Daybook Once Again

Outside my window…

It's dark and cold. Real cold. Ice cold. Austin is happier about ice than he is about snow. He can hardly wait for ice skating. 

I am thinking…

... of how nice it is to be a part of a church where the men care about and for each other. They are able to work through the difficulties that arise. A tremendous blessing!

I am thankful for…

A warm place to be. Plenty of food. Good health. Javita coffee.

From the learning rooms…

Studying cursive. The Gold Rush. Blizzards. Fruits. Bears. Math. Always math.

From the kitchen…

I'm struggling along without a planned menu this week. I set my menu planner out on Saturday and asked the boys to fill in any ideas they had so I'm bouncing off a few of those ideas.

I am wearing…

A dark maroon colored dress. Pink Crocs clogs. A prayer veiling. 

I am creating…

Blog posts! 

I am going…

To a taffy pull with the youth group tomorrow evening.

I am reading…

Growing Up on the Edge of the World by Phil Callaway

I am hearing…

The boys doing dishes. Austin ordering Melvin to do his job. Christopher humming while cubing.

Around the house…

The quest for decluttering and making order continues. Slow but sure.

One of my favorite things…

A moonlit night.

A few plans for the rest of the week…

Bake zucchini bread for someone who missed it at the roadside stand. Bake some pies to take samples around the neighborhood. 

Here is a picture thought I am sharing….

Looks like we have another artist.

What was your day like?

Is it warm or cold where you are? 

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day has interested me for many years. My father entered the world on this unique holiday. He filled us children in on this fact when we were quite young. Thus was born the intrigue.

                                 

What is this day all about? Folklore has it that if a groundhog emerges from his burrow, following his long winter sleep, on this particular day and sees his shadow he will make a hasty retreat back into his den. Consequently we know there will be six more weeks of winter.

                        

If his appearance brings no frightening shadow, he is happy to stay out of his abode and we are certain spring is just around the corner.

                         

On this day last week we had a sunny morning and a cloudy afternoon. So when did Mr Groundhog come out to see what the day was like?

                            

Really, I don't put any stock whatsoever in these signs. But maybe you do. Starting from Feb 2 you could count the weeks until spring and then you'll know how long it really is. Mr Groundhog has less than 40% accuracy anyway. Although Groundhog Day organizers will tell you the rodent is correct 75 - 90% of the time.

                                 

We humans like to know what's going to happen. We want to be in control. So we come up with ways to try to accomplish that. It can be quite hilarious at times what stock we put in the hearsay around us. Or the Almanac.

“It's going to be one heck of a winter!” we hear. So we prepare for it. Or, “The acorns aren't very thick this year. It will be a mild winter”. So we prepare for that.

I think God likes to “knock our socks off”. Give us stuff we never dreamed of. Never planned for. Maybe a bit difficult in this day and age when forecasters have gotten so good with weather predictions. But it does still happen!

When winter storm Jonas came they said we'd get 12-24 inches of snow. Of course, they really don't know what will happen! We were blessed with 30 inches. And no wind. They said there would be blizzard winds. It was both a good and bad thing to be minus the wind. Good because our dwellings stayed warmer. Good because drifts can be a problem. Bad because some roofs went down.

I like to take life as it comes and enjoy the moment.

Beauty this morning

How about you?

Javita coffee can help you enjoy the moment!

But don't stress if you don't have it. You can relax once you get some.

Click here to read more about Groundhog Day and the unique ways it is celebrated.

Cubing

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Wikipedia

And it has taken over in our house. At least for four fond folk. I never paid much attention to cubes myself. They just seemed a hopeless mess of colors. If I could ever get one side fixed with all the same color squares the rest was such a tangle that I'd have to tangle the first color to right another. A really vicious cycle. Not something I wanted to spend my life on.

The paper in his lap is a new method that came with his new cube.

In the last few months Austin found a cube around here and an instruction booklet with the correct algorithm(s) for solving it. Please don't ask me any technical questions here 'cause I'm lost! (I had to google that alg-- word to figure out how to spell it.) The ones involved are always talking about this or that algorithm. (There! I got it right without looking.) And they find new methods online that they print out.

It is quite amazing to watch their fingers fly as they try to beat their own records. They'll turn the sides with 3-4 fingers, the bottom with their pinkies and the top with forefingers.

There's even an online Cube Timer that starts and stops with a slam on the space bar.

Mixing the cube

Solved! (That's seconds and hundredths)

Austin bought two for himself, with at least another one on the way, and Christopher has his own. Maybe the M's will decide to get their own too. The original one they found is loud and clunky compared to the new ones.

Do you cube?

What's your record?

You might need some Flex to limber up your hands!

The End of Winter Storm Jonas

I left you with four inches of snow on Friday evening. Saturday morning we measured 24 inches.

Thomas on the Grasshopper, pushing snow

The vehicles buried alive

Austin wanted to make donuts. Somehow that seemed to the boys to be the thing to do on a snowy day. I didn't have the heart to deny them. After all it is a very unusual thing to do something so unhealthy at our house. On Sunday he regretted it. He got pretty sick. Today he didn't feel too great either. He thought we'd better just not make donuts next time. Live and learn.

I took a few photos after dark Saturday. The measurement here on the front porch after it stopped snowing was 30 inches.

Nearly full moon- makes a bright night along with snow on the ground

The cows are hard to see- they had a very difficult time walking in that deep stuff!

View out the back door

View of the front porch in the daylight

Melvin and Christopher stand on top

I am intrigued with bird tracks in the snow

Coffee is always good on a cold day. Want to make yours weight loss coffee?

What do you drink when the weather is cold? 

Or hot?

Menu

Having read a couple blog posts today containing menus for the week and working on my own plan today, I decided to fill you in on what we eat at our house.

We eat very few grains, having discovered how very hard they are for one to digest. They are not only hard to digest but they deplete your body of the vitamins and minerals needed to grow strong teeth, bones and brains. So this menu will reflect that choice.

We also eat very little sugar. To lightly sweeten something I tend to use honey or maple syrup. If neither of these is to be found I use Sucanat. Having done a sugar fast for a year we found our taste buds re-educated allowing us to taste the natural sweetness of food.

Breakfast-
Yogurt & home-canned /frozen sugar-free fruit as daily as I can keep yogurt made
Monday- Hard boiled eggs (top with mayo & Herbamare)
Tuesday- Scrambled eggs & sausage
Wednesday- the boys will be home alone. I'm quite certain they will make doozy omelets
Thursday- Fried eggs, sausage & grits with butter
Friday- Potato & meat quiche
Saturday- DIY (give Mama a break!)
Sunday- Hard boiled eggs & Paleo "French toast"

Lunch- Usually leftovers
Sunday- Baked potatoes,  beef roast, Caesar salad (no croutons, too bad how sad) Here is a simple dressing we love.

Supper  (or is it Dinner?)
Monday- Rice & canned turkey thighs cooked with taco seasoning,  Great Northern beans, lettuce, (cheese, salsa, onions & ranch dressing served on the side), applesauce
Tuesday- Thomas & I are being fed by my mom, the rest by my dear sister Verina.
Wednesday- Rice (white parboiled) with hamburger gravy, green beans, applesauce
Thursday- Beans, cornbread, coleslaw
Friday- Supper & social with the youth (if we don't get snowed in)
Saturday- Cheeseburger soup, celery and apples with peanut butter
Sunday- Very unplanned. At least popcorn and apples.

Snacks- Apples or any other fruit, fresh or dried; shakes (made with milk from the family cow, some unsweetened frozen fruit & a bit of vanilla extract); cheese; nuts

There you have it. That's how to feed 6 men with very little grains or sugar. If you want to know more about why we don't eat many grains read this article & the comments beneath it. (Ignore the evolutionary talk.) Do your own research. In the comments is where you see the rubber meet the road and hear the no-grain testimonies.

My testimony is that I feel young again and the intestinal discomfort has been greatly relieved! I am almost never sick. My boys say, "Mama doesn't take naps anymore! Now we don't get as much time off." Javita's Energy + Mind coffee does a lot for me too!

Have you ever tried a no-grain diet?

Why or why not?

I'd love to hear your comments.

Flex

I am excited about a comparatively new product the Javita company has come out with. Flex is a product designed to help your joints. We keep hearing how it has been bringing quick and lasting results. A friend in the business says how it has helped his sciatic pain. He was very skeptical about whether it was actually helping him so he stopped taking it. Oops! Now he's hurting again. He tried this three times before he decided to believe it actually helped.

An old time friend tried it recently and got tremendous relief in her hands and elbows. She works at school and she said that helping the children cut and paste really made her hands sore but the other day she thought about it that she's not even hurting. She called me after taking it about a week. "My fingers have loosened up so much! I wasn't even able to open a canning jar. Now I could play the piano if I knew how!" She was so excited and I'm so happy for her.

My own experience has been that it initially helped my sciatica. More recently I had a fall where I whacked my ribs and rump really hard on outdoor steps. (Slow down Mama!) Drinking Flex helped me through that and continues to help me as I deal with back pain since then.

It works so quickly that people don't believe that is what actually helped. Want to try it?

Click here to order and/or to find more information.

And please call me anytime with any questions you have!

304-851-6260

OK friends, look out! I've been educating myself. "What kind of education?" you ask. "Business," I reply. "Why should I look out?" you ask. Because my teacher told me to blog daily. And I'm going to try it. So if you get tired of me you'll have to either remove yourself or ask to be removed from the email list. Or just hit delete. You know where that button is? Very good. Now let me proceed.

The sun is shining and according to the weather report we will have one more relatively warm day (upper 40's) before we get more cold weather (20-mid 30's). Maybe I can finish washing some windows today. Yay!

We have had a very mild winter so far. Sometime around Christmas we discovered the forsythia was blooming! Strange. The orchard owners are concerned about the fruit crop for this year.

Matthew has been sick for almost 2 weeks. I wonder if he had strep or pneumonia. I'm not a run-to-the-doctor type of person but prefer home remedies.  Since oregano oil is supposed to be antibiotic I had him taking it heavily. Raw onion slices on the soles of his feet for fever. He started out with fever and headache. That left him after a couple days and then he had bad sores in his mouth and sore throat. After a few days he could eat again but then he said food had no taste. Then he developed a cough. He's still coughing. This is the 3rd or 4th day that he's done his math work again. Before that he just lay around not doing a whole lot. I could tell yesterday that he was a good bit better because he wasn't lying down nearly as much and was actually able to do a couple small chores. He doesn't go down very easily so I was rather concerned and am so grateful to see him climbing out of it.

Stephen and his cousin Sylvia are spending the week with my parents. We are still stepping toward getting them moved to our house. There are a lot of last things to complete.

And I have a lot of things to complete here as well. Cleaning and emptying my room and the extra kitchen. My friend so graciously came and did some cleaning for me this week. Now the kitchen is ready and the bedroom/bath nearly so.

It takes a bit of work to upset the fruit basket and find new spots for things. I'm thankful to the Lord for faithfully showing me where things belong. It has also been good for my decluttering journey. It is freeing to get rid of things!

Well, that's enough for today. It's time to wash the dishes. The boys are doing their math lessons and Thomas & Austin are off to work.

Have you had your cup of coffee this morning?

What about tea?

Check this out.  (Warning: a few under-dressed folks in the before & after video.)

Reply to this post or contact me by text or phone call if this has piqued your interest.

304-851-6260