Author: joyfuldomesticity

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My Face

It’s October now.
Many people don’t know that this month is designated as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. (now you do.)
Furthermore, October 15th is the specific day set aside as a remembrance day for the loss of all these children.
Including six of my children.
So while I remember and love my children every day of the year, and miss them even more specifically on their loss dates and due dates… this is a special national time to openly remember my kids. While I am never afraid or ashamed to speak of Covenant, Glory, Promise, Peace, Mercy, and Victory ~ but, in fact, love to do it because I love them and also because I want to use their lives to impact the world ~ this remembrance day/month affords extra opportunities for me to share my story. Their stories. Our story.

In honor of that, I finally got the courage to post my story on a site called Faces Of Loss, Faces Of Hope. It’s sort of a sister site to the Grieve Out Loud site that I participate in.
I was glad to get my story up there. To talk about my children. To share my faith. To give the glory to God. To cry while I did it.

Take a look at my face. I am the face of recurrent miscarriage. I am the face of grief. I am the face of a bereaved mommy. I am the face of plowing in hope.

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Abraham

Abraham was long tried, but he was richly rewarded.

The Lord tried him by delaying to fulfill His promise. Satan tried him by temptation; men tried him by jealousy, distrust, and opposition; Sarah tried him by her peevishness. But he patiently endured. He did not question God’s veracity, nor limit His power, nor doubt His faithfulness, nor grieve His love; but he bowed to divine sovereignty, submitted to infinite wisdom, and was silent under delays, waiting the Lord’s time. And so, having patiently endured, he obtained the promise.

God’s promises cannot fail of their accomplishment. Patient waiters cannot be disappointed. Believing expectation shall be realized.

Beloved, Abraham’s conduct condemns a hasty spirit, reproves a murmuring one, commends a patient one, and encourages quiet submission to God’s will and way. Remember, Abraham was tried; he patiently waited; he received the promise, and was satisfied. Imitate his example, and you will share the same blessing.

~Streams In The Desert~

God had to bring Abraham to the end of his own strength, and to let him see that in his own body he could do nothing. He had to consider his own body as good as dead, and then take God for the whole work; and when he looked away from himself, and trusted God alone, then he became fully persuaded that what He had promised, he was able to perform. That is what God is teaching us, and He has to keep away encouraging results until we learn to trust without them, and then He loves to make His Word real in fact as well as faith.

~A.B. Simpson~

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Fall Day

Instead of giving in to the hard morning I’m having, I am flipping over my calendar page a day early, and trying to embrace October instead of sticking my tongue out at it. So I’m lighting a seasonal candle, baking pumpkin cookies, and reading a Keates poem on fall. Later Gabriel and I will go play in the pine needles outside and work in the garden.

To Autumn
by John Keats (1820)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Fresh Pumpkin Cookies

2 cups butter
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. allspice (I added a little cloves and nutmeg too)

1 cup chopped walnuts
2 cups sugar
2 cups fresh pumpkin puree
4 cups flour (sifted)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups raisins (I did 1 cup golden raisins, 1 cup mini chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Blend all ingredients thoroughly.
Drop one inch dough balls onto greased cookie sheet.
Baking time 10 minutes.

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Pita Pizza

I made Greek chicken pitas for dinner last week and wanted to make the pitas from scratch this time. I was hoping they would puff up and be pocket-pita types… but only one turned out that way. Not quite sure why. But they really were great for being the fold-over-pita type. And I made too many. So I wanted to figure out something fun to do with the leftovers.

Thus, last night we had pita pizza for dinner! It was an amazingly quick and simple meal. I happened to have shredded mozzarella, a little turkey pepperoni, and a gallon bag of garden basil leaves in the freezer. I also had a couple slices of salami and a huge bowl of garden fresh tomatoes in the fridge. Add a little parmesan, a couple garlic cloves, some olive oil, salt & pepper ~ I had everything I needed to throw together a quick and amazing dinner.

This was an excellent meal for letting Gabriel really truly help, too! It was so much fun! I love letting him enter my world and do what I do. And so does he!

Brushing his own pita with olive oil

Spreading on some fresh tomato-parmesan-garlic sauce, after he mixed it for me

Toppings are so much fun, and he was so proud of himself

My finished product

Gabriel’s finished product… while he constantly snitched cheese

After they had been transferred to the pizza stone in the 400 degree oven for just a few minutes, dinner was ready! While they heated up, Gabriel set the table, I made garden salads, and Daddy poured some wine leftover from the Sabbath.

Now I am planning on making pitas again and keeping a stack of them in the freezer (along with some cheese and turkey pepperoni) to have on hand for days when a quick dinner would be a blessing.

Keep those meals from scratch, and get those sweet little hands busy in the kitchen!

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Fruitful

My garden is still abundant, and I wanted to share pictures of its fruitfulness.
I filled a large bowl with cucumbers, zucchini, crookneck squash, and tomatoes today. I’ve stopped picking peas and beans. I just couldn’t keep up any more. My lettuce is still sweet and tender. Potatoes and onions are going to be ready after a couple of frosty nights. The pumpkins are getting big and round, and just starting to turn orange. My squashes and cukes are slowing down. But the tomatoes are just speeding up! I never thought all these tomatoes would ripen, but we’re getting a little kick of Indian Summer this week, and they’re starting to ripen in droves! I think I may be freezing them by the gallon later this week. 🙂

And surprise, my Victory Rose is starting to bloom again! It has seven (the number of my children!) buds right now, and we’re excited to see how many bloom before we get a heavy freeze.

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Jesus is faithful

“Jesus is faithful; His promises are precious.

Were it not for these considerations, I should, with my present prospects, sink down in despair…”

~Nancy Hasseltine, 1810

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Freezer Meals

When you hear the term “freezer meal,” just what do you think of? Pretty quickly I see images of lasagna, enchiladas, and chicken-broccoli-casserole popping into my head. But really, I have been discovering that “freezer meals” can be just about anything! Over the last year, I have made it a point to keep some frozen things on hand that I can just defrost and heat through, especially on days when medical treatments have laid me low, when I am in the midst of burying another baby, when I am too emotionally overwhelmed to even think straight about cooking, or perhaps when time has simply gotten away from me and I know I won’t have time to spend cooking a good dinner for my family. Another aspect of freezer meals that I love, is that I always have something handy to give away, should a friend of mine suddenly be in need of a home-cooked meal. And thanks to the gift of a stand-up freezer my parents gave me for my 26th birthday, I have even more space for such things.

So anyway… yesterday was a day that I dedicated to stocking my freezer up again with freezer meals. I realize that I still did have some meals in there (turkey chili; coconut chicken and rice; ravioli; cranberry-catalina chicken; etc), but now I have over a dozen meals ready and waiting for my need of them. I am about to give a couple away already to help stock some friends’ freezers too. I’m thankful to be able to help serve others in this way.

Yesterday I made multiple batches of four main dishes: Tonno e Limono Pasta; Pulled Pork Enchiladas; Chicken Curry with Rice; Beef Burgundy (except I actually used our favorite cab-sav instead of burgundy).

All four dishes really turned out well (I taste-tested them all, of course), and I expect them all to freeze & heat well too. I used the crock pot to cook the pulled pork while I made the pasta dish and the curry dish, and prepped the beef dish. Then while I assembled the enchiladas (and put other finished dishes into ziplocs and other containers; and washed up all the dishes; and, well you know, other things…), the beef did its three hours of simmering in the crock pot. This particular combination of meals that I chose worked really well with overlapping use of dishes and appliances. It made it relatively easy to make a dozen meals in just a few hours, even with a two-year-old helping me out. 🙂

What are some dishes that you have frozen? Have you found things that do not freeze well? Do you ever spend a day making a dozen meals simply to stock your freezer? Or someone else’s freezer?

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Homemaking Humor

Wanted to share some homemaking humor to give us all a little smile this evening. 🙂

WHAT HAPPENED?
excerpt from Womanly Dominion, page 170

One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. His three children were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she may be ill, or that something serious had happened. He found her lounging in the bedroom, still curled in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, “What happened here today?” She again smiled and answered, “You know every day when you come home from work and ask me what in the world I did today?” “Yes” was his incredulous reply. She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it.”