Making My Home a Haven

I am going to try and join this meme (found at Tammy's Recipes).. and give me something new to help focus me on homemaking.. and an area to hopefully inspire me to blog a bit more. Since this meme's name is my goal.. to make my home a haven for me and my family... I thought it might be just the ticket.

Today's challenge:
Find a pile somewhere in your home and tackle it! :) This could be a pile of papers, laundry, trash, shoes, dishes, whatever! :)

Hooo boy!!! I only have a few of these.. lol. Or a LOT of these. So this is a good goal for me.

Today I have chosen to tackle two piles.

The first is the sprawling pile on top of my entertainment center. On it I found... 3 books, two DVDs, some misc. paperwork, allergy medicine, a bag of treats from a party, and a pile of change. It did not take long to work through this pile at all. And when I was done, and it was dusted I felt GREAT about it. And it made me want to tackle another pile.

I chose a smaller pile location.. my sidetable by this chair. It had 2 cards, a measuring cup (from my snack yesterday) a bottle of nail polish, and a bunch of pens and pencils. It was quick to do.. and now I have a nice clear surface!! Room for the PHONE... what a novel idea. (The phone had had to move to the FLOOR next to the small table. Sheesh. In part because I currently have a vase on the table.. but there was plenty of room for that and my coaster with the phone when the other stuff that did not belong there was moved.

Spring Cleaning ~ The Living Room

I am continuing to follow the plan at Biblical Womanhood for spring cleaning. This week is the living room. Ugh. What a job. OK... here is the plan. We have a lot going on this week so I am dividing the job into several.
-General decluttering (several 15 min. segments of removing everything that obviously does not belong or is not wanted
-Desk area- clear off area, dust, re-organize
-Entertainment Center- clear off, dust, re-organize
-Floor, Door, Window- thorough vacuuming, dusting, cleaning
-Finish- misc other surfaces dusted, straightened, pictures, coat closet.

I will do updates on Twitter and then post next week on any progress.

Beginning Spring Cleaning Early

I have been inspired by Biblical Womanhood to do spring cleaning... now. I have decided that winter is a great time to start as I have a lot of de-cluttering to do, and because at this time of year we are stuck inside a lot... I have the time to do it. I will be twittering my spring cleaning progress.

I have started with quick generalized de-cluttering as is suggested on Biblical Womanhood. I will continue all this week.. then onto room by room cleaning. I know the result will be worth the effort.

This is a huge job as I have let things slide.... as I often do. Cleaning is an area of ongoing weakness, but I am convicted that this is an area that needs work. I am taking baby steps.

Speaking of baby steps...I will also be going back to flylady
methods. When I did my routine things went very smoothly. After the spring cleaning is done the routines should keep everything very pleasant..

Of course, I always look just like this woman when cleaning... well except for the hairband to contain messy hair, comfy sweatshirt, jeans, lack of makeup, and no high heels... and of course, I am a brunette and not thin like her... Yup... Looks just like me. On to cleaning.

Menu Plan Monday

Well, this is the first week I am participating in Menu Plan Monday. I hope it will help me keep on track and the busy holiday season is a great time to start!

Nothing this week is that unique, no new recipes. It includes some family favorites. I try to bake bread every week, and the Amish bread is a recipe my family eats as quick as can be. I am trying to use many of the last of the Angel food items. The low cost food really helps stretch my food budget, but sometimes a few items seem to want to stay in the freezer, and it is time to plan to use them before the freezer space is needed.



Monday- Mexican chicken and rice (made with leftover chicken burrito meat and the mexican rice recipe from hillbillyhousewife but made with salsa instead of tomato paste.)

Tuesday- Ziti bake made with angel food's sausage from this month and the last of the mozzarella. Salad.

Wednesday- bacon cheeseburgers and baked french fries

Thursday- Christmas work party

Friday- BBQ Chicken (angel food chicken breasts) and steamed broccoli, homemade potato rolls

Saturday - Breakfast for dinner ~ pancakes and bacon, fruit salad

Sunday - Lasagna (Pioneer woman's recipe), amish white bread (from allrecipes.com, a family favorite, but I use half whole wheat flour), salad

Oh My!! Muffins!!!

Oh, wow! Yum! I found this recipe for Banana Crumb Muffins on allrecipes.com. I was looking for a new recipe to use up bananas... and found a recipe with over 3000 ratings and 5 stars. I HAD to try them.

I am sooooooo glad I did. Next time I will use one extra banana or make sure they are big bananas, but oh yum.

Because I want you to have this experience, I am giving the recipe here. For you. Because I love you all.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

My Cooking Spree

Well, I am not doing once a month cooking but I have taken a few hours today to cook in bulk. I happened across a very good deal on about to expire ground beef yesterday. I bought 10 pounds. lol. Soooooo today I decided to invest some time in the kitchen. I am about halfway through my cooking and taking a break and decided to talk about the method to my madness.

The first thing I did today was to throw a 5 lb bag of chicken breasts into the crockpot. When it is done cooking I will cut half up into chunks and shred the other half and store these in the freezer for meals later this month. This chicken will easily make 5 or more dinners of various kinds such as chicken enchiladas, chicken pasta, chicken pot pie, mexican rice casserole, etc.

Then I cut up onions... oh the tears! And I began browning the ground beef with the onions, a few pounds at a time. When finished I drained the ground beef to remove excess fat. Meanwhile I kept another pot going for making this browned meat into a variety of meal options. So far, I have made taco meat and sloppy joes. I still will make chili and spaghetti sauce. Each of these will be placed in freezer bags, carefully labeled, and frozen solid for future easy meals. Although this will only be part of the meal options this month, this will make the month much simpler. And only in a couple of hours.

If the beef had been leaner I would have made some meatballs or meatloaf out of some of it... or simple hamburger patties... but this was fattier ground beef than I like to get so I browned and drained it instead. But when the meat is marked down dramatically it was a deal I couldn't resist.

For the rest of the meals this month, I will focus on more chicken, fish, and some meatless meals to balance out the red meat of this cooking binge... but this will have made for very inexpensive meals and easy. It should keep me from ordering pizza or going through the drive through on those days I simply am too busy or tired to cook. Something like sloppy joes is microwave and go.

A Quiet Day of Domesticity

Today has been a wonderful day... a quiet day of quiet joys.

Well, yesterday, as I read the gospel of Mark to my children, God touched me. One of those convicting moments. I became aware that I have not been taking care of my family the way I would like.

Housekeeping is a weakness for me. Soooooo, yesterday I did a lot of laundry, made applesauce, and misc. cleaning, while still getting in homeschooling and our field trip to the planetarium. Today, I have done MORE laundry. (Yes, I was desperately behind.) I also baked bread, which I have been lazy about lately, and made brownies for our dessert tonight. We will have a simple dinner of soup. I also cleaned my kitchen and did a bit of straightening in the living room. It is a start in re-ordering my priorities.

These two children and my husband are precious to me. I have been blessed so richly by God. I know the vision I have for my family, but all too often I waste countless hours on the computer or being otherwise lazy, instead of doing the things I could to make this house a sanctuary or haven for my family. I do not practice hospitality as I should because I am so often struggling with housework.

So today I spent time doing things I really enjoy.... baking and taking care of my family. It was a quiet day. Chilly outside... but feels so nice in the house. And it smells good too. It is a good day.