Make menus. Really.

Do you realize that everything hinges on knowing what is for dinner?

What is the difference between getting some housework done and living in a pit dug out by spatially challenged warthogs? Between being able to have a good homeschooling day and feeling like you are in charge of a bunch of illiterate savages who figure out the speed of passing trains with knotted ropes and their fingers? Between starting a creative project of any kind, working on it, and finishing it, versus feeling like all you do is go in and out of the grocery store?

Knowing that dinner is under control.

Why is this?

Because, and I realize this might be news to you, so hang on -- dinner happens every day.

Now, one reason I started writing about my menu system is that I often read elsewhere about people's meal ideas, and they always amount to something like, "Make your menus, shop, and cook."

It did seem like something was left out...

On the other hand, I was somewhat daunted by the amazing proliferation of really wonderful blogs, magazines, and books with barges full of recipes.

Yet, recipes are not really the issue, since the chances are slim that you have the ingredients on hand to make something truly different and exciting, and how can you either rely solely on "things you have on hand" or shop effectively for more variety without knowing which recipe you will make on which day?

And that's where I come in. Go over to the sidebar where it says "Happy Home: Food Organization" and read all about it.

In a nutshell, I'm telling you that it's not enough to say, Monday we'll have spaghetti, Tuesday we'll have rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, Wednesday we'll eat out, Thursday we'll have pasta, Friday we'll have leftovers, Saturday I get the day off cooking, and Sunday my mother will rescue me.

This is pretty much the "menu plan" I read in a major newspaper, purporting to finally, once and for all, straighten out your life!

Yet she's hardly cooking at all, spending a lot on prepared food, and leaving herself open to an emergency trip to the store or restaurant with that deceptive "leftovers" entry.

Another lady tells you to simply come up with a bunch of menus without regard to the day of the week. I look with envy on her, as I contemplate a different schedule every day. I also wonder if it's too much cooking, since with my detailed plan I can schedule making chicken and rice one day and using the leftovers in a casserole a few days later. Now that's "leftovers"!

For my way of life, I have to take into account that on Monday the Chief needs to get out the door by 6:45 for a meeting, but on Wednesday and Thursday Bridget and I won't be home between 4 and 8!

{I made a big pot of chili last Saturday. I served it with squash and guacamole. A little dab of squash (seasoned with salt, pepper, and cinnamon) was left over. 

Monday's dinner was easy: chili, homemade coleslaw, and squash biscuits using that little dab. Here I show you how to make the biscuits. You can use any little bit of yams, squash, or potatoes you might have!

Mix your squash with some buttermilk. The hand blender makes quick work of this step.}

{Pour out some of your handy baking mix (you will find the recipe here) -- no need to measure once you know what about 2 cups looks like. This will be enough for the four of us -- use 4 cups for 8 people, etc.... The sooner you learn to make certain basics without measuring, the quicker dinner will be on the table and the less of a pain it will be!}

{Mix your liquids in with your baking mix. You can add some herbs and/or cheese if you like -- I did put in a pinch of sage.

Once you've made biscuits according to a recipe, you will know that the amount depends on the texture you are looking for. Just get that texture and skip the measuring! Add more plain buttermilk as needed to make a stiff dough. The wetter your dough, the more like a muffin it will be. The drier, the more flaky and biscuit-y it will be.}

 {Pat into a lump and knead it a few times, folding the dough on itself to create flaky layers when it bakes.}

 {Roll out and cut into rounds (which will result in a few mal-formed bits using up the scraps) or squares (which is more efficient, scrap-wise).}

{Here I pre-heated my cast iron pan with butter. You can use any baking vessel big enough -- lasagna pan, baking sheet, corning ware.}

I note that Wednesdays in the morning I have time to bake, but Fridays, not at all. I detest cooking on Saturdays, but have time on Sunday to get a roast going. I might as well really plan, if I'm going to plan. I think some people do all this unconsciously, and good for them!

But if you are like me, a little scattered, a little undisciplined, a little clueless, good at cooking but not at doing things when you ought to, you need a detailed menu for each day; so you might as well bow down to your inevitable fate and have fun making menus. It really is fun, once you accept the whole process, because finally you will be able to actually give those tasty recipes a try, as well as take advantage of your sturdy dependables when the day calls for it.

More importantly, you will finally be freed up to turn your attention to other things.

I'm a furniture hacker.

Do you remember this Sturbridge Village reproduction shelf I inherited?

Please do not judge me.



I spray painted it.

Suzanne (aka Suki, aka Sukie) told me, the last time she was here, that I should . So I did.

It was on that day that we got a lot of projects going, only I didn't show you yet another picture of it in its naked state, because, well, it was old news. I mean, how much can you agonize over one little shelf that didn't even cost you anything...a lot. But can you really ask everyone else to go on agonizing with you? Even for me there are limits to how many before shots I will subject you to.

I really had qualms with this one as I popped the top off that spray can. I had to take a deep breath and just GO.

I notice that the square-cut nails are still visible, and that makes me happy.

I also notice that the wall needs to be painted, and I guess if I paint that wall, I'll have to paint the others too, which is perhaps why I don't get right on that.

But after painting it (which took about 20 minutes including drying time) and carefully leaning it against a wall in the dining room (which took about three weeks), I am now proud to say that it is off the WIP list and on the wall, thanks to the ever-helpful Chief, who was game for anything.

I consulted him at every step, and I am pretty sure he had no idea why he was doing this until the very end -- even after he himself put it up -- when the things were up there.

"Wow, that looks really good!" he exclaimed. I honestly don't think he ever had a clue until right then...

Here's how it looked before:

(This picture in the draft looks reasonable -- you can see what I'm trying to point out. I don't know what's up with this dumb blogger today.)

It is exactly the change I wanted.

I liked the way this looked okay before, but keeping the things there meant not having that horizontal surface for serving food.


I could go on posting pictures of its dramatic, fantastic blackness juxtaposed with the perfection of those thrifted turquoise cups all day, so if you are getting bored with my shallow life you could go do something else, I won't mind.


Otherwise, I'll just keep chattering about it...I'm needing to figure out what to put up on the top shelf, of course -- I just put the things on there that were below it. But for me, shelves and such are for storing things I already have, not for providing an excuse to get other things, although I fear that might happen too.

On that sideboard (which is really a desk with a funny top that no longer has its hinges, so don't lean on it or anything) is another thrifted item, a hand embroidered little tablecloth that I love with the cups. It's so sweet...

So there you have it -- another spray-painting success in the land of the hacks, if I do say so myself. 

Bleach wars

{My apologies for the dark pictures, taken on a dark rainy day...}

I think we all know by now that if one thing drives me insane it's the thought that somewhere, somehow, a molecule of mustiness has gotten past me.

Not that this makes me a stellar housekeeper, as we shall see. It drives me crazy, that's all.

I can live with all sorts of smells. Only recently (well, I mean in the past decade) has it dawned on me that you can light a candle and make the room's atmosphere better. I have that oh-she-grew-up-bra-less-in-the-70s disdain for stuff like bathroom deodorizer, which I am now trying to overcome.

I'm okay with the trash, the dog, curry, red onion breath, dead mice in the walls, and the diesel fumes from the tractors in the orchard. My thought is, this too shall pass.

But I just can't stand mustiness. Maybe because it doesn't pass. It is there until you do something about it.

Every time I went near this dresser in my bedroom, it was sniff, sniff...

...sniff, sniff....

It wasn't the clothes. (Sometimes you find out that there is one thing, one measly thing in a big pile of things that is the issue. Not here. No such luck.)



It was not the quilt folded on top, not the basket with the old hydrangeas a bit askew up there, not the chair, not the covering on the chair, not the bathrobes hanging on hooks nearby, not the rug (yes, that was me on my hands and knees, sniffing the rug), not the bedding, not the curtains...

Yesterday, after, I regret to report, a year of being sent into a tizzy, mentally, by this phenomenon, but not ready to face up to the necessary steps to remedy it, the iron entered my soul.{Oh yes. You can feel my drive, I know it. All the stars -- as well as the weather, in the form of a rainy day from which there is no escape -- have to be properly aspected for me to take steps, even to save my sanity, such as it is.}

I decided that the mustiness was coming from the dust IN the dresser. I keep our off-season things in here, as well as extra sweaters all year round. So out everything came, and the whole thing got wiped down with my trusty weapons:

A gallon of warm water, a splash of Mr. Clean, about a 1/4 cup of bleach

A rag

Febreeze (I didn't like the way the first kind smelled, but I do like this new kind).






Using the rag, well wrung out, I carefully wiped every surface, rinsing and wringing for each drawer. Then I sprayed with Febreeze and let the whole thing air out until it was completely dry.

I re-organized our clothes, tossing some really old things, making a giveaway pile, and generally getting my act together.



Then I dusted the whole room, vacuumed, and called it a day.





So far, no mustiness. Phew. And now the sun is out and I can go back to not deep cleaning things.

Brag: A Tasty Lunch

I wanted to show you all what a good-looking lunch I sent with my husband to work the other day.

For dinner we had London Broil (marinated, then grilled on my cast iron grill pan on top of the stove), Roasted asparagus, and Mafalda pasta (a pasta shape I recently discovered. Have you ever heard of it? I get embarrassingly excited about new pasta shapes) with a sauce made from tomatoes, cream, roasted garlic, and spinach. Oh, and beer bread. Yum.

(side note: do you know about beer bread? It's quick, hearty, ridiculously easy, and delicious. A great recipe to have in reserve for when you forget - or aren't able - to start a yeast bread in time for dinner)

He always takes leftovers to work, and when I popped a serving into the plastic container, I snapped a quick picture:

(not pictured: beer bread with butter.)

Doesn't that look like the kind of lunch a really classy Marine would take to work? A classy Marine with a wife who loves him?

Dear Auntie Leila: what's up with soy?

Dear Alice writes,

Dear Auntie Leila,

My mind turns to your frequent comments on the dangers of soy, particularly for women's reproductive/hormonal systems. I'm trying to avoid developing some genetic problems later in life and have been avoiding soy, but wondered what you had read about it in specific.

Love,
Alice

Dear Alice {who has heard me rant about soy -- and high fructose corn syrup -- in contexts other than this blog, although I have ranted a bit here as well.},

The soy thing is hard to sift through, because the people who assure you up and down that soy is perfectly safe get their information from those who have a vested interest in marketing it.

If every farmer you meet in the Midwest is growing corn or soy or both (at the behest of the government), it stands to reason they need a big stable market for both products with the research to keep it that way.

The other people who make claims for soy are vegetarians who can't get along without it. It's interesting to me that vegetarianism poses as a counter-cultural movement, yet relies on the establishment for confirmation.

But, then, those against soy have issues as well. At best it's hard to tell where they come from. Some seem to have a vested interest in selling supplements and pulling people into their lifestyle, although it seems to me that you can't make as much money selling books as selling soy.

So I try to go by "what's the most likely" and "what's common sense" -- and it doesn't seem like common sense to have every food you eat have the same additive, and it doesn't seem likely that the food industry would admit that something's not right, when they have invested so much in producing an additive that works for just about every processed food. And by the way, according to what I've read, this is interpreting the word "processed" quite liberally to mean changed in any way. Even raw vegetables might have been sprayed with MSG.

Now, information like the article I just linked you to is like a lot of information that can mostly be traced to one group. I don't know what to do about that, since, as I said, the opposition seems tainted as well.

The bottom line is that there is soy in many forms -- MSG, hydrolyzed soy protein, soy, "natural flavors" (yes, that phrase conceals the presence of MSG) -- in many foods we eat on a regular basis.

So the argument that something, even if harmful in large quantities, is unlikely to have any effect if taken in small doses, simply doesn't apply to soy.

You can have a tuna sandwich with chips, cookies, and a soda for lunch and every single part of it -- tuna, mayo, bread, chips, dessert, and drink -- will have some form of soy in it!!! Not right.

And what are the possible effects of MSG?

Depression for one. Headaches, including migraines, nausea, increased asthma, neurological disorders...

Soy itself is an estrogen mimicker, which has implications for hormonal balance, especially for the young. Soy flour is a cheap way to get protein, but I think it's harmful in the quantities we are getting today from mainstream processed foods.

So I try to read labels, stay away from anything that might contain soy (which means getting out the list of soy synonyms. Look at this 60 Minutes video from 1991 (go to 5:50 and watch for a minute if you don't want to see the whole thing). It's a little frightening, isn't it -- how many ingredients conceal MSG?

At 12:05 in the video, the then newly appointed deputy commissioner for policy for the FDA states that the FDA will change the rules to require companies to say that hydrolyzed protein contains MSG. In 2009 that is still not the case: it is not so labeled.

So while you won't find "food religion" here at LMLD, I do try to keep out the soy (and the HFCS).

All of this explains why here you will find us trying to make things from scratch, especially breads, broths, soups, gravies, sauces, and snacks. I do my best to read labels and avoid as many processed foods as I can, including ones I could buy with a coupon. It's just not worth it when you can't identify what you are buying!

Love,
Auntie Leila

Five things that are worse than being in debt.

When I got married, I had never heard of saving money, being frugal (although I did know about finding old furniture and fixing it up), or in any way living within one's means.

Or if I had, I certainly wasn't paying attention. And I married someone who basically couldn't say no to his little spoiled brat of a wife, and anyway, I'm not all that sure he knew anything either.

So it's not surprising that we got into debt.

For many years we struggled. I won't say it's over. Along the way I learned some lessons the tough way -- like, you are in so deep it's no longer about a budget, it's about not having any money at all to buy anything. Sometimes it wasn't too bad, but sometimes it was bad, like eighteen months of no steady job starting the day after baby #6 was born...

So yes, I've regretted every dumb meal out (not the fun ones though), every shopping spree, every stupid purchase we've ever made. I've wept over some big choices too, even though at the time they might have seemed like good ideas.

I've read a lot of books, articles, and blog posts about getting out of debt, and they have been very helpful. Sometimes, though, they veer into a strange land, theologically.

They start to make it sound something like this: You'll never be happy if you are in debt; you aren't doing God's will if you are in debt; even, and not in so many words, mind you -- your salvation can be gauged by whether you are solvent.

But I have to say there are worse things than being in debt. Here are a few:

1. Worse than being in debt is losing your peace.

Now, some might say that you lose your peace because you are in debt, and the good Lord knows I have been there. But today, this very moment, the situation I'm in is God's will for me when I'm doing my best and sorry for my bad choices, as the mommies at the park say.

Everyone experiences adversity. It's called being human. For some people that adversity takes the form of being in debt. The main thing is to keep your peace, to know that God is taking care of each of us, and to remember to trust Him to provide.

Do you use being in debt as an excuse not to trust God? That would be worse even than being in debt!


2. Worse than being in debt is not realizing how much good comes out of a real struggle.

We all know that St. Paul said, "My strength is made perfect in weakness" -- but we don't like to think that it will work if the weakness is of our own making, or, for that matter, whatever the present challenge is.

If God sees fit to try us by the adversity of being in debt, we can't wriggle out of meeting the test by thinking that it's our own fault we're in the fight at all. Whatever. Whatever the fight is, external, internal, our own making, a bolt from heaven, we should see all the good things that come from it.

What real benefits do you have from not having enough money? I bet if you really thought about it you would see many, including, possibly, learning patience with ourselves for being idiots.

3. Worse than being in debt is not having a baby because you think you don't have enough money.

See #1, and trust in God.

There might be reasons for not getting pregnant -- I think I used to think there are more than I now do.

But not having money is not one of them. If you are reading this, you have enough money.

There is only a limited amount of time in which you can have a child, no matter what you might think now that you are in the midst of it. Thirty years from now you won't be thinking about the bills you had to pay.

Do you know what the Bible calls riches?

Children.

In thirty years you will be telling yourself that you should have been willing to live in a tent and eat roots and berries to have had more children.

Using debt as an excuse to postpone a baby would be what the world calls prudent and what I would say is a lack of confidence.

I know, this makes me very bossy. But really, you can get money later, but maybe not kids.




4. Worse than being in debt is getting a job to make ends meet.

Let's be real. Let's take all the quid pro quos as read, okay?

If you can do a few heart surgeries and rescue your family from bankruptcy, do it. If your husband is bedridden or one semester away from a doctorate in money-making, I get it. If you are so used to working and keeping house (and your mother and maiden aunt live with you, contributing their own retirement funds to your show) that no one really notices when you are not there, go for it.

But the rest of us are needed at home with our heads in our game.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you can contribute more by leaving for work -- or, if you have more than one napping baby, even working at home. The chaos, confusion, stress, childcare, carpools, and taxes are not worth it.

All that happens is that you are so frustrated with home that the center is lost -- sometimes forever. In other words, you start frustrated about money and end up feeling like no one values family life as you once envisioned it because you can't find your way to pulling it together.

It can seem like medium-aged children can be fine with this state of chaos, and for a while they will be.

But older children need very much to have order at home. By the time the need is felt, it can be too late. The habit of home making is gone, and it's often too hard to recover while coping with the demands of older children. Their locus then becomes their peer group, with all that entails.

Don't make the mistake of putting getting out of debt in a higher category than keeping home.

Don't make the mistake of having a vague idea that things will run themselves without you -- that's rating yourself too low, my friend.

5. Worse than being in debt is having your husband think he's not a good provider.

Sometimes he's the one saying you should get a job. I'm telling you that in the end, he will feel like he's not doing a good job protecting his family, which is the very worst thing a man can feel -- much worse than being in debt -- and leading to worse problems than money.

Tell him that you will do your part to be frugal and save money (and there is so much you can do!), and that you know he will figure out a way. Tell him you know he is working as hard as he can, that you admire him for it, and that you will back him up no matter what.

Tell him you don't mind being in debt for longer if it seems there is no alternative. It's not the worst thing in the world to be in debt. Now go wash some plastic bags.

Vintage ironing board moves off WIP list!

First, how's this for cuteness? She's doing very well, although has some trouble with the idea that people can be in different rooms. They really shouldn't try, especially Bridget. She should stay put, where Roxie can be with her.


Okay, stop being distracted!

So I started with this, old cover not shown. My friend Therese donated it to the Pantry Cuteness Project.

My thought being that if my ironing board is always going to be deployed (even though I have installed a hanger for it, which would make putting it away not difficult) and in view from the kitchen, it should be fun to look at and maybe have a smaller profile than the old one.

Why is it always deployed, you ask? Perhaps it has something to do with Horizontal Surface Disorder, or HSD. This is the syndrome in which any given horizontal surface becomes indispensably full as soon as it comes into existence.

Not only must one have a handy place to, say, iron, available at all times; one must also have a place to put groceries before they are shelved, not to mention look at a cookbook -- those are kept in the shelf just behind the ironing board, so nothing makes more sense than to take one out, rest it on the board, and look something up.

So you see, putting this thing away would be counter-productive. Get it? Counter??

Here is the old one, from before I knew anything at all about taking pictures...and also before the floor had been redone, ugh. I don't hate it, but it's big, and the cover was getting stained. It will go upstairs for real ironing, as opposed to crafting, and be closer to the ironing basket, anyway.

Another friend shared the foam that she had used to cover her very own vintage ironing board...OF COURSE I hacked it up after carefully making sure I had the right length.

Somehow, I just chopped, and it was too short! So I pieced it together, and with the aid of a glue gun the seam is undetectable.

Why? Why do I hack away?


I got some fabric out of my stash...the Chief helped me with his staple gun, and between the two of us, we got it on tight.I like the idea of a pattern with a grid, however approximate. It's helpful when you are trying to measure out a length, or compare two lengths...


Funny how I could never commit to using this fabric in a baby quilt, which is what I originally intended it for, but I love it as an ironing board cover...This room is crazy. Don't know where to store something in a 13+ room house? Put it here! Need a place to make vinegar, find a book, put your tape recorder, make a dress, um, store food? Pantry!!

At least it has a window...I think I was really meant to live in a cabin :) And not a very neat one, either!

If you had a room like this, what would you do with it?