Yes…it’s true. After our last 2 moves in six months another move was not on my list of Mother’s Day activities!
But this is a different kind of move.
After this week-end my blog will be moving over to www.betterislittle.com. All my new posts will be there at Better is Little’s new home.
So please, stop by for a visit, stay & chat awhile!
Thanks to everyone who helped me with the move. I definitely could not have done it without you!
On our recent trip to the Library I picked up the book True Green Kids. It is full of save the Earth, but there is a lot of ideas that are good for a simpler life, frugal, and being good stewards of the earth. While flipping through for ideas our children could apply I found the following favorites we’ll be going over tonight.
1) Make your room happier and healthier by adding a couple of potted plants. Just a couple of plants per room can help keep your air clean!
2) Let the sun shine in! During the day, switch of the electric light and open the curtains. Move your desk nearer the window and soak up some vitamin D.
3) Reuse and recycle paper. Cut down on how much paper you use by writing/drawing on both sides of your sheet of paper.
4) Save water by turning off the water while you brush your teeth. Running the water while you brush can waste as much as 5 gallons per minute! If you brush 3 x a day you could be wasting 50 gallons a day!
5) Cut showers down to 4 minutes. You could save over $6000 a year by taking a power shower. Use a timer and have the children make a game of it!
6) Turn the lights off as you leave a room. Easy enough, huh? 
7) Unplug! I covered that here. At night, turn off the lights and see how many green and red lights do you see staring back at you!? Unplugging could save as much as $100 a year on your electric bill.
8) Keep yourself healthy by staying active, fit and eating raw fruits and veggies. Open your lungs breathe deeply.
9) Get interested in an environmental issue and write to politicians. Get your friends (and siblings!) to do the same.
10)Think before you buy. Do you really need it? Will what you want to blow your money on make you smarter, wiser, richer or a better person. Can you make it yourself?
11)Choose foods that create no waste! Foods that come in their own “packaging” rather than candy bars and other processed foods.
12)Buy your own reusable water bottle. Why pay more for something you can get for pennies out of your own water faucet!
13)Leave nothing but footprints! Don’t leave garbage and damaged property behind. Be respectful.
And always remember the four R’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink!
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We are ready for another library trip, perhaps today. I’ve found that our children devour their library books in the first 3 days after a visit. If there is a book that didn’t really catch their interest and was tossed aside, I pull the book out and dig and find a topic that might catch their interest. Sometimes it works…and sometimes it doesn’t!
It can be overwhelming with all the thousands of books to choose from to find books that are interesting, wholesome, encourage right attitudes, and reinforces the things we are training our children in. Have you ever noticed how many children’s books promote disrespectful attitudes to parents, dislike of siblings, and name calling? I say they promote it because it is often never shown in a bad light, it is normal, expected of children to be that way. And while it may be normal, it’s not what we want to encourage, and we certainly would like to create a new normal in our family. 
Having said that, I don’t really have a method I use. Trial and error is my method, but that often is too time consuming. Not only is it time consuming, but disappointing too. There have been many times that we’ve began a book, get interested only to end it ½ way because it just wasn’t what we (and sometimes even the children!) wanted to fill their minds with.
Toni, over at The Happy Housewife offers a GREAT list of resources to help filter through all the many, many books @ your local library.
While I don’t have book review resources (although I plan to implement the resources Toni suggests) I do have resources that I trust to offer good books.
Here are 2 of those resources:
- Vision Forum – Books that are great for homeschooling, encourages young men to be courageous, young ladies to be virtuous.
- Keepers of the Faith – 100% trust their book list. They carefully pick each book and even have a list of books/authors they’ve reviewed.
- Robinson Curriculum – This is the method of homeschooling we loosely follow. The core of this curriculum is reading and you are provided a couple hundred books on disks. You can print them out and use tons of printer ink or you can check them out for free from the library. We have done both. While I don’t like all the books on this list, it is a great guideline. You can see the list of books here.
Now on to my book basket list this week.
- You Are My I Love You, by Maryann K Cusimano ~ Great read-aloud-bedtime-book! It is a cute rhyming story about a little bear and his day with his parent “I am your parent; you are my child. I am your quiet place; you are my wild” Sweet, sweet book.
- The Ugly Truckling, by David Gordon ~ I wasn’t so crazy about this book, but my 7 yr old boys liked it? It is written about a little airplane born to a Momma truck and on his quest to fit in and become a truck he realizes that he is actually an airplane. A typical “Ugly Duckling” story line.
- Anna Banana 101 Jump-Rope Rhymes, by Joanna Cole ~ I checked this one out for my 10 yr old girl who only knew of a couple rhyming songs. I plan for her to write down a few of her favorites for reference. A lot of great jump rope songs and some I had forgotten about!
- Emily Post’s The Guide to Good Manners for Kids, by Peggy Post ~ I loved this book but the children didn’t take to it. I plan to keep this one longer and go through it with them. It is written in an interesting format and can be picked up and flipped through. Not a heavy read, but chocked full of good manners for things such as playtime, weddings, funerals, eating out, visiting the hospital etc. Quite possibly a book we’ll purchase in the future.
- True Green Kids, by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin ~ I thought I would like this book more than I did, while it had a lot of good ideas to save money and become “greener” it had a lot of ideas we could not implement for various reasons and I felt it could promote dissatisfaction in children that were not able or allowed to have gadgets, internet/computer time, or $$ to implement the ideas. This is another book I’ll keep longer and go over certain ideas that we CAN implement.
From my 10 yr old girl:
- Molly Pitcher Girl Patriot, by August Stevenson ~ This book is about a girl named Mary Ludwig whom people call Molly Pitcher. She lived during the Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. Molly Pitcher helped sick soldiers and one time during a battle her husband passed out while loading a cannon, she took over & they won the battle because of it. George Washington asked to meet with her and he gave her a metal. And she was then made a Sergeant! It is a very interesting book!
What is in YOUR book basket this week!? Please share with us over at The Happy Housewife and then see what everyone’s reading!
I first got the idea for these breakfast cookies here, but I quickly saw what revisions I would make for our family’s taste buds. I made them last night and it was Oh so hard not to gobble them up as dessert! We each had 2 with a piece of fruit and a glass of milk and it made for a yummy REAL FOOD breakfast. Enjoy!
1 cup natural peanut butter (crunchy is optional, I used creamy)
¾ cup raw honey
½ cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
Mix well in a large bowl.
Then add,
2 cups whole wheat flour (I ground my flour on the pastry setting, makes for a lighter, chewier cookie)
½ cup oatmeal (I used Wheat Montana’s 7 Grain oatmeal. You could use quick cooking or not)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
Mix well. Then stir in
1 cup millet
1 cup chopped dried cranberries
1 cup chopped pecans
Drop by tablespoons onto a buttered pan. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Remove from pan to let cool. Store in an air-tight container.
For more great recipes go visit
of showing off our Baby Girl 
For more fun & interesting pictures head on over to
5 Minutes for Mom’s Wordless Wednesday and 7 Clown Circus’ Wordful Wednesday and Cheaper Than Therapy’s A Thousand Words Thursday
- 1 lb hamburger
- Couple splashes of Worcestershire sauce
- 1 chopped onion
- 8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms
- 1 can of cream of mushroom soup (or you can make your own)
- 1 can of cream of chicken soup (or you can make your own)
- 16 oz sour cream
- Salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika to taste
- 2 Tbls butter
- 1 package egg noodles, cooked
In a large skillet brown onion and hamburger meat. Add mushrooms and cook for a few minutes longer till mushrooms are cooked. Splash Worcestershire sauce generously.
Add soups to meat heat through. Stir in sour cream and seasonings. Simmer for 20 minutes. Slowly stir in butter.
Serve over noodles.
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Many appliances in your home still pull power even when they are turned off!
It’s true!
They call it “phantom load” and it could be costing you extra dollar$ on your electric bill!
The US Department of Energy states that “In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off.”
The biggest culprits are microwaves, kitchen appliances, cell phone chargers, VCR’s, cable boxes and TVs. These devices actually are never really turned off, but are only in a stand-by mode.
So how can we save money on our electric bill? The simplest way to save is to just…unplug! How’s that for simplicity!?
For more complicated set-ups such as TVs, VCRs, DVRs, game consoles a power strip or surge protector would be the easiest way to control your electrical leak.
As I sit here in my rocking chair I can see at least 2 things that are used rarely but are still plugged in. I’m interested to see how many pennies, dimes, dollars I can shave off my electric bill this year…
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![[Button+-+Kids.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e8uQ573dyZk/SatpsnlTJsI/AAAAAAAAA5E/aEFP6Cf4gJg/s1600/Button%2B-%2BKids.jpg)
I am by no means a photographer and I am for sure none of you all ever thought that but I have become fascinated by taking pictures and finding unique older pictures. Not just snapshots and staged pictures but photos that are unexpected, full of meaning…You all have seen this picture before here, but when I saw that I ♥ Faces was having a photo contest of faces wearing hats I immediately thought of this picture. It IS one of my very favorites!
If you ♥ faces too, please be sure to head on over to www.Iheartfaces.com for more pictures!!
My husband just got switched around at work and has been given the dreaded swing shift position permanently. He will be working mostly 2nd & 3rd shifts each week. Besides throwing a huge monkey wrench in many areas of our life by having him home at all hours, (I am ALWAYS happy to have him home, but I do find myself not getting much accomplished as I want to sit and stare at his beauty LoL) it has me totally confused as to what and how to cook!? It looks as if I will make our “supper” for whatever meal he’ll be home for and using our “lunch” for the meal it will just be the kids and I. (What is it about us moms that don’t want to cook unless the hubby is eating!?)
So, while I may have these marked “lunch” and “supper” I may actually serve “supper” for “lunch” or “breakfast” for “supper” or “lunch” for “supper”… And now that I have everyone thoroughly confused I’ll continue on to share my menu…
BREAKFAST
- We’ve got a little extra money in the budget this week so I think I’ll splurge and buy cereal for at least 2 breakfasts this week.
- Whole Wheat Millet Muffins
- Breakfast Cookies
- Boiled eggs w/ fruit
LUNCHES
- Meat & cheese sandwiches
- PB & J sandwiches
- Chili
SUPPERS
- Loaded Tostadas with all the fixings
- Lasagna, salad w/ Garlic Dressing, bread sticks
- Baked Tilapia, loaded baked potatoes, broccoli & cauliflower
- Poor Man’s Beef Stoganoff (recipe Tuesday!)
- Left-overs @ least two times
- Meal out for Mother’s Day?
For more menu plans head on over to Menu Plan Monday!
I came across a very familiar verse today which is always a great pleasure to read concerning the second coming of Christ. It is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 and tells us this:
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
…. so shall we ever be with the Lord…. Just stop and really think about that for a moment. It’s quite an awesome thought when it sinks in, amen? Such meditation led me to this question; If some of our friendships are in fact eternal relationships, how might that effect the way we conduct them now? We’re talking “forever friends” here, aren’t we? FOREVER ladies – now that’s a difficult concept to grasp! Think for a moment about one of your long-standing friendships. Who is it with? How did you meet? Why and how do you remain friends? No doubt you have many precious memories together and a variety of experiences that you’ve shared together. Now think about that relationship in light of eternity… If your long standing friend is a child of God, your friendship is going to last an even longer time! This truth is something special that friends can share between themselves TODAY, amen? A bond that keeps their hearts united… You know, this verse in 1 Thessalonians actually contains three different perspectives for us to consider today in light of our friendships. First it offers us comfort, it offers us a warning, and it offers us hope…
THE COMFORT
We experience comfort when we consider those friends and loved ones of ours that have gone on before us. Death is the great separator, and the separation that we have been experiencing over the years since our loved ones have gone home to be with the Lord will come to an end. Scripture says we’ll be gloriously reunited in the air TOGETHER to meet the Lord! What a blessed thought! It’s one that certainly helps during those lonely moments when a particular sound, word, fragrance, song etc. brings that special person to mind and will bring you comfort when missing them. Having this promise lifts our spirits and keeps us looking ahead to that glorious day, amen?
1 Thes. 4:18, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”
THE WARNING
But now ladies, the warning is that we WILL be meeting the Lord – it’s a fact. Are you ready? Are you ready as Christian friends to meet the Lord, or will you not be speaking to one another when the Lord returns for you both?? Will your hearts be filled with bitterness toward one another, or will you be free from the bondage of sin? When you are caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, will you turn your noses up at one another and turn your heads away because you are caught up in unforgiveness? How should friends want to meet the Lord? We should want to be ready of course! Therefore, it is necessary for us to examine our hearts NOW and make sure that there is nothing between our friendships that will hinder our eagerness for meeting the Lord. Perhaps there is someone you aren’t speaking to right now… Will that be as important an issue when you meet the Lord and stand alone in His presence? Ladies, we’re so busy nursing our grudges we’ve forgotten about the fact that as Christians we are going to be living together for all of eternity! Let’s each get busy and prepare to meet our heavenly Father surrounded with healthy relationships going on in our lives, amen?
Proverbs 6:3, “Do this now, my son, deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.”
Proverbs 17:17, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Proverbs 27:10, “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not…”
THE HOPE
In view of the warnings and the promise in our main verse, what should you encourage a friend to do or to be? How about READY to meet the Lord! Do you have friends that are not yet saved? Have you told them about the Lord and how He’ll soon be coming again? Have you warned them of that blessed day which will come like a thief in the night and their express need to be ready for it? Your long time friend has an appointment with judgment… What have you done to help prepare them for it?? Why not make an appointment for them to meet Christ now! A good friend should want another good friend to be ready for heaven, amen? Insomuch as anyone pushes you nearer to God, he or she is your friend…. A good friend should want to give to another good friend the hope of eternal life! It’s the greatest hope of all… You’ve given them the gift of a long lasting friendship with you, why not extend it for all of eternity?? Why not introduce them to the best friend they could ever have – Jesus Christ! None can say they are friendless when Christ has said, “Henceforth I call you not servants….but I have called you friends.” Jesus is a true friend who never turns His back on us… Anyone who has sincerely trusted Christ as Savior has the hope of eternal life – it is an eternal security which can never be taken away!
1 John 2:28, “And now little children, abide in Him; that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.”
Today, if you have some Christian friendships or relationships in general that need to be repaired, may I challenge you to go first? Make amends with that person in the Lord and do right. Restore your fellowship with one another, after all, you’re going to be together for all of eternity! And if there are still friends of yours who don’t know the Lord as their personal Savior, why not stop living for cheap experiences of pleasure and lay down your life for your friend – show them what it really means to be a Christian so that when you tell them how to be saved they will believe you! Remember that Jesus IS coming again – time is running out and eternity is just around the corner for us all!
Copyright 2000 Pamela A. Iannello Reprinted with permission.
For more encouraging devotionals please visit Rise and Shine for Jesus.
