homemaking – Treasuring Home

August 2025 ~ Apple Butter; Farmer’s Market; Thrifting; A Baby Quilt!

Published on August 24, 2025August 24, 2025 by JenniferLeave a comment

I’m making apple butter! I pulled out the canning supplies for the first time in years, scrounged up some jars from hither and yon, and heated up the kitchen (albeit during a fierce wave of heat and humidity–if a heat wave can actually last months.)

I first used the McIntosh apples from our backyard tree. It produced like crazy this year and the fruit was ready early. Then I acquired two buckets of Golden Delicious, which I am now processing. They are soft, so easy to cut up with the apple corer, and they cook up so nicely for apple butter. For the Golden Delicious, I have boiled the apple butter down a little more on the stove, after the crock pot cooking was done, for a thicker finished product.

Apple butter made in the crock pot is amazing—smells wonderful, tastes delicious, and Steve has been very appreciate of it. On a biscuit or raisin toast… yum. No need to even peel the apples during the process.

I used my immersion blender {affiliate link} to blend it up after cooking, and an apple slicer {affiliate link} has been marvelous, especially for the Golden Delicious which I mentioned are quite soft.

Farmer’s Market
I’m hoping to sell some jars of apple butter at the Farmer’s Market in a few weeks, too. Since my last post —a Farmer’s Market has appeared in our town! My mom is hosting it every Saturday morning. During the last several weeks of summer, the girls baked items for it every week. Micah sold lemonade (a dream come true for him!) and homemade mint iced tea.

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March 2025 ~ Daily List, Easy Menu, Gift Idea, Thinking & Growing…

Published on March 17, 2025March 17, 2025 by JenniferLeave a comment

At our house we have had kids playing outside, and laundry hanging on the line! It’s been a whole new world after a long a bitterly cold winter. These warm early spring days can be some of the most enjoyable days of the year, when your skin remembers what it feels like to have sunshine soaking into it.

Thanks to Annalise for the amazing action shot!

Daily Planning & List-Making

I love my daily list. In my early years of homemaking, I used those narrow little $1 notepads. Oh for the days when all my tasks could fit so neatly into such a slim space!

Then I upgraded to a journal size, then a school notebook size, and then I recently found my ultimate dream in list-making… what is called an “Organizing Notebook” and is actually 9.5 x 11.5! It allows me to have a little more “margin in my days” literally, haha. I found it at Staples and hope to have such good fortune the next time I need a new notebook.

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Hello Again!

Published on January 19, 2025 by JenniferLeave a comment

After a hiatus of almost three years—hello! How are you??

One of my plans for 2025 is to post a blog here once a month, maybe a scattering of homemaking, cooking, raising children, general happenings, and what have you. We’ll see! How I have missed posting and sharing here.

I’ve updated my bio and about the blog page, to reflect where I am in life now. I’ll let you hop over to those pages to catch up, but I do have to say… I’m a Grammy now! Oh the changes three years can bring!

A Meal We Love ~ Chicken Pot Pie

The main thing with this recipe is the filling. Feel free to use any cooked chicken/canned chicken, any assortment of veggies, and feel free to use a frozen pie crust. It’s the filling that makes all the difference. We always eat it with a salad.

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Happy New Year! – Patchwork Post {January 2022}

Published on January 2, 2022 by JenniferLeave a comment

Hi dear ladies, congrats on making it to January. We can all take a deep breath and also take a minute to realize what we’ve accomplished. We’ve navigated another holiday season. Although it was done imperfectly, the fact remains that we served our families to the best of our abilities, did all the shopping, choosing, planning, decorating, cooking, wrapping, sizing, baking… and all the other things. God is gracious to give us such a reason to celebrate and the strength to make it special for our dear ones.

The last link of the Christmas countdown chain!

You can read our family Christmas Update 2021, here.

Just two things have been on my heart for the year ahead.

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Fun Stuff We Love {February 2021}

Published on February 28, 2021 by Jennifer2 Comments

Before this month completely gets away from us, here we are with the second edition of our product share feature!

From Jennifer:

We use this rice cooker all the time. We eat quite a bit of rice and it used to be that the rice would so easily burn when being cooked on the stove. Now it never burns, which is the best part of using a rice cooker. It also has some convenient settings such as a delay start option. I have made different types of rice in it, and all has turned out well. Read the instructions carefully, because the measurement for the rice is a little different than you might expect. The only thing I don’t like is that, when cooking the rice, it doesn’t tell you how much time is left until it gets down to 10 minutes, and then it gives you a countdown. It usually takes about 40 minutes to make a batch. It will keep the rice warm and ready to eat for hours, if you need to cook the rice ahead of time.

From Beka:

I absolutely love the milk frother whisk I got recently. I use it to blend anything in a cup, like hot chocolate or my daily greens powder. What’s amazing about this little tool is that it works wonders for mixing things that tend to be lumpy. I made homemade hot chocolate earlier, and getting the cocoa to incorporate is usually quite a challenge. I took this quick video to show you.

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Stay Grounded

Published on January 18, 2021 by Jennifer7 Comments

As a woman, there is an undeniable pull to my home, to my nest. This is what I call a “grounding force,” placed into the heart of a woman by Creator God. We must stay deeply rooted and grounded during such turbulent times.

We need to make a deliberate effort to step out of our paralysis of fear and all that we cannot control, and step into some positive action right here in our homes. Even a small amount of energy will begin to build upon itself, and you will find yourself looking around at things you can control, a place where you can make a difference and create a peaceful haven, a place where you can have real and lasting influence (the kind unknown to Twitter) in the lives of others, and thereby have real influence in the real world.

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Our first giveaway!

Published on October 18, 2020October 20, 2020 by Jennifer18 Comments

Here on Treasuring Home, we will be giving away a lovely one-of-a-kind piece, skillfully created by my talented sister-in-law Esther. She designed and wood-burned this beautiful piece of home decor, by hand. I love placing decor around our home that will remind us of truths, especially Scripture.

We tried hard to capture some photos that would do this piece justice. We *almost* succeeded.

To enter the drawing:

Sign up on the email list for Treasuring Home (if you are not on it already). Use the subscribe button at the bottom on mobile devices, or on the sidebar on a desktop. **Be sure to check your email, in order to confirm your subscription. You may have to check your promotions folder or your spam folder. You are not actually subscribed until you click the link in the confirmation email.**
Next, leave a comment on this post, here on the blog. (A Facebook or Instagram comment will unfortunately not be counted.)

Doing the two things above will give you one entry into the contest.

After you have done that, if you would like a bonus entry, either share this post on Facebook and tag me (Jennifer Hall), or tag my account in an Instagram post or story (@treasuringhome). If you do both, it will count for two bonus entries.

That’s it! The giveaway will close on October 31, a name will be randomly drawn (out of a literal hat 😜), the winner will be notified.

Stay at Your Post

Published on August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 by Jennifer6 Comments

God has you where you are for a reason, even though you may not understand what that reason is. None of us fully understands God’s plan at work in our individual lives. It’s tempting to think that something really important, something that makes a lot more sense, is out there somewhere.

“That something else is, in our imagination, a very important thing, and it has an imagined importance that makes sense to us. It is a creature of ours. And if it makes sense to us, then it is a sure thing that we are flying blinkered and blind.” -Douglas Wilson, Ploductivity

Trust the Master Planner. He is working all things together for His kingdom, and He has given you a part in it that is uniquely yours. Continue reading “Stay at Your Post” →

Quarantine Edition – in which we hear from some of you!

Published on April 21, 2020April 21, 2020 by Jennifer3 Comments

I wanted to create a “collage” post of ideas and thoughts about this quarantine period. So, a few weeks ago I asked– What has God been teaching you? What activities have you been doing with your family that are a little bit different from your normal routine? What recipes have you tried? Has something funny happened that you’d like to share? Has your family found a unique way to encourage others? Please send me anything you’d like to share, and I will put it all together into one post.

I have been so blessed and encouraged by the various contributions that were sent in. Keep it up ladies, building your homes during this time! It’s what we do best! God has uniquely gifted you to provide a haven and a place of comfort for your dear ones.

Thanks to everyone who took time to contribute to this post.

♥From Connie (my sister in law, mother of four boys, ages 11 and under):

Take a hike! No, seriously, with all this “stay at home” going on, those of us with children need to get them outside and run that energy off. If we don’t, it turns into sibling rivalry, unpleasant attitudes, discontentment, and general mayhem at home. Continue reading “Quarantine Edition – in which we hear from some of you!” →

Inspiration for the Everyday

Published on September 21, 2019November 11, 2019 by Jennifer5 Comments

Several years ago, I began to compile a commonplace book. I called it “Inspiration for the Everyday.” In it, I have been writing down quotations, bits and pieces of various lengths from various sources; words that I have heard or read. If it seems that I might want to come back to those words at a future time, I try to write them down in my commonplace book.

I have found myself coming back to them many times over, and it occurred to me that maybe you’d be blessed and encouraged by some of these thoughts, from time to time, as well. Continue reading “Inspiration for the Everyday” →