Keep Your Perspective...

This picture was taken by my oldest daughter E while we were driving along a country road in our new state of West Virginia. I think she has a good eye.

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Here's my thought: I get grumpy every day because.......why.....? Funny, it's hard to identify the reason but I think at the root of it I feel like a failure anytime the family doesn't meet the ideal that I have in my head that is my blueprint of "The Successful Family."

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Examples:

-bickering sisters

-breakfast at noon (not exaggerating)

-dirty kitchen

-school still being done at 8 pm (again not exaggerating)

-missing devotions

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My mental blueprint does not have these elements in it. Every time I miss the mark I label it as "FAILURE". I know this is irrational but there it is. Here is where I need to think about this picture and "Keep My Perspective." Things may be dark, they may be imperfect, but in spite of all "failures" am I still looking upward to Christ and pointing my children upward to Him too? If all else fails, is that happening? If I get all bent out of shape because of every shortfall I will not be looking upward or pointing upward, I will just be an irritable shrew that people want to get away from.

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So. I will relaaaax. I will major on the majors. I will ask God for direction (back to that cool picture again...God can speak to us in spite of our weaknesses, He can point the way and be certain we get the message).

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And, when faced with a perspective, I will look up...I will choose joy.

The Three Hour Salad

The kitchen's been like an OVEN lately so I'm not real excited about serving anything hot so I thought, "Hey!  Salad is cool and quick!  I'll do that!"  I have this list of 25 main dish salads so I started at the very begining with Salad Nicoise.  That's right, it's French.  Be impressed.  I actually had to go to Wikipedia to figure out how to pronounce it.  It's "NI-swaz" in case you're wondering.  This salad is one of Julia Child's trademark recipes, apparently.  My recipe did not duplicate hers exactly, but it's a rough approximation I think. 

Here's a picture:

The ingredients for my simplified version are as follows:

Romaine lettuce
Grape tomatoes
Tiny red potatoes
Fresh green beans
Black olives
Hard boiled eggs
Tuna
Balsamic vinaigrette dressing

So, I read the recipe and it approximated 1-30 minutes for prep time.  That woman is a LIAR.  This sucker took 3 hours from start to finish!  (Now granted, I got distracted now and again, but still...)  Here's the lowdown on the flowdown:

So you scrub the potatoes and green beans, then you boil the eggs till hard and chill them.  You boil the potatoes until cooked but still firm and chill them.  You blanch the green beans (which means boil for 3 minutes then immerse in ice water), and wait a long time.   After everything is good and chilly, you wash and chop the lettuce, slice the tomatoes, peel the eggs, slice the eggs, slice the potatoes, cut up the green beans, drain the tuna, drain the olives, and make the dressing (yeah, I make my own...)

At this point, I was like, "This was more work than a full hot meal!!  What was I thinking?!?!"  I mean SERIOUSLY!  The kids kept coming up to me:  "Is it time to eat yet?"  "Can I have a piece of cheese?" 

Definitely a yummy salad that I would enjoy eating, but not so sure I'll make again...I just don't have three house to dedicate to making a salad.

FAIL!

Ever heard of "Lacto-Fermented Vegetables"??  Neither have I.  But, they are an ancient and traditional way of preserving foods and a way to make them a nutritional powerhouse to boot.  My first attempt was "Gingered Carrots" and is pictured below:

So I don't have a wide-mouthed quart-sized canning jar like the instructions said so thought I'd use this old pickle jar instead.  Doesn't it look all bright and cheery?  See how I put the contrasting green and blue hot pad underneath to accentuate it's cheeriness?  I followed the instructions in my "Nourishing Traditions" cookbook to prepare the "Lacto Fermented" carrots and then set them on the counter for 3 days to let the whey do it's work on the carrots before refrigerating.

Well....I think I need to turn up a quart-sized canning jar.  One thing with "Lacto-Fermenting" anything is it's an air-tight operation.  No air is to come or go during the room temperature portion of the process.  I am going to conclude that pickle jars are not air-tight once they've been opened at home.  The first day on the counter-top, I thought I might want to make sure the lid was as tight as possible.  When I twisted it "righty-tighty" it let out a tiny hiss and I could smell a smell.  Not an unpleasant one mind you, but a smell nonetheless.  So I said to myself:  "Oops...I guess it wasn't air-tight.  Well, we'll see what happens."  The next day I would occasionally catch a "pickle-like" whiff when I was near the jar and by day three the whiff wasn't so nice and there was a foam growing on top of my pretty orange carrots.  Boo-hoo. 

So, I cranked the lid really righty-tighty which released a strong vapor and hissing sound and I promptly chucked it in the garbage.  I wonder if it will eventually blow it's top somewhere in "garbage land"?  Ew.

I'll let you know how my next attempt works out.  Stay tuned...

My Messy Living Room

I promised to get real on this blog so here goes.  I'm sure none if it ever gets this bad in your own homes but orderliness is not my strong suit.  ...oh, how I try...  I don't know what's deficient in me that seems to be so amply provided in others but chaos seems to reign supreme most days around here.
So here's a "get real" picture of what's going on in my living room right now:

Yup...this is for real.  Let me take you on a tour....

On your left you see what I call "Mt. Never-rest"  That chair is perpetually holding laundry that is waiting to be sorted and delivered.  Why we can't just run through a load a day and get it to completion by the end of the day is beyond me.

Above Mt. Never-rest is a picture that is clearly too small for the space.  Doesn't it look ridiculous there?  I obviously need something bigger.  But I digress...back to chaos.

Next to Mt. Never-rest and on the coffee table are a bunch of trash bags. (Yup, there's a coffee table shoved against the hutch.  Why is it shoved there and not sitting politely in front of a couch you ask?  No clue.  It's often there 'cause the kids move it aside to do sleepovers, dance shows, etc) These trash bags are working in partnership with the blue tubs stacked in front of the coffee table.  They are all full of either all the summer clothes that the kids either think look too dorky to be seen on their bodies OR winter clothes that need to go into storage.  (Why are they not in storage you ask?  Because I want to clean out and organize the garage a bit before re-filling it with MORE STUFF...you should see our garage...but that will be for another day....)

Next to that beautiful 200 year old hutch that's buried in BLECH is a 1 year old bookshelf I cobbled together out of cement blocks I dug out of the mud behind our house and wire racks from the garage.  Did I mention I homeschool?  That means I have a lot of books.  I have no place for them.  My dear husband, whom I love, bought $400 worth of lumber to build us a wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling bookcase that has been sitting in the garage for the past 2 (or is it 3) years half stained.  Love him, I really do.  But I am getting desperate for the bookshelf so last summer I invented my own.  Butt-ugly but it holds the books.  (I was kinda hoping it would make him feel a little guilty when he saw what I had to resort to but I don't think he did! lol)  As you can see both the beautiful 200 year old hutch and the butt-ugly 1 year old bookshelf have books lying all cock-a-mamie on them because I cannot reach either of them to put the books away properly.

Why am I showing you this?  Well, to make you feel like you're not alone with your own little pile of chaos that you have somewhere in your life.  Maybe it's not as big and ugly as mine, or maybe it's worse, but, please know I share your pain.

By the way, this space will be completely transformed by Friday night because my Dad just told me he'd like to come out to visit us over the weekend.  Yikes!  This is not the only pile of chaos that I have.  I have many.  I will be conquering some mountains this week while still trying to do all the other stuff I have to do.

My Dogs Are Barking!

So last summer I thought I'd stepped on a stone and bruised my heel. I waited for it to heal but it only got worse and eventually both feet were in pain. Finally I went to see the doctor and he confirmed what I suspected: plantar fasciitis. I'm sure I have the worst case in the history of feet. Sometimes it hurts so bad I walk like I've got a serious physical handicap. In fact, for all intents and purposes I AM handicapped to some degree. The intense pain has handicapped me.

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So, first I started out with exercises and pricey shoes. I'm told I can never pad around in barefeet again....ever....in my life. Harumph. I believe that people were designed by God to be barefoot. I don't think He designed us to need $100 shoes with good arch support. But he also didn't design us to be carrying an extra 50 pounds of body fat for most of our adult lives, either...so there. It's my own fault I suppose for being overweight AND barefoot. If you're overweight, I advise you look into shoes with good arch supports and wear them...to avoid this terrible agony later in life.

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Anyhow, so 3 pairs of pricey shoes were purchased and I was full of hope that my days of pain and limited mobility would be over. Nope. I'm sure I'm better off with the pricey shoes, but I'm still DYING by the end of the day.

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So, then I tried this "Sports Rub" with Emu Oil and Peppermint Oil. It claims to help with muscle aches....and it does. I'm in pain, I rub some on my feet, the inflamation reduces and I feel better! ....temporarily. But temporarily is better than never so I've been rubbing regularly. My feet smell like your Grampa's candy dish. Mmmmm....yummy. But, the painful inflamation is the reaction of my feet to something going WRONG down there and even though the lotion reduces the pain, the "wrongness" is continuing and the pain returns.

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Today, however, is a day to hope for a change. Today I received my very own pair of custom designed orthotics. I finally hobbled my way to a specialist and he had a nurse tape my feet and see if I felt any better. I really did feel better for a few days until the tape stretched out so he believes these things will help me. At $450 a pair I hope they do! They are sorta "floppy" and already seem to be peeling off at the heel so I'm not sure how they are going to make "the difference", but I really hope that this is the magic bullet.