Creative Counterpart

The other night, I had some peas from our Garden that I wanted to prepare. I decided to make a yummy stir fry. Here is what I did:

You will need:

• Cooked Rice
• Peas, Shredded carrots, onion, and any other veggies you want to use.
• Cooked Pinto Beans
• Oil (Olive Oil or Peanut oil work well and are whole food options) OR Butter
• Soy sauce

First saute some green onion in butter, then add shredded carrots & peas. Saute until the vegetables start to cook well.

Then, add the pinto beans. Stirring often, saute until the vegetables are close to done. You can cook the vegeatables as crispy or soft as you like.

Pushing the veggies to the side of the pan and adding more butter and soy sauce, I add the rice and begin stirring constantly until the rice is hot.

Serve with soy sauce and enjoy!

I also made some Homemade sourdough bread. This recipe turned out a little too sour for my families liking, although we do enjoy it with some honey on it to sweeten it up.

I’ll be looking around for a different sourdough bread recipe that my family will enjoy more as a sandwich type bread.

So, you think you are too unorganized to implement routines in your daily life? Is your life chaotic and your house a mess? Do you fly by the seat of your pants, not knowing what will happen today or tomorrow?

Many people say that they “just can’t get into a routine” or they are “just not an organized person”. What they don’t realize is that they do routines everyday.  When you get ready in the morning, you more than likely have a routine for how you shower, dress, do your hair, and brush your teeth. However chaotic it may be, it is your routine. If it IS chaotic and disheveled, this is a clue that you may want to tweak this particular routine. Nevertheless, this is what I like to call a “mini routine”.

Mini routines are the baby step to organizing your day (and your household.) Even when you have a difficult time setting up a daily routine, mini routines can work wonderfully. They make sure essential tasks get done, while still allowing flexibility in your day.

There is an endless number of min routines; From mealtime routines (which we like to call table chores) to morning and bedtime routines. These routines can help keep a family on task together if everyone knows the routine. You’d be surprised how your kids will pitch in and help without prompt when they know what is expected of them everyday during these mini routines.

A proper mealtime routine will ensure that your table, dishes, and kitchen are ready for the next meal. It will make meal prep easier, keep the kitchen and dining room tidy, & preparing your family’s next meal will not feel like a chore (like it does the minute you walk into a unkept kitchen.)

After each of my family’s main meals, everyone chips in. Certain jobs are better suited for certain people in the family, but we each have a job. We have even encorporated potty training into our routines. Our table chores consist of:

• Kids go potty & wash their hands and face
• Put away leftovers properly
• Rinse Dishes
• Unload dishwasher and put away clean dishes
• Load dishwasher with dirty dishes and start
• Wipe off the table & chairs if needed  (My 3 year old usually gets this job.)
• Wipe of countertops, stove, etc.
• Sweep

Our kitchen is then ready for the next meal!

Morning routines serve to make sure everyone is ready for the day. With each routine, it’s good to include a few minor chores. If it’s part of your mini routine everyday, then it becomes much less of a chore, and more of an everyday part of life. We struggle with changing our morning routine the most. It is my goal to dress and ready everyone for the day before breakfast. Morning chores could include a basic list to get ready for the day plus one or two chores, say making the bed or bringing dirty laudry to the laundry room.

Bedtime routines are a very useful mini routine, both for organization and getting us ready for the next day so that we can start each day right (instead of dread for all of the things that need to be done.) Whatever makes tomorrow morning easier for your family should be part of the bedtime routine. You could pick out clothes for the next day, clean up toys, prepare a breakfast dish to put in the oven in the morning, take vitamins or medications, etc.

I find, the more that I follow these routines, the more likely I am to incorporate new mini routines to make things in our household flow even smoother. I will make little rules, such as we will eat lunch after toys are picked up. Having such rules insure that the little tasks get done each day. It also teaches our children to keep tidy, clean up after themselves, help our with what needs to be done, and keeps their minds and hearts busy and away from things like Television and getting into trouble.

When my son sees me doing the same things everyday, he not only sees the chores that I expect of him. He also sees the chores that I am in charge of doing everyday, and I have witnessed him pitching in where I never asked for his help. He automatically learns to serve within our family, because it’s just a part of what we do.

I know that an hour by hour schedule is not for everyone. I hope that even the most unorganized among us will be able to bring some order to thier home through mini routines. Remember to take it slow, and if it’s not working out for you, by all means change the routine! You’ve gotta make it work for YOUR family.

What routines does your family do and what do they include?

This evening I went out to my little garden and picked some peas! I got less than a small bowlfull, but it was thrilling to finally get some produce from the work i’ve done. If I had more I would dry or freeze them, but since there are only a few we will probably cook them up in the next couple of days. Nothing beats garden fresh veggies. These peas would make a wonderful stir fry vegetable. They would also be delicious by themselves, sauted in a little butter (yes, real butter!)

When my husband and I first moved to our new house, we decided to make a simple compost pile. He used some inexpensive wire mesh from the hardware store to contain the compost. I am so glad we did this! It has proved invaluable to dispose of yard waste. It saves us the extra yard waste disposal fee from the trash company. Of course, the bonus is the nutrient rich compost. We will probably reep the benefits of it next year.

I’m planning an even bigger garden next year, so we’ll need it. I want to do all of my regular veggies on a good plot of ground, and try strawberries in my raised bed (which is currently holding my peas and carrots.)

It had been awhile since I stirred my compost pile when I got around to it this evening. I was surprised to uncover “hot spots” about halfway down. It’s been so hot and humid here (97-100 degrees) that my compost actually looked and smelled like it was cooking! I gave it a good stir and watered it well. I have found that about once a week is good for stirring and watering the compost. It may need more water during dry periods.

It’s finally here! Yesterday I picked up Nourishing Traditions from my local library. I have been waiting for it to arrive from Inter-Library loan for about 1 week. I’ve been so excited to read it, because I wanted to get started on the basics of changing my family’s eating habits.

If you havn’t already read it, Nourishing Traditions is way more than just a cookbook. It is full of studies and research findings that challenge our modern nutritional thinking and the “politically correct” nutrition that we have been taught. It brings us back to the traditions of our grandparents and great grandparents nutrition, introducing more whole fats back into our diet  that kept our forefathers healthy and nourished.

We now use full fat butter and cream instead of margerine. Surprisingly, even many modern day doctors are willing to admit that margerine and vegetable oil spreads are detrimental to our health. We aim to avoid prepackaged foods, soft drinks, frozen foods, and fast foods which often contain large amounts of sugar, hight fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated and highly processed vegetable oil, and refined flour. Other dangerous ingredients include MSG and hydrolyzed protein, both known neurotoxins that serve as dangerous substitutes for properly made meat broths.

This book is full of wonderful recipes for making your own dairy cultures (buttermilk, yogurt, etc), condiments (replacing commercial junk condiments), meat stocks, desserts, main dishes, and loads of other recipes supporting a whole foods. I love the list of Superfoods in the back that can be used as natural supplements, as opposed to vitamins that can cause nutrient imbalances. Three of these superfoods that I would like to implement are cod liver oil, kelp, and evening primrose oil (which I have taken during pregnancy.)

I highly recommend this book to ANYONE. I could go on about the information contained in this book, but it would be pointless. I could not do the book justice; And well, you just have to read it for yourself. It has changed my entire outlook on how I cook for and nourish my family.

A couple of days ago, my friend Ruth @ But First We have Coffee posted a video of Mary Tocco, an influential woman in their decision to not vaccinate their children.

Last year, before our second son was born, I had done a small bit of research about vaccines. Mainly I had found that some vaccines were manufactured by using aborted baby tissue, and was disgusted. We were in such a busy time in our lives and I didn’t feel I had the capacity to fight with my doctor to obtain vaccines that did not contain aborted baby tissue. We have vaccinated our second son thus far.

But Ruth was right; Mary Tocco’s videos are very eye opening and informing. She is a wealth of information that the average parent is not aware of concerning vaccines. The scariest part of her videos to me is when she talks about Thimerisol. Thimerisol is a form of Mercury that is used as a perservative and sanitizer in vaccines. She talks about the fact that Pregnant and nursing mothers are warned not to ingest too much mercery from fish, etc; But then we are injecting large amounts of mercury into pregnant mothers and newborn babies. Mercury is a highly toxic metal that causes liver failure, poisoning, and brain death in significant amounts.

You can visit Mary Tocco’s website Childhoodshots.com . Another great website is Thinktwice.com . Mary Tocco is an independent researcher (which means nobody pays her to do this) and has dedicated her life’s work to traveling and doing speaking engagements about vaccines. You can click on the video above and it will take you to youtube.com. The rest of her videos are in the sidebar there.

So, I’ve been contemplating the last couple of days whether to creat a new blog @ blogger.com. I Like the name creative counterpart and all, it’s just that I feel like I need something fresh, and something a little more catching and “me”. I’m a little frustrated with Wordpress (unhosted). I havn’t a way to host my blog at the moment (unless I talk up a friend of mine into letting me borrow some hosting space).

I just feel restricted here. I also know that I want to share my heart more on my blog. I want my theme to reflect who I am and what I have to share, that is why I feel so stuck.

Any Ideas?

……

I tried Tae-Bo for the first time today. Oh my goodness! I couldn’t even finish the first workout video. I was sweating like a banshee. Maybe it’s just the thing I need to whip myself into shape. My weight loss to date is 21 lbs! Weight watchers is really working for me. I just have to keep up the work and stay away from the junk.

There is something special about parenting. You get to see someones life take form right in front of you….

(Mommy pregnant with #2, wearing the same maternity shirt)

Happy Birthday Son!

(I can’t believe you’re 3)

At the beginning of the year I posted a list of goals I would like to accomplish this year. Well, what good is a list of goals if you never look at it, check off the accomplishments, and reassess what you originally wanted? (Why do I ask so many open-ended questions?) So, let’s recap..

• Set up a sewing station in our new home and finish lots of projects! I just got this set up the other day, yay! Now I need to get to work.
• Specifically to sew: taggie blankets/soft toys, cloth napkins, aprons for the kiddos.
• Look ahead at next Christmas all year long, so I’ll be prepared with special gifts including homemade ones. (been looking ahead. Nothing made yet, haha.)
• Have Gregory recognize his colors, numbers, and letters. (He knows some of his letters and colors, yay! he’s a natural learner, so i didn’t really have much to do with this.)
• Paint and decorate our new house (Nope, still in the planning stages)
• Have a great stockpile from couponing It’s good, but could be better. I am focusing on only free things at the moment.
• Keep up with our new joint blog project, Big Red Deals, sharing the deals and savings with those in our local area. (The joint idea is scratched. Personal problems arose. I’d love to do this someday but now is NOT a good time.
• Teach other women how to be savvy shoppers and save their families lots of money. I’ve had the wonderful privledge of sharing some of my tips with other moms at a coupon swap.
• Donate surplus to charity and food banks. (Still need to do this. Goodwill still gets lots of our old stuff, though!)
• Keep up with everyones  birthdays and send them cards. (I HAVE done better this year than any other, but definately not met my goal.)
• Start Seminary (Not even close)
• Learn a little about cars from my husband (including how to change a tire, and other simple things that I’ve been too stubborn to learn.) Guess what, I’m still stubborn.
• Read to the boys more. We used to be really good about this but have gotten away from it since the birth of our newest. It’s very important and I need to make it a point everyday. We HAVE been reading more, thanks to the library and their summer reading programs!
• Visit my sister often who is now only a few hours away. She may be sick of me I’d love to see her more, but she has a life, you know.
• organize photographs
• get an SLR camera and get into photography  I don’t think this fits our tightwaddery at the moment.
• Spend more time with friends and make new ones I have made some new friends. Now, if I just had more time…
• Serve more Does serving more at home count?
• Get a practice pad and/or snare drum and practice.. introduce my son to it and let him get comfortable holding the sticks and making rhythms. I am a drummer and my goal is to teach him this instrument for home school. I’d love to do this NOW, but again… tightwaddery. I guess I need to “put the word out”.

It is no secret, our household is on a tight budget. With cutbacks in hours at my husband’s job and the recent purchase of our home, we’ve been forced to scale down on luxeries and get creative with our money. It’s a good thing I stumbled upon a copy of the Tightwad Gazette at the local library, and have been devouring it ever since.

Here are thirteen tightwad things we plan to try:

1. Cut back the cell phone plan. Last month I did some looking at the minutes we were using on our cell phone plan and determined we were paying for way more than we need. My husband called the company this evening and reduced our plan. We’ll keep track of the minutes we’ve used mid-month and save around $30 a month.
2. Check freecycle, craigslist, & our local partyline often. All of these are sources of free and cheap stuff.
3. Bake our own Bread. I am currently trying to “start” my own sourdough starter. You can, too with Candy’s easy instructions.
4. Make homemade deoderant, dishwashing detergent, & laundry detergent. Candy has great recipes for these as well.
5. Start a price book. I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile now. If anyone has good ideas for a less tedious method, let me know!
6. Line dry clothes. My husband is in the process of making me an indoor clothesline in our mudroom. A perfect spot because the windows can b opened to let a breeze in, and I can even line dry in the winter. I plan to dry blanket, towels, etc on the line.
7. Ditch cable/sattelite TV. I haven’t convinced my husband yet. I’ll admit it, we’re spoiled.
8. Use cloth diapers. We have been users of Miracle diapers on and off in the past, and plan to use it again. Hopefully any future babies will have a nice stash to call their own.
9. Plan ahead by making homemade gifts for Christmas this year. You and I will both be glad we did.
10. Save everything and find a use for it. Tubs from butter, sour cream, etc can be used as tupperware. Ziploc bags can be washed and reused. Milk jugs can become anything from a pooper scooper to a scoop game for kids. Have fun coming up with new uses for everyday items. You’ll wonder why you ever wasted money throwing those things away!
11. Cut out Convenience foods. Substitute with homemade cookies, muffins, jello, pudding, etc.
12. Scrutinize spending and use what we have. This one’s tough, but essential to a tightwad lifestyle. We’re more content to do this when we find a way to achieve the same result with things we already have. Creativity is the key.
13. “Put out the word”  If you are in need of something or just casually looking, let people know! “Hey Jan, if you know of anyone that has a stroller they don’t use, let them know I”m looking for one.” That person might have been waiting to find someone who could put it to good use.

I’m going to cheat and add #14. I think the most important thing to living a frugal lifestyle is trusting in God. It’s easy to become bitter in tough times if we are not relying on the Lord for our strength and to meet our needs. He is sufficient and he is able.

—Psalm 37:3-6

Oh, my poor son! My poor first born. They really are the test babies, aren’t they? For a couple who knew nothing about disciplining children according to the biblical model, our first son was (and still is) the lesson. We could blame it on the fact that he was 6 months old before we both knew Christ as our Lord; But, either way our son is doing well not because of our first attempts at discipline, but inspite of them.

It all started out very “innocently” (or shall I say ignorantly?) When he was a baby I had read a lot about attachment parenting and natural parenting, and gotten quite a few ideas in my head that a baby was just an innocent human being, who with the right positive reinforcement would wind up as a gentle, loving, person. HA! What little did I know. In such denial I was. If only I could have had a glimpse into the life of my future “strong willed” child.

Though honestly, I don’t know very many children who are not strong willed. Do you? So, around the time my son began to walk (at 10 months), his will began to multiply and manipulate. My husband and I already had our work cut out for us in reversing the bad habits we had taught our little monster. We had to begin teaching him discipline at 1-1.5 year old that we should have been reinforcing from the beginning.

The Lord and his Word (and the help of several other mature Christians) has helped us along the way. In that short span of time we have learned as much about parenting as we have about our own attitudes. With the birth of our second son, we were determined to do things differently. I taught baby how to go to sleep on his own. I used the wake, nurse, play, sleep cycle (as opposed to wake, play, and nurse to sleep cycle I had gotten in with our first.) We just finished night weaning at 9 months, which I think could have been acheived sooner and was done easily when baby was moved in his big brother’s room. And finally to the title of this post, we began teaching him the word “No” at about 8-9 months of age.

I had heard many times with our first, that he was too young to know what “no” meant. But, I have in fact learned from my own experience that babies can learn the word at a young age if you teach them. They know far more than they can tell you! We began with telling him no when he squirmed and wiggled during diaper changes. At first, it seems like a game to them. In a few short times during the day we would practice obedience around 8 months of age. He would squirm, and I would tell him no and set him firmly and still where I wanted him. If he would squirm, I would tell him no again and set him back. If he still didn’t get it, a light tap (and I do mean light, it doesn’t take pain to train a baby) on the booty would get his attention. I would do this until he layed still. Some babies have quite the will and will still think this is a game. The goal is the obedience during each “session”, however much patience and time it takes. Never get angry or upset. This is a learning experience for them. Praise them when they obey. Sometimes they will obey and sometimes they will test you. YES, an 8-9 month old WILL test you! In our experience, our 10 month old knows clearly what “No” means and obeys. He gets praise for listening. It is such a joy to see obedience at this young age. It is so much easier and gentler when you start early. It takes much more time and effort (and frustration) to undo the will a child acquires when they are not trained young. It must be very confusing for them, also! They are able to do anything they want with no consequence for months or even years, and all of a sudden mom and dad (and everyone else) is telling them “NO!” and expecting them to obey. Why should they believe you?

I know this was a bit of a ramble. I had many thoughts pouring out of my head that I wanted to get down!