Winter Gear Storage

I am currently adjusting our family of five into living in an apartment that is a little under 1000 square feet. We were already pretty minimalist about our possessions after several major moves and having to fit everything into storage. However one thing I'm still refining is fitting everything into a small space AND still being able to find what we need.

One thing we need pretty often is winter gear such as mittens, hats, scarves, and so on. The thing about this type of gear is that when a four-year-old goes out to play in the snow, his mittens get wet, so when he wants to play two hours later, he needs a second set of mittens... this makes for lots of mittens. Not to mention things like "cold weather" gear or "I'll be outside for 15 minutes" gear versus "obscenely cold weather" gear or "I'm going fishing in twenty-below" gear.

Needless to say, there is a lot of this type of gear around our house.  And for the last three or four years it has basically all just ended up in a plastic bin or box... lots of harried looking for the other mitten in the set, lots of "but I need the other hat because this one is his" and so on.

Then inspiration struck.

$11 and five minutes of effort later we have everything where we can see it. Mittens are paired with their mates, scarves, hats, earmuffs, and everything is easy to reach.

Most of these seem to be "over the door" style organizers. If you have a regular closet door, perfect! Or maybe you can hang it on the back of your entry door. If not, three little nails and a little wall space (as I did here) works pretty easily too.

Making Tallow Candles--part 2 (making the candles!)

We made candles on Candlemas this year. Actually I was making candles for several days, but we made them for Candlemas, and burned a lot of them during our candlelit feast that night!
If you missed part 1 (rendering the tallow) you might want to check it out... I know you can buy candle-making materials, or save wax drippings from purchased candles and use them to melt down to make your own candles. I've done those things before. But this year we had the tallow, and I very much wanted to use what we had, thus tallow candles...
For the record, tallow smells like all sorts of unpleasant while it is rendering. But if you've strained it properly, the candles have little to no odor at all. I did put a little essential oil in all of them except the dipped tapers, but so far no stink either unlit or lit!

I made three kinds of candles: dipped tapers, pillars, and container candles.

For each type, the first step is to melt the tallow (or wax, if you're using that). I did a homemade double boiler, by using an old glass jar (salsa jars are awesome for this, or a canning jar works too). Put the tallow in the jar, put the jar in a pan with a couple of inches of water, and set it to simmering until the tallow melts.
If you want a colored or scented candle, this is the time to add essential oils or colorings to the tallow. From experience, I will say that food coloring does not work well with tallow... if you want to use something solid (like dried herbs/flowers) be aware that they will all float to the top of the candle as it cools, and will not remain evenly distributed through the candle. 

While it's melting, it's time to figure out your wicks. I tried making my own from cotton string and it was not successful. After three tries at different variations (all of which failed) I just bought wick at my local craft store. I'm sure it's also available online. I happen to really like the wick that has a bit of wire up the middle, because the stiffness makes it easier to work with.
A single strand of wick is sufficient for a dipped candle, but for pillars and containers you should either do multiple wicks or a fat wick.  (I made fat wicks by braiding 3 pieces together.) Then you'll want some kind of weight on the bottom of it...many people use a washer, but I ended up using paper clips for the dipped candles, and bits of aluminum foil for the others. I just folded a bit onto the base of the wick (making it flat so that the wick could 'stand up' from it).
Then (for the pillars and container candles) I stuck the wick to the bottom of the mold/container by pouring in a teaspoon or so of the tallow, and holding the wick base in it until it cooled (you can dip the bottom of the container/mold into a bowl of cold water if you want to speed it up, but it doesn't take very long regardless).

For pillars or container candles, you now just pour the melted wax into the container (or mold, in the case of pillars). And then set it aside somewhere to let it cool. Easy peasy.

With containers, you are now all done!

container candles with rosemary essential oil and a little cooking rosemary sprinkled on top.

I don't recommend using baby food jars as containers--I was using what I had, but they get very hot and the first one I burned melted all the way down, the wick floated out, and then it re-solidified... perhaps if I only burn it for 20 minutes at a time it will be fine, but not for an hour!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With pillars, you then have to get them out of the mold...I like using a mold that I can just cut/tear off, such as a rinsed out juice can or milk carton (quart size). Try pouring it in in layers--an inch of one color, an inch of another; or a little plain, a little with lavender flowers in it, a little more plain, etc. That will make some pretty striping.
Tallow happens to be very soft, and did NOT make good pillar candles. I ended up remelting these guys and making them into container candles. However this same method does make great candles with wax, so I kept the pictures since you're more likely to be working with wax anyway. ☺

one thing my mom likes to do is crush some ice cubes and put them in before pouring in the melted liquid...it makes cool tunnels in the candles, and also helps hold the wick in place.

see about the floating flowers?

this one was so soft--and so messy (due to the food color) that it was sticky, so I rolled it in lavender... which looked cool, but fell off everywhere when I handled the candle at all. Again, not a method I recommend!

they sure were pretty for our Imbolc feast though!

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Finally, for dipped tapers, you will want to make sure that your tallow-melting-jar is tall and narrow. The height of your candles will be limited by the height of the jar, and width won't do you any good, it will just take more tallow to fill it... You don't want it too hot, but it does need to remain in a liquid state...so just keep the stove on a low setting.
The typical method is to cut a wick that is twice as long as your candle height (the depth of the jar) plus about 6 inches. Then hold it from the center and dip both ends to make a pair of candles. Before dipping, I twisted a bit of each end of the wick onto a paper clip, and then hooked the two paperclips together to make space between the candles. This proved to be the easiest way to keep the two candles to hang straight and not bump each other! (After they were all done, just take a knife and gently cut off the candle just above the paper clips.) I tried some without the paperclips and I definitely recommend using them!

Now they need to hang to dry. I just stuck a row of thumbtacks along the edge of the underside of my cupboard and hung them on that. If you have hanging mug hooks or something of that nature that would work well also. The candles will probably drip a bit (tallow definitely did, I don't know for certain about wax). In any case, I laid out paper towels on my counter underneath where I hung the candles.
You will need to dip them many times in order to get a decently fat (and sturdy) candle. I did find that the many thin layers of a dipped candle was much stronger than the poured pillars, and they work just fine with the tallow. I also found that--for tallow at least--you need to wait at least 10 minutes between each dip. If you do them too close together, the tallow on the wick does not harden enough and ends up just melting again with the dip, so the candle does not get any fatter!
This is a long process--I did it for a couple of hours one day (intermittently while I was baking something else), then a couple of hours the next day, then a couple of hours the next day...of course as a mother with little ones I get interrupted a lot, but honestly I think I would get bored if I stuck to it for the several straight hours it would require to do them in one go. The dipping is quick, but the waiting between sortof demands a second project to work on concurrently...

Can I just say, it is SO COOL to look at candles that I MADE!

I recommend storing them hanging (Besides, they look so cool!!) just trim the wicks when you're ready to use them. (It can be hard to make them the same size as standard pillars, so you may find that you don't have a candle holder of the appropriate size...in that case, just make a little salt dough and make some candle holders!!)
(Edited to add...  Now that I've had a chance to actually burn the tapers, I don't recommend making tallow tapers. They burn down really fast. My 6 inch taper lasted about 10 minutes before it was just a puddle... It seems that containers are the way to go if you want to make tallow candles. If you want a free-standing candle like a pillar or taper, try something a little stiffer, like wax!)
 

Resting

I don't have so much of my own post to write today, but I really wanted to share a link to another post I read. 

Don't Even Try to Be Productive

It reminds me of Ecclesiastes where it teaches us that "to every thing there is a season" I think our modern society gets so caught up in manmade routines and schedules that we forget to heed the natural cycles of nature. God made the year with changes, so that we could work hard sometimes and rest at other times. When we have a 9-5 job year round we ignore those designated times...and we should not. Some of us, as stay at home moms, have the blessing of being able to heed those seasonal changes far more than those in the workforce. Oh that we would!

Making Tallow Candles--part 1 (rendering the tallow)

We bought a half a beef last fall. They asked if we wanted the scraps, and since I believe in using every part of the animal (since it died for us, I don't want to waste any part of its life), we said yes.
I surmised that the 'scraps' would be soup bones and the like.
I was wrong.
We got a box full of, well, scraps. There was some bone (which did go to make stock of course), but most of it was fat. Cows are fatty animals in case you didn't know or have forgotten (and there is nothing like a whole box full of fat to make sure that I will never ever forget!)

So what does one do with a whole bunch of cow fat? Well render it into tallow and make candles of course!

First, all that fat/gristle/unknown stuff has to be chopped into little pieces  (you can see the box there behind my bowl of bits--it was pretty full).

Second, put the bits in a big pan with some water, and boil for a loooong time until all the fat becomes liquid (keep an eye on it, because the water will boil off and then things get ugly and stinky and just generally bad...)

Pour the contents of the pan out through a strainer. BE CAREFUL, THIS STUFF IS REALLY HOT!! The things I read recommended straining twice, which I did (once with a bigger-hole metal colander and then once through a fine-mesh strainer). Once it is well strained, pour the remaining liquid--which will be murky--into a dish to separate and cool. The water and fat will separate and the fat will rise to the top and solidify. Give it at least a few hours, I have had the best results with letting it go overnight. (I put it in bread pans here, the square shape made it easier to get the tallow block out later.)

Once the tallow is solid, use a table knife to separate the tallow from the edge of the container. Dump out the water into the toilet. (The bits of tallow will clog up your sink drains, it has to go in the toilet!!) Set out the tallow to dry/drain (I put it on paper towels). It usually seems to have some gunk along it where it bordered the water, so I use the table knife to scrape that scuzzy part off and put it in the garbage or toilet.

I like to let it air out for at least a few hours before using it. If you do not have immediate plans for it, put it in a bag in the freezer.

Coming next: part 2, making the candles!!

Reflecting on Rhythms

A friend of mine has recently become interested in food storage and home-food preservation. We had a conversation on the day after I had finished processing (and freezing/canning) our halloween pumpkins, and she noted that pumpkins were on a great sale at the local grocery store so maybe she'd pick up a couple to preserve. The next day she joyfully reported that she had indeed bought the pumpkins, but that she wasn't going to be able to get to them for a couple of days, so she was putting them in her garage where they would keep longer.
Two weeks later she told me that she'd noticed a soft spot on one of them, and figured she'd better get to them right away before they rotted. (Oops!)

I think that anyone who has ever done their own food preservation has been through the experience of having something rot or spoil before you got it processed. I had several pints of raspberries grow mold literally overnight this summer. I had to cut a soft spot out of one of my pumpkins. I had to throw away several whole peaches. Food does not wait to be processed, any more than it waits to be picked. And yet we often set it aside, and, in doing so, we lose it.

Why is this? My friend commented that she really wanted to get to the pumpkin, but that she knew the processing was going to take up several hours, and she just couldn't find the time for it.


I processed our first two pumpkins on the monday after halloween. The last one had not been carved, so I knew it would keep a bit longer, and they were big pumpkins, so it took me several hours to process the two. So I saved the third. I had planned to get to it on the weekend. On friday morning I got up with the intent to clean my house and make three pies (for our pie night that night). But that pumpkin had started to grow fuzzies along the stem...I knew it could not wait. So my day's plans suddenly adapted to include processing a huge pumpkin and canning it as well. They adapted because they had to. I didn't touch the computer all day, I didn't answer the phone, I did change diapers and make meals and wear the baby on my back for a while, but otherwise I simply did what needed to be done, even on a day when I "didn't have the time." And 6 quarts of beautiful home-canned pumpkin puree are on my shelf now because of it.

I do not mean to belittle my friend in any way. She is new to this for one thing, so the whole project will be slower for her than it is for me who has been doing it for years. She has good intentions, and is just still learning how to make these particular kinds of intentions fir into a routine that she's had in place for years. Old habits die hard (and I am eternally grateful to my mother for teaching me the habit of food preservation so that I didn't have to learn it on my own!)
There are dozens of things filling the average day. Errands to run, meals to make, kids to care for, phones to answer, projects to plan, internet to suck up my time...I find it's quite easy to keep very busy all the time and yet get very little done. And, in all the whirlwind of things to do, something ends up sliding...

But

Just as food will not wait to be processed, so children cannot wait to be shown love and respect, and the joyful moments of life will not wait until you have time to sit down and notice them, they have to be caught (and enjoyed) on the fly.

There are so many things we COULD be doing, so it is vital to tune into the rhythms and sense of what we SHOULD be doing at a given time. In motherhood, some days are so long, and yet the years are short. We will be happiest, I believe, when learn to live in the present, and to be flexible as we follow the ebb and flow of life, take each day as it comes, and just roll with it. If there is much to do, get it done. If there is little to do, enjoy the rest. Do not seek to fill your life with things--even good things--if it is at the expense of the better things.

My Storage (Nov 2010)

First off, the food:

My freezer has:

• about 40 meal-size packs of salmon (caught ourselves, some smoked--also ourselves)
• about 20 meal packs halibut (caught ourselves and from friends)
• about 17c pumpkin puree (from our halloween pumpkins)
• peaches (bought on sale)
• raspberries (local, free, picked ourselves)
• 36 cups rhubarb (local, free from a neighbor)
• apricot marmalade (about 8 jars, but they're little repurposed babyfood jars)
• 5 jars chicken bone broth (homemade) 
• about 15 pkgs of bear (some ground, some roasts/steaks)
• a turkey, a ham, a couple of pork roasts (they were on sale), a couple of whole chickens, some chicken breasts and quarters...just stuff bought when it went on sale.
• juice, butter, sausage, spinach, some other little stuff...
• No moose this year, but there will be a half a beef before the end of the week (I'm going to have to do some serious rearranging to get it all in there!)

On the shelves (all left-to-right):

Top shelf--mostly supplies/tools
pressure cooker, yogurt maker, ice cream maker, steam canner, food strainer, dehydrator, and popcorn popper (I also have a wheat grinder but it's somewhere else).

Second shelf (legumes and grains)--
beans (dry and canned), lentils, nuts, peanut butter, grains--rice, cornmeal, hot cereals, pastas, crackers, baking supplies (baking powder, cocoa, etc).
Third shelf (fruits, meats, condiments)--
peaches (homecanned), apple pie filling (homecanned), applesauce (homecanned), dried fruit (craisins, etc), some other canned fruits, coconut milk, fireweed jelly
Tuna, canned chicken, spam, and homecanned chicken bone broth
extra bottles of various condiments and spices we use, just purchased when they were on sale. It's not comprehensive, but it's the stuff we use the most

Fourth shelf (veggies, miscellaneous)--
pumpkin puree (homecanned), olives, beans, corn, white bin with potatoes, garlic, ginger, onions, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, diced tomatoes (I have done these homecanned when I have a good garden...right now we are buying it)
a case of top ramen, powdered milk, baby food, my recipe box, my big ceramic bread mixing bowl...

Bottom shelf/floor
dog food, bulk jars of olive oil, corn oil, coconut oil, vinegar, and molasses, big bags of salt/sugar/flour/wheat/rice/oatmeal (it'll all be in buckets soon), and charcoal, and my crockpot (it's heavy so I keep it low!)

5 gal Buckets
4 for wheat
4 for white flour
2 for sugar
1 for white rice
1 for rolled oats
(I need to get one for salt)

Behind the buckets is some water storage--we have a 5 gal container and a 7 gal container that we use camping, so we keep them full. We also have several plastic juice jugs. The recommendation is to have one gallon per person per day for a week, and we do not have that much. However water is readily available in our area, so we store some water, but also have purification tablets so that we can utilize found water if necessary.

I also have a cupboard where I usually keep a couple of jars of spaghetti sauce, evaporated milk, chocolate chips, baking stuff, flavorings, spices, sweets...
There is also the little freezer on my fridge, which has about 15lbs of frozen veggies, some more frozen chicken broth (in 'ice cubes'), several pounds of cheese, some more frozen fruit (the opened packages  I draw on for smoothies), and a few packages of shredded zucchini that I have leftover from last year and need to use soon.

Bathroom undersink cupboards
One is stuffed with toilet paper--and yes, I've watched, that is a 6m supply for us. There is also a big package of baby wipes in there (this is part of the reason the tp lasts so long--several family members prefer the wipes).There's also a bulk-size bag of baking soda, which I use for cleaning and for deoderizing the diaper pail in there. (There's the basket of cloth 'kleenex' on the counter, so there's that year's supply)
The master bathroom cupboard has the bag with all my feminine pads (year's supply right there, cloth again for the win!) and there's some tp in there also.

In regard to how much of a storage this is for my family of 5...I think we have enough to go completely without buying anything for 2 months. We'd run out of fresh foods within a couple of weeks, but we have

enough frozen and canned that we'd be able to eat pretty normally (except for needing to go to powdered milk) for probably a month. The second month would be a little sparcer, but we'd still have pretty balanced meals, they just might start to get boring. By 2 months in we'd be feeling it, but we would still have enough food that we could make do, or (if we bought just a few perishables) we could easily go another month. The 4 buckets of wheat would get us about 6 months if that was the only flour we were using (and it's not, so it will last longer)
I do much of my cleaning with baking soda, vinegar, and salt--thus buying all those things in bulk. I'm pretty sure I've got a years worth of those.
I've observed over the course of this last year, and discovered that one bottle each of shampoo and conditioner lasts me a year, therefore, an extra bottle of each is my year's supply.

See that 6pk of paper towels in front of the shelves (I hadn't put it away yet). That's a 2 yr supply at least. I never buy that big a package because we use them so slowly.

So, does it feel a little less overwhelming, and a little more possible now?

Prepare Every Needful Thing

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; 

and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, 

a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, 

a house of order, a house of God;

Doctrine and Covenants 88:119

Mormons have a reputation for a number of things, but one of the big ones is food storage. Perhaps you've heard--the year's supply? Here is the full truth--lots of mormons don't do it. BUT, we are asked to, and yes, a lot of us do do it. Today I thought I'd take a few minutes to share some thoughts about why we do it, and something about how we do it (in other words, how you can do it too, if you'd like). I'm thinking I'll write further on this topic, so pepper me with questions, I love talking about this stuff. ☺

If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.

Doctrine and Covenants 38:30

 

My freezer

My 'pantry'

 

Many Christians share the belief that we live in end times. They expect massive calamaties to befall us in the coming years as we await Christ's return. What I think a lot of people miss is the idea that you don't have to wait for earthquakes or epidemics or economic crashes to benefit from being prepared.
Imagine for a minute, that as of tomorrow you are unemployed. Or, imagine that there is a terrible storm and all roads are closed for a few days--just a few days--but enough that there will not be anything in the grocery stores for a week. What if you lose electricity for 24 hours?  in the middle of winter? What if a water main in town breaks and you are without running water for a day? Or several? What if the credit card company reduces your credit limit? How about if your tire blows out or your spouse breaks his (her) leg and your grocery budget for this month is shot on paying the bills?

Preparedness--including food storage--is not about waiting for 'emergencies' so much as it is about establishing a system whereby you always have a buffer and a backup; a system whereby you need not ever fear.

Twice in my youth my dad was unemployed or changed jobs and my mother found herself without a grocery budget. I didn't realize that until I was much older though, because nothing really seemed to change...we went on eating food from the pantry as we had always done. It was getting depleted more than usual, but we were not eating 'survival rations' or anything like that. Our storage allowed us to go on living normally in spite of financial setbacks.
When we lived in Pelican, it was common during winter months to go for a week without anyone being able to get in or out of town. The planes were supposed to come several times a week, but in winter they were not reliable. Each winter that we were there, there was at least one three-week stretch with no planes/ferries. Three weeks. No mail, no groceries, as often as not the phone and/or internet would go out for a few days too (gotta love winter in the bush!) Of course, all of this was not a big deal, as I rarely relied on the planes, and my groceries still came reliably on the ferry once a month. Actually, due to the cost of transport, I tried to order groceries only every other month. When friends from other states heard how we lived they almost always responded with "wow, you must plan ahead a lot" or "I could never do that." I was always a bit befuddled by their comments, because the truth was that I didn't learn to do that while living in Pelican--I learned to do that by having been raised to do it.

♥ Preparing every needful thing is not a matter of hoarding food. It is a matter of considering what you use all the time, and then stocking up a bit: food, toiletries, clothes, etc. When something goes on sale, get extra. When something is a better price in bulk, then buy in bulk. When coats go on sale in the spring, buy them a size up for your kids for the next winter. Plan ahead, store ahead, never fear.
♥ Preparing every needful thing means examining yourself and your lifestyle, and determining what is NEEDFUL and what is merely wanted. For example, we have flashlights, batteries, and kerosene lanterns for power outages. We do not have a generator. We have a lot of foods. We do not have cute matching labeled containers for it all.
♥ Preparing every needful thing also means preparing ourselves. No amount of stored flour is going to do you any good if you don't know how to make bread with it. No amount of stored wheat will help if you can't grind it! Seeds will not help if you cannot raise a garden. Knitting needles and yarn are no good if you don't know how to use them. An entire hospital supply room is useless if you don't know any first aid. We should know how to grow, prepare, and preserve food. We should learn how to maintain our clothing and vehicles. We must learn to budget, to save, and to take care of what we have.

Here are a couple more links on the subject:
"Prepare Every Needful Thing" sermon by Bishop Victor L Brown (1980)
"Prepare Every Needful Thing" (a collection of quotes) (2003)

My 24

After my most recent update post, I got a comment that sounded like many I have gotten before. "You do so much, I don't know how you do it," or "You have kids! How do you find the time to do all this stuff?"
I think this is a very interesting question, and I'll try to answer it.

There are 24 hours in a day. No matter who you are, no matter where you live, we all have the same amount of day at our discretion.

Personally, I am often thinking that I don't do nearly as much as I could. I spend too much time on the computer and I can dink around as well as anyone I know. On the days when I really put my mind to productivity I can do twice as much as on an average day. It is also only fair to inform you that, along with my Productive Days, I also have Lazy Days, wherein my accomplishments for the day are usually limited to making dinner, maybe a load of laundry, reading most of a book, and/or writing three blog posts.

I do NOT "multi-task." For one thing, there is no such thing--it's simply a matter of rapidly going from one task to another and then back again. The human mind CANNOT do multiple things at once [link] [link][link](see, science agrees with me). No, I do not do multiple things at once. I don't really "switchtask" either (going back and forth between two or three things--read the first link). But I do change activities throughout the day. I sort the laundry then put in a load to wash. Then I mix up the bread and set it to rise. Then I change a diaper. Then I move the laundry into the dryer and put in another load. Then I dink around on the computer for a while or read my book. Then I punch down the bread for another rising, and switch out the laundry again. Another diaper, put baby down for a nap, play with my toddler, do a little knitting... Really, there is nothing extraordinary about my days.

Mama always told us that "a change is as good as a rest" and I have certainly always found that to be true in my life. I don't need to take a break from getting things done, I just need to change activities regularly. Having small children facilitates this beautifully, as I am constantly being interrupted to feed someone or wash a bottom or attend to the latest little heartbreak or outbreak of contention.

We all have the same number of hours in a day, and we can only do one thing at a time. As Gandalf said, how much time we have "is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." [link] So how do I "do so much?" I simply try not to spend too many of those hours in waste. It is that simple.

• I do best when I sleep around 8-9 hours a night, and I usually get at least 8. I got by just fine on 7 hours when I was in college, but I don't anymore. I consider getting enough sleep to be a very worthwhile use of my time.
• I don't spent much time preening myself--a quick shower is about it (my morning 'put-myself-together' routine takes about 5 minutes if I don't shower, and 10-15 min if I do, and consists of putting on clothes and combing my hair, no makeup, no fancy stuff). For the sake of the math let's add in bathroom trips and so on, and call it about a half hour a day spent on personal hygiene time.
  
• I spend a couple of hours a day online--I admit it's often more. I justify it as my "mental health/adult interaction" time, but I could cut it down and still be fine in those regards. I try to have a screen-free day every week or so.
  
• I do not work outside the home, I suppose that allows me to do more within my home. But I do work from home sometimes (and besides, the people who have asked me how I "do so much" are often also stay-at-home moms).
• I usually put a couple of hours a day into preparing meals. Sometimes more, but usually not less. Good food matters, not just for physical health, but the time and effort and slowness of home cooking is healthy on emotional and intellectual levels as well. It requires a level of consciousness about living which I feel is very important.
• Another hour or so goes into chores--laundry, cleaning rooms, doing dishes, vacuuming, etc etc. Once a week or so I do some deeper cleaning and spend a couple of hours. About once a week I take a couple of hours to go grocery shopping.
  
• I spend a couple of hours--even three--doing stuff specifically for my kids. Changing diapers, nursing, settling disputes, shuttling them around, helping with homework, or just playing with them... With a newborn of course it's more, but with a nurse-every-hour newborn I do a lot of nursing at the computer, or with a book in my hand; and often one of the kids helps me with cooking or cleaning, or I guide homework while making dinner, so things overlap. I think 3 hours is a fair estimate.
  

So of 24 hours in a day
8--sleep
.5--personal care
2--computer
2--food
1--chores
3--miscellaneous kid stuff
16.5 hours of the day consumed by my normal routine. That leaves me over 7 hours for doing all kinds of other things. Some days that gets sucked up by park trips or grocery shopping. Other days it gets sucked up by the computer. Some days it gets sucked into big projects (such as spring cleaning, or winterizing the house, or a sewing project, or a culinary endeavor, or building a website, or canning...), and other days I spend my time with a good book, or long shower, or with friends.

But we all have the same 24 hours in a day. I don't think my productivity is anything remarkable. And now I'm really curious--if you don't have the time to "do so much," then what are you doing with your 24? (If you blog about this, leave me your link please! I really do want to know!)

Frugal Friday: Preserving Food

First and foremost, if you buy things fresh and preserve them yourself (rather than buying frozen/canned food) you are already saving money. You are also giving yourself and your family healthier foods because you are not using preservatives and other additives to your canned or frozen goods.
BUT, there are so many fancy products now for preserving foods that it can feel overwhelming (and expensive) to even try! Vacuum sealers? Waterbath or pressure cooker? Food strainers? Cherry pitters? Apple peeler/corer/slicers?! How about just the canning accessory kit (on amazon.com for $15!) A lot of those specialized things are helpful (I actually have a canning kit much like that one, and I make good use of it) but they are not necessary (I helped my mom bottle food for 15 years without a rubber-coated bottle lifter thank you very much!)
Here are a few things to ease your way (and if you have other ideas, please share in the comments!)

GENERAL

• The simplest way to save money is to borrow equipment! During canning season many people who own the equipment will be using it, but sometimes you can find someone who isn't using them, or at least is willing to lend you things for a few days, or to get together with you to process your food.
  
• Check out garage sales and thrift stores...equipment (or especially jars) are often available there.
  
• Ask around! Lots of people are happy to pass on things for free. I have accumulated several dozen canning jars by making my interest known and being willing to go pick them up from whomever had them. I got two dozen jars AND a steam canning processor when a woman at church passed away and I was the only person in the area that her daughter knew would use the equipment!
  

CANNING

• Remember that low-acid foods (beans, meat, etc) must be canned in an actual pressure cooker to be safe, but otherwise you can get by with a steam canner or waterbath (or a makeshift waterbath!)
  
• If you have a big, deep pan, you can use the waterbath method of canning--you don't need the special pan. You just need a pan that is big enough to put in several jars with space between each of them, and deep enough to get water about 1 inch above the top of the jars. Place a towel in the bottom of the pan to keep the glass jars slightly off the bottom of the pan (it helps the heat circulate more evenly, and also helps prevent bonking/breaking). I use an old stained hand towel. I used a second hand towel or washcloth in the center of the pan with the corners pushed between the bottles a bit to help avoid their banging against each other.
• Fit as much as you can into each jar. Once you've filled it, put your foot up on a stool or chair rung and thump the jar against your leg to get the food to settle (put a hand over it so you don't throw food everywhere!), then fill in the top again.
• Buy canning lids separately from the rings. You only need a few rings, because you can reuse them year after year. I store mine on an old wire hanger like this The lids alone are much cheaper than the lid/ring combos. ☺
  
• Save glass mayonnaise jars if you like (they work fine for canning even though they look slightly different), and definitely save the mayo lids!! You can use those lids on opened bottled food, since once the seal is broken then the canning lid isn't much good anymore. (You can also buy plastic screw-on lids specifically made to fit on canning jars.)
• If you don't have a fancy jar-lifter, you can use a potholder or folded over washcloth or handtowel. Do be careful if you're doing this with a waterbath because wet fabric will get very hot... I use a mug to scoop out some of the water from the top of the waterbath before removing the jars.
• If you don't have a funnel, go get one. ☺ If you don't have a good funnel it will be harder to get things into the jar, but it can be done. You might want to use wide-mouth jars because (obviously) they have a wider mouth, and it's easier to get things into them.
• I recommend using all one size jar mouths. Whether you have quart jars, pint jars, or half-pint jars, you can get them with wide or regular mouths. If all your jars have the same size mouth, then you won't need to have two sets of lids/rings.
  

FREEZING

• Again with the borrowing--vacuum sealers are expensive, but the bags aren't too much, and you might be able to borrow a sealer and just buy your own bags.
  
• Old jars (plastic or glass) can be used to freeze things. If the item you're freezing has liquid content, then be sure to put the lid on loosely for the first day, then go back and tighten them after the liquid has expanded (otherwise you will have broken jars and big messes all over your freezer!)
  
• If you're going to use ziploc-style bags, get the good ones. Cheap bags break or don't seal well and you'll end up losing your food. It's worth the small extra expense up front to have quality storage containers! I like the double-seal brand-name freezer bags (like ziploc or glad). I also recommend against the 'zipper' style bags with the sliders, as they do not give an airtight seal.
• When freezing fruit--especially something like berries--wash it, then set it out on a cookie sheet or towel to dry before you bag it. You may even put it in the freezer on that cookie sheet just for an hour or so, and then bag it. This will help prevent it from freezing into a gigantic solid blob. ☺
  
• "Fruit Fresh" will help fruit maintain its color when frozen. It is available near the pectin or other canning supplies. About 1Tbs of fruit fresh is mixed with a little sugar and then sprinkled into the chopped fruit before freezing.
• Freezer jam can be frozen in any container that has a secure lid. It is preserved by being frozen, NOT by being sealed, so you do not need the rubber-sealing ring that canning jars/lids have. I save condiment jars (even baby food jars!) and use those for my freezer jams. (Pickle jars tend to have too strong an odor for jams, but plastic peanut butter jars are good.)
• For meat--except maybe ground/shredded meat--put it in a ziplock, and then add water in with it. (Over the sink!) gently squeeze it up toward the top until the water is spilling out, then seal it without letting any air get back in. This will prevent freezer burn since the meat is sealed in ice, so it's air-tight.

SHELF STABLE GOODS

• I save containers--all kinds of containers. If it has a lid that screws on, I keep it. I love glass containers, but I use plastic too--there is something to be said for size, and a LOT of things come in big plastic bottles.
• When I open a 50lb bag of flour, I pour it into smaller containers--5 gal plastic buckets if I have them, but also the 4lb (about 1gal) peanut butter jars, jumbo-size metamucel jars, and so on. I store pasta, wheat, sugar, oats, rice, and all sorts of dry goods in those big containers.
• Do be careful of labeling or else you'll do what I did and use 2 cups of salt when you wanted 2 cups of sugar!! I use a little piece of masking tape to label each one--easy to remove if I use it for something else later.

In the interest of full disclosure...and maybe a teeny bit of boasting, yes, all the preserved food pictured here is from what we've put up this year: peaches, fireweed jelly, blueberries and rhubarb, salmon, and apricot freezer marmalade. ☺

Babyfood for Dinner

Don't laugh, I'm serious.
I'm on the WIC program, and every month they give me vouchers for food, including baby food. A LOT of baby food. My kiddo will eat a little, but nowhere near the 45 jars per month that are on the vouchers! So initially I simply didn't get all the food on the vouchers...then I started thinking about it.
Baby food is the same foods we eat, just mashed up. Sometimes we mash up our food...why not use baby food in some of our foods and save myself a step? Baby food is expensive, and I wouldn't go buy it just to use it this way, but where it's being offered to me (and we're unemployed and I hate to turn down free food!), I decided I'd rather find a good way to use it. So here is a list of ways I 'snuck' baby food into our diet this last month.

• Banana bread! 1 4oz container of baby food bananas = 1 banana, and it's already mashed!
  
• Smoothies. Mashed banana, mashed peaches...if you get the plastic containers you can just stick it in the freezer all day and then dump it in the blender with a little milk and sugar and voila, smoothie! (If you have other frozen fruit/berries, then unfrozen fruit, especially banana, can add some great smooth texture.) FYI, I think pears give an odd texture to smoothies, and applesauce is ok but not great.
  
• Eggs in recipes (like muffins or pancakes or cookies) can be replaced with 1/4 c (2oz) of applesauce or mashed banana. Applesauce doesn't taste like much, but banana is pretty sweet, so I only use it in the sweeter things. (Make sure that the recipe has other leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda--sometimes eggs fill that roll. If there is not other leavening, then be sure to add about 1/2 tsp baking soda per egg you replaced.)
• Anything chocolate will hide the stronger flavor of prunes--so chocolate muffins, chocolate cookies, even brownies--add 4-5oz of pureed prunes. Yay for fiber!
• Applesauce is applesauce is applesauce. I just got a bunch of plain applesauces and stuck them in the fridge, and my older kids eat them as single-serving packages of applesauce. That was easy! (The cherry applesauce and blueberry applesauce work too of course.)
• Gravy--I usually make gravy from the drippings when I cook meat, however sometimes I make it just from homemade broth which I've frozen. The problem with using just broth is that the gravy come out a bit thin and runny...so I had the idea of adding a jar of the babyfood meat. Pureed meat has a very weird texture, and the baby doesn't like it plain...but mixed into the gravy it worked ok. I will say that it was not a great gravy--that weird texture came through a little--but over mashed potatoes it worked ok, and I felt good about having a little extra protein in the meal. ☺
  
• Veggie muffins are one of my favorite things. I put in 1 cup (7-8oz) of pureed carrots, squash, mixed vegetables, etc into a gingerbread muffin recipe, and they are nummy! (see link for recipe)

(this post has been shared on Works For Me Wednesdays, follow the link to see more ideas, or to share what has worked for you!)

My dishes

I mentioned in my microwave post last week about our corelle dishes. Today I thought I'd take a few minutes to tell about why we chose corelle, and what pattern we settled on.

We have kids, so we needed something sturdy and long-lasting. Corelle is tough enough that after twoish decades my grandma finally gave her corelle dishes to my mom because she (grandma) was tired of the pattern and wanted something new!
We like to have big fancy meals for holidays, and entertain, so we wanted something attractive.
We needed something affordable, so that we could have enough to feed lots of family/friends without resorting to paper, blech!
We wanted something dishwasher-safe and ideally oven-safe as well.
We are fairly minimalist, and wanted something versatile so that we did not need to have multiple sets of dishes (the "Christmas China" verses the "daily use dishes" and so on).

We opted for a simple, classic, white pattern, which will coordinate with any season or table decor, and does away with the need for any other sets of dishes. It's called "Enhancements." Simple, but not boring. Elegant, but not expensive.
The only downside to Corelle dishes is that they are mostly sold in place-setting sets (as shown above). If your family is like mine, you use a lot more bowls and plates than you do cups and saucers, so this seemed a bit wasteful. However this last year we discovered that we could buy individual pieces at Fred Meyer. So we bought two of the box sets (4 place settings each) and then a few spare dinner plates and bowls. As our family grows we will probably buy another box set, because they are more economical than pieces a la carte, but it's nice to know that we can also get individual plates or bowls as needed.

In Which I Melt a Stainless Steel Pan

I wish this were an April Fool's Day joke.

It's not.

Many women like to boast about their 'multitasking' skills. Newsflash folks, there is no such thing as multitasking, there is only jumping rapidly from one task to another. Some people jump more rapidly than others, and some people do it with more grace than others, but nobody really does more than one thing at once.

Unfortunately, while I often jump rapidly from one thing to another, I do not always do it with much grace, because I tend to forget about some of the multiple things that I'm in the middle of.
Such was the case this week when I put some water on to boil (Bear and I were going to have some oatmeal). I measured the water, put it in the pan, turned the stove on high, and went to do something else for a few minutes. Something turned into another thing and within a couple of minutes I'd completely forgotten about that water on the stove. I guess at least 15 minutes elapsed before I went back into the kitchen and realized that the pot had boiled dry. This was not the first time I had boiled a pot dry (embarrassing though it is) so I turned off the burner and grabbed the pan to put some water in it and cool it down. I intended to use hot water, so as to not stress the metal so much. I was holding the pan in the air above the sink waiting for the faucet to warm up when I noticed something in the sink.

What the...?!?!

Then I noticed this
Apparently my stainless steel pan had an aluminum core (which makes sense, since aluminum conducts heat well). Apparently I had sufficiently overheated the thing so that the stainless steel bottom split on the seam and the liquid aluminum poured out.

I am grateful that it poured into my sink, and that I had very little in the sink at the time, and the only real victim (besides the pan) was one plastic-handled spoon.

I collected quite a nice little pile of aluminum blobs. (If you look just to the left of my ring here you can see the reverse print from the 'good cook' logo of the spoon.) I have no idea what to do with them, but it seems a shame to just toss them out...does anybody know what to do with a bunch of aluminum? I don't really want to heat it to the melting point again.

"Good" Food

I was talking with my mother recently about her efforts over the last two years to establish a farmers market in her area, and my new project of getting involved to improve the school lunch program here. We were talking about some different sources (blogs, other websites, books) tout healthy recipes or ideas, but that some of them are not helpful for us because different people have different ideas about what constitutes 'healthy eating' or 'good food.' Due to those differences, I thought I would take a few minutes to briefly explain what I believe to be the important things in food. (Please note that we don't have any food allergies to worry over, and have reached these conclusions via thoughtful reading of the Word of Wisdom and other nutrition book, and consideration of the information gleaned from books and documentaries about mainstream horticultural and agricultural practices in this country and the politics driving them.)

The staff of life
Grains are important, and they should be whole grains at least most of the time. With that said, wheat does not have the corner on the market. I don't care for the taste of regular red wheat myself, so I use some white wheat (still whole wheat, just lighter flavor), and I also use oats, cornmeal, and I've recently begun learning to use quinoa. I hope to continue to diversify the grains I use. (I do use regular white flour too, more on that later.)

The spice of life
Variety!! If we ate the same thing every day I would probably shoot myself out of sheer boredom (that is if my family didn't shoot me first). We enjoy eating foods from other countries, we enjoy trying new recipes and new foods. We have vegetarian meals, we have meat-lite meals, we have meat-heavy meals. We eat a variety of grains, a variety of legumes, and a variety of vegetables. Due to our preference for a variety of flavors in our meals, my herb/spice/condiment collection is fairly extensive, and yes we use everything in it.

Moderation in all things
There is almost no food that is "off limits" in my kitchen (mostly just caffeine and alcohol). If I want brownies, I make brownies, with white flour and white sugar and lots of butter. I am not afraid of sugar or butter or white flour or deep frying. We do not do these things often, but it is normal to want something like that sometimes, and I would rather go ahead and enjoy a treat, rather than making it strictly taboo (because that tends to make cravings worse).

'Naughty' and real is better than fake
I don't fancy the idea of mummifying myself before I've even died, so I try to avoid preservatives in my food. Since most prepared foods have preservatives, if I want something I'd rather make it myself. It's true, brownies aren't good for me, but I would so much rather make my own (with all those 'bad' ingredients) and know that there are no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.

Living as a Locavore
I'm not a hardcore locavore, in that yes, I do buy some foods from out of state, but I try to get all my perishables from in-state or at least within a few hundred miles. I grow some vegetables, I support my farmer's market, and our dream is to have a small homestead and raise chickens, sheep, a milk cow, and the occasional beef cow. We also hunt and fish for local wild meat.
Foods that are shipped from halfway across the world--even if they are cheap--are not earth friendly. They are not very yummy either, since they had to be picked long before they were ripe, and then shipped thousands of miles to get to me. I would rather limit the foods in my pantry and know that they are fresh. Fresh produce has more flavor--and more vitamins--than pre-picked/chemically-ripened produce.
I know a lot of people who focus on whether a food is organic, but for me that is not as big an issue as whether it is local. I will wash my fruit anyway, and while I prefer that it not have been sprayed with anything (because that kind of farming isn't sustainable), I look for that 'grown in Alaska' tag first.

Ethics Matter more than Dollars
Animals raised on factory farms are fed diets based on maximum weight gain, not on the best nutrition for the animal. They stand in their own filth all day, and are shot full of antibiotics to keep them from sickening and dying before they reach the slaughterhouse. The meat/milk/eggs from these animals are poor at best. So I willingly pay more to get local meat from smaller farms.
Secondly, for things that have to come internationally (such as spices), I try to look for the 'fair trade' sticker. Fair trade means that the workers involved are making a living wage. Firstly I think that's just the right thing to do, but secondly a decently-paid worker is more likely to do good work, so I think fair trade (as opposed to cut-every-corner-to-save-every-penny free trade) brings better products.
As Michael Pollen says, I 'vote with my dollar' about what I think is important in food. No, it's not as cheap, but it is better for us nutritionally, and my conscience tells me it's the moral thing to do. If I really care about what I am putting into my body, then the price tag shouldn't matter!

Da Spice Rack*

*or perhaps more properly titled "The spices, herbs, condiments, and flavored oils of my kitchen" (in alphabetical order, for your convenience).
If you don't know what something is, or what to use it for, leave a comment, I'll answer. ☺

1. Bay leaf
2. Barbecue Sauce (Hubby usually makes this)
3. Basil
4. Cardamom
5. Celery Seed
6. Chili oil
7. Chili powder
8. Cinnamon
9. Cloves
10. Cumin
11. Dill
12. Five spice powder (chinese)
13. Garlic powder (I also use fresh garlic often)
14. Ginger
15. Horseradish
16. Ketchup
17. Lemon-herb rub (from costco)
18. Liquid Smoke
19. Marjoram
20. Mayonaise
21. Mustard (yellow)
22. Mustard (spicy brown)
23. Nutmeg
24. Oregano
25. Parsley
26. Pepper
27. Saffron
28. Salt
29. Sesame seed oil
30. Sesame seeds (toasted)
31. Soy sauce
32. Stir Fry Sauce
33. Tarragon
34. Teriyaki sauce (I like soy vey brand)
    
35. Thyme
36. Turmeric
37. Vinegar (white)
38. Vinegar (apple cider)
    
39. Worcestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins brand, yes it matters!)

Is there anything on your shelf that you use often that I don't have? What do you use it for? Because, really, if I'm missing it, I probably need some. ☺

Motherhood Part IV: Childless

Faithful daughters of God desire children. In the scriptures we read of Eve (see Moses 4:26), Sarah (see Genesis 17:16), Rebekah (see Genesis 24:60), and Mary (see 1 Nephi 11:13–20), who were foreordained to be mothers before children were born to them. Some women are not given the responsibility of bearing children in mortality, but just as Hannah of the Old Testament prayed fervently for her child (see 1 Samuel 1:11), the value women place on motherhood in this life and the attributes of motherhood they attain here will rise with them in the Resurrection (see D&C 130:18). Women who desire and work toward that blessing in this life are promised they will receive it for all eternity, and eternity is much, much longer than mortality. There is eternal influence and power in motherhood ~JBBeck [link]

~ ~ ~

This is part IV of my series on motherhood. You can see the prior posts here: I-motherhood can't wait, II-mother at home, III-quiverfull. Today I am finally sharing the last installment: for those who do not have children.

~ ~ ~

In my perception, there are two kinds of women in the world who are without children: those who do not want to have children, and those who do want to have children but are not able to do so (because of infertility or other life circumstances--such as not being married). To the former I would recommend going back and reading post I of the series. It is the latter women who are on my mind today.

I linked several talks in my first post, but here are some additional ones that were only relevant to this post

• James E Faust "Instruments in the Hands of God"
  
• Margaret B Nadauld "The Joy of Womanhood"
• Shari L Dew "Are We Not All Mothers"

I begin with a quote from Shari L Dew (a single woman herself):

Have you ever wondered why prophets have taught the doctrine of motherhood—and it is doctrine—again and again? I have. I have thought long and hard about the work of women of God. And I have wrestled with what the doctrine of motherhood means for all of us. This issue has driven me to my knees, to the scriptures, and to the temple—all of which teach an ennobling doctrine regarding our most crucial role as women. It is a doctrine about which we must be clear if we hope to stand “steadfast and immovable” regarding the issues that swirl around our gender. For Satan has declared war on motherhood. He knows that those who rock the cradle can rock his earthly empire. And he knows that without righteous mothers loving and leading the next generation, the kingdom of God will fail.
When we understand the magnitude of motherhood, it becomes clear why prophets have been so protective of woman’s most sacred role. While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity, in the Lord’s language, the word mother has layers of meaning. Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve “the mother of all living”—and they did so before she ever bore a child. Like Eve, our motherhood began before we were born. Just as worthy men were foreordained to hold the priesthood in mortality, righteous women were endowed premortally with the privilege of motherhood. Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us. ~SLDew [link]

Women are sometimes referred to as 'the gentle sex' or as nurturers. This is because motherhood--that nurturing nature--is part of how we were created. Motherhood is part of who we are.
Many mothers carry and birth biological children. Some do so on their own, others with the help of fertility treatments. Some mothers nurture and raise adopted children. Some mothers are never able to call a child their 'own,' but instead reach out to children, youth, and other mothers around them, teaching, helping, guiding, nurturing, and mothering just as surely as any woman who pushes an infant from her womb.
These 'childless' mothers value and honor motherhood, and support the sanctity of family. Perhaps at some time in their lives they will marry, perhaps the time will come when they will be able to bring children into their own homes, via birth, adoption, or some other arrangement such as fostering. On the other hand, perhaps they never will do these things.

As daughters of our Heavenly Father, and as daughters of Eve, we are all mothers and we have always been mothers. And we each have the responsibility to love and help lead the rising generation. How will our young women learn to live as women of God unless they see what women of God look like, meaning what we wear, watch, and read; how we fill our time and our minds; how we face temptation and uncertainty; where we find true joy; and why modesty and femininity are hallmarks of righteous women? How will our young men learn to value women of God if we don’t show them the virtue of our virtues?

Every one of us has an overarching obligation to model righteous womanhood because our youth may not see it anywhere else. Every one of us can mother someone—beginning, of course, with the children in our own families but extending far beyond. Every one of us can show by word and by deed that the work of women in the Lord’s kingdom is magnificent and holy. I repeat: We are all mothers in Israel, and our calling is to love and help lead the rising generation through the dangerous streets of mortality.

As mothers in Israel, we are the Lord’s secret weapon. Our influence comes from a divine endowment that has been in place from the beginning... We just can’t let the Lord down. And if the day comes when we are the only women on earth who find nobility and divinity in motherhood, so be it. For mother is the word that will define a righteous woman made perfect in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, a woman who has qualified for eternal increase in posterity, wisdom, joy, and influence. ~SLDew [link]

To those women who are single, prophets have encouraged us to be marriageable: to take care of ourselves, physically, mentally, and emotionally, so that if a good man should come along we would be someone worth catching. On the other hand, it is counterproductive to become so hyper-focused on marriage that we cease to live in the present. Live life! Pursue education, pursue a career, pursue your dreams. Do not let those things get in the way of a potential (good) marriage, but do not let the as-yet-unrealized possibility of marriage get in the way of living a good, productive, happy life. A marriage is made of two people, not two half people--if you cannot be whole on your own, you would not have much to bring to a marriage anyway.

Some of you, unfortunately, will never marry in this life. That turns out to be the case sometimes. If that happens, do not spend your life grieving over it. The world still needs your talents. It needs your contribution. The Church needs your faith. It needs your strong, helping hand. Life is never a failure until we call it such. There are so many who need your helping hands, your loving smile, your tender thoughtfulness. I see so many capable, attractive, wonderful women whom romance has passed by. I do not understand it, but I know that in the plan of the Almighty, the eternal plan which we call God’s plan of happiness, there will be opportunity and reward for all who seek them. ~GBHinckley [link]

To you single women who wish to be married, I repeat what I recently said in a meeting for singles in this Tabernacle: “Do not give up hope. And do not give up trying. But do give up being obsessed with it. The chances are that if you forget about it and become anxiously engaged in other activities, the prospects will brighten immeasurably…
“I believe that for most of us the best medicine for loneliness is work, service in behalf of others. I do not minimize your problems, but I do not hesitate to say that there are many others whose problems are more serious than are yours. Reach out to serve them, to help them, to encourage them. There are so many boys and girls who fail in school for want of a little personal attention and encouragement. There are so many elderly people who live in misery and loneliness and fear for whom a simple conversation would bring a measure of hope and happiness.” ~GBHinckley [link]

I think that this advice about marriage can apply equally well to the married woman who longs for children but struggles or is unable to have them. Do not give up hope, do not give up trying, but do give up being obsessed with it. I experienced a small piece of this when I repeatedly miscarried over the first 2 1/2 years of my marriage. I genuinely did not know if I would ever carry a biological child to term. I mourned my 'broken' body. I confess I did obsess to varying degrees. Honestly I was not very healthy (mentally or spiritually) during much of that time. It was when I finally found peace, and chose to go forward as I was, that I finally crept out of my depression. I accepted that my family was not going to grow in the ways or timelines that I had planned. I began pursuing license as a foster parent. I found happiness in my life, and then I was blessed to have a baby. I do not mean to imply that everyone who waits, everyone who hopes, will find their desires fulfilled as soon as they get busy with something else. I do, however, stand by the statement that when you get busy living life, then you'll be happier, regardless of what may come next.

For reasons known to the Lord, some women are required to wait to have children. This delay is not easy for any righteous woman. But the Lord’s timetable for each of us does not negate our nature. Some of us, then, must simply find other ways to mother. And all around us are those who need to be loved and led. ~SLDew [link]

We want you single sisters to know of our great love for you. You can be powerful instruments in the hands of God to help bring about this great work. You are valued and needed. Other women, even though married, may not be mothers. For those in either of these circumstances, please be assured that the Lord loves you and has not forgotten you. You can do something for another person that no one else ever born can do. You may be able to do something for another woman’s child that she may not be able to do herself. I believe some compensatory blessings will come in this life and in the hereafter to sisters in those circumstances. These blessings and a comforting peace will come to you if you can love God “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.” You can still be highly successful in whatever you do as instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work. ~JEFaust [link]

We have special admiration for the unsung but unsullied single women among whom are some of the noblest daughters of God. These sisters know that God loves them, individually and distinctly. They make wise career choices even though they cannot now have the most choice career. Though in their second estate they do not have their first desire, they still overcome the world. These sisters who cannot now enrich the institution of their own marriage so often enrich other institutions in society. They do not withhold their blessings simply because some blessings are now withheld from them. Their trust in God is like that of the wives who are childless, but not by choice, but who in the justice of God will receive special blessings one day. ~NAMaxwell [link]

You can recognize women who are grateful to be a daughter of God by their reverence for motherhood, even when that blessing has been withheld from them for a time. In those circumstances, their righteous influence can be a blessing in the lives of children they love. Their exemplary teachings can echo the voice of a faithful home and resonate truth in the hearts of children who need another witness. ~MBNadauld [link]

Living microwave-free

"Zappers" my family used to call them. As in "would you zap this for me?"
Or, better still "would you nuke this a minute longer!?"
NUKE? My food?! Something that I'm going to eat?
Think about that for a second!

We don't have a microwave oven anymore.
And we don't want one.

I know a few people who don't have microwave ovens because they have concerns about cancer or the de-naturizing effects of the micro waves on their food. I've read those articles and considered the matter, but it was never enough to convince my husband to go microwave-free.

When we moved to Pelican, we were moving by air, so anything we wanted to take with us had to fit into a very limited space since we had to pay by the box. We decided that it wasn't worth $50 to bring a microwave, and that we'd make do. Almost as soon as we arrived though one of Hubby's co-workers learned that we did not have a microwave, and offered us her old one because she had just upgraded.
So we had a microwave again.
There was very limited counter space in that apartment, and the only place we could fit the microwave happened to be next to the sink. I was very concerned about water getting under it and causing a short so I made efforts to avoid that, and also frequently unplugged and moved the microwave to thoroughly clean/dry the area as well. But you can't stop the inevitable I suppose, because halfway through our second year in Pelican though the microwave fritzed-out. (Yes, that's a technical term!)
One night Hubby put something in the microwave, but then removed it before the time had run out. He pressed the 'cancel' button and re-closed the door, but the microwave turned on. He pressed 'cancel' again but it continued to run. From that time on, no matter what buttons we pushed, if the door was latched then the microwave was on. It would only turn off if we opened the door. After about 5 minutes of observation we concluded that the microwave had some kind of short (or that at any rate it wasn't safe anymore) so we unplugged it and got rid of it.
My word I had so much counter space!!!
We started re-heating lunches in the oven or on the stovetop instead of in the microwave...it took 10 minutes instead of 3. Ten. Minutes. That is just not very long now, is it. How is it that our culture has become so impatient that we are not willing to wait ten minutes for our food? And you know what else? The leftovers tasted better. I'd long ago started reheating anything with chicken or pork in some way besides the microwave, because those meats in the zapper always tasted weird and got too dry. When we started reheating everything with the oven/stove though I realized that everything tasted better. (In searching online for a photo for this post--which I was unable to find and had to make by the way--I came across a bakery in New Mexico that has a notice on their website that they are a microwave-free facility. What a great selling point!!!)
When we returned to civilization this summer, we first spent a couple of months staying with family. They had a microwave, but we found that after 5 months without one we were not inclined to use it, and rarely did so. When we settled in to our new home, we chose to not buy one. So we are now an intentionally microwave-free home. Hubby wanted something for reheating leftovers at work, and opted for a toaster oven rather than a zapper.

One thing that would have been difficult about the change would have been if we had been using a lot of plastic in our kitchen, because of course plastic is not oven safe. But frankly I don't think that plastic is very food-safe, so we had been getting rid of plastic in our kitchen long before getting rid of the microwave, so it was no big deal.

What do we use instead?
We store leftovers in pyrex dishes. The lids are not heat-safe, but the dishes themselves can go in the dishwasher, oven, fridge, freezer (or yes, the microwave). On average, depending on the size of the dish, they cost $2-9 each, but boxed sets as the one shown here (and linked) are more affordable. I have containers ranging from custard cups to full casserole dishes, and use all of them. I pack Hubby's and Wolf's school lunches in portion-size containers, save full meals in the freezer in 6x10s, and so on. I love that I can see through the glass too because that way I always know what I have in my fridge. It's pretty sturdy glass, and while it can break if abused, it will hold up to years of regular use (no need to be paranoid about them!). When Wolf takes them to school (where his only heating option is a microwave) I don't have to worry about the plastic from his dish leaching into his food. Incidentally, pyrex is also made in the USA. Just a note--take a dish straight from the fridge or freezer and put it into a cold oven, then turn on the heat. The glass will heat gradually as the food does, and will not break this way. ☺)
I use glass or ceramic mixing bowls (some pyrex brand, some others), so I can set the whole bowl in the oven to soften butter, speed bread rising, and so on.
We use corelle dishes, which are also oven-safe, so sometimes we reheat food directly on our plates. Yes, this does mean that our plates get hot (oh, wait, don't fancy restaurants bring out meals on heated plates? Why yes, I think they do!) They are classy looking like china, and technically breakable, but still sturdy like the pyrex (I think they may be made by the same company actually). My grandmother gave an extensive set of corelle dishes to my mom because she (grandma) had had them for a couple of decades but very few had broken and she was tired of the pattern and wanted something new.

Sometimes I have to adapt a little, such as when the recipe says to melt chocolate chips in the microwave, I use my double boiler pan (or a saucepan on low heat with lots of stirring and careful watching). Anytime I want to cook with butter I have to plan ahead enough to get it out of the fridge to soften, or at the very least I have to set it in the oven for a few minutes to soften/melt a bit. On the other hand, when making cookies requires forethought, it's a good way to curb impulsive cookie-making, don't you think?!☺
Yes, living without a microwave means that many things take longer, but good things always take time.

So, the short version of living microwave free:

• Plastic-free (or mostly plastic-free) kitchen
• More counter space
• The food tastes better
• The food gets heated more evenly
• The texture of the food is the same as how it was originally made (crisp pizza crusts in the oven, soft pasta on the stovetop, just think about how the original dish was made and reheat in the same way)
  
• We slow down and think about what we're eating before consuming it
• And, just in case microwaves do cause cancer, well, we're avoiding that too