When the load seems too heavy

If you're human, you have trials! And sometimes they seem too heavy to bear. We, as a family have a few burdens to bear these days. Some are heavier than others, BUT, with prayer and faith we can overcome them all. Knowing our Savior took ALL of our sins & trials, gives us
strength to continue forward.

Our hearts are with Kevin & Tia & their family. They have great faith and know Heavenly Father is watching over them at this time. He knows EXACTLY what is going on in their lives and loves them very much, as He does us all.

We all need to make our family's trials a sincere matter of prayer. It's even advisable to make a list of your present concerns & have it in hand while on your knees. I have done this and it really helped me to pray with more intent because I didn't need to worry I may have forgotten something.

Thank you all for your prayers! Dad & I pray for you ALL every day and know our Heavenly Father hears and answers.

Shelf-A-Palooza

I'm heading down to Portland in a few hours - I'll come bearing gifts...a carpet remnant from when we recarpeted Alex's room...
...and 5 pounds of "Beanland Mix".

Keira bought two sets of these shelves at Costco.

I'm looking forward to her "after" photos of at least one section of her garage.

Choose me, NO, choose ME.....CELL PHONE DILEMMA

I NEED HELP! We've been 'off-contract' for several months now; we need new phones and I don't know what to choose! We have two pretty basic phones now and frankly, dad doesn't need one any more complicated. So I'll probably just go with the 'free' one for him. I, however, think I would like to try something with more 'bells & whistles' to play with. I "think" I'd like the ipod phone, but it's not available with Verizon. But maybe I'm not smart enough to run it anyway! So all you techno-brains out there, PLEASE help me decide. Keep in mind, I'm on a budget too. (I've been looking at Amazon.com for their deals & am open to other sites as well as the Verizon store.) We'll be adding our cell phone acct to our Qwest bundle on the 5th of April to save a couple of bucks a month, if that makes a difference.

And btw, what does it mean when they sell "UNLOCKED" phones? Can anyone use them with ANY provider? Just a question, not planning to spend that much.

So thanks in advance for all your help! (Did you notice all the pics I choose are purple or pink phones? And yes, Deb, my new camera is pink too!) think I'm in a rut!

Label Love

A couple of Christmases ago I got Steve this label maker. I'm not sure it really qualifies as a "gift" - since I use it a million times more often than he does. It wasn't very expensive - under $20 at Staples - but I have found it to be priceless.


I cleaned out my pantry and one kitchen cupboard on Saturday. (Thank you to everyone who inspired me!) After tossing out all the old cartons of food I had lots of extra space. I'd already relocated all my canned goods to the basement, so I took the opportunity to fill some canisters with food items that we are currently using. Out came the trusty label maker - and there you go. Organized AND beautiful.

Spring Cleaning

Tia has been a total "worthy" for at least 15 years now on the subject of spring cleaning. I remember when I was 16 and the parents left us home with Joe and Sara that week. I wanted to read, Tia wanted to clean. She had this whole program for home beautification. I wasn't about to throw a wild party but my bar was set at a reachable goal--not burning down the house.

Tia is still cleaning her way through spring break and I'm still not burning down the house.

My goal this year, though, is tackling that assorted miscellany we call the garage. Tia would be so proud. Here's my "before".

Costco Samples

Who doesn't love samples at Costco? Around the holidays you can practically get a full meal wandering around the store. Yesterday I tried the hash browns. I'm not saying they're as good as homemade...but they aren't bad.

One large carton of dehydrated hash browns(with 66 1/2 cup servings) was $5.39. To rehydrate simply add equal parts potatoes and boiling water and let sit for 30 minutes. The instructions say to drain them - but the batch I made didn't have any leftover liquid. After that you can fry them. They had a surprisingly decent texture.

I'm wondering if these might also be good in a soup. Hmm. I might have to do a little research and development on that. Luckily I also picked up some "Better than Bouillon" ($6.89 for 16oz. jar). Now to find a way to use them together.

What have you sampled at Costco...and liked?

Deferred Maintenance

When my kids were young I had a tough time keeping my house clean. That is probably a law of nature....I think it relates to entropy or maybe chaos theory...anyway, now that my children are able to clean up after themselves and do chores by themselves, I have flattered myself that keeping my house clean was easy. Yeah, right.

Since breaking by wrist nearly 7 weeks ago I have been chagrined at how fuzzy around the edges my house has become. It's time to come up with a plan of action - seldom before have I had the urge to "spring clean" like I do now. Considering the fact that even when (and if) my cast come off next week my arm will still be fairly painful, I need a carefully considered plan of attack. Playing into my hands is the fact that Alex and Nathan have 1 1/2 weeks off of school - starting this Thursday. One or two rooms a day. We can do it.

Do you have a plan of attack? What works for you? What doesn't?

Wheat Grinder

I don't have the plans for how to make a wheat grinder. However, once you get the two stones together so they rotate against each other you need a way to power them. Rubbing stones together by hand gets old fast. It might be easier to get your exercise and flour at the same time.

Debbie and I used to have this wheat grinder. I can't believe we no longer have it. I don't remember what we did with it. Real stone ground wheat must be better for you than the metal grinders sold now. After all, the flour gets mineral enriched when ground.

Wheat for man....

Need some help here. Wynn is looking for a homemade wheat grinder blueprints or instructions ( with pictures if possible!!!). Low cost , of course.
Anybody have any plans or ideas?

Get Rid & Go Green

You know I am just in a get-rid-of-all-of-it mood right now. I have several posts on Craig's list and was being frustrated by the number of questions concerning old i-pods and electronic stuff. So, I found another way of dumping this stuff. Got to www.gazelle.com to calculate the value of your used cell phones, MP3 players, camcorder or computers. They will send you a box with prepaid postage so you ship it right to them. The old items are resold or recycled: you can also donate them to a charity listed on the website. If you can't sell an item to them - say a monitor just isn't functioning any more - they will recycle it for you so it isn't sitting in a landfill. This is a go-green idea that can make getting rid of those unwanted items easier than you thought!

WORD OF WARNING.....AGAIN

Now don't get me wrong.....plastic has it's place in our kitchens, BUT NOT IN THE MICROWAVE! There have been many rumors about this issue, but I'm convinced now that it is detrimental to our health and our children's health. I quote a recent release from the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Even "microwave-safe" products release the toxin bisphenol-A (BPA) when heated. BPA has been shown to cause neurological and developmental damage in lab animals. It is found in hard clear plastic, the linings of metal food cans, trays for frozen food, microwaveable soup containers and plastic baby-food packaging. Researchers are especially concerned about how the chemical affects fetuses & newborns, whose systems are not fully developed. Manufacturers have begun to remove BPA from their products. In the meantime do NOT microwave or heat food in ANY type of plastic container." So go ahead and use it all you want for storage, but please don't heat in it, no matter what the Tupperware lady says!

THIS IS A NO NO!!!!>>>>>

Happy Accident...With a Dash of Prevarication

It's hard to get fancy with cooking when you only have one arm to work with...so my crockpots have been doing the "heavy lifting" this past week. My family, for the most part, is fairly tolerant about meals (Danny being the lesser part, usually). Today's effort was a little bit of a gamble. I had the leftover ham bone from Sunday's awesome ham, and I wanted to make soup with it. Usually I would use it to make lentil soup - everyone in my family will eat it - Nathan especially seems to love it. Well, my lentil soup recipe calls for some chopped onion and carrots. Chopping vegetables isn't on my current list of activities. So I tried something different.

Beanland Soup with Ham

2-3 cups "Beanland" mix, rinsed (I picked it up in the bulk section of Winco - it doesn't seem to really have beans in it - it did have a couple of varieties of lentils, split peas, rice, barley, and maybe two or three other things)
8-10 cups of water (you can add more later on if it looks too thick)
4 chicken bouillon cubes
small handful dehydrated onion
seasoning - I used rosemary, thyme, parsley and a little pepper

Dump it all in a crockpot and cook for 4 or 5 hours.


I wouldn't bother to post this recipe except that Daniel ate 3 bowls of it. One of those AFTER I admitted to the onions and he figured out there were split peas in it. The hardest thing about making this (for me) was unwrapping the stinking bouillon cubes.

HELP! NEED YOUR ADVICE!

So, you may have noticed the 'blank acreage' displayed on my latest blog!

I PROMISE! I DIDN'T LAY IT OUT LIKE THAT!

I worked and worked at making it look like the draft...going back and checking the layout over and over again; only to see all my work for naught! I've tried putting in the pics before I type text and putting them in after...makes NO difference...still ugly and space 'eating'! When I place the pics I try to move them around to be at least 'near' the text about them. BUT, I find it almost impossible to get them where I want.

So the question is: how do you write your posts and is there a certain 'program' (that I don't have) you use that automatically places things the way you wish them to be (or at least similar to the draft)? I would appreciate any tips you all may have. I hate wasting all that space and risking wrist injury due to the extreme amount of scrolling required just to read it!

I will dutifully follow said advice and give all credit due.

Thanks in advance!

Dinner in Five...

Step one: break your arm. Either one will do.
Step two: ask husband to "come here for just a sec...I need a little help" (batting eyelashes is optional at this point - with your arm broken it's practically unnecessary)

Ingredients:
6 lb. bone-in ham
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup real maple syrup
juice from two cans pineapple (or 2 cups pineapple juice)

Have husband place the ham, flat side down, in a large crockpot. Rub in the brown sugar, pour on syrup then juice. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Come home from 4 hours of church to an awesome aroma. Baste the ham once or twice after 4 hours. This was another great recipe from "a year of crockpotting" blog.

I just so happened to have the real maple syrup on hand (we are happy to use Mrs. Butterworth's imitation syrup on our waffles, but NOT on the Thanksgiving turkey - this syrup was left over from that meal). Very, very easy meal. It took about 5 minutes to put together and 5 hours to cook. The ham cut like butter. Nice. And from now on I can have Steve make ham.

Shopping Buddy

Does Costco sometimes frustrate you because you would like to get those banana for 99 cents but you know you will be making banana bread when half go brown? Well, a friend of mine and I are testing a shopping buddy system. We made our separate lists and went to Costco together. We bought bananas, oatmeal, flour, sugar and several other things that are just too much at one time for either of us - along with the rest of our own list. We then went to my house and split everything into gallon baggies - carefully labeling and dating so we could see how long it took us to go through this first trial. We had the clerk make a separate receipt for the items so it was easily split. If this works then we are going to just let each other know when we go and what is on our list - we aren't going to be shopping for each other - but if it something I need as well we can split it. It was nice to shop with a friend and grab lunch so we plan to make a 4 to 6 week trip together too.

Slow Cooker Saturday

One of the things I love about Tamale Pie is how forgiving it is. I found a recipe for Tamale Pie made in a crockpot on the "year of crockpotting" blog. This is my variation of it. When Alex asked me what I was making for dinner I told him "tamale pie - it's another one of those Mexican dishes that uses the pretty much the same ingredients - just in a different order". He said "Peasant food".

So here's my version. This time. It will be different next time.

Filling:

1 lb. ground beef - cooked and drained (I put a little garlic salt on it while it was cooking)
1 can black beans - drained and rinsed
1 can corn - drained
1 can diced tomatoes (you could puree them if kids don't like the texture)
1 small can diced green chilies
1 T chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
diced onion to taste (I like fresh, but used dehydrated because I can't chop onions with my arm in a cast)
1/2-1 cup shredded cheddar/jack cheese

Dump all of the above in a crockpot. I used my 1981 crockpot - I think it holds about 4 quarts. Stir well.

I was going to use a homemade cornmeal topping, but oops...no cornmeal. I made up 2 cups of Marie Callendar's cornbread mix with 1 cup water and dumped that on top (after lightly packing down the filling).

I covered and cooked for a little less than 2 hours on high, at which point I propped the lid slightly open with a chopstick so that the moisture could vent. I continued cooking for a total cooking time of 2 hours 45 minutes. The cornbread was cooked all the way through and we ate it up.

Judging:

Alex - 8.5 - "it's good." (he had thirds)

Steve - 7.0 - "it's edible and I'd have it again" (he had seconds - but admits that tamale pie isn't really a favorite of his anyway)

Me - 9.5 for execution, 7.0 for taste. I liked how easy this was - and how food storage friendly. I do like a good tamale pie but this one was a bit so-so as far as taste. I think I would doctor it up a little next time - fresh onions, diced green peppers, maybe some olives....I would also use my homemade cornmeal crust. Oh yeah, I'll be making this again.

Don't Inspect the Seams

All new window treatments for under $70. Thanks for the tech support.

Free Range Shopper

I like to do my grocery shopping solo. I'm a "get in, get it, get out" kinda girl. I don't spend a lot of time dallying in the dairy section, pausing in produce or meandering through the meat. Nope, have list, will travel.

I have had to revise my normal shopping routine lately. Since I haven't been driving I have had to have a designated driver. Tonight Steve is taking me. He has a whole different shopping style...he likes to take time to smell the_____(insert grocery item).

I've been working on making a "map" of my food storage shelves. For instance, I know just how many bags of brown sugar, boxes of Top Ramen, cans of black beans, etc... that fit - now when it's time to go shopping I just figure out how much of anything I'm short of - I just look at my map and know how much fits.

Hmmm...now I just have to figure out what's for dinner.

LI'L OLE LADY NEEDS ASSISTANCE

No, it's not "I've fallen and get up" kind of assistance!
A few of us 'empty nesters' get together the 2nd tuesday afternoon from 2-4 and play games. ...THAT'S NEXT WEEK!

I need a few ideas of some group games that would interesting, but mostly fun and that a bunch of 'older' women would find hilarious or at the least mildly amusing!

So can you help a poor, li'l ole lady? Interactive with some guaranteed giggling will be much appreciated. No scripture chases please or anything that has a seriousness about it. We need to laugh in these times!

Thanks in advance. I KNOW how smart you all are! BTW, I'll be taking all the credit for your good ideas!

Simplify, simplify, simplify...

A little culinary making-do might mean augmenting a fussy little recipe from a woman's magazine that might include Hungarian sweet pepper and Swiss chard into something I could throw together on any old weekend night. Real Simple has a "five easy dinners" segment that, this month, had a great stew. Only it wanted me to go buy couscous, chickpeas (a pointless food), baby spinach, toasted almonds, sweet potatoes (!) and dried apricots. The recipe reminded me of my house when I bought it--great bones, bad paint job. So, I decided to make it real simple (pun intended):

1.5 lbs beef chuck, cubed
2 red potatoes
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes and juices
1 onion minced
2 slivered dried mangoes (a brief, bare nod to the apricots and wholly unnecessary)
2 tsp ground cumin
" ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
" cayenne
Kosher salt to taste

Throw it in the slow-cooker with a half cup water. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or low 7-8. I paired it with sharp cheddar grits (yum) to replace the couscous (my party affiliation preludes me from keeping couscous in the house).

The kids love this. The stew called for whole stewed tomatoes and onion wedges but the smaller sizes work better for my palate. It was spicy in an aromatic (not hot) way and I didn't have to go out and buy a whole lot of ingredients that I might never use again.

When is...

I keep thinking that Easter is this month. Well, I'm wrong,
it's not until April 12th.

I thought this would be a good thing to share. Last year it was in March and it happened to snow on Easter. It was a little cold looking for eggs, but the kids didn't mind.

Dueling Crockpots

I was talking to Sherri this morning and she said that when she told someone that she owned 2 crockpots they were surprised. "What do you need 2 crockpots for?"

I have two words for her: Dinner. Dessert.

Theoretically I could cook a 5 course meal with the crockpots that I own. In my own defense, they are all different sizes except the two pictured above...and I MIGHT get rid of my old one on the right. If it doesn't perform tonight, out it goes.

Sooo....what's for dinner? I'm making a variation on the Six Can Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe that I found through Suzanne. I'm calling mine "taco soup". I left out the chicken and substituted in a pound of ground beef that I had precooked with taco seasoning. With tortilla chips and optional cheese it pretty much makes a whole meal.

I made a double batch of soup. I plan on freezing the leftovers....but not in the door of the freezer.

Dessert (or rather FHE treat) is going to be brownies - and whatever Steve brings home to top them with. Knowing Steve, and believe me - I do, it will be ice cream. I found the idea on the crockpotting blog (see sidebar), but what really convinced me was this video.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

I'm finally here! Yay!
We went our Stake conference evening session last night and there was a wonderful talk given by Bro Neilson ( our area Seventy , I believe) that touched on food storage and I wanted to briefly recount his examples on the matter.
His first example was when he was a Bishop and had 2 brothers call him. The first let him know of a family in need in his ward and a concern for them that hoped he could go right over and help them. The second Brother called to let him know of another family in need, but wanted him to know that with what they had on hand in their pantry and in food storage they thought that they could help this family out until the crisis was passed. The call was merely informational and the situation in hand. He appreciated the first call and was deeply impressed by the second...as was I.
He also bore testimony of the Saints down in Texas in the period following a recent hurricane. They brought out there camp stoves and food storage during the week long power outage in the area and fed their neighbors until the power was on and they were once again able to help themselves. "This is what it is for", he said, "This is what it is about". Meeting the needs of not only ourselves but those around us so that they can feel the Lord's love for them in meeting their most basic of needs.
He challenged us to be looking for these great opportunities in these trying economic times and to be a light to those around us in goodness and charity.

Wanted: Manifesto Ghostwriter

Last night Steve and I went to an activity at the church. It was a presentation entitled "Seeking Out Simplicity" given by Franklin Covey consultant James Cathcart. He talked about the meaning of the words "important" and "urgent". Something is important if it carries consequence. For instance spending time with your family is important because it helps to build better relationships. Urgent is something that is compelling or pressing - in need of immediate attention. Urgent is NOT the same as important. Two-day sales are an example of something that could be considered urgent but not important. The two can and do coincide (like say, when I broke my arm) - but we need to know the difference - so that we don't get sucked into running around "putting out fires" and neglect the truly important stuff. Sometimes we just need to say "no".

What's important? Well, that's the real question. Bro. Cathcart challenged everyone to draft their own mission statement - as a way to clarify our purpose and narrow down what's really important to us. He gave a few examples - the first was quite lovely and longish - it was written by a poet (I want to say Browning...but I might be wrong). The second was "I want to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am". The last one was my favorite. It is God's mission statement:

Moses 1:39

39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Now that's a tough act to follow. Short, sweet and to the point.

What's your mission statement? (or should I be asking for your manifesto?) I could use some more ideas.