Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

A Toenail and a Prayer

by 25 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Remember these?

Those were the toes my cousin painted for me over a month ago at our family reunion. I loved them, enjoyed them, and felt all kinds of pretty with them. I am sad to say that toenails are made to grow. Therefore, I finally had to remove them last week. (I removed the pretty painted flowers, not the toenails. Wow. Someone should edit that sentence to make it clearer and less disgusting.)

While I enjoyed the pretty toenails very much, what I enjoyed even more is how looking at them reminded me of the cousin who painted them for me. I only see her once each year now that we’re all grown up, and shucks, I miss her. And so, each time I saw my toes, which was quite a few times each day, I would think of Carie, and say a prayer for her. Yes, my toes would bring her to mind. (Should she be honored…or mortified?)  Each time I thought of her, I would immediately breathe a prayer for her. Prayers for her as she raises her daughters. Prayers for her marriage to continue to be strong. Prayers for the business she and her husband own and run. Prayers for her health. Prayers for her parents. Prayers for her siblings. Wow, it was a great month of praying for Carie. Of course, now I miss her more, but that’s okay. God’s got her covered, and I’ve got my great memories. 

It just so happens that I also say a prayer each time I start a load of laundry. Why? Because filthy socks all bunched up in a wad always turn my thoughts to all things spiritual…obviously. (How I wish.)  Actually, the real reason is because I order my laundry detergent through my sister-in-law, Kari. Instinctively then, seeing the laundry box makes me think of Kari. And thinking of Kari makes me pray for Kari. Here’s hoping that Kari feels uber blessed, because goodness, I do a lot of laundry each week. That’s a lot of prayer, my friends. (If you’re wondering, the detergent I use is Shaklee – the only kind I trust for my family, especially with Malachi’s sensitive skin. Ask me more if you want info. Then you can pray for Kari while you’re doing laundry too. How ’bout that?)  :)

I pray for my cousin Deb each time I do dishes (again, that’s a lot of prayer!). I pray for friends as I drive by their homes. I pray for my children when I trip over the shoes they once again failed to put away in the closet.

Oh wait. No. I don’t. I should, but I tend to mutter (or holler) something other than a prayer when I trip over their shoes. I guess I need to work on that one. (She says, sheepishly.)

We’re all busy. We say we’ll pray for our friends and loved ones, especially while they are going through tough times, but do we always remember? I’m afraid I don’t always.

Having a physical reminder is always helpful, and sometimes necessary, for me to remember to pray specifically for someone. Who knew that God could use crusty socks for his purposes? :)

Oh, and hey, if you need prayer and you want to come over and paint my toenails, I wouldn’t say no.

What helps you to remember to pray for others?

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

Some Encouragement Before We Start the “No More Excuses” Series

by 47 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I really appreciated that so many of you left comments sharing your thoughts, struggles, and insights as to why eating a healthy diet may be difficult for you or for others. I have experienced all of these same feelings and shucks, I still do sometimes.

I have definitely not “arrived” when it comes to this healthy eating journey we’re all on. My family does not eat a completely healthy diet at all times. There are many times that I compromise on what would be the best choice to feed my family. There are times I pull out cereal because I can’t make myself get out of bed in the morning to cook the breakfast I have planned. There are times when, while I totally know better than to buy the chips with hydrogenated oils in them, doggonnit, I want them anyway and I don’t care what’s in them, so there. (Which is why you should never dangle a Nacho Cheese flavored Dorito in front of me. I will eat it. I love those awful things.)

Doritos aside, there are many areas of healthy eating I haven’t mastered yet. And guess what? I don’t even know if I want to master them. How’s that for a bad attitude that sort of flies in the face of my “No More Excuses” intro post? I don’t love eating completely raw foods. Fermented foods, while they are great for digestion, aren’t my favorites. And soaking grains? I’m beginning to find that practice very annoying and am therefore becoming a bit rebellious about it. There, I said it.

I’ve run the gamut of emotion on this healthy eating journey I’ve been on for the past several years. The biggest feeling:  Guilt. Now that’s a fun one.

Guilt when I don’t feed my family perfectly. Guilt when I don’t feel like cooking. Guilt when I know I could be doing better. Guilt when it feels like other moms are feeding their children a healthier diet than I’m feeding mine. Guilt when I read about what someone else is doing, but I just don’t feel like I want to go there yet.

Which is what leads me to the point of this post:  Please do not let anything I share on my blog, and specifically in this new No More Excuses series, overwhelm, frustrate, annoy, or otherwise make you want to throw Doritos at me. (On second thought…)  :)

I want to share my thoughts in the No More Excuses series to encourage you to consider how you might be able to feed your family a healthy diet and help you know that it is possible for you. But let’s also subtitle it the “No More Guilt” series, because we women have to stick together. We may all be in different places in our healthy eating journey, but we’re all on the same team. No comparisions allowed. No guilt. No pressure. Just encouragement and ideas, sharing and inspiring.

And maybe, the occasional Dorito. Someone stop me.

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

Sniff…

by 44 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

If you recall, this is what our corn looked like just a few weeks ago. Matt babied it and worked so hard to keep it weed free.

garden_four

You can imagine, then, our despair when we woke up one morning this week after a big rain and wind storm to find this:

corn

I saw it first…and I HATED to tell Matt about it. It was probably only a couple days away from being ready to eat. sniff 

We learned a little bit from this experience about creating good hills around the base of the corn to prevent this. Of course, we are glad that it was just a small part of our garden and not our livelihood. But still…

We are now about two days out from this unfortunate corn flattening and since the plants are still alive, it would seem that we may still be able to eat some of the corn. Maybe?!

And while I’m whining, I may as well show you this, which ALSO happened this week:

broken_jar

Apparently I had filled it too full of broth when I put it in the freezer because it cracked quite a lot. Which means that not only did I lose my beloved jar, but I also lost a half gallon of nutritious broth. I mean…maybe I could have strained out glass pieces from the broth…but did I really feel like taking a chance that one of us would have a tiny little piece of broken glass in our chicken and rice? Um, no.

So there you have it. And you thought you visited my blog for a daily dose of encouragement.  Instead, you come visit and Laura is whining about her fallen corn and her broken jar. 

Let’s see…maybe I can come up with some encouragement for you:

  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. When this happens you have to throw away a bunch of good broth and bear the bad news to your husband that a lot of his hard work just went to waste. It’s a chance to practice being a good help meet. (That was not at all encouraging.)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. Broth kinda looks neat with glass floating in it. (Better?)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. At least the corn all laid down the same way in the garden so as to be consistent. (I’m trying.)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. It’s a good thing two of my kids aren’t big on eating corn on the cob anyway. (Right?)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. When I poured the broth onto the ground (in an untraveled area) I bet some raccoon had a really great and nutritious feast lapping it up later. (Always good to help the coons build strong bones and better immune systems.)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. Eh, I don’t really like jars that much anyway. (Yeah, right.)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. It’s a delightful chance to talk to your kids about how when we don’t stand with our feet firmly rooted in the strength of Jesus, we just blow over when a strong wind comes. (And then they will look at you with a blank stare because today the wind isn’t blowing.)
  • Sometimes jars break and corn falls over. Basically, you just have to get over it and move on. (Which is real encouragement because it’s the truth.)

And there you have it. ;)

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

You Can’t Drown A Bug

by 20 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

Who knew that looking at a big ugly bug crawling around in the bottom of my kitchen sink would give me pause for reflection into my own life?

It was a bug. What was there to think about? Normally, I don’t have to think long when I see a bug of any kind. The question usually is as simple as, “Where is the nearest shoe?” Whereas snakes and birds may have me running the other way…bugs don’t tend to scare me very much. They’re creepy and they get on my nerves, but squishing a bug doesn’t usually faze me. Well, except for the crunch. Ick. I’m not a big fan of the crunch. 

Anyway, there it was scratching its eight or twelve or thirty little bug legs (I didn’t stop to count), trying with all of its might to find a way out of the bottom of my slippery, wet sink. While the question may have normally been, “Where is the nearest shoe?” I wasn’t too keen on taking off my flip-flop and putting it into the bottom of the sink to squish the bug. 

Therefore, I resorted to Plan B, which of course in the case of an ugly bug in the sink means:  Run Water Over the Bug. 

If you’ve ever run water over a bug, you will learn that a bug is quite unusually determined. It will put all of its eight or twelve or thirty legs to work at the same time, scratching as frantically as it can in the opposite direction of the flow of the water. And about the time you think you have surely captured the bug in the flow of the water and killed it, you will turn off the water and see that the bug was hardly fazed at all. It will, in fact, blink and sputter a time or two, then begin to crawl around again as if it only just experienced a lovely refreshing shower…not a near death experience.

You will then resort to Plan C which is to turn on the steaming hot water to kill the bug. Again, the bug will only act as if it just experienced a delightful dip in the hot tub at a spa resort. 

You can try scooping the bug up into a cup of water. It will go for a swim. You can try pushing it down the drain. It will come up for more like it just went down a cool water slide.

Nothing you can do will drown the bug.

There is only one thing you can do to get rid of the bug. You have to squish its guts out.

Lovely to think about isn’t it?

The moral of this story is a simple one:  If you have sin or strife in your life, you can not merely “run water over it” and try to get rid of it. Taking the easy way out will not result in cleaning up your life. Running water over it will only temporarily fix the issue, making it appear as if it is gone…but it will quickly resurface itself the moment the water is turned off.

If you have a sin in your life, you have to squish it. You have to hear the crunch. It will likely hurt. 

But then it will be gone. And you can clean up the guts that are splattered all over the place then fill that void in your life with something healthy, whole and good.

Yes indeed. Who knew you could learn so much from a bug?

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

Drink More Water!!

by 57 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

simplesteps

Ah yes…we hear this one all the time. They say, “Each person needs at least eight – 8 ounce glasses of water each day.” I’m not sure who “they” is, but no matter. Drinking lots of water is essential for good health!

Some of you may not really enjoy drinking water, so you may not like my next statement:  I don’t agree with “they”. I don’t really think that eight – 8 ounce glasses of water is enough.  That’s ONLY two quarts. I drink that amount before 10 am. If I was only drinking two quarts of water each day, I think my body would be dehydrated. But what do I know? I just know what my body craves…I don’t know anything scientific. And by the way, I’m not really drinking the water because I feel thirsty. I just feel the need for water. I just feel better when I drink a lot of water.

If you don’t really like drinking water, can I just offer you a challenge to suck it up (literally) and drink it anyway? Water is so, so good for you. Your cells need hydration to function properly. There are toxins in your body that need to be flushed out. Your body craves water.

watersm

If you are feeling low on energy…it may be because you aren’t drinking enough water. Simple as that.

In my opinion, drinking lots of water is one of the simplest steps toward healthy eating. And the stinkin’ cheapest. If you’ve made the decision to eat a healthier diet and you’re working to add more fruits and vegetables in each day…try now to drink more water. Force yourself to do it if you have to at first. Before long, you won’t even have to try. Your body will beg for it and you’ll just do it.

Water is basically all I drink (with a few exceptions that I’ll talk about another time soon). I keep a full glass by the sink all day long and I chug the entire thing whenever the mood strikes me. I love it. And yes, I potty a lot. (whoa, too much information.)

Here are some tips for drinking more water:

  • I like drinking my water at room temperature (or just a little cooler than that…like cold tap water). If the water has been in the fridge, I tend to get brain freeze when it’s going down, which makes me not want to drink it.
  • Make sure it tastes good…or rather that it tastes like nothing. When we were out of town recently, I tried to chug down the water in the home I was staying. It tasted SO much like chemicals that I felt I needed to chew it before I swallowed it. I could NOT drink it. If your water isn’t good, get a good filter system. Do whatever you need to do to find a good source of clean water. (Not having done a ton of research on the matter because our water at home is pretty good…we just use a Brita water filter.)
  • If you put ice into your water, be sure the cubes are made from good tasting water. If you make your ice cubes with yucky tasting tap water, it will taint the flavor of your drinking water as it melts. Ick.
  • Squeeze a lemon or a lime into your drinking water. Slices of lemon or lime will make it look pretty and appealing, it will give your drinking water a little zing!
  • Drink water out of a glass. This is just a personally preference of mine, because I simply am not a big fan of plastic. Drinking from a plastic cup makes my water taste like plastic. Find a nice tall glass and fill ‘er up. (Yes, because a tall, pretty glass is a “her”.)

Coming up soon (eventually, someday, and whenever I actually get around to it):  Other beverage choices, what not to drink, how to replace pop and other liquidy type items of interest.

After reading through this water filled post, I just bet all of you need to go potty now.

Just curious, do you like drinking water, or find it hard to drink enough each day?

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