Why Did I Start Grinding my Own Wheat?

"Why?", I ask myself , would any sane woman grind her own wheat and make her own bread? Why would she MAKE WORK for herself? Those were my thoughts as I listened to my crazy zealous friends tell me that they baked all of their own bread.


A couple of years later I was attending a Homeschool Bookfair in my area. By 9:30am I had found (and purchased) everything that I needed for my next year's curriculum. I had scheduled a babysitter for the better part of the day and there was NO WAY I was going home this early.


About 9:45am, I bumped into a friend of mine at the Bread Beckers booth and was amazed to find out that this reasonably normal woman made her own bread also. I was thinking again, "What is the DEAL with these women?" As I was talking with my friend, I noticed that a a seminar titled "The Bread of Idleness" was about to start at 10am. Well, my curiousity got the best of me and I decided that I had to go hear what these people were telling everyone to get them to make their own bread. Just to clarify, I went in to the seminar with a very skeptical attitude and felt more like a spy in ememy territory than a student.

Well, believe it or not, I cried about 5 times during the 45 minute seminar on BREAD. Yeah, yeah - very funny. Bread - go figure. I was crying because I realized that I HAD to begin grinding my own wheat. Never mind that I was 8 months pregnant with our fourth child and feeling overwhelmed already. Honestly, I think I was sad because now that I had heard the truth, I was responsible to act on it. After all, about six months before this bookfair I had prayed and asked God to help me to provide healthier meals for my family.


In case you don't have time to click on the links above to learn more, I'll tell you these nuggets that amazed me:

• Of the 44 known essential nutrients needed by our bodies and naturally obtained from foods, only 4 are missing from wheat--vitamin A, B12, and C, and the mineral iodine.


• Within about 72 hours of milling, 90% of over 30 nutrients are virtually gone.


• Refined white flour (like you buy at the grocery store) is missing up to 80% of the nutrients found in the original wheat kernel

Now, 3 years later, I'm still grinding my own wheat and making my own bread. I make five loaves a week. Unlike before, if the kids aren't eating the meal I prepared for them and they ask for another piece of bread, I say YES. Simply because the bread is healthier than whatever else I've cooked. My fourth child, Austin (3 years old), is my healthiest child: No asthma, no allergies, no eczema. I began eating this type of bread during the last month of my pregnancy with him, ate it while I nursed him, and fed it to him as soon as he could eat solids. I don't have any proof that it's the bread, but I personally believe that it is. There are a lot of testimonies on the Bread Beckers website.

If you've read this far, you may want to request a free CD from the Bread Beckers, but be careful! Once you hear the whole seminar, you may be compelled to make YOUR own bread. Then we can all call YOU crazy.

WFMW - Birthday Decorations

I've never REALLY participated in WFMW (Works for me Wednesday) before. Although, before I was a "blogger" (which I still don't consider myself one - not yet anyway), my friend Katherine posted an idea for me called Color-Coded Kids. Here is my first official contribution to WFMW.

When having a themed birthday party (or any themed party for that matter), decorations can be expensive. I have a trick that I've been using for a few years now and it's affordable and fun. I purchase two plastic tablecloths that match the theme of the birthday and that is just about ALL I need for decorations. No, I do not use them as tablecloths, because we all know what can happen when a little kid grabs the edge of the tablecloth and pulls.

Most themed tablecloths are folded in such a way that there are four even strips. The two outside edges have the most color and the biggest pictures of the theme and then the inner two strips have a repeating pattern (to a lesser degree) of the same theme. So, from my two tablecloths, I get 8 strips for decorating. Here are some pictures of how I used this idea this past weekend at Austin's third birthday party.

The picture above is only half of one strip.

In the picture above, the part on the left is from the outer edge of the tablecloth and the part on the right is from the inner strip of the tablecloth.

Partial strips help to decorate everything!

In the end, I use the eight strips (or even more if partials are used) all over the house!

After the party, I moved a few of the strips up to the room of the birthday boy and voila, more celebrating!

For more WFMW ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer.

An Introduction

Okay, I just jumped right in to this blogging thing without really introducing myself. I'm tempted to go deep right from the start, but I'll keep it simple for now and just know that my unique life experiences could provide months of blog topics. For now . . .

My name is Sherri and I'm 39 years old. I've been married to Chuck for 15 years. We have four kids (not their real names): Grace (10), Jerry (7), Simon (5), and Austin (3 - next week).

I'm an only child who is amazed at her current position in life. I never babysat as a teen and didn't particularly enjoy being around children. NOW I have four children of my own. And let me tell you, a family of six seems REALLY big to me.

When I got married I couldn't cook. NOW, I am one of those crazy women who grinds her own wheat to make bread for her family. How I came to grind my own wheat would be a great topic for another post.

Ten years ago, I loved computer programming and enjoyed the perks and pats that the working world gave me. NOW, I stay at home with all four of my children and even homeschool them.

Suffice it to say that if you had told me, 10 years ago, what my life would look like now, I NEVER would have believed you. To be sure, I love where God has me right now and am so blessed to have the opportunity to be a helpmate to my husband and a mother to my children.



One last thing, I need to give credit where credit is due. Grace (10 years old) named this site. She knows when things get too loud and crazy I often yell say "Mom is on Noise Overload, everyone QUIET!!" I mentioned one day that I didn't know what to name my blog and Grace immediately said, "You should name it Noise Overload". Thanks Grace - I love it!

Enjoying Life

There's something about your youngest child approaching three that feels so freeing and so delightful. Is it just me or is this a typical phenomenon?

I've carried a diaper bag for 10 years and I AM DONE. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of parenting ahead, but an era is definitely over.

I mean look at us. There's no one back at camp with a fussy or sleepy baby. We are all enjoying the waterfalls together.

I know that there are those of you who would warn me not to be too happy, that these years fly by too quickly, but I intend to relish in the moment for now.


Next milestone - no car seats?

Time off

I've just had a wonderful weekend with my dear friend Rita. My totally awesome husband (Chuck) took the day off on Friday to go play in the waterfalls with us and THEN gave me the whole day off on Saturday. I hardly knew what to do with myself, but Rita and I had fun coming up with a plan for our day. We hiked, ate, talked, hiked some more, shopped, sat in the hot tub and ended our day marveling at shooting stars and the Milky Way. Now, if I could only get my friend Katherine to come see me.

To be like Daddy

One Sunday morning in June, I came down the stairs to find Austin(2.5 yrs) on the front porch with Daddy. It's one of those moments that must be captured in my heart and on film digitally. Austin went all the way to the garage to retrieve his own chair, all the way to his room to get his own book, and didn't feel the need to copy Daddy's coffee - yet.

In the Beginning . . .

In the beginning, long-ago before kids, Sherri was a computer programmer. She programmed in COBOL (not C, HTML or even Java). Today, she set out to join the new and fascinating world of her amazing blogger friends!