Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the beef and stuff

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Weekly Wrap-Up

Happy Friday, y’all! I hope you’ve had a fantastic week. My only complaint is that the summer is going by way too quickly. {sigh} It always seems to happen that way.

Megan had thought about going on a mission trip this week but decided not to go because the rest of the month is so packed. I’m not going to lie – I have not been sad that she stayed home. There have been several times this week when I’ve caught myself thinking how glad I am that she’s home.

There have also been several times this week when I’ve thought about how much I love my family. Josh and Megan were BFFs as young kids. Then, when they hit the tween and early teens years, they did not get along. Sometimes I despaired that they would never have a loving relationship again.

Over the last year or so, they’ve grown close again and it just makes my heart happy.They talk to each other like friends and hang out together. They enjoy each other’s company again. So, hang in there, moms of squabbling teens. It does get better.

One night this week, Josh and Brianna were in the living room “fussing.” He was lying on the couch and she wanted to sit there to play a video game. She really did want to sit there and he really wasn’t going to give up his comfy spot, but they were playing up the fussing like they were little kids. It just made me smile because I knew they were kidding and it made me miss those years just a teeny bit.

In other exciting (to me) news, I picked up our first bulk order of grass-fed beef yesterday. We have friends who raise beef cows and I finally convinced Brian to fork over the funds for the upfront costs of buying bulk.

I was so pleased with our package! We bought a quarter of a cow. We got tons (okay, not “tons” but nearly 50 pounds) of ground beef, which is what we use the most, a few roasts, and several pounds of stew meat, sirloin, and t-bones. There’s probably some other stuff I forgot about, but it packed my freezer with good, grass-fed beef.

The only thing we won’t use is the two packages of beef liver, but I’m going to make my mom happy with those. Funny thing is, I can’t stand beef liver, but I’m all about some fried chicken livers. Maybe I’ll give the beef liver another chance when my mom makes it…but probably not!

A few months ago, we got a family package of pork from the same friends we got the beef from. Next time, I’ll probably get half a pig because yum! Brian loves the sausage, and this week I made pulled pork from a ham pork roast. I had no idea what it was exactly or how to fix it, but I Googled it to see if it would be good as pulled pork.

It was the best pulled pork I’ve ever eaten!

I rubbed it with a mixture of one teaspoon each of paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, and brown sugar; and a half teaspoon of red pepper flakes. After it finished cooking, I mixed together 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar, and 1/3 cup cider vinegar, poured that over the shredded pork and cooked it a little longer. I’ll definitely be making that again!

Today, we’re celebrating Brian’s birthday. He’s old, y’all. (Yeah, I’m totally saying that just because he’s older than I am.) Maybe I’ll make it some spaghetti with some of that good, grass-fed beef. I need to learn to use the grill so I can grill him a steak.

That’s it for me this week. No school stuff since I’m refusing to think about it this week. I’ll probably have to break down and do some serious planning next week. When are those of you who took a summer break starting back?

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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15 Comments

  1. Ahh, liver. We could always tell when my brother was home on leave from the navy because we’d smell liver and onions being cooked in the middle of the night. Yuck! And the story of your teens does give me some hope. My 13 and 17 year olds fight ALOT, yet just yesterday she bought him a donut, and they were playing video games together.

  2. I’m curious what you think of the grass fed meat. We don’t mind the ground beef, but the steaks and roasts have a different flavor than we expect. We’re not sure we like it.

    1. I love the ground beef. That’s all I’ve tried so far. I may have to grill a steak this weekend, you know, just for testing purposes. 🙂

  3. Ha! Squabbling teens – I’ve got squabbling tweens. It’s killing me. They do go back and forth though. But man, when they aren’t getting along it’s the pits – and they WILL NOT admit that there are times when they like each other! Yeesh, I’ll take your word for it that it gets better 🙂

  4. I’ve been trying to convince my husband to buy beef from a local farmer that sells grass fed beef but so far no luck. I’ll keep trying. I grew up on fresh beef, pork and chicken that was raised on my grandparents farm. You cannot beat it. So good! This may sound strange but I’m envious of your freezer. From the time we bought ours we have had frost build up. It takes up space and looks terrible. So far I haven’t found anything to stop it. (I wonder if it’s the door seal.) We usually start school again in late August or early September but have continued with math and french all summer. We take breaks from time to time if something is going on or if we just want a break. My daughter has also continued her keyboard lessons and we have just started guitar together. We are teaching ourselves with help from some books and the internet. My daughter has really amazed me with her skill and determination to learn keyboard. She has learned to play some current songs and her dad and I couldn’t be prouder.

    1. We just defrosted ours a few months ago. I’m hoping that keeping it full will cut down on the build up.

  5. Happy birthday to the old man! Yay for buying in bulk when it comes to meat! We love doing that and dream of a time that we can raise our own. As for the play fussing with each other I tend to love when my two older ones do that because it really does remind me of when they were younger as well.

  6. It was (selfishly) nice to hear you have squabbling kiddos too. This is my first experience with that since my oldest doesn’t really argue with his siblings. But WOW, my twelve year old son and eleven year old daughter (only 20 months apart) have been fighting almost nonstop lately. I think my daughter has hit a prepubescent time. She’s my first and only girl. It’s tough. A prayer sent our way would be awesome.

    1. If it makes you feel about better, Josh and Megan are 21 months apart and that’s about the age they started squabbling. I think it’s something to do with that age. It makes my heart happy to see them so close again. I’ll be praying for your kiddos.

      1. I’m hoping they will be close again too. They always were buds until recently. Thanks for the prayers.

  7. We got so much beef this past week too – seven boxes that were about 50 pounds each. Crazy amount of meat. On the bright side, it’s the only time we ever get steak, so it’s a definite treat! 🙂

    I’ll admit I haven’t sorted it in our freezer yet though. That’s another day to do with gloves.

    And our chest freezer wouldn’t work just before we got it, so there may have been a scramble to purchase another one to use alongside our stand up freezer. One thing I love though – our processor started packaging the meat in clear bags and did the ground beef in flat square bags. SO NICE!!!!

    1. Oh, the clear bags would be nice! Especially since I’m new to this. I know what all the beef is, but some of the pork has been a surprise. lol

  8. I wish we had a big enough freezer to buy that much beef at one time. It’s SO much better than the store bought.

    Happy birthday to Brian!

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