Challenges

Life is a series of challenges. You can choose to meet them head on or have them roll over you. The difference will be the quality of your life. -Bill Hodges

I have this mental image of the type of mother/wife/person I want to be. Calm, flexible, happy, industrious, creative, fun, giving... Sometimes though, the one-thing-after-another that seems to be life with three + children gets to me. This happened today. I'll spare you the details, but a husband with a migraine, crying children, a missing dog, government agencies, and other...um...fun events were included. Until this afternoon I called my mom saying I don't like this job and I don't want to do it anymore!


I don't like getting like that.


Because the truth is, I love my kids. I love my home. We have an awesome church. Our life is full of so many blessings. And I wish more than anything that I could always keep a good perspective when things get hard. The dog came home, the headache went away, the kids are having a blast with the neighbor kids tonight; something always gives. Just not necessarily before I do. 


How do you stay sane in the day-to-day challenges of life? What helps you?

How can you make healthy food even healthier?

By culturing it, of course!

Sauerkraut is the cultured (or fermented) food most people are familiar with. Take some cabbage, smash it to smithereens with some salt, let it sit. Easy, right? But when's the last time you did this, or saw someone else do it?

Did you know there are cultured foods that you can make that are naturally full of probiotics? Probiotics can help your digestion work better and your immune system stronger!

Did you know that almost every native people group ferments some of their food?

Did you know that fermented foods can be easier to digest?

Cultured food can be a little intimidating. How do you know if it's good to eat? How do you MAKE it? What kinds of things can you ferment? Why does it work? Why is it good for you? What if I don't like the taste?

I have had all these questions at different times. I've been fermenting foods for about a year or two, and have made sauerkraut, kombucha, water kefir, yogurt, mixed veggies, and more, using fermenting techniques. It makes it SO much less intimidating if you can watch someone else do it first! That's where Gnowfglins comes in.

On Monday, Gnowfglins.com is hosting a FREE web seminar (webinar) on Fermenting Foods! Gnowfglins is a huge resource for me, I literally reference it every week. And with this free class, you can get a glimpse of the great info available there!


Click here to sign up, and all the info will be sent to you!
 

Just so ya know, I teach gluten free sourdough on Gnowfglins.com, and all my info and recipes are published there. If you sign up for the webinar through this link, and you end up enrolling in classes later, I'll make a small cut of the profits.

I hope you'll join us! It's gonna be fun... :)

Random thoughts/Update

Today, you get a list.

1. I turned 31 on Saturday. We had a fun day that involved working outside in the garden and making our version of pizza, and chocolate for dessert.

2. We used our backyard fire pit for the first time on Sunday night. We put the kids to bed and then sat outside watching the flames. Until the wind picked up and we put it out. I love living in the country. Things like that are why we live out here.

3. Yesterday Nick took the day off in honor of my birthday. I didn't feel that great so we spent most of the day picking up the house and doing laundry.

4. Last night my parents had a combined birthday party for Nick and me at their house. All my siblings and their families came. We grilled chicken, burgers and hot dogs. We ate outside on the deck, surrounded by the pine trees. Later, the kids played in the hot tub while the adults sat around chatting. They lit the fire pit. We blew out candles and had dessert on the patio. We got home at about 11pm. Fun times...

5. This weekend Nick's helping his sister move from Boulder to Santa Fe. Should be interesting...my first time alone with the kids overnight. I'm glad he's able to help her, but I'm also very glad that I figured out my supplements have been causing most of my nausea BEFORE this weekend. I'm in awe of military wives and those whose husbands travel frequently. Don't know how you do it. I'm making every attempt to not be a little whiney about it. ;)

6. We finally got the garden all planted and fenced this weekend. We're going to build a greenhouse over the top of it later this summer, so that our growing season will be lengthened a bit. I'm hopeful I'll get away with the late start that way. However, I have yet to see many seeds sprouting so far. Hopefully I'm not too out of practice for this to work... Our neighbor has informed us that we have voles out here, and that the voles will eat the bottoms off all the plants. The way to prevent this seems to be burying hardware cloth a foot deep, all the way around the garden. That was a lot of work. Hope it does the trick.

7. Sometime this week or next, we should FINALLY get a portion of the money our old landlord did not return when we moved out exactly a year ago. It was a very long road, but it was obvious in small claims court that he had no case. The judge actually told him, "Do you understand that court is not a game? We're not playing games here." It was quite the circus, actually, our final day in court. Incredible to me that someone can have such a lack of respect for the law. Even though it took a long time, I'm grateful for justice. I'm grateful that we have a system by which to pursue justice. I pray that Jesus will get ahold of that guy's heart.

8. I made these yesterday. It is my opinion that these are just as good, if not better, than "regular" brownies, and that even if you aren't gluten free or grain free or anything else-free, that you should still make them. Several of family (non-GF eaters) tried them at my parents' last night and thought they were pretty good. ;)

The end.