A Joyful Keeper

The sun is shining and I need to go and hang my washing out. We’ve had such funny spring weather. Once day it is warm, the next cold. Still, I enjoy both types of days. We just went into Daylight Savings, so there is a bit of adjustment there, although so far we’ve all been up and about early.

I feel like we are getting into a routine or rhythm with our weeks now. Mondays I try to get most of the washing done. Tuesdays I iron while the kids are nearby doing school…. and so on. I’ve been baking and cooking extra at the end of the week so that I have less to do on weekends. I particularly like to have food made for Sunday so that I can rest. Of course in three weeks time we will get our new property and this rhythm might just change! LOL! Still, for now I am enjoying it.

It is also only a few more days till the end of October - my month of only reading the Bible! I must say I have missed my devotionals in the morning. But I have enjoyed reading the Bible. Even though I have only read four books (1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings), it has been good for my soul. God has spoken to me through His word and I have felt a special closeness to Him all month.

It is less than two months till Christmas and, for us Down Under, the end of the school year! The year has whizzed by, probably because we have had so many changes. I am hoping that next year will be more settled for us. I have found more than ever that I have had to be flexible with our life and school. I am glad that I haven’t been following a set curriculum, because with so much change, I doubt we would have finished it!

Chewie and the kittens are settling in well. They are being spoiled rotten of course! Comfy with Elizabeth on the bean bag:

Chewie’s favorite sleeping position:

Time to get the washing on the line and get school started! Have a lovely day, everyone!

Yesterday we went and visited our farm-to-be. We wanted to meet the owner and ask him a few things about the property. Dh wanted to know about the electricity in the shed, the water pipes, and other such important things. I wanted to know what
the fruit trees were, and how to look after the asparagus that was growing in the veggie garden!

The orchard is just wonderful! There are heaps of apple trees, plums, cherries, apricots, nectarines, …… a nashi tree, lemon tree, and… I think that is it! Some of them are looking a bit sick and need attention. Also, the frost got a lot of the blossoms, so I’m not sure how much fruit we’ll get this year. The drought hasn’t been kind to the trees either. I am hoping that once we get some water tanks going, and with some TLC, one day we will reap a good harvest.I asked advice about the asparagus. I’ve always wanted to grow it, but since it takes about 5 years after planting from seed to harvest it, I’ve never bothered (because we’ve never been in one place for that long!). So this is a special gift from God - asparagus in my veggie garden, ready to eat. The previous owner told us he got so much asparagus that he got sick of it and was giving it away! Then he cut me some to take home. I was so excited! Here it is:

I boiled it in water today, and used some of it to make these Asparagus Vol-au-vents. Oh, they were yummy! Even dh thought so! And I used one of the packets of white sauce mix that I froze during the week!

In three weeks time we will do the handover and get the keys. I can’t wait! I feel like we are so blessed. God is good.

 

Joy’s Asparagus Vol-au-vonts

fresh asparagus, boiled and cut into small pieces

one portion white sauce mix

three rashers of bacon, chopped and fried crispy

grated cheese, keep some aside to sprinkle on top

vol-au-vonts (I used small ones)

Add 1 cup of water to the portion of white sauce mix. Bring to the boil until it is thick and add the other ingredients. Spoon into vol-au-vont cases and sprinkle with some of the grated cheese. Put in a moderate oven until the cheese on top is melted and golden.

Enjoy!

Hosted by Biblical Womanhood

Savings in the kitchen can add up to a lot. As I have been looking at the sales catalogues, what has struck me most is they are full of… Yes, the catalogues are full of “specials”. But what are they specials of? Let’s see, things like: packets of lamb stew mix - just add it to your meat, veggies and stock and you have a wonderful casserole. It’s packaged nicely with a beautiful picture…. but all it is are some flavorings in a bag. Frozen lasagne - don’t make it yourself, it’s too much work. Just pop it in the oven and dinner will be ready in no time. Pieces of chicken, covered in breadcrumbs, oven ready. Garlic bread, oven ready….

Most of the specials in the catalogues are convenience foods. The staples like flour and sugar are hardly ever on special. I am not saying we shouldn’t buy any convenience foods. I will sometimes buy a pre-made lasagne (I can count the number I have bought on one hand….) - it is cheaper than take away. I will sometimes buy frozen breaded chicken… But, it is so much cheaper to make these things yourself. Yes, it takes time. But it saves money and is usually healthier.

Why do you think the catalogues are full of processed specials? Because that is where they make their money. I can buy a packet of white sauce mix for a dollar on special, and sometimes I have. That’s not bad, is it? But I can make it myself for less than 10c. If the shops make money on the end product, then I can save money on making things myself.

Yesterday I practiced what I am preaching and Elizabeth and I had a day of baking and making mixes. Elizabeth made her favorite sugar cookies and three batches of hot chocolate mix!

Just for fun, I used my new coffee stencils that a friend and I bought on a shopping trip a while back:

Hot chocolate in a cup with two hearts on top!

I made four batches of white sauce mix. I then measured and bagged the amount I would need for one serving. I don’t like using all those plastic bags, so I tried to see if I could freeze the mix as ice cubes. I’m not sure it will work since the mixture is crumbly, not liquid. I’ll have to see how it goes. Any suggestions? In any case, now I have a freezer drawer full of white sauce mix.

I am doing some of these things now while I have a large kitchen and in preparation for when we move house. I can make a quick Tuna Casserole with the white sauce mix from the freezer. Once we move it will be nice to just sit down in the evening with a hot chocolate, the mix already made and in the pantry.

It saves time to make a double or triple batch of these things while you have all the ingredients out. All the dishes can be done at the one time, you can have a long break from having to do it again, and when you are all done, you feel like you really achieved a lot - not to mention having saved some money in the process!

 

 

 

As things have been so busy the past weeks, I have been thinking about what it is that takes up so much of my time. During this season in my life, I live by three priorities: God first, then my husband and then my children. I have based this on the verses from Titus 2 where the older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children. After this I can reach out into the community. As my children grow older and become more independent, I know I can reach out more, but at this stage of life they take up a huge part of my life, especially since we homeschool.

I have found myself so tired and behind on things in the home these past few weeks, and I have been wondering why this is so. One reason is that it is that time of month, and I need to slow down a bit to take that into account. I have looked at all my activities and weighed them up against my three priorities. One thing I am continuing to cut back on is my time on the computer. It is sooooo easy to visit blogs and join egroups that take up a lot of time. It’s a good thing, if done in moderation. Over the past months I have gone to no mail with some egroups because they were just taking up too much time. This week I again felt God gently prodding me to slow down with my internet use, and spend that time in my home. I know that when we get the farm I will be much busier again. Maybe this is all in preparation….

I have been spending time sewing as well. These past weeks I have sewn some simple bags, two pillow cases to match a bed cover I made for Elizabeth, and I have started on a summer dress for her. In the business of it all I wondered - should I be doing this sewing? Does it fit in with my priorities? Why don’t I just go and buy these things, instead of spending my time on them? I read this post this morning over at Down to Earth:

Living Small

It confirmed to me why I do these things. Why I bake my bread, cakes, cookies. Why I cook from scratch. Why I sew for the children. Why I don’t just go and buy these things from the shop. It all takes time, time that is precious for me. But I am showing my children that we don’t just have to go and buy things - we can do it ourselves. We can use what we have, what God has given us. I have a cupboard full of fabric. I have patterns. I have the knowledge to sew things myself, things that are better quality, fit better, and last longer than what I can buy in the shop. Doing these homemaking things fits into the priority of loving my children. I am teaching them a different way of life.

So I don’t get enough time to blog… so I don’t get enough “me time” (whatever that is!) - I am loving and training my children.

Elizabeth is already learning. Yesterday she made a beautiful dress for her Barbie doll. She has a box full of fabric scraps. She decided they were too wrinkled, so first she ironed them. Then she used them, some ribbon and some velcro to make a dress. She is watching me and learning from me. She has pocket money and could easily use it to buy clothes for her dolls from the shop. But she is enjoying the thrill of making them herself.

My priorities…. God, Hubbie, Children and then everything else….. sometimes it is hard to see that what I am doing is worthwhile, but deep down I know it is.

Oh my! The best laid plans….. I was going to get in some extra blogging and all sorts of stuff done this week, but…life got in the way! LOL! Honestly, I feel like I have blinked and the whole week has gone by.

Things have been fun with the new puppy in the house. It was cold a few nights, so I sewed him up a little jacket which he refuses to wear (lol!), and I made him a bean bag because he seems to like the kids’ ones. I thought if I made him his own, the kids’ ones wouldn’t get so dirty, but of course he likes theirs better because they are on it with him! He’s been a good little guy though. He loves company, so we’ve been spending a lot of time with him. It will be good when the kittens arrive tomorrow - I wonder how long it will take for them to get used to each other!

In the midst of all the business of this week, God’s hand was still upon us. On Wednesday Elizabeth fell off the trampoline. I heard the screams and rushed out. She had bounced right up and off, first hitting the fence, and then the ground. She was screaming that her back hurt, and her legs. I literally dropped what I was doing and ran to her. The first thing I did was put my hands on her and pray. God is so good. It could have been much worse. I felt all over her and bent her legs…. she was fine. She is coming up in bruises, but nothing was broken.

That day we had already been to the doctor with Elizabeth for a cough that wouldn’t go away, and with the waiting at the doctor, getting the prescription and running a few other errands, it was almost 2pm when we got home. We hadn’t done any school or anything in the house and I felt like my week was suddenly taking a downhill turn!

Later that night I sat down to do some Bible Study and I read these words in the scripture passage:

19 A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;

20 he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.

That encouraged me so much! We’d had a few troubles that day, all minor I admit, but enough to get me feeling a bit down. And reading these verses… well, He certainly protected all of Elizabeth’s bones that day! Yes, we had a few troubles but the Lord was with us all the time.

On that note, be encouraged! God is with you all the time too. May He protect you and keep you as He has done with us. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and I hope that next week I will be able to post a little bit more!

After the excitement of a new puppy (and all the whining because he was alone all night!), I got up before six to check and see if he had survived his first night. I peeked through the blinds and he was fast asleep in his kennel…. so I left him there and got going on my daily routine, so nice and early! Once the kids got out and he saw them peeking through the blinds there was no more peace and we had to spend the rest of the day keeping him company!

The kids are so excited. It is good for them to take the responsibility of looking after him - feeding, brushing, playing. Next weekend we are getting two kittens to keep him company. We had them booked up for a while now, and they will soon be old enough to leave their mother. Five weeks from today we get the keys to our new house and we will have some animals ready to take out there! Next thing on the agenda is chickens. But they will have to wait until we are actually there! I don’t think our back yard here would cope with them, and the landlord would not be impressed!

It was a beautiful day. I got the washing out on the line early, and managed to get three loads washed and dried. I ironed a bit while the children were doing school and dinner was Marinated Chicken Drumsticks with rice. A good day.

Looking back over my day, I wonder what makes a “good” day or a “bad” day. What I liked about today was that I was up on time and didn’t rush around madly. I felt like I achieved a lot of the basics needed to keep the house running. The washing was done, the schooling was done, ironing and cooking was done. I spent time in reading the Bible, chatting on the phone to family, responding to some emails and having a cuppa with Robyn. All of this made it a “good” day. I didn’t feel like I was constantly behind…. I didn’t get all the ironing done, but enough that I felt I’d made a big dent in it. Tomorrow I will do some more.

I reminded myself that I didn’t need to catch up! I reminded myself that I had all week to do my weekly chores - it didn’t all have to be done today, and that certainly helped. So, yes, it was a good day.

I’m going to start a series of posts written by Robyn, my dear friend and older woman. She has so much wisdom to share, and until she gets her own blog, we are going to use this blog. I will be telling you more about that later this week. I’m also still working on some posts of our time overseas. So,… I will try to do my basics and find time in the afternoon to do some extra posting this week.

Have a great week everyone, and pop back in every now and then for some challenging and interesting (I hope!) posts!

Ok, not a real one, but still very cute! Here he is:

 

He is a cross between a Maltese and Shih-Tsu. We were trying to think of names and Dan came up with Malteser since he was Maltese and had a bit of brown on him….! Then he was chewing on all sorts of things, as puppies do, and Elizabeth suggested Chewy. Now we had Chewy Malteser!!! Then Daniel commented that Chewie was of course short for Chewbacca, and we had a hit!

Presenting Chewbacca Malteser, or Chewie for short:

 

Of course he looks nothing like Chewie the Wookiee (although he is supposed to become very hairy), nor does he even remotely come close to being a Malteser,…. but hey, we had fun and Chewie does seem to fit him!

How often have I said that a few more days and I will be “caught up” on everything around me. I work and work until I am exhausted, and then I have a day, one day, when I am “caught up”…… before the whole house falls apart before me once again.

Last week I was thinking these thoughts to myself. I am nearly caught up on the washing. I’m nearly caught up on the cleaning. I am nearly caught up on tidying…. and then I stopped. What is this idea of being “caught up” anyway? Where did it come from? Why do I always have the pressure of being “caught up”? And as I pondered these thoughts, I realized that it is a myth. We will NEVER be caught up! Why? Because life goes on.

I can get caught up with the washing, but we continue to wear clothes everyday that eventually will need washing. I may have caught up with all the dishes in the kitchen, but only a few hours later we will use them again. The pressure of being “caught up” with things creates a feeling that once we have finished our chores, we should just be able to relax for a looooong time. Instead, time keeps rolling on and the same chores need to be done again and again.

I think that once we realize that it is not about catching up, but about maintaining and being consistent, a lot of the pressure leaves. Why do we think we must have one day of cleaning frenzy and then we are entitled to have the rest of the week off? Maybe this works for some of us, but reality is that God didn’t mean for us to sit around doing nothing all day. He meant for us to work, “to be busy at home” (Titus 2:5).

My mother has joined the gym. In times past I have also joined the gym. Our bodies no longer get the workout it needs from daily work around the house. My mum called me the other day, exhausted… not from the gym, but she had done some gardening. Her comment was: “This is harder than going to the gym!” I thought about this. In times gone by women worked inside and outside the home without all our modern appliances. They cleaned the floors down on their hands and knees. They made bread without a machine. These women didn’t need to go to the gym, because they did daily hard work.

I wonder if they ever thought they needed to be “caught up”? Somehow I think they knew that they had daily tasks that would repeat day after day. As I read about the homemakers of long ago, I read that they had their days when they did certain major chores like washing, and cleaning on specific days, and everyday chores of making bread and washing dishes were just done naturally. I am not saying they enjoyed this or never complained. But they just did the next thing that needed to be done. Where they ever “caught up”? I wonder….

I think once I get it into my head that being “caught up” is a fairy tale, then I will feel less pressure. I will just go about doing my daily work. I know also that as I declutter my home, my daily work will get less complicated. I am not aiming to have nothing to do. I am aiming for having a welcoming home at all times for people who walk in my door. I am aiming for a reasonably clean and tidy home, so that I can enjoy the people who come to my home, or even just enjoy my family without madly running around the house trying to “catch up” on things.

No, I will never be “caught up”. But somehow it doesn’t bother me as much now……

Must not blog, must declutter. Must declutter, must not blog…..

I’m working on the school/sewing room big time. I have about 5 shopping bags of school books we don’t need. I have one box of books I am storing just in case… I am getting there, slowly.

Just the past week I have been feeling like I am drowning in stuff. I move it around from pile to pile, shelf to shelf, table to table….

Sorry, gotta go, can’t blog, I’m decluttering!

PS I’m REALLY enjoying my Bible reading!

Last week we went to visit Sovereign Hill, which is a wonderful historical Gold Rush village. We have a family membership so that we can go as often as we like. Of course it doesn’t fit in with the period of History that we have been studying lately - the Middle Ages. The perfectionist in me says that we can’t start studying something else until we have finished the Middle Ages. The practical in me says - the weather is beautiful, this is the time to make the most of your membership and go regularly. So, I have listened to the practical in me and we will set aside our Middle Ages study until next winter, and make the most of our spring and summer and our family membership to Sovereign Hill.

What helped me make the decision was Elizabeth reading the Little House books for the umpteenth time. Just as I did as a child, she loves them. I had a few unit studies on the Little House books sitting on the shelf that I had picked up on sale years ago. They were sitting on my shelves waiting for the right time to use them. I decided that now was the right time. With us moving out to our little homestead soon, we could do a lot of the things that the guides suggest to do that are “country-ish”, like growing things, making butter, etc. I know we don’t really need to be out in the country to do that, but it does fit in nicely. Now, to convince DH to pack all our stuff into a covered wagon for the move….????!!!!

Also, the gold rush in Australia and the pioneer days in America are around the same time period, so I can link it all together. I think it will work well, and the children will enjoy spending more time at Sovereign Hill, I know. It will also make History come more alive for them, as they can see the way people used to live in those days, while studying about it.

I have never really been that fussed about studying History chronologically. I think it does have its place, but as we have traveled a lot over the years, I have tried to fit our History in with what we were seeing. For example, when we were in the Middle East, we studied Ancient History, and we saw rock art (paintings) that were approx 4000 years old. We walked on Roman Roads that were built 2000 years ago. That is living History.

Australia is a young country. It makes sense to me to make the most of the the History we see around us. So we although we are jumping around a bit, I am hoping that by using time lines and other things, the children will be able to draw it all together.

I was thinking I’d love to share a bit about our travels in the next months. I need to get myself and my photos organized! I’ll also be sharing the History we will be learning about currently. I’m afraid we didn’t get very far with the Middle Ages timeline - that will have to be continued next year!

So those are my musings for this beautiful Monday, and here is my menu plan for the week:

Hosted by Orgjunkie

 

Monday Homemade Pizza

Tuesday

Taco Salad

Wednesday

Tuna Casserole and Rice

Thursday

Pasta Bake

Friday

Leftovers

Have a great week everyone!!!