I’ve been thinking about this on and off all week. I ran across some different blogs as I was looking at different “frugal” sites. One of them was a post a lady wrote about another woman who somehow managed to get all of her families grocery needs for only $300 a year. They had a garden, milk cow etc. and the article talked about the great money manager that this woman was. Then I got to the comments section and was surprised when MANY of the comments were about this woman really exlempifying the Proverbs 31 woman. I’ve been in fundamentalist church circles all my life, so am no stranger to the emphasis put on being this virtuous woman. However, my “take” on it has always been totally different. I always thought the main thrust of the passage was the “virtues” of the woman. “Her price is far above rubies” and “The hear of her husband doeth safely trust in her” and “in her tongue is the law of kindness.” These were the HEART things that I always thought belonged to the virtuous woman. I of course read all the parts about her working with her hands, and caring for her household and giving to the poor, but in my mind the economy of what she did was more of a fruit of her character. She was diligent, not slothful, she provided for the needs of her family without wasting because she was trustworthy and responsible, she gave to the poor because she was compassionate. These are the things that I’ve always thought about the “Proverbs 31″ woman. Then in reading this blog, I realized that apparently many people are “interpreting” this passage more on economic ideas. Those women who left comments about this amazing lady who could make a little go a LONG way, had no idea of the woman’s real character. They don’t know if she was a bitter person, or one who loved to gossip, or someone who was a busybody. The only thing they knew was that she was EXCELLENT at saving money. I agree that it is commendable to be frugal and not wasteful in your family’s expenses. In fact I believe that it is a Biblical principle that we should follow, being good stewards. However, I don’t think that the virtuos woman’s merrit is strictly or even mostly in her economic ability. It’s really in her character and practice where the virtue is, and that, of course, will be evident in those other areas as well. What are your thoughts? Do you think the passage in Proverbs 31 is dealing with a character study or economics?
Archive for August, 2008
Scary Snake!
08.30
Last night we had quite the adventures! The first one was very scary, the second just kinda funny! It all started out well enough. Stuart and I had been working on rearanging some of our furniture and hanging pictures and such all evening. Qade went to bed early because he was a major grumpy head. With as fast as he konked out, he must have needed the early bedtime. Anyway, Stu and I have a “tradition” of burning our boxes and paper trash in this above ground fire pit thing. So we decided to sit outside and do that last night when it got dark. Stuart was also watering the lawn while we were out there. Once the fire was burning merrily away, Stu moved the sprinkler and fixed the hose, because I oh-so-helpfully pointed out there was a kink in it. A few minutes later as we sat and watched the flames I kept hearing a weird noise. There’s LOTS of night time noises out in the country, but I couldn’t quite place this one. Stuart suggested that it might be a June bug, because they make this weird buzzing noise when they stupidly fall over on their backs and such. Still we weren’t quite comfy about it because it kept going on. Stuart jokingly said, “Maybe it’s a wet Rattle Snake.” Ha! We know that rattlers don’t like water and since the yard had been quite the puddle, we doubted it. However, curiosity got the best of us so we finally turned on the porch light and low and behold, it WAS a rattler!! Moreover it was coiled up RIGHT NEXT TO THE HOSE that Stuart had been moving all over. It was in the exact place where the kink was that he had straightened with his hands. Wow! It’s not often that you get to see miracles like that in progress, but it really is a miracle that Stuart didn’t get bit. In fact he could very well have stepped on that snake, and may have, considering it’s location, but God was watching out for us that night. Stuart got a shovel and killed the snake. My heart is just so thankful that no one got hurt! It’s a very scary thing when you actually realize how close someone you love came to danger. God is good! It makes me a little nervous about letting Qade play outside. He was outside 2x yesterday just toddling around. I’m so glad that he didn’t discover a snake as well!
Okay, so come comic relief was needed after that drama, hence the second adventure for the night. The cat decided it wanted to explore the garage last evening, so we just left her in there. Stuart’s parents arrived for the weekend around 9pm so we were all chatting and having a great time. Stuart went to get something from the garage, and the cat bounded in when he opened the door. However, she was NOT alone! She had caught a mouse, (her favorite play thing) and decided to bring it inside to have some more fun! That’s not so funny, but the guys reactions to it was! First off, we heard Stu open the door and then start calling, “Kitty kitty kitty” in a sweet voice. I thought he wanted to get the cat inside, but he was actually trying to coax her and her prize back into the garage. When that didn’t work, he grabbed the shovel, and then hollered to the rest of us that the cat had a mouse and it was alive! Ina and I dealt with the situation by picking our feed up off the floor, but Duane went to help out with the broom. So here’s two guys with a shovel and a broom trying to “smoosh” the mouse, or something should the cat let it go. The sounds coming from that room where hilarious! I’m not exactly sure how they got it done, but the cat, mouse and shovel all ended up back in the garage. Hopefully the cat finished off the mouse at some point. I haven’t been brave enough to check. 
Mrs. Domestic- hee hee
08.28
Happy Lime Green Thursday, friends! Today has been a good and, I feel, profitable day. Somedays I don’t feel like I’ve acomplished anything, but not so today! Okay, so I admit this morning, I didn’t do to much. Well, I did manage, with the help of my wonderful hubby, to get up by 6:30 to make a pancake and sausage breakfast before he had to go to work. I can’t tell you how many times it has been my goal to get up and make him a good breakfast, and how many times I’ve completley failed. Fortunately, he is quite capable in the kitchen, and if he thinks he needs it, he’s willing to make his own, but still, I felt good doing it for him today! Then, I fed Qade and visited with Dad a little bit before he went out to tackle the trees. He has been cutting wood as much as the faulty wood cutting stuff will let him. Once he went out though I spent a little time on the computer. It was nice though. I got to chat with a long lost friend that found me on facebook, and that was fun, and I also wrote several future posts for my babyhacks blog. I enjoy the feeling of being on top of that too. It’s not like it’s something I HAVE to do, but I enjoy it, and somehow it’s an outlet for me. So after all that, I started some laundry, put Bubba down for a nap and cleaned up the kitchen. I made lunch for us and Dad too. This afternoon I managed to get some biscuit dough made up and cut and it is now in the process of freezing. I got this recipe from livingonadime.com for the make, freeze, bake biscuits and I was anxious to try it. I also made my own bisquick!! I’m really excited about this one- ha! I got the recipe for this from hillbillyhousewife.com, and it’s great! It’s so much cheaper than buying premade biscuit mix, and it’s totally the same thing! It was fun getting my hands, self, and kitchen all floury today, but I think it was for a good cause. Tomorrow I’m going to make some chocolate chip cookie dough to freeze. I was going to do it today too, but realized that my kitchen was already quite a disaster, and I was running out of steam.
So anyway, that’s basically a rundown of my day. I’ll be making some green chilli chicken for dinner tonight, wanna come? 
Tuesday
08.27
Pretty unique post title there, eh? Oh well, ya can’t win them every time. Today was great! My dad was here this morning. He got in yesterday and brought some really yummy sweet corn with him! Mmmm-mmm-mmmmm!! Didja know that cooking corn on the cob in the microwave is a TON faster than boiling it? Anyway, this morning Dad had a great time playing with Qade. It’s so fun to watch the grandparents revert back to their own preschool years when they get around the grandbaby. Dad was crawling around on the floor chasing Qade or being chased by him, and they were both just squealing and laughing. Soo funny! Well, Bubba was more than ready for his afternoon nap once Grandpa left. Dad will be coming back through the end of the week, and is going to help us get some FIREWOOD! It’s still hard for me to think that it’s going to be Autumn soon, and the weather will be cooler and we’ll want a fire. Right now it’s still too hot to take a walk in the middle of the day, but I suppose that it’s the best time to be gathering wood. Dad likes to do it, and I’m very thankful for his generous heart to come and do such hard labor for us. He loves us… that’s why.
Well, I did manage to get the floors swept and mopped today. I still have a lot of work to do to the spare ‘oom to get it organized. It looks a zillion times better than it did before I attacked it Saturday, but it’s not over yet. There’s a bunch of quilts that I need to wash because they were left on the floor all summer for the rodents to climb all over. And from what I saw yesterday, they did. So that needs to be done and the entire room needs to be vacuumed along with the crevaces, so that’s a job for sure. “Little by little, inch by inch.” One day it’ll be a beautiful room, and Stuart had some great suggestions for making it a wonderful “morning room” where one could have coffee, watch the birds out the window and write. I like to amuse myself with daydreams like that when in reality with one munchkin roamin the house and a tiny tot to be born soon, that “utopia” may never happen, but it’s nice to think it’ll be available.
Okey-dokey, well, that was a lot of blather about nuthin’, but I’m glad you came along anyway. I’ll blog at you later!
Babyhacks again
08.26
Hi everyone! I’ve taken a break from my babyhacks blog due to feeling icky because of the pregnancy earlier in the year, and then the busy busy summer, but I’m attempting to get it back up and running. I hope to have one or two new posts a week. I still would LOVE to have other input on the blog, so if you can think of little tips that have worked for you with your little ones, please share them! You can e-mail me, and I’ll be sure to post your tips with your name too! Don’t forget to check the blog now and then too, you never know when someone else’s tip can save the day.
Check this out!
08.24
If you’re looking for a different dish without involving too much cash, try some recipes from the 99 Cent Chef. He makes all of his dishes with items that he finds from a .99 store. It’s pretty nifty what a little creativity can do for ya. Personally though, I think I’ll just steal his creativity and save mine for other things. Bon Appetite!
The Life of a spoiled house cat…
08.20
Since Ngung-ngung has been home she has had several great adventures! I actually don’t know how she has managed some of them myself, but she never ceases to amaze. You will, of course, remember that I was so excited to get her back home because of the mice invasion. Well she recoverd from her car ride pretty quickly, I think, and even though she seemed a bit nervous at being home for the first time in a couple months, I’m pretty sure she must have recognized it, because she was careening around and playing pretty quickly. The first morning she was back I got up and noticed that she was fixated on the small bookshelf in the fireplace room. Thinking that perhaps there was a good reason, I tipped the shelf forward enough for her to dart back behind it, and sure enough, she emerged with a mouse in her mouth! I was ecstatic! Yay for her, she already caught her first mouse! Imagine my horror when I realized that not only was the mouse not dead, but she seemed to have no plans to kill it any time soon. She would release it, ON PURPOSE, to bat it around and then pounce on it again. Then she’d dragg it back to the carpet and repeat the process. By this point I was totally grossed and freaked out, so I did the smart thing and called in my chivelrous back up. Stuart got a box and tried to help the cat catch and dispose of the mouse, but the cat wasn’t much help and eventually the mouse escaped. Hmmmmm…. Well, we were a little dissapointed in our feline house guest, but what can you do??
Her next great adventure was to somehow get herself stuck in a sticky mouse trap! I have no earthly idea how she did it, but one morning I woke up to find her with the trap stuck firmly to her side AND the tip of her tail! It was actually hysterical and I laughed at our silly cat. She was a little put out for awhile, but I didn’t feel too badly for her. Stuart eventually cut it off, making her fur look a little strange. She spent a few days trying to “groom” the sticky stuff that was left over off. It’s her own fault though. Funny kitty!
We had to leave her for a couple days when we went to pick up our dog. We made sure that all the doors were open, even the closets so that if, per chance, she should happen to find a mouse again, it would have fewer places to hide. When we got home 2 days later, sure enough, there was not only a dead mouse on the floor, but a lizard as well. 
Gruesome! I later found another dead mouse in one of the closets. Score one for the household kitty!! I wasn’t excited about seeing the dead creatures, but I was glad that they were no longer able to scamper at will about my home. So it turns out that our neurotic cat was a good idea afterall. She really is a sweet thing, and I like her even though I’m not really a “cat person.” I think we’ll keep her!
Here she is, stuck in the sticky trap. I don’t think that this was what the manufactures had in mind to catch.
Lazy Sunday
08.17
I’m a service skipper today. I was just way too wiped out this morning to make it to church. I did manage to get my hair curled, and make up on, and all dressed before I realized that it wasn’t going to happen. Oh well. Soon after Stu left, I put Qade and myself down for a nap, and it worked wonders!! I still have a bit of a headache, but do feel mucho bettero from this morning.
I’ve been contemplating how to save mulah more these days. I added a couple of links to my blogroll if any of y’all are interested. One is a place I’ve been before called Hill billy Housewife. She has some really frugal food and just life ideas. I don’t think I could adopt her lifestyle completly, but I’m sure some of her tips will work for me. I’m going to try her recipe for ham and cheese muffins. It looks good! Then there’s the Living on a Dime one. There’s a lot of great tips in that site as well. Some things, to me, just seem like common sense, but it’s good to have a plan and then go with it. I really do want to get better at cutting down our grocery bill for sure! I’m not a good coupon clipper because we don’t get the paper, but I have recently discovered that there are online printable coupon sites, so I’m looking into those to see what will work best for us. There are ways out there to save money… some of them just take a little time, and to be honest some of them take more time than they are worth. I’m not interested in piling on a bunch more “work” to save a few cents, but if a little work can save a lot then I’m all over it!
Anyway, I’ve got to go pull my son out of the trash can that he’s delving into. Have a happy day!
