Heart to Heart with Diane

My 3 daughters: Louisa, Emily and Julianna

Joyous times at my house!  My oldest daughter, Julianna, is a new bride!  She has waited to find the man of her dreams, a man who is clean and pure and worthy to be the husband that she will build her life with!  I am so, so happy for them!

Julianna and Michael Spencer were married for time and all eternity on October 23, a rainy autumn morning.  The ceremony was so inspiring and sacred. One of the things the the officiator said was that from this day forward, there would never be a “day off”.  Never a day off from being each other’s best friend, never a day off from thinking of the other first: of being a good companion, of being a builder rather than a critic, of always being a loving Christian.

As the ceremony ended, he took them to a huge mirror on one wall, and asked Michael what he saw.  He said, “I see a beautiful girl!”  Then he asked them to step to the side a bit and look in the mirror, which reflected back and forth in another huge mirror on the other side of the room.  The reflections made endless replicas of them.  He asked Michael what he saw, and he replied, “A million beautiful girls”.  With this comment, the officiator talked about their potential children, their posterity down through the corridors of time.  He had them turn around and see the mirror behind them, and talked about all those who came before them.  At this point, the tears were freely flowing for me, as a mother.  Julianna and Michael represent this moment in time, a link with—and gratitude for—their forebearers, and the parents-to-be of the generations to follow in our family lineage . . . a very sacred and sobering reflection for all of us!

The Happy Couple!

Julianna and Michael met at a luau, so it was natural that they would want to have a Hawaiian luau for their wedding celebration party!  The mu-mus and shirts were ordered from Hawaii, and they decorated with seashells, fishnets, tropical flowers, and big palm fronds brought from California by Michael’s parents.  They served traditional Hawaiian luau food, of course, and chocolate cake for fun!  Julianna has a floral design business and loved arranging all the flowers herself, including her lavish tropical bridal bouquet.  For entertainment, Julianna and Michael played their ukuleles and sang the “Hawaiian Wedding Song” together.  Michael and Julianna danced, and everyone joined in dancing—we all had a grand time celebrating!

Hawaiian Wedding Song

It was wonderful to be with family, relatives and friends to rejoice in their union!

My whole family, except my daughter-in-law Melissa (Daniel's wife) who just birthed Elizabeth

Newlyweds with Mom and Dad

A mother’s dream come true—to have her daughter happily wed to a righteous man!

Happily ever after . . .

My son Daniel with his newly born daughter

A brand new little granddaughter made her appearance on October 21, just a day before my oldest daughter’s wedding reception.  Wow, so much excitement around here! She is ultra delightful, soft, sweet and has massive amounts of black silky hair!  Can you tell we are thrilled with her?

This newborn is the daughter of my eldest son, Daniel, and his wife Melissa.  Their family now has 4 children:  Rebekah, Abigail, Isaac . . . plus Elizabeth.

My precious 7th grandbaby!

We are so blessed!

It’s a challenge, isn’t it?! 

Getting that homeschool day started promptly seems to be a constant struggle, and yet if you don’t start on time, the whole day can lag behind. Why do so many things come up in the morning?  Seems there is a continual parade of interruptions and things that need to be done “right now” that can prevent even the most ardent homeschooling mom from getting homeschooling going on time!

Over the years, I tried a lot of systems and tricks to motivate myself and my kids to get going with school bright and early and promptly.  Here’s one of the ideas that worked the best, just in case your homeschool could use some punctuality!

“Dime on Time”

To get ready for this motivational game, give each student a jar (baby food jar or jam jar) to decorate with stickers and his name.  Mom, you decorate the “school jar”.  Slots in the top make it fun, so if you are handy with a screwdriver and hammer, make some slits in each lid (remove the glass jar first!)  Put 5 dimes in each of the jars, plus 10 more dimes in the School Jar. Tell the children that school is starting tomorrow at 9:00 AM (or whatever time you like). Now you’re ready to go!

Monday morning, remind everyone at breakfast that school starts at 9:00 AM and they must be dressed, hair combed, teeth brushed and in the school room (or sitting at the table, or wherever you start school) when the bell rings to win the prize. I bought a little, inexpensive alarm clock and set it to 9:00 AM so it is not me nagging the kids, but us all working to get there on time.  (I have to be ready too!  Half the time, it is mom, not the kids, that make school start late—sad confession!)

So, when the alarm clock in the school room rings, everyone who is present and ready (dressed, groomed and school notebook in hand) gets a dime to put in their jar.  Clink-clink . . . that’s a nice sound!  Every straggler who comes in after the alarm stops ringing has to surrender one of their dimes and put it into the School Jar: clink-clink . . . that is a nice sound too!

Each school day, this repeats itself.  You will be amazed at how a little motivation gets them ready on time!  And, Mom, you have to restrain yourself and keep yourself from reminding and nagging.  Keep your mouth closed, and let the system work it’s wonder!  They will learn faster from disappointment than from us reminding them.

As the week progresses, those who come to school on time are amassing wealth (okay, not necessary “wealth” but it may feel that way to a child, plus there is fun in playing the game, even if you are a teenager and dimes don’t seem like much. It worked for my teenage boys!)  We all laughed at each other, to see kids racing, comb in hand, shoes untied—and Mom too!—to get to the school room before the alarm rang!

If you come to school on time every single day, then on Friday, when everyone empties their jars, you’d have $1.00 to spend as you choose!  For those who did not come on time everyday, their jar will be empty, as they’ve had to give up a dime every tardy day to pay the School Jar.

When I started this game, it seemed like I was putting out a lot of money.  (You could use nickels with younger children, and reduce the expense.)  In the long run, though, the training it provided was worth the money. I’d pay $25 for a good book helping me motivate my kids, and $25 goes a long way in dimes, so I guess the money wasn’t so much, afterall, and it was well spent.

I tried to make it more fun by expressing exaggerated disappointment that my School Jar was getting hungry, when they all came on time.  They delighted to make it starve! The whole experience was playful and motivating!  And we got in a good habit of punctuality.  The Pledge of Allegiance started right at 9:01 AM, so no time for anyone to complain . . .

The School Jar money did accumulate, although slowly, and I used it to buy homeschooling supplies, so the kids benefited in round-about way, but naturally, they’d rather earn it and spend it themselves as they wished.  Trips to the dollar store or yard sales to allow them to spend their “Dime on Time” savings keeps motivation high, and attitudes happy!

If you are finding the morning is half gone when you start homeschool, it might be time for a “Dime on Time” game at your house. 

Have fun!

Last spring, I tried an experiment in growing potatoes.  This morning, my daughter Louisa and I went out into the garden to harvest them, which was like opening a present!  A barrel full of potatoes all nice and neat!  Here’s how we did it:

1- cut the bottom off a plastic or wooden bucket or barrel (or drill multiple holes into the bottom to insure proper drainage).  The barrel should be about 2 feet high.

2- lay old carpeting under the barrel

Just a few of the potatoes that came out of this barrel

3- lay seed potatoes (or cut up chunks of bigger potatoes) spaced out on the carpet that serves as the floor of your barrel. If you are using big potatoes cut into chunks, let them dry after cutting overnight to reduce chance of molding.  Grocery store potatoes will work, but only if they have not been treated with anti-sprouting chemicals.  If your potatoes in your pantry are sprouting, they’ll work fine.

4- sprinkle soil lightly over the potatoes, just to cover about 1″ with soil.  Use “Mels’ Mix” —a blend of 1/3  part peat moss, 1/3 part vermiculite and 1/3 part compost (mix 5 different types of compost so all nutritents are present).  You’ll find the recipe and lots more valuable information in Square Foot Gardening).  The type of soil is vitally important—I wouldn’t recommend this with “plain ole’ dirt”.

5- water well and wait a week or so, until green sprouts are pushing up through the soil and leafing out.

6- when the leaves are about an inch or two up through the soil, sprinkle on another layer of soil, completely covering the potatoes with another inch of soil.

7- keep watering very well.  Lots of water means big potatoes!

8- keep up the process of adding more soil as soon as the leaves push through the soil.  About once a week will do.

9- when you’ve added soil to cover the growth each time, the barrel will eventually get full of soil.  When you’ve reached the top,  your only job is to keep those potatoes well watered.  The vines will grow up and tumble out over the top and blossom. When you see the blossoms, you’ll know potatoes are forming.  Red potatoes have pink blossoms, and white blossoms form on plants with yellow or brown potatoes.

10- fall harvesting:  if the leaves have died back, you are ready to harvest.  My potatoes had lush green foliage right up to the frost, however.  To harvest, just put on your garden gloves and “go fishing”.  We did not need any tools at all, as the soil mix is so loose and light.  Just fish around in the soil and you’ll feel your potatoes and can scoop them out!  Very fun!

I planted red potatoes, brown russet and yellow Finnish potatoes, which are supposed to be “waxy” and best for potato salad, as well as lower on the glycemic index than standard brown grocery store potatoes (russets).

The great thing about confining the growth to the barrel is that when you scoop right down into the barrel with your hands, right to the carpet floor to harvest, you know you have them all.  I had a big crop just laying side by side on the carpeted bottom!  The potatoes form on the stem, so as you add more soil, another layer of potatoes forms higher on the stems, and more and more.  If you have a long growing season, and give them lots of water, your whole barrel can fill up with potatoes.  It seems magic to see soil transform itself into delicious fresh potatoes!

No tools at harvest means no cut or damaged potatoes, and being able to stir the soil around with your hands and pull the potatoes out means you get every single potato, including the “babies”, which will be saved for seed potato for next spring’s planting.

Once the potatoes are out of the barrel, stir in compost to fill the barrel back up to the top and smooth it over.  Cover with an old blanket, tarp, or piece of cardboard, secured by a rock or log, and you’ll be all set for spring to come. (We buy old blankets at yard sales for this purpose.) You’ll be surprised, with a blanket cover, how clean the soil stays over the winter!  No weed seeds will blow in and your potato barrel will be weed-free and ready to go as soon as the snow melts!

When spring comes, and danger of frost is past, remove all the soil from the barrel, lay down your seed potatoes, sprinkle on an inch of soil over the seed potatoes, and here we go again . . .

Easy, easy painless potatoes! 

Wheeeee!

Save the "babies" for seed potatoes to plant next spring.

So, my food dryer is full, and humming away, and my counter tops are still stacked with tomatoes. I got side tracked and ended up drying my mint, and parsley and more.  What to do with all those tomatoes…?

Next strategy:  freeze ’em.

Here’s how:

Wash and core unpeeled tomatoes, including cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, yellow tomatoes and everything other varitey of tomatoes you have in your garden.  Fill blender and add a few leaves of greens (Swiss chard, kale, collards, parsley or young beet greens to add super-nutrition. You won’t really taste them.  You can also add a small amount (equivalent of 1/4 to 1/2 cup total) of  other veggies you have in abundance such as onion, garlic, carrot, broccoli to the blender.  Blend slowly so the ingredients are coarsely blended, (rather than made into a foamy frappe.)  Pour into containers leaving 1″ headroom and freeze.

When you need a can of whole tomatoes to make salsa, stew, spaghetti, soups, sauces, etc., pull this out of your freezer and add it to the steaming soup pot and it will melt/thaw into a wonderful, nutritious addition!  It is about the equivalent of a big can of whole tomatoes, give or take.  And it is already blended up, so you don’t have to get out the blender, or wash and peel veggies again!

I save empty cottage cheese and yogurt containers all year long, stashing them for harvest time when I fill them up with peach slices, applesauce and of course, this yummy, nutritious tomato (+greens) “canned tomatoes” substitute.

I like preserving tomatoes in this way because I get to sneak in fresh garden greens that nobody yearns to eat very much of,  adding high nutrition.  It’s easy too! I can quickly blend up a couple of containers per day with little effort and stash them in my freezer. By the end of the week, I’ve got 14 containers!  It adds up fast without being a huge project like canning.  And oh, it is so delicious to taste that fresh garden tomato taste in the middle of winter!

Still trying to get out of canning…

Really easy, fast and yummy.  If you have garden abundance, this dish is sumptuous!

Mommy’s Fast Chicken Ratatouille

6 chicken tenders or 3 chicken breasts, cut into chunks (optional)

1 unpeeled eggplant, chopped into cubes

1 small zucchini, cubed

4 big ripe red tomatoes, cubed

1 onion, chopped

Rosemary, fresh is best, or 1/2 teaspoon dried

1 teaspoon minced garlic

Pile it all in a skillet, add a few tablespoons water, cover and cook over medium heat until veggies are very tender and tomatoes have made a sauce.   Serve with crusty whole grain bread and butter.  All your veggies are already in it.

Only takes 10 minutes to whip it together and another 15 to cook.  Fast wholesome dinner—gourmet taste!

See my cookbook for more nutritious recipes.

I don’t relish canning.  It seems like I wear myself out (to the point that I can’t manage dinner prep) and mess my kitchen up (to the point that I need to mop).  Happily, I have discovered the perfect solution to my dilemma:  what I call “V8 Powder“.  It is easy to make, full of nutrition, compact to store, and easy to hide greens and other great veggies in!

It’s simple: just dry tomato slices, plus kale leaves, parsley, collards, swiss chard, and any other super nutritious veggies that you have in your garden, in a food dryer.  Then blend them in the blender to form a powder you can use to make tomato products.

Here’s how to make it:

Wash and slice tomatoes about 1/2″ thick, (any thinner sticks to the tray).  Slice the top and bottom skin off thinly, so that the raw edge is exposed.  Lay them touching each other (but not overlapping) on the food dryer trays.  To add greens, wash and trim out the thick central rib on swiss chard and kale.  Collards, spinach and other veggies do not need to be trimmed.  Lay loosely on dryer trays. You can also add onions, carrots, or any other vegetables you would like.

Set the food dryer thermostat to 120 degrees, and let it do the work.  I put mine in my laundry room where it warms up the room a bit and keeps the low hum out of the already noisy family living area.  I don’t worry too much about it, but check it after a day (approximately 12 to 24 hours).  You can’t overdry, so whenever you get to them is fine.  When the veggies are crisply dry, let them cool thoroughly.  Then, put them in the blender and blend them into a smooth powder.

Store the powder in a glass jar, for a year in your cupboard with maximum nutrition content. If you store it in a cool, dark place,  it will retain the most. If you want it to last longer, you could put an oxygen packet in the top of the jar before putting on a canning lid and ring.  The oxygen packet will displace the air and seal the jar for better freshness.

Wow, I feel liberated!  I am making a batch a day with my garden produce without putting out much effort.  I just smile thinking of all that garden-fresh nutrition just waiting to be added to soups or stews or pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce when the garden is long gone and the snow is on the ground!

7 cups of tomatoes dries down into 1 cup of tomato powder

To use your power-packed nutrient powder, just follow this chart:

*Thanks to Rhonda Hair for the idea of drying tomatoes and for the great reconstitution charts above!

You might also enjoy:    Dry That Garden!

Every once and awhile, I happen upon a book that changes my mind dramatically—that changes my viewpoint so much that I see life through a new lens.  Real Education is such a book.  It takes such a stark departure from America’s traditional view of education, that I was hungry to read and read and underline and reread, to grasp it so I could make changes accordingly.

Real Education declares, and proves with research studies and statistics, that:

1) Ability and intelligence varies

Although the idea of “no child left behind” may seem compassionate, the truth is that each of us is unique and vary greatly in our intelligence level.  And there are several measurable forms of intelligence, from mechanical ability to mathematical reasoning to social skills. But we are not all equally endowed—by any stretch of the imagination.

I cannot sing while my husband has a wonderful voice.  That is just a fact. We seem to be able to accept differences in talent as expected, but we have bought the lie that we are capable of “leaving no child behind”. Which is impossible. Those blessed with high intelligence will always leave the rest behind.  That is their gift, and if they use it to bless mankind, all the better for everyone!  If Einstein had to wait for the rest of us, we would all be living in a much less scientifically advanced world.

2) Half of us are below average intelligence

I guess that is obvious, since the definition of average is right smack in the middle. Which means that 50% are smarter than average and 50% are lower than average intelligence.  Yet we seem to think it is our task to bring every child, including our own, “up to grade level”.  Our true challenge is to give our kids every opportunity, and help them progress in the areas in which they excel, and find their place—rather than encourage them falsely by telling those who are not gifted with high intelligence that if they just try harder, study more, and apply themselves, that they can become a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief.

3) Too many people are going to college

It was shocking to me to read the statistics and realize that most students graduating from high school would do better gaining skills in a different setting than a 4 year college. Based on SAT scores, about 90% of graduating seniors will not do well enough in college to gain the skills they need to make a good living and contribute to society from taking the costly and lengthy college route. We seem to look only one direction—towards college—thinking that will transform ordinary students into “college graduates”. So many cannot get jobs, even with a college education.  But the statistics prove that there are many who are mechanically gifted who would be much happier and earn more money becoming a car mechanic or a computer repairman, for example, and yet they are urged to trudge through 4 years of college and get a BA degree. It seems to go quite against the grain of American thought to realize that the majority of students would do better taking an alternate route to gain marketable skills.

I can see why the Washington Times reports that Real Education “takes a moral sledgehammer to our one-size-fits-all education mind-set”.  The New York Times claims it is “the most talked-about education book this semester”.

4) America’s future depends on how we educate the gifted

The gifted, those with high intelligence in the mathematical, science and thinking skills realm, have the potential to change everyone’s life.  And those with truly exceptional intelligence can benefit mankind dramatically, given the opportunity. Where would we be without Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Henry Ford?  In the dark, with no phone, and no car.  If you have a gifted child living in your home, you may be homeschooling because you recognize that your child needs an opportunity to soar.  American schooling, by trying to make sure nobody falls behind, also prevents those who would leap forward. In order for the gifted to excel, there must be high expectations and excellent training for those who have the intelligence to go far beyond the norm.

It is hard to let go of deeply entrenched cultural values,  such as “every child should go to college” but it is so exhilarating to see clearly, and make decisions based on fact, not wishing.  Take time to read Real Education.  Especially if you care about education, your children, and America.  It will change how you think, for the better!

Buy it at my bookstore!