by Donna | May 4, 2013
One of our many traditions/housekeeping rituals is that of cleaning out the refrigerator on grocery shopping day (which now with six “adults,” ages fourteen to over fifty living here is twice a week!). Everybody starts carrying in groceries, and as they are carried in, I sort them and bark out orders: “The SMALL deep freeze; not the big one. I need to be able to find this on Wednesday!” etc. etc. Also, while they carry (and I sort), I clean out the inside refrigerator and have people bring things in from the garage refrigerator. (Yeah, I am a mean multi-tasker after thirty years of homemaking/parenting/homeschooling/working!)
Anyway, all of this is going in WITH teenage boys talking about their day, our college age daughter going over her schedule with Mom or Dad (“Is it okay if I leave in ten minutes to run, so I can get five miles in before it gets dark?”), the dog pulling things out of the trash can as I put things in, and, of course, a radio drama playing in the kitchen cd player. (Yes, I can work with a lot of noise too, another survival skill developed through the years!)
Usually, one of these shopping days falls on “leftover night,” so I start organizing food for that night’s meal, “re-loading” (as my kids call it) some of the leftovers so that they look new, and cutting up old fruits and veggies before we put away the new ones. Someone will be called upon to make a quick fruit salad out of leftover fruits–and somebody will often start chopping leftover veggies to create a quick side dish to go with the main entree leftovers that we usually have.
We have gotten pretty good at throwing together fresh vegetable stir fries fairly quickly. We have variations on this side dish another night–we almost always have a chicken-veggie stir fry or beef veggie stir fry as one of our main entress each week. That night is is more involved and time consuming (cutting up meats, marinating meats, all the chopping and dicing and stir frying required for two huge pans of main dish meat/veggie stir fries). And, unfortunately, I don’t have much help on that night!
However, for “shopping day stir fried veggies” as a side dish, it is literally anything available chopped by whomever is available. I’ll give you some steps on tonight’s version, though it changes according to what’s left in the fridge on shopping day, who is home to help prepare veggies, and how many are there to eat it. (Leftover stir fry is not one of my family’s favorites!)
Tonight’s Version:
1 lb baby carrots
1 small zuchinni
6 oz snow peas
1 large green pepper
1 onion
1 lb brocolli
garlic
Mrs. Dash
oyster sauce
soy sauce
beef or chicken broth*
*Note: I seldom use oil to make a stir fry. If I do, it is just a little olive oil or coconut oil. I usually use broth to “fry” my stir fries
+I am a big pre-cooker. And I precook in the microwave, despite what some say about the microwave. It steams brocolli perfectly, and it is fast. So…
1. Steam carrots in micro. (I put carrots with a tablespoon or two of broth in glass measure and cover with plastic wrap. Then I steam for three to six minutes, depending on how many carrots I have and how done I want them before I add them to the stir fry pan.)
2. Heat small amount of broth in skillet while chopping onions, garlic, and peppers.
3. Stir fry aromatics (the three in #2) while you pull out the carrots.
4. Clean and chop brocolli and start steaming it in the micro in the same way as the carrots.
5. Slice zuchinni in thin rounds.
6. Add carrots, zuchinni, pea pods, garlic, Mrs. Dash, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and more broth, as needed and turn fire on medium high. Stir frequently as they cook.
7. When stir fry has just a minute or two left of cooking time, fold in the brocolli. (My guys do not like mushy brocolli, so I fold it in at the end.)
8. Continue to add more broth as needed while cooking.
And it looks like the picture below! đ
by Donna | Jan 31, 2013
I have discovered new-found freedom in cooking ground meat in my crock pot. This week’s Low Maintenance Chili is an example of this. While I do not have the exact ingredients for the chili (I usually just throw my chili together), I do have some notes on using the crock pot for the meat AND the soup–and for spending very little time doing so.
This “recipe” takes about 15 mins of work time on the part of the cook and only two dishes–the crock pot insert and a strainer/colander to drain the grease. This is a perfect dish for my Crock Pot Wednesday in which I assemble on Tuesday, stick in the fridge, and cook on Wednesday morning. The fifteen minutes of work is really just stirring the meat some and opening the cans and dumping them in.
Ingredients (sort of)
5 lbs of ground beef, uncooked
3 large cans of tomato juice
2 large cans of chili beans or light red kidney beans
1 lb of tiny pasta (ABCs or Acini di pepe–see note below)
chili powder
cumin
beef base
minced onion (or large whole onion, diced finely and cooked until translucent)
garlic powder
oregano
1. Put the 5 lbs of ground beef into a huge crock pot and turn on high.
2. Cook for one hour on high; remove lid and break up/stir with potato masher or other implement you usually use to break up ground meat as it cooks.
3. Cook on low for two more hours (stir once or twice).
4. Drain grease from crock pot/meat thoroughly and put meat back in crock pot.
5. Stir in other ingredients. May need water to finish filling it up–just add more beef base if you use water.
6. Spices–I usually use a lot of chili powder and minced onion; a little of the others; and a TBSP or two of beef base. (The beef base takes away the tomato-y taste/bitter taste that chili can sometimes have. If it still has this, I will add a tsp of sugar or Splenda too.)
7. Either cook now on high for an hour and low for three or four hours or stick crock insert in fridge until you are ready and cook for 90 mins on high then three or four hours on low.
Note about pasta: Cooking foods with pasta in them in the crock pot yields two potential problems for me–1. The pasta doesn’t get done, so I often precook it; 2. If I precook it, or the dish cooks in the crock pot for a long time, the pasta swells up and gets grainy. My family likes pasta in their chili, so I switched to these tiny pastas that do not require precooking but do not swell up so big either. They were a hit!
by Donna | Jan 24, 2013
âThere are games to be played, living room football to be conquered, talks to be had, words of affirmation to be spoken, talking books to be listened to, stories to be read, lessons to be learned, foods to be cooked, lego castles to be built, crafts to be made, tales to be told, songs to be sung, and hearts to be won. Turn off the television and turn on relationships.â
Today I bring you more tips for Taming the Television. I pray that these will help you to make the most of the time you have with your children. You will never regret the hours upon hours you spend discipling, mentoring, nurtering, heart training, and playing with your kids–take it from a mama with a thirty year old! Smile…
7. Replace television with something elseâyou!
About thirty years ago we went to a parenting seminar in which the speaker told a story of a dad who wanted to get rid of his familyâs television. His children balked at the idea. He told them that he was taking away the television but giving them something else. They asked him what this something else was, and he replied, âMe!â
Everyday his children would call him at work, anxiously awaiting his arrival home. âWhat are we going to do tonight, Daddy?â And each day he gave his children something far more valuable than television: he gave them himself.
Donât just remove television, certain nights of tv viewing, or tv time without replacing it. There are games to be played, living room football to be conquered, talks to be had, words of affirmation to be spoken, talking books to be listened to, stories to be read, lessons to be learned, foods to be cooked, lego castles to be built, crafts to be made, songs to be sung, and hearts to be won. Turn off the television and turn on relationships.
8. Have the children earn television hours.
This has been suggested to us many times when we speak about time management and time with your children, so it must work well for some folks! I have heard of various ways to earn tv timeâsame number of hours reading as watching, getting so many minutes per chore, earning minutes by doing things on time (i.e. homework done by six equals 30 mins tv), etc.
9. Watch out for preschoolers’ screen time!
This isnât a method for controlling as much as an admonition. Your preschoolers will grow to dislike simple pleasures very quickly if they watch television and movies all day. We had a âno movie during the day periodâ rule most of our lives. (The exception to this was one hour of educational dvds, like Reading Rainbow, Doughnut Man, NEST videos, etc. for one hour after naps with one particularly trying child.)
Note: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours per day of television for two year olds through preschoolers and none at all for children under two. There are so many more educational, meaningful, physical, and fun things for two, three, and four year olds to do besides watching television!
We teach the concept of “setting children’s tastes” in our parenting seminar–and it is so real and so true and so impacting that we want to shout it where ever we speak. Just like my two oldest kids despise pop because we “set their tastes” by not ever giving them any when they were little, so we set all of our children’s tastes for continual entertainment by bombarding them with it when they are young.
10. Make a âno turning on the television without permissionâ rule.
I am amazed when children come into a house and turn on the television. I have seen semi-pornography on commercials for television shows many, many times when we are at someoneâs house watching football or in a motel viewing television. I would never consider letting our kids have the remote control to a tv and flipping through the channels. They just see way more than they should see at their ages (or more than I want me or my husband to see!).
11. Be careful not to use television as a babysitter too much.
I know preschoolers and toddlers are demanding. I had six kids twelve and under all at home by myself twelve to fourteen hours a day every dayâwithout television (or even computers!)! However, continually putting little ones in front of the television is simply not healthy for them. Their attention spans will not lengthen like they would if they were listening to talking books, listening to you read aloud, “baking” a play-dough pie, or building with Duplos. Use the television as a babysitter only when it is absolutely neededâand try to find other ways to entertain toddlers as much as possible.
12. Limit daytime viewing for everyone.
We always told our kids that daytime isfor learning and workingâand evenings are for resting, fellowshipping, playing, and family. It is extremely hard to control the number of hours our kids watch television when they watch from seven to eight before school and again from four to six after schoolâto start with!
13. Pay attention to how much time children spend using all screen media.
In a study recorded in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the hours of actual screen time logged by children versus the hours that parents estimated were significantly different. In our media-driven age, we should be aware of all of our childrenâs media/screen timeânot just television*. In order to control the amount of time our children sit in front of entertainment screens, we must be realistic and honest about the amount of time they truly are being entertained by any screen.
14. Do not put a television set in a childâs bedroom.
The aforementioned study discovered that children with televisions in their bedrooms watch significantly more television than children without. Furthermore, parents monitored television habits much less when there were many television sets in a householdâand especially when the childrenâs rooms contained televisions.
15. Turn the television off when it is not being used for purposeful viewing.
The study previously cited found a negative association between the use of television as âbackgroundâ and childrenâs time spent reading. Quite frankly, reading is a simple pleasure that many children do not enjoyâbackground noise of television is not conducive to enjoying this pasttime that takes a great deal more effort than simply viewing and listening.
16. Pinpoint other nonscreen, in-home activities that your children enjoy.
When discussing the idea of reducing television viewing time in your home, you might have a family meeting and draw up a list of other ideas of things the family can do instead of watching television. A website devoted to helping families reduce their dependence upon television, The Television Turnoff Network (https://www.televisionturnoff.org/), lists one hundred alternatives to âscreen timeâ that parents can suggest to their children.
Family time is worth fighting for. The relationships that can be developed when some of the distractions are removed are incredible. The amazing things that we and our children can do with the time that we are not watching television are worthwhile. Donât let your children set out to spend nearly fourteen years of their lives watching television!
*Jordan, Amy, PhD; James C. Hersey, PhD; Judith A. McDivitt, PhD; Carrie D. Heitzler, MPH. âReducing Children’s Television-Viewing Time: A Qualitative Study of Parents and Their Children.â Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Web. Feb 2010.
by Donna | Jan 22, 2013
âTV will never be a serious competitor for radio because people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it. â from New York Times, 1939
With so many new year’s resolutions involving time–family time, controlling time, more time with those we love, less wasted time, etc., I thought I would re-work parts of a lengthy series I did on here a few years ago–this time titled “Taming the Television.”
When Ray and I speak or write about allowing more time to be with your kids, we are always asked how we have so much time for our kids, especially in light of our business and ministry. And the answer lies in not where we get the time (we all get the same amount, remember), but where we allocate the time we have been given.
Thirty-two years ago this summer Ray and I were married in a little country church. The best marriage advice we received (and followed) has also become our best parenting advice: do not get a television. Somebody told us not to get a television set for the first year of marriage but instead spend time together, talking and getting to know one another, developing intimacy and romance. We took that adviceâand have been âstationlessâ for most of the thirty-two years of our family, though we did get a vcr and eventually a dvd to watch movies. (We tried getting stations one year, but didnât like the way it dictated our evening schedule and stole time from us. We just got a television and Netflix about a month ago–and so far, so good!)
With the advent of computers, dvdâs, i-pads, and other electronic devices, we have other things to contend with for our attentionâand our entire family loves moviesâhowever, we have found that by not being able to get television stations (via antennae, box, cable, etc.), we have gained the most-sought-after commodity: time. The latest statistic on television viewing in America is twenty-eight hours per week, per person. Even if we and our children watch three movies a week (which is a stretch many months), we still have twenty more hours every week than the âaverageâ American.
We cannot tell people that they should get rid of television as it is all bad. Nowadays, more than ever before, there are tons of good, interesting, entertaining things to watch. Educational and informative programs abound. Good movies are available at the flip of the remote. However, one thing has stayed the same: television (and now internet or internet television) is the greatest time robber of all things that vie for our attention.
Getting rid of television programming is not an option for most people, I realize. After all, itâs an American institution! However, I propose to you that even getting control of the television could potentially yield you more time than you would know what to do with! And would give you literally hours each week to spend with your kids.
Consider the math for a moment. If a person is the âaverageâ American watching twenty-eight hours a week of television, over an eighty year life, that person will have watched 13.29 YEARS of televisionâ28 hours a week x 4 weeks x 80 years=116,480 hoursâŚ.divided by 24 hours in each day equals 4,854 hours, which equals 13.29 years of twenty-four hour days. Imagine the relationships we could build with our children; imagine the things we could learn; imagine the good we could doâwith even half of that time, say six and a half yearsâgiven to us. Makes me want to control my time just a little better!
Today and tomorrow I will give you many ideas and tips for Taming the Television–some that we have used successfully and some that we have heard of others using. Here we go:
1. Set weekly time limits.
Even with the ability to only watch movies for at least thirty of our thirty-two years, we have had to set weekly limits when it seemed that every day someone wanted to watch a movie! We have usually had the four to six hour movie rule per weekâand found that this was enough for the kids to watch a thing or two that they wanted on dvd (currently Monk on dvd) and a family movie or two.
This varies with kids, too. A couple of our kids really like watching movies; our three boys recently went an entire month without watching anything, even though they were allowed to watch if they asked. Now they got a television series on dvd and have watched several hours in one week. It is the spirit of this ruleânot the letterâthat we try to follow. It is about being in control of your life (and teaching your kids to be in control of theirs)ânot about a certain number. We balance this time out so that it is enough entertainment to enjoy being entertained, but not so much that it controls our lives.*
2. Set television days.
We had a rule for over a dozen years that other than educational dvdâs (we use some teachers on cd/dvd for school), movies could only be watched on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I prefer the #1 idea as sometimes the children wanted to watch, watch, watch simply because it was the weekend.*
3. Decide ahead of time what programs/times/days the family will watch television each week.
Many child development experts recommend thisâand call it the âfamily viewing schedule.â Write these programs/times on a calendar or schedule, and only turn the television on during those times. This method provides you with conscientious, purposeful viewingânot just, âWow, weâre home, so we should turn on the television.â
4. Cover your television or put it away unless it is purposeful viewing time. We have our television on a rolling cart in my bedroom closet.
This worked for us for most of our family’s life because if we had a television to watch movies on, it was not hooked up to anything to keep it in one place (i.e. cable or box, etc.). I know this might not work if you have it hooked up to receive programming, but our family loved this. We just sat in the living room and talked for hoursâno television calling out to us, no âfavorite programsâ causing us to work around them. If you do have your television hooked up to something, you might consider having it in an armoire or other close-able cupboard. Again, the out of sight, out of mind concept works wonders, especially for younger children.
5. When you do watch movies and television, watch it together whenever possible.
This will allow you to keep tabs on what your children are seeing/hearing, but it will also create opportunities for lively discussions. We love to talk about movies that we have watched. We love to quote lines from them back and forth to each other. Watching together allows you to share the entertainment, not just passively watch shows separately.
Obviously, we cannot do this all the time. The boys were on a Psyche kick (on dvd)with one of their sisters. They only watched it when the four of them could all watch it togetherâand Ray and I seldom joined them. We didnât have the time then to devote to watching it, and we knew that they were watching it together, so that worked out well.
Family viewing will be more of an event than an everyday occasion if certain shows or time slots are dedicated to family television watching or movie watching rather than just evening free-for-alls.
6. Declare certain days âtv-less days.â
If you cannot get rid of television programming all together, the âtv-less daysâ seems to be the next best thing to me. Decide what evenings/days are peopleâs least favorite days to watch something, and make those evenings no television evenings. Cover the television upâand donât even consider turning it on. If you manage to have three evenings a week without television, you will likely cut your familyâs viewing by one third, at least. Just imagine evenings together without anything distracting everybody. If you do this, follow our familyâs âreplacementâ ruleâif youâre going to take something away from your kids, replace it with something else. (More on this tomorrow!)
Well, I am out of time and space. Tomorrow I will post tips for television viewing reduction for children specifically. Same bat time. Same bat channel. (Sorry–I just couldnât resist.)
*Note: With the ability to watch things online, watch dvdâs, stick a dvd in the laptop, etc., we have found it especially important to include all viewing in these time or day limits. Thus, the four to six hours a week includes anything they watchâunless they watch it at Grandpaâs for an overnighter or go to their brother’s to watch football or something.
by Donna | Jan 6, 2013
âTime in a Bottleâ
Donna Reish
If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you
But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with
Time. Itâs such a precious commodity. Something that those of us who have been parenting, say, for thirty years, with at least six more years of âkids at homeâ time, have come to understand the preciousness of.
You know the whole âEnjoy them now âcoz theyâll grow up too fast!â (Or worse yet, âEnjoy them now âcoz soon theyâll be preteens back talking you and making your life miserable.â SadnessâŚ) Anyway, I remember people telling me all the time that time would go fastâŚand I never believed them.
However, during our early parenting years (the first fifteen of them), my husband worked a job that took him out of the house sixty to seventy hours a week at least fifty weeks a year. Because of that, while we didnât understand that our kids really would âgrow up so fast,â we came to put a real value on time. We learned to use it wisely, to be efficient, and to âspendâ it on the most important things to usâour kids, marriage, and God.
Time is so similar to moneyâyet so different than money. Like money, once it (i.e. today) is spent, it is goneânever to be retrieved again. Like money, there is only a certain amount of itâand we always wish we had more of it. Like money, it can be âspentâ foolishly or wisely, invested or squandered, used for good or for evil. Like money, it is valuable and sought after.
Unlike money, we all get the exact same amount of it. One of my pet peeves is to hear someone say, âI donât have time for __________.â Maybe Iâm just too literal, but, honestly, we all have the same amount of time to begin with. Granted, some of us have predetermined âtime expensesââsuch as a large family, an ailing parent, or other way in which our time must automatically be utilized. In that way, we donât really all have the same amount, of course, because those peopleâs time is already partially earmarked. However, it is probably more accurate to say, âI have already allotted my time elsewhere, so thereâs not enough left for ______.â (Okay, thatâs getting pickyâŚbut we all know people who waste A LOT of timeâthen say that they do not have time for this or that.)
Iâm somewhat of a âtime freak.â You know how some people just really seem to love moneyâand want more and more of it? Well, that is me with time. Every year when itâs time to âspring forwardâ and move our Indiana clocks up one hour, I go through the house ranting that âsomeone just stole an hour from meâ and âwe should do somethingâI just had an hour stolen,â etc. etc. (To be fair, when we âfall backwardsâ and gain an hour, I also squeal with delight that âsomeone just gave me an hourâââI canât believe that I have been given a whole extra hour!â And yes, this tradition drives my family crazy!) This afternoon, when my family pulled out to go watch football, I looked at the clock and did my mental math, fell back on the bed and said aloud gleefully, âI have been given four precious hours to do whatever I want to do!â (Thatâs not really true because this week I start teaching writing to seventy-four students, so I have some definite âpredetermined time expensesâ in my life right now!) But yeah, Iâm crazy about time. I love clocks, hourglasses, and time pieces. I have timers in six drawersâand the most used app on my phone is definitely my timer!
Strange time attachments aside, what does time have to do with âCharacter Training From the Heartâ (our new blog name and seminar name) or âPositive Parentingâ (our former name)? So many of our New Yearâs resolutions, family goals, relationship needs, household jobs, and work tasks could be accomplished much better simply with better time management skills. A funny difference between time and money that we often do not consider is that of âstolen moneyâ or âstolen time.â If someone broke into our car and stole our billfold (and a hundred dollars), we would be outraged. We had been ârobbedââsome of our precious commodity of money taken from us. We had plans with that money. We were going to pay a bill or buy some needed item for our kids. But now that money is goneâstolen.
However, we continually allow time robbers to rob us of our timeâwithout being outraged or trying to put a stop to it. We purposely have chosen not to have a television or game system for most of our parenting years. When people asked us (especially many years ago with several kids at home and homeschooling, etc.) how we got so much done, we only needed to say, âWe donât have a television.â And they noddedâthey knew exactly how we got so much done.
Now Iâm not saying that anything fun should be omitted from your life (my family is at our oldest sonâs house watching football and when they return, my husband and I are going dancing!), but I am saying that we canât complain about not having enough time, we canât wonder why we canât get certain things done, we canât wish for more hours with our kids and spouseâif we let time robbers continually steal them from us (the hours, not the kids!).
We would all love to be able to âsave time in a bottleâ like the old Jim Croce song says. We would all love to âmake days last foreverâ sometimes. But as the song says, that canât happenâand âthere never seems to be enough time to do the things we want to doâŚ.â
So what do we do to âget more timeâ? What do we do to get more accomplished? What do we do to have more time with our kids? Tune in later this week—for some âTimely Tipsââthings that we have found to work for us in the areas of time management and saving that âtime in a bottle.â
P.S. For those of you who are nostalgic for old music, like I am, Iâll put the Youtube link below to that song. Take a look at the words—they really are poignant when it comes to parenting. And no, I am not just fond of this song because it is an absolutely perfect Viennese Waltz song! SmileâŚ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTfbtZeGeU
