Menu plan for the week of November 30

We had turkey last week.  You?  I don't really care for turkey, and in fact, I didn't eat any of this year's Thanksgiving turkey.  What I do like about turkey is I can use the carcass to make stock.  With no sodium.  Which I then use year-round for soups and other stock or broth containing yummies.  I love using things most would consider garbage to make something useful.

This year I made and canned 2 5/8 gallons of stock.  I think that's about a 2 year supply, considering how my family claims to feel about soup.

I'll be using the first quart of this batch on Monday for chicken noodle soup, because one of my soup-hating children recently declared that he likes chicken noodle soup.  If that's true (and I have my doubts), that means that at least 4/5 of the family will eat the soup.  Which is a passing grade.  Which means we might have a less than 2 year supply of turkey stock.  I'll keep you posted.

What's on your menu this week?

Here's ours:

Supper:

Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup
Courtesy of YummyMummyClub

• Chicken noodle soup, Texas roadhouse rolls
• Meat sauce with spaghetti or spaghetti squash, green beans, salad
• Tacos, tortillas, taco toppings
• Kielbasa & potatoes, broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, applesauce
• Pizza, salad
• Hamburgers, buns, cooked carrots, chips 
• Grilled chicken, grilled garlic toast, grilled green veggie

Other:

• Egg roll in a bowl (from this cookbook)
• Pinto beans
• Taco bean soup
• Snickerdoodles
• Cauliflower crust for pizza
• Cinnamon swirl bread

Cinnamon Swirl Bread.  Yum!

Giving Thanks

The following is an excerpt from our family's 2004 Christmas newsletter.  MC was a year and 2/3 old; AKD was 4 1/2.

I think about this particular letter at this time of year, for perhaps obvious reasons.  It is so easy to fall into the habit of complaining about our blessings.  All it takes is a change in perspective to change the attitude of our hearts from griping to gratitude.

Happy thanksgiving, my friends.  I pray that this present spirit of thankful gratitude permeates your life, long after the leftovers are gone.

Love and peace.

* * * * *

It's 5:30 in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, and our little alarm clock (MC) didn't get the memo that today is a holiday so we should all sleep in, at least until 6 a.m., so here we are.  It occurs to me that there's no time like the present to reflect on what I'm thankful for, so here goes.

I'm thankful that Hubby's still sleeping because that means at least one of us won't be cranky later on, and maybe I'll be able to take a nap.  I'm thankful for the endless piles of laundry and dishes that need to be washed and put away and for the floors that constantly need sweeping because that means our family has food and clothing and everything we need.  I'm thankful for all the work that goes into maintaining our home because that means we have a safe warm place to live.  I'm thankful that Hubby has been working long hours because that means he has a job to support us.

I'm thankful that our children get into everything and climb into precarious spots (and subsequently require rescuing) because that means they're healthy and curious.  I'm thankful that at the end of each day I have a humongous pile of toys to put away because that means our children are happy and imaginative.  I'm thankful that my children need me so intensely right now, because I know in a few years they won't need me in quite the same way anymore.  I'm thankful that I have the resources to be my kids' mom instead of giving them to strangers to raise.  I'm thankful to have a husband, and father for my children, who loves us very much.

Most of all, I'm thankful that a man died a horrible and tortured death 2000 years ago, because that means I will live forever.  And it means that all of those things I'm thankful for will pass away, leaving in their place God's perfect grace, peace, and love.

* * * * *

Huh.  Seems like not much has changed over the years ... still thankful.

Thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve y'all.  The kids don't have school today, so I'm enjoying a lazy morning at home.  I'm sitting at our dining table, still in my PJs (which is not all that unusual), with the delicious scent of cinnamon and cloves gently wafting through the kitchen to my grateful nose (which is most definitely not a usual occurrence).  I've got pumpkin pie in the oven, and cake almost ready to go.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, my friends, because as much as I love spending time with extended family, there is nothing I like more than lazy days at home with just my favorite people.  Expectations are a breeding ground for disappointment, and when I spend time with others, even family and friends whom I love, I find myself mired in expectations that are spoken and unspoken.  It's stressful, y'all, like navigating a minefield.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  And the next day, and the next, because the five of us, me and my favorite people, will navigate these days together with love and grace.  We will bake and eat.  We will play football and watch football.  We will most likely go tree hunting and catch a thousand-pointer.  We will spend time outside.  These few days are a welcome respite from the ever-increasing demands of daily life.  For these few days, we will enjoy each other.  And ponder our blessings.

Flaky

I'm a mystery shopper.  That means I go in to businesses anonymously and evaluate their customer service and quality.  It's a fun way to earn a little extra money.  Emphasis on little.  But I do enjoy it, and I do it in my spare time, so it's all good.

Lately I've been doing a lot of internet shops.  I love these, because I don't have to leave my house or exit my pajamas.  There are two types of internet shops that I do; for one of them, I need to make an appointment for an oil change and tire rotation.  I have to make an appointment, but I don't have to keep the appointment.  I don't even necessarily have to own or have access to the vehicle I'm making an appointment for.  But I do need to cancel the appointment so they're not holding a time slot for a vehicle that will never show.

As I've said, I've been doing a lot of these lately.  The limit is 1 per day, and these shops are available 4 days a week.  I am currently in the middle of a 5 week streak of doing these shops almost daily.  Ten down, 8 to go, and new shops being added daily, so who knows how long this will go on.  That's not even counting the 14 shops I did in September and October.

So I've been canceling a lot of appointments.

And even though I go into each and every one of these shops knowing that I'm going to be canceling an appointment, even though there's no way these folks know that I'm making and canceling an appointment every day, I feel like such a flake.

What kind of a person makes and cancels 18 appointments in a month?  A flake, that's who.

Or ... a mystery shopper.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

On another note, I am so very excited.  The company that offered my very favorite mystery shop ever lost the contract.

That's not what I'm excited about.  That was a very sad day, when I heard the news.  I gathered with friends and family and a fellow mystery shopper (who happens to be all 3 of those rolled up into one awesome package) to mourn the loss.

What I'm excited about is I found the company that won the contract.  Oh, happy, happy day!  I might be back doing my very favorite shop by Wednesday (if no one else takes it before then).  Yahoo!

The End

Menu plan for the week of Happy Thanksgiving

Hello, my friends, and welcome to Thanksgiving week.  This is the week we celebrate a national day of thanks here in the U.S.

What are your Thanksgiving traditions?  What's your favorite Thanksgiving food?

When I asked my family if there was any food in particular they would like for Thanksgiving, my middlest child said he wanted asparagus and brussels sprouts.  I think he would be happy to skip the turkey and all of the other traditional fare in lieu of cruciferous veggies.  I am happy to indulge that boy's wants, in this case.

It strikes me as slightly ridiculous that we celebrate how thankful we are for all we have by stuffing ourselves as full as we possibly can with as much food as we possibly can, instead of sharing our bounty with others who don't have as much as we do.

Anyway, I am thankful for you.  And for food, because food is yummy.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Supper:

• Creamy chicken and wild rice soup, easy dinner rolls, salad
• Spaghetti or spaghetti squash with meat sauce, green beans, applesauce
• Nachos, taco-type toppings, guacamole
• Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes with turkey gravy, roasted asparagus, roasted brussels sprouts, pumpkin pie (with pat in pan crust)
• Pizza or cauliflower crust pizza, salad
• Beef stroganoff, corn, bread & butter, applesauce
• Pork chops, garlic bread, grilled broccoli, applesauce

Other:

• Taco seasoning
• Taco seasoned meat--I use a mixture of lean ground beef and lean ground turkey (large batch for the freezer)
• Turkey stock
• Cake mix
• Turkey cake pops

Awake

The following is an actual transcript of a real conversation held between my husband and me at 4:18 a.m. earlier this week as he was preparing to head out of town.

Hubby:  Why are you awake?
Me: Because I woke up.

As if I had chosen to be awake.  As if I had a rational reason.  As if I actually wanted to be awake.  No, no, no, a thousand times no!  At that point, I had already been awake since 3:02 a.m., and by no means did I want to be.  Or even need to be.

I have no idea why my son, my husband, my other son, random house and weather noises, and my bladder feel the need to wake me up at all hours of the early morning, but they do.  {OK, I do know why my bladder needs me to be awake...}  In the middle of the night, they need me to be awake.  Sometimes, I wake up for no discernible reason at all.

And then I can't get back to sleep.  But they, the serial mama-waker-uppers, slip right back into blissful slumber.  Job done: mama woken, they can rest in peace.

It's a curse.  It's a blessing.  It's just the way I am.

A blessing, you say?  How is that a blessing?  Well, yes, a blessing.  Sometimes, God wakes me up, usually so I can pray for someone, but sometimes to encourage me to do something.  God doesn't speak louder in the middle of the night, but it is easier for my imperfect human ears to hear, because there's nothing else for me to do in the still quiet besides listen.

Waking up before I want to, and subsequently staying awake longer than I need to, sometimes makes me cranky, sometimes sets the stage for a day-long headache, but the middle of the night is when God does some of his best work in my heart.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

P.S. Having once again woken before I wanted to, I was typing this post in the early morning with my laptop propped on my knees while lying down in bed.  Not sleeping.  Bubby came in and asked if he could lie in bed with me, and I said sure, but to be careful of my mouse.  My wireless computer mouse.  He thought I had an actual mouse in bed with me!  Funny boy.

P.P.S. Just in case you didn't already know, I have a don't-talk-about-Hubby-being-out-of-town-until-he's-back-in-town policy, so he's already back, safe and sound, waking me in the early hours for no good reason.

Truly Free by Robert Morris: a Review

It has been months since I requested this book for review.  More than 3, less than 6.  I know this, because BookLook Bloggers deactivates accounts that have had no activity after 3 months, and I've been deactivated once while they've been waiting for my review.  Ugh.   I hate when I don't follow through on my obligations.  But, in the spirit of better late than never, here goes.

The subtitle of this book, "Breaking the Snares That So Easily Entangle," provides a good summary of the premise.  We humans, because we have free choice, because we live in a broken and flawed world, get tangled up in all sorts of things.  And some of these things are good things, but we take them to such extremes that we become slaves to them, instead of slaves to Christ.

I found the beginning of the book to be very inspiring.  One illustration that really stuck with me was when Mr. Morris was talking about the Israelites, recently freed from slavery in Egypt, wandering about in the desert.  The were free, finally.  Free to make their own decisions and do their own thing.  They had been longing for freedom for centuries.  And do you know what they did?  They complained.  They said they would have been better off staying in Egypt ... where they were slaves!  They were longing for that which enslaved them.

I gotta tell you, that struck home for me, because I do the same thing.

The book consists of an introduction, along with a few introductory chapters, followed by six chapters addressing specific snares that we encounter in life, including pride, bitterness, greed, and lust, among others.  The final chapter is "A Prayer for Freedom," and the appendix lists resources to continue further along the road to being snare-free.

I really liked the book ... until about the 3rd or 4th chapter that was addressing a specific snare, because it started to get very repetitive and boring.  Truth?  I didn't finish.  Which is why it's taken me more than 3 less than 6 months to get this review written.

Bottom line: This is a helpful resource for people who want to overcome a specific snare in their lives.  Read the introductory chapters, along with the chapter addressing your specific snare or snares.

I received this book for free from the publisher through BookLook Bloggers in exchange for my honest review.

Who I am

Who am I?

I am Scarlet.

I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend.

I am creative, compassionate, sensitive, emotional.

I am thoughtful, resourceful.

I am an introvert, a writer, a baker-wannabe, a starter-but-not-finisher.

I am clumsy, cynical, sarcastic, impulsive, lazy, forgetful, competitive.

I am private, anxious, socially awkward, misunderstood, fearful.

I am powerful, courageous.

I am beautiful, worthy, grace-soaked, peaceful, faith-filled.

I am flawed.  I am enough.

I am all these and more.
I am human.

Who are you?

Good Good Father, by Chris Tomlin, has been playing in my head on an endless loop lately.  Have you heard it?  Click on the video below to listen.

This song says I am loved by God.  That's it.  It's who I am.  It's who I am.  It's who I am.  Loved.  No matter what else I am, what else I've done, regardless of all of my failures and shortcomings, my accomplishments and victories.  I am loved by God.

You, my friend, are loved by God.  It's who you are.  It's who you are.  It's who you are.

You are loved.

Hunting season

Hubby gave me a gift.  Wasn't that nice of him?  Not because it's November.  But kind of.

He gave me a blaze orange hat.  And then, a few days later, he asked me if I had worn it yet.

And I told him that I had not because the state park was not yet open to hunting.  Which of course led to me telling him all about hunting in the park ... when it opens to hunting, when deer gun season is, and that muzzle-loader season follows, and also that there are other creatures that can be hunted right now, like turkey and game birds, waterfowl, squirrels, rabbits, coyote, and fox, among others.

He said I know an awful lot about hunting seasons, for a non-hunter.  Which is true.  I do.  I made a point of knowing a lot more about hunting seasons this year than I did last year.  Because I don't want to give up hiking on my favorite trail, and I also don't want to get shot.

Source

So right now, the park is open to hunting, but I feel pretty safe walking on my favorite trail, wearing my new hat, surrounded by thick underbrush.  Even if a hunter found a clear a shot, with that thick tangle of undergrowth, it's unlikely an arrow would stray enough to find the path, and me on it.  Next week, when the guns come out?  Not so much.

Menu plan for the week of November 16

It's the week before Thanksgiving, which means it's also we-won't-be-undersold-on-turkeys week.  Does this happen where you live?  Every grocery store advertises that they'll match any competitor's price for turkey, but none of the grocery stores actually lists a price for turkey.  Yeah.  So you can't actually price match to a lower advertised price, because no one advertises their prices.  That's great marketing, right there.  Offering promises that have no hope of fulfillment.

Did mid-November sneak up on you the way it did me?  I'm going along, knowing it's November, but since it's feeling so much like the beginning of October, my brain is telling me, yes, it's November, but it's early November... And now suddenly, it's mid-November, and the Thanksgiving holiday is a week and a half away.  Time warp going on over here.

So anyway, here we are, mid-November, and we've still got to eat.  Here's what's on the menu this week:

Supper:

• Hot beef sandwiches with provolone, buns, salad, broccoli/cauliflower/carrots
• Spaghetti or spaghetti squash with meat sauce, green beans
• Tacos, tortillas, taco toppings
• Turkey bacon ranch wraps, carrots
• Pizza or cauliflower crust pizza, salad
• Kielbasa crock pot "slop", broccoli/cauliflower/carrots
• Grilled chicken, salad, grilled garlic toast, grilled broccoli

Lunch/Dessert/Other:

• Creamy chicken and wild rice soup
• Egg roll in a bowl
• Greek yogurt
• Cinnamon swirl bread (I use this recipe, substituting white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour, and shaping it into a loaf with a cinnamon-sugar swirl in the middle)
• Crispy peanut butter cup brownies--for Mrs. W, because that's how Pinterest is supposed to work :)

Menu plan for the week of November 9

So I realized I forgot to tell y'all about my new menu planning method for the month.  I mean, in September, I planned 5 weeks' worth of meals ahead of time.  Then in October, I planned one week of meals and repeated them 4 times.  You have to be wondering what the plan is this month.

I'm doing a little of both.  I have the whole month planned out (except for 1 day, and I think I know what I want to make that day, but I've got a little time to decide, and I'm leaving it open in case something better comes along), and lots of the meals are repeated every week, but there's a bit more variety than October.

Every Wednesday is something taco-y, and every Thursday involves turkey or bacon or both.  Friday is pizza day.  Sunday and Monday are grill days, and Tuesday is either spaghetti or chicken that is not grilled.  Saturdays are the wild card day.

I like it.  As with October, everything is something I know my family will like, and they are all things that I will still be willing to make even if Hubby goes out of town, so there won't need to be a whole lot of rearranging.  I will definitely be saving this monthly menu, and perhaps repeating it indefinitely.  Yay!

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Supper:

• Hamburgers with optional buns, carrots, applesauce, salad
• Almond crusted chicken, broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, berries or melon
• Nachos or taco salad
• BLTs, grilled green veggie
• Pizza or cauliflower crust pizza, salad
• Hot beef sandwiches with or without buns, salad, broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, applesauce
• Pork chops, green beans, garlic toast, grilled potato planks

Lunch/Dessert/Other:

• Egg roll in a bowl (made this last week, and I really liked it)
• Avocado chicken salad
• Taco bean soup
• Peanut butter caramel toffee chocolate chip cookie bars

Menu plan for the week of November 2

Today I thought I'd share my pizza crust recipe.  I got this recipe from Hubby's aunt, who claimed to have gotten it from Hubby's dad, but Hubby's dad denies all knowledge of said pizza crust recipe.  Either way, it tastes good, and should be a great addition to the selection of convenience foods in our freezer.

Bluefield Pizza Crust

click here to print

1 c. warm water
1 T. active dry yeast
1 T. granulated sugar
3 c. flour (I use a mixture of whole wheat and white whole wheat)
1/4 c. olive oil
3/4 t. salt

1. In a large bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar, and let sit until bubbly (5-10 minutes)
2. Add flour, oil, and salt and mix to combine.  Knead a few times, then cover and let rise in a warm place until double (30-45 minutes).
3. Punch down dough.  Divide into two equal portions.  Spread each portion out on a pan (I use 14" round pans).  Cover and let rise for another 30-45 minutes.
4. Top with your favorite toppings.
5. Bake at 425 degrees F for about 15 minutes, or until done.

To Freeze: after dividing dough into two equal portions, wrap each portion and freeze.  

To use dough from freezer: allow dough to thaw overnight in the refrigerator.  Spread dough in pan, and allow to rise for 45-60 minutes.  Continue as written.

Here's what else is on the menu this week.
Supper:

• Hamburgers, buns, steamed veggies, pears
• Tacos, tortillas, taco toppings
• Meat sauce with spaghetti or spaghetti squash, grilled asparagus, mandarin oranges
• Turkey bacon ranch wrap, carrots
• Pizza or chicken crust pizza, salad
• Sunday night stew, mashed potatoes, salad
• Grilled chicken, salad, garlic toast

Lunch:

• Egg roll in a bowl
• Taco bean soup

Planning ahead:

• Meat sauce for the freezer
• Pizza dough for the freezer
• Pizza sauce for canning