Teaching our Daughters the Difference

 "We need to teach our daughters to distinguish between a man who flatters her - and a man who compliments her. 

A man who spends money on her - and a man who invests in her. 

A man who views her as property - and a man who views her properly. 

A man who lusts after her - and a man who loves her. 

A man who believes he is God's gift to women - and a man who remembers a woman was God's gift to man...

And then teach our boys to be that kind of a man."

~Unknown

Life as a Keeper of the Home

Labor Day weekend came as a huge relief for me, not due to some huge free for all at the lake on a boat (although there is nothing wrong with that), but because I was finally able to catch up on some of the canning I needed to do.  We've spent so much time working in the garden and at the Farmer's Market, I haven't had any time at home long enough to get some canning done.  

You see, for some time now, I have felt the pull to create some sort of cottage industry, but could never really put my finger on what it should be.  One of my favorite things to do is to grow organic heirloom vegetable plants.  The garden is my sanctuary.  It is where I

Parenting Tips

There are no perfect parents out there, but if we keep our eyes on God, He will give us the strength and wisdom to be a better parent than we could be leaning on our own strength and wisdom.  I personally raised two children depending on my own strength and it was a huge failure.  Neither one of them are in jail or missing, but they are lost to the world (which keeps me on my knees in prayer) and without the grace of God,

Modest Clothing - Great Stuff!

 

I'm taking the opportunity to share with you a wonderful place to find great quality and beautiful modest clothing.  I stumbled across the site somewhere along my internet travels and decided to take a chance.  What a blessing it was to find Katie at Katie's Mercantile!  She is extremely personal and very helpful, taking time to respond to any

Sweet Stuffed Peppers

Last year I chopped up my abundance of sweet peppers and put them in the freezer.  They added beauty and great taste to almost every meal all winter long, however, I still was unable to use them all.  This year I decided that our family would eat more of them as stuffed peppers instead of slicing them into different meals and they are terrific cooked this way.  I've also heard that you can stuff them and freeze them too, so I'll be putting lots of them away in that manner for this coming winter.  I'm so glad to find different ways to use these tasty treats.

Sweet Stuffed Peppers

1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup uncooked long grain brown rice
1 cup water
6 sweet bell peppers (any color)
2 (8 oz) cans tomato sauce (I use spaghetti sauce)
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder (or cook 1/2 of a medium onion with your ground beef)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning (or crumble your homegrown herbs of Basil and Oregano into it)
1 cup cheese of your choice...Cheddar, Colby Jack, Mozzarella etc.

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

• Cook the rice and water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover, and cook 20 minutes.

• In a skillet over medium heat, cook the beef (and onion) until evenly browned.

• Remove and discard the tops, seeds, and membranes of the bell peppers. Arrange peppers in a baking dish with the hollowed sides facing upward. (Slice the bottoms of the peppers if necessary so that they will stand upright.) 

• In a bowl, mix the browned beef, cooked rice, 1 can tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Spoon an equal amount of the mixture into each hollowed pepper. Mix the remaining tomato sauce and Italian seasoning in a bowl, and pour over the stuffed peppers.  

• Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, basting with sauce every 15 minutes, until the peppers are tender.  10 minutes before they are done, sprinkle cheese over their tops.

 I hope you enjoy! 
 


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Book Review: Do Hard Things

I first saw this book on the Vision Forum website and thought it might be interesting soI borrowed it from the library and never got around to reading it.....sound familiar?  A few weeks ago, we received the latest catalog from Christianbook.com.  We enjoy getting these because our daughter finds great reading material from these catalogs.  She reads at an adult level and it is impossible to stay one step ahead of her while safeguarding her and what she reads.  We look a lot to Vision Forum and a few other sources to give us a good foundation in what we choose to allow her to read.  This summer, she has entered two different reading programs and spends all of her extra time reading.  Upon getting this Christianbook catalog, she quickly began to make her list for us to look at on which books she would like to get.

When I saw that she had asked for this one, I wasn't sure she was old enough to read it.  Sure she is plenty capable of

Making an Amish Dress

 I'll give you a bit of history about this subject in order for you to grasp our familiarity with the Amish community.  We live next to six large, Old Order Amish communities.  We spend a lot of time with several different Amish families and have made some great friends.  Our daughters play together.  This picture is of our daughter (which explains the white tennis shoes) trying on one of their dresses.  She absolutely loves these dresses.  Trying to make one of these dresses isn't because we feel she needs to wear these dresses, however, they