Audaciter Matris

May 20th, 2013

We gave up on school this year. The move and a very different lifestyle at our new house just did us in. I realized I could have continued to force it, confusing everyone and stressing myself out, but sometimes it’s best to just cut your losses. So while many are having their last weeks of school now, we’ve been out for about two months.

Or have we? I realize that a formal education is gaining importance as my children age, but learning should never be relegated to just books.

We’ve been out, but school’s been in.

Of course we have been observing the growth of our baby chicks. But what else is new?

First we planted a garden a couple weeks ago. Okay, it’s really just spinach and marigolds, but I’m proud of myself for not being overly ambitious.

Then we located a new chicken coop and had some fun friends come and help us get it home. It only involved hauling it here, removing a fence panel, and sliding it across the mud in the yard.

(Can you even believe Brent puts up with this stuff? He loves me, there is no doubt about that.)

Then today we were sorting out the remaining branches from a tree we cut down, some to use as fence posts and others to burn in our bonfire, when behold… A giant mouse scurried out! I guess it’s been bunking up in the pile of sticks, conveniently close to a bucket of chicken feed for its nightly meal.

We moved on to other things because I don’t want to know what else is living in that pile of sticks.

The three biggies set to work filling a bucket with earth worms and rolly pollies and other treasures you find after a good drenching rain. A sly little one came behind and hoarded much of it in her shirt. No one ever noticed.

In his search for more squiggly things, Ezra found a toad and the kids set to work creating an official habitat for him out of a cardboard box. Never underestimate the value that sibling groups have in building teamwork skills.

For our entire lunch, Arwen read her findings about the entire life cycle of toads, how to sex them, mating habits, how to feed them, and all.the.things.

All I had to do was stay out of the way and make a few suggestions and they were off gathering rain water and sticks and bugs, all for this poor girl:

This evening when Brent gets home we will head to Lowe’s for fencing material and straw and other handy things and commence our dirty learning in the morning: fence building 101.

The littles and I are currently reading through The Wizard of Oz, too.

Late summer, when the heat gets unbearable, we are looking forward to starting a new school curriculum….indoors.

Posted in Furry things, homeschool, Organic Gardening |

The day after a birthday

April 30th, 2013

I turned the big Three Two yesterday. I’m feeling every year of it since I decided to go out of town and act like I was 21 and didn’t need any sleep.

I’m so blessed. My mamma friends took me out to dinner.

J and I stayed up all night dipping strawberries in chocolate and eating cheesecake so we could sell soap and “yummies” at a festival the next day.

And I got to hug.so.many.necks. I could never tell you how much it meant to see everyone. Farmers Markets are good for the soul. Such good people can be found there.

After a quick stop in the old ‘hood, I mustered up strength and tucked my heart back in and road tripped it back home with an eclectic line up of entertainment.

After just a little bit of sleep we celebrated with family the next day.

And today, the day after it all, I stepped into my first day as 32 year old mom of five. Holy cow. I decided that did not mean I was going to wear the appropriate wardrobe for the role.

Brent is trying to be home more, and we actually managed to get a project done before the sun went down. Together. And yesterday when I was slightly depressed about some things, he cranked up Jimmy Eat World’s Crimson and Clover, which was the song we exited the church to after we were pronounced man and wife. And it was just what I needed. He’s just what I need.

So, 32 is looking alright. I’m confused about some things, maybe. I’m mourning someone. I’m learning a lot about love. I’m totally content.

Posted in Everyday Insanity, Family Holidays |

The one with all the blue tape

April 16th, 2013

The director of one of the farmer’s markets we use to sell at could never understand why I didn’t bring a fan and an extension cord when I was selling soap in 90 degree weather.

“It only takes 2 minutes to throw it into the truck!” he use to say.

“I don’t have 2 minutes!” I use to tell him. Because I *also* did not have a suitable fan or extension cord, so that also meant a trip out of my house for those items.

I don’t leave my house a lot. That might surprise you, since I really adore people and being around them. But just getting everyone out the door is enough work to make me need a nap.

We were two hours late for church on Sunday. We do house church, so we have a meeting and then eat lunch together. So on top of getting five people plus myself ready, I also prepare food to share. I love all that. But sometimes they throw a baby shower or something into the mix and then I have to prepare food for the shower and also a gift, in addition to lunch for my brood and making sure everyone has underwear on. And then I’m in full panic attack mode by the time we get there. I love baby showers and all, but for the love, not on a Sunday. I’m trying to be holy while making kids sit still for an hour, for Pete’s Sake.

Anyway. I always wanted to try to explain to this man what was going on at my house. The sheer moment by moment panic-inducing insanity that I love so much but also need to escape from regularly. So, yesterday I took some pictures.

The morning started by Titus putting his foot through a window while nursing. I got out some tape and paper and fixed it right up. This moment inspired something in my children that they did not act on until hours later.

Much later in the day, they pretty much took everything out of the garage and taped it to the driveway or the truck.

Did I mention I spent my entire Saturday organizing the garage?

Why? Why did I do that?? Someone stop me next time I try to organize a portion of my house before my youngest is 14.

Some of these contraptions were proclaimed to be “Obstacle Courses”. I went with it. Surely they learned something about life from the entire experiment.

This was an “invention” to keep balls from rolling under the car. I don’t know why a bike helmet is strung up to the door handle.

Ezra covered rocks in blue tape. He was very proud.

So you can see why I might have trouble making it out of the driveway. Especially when the truck is taped to the cement.

These days are exhausting. They are chaotic. They are frenzied. And, bless the Lord, they will “be over with before I know it” according to most of the older women I know.

Posted in Everyday Insanity |

Help! I’m surrounded by {needy} people

March 26th, 2013

I noticed a cavity in Arwen’s mouth last night when I was helping her floss. Her teeth are a hot mess. We have five sets of teeth that need to brush every night and we can hardly muster the stamina to brush our own at the end of the day.

This was following a conversation with Brent about how badly I have failed in homeschooling this year and how I think a curriculum switch will meet our children’s educational needs better next year.

We also discussed how we really let them watch too much tv sometimes because we are tired and need a moment of peace.

We went to bed overwhelmed and exhausted.

Three of my five can’t even wipe their own butts. They need me to do that for them.

On top of all that, toss in the needs of friends and family who are going through tough times and need meals or encouraging words or even a hug.

And on my really bad days my texts to Brent go a little something like this:

HOW ON EARTH IS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO ***DO*** ALL OF THIS? THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!

I QUIT!

This morning, as part of the Good Morning Girls Bible Study group I’m a part of, I was reading about the feeding of the five thousand. You know, the loaves and fishes that were miraculously multiplied by Christ with basketfuls leftover?

This miracle was recorded in all four gospels and I remembered a sermon preached by David Platt on one of them.

It was the end of the day. Jesus was tired. The disciples were tired. People had been following and pressing in and asking for miracles all day. (I wrote about this in relation to motherhood here.)

The disciples suggested that they could send everyone away to buy their own dinner.

And Jesus said, “YOU feed them.”

This was impossible. Just like what Jesus asks me to do everyday. Take care of myself, take care of my family, serve the church, serve the world. What.on.earth.Jesus?! It sure feels like feeding five thousand off of a meager five loaves and two fishes, doesn’t it Mammas?

Does God sometimes give us more than we can handle? You bet your bottom dollar He does.

And then HE provides the resources to meet the need.

He meets our very most deepest needs. He sees us when we cry because our marriage is broken and we feel unloved, and His love is sufficient. He hears when we are overwhelmed with sadness and in His presence there is fullness of joy. He knows the pain that we feel in our physical bodies and strengthens us with His grace and peace.

He meets the needs of others through us. “The hands of Christ serving the disciples, the hands of the disciples serving the crowd.” (David Platt) Jesus handed the loaves to the disciples and they passed them out to the crowds. Have you met a need in anyone’s life? In your kid’s lives? That was only possible because He is gracious to use us to meet the needs of others.

And Mammas have a lot of needs to meet. So as you serve your family, your church and the world today know this:

As we serve others, as we give out of HIS resources, He will always meet our needs too!

Are you feeling worn out? Broken? Spent? He will fill you up. Make sure that you are giving out of HIS resources and not your own all the time. Remember, there were 12 baskets leftover! (12 disciples, 12 baskets, get it???)

I’ve been trying to pray some out of the Book of Common Prayer. A lot of it is Benedictine prayers, some are centuries old copies from Monks. Here is a portion of one in particular on serving:

“It was your joy to serve.

Thank you for your service.

Show me where you want me to serve, give me the ability to serve.

Let me serve.

And make my heart pure toward everyone.”

Posted in Home Making, Mothering, Raising Children |

Family Reunions

March 23rd, 2013

I just about covered every blog category with this one!

As you know, Freckles got attacked by a possum and has since been quarantined in the garage.

She has healed just fine, even though she is missing a couple toes, and has even started laying eggs again. This is smart of her because she was pretty high maintenance for a non-contributing chicken, what with her bubble baths and all.

But here she is, all fixed up, and I’m the proudest mother hen ever.

The problem is that every time we have tried to reintroduce her to the rest of the flock, they um, try to kill her. The bloodshed is painful to watch.

However, I plan to be using her cage for the new baby chickens we are getting tomorrow, so we needed to introduce Freckles back to chicken society again.

Arwen cheerfully babbled about this family reunion the chickens were about to have and I knew that was just about how it was gonna go.

Like any great family reunion, there was food involved. One of the chickens had a secret stash of eggs in the yard and we found them. They looked pretty old, so much to that chicken’s dismay, we smashed them in the yard for the others to eat. While poor mamma hen walked around cackling in distress, the others ate up eggs- their favorite treat. We won’t get into how this is like eating your own…. Never mind.

Anyhow, we had to break up a lot of fights, but eventually Freckles figured out she needed to submit to the alpha hen. Finally, everytime alpha hen, whose name is actually Mr. Ezra came near, Freckles bowed low and accepted the Peck of Order.

It was very pathetic to watch, and Freckles is Arwen’s special chicken, so she’s sort of like my grand daughter. Whatever.

After that, Freckles awkwardly stood off to the side. Sometimes she tried to look interested in what the others were doing, but mostly she went off and pooped in her own corner of the yard.

See? Just like people family reunions!

Speaking of reunions, Charis has been gone to her Grammy’s house for a couple of days.

She got home just in time to come along and purchase some ~~illegal~~ yummy milk. (I’ve literally rehearsed what I’d do in my mind if the FDA busted in on our “transaction”.)

Thankfully this reunion went a lot better than the chickens.

Once the others woke from their ~~naps~~ time of running about like maniacs and quickly jumping back on their beds when they heard me coming, we headed out to a local popular international market. We gazed at real live crawfish, crabs, and lobsters, saw real sugar cane, and spoke with a lady who was from the Congo. (We taught her piglatin.)

Locals, let me tell you, Your Dekalb Farmers Market has ready made pizza dough, freshly made pizza sauce, and every kind of wonderful topping you could want.
I divided each lump of dough in two so each kid could make their own personal pizza.

They pretty much thought this was the best thing ever. While the others played Wii, they got to roll out their dough and put whatever the heck they wanted on top.

I totally forgot to photo Arwen and her pizza. Sorry, dear. Mommy loves you!

Now, after navigating our weekly trip to the chiropractor (all five kids and me), soap work, angry chickens, illegal transactions outside of a warehouse, an international market, and seven homemade pizzas…

I’m tired.

Good night, y’all.

Posted in Everyday Insanity, Furry things, Natural Remedies, Raising Children, Recipes, Uncategorized |

And *this* is why you are awesome

March 15th, 2013

I’ve been struggling with two very separate thoughts lately:

1- What I do doesn’t matter. Anyone can teach my kids. In fact, most people send their children to a complete stranger for hours everyday for this purpose. Anyone can feed my kids. We are perfectly comfortable with pulling up to a window and eating food that a complete stranger prepared/heated up/possibly sneezed on. Anyone could clean my house and do a much better job at it, and heck, even get paid to do it. This is the message to the stay at home mom in a modern day world: your work is insignificant and frankly, someone could get paid a minimum wage to do it.

Now I’m going to insert a picture of a cute baby to boost your spirits.

Titus can run now, so get use to blurry images of the back of him.

2- The second message that mothers are given is that we are tired. I have books for moms on my shelf that contain these words in the title:

Weary
Desperate
Tired

Do you know how many books I have with words like these in the title:

Awesome
Strong
Sane

???

One. I have 1 book that has an affirmative word in the title.

So as I made the 25 mile drive home from the chiropractor today, and I spelled “tomorrow” while holding a green tea in one hand and passing out five snacks with the other while driving and following GPS directions and answering the following questions:

“Why is Burger King on fire?”
“What is the Spanish word for egg?”
“What is the letter t in sign language?”

I realized I did all that literally single handedly and only spilled some of the warm tea down my lap and for a split second I understood why my 3 year old is okay with peeing her pants.

But I also understood why what mothers do is not insignificant. And we are not just tired, weary, and desperate.

We are strong and smart and awesome.

Mamma, what you do matters.

Ignore what the world is telling you about what you should be doing.

Ignore the subtle messages that come through to say that anyone can do your job.

And tell yourself that you are doing a heck of a job.

Even if you turned on Curious George for the kids so you could clean the bathroom alone instead of taking15 kids in there with you and patiently giving each of them a job while instructing them all with a soft tone of voice.

And even if you picked up Panda Express for the third night this week, because you forgot to find time to throw together a perfectly organic meal in the midst of teaching a child with a learning disability and feeding your baby God’s most perfect food which you make from your own body even while sleeping, for Pete’s sake.

Celebrate the small victories and give yourself a break!

Mamma, you are doing a great job. You matter. Your “job” matters.

Now go get ‘er dun.

Posted in Mothering, Uncategorized |

the business of motherhood

March 10th, 2013

Oh, hey look, I have a blog? Wow. I must have things to say.

Every now and then someone asks me a question and after I answer it, it occurs to me that someone else may need the information too. Recently I was asked about mah bizness in relation to being a mamma and supporting a family and starting business ventures. Here was my advice, edited and augmented for your perusal :

Some of the worst advice I got when I was seeking to start a business was to wait until my kids were grown. I was pregnant with my second baby and my first was barely a year old! They napped a lot and played together a lot and life was simple so I had time to learn a craft and get good at it before life got pressing and stressful.

I don’t have as much time to learn new tricks right now, so progress would have been very slow had I waited. My work is down to a science. I know exactly how long it is going to take me to make a batch of something, change something on the website, ship orders, etc. I can look at data about a farmers market or festival and guess almost to the dollar how much money I would make in sales at that event and gauge whether it would be worth my time. There isn’t a lot of guesswork involved anymore.

But it took a lot of work to get to this point. Soap making found me quite by accident and I never planned on Cheeky Maiden Soap shipping out across the world or manufacturing thousands of bars of soap each year. But I did have an excellent model in my mom of running businesses from home and I knew I wanted to do something.

You will have problems with any business. It took me YEARS before I got to where my business was a lifestyle changer for our family. Years of not giving up when it looked like I was going under, years of not letting another baby slow me down, years of working alone, crying, sweating, and not.giving.up. And even some bad mistakes that cost me.

Having a home business is not for everyone. I’ve seen plenty of people that have tried and tried and none of their ideas pan out because they lack the heart and they give up when it gets hard. (And sometimes they should. We have to know when something is bad for our families, since they are our first priority.)

It is really dang hard. Customers always complain on the day that I’ve got poop on my pants and my kids hated lunch and Brent is two hours late getting home. And by the end of the day I just feel crapped on by everyone.

The highest years of sales for me provided beach vacations, and I paid for a majority of our moving expenses. Quite honestly, we would have been bankrupt several years ago if Cheeky Maiden hadn’t been there to work her behind off and bail us out. I did it by myself for the first four years, and then when my fourth baby was born my husband came on board. For a while I was full time and he was part time, in addition to his full time job, and it was exhausting, but I’m so grateful for the work. He was a valuable addition due to his marketing skills and knowledge of the industry. He helped me fine tune things as well as did a lot of the grunt work in those years that bailed us out. (I don’t want to give the impression that I did that on my own. It was a family venture for sure.)

Recently, I’ve tried to scale back to part time, turned away business even. He works a lot and can’t help and I carry more of the child rearing on my own, so I had to let parts of the business go. That was difficult and sad for me.

To completely butcher a saying I heard recently: Most people do what they want. Mothers do what they have to.

I spent a lot of really late nights, in between nursing a new baby back to sleep, learning how to build a website. I got right to business. I didn’t have the luxury of being experimental in my approach. My time was/is limited and precious so I got right to business in finding out what I wanted and how to make that happen. So really, being a mother has been a blessing in that sense. I don’t get distracted like I see a lot of my business peers doing. I don’t venture out into places that are too risky, because I have to have some amount of assurance that what I’m doing is worth my time first. So perhaps I investigate a bit more.

As mothers we have to be very selective about what we invest our time in because ultimately, whatever it is is detracting from time spent investing in our children. We can tell ourselves all day long that we only do it when they are sleeping, etc, but honestly that is never true.

And it’s not bad to invest in other things than our families, we just have to make sure it’s a really GREAT thing. So, as a Mother Business Owner I must be extremely focused in my work. That is really hard for us creative types. But in the long run, being focused is what makes us successful. Anytime I have done this it’s always boosted business. Like when I decided to only make 100% natural soap and not half with perfumes and half natural, business boosted. When I cut back on my line of soaps so that I could focus on perfecting a smaller number of products, business soared. And recently I have cut back even more and again, orders increased.

It’s a big deal, surviving a business for (what will be) seven years this spring! Most barely make it to the five year mark. And now you know a little bit about what it took to get there.

Posted in The Maiden who is Cheeky, WAHM Tips |

Of chickens and barfing kids

February 20th, 2013

I woke at 6 am, and slowly came around to the realization that I Titus had slept all night.

I had forgotten what it felt like to get in bed and stay there for 8 hours, asleep. So, this is what normal people experience every night?! I like it!

My main goal for the day (in addition to educating three, nursing one, and keeping the other from killing herself- while cooking three meals and running a business) was to do my monthly bathroom cleanings. If you want to judge me on that, go ahead. Then send me a maid for the sake of my children.

I was sneaking some quiet time buying these shaped cookie cutters:

When Brent came in to tell me goodbye and also… “All the big kids are awake and Arwen is fake barfing but I think it’s just indigestion from the Mexican food we ate last night mkay? Buh-bye!”

7 am am

He turned on PBS and skidded out the driveway to an 8 hour long meeting. I remember now, I fell asleep while he was telling me the meeting topic last night. Exhilarating stuff.

Determined for coffee, I headed downstairs just in time to catch the loudest wretching sound I have ever heard in my life, accompanied by much spitting into a “throw up bucket”. (You might call it Tupperware at your house though.) I empathetically told her to “stop making that noise so loud” and headed to make coffee. Arwen asked me to scratch her back, I asked her to let me have some caffeine first. She smiled because she understands me.

The kitchen was still a wreck from lunch yesterday since we had headed out to the park and dinner out yesterday afternoon.

I cleared the dishes and tidied up the counters. I heard Titus cooing on the baby monitor.

7:30 am

I fixed Arwen a pallet on the floor of my bedroom. And quickly made a latte.

Then I snuck out to gather eggs and let the chickens out of their coop. They very nearly attacked me since I hadn’t let them out all day yesterday. As I rounded the corner back up to the house I heard more ginormously loud wretches resounding through the (closed tight) windows of my bedroom.

Titus sounded happy and the kids were engaged in some sort of government-sanctioned propaganda, so I figured I’d sneak in some Bible time. I lead a local Bible study group, so it’s my job to load the verses of the day onto our group page so that everyone can check in throughout the day.

Titus didn’t let me get any study time in, but I did at least read my Bible. I nursed my sweet boy and sipped my cold coffee and tried not to worry about the loud wrenching I was still hearing.

Titus had a poop, but I had to set him down to break up a fight. Then deliver the bad news that the tv was being turned off and the others needed to go get dressed and clean their rooms.

8:00

I picked Titus up to go change him but then Evie announced that although she was completely naked, she had no clothing to wear. I found her a short sleeve shirt and some tights. She was pleased.

Finally, I was able to deal with Titus’s poopy diaper and get the boy a banana while finishing off the very last of my stone cold latte.

8:30 am

Breakfast helpers. Charis scrambled eggs and she and Evie buttered the toast. I was discovering that I had failed to turn the dryer on yesterday and now laundry was really doomed. (Someone had pooped everywhere in their room the day before, so we had sheets and blankets, etc going)

Breakfast was served. I swept the kitchen while they ate.

I shooed chickens off the deck and then went around emptying trash cans while Charis and Evie did dishes, Ezra wiped the table and then brought down dirty laundry to the laundry room.

I caught my reflection in the mirror and had one of those “Oh. That’s what I look like!” moments and snapped a selfie.

Then I popped in to check on Arwen. She requested a warm bath. I obliged and even gave her some custom made bath salts. Just call me Martha-dang-Stewart.

9:00 am

I dislodged “bullets” from Ezra’s “machine” Nerf gun approximately 7 times in this half hour block of time.

We headed down to the basement for school.

Realizing that Charis hadn’t quite finished her kitchen job I called her back in to re-instruct how to wash a pan. “If it still smells like meatloaf, it’s not clean.”

The rest of us headed down for school in the basement. I set Evie up with some Starfall on the computer, had Ezra help me clean all the balloons off the floor and set Titus down in the adjacent play room. Charis came down to play with him. (They are buddies for my school time with Ezra every morning.)

Then I remembered I was supposed to take my adrenal supplements with breakfast. I told Ezra I’d be right back and charged up the stairs for a sip of water and some pills.

9:30 am

Then I remembered Arwen was still in the bath tub. I’m experiencing a phase of motherhood in which I am sure that they are all going to die at any moment. It’s loads of fun. I busted into the bathroom shouting her name, sure that she had drowned. (She’s 8, so perfectly capable of bathing herself, in case you didn’t know.) She appeared to be just drifting off to sleep. Relieved that I listened to my ~~paranoia~~ instinct, I reminded her to never stay in the tub if she felt sleepy, dressed her and put her back on the pallet.

Please remember that Evie was a Free Radical today since her buddy was having a sick day.

I headed back down stairs to the middle level and remembered that small group was this evening and my kitchen floors were atrocious. I couldn’t help myself. I began to mop.

9:45

Ezra came up stairs and told me he had been waiting for an hour and was just going to go play. I conceded that I had gotten sucked in but also informed him that I had been busy saving Arwen’s life. He found that an acceptable excuse.

I got mop stuff all over my socks and left them on the table.

And look how shiny my floor was!

10:00 am

I head back down to the basement to discover Titus was giving Charis a run for her money, climbing on things and falling off. I nursed him while starting a math test with Ezra, and instructed Charis to go cut up some pear for snack time.

Charis returned with the pear and we had a serious conversation about never letting babies climb on furniture, even if they get mad when you take them down.

Moving right along, it was time for phonics. Titus wriggled on my lap and dropped pear down my shirt while Ezra tried very hard to focus on flash cards.

After that was speech therapy on the iPad. We are very very very very slowly making progress.

11:00 am

Honestly, I can’t remember what everyone was doing at this time, but I know what I was doing.

Oh! I remember now. Evie was downstairs peeing all over Brent’s office chair, Ezra was firing his Nerf gun and being OCD about reloading every.single.bullet after every shot, and Titus was in the play pen with a Furby. Charis was reading.

I instructed Evie to go put her dirty clothes in the laundry room and prayed there was something in the dryer for her to wear.

I had noticed a chicken missing and found her trying to go up the steps to the front door. The rascal had hopped the picket fence, which they do from time to time and generally find out they don’t like it out in the open.

She pooped on me as I carried her back to the back yard.

I came inside, changed into the only other pair of pants I own that doesn’t have paint on them and found Evie like this:

She was not complaining about being naked at.all. We found her some clothes and I set about making lunch. First, I scooted downstairs to sprinkle baking soda on the padding of Brent’s chair. ~~First~~ Then, I texted Brent an update on our day.

11:30 am

I didn’t eat any of the thin mints. I made lunch out of hot dog buns and peanut butter for the kids, toasted some plain bread for Arwen and sent that up along with an emergen-C and made myself lunch out of some homemade kefir, greens, and protein powder. It’s a little tangy, but it really sticks to your ribs, you don’t have to sit down for it, and it’s absolutely wonderful for you in every sort of way.

11:45 am

I witness Evie wiping her mouth with my socks.

Noon

On Wednesdays Evie and Ezra stay up from naps so that we can put them to bed early before small group for church that we host here. Titus goes down for an early nap, and that way they are all ready for bed just as everyone arrives and I can actually sit down and conversate.

I put on a movie for them, nursed Titus to sleep and checked on my big girl.

Good news! No barfing since the bath! I’m not investigating this “illness”. It’s rough being the biggest kid and sometimes, you just need a day to yourself with bath, books, and jello and toast. No questions asked.

1:00 pm

Time to make bread! We don’t eat a ton of bread, but lately I’ve been tired and have been buying sandwich bread. I figure if we are going to eat it, I may as well make it as healthy as I can. Charis is my baker, so while the littles watched their movie, we decided to make a double batch. At this point she showed me the bulging bandaid on her leg from an injury that happened yesterday that I was not aware of. Evidently Daddy had doctored it. I made a mental note to clean it later since it looked sketchy.

We ground the flour and began measuring ingredients. I opened the freezer to get some vital wheat gluten out and found this:

Almost every day I find something weird frozen in there. This is a butter ramican from Outback Steakhouse with Panda Puffs in it. Neat.

1:00 pm

Charis joined the others for movie #2 while the dough did it’s first rise and I retrieved the chicken from the wrong side of the fence again. I got chicken poop on my second pair of socks and gave up on the idea of warm feet for the day. Then I cleaned the master bathroom upstairs. I came down just in time to hear the alarm on the oven, letting me know the dough was done rising.

1:30 pm

Boy, was it.

I divided it and put it into the four pans that Charis had oiled for me, returned them to the oven for a second rise and set the timer for 25 min.

Then I sat down in a sunny window seat to start blogging all of this.

2:00 pm

The timer went off again, I took the pans out to preheat the oven and returned to my blogging.

I heard Titus fussing and decided he couldn’t wait until the oven was done preheating.

I nursed him, and when we came down the oven was ready. I stuck the bread in the oven and stuck Titus in his play pen to finish the movie with the others.

2:30 pm

Their movie goes off, but I’ve still got about 20 minutes left on the bread and I’m still trying to blog all this. So I turned on 1 Diego, promising bread when it went off

3:15

Time to eat some warm bread from the oven! Ezra is chasing a screaming Evie around with a spoon, Arwen is starving, only one bathroom got cleaned, baby crying in play pen….Daddy still has 2 hours of his meeting left to go…

But look at this bread!

And that, is the first half of the day. I hear the Ding! Ding! of round two. Gotta go.

Ps. I don’t have the heart to show you what the floor looks like now. Just keep that shiny image in your head.

Posted in Everyday Insanity, Furry things |

Chicken Spa

February 13th, 2013

I never thought I’d google “how to treat an injured chicken”. But I did after the possum faux pas.

I found this site, which was all kinds of helpful, as well as the sage chicken godmother advice I was already receiving.

After dinner we fixed up a bubble bath for Freckles, the most afflicted chicken ever. She had quite a bit if blood on her underbelly and of course her shredded foot was the most obvious injury.

Surprisingly, she settled right into her soak, and for a minute I was jealous. Never mind the bubbles came from the Hibiclens I had dumped into her tub.

CAUTION: CHICKEN INJURY PHOTO BELOW.

She had to soak for a while in order to get all the old blood off of her feathers.

I dried her and proceeded to empty an entire bottle of peroxide onto her foot and leg.

Best we can tell, the possum shredded her toes on one foot with his demon claws.

I hate possums.

After her bubble bath and towel massage, we put fresh hay in her box, added a space heater, and fed her dried mealy worms.

Chicken.paradise.

The other five were outside on a cold rainy night, but today they got a lot of spa sound effects outside. I was wishing I was getting a massage on the back deck and listening to this:

Posted in Furry things |

How to pray without ceasing when life never ceases to be nuts

February 13th, 2013

And I’m not talking about the many, “Oh, Jesus! Help me!” that I literally holler out loud throughout the day. Although I think that totally counts.

I’m talking about actually meditating on God’s word, lifting up the needs of others, and waiting on the Lord. How do you do all that when there are children to educate, toilets to scrub, emails to answer, kids to drop off, parents to care for, work to do…

How do you wait on God in a world that doesn’t wait?

“But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities.

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” Luke 5:15-16

I’ve got crowds pressing in on me all day. Five little people with great big needs, a husband, customers, friends, family. All of these things are blessing, but it sure feels like a crowd most days.

And miracles? Honey, some days I do perform miracles. Like getting my five year old to smile while he does his chores. Or washing my hair. Or getting two children in particular to be in the same room without fighting. Today, I went to the bathroom and no one knew. I counted that as a miracle.

And then there are the miracles they are constantly asking for. Everything from making dinner taste good to painting flying unicorns on the exterior walls of the house, or buying them this or that, or feeding them lunch. (Totally kidding about lunch. We always eat lunch.)

How did Jesus respond to this? Jesus. The healer of the sick. The man who made people walk on water. The one everyone wanted to see. Throngs of people about him at all times. Even he found time to pray. He made time to pray. If Jesus could find time to pray during his life of ministry to thousands of people, I can find time to pray during my life of ministry to my little five.

Remember when I didn’t talk to anyone but God for a few weeks? That habit has stuck, only I also talk to my friends now too.

I still have the very same alarms set on my phone to remind me to pause.

I first learned of this technique for focusing on the Lord throughout the day from Jen Hatmaker’s book, 7. (That link is for the Kindle edition because you should not wait to read it. Order it now and read it immediately.)

The Liturgy of the Hours is the practice of pausing at marked points during the day, and each “hour” has it’s own prayer focus. I don’t know about you, but I forget all day long that life is not an emergency and God is in control. I literally have to stop what I’m doing to remember that, and while I’m at it I pray for other things as well.

~~6:00 am~~ Whenever I get up: The Awakening Hour. Asking the Lord to awaken my heart and mind to what He has for me today. Awakening to the blessings all around me. Eucharisteo, if you are familiar with Ann Voskamp.

10:00 am: The Blessing Hour. My phone plays a banjo tune and my mind instinctually pauses to ask the Lord to bless the work of my hands. This happens to be a normal break in our morning, usually between chores and school. A time of day where I really need to reign my mind back in, fix any bad attitudes that have tried to take root in me, and remember that what I am doing is serving my family. It’s important. And I ask the Lord to bless it.

Noon: The Hour of Illumination. This chime on my phone also reminds me to feed everyone lunch. While I’m making lunch, I’m asking the Lord to shine His light into my heart, into my home. Praying for my children, for His love to shine through our family so that others might know Him. Thinking about ways to serve, etc.

4 pm: The Wisdom Hour. Harps play on my phone at 4 pm every day. This hour is painful for me right now. It’s when I ask the Lord to teach me to number my days. Remembering that my days, my husband’s days, my children’s days… they are all numbered and they are all short. None of them are guaranteed and each is a gift from the Lord. Every breath, every moment… may none of them be wasted on whining or fighting or selfishness. I think of Terri and others that I have lost or known that seemed to go too early. A wave of terror sweeps in as I realize again that they are gone, and then peace quickly follows as I give my trust back to God- He numbers our days. He gives and takes away. And He is always good.

7 pm: The Twilight Hour. Transitioning from work to rest. Putting away my worries for today by lifting them up to God and letting him have them. It may be a child who is struggling. It may be a disagreement. It may be anxiety about finances or whatever. I breath out, telling Him all about it, and I let it go.

9 pm: The Great Silence. Here’s where the transition is complete. (Hopefully) The kids are in bed and it is literally Greatly Silent. I welcome darkness as rest.

~~Midnight~~ Whenever I’m up with Titus: The Night Watch (I can’t remember the exact term for this one) Pray for those who are living in spiritual darkness or illness. Those who are afflicted and have no one to love them or hold them close- pray for them. The homeless shivering in the cold, the child sex slave, the prostitute, the drug addict, and even people you know who are battling depression or sickness. The night can be long for any of these individuals.

Really, you don’t have to pray at these hours or about these things. These are just suggestions. My friend LL also has some great suggestions of how she set reminders on her phone too for set prayer times.

So do it. Set aside times to “go to desolate places and pray”. It may be the bathroom, your closet, under your covers, or in your mind as you make PBJ’s. Set an alarm or a post it note somewhere to remind you to stop and remember Who you serve and What He has given you to do, and ask Him to guide you. It changes things. It changes you.

And if Jesus had time to do it, so do you.

Psst. If you like this encouragement you might also like How to study your Bible when life goes nuts.

Posted in Church, Me-the mamma, Mothering, Raising Children |

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