Squash Plans( and other rambles...)

On the way into the grocery store this morning, I passed a huge bin of heirloom squash varieties. I've been fixated on them all day now, and am going to pick a few up to go into the freezer. Most recipes I found call for totally cooking and then pureeing the flesh before freezing it, but I have cubing it in mind. The hubby and I are going to start upping our veggie intake, and I think that having bags of squash in the freezer would make for a quick and tasty breakfast skillet hash (plus, squash is way more nutritionally dense than white potatoes). I think mixing it with some organic sausage or bacon, rosemary, and onion would be a perfect winter meal :). SO, I'm going to try peeling it, cutting it into 1/2" cubes, blanching, and freezing in quart size bags. Can't wait to see how it works out!

On the eat-more-veggies note, we watched this documentary called "Forks Over Knives" that really advocates eating a vegetarian diet. I don't agree with that entirely, especially since the majority of the research supporting their diet was done in an Asian population. They have eaten a primarily plant based diet for thousands of years, and their genetic makeup is programmed for it (or maybe it's the other way around, maybe their diet suits their genetic makeup). Either way, I don't believe you can take one way of eating and apply the entire style to a completely different ethnic group. For instance, the Eskimos traditionally ate a diet that consisted almost entirely of high fat animal foods, yet they thrived on it. It was only once they adopted the standard American diet of processed foods that their health began a serious decline.

I think one of the central problems with animal products in the USA now is that from the time an animal is conceived, throughout its life, and after it is butchered, we fill it with hormones, steroids, medication, and food that it was never intended to eat...and then we expect our bodies to thrive on it.

Next year, the man and I want to raise our own beef steer here on our land. We're still figuring out the whole process, but I'm up for anything and would feel so much better eating something that I took care of and was responsible for during its life than consuming something that came off of a shelf in a plastic wrapped package.

I was also really excited yesterday to pinpoint a resource for...fresh, unpasteurized cow's milk! I can go back to making my own butter and even take a whack at cheese! (Could get interesting. I might poison myself on accident. If I do, and if I die, Megan gets my killer awesome magnolia bakery cupcake cookbook).

Kitchen fun

Standing in what is quickly becoming my favorite spot in the house.

My stove covered in pots :)

Today I added 12 quarts of applesauce to the pantry. I also have about 1/2 a gallon of pumpkin puree cooling in the fridge and will put it into the freezer tomorrow. I definitely have a big learning curve with all of this...most of my enlightenment comes AFTER the fact when I realize "oohhh...maybe it would have worked better the other way!"

The hubby striking a pose...this was our first joint canning adventure. Who would think this tattooed biker would be into canning and cooking?

My baby pumpkins! I did learn that if you go to the pumpking patch, check the side that has been laying on the ground for any soft spots...when I was washing the dirt off, I found two mushy areas that we had to cut away.

Part of my mess...I think my grandma was enjoying the view of this from heaven :) We always managed to blow the kitchen apart when we canned together.

Tasting the apple butter...definitely want a sieve to press this through next year...the food processor just didn't get it quite as smooth as I would like it.

Apples! I love me some fall

No matter how some of these endeavors turn out, I'm so happy with being able to work on my "wife skills." I feel like a lot of things from our grandparents' generation are disappearing, be it canning, sewing, gardening, etc, and want to make sure that I do my part to keep those arts alive.
The next "foodie" thing I want to try out is making yogurt. I looked at the old way of using a jar and keeping it warm and wrapping it in a towel in a cooler that has warm water in it...yea whatever. I found one on Amazon for less than 30 bucks that is thermostatically controlled and has a timer, so you don't have to worry about losing a batch. Modern conveniences exist for a reason, right? ;)

autumn

Well, this week the husband and I decided to get some canning done for winter months. What with wedding craziness and me just getting settled into my new town, we missed most summer crops, but we still have apples, pumpkins, etc to work with. His family has lived here off and on over the last 17 years, so they know where to get everything and how to barter for whatever they can't get for free. We made the drive to an old orchard that is about an hour from us today to try for a few buckets of apples, but ended up only getting about 4 gallons worth. It was so sad because the orchard is over 100 years old and hasn't been maintained at all for the last few years. Anyway, the lady that owns it was super nice and told us to get whatever we could out of it :).

On our way home, I noticed a stand of trees on a hillside next to the highway, so we pulled off, found the owner's house, and were once again told to take as much as we wanted. JACKPOT! We filled our big bucket and ended up with around 30 pounds of apples for free.

We also stopped off at the farm stand today and picked up four little pie pumpkins to cook up and freeze...apparently pumpkin is rather fickle and not to be trusted when it comes to canning. This is why I love my mother in law...she was the Colorado state fair "Queen of the Kitchen" when she lived here, and is still the official canning expert that the state ag extension agency refers everyone to. A phone call to her put a quick halt to the pumpkin canning plans that I had.

Back to the apples, we put up 12 quarts of apple butter tonight! There are still a ton of apples left in the bucket, so once we get more jars (keeping the fingers crossed for finding some at the thrift store tomorrow), we'll be cooking up a big batch of applesauce. I'm really excited for next month to get here, because the bigger apples will be ready (hello pie/cobbler/crisp filling!)

After a long _________________period of having no brain things occur in my head as far as writing goes, I am back. I've decided to take this blog in a slightly different direction (actually, I think I will finally take it in more or less a somewhat given direction, rather than letting it wander aimlessly as I have to date).
My life has taken a radical new direction since my last post so hopefully that will be reflected.
For starters, I'm getting married in 5 days! My fiance is a tattooed, tractor-driving, Harley-riding, amazing man of God. I'll be learning a brand new role in life, that of wife-helpmeet-homemaker-back of Harley rider :) I'm moving up to southern Colorado and will soon be learning to deal with real winters, complete with wool underwear and stocking hat hair (so much for being a glamorous newly-wed...guess I have to let Kim K keep that title). I'll be keeping a record of it here...learning to drive in real snow, the wildlife on our property, the weird mountain people that live in our town, getting used to living with another person that does things totally different (for example, he doesn't leave cabinet doors open as he cooks AND he closes the lid on the shampoo bottle in the shower after using it...yes, I am the Messy in this relationship), running a vacation lodge, and learning about my lover and how to be his best supporter.

Bitterness

Bitterness is a nasty potion that I've been drinking a lot of lately. Been mad at my ex for things he said and did. Mad and frustrated with friends who are mad and angry at me. Mad at nursing school for demanding every minute of my time. Mad at myself for getting mad. Mad mad mad. And anxious. Grades, work, money, wedding. All making me anxious that I'm not doing or planning any of it right. I hit a breaking point when I came home from class yesterday....was standing in the kitchen with tears pouring down my face, yelling about how sick I am of having constant knots in my stomach and tightness in my jaw and never-ceasing stress at the back of my mind and feeling like no matter what I do, I invariably fall short in one area or another and let someone down. Sick of having heartburn and headaches and a cold that has hung around for the last 3 weeks. Ready for a school break but knowing I only get four days off of school before diving straight back into it for a long haul till December. Sick at the thought of 7 more months of being apart from my fiance and only occasionally seeing him on weekends between now and then. Sick to my stomach every damn day over how I have lost one of my best friends for a reason I don't understand, and missing her so much it makes me cry when I think about it, which is all the time. Freaked about what to do for a vehicle since my truck broke down and gave up living 3 weeks ago. Freaked about paying for summer school and books and updating immunizations...and only having 30 dollars in my checking account. Freaked about passing pharmacology because if I don't then I won't be in nursing school anymore, because in spite of the stress, I love love love nursing school.
Finally at a point of admitting that I don't have control over this mess and even my best efforts fall short. Dramatically short. Willing to stop struggling, kicking, and screaming and hand it over to God. I'm really good at messing it up, but I know He is the best at running it. I've let so much build up and accumulate and fester in my heart that now there is just a lot of cynicism and bitterness...and it feels like it is eating my stomach and heart up all the time. I don't know what to do with it, I don't have the answers, and a lot of it is out of my control. Harboring anger and bitterness towards other people for things they have said or done won't change them...but it will change me. OK, it has changed me. It's not fair to the people around me, to my fiance, and definitely not what God intends for me to do or be. Ever sit and wonder how many more times in life you'll end up on your face? I think I have at least 432654377843435548999887654 more times to clean the mud off of my face and pray for forgiveness.

<3 Gina

Rescue Me

First I want to say that the title of this post is completely plagiarized from today's sermon. This morning in church, our guest speaker talked about what he called "the most bizarre story in the bible." He was referring to the story in Mark ch 5 about the guy who was full of demons that Jesus cast out into the herd of swine. Well, I wasn't too sure about that being the most bizarre. There are TONS of strange things in the bible (Elisha and the floating axe head, Balaam holding a conversation with a talking donkey, the sun holding still for Gideon, huge walls falling down when a big group of people marched around them singing and blowing trumpets, etc). The funny thing is that I've read/heard these stories SO many times, they've sorta become...just stories that I accept without batting an eye or having a second thought.
SO, Rick (guest speaker) starts talking about how this guy in the story has been wandering naked among the tombs, how he can't be bound by shackles or chains, and how he spends his days crying and cutting himself with shards and rocks. Not normal behavior by any means. What in the world brings a person to that point?? What kind of life did he have prior to his current existence? I bet he wasn't much different from most people before Legion decided to move in. Anyway, you can bet this guy was one hurting unit in desperate need of a Savior.
This is where it becomes awesome. Jesus and His followers arrived to that particular area on a boat, and the possessed man RAN TOWARD HIM AND BEGAN TO WORSHIP! Just remember that it was the demons in him who were doing this (which I think is...awesome). Demons get cast out into the herd of pigs, pigs run off the cliff into the sea, and the man who had been possessed is now of a sound mind, dressed, and speaking normally. The story goes on from there, but here's what I found really cool. After sending the man back to spread word among his town/friends, Jesus gets back into the boat and crosses back over to the other side. He came all the way over to one shore, healed and saved this hurting man, sent him out to witness, and then got back in His boat and returned to the other shore.
How close is that to what He has done in every Christian's life? I was a hurting and miserable person without Him...and He knew where to find me. He called me, woke my heart to Him, and gave me Grace abounding. It doesn't matter where any of us are...Christ can meet us there. I'm definitely a member (though not proud of it) of the Million-Sins-Committed Club, but still He loves me and forgives me. Amazing. It's also very convicting to me that He told the man "Go home to your friends, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you, and that He has had compassion on you." In other words...we shouldn't just take our salvation and keep in quiet and to ourselves.
Anyway, this has been an inadequate summary of an amazing bible passage that I had overlooked till now, but I hope I made some sort of sense.

Really?

Yesterday while driving to school, I saw something that has always provoked a huge "REALLY??" type of reaction from me anytime I see it. Driving next to me was this huge manly man truck. It was black and lifted and it was a 4x4 and it had tinted windows and mudflaps and chrome and more chrome and it roared in a very manly way when the driver put his foot on the accelerator and I'm pretty sure it was able to grow facial hair before it even left the assembly line.
So here's the kicker: On the back window of this truck were two stickers that show the silhouette of a naked woman in a very suggestive pose...one as an angel, the other as a devil. I'm sure you all know the ones I'm talking about. I want to know who the 7th grade boy was that came up with this idea, and after that I want to know how it is possible that more mothers don't beat their sons for putting these stickers on their trucks.
When did it become "manly" for men to lust after a woman's body and reduce it to nothing more than a means to satisfy his fleshly desires? How have multiple generations of women accepted the lie that our value lies in our sex appeal and our willingness to give our bodies without regard for commitment and respect? It is not acceptable to excuse it as "well, they are men. It's just how their minds work." Bull. People are perfectly capable of training their minds and their thoughts. Most choose not to.
So why do I get so disgusted by these stickers when I could "just not look at them," as many people advise me? Mainly because they are a slap in the face to womanhood and true manhood, and because they poison the minds of children and adults. Young girls see those poses and think that they have to look like that to be of value. Young men see them and think that they are allowed and entitled to view women in that manner.
So, back to where I first saw the truck. The vehicle next to him was a smaller SUV, rather unremarkable in appearance. There was an older man driving it. His bumper sticker simply read, "I love my wife."
There is hope, after all. :)
More to come on this soon....