How I Made 3 litres of Winter Soup for under $5

My Mini Kitchen Garden

Colds. They are annoying.

Home sick today and thought I had better get some cooking done to get ahead in case its one of 'those' winters. I thought I would get my appliances working for me and make some soups for the freezer.

I think this one is my favourite - it was super cheap!

While shopping at Aldi last night I noticed Soup Packs of veggies for just $1.99. The pack contained two carrots, one swede, one parsnip, one potato, and two sticks of celery. bargain.

I chopped all this up and added;
- 1/2 cup of red lentils
- 3 teaspoons of crushed garlic
- A sprinkle of sea salt
- 1.5L of chicken stock (you might need more to cover the veggies)
- Some leftover BBQ chicken I had in the fridge
- A handful of chopped basil and oregano from my mini kitchen garden.

5-6 hours on LOW or 2-3 on HIGH in the slow cooker. Way. too. easy.

Use GF stock and its a GF soup. Vege stock and minus the chicken and you have a vegetarian/vegan option. Everyone wins! The principle for the slow cooker is the same. If you have one and are scared to use it, give this a go. You will not regret it.

Someone who is much much better at cooking than I am, and whose recipes are somewhat more accurate, check out my beautiful friend Jessica's blog home.

My Personal Mission Statement

The structure of the statement is based on this post by Lindsay at Passionate Homemaking, and from the material provided in Women of the Word, Fisherman Bible Study Guides "Becoming a Woman of Purpose", by Ruth Haley Barton. Thanks to these ladies for their wisdom.




My Mission Statement


1. To be a person of grace, committed to pursuing Jesus in every task, thought and word.
2. To be a wife of noble character, who serves her husband faithfully and well to affirm his leadership a partner with him in serving the Lord and others.
3. To manage a hospitable, peaceful home, and offer love and refreshment to the people who God brings in to our lives.
4. To live intentionally for God's Kingdom. To have clear, well-seasoned speech and prayer for others, to be influential in grace.
5. To be a worker of moral responsibility, set apart, a noticeable difference in my work and leadership.

My Goals and Disciplines

Relationship with God
Goal: Taking time each day to read God's Word, being faithful and consistent in prayer.
Discipline: Ensuring time every morning to read God's Word and to pray. Going to bed at a reasonable time each night to ensure this. Going to church and small group weekly.

Marriage
Goal: Time to talk and reflect on how our marriage is going. Reflect on my conduct as a wife and supporter and grow in knowledge of how best to serve Awesome.
Discipline: One-on-one time to talk with Awesome every day. Date nights together twice a month. Read 4 books each year on being a Godly wife.

Work
Goal: Gracious service of my staff and clients, going the extra mile, to be set apart in word and deed.
Discipline: Not engage in gossip, pray for work each work day, going the extra mile for each person, not swearing - letting my conversation be seasoned with salt.

Church and Community
Goal: To build intentional relationships with others, to be friendly and welcoming to others, to be faithful in prayer.
Disciplines: Seek out new comers. Take time to nurture relationships with others. To take prayer requests and offers seriously, write them down and follow through.

Physical Health and Well-being
Goal: To be well rested and physically able, to maintain a healthy weight and get adequate exercise.
Disciplines: Go to bed at a reasonable time, eat healthy and nourishing foods, exercise daily (15min+).


Home and Recreation
Goal: Well organised household, food and meals available to nourish our family, help others or feed visitors.
Disciplines: Menu plan where possible, manage finances to ensure extra giving is possible, have ingredients on hand to make food when needed.

Personal Development
Goal: Extend on my knowledge of God's love and the practicalities of being a Christian.
Disciplines: Read at least 10 Christian personal development books this year on a range of topics (eg. hospitality, prayer, being a Godly wife. Read at least 10 books on God's Word this year.


These are not a list of things I already do to show you what an awesome Christian I am and make you feel somehow inadequate if you don't tick all the boxes. This is a list of the things that I actually struggle with the most. Daily. This is what, in God's grace, I want to do about these things this year. And I will need to check in regularly to ensure that I have made these things a priority. Four years ago I wouldn't have thought it possible to do all these things at the same time, but God is slowly changing my heart to show me that it is possible when I intentionally rely on Him and make efforts towards change.

The Pre-Holiday Flap

Stock photo

Thought I'd get this one in well ahead of the weekend, just in case you want to get a head start on yourself!

Last weekend, we travelled to the mountains with some friends to a conference.

One of the most awesome things about preparing for the weekend was the pre-holiday house clean. I like to come back to a relatively tidy house, clean fridge and no massive Mt. Washmore. Its just a thing I have. Go with it.

I usually flap around for days before a weekend cleaning and getting organised so I can feel relaxed while I'm away. Four days cleaning for two days away sounds normal right?

Here's the thing. This time, I didn't have to.

This is how long it took to get the house 'holiday-ready':

An hour and 15 minutes.

Oh. Yeah.

In that time, I caught up the washing, changed the sheets, vacuumed, washed the dishes, cleaned out the fridge, straightened and packed my gear for the weekend. Oh and I took 10 minutes out of that time to quickly sew myself a shoulder bag for the weekend too.

How? How am I, the least organised person ever, becoming... well, organised?

If you haven't checked out the ridiculously difficult to navigate but completely helpful FlyLady site yet, I strongly suggest you do.

Changin' my world.

Stock photo

[no, I don't get any benefit from referring you, or for plugging the site. I am just sharing what works for me in the name of being a full time worker/wife :)]

Small FLY

I thought I should do a quick follow up post to this one.  It's about my... ummm... well, its about my perfectionism. *Adjusts collar nervously*

Right, so ordinarily I don't like to start a job unless I can do the entire job all in one go and get it right first time... So I wouldn't fully clean the house unless I had people coming over and I would then turn into Psycho House Cleaning Lady. I would browbeat Awesome into two and a half hours (or more) of solid cleaning and full on spit-n-shine craziness. And heaven forbid if there was something out of place at the end of it!

We don't have people over very often.

So... using this new system, the temptation for me was to get the entire house spotless and start the new system from there. But something Flylady repeated over and over really got me. I won't spoil it for you, you can check it out for yourself.  It has to do with starting where you are.

So I have.

And the house isn't spotless. But its manageable, and if I needed to, it would now only take about 30 minutes to get it guest ready - and I'm not so worried about it being *perfect*. I think I'm ok with it just being tidy and clean now...

Woah. Flylady. stop changing my life would ya?

Learning to FLY...

image from flylady.net

So earlier this week I started thinking about the house. I'm trying to get the way I take care of my body in order, and that requires routine. But when it comes to the house, I have pretty much always taken a haphazard, do-it-when-I-need-to approach.

Actually, it's more of a do-it-when-I-have-to approach. Whoops.

So when I was reading a post somewhere and a lady said she had caught up on all her washing using the Flylady approach, I was like... ahem! Please share!

I googled Flylady. And realised I had found this site before. And its a tricky one to figure out. For a visual person like me, the layout is busy and the information isn't set up in a sequential way, you have to hunt a bit for what you need. So hunt I did.

I realised that the major emphasis of the system is on having a routine. Ah! I scoff, this will not work for me - I am a shift worker. Routines are the antithesis of getting up at a different time every day...! But I am a little hooked and so I keep reading.

And I realise this isn't a full on, time-dependent routine based system.

Its about doing little things each day that set you up to never really have to do big things. For example, by getting the kitchen reset every night this week, we haven't had an 'overload day' - you know - the day where you have to wash the vegie peeler from three days ago before you can use it again? No? You never have those days? Oh. That's just me...

This week, our bathroom has been guest-ready everyday, it now takes just 30 seconds to keep it that way. The kitchen has been meal prep ready every day. Can. not. explain. how much time that has saved me this week.

And get this, there was not enough dirty washing this morning to make a full load. INSANE!

It takes a bit of getting used to, and me being me, I rushed ahead and did all the baby steps in one go because I couldn't really wait to add one a day. But you might be more sensible than me.

Flylady. It's free, check it out - what have you got to loose?

5 Minute Declutter Challenge: Just one shelf....

One shelf in my hall cupboard/pantry.

5 minutes. 

The goal:  To be able to shut the cupboard door and open it again without things getting stuck or falling on my head... 

First this:

Now this: 

First this: (you can not tell that the pile of black things at the front are random socks can you!!!?) 

Now this:

5 Minutes a day to order from chaos. Don't bite off more than you can chew :) 

5 Minute Declutter Challenge

A quick declutter challenge for you today.  Just 5 minutes!

Bedside Table Declutter

Yep - its a dumping ground. Thanks goodness you can't see the old tissue there - yuck! But the clocks prove it really did take just 5 minutes to clear, clean and return everything to its rightful place. Not sure why I have a photoframe with nothing in it there... I actually have had that in my room in various houses for 4 years with no photo... really need to get a roundtuit!

Being Real in an Unreal World

Yesterday I came across a post here, that spoke really strongly to me of the need for Christians to be real, all the time. This is something I try to practice in my "real life", by giving honest answers and not avoiding the tough questions when it comes to how I am "really" going today. But in the "unreal" world of blogging, it is much easier not to be so transparent. There is a permanency to what we write that makes me hesitate, and sadly often refrain from being open about how things are going in my 'real' life. 


So what am I going to do about it? 


Well... writing this post is a first step. I want to be more open, more honest, on this blog. But at the same time, I need to protect my husband, marriage, family and friends (and even myself) from potential heartache. So I will not be sharing the intimate details of the lives of those people or myself.  What I can share, is the reflections I make on how those relationships and experiences have been used by God to change my heart. 


Perhaps by being more open, I will have to think less about what to post and post more regularly as a result... we'll see!!


Today's favourite posts: 


10 Fun Ways to Praise Your Husband
How to Make a Marriage Bed

Christmas-less-ness

Last year I looked around the room after the Christmas hub-bub and thought "Right, I better find a place for all this new stuff."  The problem was, there really wasn't much space. 


Apartment living is cramped. Even in a fairly average size apartment like ours.  And I also had this nagging feeling I might have missed the boat with my gift giving in some circumstances too. Did Aunt Mildred really need a new tea cosy?  Really? 


So this year we are working towards Christmas-less-ness. Here is what we are doing;

• Meeting up with friends for events/dinners where everyone brings part of the meal instead of gifts. Time spent together, especially with people we don't see often, is worth more than the gifts. 
• Joining my Mum and Dad, and Brother and Sister in law for a weekend away as a family rather than buying gifts for each other. Each couple pays their own way and we get to spend time together.
• Making and Baking rather than buying
• Buying things that are usable, useful and thoughtful rather than cheap and convenient. I make my list before I go to the shops rather than looking around 'window shopping'. That way it is quicker and less painful in the pre-Christmas rush at the shops. I also look online at a stores website to get the best price and plan around upcoming sales. 

Maybe one day I will feel confident to buy all our gifts here and here. I'm praying that it will be so. 

How do you avoid Christmas craziness? 

Challenges Update!

After a very busy week visiting family and celebrating the life of my dear Grandfather who went to glory last week, I am back into the swing of things. 

I am working on Courtney's challenge to create a harmonious home.  This week, the focus is on music. I thought I'd break our usual habit of sitting on the lounge and eating over the coffee table (yes, I know), and set the 'big' table, complete with my week 1 challenge candle. I popped on my ipod for some quiet background music.


We said grace.

We started to eat.


There was a sense of peace in the house


and then...


"Hun, do you mind if I put the news on?"


I stopped myself from laughing out loud!  Oh well, I tried!  Maybe tomorrow!


Do you ever plan something to benefit your spouse or family and then realise it might not be something that they value? 

I had a little more luck with my declutter challenges this week.  I started with my bookshelf. Here is the 'before':

Yes, there are books stacked on the floor. And everywhere else!  I pulled out everything and wiped it down, one shelf at a time. I have a large number of children's books that I use for work that have been in the wrong spot for years. I wanted them lower so the books I use all the time (my Christian books, exercise books and reference books) were at a more logical height. Doing one shelf at a time (that is, taking out what didn't belong and stacking in what I wanted there before moving on) made it a much easier process than pulling everything off and getting overwhelmed!


I was surprised how many bible study books and devotionals I had multiple copies of. Here are a few other surprises I found: 

• A folder (that I thought was long gone) containing every bank statement I had ever received for an account from kindergarten to the end of university!!
• Three years worth of sermon notes from university bible lectures. I thought I would look at them again some day, but I realised that without the sermon context most of my notes don't make any sense! They also had pictures of birds and elephants and stars drawn all over them... to help me concentrate I guess... The whole folder went in the bin!
• 4 years worth of subscriptions to a Christian apologetics and theology magazine. While this might 'one day' be useful to me, it will 'right now' be more useful to people who borrow them from our church library. 
• 20 or so Bible study leader books (copies!) which would be far more useful to our churches current youth and children's ministry than to my book shelf... 
• 4 bibles that don't belong to us!  Going back to their rightful owners!

I also found 6 items that would be useful for other people I know so they have been bagged up to be passed on as gifts too. 

So.... 50 mins later (yes, I was astonished how quick it really was!)

Oh how I love challenges that make me focus on getting things done! 
The second week of the challenge (I'm a bit behind) is to look at the master bedroom. I have only recently reorganised the bedroom, however this week is our churches annual spring clothing collection for Anglicare. So I took the opportunity to go through my cupboards, and despite having only recently sorted my clothes I still found some items I no longer need. Mr. Awesome has agreed to go through his clothes later this week. I will report on his progress! 


It is wonderful not to be so tied to our things that we hoard them. Giving things away to be used by someone else (rather than just sitting around!) is a great feeling! 


What 'one day' things could be more useful to someone you know right now?

Declutter, Beautify and Create Challenge!

Yep, I'm all up for challenges at the moment!


So here is yet another that I have joined!  


I am committing to the 10 week challenge to declutter, beautify and create in various spaces around our home. As the end of the year is approaching, and it is spring here in Australia, its time to clean the cupboards out!


I will be sure to take some before and after pictures for you. Want to join me on this challenge? Please do! You can link up on the Sunflower Schoolhouse page!


Here is this week's challenge:

Week 1
Front Hall Closet and Extra Closets

• go through your front hall closet and any hall closets.
• get rid of as much clutter as possible
• organize what’s left
• make your closets look more beautiful
• is there anything stashed in there that could be used to make a Christmas gift for someone? (pull it out and put it aside)
• share your ideas for frugal decorating and organizing
• tell us what you are getting rid of
• write a blog post and come back and link it up next week
• include before and after pictures of your hall closets if you can

My Personal Goals For Week 1

• Our hallway cupboard doubles as our pantry. So this week I will post pictures of how I have created 'sugarless' spaces for the food I can eat, and 'sugary' spaces for Mr. Awesome!
• As my pantry is 'up to date', I am also going to focus on my bookshelf (one of 4 bookshelves in our house!), and apply the same principles here!. 

Today is week 1 of the Making Your Home a Haven Challenge


Here is the challenge from Courtney's blog: Go buy an extra large candle and light a candle everyday in your home.  Each time the candle catches your eye, say a prayer for peace in your home


In Courtney's post, she speaks of the 'slow pace' we are to create in our home.  I nearly fell off my chair. Our home is far from slow-paced! 


Today is a public holiday in our city and rather than lounging round, I was up early (thanks to daylight savings!) and made a long list of things to be done today. I set about doing them, and when I had run out of tasks I could do on my own, I woke my husband and enlisted his help (and in reality I could have done those things by myself too!). THEN, after all that was done I sat down and too exhausted to finish the last two tasks, allowed my husband to finish them for me!  Hardly the restful, content woman I want to be for him! 


So I have lit my candle, and while he is out, I will try to finish a few more things so that when he comes home we can spend time together, and just rest! My prayer is to be a source of rest for my household, not the generator of stress!


Are you lighting a candle today? What will your prayer be?   

Finding my space!

I just finished reading Lessons in Letting Go: Confessions of a hoarder, by Corinne Grant. I thought it was an excellent read and it made me reflect a lot on my habit of "piling not filing".


Earlier today I was revisiting Elisabeth George's Life Management for Busy Women, and I realised that getting half way was not really getting the job done.  My desk had already been 'tidied' and had gone from something like this: 

To something more like this:

I had chucked out all the rubbish but hadn't actually dealt with anything. The desk was still unusable. 


So when I got home today I decided enough was enough. I resorted all the items and made boxes:


1. Things that don't belong in this room and need to be put away (then I walked around with the box and actually put them away!)


2. Things that need to be filed (then I actually filed them!) 


3. Things that needed to be dealt with.


Then I sat down and dealt with the 'deal with' box!


Now my desk looks more like this: 

Sorry about the lack of actual photos, our camera is playing up.


Now I can actually sit at my desk to do my Bible reading in the morning and can use my desk for what its really for! 


What have you recently finished that you have been putting off?


I am linking up for Courtney's Making Your Home A Haven for the next 5 weeks. Check it out here. 

Reflecting on the Completing Him Challenge

If you are here often you will know I participated in Courtney's Completing Him Challenge over Winter (ok, it was summer in the northern hemisphere!). 


Each week Courtney set a range of challenges aimed at encouraging us to think about our husbands and plan for meeting their needs in a variety of ways. 


I really enjoyed the entire series. Being intentional about our marriage, creating time together and doing things just for him, were wonderful ways to strengthen my love for him and to show him how I feel!!


Some of the highlights for me were reflecting on our dating and wedding stories. It was wonderful to remember all the little details! 


Praying for him for a whole week, on things that he himself chose, was wonderful, and a real insight in to the things he considers important in our lives together. Likewise, asking him for his priorities for my time was a big eye opener for me!  I was equally blessed when he asked me for my priorities in return.  I definitely think that using this priority list has helped us to get along better and to avoid conflict. I would highly recommend it! 


Overall, our marriage has never been in a better place. Part of this I think was due to the challenge, but the majority has really come down to us trying to treat each other the way God intended.  In reality, we are selfish people. But taking the time to plan how we want our marriage to be has been a wonderful way to improve the overall quality of our time together. 


So what's next? 


I don't want things to get stale. So I am continuing to plan how to improve our marriage. The first step is prayer. Lots of prayer. I am taking all of September to work through Stormie's The Power of a Praying Wife again, as this book has really helped to enrich my prayer times and allowed me to focus on praying for my husband.
We are trying to plan ahead for regular date nights (something we have struggled to do for a long time).  As money for outings is not so available, we are working our way through this list. 




How do you plan to enrich your relationships and family life?

Keeping Home

I could have written Brittany's post myself! So I thought I would respond by replying in kind with a post of my own to kick-start my blog once again! Brittany at the High-Heeled Housewife posed this question: 


Do you work?  How do you balance your career with your home?  Where do you draw the boundaries, so it's clear that your home comes first?


I work too, and the balance is something I struggle with constantly. At times I let the little things go, so that I can cope with the big things, but there are days when even that doesn't work!


I am very lucky to have a very helpful husband who is happy to share the workload around the house at this point in our lives, but I still feel that the 'running' of the household is down to me.  


There is no easy solution here, but some things that I have found that help me are:

• I do not bring work home. Ever.
  I have worked from home for a couple of days when I was contagious with a virus recently, but after 'work hours' I put it all away and focused on being home.  Occasionally this means I need to stay back at work to keep on top of things, but once I am home, I am home.
  
• Very well organised cupboards - it sounds silly but it really helps if everything has a place to be. This makes tidying much much easier and allows Mr. Awesome to put away/find things easily too. As soon as my cupboards get out of control, so does the rest of the house.
  
• Several nights at home each week to catch up on tasks and to spend time in the house. One of the great pointers I learnt from Elizabeth George's Life Management for Busy Women, is BE AT HOME. I have always been a person with lots on and places to be. But as soon as I do that 4 or 5 nights a week, its easy to feel snowed under. So we let a few things go so that we could both be at home more often. And it works!
  
• I have after hours meetings I regularly need to attend for work. I made the decision to make them all on the same night of the week this year (i.e. Thursday nights) so that it becomes a more regular part of our rhythm and is easier to plan around.
  
• Pray. I don't get things right. Lots of the time. But when I pray about our home, and our marriage, lots of things seem to run more smoothly. 

What are your tips for balancing home and life?

Completing Him Challenge Week 8

We are nearing the end of the Completing Him Challenge - and I have to say I am going to miss it! But having had these discussions and things to concentrate on has been great, so I am going to continue focussing on our marriage each week and blogging about it on Mondays!


This week: R-E-S-P-E-C-T! No complaining, criticizing, rolling your eyes, nagging, or giving him any friction this week. Enjoy a week of peace in your home!


Well... We will see how it goes - a review next Monday! 


In the meantime, will you take up this week's challenge with me? Drop me a line to let me know you are Respectin'!


 Women Living Well

Book Review: Home Court Advantage

Home Court Advantage by Dr Kevin Leman

This is one of the books I have recently finished from my 30 Excellent Books in 2010 List. 

I tripped across it recently in a Christian Book Store for a bargain price ($3!) and thought it would be good to put in the parent library at work. 

I decided to read it first...and perhaps not put it in the library after all! 

Dr. Leman is a psychologist and a Christian and I have read a couple of his other books this year which have been great. 

This one just wasn't what I expected. 

Dr. Leman's view point is that children are given the very best to prepare for life when they spend the majority of time in a stable and warm family home environment. So far, so good. He gives many reasons for this and many I agree with no problem. 

As an Early Childhood Educator, I struggled with many aspects of this book. I agree that families really need to question whether both parents working full time is in the best interests of the children, but Dr. Leman goes further and suggests that Early Childhood settings are unhealthy and even damaging for some families... 

I'm being careful here, a lot of what he said rang true for me, but by the same token I am seeing the coin from both sides, and its a hard thing to do. 

I have often wondered whether I would be able to return to work in EC if I had young children. Its something we haven't really fleshed out in detail as yet. I think one thing is certain however... if I was a hairdresser, a builder or an office worker - anything but an early childhood teacher - I would probably find it a tiny (very tiny) bit easier to return to work.  This is purely because right now, my current job would have me being paid to look after other people's young children while paying someone else to look after my own... It's sort of too hard for me to get my head around.

And I don't think its a bad thing as such - its just a bit weird. I know lots of people who do it - some like it some don't. I'm not judging. I'm just not sure what I would do. 

I don't think there is a right answer as such - every family has to make their own choices and for their own best interests. It just made me think. 

I don't think everyone would agree with everything Dr. Leman has to say, and thats ok. It's just good to start the discussion. As far as the book goes, it was worth the read as it made me think and question some things, and I think good books should challenge you, whether you agree with them or not!

Any thoughts? 

July At Our Place

Here are some of the July Happenings from our place. 

White board messages from my guy :)

Awesome Ironing while we visited a friend in the country 

Visiting Western Plains Zoo

Little Friends at the Zoo

Baking

More Baking

Love

Happy half-year! Can you believe its has gone so fast?