Being Thoughtful to Myself

Dear Brittany,
Next year when you have grated up your zucchini and are leafing through the pages and pages of zucchini bread recipes in your file, this one is your favorite. Why do you still keep those others around? Anyway, you are welcome.
Love,
Me

PUMPKIN ZUCCHINI BREAD
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup butter, melted
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1+ cup shredded zucchini

Mix eggs and sugar; add pumpkin butter and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; gradually add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Stir in zucchini. Pour into two greased loaf pans (9x5x3). (Or my two medium plus one smaller, but not mini loaf size) and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until they test done (more like 40 minutes for the smaller loaves). Cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove to a wire rack.


P.S. The recipe here is not the exact same as the original in the file. It is with my adjustments, just the way I like it.

Why Doing My Laundry is "Loads of Fun"

1. I have three eager little helpers who LOVE laundry! They are varying degrees of help, but each enthusiastically gets involved.

2. I have a laundry song. Are you jealous? It goes something like, "Iiiiiiiiiit's Laundry Time, It's Laundry Time, It's Laundry Time! Hurray! We love to do the laundry, we do it EVERY DAY!" (except Sunday, which is my day off.) Oh, and we march. Laundry Parade!

3. My kids love to be "The Great Kirbini/Stupendous Sam/Wonderful Jiorji in the Amazing Flying Laundry Basket!" and get carried to their rooms with their laundry.

4. I love to hear the washer and dryer running in the background of my day. It makes me feel like I am a super multi-tasker, getting laundry washed while I do something else. :)

5. I find it very relaxing to fold laundry. I think this came from when I worked at Clear Creek Family Ranch in high school doing all the laundry for the ranch. I got to go back and forth between the lodges across beautiful lawn and around a small lake and through a path with tree branches overhanging to gather and put away laundry in the various facilities. Beautiful. And I folded sheets for hours each week, just me in the laundry room I had organized just the way I liked it. I got to sort out life one load at a time, and I still do.

6. My laundry room is fantastic. When we moved in, it was just a spot for a washer and dryer with two shelves above, a hot water heater, a sink, and a couple shelves for food storage. One day I said to Greg, "I think it would be nice if we added a shelf above the sink, maybe with a rod for hangers." Less than an hour later my dream was a reality. Then a week or so later he added a couple more shelves at my request, which has made it much more organized, and I like things to be organized. It is essential to my sanity. The room is tiny, but a very efficient use of space.

7. When I go in and out of the laundry room, I hear various animal noises. It never ceases to elicit a smile. This is because of a little wooden puzzle of animals I left on a shelf in there one day, which, when you lift up the pieces (in theory) they make the sound of that animal. In reality, any change of lighting (flipping the light switch) or any vibration (shutting the washer lid, the garage door closing...) alerts its sensor and we hear, "oink oink" or "moooooo" and so forth. I may never move that puzzle because it gives my laundry room character.


These reasons are each getting longer and I seriously doubt anybody in the world could be THAT interested in my laundry so I'll sign off. I have towels to fold. Hope you are enjoying your laundry, too!

Are there any household tasks you especially like, or have ideas to make more enjoyable? I would love to hear about it!

P.S. No, I do not pretend that I am perfect or that my laundry-doing is perfect. There is a good reason I didn't post a picture of my laundry room today. I still get behind and sometimes I'm lazy about putting it away, resulting in mountains of laundry piled up waiting there for me. But the nice thing is, it just waits. And it doesn't whine.

Strawberry Muffins: Delicious. Oh, and Safe!

In an effort to continue blogging somewhat regularly, I want to tell you about these muffins.

They are blueberry muffins, a fabulous recipe from my fabulous sister in law, with strawberries substituted for the blueberries. I thought it up yesterday when I made the blueberry muffins and tried the substitution with just 2 muffins, then had to make a whole batch today because they are my new favorite.

Why haven't I heard of these before?! Just a tiny bit sweet, with the goodness of fresh strawberries baked in. Strawberries are my favorite! I just feel so bad for people who don't like them (I'm looking at you Leta-Kaye!) because almost all my favorite recipes include strawberries.

I've shared the recipe below for the blueberry muffins, and if you are up for something new, try it with strawberries before they are totally out of season and cost $5 and have no flavor.

Anyway, delicious they truly are, and as for safe, well, they are a safer topic than the botched job interview of last week, my oldest starting Kindergarten (and me crying, even though I swore I wouldn't get all emotional), potty training in progress with Sam (IS there any progress?), and my horrible hair inadequacies trying to help my baby girl look like a girl. I tell you, I was ready for some Success I could share with the world, which today came in the form of a strawberry muffin. Enjoy!

Sara J's Blueberry Muffins
1 3/4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberries (or thawed frozen blueberries)
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients and add to dry ingredients, along with berries, stirring JUST until moistened. DO NOT OVERMIX! Batter will be thick and lumpy. Put in paper-lined muffin tin. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Makes 12 lovely muffins.

"Indeed We Can"

One day last year when we were driving somewhere, Kirby asked about if he could do something in the car, and if he could do that at home as well. I can't remember what we were talking about, but my response was, "When we get home, too, indeed we can!"

He thought that was hilarious, and when I asked why he was laughing, he responded, "You named our house 'Indeed We Can?' That's wacky!"

I hadn't even realized what I'd said so I had to think back over the conversation to figure it out. Since then, we have referred to our house as the Indeed We Can.

I like houses with names, like in Anne of Green Gables, and one of our family favorites, 121 Pudding Street by Jean Fritz, about a house the kids in the neighborhood call "The Raisin." I guess we just like naming objects in general, because we have a vacuum named Mr. Gordan and our Kitchen Aid stand mixer is Camille.

Anyway, I think that "INDEED, WE CAN!" is a great motto. Over the past few years, my horizons have expanded exponentially and I am finding things I not only can do but things I love to do and I realize I don't have to be great at something to find a lot of joy in doing it. How I have limited myself in the past! But NO MORE!

Very recently I have decided I want to learn to sew. Since I got my machine for Mother's Day, I have been itching to sew something. With three young children and a household I already can't keep up on, time doesn't magically appear for sewing, so all I have squeezed in is re-purposing an old child's skirt into an apron, which was fun, but I have been wanting to sew a project from start to finish.

I guess I wanted to prove to myself

I can finish a sewing project

because despite innumerable attempts, I have NEVER seen a sewing project through from beginning to end.

I found this tutorial on how to make a drawstring bag, which I want to make bigger and make into a rag bag to hold all my scraps of fabric. I thought I'd do a trial run first in the size of the bag in the tutorial, so here it is, my FIRST FINISHED SEWING PROJECT!




Yes, it is reversible. And there's patchwork, which actually lined up decently. And I made it myself!! I threaded the machine, cut the fabric, sewed, ironed seams, fixed the problem when the thread bunched up and got stuck in the machine, and I even put in the drawstring by myself! Silly, but I have never done that. I always have someone else pull drawstrings through sweaters or bags or whatever if they come out. (I am fairly new to the Indeed We Can Plan.)

What is something you never thought you could do until you did it? Don't you love that sense of empowerment and energy that comes with it? I am ready for more!

Be Your Own Best Friend

Sam was trekking down the driveway just now with a wadded-up, scribbled-on paper in his cute little hands. I asked what he was doing and he said, "I need to mail this!" I asked what it was and he told me, "It says, 'Come to my costume party!' " I asked who he was mailing it to and the response was, "ME!" Then he came inside and put on his Winnie The Pooh costume. He has worn it continually (night and day, only off for washings - his and its) for the past few days. When he first put it on I asked if he was Winnie the Pooh and he said, so practically, "No. I am Sam. This is a costume, Mommy."


I love this innocent, serious yet lighthearted soul. My mom has been teaching him fun songs and poems that he LOVES to memorize and share. His most recent is "Are You Sleeping" in both English and French. (But he thinks the French is Spanish and can't be convinced otherwise.) Once when we were at my in-laws he found two stuffed dogs that sing "I Got You Babe" to each other when you push their paws. He pushed the button over and over again, mouthing the words as he caught on to the lyrics, until he could sing the whole thing. My mom was playing with him recently and said, "I got you!" and that seemed to be his cue because he sang her the rest of the song! This little boy is here to make the world a better place.

Simple Pleasures

I wrote this last week but forgot to post it.

One of my favorite sentiments is that


Tonight we found just one of those "simple things" in the form of paper whirly birds, like these.


NOT my image. The picture and the pattern are found at this link. I love the paper she used. It reminded me of a stack of origami paper I had stashed somewhere from my adventures in Japan almost 10 years ago. Miraculously I found it and we enjoyed about 2 hours of fun making these and dropping them off our beds, the porch,


the pull-up bar - which Kirby hung onto with one hand while dropping the "twirly whirlies" with the other.


When Kirby first saw one in action, he practically squealed, "It's like a propeller!!" Great news for a boy obsessed with airplanes and helicopters.

I highly recommend making some of these!

Paper you have lying around: Free.
Time: Free.
Sharing smiles and making memories with your children: Priceless.

Organization, the endless quest...

And sometimes we succeed! Just came across THIS and thought I'd share... I like organization tips and seeing other people's ideas at overcoming obstacles many of us encounter in running our households.

Pictures (Please See Previous Post)

Just some snapshots, not great photography, but these mark some happy moments in our life lately. Random, I know.

Jiorji loves to climb and she is the smilingest Jensen you ever saw.

Lilli's Swedish Strawberry Cake, for Greg's Graduation party. My first time making it. I was rather pleased with how it turned out and appreciated Sam (Shrope)'s help to make it "Authentic."

At the Hogle Zoo. Sometimes ya just gotta Be the Turtle!

FIRST of all... and please stay tuned!

This picture is not really significant. It was just a really happy day at Zion National Park (back in April!) and I wanted to remember it.

For some reason blogger is not letting me add more pictures tonight so when it's working again, there will be pictures...
ANYWAY, it's already been several weeks since I started writing this post and I am not procrastinating it anymore so without further ado...

I love the world of blogging! I have been too overwhelmed simply making it through each day to post anything lately but I sometimes still catch up on others' blogs and I feel like I have support as I know that others go through the same "Mom" and woman things that I do. I started reading blogs about two years ago and they have really influenced me and how I see my role as a stay-at-home mom in a positive way.

I hope to soon (in the coming months?) be on top of things at home enough to post regularly because I really want to share the Joy in the Journey that I experience daily as a woman/mom/Mormon/wife/friend/writer/cook/LurkingBlogReader/artist (HA! in my own little way! Those who are laughing now, having seen my pathetic attempt at crafts as a teenager - I will show you. I am turning over a new leaf!)/home organizer and so forth.

I want to share some experiences I've had and what I've learned through them, such as:

• My decision to get married at age 18
• The story of our car accident in 2007 and Sam's subsequent premature birth (28 weeks gestation)
• Postpartum Depression after Jiorji was born
• Struggles with low self esteem
• Discovering I like being me
• My recent obsession with white boards
• Learning to really breathe
• My dream of one day proficiently playing the cello
• Experiencing the joys and sorrows of mothering
• Acquiring a "Can Do" attitude
  

I have gained so much from the blogs I've followed as people have shared a part of themselves, and I want to share what I have to offer, whatever it may be. Keep writing! (That's a little nudge of encouragement to me as well!)*If you're interested, at the end of this post I've listed a few blogs I enjoy. I love discovering new ones, too, so PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT WITH BLOGS YOU LIKE!


Now, as far as updates in our life since I've dropped off the Internet for some time, there are a few things worth mentioning in our life lately (not in chronological order or in order of importance, just in the order in which they randomly came to my mind):

Greg became the FIRST COLLEGE GRADUATE of his family through his Jensen line, when he graduated from SUU in May in Psychology. He plans to continue his education at grad school Fall 2012.


I got my FIRST SEWING MACHINE! Until a couple months ago I never had any ambition to sew as I had never had a positive experience with a sewing machine, but after looking at people's fun projects "upcycling" things and creating fun bags and such, I started to have a desire to learn. For Mother's Day Greg bought me a BERNINA! I am so excited and have many plans for fun projects to squeeze in during the kids' naps or Greg's days off this summer. :)

We enjoyed JIORJI's FIRST TIME SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT in her 11 months of life. :) :) :) I think with a few nights in a row of that, I could be a whole new person!

We took our FIRST TRIP TO THE ZOO - ever! Well, I think I went with my family when I was a toddler, but for the first time I can remember. I took my 3 kiddos to Hogle Zoo with my sister and her husband on Memorial Day. Kirby was so excited. He told me, "I always wanted to see a REAL elephant!" Although ironically his favorite part were the "Robot Dinosaurs." Figures.

I experienced my FIRST TIME DRIVING TO SALT LAKE CITY. I had never driven north of Provo because, being from a small town, the traffic really intimidated me but I found it was no big deal and I drove up there 3 times last month.

I got to ride my FIRST MOTORCYCLE. As the driver, not just the passenger. Greg taught me to ride on the 4th of July and I feel really empowered because a couple of years ago I would have just chalked that up to “things I can’t do” and frankly, didn’t really want to, but it was so fun and I look forward to getting in some more practice so I can go riding with Greg.

Today, Jiorji took her FIRST STEPS! Ironically, while I left her with her aunt while I went to a sewing class. The first time I’ve left her in ages. She’s with me 24/7 but decides to walk for Aunt Sara. :)


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One Mom's Musings
Not That You Asked
Quite Contrary
Brittney's blog
Endless Pile of Laundry
Live It, Love It, Share It
I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar
Just Cook Already
(P.S. Becky, I LOVE your blog! It's not listed since it's private, but I wanted you to know that I always read it and look forward to new posts!)

Aging Gracefully

Greg just came in the kitchen and asked me, "How old do I look?" I tactfully told him "27 1/2!" (He is 28.) The question surprised me though because he never says stuff like that so I naturally inquired why he wanted to know. He said he was at a meeting today and someone asked him if he had kids. Greg said, "Yes, three." The guy then said, "So, do they live around here?" Note that our oldest is 4 years old. Greg, in relating the experience, said, "AROUND here? They sleep in my bed!" I never thought of him as looking that old. I guess it's the baldness. This just totally cracked me up!

"If you're wondering how to get confetti out of your carpet...

...Use a comb." This is Greg's advice tonight. We went to a late movie and left all three kids with a sitter. Apparently the baby took a lot of her attention and left Kirby and Sam free to dump out the paper shredder all over our bedroom floor. Since we don't want to wake the kids at midnight by using the vacuum, Greg is using the comb method to clean up and it's working pretty well actually. For some reason he doesn't see the humor in the situation that I do. Hmmmmm.