Updates

Good Evening, and it is good. Miss Pear is settling into her new bed, and it does not take me an hour and a half to get her to sleep, suddenly last night is was half an hour! And tonight might be less. Of course, she keeps asking to pray, and last night as I was praying thank you things, she was saying thank you too. Tonight she said, "Thank you, Lord, amen." All on her own. I almost cried. (Or laughed because it sounded more like "tank you Lode ......... anen.")

Miss Pear is sick today - lethargic with a bit of a fever, we are hoping she will feel better after a good night's sleep as tomorrow is her 2nd birthday!

And the last update is about our insurance for our new home. Thank you so much for praying with us, we did find someone who would insure us, and then we have a year to look around and see if that is who we want to stick with, but we needed something as a requirement to close escrow!

I do not think I posted it yet, so here is our moving schedule:

June 6 -- Happy 8th Anniversary to us!

1. Get hair cuts in the morning
2. Close escrow to sell our town home
   
3. Go out for celebratory supper at our favorite Italian restaurant that we are going to miss so much
   

June 7

1. Movers arrive in the morning to box us up - I provide the special instructions (like open me first boxes, and that Miss Pear's room is to be the last on the truck and the first off)
2. Close escrow to buy our house
3. Play at Miss Pear's best friend's house in the morning so that we are away from the chaos.
4. Go out to a local hamburger joint that is excellent with kids, but is a sit down restaurant, and can manage Miss Pear's peanut and potato allergies.
5. Lose all internet access as they pack everything.

June 8

1. Large moving truck arrives to take all our stuff - I anticipate that Miss Pear will be VERY interested in this as she likes pointing to cars, trucks, planes, helicopters, and pretty much everything that moves. She was enchanted when we were at Fed Ex / Kinkos to fax something and the Fed Ex guy arrived in his truck to take boxes away!
2. All possessions on properties change
3. We, and all our stuff, move to our new home.

June 8 - 29 unpack and get organized

June 30 - Housewarming and 2nd Birthday BBQ at our place - nothing like a little motivation!

I am preparing something that I think is very special to share on Wednesday with you, it has taken me 14 posts to get it from a Word document into Blogger. And for a hint, it goes with my WFMW post today.....

WFMW - Bible Study Help

With our slightly crazy schedule (moving next week, Miss Pear switching from crib to big girl bed, Miss Pear's birthday party this past weekend and birthday on Thursday) and a a crazy schedule through July, I have been drifting in my Bible reading when I need it the most!

So I opened up my

The NLT One Year Chronological Bible, Hardcover

- the Bible in chronological order, in daily readings. I just have to open it up and read. At the end of one day of reading I can stop or read another day.

Just the help I need right now, and it is fun to read the Bible chronologically, I am seeing things I have missed reading in other methods. It is fun to be reading Genesis and seeing Chronicles fitting it already. I don't know why, but I did not expect that!

When things settle down I will add back in my other reading, but plan to finish this!

Works for me!

When things settle down again - maybe in August, I will post about the other kinds of Bible study I enjoy, both lighter and very indepth

Breakfast on Demand

Tammy over at Tammy's Recipes (a favorite site of mine) started Kitchen Tip Tuesdays, and that sounded right up my ally!

So here is my favorite breakfast tip - we call it breakfast on demand around here.

On the weekends I make us nice, special family breakfasts. I often make pancakes or waffles or french toast. I deliberately make extra and freeze them one piece to a sandwich bag and put the sandwich bags in a freezer bag, and put the whole thing in the freezer.

Then, during the week we have breakfast on demand!

I open the freezer, pull out a pancake, and pop it in the microwave for 1 minute on each side, and in our microwave it is ready!

This comes in especially hand for mornings when I am very groggy! Or Miss Pear is starving and I am not! It is also a quick and cheap way to have nice healthy breakfasts always on hand! And also, guaranteed to be allergen free!

Click on over to Tammy's for more great ideas!

Cake Decoration

I have always wanted to be able to decorate beautiful cakes.

I have the fancy pastry bag, but am not really sure how to use it, so I stumble along, and use it mostly to decorate gingerbread cookies.

For Miss Pear's actual birthday on Thursday I am making a Winnie the Pooh cake as I was able to get the pan on sale. I should be able to decorate it as it is just little star drops of icing and some straight lines - I can do that!

However, I am on the hunt for a good book on cake decorating! Any ideas or suggestions???

Our weekend

We had a wonderful long weekend!

Thankfully Mr. Pear was able to telecommute on Friday, which helped tremendously seeing as Miss Pear was out of her crib for good. Our big girl bed transition is going well, but slowly. With all the changes going on Miss Pear is needing more confirmation of security, so she would like it best if I would sleep with her. I love her like all get out, but that is not going to happen. So I sit with her and rub her back for a while, and then excuse myself, and return a while later. We are doing fairly well with the transition. With no bed rails we were concerned that she would roll out of bed, but thankfully that has not been a problem either!

The party on Saturday was low key and lots of fun! The small party was perfect for us for right now (we will have a bigger birthday party/housewarming party once we move!) It was like a three ring circus around our table, but perfect!

Sunday I woke up with an eye infection, which upset my balance, so we stayed home for most of the day. We did go out for a car ride after nap time because Miss Pear was not ready to be awake yet, and that was all she wanted. (Phone woke her up). Then friends came over to play once we returned home and stayed for supper.

Monday was restful, and we were bumps. It was delightful.

Today started at 4AM as Miss Pear woke up and could not seem to get back to sleep. She is napping now, and for all of us, I hope it is a long and restorative one.

Please pray for our new house as we are having trouble finding someone who will insure it because we are so close to the canyon and are therefore considered to be in a burn risk zone (despite the fact that there is a street, a green space, and a bike path between us and the canyon, and despite the fact that the fire hydrant is on our lot, and our home has sprinklers. This is a big problem as we need insurance for our loan!)

Bye Bye Crib

Miss Pear got out of her crib last night, and face planted onto the carpet. She bit her lip, which bled profusely, but is okay. However, she will have nothing to do with her crib.

So the crib has been dismantled and removed from her room, and we just have her mattress in there with a pillow headboard until we get proper bed rails and therefore set up the bed safely (harder to find rails because her big girl bed will not have a box spring right away so it is lower for her).

So Mr. Pear is in there right now trying to convince her to sleep, my shift is coming up soon. She spent the night with us, wedged firmly against me, so sleep was very elusive. Fortunately, Mr. Pear telecommuted today, and only had to work a half day.

Any ideas on making this transition???

Update: Miss Pear napped in her rocking chair, sitting up - would have nothing to do with the mattress on the floor idea, so we set up her big girl bed. On the toddler setting, the top of the mattress is below my knee, so we are just going to put a pillow down in case she falls (but she cheerfully rolls off our couch onto a pillow which is about the same hight and then immediately does it again....) We positioned the bed so that the corner she would usually scoot to for sleep is against the wall, and let her pick which sheets (purple floral or purple) and which quilt (purple big girl quilt or baby quilt - both made by Mr. Pear's mom), and she is going to help make the bed.

We have the long weekend to make the transition, and we might need it, but we are praying the Lord would be merciful and it would go smoothly, especially considering that we are having Miss Pear's 2nd birthday party tomorrow - a small one with one other family who we are really close to, and another lady who is given the honorary title of Aunt.

Oh, and the lip is not swollen, and is not looking the least bit infected! Thank you Jesus!

Frugal Friday - Cresent Rolls and Cream Cheese

In our little corner of the world there were great sales on cream cheese and crescent rolls. Of course a sale is only good when you use the product, so if you purchased these items too, here is a recipe adapted from Once a Month Cooking.

Chicken Packets

4 oz cream cheese
3 tbsp milk
1 cup chicken, cooked and cubed
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
2 packages of crescent rolls

Whip together the cream cheese and milk. Mix in the chicken, onion and celery. (this mixture can be frozen)

Unroll the crescent rolls. In each tube there will be 4 rectangles with a perforated line through them. Press the perforated line so that it will not separate. Divide the mixture up on each of the rolls and pinch closed however you like.

Place on greased cookie sheet and cook at 350F for 20 minutes.

My cost for this?
Cream Cheese - no more that $0.50 (I cannot remember if I used half a block that I got for $1 or half of a block that I got for 0.75)
Crescent Rolls - $1
Chicken - $1 (Foster Farm cooked chicken strips on sale for $3 with a doubled $1 off coupon)
Celery and Onion - such a small amount it was probably not more than 5 or 10 cents.

Total = no more than $2.60 for 8 packets.

Lunch is either 2 packets or 1 packet with fruit or salad.

Head on over to Crystal's to hear how the pro's do it - I am still working on the baby steps....

What I have learned by having our house on the market....

(Our town home, at least it is ours for 2 more weeks)

In two weeks, exactly, a crew of movers will be here putting all our stuff in boxes, so it seemed an appropriate time to post this, because after being on the market since September, we learned an awful lot....

1. God has a sense of humor (okay, I knew this before, but I have a new appreciation for it).

2. If you want people to come see your house, get 10 projects on the go so that you are in a bit (or a huge, gargantuan, did you get that name of that tornado) of a mess - guaranteed to work!

3. Buy lots of toilet bowl cleaner - people will treat you bathroom like a public restroom (at least I am presuming they are better behaved at home....)

4. It is helpful to have a good cleaning schedule and be faithful in following it.

5. God always meets me in my disappointment.

6. A microwave is a great place to store baking.

7. If you finish the drink in the jug, it is perfectly okay to put the clean, empty jug back in the fridge to hide it when showing your home.

8. My swiffer is my friend.

9. A relatively fine mesh bag is a great way to store tub toys so that they are not all over the tub.

10. If you want people to come see your home, just get sick.

11. It is really a good thing to make your bed first thing every morning - not just a compulsion I have!

12. There are some real estate agents that push all your buttons, but be nice to them, they will be advising the potential buyer of your home.

13. Physical inspections are a good thing, but don't take them personally when the buyer of your house asks for whiny nit-picky things! It is worth it to go buy a tube of calking just to build some good will.

14. If you want people to come see your home, tear a couple rooms apart for an in-depth cleaning and they will be right over!

15. If you microwave is full, store baking or dirty dishes in your oven.

16. God is ever faithful, and can be completely trusted.

17....and He is there when you cry out in frustration too, and listens and soothes....

18. God's timing is perfect.

Oh the Spring Time Bliss!

This post may be a shocker - after all, around these parts I post about books, house stuff, moving, and what God is doing in my life.

But I am Canadian.

And it is May.

So that means one thing:



The division finals are over, and the teams are set for the Stanley Cup Finals.

And I am thrilled. It is almost hockey bliss.

There is a Canadian team in the finals - Ottawa Senators (okay, we would be more excited if it was the Montreal Canadians - that would be hockey nirvana around here, but we take what we can get).

They will be playing the Anaheim Ducks - the hometown team for Southern California. If you are Miss Pear they are the Duckies. Probably not the image they are going for, but we teach 'em young around here - although we do work on Bible reading first.

Game 1 is Monday night in Anaheim.

Be still my heart!

WFMW - Best Errand Running Day

My Works for Me Wednesday may seem strange at first, but I encourage you to try it!, and it will not work for this week. However, next week is a different story!

If you want to run errands without lots of traffic in the parking lots, and without crowds in the store, studies have shown that there is one day that is far superior to all other days of the week to run errands. This works for everything: library, groceries, mall, pharmacies, and even warehouse stores. Yes, they did studies on this! Seriously! This has worked in Canada, and in California, so the study proves correct in my estimation!

The best day to run errands to avoid crowds is Tuesday.

I save bunches of time this way, and also money on gas.

Errands on Tuesday...works for me!

Camellias - because I love a challenge

When we started landscaping our postage stamp back yard almost 5 years ago when we moved into our town home, we splurged on one item - a Camellia.

A Camellia is a very beautiful flowering shrub. Ours has a showier flower that is more of a red, but you can get the idea from the picture below



Camellias are fussy plants that are very sensitive to salt in the soil, like specific soil and water conditions and are worth all the trouble because they are gorgeous! Plus, they bloom in the winter months down here, so there is a bit of color for a winter garden!

And it breaks my heart to leave it, but leave it I must.

So I decided to take cuttings of it to try take a part of it with us to our new home.

I knew that these were fussy little plants, but wondered how hard it could really be.

So I called the local nursery where I bought it, and they were not sure it could be done, but consulted a reference book, and said it could be done, but to ensure that I got one plant at the end of this, I should take numerous cuttings, and they provided the detailed instructions, which I dutifully wrote down.

When we went to get our supplies we again talked to the experts, and again they were very leery of my chances of success, warned me of this, but again provided detailed instructions, and then helped me select my supplies.

So Saturday night, all three of us played in the garden. We followed all the instructions:

1. Fill 6 inch pots with soil mixture
2. Take cuttings.
3. Remove all but top two leaves from cuttings.
4. Peal lower bark off
5. Dip cutting in water up to bark line
6. Dip wet cutting in rooting hormone mix (make sure little ones are not near this step, this stuff is poisonous! So clean up very well afterwards!)
7. Plant cutting without knocking the rooting hormone off.
8. Water with fertilizer
9. Place cuttings in spot outside where they will not get any direct sunlight, only indirect light.
10. Pray like crazy.
11. Water with fertilizer as needed to keep the soil moist. Do not let pots sit in water.

Even if a cutting takes, which I am praying at least one will, these plants are extremely slow growing, so it will be a couple years before I could take them out of the pots and plant them in the ground. But I am hopeful, and it will be very special to have this little memento from our first house that we bought together.

Meals for Moving Part 1

I decided to do it, I decided to prepare meals ahead of time and move them with us so that it is easier for us. However, I do not have time to do a massive cook in the next two weeks, so on Friday I went to Cena To Go, a make and take meal place, to assemble 6 meals for 6 people, which ended up being 12 meals for our family of three.

The six entrees I selected from their monthly menu are:

1. Authentic Chicken Enchiladas
   
2. Beef Greek Gyros with Cucumber Sauce
3. Chicken & Smoked Gouda in Puff Pastry
4. Chicken Parisien
   
5. Classic London Broil
6. Lime Grilled Chicken with Sour Cream

And I confess, I grabbed a bag of Raspberry and White Chocolate Chunk scones from their freezer.

This was my second trip to Cena To Go. And once again I was completely impressed by the incredibly high standard of cleanliness and food handling. While they must maintain professional food handling standards, as someone who is familiar with those standards I can say that they go above and beyond.

When you arrive with your cooler in hand, they quickly greet you and offer to help you with your cooler. They get you organized and settled by discussing your menu with you, offering you lemonade, scones, and coffee, getting you your apron, and showing you around. As this was my second trip there, the owner recognized me, and we talked about what I had selected.

The store I go is booked solid evenings and weekends, but is very quiet during the day, so at the time slot I went, I was the only one there. Sometimes this results is either poor service, or feeling like you are being watched like a hawk! Neither one happened. While I was assembling my meals, Joan, the owner, was doing her work and chatting, and Michelle, who works there, was doing her work and chatting. While we were all chatting and working, I no sooner finished at a work station and it was immediately cleaned! Questions about recipes were quickly and expertly answered. When I took the last label because I divided my puffs into three meals rather than two, labels were quickly produced so I could label my meal. When I forgot to put my sour cream in cups to take with me, and had moved on to the next station, it was done for me.

The recipes I chose all smelled delicious when I was making them, and they provide an incredibly high quality of ingredients, particularly the meat!

It is fun to assemble your meals when everything is prepped for you and all right there, and you are forbidden from cleaning up after yourself! It took me an hour and a half to assemble my meals, and there was no preparation or real planning or clean-up required of me! I showed up, assembled, put meals in my cooler, came home, and unloaded my cooler into the freezer.

I also appreciated that both times I was there they quickly offer to help me to the car with my cooler.

This was my second trip there, and I am very confident that once again, each meal I have put in the freezer for my family will be delicious and healthy for us. I love that I can adapt the recipes for my family by skipping things and even doing substitutions for allergies.

I love that I will be able to quickly provide healthy meals for my family while still going about the business of moving! I love that there will be no chance for us to fall into the "eating out trap" that is a weakness for us.

I was very pleased with both my food from and experience at Cena-To-Go, and would very highly recommend them. From a price perspective I can certainly make cheaper meals, but when you need help, it is definitely cheaper and healthier than eating out, and than buying prepared food at the supermarket. It would also be great if you were trying to begin preparing food in advance for your family in either a Once a Month cooking fashion, or just a couple meals here and there as if you pay attention, they are teaching you the basics.

I am only disappointed that there is not a Cena To Go near where we are moving, it would be a special hour and a half trip to come back here. But maybe we can plan a girls morning out....

Moving and Meals

Our home inspection was completed today, and everything is wonderful, we have no repair requests. Shocking, I know!

Living next to the canyon has made one insurance agent refuse to even quote us! Unfortunately it was the one through work where we would have received a generous discount! Please pray that we would find a good insurance policy that we can afford!

So moving is coming closer, and here is the problem I am facing. Miss Pear is allergic to both nuts (severely) and "normal" potatoes (sweet potatoes are fine). She is allergic enough that cross contamination with nuts is a huge concern, cross contamination with potatoes just requires Benedryl.

So we have to be careful!

Yet, as we move, we don't want to be eating out for a week straight, and I don't want to be spending large amounts of time in the kitchen once we move trying to make meals and stock the freezer (words you thought you would never read here, I know!) Miss Pear is already off kilter, and once we move she is going to need even more attention (we are praying she will love the new home and adjust quickly).

A friend of ours has offered their freezer with a promise to bring up our food the day after we move, which is very sweet. And make a second trip the following week, which is even sweeter!

So I am thinking about taking full advantage of this wonderful offer in order to not be eating out, and to not be eating junk.

I am thinking about going to one of those make and take meal places to make us a full compliment of meals. There are two near us. A dear friend of mine and I tried out Cena to Go and we loved it! We split the meals, and I have to confess, I wish we had not! And the Dream Dinners near me is having an introductory special. In both places it works out to be $3-4 a serving, much cheaper than eating out, and much healthier too!

While it is more expensive than making it myself, I think I might need the help!

It would certainly take one big thing off my plate for the first two weeks and allow me to focus on settling my family (and checking out the parks with Miss Pear!)

WFMW - Forcing Bread to Rise

I love to bake bread - if you have read much of my postings you will see we do it a lot!

But sometimes I don't have the time or the patience to wait for the bread to rise!

You see, I use active yeast the most because I get great deals on it at Costco, and the recipes generally yield two or more loaves, rather that the breadmachine yeast which generally has recipes that only yield one loaf and is generally much more expensive (and not just because you need more - one tbsp of bread machine yeast generally yields one loaf while 1 tbsp of active yeast will generally yield two loaves.)

So what is a girl to do?

Cheat of course!

I turn my oven on to warm or 200F, and let it run one cycle then turn it off while I am mixing my dough. Then I place my dough in a glass bowl and cover it, and pop it in the oven. Yes, some heat does escape at this point, but that is okay, the point is that the oven is warm, not hot.

Updated to add: A sweet commenter just pointed out that Alton Brown says to include a pan of water at the bottom of your oven when you do this, and we always agree with Alton Brown in kitchen stuff, it is the rule around here!

I find that this cuts the rise time in half, and uses very little extra gas.

This tip also works great in getting your bread to rise when you are running the air conditioning or your house is just a bit on the cool side.

Cheating at bread making...works for me!

Why I do not hire a House Cleaning Service

Here in Southern California we have more than our nationally proportional share of very wealthy families. We also have a large population of undocumented workers who will clean homes for a very low price, which forces the amount that cleaning services can charge down as well.

As a result it is very common, in some areas even the norm, to hire a housekeeper or cleaning service to come in and clean for you. They do either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly cleaning.

I confess, that there are two occasions that I have resorted to a cleaning service.

The first time was over a year ago when I broke the cuboid bone in my foot and severely sprained my foot and ankle. My poor husband was trying to do everything and work full time, and I could barely hobble from chair to chair. It was bad. We had the deacons from church and friends delivering us food, and we cruised right through my freezer stash. Mr. Pear is very talented in house cleaning, but could not do it all, and family was not nearby to help. So we had a service come in twice, with two weeks in between the visits, then I took over again.

The second time was when we were racing to get our house on the market, and just need a good top to bottom cleaning done pronto because we had been busy with other things, had been sick, and had been stressed to the max (Mr. Pear's job was ending, and in God's perfect timing, he signed a contract with his new company in the last week of his old job, so the race was on to get our house sold!) To make the weekend listings we had one day to do all the paperwork, clean house, and do the mountain of things necessary to prepare a house for sale, finish one job and accept another. If we had family nearby, and friends who did not work full time, we could have asked for help and done this ourselves, but that was not an option in our situation.

Now I could make all kinds of ideological answers for why I do not hire a house keeper, including arguments like being a stay at home wife and mom makes it seem silly to have someone in each week, and the squandering of family resources. (A friend of ours with two little ones aged 2 and 3 months is listing their home, and are in the same boat as us - no family nearby to help, and we are moving so we cannot help in the time she needs, so she quoted a cleaning company to come once a week - $80 a week!)

All those would be valid and reasonable arguments.

But the real reason is that if I am going to pay someone big bucks to clean my house, and in a one income family it is big bucks, I should not have to tidy before they come - yet I always felt the compulsion too, and I should not have to double check before they leave to make sure everything was done, which on 2 of 3 occasions major things were missed! And most importantly, I should NOT have to clean behind them after they leave, and yet I was!

At the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that no one can clean a house as well as those who live in it! We know where the dust accumulates, we know the problem areas to check, and we know how to clean those tough spots! We know what it takes to make our homes as clean as we want them to be.

So I would like to encourage anyone out there who is lamenting the chore of cleaning house, and is considering getting a service in for regular cleaning (obviously there are special circumstances were we just need help and family and friends are not available!): It is just not worth it.

I would encourage you to get a plan together to get caught up, get a plan together to maintain your home, and stick to it. I know of two excellent books to help get you started:

Sink Reflections: Overwhelmed? Disorganized? Living in Chaos? The FlyLady's Simple FLYing Lessons Will Show You How to Get Your Home and Your Life in Order--and It All Starts with Shining Your Sink!

More Hours in My Day: Proven Ways to Organize Your Home, Your Family, and Yourself

On days when I am the most discouraged and tired, and the cleaning cannot possibly be put off, I remind myself that my family is worth it, that my work honors the Lord, and that no one can do it as well as I can.

Then I ask the Lord to strengthen my hands, to not let me grow weary of doing good, to help me, and I launch in, even if it is just in 10 minute increments of alternating work and rest, until the jobs are done.

Oh my! Moving Stuff!

Well, the sense of relief is passing. That was our big emotion when we found out that we had a house!!!!!!! The excitement was there, but it was not the chief emotion!

Of course gratitude to our gracious Lord is our top feeling, we are talking after that!

Now the panic/anxiety of moving is setting in.

Our schedule is this:

June 6 - Happy 8th Anniversary to us! - close escrow on our town home
June 7 - Close escrow on our new home, movers pack us (movers are scheduled!)
June 8 - All our stuff is loaded on a truck and we move to our new home
June 9 and 10 - a weekend to begin unpacking and helping Miss Pear become accustomed to her new home
June 11 to June 31 - unpack! It is my goal to be rid of all our boxes that are being unpacked and not stored (such as seasonal decorations) by the end of the month!

We have a home for our moving boxes, some friends of ours are listing their house so that they can move to a newer house with a better layout for their family, and they are happy to take our boxes!

In honor of this wonderful event, I have added three new books to my reading list!

All New Square Foot Gardening

Sink Reflections: Overwhelmed? Disorganized? Living in Chaos? The FlyLady's Simple FLYing Lessons Will Show You How to Get Your Home and Your Life in Order--and It All Starts with Shining Your Sink!

More Hours in My Day: Proven Ways to Organize Your Home, Your Family, and Yourself

I am already thinking about my new household schedule. I have been a die hard Emilie Barnes girl, but I love the idea of doing my "Spring Cleaning" throughout the year so that I don't have to do "Spring Cleaning"! So I am reading both More Hours and Sink Reflections and will likely end up with a blended type of schedule!

I am also interested in reading Square Foot Gardening as I would like to do a bit of gardening, but not use up too much of the yard as we want to have room to play out back! So I am interested in this! We are looking into a CSA in the area, but I would still like to grow our favorites! I would love to be able to can spaghetti sauce from what we grow!

7 Random Things Meme

I have been tagged to tell you 7 Random things about myself by Joyful Days.

Random is good, Random I can do! At least I think so....


1. The last pet I had as a kid living at home is a yellow naped amazon parrot named Lionel. He lives with my parents on a golf course, and everyone loves him. He spends a lot of time outside in the summer, and the golfers call "Hi Lionel!" to him as they golf by. Lionel gets into calling hi back to them, even long after they have left, and this embarrasses my mom. Lionel also enjoys a good game of pool.

2. We opened escrow on our first house today, and I am so excited! (We currently live in a town home) We are hoping to plant fruit trees in the back yard - Orange, Juice Orange, Tangelo and Satsuma Mandarin , and maybe also a peach and apricot as they come in dwarf varieties too! I think our philosphy with our little back yard is going to be that if it cuts into play room out back, it better contribute to our family (as in give us food!)

3. I love quilting, cross stitching, embroidery, knitting, sewing, and pretty much any craft that involves needles - but when it comes to needles in the context of vaccinations, IV's or giving blood, I am scared spitless. Yes, I do appreciate the irony of that.

4. I was a BSF children's leader for 3 years - two with the Jr. High group and one with the grads 5 and 6. Both were great, but God gave the Jr. High kids a very special spot in my heart.

5. I LOVE to cook and bake! Before I was a mom I was dubbed the Dessert Queen (Or was it Dessert Lady, I cannot remember) as such was my love for baking.

6. When we finish our citizenship paperwork, each member of my family will travel with two passports - One Canadian and One American. (We are about 4 years away).

7. I did 9 years of 4-H - 5 years of sewing, and 4 years of Candy Striping at a Care Home.


Now for tagging people....hmmmm.....If you read this post, consider yourself tagged!

A complete MIRACLE!

It is a complete miracle! Our counter offer was accepted! We are the very proud owners of a house! The one at the top of this post actually!

We just found out before supper, so as soon as Miss Pear went down for the night I quickly logged in to tell you!

It really is a complete miracle. In September, when we started looking in this area, there were no houses in our price range, and even the town homes in our price range were kind of run down and icky, and not really suited to our family and lifestyle. (Translation: people who spend time in their homes!)

By waiting all this time, house prices have dropped and are now in our price range!

We have been praying for a house for a very long time, even before we knew where we would be moving to with whatever new job Mr. Pear got! So this is a huge answer to prayer.

I prayed for a house.

A house that had a backyard for our family to play in:

And if at all possible, a good working kitchen

(on the right hand side is the counter and the fridge - a kitchen made for serious cooking and baking!)

We prayed that it would be close to work and on a quiet street - and it is.

We prayed that it would have room for visitors as we have lots of them - it has three bedrooms and a loft that can serve as a guest room when the bedrooms are full. And the bedrooms are a nice size - hard to find around here!

And we have a canyon view which cannot be built on as it is a regional park.

And it is not smaller than were we are now! (Our town home is 1417 square feet, the house is 1508! Going into a house in a more expensive area makes this fact another miracle!)

It is a great home, and we open escrow on Monday!

The funny thing is that Mr. Pear sees the street of houses we are going to live on each day on the drive to work, in the distance, and always thought that they were very nice looking, and interesting! Now he gets to live there!

Praise the Lord! He is so merciful to His children - even when they act like stubborn toddlers in the midst of a temper tantrum....

It is indeed all about the Lord, what He is doing, what He has done. This is a complete gift from Him, we are just along for the wonderful ride.

We said all along that it would take a complete series of miracles for us to move, and move into a house.

Our God is still in the miracle business, and is overwhelmingly generous with His children.

Thank you SO much for praying with us through this, we cannot tell you how much that means to us, and how much that helped us!

Eventually....

....things will again calm down and we will return to our regularly scheduled blogging.....

Until then, the Lord is Sovereign and it is He that reigns, not chaos!

I just needed to remind myself.

My meeting with the lawyer went well, he is a good friend of Mr. Pears from when they were BSF leaders together, so that makes it easier. My stomach was in such knots that Mr. and Miss Pear accompanied me. That helped.

I signed the final paperwork, so now the lawyer in Canada has to send a check down, my lawyer has to make the final payments, and then I get a very small check at the end. (He thinks we can likely have things wrapped up before we move.)

I have to confess, I am hoping the check is enough for the fancy dancy All Clad slow cooker that has caught my eye because my second one is on its very last legs, and I am tired of cooking and prepping in one set of pans and then using my slow cooker (and praying that the two hot spots would not burn and wreck what I am making), I would like to dirty just my slow cooker. It may appear a frivolous item, but with the heat of southern California I use my slow cooker all year round, particularly in the hottest months so that I don't heat up the kitchen! And, I confess, I would take great pleasure out of this item that is not the least bit frugal. My slow cooker has to be a work horse! Already two gave up on me! I also hope to be able to get some knew cookie sheets and a jelly roll pan (mine are very used and abused! Or is the phrase well loved???)

On to house news. We don't really have any...

One home owner of a very sweet little house made us an excellent counter offer, but it was higher than we could afford, so we counter offered him, basically splitting the difference, and Mr. Pear just got back from faxing it back. So we will see. He is eager to sell and move, and we are eager to buy and move, so it should be a good match!

It is such a sweet house! It has a great kitchen, a back yard that is much bigger than we have now, but if you are not from around these parts you would call it small, here we call it a nice size. It has three bedrooms all upstairs and all a good size. And it has a view of a beautiful canyon outside the kitchen window - and it has a kitchen that is made to be worked in! And it is close to where Mr. Pear works and is in a good neighborhood! And we are at the edge of the cul-de-sac, so there is no homes across the road from the house, and that side can never be built on! Guaranteed canyon views! Nothing has been agreed to, so I am trying not to get excited, but oh! it is hard!

The other house we were interested in is stalling for time, and is not really getting back to us. We are also thinking that it needs way too much work for us to handle right now (even if we could get it cheep enough to be able to afford all the work).

In other news, the first house that we made an offer on, the one where one of the two agents was very rude to both our agents, came back to us to see if we could put some kind of a deal together. The agent did this on his own, and we did not exactly jump up and cheer. The kitchen is not as nice, and the bedrooms are a lot smaller.

So that is all the news around here.

It is nap time, and I think that sounds pretty good!

Pins and needles

So I am sitting here on pins and needles waiting for the phone to ring about the offers we made on houses. They have until this evening at 7 to get back to us.

And then the phone rang, and naturally I jumped and ran!

It was not about the house, I have to go the lawyers office tomorrow to sign the paperwork on my dad's estate. This is very emotional for me because my dad and I had a very acrimonious relationship. He made it clear I was never going to be good enough (unless I was a size 0, a genius with numerous doctorate degrees, and an Olympic athlete all at once), and that he expected me to have no relationship at all with my second father who is very good to me. No matter how hard I worked at something, unless it was perfection, it was never good enough.

So because this week was not already emotionally charged enough, let's through this in too!

But at least it will soon be over.....

Catch Up Day

We are having a catch up day today. It is 10AM, and :

• the third load of laundry is almost in the washer (my machine has to learn to wash faster!),
• three loaves of banana loaf are in the oven,
• supper is in the slow cooker
• we have cleaned the kitchen (still need to sweep though)
  
• our bed has been stripped,
• all the toilets have clearner in them and are soaking,
• all the bathroom sinks have bleach in them and are soaking,
• we watered all our plants out front
• we moved two basil plants
• we planted another tomato seed
• we talked to our real estate agent for our new home after...
• ...faxing him back the offers we want to make,
• followed up with our agent here about the copy of the contract we need to get Mr. Pear's company to release our check for help
• followed up with my lawyer about closing my father's estate ASAP seeing as we are moving the need is now more urgent as it will be hard to get back and sign paperwork.

Gee, wonder why I feel like I could use a break?????

We looked at four homes yesterday, and are making more than one offer. Please pray that the God would provide a home for us in time, the people we sold our home to close escrow here June 11, and we have to be out by June 13! I am trying not to be anxious and panic, but in everything, with prayer and thanksgiving, make my request known to God.

I will blog more about yesterday's house hunting when our house does not look like a disaster - hopefully later today.

Oh, the people we made offers to have until tomorrow evening to get back to us.....

House Hunting Take 2

So they turned down our offer.

The people who currently own the home we made an offer on negotiated down $3000 and will negotiate no further, they are firm.

Okay then, moving on.

Our agent knows we need to find a house FAST, so he is looking to see if there are houses in our range to look at, if not we are going to town homes. We could be up there as early as tomorrow (Tuesday) looking again.

The plan will be that Miss Pear and I drive up with Mr. Pear when he leaves for work, I look with Miss Pear all morning, we pick up Mr. Pear for lunch, look at the houses, and drive home while Miss Pear sleeps.

Yup, the thought of it makes my head spin too.

Please pray that we would find a home in time. Moving twice would be extremely hard on Miss Pear, we would like to only move straight to our new home, not to temporary housing and then to our home.

Laughed at part 2

So we decided to make one more offer on the house.

We offered our max because the house was worth certain sacrifices, and after all, Mr. Pear's company loves him, and is already planning his career path, so we think he will likely get some raises each year which would lessen the sacrifices. :-)

By sacrifices I mean minor things that we can easily do without for the blessings of a house, not cash strapped!

So we offered our max, made it clear that this was it, if they said "No" we moved on, no negotiations, not even for $500.

The agent is presenting the offer to their clients at 6PM, just over 4 hours from how.

If they say no, we are house hunting again.

If they say yes, you will hear the cheers from here.

We will see. I am not optimistic regarding the seller and their agent, but I am trusting the Lord that if this is the house He has for us He will make it happen.

I think I like this!

You might have already drawn this conclusion yourself, but I think I like this blogging business! I like my little corner of bloggityville, everyone is nice here, and I can think out loud.

However, I have to admit, I would like my blog to look a little nicer, to reflect me better than the premade ones available! So this:

caught my attention!

Everyday Mommy is giving away a design for Mother's Day!

How sweet is that!

Survey says....

this will be at the top for a week, scroll down for new posts please!

I am writing an article specifically geared to women who work full time but wish to be home with their families full time instead. My goal in the article is to validate this decision, encourage readers to work towards this goal, and provide advice and suggestions on how to accomplish this.

I would appreciate your help! I have a simple 5 question survey open to stay at home wives and moms, and women who wish to be here:

Click here to take our Online Survey

One thing that is not in the survey, and maybe it should be, but feel free to answer in the comments section: What is the one thing you would say to a woman who really wants to come home full time, but is convinced that she cannot?

If the survey is full, and you would still like to participate, please answer the questions in the comment section of this post. The questions are:

1) Which currently describes you the best:

A) I am a stay at home wife and/or mother, and always have been.

B) I am a stay at home wife and/or mother who once worked outside the home while married.

C)I am a wife and/or mother who works outside the home, but wish to be home full time

2) When I returned home full time after working outside the home my biggest fears were:

A)No longer being able to eat out as much as I would like

B)No longer being able to buy the household items I would like

C)Having to cook more meals

D)Having to do my own cleaning and gardening

E)Finances in general

F) Other (Please Specify):

3) The biggest challenge in transition home turned out to be:

A) Managing a household budget

B) Cooking for my family

C) Cleaning for my family

D) Filling my days

E) Loneliness

F) Other (Please Specify):

4) When I decided to return home from the work world, I wish someone would have told me:


5) When I decided to return home, the best advice I received was:



This article is just in it's planning stage, but if I manage to get it published, I will let you know!


Updated to Keep this at the top for a while and to add note:
If you would like to mention this post on your blog and send women my way, I would really appreciate it, and it would really help my research!

(Originally Posted 5/7)

Laughed at us

So we heard back on the very reasonable offer we made on the house we thought was the one for us. One agent said it was a reasonable offer, and the other agent of the double list was rude to our agent up there and down here, and scoffed at us and our offer, and the counter offer basically came down $3000.

Which means they did not take us or our offer seriously at all.

And it is clear she told the client what she thought rather than facilitating the offers, so we are likely not going to get anywhere with her in the drivers seat and not the clients.

So I guess now we have to decide if it is worth making a counter offer at the top of our range that they will likely scoff at as well, or just move to plan B house, which we don't like as much, but at least it is a house.

God's provisions for our home

On Monday I said that I would tell you how God provided for us in miraculous ways in the selling of our town home, and I thought that I should probably get around to telling you before everyone forgot! (Okay, before I forgot!)

WAY back in September when we listed our place we could afford a small town home in the area we were looking at. This time we looked only at homes.

We have accepted an offer to sell our town home for about $6000 more than a similar town home that sold almost a month ago, and about $36,000 more than one in our complex that needed a lot of work.

We did end up selling for $15,000 less than your drop dead number, but Mr. Pear's company came in with that exact amount of help!

The physical inspection on our town home revealed three things, two will cost less that $5 total to fix, and one is the HOA's responsibility. God blessed us!

We made an offer on a house yesterday, a beautiful house that is nicer than we thought we could afford. We have not hear back yet, but we were actually able to make a reasonable offer on a beautiful house, and I have to confess, I am praying that they would accept our offer. They are moving out of state, and we can move as fast as they need us too. I love this house, it is perfect for us.

We have a reasonable plan B house, but I really want plan A! But more than that, I want God's best for us.

Since we had to go up for a second day, God blessed me with a pocket of time for a peaceful extended quite time at Starbucks. While I would have laughed at an hour and a half at Starbucks as a peaceful and extended quiet time before I was a mom, now I thought that was the best gift ever!

I said it would take a series of miracles for us to move to the area of Southern California that we are trying to move to out of obedience to God, and the miracles are arriving.

Overwhelmed with joy

I recently discovered Overwhelmed with Joy and have been very tempted to play along with the favorite ingredient Friday because I love to bake and cook and generally play in the kitchen.

Overwhelmed is having a book giveaway for "Unbroken" which is a memoir. And she is giving away two copies! Of course, I love books, and biographies and memoirs is a genre that I enjoy a lot!

Head over to here to enter to win!

Sweet Dreams

For a while now I have been going through a spiritual dry period. What St. John of the Cross calls the long dark night of the soul.

In University I read Douglas Adams - we call it the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

It has been hard and long, but I keep seeking and spending time in the Word and prayer.

Then last night I had the most amazing dream. First, it is amazing because I actually remembered it. But that is not the point.

I dreamed that an angel came to see me, and I was not the least bit shocked or surprised to see him, I just smiled and said, "Oh! There you are!" with such delight, like meeting and old friend.

That is all I remember, and it felt like such incredible encouragement to me!

Book Review: Feminine Appeal

We have been on a good reading run - each book I have picked up to read has been excellent, but even among that great selection of books

Feminine Appeal, Expanded Edition Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother

stood out as an exceptional read.

I was not raised in a strong Christian family, a Christian family yes, but not one that taught me how to be a godly wife to a godly man (even though my mom was an excellent example). And to be honest, I was not really paying that much attention, so Mom could have tried to teach me all this and I just missed it.

However, I have longed for a godly older woman to talk to, to ask these questions of, and have not found that, but this book filled an excellent gap for me, and answered questions I did not even know I have.

It has caused me to look at my marriage, my little sweet family, and my role as wife, mother, and homemaker completely differently. It confirmed in my heart that this is indeed what the Lord is calling me to, what He has gifted me for, and that has given me a peace at a time when our lives are in some tumult.

I would like to select one chapter and tell you that it is THE chapter in the book for me, but I cannot, because the all spoke to me in volumes, the chapters are:

1. Transformed by Titus 2
2. The Delight of Loving My Husband
3. The Blessing of Loving my Children
4. The Safety of Self-Control
5. The Pleasure of Purity
6. The Honor of Working at Home
7. The Reward of Kindness
8. The Beauty of Submission
9. Margaret's Story.

Each chapter had a very special lesson for me. And the list provides an excellent summary of the book, but it is so much more.

This is definitely a book I am planning on reading again very soon.

5 Pears - a book that made me think I needed a higher rating system!

5 Pears - Fabulous! Too good for words! What do you mean you haven't read this one yet! Go, immediately, and get a copy! This book must be in your library! I would lend you mind, but I cannot part with it! Besides, I think I will start rereading it tonight!

4 Pears - Excellent - I loved this book, definitely worth picking up or borrowing from a friend or getting from a library - a must read!

3 Pears - Good - I liked it, it would be a good book to get from your library or to borrow from a friend, probably not one to invest precious book money in though.

2 Pears - Not bad - it would be okay if I were stranded in an airport or on a deserted island and this was all I could find to read.

1 Pear - Awful! Do not waste your time or money on this one! How did this get published?

Did my check get lost????

According to a study released today, we stay at home moms are very valuable!

We are worth $138,095 annually - up 3% from last year - clearly we got a strong performance review as that is higher than average in the work world nowadays.

So here is my question - did your check arrive? Mine hasn't yet! Mr. Pear would like to know how much a stay at home dad makes because if we got checks for both than we could both be stay at home parents! How fun!

House Hunting

We live in a very expensive area of the country, one of the most expensive actually, but within that microcosm of expensive homes, we are moving from one expensive area to another that is even more expensive.

With the housing market being what it is, we are trying to get into a house, ironically, after we would pay all the taxes and fees on a town home, we would be spending only about $100 more on a house, if that. So we are really trying to get into a house. But they are outrageously expensive, even the...ummm...icky ones! Yeah, let's call them icky. We looked at one that was $25K less than the most expensive one we liked, and $5k less than the less expensive one we liked, and I have to tell you, I would be afraid to stay home alone in that one! We would be going with Mr. Pear to work each day!

But the homes are expensive, we are hoping to be able to negotiate them down into our range, and are praying for a miracle in this area from the Lord! It is the only way it is going to happen. I have to be honest, I am hoping and praying to negotiate the more expensive one down because it is clearly owned by Christians while the less expensive one had native art and religious artifacts (native, not Christian) on the walls.

We looked at 19 homes yesterday between 9AM and 3PM. It was exhausting. We saw some really lovely ones, and some that I really have to wonder why we got out of the car. But our agent was not able to preview ahead of us to weed stuff out because, frankly, we did not give him the time.

So I am going with Mr. Pear to work tomorrow, he is going to drop me off at a coffee house for an hour and a half for a nice long devotional time, then we are going to meet and look at the two homes again, check out the neighborhoods more closely, and the homes more closely too, and make an offer. Then I am going back to continue my devotional time while Mr. Pear finishes his morning at work. Then we are grabbing a quick lunch and heading home where he will telecommute for his afternoon. Kind of a crazy thing, but it means he does not have to use a vacation day.

So far today, we have had our home appraised, the pest guys here, UPS deliver a christening gift for our friends baby who is being christened on Sunday, and are getting ready for our home's physical inspection tonight. I kind of feel like I am slowly losing it today.....

WFMW - Birthday Box

Each year on Miss Pear's birthday we have a birthday gift she does not get, yet. It goes into her birthday box.

Let me explain.

Like many women, when I moved out I had most of the essentials, but not a lot of the extras I really wanted that help make the house pretty, and the job easier. It was a couple years before I could save up for the "good stuff" I was accustomed to from working in my Mom's kitchen with her.

So we decided to help Miss Pear out.

Each birthday we put something in her birthday box that is for her home one day, something nice that reflects her year.

For her first birthday I sewed her 4 reversible French Provincial style place mats in green, one side sported pears. (Her grandma's are also free to add something. One embroidered her 7 flour sack tea towels, and one has something that has not been delivered yet as it did not fit in the suit case the last two times she came and there is no rush).

For her second birthday I am sewing 8 napkins - 4 each of the two fabric patterns from last year, and we have purchased metal measuring cups and spoons as Miss Pear loves to help me cook and bake, and will help me all day if I just give her measuring cups and spoons.

We will do this for each child the Lord blesses us with.

The plan is, when she moves out to a home of her own to bless her with this box of goodies, and the list that tracks what each year's gift was and why.

Oh, and don't tell Miss Pear, it is a secret! shhhhhh!

The birthday box and a secret! Works for me!