The End of Summer

The End of Summer

 

I can­not believe that sum­mer is near­ing its end. How did that hap­pen? I sup­pose the travel and the manic sched­ule might have some­thing to do with it.

I had so much I wanted to get done this sum­mer before I am swamped again with school and the daily grind.

But, here we are, sit­ting at the end of August, with the list of projects still mostly untouched. Does that ever hap­pen to you? Lofty plans left undone?

I guess I have a list of excuses as long as my to-do list: a three-week vaca­tion to Cal­i­for­nia {which was AMAZING}, fam­ily camp, com­pany in and out all sum­mer in between our trips, catch­ing up on my busi­ness orders, soak­ing up the sun with the kids before we are stuck indoors again due to snow and cold…

How­ever, this past week­end, my amaz­ing daugh­ter in law came to spend a few days with me while our hus­bands were rough­ing it in the untamed Alaska on Mon­tague Island. We tack­led my laun­dry room. I think it took us about 10 hours together and 1287 trash bags to get through it. It was our own per­sonal Haz­ardous Jour­ney.

Seri­ously, where did all that junk come from? To be fair, my laun­dry room isn’t a single-purpose room. It is the col­lec­tive closet of all the chil­dren. It con­tains the bulk of my linens. I also have all of my craft­ing items stored in there. From 1987 to today. We laughed so hard at all my old sewing pat­terns. Remem­ber the 80s and 90s with the huge col­lars? Yup. I had pat­terns for those. And the Prairie dresses. Not sure why I had those. I don’t remem­ber wear­ing any of that stuff. Maybe I have blot­ted it out of my mem­ory. Let’s not dig up the old photo albums, okay? While I took many things to Good­will today, I threw out the pat­terns. I thought I would be kind to soci­ety and not let those stay in cir­cu­la­tion. We ought to learn from our past, right? And not des­tine oth­ers to make the same mis­takes we {may have} made.

And now my laun­dry room sits in its beau­ti­ful mag­nif­i­cent glory. I used a label maker. Do you have one? They should come with a warn­ing: Cau­tion! The use of this machine is highly addic­tive. Keep small chil­dren away or they may end up labeled along with the pat­terns and fab­ric and zip­pers! {Yes, I have a label for my zip­pers. I am *that* orga­nized now.}

So, beloved Sarah went home on Tues­day with her hus­band safely returned from the wilds. And the bug had bit­ten me. Hard.

I tack­led the school room. I can be down­right vio­lent when it comes to throw­ing stuff out. You would never know in my nor­mal daily life. But, another 672 trash bags later,  a label machine smok­ing in the back­ground, and I have a pris­tine school room.

laundry room and school room organized

The lit­tle girls were giddy. After the fact. They were very ner­vous to come any­where near me dur­ing the process. Not sure if they thought I’d throw them out with the other heaps of things or if I’d put them to work on some project that looked like it might take up all their free time. Hmmm. They did help. Just with caution.

But, as the room came together again, they were so excited. I kept hear­ing cheers and excla­ma­tions to the effect of “I can’t wait to start school!!” and “Hey! This is where our Latin goes! Mom has a label right there!” Yes, I’m doing Latin with all three girls this year. Should be fun.  Right? I look for­ward to watch­ing Faith tackle it. She already thinks she can speak French. {She can’t. She says nor­mal things in a French accent. Makes us laugh. The usual.}

So we are going to start school next week at some point. We have com­pany com­ing on Mon­day for a few days. Our Eng­lish Irish friends are send­ing rein­force­ments. We have the great joy of hav­ing their old­est son and his lovely wife com­ing to visit. And then I believe we will start school. I don’t think I have any­thing else on the cal­en­dar to give us a good excuse to delay any longer.

So, so long, Sum­mer. You were fab­u­lous this year. We will soak up the fad­ing rays of sun while we can until you join us again in all your glory next year. Thanks for the memories!

Top Photo credit: A.Moltini / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

When Did Love Stop Hoping All Things?

When Did Love Stop Hoping All Things?

We’ve all been there: The Fam­ily tak­ing a peace­ful drive some­where. All is going smoothly. Dad is at the wheel, with Mom sit­ting by his side in the front seat. Con­ver­sa­tions flow­ing, per­haps some music playing.

Then it hap­pens. “MOM!!! He’s touch­ing me!”

The crime of the century.

And you know what we do, right? We do the prover­bial eye roll and say, “Stop touch­ing her and get on your own side of the car.” Just like our moms always said to us.

We typ­i­cally don’t actu­ally deal with the issue at hand because 1. it’s eas­ier to just tell them to stop touch­ing each other, and 2. it’s how we were trained to han­dle this par­tic­u­lar conflict.

And so it goes into other areas of life. In the end, we just want Johnny to stop touch­ing us and get on his own side of the car. It’s less messy that way.

Or is it?

We see this in the church, too, I think. We are so eas­ily offended by each other for any and every infrac­tion. Even the imag­ined ones. “They” are obvi­ously out to touch us, so we are on the look­out for any hint of a hand near­ing our side of the car.  They sneak up when we aren’t pay­ing as close atten­tion. And we often ASSUME mal-intent, rather than love. This is espe­cially true if we have been hurt before.

The truth is, they usu­ally aren’t think­ing a thing about us, but in the flurry of liv­ing life, their hand swings glee­fully in our direc­tion. Not in mis­chie­vous­ness, but in the joy of life. And yet, we cry out to Mom again in anguish at our obvi­ous abuse.

Some­times we deal with the con­flict because it’s what we are sup­posed to be doing, but so often we con­fess, for­give, and then get back on our own sides of the car. Back to look­ing for him to touch us again so we can cry foul.

What hap­pened to hop­ing all things? What hap­pened to for­give­ness that actu­ally has teeth? You know. I for­give you and now let’s go play. Not, I for­give you, but that is just what I have to say because it is the right thing to say, but I don’t mean any­thing by it. I’m the big­ger per­son, and now go get back on your side of the car and don’t touch me again. I don’t really like you, or trust you, or want to be your friend (or brother or sis­ter). And I don’t love you.

Even though in Christ we are com­manded to love.

And love is not rude. And it hopes all things.

I’m exhausted from the grudges. I’m tired of feel­ing like we will never have peace. I’m tired of being sus­pi­cious, and hurt, and in the mid­dle. Why can’t we all just stop sin­ning so much? And when we do sin, embrace the cross and be washed by the beau­ti­ful and per­fect blood of the Lamb? Why must we keep score? And expect hurt and sor­row? And begrudge it?

Who says we have any right to hold onto hurt? Where in the Bible do you find that we don’t have to restore rela­tion­ships, that it is okay to hate each other?

We see inter­net fights amongst Chris­tians of dif­fer­ent fla­vors and the­o­log­i­cal bents. We see blog­gers going at each other “to warn the flock.” What on earth must the unsaved souls think of our Lord’s bride? Why aren’t we ashamed of ourselves?

Let’s sit closely together. And let’s hold hands. Roll down the win­dows, and sing at the top of our lungs. Let’s learn to love again. God has given us to each other for edi­fi­ca­tion, to exhort one another, for encour­age­ment. We are God’s gift to one another. Don’t despise your broth­ers and sisters.

Come on over and sit on my side of the car. And please for­give me if I acci­den­tally (or pur­pose­fully) touch you. It’s going to hap­pen. Some­times my hands just wave about aim­lessly in the liv­ing. We won’t always agree. We won’t always see eye to eye. Some­times I will be wrong on this doc­trine or that. And some­times you will be.

But Scrip­ture is clear: They will know we are Chris­tians by our love. (John 13:35)

Photo credit

I’ve linked up here: A Wise Woman Builds Her HomeDeep Roots at Home,  Sim­ply Help­ing Him& Titus 2 Tues­days. Go check them out for more links to other blogs you might enjoy.

 

Gluten Free Bread {that actually tastes good}

Gluten Free Bread {that actually tastes good}

Appar­ently a rumor has been swirling around about me. And my bread. The word on the street is that peo­ple like it.

I know my fam­ily does. They actu­ally pre­fer it to reg­u­lar bread. I make it and they eat all the loaves up within min­utes. Well, maybe not that fast for all of it. I bake in bulk. The first loaf is gone before it has had a chance to cool. The oth­ers might last a cou­ple of days beyond that.

And I’m just as bad as the rest of them.

Which is why I don’t bake bread  nearly often enough, and my gluten free girls are left to cope with the store bought card­board that passes as gluten free bread. I’m not the least bit tempted by that stuff.

But, today I decided we needed some real bread. It isn’t too warm out­side, so every­thing seemed per­fect. {We have no air con­di­tion­ing, so this is an impor­tant fac­tor in August.} What excuse did I have?

Other than the fact that I was pack­ing for a camp­ing trip. And needed to make a meal for Sun­day. And we have com­pany com­ing to our house the day after we get home.

But that tends to be my nor­mal life. It’s how I roll.

And, I thought that while I was at it, I’d share the recipe with you. It’s not my own. I took a gluten free bak­ing class, and the woman who teaches it tweaked and tweaked until she came up with this star of a recipe. She should take a bow. She gives the recipe out freely to all who ask. I love her.

So here it is for you:

Gluten Free Bread

*Note: I mill my own rice flour, which makes it extra fresh and soft. I haven’t tried it with store bought rice flour, but if that’s all you have, it’s worth a shot!

Pre­heat oven to 375 degrees

Grind 3 cups brown rice
In large mixer, use your cookie pad­dles and add:

2 cups warm almond milk (or water)
1/2 cup maple syrup, honey, or agave (I use the maple syrup)
1 stick of soft but­ter (or 3/4 c light olive oil)
**Note: Here, I just put all the above ingre­di­ents in a saucepan, melt the but­ter, and warm the rest. Not to hot though, as that would kill the yeast.
3 eggs, room tem­per­a­ture
ground flaxseeds (I just fill up my seed/coffee grinder, mill what­ever it holds, and add that amount. This is an extra, optional ingre­di­ent, so you can add as much/little as you like.)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 c freshly ground rice flour
1/4 c tapi­oca flour
1/2 c raw mil­let (optional, only if you like crunch, which we love)
5 tsp SAF instant yeast
1 Tbsp Xan­than Gum
a squirt or so of lemon juice (to keep the bread fresh longer)

Mix all ingre­di­ents in mixer for about 4 min­utes. Spoon into (2) 8″ well oiled loaf pans and smooth the top of the dough. Let rise for about an hour. When plac­ing bread in oven, reduce tem­per­a­ture to 350* for 45 min­utes. Use a read ther­mome­ter to test the inter­nal tem­per­a­ture, which should read at least 190*F. {I don’t actu­ally do this step, but that’s how you can tell if it is done if you are unsure.}

Optional: Add 1/4 cup Potato Starch in the place of the tapi­oca starch.
Throw in a well ripened banana if one is sit­ting on your counter.
If you add 1 cup of pureed pump­kin, add 1/2 c addi­tional rice flour.

That’s it! It’s pretty easy.

I store my bread on the counter in a plas­tic bag. No need to refrig­er­ate it. And it stays moist and fresh. This is great slic­ing bread for sandwiches.

If you try it, let me know what you think. Also, feel free to ask me any ques­tions you have about it, although it’s pretty forgiving.

My girls gig­gled this morn­ing when they saw the fresh loaves of bread I baked after they went to bed last night. The first loaf is already gone.

Goodwill Treasure

Goodwill Treasure

I took my girls to the Good­will store the other day. We were search­ing for var­i­ous items. Skirts and such for the girls.

I always love look­ing at the odd things. Won­der­ing what I might find stashed among the var­i­ous bas­kets and triv­ets and what­ever those things are. Most of the time I come up empty handed.

This time I found an old Sam­sonite Train Case. It looks like it was almost never used. It is so pretty in all its but­tery yel­low glory.

train case

It took me back to when I was a lit­tle girl. My mom had one of these. She stored her make up in it when we trav­eled. I always loved play­ing with it. As I looked this old piece of lug­gage over, I was 6 again. Those latches felt the same as they did back then: sturdy, firm, and oh, so click­able! I used to open and shut it con­stantly. {My dear mother is prob­a­bly read­ing this, just shak­ing her head laugh­ing because she had no idea. Makes me won­der what mem­o­ries my chil­dren will have that I am obliv­i­ous to!}

So, I did what any other woman miss­ing her mama would do: I bought it.

Now what? Haha. It’s not like you can take it on an air­plane these days. And since most air­lines charge per checked bag, I can’t see check­ing it either. I haven’t rid­den in any trains lately.

So, I googled train cases.

train case knitting

Have you ever done that? You might be sur­prised with what you find. I know I was. Peo­ple do so many dif­fer­ent things with these old cases.

Sewing boxes. Make-up kit. Knit­ting box. Craft cen­ter. Writ­ing center.

train case writing station

 ele­ments of style

Charg­ing sta­tion! Who thinks of these things? I men­tioned in another post how I am not good about think­ing out­side of the box. This time it is lit­eral! I love this idea.

 

train case charging station

cool mom tech

What do you think? What would you do with your vin­tage train case? What should I do? I’m really lov­ing the charg­ing sta­tion idea. How con­ve­nient that would be to have them all together charg­ing in my sleep. But I also like the writ­ing sta­tion idea. Note cards, sta­tionery, stamps, and a cou­ple of pens all tucked neatly out of the way.

Oh! And I can add some style to it with some vinyl. Or decoupage.

 train case maps

etsy

So many options. I was so over­whelmed with the ideas out there, that I started a Pin­ter­est page for Train Cases! Go check it out.

Oh! I for­got to men­tion I found some of those old Pyrex refrig­er­a­tor dishes. Yup, I’m miss­ing my mom.

pyrex greens

etsy

Fea­tured Image Credits

Talking Modesty

Talking Modesty

While we were trav­el­ing, I had the time to relax with a cou­ple of good books. I will be review­ing them over the next few days and weeks.

Today, I’d like to intro­duce you to the best book I’ve read that per­tains to mod­esty from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive. Aptly named  More Than Rules, Bambi Moore tack­les the com­mon, and not so com­mon, ques­tions that are raised con­cern­ing Chris­t­ian modesty.

Let’s face it: few things strike a chord in women and girls like a con­ver­sa­tion about their mod­esty {or lack of it}. We get defen­sive, or smug I sup­pose. But I think mostly defensive.

So often I hear ladies say that peo­ple are judg­ing them for their attire. And this is from peo­ple on both ends of the spec­trum as well as those in the middle.

We are so insecure.

In my lim­ited expe­ri­ence, most peo­ple aren’t think­ing about you, or me, or any­one other than them­selves most of the time. It’s how we are.

But some­times, we need to have that talk, those words of coun­sel that point us in a more godly direc­tion when it comes to how we dress. I think it is an area that seems some­what con­fus­ing to many of us. That may seem odd, as I think most of us can iden­tify what *isn’t* mod­est. How­ever, it’s in the nitty gritty that we may need a bit of direc­tion. And that’s where More Than Rules comes in.

As the title hints, we aren’t talk­ing about a book that lays out the check­list of what you can wear and still be mod­est. Or what you can’t wear in order to be mod­est. You won’t get off that easy. Besides, Bambi will be the first to tell you that she isn’t your stan­dard for mod­esty. She doesn’t even give us much of a hint as to what her family’s “rules” are in this area of life.

She makes you dig a lit­tle deeper. She wants you to develop an under­stand­ing of what mod­esty is. But also what it isn’t. Some­times we can get so focused on the exter­nals that we for­get that the ori­gins of mod­esty on a per­sonal level begins in the heart. Who are you try­ing to impress? Your hus­band, your friends, the cute boy you see at church, the reflec­tion star­ing back at you, God? What moti­vates you when you pull out your clothes in the morning?

More than rules header

Bambi asks some hard ques­tions. She intro­duces you to some immod­est women. She dis­cusses what Chris­t­ian women ought to be adorn­ing them­selves with. And, she also dis­cusses why we need to have grace for women who don’t seem to have got­ten the memo about modesty.

I don’t know how she did it, but Bambi man­aged to dis­cuss these dif­fi­cult issues in a way that endears the reader to her and her topic. So, put your hack­les down. {In my quirky way, I first typed out shack­les. Haha. Maybe that word is just as applic­a­ble for some of us!} I highly rec­om­mend this ebook for every Chris­t­ian woman. Moth­ers and daugh­ters will be blessed to read it together. I look for­ward to read­ing this book with my daugh­ters as they grow into matu­rity. It will also make a great book for dis­cus­sion in a ladies’ group, either infor­mally or in a more for­mal set­ting. Or even one on one with a younger/older woman, what­ever the case may be in your situation.

My one com­plaint is that it is more of an Ebook rather than an eBOOK.  In other words, she left me want­ing more. I found myself engrossed in the book, read­ing parts of it aloud to my hus­band, “Lis­ten to what she says here! It’s bril­liant!” And too quickly I came to the end. Don’t get me wrong. She cov­ered so much in the book. It isn’t that I felt short­changed. It’s just that I truly enjoyed her writ­ing style, and the way she cov­ered this touchy sub­ject. I wasn’t quite done learn­ing! Although admit­tedly, I can’t think of what else she could have added.  I want to read it again to soak in some of what I may have missed in the first reading.

You can pur­chase More Than Rules from their web­site, which is linked through­out this post in the images of her book and the book title pages. {Oddly, the hyper­links aren’t ter­ri­bly clear in my posts, but just click on the title More Than Rules and it will take you to the page for order­ing.} It’s only $4.99, and avail­able in PDF or Ama­zon Kin­dle for­mat. Nook for­mat com­ing soon.

More Than Rules

Full dis­clo­sure: I am an affil­i­ate for this fan­tas­tic book. Only because I believe it is an excel­lent book though. The links included in this post send you to my affil­i­ate page. Thank you so much!

 

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