Granola

We got home on Monday from the wedding. It was a long 14 hour drive. We like driving at night when we travel so the kids can sleep but it makes for a long recovery from the trip. I’m still exhausted! Chris stays up all night all the time for his job. He told me, “Now you know how I feel all the time!” It’s true. I could never do what he does.

I’ve been doing laundry and getting things put away all week. Last night I started designing the costumes for Kate’s dance class. I have to make seven of them. Just another project!

I have to share my granola recipe that I came up with. I just can’t stop eating this stuff!

Granola

1 cup margarine
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped almonds
7 cups old fashioned oats

Mix ingredients well for several minutes, preferably in a mixer until they clump together. Spread out on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until granola is very brown and toasted. The longer it cooks the sweeter it tastes! Allow it to cool in the pan before transferring it to an airtight container. Add raisins and dried fruit after baking. This is just a starter recipe. Change it or add to it as you like.

I'm updating this to say that margarine works better than butter at making everything stick together. I always use margarine but my sister made it with butter today and she said it didn't work. Sorry!

Priorities

I taught an organizing class last week. I haven’t done one for a long time and it was really fun. I talked about priorities. Do you say your priorities are A, B, C but yet you spend your time doing X, Y, Z? It’s doesn’t make any sense. If something was important to you, you would be doing it! I made a list of the things that are important to me according to how much time I spend doing them. Here’s what I came up with: Family, Church, Exercise and Hobbies(sewing, quilting, knitting, cooking, gardening). I spend every day on these four things. I have to constantly be on my guard to keep new things from taking time away from the important things.

Are you spending your time on the important things? If not, what are you going to change in your life so that you are?

The Simple Life

I try to make my life simple and easy. I don’t schedule a lot of activities or events. I like having a lot of free time to do whatever our family wants to do that day. We need to be very spontaneous or we would never see each other. Chris may only be home for a couple hours between jobs and the kids and I don’t want to be obligated to something else when we could be spending time with him.

So if I have such a simple and easy life then why do all these big events keep interrupting it? I had a baby. Yes that was a pretty big event! I haven’t even had time to settle into that one. Since then we’ve had a baby blessing and now a wedding to get ready for. I know all these things could be easier if I didn’t have to make everything and do everything. I guess that’s not something I am willing to give up. I’m not willing to go out and pay a lot of money for a blessing dress when I can make it cheaper and 100 times better. It’s the same thing with Kate’s dress for the wedding. My Mother-In-Law offered to have someone else sew it but I have to do it myself. I have to make sure it’s done right. It’s so worth it too.

I guess I have to look at it this way… If I didn’t have such an uncomplicated life then I wouldn’t have time to make these big events special.

Good Habit Or Bad Habit?

A friend of mine wrote this to me the other day about a discussion we were having. I hope she doesn’t mind me quoting her. She always has so many good things to say!

“I think this is what they mean by "thinking outside the box". We all create boxes in our brains which govern how we think. We have to do that because we can't think and rethink every darned move we make all day and every day. We MUST do some things automatically and routinely. To accomplish this, we create these rules, these statements. It’s lot of "if this, then that". But this brain software that we make up needs weeding out occasionally, refining, fixing or updating.” Sylvia

I had never really thought about it that way before. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself for not thinking things through before I do them. I get frustrated that I do some of the same things over and over even though they aren’t working for me. I guess my brain has to go on auto pilot to get things done. Habits are good things. They’re things we do without thinking and they make our lives easier. We just need to realize when a habit is a bad one and work to change it.

I’ve been trying to find a good spot to store a package of baking pan liners in my kitchen for the last several months. I put it somewhere but it was too hard to get to. Then I put is somewhere else but it was too far away. Then I put it in a drawer but there wasn’t really room for it there. This morning I finally got fed up with it and I stood in the kitchen thinking there has GOT to be a place in here for it! Finally the thought occurred to me of storing it upright on its side instead of flat or rolled up. Perfect! Now I can keep it down with my cookie sheets. It’s so logical. Why didn’t I think of it before! I had to force myself to think “outside the box” before I could come up with the answer. It’s a big flat floppy package. Of course I couldn’t store it on its side right? Well, I can if there is something supporting it like big flat cookie sheets!