"The Good Wife's Guide" Giveaway!

OK Ladies!

I am super excited about this giveaway because this book is so inline with my goal of being a Proverbs 31 woman and the author is one of those Titus 2 women I truly look to as a role model.  The book is called The Good Wife's Guide by Darlene Schacht over at Time-Warp Wife.

I was blessed to receive a copy of this new ebook and it really is a treasure of good advice backed by scripture.  Darlene's writing style draws you in as if you are sitting across the table from her, drinking a cup of coffee with a friend.  Her passion for God and helping wives prioritize His role for us as helpmeets to our husbands and mothers to our children is evident on every page.

And now Darlene will bless three of you with a copy of this new ebook! 

I'm so excited about this as the book was truly a blessing to me and I know it will bless the hearts of three women out there!

To enter, just complete any of the options below in the Rafflecopter! The giveaway ends next Wednesday!

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First video!

Where's the Rice & Beans?

So the first big responsibility that hit me as a new SAHM was that I was going to have to cook dinner every night... every. night. (insert look of terror here)

My husband was out of work for almost 2 years and for most of that time he was the one cooking the dinners.  Once he found a job I was almost at the point of going out on maternity leave (and from leave I never went back to work), so I had to start making dinners once he was back at work.

Needles to say, I grew quite lazy and complacent in those 2 years - nearly forgetting how to cook even the simplest of meals!  So off to the cooking websites and cookbooks I went.  I found wonderful blogs on food and began making many of the meals (can I just say, I love you, Pioneer Woman!!).  My family was having country chicken, Italian pasta & gravy, Asian stir fry... I thought I was the cooking queen!!  But one day hubby looked at another bowl of sausage and pasta that I so loving set down before him and muttered the words that have changed my cooking kitchen...

"Where's the rice & beans?"  

What?! These meals were coming straight from the Food Network chefs! What are you talking about, rice & beans?  Hubby just looked at me and said "we're Hispanic... we're having everything but rice & beans, bistec encebollao, platanos - that's the food I want."  Wait... did you hear that?  The sound of my cooking world smashing into bits and pieces...  Well, yeah I know we are Hispanic (my husband is 1/2 Puerto Rican and 1/2 Mexican, I'm 1/2 Puerto Rican and 1/2 Dominican), but I hadn't realized that he craved the food we grew up with.

Now, I grew up on rice & beans. I love my rice & beans.  But my mother never really taught me how to cook the foods of my heritage - it was just something that my husband and I always looked forward to when we went to family parties or get togethers  (especially on my side where we have some awesome Dominican cooks!).  So after I moped around for a few hours, mourning the death of my Food Network recipes, I sat at the computer to see if I could pull some spanish recipes off the web.  I don't know why I was so surprised, but there are blogs on Hispanic cooking!  I poured over many of them, reminiscing on the smells and tastes of many of the foods that I grew up with.

I started with a delicious bistec encebolloa (steak with onions) recipe that I made with plain white rice and my mother's red bean recipe (I will post one day) - and it was a hit! Hubby was so happy to come home to this food that it really made my day to see him so happy!  Every day he would call to see what dish I was making - I mean he was excited to come home and eat!!

So I've traded my Food Network blogs (I will NEVER trade in Pioneer Woman though, did I mention that I love you Ree?) for my Spanish cooking blogs (I will share those here at some point) and my husband is all the better for it!

I'm so thankful to God that He has allowed me to be home for a season (I pray it's a permanent season!) and take care of my family. Being able to provide for them and keep them fed is just such a blessing and I pray that our Great Provider will continue helping me in the kitchen!

In Christ,

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"Organic"

I've suddenly fallen in love with the word "organic". I think about it during the day, say it in my mind, and once in awhile I'll actually say it right outloud... organic. I think I like it so much because work was never "organic". Work was more... militant, stressful, and... well, non-organic. Now I stay at home and I'm planning my vegetable garden, having church sisters over for canning, and ordering cloth diapers for my 7 week old. I feel organic. Natural, spiritual, earthy... I actually look forward to the day that I'm picking my carrots from my garden and cooking dinner with them for my family that same night... that's just amazing to me.

Speaking of carrots, I was peeling a few for a pre-snack dinner for the kids and when I looked down into my sink, it just looked... organic!! I loved how the tops of the carrots still had some leaves on them, and the shredded carrots were just such a pretty color... and then my canning jar that once held pickles and was now just soaking in the sink. It was such a beautiful picture... and one day those carrots will be straight from my backyard. How amazing is that?

Meal Planning Monday - July 25 - 29, 2011

So today is my 2nd or 3rd attempt at meal planning. With four kids and an extra hungry husband, planning my meals would really help me out during the week. Meal planning was something I never even heard of while I was a working mom, but now its like an essential part of my week!

So here we go:

Monday - Brown Sugar Butter Roasted Chicken
Tuesday - Italian Pork Chops
Wednesday - Baby Back Ribs & Mashed Potato (no link b/c hubby seasoned the ribs and they sit in the fridge now)
Thursday - Southern Low Country Boil
Friday - Chicken Salad w/Chips

My goal this week is to follow my plan and make sure dinner is prepared every day!

Prayerfully,

Yasmin

Frustration

Today was a busy day for me: the kids started VBS for the first time ever, while they were at VBS I did some food shopping with a sister from church, then we went back to church to pick up our kids (my 4 plus her daughter and two nieces) and went back to my house where we hung out all day until they were all picked up (from 12pm - 4pm).
So there were a total of 7 kids in my not so clean house - a fact that did not escape my husband when he came home and I (mistakenly) complained about my tiresome day. It's not that the visitors were troublesome - I'm just not used to having people in my home and it's something I'm hoping to get rid of. I want to open my home to our church family and allow my kids to have fun and enjoy fellowship with others. It's just hard for me, my first instinct is to be left alone and not have to deal with anyone but my own rugrats. So my mistake was to take my day and turn it into a complaint to my husband instead of turning it into a praise report! I opened our home to another family and the kids had fun and dinner was cooked when you got home! yay!
But no, instead I complained and then my husband began to complain: how could I have ANYone in this messy house! And dinner? Dinner was nothing but spaghetti & sausage thrown together last minute because I didn't have time to make something better.

Granted, that last argument was very upsetting for me and I responded by taking an hour to buy some breakfast items at our local supermarket. I started out in the car by arguing with God about my insensitive husband but prayed for Him to open my eyes and heart regardless. And slowly my icy heart became warm again and I wasn't bothered anymore by those words. They are just words and they were probably as a result of my own complaints. How would I feel if, after working a physically exhaustive job, I come home to a complaining spouse? I think I might be annoyed and unintentionally pick at things that my spouse had (or hadn't) done.
So though I was a bit frustrated and felt underappreciated, I was able to pray through it and see the other side of it.

Lord, please help me clean a little better tomorrow and come up with a meal my hubby would love to come home to!!

Easy to be Lazy...

It’s so easy for me to forget why I wanted to stay at home with my kids.  There are days where taking care of my 4 kids (3 kids and one infant), cleaning, figuring out breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, snack, snack, dinner, snack, etc. can just get overwhelming for me.  And the dishes will pile up from breakfast, lunch, and snacks and I will sit at the sofa feeding my 3 week old for the 100th time today (he breastfeeds, so it seems like he’s just always on me) and get in a funk.  And a scene will play out in my head where my husband comes home and I will give him my most tired look, hair all crazy, one breast in my sons mouth while trying to fold clothes with one hand and say “I’m exhausted! The kids ate (cereal, pizza, popcorn) for dinner, just get something for yourself.”  I can fall into that so easily...

But then I remember why I wanted to stay at home.  I want to be the wife/mother/woman that God created me to be.  I think of the famous Proverbs 31 woman who did it all and still was able to dress nicely for her husband.  I don’t want my husband to come home to a messy house, rambunctious children, and a sloppy wife - and no dinner to top it all off!  I want him to come home and feel relaxed as soon as he walks in - knowing that he’s come to his house and he can be at peace in it and know that he will always have something to fill his stomach after a hard day at work.  After all, I’m asking him to provide for his family while I stay at home now - that’s a tall order!  I used to be the main income - the one with the good job with good benefits... but I’m giving all that up to be something more than that and now my husband has to take that weight onto his shoulders.  I can at least make it easier for him by keeping up the home.

Lord help me remember the woman you made me to be and never become lazy and complacent.

Grace after laziness...

So last night I was a bit lazy.  To my credit, I had worked a full day (8:30am - 5:30pm) plus had to deal with the kids who had a 1/2 day (JJ & Mari had 1/2 days, Kaity came home around 4:30).  So it was a lot for me and I couldn't get any dinner on the table.  And after a full days work and kids running around all day, I really didn't feel like doing much of anything - just lay down and savor the moment that tomorrow (today) I was a "free" woman from work! And after getting a pizza pie for dinner, that's exactly what I did.

Now, I KNEW that my husband ALSO had a full day of work... but while I'm home working in the A/C all day, he was out sweating in the hot sun from 5:30am until around 7:30pm. I KNEW that he wouldn't be too happy about pizza for dinner, but I could counteract that by at least cleaning up a bit. If he came home to a beautifully tidy home, I could give him cereal for dinner and he'd be happy (uh, maybe cereal is a bit of a stretch, but you get what I'm trying to say)!! He just wants to come home from a long day to a clean home... and that's not what happened.

So when I heard the car door slam shut, announcing my husband's arrival, I braced myself for the consequences of my decision.  Thank God for my husband, he didn't argue with me like I probably would've done with him.  To a point, he understands that I'm 38 weeks pregnant and the fact that I had a long day... to a point. But I felt the tension and the silence that lay heavy in the house that night.

I honestly could have gathered up the kids and had them help me clean up the house a bit, but in my laziness I just didn't do it.  So today I woke up feeling a bit guilty... but I know that God's grace is for me today.  As I wrote yesterday, today is the beginning of my new life as stay at home mom / wife.  I will not let laziness overtake me today!!  My day is planned with a set of goals to accomplish (including cleaning & cooking!) and I will not let my laziness take over!

Thank God for His grace and knowing that each morning is a new day to start over in it!

Yasmin