100 Facts About Me...for my 100th Post

For my 100th post, I decided to do something a bit more fun. Here are 100 facts about me.

I...

1. Am, first and foremost, a daughter of the King of Kings and desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in all things
   
2. Am a wife and helpmeet to my best friend
   
3. Am the mother of a beautiful baby girl
   
4. Like olives (and I mean really like! I have been known to receive giant jars from friends and family for my birthday or other special occasions)
5. Got engaged to my husband while I was still in Grade 12
6. Took a lot of heat from my teachers for getting engaged to my husband while still in school
   
7. Married my husband the summer I graduated from high school
8. Never regretted marrying "young"
   
9. Grew up on a farm
10. Would like to return to my "rural roots" someday and live on an acreage in the country
    
11. Play the piano
12. Like to sing
13. Have a fear of fish
14. Been to Hawaii
15. Partially conquered my fear of fish while snorkeling in Hawaii
16. Love to cook
17. Always wanted to learn to play the violin
18. Pretended to play the violin with wooden spoons when I was a kid
19. Not very good at scrapbooking
20. Wish I was good at scrapbooking
21. Have somewhat curly hair (I guess that would be called "wavy". Lol)
22. Hated my curly/wavy hair as an adolescent and straightened it every day for a year
    
23. Have now embraced my curly/wavy hair and rarely straighten it
24. Would like to learn to sew
25. Love to bake
26. Want to try making sour dough bread sometime
27. Like to read but have a hard time making time for it...but when I find to read...I
    
28. Read (other than the Bible) mostly nonfiction, historical fiction, or the classics
    
29. Am not embarrassed to use coupons and I do use them...a lot
30. Am terrible at gift wrapping presents
31. Am not the most "creative nor crafty cat on the corner"
32. Like to use alliteration (see above) Lol
33. Have a weird sense of humour
34. Am married to a man I will never beat in any board game that involves strategy because...I
35. Am married to the smartest person I know when it comes to strategy or logic
36. Would like to have several children, Lord-willing
37. Do not have any idea how many children is "several", lol.
38. Am planning on homeschooling our children
39. Am very competitive with respect to sports, board games, etc.
40. Like musicals such as The Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Mary Poppins
41. Am not fond of bananas
42. Am not fond of milk
    
43. Think that "fond" is a funny word
44. Am a bit of a neat, clean, and organization freak...however...I
45. Do not always have a very neat, clean, nor organized home :-)
    
46. Am a home-body and enjoy staying at home
47. Like Mediterranean food
48. Like going on road trips
    
49. Have taken a road trips to South Dakota.
    
50. ...and Yellowstone National Park
51. ...and Minneapolis
52. Have gone para-sailing in Mexico
    
53. Like hazelnut chocolate
54. Am an wannabe-organizer
55. Want to experiment with canning and preserving food
56. Wish I knew how to quilt
57. Had horrible morning sickness with our first baby
58. Delivered our daughter via emergency C-section
59. Am planning on having a VBAC next pregnancy
60. Am disturbed by the fact that store bought bread takes forever to go moldy
61. Bake my own bread most of the time because of the above disturbing fact
62. Think one of the best smells is the way the house smells after baking fresh bread
    
63. Recently read the Duggar's book 20 and Counting! and thought it was awesome
64. Get nervous when I play the piano in front of people
65. Have been known to be the bossy older sister at times
66. Am afraid of heights
67. Yelled in fear while riding the ferris wheel once because of the above fact
68. Am more of a night owl than a morning person
69. Like to play tennis
70. Like classical music
    
71. Used to pretend to conduct the orchestra while listening to classical music
72. Attended university for 2 years
    
73. Like taking my baby for walks when it is nice outside
74. Feel faint at the sight of blood
75. Worked for a brief time as an optometrist assistant even though the word "eyeball" has always given me the shivers for some strange reason.
    
76. Really enjoyed playing basketball in high school
77. Don't watch much tv
    
78. Don't listen to the radio much either (pretty much never)
    
79. Watch things like cooking shows, home decorating shows, family shows like Little House on the Prairie, and sports when I do watch tv.
80. Am a Philadelphia Flyers fan (along with my husband)
81. Enjoy watching hockey with my husband and cheering for the Flyers
82. Met my husband while working at a Bible camp
83. Hid in a garbage can for "campers find counselors" hide and seek at Bible camp
    
84. Want to learn the art of cake decorating
85. Like coffee drinks but can't drink them just black
    
86. Often play Christian music in the house, especially when I am working in the kitchen
    
87. Like hymns and wish we sang them more
88. Like looking through cookbooks and marking down recipes I want to try
    
89. Was the last person to get on the last bus leaving the university during the worst blizzard I have ever seen.
90. Stood on that bus, which was packed like sardines, in the blizzard for 3 1/2 hours to get home on what was normally a 10 minute bus ride home.
91. Was one happy girl once I waded through the above waist-deep snow to crash inside after that bus ride
92. Am having a hard time thinking of 8 more facts about myself :-)
93. Have been taken by ambulance to the hospital
94. Have never broken a bone
    
95. Am very allergic to nickel and constantly have eczema because of my nickel allergy
96. Learned to read before I started kindergarten (my Mom taught me)
97. Can barely draw a stick-person even though my grandmother was a very talented and fairly well-known artist with her own art studio and shop
98. Enjoy the subjects of English and History more than Math and Science
    
99. Love my husband and daughter more than I can ever tell
100. Am blessed beyond words with a wonderful family and most of all, the assurance of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ.
     

Tour of My Home Management Binder

I have been meaning to give a tour of my Home Management Binder (HMB) for quite some time now. I was first inspired to create my own HMB when Candy from a blog called Keeping the Home gave a tour of her HMB. Candy no longer has a blog, but I used many of her ideas to create my own binder when I was pregnant with our daughter. It's a work-in-progress, but I LOVE it! I use it nearly every day, and it just helps keep me organized. My binder is separated into the following sections:

• Schedules
• Cleaning
• Food (with Recipe subsection)
  
• Budget
• People (with Health and Fitness subsection)
  
• Homeschool
• Birth/Babies/Children
• Other

Now...for the tour!

Here is the front cover, which I decorated. On the bottom is the excerpt from Titus 2:4-5
..."women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."
Here is the spine of the binder.

This is the front pocket. I keep odds n' ends in the side pocket. Right now I have things like my food journal for the week, 52 Week Bible Reading Plan schedule, to-do lists, a blank cd, and scrap paper in there. On the other side is a zipper pouch that holds pens, pencils, white out, and also all the receipts for the month. At the end of each month I take the receipts out of the pouch and move them into an envelope and file it away.
Here are my tabbed sections.

My title page with Titus 2:4-5 again.
Next, a few inspirational pages. First, a print-out of "A Woman's Rules to Live By" by Keeping the Home.

Then, a print out of A Wise Woman Builds her House by Debi Pearl. Click on the link to read it.

Then, a copy of Proverbs 31:10-31


After that is the Schedules Section. This section contains a yearly calendar, Scripture Memorization list, and will eventually contain our family's schedule once our children are older.

Then is the Cleaning Section.

First I have a copy of Operation Castle Clean, which I adapted from a Keeping the Home article. I use this when my cleaning schedule is out-of-whack, the house is a disaster, and I am overwhelmed with where to begin! It's an emergency quick-clean to-do list.

Then I have my cleaning schedule, which I usually follow quite closely. Here you see Monday's cleaning tasks. I plan to do a break-down of each day's cleaning tasks sometime, but I'll leave that for another post, another day. :-)
Here you see Tuesday and Wednesday's tasks.

Next is Thursday and Friday's tasks. (No picture of those days since they have some names on them.)


Next is my laundry schedule, but no picture of that because there are names on it. On Mondays I wash my and my husband's personal laundry. Tuesdays I wash our daughter's laundry and our bedding with light towels. Wednesdays I wash dark towels if necessary. Thursdays I wash rags, dish cloths, and mop heads. Fridays I wash my husband's work and dress clothes.

Then is my projects page.

Then is my Deep Cleaning To-Do list and Fly Lady's Detailed Cleaning List. If you come to my home, you'd quickly discover I don't often get around to these detailed cleaning lists, LOL! :-)


Next is the Food Section. This is a fairly large section and includes my master grocery list, blank weekly menu plans, filled in menu plans (that I go off of to get meal ideas), 8 week menu plans, easy meal ideas, make-ahead meal ideas for stocking up the freezer before a baby arrives, a list of recipes to try, and a recipe section separated into sections.



Next is my Budget Section.


Then is my People Section (sorry, I don't have a title page for this so no picture.) It contains things like wish lists, birthday organizer, address book, witnessing info, and a subsection, Health and Fitness. The Health and Fitness subsection has things like the Couch-to-5K plan, my food and exercise journals, my weekly weigh-in report, and exercise goals.

After that is my Homeschool Section, which still needs a title page. This section doesn't contain a lot yet, but I'm sure it will someday soon. It contains homeschooling ideas and articles.



After the Homeschool Section come the Birth/Babies/Children section (I don't have a title page for it, yet, so no pictures). This section contains information related to childbirth, VBACs (we are hoping for a VBAC next pregnancy), midwifery, and a To-Pack List for the hospital.


After that comes the last section, the Other Section (no pictures again, sorry). This contains things like first-aid information and anything else that doesn't fit into a category. At the very back of the binder is an emergency information and contact list. (This might get moved to the front of the binder yet.)

And...that's it! Hope you enjoyed the tour!



*Linking up to Raising Homemakers*

A Day in My Life...

I saw this idea on the Keeping the Home blog and decided it would be fun to participate! I went around yesterday and tried to take pictures as I went about my normal activities. Thursday is my baking/kitchen day, so this is a typical Thursday at my home. I have tasks assigned to each day of the week that I usually stick to but no set schedule of when the tasks get done during the day. I am a "to-do list" person and just try my best to get everything crossed off before I hit the hay.Some days I still have a couple things left to do on my list at the end of the day, but no biggie, they just get bumped to the next day! Now for a very detailed and long-winded post :-) ...

MORNING:
7:00 A.M. My daughter (my favourite alarm clock!) wakes me up to nurse. I nurse her, put her back to bed, and then get up and go to the kitchen to start my bread. (Most days I get up for the day between 8 and 8:30 when my husband and daughter get up, but on Thursdays I try to get an earlier start.) Besides, I figured there was no point in going back to bed for an hour after I was already awake.


In the kitchen at 7:14 a.m. I'm still in my jammies at this point. LOL. I bake 6 loaves of bread every other Thursday. I try to bake/make at least 2 different things every Thursday. Things I might make include cinnamon rolls, cookies, soft pretzels, buns, squares, pies, etc.

On Wednesday night, I always put out all my bread-making things (flour, Bosch, oil, molasses, etc.) on the counter, so that when I get up on Thursday morning, everything is ready to go.
While my bread was kneading in the machine, I put a beef roast in the crockpot to cook on low all day until supper time. Both my husband's and my parents raise cattle, which we are very thankful for! This roast will "make its own gravy" - a good thing since I'm a terrible gravy-maker. LOL.

While the dough rises, I make some coffee and toast for myself for breakfast. We aren't big breakfast eaters in our house. I always have something to eat in the morning - usually toast or a smoothie. But my husband usually just takes a mug of coffee to work with him and might eat a piece of bread with jam for breakfast on the run.
At about 8:30 our daughter gets up, so I change her, dress her, and feed her apples and oat cereal for breakfast. My husband leaves for work.Then, I finish getting dressed for the day (I was still in my pj's until this point)
Next, I make the bed and tidy up the bedroom.
Back into the kitchen. The dough is done rising, so I punch it down , shape into balls and let rest for 15 minutes
While the dough rests, I sit down, finish my coffee, and read a chapter from the Bible. I am currently reading through Exodus. Then I got up, shaped the bread into loaves and let rise again.

10:00 A.M. I nurse the baby and put her down for a nap. I take a little break to check my email, browse facebook, read a few blogs, etc. Then I work on organizing some photos on the computer and burn them onto a cd so they are ready to develop.
Now it's time to put the first 3 loaves of bread in the oven! (no pictures of this all, sorry!)
While the loaves were baking, I did my weekly Thursday cleaning routine and tidied up - dusting, wiping coffee and end tables, wiping dressers, bookshelves, piano, etc. I don't have many cleaning tasks today, since my focus is in the kitchen on Thursdays.


Daughter wakes up from nap. Shortly after that, the bread is done!

Lunch time. I had a tuna salad sandwich on fresh bread, spinach salad, and olives (my fave!).
Right after lunch I changed the baby and fed her lunch (carrots).

AFTERNOON
Time to play pat-a-cake, one of my baby's favourite games!
Then, I baked a batch of cupcakes. Here they are out of the oven. I overfilled a few of them. oops. LOL.
Then I finished peeling potatoes for supper and put them in the fridge.
Time for a break! I went on the computer for a few minutes. Then I nursed the baby, put her down for her afternoon nap, and I took a short nap, too.
After my rest, I iced and decorated the cupcakes.
Then I hopped on the treadmill for 30 minutes of exercise. I usually exercise 4-5 times a week. After that, I nursed and changed baby, put the potatoes on the stove to cook, carved the roast, cooked a few veggies, made the gravy, and Voila...!
Supper is ready! Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies. We ate at 5:45 p.m., shortly after my husband got home from work.
Then, I cleaned up the kitchen while my hubby fed the baby supper (mashed potatoes, carrots, rice cereal)

EVENING
I packed my husband's lunch for the next day. Roast beef sandwiches, apple, pudding.
The dishes are done, food put away, and the kitchen is clean again. Then I had a shower.
Then it is time to sit down and read a story.
After that, we went out to the store for a bit and purchased a few things. We bought seeds for our first garden! As soon as we got back home, I nursed, changed, and put our baby to bed (about 8:45 p.m., a little later than her usual bedtime between 8 and 8:30)
After baby was in bed, I made us a blueberry yogurt smoothie and we went downstairs to relax and watch a sermon on the internet. We watched a good one by Jacob Prasch (sp?) about intrepreting the Bible. We really like to watch sermons on the internet in the evenings. After that, we read a few chapters from the Bible and I read a few pages from a book. Lights out was 11:45 p.m. But, at 12:15 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. baby was up again to nurse. We're working on that. LOL.

I really believe that God has called me to a full time ministry to my family at home. I believe that God's Word makes it clear that a wife and mother's highest calling is to glorify God by joyfully fulfilling her God-given responsibilities of being a help-meet to her husband and a mother to her children and being a "keeper at home" whenever possible. I am convinced that I have the best job in the entire world. I am SO thankful for my husband and daughter!