mmm soup :)

I dug carrots today.
Thats correct
I dug carrots on December 14th in MAINE!
We had a warm spurt and remembered that our carrots weren't all dug. So that's what we did. It took us abotu half an hour and we got 55 pounds of carrots out! So glad this happened and it didn't all go to waste!
The soup thing was about the yummy soup I made out of these fresh carrots.
I actually did it yesterday, when I went and dug carrots for about 5 minutes before it started pouring.
The power was out so I had to come up with something that I could cook with no power.
So I got some rain water I'd collected, put it in a pot, and cranked up the wood stove.
Then I dug around for some left over veggies, I ended up with onion, and a some corn. and then I chopped up LOTS of my fresh carrots! I added a veggie bullion cube for some added yumminess to my broth.
Now, I am one of those crazy people that completely hate runny broth. It HAS to have something to it.
I was planning to add rice, but then discovered I didn't have any.
So my soup was about ready and I remembered this fact. I didn't feel like corn starch just to make it thicker. So, rolling with the corn theme, I decided on corm... MEAL!
I love corn meal!
It is in I think all of my favorite recipes except for these brownies I really really like :)
So I added some corn meal in, cooked it for a while, added some garlic and sea salt.
And it was SOOOO YUMMY!
I just really felt the urge to share.
Just in case I don't post again before Christmas
Merry Christmas!

Well MY body cares. Thats why.

I recently discovered that along with life lessons and making things, I have a lot I can do about my future right now.
One of my most recent ( I guess) things is switching to as much all natural as I can.
It started because a friend of mine and I were eating carrots we had picked from my garden. We got to talking about how we loved how you can actually taste the earth in fresh carrots vs. store bought. From the saying "Taste The Earth" We started a little "Clan" if you like, of a few of our friends.
We want to knock out as much store bought as we can, starting with stuff that will benefit our health first.
My first BIG knock out. Deoderant. I hate the stuff. I am allergic to Nickel and Aluminum, so that right there is a big enough reason to hate it. If I used it to often it would get quite uncomfortable. I also just hate the idea of what its doing.
So I started making my own. Simple ingredients: Corn Starch, Baking Soda, and Coconut Oil. You can add essential oils to make it smell however you like. But I really like coconut. So I am sticking to that for now.
After that we switched to homemade shampoo, conditioner, face wash, lip balm, hand lotion, And I feel like I am missing a few others. I will probably remember them 10 minutes after I post this and be frustrated with myself. But oh well.
You do get the picture.
I hope.
I had a booth at a craft fair yesterday. Hallee and I met some seriously fantastic people. One woman who makes her own soap, perfume, chapstick, lotion, all sorts of things! And invents her own scents from different combinations of essential oils too.
We also met an artist who was really kind! I ended up swapping a picture he made for a pair of gloves I am making him and mailing to him. Both people were very encouraging to meet. I think we will be going to more things like these in the future. A license would help I suppose.
OFF that rabbit trail. Back to
Taste The Earth
Pretty much we are a bunch of young women that want to NOT continue screwing up our bodies to the best of our abilities.
We want to learn to cook, make clothes for ourselves and others, grow our own food and herbs, learn to make everything we put on our bodies so we actually know it isn't junk, not just read it from a bottle.
I mean, who can REALLY trust all the mumbo jumbo in the ingredients lists. Maybe a genius that knows all the scientific names for everything. But I am not one of them. So I will stick to my baking soda and olive oil thank you :)
Well thats all I have for now. Hopefully I will get the hang of this blogging thing a little bit more and actually update a little more often!

Learning lessons

So, one part of this blog is me learning lessons on how to be a respectful wife to my husband.
Todays lesson came from pride.
My boyfriend and a male friend of mine disagree quite a bit on a lot of things. Normally things are ok because my boyfriends understands that I am still friends with this guy.
But today they had a disagreement over a band. My boyfriend LOVES them, and my friend doesn't. Honestly I can't stand the band either :P
So it was all on a status and my boyfriend asked me not to say "way to go!" to my friend. It seemed to not be that big of a deal. So I just liked one of the comments about it that I agreed with. But that made my boyfriend angry. At first I just did not get why he was so mad. But he called me and explained everything. We did argue about it a bit. And I admit I did cry.
But in the end I learned that guys are kind of stupid with pride. Us girls need to recognize that, and be careful what we say or do against then men we love. In some places it makes them feel downsized when it is in a puplic way that other people can see us disagreeing with them, especially when siding with someone else.
In some cases this would not matter.
But in this it did a little, not that much but it did. But it lead to a discussion about how as a wife I need to be more careful about things like that and I should be practicing now.
It may sound like a dumb thing to many of you. You would really have to know the circumstance to understand it a bit better. But hopefully you can apply it to something you need to learn to.

Taste the Earth

Well, My friend Hallee and I have this idea going. We both love the idea of doing things as "live off the earth" as we can. We want our own gardens, and to make our own soaps, clothes, tea, and pretty much all our food from scratch. And we know a few other teens who are interested in the same thing that are about our age. So we came up with taste the earth {we both love how you can taste the "earth" in carrots :) } We are going to work together to learn how to do all of this stuff now. Sewing, cooking, canning, gardening, cleaning, making soaps, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. Along with the learning how to do those things we are going to be doing a bible study kind of thing. Mostly going through the bible to find all the parts that talk about what we need to do to become good Women of God. Once we are married we will continue it in just a little bit different of a way. Things will be more geared towards settling in our houses. Once we have kids it will be how to make things for our kids and how to teach them stuff. Eventually we want to be able to invite more moms and teach them how to do all these things. And bring in kids and teach them the same. Think of how many young women you know that can sew or knit or crochet... not very many. Think of how few young women you know that can really cook. I dont mean they can add some yummy toppings to a precooked pizza, I mean that can make some really good home made bread, and meat balls, and home made pies, including the filling. That kind of stuff is pretty much dead in anyone under 50. We want to do our best to change that a little, at least in our area. Wish us luck! that will now be a bit more of my posts, eventually we will probably start our own blog.

ALSO! I have lots of things I have made over the past few months. I just need to take pictures of some of them and post them here. I have given some away, so I can get pics of those :( but thats alright, I have lots I still have to take pictures of. I need to be careful though, a few are presents and I dont want the recipients to see them :P

Camp :D

So, this summer I was a counselor at a christian camp. It was my 3rd summer there and it was wonderful. All of the staff got along great, we had tons of fun, and lots and lots of kids came to know Christ! We had kids reclaiming their virginity, handing over drugs and pot, rededicating their lives to christ, or their faith in god really becoming real to them for the first time! we got to teach a lot of kids that they stuff they were doing was wrong, and how to steer to another path. So now we are all just praying they will listen to what we taught them and continue to grow, and hopefully come back next summer! I learned a lot from the older counselors there. Lots of tips of how to be a more godly woman, and how to get ready to be the wife I want to be. I love the friends I made there and I cannot wait for next summer :)

Other teens

A friend of mine will be having a baby in a few months. He is my age, and not married, and the father of the baby doesn't want anything to do with them now, and has left her to fend for herself with some of her relatives. She is a great girl, that went down the wrong track, but I am so happy I can help in any way. I am planning on making lots of things for her coming baby. And I am trying to find the right patterns and yarns and cloths so they can be perfect. Camp starts in 22 days. So I have that many to sew almost everythign I want to make, and to plan out all of the crocheting, because I will need to have the yarn, hooks, and patterns at camp to work on in my free time. Wish me luck! and If you have any good patterns, or ideas please let me know! she is having a boy btw. thank you! :)

To be a wife. #1

To be a good wife I first need to keep myself pure for my husband. For me this is a constant uphill battle. I have really low self esteem sometimes. So the "dress to impress" mentality is always in my mind when I get dressed or do my hair or makeup. I try to make sure that people will think good of me when they see me. If my boyfriend says something even slightly negative about something I am wearing or how I look, I take it pretty hard. And I probably will not wear that around him anymore, even if it was something that it was just bunched up in a certain way, I would be worried that would happen again. Or if he says my make up is smudged, trying to be helpful, I will be nervous and paranoid about it all of the time.
So, what goes along with those is dressing to impress. When he tells me he likes something I wear, my brain always snaps to what the media puts out, that guys like it hot and sexy. So without meaning to I always think "maybe he would like it even better with one less button..." or "maybe if it was shorter" even though I know he wouldn't like them better, that is what I think.
So, one of my many goals, is to keep focused on how God would want me to dress for my future husband, not how I think my boyfriend would like me accourding to media. That may sound like a small thing to you, but it is a struggle for me, and so... it is one I will work on.