Becoming Artsy- Learning How to Be Sane

A little less than a year ago, I was getting close to the end of my rope when I learned I could paint. Motherhood wasn't anything that I expected, and I was feeling beyond overwhelmed. At the end of each day, I would fall into bed, an emotional mess, unable to sleep well. Because I couldn't sleep, I would pull out my phone and look at all kinds of beautiful things that people were making and posting on Pinterest. For a while, I began to feel awful about my situation, and maybe even a little worse because I was comparing my cluttered, messy home to the gorgeous photos all over my pin boards.

One day, though, I talked to my husband, and I told him I really wanted to try to do some of the things I saw on Pinterest.  A friend gave us some pallets that he was going to burn, and my husband and I got busy pulling them apart, putting them back together, and generally making our garage unusable for our vehicles! I got a small paint set from a craft store for less than $20, and I began experimenting. I enjoyed it so much, and my first painting turned out much better than I expected. Since our county fair was coming up soon, I decided to enter my painting, and guess what? I got the first place blue ribbon! How in the world can someone live on this Earth for 30 years and not know about their own ability to paint!?!

This is my very first painting that I did just weeks before I turned 30! What talents do you have hidden? 

After that blue ribbon, I got really excited about painting. Painting on old, beaten up pallets was an awesome stress reliever for me.Old pallets allowed me to not be concerned about messing up, and it seemed that they are pretty easy to make look nice! It seemed the more I swiped the paint across the "canvas," the more my stress seemed to melt away. Initially, I used Pinterest as a template for each item, but then, my creativity began to bloom, and original ideas would come to me. I think painting helped keep me sane through the summer and the transition of my daughter going off to Kindergarten. On days when I was particularly stressed, some of the most beautiful art came out of my paint brush.

As friends and family members heard of my "art" (aka sanity), people began offering money for these pieces! I couldn't believe people would pay me a fair price for my stress relievers! I began selling a few items, and some suggested I set up at a couple local craft shows, and I had great success. I had painted, and my husband had helped me get everything ready. We had truly hundreds of pieces including signs, Christmas decor, and even some furniture!

At the craft show, many ladies kept asking me, "How do you have time for all of this when you have three kids?" The answer is simple: It keeps me sane. If I keep all of these beautiful ideas locked up, I am miserable. If I have an outlet for creativity, my husband and kids can tolerate living with me much better!

My mom says I am technically a professional artist because I have sold my art. I don't feel like a professional artist because I do it only because I love it so much. Honestly, I feel like painting is a little gift that God has given me to allow me to take time to think about how beautiful His world is and to imagine how much he loves His creation. As I dip my paint brush and smear colors together, I can imagine His delight as He created the beauty in the flowers of the field. I think about all the complexity of color and contrast of light and dark, and somehow, the rest of my worries are gone for a little while.

Below is my most recent art piece in process. This is a Bee Hive into which a friend is getting ready to introduce a new swarm of bees. The box was already built and ready for me to paint! She asked for it to be "girly," and I have been happy to oblige!

Isn't this a great place for bees to live?

What creative outlet keeps you sane? Leave your comments below.

Strawberry Pudding "Pie"

I have never met a strawberry dessert that I didn't like, and this one is ah-mazing! It is low in calories and fat, and it satisfies the sweet teeth in our household without going crazy in the calorie department!

This super fast and simple recipe is a mix between an Angel Lush dessert that my mom makes from time to time and my grandma's banana pudding recipe. No bananas in this one, though.

It starts off with about a half of a box of vanilla wafer cookies. Line them up in an orderly fashion to cover a pie plate. Crumble a few if you'd like to try to cover the whole bottom. This is not going to slice nicely like a pie, so the crust doesn't have to be perfect.

Next, follow the directions on the box to make a large box of instant sugar-free fat-free vanilla pudding.  Make sure it is super smooth.




Next, strain the juice from a can of crushed pineapple, and add it to the pudding. Add a tub of whipped topping. You can use a lite variety of this as well to cut calories and fat again,

Mix well with a low speed on the mixer or with a rubber spatula. The mixture should be pillow-y and pretty when you're all done. I like to use a clear glass bowl for recipes like this so I can check to see if I mixed well enough.

This is where it starts getting really goooood! Spoon the mixture onto the cookies. I can't seem to get the whole amount of the mixture into the pie plate, so I reserve about a cup or more for snacking... for the kids, of course!

Aren't these strawberries pretty? I used seven because they were so big and pretty, but you can add more or use fewer depending on your taste. I cleaned up the stems and began to slice them up.

 Yum!

The last step is to arrange these gems on top of the pudding-y, pineapple-y pillow in the pie plate.

Yum yum yum! My kids love this dessert, and I bet you will too!

Cost breakdown:

1/2 box of vanilla wafer cookies  ($1.99/box)     $1.00

3 cups of milk  ($2.55/gallon = $0.16/cup)          $0.48

vanilla pudding mix                                              $1.99

1 can crushed pineapple (ALDI)                          $0.69

1 carton of frozen whipped topping                     $0.89

1/2 quart strawberries ($1.49/quart ALDI)          $0.75

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grand Total                                                          $5.80

This pie easily has 8 servings, more if you have self-control! That's less than 75 cents per person for dessert!

Recipe

Ingredients-

1/2 box vanilla wafer cookies

sugar-free, fat-free vanilla pudding mix, large box, prepared

1 can of crushed pineapple, drained

1 carton frozen whipped topping, thawed

1/2 quart of cleaned, sliced strawberries

Instructions-

Line the cookies in a large pie plate (9"-10"). Mix prepared pudding with crushed pineapple and whipped topping until completely incorporated. Spoon mixture on top of cookies in pie plate until heaping and full. (Filling may not all fit in your pie shell. Reserve any remainder for another application.)

Top with sliced berries and refrigerate covered until ready to use.

$0.20 Bargain Twice-Baked Broccoli and Cheese Potatoes!

Twice Baked Broccoli and Cheese Potatoes

I got a great bargain on potatoes this week: five pounds of potatoes for $1! ONE DOLLAR! I bought the limit, of course, which was two bags. Our oldest daughter loves baked potatoes, so I decided to scrub these babies up and pop them in the oven.

I lined them up nice and pretty on baking sheets and put them in the oven. From ten pounds of potatoes, I got 25 potatoes... for only two bucks! (There were actually 26, but one was gross, so I threw it away.)  That's only 8 cents each!

I set my oven at 380 and left these beauties to cook and soften for about an hour. They weren't quite finished at an hour, so I left them in for another 30 minutes.

Once they finished in the oven, I stuck a fork in them, and it came out easily. The skin even has a different texture too when they're done cooking.

Next, I sliced the tops, and scooped out the middle of the potatoes.

I cooked up a big bag of frozen broccoli, and I mixed it with about a cup of mozzarella cheese. My family likes broccoli cooked really soft, but you can cook yours to your liking. You can use about any kind of cheese you like. I couldn't find any cheddar, so I reached for the mozzarella.

Mix it all up together really good. You could definitely add some softened butter at this point, but I wanted to keep these pretty lean. Add quite a bit of salt and pepper to this mixture.

Scoop the mixture and form it to fit inside each potato. Add a fair amount of mixture to each one. Pop these back into a hot 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes until the tops begin to brown.

When you take these out of the oven, let them cool for a bit before diving in! You could add some sour cream or a bit more cheese if you'd like. Or bacon. Bacon would be really good.

See how soft these are when they're finished?

I paired these potatoes with some grilled chicken, and some veggie quinoa. It was delightful!

Here's the math:

2- 5# bags of potatoes          $2.00 (on sale)

1 bag of frozen broccoli       $1.50 (Sam's Club regular price)

mozzarella cheese                $1.50 (ALDI regular price)

-------------------------------------------

                                             $5.00 Total Recipe Cost!

Since this recipe yielded 25 potatoes, that breaks down to 20 cents per potato! Talk about a bargain! I served these up for dinner, then I wrapped up the others and popped them in the freezer to use on a particularly hectic night when dinner is testing my patience.

Recipe: Twice Baked Broccoli and Cheese Potatoes

Ingredients-

10 # potatoes ( I used Russets)

1 large bag of frozen broccoli

1 cup  shredded mozzarella cheese

4 T butter, softened

salt and pepper

Instructions-

Preheat oven to 380 degrees. Scrub potatoes under hot running water. Arrange on sheet pans and bake until tender, about 90 minutes; turn potatoes over after 40 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then slice the potato skin carefully to open just the top of the potato.Cook the broccoli until tender. Carefully scoop out the inside of the potato and place in a large bowl. Scoop insides from all potatoes, and mix together with cooked broccoli, mozzarella, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Fill each potato generously with the broccoli cheese mixture. Top with a small amount of softened butter, then return to a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes until the tops of the potatoes brown slightly. Serve as meal or on the side.

Working Out at Home Doesn't Work for Me!

Changing my lifestyle became really important to me a while ago, but my goals came into sharp focus last summer when I was working with some teens in my church on the topic of the fruits of the spirit that are discussed in Galatians. I think I might have learned even more than those teens because when I examined my own life against that passage of scripture, this is what I found: I want to profess my belief in Jesus, but I need to start producing some fruits, and self-control really got me. When I look in the mirror, my body doesn't exactly scream "Self-control!" I am a walking, talking embodiment of my beliefs, and if I can't get my self under control, no one will look at me and see the awesome power of Jesus that I know is real.

I want to workout in my home. I have even purchased some equipment to help me in my endeavors, but I never can seem to keep up the habit of regularly burning those calories at home.


Our current situation has my husband and me raising three young kids, my husband juggling an exceptionally stressful career, me working part-time and staying home raising our family, us balancing church responsibilities, our kids active in tee ball, dance, and children's activities in our church. Working out is low on the list of priorities. Over the last couple months though, I have been attending Zumba classes at a nearby church two nights each week at a rate of $5 per class. I love going, and I don't mind the cost because my long-term health is worth $10 per week! Last night, though, our schedules had a serious conflict, but I had a stern resolve that I was working out, no matter what. Nights like last night are why I don't workout at home though.

My husband and I both worked during the day, and we had already eaten dinner and taken kids to tee ball practice, and I was planning a 40 minute workout with Zumba for the Wii. I knew my husband had a meeting that he planned to go to in a few minutes, and I thought I could squeeze in a quick workout while he was gone.  As I bent down to put the Zumba disc into the Wii console, my 18 month old son came over to me with an odor. It was clear that he needed a new diaper. My husband had a meeting to go to within a few minutes, but he reluctantly agree to change our son's diaper before he left. So I went ahead trying to get things going on the Wii. For some reason it wouldn't work, and I realized the little receiver communicator piece that is supposed to sit on or around the TV had gotten knocked down by someone's little hands. I got it figured out and started my workout. My two daughters wanted to workout with me, and I cautioned them that they should scoot away from their mama for their own safety.

The three of us were getting involved in the first of many songs. It was fun. We were stepping and sliding and punching the air when my husband finished the diaper change and brought the little boy back into the mix and headed out the door to his meeting. Our son saw my Wii remote and thought he needed to hold it, so he began attacking me while I was still in motion. He grabbed and reached and reached and grabbed, but my cat-like speed was no match for his less than 3-feet-tall frame. When he realized I wasn't going to stop to allow him to take away my Wii remote, he grabbed on to my right ankle and hung on tight while he wailed about this terrible injustice! He got to go for a little ride before I realized his resolve to hang on to my leg might get the both of us hurt. So, I scooped his crying little body up and grabbed his chair from the table in the dining room where I could strap him to keep us safe! I pulled it into the living room while he kicked and screamed under my arm, sat him down so he could watch, fastened the straps, and I resumed dancing within five feet of him. He began to cry as if he had been deserted. I did my best to ignore him, and I continued my calorie-torching dancing.

Though I was ignoring him, his sister wanted to console him and help him to stop crying so she ran upstairs, grabbed the Kindle Fire and gave it to him while it played some songs. All the while, I am sweating to my Zumba! When she finally got back to her own version of Zumba beside me, she apparently forgot the rule about keeping her distance from mommy. I reminded her a couple times, "Mommy.... (huff).... (puff)... is... moving... (huff).... around.... a... lot... scoot... over... so... (puff)... you... don't... get... hurt!" We danced and moved, and she zigged when I zagged, and my heel connected to her little arm while I was mid kick. She alerted me to the injury, but I could tell that she was injured emotionally more than anything, so I kept on moving and dancing while she cried on the bench in our living room.

While she still cried from getting a gentle kick (that she had been warned about numerous times), her brother decided to throw the Kindle Fire across the room in anger from being strapped in his booster seat for his own safety. Once the Kindle was lying on the floor, he decided to mourn his loss by screaming as loud as he could. The oldest of the three was beginning to lose interest in the fitness program, and she went to the kitchen to get a drink for her and her crying sister. I'm still dancing. I could see from the corner of my eye that our oldest was getting two very large cups of water filled with ice. It looked rather refreshing. I was super sweaty by this point. When the song finished, I grabbed my own water, and took a nice long drink. The strapped-in young boy apparently felt thirsty too because he was crying and motioning for my water bottle. I handed it to him as the next song began and I resumed my calorie massacre. He threw my water bottle to the floor in anger as well.

His sister had by this point recovered from her injury, and she went in search of her own beverage. When she got to the kitchen, she began to get her own cup with ice water, and our oldest daughter became outraged that her sister wanted to get her own beverage because there had been one already prepared for her. What happened next, I can only describe as a very loud cat fight that caused me to PAUSE the Wii. The fight between the two girls was about a cup of ICE WATER. I sent the screaming, crying, mass of older daughter to her bedroom while our younger daughter got her own cup of ice water. I went back to the living room, where our son was staring at our crying older daughter as she cried her way up the steps. I hit resume and went ahead with my workout.

My mom-eyes were still monitoring the kitchen situation where our younger daughter was asserting her independence from her sister's ice water regime, and she was filling a different cup with water and ice cubes. As I was doing leg lifts, I heard a small gasp and saw about 12 ounces of water and ice go flying across the kitchen, dripping down through all kinds of worksheets and art projects that came home from school today. I was so frustrated with the whole mess of an attempt at working out that I ignored her and kept on dancing, realizing that the mess was just water, and it would wait for me.

Naturally, the daughter who had been exiled to her room for her extreme overreaction about a cup of ice water wondered when she could come rejoin our wonderful Zumba group. I gave her a time and some stipulations through my huffing and puffing and side stepping and squats. She rejoined the mess just as the last song was coming on. He brother was throwing the Kindle Fire some more, and her sister was partly dancing while keeping her distance and retrieving the Kindle for the loud little boy to keep throwing.

For this particular workout, the cool-down song is "Bailamos" by Enrique Iglesias, and  when I heard the beginning notes of the song I said outloud, "Praise the Lord!"  The girls looked at me with confusion on their faces, but I knew the only way that I can burn any calories at home is with the help of the Almighty! My Wii told me I burned almost 500 calories in that 40 minute crazy-fest! And I thought to myself, "This is why so many young ladies are overweight! This was a nightmare!"

Working out with small children around is a chore! Even if I liked working out, it would still be a miserable experience! Besides all the mess that I just described is the "mom guilt" that comes with not giving my full attention to my children in the evenings. I miss them while we are apart during the day, and I know they need me to hear about their day and their frustrations.

I know we have another conflict later this week, and I am not sure how I will proceed! My out-of-the-house Zumba class is my preferred method of working out, but my husband has more meetings on Thursday during Zumba time, and I cannot justify spending money for the class and  a sitter!

What do you do to make exercise a priority? Leave a comment below!

Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentlesness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

A Day to Honor Fools

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but 

fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1 :7

I hate April Fool's Day. It is my least favorite day of the year, followed closely only by St. Patrick's Day. You might think, "What could you possibly have against having a little bit of fun?" Even as a child, when I figured out that people were out to trick each other, I knew it wasn't something I wanted to be part of. April Fool's Day is shrouded in trickery, surprise and otherwise throwing people off their plan for the day. Essentially, tricksters aim to make someone feel foolish. I get angry when people think that they can get away with messing with people because of a date on the calendar. Granted, there are some tricks that are all in good fun, but then there are tricks where people are cruel and hurtful to others. I'm not okay with that no matter what the calendar says. Yes, I have been accused of being a "fuddy-duddy," and I am totally fine with that. 

Some people might think I am a crumby mom because of the advice I gave my Kindergartner this morning before she left for school. It dawned on me that she hasn't really had any experience with April Fooling, so I cautioned her that people are going to try to trick her today and maybe try to make her feel left out or give her some kind of false hope toward something that isn't real. Naturally, she was confused. When I told her that, often times, adults get involved, she seemed a little apprehensive to go to school. I told her that most everything is done in fun; she was eased a bit. I told her that even though people might try to trick her today, I didn't want her to get involved in the foolishness. She seemed completely okay with that. Even as a young person, she can sense that foolishness is volatile and dangerous. You really can't predict what fools will do!

My Bible supports me in my refusal of playing into the notion of fools, and it supports my endeavors to gain wisdom. Here's a sampling of what my Bible says about fools in Proverbs.

"How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?" 1:22

"Then [fools] will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for [wisdom] and not find [it] since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord" 1 :28-29

Yikes! That doesn't sound like a joke to me!

"The wise inherit honor, but fools get only shame." 3:35

"Folly is an unruly woman; she is simple and knows nothing... she says, 'Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!'" 9-13, 16, 17

"A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother." 10:1

"...a chattering fool comes to ruin." 10:8, repeated in 10:10

"...the mouth of a fool invites ruin." 10:14

"The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of sense." 10:21

Wow! That's quite a prediction! Death from lack of sense!

Here's the one that seems most fitting for today:

" A fool finds pleasure in wicked schemes, but a person of understanding delights in wisdom." 10:23

"The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice. Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult." 12: 16-17

The list could go on and on about all the misery that happens to fools. In short, foolishness is dangerous!   A lot of the problems that happen with fools comes from their mouths and their own plans and can lead them to misery or death. I don't want to be a fool, and I also don't want to endorse a day that honors foolish behavior. 

Proverbs 22:15 says, "Folly is bound up in the heart of the child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away." Each day that is wasted with foolishness is a day that I can't ever get back to work on wisdom in my children's lives and my own. I feel like I have encountered some adults that never got the folly driven out of their hearts by the rod of discipline when they were children because their parents thought that foolishness was funny or cute. Foolishness in adults is a character trait that is neither cute nor funny; fools end up miserable and often don't even recognize that their own behavior led them to their miserable state.

Have I ever participated in April Foolishness? Yes, as a child. Do I like a good practical joke every now and again? Absolutely. However, I don't ever want to make anyone feel like a fool or be a fool myself, and  I certainly don't want to raise fools. 

Rather, I want to instill great wisdom in the lives of my children, whether that is popular or not. "For those who find [wisdom] find life and receive favor from the Lord," according to Proverbs 8:35. What do you think? Is April Fool's Day fun for you?

 Have you ever had wonderful things happen as a result of an April Fool?