Choose this day whom you will serve...

VORTEX

All of my posts lately seem to be disappearing into a vortex or something. I have tried several times and I can see it when I post it, but when I come back it is gone.

I will try one more time to tell you all that I have gone home, and am no longer house sitting in town, so I have infrequent access to the computer right now especially until spring thaw and the roads dry out.

We joined Cub Scouts and Dave and I are den leaders. This has been great for the boys and we really like it too. In fact, that is the reason that I am in town right now. We have a meeting tonight. This is the first one that I am supposed to lead....pray for me.

Large groups of kids don't bother me at all. The grownups who will be watching me however....well, they bring to the surface every shy bone I have ever had. May God give me strength to get through this one, they will get easier after this.

Also we have been talking about fences and greenhouses and chicken tractors. So the chicken tractors will be a soon building project I think, and the greenhouse is to be attached to the house so it will have heat and be usable year round. Of course that means it can't be built in the winter, which it definitely still is here in our neck of the woods.The fences will have to wait for spring thaw. Since we are going vegetarian, we don't need meat animals...but we are ovo-lacto so the eggs and milk will be invaluable.

Lots of changes around here...I am not even sure how to start explaining most of them. I hope all of you are doing well. Sorry it has been so long since I have been around. Hopefully I will be here more...if the vortex allows it.

God Bless.

Jenn

My Grandma's very best and (almost) foolproof bread/roll dough recipe

This dough is absolutely great. The recipe is over 100 years old and it is highly adaptable. For one thing, it has only one rising time so it can be ready in an hour or so. You can use white flour but it works just as well with all whole wheat four (not many recipes do), you can substitute oatmeal or other grains for part of the flour, you can use soy or rice milk in place of the milk, you can use flax seed as a substitute for part of the oil. You can also cook this in an oven that has not been pre-heated, and the temperature can vary from 325-425 with only a slight change in cooking time. If you try it, let me know what you think.. Oh yeah, the spoons are not to be measuring spoons but plain eating type spoons.

1 tsp. salt
2 - 3 heaping T. yeast
1/4 C. sugar (fructose or turbinado may be used)
1/4 C. oil
1/4 C. very warm water

Mix together with a spoon, set aside for 5 minutes. In the meantime warm the milk used below...

Mix in
1 C. of warm milk
1 egg
2  1/2 C. of flour

This will make a dough that looks similar to cake mix in consistency. Set aside to rise until double, you can punch it down now and let it rise again if you need to for some reason. If not then turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Pinch off pieces of dough (size will depend on desired size of finished rolls) and place in greased baking pan, rolling once to coat (for a softer crust). Bake for about 20-30 minutes depending on temp. when they are browned then they are done.

You can also roll this out into a rectangle after kneading, and cover with melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon and cut into cinnamon rolls. 100 year old recipes aren't typically known for being low fat, but they sure are yummy.

Art contest

I received this from a support group that I belong to. It says anyone may enter and I thought perhaps some of your children would be interested. I was asked to forward this to anyone whom I thought would be interested and I invite you to do the same. Here is the message in its entirety.

Please forward this contest information to anyone you think may be interested.

Purpose: Create a picture to appear on the cover of a novel.

Description: "An Underground Cry" is a novel aimed at 4th through 6th graders.
It is fiction with Christian themes.  The lead character, Carolyn, is a young
girl who discovers a family living underground.  She befriends a girl named
Martad who has a hunger for God, but only a very vague memory of some stories of
Jesus.  Martad has always lived underground.  From her limited understanding of
Jesus she has painted a picture of Jesus dying on a tree.  She has never
actually seen a tree, and has only imagined one from the roots she has seen.
The book describes the picture like this: "It looked as if it had been done with
watercolors.  It pictured a man frowning.  He looked like he was in pain.  He
was standing against something that looked like the trunk of an upside down tree
with no leaves.  The background of the picture was black.  It was in a gray
metal frame.  Carolyn didn’t think it was a very pretty picture."
The artwork for this contest should depict Carolyn and Martad, both elementary
age in Martad's bedroom talking, with Martad's picture on the wall in the
background.  Carolyn is younger but taller than Martad.  Martad, having lived
underground, is quite pale.  They are both wearing loose fitting, light-brown,
shirts and pants.  The room has a stone floor and a small bed with a golden
headboard. The bed may, but need not be included in the artwork.
The winning artwork will appear on the book's cover.

Guidelines: Each entry must be original artwork by the submitter and should be a
color picture submitted electronically as a JPG, GIF or PNG file of at least
300dpi in RGB color mode.  Submit to pwrichs@peoplepc.com

Prize: $100 plus four signed copies of the finished book.  Only one winning
entry will be used.  The winning entry will be selected by the book's author.

Eligibility: Anyone is eligible to enter, but contest information has only been
sent to home school support groups in the state of Washington.

Deadline: Entries must be submitted by February 17, 2006.

If you have questions or would like more information, contact Rich Sexton at
pwrichs@peoplepc.com

Trying to give up coffee for tea and other diet changes

This should be vastly interesting. I found out that the best way for me to control my blood sugar (not diabetic, just unstable) is to make diet changes I hadn't thought of. We already eat only whole grains, homemade desserts (and not many of them), etc. but I learned the other day that reducing or eliminating animal products from your diet is the best way to stabilize your blood sugar. So, while I can't convince my family to give it up entirely, we will be drastically reducing the amounts of meat we eat. We already ate meat only once a day but we will be trying for only 2 or 3 times a week and reducing from there. I am not giving up dairy or eggs because those will be from our own animals as soon as the fences are mended. I drink my coffee with cream and sugar, so that is why I am switching to tea. Has anyone else made a similar diet change, and if so how did you go about it?

   You know, the funny thing is that the Bible study we have been doing with our neighbor centers on Daniel and the first thing we studied in Daniel was the health message embedded in the first chapter. They ate a vegetarian diet and were strengthened by it. Hmmmm...... I suppose God is trying to tell me something and I should listen before it affects my health. Not telling anyone else to do this, so please don't get offended. I am just amazed at how God always brings things into my life from multiple angles at once to make sure that I get it.  

Ever noticed that when you live in the country, the word "neighbor" takes on a completely different meaning?

My neighbors called me today. By neighbor I actually mean "anyone who lives on the same mountain that I do" regardless of the distance between our actual homes. These neighbors live about a mile and a half away. That is a pretty close neighbor around here! A lot of the properties are vacant, for sale, or the owner uses them only as summer homes so a full time neighbor can be few and far between. On our side of the mountain there are 8-10 full time families right now.

They called to schedule a Bible study with us but it just made me think about how living in the country changes certain word definitions. I am also thinking of words like  dark and quiet. They mean different things in the city.

Any other words that have changed in meaning for you since you moved "out"? It could be funny to hear some of them.

Fences, animals,straw houses and future plans...

I talked to Dave last night about future plans for fences and animals and building a house. I suppose I have neglected to mention it for fear of you realizing I am insane, but all that is hidden will be made known. When I said straw houses in the title, that was not a figure of speech.

We live in an old double wide trailer house. We had to fix a lot of things just to make it livable, but there is a lot of work that still needs done and how much work and money can you really pour into something that is goind to fall apart anyway. I mean they weren't exactly built to last. We did a lot of research on this and decided that what we want to do is build a straw house to replace the trailer.

Are visions of the three little pigs running through your heads yet? It really isn't anything like that. Straw homes are beautiful, easier and cheaper to build, and have an R value  of approximately 50. A new stick built home has an R value of about 13.

 Bale Watch

Strawhomes.com

Greenbuilder.com

These sites and many more have some great info on straw bale, earthen, cob, cordwood and many other interesting non-traditional types of houses. Check them out before you decide I am certifiable, okay?

Anyway, we (especially Dave) do have some concerns and are not ready to rush headlong into this. So after talking about fences and where to put them and what kind of animals we do (or do not) want to get back, we decided we are definitely getting goats, pigs and chickens again. However we will not be getting 125 baby chicks like last time. Ever tried to butcher 100 roosters before their testosterone gets the best of them? Not fun.

The biggest undertaking though is building a strawbale barn to house these guys. It is after all, cheaper and easier than traditional building methods. Besides....I know this sounds like animal cruelty, but it isn't...if we screw up, I would rather screw up on the barn than on the house. For example if the roof falls in on the chickens, that would be preferable to having it fall in on my family. We figured this will be good practice.

So, does anyone out there have any experience with building this type of structure? Any helpful hints (besides don't do it, or seek professional help immediately) to offer? Wanna come and help? Okay, enough desperation. Actually I am really excited about this. It should be uummm...interesting, to say the least.

My Bible Study for today

This really made me think. I am trying to read my way through the Psalms, which is really difficult for me. Too much abstract unconnected stuff. it is easier for me to read something with a plot. i have the same problem with movies.

Anyway, I also get about 5 daily devotional kind of things e-mailed to me which I try to remember to read. The reason that this one got me I guess is because my husband has been at working late quite a bit lately. He works in town (an hour away) so he leaves at 6:30 and gets home between 6 and 6:30 every day. He is a transmission mechanic. When he works late it is because someone that we know has a broken tranny and can't or won't pay the shop fees to get it fixed. He has a taxi company that uses him for their trans problems and they called the week before Christmas.

Great news! A little extra cash. Just at the right time, as always. Now, don't get me wrong, God always  provides exactly what we need and we knew that He would provide now. We were just happy to see how that provision would come. So Dave worked an hour early and 3 hours late every day last week, got the cab fixed and delivered right before he came home Friday.

Apparantly that cab lasted all of 2 hours before it broke. It was a part failure, something about a band nreaking and taking out all of the second gear clutches. I really don't know. I can't even change the oil. My dad was a mechanic and my husband is a mechanic, so I never needed to know. Anyway, Dave always warranties his work for 12 months or 12,000 miles so we have to fix it for free. No big deal except that I have a little trouble with this part emotionally.

I know he needs to fix it. I want him to be a man of his word. i do not want to rip off the taxi company. But it sure is easier to have your husband gone every night when you know he is making money. I struggle with it a little when it is a comeback and it is costing us money. Over the years, I have learned to deal with this graciously (most of the time) and not to resent it (most of the time). Last night Dave said something about knowing that he had been gone a lot and how I was "the awesomest" for not being a pain about it. Not great grammar I know, but it sure made me feel like a good wife!

So this devotional today was about how we, as wives, should act when our husbands come home from a long work related absence and it just really struck me that if I had reacted differently I could have really wounded Dave for no good reason. I am so grateful that God has given me the grace to react rightly and not selfishly because if Dave had gotten home 15 minutes before he did....weeellll. That was when the 4 year old needed bathroom help, I was bandaging the burn my 6 year old got from backing into the woodstove, and the 6 year old had something in his eye. All at once of course.

I just thought that probably I am not the only one who has struggled with this and maybe this would touch someone elses heart as well. I don't want to reprint it because I don't know their copyright stuff, so here is the link....   http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/devotionals/encouragement/

Hopefully that works and you don't have to cut and paste it, but I am still new at this so.....

About our family

I realized that I didn't really give a lot of information on myself and our family although there is a little bit in my profile. My name is Jenn, my husband, our children and I live in WA state, on 40 acres way back in the mountains.

We had a rocky year in some ways and had to get rid of all of our animals, except our dog and cats. We had a lease option on a house and unfortunately the other guy didn't give any of our money to the bank. We had to move rather quickly when they decided to repossess the house that they thought was vacant. It was God's hand moving in our lives for sure, now we own 40 acres instead of leasing 20, and we are very happy here. We only moved 4 miles down the road! But the house had to be fixed before the fences could go up. We are hoping to get our fences put back up in ths spring so that we can have them again. The kids especially miss their goats!

We have been homeschooling for 4 years and use a lot of different stuff, mostly unit studies and whole books. We use KONOS for unit study activities, but we don't really follow the character trait format, we sort of pick and choose the units we want to do. We love Ignite the Fire by Terri Camp, Cindi Rushton and Lifestyle of Learning. We use a lot of notebooking, and have 3 ring binders all over the house. Scrapbooking is currently popular, probably because it involves a lot of stickers, stamps and cool gel pens. We also supplement with some workbook or activity pages and use Horizons math.

My sons are 8, 6 and 4 years old. My 14 year old daughter recently moved in with her father who lives in town. We are housesitting for my mother in a small town right now, but she will be home in a week and then we can go home.I am ready to go home!! The trains, cars and next door neighbors dogs are wearing on me already.

We raise as much of our own food as possible, and preserve it. We do have electricity, but we could get by without it if we needed to. We have a woodstove, propane oven, kerosene lamps and a generator for running the well pump. We live right at the edge of a clearing in the woods, this template looks a lot like home.We don't have a lake though, we have a pond and a stream. The neighbors (on the 40 acres next to us) have a lake that we can use to go fishing. .

We are pretty outdoorsy, and most of our activities reflect that, except my needlework stuff. My husband is a mechanic and works about an hour away from home in the closest big town.

I suppose that pretty well describes our family. Nice to "meet" all of you who come in here. Leave me a message so I will know you were here!