Spicy Beans with Sausage

My friend Karen shared this recipe with me last year and a friend posted a similar one today and I'm so glad since now I know what is for dinner on this busy day.

Spicy Beans & Sausage

1 lb. turkey sausage, cut into small chunks - I'll have to use beef kielbasa today
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can great northern beans
1 1/2 C. corn
1 1/2 C. salsa
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 cup of water (or more to make it more soupy)
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp. cumin

Combine in slow cooker and cook on high for a few hours or low as long as you want.

I think this recipe is pretty forgiving, or at least I'm hoping it is since I'll may need to sub in some other beans that I have cooked up and frozen from dry and may need to use some frozen mixed peppers. Now I'm off to dig through the freezer and throw this together.

Enjoy this lovely fall day!

Simplifying Meals: Master Menu Plan

I've become pretty lax this summer with menu planning, cooking and grocery shopping. As I look to the fall and the demands on our time, I want to make the most of my time in the kitchen and at the grocery store. So, I need a plan that will be a guide with lots of room for flexibility.

We'll see how it goes, but here's what I'm thinking. There will always be a fruit and/or vegetable offered with each meal, and sometimes bread.

Master Menu Plan (I have it in an easier to read chart, but unfortunately it does not transfer with good results.)
Monday
breakfast - oatmeal & fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - cook's choice
prep - make yogurt

Tuesday
breakfast - waffles
lunch - salad
dinner - chicken

Wednesday
breakfast - toast & eggs
lunch - mac & cheese
dinner - pasta or Mexican
prep - baking

Thursday
breakfast - cereal or granola
lunch - snack lunch
dinner - beans & rice, potato bar or leftovers
prep - clean the kitchen

Friday
breakfast - free for all
lunch - quesadillas
dinner - pizza & salad

Saturday
breakfast - muffins & smoothies
lunch - sandwiches or leftovers
dinner - grilling

Sunday
breakfast - scrambled eggs or omelets
lunch - freezer or crockpot meal or dining out
dinner - soup
prep - make bread

Chewy Ginger Cookies

This is a new fave at our house. Recipe compliments of my sweet friend Kristel.

Chewy Ginger Cookies

Cream together:
3/4 C. shortening (I used Smart Balance sticks)
1 C. sugar
Then mix in:
1 egg
1/4 C. molasses
1 t. vanilla
Then add in:*
2 C. flour (I've used more than half whole wheat with good results)
1 t. cinnamon**
1 t. ginger
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cloves (never added this as I never have it on hand)

When dough is mixed, roll into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Place dough balls on cookie sheet (no need to press down as they spread while baking). Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. They will not look done, but as they cool they will firm up. Cool on cooling rack and store in an airtight container. Yield: 3-4 dozen

Enjoy!

*I'm a recipe rebel and have a good mixer so I rarely do the wet bowl/dry bowl thing. I start with the wet ingredients, mix well and add the dry ingredients. If you prefer, do a wet ingredients bowl and a dry ingredients bowl, mix each bowl, then mix together.
**Tip: Costco cinnamon is awesome and economical.

Weary & Worthless

I seem to be in a funk right now. My messy house mocks me. I'm lacking motivation. Time with my kids seems more difficult than joy-filled and life-giving. The budget is really tight. I'm so not ready to be starting back to schooling in just a few short weeks and fearing that I don't measure up as a teacher. I am fat and feel ugly and I am discouraged that I have always struggled with my weight. I'm really tired. I'm feeling like what is wrong with me that I just can't get it together?! Then I wonder if I'm the only one who feels this way because everyone else seems to be doing fine. And for some reason when all these feelings and circumstances are present I.just.feel.worthless. I've talked with my husband lately about this and he simply said to me, "It sounds like you're not believing the truth." The truth that God loves me. That He sent his own son for me to rescue me from sin and death. That He loves me even when I can't get my act together. Thank you, God, for love and acceptance that is not based on my performance!

...now for some courage to hit "publish".

Busyness is Not a Virtue! {a little rant}

We hear it so often when we ask another how they are doing. "Oh, we've been so busy!" While sometimes this truly describes their life, it is beginning to rub me the wrong way.

Why has busy come to be equated with good and presented as some kind of statement of self worth?!

Hard work is virtuous.
Serving others is virtuous.
Caring for the needs of your family is virtuous.
"Busy" on its own is not what I see as virtuous.

You can be fully engaged with worthwhile pursuits, consumed with the present workload, enduring great trials or pouring ourselves out in service to others, but the value is in the activity and our faith and character in those moments, not in giving ourselves credit because of all we are doing.

Do you ever want to just shake people who are lamenting that they are too busy? Look, we all have choices! There are times that we all have obligations that can not and should not be avoided, so I'm not saying we should shirk responsibility. There are seasons that are truly demanding. But there are many times we willingly choose to get caught up in running the rat race a little faster by refusing to say "no" to another request for our time that doesn't really work for ourselves or our families (yes, even good things), going with the flow and putting our kids or ourselves into XYZ activities just because that is what everyone else is doing, and working harder to earn enough to keep up with the Joneses, whoever they are.

I want to be engaged in life. I desire to work hard and serve well. But I don't just want to be busy!

Summer to Simplify

The "Summer to Simplify" is in process at our house, a good time to catch my breath after the homeschooling year and go through the house top to bottom to get rid of the excess and give some thought to how to make things more manageable. With a family of 6, there just tends to be a lot of stuff....books, clothes, shoes, toys, craft supplies, sporting goods and the list goes on.

I want to make the most of what we have been given, including our possessions. What we do own I want to tend well and use and enjoy fully. If we have too much, we don't seem to manage much of it well, so this is my motivation as we make choices about what stays and what goes.

So how are we doing?

On the "stuff" front, I'm about halfway through the house and things are feeling better. I still need to tackle the garage, the basement desk areas and the kitchen. The kitchen is always a challenge with papers and random bits of the comings and goings of life. Our cupboards are quite full which makes putting things away more of a chore than it needs to be. But I do cook a lot so we need the equipment to be able to do that. So I'll tackle the kitchen next and try to find a balance. As we've gone through the rooms, we are selling what we can and donating lots because when I decide I'd like something to leave the house, I want it gone today, not being stored for months to sell for a couple bucks at a garage sale that consumes our family life for the better part of a weekend. Every time we drop a load at Goodwill, return things we've borrowed from others for a season, or sell something on Craigslist it just feels good to have a lighter load of stuff around to manage.

As far as summer activities go, we've also stepped back from activities for the most part. No organized sports this summer. No swimming lessons. No weekly commitments. No big garden. And it has been good. The kids have played and read and been outdoors a lot. We've enjoyed some outings in our area and hope to hit more of the things on our summer fun list before school is in full swing again. We've simply enjoyed a slower pace, with weekends where we are blissfully uncommitted to being at any specific location for any specific activity at any specific time. Ahhhh...it feels good.

Cooking has been rather basic, but we haven't gone hungry. I'm shopping far less and using things from the cupboards and freezer. No chasing down all the deals this summer. Frugality and simplicity seem to collide on the grocery shopping front. While I want to make my pennies scream for the way I stretch them, it requires a ton of effort to buy every single item for life at the lowest possible price. So I've found my happy medium with being content to pay good, not best, prices on basic foods and spend far less time bringing home the goods. I'm hoping we'll have some garden produce to use soon, too. I planted rhubarb, a few tomatoes and a pepper plant and we seem to have some volunteer plants growing, too, potatoes?, zucchini and watermelon. I'm evaluating whether I really plan to go back to the level of couponing I was doing a few years ago. For now, hitting Costco once every couple weeks and a grocery store about every week seems to be working out for us.

The slower pace is also allowing us to work on some things with our kids, namely training them to work diligently and cheerfully. Unfortunately I haven't been very good and patient about involving the kids in everyday household duties, but that is changing for the better. It is a process, but we'll get there. Just today I was encouraged by this post on children and chores and hope to implement many of the ideas. And even with all the unstructured time for play, I am finding a peaceful hour every afternoon when we all retire to our own spots for some quiet times while our little guy is napping. They balked at first, but it really seems to refresh us all.

So, while we may not be experiencing the "lazy days of summer" we are, in fact, enjoying the simple days of summer.

How do you like to spend your summers? What are you working on in this season?

Upcycled Pillow Cover

Start with a button-up shirt. Use your former pillow cover as a guide for how big you'll need to cut the new pieces. Cut through both layers of the shirt. An Olfa ruler and cutter makes it easy to get things nice and straight, but scissors will do. With wrong sides together, sew your pieces together. Turn, push out corners, iron. Sew around your shape again using a bigger seam allowance this time. Turn and push out your corners again and you have a nice French seam. Stuff with your pillow form.

And there you go, a pillow refreshed with a shirt saved from the Goodwill pile.

No cost + 10 minutes of work = my kind of project!
Bonus! I still have enough fabric from the sleeves for another little project.


Yep, I know it is a little too snug on the pillow form. The shirt I was working with was a tad bit small and I only had this big pillow form, but I'll take done over perfect any day.