National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

We find comfort in the sovereignty of God. There is no lost potential, no purpose unaccomplished; there is only the glorious plan of God perfectly fulfilled in a precious little life" ~Author unknown





We all know someone, or several someones, who have lost a little one through miscarriage, stillbirth or infant loss.


Today is a good day to let them know you remember.

"Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our life for only a short while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same."



These Babies (and many more) Left Their Footprints on My Heart:
Marsha 1940 (would have been my aunt)
Three of my siblings (1970s)
Toby 1980 (cousin)
Joseph 1987 (nephew)
JMMc's miscarried babies (nieces/nephews)
TMB's miscarried babies (nieces/nephews)
LMB's miscarried babies
Paul Christian 1998 (my son)
Paul's twin 1998 (my baby)
Jack 1998 (friend)
Aleah 1998 (friend)
Timbrel 1999 (friend)
KS's baby (1999) (friend)
Amargain (friend)
DF's baby (friend)
Jennifer S's baby
CJC's baby 2007 (friend)
Roland D. 2009 (friend)
Baby McC 2009 (my grand niece or nephew)
KE's baby 2010 (friend)
Lydia 2010 (friend)
MT Olson 2010 (friend)
Baby Hill 2010 (friend)
JMG's miscarried babies (nieces/nephews)


These are just a few of the little ones I am remembering today. I know many more loved ones who have suffered miscarriage, stillbirth and infant loss. Sadly, there are too many to list them all. Please feel free to remember a special little one and/or their family in the comment section if you wish.



"The 'why' of so many things is known only to the heart of God, but He has told us that at all times, in all places, and in all circumstances, nothing can separate us from His love".

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Revelation 21:4

Whether your loss is seasoned with the tears of many years, or if you have only recently been unwillingly taken on this journey, may you be surrounded with Peace that passes understanding and Love that knows no bounds,

If you would like to make a donation in memory of a special baby, may I suggest:

Holt International Adoption

PO Box 2880

Eugene, OR 97402

Purposeful Parenting: The Timer Method

Being given time to emotionally prepare for what’s next gives a child a chance

to bring an activity to a logical conclusion and be ready to move on.

A handful of times recently, I have been asked about child training for various situations (naptime, whining for attention, and sitting nicely in a carseat) where my advice for each of them included using a timer. Since the Timer Method can be so helpful, I thought I'd share it here.

Depending on the age of the child, you can employ The Timer Method for help in training your little ones (or not so little ones) a wide variety of habits. For this method, you should purchase a kitchen timer that ticks and, when time runs out, gives a satisfying DING. There are all sorts of fun character timers out there if you want something specific. Mine is a simple orange dial kitchen timer from the 70s that I bought at an estate sale for a buck (but I’d sure love to have one like the turquoise one I added above!).
An older child may enjoy watching the sands in the hourglass pass through. If you choose this type of timer, based on my personal experience with a huge glass hourglass getting knocked off of our mantle, I recommend plastic!

You should use, and play all sorts of games with the timer so your little lamb can begin to realize the timer will go off shortly. “Mommy is going to read with you for five minutes. When the timer goes off, we will go get a snack”. Mommy sets timer for five minutes, reads to lambie poo and, when timer goes off, they go get a small snack. “We are going to sit nicely at the table with our snack for four minutes, then you may play with your blocks while Mommy checks email for ten minutes, then it will be outside time”. So on and so forth, until that sweet one has had a chance to understand how the timer works.

As an example, The Whiner who whines for mommy’s attention: Many times whining for attention stems from a task-oriented mommy not giving the child quality time to count on but, instead, plugs him into TV, tells him to play and leaves him to entertain himself, or is constantly hushing him while she is on the phone or having coffee with a friend.

By using the Timer Method, you can set specific times when your child knows you will be 100% his. “When the timer goes off in 10 minutes, Mommy is going to play with play-dough with you for 30 minutes”. Once your child is aware of what that means, he is much more likely to wait patiently and not feel the need to whine to get your attention.

I find that I am often the one who benefits most from the timer, as I can easily loose track of time when I am busy. I sure don’t want my children to be taught that they can’t count on my words! They need to understand that I mean what I say.

Using a timer and teaching your little one the concept of time has many practical benefits. It is a tangible way your child can be reassured by having a boundary, and can also learn cause and effect. It is worth the investment!

From The Freaky Files: Matryoshka (Russian Nesting Doll) Eggs?

I’d definitely classify this as a once-in-a-lifetime event!

I had never even heard of it!

Keeping chickens for our own farm fresh eggs is wonderful. We love how rich and fresh the eggs are, and knowing where they have been and what they have been eating.

I am also amused by the variety we get. When my son comes in with that day’s eggs, he will usually put any unique eggs in the door of the fridge, apart from the others, because he knows I love seeing them before they are cracked open and eaten. Sometimes they are abnormally small or large (see below), flat on one side, lopsided, or what-have-you.

Here are two silly eggs, one very, very small and the other very, very large!

A few months ago, I noticed we were getting low on eggs in the house, so I sent my egg boy up to the barn for more. Then I noticed one rather large, blue, Auracana egg in the door and decided I’d be happy with just one, mixed with some bacon and onion, fried rather than boiled, as I had originally planned.

He and I had a discussion as to whether or not it would be a double-yolker or not, and if I should eat one or two.

I got my onion and bacon all friend up then, in suspense about whether or not there would indeed be two yolks, he and I watched closely as I cracked it into the pan…

I began to express my surprise and disappointment at the fact that only one fairly normal yolk poured out.

Then…

KERPLOP!

Out came yet another egg, in a shell and all, from within that one!!!

For realzies.

We sat there, stunned, trying to make sense of what we had just seen.

Then I just started laughing, incredulous!

Of course, I called my 86 year old Grandma right away and

even she had never heard of it!

I take pictures of oddity eggs and flat out pretty eggs all of the time. I have quite a catalog of them within my photo files. But, since I have so many, I had refrained from taking one of this before I cracked it open. I was sure sorry about that afterwards!

I took a picture of the little one inside the larger shell for comparison.

Here is the larger one pieced back together.

I regret to say that we put off opening the little one,

and either it started out empty,

or whatever may have been in it dried up.

Because it was empty.

I looked it up online and could only find a few other cases of this. It is called “Ovum in Ovu”. Since it is so rare, no one is quite sure how or why it happens, but there is speculation about it and at least one scientist seems to be pretty sure why.

You can read about Ovum In Ovu and watch a video at this link, Big Egg,

and see other instances of it at the links below.

Odd Eggs (scroll down to see egg within an egg)

Astounding Discovery in Sri Lanka

Or just search “egg within an egg” and you can view what is out there.

Pretty cool and freaky huh? I consider myself privileged and blessed to experience something so rare!

... I keep thinking I should buy a lottery ticket, LOL!

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Finding, Buying, and Using Locally Seasonal Fall Produce

I love using seasonal produce. By this, I mean locally seasonal produce. Buying local helps to support farmers in your own community, and also helps to cut down on costs by making transport unnecessary and, as a result, cuts down on pollution too. There are many other benefits to buying and eating local, these are just a few. I highly recommend that you read this thoughtful article, “Finding Health Close To Home: A Call To Localism”. If nothing else, it will give you alot to think about!

The beginning of fall is not the typical season for most of us to be thinking about fresh produce. But there is still lots to be had. Gorgeous bounty in the cabbage family, apples, winter squash varieties, apples, and many beautiful root vegetables, including potatoes (the perfect food IMO), are just a few. Many CSA’s offer winter shares, and you can certainly find what is seasonal for you at your local farmer’s market (I wrote about our first year using a CSA here). You can find a CSA near you through Local Harvest. They also have a search engine for finding your local farmer’s market and other helpful information.

I get alot of information through my local county extension office. If you Google “County Extension, My County, My State” (filling in your county and state, of course) you should be able to find yours. Often, several neighboring counties will go together and make one produce guide that lists out what is available when, and at what farms those items can be found. I think most are available online nowadays too. I have linked an example of this above.

If you want to try to start buying local but just don’t know where to begin, here are a couple other resources to help get you started:

~ List of some great posts about buying local produce.

~ List of American Seasonal Produce, what’s in season and when.

~ Here is a great Seasonal Produce Recipe Guide to help you find ways to use those great mom-and-pop store, straight-off-the-farm, and farmer’s market purchases.

Getting local, seasonal produce for free or cheap:

~ This week I plan to ask a number of neighbors with apple trees dropping fruit to the ground like mad, only to rot, if they would mind if we come and pick what is left on their trees. Most people are happy to let you do this as nearly everyone would like to see food being used rather than wasted. Look around you as you drive and see if any of your neighbor’s have pears, apples, figs or other fruits going to waste.

~ Last year I saw a pile of zucchini at our CSA that was laying separate from the rest. I asked The Farmer’s Wife about it and she told me that their subscribers don’t like to see “imperfect” produce in their shares, so that pile was destined for the compost heap. I can’t remember now if she agreed to sell it to me on-the-cheap or if she just gave it to us, but we did end up with it. The imperfections were minor and did not affect the quality of what we ate.

~ Pumpkin patches are busy right now. But come November 1st, many pumpkin farms have pumpkins left in their fields that they will just allow to rot into the soil.

~ You can often find free or very inexpensive produce using Craig’s List.

If you invest a little time and effort now, you can be using delicious produce you put up now, well into next spring. I will post a few things I do with fall seasonal produce over the coming weeks, as well as ways to use it once it has been preserved.

What are your favorites?

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Menu Plan Monday, October 11-17

I hope to have a bunch of apples to use this week so our house should be full of the aroma of baking apples, slow cooked apple butter and the like all week! We also plan to visit our CSA farm and a neighbor with a pumpkin patch, so who knows what else we’ll end up with?

If you are coming over from MPM, please come back and visit me on Saturday, and maybe share your own recipe, for my Soup's On Saturday blog carnival. You can click my button below for more details, or even put it on your blog by using the code in my sidebar.

I don’t usually list out my side dishes in my MPM post, but this week I am hoping to try a few recipes for using squash in hopes that I can find at least one my family likes. Butternut Squash Fries, Apple Stuffed Acorn Squash, and Butternut Squash, Apple and Onion Au Gratin are a few of the recipes I am considering.

MENU PLAN:

Monday -- Slow Cooker Chicken Curry with Quinoa, I have two cooked chickens and will be using the bones and some of the meat to make my soup on Tuesday and the rest of the meat for today. Obviously, my chicken will already be cooked, so I will be adapting the recipe and not using the slow cooker.

Tuesday – Soup for Soup’s On Saturday, the theme this week will be Family Favorites (“Just Like Grandma Used To Make” – Or the ones you make which your grandkids will one day say that about).

Wednesday –- Something yet-to-be-decided using the crockpot. I will decide after I go to Farmer’s Market on Tuesday and/or today (Wednesday).

Thursday – Sloppy Joe’s on homemade buns (I have to let mine rise for about 2 hours). We will probably make a quadruple batch as we love these. If we have leftovers, we enjoy toasting them at breakfast time and slathering them with real butter and honey or maple syrup.

Friday – Leftovers before I rush off to an evening wedding

Saturday – I will make a nice breakfast of Baked Blueberry Apple Oatmeal this morning since all or most of my kids will be home at breakfast and not at dinnertime. Baked Oatmeal is something I grew up with and I’ve experimented with different ways to make it. This recipe is different and sounds wonderful! We’ll eat light at dinner, probably bean and cheese burritos or sandwiches.

Sunday – Restaurant for Little Man’s 4th Birthday. Of his choosing, so likely to be McDonald’s or some other nutrition free zone which we do not frequent except for on very rare occasions such as these!

I'd love it if you'd pllleeeaaase share with me your recipes and ideas for making squash the whole family will love (and I do NOT mean in desserts!).

I am likely to be in bittersweet mode this week with my baby turning four. So many mothers in the world don’t even get to have their little ones to their first birthday, so I am exceedingly grateful for healthy children. But he is growing up so quickly, as they all are, and no more babies on the horizon.

This is quite a different side of life for me!

Be Blessed!

For tons more Menu Plan Monday ideas, visit OrgJunkie.

Soup’s On Saturday: Seasonal Produce Week!

Sorry I am a little late posting, in case you were waiting, LOL. I am at a wonderful conference this weekend!)

If you know me very well, you know I LOVE veggies. So I, of course, had to do this soup category.

I enjoy old cookbooks and vintage recipes, so it was with delight that I found the recipe for this soup in a collection of vintage recipes I recently purchased.

I am really enjoying my (purposely still small) collection. There is something so precious about using something as personal as another woman’s recipes from her recipe box! Today’s recipe came from the one with the little kettles and utensils on it. I love it when I can know a little history about the original owner of a recipe. I was told the owner of this one lived where she had a beautiful view of Puget Sound, and she had at least one grandchild.

“Potatoe, Cheese and Pear Soup”

I thought it sounded interesting, but also risky! But I looked up the chef and he is a famous guy. Sweet and savory is a great combo. Usually. And I figured, with 5 cups of cheese, it couldn’t be too bad!

Potatoes are a great seasonal item, and pears are ripe right now, so this was perfect.

First I threw in the potatoes. Yes, I know the recipe says to peel them, but I knew I was going to throw them in the Vita-mix and it would take care of the peels. Why waste all of those vitamins? Not to mention, the extra work it saved me.

Anytime I am making soup, I use the celery heart if I have it. That leaves the easier to eat ribs for the kids. And I always use cast iron.

Again not following the recipe, which said to dice the onion finely. But I am not sure this chef had a powerful Vita-Mix at his disposal back in 1991.

Didn’t peel the pears either…

I had to transfer to a bigger pan. This one is cast iron too, coated with porcelain. I doubled the recipe out of habit, and it made alot!

This is when I threw it all in the Vita-Mix, but I forgot to take a picture. I had to do it in batches. And it just looked like a bunch of veggies whirling around, as you would expect it to.

I like to use only free-range products. If it’s organic, all the better.

When they created a recipe that called for 5 cups, I don’t think they had four cup-sized boxes of broth. Maybe they made their own.

Staying true to form, I added the cream and the cheese by sight, not by measurement.

I did not have fresh, hot, buttered croutons. My store only had flavored ones, and I didn’t have time to make my own. But these worked out just fine. My favorite bites had croutons and chopped pear in them! I tried some cheese crackers in it too, later, and that also added a nice crunch and flavor.

This soup was rich and satisfying. I will definitely make it again. I might even use a nice swiss or another kind of sharper cheese. And, especially with the wine and cheese, I think it would also make a great fondue dip.

It tastes even better served up in my great-grandma’s bowls:)

A couple of my favorites from past years that include seasonal veggies are Lots of Onions Soup, which has been one my favorites for years, and Pumpkin Chili. I remember how surprised I was at how good such an odd sounding stew was. My while family loved it too. Check my sidebar for lots more. And share your favorite link in a comment, or link below if you’d like to add your own! Don't forget you can add my button to your blog too, find it in my sidebar.

Have a sweet yet savory week!

Serving It Up…

Going to estate and garage sales, and also at the GW, I see alot of pretty and/or useful trays. There are so many uses for them that I decided to look into different ideas for how to repurpose or upcycle them, and also how to make my own with objects I like.

I figure I should see if I should take advantage of all of those great deals I find.

And I found alot of inspiration!

You know I like this idea, using chalkboard paint! I am thinking you could also use magnetic paint on a tray and make it into a reminder board. Or use a metal tray as one w/o having to paint it.

Urban Cottage Studio

Using as a bird feeder – great idea!

You can choose your materials depending on your individual tastes too.

Transient Treasures

Repurposed as a jewelry holder/wall decoration

Shabby Vintage Mom

Upcycling a TV tray into a small, foldable, portable ironing board.

I’m totally going to do this!

Oh Fransson

Using an old cabinet door as a serving tray. I’d like to do this with a very old cabinet door. But I wouldn’t want to paint or decorate it.

I’d just want it to look old and chipped.

Hippy Shopper

Repurposed ORANGE PEELS!!!

Urbanecologie

How to make a darling serving tray using an old picture frame

Apartment Therapy (with tutorial)

This person gave new life to a rusty old tray by using spray paint and a rub-on decal. (see before and after pics there)

Valet Tray made from an old record album!

Brinda Kay Design

There are lots of things you can do to make your own tray (use an old cookie sheet or?) or to give a new life to a tired tray, or one you don’t really like. I found lots more all around the web. People are so creative!

I have several trays around my house for various things. When I see a tray, I am also reminded how I should serve others. I need lots of reminders!

I use this one for my Quiet Time items so I can easily have my QT anywhere I want to.

It also helps when my coffee sloshes, so my books and tablecloth don’t get spilled on.

I use this lap tray for my laptop, for writing notes,

or for soup when someone is sick.

Don’t you love the little clips on the sides for holding your paper down?

I have no clue as to why it folds upward like this.

This old mirrored tray is on my dresser and holds a grouping of items

I enjoy or that mean something special to me.

(The lil item in the reflection means quite a bit to me too! Yes, he’s napping.

When else could I blog?!)

Trays come in so handy! What ideas do you have for trays?

What do you use them for?

Serving up some love to all of my bloggy friends,

on a super cute, whimsical tray!

Oh! I almost forgot to remind you to join me tomorrow for Soup's On Saturday! Bring your appetite for comfort food, and your favorite recipe using seasonal produce!