Food Fads

My sister and I were talking this summer about the gluten-free frenzy.  Doesn't it make sense that if a body is used to white flour and then quite suddenly as a whole the food industry moves towards whole grains... mightn't you feel some distress for a little while?  Hang in there.  Grind some wheat.  It's good for you.  I thought this article was interesting.  I remember when butter and eggs were evil and the only sensible thing was to use margarine.  Those were the days.  It's interesting when a new food is the "it" food of the moment. Coconut oil, chia, Greek yogurt, acai berry, pomegranates, and the list goes on and on.  One of the most satisfying things I do as a mom is to make a meal that has as many components as possible in it that I grew, raised or baked myself.  I know that my family is being nurtured physically and emotionally in that moment and that is a wonderful feeling.  It's something that I need to concentrate on doing better and more of.

Postmodern Parenting, Man Babies, and Heart Checks

The election is over and Jared will be the new mayor come January. This experience has brought up several unique situations that I have never encountered before.  I have never been bullied online or had a member of my family bullied online.  Now I know what that is like and the conclusion I have come to is much the same as it was when I was in elementary school. With guidance from my wise mother, I was taught that bullies act that way because they don't like themselves. I believe her. As an adult, it is a bit more complicated than that, but not much more. Increasingly I understand why a MOM and a DAD that love each other (or at least politely tolerate each other) and who love their children is vital to a well functioning adulthood for their children.  It can not be over emphasized enough. Damaged children grow up to be damaged adults and man baby tantrums cause much more damage.   I wouldn't go hang out in the bathroom at school if I knew that is where the bullies were. Same goes for sitting behind a computer screen in my home.

My generation is in another unique situation in that our parents can offer very little specifics as to raising children in a digital world.  Our parents could go to their parents for wisdom in most parenting situations. Online situations are a whole new ball of wax and my generation is flying blind in a lot of cases.  I am so thankful to have the knowledge that the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers.  I am thankful to have the opportunity to have the Holy Ghost.  I am thankful for a Mom and a Dad who loved me and loved each other.  They taught me that I was going to leave their home with some baggage.  It's inevitable. The defining moment was when they taught me that I always had a choice.  I could put the baggage down and do what my Savior taught or I could pack that baggage around and try to heave it at other people for the rest of my life. That goes for everyone no matter what a given childhood was like. Were they perfect?  Nope. But they were just right for me.  They taught me timeless principles that are principles of success no matter what technology brings. I am so thankful for my Mom and Dad.

I've also discovered that you can never really hide your true intentions.  If you are serving for the sake of serving and doing it for the sake of doing the right thing, you don't have to remind people about it.  Self-aggrandizement has become so common place in this Facebook/Twitter/YouTube world that we now live in but it still leaves a bad taste.  There is something in the natural man that is fed by posting our "awesomeness" and  watching as the "likes" tally up.  It's a fine line between genuinely sharing something positive and saying, "Check me out."  It comes down to where our heart is and it's not something that can be hidden for very long.  It's something that I have to do a "heart check" on frequently.  It's painful when the diagnosis comes back as:  needy, grasping and desperate for validation.  Ouch.  

Hardy Edibles From This Year's Garden

I always get so emotionally involved with the plants that beat the odds and thrive in our short, cold, Bear Lake growing season. I bought a 6 pack of basil plants and planted them too early. Of course they froze. Or so I thought. I saw the damage and figured there was no hope. By the time I saw them again it was the middle of summer and the near by zucchini and pumpkin plants had taken all of the attention. To my surprise, they were growing! I had spicy globe basil, purple basil and a lot of Genovese basil. I used some to make red sauce and the rest I made into pesto. I use walnuts or almonds instead of pine nuts because of the difference in cost. My Grandpa Baker used to go "out West" in Utah and harvest pine nuts. I would eat them until I got sick. I wish then I would have realized what a luxury they are. I freeze the pesto in ice cube trays and store them in freezer bags. We had some purple pesto tonight and it was so good. It is spicier than the Genovese basil. I love the will to survive that those basil plants had. I thought they were goners for sure.

The other plant that did really well, given the low expectations it was planted with, was Chinese longbeans. I thought they would be far too tender for these climes. I really just bought them out of curiosity. I trellised them with a hog panel and sat back to see what would happen. I wish that I had taken a picture of them on the trellis. They were prolific and beautiful to look at. Pretty exotic for a southeast Idaho garden, in my opinion. I blanched them and then stir fried them in a soy sauce/brown sugar mixture. I want to plant them again next year and try this.  It's one of my favorite Chinese buffet dishes.

Local Politics

My husband is running for mayor of our small rural Idaho town. It was not an ambition of his to do this. The current mayor has been in office for eight years and has spent our city into a severe situation and now wants to raise the sales tax by 1%. My husband's education and career are in finance and insurance. We have a home and a small business here. It looked like no one was going to run against the current mayor and my husband knowing the situation couldn't, in good conscience, let him run unopposed. So here we are. If he is elected, it's not going to be fun. But he will do it and he will do a good job. He understands personal responsibility and he understands this:

"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

I've learned some very valuable things through this experience.

The first thing; I have married a noble man. He cares more about the eternal nature of his decisions and his behavior than he does about "winning" an earthly contest. In this election I have seen such disgraceful behavior and mourn for the husbands, wives and children that have to live with these individuals post election. Our actions follow us. We can't leave them behind unless we sincerely repent. My whole heart is thankful that I married a man who strives to not trust in the arm of flesh.

Second thing; There is peace in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know this to be true. It is very easy to fall prey to the crab mentality. Contentions, jealousy, strife, malice, persecutions and pride are all fruit of the adversary and I am so thankful that the Gospel teaches me how to avoid those pitfalls, if I will. I am so thankful for the Atonement of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I have felt the empowering effects of it when the pain of hurtful or unkind words or actions have driven me to my knees to seek relief. As I have asked for help and followed the commandment to love my enemies and pray for them, I have felt peace and comfort and I know my Savior's promise is true. I have felt comfort and strength as I have sought out those I have offended and sought to reconcile and repent. Live the Gospel and you will live with peace and joy.

Third thing: I do not want my children to grow up to be apathetic to the sacrifices that have been made on their behalf. People have given their lives that we might have the freedom to vote and have a voice in our government. It appears to me a horrible form of ingratitude to be indifferent and uninformed. This experience has given me a renewed resolve to teach my children to think for themselves. To give them the opportunity to disagree with me and come to their own conclusions, backed by logic and reason rather than emotion. I am astounded by the resentment and defensiveness that arises when a problem that needs to be addressed and fixed is brought up if it somehow questions one's political affiliation's values or asks one to look at an issue outside of themselves. This idea of "if you disagree with me, you hate" is an unintelligent and lazy device to simply quiet someone who disagrees with us. The only thing this accomplishes is decay because there is no attempt at mutual understanding and without that that there can be no moving forward or mutual respect. I want my children to know that honor matters. It matters here and it matters in the next life. Behavior that seeks to provoke rather than address an issue honestly is dishonorable. Hiding behind bogus online profiles is dishonest and honesty is the most important virtue there is. The level of discourse that our nation and even the community I live in has fallen so profoundly. It's a natural consequence of our pride but I want my children to know that there is always a choice. There is a better way:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith"

I know this is true.

We are what we repeatedly do.

A little reminder from Aristotle....

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

It was an excellent day of school. I am so thankful for Jared, that he makes it possible for me to teach our children. We are going on our first field trip tomorrow. Photos to follow....

"Time flies. It's up to you to be the navigator."

I deleted my facebook account. I feel lighter. I have been acted upon rather that acting lately when it comes to my time. I was reading a Time magazine book review on a book called "The Circle". It's about a fictional corporation called the Circle "that bears a strong and, as far as I can tell, entirely intentional resemblance to Google, if Google had eaten and devoured Facebook and Twitter." This quote from the book resonated with me; "The tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs." I would rather act than be acted upon.

This is my favorite photo of the summer.

Learning to Blog All Over Again

I decided to take our family pictures this year. Unfortunately I don't have a good reputation with my family concerning family pictures. I get a little irritable and it usually ends up with me saying, "EVERYONE KNOCK IT OFF, SETTLE DOWN AND SMILE!!!". We need to go and try again later in the evening so that we have some better light but these are my favorites. We decided to go to Cafe Sabor in Garden City since we were all dressed up. I love those moments when everyone is soft and generous and we just enjoy one another. This was one of those nights.

Inspired by two friends; one that blogs everyday and another that just started again, I have also decided to start blogging again. I want to chronicle our family's life and experiences, especially now that we are homeschooling. It's going to be an adventure.

Wow- long time huh?

Hi. Thanks for still reading my blog. It has been a good long time. I'll try not to make this really long and catch up at the same time. We'll see. Ellie, Lily and Bridger were up last night with a stomach bug and so we are home from church. Everyone is pretty relaxed and laying around in their jammies so it seemd like an ideal time to catch up with the blog.

The kids are all doing well. Cassie is DRIVING!! It is a dream though because she loves to drive and do errands and run around for me. I'm sure that the newness will wear off for her and there may be grumbling about it in the future but it is really nice right now. She is involved in show choir and student council. She also has a part time job at our grocery store.

Treven is getting ready for basketball try-outs right before Christmas. He has a great group of friends that he does a lot with and it seem like there are always at least two extra teenage boys over here on the weekends. I love that they enjoy coming over.

Bridger got his cast off but missed basketball because of his broken arm. I can't believe that he will be in middle school next year. I go in and help in his classroom and he is very serious at school but not so much at home. He has a strong spirit and a desire to do what is right.

Ellie is enjoying 2nd grade. She is a reader and one of those kids that just keeps trying unitl she gets it done. She is such a good big sister to Lily and Emmie, very patient and caring.

Lily is almost always happy and she loves making new frineds. After a rocky start ("But I just miss you so MUCH mom that when I think about you I cry" to "I didn't think about you at all today" ) she really enjoys kindergarten.

Emmie is a goer and has the vocabulary of a ten year old which makes her a highly entertaining challenge to her mom. She LOVES her dad the most but will come and snuggle with me if she wakes up first. She likes hair paraphernalia and it is not uncommon for her to have ponytails, plus a headband and various clips, bows and barrets in at the same time. Our Christmas tree is completely un-decorated until the end of Emmie's arm length. It will be a really fun Christmas because she understands what the purpose of Santa Clause is now and wants to write him a letter everyday.

Jared is working hard at the insurance business. He loves being his own boss. I still need to post pictures of our building. It has been a drug store, mortuary, Dr's office, courtroom, florist. I have been trying to find out the history of it because we would like to slowly restore it. Unfortunately it has been neglected and there is a lot of work to do. We just got a new roof put on. New windows are next.

The embroidery business is busy. I am enjoying it more and have discovered that I like the creative process of taking someone's idea and turning it into something that they can hold in their hands and enjoy. I'll post some pictures of some of the projects I've done. Hopefully soon. :)

Four of my siblings and their families along with my Mom and Dad came to Montpelier for Thanksgiving. It was so enjoyable having them here. I love the feeling of a house full of family eating, visiting and enjoying each other. We were sad to see them go. The day ofter Thanksgiving we went skiing and Jared taught Lily to ski. She did great. My favorite quote of the day, "Mom, I did so good and the next time I will do even gooder!!"

True

I'm not sure why the whole screen isn't there but what this young woman in saying is true. LBJ's "war on poverty" was a tragic thing.

It's getting clearer

oregano harvest


The summer has flown by. We have enjoyed the heck out of it. We are waiting patiently for tomatoes to ripen and zucchini to get bigger. The cool spring that we had has set things back a bit. We are hoping that our usual "third week of August frost" will skip us this year. The kids are getting ready to go back to school and about this time I always have the "should I homeschool" conversation in my head. This year the answer is no. I have been attending all of the school board meetings through the summer and it has been a valuable experience. I love where we live. The Bear Lake community is wonderful. Jared has been in the insurance business for about three weeks now. I'll post a picture of our 100 year old building. We have to wait a year to change the name so it will still be "Hulme Insurance" for that time period. I admire his drive and am thankful for his desire to protect and provide for his family.



I am in the process of rereading "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis. The book is a series of letters from Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood. Screwtape is a senior devil giving advice to Wormwood a junior devil on how to tempt a human (referred to as his "patient") that he has been assigned to. It is an incredible book and it has made it more plain to me that there really aren't any "new" ideologies. There may be new technology or new packaging but it really comes back to the same battle of ideas that have always been. One of my favorite quotes so far in the book:

"Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient's soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary."

Sunday Comics

Bridger: Hey Mom.
Me: Yes?
Bridger: I quit my job at the helium factory. I couldn't stand being talked to that way.

So thankful....

It's Sunday morning and Jared has left for his meetings. Things are quiet and the kids are reading or getting ready for church. I got on the computer to look up something that I had read on chocolateonmycranium . It's one of my favorite blogs. She had a thumbnail of this Minerva Tiechert painting on her site. I probably mentioned this before but I love this painting. It is called Christ in a Red Robe.

I am just profoundly thankful for all of the good things in my life. We went through a big change recently with Jared's change in career. He is now a small business owner. We are purchasing an insurance agency here in Montpelier. It was previously known as Hulme Insurance, now Sharp Insurance. He has always wanted to work for himself and to have his own business. He has an incredible work ethic. I am very happy for him. I am so thankful for prayer and faith and the knowledge that this life is just a brief but vital part of our eternity. I am thankful for covenants and the power that comes with those promises, made and kept. I am thankful for family, this big diverse group of people that agreed to go on this adventure with each other. Happy Sabbath!

Spring foraging

We grew a bumper crop of dandelions in the field this year and so I put some of them to use and made dandelion jelly. It tastes like honey. I still have to figure out the pectin and so it really came out like thick syrup but I liked it. I made rose hip jelly last year and my family liked that better when they compared the two. Rose hips have a lot of natural pectin and so that set up nicely. The morel mushrooms came from our friend Brian. He knows these mountains like none other and he holds a special place in our hearts. Most people here are very protective of their huckleberry spots but Brian was very generous with his knowledge. He has a huge Wirehaired Pointing Griffon named Chewie. I think Chewie has some Irish Wolfhound in him because he is so big. Chewie likes huckleberries and kids so Brian brings him and we go huckleberry picking every year. Brian brought over these beautiful mushrooms to share with us and they were beyond delicious. After eating white button mushrooms most of my life I am now besotted with the flavor of wild mushrooms. Brian told us how to find them and we are going on the hunt next spring. The kids didn't want to try them and so Jared and I happily ate them up while listening to reasons why eating fungi had to be a horrible thing. Sweet... more for us.

Motherhood on Father's Day

I taught the teachings for our times RS lesson Sunday and it was on the conference talks by Elder Perry and Elder Foster. The talks were both on mothers. I was born of goodly parents and I am thankful for all that they taught me. I am thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ that I strive to live. I know that the family is an eternal reality and I am so thankful for that knowledge. Above are pictures of two of the best dads that I know. So I guess what I want to say with this post is that I am thankful for the opportunity to be a parent and to be a wife. I am thankful for and I honor those that have gone before me and sacrificed on my behalf. Being a good parent means hard work and sacrifice. Thank you to all of the good parents that I know.

More sourdough deliciousness

Hot homemade English muffins with crab apple jelly. Enough said.

Sourdough

A sister in my ward gave me a sourdough start about six months ago. It came from a lady in Nounan which is a valley (gorgeous place) within Bear Lake Valley. The start is supposed to be over 100 years old. My dad had a sourdough start when I was a child but I just remember not liking the smell. Now I love the smell and the taste of sourdough. I have been making homemade bread since I was in middle school and so I decided to try making food with sourdough. It has been really fun.
My favorite: sourdough huckleberry pancakes

San Francisco sourdough crust



Onion Garlic Bread


This is a really interesting article on the health benefits of sourdough. This is the wikipedia entry. Delicious.

Spoke too soon.

The rain is back. Last week the forecast for this week was sun and after the previous two weeks of rain it was a welcome sight. Summer isn't really here after all. It is beautiful and green but we could use some heat. We were hoping to get our garden planted on Wednesday. We'll see. I have discovered that I love to mow. The three oldest kids are in charge of our grass but we have a lot of alfalfa around our house that hasn't been turned to lawn yet. I love to keep it mowed and tidy. I don't know why but it gives me a happy feeling to see it done. My plants are coming up nicely and I have started several compost piles. I am determined to compost this year.

Huge white tulips and .99 after Memorial Day mums

I love Columbines.

My bionic pink poppy. I'll post a full bloom photo.

I love the plants that come back after a Bear Lake winter when they aren't supposed to. The Johnny-jump-ups and parsley and oregano hold a special place in my heart. They're tough.

Construction...done.

My Dad very kindly pointed out that this blog has been under construction for almost three months now. I told him two weeks ago that I would be posting. Sorry that I'm so late. I just got done downloading my pictures and so I will be posting tomorrow and I hope, more regularly. At least more often then every three months... sheesh.

It is finally spring here in Bear Lake. Although we don't really have much spring weather. It goes from winter to a few brief moments of spring to summer. There is nothing like a Bear Lake summer. They are truly heavenly. We are looking forward to open windows, beach days, and garden produce.

Quick update: School is finally out! The last two weeks were just hectic with field trips, track meets, award banquets and baseball. Cassie is the sophomore class president for Bear Lake High School next year. Cass and Trev are both training for cross country. All three older kids made the high honor roll and Bridger got the most Accelerated Reading points in his class. Ellie loved school and has just developed a love of reading that reminds me of her mother when she was that age...staying up late to read and read and read. Thank you Mom and Dad for instilling in me a love for reading. It has been transferred to our children and it has been a wonderful thing to see. Lily is excited for kindergarten next year. It is just going so fast and I feel so honored and blessed to be their mom.

We purchased two Barudan embroidery machines and started a home business called Sharp Stitch Studio. I will post some pictures of some of the projects we've done. It has been a good growing experience and I hope to blog some of those experiences for anyone that might be thinking of starting their own cottage industry. You can see what the machines look like here.

I posted a picture of the highlight of spring, branding in Lyman, to see if I still knew how to do it. More to come.

We're under construction.

It's time to get back to the blog. My brother suggested I blog about starting my own business and with the recent political atmosphere and the ramifications of it; I feel it is even more important to stand up for what I believe is right. See you soon!