19 Rolls of Toilet Paper, $159, and Biscuits

So, the life of a being a wife and mother has kept me pretty busy but, I did say I would share how I'm getting my family of six through two weeks on a tight budget. With all the big bills falling due within these two weeks, we were left quite short of what we normally need to run our household. We cut as much as we could before I suggested (insisted) we cut down on the grocery budget.

We have fairly consistently gone over on our food budget each month but I felt up to the challenge of getting by on less than half of it. Our budget for two weeks is $150 to spend on food and $0 to spend on other household items like soaps, toothpaste, toothbrushes, or say, a broom.

Luckily I already have a broom. I also looked through my pantry and found that I have

• 7 tubes of toothpaste
• 4 bars of soap
• 1 jug of liquid hand soap
• 20 rolls of paper towels
• 39 dish sponges
• 19 toilet bowl cleaning tablets
• 2 cans of oven cleaner
• 18 rolls of toilet paper
• 12 boxes of facial tissue
• 496 Quart size Ziploc freezer bags
• 42 liquid ant baits
• 750 dishwasher detergent tablets
• 4 jugs of Drano
• 3 large containers of hand lotion
• 6 packs of dental floss
• 2 large bottles of face wash
• 1 bag of cotton balls
• 2 large jugs of Windex
• 1 large jug of 409 kitchen cleaner
• 14 spray bottles of Tilex Fresh Shower
• 1 bottle of Ammonia
• 1 1/2 large jugs of Pine Sol
• 1 large bottle of peroxide

Add to that enough vitamins for last 4 months and you can see why I did not have to buy any household products at all. I was able to keep to my budget of $0.

Now before you go and think I have a major spending problem or need to see a shrink for hoarding, let me explain that almost all of the above items have been siting in our pantry for over 1 1/2 years and I have actually already been using them. The items were bought when I had extra money to spend on such things. They were purchase using coupons. Most were bought at the warehouse store, Costco, with coupons. It did not hurt our budget to buy them. ALL of the items are things that my family already uses. They are brands that I normally buy or wanted to try.

For more information on how to increase your pantry stock painlessly, visit my dear friend Keep's blog - http://keepsaving.blogspot.com/2010/09/stockpiling.html. Of course, Keep's blog is the first place I went when I knew I needed to make our money really stretch. It is always good to brush up on saving skills now and then and Keep is the master.

So, where did the $150 go and why did I type "$159" in my entry title? Well, I went over my budget by $9. No worries, though. As you'll find out, we have enough.

I bought basic perishable groceries like milk, eggs (because our multi-purpose hens are not pulling their weight at the moment), cheese, fresh vegetables, baking powder that I had run out of, brown sugar, etc. Keep in mind that we go through these basic items faster than most families of six might because I make our meals from scratch for the most part. So, while I might spend $110 on these items, I'm making the money go further because I'm not buying packaged, boxed foods, or kit meals.

I'm finding that, with my past stockpiling and recent planning, my family is not really suffering on our current budget. My family even ate out twice. We had Taco Bell take out of their cheap Grande Meal (12 items). We chose mostly bean and cheese burritos plus two 5 layer burritos, that my two older boys love, and one Mexican "pizza" for a discount because it was offered as a special add-on to the Grande Meal. The total came to about $15 and filled us. We even had left overs for the next day.

On another night I was in town running errands. I knew time would be too short for cooking so I planned for and bought 3 large pizzas from Little Caesar's for around $20. I know we could have had three pizzas for around $15 if we had ordered from their Hot and Ready selection but, while I much prefer veggie pizzas, my children gag on them. So, I paid just a little more and pleased everyone.

There you have it. That is where $159 went. Still, I have done a lot in order to not spend anymore money than that.

The day after our budget was set, I went outside to take inventory of things we might sell to make up for the money we were short in our budget. I got rid of two packages of unused insulation, that was cluttering my rabbit barn, just by placing a free ad on Craigslist. Someone actually paid me so they could haul it away to use themselves.

I also advertised extra hay racks I had purchased as a package deal on Craigslist about a month ago in order to get the rabbit nest boxes they came with. I only needed one hay rack for our goat shed, so I'm reselling the extras. No takers yet but I see a little extra money from those in the future.

I have yet to put up an ad for the nice restaurant store plates, bowls, and cups I switched out for new ones a few months ago (I'll explain why I bought cheap, plastic plates on another day - it's all part of a plan). I had originally offered them on my local FreeCycle.com and had no less than 7 responses but no one wanted to drive out to the country to get them (even though I was pretty specific about where I lived before they asked for the dishes). The dishes are worth about $200 in total but offering them for free produced no serious takers. Now, I'm going to use psychology to get rid of them. Put a price on something and people will do anything to get a good deal, right? Even pay for something that was offered free before. I'll let you all know how that works out.

We only needed about $30 to fix the deficit in our budget and we realized that the feed for the animals is stretching. No doubt because we switched the goats to a new mini-pasture and the chicken bucket has more in it from all the home cooked meals I've made this past 1 1/2 weeks. Hoorah for weeds and scraps! We are no longer short on our budget.

Want a new recipe from allrecipes.com that I've already tried and tested? It's our most recent favorite. Of course, it's fast and fabulous - just the way I like 'em.

Fluffy Biscuits

by Nancy Horsburgh

6 cups white flour

1/4 cup baking powder

3 Tb sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups shortening

3 eggs

2 cups milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Cut in shortening until it resembles coarse crumbs. In a separate bowl combine eggs and milk. Lightly beat eggs into milk. Stir milk mixture into dry ingredients until just moistened thoroughly. Dump dough onto lightly floured surface, sprinkle top of dough lightly with flour then roll out until about 1 - 1 1/2 inches thick. Cut with 2 inch biscuit cutter and place onto large, ungreased cookie sheet. Gather remaining dough, lightly knead together, roll once again, and cut out more biscuit dough until all used. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. Melt butter onto the tops of the biscuits right after they come out of the oven. Makes 36 fluffy biscuits.

Notes: Because you know I hate work, the above recipe is tripled from the original which yields only 12 biscuits. The above photo is all that is left after my boys scarfed down 2/3 of this tripled recipe. Feel free to cut it down to thirds if you don't have as many mouths to feed or don't want to freeze the extras.

The left over biscuits are now in my breadbox and will be had for a hurried breakfast tomorrow, along with a slather of pear butter and a glass of milk, as we run out the door in the wee hours of the morning (probably late) for the rabbit show. Ha! More money saved by not buying breakfast at the rabbit show. Sweet.

The Belt Tightens

In our attempts to give our children the education they desperately needed, and whereas their previous schools failed to give them the education every child deserves, we went into great debt paying tutors so that our children would be taught the very basics of math and reading. (Yes, just 1 1/2 years ago, our very bright 9 yr old did not have a clue how to read and our 6th grader could barely grasp certain Kindergarten math concepts!) Besides the money we poured into their basic education, we also suffered from the self-inflicted plague of living beyond our means, or "get what I want now" syndrome. In a few words, we were in deep doo doo.

We decided to end that financial suicide trend and stopped using credit cards all together when we moved to start our new life in the country. We adopted the "Don't buy stuff you cannot afford" concept that seems such a foreign concept to so many Americans. I LOVE this SNL skit.

Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford

My husband and I eventually began sitting down together every two weeks to plan our budgets. Checking with each other frequently during each two week period to update our spending records and giving each other moral support has kept us on track. We are doing well, even though the cost of living waaay out here in the country is costing us quite a bit. We feel the benefits (like an outstanding school we could not find elsewhere!) are well worth the costs and sacrifices we make.

Well, all the planets must have aligned just right because all our big bills are due this pay period. We cut down or cut out everything that we possibly could including no haircut for me again (going on 6 months now) and slashing our food budget down by more than half of what we normally need to feed our family. On paper, we don't have enough money to get through the next two weeks. *sigh*

So, for these next two weeks, I'm going to be sharing what I'll do to keep our household running and our family of 6 well fed. It'll be a challenge. I only have $150 to spend on food. It does not help that our refrigerator/freezer went on the fritz two weeks ago and I had to throw out almost every bit of food stored in it. I managed to save a little bit in our small deep freeze but we had to start over on basics like ketchup, soy sauce, and and such.

The good news....we have a lot of ways to put food on our table so stay tuned for what I've got up my sleeve.

What am I doing today? I've baked 4 loaves of bread using the recipe in my previous post. Ha! It only took an hour!

I'm also baking yummy chocolate chip cookies, for a treat to put in the boys' sack lunches, as I blog. I keep basic baking supplies in my pantry such as salt, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla. I buy white flour, sugar, and honey in bulk at our local warehouse store, Costco, and bulk whole wheat flour at Walmart.

Here's the cookie recipe I used with slight modifications to the directions:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Colleen Iermini

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup margarine

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 extra large eggs

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Combine without sifting, flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. Cream margarine with sugars until light. Beat in vanilla and eggs until smooth. Mix in dry ingredients into creamed mixture, a little at a time. Add chocolate chips and stir to mix well.

Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake at 325 degrees for 12 - 15 minutes. Remove parchment along with hot cookies by sliding parchment onto cooling rack. Once cooled enough to touch, remove cookies from parchment to cool completely. Makes 4 dozen.

My notes: When baking chocolate chip cookies the the ingredients, and the preparation of them, are essential.

• Buy the best vanilla you can afford. It's going to last a long time anyway so don't skimp. It has to be real vanilla.
• Creaming the butter with the sugars is an important step. The butter must be room temperature or it will not cream properly. Keep mixing until is the sugars have dissolved into the butter so that it looks creamy and light - not granular or dense.
• Eggs must be room temperature, too!
• When incorporating the dry ingredients, or flour mixture, into the creamed mixture, mix only until the dry ingredients are just absorbed. Over mixing will result in a tough cookies.
• Gently fold in chocolate chips, nuts, etc. so as to not toughen the dough
• Quality of chocolate is important but the best chocolate will not make up for a poorly executed mixing of other ingredients.

These rules are the same for EVERY chocolate cookie recipe you will ever make. Oh, btw, I use a small ice cream scoop to measure out my cookie dough. Not only is it no muss, no fuss but, each cookie is neat and uniform in size.

Bread in an Hour

Fool Proof Whole Wheat Bread

Recently, a friend remarked that I was "amazing" when she heard that I usually keep my house stocked with homemade, whole wheat bread. I assured her it was not such an amazing feat and then let her in on my secret - one simple recipe from a wonderful neighbor who was willing to share in order to make my life a little easier.

I was given a recipe from my neighbor Sandy Barker. It's an old family recipe but I'm not sure how old. Sandy's family has lived on the same ranch for at least 100 years! Regardless, this recipe is a modern time saver for me. I can produce 4 loaves of delicious whole wheat bread in 1 hour start to finish!

Here, I'll pass it along in hopes it will help another busy mom as it has helped me.

Fool Proof Whole Wheat Bread

by Sandy Barker

Two Loaves:

3 T. (or 3 packages) yeast in 1/2 c. warm water

2 1/2 c. warm water

4 c. whole wheat flour

1/3 c. oil

1/3 c. honey

1 T. salt

2 - 3 c. white flour

Four Loaves:

3 T. yeast in 1/2 c. warm water (same as 2 loaf recipe)

5 c. warm water

7 c. whole wheat flour

2/3 c. oil

2/3 c. honey

2 T. salt

5 - 6 c. white flour

Directions: Sprinkle yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Don't stir. Combine water, oil, honey, salt, and 4 or 7 cups flour. Beat at low to medium speed in a stand mixer with dough hook for 2 - 3 minutes. Alternately add yeast mixture and remaining flour until dough cleans bowl. Knead 5 - 10 minutes in mixer until elastic. Grease pans. Grease your hands and form loaves. Allow to raise while oven preheats. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Put butter on top of loaves while still warm. Hide bread from your family if you want to eat any yourself!

(Notes: This bread can be kneaded by hand, but it is a very sticky dough, so use oil on your hands and on the kneading surface)

A jumble of my own notes:

• Sandy recalls that the recipe has been changed from the original. It used to call for 100% whole wheat flour and no white flour. It still works well as an all whole wheat recipe.
• The directions above were written for mixing up the dough in an electric stand mixer but it can be mixed and kneaded by hand, as well. I use a Kitchenaid stand mixer and increased the amount of whole wheat by one or two cups while decreasing the white flour a bit for a total of 14 cups of flour (the maximum mixing capacity of flour for the model I own). Make sure to check the manufacturer's maximum mixing capacity of flour for the model of stand mixer you own before you attempt to make the four loaf recipe.
• This IS a very sticky dough and you might think that you've made a big mistake when you're done mixing but it's supposed to be this way. I find the dough easier to handle if I dump in out onto a lightly floured surface after kneading in the mixer and then take a knife to cut the big blob of dough into fourths. I then use my oiled hands to pick up each soft blob to shape into loaves by tucking the edges under the dough while holding it in the air, not on any surface. As soon as I've got a somewhat thick, cigar shaped piece of dough, I plop in into a pan and begin to work on the next one.
• Yes, you read correctly, the amount of yeast is the same for the two loaf recipe as it is for the four loaf recipe. Sandy does not know why. It just works.
• This dough ONLY needs to rise for the amount of time it takes your oven to preheat. After mixing, preheat your oven while you're forming the dough into loaves and putting them in pans. After the oven is ready, just stick the doughy loaves into the oven to bake. No need to wait longer.
• The bread in the photo is sliced a little thick but it easily slices up as thin as you like with an electric bread slicer. This bread is excellent for making sandwiches.

Canned Snow Cones

Lemon Lime and Berry Blue snow cone syrup

Alright, not exactly. Just read.

My family has had quite a bit of healing since our move to our new home. The change has been therapeutic for everyone. The boys have been able to attend a traditional-looking school and progress by leaps and bounds. Kevin commutes much further to work but is now an early bird and seems more relaxed during his time at home. And I, well, I'm beginning to do things I have not enjoyed for a very long time.

One of those things is preparing food for my family. Sure, my family ate before. I did not starve them but I had not prepared meals for them in the way I used to - with love, thoughtfulness, and just a bit of passion.

What I want to share here is what makes me excited and lights up my eyes a little - creating. I'm an artist at heart and I must create. I see just about everything I love as art. Creating good food is something in which I can increase my skills, display and give others to enjoy, and I can feel proud of my accomplishments in food creation.

As a regular part of this blog, I'd like to share food - making, baking, cooking, growing, preserving, raising, etc. So, here goes...

I have a weakness for Slurpees from 7-eleven and Slushees from Foster's Freeze. It's a 20 minute drive to town and I've made excuses many a time to go into town on an "errand" just so I can buy these sweet, fruity, frozen treats. However, ultimately, I'm cheap. If I can make it, and make it better, I want to so, I did. Here is a super easy recipe for perfectly thick snow cone (or slushee) syrup that you can have on hand for making these yummy treats on a whim.

Snow Cone Syrup

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup water

1 packet unsweetened Kool-aid

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan over medium high heat. Stir to dissolve and bring syrup to a boil. Boil one minute then remove from heat. Add unsweetened Kool-aid and stir until completely dissolved. Cool completely and serve over shaved ice for snow cones or mix syrup and ice in blender for slushees.

Now, I like cooking and such but I LOVE efficiency because it means less work. So...I decided to triple this recipe and can it so we can have it year round. I did this 3x with our three favorite Kool-aid flavors. All I did was, instead of cooling the syrup after dissolving the Kool-aid flavoring, I pored the hot syrup into hot 1/2 pint canning jars, afixed the warm lids and bands properly and set them in a water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Ha! Canned Snow cones. I know, not really but, at least we have the fixings for them year round. I do keep a bag of ice in the deep freeze for such purposes.

"I'm raising boys and not cows."

In speaking of his father’s strategy for raising him well and upright, Elder Loren C. Dunn shared the following:

“While we were growing up in a small community, my father saw the need for my brother and me to learn the principle of work. As a result, he put us to work on a small farm on the edge of town where he had been raised. He ran the local newspaper, so he could not spend much time with us. … And sometimes we made mistakes.

“Our small farm was surrounded by other farms, and one of the farmers went in to see my father one day to tell him the things he thought we were doing wrong. My father listened to him carefully and then said, ‘Jim, you don’t understand. You see, I’m raising boys and not cows’ ”.

The blessings of work is the building of character in us and a bond with those with which we work hard. We truly believed that when we moved into our new home out in the country, our boys would benefit from the many opportunities they would have to work.

This year has brought us many wonderful things including the blessing of better behaved, more rounded, more confident boys. Some of their chores include:

- Taking out the chicken bucket (filled with kitchen scraps) daily.

- Collecting eggs (it’s Easter everyday!)

- Feeding and watering the poultry, rabbits, and dairy goats.

- hunting squirrels and/or maintaining the squirrel trap

- homework

- taking out trash and recycling daily, taking out trash and recycling cans to curb about 1/8 mile down the driveway and back weekly

- cleaning rooms in the house with me (and sometimes without me)

- doing their own laundry

- help make dinner or dessert (at least twice a week)

- clean the rabbitry, rake out the goat pen, let poultry out in the mornings and put them away in the evening

-fill the wood box and make fires in the winter

And because hard work should be balanced with relaxation and play, the boys also:

- Hunt ground squirrels

- Go hiking on the ranch trials

- Camp out in the orchard, tell ghost stories, and make S’mores over the campfire.

- Climb trees, hunt for fossils and cool rocks, let their imaginations go wild in creating make believe games together

- Get lost in books for hours/weeks

- Take a short ride on the neighbors horse

- Create and play with Legos (LOVE Legos!), wooden railroad tracks, and Lincoln logs.

- Play computer games (yes, my boys are somewhat normal)

The boys may need (lots of) reminders and direction in doing their chores; they may not do a perfect job and they certainly make mistakes; I may do their jobs differently than they if their jobs were mine but, I am happy to say I am finally learning to let them, allow them to work, make mistakes, build character. I am finally learning how to grow boys.

Growing Boys in Dirt, part 2

For those of my friends who have followed me thus far into the beginning of my blog, I understand you may have wondered if I've just given up or went on to something else of interest to me. The answer is neither. The raising of my boys thus far has been like plodding away to reach the mountain top in the midst of an avalanche with brief moments of relief and sometimes joy. It has taken its toll on my emotional and spiritual strength, to say nothing of my physical and mental health. The avoidance of reliving that past, in type, is as natural as instinctual self-preservation. In other words, I've dreaded facing the writing of part 2. But, here goes...

We were struggling. Struggling to deal with the day to day, hour to hour fights, frustrations, inexplicable and unsocial reactions by our children to those around them. Struggling with, and growing to hate, the unwanted advice and judgmental, spiteful comments of complete strangers and acquaintances alike. I had heard one too many times by passersby with raised brow, as my children played in the front yard - not bothering anyone, "Did you know your child is not wearing any shoes?". Feeling cynical and spiteful myself, I held back the urge to respond with shock and drama. *gasps* "No! I had NO idea!" (as I sat there watching my children play in the soft grass) "What ever will happen to my poor babies with nooo shoes on?!" *rolls eyes*

We found the culture in the Silicon Valley to be odd. Parents would schedule play time for their children, keep them indoors unless it's for a scheduled, organized, activity run by one or more adults such as sports, dance, art class, music lesson, or creative movement class (where they teach children how to roll as if they needed help with that). The children did not step outside their homes to play- even in their own front yard. We had no idea that there were any other children living on our street until we had lived there for just over two years! Turns out our next door neighbors had a young child the same age as one of mine. We had wondered who was playing concert quality piano in that house.

Parents apologized for not trusting their children to be children by buying them game systems, cell phones, ipods, and Blackberries to keep them in the house and occupied (reads babysat). They buy and feed them a steady diet of junk food in oversized portions. Children staying indoors, sitting for hours on end and mindlessly stuffing their faces is just not natural for children. When city people see children being children, it seems foreign to them even in the most appropriate context. Example: My 2 1/2 yr old about to go down a slide at the park. Stranger says to me, with concern, "Your child is at the top of the slide." My response "Well, he can't slide down it if he's at the bottom". o.O

I felt suffocated and as if I was living in a fish bowl. I felt like that fellow on Planet of the Apes at the realization that everything he knew of his own world was turned upside down - backwards. I needed to get me and my family out of that place.

I remembered that I had once watched a television show about a family that just up and left everything they had known to buy a cattle ranch, something they knew nothing about running, just so they could raise their boys in a better place and in an environment more centered on family; a place where they could just be boys, work hard, play in the dirt, and sweat. I wished I had the guts to do that. I wanted to do that. I wanted to chuck everything for the sake of my boys. I wanted them to feel carefree and safe; safe to be themselves without harsh looks or words from strangers. I wanted them to play in the dirt and make mudpies like I did as a kid. I wanted them to grow up with cherished memories of an unstifled and adventurous childhood. I wanted to grow my boys in dirt; let them be children; let them be boys!

In times of great stress, I turned to the internet. Yep, I got hooked on real estate websites. I'd use them to take me away from where I was. To dream. I'd talk to my husband about what I wanted. He's a high-tech fellow by trade. Sensing I was really serious about leaving it all, he looked into where he might be able to find work in his field that had some rural land within a 45 minute drive. The choices were few but I looked and looked. For 2 yrs I looked. Everything that gave us a little space was way too expensive. Far beyond what we could reasonably afford.

On a day I thought I could no longer take the stress of raising my unpredictable boys, it happened. I had had a particularly bad day and called my husband to come home to relieve me. I, alone in my room, resting but unable to sleep, again turned to the internet. But this time, I tried something different.

Not two months before, my husband suggested I stop looking for a place to buy. He said "If we're serious about getting out of here we should just look for places to rent around here. It will happen sooner that way". I asked him "What would we do with our home?", we owned it. He said "We'll worry about that later". I think that at that moment, I may have never loved him more. I had not felt more supported or more loved by him in many years.

Back to "the day". I tried something else. Instead of going to my favorite real estate websites, I opened up a window to Craigslist. I did a quick search, expecting to find nothing as usual but, there it was. A newly renovated, 100 yr old, beautiful two story, 3 - 5 bedroom, out in the country with room to breathe. And the pictures...green grass and trees forever. I called Kevin into the room and told him "We're going to see this one....today". Not long after I got in touch with the landlord, and recieived directions, we were in the car and headed for the possibility of a new beginning.

What a drive. We knew the location of the home was quite a distance away, in a town that we considered the "boonies". We had never actually been there and, honestly, I wondered why anyone would live in such an out of the way town anyways when all the jobs were in the Silicon Valley. lol But we went and it was a nice drive I must admit. The town was quaint; tiny. It had a old fashioned main street that took about 5 minutes to drive down to get to the other end of town. It was kinda cute. Actually it was exactly how I pictured my dream town in which to raise my children. I just didn't know anything like this still existed. I didn't know there were any more towns like the Greenfield, MA or Bloomington, OH that I had lived in for brief spells as a child. Those places made me feel safe and carefree as a child - as if the whole world was good and decent.

After the initial shock of driving past town and into "the wilderness" and realizing we still had 10 more miles to drive (an 1 1/2 from Kevin's work place) we resolved to keep going since "we've already come this far" and knew our potential new landlord was graciously awaiting for our arrival after agreeing to show us the house on such short notice.

LOVE. Wow, this house brought me back to some of the happiest times of my childhood. The house was old, it was beautiful, lived in, had a history... It had built-ins! Two fireplaces and....a library with shelves to the ceiling! I almost cried when I saw the library. A pantry - a walk-in pantry. A space for an office, a large, old fashioned looking kitchen with decorative tin covered cabinets and old, slightly uneven wood floors, antique light fixtures, even a few original mirrors - cloudy and speckle with black. Vaulted ceilings. Real bead and board. And SPACE! Space for the boys to run; trees to climb. And no neighbors to tell my children to stop climbing our own trees. No neighbors to peer into your window, just a few yards away from theirs, as they washed their dishes. Haha! I was thrilled. We all were thrilled.

But the one great worry that lurked in the minds of my husband and I was the....school. We just can't up and leave for the benefit of our family if our main concern was to find a school that my children could go to. One of my boys could not even get himself to walk into a class room of 30 children because, to him, there were "too many people". Another was left grades behind his classmates because he was "only" one of 35 students. His teachers would not give him the help he needed so they just passed him onto the next grade's teacher whether he earned it or not. Yet another had been bullied so by the other students at the encouragement of the teacher that he could not step foot into a classroom without having a violent breakdown. I had turned to home school for two of my most volatile children and my preschooler but I just was not able to emotionally handle continuing it for another year. What were the chances that we'd find the local school to be just what my young family needed?

I tell you it was a spiritual moment, one of my husband and I being able to see God's hand at work in our lives when we learned of the school. It. Was. Perfect. A "one-room" school house it was, with a total of 35 students in the entire K-8 school. Three teachers, one secretary, a whole lot of sense of community. It was a rural school house that was it's own district all by itself. It was year round. Our children would begin in one month from the day we first saw the house. The philosophy of the teachers was more like a home school program where each child works at their own pace, gets specific help where they need it, and could advance as fast as they liked and were able. And the lower grade teacher was experienced in helping with the certain challenges that my most difficult child was facing. This was nothing short of a miracle and it was clear in my mind that the Lord had not been able to give us this blessing until that very moment as he was working to make so many variables fall into place just so in order to make this happen for us.

We made an agreement to rent the house. We moved in one month later. It felt like a dream. The irony was not lost on us that we were moving into the old school teacher's house that had taught at that little one-room schoolhouse for years and had a bench with a placard in her honor under an oak tree over looking the play ground at the school. For my children, for which school had been hell and darkness, they finally found a place where they could be helped, given respite, see some light, and just...be...boys...in the old school teacher's house.

Yes, I think we had finally found the perfect medium in which to grow our boys upright and strong.

Growing Boys in Dirt

Any gardener knows that you need a good medium to grow things strong and healthy. Dirt, or rather the right kind of dirt, can make all the difference.

Our ideas of the perfect environment in which to grow children in has evolved over the years. How did we go from an artistic, if not somewhat elitist, mother's dream of raising the next Einstein or Mozart in a very controlled environment, to the soccer-mom dream of living in a suburban neighborhood with all the right schools to deciding to grow our boys in dirt? Let me take you through the process.

We started out growing boys in a bit too sanitary environment, I believe. When we only had one small child we lived in a small but clean condo that we owned in San Diego. It was in a gated community with security guards, pool, club house, tiny playgrounds, a mature flowering landscape, and meandering cobble stone paths lined with quaint, old-fashioned park lights. It was safe and sanitary but it was a bubble. I took my small child on regular outings to Balboa Park to go to the zoo to learn about a different animal each visit. We'd go to the art and history museums for some culture and stroll the acres of gardens for sensory learning. A diaper backpack equipped with wipes, anti-bacterial gel, numerous changes of clothes and diapers, and 3 back-up pacifiers was lugged around because I had to protect my child from germs and felt a great need to keep him looking clean but, I know it was also to protect myself from the judging eyes of strangers. I breast fed, I taught myself to sew and did sew a fair amount of his clothes, made homemade baby foods, and was obsessed with making my infant's library collection bigger than my own. I set up play dates with a select few and could organize toddler theme parties like Martha Stewart. Yet, at the age of two, my child did not know how to play. At the age of 5, my child did not know how to run. Clearly, I was doing something wrong. Right?

A second try at getting it right.....After my husband graduated college with a EE degree, we made the no-brainer decision to move to the high-tech capitol of the world - the Silicon Valley in California - south of the San Francisco bay. We knew it would be a financial struggle to live there but figured it would be a stable environment for our growing family. The schools are some of the best in the state and, even if Kevin changed jobs, we would likely be able to never have to move because of the plethora of high-tech companies in the area that he could work for. Don't laugh. This was pre-dot-com-bubble-burst.

The neighborhoods were nice enough. Quiet, clean, low crime rate, nice parks, good schools. It was a step up from our place in So. Cal, though, because of the greater cost of living in the area, we could not afford the gated community anymore. But, look where that got us. It was better to expose our children to what we saw as more "normal". We lived in three homes during our time there. Each one bigger than the next. We ultimately settled in the "right" neighborhood so that our, now family of 4 boys, could walk to the best elementary, middle, and high school in the area. It seemed the perfect medium for our boys to grow up.

Wanna hear the rest of the story of how we got to where we are and find out where that actually is? Check back soon for another installment of How to Grow Boys to find out.