Hope

Oh The Blessings!

Alternately titled, Random happenings in our crazy house (mostly in the kitchen)in the last 24 hours!

Last night I made a new recipe I found for chocolate chip cookies, mmm. I needed chocolate chip cookies to get through today!

This morning is when things got busy, it was my first canning day of the season, usually I've canned something by now, not this year though. I have frozen a bunch of stuff, corn, pesto, and two batches or roasted tomato and garlic pasta sauce. So, some of the garden is put up. The list that follows, is not complete, merely things I jotted down throughout the day once I realized I was in a marathon!

Woken by my daughter's soft cry for 'milk please' (it's her cup o'joe) at 6:45am. Opened my eyes to my five year old's return gaze at 7:05am. Actually got out of bed at 7:50 after pestering everyone to be quiet so I could get just ten more blessed minutes of sleep.

Granola (from Mary's book) with yogurt for breakfast, prepared Adam's lunch, got him out the door and made a batch of grape jelly all processed and done by 9:30am.

Everyone dressed for a long walk/bike ride to the park followed by a long swing and park play. Home by 11:20.

My son spread almond butter and jam on tortillas for us for lunch while I started getting stuff ready to make my next batch of raspberry/peach jam. Meanwhile after lunch, the kids played campout in the baby crib and with train tracks and served me crazy smoothies they made in their kitchen. All processed and done my 1:35pm

Ahhhhh, quiet time. My baby nurses to sleep for her second real nap all week, praise God! My son has some Grandma story time (Babar) while I process a batch of tomatoes. Baby awakes at 3:15pm

Prepared and processed a batch of peach jam while the kids watched Prima Princessa presents the Nutcracker! And finally poured out the canning water at 4:50pm.

After the movie the kids chalk painted on the back patio for nearly an hour. My daughter figured out that the chalk gets really pretty when you dip it in the dog's water dish so they had a blast and were entertained while I cleaned the kitchen and prepared dinner.

Threw a peach crisp together with the leftover peeled peaches and prepared dinner. A quick chicken salad with leftover chicken tenders, chopped with an apple, celery, grated carrot, some mayo and salt and pepper. Sliced a mango and carrot sticks and pulled out the leftover Asian Noodle Salad (yup Mary's book again!)from dinner last night and viola dinner was on the table by 6pm.

All dinnered and full of crisp we sang and danced while Adam played the piano a bit and then we opened a box my son has been waiting since his birthday for. Caterpillars! He sat and observed them for quite some time, concerned that they weren't moving, then the big one moved it's head! Yippeeeee! Now we could go upstairs, get washed and ready for bed. There's a Wocket in my Pocket. Prayers. Bed. 8pm. Done!

Heading down to spend some QT with my man and then a shower and my pillow sounds great! The chalk foot/paw print, peach stickiness covered kitchen floor can wait until tomorrow!

Resourceful Little Buggers!

Home Grown Yumminess

I stand by my title, yumminess = yummy + goodness!

About four years ago my neighbors planted raspberry bushes and I knew eventually they would come. It didn't take long for them to pop up under our neighborly fence but this year seems to be the year that we will get to eat them.

Last year there was enough for my son and I to pick a few and snack on them and for my dog to help himself. Not really enough to do anything with, plus I found out this year that I hadn't pruned them correctly.

Today we picked half a bowl full, enough for us to share at dinner with our Swedish pancakes!

It doesn't take a lot to make me giddy and so here I am totally excited to have more succulent, sweet, tart and juicy berries!

Dear neighbors,

I have had good intentions (the best really) of weeding my front flower beds this summer. But intentions just don't mean squat when everything else takes priority (the garden in the back that yields food!).

Please accept this simple and sincere apology for our overgrown weedy beds. I have begun to clean them out but give me some time, I have two small kids who need me but I should have the bulk of it done in the next few days. Hopefully next year we'll do better so that the sending of another nasty note from the HOA won't be necessary!

With sincere apologies,

Heidi aka Butterfly Mama

Stop, Thief!

Seriously, my dog eats the raspberries. Hello! And he nibbles away at the ones just before they are ripe enough to pick. Between him and my son I think I've eaten two!

But seriously today at the mall I parked my daughter in the stroller next to a table with folded shirts on it while I was looking at another item. I turn around and she's dumped them all on to the floor. (Mental reminder of why I usually carry her around.)

After I've unloaded kids and items from the stroller back at the car in the 95 degree heat I see this random shirt in the bottom of the stroller. Hello! I stole a shirt.

Kids were already buckled, it was nap time, and I had apparently already got away with it so I decided not to go all the way back. (terrible!?)

Good thing my hubby works just down the way so Children's Place you will be getting your little shirt back tomorrow!

Hopefully we're done with the confessions!

Zucchini coming out of your ears???

Anyone who's ever planted them in the garden knows that before long there is more zucchini coming off the plants than we know what to do with. We pick them small and tender at first eager for another years harvest. Steaming, sauteing, and then eventually they get big and huge and we stuff them and grate them into breads.

I thought others might be interested in trying some new recipes I've come across this year that my family is just loving. If we're gonna eat it all week long might as well add some new recipes in there!

Savory Pancakes (This recipe lends well to rice flour and rice milk to make it dairy and gluten free) 1/2 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp pepper 1 egg 1/4 cup milk 2 cups grated zucchini* 2 small scallions, diced vegetable oil sour cream and salsa (optional)

Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. In a second bowl, whisk the egg and milk, then stir in veggies. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine thoroughly.

Add 1 T oil to a skillet over medium heat, when oil is hot, spoon the batter into the pan, about 1/3 cup per pancake for approx. 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

*Can also substitute one cup carrots for one of the cups of zucchini or 1 cup yellow squash.

My other recipe, isn't really a recipe, it's more like something I just throw together. Veggie Lasagna. Basically I just make the lasagna noodles (we use gluten free ones) and while those are cooking I make my pasta sauce. In another saute pan I add maybe 3 cups of 1/2 inch zucchini slices, olive oil, garlic (lots of it - yummy!), onions, pine nuts really whatever I have around (I've thrown in leftover broccoli and spinach too). Season with your favorite spices or herbs. Then I layer the noodles, veggies and sauce (you can add cheese if you eat it but we all enjoy it without.) and bake just for 15 or 20 minutes to let the flavors blend together.

Yummy, I was just thinking that this might be yummy with pesto sauce too. I am so addicted! We are having pesto on our homemade gluten free pizza now too and it is SO yummy!

It's not that there's nothing bloggable going on,

for goodness sake my son told our entire church during the kids story on Sunday that our house has no dust!!! God bless that boy! I've been meaning all week to show him what it is and teach him how to get rid of it...then he'll be telling the truth!

"I planted these seeds Mommy and now they are zucchikinnis." (kinnis for short)

Dinner tonight was a new Alton Brown favorite accompanied by the first real zucchini crop and corn yummy!! We've had the last two wonderful days with Daddy home, done some housework and even got out just the two of us.

So why am I in a bit of a funk, I just don't know for sure. I do know that I'm incredibly blessed - I know it with every fiber of my being. Why then do I get so, angry/upset/hormonal about stuff? I live in a house - not a bungalow, have all the modern appliances that one needs (including a dishwasher that does nothing but bake the food onto the dishes so that's the only - by hand.) But at least that is in a sink with hot running water - not a river bed or something.

It feels fake to leave everything on this blog so happy-go-lucky fluttering up in the clouds about life when really I'm down here on the ground.. scratch that.. I'm down here in this ravine just trying to keep my head above the water.

There are days like the last two before today that I can barely tread water, I'm sinking and I have to yank out a reed to get a screeching gasp. Keeping up with the essentials seems like racing in a triathlon.

Overwhelmed is a feeling I deal with daily almost as far back as I can remember. In college, since I also procrastinate, I can remember just sitting in the library looking at a stack of books not knowing where to start. I feel constantly like I'm making the wrong decision - over analyzing, under analyzing, not researching some parenting thing enough or just not being consistent with the type of parenting from day to day.

I keep thinking someday I'll have to apologize to my son since he's the oldest for being the guinea pig. Then today I realized that while I have more tricks up my sleeve the second time around, a different child calls for even different facets of parenting. Tonight I learned that my daughter will fall back to sleep by me simply slightly bouncing her (her laying on her tummy) with my hand on her bottom. So much shorter than a huge nursing session - seriously it takes me humming just one verse of Amazing Grace! Not that I'm done nursing or anything but she's almost one (instert pathetic little cry here ;0) ) and has been waking up every hour or two and I'm sore and she's teething so we can use a few less nursing moments.

What it comes down to is encouragement and commitment and attitude and love. Among others, lots and lots of love! The days like today have there struggles, in spite of those (or because of them) we learn, grow and wonder about what tomorrow might bring. Yes, almost four year old boys are too rough and yes they push the boundaries but isn't that what they are supposed to do to learn themselves. Maybe in their own way they are telling us that if they are still making the same mistakes after many months, Mom might need to change her approach?

These times when we struggle to keep from drowning and win the parenting battles are rough but how much brighter the sun will look when find sure footing looking up at our beautiful kids growing in the blink of an eye.

Some other updates

Just felt like writing about some other stuff going on around here. Adam is in the third week of his job and he really is enjoying it!!! He was out of town for training the first week and my kids and I were just thrown into going it without Dad around to help out. Astonishingly it went well except we all obviously missed him. Even our little baby woke up the first morning, crawled onto his side of the bed saying "DaDa? DaDa?" like where could he be!

We are also getting used to him working weekends and having two weekdays off which is different but I'm certain we'll grow accustom to it all. We are grateful that God has provided a good job for him and one that he is enjoying.

We are all getting excited for my sister's wedding in New Hampshire in three and a half weeks. You'll all get to see pictures of me in this dress. And no there is no backless nursing bra in the world so I have not a clue what I'll be wearing under the back of the dress yet!

Another kicker is that it doesn't look like Adam is going to be able to come with us and I'm in the wedding. I'm sure my son will be fine sitting with another family member but my daughter has me concerned. I may be looking to make myself a sling out of some matching yellow fabric! Everyone she's attached to is going to want to watch the wedding not hold a wiggling baby and if she's in the least bit crabby she'll just cry if anyone other than Mommy or Daddy has her anyway. So I'm thinking that me holding her might be just about the best option since a screaming baby and wedding don't generally mix well! Oh, but I'm still praying that since Adam's manager has commented numerous times that he is performing well and really turning the store around I'm hoping he has a change of heart and lets him come. The first and last weekends of the month are blacked out for managers to take time off so now we know!

My son and I finally have planted everything in our little garden this year. It took so much work to clean out all the junk that our renters had thrown in there as well as weed the massive weed pit it had become. While doing all that work I thought why not add another foot to the garden so I ripped up 12- 18 inches of grass along the 22 feet of garden. But finally the seeds have been sown (and resown since my son went in and raked a hill of cucumbers!) I purchased already started plants for my tomatoes this year since this spring we were getting our house painted and ready to sell. BTW I don't think we will be selling now that we have a job! PHEW! Now our house is just a bit cleaner and we have less stuff around which is nice.

I'm pretty sure that's the bulk of the major things going on lately!

Worm update!

Remember back when I was still pregnant last summer and completing some projects I'd always wanted to do. My worm bin was one of them and I wanted to share my results. My hubby is giving me the hardest time because I'm happy that these worms made dirt but I am! I wish I had three times as much compost as I do but now I think I've got twice as many worms than I started with so they should be able to eat way more of our food scraps faster now.

Seriously the bin started out feather light just with a pound of worms and dampened shredded newspaper. By winter it was quite heavy and when I took it outside to "harvest" the compost a couple weeks ago it was almost too heavy for me to carry by myself - partly because it was a bit too damp and I probably should have done it way sooner than I did. But all seems to be going well and the worms seem happy enough! I'm happy to have to buy one less bag of compost for my planters and garden so it seems to be a win win situation.

Since nothing around here is complete without pictures here are a couple to show you how we separated the worms from the compost. It's been a preschool boys dream science class around here lately! Wroms, digging, planting, watering, it's great to have a little helper.

First we separated the contents of my bin into piles out on an old shower curtain (since I had one that just ripped through one too many ring holes.) you can use anything - even just the driveway. The worms don't like the sun so the scurry down in the piles. Every so often (20 minutes or whenever we'd remember) we'd remove the top layer of compost until we exposed more worms. Then we'd wait for them to move further in again.

Pretty soon we were left with a bunch of compost and a ball of wriggling worms. We weren't too concerned with letting a few worms stay in the compost that we used for pots and to amend the soil. The mass majority though will be going back into the bin to do it all over again. You can see ground egg shell pieces as well as squash seeds, small pieced of newspaper and other scraps that didn't get fully composted and none of it bothered me as it will all continue to decompose and or give me some random volunteer plants neither of which I mind very much.

Mommy a flower for you!!!!

Since my crocus started blooming a couple weeks ago every time my son comes into the house he brings me a flower. It's so sweet and since there's a plethora of them I'm all for it. Then a day or so later he'll point at my little vase and say "all shribelled up now."

Local, farm fresh, natural produce...

...and it's less than a 5 minute drive from our house.

Not having a garden this year meant less work at a time when it would have been impossible to keep with moving, but it also means no fruits to harvest and no fresh picked veggies. Or does it? There is a family farm and garden stand right down the street from our house and they have organic produce. No they aren't a certified organic farm but they use no pesticides or sprays which makes a big difference to me. What they don't grow themselves they get from a community of natural farms in the nearby vicinity. They even offer classes on how to can dill pickles AND they have some pick your own at certain times.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately on why to buy locally instead of foods that have been trucked in from 100's if not 1000's of miles away. Treehugger makes a good argument here andhere about buying locally vs. organically. I like it because it's more fresh if it's picked locally so it tastes better and is more nutritious (if picked tree or vine ripe). I can also feel good about supporting my local economy.

If you are looking for locally grown produce in your area you can visitLocal Harvest where you can find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food even grass fed meats.

The berryaholic is shown above with our bounty! The green beans were in the walk in cooler but were still warm since they were just picked!! YUM!

Missing the dirt under my nails

I've updated my keep or tosspost to let you know what I decided! Also, If you missed the Make If From Scratch Carnival like I did today there are some really cool things up this week.

This past Saturday we went to a hike and Mother's Day craft at a local nature learning center. It was totally free and my son loved painting me this gorgeous pot and planting the little yarrow plant. Can ya'll tell I'm loving my first little crafty Mother's Day gift!!!???!!!

I love looking through the paper on Saturday mornings for a family activity for us. Many times things are free like this one was which is an added bonus. We also love to pack a picnic lunch and find somewhere to eat - we've done this almost every nice weekend this spring so far.

Anyway, having a new potted plant around made me really miss my garden. This time last year we had beets, broccoli, spinach and lettuce coming up already and my tomatoes were almost ready to get into the ground along with others. This year the only thing in the garden is lettuce - a ton since I let a couple plants go to seed last year and a few spinach plants. We've been enjoying these at most meals but I'm wishing I had just planted stuff even though we are selling our house.

I don't want to complain because I am lucky to live in a place with many farmers markets to purchase wonderful local produce, I just love tending to the garden. It's my soul food in the summer, a time when I can see God's hand at work in the soil and when I can get some treasured quiet minutes each evening while I weed or harvest a squash for dinner.

After our hike and picnic on Saturday my hubby took our son to the grocery store so he could get a few things for dinner for that night and Sunday. (He grilled me a delicious eggplant at my request and it was the best!) Usually when they both go somewhere I wander, not knowing quite what to do with myself. Wander around putting laundry away, debate taking a nap, blogging, doing the dishes, watching tv, etc. But that day I went out to my little seedlings, I planted them a little late, but I'm sure they'll grow to give me fruit. I potted two tomato plants and two basil plants. The tomatoes will need to be potted up once more since these pots are still to small but they work for now and I'll still be able to taste some fruits of my labor this year even with a new baby due and a move in the future.