Caramel Apple Tea

Let me start this off by saying I am a BIG coffee person. I only dabble in hot tea. I love iced tea in the Summer months..but hot tea has never been my thing.
Recently though I have developed a bit of a taste for hot tea. I drink it unsweetened..and honestly I think that is why I have been drinking it lately. My coffee has more calories added to it than it should. The tea is zero calories. Plus the tea is cheaper than the coffee per cup.
Yes, I am one of those weird people who knows the calories and the price of each cup of coffee and tea....and I think about both while I am sipping. It is a number sickness, really, it is.

I did not used to be a cold natured person...but recently I have been. Given the fact that I basically lost an Olsen twin in the last four years (a.k.a. 90 lbs) I'm guessing that could be partly to blame. I have a lot less insulation that I used to.
Needless to say..I crave warm liquids throughout the day to make up for the chill I feel.

I have been branching out lately and trying different flavors. My daughters (3 and 7) love to drink tea in the mornings as well. Between the three of us there are about 8 boxes of different flavors in the house at the moment. lol  Thankfully, tea has a long shelf life.
Oh well..I know they will have memories of snuggles and sipping warm tea on cold mornings in our tiny house.
My most recently favorite flavor is pictured above. Caramel Apple Dream. It is amazing..and the apple flavor even gives it a sweetened taste. YUM!

It is the perfect addition to the very chilly Fall weather we are having right now.
I like to make a cup in the afternoon and sip it while I watch the kids play outside after our school work is finished. It is very relaxing.
Speaking of relaxing...my preschooler recently discovered 'sleepy time' tea and absolutely loves it before bed. I'm not sure if it actually helps her sleep but it definitely is a reason for her to take a pause in the evenings and sit still long enough to drink it..which then in turn equals, a passed out child.
You know how three years old are though...they are a force that stays in motion..if they stop, it is all systems failure until morning. :)

Well, I'm off to sip my tea and finish up the dishes.


Happy Friday!

Lyndsay

How We Came To Call The Tiny House, Home

I am sitting here thinking back on how we came to be living in this tiny house of ours.
The story starts about 11 months ago.
It was December 10th 2013. My husband and I have made some big changes in our lives the last few years. We had made the continuous choice to pray for God's will to be done in our lives. That had brought about a lot of changes both emotional and physical. Along these changes my husband had been lead to leave his position at his work and work full time from home. He had wanted to do it for so long. This time last year we were working from home, we were very busy. It was a good business and my husband was very popular...but he turned to me and said..'I'm not sure this is what God really wants for us.'
We had prayed endlessly before he left his position and we knew we had made the right decision when he left..but it turns out, that wasn't where God had planned for us to end up.
So, once again we prayed for guidance and the Lord's will. We got our answer a couple of months later.  On December 10th...my husband came to me and said he had found a house and he felt God wanted us to buy it. We had looked at a couple other houses but it just wasn't the right fit. This house however..it was God sent. It was a disaster lol but never the less a God send.
I did not even see it before we put the money down to hold the property. My husband had come up to look at it(in 4 inches of snow) and instantly called to tell me to call the realtor and put a hold on it. I did.
He took me up a couple of days later. The house took my breath away..literally. It smelled and was a mess. But then again...must 100 year old foreclosures are. lol It had a garage (if you could call it that), out buildings, woods, county water, cable access, was away from town, but not too far out. Everything we had prayed for in a house.
But..the best part?? We paid for it with cash!
 We did not do anything to the house until after the first of the year. We climbed into the van with all of the children (they helped every step of the way) one snowy January day..and set to work.
We decided that tearing out the drywall and carpet would give us a good look at what we had to work with.
As I sit here I am picturing flash backs. I had a dead mouse fall out of the ceiling on my head. We found roaches in the walls and it was so dirty and gross.  The kitchen plumbing ran through the living room on top of the floor. You had to step over it to get into another part of the house.There was a huge hole and leaking in the roof around the chimney. The original part of the house was clearly built well..the additions and later 'improvements' were not built well. The people who lived here before had clearly not taken good care of the house or the buildings and grounds.
That was ok though..that is why we were here.
We decided later that day that part of the structure would have to come down due to it being poorly built. My husband is a stickler for things being down correctly and the way it was at the time, just was not going to work.
We filled 3 huge construction dumpsters, took off three additions and gutted the entire house back to studs.
Popped out part of the original roof and put in four dormers(we had 5 inches of snow and it was -7 that day), put on a new roof..rebuilt two of the additions, put in all new windows, door(s), insulations, plumbing, electric. basically we have built a brand new house inside the bones of a 100 year old house.
I just adore the hand crafted solid oak beams in the original structure. The history of the house just fascinates me. My husband loves to build and I am a descent helper...so we were almost made for this. :)
The house started out at 1400 square feet..it is now just a little under 1000 square feet. Probably closer to 980 square feet.
We love this house. It has taken us 11 months of blood sweat and tears..but it is finally livable. At least parts of it. We moved in the second week of September and live in a little less than half of the house at the moment. It is a bit cramped but it is home. Every week we get more accomplished and the house grows in comfort and space.
We made a purposeful decision to downsize when we were looking for a house. Part of asking God to show us His will involved the decision to be debt free and to downsize and live minimally. We are still working on some of these things... and Lord willing we will accomplish all of them in due time. This debt free tiny house was a huge step in right direction for our lives.
It you had told me a little over a year ago that our lives would be as different as they are today..I'm not sure I would have believed you. The past year has been a roller coaster of emotions and changes. It was painful at times but progress is never painless. It is painful and new and makes you feel vulnerable. It changes parts of you that you never expected. This past year my husband and I have growled at each other, worked together. We learned a lot more about each others strengths and weaknesses and have grown so much closer. When one of us reached the point of breaking, the other was strong enough to pick up the other and move forward. Our family has worked, rested, cried and rejoiced together on this new journey of our lives. The children worked so hard to lend a hand and have grown so much this year.
I am so proud of my family and what we have accomplish with our tiny home this year.

I will be adding pictures to this post as well as keeping up with the renovation with posts from this point forward.

I look forward to sharing our tiny house journey with you all. :)

~ Lyndsay

Homemade Noodles= Free Therapy

I grew up making and eating homemade noodles quite often. Then I married my amazing husband and he was not a fan of homemade noodles. So I rarely ever made them. A couple times for church functions and family get togethers. That was it.
I have missed them. I finally pinned down why he didn't like them and we came to a compromise.
He says they are not filling and he is always hungry an hour later. He suggested I serve them with something else...like a baked potato. I grew up eating them with mashed potatoes...so the baked potato part seemed very foreign to me. I figured anything was better than nothing at that point and agreed to baked the potatoes instead of mashing them.
I'm glad we agreed on this because the noodles were a big hit. Each of the children had seconds, if not thirds. I enjoyed them and loved bringing a new meal to the family table.
I think I enjoy the process of the noodles even more than I enjoy eating them.
Cooking and picking the chicken. Seasoning the broth.
Mixing the All purpose flour with baking soda and salt(I do not purchase self rising flour)..adding the eggs and stirring.
Kneading, rolling and flouring to dry.
Waiting, and waiting...
Then letting the children help roll, slice and tear the noodles.

My favorite part is adding the noodles to the broth and watching it dip and twist. Seeing the clear broth thicken and turn into a creamy gravy just makes the world seem a little more right...a little less unpredictable.

I am not the type to add food coloring to my food..and I keep that rule with my chicken and noodles. Why go to all the trouble of making a meal from scratch and in the healthiest form (less chemicals) possible to turn around and add more chemicals to it.

The compromise seemed to have went over well here at the tiny house. The husband was happy and his belly was full, the children got to experience one of my favorite childhood meals and I got to make one of my favorite meals.

Plus the process of making noodles is so relaxing and therapeutic...and the end result of a steaming bowl of noodles on a rainy fall evening...is a very rewarding feeling.

Oh and as for the compromise. I took the skin off my potato, smashed it in my bowl and added butter and then put the noodles on top. ;) Because a country girl has got to have her mashed potatoes under her chicken and noodles.

Happy Fall!

-Lyndsay