Here are a few random things I thought you might need to know to help get you through the weekend  …

• Last Sunday morning I was making stew to have ready for when we came home from church.  I took the lid (cast iron) off the pot, set it down onto my pot holders, stirred the stew, then put the lid back on.  A few minutes before leaving for church, I gave the stew one last stir.  It was then that I noticed a POT HOLDER inside the stew.  Yeah, it had stuck to the lid and hidden itself when I put the lid back on.  Yum.  Can I just say how HAPPY I was to have found it BEFORE I left the pot on the stove to simmer during church?  Yum.
• Recently, Elias asked me, “Mom, has it almost been a year yet?”  And I said, “A year since what?”  And he said, “Just has it almost been a year?”  Ummm…probably…
• We have six bedrooms in our house…enough for all of our boys to each have their own room if they want one.  Instead, they prefer this:

Not that you can tell…but there are two long lumps in sleeping bags
on the matresses, a medium sized lump on the top bunk,
and a little lump on the bottom bunk. 
Four boys, one room.

• Now that I’ve been blogging for a year, I’m afraid I’m going to start repeating myself.
• Now that I’ve been blogging for a year, I’m afraid I’m going to start repeating myself. 
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• One morning this week, Malachi told me, “Mommy, you look SOOOO cute!”  Guess I’ll have to not brush my hair and wear my mismatched jammies more often.
• I finished Austin’s quilt!! (Can’t show you pics until after I give it to him.  I would hate to ruin his surprise, you know.  Because I’m pretty sure he reads my blog already.)  Malachi thinks the quilt is perftic.  Yeah, don’t look too close.
• We can’t find Justus’ glasses.  Anywhere.
• Lately Justus has decided that it’s fun to pretend he’s a puppy.  And his little brothers have been following suit.  Which is fine most of the time since thankfully they aren’t naughty puppies.  But there comes a point when I ask someone where the phone is that I’d rather not hear, “rrr..Ruff!!” in response.  Am I really asking too much?
• I have finally given in to peer pressure and am now Twittering.  You can see my profile here.  Now, just because I have finally become a Twitter-er, don’t get your hopes up too much about how often I’ll Twit.  I find it hard enough some days just to find time to wash the dishwater off of my glasses so that I can see.  I’m not sure how good I’m going to be at this new thing I’ve just gotten myself into. 
• Oh, and by the way…when I was setting up my Twitter profile, I couldn’t call myself “HeavenlyHomemaker” because apparently 17 letters is too many.  It kept cutting me off at “HeavenlyHomemak”.  I didn’t want to be the “HeavenlyHomemak”.  So I decided on being the “HeavenHomemaker”, which is only slightly better, but better enough.  Later, I thought, “Why didn’t I just put in Laura Coppinger?”  Duh.  So, I tried to change it and it wouldn’t let me (or I couldn’t figure out how).  Then I tried to just start a new account, but they said that someone was already using the email address, laura @ heavenlyhomemakers.com.  Yes, I told Twitter…that would be the HeavenHomemaker.  We are the same person!  Ah well, HeavenHomemaker it is… (Any of the rest of you talk to your computer when it isn’t doing what you want it to?)

I’m going to go look for Justus’ glasses.  I’ll try to post it on Twitter if/when we ever find them!!

First, I finally put a search box on my site for you so that if you’re looking for say, my whole wheat pretzel recipe…you just type the word “whole wheat pretzels” into the box and it’ll find the recipe link for you!  You’ll find it on the left hand side of my blog, right under all the categories.  No, your other left.  Yep, you got it.  Now you can search to your heart’s content.  It’s about TIME I did that, huh?

Second, after peeling 300,000 peaches (give or take) to freeze for smoothies, I finally took Lindsay’s advice and just left the peelings on.  And guess what?  The peelings just blend right up into the smoothie and you can’t even tell they’re there.  They’re more nutritious that way of course.  And, oh my word, does the freezing process ever go faster!  Now if you’re canning them, you’ll need to peel them, but if you’re freezing them, for the love of all things sane, just slice ‘em and flash freeze them.

Third, I have no idea what I used to do with my time before I began canning and freezing and fruit leathering.  I don’t remember my life before this fall harvest.  I think I remember something about cooking a meal without having to step over boxes of apples or scooting jars out of my way so I could mash some potatoes.   And  I wish I had a dollar for every phone call I’ve gotten asking if I need any more apples.    Ooh, better yet, I wish I had a dollar for every APPLE I’ve had in my kitchen during the last few weeks.  It has been some year for apples around here.  Wow.

Fourth, the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Little Britches to the boys.  Have you READ that book?  It is SO good.  I fell in love with the family and how the daddy and the son worked so hard together…and it made me want to buy a ranch and some horses and go back in time 100 years (but I would, of course, take my computer and electricity with me).  Anyway…when we got to the last two chapters…it got so sad and I could not read it anymore because tears were streaming down my face and my voice was all messy.  I handed the book to Matt and he finished reading it to us.  It was all I could do not to sob loudly as we sat around the table and listened.  I’m still not over it.  Oh, but it was a good book.

Fifth, there is a big chorus of crickets blessing my home.  (Do you all have tons of crickets too, or did they all decide to move into my house?)  They are singing so loudly right now I can hardly concentrate to write.  I don’t mind them too much (because I’d rather have crickets than say, termites) but I do wish I could turn their volume down.

Sixth, I’m going to start doing product reviews on my blog.  Because I have a bunch of stuff that I’ve been thinking about that I want to tell you about and brag about to you and encourage you to have.  (Like a blender.  You should all really have a blender.  Between making applesauce, fruit leather and lots of smoothies and milkshakes…I been using my blender three times a day.  I highly recommend blenders.)  But seriously, I’m excited to start recommending other useful kitchen tools and homemaking helps.  If you have a product from your home business or etsy shop or whatever that you’d like me to review…email me!

Seventh, I could continue to be random and write about the little lego people on my steps just asking to be stepped on or something like that, but the crickets are distracting me.  And really…I should go start getting busy with those apples again.  Anyone have anything random to share?  Hopefully I’ll be able to hear your comment above the Cricket Sing Along…

Here’s a bit of my ramblings for this week…no particular theme…no particular order…

*Elias has been learning a little about sentence structure.  We’ve also been learning about Ancient Egypt.  Therefore, Elias keeps getting confused about that little dot that goes at the end of most sentences.  When I ask him what goes at the end of a sentence he wrinkles his nose and says, “A pyramid?”  (Yes, we begin a sentence with a capital letter, and always be sure to put a pyramid at the end.  Oh, he’s so cute!)

*Yesterday while I was helping Justus with his math, Malachi went into the kitchen to help himself to a chocolate chip orange muffin.  He was in there a long time, but I was busy with Justus and forgot to keep tabs on him.  When I went into the kitchen later I saw that Malachi had dissected each of the eight muffins that had been leftover…picked out all of the chocolate chips, eaten them and left the rest of the muffins in a nice pile.  Little stinker!

*Tuesday night our neighbor brought us over a big cantaloupe from his garden.  It is (was) so yummy!

*Last night when we were having our family prayer time, Elias’ prayer was something like this:  “Thank you God for this wonderful day.  And thank you that my birthday is coming up soon.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.”  (Elias’ birthday is in January.  I guess that means it’s coming up….soon.)

*I made a few pints of salsa yesterday with all those tomatoes and peppers.  We haven’t tried it yet, but it sure smelled good!  And of my recipes…I will share any and all of them with you…except for this salsa recipe.  It was my mama’s and it can’t be shared.  :)  But I’ll share any of my other recipes I promise.

*We’ve had Fall-like weather here for over a week.  It has been absolutely and totally refreshing.  Ah, God is good.

*Yes, let’s say it again…God is good.  Have a blessed day!

1.  Is Randomicity a real word?  I kinda like it and was thinking of using it.

2.  This is the last day to purchase the “Fill ‘Em Up!” ebook for half off!!  Don’t miss out on this great deal!

3.  We started school this week and I am reminded again of how much I love learning with my kids!!  And watching them learn.  And being the one who helps them when they miss a math problem and get frustrated.

4.  Last night as we were getting ready for bed, Asa started making up a slow, beautiful, dramatic song.  It went something like this, “Close your eyes and look at me…”  I started cracking up so hard I almost swallowed my toothbrush.

5.  Asa and Justus have to wear eye makeup for the musical they’re in this week.  There’s something really unnerving about seeing your sons in eye makeup.

6.  I’m really hungry for an apple and I don’t have any in the house.

7.  For the past two days, in their spare time, Elias and Malachi have been working with two stones to start a fire in the front yard.  (You know, like nomads had to do….it’s amazing how much the six and three year olds can learn along with the big guys.)  They have a little pile of sticks on the sidewalk and they stand there rubbing those stones together for like 20 minutes at a time.  I’ve never seen them stand for so long in one place without moving before. 

8.  Here’s my very own Dr. Seuss story:

I do not like asthma, Sam I Am
It’s even worse than email spam
I do not like it in the summer
Having it is quite a bummer
I do not like it in the fall
I do not like asthma at all.

9.  My peaches are almost ready to pick.  All….11 of them.  We can’t wait!

10.   Don’t forget the ebook and character chart sale!!!!!!!!!!!

Encouraged by your comments after my last post of random topics, I’ve decided to bless you with allow myself a totally random blog post every once in a while.  So, I randomly chose today to write again about some of our random activities…

1.  I finally finished looking through curriculum catalogs, made my list, checked it twice, then a third time, and then placed my orders.  I finally just had to close the catalogs and put them away so that I would quit finding more and more awesome books that I wanted to order.  Tomorrow I’ll share our list of books with you!!!

2.  Tuesday we picked up our Azure Standard order for the month…but not without a little drama.  The truck driver called me Monday (because I’m the top of our group’s calling tree) to tell me that he would be at the Walmart parking lot on Tuesday at 9:15 am.  I called everyone, then we all met at the appointed time.  Then he never showed up.  Turns out, his truck had broken down and he had called to tell me that he would be late…but I missed the call somehow.  Bummer.  So, we finally figured it all out and went home…and then came back to pick up our order that evening after his truck was working again.  Poor guy.

Anyway…just in case you’d like to stare at my groceries for a while…here you go:

Here we have five pounds of Landmark raw white cheddar cheese, three jars of Hain safflower mayonnaise, six pounds of butter, two jars of Natural Value peanut butter, one can of olives, one container of Nancy’s whole milk yogurt, five pounds of carrots, five pounds of oranges, a jar of olive oil, five pounds of peas, and three packages of mixed veggies.  The boxes you see are 10 pounds of whole wheat spaghetti noodles and 10 pounds of whole wheat penne pasta.  Partially pictured in the background are two really cute little boys.  They did not come with the order, but they are very sweet and delicious.

3.  I’ve taken the time to read a few Karen Kingsbury books during the past couple of weeks.  I usually don’t really have much time to read, but with school starting soon, I decided to allow myself a little chill time.  So, I went to the library and checked out some good reads, then neglected a bunch of housework for a few days so that I could enjoy some books.

4.  You do not want to enter my bathrooms right now.  (See #3.)

5.  Malachi is totally into microphones, and creates one out of anything he has in his hands.  I have been interviewed by and asked to sing into many a Lincoln Log lately.  Last week at a garage sale, we found a real toy microphone for 50 cents.  You would have thought we gave him the moon. 

6.  Let’s just take another look at that box of penne pasta.  Now that’s a lot of pasta.

7.  Elias wants piano lessons.

8. When I was a little girl I got one of those “Doll Head” thingies that sat on a little stand so that you could fix her hair and make-up.  You know what I’m talking about?  Well, I enjoyed it thoroughly for about two weeks…and then my brother used the lip stick pencil and drew a thick, bright pink line from the top of her forehead to the bottom of her neck.  He truly thought that it would scrub right off, but it never, ever did.  Ever.  But I’m over it now.

9.  Asa and Justus are in a musical that the city is putting on this summer, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  They are in the children’s choir and are having such a wonderful experience.  Anybody ever seen this musical before?

10.  I think it’s weird that we call small towns like the one I live in a “city”. 

11.  Last Friday I let each of my boys pick one friend to take to the bowling alley.  (Remember the free bowling passes we have?)  Matt wasn’t able to go with me, so it was just me and the boys.  Now, let’s do the math (and try to figure out WHAT in the world I was thinking when I made this plan).  I have four boys of my own, and each of them chose one boy to take along.  That equals a total of eight boys…ages as follows:  three, three, five, six, eight, nine, eleven and twelve.  How many arms did I think I had?  Simply figuring out who needed what shoe size at the beginning was just about enough to make me turn around and go home.  At least the no smoking ban has officially been put into place this time, so we did not come out smelling like the deep fat fried cigarettes we smelled like last time we were there.

12.  I should not continue to come up with random thoughts at 11:32 pm.  Especially when I need to get up and bake for the farmer’s market tomorrow.

13.  We keep getting rain and other severe weather right when it’s farmer’s market time.  I like the rain, but not when I’m trying to sell pretzels. 

14.  There’s a 30% chance of rain tomorrow. 

15.  Seriously, I’ve got to stop.  What random things are going on with you?!

I have a few completely random subjects running around in my head.  I figured you would just love to hear all about it. 

1.  The very best part about being sick is feeling better afterward.  And being incredibly joyful simply because you can put a load of clothes into the washing machine without feeling completely worn out when you’re done.

2.  Along those same lines…because I was sick for the better part of two weeks, and then we went on a trip…I’m having a terrible time catching up on everything that needs to be done around here.  I do not have a Funky Kitchen…and my Home doesn’t look the least bit Heavenly right now. 

3.  It doesn’t help that my vacuum isn’t working.  And hasn’t been for about a month.  The last time I tried to vacuum…I felt pieces of dirt and other unknown objects HITTING my foot!  My vacuum was BLOWING AIR OUT instead of sucking stuff in.  What is THAT about?  So, my vacuum is in the shop, and my floors just keep getting dirtier.  Thankfully, most of my main floor is hard wood and we just sweep it…but upstairs is a different story. 

4.  I have weeds taller than Justus outside in my garden.  And he’s been growing like a weed.  Now that’s scary.

5.  I sent two of my boys outside yesterday to rinse out a couple of big jugs.  45 minutes later they came in soaking wet…the sidewalk had been watered very well…and the jugs were dirtier than they were to begin with.  I’m pretty sure they had fun “helping me” though. 

6.  Last week we killed our friend’s guinea pig.  Not on purpose.  We were guinea pig sitting and it just so happened that it was “Rosie’s” time to go.  I was reminded of several years ago when I was bunny sitting…and the bunny didn’t make it either.  You may not want to trust our family with your pets.  Just saying.

7.  Asa lost his last baby tooth last night.  His very last one.  I’ve got to stop being in denial about my kids getting older.

8.  As I do every July…I’m starting to get REALLY excited about the upcoming school year.  We always start in early August…and I’m excited to share more about our schedule and some of the things we do in our home school.  You should see my awesome list of books that I want to order!  Ooh, I’m getting so excited!!!

9.  I’ve heard from several of you that you’re anxious to hear more in my Getting Real With Food series!  I’m anxious to share too, now that I’m feeling better.  Sorry I haven’t posted any of those for a while.  Really and truly, I’ll get back with it next week.  What I LOVE is hearing how many of you are working to eat healthier!!!  That makes me so excited!

10.  I’m baking today for the farmer’s market.  I’m writing this as my pretzel dough is rising.  My house is about to begin smelling really, really yummy.

11.  I had a typo when I first wrote number 10 and wrote “My house is about to begin spelling really, really yummy.”  I never knew I had such a smart house.

Okay, enough randomness….I’ve got to go get back to work in the kitchen.  And, I do believe that I’ll call the vacuum place to see if my vacuum is almost ready to be picked up. 

What are you up to today?  Hope you have a great one!