Home Is My Happy Spot

Work with the Space You Have Growing up in a rural community, we never lacked space for an amazing garden.  Our one-acre plot was very fertile, boasting healthy soil beds that produced an abundant harvest of fruits, vegetables, and flowers.  Our garden spanned nearly the full length of our property, and I can still imagine the sight of my dad wrestling his tiller between the rows.     I loved running to the garden to snap cucumbers, squash, green peppers, and tomatoes from their vines so my mom could include them in her plans for dinner.  I especially loved when she turned our tender lettuces into mouth-watering wilted lettuce .  What we couldn't eat was frozen or canned to sustain us through the winter months.  That garden saved our blue-collar family a lot of money back in the 1980's. I've never fully adjusted to life in the suburbs.  Everything we need is within a 5-10 minute jaunt, but the convenience will never compensate for being confi...

All of My Friends Have Cell Phones! Has your child been begging you to get her a cell phone?  Is she lamenting she's the only person in her peer group without one.  She may be right. A study by Common Sense Media , an organization that conducts original research to ensure the digital well-being of kids, reports these mind-blowing statistics: By age 11, more than half of U.S. kids possess a cell phone. By age 12, two-thirds of kids have a phone. By age 14, teens are as likely as adults to have a cell phone. About 20% of kids as young as eight have cell phones! What's a parent to do? Cell Phones Are an Artificial Form of Communication Buying your child a phone today isn't like it used to be when rotary and touchtone phones were the standard forms of communication.  If you grew up in the age when extension cords from a wall-mounted phone could stretch to nearly every room in your house, you remember spending hours on it talking to friends, family, and love interests. The b...

Train Up Your Children Proverbs 22:6 directs parents to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it . We are living in a world that seems to have gone insane.  We are told men can give birth, people can pick their own genders, and pregnancies can be terminated without regard to human life.  Patriots are dubbed oppressors and racists, while domestic terror and fascist groups like BLM and Antifa are considered heroes.   Our culture is completely upside down from how God originally created it! The Ideal Children's Bible Trivia game is scripturally sound. Yet, here we are, trying to raise our kids in a climate that is growing increasingly hostile to people of faith.  It's imperative we use all tools available to root and ground our children in the Word of God so they will have the fortitude to stand firm against the enemy. As a Christian parent, you are undoubtedly doing your best to teach your kids to swim upstream agains...

Broccoli Salad Tastes Especially Good In Summer Broccoli salad is delicious any time of the year, but on warmer days, it is the perfect, light accompaniment to summer dishes, especially grilled ones. While some people consider eating broccoli a punishment, this delicious salad might make them a little more receptive to acquiring a taste for it.   The health benefits of broccoli are vast.  Being part of the cruciferous vegetable family means broccoli can help prevent cancer, offer heart protection, support brain health, promote bone strength, fight inflammation, and act as a natural detox with antioxidant protection. While none of those health advantages will help sell broccoli salad to your kids, you can serve it to them anyway, knowing it does their bodies good.  Adding the bacon might even tempt your spouse to try it.  We will pretend the broccoli goodness overrides the unhealthy attributes of bacon.   Broccoli Salad with Bacon and Cheese, coated wi...

The Secret Ingredient In Wilted Lettuce Back in grandma's day, culinary delights were made with heart-stopping lard rather than butter.  Maybe you've never heard of lard, but it comes from pig fat, and as gross as that sounds, makes the best biscuits and flaky pie crusts you've ever eaten. In the era of big gardens where families saved money on meals by freezing and canning their own homegrown produce, wilted lettuce during the growing season was a special treat at dinner.   Wilted lettuce is a summertime specialty. Simmering wilted lettuce dressing on the stovetop fills the kitchen with a pungent, mouth-watering aroma.  It takes me back to my own childhood when I'd come in from playing and find mom busy preparing some for dinner.   What makes this old-fashioned recipe so delicious?  The secret ingredient to wilted lettuce is bacon grease .  Before you slap your hands to your face in horror, let me remind you that paradoxically in our ultra, heal...