Terrific Tuesday
Quote of the Day: During our walk Zander kept talking about "men don't kiss their dads - they kiss girls"....this eventually culminated in Michael kissing me in the middle of the street...to which Zander remarked, "You two are LOV...ERS and it was all my idea! You know it." He refused to listen to Mike's reasoning. ::snort::


I woke up with quite a bit of pain. I decided to skip Curves today and do one of Becky Tirabassi's Step Routines. I don't know what I will do when these two videos wear out. I LOVE the Christian music - a blast from the early 90's. ::snort:: I break a BIG sweat when I do any of the workouts...it was much gentler on my wrists today than Curves would have been. I lost all the weight at the start of the year when I was alternating this and Curves. Then I hit my "all or nothing" stride and decided I must do Curves 5 or 6 days a week to hit 100 workouts by the end of the year....I quit losing weight. ::snort:: It's also very hard for me to do the video when Michael is home....because the only tv/vcr (9 incher) is in our room. I had hoped that I could do Curves 5 times a week and skip the video...Curves is QUICKER, out of the house and therefore more convenient in a strange sense...but first the not losing and now the wrist pain - time to tweak the routine again.

I decided to tackle Pizza Sauce today ... I turned this

into this. Before we opened all the cans I decided to give in and buy an electric can opener. Wow....it does the whole Pampered Chef thing with the smooth edges. Cool. Nolan and Zander were totally willing to help open 36 cans of tomato paste and 12 cans of tomato sauce. LOL This became a family affair. Jamin had to help stir....it was THICK.

I 12x the recipe. I have 11 quarts of sauce - enough for 33 pizzas or 11 weeks!

Since I already had sauce all over the stove and counters to clean up; I made Spaghetti Sauce next....here's a photo from a previous marathon sauce adventure. Horrors! The recipe for Spaghetti Sauce is NOT on my blog and it must be.....in case the house burns down or something my goal is to have all our favorites on the blog. ::snort:: I tripled this recipe...I freeze it in quart sizes for quick lunches for the young men (5 qts today). I also freeze it in gal sizes for dinners for us (5 gal bags today). I use this sauce for spaghetti, penne, manicotti and lasagna.

Josiah took pity on me and ran to the post office to mail books. I went to the dry cleaners and they were closed. I'll send Jared's CAP blues to base with Michael tomorrow.

Jamin made some pizza dough and we had pizza for dinner. I thought we'd have Spaghetti, but Zander begged very politely for pizza. LOL

Mike made it home by 6 p.m. so we had a "sorta family dinner". Jamin is off work - Cy is working. Mike is making long distance calls. I'm updating the blog. ::snort::

Bre called on her lunch break - what a JOY to get those calls from WA. She's going to call tomorrow and catch Josiah for a sibling heart to heart.

Ah - here's Michael ready for a walk...I'm off!

The Case of the Mysterious Noise....

It seems that while we were gone and Josiah was home alone he kept hearing strange noises. He'd get up to check and it would be THIS floating around various rooms.

He reports that he put it in the closet and it made noise. He put it up high and it pulled loose to float the next night.

We got home and I wondered why a Mylar balloon was tied to the moose on top of my hutch. Today, I asked him to round up all the left over floaters from "Dad's Night" and that thing on the hutch....I was surprised it was a Mother's Day balloon...and that it had been tormenting him while we were away.

Michael's Impulses....

I asked Michael to stop and pick up some milk last night on his way home. He agreed. He walked in the door and admitted to "impulse shopping" and promised to do better next time. ::snort:: I LOVE flowers - what a nice, totally unexpected treat....they make me smile every time I glance at them.

Friendship - "Bearing One Anothers Burden"

I know I talked about this a bit when we were walking through the waiting period of our last miscarriage. I am convinced that most simply don't know how to "be there", to weep and laugh with a friend and not try to "fix it". I read the book this quote is from years ago....and it is a good one... the book contains powerful thoughts on joy in the midst of terrific emotional pain. I really should review this book. I thought of giving it away last week - but I've highlighted it. ::snort:: I keep thinking of a couple of women who this book may minister to...still praying about which one to give it to - or maybe I should buy more copies.

I've also been thinking a lot about friendship and what God means for us to be for each other in relationship in the body of Christ. Thumbing through this book, I found this quote. It says it so well....THIS is the type of friend I want to be for others...and the type of friend that I pray God brings my way (and He has been faithful to do so).

"Did you ever take a real trip down inside the broken heart of a friend? To feel the sob of the soul - the raw, red crucible of emotional agony? To have this become almost as much yours as that of your soul-crushed neighbor? Then, to sit down with him - and silently weep? This is the beginning of compassion." Jess Moody quoted by Carol Kent in *When I Lay My Isaac Down - Unshakable Faith in Unthinkable Circumstances* p 83.

CINDY - in regards to your comment on the Freezer Challenge....

Please talk your freezer friends into making ME some meals!!! We can put them on dry ice and mail them here...wala...freezer filled...I'll go to the pool!

Let me know if this will work! ::snort::

Freezer Dreaming

Well - I suspect that my hoarded freezer money will instead pay for 6 more months of insurance...well REALLY it will pay for another extended family thing that has come up and the insurance money will pay for insurance. Ah well - it's defrosted...maybe in another 6 months I'll have freezer money again. ::snort::

I am glad I looked, and I'm glad you all shared your opinions - thanks.

~INDUSTRIOUS MONDAY ~

I tried to find an "m" word that would work....ah well.

Quote of the Day: "Mine, HELP! Mine!" Stacia states, as she puts on several pairs boys' underwear and a bra....she has decided to quit wearing diapers today. THIS is the help she offers with laundry.

Curves....and my wrists hurt.

My goal this week is to get my pantry/freezer ready for the upcoming school year. I should also pay bills, work on Jamin's portfolio, order curriculum, and something else that I can't remember.

I got a group Shop Natural order together and FINALLY sent. We are ordering every two months now, so there was a bit of a learning curve. I still need to figure out how I'm going to divide the shipping cost. I had added 10% to each order but our group order is over $2,500 and we don't need THAT much for shipping. LOL

I pulled out all the 7 gal buckets of grain from the pantry, consolidated, vacuumed, cleaned shelves, and put it all back together. This didn't help my wrists.

We got a call from Tricia inviting us to go to the pool...but I said, "no"! ACK - can you believe it? I said no to fun, so that I could work!!!! I felt bad all day for not going to the pool......but then good about the progress made on our projects. I called Tricia late in the afternoon and she understood. I really couldn't go as I was in the middle of defrosting the beast and had food in the coolers in the heat....

The first place to begin with the freezers was to DEFROST the BEAST and to clean the other two out. Before:

All the food was loaded into coolers....

We made a list of what we have. I organized the upright as best as I could.

We decided to use the fridge/freezer in the garage for frozen smoothie fruit, bread, nuts and such. LOOK what I found in the freezer....can you read the box on the bottom left, Liz? Other than the chocolate, this is our crunchy fridge. Jamin baked bread. I now have 6 loaves in the freezer.....and another 4 will be ready to go in by bedtime. There will be 7 loaves of 7 grain and 3 loaves of Italian.....

I froze two flats of strawberries and they are in the freezer of the newly cleaned and organized "crunchy fridge". This fridges holds our milk and produce. LOL

We ate something for dinner. Mike didn't get home until well after 8:00. I'm trying to get Stacia down and waiting for Cy to get home from work.