"This World Is Not My Home"

Sunday Hymn Post: This World Is Not My Home
Attributed to Albert Edward Brumley

This world is not my home, I'm just a passing through,
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

They're all expecting me, and that's one thing I know.
My Savior pardoned me and now I onward go;
I know He'll take me through though I am weak and poor,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Just up in gloryland we'll live eternally.
The saints on every hand are shouting victory.
Their songs of sweetest praise drift back from Heaven's shore.
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

Chorus:
O Lord, you know I have no friend like you,
If Heaven's not my home, then Lord what will I do?
The angels beckon me from Heaven's open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

This is one of my very favorite hymns. I often sing this one at bedtime to the Littles. As wonderful as moments on this earth can be, thinking of heaven sure is a comfort for me!

Matthew 6:19-20 - "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." (ESV)

Winter Dry Skin Solution: Coconut Oil

Coconut Oil is one of my favorite things! *cue Julie Andrews*

I particularly like this brand, Nutiva, because it has some wonderful coco-nutty flavor to it and I happen to love its delicious smell and taste. Coconut oil has many uses in the kitchen:

• tastes amazing in homemade popcorn!
• use it to saute vegetables
• make some KILLER brownies (and really any other baked goody)
• use it to grease your pans when baking
• add a spoonful to smoothies

This incredibly versatile oil is also wonderful for your hair and skin! I have used it to moisturize my face from time to time, but my favorite new use is in the bathtub for my little ones. I noticed a few weeks ago that Big Littles was getting a couple of dry patches that looked suspiciously like eczema. Little Littles had a few dry spots also, but not as bad. We dragged out the humidifiers, but didn't see much improvement. Then, I started adding about 1/4 c. to their bathwater, and then rubbing their skin down with even more when they got out of the tub. They both have baby soft skin once again.

The only downside is that the tub needs cleaning out more often, but I'm ok with that.

So, where to get coconut oil:

Your local grocery store may carry coconut oil near the olive oil and other various kinds, but it is likely to be very expensive. A health food store would also have it. One of the best places to order coconut oil is on Amazon. You can get free shipping if you buy enough of it and they offer really good discounts and from time to time run even better sales, particularly on the Nutiva brand. I love to use my Swagbucks to buy normally high priced grocery items for free - things like coconut oil, quarts of maple syrup, mother's milk tea, etc...

You can also find great prices on coconut oil on iHerb.com. Use my referral code BUN441 to get $5 off your first order. iHerb is also a great place to buy essential oils, probiotics, supplements, etc...

Coconut oil is a healthy fat and helps nourish your body. If you are interested in the health benefits of using coconut oil, see here.

I'm not being paid to promote coconut oil by anyone, I just wanted to share how useful it is and how we use it in our household to keep our skin and bodies healthy.

Have you tried coconut oil before? How do you like to use it?

How to Shop for the Pantry

I've written a couple of posts about my style of meal planning, which is essentially NOT planning, some ideas for expanding your pantry ingredients, and "Desperation Dinners" made from pantry ingredients, but how would a person go about stocking the pantry? This is a very good question I received from a reader, and I'm hoping I can address it thoroughly here.

If, the day before your trip to the grocery store, you are feeling like "Old Mother Hubbard" as she describes, you have a bit of groundwork to do.

First of all, find some good storage space.
If you don't have a built in pantry, you may have to look outside your kitchen for it. The above photo is my pantry storage in the basement. We live in an old house, and these shelves were made for home canned goods. I do a lot of canning in the summer and autumn, but admittedly, less than I used to do, since we got a deep freeze and I now freeze many of our home grown vegetables. This has made a lot of space free for things like canned beans, canned fruit, vegetables, pastas, oils and pickles. Have some extra shelves in your basement? What about a clothes closet? Under a bed? Get creative! Just be sure you store foods in a place where they won't be exposed to extreme temperatures that would cause them to spoil.

Second, look at your budget.
It would be very easy to just go to the store and spend $300 just to stock up your pantry and freezer, but you would likely be paying full price for most things and that would defeat your good intentions of saving money. If you have a grocery budget of $70 a week, next week see what you can do to only spend $50 on weekly essentials, and plan to spend $20 on pantry items that you can find on sale at their lowest price. As you slowly stock your pantry over time, you will come to the point where MOST of your grocery budget is going towards stocking, and only a very little is being spent on weekly essentials. It may be helpful to look at your monthly budget as opposed to weekly. One week, the sales might be rather disappointing, while another, they are incredible! In that case it is advantageous to rollover grocery money until it is worth spending it on the items you need at their lowest cost. I have a lot of flexibility in our budget, but if things are really tight, do what you can. As you start saving over time, you will be able to do more and more.

Third, prioritize.
A) What grocery items are the most useful to you? It may well be different for you, but for us, things like crushed tomatoes, pasta, dried beans, rice, cornmeal, baking supplies and for the freezer, meats and vegetables are most heavily used and are the backbone of my cooking. If my cupboards were bare, these would be the items I would want to start stocking first.
B) Look for the best sales. Know the rock bottom price for your most used items, and buy extra at that time. Until you see that rock bottom price, just buy what you need, but when you finally see it, buy the store's limit or as much as you can use by the expiration date.

Maybe an example would help clarify?
28 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes went on sale for $.75/can. This is the rock bottom price for my area barring the very, very rare coupon/sale combo where quantities are even more limited. I bought the limit of 12 cans, and because they don't expire for over 2 years, and because we use them every week for Spaghetti Sunday and Friday Night Pizza, I went back and bought two more cases over the course of the month long sale! The cases are stacked in my basement.

When I see a 20 lb. bag of rice for less than $7, I buy it and put it in the deep freeze. When I go to Super Wal-mart (which is actually only a couple times a year for us), I buy a bag of lemons for freezing (paid 2.50 for 11 lemons) and 12 cans of their refried beans for desperation dinners because I know they have the rock bottom price. Incidentally, Wal-mart RARELY has the rock bottom price on groceries... only on a couple of items on my price list! Keep a sharp eye! Which brings me to my next point...

Fourth, know your stores!
If you have a scratch & dent grocery outlet in your area, check it out for some AMAZING deals! We don't. :( If you have an Aldi, look for some more incredibly good deals. We don't. :( My options are rather limited. We have two basic grocery store options and I finally quit even shopping at one of them after having so much trouble every single trip with their prices not being correct. I got tired of ending each shopping trip by straightening things out at the customer service desk and decided the little bit of savings was not worth my time. (Always check your receipt!!!) Our other grocery store is quite good though and I'm happy there. I know that this store runs a "Can-Can" sale every January. All canned goods are at their rock bottom price of the year. I plan ahead that this is when I will stock up on those things, and boy do I! Preacher Man always comes along to help me with the heavy cart!

I also know that they run a special on their hams/turkeys every Thanksgiving and Easter and I can earn a free one. I know that they double coupons up to $1.00. I know that if an item is buy 10 for $10, you can just buy one and get it for $1, BUT if the item is buy 3 for $5, you MUST buy three to get the sale price! (Tricky, they are!) I know that they accept internet coupons. I know that certain cashiers do the coupons correctly and others don't. I know that you get $.05 off for each canvas bag you bring and use. I know that they offer sales that include free canvas bags every spring, so I always get my canvas bags free... I don't know what the situation is at your local store, but these are good things to know and keep in mind when planning your shopping. Every store is different. Learn as you go!

Fifth, start filling the shelves! Remember that you are undergoing a paradigm shift, so your cart will look very different than it used to. I am no longer embarrassed to buy 9 bags of frozen brussel sprouts or 16 bricks of cheese, but I used to be! Be a smart shopper and learn to win the grocery game!

This post is a part of the Four Moms linkup on Food Storage. Check out the other posts for some creative ideas.



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Meditations: "Brighten the Corner"

Know this song?

Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar,
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.

You can see all of the lyrics here.

Do you know someone who radiates light and joy every time you see them? I can think of a few. Don't you just love to be around a person like that? I'm afraid I have some slight Eeyore tendencies... at the very least, I tend to be very serious. Serious is ok, but grumpy is not. In these cold winter days dealing with illness, hardships, and at the very least, lack of sunshine, it is a challenge, but God would have us be that ray of light.

No matter what our circumstances, God wants us to be filled with His joy, and to radiate His light. My admonition to myself is: Be true to your duties, and "brighten the corner where you are."

Ecclesiastes 3:11-13 - He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. (ESV)

Really? Take pleasure in our toil? Take pleasure in changing dirty diapers, scrubbing floors, washing dishes, and folding laundry?

Yes. Really.

It is God's gift. "He has made everything beautiful in its time." He has put the joy and the beauty there, and it is our job to find it and fill our lives with the light of His joy. When we do, we will see that there is nothing better.

Nehemiah 8:10 - For the joy of the LORD is your strength. (ESV)

"O Worship the King"

        O worship the King, all glorious above,
 And gratefully sing His wonderful love;
 Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
 Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.

 O tell of God's might, O sing of God's grace,
 Whose robe is the light, Whose canopy space,
 Whose chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
 And dark is God's path on the wings of the storm.

 The earth with its store of wonders untold,
 Almighty, Thy power hath founded of old;
 Hath stablished it fast by a changeless decree,
 And round it hath cast, like a mantle, the sea.

 Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
 It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
 It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
 And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.

 Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
 In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail;
 Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end,
 Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.

Interrupting the regularly scheduled program...

January has been a very, very, very tough month for the Church Mice. Blogging has been put on the back burner, as my time has been severely constrained by:

• Little Littles got 5 teeth this month. A normally pleasant baby, he has been almost non-stop cranky both night and day!
• We have had two added projects/commitments this month, one of which ends tomorrow, one of which will stretch into summer. Both required significant chunks of time.
  
• We've had several bouts of illness, each in our turn. I am the only person in the family that likes to be left completely alone when I am sick. The other three get VERY needy, clingy, weepy, need lots and lots of care and attention most of which has to come from ME. It's rather exhausting. Big Littles is the current sick-y. Poor thing.
  

So, I'm hoping to just chalk up the entire month to difficult circumstances, and am trying to move forward and get our lives back into some sort of routine, which I hope will include blogging during nap time again.

Only thing is...

We are getting ready to do a preaching-related trip soon, so I may still be spotty in my posting for the next two weeks as we prepare/travel/recover.

And this sort of reminds me. It's a bit of a pet peeve when traveling for a gospel meeting, especially when Preacher Man is doing all of the preaching, when folks treat it like a vacation. Gospel Meetings = Work! Sometimes a lot more work than what is usual. Yes, there is pleasure in it also, but it is *definitely* not a vacation.

/soapbox.

Oh and just because I haven't been writing a lot doesn't mean my mind has gone blank. I re-organized my list for blog topics today and am even a little overwhelmed by how many I have in the back of my mind. This list will keep me busy for a while, and some of these are some super yummy recipes I've tried lately! So, stay posted... Church Mouse is working on getting things back on track!

"How Firm A Foundation"

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?

In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

By John Rippon