I Know This Much is True (book review)

A couple weeks ago I picked up this book at the local library's used book sale. The two things that caught my eye about it were the cover art, and the fact that it had an "Oprah's Book Club" sticker on it. I snatched it up thinking I would either read it or resell it or send it off to paperbackswap. As it turned out I read it....and what an awesome book!

I Know This Much is True is the story of twin brothers, one with schizophrenia, the other one telling the story. This book has it all: history, love, tragedy, heartbreak, passion, true friendship, struggle, and the perfect ending.

This book is one that grabbed my attention and kept calling me back. The characters felt very real to me. The honesty of the narrator brother was excellent. Definitely worth reading!

Busy, busy, busy!

We had a fun weekend at home. We got inspired to begin working on some projects with our free bricks, so we worked on making a patio that is looking very cool! All the kids helped and my husband worked like the mighty workhorse he is. We chipped away at the ground to make it level, moved dirt around, and placed the bricks in a nice design. We made a lot of good progress on it!

We also started working on a raised garden bed for a square foot garden, and my 7 and 10 year olds made an outdoor grill area out of the bricks as well. We are all feeling very resourceful!

We have decluttered and organized many things in our home as well. We love to weed out the stuff we no longer need!

I have also had a ton of new possibilities coming at me for my business. I recently joined a fabulous egroup called The Mom Pack that has given me so many ideas, opportunities, and new sales leads that my head has been spinning. I have had so many things to work my way through and consider that it has been very exciting but also overwhelming. I am trying to figure things out, plan, set goals, and prioritize. It is harder than I expected, because I keep finding out about more stuff to factor into everything! My great hope is to be able to use my ideas and abilities to create a decent supplemental income for my family this year. I always feel like I have great ideas, but with the needs of my family, I rarely have the time to get my ideas into action. With all six kids being in school come August, I will have a little more time to get moving. I am trying to get my head together and learn all I can between now and then so that when the iron is hot...I can strike! :)

The kids are enjoying their break from school. They have been playing outside, having fun with our homemade slip-n-slide, making things, and so forth. Good times!

Many Hands Make Light Work

We've been wanting bricks for several back yard projects, and recently my husband found a huge amount of bricks that we could have for FREE! The following day we loaded up all the kids plus two of their friends and went to load up these free bricks, bring them back to our house, and unload them. The kids were totally into it--cheering each other on and begging to go back for more loads of bricks. It was really fun. Now we have more than enough bricks to build a patio, an outdoor grill or over of some sort, plus make pathways and garden borders!

I finally caved--All My Kids Have Cell Phones Now

This morning I woke up to a bunch of kids that had created their very own cell phones out of construction paper (the boys have Razor phones and my daughter has a Motorola, LOL), plus they had written two plays that they performed for me while I ate my breakfast. I love the imaginations of my children!

Chore-a-Rama

So the other day moe left this comment:

First, let me say I am impressed. I can't figure out how you manage to do what you do. I don't mean having 6 kids, I have 5. Homeschooling, and keeping your kids organized and doing chores, that is what I dream of. Can I ask how old your daughter is? (the one doing the bathrooms) I would love to hear your whole kids chore plan. I'd use it as evidence for my kids. See other people get their kids to clean bathrooms too!

Well, moe, let me tell ya, I think it probably sounds lot more impressive than it is in real life. Nevertheless, I shall indulge and answer your question about the chores.

We started having our kids do chores in earnest 6 years ago when we moved to this house. My oldest kiddo was 7, the second child was 4. I assigned each of them an area of the house that was their responsibility to clean up every day. They kept the same area for many months which helped them to learn to really do a good job on their area, and kept it simple for me. "Go clean your areas!" is simplest if the areas are known to all.

Eventually we added in the third child with an area, and now we are trying to teach the three youngest ones to do a chore area as well. (the children are now 13, 10, almost 8, 6, almost 5, and 3)

The chore areas for the oldest three kids have been (until recently):

Upstairs floor (which includes kitchen, living room, and hallway, sometimes bathroom): The person that does this area is responsible for picking up all the rubble that accumulates on the floor each day, plus vacuuming or sweeping as needed. My third child had this area during the school year so that I could supervise him and teach him easily since I am usually in the kitchen. Before this year he didn't have very good chore skills and tended to be lazy. This year he has become a very good cleaner and has a great work ethic. This child now begs to mow the grass and weed whip! He has come a long way.

Stairs and downstairs hall: This is a small area and was my daughter's during the school year because she was gone to school and had homework every day. Basically it's just to pick up and put away stuff in your area that doesn't belong there, plus vacuum the area when needed. (which we normally only had her do on Saturdays since she was busy with school during the week)

Family room: The person doing this area is supposed to pick up the items on the floor plus vacuum, but also straighten up their entire room including all surfaces. Our oldest child had this area during the school year since he is old enough to have a little more responsibility.

Now that I have added three more kids to the mix, I have changed up the areas plus added some new ones. Now I have my 10 year old daughter handling 2 bathrooms (one is also the laundry room), and have added someone to do more kitchen work. I am still working out the kinks in my new system so can't really claim any success on it yet.

The way our chores areas have worked best was when we homeschooled the whole crew. Everyone ate breakfast together, and then spent about 15 minutes or so cleaning their areas. (If you do it every day, that's all it takes) After that they spent 15 minutes straightening up their bedrooms, and they got dressed. Then we started school, and the house looked good in case anyone dropped by. It was fairly easy to do this routine.

Now that some of my kids have been in school it's been a little more hit-and-miss. I am actually toying with the idea of getting the kids up a little early for school next year so that everyone can do their 15 minute chore areas before they leave for the day. Realistically, I hate to get up early, so I don't know if we can pull it off. Still, the idea of having the house spiffy before the day starts is quite appealing to me.

Some people would do better with the chores getting done at night before bed. I think it's a lot nicer to wake up in the morning to a clean house. However, evenings have always been the worst for us and it was not workable for us to handle cranky babies and toddlers, plus get everyone doing their chores at bedtime or whatever. So, we wake up to a messy house and conquer it quickly. We just do better that way.

One thing I am considering is increasing the amount of chores my older three kids do. 15 minutes isn't very much, and there is still plenty to do around here. I haven't decided what all to have them do extra, but am planning on teaching them all to do their own laundry, and getting them helping in the kitchen more. For a short time I used to have a night of the week when one of the older kids planned and prepared dinner. That kind of fizzled out but is still a good idea.

So there you go. Does that help, moe?

I. Am. So. Tired!

So today, first day of summer break, has already been successful and productive. And exhausting!

Since this was the first time for on-the-job-training for the new chore areas, that took a lot of time and patience. My daughter is fairly well devastated that she has been reassigned to clean both bathrooms. She feels that since there are 5 messy-in-the-bathroom boys here that one of THEM should have to clean up with own puddles and drips. I can understand her unhappiness, but we all have to learn to do the job, and she's the one getting that opportunity right now. Luckily for her, I did devise a plan to give her some relief: she only has to do the bathroom job while her older brother is here. He has been given one of my usual chore areas: the kitchen. However, he will be gone for a week in June and for most of the month of July. So she will get to do kitchen duty when he is out of town and I will take over bathrooms. Somehow, this plan didn't make her feel any happier this morning.

My 3 year old surprised me today but begging for a reading lesson. He has been watching me work with his 7 year old brother all year long, and now he has decided it's time for him to learn to read as well. I started out with the Leap Frog toy, but he told me NO, he doesn't want to play with the frog! he wants the reading book! :) Out came the 100 Easy Lessons book, and we did the first lesson. Then Doodles came along and also did the first lesson, and then Izzy Man did the same. jake the great followed up with his lesson, which is far, far past lesson one, thankfully! The boys were all really adorable and loved the time to do something like that. I will try to continue with it if they continue to be interested in it. Since each lesson only takes about 5 minutes or so, it's pretty doable.

My daughter got into a decoupage project, and I decided to pull everything out of the pantry, clean it out, and reorganize. It really needed it.

Since I was then on a roll I decided to also clean out the refrigerator, since it was badly needed. Tomorrow is grocery shopping day, so this is the perfect day for cleaning the fridge and pantry since we're at our low point for supplies.

Now it's only 3:30 and I'm *tired*! But I'm glad we've had a good day so far.

Miles to go before I sleep.......

So when August comes don't act like I didn't earn it....

My children are officially on Summer Break now. Today was their last day of school. Although I know it is popular to act like this is a horrible turn of events, I will swim against the flow as I love to do and tell you that I am looking forward to this break.

Not only will I no longer have to arise at 6am, but I have great things planned. We will be doing summer reading programs, I will be working on reading and phonics with 2 or 3 of the kids, the two oldest kids are going to camp for a week each, we have a trip planned, and I am going to be teaching the three youngest kids how to do chores. Soon I will have six good workers to delegate household jobs to, which is a very good thing. The younger ones love to be with me and help with almost anything so I know they are ripe for some responsibilities. The trickiest part of making this happen is....me! Teaching them chores means that I will have to stop what I am doing and take the time to go over and over and over the tasks that they need to learn. Sometimes this is really hard, but I know from having 3 other kids that help around the house that it is going to be worth it. My goal is that by the end of the summer all 3 of the little boys will be able to clean their chore areas responsibly. Almost all of the kids are going to learn to do their own laundry this summer as well.

I have some ideas jotted down for setting up an actual schedule for our summer break days, because without one I tend to forget what to get the kids busy with, certain things are never gotten to, and I spend too much time on my own pursuits. With a schedule you can be more sure that you will get to do all of the things that you wanted to do. We will not get to the end of the summer and say, "Oh no! We hardly ever played any games together!" or "We forgot to have campfires and make smores!" Although some people have schedules that become a burden to them, most of the time I have found that a schedule can be a really helpful tool for creating a routine and rhythm for our days. Managers of Their Homes is the best resource I know of for learning the whys and hows of creating a schedule for your life.

We have already been having fun working on our summer reading goals and playing with a Leap Frog item that we were able to borrow from the school for the summer. Although some of those Leap Frog things can really be annoying, this one seems like it will be valuable for my younger guys.

Izzy Man is reading many basic sight words, and is showing a lot of aptitude for sounding out words. I hope to work through Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons this summer. (Jake the Great has almost completed the book)

Our little tiny garden is doing it's thing, and I've already had a nice amount of spinach from it. What I am looking forward to more than anything are the red and orange sweet peppers. I love them more than the green peppers but hate to pay the crazy prices for them at the store. I hope to get things in order this year so that I can have a bigger garden next year.

So those are just a few of the things we've got planned for our summer. Since my kids are out sooner than most, they will also be back to school sooner than most. Just remember that I'll have had my kids home just as long as you, missie! Hopefully we'll both have had a lot of fun with our kids. :)

You know, I was thinking about the surprise party on Tuesday night, and how most of the people from church were able to attend. I was realizing that a lot of people would not have that response. In today's go-go-go world, most people seem to have every night of their week taken up with some sort of place to go and thing to do.

Two of the things about our church that we really value are:

1. That there is a strong emphasis on families not getting into the crazy grind of running all the time. We only have Sunday morning church because we do not want people's entire lives taken up with running....even to church!

2. There is a strong emphasis on relationships. Not just "Good morning, how are you? nice to see you!" church foyer relationships, but actual getting to know people and caring about them.

I realized that our church friends were able to come because their schedules weren't clogged up, and they took the time to add something to their schedule because they care about us.

That rocks!

Throwing a last-minute surprise party

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. He was working at the fire station, just as he had been Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Poor guy! On Monday I was deciding about going to visit him on Tuesday, which would be an obvious OF COURSE if it weren't for the fact that gas is so expensive, we drive a big vehicle, and it's 30 minutes away.

And then I had a brain storm. I could set up a little surprise party for him at work!

After a few minutes of thinking it through, I put my plan into action starting at about 9pm on Monday.

I emailed some friends from church to invite them to stop in for the happenin's. On Tuesday morning I got ingredients to make his favorite pie, plus ordered a cake, and bought drinks, cups, and plates.

During the day I called the firemen on duty to let them know what was going on. I made the pies. And I picked up the cake and balloons. I cleared out the back of our Burb and used a fire truck blanket as a tablecloth back there.

We went to one of the fire stations that he was not at and set up a little tailgate party. The firemen helped us a bit. We wrapped the balloons around the side view mirror. Then people started to arrive and we had one of the firemen call to the other station to ask my husband to come down there for something.

By the time he arrived he had a nice group in the parking lot waiting to surprise him!

Lots of people from church showed up and so we had a really nice turn out. My husband was really surprised and it gave him a much-needed lift. It was really easy to put together so I will not hesitate to try more surprise parties in the future.

You, too, and put together a surprise party in less than 24 hours! :)

I just read a beautiful post that I wanted to share with you. The author writes about the importance of doing what we do, even if it is insignificant. I think we all need to be reminded of that from time to time.

Laugh Therapy

Found this hilarious Mother's Day memory today and it made me screech with laughter.
Could you use a laugh too? Check it out.

Stand Up for Yourself!

Many times parents tell their kids to stand up to bullies at school or whatever. We have even gone so far as to teach our oldest child how to effectively defend himself in a variety of ways. However, this post by a high school guidance teacher seemed to me an important additional piece of information for my son, my husband, and myself.

Basically, he says that times have changed, and schoolyard fights aren't anything like they were back when we were growing up. Kids are much more violent now, and the fights are a whole lot more dangerous. Telling our kids to fight back might not be the best advice any more....

Check it out. He's seeing this stuff every day.

Alright, Eve--you dragged it outta me

Eve wants to know how I made the Chili Lime Chips, so I shall indulge her. :)

The thing about a lot of my raw crackers and treats is that it requires a little foresight. At first I found this really difficult because it was tricky to get the timing right. I mean, newbies aren't so good at planning 3 days in advance for some chip-type-things, you know?

Happily, by now I've gotten a good idea of what I like and what needs to happen, so I can keep things going without too much angst.

The first ingredient needed in this recipe is sprouted buckwheat. For that I take raw buckwheat hulls and soak them for most of a day. Then I drain them, rinse them well, and let them live in a couple of colanders for 2 days. I rinse them in the morning and at night, and keep them covered with a towel through the day. (try to spread the buckwheat out thinly in the colander, not all lumped up and deep in the middle)

Since sprouted buckwheat is a pretty common item in a lot of my raw recipes, I do this pretty regularly even if I don't know what I'm going to do with it. By the time the sprouts have grown for two days, I have usually gotten it figured out. If not, the drained sprouts can go into a ziploc bag in the fridge for several days, or they can be dehydrated and used for one of our favorite cookie bar treats: Buckwheatie Bars. (I'll tell you about those some other time)

For this recipe you need:

5 cups of sprouted buckwheat

3 cups of fresh veggies (I used 3 tomatoes this time, but you can use zucchini or anything else you've got around)

2 cups of soaked sunflower seeds (cover the seeds in water for a day, then drain. yet another thinking ahead step, but it's easy. If I'm not using them right away I freeze them.) You could use pine nuts or other nuts/seeds if they are more convenient for you.

1 cup of flax meal (raw flax seeds ground up in a coffee grinder)

2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. chili powder

2 tablespoons cumin

2 tablespoons honey

juice of 2 limes

2 pinches cayenne pepper

3/4 tsp. garlic powder

2 tablespoons olive oil

half cup pumpkin seeds (it's good to soak these ahead of time too, but not mandatory)

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

The nice thing about this recipe is that it's not going to fly or fail based on exact measurements or if you have ever single thing. You can really "cook from the hip" with this one, adding or deleting items to your liking.

You just whiz all of this up on your food processor (probably in batches since it's more than most food processors can handle), then mix it all up in a big bowl.

Spread it thinly onto teflex sheets on dehydrator trays. I do it thick enough to not have bare spaces. It thins out some once it's dehydrated too.

This recipe fills over 3 of my dehydrator trays. (they are each 1 foot square)

Once I get the batter spread onto the trays I take my pizza cutter and cut through it to score it. I go straight across for the first series of cuts, then diagonal for the second. That makes the chips turn out diamond-shaped which seems right for the flavorful flair that these chips have. :)

Dehydrate for several hours until it holds together well enough to flip it onto a dehydrator tray without the teflex sheet. (The teflex sheets keep liquid on the tray, but what you really want is for the majority of thr drying time to be on the mesh dehydrator trays) It takes about 24 hours of drying for these to be done.

I save them in a large Tupperware container and this batch lasts us a few weeks, so it's worth it to me to bother to make it.

Other than the planning ahead, these are really easy to make. It probably took me 20 minutes to throw this together today, and now I'll be set with snack chips for the rest of the month, at least.

You can use these chips for dipping, although sometimes mine come out a little too thin to sustain much weight. I normally eat them instead of popcorn or some other salty or crunchy snack, plus I take them in the car if I know I'm going to be hungry and won't want to eat something junky instead.

This recipe comes from my favorite raw food recipe book by Serene Allison. it is called Rejuvenate Your Life and you can purchase the book from the resources at Above Rubies. We have many successful favorite healthy foods in our family thanks to her recipes, and things I have adapted from them.

There you go, Eve! Let me know if you try it!

These are the Chili Lime Chips. They are thin and crispy and delicious--and raw! I'll spare you the recipe, though, as it will sound very complicated to most of you. :) 

My mom sent the three littlest boys these matching outfits. Two of the other kids decided to get in on the act by also wearing orange. It was an easy way to keep track of everybody at church. :) Thanks Mom! 

Fabulous Fruit Leathers Too!

So yesterday I decided to be a Fun Mother and serve healthy ice cream for breakfast. Jake the Great woke Sullen saying, "Sullen, wake up! This is like, the most exciting day of our life! Mom is serving ice cream for breakfast!" and he was totally serious.

Unfortunately (or not) my children are not used to a very sweet breakfast fare, so although they all liked the idea of having ice cream, and even liked the taste of it, they were not able to eat as much of it as I thought they would.

So what's a woman to do with so much leftover breakfast ice cream?

I could have put it into containers in the fridge and called it pudding later. I could have made popsicles. But instead, I decided to try something else, and I spread the stuff on teflex sheets on my dehydrator trays, and started it up. By afternoon we had delicious, nutritious, chewy, fabulous chocolate fruit leathers! If you roll it up it makes a nice chewy treat, and I can see that it could make a very acceptable alternative to chocolate candy.

I have an Excalibur dehydrator and when I use it, I only dehydrate things at about 100 degrees or less. This is high enough to dry the stuff, but low enough that it doesn't kill off any enzymes, so the health benefits are the same as fresh ingredients. It just allows me to have some more flexibility on raw things to eat.

Today I will be making some Chili Lime Chips that are a much better alternative (in taste, texture, and nutrition) to tortilla chips. We love them and they are very easy to make. I'll have a picture for you later. :)

Awesome Ice Cream

As I continue on my journey of healthy eating and raw foods, I keep trying new things. The other day I came upon something that has been a true hit at my house: Ice Cream!

Here's how you make it:

take some ripe bananas (when the skins have the brown speckles on them). Peel and chop up, then freeze. (When you see bargain bananas marked down at the store, buy them up and freeze them! Very cheap!)

Once frozen, stick your chopped bananas into your food processor, blender, or whatever you've got.

Add in a tablespoon or so of honey, and some coconut milk (maybe 2-3 Tablespoons. I didn't measure).

Whir it all up in your processor til it looks like soft serve ice cream.

Now you can eat it that way or make it into some other flavor.

If you want it more vanilla-ish, add some vanilla extract.

For chocolate, which is what we did, I added carob powder. I just kept adding it and mixing a tablespoon or so at a time until it was satisfyingly chocolately. I read a suggestion to add a little mint extract for a chocolate-mint ice cream which sounded yummy as well. If you don't care about going all-raw you could add natural peanut butter in!

Other suggestions would be to add nuts, granola, frozen or fresh berries or other fruit, etc. You can really use your imagination!

For us, the chocolate ice cream was DELICIOUS! MY 13 year old even said so, which is quite an accomplishment seeing as how he treats most healthy items with great skepticism.

I also discovered, by accident, that this can make a yummy pudding as well. You can make this up and then put it into containers in the fridge until you want to eat it. I had some leftover ice cream last night that I stuck in the fridge. This morning it was still good and I am thinking it would be a thrillin breakfast item for my children. They will be extremely delighted to know that we are having chocolate pudding for breakfast!

I think this could also make excellent frozen popsicles as well.

This is very filling so it doesn't take much to satisfy you. Try it!

Amazing Grace

I was just reading my daily Elisabeth Elliot devotional and found this gem. She is writing about when her daughter was a little girl:

One evening I overheard Valerie singing to her kitten:

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like you."

I have been getting these devotionals for awhile now and I really enjoy them. They are not very long, and she has a very down-to-earth style of communicating. You can read the entire message and sign up to get these devotionals in your inbox each day by going here.

A Knight's Tale

Last night we watched A Knight's Tale, which I love love love. SUCH a fun, clever movie with it's mix of old and new, basic and funky. Hottie Heath Ledger does a great job as the gutsy and lovable William Thatcher/Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein of Gelderland. One of my favorite parts, a song sung in a bar:

He's blond, he's pissed, he'll see you in the lists, Lichtenstein! He's blond, he's tanned, he comes from Gelderland, he comes from Gelderland! Gelderland, Gelderland, Gelderland... Gelderland, Gelderland, Gelderland...

If you haven't seen it yet, you must! Get it on your list.

I remembered the other good thing!

The OTHER good thing that happened on Tuesday is this:

My Dell Axim had fallen on Saturday and the screen was cracked. I called Dell and got a replacement on the way. (Thankfully I had gotten an extended warranty!) The screen cracks made it impossible to get any information beamed off of my Axim and onto my husband's Axim, and our charging dock had been broken for a long time so I hadn't been backing up any of my info. I was very concerned about losing all my data. Not only do I have my addresses and phone numbers on there, but our schedule, alarms for various things, and tons of things I've written down--even all my notes about my book ideas!

Well, the replacement arrived Tuesday along with a new charging dock, and I got all of my stuff safely off of the broken Axim and onto my new one. I was VERY happy that my info was saved. What's better is that I now understand how to properly back up all of my stuff so this shouldn't be an issue again.

Another fun thing about this is that I learned about Avant Go which is a free service where I can get news and other stuff downloaded into my Axim automatically every time I dock it. It is really cool! I have things like USA Today, a devotional, book reviews, and lots more. I am having a rebirth of my love affair with my axim. :)