Works for me!!

I think I will try to post "Works for me" posts every now and again, because I find them so helpful in other blogs. This week, I want to focus on a nice little idea I picked up from my sister, who picked it up from Sadie, at wildcatkids (also a friend of mine!) The idea is to get your children to get into a morning and evening routine without a whole lot of teeth-pulling difficulty and without getting too complicated thus sharing the same fate as the stickers, chore charts, and stars accumulation cards, and other such phenomena that started with a blaze of glory but ended all too quickly.
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So the girls helped me make up these little popsicle sticks with blue, green, and red tips (one color for each big girl). On each stick, I wrote one job that they need to do before getting started with our day and before going to bed at night. Here are Emma's: Once the popsicle sticks are all finished, the girls will put them colored tip UP in the glass, and then they are free to do other things (like color or go outside in the morning, or play a game of hide and seek with Mommy and Daddy at night).


I am beginning to add other jobs to the list.. Like "change loads" (of laundry) and "ez-vac the kitchen." They let me know the jobs they hate (like tidying the basement) and sometimes I give all of them the same job so that they can work together. Sometimes I'll give them "tidying the basement" and it will be mostly done and they'll get the satisfaction of last night's effort (and realize that they can stop making work for themselves if they just keep it clean!)

I would say that it's been about a year since I started this. It has phased in and out a few times, but is very simple to start up again (even when we slack off for a while).. I drew pictures on them so that the 3 year old can "read" her own. It makes for a much smoother morning, that's for sure.

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Of all the child-rearing tricks of the trade I have picked up, this one is the clear winner:

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It is child-led (because they can figure out on their own what they are to do).

It is NOT consumable (I've used the same sticks for a year).

It is NOT complicated (the hardest part was BUYING the sticks).

It is Flexible (I can change jobs whenever I want--no body gets "cleaning out the dishwasher" if it is dirty! And I can make new sticks for Leah when she's a bit bigger!)

It is NOT subjective--or at least it's harder for the child to see that it is (if the jobs are done and the colored sticks are up, you can play! It's hard for a child to have a power struggle with wooden sticks, though they may try).

It is CHEAP!

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So that's what works for me. What works for you?

Oh, I am so excited!!

I found a new blog that I just love. But first a little background. I have been spending my time lately trying to figure out how I should be spending my time. I mean, I've probably got less than 60 years left, and there are some things that I hope to have figured out by the time I check out.

One of them is "Why should I WANT to get up in the morning?" I have been struggling with that one since I turned 11. I made a deal with myself lately that 7am is MY wake up time, but I almost need to hire someone to pull me out of bed (like George Jetson) and get me going in the morning.

Another one is: How can I keep my duties as a mom, as a woman, as a volunteer, as a wife from overwhelming me? This one hit me after the thousandth marathon cleaning session that left me exhausted (and led to me taking a long break that resulted in a messy house again). Flylady.net has helped me a lot with this, but it is sometimes so hard to WANT to keep putting one foot in front of the other and not just veg out.

And the last one, loosly related to the other two: What should I be doing with my life each day? Or, since I am a MOM: What should I be doing with our lives each day? I think that perhaps my sleep addiction and even my (sometimes) chaotic life lies underneath that search for the "shoulds" and "why should 'I's" of my life.

Well, sometimes when I am really needing an answer, I ask my friend Google. This was what I got:

http://momandkiddo.blogspot.com/

subtitle: What do we do all day?

Funny thing: I noticed that this weekend I found no trouble getting out of bed after 5-1/2 hours of sleep because I had something "urgent" to do. I think that the trouble is that I need a wake up call to make me realize that this day-in, day-out, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other life that I lead is important, too...

I can take a deep breath and not worry too much because I can't ruin the girls with a bad day here or there, BUT I can't make them turn out fantastic with a wonderful day here or there, either. It's the general attitude, the daily grind, that determines my life and my character, not the super high or super low points.

That's why I like that blog (and the blogs of people I know, too)... it's simply life. I guess that's what I am searching and praying for... Abundant life, everyday.. Not just roller coaster highs and lows, but a sustained peace, joy, and fruitfulness.

It may take me 60 good years to figure that out...

For Baby Deborah...

and all of those who were never given a name...

This memorial was at the Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama.

Storyboarding and Bursting Bubbles

So we've been watching the Prince of Egypt like mad here at our house.. Bethany has been inspired by the movie to do another marathon art session. In her last one, she depicted the Stations of the Cross and some scenes from the Moses story. Now, after taking several still pictures of the movie with my camera phone yesterday, she spent last night and most of today (it's almost 2pm) storyboarding the movie (that's what I call it). She has made up some scenes that she thought should have been included. She's up past 30 drawings now.

This one (of course the computer was being so smart thinking it should be a portrait), was of Moses' mother when she was putting him in the basket at the river.


This was when the queen (though Beps knows it was the princess in real life) found Moses. The background (not pictured) has Ramses frowning and the nurses with surprised looks on their faces. Ramses had dropped a flower.

Our little artist in her corner. Next to her is the little art caddy I set up at the advice of my friend and supervising teacher: Give the child material to work with!

This is a made up scene with Pharoah (he always has his scepter/staff) thinking about how he felt about Moses. In one, the queen is bringing Moses to him and he is happy, and in one he is angry. Bethany said that he is changing his mind about how he feels about Moses.

I could tell Bethany that it's a very long shot to being a professional artist or animator, and that she should really buckle down and do more practical things (like math), but that isn't the way we burst bubbles at our house...

Make Me

***I had my first speaking event last Thursday, and I've spent a lot of time in the past month preparing for it. Sorry, but I used my good blog ideas for the speech so I couldn't give away my whole speech to you, my 5 devoted readers.. That said, the speaking event went very well and my speech turned out well enough to be reproduced here! Here it is, my talk entitled: MAKE ME.***
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"So, when I told my husband that I was going to be speaking to you all and needed to fill up 15 minutes, I asked him if he had any ideas. He suggested 5-10 minutes of silent reflection. I was surprised he didn't say that I should just hold a phone up to my ear, as that seems to keep me talking forever. Then I realized that with all the time I spend talking to my friends, sisters, and mom who are here tonight, I decided I just better get to the point.
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My name is Mandie D. I have 4 daughters. I just turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. I would say thinking about God stuff as it relates to our daily lives has been a hobby of mine for some time, but only recently at the request of my darling husband have I started to write it down, so I started a blog. When my mother called me to ask me to speak to you all, I already had a blog idea percolating in my head, so I knew what I wanted to talk about. I mean, I am speaking at a mother’s evening, to a room full of women who are bringing their daughters to a wine and cheese. Even if I add all of my children’s ages together, I only get 15 mothering years… Compare that to my own mother’s 131 years, I figured that I wasn’t all that qualified to just talk about motherhood here.. So instead I’m going to talk about Firemen and Monks. And although I have no experience being a fireman OR a monk, I figure none of you do either! (I promise I will make a connection to motherhood!)
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When it comes Firemen. I do have some experience. I mean, I have watched the movie Backdraft and the new one that ‘s called Fireproof. I don’t remember much about Backdraft, but Fireproof was one of those movies that has stuck in my head ever since I watched it.
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For those of you who haven’t seen it, it was a very good movie. Supposedly it was all about the marriage relationship of two people, but deep down, I think it was mostly about Caleb, the main character, struggling, like we all do, with some major flaws in himself. While Caleb was an excellent fire captain, making sure his crews were ready and prepared and responding immediately and with bravery when the alarm sounded, MAN, he was lousy when there was no “bell” in his life.
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The man couldn’t do the dishes, get groceries, sweep the floor, and he resented every request that his wife and his duty as a husband made of him. See, a fireman usually works in 1 day on, 2 days off shifts, and while he had achieved great discipline during his 24-hour shift, he was super-selfish and downright sinful with his 48 hours off. I don’t know anywhere that 33% is a passing grade... So why the big difference?
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In the realm of firefighting, Caleb had to be ready to get up and go as soon as the bell sounded. While a fireman knew that answering the call of duty may be dangerous and difficult, he also knew that NOT answering the call would be far worse. The truck must always be ready, you can’t waste time, because someone’s life could be at stake. It was urgent, it was understood. This was his duty as a fireman. But when he was at home, away from the great discipline of the bell, his life was a mess.
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Now towards the end of the movie, Caleb seemed to be getting the other 66% of his life in order, and we saw a great sequence with him doing his duty in the fire station. In that scene, Caleb was coming back from a long day fighting fires and he was obviously tired, he had taken his helmet and jacket off when the alarm went off again. There was not even a second of hesitation. He pulled his suspender over his shoulder and off he went again.
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For some reason, for Caleb, as well as in my own life, it is difficult to treat our daily duties with the same determination and energy that the fireman does. When I smell the diaper, I do that thing where I pretend that my nose isn't working (while my husband pretends the same thing) and we wait until one of us "breaks." When children are fighting, I get angry because it means my phone call is interrupted. When a child talks back to me and stomps away, I consider whether I could let them get away with it just to save me the time and hassle of following through. There has been more than one morning in which I held the covers over my head and tried to direct a 3 year old as to where she could get her own cereal and milk. For a fireman, there is no question. Whether they were sweeping the floor, sleeping in bed, prepping the truck, or playing cards, they jump up with determination in their faces that they are going to do their duty. We need a discipline outside of ourselves to do the work that makes us holy. Left to ourselves, well.. it isn’t pretty.
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That fire fighting scene changed my life. I knew that I wanted that kind of dedication in my life, and that kind of attitude toward my duty.
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It kind of reminded me of an article I had read a couple of years prior. I was in one of the darkest mommy moments in my life. The constant NEED of 3 small children, and pressures of my life, looking at the state of my soul and wondering if perhaps I should have become a hermit instead of a mommy and wife..
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About this time, a friend sent me an article about monks. Actually it was about a hermit named Carlo Carretti. He had spent over 10 years in the desert living on goat's milk, translating the bible into Bedouin, praying in his own perpetual adoration to the Blessed Sacrament.. Super hard-core, holy guy. Interestingly, when he returned to Italy to visit his family, he found his mother to be more contemplative than he was.
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Carretto was a smart enough guy to realize that HIS time in the desert had not been wasted, but that his mother had also done something amazing with HER time. She used her 30 years of mothering to develop holiness in her life…living in her own kind of desert and her own kind of monastery.
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So a mom’s life is like a monastery? I had a little trouble seeing how my life had any resemblance to the monastic. I mean, if we look at the life of a monk (especially a hermit!) it can be kind of hard to see how a man who gives up everything for a life of poverty, spends most of his time in silence, alone, and praying, can be much like me. I mean, I don’t get 5 minutes in the bathroom without fingers under the door. In fact, I think if I were Carretto’s mother, I would have been begging for some time alone, with or without the goat. My picture of a monk was someone who got to pray when they wanted, eat what and when they wanted, sleep without crying babies waking them up, and never again having to worry about what to wear to an “Evening for Mothers” for example, I’d have my simple black dress for every occasion!
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But you know what? Monks don’t get to do what they want, when they want. Sure they might have tried it for a while, but the great monastic fathers, including St. Bernard who was declared a doctor of the church, were great advocates of the discipline of the monastic bell. This bell would tell the monks when it was time to wake, eat, pray, work, play, & sleep.
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Bernard didn’t believe that doing what you want when you want was how holiness was to be found. While these men gave up everything they owned to become monks, St. Bernard and St. Benedict, and monastic fathers throughout history have asked for more: they asked the monk to relinquish control of his time.
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Now while Caretto’s mother did not have a monastic bell telling her what to do, she was constantly answering the needs of her family, from preparing meals, to cleaning messes, to holding babies, to kissing owies… Those were her bells.
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The only thing is, for me, 2 years ago, in that darkest of mommy moments when I reflected on the 5-1/2 years straight that I had been pregnant or nursing, I realized that I didn’t want to answer the bell anymore. I’d fallen into a deep resentment of the duties of my vocation. Those same duties of motherhood that made Carretto’s mother so holy, well, they had me looking less like a monk and more like oh, I don’t know... the Incredible Hulk.
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Whether I liked it or not, I had to admit that the Incredible Hulk did not have a very probable likelihood of raising happy, faithful, and loving children. If I wanted my children, my husband, my family, and ME to be the people God created us to be, I had figure out how to let these bells make me holy.
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By nature we don’t seek the best thing, not even the thing that will make us happiest, but usually whatever thing gives us the most pleasure at that moment. And although I secretly insist to myself that if only I had it MY way, things would be so much better, I know deep down that these bells are not an obstacle to my holiness, but perhaps the very means by which God is perfecting me.
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Left to myself I would be lazier and crankier, and Incredible Hulkier. Somehow I NEED those interruptions and those inconveniences to teach me the virtues that I lack. I just need to tune my ears like Carretto’s mother did to hear in the simple duties of my life the ringing of the call to duty: the monastic bell, calling me to remember that it is God’s time, not mine. And like Captain Caleb Holt I need to approach my whole life with the fireman’s discipline, ready to serve when I am called, putting on not a protective suit, but the full armor of God to preserve me from resentment and sluggish responses to God’s signified will in my life. A fireman never goes into a fire without his suit or he will get burned, and we must remember that if we spend too much time answering our “fire calls” without putting on the armor of God, we too will face mommy burnout.

(This is where I donned the fireman's helmet and opened my Bible.)

“Finally, draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power.
Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.

Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace.

In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all (the) flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit.” Ephesians 6:10-13 or 18

So, my ladies, we may not hear the monastic bell or a fire alarm pointing out to us what God wants for our lives, But we can learn to pay attention to the different sounds of the bells in our lives. Maybe it sounds like the baby crying, or the 4 year old. Maybe it will sounds more like your fancy dish shattering on the floor, or perhaps the bell will be completely silent and sad, or very wet with tears. It could even sound like the Iowa Fight Song, at least that’s what my mom hears when one of us calls her cell phone. Regardless of the sound (or smell) of the bell, we must choose to allow it to make us holy by offering God our willingness to have Him make us who HE made us to be. Our prayer must everyday be: I know that I can’t (and won’t) do it myself, so go ahead Lord, Make me… holy."
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Food, Glorious Food

Here is a post I will dedicate to that wonderful, life-sustaining, family-building, perpetual mess-making part of being a human being. Food. It's one of the many aspects of motherhood that resembles stringing beads on a string without a knot at the end.. You can never eat, or clean the kitchen for that matter, "once and for all." But, while it is a fact of life that you have to deal with food everyday, it remains in the realm of personal freedom as to HOW you deal.

Meals are beneficial for health and energy and family relations if they are done well, but food can also take over your life if it isn't in balance. This can show up by eating too much, or not enough (eating disorders), or becoming obsessed with "the best" or "health" or "gourmet" or "savings" or "organic" or whatever(!) to the point where food isn't serving your needs, making you able to serve God and your family, but is taking you away from it.

My best efforts at getting food under control in our life have resulted in a pretty stable, low maintenance way of cooking and saving money (we're able to keep our food bill down below $300 per month for 6 eaters almost every month). I didn't realize that this was all that spectacular of a feat until reading The Tightwad Gazette a few years ago and discovering that we spend slightly more per month than the average family our size spends per week. So how do we do it?

Three things:

1: Beans.

Oh yes, and rice. These are fantastic staples to use, and if you buy a big old 15lb bag of basmati rice, a 25lb bag of dry pinto beans, bulk taco and cajun seasoning, AND 10lbs of onions, it will be months before you can truly say there is nothing to eat in the house. I soak 4lbs of beans at a time overnight, then rinse and cook on high for 30 minutes then low for 4 hours in the morning, OR in a crockpot (or two) for a good portion of the day, adding garlic and onion (and salt at the end to taste). Then I freeze meal-size portions in individual baggies (gallon size) for use whenever I feel like it.. I really like black beans, too.

Here are 2 bean recipes that are so stinkin' easy and good that it's almost embarrasing to post them:

Chalupas

pinto beans cooked as described above--add some cajun or taco seasoning to taste..
a little mozzarella (or whatever)
sour cream
tortillas
salsa or pico de gallo for grownups (I used a can of diced tomatos, 1/2 an onion, and 4 small sweet peppers (red, orange, yellow), food processed up and added some salt and cajun seasoning)

Assemble as desired. Eat.

Black Bean Yummyness

black beans cooked as described above--add some cajun or taco seasoning or garlic
1 cup of some mixture of sour cream and/or plain yogurt
can of diced tomatos or some salsa
shredded cheese
salt (essential)
blue corn organic tortilla chips (or tortillas or regular tortilla chips)

Variations:
make up 1 or 2 cups of basmati rice (1c dry rice, rinsed, 1.5 c water, microwave 10m on high, 5m on medium) and mix it in to eat BBY without chips or tortillas..

Add torn up tortillas to the mix, put in 9x13 pan, cover with shredded cheese (I like cheese) and bake until bubbly.

Add leftover spaghetti sauce and rice and mozzarella for a different taste. You can add corn, etc., too!

2: Leftovers

Creative and purposeful use of leftovers can save you tons and tons of $$ and time. Sometimes you don't NEED a whole bottle of spaghetti sauce for a recipe, or you have leftover pizza sauce (easy mix of tomato paste, tomato sauce, sugar, oregano, and garlic)... Now, remember you have these things and USE them. This goes for meat as well. I often brown meat and save back 1/2 pound to add to a casserole the next day. I especially do this with bulk sausage. I try to limit the amount of meat I add to things, and make up for it with veggies or rice or something. Regardless of $$ savings, I think it is better for us to load up on healthier stuff rather than just meat (I try to food process carrots or onions or peppers in just about everything--not much taste impact, but I add it at the end so that all the nutrients aren't cooked out).

3: Measure twice, Shop once.

Weekly shopping trips are expensive. The fewer trips you make, the cheaper it is. Living in a small town, I don't have a Hy-Vee around the corner, (and 4 kids at the store is, well, not appealing) so I HAVE to make the food I have in house work. I've found that if I make a concentrated effort to lengthen the amount of time between trips, I can get a lot more meals out of the pantry, more hair washes out of the shampoo (I might have to use the yucky-smelling-whoops-buy shampoo, but that's okay!), and pull out the cloth diapers that I don't use simply because I'm lazy, than if I just automatically make a full-boar shopping trip because I am out of something. If someone has to stop, I try to get my husband to do it, because he doesn't know a deal when he sees one and isn't tempted to impulse shop. I make one $200 grocery trip per month (roughly) and then use the remaining $50-$100 to make milk/eggs/toilet paper stops, and to stock up every 2 or 3 months on frozen meat (chicken, tilapia, ground turkey, and my favorite: $1 farmland sausage rolls).

Avoiding the shopping trips ALSO avoids the most perilous money sucking hole known to woman (and man): Iwantititis. Most everything we could possibly need most of us already have. While I can see the financial value in perusing ads for good deals and coupons, knowing what I am missing steals the peace that I find in simplicity and gets me longing for the complicated life of rebates and coupons, automatic-spraying air fresheners (man is it hard to go back!) and other consumables that bring me to the store time and again for a refill. I bought 4 gallons of vinegar 3 years ago, and for the most part I don't buy cleaning supplies--which is a billion dollar industry focused on getting you to buy refill wands, pads, cloths, sponges, et.al.! (I even use the yucky-smelling-whoops-buy shampoo to clean the toilet--credit to Flylady.net on that one).

So there is a quick window into the world of Mandie. Speaking of windows, if you do use vinegar to clean your windows, add a 1/2 tsp or so of regular hand soap to the mix of water and vinegar (3T vinegar to 2c water) to get your windows nice and shiny. ;)

May God Bless You All!!!

I had Lots of Blog ideas

until I sat down to write.. Although it's the first time in a while that I posted WITHOUT my friendly neighborhood blog reader reminding ME to update my blog.

Short little update on our life:

I have applied for a job...working at our church part-time and running the RE program. Looks like there is a good shot that I could get it (with a part-time assistant), but the official interview process still needs to be held.

This is an interesting development in many, many ways.

1: Matt has a great opportunity to work with a local builder friend and build a business (without a major outlay for tools, etc).

2: A part-time job would be a safety net each month that will give us steady income. We figure if someone has to get a part time job, we might as well serve the Lord with it.

3: It means really laying down some roots. If we were to sell our house, we will move so that we are much closer to church (currently we're 25 minutes). This year I will set a record for belonging to All Saints longer than any other single parish in my life. 6 years.

4: Matt, as a self-employed, set-his-own-hours guy, will be able to be home with the girls on Wednesdays in the afternoons and evening while I am off working, as well as Tuesday afternoons. We will still be able to homeschool, the girls get to be with their daddy more, and Matt gets to work for himself for a while without the stress of providing for our whole budget from scratch. PLUS: I was doing too much of this stuff in a volunteer capacity already, so it wouldn't be THAT much more time away! Oh, and maybe Matt will learn to cook!

We'll see what happens... It's just funny because in the middle of March I said to Matt:
"You know, we have been looking and looking for God's plan for us, and I just get the feeling it isn't ready yet. Something needs to fall into place. We don't need to rack our brains... when it happens, we'll know." In the next few weeks, the above events transpired (including the business opportunity for Matt and the announcement that our DRE is not returning next year) and we're sitting here in awe wondering: Is this IT?

So that is our life... Hope yours is going well.. Please pray for Lois Wilson, Matt's grandma, who passed away on Wednesday... and for Matt's family.

Song of Farewell

May the choirs of angels

Come to greet you.

May they speed you to Paradise.

May the Lord enfold you

In His Mercy.

May He grant you Eternal Life.