt.

I dare say, there is nothing boring about this trip to Kansas.

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Thanks everyone for making my Website-aversary week SO much FUN!! Of course, it’s not quite over yet! There’s still a few more days to take advantage of this ebook sale, and this one. And sign up for this great giveaway!

This weekend was busy and fun. We went to Kansas to help my dad at an auction (which was a good excuse to go see family!). We were able to go to my nephew’s fifth birthday party…clean out some more of my mom’s things from the house (since my dad remarried about a year ago and the two of them combined households…shew there’s a LOT of stuff!)…and my favorite part of the weekend:  I got to meet Amy of The Finer Things in Life…FINALLY! She and I have been cyber friends for a while, and we were finally able to connect Friday night. It was SO much fun…and now I need to work out a time to meet the rest of you in person. Really. Anyone coming to Nebraska anytime soon?

Here’s our menu for the week:

Sunday, Nov. 9
Oatmeal, apples
Baked spaghetti, tossed salad, corn
Going to a surprise birthday party for our friend (sh!)

Monday, Nov. 10
Whole wheat pancakes
Cheesy quesadillas, pineapple
Crunchy ranch chicken, stir fried rice and veggies

Tuesday, Nov. 11
Scrambled eggs, oranges
Cheesy potato soup, homemade pretzels, carrot sticks
Hearty bean casserole, tossed salad

Wednesday, Nov. 12
French toast
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup
Chicken pot pie, fruit salad

Thursday, Nov. 13
Chocolate Swirl Muffins
Chicken legs, peas, potato pancakes
Beefy Enchilada Bake, taco salad

Friday, Nov. 14
Giant breakfast cookies, bananas
Beef and cheese burritoes, canteloupe
Homemade pizza, pears

Saturday, Nov. 15
This mama has BIG plans for the day with some friends!! I can’t wait to tell you about it! I really can’t wait to execute the plan!! So….Daddy will be in charge of meals all day! I’ll probably be real nice and leave some easy things for him to make. Ooh, my day will be so much fun!! You wanna come?

This week on the blogging menu…

I’ll share about Matt’s work changes on Gratituesday…share a bit of our family’s homeschooling philosophy….plus…I’ve got a few silly (or not so silly, depending on how you look at it) things to share with you about our trip to KS. See ya soon!

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