Spiritual BMI: a Metaphor for Life.

Have you ever wondered what your spirit looks like?  I'd like to think it is the perfect version of us: unscarred, and unaffected by the wear and tear of mortality.  However, does that mean my spirit wouldn't have freckles?  Or my brother wouldn't have his characteristic broken nose? --or for that matter that my cousins would have the beaks they were born with before their nose jobs? (I'm sorry that wasn't very nice, they're beautiful girls inside and out).
 I know, it doesn't really matter in the eternal scheme of things, but it's kinda fun to speculate.

But what if it did matter?  What if our spirit bodies reflected our spiritual lives?  For example, I've often thought about the phrase, "feast upon the words of Christ."  I know it's talking about a spiritual feasting, and that you gain spiritual nourishment, so does that mean that if you don't "feast" on the word, or even reject it --the equivalent of going on a hunger strike-- when you get to heaven you'll find that your spirit is gaunt and emaciated? On the other hand, what about those who have feasted upon the word (i.e. have been a member all their lives, read the scriptures, gone faithfully to church each week, or even studied endlessly on a certain principle --or in other words had a gospel hobby), but haven't really bothered to gain their own testimony --or maybe they have and just haven't shared it with others, and generally haven't exercised faith?  When they get to heaven do they find their spirits fat and flabby --storing away all that spiritual nourishment in their spiritual body, yet never expending the effort to strengthen it?  (I suppose the general authorities would all look like body builders in that case. ha ha.)

So maybe when we leave this world we find ourselves stuck with a spirit that not only reflects how we prioritized the spiritual things in life, but also the physical limitations of such a body.  I mean, what if the Celestial kingdom resides on the top of a mountain, with the different degrees of glory being found at their respective altitudes, and with this spiritual body of ours we must climb up as far as our spiritual stamina will allow?  How far would you make it?
Luckily we've got Christ there, hauling each of us up, Fezzik-style, a little higher than we could have done on our own if we'll just let Him.

This is just a silly rumination of my own, and perhaps a simpler way of thinking of my own spiritual progress, but it helps me to rethink how I spend my life, and refocus on what's really important.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Buhmadoes

You know how we're supposed to teach our kids how to speak our language?  It seems like I'm learning their language instead.  Not only am I the one person in the universe who understands what they are saying sometimes, but I'm afraid that it is rubbing off on me. For example, my oldest will say, "I don't like buhmadoes," and I will find myself saying something like, "Well, give your buhmadoes to your brother."
Does this happen to anyone else?

Speaking of vegetables... we took the kids to a doctors appointment yesterday for a routine checkup.  As the doctor quizzed my oldest on his numbers and colors and such I felt like I was on trial.  After all, those questions are really to see how much you have taught them right?  Anyway, when the question came up, "What's your favorite food?" my four year old responded, "Carrots! But my brother, he likes buhmadoes."   

Ha ha, score for me!  I promise I didn't teach him to say that.

Awesome!

So, you know when you think you have a good idea that's so unique and then you find that a million other people had that same idea way before you...

Well, when I wrote the post Happy Thoughts I really started thinking about expanding it.  I thought maybe some explanations would be cool, and I thought up a bunch of other things I could add, but then I found this book called The Book of Awesome, and got the wind blown out of my sails.  Now don't get me wrong, I loved the book, but it made my little list seem mediocre at best, and I'm not nearly as funny.  It's exactly the thing I would love to write (except without some of the entries that I have no experience with, like about drinking or guy things) to make people focus on the brighter side of life.
It's just a book about the awesome things of daily life, like finding money in the pocket of an old coat, or putting on underwear straight out of the dryer.  It started as a blog that the author decided to turn into a book (and apparently a calendar) but the blog is ongoing.  I bet it has altered the way he sees life now, going around day to day looking for something positive to write about and add to his blog. It definitely brightens my day when I try it.  So check it out.  (Just ignore all the advertising though, I think the success went to his head)

Oh yeah, and if you check the "Top 1000" in the side bar and you want to add your comment, realize that there are over 3,000 comments and it takes a long time to get to the newest ones.  I didn't realize this and started commenting on other people's comments before I realized they were written way back in 2009!  It was probably weird for them if they suddenly got an email about something they wrote 2 years ago. Yeah, I'm awesome (in a sarcastic sense if you couldn't tell).


Speaking of Awesome... Check this out:  My husband found it by the side of the road.

As if it weren't cool enough to find $20 on the ground, how about $20 with a plant growing through it?
Maybe it's a money-tree seed, and if I plant it, it will grow, and the leaves will be 20 dollar bills!

Now that would be AWESOME.

DIY Corner Play Kitchen

So, we made this for the boys last Christmas, but it never really got the attention it deserved.  In fact, when I started this blog it was in storage in another state.  Right before we moved back to Idaho, to get the kids excited about the move, I mentioned all their toys that would come out of storage including their play kitchen (we didn't have the room for them in the one bedroom apartment we had in Wyoming over the summer-- and yes, I said one).  Well it worked, and every time the move came up in conversation, they went on and on about getting to play with their kitchen.  So here's its official debut to the rest of the world.

And if you're wondering why I would make a kitchen for boys, just remember that most of the great chefs in this world are men.  I made it as un-girly as I could with no frills or pink or anything, and I still think it's super cute.

I admit, I'm quite proud.  Although, I also have to admit that although I came up with the design and did all the thrifting, my Dad, brother-in-law, and my husband did all the wood work and assembling.  Oh yeah, I painted the shelves.

I don't have all the DIY steps pictured --in fact I'm not sure I even remember them --it's been a while.  but we started with finding a basic furniture piece that we could repurpose. I searched forever for some little nightstand or something but when I saw this, I thought "Why not?" It would fit perfectly in a corner an take up less room by filling that awkward space.

It's an old appliance garage taken from someone's renovation/demolition and donated to Habitat for Humanity.  It was 12 bucks.  (The scroll door is still there, it just stays up all the time).
I also scored a piece of green laminate for the countertop, a small faucet, a handles for the drawer and oven, and a small hand towel rod or something (I'm actually not sure what it was supposed to be used for) to hang the dishes from. Total spent: about 8 bucks.

The corner shelf was designed by me and custom made by my dad in his workshop out of MDF scraps that he had around.

We added top and bottom boards to cover the missing part of the counter top and to enclose the base and make it sturdier, then we added an oven door on hinges (also MDF scraps and extra hinges my dad had lying around) which my brother in law cut a hole in for the "window." We intended to cover it with plexiglass, but never did, and probably won't. We also added a little wooden trim that you can only see in the picture of the entire thing at the top,

I thrifted a little rack and some other small cake pans and cookie sheets and my grandmother sent me some mini cupcake pans for use in the oven.  Every once in a while when I'm baking I'll save a little extra batter to cook something in these pans and we'll have a tea party.  (Don't worry, no one wears dresses, hats, or gloves to our tea parties, and there are no lace doilies. In fact, there's usually a lot of grunting and feet on the table --although I do try to use these tea parties to teach manners.)

I have three boys, so no flowers for us. That is why we use a gravy separator for a teapot.
Now that's a MAN's teapot! 

I wanted a drawer for some kid utensils we already had from ikea, and found an old cigar box or something at savers and incorporated it into the shelves (we actually use the ikea silverware to eat with and replaced them with plastic ones for the play kitchen).

Isn't that the cutest handle?

I also found this great old-school hand mixer that the kids love using to make pudding.  I'm not sure what the wooden box was for, but I decided to use it to hold utensils for now. 

 As for dishes, my mother bought the kids a "green toys" dish set on Amazon from this company that makes their toys out of recycled milk cartons, since they were the most unisex colors we could find and super sturdy. I found the rack for the dishes  at the DI, and although I have no idea what it is really used for, it worked perfect for the cups and saucers.  

Also from Ikea was the stainless steel pots and pans and utensils pictured.  They were actually the inspiration for this project --they were so cute, and sturdy and could probably be used cook real food if I wanted to! 

We had a lot more mini food items on the shelves before including those tiny cans of V8 and apple juice.
The kids loved it.

I tried finding a silver bowl for  the sink, but found that the shape of a large silver dog dish worked much better.  5 bucks.

I also added the "hot" and "cold" by hand with some paper and diamond epoxy for jewelry on top.

Now for my favorite part:  Drumroll please.....

The flat-top stove! Yeah, I could have made it really easy on myself and just glued some coasters on there, but where's the fun in that?  I'm all for interaction.  So I designed and hand crafted out of an old black three ring binder and some red vinyl a stove that you can turn "on" (red) and "off" (black) with little sliding buttons.

I used the same technology that many "pull the tab" books use, and it turned out great!  However, I suggest you use something a little stronger than hot-melt glue to attach the "stove" to the countertop --I ran out of time on Christmas Eve and didn't have anything better, so the stovetop was the first thing to fall victim to my (then) 20 month old.  Still, it'd didn't keep them from "cooking" things in the oven (including each other?  Maybe they were playing Hansel and Gretel?  It's a great hiding spot anyhow).

 Yeah, maybe they were a bit young for it at the time, but it keeps them busy anyhow, and they play more and more with it now that they're older.

So there you have it!

DIY play kitchen --30 bucks; 

Handmade, one-of-a-kind, heirloom playroom furnishing --priceless.

Back in the Saddle

So, my blogging life has been thrown to the wayside recently, but I'm determined to keep it up.  Even if no one ever looks at this stuff, it's good for me to get it out there.

Highlights since the last post:

We went fishing twice. The kids had more fun climbing trees and throwing rocks, and we didn't catch a thing, and forgot our camera, but that's to be expected. Here's some phone pictures.

You can actually see me in the middle of the light patch of grass on the left,
--dealing with a snag on that branch in the middle of the stream. I got my only bite right before that happened.

My 4 year old started Preschool.  I was torn about sending him off on his own, and then paying someone else to teach him things that I actually feel quite qualified to teach him myself (not to mention things he already knows --like his colors), but I decided that what I couldn't teach him would be the social aspect of things-- how to make friends, to get along with peers in a school setting, to stand up and talk in front of a group... etc.  I think it will be good for him since he'll be one of the younger ones going into kindergarten next year (Eeeek, next year!)  He's actually loving it, and I think he and his brother appreciate some time away from each other... I mean, they appreciate each other more when they're together. :)

I actually didn't get any pictures on his official first day of school, he had scabs all over his nose from falling down the stairs, although the true reason is that we were running late --as usual.

My baby was blessed.  The blessing his father gave him was beautiful, I wish I had written some of it down.  We had both sets of grandparents there, two sisters and a brother-in-law, and I didn't manage to get any pictures somehow.   I'm seeing a pattern of a lack of record keeping for this baby that I hope doesn't continue.  Poor thing.  This is the most recent still picture I have of him. It's actually the only one I have from the past 4 weeks and I didn't even take it. :(

I'm glad I didn't go get one of those fancy little suits to bless him in though since right after the thing he had a major blow-out.  I know, TMI.  Isn't he getting so chubby? 13 lbs 3.5 oz at his 2 month check up!

We bottled fruit!  We actually found the energy to can some fruit that my mother brought from Utah.  Bless her and my dad.  They checked both boxes on the plane to get it to us so we could have free fruit to preserve.  You might think that that would defeat the purpose of it being free, but no, they get free airfare since my sister works at an airport and you can check a package (or luggage) up to 45lbs. so they did!  And no, writing "Handle Carefully" all over the box doesn't do a thing.

Yay for home canning!

Of course, I prefer it this way...

Fresh peaches and cream!  YUM!

My kids do too, and I admit I had a hard time sharing.

Look at those puppy eyes.  How could anyone say no to that?

My husband turned 28!  So for a month or so, it'll look like we're only one year apart (on paper anyway),  but actually we're two.  Yeah, I know, I robbed the cradle.  (I'm turning the big 3-0 this year, and I'm sure you'll hear about it in a later post.)  Isn't he so accomplished for a 28 year old?  Has three kids, a master's degree, teaches college courses, and still looks like he's 19!

Homemade Hostess, Yum!  Complete with marshmallow creme filling (thanks for the idea Jen and Melissa) and chocolate ganache on top (which for some reason didn't really set, but it tasted good anyway).

So that was our last month and a half in a nutshell.

Sadly, I wanted to to a whole post about how much I love September and how Labor Day is my favorite holiday, but I guess I'll have another chance next year.  I will however post one thing (besides fresh peaches) that I love about September:

BLTs with fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes!  I ask you, were fresh, juicy, garden tomatoes made for anything else?  I can hardly bring myself to buy those waxy things you find at the store, and I refuse to have BLTs any other time of the year.

Oh yeah, I also LOVE corn on the cob, but I didn't get any pictures of that.  My husband prefer's corn off the cob, so this is what I bought him for his birthday:

Nothing says "I love you" like a corn cob cutter. ;)