I give up

Posted on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 at 12:42

I really wanted to be able to maintain two blogs - keeping my homeschooling one seperate from my homestead one but I just can't do it. For the last three years my other blog has been a catch all for my entire life's events... homeschooling, womanhood, homemaking and a million other little thoughts and aspirations so I bow down to the pressure and am maintaining only the one blog.

You can always find me over at THE MAPLES so I hope that anyone reading will join me there

PS

THE MAPLES in red above is a link to the other blog... I can't get it to underline and look like one for some strange and unknown reason. LOL

My apologies to anyone that couldnt get through with the link - it has now been updated! *blush*

Letter Writing

Posted on Saturday, October 21, 2006 at 03:07

I posted an entry on my homeschool blog about letter writing... go check it out!

The Maples

I am so tired!

Posted on Friday, October 20, 2006 at 05:41

It has been a long week - you know the kind. Its one of those weeks where by the end of it you feel kind of like someone came and turned you inside out and the back the right way again but didn't really do it properly so you are still kind of all over the place and messed up.

I had to go into Toronto twice this week - which means trains and buses and subways (oh my!) and hours of commuting time. There hasn't been even one day this week that we haven't been out and around somewhere and I really just want a day to recover from it all. I am an introvert by nature... I don't like being away from home so much and mentally I am still reeling from it all. I am so tired that I don't even have anything blog worthy to say and thats hard for me to do!

So, there isnt anything really very new around here. I am going to go to bed early and snuggle with my sweetie tonight and sleep in until whenever I can tomorrow...

Have a great weekend!

Saturdays Snapshot

Posted on Saturday, October 14, 2006 at 11:45

Song of the Flower

I am a kind word uttered and repeated

By the voice of nature;

I am a star fallen from the

Blue tent upon the green carpet.

I am the daughter of the elements

With whom Winter conceived;

To whom Spring gave birth; I was

Reared in the lap of Summer and I

Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze

To announce the coming of light;

At eventide I join the birds

In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with

My beautiful colors, and the air

Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace the slumber the eyes of

Night watch over me, and as I

Awaken I stare at the sun which is

The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to

The voices of birds, and dance

To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath;

I am the memory of a moment of happiness;

I am the last gift of the living to the dead;

I am part of joy and part of sorrow.

But I look up high to see only the light,

And never look down to see my shadow.

This is the wisdom that man must learn.

~ Khalil Gibran ~

Love Thursday

Posted on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 06:58

I have this nasty little problem with depression. I have it pretty much under control unless of course I become mindless and forget to take the little blue pill for my tyroid everyday. Just that one wee gland in your throat can wreck havoc on even the most upbeat individuals. So, I have been off in my grumpy place, feeling sorry for myself and ranting inside my head about how I felt that I was finally getting things under control with my latest added medication and now I was backsliding. Not once did it occur to me that I was forgetting to take my thyroid. Can we say duh? All together now.... DUH!

Anyway, I am feeling much better now. It appears that our welfare situation is under control (hooray!) and my only pressing concern is the fact that my new medication makes people literally want to eat sugar straight from the bowl the cravings are so bad. I don't know whats worse... gaining weight and being happy or losing some weight and feeling terrible. For example: last night I needed a sugar fix so badly that I made up a cake mix and very seriously contemplated sitting on my bed with a good book, the batter and a very large spoon.

*Sigh*

Well now, all that said, today is after all, LOVE THURSDAY...

I was honestly sitting here thinking that I didn't really have a whole lot to offer for love Thursday this week until I watched my youngest darling with our dog. She was petting her every so nicely, and then leaned forward and licked the top of the dogs head. When I asked her why she was licking my dog, she answered, in all sincerity and with great affection: "because she likes it"

Apparently, love is licking the dogs head... just because she likes it.

I love you to Missy Maggie Boo-hoo... you with all your loving floppiness and snuggly soft fur but I regret to say that I do not love you enough to lick your beautiful head. I will leave that up to Boo thankyouverymuch.

Todays Journal Prompt

Did you have a childhood pet? What are you fondest memories of it?

Menu Planning

Posted on Saturday, October 7, 2006 at 08:05

Menu Planning

Any mom, whether working outside of the home or as a homemaker is a busy mom and anything that assists in cutting back on time spent with our heads stuck in a freezer or running to the grocery store at the last minute, hungry and often cranky children in tow is a good thing. When I am homeschooling my daughters, the last thing that I want to worry about doing is a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up something for lunch or to have to take 15 minutes to try and remember the contents of my freezer so that I can pull something out for supper. As often as not, when I feel this way I get frustrated and overwhelmed and end up either wanting to eat out or make something quick, and often nowhere near at nutritious as I would like. Not to mention the damage it can do to a family’s budget!

I decided to take control of our families eating habits and my first step was to devise a way to be able to quickly and easily know exactly what I have on hand to prepare for our meals. I am a technical sort of gal so my immediate thought was to create an excel database on my computer. Not only is it easy to edit, sort and if needed print out, I can upload it to my palm pilot and carry it everywhere with me, thus eliminating the need to stand in the grocery store wondering whether or not I have a certain item on hand when I have forgotten to bring my grocery list. Because you can add extra pages to the database, I can also keep my menu plan for the next two weeks, a grocery list, a list of our favorite meals and my price book all in one location.

I started by creating the following pages in excel: Freezer, Food Storage, Menu Plans, Price Book, Weeks of the Year, Favorite Meals and Grocery List. Each has a different tab colour for easy reference.

Freezer

On this page, I created the following headings…

• Category: this is the type of product it is. Baking, breads, dairy, finger foods, fruit, leftovers, pasta, seafood, soups/stews and vegetables
• Product
• Date of Purchase
• Amount: be specific. If its leftovers and there is enough for only two people make sure that you mark it that way.

Food Storage

This is a list of all food items that we have in the house outside of the freezers. The only thing that I do not add to this list are the items that we go through quickly such as milk, bread, fresh fruits or vegetables, cheese, yogurt etc.

Here, I added these headings:

• Product
• Date of Purchase
• Storage Location
• Amount

Menu Planning

This page holds two full weeks of menu’s starting with breakfast, snack #1, lunch, snack #2, supper main, supper sides and dessert. I can easily print out this page and post it on the fridge for easy reference.

Price Book

A price book is a record of store and flyer sales. Most stores rotate their in store specials and by keeping track of the special prices, and the stores that they are found in, you can soon determine which store has the best sales price and when the item generally goes on sale.

To keep track of these items, I wanted to log the following information:

• Week #: this is the number of the week during the year. As I log the prices, I will eventually be able to see a pattern of the sale weeks for certain items.
• Item
• Store
• Price
• Sale?
• Flyer?
• Price Reduction: Here I will write the difference between the normal price and the sale price or whether or not the price is one that is an “in season” price (for fruits and vegetables)

Weeks of the Year

Here I made a list of the weeks of the year from week #1 to #52 along with the applicable dates. In addition, I added a column for any specific holidays, birthdays or anniversaries during that week so that I can plan ahead for any special meals.

Favorite Meals

Whenever I try a new recipe, I will mark it down here so that I can easily refer to it when creating my menu plans

• Type of the Recipe
• Recipe Title
• Location of the Recipe: write the recipe book name and page number, or if its a recipe on the computer.
• Comments: write down anything that you may have added, taken away or would do differently with the recipe when its made again.

Planning the Menu's

When I am planning my meals, I try to keep the same basic meals every week for breakfast, lunch and snacks. For suppers, I try to balance out the types of meals and plan to use the crock pot on days that I know we will be out for part of the day and I won’t want to bother with cooking dinner when we get home.

Breakfast

Monday – Toast

Tuesday – Cold cereal

Wednesday – Fresh fruit and muffins

Thursday – Toast

Friday – Hot cereal

Snacks

Monday – Fresh fruit in season/Cheese and crackers

Tuesday – Fun snack (I have several snack recipe books)/Carrots and celery with dip

Wednesday – Chips, pretzels or popcorn/Yogurt or pudding

Thursday – Homemade baked goods/Fresh fruit in season

Friday – Cheese, crackers and meat circles/Seasonal vegetables and dip

Lunch

Monday – Soup and sandwich

Tuesday – Pizza

Wednesday – Eggs and Toast

Thursday – Hot Dogs

Friday – Sandwiches

Supper

Monday – Chicken/Fish

Tuesday – Crock pot/Soup or stew

Wednesday – Beef

Thursday – Packed supper for after Swimming

Friday – Treat Night/Dessert Night

Saturday - Pasta

If you are interested in a copy of my excel database, feel free to email me using the link on the side bar and I would be happy to send it to you!

Thank goodness its Friday

Posted on Friday, October 6, 2006 at 07:53

Stuff and Nonsense

Wow what a week. Things were really busy here - I was at out of the house appointments nearly everyday but am proud to say that we actually had a home cooked dinner every night this week that wasn't simple things like soup.

I wasn't able to actually follow the menu plan because we needed extra ingredients like table cream and cheese and we didn't have the money to purchase them so I had to forgo some of the main courses. Oh well, hopefully we get some money next week and I can get some of the basic staples. We went to the food bank but the supplies are so low that they are only allowing 1 box of Kraft dinner, 2 small cans of soup, 1 can of tuna, 1 box of cereal etc per family. Fortunatly they had a ton of bread and bagels that are not worth any points (we have 35 "shopping" points for our family) so we stocked up on those and put them in the freezer. If your family happens to be able to afford extra canned goods for the food bank, please don't forget to donate whenever you can... there are so many families like ours that rely on the food banks who can only go once a month because of limitations that the food banks put on thier programs and often, we are not getting enough canned and dry goods to make it through two weeks. Thank goodness for our freezer stock because when that is gone, I don't know what we are going to do for meats and vegetables as those are not provided at the food banks. It is a continual battle with welfare - I don't think that they realize that we are not having to ask for assistance from them because we WANT to. I have no choice if I want to be able to feed and house my children and I am so tired of being treated like a dead beat who is trying to use the system. God willing this is a VERY temporary situation for us... but it would be nice to be treated like human beings. Some days I feel like we need to stand on a busy street corner with our daughters and a large sign that says "We want to work but cannot do so for awhile - please tell welfare to stop cutting off our assistance for no reason my children are hungry!" Kind of like that guy that we saw a few months ago standing on the street corner with a sign saying "Childrens Aid Destroys Families!" Unfortunatly, my pride does not allow me the liberty of doing such a thing. Sigh.

The week however, feels productive and I can end on a good note knowing that I did all that I could to achieve my goals.  

Love Thursday

(a day late I know, but humor me)

Today Bughead was working on his computer and using our network, doing other things on my computer downstairs. I of course, being the internet junkie that I am, wanted to use the laptop so I plopped myself down on Boo's bed so that we could be in the same room together. As usual when he and I are in the same room, the girls start filtering in one at a time, and the fun begins. The Bug will have the two littles tickling his back and playing with his hair - putting in little ribbons and hair elastics (he is needy that way LOL) while Ashley and I chat on the bed and I threaten her very life for playing around with my feet. Usually someone will put on some type of music and then of course everyone starts singing. Today, we were singing along to "It Ain't Gonna Rain No More" which is one of the coolest songs because even if you don't know the words, the chorus is really easy - and its one of those songs that you can sing REALLY loudly because its fun. The chorus goes like this:

It ain't gonna rain no more no more

It ain't gonna rain no more!

How in the heck can I wash my neck

If it ain't gonna rain no more?

Of course, when you have a fun chorus like that which can be sung loudly, you have to start singing each round of the chorus differently each time, with different voices, really deeply, as loudly as you can, using exaggerated accents etc.

Love is singing at the top of your lungs with your entire family just because its fun... and not caring who hears you. Add a couple of dogs to the mix, some extremely loud music and alot of dancing and then you have an entire love fest.

Photo Friday

Miss Boo has informed me that she does not like "pictures without my colour in them momma!" but I have a fondness for black and white photographs. She is going to have a hard time when we move because I hope to frame and put some of my photography on the wall going up the stairs... all in black and white with black frames and with those clip frames that are just class and no visible frame in various sizes. I like the idea of this because its easy to resize and print my pictures without using up all the coloured ink and I can change the pictures whenever I choose to inexpensively and easily.  

"There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually, over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself."

John Gregory Brown

This weeks menu

Posted on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 07:13

Monday: Crispy Fish Fillets, Basmati Rice and Mixed Veggies

Tuesday: Hamburgers and Mashed Potatoes

Wednesday: Baked Omlette Squares, Rice, Corn

Thursday: Shrimp Linguine Alfredo, Garlic Bread, Salad

Friday: Colourful Corn Chowder, Dinner Rolls

Saturday: Cross Rib Roast (leftovers), mashed potatoes, Baked Corn

Sunday: Leftovers

Society Saddens Me...

Posted on Sunday, October 1, 2006 at 03:01

I have been pondering alot lately about my families financial situation. In a nutshell, we are broke. I mean BROKE broke. Not just oh, well we are scraping the bottom of the barrel, but we had an income of $1000.00 in the last three months for a family of 5 kinda broke. There are extenuating circumstances that are causing my husband or I the ability to work and we are frequently having to fight with the local welfare offices for continued support. We stuck it out for 6 months before finally admitting, to a degree, defeat and asking for financial assistance. We have been blessed that we followed our Prophets admonishions about storing a years worth of food and have been living off of that for many many months. We are now down to our freezer stock and yesterday, we cleared out the chest freezer and inventorized the entire contents along with the contents of the upright freezer and merged the two together. I now have a database that enables me to quickly and easily see exactly what foods we have on hand and prepare my weekly menu plans from it. We rely on the food bank for canned goods and purchase milk, eggs and bread whenever we are able to do so. Things have been hard and stressful but we are making our way through and count on Heavenly Fathers wisdom and our faith to get us through this time in our lives. We have lost nearly everything... one of our vehicles, my husbands ability to work, our mental stability (both DH and I are on approximatly 800.00 a month in medications), our peace of mind and we are in the process of selling our home in the hope that we will be able to move to our other house, as the mortgage there is 400.00 less a month than it is here. As a result of our immediate need for frugality, we are finding ourselves embracing more and more a homemade lifestyle that we had always talked about but didn't ever get around to doing as money was rarely a concern and so living more frugally not an immediate necessity. Now however, it is.

My need for a more frugal lifestyle and the ability to make more items homemade rather than store bought has led me to internet searches for others like me... and I find it almost disconcerting that many of the places I am finding assistance and inspiration are, by their own definition, "old fashioned". When did we, as a society (and obviously I was guilty of this as well) so obsessive with the quick, the packaged and the popular that we have managed to classify anything and anyone that is "homemade" as old fashioned? Certainly there are some things that I simply cannot make for as cheaply as I can purchase it but the majority of items that I need and use in my home can easily be homemade. The role of a woman within the home, caring for her family is not, by my estimation anything LIKE being "old fashioned".

Ask the soccer moms and the homeschoolers who are forever shuttling their offspring to one lesson or another whether or not their "job" is old fashioned. Perhaps we are the up and coming trend in homemakers... those we are working our way back to a more reasonable lifestyle, one with homemade goods that we can be certain won't pickle our childrens internal organs or have them reach puberty before the age of 11. We live in a society where medications are ceasing to work in certain individuals because of overuse. Every where on the news we hear more and more about global warming and the environment. People are being admonished to recycle and reuse lest they continue to murder the planet that we live on. The prophet of our church admonishes us to remember that we are the chosen ones to live in this, the last dispensation. I can't turn on the news with my children in the room because there isn't a blessed thing on there that I wouldn't feel completely uncomfortable with them watching, not to mention the fact that we don't allow them to watch "normal" tv without carefully scrutinizing what the show is, whether or not there is swearing and alternative lifestyle references contained within it.

I am far from being the "old fashioned" woman that I want to be... its a daily struggle. Sometimes, I want to spirit my family and others off in a re-enactment of "The Village" and live off the grid in a time so much simpler than our own. Certainly I am not about to go off and build myself a butter churn (although with three young, healthy daughters to churn the stuff, its something that I may consider in the future) nor am I willing to get rid of my computer (heaven forbid!) or my microwave but becoming determined to live a healthier, more old fashioned lifestyle is far from out of the question and I am taking my baby steps. We line dry our laundry whenever possible. We are working on making our own food at home all of the time rather than purchasing boxed meals.

If someone wants to call me "old fashioned" well, I suppose I will just have to nod and smile and say "Yep. Isnt it great?" but in my heart I know that we are indeed the way of the future because someday, somehow people as a whole are going to have to wake up and realize that for the majority of us we are not going to be able to function if anything were to happen to remove all of our ability to just pop on over the fast food restaurant or the grocery store for something to eat. Heaven forbid that we ever lived through a war on our country because I would imagine that some of us (myself included) would very well be lost as to how to survive and provide for ourselves unless it was all prepacked in a nice, handy dandy box.

I give up

Posted on Saturday, September 30, 2006 at 04:23

OK this is the THIRD time I have typed an entry only to pull a stupid and delete the entire thing.

So, this is it for today.

Life sized sidewalk chalk portraits of each of the girls

Love Thursday

Posted on Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 04:39

Karen over at Chookooloonks has started "love Thursday" and since I was a Lemming in a past life or something I simply must join in.

Bughead and I have had alot of obstacles in our marriage, and to be honest, even had times where we didn't think that we would make it through... by that I mean that we sometimes felt that we didn't have the energy or desire to make our marriage work anymore. Nothing is harder than thinking to yourself that you may be better off without your husband or hearing your husband say it to you. We have worked through those times, and I am sure that we will encounter them again in the future but we love each other and want to make our marriage work.

This morning I had an out of town appointment with my daddy in law and when I went in at 7:30 am to say goodbye my sweetie was still sleeping soundly. I hesitated to wake him up because I know that he hasn't been sleeping very well lately. I decided to let him sleep and then left. When I arrived back home this afternoon, he said that I should never leave without waking him up first. Apparently, he woke up about 15 minutes after I left and was in a panic not remembering where I was.

Love is panicking when you are just as concerned that you have misplaced your spouse as you would be if you thought that you misplaced your child.

Todays Journal Prompt

Love is...

Todays Quote

"Babies. Nothing but love wrapped in skin."

A quiet day

Posted on Wednesday, September 27, 2006 at 07:06

Today was rather quiet. Bughead and I slept in until around 10 am which was nice after yesterdays more hectic schedule. I fell asleep early last night but apparently he stayed up until around 2 am and even though I was lying right beside him I didn't hear a sound.

I spent the afternoon at the library yesterday getting my book fix. I feel so lost without several books beside me waiting to be read but I can't get any books out of the library until we pay our overdue fines and at the moment, I don't have the money to do so.  

Anyway, I am researching book making and paper making because I want to try my hand at it and frankly, it looks simple enough that even *I* can do it. Don't kid yourself, I can't knit or crochet or sew because alas, I am a person of little patience and have a tendancy to throw myself into something that I really like, do it to DEATH and then bore of it completely. Ok and the truth is that I am a little cheap when it comes to getting journals. I love Winners because they have great journals and they are inexpensive. If I couldnt get them there, I am gonna make them darnit!

 Quote of the Day

"I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!"

Website of the Day

Modest World

they have the most awesome hats!!

Master bedroom decorating plans...

Posted on Monday, September 25, 2006 at 06:40

I am so excited! I purchased a new duvet cover on ebay for a really really good price. The seller claims that although its not in the packaging it is a brand new duvet cover, tags intact and from a smoke free home. I have been looking for a new duvet cover for what feels like FOREVER because the darned things are just soooo expensive and we really can't afford to buy one at the 100.00+ that they are always asking for them. Getting a bed in a bag is also a bit of a pain because it always includes a dust ruffle and the way that our sleigh bed is designed, it has high sides and the dust ruffle wouldn't show. I thought about making my own cover but then I would have to take a crash course on sewing, pay someone or wait a kabillion years for my mom to make me one.

Anyway, I will have the duvet cover in a few days and if all goes well, it will be everything that the seller claimed it would be and I can start getting idea's for decorating our very large master bedroom at the other house.

We have a dark wooden king sized sleigh bed, two end tables, and a large double dresser. The room itself is big enough to have a sleeping area and a small "sitting" area and we plan on adding a small gas or woodstove into the room as it has a chimney access from the original structure thats in great condition. The floors have been completely redone and rather than staining them we left them in their natural state and just clear coated them so they are a pale gold colour and still have all the cracks etc. that old floors have between the boards. I like that more "rustic" feel for the floors and besides, it was neat to find that once apon a time there was an area rug in the room (we know this because when we removed the lanolium from the floor they had refinished the floors... all around where the area rug would sit!) and underneath the area rug, there was a loose floor board that you could pop open and store valuables on the ceiling below.

This is the duvet cover:

I want to paint the walls a really pale, buttercream yellow colour to go with the wood and the duvet cover.

We were also searching for several years for a nice tall dresser for Bughead with deep drawers at a good price... and walked by several because we didn't feel that they were built well enough, the cost was too high or the drawers weren't deep enough. One day I was at value village, a local used clothing and household goods store when I came across a beautiful antique dresser with a swivel mirror and DEEP drawers that match the same lines and colour as our furniture.

I also got a 1950's style make up table from a family friend who moved to Florida and a wrought iron make up table chair from my daddy-in-laws wife. I plan on covering the make up table (it has a mirror that opens up from inside the top of the table and I can't STAND that because then the girls are always in my makeup LOL) with a nice cloth and topping it with a square table topper set sideways so that one of the corner points down the front. I haven't decided what one yet but I have priced them out on average at around $35.00 or less for a nice one... here are two in the style that that I was thinking of:

Aside from the paint, the total cost (at the moment) to do our masterbedroom:

Duvet cover: $30.00 (included shipping)

Antique dresser with swivel mirror: $40.00

Table topper: approx $30.00

Make up table: FREE!

Wrought iron chair: FREE!

Can't beat that can you?

Now I just need to move and strip, oh, around 6 or so layers of wallpaper off the walls in that bedroom.

 Todays Journal Prompt

Have you ever been searching for that ONE special item for yourself or for your home and then suddenly, at just the right time found it exactly like you wanted for a fabulous price? Describe that item, where you found it, the price etc.

 Quote of the Day

"I am getting to that age where I want to go braless... it pulls the wrinkles out of my face!" ~ unknown

The Father Who Cares

Posted on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at 12:57

The Father who Cares

First Presidency Message, September 2006 Ensign.

Our church has a monthly magazine and at the very start of each issue, you will always find a short message from the First Presidency of the church. Thought provoking and inspiring, these messages fill me with the spirit but rarely does one touch me the way that this months did.

The topic: Fatherhood.

One might wonder why the topic of fatherhood would touch a woman. After all I am certainly not a man nor am I a father, but the message wasn’t just for fathers. In fact, it was more for me as a wife and as a woman than it was for my husband.

The article begins as you would expect: talking about a father and his family but it then abruptly changes to quotes from the article of a veteran criminal court judge entitled the following:

“Nine Words That Can Stop Juvenile Delinquency”

The nine words suggested were: PUT THE FATHER BACK AT THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY.

Here’s where I sat up and began to take notice. I had been praying about this very subject. I know that my duty as a wife is to “hearken unto my husband as he hearkens unto the Father” and I know that there is a significant difference between having a righteous man at the head of my household and an unrighteous one.

Many women rebel against the dominion of a man in their household, believing that this give them a measure of control over them, but this is not the reason that God has ordained the men’s and women’s roles in the manner in which he did. God does not intend for a man to rule over his wife, but rather for him to guide and direct his family in a manner that is pleasing unto God. God is in charge of our marriages, not the husband. Many times I have to step back and remember this when I feel thwarted or angry at my husband’s rightful place as the head of the household.

The Importance of Marriage and Family

As a Latter-day Saint, I know only too well the purpose and meaning behind marriage and family. All around me I see marriages crumbling, taking the families well being with them. Fatherless children, fighting parents, unstable situations for our children and the results that accompany the downfall of marriage and a mans God given authority. There are women who rebel against allowing a man to do what he was hardwired to do: provide for his family, to protect them, and to take care of them. Men and women were designed differently for a purpose. Men know instinctively that their position is to be at the head of the household just as women know instinctively that their position is to nurture and care for the family.

Women need to stop thinking that we are the same as men because we simply aren’t. We don’t think like them or act like them. We are not as physically strong as them. We are different and that’s a good thing.

How many marriages may have been saved if the man took his position at the head of the home because his wife allowed him, even asked him, to do so? Are we as women, in a modern society with modern thinking undermining our men to the extent that we are emasculating them and preventing them from being the men that they are designed by God to be? If this is the case, are we in part to blame for our men’s attitudes towards marriage and family and subsequently the way that our youth are acting in society?

If more women were to uphold their men and welcome their ability and desire to “take care of” and “protect” and “lead” our families I have to wonder if there would be a significant change in the number of successful marriages, extra marital affairs and fatherless children. What if a man felt that his presence, his very being was necessary? Would they deal with themselves, their women and their children differently? Would more men seek to remain in their marriages, provide for their children and lead their households? It has occurred to me, on several occasions that men no longer feel needed. Women can work; they can bear and nurture children. They can support themselves and their families. Aside from biological necessities why do we need men? How does this make a man feel? Is it any wonder that men are so quick to walk away when they have fathered a child? After all there isn’t any NEED for them to remain.

Strengthen Your Men

President Faust offers these simple ways to strengthen your men: sustain and respect the father in his position and second, give him love, understanding and some appreciation for his efforts. Further, he says the following:

“Let every mother understand that if she does anything to diminish her children’s father or the father’s image in the eyes of the children, it may injure and do irreparable damage to the self – worth and personal security of the children themselves.”

Wow. How many times have I caught myself mumbling things about my daughter’s father in their presence? How often have they seen me rebel against my husbands leadership and what is that doing to their image of him and potentially their image of their future husband? I know my man and I know that if he doesn’t feel respected I might as well have had an affair. The affront to him is just as great if not greater.

Have your children hear you raise their father up and allow them to see the wonderful man that he is. Keep your own insecurities and opinions of their father inside of yourself. Bring it to God if you must but never, ever belittle or bemoan their daddy before them. If I was raising sons what type of men am I guiding them into being if I am not respectful of the very man they want to emulate?

The Affect it can Have

I have a daughter with an absent biological father. At 14 she is just starting to really ask questions about her biological father and just now am I seeing the affect that his not being here for her has had even though she has a full time loving father in my husband. When I got pregnant with my oldest daughter I was only 19 – and by the time I was 8 months pregnant her father was gone and didn’t want to see her for his own reasons. Now I am in the process of taking him back to court for child support and am faced with having to see him for the first time in 13 years. Only now do I see the pain that his leaving has caused. Having another daddy isn’t enough to erase the feeling of abandonment and pain that my daughter feels at the absence of her biological father. She doesn’t ever remember meeting him. She doesn’t know what he looks like, and yet in the background his presence is always there simply because of the pain that she feels.

There are so many young women out there today having children without the slightest regard for whether or not their baby’s father will remain to assist in raising the child. Their thought is that they can do it alone. That they don’t need the baby’s father and they are right. They can. But the truth is that their child needs their father. They need to know where they came from as if having that father present means that they are whole and complete. Even if, in the future there is another man in their lives that loves them and who they call daddy isn’t enough. Certainly it helps and if that man is willing to step up and be a true father all the better but that child will eventually want to see their lineage. Compare their nose to their fathers, wonder if they have their father’s feet and see WHO their father is and, more likely than not, want to know WHERE he has been and WHY he has left. In our situation, my daughter’s pain is made greater at the newfound knowledge that her biological father has remarried and through this relationship had another child and is expecting a second one. Although she hasn’t voiced her feelings, I can feel her pain as she wonders why SHE wasn’t good enough for him to stay around but he will stay for the other children.

Raise up your Husband

Women, raise up your husband and place them at the head of the household. Honor them as God would have you do. Take your place beneath him confident in the knowledge that his position is ordained by God as is yours and that your Heavenly Father knows what it best for you. By doing so you are not being obedient to your husband, but obedient to God. Your humility and unquestioning willingness to do so will be pleasing to HIM.

Realize that once your husband sees your humility and your willingness to do what God has commanded, he will rise to the occasion and be everything that God has commanded him to be. Don’t fear that he will overtake you, rule with an unrighteous dominion or try to “be the boss”. If he is a true man he will not do that. Instead, he will honor you in return, and bring you up to stand beside him. Your blessings will be beyond measure. Your husband will cherish you and treat you with more dignity and respect than you ever dreamed possible… simply because you let him do what he was designed to do.

Your sons and daughters will see the changes in your marriage and within your family and they too will grow up to raise Godly sons and daughters who will in turn marry Godly partners. The generations will continue and changes will happen within our society… and all because you accepted your calling with dignity, knowing that your Father in Heaven would never give you a calling that was not the greatest one on the earth.

Scooby.

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord.

For the husband as the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body.

Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it."

Eph 5:22-25

You can read the entire article HERE.

For more wonderful articles like this one, you can view this months Ensign HERE,

 Todays Journal Prompt

What are your feelings on the idea of having your husband be the head of your household? How can you be more humble and lift him up?

 Quote of the Day  

"A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but really mean your mother"

Feeling Reflective

Posted on Saturday, September 23, 2006 at 02:24

I used to write alot of poetry in highschool. I am not sure really why I stopped. I suppose that life just got in the way... being a single mom, eventually meeting and marrying Bughead, having Boo and finding Squishy. So many years that flew by so quickly I feel as if they barely happened. Do you ever feel that way? One day you are thinking that you will remember that day forever and the next time you look up its 10 years later?

I want to get back to my creative side... the girls are old enough now that I can focus more on me when the need arises. I want to write articles and poetry. I want to learn how to make my own paper and re-learn calligraphy. I want to learn how to paint with water colours and how to plant a garden. I want to learn how to can my own fruit. There are so many things that I have put of doing until tomorrow and then realized that tomorrow has come and gone and I didn't get the chance to experience it. I don't want to walk through my life wearing a blindfold, going through the motions of existing without living. How many years will I lament that I never did learn how to sew or didn't embrace my inner self by writing poetry? Will I one day stop short and look back on my life and find regrets, or will I grow old and view my life as a collage of blessings? I have always wanted to be, in some form or another a writer. I dream of learning to paint and draw. I see myself as an ecclectic artistic individual but yet I find little in my current life that expresses those feelings. Today is the day to change.

I want to have more babies, to travel, to write a book. I want to decorate our home and take a belly dancing class with my best friend. I want a marriage filled with happiness interspersed with sadness because I am firmly based in the reality that nothing is perfect. I want to raise my daughters and see them move on to marry fine young men and have their own babies. I want to see them live their dreams and embrace their lives in a way that only they can.

Oh, to find myself content with my life because I know that it isn't just rushing past me while I stand on the sidelines. To embrace each moment for what it is: sadness, frustration, pain and realize that this is just one of the days that I have to live... that I chose to live before coming to this earth and remember, with confidence that "this too shall pass" when things are hard. To cherish those minutes, hours, days of happiness and write them down to reflect back on.

To take a moment to dry tears, give a hug, make a snack, read a story, have a tickle and a giggle without thinking about the million other things I should be doing... because at that moment there IS nothing else I should be doing. Place my family first in all things because they are my future and my now. My wordly and my eternity.

Remember to let your babies dress themselves in purple long sleeves with a pink dress thats way too short, a plaid skirt and a pair of jeans... all at the same time. Spend a day lying in bed, snuggly in  pajama's on a winters day and read stories and watch Disney movies while eating popcorn because who cares if there are crumbs in the bed? After all, there were smiles and giggles, and cuddles in there too. Take a moment to look into your sweethearts eyes and remember why you married him... especially on a day when you really wonder what you were thinking.

Lie on the grass in the summer and breath in its scent, gently warmed by the sunshine and transport yourself back in time to when you were 10 and spent the afternoon looking for pictures in the clouds. Hug your mother and know that even though she won't be here forever, her legacy, through yourself and your children will be and she will indeed live on for eternity. Kiss your dad and have a whisker rub because those whiskers still have alot of rub left in them, whether you are 5 or 50.

Live. Laugh. Dream.

Frugal Friday!

Posted on Friday, September 22, 2006 at 05:22

Todays decorating idea is a very simple and frugal one. I have a coffee table in my living room like everyone does but I want a way to display some old family photos rather than having to purchase frames for them... mainly because the cost of frames is just so expensive. I was sitting here writing down some decorating ideas and I thought to myself: Self, why don't you find another way to show off your old family pictures? So, I thought that it would be a neat to place some photocopies (you could do black and white or colour) of the old pictures onto my coffee table top and then cover them with glass. I think its an interesting way to be able to display your best loved pictures and its so easy to rotate photographs when you want a change.

Some other ideas for things that you could place under the glass of a table top:

• Family Photos
• Post cards
• Vintage advertising
• Fall leaves (put something underneath them so that you dont harm your table top!)
• Antique love letters along with pictures of the person who wrote them and the recipient

I think that it would also be pretty neat to "scrapbook" your table top and do a theme... you could have a beach theme in the summer and put pictures of your families trip to the beach along with some die cuts and various other scrapbooking type embellishments just for fun  

So many options... just use your imagination!

 Todays Journal Prompt

Write about your favorite family or couples vacation. Tell what made it so special and maybe add some copies of your favorite photos from the trip.

I would love to hear your ideas for frugal decorating! If I add them here I will be sure to give you credit of course.

 You can email me by using the link on my sidebar

Lazy Days...

Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 02:45

Some days are just meant to be lazy days and today is one of them. I am still reeling from yesterdays activities and every time I do anything physical my body reminds me to slow down, take a deep breath and perhaps put off some of todays plans until tomorrow. "You're getting sick!" my joints scream at me... sometimes its good to listen to your body. I feel like I got punched in the face. My nose is feeling so stuffy.

The weather outside today is feeling more like fall... dig out those sweaters from the box I packed them in anticipating having been moved by now. Thats a little frustrating and doesn't exactly add to my mood. I want to curl up in bed today, snuggle down with my mister and a good book. Instead, I am here at the desk listening to Radio Dismuke, thinking that a nice cup of herbal tea would be wonderful and seriously considering yet another blog redesign over at my homeschool blog... something to do with fall.

So for today, its phone calls for business and perhaps some housework. The weather outside is cool enough that my laundry won't dry on the line properly so I am putting that off a day... not that it took much to convince me. Other than heading for costco to get dog and cat food, there are few if any plans here at the homestead.

Link of the Day

Brocante Home Chronicles - Home of the Vintage Housekeeper

Todays Journal Prompt

A simple one to go with the day: What is your favorite season and why?

I'm tired...

Posted on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 10:29

Today was a long day.... it really felt like there was more than the normal allotted 24 hours or something.

This morning I woke up totally stuffed up... after having had a really long night with miss Boo waking me up because she couldn't breathe with her own stuffy nose. Needless to say it took me longer than normal to haul myself out of bed.

Once I was finally up I had several phone calls and then I was off to court from around 1:30 and didnt get home until 8:00 this evening because I had other errands and things to run.

I am ready for bed.

Monday Menu's

Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 at 03:19

I will be trying to post a tried and true recipe every Monday. Today's recipe is super simple...

Cheesy Beef Casserole

1. 1 can cream of mushroom soup
2. 1 can herbed tomato or zesty tomato soup
3. 1 can mushrooms
4. Ground Beef
5. Pasta
6. Grated cheese - your choice

Basically you brown the ground beef and cook the pasta. Mix everything together including the cheese in a casserole dish and bake with some extra cheese on top. Serve with salad and garlic bread or dinner rolls.

My whole family loves this meal... there are never any leftovers!

Today's Journal Prompt

I think that just about everyone has that one favorite meal that can immediatly transport them back in time to when they were a kid. Maybe its something that you mom made or a special meal served by your grandmother. What special meal transports you back in time? How does it make you feel? Do you serve it to your family? Why doesn't it ever taste as good as your moms?!?

Have fun with this! Maybe now is a good time to start a family recipe book to pass down to your children on the day that they leave home or get married. Its never to early to start compiling those recipes and putting them in a notebook for your children and everyone wants that one recipe book filled with recipes that are sure to be winners with their own family! 

Not so lazy Sunday...

Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 at 07:12

Normally we don't do alot on Sundays... we get lazy. Reading a good book, playing on the internet. Perhaps spending some time on our individual hobbies and you can't forget the all time favorite: napping in the afternoon. When we were attending church at our local ward, Sundays were hectic depending on which schedule we were on for church times as we share the building with another ward and switch off starting times every January. If we were on the 10:00 am sacrament meeting time we would be home by 1:30 and spending the afternoons just doing a whole lot of nothing. If we had the 11:00 start time, the afternoon would seem like it didn't exist at all. Since we haven't been attending, Sundays can stretch out long before me... seeming to never have an end. I miss church and the spirit it brings, but recognize that right now, home church is our best option for many reasons.

Today we did work around the property trying to increase our potential for the sale of the house when we put it on the market. All of the flower beds have been weeded. The fence got a pressure wash and our back gate removed so that it can be reinstalled correctly. We tore the carpet and padding out of Squishy's room revealing a dark green tile floor. Perhaps not the best option in terms of flooring but its in perfect condition and may save us having to purchase carpeting. Smooch and I went through the misc. branches that had been stacked in the back yard and put them into containers ready for pick up by the garbage truck - and fortunately the wasps nest that the girls had discovered there last week had been destroyed by this weeks rain. I was a little concerned about that nest because I fear wasps and bees of all kinds and really didn't want to deal with spraying it to kill them off.  

Bughead is outside finishing off a round of weed and feed on the lawn, the girls are putting away the last of the garden tools and its just starting to get dark outside... I have all windows open and every once in awhile giggles filter in to where I am sitting and I feel a little guilty that I am not out there with them.

Nevertheless, it was a good day. We will sleep well tonight and tomorrow will dawn bright and early and full of activity as usual. I can't help but get stressed every Sunday night thinking of all the things that have to be done. Paperwork prepared by Bughead for court. The girls need to start schooling this week... no exceptions. I have to do a million things around the house that I wasn't able to do this past week because I was gone so much. i am counting on Heavenly Father to get us through our recent trials and to assist me in feeling stress-free and ambitious. For tonight however, showers for the littles then off to bed. A movie for me and my buggie and the weekend will end in its normal quiet fashion. I can worry about tomorrow when it comes.

Todays Journal Prompt

When I look outside my window I see:

(Include everything: the colours, the weather, the actual scenery and maybe what you wish was different about what you see)