I’m going to try to get back on this bandwagon!!

We have some specific produce items from the co-op that we need to use up and there are several things in the freezer that needs to be used so that’s a definite influence on our menu for this week. And since we now have a non-stop supply of fresh farm eggs (ours), Breakfast For Dinner and Eggs for breakfast are regular weekly occurrences!

Monday

B~ Oatmeal & blueberries

L~ Homemade “lunchables” with fruit

S~ Beef Enchiladas, beans, rice

Tuesday

B~ Banana Nut Muffins, bacon

L~ Lean Pockets, veggies & ranch

S~ Baked Potato Soup (with bacon and cheese.)

Wednesday

B~ Eggs & Bacon, cantaloupe

L~ Grilled Cheese & Kale Chips

S~ BBQ Chicken, potato salad, veggies

Thursday

B~ Cereal & fruit

L~  Mac-N-Wienies, steamed broccoli

S~  Beans, rice, cornbread

Friday

B~ Eggs, Bacon, fruit

L~ Tuna Salad, Crackers, veggies

S~ Grilled Chicken Salads

Saturday

B~ Biscuits & gravy (& bacon and fruit if we have any left)

L~ Leftovers and/or sandwiches

S~ Porcupine Meatballs, veggies

Sunday

B~ Cereal

L~ Tacos

S~ Breakfast For Supper (the highlight of my week!): Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Spicy Hashbrowns, Homemade biscuits with homemade jam

Have you ever tried Kale Chips? We haven’t. This is the first time we’re making it. CROSS YOUR FINGERS AND PRAY MY KIDS LIKE IT!! =) You’ll notice that bacon is a recurring theme around here. Hubby prefers turkey bacon but the kids and I eat the real thing, and since I’m now convinced that bacon grease is good for you, I’ll never go back. ;0) But we also eat tons and tons of raw, uncooked fresh organic produce and raw milk as often as I can travel the half hour to get some. Our eating habits still need some tweaking but we’re slowly but surely changing to more and more home cooked unprocessed foods. And oh, what a tasty journey!

More Menu Plan Monday @ I’m An Organizing Junkie

Whoever said that hormones kick in at 13…. I’d like a refund on that advice.

Because you were WRONG.

Hormones start cranking up earlier. Much. Earlier.

And while there’s no denying that they may crank up even more at 13, and 14, and 15.. there’s also no denying that we’re already seeing the evidence of hormones at play on a pretty regular basis. Oh the drama! Oh the mood swings! Oh the eye rolling! And once I got over the slight surprise that we’re already here, already dealing with this, already the parents of a TWEEN.. (how did THAT happen..) my next thought was:

How do I proceed from here? How can I parent my tween girl through the ever increasing hormonal flux that is puberty and do her justice, train her heart, encourage her, prepare her for the world ahead? … I need to read up on this!!

Because I’ll admit my natural instinct is to think, “Hey I’ve got enough hormone problems over here on my own thank-you-very-much.” But then motherhood kicks in (thank goodness) to save me from being completely selfish and I think “I have teach her how to manage her hormones and her mood swings, I need to be there for her, I can’t just let her fend for herself.” See? I *can* get past my own PMS and try to be a good mom.

But I have no idea what I’m doing.

Not a clue.

• How do I teach my daughter self control over her emotions when I stink so badly at that myself?
• How do I sympathize and support her in the middle of an emotional mood swing crisis when I’m in the middle of my own?
• How do I encourage her to be kind and forgiving when the hormone monster wants to be mean and snarky? Or to respect authority when the eye balls go rolling?

These are more than discipline issues here. Time out, grounding, swats… may address the consequences of acting act but they don’t address the heart and the root issue. And I know from personal experience that if my daughter doesn’t get a handle on her temper now there’s a good chance she’ll be dealing with her hot temper twenty years from now. I want more than just to raise my daughter well, I hope to raise her to be even better than me.

But I’m low on know how. And like I said… I need to read up on some really good books! I need some training myself. I need some encouragement and direction and wisdom. And so I’ve been browsing books…but there are so many! Some of them I have heard recommended before and that’s always a nice piece of input. But others look good and I’ve never heard of them. I spent a while this evening browsing some books at Amazon and I’ve picked a few out for consideration, for further investigation.

Raising a Modern-Day Princess

Your Girl: Raising a Godly Daughter in an Ungodly World

Five Conversations You Must Have with Your Daughter

And for her to read:

The Body Book: It’s A God Thing! (The Lily Series)

BeTween: A Preteen Girl’s Guide to Life

A Girl After God’s Own Heart: A Tween Adventure with Jesus

The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls (American Girl Library)

And also, I found this one.. Maybe I can talk Big Daddy into reading it??
Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know

So moms of tweens, help!! Have you read these? Have you heard anything about them? Have you read others? I don’t want to waste my money on bad books. But I do need to start reading up and praying up and preparing myself to parent in this new phase of childhood. It’s only just beginning! =)

My mother and I are learning to can our fresh produce. We’ve had two canning sessions so far–the first time we canned salsa and yesterday we canned pickles, pickled carrots and grapes. Yesterday was quite the learning experience. ; )

Here’s what we’ve learned so far:

1.) The FIRST thing we need to do is to put our water bath on to boil – it takes a long time for that big pot to get hot enough!!

2.) That REALLY BIG POT can only get so hot without the lid on. Put the lid on – that thing will BOIL.

3.) My mom’s new stove makes the kitchen REALLY HOT. But it works well. =)

4.) Overestimate the amount of time we think it will take, it probably will take longer – at least until we get more comfortable with it.

5.) Even though the directions say to pack the jars loosely, judging by the amount of empty space after our jars were processed.. I don’t think they meant *that* loosely.

6.) Even when you think you’ve packed a jar full but not too tightly, you’ll be surprised at how much it all shifts and floats the to the top and how much empty space is left afterward.

7.) Don’t splash the boiling water on your leg. (Ask my mom.)

8.) We need to add vinegar to our water bath next time, we’ve been told that will reduce the hard water residue on the jars.

9.) Read the directions beforehand. “Oh, this recipe says to let the cucumbers marinate in the seasoning overnight. Guess we won’t be using THAT one.”

10.) We need to brush up on our units of measure – how many cups in a pint? Oh yeah. Two.

Our final count from yesterday: 1 quart pickled baby carrots, 7 quarts + 8.5 pints of pickles in various cuts & seasonings, 4.25 pints of grapes. The numbers are a little funny because I accidentally bought some jars that hold a cup and a half… don’t think I’ll be doing THAT again… Make that the 11th thing we learned.

Saturday was errand day. My mom and I ran errands all-over-the-place. Along the way we made a stop at Tractor Supply. (It still amuses me that I ‘shop’ at Tractor Supply, now that I have chickens. *giggle*)

What I went in for was a galvanized steel, double-walled chicken fount. (Sounds fancy doesn’t it? Yeah– it just looks like that little metal bucket over there.)

What I came out with, in addition to the new fount, was two new books. One of which had been on my Amazon Wishlist for some time, and the other just caught my eye. So I threw the “no impulse purchasing” rule out the window (does it really count as an impulse if it’s already on your wishlist?) and I bought them of course.

The first one, the one on my wishlist, is The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

I already love this book. I’ve thumbed through the whole thing and then I went back to the beginning and began reading it thoroughly. I’m only a few chapters in but I’m already learning and getting ideas. Today I drew up an idea of what I might like our ‘homestead’ to look like – where I’d like to put the gardens, the chicken coop, the fruit trees, etc. It’s going to take a lot of time and money. I’ll have to start small but now I have an idea of where I want to start. My mom purchased a different ‘homestead in your backyard’ kind of book at the same time and we can share and compare notes. We’re kind of figuring this all out together. A couple of weeks ago we had our first canning venture and we canned salsa. This week we’re going to be canning pickles. We’re both going to be starting gardens. I got chickens and she.. well, she doesn’t have chickens.. maybe I can talk her into raising a couple of pigs instead. ;0) Anywho, I’ll let you know how I like this book (and the one my mom bought.)

Speaking of chickens — the other book I picked up was a book called The Joy of Keeping Chickens: The Ultimate Guide to Raising Poultry for Fun or Profit

I’m already loving this book, too! I’m about a third of the way through it (and right off the bat I skimmed the whole thing.) I’ve got the basics of chicken keeping down, but I’d like to keep learning! We still need to build a better coop before Fall arrives and brings colder temperatures. And next Spring, since we acquired these chickens already grown, we’ll be raising chicks for a younger flock and we’ll need to know more about that, too. Inspired by the book, I’m really leaning toward the idea of getting some fertilized eggs from a friend and getting one of our hens to sit on them and raise them if we can. That would be so fun. =) But there’s plenty of time to decide.

I know, I know, I’m just as surprised as you are to watch myself getting more and more into this little ‘home farm’ thing. I’m even starting to think I need a pair of work boots. ; )

~~

I don’t do a lot of reviews here, I’m sure you noticed. But a couple of months ago, following my post about our 20 Minute Clean-Ups, I was offered a free Sonic Scrubber set to try out and review. I’ve seen them before but I’d never actually purchased one and satisfied my curiosity. But as I read the review offer it occurred to me, “Hey, this could be a good way to encourage the kids to clean.”

I like getting the kids to clean.

The time was actually pretty great because we were just about to embark on our three week Spring Break from school and I planned on getting plenty of Spring Cleaning done at the same time. And since then I’ve had plenty of regular daily cleaning to try it out on, too. I think I can safely say we’ve thoroughly tested and tried out these little Sonic Scrubbers!

Here’s a list of the different things I’ve found our Sonic Scrubber very useful for:

• grime and soap buildup around the base of sink faucets and handles
• milk rings and other dried liquids inside or at the bottom of the drinking glasses
• serrated edges of knife blades and dried food between fork tines
• textured surfaces such as the handle on the refrigerator door
• nooks/crannies/corners on washable bins, such as the produce drawers in the refrigerator
• cleaning around buttons and dials on small appliances (toasters, blenders, etc.)
• removing dust & grime on the window ac (vents, coils behind the filter — with the ac unplugged of course)
• mesh colanders and the mesh lint trap on the dryer
• the fabric softener and bleach ports in the washing machine
• cleaning around the slats/spindles on dining room chairs
• inside the microwave
• molded soap trays/shelves inside the shower –this would be good for tile and grout, too, but we don’t have any
• the inside of the trashcan
• scrubbing potatoes!

I feel like I’m forgetting something.. I’m sure I am! The kids like using it when they wash dishes or clean the bathroom (and I like that they think it’s fun and they complain less about the cleaning part.) If you get several sets of Sonic Scrubbers you can label each for different types of tasks or rooms to separate the dirtier tasks from the cleaner tasks (bathroom, general use, food safe, etc.) Or if you have one set, you can bleach your brushes between uses to keep them clean for washing dishes, cutting boards and other food-related items.

I did find that when it came to scrubbing plainer, flatter surfaces such as a dinner plate, I preferred to use a sponge and my flat scraper. My scraper scrapes dried food off in one swift motion which is faster and more convenient. But for items with textured surfaces, holes, curves, nooks and crannies, small openings and other hard to reach areas — the Sonic Scrubber was much faster and easier than scrubbing with a sponge, toothbrush or scouring pad. Fastier and Easier are two friends that are always welcome around my house!

As for how long the product lasts.. we’ve been using it for the past two months and don’t need to replace any of the scrubbing heads yet. It still has the original set of batteries that we started with and it still works. If you search for coupon codes when you order refills and if you use rechargeable batteries, you can save yourself a little bit of money on the usage cost. There are several discount offers on their website right now. The brushes interchange easily and quickly, making switching from one task to another quick and easy also.

The verdict: I like the Sonic Scrubber enough that I do plan to buy more brush heads when these wear out and continue using it!

The Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid for this review, but I did receive a free Household Cleaning Tool and Brushes Set and a Household All Purpose Accessory Pack to try out and review in my own words. I am not a Scrubbing Bubbles affiliate, but I did use Amazon links in this disclaimer; I would be remiss not to. Every penny I earn through Amazon is spent on Homeschool Curriculum.