PROcrastinate

Confession time guys.  I'm not 20.  I'm actually a 40 year old and a 3 year old trapped simultaneously in a 20 year old body.

I'm taking a Leadership communication course right now.  You know, efficient leadership, motivating people, emotional intelligence, changing the world.  High brow, deep stuff.  I'm in the middle of a paragraph on adding value to every situation you are in when I somehow end up on Pinterest.  Crazy, right?

Well, normally these detours last 1.5 minutes.  This time I clicked through a picture on spring break ideas for your preschooler.  [Background: we are not on spring break, we do not have a preschooler in our house, and I'm the only one home right now]  A couple clicks later and I'm on this article about flubber.  Normal people would move on or pin the thing, right?  Right.  Unfortunately, normal and I aren't getting along today.  Long gone are thoughts of followership and leadership theory.  In their place are "Hey!  We HAVE Borax!  I think we have glue too . . . food coloring can't be hard to find. . ."

Some simple math(approximations) later and a climb on top of the washer later, I sit back down in my study corner with some lemon/sunshine yellow flubber, and the most ridiculous grin.  This, my friends, is the life of a hopelessly professional procrastinator.

Sincerely,
Your resident 3 year old

Mango Coconut Ice Cream (Dairy free)

Being off of Facebook for a while means *cough* that I spend more time on my other social media.  As I scroll through my Pinterest feed I keep coming across these alternative ice cream recipes.  I guess ice cream is just so good that even sugar free, gluten free, dairy free, vegan, paleo -you name it- people must have their own version.  And that's fine with me. :)  I've tried the banana ice cream a number of times with varying degrees of success.  The raw cashew version looked great, but who keeps raw cashews in stock?!  So when I came across this delightful looking coconut milk recipe I bookmarked it right away.  Coconut milk is almost always in our pantry.

This morning I was sick of being sick and decided that ice cream was in order, except I didn't want to eat dairy products that would make me more congested or something with lots of processed sugar that would hurt my immune system.  Enter coconut milk ice cream!

I adapted from this recipe by Hannah of Immer Wachsen.  I used one can of coconut cream (just the fat part), about a 1/5 cup of honey, and half of a fresh, ripe mango.  I blended it for about 5 seconds, then put half in an ice cube tray and half in the bottom of a bread pan so I could test the different freezing methods.  I blended it up in our personal serve ninja cup because this small of a recipe doesn't make that much.  I ended up liking the bread pan version better, just so you know.  It was easier to manipulate.

And the taste?  Perfect.  My mom (who can't eat dairy) said it tasted like butter - in the best way possible!  It is so rich that the portions you see here were plenty.  It's a one-scoop wonder. :-) Dad and Emmy were the only other ones home at the time and both thought is was great.

The mango added the perfect amount of tangy with the sweet of the honey and exotic of the coconut. Definitely trying this one again sometime!

Mending like Jesus

I realized yesterday (while sitting at my sewing machine patching some jeans) that I really like mending.  I like making the mending pile disappear, yes, but more than that, I like fixing things.  

When my sister’s favorite pair of jeans gets a tear, when a button pops off my Dad’s shirt, or my brother’s shirt needs tailoring, I love fixing it.  Whether it’s just hemming a pair of pants, or completely refashioning a dress, being able to infuse new life and usefulness into something brings me joy.

Jesus does similar things with people.  He takes broken people and fixes them.  He heals the brokenhearted. (See Psalm 147:3-5, Psalm 34:18) He restores relationships.  He tweaks and molds his sons and daughters till they are able to fulfill his purpose for them.  (Isaiah 64:8)

It looks a little silly in writing, but being able to put fabric and thread back in order is one way makes me look a little more like Jesus.  When I was mending those jeans I really felt like I was feeling God’s satisfaction in the work of restoration after him. 

As we live the Christian life, we strive to be more and more like God.  Not desiring his position, as a friend said at Bible study, but desiring his character.  When people look at us, they should see the Maker.  They should see what “Christian” actually means: little Christs.  As we grow in Christ we can’t help but look more and more like our Father.  Of taking joy in creation and restoration is part of that, then so be it.  Mend on!

Thrifting Haul

I'm not much of a shopper.  That is, I don't like spending money on frivolous things because I have nothing better to do.  I DO, however, enjoy spending the time and money it takes to find treasures at a thrift store.

Today I invested an hour (yes, a whole hour or more) and $33 and came home with. . . 22 clothing items and 8 beanie babies.  22?!  Yup.  1.23 day at Goodwill. :-)

Edit: I also got rid of 20 items I already had.  Less is more folks! :-)

So, I don't think I've ever written a "haul" post, but if you want pictures of everything I got, keep reading.

The Art of Life

Saturday was quite.  Snow gently fell and the temperature continued to drop.  Grandma and Grandpa had just gotten home from Panama.  Poor them.  80 degrees to -10 degrees is no fun.  My Grandma is a wonderful artist.  She is always quilting or painting or drawing or weaving or sewing something funky and incredibly BRIGHT.  She pulled out her paints and got to work on her hundred day challenge: to work on a creative project everyday.

She's been doing a study in poppies for the last couple days that is gorgeous.  Some she paints, some she uses chalk and today we gave her markers.  Permanent markers.

Mom bought this break taking set of 36 colors and we all wanted to try.  I felt like a kid on Christmas.  I couldn't wait to try something, but for fear of ruining that pure piece of paper I sat and sketched, erased, and sketched some more.  Finally I asked my brother Hudson if he wanted to collaborate.

We settled on a cityscape and I dug in my dusty bag of art skills till I found my one point perspective.  I dress an intersection and then mirrored it.  We were going to draw society.  Society from two opposite perspectives.

We got to work on the graffiti.  May I just say that I have so much more respect for graffiti artists now?  This is hard!  It's quite a bit harder to draw it in permanent marker though because you have to create your own layers and decide on everything before it happens.  We included a number of references to politics, books, movies, and our favorite tv shows.  Because we can.  Shout out to Doctor Who, Sherlock and J.R.R. Tolkien!  I spent probably 8 consecutive hours on this with occasional input and help from the Hud. (Hey!  He's a busy fellow.)

The official statement of meaning has yet to be released to the press.

In a span of 60 seconds...

Mom went to use the bathroom, River slipped and hit her head(que tears), Jack started crying, the phone rang, the cheese sauce boiled and started burning, the noodle timer beeped, so they had to be strained, and the doorbell rang.

I thought this only happened in movies.

The Morning Chronicles...

Reasons you should get dressed as soon as you get up

1. It helps you wake up.  Especially when you have to get up early.
2. It helps you be more productive because you feel ready to attack the world, instead of wander around online till noon.
3. It makes you feel good about yourself.  You feel put together and might even workout and eat a healthy breakfast instead of lounging all day.
4. And, certainly not least, your brothers may have friends staying the night and not bother to tell you.  When they come upstairs you are completely flustered that there is an extra and rush to get dressed.  This results in seriously flawed outfits, fashionably speaking, and multiplied awkwardness.  

One or all of these may have happened recently.   SO thankful my pajamas are halfway decent.

The end.  Get dressed.

Happiness is...

...unloading every. last. little. plate. we. own. after a lovely night of hospitality.  "There will be 20+ extra for dessert this evening!"  Or something like that.

Unadulterated Life

"Life is the messy bits."

There was an article floating around about not instagramming your "perfect life."  People put their best foot forward on the web.  It just happens.  In a sense it should happen because nobody wants to read you complaining about your horrible life, but no one wants to try to live up to your perfect life either.

Well, I'm not sure how I appear on the internet because only you can tell me that.  We do not live spotless lives around here.  There are a lot of mistakes and a lot of stepped on toes and a lot of grace.  GRACE.  What a lovely sound.  

We're just sinners, saved by grace.  To make my point, I thought I'd practice my freelensing and show you what our house is like today because, hehe, yeah, it was a BIG mess today.  Among other things we've replaced both our broken stove and our old fridge.  These installations took more time and effort than we anticipated and no one has energy to clean after a job is finished at 11pm.

Our old, and new, fridges!  Quite obviously still in construction. :-)  Look at that missing drawer!

Old broken electrical stove, and new gas stove!  Still getting used to the way it cooks...

There are books, scissors, glue and miscellaneous craft materials all over the living room floor from last minute project boards for school.

Furniture was moved quickly out of the way for the appliances and is left wherever is landed.

There are crumbs left from baking adventures...

and dry goods strewn all over the dining-room table, just waiting to be relocated.

There are dishes left undone.

So just in case you thought we had it all together... we don't always.  And that is ok.

God bless the plumbers...every one

No seriously.  They must have the worst job.  Ok, you know what?  You're right. They're tied with septic pumpers.

I've had my share of plumbing adventures and every time I look up at my Dad in bewilderment and say "Why does anyone choose to become a plumber?"

The answer is accompanied with a smile and always the same: "Because they need to feed their families."

I stare into space and shake my head slowly.
Then I get back to work.

For some reason, you see, the plumbing lot has always fallen to me.  I guess I'm not perceived as busy enough to get out of it or I don't immediately reject the idea and so I get delegated as a willing (or perhaps simply not unwilling) individual.

We call it "voluntold" around here.

I suppose it isn't particularly gross.  And this time it hardly smelled at all.  And it wasn't hard to fix.  So why am I complaining you ask?

Ah, but you mistake me!  I complain not, I merely seek to entertain with a glimpse into the odd education that is sometimes thrust upon that most interesting and mysterious race of the Stay-at-Home-Daughter.  We really are a most convivial sort.

Occasionally the basement floods from rain and there is a lot of clean up work to do or the sump pump ceases to function and there is a flood of an altogether more detestable sort.  This was a mere kitchen flood.

I was sick Monday.  That is my excuse.  Fevered and lackluster I would not being getting up to sustain myself with food and drink (except water, 'cause, you know, that's supposed to be healthy ;-) let alone clean up after my most adored siblings and their culinary adventures.

Tuesday is well, today.  Except it is yesterday because I'm not publishing this till tomorrow, which is actually today.  :-)  I love watching your brains work.

Tuesday is co-op day and praise be to God I was feeling quite recovered this morning and was perhaps my energy levels only lapsed because I didn't bother to eat much after breakfast.

 Anywho.  The family was gone to co-op and I was hear all by my lonesome studying literature, most intriguing of all how to read and analyze and interpret poems.  You know, I've never given poems enough notice...

Needless to say in my academic endeavors I did no kitchen work and cleaned no dishes (I didn't make any dirty dishes either, but apparently that is irrelevant).  So now on this Tuesday evening the kitchen is piled high with dishes from 48 or possible 56 hours before.

Don't even mention it, I'm already embarrassed.

Well, I'd nothing better to do at 9PM (except go to bed and continue recovery or waste some time on line and stay up super late writing this extremely long blog post that probably no on else is going to read...moving on!) so I decided to do something about the sorry state of the kitchen.

I start loading the dishwasher and putting the dirty dishes on the right side of sink and organizing everything so that I can work efficiently when it is brought to my attention that the pipe below the sink has been dripping and that it must be backed up because there are four inches of filthy water in both sides of the sink underneath stack of dishes.

Eeesshh.  I stop humming.  Time to really buckle down.  I'm not squeamish folks, but I do avoid putting my hands in filthy water whenever possible.

It was a dark orangish/yellow/brown mixture with food from who-knows-what-meal floating in it and isolated lillypads of cool grease (presumably bacon?).  I fished some junk out of the bottom and when my hands emerged again -- slimy, cold and smelly -- The water droplets formed neat little pockets atop the greasy grime.

Oh Joy.  Well, we're already this far in and we've simply got to fix it.  Daddy has to study tonight because he has got books to read and papers due.  Mommy is painting in the bathroom, Than is half asleep because he had basketball practice this evening, Hudson is mentally tired after co-op and drama and is probably practicing cello.  Emily, frankly, would not be any help.

Thankfully I'm wearing my "AIR FORCE SISTER" T-shirt to remind that "No guts, no glory."  Not that I'm going for glory.  I'd just as soon have a clean kitchen and a happy family...and this stuff OFF OF MY HANDS!!!

So, after all of this it really was a simple fix.  My Dad just stuck a hanger down the hole and jiggled whatever nefarious substance was there loose so the standing water would drain.  Some soap, boiling water, paper towel, unscrewing of PVC, draining of water, cleaning of some soot color muck out of said PVC and reattachment of the same everything was fixed and I finished loading the dishwasher and did half of the handwash!

You'll thank me someday for not posting pictures when you're sink clogs someday.

And there you have it!  Today's Adventure in Domestica! 

...to be continued