Crabby and Crappy and that’s me today!

Do you ever have days that, despite the fact that everything seems to be going rather smoothly, you just feel yucky and that things are out of control?  That is me today.  For no particular reason, I just don’t care today.  Perhaps it the weather (it’s now decided to rain and apparently will be for several days), perhaps it’s the dirty house, perhaps it’s just me!  No matter what, it’s still obviously a bad day.

I went on the Flylady website ( www.flylady.net ) looking for some inspiration and I found some and I am hoping to be able to take that inspiration to heart and get out of this slump I am in.    She had wrote a short article about “Let it begin with me”.  She was basing her talk on the song, “Let there be Peace on Earth and let it begin with me”.  This is a truly beautiful song and if you don’t know it, check out the website www.my.homewithgod.com and click on the Heavenly Midis 2 page.  There you will find lyrics to tons of Christian hymns and contemporary Christian music as well.   Anyway back to my point. . . . .

Peace on Earth includes peace within yourself,  peace in your home, peace in your family, peace in your church, peace in your neighborhood, etc.  Peace cannot be accomplished if someone doesn’t start it.  You know the phrase,  “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”?  Have you ever realized just how exactly true that is?  If the mom is in a mood, somehow everyone else is in a mood too!!

Let me encourage you, through my crappy mood, to go wash your face, put on some happy music, dance a little around the house, and make the choice to place peace in your heart so you can have peace in your family!

#2 Get enough sleep!

I had this post all typed up and somehow lost it. . . . .   Kids need a minimum of 10 hours!!!!  REALLY!!!  I will edit this some more later when I have time.

I’m back. . . . Anyway, it is really important for kids to get enough sleep.  If you have more than a little groaning and pulling the covers over the head in the morning from you kids, they probably are not getting enough sleep.  My kids get around 11 hours in – not all of that is actually sleeping, the older 2 spend some of that time reading (30 min to an hour) and my youngest sometimes gets more like 11 1/2 hours.   Sleep allows the body to rejuvenate itself and children expend a lot of energy throughout the day!!! 

If you need to increase your kid’s sleep schedule and are getting some complaining, try giving them “reading time” instead of an earlier bedtime.  Tell them that you agree with their teacher about the importance of reading every day and the time right before sleep is perfect for it!  Some kids will actually do the reading which is just fine because it is still a restfull activity and other kids will fall asleep in the middle of reading the first page!!!

Also- making sure they get enough sleep also allows the grown-ups in the house some kid free time!  When was the last time you were able to watch a television show with your spouse, and only your spouse?  When was the last time you and your spouse got to have a grown up discussion w/out the kids interrupting?  When was the last time you got to go to bed early and spend some cuddle time with your spouse?  When was the last time that you got to read a book for an hour uninterrupted or better yet, read it to your spouse??  See, putting kids to bed early has advantages for them and for you!!!  It’s a sanity saver no matter how you look at it!!!

#3 Breakfast – You and the Kids need it!!!

It truly is the most important meal of the day!!  This important meal really needs to have some sort of protein in it so that you and the kids don’t have a blood sugar crash before lunch.   Many people will say that they don’t have time for a hot and/or nutritious breakfast but let me share some ideas that might help you get something nutritious and well-balanced in those bellies in the a.m.!

1. Scrambled eggs w/ ham -Buy a drink container with one of those shaker things in it for making “slimfast” shakes.   The night before, put in an egg for each person, some chopped ham, etc and the water/milk for scrambling.  Shake it up, put it in the fridge, and go to bed.  In the morning,  turn the skillet on medium-high , spray some pam, shake the eggs again and pour.  Stir for about 5 minutes.  Serve with drink and toast.
2. Breakfast smoothies- Carnation instant breakfast is okay but loaded with sugar.  If you can tolerate soy protein (I like Shaklee’s  www.shaklee.net ) you can put a tablespoon or so of that in with the following: handful of ice, scoop of yogurt or splash of milk, spoon of honey,  banana, and any other fruit you like.  Blend in blender until smooth- may need to add more milk.  There are a lot of protein shake mixes that you simply mix with water or milk on the market as well- Shaklee, Curves, Amway/Quixtar, and many other varieties at your local health food store. 
3. Peanut Butter and Jelly!!! 
4. Ham and Cheese Roll up or sandwich
5. Boiled egg and an apple
6. String cheese, toast,  and a glass of juice
7. Cottage cheese and fruit
8. Apple wedges with peanut butter dip – for the dip blend peanut butter and yogurt (or milk) with a little honey.  Play around with it until you get it the consistency you want.  Store in the fridge.
9. Peanut butter and Banana sandwich
10. Fresh eggnog- 3 fresh eggs, 3 Tbl sugar, dash of salt, 2 tsp vanilla, 2 dashes of nutmeg.  Blend on high until frothy- add enough milk to fill the blender- combine well and enjoy.

Concord Grapes -do them the easy way-trust me

I have just spent 2 days trying to make the perfect juice and jam and I will NEVER attempt to do it this way again!!!  Part of my preserving philosophy is that I need to preserve my goods in the manner in which I will eat them.  So, for example, we do not drink tomato juice and if I use it in soup it is just as easy to use sauce.  Therefore, I preserve my tomato product in the form of sauce.  Yes, I go the extra step to cook it down (reduce by half) before getting it into jars.  This said. . . . .

I purchased some beautiful grapes from a neighbor who came peddling them.  I decided that according to my philosophy I must preserve these grapes in “open the jar and take a drink” form.  I also had it set in my mind that I must use my Villaware Food Strainer to do this.   I could not find a recipe for making juice with a Food mill so I decided that I would just use my brain.  I tried running them through raw- the mill barely juiced them at all.  Then I decided to run them through a second time- this was too dry and the mill got plugged.  So, I decided that I better cook them.  I squashed them with my potato masher and got them to the near boiling point and then sent them through the mill.  This worked well (after I remembered to screw the cone on tight so that it wouldn’t pop off again)but there was a ton of pulp and I wanted to have juice that tasted (and felt) like it was Welch’s from the store.  So, I then set about running this juice through cheese cloth.  THIS TAKES FOREVER!!!!!  What remained after 3 hours of listening to very slow drips was a little tiny bit of juice and whole lot of pulp.  And then as I was trying to lift the cheese cloth from one of my pans, I spilled it and all the pulp from that pan fell back into the juice!! (!#$%^&*) I said forget it and left it in the juice.  From 30 lbs of grapes I yielded 6 quarts of juice that were pulpy!! 

 I had all this pulp left over and I did not want it to go to waste so I found a recipe for grape jam (with pulp, not jelly w/o pulp) but I was worried that it would be too pulpy as well so I went to the basement and found some juice from a previous year that I had made the simple way (more on that later).  I combined the juice from that with the pulp I had and made jam.  I have 11 half pint jars and 4 pint jars of jam to show for it.  (and a husband who licked the pan clean when I was done-yum)

After the fact, I realized that the berry screen on my food mill is for making jam and not juice.  And more importantly I learned that most of the time, how it’s always been done, is for a reason and it works just fine. 

Now for the recipes to prove you can preserve grapes easily:

Grape Jam

2 cups pulp (see below)

1-2 cups sugar (recipes vary, I used just over 1 cup for each 2 cups of pulp)

To make the pulp, wash and stem your grapes.  Cover the bottom of a large stock pot with grapes and smash them with a potato masher, your fist, or a large cup, continue doing this until your stock pot is about half full.  For each gallon of grapes, add 1 cup of water (If your stock pot is a 3 gallon/ 12 quart size, half full would be 1 1/2 gallons so you’d need 1 1/2 c. water).  Bring this up to 190 degrees or nearly/just starting to boil.  Stir and cook just a little bit ( a minute).  Send this through your food mill, being sure that you are using the berry screen and/or cone.  You will plug up your machine if you use the wrong screen.

Next, measure out your pulp and return it to that same stock pot that has been rinsed out thoroughly.  For every 2 cups of pulp, add 1-2 cups of sugar- based on your preference.  Stir this together and cook on medium high until it meets the gel stage.  This takes quite a while (20 min- an hour) but you should not leave it unattended as it could boil over very easily.  Use this time to clean up the kitchen a little in between stirs.  Stir often.  Most instructions say that the gel stage is reached when your jam “sheets” off a spoon.  I never quite get this so this is what I did:  I put 2 ice cubes in a shallow bowl and rested a teaspoon on them.  When the jam looked like it was getting close, a poured a few drops onto the teaspoon.  When the spoon and jam are cool to the touch, I test it for thickness and “gel”.  If it is the consistancy you want, you are ready to put in jars.  Ladle hot jam into hot (very warm is fine), sterilized jars- leave 1/4 inch headspace.  Wipe the rims off so that they do not have any jam on them.  Place hot, sterilized lids and rings on each jar.  Do not over-tighten the rings- turn them just to the beginning of tight.  Using a hot water bath canner,  boil for 15 min. (12 if they are half pint jars).  You should here some popping sounds as you take them out of the bath or shortly after.  This is the jar sealing.  You will know it is sealed when there is no give in the center of the lid.    Enjoy!

EASY Grape Juice

Clean and stem your grapes.  Place a handful (jar less than half full) of grapes into each hot, sterilized quart jar.  Fill within 1/2 inch of top with hot, nearly boiling water.  Place lids and rings on jars.  Boil in hot water bath for 15 min.  (see jam recipe above for specifics on lids, rings, and bath)  Leave these jars on the shelf for several weeks before serving.  This allows the grapes to improve the juice flavor over time.  To serve, carefully drain the juice from the jar being sure to leave the grapes and any sediment in the jar.   Sweeten to taste (a teaspoon would be a good place to start) or mix with gingerale for a sparkling grape juice beverage that is really yummy!  This same juice can be used for making grape jelly.

Blood Suckers and Leeches

If you swim or boat or fish in rivers or other mucky in places areas, you have probably encountered blood suckers. Medically, they are called leeches.  Around here we remove them by pouring salt on them.  If they don’t come off on their own in a short time, they can be removed by just picking them off after the salt has been on them for a while.  You can pull them off without salt but they inject an anti-coagulant into you and so you will bleed quite a bit.  I looked them up on wikipedia to see what it said and learned that salt may not be the best option.  I’ll quote part of the article but if you want more info.  you will have to look them up yourself.

Leech bites according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeches

Effects

A Borneo leech. Note how the leech curls and fattens as it fills with blood.

Though all species of leeches feed on blood, not all species can bite; 90% of them solely feed off decomposing bodies and open wounds of amphibians, reptiles, waterfowl, fish, and mammals (including, but not limited to, humans). A leech attaches itself when it bites, and it will stay attached until it has had its fill of blood. Due to an anticoagulant (hirudin) that leeches secrete, bites may bleed more than a normal wound after the leech is removed. The effect of the anticoagulant will wear off several hours after the leech is removed and the wound is cleaned.

Leeches normally carry parasites in their digestive tract which cannot survive in humans and do not pose a threat. However, bacteria, viruses, and parasites from previous blood sources can survive within a leech for months, and may be retransmitted to humans. A study found both HIV and hepatitis B in African leeches from Cameroon.^[2]

Removal

One recommended method of removal is using a fingernail to break the seal of the oral sucker at the anterior end (the smaller, thinner end) of the leech, repeating with the posterior end, then flicking the leech away. As the fingernail is pushed along the person’s skin against the leech, the suction of sucker’s seal is broken, at which point the leech should detach its jaws.^[3][4]

A common but medically inadvisable technique to remove a leech is to apply a flame, a lit cigarette, salt, soap, or a caustic chemical such as alcohol, vinegar, lemon juice, insect repellent, heat rub, or certain carbonated drinks. These cause the leech to regurgitate its stomach contents into the wound and quickly detach. The vomit may carry disease and increases the risk of infection.^[3][4][5]

Simply pulling a leech off by grasping it can also cause regurgitation, and adds risks of further tearing the wound, and leaving parts of the leech’s jaw in the wound, which can also increase the risk of infection.

An externally attached leech will detach and fall off on its own when it is satiated on blood, usually in about 20 minutes (but will stay there for as long as it can),^[5] while internal attachments, such as nasal passage or vaginal attachments, are more likely to require medical intervention.^[6][7].

Treatment

After removal or detachment, the wound should be cleaned with soap and water, and bandaged. Bleeding may continue for some time, due to the leech’s anti-clotting enzyme. Applying pressure can reduce bleeding, although blood loss from a single bite is not dangerous. The wound normally itches as it heals, but should not be scratched as this may complicate healing and introduce other infections. An antihistamine can reduce itching, and applying a cold pack can reduce pain or swelling.

Some people suffer severe allergic or anaphylactic reactions from leech bites, and require urgent medical care. Symptoms include red blotches or an itchy rash over the body, swelling away from the bitten area (especially around the lips or eyes), feeling faint or dizzy, and difficulty breathing.^[5]