Project Post Card Part Deux

We did this about 2 years ago but thought it would be fun to do it again!


Project Postcard:


I am starting a new project with the girls and am hoping that some of you will be willing to help out! We are going to collect postcards from all of the 50 US States. As we collect the cards we will notebook about that state. The problem is that I don't know someone in all 50 states (depending on the response we might expand and try for post cards from all over the world!). Thats where you come in. If you are in a state other than Texas or know someone in a state other than Texas we would love to exchange post cards with you or your child! Here is what I am hoping for:


1. One postcard from each state

2. The cards dont have to be from children but if you have a child who can send it all the better

3. After getting your card in the mail my children will send a postcard back.


If you would like to send a postcard please email me at molder.anna@gmail.com and I will send you the information you need.

I am going to mark off here as we get postcards from each state so you can see where we still need them from:

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas

California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
 New Jersey
 New Mexico
 New York
North Carolina
 North Dakota
 Ohio
 Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming



We are not against getting more than one from a state so if you would like to swap post cards send one even if it is marked out! We are very excited to see where all we can get postcards from!

Whole Grain Pancakes - A Taste Sensation

Recently, my cousin introduced me to freshly milled wheat.  It is very, very good.  Unfortunately, I do not have a mill, so I have to go to her house and mill the wheat, then take it home and put it in the freezer.  While I was there one morning, I had the opportunity to observe her making breakfast.  She had soaked her grains in her blender overnight.  She simply turned the blender on and added eggs and I am assuming some type of leavening agent and salt. I am not sure about that last part, as I was not watching because I am sure that I was trying not to blow up her mill at this point.  Anyway, I have not gotten this down to perfect measurements yet, so this is not a beginner recipe but if you know anything about making from scratch pancakes, you will be able to figure it out.

So, these are the pancakes from Heaven.  I know, I will never be hired as a food photographer.

Take a cup or so of soft pastry wheat berries and put in a good quality blender or food processor.  Pour in an equal amount milk.  Go to bed. Sleep (hopefully 8 hours). Wake up. Turn on blender. Add a teaspoon and a half of baking soda, a teaspoon of salt, and 3 tbsp of rapadura or organic sugar and 2 eggs. Throw in a bit of vanilla and more milk to make a smooth pancake batter.  Pour about a fourth of a cup full on a hot, oiled skillet or griddle and cook until edges are dry, flip pancake and cook until done.  Serve with syrup, jelly, honey or whatever floats your boat.

I did this this morning. I promise I was in pancake heaven.  I tried to explain to Anna how good they were when we were video chatting this morning.  She doesn't like pancakes or other yummy breads like that because she doesn't like "soggy bread".  I know, she is weird, but she agreed to live vicariously through me.  So, I will let her tell you how good it was:

"The first bite of anything is always the best bite. Especially, when you are not entirely sure of what you are getting and even more so when expectations have been built up and they actually deliver. I had stepped briefly away to tend to a child, so Jessica had already taken that initial first bite. Immediately apon my return she sighed into the computer "Anna, these are the best pancakes I have ever eaten". This is where my vicarious experience begins. Suddenly, I am transported there, to her breakfast table (or her recliner as it is also known as), and I begin to experience pancakes like never before. As Jessica takes each bite and her pupils dialate and her facial muscles relax into what can only be described as, a look of euphoria, I begin to question my stance on certain bread products. The rich, nutty flavor of freshly ground wheat grain, baking soda, and other ingredients elicit moans of "mmmmmmm" over and over again until finally Jessica is left on her chair with the look of something between complete bliss and deliriousness. Then I wish I had experienced the first bite. Never have I vicariously experienced pancakes as good as these."

Victories Come in All Shapes and Sizes

It is 3 AM.  I am a mommy sandwich.  I would say I was "nestled" between my two youngest daughters, but that would imply that I am comfortable, which I am not.  That is why I am up, typing a blog post at 3:30 in the morning, rather than sleeping.  It no longer is about finding my inner brilliance or wanting to see how my mind works at certain hours and has everything to do with the fact that I am awake, a state that I don't wish for at this hour.

It is quiet, now that all the crying has stopped, and I have found myself recounting the past few days.  There has been trouble at the ranch y'all.  (Although, I believe it unnecessary, I put that apostrophe after that y in y'all, to halfway attempt to please all you spelling and grammar purists, of which I am not at 3 AM, even though, yall is a real word, apostrophe or no, in the state of Tennessee.)<-----That was a lot of commas; who wants to dissect that sentence?

Anyway, as I mentioned in my 1 AM post not too long ago (if it turns up hyperlinked, it will be because Anna was smart enough and had the wherewithal to do it -ha!)we have had some trouble. So much so, if you recall, my dh sent in an offering to the church, with our credit card.  We have had some surgery, sickness and such over the past couple weeks, beginning with the, ahh, "noodling" of my dog. Then my seven year old daughter had the tonsillectomy, my three year old daughter had the respiratory turned ear infection that resulted in a slight rupture of her eardrum, my six year old son got a couple of teeth capped and now one is infected and he is on the schedule for a root canal next week.   Now my handicapped brother that I take care of is sick, too.  Like I said, there is trouble. My dh may want to considered burning a tenth of our food storage on an alter somewhere.  *ahem*

It is hard to find victory during these times. You have to be looking for it. I am fixing to get waaay personal.

My 12 year old just got past her second period, ever.  It was the period from hell.  It finally gave way to the attitude from the same location.  My oldest child has not been without her difficulties.  She has severe ADHD and sometimes I am sure she lays awake at night wondering which one of my buttons is she going to toy with tomorrow.  Medication helps.  In fact, I am going to take this moment to thank Leandro Painizzon, the chemist who discovered and named Ritalin. Thank you sir, I am forever grateful, and I hope your wife enjoys having a drug named after her.  My daughter came out of a desperate situation when she was given to me at the age of five.  She missed the normalcy of life as a 5 year old, never knowing when dinner was, whether or not the electricity was going to be on or if she was going to be warm at night.  She experienced times that she was not safe in her own home, even though the man she called daddy was right there.  That really has hurt her in a lot of different ways and the impact is long lasting and presents a multitude of challenges for her and us.

Last night, a friend brought us dinner and entertained me for a bit, and asked what else could she do to help.  I told her that I did not know, that I was just really overwhelmed.  She lovingly pointed to my 12 year old and asserted, "Make that one help you." My husband sat across from me, vigorously nodding his assent.  They don't understand that making her help me would overwhelm me to the point that I would just be run over.  Making her do anything can be an arduous process, not because she doesn't want to help, but because her version of help and mine, would be really different. Her version of help includes cooking whatever concoction she comes up with and leaving the mess. Trying to get her to clean up the mess would take over an hour *IF* I consistently followed up.  Her version of help would be to go clean my room, helping herself to my jewelry and makeup along the way, until she forgot why she was even in my room to begin with.

Having her help is hard and takes a lot of work on my part.  Sometimes, she is the most helpful when she is quietly watching a movie or reading a book.

I know none of that sounds like victory.  A 12 year old girl that is not a lot of help to her family?!  It sounds like someone (me) really dropped that child training ball, sounds like no one cared enough to teach her things, or cared enough to be consistent with her.  None of that is true by the way, but I do know how it sounds, and have felt the judgement and disappointment of others who have not walked in my Asics GT 2160's.

But, when you stop and get to know us and her, and you know where she has been and where we have been, you can recognize the victory.  The victory starts with her being here, a very much loved part of our family.  The victory is that she can read now. The victory is that she is learning to ask for help and trusts that she can and will get it. The victory is that she is safe and can sleep at night.  The victory is that she can turn on the TV, the light switch, and the faucet and there will be electricity and water.  The victory is that she now will do what she is told more often than she doesn't. The victory is that she has found that truthfulness is better than the lie.

As God allows time, maturity, and hard work continue, I know that my child will find more victories, she will continue to make progress and grow into a young woman of grace.  I may not be the one who teaches her how to menu plan, julienne, mend a garment, to be proactive when it concerns helping around the house,or maybe I will,  but hopefully, with God's grace, I will teach her what she needs to know in order to be taught those things.

When it Rains You Need to Alternate Tylenol and Motrin...

Normally, inspiration for blog posts hit during the most inopportune times.  Like when I am sailing down the interstate at 75 miles an hour with 4 kids in the backseat or when I am in the shower or in the middle of the night when I wake up to pee (You don't?!).  It comes as an entire post, a sentence fragment, or just an idea.  Luckily for you, but not for me, I happen to be up at 1 AM, with a laptop handy, so you get to see how my mind works in the middle of the night - and frankly, so do I, since I forget what I thought of most of the time.  I remain convinced, however, that if I could just retain my thoughts long enough to actually put them on paper or computer screem, that I may prove to be secretly brilliant.

Last week, I had our 1 year old Labrador neutered.  He took it pretty dang hard.  The first night he whined and cried and carried on until I was forced out of my bed to hunt down the doggie downers.  I resisted taking one and instead, put it in a piece of cheese and tricked poor Brown Dog into thinking I was *that nice* to give him a yummy 3 AM snack.  After the big fake out, I commanded him to go to bed, and threw yet another piece of cheese (this one was not laced) into the kennel, and shut the door on his sad, confused self.  Then I went back to bed where I slept for another 3 glorious hours.  The best thing about having him neutered was the response from my six year old son after I explained to him about "what happened" to Brown Dog.  He looked at me, kinda greenish, and said, "I think I am going to throw up." Oh and my 7 year old daughter has been telling everyone that comes in the house to "be gentle with Brown Dog, he got noodled." HAHA!  Ok, so that was two things.  If you haven't, you really should "noodle" your dog or cat, the kids are hysterical.

Shortly after that, my 6 year old son had caps put on a couple of his teeth.  My dh enjoyed telling half the church population that, "Brown dog got snipped and my kid got capped." Nice, I know.  I love him anyway.
Then, a couple days later, my 7 year old had to see her pediatrician.  She was complaining about neck pain.  Somehow or another, we left with an appointment to see an ENT, which resulted in her being scheduled for a tonsilectomy and an adenoidectomy.  While waiting for that day to arrive, my 3 year old got a cough a high fever.  One trip to the doctor later left us with a child diagnosed with a respitory infection.  That night, as I was kissing and hugging all my babies before bedtime, I noticed, my son's face was swollen on one side and his lips were lopsided.  That required a trip to the dentist first thing the next morning.  One of the teeth that were capped were infected and now we have and antibiotic and a root canal scheduled for him next week.

My husband decided that maybe we should have tithed off that income tax return and charged it to our credit card. I find that hysterical at 1 AM in the morning. HAHA!

Onward forward to the day of my daughter's surgery.  She did good. She is in a lot of pain but otherwise doing well.  My son now has a migraine and my baby woke me up at 1 AM crying. Her ear hurts. Boo. I know what that means, her respitory infection has turned into an ear infection.

It seems when it rains, sometimes it pours, and it is hard to see the blessings in life.  I want to go bang my head on a wall, repeatedly, until this is all a fuzzy memory.  But, instead, I am also remembering how hard it was a year ago to find anyone to care for my girls when my son was sick. This time around, a bunch of new friends later, I had no less than 3 offers of childcare, and someone even brought us dinner tonight.  I did not have to worry about what I was going to do with kids or what I was going to do for dinner and that was a huge blessing indeed! 

The "Good Enough" Homeschool Mom

"Let all things be done decently and in order." I Corinthians 14:40

I must have read a zillion articles about putting away your "inner perfectionist". One of Fly Lady's main ideas is to let go of perfectionism and we see posts all the time about making sure that we don't to be everything to all people. But what of those who don't suffer from this "inner perfectionist"? What if we struggle with the opposite? What if, *ducking now*, what we actually struggle with is quite the opposite? What if we struggle with "inner that's good enough"? Or as some may call it, laziness?

I am pointing the finger at myself. When I see posts about slowing down, about letting the house be good enough, or about not stressing when things aren't perfect, I snicker. Sometimes I am even guilty of poking a bit of good natured fun at anyone who would spend all day scrubbing floors or the mom that never lets her child go outside without fixed hair. That just isn't me. And that is ok! What is not ok, is for those of us not blessed (or cursed) with this inner perfectionist, to let our homes become places of chaos which often leads to a feeling of self-pity as we "fail" to measure up. Here are a few tips from this "good enough" homeschooling mom:

1. Have a basic plan of attack. It doesn't have to be super detailed. In fact that will probably be another "failure" to your name as some of us are just not built for detailed plans! I have reviewed just about every type of schedule and the one that works best for me is the very basic one. I write down each room and I put how long I want to work in those rooms. Most of the time it is 15 minutes. On some days its 30 if I need to mop or do any other deep cleaning. Be sure to meal plan as part of your plan of attack! I also suggest at least one time a week cooking a double meal and freezing the second one. This will give you some easy on days where things don't go quite to plan.

2. Don't be an overachiever. I want my house to look great when my husband comes home, but if I try to be an overachieving house wife I usually end up either ignoring my children while I clean or running around doing bits and pieces without actually accomplishing anything! I went through a stage during our transition to real food where I wanted all of our snacks to be fresh, from scratch, homemade by me. That worked once. Find places where you can bend and then BEND. I don't make my own fruit leather. I buy it from Amazon and I feel no guilt about doing so. That goes for most of our other snacks as well!

3. Prioritize. Ask your husband what areas he finds most important. If it is the bathrooms, then put that at the top and bottom of your list (so that most of the work is done in the morning and you can touch it up in the evening before he gets home). After your husband's priorities, write yours. I like to do the top 3 for each person. If nothing else gets done, try to do the top 3. This goes for schooling the kids too. Do your kids do better in the morning or in the afternoon? Do you start strong and then fizzle? Write down your school priorities and work from the top down.

4. Purge. The less stuff that is shoved into a house the easier it is to clean. It's just a simple fact. This also goes for activities. If you have co-op on Monday, dance on Tuesday, baseball on Wednesday, a play date on Thursday, and you volunteer on Friday's it is no wonder you can't get anything done! Purge activities as well as possessions.

5. It's ok to have "off" days. There will be days when the kids are sick, when errands have to be run or when the day just doesn't work with you. That is ok! When you have a plan on your "normal" days things on bad days won't be nearly as stressful. This is the day to pull out one of those freezer meals we talked about!

6. Sometimes it is ok for things to be good enough but don't give into idleness. Sometimes things just can't get done, but be sure that you are prayerfully considering the order of your day. We do not (and cannot) be perfect, but we are not to be idle or lazy either. Be sure that whatever your hands and your heart are doing, that they are glorifying God.

Spring and Easter Activities

Time to get busy on some Spring activities like the recycled flowerpots pictured above! Here is a list of fun unit studies and art projects great for all ages!



Here is a neat craft and science project all in one! Dye carnations by putting cut flowers into colored water for a fun spring bouquet!



Remember how fun it was to blow the middle out of an egg? Well here is a neat way to use up those egg shells by making a bird you can hang and let "fly"!

Got younger ones? How about reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and then making this paper inch worm!

What's one of the best things about spring returning? The birds are returning too! This easy bird feeder is great for kids of all ages and can also double as science!



Toysmith Solar Print Kit #4062 is another great way to incorporate science and fun! Use peices of nature and the power of the sun to create works of art!


This popcorn tree is the perfect pre-school project and is yummy too!



Suncatchers are always a hit in our house. Just use some tissue paper and contact paper to make a beautiful suncatcher!



My older kids at co-op love doing origami. Here is an origami basket.



Th fun project for teens, artistic inchies, can be displayed on the wall.

Currclick.com offers a number of easter notebooks and lapbooking kits.




If you have any fun craft ideas for the spring please feel free to post!

Homemade Laundry Detergent - An Honest Review

Laundry soap is expensive but oh so necessary.  When I heard about homemade soap, I was my usual skeptical self.  I mean, really, I have 4 kids whose favorite thing is getting as dirty as humanly possible!  It is a wonder they come clean with store bought detergent!  With my doubt in mind, I decided to give it a go.  I followed the instructions pretty closely.  Here is the recipe:
Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap
4  Cups - hot tap water
1  Bar of Fels-Naptha
1 Cup Washing Soda
½ Cup Borax
Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. Put melted soap mixture, washing soda, and borax into a 10 gallon bucket.  Add hot tap water to fill bucket.  Stir until dissolved. Let sit overnight. The mixture will turn into this clumpy gel looking stuff.  
Use 1/2 cup for top load machines and 1/4 cup for front loaders.
Now for the review:
It was a pain in the behind to grate the soap.  I did not want to spend the money on the Fels Naptha, and my baby is allergic to Ivory (another substitution), so I used a couple of bars of Johnson’s Buddies LOL.   When I was melting the soap, it tried to stick to the pot I was using.  That kinda shocked me a bit. Who knew that soap sticks!  That weirded me out to a whole new level of weird. You use soap to clean stuck on stuff.

Anyway, the ingredients were very inexpensive, less than 10 bucks for everything. I have a LOT of wasing soda and borax left over.  I did not have two 5 gallon buckets so I just made one and figured I would use half the amount in the wash.  To get the clothes clean enough for me, I ended up using 1/2 cup in my front loader.  You do need to pretreat things like ketchup, chocolate, coffee, and heavily soiled places (This means some items pretty much needed to be completely dipped in a vat of Shout).  Other than that, it works well!  The clothes smell clean.  I have a bedwetter in my house and those sheets came out smelling fresh and clean, I did use a dryer sheet as well.  Overall, even when I think about the cost of using a stain spray and doubling the recommended amount of detergent, it is still FAR less than other detergents.  I am going to play with this a bit.  I think I am going to use a bit more washing soda in the next batch.  I am also going to use my food processor to grate the soap and will probably NOT use Johnson's Buddies.
So I give it 5 stars for the savings, 3 stars for “on its own” cleaning, and 4 stars for cleaning when combined with a stain remover spray.
Do you use homemade laundry detergent? If so, what recipe?