Many years ago I had the privilege of meeting Mary Ostyn from Owl Haven, at a Created  for Care retreat.  She’s a lovely lady, fellow adoptive mom, and mother of ten.  I read her book A Sane Woman’s Guide To Raising a Large Family while we were in Africa getting ready to bring the girls home.  I had been eye-balling her money-saving cookbook for years but never took the plunge until recently when I received an email from a friend who is expecting baby number seven just a couple of months behind me.  She wanted to know if I’d be interested in purchasing the book and then we could go through it together and bounce ideas off of each other while seeing how much money we could save applying Mary’s advice and recipes from her book.  I jumped on it and immediately ordered Family Feasts for $75 a Week. Ironically, it’s currently out of stock on Amazon, but check back soon because it’s worth every penny.  If you’re anything like me, you see a book like this and think, I could probably find a few new recipes but can she really say anything about saving money on groceries that I haven’t already heard before or don’t do?  Well those were my thoughts as I clicked “buy now.”  Boy was I wrong!  I was incredibly impressed with the many suggestions and tips she shares in the first several chapters.  I’m not going to give it all away because I really want you to buy the book but I will share my progress and results as I put her advice into practice.  I’m always super curious about other people’s spending habits, certain areas of their budget, etc but am rarely brave (or crazy) enough to ask.  As a result, I’m going to assume you’re probably just as curious as me so I’m going to be completely transparent and share all of the nitty-gritty details with you along the way.

Here are some facts about our food and budget up until now:

We are a family of 9, soon to be 10.

We have been spending an average of $1200-$1500 per month on food.  The majority of that total is spent at the grocery store but about $200 of it is usually made up of Dunkin Donuts coffee, Sonic Happy Hour, and an occasional restaurant trip with the family (like once every month or two because let’s face it, feeding nine people at a restaurant is ridiculously expensive when we can eat the same quality food at home for 1/10 of the price).

I go to the store way too often.  Many weeks I will do my big shopping trip on Monday or Tuesday and then return to somewhere like Walmart or Aldi later in the week for more bread, milk, or maybe a treat like ice cream or a bottle of wine.  This bad habit has sabotaged my grocery budget for years. YEARS!

We have been purchasing four large $5 pizzas from Little Caesar’s every Friday night for the past 15 months.  Friday night became pizza night when the girls came home and it’s something easy and relatively cheap that we all looked forward to at the end of each week.  However, we can eat much better than Little Caesar’s pizza and for less than $20 and some change if we just plan ahead and cook at home.  For example, tomorrow night is Friday and I’m trying out Mary’s recipes for Orange Chicken and fried rice.  The whole family loves Chinese food but this meal will cost us around $7 instead of the $30+ we would pay for our favorite local Chinese take-out.

We have all been eating too much.  Mary points out in her book, the importance of portion size with regards to meat or the main dish.  My adopted daughters have experienced true hunger in their lives and they know what it’s like to eat one crappy meal per day or only be given a very small amount of food so we’ve been very careful to make sure food is no longer a source of insecurity for them.  As a result however, they’ve been eating man-size portions for the past year.  It’s amazing that none of them have become overweight as a result.  We also have three sons and two of them are 12 and 13 so they naturally could eat enough for a small army in their current pubescent state.  All that to say, we have all been eating far more than healthy portions particularly at dinner time.

Here’s the plan:

I am now planning our menu to include every single breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, and potential treat or dessert.  I take inventory of the food already in our fridge, freezer, and pantries and then make my grocery list accordingly.  Using the Price Notebook that Mary taught me how to create in her book, I then create my grocery list according to where I can find the items I need for the best price.  My two main grocery stores are Aldi and Sam’s Club.  They both provide great prices on the things I purchase most often but I was amazed at the price differences I found when creating my Price Notebook.  There are quite a few items I can buy significantly cheaper at Aldi vs. Sam’s and the other way around!  For example, cheddar cheese is $.21/ounce at Aldi and only $.15/ounce at Sam’s.  That’s a big difference when you factor in that our family goes through 3-4 lbs of cheddar per week!  Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are $2.29/lb at Aldi and only $1.88/lb at Sam’s!  Butter and milk are also cheaper at Sam’s.  However, eggs are $1.29 per dozen at Sam’s while Aldi has eggs for only $.89 per dozen!  Cream cheese, deli meat, and bagels are all significantly cheaper at Aldi vs. Sam’s.  This is where the Price Notebook has already begun to save me money.

I really appreciate that Mary touches on the issue of food quality in her book.  She addresses organic produce and good quality meat and dairy.  Basically, she is certain that even if you choose to buy all organic for your family, there are still ways you can save money on groceries.  I like to buy organic fruits and veggies that are on the dirty dozen list.  I also like to purchase two whole organic chickens once a month from Costco and use the carcasses to make and can about 14 quarts of organic, rich bone broth that I can use throughout the month.  We buy raw milk from a local farmer but also drink conventional milk when the weekly raw milk (which is $7/gallon) runs out.  We make the best choices we can for our family in the season we’re in right now.  After a long, expensive adoption, selling our home, and continuing to work hard to get out of debt, we’re in a season of financial recovery.  As a result, I’m thankful for the eggs that are $.89/dozen instead of the organic eggs we were buying at Costco for $3.75/dozen (which is a great deal on organic eggs!).

Part of my menu planning and the making of my grocery list includes being realistic about the quantity that we need to feed our family.  I’m working hard to use less meat and more beans and veggies in our main dishes.  I’m also making sure I buy enough eggs, bread, bagels, and milk to get us through the week without having to make any extra, budget-busting trips back to the store.  Today I shopped at Sam’s and Aldi for the next week’s worth of food.  Here’s whats on the menu and how much I spent:

**All of these items are homemade.  I don’t typically buy boxed, pre-packed, or highly processed foods when I can easily make it from scratch for less and with better quality ingredients.**

Breakfast:

blueberry muffins, pancakes, eggs with biscuits and gravy, raisin bran muffins, bagels and cream cheese, banana bread

(I will double or triple the muffins and banana bread recipes in order to put some in the freezer for when baby Charlie arrives in a couple of weeks)

Lunch:

Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, deviled eggs and fruit, macaroni and cheese, leftovers

Snacks/Desserts:

String cheese or cheese cubes, apples with peanut butter, fruit salad, smoothies/protein shakes, rice krispie treats, banana pudding, peanut butter fudge, homemade granola bars

Dinner:

Chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole, salad, and bread

Quick Beef Stroganoff, salad, and bread

Orange Chicken and Fried Rice

Chili Corn Pone Pie (I doubled this and put one in the freezer)

Creamy Salsa Chicken (I will double this and freeze the extra), Spanish Rice, and guacamole

Cheddar Spinach Quiche and marinated tomato and cucumber salad

Extras:

I bought an extra 3 lbs of ground beef and 7 lbs of chicken so I could go ahead and cook, season, and freeze it for post-baby convenience.  I also bought an extra three dozen eggs and two pounds of ground sausage so I could make and freeze two large breakfast casseroles.

Here’s a picture of today’s haul from Sam’s and Aldi as well as a picture of my receipts in case you’re curious how it all adds up.  I was spending an average of $300-$375 per week in previous months.  My grand total today was $192.59 with almost an entire extra week’s worth of meat and pre-cooked meals going in the freezer for after baby arrives. I’m very happy with this week’s grocery trip.  I’ll be 37 weeks tomorrow so I’m trying to get ahead of the game and make sure we don’t slip into a convenience food black hole when I go into labor and come home from the hospital.  So far, so good!

This was a very long post, otherwise I’d link to some of my favorite recipes that I listed in this week’s menu.  I will try to do that in the coming weeks’ posts.  Please let me know if you have any questions or money saving tips of your own.  There’s so much more to say, but this will be an ongoing series of posts so I’ll get to more of that later.

These breakfast casseroles are now in my freezer for easy breakfast options when Charlie arrives in a couple of weeks.

You should be able to zoom in on these receipts if you’d like a breakdown of what I got for $192.

I look forward to seeing how much money I can save on food this month.  I love a good challenge!

~audrey

We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of bringing our daughters home and I’ve been reflecting on what we’ve accomplished, how our family is different, and all that the girls have learned and experienced over the past 12 months.

Without a doubt, morning time and reading aloud saved our homeschool over the past year.

When our girls came home in March of 2015 they knew no English and we knew no Lingala or Swahili.  We had several adoptive families of older children tell us that the girls would be fluent in English after about four months home.  Not only did we have a hard time believing that, but four months seemed an awfully long ways away on Day 1.  We survived day by day and often hour by hour.  There were major fits and meltdowns during those first 10-14 days but then we turned a corner.  The girls began to communicate with simple, new words, we spent a great deal of time playing outside, and we began to develop a new routine. I came up with a Morning Time schedule and reading aloud was a huge part of that.  Surprisingly, the girls’ attention spans grew quickly.  The girls were 7, 5, and 5 when they came home. Our other children were 12, 10, 7, and 6 months at that time.  We go to a liturgical church and our children worship alongside us so it didn’t take the girls long before they were sitting quietly next to us for an hour and a half on Sunday mornings.  We also have family worship at night where we sing, work on the catechism, and read scripture together.  All of these things played a role in helping the girls, including Baby Annie, learn to sit and be attentive for lengthy periods of time.

I didn’t have any instructions on how to incorporate our new, non-English-speaking children into our homeschool.  I had grandiose ideas of beginning a kindergarten-type teaching plan with them and having Eliana caught up to “her age/grade level”  in no time. Boy was I delusional.  It didn’t take long to realize none of my girls were even capable of holding a pencil let alone trace a letter or draw a circle.  I was stumped…until a little voice in my head reminded me to stick with what I know.  Reading and recitation. I made a few little lists of goals and began chipping away.  Before I knew it we were settled comfortably into our new Morning Time routine.  On a normal day our morning time went something like this:

Bible read aloud (We are working our way through a “Read the Bible in a Year” plan.)

Hymn Memorization (We wanted to teach the girls our service hymns so they could begin to participate more in our Sunday morning worship services even though they couldn’t read yet.)

Poetry or Shakespeare

Read Aloud-Chapter Book

Here’s a list of some of the books we’ve read aloud over the past year:

Little House in the Big Woods

Little House on the Prairie

Farmer Boy

On the Banks of Plum Creek

On the Shores of Silver Lake

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Magician’s Nephew

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Where the Red Fern Grows

Freckles

Paddle to the Sea

Beatrix Potter

Winnie the Pooh

A Child’s Garden of Verses

Dr. Suess (a variety, of course)

…and far too many pictures books to list.  A few of these were audio books we listened to on road trips but most were simply read aloud for about an hour a day during morning time.

What we witnessed in our daughters was an intensely growing love for good books and great stories.  Their vocabulary increased daily, they begged for one more chapter, they wanted to do “more school,” and we began to grow together as a family.  After Morning Time, the boys would go off and begin their other subjects independently while the girls and I would move to the kitchen for “Table Time.”  This is where I taught them songs to help them learn more necessities like the days of the week, months of the year, and how to count to 20.  It was amazing how quickly they could memorize new things, as if I should’ve been surprised by that.  Several years in Classical Conversations allowed me to see just how much our children were capable of in the realm of memorization and recitation.  Friends who went a month or so without seeing our family were always amazed at the progress each passing week and month produced.  Sure enough, by the four month mark the girls were fluent in English for everyday conversation and communication.  We still struggle with pronouns and prepositions but there’s almost nothing they don’t understand.

What surprised me more than anything and has left me feeling the most inadequate and ill-equipped are the large gaps in their education that I don’t realize are there until they make comments about how “we live on the moon” or ask questions like, “Mommy, are elephants real?”  I have completely taken for granted the vast amount of information our children acquire simply by being in our home and in our family from birth.  I’ve never been a “big box curriculum” kinda girl, but I’m seriously thinking about going in that direction in the fall for the girls simply to cover a lot of ground without having to do all of my own planning. Either that or I’ll finally take the bull by the horns and dive into Ambleside Online once and for all and simply continue on our read-lots-and-lots-of-books path.  The past year has helped me to see just how rich an education one can obtain simply through great literature; whether it be a classic or a well-written picture book.

One of my all-time favorite podcasts is from Quiddity (the Circe Institute’s podcast) where Sarah Mackenzie interviews Andrew Kern on the topic of Teaching From Rest.  I’ve listened to it at least a dozen times and it encourages and inspires me more and more each time.  As we move gracefully through each day I remind myself that each one of my children are souls to be nurtured, not products to be measured.  When I feel like I’m not moving fast enough with the girls’ education or I feel the urge to help them catch up quicker, I then ask myself, “Catch up to whom??”  We homeschool for many reasons but the one that sticks out to me most in our current season of life is that we have the ability to meet our children where they are individually.  Would you be surprised if I told you all seven of our children are very different from one another?  Of course not, because they’re all individual people.  I’ve enjoyed the slower pace of life that we’ve taken over the past year and I hope this post can serve as a help for other homeschool families in the process of adopting, especially if you’re bringing home school-age children and plan to continue homeschooling.  It’s a beautiful thing to be able to watch each and every new discovery and revelation through their eyes.

Even something as simple as seeing their first change of seasons has been incredibly miraculous and mystifying.  I never thought about the fact that my daughters had never witnessed nor experienced fall, winter, and spring before.  Living on the equator they had one season:  Summer.  There was summer in the rainy season and summer in the dry season.  It was so fun and organic to answer questions about why the trees were all “dying” as the leaves turned and fell to the ground leaving barren branches and cold days.  I’m so excited to experience their first spring with them as these seemingly dead trees slowly come to life again in the next month or so.  We’re going to plant a garden and get new chickens and have all kinds of accidental science lessons. Adoption and homeschooling can both be hard roads to travel at times but the rewards far exceed any and all of my hope-filled expectations.  On the hardest days I remind myself that His mercies are new every morning and on the best days I get beautiful glimpses of what our home and family will look like in five, ten, and fifteen years as we continue on the path set before us.  We are in pursuit of simplicity and love, all for His glory.

The whole gang

We LOVE Little House

Annie’s favorite book is Mrs. Wow Never Wanted a Cow.

Everyone loves reading to Annie.

Charlie Michael is our newest little bookworm and will arrive sometime this summer.

Last but not least, my blog will be getting a much-needed makeover very soon and I will no longer be “Made To Organize.” I think it’s about time those banner pictures were updated, don’t you??  New domain reveal coming soon!

~audrey

I’ve been blogging in my mind for weeks now.  About a month and a half ago I began to feel myself coming out of the fog.  It was a familiar place in which I lived for about four months after the girls came home.  You see, we packed up and sold our house of almost ten years less than a month before our girls came home.  We downsized from our 2,000 square foot brick ranch to a mobile home.  We have some dear friends who have a large farm and are letting us live in a double wide on their property rent-free while we get out of debt.  Our adoption put enormous financial stress on us over the past three years and we have a lot of debt to pay off.  Most of it was accumulated before we began our adoption, but needless to say, nothing got paid off over the last three years and then we acquired more during our trip to bring the girls home.  It was all worth it and now we’re excited to be walking in our beautiful new reality.  We have seven children in a three bedroom mobile home out in the country and we’re absolutely loving it. All of our neighbors are our best friends.  The kids have acres and acres of woods to explore and trails to hike.  We can see every star in the sky on clear nights and we’re purposefully living a peace-filled simplified life.  Downsizing our home while upsizing our family has forced us to purge and get super organized.  Every room in the house presents an organizational challenge and its been fun figuring out ways to utilize every nook and cranny.  Josh put my clothesline up and Annie went back into her cloth diapers a few months ago.  I suppose that was the first sign that I was coming out of the fog.  I began to make bread again and put meals in the freezer.  I started hanging clothes out to dry just because I enjoy it.  The kids and I make regular trips to places like Target and Costco without any drama, if you don’t count the stares and sometimes inappropriate remarks and questions.  I find myself forgetting that I have seven children and that seven children is far from the norm. Annie is a year old and began walking at 11 months; our earliest walker by far.  She is still our sweet little sunshine.  I can’t even count how many times a day the big kids tell her how cute she is and how much they love her. I decided to try a new schedule for this school year.  Six weeks on, one week off, repeat.  The first six weeks leads us up to our beach trip next week.  We’ve had an excellent first six weeks.  Here’s a glimpse into our day: The kids wake up by 8am, make their beds, get dressed, and come to the table for breakfast.  We start school around 9am with Morning Time.  Morning Time consists of Bible reading (we’re currently doing a “read through the Bible in a year” plan), Shakespeare, poetry, some memory work, and whatever read aloud chapter book we’re in at the moment.  We read Little House on the Prairie in August and all of the kids wanted to keep going with the series so now we’re half way through Farmer Boy.  It’s such a joy to hear the girls ask for one more chapter.  Their understanding of English after just five months home is astonishing to say the least.  They’re doing exceptionally well.  In August they learned the days of the week, months of the year, counting to 20, and are now working on recognizing the letters of the alphabet and numbers 1-20.  Eliana is working hard on learning to read.  She is basically at a kindergarten level and the twins (5 1/2) are at a preschool level with basic coloring skills but no ability to trace letters on a page or hold a pencil well.  It’s so very different teaching children who are school age but so far from being ready for age-appropriate tasks.  It’s also a great relief to know that classical education will work all of that out in time and we don’t have to rush to “catch up” to anyone.  I’m so thankful I can stay home and educate our children.  It’s hard to believe I have two middle schoolers this year.  Joshua is in 7th grade and is doing Omnibus online through Veritas Press.  Jesse is in 6th grade and is completing his last year of Classical Conversations’ Foundations program (at home).  He is basically reviewing all three cycles this year and will join Joshua in Omnibus next year.  Owen is in 3rd grade and continuing on in Classical Conversations.  It’s amazing to hear him recalling all of this cycle’s memory work already.  He’s been hearing and learning CC memory work since he was two.  What a joy to see my big boys progress into the logic and rhetoric phases of learning after building this incredible foundation through CC.  Joshua and Jesse are also taking an IEW writing class once a week and that’s going really well also. The boys are all still enjoying and excelling with Teaching Textbooks math and Phonetic Zoo Spelling. I’m going to start Michael Clay Thompson’s Grammar program with Jesse, Owen, and Eliana soon, if I can ever remember to order it!  I also want to get the first volume of Story of the World so we can add that to our Morning Time routine.  After Morning Time the boys separate to do their independent work and I move to the dining room table with the girls.  We work on learning a variety of new things as well as handwriting for Eliana, coloring, cutting, play-doh, preschool crafts, etc.  I look so forward to fall and the holidays.  I truly began to feel like I would never actually have a Thanksgiving or Christmas with all of my children on the same continent, let alone in the same house.  We are so incredibly blessed and are doing our very best to live our life simply, with joy and gratitude, and always for His glory. So, that sums it up for now.  All of the pictures we’ve taken over the past five months are on my phone so I’ll need to transfer them onto the computer so I can post some pictures.  Everyone has grown this summer–water and sunshine does it every time!  🙂

This is an updated post related to my geography cards.  I have created geography flashcards to correspond with all three cycles of CC but only the PDF download of each set is available at this time.  I have seven children, including a baby, and simply don’t have time to devote to making and shipping completed sets at this time.

Most important thing to note:

**Each card is labeled with one location, but there is nothing referencing a cycle or week anywhere on the cards because I don’t want to infringe on any copyright laws and get CC corporate on my hiney.**

Second most important thing to note:

**All proceeds will go toward paying off adoption expenses.  We finally brought our daughters home three months ago after a 2 1/2 year wait.  The grand total for our adoption was $140,000**

I must tell you, I originally planned to sell the download for $10.  It took me weeks to finish these, they’re in color, labeled, ready to print and use.  But then I started to think about the fact that you still have to print them, fold the labels over (each map and label are side-by-side so you’ll fold each label over to the back after you print).  You may also choose to glue the entire thing to a 3×5 index card for better durability, and if you’re like me, you’ll laminate the finished product!  Therefore, I’m only asking$5.

These cards may also be printed in black and white or gray scale to save money.  We have an InkBoy near our house and they do $.01 black and white copies if you bring your own paper.  But I must say, the color adds a lot to the cards.  The only color is the water and the small location on each card.

One last thing:  How to purchase.

You can pay using the donate button on the right side of the screen.  Please use the memo/comment box in Paypal to note the email address you would like me to use when I send your download and which cycle you’re purchasing.

Please feel free to contact me via email with any questions related to the cards or our adoption.  audrey@madetoorganize.com

God bless!

The Best Mother’s Day EVER.

The boys are doing standardized testing online this week.  This is the time of year that I always usually question whether we’ve done enough, done well, done the right things, etc.  If you’re a homeschool mom I assume you’ve known those feelings at some point.  This end-of-the-school-year feels much different.  We have seven children now and only three of them are schooling.  The rest require my constant attention while they’re awake.  That makes schooling quite difficult.

We’re on auto-pilot for things like reading, math, and spelling because the boys do those things alone and/or on the computer.  But what about the rest?  What about all of the things I’d like to be doing on top of math, reading, and spelling?

Memory Work, Poetry, Shakespeare, Bible Memory, Science, Art, Grammar, and Writing?

We’re trying new things as we homeschool in the trenches for a little while.  I imagine by the end of the summer we’ll begin to settle in to an excellent routine that will work well for us for the fall.  Until then we will have lots of read aloud time for poetry and Shakespeare.  We’re going through A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Young Reader’s Shakespeare version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  We will listen to the remainder of our anatomy and physiology science through an audio version of our textbook, we’ll listen to our memory work in the car, and we’ll slowly figure out how to add grammar, writing, and art back into our schedule.  I know from experience that it’s far better to do a few things with excellence than to pile things on your plate and do them all with mediocrity. We’re pretty much doing all of our normal daily tasks from the trenches right now; school, church, meals, chores.  I’m sure the list goes on.  However, I know at the end of the day the most important thing is to make our home a pleasant, God-honoring, grace-filled place so that remains my goal.  We will look for truth, beauty, and goodness even in the mundane and even in the trenches.

Our Current Read Alouds

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

My cycle 3-related geography flashcards are finally ready!  Once again, all proceeds go toward our remaining adoption expenses for our three daughters in DR Congo.  At this time, I am only offering the digital download because I’ll be having a baby any day now.  Once we settle in with our new addition I will offer to make complete, color, laminated sets for $35.  The digital download is $5 and can be paid for by clicking the “Donate” button to the right of this page.  You do not have to have a Paypal account to make this purchase.  You can use Paypal to process your debit or credit card.  Your downloadable link will be sent via email within 24 hours of your completed purchase.

**PLEASE LEAVE A NOTE/MEMO VIA PAYPAL AS TO WHICH CYCLE(S) YOU ARE PURCHASING SO YOU’RE SENT THE CORRECT SET OF CARDS**

There are three cards and labels per printable page for a total of 41 pages.  There is a separate card for each and every location.  You just have to download, print, cut, fold the label over, and laminate (if you so choose).  I haven’t cut and laminated my cycle 3 cards yet, so below you’ll see a sample of a few finished cycle 2 cards as well as a picture of what your cycle 3 cards will look like when you print them:

This is an invaluable fundraiser for our adoption so please feel free to share the link to this post, share on Facebook, and tell your local Classical Conversations community!

God bless!

audrey

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  1 Thessalonians 5:18

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.  Philippians 2:14-16

…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Ephesians 5: 18b-20

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare your lovingkindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night.  Psalm 92:1-2

I was talking with a friend at church yesterday.  She has three young children and she asked if I had any advice for cultivating thankfulness in our children.  I think I might have jokingly said, No, do you?? The truth is, I think most of us (Americans in general) struggle with discontentment.

Discontentment is the condition of being dissatisfied with one’s life or current situation; a restless longing for better circumstances.

We’ve been on a journey to living a simpler life over the last several years.  It has brought about great joy and peace.  I am richly and abundantly blessed to have a strong, godly husband who desires to be the spiritual leader in our home, to have six children and to be able to stay home and educate them myself.  The last ten years have gone by so fast, I can’t even imagine sending them to school for 40 hours each week.  We serve together, work together, cook together, read and learn together, travel together, spend time with family and friends, and of course worship together.  Even with all of this, we still find things to complain and dispute about.

Discontentment is a heart issue.  When we complain we are telling God, Your best isn’t good enough.  Your provision isn’t quite enough.  Your sacrifice on the cross for our freedom and salvation just wasn’t enough. But we forget about those things when we don’t get the results we’ve worked hard for, maybe the money runs out before the end of the month, or how about when God says wait and your 9-12 month adoption turns into a two year, $100,000 adoption?

What if we eliminated complaining from our lives?  What if our homes were void of whining and disputing?  Would we automatically become more thankful with the absence of complaining?

I am on a mission to find out!

As we sat around the breakfast table this morning I introduced “Thankfulness Bootcamp”.

For the next seven days we’re going to work hard toward complete elimination of complaints in hopes of cultivating thankfulness in our home and in our hearts.  We’re also going to work toward memorizing the scripture verses at the beginning of the post.  Garbage in, garbage out.  Praise in, praise out.  If we fill our hearts with the truth of His word and His commands to be thankful and content in all things, then out of the overflow of our hearts our mouths will speak!

Today is day one.  Day one is Discontentment Detox.  We are encouraging one another by using a code word anytime someone slips up and complains or whines about something.  This includes a discontent attitude.  I reminded the boys that a proper response is not just in your words, but your attitude as well.  Our code word is “camp.”  So far, so good.  However, tomorrow and for the rest of the week we will all wear a rubber band around our wrists.  Any time we slip, we’ll snap our rubber band.  It’s not meant to be painful or punishment, but a reminder of the goal we’re working toward.  We really are having to retrain our brains not to complain.  Unfortunately, it has become a very normal reaction.

Can you imagine your home being 100% complaint-free? What a difference that will make in our family.

Matthew 5:14-16 says, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven!

Last night I was tired and didn’t have a plan for dinner.  I enjoy working in the kitchen and cooking from scratch.  I’m feeding my family, my hands prepared the food, and the results are right in front of us for our benefit.

Last week I canned almost 20 quarts of organic chicken stock.   The tradition of rich, homemade bone broth is why people suggest you eat some chicken soup when you’re sick.  If you eat Campbell’s chicken soup from the can when you’re sick, well, you just might get sicker.  However, the nutrients in homemade bone broth pack a punch that can boost the immune system and help your body fight off just about anything, not to mention it is absolutely delicious.

I had a quart bag of shredded chicken in the fridge so I decided to make chicken soup.  I originally wanted to make chicken and dumplings, but decided to make homemade noodles instead.  The kids love helping me make homemade pasta.  Our recipe is super simple:

2 cups of whole wheat flour (sometimes I do half wheat flour and half white flour)

3 eggs

a pinch of salt

I mix and knead the dough until it’s pretty stiff, but not dry.

I have a small, manual pasta machine.  We tear off a piece of dough, about the size of a plum, and begin cranking it through the pasta machine.  Slowly, the pasta gets thinner and thinner as we adjust the knob on our machine.  This is what it looks like at the end of the first step:

These are just long sheets of pasta that need to dry a little bit before we run them through the fettuccine attachment.  If we were making lasagna, this pasta would be ready to use!  After drying for 15-20 minutes, we run the pasta strips through the fettuccine attachment.  It’s really a pretty simple, fun process.

These are our leftover noodles after making chicken soup last night.  I’ll leave them out to finish drying and then put them in the pantry for another meal.

Dinner was very simple, but it was delicious.  Everyone had at least two bowls of soup.  It’s amazing how your body craves more when you’re consuming rich nutrients.  I ate the last bowl for lunch today.

Don’t be afraid to try making things like pasta at home.  You’d be surprised how easy it is to make your every day food items from scratch.  It just takes a little time and a few simple ingredients.

Hopefully by now, you’ve had a chance to either look at a copy of my European and World geography cards or you purchased them yourself!  I have worked extremely hard on these maps and cards and it is such a joy to see them come to fruition and see them used and loved by fellow CC families.

The fact that this has all happened at the tail end of our adoption has been completely providential.  Just a couple of months ago, we had about $5,000 left in fees and travel expenses.  My European and World geography cards have sold to CC families in every single state in the US as well as several countries abroad.  I have received many positive reviews from families who have said these cards have helped their five year old better understand the geography portion of their memory work.  I’ve even heard from Challenge parents who are using my cards to help their middle and high school Challenge student.

My husband and I were scheduled to leave for Africa on October 6th, but due to some political unrest in the Congo, we had to delay our trip by two weeks.  The delay also added more expenses to our bottom line and that was discouraging.  Suddenly, I realized I had two extra weeks to finish my cycle one-related geography cards and make them available for purchase.  These cards will be great to use when reviewing your geography from last year as well as preparing for your next round with cycle one. I simply created these for my children last year to help us master our geography at home and in class with my abecedarians.  They were a huge success and I wanted to make the same resource available to other homeschool families as well.

Most important thing to note:

**Each card is labeled with the location, but there is nothing referencing a cycle or week anywhere on the cards because I don’t want to infringe on any copyright laws and get CC corporate on my hiney.**

Second most important thing to note:

**All proceeds will go toward our remaining adoption expenses.**

I must tell you, I originally planned to sell the download for $10.  It took me weeks to finish these, they’re in color, labeled, ready to print and use.  But then I started to think about the fact that you still have to print them, fold the labels over (each map and label are side-by-side so you’ll fold each label over to the back after you print).  You may also choose to glue the entire thing to a 3×5 index card for better durability, and if you’re like me, you’ll laminate the finished product!  Therefore, I’m only asking $5.

These cards may also be printed in black and white or grayscale to save money.  We have an InkBoy near our house and they do $.01 black and white copies if you bring your own paper.  But I must say, the color adds a lot to the cards.  The only color is the water and the small location in red or yellow on each card. If you’d like an example, you can click here to see my European and World Geography post.  Here is what the finished cards will look like (these are my previous set:  European and World Geography)

Will you please help me spread the word about my new cards?  We leave in eight days to bring our daughters home–FINALLY!!

One last thing:  How to purchase.

You can pay using the donate button on the right side of the screen.  Please use the memo/comment box to note the email address you would like me to use when I send your download.  If you would like for me to do all of the work for you, I’m happy to send you color, laminated geography cards for $35, including shipping.  However, since we are about to go from three children to six (three of which do not currently speak English), and we homeschool, I’m going to need to ask for a grace period.  If you’d like for me to send you a set of completed geography cards, I will need four weeks from your date of purchase to complete and ship them.  Ask someone who has purchased the download and done the work herself:  It’s definitely worth paying someone else $35 to do it for you!

Please feel free to contact me via email with any questions related to the cards or our adoption.  audrey@madetoorganize.com

God bless!