Peace

I need peace in my head today. I question and question and feel so unsettled. The pastor spoke about Hannah and how she prayed. She poured out her heart to the Lord for her desire. I need God so much. Although, I don't know what my prayer is for. I'm not quite sure what my desire is. The saddness comes into my heart and doesn't go away for long. I have everything I need. Beautiful kids, a wonderful and thoughtful husband, caring parents, and an understanding sister. Why do I so often feel sad? Why do I feel so paralized to change? Why do I feel so alone? Lord, I pray for peace in my soul and for joy in my heart and that that joy will extend to others.

Sloth

An object at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts upon it.

Disorder

You can always tell the state of my mind if you look at the state of my house. And right now-It's a mess.

Ok, I had some carrots and celery and a few frozen potaotes. What to do? Make a soup. So I looked up celery on the internet and found a recipe. Now, I hardely measure when I cook, but I found out the ingredients and put them together. I made two soups, a carrot soup and a celery soup. The carrot soup is made with chicken broth, potatoes, carrots, onion, dry ginger and some butter. I added some fresh parsely from the garden. The celery soup is made with celery, carrots,onion, potatos, cumin, curry powder, thyme and the recipe called for an apple. But I didn't have any apples ,so I put a little orange juice in there to sweeten it. Of course salt and pepper both. Well, I went to blend them and the celery soup became a disaster! I accedently blended up the little plastic top on the blender. It fell into the soup! So, I had to throw that out. Bummer. Oh well, it may not have been good anyway, because of the orange juice instead of the apple. Anyway, the carrot soup came out well.

Ahh! Work, work work. The kids are busy today. They have been working on capacity in their math books. They really got into it. Water was everywhere. But I don't think they will forget ml and Liters! Aidan said he felt like a scientist measuring everything. I need to start doing some science activities with them, but when to fit it in is the question. I have been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason lately. I like her ideas, but getting away from workbooks is hard for me. We have been using Rod and Staff. It is such a thorough program. I am afraid I would forget to teach something without those books. But oh! to have hours of exploration would be nice. It takes them so long to finish their workbooks. We don't always get outside. Maybe I need to stop reading Charlotte Mason- I'm feeling torn.

Now That's A Bag of Oatmeal

Little did I know when I joined a grain co-op that we would be surviving off it. With my husband making less and less money per week and being gone so much, I have had to be really creative with meals. Thank you God for Wheat and Oatmeal! I must say I had no idea what fifty pounds of oatmeal looked like until I picked this up from the drop off point! Now, I am going to split it with a friend, but still...it's a lot of oats! At the rate things have been going I think it will get used. The wheat, which is under the oats in the picture, has been really allowing us to make ends meet. I have made bread three times a week along with some cookies, waffles, and muffins. It has filled my family up. And we haven't had to purchase much at the grocery store, except for eggs and milk. I am so glad I had had my freezer stocked with frozen veggies before all this happened, especially bell peppers. I had bought two big bags of them at BJs in June. I didn't use much of them until this squeeze. Now I put them in everything, pasta, potatoes, rice and meatloaf. They give flavor and vitimins that we need. We sure aren't losing weight on this budget. Healthy foods are so expenseive. Fresh vegtables add up. Eating potatoes, pasta, bread and beans isn't going to make you skinny. That's for sure. But it will save you a dollar. My garden didn't come in real well this year. My tomatos are still green! We have eaten a little bit out of it, not as much as I would have liked, though. What has helped us is the food I had stocked up on before all this. For example, things are really dwindling in the pantry, but I did have a can of stewed tomatos, a can of black beans, a can of corn and some frozen spinach. I also had some really yucky Cambell's Select soup that I didn't toss after tasting the nasty stuff. Thank goodness I didn't throw it out, because it, along with the other cans, gave us a wonderful bowl of soup. I also added a little extra garlic and Pace Picante sauce. It turned out real well and it was easy. With all this bread baking, homeschooling and cleaning I need some easy meals. I even have some left over for another meal. Just realized I'm out of milk and eggs. Been going through those really fast. I guess I'm going to have to go to the grocery store. Got to have milk to go with oatmeal in the morning.:-)

I wanted to post some pictures of our last week. Also, I had made the most perfect bread and wanted to remember it. I tweeked it from a recipe I got from a lady named Clara on youtube. She makes a bread called Depression bread. No measuring!! Here I was trying to get the best bread recipe- measuring things out to the tee. And this lady pours a whole bag of flour into a bowl, adds some yeast to the middle and keeps adding water while kneading until she has a dough. Lets it rise. Puts it in pans. Lets it rise again. Then bakes it at 350 until crispy on top. Ta Dah! Depression bread. I tried this with my own grinded wheat flour mixed with a little bread flour. I also added a little sugar and salt. But I didn't measure a thing and Ta Dah! Wonderful bread! The other pictures are of a butterfly funeral the kids had. Aidan accedently hit a butterfly while swinging his tennis racket. No really, it was an accident. He was devastated. They nursed it as long as they could, but then it died. So they decided to make funeral. It was a big production. Let me tell you! Now they think they are BUG SAVORS. Brianna has made business cards. Yesterday, when we went for a walk she began handing out her business cards to people on the trail. What surprised me... was that some people thought it was for real and asked for the website and phone number! BB said that her mom wouldn't let that information out.