The Cottage on the Hill

My Hair That is, until a friend of mine sent me THIS link! Can you believe she has tailbone-length hair?!

Oh, the arguments out there in the world wide web, both for and against! This can be such a heated topic for sure, so please keep in mind that these are simply my thoughts for myself. I'm not imposing anything on anyone. If you are convicted you should not do yoga, then by all means, don't do it. A lot of Christians I know shy away from yoga simply because they don't understand it. They usually immediately think of someone sitting cross-legged in a garden "ohming" their brains into oblivion. I, too, shied away from yoga for many years, not wanting to cross that line and disobey God. Then, I got into Pilates. Funny thing is, a lot of Christians I knew thought Pilates was another pagan religious practice. Pilates is named after the man who created the exercises. I enjoyed doing pilates, loving the poses and stretches. I soon realized that there's some yoga in pilates, so I decided to look into yoga more. I was also spurred on by the inflammation in my...

I sent the kiddos out this morning to feed the ducks like I do every morning. They love to care for the ducks and do a great job at it. I suddenly heard my son calling me urgently. Upon immediate inspection, I saw my kiddos standing next to a dead duck in our front yard. Something had killed it. If that wasn't heartbreaking enough, my son informed me that there's no more ducks in the duck pen. I ran to the duck pen, calling "duck duck duck," but no ducks came out. There were feathers strewn everywhere, but no ducks. Looks like it may have been a coyote.

I saw "Blessed, Not Stressed" as part of someone's facebook name on a couponing facebook page this morning and it really struck me! I've decided to adopt that motto whenever taking care of my home and family starts to stress me out. I'm sick of being stressed out and forgetting about the blessings (or even cursing the blessings...I'm known to mutter, "this stupid little house"). BLESSED, Not Stressed!

I've been couponing lately and the best deals usually come in larger (bulk) purchases. But, one would think I'm hoarding. Why do I need 4 huge bottles of shampoo at an amazing price? What's with all that toilet paper? Are you saving up for some sort of natural disaster or something? Well, actually, I am. It's called an Upstate Winter! :) No, really. I'm taking advantage of the great deals I'm finding to store up for the winter like a little squirrel because it's too much of a hassle to bundle up my kiddos and drive snow-drifted roads to several stores to do weekly shopping. I'd rather stay home as much as possible this winter.

Anna over at Pleasant View Schoolhouse has a great post today called One Tiny Thing . I read her post this morning and it really struck a harmonic chord in me. I decided at once to consciously do just as her post said. So far today the chain reaction that occurred has been very pleasant! Suddenly the daunting doesn't seem so overwhelming. The deliberate effort is engaging to the mind. The action of love for hearth and home spreads quickly and is quite contagious. Even something as simple as taking 5 seconds to straighten the bathroom rug before I step out the door just makes everything feel better. I also think this would be a good method for someone who is ill or a woman who is dealing with the discomfort of pregnancy. Surely during the times we're in survival mode we can just do one tiny thing to improve a room. Just one. Pick up just one toy. Throw away just one crumb. Smooth out just one curtain. Then, I started thinking of so many other one tiny things we coul...

To my beloved husband and father of our children! To my beloved daddy, father of 5!

I feel like my whole week so far has been spent in the kitchen! Peaches needed canning and freezing since they were ripening quickly. Not wanting to waste the peels and just dump them in the compost, I put them in the blender and made peachsauce. I canned one quart of that and the rest I turned into homemade fruit roll-ups. I've also made fruit roll-ups out of strawberries and mixed berries. My 5 year old son asked for apple-cinnamon fruit roll-ups. It's a little extra work on my part to make the roll-ups, but at least my 3 year old daughter is eating fruit this way! CHEESE!! I've been cheese-making! Mascarpone cheese was the first one done. I was pleased with the results, and so was my mom who got half the batch just because I know how much she LOVES mascarpone. I also made goat's milk mozzarella. That was fun and made a delicious chicken parm that night. That took a LONG time to make. I still have some goat's milk left to make some chevre out of later ...

I love where I live. We consider moving all the time because our house is rather small and we would like more land, but really, where we live is just so nice. We are surrounded by woods and farm fields on three sides. On our street side we have great neighbors. We're in the country, but not far from Target! So, should we be unable to move, which it doesn't seem likely any time soon, I've been considering ways to make do with our little cottage. I'm intrigued by tiny homes. Here's some links that have really encouraged me as the feathering mother bird of this little nest: http://tinyhouseblog.com/ http://www.simplesolarhomesteading.com/ http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ http://www.320squarefoothome.com/ We really can't at this time expand the footprint of our home outwards, so our focus has to go up and down as inexpensively as possible. Our basement is only semi-usable as it tends to be damp and occasionally flood a little. I'm hoping that the install...

Getting my daughter to eat better isn't working. I'm shifting focus onto HELPING her eat better. I think this is deeper than just toddler/preschooler misbehavior. I think she has a deeper issue. Most kids take to promises of treats, hunger pangs, or other methods of getting them to eat healthy foods. Not my daughter. She would rather go without the treat and eat non-food items (she refused lunch today and ate a birthday candle she found outside instead!!) Mixing veg in casseroles doesn't work either. She doesn't like mixed up foods and can spot a tiny sliver of spinach in a gallon of tomato sauce and refuse the whole meal. The reason she refused lunch today is that I put a tiny bit of homemade peach sauce (like applesauce, but made from peaches) on her peanut butter sandwich without her knowledge. She refused the sandwich after several bites telling me it tasted bad. I took a bite and couldn't even taste the peach sauce for the peanut butter! Then, she wa...

Thanks to The Healthy Home Economist , I was encouraged to start making homemade formula for my baby boy after my milk waned too much to sustain him anymore. The recipe listed on her site is actually pretty easy, even though the ingredients can sound daunting. She even lists links to where you can buy the ingredients, making it easy to get started. Baby boy is almost a year old. He stopped breast milk at 9 months at which point he went on commercial organic formula until all the ingredients came in the mail for the homemade formula. Recently, he's been back on commercial formula due to busyness in our lives. I noticed a few things: When he's on commercial formula: 1. He's up at night, needing more formula. 2. He's fussy-hungry more. 3. He eats more table food. 4. He either looks slender or bloated. When he's on homemade formula: 1. He sleeps through the night. 2. He's got an appetite, but isn't fussy about it. 3. He eats a more balanced meal and smalle...

1. Now that the farm field's hay has been mowed, my resident woodchuck has turned his attention to my garden. I'm trying to find ways to keep him out! 2. I've been introduced to "extreme couponing" and it's fun! Of course, I'm not like some stories I've heard, and I stick to the rules, but I've got some great savings lined up! 3. My Trailblazer died after church on Sunday and I had to have it towed. No idea what's wrong yet.

Almost a decade ago when I was a young bride, I would come across well-meaning conservative Christian women groups where women tried to counsel each other in Titus 2 fashion. DISCLAIMER: I am NOT mocking or bashing conservative Christian women counseling each other in Titus 2 fashion. I believe whole-heartedly that women of Christ SHOULD follow Titus 2.* However, these women, as people tend to do, were more or less following the latest trend. I could see the trend ebb and flow over the years I followed certain sites. Suddenly, all the ladies were headcovering, or wearing jumpers, or making their own bread, or whatever the latest "trend" was. Now, there's nothing wrong with headcovering, dressing modestly or making your own bread. Of course not! But, let it be a true conviction of God and not just something that FEELS good to do and makes you feel (and look) holier than thou, or even pridefully humble. Anyhow, one of these trends that stood out to me was doing aw...

I hear it all the time. It is preached often. "Don't fall away from God when times are tough. Remember Him, praise Him, pray!" Occassionally, I hear or it is preached to not forget God when things are good. Don't fall in complacency, or puff up yourself. But, neither of those are where I leave God behind. It's in the mediocre, the mundane, the every day. So long as things are plugging along at a normal pace and life just ticks on by, that's when I find myself saying quick, rote graces. That's when my Bible lays unopened by my bedside. That's when my evening prayers fade into sleep. That's when I don't bother to seek God or spend time in praise and worship. And since mediocre tends to happen more often than the mountains and valleys in our lives (one would hope), that's a LOT of time I put God on the shelf. God should be our every day. Christ Jesus should be welcome in our homes, a constant companion by our sides no matter the circumstances...