Cooking Tuesday - grilling potatoes

This past week we had an impromptu gathering of friends from Texas.  It was so fun to get together with them, as our hearts are similar.

Carpenter loves it when I get potatoes to put on the grill and it's pretty simple. 

We usually leave the skin on but this time I peeled the potatoes first. 

There are a lot of options for this type of side for your meat.

One of the most important things though is that you need HEAVY DUTY tin foil.  I always use Reynolds. 

Tear off a square piece approximately

Then cut up potatoes in bite-sized chunks.

Add a slice of butter, garlic powder, onion powder and salt and pepper.  (I didn't put enough salt on this last time, but you can add it afterward as well.)

Optional additions are endless, but some would include cheese, bacon bits and other toppings you like on potatoes.  Probably wouldn't want to use sour cream till after it's cooked though.  Just saying.  :)

I usually pull up the opposite sides in the middle and then fold it over about 1/2 inch twice.  Then fold the ends in carefully.

Throw it on the grill, probably before your meat, by about 15 minutes, depending on how thick your meat is.

Yum, some of the edges may get burned so watch it carefully, but the middle will be amazing.

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Project Monday - Outside jobs are getting done!

 My guy decided to move the chicken coop.  It was a busy day, but he grabbed his little tractor and moved the coop to the back of the house and garage where the other chicken coop is.  Obviously Waterman is helping, and that's because chickens are his job around here.

Now to clean up around the old chicken house are a bit more and then we can finish up working on the fence.  Yay!!!!

Keep pressing on,
Steph

Titus 2 Tea - Chore lists

So I mentioned that I've started lists for the kids.  I didn't do one yesterday for the fourth, we just all worked together.

But I look at this list to see what jobs need to be covered.  If they have animals that are their job, then that must be cared for almost first thing, just after Bible reading.  Order is not important  finishing it all is the thing.

Sometimes they have just two jobs for a room, sometimes it's three or even four.  But we usually are done with all our jobs just after lunch.

What's on your list?  And I'm constantly adding things to the lists because I forgot something.

Daily Jobs

Animals

Music

Bible Reading

Exercise

History Reading

Bedroom

Mainlevel Room

Basement Room

Outbuildings

Weeding

Watering

 

Harvesting

Yard

Thursday's Thoughts - Wise man and foolish man

24  "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

25  "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

26  "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

27  "The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall."

As I was typing these verses for my memory work, I started thinking about something that I am working on in my life.  Consistency and follow-through.  I don't do well with this.

But as I was typing about the foolish man, I realized that while I know consistency and follow-through are important as a parent, I don't do it.  That is somewhat like the foolish man.   I'm building a foundation that will wash out when the storms blow. 

Obviously this analogy is meant for other things, someone who is disobedient to Christ.  But am I being obedient? "To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."  James says.

So I am choosing to apply this passage to my need for being consistent.  Right now, I am mostly talking about following through with the lists.  I'd rather check it off their list, if I saw them doing their chore, rather than going to see if they did a decent job on their chore.  If I continue to just take their word for it, they will get used to less than their best. 

I'm so thankful for God's Word and that is living - old verses well-memorized can still pack a punch if necessary.

Keep pressing on and Happy Fourth of July everyone!!!!!

Steph

Wednesday's Household - Consistency

You all have heard me say, "I'm good at making a plan but it's in the maintenance of it that I fail."  That's me.  Definitely. 

And it was never more real than last week when my husband had a talk with me.   I love being a one-man show (or one-woman show, I guess).  I don't want to worry about anyone else or try to make sure that my mini-trainees are keeping up with what they are supposed to do.  And so again, I say:

Daily, hourly, or minute-by-minute even, I must offer up on the altar the sacrifice of my own desires.

Not that I'll never get to do what I want, but my husband has always been right...if I make sure I keep my own area (the house and the kids) in order, then I will be happier.  I definitely am.  And when things start spiraling out of control, I get more and more discouraged.

Yes, it takes more work now.  I'm still training them.  Hey, I'm still training myself.  I have to teach myself to go and follow behind and check their work and make them re-do.  It will not benefit them at all if I finish it up for them.  (Though there may be days of grace where it's outside the norm and I go and finish up for them.)  But they need the consistency of knowing that I will check their work and I will make them re-do it.

Last week, I was talking with a dear friend and relaying the struggle of the week.  She shared with me what her mom did during the summer with her 10 children.  She would get up early and make 10 long lists  (one for each child) and then each child would work on his list.  They would get an hour off for lunch and then did not have free time until their list was finished. 

Great idea!  No Wii or reading books or Kindle, until you are done with your list.    Also each list is made for the individual.  Each person does not have the same amount of work.  My five-year old does not have to do the same number of things or the same kinds of things that my fifteen year-old does.

This is my five-year old's list today:

• Face and teeth,
• Make bed
• Clean closet floor
• Wash walls in your room
• Clean up the toys in the guest room
• Clean off the top of the sewing machine table
• Help Stephen in the freezer room
• Weed, water and harvest from your plot (his little four-foot square garden)
• Fill a wheelbarrow with sticks (Mom will haul it away)
• Sit for 20 minutes  (this is because he had trouble sitting in church last Sunday)

My fifteen-year-old's list:

• Read 1 Corinthians 10:7-13 (in preparation for next Sunday.  Our pastor is going through 1Corinthians, and this will be the passage he'll be discussing on Sunday.)
• Ducks
• Face and Teeth
• Weights, Stretching, and Running
• Make bed
• All laundry downstairs
• Straighten dresser
• Straighten second shelf of the closet
• Guitar
• Vacuum guest room
• Fold the blankets and put in Mom's room
• Freezer room - wipe off white table and put it in the garage for our celebration tomorrow
• Weed, water and harvest from your plot
• Weed and water the strawberries
• Split wood for 1/2 hour
• Stack wood for 1/2 hour
• Till garden - one section
• Tear down duck fence (if it's not already done) and clean out the duck pond
• Collect eggs

I still have more work to do.  I would like to have the chores on a simple rotation - such as we all clean cobwebs down in our room and dust one day and the next we all do windows.  Certain of the above chores are weekly chores, some are daily and some are monthly.  But if I can make the making of the lists a simpler task for me that would be helpful to me.

The key part of this for me is to be consistent to get up and check each bed, each dresser.  Sometimes I like to wait for all the rooms to be done before I check them or all the gardening to be done before I go out there, but if someone thinks they are done with their list, I need to get on it and check it carefully.  This is my training, my discipline for myself.

I am so thankful to my friend for sharing with me what her mom did.  And my kids still love her dearly.  :)  The super great thing is that we told them what Mrs. Flaming's mom did, and we/I started implementing it on Monday, they had cheerful attitudes and didn't roll their eyes at me, just moved quickly to get their jobs done - sometimes too quickly.  And some like to lay on the couch in the morning or get sidetracked.  So today I laid down the fact that if you aren't where you are supposed to be and working on your tasks then you will be getting consequences. 

Also, my plan is not the only good one.  Any plan is better than none and if it works for you, use it.  The important thing is Be consistent!!!!!
Keep pressing on.

Cooking Tuesday - Pepperoni Cheese Bites

 There aren't a lot of ingredients in this recipe. Cheese, pepperoni and biscuits.
I thought that the biscuits I bought (which I don't normally buy) didn't work super good.  But later I made some of my own biscuit dough Biscuit recipe.  And I liked it better because my cheese didn't get all over the pan, though it was delicious.

Flatten a biscuit (maybe Grands would work better)

Stack on it pepperoni, cheese, pepperoni

 Wrap it up.  It seemed short on dough.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with garlic powder, and Italian seasoning.

This is how they looked coming out the first time.  When I used my own dough, I didn't have much cheese on the cookie sheet at all. 

But they were super good and rather easy. 

Keep pressing on
Steph

Project Monday - more on the garage

This weekend I tried adding yellow.  I've only done one coat and I'm not sure if I like it. After a second coat, I may like it better.

The shelf above will be blue, and the wall isn't painted yet, so stay tuned for more on this project.  I'm excited to get a bunch more done today.  Hopefully, by the 4th (when company is coming) it will have quite a bit more done.  But trust me it won't all be done.  This garage is huge.

One of the boys asked if I could outline some of the tools so they would know where they go.  While this is not where I would have put the tools, the nails were already in and stuck in pretty hard.  One side is just the outline of the level, and the saws, I painted in.  I had a hard time doing a outline.

What do you think, outline or painted?  

Keep pressing on,
Steph