Today was busy, spring “break” is not so descriptive of how my week has gone. My work doubles when all of the family is home. And both Shelly and Jeff have been ill with fevers and body aches. So all of the projects I wanted to get done are being shoved to the side while I play nurse and cook and clean.
I did have a lovely time at the rec center where I work out. Went for a walk around a beautiful arboretum that has been created in a space that used to be a large field. Then I swam twenty laps in the pool and did a good stretch in the sauna. I have Yoga tomorow night and will get the rest of my muscles streched out in class.
I like to sing and pray while I am walking. It is such a great time to have a Chat with Father in Heaven without any interuptions. Mostly I just sing hymns and primary songs. Today I added in a few favorite and memorized songs from the musicals, Saturday’s Warrior and My Turn on Earth. I was blessed to memorize two songs from My Turn on Earth which I performed during childhood as solos in sacrament meeting. One early memory of my maternal grandmother was of her weeping while I sang the song homesick in church at about age eight.
Homesick
I get sort of homesick sometimes
For the home I had before my birth
For my other Father and Mother
That I left to come to earth
I miss all the heavenly peace
Of that place where no pain can be found
where their is no hurt and their is no hate
but only love around
till its time to go back home
there’s just one thing to do it’s clear
I’ll try with my heart, I’ll try with my hands
to make a heaven here.
I still cry when I sing it, such a sweet little song.
I loved listening to the birds that are drawn to those trees in the arboretum. So many different kinds all singing for joy. I really enjoyed my walk. My friend Lauren had called asking me to go biking, it was perfect weather for it, but I wanted to be alone. I love a friend like her. I can say no and don’t have to worry about offending or making her mad. No explanations needed, just “that’s cool, maybe next time”. She is a gift.
We are both thinking about having babies this year. It will be her fourth, my sixth. Music has been a connection for our friendship. When I was explaining to my husband why I love her I said, “when I told Lauren that I have a life long dream of playing Mrs. Thenardiere in Les Miserables one day on broadway…she laughed” The fact that she would get the joke is why I am so grateful for her friendship. I do want to play that part some day….”everybody raise a glass…raise it up the master’s *ss” Mormons can only have fun in certain ways and playing a bawdy character in a play is one of them.
I have been preparing my body for pregnancy. I started doing serious prep for pregnancy when I was expecting Allison fifteen years ago. By focusing on good nutrition and exercise, I have been able to prepare well for that intense time of creating a body to house the spirit’s sent to our home.
Each pregnancy has gotten just a little more intense, as I have learned more and more about pregnancy nutrition, deep tissue cleansing, and started doing my own prenatal care when I was pregnant with Andy back in 96.
I went through an intense time of research. It lasted for quite a few years. I was a childbirth teacher and felt a responsibility to my couples to know everything possible about how to build a healthy child while pregnant. It was an interesting exercise in research and then putting my research to the test. Those experiments in baby making, followed by watching the physical, emotional, and spiritual strength of my individual children has convinced me that the physical, emotional, and spiritual foods a mother puts into her body during pregnancy have a profound impact on the health of her child.
I have now learned these principles so well that it is second nature to me to be tracking Protein, Salt, and Water consumption while pregnant without really putting out too much effort. I also “eat” huge amounts of spiritual foods while pregnant, and go to extremes to avoid “toxic” situations and people when I am expecting. This is one of the reasons I stopped going to doctors. Everyone in the obstetrics world is paranoid and fretful. All tests performed on the mother and baby are done in a state of fear. And so many deadly situations are possible for both mother and baby because of the defensive medicine doctors are practicing, that I just decided I did not want to be a part of it.
I plan to blog my next pregnancy in detail. I did a simple pregnancy journal which is still up at the birthlove web site while I was pregnant with Benjamin, who is now three. This is a members only site, or I would link to the journal. I only did a few entries while I was pregnant, as I was homeschooling all four of my older kids during the pregnancy and did not have much time for writing. But with this next baby I plan to get into the details of nutrition, exercise, and natural home birth here at my blog.
While I was walking I felt the spirit of my next son close to me. Every time this happens I feel so overwhelmed with the Love that we mothers are so blessed to experience and feel in relation to our children. I have had these experiences many times with all of my children. Pre-Conception communication is real.
The first was when I was engaged. I was sitting in church and all of a sudden I heard all of these little children voices. “Mommy, Mom, Mother, we are so excited to come down and be with you!” I remember thinking…”Just how many of you are up in heaven waiting to come down?” I didn’t get any sort of a number or know how many girls or how many boys – although I have known women who have had this experience of knowing exactly how many children and in what order those children would appear.
It was just a sweet experience and one that I remember with fondness. This morning my son up in heaven let me know that he was very excited to come join our family and that he would patiently wait until the perfect time to come, for both him and for us as a family. We are so packed into our little house right now, if we had another baby, I just don’t know how we would make it work. We are really hoping to move in the summer to a bigger house. Even just one more bedroom would make a huge difference. But time will tell. Heavenly Father knows our needs and I trust that he will help to open up a way for us to move if we really should. We may just stay here, don’t know. Boulder county is a very expensive place to live.
Well, I need to go to bed.
Jenny Hatch

Father seeks right to cut ties with child he didn’t want
Guess he should have thought of this before having sex with his girlfriend.
Allowing the Drug Companies to Poison Our Children
In case if anyone was wondering wether or not Big Pharma runs the world….here is some more evidence.
Home School Burnout, Part 3
More measures to combat burnout
NIH Mulls Pros, Cons of Elective C-Sections
I’m sure they will mull and mull and mull some more and then nothing will change. Who has the incentive to change the C-section rate? Only parents who are fed up with the status quo.
Renowned Bird Flu Expert Warns: Be Prepared
Be prepared for at least ten days, with three months of self-sufficiency a great idea!
Youth indoctrination update
I love Walter Williams!
Murdoch Hails ‘Empire of New Knowledge’
New Knowledge, new empowerment, the internet is setting the world FREE!
2 more women die
after abortion pill
Deadly drugs
Docs Loading Kids With Powerful Psych Meds
And more deadly drugs….
Jenny Hatch

Today was busy. My children are home this week for spring break. In the past I have had them use vacations to learn how to cook. This time we decided to put them to the test. We offered them each $25.00 to do a day of cooking. They could either use that money to purchase food ingredients, or they were welcome to keep the money and use ingredients we already have on hand to make the meals.
Today was Andrew’s Day to cook and he decided to keep his money. So we had pancakes for breakfast, home made bread sandwiches for lunch, and pasta for supper. I try to always keep certain ingredients in our food storage so that these sorts of meals are always available without going to the store.
I think the rest of the children will decide to keep the money and use food storage to cook with. Which is just fine with me. We were going to give them some spending money this week to use to go to movies with friends or blow at the mall, which Allison did this afternoon, might as well get some cooking out of the effort. It keeps the vacation nice for me, to not have to make three meals a day for everyone.
I went to work out at the rec center this morning and had a nice two hours to myself.
We also had a lesson on The Fall of Adam and Eve for Family Home Evening, taught by Paul. Ben insisted we sing head, shoulders, knees and toes for the song, as he does every week, and we enjoyed a wonderful Boston Cream pie for a treat. I did my usual laundry and dishes, took a nap, and cleaned the main part of the house. Paul did the supper dishes, and we watched 24 – really good episode. Now, I am trying to come up with something “spiritual” to write about, and can’t think of anything profound and so I will say goodnight.
Jenny Hatch

I’ve decided to write a final wrap up of my thoughts for the day, every day. This is a difficult time for me to write. I am generally surrounded by my family, as I am now, with a multitude of distractions (even as I was booting up the computer and waiting for movable type to load, I had two interuptions). Sometimes I feel like my writing is really bad, but so often it is just because I am distracted and simply don’t have time to edit, and re-edit and re-edit to get it where I would like it to be.
If you would like to read some things that I have re-edited and written to the point where I really feel happy with what was on the page, please read one of my books, or some of the columns at my web site. For this Blog, and especially for these nightly wrap ups of the day, I will write quickly and just share what is in my heart. Without worrying too much about spelling, grammer, and word usage.
Paul and I went to the Denver Temple on friday night. It was such a sacred experience, as it always is. I have been struggling with my health these past few weeks, and on friday was not much better. I told him that I wanted to take a nap on friday afternoon, and when I woke up, I would let him know if I was well enough to attend the temple.
So often these sorts of things are tied to spiritual warfare. I am convinced Satan will stop at nothing to keep the saints out of the temple and physical ill health is surely one of the ways he distracts us from doing what is right. While I was sleeping I had a dream, and I just knew that I had to go to the temple no matter what and participate in the prayer circle. Father in Heaven let me know that great healing would be mine if I took the time and effort to attend the temple.
And it was! I felt the spirit wash over me as I participated in the endowment session, and especially during prayer, so that by the time we were finished I felt a lightness in my heart and a wholeness to my being that was tangible and significant.
These past few years I have been working through some serious trauma that I experienced during my childhood and early adult life. The tender mercies of the Lord have been made manifest over and over during this time in a variety of ways. Once during my pregnancy with Ben, I was processing out some pain from being sexually assaulted, and I was so frustrated that it was taking so long. In absolute frustration I called out to God and asked him to just bring it all up….NOW, so that I could just be over it and move on to bigger and better things in my life.
I had the direct impression from the Lord that if I were to have all of the distress manifest at once, that I would not be able to handle it and more importantly, my baby would not be able to handle it, and would probably miscarry. From that experience I learned patience and trust in my Father in Heaven, that he would help me through the traumas and completely heal me.
These past few months I felt the familiar feelings of more junk bubbling to the surface of my being. Lots of physical distress, some depression, and fleeting images and sensations. To call it a “Memory” is such a dis-service to what it is. When one hears the words memory, they think of the video of their fifth birthday playing on a screen. Sexual abuse memories are so much more and are encompassed and defined by a whole host of sensations, images, and feelings.
I suppose what has surprised me the most in this healing is simply that Heavenly Father keeps his promises. In the scriptures he has promised that he will not allow us to bear more trials than we are able to carry. Sometimes he has carried me to the very depths of my being in terms of capacity as I have moved down this healing path. But he has never allowed me to experience more than I was able to, and he has allowed me to be enabled to live my life and take care of my family, while moving ahead with the healing. I have had days, weeks, and months where I did not even think about the traumas and abuse. During these busy seasons, he knew I just could not deal with it, and so I believe he helped me to suppress it a little bit so that I could do my life.
At other times he opened up windows of opportunity where I could move through and heal the damaged parts of my soul without being completely incapacitated. As I look back on these seventeen years of life, I can see the patterns and the grace of his wisdom in allowing me to heal a piece at a time. At this time I also have to acknowledge the love and patience of my husband as he has been a loving and supportive companion to help me through this time. Paul is a true saint, and I will be forever grateful that he was willing to stand by me during the dark days and the difficult times of our marriage. As in all marriages, we have had a couple of extremely difficult and overwhelming days. Living through experiences that left us numb and void of feeling because we were so overwhelmed by what we had felt.
I was violently raped about a year after we were married. I had no memory of this experience until twelve years later. Yet it cast a pall over our lives and left us reeling at times so badly that all we could do was cry out to Father in Heaven for relief from the emotional pain. During these years we experienced enough light and love with our children being born and the hope and joy they brought into our home, that we were able to hold our marriage together and keep the faith. But it was not easy.
When those memories started to surface a couple years ago, I told Paul what I was remembering and he simply wept. Then he expressed his deep sorrow, and that was enough. He knew he could not fix those damaged places in my soul, only God could do that, but his acceptance and love before and after my memories surfaced allowed me to let the Lord heal me in his own way and time.
Why write about this now? Well, I believe with the healing I experienced friday night at the temple that I have finally purged the last of the trauma out of my psyche. Time will tell if this is the case, but I feel different. I feel whole, peaceful, and at rest. The fire of agitation that has burned in my heart for my whole life has gone down to a low flame. I woke up on saturday morning refreshed, happy, hungry, and filled with good humor and light.
My lungs are clear and I feel so happy to be alive. It is such a blessing to take a full breath and feel the oxygen filling my cells up with healing energy.
In class this morning as we talked about the Atonement, the spirit was so strong. I just felt the love of the savior wash over me during the class as we talked about what his sacrifice meant to all of humanity. And as I listened to the testimonies of the good people of my ward, and then went to choir practice and sang the amazing Easter music that we are preparing for our Easter program, again, I felt the Love of Jesus Christ wash over me. How great is His Wisdom and His Love as he works to heal us as individuals, families, and nations. In his own perfect timing he pulls us out of the depths of darkness that we may find ourselves in, often through no fault of our own, and he gives us comfort and peace.
I would be so remiss if I did not publicly acknowledge the vital roll he has played in my life thus far. And on this day, this perfect day, when I have felt his spirit over and over and over again, I just want to shout out to anyone who is listening, “I know that my redeemer lives!”
I plan to use this nightly blogging to share the spiritual things of my heart at the close of each day. Thanks for listening.
Jenny Hatch

I make a double batch of Whole Wheat Waffle dough almost every week. Everyone at our house loves to eat waffles, and Waffles are the most requested “breakfast in bed” birthday meal. (My family chooses a day’s worth of food to help us celebrate). Waffles, Whipped Cream, and Strawberries are usually first choice.
I serve waffles for supper sometimes, and I like to have dough in the fridge for our children to cook themselves when they are hungry. I have used Kamut and Flax, Barley, Brown Rice, Spelt, Red Wheat, and Rye to make waffles, but my all time favorite grain to use is White Wheat. It is simply delicious.

Whole Wheat organic Waffles
Here is my recipe for a double batch of Whole Wheat Waffles
8 Organic Eggs
1 Quart Enriched Rice Dream Rice Milk
1 Cup Olive oil
1/4 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
6 Cups Organic White Wheat Flour (fresh ground)
1 Tablespoon Sea Salt
2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
First I separate the egg whites and whip them up in my mixer on a high speed.

Whipped Egg Whites

Then I grind up about five cups of Organic White Wheat in my Electric Wheat Mill.

Organic White Wheat

Fresh Ground Whole Wheat flour.
When you take the time to grind your grains fresh every day, you start to live the principle of Daily Bread. As in Give us this day our Daily Bread! This has a couple of benefits for the family. One, the oils in the grains (Wheat germ oil in this case) are not rancid. Once a whole wheat berry is cut, the oils in the grain go rancid in about twelve hours. Two, the flavor of the food is incredibly good. Three, the moisture in the grain stays intact making whatever you cook delicious and moist.
After whole wheat flour has sat around on a shelf for a couple hours, days, or weeks, it is a dried out, rancid package of overpriced bran. The bran is healthy and beneficial to the diet, but the rancid oils create anti-oxidents in the body, and the food created from this flour does not taste very good. For maximum nutrition, daily grinding, baking, followed by eating the foods fresh and hot out of the oven are the ideal for whole grains. Nothing can prepare you for how good these foods taste when they are cooked this way.

Whip the egg yolks until smooth and then add in the Rice Milk.

Olive oil added into the mixer

Brown Rice Syrup contains B-Vitamins and is a nice sweetner to add into baked goods.

Mix the leavening (Soda and Powder) and Salt with the flour and slowly add it into the liquids in the mixer.

Fold in the egg white and gently mix the dough. Then I put this huge batch of dough into two plastic covered containers. One goes right into the fridge, and the other I use to make breakfast with. Any leftovers go back into the covered container and it is ready to use for a couple more days.
The dough that sits in the fridge is actually more tasty after a couple days of fermentation, aligning well with Weston Prices principles for proper preparation of grains found in Sally Fallons Nourishing Traditions cookbook, which is one of my favorites.
Be Kind to your Grains

Cook the dough in any waffle iron, and then serve with fresh fruit, butter, maple syrup, and any toppings you enjoy!
Jenny Hatch