While I realize that I have a recipe index here on Many Little Blessings, and I talk about cooking and baking, I have a confession to make: Cooking is really a struggle for me.  I’m not someone who will just whip up something in the kitchen.  I need directions.  And, honestly – this doesn’t bother me.  If I always have to use recipes, it’s okay with me.

What’s not okay with me, however, is that I’ve spent my whole married life (15 and a half years) relying a lot on things like going out to eat, take out, and convenience foods (or recipes that rely heavily on some convenience foods).  I certainly make some meals, but it is often not the majority of our meals in a week.

I went into married life knowing how to bake things like cookies and quick breads, as well as knowing how to prepare things like Macaroni and Cheese (from the blue box).  It was not pretty, kids.  When you couple that with the fact that Eric worked nights and I went to college during the day, it was a recipe for a lot of take out.  (I’m not joking in that description of myself in the top right of the blog when I call myself domestically-challenged.  Cooking, cleaning, organization — it’s all a challenge to me.)

At the end of 2011, I decided that I needed to learn how to make more meals.  I also needed to be more intentional about the food that I buy for my family.  (We’ve decided to commit to using organic meat and eggs as often as possible, limit some of our meat intake, and eliminate red meat as much as possible.)  I can’t promise that we’ll always eat healthy foods, but I can promise you that it will probably be a lot healthier than we have been eating!

To help me out, I decided that in addition to wonderful blogs and the cookbooks I already own, I would buy some more cookbooks: Anyone Can Cook: Step-by-Step Recipes Just for You (this one has been my favorite so far) , How to Boil Water, The Moms’ Guide to Meal Makeovers:  Improving the Way Your Family Eats, One Meal at a Time!, Good Housekeeping Step by Step Cookbook, and The Healthy College Cookbook.  (I had a gift certificate!)

I hope, this year, to share my journey here on the blog.  Not everyday, of course, but I’ll make sure to check in about it.  I’ll share things I make from time to time and give you the scoop on how things are going.

For the first time in ages, I made a menu plan for the week.  I also decided I couldn’t only focus on dinner, so I put together some possible breakfast and lunch options.  So, here is our menu plan for the week (although we won’t necessarily eat all of the breakfast and lunch options this week, they’re just breakfast and lunch ideas).

Breakfast Possibilities:

Toaster Strudels (This is me being honest.  The kids begged for them, and I said okay.)

Scrambled Eggs

Toast and Fruit

English Muffins and Yogurt

Smoothies

Breakfast Burrito Wraps

Muffins/Scones with Fruit

Lunch Possibilities:

Leftovers

Sandwiches

Grilled Cheese

English Muffin Pizzas (using 100% whole wheat English muffins)

Homemade Pizzas (yeah, I know.  The kids love pizza.)

Lunch Out with Dad

Dinner Plans:

Chicken Noodle Soup and Ciabatta Bread

Taco Salad (or Soft Tacos, for those that don’t like Taco Salad; Made using ground turkey)

Breakfast for Dinner

Chicken Tenders (organic) with Roasted Vegetables

Rosemary Chicken with Vegetables and Couscous

Teriyaki-Sesame Turkey Meatballs and Brown Rice

Dinner Out

This post is linked to Welcome Home and Menu Plan Monday.

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Today, I’m asking you, the wonderful readers of The Homeschool Classroom, a question that has really vexed me for a while now:

What do you do when homeschooling doesn’t look like you imagined it would look?

This isn’t to say that I need our schooling to look just like I imagined it would be when I was in those months of discernment and planing while my oldest children were still in public school.  I just often find myself thinking that it feels like sometimes, we’re just going through the motions.  The things that I wanted to really be important seem to take a backseat to the things that I think need to be done.

Click through to read the rest of my very real, very honest post about my feelings on our homeschooling.  And, please make sure to read through the comments.  There are so many inspirational ones being left.  (I’m still trying to work my way through them all.)

What to Do When Homeschooling Doesn’t Look Like You Imagined? is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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~ 1 ~

I’ve been working on eating better the last couple of weeks, though I’ve had off days and on days.  Nothing has been really steady, even though I had told myself that I would really focus on healthier eating and exercise when I got home from vacation.

photo by FHKE

This week, however, I downloaded the Calorie Tracker from LiveStrong app for my iPad (it’s available for the iPhone/iPod Touch too) and have been tracking calories and exercise.  (I also canceled my online Weight Watchers account a week or two ago.  I looked at saved emailed and realized that I have joined and left the WW online program once a year, every year, since 2007.)

I love the LiveStrong app though, and love even more than I paid $2.99 for it once and won’t have to pay for it over and over like Weight Watchers.

~ 2 ~

Even though I have done a great job staying in my calorie goal for the few days that I have been using the app and even got in exercise three times one of the days (for 10 – 20 minutes each), I still have gained .8 pounds.  It’s just that kind of thing that usually makes me say, “Forget it!” and then I stop trying.  (A few years ago, I did manage to lose 25 pounds, but then put it back on once I gave up after I stopped losing/starting gaining a pound or two.)

Today, I told my Mom my disappointment at trying hard and then gaining weight.  She, of course, gave the whole muscle weighs more than fat spiel.  But, then she also reminded me of something so simple, but that I was overlooking: It’s good to eat healthy and get exercise just for the sheer reason that it’s good to eat healthy and exercise (not only to lose weight).

I need to work on remembering that anything I can do to make my body healthier is good, no matter how the scale has its little fluctuations.

~ 3 ~

I figured out how to organize my apps on my iPad (and I’m sure it works on the iPhone/iPod Touch) into folders! That way, instead of pages of apps and having to flip through them, I have all of the apps on the front screen.

Now, maybe this is old news.  But, I hadn’t figured it out before, so I was thrilled.

If you haven’t done this and want to try it, just hold down an app until they all start shaking.  Then, grab one app and basically act like you’re going to try to stick it into another app.  They will then be in a “folder” together.  Love it!

I now have folders on my front screen that are: Social Media, Kid Stuff, Productivity, Games (non-kid ones), Education, Lifestyle, and Rarely Used.

~ 4 ~

I was hungry tonight and envious about my Mom’s late night snack of oatmeal.  I told her that I had been wanting cinnamon raisin oatmeal, but didn’t have any.  (Code: I don’t have any in those Quaker packets.)

“Do you have any oatmeal?” she asked.

“Yeah.  I suppose I could make it like that, huh?” I answered.

“It’s really easy,” she assured me.

I was excited to see some microwave directions, and then just figured I would add in a modest amount of sugar, some cinnamon, and raisins.  I was excited as the time ticked away on the microwave, envisioning doing this often in the future.

My oatmeal concoction that I tried to put together was disgusting.  I apparently need a recipe for microwave oatmeal, which feels really sad to say, as I can’t guess the proportions.  I’m now eating a banana instead.

~ 5 ~

My new Just a Tiny Owl listings for this week:

Annabel Lee Mixed Media Painting (print)

To Love and Be Loved Mixed Media Painting (print)

Yes, both prints come from the same painting.  But, I just loved one portion of it enough that I wanted to make it into its own print as well.

I had long wanted to do a painting inspired by the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, as it’s my very favorite.  And, I figure if Edgar Allan Poe was around now, his Annabel Lee would probably have a slightly goth flair to her.  Don’t you think?

~ 6 ~

I tried reading Edgar Allan Poe to the kids as our poet for the semester.  Jack told me I wasn’t allowed to read anymore because it was too creepy.

In my defense, I was using the book Poetry for Young People: Edgar Allan Poe.  It’s not like I was grabbing an anthology of his works and picking out the creepiest parts.

~ 7 ~

Despite Jack’s insistence, Molly (age six) asked me to please read the excerpt from The Tell-Tale Heart the other day.  Just so she doesn’t sound too morbid, I did read it with my best “mad man” voice, so it was really to the point of being amusing.

After that, I made the boys listen too, and I read “The Raven.”  It tickled me that Molly kept walking around afterward (for a couple of days) saying, “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

I realized that was one thing I love about homeschooling. Not that I couldn’t have been reading Poe to my kindergartner if she was in a traditional school, but I don’t know that I would have thought to do anything like that.

This post is linked to 7 Quick Takes and Weekly Wrap Up.

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7 Quick Takes: January 28, 2011 (Vol. 68) is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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One of my favorite scenes in Mary Poppins is when she has just met the Banks children, and she measures them with a tape measure which is printed with attributes about them right at their heights.  When Mary Poppins is then measured, the tape measure reads, “Practically Perfect in Every Way.”

I’m here to say – I’m no Mary Poppins.

While I think that I have been pretty up front with my lack of perfection here on my blog, I still remember a time when a friend told me that she thought she would have to stop reading my blog.  When I asked her why, she said it was because it made her feel bad.  It was then that I decided I needed to be a lot more real.  I needed to share my imperfections.  And I did.

However, it hit me the other night.  After almost four years of blogging, I recognize one major thing that my blog is documenting. And, while I knew I was documenting it, I didn’t really share it.  I think I wanted to look like something that I wasn’t.

So, here’s where I admit that I am pretty much a domestic flunkie.

While I love my Mom (on top of being an amazing Mom, she’s also one of my best friends), growing up, she was a super Mom that did things for us.  While I loved it for the easy life it gave me, I have also realized as an adult that there was a lot of learning that I missed out on.  From proper cleaning to cooking to money management to laundry, and a whole lot in between.  I loved that I didn’t have to worry about these things growing up, but it also meant that when I was married at 19 and never having lived on my own, there were a whole lot of things that I didn’t know how to do.

Leading up to my wedding, Mom wrote out some favorite recipes for me, though we ended up eating an awful lot of Macaroni and Cheese and Dinty Moore Beef Stew.  She also gave me a crash course in laundry a week before the wedding, although I got confused and spent years washing our towels in cold water (and then wondered why they never seemed clean enough).

And you know what?  I spent many years of married life as that domestic flunkie. Our house was dirty, we ate junk, and I generally steered clear of most domestic arts.  I was busy with college, and just didn’t much care about those kinds of things.

In recent years, I think of myself more of a domestic wannabe. I audibly celebrate when I learn a new skill (like embroidery or making an ice ring for the punch bowl), master a recipe (or even just successfully make it on the first try), or manage to actually grow things in my garden.  I may walk around the house excitedly showing everyone, “Look what I did!” like a proud kindergartner.  And, sadly, though I am 33 years old, I have never made scrambled eggs because it still kind of scares me a little.

This is what I realized the other night — while I didn’t start this blog with the intention of showing my growth as a homemaker, that is one of the major things my blog is about. It’s just that I realized I never shared that with all of you.  I tried to make myself look like I was a domestic pro, but I’m not.  I’m a reforming domestic flunkie who is trying to grow into the woman that I think God called me to be, but I was embarrassed to admit it.

This is why all of the recipes I post are easily accessible for even a beginning cook.  And this is why the hats I’ve made are all done on the Knifty Knitter.  I’ve spent the last five years or so trying to make baby steps towards domesticity.

So, will you still love me if I’m not practically perfect in every way?

Will you still read if you know that when I make muffins from scratch, I may dance around the kitchen and say, “I rock!”?

Will you think of me in the same way if you know that this blog is me documenting our lives, just as they are now, even though that means that it’s not me being super domestic, but just trying to grow in that way?

I hope you still will.

Will You Still Love Me If I’m Not Mary Poppins? is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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~ 1 ~

From the “You’ve Got to Be Kidding, Right?” Department:

My Mom had follow up appointments this week with the surgeon from her emergency open heart surgery on July 1st, and then with her cardiologist.  There was some discussion of recent chest pain she has been having, and so she is having a heart catheterization procedure on Friday of this week.

We’re praying that this time around will be considerably less traumatic, and that there won’t be any problems to be found.  I’ll post sometime this weekend about it.  (If you want to know sooner, I’ll try to put it up on Facebook after we get the results on Friday.)

~ 2 ~

In happier news, Noah’s new bike arrived on Thursday and Eric got it put together in no time.  Unlike past attempts on bikes, he wasn’t hesitant and even rode to my parents house.  He was very excited, and it was so much fun to see him get to ride with the rest of the family.

We were going to get him a cooler looking recumbent style bike with flames on it, but we found that he is growing faster than we thought and he only has about five or six inches before he would outgrow it.  (At the rate he’s going, that may be next week.)  This bike has made him thrilled though, and that makes us thrilled too.  Plus, he loved being able to put some things in the basket in the back for the trip to Grandma and Papa’s.

(My eBook is still 50% off with the code bike through the end of August, with the proceeds going toward the bike expenses.  Current sales paid for 20% of the bike.  Thanks so much!)

~ 3 ~

Watch out, Tooth Fairy.  It would seem that the jig is up around our house.

Yes, yes, I know, Tooth Fairy.  You haven’t even had a chance to visit Molly once.  I understand.

However, five year old Molly says, “Come on.  I mean, come on.  A fairy?  Yeah, okay.  Fairies aren’t even real!  Come on. A fairy just flies in and takes your teeth.  Come on.”

All I have to say is that this Tooth Fairy discover was a whole lot easier than when Jack figured it all out.

~ 4 ~

I love a nice variety of music, and one of my favorite places to listen to music is in the van while I’m driving.  Earlier this week, I was in a mood while I was driving to go do therapy.  Quite honestly, I wanted to cancel my appointments because I just didn’t want to go.  I decided I needed to listen to music that matched my mood.

I’m just going to say – It’s probably not the right mind set to go play with toddlers when your mood is best matched with grunge music.

~ 5 ~

We need to get new cell phones soon, but I feel a bit clueless. Anyone have a great suggestion (or something to steer clear of) for a phone to use through Verizon?

~ 6 ~

I signed up for Home EC, which is an online sewing class for beginners. I’m kind of really extremely nervous about it, but I’m hoping for courage and good results.

I’ll have to keep everyone posted on how things are going as I work through the course, which could very well take me the whole year that they leave the materials online.  Wish me luck!

~ 7 ~

Why is it that I have two college degrees but still do things like say “wicked psyched” at a meeting at church?

This post is linked to 7 Quick Takes and Weekly Wrap Up.

sewing machine photo by Cláudia*~Assad

7 Quick Takes: August 6, 2010 (Vol. 48) is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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It seems like I have been a little aimless lately. I had been wanting to participate in Top Ten Tuesday and figured, “Hey, why not just talk about what kinds of things I have been thinking of lately?”  So, here are my random things that I have been pondering on.

1.  Am I ever going to order new glasses before my prescription runs out?

2. What is up with Jack’s eye?  (We had a very tense visit to the emergency room this weekend that I’ll share more about later.)

3. Why have I completely lost the ability to stay focused on a task?

4. Can I have a personal assistant for about a week?

5. What am I looking for when I head to the homeschool conference soon?

6. Will I manage to leave #5 without spending a fortune?

7. Should I open my Etsy shop back up again or is it not worth the annoyance of sending in sales tax every month and filling out the crazy business personal property tax form every year?

8. If I open an Etsy shop, should I start another blog for it or should I just try to incorporate it here?

9. Why has Molly been getting so darn cranky just before bed time recently?

10. Can I get my act together and send in some paperwork for my independent contracting by the end of the week, since I clearly did not send it in today?

This sounded like a whiny post, I imagine.  I have to admit — I feel a little whiny.  I have never felt more scattered and disjointed than I have felt for the past year or so.

Top Ten Things I Have Been Thinking Of Lately is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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My friend Myra, at My Blessed Life, started a weekly carnival (or meme) a couple of months ago called Friday Fails (with a tag line that is so true – “Because a blessed life is not always a perfect life.”)

I usually don’t have to search too long to find my little fails throughout the week.  This is one is just one of many.

I love Simple Mom.  I love her blog.  (I even wrote a guest post there before about composting with a garbage can.)  I loved hearing her at Blissdom.  I could not, however, bring myself to actually approach her, even though I could have said, “Hey — I wrote a guest post for you before.”  Nope — couldn’t do it. 

Anyway, I digress.  It wasn’t too long ago that Tsh (Simple Mom) talked about cleaning up the kitchen as you go while doing a lot of cooking or baking.  I think that’s a fabulous idea.  I was envious when I saw that she does it.  I have to admit to it being one of my weak areas. 

Here is what the kitchen looked like after backing several batches of quick breads, two batches of muffins, and a sheet cake (I still can’t believe I’m about to show this, by the way):

What’s wrong with me?  Seriously.

So, the next time your kitchen looks like a disaster zone, just think of me, and feel a little better about yourself.

Later on at about 2 am in the evening, I had to slave away at that mess (which actually got worse than pictured).  I’m sure it would have been easier to clean up a little at a time rather than all at once.  I’m thankful that I did finally get it clean.

If you have a “fail” that you want to share, make sure to go visit Myra at My Blessed Life.

How Not To Do a Big Baking Evening is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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I don’t know if it’s the weather or so much sickness going around or just the time of year, but it seems like a lot of people that I have talked to lately report just feeling behind in just about everything.  I am feeling like that too. 

So, of course, I know that none of us can “do it all,” but I would love to hear some of your best tips for getting caught up when you are feeling behind.  Mind you, it doesn’t have to be how you get totally caught up, maybe just a tip or two to help in getting caught up.

 (Oh, and on a side note — Happy Birthday to my wonderful, amazing, super cool Mom!  Love you!)

photo by Sybren A. Stüvel

How Do You Get Caught Up? is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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~ 4 ~

I’ll never be one of those women that can go to the grocery store and get $400 worth of groceries for $1.85.  It’s just not going to happen.  But, I was thrilled this week to go to Kroger and get $300 worth of groceries for $200.  WooHoo!

Between some great coupons, Kroger plus card sales, and then a deal they were having where you got $5 off for every 10 items you bought from a certain list of items, I saved us $94 on our grocery bill. 

But, don’t feel bad if you’re not a great grocery shopper — I’ll spend way too much money next time I go, I’m sure.  So, it will all even out in the end.

 

7 Quick Takes: February 12, 2010 (Vol. 29) is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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Did that title catch your eye?  It probably means that you are a lot like me.  I have the best of intentions to get caught up on email, but then one email makes me say, “Oh yeah — I meant to check that on Facebook.”  Or, maybe an email mentions an idea that I want to look up.  Then, instead of looking it up later, I bring up Google.  An hour later, when I’m doing something completely unrelated to what I originally went to look for, I remember that I was working on email.

I’m not going to pretend that by giving strategies that it means that I’m keeping up with my emails.  Just ask Brenda, I’m not.  But, here are a few strategies that always seem to make me clear out my inbox (at least partially).

Work Offline: I have been making it a practice to take my laptop along with me to the boys’ piano lessons.  We spend an hour at the teacher’s apartment, and I spend most of that hour just working on email.  Because I’m offline while doing it, all of the emails have to wait until I get home to send.  But, it also means that I can’t pop online to be distracted. 

Just this week, their teacher said that she had been meaning to ask me if I wanted her security code so I could get online.  I told her that as much as I would love it, I found the time to be most productive because I was offline.  I was proud of myself for not caving in to my usual distracted behavior.

Set a Timer:  I really enjoy using Tiny Timer to set a timer for working on my email (or other tasks where I tend to get distracted).  What I will do is decide how long I want to work on email and then put it in the timer.  Then, I can’t do anything else on the computer (other than email) until the timer goes off.  I have been known to then give myself a little time to play around after the timer goes off, and then set it again.  The timer, of course, is great for any number of purposes though — check it out.

Delete Emails that Don’t Need Answers:  I have a tendency to forget to delete emails that ought to just be deleted.  When I let them build up, it makes me overwhelmed to check my email.  I am always more apt to work on my email when my inbox isn’t brimming over with messages.

Set up Filters/Separate Email Accounts:  I don’t tend to use filters on my email, but I do have a few email accounts.  While this may seem counter intuitive to being caught up on email, it helps me to have specific email accounts for specific tasks.  For instance, my email account for Catholic Mothers Online gets a lot of email, but it is also not something I need to check every day.  But, when I do check it, I tend to work through it all in one setting.  (This works for me because I use Outlook Express for most of these and can change between email accounts with two clicks of the mouse.)

Five Sentence Emails: Based on the idea on Sentenc.es – A Disciplined Way to Deal with Email, I work hard to keep some of my emails as brief as possible.  This helps me to move through some of them faster (and I’m less likely to let my mind wander).  Then again, I also manage to write emails that are as long as this post, so that does cut down on my efficiency.

Put Email on my To Do List: Sometimes, I just have to write a specific goal on my to do list, when I get really behind.  For instance, I may write, “Answer 20 Emails” as a to do item.  I really enjoy checking off tasks, so this is like a challenge to me.  It helps to keep me from being distracted when I know I can make a notch on a paper for every email sent.


Anything that I missed that works for you?  Do you tend to keep up with your email or let is pile up?

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

Strategies For Getting Caught Up On Email for the Easily Distracted is a post from: Many Little Blessings

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