If you are a member of the CHK Facebook Group you know I’ve talked about Bethel and their bad theology.

Here are an interesting few videos by Jesse Westwood about his time at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. He talks about applying to the school, his first week and what he was taught there. He has since walked away from Bethel and the charismatic church.

Every now and then, maybe 4 times in the past 30 years that I have had the Christian Homekeeper domain name, website or blog, message boards and Facebook groups, I have felt it was necessary to mention what CHK is all about.

What CHK is and what I try to do here:

This blog and the FB Group, called Christian Homekeepers, is for women only as are all the Bible studies I present here and at FB.

My goal is to help women be better stewards of their homes and families and to grow in Christ. I want CHK to be well-rounded and to be all about encouraging and teaching women and I do that in a lot of different ways.

Some of the ways that I like to do that online include; teaching Biblical principles and topics to women, encouragement, teaching life skills like homemaking, sewing, cooking, child care, primitive living, money management, preparing for emergencies and preparing for disasters. There are a lot more.

Some of the things done on a regular basis at the blog are:

Seasonal challenges for cleaning and decluttering.

Challenges to improve one’s self by reading, studying and healthy living.

Instruction in a specific home skill.

Instructional videos and tutorials.

Bible studies for women.

What Christian Homekeeper is not:

We’re not a Church, by any stretch of the imagination.

I am not a preacher or pastor. I am a mentor and teacher to women only.

I don’t discipline FB Group or message board unruly members and I don’t ban them unless they’re really causing trouble. I do try to teach and educate.

So that’s CHK and what I do in a nutshell. If you have questions, let me know!

I’m on a self-imposed break from Facebook including the CHK group and I have to say … I am enjoying it tremendously! I do miss talking to all the CHK friends though. February will be here soon enough and I’ll go back. The really wonderful thing about it is that I have a lovely long-time friend who is moderating and taking care of everything this month so I can refresh.

Today I’m making banana pudding. The old fashioned kind from scratch. I know some of you probably like the kind made with sweetened condensed milk and Cool Whip, I like it too actually. But, there is nothing as good as homemade banana pudding warm from the oven. Except maybe homemade rice pudding. Or chocolate pudding.

These puddings are things I made when the children were all at home. I educated all 5 at home and on snowy or cold rainy days I’d make something special like a home cooked pudding. It really is a sweet memory for me because they all enjoyed it so much.

I used a 2 quart Corning Ware round casserole dish for this recipe. You can use whatever you need to use as long as it can go in the oven to brown the meringue and hold 2 quarts of food. Meringue recipe is at the end of the pudding recipe.

Ingredients:

4 bananas peeled, sliced and tossed with a sprinkling of lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. I toss the banana slices around in the juice.

About 50 Vanilla Wafers, I used a whole box save about 6 cookies which grandbaby #4 and I ate with coffee and Ovaltine.

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup plain flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 egg yolks, save the whites for the meringue

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup whole milk

12 ounces evaporated milk

In your casserole dish, layer the wafers and bananas. I also put a few wafers around the top of the bowl to look pretty.

In a heavy medium sized sauce pan combine the sugar, flour, salt, both milks and egg yolks using a whisk.

Put the pan over medium heat and stir constantly. It will burn if you get it too hot or stop stirring.

It takes about 7 or 8 minutes for it to get thick. Once it is thick remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Pour this cooked mixture over the bananas and wafers in the casserole dish.

Now make the meringue.

Ingredients:

4 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring.

Beat the egg whites on high and add the sugar a little at a time until stiff peaks form. Once the peaks are formed, add the vanilla, stir well and then spread the meringue over the pudding in the casserole dish.

Bring the meringue to the sides of the casserole dish and seal it to the sides using a spatula. This will keep the meringue from shrinking and pulling away from the dish.

Bake at 350*F just until browned.

If you’re in a hurry, you can put the pudding with meringue under the broiler, watch it carefully, until browned.

I prefer baking it at 350*F because it heats up the pudding as well as browning the meringue.

If you try it, I hope you enjoy it!

I just watched a video about a 72 year old woman in Massachusetts who was homeless for a year because she was evicted with a “no-fault” eviction, which means, “Eh, we just don’t want you to live here any more because we can get a lot more money from someone else”. Then she couldn’t afford anything else that was available.

What Happens When You Lose Your Home at 72 in Amesbury, MA

The video made me cry. I felt so bad for her. Knowing what it’s like to be in my 60s I can’t imagine being homeless and alone, especially in my 70s. She did end up getting some help to afford an apartment and I’m really glad of that.

The video got me to feeling very thankful for our little house and the fact that it is paid for. I don’t really think we could afford rent or a mortgage now. I am so thankful about how God has provided for us.

When you get to feeling like you don’t have enough or that what you have isn’t good enough, what do you do? Do you stress about it? Get sad? Feel jealous of what others have? Feel angry or deprived?

My advice is to remember the woman in the video. There are thousands of other women and men in her shoes and God loves them. He is working in their lives even in these hard times they’re in.

You though, do you think about what you DO have? Do you think about how you have been blessed and taken care of through all the rough things of life? Be thankful. Give thanks.

It’s true that God doesn’t take us out of the trials of the world and bad things do happen to us. Some people just can’t get over that. They think a God wouldn’t allow His people to suffer.

Bad things and hard things sometimes hurt a lot, this is life. We’re here for a purpose. He allows us to experience these bad things and uses them in our lives to make us the people we are supposed to be, to reflect Jesus. I’ve seen that play out in my own life, I know it is true.

I’m just so glad that He preserves us through them and I think He shows us just what is important in life as we travel with Him through it. I am giving thanks today and every day that He has always been faithful and good. I hope you do too.

This is my tried and true sourdough flat bread recipe. It’s easy to make. The long rise time makes for a really tasty bread. The milk makes it very tender. Sometimes I substitute yogurt or kefir for the milk and that makes it tender as well.

I just use regular all purpose flour but you could use whole grain flour in this recipe. You could use Einkorn or Spelt but the amounts of liquid will be different and I don’t know what they would be, exactly.

I hope you’ll try this flat bread, its good with most every meal.

2 cups flour

1 cup active sourdough starter

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

Combine the flour, starter, milk and salt. Stir well and knead it about 5 minutes. The dough will be soft and maybe kind of shaggy. Cover the bowl and let it sit on the counter over night or 8 hours.

Next morning, knead the dough briefly and divide it into 8 equal pieces.

Roll out each piece to about 1/4 inch thick and fry it in a medium hot skillet with a little olive oil. Brown the bread on both sides.

Sourdough Starter

A simple starter can be made using 1/4 cup fresh flour (I prefer rye) and 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of water added to a tall jar like a quart sized mason jar.

Stir it well, cover it with a cloth or a coffee filter and allow it to sit on the counter. After 12 hours, feed it with another 1/4 cup flour and 14 cup plus 2 tablespoons water, scrape down the sides of the jar and cover.

If you feel like it is too dry, and that can sometimes happen depending on the weather and the moisture content of the flour, just add a bit more water.

Let this sit another 12 hours. There should be some bubbles in your starter now.

At this point you will discard 1/2 of the starter. I use this discard for things like waffles and pancakes that don’t need to rise much. I usually add a bit of baking powder to those recipes so that they have the yummy sourdough taste but still rise because of the baking powder.

To the remaining starter add another 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of water. Stir it well, scrape down the sides of the jar and in another 8 – 12 hours it will be at its peak and be ready to use in bread.

This is what a healthy, active starter looks like.

Being a little girl seems to be much different from what it was when I was young. I guess it is to be expected, times are certainly different. I am pro-woman, I hope that all girls will pursue their dreams and callings. But there is just something sweet and homey about a little girl playing with her doll.

I know a few little girls and most of them don’t play with dolls. I see a lot of dolls in stores though so someone is buying them. I don’t think playing with dolls has gone completely out of fashion.

Dolls were a favorite of mine and actually they still are. I think I got my last doll when I was 16. It was a porcelain doll and I still have her. It was a while ago but I think I was almost 13 years old when I finally stopped playing with my Barbie dolls.

So it’s really nice that my youngest granddaughter (not including the one who is on the way) still loves baby dolls. She is 4 years old and I hope she will continue to love dolls a while longer.

For Christmas I bought her a baby doll that came with a bathtub and her PawPaw (my husband) made her a baby bed. She was in love at first sight and is so tender with the doll.

Times change but can we still say that it is healthy and desirable for little girls to play with baby dolls? I think it teaches them how to be with real children and babies. It is a natural impulse for most girls to care for a doll and good practice for real life.

I’m old fashioned I know. But in this case I think I’m right.

It is another cold but sunny day here in Tennessee. The sunshine is deceptive because it is only 33 degrees F. We are definitely entering into the heart of winter here where the sunshine really makes little difference to the day time temperatures. The sunshine makes me long for spring though.

It was a real joy this weekend to have my house cleaned and all the beautiful Christmas clutter put away. I left up my three little trees because I like the lights, but I imagine that come spring time I will take them down so that I can have that uncluttered look I prefer in the warmer months.

My oldest daughter, Sarah and I worked in the house to get it clean and tidy and all the Christmas things put away in the attic. I’m so thankful for her and how she is willing to help us out.

I am also really thankful that we cleaned out the attic last year, it is now very easy to find items up there and everything is in boxes and stored properly. It really was a load off my mind to get that done. The attic is about as large as the whole house and it can get really unorganized quickly if it isn’t consistently taken care of.

While I work online today I am enjoying my coffee and my view out the office doors. I’ll be sewing again today. I’m out of the raw silk facial cloths I make for my employer, so I’ll make 5 or 6 of them just to keep up with the week’s demands. Dishes and laundry done I have only to sweep the floors to be finished for the day.

After that’s done, it will be time for my granddaughter to nap and I’ll read while she sleeps. Before she drifts off I like to read Brambly Hedge stories to her, she loves the little mice.

Supper tonight will be ham and split pea, lentil and rice soup. I’ll make cornbread to go with it and we’ll both enjoy the warmth while we watch a movie.

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o’clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.”
 ~ Thomas De Quincey 1796