What's UP?

So on August 15th, I finished the 30 for 30 clothing challenge. I admit I was sick of the 30 items I had chosen to wear for 30 days- but it wasn't really that hard of a challenge. My husband told me that I should always be on a clothing challenge... that was after I emptied my entire closet onto the floor of my bedroom to see everything I had put in storage for the past few months. It's like seeing long lost friends, and getting all kinds of new cloths at the same time :)  I will probably do something similar this fall once I get myself more organized. The challenge freeing and fun at the same time.

I do have a confession to make about the no-spending challenge. We were doing family picture recently, and my older son (almost 6) had to wear his little brother's jeans because he had none that were suitable. And my baby (age 2.5) has been barefoot most of the summer because of a shoe issue. SO- my hubby basically forced me to go shopping for shoes for the younger two and jeans for the oldest. I did go to my thrift and consignment stores first but had no luck. Thankfully I found what I wanted on extreme sales, and we are all very happy. But I broke my challenge, and I feel bad about that. Oh and I bought the boys suspenders, and a clip on tie (super cute and they wanted them sooooo bad) at the thrift store while we were on a holiday in Canmore. Phewf... confession over.

I am not sure what my conclusion for the no-spending challenge is. I feel like I am just itching to go out and spend money now. So is it really better to withhold for a while if you end up going out and spending lots? I will probably be satisfied with hitting up a few good sales and garage saleing before the season is over... but I could go really crazy if I wanted to, feeling justified because I haven't spent in so long.

A couple things I have gained from this experience is to really evaluate what I am spening money on, and to use coupons more. I have started teaching the boys some criteria for spending- do we need it? is it a good price? do we already have something like it? do we have a coupon?

What else have I been up to, you may be thinking...

Well, I made DILLED (pickled) SNAP PEAS!! I know, when I first spotted these at a farmers market in BC I thought it sounded weird. But I had to try it. AND WOW... they are amazing!

I've made raspberry jam, though it ended up too runny this year- but it tastes amazing mixed into some homemade yogurt!  I canned peaches. We have been freezing everything we can get our hands on... strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and raspberries. Yum.

I made a couple jars of dilled carrots, and my first attempt at dilled pickles too!  I grew my own cucumbers in order to do this, so I am quite pleased with myself really. I have no idea if they'll be any good, and I only was able to make 3 jars (though I may have enough cucumbers in the next few days to make more). I made borscht like crazy the other day with my beets- my first beet crop ever. I tell ya, I will grow beets again. I love the versatility of that vegetable! I also made some beet leaf roll ups  which were time consuming but taste amazing. The last 24 hours was applesauce. I made close to 30 - 1L jars of apple sauce. I am tired, but it was so worth it! I hope to score more apples to make some apple pie filling later. I am in awe of my tomatoes that are growing and can't wait to make tomato sauce and salsa in a couple weeks. Oh I love this season!!!

I am enjoying trying new things, experimenting with new recipes and putting away food for the winter! I need to pace myself though. For my sake, and the children's.

my first attempt at pillowcase dresses... made from my husband's college pillows. Navy and yellow, summery and sweet

Because my kids have been crazy the last while due to no routines, late nights, lots of company etc, I decided to start homeschooling at a really slow pace this week. We are getting the morning routines established, and then are spending about half an hour doing real school. I'm experimenting teaching my gr.1 student and my preschool boy (4.5) language arts at the same time. It's amazing for me to see that they are nearly at the same level in reading but such a huge difference with written language. My middle boy started reading really young, and hasn't really progressed much, staying about the same as his brother. But my oldest son has always been more interested in writing, and does well at it. So teaching language arts to the two of them at the same time will require some creativity, and perhaps having the older teach the younger. My middle son gets so frustrated easily if he can not do something perfect, so learing to write his letters is going to be very painful for him and us. I am attempting to make it fun for him, and we will see how we do.

In looking ahead at the next weeks I see so much potential. This is my favorite time of year (I may have said that a few times already) and I look forward to celebrating birthdays, harvest, preserving more and having a few fun adventures with the boys. We are going to be learning together about 'creating color' (which is a gr.1 science unit!!), and the communities in our community that we are involved in. There certainly is lots to be thankful for and lots to anticipate:) We are blessed!



highest of highs, lowest of lows...

I love this time of year.

The bounty.


The fruit of my labour- really just a gift from above... I am so thankful that my garden gives me anything, because I don't deserve it.



This is not from my garden, but it sure looks nice doesn't it!



The hot days- and the thankfulness for them because I know they will be gone soon.


The anticipation of harvest to come. Anyday now things could be headed into full steam ahead mode.


The change upon us- school starting.


The leaves begining to turn.


The preserving and the cooking and the filling of the freezer.

Being industrious, working hard.


In our family we have 3 birthdays in August and September... so I love that too.






All of that remains the same.

 But I am plagued this year with this blah... this cloud hanging over my head... this constant frustration in my home. All my kids have the same attitude too. We are experiencing great moments together, paired with some of the most challenging arguments, disobedience, and attitudes that we have faced yet. I know that I have taught them many unhealthy behaviors, and so I feel guilty and responsible for much of this.


I am exhausted by them. At the end of the day I have nothing left. I am feeling the sentence side of parenthood more these days. My perspective is off... I am tired, frustrated and discouraged. I am trying to be consistant. I am trying to discipline. I am praying. I am trying to follow through with consequences. Yesterday I took away the priviledge of going fishing at a friends place. I had given them grace on one disobedience, and gave them a second chance because they reallllllly wanted to go fishing and I wanted them to get to go too. But they blew it big time. Classic grocery store line up craziness. They would not stop. They would not listen. They were crazy monkeys- jumping up and down in the cart. Grabbing food off the shelf and putting it in their mouths. Yelling, fighting, hitting. When we got to the car I told them they lost their opportunity to go fishing. My oldest son got it- he knew and he understood. He was very upset, but he grasped that it was their consequence. My middle son, did not. He yelled at me and was very angry AT ME for not letting them go fishing. My oldest son tried to explain what they did to end up in this situation... how they deserved to have this priviledge removed.... but middle son did not choose to listen to the reasoning and continued to be angry at me, rather than at himself. Sigh. This is what we've been dealing with these days.


This morning, I spent some focused time in prayer about it... about the one child inparticular, and of course within minutes of him awaking, we ended up having a blow up (him and I both) and I just felt like such a failure.

 I have been busy, making borscht, apple sauce, preserving garden bounty, cleaning, organizing, preparing for school and harvest. I suppose that could be a part of it. I love doing that stuff (well not cleaning and organizing) and it needs to be done. I am not sure what 'he' needs from me either. If I ask him to play something he'll say no. When we do school he ends up frustrated and mad at himself. When I ask him to play alone (he needs more time alone than the other two) he gets mad at me. When I ask him to help me, he will sometimes agree, other times be mad. The one consistant thing he will do with me is sit on the couch and read books. I suppose that is something to hang onto. I should make more time for that. I need to study him more.

So these days are some of my favorite all year, berry picking, apple picking, canning, playing in sprinklers, campfires and picnics!

The highest of highs, and the lowest of lows...

learning at the speed of life

Today, I realized one of the reasons I love home educating my child (ren).

The simplicity of it.

I know it can be complicated if I make it. But so much of what our children need to learn at this young age and stage, can be learned through life.


For example...

We have a garden(its so cool that it is at the 'producing stage!!!) and I was out with my almost 6 year old today. He learned so many things with me out there today, and in kitchen afterwards. We learned about potatoes, and worms, and peas, and why plants flower. We looked and saw which plants had too much water and which weren't getting enough sun. We saw where the deer were nibbling, we talked about the layout of the garden and needing better drainage. And then in the kitchen  when we were shelling peas - a whole ice cream pail of them... he created a game which included prediction and addition, and keeping track of the number of peas in each pod. And afterwards, he had to count his whole pile of "snaps" (that is what he calls the pods). Fabulous!!! So many things learned.


He has also learned from us the value of gathering produce when in season and preserving it for later. He knows where most of his food comes from and what eating healthy looks like. He knows that we don't always just by the peaches at the stand- because they may not be ripe enough, or too ripe, or too expensive.


In our house we can eat a meal completely produced by us--- how cool is that. The veggies from the garden, and the meat from my husband's hunting.


Lots of times, I doubt if I am teaching them things they really need to know, but when I look at these LIFE things that they are learning just by tagging along with us I realize they are just as important as any curriculum money could buy.

feels good to stretch my dollars

I think this is flowing out of my challenge... but I have become more and more concious of how I am spending my money. As a stay at home mom, I love to do what ever I can to make things easier around here- in a way to feel like I am helping provide for the family. I have always bought second hand or on sales, and last year I got into canning and freezing produce and fruit. This is very fullfilling to me. The other night I lay in bed, unable to sleep, with excitement over the coming season of bounty.

the garden is coming...

 Garden bounty, fruit in the stores, fruit from BC, fruit from u-picks and fruit from people who have excess. I seriously was unable to sleep over this!


I admit I have been pretty proud of some of my house wife accomplishments as of late. This is not usual for me, so it is an accomplishment. I made homemade bagels the other day and they were amazing! Yum. I have been making some yummy breads too.

 I have been capitalizing on the 50% off fruit at Superstore- you know, that whole rack of one day old fruit. I have been very pick at what I'm buying and for the most part I've been very happy! The other day I grabbed 2 packages of strawberries, cost me $2.50 in total, and I was able to make 3 jars of strawberry jam with it. There were maybe 3 strawberries I wasn't able to use. The next day I got 2 of those blueberry packages. I washed them then lay them out on a cookie sheet and picked out any that were bad. There was maybe a small handful of unusable berries. I put them in the freezer like that and the next day I vaccuum sealed them (you could use ziploc baggies) into 6 different 2 cup packages that we will use in the winter for on our poridge or cereal. All those blueberries cost me $6.

Then today was another strawberry score.

All of these strawberries, as well as the bunch in the picture above were $2.

I spent $2 and got enough strawberries to freeze 4 pkgs worth and make some stewed fruit with the excess.

beginnings of stewed fruit

Stewed fruit in our home is strawberries, apples and rhubarb boiled together with some water and sugar until runny. This is also very good served on poridge, ice cream, cereal. For me these are triumphs, ways I feel like I am helping our family.

This may sound crazy to some of you but I made my own taco seasonings and spaghetti sauce seasoning mixes. I used only spices and ingredients I already have in my house, mixed them all up, and now they are ready to use. I always have cases of tomato sauce in the house, and so why not use them with the spice mix instead of buying spaghetti sauce?


I also made my own coffee creamer today. I thought I would give it a try anyways- just mixed a can of sweetened condensed milk (on sale for $2.50) with 1.5 C of milk and some vanilla. I haven't tried it in coffee yet, but from a spoon it is pretty amazing! I can't wait till 6 am tomorrow to have my first cup. So a 1 L jar of coffee creamer cost me about $3.25 to make, as opposed to the almost $5 that I spend at the store for my favorite.

 I also used coupons and saved 10% on my groceries today- which really was only $11 but every bit helps, right.

I don't mean to say that this is the way everyone should live, but it is a fun experiment for me right now. I am learning new things and using what I have more wisely.