Severe weather center

Our home has a central hallway protected by rooms on all sides so that is where we stay during storms. In 2014, we had a very close call. Severe storms with a tornado path went so close to us that our next door neighbor had roof damage and three doors down, a huge hardwood was uprooted. We heard it on top of us. But we had allowed our children to "camp out" in our hallway in sleeping bags. They thought it was cool and slept right through it.

Our hallway is wide so I have some bookshelves near the entrance. I decided to turn one into a severe weather center since we are expecting possible severe weather today. A place to have access to what we might need if part of the house was damaged and made inaccessible. Having our supplies scattered won't help us in that situation.

Four of the children have helmets. This is a very simple way of protecting heads from debris.

I included our weather radio that can also work on battery power. I added extra batteries to the shopping list.

I included all the elements for a tea light heater which can serve as both heat and light. I made a mason jar match holder with a sandpaper lid for striking. This will keep the children from strewing matches up and down the hallway if they were in a traditional match box. .

This evening, if the threat is still high, I will let the children camp in the hallway. I'll also grab some snacks and juice boxes to keep in the severe weather center for the night. My kids really are trustworthy but no reason to tempt them by having them in arms reach all the time.

Stay safe, everyone!

PRAYER FOR PROTECTION IN A TIME OF STORM OR DANGER 

Lord and Holy Protector,like the disciples who were caught in their tiny boat in the midst of a mighty storm,

We come to beg Your Help. 
        
We are fearful as we are surrounded by danger.

We feel helpless and small before the great power of this storm which is beyond our control. 
 
While everything seems dark and dangerous, we place our trust in You, our Lord and God. 
 
Sheltered here in our home, we are also shielded by Your Love against all that might harm us. 

We know that You hear all prayers; so we now, filled with confidence, lift up our petitions to You, our God. 

 (silent prayer) 

Lord, we fear for our home, for our lives and for all we hold dear. 

Your Sacred Blessing is upon this home and upon each of us as well. 

We are secure in the power of that blessing. 

May the saving power of the Cross of Your Son, Jesus, encircle us and our home. 

May all evil, all harm and injury, be repelled by that Sacred Sign of the Cross. 

May the light of this candle be for us a holy sign of Your Divine Presence that fills our home in the midst of this danger. 

Lord and Creator of Storms and of Rainbows, be with us in this time of danger. 

Amen +

My time budget

We all have 24 hours in a day. No one gets any more or any less. It's easy to blame our time constraints on the demands of others. But I resolve to take responsibility for my time and make it work for me.

Sleep - 7.5 hours

Sleep is the largest chunk of time unless you work an outside job. Even then, work tasks can be divided up into different categories of time. I have been trying out different wake-up times and I've discovered that I do so much better in alertness with 6 hours of sleep plus 2-3 power naps than I do with 8 hours of sleep. If I've had an especially busy day, I'll get a quick power nap after supper before I tackle the kitchen cleanup and bed time routine.

Homeschooling - 2.5 hours for older boys, 1 hour for the little ones.

This will be the time for active teaching and instruction. There are many activities and assignments that they can each do independently.

Cleaning - 3 hours

I will spend 1 hour in the morning, 30 minutes after lunch, 1 hour in the afternoon and 30 minutes after supper. For some, it might make better sense to lump all the cleaning time together and get it done with. But with little ones that can wreck havoc in no time, I think spreading out the tasks will keep things under control more often. The children will be expected to help for 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes after lunch and 1 hour in the afternoon.

Meals - 2 hours

Self-explanatory

Crafts - 2 hours

This may seem like a large chunk of time for crafts but I get 2 hours most days just waiting for the boys in taekwondo. There's also dr appt waiting times. And I usually have some sort of project that I work on while watching tv. My goal is to start an Etsy shop with 10 products by the end of the month.

Faith - 1 hour

I like making this a solid hour although it may be divided into half with family devotions and personal prayer and study. It reminds me of the recommendation of the priest from the DVD Common Ground that I watched during or before RCIA. It comes from Matthew 26:40-41.

 And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?41 Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Exercise - 1 hour

My exercise routine usually takes 40-45 minutes but I am making it an hour to include travel to and from the gym. I am shooting for Monday through Friday and scheduling it at a time when my kids are asleep and my husband is home. No excuses! I will keep the same time for Saturday and Sunday and use it for grocery shopping.

My goal is going to be to work out at least 250 days in 2015. That leaves weekends free and a little wiggle room for certain times of the month and colds. I do like the feeling after exercise but I still have a hard time making myself get started. I need a good reward. I don't care for shopping and I don't need food rewards. So I'm thinking a little more long-term. If I meet my goal, I will reward myself with an embroidery machine in 2016. With 5 kids, the opportunity to monogram is endless.

Cooking - 1 hour

Breakfast is a eat-what-you-want buffet of fruit, cereal, grits, oatmeal, baked sweet potatoes, and eggs. Nothing takes a great deal of time so I fix what is needed as I clean and prep in the kitchen. Lunch is leftovers so a simple reheat. I may have 15 minutes of prep in the morning and 45 minutes of actually cooking in the evening.

Planning - 1 hour

This time will probably be during taekwondo or early in the morning before the kids are up. There are lots of things to plan for like preschool and homeschool lessons, menus, crafts (for me and the kids), better organization solutions, activities, celebrations, etc.

Couple time - 1 hour

Our lives are so busy with family and work that we can neglect each other. Every day may not go perfectly but an hour is there to talk and connect. Even if kids interrupt and all we do is watch a show while waiting for them to doze, it's still time together. By making an hour devoted to each other, we make each other a priority.

Grooming - 30 minutes

Time to shower, fix hair, moisturize, apply makeup, clip nails, etc. I have a tendency to forget my vitamins in the morning so I include that in my time.

Travel and prep - 30 minutes

Mainly to and from taekwondo.

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That's 24 hours.

This is a basic Monday-Friday schedule. Some activities like grooming, cooking, meals and faith will carry over into the weekend. Saturday will be for fun, activities and deep cleaning projects. Sunday will be for worship, rest and family fun.

Focus for 2015

My resolution for 2014 was to slow down. Not try to rush through everything to get to the next thing. It isn't very easy to measure success on a non-specific goal such as this. But I think I have learned how to slow down more and take things a bit at a time. I'm learning to say no to some things. Just because we could do it, doesn't mean we should and end up rushing from one thing to the next. I find that I'm allowing more time to get ready for events and we're not rushing around like loons.

It really isn't a resolution but a focus. A general goal in how to spend our time. For 2015, I want to expand a little bit on time. I have been amazed at the feeling towards my thirty minutes in the morning for myself. I have plenty of time to do what I need. I find myself with extra minutes, a luxury that I wasn't aware that I could have. The clock is working for me. I'm not racing against it in a race that I can't win.

So my focus for 2015 is to spend time deliberately. Assign each minute with how it is to be spent just as you would each dollar. Keep my tasks that need the most alert attention at the times I am most alert. Then when it is time to rest and leisure, partake without guilt.  Keep at a task for the allotted time so that I am digging deeper into my abilities and creativity. Give my children the fullness of my attention in the time that I devote to them.

With five children and activities that vary from day to day, a strict daily plan won't work. But I can be reminded at ever half hour to plan for the next thirty minutes. I can have a general outline of how my day will be spent. Taekwondo times change daily but I know that from 4-7pm is the time for supper and taekwondo. I may do laundry most days at a particular time but one day may require that I spend that time cuddling with a baby toddler or coloring with a preschooler or disinfecting with gusto. Plan the time and make it work for me rather than the other way around.

I also have to be aware of extra minutes like when waiting on the children when they are in taekwondo class or waiting at the dr office. Keep tasks of planning, correspondence or knitting/crocheting to use those minutes deliberately as well. We only get one life so let's get the most out of it.

Focus for 2015

Spend time deliberately

Planning ahead

The next three months are fairly dull compared to the rest of the year. We do have James and John Micah's birthdays. And a snow day would be exciting for us Southerners. But all in all, it's too cold to do much besides stay at home.

So why not use that to my advantage? When warm weather returns, we're going to be heading to the park and museum/zoo trips. It will be harder for me to cook every night. But right now, it's a great thing to cook more and help heat the house. So I'm committing to cooking one extra meal each week for the freezer.

Last week, I doubled my batch of cornbread chicken dressing. Last night, I made a huge batch of bone broth chicken soup and put a 5 quart ice cream bucket full in the freezer. These could be available if I got sick and needed a pre-made meal. Or saved for warm weather when I might be gone all day with the children.

$100 grocery challenge
Meet Penny has a great idea for keeping us on track with our budget for 2015. Her budget for groceries, cleaning supplies, toiletries and such equals to $25 per person. For our family of 7, that would be $175. I'm going to join in on that challenge.

I plan to use bulk purchasing to keep my budget in line. I want to use my menu rotations to calculate what I need for a year and purchase at the lowest price point. I will need 25 lbs each of white, red and black beans. I would like to get some buckets to store beans, oats and such.

Grocery stores have cycles throughout the year on what goes on sale. Here's a list. Loss leaders can be used to our advantage.

I don't think I'll be using many coupons. Most coupons are for processed foods. But they can be used strategically for health and beauty products at CVS along with Extra Care Bucks. I do get some meat coupons for Winn Dixie in the mail. Target also has coupons for meat and produce.

Keeping my cleaning simple with borax, baking soda, vinegar and dish detergent.

Stocked up on diapers right now and using less and less as the children grow. Hopefully there will be very little of the budget going to diapers in 2015. We feel a little richer already!

Organizing crochet/knit supplies

To get started, all you really need are a hook or needles and a ball of yarn. But after a while, the accessories start to add up.

• stitch markers
• needle guages
• yarn needles
• cable needles
• scissors
• different sizes of hooks and needles
• bobbins
• stitch holders

I claimed a stash on a freecycle-type group. This lady's stash contained some things that I don't know that I'll ever even use but I have it if I need it. But all this stuff has to be in an accessible place to be useful. It does no good if I can't find it.

I used a Lancome makeup bag. I also found two little organizers (probably for beads or something similar) at a consignment sale. I can organize all the yarn needles, bobbins, stitch markers and such and still have room behind the organizers for hooks, double pointed needles, scissors and more. 

This provides a place for the children to find what they need for their yarn crafts and a place to put things back so that we aren't losing things that we need on a regular basis. It's compact and easy to grab and carry with me.






Joseph is pointing to give you an idea of how small and compact it is. Staying organized means that I can easily carry projects on the go and more projects actually get finished. How do you organize your supplies?

To GAPS or not to GAPS

I have wrestled with whether or not to start the diet in January as planned. Part of me feels like we need a stricter diet. But I had no idea how effective some of the babysteps would be. I didn't expect to be feeling any better. I was just trying to get used to the way of cooking so that I wouldn't crash and burn with the GAPS diet. What I'm finding that is working for us is going to be real close to the GAPS diet so I'll probably be using a lot of those recipes.

I wanted a healthier diet so that we could fight off colds better. I've had a cold for several days. But it's been incredibly mild as long as I drink my kefir and ginger tea (2x a day). If I miss my ginger tea, like during the busyness of Christmas Eve then the symptoms return. I felt rough Christmas morning. But ginger tea with raw honey and I was able to cook Christmas dinner. I have to remember that just because the symptoms go away, doesn't mean that my body doesn't need extra support. I should probably plan on doubling up on the ginger tea for a week after a cold.

I've accomplished the goal that I set out for. I wanted us to get sick less often and with less severity. We're still gonna get exposed to germs. Especially with young children in the house. But we've got better ways of coping with it so that they don't become bacterial infections or crud that drags on for weeks.

I had an IBS attack before Christmas. It went on for several days before I could get back on track. In trying to figure out what had triggered it and what else I could do to stop it, I read about how GAPS can actually slow metabolism. That's the last thing that I need. I've found that what I am doing now has sped up my metabolism. I've even lost a couple pounds over the holidays. Crazy! It's even affecting how my husband and I react to medicine. We have taken zyrtec regularly without it affecting our ability to function. Now if we take it, it is like a tranquilizer and we could just sleep for days if that was an option.

But that was the information that finally made the decision certain. We won't be going through the GAPS intro diet in January. The babysteps are working so I will just continue with them to keep replacing what I use with a more nutritious and less-processed alternative. Opt out of the 2 yr diet for a complete lifestyle change.

Babystep #24 - Gluten-free pasta

I forgot to include how I did the parsnips in yesterday's posts. I've roasted them with olive oil, salt and pepper before. This time, I put a bit of coconut oil in my hand and rubbed it all over the parsnips then seasoned with salt and pepper. The coconut oil paired really well with the sweetness of the parsnips.

I'm discovering how quickly I can get a healthy meal on the table when the decisions are already made. Christmas Eve, we had a busy afternoon of baths, painting nails, costumes and Mass. I knew I had some leftover chicken cornbread dressing but it needed a side. So I would steam some brussel sprouts and season with salt, pepper and a couple pats of butter. I had supper on the table in less than 15 minutes. Chicken nuggets and fries and pizza are not even that fast.

The good decisions come when we make the decision ahead of time instead of when we're short on time. A couple weeks ago, I was cleaning out the pantry and used up a couple boxes of wheat pasta. Pasta is third on the things that make me feel the worst behind cauliflower and fast food milkshakes. So why did I have wheat pasta in my pantry? I know that Tinkyada pasta is gluten free and delicious. We can even get it at Walmart. But I get in the store and I'm thinking of how to get the most bang for my buck. I can't justify in that moment spending a couple dollars more on pasta when I'm not being strictly gluten free anyhow.

I shopped at Target last week and they didn't have Tinkyada so I got Ronzoni Gluten free for the homemade mac and cheese. It's a suitable alternative. So I'm going to use brand loyalty to help keep the good decision consistent. From here on out, it's Tinkyada or Ronzoni gluten free pasta.

I learned something interesting on Amazon. The price of Tinkyada varies by shape.




But the spirals here are only $28.20. Spirals work fine with spaghetti and mac and cheese. In the earlier days of gluten free when products were not so accessible, spirals might be all you could find. I'm not hung up on a particular shape especially when there is a 10-20 dollar difference in the price of a box of 12. Even cheaper when you use Subscribe and Save.

I'm reducing the amount of italian pasta dishes that we eat. I like my predictable weekly schedule and there isn't an italian night. I can make lasagna occasionally on Sunday and use roasted veggies like eggplant and squashes instead of noodles. However, I will need pasta for mac and cheese to go with salmon or ham. A box of 12 should last about 3 months.