Treadmill or Everest?

So. Parenting.

I'll just go ahead and say that some days I feel like an awesome mom. Other days I feel like pretty much the worst [insert role here] in the world (mom, wife, person). But I always love my kids. And I always. Always. feel like there are more things to do.

It seems like no matter how many dishes I wash or clothes I fold there are still at least 3 more things on my To Do list, or at least my "I should do those soon" list. In the past I've compared these keeping-house tasks to being on a treadmill because there's always further to go and it feels like you don't actually get anywhere.

Recently I've had two insights into this mindset.

1) Could it be that the "treadmill" of keeping house & parenting is actually a picture of Kingdom work? There is always more work to be done in my heart, in my home, & in my neighborhood. If I learn to be "faithful in little", not over-working at home but striking a balance of work & rest with my family & the Lord, perhaps I will be "faithful in much" as I work for the Kingdom.

2) I recently read a blog that compared parenting to climbing Mount Everest. It is SO. HARD. and yet when our babies are grown & we reminisce about this time, we will cherish the memories and rejoice in raising this kids that we have (Lord-willing).

I guess what I'm getting at is that I want to see parenting less as a treadmill & more like climbing Mount Everest. It feels like it will take forever, but I know one day (again, Lord-willing) my boys will be grown up and my place in their lives as sole caregiver will come to an end. I also want to see parenting as a picture of my role in the Lord's kingdom. I want to be faithful in this.

I want to trust that the Lord will take care of what I can't.

Inspiration

As most mothers can attest, sometimes you need some inspiration. Or you'll go insane. Quickly. I recently found inspiration from another blogger; she blogs in a number of places, but the one I found funniest was www.crappypictures.typepad.com. She writes another one but I can't find the URL for it right now. It's about their homeschooling voyage. A few things really stood out to me.
1) She wrote a post about Living Time instead of Killing Time. My time as a mother of young kids is limited & I should chose to treasure my time with them rather than counting down the time until dinner... and bed time (I know, I know, easier said than done, but convicting nonetheless).
2) She made a number of good points about Homeschooling which is continuing to spark a mental debate in me. I have lots of pros & cons about it & would love to chat with you if you have ever thought about it.
3) She had a "Yes Day" with her kids. Rather than saying "no" to things over and over that are inconvenient, she said "yes". I think we all do this. We want to avoid making messes (really, cleaning up the mess) or we're impatient to get somewhere so we hurry past teaching opportunities.

I didn't have a "Yes Day" today... but I did decide that I would make an effort to say "yes" to things even when they're inconvenient to me. That I would begin to take advantage of teaching opportunities & also allow the Lord to foster more patience in me.

Today Nathan met me at work with the boys so that I could take them home and he could start work (I'll post about work later... I'm super excited about it). On our one-block walk to the van Liam was in a stroller & James was "helping" push. For some reason, he thought it'd be funny to stop every 5 steps and sit down on the sidewalk. "Whoa!" he'd say, as if his act was utterly convincing. It wasn't. But it was utterly adorable.

I was tempted to hurry him along, but instead I let him stop to smell the "flowuhs" (flowers.... they were really weeds, but hey). We stopped so that he could touch the trashcan (gross).




Then we stopped to look in the shop fronts & identify the store front numbers.




Finally, we stopped to dig in a small hole in the pavement.

Well, that wasn't really the last time we stopped. That was just the last time I took a picture. We also stopped & talked to a nice man who was sitting outside a coffee shop. James was excited to try to climb into a chair at one of the tables but by that time I was feeling a rather... ahem pressing urge to use the facilities & I decided at that point that I needed to say "let's go" rather than "yes" to his wanderings.

Around the house...

James has been feeling a little under the weather lately. READ: James has a runny nose & has been super cranky the past few days. Today I was talking to Nathan on the phone (he's been out of town for a friend's wedding) and James decided he needed a snack.

He goes over to our metal pantry shelf & finds a few empty beer bottles waiting to be recycled. "James, don't drink out of the beer bottles. Yucky! Yucky! Yucky!" Oh my. I attempt to coax him into the living room & he's distracted by an appetizing bowl of bananas. Let me tell you, if you're a banana, you do not want James to find you in a dark lonely alley. He will mess you up. I've caught James (on more than one occasion) with a banana... the tip has been bitten off & he's second-knuckle deep with his finger through the peel.

I managed to get to the bananas before they suffered any bodily harm but of course that infuriated James. At this point, my conversation with Nathan is down the toilet. There's just no point continuing over all the snot & sobbing. So we say goodbye & agree that Nathan will call after his plane lands. James is inconsolable. I keep pleading with him, "Use your words! Do you want a snack, say 'snack please'", etc. I make a number of suggestions & he mumbles "milk", "muwus" (muffins), & "wa wa" (water). Finally he calms down, looks around the room & declares "TAINS" aka "trains". Then "pay tains" (Play trains). He has now been quietly playing with his trains for 5-10 minutes.

I guess he just needed some inspiration.

Home-made Baked Donuts

I think if I could tell you my one biggest food weakness, it would be donuts. Especially from Krispy Kreme when they're warm and just melt in your mouth. Unfortunately, they're not light on my wallet or light on my waistline. Last night, when I told my husband that I really wanted some donuts, he suggested that we find a recipe online to make some for ourselves.

We knew that donuts are traditionally fried, but we only had Olive Oil (no Vegetable or Canola) and we didn't want to risk frying donuts in Olive Oil (gross!). So we searched for baked donut recipes and came up with this one. It's delicious! Now the donuts definitely taste best straight from the oven and the recipe makes 1.5-2 dozen, so you may want to consider halving the recipe unless you're taking them to a party or something (the picture below shows roughly 1/2 or 2/3 of the batch we prepared).

Baked donuts
1 1/3 c. warm milk, divided
1 packet dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
2 tbsp. butter
2/3 c. sugar
2 eggs
5 c. all-purpose flour (I may try bread flour next time to see how it compares)
pinch or two of nutmeg
1 tsp. fine grain sea salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tbsp. cinnamon

1)Place 1/3 c. of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for 5 minutes or so. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture.
2) With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg and salt--just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer, beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. If the dough is too sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. If it is too dry, add milk a little at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the bowl and become smooth.
3)Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky) and shape into a ball.
4) Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place and let rise until doubled in size, about an hour.
5) Punch down the dough and roll it out to 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. Cut the outer circle, transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the inner circles with a smaller cutter. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise 45 min.
6) Bake at 375F until bottoms are golden, 8-10 minutes (start checking them at 8 minutes).
7)While donuts cool 1-2 min, melt the 1/2 c. butter in a bowl. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a second bowl. Dip each donut in the melted butter then toss in the sugar bowl.


Note: If you'd like to prepare the dough the night before, follow directions until step 5. After preparing the donuts on the cookie sheet, cover and put in the refrigerator. In the morning, pull them out and let them rise in a warm place for an hour before cooking.

Fresh from the Garden

A few weeks ago my husband and I visited his family in the mountains of Virginia. His parents and his sister both have huge gardens that produce more fruit and vegetables than they're able to use. We were blessed to have them share their bounty with us and we came home with 3 giant zucchinis, a variety of squash, 2 huge pie pumpkins, 4 spaghetti squash, green peppers, fresh dill, cherry tomatoes, rhubarb, and a few pounds of freshly dug potatoes! Thankfully much of this is stays fresh for a long time and is also freezable. So I've been slowly roasting & pureeing the squash & pumpkins and preparing the other food to be frozen.

My mother-in-law gave me a fantastic recipe for zucchini bread and I found a great recipe for pumpkin muffins. I want to share both!

Lorraine's Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 c. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. vanilla
2 c. coarsely grated zucchini
2 c. flour
1 tbsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two loaf pans or one 10" bundt pan.
2) Beat eggs until frothy, beat in sugar, oil, and vanilla. Beat until thick and lemon colored. Stir in zucchini.
3) Mix dry ingredients together and add to batter. Pour into pans. Bake 50-60 minutes or until loaves spring back at a touch.


Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla
3/4 c. solid packed pumpkin puree
1 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line or grease 12 muffin tins.
2) In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, ground spices, and salt.
3) In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla. Scape down sides of bowl. With mixer on low, alternately add flour mixture and pumpkin puree, in three additions, beginning and ending with flour. Fold in chocolate chips.
4) Fill muffin cups evenly. Bake 18-20 minutes or until firm to touch and toothpick comes out clean.


Enjoy!!

New Recipes :)

Growing up, one of my favorite Sunday morning breakfasts was when my dad would make oven pancakes. For some reason I always thought these were complicated or difficult to make but when I did the research I discovered that they are super easy! I decided to share the recipe.



Oven Pancakes
3 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/3 c. butter
4 eggs
1 c. milk
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. confectioners' sugar (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a small bowl, mix sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.
2) Place butter in a 9-inch cake pan (I used an 8-inch square casserole dish) and heat in the oven until melted. In a blender or food processor, whip eggs and milk (I used an immersion blender). Pour in flour and beat until well combined. Pour batter into hot pan. Sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar.
3) Bake 20-25 minutes or until puffed and golden. Dust with confectioners' sugar.


I also wanted to share a killer recipe for banana pancakes. My parents are currently living in Kenya and apparently have access to tons of bananas and I'm thinking of them as I write this. I love to make triple batches of this recipe and freeze them, when I'm looking for something quick and healthy to give James, I just pop one in the toaster oven for a couple minutes.

Whole-wheat Banana Pancakes

2/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. whole wheat flour
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg, beaten
2/3 c. milk
2 tbsp. butter, melted (optional)
1 banana

1) Mix together dry ingredients. Add beaten egg, milk and butter.
2) Add 1 mashed banana and mix until well blended, but lumpy.
3) Pour desired size pancake onto a medium-hot lightly greased griddle.

Greenwashing

The concept of greenwashing is one that I've learned from some other blogs that I follow and the idea is something like this: companies deliberately mislead consumers to believe that they are more friendly to the environment (green) than they actually are.

There's one company in particular that I've noticed doing this lately. Seventh Generation. There's a lot that I like about 7th Gen. I love their multi-purpose spray and their laundry detergent. But their packaging is something I just can't wrap my head around. That and the fact that they sell disinfecting wipes.

On Amazon.com you can purchase 7th Gen products in bulk. This is a great theory. I love to stock up in order to save money down the road. My issue is that their idea of bulk is selling 6-packs of their products. Why not sell one large container to cut down on the resources needed to produce each individual container and then the energy needed to recycle them later?

I also have issues with the fact that a company that supposedly cares about the environment, as sort of their main schtick is selling disposable disinfecting wipes. Those wipes produce an incredible amount of waste and they just go into the garbage. I can't find anything on 7th Gen's website to indicate that these wipes are biodegradable which means that they'll never break down in the landfill. But even assuming they are, unless you're using biodegradable trash bags, it won't matter because things that would otherwise compost or degrade aren't given the chance if they're wrapped up in the traditional plastic bag.

I think in these ways Seventh Generation isn't living up to the green standard they've set for themselves. They're doing a bit of greenwashing.