Simple Saturdays: KISS

In case you haven't heard it before, KISS is the acronym for:

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

 

The first time that I heard that used was in my karate class during self defense practice. Some students were making the take downs harder than they had to be. Others were trying to use fancy techniques in efforts to look awesome. Then they would be overcome by the "attackers" and they didn't look so awesome anymore. So my instructor say to remember to KISS. It got a lot of laughs, but it definitely stuck!

For me, a simple life correlates with a frugal life. I am greeting frugal living with a lot less tension and dread now. So even when we become filthy rich (hahahahaha!), I plan to continue pursuing this lifestyle. With less wanting and more "making do" with what I have, I find myself pursuing things that I never would have given a second thought: Cloth napkins? Cloth diapers!? Re-usable toilet paper!?!?

No re-usable toilet paper...Just no.

But I am in the middle of sewing some cloth napkins out of some scrap material that my mom gave me, I just got my supplies to start on diapers, and I have even considered making flannel baby wipes. I also plan to start putting Gage's frozen food into containers instead of plastic baggies (because I use those things like they're going out of style). The only thing that I haven't gone fully Eco-friendly with is grocery bags. We shop at Aldi, so we have to use re-usable bags then, but at Wal-mart they tend to put nearly one item in each bag, so they make up for the bags I don't get at Aldi.

Have you ever seen the Disney movie Wall-e? This may be taking it to extremes, but when I last watched it, it occurred to me that we could really be pushing this beautiful world that God so lovingly created for us...To a pile of trash.

Daily life and simple sorting:

I think that it's a good general rule to live by that my recycle bin should be more full than my trash can. Make sure that you're recycle bin is conveniently placed! You're more likely to do it if it's practical for you. Also, switch to as many re-usable items as you can. That way, you spend less money replenishing, making you more frugal and therefore...living simply.

Like how I circled that around?

What are some ways that frugal living simplified your life?  

The Lost Art of Homemaking

I am passionate about staying at home and being a housewife! I believe it's where I belong and it's what works for us. I temporarily worked outside of the home in the beginning of mine and Matthew's  marriage, but I hated getting home after him and getting started on supper so late. I wanted to be able to greet him at the door and welcome him from work with the smell of a meal already prepared. *Insert image of 50's housewife here*

With a child in the picture, it's more like this: working on supper when Matthew comes through the door and trying to keep baby Gage content while I try not to let everything burn. Half the time, I'm even in my pajamas.

So needless to say, I haven't really nailed the art of being a homemaker yet, but the desire to perfect it is there. I love to cook, but I'm still learning to cook. Sewing is so much fun, but I'm just now starting to sew without my mom's (incredible!) help. I actually enjoy cleaning, but tools and construction mess dictates the household right now. The right side of my kitchen is the cleanest place in the house, but that has to be the case or there would be no cooking from this lady. Cooking without an inch of counter space? No, thank you!

When I search around the Internet and stumble upon other blogs I find so many women who do everything! The cooking, baking, cleaning, sewing, and ultimate child rearing and, to be honest, I get slightly green with envy. But what's turning colors going to help with anything? So it's just something I shoot for now and I accept that it's trial and error...with quite a few errors.

I used to fear that I would be unsuccessful if I stayed at home. It's like I'm throwing my life away, I would think. I wanted to go to school and I didn't even want to major in anything, I just wanted to go and become smarter. It was all about success

It took me a while before I realized that it was my calling to stay at home because even when it was in the back of my mind, I didn't want to believe it. I kept on using the word "Successful" when I talked to Matthew about what I wanted to be. My self-value was based on how the world saw me and I felt like if people saw me as unsuccessful, I was worthless.

God worked on me long enough and I finally got past that point and accepted my calling. Do I regret it? Absolutely not! Also, I do not feel "lesser-than" just because I am a stay at home wife and mom. It is my calling and I have peace now that I'm not running from it.

You don't have to be a stay at home wife/mom to be a homemaker...

Are you keeping the art of homemaking alive?

You may change your baby's diaper...

 But your baby changes your ways, your heart, and your life.

Feature: Simple Saturdays

Simplify.

It's a word that keeps coming to my mind as we try to settle into our house. There's stuff everywhere, we have no system, and we spend so much time trying to catch up with the big stuff (or pondering how to get the big stuff done) that we have no time to enjoy the little stuff. At this point, it feels like we're spinning around in a circle and getting nowhere fast.

Solution:

This feature will be my motivation to make progress, to share that progress with you, and hopefully give you insight on how to simplify your lifestyle as well.

Lets start with the mountains of possessions I own.

I am prone to become sentimentally attached to, well, everything, but I recently read that having a cluttered house causes more stress with being crowded and uses more energy because you have to find everything amongst the mess. That piece of paper that I need? Oh, it's in that stack with ALL of the other pieces of paper that I need...eventually. So I have to dig through, make a bigger mess, and start stressing even more because I can't find it and I need it at that very moment. Comes to find out, it's in the other stack of papers that I need.

True story.

My current battle is clothes because, you see, I'm 4'9" and the only way I have grown in the past 10 years was when I was pregnant and my belly grew out. So between not having to get rid of any clothes since I didn't grow out of them, getting hand-me-downs from people who did grow, and then finding the random clothes that I had to have...I've accumulated a enough clothes to equate to Mt Kilimanjaro.

Well, not quite. But almost.

Here's a glimpse into my clutter:

Here's Gage's nursery...Needless to say, he doesn't sleep in here yet.
Most of the clothes left in there now are his and they clothes that had been given to him! (So thankful)

Part of our living room, which has become our laundry room and storage room.

It takes a lot for me to tell myself "I don't need this" because everything I have has a story. A significant event happened while I was wearing the outfit. Like the day Matthew came to pick me up to hang out for the first time in a very long time I was
wearing my jeans with a hole in the knee, my long sleeved turquoise sweater, and my mom's silver scarf. That was the day that mine and Matthew's story really started because he realized then that he liked me as more than a friend. I, on the other hand, did NOT like him like that! And look at us now: married and just had our first little boy. Yeah, I didn't like him at all. ;)

Though there will be some clothes that I will not ever get rid of, I can't be so attached to every article of clothing that I have. Or so attached to anything in this world, for that matter.

In a devotional I read it said, "First, compared with eternity, life is extremely brief. Second, earth is only a temporary residence."* Those words stopped me cold and a whole new perspective of life was brought to my attention. I am still working on wearing those the eyes to see through all of the time, but I have grasped the concept well when it comes to worldly materials.

I need to simplify my possessions so that I can put more focus on Christ and what I need to do for Him. This life is for Him, not me.

As we were moving in and unpacking things I went ahead and filtered out everything I absolutely knew I didn't want; like the stuff that I hadn't used or worn in 6 months...or 5 years.

  For daily life and simple sorting:

 

 Create a "get rid of" stash for when you spot that picture frame that you'll never use or try on those jeans that aren't even comfortable. I plan to always keep a yard sale or Goodwill container so that as soon as we know that we don't need something, we toss it! Not let build up like it has now!

What are some ways that you stopped clutter from getting the best of you?

*The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Domestic Baby Food Manufacturer

Two things that I decided during my pregnancy was 1: "I want to make my baby's food" and 2: "I do NOT want my baby to have a pacifier". The first one happened...But not so much to the second one! Though, honestly, how much really goes as planned? Especially in parenthood.

I started making Baby Gage's food when he turned 5 months old and since then I have made him banana, zucchini, squash, carrot, pear, persimmon, pea, and sweet potato baby food! The kitchen is my favorite place in the house, so this is something that I thoroughly enjoy. Of course, there is the health perks of making fresh baby food and it is also very kind to our wallets. I bought zucchini at the farmers market for $3.50 and made 42 ounces of baby food leaving me with spending 0.33 cents per 4 ounce jar. THAT makes me happy!

 Matthew's mom, sister-in-law, and grandma went in together to buy us a Baby Bullet and I have loved using it! Homemade baby food became a lot less intimidating to me as a first time mom after receiving that gift.

Baby Bullet in hand, along with a rice steamer given by my mom, ice cube trays bought at the dollar store, and some ziploc baggies? I'm ready to rock out some baby food!

Sweet Potato Puree:

You'll need to peel the potato since their little bellies can't handle all

of the fiber in the peeling yet.

Chop it up however you please.

Throw into a steamer and go about your life for 35 minutes.

 

Come back and check tenderness by stabbing with a fork.

 

Toss the sweet potato and add about a cup of water into your blender or food processor.

 

Blend until your have your desired consistency of pureed baby goodness.

Spoon puree into ice cube trays, cover trays well with plastic wrap, and put them into the freezer until they have frozen solid.

Food for Thought: 1 ice cube = 1 ounce

Label your bag  with what it is and the date it was made.

Put the potato cubes in the bag and you're done! Now you have plenty of  sweet potato readily available in your freezer for whenever your kiddo wants an orange face.

I ended up with 24 ounces from one medium-large sweet potato resulting with 0.25 cents for a 4 ounce jar of baby food! Not bad at all in my book.

I didn't intend to make baby food just to save money, but it is definitely a benefit. A benefit that I never would have noticed before having to buy diapers!

Do you make your little ones' food?

What are some ways you cut corners with baby expenses without cutting the quality?

Taking Time for Tea

My tea set with a couples devotional book "Night Light" by James and Shirley Dobson

Matthew bought me a beautiful Chinese tea set just last Christmas and I had been wanting a tea set for a while! Needless to say, it thrilled me to the depths of my soul to open my gift and discover this along with a variety of loose leaf teas to try out.

Now lets back up.

All of the firsts in my life were joined with a lot of stresses as well. I have a problem with finding relaxation once I get caught up in the insanity of every day life, much less any additional chaos. Then I received this lovely tea set and ever since moving into the house, we've put the tea set into a lot more use with almost nightly doses of hot tea. Just recently, we started doing our couples devotional during our "bedtime tea". The devotional has questions to ask each other at the end and allows us the opportunity to talk about more in depth subjects. It gives us a window into each other's walk with Christ and where we stand on different matters. I've loved "Night Light" by James and Shirley Dobson! I definitely recommend it.

Every night I put our little boy down for bed and begin to run around like a crazy lady trying to catch up on housework that I missed out on during the day, Matthew begins making the tea, and once it's finished steeping, we sit down together and talk. Focusing on nothing except each other and in no time a wave of calm washes over me. It's amazing what some quiet conversation, alone time with my beloved husband, and a hot beverage can do! It is one of my favorite times of the day.

Sencha Green Tea is the hot tea that we are currently enjoying and, like most teas, has loads of health benefits (Here's more about Sencha tea) I'm not talking about the good ol' southern sweet tea that we used to love. Two cups of sugar per gallon? That was us. Now our regular refrigerator tea is white tea with one cup of sugar, So light and, in my opinion, way more refreshing.

But with this fall weather coming, I'm about ready to break out the hot apple spice tea! Yum!

What helps you wind down?

Hello, Blog. We meet again!

A year and 2 months later- here I am! I died off of here after only 2 posts. Wow, what a blogger I am!

Here I am, to try this out again.

Only a month and a half ago, my dear husband and I finally got into our house. Actually, my dear husband, our little boy, and I finally got into our house! Not long after my last post, I found out that I was pregnant and we moved in with my father-in-law and mother-in-law (Due to numerous reasons).
Let me tell you, the past year has been one crazy trip! First year of marriage, first pregnancy, first time living with another family, we became first time parents, and currently settling into our first (hopefully only) home with our own little family.


So now that I'm back, I will certainly be telling about our many adventures in trying to get into this house, showing before and after pictures of rooms and projects, and give you ideas on what NOT to do when trying to restore a house. We got to learn from experience what not to do.

In addition to that, I want to share my heart on marriage, parenthood, and my walk with an awesome God and I look forward to finding the blueprints to my life in the process.

By the way, super delicious apple cake:


Ingredients:
2 beaten eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel (I just added a little lemon juice)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice*
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup cooking oil
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups peeled, chopped apples
1 cup chopped pecans*

Directions:
1: Allow eggs to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, grease a 10 inch tube pan (I used 2, 9 inch round pans); set pan aside. In a medium bowl stir together flour, lemon peel, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt. Set aside.
2: In a mixing bowl combine sugar, brown sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add flour mixture and beat on low speed just until combined. Fold in apples and pecans. Spoon batter into prepared pan(s).
3: Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Cool cake on rack. Sprinkle with sifted powdered sugar. Cover; store in fridge.


This is a an easy, fail proof, and crowd pleaser cake! Really moist and yummy and definitely a winner for me. With fall just around the corner, you now know what to do with some of those apples you will be getting.

*Did not have ingredient on hand and simply omitted.

(Recipe credited to Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book, my favorite and most used cook book!)