New Adventure and Getting Our From Under

Moving to a completely remote area may seem scary to everyone. Its an adventure to us.

We just switched to a minimalist life about a year ago. Minimalism is definitely a process. Over the past year we have donated or thrown away more 3/4 of the "stuff" we had lying around. Random pieces of furniture, old crafts we never used, yarn, old school supplies, candles, toys, books, SO MUCH. After getting out from all that we moved onto things we wanted....but things that were not needed. This included clothes we loved but never wore, books we loved but could move onto our kindle, furniture we loved but took up space or was a "fall spot" for books, old mail, etc. We even got rid of our kitchen table.


(picture taken from The Everyday Home blog)

So we packed up our house and stored things like summer clothes and school books. Instead of several trips with trucks full of "stuff", we took one truck and a couple car loads of the items we actually use down to Johnstown PA.

Here we begin our new adventure. 

Homeschooling thoughts from a busy mom of 7

So I have noticed in the search for help in homeschooling that when you put "homeschooling a large family" you get one of two blog types: 

1: a mom of littles. As in a mom who has 4 kids ages 1 month, 1 year, 2 years and 4 years. Yeah, no help. Preschool is life folks, your children need to be read to. Aaaaaaaand thats about it.

2: A mom who read from a friend of a friend who knew of someone on facebook who had a blog who made money and that's what they are looking to do. So you go to their blog and they give super obvious advice told in a creative and beautiful way with lots of cute pictures but you still walk away without any help.

So right away I can put you at ease. This is a free blog. I do this to relax and to organize my thoughts. I dont get paid for anything that I write or post here. And I have 7 children. My oldest is 21 and my youngest is 5. I teach grades adult(yes, they in fact still do need teaching), 11th, 7th, 4th, preschool, and special education/visual therapy. 

You can see from the pictures below that we do a lot of unschooling. My kids take, not just the entire summer, but the entire month of December off. I have to say that during the summer and December we learn and observe more than any other time! 

I am excited to share my homeschooling experiences with you!!! 

Caramel Sauce

It has been a long time since I've posted any delicious recipes so I felt I'd share this one. The only bummer is that I don't have any pics right now. I promise I will take some as soon as I can.

I've noticed that many processed foods are hurting my throat muscles. I think I may have a strong sensitivity to the dyes or a chemical they put into the caramel that they sell in the stores, even the Hersheys caramel..... and anyone who knows me knows how much I love Hershey brand anything. So I'm glad that I came up with this several months ago.

Ingredients:
3 cups sugar(cane or white, both work but you will need to melt longer for the cane)
2 1/4 cup light or heavy cream
1 stick of butter
salt to taste

Method:
Melting sugar into caramel can be sooooo stressful but I promise it does not have to be. What got me at first was I was throwing melted sugar that had crystallized away. Don't! I can help!!!

1. Get a large non-stick or stainless steal pan. Put it under your tap and spray the whole inside of the pan, sides and bottom, leaving just a 1/2 an inch layer on the bottom. Put it on a cold burner.

2. Dump 3 cups of sugar into the bottom and carefully mix it while it is cold. Do not get it up the sides. Turn on burner to high.

3. Turn on your burner and let it boil but dont touch it. WATCH IT. Sugar burns ridiculously fast. Eventually the mixture will turn a caramel color. It may be darker in some places then others. Gently swirl pot around to try and get it to cook more evenly.

*****************See Problems below if you are having problems :-) ***************

4. Turn off your burner and very slowly add your cream while stirring. You literally want to add drips, less than a tablespoon, at a time- so stir til completely smooth, add more cream, stir til completely smooth. If you have been cooking a while you can probably do it at the same time but make sure you do this super slow. If you do it too fast it will seize up and this is frustrating to try and smooth out. Adding cream slowly will make your caramel not cool quickly to rock hard in places and watery in others- instead it will be thick and creamy. If you like thinner caramel and do not plan on heating it up before you use it, add another 1/2 cup of cream.

5. Add the butter. Butter is awesome. I love butter. If I know a recipe calls for butter, I know its good. The more butter, the better the recipe will taste :-). So bad, I know. So cut up your stick of butter into tablespoons and add it to the caramel sauce. It will melt in with some stirring. If it doesn't, turn the heat on medium and stir. WATCH IT, do not let it burn!!!

6. Add salt to taste. I find that I like about 3 teaspoons but I know some people like more. I suggest rock salt as opposed to table salt.

7. Put it into your mason jar and stick it in the fridge. I use this in my caramel iced coffee. You can also use it for ice cream or to dip your pancakes in. It has tons of more uses I'm sure! Experiment!!!

That's it!!! Ill be posting my caramel iced coffee recipe in the spring. Pics of this recipe coming this week!!!
ENJOY!!!!

Problems:
     1. There are HARD ROCKS of sugar in my caramel!
         Solution: turn the heat down to medium low. Using the tip edge of your wooden spoon break those apart(it will be difficult to break them!!!) while gently stirring in between breaking them. Warning, if you dont stir while breaking them apart your sugar may burn. Keep the heat on medium low or low(you know your stove) and break and stir, break and stir.
      2. My sugar is not turning deep caramel color, its white, hard, and crystal looking.
Solution: your sugar is crystallizing, returning to dried up sugar. It sucks but do not throw it out. Continue to stir and heat on medium high. It will take a WHILE but it will eventually smooth out again. Make sure you keep stirring at this point bc it will get super hot and burn fast if you dont stir the whole time.
      3. My sugar is black and doesnt smell too hot!
Solution: ok, so you burnt your sugar :-(. Throw it out and start again. Good news: its only sugar, at
least you havent added the butter yet!!!!
      4. My burned sugar or melted sugar hardened to my pan and I cannot. get. it. off.
 Solution: add enough water to cover all the hardened sugar and return it to the stove. Turn the heat on high and let the water get to a boil. Immediately take the pan to the stove and rinse it out, all
 the caramel will be gone :-)

Summer field trips

The end of school has come and with it a huge sigh of relief. Another school year past and now I am full time mom, not evening and weekend mom. I love homeschooling but it is a job. I take my teaching role very seriously, I want my kids to succeed. We've made some mistakes this year but our accomplishments have outweighed our losses and we have learned from them.

Fran and Cosette took their standardized tests for the first time. Cosette is learning alongside Fran so she took the test a year early. I was hesitant to do this and for good reason. It was a competition between them as usual so I will be testing separately next time. Both did well but Cosette has a natural ability to catch on fast to everything academic and did a bit better than Fran. One of the reasons I hate testing. Fran is brilliant in fields that Cosette is not. But since academics is all we test in that is all they see. We will be switching curriculum's around a little next year.

Since we concentrate our schooling in the cool months, shut ourselves in and get our work done, we finish early and when the sun shines and the temperatures rise we are outside, doing field trips, outings, park play dates, or just in our own back yard, enjoying the nice spring and summer months.

We have several field trips planned for this spring, summer and fall!!! If anyone feels they would like to join us we would love it!!! Here are the things we have planned. Tell us what you want to do and we can tell you when we are doing it!

Canal Days
Niagara Falls
Lollipop Farm
Mt Hope Cemetery Murder and Mayhem
Jurassic World
Webster fireman memorial splash pad
NYC(Sorry, that one is just for Fran and Cosette and I :-)
Powdermill Fish Hatchery
Sonnenburg Gardens
Redwings Baseball
Coldstone Creamery
Adirondack Animal Land
Memorial Art Gallery Glass Art and concert
North Ponds Park
Letchworth State Park
Buffalo Zoo

This will take us through July. Again, please let me know if you would like to join us!!!

Enjoy the gorgeous weather!!!
Bethany

Busy times

To all of my thousands of readers, haha, sorry I have been away for so long.

After my hernia surgery recovery, which was 8 weeks instead of the 3-4 days like promised by my surgeon, I am finally getting back to a normal routine. School has started back up in a very relaxed way. The kids have finished their "formal" schooling for the year and now we are busy doing nature walks, arts and crafts, sign language, Chinese on youtube, and netflix history. We are still doing bible in the AM, my favorite part of the day. Christian is learning his multiplication facts and has now moved on to second grade reading. I am so proud of him. We will start piano back up this week.

Our adoption has come to a halt for now. We are waiting on funds and plan on selling our awesome shirts and doing a couple other fundraising this month. We were surprised by the money that is needed within the next two months but we are confident that God will provide!!!

Sorry to keep this so short!!! The kiddoes need some lunch and I have a house to clean. Please continue to pray for our adoption journey.

Love to you all in Christ.

Homeschooling Praises

I love homeschooling. I love that if the Lord leads we can read an extra chapter of the Bible or another lesson in our study. I love that at the beginning of the day the kids all sit down together, thank the Lord for our meal and eat a healthy breakfast after getting their chores done, there's no rushing or looking at clocks to make sure we are ready for school. I love that when a child realizes he is sick in the middle of the day and wants his mom I'm right there and can put him under a blanket in the living room.... instead of him lying in a school nurses office waiting for me to come get him. I love that if you come to my house in the morning you will find the babies playing and arguing over trucks on the floor, my oldest boy snuggling with me on the couch, doing his reading out loud while I crochet, and the two "best sisters" sitting at the dining room table doing their school together, the table covered in paper, glue and folders to do yet another lapbook. I love that if you come in the afternoon you will find us doing sign language, history on netflix, on a nature walk(or right now, a walk to see them build houses!) down our road, or, if the weather is warm and dry, in the backyard gardening, playing baseball, running around playing house, or reading. I love that no matter what time of day it is we are always together.

Never Buy It Again- sour milk

Never Buy It Again- sour milk

I use this recipe for everything. I also use it as a substitute for things like buttermilk and, depending on the recipe, sour cream. You could also substitute yogurt for sour cream in some recipes, greek works good for this purpose.

This will be a short post, haha. I will add pictures as I get them.

Ingredients:
any kind of milk
lemon juice or vinegar(I'm sure other people have some other things they use, these are my main 2 cuz I always have them on hand)

Method:

Your recipe will tell you how much sour milk, buttermilk, or sour cream you need for their recipe. So to substitute those you take the measuring cup you need(so if they want 1 cup of sour milk, etc, you get the 1 cup out), fill it 3/4 of the way with any kind of milk. Grab your "sour-er": your vinegar or lemon juice, and fill the rest of the measuring cup up with that. So if the recipe calls for 1 cup of sour milk, etc, I would use 3/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup vinegar or lemon juice.
Simple! Leave them to curdle for about 5 minutes or so. If I'm doing this to substitute sour cream Ill do 1/2 milk, 1/2 vinegar or lemon juice. This usually makes it thicker. I can only do this with certain recipes. Don't try this on your tacos :-).
And there it is!!! I will post pictures when I get to it!!!