Microwave & Bed Buddies

We have been using our microwave a lot lately.

No, not necessiarily for food.  I try to limit that.  But all of a sudden our microwave seems to be getting a lot of use.

Why, you ask?

Bed buddies.

Bed buddies?

Yes. These little rice filled cloth bags, made by my mother-in-law, are popped into the microwave for whatever amount of time you need to get it to the right temperature. (A bit over a minute for little people so they don't burn themselves) Then you slide it to the bottom of the bed and it keeps your feet warm while you drift off to dream land.  Or if you are like Miss S you can just hold it and it will just keep you warm in general.  Sometimes I roll some essential oils over it after it comes out of the microwave... the girls love that.

So, one or two bags are usually warmed up at nap time...three when the girls go to bed...and then one or two when Husband and I go to bed.  And sometimes there is a request for one to be warmed up just for watching a movie.

That would be why our microwave is getting such use these days.

DIY Oven Cleaner

My oven was...gross.

I forgot this last winter to run the self cleaning option (because in Phoenix there is no way I am running THAT cycle in the summer.)  Let's be honest it's not my favorite.  Basically it creates an environment so hot that hopefully it all turns to ash and you wipe what's left out.  Not a big deal unless your oven is REALLY bad.  Then you run the risk of setting the fire alarm off as smoke billows from your oven and the fire department shows up because they are pretty sure they deciphered the SOS in the plumes.  Oy. That's where I was.  Gosh, sometimes smoke would start coming just with the preheat of the oven at 400.  No bueno, amigos, no bueno.

I have been highly motivated as of late to get our house clean and myself on a schedule.  Especially since we will be starting school in...oh, look at that...17 days!  The girls like to help so we are working on those aspects.  They are seeing the effects of "many hands make for light work" and merry hearts make for merry work, too.  Although today, I'll admit, I was not so merry.  I know that I set the tone and I reaped what I sowed today.  More on that later.  Back to being motivated...

Yesterday, after most of the rest of the house had been worked on earlier in the week I tackled a couple of problem areas in my kitchen.  I was faced with the oven once again.  I finally said, "That's it.  It just needs to be done."  So, I went to my friend's blog where I saw her recipe for a DIY oven cleaner.  It was a little different than another one I had and I wanted to try it. (Note: the Melaleuca a. is tea tree oil)

It was pretty amazing!  You could barely see through my oven door and now you can TOTALLY see through it.  The door took some extra elbow grease but totally worth it.  But the inside pretty much just wiped out.

I will say, make sure that you oven is just warm.  Not hot.  Mine was too hot and I think it messed with the paste a little.  If you have an electronic temp that shows up on your oven maybe let it get to 100 or 120 and then turn it off.  The lowest mine would go was 170 and I didn't let it cool enough.  Which in turn made for a crazy mess to clean up this morning but still worth it in my opinion.  Next time I know.

It was hard to get to the top of my oven because the broiler elements and the angle.  But I think for what's left the self cleaning will do nicely.

Here are my before and after photos -

Before (top) and After (bottom)

After (top) and Before (bottom)

Knock, Knock....Housekeeping!

Once upon a time, a long long time ago... okay, okay... the summer of 1999 (yikes! 14 years ago!) I worked in our nation's first national park, Yellowstone.  It was nothing as exciting as being a park ranger but rather I was there to clean rooms at Old Faithful Inn as part of a summer project with Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru.)  It was a summer that impacted my life in various ways and apparently is still bearing fruit in other areas still today.

You see, one becomes very familiar with the details and rigors of housekeeping when work is done in one of the busiest hotels in the nation over the summer months.  While I was not the fastest room cleaner in the est I found an appreciation for those who do it day in and day out for years on end.  Not just for the summer, you see.  The solitary work about drove me mad and so management had mercy on me and when they could they moved me into a position of picking up buffalo poop grounds keeping and cleaning public spaces.  I was thankful to be around more people and I LOVED that job.  No, really.

Today I find myself nearing the end of a two month stay at a hotel.  I am always reminded that it is well worth knowing the names of the people around you.  Especially in the service arena.  I'm pretty sure I know everyone who works here from management, to housekeeping, to food service.  They work hard.

However, I will say that our relationships with those in housekeeping are by far the most significant.  We see them just about everyday.  My kids run down the halls in little-girl-screeching-delight when they see Mrs I and Mrs E, the women who run the housekeeping department.  The day that I told Mrs. I  that I had worked in housekeeping for a time she was surprised and asked all sorts of questions.  We talked about the hard work of it all and the difference in how things work here versus what I experienced.  It seemed like that sealed our relationship.  Well, that and the fact that my girls easily endear themselves to almost anyone. HA!  We have had conversations about family, life, church, and other things. We have made great friends here and while we are excited to go home we are sad to leave the people that we have met here.

My girls have this notion that the housekeeping crew will just come home with us.  Yes, I wish.  HA!  We'll take food service with us as well.  My girls even pretend clean after housekeeping leaves and when we come back to the room they do the famous "knock, knock! Housekeeping!" at the the door and then burst into quiet giggles.  If anything it has been a social education for my girls and I think they are doing fabulously.

Fourteen years ago I wondered how on earth my being a housekeeper would have any sort of impact or be of any sort of significance.  I merely thought it was a vehicle to do ministry at that time.  Nope, apparently there would be another reason that would not be fully realized until 14 years later.  I wonder what that summer still has in store for me?

Bookworm Lost

As we start out on this homeschooling adventure with our children I get a little overwhelmed looking ahead to what could potentially be their high school reading assignments.  I start thinking that maybe I should start now so that I may have most of them completed by the time they are ready for high school.  Then I relax (a little) and realize that I should enjoy books with them now that THEY enjoy.

I had to reflect a little on my reading history...

When I was younger (5th-8th grades) I read all. the. time.  My dad could barely keep up.  For whatever reason he didn't ever take me to the library.  Apparently it was just easier to take me to the local book store at the time and let me pick out a book or two.  This was a weekly or a twice a week visit and I would still find days with nothing new to read.

As I entered high school and assigned more reading and finding new hobbies and activities my desire to read dwindled.  It was also during this time that I realized that reading in a vehicle caused motion sickness.  It was something that I had never experienced before but it cut down the time that I normally had to read.  However, I had some phenomenal teachers in high school and felt that I was fairly well read... more on that later.

The story continues into college.  Reading was assigned and nothing for fun.   At this point in my life reading outside of things assigned did not seem appealing.  Anything but reading.  Sad.

I think later I got caught up in reading a lot of heavy spiritual things for classes that I took while I was on staff with CRU.  It's not that they were bad but reading something light and fun rarely crossed my path.  When I married I was introduced to people that were extremely well read.  I could barely hang with them.  I realized that I had also missed out on some pretty awesome classics - Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, etc.  I wondered why?  Then it hit me that my very liberal, feminist (although I love her dearly) high school teacher would not have approved of some of the story lines that these authors presented.  Again, sad.

More and more I am convicted that while I want to produce readers and see the desire at different levels in my girls... I am no longer a reader.  I must recover what was lost.  I've cut down on the time I waste playing games or dinking around.  I am looking into the lists I have made and would like to tackle them.  I am also wanting to find more interesting books for my girls.  I desire to make the library a habit and familiar place for them.

So, readers... suggest books... classics or otherwise.  I'll let you know if I've read them or not.  However, I cannot do things that are overly violent or overly sexual in content... I'll stop and drop anything that are too much in that area for me.  Just an FYI... and thanks for joining me!

Meal Ministry

If you have never needed the blessings of a ministry through meals I say two things... a) blessings to you and b) boy, are you missing out!

However, I will have to say accepting meals from people can be a very difficult thing.  I remember while I was still single and living on my own I had been pretty sick.  A friend that lived two apartments down for me offered to make a meal for me.  In my pride, I thanked her but turned her down knowing full well that I would probably have to go pick something up somewhere because I was not up to cooking for myself.  I met with my mentor very briefly that afternoon and she basically told me that I needed to let people be generous and let them serve.  She challenged me to go back to this friend and accept the meal.  Talk about a killing of pride.  It was a good lesson.  I was blessed by my friend being so gracious and generous.  Plus, I ate a really good meal!

Fast forward to 2008 when Miss L arrived early in December of that year.  Our church at the time blessed us with an abundance of meals even though we lived almost an hour away from where most people lived.  They got creative and it was a blessing for sure.  When Miss A arrived in 2010 we were in a bit of transition but sweet friends put together meals and we were well taken care of during that time.  When Miss S arrived our church really stepped it up a notch with the meals because we were running back and forth to the hospital with her in the NICU.  And even just this week with Miss S in the hospital I find my fridge full of food because of the abundant generosity of the people around us.

However, it is a dying to self to ask for help... to ask for meals... to ask for help cleaning your home...to ask.    Why is it so hard for us to ask?  A former pastor once told me to not ask for help is denying someone the opportunity to learn how to serve others. (He said it much more elegantly)  It was a profound thought.  We don't know how to serve the body of Christ (or others) because people are too prideful to ask or they think that people are not able or will not help.  The fact is that people are willing to help.  Cheerfully!  More than one could probably ever imagine at that.

All of this came flooding back when Pastor H was visiting us in the hospital and asked if the church family could do anything else for us.  I was tempted to just suck it up and figure it out.  But there was an offer of help and this was the area I needed the most help (because grandparents were taking care of kids during the day) all I had to do was...ask...

So, I did.  Boy, were we blessed!

Needless to say, I won't be posting a meal plan this week because we have so much food left over and I still have a couple of from last week that will carry over to this week.

I encourage you to ASK for help when you need it.  When a baby comes... when a loved one passes... surgery...people are willing wanting to help.  While we as a body also need to be on the look out for areas to help people we also need to die to self and kill our pride and ask for help, too.

Meal Plan Monday

Yes, I know it's been awhile since we have done menu planning.  Yes, I know I generally do it on Wednesday.  But, I have my meal plan done today so we will roll with it.  I may actually have a lot of it done for next week, too but I won't really have that nailed down probably until Wednesday.  HA!

So, the freezer meals are basically gone.  I realized I had a couple left that I will put into next week's rotation.  Sometimes forgetting is a good thing.

The goal of any meal right now and for the next several months (years?) is simple, simple, simple.  My mother-in-law is around during meal prep time generally 4 nights out of the week.  I know that this will not always be and can change at any moment so I try to have very little hands on time.  Here's what's on the dinner docket for this week...

• Ravioli w/ butter sauce, Parmesan, roasted potatoes and green beans.
• Cranberry Chicken with creamed spinach
• Leftover Mashed Potato Soup
• Breakfast Pizza
• Fish Tacos w/ broccoli slaw
• Moms Meatloaf with twice baked mashed potato
• Pizza (back-up meal)

What's for dinner at your place this week??

Longfellow

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;

Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
To stay at home is best.


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

Organized Home Week # 3: Pantry

I have been working on maintaining and thinking through the first two weeks of this challenge.  We are spending a few weeks in the kitchen which is a great thing!  The first week was counter tops.  That is hard right now with bottles and this and that on the counters.  So, my goal is to get it under control first and make it suitable for what it is doing right now.  In about a year I can reevaluate that again.  My cabinets and drawers for the second week are another thing.  I am trying to figure out what needs to take a hike and what really needs to stay.  I am on a purging binge right now so I should probably take advantage of that because I am such a just in case kind of person.

However, this week we focused on the pantry or food storage areas in our homes.  YES!  Mine was desperately needing a good makeover.  Stock-up overloads and just not thinking about putting thing away made for one big MESS.  One of those pantries where things just randomly fall when you move something.  Yes.  It was that bad.  I went through everything and put it where it belong and grouped things.  Tossed out spices galore.  Found a few food items that we will not eat before expiration dates and hopefully a couple of families I know will be able to make use of them.

Here's where I get vulnerable.  Before (UGH!) and after pictures of the pantry.

Shelf 1: I have to heel some pans and cutting boards here.  Not my favorite but it works.  The very top of the stacker needs some more love as that is where my cake decorating and cookie cutters are.  I have some containers that I will use up there and will hopefully have room for another box of cutters that I have up there.  That would be great!  Creating more room in other spaces and getting everything together!

Shelf 2:  The spice shelf.  Kill me.  Seriously, I think that I had some spices that were well over 10 maybe 15 years old.  Yes, really.  They are gone now.  There are some that still may be a little too old but we will roll with it.  Gone is the full bottle of Lemon Pepper that I have been toting around all these years.  You know, just in case.  I am going to look into acquiring some air tight containers and start buying spices in bulk unless I use it often enough to buy a jar, etc.  Over time the containers will all look the same and there will be less waste.  I may even remove the spice stacker that I have in here that causes a stadium effect here.  I think about a Lazy Susan but wonder if I will lose space?

Shelf 3:  This is where I keep most of my baking items and a coupe of random things.  I invested in some Tupperware awhile back and here it is.  I had some wasted shelf space and opted to make the most of it by putting some extra items that are completely sealed in the back of the containers (two bags of powdered sugar, and bisquick) and that helped some.  I can see it back there, too.  No worries of it being forgotten.  When I took the pictures I forgot two things on top of the containers that go on the spice shelf... oh well.

Shelf 4:  Drinks, grains, and canned items.  Not much here.  I took the bags of open rice, beans, and lentils and put them in an air tight container and the closed ones are out.  I need to move a bag of pasta back up to the top shelf but that's not a big deal.

Shelf 5:  Storage stuff, dry goods, baby food, and some miscellany.  Pretty simple and I finally can see it all!

Shelf 6 (the floor):  What a horrid mess, right?  Now it is clean and somewhat organized.  The bummer side is realizing we only have one bottle of Powdrell's BBQ sauce left.  Oh well.  We don't go through it too fast. We have time to restock.

Well, there it is!  My pantry is also where I keep my family calendar, some Scripture to encourage, and I think this is also where I will figure out a way to display my pantry inventory.

Inventory.  I had hoped to get to that today but a nap took precedence for sure.  So, maybe tomorrow.  I have the rest of the week to get that completed.

Do you have pantry tips or suggestions?

2012 Homemaking/Crafting Plan

I was reading a post over at The Modest Mom where she shared 12 things (I believe from her Pinterest boards) that she wanted to work on this year.  Some simple some not so simple.  Brilliant, right!?  Surely, I can do one thing a month.  I shared this with Husband and his response was not to over do it.  He knows me and he's right.  So, I am trying to keep them fairly simple and I am stating from the get go that if that month's "craft" doesn't get done... well... then... it doesn't get done.  I am just not going to get upset because I cannot foresee all that will happen this year, etc.  Plus, we have a new baby in the house and that always adds some random dimension to the mix of things.

So, here's what I am thinking I'll work on -- many are from my Pinterest boards but a few are not! :)

January

I have tried making my own foaming hand soap with a natural soap.  The foaming part does well we just don't like the soap.  So, I am going to give this one a try and the final verdict will be up to Husband.  If it doesn't go over well then I am just going to go back to buying soap.  I may give one brand another try but he's not been so impressed with my concoction as of late.  Oh well... neither have I.

February

I have two doilies that belong to my grandmother (possibly my great-grandmother) that I have moved around and shoved in closets here and there.  They are lovely but not my style to put out on a dresser or on the piano.  However, when I saw this I fell in love.  I thought I had more than just the two doilies but I think I know where I will put the two that I know that I do have.  I am pretty excited about this project. I just need to gather the supplies.

March

It seems like I am always on the look out for some fun words to put up here or there.  I like how these use a fabric.  So, I think I may put something up like this in my laundry room.  Although, someone mentioned putting the word rest in a bed room or the girl's names up.  I have some time to ponder exactly what I would like to do.  However, if you have some fabric suggestions I will gladly take them.  I am pretty much a disaster when it comes to fabric selection.

April

Pizza Dough.  So simple yet drives me insane.  Okay, really I am just too lazy to make my own generally.  However, I tried to go on the cheap one time and purchased a mix and the results were no bueno.  So, my bread machine has a recipe and we'll just go that route.  I like my bread machine because while I live in one of the hottest cities in the nation my house generally has cool spots and I generally don't get things to rise very well.  I am sure one of you has a solution for that so comment away.  My solution right now is my bread machine and I don't have to think about it much.  HA!

May

We got a spiffy new camera and I want to make the most of it!  (No, the above is not our camera - different brand and well, I just don't want to disclose what it is here... if you want to know... ask.)  :)  I would like to find a few websites to read for beginners to learn the basics as well as watch the other video that came with our camera.  Just learn more about it.  So, photography friends (ahem... I know you are out there...Heather) if you have suggestions on what to read, let me know!

June, July, August, September

So, maybe I am cheating by lumping these months together.  Hear me out here.  There are several projects here that I would like to work on for Christmas gifts.  However, I think some of these things may end up in the hands of some of my readers and I don't want them to know exactly what I am working on.  It will at least keep them guessing.  Maybe when we get here I can give you a sneak peak of things I am working on.  We will see.

October

I need to get the ornaments printed and colored or just get them printed at some place and then laminate them.  I want this up and ready to go well before the Advent season and this gives me plenty of time before things get crazy with Thanksgiving, etc.

November

Wouldn't you know that I just deleted the picture of a crochet project in progress that I wanted for this month's project.  Oh well.  I started a blanket for Husband oh-say about three years ago.  Yeah.  It's still not finished.  I think that it is lacking a few more rows and some edging.  I think the edging freaks me out the most.  Husband laughed when I told him it may actually be finished this year.  I hope to prove him wrong.  HA HA!! 

December

Well, I know that Pinterest was full of holiday goodies.  A few caught my eye.  However, when I went back and looked through more this one had drool factor for me.  Cappuccino Shortbread.  Yum, right?  I have had several recipes catch my eye that require instant espresso powder and I can never find it.  So, this gives me time to find it.  I have some ideas and have looked around online.  I should be able to nail it down.