Facebook Friday: Gratitude Edition

I haven't done one of these in a very long time, but I thought I'd do a bit of a recap of some of my status updates from the last month or so...for most of the month of November I posted things I was grateful for. ☺

11/1
"My opinions change with new information" (seen on a poster at the Rally to Restore Sanity). I don't care if you agree with me, only if you are honest with yourself about why you believe the way you do: whether it's based on habit, fear, hope, or facts. On election day tomorrow, please vote, and please give your vote the thought and integrity it deserves. Then we shall see what we shall see. ☺

11/2
Jenni is thankful for baby zerberts (if I hook him up to nurse but then don't pay enough attention to him, he GETS me. heeheehee!)

11/3
Jenni has 4 boxes going to the post office today... I'm so grateful for MDC's Holiday Helper and the chance to send things to families who need them (and that I can send *goods* since I can't afford to send anybody money this year)

11/4
Jenni is grateful for a week where many things have fallen into the places that they need to be. "All things work together for good"

mmmmm, muffins. What's not to love about muffins. :) (exploring a new recipe tonight...or, rather, a new adaptation of an old recipe: almond poppy seed muffins...
[Wolf ate two of the giant-size muffins (as in, a third of the batch). He said they were amazing, and "way better than those costco ones mom." Hmm, I seem to have succeeded!!]

11/5
Jenni worked her tail off all day. All the pumpkin is processed and frozen/canned, three pies (two kinds) cooked, three loads of dishes, and kitchen floor swept and scrubbed. Pie Night: Game On!

11/6
Jenni is grateful for long phone calls with best friends, automatic dishwashers, and warm tea and long johns when it's snowy outside.

Jenni is thankful for my Hubby, for the things he does to try to make me happy (and for keeping me posted on politics, because I get wrapped up researching parenting stuff and sometimes forget that there's a whole world out there).

11/7
Jenni is so so so grateful that my husband is into politics instead of sports; that I am never a football/basketball/baseball widow; and that he doesn't know (or care) about the scores or ratings.

11/10
Jenni's kiddo seems to have an ear infection. :( Poor guy. At least we've never had one of these before (and at least it's the kiddo who is old enough to tell me "mommy my ear hurts" in the midst of his crying)

11/12
Jenni's little birthday boy has fallen off things (big head-banging/bawling falls) three times this morning...it seems that no matter what I do, the boy WILL find something to climb...and then fall off of. Perhaps I should
lace the birthday cake with arnica?! ;)

11/15
Jenni is grateful for my telephone...but also wants to let you know that I unabashedly screen calls. I will not be a slave to this technology, I will get to it if I get to it...but if I'm busy (or I don't recognize the caller ID) I let the machine get it. If you leave a message, I promise I do call back.

Criticism is always more about the critic than the recipient.

11/16
Jenni had a full freezer. Then my Hubby found pork shoulders on sale (BOGO) and brought home 42lbs of pork. Then we picked up our half a cow (another 300+lbs of meat). So I rearranged the freezer...and I got most of it in there too.
[I got almost 3 boxes worth into the freezer...there were 4 boxes of meat and 1 of scraps. Thankfully some friends let us borrow some freezer space...and very soon I'll be melting down those scraps to render the tallow and make candles! I did a little experimental batch and am excited to do the rest. I feel so domestic and sustainable and stuff!]


11/17
Jenni is helping my 10yo son plan a Percy Jackson/Greek Mythology based party. We thought parties would be a fun way to do a book club for kids. And also, we are dang good at themed parties. (He told me he feels sorry for "those kids who just get regular parties")

11/18
Put this as your status if someone you knew was killed by Lord Voldemort. As everyone knows, being killed by an Unforgivable Curse, having your soul sucked out by a dementor, or getting petrified by a basilisk is a truly tragic fate for anyone, muggle or wizard. 93% of people won't copy and paste this. Will you make this your status to spread awareness of this growing threat?

Shared link: BYU Carillion (bell tower) gets into the Harry Potter spirit

11/19
Jenni is playing doctor mom again...[Bear had spots all over] my money is on an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin. He's never had an antibiotic before, and thankfully it's a mild reaction...but I should have guessed (since I'm allergic to penicillin myself)
(The doctor concurred with my diagnosis).

11/24
Jenni just might have the best bff in the world. (You know who you are SisuGirl)

Jenni thinks peppermint tea might be the perfect food.

11/25 Thanksgiving math: if the pie crust recipe makes 1 1/2 crusts (because I have deepdish pie pans), and I need a total of 5 pie crusts, then how many recipes do I need? (Note, 3 of the crusts will be bottom crusts, but 2 will be top crusts, which are normal sized...)

11/28
Jenni has a christmas tree up, an advent wreath out, a fabric countdown chain up, and now I just need to sew presents. ☺

11/29
Jenni always breathes a little easier on the morning of Nov 29th, because it means the baby made it through the night of the 28th (which was the night my sister died 21 years ago). Rest in Peace Amethyst. I miss you. ♥

Jenni is sewing away on a nativity advent calendar. It's so cute.

11/30
Happy Saint Andrew's Day (national day of scotland). We're makin stovies, rumblethumps, shepherds pie, and shortbread. Are you scottish too?!

12/1
‎"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." (JFK)

Shared link 12 Exercises for Mindful Parenting (fantastic article)

12/2
Jenni has a sudden and very urgent need to learn how to make a boston cream pie. Anybody got a tried-and-true recipe for me? Or will I need to find my own? (nobody had a recipe, so I'm going to try this one)

12/3
Jenni is grinding wheat and baking bread while the snow blusters outside.

Candlelight - The Maccabeats

Happy Hannukah

I love this--some nice, cleancut, Jewish boys making darn good music, complete with harmony, cultural literacy, and a catchy beat!

Saint Andrew's Day (Nov 30)

Stovies

Saint Andrew's Day is the national day of Scotland. Being of Clan Stewart, we can't ignore this holiday!


On our dinner menu are things like:

Shortbread

Stovies and Oatcakes
Shepherd's Pie
Rumbledthumps
maybe even Bannock Bread 

Banoffi

And for dessert:
Shortbread or Trifle or Banoffi

Trifle

(No, I don't make them all, and many of these dishes overlap with England and/or Ireland...but there is a fair list there to choose from!)

By way of explanation...

...yes, I've been watching Firefly. Yes, I appreciate that their spaceship is named "Serenity," but no, the new title here is not intended as an allusion to the ship nor the show.
It is intended as a very realistic application of the word as per my recent increase of zenness. 


But, since it's a good song, here ya go

New Name

I changed the name of this blog.
It seemed appropriate.
☺

I debated over calling it "Chaotic Serenity" or something like that, but truthfully, even when things get nuts, serenity is a state of mind, not a situation...so serenity can be always (and in spite of chaos). So I kept things simple.
I thought about calling it "Simple Serenity" or something like that too...but again with the keeping things simple. ☺

Oh yes, and the new photo at the top--taken from my porch. Seriously, I live in paradise. ♥

Christmas Countdown Chain

When I was a kid we always made a paper advent chain to count down the days to Christmas. I've made paper chains for my kids, but between the environmentally UNfriendly heavy use of paper, and the fact that one tug from a baby = busted chain, I decided to make a fabric version.

I was inspired by this tutorial, but I adapted it for what I had.

 

I made my own tutorial here.

Thanksgiving

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." ~Thornton Wilder

If you don't remember it, or haven't read it recently, take the time to read President Monson's talk on gratitude from last conference. If you're not going to do that (be honest), then at the very least watch this little video

"Our minds have a marvelous capacity to notice the unusual; however, the opposite is true as well. The more often we see the things around us--even the beautiful and wonderful things--the more they become invisible to us. That's why we often take things for granted...because we see things so often, we see them less and less."

Now let's all go out and follow President Monson's counsel to "cultivate an attitude of gratitude." ☺

The Same Old (Stupid) Things

When I was a kid we had dogs. We also lived in the woods. And one year there were porcupines.
One dog in particular, Bibs, apparently had an irresistible urge to investigate those porcupines.

I remember at least a dozen occasions that year when we had to pull quills out of his nose. The first quill wasn't so bad, because he didn't know what was coming, but the second quill (and all subsequent quill-pulling-endeavors) involved multiple people holding him still so that someone could grab the quills one by one with pliers and pull them from his face.


I seem to have a propensity for burning myself in the kitchen (or occasionally at the iron). I have a phobia about the oven door flipping up and burning me (even though that has never happened), but maybe it's not an irrational one because I have found a lot of other unexpected ways to burn myself, so who knows, it could happen. Just a week ago I severely burned my finger tip making fudge, and while the blister is now gone, there is still a funny-feeling spot there, and it keeps me in mind of other burns I've had. Hot oil splashes, steam, toaster oven doors (that was just days before the fudge)...  The thing is, I'm not a generally accident-prone person, so it seems odd that I should burn myself so often.

But no more odd than that an otherwise not-unintelligent dog should stick his face into the wrong end of a porcupine again and again.

These thoughts have put me in mind of something that I think we all do, and that is to get stuck in a rut--a habit even--of doing the same stupid thing over and over. Perhaps it's yelling at your kids. Perhaps it's speeding on the highway. Perhaps it's neglecting your prayers. Perhaps it's procrastinating your homework. We know that these things are not good. We all know what we could (or should) do instead. But we don't do it.

So I have a challenge for us all today. Stop sticking your nose in the porcupine's tooshie. Pick one of those stupid things that you keep doing, and knock it off already. It takes time to bust a bad habit, I know, so that's why we're just picking one.

I'm not picking the burns by the way. I've got bigger things to worry about. Although if you ever hear of any burn-proof kitchen gloves (they'd have to go up to the elbow!) let me know, would you?

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.

Couple's Journal

I mentioned this gift idea in my post about frugal gift ideas, and thought I'd explain it a little more thoroughly. Or, rather, I think I've explained it...I thought I would share some ideas of what to put in it, to get you started in case you'd like to do one too. ☺

• What is your dream date?
• What is your dream vacation?
• What is your dream car?
• Tell about your dream house.
• If you were an animal, which one would you be and why?
• If you were a kitchen utensil or appliance, which one would you be and why?
• What are some of your favorite traditions?
• If you had one year to live, what would you do?
• If you had one month to live, what would you do?
• One week to live?
• One day to live?
• One hour to live?
• What is your favorite scripture story?
• On a scale of 1-100, how good of a driver are you? How about your spouse? What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Where have you always wanted to go?
• Share your testimony
• What attracted you to your spouse first?
• What frustrates you most about your spouse?
• Have you ever thought you were going to die?
• What things make you happy?
• What are your favorite parts of your body? Of your spouse's body?
• If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
• What are your greatest fears?
• What are some of your goals for your life?
• If the adult you met the child or teenage you, what would your younger self think of your adult self?
• What do you think your kids would think of you if they met you as a kid?

Just write one question at the top of each page, then leave the rest blank... We have spent some date nights passing the book back and forth, each writing our answers to some questions (we just flip open to pages at random)