Simplifying.....just about everything

Simplifying has been on my mind a lot lately.  The fact that we have so much "STUFF" and the fact that our comfy home seems to be overrun with this "STUFF" is a little annoying to me...especially for the past few weeks.  I'm kind of in a weird funk, I feel....OFF somehow, not sure how or why but I feel the need for a major change a major life (or maybe attitude) adjustment.  I bought a great book on simplifying (it was for homeschooling but applies to so much more).  This book truly touched me, I have this need to fill my bucket more, live life instead of "manage stuff" as a friend of mine put it.  With Christmas quickly approaching my desire to buy stuff is GONE, ZILCH, DI-PLEATED, OBSOLETE, NON EXISTENT!  I don't need more "CRAP" "STUFF"!!!  Sorry kids, mom's not going all out this year.  Once upon a time there was a simpler life, a life that wasn't made up of feeling like we were running marathons all day (on conveyor belts that never end), it wasn't made up of how much can we cram into one day, and it wasn't made up of houses full of stuff we don't need.  Now some may like life busy, like the running the doing.........that's cool, that's you, but this mama needs down time.  I need to be a Family, I need to read and listen, I need to clean (I know that's odd, but I do) I want to do a few projects sometimes, I want to enjoy this life!
Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are, going to my great grandmother's house, with her tiny kitchen with ONE drawer full of toys for us to play with.  That kitchen made the BEST food (well the cook did, but it wasn't a fancy kitchen with all the gadgets and quadruple cupboard space) they had no garage yet survived, the washer had to be drug into the kitchen and hooked up to the sink (bet they didn't throw their "mom I tried it on so it's dirty right?" clothes in the hamper)!  My grandma had an end table that was made from a bucket of wheat (food storage) and a glass top, covered with a table cloth and complete with a lamp.  She lived SIMPLY, she was happy, she spent time cooking, canning, making things work for her, and serving others.  I bet every single woman that knew my grandma had a phone call for their birthday! VERY little was EVER wasted.  In fact I remember her washing the wrappers to butter so she could wrap something else in it.  (I use 500 feet of plastic wrap!)

Yes some of these conveniences we have are life savers, some I would not want to do without.  Like, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, my mixer, garbage disposals, etc.  But something in me is dying for SIMPLE, I want to just live and not have all this stuff to wade through.  I'm on a mission!  My to do list on my phone (yeah not wanting to give that little puppy up!) has a new ~Simplify task on it.  One that I have had on for a week and don't plan on EVER checking off.  So far I've gutted my closet (got rid of things that I just don't wear and won't ever, got rid of the things that I say "one day I'll fit into it again", that one day will come but until then I'm loving this body, dressing this me and I'm perfectly okay with that!), I cleaned out a bunch of paper work in the desk.  Not anything HUGE or MAJOR but it's a beginning and I won't finish til my house is "orderly" til things have a place and we can LIVE and not MANAGE (and I probably won't reach that in this lifetime haha!)  Baby steps, baby steps.

My great grandma's house was probably one of my favorite places on this Earth!  The feeling that was there was indescribable, my little granny had time for us, she let us cut bread, peel apples, we worked, we made memories and we did it with so much less than we have now.  We did it simply, we lived, we let life get in the way and it didn't mess up our schedule or our long list of "get there, go here's".

As a homeschooling mom I know my kids need ME!  With that said we let life teach us a whole lot.  Yeah that unschooling stuff is REALLY rubbing off on me :) (AND I LIKE IT... Shhhh!).  I need to be there to help them with their stuff (mentally there), I'm famous for saying..."just a minute" and an hour later I arrive to help them.  I need to not be sorting through junk mail, or trying to find the counter, or folding MOUNDS of laundry ALL. THE. TIME.  So perhaps a little scheduling and a little.....eeeekk..... going to bed ontime and waking up earlier is going to be needed.  But, I really like the night owl life!!!!  If we are burning the candle mine burns a HECK of a lot better at midnight than 6am!  This simplifying life might have to teach me some knew habits, and break some very old ones.

Life isn't like it was back when my grandma made mush and eggs and bacon every morning, but my goal is to find that balance between the modern conveniences that make this day and age so AWESOME and the little white house that I so dearly loved!  There is a balance, a middle ground of finding a place for my "stuff" (or chucking it..... hey! There's a thought!) and allowing those conveniences that truly make life easier to have a place too! So here's to Simplifying! However and whatever that may be for you ~ Simplify away!!!

:)

Soup's on!

Potato Gnocchi (organic from Target) 

Have I mentioned that I LOVE FALL!  Okay I may get a bit giddy when Fall arrives.  No I 'm not a summer fan.  Don't get me wrong I love the green grass and the fact that we can spend time outside, but let's be honest after 80 degrees it's just too hot!!  I'm a spring, fall, winter fan!  But Fall is my all time FAVORITE! Especially because of the fact that we get to eat SOUP again!  Yes, I am aware they make (or you can) soup all year.  But eating soup when it's 80 degrees outside just IS NOT okay with me.

I love soup!  Most any kind of soup!  Chicken noodle, Beef Vegetable, Beef and Barley, Ham and bean, Clam Chowder, and I really love any kind of soup from the Olive Garden!  I found some recipes on my favorite Pinning location HAHA! And so I made Chicken Gnocchi soup!  OH HEAVEN HELP ME!  It was to DIE for! I even used the organic roasted chicken I made!  Yeah I was feeling very domestic :)  So here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup chicken breasts, cooked and diced (you can use a rotisserie chicken)
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1 quart half and half
• 1 14 ounce can chicken broth
• 1/2 cup celery, finely diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup carrots, finely shredded
• 1 cup onion, finely diced
• 1 cup fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin oil
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon parsley
• Freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1 pound potato gnocchi

DIRECTIONS

• 1
  Sauté the onion, celery, and garlic in the butter and olive oil, over medium heat when the onion becomes translucent, add the flour, and make a roux, let the butter and flour mixture cook for about a minute before adding 1 quart of half and half.
• 2
  Cook gnocchi according to package directions.
• 3
  Into the roux add in the carrots and chicken. Once the mixture becomes thick add the chicken broth. Once the mixture thickens again, add the cooked gnocchi, spinach, and seasonings, simmer until soup is heated through.

Source: copycat recipes

             

Sauteing

SOUP~!

Now that you have it you may want to eat it alone.......in the dark.............where no one can find you!

Weekends

Sometimes, not very often, but every once in a blue moon we Weekend it up!  Meaning we spend a lot of quality time as family doing the things we all LOVE to do.  It might not be "fun" to the average person but it makes our Heart's Sing and keeps us closer together and helps us Strengthen our relationships.

She loves Crow!

This particular weekend we saddled up the horse and took turns riding him.  His name is Crow and he is super TALL! He's a cool horse, he even knows how to lay down so you can get off and on of him easily :).... (I know you're wishing he was you're horse huh?)

We also went up to the mountain ground and looked for the cows.  They were coming home soon so we needed to locate them and see if we could account for all 51 of them.  Not all of them are ours but we still have to keep track.

Two Cute cowgirls counting the herd

We found some cool scratches in the Aspen tree's where a Bear had climbed up!  SWEET!!!

And that's how we Weekend!  We love it, we love it, we love it, we do!  How do you weekend? 

Roasted Chicken

I love this rotisserie chickens you buy at the store.  You know the one's that have been sitting for hours under the heat lamp.  The one's that are probably made from hormone injected chickens.  I don't love that part!  I just love that it's DONE, it's prepared and all I have to do is shred and eat or add it to whatever we are eating.  I love that they are tender and their flavor is good.  So I found some Organic, yes ORGANIC, whole chickens on sale for $5.00 each!  So I snagged two up and thought I'd give this whole chicken thing a whirl.  Now they weren't rotisserie but they were roasted :)!  I found the recipe, yep Pinterest, DUH!  You can also find it here.   My chickens were a little larger than the recipe, and I may have forgot to put them in the oven at 3:00 when I had planned to.  Due to husband errands and laundry, they got in the oven at 6:30......which meant I was waiting up til 11:30 pm to get them out.  Oh but no!  They were larger you see and ended up getting done at 2:30 AM!  WOWSERS!  I would recommend starting sooner than that ;)

Don't they look LOVELY?!

The end result was Fantastic!  I used them in some tacos, sandwiches, soups, etc. They were moist and fell off the bone and had great flavor.  The onion in the chicken did a lot of good too and the rub was great!  I will totally be doing this again!

Give Me Food......and FIVE Kids Please!

So, I've been thinking a lot about this Blog and about what I want out of it and what I want it to be about.  I don't really just want to be a Homeschool blogger, because, yes Homeschooling is a HUGE part of our lives or is it, our lives are  HUGE part of Homeschooling?  Do you see the dilemma? Homeschooling is life it's what we do everyday 24/7 not just the "school" hours.  Learning happens each day whether we planned it and studied it or whether we took our 79 year old grandmother to lunch for the afternoon.  It's all life, it's all learning and everything is incorporated in it.  We are REAL people, we have good days, bad days, food days, no food days (only when I decide cold cereal sounds better than actually cooking something), sad days and exuberant days! Which made me think more about what I blog, and really I just want to blog about EVERYTHING, recipes, homeschooling, things I love, things I hate don't love.  Blah blah blah!  So with that, I'm just gonna be me and Blog about whatever makes my heart happy or sad or hungry at any particular time. This post....Happy Heart, Hungry Heart! :)

This past Saturday we had breakfast as a family!  I know, you're thinking..."Okay, that's really Cool... not!" but it really is, we have 5 kids, 2 of whom don't live with us all the time, you know they think school and jobs are all important and stuff, so we don't get to see them as much as we once did, or as much as we'd like to!  Saturday morning I made breakfast and all SEVEN of US sat and consumed it TOGETHER!  AHHH nothing makes a Mama's heart happier than having all her children together and enjoying something.

TRUE LOVE!

And to go along with our MAKE IT MONDAY theme ~ Here is what we MADE to eat!
We had overnight french toast with caramel syrup and Ham cups, and OJ don't forget the OJ!  Delicious, delightful and the perfect way to start a Saturday!  We are going to start planning at least monthly meals together, as they each get bigger it seems harder to get them all together, so making time now and planning things is important to me, (I think this is what they call a TRADITION :)).....and them! :)

All ready for the overnight refrigeration! 

And there you have it!  Food and Family....NEED I SAY MORE?!

What do you like to do with your kids? What TRADITIONS do you have?

Be Kind ~ Speak Kind

      This past weekend I've been very reflective.  Well that's not anything new, I'm often lost somewhere in "deep" thought, or thinking about things that matter most to me.  But this week marks the 3rd anniversary of my Grandpa passing away (right, weird that it's an anniversary, but he lived across the street from me and....we had a pretty good relationship he and I), it's also my most favorite time of the year.  I love FALL! I love the happiness it brings to my heart and soul and the chilly air.  I love wearing long sleeves and boots and being able to throw on a hoodie and jeans and not roast to death.  I love fire's and pumpkin smells and comfort food and falling leaves and EVERYTHING that Fall is.  With that, and my "reflective" mood, my 5 kids being under one roof for breakfast, a friend's trials, my grandmother aging and........life changing.  I find myself in tears a lot, for the changes mean I too am changing, my kids are changing my role as a mother to babies is gone and I now have a daughter who could very easily make me a grandmother in a few short years (not that I'm pressing the issue, but that it could be reality), my youngest is 5 and still a little girl but things are changing.  I'm not sad that they are changing, just reflective of what life brings, how short (yet long it seems sometimes) each season of life is.  How much we learn and grow from different things, the trials we think will surely do us in, yet we look back and they have made us who we are.
                                                

      The lesson at church today was on words, how words can lift us up or bring us down.  How what we choose to say can make someones day, change their lives, motivate them, cause them heartache or perhaps break their spirit.  I love words! I love writing and sometimes when relationships have been rough I have found a pen in my hand and words flying onto the page so I could say what I needed to say and express what I needed to express without my emotions getting in the way, or my train of thought getting lost. Some of those words get crumpled up and thrown away as a release of some sort, and some have been gently placed on a pillow or tucked under the door of someone I love.  Some of my fondest possessions are letters from my mother, or notes from my husband, a letter one Christmas when I was given my mother's ring is probably as priceless as anything I own.  These words that I keep are words of love, words of encouragement of thankful hearts.  As I reflect on the words I hold dear to my heart I am reminded of the words I speak each day.  Yet, do these words always build up? Or do they tear down at times?

      Sometimes it's hard to decipher if you are hurting or helping someone, some people take constructive criticism well and work to better themselves and to see the potential that you see in them, others take it as a blow and feel completely defeated, perhaps never recovering from it fully.  As a mother I struggle to find the balance of words that help and words that hinder.  The words that encourage and the words that set a mark so high that they don't think they'll ever measure up so they quit trying.  The words as a wife that build up, show love and appreciation and encourage, and the words that deplete and "push buttons".  In my Quest to Strengthen, Kindness and speaking kindly is something I will probably be forever attempting  to master.  But, if each day I can think before I react, listen before I speak, and ponder before I pray.....one day I will be there!.  But for now I am challenging myself to complain less, to smile when I'm weary and my day has been too long, to say "yes" to more stories, cuddles, walks, talks, moments to be together, and "not right now" to the piles of laundry, the projects I want to finish or the books I long to read.  I want to be present in this day, be kind, be patient, be loving, I want to speak kind of everyone I meet, find goodness in everything I see and try my best to be better at all that I am and all that I will be.  I hope to speak words of encouragement, love,compassion and kindness to my family and friends, I hope to give strength to those who need it, to do good to those I serve and to help those who need help.  This year as I've worked on strengthening .......I've felt myself grow and become a better me, a stronger me and yet a more tender me. I hope to keep growing, changing and loving ALL the seasons of life that make me who I am.  I hope to be kinder, to speak with purpose and to hold my tongue at times (which some days.......needs to be done A LOT!).  I am not perfect, far from it, but my quest to be so is an interesting one, one that's brought me here, one that moves me forward, one that I truly love and am thankful for each day!  Remember one thing as you go about your week.........Be Kind!

                                       

Thanks for reading~ and remember I'd love to hear about your Quest's your triumphs and your learning moments :)

pictures found on this post were found on www.pinterest.com with no link to their source.

Floppy Chicken

So funny story, well I guess it didn't start out funny, but luckily it ended that way.  One Wednesday afternoon a couple of weeks ago Buckwheat tells me his neck hurts and he isn't moving it like normal, kind of like he slept on it wrong.  I asked him why it hurt and he showed me this LUMP on his neck.  It wasn't like a bump or a bite or anything, it felt like he had somehow managed to get a large marble stuck under his skin.  My first reaction was "WHAT IS THIS!!!"

My second reaction was to call my mom....which is usually the much more logical thing to do HA!  My brother researched it on his phone and it said it could be a swollen gland or cancer or you know just about anything under the sun.  Don't research your symptoms on Google you will think you are going to DIE at any given moment!!!  So after some filtered searches and some discussions with those wiser than myself I decided that the best thing was to probably have it checked out so I could sleep soundly and so that if it was in fact something to be concerned about, then we could take the steps necessary.   So the next day we went to the doctor.  They were a little puzzled, not shocked or too concerned but they were stumped that it was only on one side of his neck and not both sides.  The doctor told us that we could have an ultra sound to make sure it wasn't anything to be too concerned about, but then she said we should probably do a blood sample first and if it came back with anything of concern then we would do an ultra sound or whatever needed to be done.  I was glad she was so informative and that we were taking baby steps to get the true answers not jumping into worst case scenario stuff right away.

If any of you know me very well you know that blood, needles or anything of that nature just don't sit well with me.  (Yes I did have children and I even had them C-section ~ Fancy that!)  So I put my brave MOM face on and thought "You got this, he's a little BOY, you can't freak out now!"  Buckwheat was a LOT little nervous.  We don't really go to the doctor a lot and now they wanted his BLOOD?! He asked how they would get the blood out and I told him it would come from his veins and he melted into a puddle on my lap.  I quietly calmed him down and he very bravely asked "How much of my vein do they have to cut out mom?"  "OH NO Sweetheart they aren't cutting your veins out!"  I must not do a good job of explaining things to this brave little guy!  I told him they would poke a small needle and suck the blood out and that he wouldn't even be able to really see the hole.  He felt much better knowing that we wouldn't be slitting his arms open to remove his VEINS!!!  Then the assistant came in with the blood sucking equipment :)  I informed the assistant that I "get a little queasy with blood so I'll just sit behind him on the table and hold his hand"  the assistant smiled a little and watched me climb up behind Buckwheat so I could hold his hand but not have to look directly at what they were doing.  Jo quickly went to the waiting room as she was having NONE of this!  I tried to bribe Peanut into going with her but she wouldn't budge.  The assistant started inspecting Buckwheat's arms to find a "good vein".  Peanut was sitting across from us and looked at me and then started yelling "MY BROTHER IS GOING TO DIE!!!"  The assistant busted up laughing!  I was laughing trying to get Peanut to stop telling people her brother was dying and that he would be just fine!  I'm sure the assistant thought we were NUTS!

They poked the needle in and I held Buckwheat's right hand with my left and we looked at pictures on the opposite wall, trying to talk to him so he didn't concentrate on the needle.  He started giggling from Peanut's crazy antics and the vein closed off.  So round two!  The assistant goes and fetches the doctor so he can have a little help, and because the veins of a 7 year old just aren't that great for drawing blood.  They tied his arm, this time they used the right hand vein (ouch I hate the hand veins!) I put my arm around Buckwheat's neck because I couldn't hold his right hand anymore.  I held him and we started talking about different things. I tried to block out the conversation the doctor and assistant were having (because I'm visual I just can't shake those kinds of things LOL!) the blood was pumping so slowly it was taking FOREVER and poor Buckwheat was trying to hold still and the needle in his hand vein HURT, so the poor kid was being so tough!  After about 2 minutes .....which seemed like 10, the assistant said that the vein had collapsed because the suction was too strong for the vein...... I felt myself go warm..... I looked at the clock ........concentrate Kyndra concentrate.  No NO NO you're fine it's all going to be okay, Stay here, right ..................

"Mom, mom........are you okay?...........What's your mom's name?" I barley heard the voices.  "Kyndra" Buckwheat replied.   "Get him off the table," the doctor stated.  I slowly came to.  I felt the doctor push me back on the table and I saw the flashlight in my eyes.  "Are you okay?"  she said again.  "Yeah, I think so," I said.  Yep, I passed out!  Right over the top of my son with the needle in his hand.  He told me I fell on him, hit my head on the wall, did the floppy chicken with my tongue hanging out and my eyes in the back of my head.  LOL!  Oh the poor kid thought his mom was dying!! The assistant was trying to get the needle out of my son's hand and get him off the table.  The nurse was trying to keep me on the table (bless her heart).  I laid on the table, completely embarrassed and still dizzy and hot flashy from the fainting spell.  After a few minutes I sat in the chairs and My Brave little man had to get his blood drawn a THIRD TIME,  ALL BY HIMSELF!  And now we know that I honestly can't do it, not that I don't' want to be there but I just can't! :)  And we learned that a 7 year old is a WHOLE LOT BRAVER than his mama or he thought!

Oh, and it turns out it was a swollen gland.  It wasn't anything crazy and went away in a few days with some antibiotics.  Now we have a great story, and the knowledge that I need to call Sue my Oldest since she has medical training, or a friend  when a doctor springs a blood draw on anyone (including myself) HA HA!