The trouble with blogs

My discipleship group got cancelled tonight, so I decided to use the time organizing my blog. I hope it makes things easier for readers to find. I really appreciate the "labels" feature on the blogs I follow for recipes and homemaking tips. I am so thankful to have these blogs as resources.

Let me tell you, I follow a couple of domestic diva blogs. These girls really love God, and their husbands and children, they cook well, plan ahead for everything, read tons of books, workout, spend daily time reading the Bible, and still have time leftover to do some serious blogging. I love, love, love learning from these girls, but it sometimes it leaves me feeling "less than." I am sure they aren't perfect, but it is easy to imagine that they are.

I enjoy processing and sharing the little things I learn along the way, but I hope that no one ever feels "less than" when reading this blog. I have a lot to learn and I hope that some people, who might feel intimidated by women who are so "pure" in everything natural and healthy, will maybe find comfort in the fact that when it is July in Oklahoma, I might break down and buy real deodorant with aluminum in it. Or that while I try to keep foods healthy at home, I don't try to control the various animal crackers and fruit snacks that my children consume when we are visiting other places. Additionally, I am not always frugal. If I want something really badly, I might just go pay full price for it :) My sweet friend Halen says that sometimes she purposefully pays full price for a desired item, just to keep that "poverty spirit" at bay. So great! And to top it off, I don't work out regularly. So, there are a lot of perfect bloggers out there, and I just want you to know that I am not one of them :-)


Thank you for reading!

Love,
Kate

Domestic Engineer

I just ordered a yogurt maker from amazon and I'm pretty excited about it.

I'll post pictures of the first batch. I can't wait....It's like Christmas in July....I am so happy right now. I like things for the kitchen, but I told Zach long before we were married, that kitchen gadgets should never be considered gifts for me. Oh, no buddy, kitchen gifts are for the family :) And yes, the yogurt maker is coming out of the "home" budget envelope, but I am to the point where I would be okay with receiving kitchen items as gifts.

That reminds me...before we got married, Zach totally presented himself as a feminist, which turned out not really to be the case. There are not too many Christian, feminist men as it turns out. (He's pretty great, though.) When I first started reading the Bible at the age of 16, I put huge purple exes over any passage regarding women. And I would write in the margin (probably in caps) "This does not apply to me." It's laughable now, and I still have that beat up Bible. Have I mentioned that God is really gracious, and loves me and speaks to me...even though I am sort of liberal and skeptical and even though I crossed through sections of the Bible?

Now that we have been married for 9 years and I am a stay at home mom, it seems like a good time to officially let go of my feminist tendencies. Truth be told, the words "help meet" still make me wonder where the nearest trash receptacle is. And, I've probably mentioned before that I didn't adopt feminist ideals while in college...in fact, I think I may have developed them in the womb. In frustration at my lack of domestication (likely coupled with a smallish dose of disrespect,) my mom would tell me that she worried about what kind of wife I would become. She said I didn't have a submissive bone in my body. This may have been true. It also may have added a little fuel to the fire. Anyway, I am a bit of a firecracker, but I am no feminist. Not anymore.

On a different note, here's a little about Levi's take on yogurt. I normally buy large tubs of whole milk, plain yogurt, like Nancy's or the 365 brand at whole foods. He has caught on to the fact, that when we buy the 6oz yogurts, there is a lot more sugar and fruit involved. So, now he asks me, "Mommy, can we please buy the special baby yogurts?"

Love,
Kate

Organization

It is funny to me that I (in my head) consider myself to be an organized person. I am finding this is not really the case. Twice this month, I have completely forgotten about volunteer work that I had committed to. And when I get a letter from someone whose address I don't yet have written down, I tend to save the envelope for future reference (instead of entering it into my address book at that moment.) You can imagine how effective that process is :) Oh, and I have no real system for dealing with paper-stuff that I may or may not need in the future. I just stuff it in a drawer and throw it out after a while when I am completing the ever-dreaded task of cleaning out the desk. If you look at The Homestead Revival blog that I follow, she has some great tips for organizing and de-cluttering. And she doesn't have a junk drawer. That makes me sick :) Our spare room turns into a "junk room" pretty frequently. And the author of passionate homemaking (also a blog i follow) keeps a binder with 10 or 12 tabs where she keeps track of all kinds of things... an impressive inventory of items in her freezer, chores that need to be done semi-annually, monthly, people she wants to have over for dinner, etc. Not me. Not yet. I did get a really cute binder from Target though, and it has tabs and to-do lists, budget information, menu planning ideas and schedules and contacts, etc. It is really nice to be starting to get everything in one place. Plus, I've been trying to think of a reason I needed one of those hip, eco-friendly binders :)

Love,
Kate

Feeling pretty

Today I feel blah. I have been pretty productive, though. I cleaned the bathroom, did three loads of laundry, and I've read several books to my boys...but nonetheless, I'm feeling a little below my potential. I'm still wearing the gray sweatpants and brown tank-top that I wore to bed last night and I am sporting my medium-length frizzy red hair in a pony tail, i have no make-up on, and to top it off, my toenails are half-painted, half-not. And I ate nachos and orange juice for lunch, so my breath is gross too. All that to say, I am spending nap time today taking a nice, hot bath, painting my toenails, straightening my hair, brushing my teeth, etc. Ahhh, now that is going to feel good. I think I would do well to put a tiny bit more effort into looking nice, or maybe I should say into taking care of myself. I mean, if I'm going to be spraying out cloth diapers all day, I should at least feel pretty while I'm doing it :) On a side note...if I had to choose only one item from my make-up bag, it would hands-down be under-eye concealer. The brand I use is "time-balm" from Sephora. I am not a girly-girl by any stretch and wear very little make-up, but I could spend a hundred bucks at Sephora in a heartbeat. It's all about balance, right? If you had to choose one item from your make-up bag, what would it be?

Love,
Kate

Psalm 17:15 Because I have lived right, I will see your face. When I wake up, I will see your likeness and be satisfied.

Works for me Wednesdays

I just wanted to share a little something we do, for any of you that have too many 5pm frantically searching through the cupboard moments. As my friend Jill once said in a facebook post, "It's 5pm and the vultures are circling."
I've always wanted to be a "laundry on Monday," "ironing on Tuesday," "floors on Wednesday" type of girl, but truth be told I don't iron except for weddings and job interviews and I don't always make my bed. Okay, I rarely make my bed. There.

But, I have found a meal rhythm that seems to work pretty well for our family. Just enough structure, but not too much. I schedule 3 meals each week, one Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It's pretty inexpensive and it's super easy. This is what makes it sustainable for our family.

On Mondays, we do breakfast for dinner. For us, this often means waffles. Here is the recipe I follow:

In one bowl:

1 and 3/4 C. whole wheat pastry flour (you can use regular whole wheat, it's just not quite and light and fluffy that way.)
1 TBSP Baking powder
1 tsp salt

In another bowl
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil (sometimes I use 1/3)
1 and 3/4 cup of milk

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
Then I stir in:
1 cup of chopped walnuts
1/2-1 cup of frozen blueberries
and maybe some ground flax.

Voila...beautiful, tasty, and nutritious waffles. We top them with agave nectar or honey.


Now for Wednesday. We still have "world Wednesdays" and we eat a very simple meal and make a special point to pray for those without food and shelter. Lately, we've been learning about and praying specifically for the people of Haiti. Here is the meal that we usually prepare. It is from Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. I knew nothing about cooking before I graduated from college. And in 2005, I studied this book like a textbook, and always give Deborah Madison credit for "teaching me how to cook." My friend Josephine has been asking for this recipe for a few weeks now, so Josephine, here it is.

Deborah Madision writes, "As plain as this sounds, mujadarrah is absolutely one of the best dishes there is. A Jordanian cook I know serves her version accompanied by a chopped vegetable salad that sparkles with parsley and lemon. Although you can cook the onions in a scant amount of oil, it's the oil that makes this otherwise humble dish so very good."

Lentils and Rice with Fried Onions (Mujaddarah)

6 Tablespoons of olive oil
1 very large onion
1 and 1/4 cups green or brown lentils, sorted and rinsed.
Salt and freshly milled pepper
3/4 cup white or brown long-grain rice

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until it's a rich, dark brown, about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, put the lentils in a saucepan with 1 quart water and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. Add the rice, plenty of pepper, and, if needed, additional water to cover. Cover and cook over low heat until rice is done, about 15 minutes. Stir in half the onions, then cover and let stand off the heat for 5 minutes. Spoon the lentil-rice mixture on to plates or a platter and cover with the remaining onions.

Fish on Fridays. I'm not Catholic, but I've always been drawn to meaningful tradtions, and even more so after reading Lauren Winner's "Mudhouse Sabbath." (Thank you Halen for the recommendation.) It is about a smart and sassy used-to-be-Jewish girl, who falls in love with Jesus, and how she implements certain meaningful Jewish traditions into her Christian faith. When you finish the book, you feel like you've gained a new friend. I am pretty convinced that she and I would get along well...and be great scrabble partners.

So, back to fish on Fridays... my friend Sarah served this one evening a couple of months ago, and Zach and I savored every bite. It's our splurge meal. We usually choose to buy fresh wild-caught salmon from Whole Foods, but frozen works alright too. It's funny that Catholics use fish on Fridays to abstain or fast from "meat." On the contrary, Friday is sometimes the only day of the week that we have meat.

Here is the recipe for the "Alaskan Salmon Bake."

Ingredients:

* 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
* 3 tablespoons butter, melted
* 5 teaspoons honey
* 1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
* 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
* 3 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
* 6 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
* salt and pepper to taste
* 6 lemon wedges

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a small bowl, mix together the mustard, butter, and honey. In another bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.
2. Season each salmon fillet with salt and pepper. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Brush with mustard-honey mixture. Cover the top of each fillet with bread crumb mixture.
3. Bake for 10 minutes per inch of thickness, measured at thickest part, or until salmon just flakes when tested with a fork. Serve garnished with lemon wedges.

Pretty easy, pretty healthy and very delicious. I love to share the things in life that work for me, and I would love to learn things that work for you too.

The Early Years...

We had two empty 11x14 frames above our bed and I really didn't know what to do with them. Filling them had been on my to-do list for way too many months...but I finally got around to it this week. I picked a couple of our engagement pictures and I think it turned out great...and maybe even a little romantic :)