A Refuge from Anger

I've been really struggling with something, and I'm going to be straight up honest.

I have a big problem with anger.

I'm a screamer.

In the heat of the moment I'm totally justified; they've been "cleaning their room" for two hours, the table still hasn't been wiped off, I've asked four times for the hair stuff to be picked up off the bathroom floor, and countless other issues that have come up. In the moment, me screaming and yelling is perfectly logical and completely justified.

Afterward, however, I feel like a total monster. I'm mad that I was "made" to yell, I'm mad that I believed the lie that I couldn't control it, and I'm sad that my children are now crying and defeated instead of encouraged and trained.

And then, even later, I get mad when they start yelling at each other for little mishaps that in my mind seem little and silly but to them are just as huge as dishes put away incorrectly AGAIN is to me. Because it's not the actual act that triggers me, it's the fact that I am not taken seriously.

Today in church a statement was made that really hit me between the eyes. A couple sang a song from Patch the Pirate called "Lord Bless Our Home" and in the song it mentions their house being a refuge from the world. When I'm screaming or yelling, is my house a refuge? I thought of this verse,

Proverbs 29:1 "[It is] better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house."

Then that made me think of my own childhood. My friends always wanted to come to my house. My house was fun. My mom was a good cook. My house was cool! I loved being at my house! My mom would make nachos to eat while watching sports, my dad would tell corny jokes, and we were allowed to be loud and play (within reason). Even as a teenager I loved being at home, and my friends always wanted to come to our house. My mom once said she wanted her home to be the "hang out spot" because she didn't want her teenagers to be hanging out somewhere else. It was comforting to her to know where we were and what we were doing. And honestly, if a friend didn't like my mom, I didn't like that friend.

That made me think of something else (I did a lot of thinking today). Every Sunday as soon as my children come out of Junior Church they barrage me with questions of "Can she come over?" "Can I go to her house?" and it's very overwhelming. I haven't quite figured out how I want to handle all of that, so I usually just say no.

This morning I was a raging, screaming beast. I was tired, overwhelmed from a looooooong and exhausting week, and I stepped on a piece of breakfast casserole that was smooshy and really, really disgusting. I lost it. And I barely regained it before we got to church. This time when I got my children from Junior Church, they all wanted to go to someone else's house. That made me really sad. One of my daughters even said, "I don't care if I go to her house or her house, I just don't want to go to our house!" How heartbreaking is that?

So I'm going to try to make a drastic change in my life. I am going to try to make our house a refuge. Somewhere that my children want to be. And the first step to that is controlling my anger. Stop listening to the lie that they deserve it, or that they're making me angry, or that it's justified. It's not okay, it's not their fault, and it's not justified. It's sin. And it could potentially destroy my family.

Proverbs 31:26 "She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue [is] the law of kindness.
Pro 31:27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Pro 31:28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband [also], and he praiseth her.

Gluten-Free Bread in the Bread Maker

If you've ever had to buy gluten free bread from the store you know it's either one of two things, but usually both: expensive and heavy. In fact, one gluten free loaf of bread usually weighs approximately the same as 3 loaves of regular bread, and half the size. Sometimes I can find a sale on Udi's bread, which is my favorite brand. But usually it's $5 for a small loaf. We have drastically reduced the amount of bread we eat since becoming gluten free although we buy a few loaves every other week.

Today I found a recipe for gluten free bread in the bread maker and since I recently unpacked my bread maker, I decided to try it out! I got the recipe from Gluten Free Goddess. I'm

We are sampling the results right now and the overall consensus is: YUM!!! It's a small loaf, and it doesn't have the dome rise on the top that you get with regular bread, but the bread is moist, soft, and has a great flavor! I am very happy. I'm not sure about the cost comparison since gluten free flour is so expensive, but it will nice to make this on a Sunday when coming home from church to fresh baked bread is probably one of the greatest things in life.

I'm so glad I was told about this recipe, and I'm so glad it came out well!! We'll definitely do it again.

**The only change I made was I used garbanzo bean flour instead of the millet or oat flour**




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I decided to cut the bread and freeze it because we didn't need it that day. Today we defrosted it and used it for toast for breakfast. It was very crumbly, so we had toast pieces! I would not recommend freezing this unless you're going to use it for stuffing or something like that. Next time I will make it the day we need it. I also would not recommend keeping it in the fridge for more than one day as Gluten Free bread gets moldy and hard very quickly.

BBQ Chicken Pizza with a Cauliflower Crust

This was something completely new for us. It was a lot of work, but everything was really simple. I got the idea from this website.

We had problems getting the cauliflower to blend, but after we added some water it worked fine. Then we had to use a pillowcase to get the water out of the cauliflower, but we had fun with it.

This is the cauliflower, cheese, eggs, and seasonings in the pan. I doubled the recipe.

While the chicken and the crust were baking (in separate pans) we made barbecue sauce. Next time I want to substitute something else for the brown sugar; we all agreed it was way too sweet.


Next we put our homemade BBQ sauce on the finished crust, then chicken, then drizzled a little more sauce, then cheese, and mixed some onion in with the cheese.

We baked it for 10 more minutes.

Here is the finished product! It was really good, although not everyone enjoyed it. One said the BBQ sauce was too strong; others said the crust was bitter and gross; the youngest just wanted chips.

It was really sloppy, probably because I baked it in a pie tin instead of trying to make it a crust like real pizza. I really enjoyed it! Next I want to add more veggies to it like spinach and zucchini, and maybe carrots.

It was gone quickly! (the brown on the bottom is from the hotpad underneath)

Chocolate Milk Mix

In my quest to change our diet to a little bit healthier, I ran across a chocolate milk mix recipe. It still has a ton of sugar, but it's a step up from the Nesquik (or comparable brands) that have chemicals, preservatives, and other nonsense mixed in.

The recipe that I used is:

1 1/2 C Powdered sugar (see what I mean?)
1/2 C dark cocoa powder

I made sure that each of those were singular ingredients, and just mixed it up with a fork.

The results were mixed. The kids said it has a good flavor, but it didn't mix very well at all. It made a weird, foamy dome at the top of the cup. They had to use a tiny whisk to get it mixed up. It was fine in the sippy cups because I could just shake it up really well, but in regular cups it didn't work so well. When this batch is gone I want to find a sugar that will mix better and isn't refined sugar.

Gluten Free is Pain Free!

I posted a month or so ago about our new GF diet plan. It's going well so far and it hasn't taken a whole lot of adjustment. Since we're living with my in-laws who also eat gluten free, I've had a lot of help knowing what to buy, and where to buy it! I've made quite a few dumb purchases and I unknowingly let an amazing deal slip through my fingers, but you live and learn, right?

Since we're now gluten free that eliminated pretty much all of my standard lunch meals. Since I home-school three grades plus have two more that are not schooled yet, by lunch-time I don't have a lot of brain power left over for meal ideas. Also, I have some picky eaters who would eat mac and cheese and hotdogs for the rest of their life is they were allowed to. So it has been more trial and error in finding things that they will eat that will fit our new diet.

The first thing I've learned is that gluten free mac and cheese with real cheese sauce is not only very tasty, but doesn't take much longer than the box stuff. And I feel a lot better feeding it to my children! I've also learned that you cook rice noodles like you cook rice; boil the water, put the noodles in, turn off the heat and let them soak. I'm glad I found that trick because we were getting tired of soggy, mushy noodles!

Also, I've found out that kids aren't as picky as you think they might be when you tell them "This is lunch, you eat it, or you don't eat until dinner." After one or two times of that they will eat just about anything. These are some meals we've tried:

Tuna or grilled cheese on gluten-free bread (Udi's is the best we've tried so far)

Beanie weanies with carrots

Gluten free mac and cheese

Gluten free chicken nuggets (pricey but good for every once in a while when you need fast and easy)
-I tried to make my own gluten free nuggets but that was a disaster.

Quinoa Pizza Bites

Stroganoff with gluten free noodles

Quesadillas with corn tortillas

Cheesy rice and broccoli (this was a huge hit!)

Sausage and Potato Hash

Chili Fries

Chili Mac and Cheese (I just added Rotel to mac and cheese)

I'm sure most of these seem pretty normal to most people but for someone that is literally stepping outside the box, this was way out of my lunch comfort zone! I'm pretty proud of myself, and I've found that if I know I'm going to need to spend 20 minutes preparing lunch, it's not so daunting when I actually do. Especially when I know that I'm feeding my children healthy meals and not junk.

This lunch adventure has also made me more creative with breakfast meals, and I've stepped beyond eggs and bacon, cereal, and oatmeal. We've had yogurt, granola, and fruit; apple pancake bake with gluten free pancake mix; sausage and egg quiche; and when I'm done making this blog post I'm going to attempt gluten free zucchini bread for tomorrow.

We have not figured out how to eat gluten free when we're out and still satisfy the kids. It's really hard to resist my two year old saying "Kickin Nuggets and fwench fwies"! But that is my next step in this diet process. We do like Taco Mayo because they have corn tortillas and chips. I also found a website that lists restaurants that have GF menus, so I just need to remember to print it out and keep it in the car!

So far I am pleasantly surprised at how easy it has been to switch to gluten free and it hasn't raised our grocery bill too much because our focus is to move away from gluten, not replace it. So while we still eat gluten free bread, we don't eat nearly as much as we did regular bread. And we still eat noodles, but only sparingly.

Now on to the next diet change, no sugar!!

Must Have Items for 2012

I just found this is my draft folder! I guess 2012 was a slow year for new products. But enjoy anyway!

1. Shark Steam Mop


I've wanted one of these for a long time, but in the trailer it was just easier to mop with a wet cloth. When we moved here there was a Swiffer Wet Mop and I used that for a while, but to get the kitchen, dining room, and hallway area clean I had to use as many as four cloths! And when they're a few dollars for 24 cloths, that gets expensive fast. The steam mop we got was $60 and it came with 2 washable pads. I can reach my entire dining room and kitchen area without having to plug in somewhere else, and I don't have to change the pads in between. I can also mop the whole area without having to refill the water reservoir.

2. Crystal Light Pure water flavors



We don't use anything with artificial food coloring, so usually these water flavors are unusable to us, but in a clearance cart at the grocery store we found boxes of these water flavor packets that don't have food coloring! They also don't have artificial sweeteners that cause health problems. They taste good, and I can let the kids use one without worrying about the side effects.

Elsa's New Language

I wanted to write down funny ways that Elsa says words. She just turned two and she puts up a very good effort to say a lot of words! I'll probably add to this as I think of them.

Vitamin: bimey
Awesome: dawshum
Sweet Tea: Tee Tee
Kayla: Kaya
Lela: Weeya
Baby: Bubby
Sunshine: ShunShwine
Yep: Jep

That's all for now, I'll add more later.

Kids grow up way too fast!