MOM BRAIN!!

Does anyone, like me, ever have mom brain? Dad brain? Where you forget the simplest things or do things backwards. For example, put the toaster in the fridge instead of its proper place, baking soda instead of baking powder in a biscuit recipe (gross...), never knowing what day or year it is... I believe Mom brain to be 100% true, not just an excuse for "selective memory" or forgetfulness. 

My mom brain issue of last week (among many) was I FORGOT TO BLOG!!! I'm sorry for all the people who lost sleep over it and could not cope during their long busy week because they didn't get their Friday "SanteSavvy" blog fix.

For the past 2 weeks my parents-in-law, Nanny and Poppy, came from Quebec for a visit! They usually take turns staying 3 days at each of their 3 sons houses to visit. This time around,  I offered for Nanny to stay for the month and drive back with us when we go to Quebec for my uncles wedding. 

I love having her stay here, she not only helps me with house chores and keeping my Tasmanian child busy, but she is great company to just sit, have coffee, chocolate and chit-chat with and she is also the BEST thrift store shopper I know. You need anything? She will find it!!

My challenge for this week was to bottle feed my six month old li'l guy. I needed him to drink from a bottle in case of an emergency or if he needed to be babysat. With li'l gal I started giving her the bottle at least once or twice a week so she would have the habit. But this time around I slacked...

Here's a little story that I thought was ADORABLE! I had a bottle of my milk that I was trying to feed to li'l guy, we all tried feeding it to him, but HE JUST WOULD NOT HAVE IT! My sister-in-law tried, my mother-in-law, my two nieces, Fail, Fail, Fail, Fail! I was getting nervous because I didn't want to give in and breast feed him until he knew how to drink from the bottle, but I also didn't want to STARVE him. And he was getting hungry! 

So to make a long story short, li'l gal tried feeding him all while saying "shh, shh, it's ok, shh, shh" He looked at her AND STARTED DRINKING!!! He drank the whole bottle! I was sooo excited and impressed! Soooooooo cute!!!

This will always be a good memory for me :)

Unless of course my mom brain kicks in and I forget it in two weeks, haha.

What are good times and  memories of fall without some good old home made squash soup and biscuits?!

From our 20 large acorn squash I made a delicious soup! And here is how I did it:

I made my own chicken broth from a chicken Jonny boy prepared for eating purposes. (that's the nicest way I could think of saying it, hehe) 

CHICKEN BROTH

-1 frozen chicken with 1 cup of water(cook in crock pot until tender, then take all the meat off and store in fridge)

-leave chicken bones in crock pot

-add 1 or 2 onions

-2-4 carrots

-2-4 celery sticks (all veggies cut in huge chunks, break carrots and celery sticks in 2 or 3 with hands and try with the onions for fun if you're bored) 

-salt, pepper sprinkled all over. 

-cover everything with water

-let stew on low over night

*I love the good fresh smell of chicken broth in the morning when I wake up. (not...)

ACORN SQUASH SOUP à la Vanessa Sante

-2 large acorn squash cut in 2, then gut seeds, then cut in 4.

-put the 8 pieces of squash on a cookie sheet and drizzle some olive oil all over it. Put in oven at 350 until you can easily stick a fork into it. 1-2 hours-ish...

- take squash out of oven and let cool

-(use a huge turkey roaster to blend soup)

-take the peel off the squash with a spoon or with your fingers. (this reminded me of the French youtube videos "tete a claques",  "le Willy Waller 2006". I had a giggle or two.

-put all squash, cooked carrots, onion, and celery into pot

-Use hand blender and mush it all up

-slowly add about half the crock pot of strained chicken broth to the soup until you have the thick smooth consistency you want. 

-Add salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste.

-Blend in a block of cream cheese (optional) its soooooo good with cream cheese!

And VOILA! yummy easy healthy soup! 

Even li'l guy liked it! 

BISCUITS (recipe I always use, "Big daddy JP's biscuits recipe" from Pinterest.)

-2 cups flour

-1 TBS Baking Powder (NOT BAKING SODA!)

-1 TSP salt

-1 TBS sugar

-3/4 cup milk

-Mix 1/3 cup of shortening ( I use margarine or butter)

-slowly add 3/4 cup milk stir with spoon in bowl

-plop on floured surface and fold 15-20 times DO NOT KNEED or else it wont be fluffy...it will be more like bread

-roll with bread roller no thinner then your pinky finger and cut with cookie cutter

-oven, 425 F. 10-15 mins. until light brown.

To end with a  FUNNY STORY!!!!,

My biscuit trade mark is to cut them into heart shapes (that's all I had at the time) and I thought it was cute, so I kept the idea...

I taught my friend how to make biscuit at her house. We thought it would be fun to give her a "biscuit trade mark" as well. She LOVES dogs and she happened to have dog bone shaped cookie cutters. So we were very excited and diligently waited for her dog bone shaped biscuits to cook. To our surprise, they all looked like deformed *ahem* male body parts... It was HILARIOUS! Let's just say she stayed with the traditional round shaped biscuits!!

Bonne appétit!  

Are you a fan or a follower?

This thanksgiving, we spent some time with some beautiful friends. We got to enjoy two awesome turkey dinners. We are very blessed and encouraged to have such good friends who care for us.

We have also been blessed with a new small group study that our church has organised. The book we are reading is called "Not a fan" by Kyle Idleman. It basically asks us if we are a fan or a follower of Jesus. 

As the book so rightly explains: " The dictionary defines a fan as an "enthusiastic admirer." Fans want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it requires sacrifice. Fans may be fine with repeating a prayer, attending church on the weekend, and slapping a Jesus fish on their bumpers. But is that really the extent of the relationship Jesus wants? 
Here is an other way Kyle puts it, : 

It's the guy who goes to the football game with no shirt and a painted chest. He sits in the stand and cheers for his team. He's got a signed jersey hanging on his wall at home and multiple bumper stickers on the back of his car. but he's never in the game. He never breaks a sweat or takes a hard hit in the open field. He knows all about the players and can rattle off their latest stats, but he doesn't know the players. He yells and cheers, but nothing is really required of him. There is no sacrifice he has to make. and the truth is, as excited as he seems, if the team he's cheering for starts to let him down and has a few off seasons, his passion will wane pretty quickly. After several losing seasons you can expect him to jump off the bandwagon and begin cheering for some other team. He is an enthusiastic admirer.

It's the woman who never misses the celebrity news show. She always picks up the latest People 
Magazine. She's a huge fan of some actress who is the latest Hollywood sensation. And this woman not only knows every movie this actress has been in, she knows what high school this actress went to she knows the birthday of this actress, and she knows the name of her first boyfriend. She even knows what this actresses real hair colour is, something the actress herself is no longer certain of. She knows everything there is to know but she doesn't know the actress she's a huge fan, but she's just a friend. She is an enthusiastic admirer.

Being a follower of Jesus would be considered to be inconvenient, difficult at times, uncomfortable. It is doing what you know is right even though you may be ridiculed. It might be stepping out of your comfort zone to stand up for Jesus. Constantly striving for the kind of life that Jesus wants us to have with a regular walk with him. It is not checking off a list of good things that you did in order to be on good terms with God. He wants our heart. He wants our all.

As a stay-at-home mom this challenges me in a way that it may not challenge people who go out to work.

Somebody who goes to work everyday has to deal with

people. They have to deal with their own attitude and responses to different situations that are stressful or frustrating. It is easier to see if you are a fan or follower if you have people there to judge you. 

In my case I have my two babies. I know that I have friends and family and probably even strangers who watch me. But when I am home alone with my kids it's just me and them. I have to think of how I can be a follower of Jesus in my own circumstances. 

It is hard to believe or understand how much impact we have on our children until they do something to imitate us. Either good or bad. I can tell that my baby girl watches me a lot. The way she talks to the dog or to anybody else. It can be pretty hilarious sometimes and also eye-opening.
I have to ask myself the question, how does God want me to obey him when I am home with my kids. Here are a 10 Bible verses that are encouraging tell us what to do (For some reason when someone posts a bunch of Bible verses, I tend to skip over them and don't read all of them, almost as if I'm good enough and I know them all so what's the point in reading them all... Or maybe I'm too lazy or don't feel like stopping to Read every one of them). I encourage you to read them all and pray about anyone that may have encouraged you.

1 Peter 4:8

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Colossians 3:14

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Matthew 7:12

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Philippians 2:3

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Ephesians 4:31-32

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Philippians 4:6-7

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 3:12-14

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Philippians 2:2

Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

19. Romans 12:16

Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

Ephesians 4:26

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger..

I myself know that I have many things to work on. I need to learn to not yell so much when I am frustrated. I need to take more pride in my housekeeping and not procrastinate. I need to have more discipline in my prayer life and start of my day with a prayer similar to this one:

Lord, I pray that today will be a good productive day. I pray that I can find patience when I need it, and compassion more than anger and calmness more than stressful yelling. I pray that you will give me the strength to be like Jesus. And to laugh and be happy and have joy and peace. Amen."

And I also need to remember that God cares about all things. Is there and he hears me even when I feel lonely. I need to try and be more like Jesus with my children and husband. To be more patient, to  take things less seriously and have more fun with them. Looking back at old pictures shows me how fast my kids are growing. Time flies!

Isaiah 40:8

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. 

One thing I will always remember, in the movie Evan Almighty, Morgan Freeman as God said. If you pray for patience, God will not give you patience,  he will give you opportunities to learn patience.

May God teach us humility...

Our first greenhouse!

As you may know I am a great admirer of my husband, Jonny Boy. When we first moved here, he did not have tons of experience when it came to construction or gardening and he did not have that many hobbies (that I knew about). Now that we have some land of our own (2.05 Acres). We have developed some hobbies that we really enjoy and we look forward to having a larger home with more space to do them...

---

When we first moved to Nova Scotia we lived in my brother-in-law's house for a few months while Jonny was working on the ambulance. Then we moved to a little town named Stellarton near New Glasgow. We had a tiny apartment which I guess was the upstairs of a house that was turned into 3 apartments... It was very cute to start off our journey. Of course, we wanted to buy a house and not have to worry about a landlord. So we found a fixer upper. I think it was an impulsive move because we did not realize that renovations took so much work and money when you don't have the skill to do it all by yourself and have never done it before.

(The second picture is pretty bad, but that huge tree was blocking the house.  And we are also in the process of doing the siding on the shed too!

To my surprise, Jonny Boy almost completely renovated the entire house by himself. And he did a very good job! With some of my advice ;) And some help from friends... I will miss this house when we move one day, so now I try and enjoy the time we are still here and not always think of where I want to be...

One of Jonny boy's hobbies is gardening! He bought many books on different ways to grow a garden... We do not want to invest too much into this house and property because we don't want to have to move everything when we do move... This is the first year that we've built our own greenhouse. And it is very exciting to see that our vegetables are looking nice and green still in October while our squash outside is all wilted from the frost. I'm certain, in the years to come, we will perfect it. This is our trial year!

The norm is to start a garden right after the Spring's last frost (I think it's after Mothers Day). But we started ours pretty late because, for one, Nova-Scotia had a late frost and secondly, we did not have/take the time and were uncertain of how we were going to build it without it costing too much money...

We made it as cheap as possible and we love it!

Our friend had some old pallets that he gave us and we used a total of:

-12 or 13  pallets for the, tad bit, "red neck" greenhouse. 
-Six 10 foot long 3/4 inch PVC pipes for the arch
-1 1/2 inch PVC pipes cut into almost 6 inches each (to fit the 3/4 pipes in it on each end to secure them with screws.
-18 mm vapor  barrier left over from our house renovations.
-Screws
-Staples
-some 2X4 for the door and 1x4 strapping  (that we had already)

He cut every second board off the pallets east facing to let in more sun. And left the back of the greenhouse full pallets. And used 4 small tree trunks for the 4 corners and hammered them into the ground to keep the walls solid. 

All in all is cost us 40$ (with stuff we already had)

We planted tomatoes, peppers, and beans this year in the greenhouse. And strung them up with wire...(so they will climb the wire)

We didn't even have time to plant them in the ground.. the buckets were fine...

We also filled a big rain barrel with water so the sun would heat the water, and therefore keep the green house warm on cold nights!

We also planted a bunch more outside the greenhouse, but we think because the manure we used was too acidic (not old enough), nothing grew. (Only one plant made it, a 20 by 9 foot long acorn squash! We harvested 20 large ones! That's a lot of soup! I will have to share my squash recipes!!! )

Our future dreams are to live as self sustaining as possible. To "grow" our own meat and vegetables. God willing get a pig for meat and a cow and have our own milk and become like those real farmers who make everything themselves.  Yogurt,  cheese, bread, all that fun stuff... we're on a good start with our chickens I believe!

Jonny boy would love to sell our vegetables to a market or local restaurant and work from home that way. Now that sounds like fun to me! I think I could get used to that! ;)

Luke 16:10

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much"

Ps: I will share more of his hobbies in future posts! :D