Children; Blessings or Burdens?

Yesterday I read a post by Laura at Heavenly Homemakers.  A reader, struggling with when to start a family, asked the question, "Why are kids a blessing?"  You can click on the link to read the article in it's entirety, but the comment of her's that hit me the hardest was this one: "I know that the Bible says that children are a blessing from God but honestly sometimes I look at my friends with babies and think, 'Honey, you don't look blessed, you look haggard and tired'."  Well, that's putting it out there clear as crystal, isn't it?  Laura did a good job answering the question, and many of her readers also commented.

While there may be nothing we can do to keep from looking run down occasionally (I have flash backs of the time 3 of our 4 girls and hubby, all contracted chicken pox when I was 8 mos. pregnant with T.Lynn), there is much we can do about the over-all perception we give others with regard to motherhood.  The whole thing made me think that we need to always be mindful of what we say.  I've mentioned on the blog before that one of the things I disliked about our previous church was the number of women milling around, constantly complaining about their children.  Don't get me wrong, I complain about mine from time to time, and I'm all about not sugar-coating stuff, so I would never lead a woman to believe that being a mother was all about sweetness and light, nursery rhymes and cuddle time, and sweet baby kisses.  Oh, my heavens no; I agree with Laura; it's hard, exhausting, frustrating, etc.  As a matter of a fact, I've admitted to many people that there were days when, if Attila the Hun had magically appeared on my door-step, offering up babysitting services, I'd have jumped at the opportunity.  But, as Laura and many of the other women mentioned, the blessings you do receive from having them are indescribably wonderful.  I just think we should keep this in mind when we are talking to other women.  It's easy to get with another mother and pour out all the bad things that happened that week, but we should be mindful of others that we may be influencing.  We should try to at least keep a balance of things; telling of some of the weird, crazy, often frustrating things (because, lets face it - after the fact some of that stuff is pretty dog-gone funny), and throwing in a lot of the positive, beautiful, wonderful aspects of having children.  If we really need to sound off in order to regain sanity, or ask someone else's advice on how to handle something, it would best be done in a priviate setting anyway.  

Let's all make sure we're setting a good example for all those mothers yet to be.

Becky 

Menus

So far planning my menus is working out well.  Last week's menu required no changes, but I did update this week's in order to utilized things already in the freezer and pantry so I wouldn't have to run out to the grocery store.
What's on the menu for this week:
Mon - breakfast - french breakfast muffins, scrambled eggs
             supper - ham and potato casserole, salad
Tues - breakfast - biscuts and gravy
             supper - pinto beans, rice, green beans
Wed - breakfast - smoothies or yogurt, cinnamon swirl bread
             supper - kielbasa bake, salad
Thurs - breakfast - blueberry muffins, cottage cheese
             supper - roast, potatoes, peas & carrots
Fri - breakfast - grits, sausage, eggs (for those that like them)
             supper - barbeque chicken, corn, chopped fresh veggies
Sat - breakfast - sticky buns
          supper - chicken & dumplings, mixed veggies
Sun - waffles
           lunch - leftover chicken & dumplings

Becky

Ketchup, and other randomness

Ruby, over at Mumma's Place , has inadvertantly suggested another "make it from scratch" challenge.  Ketchup.  Here's her comment regarding my last post on barbeque sauce:

"It does sound very yummy! Is ketchup bought sauce though. We call it Tomato Sauce here but I am wondering whether it is one you make or a bought variety?"

First off, Ruby is from Australia so I'll explain that ketchup is a premade, seasoned sauce with tomato sauce or tomato paste as it's base (she probably already knows that, but just in case...).  So, I'm a little curious now as to whether or not the tomato sauce Ruby talks about is a seasoned tomato sauce used on burgers and such.  You'll have to let me know Ruby.  I love learning about these little differences in how we speak. From her site, I recently found out that they call skeeters (mosquitos-for those of you not from the South), mozzies down there.
At any rate, I plan on trying out a ketchup recipe as soon as our current stash of ketchup is depleted.  At least what I do have on hand is organic.  I will have to use store bought tomato paste as my base though, because we have long since gone through the small amount of tomatoes I canned last summer.  I'll have to get ahold of a much bigger quantity of them this year in order to can some of my own sauce, in addition to other tomato stuff.  I'm wanting to try my hand at plain sauce, spaghetti sauce, and homemade "Rotel", in addition to the plain diced tomatoes that I have done before. 

Now, on to other randomness...

This is the cake Bree made Beenie for her

birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I just love

the spiral candle "hair".

Superman brought these to Ri last weekend.

He remembered her saying that she loves

sunflowers.  Aren't they gorgeous.

I finally finished the little white jacket that

goes with T.Lynn's red, polka dot dress.

I think it turned out well, even though I

made a huge mistake when putting it

together.  For any of you who do much

sewing, see if you can tell what I did wrong.

Ri came in while I was finishing up this post

and did what I had been trying (and failing

miserably) to do; get a close-up on the details.

My newest sewing machine has some simple

embroidery stitches, so I used one of them

to topstitch around the entire jacket.  Then

T., who is VERY modest, insisted on having

this clasp added, just in case the jacket were

to blow open (remember, it's a sleeveless dress).

Well, it's time to heard folks through the bath.  I hope y'all have an opportunity for some quality fellowship tomorrow.

Becky

Oh the things we do...

just because we always have. 
I'm not being highbrow here - I'm talking about cooking.
I was slightly amused one night a few years ago when we had invited some people from church over for supper.  The only thing I can definately remember serving that night was homemade yeast rolls.  No big deal; I've been making homemade bread since I was in highschool (maybe before; it's been too long ago, I can't remember).  What struck me as funny was that at some point, the mother of the family found out that the rolls were homemade; I think her husband asked me if they were, and she looked at me, in wide eyed amazement, and said, "I didn't think you could make these at home."   Of course rolls, an all manner of other things can be made at home.  In the grand scheme of things, food manufacuring is a fairly recent occurrence, so I was tickled by her comment.  But, I am just as guilty.  Not necessarily of assuming things can't be made at home, but certainly of not thinking about making things at home instead of buying stuff pre-made.
Case in point:  Barbeque sauce. 
I had tried out different sauces from Whole Foods in an attempt to find one that didn't have high fructose corn syrup in it, and just never found one I liked very much.  Since I don't use barbeque sauce all that much (mostly to top meatloaf - Ri makes our barbeque chicken from scratch), I finally gave up and decided that if we are eating pretty healthy most of the time, it probably won't hurt us too seriously to have a little regular barbeque sauce every great once in awhile.  (And, I still don't really think we'll keel over from a little HFCS, I would just like to avoid it if possible.) On to what happened this week (finally - right?).  I didn't have barbeque sauce (not much anyway), and Mesquite cheesy chicken was on the menu for last night.  I really want to stick to my menu, so I decided to try my hand a regular barbeque sauce (what Ri makes is kind of chunky, but delicious).  I looked up a recipe online and proceeded to change it. I didn't have tomato puree, so I used ketchup; I didn't want a chunky sauce, so I finely grated the onion instead of chopping it; I wanted a smokey flavor, so I added liquid smoke, etc.  This stuff was so simple.  I'll never buy bottled sauce again.  I can't really give a recipe since I radically changed the one I printed off, and I wasn't really measuring things anyway, but I'll give you the list of ingredients and encourage you to do what I did:  start throwing stuff in the pan, taste often adjusting things as you go, and you'll have a delicious sauce in no time.

Some kind of oil, one small finely grated onion, ketchup, red wine vinegar, worchestershire sauce, sugar*, ground mustard, liquid smoke, and chili powder or cayenne pepper (if you want some spice)

I started with normal kitchen economy - the pan I browned the chicken in, it's comination of coconut oil and butter, and the little crispy bits of brown goodness on the bottom.  I poured off most of the oil because I didn't want a greasy sauce - just enough to keep the onion from sticking. 
I added the grated onion and stirred around just until it was brown - it didn't take long, and I don't know if it was brown from cooking or from the bits on the bottom, but it can't possibly take long to cook grated onion.
Next I added ketchup - maybe 1/3c?  (I know I added more later).
Then, red wine vinegar - a couple of healthy splashes (added more of this later too)
Some brown sugar* - roughly 3-4Tbls?, but my sauce was a little too sweet, I'll use less next time.
Worchestershire sauce - maybe 1Tbls.
I sprinkled in some mustard powder and added
a few drops liquid smoke (it never takes much of this stuff)
I didn't add chili powder or cayenne this time, but I will next time.
Like I said, I just put the stuff in the pan, whisking as I went and tasting every so often; adding things in as I felt they were needed.
*A note about the sugar - you could certainly use sucanat in this (and I will in the future), but since I was expirimenting, I wanted to use the much cheaper brown sugar I had.

Maybe you already make your own sauce.  If you do, great.  But if you don't, please give it a try.  BTW - if you use canned cream of (chicken, potato, etc.) soup, you should really try making your "cream of..." soup from scratch - it's outta this world good, and much better for you.  Now I'll have to find something else that I buy without thinking about, and try to make it from scratch.

Becky

Cold, Wet, Yuck

Today was milk day, and it wasn't raining.  Yay!  BUT...it was cold, and everything at the barn is wet, so naturally there was a lot of mud - yuck.  I'm a big girl though, I can handle the mud, the problem is really for the farmers.  It's been so snowy, and rainy, and snowy, and icky, and snowy, and...well, you get the picture, that the pastures are nothing but big mud holes.  The farmers will have to re-seed all the pastures (or large percent of them), plus, they can't get their crops started for this year's hay and silage.   Our dairy farmer said the deadline for when the wheat should have been in the ground has already passed, but it's just too wet, and they are calling for more rain down there.  He's lived there forever and says he can't remember it ever being this wet, for this long.  I certainly hope things turn around for them; they can't keep paying for hay brought in from elsewhere.  The next time I'm tempted to complain about the weather I'll try to remember, and say a prayer for others who's livelihoods are dependent on things like the weather.  All the snow and ickiness may be an inconvience to me, but that's pretty much all it is.  If I weren't buying stuff from local farms, chances are I'd never even think about things like that.  Trying to eat healthy, and locally does bring you into a greater awareness of life around you.

Becky