I recently posted on facebook that I had spent the day making a total of 16 meals for the freezer. I got a lot of comments on that, and many people wanted my recipes. Most of them are Trim Healthy Mama and Brianna Thomas recipes, which are copyrighted so I shouldn't post them, but they are not hard to find on pinterest or on the websites of these ladies. And really, if you are going to do monthly meals, at least in the beginning, you should use recipes that are already tried and true for your family. It would be terrible to make a lot of meals, only to find your kids hate them!
What I will do is tell you what I did:
I spent four weeks in South Korea a couple of months ago, taking care of a son who had had complications from surgery. On one of his bad days, when he spent most of his time sleeping, I decided to allow myself as much time as I wanted looking at blogs and websites on frugal and healthy living. It wasn't something I want to do often, but I must say I really enjoyed that day, and I took a lot of notes.
One thing I found on monthly meal planning was to think of 20 meals that your family really enjoys eating, then write down all the ingredients you would need to make those, and there is your grocery list. So, while I sat there that day, that's what I did.
Since I try to stay gluten and sugar free, those are the recipes I listed. I had been using them for a while, so I know which ones the kids like and don't like. I have a little meal planning notebook I bought at Michael's that helped a lot (and it's always more fun when you have something cute to use for these things).
Recently, a few blogs I follow talked about freezer meals. I used to do that a lot, but hadn't in a while. I decided to try again.
I went to the Walmart grocery site, and ordered a month's worth of groceries. Then the next morning, very early before my kids are normally awake, I went to the store and picked them up (this is a great plus of your kiddos growing up, you can leave them asleep while you run errands. I had told them the night before I was doing this. They were FINE with that! 😁 )
Once home with my groceries, I spread it all out of the table, and got started. I had picked about five meals that we will have once a week or less, depending on what's going on that week. We have junk food night where I usually buy pizza or fast food hamburgers, and Sunday nights are more snacks. Lunches are usually left overs.
I won't kid you, it was a LOT of work. I fried, boiled, baked and mixed all day, from about 10 in the morning til 3 in the afternoon. It wasn't unpleasant, just hard. I also homeschooled while doing this, but again, my children are older and mostly work on their own. I was just there to put the passwords in the computers and answer questions where needed, like "If I read this whole book (the Jungle Book) can we watch the movie?" Answer: Yes.
I tried to wash dishes as I went. One bonus of cooking this way is you can just rinse pots, pans and mixing bowls and use them over and over.
I used my own pans and also bought a very cheap pack of aluminum pans at Walmart, 10 for $5. And yes, if we don't destroy them, I will wash them and reuse them.
I wrapped in cling wrap then in foil. I sure don't want my meals ruined because they become freezer burned.
The key is, just keep at it. Your back will hurt and you will get tired, but once you are done, you have a freezer full of good meals, you won't be tempted to run for take out, and you will likely eat healthier.
The only thing you have to do is remember to set your meal out to defrost in the fridge the night before!!
Showing posts with label frugal living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label frugal living. Show all posts
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Frugal Living and "Alms giving"
Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Acts 10:4
Several years back, I read the book "Irresistible Revolution" by Shaine Claiborne (son Spencer says he is a pacifist hippie in dreadlocks, but I think he's cut his hair lately ☺). The book changed my whole way of thinking. It sat beside my bed for years, and I reread it often. I still read parts of it once in a while.
In the book, Mr. Claiborne points out over and over what Jesus says about caring for the poor. It seems God talks to me about that subject a lot. I know there are different ways God has us to serve, and he is faithful to let us know. I am still trying to know what he is saying, and how he wants me to play out this thing he talks to me about in real life. He may be talking to you about something completely different.
I remember in that first couple of weeks after Bill died, the great fear I had of how I was going to support my six children still left at home, since we had no insurance and no savings. I remember sitting on the bed and crying because I didn't know what to do. That was a time when the impact of giving hit home hard. That first six weeks, until Social Security began to come, the children and I had no income - except for the giving of others. And give they did. Into my hands. Into my mailbox at church. Into my mailbox at home. The church helped us pay for the funeral. My three sisters helped with the funeral flowers. People I had never met in person, but only knew from facebook and this blog, sent us money. It covered every bill, and all the expenses that come when someone dies, and it's considerable. I was overwhelmed with the goodness of God's people. And I knew why God tells people to give.
Last year we visited San Antonio and went to eat on the river walk. Afterwards, we walked along the river, and beggar's were everywhere. A man begging for food for his child, another one with no legs, and one who was shouting he hadn't eaten all day. Luke was crushed by the whole scene, and we talked about it for days afterwards. I made him a promise that we would never pass another beggar without giving them something.
Which brings us to giving money, when you don't know what it will be spent on. I remember my grandmother telling me once, "You just give, what they do with it afterward is between them and God." While she wasn't talking about beggars, I think the principal still applies. But the kids and I talked it over, and we made "Blessing bags" to hand out when we saw someone with a sign on the side of the road. We put a small toothbrush and toothpaste, a little bottle of deodorant, a granola bar and two dollars. Trouble was, we didn't see enough beggars, and the granola bars got yucky in the hot car, so we need to rethink, or leave out the granola bars!
I have also been trying to figure out ways for us not to spend so much money on ourselves, without the kids thinking they are deprived of the good things in life, although I think most of us in the world today have a problem with a feeling of entitlement. We talked it over and decided we will not go to fast food restaurants so often anymore. I told them, even McDonalds costs us nearly $40 for one meal, and that amount of money would feed us every meal for a couple of days or more from the grocery store. So we have given up eating out except for rare occasions. I promised them that didn't mean we wouldn't stop for ice cream sometimes or Sonic for a drink, but we wouldn't opt for a whole meal anymore.
Our dryer broke recently, and I have no plans to replace it. Here in Texas, there aren't many days you can't use a clothesline, and I kind of enjoying hanging clothes outside. I hang them, the kids bring in their own clothes and put them away. We hang dresses and shirts and pants on hangers straight onto the line, so they only need to grab them, take them in the house and put them right away. No need to throw stuff on a bed. I read once that every load of clothes costs $1 to dry. We should save $60 a month or so this way.
My only problem with hanging clothes on a line is lint on towels, but a friend suggested I buy flour sack towels, all cotton. I did, and the problem is solved!
Be frugal. Could you invite those friends to your house for a meal, instead of going to a restaurant? Could you opt out of that expensive coffee? (Especially Starbucks. I won't go there again. The owner told me not too, if I believe in traditional marriage). Go to the library instead of buying books? Shop at a used clothes store first? Thrift store? What's some other ways to save?
Stay home. Don't run around. How can we be keepers at home, if we are not at home? It is amazing how much money you can save, just staying home.
Then, what do you do with your extra money?
The Lord will soon let you know!
Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Acts 10:4
Several years back, I read the book "Irresistible Revolution" by Shaine Claiborne (son Spencer says he is a pacifist hippie in dreadlocks, but I think he's cut his hair lately ☺). The book changed my whole way of thinking. It sat beside my bed for years, and I reread it often. I still read parts of it once in a while.
In the book, Mr. Claiborne points out over and over what Jesus says about caring for the poor. It seems God talks to me about that subject a lot. I know there are different ways God has us to serve, and he is faithful to let us know. I am still trying to know what he is saying, and how he wants me to play out this thing he talks to me about in real life. He may be talking to you about something completely different.
I remember in that first couple of weeks after Bill died, the great fear I had of how I was going to support my six children still left at home, since we had no insurance and no savings. I remember sitting on the bed and crying because I didn't know what to do. That was a time when the impact of giving hit home hard. That first six weeks, until Social Security began to come, the children and I had no income - except for the giving of others. And give they did. Into my hands. Into my mailbox at church. Into my mailbox at home. The church helped us pay for the funeral. My three sisters helped with the funeral flowers. People I had never met in person, but only knew from facebook and this blog, sent us money. It covered every bill, and all the expenses that come when someone dies, and it's considerable. I was overwhelmed with the goodness of God's people. And I knew why God tells people to give.
Last year we visited San Antonio and went to eat on the river walk. Afterwards, we walked along the river, and beggar's were everywhere. A man begging for food for his child, another one with no legs, and one who was shouting he hadn't eaten all day. Luke was crushed by the whole scene, and we talked about it for days afterwards. I made him a promise that we would never pass another beggar without giving them something.
Which brings us to giving money, when you don't know what it will be spent on. I remember my grandmother telling me once, "You just give, what they do with it afterward is between them and God." While she wasn't talking about beggars, I think the principal still applies. But the kids and I talked it over, and we made "Blessing bags" to hand out when we saw someone with a sign on the side of the road. We put a small toothbrush and toothpaste, a little bottle of deodorant, a granola bar and two dollars. Trouble was, we didn't see enough beggars, and the granola bars got yucky in the hot car, so we need to rethink, or leave out the granola bars!
I have also been trying to figure out ways for us not to spend so much money on ourselves, without the kids thinking they are deprived of the good things in life, although I think most of us in the world today have a problem with a feeling of entitlement. We talked it over and decided we will not go to fast food restaurants so often anymore. I told them, even McDonalds costs us nearly $40 for one meal, and that amount of money would feed us every meal for a couple of days or more from the grocery store. So we have given up eating out except for rare occasions. I promised them that didn't mean we wouldn't stop for ice cream sometimes or Sonic for a drink, but we wouldn't opt for a whole meal anymore.
Our dryer broke recently, and I have no plans to replace it. Here in Texas, there aren't many days you can't use a clothesline, and I kind of enjoying hanging clothes outside. I hang them, the kids bring in their own clothes and put them away. We hang dresses and shirts and pants on hangers straight onto the line, so they only need to grab them, take them in the house and put them right away. No need to throw stuff on a bed. I read once that every load of clothes costs $1 to dry. We should save $60 a month or so this way.
My only problem with hanging clothes on a line is lint on towels, but a friend suggested I buy flour sack towels, all cotton. I did, and the problem is solved!
Be frugal. Could you invite those friends to your house for a meal, instead of going to a restaurant? Could you opt out of that expensive coffee? (Especially Starbucks. I won't go there again. The owner told me not too, if I believe in traditional marriage). Go to the library instead of buying books? Shop at a used clothes store first? Thrift store? What's some other ways to save?
Stay home. Don't run around. How can we be keepers at home, if we are not at home? It is amazing how much money you can save, just staying home.
Then, what do you do with your extra money?
The Lord will soon let you know!
Friday, October 27, 2017
Fall
I'm not one to enjoy the weather turning cooler. I don't like cold very much, and as someone who is cold even in Texas summers, I can be pretty miserable. But I am thankful for a house that is much tighter than it used to be, thanks to generous people who worked on it for us. The wind is blowing mightly outside, but we are cozy and warm inside, doing school this morning.
A lot of things are changing around here.
I tell people Bill and I had three batches of children (Angel-Leah doesn't like that term, so I changed 'batches' to 'litters' for her, but she didn't think that was an improvement): When we married, we were only going to have two children, and Rachael and Celeste were born. We moved to Oklahoma, where we began to keep foster children, and after falling deeply in love with a little boy who didn't stay, I begged for more children. Gage was soon born, followed by three brother in eight years: Max, Spencer and Beau, and then pretty little Mary Susannah. By then, I was in my 40's. My heart was content.
Rachael and Celeste were 7 and 9, already in school, when we began to have children again. They were my first batch, the boys and Mary Susannah were my second batch.
When Mary Susannah was around 8, and Bill and I were in our 50's, we began to adopt. First came Luke, then Angel-Leah. Soon after her adoption was final, we were asked to take her baby brother, Tommy, which we did. That closed our home, because with Tommy coming, we were over the limit of children in our home that CPS would allow. But then, three years after his adoption, we were asked to take Luke's sisters, Cynthia and Selah. That was a very hard road with many obstacles, but eventually we were able to adopt them, too.
Life finds me now with all my biological children grown, married, courting, or far away in other states and even another country. My adopted children all still live at home, and are fast growing up. Sometimes, when I find myself in the rare situation of being alone for one reason or another, I realize that in eight years, my hands on parenting is going to be over. By that time, I will have had minor children in my house for 50 years. That's going to be a major change! But God is good, and He gave me my hearts desire, lots of children to raise. I am thankful for that!
My first batch, Rachael and Celeste, gave me nine grandchildren. Those grandchildren are now grown or almost that way. Chloe and Julia were married this past year, and Chloe has just given me my first great grandbaby, and he is just wonderful!
Daughter Mary Susannah is expecting her first baby, and I can hardly wait. Max and his wife Whitney, who were fostering for a while, have decided to start a family, and I am anxiously waiting good news there.
So my second batch is adding babies to our family. With 12 children, I am hoping for grandchildren in the 100's!
Son Spencer is dating now, and I couldn't be more pleased with his choice:
I haven't seen son Gage in three years, since Bill's funeral, because he is in South Korea. But this summer he is coming to America! He will be in Boston, Massachusetts, going to Harvard for the summer for a masters degree. I am saving already to go see him there. I have never been to Massachusetts, but mostly, I just want to see my son again. I never dreamed three years could go by without my seeing one of my children. I can't even say how much I have longed to see him again.
My third batch is growing, Cynthia will be 21 next month, Angel-Leah and Luke have become teenagers. They are all getting taller than I am, with only Tommy still shorter, but catching up fast.
Life is good, and cheerful. And again, I am thankful.
I want to revive this blog, although I am told blogs aren't so popular anymore. I have made ALL the mistakes in my life, but hopefully have grown through them, and am at the "older woman" stage the Bible talks about. I would love for this blog to become a place where I can inspire women in their walk as a Godly woman, and teach them what I have learned. Not that I am anywhere near perfect, far from it, but I do have a very few things I can teach. I will be deleting old posts that aren't inspirational, and hopefully writing new ones, at least once a week, but life can get busy and we will see.
Input is very welcome!
A lot of things are changing around here.
I tell people Bill and I had three batches of children (Angel-Leah doesn't like that term, so I changed 'batches' to 'litters' for her, but she didn't think that was an improvement): When we married, we were only going to have two children, and Rachael and Celeste were born. We moved to Oklahoma, where we began to keep foster children, and after falling deeply in love with a little boy who didn't stay, I begged for more children. Gage was soon born, followed by three brother in eight years: Max, Spencer and Beau, and then pretty little Mary Susannah. By then, I was in my 40's. My heart was content.
Rachael and Celeste were 7 and 9, already in school, when we began to have children again. They were my first batch, the boys and Mary Susannah were my second batch.
When Mary Susannah was around 8, and Bill and I were in our 50's, we began to adopt. First came Luke, then Angel-Leah. Soon after her adoption was final, we were asked to take her baby brother, Tommy, which we did. That closed our home, because with Tommy coming, we were over the limit of children in our home that CPS would allow. But then, three years after his adoption, we were asked to take Luke's sisters, Cynthia and Selah. That was a very hard road with many obstacles, but eventually we were able to adopt them, too.
Life finds me now with all my biological children grown, married, courting, or far away in other states and even another country. My adopted children all still live at home, and are fast growing up. Sometimes, when I find myself in the rare situation of being alone for one reason or another, I realize that in eight years, my hands on parenting is going to be over. By that time, I will have had minor children in my house for 50 years. That's going to be a major change! But God is good, and He gave me my hearts desire, lots of children to raise. I am thankful for that!
My first batch, Rachael and Celeste, gave me nine grandchildren. Those grandchildren are now grown or almost that way. Chloe and Julia were married this past year, and Chloe has just given me my first great grandbaby, and he is just wonderful!
Daughter Mary Susannah is expecting her first baby, and I can hardly wait. Max and his wife Whitney, who were fostering for a while, have decided to start a family, and I am anxiously waiting good news there.
So my second batch is adding babies to our family. With 12 children, I am hoping for grandchildren in the 100's!
Son Spencer is dating now, and I couldn't be more pleased with his choice:
I haven't seen son Gage in three years, since Bill's funeral, because he is in South Korea. But this summer he is coming to America! He will be in Boston, Massachusetts, going to Harvard for the summer for a masters degree. I am saving already to go see him there. I have never been to Massachusetts, but mostly, I just want to see my son again. I never dreamed three years could go by without my seeing one of my children. I can't even say how much I have longed to see him again.
My third batch is growing, Cynthia will be 21 next month, Angel-Leah and Luke have become teenagers. They are all getting taller than I am, with only Tommy still shorter, but catching up fast.
Life is good, and cheerful. And again, I am thankful.
I want to revive this blog, although I am told blogs aren't so popular anymore. I have made ALL the mistakes in my life, but hopefully have grown through them, and am at the "older woman" stage the Bible talks about. I would love for this blog to become a place where I can inspire women in their walk as a Godly woman, and teach them what I have learned. Not that I am anywhere near perfect, far from it, but I do have a very few things I can teach. I will be deleting old posts that aren't inspirational, and hopefully writing new ones, at least once a week, but life can get busy and we will see.
Input is very welcome!
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
raising bunnies
Job 35:11 Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the fowls of heaven?
I have decided that a riding lawn mower is the most stress relieving thing in the whole world.
I was up before 8 this morning, leaving the kids still sleeping in the house, riding and riding and riding. My mind churned like it always does when I mow on a riding mower, thinking of the things I want to do with my little farm, and praying for all my children...
So, as I rode and mowed, a blog post came to my mind. This one is a bit of a tutorial for raising rabbits in colonies, which means that instead of each rabbit being in an individual cage, the rabbits are raised in one large pen, usually, as in my case, with several does living with one buck.
I know people have lots of questions about that, but here are a few things I have learned since beginning my rabbitry:
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The buck will not harm the kits (baby rabbits) if you leave him in the pen with the nests.
It's not hurting the does to let them bred at will with the buck. I have lots and lots of more nests this way, yes. But the does are all fat and healthy and doing very well in colonies.
Rabbits can and will dig out every chance they get. You MUST put something over the ground that they can not dig through. Chicken wire is NOT a good choice, they tear right through it. I learned this the hard way.
First time mama rabbits will sometimes give birth EVERYWHERE. Picking up the kits scattered all over and making a nest for her sometimes work, but most of the time doesn't. Catch mama rabbit and pull hair from her tummy to make a nest. That's what she does, it doesn't hurt her. If a doe consistently fails to make a nest, it's time to cull her. It happens sometimes.
The
old wives tale that a mama rabbit will abandon her babies if you pick
them up is absolutely not true. We handle baby rabbits all the time,
and I have never had a mother rabbit reject a nest because of it.
It's no more cruel to butcher your rabbits that it is to eat a hamburger or chicken nuggests. Yes they are cute and cuddly, but have you ever seen a doe eyed baby calf? Or a downy newborn chick?
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Back to the riding lawn mower...
Rabbits were made to eat grass and plants in the wild. I have 12 wonderful acres. And it keeps the food bill down. Rabbits do not have to eat only pellets, and at around $13 for 50 pounds, that's a good thing. I pull grass all the time to feed them, but gathering cut grass after I mow is sure a lot easier. So this morning, after I got a wire stuck in the mower and had to quit mowing until Luke woke up to help me cut it off, I gathered grass:
And yes, if you read my blog or facebook page, you are familiar with Samantha the goose. She is a terror to everyone but me, but the children are bigger now and have learned if they throw their arms out and hiss back at her, she backs off quickly. Samantha's sidekick the brown duck is my neighbors, or at least, it used to be my neighbors until it married Samantha the goose or something and came to live with us and follow her around all day long.
The bunnies LOVE the cut grass. In fact, if I feed them grass and pellets at the same time, they will usually run to the grass first.
These are my "grow outs", which means I have removed these rabbits from the does. I put them all in one big cage to finish growing up. These bunnies are the ones for sale, or if they do not sell, they go into the freezer:
These guys are getting big. They have one more chance at a garage sale this weekend. Anyone want to buy a bunny?
They love the cut grass, too!
This cage of breeders, the big white rabbits, always look so dirty, and I wasn't sure why or what to do about it. But reading a rabbit blog, I learned that what I am probably doing wrong is cleaning the cage too often. According to this blog, rather than clean the cages each week, I should be constantly adding hay and grass up to 12 inches deep. Then clean it when it begins to attract flies or smells bad. The bedding of hay and grass absorbs the urine instead of letting it build up on top. That means I have been doing a lot of work for nothing. So I started doing that this week. No improvement so far, but the bedding is not very deep yet, as you can see. It's going to take a lot of grass to make the bedding 12 inches deep in this big pen, especially when they are eating as much of it as they can hold. I'm hopeful, though, and thankful to know I don't have to clean so much after all!
One more interesting note. When I was out in the goat pen yesterday, I found a very small baby bunny. No nest or anything, just a bunny laying in a goat pen in the corner. I am not real sure where it came from. I looked around for more, but couldn't find any. We do have one bunny loose, one that was a pet of one of my children who doesn't live with us anymore, so rather than butcher it, and rather than keep feeding it since it's mama is one of those who doesn't care for her kits, I let her go to live in our yard. But she is black, and this kit is white.
I gathered it up and put it into the youngest nest I could find, my Dutch bunnies who are several days older than this little one is. She has lived for 24 hours in that nest, although she is not as fat and full looking as the rest of them. I hope she makes it.
So that's it for my morning musings while riding the lawn mower. I am wondering where to go with my rabbitry now. I'm not sure I want to continue raising the Dutch bunnies. I may sell or butcher them soon, and stick with the meat rabbits and the fiber rabbits. I am hoping to buy an Angora buck next month for my two does.
Let me know if you want to buy a bunny. My grow outs will thank you!
Friday, May 16, 2014
Purging - a mean Mommy post
1 Corinthians 14:33 God is not a God of disorder but
of peace.
2 Peter 2:19 A man is slave to whatever has mastered him.
A while back, my family was considering a move to a small town near us so we could attend the church there. It got serious enough that I actually had a realtor out to look over our place and see what she thought we could sell it for.
When I had finished showing her around, we went back into my kitchen and sat down, and I asked her what she thought I should do to make the place more sell-able. I was thinking along the lines of painting and new floors. So I was surprised when she told me that other than touch ups, I could probably get away with not repainting the whole house, since many times people want to put their own touches on everything.
No, she said, I really just needed to declutter.
Declutter? I was surprised. I mean, I have always prided myself on keeping things and reusing them. And I wasn't a hoarder...
Was I?
I began to look around. Okay, maybe I WAS hanging on to things I could get rid of. I looked at things through new eyes. And it wasn't pretty...
We didn't move after all, but I began to declutter anyway. Little bits at a time, I went through things and even sold some "clutter". I gave things away and carted clothes I have saved forever to Goodwill and the big collection box at the gas station here. I have a long way to go, and I'm working on it.
Which brings me to today...
My younger kids have an older mother. As in, a mother who will be 60 years old this month. Age is beginning to rear it's ugly head, and one way it's done that is that my knee is bothering me a bit. Which translates too: Mommy doesn't like to climb stairs anymore. When I overheard my little girls, ages 10 and 7, talking about how great that was because when Mommy says clean your room, she rarely checks up, I knew things were not good. Still, again, it hurts to climb the stairs, so I would mostly send big sister up to check things out.
This week, my son Spencer has been here, and he has done amazing things around our yard, and I was in the mood to do some more decluttering. I started with our addition, which is the worse, and as I was working today, I told the younger kids to go clean their rooms. I told them they had 30 minutes, and after that, everything not picked up was going in the trash.
Now it's not like I don't tell them this often. In fact, every day, from 10 to 2, we do school, and then we clean. They are supposed to be cleaning their rooms on almost a daily basis.
But today, I told the 10 year old girl she only had 30 minutes, too. At which point, she got absolutely hysterical. There is NO WAY she could clean her whole room in 30 minutes, she tearfully declared. And as she was having a panic attack, the 7 year old also began to wail that the 10 year old had helped her mess up her room, and she should have to help, too.
I remained firm. 30 minutes, I redeclared and went to hang clothes on my new clothes line son Spencer had hung.
30 minutes, later, I went to check.
Oh.My.Goodness...
OH.MY.GOODNESS...
Have they been motherless? Or are they deaf when the mother tells them to clean? Or is this a matter of too much stuff for 4 young children to handle?
Because it was BAD!
And it's an ongoing thing. It's just that once in a great while, I lose it and I yell and holler and I make a big show of throwing stuff away.
But today, I kept my composure. I told them, you simply have too much stuff. If your room can get in this condition, then obviously it's more than you can handle.
And the declutter began.
At first, the 7 year old was smug. She thought she had done a pretty good job of cleaning her room. No matter that you could not see the floor, that was just trash she didn't want anyway. She was confident that her things were safe.
Everything she wanted, you see, was piled on her bed. And on her desk. And on the little kitchen that I have told her repeatedly not to pile stuff on.
So I called for trash bags, which she brought me, still smirking. She's a master smirker. Ask her siblings.
She ran on off to play outside while, she thought, I cleaned her floor.
I opened the bag, totally ignoring the stuff on the floor. I started with the bed. I literally filled a trash bag with the stuff on the bed. In went the princesses dresses. In went some dolls. In went a leapster. Under the bed, which she hadn't bothered with much, had her little camera. Some more little toys. Into the bag they went.
At some point, a sibling walked by and saw what I was doing, and headed off to tell her. She frantically ran up the stairs, and saw what was in the trash. Great weeping and wailing began. "But I didn't know you meant I had to clean off the bed!!" She cried desperately.
"Selah, I said clean your room. Picking up everything on the floor and piling it on the bed isn't cleaning."
This is one of my mantras in EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY. They hear it often. Moving things, whether it be in the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room or your bedroom, from one surface to another surface, is not cleaning. Cleaning is picking things up and putting them where they belong.
"Give me another chance!!" She screamed in horror, huge tears streaming down her face. I was not moved. I finally sent her outside so I could finish.
As I worked, I decided that enough truly was enough, and that one container of toys was all she needed. I pulled out all her bins and began to go through them.
OH.MY.GOODNESS...
All the socks I thought were lost? In the bins. Remember this morning when everyone was so frustrated doing school because there were no pencils? In the bins. Wow, here's her shoes. Here's the wrapper to every candy bar she has eaten in the past six months. Hair pins, headbands. CUPS?? PLATES??
Help...
I think I spent a couple of hours in there, but when I was done, I had carried out a large trash bag of toys to give away and at least two large trash bags of plain old trash and broken things. I collected a large number of pencils, pens and dishes. All her crayons and markers went into the communal art box. Once I was done, she had one bin of toys left. I told her, "It's your choice. If you want to fill this bin with socks, shoes, dishes and trash to the point where there is no room left for toys, I will take the rest of the toys to Goodwill too."
Then I moved to the boys room.
Another OH.MY.GOODNESS...
Since they share a room, I got them down to three bins of toys. But the sheer amount of trash, sticks and all kinds of outdoor junk they had collected in there was amazing. I didn't have to fill a trash bag with toys, but I filled another couple of bags just with trash and sticks and shells and old jars of dead bugs. I even found a bunch of dried up snakes. Lovely...
The ten year old? I gave her a bit more time while I rested, but I am on my way out there very soon. Hopefully, she was big enough to purge the room herself. I told her one bin of toys, and all trash and clothes had better be out of there. She says they are, but I've obviously heard that before.
Do I feel mean? Yeah, a little bit. I want them to have "things". But I also want them to learn to take care of those things. If they have so much they literally cannot contain it all, then they have too much. And I'm tired of telling them to clean their rooms, and having them do such a poor job.
And sometimes, a mom has to resort to drastic measures to make her family realize she means business. I sort of doubt I will have to do this again for a while. I mean, if nothing else, they only have one bin each of toys now. And they, especially Selah, lost a few favorite things by not taking mommy seriously. But it shouldn't be so hard to keep the room clean - at least of toys, anyway. Candy bar wrappers, and dead snakes might still accumulate up there...
And some little girl is going to be awfully happy with those princess gowns...
2 Peter 2:19 A man is slave to whatever has mastered him.
A while back, my family was considering a move to a small town near us so we could attend the church there. It got serious enough that I actually had a realtor out to look over our place and see what she thought we could sell it for.
When I had finished showing her around, we went back into my kitchen and sat down, and I asked her what she thought I should do to make the place more sell-able. I was thinking along the lines of painting and new floors. So I was surprised when she told me that other than touch ups, I could probably get away with not repainting the whole house, since many times people want to put their own touches on everything.
No, she said, I really just needed to declutter.
Declutter? I was surprised. I mean, I have always prided myself on keeping things and reusing them. And I wasn't a hoarder...
Was I?
I began to look around. Okay, maybe I WAS hanging on to things I could get rid of. I looked at things through new eyes. And it wasn't pretty...
We didn't move after all, but I began to declutter anyway. Little bits at a time, I went through things and even sold some "clutter". I gave things away and carted clothes I have saved forever to Goodwill and the big collection box at the gas station here. I have a long way to go, and I'm working on it.
Which brings me to today...
My younger kids have an older mother. As in, a mother who will be 60 years old this month. Age is beginning to rear it's ugly head, and one way it's done that is that my knee is bothering me a bit. Which translates too: Mommy doesn't like to climb stairs anymore. When I overheard my little girls, ages 10 and 7, talking about how great that was because when Mommy says clean your room, she rarely checks up, I knew things were not good. Still, again, it hurts to climb the stairs, so I would mostly send big sister up to check things out.
This week, my son Spencer has been here, and he has done amazing things around our yard, and I was in the mood to do some more decluttering. I started with our addition, which is the worse, and as I was working today, I told the younger kids to go clean their rooms. I told them they had 30 minutes, and after that, everything not picked up was going in the trash.
Now it's not like I don't tell them this often. In fact, every day, from 10 to 2, we do school, and then we clean. They are supposed to be cleaning their rooms on almost a daily basis.
But today, I told the 10 year old girl she only had 30 minutes, too. At which point, she got absolutely hysterical. There is NO WAY she could clean her whole room in 30 minutes, she tearfully declared. And as she was having a panic attack, the 7 year old also began to wail that the 10 year old had helped her mess up her room, and she should have to help, too.
I remained firm. 30 minutes, I redeclared and went to hang clothes on my new clothes line son Spencer had hung.
30 minutes, later, I went to check.
Oh.My.Goodness...
OH.MY.GOODNESS...
Have they been motherless? Or are they deaf when the mother tells them to clean? Or is this a matter of too much stuff for 4 young children to handle?
Because it was BAD!
And it's an ongoing thing. It's just that once in a great while, I lose it and I yell and holler and I make a big show of throwing stuff away.
But today, I kept my composure. I told them, you simply have too much stuff. If your room can get in this condition, then obviously it's more than you can handle.
And the declutter began.
At first, the 7 year old was smug. She thought she had done a pretty good job of cleaning her room. No matter that you could not see the floor, that was just trash she didn't want anyway. She was confident that her things were safe.
Everything she wanted, you see, was piled on her bed. And on her desk. And on the little kitchen that I have told her repeatedly not to pile stuff on.
So I called for trash bags, which she brought me, still smirking. She's a master smirker. Ask her siblings.
She ran on off to play outside while, she thought, I cleaned her floor.
I opened the bag, totally ignoring the stuff on the floor. I started with the bed. I literally filled a trash bag with the stuff on the bed. In went the princesses dresses. In went some dolls. In went a leapster. Under the bed, which she hadn't bothered with much, had her little camera. Some more little toys. Into the bag they went.
At some point, a sibling walked by and saw what I was doing, and headed off to tell her. She frantically ran up the stairs, and saw what was in the trash. Great weeping and wailing began. "But I didn't know you meant I had to clean off the bed!!" She cried desperately.
"Selah, I said clean your room. Picking up everything on the floor and piling it on the bed isn't cleaning."
This is one of my mantras in EVERYTHING, EVERYDAY. They hear it often. Moving things, whether it be in the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room or your bedroom, from one surface to another surface, is not cleaning. Cleaning is picking things up and putting them where they belong.
"Give me another chance!!" She screamed in horror, huge tears streaming down her face. I was not moved. I finally sent her outside so I could finish.
As I worked, I decided that enough truly was enough, and that one container of toys was all she needed. I pulled out all her bins and began to go through them.
OH.MY.GOODNESS...
All the socks I thought were lost? In the bins. Remember this morning when everyone was so frustrated doing school because there were no pencils? In the bins. Wow, here's her shoes. Here's the wrapper to every candy bar she has eaten in the past six months. Hair pins, headbands. CUPS?? PLATES??
Help...
I think I spent a couple of hours in there, but when I was done, I had carried out a large trash bag of toys to give away and at least two large trash bags of plain old trash and broken things. I collected a large number of pencils, pens and dishes. All her crayons and markers went into the communal art box. Once I was done, she had one bin of toys left. I told her, "It's your choice. If you want to fill this bin with socks, shoes, dishes and trash to the point where there is no room left for toys, I will take the rest of the toys to Goodwill too."
Then I moved to the boys room.
Another OH.MY.GOODNESS...
Since they share a room, I got them down to three bins of toys. But the sheer amount of trash, sticks and all kinds of outdoor junk they had collected in there was amazing. I didn't have to fill a trash bag with toys, but I filled another couple of bags just with trash and sticks and shells and old jars of dead bugs. I even found a bunch of dried up snakes. Lovely...
The ten year old? I gave her a bit more time while I rested, but I am on my way out there very soon. Hopefully, she was big enough to purge the room herself. I told her one bin of toys, and all trash and clothes had better be out of there. She says they are, but I've obviously heard that before.
Do I feel mean? Yeah, a little bit. I want them to have "things". But I also want them to learn to take care of those things. If they have so much they literally cannot contain it all, then they have too much. And I'm tired of telling them to clean their rooms, and having them do such a poor job.
And sometimes, a mom has to resort to drastic measures to make her family realize she means business. I sort of doubt I will have to do this again for a while. I mean, if nothing else, they only have one bin each of toys now. And they, especially Selah, lost a few favorite things by not taking mommy seriously. But it shouldn't be so hard to keep the room clean - at least of toys, anyway. Candy bar wrappers, and dead snakes might still accumulate up there...
And some little girl is going to be awfully happy with those princess gowns...
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Herb gardens
I have never been much of a gardener, although people seem to think I have that kind of personality. Gardens are too much work for me, my back is weak after so many babies, it's hot outside, and our family isn't big on vegetables, although we all love fruit. So although once in a while I'll make weak attempts, it never amounts to much. I am awfully grateful to the friends I have who will share their garden bounties with me, though!
Even though I don't like vegetable gardens, however, I do LOVE herbs. This weekend, we took a trip to Central Market, and they had beautiful pots of herbs for sale out front. I bought a few, including chocolate mint and stevia, a plant whose dried leaves can be used in the place of sugar. I've been buying that in the store and it's pretty expensive, so I was thrilled to find the plant.
Today, I got up early, and had my housework all done before ten, so I decided to work in my very neglected herb bed. The swing set is close by, close enough that the little kids played on that rather than "help" me too much, which was nice. I put on my rubber gloves, got my wheelbarrow and a kiddie chair, and went to work pulling weeds out of the herb bed. Tommy chatted with me, Angel-Leah ran around the yard and found a big knife, which I had her put up right away (WHEN do they get into these things, and HOW do they get them past me?). Mary Susannah came out wanting hamburger soup for lunch, so rather than stop what I was doing and make it for her, I gave her directions and she made it herself (it was very good!). I must have inspired Beau, because he ended up cleaning out the flower bed on the other side of the porch, too.
It wasn't long before I had a wheelbarrow full of grass and weeks, which my rabbits went after with great delight:
The chickens hurried under the cage to catch whatever the rabbits let fall through the cracks. It helps make wonderful compost!
Another wheelbarrow load later I had the bed cleaned out. I was so pleased to find a lemon balm
"volunteer", a plant that sprang up in a new place from an old plant.
I planted my new herbs - although the chocolate mint will go somewhere else, because mint takes over entire beds where ever you plant it. Then, much to the little ones delight, I began to spread old newspapers over the ground where I had just pulled weeks. I got lots of help then, and of course, I had to redo most of it when they got tired and went somewhere else. Then Luke and I went into the "orchard" - which is what we like to call it to make ourselves feel good, and got two wheelbarrow loads of old hay. We spread that over the newspapers, another job the kids thought was pretty fun. Then into the backyard we went with our wheelbarrow, to the compost pile Beau has been making us. He gets horse manure from the back pasture and puts it under the tree near the wood pile, right next to the rabbit cage, where the chickens like to hang out. He dumps it there, and the chickens do the rest. It's a great idea.
We loaded up the wheelbarrow, went back to the herb bed, and threw out the compost on top of the hay.
Dumb chickens think I did all this work entirely for their benefit:
Well, as long as they don't do too much damage, I guess they will just add their droppings to the whole deal, and make the herbs grow big and beautiful. I hope....
I spent about two hours out there, and I was pretty hot by the time it was done. So I picked some of the lemon balm I found, and got some peppermint from my mint bed in the back of the house, and we made tea. We love mint tea! Just fill the picture with the sprigs of mint, add Stevia, and pour hot water over it. Even my two year old loves this:
Well, I feel very pleased with myself after all that work. Now the afternoon is mine, and I'm going to spend it like an old grandma should, sitting in a rocking chair and crocheting!!
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