So. This Thing Happened.

"Every day God has the rain fall, a plant's roots drink it and turn it into fruit, and men collect the fruit of the plant, crush it, and ferment it into wine.  Every day, God slowly turns water into wine.  Once He bypassed the process.  Every day, in grains of corn that are planted and produce more than themselves, God makes a little bread into much bread.  Once He did it instantaneously and fed five thousand...the miracles are in the same style, so to speak."

--C.S. Lewis

It wasn't at all like this:

It was much more like this:

In other words, I didn't do anything.  Shall we get that clear at the start?

On the other hand, something sort of overwhelming and amazing happened yesterday, and I feel I should, like, tell people.  So here goes.

The Husband and I have had a busy summer and a busy vacation, as have my Mom and Dad, so the Husband decided to take the day off yesterday and invite Dad for a round of golf.  Mom came up too to see the kids, visit me, and have some She-Shopping with me.  (She-Shopping, where you look at lots of things without really wanting to buy any of them, just for the pleasure of browsing, as opposed to He-Shopping.  He-Shopping has been defined as "I'm cold.  I go in a store and buy a coat.  I'm not cold anymore.")

So the boys had a blast in the morning golfing 9 holes, and we had a blast She-Shopping (and I found some instruments for the kids, which Miss Boo calls "Racas"--otherwise known as maracas and drums).  The menfolk decided, after lunch, that they were up for another 9 holes, and we decided to stay home.

While we were shopping, Mom had mentioned that her bad ear has been sore, and could I look at it when we got home.  I have a cheapie, $14 otoscope from Walmart that is designed to check for toddler ear infections, so I said sure.

(This is the ear, by the way, that Mom hasn't been able to hear out of since, in 1990, a series of infections and traumas burst her eardrum and, according to the specialist she saw, dissolved the small bones in her ear that vibrate behind the eardrum.  The specialist said the only way to fix the ear was to have expensive surgery to put in prosthetic bones, which for many reasons Mom elected not to have.)

I look in the ear and see what looks like an infected sore, which looks painful as all get out, and a perfectly intact (though opaque) eardrum.  I've seen Mom's eardrum in this ear before, and it's always opaque.  We assume this is one reason she doesn't hear.  I offer to try to clean up the infection, and Mom says sure, it's hurting all the way down into her throat, and she's ready to stand getting the ear washed out if I think it'll get rid of the infection.

So I looked around the house, because I don't have any proper tools at home--no nice 30cc syringe, no ear tips, no ear spoons, no catch basin, nothing.  We end up trying to sop up as much of the drainage as we could with q-tips (evil as it usually is to put those in your ears), and then I found a 2cc syringe from an old bottle of Baby Motrin that I washed out.  I mixed up a solution of hydrogen peroxide and water and commenced to squirt out Mom's ear, hoping to get the junk to come out.

Well, a tiny scab did come out, but as we're flushing, Mom goes "I can hear."

(I'm still peering into her ear periodically with the $14 otoscope, wondering if there's not an infection in the ear at all but rather in the eustachian tube, since she can pinch her nose and blow and I can see bubbles in the area of the sore.)

We keep flushing until we're not getting any more junk out, but now Mom is feeling drainage inside her head and periodically saying "I can still hear!"

She got a little dizzy, laid on my couch for a bit until the men got back from golf, and keeps saying, dazedly, "I can still hear!"

We go to dinner and she could barely eat because the restaurant was so loud-- "Sound, all around!"  (She hasn't been hearing in stereo since 1990, mind.)

They drove home over the pass.  Her ear popped as they changed pressure and she could still hear.  She could hear everything, she said, even her hair rustling.

This morning she can still hear, and I am as overwhelmed as she is, because listen closely:

There is nothing about flushing out a sore ear with a baby motrin syringe and peroxide that should have made a ear with no bones there to vibrate hear again. 

There's no explanation I can think of.  If the ear healed on its own, like the bones grew back or something (which doesn't seem likely), then why did it suddenly get better, instead of gradually?  If there was some kind of blockage, for twenty years, it doesn't seem likely that a 2cc syringe and a quarter cup of warm peroxide water would dislodge it, does it?  Especially when specialists looking at the ear detected no such thing?  And again, if it was some other structure in the ear that healed on its own, why did the hearing come back suddenly?

It's Mom's opinion that God did a miracle.  After thinking about it all night, I don't have a better explanation--one that covers more of the facts with fewer assumptions; but I emphasize again that I didn't do anything.  I'm not just speaking medically, when I did the equivalent of putting a bandaid on a broken leg.  I mean I didn't pray, or get a sense of holy power, or glow, or anything.  I had two toddlers in the house playing their new drums and Racas for Pete's sake.  I didn't do ANYTHING.

So here is my explanation:

ALL healing comes from God.  We like to assume a paper cut "heals itself", but of course that's nonsense; He has created and sustains our bodies in such a fashion that, most of the time, they heal without our thinking about it much.  While Christ was on earth, and frequently through the Apostles afterward, God chose to heal instantaneously.  I don't believe there's evidence in Scripture to say that God has limited Himself in modern times to only healing through "natural" means; why should He?

That said, until now I've never personally experienced clearly miraculous healings--I've never spoken in tongues, never had holy laughter, or any of those Charismatic experiences, k?  I don't knock them, I've just never experienced them.

I didn't do anything.  I happened to be standing there when my Mom's ear was miraculously healed.

Glory to God!

Breanna

P.S.  Did I mention she can still hear this morning?

Hi: Yeah. I've been neglecting you, and more on pantries

The title: Buddy likes to talk, but has favorite words.  They are "Hi" and "Yeah."  He came in while I was showering, jerked the shower curtain back, told me "Hi.  Yeah."  and wandered off again.  What do you say to that?

(I know.

The pictures.  I should make with more pictures.  But there's this gigantic belly of mine hindering me from doing normally easy things like finding a camera charger, bending over to plug it in, and thus enabling my camera to take pictures.  I swear I didn't get this big with Miss Boo until I was at least seven months along... but I might have selective memory.  Or maybe this baby is babies, and the initial ultrasound was wrong.  Whatev.

((Give us a picture, Breanna!  We want to see that camera-inhibiting belly!  Well, fine.  I might get The Husband to take a candid shot this weekend.  He likes pictures of me pregnant... me, not so much.))

The kids are as cute as ever, and I'll get some more pictures up soon.  We find out, by the by, the day after Labor Day, whether the new child will be of the XX or XY persuasion.)

It's been hot here, so hot that it's hard to take the kids outside to play because I carry my own insulation around with me.  Consequently, Miss Boo and Buddy have been squaring off lately like the Koreas (Buddy is North Korea, not because he's got the cool dictator hair--he still has very little hair-- but because he likes to kick his sister and then pretend she was the agressor), and I've been trying desperately to bribe them with The Backyardigans long enough to have a catnap in a recliner.  It's exhausting to be pregnant and overheated, in case you didn't know.

In other news, we've been watching the economic situation with the same bemused disbelief as the rest of the country, I believe.  I read an article on MSN of all places this morning that came out and said the "D" word, as in "Depression - we're in one".  Not "Great Recession", not "this isn't a depression because..." but arguing whether it was a straight-up "Depression" or a "Contained Depression.".  Apparently the difference is that a Contained Depression will avoid hyperinflation.  Because it's contained, see.

(Hyperinflation is loss of faith in the currency, like when the Soviets would have to go around just whacking zeros off the ends of prices, and wages.)

I don't know much about Wall Street and whatnot.  All I know is that four houses in my neighborhood are for sale, and that nobody can move them or make as much on them as they owe.  Them's pretty rotten apples, according to THIS girl reporter.

Also, eggs are more expensive than I've ever seen (though still cheaper than boxed breakfast cereal).  Even before the whole salmonella thing.  (Are any of you people still eating soft boiled eggs or raw cookie dough?  Remember all the times I've told you not to?  Well now you know why.  We don't worry about salmonella in my house--we cook our eggs.  So stop it with the cookie dough, ok?  It's gross, like steak tartare.)

In an ironic companion to the worsening Dep/Recession, our garden failed this year, from a combination of very hot days, bizarrely cool nights, and a few weeks when we couldn't keep after it and so the weeds took over.  We'll till it all under and mulch the heck out of it this fall and hope that does the trick.  So far about all we're getting out of the garden is carrots and green beans.  (Well, and lettuce and herbs and currants and a couple of tomatoes, but I mean, even my zucchini died.)  So I shall be in the same situation as all ya'll when it comes to stocking my pantry this fall.

I'm old fashioned and I like to have all my stuff neatly tucked into my pantry before snow flies, because shopping in the winter in a foot of snow is already tricky and then becomes exponentially more difficult when you add two toddlers and pregnancy balance issues into the mix.

But how are you supposed to get a pantry stocked in the midst of a recession, you ask?  How, when you're starting off with a bare shelf and nothing on it but a thing of mustard and half a can of Tang?  Why, I'm glad you said something.  Here's a list I found.  There's more of them on the sidebars over to the left, there.

Don't let the survialist-y feel of the website put you off.  It'll cost more than $20 per week, because prices are 10 years old, but not much more if you look around and wait for sales.  Also you may want to go less heavy on the canned-ham/canned-soup/paper plates areas than she does, which will save you some money.  (Personally I think I'd rather eat a lot of chili before I go the Vienna sausages route.)  Take the list--any list--as a starting point; go through and replace with the stuff you want to store--you'd rather have brisling sardines instead of spam?  Put them on your list.  Only buy what you'll eat, yo.

The point is to, every week as you do your normal grocery shopping, throw a few bags of rice/beans/cans of pumpkin/jelly/peanut butter/boxes of UHT milk/etc. in your cart along with what you're getting anyway.  Having a pantry is an easy way to insulate your family against the Re/Depression, since food prices have been getting higher and are probably not going to quit for a bit.

I'm not telling you to put together a Y2K pantry (for instance, you probably shouldn't get that grow light recommended on the list I've linked--a jar and some sprouting seed for salads/sandwiches might be better investments), because we're probably not going to have that kind of problem.  I'm telling you to do as well as FEMA and homeland security want you to do anyway, and have 3-4 weeks of food in the house.  Actually more would be great, but let's start somewhere.

Incidentally this will save you money, help you eat healthier, and make it so you're not compelled to eat out as much.  It will also mean you can have company for dinner without having to run to the grocery store.

Along with the pictures, I'll try to get a list of what I'm storing up for you soon.

Ciao,

Breanna

Normal Eating

Since I've been thinking about food lately... because I'm a chick, and that's what we do...

I like The Fat Nutritionist, whom I just found today.  Particularly this quote from Ellyn Satter, who wrote  "Child of Mine", the best baby-and-toddler-feeding book out there.

Wondering what to feed your kid?  Answer: Food.

How much?  Answer: As much as they want.

Seriously? But what about organics?  What about soda?  What about potato chips?

Satter actually says to serve cookies and milk now and then as a snack (horrid storebought Oreo-type cookies if they ask for them), and let everyone have as much as they want.  Which, honestly, won't be that many most of the time, particularly if they know they can have more at some point in the future and that they aren't doing something horrible and forbidden.  Because horrid storebought waxy hockey-pucks don't taste that good, and because homemade wonderful cookies are satisfying enough that, all else being normal, a kid won't want twenty-six of them.

Satter hates soda, but again notes that it's stupid to set up a forbidden mystique around a food (or "candy", as she puts it).  Again the solution is to have it sometimes, as a snack, not a beverage.

Potato chips?  Serve them with sandwiches and again, let everyone have as much as they want.

Obviously this does not apply to the way Satter says to feed 8-month-old infants, but her advice is as sensible in that area too.

Go.  Read.  Start eating for pleasure.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.

Yep, pleasure.  Why do you think God, in His mercy, put TASTE in food?

It worked...

...we ate for a week without buying any groceries except milk and eggs.  Ate well, I might say.

We sort of cheated Saturday night, because we up and decided to attend the Saturday evening service that our new church offers.  (It's a whole service, just Saturday night at 5:30 instead of Sunday morning at 11:00.  The kids were in a better mood that night than we thought they would be in the morning.)

Anyway, turned out that Communion was being served at the evening service, which I hadn't anticipated so all I had were lifesavers and sippies of water, and I'm trying to whisper to Miss Boo during the songs that Communion is for grownups and that she's not to talk or ask for any of the Elements.  Buddy I tried to distract with clicky pens.

Miss Boo got really quiet when they began to serve Communion, and actually sat with folded hands and big eyes and didn't ask for a juice cup or anything.  It was amazing.  (Grace of God--I had nothing to do with it, I've tried before.)

So, as a reward, and because all I had planned for supper was steak sandwiches anyway, we got Wendy's on the way home--it was only 6:30 when church let out.  So that was our cheating.

Otherwise, here's what we had:

Breakfasts: either cornmeal mush, eggs and toast, or (once) eggs and fried mush, on saturday we had pancakes.
Lunches: mostly leftovers; one day we had PB&J.
Dinners:
M: Salmon gratinee (sounds fancier than "salmon noodle stuff with a white sauce"), applesauce, and green beans
T: Steak, potato salad, baked beans, applesauce
W: Beef tongue with raisin sauce, green beans, noodles
Th: Chicken with cheesy rice and peas
F: Prime rib with baked potatoes and salad (this was our anniversary)
S: Wendy's :)
Sunday: Steak sandwiches, applesauce

Having a freezer of beef helps, obviously.  And a bumper crop of apples last year.

Does this inspire you?  Go plan your non-shopping menu.

Cheers,

Breanna

1825 Days

No, this isn't the new baby five months early.

This is a picture of the great guy I married five years--or 1,825 days--ago, today, holding Miss Boo back when she was brand-new.

I knew I loved him then, but I think I can safely say I love him more today than I ever have.

I thank God for him.

Breanna

Pantry Menus

First of all, I admit I have a somewhat unique pantry.

But this week, I decided I was going to try to put together my menu plan without buying any groceries except milk (of which we go through 4 gallons a week) and eggs.  It was surprisingly easy.

Here's what we had today:

Breakfast: cornmeal chili-cheese muffins, milk, and tea for Mama
Lunch: cleaned the leftovers out of the fridge; fresh homemade bread
Dinner: steak, baked beans, potato salad, fresh green beans from the garden, and applesauce

I told you I have a unique pantry.  I have a half a freezer of beef (well, maybe a quarter) that needs eating up before our beef goes to slaughter this fall.  I have tail ends of dry goods, like beans, that need using up.  And I have a garden that's as productive as gardens in these parts ever get.  Here's tomorrow's menu:

Breakfast: reheated muffins, milk, applesauce
Lunch: leftover side dishes from tonight, cheese sandwiches on homemade bread
Dinner: beef tongue with raisin sauce (much better than it sounds), egg noodles, peas, and oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies

It's been a fun challenge to see how long I can go without buying anything except milk and eggs.  I wouldn't have even had to get the milk and eggs if the kids didn't need whole milk; I have powdered milk I bake with.  After making one week of menus without having to think much, I was able to make a second week of non-shopping menus with just a little more thinking--things like, "how many potatoes will that take?" and "maybe I can make cream of spinach with that bit of frozen spinach..."  I think if I stretched my brain a bit I could, perhaps, even get a third week of menus.

It's vegetables that become the problem, I discover.

I encourage anyone who has charge of a pantry to see how many no-shopping menus you can make up before we reach our (ta-da-dum) fall-stock up.  Eat up the bits* you have hanging around your freezer and pantry.  So what if this means you have some dinners like, pancakes, stewed chicken and gravy, and apple pie filling with granola on top for desert?  You'll get to stretch your creativity, and you'll really know you're starting with a nice clean slate when you put your new items away.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.

*There is an argument to be made for buying staples, like dried beans, flour, vinegar, etc. before you use your current supply all the way up.  The argument is that if you wait until you're out, you have to buy at whatever price happens to be going, whereas if you keep an eye out while you still have flour, you can sort of name your own price.  This is sound thinking--but doesn't negate the challenge.  Just don't open any new packages of anything before the old packages are used up, if you choose to not use up everything.  Sound logical enough?

It's Awfully Warm

Those hot days that roll past where you can't pick the beans that need picking in the garden... you can't cook... you can't force yourself to hang up the laundry...

...or sit with a laptop on your legs.

So we shall have something interesting to say presently.  As it is, it's just too dang hot.

Cheers,

Breanna