Getting Ahead of the Game

"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

Each one should use whatever gift 
he has received to serve others,

faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."

I Peter 4: 9-10

     I always vow this will be the year I get ahead of the game—whatever that game might be. 
     I'm tired of procrastinating.  I'm tired of feeling the pressure of should-dos. I'm tired of being tired. So . . . my solution is to embrace the Boy Scout motto:  be prepared. Ahead of time. A little at a time.

     The first test occurs right away as I make preparations for some family visitors who are staying two nights. I need to be domestic and clean and cook.
     Unfortunately, none of these attributes are my attributes, unless I’m in the mood, and I’ve long realized those moods can easily leapfrog months. Or years. 
     But this year, with my new resolution in tow, I vow that I will get ahead of the game and get the entire thing under control. D-day (done-day) is five days away, when the guests will arrive.
     Day #1:  I psych myself up to do it right. 
     However, as the day wears on and I haven't actually done anything beyond thinking about doing something, I end up feeling very much like Scarlett O’Hara:  I’ll do it tomorrow.  After all, tomorrow is another day. 
     Day #2:  I look at my to-do list and divide the house into battle zones:  basement, main floor, top floor. When the kids were little, I used to draw squares in the carpet of  their bedrooms with a finger, telling them to “Clean up this square” in an attempt to make the chaos seem more manageable. This might have been a helpful memory until I acknowledge the first floor of my house is mostly wood.
      Instead I collect dirty dishes from all three floors and fill the dishwasher. 
     I forget to turn it on.

     Day #3:   Feeling guilty for yesterday, I make a menu and a grocery list.  I even recopy the list according to sections in the grocery store:  Produce, Dairy, and the Fat-Sugar-Chemical aisle.  Knowing this is above and beyond any “getting ahead of the game” scenario I ever aspired to, I feel smug and done for the day but . . . I refuse to give into the temptation and actually go to the grocery store and buy the things I need.
     It takes two carts.
     Back home, enticed by the food in the Fat-Sugar-Chemical aisle, I make lunch. And since that makes a mess, I dive in and cook the menu items that can be frozen until the weekend. Adrenalin kicks in. Four hours later I have made sweet & sour chicken, coffee cake, muffins, crumb cookies, and a monstrous mess. I wonder if Merry Maids has a 911 number . . .
     I clean up and collapse on the couch.  I fall asleep to "Law & Order" reruns.

     Day #4:  I remember the Proverbs 31 Woman (sigh) and try to take verse seventeen to heart:  "She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks."  We'll see about that.
     The basement beckons.  As I vacuum, I notice a path in the carpet the cats have made on their way to their Poo-Room. I decide to force them into a new path by pulling out a bar stool, relocating a potted plant, and moving a footstool in the direct line of their padding little feet. I wait for a cat to run the gauntlet. Pepper complies, and I feel momentarily victorious, until I realize a new path will be pressed into the carpet. 
     I also realize as I vacuum the stairway, that the felines are not the only guilty party. Looking down upon my work, I see my own footprints in the plush. Because there is no solution, and because my back hurts, I retire to the couch and watch "Law & Order" reruns.
     Day #5 -- D-Day:  I wallow in the fact the wood floor cannot leave track marks like the carpet, but grieve that it produces a community of dust bunnies. I do my best rounding them up before proceeding to the second floor where bathrooms and clean sheets beckon. I try to imitate a fabric softener commercial by making a sheet float through the air to fall neatly on the bed. I only succeed in getting it caught in the ceiling fan and knocking over a lamp. But I make my mother proud by making everything fresh and new—including hospital corners.
     It’s nearly time for them to arrive. I'm sweaty and want a nap. If I ignore the need for makeup, I could probably slip in ten minutes of rest. I close my eyes (to afternoon "Law & Order" reruns) and am nearly asleep when a kitty jumps up on my chest. From my position on the couch I notice the entry light has cobwebs. The cat jumps to safety as I take care of it. 
     And the windows need washing . . . Hopefully, no one will be tempted to look through them.

     And my roots need touching up . . . If I comb my hair just right or wear a hat . . .
     The doorbell rings. And so the weekend begins. The house is filled with family who bring their coats, suitcases, and oft-heard stories, which makes me realize no one is looking at the house anyway.  We are too busy talking and being.
     The fellowship is awesome, the food edible, and time flies. 
     As they leave I vow to add something to my “get ahead of the game” scenario:  don’t worry so much about anything because my family don’t care about kitty tracks, they accept whatever level of scrubbed tub I can manage, and they’d settle for McDonald’s if that’s what I chose to serve.  

     They love me and I love them, and our time together is what’s important.  "If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." (I John 4: 12)
     Knowing that is truly getting ahead of the game.

***

Want more inspirational humor? Check out 
Save Me, God! I Fell in the Carpool: Help, Hope, and Humor for Drowning Moms

Costume Jewelry Brooches as Ornaments

For years I've been collecting pretty pins/brooches, most from the 50's and 60's.  The trouble is, they are way too fancy for the clothing I wear every day. I just don't dress up very often.

My brooches spent some time in a glass-topped display coffee table, but I wanted to use them in a different way.  So this year I hung them on a Christmas tree. 


Add an ornament hook and you've got a gorgeous addition to your tree.  Put them near a tree light and you'll make the most use of their sparkle potential!



Often pins can be purchased at garage sales, on Ebay, Etsy, or borrowed from your grandma's jewelry box.  Some aren't expensive at all.  Mine are vintage, but you can buy them new and sparkly too.

So sparkle up and enjoy!  Merry Christmas!

 

Christmas Wreaths in 30 minutes

Have you seen the price of ready-made wreaths lately?  $100 and up!  Considering we have double doors and need to have double wreaths, I decided to make them myself.

And it wasn't hard.  I went to Hobby Lobby when they had 50% off their Christmas stuff and bought the materials which consisted of:

1.  a ready-made swag
2.  a roll of 6" mesh ribbon (30' long.  Plenty for more than two wreaths.)
3.  a roll of contrasting 21" mesh ribbon (30' long.  This is enough for two wreaths.)
4.  very thin, bendable wire

The swag I found  was naturally vertical, but I made autumn wreaths using horizontal swags, bending them into a straight line, and hanging them vertically. (see photo at bottom of blog.) So find a swag  you like and improvise.


The star of these wreaths is the wide mesh ribbon. It was also 50% off. 

To make the 21" wide ribbon into a huge bow, I folded it in on itself and sewed down the middle to hold it.  Do not use tape (as you see I did at the left, using masking tape to hold it) as taking the tape off will rip the ribbon!  And leaving the tape on there makes it too stiff to gather at the center of the bow.

Learn from my mistake and sew it by machine or even by hand, using a running stitch.








Gather up the bow at the middle and wrap thin wire around it, twisting the wire ends.  I LOVE this wire.  It's so easy to use.

Then make another smaller bow with the 6" mesh.  You don't need to sew this bow as being less wide, it's manageable as is. When it's created, wire it on top of the big bow.

To make the hangy-down parts of the bows, let the ribbon (which has been on rolls) do it's own thing!

Cut to the length you want and wire it to the center of the bows.  I just left it in one long length, folded in half at the top, but you can cut it into two if it works better for you.

Attach the ready-made swag into the of center of the bows with wire.  Voila!  These Christmas wreaths cost me about $40 each.  And they're huge.   The one for autumn was only $25.

So whether you need a wreath for spring, summer, fall, or the holidays, buy these four materials and in 30 minutes you're done!

Canning Cinnamon Pear Sauce



A family of pears:  Papa, Mama,
Teen, and Baby

One of the best gifts my parents ever gave me was a pressure cooker for canning.  Over the years I've canned applesauce, peaches, salsa, and pears. I'd like to try tomatoes...

A task for another day.

Today I'm dealing with pears. My sister has a pear tree in her yard and just gave me a huge box of them.  You can't refuse or ignore free fruit, so I decided to can them.

Here are my step by step instructions:







You will need:


1.  a pressure cooker canner.  Mine hold 7 quarts or pints.

2.  another big kettle to boil the fruit in.








3.  a strainer on a stand with a one-handled rolling pin










4.  Canning Mason jars with the metal rims (that you can use many times).  You can get pint jars or quart jars.  I like the wide-mouth jars the best.

5.  dome lids.  You use these once and discard. The jars you buy have them already, but you'll need more if you keep canning in the future!
6.  wide-mouth funnel that fits on top of jars
7.  Pears or apples
8.  red hot candies
9.  Vitamin C tablets (capsules also work, but tablets dissolve better.) 

Walmart has these supplies.  Or Amazon.

 

 

READY, SET, CAN!

 

1.  Wash the fruit and the glass jars.
2.  Put a big kettle of water on to boil
3.  Quarter the pears.  I cut off the stem, but you don't have to peel or seed them.
4.  Put them in the water and boil them until a sharp knife can cut them with no effort
 
 








5.  Pour them into a big colander to drain off the water.  They are nice and mushy now.

6.  Place your strainer over a bowl (mine is handily on a stand) and using a wooden one-handle rolling pin, strain the mushy pears into the bowl.  The seeds and skin stay behind, and the delicious pear sauce strains through. You'll have to do this many times, and will also have to repeatedly scrape out the inside of the strainer to get rid of the pear parts to discard.

7.  Stir in some red-hot candies and sugar.  Or not.  Make it to your taste.  I used about 1/4 c. candies for the bowl you see (that held enough sauce for 3+ pints), and 1/4 c. sugar.  But sometimes I've used no sugar at all.












8.  Using the wide-mouth funnel, fill the jar to 1/2" from top
9.  Add one Vitamin C tablet.  This prevents the fruit from changing color.  It's mostly for use if you want to can fruit slices in a sugar syrup (see directions at the end of the blog), but I always put it in the sauce jars too.  Habit.  And more vitamin C is a good thing!
10.  Wipe off the top of the jar rim with a towel (so it will seal well) and put a flat lid on it, then screw on the metal ring. 
11.  Place the jars in the pressure cooker in a circle, with one in the middle.  In my cooker I can get six around the sides and one in the middle. It's okay if they touch.  Read the directions for your pressure cooker, but mine says to add 2 quarts of water around the jars.
12.  Secure the pressure cooker lid and place the jiggle-pressure bauble (what IS the term for this?) at 5# pressure on top of the cooker.
13.  Turn the burner on high.  When the bauble starts bobbling (ha!) and continues to bobble about 4 times a minute, it means the air inside the cooker has been removed.  NOW start timing.  10 minutes. You can turn the heat down to Medium Hi, but you want the bauble to keep making noise at 4 bobbles /minute.  It can be more, but not less.
14.  When the ten minutes is up, turn off the heat and leave it alone!  This is very important for your safety.  I set the timer at 45 minutes and leave it alone for that amount of time.
15.  After 45 minutes, open the lid, but angle it toward the back because you will be releasing a lot of steam.  Carefully remove the jars to a towel on the counter.  You can use a fancy jar grabber tool, but I just use a towel.  The jars are very hot!
16.  Leave the jars alone to cool.  No breeze, just naturally. After 8 hours or so you can remove the metal screw-top lids.  The tops of the gold dome lid should be indented, meaning there is a good seal!  I like to write the date on the lid with a Sharpie.

Voila!  I made 7 pints of pear pieces and 13 pints of pear sauce!  It took 3 hours.

More directions:  To can pear pieces (you can see them behind the sauce above), I peeled and cored the pears, but did not boil them because they were ripe already.  I added a sugar water--sweet to your taste--to 1/2" from the top.  Add Vitamin C and repeat #10-16.

I know there are other methods, but this is the way my mom taught me, and I'm not going to argue with her (she's 93!)  Try canning.  It will make you feel so domestic and healthy!

Check out other food items I've pinned on Pinterest!

A Leaf in the Forest

"Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed,
and the ears of those who hear will listen."
Isaiah 32: 3

     If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
     We didn’t know where we were—but we weren’t lost.

     My husband and I love New England in the fall. We’re “leaf peepers” (that’s an actual term.) Our agenda? To have none. No schedule, no reservations, and no goal other than seeing what each day had in store.
     Our pattern is this: we get up early, eat breakfast, and head out on country roads, taking the odd turn here and there on a whim, depending on our trusty GPS to get us back to civilization. Our aim? To be surprised and discover a perfect vista of golds, rusts, and reds that makes us gasp in awe and delight. When we hit the season right, our “Oooh!” quotient runs high and the view around every bend seems to one-up the last. 
     The day of the incident (and I call it an “incident” merely to entice you to keep reading) we were driving in eastern New Hampshire and found a highway that bordered that state, just inside Maine (Highway 113 if you’re interested.) It was a narrow two-laner, with huge trees edging the road, nearly encroaching on it, and hanging overhead like a canopy. We drove through an amazing tunnel of leaves.
     There was no traffic. None. It was as if we were alone in the world.
     But we hadn’t seen anything yet.
     My husband kept saying, “I can’t believe this road! I can’t believe these trees. . .” Then suddenly, he put on the brakes, and did a three-point-turn-around, right there on the highway.
     “Where are you going?” I asked.
     “You’ll see.”

     He drove back a hundred feet and pulled onto a narrow shoulder. He turned off the car. “Come on.”
     He led me to a small sign at the side of the road that marked a hiking trail. Small sign. Easily missed.
     But he hadn’t missed it.
     Thank God.
     We walked single file into the woods, the path more like a deer trail than one meant for humans. The trail was thickly carpeted with leaves and it was evident no one had passed this way for ages. Perhaps ever.
     As I picked up a red leaf as big as my hand, and then an orange one, then a bigger yellow one, I was like a kid in a candy store. “Look at this one!” Soon I had a leaf bouquet, their colors as vivid as if I’d dipped them in vats of paint.
     It didn’t take long for us to be deep enough into the woods to lose track of the road, to be fully encased in this netherland beyond our own.
     When I allowed my gaze to move from the floor of the forest upward, I saw that we were experiencing showers—not of rain but of leaves. For all around us leaves fell from the trees, dancing their way from branch to ground, landing on our heads and letting us catch them with the simple effort of an outstretched hand.
     Without agreeing to it, both of us stopped walking and stood perfectly still, a dozen feet between us. We faced each other, our heads shaking back and forth in utter incredulity.
     "Listen,” I whispered.
     I heard Mark take a breath and hold it. I did the same. 

     And then it happened.
     My eyes caught sight of one specific leaf. I watched as it let go of its branch and sashayed to the ground, turning, bowing, floating . . .
     And then I saw it touch the ground between us.
     I heard it touch the ground. 
     I heard it.
     I looked at Mark. The awe in his face revealed that he had seen it too; heard it land.

     All logic said it was impossible to hear the moment when a floating leaf meets the ground. The sound is too infinitesimal, the decibel-level un-measurable to the human ear. 
     And yet . . . we’d both heard it on a trail never-traveled, off a solitary road in Maine.
     We were reluctant to leave that place, and when we got in the car and turned on the engine, the sound seemed a sacrilege. Yet as the road led us to a town, and people, and the world and its worries, we looked upon all of that busyness with new eyes that understood what really mattered. Neither of us has ever forgotten what happened in the woods.  It was the highlight of the entire trip, a moment when God led us to a special place to show us something.
     Just for us.
     Just because.
     If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
     Oh yes. 
     Listen.

***

Want more inspirational humor? Check out 
Save Me, God! I Fell in the Carpool: Help, Hope, and Humor for Drowning Moms

Wearing Underwear and Other School Necessities

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1: 9

 "School days, school days, dear old broken rule days."

Three months ago our kids sprang into summer. Hurdled—dragging us with them. But now that school is back, it's like trying to stuff a puffy pillow into a pillow case.  I want to hold them by their waistbands and shake vigorously.  You vill fit into this.

We’ve all had our fun—or whatever that was—and normal beacons.  Unfortunately, our kids will not go down without a fight.  To help them surrender their summer freedom without calling out the National Guard, take note of these valuable back-to-school rules:

1.  Thou shalt get up on time. During summer, my kids got up when they woke up, so a week before school starts, I play my oldie-goldie favorites.  Full blast.  At 7 a.m.   The effects of "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shout" on a child's sleepy mind makes the intrusion of an alarm clock seem mellow once school actually begins.

2.  Thou shalt wear shoes.  Shoes are for civilized people— not my kids.  Unfortunately, schools have the rule, "No shirt, no shoes, no service" (do flip-flops count?) Therefore, I take advantage of the shoe company's ad campaigns and point out how fast they'll be able to run, jump, and play with rubber cushioning their little piggies. Gullibility can be a gift.

3. Thou shalt wear underwear.  During the summer, my kids live in their swimsuits (it does save on laundry). But since school officials frown at the smell of chlorine and too much skin, I  relegate the faded suits to the nearest toxic waste site. Then I buy my girls some of those Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday underwear to remind them that the days of the week have names. For our son?  A package of spanking new whitie-tighties.  What can I say?  They’re a classic.

4.  Thou shalt eat at a table.  With chairs.  And napkins.  And even a fork.  After spending the summer eating between ball games, water fights, and Barbie marathons, I set the table and make them sit down and eat.  If they say please and thank you, I toss them a cookie.  Good dog.

5.  Thou shalt stop growing.  The age-old goal is to get last month’s Visa bill paid before they outgrow their new clothes.  That hasn't changed, but styles have. Remember the thrill of wearing a special first day of school dress or shirt?  And new school shoes?  Crisp. Neat.  It's hard for a tee-shirt—new or not—to be crisp.  And a pair of baggy shorts and untied sneakers are eons away from neat (and that's my daughters’ attire.)  As for the extra inches they keep adding to their physiques, try the old book-on-the-head trick.  It's a good way for them to get in touch with the dictionary.

6.  Thou shalt read.  The end of summer signals the downloading of muscles and the uploading of the brain. A week before school starts, I make them read quietly for an hour a day.  When they ask what they did to deserve such punishment, I tell them this is the way it was done in olden times.  At this point, if they reference my age, they have to read for two hours.  Want to try for three?

7. Thou shalt remember 1 + 1 = 2. If you've been good parents (exceptional, extraordinary parents) you've made your child read, practice their clarinet, and add random numbers throughout the summer to prevent brain mush.  However, if you've been busy figuring out how to keep them safely occupied while you’re at work, or what to make for lunch for three months, you may have accepted brain mush as a viable summer alternative.  If so, you need to reintroduce the concept of math. Take the kids shopping and ask them to figure out how much their jeans cost at 40% off.  Or how about:  If Mom and a carload of kids leave the house at 2 o’clock to go on errands, traveling at 45 mph until the kids spill their drinks in the car after five minutes, how many minutes—and miles—will it take for said mother to decide to go home and shop online?  After taxing their brains in such a manner they'll be eager to get back to school.

8.  Thou shalt listen.  No, not to their computer, I-pod, Game-boy, cell-phone, or TV.  And not even to you.  For during the craziness of summer haven’t even you sometimes forgotten to linger in the silence, to hear your own breath go in and out, to savor now.   For how can we hear what God has to tell us if we constantly have noise inundating our lives?   He listens to us.  Isn’t it time we return the favor?  “But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him." (Habakkuk 2: 20)  So shush yourselves. Turn everything off.  And listen to the Teacher of the universe.

9. Thou shalt breathe a sigh of relief.  This advice isn’t just for us parents.  Even kids get tired of summer and long for—

Never mind.  Number nine is just for parents, because after enduring the question "But Mom, what can we do now?" 275 times (and coming up with 270 good answers and 5 questionable suggestions) we need to rejoice in the fact that our child's pain is our gain, and wallow in the upcoming nine months of school. 

Until next summer—when we’ll forget everything we learned and make the same mistakes.  Don’t fret it.  That’s just the way it is—and has been since time began.  “Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.”  (Ecclesiastes 1: 17) 

Wisdom, madness, folly . . . that’s summer.  Enjoy it.  Every chaotic minute.  For this too shall pass. 

Too quickly.

Want more inspirational humor? Check out 

Save Me, God! I Fell in the Carpool: Help, Hope, and Humor for Drowning Moms

Treasure Hunts

"For where your treasure is, 
there your heart will be also."

Luke 12: 34

     

     Some things you never outgrow.

     Like treasure hunts. When I was growing up we had an Easter treasure hunt.  My mom made clues that would take us to the next clue and the next, until at the end we'd find our Easter basket full of goodies.

     I passed the tradition down to my kids. It was not an easy task. Three kids meant three different treasure hunts, each tailor-made to their respective ages. Before they could read I would draw the clues, making a picture of the TV or the fireplace or Dad's shoes. When they were older, I wrote out the clues, but still kept them simple: "Where Mom makes the coffee" or "Where the cat sleeps."  
     But as they got older, they were subject to the full extent of my imagination. Suddenly, "Where the keys are" didn't mean where we put our car keys, it meant the piano, and "Vivian Leigh" would mean they should look for the next clue to be taped to the video of "Gone with the Wind." I liked the fact they had to use their noggins. They hated it.

     When the kids were in their teens I tried stopping the tradition but they rebelled and insisted. As I racked my brain for original clues that would truly test their mental abilities, I had a prophetic glimpse into the future and saw myself making treasure hunts when my kids were in their forties. 
     That future is now. Now I make treasure hunts for four grandkids! Hopefully with many more in the future.
     But enough complaining. The fact my children like the traditions of our family and look forward to them is a comfort. It's also human nature. People seek out what they know, what they can depend on. Whether it be treasure hunts at Easter, back to school shopping with lunch at the food court, or making s'mores in the fireplace on vacation.  All these traditions reinforce the fact we are a family. We are in this together and some things can be counted on no matter what.

     Like Jesus. During this Easter season it's comforting to relive the passion of his death and resurrection. We seek it out. We depend on it. Christ's awesome expression of love reinforces the fact we are a family. We are in this together and some things can be counted on no matter what. He is the true treasure we search for at Easter.

     Blessedly, some things you never outgrow.

***

Want more inspirational humor? Check out 
Save Me, God! I Fell in the Carpool: Help, Hope, and Humor for Drowning Moms