Do you ever wonder?

One of our yummy meals from last week using what we had.

 Currently I am reading "The Long Winter: by Laura Ingalls Wilder out loud to the kids. I have read this book (the whole series) many many times (as a child I practically had them memorized and I also read them out loud to the kids a few years ago as well) but I love them and learn from them each time I read them. In case you haven't read them the summary of "The Long Winter" is this: The Ingalls family was living in a brand new town in South Dakota. They had some things set aside for their winter's food from what they had been able to grow the first year on their farm but they didn't have enough and they were counting on the trains to supply what else they needed. Well they started having blizzards early and often and the trains weren't able to come through and didn't come until May. But with ingenuity and the community working together they all survived.

   We have also been hearing about communities in Alaska this year that are shut off and yesterday in church we discussed how the city of Samaria lasted through a siege for 3 years (2 Kings 17:5).

  All of this very much makes me wonder- "If we were in any of those situations how well would we do?" Ken thinks I am a little strange and supposes that I am the only one who reads "The Long Winter" and gets inspired rather than thinking I am glad that doesn't happen to us but I do enjoy imagining how we could make do with what we have if we were faced with the circumstances of not being able to get out and buy anything more for a period of time.

  So... I proposed to my family that we try and see if we could make it through the winter better than the Ingalls did and not go shopping until May. They didn't go for it though they did find the idea interesting and would support me in it a bit but not all the way. I don't know if I would have been able to stick out or not either (I may have gotten quite thirsty for milk and hungry for cheese) but I do think it would be fun to try (all while knowing I COULD go shopping if I needed too- that makes a huge difference!).

  So I was out voted on the idea of no shopping (an consequently not drinking milk and running out of other things we like) but I still intend to see just how little shopping I can do this winter (Shopping for food and everything else).  We have been blessed with so very much we really don't have much need of buying anything. I am going to see if I can keep our meals so yummy and interesting that they won't even notice that we have run low on something that they particularly like. Since cooking is not my favorite thing in the world to do, something like this helps to keep it interesting and henceforth more enjoyable.

  I also will try to make sure we have a good balanced diet even with less shopping. I do still think we need plenty of fruits and veggies- we have quite a bit canned and frozen and my parents have been sharing cabbage and garlic with us that they still have from their garden but I also have sprouts growing and I tried planting some bunching onions inside which if that works out we will be able to eat their green tops in a couple of weeks. Mara and I were also discussing the idea of planting lettuce and radishes inside which would be a nice addition to our diet.

  I need to do more research concerning calcium needs. I know there are some people who don't think milk is good for you (or who have dairy allergies) that don't drink much milk but I need to check to see what is actually healthy for our family. We won't be cutting out all milk by any means as that was vetoed but I am thinking about taking a break from it myself and also trying to drink less as a family  and drink more of our herbal teas instead. Also I have found that we really don't need it in baking and in things like pancakes. The pancakes I made this morning I made with water instead of milk, no oil in the batter and less eggs and they turned out just fine.

  Another project that I want to try for this is rendering down beef fat for using for some of our oil/grease cooking and baking needs. I have some from our grass fed natural beef but I have not tried rendering it yet.

  By the way- for any of you that actually know us and might get the idea that we are not able to go shopping or something and might think you need to help us out- please don't! That is not at all the case! Ken has a good job and we are extremely blessed. It is only for the fun of it (both in entertainment value, and the fun of saving money and just that curiosity to see how well we can meet the challenge) that makes me want to do it. I will NOT cause my family to go hungry nor feed them an unhealthy diet.

   It is fun to experiment and see all the different types of food you can make from what you already have on hand. For instance this past week the kids were ready for their afternoon snack (Ken jokes that we have 6 meals a day since the kids and I tend to usually have a morning snack, a snack after naps and a snack in the evening too) and the boys wanted to have popped wild rice since they had enjoyed it once before at a class they went to. So we popped a bit of wild rice which is easy to do- simply put 1/2 cup or so in a greased iron skillet that is on about medium heat and then shake or stir until it all pops. It doesn't pop real big or violently like popcorn but the insides do pop out of the shell. Just salt it and enjoy. I didn't make a lot as wild rice is rather expensive even here in wild rice country so I decided to make some parched grains as well. I repeated the same process with both field corn and wheat berries (they don't pop but they do swell up and grow somewhat soft) and then we salted and ate them too. It was a yummy and pretty easy snack using things that we had on hand.

Another recipe that I made lately that used things that for the most part we have plenty of was:

Rise and Shine Cookies these are great for breakfasts, desert and snacks.
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 nutmeg
1 cup honey
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
2 1/2 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first 5 ingredients together then mix in the honey, eggs and oil. Next mix in the oatmeal and sunflower seeds. Drop dough by tablespoons about 1 inch apart on a greased baking sheet. Flatten slightly with your hand or the bottom of a glass. Bake 10 minutes or until light brown.

 Anyway- this last week I had fun eating out of our pantry (though we did buy butter and milk and were blessed to receive eggs, garlic,onions, cabbage and squash from my parents farm) and am game to do it for a lot longer! I imagine we will have to buy milk again this week unless I really figure out how to stretch it but I don't know that we will have to buy anything else.

 Here is what we are planning for our menu for this week:

Breakfasts:
Scrambled Eggs and Toast
Pancakes (2 times- I make extra and then reheat another day)
Eggs and Hash browns
Golden Egg sauce on toast
Muffins and Homemade Beef Sausage Patties
Oatmeal

Main Meals:
Teriyaki steak chunks with pasta and cauliflower with cheese.
Chimichangas and corn
Tuna turnovers and cabbage salad
Cheese and Ham potato patties and green beans
Spaghetti and broccoli
Chicken Rice Burritos and salad.
Biscuits and chicken gravy and applesauce.

I am linking up to
- Menu Plan Monday
-Pantry Challenge
and - Homestead Barn Hop.

Consider it Joy!

I have long wanted to memorize a book of the Bible both because I think Bible memory is very important and because it sounded like a fun challenge to see if I could do a whole book. Last Sunday at church some friends and I were discussing Bible memory (they are both really good at doing it!) and when we discussed memorizing a book all of us had been thinking (already) about doing the book of James. So knowing that we would be able to encourage each other I decided to actually go ahead and get started!

James is a great book of practical advice for living. If you haven't read it before or lately I would recommend it- it doesn't take very long as there are only 5 short chapters.

The second verse in James 1 says:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,"

Have you ever found that to be a bit (or a lot!) challenging? I have!

But this scripture goes onto say that testing of your faith will develop perseverance, which will help you mature and be complete not lacking anything. Trials will help us to grow!

This made my think about how Children love their birthdays. That is a milestone of the growing that they are doing and they are excited about growing. Growing isn't always easy either physically or spiritually but it is worth it. I am hoping that I can learn to rejoice in trials with the realization that God is helping me to grow.

I don't buy..... Laundry Soap

Laundry soap was one of my big breakthroughs with not buying. I have not bought laundry soap for years now. This was one of those things that you figure (at least I did) that you would always buy- you needed it, it was too complicated make (I thought), and what else could you do?

When I discovered that there were other options in this area then I started wondering about other areas as well. I started doing research and I have been able to cut out quite a few things from my shopping list that previously I had thought were essentials. It is rather exciting.




  So, if I don't buy laundry soap than what do I do instead?

I make it from 4 simple ingredients. The first place that I saw how to do this was on the blog The Simple Dollar. Since then I have seen this basic method promoted by the Duggars and others.

An old picture of Megan helping me make laundry soap.

Here is the recipe:
-One bar of Soap (I have found that you can use a wide variety of soaps though I think fairly strong ones might work best. Try out whatever you can find cheap.)
-1 cup of Washing Soda (Find this in the laundry aisle and don't confuse it with baking soda- though very similar they have an important difference which will make it turn out differently)
-1/2 cup of Borax (I have heard this can be eliminated but I always use it.)
-Water

To make it you put 4 cups of water in a pot on the stove and then shave the bar of soap into it. The soap shaves better in my opinion if you have let it dry out first. I use a little paring knife to do it but you can also use a vegetable peeler. Heat this mixture up until the soap dissolves. Stir it every so often during that process.

Meanwhile in a large bucket (I use a 5 gallon one) put 3 gallons of hot tap water. When the soap has dissolved pour that mixture into the bucket of water and stir. Then add the Washing Soda and stir until dissolved. Next add the Borax and stir until dissolved. That's it- You are done! Isn't that simple?

As it sits the mixture will gel up. I use about 3/4 cup in each of my extra large laundry loads. When I put it in I do try to kind of squish any of the big gel chunks to help with the dissolving in my laundry as sometimes they haven't completely dissolved and then a few of the clothes might have a bit of residue on them and I have to rewash them.

I think this laundry soap is quite satisfactory (I must since I have been using it for several years!). I won't say it works better than store bought but I do think it works as well and it is ever so much cheaper as well as I love the fact that the only trash I have from it are soap wrappers (one every couple of months) and the washing soda and borax boxes (only every year or so) which I can recycle.

Thanks to a friend (who gave me some) I did also recently try Soap Nuts for my laundry. I was quite favorably impressed. I would be glad to use them all of the time if I were able to find them at a comparable price to my homemade laundry soap. I haven't looked for deals on them yet so I am not sure the prices. But I do like the product.

Learning about the Charlotte Mason Style of Homeschooling

 This fall I got a book I had long seen in the CBD Catalog and thought looked interesting but had never purchased. I decided to get it this fall however and I am very thankful I did. I really enjoyed it. The book is "A Charlotte Mason Companion- Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning by Karen Andreola. (I just found Karen's blog and here is the link in case you also would like to check it out.)

  Much of the book I enjoyed because it reinforced the way I had been homeschooled and the way I am homeschooling my own children. It encourages things like reading what she calls "living books".  Living books are defined as ones that are written by a single author who shares personally his/her favorite subject with us. Generally a textbook would NOT be a living book. This is the sort of book we have long enjoyed and sought out for our home. Reading this book however made me renew my desire to make sure all the books we have are really good books. Some of the other ideas that I read about in this book that fit in already with the philosophy that I already had are:

• Having God as the focus and center of the homeschool.
• No Homework (meaning schoolwork is all finished in good time and not drug out into the evenings.)
• Free afternoons for young children (I believe my kids basically fall into that category).
• Few Lectures
• Enjoying nature and seeking to learn more about it.
• Appreciating ideas and culture

Some of the things that she talked about that made me get some new ideas were:
Using narration. Narration in the Charlotte Mason method is used after a child has read (or been read too and somehow heard about) something and then they tell you (or write down) what they remember and understand. We have done some of this spontaneously, Our kids often want to tell us about what they have learned just for the fun of it, then we also often will discuss what we learn at the supper table- either Ken will ask or I will encourage them to tell. However after reading this book I have started to try to gradually work more narration into our days. I have started with the book that I have been reading to the kids about the constitution as I wanted to make sure that they were learning from the book as it is a little deep.

Other ideas that I gleaned from this book are:

• Doing more in the area of nature study.
• Learning about and appreciating art.
• Reading, learning about and writing poetry.

On the poetry line I found a series of books called "Poetry for Young People" at the library. We checked out the book on Emily Dickinson (because I knew I liked some of her poetry even though I am not always found of poetry) and we have been enjoying it. It had a very neat introduction to Emily Dickinson herself and then quite a number of poems that have been fun to read. I am looking forward to checking out other books in the series. We have added in the reading of poems to our afternoon reading time.

That has been a little of what has been going on in our homeschool lately. I feel very blessed to have gotten this book and am looking forward to sharing it with other young moms that I find sometimes getting stressed out about this job of homeschooling. This book is a great one to help people realize that homeschooling doesn't need to be anything like public school. It can be so much better and so very much more fun!

Stop Procrastinating Day

Hello, I'm Abbi and I am a procrastinator.

Okay, to clarify that a little- I don't always procrastinate- not with everything. There are certain areas that I struggle with it more than others. I tend to procrastinate doing things I don't like doing so much like calling to schedule appointments, certain cleaning jobs, doing paperwork for my business, etc. But I also find it easy to procrastinate in some areas of things that I really enjoy doing like making things (for birthdays or the fair or something that has a deadline), writing letters and organizing messy areas in our home.

Yesterday I hit on a solution that worked really well to get some of the things I had procrastinated on done. I enjoyed it so much that I decided I would share it with you. (As it is super fun to cross something off your list that you have procrastinated on for months!)

What I did was declare yesterday "Stop Procrastinating Day" for me. I knew yesterday was a busy day as I had 6 music students scheduled besides needing to homeschool my kids and do the normal household things like cook and sweep. But I also knew that there would be bits of time here and there that I could get something done. So I decided in all those little bits of time I was going to try to do things that I had been procrastinating about.

So in the morning I wrote a list of some of the things I had thought of like: Schedule dentist appts., iron, order some supplements, etc. As the day went on and I had any extra moments I would simply do something on my list and I was amazed at how fast I was able to work my way through it and how really not hard all those things I had been putting off were. I also decided that when I noticed something that needed done (like a dirty toilet that needed some cleaning) I would not put it off for later- I would do it right now if at all possible.

   So after yesterday I have dentist, orthodontic and chiropractor appointments made, a cleaner house, odds and ends of chores done, the ironing done, I sat down and did some things with the kids that we had been wanting to get done and I feel very happy and satisfied! In fact I think I want to do another stop procrastinating day today! I have an office that has been needing to be cleaned and some mending that needs to be done.

  Here are some tips if you want to have a "Stop Procrastinating Day" sometime:

• Write a list of the things you can think of that you have been putting off. Have fun doing them and checking them off the list.
• If you see something that day that needs done- do it now if at all possible.
• If you have a project that is really big and you don't have time to do it all then either 1. Get started on it- like in the case of  a cluttered room that really needs cleaning or 2. Schedule it on your calendar so that you will be sure to get it done later- like in the case of painting your house.

I hope some of you will find this idea as helpful as I have. Have fun!

Denim Crocheted Rag Rug

  This evening (while watching the New Hampshire Returns as we enjoy our politics!) I finished up a denim rug which I planned on telling you about today. It is my first rug of the year (I am hoping to tell about a different kind each month). It is fitting that a crocheted rug would be the first rug of the year for my blog as that has definitely been the type of rug that I have made the most of. I find them easy and fun to make and I love the fact that I can use only recycled materials in them so they are free!

  I make either oval (though sometimes they are very nearly rectangular) or round rugs.

I looked all around the Internet hoping to find a great tutorial that I could link to but did not find one at least not one that did it the way that I do. I didn't take pictures of every step but I will try to explain the process quickly and then if there is interest I will try to do a detailed tutorial later.

 To make a denim rag rug you will need a lot of pairs of old jeans. I love that for this project you can use stained ones, the stain might at times show a bit but I don't find it very noticeable in a rug.

  Start cutting all your jeans in strips about 1 inch wide. Then to attach them together I cut a one inch long slit (lengthwise) in the each end of the strips. Then you lay the end of one strip over the top of the end of another strip with the holes aligned. Then take the other end of the strip that is laying on top and from the bottom pull that strip through the slits. Carefully pull it tight and it will make a very strong and not very noticeable joint.

  You can get a lot attached together before you start crocheting (and wind the strip in a ball) or you can join the strips together as you need them.

  Now you are ready to start crocheting.

First make a chain of around 15 stitches (you can do more or less, a long chain will make a longer narrower rug and a shorter chain will be opposite of that.). Next make a single crochet in the 3rd stitch from the end. Continue to crochet in all the stitches down that side. At the end crochet several stitches in the end of the chain. Then crochet down the other side of the chain and around that end. That is the beginning of your rug.

  To make the rug just continue to go around and around that middle section. On the ends you will need to add in stitches as needed so that you can always keep the rug laying flat. On the sides you can just make one stitch in each stitch. If you want you can change colors every so often to make stripes.

 When you get it as big as you desire then simple finish off and secure your ends.

The biggest things you need to watch for when making these rugs is that you do add enough extra stitches in the ends so that it doesn't turn into a bowl but that you also don't add in to many stitches and make it wavy.

If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments!

Here is a link I found with directions for a very similar rug to mine. (Which if you can't understand my instructions maybe these will help.)