Tina The Storyteller

On Instagram today, Jennifer Dukes Lee asked a series of questions. One was to share about a time when “smaller and slower” brought true growth. I thought I’d share my answer here. Smaller and slower is how I would describe our desire for children. When we were first married, my husband and I both wanted a large family with lots of kids which by default would have had more activity. We had our first, our daughter Hannah, when we were still in our twenties. We decided almost immediately to start trying for more (within months of her birth).  We didn’t get pregnant again for ten years. That unexpected pregnancy ended in miscarriage a few days after we found out about it, we got pregnant again within a cycle or two only to have another miscarriage at the beginning of our second trimester. It’s been five years this February since our third and what appears to be final pregnancy.  All of that small and slow family time has taught me so much about God. In that longing and fooli

I finally opened my mouth and did some talking. I’m trying out the app Anchor to see how I like it. Let me know your thoughts in the comments and look below for the links to all the books I mentioned. Stories from the Kitchen Season 2, Episode 1: Hello, Sadness The Happiness Dare from Jennifer Dukes Lee Bible and Breakfast by Asheritah Ciuciu Full by Asheritah Ciuciu The Intuitive Eating Workbook by Evelyn Tribole

My dad travels around quite a bit. One of the things that he collects during his travels is new recipes. This Tasty Tuesday treat is one from his collection. He got it when he was in Montana from a lady named Linda, who got it from someone on the internet , that made a copycat recipe of an actual bread that's available for purchase called Dave's Killer Bread 100% Whole Wheat . It's delicious and well worth the hassle it took to locate and purchase vital wheat gluten. So, here's the recipe as I received and made it: Dave's Killer Whole Wheat Bread 3 1/3 cups whole wheat flour 1/2 cup sugar or honey 1 Tbsp. plus 1/2 tsp. yeast 2 1/4 cups warm water 1 1/2 Tbsp. molasses 1 Tbsp. canola oil Proof yeast in some of the water. Mix well with all above ingredients. Beat 5 minutes. Cover and set aside for one hour. Add 1/4 cup gluten (VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN, This is flour with the starch and bran removed.), 2 tsp. salt and enough whole wheat flour to make a st

As some of you know, the winter is our big break season in our homeschooling. Hannah and I do as little school work as possible between the end of November and the end of January. Normally, by the time February rolls around, it's time to figure out something to do with ourselves so we don't get cabin fever. This past winter break it's been full of being sick, which is never any fun.  I think I went two entire weeks without leaving the house except to step outside for the milk delivery or to peek my head out the door to check the mail. It's been a long few weeks. And here's the part that I really hate about those kinds of colds. I don't think very much. I'm a thinker/planner/schemer by nature. I love to plan things and I had all sorts of things plans that I had to just not do because we were all too yuck to get out of the house and enjoy them. So instead, we stayed in and recovered and enjoyed our cozy little house. But now that I'm starting to fe