With a freeze advisory, I decided I’d better get the girls’ beds dressed in flannel. Dh sleeps too hot for flannel. We’ve joked that I should sew a half-n-half sheet: a flannel half for me, cotton for him. I’m just thankful he doesn’t mind my frozen self snugged up tight to him! I don’t know how he radiates heat like he does…

Anyway, the warmth problem will be moot once we give in to winter’s arrival and crank up our new yard ornament.

Our main source of heat is the Woodmaster Corn Stove we invested in last January. Alternative heat is the up and coming trend with gas and electric prices so high. Our stove is 20 feet outside of our house, and a monstrous silver 300 bushel grain bin sits by its side to auger corn into the stove as needed. Sure beats chopping wood and carting it through the house to the wood stove insert we have in our fireplace! I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am to keep all that mess outside! We’ll still use our fireplace sometimes, but it won’t be the necessity it’s been in the past!

Our house is fifty-six years old, and has adorable resinors under each window–flush with the wall. The original heat was “hot-water heat”…hot water circulated through all the pipes and did a great job heating the house…till our boiler gave out. The corn stove utilizes the same concept…the corn burns (hardly any ash build-up), heats the huge outside boiler and sends the hot water underground into our basement and then up through the pipes in the house. The main pipe from outside just happens to run under our bathroom floor…making it sooo warm and toasty!

Here are some figures for those that want to know…we buy our corn from the nearest farmer–a friend–who sells it to us for $1.50-1.80/bushel. Filling our grain bin this time around cost us $430. If we start using it in November, it should last us till February or March…longer if the temps don’t get too frigid. We only put 200 bushels in last January and had leftovers in April when the weather warmed. Our electric bill one extremely cold month prior to owning the corn stove was $300. About $200 of that for heat. As you can see, big savings.

Anticipating the warmth is making me feel better as I sit here in our 60 degree living room! It would be colder in here if we didn’t have our two kerosene space heaters taking the edge off.

What are you doing to get ready for winter? (and if it’s not fall where you are, go ahead and rub it in why don’t you!?)

We’re having crockpot Chicken Fetticine tonight and it’s one of those unbelievably easy and tasty meals so I thought I’d post it here for you. My friend Jana shared it with me years ago and it remains a family favorite to this day!

Chicken Fetticine

• 4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts–thawed
• 1 package Italian dressing seasoning
• 6 oz cream cheese
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 small can mushroom pieces (optional)
• 1 (12 oz) package fetticine noodles (we like the spinach enriched ones…fetticine florentine)

Place chicken and Italian seasonings ONLY in the crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Add rest of ingredients except fetticine noodles, and cook for another half hour. Meanwhile, boil noodles according to package instructions. Serve over cooked noodles, or mix all together!

This makes enough for a family of 5 with leftovers, and it’ll stick to your ribs!

Something beautiful happened yesterday. After a frustration filled morning on the part of both me and toddler, I decided that an afternoon of peace was much-needed.

As soon as she woke up from her nap, we headed outside. Weather-perfect, the day welcomed our frazzled spirits. Toddler puttered happily in and out of the sandbox, on the swings, hopped on the trampoline…and my 8 and 6 yo had a great time “doing school” outdoors. We just pulled our lawn chairs up close to the sandbox and went to work. No mad runs to the bathroom, no puddles on the floor to clean up…deep breaths of fresh country air cleansing away the stress. Thank you to all who contributed to this by praying for us!

I’d been so harried all morning, between rushing toddler to the toilet and trying to teach “spelling rules” and “math”…and I realized at one point that getting frustrated with my “constant interrupter” (toddler) wasn’t in step with my desire to raise my older girls to value their little sister. After all, she is way more important than multi-letter phonograms and practicing higher addition!
In this world that views children as burdensome, my job of raising them becomes of paramount importance. Yes, at times it’s hard, but it’s never burdensome.

Sometimes you have to stop the frantic-ness and enjoy the gifts God gave you. Children are a good place to start.

Last year within my small homeschooling circle I taught the attending children a weekly Bible verse. To teach the verse, I used ideas from a Bible memory book for kids, called Hide God’s Word In Young Hearts by Joan Dower Kosmachuk. It’s an old book published in the early 90’s…a relic from my Kid’s Club days, what a gem though.

Here are activities that we did:

• Print the verse on poster board, then print its opposite right next to it. Example: the opposite of John 14:15 is, “If you love yourself, you will do whatever you want.” This is an eye-opener to kids, as they see how their actions/attitudes sometimes easily contradict God’s word
• Use puppets to teach the verse. (My girls love making sock puppets with yarn for hair and marker faces…EASY project)
• Print each word to the verse on a separate 3×5 cards and hang each one on a clothesline. Say verse with kids, then have each one take a turn removing a card while all continue to repeat verse. Do this till all cards are gone! (A different version of this is to write the verse on a white board and have the kids take turns erasing words)
• Make “stepping stones” out of blank typing paper. Kids can hop from stone to stone “across the river” as they say the words in order from memory. If they miss a word, they’ve fallen in the river!
• Have the children sit in a big circle and toss a ball back and forth with each catch being that person’s turn to say the next word(s) in the verse
• Sing the verse…especially if you already have the verse on tape. There are some wonderful CD’s out there with verses put to music for kids.
• Always discuss the verse and how it might be lived in our daily lives.

Verse time was a blast. But the best part, the part that really pumped was their homework.

The assignment involved drawing/illustrating the verse before our next meeting. You’d never believe how excited they were the next week when showing the last week’s verse/drawing. And it was a great review of that verse before we plunged into the next one. Not to mention the time spent creatively drawing really reinforced the impact of the verse.

My girls kept all their pictures in special folders. Each picture painstakingly drawn, full of thought and love…with the reference and verse written out below.

If you’re interested, MInTheGap has posted Let It Rain on his website…written by yours truly!

He adds new articles several times a day, all current event types with a Christian bent. Worth checking out!

Dh traveled out of town today on business and made a quick call home to gush (okay, he’s not the gushing type, but for lack of a better term) about a Lamborghini that flew past him and the surfin’ cowboy (co-worker) at over 100 mph! On the bumper in red: Bull Run.

Turns out that there was a Benefit “race” today so dh and S.C. had an hour to kill and pit-stopped it at the site of all the fun. There was a drag strip on which anyone could participate and be clocked at a quarter mile. Picture this: a stretch Limo challenges a Humvee. A cop in his police car even showed up to “race”… all fine and dandy till the dragsters (no exhaust-plug those ears!) turned out. Boys and their toys!

Dh was an arm’s length from Carl Lewis. Yeah. “King Carl.” Winner of 10 Olympic medals (9 Golds).

So I mentioned this was a Benefit (for children)…not much nosing around turned up the fact that each participant had to pay $7500! And a two-man team was a requirement! That’s some Benefit! The place was crawling with Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

Made my hubby’s day.

Welcome to Home-steeped Hope.

I’m Mary, admittedly old-fashioned thanks to my love of the Lord, my family and a life of simplicity. And quilts. And enamelware. And classic novels by roaring fireplaces. :O)

I’m thirty-one, married to my cowboy, homeschooling sahm, raising three daughters, several horses, a few goats, border collies and one bucket calf here on our twelve acres in the beautifully agricultural mid-west. That colt in my blog header is one out of my paint mare Topaz. Wish I could have shown more, but WordPress makes you crop half the good stuff for these headers…and I’m not computer savvy enough to know how to get around it! :O)

My blog entries reflect my interests. Christianity-culture clashes, Family traditions and crafts, Marriage, Parenting, Homeschooling, Cooking (only recipes I share are family favorites-tried and true), Canning, Reading and Writing. A potpourri of items, I know. :O)

Be sure to check out my sidebar, and the live blog feeds I feature:

MInTheGap is a good friend, and a great one for blogging Christian takes on the latest in this culture we live in. His lively posts are often where I start my morning coffee blog-hopping!  

Writer…Interrupted is another great site belonging to fellow writer friend, Gina. This webring is continually growing and a very encouraging place to meet God and explore the writing craft. I contribute at Writer…Interrupted on the last Thursdays of the month, and at MInTheGap whenever possible.

Did I mention that I love hot drinks? And good friends? Nothing like both for some good ole home-steeped hope!

Rejoicing in hope…Romans 12:12