The difference a year makes...

A year ago I was an unfulfilled housewife.  Being at home was a burden not a blessing.  I longed to do more, for people to know I was smart and be fulfilled in some way.  So I got a job.  But almost immediately I realized that it wasn't very fulfilling.  I didn't feel challenged or rewarded in my new position.  The hours were so different from my husband's work schedule that eventually, we only saw each for a couple of hours in the evening.  Even then it was only to eat together and then to go to bed.  Slowly, we stopped reading the Bible together at night.  We stopped taking weekend trips.  I stopped running.  I barely slept.  I was exhausted and I missed my husband.  Then my sweet hubby came home with a marriage seminar DVD by Chip Ingram.  By the end of it, I realized my job hadn't fulfilled me and it never would.  This was not my dream.  Worse, if I kept going at this pace, I was liable to ruin my marriage.  I realized that many women would love to be able to stay at home. I realized staying at home and supporting my husband might go against all the new age feminism that surrounds us today, but for us it could be right.  Jobs end, family lasts forever.  So I quit.  

But I knew with my personality, I couldn't just sit around all day.  I'd need to be challenged and have tasks for myself.  Which led me to starting a big organic vegetable garden.  Then I beefed up my cake making.  All in addition to keeping house, making all our meals, and DIY home decor projects.  Oh, and my new hobby of knitting.  I have to say, it feels amazing so far!  I'm still busy beyond belief, but we finally have time to do date nights, go to the lake and the family cabin, and, gratefully, sleep! So, I'll be blogging more. I'm going to have posts from my adventures in gardening, new recipes and cooking techniques, and some general life trials and errors.  Get ready world! I'm back, and saucier than ever!

Mother's Day Ideas: Homemade, Vegan, Gluten free

Ah Mother's Day.  Mom's everywhere are look forward to this day each year to get breakfast in bed, chores done without asking, diamond jewlrey, and everyone getting along.  Wait.  I'm not a mom (yet), but I don't think any Mother's Day I've participated in has ever looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.  Does yours? 

Alright then, Mom might want a gold and emerald necklace, but realistically she's gonna get one made of macarooni.  But everytime you did that as a kid she loved it, didn't she?  So with the the economy tight, our wallets tight, and our gas tanks running on empty what are we gonna do?  That's right!  Macarooni necklace! Only, let's take that and make her something else, more, uh, enjoyable.  Here's a list of really awesome ideas:

Make her some sugar cookies.  Even if your decorating skills are lacking, they'll still taste amazing.  Especially if you try the chocolate sugar cookies here.  Spell her name out in them like below.  Then arrange the cookies into a cookie bouquet!  Neat huh?

Bake a loaf of chocolate babka.  This is really great for grandmas.  The word babka means grandmother in the original language.  (Directly it means old woman, but it's used as a term of endearment for grandmas.)  It's hands down the best sweet bread I have ever had.  Mom's not into chocolate?  Make cinnamon sugar filling instead.  This Jewish bread is traditionally served at Passover, but it's good for breafast any day.  Heck, it's just good.  Mom will be greatly impressed by the time and effort you put into making homemade bread.  It's my most requested item at Christmas time.

Make her some French Macarons.  Bonus, they're gluten free.  This is one of the things my mom is getting as she suffers from fibromyalgia and gluten free diets can assist in reducing the inflamation causing the pain.  These are trickier and take some helpful hints, which I will be happy to post shortly.  They have chewy centers and practically melt in your mouth as you eat them.








My mommy and me several years ago.


Make her a cd of all her favorite oldies that she used to jam out to you will when you were a kid.  My mom and I used to have pretend concerts to Heart albums.  I cherish those happy memories.










Create a card from cardstock to tell her how much she means to you.  It's really not difficult and you'll spend less than five bucks doing it if you already have some of the supplies on hand.  So what if it's less than gorgeous. Remember, honey, that macarooni necklace was no work of art either.

(Cards not yet made.  So behind this week!)

Whip up a batch of those scones I posted and package them with some yummy teas in a cute little basket with a decorative mug.  How cute would that be?  And, it's vegan!  It could easily be shipped and overnighted too.  Just saying.

Get her her favorite lotion from Bath and Body Works.  Then buy some flowers at the local farmer's market and arrange them in a vase yourself.  I did this last year for all the moms in my life and it was well recieved.  Wildflowers and daises are the easiest to arrange if you are worried about skill level.  Just snip the ends off and plop them into a vase with water in it.  Dress the vase up with her favorite color ribbon to make it stand out.  Tada! 










Cook her favorite meal.  She did it for you for years now it's your turn to show her you learned a thing or two since back in the day.  She'll appreciate not having to cook her own Mother's Day dinner, I promise.

The possibilites are endless.  Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there.  Make the best of the mom God gave you.  Hope it's a delicious day!

Ode to Stay at Home Moms (and Dads) {Hydrangea Cupcake How To}

During Spring Break from school, my 6 year old niece came to stay with us for a few days.  I absolutely love having her over.  What a great excuse to do all the fun things you loved as a kid but might be shunned doing now, like coloring with crayons or watching Beauty and the Beast 5 times in a row.  Plus, it gave me insight in what it might be like being a stay at home mom, which I've learned can be abbreviated as SAHM.  It seems people I know are either team SAHM or team successful working mom.

Dear Lord, what a glimpse I got.  I was trying to spend time with her, clean, bake, and still shower and look presentable.  I've seen TV shows and met women who can do it.  They look amazing!  Their houses are perfectly ordered.  They violate thermodynamic laws of entropy!  It's disorder to order. 

From a scientific standpoint this is NOT POSSIBLE!  I tried.  Those women must be TV magic or aliens.  Or perhaps it takes years of practice.  That's not to say I didn't complete some of my tasks, but all were not accomplished or all were only half done.  How do they do it and make it look so easy?  How is it that our society shuns these individuals as if they don't have 'real' jobs?  Let me tell you, before you DARE insult a stay at home parent, try it yourself for a few weeks.  Some people can't even handle their own kids that long.  It's challenging.  However, it was a truly rewarding experience and I only did it for a few days.

One thing we did she got a big kick out of was frost some leftover strawberry cupcakes I had frozen for this exact purpose.  I placed some purple buttercream frosting I had from a couple of days before in a pastry bag with a 2D tip.  I've also heard you can place the same tip in a big plastic bag you snip a corner off of.  I've even done the work with a smaller star tip when I didn't own a 2D.  The result of this is hydrangea cupcakes.  Yep, the beautiful 'snowball' flower as we called it when we were kids.

She was so proud!

Then with me holding and positioning the cupcake I taught her to "squeeze and lift" the frosting bag all around the cupcake.  I said, "Boo, you just hold the frosting in the same hand you color with like you are about to milk a cow."  Being a country girl, I think this was the easiest way to explain it.  So all over the cupcake we "squeeze and lift".  It's a decent amount of pressure to get medium consistency frosting out so I helped hold it a bit too, but she did most of the work. 

Isn't this just the cutest!?

Since we were also working on decorating cookies (a later post), she added some yellow royal icing centers to a couple of the cupcakes for a different look.





These cuppies would look even better with a mix of lighter purple and blue or pale green and pink to mimmick real hydrangea flowers.



Oddly, she really just wanted the icing off them.

It's a really simple activity that you can get the kids in on.  While they eat the fruits of their labor you might even be able to fold a load of laundry. 

Hope your day is as delicious as ours was and God bless SAHM's everywhere.