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Over the past several weeks, I have been reading Fascinating Womanhood b Helen Andelin. Now, I should state a couple of things…
1. I haven’t fully read the entire book, I’m only on chapter 7.
2. I’m not sure if I agree with everything she has to say, but there is a lot of good information contained in the book. So, don’t throw out the baby in with the bath water. Mine out the good stuff and toss the rest.
With that said, here are some things I have learned so far.
1. We need to accept our husbands at face value and not try to change them.
Only your husband and the Lord can change him. Accepting him does not mean deceiving yourself into thinking he’s perfect, but appreciating him for the man he is. You accept him totally and copletely, taking both the good and bad. Trying to change him usually brings about no change at all. When you try to force change on him, he will rebel. This causes discord and can cool his feelings toward you.
2. We need to appreciate his better side.
This means that we are to value him and the things he does for us. We should appreciate his character, intelligence and what he does for us. Serious marriage problems stem from ungrateful wives. It’s not “things” that corrupt us, but our inability to appreciate them. If we appreciate nothing else, we shoulde appreciate the money he works so hard for to provide for the needs of the family. If you treat a man as he ought to be, he will strive to become that man. Look for virtures beneath his faults.
3. Admire his manliness.
We should admire our husband’s body (his strength & endurance), his skills & abilities, his achievements, his goals & dreams, his character, and his masculine role within the family. Admiring his masculinity is one of the keys to winning his love and devotion. We can find things to admire our husbands for by thinking about him, observing him and by listening to him talk. Wehn we express admiration to our husbands, we should be sincere and specific.
4. Make him number one. (This is a part that I don’t agree with totally, because I believe that God should be number one.) That being said, there are still many things in this chapter that I do agree with.
When other worldly things come before your husband, he can form resentment towards you. A husband understands that a wife has many important duties, but he doesn’t want to be less than important than them. Women tend to put their children, homemaking, appearance, parents, money & success, and careers, talents & activities before their husbands. When In reality they should come before these things. If we treat our husbands like kings, they will treat us like queens. We shouldn’t put the comforts and whims of our children ahead of our husband’s basic needs.
Your husband’s dedication to his work is his way of making his family #1. He’s working for you and your family and that should be appreciated by his wife. When your husband comes home form work you should make it as pleasant as possible. The housework should be done and the house should be as quiet as possible. We should be well dressed and greet him with a smile. Don’t rush to him with problems, but let him have a while to become acclimated to being home again. Listen to him talk about his day. Encourage him to talk about his day by asking leading questions and actually listening to him.
So far, this has been a really good book and one I would highly recommend. I have been trying the recommendations in the book and have already noticed changes in our relationship. While many women would call many of the suggestions in this book old fashioned or out of tune with today, these are tried and true suggestions and do work. Feminists will NOT like this one, so there’s another reason to recommend this book to everyone I know!
Hugs & Blessings,
Susan
My computer still isn’t fixed, so I just put the pictures on disk so I could upload them to the blog.
This is a picture of Riley sleeping on his mattress
A bowl full of tomatoes from our garden
One of our yellow tomatoes
Yellow tomato cut open
Cherry & grape tomatoes…Riley’s favorites!
5 gallons tomatoes, 1 gallon jalepenos, almost a gallon of both hot banana peppers & bell peppers.
Riley in his playhouse
Today, I’m just going to be puttering around the house and take it a little easy. I’m so exhausted!
Marty ended up working on his truck last night and never got around to fixing my computer. That’s okay, the truck is way more important! I’m more than ready to get my Suburban back during the day and his little truck gets much better gas milage anyway!
Today’s schedule includes washing clothes (surprise!) and working on the house. It’s been so nice the last couple of days…the temps have been much cooler so outside work has at least been pleasant. I’m not looking forward to my drive to the doctor in Fort Worth on Thursday, but I guess I’ve got to do it 
I’m ready for Colt to come home from Grandma’s! It’s just too quiet here without him. We’re going to go get him either Saturday or Sunday. I really miss him! He’s such a big help to me with Riley as well as around the house.
Well, I’m off to start my day, I’ll hopefully get some pictures up tonight or tomorrow!
We had a really good and productive weekend! Friday night we had a thunderstorm and apparently it fried my network card on my computer so I have no internet on my computer. I’m having to use my husband’s ancient laptop to access the internet. I can’t upload the pictures from the camera, so I’ll do it when Marty gets my network card changed out (we have a working one from an older computer). Hopefully he’ll get it done this evening….I miss my computer
Saturday morning we did our usual thing of going out for breakfast tacos and then hitting the flea market, thrift shops & garage sales. At the flea market, I got a couple of canisters & big glass jars for storing our bulk supplies. At the thrift shop I got some more glass jars & canisters, as well as some training pants for Riley (we’re going to start potty training him). We then stopped at the grocery store, they were having a really good sale. We picked up 20 lbs. of hamburger, 4 pkg. of smoked sausage, 12 packages of cheese, 4 packages of cereal, and 2 cartons of orange juice. We got all of this for $42!! After that we stopped at a garage sale where we made out like bandits! We found a cute playhouse for Riley, a mattress for Riley and 2 potties for Riley (one sits on the toilet and one if free standing). We got these all for $27!! Riley LOVES his playhouse…I’ll post pictures as soon as I can! We then came home and unloaded everything. We cut the meat up into 1-3/4 lb. chunks, so we have 12 meals worth of hamburger. I had to clean out the freezer so we could fit it all in and now it’s stuffed to the gills again!
After that, it was lunch time so we decided to go eat lunch in Hillsboro and run a few more errands. We stopped at the new health food grocery there and looked around….the prices were pretty good, so I think we’ll go back. We then went to eat at Arby’s. Then off to Walmart. Marty bought me this really neat tripod for my camera…it was on clearance for only $8!! Then it was back to the house to do some work around the house and then we fixed hamburgers for dinner.
Sunday we woke up late, so didn’t make it to church. Marty took me to a late breakfast at the taco place, then we ran a few more errands. Back at home, we worked a little more around the house and picked the garden. We now have 5 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer, 1 gallon of jalepeno peppers, 1 gallon hot banana peppers, and almost 1 gallon of bell peppers. We still have about another gallon of picked tomatoes to put up, we’re just waiting for them to ripen. This picking, we got some of our heirloom yellow tomatoes…pictures coming soon! Then I laid down with Riley and we both took a nap! AFter that we ran into town to get some sodas and on the way home we stopped at another garage sale. We bought a BUNCH of canning jars and 43 back issues of this magazine called Organic Gardener. Turns out that the people having the garage sale are originally from the town that Marty & I grew up in and they knew both of our Dads…small world! Well then we went back home and ate dinner and did some more work around the house. We decided to go to bed early and we all crashed!
Today has been pretty quiet so far. I need to do some laundry and do some house cleaning. I’m going to the doctor of Thursday, so please keep us in your prayers then. I’m not looking forward to having to drive 1-1/2 hours each way just to visit the doctor and I’m not sure how we’re going to afford it either, but I guess I have no choice, and God will provide a way. I had a little crying jag Sunday at the grocery store. We had to walk down the baby aisle to get something for Riley. I saw that they had started carrying organic baby food and got all excited, until it hit me that this baby will not be needing baby food. I forget sometimes what’s going on with my baby…kind of sad, but it happens usually when I see something that I really wanted for the baby….like a really cute outfit or things like that. Then I remember and it hits me like a ton of bricks.
Well I need to get busy and get some stuff done…I’ve already spent more time than I needed to on the computer. Hopefully I’ll get the pictures up this evening for y’all!
Hugs & Blessings!
Susan
I just realized that I hadn’t posted any pictures of our gardens recently. All that we really have growing right now are bell peppers, hot banana peppers, habenero peppers, tomatoes, onions & Indian corn. The lettuce & broccoli have finished producing for the summer and the green beans died on us. We just planted a little bit of Indian corn and we will let it dry on the plant to use for seed next year. Now on to the pictures…
This is one our our bell pepper plants, we have 6 and they are all full of peppers!
This is one of our hot banana pepper plants, we have 2 of these and they are full of peppers. We’ve already put 1 gallon size bag of these up in the freezer!
Here’s one of our MANY tomatoes. Just in the last 3 days we’ve put up over 3 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer, plus we have another gallon or so that have been picked, but we’re waiting on them to ripen. There are 100′s of them still on the plants waiting ripen!!
We’re going to be making a huge pot of salsa at the end of the growing season! I’ll put them up in jelly size jars. I don’t really have a recipe for my salsa. I just mix the tomatoes, diced onions, and diced peppers and let simmer until the flavors meld. Sometimes it’s really hot and sometimes it’s really mild…depends on how many peppers I put in and how hot they are.
My absolutely favorite book about preserving the produce from your garden is Stocking Up by Carol Hupping.
It’s a really great addition to any gardener’s library! It covers how to harvest, freeze, can, dry and store all your fruits and vegetables. It also has sections on Pickles & Relishes, Jams, jellies & fruit butters, and juicing. But it’s not just about fruits & vegetables, it also covers preserving, storing and making common dairy foods, meats, poultry, fish, nuts, seed, grains & sprouts. I can’t recommend this book highly enough! This book has been indespensable to me!
Here’s what it says about freezing tomatoes:
“Tomatoes can better than they freeze, although they may be frozen. They do not need to be blanched first. To save space and preparation time later, you may also stew tomatoes. Peel and then cut into quarters and simmer slowly in a covered heavy pot until tomatoes are soft and release their juices. Then remove the lid and cook as long as you’d like. You can cook the tomatoes down into a paste, but be sure to keep heat low and stir frequently to prevent burning.”
Here’s what is says about freezing peppers:
“Select when fully ripe, either green, red or yellow. Skin should be glossy and thick. Wash, halve and remove seeds and whitish membrane. Peppers do not require blanching but you may blanch for 2 minutes in boiling water or steam to make for easier packing.”
A couple more pictures…
One of the many pretty sunflowers in our backyard.
These are some of the baby chicks we hatched earlier this year. Aren’t they getting big!!
I’ve been working like a mad woman today on my living room. I am happy to say that I’ve made a huge dent in the mess!! Wahoo!!! I still have a lot to do before we can rearrange everything, but I’m hoping to have the room ready to do it by the time Marty get’s home from work. Boy, he’s going to be plesantly surprised! If I can get this room totally knocked out, then we can work on the kitchen this weekend and hopefully get it knocked out as well. Next week, while Colt’s gone to Grandma’s, we’re going to clean up his room, toy box & closet. I’m also going to work on our room, the hall and the bath. I would love to have this house sparkling before Colt gets home from Grandma’s!
Well, I need to fix lunch for Riley and myself and then get him down for a nap. After he’s down for his nap, I’ll try to work some more on the living room.
I think we’re going out to dinner tonight, so I need to work in a shower between now and then. I’ll need it after all this cleaning! Tomorrow, we’re taking some friends out to Homestead Heritage for lunch and to browse around. I love it out there…so peaceful!
I also did a little more work on my blog template. I made it where people can leave comments, as well as added recent posts & archives to the left sidebar. I’m slowly but surely learning my way around Blogger’s coding I also cleaned off my computer desk and got it back in order…it was driving me crazy!
Well off to fix lunch and keep Riley out of the bathroom sink…he keeps playing in the water
I’m finally getting started on my Home Management Binder
Here’s the cover:
I’m using a white 2-inch three ring binder for it.
So far, I’ve created my Master Schedule, section dividers, Kid’s daily chores, table Chores & Weekly cleaning schedule
I’ll get PDF’s these posted on my Homekeeper’s Heart website tonight or tomorrow and post the links on the blog tomorrow.
Well, I managed to get 2 loads of laundry done so far today, but I don’t think I’ll be getting much of anything else done. I think I over did it yesterday and today and pulled a muscle in my back. I can barely stand to pick up a basket, let alone stand and hang much. I’m exhausted. I had a lot of plans of what I wanted to get done today, but I guess they won’t get done.
I”ve also started workning on my Home Management Binder. I’ve gotten the cover done and my Master schedule done. I’m just working on it a little everyday.
Well, I’m going to lay down and take a nap with Riley. Have a great day everyone!!
4 loads of laundry done!! I just was cleaning off the camera and ran across some pictures I thought I’d post.
Riley playing at Lake Aquilla
Marty’s fish he caught on his new fly rod he got for his birthday
Riley checking out Dad’s big fish
Riley wearing jester hat at my Mom’s
Colt wearing jester hat at my Mom’s
Riley taking a nap this afternoon
Hugs & Blessings!
Susan
