how to best use the freezer

This week we are eating out of the deep freezer. Rory has challenged me not to go grocery shopping until June 1st so that we eat up all that we have. It is actually a good challenge and strangely we've been eating great.

But in the deep freeze I came across a bag of rhubarb, all sliced and prepped that I clearly never used in the 365 days since I threw it in the deep freeze. I knew this because as I found this bag all prepped and ready to go I realized I had fresh rhubarb from this year waiting to be cut and used. I left that frozen bag out on the freezer in the garage thinking I'd give it to the chickens in the morning and it thawed and leaked rhubarb juice all over everything. A total mess. But then it dawned on me. We never ate that rhubarb because I never felt inspired to thaw it and make muffins. Here me out on this, because I've got a hot tip coming your way...

The workshops at Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators (MACHE) conference are so practical and topics are so immediately applicable ranging from discipline at all ages, teaching manners, working on your marriage, motivating your children and my personal favorite this year: food preparation.

This workshop was sixty minutes of mealtime suggestions, aiming to help the mom when she finds herself in the kitchen three times a day. The workshop presenter had lots of practical tips but this was my favorite: "When ham goes on sale around Easter, be sure to go and buy three hams for such a good price. But then do not go home and throw them into your freezer. A frozen ham at 4:00 on a Tuesday is no help to you. Instead, pick a day that week that you are going to bake all three hams. Your oven will be on all day. And as each ham comes out of the oven, slice it, cube it, prepare it to be eaten and store it in family-sized servings in your freezer. This way it will be cooked and ready for you at 4:00 on a Tuesday when you decide you are going to have sliced ham and scrambled eggs or cubed ham in wild rice soup or sliced ham and potatoes au gratin..."

Doesn't that change everything?!!

It's why I never used that huge bag of frozen rhubarb. Because it would have been better to have made rhubarb muffins one day during rhubarb season and frozen those. This way, at a moments notice, I could grab a bag of muffins to eat with my sliced ham and scrambled eggs supper. So guess who has been baking muffins all morning? I doubled the recipe, made four dozen muffins, and will put them in freezer bags (this is key! it's not worth all that work for freezer burned food!) to eat later this year. Unless my family keeps eating them, which seems totally plausible at this point...

She encouraged the same sort of thinking for whole turkeys, whole chickens, pounds of hamburger. Cook it all, the slice it, shred it, cube it and freeze it in family meal-sized portions and you'll LOVE YOURSELF at 4:00 when you remember that dinnertime is coming up, like it does every 24 hours all. life. long.

honey for a child's heart

Rory and I attended the Minnesota Home Educator's conference back in April. I am eager to share a few thoughts on that weekend, as I came home with lots of ideas that could be applied to all parents, no matter how they are choosing to educate their children. But today I'm going to tell you about this book, Honey for a Child's Heart, that was mentioned over and over again in the workshops that we attended.

These paragraphs sort of sum up the author's thesis:

"That which is excellent has a certain spirit of literature present. The sensitivity of the reader says, 'This is true.' 'This is real.' And it sets in action something in the reader which profoundly affects him. It has been an experience- spiritual, imaginative, intellectual, or social. A sense of permanent worthwhileness surrounds really great literature. Laughter, pain, hunger, satisfaction, love, joy -- the ingredients of human life are found in depth and leave a residue of mental and spiritual richness in the reader. 

"If we familiarize our children with this kind of writing, then they have a ground for making comparisons. Not everything they read will be excellent, but they will know a story's possibilities. It will set their reading patterns into motion."

I found my copy at our town's book sale and got it for 50 cents, but my copy was published in 1978. Zondervan has continued to publish this book ever since, and you can get your copy here. (With a new picture on the cover, that makes you feel like reading might be fun!) If I had the means, this is a book that I'd buy by the case and hand out to each friend I know. Last week we had a playdate every morning and I kept my copy in my bag so that I could tell each friend about it.

The first half of the book sets the motivational ground work for why books are so powerful. I think we could all answer, "well duh" to that premise, but I am telling you the way she lays out the chapters was so inspiring. I have never been so excited about the great privilege of being the one who gets to present good books to my kids!

The second half of the book is her personal recommended book lists, divided by age group (preschool-3rd grade, grade four to six, teen and mature readers). It is so helpful! The lists are placed in order of complexity, so if you  have a preschooler you would start at the beginning, but you can find where your kid is in the mix. And she doesn't claim that the list is exhaustive, but does say that it would be a shame for your kids to miss out on any of these books before they leave your home. (Also, her list is not just Christian authors or Christian stories. A well written story will have the ring of truth.)

Then she has a section called Poetry is for Pleasure and gives her picks for  how to introduce poetry to your family. I've never been captured by poetry the way many are. Which is odd, since I do love words! So I am excited to introduce poetry to my kids with hopes that I catch the spirit too...

The final section is again divided by age groups and is titled, "Helping Preschoolers Through Third Graders Grow as Christians" Then she recommends books for 4th-6th graders and again teens to mature readers.

I am so grateful for this resource book and helping me in this area of my parenting. If you have kids that are going to be home for the summer, I would think you'd want to get your hands on Honey for a Child's Heart right away. Or if you have grandkids, nieces or nephews or kids in your life, I would imagine this would be an awesome resource to refer to when picking out gifts. Happy Reading!

bug motel

I have been telling the kids that I want to get them a bug motel so that we can watch the bugs and caterpillars we find. Tonight, while the five of us were playing in the rock box, I found a tiny caterpillar and Elsie lamented that we didn't have a bug motel and Rory explained that a mason jar was the original bug motel.

So we got a jar, put some rocks in the bottom and a few sticks slanted on the sides. We put a little water in the bottom and tossed in some grass and clover. And then we put in the caterpillar. I put some press-n-seal on the top with breathing holes and it was adorable. I wish so badly I had taken a picture.

Because moments later I found Ivar very sad on the couch. He told me he was sad we had taken the caterpillar from the rock box and that his mom and dad were probably looking for him. I assured him that there were no other caterpillars in that area where I was digging and he told me I should have digged deeper. I told him that I didn't think that caterpillars actually stayed with their mom and dad for very long, that they actually like to be alone. I've only ever seen them alone.

I got busy with something else, but the next thing I saw out the window was Ivar running from the rock box and into Rory's arms. Rory held him and Ivar cried and later Rory told me to write down these exact words as they came out of Ivar. Ivar told his dad, "I dumped him back out because I felt (began to sob) in my heart (loud wail) that he wanted to be in his home." And he cried into Rory's shoulder.

A few thoughts on this. Number one, Ivar is my son. I still personify most things and have a very tender heart that has clearly been genetically passed on to my boy. Number two, I am so glad Rory got that quote word for word. It's priceless. And Number three: Good thing I didn't spend ten bucks on a bug motel!

troybacca

Heads up! Sara is in concert Sunday night (if you're reading this on Saturday night, that means tomorrow night. If you're reading this on Sunday, that means tonight!) at Grace Church in Eden Prairie. The concert is a part of the Art Music Justice Tour with Jenny and Tyler and Brandon Heath and sounds awesome.

For over a decade Troy was Sara's manager. Now he just makes funny videos dressed up in full body wookie costumes. Not really. A few years ago he started working for International Justice Mission organizing large events like banquets and concerts that raise awareness and funds for the work of IJM. IJM works all around the globe rescuing girls from trafficking and freeing slaves.. They use the laws of each country to free the victims and to prosecute the captors. It is exciting work, important work, life-changing work and the stories of the people set free are deeply moving.

If you happen to be free, you'd enjoy this concert. The show starts at 7:30. Tickets are online here. Or you can get them at the door.

while I'm thinking of it...

Today Ivar told me, "Mom! We have to read-new these books at the library today!" I loved this little word mix-up. Now that he's five I feel more of an obligation to correct his kid words to the right words...but man, it's hard to do. I love the little kid language we have around here.

On that note, I think every three-year-old deserves an audience to follow them around and hear the awesome things that come out of their mouths. I told my parents that I can hardly explain it to another. The awesomeness is wrapped up in the inflection, the word order, the choice of words...all of it. And the running narration of a day is more entertaining than any professional comedian. Elsie is constant fun and I love age three.

It's garage sale season and I am in full swing. I love this time of year so much. We have found treasures and bargains and things I never knew we needed. But for that price?!! We'll take it! Even my kids are now trained to spot a Garage Sale sign.

In an ironic twist, I'm purging my house! Go figure. But when more stuff comes in, stuff has to go out. I am so tired of clothes. Anyone else? Kids clothes are incredible. Between growing kids, the change of season, awesome hand-me-downs (Not complaining! Totally grateful!) and a daughter who changes dresses and tights and sweaters and skirts eleven times a day, I just cannot take it anymore. I am drowning in clothes. Dirty laundry, clean laundry, clothes that need to be put away, clothes left on the bathroom floor, clothes discarded in every room.

But! I finally put all of our winter gear away! Snow pants, boots, mittens, hats and scarves have all been boxed up until next fall. I keep the winter coats out because I've fallen for that that one before. The second you put the coats away it drops to 30. Every time.

Rory and I watched Gattaca the other night and I really, really liked it. It's so seldom that we stumble upon a thoughtful, clean, entertaining movie that I feel like I should tell you about it. So I did. If you have Amazon Prime you can watch it for free at that link above.

Also, the night we watched Gattaca, Rory brought home our first watermelon of the season. I told him it was the most romantic thing he could have done. Added bonus was that the watermelon was good!

In other news, we adore our goats. Currently the baby is still named Precious and the mama goat is still nameless. Ivar wants to call it Olivia. He has no idea where he came up with that name...we don't have an Olivia in our family/friends/life. I can't quite get myself to call her Olivia, so I keep calling her Mama. But that's what I'm called. Rory seems to be leaning towards Olivia. A goat named Olivia? I'm on the fence on this one. Please weigh in.

Another random thought: I have been weeding this spring and I love it. You can read that sentence again. It's baffling to me too. But I read this blog post at The Rabbit Room, and the writer talked about how he loves to weed. He can't walk past a weed without picking it. The point of his piece was that it is okay to leave the weeds. But I heard the opposite. Ha! While reading it I sort of realized that weeds are the untidy thing in nature. And since I like to keep things tidy, this sort of flipped a switch in me. I have been out when I can, weeding the blueberries mostly. And it is hard to weed with a baby. But there is a really good, addictive feeling you get when you weed right after it has rained, and that weed pulls up nicely with a root attached.

Which brings me to my next point: I am getting old. My sudden appreciation of weeding is evidence of this. As is the fact that I was looking for a radio station recently and found Sting singing Roxanne on the oldies station. The Oldies Station! Kool 108 was playing Sting. And then Queen was next and suddenly I found myself all they way home having sung along to all the songs. Aging is a sneaky, creepy little thing.

I guess that's what's on my mind tonight: Olivia, Read-Newing books, Gattaca, Garage Sales, Weeds, Watermelons and Roxanne. There's always a lot going on in this brain of mine...