Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Hit the Re-Start Button – Join Us This September

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It’s been a great summer! For many of us, there has been downtime, traveling, fun in the sun, and lots of crazy good times. Likely there’s been some difficulty, frustration, and troubled days too. Perhaps there have also been a few more than normal ice cream cones and trips through the fast food lane. No worries.  We’re not perfect, nor are we health-nut-Nazis.

But now that Fall is upon us, who’s ready to settle into a nice routine? Who’s ready to get some healthy food prepared ahead of time, get the house more organized and manageable, fine-tune the budget, start exercising regularly, get the natural medicine cabinet stocked for winter – any or all of the above?!

I always feel this way when September hits. I super-love the flexibility of summer. But I’m ready for routine, I’m ready to find more organization in my days, and I’m ready to breathe in a fresh breath of all that this season offers.

Who is with me? Let’s hit the Restart button!

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Through the entire month of September, we’ll be hitting the restart button together around here. We’ll have new recipes, freebies, sales, rockin’ giveaways, tips and ideas, and encouragement. Hey, I’m doing this for me as much as I’m doing it for you. Actually, technically, you’re doing this for me. Sharing these ideas refreshes me – so thanks for the kick.  Bam.  Smack that Restart Button! Here we go.

First off – let’s start with a giveaway. All the books, eBooks, and eCourses in my shop are geared toward making your real food journey easier. They’ll help you hit the restart button – so how about we give some away? Leave a comment on this post sharing what you’re most excited about this fall as you hit the restart button. Wednesday, September 3 I’ll draw 5 random winners who will each win a $10 gift certificate that can be used on any downloadable product or eCourse we carry. Let your comments begin:

What are you most excited about this Fall as you hit the Restart Button?

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Gratituesday: The Fall I’ve Always Wanted

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No, I didn’t fall. Well, actually I did stumble down a few stairs a couple of days ago, and managed to look perfectly ridiculous in front of my teenager, without hurting myself (thankfully). Eh, it was good for a laugh.

The fall I’m referring to in this post is the season. Just about every Autumn I can remember in Nebraska has seemed to only last for a grand total of 20 minutes. We typically go from very hot to very cold with a very short time of “perfect fall weather” in between.

This year has been absolutely gorgeous!!! We’ve had day after day after day of beautiful weather that is in the 60’s or 70’s. I’ve been so thankful for this, and was reminded again today of the blessing of such pretty weather. Even after the sun started to go down tonight, it was still warm enough for us to play outside comfortably. In fact, we all headed out for a little trampoline time (which I am likely to pay for tomorrow – but shucks, it sure was fun).

Here is Elias in mid-flip, which I have to say, was not easy to capture forever on camera. I think I finally got this picture after about seven tries. It’s a good thing he enjoys doing flips.

Brace yourself for the next one. We found that if Malachi would lie down in the middle of the trampoline while I jumped in circles around him “bouncing him” for a few minutes, a little static electricity action began to take place. We laughed so hard at this, I almost fell off the trampoline. But I didn’t. That’s not the kind of fall I’ve always wanted. ;)

I’m grateful for this wonderful fall, and all the joy and fun that has come with it.

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 grateful for!

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

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

A Week of Apples

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I have a grand total of 110 pounds of apples in my kitchen right now. You know what this means don’t you? Yes, it means that by the end of this week my fingers are going to look brown and dirty. And they’ll stay that way for about two weeks until the brown wears off. It’ll be really cute and not at all embarrassing (as long as I keep my hands stuffed into my pockets while out in public).

Oh, and if I don’t wear an apron while I’m working with all of these apples, the front of my shirt will also be covered in brown splatter stains, which will never come out. I learned this the hard way a few years ago when I made applesauce all day, while wearing a cute Disney shirt, before going to a soccer game. I completed the task of making applesauce, ran it through the water bath process to can it and put the jars away in my pantry. I didn’t look down at my shirt until I was at the soccer game that night cheering for my boys. It was then that I noticed that Eeyore was completely covered in ugly brown specks. (Of course, it had to be Eeyore.)  I was by far the most pitiful looking mother out at the soccer field that day. Of all days to leave my jacket at home.

So now you know:  While you peel, core, slice and chop apples – the juice will spit and splatter everywhere. If you work on 110 pounds of apples, everything around you, including every crevice on your hands, will turn brown for days. There’s not much you can do about this, so just embrace the fact that you’ll look like you’ve been working under the hood of your car. To avoid answering any difficult-to-answer questions from the powers that be, remove all school papers, bills, library books, and photos before proceeding. And for the love of Eeyore, please wear an apron.

My 110 pounds of apples await, and I guess it goes without saying that my apron is ready for action. Here’s what I’m looking at doing this week:

I’ll start by making and canning as many jars of Applesauce as I can make before I get sick of making applesauce. I will probably be using a slightly different method than the one described here, so I’ll give an update on that sometime during the week.

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If, in fact, I still have a few pounds of apples left after making applesauce, I hope to then make a few Mini Apple Pies. These are great to have in the freezer for a quick breakfast or dessert.

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I may also can a few jars of Apple Pie Filling. This is great to have on hand to when throwing together a quick apple crisp or of course, to make a big apple pie. Here’s my Whole Wheat Pie Crust recipe if you’re interested.

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I may also use my Excalibur Food Dehydrator and make Apple Fruit Leather and/or dried apple rings. When you have 110 pounds of apples, you can just keep going with the apple preserving until you’ve got a wide variety of apple goodies, or until you faint onto the floor of your kitchen – whichever comes first. Don’t worry – I plan to get my boys busy helping me with these projects this week. They are great applesauce makers.

We also plan to simply eat a bunch of these apples. I love having so many apples on hand for snacks. If you haven’t tried making Caramel Apple Dip, I highly recommend it. It’s one of my favorite ways to eat apples.

Throughout the week, I’ll be snapping pictures and sharing my apple preserving progress. Prepare to get sticky around here. I might even experiment with Apple Butter like several of you requested last week!

What is your favorite way to eat apples? Ever ruined an Eeyore shirt with apple spatters? This is why aprons were invented.

 

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Funky Fresh Kitchen – Join the Fun!!

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I haven’t attempted to turn a cartwheel since I was in my early twenties. I actually almost pulled a muscle just picturing myself turning a cartwheel today. BUT, I am so excited about the next two weeks I really am tempted to do some flips. After a lot of emailing, planning, organizing and brainstorming, I have a lot to tell you about. Where should I start?

First maybe I should explain what Funky Fresh Kitchen is all about.

Fall is almost here. I don’t know if you are like me, but this time of year I’m always looking for a fresh start. I want to get into a nice, organized routine. I want to set new goals for my family and for my kitchen. I want to enjoy all the wonderful, fresh food of harvest time. I want to start baking again as the weather turns cooler. I want to try new recipes. And I want my kitchen to be funky.

Funky? Yes, funky. Functional, if you really want to be technical, but I like calling it a Funky Kitchen, mostly because it makes me giggle. (Obviously, I’m easily amused.)

Make plans to join us here for the next two weeks of Funky Fresh Kitchen fun! I have new recipes to share, I’ll be offering up some challenges (are you ready to get your game on?), I’ve got some incredible giveaways and there will be some majorly discounted items in our shop.

I’ve got so many posts and so much excitement, I’m going to suggest that you may want to subscribe to Heavenly Homemakers and/or join my Facebook page so that you don’t miss anything. Trust me, you don’t want to miss anything.

The giveaways I have lined up? Well, you may just want to join me in the cartwheel attempts after you hear about these. Are you ready?

Cultures for Health has agreed to give away an Excalibur Food Dehydrator!! It’s true. AND (yes, I am screaming here) Paula’s Bread has offered to give away my most favorite Funky Fresh Kitchen item ever:  a Nutrimill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Let us all pause now for a moment of synchronized cartwheel turning and screaming.)

And don’t forget the new recipes I’ll be sharing. Some are chocolate and some include broccoli and all of them are easy and will inspire you to make fresh, healthy changes in your kitchen. Goodness, I’m so excited while I’m typing, I’m realizing that I have forgotten to breathe. You are all still breathing aren’t you? Okay good. We can’t all pass out before we even begin all the fun.

Share this post with all your friends on Facebook and in your neighborhood and tell your sisters and cousins and friends at church and college roommates and your bff and your bff’s sisters and cousins and everyone you can think of who could and should join us as we pursue our Funky Fresh Kitchens.

funkykitchencoversmTo get us started, we are offering our Do the Funky Kitchen eBook (which is regularly $4.95) for only $1.00. Yes, a buck. Read my favorite tips and suggestions for achieving a funky (functional) and organized kitchen, fresh and clean for fall.  But hurry – our discounted price of $1.00 will only be available for the first 100 purchasers. As of now, you can purchase Do the Funky Kitchen eBook for just $1.50 – available for the next 150 purchasers!! After that, the price will creep up little by little throughout the week. Take advantage of this deal while you can!

Watch for specials and discounts like this for the next two weeks during this Funky Fresh Kitchen feature.

Also:  By leaving a comment on ANY post with the above Funky Fresh Kitchen button featured, you will be entered to win one of five $10 gift certificates good for anything downloadable in our Heavenly Homemakers Shop. Because the button is featured on this post, comments right here and now will be added to the drawing for our gift certificates! Let the commenting, the Funky Kitchen eBook purchasing, the facebooking and sharing begin!

Watch for frequent updates, new ideas and recipes, discounts and giveaways – you don’t want to miss a thing. Thanks for joining me! It’s gonna be a great two weeks!

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

Gratituesday: Picnic in November

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I can NOT get over the weather we are having this fall. Usually in my area, we have fall weather for around three hours, then it becomes very cold. This fall however, we have had WEEKS of beautiful weather. The boys have been able to play outside, the garden produced longer, our home improvement projects have been possible…

Today, November 8, we were actually able to eat our lunch outside. This NEVER happens in November. We were all sitting outside visiting and enjoying the sunshine…all six of us. It was time to eat and Matt suggested that we bring our lunch outside. In a very short time the men had a table and chairs set up and we were eating our roasted chicken with the works out in our front yard. Only one lady bug joined us, so I’d say it was quite a successful picnic!

I didn’t get a picture because I was hungry. :) 

I think that for as long as the weather holds out, we should eat our lunches outside again. What a great way to enjoy God’s fall blessings of beauty and warmth! After that, I suppose we could have picnics on the living room floor around the fireplace?

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 grateful for!

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

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

Favorite Apples (Question #70)

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It’s apple season and I LOVE it. I’d been holding back on buying apples both because there were no organic apples available and the regular ones at the store were a crazy high price. I was feeling quite apple deprived, especially since I had bought the wonderful treat of Gjetost cheese and I NEEDED apples to go with it.

Finally a friend of mine called to say that the apples in her orchard were ready to be picked! I grabbed my bags and ran to her house (okay, I drove) and started picking. She sliced some samples for me to try and I’m pretty sure there were tears of apple joy running down my face. Mmm, they were so good. I was most excited because Gala apples are my favorite, and her Gala tree was the tree ready to be picked! I brought home loads (for only $0.75/pound!!!!). We’ve been eating apples to our hearts content. LOVE GALA APPLES!!!

A few days later, I was able to go pick more apples (red delicious, I believe) from another friend’s tree. She didn’t charge me a thing…in fact she gave us TWO jars of jelly as a THANK YOU for taking the apples off her hands. Um, you’re welcome?

THEN, we got another phone call and went and picked apples for free again. There are so many apples in my house, we are tripping over them. 

I love tripping over apples. Seriously. Apple season is awesome!!

I’ve shared some bags with others…and I’ve used my dehydrator to make apple rings…

I am now in the process of working through all the bags and making applesauce. I’m hoping this weekend to can a bunch of apple pie filling. If I get that done, I’ll be sure to share pictures and a recipe!!

My question for you today is…what is your favorite variety of apple? My favorite is by far Gala…but Pink Lady and Honey Crisp are also nice. Then of course there’s Yellow Delicious and Empire…

It’s a little hard to decide! What’s your pick?

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