Utah Natural Meat -- Shop Here if You are Able

Utah Natural Meat
7400 S. 5600 W. West Jordan, UT

       I wanted to make a quick shout out to a local haunt my family adores. Utah Natural Meat is the farm where we purchase our meat. Shayn and and Kristen Bowler are third generation owners and operators of this little family business. And when I say little, well, I mean tiny as businesses go these days. They hire temporary help here and there, but they employ only one regular staff member. This is a true family business, and has been in the family since the 1940's.

Some of the things I love about about this little family and farm:

• They are so obviously hard working. They go out of their way to make sure their customers are happy. And at times when I've been pregnant, they have always gone out of their way to make my visit as easy as possible.
• They are honest. I was chatting one day with their worker as she checked out the packages I was buying. The conversations went something like me saying, "I really love this store. The family has always seemed so great!" To which their worker said something like, "Oh, I love working for the Bowlers. They are beyond scrupulous. It is just so nice working for people who are so concerned with being honest about the way they operate." Conversations like this say a lot to me about a business owner. I'm sold.
• They sell a variety of meats, and have very reasonable prices. You will find beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, and turkey. They sell the muscle meats, which are awesome, but they also sell organ meats (liver, kidneys, and heart), fat from pigs and beef for rendering into lard and tallow, and bones.

• They sell eggs pastured eggs! Walking up the the store you will often see a variety of chickens meandering around.

• Speaking of that, all of their animals are pastured. As you drive up to the store you will see fields with pigs running around, mother cows with their calves, a tiny little donkey named Pepper, two draft horses, King and Duke. (We recently went to a family day at the farm and got a wagon ride with these beautiful horses. Amazing animals.) They often times will have turkeys wandering around too. And our favorite, the farm dog, Maggie. She is just the sweetest fuzzy girl.

Shayn with Duke and King

• Another great thing about family operations like this is they are a family. They have children the same age as mine, and so all of these animals are accustomed to children and their antics. I love going there and seeing toy tractors all over the place, and knowing that I can let my kids wander while I grab what I need. Maggie thrives on the attention the kids pour on her.

• They specialize in a heritage breed of cattle called corriente. If you click on the link to their website, you can read there all the great things about the corriente breed. I can testify, it is excellent quality beef, and again, the price cannot be beat.
• Along with their animal ventures, they also grow vegetables to sell in the summer and fall months, and they have local bee keepers, and artisan soap and cheese makers who sell their wares in the farm store as well.
• Oh, and they grow all their own feeds for their animals. Yes. I know, can real people be this fabulous? Non-GM alfalfa, and during the winter they have a green fodder system so the animals get greens year round. Bless them.*

      So there you have it. I am an advocate for buying locally, and wanted to get the word out there about this fantastic family and their little store. We can't raise all of our own meats yet. In the mean time (whatever that means) we feel good about our purchases here, knowing the animals raised here have good lives in sunny fields free to roam, with good real foods to eat. 

Thank you, Kristen and Shayn!

*Utah Natural Meat is not organic certified, however, they do use non-GM, corn/soy free feeds for all of their animals. You can read about their choice to remain uncertified here.

Note: It appears I forgot to mention Utah Natural Meat's store hours. They are open Thursdays 2:00pm-5:30pm, and Saturdays 9:00am-12:00pm.

Seize the Moment

I can't get it all done. There is always more to do than I can do. There are always things left undone at the end of the day.

Familiar story?

Even when I manage to stay on top of the bare basics, there are plenty of undone extras: things I want or need to do, but can't find enough time.

Enough time. That's my hang-up. I actually have bunches of tiny windows of time (10 minutes here, 20 minutes there), but sometimes I don't even try to start something because I know I won't have time to finish it before I leave the house, before naptime, before my student comes, before I have to start dinner, before.....

Usually, these are non-essentials (i.e. not necessary for survival). Things like:

• Plant winter crops (including the seed garlic that's been in my fridge for two months)
• Tackle the piles on the desks and in the corners
• Plan a lesson on Mexico for the our little homeschooling co-op
• Writing time (journal, thank you notes, letters)
• Practice my violin
• Pick a bagful of avocados
• Cut the boys' hair
• Take inventory of our 72-hour kits and food storage
• Make sauerkraut and kimchi before I lose those cabbages
• Record songs and poems for a bedtime playlist for my boys
• Learn a song on my guitar
• Write regular blog posts! 

You know what happens when I wait for a big enough window of time? They usually remain undone. I miss my chance to plant the garlic, piles become household fixtures, I lose the cabbages, etc. etc.

source

I have decided to forget about enough time. Instead, I break it down and seize the moment! I do something instead of putting it off "until I have time." Seizing the moment often has a lovely domino effect. For example:

The Garden
I went outside to call the boys inside, then decided to give them a few extra playtime minutes and readied two garden boxes for new seeds. Feeling motivated a few hours later, I took a loose 15 minutes and planted that garlic! When I had a student cancel in the afternoon, still feeling extra happy about having that garlic underground, I also planted parsley, cilantro, carrots, beets, and sugar snaps! I happily admired the dirt under my nails all day. :)

The Messy Studio Corner
When I had only a handful of minutes before a student arrived, I plunged in and filed the music that had been piling on and around my filing cabinet. When I finished teaching that day, I stayed in the studio an extra ten minutes, sorted a few more papers, and left the top of the file cabinet looking respectable. My mind is so much clearer in there now!

Writing Time
I can do this while the boys do their schoolwork. Or maybe nab ten minutes after I brush my teeth at night. Or just write it when I think of it! That only takes a couple minutes, and then (in the case of a journal) I don't forget what I wanted to document. A few journal lines is better than nothing, right?? Keeping journals out in the open inspires regularity.

Practicing
This is the hardest one to face without a real block of time. Just when I feel warmed up, I have to stop. But I learned this week that a well-used 20 minutes here and there still builds on itself. It is very satisfying.

Blogging
Well, look at me go. :) Started this one last night, finished this morning during the boys' free time. On my iPad, I keep a running list of possible topics with notes under each one so I have a ready outline when a window of time and computer access happily coincide.

Sometimes I use a few minutes to do things half-way, such as pulling the emergency gear from the garage, ready to look over. The danger here is creating more mess with no concrete plan to finish. To avoid this trouble, I jot down the main things I would like to accomplish in any leftover time during the day (I have my weekly calendar scrawled on a whiteboard in the dining area). This prioritizing helps me feel okay about not having time to finish once I start.

source

SIDE NOTE: Seizing the moment is twice as hard if I don't sleep enough at night. As I feel accomplished seeing my extras get done, I am highly motivated to go to bed at a decent hour.  It's a nice cycle to get stuck in.

How do you seize the moment? Share your secrets!

Suppa' Time

Between 5:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. chaos erupts in the cute little ranch-style house with the white picket fence. Fiery explosions come in blasts from a tired one year-old, crashes come from a penned-up toddler who loves to romp through walls and furniture, and an almost-teenage angst comes from a kid who wants to play but needs to work a bit, even after a long day of school. 

The water in the pot bubbles to a boil, the vegetables begin to steam, and the oven temperature climbs. The heat is on at the Marshall's in those pre-dinner hours.

Dad comes home and the chaos melts into symphonic celebration. Loud joy. 

Then dinner, which is a clamor. For food, yes, but more for attention. This comes in the form of boisterous baby babbling, talking through stuffed cheeks, standing up on chairs, loud voices bouncing off the narrow dining room walls, and behavior fit for an oafish lump of vikings. 

I'm out of ideas. 

I love dinner.  I work hard to make dinner and to prepare for it.  We even breathe and stretch for a while before dinner starts to help everyone mellow out.  

What do you do so that meal prep time and dinner time are peaceful, happy times?  How do you teach and reinforce manners without making them the only topic of conversation at dinner?  How do you teach your children to be polite when other people are talking?

Dinner Prep Tip: Veggis

We eat lots of vegetables in our house, though, we could always do better. And you know what usually takes the longest for me at dinner prep? Cutting up those veggis...

So in an effort to have dinner ready at a more reasonable hour, I have started cutting veggis during nap time.

Because naps are over at 3, usually, cutting the veggis at around 2:30 doesn't leave them cut, but uncooked, long enough for them to dry into grossness.

I find when there are a lot of steps to a given dinner, taking time to do as many steps as I can here and there throughout the day, makes the actual cooking time less stressful.

Being in the "prep" mindset allows me to make meals that are more digestible, and nutritious for my family, in a more time economical way -- time economical = less stress. For me. Sometimes prep work is done the day of a given meal, sometimes a few days in advance i.e. soaking grains, or flour; sprouting nuts, seeds, and beans; fermenting a side veggi, etc.

What have you found to save you time in the kitchen, while not letting nutrition fall to the wayside?

And here's a bonus:

The clothes are a little big for him, so they make him look super skinny. He is on the leaner side than George was at this age, for sure -- though, he is super long...

Chore Cards

I've been reading "The Parenting Breakthrough: A Real-Life Plan to Teach Your Kids to Work, Save Money, and be Truly Independent" by Merrilee Browne Boyack.  Although I disagree with her that, "The ultimate goal of raising children is to help them out of our lives and into successful lives of their own," she has a lot of good information.  I think "interdependence" is a higher goal, but "independence" is needed first, so that's where we start.

One of the best things in her book is a large list of age appropriate chores.  Everyone's list would probably be different, but it's good to have a starting point!  I thought of a fun way to display the jobs of the day.

I loved this project because it was conceived of and completed--all before lunch!  That's my kind of project.  For the picture, I used this free template, and I used a frame and hooks I already had.  Nails sticking out perpendicularly would work too.  The complete stack of cards is hanging above the two frames in the kitchen.  If you didn't want to draw your own pictures, I'm sure you could find some good chore printables.  I used some of Boyack's jobs, and added some.

Daily Jobs

Brush teeth
Brush hair
Make bed

Rotating Jobs

Put utensils away

Pick up 30 things

Set table

Take out recyclables

Clean room

Put clean clothes away

Sweep ______

Put books away

Pick up puzzles

Unload dishwasher

Wash dishes

Help in the yard

Daddy's helper

Mommy's helper

Almost all of those jobs could be fitted to the ability of the child.  I give my 4.5 year old the three daily jobs, two rotating jobs, and a card that says "practice reading" (he has a list of words, and he learns a new word every day and we read a book together).  My 2.5 year old has his daily jobs, and one rotating job.  I will probably be adding a "practice letters" or something on his job list soon.  

I wanted the jobs to be something I wasn't nagging about, but something they just knew they had to do, and I wanted them to get the sense that it was better to do the jobs early.  So, as an incentive for early completion, they get a 15 min iPad turn if they finish their jobs before breakfast, 10 min if finished before lunch, and 5 if they finish before Andrew comes home.  They need to do the jobs before dinner.  Also, I will help them, on my terms, with some of their jobs: "I am available to help you clean your room right now.  If you don't come now, you'll need to do it on your own."

This system has really worked for us.  I have been surprised how much the boys have taken to this system!  They actually really love waking up and checking their chore cards!  After the first week, I removed all their cards, and hung a "cookie" from each hook.  When Abraham saw it, he said, "Those aren't chores!" And as he ate the cookies, he gave himself his daily jobs, and two of his favorite rotating jobs.

Boyack recommends a strick training schedule, which we might implement in the future.  For now, I want them to have positive association with chores and think of them as "doable."  I know the boys well enough to know when they've made an honest effort, and I give them little pointers as they go.

What has worked for you?  Do you have some kind of a chart or pocket system?  What chores do your children do?

Toy Rotation

We've had a "one toy out at a time" rule for some time (stifle that laugh, please). With two well-meaning but highly imaginative, active boys to keep up with, we mostly find ourselves nagging, "Uh-oh! Looks like we have more than one toy out right now." "You can get that one out after these are put away." "How many toys are out right now?" "What's the toy rule, boys??" We generally do a toy sweep before nap and before bed, but it often takes so long that we lose out on precious story time. A true tragedy, we all agree.

We don't have too many toys (we like it that way), but the kids don't tend to stick with one plaything for long, so they can go through them fairly quickly. And more often than not, we find all sorts of non-toys made toys scattered among the true toys (you know: sticks, buckets, jars, hangers, stolen items from various places, etc. etc.), which makes clean-up even more daunting. Ask any child, it's much more fun to get them out than put them back!

The "one toy" rule just hasn't worked, so we're trying something new. The toy rotation.

They set themselves up for it, really. After they shamelessly gutted every toy from the closet last Monday, we seized the opportunity to have them look everything over and choose three toys to play with for the upcoming week. They chose the magnet trains and tracks, the shape cube, and the big blocks (as we call them). Everything else went in the blue tub or on a closet shelf, not to be touched. All the books and the easel also remained out. And that little tent.

Their closet looks neater and clean-up has been easier on everyone. If they wanted to play with something they didn't choose, they could keep it in mind for the next rotation (which we'll do during Monday Family Night). When they did get the designated toys out, they played with them more thoroughly than before. For now, it's a good solution. More fun, more organization, and best of all, more peace.

How do you organize and clean up your toys at home?

The VOC Question

My husband and I are purchasing our very first house. I wish I could include a triumphant trumpet sound to that sentence. Go back and reread that with the trumpet in your mind. We are SO excited!

We are lucky, the house we are purchasing is in excellent condition, and so we'll be making it our own with little changes, like repainting rooms here and there. No large renovations needed.




Our first order of business has been to repaint the front room where Joe's piano will reside. I had never thought of this as a potentially harmful venture in our day since lead paint was outlawed in the 70's. But did you know that most paints still contain potentially harmful ingredients known as VOC's (volitile organic compounds)?






I had never heard of VOC until my good friend, Mia, told me about them when she repainted her house. VOC's are solvents that are in many many household items you and I use on a daily basis. Anything that gives off a strong odor is a likely culprit, such as strong cleansers, plastics, vinyls, even furnishings in your home such as certain types of carpet. VOC's are both found in nature, and are man made, and are linked to a host of health issues ranging from minor to severe headaches, eye, nose and respiratory problems, even liver issues, and cancer, (the man made VOC being the more toxic of the two).

Those are the health issues. There is also the issue of what chemicals we are releasing into the world around us. Even if these didn't cause my family health issues, what are my projects doing to our environment? Just a thought.

My specific point today is to let you know there are low-VOC and non-VOC paints being manufactured now!! In Utah the only brands I have been able to find are Olympic and Behr -- with these brands, as with a few, you will find the base white paint is VOC free, but adding tint will ad unspecified amounts of the compounds into the paint. Also, according to this consumer report, some low-VOC paints leach less of the compounds into the air than the tinted non-VOC brands. Having used the Olympic brand, I will tell you I was impressed with how little odor there was when we painted. Also that brand seems to have excellent durability. Again, because we used tinted paint, I have no idea how much VOC my paint ended up containing.



In the past VOC-free paints were considered poor quality, but most brands are receiving rave reviews today. And they come in a great variety of colors! True non-VOC paints, all tints included, included such brands as Freshaire Choice, and Mythic. Low-VOC brands include Benjamin Moore Aura, Behr, Olympic, and Glidden. Sherwin-Williams also advertises to sell other brands but I'm out of studying time at present. :)

Hope this information was helpful! And thanks to Mia for letting me know about it.

My Favorite Kitchen Toy

My husband walked in the door today from work and said, "Smells like garlic!"

I responded, "It's me.  I bought some new garlic lotion today."
This is how much I love garlic: he actually believed me.

In fact, I was chopping up garlic to make Ariel's delicious avocado pasta.  (Tis the season!)  I might add that it turned out very well, and you should try it at home.

But not without this!

I will shamelessly advertise here for the E-Z-Roll Garlic Peeler Tube.  This thing is masterful.  How many hours of my life did I waste hand-peeling garlic before my father-in-law gave this to me for Christmas?  I think even Christmas has taken on new meaning, thanks to my garlic peeler.

You simply put your clove in one end, give it a few rolls on the counter-top with the palm of your hand, and out it comes the other end, gleaming skinless in the sunlight!

Hallelujah.

A Thought About Babies and Cleanliness

"I wasn't going to make a mess, Mom. Promise!"

Pardon the cellphone quality picture...

My post for today is just a simple thought:

I love cleanliness. I love my baby. But on most occasions that little fella does not = cleanliness. So what is a mother to do?

I was having a conversation with my older sister, Jennifer, when I thought to ask her, how does one keep their house/apartment clean with a little guy who is very efficient at pulling things out of boxes, drawers, and cupboards? Very quickly the answer came to my mind, you don't. Just get down there and play with him.

I take time to clean up, but I'll be honest, I'm usually behind in one way or another. It's all a part of the grand adventure that is parenthood. I so appreciated Ariel's post about getting out. If I spent my child's entire life cleaning, what would I have really taught him? There are certainly grand lessons in cleaning and doing chores, but if that is all that is focused on, so many things will be missed.

Thank Heaven for those illuminating moments!

Thoughts?

Should I throw it out?

I thought since it's a topic very much on my mind right now, I'd continue the discussion on home organization. I really enjoy going through our things and deciding what things must go. Yesterday we went through Andrew's t-shirts and ties and found quite a few that he didn't wear that he could part with. I felt lighter with each item we gave away! (Although I'm quite sure some of them are not suitable for anyone anymore.)

So, how do we decide what to keep and what to get rid of? I'll share with you some things I've learned.

Papers:

Source

First rule of papers: deal with it right away, even it's to file in the "current" file.

• Anything you will be referencing frequently, punch 3 holes in it, and put it in a nice white binder and label the back.
• If you know you're not going to get to that "scrapbooking," change your thinking about it. Don't do anything fancy, just slip it in a page protector in a binder, or cut it out and use a glue stick to stick it to another paper, and then put it in a page protector in the binder.
• To get started, get a bunch of large envelopes or files labeled with the year and the person's name and stuff everything into those. Then once the papers are all organized, at your leisure you can scrapbook one year at a time. It really doesn't take that long. Trust me, your husbands haven't kept as much as mine has.
• If you don't want to look at it, and it's not a reference paper, and you still want to keep it, put it in The Box (see sentimental items).

Clothes:

Source

• If you haven't worn it in the last year, scrap it.
• It doesn't matter if it's a "great shirt, I don't know why I don't wear it, I really should . . ." Think of how happy someone else will be when she gets that new, barely worn shirt and it'll no doubt be her new fav and she'll wear it every other day.
• If you want to keep it because it was expensive, scrap it anyway. Give it to a best friend. Let her scrap it and not tell you about it. It's not earning/saving you money sitting in your closet.
• If you don't want to scrap it because it's sentimental, keep reading for the "sentimental items" section.
• Get rid of clothes with holes or stains that won't be treated.
• (On clothes, Andrew's excuse for keeping a shirt he bought in Portugal that was "expensive" and "sentimental" was that Joe had a shirt he liked so well that he hung it up on their bedroom wall. I said I was sure Melissa didn't put it up in their apartment. Support?)

Sentimental items:

Source

• We got this idea off unclutterer.com. Buy a box of pre-determined size for everyone in the family. Everyone can keep whatever they want, as long as it's in the box. That way you don't have to have a discussion together about every item, each individual can decide for him/herself if it's worthy of the box.

Other:

Source

Uclutterer had some good questions you can ask yourself to see if you really need an object.

• Do I have something else like this that fulfills the same purpose?
• If this is a duplicate item, which of these items is in the best condition, of the best quality, and will last me the longest?
• Is this item in disrepair and need to be replaced or fixed?
• Does this item make my life easier/save me time/save me money/fulfill an essential need?
• Why does this object live in our house and is this the best place for this object?
• Do I need to do more research to know if this is the best object to fulfill its essential need?
• If this is a perishable item, has its expiration date passed?
• Does this item help me to develop the remarkable life that I want to live?

Andrew and I added three questions to this list:

• Do I even like this thing?
• Is this item virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy?
• Does it help fulfill our family's mission/vision/values?

Remember, you are under no obligation to anyone to keep anything. If you think someone wants you to have something, give it back to them and they can keep it :) At our house, we've also taken many pictures of things that we got rid of that we didn't want to hold on to, but didn't want to forget."After seeing that little puppy-dog face, how could Ariel resist?" you ask. "Practice," I answer.

A House of Order

I used to think I was a very orderly, organized person. I realized how mistaken I was when I got married and moved in with Cameron! He is the emperor of order and cleanliness. Everything that needs to be done is done right away, and never left sitting even for an extra hour. (It's really lovely actually. The sink disposal breaks and within a day we have gone to the store to purchase a new one, installed it ourselves, and gone to a second store to find a replacement for a mismatched part. Voila! If it had been left to me, well, it would still be sitting there, left to me.) Once we were married, the poor man was suddenly dealing with my undone dishes, my clothing lying on the floor for sometimes a couple days at a time, my disorganized closet, and my total domination of the bathroom counter and dining room table. I never heard (and still have never heard) a word of complaint from him --- just the occasional gentle reminder. And really, I'm not that bad. I just feel like I am because he's so darn good.

I believe in a strong mind-body connection. Our spirits thrive off of healthy living, just as our bodies thrive off of positive, edifying thoughts and attitudes. Our homes function similarly. The physical atmosphere we create greatly aids or handicaps the spiritual atmosphere of a home. I need to be more diligent in my own home. D&C 90:18 says, "Set in order your houses; keep slothfulness and uncleanness far from you." More than one time in that same book, the Lord counsels men who would otherwise be given spiritual callings that they must first set in order their houses. This is an effort I want to make inside my home, so I can be better prepared to serve outside of my home as well.

Can we invite a spirit of peace and gentleness to a home where dishes and laundry and clutter are mounting a seemingly unbreakable offensive? Of course we can, by so many different means. Just as someone with failing health or the need to lose weight can have a very vibrant spiritual life worthy of emulation. I think the Spirit of the Lord measures our efforts against our abilities, and not against some invisible standard. It will attend those who are striving to do their best --- not stressing, not straining, but making diligent and daily efforts.

I didn't know what a House of Order was until I served in the Salt Lake Temple for two years. I worked in the baptistry, where many of my hours were devoted to folding clean laundry and towels. I was shocked my first few days there, as I was taught how every item needed to be folded and stacked with perfect exactness. There was a special way to fold everything! I thought I would never remember, and I admit I was frustrated at first. Most of these items, once folded, were tucked into cupboards where nobody but we temple workers would ever see them. I felt like the letter of the law was overpowering the spirit of the law a bit.

But over time my understanding changed, as I realized the purpose behind it all. It is not enough that the temple has beautifully manicured gardens, clean carpets, and shiny handrails by the stairway. It is a true House of Order, even in its unseen cupboards, in its isolated corners. I once had the opportunity to go late at night to clean the same temple. My job was dusting. I pictured myself dusting the furniture in one of the grand, beautiful rooms, but where was I sent? The women's locker room. There, I was assigned to dust the top of every changing stall --- its door and two sides. Few women are tall enough ever to see these ledges, and I thought my handiwork would likely never be noticed. I wondered how it is possible that the temple staff wastes manpower on this task every night, as dusting such a large room of stalls took me well over an hour. I especially thought I might be wasting my time when I realized, "I'm hardly even getting any dust off! If they do this every night it never has a chance to build up..."

But then it struck me. The Lord's house is a house of order, which means a house of cleanness. If they waited for the dust to build up, then for some period of time the temple would not be clean. Having a perfect house of order means foreseeing disorder, and preventing it.

Nowadays, when I think of the Salt Lake Temple, I don't think so much about the elegant rooms and staircases.

I think of the towel cupboards in the basement, and the changing stalls in the locker room. They are a large part of my testimony that the Spirit of the Lord loves order, light, and cleanliness. Those lockers and cupboards are, I believe, a large part of why the whole building carries such a remarkable feeling of peace. Do I think our houses can be so perfect? Not really. If I had a midnight staff of four dozen people mine probably could be. But it is a testament to me that we should do our very best.

So I'm going to start thinking of the corners in my house that are a little dusty, dirty, or dark. That includes the spiritual corners! Maybe I'll get to one a week, maybe one a month once I have children. But I know my efforts to have an orderly house will influence the peace in my family and home.