More Adventures in Baking and Potted Tomato Plants...

I recently hosted book club at my house.  So instead of doing what I normally do, which is buy baked goods at Sam's Club, I decided to save some money and make a dessert myself.  Someone for a bridal shower gift gave me a book called, "500 Cupcakes:  The Only Cupcake Compendium You'll Ever Need."  This person obviously didn't know me at all.  I HATE BAKING!  And this most recent baking adventure didn't do much to change my mind on the topic.  Nevertheless, here are the ingredients, instructions and a photo of the finished product.  It actually turned out well and was a delicious little treat. :)

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Ingredients:
For Cupcakes
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp. baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
10 crushed cream-filled chocolate cookies

For Frosting
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
Pinch of salt
10 chopped cream-filled chocolate cookies

Baking Instructions
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).  Place 18 foil or paper baking cups in muffin pans
- Combine all the cupcake ingredients, except the cookies, in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and pale (about 2-3 minutes)
-Stir in the cookies
- Spoon the batter into the cups.  Bake for 20 minutes.
-Remove pans from oven and cool for 5 minutes
- Remove the cupcakes and cool on a wire rack
-To make the frosting, beat the confectioners' sugar, butter and salt using a mixer
- Spread frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and sprinkle the chopped cookies on top

The cupcakes can be stored unfrosted in airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.  Makes 1 1/2 dozen

A photo of the finished product. 

In other news:

We had a mini winter here in the middle of September and we had to cover our outside garden with tarps and blankets to save the growing vegetables.  We brought our potted tomato plants inside and they became very spoiled.  More about our adventures in gardening will be in my next post, but for now I leave you with photos of our potted tomato plants hanging out inside during our mini winter.  

Our potted tomato plants hanging out in the corner of our dining room

Our potted tomato plants hanging out in front of one of the windows in our dining room

You can see three small tomatoes growing on our potted tomato plants. :)

Getting Involved in Church Stuff

The church program year has started here at Fairfield Lutheran Parish.  From September through the end of May, I give up my husband several nights a week and we go back to having family day on Friday and part of Saturday.  We still have lunch and dinner together most days unless he is not in town.  But it is far more routine than the summer schedule, which is nice with a two year old.  The more routine things are for my son the better.

I feel like I turn into a single mom most days.  Jason sometimes takes Preston to the office with him so I can get a break in the morning to exercise and do a few things for myself.  But most days, I am on my own for several hours.  So I don't end up depressed and pissed off about all of this, I have found myself throwing myself into getting involved in church stuff to give myself something to do for me.  Since there is not much else to do in town, getting involved in church has been a way for me to do somethings for myself and others.  I have become the token church volunteer, which gives me a sense of purpose outside of my family.

To begin with, last year, I volunteered to help out as a secondary leader for the parish youth group.  I also helped lead a Bible study at the church in town and I filled-in as a helper for confirmation on Wednesday nights as needed.  This year I am assisting with the Bible study in town, not leading it.  I still fill-in for confirmation when I need to.

One thing is different this year though.  I will be leading a Sunday afternoon Bible study for the parish youth group.  I am getting more involved in activities and the formation of faith of the youth in the group.  I am impressed by the kids in the youth group and am excited to see how they grow in their faith.  I am excited to be a part of that process.  I went from being the secondary youth group leader to the main youth group leader.  The other leader will be more involved in planning the group activities.  Once a month we have a fun group activity.  In September, we had a bonfire and games afternoon.  In October, we will be having a Halloween movie night.  The rest of the Sundays in the month we will meet and have Bible study and play games.  We'll see how it goes, but so far I am optimistic that it will work out well.

I also help out with putting the monthly newsletter together when I can and every once in a while, I help serve coffee for fellowship time.  When I can I help out and I am far more involved in church stuff than I intended to be when we first moved here, which to be honest, has been such a blessing.  Because of my token volunteer church lady status, I have met some of the most amazing people, the most amazing kids and have found a larger purpose in my life than just getting by in a place that I have a love/hate relationship with.  I am truly blessed with such an amazing family and friends who are near and far.  Through God's grace and love, I am able to share my blessings with others and hopefully, they too will grow in their faith as I have in the past 3+ years.

Bye-Bye Lonelies, Sometimes....

This blog post is in conjunction with a previous post that VB wrote.

Sometimes I get a massive case of the lonelies.  In truth, I am hardly ever alone.  Between my two year old son, who I stay at home with, my husband and the revolving door that was our house, I don't get much alone time.  So my loneliness is a different kind of loneliness.  My loneliness comes from a lack of friends that I can call up and say, "Hey, if I can find a babysitter to watch my son, do you want to meet up for coffee or go see a movie or both?"  My loneliness comes from the isolation of where I live.  The nearest place that has anything resembling culture is Great Falls, and most days it's just not worth the drive or the gas it takes to get there.

I do have one thing going for me though.  I have, after 3 years of living here, found a friend my own age that has kids around my sons age.  We have library time every Wednesday and then a play date afterwards until lunch time.  Sometimes, we even get together on other days and let the kids play and we just talk about our kids and other things going on in our lives.  For privacy reasons I will not tell you their names, but I can say this about our new friends, they have saved my life here.  I had given up on making friends that I can talk to about anything here and not be judged because I am the pastor's wife.  And then all of a sudden enter these wonderful people and everything has changed.  The power of consistent and badgering prayer folks.

I still find that most days, unless there is something really pressing that I just have to do, I don't leave the house.  Having our garden this year has alleviated some of my hermitage behavior, in that I have to go outside every day and inspect, water, prune and pick vegetables that are ready to be picked.

I can call or skype with my best friends that don't live here, but sometimes all I want to do is see them and give them big hugs and listen to them talk about their lives and share what is going on with mine.  Sometimes, I find myself day-dreaming about taking my son to the Como Zoo in St. Paul and meeting up with friends and just making a day of it.  Or I get flashes of walking around Lake Calhoun with friends and talking and exercising at the same time on a lovely late-spring, summer or early-fall day.  Basically, I find myself missing some of what my life used to be and I get the lonelies.

But nothing stays the same.  Even if Jason and I end up moving back to Minnesota someday, everything will be different.  I will have kids, when before I didn't.  I may or may not be working, or I may work out of my home.  I may have a more traditional job, or I may find something unconventional to do with myself.  Jason will continue to be a pastor.  And not all of my best friends live in Minnesota anymore.  VB lives in St. Johns Newfoundland, others live out East and others live out in the Northwest.  Again, thinking about all of this makes me feel lonely.

Thankfully, facebook exists, texting exists, skype exists, email exists and with money, planes, trains and automobiles exists to whisk me away to see my people.

I will look back on my time here, however long it may be, and tell stories about how I made a good friend in my small town and survived the lonelies.  Until then, I'm just going to keep on keeping on and try to stay positive about what the future may hold.

Projects I am Working on in My Non-Existent Free Time....

Free time around here only exists during nap time, which doesn't happen everyday now that my son has reached his toddler stage in life.

I am the type of person who needs to have something to do.  I like to call them "projects" because when I actually complete a task, I feel better about life.  I feel like I'm not wasting my life away because I don't have a j.o.b. and am not contributing financially to my family.  But I wrote about that situation in my previous post, so I will not dwell on that here.

I have several "projects" in the works these days and work on them when I have time to do so.  I have a lot of project ideas for the future too that I am excited about and am going to share some of them with you now.  They involve crocheting, reading, writing, paper crafts, amateur landscape photography and getting some of my papers published.

As far as crafting, I had the idea a while back to start doing paper crafts, like making my own cards and antiquing paper and making journals or cards with it.  I haven't started learning how to do that yet, because of the time crunch of being a stay-at-home mom of a 2 year old, very active little boy.  I am still very interested in learning about and doing paper crafting though, so it is on my list of projects to do in the future.

I have been doing a lot of crocheting lately and am getting better and better at it.  I still only know how to do one stitch and am not ready to learn another until I get better at the one I know.  I have made a throw blanket, two rugs and am currently working on a scarf.  All of these are gifts I have and will be giving to people.  It is something I enjoy doing and giving to others.  I had aspirations at one point to try and make some money by selling my completed projects, but I am far too slow and can only work for short periods of time before I start to have an allergic reaction to the yarn.  I tend to work on my crocheting projects during the afternoon when my son is napping and I don't have to do anything but stream tv shows and crochet.

I find that when I don't read for a while, I get cranky and actually depressed about life.  Reading allows me to use my brain and learn new things, even reading fiction.  I just finished reading Twelve Years a Slave, which everyone should read and am starting to re-read Life After Life, a fiction novel that is one of the best books I read last year, for book club.  My life is so dull without a good book in it.  I don't have much time to read during the day, so I do most of my reading before I go to bed at night.  I'll read a chapter or most of a chapter of a book or several articles from my Time Magazine before going to bed.  Reading my Time magazine during the day is easier because I can easily put it down and pick it back up again throughout the day.

And with my new-found commitment to reading, I am starting to write again too.  I am writing in a journal and blogging a couple times a week.  Writing, for me, cures the soul.  It is easier for me to blog because it is a shorter time commitment than say, writing a chapter of a novel or a non-fiction book.  So I plan to blog twice a week and would like to journal several times a week, if I have the time.  I have a great idea for a novel and several ideas for histories as far as future writing projects, but those, I shall keep to myself until I am ready to reveal them.

I have recently gotten the bug up my butt to research publishers both magazine and book publishers.  I have several papers that I would like to try and get published in an academic or some kind of magazine.  I also have two graduate theses that I would like to do something with so I am researching book publishers too.  I have found several online and am trying to figure out the best way to submit my work and have it be successfully published.  I have submitted one of my papers to a publisher already but haven't heard back.  They were quite explicit on their website that if I didn't hear back from them almost right way, I wouldn't be hearing back at all.  But that's okay, there are many more publishers to try.  My last resort would be to try doing self-publishing online.  I'm just not convinced that is the best way for me to go at this time, at least with my non-fiction work.

And just for fun, I am continuing to dabble in amateur landscape photography.  This town might be boring but the landscape around here is amazing.  I am thinking about ways to make some money by selling postcards or prints of my photographs to people.  I am having trouble figuring out copyright so no one can steal my images.  I don't want to have to start a company, but it might be worth it someday if I become more than an amateur landscape photographer.

So, as you can see, I have a lot of "projects" in the works and ideas for the future.  I find I can be overly ambitious sometimes, but when I do find the time to complete a project, it just makes life that much more awesome!  :)

Living Frugally with Thousands in Student Loan Debt on 1 Income....

I am both grateful and frustrated with being a stay-at-home mom.  I am grateful because I am the one raising my son along with my husband and not someone else.  I get to watch him grow into a smart, compassionate person.  I have been able to watch him crawl and walk for the first time and teach him the alphabet and numbers.  Being home with my son has been one of the greatest adventures of my life so far.

But...yes there is a but.

Between my husband and myself, we have many thousands of dollars in student loan debt.  With my husband being the only one with a steady income, I find myself frustrated that I am not directly contributing to paying down our loans.  I know I am contributing financially in other ways.  Daycare is expensive and essentially I am free daycare.  I am the one who balances our checkbook and keeps us on the straight and narrow as far as spending goes.  Despite this I have the occasional freak out moment, probably once a month and my gracious husband talks be down from the ledge.  We talk about our situation often, and have come up with 6 ways to alleviate any anxiety about money that help for the most part (except for my once a month freak out.)

The Pollington/Pratola Household Money System:

1) Create a year long budget on an excel spreadsheet and stick to it.  This is harder than it might seem but with living frugally in mind, it can be done.

2) Create a monthly budget using and excel spreadsheet.  This tends to be more detailed than the year long budget and includes how much money we can spend on food, gas, miscellaneous...  We currently have a $350 food budget each month which includes going out to eat.  Being that we live in a town with only two restaurants and one has very strange hours, we don't go out to eat much.  Like VB stated in one of her recent posts, eating at home saves a lot of money and is healthier too. :)

3) We have a savings account, but right now we are using it as a savings for our quarterly taxes.  Yes, we pay our taxes quarterly and since we only have one income, we put the money we need for them into our savings and then transfer the money over when we have to pay them.  So right now, we don't have a savings that we don't touch and let the money accrue.  We are working on figuring that one out still and it will probably take a while.  But we do have a savings account for when we are actually able to start saving money.  Many people don't even have that, so I think we are heading in the right direction.

4) Weekly checkbook balancing.  I balance our checkbook once a week so then we always know what we have in our account.  Not only does it ease my mind that we aren't spending more than we have, but it makes me an active participant in our finances.

5) If we use our credit card, we pay it off right away.  We use our credit card for things that Jason can be reimbursed for through the church so once we get the reimbursement money, we pay our credit card off right away.  It just makes sense and makes both of us feel better about life.

6) Breathe and be grateful for what we do have, which unfortunately is a lot more than many people have these days.  We might not have a lot of money, we might not have all the new gadgets or the newest vehicles, but we have a warm place to live, clothes on our backs, good healthcare, food in our bellies and wonderful family and friends.

So yeah, I still freak out about our student loan debt and our small household income from time to time, but these 6 things, especially the last one have been extremely helpful for us, our marriage and our family.  I hope they help you too.

Child Organization, Box Gardens and More....

My son Preston likes to organize things.  It doesn't matter what it is either.  If the refrigerator is open, he'll take out all of the bottles on the bottom door shelf and either organize them on the kitchen floor, or put them back on the shelf where he thinks they should go.  He does this with his toy animals

bowls, his books, and pots and strainers.  Basically anything he can get his hands on, he will organize it.  It is hilarious.  It is fascinating to watch him think it through and put something exactly where he wants it.

So we finally got our acts together this year and bought a small box garden kit.  We then bought a seed started kit and started seeds inside for tomatoes, egg plant, and various peppers.

All of the tomato seeds, most of the egg plant and only two of the pepper seeds survived.  In our box garden we decided to plant this year: peas, cucumber, yellow and green zucchini squash, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, egg plant, the two various pepper seeds and tomatoes.

Note to self, get a second box garden kit dedicated to squash.  And maybe cut down on how many peas and tomatoes we plant too.  Craziness is abounding here folks.

It has been fun to watch our small garden take off and go crazy.  I hope we get a bit of everything this year, but as you can see above, the squash plants are taking away sun from the cucumber, egg plant and peppers, so we'll see what ends up being able to grow.  We got a late start this summer, planting our garden, but hopefully more things will begin to produce before we have to start covering the garden at night to protect the plants and produce from the chilly nights.

My son keeps me on my toes all day long except when he is napping.  During nap time, I crochet while streaming netflix, journal, nap myself, work on revising my theses so then someday I can maybe find someone to publish them (fingers crossed), blog, speed walk on the treadmill when I can for exercise, check facebook once a day or every other day depending on what is going on around here and play in the garden.  I clean house every once in a while but only when I can't put it off anymore.  These are things I do to pass the time and fight the occasional feelings of loneliness.  I tell myself, that this too shall pass, and pass it does.

Family Fun Summer Adventures...

(There are a lot of photos in this post, but not as many as I think there should be. :) )
Where did the summer go?!  Wasn't yesterday Memorial Day?!  Labor Day is coming up in a few weeks?!  WTF hommies!

We have had a lot of family summer adventures this year.  Here is the litany of traveling, adventures and daily living we have done since Memorial Day and some photos to go along with each adventure.

Over Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Rapid City, South Dakota to celebrate our nephew Grayson's high school graduation.  It was a packed weekend.

Between Memorial Day and our next traveling adventure, we had Vacation Bible School, which was a blast, but a very busy week.  The Monday after VBS finished, we got on a 6am 1-stop flight to Boston to spend the week in New Hampshire visiting my sister and her family.  We stayed with my parents in a one bedroom condo in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire.  We were there from June 23rd-June 30th.  We traveled around the White Mountain region and took side day trips to the beach in Maine and Boston.  It was an awesome trip!!  It was hard to come back to Fairfield after that.

After we returned from New Hampshire, etc... we had two days to do laundry and repack to go spend the 4th of July with Jason's family at Fresno Reservoir.  I went up a day later because I wasn't up for going on Thursday.  I drove up on my own on the 4th and we left on the 5th because Jason had to be back to preach in church on Sunday.

After the 4th of July, we actually had a couple of weeks where we just hung out at home and got back into our normal routine.  July 17th-20th was Fairfield's annual town celebration, Swim Days.  It was a busy weekend but we didn't do any traveling, just stayed in town and participated in some of the activities that weekend.

The following weekend, July 25th and 26th we traveled to Bozeman, MT for a wedding Jason officiated over.  Bozeman is about 3-3.5 hrs away from Fairfield.  After the wedding on Saturday we had to head back so Jason could preach on Sunday.  It was a very quick trip and the wedding was lovely.

We had one day to do laundry and clean the house before my parental units and brother arrived for the week.  They were here from July 28th - August 4th.  While they were here, we went fishing in the mountains on the Sun River and also at Pishkun Reservoir.  We also drove down to a place called The Gates of the Mountains and traveled up the Missouri River on a tour boat.  During that time we celebrated Preston's 2nd Birthday too.  A lot happened that week, a lot!  Lucky for you, blogger isn't allowing me to post any more photos, because I would have posted a lot more.  Anyway....

My family left us on the 4th of August and the next day we headed up to Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp from August 5th-8th.  It was so much fun.  Now, here I wish I could post more pictures because I have the cutest picture of Preston with his friends Hannah and Harper.  Boo blogger...BOO!!!

Now we are home for a while.  I am traveling to Minnesota by myself on the train at the end of the month for 6 days.  It is the only time I will be able to get there for the rest of the year, so Jason and I made it happen.  My mother-in-law is staying with us during the week while she does her radiation treatments in Great Falls and she goes home on the weekends.  I have a lot of cleaning to do before she gets back on Monday.

I guess I answered my initial question, Where did the summer go?!  It flew by while we were traveling, adventuring and living daily life.  It went away in the blink of an eye, brilliantly away.