Laundry...the bane of my existence

You may have heard me lament on my laundry situation before.  With three, well four if you count my Go-With-The-Flow Husband, crazy, active boys in my life it seems as if the laundry multiplies by leaps and bounds.  Just when I think I have caught up with it, it's spilling out of the hampers yet again.  As one can imagine, I go through A LOT of laundry detergent.  Now I have been using the Ecos Brand laundry detergent for a number of years now due to sensitive skin issues with myself and the Risk-Taker.  It really is not that pricey, but I decided that we needed to cut that expense out of our budget and I searched for a cheaper, yet just as effective detergent for us.  Here is what I came up with:

Now, I know that this doesn't look like much in the way of laundry detergent, but let me tell you about the process that all of this undergoes.  First off, I grate about 1/3 of the Fels-Naptha soap and melt it in about 3 pints of hot water on the stove.  I then added 1/2 cup each of the washing soda and the Borax.  This mixture is then stirred until thickened and then removed from the heat.  I put one quart of hot water into a  2-gallon bucket and added the soap mixture to it.  This mixture is then stirred completely and hot water is added to top it off.  This mixture needs to set for 24 hours in order to "gel".  After 24 hours it is ready to use, you may need to add more hot water to the mixture if it is gelled too much, and you will need to mix before each use.  I poured my mixture into empty detergent bottles that I already had.  It takes approximately 1/2 cup of this mixture to wash a large load of laundry...the cost per load of laundry is approximately .03!!  Our clothes are wonderfully clean, no fragrances have been added, and we save money over the long run!!

I know that it is "weird" to do this sort of thing, but so far these "weird" things work for us!

Now, if I could just find a way to have the laundry folded and put away I would be a happy camper!

Dinner on a whim...Cream of Anything Soup

While trying to figure out what would grace our dinner table last night I was struck with a craving for a thick, creamy soup.  Since Go-with-the Flow Husband has been trying to lose some weight and has decided to go the no carb route (and won't listen to me tell him that whole grain carbs really are ok, in moderation) it has become increasingly difficult for me to make dinner.   However, planning and executing last night's meal wasn't too terrible. 

I found a head of broccoli and a head of cauliflower in the refrigerator and decided that they would become that thick, creamy soup that I was craving.

I chopped these up to yield approximately 8 cups worth of the cruciferous vegetables.

*Note:  These are the veggies that I had on hand, but 8 cups of any veggies will do, I've used asparagus, potatoes, spinach, etc before.  You can be as creative as you wish!

While I was chopping the broccoli and cauliflower I had 2 tbsp. of butter melting in a large stockpot.  To this melted butter I added one chopped onion and one chopped celery stalk and sauted until tender.  Once the onion and celery were tender (and smelling divine), I added 3 cups of  homemade vegetable stock and the chopped broccoli and cauliflower.  I brought it to a simmer, covered the pot and let it continue bubbling for 10 minutes.  During this time I prepped my Vit-a-Mix in order to puree the veggies once they were soft.  I could really use an immersion blender to help prevent me from pouring the veggies back and forth, but alas I do not have one in my cabinet yet.  Once the veggies were soft I pureed them in batches and put them back in the pot.  I then made a roux from 3 tablespoons of butter and 3 tablespoons of flour.  To the roux I added 2 cups of milk and stirred continuously over low heat until it was thick and bubbly.  This was added to the pureed veggies and the whole pot was then stirred and seasoned with some white pepper and salt.

I serrved this soup with the option of sour cream dollops on top and slices of homemade cheesy bread.  It was a hit...well, not so much with the Explorer...he is having 4 year-old moments with ALL food lately, but he did finish in order to have the all coveted dessert!

I am so bad at this...

So I was "gently" reminded by my friend, Granola Mom 4 God, that she has been staring at the same page on my blog for the past month.  Every time I try, in earnest, to start this project again it falls by the wayside.  It is not because I don't care, it is because I am intimidated! 

It is very intimidating for me to write my thoughts and actions down.  I am not sure why this is.  Perhaps it is because I am a "private" person, perhaps it is because I don't want to be judged, perhaps it is because I don't have the words to express myself...who knows?

The past month has seen some difficulties for us, but we are pulling ourselves back together and finding it easier to move on....family does that for you, and for my family I am extremely grateful on this day (all days, really, but today in particular). 

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them." ~Desmond Tutu

Flu vaccine for my family? I don't think so...

I know that there are many opinions out there on modern medicine, and while there are many good aspects we are still wary of quite a bit.  Take the Flu Vaccine, for example.  After listening to the media and doing our own research, we are very much against giving our children this vaccine.  Take a look at this video: 




We are not willing to give this to our children due to these reasons.  We have found ways to combat the flu in our home, and while we may get a small strain of something, we get rid of it in 2 to 3 days.  We always try to keep our family's immune system in tip-top shape by utilizing a whole foods diet, but at times things happen. When they do happen, we have natures toolbox to help us out...it hasn't failed us so far.  Granted, if my children were to get extremely sick and I couldn't nurse them back to health on my own I would most certainly seek medical advice.

The Explorer had a fever and diarhea two weeks ago, and after much rest, many cups of warm honey chamomile tea laced with coconut oil and raw, local honey, and use of Young Living Essential Oils he was on the mend after 48 hours.

Our methods may not be everyone's cup of tea (pun intended), but thus far they have worked for us and we enjoy the fact that we do not need to run to the doctor's office for every sniffle, cough, and sneeze.

Be well,

My, oh my, how the time does fly!!

Since my last post I have done much soul searching trying to figure out why I even started this darn thing. Well, in all honesty it was to be a "scrapbook" of sorts since I no longer have time for the "paper pushing" kind of scrappin' that I love (sorry, Babe, I know you want me to go digital but there's just something about the feel of the paper and embellishments in my hands that I can't leave behind). I now know that I would like for my blogging to be a record of us; who we are, and why we are raising our family the way that we are.

We are a family of 5: Hip(pie) Mama,my wonderful Go-With-The-Flow Husband , and our 3 amazing sons:  The Seeker, The Risk-Taker, and The Explorer.

I promise, we don't usually color-coordinate!

One of our missions in this life is to give our boys all of the tools that they will need in order to become amazing men.  We do this through various routes and you will find many of them explored through this blog. 

We live as much of a holistic lifestyle as possible, and I must say that my Go-With-The-Flow Husband  has been amazing in this aspect and listening to my ideas and research and helping me implement them, or giving me the tools I need in order to see my ideas to fruition.  He had NO IDEA what he was getting into when our hearts connected.

I've always been a bit of a hip(pie), my Mom and Grandmother like to say that I was born in the wrong generation.  In high-school I really started to embrace the type of lifestyle that I now live.  Of course, I was de-railed here and there, but the ideals have always stayed with me.   Once I had my own children it became very apparent to me that I needed to follow the path that had been set for me when I first fell on it all of those years before.

So, hear we are.  A happy, holistic-minded, organic eating, raw-milk drinking, homeschooling, gardening/preserving, all around "crunchy" family.  Now, that doesn't mean that I can't sport my beloved 17 year-old Birkenstocks and sport a fancy pedicure to boot...after all, I am a Hip(pie) Mama!!

An update

I must admit that it is due to an addiction that supplies immediate satisfaction that I have not updated my blog. This addiction is called "Facebook". Ok, I guess it's not really an addiction since I can go a day or two without logging in. But the immediate satisfaction is not a lie. I can post my thoughts at a moments notice for all of my friends to see and they can respond to me if they wish. It took me awhile to jump on that bandwagon, but once I did I was hooked.

Anyway, since I have been lax in my updates, the month of June shall take the form of several haiku (thanks for the idea, Sarah!)...quick and to the point. Here we go:

Baby boy breaks free
Four years old no training wheels
Growing up too fast



Middle one turns eight
Day at the zoo was his plan
Animal lover

Oldest son jumps in

Open water half a mile

Finishes sixth of twenty-four

Garden is growing

Lots of work in store for me

Rain makes weeds grow fast

Busy month for us

Hopefully we can slow down

Unlikely forecast

Garden gratification

After the rain stopped today, I took a much needed trip to the compost bin to empty our overflowing bucket. As I made my way out towards the bin and adjacent garden there was a guilty looking rabbit scurrying away. Looking over his shoulder as he paused from his flee, he decided that yes, I definitely was staying in the garden and continued on his way. Upon examination of my garden, I noticed that either my radishes had pushed their way out or my intruder had been grazing on them. My guess is the latter. I was able to harvest quite a few of them and my mouth is watering as I type this in anticipation of slicing them up and sprinkling them with my Real Salt sea salt...my very favorite way to eat radishes, YUM!



Now, I know that readishes are an early crop, but this just gives me a wonderful anticpation of things to come!

Just 2 of the reasons that we homeschool...

One of the joys of homeschooling is being able to be together as a family throughout the day. Granted, this can take a toll on all of us and I often have people telling me that they think I am crazy for NOT sending my kids away for 8 hours everyday. However, even amid the ups and downs, the arguments, always having a kid underfoot and not having too much time for myself, it is moments like the the one below that make every second of it worth it!


On this particular day, C1 completed his work early. Instead of begging for computer time or causing arguments, he took it upon himself to get out one of our math manipulative boxes and call C2 out to the living room. He proceeded to work with C2 on patterns, simple additon and subtraction, and his counting skills. I cannot even express how wonderful it is to see this love in action...like I said before, this moment makes it worth it!

The day after this occurred, my love was beuilding a sundeck addition to our deck and took the two older boys out to help him. Not only did they get to put their math skills to the test, they were able to really help out!

C1 helping to stabilize a post.

C1 carrying a heavy post while L lets him...heck, if you don't need to exert yourself, why bother?!?

L learning how to use the level. What you don't see is that he then carried the level to mulitple places to make sure that EVERYTHING was level, it was quite funny to watch!

This project is a perfect examply of the "extracurriculars" that the boys are able to participate in on a regular basis...they had wonderful bonding time with their dad, and they learned some life skills along the way.

YIKES...I have been bad about this blog!

Okay, so a blog seemed like a good thing to do at the time. It seemed reasonable that I would be able to find the time to journal about our lives once or twice a week. Well, although I do have the best of intentions with regularly updating, reality set in. The reality is that although we do have many things going on that I want to share, I find it hard to put it into words at times. I also find it difficult to get on and update everything...perhaps this is also due to the fact that I am horrible at organizing my digital pictures so that I can find them. Now, give me pictures that are printed off and I am a whiz at keeping them organized. You would think it would be easier to keep the digital images organized...

Anyway, a few quick pics are posted below.


The boys were thrilled when the weather started getting sunny and our yard was covered with a wonderful purple blanket. They love to pick the violets and bring them to me. It was a particularly nice surprise on this day as our schoolwork had not gone well that morning and I was grumpy.

Violets are hard to find a vase for, but a Colts shotglass works quite nicely!

L made his First Communion on April 25th and this shot that Tod captured was beautiful!

Finally, on a gorgeous spring day in the Hoosier Heartland, we were able to get a decent pic of the kids and the dog without any of them looking like they're being tortured (usually the dog) or making goofy faces (usually the boys).

A loss...

Arabella, Caleb's 9th birthday present, passed away yesterday afternoon. We're not quite sure what happened. She was eating, playing, and going to the bathroom that morning., just like usual. We left for food co-op around 2:30pm and when we came home around 4pm, she had passed. Needless to say, Caleb is upset but he knows that it was no fault of his. You see, one of the requirements for him to have this Bearded Dragon was to learn absolutely all he could about them and how to take care of them, and he was a champ at it. He made sure that her crickets were healthy, that she had plenty of superworms, and that she had fresh salad every day. He checked the temperatures to make sure that they were in the right range, and he let her ride around on him and crawl on him. Again, we are baffled by this happening so suddenly...

He spent the evening last night building a coffin for her with Tod and they will bury her either today or tomorrow.

State swimming, a new/old friend, and a lesson learned

The Age Group State swimming meet was held this past weekend at the world renowned IU Natatorium. Caleb was able to go as part of the 200 Medley relay team, he swam the butterfly (the 3rd leg) and did a great job maintaining our first place status. The fourth leg had some difficulties and we finished 7th in the heat. Caleb thoroughly enjoyed being down there and watching his teammates swim as well. Here he is (in the cap) looking at the board to check the results of a race.

Colin went with me to the meet, and it is usually very difficult to keep him entertained for such a long event (for those of you not fortunate enough to experience the swimming world, one session of a meet can take 3-4 hours), but this time he was very well behaved. You see, he made a new friend (kind of, he already knew him) and was on his best behavior. His friend happened to be on vacation, which honestly everyone deserves!

Since we were preoccupied most of the weekend, I was unable to tackle my normal domestic goddess duties (ie., laundry), and it has piled up so high (both clean and dirty piles!) that I woke up this morning very much NOT looking forward to the mountainous task that lay before me:

I proceeded to open my e-mail and received my daily e-mail from Scott Noelle:

":: No Problem! ::

Having a "bad parenting day"? Whatever you're stressing about -- your child won't stop whining... you're way behind on the laundry...the baby nursed "all" night long... you yelled at the kids *again*... etc., etc. -- remember there are two components to every problem:

1. The actual condition

2. Your *belief* that it IS a problem. In other words, you don't *have to* perceive the condition to be wrong or bad.

Would a baby see your mountain of dirty laundry as a problem?

No, because wee ones see the world AS IT IS.They haven't been trained (yet) to pass judgment on Reality, so they don't see the problems we see.

Well, if a baby can do it, you can, too! :-)

Today, try letting go of the idea that conditions"should" be different than they are. Simply accept them..."No problem... It is what it is."But don't confuse acceptance with defeat. You can be accepting and still desire change. And change happens*easily* when you're at peace with What Is."

I chose to just see the laundry as what it is, and tried to not get stressed about it...it's so much more important for me to sit on the floor and play with Play-Doh with my boys than it is to stress about the laundry...

Have a great day, I know I will!

Happy Spring!!

Ahhh...the first day of spring, so very exciting! Leave it to Google to use one of my very favorite children's authors to commemorate this day: Eric Carle

There's something about that little "Hungry Caterpillar" that always makes me think of sunshine, dirt, and growing gardens. If you add that little guy to the seed catalogs

Seeds of Change, Gardner's Supply Company and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

that have been coming, I could daydream for hours about my plans for this year's garden.

My dad and I have already placed our order for tomato and pepper seedlings from The Chile Woman and will be quite busy with canning salsas, pepper jellies, etc. later in the summer. I am hopeful that I will have a large enough crop to keep tomatoes in my pantry throughout next winter and spring...I used my last jar of tomatoes from last year at the end of January, so I am hoping that I am more accurate in my calculations this year.

In preparation for all that I will be harvesting this year (hopefully) I have my eye on this waterbath canner kit on Amazon. I do have a pressure canner already that I love, but to have this canner as well would just make the canning a bit easier and less time consuming.

Enjoy the first day of spring, and I hope that all of you are having a wonderful, sunny day like we are!

It's been too long...

Over the past month we have been busy. Caleb and Logan have hit the tail end of their short-course swimming season. Caleb made the Championship Team and swam 6 events in divisionals and is on the State 200 Medley Relay team. The State competition is this weekend and we are gearing up for that. Colin is swimming like a little fish and I will definitely be less nervous when we are at the pool during the summer.

Our homeschooling is going very well. The boys are plugging along in all of their subjects at a good rate. They really enjoy when we do history because it involves me doing a lot of reading out loud to them and then they get to do activities and map work to help reinforce what they have been learning. Believe it or not, one of Logan's favorite subjects is grammar! Even if I don't assign a lesson that day he wants to do one...crazy kid!

One of the joys of homeschooling is the freedom that we have to go on impromptu trips when Tod has to travel. A few weeks ago we packed up our schoolwork and did it in the van on the way to Chicago. Once we arrived, the boys finished their work in the bar while Tod was working on the lights, and then we headed to the Chicago Legoland Discovery Center. It wasn't quite worth the $$ that we spent on tickets, but the boys did enjoy themselves.

The boys with Hagrid, from Harry Potter. Colin with Darth Vadar, and all 3 with a likeness of President Barack Obama.

Yesterday we had an unusually warm St. Patrick's Day and we took the boys down to the parade. Tod had to be down there to photograph the fire department, their bagpipe players, and the engines that were in the parade. He was also able to get me to actually agree to be in a picture, so here are my little leprechauns and myself at the parade...we were right in front of the grandstand, so it was great for the boys to be able to hear everything.