Am I Not As Happy as I Used to Be?

"The chief cause of unhappiness is giving up what you want most for what you want at the moment."

This truth, uttered by Zig Ziglar, resembles the question I try to ask myself often throughout the day. Is what I am doing right now the best choice I can make for our family?

Too frequently I am distracted into doing what I feel like doing when I have half a chance. After all, my children require much from me throughout the day, from the moment the first one wakes up in the morning. My time is not my own. I thought that it was my own before I had a family, but even then I was wrong. I'll have to give an account to God for every word, every action, every opportunity that I missed or took to do the right thing, the best thing.

Honestly, I would much rather go online and/or put my thoughts in writing than tackle the dirty dishes in the sink. But an orderly home that is welcoming to my family and others is more important. I know this, and putting my knowledge into action is not so natural and easy. Samantha's insights on this phenomenon certainly apply to me as well.

Even good things like helping others or giving gifts can become self-serving if I neglect more important priorities. In my zeal to accomplish something good for others (outside my family), I have let push the needs of my husband and children aside. Especially at Christmas I think this is a temptation for busy parents.

Focusing on my family doesn't necessarily mean I have to wear myself out with Christmas shopping or other activities. It may mean just the opposite. Perhaps the best gift to them for a holiday like Christmas is for me to slow down. If I let go of the extra activities and pressing tasks I'd like to do, there would be time to appreciate the blessings we already have.

So off I should go, to locate some missing toy pieces and shine my sink. Funny, those are the same goals I had yesterday.

Gourmet or Otherwise on a Shoestring: 10 Budget-Friendly Family Favorites

Recently several friends have expressed an interest in making meals at home that cost less. Long before the economic picture became so grim, I devoted myself to figuring out inexpensive meals for my growing family. This is the first of an article in two parts. In the second article I present 10 more options that are meatless, since even those of us who aren’t exclusively vegetarian can trim our budgets and waistlines this way. In this first part, I share ten of our favorite dishes with meat, poultry and seafood. Most I estimate as costing us around $1.00 per serving. Contact me if you would like my recipes or variations.  For additional ideas, check out my recipe page and weekly menu plans.

1. Roast Chicken
Cook with carrots, onions and potatoes. Add a green salad to complete the meal if you like. Use the bones to make broth and the leftover chicken in soup or sandwiches.  For an Asian twist, try this recipe: Slow-Roasted Vietnamese Chicken.

2. Ground Turkey and/or Beef Soft Tacos or Taco Salad
Stretch your meat by adding a can of kidney or black beans. Serve with salsa, shredded cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and avocado chunks if you like. Making your own tortillas adds fantastic freshness and saves money (if you can afford the time).


3. Chicken Pot Pie

The chicken can be leftover or boiled and cubed chicken breasts, to which I add mushrooms, peas, potatoes and carrots. Other vegetables can be put in too. Sometimes I add leftover vegetables. I always make the crust from scratch.

4. Chicken Gumbo Soup
Serve with grilled cheese sandwiches.
I used to buy a kind of frozen mixed vegetables that included okra, sweet red peppers, and onions. Now I buy these separately, omitting sweet peppers, which can be expensive.

5. Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Serve with baked potatoes and/or deviled eggs, BLTs or ham sandwiches. I mix and match other kinds of rice with the wild rice (and leave out the cream) to cut the cost down.

6. Burgundy Beef with Egg Noodles
Some recipes don’t call for potatoes, but they can be added to make it filling without using as much meat.

7. Simple Sloppy Joes
I have never bought the canned sauce, because it is so easy to mix my own, thanks to an easy recipe from my husband that uses ketchup, worcestershire sauce, with onions, shallots, and ground meat. It tastes great with ground beef, lentils, turkey, or venison.

8. Chicken Kebabs
When squash is in season, our kebabs cost less. Chicken and onions are the only essentials, to which I add zucchini, mushrooms, yellow squash, eggplant, peppers, or what have you. Serve with rice, baked potatoes, or pasta salad. I sometimes make a peanut dipping sauce for the chicken.


9. Dogs in a Blanket
When I find hot dogs without nitrates in the nearby stores, I stock up (Oscar Meyer now has several natural choices).  Wrapping hot dogs in homemade dough is quite tasty and cheap.

10. Seafood Risotto
This is an unlikely budget meal, but scallops can be had for about $4 a pound at Sam’s Club. Or you can use shrimp ($5 a pound) or mixed seafood ($3 a pound). The trick is buying inexpensive medium grain rice ($1.08 a pound), rather than Arborio. And I don’t bother with cheese, as stirring the rice in butter and broth makes it “creamy” enough—and more affordable!

Dec. 2010 Update:  I'm linking this to RHOK's Things to Make for Dinner list this week.

Redeeming Social Life Online

A thoughtful article about how to best use Facebook as a Christian, as well as common traps to avoid.

read more | digg story

The Dairy Dilemma

The verdict is still out on whether dairy products are something my 18-month old son can tolerate well. Though he was never diagnosed by our health practitioners, it was clear to me that he had MSPI (Milk Soy Protein Intolerance). At 15 months, he seemed able to tolerate me reintroducing dairy products back into my diet (he is not yet weaned), but cheese seemed a bit much for his system. Even now, his diapers have a stronger odor when he consumes a dairy product.

The rest of us like to drink soy milk, but I've read that the phytoestrogens in soy products can be harmful to boys, which brings us back to trying dairy products. Messy eater that he is, strawberry yogurt seemed to irrritate his skin upon contact. So I have concluded it is the strawberries or the red dye that are bothersome. You can see in the photo that plain yogurt goes over well. He likes the pricier natural stuff. No hormones. No dyes. No sugar. I add a little honey, stir, and watch him enjoy the creamy goodness. Which proves again that simpler is usually better.