In line in front of a gentleman at Wal-Mart I couldn’t help but count my blessings.  The contents of his basket were simple & few. His clothes were tattered. His face & hair were unkempt. He fumbled with a few crumpled bills and muttered to himself. It was obvious he was trying to calculate if he had enough to cover the charge. I looked at my full basket and felt very … excessive. And from that time throughout the rest of the day I counted.

1. I never have to wonder whether or not I have enough money to pay for the contents of my basket. I know I do because my husband has an excellent job that more than meets our needs.

2. My children (or in fact, myself) have never even come close to going hungry.

3. I have a car that runs well and I have enough funds to keep it full of gas despite the high prices.

4. We live in a home that is cooled in the summer and heated in the winter.

5. We are surrounded by family & friends on whom we could lean in an emergency.

6. There have been precious few emergencies in my life.

7. My family is healthy. 8. I know many people whom I can trust to care for my children.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. ……….. Thank you, Lord for provision and care in every area of our lives. Help us to use it wisely and compassionately and to never take it for granted.

Earlier this week we (Sister & I) experimented with bread making.  I like very much not buying our eggs from the store and wondered what else we could not buy.  We tried two different methods and even doing both in the same day only took about an hour of prep time which means bread baking could easily be incorporated into our weekly routine.  Besides it is a fun way to be with Sister and teach her about all kinds of numbers (fractions in measurements, degrees on the oven, timing with the clock).  I gave Brother a set of measuring spoons and a small bowl of water to keep him busy which worked really well…. right up until the moment he poured his “creation” into our pre-measured and already sifted flour.  Oops! :)  Sister & I sent him out to play before continuing. About the two methods - The first came from my favorite crockpot book the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook by Dawn J. Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good and the second from the Better Homes and Gardens “New” Cook Book.  As you can see from the picture the loaves each recipe produced are quite different.   The crockpot bread rose well but is slightly sunken on the top with a Schlotzky’s kind of consistency.  So not very pretty… but it used honey as it’s sweetener (ie healthier) and did not require any maintenance after the initial preparation.  Prep Time: approx 20 min.  Time to Complete loaf: 3 hrs.  Taste: Great. The other bread was more traditional.  Mix ingredients, Let it rise, Punch it down, Shape into loaves (it made two, BTW), Let it rise again, Bake.  The completed loaves looked more like store bread and the consistency was thicker but it used brown sugar as the sweetener and didn’t seem to rise as much as the other besides requiring more maintenance.  Prep Time: approx 30 min.  Time to Complete loaf:  3 hrs.  Taste:  Pretty Good Bet you can guess which one I will be making in the future. :)  Here’s the recipe.    Read the rest of this entry »

Will - Full House by Stephen Jay Gould (just finished)

Toni - Voluntary Simplicity by  Duane Elgin and The Power of Prayer in a Believer’s Life by Charles Spurgeon  Sister - The Little Red Hen by John Escott

Brother - The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper  

A morning slightly overcast with a light breeze prompted us to visit the zoo this morning.  Lovely time.  We only stayed a couple of hours but that is what’s nice about having a membership pass.  One doesn’t feel obligated to “get your money’s worth” in one day.  We saw a flock of geese land on the pond and wished the camera hadn’t been turned off.  Spent some time looking at the monkeys and thought about “The Planet of the Apes“.  The children (and Will) enjoyed the petting zoo and after, we headed off to the park.  We visited the penguins before catching the train and taking a turn on the carousel.  But my personal favorite of the day (and Sister’s too)… Wings of Wonder  - the butterfly exhibit.  The boys wandered off after only a bit to see lizards and Asian fish but Sister & I both wished we could have stayed longer.  So peaceful.   

Good things are happening around here. Early yesterday Will had an interview for a job at Conoco-Phillips.  Late yesterday Will got a call that he had the job at Conoco-Phillips.  He starts Oct 2nd. Yea!! The house @ 6052 sold and the closing was today.  Even better, due to some miscalculations on my part the check we received was quite a bit larger than we expected. Tonight Sister & Papa went fishing at a pond near the house and Sister caught her first fish… a 6 lb. large mouth bass.  In true Sister fashion, she was much more interested in the empty clamshell she found along the shore. 

And the icing on the cake - my method for removing permanent marker was featured on ParentHacks.  

Brother has recently started a new bedtime ritual…snuggling.  It’s not really new, of course but it’s new for him.  Previously, he wanted to lay on his pillow, be covered with his blanket and suck on his juice.  (Yes, I am aware you are not supposed to send a child to bed with juice - bad for their teeth and all that.  What can I say?  It works for us.) Touching of any kind was not allowed.  No forehead kisses, no back rubbing, no tucking misbehaving tufts of hair behind the ears… nothing.  Now however we go through this same ritual except after about 2 minutes he starts to toss and squirm and gradually change position until it seems as if the whole of his body is tucked in the small of my back and there he will fall asleep.  It’s a very limited sort of snuggling since I am not allowed to face him and most certainly not allowed to hug him in my arms.  It reminds me of when Sister was small and would stroke my hair each night until her eyelids grew heavy and her fingers grew weary of the motion.  I was not allowed to face her either.  Something about it was too hard to reach my hair.   Silly children that need a mother’s presence to fall asleep but won’t let her watch them do it. 

We drove up to Wichita on Saturday for Uncle S. & Aunt T.’s fall party and to see their new house.  Besides a couple of trips to Gate, it was our first major roadtrip with both kids and, on the whole, things went pretty well.  We were all a little worn by the time we arrived and so didn’t hang out too long that evening - which was fine because it wasn’t really a kid party anyway.  Instead we got a room at the Best Western, swam, played games and zonked out by 10.  Refreshed after a good night’s rest, the next morning was much more enjoyable.  It was nice to catch up with relatives we don’t often see.  And Aunt T. made two breakfast dishes that were really yummy.  I will post the recipes when she sends them.  Congrats to Granddad James who not only has his pilot’s license but his “taildragger’s” license too.  This is fortunate because he and Grandma Sheila recently purchased a “taildragger” and it would really be a ‘drag’ (sorry, couldn’t resist) not to be able to fly your own plane.  We stopped over in Ponca on our way back from Wichita.  After some conversation and dinner we went to the airport where Will got to be James’ first passenger.  Sister took pictures from the ground and Brother pointed and said, “plane fly!” about a billion times.  When the flight was over James taxied up to where we were waiting and let Brother and Sister get in too…. but only to ride back to the hangar.  Not that you would know to hear Brother tell it.  He is absolutely convinced that plane flew to the hangar. 

Simply being home makes me feel rested but I need to remember that’s not necessarily the case with little ones.  It only took one wakeup meltdown and grumpy morning (Brother), one Little Gym ‘incident’ (Sister) and two kids zonking out in the car for me to realize my babes were not yet recovered from the trip.  …. Way to clue in, Mom.  Everyone (not Will - poor Dad) took some quiet time this afternoon and that helped.  

Two more eggs today… white … we’re thinking it’s the same hen. Our worms (for vermicomposting) arrived yesterday and in all the excitement about the eggs got put aside until this evening.  We (Sister & I) pulled out the bin I had previously prepared.  A medium size rubbermaid container with a lid into which I drilled holes down each side and placed a simple spout in one end near the bottom.  The holes are so the worms can breath and the spout is so we can collect the “worm tea” that accumulates at the bottom (and to keep the worms from drowning… apparently).   To the bin we added strips of newsprint torn into strips and dunked in water.  We squeezed out as much water as possible and fluffed the strips a bit before putting them in.  Then we added the worms.  Sister was a bit hesitant at first but then she really got into it.  “Are we going to name them?”  “Let me think… 500 red wrigglers with names….  Umm, no.”  Brother ended up being the squeamish one.  “Do you want to hold a worm, Brother?”  “Oh, no tanks.”  On top of all of this we placed a full sheet of newsprint which Sister sprayed down with a simple water spritzer.  We will keep this sheet moist and place our food scraps (no meat) under it.  So now we wait… and hope that Papa who recently had a renewed interest in fishing doesn’t think we are simply breeding bait. Also this evening I whipped up a batch of homemade insect repellent.  I can’t stand to put Deet on the kids (or myself) any longer.  Tried a bottle of Buzz Away (main ingredient: citronella) because it got such rave reviews from Good Housekeeping amoung others but the smell was so bad it kept away more than just mosquitos.  The new recipe is almost oderless and comes from the book Healing with Herbs by Penelope Ody though I got it via ParentHacks.  Will wore it on his run tonight and didn’t get a single bug bite so I’d say it works.  Read the rest of this entry »

We have eggs!  I didn’t expect any until late October but one Pearl White obviously didn’t get the memo.  I’m not certain when she started exactly but she had laid six by the time I found them and a seventh today.  We did the fresh egg test and they are all good - though small.  I expect that as she matures her eggs will become larger.  Later in the day either one of the Rhode Island Reds or Black Stars laid one brown egg.  So we’ve had eight total with only two hens laying… I hope this doesn’t turn into too much of a good thing. :)  We love painting!  In creating a load for Goodwill, I came across a set of sidewalk paints we hadn’t seen in a while.  Fun, Fun.  Sister is learning about design at school and part of that involves learning about watercolor and acrylic paints.  Will & she had a chance to try their skills at family orientation night.  (Sister’s creation, Will’s creation)  Brother too likes painting but sometimes to avoid the mess of actual paints we visit jacksonpollock.org.  Speaking of art, there was a reception for Mary at the State Capitol this past Saturday.  We packed up the kids and drove to the city.  It was good to see family and friends though somehow the setting made things odd.  I dressed up for the occasion but my shoes gave me blisters and actually removed skin from the top of my foot (TMI, I know… I was so glad to be back in my Crocs.)  Brother got his head stuck in the second floor railing around the rotunda.  Sister had a major meltdown at picture time.  And Will, who had not had a chance to talk to his Grandmother in a month, only managed a perfunctory “hello, nice to see you” before we had to leave.  It was like entering a sort of alternate reality where even simple things are a struggle and stress is the norm.  On the upside, no one else seemed to share our Twighlight Zone experience.  In fact, they all seemed to have a fine time and it was a nice honor for Mary.  Also, the strange haze seemed to lift as soon as we were en route home.  And the kids behaved beautifully in the car which gives me hope for our trip to Wichita this weekend.   

My, my but isn’t Sister a social butterfly. Since she’s started school we’ve either been or been invited to 3 parties - which averages out to a party a week. Keeping in mind that our 4 (almost 5) yr old doesn’t drive my schedule also fills with each invitation. These do not include activities directly related to the school. (Parent workdays and orientations, icebreakers and parent/teacher conferences.) This is not my idea of the simple life. I am seriously considering homeschooling. That’s not a joke… I really am.