well that was never going to work.

Well. There's actually not that much to say other than I feel like I'm ripping duct tape off of my mouth right now. Turns out not writing about our day to day, and the little and big things floating around in my head just didn't work out. So I'm back. I suppose I could elaborate for a few paragraphs, but whatever. I love this little place for archiving our life and I love sharing it with whoever wants to read about it. I'm not sure the frequency of which I'll blog, but I'm for sure not shutting this thing down. I may very well be blogging from the nursing home after all.

Besides, where else would I share my pictures from our latest glorious country drive?

Fall in the country is stunning and knocks my socks off every year. The whole world turns to gold and it's breathtaking. The pictures below were one night when the five of us jumped in the truck to watch our three lambs graze in the orchard. They do the mowing around the apple trees and have become very friendly, tame farm animals. We watched the sunset and watched the sheep eat and took lots of pictures. Obviously worthy of a blog post!

So here I am. I'm not even that shy about my return. I suppose my dad knew best all along in saying I should just try it for a month. But you know I'm a bit more theatrical than that...so we're back!

so long, farewell

You may have noticed I have been quite wordy on this blog during the last two weeks. But there's a reason for that...

So a very remarkable thing has happened to me. I never thought it would happen. I was certain it never would. But I have lost some zeal for blogging. And I'm as surprised as anyone. I thought for certain I would blog into my 80's, writing funny stories about my nursing home, telling about my fifty-year-old son, Ivar.

But right around January I began to wonder if I should keep this baby up. And immediately with the thought of ending my blog, my writing became really labored. For eight years I have whipped posts together with speed and joy, but it started to feel like something I had to get done.

I suppose part of it was the addition of a third child and trying to keep up with all the life that surrounds my every day. Margin time is sort of a lost reality with three...

And then there were a few kid stories that I thought about writing about, but because of all we know about the internet and how permanent this place is, I just decided not to. The kids are getting older, and many of their stories are not mine to tell.

But the thing that sort of sealed the deal was earlier this month when I made fried green tomatoes and I thought, "I should photograph these for the blog." And then I thought, "I wonder how many years I have staged pictures of my fried green tomatoes and written about them?!!" (Answer: 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 I've been blogging about Fried Green Tomatoes for six years!)

Which just feels terribly redundant.

Plus, I'm about to embark on educating my children. Which is sort of a doosie of a commitment to heap onto my day-to-day life.

So I prayed about it and felt a sincere release. I really did, and that is my main reason for concluding this long-running public journal.

I'm sad though. Even though I know this is good and right for this season of life, I am going to miss it. I print each year that I blog into a book and have loved this avenue for documenting my life in stories. (Anyone remember when the blog was called that? Back in Nebraska!) This place for writing and sharing our life has been such a gift to me. I've always said I would write even if it was just for my own family, but the truth is the love and connection I have always felt because of this blog has been a sweet spot in my life. I have LOYAL readers. I have blogged for eight years come September 21st, and have so many of you who have read every word! Eight years is no small amount of time, and I am grateful and in awe of all of the love and friendship that has come of this little blog.

I have told a few people about this turn of events, trying to get a feel for how I should close it. My dad said, "well don't just be done. Say you'll reassess in January in case you want to return. Or that you may jump on once in a while if something really eventful happens." But that's the tricky part. If I leave that door open, I'll still feel the need to put something up here once in a while. And it's that feeling I'm trying to let go of.

I will say that my friend Shannon brought up The Grovestead Blog and asked if I'd start contributing over there, maybe just a quarterly update on what's going on inside the farmhouse.  I loved that idea. To write a post four times a year giving a little life update for anyone still interested. So that's the plan. Rory will continue to update that blog and post on instagram. (I'm not on instagram anymore...I get super compulsive with any social media platform...)

And I won't be a stranger. Maybe Dad is right and come January I'll be dying for an outlet again. But we'll see. Until then, it's going to be quiet around here, so drop me an email sometime. I'll still be here, organizing my house, learning how to roast lamb chops, reading more lovely LM Montgomery books, playing in my kitchen garden, teaching my kids how to read and doing it all very joyfully.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring for my family and checking in on our adventures. Thank you for all of the emails of encouragement and your faithful friendship. I do believe God is in this decision, and I do believe something new and different will likely surface after a while. I believe in a God of resurrection and that he makes all things new. I will be eager to see what new thing he is doing here.

mama's kitchen garden

We've been working on a fun project all summer long. Back in January I started sketching out a garden area based on a little garden we love at Murphy's Landing. It was the doctor's garden, full of medicinal herbs. The garden I had in my head would be my own, personal garden.

I have a growing theory on gardening. I think it is a solo sport...and I'd be curious to find an exception to this rule. Rory sort of runs our huge garden. He has the vision, he figures out where to plant everything, and it's his project. But he does need a workhorse-helper...one who will listen to directions and weed the blueberries for the umpteenth time. I was bitter about this for a while, until I started to realize it's just how gardening goes. Would you agree? One person has the plan, and the other person is the partner to help execute the plan. 

So when I started dreaming up this garden I drew up my own plan and asked my partner to help me execute it. And I tell you what, I am loving this arrangement! Rory was enthused to get me working on my own project, and I loved that the size and scope of this garden felt compatible with being the mama.

The plan is to have a brick patio in the middle, with a little table and two chairs. That's the final part of this project we hope to complete this fall. And next spring I'm dreaming of lining the outside of the picket fence with zinnias. Perfecto!

The holes were dug back in May, and slowly Mama's Kitchen Garden has been coming together. 

We put the posts up after the kids were all in bed and the sun was slowly setting. It was just the two of us and we worked hard and fast and talked about all sorts of things. That's a personal favorite memory...there is a special romance in working hard on a project together. Those are all my favorite memories on this farm...are the side by side projects when I know I am needed and we have a shared vision.

We got all the posts in, packed in the sand and pounded with a pole. But the next morning we found that the very last post we had put in was terribly crooked. Apparently we couldn't see the level in the dark... We laughed and poor Rory had to dig the thing up in order to reset it.

Neighbors started walking by and asking us what we were building. It was very mysterious for awhile!

When I had the kids at Aunt Annie and Uncle Ed's house Rory finished the pickets and filled the garden beds with compost, soil and wood chips. I do love this gardening arrangement!

I started my basil, thyme, oregano, chives, rosemary and mint from seed in January. And then went to a little garden store in town and purchased the rest. This year I went for a mix of herbs for cooking, teas and medicinal. I have a ton of stuff drying in my garage right now. But next year I think I'll do more lettuce, kale, carrots, tomatoes, peppers and basil. It seems those are what I actually use each day.

It wasn't until we had it filled and planted that we mustered the will to paint the thing. Which is obviously the opposite order we should have completed this project. But we were eager to get stuff in the soil! So we planted, and then had to figure out how to paint around the plants. Hindsight is 20/20! We had our good friends over for a painting party, realizing quickly that a sprayer was going to help this project greatly...

And then just a week or two ago I called my folks and said, "I have a project that will take us no longer than 30 minutes working together..." I asked them to wear their painting clothes and come ready to finish the kitchen garden. Turns out it took 3 hours to weed whip, mow, dig out what needed to be painted, and paint all the precarious places we hadn't sprayed. Thankfully they are awesome and saw this project through to the end! Even Elsie helped paint with a teeny paintbrush from our craft bin. And then we ate the peach pie my mom had made and that made all the hard work feel good and worthwhile. Plus, it was a glorious day, which always helps too.

And Mom made me two stained glass garden stones from pictures that Ivar had drawn for me. That's me in my kitchen garden next to basil and chives and a big zinnia under the sun. What a lucky mama in her kitchen garden!

And now today I'm hopeful to make and freeze some pesto from that awesome basil plant that Sonna is standing next to. I started that plant from the teeniest seed you ever saw. And now it's a huge, bushy plant. God's abundance is so amazing!

I'll close with a special thanks to my garden helper. It is very fun to be the garden lead, but even more fun to have a garden helper who built the whole thing based on a little sketch I showed him on that paper back in January. You're a good guy, Rory. And someday I'll get out to weed those blueberries...

anne of green gables

A few days before Hattie arrived, I started reading Anne of Green Gables. (The picture above was taken when Hattie was still on the inside. I hope you knew that!) I loved every chapter and felt so grateful for this diversion. I didn't get half way through it though before I went into labor, brought a baby home and entirely forgot that I had even started a book...

A few weeks ago one of my favorite websites posted an article on the author, Lucy Maud Montgomery (linked below). Her story is fascinating and at some point while reading this article I remembered, "oh that's right! I was reading Anne of Green Gables a year ago!" So I searched for the book on our bookshelves, figured out where I left off and have been on a vacation to Prince Edward Island ever since.

I know I'm prone to overstate my opinions. I speak in a lot of "bests" and "greatests" and "favorites." But I'm pretty sure this is my favorite book ever. The whole thing amused me, every character is lovable, the writing is beautiful and I felt grateful for having a great book to pick up. I'm not sure I had ever read it before. I know I've seen the movies on pbs during their telethons, and I loved the movies. But the book took me to Avonlea and I loved every minute I was away.

So if you're looking for a few more moments of summer vacation, even while school is starting back up, go get this one at your library. You'll love it. I now have a goal to read all of Montgomery's books this year. What an awesome year it is going to be!

And to get you excited, go read this post about Lucy Maud Montgomery at the Rabbit Room (it will link to part two in the post).

home organization

I am simply out of control. We don't have a television and so instead of watching the Olympics the last two weeks, I worked on systematizing and organizing my house. I know, it's all I can talk about. But I want to share a few of the ideas I am trying, ideas I found while reading all of the Pam and Peggy books, articles on organizedhome.com and Fly Lady. Hopefully one or two of these ideas will inspire you to tackle a stressful area in your home too. Because I cannot tell you how sincerely pleased I feel when I walk into my clean kitchen. And it has stayed clean for two weeks now! As in completely company-ready clean! Something huge has been figured out, and I not only feel happy that I have a clean kitchen, I actually feel happy while keeping it clean. For real.

Now they say that when you start something new you should start slow and take baby steps. But I'm all for drinking from a fire hose, so here are a whole lot of ideas that have had a huge impact on helping me keeping my house tidy:

This station is set up on the shelves under our grow lights. From March to May we have little seeds growing on these shelves, but from May to March they are covered in clutter. So even though these plastic bins may not looks super sightly, they are a HUGE improvement from the random possessions that gathered there for ten months of the year. I have a basket for things that need to go Back To The Barn.  I keep my Library Books and bags on this shelf as well as a bin for Kids Art that I want to keep. My favorite bin is for Things To Return. Amazing. There is now a place for tupperware left at my house, things I want to bring back to a store, stuff that needs to be donated, returned to church. It all goes in the bin. And there is a bin for Sentimental Papers. This one is also a favorite. It's used for the nice card I want to keep but don't know where to put. Or the pictures my dad brings over from my childhood (they are sorting all of their pictures this summer). It's stuff I want to keep but have no home for. All in all, I adore this space. It has given a 'home' to many random things and my counter stays clear because of it.

My folks always had cubbies for each person in our family growing up. This is my spin on it. We had lots of room above the microwave so I had Rory cut a board to set on the microwave with two boards drilled in to make three compartments: Rory, Becca and checkbooks. Now anything that I find that Rory might want to look at (mail, handouts, random anything) can go right in his cubby and off the counter. Then we are both responsible to go through the stuff.

The premise of Pam and Peggy is that Sidetracked Home Executives (me!) are easily distracted and basically lack direction. But if given a task, they can get it done. So these are my to do lists for each morning and night. And I love them. I don't do every single thing every single night. But I do a whole lot of them most nights and I love the rhythm this is building. Plus, by doing them every day they're just not that big of a deal. Cleaning daily makes everything more manageable. (That last sentence makes me think I might just be Pam and Peggy's teacher's pet...)

Hold onto your aprons. This one is one of my favorites. They compartmentalize their days. This doesn't mean that every Tuesday for the rest of my life will be errand day. But it does mean that each week I look at my calendar and decide which day will be errand day (groceries, dollar tree, library) and save all the running around town for that day. Also, I'm not actually going to bake on Thursdays, but I do love the idea of a day to prepare food that I eat each week (grain-free granola, hummus, and any other meal prep that will make the week easier.)

Actually, this is my absolute favorite. One of the days they designate is called Desk Day. This day is the day you tackle your paper to-do. Imagine this: I am cleaning off my kitchen counter and find an invitation and I need to rsvp. So I take the invite and walk to my computer where I open my gmail where I find a few more emails that I read. I do rsvp to the invitation, but because I just read an email from Rory, I now need to call the doctor and change an appointment time. So I call and change that appointment, read a few blogs and only later that night do I see that kitchen counter and wonder why I can never get it cleared off.

Aha! Behold the Desk Day folder (or the back of my household binder). This is the place for all the paper that requires an extra thing to do. I need to cancel my Kohl's card. I need to send a gift to a friend having a baby shower I can't attend, I need to write a thank you for a kind letter sent to me. Now these all go into the folder so that on Desk Day I can respond to each of them. Desk Day is also the day you are supposed to make your weekly menu plan and grocery list and errand list (based on the 'things to return' bin.) It's a quiet day to get lots of the relational and planning tasks done. People! Do you love this?!! I love it so much!!!

I spent three hours one night going through every cookbook I own and finding our favorite recipes. Then I googled those recipes, found them online, printed each one (some I took out of their original cook book and washi taped to a piece of paper right in the book), compiled them in this binder and made our own family cook book. The next night I typed up a recipe index and wrote down possible sides for each recipe so I can just look at this index page on Desk Day to pick our menu for the week.

I also typed up a grocery list with our breakfast and lunch staples. It's in the order of the store with plenty of room to add whatever I need for our dinners. This way I can print out the master grocery list and then write in the rest of the items.

This little index card box is the heart of The Sidetracked Home Executives. It's basically your to do list broken up onto individual cards. You'll have to read the book to get the full explanation, but what I love, love, love about these cards is that on each one you are supposed to write only one task, and how long it should take to accomplish. Then, if it is a cleaning day, you can divvy the cards out to your kids and say, "I need you to wipe down the dresser in Hattie's room with a wet wipe. It should only take you three minutes. When you're done, you need to put this card back in my box." It clearly defines what you need done, and sort of makes the cards the bad guys, not the mom that is assigning the jobs. (And do you love this file box?!! Elsie Anderson was the Elsie that our little girl was named after. I love having her signature right there!

And finally, this is my personal work space. I got clever and made it in the laundry room. Rory had put this little counter up for me as a surface for folding clothes after something I saw on pinterest. But lets be honest, I never folded a thing on this counter! So I have made this laundry room my home base. The striped binder with our christmas card on it is my household binder. I love it. And I based it off of this girl's youtube video. (She's a kick!) It's another great place for paper clutter. But I'll spare you a full explanation because I know this is getting long...

So that's it folks! It's all new and I don't suppose all of it will stick. But even if a few of these methods work, I'll be worlds ahead of where I am right now. And I'm hopeful. There is a lot I still need to do by September 7 (our family's first day of school) but I love the thought that some of these other daily and weekly tasks are set into motion to help get us off on the right foot!

some thoughts on chickens

Two years ago we got broiler chicks that we raised, had butchered and then put in our deep freeze for a year of eating. (Remember this cheeky post introducing them?) What I remember is the first roast chicken we ate and how very quiet we were. There were a lot of things going through our heads, reconciling what we were consuming and deciding if we thought it tasted good.

We ate roast chicken a few more times and I began to really struggle. Our birds were really big when we had them processed because we couldn't get in on the ideal butchering date. So it was hard to cook them well. Parts of the bird were very done while the insides still weren't cooked through. 

The real low point was one night after we had a roast chicken for dinner, I went to a meeting and afterwards swung by Culver's and ordered chicken strips. I came home with my food and Rory was frustrated that I purchased chicken when we clearly had an entire chicken in the fridge. I told him plainly, "I wanted an anonymous bird." (Now one of our favorite quotes of all time.)

We basically stopped making roast chicken for a long time. 

Until earlier this summer when I was picking up garage sale signs with my friend Anne. I cannot remember how the topic of whole chicken preparation came up but she told me how her husband wants her to make a roast chicken and broth out of the carcass.  We bonded over our non-wasteful husbands and she said, "so I told him, I'll roast a chicken anytime as long as you take the meat off the bird. Then I'll make it into enchiladas and a casserole." It was a serious aha moment because I realized part of my problem with the chickens was taking the meat off the carcass. It's just not my thing. And then Anne continued, "and then I told him if he'd like to make the broth from the carcass I will leave it in the fridge, but I'm fine throwing it away." 

I came home and told Rory how Anne has worked this whole chicken thing out with her husband and he enthusiastically agreed to take the meat off the bird and either shred or cube it for me, depending on what I was going to use it in. And this changed everything! Each week since then we have roasted a bird. And then had great meals from that bird. And it's been delicious. We have become broiler chicken enthusiasts! Especially me!

The thing that actually solidified it for me was one day when I passed five semi trucks stuffed with white chickens. They were packed in there, feathers were flying all over the road and as I sat next to one truck at a stop light it hit me how ridiculous this site was. It felt so wrong. Anonymous birds are not happy birds. They have a terrible life. And the whole five semi system is just so unnatural. It was my brother who consoled me originally, two summer ago, saying that there was no happier life a chicken could hope for than one at the Grovestead. And it's true. They do live a happy, sunny, well fed, free range life, right up until their dying day... 

Then it's not so great for the chickens! But at least we know they had a great life. And we know exactly where they came from and what they've eaten and what they haven't been injected with.

So we're doing it again. We have eaten down the birds in the deep freeze all summer (we learned to flip the bird in the middle of baking, which helped cook it more evenly) and it's time to restock. So these sweet chicks have joined our family. Interestingly, this time around the kids know exactly what is going on. Elsie has said a few times, "I don't want to kill the chicks." And I tell her they'll be big chickens when they have to be processed, but it is a hard truth for her to understand. Yet it is how it works. I am glad my kids know where their food comes from. And since when she protests she usually has a chicken nugget in her mouth, I think she'll be fine in the end.

And you want to know what's next? Lamb. Rory announced this one last week. We are going to have one of our lambs processed so we can have lamb chops and gyros and a whole lot of Mediterranean food this winter. I said to Rory, "do we even know how to prepare lamb?!!" and he replied confidently, "you just google it. No big deal."

pam and peggy

My sister Annika and I are still in full swing cleaning our houses and figuring out systems that will work to keep things running smoothly this school year. Last week we met at our folks' house before we all went to the water park. I had a bunch of stuff to return to Annika and my mom, Annika had a bag of clothes for Elsie and my mom had a bunch of stuff from a friend who is moving that she wanted us to look through. It was hilarious...we are all in this deep purge mindset, and spent the first 10 minutes together passing stuff around to each other!

I have been doing a ton of reading though, and really trying to figure out the solution to paper clutter. And the system for returning things to people. And the process for keeping this house orderly. I am naturally an organized person, but something is missing in my routines for cleaning and correspondence.

I mentioned that I started by reading Fly Lady's 31 baby steps. Those were really helpful and my main take-ways were: 1) get up 30 minutes before everyone else and shower and dress fully with shoes and 2) keep your sink empty and shining. Fly Lady sets up her program with a lot of psychological triggers: if your sink is shining, you're going to want to clear the counter. If your bed is made, you're going to want to pick up the clothes and put them in the hamper. And it works! Annika called to say she had gone 9 days in a row with a clean sink! I deep cleaned my car: cleared everything out, vacuumed every inch, wiped down every surface, and it looks incredible. And guess what? I have been emptying it after every outing because the junk looks so obvious compared to the rest of the spiffed up car. It's a psychological trick that is getting me to toss my trash and take my stuff from the car back into the house every single time. It's remarkable to me.

In a quest for paper organization I came across organizedhome.com and found all sorts of tips on creating a Household Notebook. I read a whole lot of posts on this concept, ran myself to the dollar store and now have a binder that makes my heart sing. It holds it all: info for the babysitter, packing lists for vacation, medical history for the kids, budget worksheets, weekly menu ideas, funny quotes from the kids, schedules, important numbers. It's all there.

It was while compiling my Household Notebook that I stumbled upon 21 posts about being a S.H.E. Which stands for a Sidetrackable Household Executive. I read these posts in two nights and felt lights turn on all over the place. S.H.E.'s were coined by Pam and Peggy, two sisters who had a hard time keeping their houses running smoothly until they came up with this card file system. Have any of you done this?!! Do any of you remember these ladies from the 70's or 80's?

First of all, they are hilarious and I have been watching video clips on youtube ever since. Second of all, I think this is really going to work for me. Because I follow instructions really well. I'm naturally an organized person, but I have never seemed to get the swing of the housework (the actual deep cleaning) schedule and menu planning. And their system was so enlightening for me. I just learned so much. The way they organize their week is really remarkable to me and I cannot wait to try this new approach to my days. (Church Day, Family Day, Deep Clean Day, Desk Day, Errand Day, Moderate Clean Day and Rest Day)

And I'm bringing my sister with me! Annika starts a new full-time job tomorrow morning and she's as eager as I am to figure out how to plan and execute all the hats a mom wears. It's exhausting to always feel behind. Our goal is to feel in control of the house, the groceries, the paper clutter, including the family in the work to be done and feeling good about the tone in which it's all done.

Are you inspired?!! Start reading! These are some fun articles and have me so fired up that I'm printing off all of my most-used recipes and making my own Household Recipe's Binder filled with my top 40 go-to's that I actually go-to. This is going to be good!

(And have you watched that video above. They are hilarious.)

girls golf: year three

We've had a few rounds of Girls Golf this summer, and as always, this is one of my very favorite parts of summertime. It feels so good to have an event on the calendar that is a set playtime just for the mama's. We're outside. We talk through each others drives. We stop stories while we walk to our balls and pick up those stories when we meet up again on the green. And we laugh so hard. I have to figure out the equivalent of Girls Golf for the 9 months in between because it's so good to be active, with friends and without kiddos. (No offense to the kiddos!) Any suggestions?

Lake Pepin overnight

I'm going to write out our itinerary for our 30 hours away because it went so smoothly and definitely should be duplicated. Rory and I are getting to know this area really well which also makes for easy planning, and helps the time away feel like actual vacation. Basically we had a Minnesota day, followed by a Wisconsin day.

We met at the park in Lake City right by the marina at 11:30. I brought a greek salad, grapes and chips and we bought fried chicken at the grocery store across the street. We had our picnic right away and then played at the park. But most exciting was Ivar getting to use the remote control car he got from Papa a few Christmas' ago. We had hid it in the laundry room until he was old enough not to break it and I found it while painting the laundry room. Turns out 5 1/2 years old is the perfect remote control car age. (Later Ivar told us this was his very favorite part of the weekend...driving his car in that parking lot.)

After a while we loaded up and drove to Kellogg, where we visited Lark Toys and rode the hand-carved carousel. And Mimi showed us all her very impressive hula-hoop skills. She's really, really good!

And we all got ice cream at Lark Toys too. But then Hattie was ready for her nap, so we drove back to the AmericInn in Wabasha and checked in so that Hattie could sleep. While she slept, Papa and I took Ivar and Elsie swimming at the hotel pool.

A bit before 4:00 we drove to the National Eagle Center. We spent a little over an hour there (it closed at 5) and then walked along the river and scoped out Fun 'n the Sun Family Houseboats for a future family vacation. Rory's family had a houseboat in this area for part of Rory's childhood so they know the river really well. We thought it would be so fun to bring the whole clan for a few nights next summer to play on the river all together. We ate at a restaurant in Wabasha and watched big ships go by. And then Ivar got a fever and said he wanted to go to bed! So we turned in really early. But Madison went back and found a great jazz band concert under the bridge and enjoyed the evening for all of us.

The next morning we ate our breakfast at the hotel and I must say this is a handy part of traveling all together. Rory and his dad were able to take the kids to breakfast while Marlene and I got ready and packed up the rooms. I loved the extra kid help! We visited the Anderson House Bed and Breakfast and then drove across the bridge to Wisconsin. My kids were thrilled to be entering another state! Ha!

We drove right to Pepin and found Laura and Mary's Little House in the Big Woods. Elsie and Hattie wore their bonnets with pride and we took lots of pictures. 

On our way back we stopped at the Country Stop, ate lunch at The Pickle Factory in Pepin and then went over to the beach in Pepin to skip rocks, or as Elsie showed us, sit right in the water with clothes on. The weather was spectacular and the white sail boats were beautiful on the blue water. 

We got Elsie changed and then drove to Nelson to the Creamery for ice cream cones. We sat on their back patio and decided we'd like to come back for lunch sometime. And then we parted ways and drove back home. It really was incredible how much we packed into 29 hours...which included the drive time! If you're looking for a little summer fun to squeeze in, I can't recommend this trip enough. We are hopeful to head back in that area this fall for another visit to the mighty Mississippi.