gathering up the fragments

Sometimes you hit "post" and nothing happens!  This was one of those times, when I thought I'd posted Saturday, but chrome crashed and lost a third of my post.  ah, well...

I thought we should have some well-rounded, home-making bloggy fare for a bit before I launch into the next exciting trip journals!  This is a post I've been thinking about for a while, and I'm actually borrowing the phrase "gathering up the fragments" from the old More with Less Cookbook.  My mother regularly relied on this Mennonite book, and she kindly found me a copy when I was in college. It's full of budget-friendly, use-what-you-have recipes, and many of them are vegetarian.  That's about as connected this post will be to that book, though, because this is my own giant list of what I do with leftovers!  (I'd love to see yours!)  And just for fun, I'm including some really old, unedited food-related photos of Gemma Grace.  (Ruthie wears those clothes now!)

Of course, I will happily reheat leftover meals for my lunch, or even make extra on purpose to freeze for other days.  This list is less about fully-prepared meals and more about, say, leftover rice.  So let's start there.

Leftover Rice

• Rice pudding
• Fried rice
• Casseroles that require cooked rice, like Chicken/Broccoli/Rice or pizza rice casserole
• Also, Gemma will gladly eat cold rice for lunch . . . 

Stale or Leftover Bread

• French Toast
• Bread pudding (I make a marvelous Blueberry-Lemon bread pudding.  It's a Southern Living recipe!)
• Cube it, toss in some oil and seasoning and roast on a cookie sheet to make croutons or stuffing mix.
• Crumble or zap in a food processor to make bread crumbs for chicken parmigiana, etc.

Leftover Potatoes

• Slice them and fry them up for breakfast :)
• Or if they're already mashed, form them into little pancakes and fry them up for breakfast
• Mash them up with some milk and use them as the topping for shepherd's pie (I often freeze them and do this later).
• Add to chowders, or make extra potatoes on purpose to make potato soup!
• Sweet Potatoes:  make muffins

Leftover Meats

There are, of course, many recipes that call for cubed, cooked meat.  If I have only a little bit, I usually slice it up for pancit or stir fry . . . in fact, we're having steak stir fry tonight!  :)  There are always sandwiches, too.  Whenever I have a bone with some meat on it, though, I make soup.

Ham

• Slice and fry for breakfast along with eggs
• Quiche
• Hawaiian Pizza
• Ham and dumplings
• Chicken Cordon Bleu
• With a ham bone, I usually make Lentil Soup

Chicken/Turkey

• There are lots of recipes for cooked chicken, so I'll just include a link to chicken pot pie
• With a chicken carcass, there's always chicken noodle soup, but my husband prefers thick soups like white chicken chili.  

Red Meats

• Hot roast beef sandwiches, especially if you have leftover gravy
• I've dabbled in curry, but need to practice some more
• My favorite soup for beef and venison is barley soup! 

Miscellaneous

• Waffles - I make up all my batter and save the rest for a quick breakfast for my children later in the week.  They're very tasty warmed in the toaster-oven.  (I hear they can be frozen, too, but we never get to that point!)
• Pancakes - these I don't care for as much on the second day, so I tend to just refrigerate remaining batter and use it as soon as possible.
• Oatmeal - Make oatmeal bread!
• Boiled eggs:  Egg salad, or add to many cold salads
• Scrambled eggs:  Add to fried rice
• Coffee:  Make a chocolate cake.  (But usually I just reheat and drink!!)

How's all that for gathering up the fragments?  I still have no good uses for leftover pasta . . . are there any out there?  Pasta salad, maybe?  I suppose if all else fails, there's composting, or maybe you're one of those happy people who have chickens.  :)

thinking about schooling

"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air."

(Charlotte Mason Vol. 1, p. 43).

I've started my reading about education and homeschooling curricula, just scratching the surface, really. There are abundant options, of course, and none is "the gospel," (nor is homeschooling itself the gospel of education). Charlotte Mason really does seem to be my favorite so far, but I wanted to learn a bit more before committing to an approach, and make sure I didn't just choose her because I like the name Charlotte!

Gemma was two and a half when I started getting asked "is she in school?"  I had no idea it would start that early, though she's always had lots of hair for her age, so maybe she looked older! But especially now that she's 4, it's not such an unusual question.  So far my answer has been "We're actually thinking about homeschooling, but we'll see where our family is at when she's school-age."

My heart still insists on asking "Why such a rush? Why can't we let them be children for a while?"  Yet it's a balance between this and not wanting to deny her a formal education if she's ready (or if Charlotte Mason is mistaken, and we should be pushing for her to be reading in Kindergarten).

I'm always happy to hear others' opinions on the matter, or your favorite book and curriculum choices!

Ireland, the end

July 22- For our last full day in Dublin, I didn't journal anything, but thankfully things did improve considerably upon the previous day!  Our little ones finally discovered the "kids' check in" in the hotel lobby, where they climbed up the stairs to receive little coloring packets.  :)

 We enjoyed another full-Hilton breakfast, Dublin-style.  

Once again, we parked the car and made our way into the city.

Thanks to the bus ride the previous day, we got a feel for what we wanted to make sure we saw--Trinity College, where resides the Book of Kells, and the Guinness Storehouse.  

Admission to the Book of Kells included a brief tour of the campus, so we joined another tour group and learned a bit of the history we probably should have read before we went.

Tradition has it that if you are walking under this arch when the bell tolls the hour, you will fail your exams for the term.  I imagine this is not a prime make-out spot!

This statue of a provost with a grimace-like smile depicts the man who supposedly was the last to resist the admission of women into the college.

Our guide had a good personality for the job, and was required to part of the original Trinity College school uniform.

This sculpture was supposed to mean something besides Death Star, which is all I remember!

Once that part of the tour was finished, we were invited to join the line of people waiting to go into the library where the Book of Kells was kept.  However, we realized that we hadn't put enough money on our parking ticket for such a long line, so John left with Gemma to catch the bus while Ruthie and I waited our turn.

The Book of Kells and several other ancient documents were preserved in the basement of this building.  We saw them first (no photos allowed, of course), and then finished the cycle in this delicious old library, lined with marble busts of famous scholars.

Ruthie was a bit of a challenge the whole time, so I didn't spend long there or in the very nice gift shop.  We caught the next bus and headed on to meet John and Gemma at the Guinness Storehouse.

Yogurt helped.  :)

I guess John and Gemma had some fun while they were waiting for us in front of the gate!  

The storehouse was neat; I believe the museum is relatively new.  We aren't really into beer, but we learned a bit.

The design of the building itself is quite fun.  The self-guided tour begins at the bottom and continues upward, with the top level being all glass.  Everyone then drinks his included pint in front of a splendid view of the city.

 

One pint was more than enough for John and me to share, so we used our second drink voucher to get an orange Fanta for Gemma, which she thoroughly enjoyed experiencing.

After that, we drove into a large park in town and found a playground to relax at for a while.

We decided to make our last dinner in Dublin a pizza!  

Later, I remember that we returned to the hotel to put Ruth down for a nap and let John work for a while.  Gemma may have slept, too; I know that I set off on foot for a shopping center a quarter of a mile away to get sandwiches and snacks for the evening and the next morning.  We had just enough time in the morning to grab a roll when the breakfast buffet opened and head out to the airport.  

What a delightful way to spend some of the hottest weeks of summer!  It was a trip we will remember for a life time, How thankful I am for God's good provisions to us, enabling us to go celebrate with Jenni and Sam.  How thankful I am for God bringing them together!  

Stumbling about Dublin - Ireland, Day 12

Monday,  July 21

[When John saw what I had written up for this day, he chided me a bit for my pessimism.  I was trying to be realistic, I guess . . . traveling with little ones is not all roses!  Still, every moment of this trip was a great privilege, even though some were particularly difficult.]

"This was easily the worst day of our trip so far . . . here's hoping that it stays the worst and tomorrow is better!  It started at 3 AM when Ruthie woke up.  She would not calm down for anything, and we can only conclude that we really ran her ragged with too much activity and not enough normal sleep over the past few days.  She had just lost it.  Finally around 4:30 or 5 when she was sitting on our bed between us, screaming her head off, she sucked on her bippy, closed her eyes and flopped over in exhaustion until about 9 AM.

"Gemma was up shortly after that and we let John sleep until 10, since breakfast was open until 10:30. We ate a nice full Hilton breakfast (thanks Grandpa B!) and made the 15 minute drive into the Dublin city center, arriving around 11:30/12, since we got detoured with trying to find a gas station and making wrong turns.  We finally found a 'pay and display' parking spot and all felt a little less cranky after taking a pit stop at a Spar nearby.  

"Soon we found the City SightSeeing bus we were looking for and bought two-day tickets.  We had just enough time on our parking ticket for the bus ride without hopping off, so we set our minds on that, but the girls were quite difficult by the end of it.  

"We headed back to the car and John took Gemma potty at the Spar again before setting off.  Ruth fussed almost the entire trip, and suddenly Gemma started fussing, too, when she realized that we didn't have her baby.  Flustered, we took more wrong turns (thankful for our GPS at least!), and John finally dropped the girls and me off at the Hotel and went back to the city center to get the baby from the bathroom at the Spar.  

"Of course Ruthie had fallen asleep in the car and woke up as soon as we got her out, but thankfully she ate some yogurt in the room and then took a nice long nap until around 6 pm.  Also thankfully John found the baby without a problem and returned to do some work. 

"We decided on Fish and Chips for dinner since we still hadn't had any yet, and we were quite hungry having only snacked on Pringles for lunch.  We found a place 7 minutes away that we could get to without going into the city, which was not at all appealing anymore today.  Picked up one fish and chips and two "snack boxes" of fried chicken and chips because they were BOGO.  Carried them over a block to eat them at a playground we'd spotted.  It was fun spending some time with the local kids, even though the playground was pretty filthy and the kids were not at all interested in eating when playing was in front of them! 

"Then Gemma had an accident--numbers 1 and 2, the first pee accident in a week and the first poo accident in months.  Finally we loaded the kids back up, Ruthie screaming all the way of course, and got them home, bathed and in bed.  Thankful for a quiet evening in the hotel, and here's to hoping that tomorrow, our last day in Ireland, is better.

[Most of these photos are from the bus tour we took around the city.  There were cathedrals everywhere.]

 

Two Wrights - Ireland, Day 11

The Lord's Day - July 20

[The wedding was over, and there's a strong sense in which everything could only go downhill from here!  We had three more days in Ireland, but on Sunday our week-long rental of the Castle Rock house concluded, so we spent the morning hurriedly packing up the car between yawns and getting ready to say our sad goodbyes to Sarah and Logan.]

[A few last photos of the rental house . . . which we would highly recommend!   A very fair price for a lovely, beautifully furnished and excellently organized home in a great location.]

"We were up, packed, and ready to leave for church and leave the house around 9:15 am.  We exchanged hugs with Sarah and Logan and stufed the partially-dried laundry from the dryer into plastic grocery bags and into the trunk.  We couldn't find the grocery store soda bread we'd been planning to eat for breakfast in the car, so we stopped at Ruth's bakery one last time and picked up a few fresh ones, as well as a cup of take away tea for me.  The girls happily stuffed that delicious bread down!

[I don't care for my tired, sad face in this photo, but let's not be vain . . . ]

"We were at least ten minutes later than the 10:30 start time at Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Newtownabbey, where we were hoping at least to see the Donnellys!  But when we pulled into the car park and there was not a soul or an auto in sight, we grew concerned that we had made this trip for nothing!  A few minutes later, a young man cruised in on a bicycle and explained to us that there was no Sabbath school in the summer, only a prayer meeting at 11 before the 11:30 service.  And sadly the Donnellys were away at an international conference in Scotland.  However, everyone else welcomed us warmly and we'd had a lunch invitation even before we went inside!  As Ruthie very quickly became unmanageable, I spent most of the service in the cry room with a kind lady named Jill who was keeping her 14 month old granddaughter, as well as two other young mothers.  The Psalm singing was underwhelming from the cry room, but we did our best, and the preaching was from Isaiah.

"Afterward, we followed our kind hosts, David and Susan Wright, to their home in Ballyclare!  They had a very comfortably furnished typical smallish British house and were all ready with toys for the children, as well as a high chair and pack n play (thankfully they have grandchildren and are used to this!).  They were extremely kind to us and fed us a wonderful meal of soup, ham, broccoli/cauliflower, potatoes, beetroot, and rhubarb crisp with custard and icecream for dessert, and tea and cookies later before the evening service.  They introduced us to the Jonathan Mark books, which Gemma loved, and we read their entire collection of 6 or 7 of them to her that afternoon! [Oh, how they outdo us in hospitality over there!]

"We had told them of our intentions to visit their sister congregation in Ballyclare that evening, and we learned to our surprise that not only was their home literally around the corner from the church building, but Mr. David Wright and Mr. George Wright of the Ballyclare church are first cousins.  :) AND Mr. David Wright is the brother of Mrs. Donnelly!  So it was a very quick journey to evening worship, which Ruthie certainly appreciated.  Gemma was out cold during the first prayer, but with Ruth we were not so fortunate.  She was so rebellious that John kindly took over her care early in the service and ended up sitting with her in a Sunday School room listening to a sermon on his phone while I sat in the actual service, undistracted.  The preaching was on Pontius Pilate's question "what is truth?" and once again everyone was extremely welcoming and kind.  

[Back in 2007, Derek and I had hoped to visit Pastor Donnelly's church, for this precious servant of God has preached at many of our conferences in the U.S. in the past, and it was under his preaching that I believe I was converted.  Time constrained us back then, and we made it to to their sister church in Ballyclare, where Mr. and Mrs. George Wright had kindly invited Derek, Jenni and me over afterward.  We maintained a skeleton of a relationship with them over these years and contacted them ahead of time.  They very sweetly invited us over after the evening service again.  I only hope we may have opportunity to return the favor some day!]

"We had been greeted with a 'holy kiss' by George Wright in the car park when we first arrived, and we followed them back to their home in Ballymena afterward.  The children played on their swing set for a little bit before we went inside and then they played with the toys they had there.  They served us tea, sandwiches, and a vast array of sweet things and we squeezed in friendly chatter between wrangling our tired children.  They also had an enormous rocking horse which Gemma was very very happy to ride before we said our goodbyes after 10 pm.  It was 12:30 or 1 am by the time we arrived at the Hilton in Dublin, quite exhausted."

[Gemma adored this horse, but was a bit shy of Mr. Wright, as our blurry iphone photo shows.  What a Lord's Day, though!  We were truly humbled by all the kindness, and leaving a little pot of maple syrup here and some knitted fingerless gloves there didn't seem like enough.  But even if we are never able to host them in return, we look forward to fellowship in heaven with these loving saints!]