What do stay-at-home moms do all day?

A friend of mine posted an article from the Carolyn Hax column in the Washington Posted to her facebook page. I found it very encouraging.

The letter was from a friend of a new mom and asked, "What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail?"

As I look around me at the end of an exhausting day and see nothing but mess I have often asked myself the same thing. I wonder, "What did I do today? I didn't get around to the dishes, the floors, the laundry, nothing. Why then, am I SO exhausted?" It's days like this that I so often feel like I've failed as a wife and mother.

Carolyn answers like this: "When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.
It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, [you might want] to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend."

In short, it's everything that you don't see. Everything that I don't see. Even though this is what I'm doing all day every day, at the end of the day, I'm looking around to SEE what I did that day and getting down on myself when it LOOKS like I've done nothing. I needed this put into words that I could see right in front of me to pick me up, encourage me, and remind me that even if no one can SEE the labors of my day, it was the most important work I could have done that day.

Traffic and Parking

We just got home from a little vacation to Washington, DC. Overall, we had a great time! We got to see a few sights, see a few friends, and meet the newest addition to my husband's side of the family. However, the traffic, roads, parking, and construction in and around the DC area are TERRIBLE!!! If you didn't know this, now you do. We tried THREE TIMES to so see the Lincoln Memorial and each time we got there but then got lost or detoured while looking for parking so saw something else instead.

Now, they do have, what they call, the Metro. This train picks you up from out laying cities and takes you into DC. We considered this but decided that with 3 small children and our budget, it would be better for us to drive. This was a mistake. Between the massive number of cars on the road and the crazy construction that reduced most roads to one lane, we spent more time in the car then we did seeing the sights.

It just made me wonder at the problem. Richard Cypher always reminds himself, "don't think of the problem, think of the solution." So here's my solution: First, make the Metro more affordable and family friendly. Next, close the city to cars!! I know, that doesn't sound possible, but I saw the coolest thing there: Bikes. You know those cart rental racks you see in the malls or airports? You put in your money and it unlocks one cart for you. When you return it to any other rack, you get a deposit back. They had that for bikes! So increase options like that, increase bus routes and make them more affordable, continue to allow those touring buses/trolley, make walking maps for tourists (maybe the do have these but the only map I found was one put out by the tour trolley and it had all it's stops and routes marked but was unhelpful for parking and walking). Or, if you're not going to close the city to private vehicles, at least make parking more available.

On another random topic, you know how car tags ("license plates" where I come from) say something about the state? Like in Utah they used to say, "Greatest Snow on Earth." Well, in DC say on them, "Taxation without Representation." It made me chuckle that that was actually printed on their plates. But then I thought, "Well, if you don't like it, why do you live here?" I just mean, DC is so small and there are so many areas nearby that are in a State and have Representation. That let me to think, what if you closed all these apartments and turned them into parking structures. Then people who came into DC to work and visit would actually have a place to park! Taxes from the businesses could continue to run the city and there would be no residents to complain about their taxes!

Okay, I know, I know! That would never work anyway. But these are my random ramblings, and that was what I was thinking about as I sat for 30 minutes in construction staring at the tag on the car in front of me.

On a positive note, the George Washington Memorial Highway is beautiful!! And the bridges along that road were magnificent!! I got really excited when Dani (my GPS) would take us onto that road. If I were more familiar with the area, I would have taken that road every chance I got, even if it was out of the way. There was no construction (at least not on the part I was on), the traffic ran freely, and the view was breathtaking!! I can't say ALL the roads were terrible (just all but one).

Mormons. A cult or religion?

Yes, I am a "Mormon." Now, I do not belong to the Church of Mormon. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. What does that mean?

When Jesus was on the earth, He organized His church and told his apostles to call it the Church of Jesus Christ. For if it was name after Moses, it would be Moses's church, etc. After Jesus and all of His apostles were killed the church became disorganized. Many tried to continue in the Faith and have done a wonderful job holding it together, but it is not the same organization that was established by Christ. In these "latter days" Christ has appeared, has called a prophet and has re-organized His church as it was in ancient times. And, once again, has commanded that it be called after His name, for it is His church.

So, why then, do people call us Mormons?

Mormon was a prophet who lived on the American continent about 200 years after the birth of Christ. He was called by God to collect the records and testimonies of Christ that had been kept by those people over the previous 800 years. Because of the work he did on this record, we call it The Book of Mormon. It contains the prophesies and revelations of a righteous branch of the House of Israel who had been broken off and led away. It records Christ's visitation to the inhabitants of the America's after His death and resurrection.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) believe the Bible to be the word of God; we study both the Old Testament and the New Testament. We also study and believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.

Just as unbelievers in ancient days called those who believed in Christ, Christians, the name stuck and has become a term of endearment to those believers; so has the term Mormon stuck to those of us who believe the Book of Mormon to be a Testament of Jesus Christ.

Do you get the feeling our beliefs center around Jesus Christ? They do!

We believe Jesus Christ to be the only begotten Son of God. He lived a perfect life so that he could atone for us. He suffered in Gethsemane, died on the cross, and was resurrected all so that I could repent and return to my Father in Heaven (and you too!). He is my Savior, and Redeemer and I love Him more than I can express. I am not perfect, but I strive to live my life in a manner pleasing to Him.

I don't watch a lot of TV, but who hasn't heard about some religious leader or another accusing the LDS faith of being a cult and, more offensive to me, being not Christian.

I wanted to ramble about the definition of the word, cult*. The number one definition in any dictionary I looked in says it just means religion. It's true. By definition, every religion is a cult. However, cult also has a negative connotation as being unorthodox and no one likes their religion to be referred to as a cult. Neither do I. Every Christian faith has it's differences from every other one. That's why there are so many. Is there any such thing as "orthodox" when it comes to comparing different denominations? We are different, but we strive to live as any other true Christian would. So why do so many try to apply a term to us that they wouldn't apply to any other Christian Church?

As for not being Christian, well, I've already expressed my conviction and love for my Savior. I just felt like rambling about how silly it is that people get so upset about the word cult. Cult means religion. My religion teaches me about Christ and how to be a good person and how to care for my family. So why is it so often the topic of negative conversation among those who have no idea who we are or what we believe? If you would like to know what "Mormons" believe, ask a "Mormon." I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Or you can visit Mormon.org to see what we really believe, not what others think we believe.

*My religion does not define the word cult for me. I thought about the term and how it gets tossed around like leaves in the wind. I wondered if people are using the word correctly. I looked it up in a public, online, dictionary. I talked about it with others who often disagreed with me. My definition and opinion of the word cult do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the LDS Church or other members of the church or members of any other church. We are encouraged to think for ourselves; to study and learn all that we can. These are my random ramblings and my testimony of Jesus Christ. No one else can claim them or blame them on someone else.

Home canning vs store bought

I had my first experience with home canning all by myself this weekend and it left me wondering if it's really worth it. I've done jam and apricot nectar with my mom and mil but this was the first time I did it all by myself. What did I do? Tomatoes. (queue ominous music)

I single-handedly processed and preserved 40 pounds of tomatoes. I got 21 half-pints of Summer Salsa, 7 pints of sauce (will NEVER do that again!), 7 pints of Italian seasoned diced tomatoes, and 6 pints of Mexican seasoned diced tomatoes. It took me about 15 hours of processing over 3 days plus time shopping and running around looking for jars (I couldn't find them anywhere!) and the cleaning up (which frankly, still isn't done). I spent $40 on jars and another $40 on other ingredients: peaches, pears, onions, peppers, carrots, celery, and spices I didn't have since we recently moved. The tomatoes I got for free, which is the only reason I would ever can anything.

I didn't save time. I didn't save money. Do I regret doing it? No! I'm glad I got this chance. When I was finally done I felt a great sense of accomplishment, which is always worth the effort. But it did leave me wondering why people go out and BUY the produce to can it themselves? I can certainly see canning something you grow in excess, but why pay for the raw product and invest the time to process it when you can save time and money to buy the food already canned? I suppose if you have special dietary needs this is a great thing to do because you can control the salt and sugar or anything else that goes into it. I am also looking forward to giving away some of my canned salsa; I wouldn't go buy a jar of salsa as a gift, but something I've canned myself and put my sweat and tears into seems much more appropriate. So, yes, I can see reasons for home canning. I will do it again when I harvest my own garden next year. I have learned a lot and now that it's done can it say it was a good experience. But won't do tomato sauce again! And I can't ever see myself paying for produce to put up (at least, not tomatoes!).

Do you buy raw foods to home can? Why or whynot?

The whole experience? Sure, you can read some more random ramblings, but proceed at your own risk.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I accepted 40 pounds of tomatoes from my friend who was unexpectedly called out of town and had to get rid of them.  She even loaned me the processing pot, rack, and the Ball Home Canning "Bible." I was so excited! I found a Summer Salsa recipe with Tomatoes, Peaches, and Pears, Oh my! I was already drooling. I also wanted some spaghetti sauce so found a garden sauce recipe. Then, judging by the recipes I knew I would still have plenty left so I got some spices for Italian and Mexican spiced tomatoes to finish them off.

The children were thrilled to go to the Farmers Market with me to look for peaches, pears, and peppers. I also needed carrots, celery and onions, as well as several spices that I hadn't replaced since we moved, though I didn't expect them to be there.  I guess peaches are out of season but we did find pears and red peppers. The kids also convinced me to get some grapes the size of small plums, pickling cucumbers (not to pickle, just to eat), corn, and raspberries. I'm glad my kids like fresh produce.We got everything else I needed from the grocery store.

I didn't have any jars so we also ran to WalMart expecting to find everything I would need. I was disappointed. They had several quart size jars on the shelf, but all my recipes wanted pints or half pints and since it was my first time I thought I'd follow the instructions. After staring at the bare shelf for several moments, wondering what to do now and wishing that if I stared long enough what I needed would show up, I left empty handed and came home to see where google might recommend. One site recommended a farmer's supply store. Well, though I'm new to the area, I have passed that and knew right where it was so I left the kids with Hubby for lunch and headed straight over. Another disappointment! They had one box of the pint size jars. So I bought that and asked where else they might recommend. He said WalMart. :/ There is another WalMart on the other side of town but I don't really know where and I didn't have my gps with me, so I started driving around and found a KMart. I didn't really expect them to have much, but since I was there I ran in. SURPRISE! KMart had them! They had tons of them! I picked up 2 cases of half pints (why do they call them Half Pint jars? Half a pint is a cup. Wouldn't it just be easier to call them that?) and came home to get started.

Oh no. My stock pot is in storage. I knocked on the neighbors door.

Okay! Produce, jars, stock pot, tomatoes, processing pot...I'm finally ready. Boil some water, put the tomatoes in, watch for them to crack, take them out put them in the cold water, add some more to the water, watch for them to crack...How many am I going to need for this recipe? Should I just do them all right now, then they'll be ready? No, I don't have room in my kitchen and I don't know when I'll get the rest; just do one recipe at a time. And the peaches! Blanch them, too. Before I start peeling I put the jars in the dishwasher. Great, now to start peeling. It was right about then I realized I had undertaken much more than I had thought. Peeling, seeding, squeezing out extra liquid, dicing. This was going to take me all day, just preping the tomatoes! Next the peaches. The peels didn't slide off even though they were blanched and, once off, they were so slipper they were hard to cut up. I usually cut a peach in half and twist then take the pit out. I couldn't do that once the skin was off so I was trying to cut the flesh off from around the pit. Then the pears. No surprises there. Chop some red pepper, onion, and jalapeno; my Pampered Chef Food Chopper saved me there. Dishwasher's done, get the jars on the stove, lids in a pot, they should be done and ready when I am. Back to the veggies: everything in a pot, put it on the stove, bring to boil. Add zest and juice of a lemon, some cilantro, mint, honey and...balsamic vinegar? *shrug* okay. Boil boil boil. Ready to jar! Pull one jar out, fill it up, wipe off the top, screw on the lid, put it back in. Eight half pints and a pint (for the girl that gave me the tomatoes). Not bad. Turn them on to process and start over on another batch. Faster this time. 11 more half pints. I'm smiling as I call Hubby.

Thankfully, Hubby took the kids to the Apple Festival so I had the quiet afternoon to myself. About 5pm I realize I have no place to make dinner so call him and ask him to pick up burgers on the way home. I considered starting the sauce but I'm exhausted. So after the kids are in bed I clean up a little, chat with a friend on facebook, prep my lesson for Sunday and off to bed.

Church is at the awkward time of 12:30 so I don't dare start something before church. We have a baptism at 5:30. I didn't start tomato sauce until 8:30. Blanch, peel, seed, squeeze, measure into the blender. About 9:30 I realize I had done a conversion wrong and had only preped half the tomatoes I would need. So I start over. Blanch, peel, seed, squeeze, measure, blend. Sigh. Chop carrots, celery, and onion. Start to boil. Add tomato puree 1 cup at a time keeping at a boil. Oh, did I start the jars?? Yes. Relief. Dishwasher is done, put them on the stove. Add more puree. What!!?? I'm two cups short!!?? And now I don't have a pan or a place to blanch anymore so I'm trying to peel tomatoes that are not blanched and I would not recommend that to anyone!! Finally it just has to boil down. I clean up a little and go sit down. I come back in to see that boiling sauce is messy!! Sigh. Stir. Looks about right. Feels thick enough. Let's jar it and go to bed!! At 1am I go to bed.

I am so happy when the kids sleep in until 8am. We get up. They want a jammy day. (They ask to stay in their jammies more and more often and I let them. Am I a bad mom?) We eat cold cereal. They do some chores and I start on the last of the tomatoes. Today I'm just dicing them up and putting them in jars. I found this to be so easy after the last two days. I blanch everything that's left and put them in a sink of cold water. When my children are done with their chores I ask them to help me peel. My son loves this and turns out to be a great help. I start cooking and jarring one batch while he peels the next batch. Seven pints in the batch and I'm out jars with about 6 pints of tomatoes left.

We have lunch and load into the car. I've looked up the addresses for several thrift stores. After buying all those jars to start with I had a friend recommend looking at the thrift stores. After 5 stores and not one jar I give up and go back to KMart. Back home again I finish up the tomatoes sigh and look around at the mess. The floors bug the most so I sweep and mop the kitchen as well as the fake hard wood in the living room and hall way, and decide I may as well do the bathroom, too. My cupboards are completely bare since I was supposed to go shopping that day and I've only been buying what I need for the week since we're moving again soon so we load back into the car to head to Cici's. On our way out we pass our neighbor who says, "Are you ok? You look really stressed out!" I just have to smile. I know she's being polite. I look TERRIBLE!! I briefly tell her about my adventures and she smiles and nods though I get the idea she really has no idea what I've been through this weekend.

We pick up Hubby from work and come home for a quick Family Home Night before bed. What should we do? Who has a lesson? I do. I had a whole weekend of lessons. We sing I Love to See the Temple and I show them how our family is like a jar of salsa. If a family is not sealed it will only last through this life. But when we go to the temple we get a special lid that seal us together for ever. But it's not that easy. We still need to be processed, just like the jar going into the hot water bath. This life is our processing and if we make it through, our family can be preserved forever.

 
The children are in bed and I count and loving label each of my precious jars, look around at the mess still in the kitchen and go to bed.

Strawberry Breakfast Rolls.

For lack of a better blog to put this on, today I'm going to ramble about my strawberry rolls that didn't really turn out.

My daughter has been on this strawberry kick: What should we put on our pizza? Strawberries. Should we have orange rolls from breakfast? No, strawberry rolls. Doesn't the girl strawberries are out of season? Well I guess I can't complain too much, I've loved my strawberry experiments. Even today's rolls that didn't turn out were still good.

We were already at the store, and I was just going to get Rhodes frozen Orange Rolls when she told me we weren't having orange rolls on Sunday, we were having strawberry rolls. I was already buying strawberries for the strawberry pizza she had requested so I shrugged and headed to the baking section to get some yeast. I didn't have any bread recipes in mind so I looked at a few on the back of the flour bags then found one on the back of the yeast which I used. I made some adjustments, which I shouldn't have and my house was way to cold to rise bread properly, not to mention that I used flour from the freezer and a cold egg, so they were dense and hard. I will definitely try these again using my grandmother's orange roll recipe next time, but for now, here's what I tried. For those of you who regularly adjust recipes, maybe you can point out what I did wrong (aside from using frozen flour and a cold egg!).

Rolls:

1 packet Fast Rise Yeast

3 Tbs dark brown sugar

1/2 c milk

2 tbs butter

2 cups flour (I needed an extra 1/2 cup to make them not sticky)

1 tsp salt

1 large egg

Filling

2 Tbs Strawberry jam (just enough for thin layer. Don't over do this)

Topping

2 Tbs Strawberry Cream cheese

1/4 cup powdered sugar

milk to desired consistency

strawberries, sliced

For rolls:

Scald milk by heating just to boiling point. Remove from heat, stir in butter until melted.

In large bowl mix 1c flour, sugar, salt, yeast. Mix in warm milk and egg. Add remaining flour a little at a time. On floured surface, knead the dough until firm and smooth, about 10 minutes. (I also didn't kneed long enough because the kids needed me)

Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Roll out in a square (this was when I realized my rolling pin is still in storage!! so I used a plastic up and was really surprised how well that worked. Too well, I think I rolled them too thin). Spread jam (I think I used too much of that, it was oozing out the edges). Roll up and cut into 12 (use dental floss to make this easy). Place on baking sheet and let rise until doubled in size, about 1/2 hour (mine didn't rise, despite the fact that I had them sitting on top of the preheating oven).  Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned (mine baked for 25 minutes before they seemed done).

 

For topping, beat sugar and cream cheese. Add milk a little at a time until desired consistency. Drizzle over warm rolls. Top with fresh strawberries.

Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?

Is Junk Food Really Cheaper?

This was a great article in the New York Times. To summarize: no! It's not cheaper. Just easier. And sometimes we all need easy.

I make dinner almost every night. I can't afford to do anything else. Sometimes I enjoy it. Sometimes it's a chore. But even on nights when it's a chore and I think we should just go out, I ask myself, "Where do I want to go out to? What do I want to eat? What do I want to spend on it?" Usually the answer is, "Nowhere, nothing, and nada." Which tells me I should just cook, feed the kids and go to bed.

Where I fall into the junk food trap is snacks! Nothing could be easier than a carrot or an apple, but is that what I go for? Sadly, no. Is it what the kids ask for. Sadly, no. They want the granola bars and fruit snacks that don't fill them up, but sure taste yummy. And which more expensive? An apple or a bag of fruit snacks? Well, I guess if the fruit snacks are on sale and the apples are out of season, then the fruit snacks. But seriously, at $0.50 for an apple from Kroger that I split in 1/2 for the kids to share or $3.00 for a box of 6-8 bags of gummies that the kids are going to devour and still be hungry I should be reaching for an apple. So why don't I. I DON'T KNOW!!

So to encourage healthy snacking I stopped buying the granola bars and fruit snacks, and I only buy chips when it's on the menu to have with a meal. So now what? Now I stopped snacking! I'd rather just go hungry than open the fridge, open the drawer, get out an apple, wash it, and cut it. Yep. Lazy. And the kicker, the kids still snack. I'll make them a cheese sandwich with some apple wedges, but I won't eat it because it was too hard to make. And now that I've realized that, I think I'm crazy.

So I guess I should snack with the kids. I'll continue to call the processed snack choices treats instead of snacks. I'll keep telling them, "no, we're not eating at McDonalds, It's gross and I hate it."

Healthy?

"home made" jelly filled donughts

What do you consider healthy? If you make something from scratch instead of buying a processed prepackaged alternative, or even a box mix, is it automatically healthy? Healthyier, maybe. You don't all the preservatives and you can control the amount of sugar and salt or even the type of oil you use, but that doesn't makes it "healthy."

I was reading the comments on a few blogs and cringed every time someone said, "Oh good! A healthy alternative!" Now don't get me wrong, the recipes looked wonderful and I'm sure they're much better for you than the processed, boxed alternative, but that still doesn't make them healthy. Does it?

Homemade Thai Hummus

Ok, maybe a different question. What makes something unhealthy? Sugar? Salt? Oil? Preservatives? Ingredients you can't pronounce? Should all be eating cardboard sprinkled with a vitamin supplement?

I don't know. I'm not a dietitian or a physician, but it seems to me that the obesity problem we have is because we eat too much. Ok, maybe now I'm switching topics, but these are my ramblings. Yes, home made is better than boxed. Yes, less sugar, salt, and fat is better than more. But more importantly, MODERATION. Smaller portions (for meals and desserts). More water. More walking. That's my two cents.

Now what could you make with this? Or, why make anything? Just dig in! Yum!