Simplicity is Calling

For those that have known me a long time, know I am not normal. I don't try to follow the Jones', I don't have a better homes and gardens home, and I don't keep up with the latest fashions. Who says any of that is normal anyway? I enjoy the crazier side of life.

We sold our house in 2006 and moved our family of 5 into a 5th wheel trailer. Story can be found here. We lived in that trailer for the best part of 3 years. Loved it, but moved into a house at our first duty station. There we decided to do the farm thing. That story can be found here. Soon we couldn't afford that and moved into town. Our first time as a family to live in town.

It ruined us! Ugh! I loved being close to friends and driving was much shorter. It was cheaper. But I had to find ways to entertain children. And they became infested with stuffitis and me-attitude. Then you had to deal with the world at your door watching everything you do. Which in turn made me worry about what they thought about this overly sized homeschooling family. And my husband felt like he was in a cage.

Our next move, courtesy of the army, we moved to the country again while my husband lives on post to attend school. We love country life! And Isaiah's Place is a God send. Yet I still find I am fighting stuffitis. Once it has infiltrated your home, it is hard to get rid of. And it moved with us. Plus I'm really tired of picking up the stuff.

I felt the need to keep a showcase home (never achieved that). I felt I had to have high achieving academic children (don't have that either). I had so much performance pressure in town that I never experienced before. No one told me I had to acheive these things. But living in town changed me. Now I'm struggling to let it go and enjoy homeschooling again. Be able to get thru the day and smile at the mess, instead of letting it turn me into a beast. I like a clean house, just like the rest of us. But it shouldn't control me, nor should it zap the joy out of our home.

Simplicity is calling. Having few belongings, having less than 400sqft living space, and having few bills is simple and freeing. I hear it whispering in my ear.

A Day at Isaiah's Place

 This particular post is a day in pictures. Enjoy!

Cravings

I walked into a gas station to buy a bag of ice this evening. I walked in and wondered down the cooler isle, eyeballing all the sodas and starbucks beverages. I even made a swing past the ice cream display. But eventually I dragged myself to the counter and bought only the bag of ice I came for.

That was hard.

Let me back up. I was the disgusting girl at school who could eat junk ALL day and still slip into a size 3 pair of Rocky Mountain jeans. (dating myself there.) My senior year I lived off of Reces and Dr. Pepper. Literally. Finding myself pregnant, I went cold turkey on the soda only to pick it back up after I had the baby. Fast forward to three kids later, I'm still downing the DP. But it got to the point where my stomach would burn so badly after drinking soda that I decided to do a cold turkey again.

Two long weeks of cravings and I was free of Dr. Peppers!! But that is all I quit. I still had a crazy metabolism, had dizzy spells, tummy problems, headaches, etc. Things I had lived with for years not knowing that that wasn't normal. As the dizzy spells got worse, we started to do reasearch. I had all the symptoms of hypoglycemia. I cut the sugar and became a whole new person! My emotional roll coasters didn't exist anymore. Headaches disappeared. I felt great.

I was 90% sugar free for 4+ years. Dr. Pepper free for 6 years.

Then we moved to town. Then we moved again, a stressful move. I succumed and drank Dr. Pepper. Then the house we moved into had awful tasting water. Dr. Pepper became my daily friend, as did headaches, tummy aches, lack of energy, and dizzy spells. Except now I'm older and don't bounc back so easily.

You think it would be easy to just say no, I don't want to feel this way. But it isn't. The sound of a can popping open, still gets me everytime. Watching another drink a soda is hard. The cooler isle at the gas station is tempting, so very tempting.

I had a bad blood sugar "episode" yesterday. I ate a lot of brownies and drank a Dr. Pepper. First one of the week, but still drank one. When I have an "episode" I talk like a drunk that is trying to not sound drunk. I'm spinning to where sitting in a chair takes great concentration. I have to wet my lips, but my tongue just doesn't know how to find them. My eyes lose the ability to focus making walking or driving dangerous.

I ate my protein and laid down. Waited for it to pass. Only to wake up the next morning, still recovering as it takes a day or two to recover, and ate a sweet roll for breakfast and two brownies for snack. Why would I do this to myself?

The lack of self control is embarrasing.

So you see, walking thru that gas station isle tonight was tempting and hard to walk away with only ice. But I said no! And everyday I will be faced with many opportunites to say no. I share this because so many people don't really understand how hard it is to say no. It's an addiction. There is a comfort in the sound of the pop of the can and the fizz that makes its way out. That desire cries out and I momentarily forget how awful it makes me feel, so I eat another or drink more. It is shameful.

I am weak, but through Christ I will be made strong.

"...God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." 1 Corinthians 10:13

Chocolate . . . Homemade

I want this blog journal to be full of my life and a huge part of my life is cooking . . . and chocolate. So the first recipe I will share is my homemade chocolate syrup. I love a good glass of chocolate milk, but want to avoid all the artificial-ness of store bought syrup. I make my syrup from raw organic agave. It isn't really the best sweetener out there, but it makes a great syrup and isn't as bad as white sugar or corn syrup. This is one of those middle of the road sweets.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

1 cup hot water

1 cup raw organic agave

1 cup cocoa powder

1/2 t vanilla

1/2 t salt

Combine and whisk together to remove all lumps. Refrigerate.

I used it in my coffee this morning. Goes great on ice cream, but I typically vote for my homemade crackle topping on ice cream. Hmmm . . . maybe another recipe I need to share.

Although there really isn't any great recipe to share there. Melt a handful of chocolate chips with a little bit of virgin coconut oil. When you pour it on ice cream it hardens quickly because of the coconut oil. :)

Filling Tummies without Losing my Mind

I love to cook, but even more, I love to eat! And I want real food made from real ingredients. I guess I am a bit of a food snob. I am not a PB/J and mac-n-cheese kind of mom. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I want scrumptious food every time I sit down. Up through 4 kids, this was easily maintained. I menu planned when I had time, but mostly I kept a full pantry and fridge of real foods and would create meals towards whatever I "felt" like at the time. Number 5 was born during a deployment and number 6 is under a year old and I am single parenting it yet again.

Menu planning has become essential, yet it was taking so much time. Time I really don't have. I am not the "let's have pizza every Friday night" type of mom. I have dreamt of it often, but my impulsive desire to try new foods and not get bored with my dinner, prevents me from such menu plans.

This week I came up with something revolutionary  to my meal planning adventures! It is a combination of the "pizza night" mom and my love for cultural food.

Sunday:
B - Egg Dishes

L - Sandwiches

D - Grill

Monday:
B - Cereal

L - Leftovers

D - Crock Pot/One Dish
Tuesday:
B - Pancakes

L - Pasta

D - Mexican

Wednesday:
B - Muffins

L - Sandwiches

D - Wild Card

Thursday:
B - Granola

L - Salad

D - Asian

Friday:
B - French Toast

L - Leftovers

D - Italian

Saturday:
B - Wild Card

L - Wild Card

D - Veggie

I hang up my weekly menu plan on the fridge so that it is easy to reference. My kids can check it too and it avoids the million questions of what's for dinner!

This simple plan gives me flexibility to try new things, yet doesn't require me to do detailed menu planning every week. I can fly by the seat of my pants to do what sounds yummy at the time and use up ingredients needing to move out of the fridge quickly. Yes, some meals require a little more planning ahead, but for the most part I can swing this. For example: tonight is Mexican night. Even though I wasn't sure what I was actually gonna make for dinner, I knew I needed to start beans earlier in the day. And now that my black beans are almost done cooking, I decided to whip up some Black Bean and Corn Salsa! Yum!

I Love Being Your Mother!

I am currently working through The Power of Motherhood by Nancy Campbell. Chapter one she tells us to wake up in the morning and tell our kids how much we love being their mom, even if we don't feel it. And although there are days where I don't feel like I want to be a mom, I always love being "their" mom. I love my kids and how each one has their own distinct personality.

These lonely parenting days are exhausting. Many days I just want to fall into bed, but instead have to sleep squished between two boys, two boys who don't seem to sleep a whole night through. But somehow God has given me the energy to wake up and feed the troops and eventually get school rolling. Only to fall over at noon only to discover that I need to feed them . . . again.

I have been asked many rude questions about why I have so many children, I have been gawked at because I homeschool and told how impossible it would be for them, and I have had so many think supermom thoughts my way because I like to cook from scratch and have an undying love for things homemade. Let me assure you I am not supermom. I jokingly refer to myself that way, but total sarcasm. I have more children because I do enjoy being a mom . . . most of the time. I homeschool because I chose to watch my kids grow and learn and I wanted to learn with them. And I cook from scratch and make homemade goodies because I also need a creative outlet.

So even though I went to bed crying tonight over my inability to calm a fussy child, I will wake up in the morning and say to my children, "I love being your mother."

An Introduction

I don't have a lot of time. I'm a busy mom, single mom at the time while hubby is away at army school. But I felt the desire to journal this next year. So here it is. A blog that I can simply write my thoughts, share our silly times, and reflect on what we learned.

This year I will be living near Isaiah's Place. Isaiah's Place, lovingly called IP, is a deaf retreat center on a small horse ranch in Whitney, TX. We have been visiting there for 10 years and even was blessed to live and serve there for 3 months a while back. Here we are again. Able to serve and work at a place where we feel God and see God.

This year will be a year of opportunities, changes, growing up, separation, and so much more. I will share pictures, maybe a video or two, recipes, stories, and scripture. I can't promise when I will write, but as I have time, I will write.