Saturday, August 13, 2005
Above Rubies and Food
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I received my latest edition of Above Rubies magazine, and though I critiqued part of Nancy Campbell's theology in my contraception series, I just LOVE her magazine. As I have said oft before, it is very inspiring and encouraging. Some of their articles can be accessed from the link on the left side bar. One article is from a mother currently with 11 children who is adopting 5 more! And it is not just how many children she has, but how she raises them that is most wonderful. Praise God that such families exist to inspire us, to truly care for the orphans, train their children, and squash any thought of self-pity. One comment in this particular woman's article gave me hope; she said that when she had 3 children under age 4, it was much harder than her current life with 11.
Above Rubies constantly exhorts women to train their children, not to allow self-centered, lazy children who don't understand the value of work. (And yes, they balance it with much fun and play that children also need). Today, instead of slaving away in the kitchen privately grumbling to myself as the children abused each other in the living room (they don't play well together in the evening!) I asked Elise to help my wipe the floor. We each had a rag and I would spray all-purpose cleaner and she would wipe where I sprayed (I followed up behind her). She acted like it was the most fun activity in the world. She felt so responsible and important and loved having my one on one attention. When our task was finished, Elise asked to clean more! "I'm a good helper mom! I work very hard, just like Daddy!" (I always try to point out how hard Daddy works for us at the office and at home.) Meanwhile, Audrey played happily without her sister taking her puzzle pieces. Then we all three went out to wash the car and both girls happily "helped" wash for over an hour as I cleaned 2 cars inside and out.
I am firmly convinced that drawing our children into our household tasks as much as possible, in creative, fun, interesting, educational ways, is crucial to our training them in the way they should go and be in life. Speaking of household training, everyone of our mothers who failed to teach us how to cook growing up did us a great disservice! I am struggling over meals lately and part of it is because I am having to completely teach myself as I go. My main problem is knowing WHAT to cook week by week - menu planning. I don't like the idea of the same exact meals over and over, yet doing all new meals every week is exhausting and more expensive because my needed staples change so much.
My latest idea is to have "theme nights". We already do tex-mex once a week. Tommy and I met in India/Nepal and love that type of food, so this week I started an Indian night (and found a great flavored Dal Bat recipe off cookinglight.com). I pretty much do a homemade vegetarian pizza night each week, and a vegetarian pasta night. (lets see, that's 4 so far . . .). I think I had better do a big meat meal each week, like a tenderloin or roast or whole chicken. I have several roasted chicken recipes I like. Hopefully there could be a left over night in there somewhere . . . Now I am up to 6, just one more . . . Ah yes, stew! I love making big batches of hearty, healthy stews, but I am banned from stew until winter. We could have a gourmet salad and bread/dip night in the summer instead.
For those of you who have persevered through my ramblings thus far, I am thrilled because Tommy ordered my 6qt. Professional Kitchen Aid mixer today! Wooooohoooo! We got it for $179 refurbished instead of the $360 retail. I am so excited to make big batches of bread, mmmmm. Later this week I get to order a grain mill, which I am even more excited about. I have been longing for literally over a year to be able to have fresh ground wheat and other grains. The nutritional value of fresh whole wheat flour is far superior to anything you can buy in the store. Maybe I will post about that sometime later. Now I just have to save up for a juicer and dehydrator . . .
Above Rubies constantly exhorts women to train their children, not to allow self-centered, lazy children who don't understand the value of work. (And yes, they balance it with much fun and play that children also need). Today, instead of slaving away in the kitchen privately grumbling to myself as the children abused each other in the living room (they don't play well together in the evening!) I asked Elise to help my wipe the floor. We each had a rag and I would spray all-purpose cleaner and she would wipe where I sprayed (I followed up behind her). She acted like it was the most fun activity in the world. She felt so responsible and important and loved having my one on one attention. When our task was finished, Elise asked to clean more! "I'm a good helper mom! I work very hard, just like Daddy!" (I always try to point out how hard Daddy works for us at the office and at home.) Meanwhile, Audrey played happily without her sister taking her puzzle pieces. Then we all three went out to wash the car and both girls happily "helped" wash for over an hour as I cleaned 2 cars inside and out.
I am firmly convinced that drawing our children into our household tasks as much as possible, in creative, fun, interesting, educational ways, is crucial to our training them in the way they should go and be in life. Speaking of household training, everyone of our mothers who failed to teach us how to cook growing up did us a great disservice! I am struggling over meals lately and part of it is because I am having to completely teach myself as I go. My main problem is knowing WHAT to cook week by week - menu planning. I don't like the idea of the same exact meals over and over, yet doing all new meals every week is exhausting and more expensive because my needed staples change so much.
My latest idea is to have "theme nights". We already do tex-mex once a week. Tommy and I met in India/Nepal and love that type of food, so this week I started an Indian night (and found a great flavored Dal Bat recipe off cookinglight.com). I pretty much do a homemade vegetarian pizza night each week, and a vegetarian pasta night. (lets see, that's 4 so far . . .). I think I had better do a big meat meal each week, like a tenderloin or roast or whole chicken. I have several roasted chicken recipes I like. Hopefully there could be a left over night in there somewhere . . . Now I am up to 6, just one more . . . Ah yes, stew! I love making big batches of hearty, healthy stews, but I am banned from stew until winter. We could have a gourmet salad and bread/dip night in the summer instead.
For those of you who have persevered through my ramblings thus far, I am thrilled because Tommy ordered my 6qt. Professional Kitchen Aid mixer today! Wooooohoooo! We got it for $179 refurbished instead of the $360 retail. I am so excited to make big batches of bread, mmmmm. Later this week I get to order a grain mill, which I am even more excited about. I have been longing for literally over a year to be able to have fresh ground wheat and other grains. The nutritional value of fresh whole wheat flour is far superior to anything you can buy in the store. Maybe I will post about that sometime later. Now I just have to save up for a juicer and dehydrator . . .
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