I Fail...God Never Fails

"We are a word-formed people. Our children are word-formed people. We as mothers must be very careful what we speak into our children. They will become what we speak into their lives. Our words will determine the course of their destiny - for greatness or for destruction. Children will shrivel up with negative words or they will thrive on our encouragement. As they grow, we will reap the reward of the words we have continually spoken into them".

These wonderful words, penned by Nancy Campbell in her excellent book "The Power of Motherhood" I read recently one morning before everyone else was awake. I intended to let the words sink in and to take heed...but...

Here's what I did just a short while later - I snapped - at bad behavior consisting of non- immediate obedience and proceeded to pour out a vile tirade on all of my precious treasures. Quite a tongue-lashing, blame session it was, resulting in tears and confusion and one little boy simply unable to think at all. If you can't imagine how mean I can be- ask my family. They, being full of God's love and quite resilient have forgiven me and probably wouldn't want to disclose my sin, but would at least agree that I can be quite mean.

I had to abandon the school table, go away and cry and seek God...again. Naturally He brought back what He had given me already that morning. So it was that I needed to and did apologize to my family.

What I really want to teach them is Jesus; to be like Him, love like Him and walk like Him. But sometimes, admittedly far too often, I get a full head of steam concerning all that must be done and how I intend to do it and full of my own thoughts- "There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are ways of death" Proverbs 14:12. My gracious God, because I am leaning on my own strength rather than His arms, does the loving thing and lets me fall. It from this position that I can look up. And so I do and always He forgives, strengthens, binds up and renews.

It is not the fault of my children that they do not respond obediently to me. That is my fault and a result of me not responding promptly to my Father, God. All of the times that I have: ignored their disobedience, felt too busy or too lazy to address their behavior, looked the other way because discipling children is never "fun" ...I was not obeying the one to whom I am responsible. I'm the one who deserved the raging tirade, not them.

Thanks be to God, whose mercies are always new, I was able to go back, apologize and let Him redeem the time that day.

Money Making Minestrone!

Today Grace made five gallons of what we call Minestrone Soup. We didn't use a recipe but here's how we made it:

• In huge soup pot brown Italian sausage links (about 6 or 8) then remove and cut into little pieces.
• Then in the same pot saute' onions (2), celery( 1 bunch), carrots(8), cabbage(1), zucchini(5) and peppers(1) until soft.
• Now add one large can of tomato juice and some canned beans. (2- 16 oz cans your choice). We also threw in about 3 cups of frozen green beans. If I had had any spinach that would have gone in too.
• Fill the rest of the way with water. Add beef gelatin and spices like garlic, oregano, parsley, bay leaves, thyme, salt and pepper.
• Bring this to a boil and then simmer until done.
• About 5 to 10 minutes before lunch we added Orzo pasta (about 2 cups) which cooks up really fast.

We all love this soup! It is really good with freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top.

Today we had it with Cornmeal Scones, that Sarah made, and honey-butter but, it's good with any other bread or crackers too.

Cornmeal Scones:

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup cornmeal

2 1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

3 T. sugar

2 1/2 t. salt

3 1/2 T cold butter cut into small pieces

1/2 cup of milk

1 large egg

Heat oven to 375.

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until like coarse meal. Add milk and egg and stir slightly just until moist. Knead on lightly floured board 4 times. Cover a baking sheet with buttered parchment and pat dough into 7 inch circle on sheet. Cut into 8 wedges, cutting into bu not through dough.

Bake at 375 for 22 minutes or until golden brown. Yummy!

Now 5 gallons of soup is alot...even for my family. But, I love having soup ready to heat and serve especially during busy home school days. We may take a gallon to a neighbor who recently lost his wife. And it freezes well.

Have you seen the "home-made" soup for sale at Costco? Looks to be about half gallon for about 10 dollars! So, I always feel like we've something that's really worth alot when I think of that. We guest-imated the cost of our "Minestrone" at around 20 dollars for 5 gallons. Most of our ingredients were organic, by the way. That beats Costco's "home-made" (which I have never tried). And it for sure beats good canned soup which runs around $2.90 for a 12 oz can (which I have tried and it doesn't even come close)! So for $20 we made what could have cost 116 dollars!! Add to that the blessing of the wonderful aroma of soup simmering, the bread baking, making together at home and it's worth even more!

"Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred." Prov. 15:17

Homemaker at Heart!

There's something strangely delightful about "getting" to do housework...now that my girls have taken over most of it! Days like today when Grace and Mary are visiting Grandparents and Hannah and Sarah are away cleaning someone else's home... and poor Ruthie is recovering from the flu....I "get" to do everything! And I get to do things MY way. It makes me feel young again. I love the challenge of multitasking: get the washer running, and THEN sort the laundry, fill the dishwasher and get that going, put some meat and onions on to simmer for stew (or whatever) later, soak rice to cook for lunch and sweep up; leaving a nice pile of dirt mixed with blocks, legos, lincoln logs, and other miscellaneous treasures which Peter will have to deal with later. And even steal a few minutes to blog:)

This is not the way it is when everyone is home and up and running! Then I must direct, correct, inspect and so on. With so many to teach and train it's hard to break away and actually DO a job myself. (Not so much the more grown up they are of course). I don't think it's really fair to keep doing a task that I know how to do well when it is a skill that one of the children needs to have. Often, when I ask someone to do something they reply "I don't know how" and I say "Oh good, your just the right person for the job then". (So that excuse never works around here)

This morning I was reading in Isaiah: "Here a little, there a little, precept upon precept, line upon line etc..." At this point in my life I am still in the throws of living out this concept but also have proof that it works! My older girls are great homemakers! In fact they surpass my abilities in many areas and have actually taken over some areas of the work.

Take the laundry for instance. We have two laundry rooms each equipped with a washer and a dryer; one upstairs and one down. Accordingly, the upstairs laundry is to be done upstairs and the downstairs; downstairs. We have one person in charge of each level. In order to keep the utilities down we try to never use the dryer. I have never tallied the loads we do per week but you can imagine with eleven people living here...it's alot. Now if it's up to me I'll tend to "splurge" and throw things in the dryer to save time and labor. But the girls have fits and scold ME (especially one of them) if I do. So they have devised all sorts of indoor clothes drying methods and use them faithfully. Here's what our house looks like almost all winter unless we know we're getting company:)

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might" Eccl 9:10a