Amy Beth

September 30, 2013

September in Review

Another month has gone by, and once again I’m linking up with [Emily at Chatting at the Sky](http://www.chattingatthesky.com/2013/09/27/learned-september/) to share the things I’ve learned this month.

1. **Late summer/early fall is almond season.** I know this because we have an almond tree in our backyard and it has been dropping almonds by the bushel-full. When I first learned we had an almond tree I was kind of excited about it. I started envisioning tasty desserts and breakfast granolas full of fresh toasted almonds harvested from our backyard. But then I looked into what it takes to prepare almonds for eating and realized that I will **not** be harvesting my own almonds. Here’s why:

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September 25, 2013

Make Your Own Menu Planning Board

Meal Planning Board

I’ve long admired those cute little menu planning boards that I’ve seen floating around Pinterest. I assume that people with such boards must be super crafty and organized and have some kind of magical craft-and-organize time in their days.

But it turns out that’s not really the case because I made myself a menu planning board. It is moderately cute and I got it done in one evening after my boy was in bed and before I hit my daily wall of exhaustion. Here’s how it went down.

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September 18, 2013

A Tip for Motherhood

I’ve discovered a very helpful tip for motherhood thanks to a recent Google image search.

You see, part of my job involves finding images to show during my pastor’s sermons on Sundays. Many times this involves finding images of people experiencing certain emotions. For this particular sermon I needed to find an image of a mom who was feeling stressed out or overwhelmed. Here is a sampling of some of the images I found. See if you can come up with the handy tip…

Unknown-2Unknown-1stressed-mother-in-kitchenimages-4images-2images-5

Did you notice it?

Let this be a lesson from Google:

Small children, telephones, and the kitchen do not mix.

Just don’t even try. Then maybe you won’t end up looking like one of these lovely ladies.

Maybe.

September 7, 2013

Navigating Nutrition – Introduction

navgatingnutrition

I’m standing in a grocery store aisle trying to pick out some snacks for my husband to take to work. They need to be filling and substantial, but I feel like they should also be healthy. So I stand around and consider labels. This snack is “all-natural” but full of soy. Didn’t I read somewhere that soy is bad for you? This one is low-fat, but full of sodium. This one is low sodium, but has a million preservatives. I suppose I could just get an apple, but isn’t fruit high in sugar?

Does this feel familiar to anyone?

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September 3, 2013

For Scary Times

Sometimes it’s hard to listen to the news. News about unstable nations that don’t seem to listen to reason. News about stable nations that can’t seem to agree on anything. News about the blatant disregard taken towards our environment. News about crazy dictators who may or may not have access to horribly destructive weapons. News about humans reduced to commodities. The list goes on and on…

Being a mother has changed the way I hear these stories. I used to just shake my head in disappointment. Or get all righteously indignant about the ways the rulers of the world rule the world. But now I worry. And fear.

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