” And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:10c) This is how the book of Genesis describes how God saw His work at the end of the second through 5th days of creation and midway through the 6th day. He saw what He had done and it was good. Like the wonderful example that He set by giving us a day of rest, He gave us an amazing example about pacing ourselves and seeing and valuing our work.
God didn’t do everything in 1 day. He certainly could have, but He didn’t.
This is such a helpful reminder to me. I don’t have to try to do everything in 1 day either. Just do something. Just make forward progress. I can be satisfied with the work that I have accomplished and don’t need to stress about the work that wasn’t.
The second part of this verse snippet that is so reassuring to me is that is says “it was good.” It never says “good enough.” If I am striving to serve the Lord, my family, and anyone that my life touches with love, then it is good. I need to stop judging myself by the endless list of work that is never done. There will always be more dishes, more laundry. more school to teach the kids, more housework, more gardening, more farm work, more posts to write, more ways that I could serve, more outreach opportunities, more, and more, and more. What I have to remember is that what I can do today is good.
You are in the same boat, dear tired mamas and daddies out there. Let this echo within your hearts weary single parents working multiple jobs to keep your family going. Loving caretakers of ill or impaired family members find peace in this. What you are accomplishing is good. Don’t let the burden of “enough” hang over you and make you feel worth less that you are. If you are serving in love, you are doing good. Your work is good. Find hope and peace and rest from the business that our society places on us all. Breathe in the realization that “it is good.”
I have a confession to make. I love muffin mixes. :0 Yes, me, the person who likes making everything from scratch. I know that it’s simple to make muffins from scratch and that they are way better for you. (I do still make banana muffins from scratch, because I don’t really like the flavor of the banana muffin mixes. I also make pumpkin/winter squash muffins from scratch because our winter squashes have grown very well the past couple of years.) Maybe it’s because I have to make almost everything else from scratch. It is just so nice, to grab a box from Betty Crocker and add eggs, water, and oil. Plus, just having a mixing bowl and a spoon to wash up afterward is nice too. 🙂
Blueberry Oatmeal
But . . .
I don’t just make the make what that box says. Those 12 little muffins never fill up the hungry tummies that I have around here. I have discovered the magic of add-ins. It’s super simple, makes that box of mix stretch, and results in much more filling muffins. You simply make up the standard muffin mix and then start adding things. At the least, I add some old fashion oats (about 1/2-2/3 cup). I usually also add a couple of large spoonfuls of ground flaxseed. I keep a tub of freshly ground mixed nuts (almonds, walnuts, and pecans) in the fridge, so 1/2 cup of those probably gets tossed in as well. Depending on the type of muffins I am making, I may add things like cubed apple pieces (great in cinnamon muffins) or shredded coconut (perfect in chocolate chip). You can always add more fresh berries to blueberry muffins. I used to slice up strawberries or toss in some fresh raspberries, but DD doesn’t like fresh berries baked in things. I typically don’t add them anymore, unless I am making another kind of muffin as well. Seeds can be a great addition as well. Your imagination and your family’s tastes are the only limiting factor here.
One of the things that I miss a lot since I developed my onion allergy is Chinese food. After some trial and error, I have come up with a tasty homemade version of some of my favorites – egg rolls and stir fry.
This recipe for egg rolls is easy and much healthier, because you bake the egg rolls instead of frying them. DS and DD don’t like the taste of the wrappers but love the filling, so I will usually make a little extra filling and just let them eat it over rice or soba noodles.
Fixing the filling is simple and only uses 1 skillet. Yay for fewer dishes!
Filling them is super easy!
Baking instead of frying makes these so much better for you, but you still get that satisfying crunch!
Here is the full recipe.
Ingredients:
1 small bunch of broccoli
1.5-2 carrots – depending on size
1 14 oz can of bean sprouts (drained)
1/2 roll of sausage (mild breakfast sausage)
1 tsp garlic powder
1.5 tsp ground ginger
1 package egg roll wrappers
Small bowl with some water
Directions:
Cook and drain sausage, being sure to break it up into little pieces like taco meat. The return to the pan.
Shred broccoli and carrots either by hand with a box grater or using a food processor’s shredding disk – I used to use a bag of broccoli slaw but decided this was much more cost-effective.
Add broccoli, carrots, and bean sprouts to the sausage and saute on med-low heat until they start to soften. Mix in garlic and ginger while things are cooking.
Line a baking dish with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350° F.
Lay an egg roll wrapper on the parchment paper so it looks like a diamond (not a square). Place a small amount (about 3 TBSP) of the filling in the center, then fold up the bottom corner of the diamond. Fold in the 2 sides. Using your finger, lightly wet the edge of the remaining side (this should be the top) and then roll the egg roll up from the bottom. Set aside. Repeat until all the egg rolls are filled. As you go along, you may have to adjust your filling amount.
Line completed egg rolls on the parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for about 20 min or until lightly browned on the edges and slightly crispy. Try to line them so they don’t touch, otherwise they may stick together while baking.
Enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce.
DH would be happy to make a meal out of these anytime I fix them.
So I promised that I would post my homemade tomato sauce recipe once I perfected it. When all three of my differently palleted family members tasted this sauce, they deemed it “the BEST sauce ever!” I’m calling that good!! 😉 The tomatoes that I used were straight out of my garden – mostly Roma tomatoes but a few other types thrown in because I had them. I had picked 2 small buckets full, quartered them, cooked them, and run them through my food mill with the salse screen. I canned 7 pints but still had about 5 left in the pot. I didn’t have time to can any more that day so I figured that I would make the rest into pasta sauce for dinner the next day. I ended up with 1 pint that didn’t seal so that got thrown back into the pot giving me about 3 quarts (6 pints) of tomatoes. If you can’t start with fresh tomatoes, then use about 6 or 7 15oz cans of petite diced tomatoes instead. To smooth it out a little, you might want to throw it in the blender or use an emersion blender to lightly break up some of the tomatoes. My salsa screen breaks the tomatoes up into chunks about 1/2 the size of most petite diced tomatoes. This sauce is great on its own, but feel free to cook and drain some sausage or hamburger or to throw some of my meatballs in.
Ingredients:
Approximately 3 quarts of cooked tomatoes, run through the salsa screen of a food mill (or roughly chopped to your desired chunkiness).
1 1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
3/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp chopped fresh oregano. You can use dried but start at about 1/4 tsp and gradually add more tasting as you go. (Dried herbs tend to be more potent than fresh.)
So here is a recipe that I came up with for vegetable soup one day when it occurred to me at lunch that I had completely forgotten to thaw soup for dinner. I had vegetable soup on the menu so that’s what I made (but trust me that doesn’t always happen.) This would also make an easy and healthy weeknight dinner. since you can get it on the table in under 45 min.
Ingredients:
1 quart of my homemade chicken stock – if you don’t have any homemade stock you can use store-bought cans but homemade is so much better
1 28 oz can of petite diced tomatoes
1 32 oz bag of frozen mixed vegetables (corn, peas, green beans, and carrots)
1 can of cannellini beans (This is just what I grabbed. You could use any kind of beans you want.) Also, feel free to use dried if you can plan ahead and prep them the night before. I would suggest 1 cup of dried navy beans as a substitute for 1 can of cannellini beans. **Update – since first posting this, I have made this soup with 1 cup dried kidney beans, prepped the night before, and it was great!
1 cup of dried lentils
3/4 TBSP sea salt – if you use chicken stock from the store, start with 1/2 tsp salt and add to taste. I don’t salt my stock when I make it, since I prefer to salt the dishes themselves when I make them.
1 tsp garlic powder
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Directions:
Rinse lentils well and then place them and 4 cups of cold water into a small pot and cover. Do not salt the water.
Turn heat to medium-low and set a timer for 30 min. Once the water starts to boil reduce heat to low
While the lentils are cooking, add the other ingredients to a large pot or dutch oven and turn heat to medium. Once boiling, turn heat to low and simmer until the lentils are done.
Once the lentils are done, drain and rinse them. Then add them to the rest of the soup.
Stir the soup to incorporate the lentils well.
Serve warm with fresh bread and enjoy!
It’s a tasty dinner that you can feel good about when you come back for seconds (or thirds).
Here’s a little background on us (me in particular).
I have wanted to live on a farm for as long as I can remember. As I moved from childhood into adulthood and eventually parenthood, my idea of what I wanted changed significantly. When I was 8 years old, suffering from the effects of chemotherapy for leukemia, the first dream I wanted to ask the Dream Factory for was a farm. My mom said that was a little too big. When I was a teenager, I envisioned a large horse training facility. (I am blessed to have a mom who is as crazy about horses as I am, so horses have always been a part of my life.) I was competing heavily and successfully and, like most teenagers, couldn’t imagine life being any different. I just knew that one day soon I would make it big and have a world class training facility.
I grew up, a little.
In college, my plans changed from a huge operation to something smaller (or a more “focused business strategy” as my entrepreneurship professor put it). I dreamed of training 3-4 top notch show jumping horses at a time. Also while in college, I met the man who would one day become my wonderful husband. He told me that despite having horrible allergies to everything outdoors AND growing up in a suburb he had always wanted to live on a farm. Dream come true!
The movie A Walk to Remember had come out right before we started dating. I loved the idea of making a list of things that I wanted to do before I died, so I made one too. I shared it with DH (then boyfriend) one day. One of the items was to find the end of a rainbow. DH said that if we ever got a farm we would call it Rainbow’s End.
Around the time we got married, life started throwing major curve-balls my direction, which I am sure God was using to redirect my plans. First, the Great Recession hit. Any hope I had of raising, training, and selling horses went down the drain. No one was buying luxury items anymore. A year and a bit after we got married, DH was in a horrible car accident and hit his head on the car window, changing his personality and mannerisms forever. Not long after that, my ankles gave out (meaning that now I can’t even use stirrups when I ride without being in extreme pain the rest of the day or longer). God was definitely trying to change my course. DH and I had to rediscover how to function cohesively. Besides that, I couldn’t jump anymore. I continued riding but had to switch to dressage (like ballet or figure skating with a horse).
I grew up, a lot.
Fast forward a few years. DH and I were functioning reasonably well. We (well mostly the bank) owned a small house. We had a dog. But our family was incomplete. We decided to try to have a baby. The doctors had told me that I would probably never be able to have kids because of the chemotherapy so early in life. God had different plans and blessed us with DS and then DD 2 years later.
Our family was complete, but, deep down, my dream of a farm still lingered. Now, though, all I wanted was a quiet, peaceful place to raise my kids. I envisioned a few chickens, a big veggie garden, and a few horses.
And now, I’m finally getting it! DH and I found the farm of our dreams, and God worked in ways that are so much greater than I could have ever imagined to make it happen. I have never felt so at peace letting go and leaving the process in His hands before. (Believe me, I’m a total control freak – just ask my husband.) But with this decision and through the whole process, I haven’t needed to feel in control. I know the One who is, and He is so much better that I am at directing my life.
So, welcome to my journey. I invite you to be in this adventure with me as my family and I work to build things and get back to basics and simplicity. Welcome to our own little pot of gold, our Rainbow’s End.
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