January 24, 2012

Knowing How to Bake Brownies Isn’t Enough – Subscriber Special!

After my Welcome Home post on Monday about Home Cookin’, this might seem like a strange follow up, but it has to be said.

Knowing how to cook doesn’t make you a good homekeeper.

It’s a skill that can be done with or without the heart. If you only learn the skills for yourself and teach the skills to your daughters, yet never reach the heart of homemaking, you and your daughters will fail miserably.

So, please teach your girls how to cook and clean and all the homemaking skills that belong to this wonderful job, but don’t neglect the heart!

From now through the month of February, the SUBSCRIBER FREEBIE from Raising Arrows is a bundle of resources aimed at:

In this bundle, you’ll receive:

Homemaking from the Heart Prayer
Cherish Your Children Checklist
Daily Marriage Checklist
Hospitality Checklist
Chapter 7 of 10 Days to a Peaceful Home – The Home as a Haven

All you have to do to receive the link to this bundle is to sign up below.

By doing so, you’ll receive Raising Arrows to your inbox every time I post and you’ll find a link to this subscriber special at the bottom of each post through February 2012!

January 22, 2012

Welcome Home: Home Cooking Help

As a young bride, my Betty Crocker Cookbook was my best friend as I pretty much didn’t know how to cook anything. I wish I could remember who gave me that cookbook…I’d like to hug their neck!

I remember very well the days of hovering near my now-ex sister-in-law watching her make mashed potatoes and hoping she didn’t notice. I didn’t have a clue and I didn’t want to admit it.

I was embarrassed. And when you are embarrassed, you often don’t ask for help.

But help is exactly what the clueless homemaker needs. She needs a mentor to come alongside her and show her the how-to behind even the most menial of tasks. She needs to build her confidence by doing the very things she is afraid she can’t do well.

For me, it was cooking.

I couldn’t imagine a time when I would be able to cook without a recipe. Our weekly menu plans were full of gourmet recipes because that’s what you cook when all you can do is cook from a recipe. I didn’t know how to use what was in my pantry to make a meal because my pantry leftovers didn’t come with recipes. I didn’t understand food.

15 years later, I’m better, but still learning. I can cook from my pantry. I know what spices go with what kinds of foods and I experiment daily and most of the time it comes out quite tasty!

I realize now that understanding the intricacies of food and the simple techniques that make you a better, more efficient cook can be the key to enjoying being in your kitchen and cooking for your family. That’s why this week’s Welcome Home is all about those little things that make cooking more efficient and interesting! Because frankly, if you know what you are doing, you will naturally spend less time and brain power in the kitchen!

Many of the following links are YouTube links, so please be aware of that with the children around (although cooking is a fairly harmless topic). And don’t forget to link up any homemaking encouragement you might have below!

Basic Knife Skills
How to chop herbs
How to chop an onion
Perfect Scrambled Eggs
How to make Mashed Potatoes
How to make Cream Gravy
How to use Spices
How to make Chicken Stock
How to Hard Boil an Egg
How to Quickly Peel a Hard Boiled Egg
How to make Egg Noodles
How to Steam Vegetables

Any other how-to’s you’d like to see here or have one of your own? Leave it in the comments section!

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This post is brought to you by Victorian Rose Soap – we love these soaps and we know you will too! And all this month, you can take 15% off your order using the coupon code: Raisingarrows – Enjoy!

January 18, 2012

Large Family Napkins

napkins

We’ve used cloth napkins for years, but they were always kept away in a drawer in the kitchen and had to be gotten out at each meal. It just wasn’t convenient.

While visiting another large family, I found a solution that has solved even more meal time problems than I knew I had!

Our friends kept brown washcloths in two decorative planters at either end of their long farmhouse table. I adapted this by putting extra rust and tan washcloths my mom had given us and we hardly ever used in 2 decorative containers I had been using for pencils. Because my containers were much smaller than their planters, I rolled each washcloth.

The problems this solved:

1. Something quick to grab for spills.

2. Washable and reusable napkins.

3. Napkins that my child with sensory issues will use (she hates paper napkins).

4. Napkins are always on the table.

5. They even look pretty!

Pin It

January 15, 2012

Welcome Home: The Little Stuff I Leave Undone

It seems harmless enough. It’s just a little “spoonage” – you know, that dried-on food left by the spoon that stirred the pot? No biggie. Right?

Except for the fact that I ALWAYS leave it undone.

I have no reason not to do it, yet I don’t do it.

And what does that breed?

More spoonage.

Cheryl Mendelson in her book Home Comforts (I’ll be referring to this book and others a lot, so be prepared!) calls this phenomena:

The Broken Window Theory

The idea being that my little bit of undone spoonage will naturally cause me and those around me to assume I do not care about a little spoonage and soon there is spoonage EVERYWHERE!

Guess what, the theory is correct!

However, I DO care…just not enough to actually fix it. At least, not right away. So, I end up with crusted-on spoonage which is much worse than your average run of the mill I-just-set-the-spoon-down spoonage.

Why in the world do I do this?

Because I live in a world of distractions, and the natural distractions of my life have become my crutch. They are the things I blame when things are left undone.

But the truth of the matter is that I don’t come back to tasks I have been distracted from because I don’t want to.

I would rather sit down to the internet than survey my house to make sure all is in order. I would rather read a book, watch a movie with my husband, or take a bath. I don’t take care of the things left undone because I find ways to avoid them and then I proclaim that I am seizing the day!

And then all those things I’ve left undone…SEIZE ME!

Why? Because rather than being little things, they become gigantic stuck-on, overwhelming messes that must be tackled before I cook supper or before I can read a book to the kids. They actually end up taking more of my time than they deserve simply because I wasn’t willing to tackle them or come back to them as soon as possible.

Now, I’m not talking about some undone project that doesn’t really matter if I finish it or not. And I’m not talking about ignoring my family in order to clean.

I’m talking about the simple everyday tasks that take SECONDS to do if you just do them as they happen!

No method in the world is going to fix the little stuff you leave undone if you don’t first believe the little stuff is worth doing.

And so this week, I’ve been focusing on finding joy in doing the little stuff promptly. The time I have redeemed and the transformation I have seen have been well worth the tiny bit of effort it has taken.

How are you bringing purpose and meaning back into your homemaking? Link up below!

December 21, 2011

The Blessing of a Buffalo

For over a year I purchased our meat in the grocery store. I didn’t enjoy it.

Our buffalo meat from 2 years ago had run out and we kept coming up short on finding grass-fed beef to purchase. So, our freezer sat rather empty as we waited for the next time Ty could go buffalo hunting.

Veteran’s Day this year, that chance came!

Some of you probably know how incredibly expensive buffalo meat is. Because of the interest in breeding buffalo in recent years, the buffalo (or American bison) is no longer an endangered species; however, they are naturally organic and we all know how very expensive organic meat is. Hunting your own is actually a great investment because you get not only the burger, but steaks and roasts all for the same processing fee.

Additionally, buffalo meat offers us some amazing health benefits!

BBQ Buffalo!

Buffalo beats almost every other meat hands down in the nutrition department. Plus, as I said, it is organic because buffalo are naturally free-ranging animals that don’t like to be messed with.

The biggest benefit for me is the high iron content! I struggle with anemia, especially in pregnancy, so eating buffalo meat (cooked in cast iron) is very good for me.

It does smell different cooking than beef and you do have to cook it low and slow because of the next to nil fat content, but those minor adjustments are well worth a freezer full of wonderful meat!

Yes, I know some people wouldn’t be okay with the buffalo head hanging on my wall (I got a lot of comments on that post about being a good woman for allowing that!) or the buffalo robe on my bed (yes, it’s called a robe and not a “rug”), but I dare you to argue with me about the meat!

So, this Christmas I am blessed to have buffalo…a whole freezer load of lovely buffalo!

November 10, 2011

Stop the Meal Time Madness: 10 Days to a Peaceful Home

So, you’ve checked your heart attitude, you’re starting your day off right, you’re accepting less-than-perfect days, now let’s take a look at a time of day that can either make or break the peacefulness of your home.

Meal time!

Many of you reading this are stay at home moms, and I’d venture to guess quite a few of you are homeschool moms as well. That means you are gathering your family around the table at least three times daily, if not more. No wonder this time of day is crucial to the peace of the home!

Now, I’ve mentioned before how I was convicted by Family Strategies to take a more leisurely approach to our meals, but you might be wondering how you get from SAYING you want a more peaceful meal time to actually PARTAKING of a peaceful meal.

Here are some ideas to help you get there:

1. Prepare! I know this sounds simplistic and rather boring, but it’s the truth. The more you plan your meals, the more you can relax as meal time approaches. You know what you are having and you aren’t scrambling last minute to pull it all together.

2. Learn how to get the meal to the table and how to orchestrate the meal so that you get to eat with the family too. I remember being in awe of women who could get every dish to the table at the same time, hot and delicious. I also remember when I finally asked another mom of many to help me learn how to actually manage to eat with my family. Learning these things revolutionized meal time for me and for my family!

3. Make meal time fun! Choose new meals, play a meal time game, look your family in the eye and laugh long and hard! So much of this has to do with attitude. If meal times make you uptight, chances are you won’t feel the least bit peaceful during the actual eating of the meal. Go into the meal with a merry heart, and you might be surprised at how wonderfully peaceful your family already is!

4. Expect mishaps. Mama, get over it right now…someone IS going to spill something. Keep a towel and a smile handy!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

Make a meal plan. Feel free to use ideas from my Once-A-Month Shopping series or from my Basic Meals List {the November subscriber special here on Raising Arrows}.
Plan some fun meal time activities. You could even make your own dinner game!
Set a towel by your chair “just in case.”

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy