Avivah Werner

Category: Homemaking

  • Egg cracking fun

    My 13 yo daughter prepared five loaves of sourdough bread yesterday, and left them to rise overnight in the oven.  When I got up I turned on the oven, and they were ready in time for breakfast.  Yum!  These were the best yet!  I told you last time that it didn’t rise long enough and it was too hard, right?  Well, these were perfect (or so everyone else in my family said – I’m – sigh- off of flour again).

    They enjoyed it with fresh raw butter.  I get the butter from the Mennonite farmer I buy my milk from.  He has a sliding door refrigerator in the room where he keeps the day’s milk for sale, along with farm fresh eggs from one neighbor and the butter from another.  My kids love this butter – they could eat it like cheese, it’s so good.  But the neighbor doesn’t make it on a large scale, so I’ve never been able to buy more than four pounds, and usually just one or two pounds.  But we love it when we can get it.

    We had the bread and butter along with warm hard boiled eggs.  My 7 yo daughter offered to peel my eggs for me, so I agreed.  She promptly cracked them against her forehead.  Are you suprised that I allow it?  Well, besides the fact that my husband is the one who showed the kids how to do this, they have fun.   And since I think it’s good to encourage a comfortable and fun home atmosphere, as long as they don’t crack raw eggs like this, it’s fine with me!

    Avivah

  • Easy wallpaper removal

    All of my ideas about how I was going to do a really simple kitchen renovation and do things a bit at a time are flying out the window.  That’s thanks to my enthusiastic children asking, “Can we do this?  What about this?” 

     One of the things that they asked about doing was removing the wallpaper borders in the kitchen.  Eventually I wanted to do it, but for now they will still look fine with the new cabinets, so I didn’t see the point of doing it and having unsightly peeling paint that I would then need to repaint right away.

    But then they pointed out that it would be easier to do it now, before the cabinets are up, and when we realized that the cabinets would cover the bottom inch of the borders, I agreed to let them go wild ripping it off.  Turned out it wasn’t as easy and fun as they expected, since it came off in tiny pieces. When I noticed what was going on, I suggested a way to make it easier that I remembered reading about sometime.  I gave them a spray bottle with water and told them to spray the wallpaper and let it sit for a few minutes.  I love when some isolated bits of info that I have floating around in my brain come in handy!)  They tried it, and were able to easily peel off the wallpaper, which was lots more effective and fun for them.  And the bonus for me is that hardly any paint peeled off and I don’t have to tackle the painting right away!

  • Starting newest home renovation project

    It’s been a while since our latest home improvement project, so I decided to take on something big – the kitchen.  I really need more cabinet space – I can’t keep things looking clean because there isn’t enough space for everything.  And I’m not a person who has doubles of everything, or lots of unnecessary dishes – I really don’t.  I dislike clutter and work to constantly weed out things that aren’t being used that take up space. 

    So while the kitchen was more than adequate from the older couple that we bought the house from, it leaves something to be desired for a family of ten.  But I don’t have a huge budget, and the expense of a total kitchen overhaul can’t be justified just because I need some more cabinets.  So I decided to see if I could find a set of used kitchen cabinets that would meet my needs and fit my budget.

    After keeping an eye out for quite a while, I found exactly what I wanted last week.  That wasn’t so easy because my ideal was to find a set that included a cabinet for a built-in double oven, as well as a number of cabinets that only a large kitchen would have.  The number of cabinets I needed alone eliminated most of the sets I found.  I don’t mind in the least buying something used, but I wanted something in excellent condition that didn’t look dated.  That wasn’t easy, either, since lots of sets look like they’re from a certain time period or are in rough shape. This set not only had a large number of cabinets and the oven cabinet, but included also was the double oven, cooktop, and stainless steel double sink. 

    I went to see the cabinets in person, and they were even better than what I was hoping to find.  They were from a kitchen done ten years ago, installed in the home of a then 87 year old man and his wife.  The kitchen was in perfect condition (you can imagine it didn’t get much vigorous use), so I asked the son, who is now living there, why they were redoing the kitchen.  He told me that his father, who’s now 97, has too much money in his estate and they want to redo it now using his money to lessen the tax burden later on as well as boost the value of the home. The problem was the price – the seller wouldn’t set one.  He told me he would take bids from interested individuals and the highest bidder would win. 

    I was fortunate enough to speak to the secretary the first time I called, who told me he would take the highest bid over x dollars.  So that told me his bottom line.  It was more than I had expected to pay, but I felt it was really worth it.  I told him my offer (of course using the figure that his secretary mentioned), and told him I would take the entire set.  But after seeing how nice they were, I wasn’t hopeful that I would be the highest bidder.  I knew I could easily be outbid but my offer was really the maximum I could pay.

    Well, a day later he called me to tell me he was going to sell the set to me.  It seems that lots of people wanted parts of the set, and he could have made more money selling it off piecemeal.  And others were making real lowball offers.  Initially he was going to wait several days and take all the offers, but then after a day and a lot of phone calles, he decided that since I had already made him a fair offer and would take everything, it was too much of a hassle to keep taking more offers that weren’t suitable. So I was the lucky winner! 

    We plan to pick everything up on Saturday or Sunday night – they were still installed when we saw them and we had to wait until his delivery of new cabinets arrived for his contractor to take everything down.  We went shopping yesterday and picked up the countertops at a building salvage store.  Most of the things they use are from homes that have been remodeled and are the items that are pulled out.  But sometimes they have new items that were overstocks or a contractor will have someone who orders something and the order comes in the wrong size, so he gives it to them.  It’s really a matter of luck since it’s not like they have a consistent inventory. 

    It turns out that this week they put all the countertops on sale for 50% of the listed price (which is already very low).  And then amazingly enough, not only did I find the amount of countertops that I needed, they were brand new and exactly what I was envisioning. Because we had 7 of our kids with us, along with 2 other children who were spending a couple of days with us, we couldn’t take it home in the van as we initially expected.  We ended up having to rent a Uhaul, but even including the truck rental, it was a super price.

    I’m really looking forward to getting started now that we have the countertops.  I also bought a used black cooktop since the one that is included with the set is white and my other appliances are bisque.  I’ll sell the white one when I get it.  Those were the main things that I was missing, so now I just need to get some hardware and miscellaneous supplies and we’ll be ready to get started.  My goal is to have the kitchen finished (except for tiling the backsplash) within five days – that includes replacing all of the cabinets, counters, appliances, and sink.  It’s pretty ambitious since my oldest son (who is more experienced at this stuff and installed the kitchenette with me last year for the basement)  is in school all day and dh isn’t home much.  But dh said he’ll take a day off from work, so though it will be a big push, I think it’s doable.  I like big projects, but I don’t like having things drag out.  I just like to envision it, get it going, and get it done!

    Avivah

  • Holiday coupons for gift giving

    As far as gift giving goes, one thing that we do is give the kids a homemade coupon book as a gift – I mentioned this last year.  This is really popular with our kids.  This year when I created them I looked at my files of what we gave last year to see what was most used.  That helped me to create coupons I was sure would all be well received.  Basically, I use coupons as the gift of our time/personal attention, or for things they like to do but we don’t usually agree to.  I also offered 2 chore replacements for the older kids (out of a booklet of 10).

    One of the coupons we gave our three younger kids (8.5,7,5) is for a sleepover on the pullout couch in the living room with a sibling.  These three children regularly request this, and usually get told ‘no’.  So last night the 5 yo used his coupon for a sleepover and invited his 8.5 year old brother to be his sibling of choice.  (That was after asking his 11 yo sister, who really didn’t want to accept the honor. :))

    The two oldest girls also used a coupon right away, a couple of nights ago.  We have family video night once a month, along with educational videos that relate to what we’re studying.  So one coupon was for each child to watch a video of their choice, by him or herself, with me or dh.  (DVD player is in our room.)  Because they have similar interests in movies, I allowed them to each use ‘half’ a video credit and watch the movie they chose together, and then they can use the other half to watch another movie together.  They chose Ice Princess, which they loved – it’s a G rated Disney movie, but not something I would choose for a family video.  I recently showed them some clips of ice skating footage from past competitions and they enjoyed it very much, and this was an ice skating movie – so, perfect. 

    I really like that they are cashing in their coupons so quickly this year – last year everyone was hoarding them and there was a rush about a month ago when everyone realized the year was almost over and they better use them before they expired.  When I owe money, I like to pay it off immediately, and so this is kind of similar -I owe my kids these things, and I’m happy to ‘pay it off’ as soon as I can. 🙂

    This may sound like a simple or boring gift, but don’t underestimate it – the kids all look forward to this and excitedly go through their coupon books when they get them.  Next year I’m thinking that I will change the way I present the coupons, maybe in a certificate form instead of as a booklet.  But I have plenty of time to think about that!

    Avivah

  • Organizing recipes

    It seems that no matter how busy I stay, there’s always some kind of organizing project waiting around my house to be done!  No sooner did I reorganize all the kids clothes in storage than it was time to reorganize all the coats.  Finished that, and then had a pile of sewing repairs to do.  Did all of those repairs (which is disproportionately rewarding since my kids think I’m the best seamstress in the world even though I just do basic stuff – they say things like, “Wow, this is so perfect, your stitches are so even/tiny!”) and then realized it’s been a while since I organized my recipes.  That’s what I did a bit today, so I thought I’d share the system I use that works well for me. 

     I used to often cut out or copy recipes, stick them aside somewhere and then never think about them again.  Or if I did think about them, could never find them when I wanted them.  I have a recipe box that I regularly added recipes to for years but never used; it just wasn’t efficient.  A couple of years ago I finally thought of a solution, inspired by my son’s baseball card collection, which he impeccably kept in order. 

    I bought a couple of packs of baseball card protectors – they’re clear plastic sheets with nine pockets on each page with prepunched holes for a three ring looseleaf.  Then I bought some unlined index cards and cut them down to fit the pockets. 

    Each plastic sheet is two sided, and I can fit nine recipes on each side of a page.  I copy the recipes onto the index cards, and just slip them into a pocket.  Each page (or more) represents a different category – breakfast foods, quick breads, yeast breads, ground beef, chicken, beans, hot dogs, dairy, etc.  With this system, when I’m planning my weekly menus, I can easily take in a page at a glance using whatever kind of food I want to include, and all of the recipes are ones I’d be happy to use.  If I want to change the order of anything, add a new recipe or get rid of one that no longer works for us, then it’s super easy.

    I use this looseleaf now more regularly than any of my cookbooks, even my most favorite ones.  What I’ve been thinking of doing is going through some cookbooks that I’ve used for years (one is especially in awful shape) and copying the recipes I like into my recipe looseleaf, then getting rid of the cookbook.   That’s a long term project, though, one which I’m not rushing to put onto my list of things to do! 

    Avivah

  • The pantry principle

    I recently shared on a message board some tips for food budgeting (I posted about this here in Feb.), and realized by the feedback there that part of my approach needed to be clarified.  Too often, people will tell me, “Food costs more where I live, I can’t get xyz item at that price here.”   First of all, the point is not to use the items that I use or that my recipes are any more affordable than yours.  Use recipes that utilize foods that are affordable where you live.More important than using economy ingredients is the pantry principle. Many foods are usually pricey, but if you stock up when the prices are right, you can enjoy what most would consider more expensive meals while staying within your budgetary limitations. I use some ingredients that tend to be expensive. But for me, they’re not.  Why?  I don’t shop for ingredients for specific recipes – I shop to fill my pantry.  That means when cheese is on sale, for example, as it was this week, I’ll buy a large amount and put it in the freezer for when I’ll need it.  Peanut butter is on sale, I stock up. Etc, etc, etc.

    If you were to watch me shopping for non perishables, you would notice that though I usually have a full shopping cart, there are only a few different items -thirty of this, twenty of that. I buy alot of whatever is on sale, usually saving an average of 33 – 50% on my bill from what it would be if I just bought the ingredients when I needed them. I try to keep my pantry and freezer filled with staple ingredients that I regularly use.  When it’s time to plan my menu for the week, I think about what I have on hand.  Do I have a lot of pasta, or a lot of potatoes?  Am I running low on canned tomatoes but have a bunch of canned fish?  Did I buy alot of something perishable on sale that needs to be cooked up and put into the freezer right away (this week it was bananas, last week it was cottage cheese)?

    It’s not what you buy that will make the big difference, it’s how you buy!

    Avivah

  • Baked Oatmeal

    Yesterday was a busy morning in and a busy afternoon out, and because I couldn’t exercise earlier in the day, I ended up exercising before bed instead of prepping for this morning’s breakfast.  So this morning I changed around the order of this week’s breakfasts to make something quicker than what was planned.  Schedules are very helpful, but a person shouldn’t be a slave to the schedule – the schedule is just intended to be a tool to help us, not to make us feel guilty!

    While I was in the kitchen, I took some time to prep for a few breakfasts – I ground the flour for the biscuits, washed the potatoes for the farmer’s casserole (will shred them later on today and mix up the rest of ingredients to prepare for baking), and prepared the rice pudding (yum!).  Since today I made baked oatmeal, I thought I would share the recipe with you.  Oatmeal is a great food, but it’s often hard to get kids to eat it.  This is a nice way to prepare it, and my kids enjoy it.

    My recipe makes 2- 9×13 pans (I use one for breakfast and freeze the other to use for another week), so you’ll want to adjust for amounts accordingly:

    Baked Oatmeal

    • 12 c. rolled oats
    • 2 c. brown sugar (I use sucanat)
    • 4 t. salt
    • 2 t. baking powder
    • 4 c. milk
    • 2 c. oil (I used coconut oil)
    • 8 eggs, lightly beaten

    (Optional: soak the oatmeal overnight in 2 c. milk.  Continue next morning, adding in all other ingredients and remaining two cups of milk.)

    Mix all ingredients, bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes until set.

    Also, some of you may have wondered about what seems to be the high carb content of our breakfasts, and a number of items that look like they aren’t so healthy.  Most of them call for eggs and or milk in the recipes, which balances the meal.  The eggs are often (though not always) free range, and the milk is raw.  We use freshly ground whole wheat flour and coconut oil for any shortening/oil that is called for.  Yes, there is still sweetening in some of the baked goods, but I try to minimize the sweeteners and use high quality alternatives when I can.

    Have a great day!

    Avivah

  • Husbands deserve our time, too

    Yesterday I took the kids on a trip to a railroad museum, and the first person I saw when we walked in was a woman I had met several months ago.  At that point, we had spent something like an hour talking, as she has a large family and was beginning homeschooling.  As soon as she saw me, she came over and hugged me, and I ask her how things were going with homeschooling.

    She told me that she’s exhausted, that she’s homeschooling literally from 8 am to 10 pm (for 5 kids plus a toddler) seven days a week.  I suggested that she might have taken on an overly intensive curriculum (it is – I warned her about the strong likelihood for burnout when she told me she wanted to use it) and she might want to consider making some adaptations to take the pressure off herself.  But she reassured me that she loved learning with her kids in this way, and it was just hard because there was familial discord.  I asked what that meant.  It turns out that she and dh are having a hard time getting along, and the night before she told him she wanted him to move out.

    Was this something recent, I was wondering? No, it’s been like that for four years and now she just can’t take it anymore.  He is too negative and needy of her time and she just can’t spend that kind of time with him because all her energy is going into homeschooling the kids.

    I think that too often we as moms get so busy taking care of our homes and children that we forget what position in our lives the relationship with our husbands should be.  There is nothing more important than a strong relationship between husbands and wives, for the two spouses and for the children.  That relationship needs to be the priority, even above our children.  Do you know how secure it makes a child feel to live in a home and know his parents truly love and care for one another?  Especially in today’s climate where so many of his friends’ parents are divorcing, and he doesn’t have to worry that one day he’ll end up split between two homes.

    I’ve heard too many wives make not such joking comments about their husbands being like another child to take care of.  Husbands do have needs, emotional and physical needs.  So do wives – that doesn’t make any of us child-like; it makes us human.  Marriage is about giving to the other person, not about demanding that someone else be what we want them to be and squeeze into a tiny corner of our life and hearts.  Minimizing our husbands because we’ve become caught up in the demands of our busy lives and expecting them to live an emotionally independent life isn’t reasonable.  It’s taking them for granted and being disrespectful and emotionally cruel.  When men expect this of women, we all rush to condemn them in outrage.  But when women complain of husbands who take up ‘too much’ of their time, other women cluck their tongues in sympathy and then go on to share their ‘jokes’ about their own impossibly needy husbands.

    This woman had to leave our conversation rather suddenly before we had a chance to finish because her young child needed the bathroom.  What I wanted to tell her was, don’t make homeschooling your children more important than your husband.  Don’t make him feel like he doesn’t matter in his own home.  Yes, the reasons she chose to homeschool her children are important – I love homeschooling and am passionate about the many benefits, but even providing your children with those benefits doesn’t justify letting your marital relationship break down for lack of nurturing.

    Avivah

  • Grain infestation

    I recently bought some rice from a major supermarket that was infested with larvae.  How did I find this out?  Because I made a huge double recipe of stew using it, and saw something that looked like tiny worms in it when I stirred it.  Yuck, disgusting!  And really frustrating, to spend so much time and money making a really nice dish and have to throw it all away. 

    But the frustration didn’t end there.  I had several other bags of rice that I bought at the same time, and since they were all sealed in their individual bags, I wasn’t worried about the infestation spreading.  I thought even if more than one bag was infested, I would check each bag before I used it and just throw it away if I saw any signs of anything; then there wouldn’t be a problem.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know that the larvae can eat through plastic after they hatch into moths.  🙁  Two days ago I was dismayed to find several small white moths inside the cupboard downstairs (where all of this stuff was stored) – and discovered that everything in the cabinets was infested.  Even food items in an entirely different cabinet.  Crackers, boxes of oatmeal and grits, beans, lentils, grains – all needed to be thrown away.

    If I had known the warning signs, I would have realized this rice was a problem while I was still in the store.  But I didn’t.  So I’m sharing this with you in case you have this situation and you won’t have to go through what I did.  I noticed a very tiny amount of webbing on the shelf underneath the rice, so I didn’t take the rice that was directly on top of it.  Now I now that once there’s a sign of infestation, you have to stay away from anything that’s been near it. 

     Yesterday I went to the supermarket where I bought the rice, to return what I got from there.  I planned to replace what I returned with new stock from the store.  When I went to the section where the rice and beans were stocked, I checked each individual bag – here’s what I looked for: webbing on the inside or outside of a bag, larvae pieces on the outside of the bags, tiny holes in the plastic.  I found most of the bags I looked at had tiny chew holes, so I decided not to frequent this supermarket for a while until their stock has been entirely replaced.  Checking the bags is pretty quick, and will save you from having to throw away lots of food once these insects get into it.  I also decided that I’ll freeze the grains overnight after buying them so that if anything is in it, it won’t be able to spread. 

    I hope you won’t need this information any time soon!:)

    Avivah

  • Labor Day activities

    We had a nice full day yesterday.  We started off by starting to finish off organizing all the boxes of clothes, but then needed to leave to a community fix up day.  We were there for several hours (not dh and ds14), and got a lot done.  Well, I didn’t do much except watch ds17 months while the kids worked.  I feel that volunteering is an important thing for the kids to participate in, to see how they can help others with their time and energy.  They are able to realize that they can help make a difference even if they are kids!  Not that many people showed up, maybe because it was Labor Day.  One of the organizers came over to ask if he could give the older girls a brand new stereo he had forgotten was there in the storage area they were clearing out, so I said it was fine.  I didn’t realize that he really meant a stereo system!  (Apparently he bought a load of 50 at an auction, sold a bunch, bartered a bunch more for a vehicle, and forgot that he had stored three more away.)  It is really nice, but really big!  So they ended up setting it up in the basement instead of their room, where everyone can enjoy it.

    Straight from there I took ds to a dentist appt – his dentist was very generous in offering to stay late so he could see ds, since he knew that I made the appt seven weeks ago but then got the school calendar and found out they would be having school at the time of the scheduled appt.  The entire building where the dentist was located was locked, but we found an unlocked stairwell and went up.  There was just one problem – I couldn’t remember what floor the dentist was on, so at each floor, we walked around to see if he was there, then went back up the next flight of stairs.  He was on the fifth floor – I was finding it kind of amusing picturing myself going up all these stairs (while having lots of strong Braxton Hicks), as fast as I could (which isn’t very fast at this point 🙂 because I didn’t want to be late. 

    Right after the dentist, ds and I went to the memorial service for a friend’s 20 year old daughter, who was tragically killed in a car accident.  She was a very special young lady, who left an unusually large amount of good memories behind for someone that age (or even someone 20 years older). 

     Once I got home, I wanted to get back to the job of organizing all those clothes boxes we started on earlier, but got sidetracked when we went to set up the new stereo in the basement.  When I got down there, I saw it needed some major reorganizing, so we got to work to get that done.  I was pretty wiped out by dinner time!

    I was joking to ds14 that it would be a good day to give birth, due to the name of the day, but that didn’t happen.  🙂   I actually expected that it would, due to some signs and strong feelings about it, but those feelings shifted to anxiety when I found out my midwife was an hour and a half away and wouldn’t be back until 8 am.  And since dh had to leave for work at 6 am, it didn’t seem like a good time. 🙂  People don’t realize what a major part emotions play in giving birth or going into labor.  A woman who feels emotionally ready will let go and labor can progress, but many times labor will stall or stop entirely when something happens to interrupt her feeling of security.

     As for those boxes of clothes – that became today’s job!  We have a few boxes left that were in the room where our toddler was sleeping that we didn’t yet get to, but otherwise, all the others in the house have been moved to the attic.  So hopefully I can get it all finished up today.  Though there’s always more to get done, this is a big project that I will be glad to know is finished, and will give everyone more space in their rooms, while making it easier for everyone to find/put away clothes that they are growing into or out of.

     Avivah