Project Life, Photos, Heart Ponderings, Minimizing, Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix

Project Life



I started Project Life. Lovin' it.







Watch the video. "Becky Higgins shares inspiration for why we document, what to document, and how to document your life." ~







"Fifteen for a moment. . . caught in between ten and twenty," she sings. My oldest sons turns 15 in 7 days.  Time is flying by. I'm 4+ years behind in scrapbooking.



Not. Any. More!

2010 Photos

I don't think I need inspiration for documenting life ~ I printed 1,500 photos. That's one thousand, five hundred photos in ONE year! ha! However, I do need inspiration for putting them in albums. I wasn't even motivated to print them until I discovered Project Life and put 1 year, 9 months worth of photos into my first album in TWO days! I still need to journal our stories, but I am soooo encouraged! I have both the Amber Edition and the Turquoise Edition and I am hopeful that the School edition will come out this year for our homeschool... and then I will need one more album to catch up to 2010. What's nice is that I have our stories written starting late 2008 (since I started blogging).

Like I said, I still need to journal ~ that is what the journaling cards are for. But super easy to set up and you just drop your photos in.



What I love about where this album ended (9/08) is that THAT is when Father closed a door and opened a new door. A new life. A debt free life. We sold our home (for the 2nd time) to get out of debt, but this time we are staying out of debt!



Photos



I can't even tell you what going through photos from 4 years ago did to me. I realized just how fleeting life's moments are. They were but a moment ago. We need to make the most of life. Living, no REVELING in the moment. Focusing on what is GOOD about today. Dwelling on that.

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Phillipians 4:8

Life is too short to let anything else get in the way. Which has encouraged me to let go and LOVE. To not only receive love, but give love. And love myself.



I wrote this to a friend recently and I think it sums up perfectly the work that Father has been doing in me:

I want to be the person that Father sees me as... for He sees me as already perfected... he sees the finished work because He is the artist! I'm learning to like what I see and accept me for who He created me to BE... for I will always be a work in progress! 

I don't want to wake up even one day from now and "get it" ~ I want to get it now so I can live fully and wholly. We were meant to walk in wholeness with our Savior. Let's make a choice to do that now.



Ok, as soon as I got that I was tested. And I failed. I was sick more on than off for 3 weeks and life got HARD. Sick little ones. Sick mama. Sleep deprivation. Winter blues. Baby blues. I told a friend that the reason why I do so many baby posts is because I don't want to forget! Going from 5 to 6 has been like going from 2 to 3. Life was beyond hard when Dylan was born. And I can't remember much from when he was a baby. And that makes me sad.



But I press on.



Minimizing



I've been working on minimizing here and there as I go, but this week I focused on the kitchen. I deep cleaned the pantry, organized and de-cluttered and put all the appliances on the back shelf (dear husband will be pleased). I still need to do the cupboards.



I've been working on simplifying my life and this was just what I needed (a clean clutter free spot is contagious!). Now, I'm looking around to see what else I can get rid of.  I'm getting a head start on removing the leaven from our home, too.



Food Storage



I've been rotating my storage and trying to eat out of our pantry more. I opened a can of whole powdered eggs a couple months ago when our chickens stopped laying for a couple weeks. Let's just say that reconstituted whole powdered scrambled eggs are nasty. Well, the boys seemed to not mind them, but I couldn't get past the smell. ick. Sooo, I made a chocolate chip pancake mix.

By the way, Amy at Homestead Revival is hosting a preparedness challenge, so go see what others are doing to be prepared!



Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix

Dry Mix

2 c. flour

1/4 c. sugar

2 T baking powder

1 t. salt (or 1 1/2 t. Real Salt)

1/4 c. whole powdered egg

1/2 c. dry milk

1/2 c. miniature chocolate chips

Liquid:

2 1/4 c. water (add 1/4 c. more for thinner pancakes or waffles)

1/4 c. oil



I made these and gave them as gifts. It's a great way to use up leaven! And will make an easy meal. My favorite way to top pancakes, by the way, is with butter and a sprinkling of powdered sugar. 

{Recipe modified from All Recipes ~ Originally Inspired by Suzanne @ YHWH Leads}



Thanks, friends, for your input on my family blog. I hope to reply personally to some (that is, if your email is enabled in your blogger profile or I have your email address ~ feel free to send it my way if you'd rather not enable it, but would like a reply!).  I just realized that I don't have my address bar up top ~ so I linked to my contact page on my learning blog. I won't worry much about that right now though ~ too many other things are more important.



Be blessed!