Petals from the Basket

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Meal Planning and Food Storage

Today’s Friday Favorites are such game-changers at our house that I even created a YouTube video to share more firsthand information about today’s topic! I’ll include the link to that at the bottom of this post.

Hover, then click the icon in the upper-right corner of the photo to view larger

Well, to start us off with a bang, I’m just going to bottom-line it: I’ve never really planned my meals ahead of time. I confess that prior to this year, I would head to the fridge or freezer, see what was there, and make my old standby meals…again. Then I’d head to the grocery store and pick up the same old things…again. And if I didn’t open the freezer early enough in the day to thaw some meat—which I had no idea what I was going to make out of it anyhow—we’d end up ordering in, going out, or having a meal that needed several rounds of “grace” prayed over it before we began eating.

In December of this past year, that changed. Joe and I chose our word for the coming year, purpose (you can read more about that here), and we determined to live 2021 on purpose, with purpose, for a purpose—in all areas of our lives. We have family members who are faithful at meal planning, and I would hear them talk about it. It didn’t take me long to acknowledge that this was an area that greatly lacked purpose in our home.

I went online to look up meal planners or meal-planning tools, and I ran across a meal-planning book by a lady named Erin from a website titled, of all things, Simple Purposeful Living. The proverbial handwriting on the wall said, “Duh,” and I ordered one…sight unseen. To encourage the dear young mama who came up with this book, I followed her on Instagram. You’re going to want to do that too! She has encouraged me many times over the last month. And I’ve never met her. And, no, I’m not making any commission, affiliate fees, or anything for telling you about this book.

There is so much to share with you that I believe would help your home function more smoothly and grant you space in your day for rest, peace, and spiritual and emotional refreshment. Trust me, though. This book, as simple as it truly is, has transformed our world.

So here’s how it looks in action at the Henderson house:

On Saturday morning, I plan what we will have for dinner (our “major” meal each day) for each night the following week. Additionally, because I hate to have too many “tasks” early in the morning—and thinking about what to eat right away falls into that category for me—I write out our breakfast menus for the week. (In fact, it’s a well-known fact that I set the table the night before, so that it’s one thing already “accomplished” when I wake up!) Then, on the perforated Grocery List portion of the page, I write any items I need to purchase to make each of those meals happen. I spend literally five minutes checking my cupboards, the pantry, the fridge, and the freezer to see if I have those items on hand or if I will need to purchase them, and my shopping list is basically complete (minus non-food household supplies we may need to add as well). Then I place my online order or head to the store, and that, my friends, is something I love to have accomplished and over with for the week.

On Saturday night, I place the meal planning book, open to the new week’s meal plan, on an easel that I set in the corner of my kitchen counter. It stays open all week, and I can’t tell you the amount of anxiousness, regret, feelings of not being well prepared, etc., that this little book has helped to eliminate from our home.

The book costs about $25.00-ish, which comes out to about 50 cents a week for a peace of mind that is worth boatloads more! Seriously…go git ya one! Then let me know how it’s working for you. I can’t wait to hear how it helps simplify your racing mind and busy schedule when it comes to a task that otherwise has the potential to consume your free hours! Let’s just say I didn’t know how much help I needed in this area until I realized how good things could be!

Okay…I need to stop, but I simply have to share this one quick hack with you first. You know by now that we entertain…a lot…and anything I can do to declutter my fridge and save time in the moments when I don’t have extra time are things worth doing. This is one of those things: canning jars.

Glass canning jars not only save space in the fridge because of their vertical, uniform shape, but I have found them to keep my food fresh much longer than most storage containers I have. I’m not making promises, but I’m telling you that at the Henderson house, I can keep washed-and-dried grapes in a glass quart jar for up to four weeks…and they still taste fresh.

Below is the link to my YouTube video so that you can learn more about the canning-jar storage hack. It’s my new favorite thing. I’m also including a link to the Simple Purposeful Living Meal Planner (again, I’m not earning a penny or anything for this).

My final favorite thing for this week is that Joe and I are memorizing verses together that have to do with the topic of purpose. I’m loving these moments of working toward a common goal of memorization so that we can live on purpose, with purpose, and for a purpose!

I cry out to God most high, to God who fulfills His purpose for me (Psalm 57:2, ESV).

To learn more about the Simple Purposeful Living Meal Planner and to order your copy, click here.

To watch the corresponding video on our YouTube channel, click here.

By Petals from the Basket | February 5, 2021 | "Come on Over" Recipes, Bible Reading, Entertaining, Friday Favorites, Ideas, Life Changes, Organization |

My God Is…

We went a little quiet for a while during 2020. It seemed there wasn’t much to say that wasn’t already being said—or so we thought. Yet in the midst of our silence, my sweet mother began to record some of her journaled notes about Who God is.

Her original intent was to “pass these along” to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She teamed up with my dear brother, and the result was these wonderful, brief recordings, taken from notes in her personal journals. I now have been given permission to share these videos with you.

So starting today, twice a month, I’ll share a little “Wednesday Wisdom,” posting the next video in her series.

Of special note: my mother is eighty-nine years old (soon to be ninety); she is legally blind due to Macular Degeneration (hence, the large lettering on her notes for these videos and her inability to look directly into the camera, which she cannot see); and she loves to learn and share with others what God is teaching her.

It is with that introduction that I will step aside and share with you the first in Mom’s recorded lessons: “My God is Righteous.”

My God Is Righteous – thoughts from Lorraine Strohbehn

By Petals from the Basket | February 2, 2021 | Uncategorized |

Finding Grace in Grief

Six years ago today, my father passed away on my birthday, his body finally overtaken by the effects of the Parkinson’s he had long fought. Through his genuine faith and his gentle spirit, combined with his love for and help from my mother, he taught my siblings and me how to live…and how to live without him. Therein, I find grace.

Grief, as you well know if you have ever experienced it, comes in varying forms of impact as well as at differing times for each person who finds themselves walking its pathway. Its effects and “stages” are studied by psychologists, ministers, teachers, and counselors the world over in an effort to administer grace to those who have felt its sting.

Through these past six years, I have found myself “completing” various levels of the identified stages of grief, only to hear a song, smell a fragrance, hear a phrase that returned me to a moment of remembering my father’s laughter, his wisdom, his experience-produced ease at shedding a tear from the heart of empathy that had been entrusted to him by his Creator. In these moments, I began to recognize them not merely as grief but as grace-filled memories.

Oh yes, those memories have often caused—and undoubtedly will continue to cause—tears, smiles, laughter, and stories that I will cling to for many years to come. Grief? Yes. But grace in the midst of that grief.

Grief looks different on each individual who wears it. That is why I cannot view your grief through my lens. Because I am able to speak of my father’s death with ease does that mean that I have forgotten, am calloused, take death lightly, or expect you to react in kind. The grace you are experiencing may be seen in the fact that you were able to get through the day without tears or that you were finally able to let the tears flow freely, knowing that the ability to grieve is often a gift in itself.

I recently attempted to share a poem/story from social media with a friend who had lost a loved one around the time of my father’s death. Her reaction was that I was being insensitive to her loss. I longed in that moment to share that this was my way of grieving my loss. Instead, I remembered the grace I had been given and withdrew my desire to launch into a diatribe about how she was not being sensitive to the fact that this story was helping me through my grief, even though my silent bearing of it was quite different from her own need to speak of hers often. We were each finding grace to react in the way we needed to react in that moment.

The foundation my father laid for my own faith did not crumble when his own faith was made sight. Instead, grace stepped in and built on that foundation with the truths of Scripture that proved themselves unchanging about a God Who proved Himself faithful…in life and in death.

So on this day, my sixtieth birthday, I choose to focus on grace: grace in the memories, grace to share these thoughts, grace to recall the joy of my father’s smile and the sweet (but sometimes mischievous) twinkle in his deep-brown eyes, grace to be grateful that I have a loss worth grieving and a birthday worth celebrating.

By Petals from the Basket | January 8, 2021 | Events, Family, Life Changes |

Stepping into 2021 with PURPOSE

Haphazard. Ever-changing. Putting flexibility to the test. Uncertain. And the now-dreaded word, unprecedented. For most of us, 2020 repeated these words, thoughts, and feelings far too often. It’s time for that to change.

Two days from the writing of this post, we will awaken to a new year, new prospects, new goals, and yes, new calendars, begging to be filled with the activities, appointments, meetings, obligations, and gatherings that we perhaps once dreaded but came to long for in 2020. However, writing it out, planning it, and doing it—whatever the “it” is for you—all require something further.

I believe that if we want to finish 2021 with a sense of accomplishment, we must begin the year with purpose. To do this, we will need to start each day on purpose, with purpose, and for a purpose.

  • Living on purpose – intentionally choosing our actions

This is the act of purpose. Purpose requires us to make choices—to live with intentionality. And those choices may or may not be easy ones. We will most likely make some wrong ones, but then we will choose to change, to correct, to learn, to grow. And we will choose to keep choosing—and that will propel us forward, strengthening our purpose.

  • Living with purpose – tenaciously executing our choices

This is the how of purpose. It too requires a choice: to take our intentionality and submerge it in a vat of courage. When we live with purpose, we look to the future with hope. We have a determination that enables us to carry out our plans, goals, and desires with a blend of graciousness and boldness.

  • Living for a purpose – confidently fulfilling our calling

This is the why of purpose. Though it is true that our why must be the basis for what we do, it is also important to realize that our why must provide the summary for what we did—for the choices we made and the purpose we fulfilled. As a woman of faith, I find great confidence in knowing that God has a purpose for me, and that He will accomplish that purpose in me and through me. That knowledge provides the impetus that guides me as I daily seek His great wisdom to make choices and take action.

“I cry out to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me” (Psalm 57:2, ESV).

My prayer, as we enter 2021, is that each of us will choose to live on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose!

Joe and I chose to use purpose as our “word of the year” for 2021. (Hence, the rare posting from the front of my 2021 bullet journal.) Have you chosen your word yet? We’d love to hear the word you are purposefully choosing to focus on this coming year. Feel free to share it in the comments below.

By Petals from the Basket | December 30, 2020 | Bible Reading, Events, Ideas, Life Changes, Organization |

Redefining Christmas in 2020

The day after we talked to my mom and mutually agreed that it was best to change our travel plans this Christmas, I knew that I had a choice to make. Oddly, it was not a choice with multiple alternatives. I had only one option: I must choose to redefine—not lower—my expectations for Christmas 2020.

Photo: Annika Jean Photography

My memories of Christmases past have surprisingly little to do with presents, food, locations, or activities. So filling up 2020 with “more” of any of these in order to fill a void was not among the options. So what were my expectations? How had I previously defined what Christmas was or how it should look?

For me, Christmas is family. To think that their laughter, joy, and acceptance would be withheld from me this year left me as cold as a Minnesota winter. After I hung up the phone that evening, there was a momentary icy despair that felt almost “cartoon-esque” in a “Christmas-will-have-to-be-cancelled” kind of way.

Before I continue, I will quickly clarify that as a woman of faith, I long ago acknowledged that the true meaning of Christmas lies in the birth of the Christ Child—God’s magnificent love that came down to earth via the Babe in the manger. Yet I also must acknowledge that our human traditions and customs are interwoven with our celebration of His birth, giving us purpose and hope during this annual season of remembrance and forming our expectations for the celebrations we annually enjoy.

That said, allow me to share my choice to redefine my expectations for Christmas 2020.

Expectation #1: Family must be together to celebrate Christmas.

Redefined: Even if our family can’t celebrate in the same location, we can be united in purpose, encouragement, and hope.

  • United in purpose: We are all celebrating the same occasion at the same time.
  • United through encouragement: We all want the other family members to prosper, to be in good health, and to feel the love that we have for them. We don’t have to be in the same room to be encouraged by those generous thoughts and expressions of love and kindness. Those can happen anywhere…at any time of the year!
  • United by hope: We can speak of future gatherings and know that they will be all the more delightful because of their delay.

Expectation #2: Christmas must be celebrated on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Redefined: The true meaning and spirit of Christmas cannot be defined by dates on a calendar; therefore, they can—and should—be celebrated at random.

When my siblings married and their children grew into adulthood, gathering over the Christmas holidays became more and more difficult. Thanksgiving break provided an easy solution, so we celebrated Thanksgiving on its traditional Thursday and Christmas on Friday of that week—and called it “Thanksmas!” We were together, and that, in and of itself, was cause for celebration!

However, because I did not marry until the age of fifty-five, I annually made the second trip to my parents’ home and spent Christmas with them. My brother would join us at some point during the holidays, giving us, once again, cause for celebration.

Marriage, however, changed that. I had now joined the ranks of those who had to consider the “other side” of the family. I acknowledged the traditions and timelines of my husband’s family and the extended family members of his daughter, and for the first time in fifty-five years did not spend some portion of the “two days of Christmas” with “my” family. I did not consider this a sacrifice. I considered it an act of love, making my joy all the more eager when I thought that I would be able to honor my mother and the traditions she had created in our home by spending the holidays with her this year.

Until our plans went pear-shaped.

But maybe yours did too. Or those of someone you know. And do you know what? You can celebrate Christmas in March if you want to…or May…or whenever you are together! No one—not one other being on this earth—can take away the spirit of Christmas that is in your heart, and that has nothing at all do with a calendar!

Take a moment on this Christmas Eve day to redefine your Christmas. Very few of us will have a Christmas this year that holds the same definition it has held in the past. It will look different. It will feel different. It will be different.

But you have the amazing opportunity to choose. Holding fast to your previous definitions of what this season should look like will leave you empty and, therefore, self-focused. But this is 2020. You are not alone in your need to redefine your expectations. Choose to look beyond the quietness that seems more deafening than the noise of a family gathering. Choose to hear in those silent moments the cry of the Christ Child Who had left His heavenly home for a manger…without His heavenly Father physically present. He chose love.

He came to give us that love, and that, my friend, is something to celebrate every day of the year. Christmas isn’t just family. Christmas is love—for whatever “family” (aka: friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc.) is near.

Further reading: Luke 2:1-14

By Petals from the Basket | December 24, 2020 | Bible Reading, Events, Family, Friends, Life Changes |