Breakfast

Homemade rice pudding with chopped strawberries and homemade chocolate whipped cream. Very good. No pictures because I was hoping for the best, and it's all gone.

Four out of six kids really liked it, and the other two ate it. Anything that most of the kids like is a winner.

Elderberries

I'm making more tinctures and infusions to improve our health. My herbal multi-vitamin is awesome. It is a glycerin/alcohol base with alfalfa, dandelion, catnip, nettle, and spearmint. It's not too shabby.

Tonight I am making elderberry syrup following this recipe with minor adaptations. I did use the ginger, although I was tempted to skip it. It has a lot of nutritional benefits, and I probably won't be able to taste it in this recipe. I used cinnamon sticks instead of powder. It's nearly impossible to strain out a powder. I want the kids to like it, and they wouldn't care for it if they saw a powdery residue.

I'm also making an infused honey with the Double-E Immune Booster from The Bulk Herb Store. It contains nettle leaf, peppermint, echinacea root and tops, elderberries, ginseng root, and rose hips. I want to use it like we use out other infused honey.

Piggy piggy

We emptied our little piggy bank again. We had $104.30 in 2008. This year the total was $117.  The kids were excited because it winds up being kid money for the trip. I need to be more dedicated to dumping my change in there. I used to only spend bills and save my coins to save. It does add up. Now, though, I use very little cash money at all.

Laundry detergent

This is the detergent I've been making for a few months.

1/4 C liquid castile soap
1 C washing soda
1 C baking soda
1 C vinegar

It is like a science experiment with the baking soda and vinegar. I like it because it is a powder. I store it in an old jug. It's easy for us all to use and gets the clothes cleaned. I still love making things instead of buying them. Fewer artificial ingredients. Fewer scents and petroleum-based products.

More later.

What have I been doing?

Certainly not just sitting at home eating bon-bons. I just have not been keeping a good record of all my activities.

I have been much better at meal planning. I mostly plan based on what we have in the pantry and freezer. But, I also like to experiment with different foods. I hope to be saving money by doing this. Fewer meals out is always a good thing.

Changing our eating habits has changed our tastes a bit. Restaurants just don't taste that good anymore. When we go out, it is usually because I don't want to cook or clean. I just want to sit, have it all brought to me, and then have it all taken away. Eating at home means fewer preservatives, artificial ingredients, and fresher food. Charlie is changing quite a bit. The kids are coming around to it. They know both of my parents passed away before turning 60. They can see how sick Charlie's parents are with their low-fat, no nutrition SAD (Standard American Diet) style of eating. I don't trust the government to educate my children. Why would I trust them to know how best to feed us all?

Extra cooking is taking away from sewing. I've been doing a lot of mending. That can be boring or satisfying. When I see it as mine, it's boring. When I see it as God-given, it's satisfying. I just can't figure out what I want to sew for myself. I know what I need, but I hate trying to fit clothes. Lottie and I have been sewing things like napkins and household goods. I'm trying to use my scraps and stash. This also falls into the boring or satisfying category.

More later.

Strawberry time

Since Charlie was home this week due to my unfortunate hospitalization, we picked strawberries. Well, everybody but me picked strawberries.  I stayed home and made sure the kitchen was ready. They brought home about 20 pounds of goodness.  Some were eaten right away. We froze 4C for later and dehydrated a couple of pounds.

Today we made 7 half pints of jam using a recipe from Martha Stewart. It was my first time using a recipe with no pectin. The kids say it's good. We also made 5 pints of mixed berry syrup with honey. I started with this recipe then changed it a bit to add some mixed berries and use honey instead of sugar. It looks really good. Either pancakes or French toast is on the menu soon.

Tonight if my energy holds, I will make some strawberry muffins with coconut flour from Tropical Traditions.

Anemia is a bad thing

Before I forget any more details I need to tell the story of my recent hospital stay.

I have been feeling so tired lately. Really, really tired. Going up steps left me winded, going from the van into a store (or church or home) made me have to stop and catch my breath, almost any exertion could leave me short of breath. I thought I was just too inactive or lazy. Nothing appealed to me. Not cooking, sewing, computer time, kids, school, eating, or anything. I knew I wasn't depressed. I did think I might be a bit anemic.

I went to my doctor for blood work. The next day I went to the ER for a blood transfusion. The doctor's office called me about 5:30 last Tuesday and said to go to the ER. My levels were critical.

Normal hemoglobin levels for women start at 11 or 12. Mine was 5.6!

Charlie finished putting dinner on the table while I called a couple of friends in tears. I was scared. I had no idea what to expect, but I trusted my doctor. I called 3 women. They all prayed for me. One said she would come to the house and watch the kids as soon as she fed her family. Awesome and totally unexpected. Charlie and I left the kids about 6:00. We thought I would be getting a transfusion and be sent home. One friend said it would take about 30 minutes and that I would feel better immediately. I could handle 30 minutes. After we checked in, we heard I would likely be admitted. They rechecked my levels and admitted me. That's bad. I cried some more. By 9:30 Charlie had to leave. He didn't want to leave the kids any longer and we hadn't even started the transfusion. Just getting in the IV took a good bit of time, and they also did a brief exam and x-ray.

At 10:00 my friend came to the hospital. I was so happy because while I knew I could do it alone, I didn't want to be alone. The transfusion finally started about 10:30. Blood transfusions hurt! My hand was so sore and cold. The blood isn't warmed up first except for trauma victims. Nasty. Just before 11:00 I was sent to a room. A shared room. Weird. I couldn't see the other lady, but I could tell by her voice that she was much older. The unit of blood was done about midnight and they started another one. Shortly after 3am, I texted Charlie that it was finally done. Of course I couldn't sleep.

I dozed for a few hours. I wanted to go home. A friend from church dropped in on her way to work at 6:30. I did feel loved. Charlie came after giving the kids breakfast.

Sorry, but I have to break this up and finish in another post.

2011 Sewing

This is what I managed to get sewn in 2011. Less than the year before. I made several small items and fewer clothes. Then my arm started hurting which really slowed me down. L did start sewing, though. She is learning a lot using my Singer.

Jalie shirt muslin, fabric from Mimi

Calendar project #1, pillow cover

draft dodger

dress from Olivia fabric

Simplicity 2907 I's birthday shorts

Marie-Madeline 1, H's bloomers

Marie-Madeline 1, L's bloomers

Marie-Madeline 1, E's bloomers

dress fail

L's bathing suit

ironing board cover

E's bathing suit skirt

lil cutie pouch

rice sock, hand warmers for McDowells

bag for Rummikub

scientific seamstress shorts for me

doll blanket for nursery

8 doll blankets for CCC nursery

quilted drying towel

dominoes bag and jenga bag

2 doll outfits for gifts

DS case for E

purse for me

muslin for circle skirt

O's circle skirt

E's circle skirt

H's circle skirt

L's circle skirt

superhero capes (made by L)

misc. Christmas crafts and gifts by L

pouches for girls

The fabric in was 42 yards, and the fabric out was 47.71 yards. Still more going out than coming in, but not as much as I would like. I made very specific fabric purchases this year and sewed it up quickly. There was only a bit of random purchases.

I keep track of my sewing to help me judge my stewardship. Am I just buying and collecting fabric? That would be poor stewardship of the money Charlie makes. Am I actually using the fabric that has been sitting here for ages, including fabric that people have given to me? I needed to learn to shop my own stock before going to the store. It's hard for me to let go of the perfectionist tendencies and not use the "perfect" fabric for a project. It is also hard to cut into fabric when I think another project would suit it better.

Sewing

I'm trying to catch up on posting pictures and information about the sewing and crafting that I have been doing in the past year.

E's Latin teacher has MS. We try to do little things that she can't do herself. I'm basically her crafty go-to girl. Crochet around a baby blanket? Done. Write 30 names on 24 handkerchiefs? Done. I love the creativity, and I love that she thinks of me. Recently, she hosted her MS support group and needed some little gifts to give. All six kids and I spent a couple of hours painting wooden clothespins. Fifty-five of the little suckers. They turned out so cute.

From Family '11

Early in the summer we made curtains for an empty space at her NC mountain cabin. It was made from 2 towels that I sewed together. It turned out to match her bathroom space perfectly. The picture doesn't show the colors very well.

From Family '11

New accessory

Thanksgiving was in need of some excitement, so O decided to break her arm. O and I were in the yard climbing up the slide. Who thinks kids won't do that? Of course she fell and broke her arm. She acted like it was a beautiful fashion accessory when she first got the cast.

From Family '11

Now, it's ratty, dirty, and well signed. She is tired of telling people what happened. She just answers that it's a secret when someone asks her what happened. Oh good! That would be the perfect answer to get someone to call DSS.

It will come off Dec. 29. Yay!

Christmas dresses 2011, continued

The Christmas skirts are done, mostly. I've finished everything but the hems. They are bias cut so they won't fray, and the girls have been wearing them anyway. No pictures, yet, of the finished skirts.

Last week my arm started hurting - a lot! Turns out it's tennis elbow. And, I have to x-ray my hand to see if I have arthritis. Nice, huh? I had skirts for E, H, and O done before it started hurting to move my hand at all. L actually sewed her own skirt. I sat with her to show her what needed to be done. She did a great job.

I am making some ruffled fabric flowers (adapted from these) to put on the girls' t-shirts. That totally messed up my hand/arm. They are not quite finished. Each girl was given 17 strips of fabric 2.5" x 5" to put in any order. They all ordered them differently.

H's

From Family '11

E's

From Family '11

L's

From Family '11

O's

From Family '11

I hope to get the flowers finished. The one's I have done are pretty stinking cute! Charlie is getting a brace for my arm. Should help.

And we homeschool

Three year old counting

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10...11...12...13...14...15...51...52...53...54...55...54...55...56...

57...58...59...30......

too funny.

Christmas dresses 2011

The great Christmas dress project has begun. Here are the beautiful fabrics.

From Family '11

The blue diamonds is for E, red snowflakes for L, blue snowflakes for H, red diamonds is for O, and the green is for I and anything extra. 16 yards total.

They are actually getting skirts instead of dresses this year. I have circle skirts planned. O's is already done, and it is so cute!

More later.

Dentist fun

Tomorrow, one of my littles has to have some cavities filled. All the kids eat the same and brush the same, yet a couple of them seem cavity prone. ELH need orthodontia. O probably will too, and I'm waiting to see what happens with those fused teeth. J has absolutely gorgeous teeth. How? I do not know. My teeth were always good until multiple pregnancies or age or laziness or some combination of the three.

O is easier to sedate for these things than L. Charlie will stay home with the rest of the kids while I stay with O. Since she can't eat none of them will eat until she leaves. They'll live, but they'll whine a bit.

We're going to get back on track for school this week. I mean it. For sure this week.

Added:

She did well during the procedure. We wound up getting 2 silver teeth. At least she thinks they're cute. We will have to go back for the top ones. Ugh!

What I got done

A friend was asking me how I get everything done. ROTFL! Like that will ever happen. It did make me be conscientious of my activities for the evening. It's average, I guess. Some days I get a lot more done, and some days I get a lot less done.

3:30 I sewed a brunch of trim on a pair of L's pants so she could wear them to church.

4:30-ish Charlie took the big 4 kids out for dinner because I asked him to. They had to be back at church for Proclaim practice by 6:30

4:30 - 8 The younger 2 love our Tuesday nights together. Usually it's only from 6-8, but I was hoping to get some work done here. First we made dinner. A lovely combo of hot dogs and grits. They got the hot dogs, I got a warm bowl of grits. Dinner of champions all the way around. I spent some time looking at a catalog with I while O watched a little Dora and played with my fabric scraps. Then we painted our nails. Poor I, he always wants to color his fingers and toes, too. Then we all made a big batch (10 cups) of chocolate syrup. Then it was get-ready-for-bed time. We read a few books until the rest of the gang came home just after 8.

Somewhere in all of that I picked a bunch of junk off the floor. I found shoes so we would be on time for PE today.

Later I transferred the sauce to jars for the fridge. I went to bed early.

Actually, I didn't get much done. I was tired and winding down. I woke up feeling much better today. I'm going to go to bed earlier again.

Today

Tuesdays are usually a bit busy. O has PE at the church from 10-10:30 then H has PE from 1:25-2:10. I drop them off and hang around until the first class is over the go home to eat lunch and get back to church for the second class. Today, Melissa and Danielle wanted to meet us their for lunch and play time for the kids. I was there at 10 and didn't leave until 2:30. That's a very long day.

James Lester Goode

One of my favorite people passed away last week. My mom's dad. Easily one of the best grandfathers ever. He was an awesome Christian who loved his family. I haven't posted about him because it makes me so sad to think about it, but I need to keep myself from forgetting.

April 5, 2011 Pawpaw was driving. Yep, 96 and driving. Lovely. He pulled out into traffic and was hit by another vehicle. It was totally his fault, and he was the only one hurt. He had some scratches on his face and 15 broken ribs. Apparently, he had to be resuscitated at the scene. The lack of oxygen to his brain made him age 40 years in the past 6 months. He never acted like a man in his 90's. The day before the wreck he was in the garden getting ready to plant his tomatoes. After the wreck, he couldn't even stand unassisted. He no longer knew who we were or much about who he was.

Charlie, the kids, and I loaded the van and went to see him. Wow. That was hard because it brought back so many memories about my mom. He surprised many people just by surviving. Not many doctors deal with trauma victims in their late nineties. He eventually was able to get off the respirator and feeding tube. I went home after a few days and waited for my aunt to call.

The call finally came October 21. I cried like a baby. I don't have a lot of relatives. Losing him was very hard, even though I know he went straight to heaven. Salvation of his family was a priority for him. Again, we loaded up the van and drove to Birmingham. We drove on Sunday and crashed at the hotel. The visitation was Monday, the funeral was on Tuesday, and we came back home on Wednesday.

There were many extended family members that I got to meet. I heard more about my grandmother who passed away in 1971 than I have ever heard about her. Awesome! My family tree is getting more completely and accurately full. There were also a few people visiting who attended the church that I attended. They got to see E who is the same age I was when I lived in Birmingham. She liked being told she looked like me.

I need to end this before it becomes a book.

Hug your family members. They won't be there forever. Jimmy Goode was 97. He had 2 children, 4 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and 1 beautiful legacy.

More food

The pumpkin seeds turned out delicious. I used the recipe from Kitchen Stewardship. They were soaked and dried before roasting so the nutrients are more readily available. Lots of good salt, and they were perfect. I want to make some more. Charlie will have a lot of pumpkin puree so I can get all the seeds.

The pickles were flat out nasty! I tried to like them because I hate to throw out so much time, effort, and food. I used regular cukes instead of the pickling kind. That's all I can think of that was different. Christina got me a half-bushel of pickling cukes while I was on vacation. I've made 9 quarts from them, and they taste fine so far.

The sauerkraut turned out fine. Charlie's parents really liked it! Wow. We ate one quart there, left one quart for his parents, and had one quart left here. It's almost gone. I made 3 more jars from a huge cabbage that we got at Lyda farm when we got our apples.

Actually, all the food we made for our trip was a success. His parents ate and enjoyed everything but the kefir which they won't try. A few coconut balls are left. L and I made 3 different batches of fruit-nut bars. The ginger one was made for Charlie. Miss Edith liked them, too. We didn't care as much for the chocolate batch. It was too dry. Charlie's parents liked it, so we left them at their house. The plain fruit-nut mix was the crowd favorite. It had some dried pear and banana mixed in with the coconut and almonds.

More food is cooking as I type.

Today I made...

a lot of food.

*17.25 cups of pumpkin puree

*1 gal of pickle slices

*3 qts of sauerkraut

*pumpkin seeds from 4 small pumpkins are soaking

*5 pounds of nuts (pecans and almond) were soaked last night and dehydrated today

*peel from 1 lemon was dehydrated to make lemon pepper

*1.5 qts of kefir was made and is in it's second ferment in my cool new bottles

*a double batch of filling for coconut balls was made and is waiting to be shaped and dipped in chocolate

We are going out of town on Monday, so this seemed like the perfect time to get a boat-load of produce. And Dewey came over to work on some plumbing with Charlie. And the kids were invited to a birthday party.

Charlie and the kids like pumpkin and fall spices (allspice, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon). I do not like any of that except cinnamon. Last weekend, Charlie made some pumpkin pancakes for them to eat. Also last week, I saw a recipe to cook pumpkins in the crock-pot. Charlie, J, L, and H hacked apart the pumpkins. They went into my big roaster on the back porch. The dehydrator was already running, and I didn't want to add anymore heat to the kitchen. When the pumpkin was done we just peeled it off the skin and mashed it. I divided it into 1.5 cup portions and put it in jars for the freezer.

Getting the seeds is gross, but we like them. Some of us like them. I just want the "free" food that comes from something normally thrown away. I'll season them and add them to different recipes.

The nuts are to make almond bars, granola, and just for eating straight. L helped make the filling for the coconut balls. She will help me finish them up tomorrow. It will be good to have snacks while we are out of town.

We are also taking our fermented pickles and sauerkraut. We all love those things! I hope to get some carrots going tomorrow as well. They are probiotic, nutritious, and delicious. They will likely be done when we get to Charlie's parents' house. The kids and I can't wait to see how all of our strange food goes over with them. We will also have our raw milk.

Making dough

Today I made play dough. I had never made it before today, and I have been wanting to try. One batch was made with the good salt. That adds a sparkly speckle to the batch. One batch wasn't enough. Why did I think it would be? I made a second batch with cheap white salt and added a pinch of cocoa for color/scent. The kids are having a good time outside with it. J isn't out there. Oh well.

We will definitely be making this again. It's easy enough for one of the big kids to make. bonus! Maybe I will look for some natural colors at WF next month so we have something besides off white speckle and light tan.

The recipe came from clumsycrafter.com

• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 2 tsp. cream of tartar

Melt oil. Mix the rest. Stir until the dough comes together and gets stiff enough to break your wrist. Let cool a bit and knead. Pass to kiddles.