3/1/10 Kitchen Tips, Bisque, Websites, Natural Diaper Wipes, Fun, Poor Me, Parenting, Blogs
Posted by: jhbreneman <jhbreneman@...>
ENCOURAGEMENT TO WOMEN
Compiled especially for you with love by Lois Breneman
3/1/10 Kitchen Tips, Bisque, Websites, Natural Diaper Wipes, Fun, Poor Me, Parenting, Blogs
The purpose of the Heart to Heart Newsletter is to encourage women and build biblical values into daily living through practical creative ideas for the Christian family regarding marriage, children, homemaking, and much more. Receive this free bimonthly newsletter by sending your name, city, state, e-mail address, and name of your referral person to Lois at jhbreneman@juno.com. New subscribers will receive a "Start-Up Kit."
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Brush beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.
http://www.eatingwell.com - 5 servings, about 1 1/2 cup each - Total Time: 30 minutes
- 2 large sweet potatoes (10-12 ounces each)
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 small yellow onion, chopped
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- 3 cups reduced-sodium tomato-vegetable juice blend or tomato juice
- 1 4-ounce can diced green chiles, preferably hot, drained
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 15-ounce can vegetable broth
- 1/2 cup smooth natural peanut butter
- Freshly ground pepper to taste
- Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish
- Prick sweet potatoes in several places with a fork. Microwave on High until just cooked through, 7 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile, heat oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until it just begins to brown, 2 to 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute more. Stir in juice, green chiles, ginger and allspice. Adjust the heat so the mixture boils gently; cook for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and chop into bite-size pieces. Add half to the pot. Place the other half in a food processor or blender along with broth and peanut butter. Puree until completely smooth. Add the puree to the pot and stir well to combine. Thin the bisque with water, if desired. Season with pepper. Heat until hot. Garnish with cilantro, if desired.
Playdoh Shamrocks ~ Using a recipe for homemade playdoh, mix up a green batch. Use a small heart-shaped cutter to cut hearts and form three of them into shamrocks, rolling a stem to add to the bottom. Display on white cardstock.
TIPS AND TIDBITS
Transforming Flat Sheets into Fitted Sheets ~ Being a missionary I learned from a national how to use flat sheets without any difficulty. You "knot" the corners and then just slip them over the corners of the bed. They actually stay on better than most of my fitted sheets that have the elastic worn out! By the way we've come a long way here in the almost 20 years I've lived here, and we do have fitted sheets now also. ~ Robyn Armajo in Chile
No Greater Joy Magazine - Training Up Children in the Way They Should Go ~ Just wanted to share this wonderful website with you all! I hope it encourages your hearts as it does mine! http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/magazine/ ~ Lisa Campus Rowe in South Carolina
Top 8 Food Allergy Threats for Your Toddler ~ The Baby Center Toddler Bulletin reports that about 1 in 16 children has a food allergy. http://www.babycenter.com
8 foods your toddler could be allergic to --- milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g., almonds, walnuts, pecans), soybeans, wheat, fish, shellfish (e.g. crab, lobster, shrimp)
How to spot an allergic reaction & what to do
Watch for this surprising symptom
Poll: Does your child have food allergies?
POOR ME STORY
by Annetta Elgie in Arkansas
This morning I went to laundromat to wash my kitchen rugs. Good! Came home and was too lazy to make two trips, so I carried in the rugs, purse, pop, and liquid soap all at once. Not good! I got in front door ... accidentally dropped soap ... the cap broke to pieces when it fell, and liquid laundry detergent poured everywhere in the entry! UGH! I saved the soap by using hand towels and bath towels to sop it up, and now I am washing all the towels I could find to "save" the used soap. Go figure. But I did get a very clean floor, so not all was lost!
If I would just slow down and do the "right" thing, I wouldn't have had to make a bigger mess for myself. What was really funny (glad no one was here to see it) was that the liquid soap was in a big puddle on the tile floor, so I thought, "How am I going to save this? I don't want to waste this precious soap!" So I went and got a dust pan and a little scraper to scrape it all up and put back in the bottle. Well, while doing this, the puddle expanded! I dribbled liquid soap all over the outside of the container and in more places on the floor, so I had to go to "Plan B," which was to get a washcloth and bowl, wipe up the soap and wring out the cloth. That didn't work too well, since the washcloth got too gooey, so then "Plan C" was to use dampend dish towels and hand towels to wipe it up. I had to wipe it up about four times to remove all the soap, and then I had to keep washing with new towels to clean up the leftover soap! It was a HUGE mess, but I've learned my lesson: "Haste makes waste!"
POOR ME STORY # 2
by Lois
I told Annetta that if she would share her "Poor Me Story" with you all, I'd share our ordeal from the past two weeks of losing our hot water and heat - not once, but twice. Two days after we got home from my husband's retirement trip, we went to bed in a cold house, although the problem was seemingly fixed the next day for a very hefty fee. We also smelled a burnt odor around the hot water heater after the job was done - not good! That didn't sound right to my husband and he asked the repairman about that (no reply), but since the odor went away, we relaxed. Less than a week later though, the hot water heater quit for the second time! It's a high efficiency water heater that works in connection with our furnace and saves us a lot on gas bills - the reason for no heat.
While John went about solving the mechanical problem, I brought our water distiller upstairs, to help heat our kitchen as it distilled water. I turned on our small space heater, heated water in two large pots on the stove as well as the teapot, turned on the oven and left the oven door ajar, pulled the blinds, hung quilts in the doorways to the kitchen and family room to keep the heat contained, and we kept dressed warmly. I washed and rinsed all the dishes from the dishwasher full of dirty dishes and let them air dry. We decided not to use our fireplace, because of allergies, and besides that, John would have had to climb up on the roof to uncover the flue. With wind gusts as high as 60 mph, we ruled that out!
So on the first day of the second breakdown, my husband made calls for hours, and ran all over town and several other towns nearby in search of help to order another water heater like ours, that served us well for about twenty years. The company was sold, so it took a while to find out all the details. He learned that a new hot water heater could be here on Monday, but it would probably be Tuesday until it could be installed. In the meantime, we were having temperatures in the twenties and as high as 30 degrees, but we settled in with the thought of just making the best of it to keep warm - sort of like camping out!
I kept telling myself, "This is kind of like an adventure, and we do still have electricity." So that evening I washed my hair in the kitchen sink, using some of the water simmering on the stove. In the morning it was only 60 degrees everywhere in the house - quite chilly! We had our space heater on in the bedroom the night before, but I couldn't sleep with the bright orange glow in the room, so I turned it off. Besides it was plenty warm in bed with all those blankets. In the morning a good friend brought her two space heaters over for us to use, which really helped!
Well, this is getting too long and drawn out, so I'll tell you the bottom line! After two days of having a rather chilly house, John made another phone call, and the owner of this company himself came out to fix the water heater. He said the man last week put in a faulty replacement part and crossed the wires - the reason for the burnt odor. We are grateful that it's nice and warm in our home once again! Little things in life like hot water and heat make such a big difference, and I'm a more thankful person this week - not taking as much for granted!
THE LITTLE THINGS
Author unknown - Thanks to Julie Karsten in Washington who sent this!
As you might remember, the head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten.
Another fellow was alive because it was his turn to bring donuts.
One woman was late because her alarm clock didn't go off in time.
One was late because of being stuck on the NJ Turnpike Because of an auto accident.
One of them missed his bus.
One spilled food on her clothes and had to take time to change.
One's car wouldn't start.
One couldn't get a taxi.
The one that struck me was the man who put on a new pair of shoes that morning, took the various means to get to work , but before he got there, he developed a blister on his foot. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a Band-Aid. That is why he's alive today.
Now when I am stuck in traffic, miss an elevator, turn back to answer a ringing telephone... all the little things that annoy me, I think to myself, "This is exactly where God wants me to be at this very moment." The next time your morning seems to be going wrong - the children are slow getting dressed, you can't seem to find the car keys, you hit every traffic light, don't get mad or frustrated. It may just be that God is watching over you.
PARENTING TIP
Understanding Attitudes and How to Change Them
This parenting tip comes from the book Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character in You and Your Kids by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN,BSN. http://www.biblicalparenting.org - Used by permission
"Attitude" is a shorthand term used to summarize many different feelings, thoughts, and behaviors all at the same time. Various triggers provoke attitudes and simply hearing a word or seeing a signal can change a person's perspective. All Mom has to do is say Derek?! with that certain voice, for instance, and Derek knows she is going to ask him to do something. He responds with a disgusted groan.
Victoria gets to school and sees a pink slip taped to her locker again. She doesn't even read it but rolls her eyes and moans, knowing that it's a call to the office. Triggers like these quickly move people into attitudes that in part determine how they’ll respond to a situation.
Attitudes actually have three components: behavior, emotion, and beliefs. Each of these components can be useful in the change process. The behavior is the flag that tells you there’s a problem. Emotion adds energy to the situation and helps to determine when’s the best time to address the issue, and the beliefs tell you what needs to be addressed on a heart level.
Many parents only focus on the first component, behavior, telling kids to "stop pouting," or "Don't roll your eyes at me." Furthermore, these parents tend to focus only on what not to do instead of what the child should do. It usually isn't helpful just to tell a child to "Stop having a bad attitude" without giving more guidance for developing a better response.
Remember that the goal of discipline is not just to make your children less annoying. As you correct your children for bad attitudes, you are preparing them for the future. After all, they will experience similar situations continually throughout their lives.
Look for ways to help your children think differently. Listening carefully to your child can help you identify thinking errors that lead to a bad attitude. What hidden belief might Jeremy, age ten, have? He complains and argues when you ask him to do the dishes? Maybe he believes, "Chores are an interruption to my life and not my responsibility." If pressed, he may also reveal a belief, "All work is hard and unpleasant, and I must try to avoid it." A positive attitude about work comes from several new values such as "Work is necessary in order to brings benefits to me and to others" and "My contribution to family life is a statement of gratefulness for what I have."
Changing attitudes requires exposure to new ways of thinking. You can provoke your children to more healthy attitudes through dialogue, modeling, and correction. But remember, heart change takes time. We can change behavior quickly, but heart change goes deeper and lasts longer.
Have you discovered ways to adjust attitudes in your children, or even in yourself? Share what works for you. Click here.
MOMENTS FOR MOM
Ó Elisabeth K. Corcoran, 2010 - Used by permission
I recently read about triangles in relationships. That sometimes, especially in the family dynamic, there are triangles. Meaning, there is a third person in a relationship that has either inserted herself unnecessarily or has been dragged in due to some kind of dysfunction. Talk about a light bulb moment.
I realized that I am the third person in my daughter’s relationship with her father, in my son’s relationship with his father, and my kids’ relationship with each other. Now, as kids grow up, of course, we are the referees. A lot. But my kids are 11 and 13 and I am tired. Just last week I heard my daughter calling downstairs with this complaint…”Mom, Jack touched my vitamin…” to which I’m thinking, but not saying outloud, “so what?!”.
But this whole triangle thing has gotten me thinking. The author basically said that every adult is one hundred percent responsible for the health (or decline) of every relationship in their lives. Though Sara and Jack still need coaching from time to time on respect and conflict resolution, they will eventually be in charge of whether or not the two of them are friends as they move into adulthood. I can create an environment of kindness but I cannot manufacture anything right now that will guarantee their level of closeness in the future. If they choose to be close, that’ll be up to them. And that’s actually quite a relief if you think about it.
And as far as my kids and my husband go…well, it’s easy for me as the more laid-back parent of the two to side with my kids every once in awhile on their dad’s choice of consequence or tone, etc., but I realized it’s not doing any of them any good when I intervene (for the most part…let me say that there may be extreme circumstances when completely letting go isn’t appropriate). But when Kevin stands before God, he’s going to have to account for what he did and didn’t do about his relationships with his son and his daughter, and conversely, I need to get my hands out their relationships because I’ve got enough work to do to make sure my relationship with each one of them is as healthy as it can be.
But back to my kids for a minute. So, I shared this whole triangle concept with them. We began by reading some verses in Psalm 139 so I could remind them that we are all equally created by God. Then we moved to I John where it talked about our call to love each other. We talked about some simple conflict resolution ideas to do in the heat of the moment (take a deep breath, ask Jesus for help, walk away if you have to, etc.) and then I told them that I’m going to be really working on taking myself out of their triangles (even little comments that I make…if it doesn’t have to do anything with me, I’m going to work on staying out of it)…that they really need to try to fix whatever is going on with the person they have the problem with first before coming to me, but that I’ll always be a safe place for them.
Frankly, I wasn’t sure if they were getting it at all. But the next day, I walked in on the tail end of a small argument between Sara and Jack. Jack began reenacting it for me…then Sara did this…and I said, “So, what are you going to do about it?” I said this as an attempt to put it back in his court but he thought I was intervening and he responded, respectfully, “Hey, get out of our triangle!” I laughed until a tear rolled down my cheek…not only had he listened…he actually got it.
So, moms, let’s get out of some of our relational triangles. It’ll be difficult, I know. Especially for those of us who are control freaks, me included. But it will free you up mentally and emotionally to deal with your own responsibilities and your own relationships…just like you should be.
PRECIOUS GEMS
I love all of these precious gems from your precious little ones! Thanks for your permission to include them!
I woke up this morning to my kids perched on the end of my bed cheerfully yelling: "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOO!!!" 🙂 They thought it was hilarious... and it was! ~ Tiffany Bowles in Colorado
Owen (age 3 1/2) told mom, Rebecca, that he wanted two brothers.. So, she asked him if he thought they should get them from another place, instead of from mommy's tummy (adopt) and he looked up at her with a confused face and said "Well Mommy, we would get them from God, of course." ~ Barb Campbell in Mississippi
While homeschooling, we were in the middle of doing math and I asked Joshua, 9, a question. Gracie, 7, started to
answer for him and I told her that Joshua can answer for himself. He said, "Gracie, I'm not Moses and you're not his brother so I don't need you speaking for me." ~ Penny Yonts in Virginia
Elise, our five year old (who can't read yet), loves to lay on the couch with her big sister Laura and "read" chapter books. A couple days ago she was lying there, turning pages every few seconds, and started laughing out loud and said, "This part is SO funny!" ~ Tracy Coupe in Ecuador
After helping a lady at the grocery store Joshua says to me, "Mama, you sure do make a difference in people's lives and in the world." At a time when I think my insecurities have rendered me useless, God graciously whispers through my son that He delights in me. ~ Penny Yonts in Virginia
From Becca in India ~ Dear Sister Lois, Greetings in the precious name of Jesus! Hope you are doing well! I want to say again, "I really enjoy your updates!" It is a refreshing time to be able to read the stories you have put together! Just a short time ago, our young 31/2 year old Judson was supposed to be going to sleep. He wanted to sleep in the bed with Mommy and daddy but we told him, No!" and that he needed to sleep on the floor! As he was lying there very heartbroken, he had a question... "Daddy, why do you always like mommy?" We thought it was so cute and I was so proud because he could see that my dear husband really loves me and shows it so the kids see it! My husband was born in India and then later came to America to go to Bible School. We met in the states and then we felt called to India to work among the unreached people here close to where my husband grew up! We have been here since 1998. The Lord has blessed us in many ways and it is so exciting to see His hand at work! Thanks so much for your updates that encourage me as I do not get a lot of magazines and so on! Blessings to you!
SHARING PERSONAL BLOGS
Ladies, if any of you would like to share the link to your personal blog with me, please do. I have found the few that I visit from time to time to be delightful and honoring to the Lord. Also please let me know if I may share your blog with the Heart to Heart ladies. I won't share, of course, unless you say I may.
BABY ANNOUNCEMENT
Ladies, please let me know if you have a baby announcement you would like to see included in Heart to Heart.
Kenneth Scott Mast was welcomed into the world on January 22, 2010 by his parents, Tim and Karen Mast, along with his six siblings, Kevin, Douglas, Brandyn, Melissa, Kristina and Rebekah! The family lives in Maryland.
EASTER
As we look forward to celebrating the resurrection of Jesus on April 4th, you will receive one or two newsletters later this month containing lots of inspiration and ideas on Easter.
so please remember to pray for each Heart to Heart lady as you receive your newsletter.
Disclaimer: Various web sites are given as credits or to supply additional information for readers. However, all the views and advertisements represented by web sites given in this newsletter are not necessarily the views of the editor. Please use your own discretion regarding all information given in this newsletter.
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