Hallee The Homemaker

Topaz Heat is Now Available!

Hallee — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:00:05 +0000

Topaz Heat, Book 3 of the Jewel Trilogy, is now on sale! It is my personal favorite of all three books.

One reviewer said:

Topaz Heat is an excellent romantic suspense! Hallee Bridgeman is a new author to me so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Wow! What a wonderful surprise! The story was very well written and seemed to have the perfect blend of suspense, romance and intrigue, with some splashes of humor along the way. I fell in love with the characters and thoroughly enjoyed the interaction of the ‘family’ and the closeness they shared. I really appreciated the underlying message that, as believers, we are new creatures in Christ and that our old self is done away with. Derrick was a great example of how God can change a heart and when He does He changes a life as well. That’s always an encouraging message to hear. Sarah was a very relateable character and though we don’t like to admit it, I’m guessing we probably all have a little ‘Sarah’ in us. You’ll find Derrick to be very romantic. There were several toe-curling moments between him and Sarah. And I must say, the Epilog was totally sigh-worthy! Topaz Heat is Book 3 of the Jewel Trilogy but I didn’t feel lost not having read the other two books (Sapphire Ice & Emerald Fire) first. I will, however, be reading those very soon. I think reading them in order would be beneficial in gaining the family history but not necessary for understanding the story. Topaz Heat is a great romantic suspense and one I would definitely recommend. Great job, Hallee!

You can find it on Smashwords here.

You can find it on Amazon here.

You can find it at Barnes & Noble here.

Until June 18th, it’s just $0.99!

I pray that it is a blessing to you. After you read it, I would LOVE to know what you thought about it and the rest of the series. I would really appreciate it if you left a review where you bought it. You can also leave a review for it at Goodreads, here, and Library Thing, here.

Thank you SO much!

Hallee

I’m so grateful for your visit, today.
You would bless me if you added me to your feed reader or subscribed via email.
You can also become a fan on Facebook or follow me on Twitter. I would love to see more of you!

Book Signing Announcement!

Hallee — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:40:42 +0000

If you are local to me, I hope you can join me at the book signing that will launch the paperback of Emerald Fire!

Hallee

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And the Winner Is…

Hallee — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:59:53 +0000

The winner of my Military Spouse Appreciation Day Blog Hop is…

You have won all three books in my Jewel Trilogy in e-book form.

I will be emailing you with the details.

Thank you so much for participating in my blog hop!

Hallee

The Garden: Week 10

Hallee — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:14:17 +0000

I cannot believe that 9 weeks have passed since I did a garden update!

I have been so busy with book releases and writing that gardening got put off to just now. Since we’re on vacation next week, I needed to just stop everything this week and get the garden planted.

We have a plot at our church. This is the first time we’ve done that, and I’m LOVING the size of my plot!

Last week, we planted about 20 rows of Three Sisters style corn, green beans, and winter squash (a combination of butternut, acorn, spaghetti, and pumpkin). So far, only beans have come up.

Then I did 10 rows of just corn, 10 rows of just beans, 2 rows of spinach, one row each of lettuce, basil, dill, cilantro, and parsley. Then I planted 13 rows of 9 tomato plants each, and 6 rows of 9 green pepper plants each.

The only problem with it at this point is that I’m totally reliant on rain to water it. I would love to set a sprinkler and just soak all those seeds and new plants.

My peas that I planted in Week 1 are growing tall. No pictures, though, because I haven’t weeded in forever and you’d have a hard time even seeing the peas.

We still need to finish the backyard garden, with our summer squash, hot peppers, more tomatoes, maybe some onions, and some watermelon.

So, how does your garden grow?

Hallee

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Diaper Planner

Hallee — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:00:21 +0000

Gregg has a friend whose wife is expecting twins. During the initial budgeting and planning and thinking of the changes twins would bring to their home, he created this site: DiaperPlanner.com.

This site is SO NEAT.

Basically, you plug in the expected weight of the child(ren) that are due (or the weight at birth of a child already born), and it will calculate how many diapers of what size that baby will need its first year.

For 7-pound twins, it would begin calculating at week 1:

And continue all the way through to week 52 and the total estimated number of diapers that will be needed:

One really neat thing you can do with this site, is determine just how much money you can save if you used cloth diapers, like I did. It’s FASCINATING to see what the total number is for just one year, much less for three or four years.

Hallee

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Military Spouse Appreciation Day Blog Hop

Hallee — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:06:30 +0000

Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day! During this time of war, being a military spouse is one of the hardest jobs out there. If our spouse isn’t deployed, we live in a constant state of waiting for the next deployment. So, if you’re a military spouse, THANK YOU.

For those of you who read me who are not in the “military blogging world”, this weekend is also huge military blogging conference called Milblog. Many of us could not attend for various reasons.

As such, Ann Marie at Household6Diva and Roller Coaster at RidingtheRollerCoaster came up with a beautiful idea of having a Meet and Greet for those of us who aren’t at Milblog. All of our blogging friends are going to be standing around, sipping drinks, admiring each others’ shoes and passing out business-blog cards while chatting up their little corner of the Internet.

So, if you’re here visiting from another blog, and attending this Meet and Greet, it’s wonderful to meet you. I’m Hallee Bridgeman. Here is my card:

I have a faith based homemaking blog. I focus on four major areas:

My relationship with God. This is the most important thing in my life, and is forefront in everything that I do from loving my husband to what we eat and why we eat it. My testimony can be found here.
Being a wife to my husband and the mother to my children. I love my family, and taking care of them is the highlight of my life. Gregg and I have been married for 10 years this year. We have three children, Kaylee (15), Scott (5), and Johnathan *Jeb* (4). Gregg recently returned home from a 3-year absence that included military duty AND a civilian contract in Afghanistan . I blogged a series entitled “Surviving Separation” that offered practical and emotional tips to survive separation. Gregg is currently a member of the Kentucky National Guard. You can read about each one of us in my About page.
My Kitchen. Nicknamed Hallee’s Galley by my husband, Gregg, and some friends. The story for that can be found here. I love sharing recipes, hearing about recipes, sharing kitchen tips, sharing lessons learned.
My Home. Creating a home that my children love and my husband is proud of is of the utmost importance to me. I want it to be a place of sanctuary and hospitality – a place where someone coming in will know that God is the head and love overflows.

This summer, my blog will celebrate it’s 3-year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been 3 years. At times I feel like I started it yesterday, and at times I feel like I’ve been doing it my whole life. In that time, I’ve met some amazing friends, I was invited to participate in Kitchen Stewardship’s Real Food Face-Off, and have become a participant in many different rings and communities. I won the Circle of Moms awards for both Homemaking blog and Home Organizing blog. I am also a regular contributor to Seeds of Faith, posting under my category “Writing Worth Reading ” on the first and third Saturdays of each month.

This year has brought some exciting changes to my life. First, Gregg came home. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to have him sleeping next to me in the same bed every.single.night without dreading the end of a short time together. It has been BLISS.

Second, I launched my writing career. In fact, I’m giving away autographed copies of all three books in my Jewel Trilogy. You can find those and other great giveaways for this blog hop on Roller Coaster’s blog. You can find out information about my writing career, as well as where to purchase my books, on my writing blog.

Third, I am training to walk the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day 60-mile walk in Boston — the city where my novels are set. I will be doing that at the end of July. I am currently running a fundraiser for that thanks to my beautiful friend and stunning photographer, MJ. If you want to see some amazing photos she has for sale to help me fund my walk, click here.

And for those of you who haven’t heard yet – go write yourself an intro post, link to the Linky (after 12:00 PM EST) at Household 6 Diva & Riding the Roller Coaster, then join the fun by surfing some lovely new blogs! Also be sure to post a button in your sidebar to be eligible for one of the wonderful sponsored giveaway items!

As an added bonus, if you comment on this post, you will be entered to win all three of my novels in e-book form. I will do the giveaway on Wednesday, May 16th, at 1700 EST (that’s 5PM for those of you who are not military spouses.)

I love that we’re having our own little cocktail party here. I am so looking forward to spending the evening browsing through your blogs and making new friends. By the way – those are the cutest shoes I’ve ever seen. Where did you find them? And, yes, I’d love to meet for coffee sometime. That would be wonderful.

Hallee

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Stunning

Hallee — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:00:31 +0000

My friend MJ is a stunning photographer. That’s the only word I can use to describe her work. Positively, breathtakingly, stunning.

MJ has graciously, and wonderfully, offered an album of ten prints to me to help me on my fundraising for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day walk in Boston this July. This is what MJ says:

ALL, and I mean 100%, of the profit is going to help my friend and her 3 day walk in Boston benefiting the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Costs: 4×6- $3.00, 5×7- $ 7.50, 8×10 $15. Please add $4 for shipping no matter how many prints you order, they are shipped directly from the lab. A very LARGE portion of your print cost will be going to Hallee.

I am putting each print here, and they should link to MJ’s Facebook page, which will give you all of the information you need to order. If you don’t have Facebook, get with me and I will connect you with MJ to place the order.

I appreciate any and all help you can give. If you have any questions, please ask me and I will forward the questions to MJ.

Hallee

Organic Palm Shortening

Hallee — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:33:44 +0000

Unlike many “real food” bloggers, I am not an affiliate of Tropical Traditions. So, giving you this information brings me no monetary benefit. However, the deal is too good not to share with you.

I do not use vegetable shortening (like Crisco). For a long time, I would buy “organic, non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening” for an incredibly expensive amount — like $13 for 24 ounces. But, it’s how I make my Buttercream Frosting. Also, some cookie recipes don’t taste good with coconut oil substituting for the shortening (peanut butter cookies come immediately to mind). So, I kept some on hand despite the cost.

Well, looking at the ingredients of the organic vegetable shortening, I discovered that all it is is palm shortening. I knew from ordering coconut oil that Tropical Traditions sells organic palm shortening. A gallon is typically $40.75 — which is still cheaper than $13 for 24 ounces.

I’m out so I went on their site last night to order a gallon. I discovered that until Sunday, May 13th, a gallon of palm shortening is just $23.59.

This is seriously too good of a deal not to take advantage.

If you click the picture it will take you to the page with the shortening, and that includes a picture of the nutrition label. It’s likely that there are other great deals going on during this sale — it might be worth your time browsing around and seeing what other really healthy oils you can buy. My time is limited this week, so I won’t be able to do that. I just wanted to give you a head’s up about the sale.

Hallee

20 Weeks

Hallee — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:29:49 +0000

16 Week Ultrasound

I have a Facebook friend who, a few months ago, suffered a tragic loss. She was 20 weeks pregnant and her baby died in utero. The doctors induced her, and she suffered through labor and gave birth. The hospital let them hold him for a while, took pictures for them that they have now, and treated her and her husband very gently. A few days later, they had a funeral for the baby.

This was all recently brought to my mind as I read about Diana’s tragedy on Hormonal Imbalances. Part of the entire horrible experience involved some “20 week pregnancy standard” where she was treated differently when her water broke at 18.5 weeks versus 20 weeks. Her loss of babies just shy of 20 weeks is overwhelming her and she’s absolutely broken. As I read about her experiences, there’s no way not to think of my own.

I have suffered many losses. I talked about them in my post The Reversal. With these two recent 20-week losses on my radar, I am often thinking back over 16 years ago.

I was in my second pregnancy. The first one had ended in miscarriage at about 6 weeks. I discovered I was pregnant one day and lost it the next. This pregnancy, though, seemed perfectly normal. I felt good, I was in maternity clothes, we were talking about names. I went to my 20-week appointment and got to see the baby on the ultrasound machine. The doctor listened to the heartbeat, gave me a clean bill of health, and I scheduled an appointment for the following month.

The next day, I was at work training my replacement. Out of nowhere, I felt like something was wrong. I had no reason for it. No light headedness, no pain, nothing. I called the doctor’s office, and they said someone would call me back. The doctor did within a few minutes. I said, “Something is wrong. I don’t know how to explain it, but I know it.”

He suggested I come in just to ease my own mind. I left work with a sense of dread and drove to the doctor’s office. He was very nice and very upbeat. “I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” he said, and put the microphone on my stomach and started searching for the baby’s heartbeat.

After several minutes, he started acting worried. “Let me just get the ultrasound machine,” he said. He left the room and he and a nurse returned, wheeling the machine on a cart. The whole time he was reassuring me.

He pulled the baby up on the screen. It was perfect. It was small enough that I could see the whole baby on the screen, and it was perfect. Perfect head, perfect body. But, within seconds, he turned the screen so that I could not see.

“We need to send you to the hospital,” he said. “I can’t find the heartbeat, but they have a better machine.”

19-week ultrasound

I immediately started crying. It was the only time during this entire experience that a rush of emotion overwhelmed me to the point that I cried. A nurse gave me a box of tissues, and while tears poured out of my eyes, I made arrangements to go to the hospital. This was pre-cell-phones as a standard extension of the human body, so there was no way for me to contact my (ex)husband.

I went to the hospital alone and they took me almost immediately into the big ultrasound room. The tech was a young man, who did not speak to me in any kind of conversational manner. He gave me directions, but made no small talk. He did not let me see the screen, either.

As soon as I got home, the doctor called me. “Your baby is dead,” he said. “I don’t know why. But we know it was alive yesterday and it’s rare that we catch a fetal demise this early. If we move quickly, the tissue won’t be as broken down by your body and we can probably have an autopsy to find out what happened.”

This is seriously the conversation I had with the doctor about four hours after my initial phone call to his office. And those tears in his office were the first and last tears I cried about the whole thing. I reported to the hospital at 7AM the next morning. I remember grabbing my (ex)husband’s hand in a panic as they were wheeling me to the operating room. “What if they’re wrong,” I said.

“They’re sure,” he said. “They’re not wrong.”

That was it. I was put to sleep. When I woke up, I wasn’t pregnant any more.

There was no labor. No delivery. No name. No concerned nurses giving me and my (ex)husband time with our baby. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl. No funeral. No flowers. No anything. I had a normal, healthy pregnancy one minute, and nothing the next.

My (ex) husband did not mention it again. Ever. I did not go through a grieving process. My normal stoicism set in and got me through it.

I wonder if I had been handled differently, if I would have handled it differently. I wonder if the doctor and hospital staff had treated me like a patient losing her baby instead of with the excitement of discovering a fetal demise so quickly after death that it allowed them an opportunity to run a science experiment if I would have felt differently.

I wonder, just recently in light of the two stories I shared with you in my introduction, what it would be like to have been able to labor through giving birth to this child, then been given the opportunity to hold that baby and say goodbye. I wonder if I would have actually grieved instead of just handling it in my typical unemotional fashion.

Diane said that at 20 weeks, they somehow consider the loss as “more”. That wasn’t my experience. It was all very clinical, very clean. Anesthesia, sleep, wake, go home in clothes that are somewhat looser than what you wore into the hospital and never speak of it again.

We never spoke of it again.

I don’t know if it’s just because 16 years have gone by and things were done differently then, or if it was me, or if it was my doctor.

I know that just a month later, I was pregnant with Kaylee. And, I wouldn’t trade her for the world. But these things have been on my radar lately, which has put my own experiences and how different they are on my mind.

Hallee

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Let Them Into the Kitchen

Hallee — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:26:02 +0000

I recently made eggplant parmesan for dinner. (Recipe forthcoming). I had Scott and Johnathan (Jeb) in the kitchen with me, as is typically the norm. Jeb was on his chair watching me cook.

While I was contending with something on the stove, Scott decided to help.

I turned around and there he was, sending eggplant through the assembly line process.

Dip it in flour.

Dip it in egg.

Dip it in breadcrumbs.

Set aside.

Repeat.

I was so proud of him. He did everything in the proper order and did it perfectly.

While I was snapping pictures, Jeb decided to join in on the fun.

Don’t be afraid to let your younger children help you in the kitchen. They are capable of doing so much more than a lot of us parents give them credit for.

Start them at 3 (like Jeb) and they will become comfortable in the kitchen, and in a decade or so, they won’t be afraid to pull out your old 1950 Betty Crocker, find a cake recipe, and go to town making cupcakes.

Gregg and I came home last night and found these.

Kaylee had seen a picture on Tumblr or Pinterest and decided she wanted to make them. At 15, my daughter loves to cook, loves to bake, and isn’t afraid to experiment.

Let your kids into the kitchen. Don’t send them off to play or distract them with a show. Hand them a chore and let them go to town.

Dinner prep takes a little longer. Cleanup often takes longer. But the end result is worth it.