Daniel Boone Shmoone!

I've been reading the kids a book on Daniel Boone. The cover says an American Hero. Ha the guy is less than a hero.

I've been so irritated I can hardly finish the book. If you are unfamiliar with the story good old Dan is a Mr. Visionary and a wanderer. Not once but TWICE he told his wife that he would be gone a few months hunting and it just happens to turn into a few YEARS!

You know it's long when you have a baby while your hubby's away. I'm really quite appalled that he is considered a hero. Yes he could hunt and track and map out the country but really who cares.

I don't care if your the best at whatever in the country or the world if you pull crap like that I won't and don't like you. So take that!

Well I'm jumping back up on my soap box here today so you might want to come back another day. Just thought I'd let you know:-)

Why oh why does everyone think just because a child is "legally" old enough to stay home by ones self that he should? What reason is there for a kid at the age of 10 to be left to his own accord?

Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.

Yes at the age of 10 kids are long since on their way out of the rod stage of life but now is when the reproof age is really setting in.

Webster's defines reprove as-
: to scold or correct usually gently or with kindly intent

How can one reproof if they aren't there? That's right, they can't.

Also by leaving them at home they are missing out on so many learning opportunities.

Patience and long suffering. Ever grocery shop with five kids? Enough said.

Home economics. Food costs a lot, wise and prudent choices need to be made.

Self restraint. Do you see the junk by the check out?

World wide economics. Gas and food price correlation has been talked about a lately in our running around town.

How to communicate with others. This can be done safely with mom only a step or two away.

The are also learning that the daddy's need to make quite a lot of bacon to support a family. Like it our not it's a fact so boys get ready.

Car rides give you a great chance to communicate with your kids. No interruptions or distractions. They also have to listen, no place for them to wander off to.

They will be grown and out of the house soon enough. Keep them close and near to you it is a wise investment of your time.

Don't worry by the time Benna is 6 or so I'll probably be lax enough to let her stay home alone. Just as long as she keeps her cell phone handy and her biker boyfriend Bo and his buddy's are over to protect her. HA!

OAMC Real Food Style

When most people go to grab dinner out of the freezer is usually consists of something in a box, and most likely is involves cheese and pepperoni along with about 35 other ingredients. Well as of right now there are no boxes in my freezers. Please don't talk to me later after the co-op is delivered as I broke and ordered some deeply discounted fish sticks:-) Hey we can't always do it all.

Well blogger was down over the weekend so here is my OAMC, once a month cooking, marathon I did last Thursday.

First I boiled 10 pounds of red skin potatoes and 4 pounds of sweet potatoes to make mashed potatoes for shepherds pie and dinner that night. I chose red skins so I'd only have to peel a few sweet potatoes, it was going to be a long day no sense making it harder than it needs to be.
The night before this was full of ground beef, 27 pounds to be exact. Good this it was blinging hot because come morning they still had a long way to go before they were thawed.

As the potatoes were cooking I assembled three 8x8 pans of meat/ veggie loaf.

Meatloaf

1.5 lbs ground beef

chopped carrots

shredded zucchini out of my in laws freezer

chopped onion and a few chopped mushrooms

Sugar free ketchup

Seasonings- lots of them

Sorry I never use a recipe. (Meatloaf ingredients)

After the meatloaves made it to the freezer I browned three packages of beef for Shepherds Pie. Again no recipe. Pretty much beef with layers of carrots, onions, canned tomato, broccoli and topped with mashed potatoes.

After those were assembled and in the freezer another batch of meat was cooked and seasoned with taco seasoning, three meals worth.

While the taco meat was cooking yet another pot of beef was cooking. This pot I added onion and a few leftover chopped carrots. These will be used for spaghetti and what not. Three meals again.

And again I made another pot of meat to make three meals of sloppy joes.

Finally I chopped up a package of these chicken sausages from Costco, onion and mushrooms and bagged three meals out of it. These are lunch sized meals.

(Ice bath to cool meat before putting it is freezer bags.)

Here is how I cooled the pots of beef before putting them in freezer bags. I just plopped the whole pan in a ice bath. Please never put warm food in plastic bags unless you like to eat plastic.

The meatloaf and Shepherds Pies were put in glass pans covered with parchment paper then wrapped with foil and plastic wrap.

The final tally-

27 pounds of beef

5 pounds of chopped carrots

14 pounds of potatoes

2 bottles of sugar free ketchup

5 canned of diced tomatoes

lots of onions

1 package of chicken sausages

a few packages of mushrooms
salt and seasoning

= 20 meals -YIPPEE!!

By the way it only took about 5.5 hours with five kids under foot.

This is liked to Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

So spring is upon us, aah I adore spring.

Playtime and free time abound. Relaxing days with out the school pressure. What more could a girl want. Freedom to step out side with out ice cold winds chilling you to the bone. Popsicles on the front porch with my favorite group of peoples. Sweet handfuls of dandelions from my loves. Seeing sweet Benna wave excitedly when we are heading out of doors.

Bliss pure bliss.

So what does spring and child training have to do with each other? Tons.

We have a family golf/ pool membership at a local country club. So that being said how does this deal with my kids?

We have decided even though we can all golf there for free if the kids go with out daddy, because this mama don't golf:-) They have to pay. Yes with COLD HARD CASH out of there sweet little piggy banks!

Do you know what the next verse is after the very famous to train up a child?

Proverbs 22
7The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

Life is not about play. The Bible repeatedly talks about the slothful and idle and the borrower. And not in a good way. If we allow our children to expect leisure over work we have failed them. It is already in our sin nature to want the easy way out but we must fight it and guide them.

The kids also want to take summer classes. Puddin' wants soccer, Lula wants anything with her cousin, and Racky wants to take a Lego Robotics class. Well guess what? They have to pay half.

Racky's class in the most expensive. So he has been working up a storm to pay for it. No more thinking about it when I offer a job. He is on it. Also it is that job or no job. No picking or choosing. If he were working for a real employer he couldn't say I'll pick up sticks but I don't like to pull weeds. Also we pay by the job not the hour. So it is in their best interest to work quickly and see if mom will offer up another job.

What really kills me is the fact that I need to work along side of them and teach them to work. It is so much easier to do something by myself than have 5 kids helping me. So many people send their kids out into the world and let other teach them to work. That's not how it should be it is the parents job.

Genesis 3:19
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground;

The Zoo

Yesterday our zoo membership expired. Thus one last trip to the zoo. We went to the "far away zoo."

We haven't been there in years so it was new and exciting.

Benna LOVED the animals. She would pull herself close and just stare. I love seeing the world through their eyes.

Own it

Lately the idea of starting a new blog, an anonymous blog, has been bouncing around my head.

Why? So I could shout from the hill tops my opinions with out backlash or repercussion. I could spout off whatever I wanted.

This my friends would not be good. I'm sure my very few reader all know that I am of the very opinionated sort. Pretty much its my way or the wrong way. I know I'm working on this.

Well lately I've had a big hang up with people not owning up to their mistakes. They want people to cover for them or simply pretend its not there. Or even better they want to shift the blame to others. OWN IT FOLKS! Talk about erk me.

Then it dawned on me. An anonymous blog? Surely I wasn't being like them?

Why yes I was. Ugh! I didn't want to own it or stand behind it.

Ouch that hurt.

If I can't put my name on it I shouldn't write it. Even if it was always anonymous and perfectly hidden someday I will still have to own it.

Proverbs 18:7
A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.