Mint, basil and tarragon drying for winter use
Can never have too much basil! I dry it, make pesto and freeze it, and usually end up eating fresh everything I've harvested in that night's dinner because its so wonderful! Our garden this year isn't all that diverse. Mainly tomatoes, turnips, a few kinds of peppers, lettuce, SQUASH, and hopefully some watermelon. And then my little herb patch. So far the only harvest we've had is from the herbs, which if I had to choose only one thing to grow it'd be herbs! So that's fine with me. Along with making diet changing I'm also learning about essential oils and reading up a lot on herbal remedies. Not that I want to switch to ONLY homeopathic remedies (I don't. I love me some antibiotics!) but I do very strongly believe that we should START with the natural remedies God provides through nature and when those fail THEN go to the doctor; not dash to the ER the second something bruises or swells or sniffles. My mom grew a lot of healthy things in her flower garden, but we never knew what specifically they did or how specifically to use them. Before I moved out I remember Yarrow growing EVERYWHERE. It was practically a weed, and we knew it did something helpful. I wish I knew then what I knew now, because I'd have pilfered that weedy patch of yarrow like nothing else! Its incredibly healthy for digestion, bringing fevers down, lowering swelling, bruising, and is so pretty in the garden! Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I'll just have to keep haunting the 'manager's special' section of every garden center in a 2 county radius for a while...
Along with expanding our herbal horizons, we've been doing a TON of hosting! We've had folks stay with us, people over for dinner, and sometimes both! Its been wonderful, as I love hosting dinner parties. My friend and I have talked a lot about how we DO think we have the Spiritual Gift of Hospitality, and what all that entails. Basically we have to be careful, because if we don't manage it we let ourselves get run ragged! The other thing I wish I knew how to do better is set the women who come over at ease, because if I throw some herbs onto a dish it is gourmet, and if I put said dish in a pottery bowl vs. a pyrex dish and set it on a table covered with a tablecloth then it is a grand evening dinner party! And then the women feel guilty because when we go to their house they don't own a nice tablecloth or pottery dishes or cook with herbs. I need to make a sign or something that says that I'm really not a hoity-toity food connoisseur, I just know what I like to eat. I'm not making it for them to spoil my guests, I'm making it because I'm selfish and I like my food to taste a certain way! But if a person invites me to their house and cooks me food, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to get out of the house and not have to cook and not have to pay for it! A new friend I made apologized the other day because she's been over to my house twice and I finally was able to make it to her house. "Its not fair because you've fed me 2 or 3 course meals, and here I am frying up a pan of bologna to feed you!" Well its not a food competition, and that was GERMAN bologna she fed me, so it was actually pretty awesome and dispelled many myths I believed about the horrors of bologna!
It has, once again, struck me how much women need encouragement and how easily we get caught into feeling inadequate or like there is a competition in who can be the most feminine. I've really been praying about starting a women's Bible study, because I just really feel convicted that we need more discipleship floating around that gives guidance on how to be good wives and assured in our femininity that we are doing God's will. I've had several conversations just this week with women crying about their burden of wanting to be a homemaker but for financial reasons needing to work outside the home, wanting kids but their husbands not wanting them yet, or griping about something their husband has done and watching bitterness creep in. I see the need and I know what to do, but honestly I'm scared because I still don't trust that I am worthy to be that kind of leader or facilitator. I know that's a lie from Satan in my own life that I need to weed out with Truth, so I'm praying for courage. But its getting to the point that I know if I don't start knocking on doors to try and make this happen I'll be disobedient, so... yeah thats been fun. The thing is when I don't obey God voluntarily, He doesn't punish me He just gives me something far more Intense to deal with than the original thing and I end up grumbling an apology and kicking my past self for being stubborn and stupid.
Along with expanding our herbal horizons, we've been doing a TON of hosting! We've had folks stay with us, people over for dinner, and sometimes both! Its been wonderful, as I love hosting dinner parties. My friend and I have talked a lot about how we DO think we have the Spiritual Gift of Hospitality, and what all that entails. Basically we have to be careful, because if we don't manage it we let ourselves get run ragged! The other thing I wish I knew how to do better is set the women who come over at ease, because if I throw some herbs onto a dish it is gourmet, and if I put said dish in a pottery bowl vs. a pyrex dish and set it on a table covered with a tablecloth then it is a grand evening dinner party! And then the women feel guilty because when we go to their house they don't own a nice tablecloth or pottery dishes or cook with herbs. I need to make a sign or something that says that I'm really not a hoity-toity food connoisseur, I just know what I like to eat. I'm not making it for them to spoil my guests, I'm making it because I'm selfish and I like my food to taste a certain way! But if a person invites me to their house and cooks me food, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to get out of the house and not have to cook and not have to pay for it! A new friend I made apologized the other day because she's been over to my house twice and I finally was able to make it to her house. "Its not fair because you've fed me 2 or 3 course meals, and here I am frying up a pan of bologna to feed you!" Well its not a food competition, and that was GERMAN bologna she fed me, so it was actually pretty awesome and dispelled many myths I believed about the horrors of bologna!
It has, once again, struck me how much women need encouragement and how easily we get caught into feeling inadequate or like there is a competition in who can be the most feminine. I've really been praying about starting a women's Bible study, because I just really feel convicted that we need more discipleship floating around that gives guidance on how to be good wives and assured in our femininity that we are doing God's will. I've had several conversations just this week with women crying about their burden of wanting to be a homemaker but for financial reasons needing to work outside the home, wanting kids but their husbands not wanting them yet, or griping about something their husband has done and watching bitterness creep in. I see the need and I know what to do, but honestly I'm scared because I still don't trust that I am worthy to be that kind of leader or facilitator. I know that's a lie from Satan in my own life that I need to weed out with Truth, so I'm praying for courage. But its getting to the point that I know if I don't start knocking on doors to try and make this happen I'll be disobedient, so... yeah thats been fun. The thing is when I don't obey God voluntarily, He doesn't punish me He just gives me something far more Intense to deal with than the original thing and I end up grumbling an apology and kicking my past self for being stubborn and stupid.
Kyle's leather Firefighting tankard he bought at the Renaissance festival and my white Ikea teacup that is rarely empty. Kinda captures us! Very different but still compliment each other and look great next to one another! In other news, our 2 year anniversary is coming up! Its kind of hard to believe. Kyle told me the other day, "It feels like its only been two weeks but at the same time two decades, because I don't every really think of life before we were married. It just feels like its been forever!" I laughed and teased him that what he said COULD be taken to mean he was sick of me already since it feels like FOREVER. Of course thats not what he meant and he told me so, and I grinned because I knew that and know exactly what he means! Our married life has on the one hand NOT been the easiest or smoothest sailing, but on the other hand its been a piece of cake because we have been so blessed with an amazing foundation of Christ in our relationship, and also with lots of older wiser people pouring into us. We have been kind of horrified at the amount of people who say, "Oh you're still in the honeymoon phase. Wait til you get to year 4! You'll be sick of them by then!" The thing is they said that about year 1, too! I asked Kyle why he thought that was such a common attitude. We talked about it for a while and decided that a big thing with these couples is that they didn't really date to see if they were compatible, they dated because they were attracted to each other and got married on that foundation. The other thing is that they only socialize with people their own age. They don't have older people who they go to for advice or counsel or just plain hanging out. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, I'm just making observations so that WHEN Kyle and I get to year 4 people still accuse us of being newlyweds! Because I don't ever want to get sick of my husband or burned out with marriage or talk about him the way I've heard so many wives talk about their husbands, or hear myself being talked about the way I overhear husbands talk about their wives! And here we are back to the need for more people disciple-ing younger people and more Bible studies and the fact that I need to stop talking about it and start doing it :-)
SO back to the fact that Kyle and I still love each other and love being married to each other and love that year 2 is so much better than year 1 and we are looking forward to year 3 being better than year 2! Yes we have faults and bad morning breath and it drives me nuts when he leaves his lunchbox on the floor of my kitchen or leaves 2 squares of toiletpaper on the roll instead of just getting a new roll. And yes I drive him nuts with being over passionate about things that are really none of our business and don't effect us at all but I still have a very loud opinion of it; or when I leave kleenex or seed pods in the pockets of my jeans and don't empty them before he does the laundry and they end up all over his socks. But we still know that God has called us to be together and love watching Him work through us and in us (and despite of us!) in our lives and the lives of others.
But I still can't believe we're almost to the 2nd anniversary! Where did this summer go?! Oh wait... guess I should re-read this post and the last two posts! Ok. Found where Summer went!
SO back to the fact that Kyle and I still love each other and love being married to each other and love that year 2 is so much better than year 1 and we are looking forward to year 3 being better than year 2! Yes we have faults and bad morning breath and it drives me nuts when he leaves his lunchbox on the floor of my kitchen or leaves 2 squares of toiletpaper on the roll instead of just getting a new roll. And yes I drive him nuts with being over passionate about things that are really none of our business and don't effect us at all but I still have a very loud opinion of it; or when I leave kleenex or seed pods in the pockets of my jeans and don't empty them before he does the laundry and they end up all over his socks. But we still know that God has called us to be together and love watching Him work through us and in us (and despite of us!) in our lives and the lives of others.
But I still can't believe we're almost to the 2nd anniversary! Where did this summer go?! Oh wait... guess I should re-read this post and the last two posts! Ok. Found where Summer went!
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