The Quiet

Crock Pot Bread

2012-01-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

So I've got this really great slow cooker recipe book, but I hardly ever use it. For some reason, I remembered today that I once read a recipe in it for white bread that seemed fairly easy, and I had a craving for freshly baked bread, so I thought I'd give it a try. I was really pleased with how well it turned out. The recipe really was very simple, and I'd definitely make this again. Here's the recipe for anyone interested.

Slow Cooker White Bread

Ingredients:
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 1/4 c. warm water
envelope active dry yeast (1 scant tbsp)

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp salt

1 cup all purpose flour

Start by stirring the warm water and 2 tsp of sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with the yeast and let it sit for 10 minutes. After the 10 min, stir to dissolve the yeast.

Then add the 2 c. flour, 2 tbsp sugar, oil and salt. The directions said to "beat", so I used my hand mixer, and that seemed to work okay. Basically, beat on low to moisten, and then beat for 2 minutes on high. After that, work in the remaining 1 cup of flour.

You'll need to grease the bottom of your crock pot, preferably a 3 1/2 quart size one. I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to use a bigger one. Dump the dough into the crock pot. Layer 5 paper towels between the top of the crock pot and the lid. Note that this does not say between the dough and the lid. You don't want the paper towel on top of the dough, but resting on top of the pot. Now put a wooden match or other thin object between the paper towel and the lid to allow steam to vent. I used two round toothpicks stacked on each other, and it worked just fine.

Cook on high for 2 hours, but apparently you're not supposed to open the lid for the first 1 3/4 hours. I'd recommend checking it at the 1 3/4 hour mark as I think the full two hours was almost slightly too long. One side of my loaf ended up just a touch crispier than I like my bread. When it's done, loosen the sides with a knife and turn it out to cool on a rack. I also brushed the top of it with butter because I like the taste of it, and it helps to keep the crust soft.

The only drawback, and it's more an aesthetic thing than anything else, is that the top of the bread doesn't get browned. I'm actually discovering that I like this because I always find that homemade bread crust is really crunchy, but this way, it's not. Also, you'll end up with a round loaf, but that doesn't bother me.

Here's the final product:

The taste is good, like bread. The consistency has a slight cake-like quality to it, but not so much that you feel like you're eating cake instead of bread. I found it almost a bit sweet tasting, so I think next time I would use slightly less sugar and maybe a bit more salt. I'm pretty sure you can get store-bought bread that's just as sweet, if not sweeter, than this, so it's definitely not too sweet.

Overall, I was quite pleased with the outcome, and I'm looking forward to trying the whole wheat version, as well as maybe some of the other breads/cakes that are in this book. If any of you try it, I'd love to hear what you think!

I miss coffee...

2012-01-06T17:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I figured it was high-time I posted at least a little something so that those faithful few who keep checking back here will know I haven't died from morning sickness. What follows will probably be some pretty random thoughts, mainly because pregnancy hormones have the unfortunate effect on me so as to pretty much completely destroy all creative and coherent thought. Hence the lack of posting.

Anyway...here goes...

As a major answer to many prayers, my morning sickness actually seems to be easing off. *knock on wood...a lot...* In response to this, I've backed off on my Diclectin, and I'm only taking it in the evenings before bed now. Maybe this is why my brain feels clear enough to post today. Hmm... I hadn't dared hope that I'd start feeling better before at least week 20 because that's how long it took with Kaylee, but here we are, week 15, and I think it's been almost a full week since I've had to make that mad dash for the toilet first thing in the morning.

I'm trying a new recipe for supper tonight. Further proof that my stomach is cooperating enough that I actually feel like eating something other than mashed potatoes. Huzzah. It's a turkey casserole, which we've never had before in this house, so we'll have to see how it turns out and what the response is from the peanut gallery. I don't have high hopes on the children liking it much. Oh, well. I tried.

Tim's run has undergone some slight changes so that he should be home every other weekend now. Numerous benefits from this, but the one I can think of now is that he'll actually get to come to church with us on occasion.

Well, there goes the timer for supper, so the randomness ends here. Oh, and the reason for the title? I really miss my morning coffee, but this pregnancy has totally changed all my tastes around, and the very thought of coffee is enough to make me feel slightly nauseated. *sigh*

Long, long overdue

2011-11-19T07:44:00.000-05:00

Well, my friends. I'm sorry for the extreme lack of posting. I realize it's been almost three weeks since my last post, and that is almost inexcusable. I say "almost" because I think I have a pretty good excuse.

I'm pregnant!

Yay!

How does that equal an excuse for not posting? Well, as some of you may already know, I am cursed to be one of those women who suffers from something called "morning sickness". Honestly, I'd like to take the idiot who called it "morning" sickness out back and shoot them because they had no idea what they were talking about. I think "pregnancy sickness" or "all-day-and-through-the-night sickness" might be more accurate.

I feel extremely nauseous all.the.time, not to mentioned exhausted from making body parts all day, and my lovely friend, Diclectin, my anti-nausea medication, only adds to my drowsiness. (For those who are unaware, particularly any American readers, Diclectin is a morning sickness medication that is available here in Canada. Unfortunately, it is not approved in the U.S.) Said combination of nausea and fatigue have made my desire for posting -- or doing anything other than laying on the couch-- non-existent. I am woefully behind on even reading any of the blogs I normally follow, sad but true.

I wish I could tell you that the situation will improve, and I'll magically start posting more frequently now that I've come clean regarding my reason for not posting. However, I don't know if that's going to be the case. Pregnancy hormones wreak havoc on my mental status, and I haven't been particularly struck with anything inspirational to say. The Diclectin has taken the edge off the nausea, but I'm not finding it as effective this time around. I spend most of my days trying to remember to keep eating to prevent the nausea from getting worse, but it is a constant battle, and one that I tire quickly of fighting. I hate being so obsessed with my stomach.

I wish I could tell you I've been a tower of strength, leaning on my Lord for all my daily needs and relying on Him to carry me through, but that wouldn't entirely be true. In all honestly, the past week or so, I've done a really good job of wallowing in self-pity and allowing myself to sink down into the mire of feeling miserable. It's easy to do when you feel crummy all the time, but no more forgivable. I'm trying to do better at this, and I would appreciate your prayers.

So there you have it. I will try not to take so long to post again. Maybe I can get in a better habit of posting at least once a week. It's not quite the frequency you're all used to from me, but until I start feeling a little better, you'll all just have to make do. Thank you for your understanding, dear faithful readers.

Halloween is a Horrible Holiday

2011-10-31T07:50:00.000-04:00

Yes, I'm going there. And I'm coming right out and saying it, too. I've begun to hate Halloween. I'm not sure what genius thought it would be a good idea to celebrate spookiness and create a day where being scared is supposed to be fun, but I think they ought to be taken out back and saddled with a whole passel-full of preschoolers who are terrified to walk past houses because they've been decorated with ghosts for Halloween.

I can't say I've ever really been one to enjoy being scared. Horror movies have never been my thing. I don't watch violent shows while Tim is gone because it makes me too creeped out at night. And as much as it drives me crazy that Reuben seems to have this pathological fear of the dark, deep down, part of me totally gets where he's coming from.

So forgive me if I don't get all excited about having a whole day out of the year devoted to scary things like witches, ghosts, and vampires.

Don't get me wrong. The whole concept of everyone handing out candy to any child who knocks on their door is actually an interesting study in generosity. As a kid, I loved going out and getting my annual haul of chips, chocolates, and random candies.

But I think the world is starting to overdo it a little. Houses are being decorated weeks in advance with cobwebs, ghosts, tombstones, skeletons, and other things designed to frighten. For the last week or so, every time I turn on the television for the kids, they are being bombarded with spooky shows, talk of costumes, and commercials advertising said spooky shows. And thank heavens I didn't take them to Canadian Tire with me last week because the displays they had up of all the decorations they have for sale were enough to make me hurry along and get to a safe department, like housewares.

Reuben keeps walking around yelling "Boo", trying to do anything he can to scare me. Kaylee covers her eyes and says "Scary" every time she sees a house with a ghost on it. (For the record, I did not teach her that.) Both of them have learned to avert their eyes when we pass certain neighborhoods because I've told them I don't want them looking at houses who, in my humble opinion, have just gone completely overboard and will likely give my kids nightmares if they stare too long and look too hard at the various decorations littering those lawns. (Go figure, one particular house is right beside a stoplight that without fail, we always have to stop for.)

I'm all for handing out candy to kids, but why are we trying to scare them in the process? Since when is it fun to create fear in little children? And why in the heck are we spending weeks out of the year preparing for this annoying at best holiday?

Curse commercialism, curse consumerism, and curse the boneheads who think it's a good idea to make scary fun.

Because it's not.

(Sorry, that got rant-ish at the end. Can you tell I'm sick of Halloween and SO ready for it to be over?)

For Reflection

2011-10-30T07:55:00.001-04:00

"¹ Sing to the LORD a new song;
   sing to the LORD, all the earth.
² Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
   proclaim his salvation day after day.
³ Declare his glory among the nations,
   his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
⁴ For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
   he is to be feared above all gods.
⁵ For all the gods of the nations are idols,
   but the LORD made the heavens.
⁶ Splendor and majesty are before him;
   strength and glory are in his sanctuary.
⁷ Ascribe to the LORD, O families of nations,
   ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
⁸ Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
   bring an offering and come into his courts.
⁹ Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness;
   tremble before him, all the earth.
¹⁰ Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.”
   The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
   he will judge the peoples with equity.
¹¹ Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
   let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
¹² let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;
¹³ they will sing before the LORD, for he comes,
   he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
   and the peoples in his truth." Psalm 96

Today, let us worship our God, the Creator of all. He alone is worthy of our praise.

Ponderings on dumb drivers

2011-10-28T07:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I posed a rhetorical question: why do some drivers think they can ignore the rules of the road and traffic signs that have been posted for a reason?

I won't attempt to answer this question because it would probably need to involve some convoluted psychological drivel using big words that I wouldn't understand anyway because I took sociology, not psychology, so I wouldn't even know what I was talking about. And besides, the answer to the question isn't really the point. I'm just venting at certain drivers' idiocy.

Let me explain a bit further.

As some of you may be aware, they've been doing some sewer work in the major intersection near our home for about two months now. This construction has involved the closing of most of the lanes that make up this intersection so that there is only one two-way lane going through it in either direction. It has also meant that the left-turning lanes are closed, and the intersection is littered with no left-turn signs because as a major intersection with only one lane going through it, if one person decides to stop and wait for the intersection to clear so they can turn left, well, it creates traffic havoc for everyone waiting behind them.

It might also be worth noting that the construction information signs state that the work will be going on from September to October 31 and to "Expect delays."

I don't need to tell you that this has created some minor annoyances for us because generally, we have to turn left from the one main road onto the other main road in order to get to our house. We've had to take detours for the last two months, and it's getting a little old.

Anyway, back to my frustration at stupid drivers. You recall I mentioned the no-left turn signs? Well, it seems that there are a preponderance of drivers out there who think that they don't have to obey said traffic signs. You can't tell me they didn't see them because when I said the intersection was littered with them, I meant, the intersection is littered with these signs. They are ev.er.y.where.

And yet, without fail, nearly every single time I come through that intersection, I see at least one person turning left, either in the lane opposite me, directly in front of me, or some moron behind me. I have laid on the horn for at least two or three turning directly in front of me.

Just yesterday, while on the way home during a particularly busy time of day, (which means traffic gets backed up for over a kilometer just because of the sheer volume of vehicles), I was waiting first in line at the light. I noticed the driver behind me had his turn signal on, and I watched in disbelief as the light turned green, I proceeded through the intersection, and he/she sat and waited to turn left as everyone else behind him also waited. Needless to say, I was the only one to make it through that particular green, and I'm sure everyone behind that driver cursed.

But with all the insanity and annoyance at the stupid drivers who get away with their thoughtless misdemeanors, there is some justice in the world. I got a ridiculous amount of thrill and pleasure the other day as we waited once again in that line to get through the light. We weren't moving, and I could see that someone was waiting with their turn signal on to turn left. The light changed, the intersection cleared, and the driver proceeded with their. Right at that moment, as the car was in the process of going around the corner, the unmarked police car behind them proceeded to turn on his lights and pulled that person over to give them (I hope) a ticket with a hefty fine.

I laughed out loud and applauded that officer. It made my day to finally see a driver get busted for screwing up traffic. I wish all those annoying drivers would get tickets.

But that's not likely to happen, so I will content myself with honking my horn at them when I can and hoping beyond all hope that they finish with the construction by their October 31st deadline so our driving habits can go back to normal.

A city construction job finish on time? Is that even possible....? More rhetorical questions that I'm not even going to get into... Ever.

And I feel a little better after venting about this. Really people. Just obey the traffic signs. The world would be a whole lot happier, and the traffic wouldn't be any more screwed up than it already is.

A rhetorical question

2011-10-27T08:01:00.000-04:00

So I had an entire post all planned out in my head for this morning, and then life happened, and my kids needed my time and energy, so you all will have to wait until tomorrow.

But I did want to give you at least something because I know it's been a few days since I last posted, so I will leave you with this somewhat rhetorical, just me venting a bit, question:

Why is it that some drivers think they can just ignore the rules of the road and traffic signs that have been posted for a reason?!

More on that tomorrow...

Apology to my Morning Coffee

2011-10-24T06:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Morning Coffee,

I like you a lot. You greet me every morning with your caffeinated goodness. Your warmth snakes it's way through me and gives me energy to face the day. I don't know what I would do without you.

But I have to apologize today. I forgot to buy white sugar when I got groceries two weeks ago, and my sugar bowl is completely empty.

So I had to put brown sugar in you this morning.

I know. I'm so sorry. I felt like I was committing a sacrilege.

But don't get me wrong. I still love you, and this is all my fault. You still taste pretty good, and I find myself wondering why people don't use brown sugar in their coffee more often (because isn't brown sugar supposed to be less refined than white sugar? Maybe I'm wrong...excuse me while I go perform some Internet research...)

Okay, so I'm wrong. Turns out brown sugar is just white sugar with a bit of molasses thrown in. Maybe that's why you, my precious coffee, taste slightly different this morning. But I think it's a good different, and it certainly doesn't mean I like you less.

So, Morning Coffee, I wish I had better news for you, like that I'm going to get groceries today and will get more white sugar then. But I'm not. Grocery day is still two days away. So you're going to have to make do with brown sugar until that happens.

I think we will be able to survive.

With thankfulness that you really have no say in the matter,
Your faithful coffee consumer

For Reflection

2011-10-23T07:19:00.000-04:00

This week's women's Bible study passages have been from Exodus about Moses.

¹² Moses said to the LORD, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ ¹³ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
¹⁴ The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”Exodus 33:12-14

May we, like Moses, ask God to teach us His ways so that we may know Him better, and may His presence go with you today, dear friends, that He may give you rest.

Update on "Get Dressed" Challenge

2011-10-22T07:31:00.000-04:00

I had in mind to try and find something interesting to say this morning, but once again, I find myself at a loss for words. Ironically, I've learned that it's not a good idea to say anything about w*riter's b*lock on a blog because there are trolling programs that look for anyone who's having trouble writing blog posts so a certain company can email them to tell them about their company that can provide content for their blog -- hence the reason I'm typing those words a bit funny this time around...*insert eye-rolling* I can't even imagine how awful it would be to have someone else writing my blog posts for me. Geez.

Anyway, so I figured I'd do a little update post on how my week with "Getting Dressed" has gone. I've done a pretty good job of getting decent clothes on by 6:30/7:00 every day, and I even squeezed in an extra shower! Also, I found an awesome sale on jeans and picked up two new pairs, so I can officially cut up my old ones for the quilt I'm making. I've brushed my hair every day, although I haven't figured out any new hairstyles yet, and I think I'll take care of the haircut next week.

I haven't done anything like take pictures of myself dressed up everyday because I'm not wearing anything special like a nice skirt or dress or anything. It's just jeans and nice shirts, but at least the jeans don't have holes in the knees anymore, and I threw out all my old shirts.

So there you have it. Goals for next week: wear a skirt at least once and get a haircut.

This trusting thing...

2011-10-19T06:53:00.000-04:00

This morning, I am clinging to His truths. This morning, on this day that He has made, I am turning my thoughts toward Him and trusting in His promises, that He never leaves nor forsakes.

May my heart feel the peace I know only He can bring.

Just a simple verse, but when I asked Him for an encouraging word, this is what He brought to mind, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You." Psalm 56:3

I will trust in you. I will do this. I will set my mind on Him, and I will cling to His strength, and I will remind myself over and over of His unfailing faithfulness.

Because doesn't His Word also say, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, bring your requests to God."

It's that "with thanksgiving" part that's important. When we come to Him with our anxieties, with our worries, with our worldly cares, we need to lay them at His feet and then thank Him for everything He has done. It's this thanking that helps us to set aside our fears as we remember all the ways He has come through for us in the past and all the things He is doing for us in the present, and it is in thanking Him that we can know that He will continue to carry us through whatever faces us in the future.

So I set my mind on thanking Him today. I will turn my fears over to Him, and I will remember His faithfulness.

And I will trust...

The "Get Dressed" Challenge

2011-10-18T06:36:00.000-04:00

So I'm giving something new a try. It's called The "Get Dressed Challenge", and you can check it out by clicking on the cool linky picture here:

I'm not saying my problem is getting dressed in the morning because, frankly, I don't think I've ever spent all day in my pajamas ever, except once or twice when I've had the flu, nor do I own a pair of comfy sweats that I just love to lounge around in. (Although I do have a couple pairs of jeans with holes in the knees so big I have to navigate my feet around them when I put them on in the morning...)

So for the purposes of this challenge, I'm saying good bye to the hole-y jeans. I found some Christmas money from last year (!!) in an envelope the other day, so I'm going to buy some new pants, hopefully, not jeans, but something like khakis or cords or something.

Also, I will admit, some mornings, I don't actually brush my hair before I put it in a ponytail. This has to end.

And...(cover your ears if you don't want to hear this -- it's slightly shocking)...I probably could stand to shower a little more frequently.

So here's the breakdown of my goals for this challenge:
- get a haircut at some point during the challenge
- stop wearing hole-y jeans/buy new pants
- brush my hair every morning
- shower at least one more time a week than I currently do
- maybe even branch out into wearing (dare I suggest it?) skirts now and then...

There you have it. If you know me in real life, or even just here online, feel free to ask me how it's going. A little accountability goes a long way...

(And for the record, this morning, I got up extra early when Tim and Reuben left to deliver Tim's backhaul, which means not only did I get in that extra shower, but I squeezed in a workout too! Go me!)

For Reflection

2011-10-16T07:24:00.000-04:00

^{From my readings in Ezekial this week:}

^"1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.
² On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— ³ the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the LORD was upon him." Ezekial 1:1-3

And from Isaiah, a verse that started running through my mind as a song this morning:

^"1 But now, this is what the LORD says—
   he who created you, Jacob,
   he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
² When you pass through the waters,
   I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
   they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
   you will not be burned;
   the flames will not set you ablaze.
³ For I am the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior..." Isaiah 42:1-3a

If you feel like the Israelites in exile, as if God is far away from you, may you know that the hand of the Lord is upon you and may you hear Him whispering in your ear, "Do not fear. You are mine."

Just another Fall morning

2011-10-14T07:18:00.000-04:00

The sky outside my window in the mornings is all black now.

When did that happen?

I knew fall was coming, but how did it get here so fast? The days are a dichotomy of warm temperatures and leaves falling like rain. There are long stretches of grey days and unending drizzle followed by long stretches of days with pure sunshine that call for shorts and mornings spent planting bulbs in my garden.

I fear those days of warm sunshine will soon be coming to an end, and we'll be left with days of bright sunshine that does little to combat the cold of winter and snow.

My soul feels a little weighed down lately. The women's Bible study I'm participating in is focusing on revival; this past week's session talked about how easy it is to be asleep in our walk with God, and how the Christian life is not about doing things, participating in the right rituals, serving in the right way. Instead, it is about a relationship, and without that deep relationship with Christ, it can feel like we're in a desert.

Don't worry. I'm not in a desert. But some days it feels like time passes so quickly, and before I know it, I've forgotten to have that quiet time with Him that I so desperately need, and once again, I find myself begging forgiveness for not drawing near to Him when I know full-well that I can't get through this life without Him.

Sometimes, I think He lets us have those days when nothing goes right just so we can be reminded of how desperately we need Him and His marvelous grace.

Anyway, I'm rambling. The sky outside my window is becoming a shade of midnight blue, and through the trees that line our back fence, I can see the construction workers arriving to begin work for the day.

I will begin my work for the day soon, too. Dishes, laundry, dusting, meals to cook... May I remember to bring Him along with me as I walk through this day that He alone has made.

Dear Readers

2011-10-12T06:37:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,

I've done a couple letters on here venting frustration to various things around me, like the construction workers in my backyard and the raccoon that eats my garbage. This letter is not to vent frustration, but rather to apologize for the lack of posting.

Some bloggers would say I shouldn't feel guilty for not giving you something to read. And I wouldn't say I feel guilty per se, more just a sense of responsibility to those faithful few who check in here almost daily hoping for something new.

My reason for silence? I have to admit, it's nothing earth-shattering. In fact, there isn't even really any good reason at all. I just haven't had anything particularly interesting to say; I haven't felt overly inspired by anything. Even today, this letter, is me forcing myself to get back at the keyboard and put forth at least something.

I think I might have writer's block.

Well then...

I'm sure the cure for writer's block is probably something simple like what I'm doing now, forcing one's self to write. So we'll give it a go. It might mean there are more days in between posts. It might mean I make some kind of pledge to write a post every day for the next week. (I don't actually see that happening -- sorry for getting your hopes up.) It might mean I have to change the time of day that I do my writing. Currently, I do my posts first thing in the morning after the kids get up, but their sleep habits have been changing slightly, as in, they wake up slightly later, so I have less time to do what I want before our day gets started.

Anyway, once again, dear readers, I'm sorry for my long stretch of absence. I am hoping that it won't take me quite so long before I come back again on a more regular basis for you. But if it does, well, just know that I'm probably fine, and I'm only trying to figure out how to get over the writer's block.

Peace to you,
Your not-so-faithful-lately blogger

For Reflection

2011-10-02T07:14:00.002-04:00

I was doing some reading in Isaiah last night. Here's a few favourites:

²⁴ “I am the LORD,
who has made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself..." 44:24b

⁷ I form the light and create darkness,
   I bring prosperity and create disaster;
   I, the LORD, do all these things.
⁸ “You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
   let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
   let salvation spring up,
let righteousness grow with it;
   I, the LORD, have created it." 45:7-8

³ “Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
   all you who remain of the house of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,
   and have carried since your birth.
⁴ Even to your old age and gray hairs
   I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
   I will sustain you and I will rescue you." 46:3-4

May you remember today that One who has known you since before your birth, this One who sustains you and carries you through every trial, He alone has created all things. My God, He is great and mighty to save.

Peace to you, my friends.

It's His Strength

2011-09-30T07:20:00.001-04:00

The morning was not getting off to a good start. I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something because I was grumpy. It's not that the kids had gotten me up extra early; in fact, Reuben didn't come in the room till almost 7. Maybe it was the rain and grey skies...

Whatever the reason, I was not handling myself well.

The kids weren't listening to "No" and "Not now". I was snapping at them. They were yelling back. I felt like tearing out my hair.

I swore if I heard, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" any longer I would completely lose all sense of sanity.

All I could do was sit in front of my computer at the kitchen table with my head in my hands and cry out to God, "I can't do this!"

And then He answered.

Have you ever had it where you wonder what exactly it means when people say that it's not us doing something, but Christ working in us? Have you ever wondered what it really means to say that it is His strength that allows us to do things, not our own?

I so know what that means now.

There is no other way that I can explain how one minute I am grouchy and snapping at my children, and the next moment I am able to respond calmly, with grace, and feel joy and anticipation for the day ahead. That little cry for help, "I can't do this!" and suddenly, all is changed.

My God, His power is great. And He is so faithful to show up when we need Him the most. In our weakness, He truly is strong. Thank the Lord!

The Robot Cake

2011-09-29T07:11:00.000-04:00

This is Reuben's robot cake. He picked it out from this list that has some pretty cool cake designs for kids on it, and they're generally quite easy to make.

I will concur, although it helped that I didn't have to locate frozen pound cake for this particular design. The most challenging part of this was getting the icing colour right and then having to put said icing on parts of cake that had been cut out. Maybe there's a trick to it that I haven't learned, but the cake kept crumbling into the icing.

Anyway, as of the time I'm writing this (which is the day before I'm posting it), we haven't eaten this cake yet, but I anticipate that it will be quite yummy.

I'll admit, I'm a little proud of how well it turned out. And of course, Reuben was pretty excited when he saw it, too.

UPDATE: We ate the cake last night, and as anticipated, it was delicious, albeit confusing to cut pieces out of.

It spins its web outside my window

2011-09-28T07:05:00.000-04:00

There was a big, fat, ugly spider outside my kitchen window last night. It disturbed my view while I was doing dishes after supper by dropping down right in front of me.

My first reaction was to recoil with an, "Oh, yuck!"

I'm not generally overly afraid of spiders. I've had to get used to them as we have an abundance of your typical ceiling variety spiders in our house that the kids always make me kill for them.

But this spider is a lot larger than our house spiders, and it's one of those creepy multi-coloured ones with stripes on its legs and funky designs on its body.

[insert *shudder* here]

But then, after I got over my initial horror, I took a closer look because the spider was doing something a bit unusual, (and when I say unusual, I just mean I'd never seen a spider do this before.) It turns out it was building a web in the corner of my kitchen window.

It was actually pretty neat to watch. It would drop down really quickly, and then crawl back up, and then start pulling up the piece of web it had dropped, and then drop down again, and go somewhere different, and then attach a piece of web here, and then go over there and attach another piece of web over there.

It's like it knew what it was doing or something.

It's still rather dark outside this morning, so I can't see outside my window really well. But I can see enough to tell that the web is finished, and it is full of tiny flies that got caught in it overnight. I hope the spider is hungry today.

And it just goes to show, even if you think something is ugly, it just might show you something cool, like how to catch your food with sticky pieces of string, (not that I'm about to go out and try it myself -- I'm not into eating flies...)

He's in the storm

2011-09-26T06:58:00.000-04:00

We had a sermon at church yesterday about when Jesus calmed the storm. It's a fairly familiar passage where Jesus is asleep in the boat after a long day of teaching, and a storm comes up while he's crossing the lake with his disciples. The disciples are scared that they're going to drown, so they wake him up, and Jesus makes the storm stop.

The pastor made a point that I've always known, but needed reminding of: just because Jesus is in the boat with us, doesn't mean the storms won't come. (I know, double negative, confusing sentence, sorry...)

It's not that I expect life to be easy all the time, but I think to a certain extent, there's an expectation as Christians that if we're walking with Jesus, the storms of life shouldn't be quite as bad as they end up being. Anyway, it was a good reminder for me not to expect life to be perfect.

Then the sermon went on. (You didn't think that was the whole point, did you?)

I half expected the sermon to be pretty cliche, focusing on how Jesus is with us in the storm, and we just need to trust him to get us through safely, but the pastor ended up taking us in a bit of a different direction. He pointed out how after Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples were in awe and asked themselves, "Who is this?"

And so he talked about how Jesus is God, and that the disciples were afraid because they forgot that.

He is God.

We might remember that Jesus is with us in the storm, but we also need to remember that this One who is with us is the All-Mighty Creator. He has the power to calm any storm -- not that he will magically make all of life's problems go away -- but when we turn to Him and trust that He, the Lord of all, is with us, we don't need to be afraid of the storms. He brings peace.

I was reminded of an old downhere song I've been listening to lately, "Calmer of the Storm".

"You rebuke the wind and the waves
Once again I find I'm amazed & the power of your will
Cuz I'm a child of little faith
I feel the wind and forget your grace
And you say, "Peace, be still."

There on the storm I am learning to let go
Of the will that I so long to control.
There may I be in your arms eternally
I thank you, Lord, You are the calmer of the storm."

We can bear the storms of life when we trust Him to bring us peace. May you know that peace today, friends.

For Reflection

2011-09-25T07:58:00.000-04:00

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1

(inspired by the runner I saw go by on the road this morning)

When the mornings are cold and dark and the road of life seems long, may we never forget those heros of the faith who have gone before us, and may the brightness of the dawn always fill our hearts with joy and hope for the coming day.

Peace to you, my friends.

Yesterday, four years ago

2011-09-24T06:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, four years ago, I was 41 weeks pregnant. My midwife came for a home visit and gave me some tips for helping labour along. Contractions had been starting and then stopping every day for about a week.

Yesterday, four years ago, Tim and I took our last (really long) walk as a married couple with no children.

Yesterday, four years ago, we had some friends over for supper, and we had tacos with apple pie for dessert. Then we spent the evening watching TV, and I sat in the rocking chair, counting the contractions that finally didn't quit, and then everyone went home, and we called the midwife and went to the hospital.

And on this morning four years ago, at 1:30 AM, a beautiful baby boy was born, and we called him Reuben.

And today, on his fourth birthday, this boy-child crawled into my bed and snuggled in close, and I held my son, this man-in-training, and treasured the moment of lost sleep, thinking to myself that there won't be many more moments like these, so I might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Happy Birthday, Reuben!

grumble (Letter to a raccoon)

2011-09-23T07:15:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. (or Mrs.) Raccoon:

I saw you eating my garbage last night. I was laying in my bed, ready to go to sleep, when I heard the crash of my garbage can hitting the ground as you knocked it over in search of sustenance. I knew I hadn't heard the sound of a car door, and I know you've been in my garbage before, so I snuck over to the window to investigate.

There you were. Eating my garbage. You in all your masked garbage-eating glory.

I tried not to think about the mess that I would now have to clean up in the morning. I tried not to feel like a horrible neighbour for not buying a garbage can with a lid that ties down, (although in all fairness, the garbage can came with the house). I tried to hope that the bag of cat poop I scooped from my furball's litter box tonight and put at the top of the can would deter you just a little from the actual garbage underneath.

Apparently you didn't care about the cat poop because there is quite the array of garbage all over the street that I now have to clean up before the garbage man gets here. You are really, REALLY lucky it hasn't started raining yet or I would be even more annoyed than I already am.

So be warned, Mr. (or Mrs.) Raccoon. Your garbage-eating days are coming to an end. I've decided that from now on, until we get a garbage can with a lid that ties down, I won't be putting my garbage at the road until the morning before the garbage man comes. I will keep it in my garage where it will be safe from your garbage-thieving paws. So. Ha.

Sincerely,
The very unimpressed owner of the garbage can you robbed last night

Easy Chicken Parmesan

2011-09-19T07:01:00.001-04:00

I found this recipe in my Fall 2011 edition of Kraft's What's Cooking magazine, and I love it. We've had it twice now, and I think it's going to have a permanent place among my menu options.

Easy Chicken Parmesan

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
2 1/2 cups pasta sauce
Parmesan grated cheese
mozzarella cheese, shredded
spaghetti noodles

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Pour the pasta sauce into a 13x9 inch baking dish. Stir in 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese and add the chicken breasts, turning them to coat them in the sauce. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

Cook the spaghetti. In the photo here, I actually used linguine, and it worked fine, except that Reuben wouldn't eat it because the noodles were different. *insert eye-rolling here*

When the chicken has finished baking, top with 1 1/2 cups of shredded Mozzerella cheese and some additional Parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered for about five minutes. Serve as shown.

Seriously, this is one of the easiest recipes I've come across yet, and it was delicious. It's also really easy to halve the recipe if you're not cooking for lots of people. If you try it, let me know what you think!

For Reflection

2011-09-18T08:16:00.001-04:00

^"11 I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
   yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
¹² I will meditate on all your works
   and consider all your mighty deeds.
¹³ Your ways, O God, are holy.
   What god is so great as our God?
¹⁴ You are the God who performs miracles;
   you display your power among the peoples.
¹⁵ With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
   the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
¹⁶ The waters saw you, O God,
   the waters saw you and writhed;
   the very depths were convulsed.
¹⁷ The clouds poured down water,
   the skies resounded with thunder;
   your arrows flashed back and forth.
¹⁸ Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
   your lightning lit up the world;
   the earth trembled and quaked.
¹⁹ Your path led through the sea,
   your way through the mighty waters,
   though your footprints were not seen." Psalm 77: 11-19

May you, dear friends, take time today to remember the things, both great and small, that the Lord has done for you, and may you never forget that this God who loves us is capable of so much more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Peace to you...

Things I've learned to do as a Trucker's Wife

2011-09-17T08:07:00.000-04:00

As the wife of a long-haul trucker, I've had to learn how to do a few things. I thought I'd share a few of those new-found skills with you all today, not that these are all skills you will necessarily need to learn, unless you're also married to a trucker. Anyway...

Skill #1: I have created a system of doing the dishes whereby I can fit two meals worth into one drying rack. Actually, this might be a helpful skill to learn if you happen to have to do dishes by yourself on a regular basis. In doing this, I save myself much time and effort in having to both wash and dry all the dishes. If I fit them all into one rack, they can sit there and drip-dry overnight, and I can put them away in the morning without once picking up a dish towel.

Skill #2: I can find the fuel pump reset switch on a Ford Tempo. In all fairness, my husband is the one who showed me how to do this, but believe it or not, I actually had to use this skill once when I was all by myself and he was gone on the road. We don't have the Tempo anymore, but I'm pretty proud to say I could do this again if I had to. :) (And we won't go into many details about why I needed to use this skill...let's just say it involved coming around a corner to see a very unavoidable and large pothole and the jolt being such that the car actually shut off...)

Skill #3: I can check the PARS number on a shipment to determine if it's cleared customs yet or not. Don't ask me what a PARS number actually is though. All I know is that it's a bar code that goes on customs paperwork for a shipment crossing the border, and if it hasn't cleared yet when I check, it generally means Tim has to make a call to the load broker. Also, if I remember the number when he tells it to me, I can later use it to find out what time he crossed the border, and I can have a better idea of what time to expect him home. :)

Skill #4: How to not panic when I get a phone call saying, "I'm in a tornado!" Okay, so I'm not so good at this skill yet. However, I am pretty good at searching the Internet frantically to find out any and all weather reports for any given location.

Skill #5: How to drive near tractor trailers. Some people could use a lesson or two on this. Yes, they're bigger. Yes, in Ontario, they're also limited to a certain speed, and depending on how heavy the load is, they take a lot longer to stop than the average passenger vehicle. That said, I've learned never to cut off a truck, how to leave enough space for them to merge into traffic, and that sometimes following them in a snowstorm is a good idea.

So there you have it, a few semi-useful skills to have as a Trucker's Wife. Enjoy!

Two things I like about Fall

2011-09-16T07:10:00.000-04:00

So I have come to realize that although I am generally very anti-Fall, there are two things about it that I don't mind.

One, I can have the fireplace on again.

When we originally started looking for houses, I would never have put a fireplace down as a "must-have". We found this house, and even though it already had one, it didn't really factor into our decision. Now that I've been living with one for almost a year, I don't think I could ever go back to not having one. It's that nice. And I love that with the onset of cooler evenings and mornings, I can have it on again.

Don't get me wrong. I still hate being cold. But at least I have a fireplace to warm up the house. :)

The second thing I don't mind about Fall is tea. Yes, I know, you can drink tea in the summer. But for some reason, I don't, at least not on any sort of regular basis. To my mind, it's too hot in the summer to really be able to enjoy a nice hot cup of tea.

However, now that Fall is coming and nights are cooler, I can once again enjoy my cup of tea in the evening before bed. I'm not a tea snob. I don't get into arguments about whether bags or loose-leaf is better. In fact, I have both in my cupboard and dare say there are good and bad things about either option. At one point this summer, I made some tea using fresh peppermint leaves from my garden. Let me tell you, that was cool.

My only reservation regarding teas is that I'm not really into the fruity ones, as in, anything berry-ish. I will on occasion drink a lemon or pomegranate tea, but that's pretty much my limit. I do love a good vanilla tea, but have yet to find one at the grocery store where I usually buy my tea.

So there you have it. I don't totally hate the coming of the cooler seasons.

In the early morning light...

2011-09-15T08:33:00.000-04:00

And God is faithful. He brings me out of the dark places and covers me with the light of His grace.

I am learning to see the gifts He sends me daily, such small things, like bringing a friend into work at the crack of dawn and the glorious drive home -- so quiet -- this chance to watch the sun greet the day, creating long shadows on the road in front of me, warming my face with its blinding light. Would that I could go through each day blinded in such a way by the great love of my heavenly Father!

And this chance to praise Him, with the radio blaring loud and my heart pouring out thankfulness to feel such inexplicable joy. Moments like these should never be taken for granted, and I find myself beginning to understand how some people can be morning people -- not that I see myself joining their ranks any time soon -- but the overwhelming beauty of the early morning begs to be seen and enjoyed.

And certainly, it provides plenty of time and opportunity to think of blog ideas... :)

"But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
for He has been good to me." Psalm 13:5-6

Two Pet Peeves

2011-09-14T07:17:00.000-04:00

There's two things that bug me. Okay, not just two things. But two things that I'm going to share with you lucky people today.

First thing that drives me crazy: when I go to the grocery store, and they are completely out of stock of something on my list. As in, there's not even an alternate brand of said item to purchase. (Although I am pretty frustrated that my grocery store hasn't had any knock-off brand tomato paste in about a month, but at least I can still get the name brand kind...) Like on Monday, when I went to buy peanut butter, and there wasn't any left because, of course, it was on sale, and everyone else wanted some, too. Or like yesterday, when I did my bi-weekly "stock up the house" trip, and I had planned to make shepherd's pie next week, but they were completely out of shepherd's pie seasoning mixes.

So now, I have to do one of three things: A) Make something else and hope I have everything I need. B) Make shepherd's pie from scratch, as in the seasoning in the meat part, which from experience, doesn't always work (tried making my own sloppy joes and it failed miserably), and again, I don't know if I have everything I need. Or C) I can go back to the store later in the week and hope they've stocked up.

None of these options really appeals to me. *sigh*

The second thing that drives me crazy has to do with my absolutely favorite past-time: reading. I hate it when a book doesn't have a little blurby on the back telling me a synopsis of what the book is about. I'm not saying I need pages of spoilers; I just want a little hint of what I'm getting myself into beyond what the title or location in the bookstore can give me. A book without a synopsis on the back drives me so crazy, I might actually do the unthinkable - flip to the back of the book and read the ending first.

*gasp*

I know. Sacrilege, right? So unless the author is someone I already know I enjoy reading, if a book doesn't come with a synopsis, I will do the one other thing that prevents me from committing such travesty, I put it back on the shelf, and I don't read the book. Someone else can borrow it. Someone else can buy it. But I will let it rest, and a book that might be the greatest book in history will go unread by my humble self, just because some publisher decided it wasn't worth it to give readers a little taste of what hides inside those pages.

And yes, this also means that I'm the kind of person who has to read the back of the DVD case before I watch a movie. That probably says something about me, but I don't feel like analyzing exactly what that might be. My coffee hasn't kicked in enough yet.

So there you go, my two pet peeves for the day, missing grocery store items and books without synopses.

P.S. We put grass seed down in our backyard last week, and now we are starting to see green! Super excited! I'll post about that some other time when I get some good pictures...

Today's Gift

2011-09-10T08:10:00.000-04:00

(thoughts from yesterday that I didn't get a chance to write then)

The late summer sunshine peeks through the branches of the birch tree outside my kitchen window creating streaks of light across the counter as I do dishes once again. I have watched this tree blossom through spring and share it's branches with various birds throughout the summer. Now it's leaves are beginning to turn brown and wrinkly, that disease of Fall that inevitably strikes every leaf-bearing tree. I do not look forward to the day those leaves start leaving those branches to cover my lawn with hours of raking and bagging.

I consider this gorgeous day a gift. After a week of gray and rainy, the chance to get outside and spend some time at a park by the lake with my children is a chance for my heart to heal just a little more.

Friends, don't under-estimate the pain caused by a miscarriage. I hadn't meant to go this way today, but here we are. It takes time to heal from this loss, and bit by bit, I am getting there. Slowly, day by day, God provides gifts of light to ease the hurt in my heart.

My children, so precious, are two of those gifts. To see the two of them playing along the beach, picking up stones and sticks and tossing them into the water, so innocent and free of worldly cares, a reminder of how to have child-like faith. The lake breeze blows the waves hard onto the stony shore. I sit with my face to the sun and just breathe, soaking in the last precious moments of summer.

(And back to today...)

It appears that yesterday's sunshine continues today, and maybe we'll have yet one more chance to enjoy the last days of summer. Somehow, it's easier to cherish the sunny days when I know that they'll soon be ending.

And today's gift: I've had the flowers for a while now, but the morning sun sneaked through the window in our front entrance-way and peeked around the corner to shine beams of light into the dining room and straight onto these flowers, a gift from Tim and the kids, and now a further gift of glowing warmth and beauty.

May you, dear readers, take the time to see God's love for you today in the gifts of light around you.

"You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning;
my God turns my darkness into light." Psalm 18:28

It's Chicken Pox?

2011-09-04T07:10:00.000-04:00

So we think Kaylee has chicken pox. It started with what we thought was a pimple on her forehead, and then she had a spot on her leg, and then two on her arm, and then another one on her arm, and two on her ankle, and one on her stomach. I started to think maybe it was bug bites, but they didn't look like any bug bites I'd ever seen before, and a thorough search of our house has not revealed anything that might be biting her anyway.

Then I thought, "Maybe it's chicken pox?" So I called Telehealth, which was less than helpful, but what did I expect by trying to get someone to diagnose spots over the phone? Apparently the nurse thought that Kaylee should have more symptoms other than just spots, but if it's such a mild case, would the other symptoms really be that obvious? Anyway...

Then my parents came over, and their immediate reaction is that it is, in fact, chicken pox. So I think that's what we'll go with at this point. I may bring her in to see our doctor on Tuesday (go figure it's a long weekend), especially if it gets worse, but we'll see if I bother or not. Maybe I'll post pictures on Facebook and get some more opinions...

So moral of the story, I'm stuck here at home with her this morning instead of heading to church, which is ironic, because the only place I can figure that she caught it from was at church. Assuming Reuben also catches it at some point, we could be stuck here at home for quite some time. Joy.

Oh, and if there's anyone in the Hamilton area that really wants your kids to catch chicken pox, you are more than welcome to come visit. I don't know if her case is severe enough to be that catching anymore, but feel free to give it a go. The door is always open, and I'm told I make good coffee.

Be Strong

2011-08-30T07:21:00.000-04:00

The morning sun shines its light and warmth off the leaves of the trees behind my house. The sun itself is still hidden behind the homes across the street from ours, but I can see it's rising glory reflecting off wind-blown boughs.

The constancy of the dawn is a healing balm to my soul this morning.

And I cling to His promises in a verse I memorized in childhood:

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you are." Joshua 1:9

He is with me, and so I can be strong and courageous to face each new day, to face whatever new pain may come my way and to embrace whatever new joy He grants to my life.

May He also grant you, dear readers, the strength to face whatever trials you may face today, and may He also grant you the grace to see His joy in the gifts of life around you.

Turning off the autopilot

2011-08-29T06:45:00.000-04:00

The drive home from my parents is about two hours, and it follows a stretch of highway not known for being particularly interesting. I have driven that road countless times in my life, and I can't really say that I've ever felt particularly struck by the beautiful scenery or elegant fields that form the landscape of southwestern Ontario.

Except today.

I hit that cruise control button, and I prepared for the long drive ahead, and it came to me, how many times have I ridden this stretch of highway with my mind also on autopilot? Today, for the first time I can remember, I found myself looking up at the blue sky and watching as tiny white clouds formed from the morning mist and free-flying hawks soared on the breeze far above the coffee-drinking travelers on the road beneath them.

Today, I took the time to look around at the fields of corn and soy beans, at the random trees that line the fences between those fields, at the occasional stretches of forest with their solid walls of green -- but not just one kind of green mind you, all the shades of green that you can possibly think of are found in the thousands of leaves that make up those trees.

And I realized just how much I love the color green. I looked around, and my soul drank in the view. My lungs inhaled the smell of summer as it flowed through the air vents of my van.

You know the smell I mean, the one that you breathe in as you first pull into that campground where you've decided to take a few measly days of break from the fast-pace of life, that smell of campfires, and trees, and grass, and dirt, and lake water, the one you get only glimpses of when you return to the city, like when you're at a park or in your backyard and your neighbour decides to have a fire in his backyard firepit, and then you silently curse him for reminding you of how badly you'd love to be back tucked away in that forest again, spending long days in the sun on the beach and long evenings around the campfire with marshmallows and pie irons and glasses of wine and great conversations with beloved family and friends.

But at the same time, my lungs are grateful for the chance to take in a deep breath of that calming scent, to breath in that gentle reminder of more peaceful locales, and relive for a few brief minutes those moments I find myself waiting all year for.

Oh, I am so not looking forward to Fall.

As the smell of breakfast sausages fills the air...

2011-08-27T07:51:00.000-04:00

My morning view has changed somewhat for the last few days. I get to see lush grass, colorful gardens, and reflections of the sunrise in the window beside me, while Veggie Tales sing their pithy songs in the background.

As much as I wish I could say my backyard has undergone a radical transformation, in truth, the kids and I are visiting my parents while Tim has a crazy work week.

It is always a pleasure to come back to my childhood home. The kids love their grandparents, and the change of scenery and new-to-them toys mean they're slightly better at keeping themselves on good behavior for a little while.

I love that there's a dishwasher here.

And for some reason that I REALLY need to determine, Reuben has been finally sleeping through the night again, so I can get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. I'd forgotten how good that feels.

So anyway, part of my lack of inspiration for posting is mostly just because I'm taking a few days to relax.

The other part is that it's really hard to think of anything good to write when Veggie Tales are blaring away, driving their biblical, albeit distracting messages deep into the creative centers of my brain. Your loss, my gain? Maybe we all need to go back and be reminded of these simple truths now and then... But that's perhaps a post for another day. When I'm not humming along to songs from my childhood...

The Changing Seasons

2011-08-22T07:07:00.001-04:00

I find myself with mixed feelings about the coming of Fall this year. Generally speaking, I hate Fall. I don't like being cold, and summer is always filled with such great memories of camping and visits to the park and fresh fruits like strawberries.

But for some reason, this year, I am finding something comforting about the changing of the seasons. The nights are getting colder and longer. The trees, while still green, are beginning to look like they're thinking about dropping their leaves, and in the case of the maple in our front yard, even starting to let a few go in anticipation of the long months of raking ahead.

Don't get me wrong. I still hate Fall. As pretty as all the colors are and as refreshing as the cool nights are after the heat of the summer, Fall means that Winter is coming, and I hate Winter even more than Fall. Snow is great and all, and I love Christmas, but I'd be much happier if we had about one month of Fall, one month of Winter, and the rest of the year could be divided between Spring and Summer.

(That being said, I don't judge anyone for liking whichever season you choose. If you love Fall, you go right ahead and do that. Just don't expect me to love it with you.)

This year at least, I'm finding reassurance in the knowledge that our change-less God is the one controlling our ever-changing seasons. Not that I didn't know this before. But for some reason unknown to me, this year, however unwelcome, the coming of Fall is bringing me a sense of comfort to know that whatever crummy things we (I) may face in life, the world hasn't ended. God is still in control, and the seasons still continue to change.

"Praise be to the name of God forever and ever;
wisdom and power are his.
He changes time and seasons..." Daniel 2:20-21a

Letter to the workmen behind my house

2011-08-20T07:42:00.001-04:00

Dear Construction Man,

You don't know me. I don't really know you. But I feel you working every day. That's right. FEEL. I don't know what machine you're driving. I am not well-versed in the names of all the different kinds of construction equipment that are out there. But whatever that beast is that you climb into every single day, it makes my house vibrate All.Day.Long.

And I'm getting a little tired of it.

I know you're working for a noble cause: some day next spring the community center with three pools will open, and we in this household will rejoice that we are in walking distance of this grand new awesomeness. But for right now, it's getting old. The constant beeping of reversing vehicles, the dust that lines the tops of my shelves and cupboards, the random cement trucks that keep getting lost and turning around in front of our house, and let's not forget how I can't even get through my morning coffee sitting at my kitchen table without my chair vibrating in an unnatural, low-droning in the background kind of way.

Anyway, you and I both know that neither of us really gets much say in the matter. You have your job to do, and in the end, I'll get a new community center. So we find ourselves at a standoff, and I just have to say that I'm extremely thankful to have a child who wakes me up at 6:30AM because if I didn't, I would be rather annoyed to be woken up by you starting work at 7:30 on a Saturday morning.

I hope my neighbours are forgiving.

Well, that's all for now, Mr. Construction Man. I really hope you finish your job soon or I just might go crazy if I have to put up with this droning and vibrations for much longer.

With significant lack of seriousness, but just a touch of annoyance,
A Rattled and Vibrated to the Edge of Craziness Homeowner

The busy-ness

2011-08-18T07:40:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week. Tim's sister got married last weekend, and with Reuben as ring-bearer, it meant some extra busy days fitting in rehearsals and skipping naps. We left the day after the wedding to go camping at Pinery with my family and had a few more busy days of skipping naps.

Now we're back home, and that first night back I headed over to my sister's house to say goodbye to our other sister who is heading off to a new life of graduate school in Edmonton, Alberta. They left yesterday. And I miss her already.

And of course, there's always the post-camping mountain of laundry to tackle and the necessary trip to the grocery store after cleaning out the cupboards to pack the cooler.

So life continues on. And I struggle to find a way to heal the ache in my heart, and deep down, I know that only my faithful Father can take care of that for me, and so I thirst to drink deeply of His living water while making do with mere sips of moments in time.

"As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God." Psalm 42:1

Ode to Coffee

2011-08-09T08:07:00.000-04:00

It is dawn, and I stumble down the stairs after my blond-haired early-rising son. I settle him on the couch in front of the TV with some apple juice and goldfish crackers and make my way to the kitchen.

It's waiting for me there. That black, stainless steel appliance with the glass carafe. That bringer of my coveted caffeine jolt. My friend, the coffee maker.

I lift the lid and dump out yesterday's grinds. I open the cupboard door and fiddle with the stack of filters until I manage to get a single one off, and I carefully place it in the center of the basket.

My coffee maker has a temper. It's finicky. If you don't place the filter in just so, it will fold in on itself while the coffee is brewing, and I will end up with grinds in my cup. And I don't just mean a few. The coffee will be ruined, and I'll have to start the process all over.

I carefully measure out the coffee grinds, my special blend. I use a mix of regular coffee and flavored coffee. I pour the water into the reservoir, and I push the little black button to start the brewing process.

Then I sit down at the kitchen table to wait.

I can hear the grumblings of water making it's way through the insides of that black machine. It makes its way to the basket where it percolates through the grinds and the filter and begins dripping into the glass carafe. Delicious smells begin to fill the air, tantalizing me with the anticipation of that hot liquid soon to fill my cup.

I wait for it. In mere moments, I hear it. The beeps come, and I know that my coffee is finished brewing. Yes, that's right. My coffee maker beeps to tell me when it's finished. I love that feature. :)

I take out a mug, and I lift the carafe. I pour that rich, deep-brown brew into my cup. I confess, I ruin it a bit by adding milk to take the edge off the bitterness, but I've gotten used to the taste of it versus cream, and I add some sugar to sweeten it.

I sit down. I lift the cup. I smell that coffee goodness.

I take that first sip. And sigh.

Life is good with coffee.

Mornings at the kitchen table

2011-08-08T07:55:00.000-04:00

My sister gave me her old laptop. I love having it.

But my mornings will never be the same.

See, I'm not limited to spending my computer time in the office anymore. Which, this past week, has been a good thing as our office is also our spare bedroom, and it seems to be getting used quite a lot lately. As in, last week alone, we had people sleeping there on three separate occasions, one of them for two nights in a row.

I know. I love that we finally have a bed to offer people when they need a place to sleep.

I'm also extremely thankful that I have this laptop because it means I can still check my morning blogs while I attempt to keep Reuben quiet long enough to let said people sleep a little longer than his customary 6AM wakeup time.

And I have to admit, I'm kind of enjoying being able to sit at my kitchen table in the mornings where I can look out the window to the backyard and see the beautiful trees and all the progress we've been making on the yard. (That's a post for another day when I can finally take some pictures for you.)

Also, I am that much closer to my coffee maker for the caffeine hit I so desperately need every morning...

As they eat...

2011-08-06T12:05:00.000-04:00

Shhhh...

Do you hear that?

That, my friends, is the sound of quiet children because they are occupied with chewing...

...the sound of a meal being enjoyed...

...the sound of watermelon, and yogurt, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches providing sustenance to hungry bodies.

It is glorious, and for five whole minutes, I stand in my kitchen and enjoy the peace of this moment.

Herbed Garlic Butter

2011-08-03T06:41:00.002-04:00

Now that we've been getting rain on a more regular basis, my herb garden has taken off, the basil in particular. I've got so much basil, I don't know what to do with it all, so I've been madly searching the Internet for recipes that call for fresh basil. Most recipes include tomatoes or all kinds of weird ingredients that I don't have on hand, like pine nuts to make pesto. Who knew that pesto had pine nuts in it? Well, I didn't at any rate.

Finally, I found this great recipe for herbed butter. The idea is to use it on a French baguette, but I just put it on some rolls, as seen here. I also used it on a couple of hamburger buns that I had in the freezer, and that worked fine too.

Here's how to make this yummy deliciousness...

Ingredients: margarine or butter, parsley, basil, green onion, a clove of garlic, black pepper

Soften 6 tablespoons of butter or margarine. I used margarine, and it worked just fine. I suspect the deliciousness of this recipe would be heightened if I used butter, but I didn't have any in the house at the time of making this recipe. 6 tablespoons of butter also equals 3/8 of a cup if that's easier for anyone. It was easier for me because I actually have a set of measuring bowls that has a 3/8 cup measure.

Chop up two green onions.

Add two tablespoons of minced parsley. (When I say "minced", I mean "finely chopped".) Then add two teaspoons of minced basil and a clove of minced garlic. And finally, add 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.

Stir it all together to get this delicious herbed butter. It will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for about a week.

Spread the butter on a roll or baguette or some other sort of fancy bread. The original recipe said to broil for 4-6 minutes with the bread about 2-3 inches away from the broiler. I just put it in my toaster oven and toasted it for about 6 minutes.

And voila!

Absolutely delicious...

A bright moment among the grey

2011-08-01T06:54:00.000-04:00

And sometimes, all you need is...

a chick flick

a glass of white wine

nachos with salsa, cinnamon powdered donuts, and chocolate-covered almonds

two hours of laughter

unforgettable moments with a loved one who's about to move away for two whole years

I love my sister. :)

Processing the sadness...

2011-07-29T07:58:00.000-04:00

It's been a slow week for inspiration, my friends. In my heart, there is a need to explain this post, but I don't know if I have the right words to make myself understood.

I was pregnant, and I had a miscarriage at four weeks and four days.

So early. This little life that didn't even get a chance to know life.

The doctor called it a "chemical pregnancy" and said to not even treat it as a miscarriage. As if that can take away the fact that I had four positive pregnancy tests. A line is a line is a line is a line. His levity was meant to lessen my grief, and in hindsight, it's only added to the difficulty of processing my sadness.

I've never hidden that I've already lost one baby. In fact, just a few weeks ago I remembered the child that would have been four years old this year. So many years have passed since the sharpness of that loss and grief that I've almost forgotten what that experience was like. But that time, we'd had time to share our excitement and thus were also forced to share our grief.

This time has not been quite the same, and words cannot quite express just how confusing and difficult the emotions have been for me. Reuben and Kaylee keep my life so busy that I barely have time to spend alone with my thoughts, and those few moments when I am allowed to feel the depth of my hurt, the pain that wells up is so great that I find I need to distract myself so not to be swallowed up in it.

And God has been faithful to provide such comfort, but if I take my gaze off of Him for even a second, it is so easy to slide back down into that great valley of darkness.

In some twist of irony, when I had found out I was pregnant, my greatest concern was how tired I would be for the next nine months, and 2 Corinthians 9:12 became my mantra, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." It seems that I'm now looking at this verse in a completely different light and relying on His strength in a completely different way.

I continue to covet your prayers. I don't know if this post has at all explained what I need it to. In a small way, it has helped to write it.

Peace to you...

Easy Tomato & Cucumber Salad

2011-07-24T06:54:00.001-04:00

So I wanted something yummy with my garlic bread for lunch yesterday, and since I had the ingredients, I threw this salad together. I think I first saw the recipe in a Kraft What's Cooking magazine, but I did it totally off the top of my head this time. *grin*

Ingredients:
cucumber
tomato
red onion
feta cheese
feta & oregano salad dressing

Start by chopping up the cucumber and putting it into a bowl. I used about 1/3 of a cucumber, and I ended up with enough for two servings.

Chop the tomato and put in the bowl with the cucumber. I used about 2/3 of a medium-sized tomato.

Chop up some red onion and feta cheese and add to the tomato and cucumber. In hindsight, I could have just sliced up the red onion, but I was using the end of an onion, so I don't know how well it would have worked. And yes, when you buy real feta cheese that comes in a block, you chop it up to make it crumbly.

Add some salad dressing and toss to coat. This recipe works best if you can let it sit for a few hours in the fridge so all the flavors have a chance to blend together. It tasted okay when I ate it for lunch after a few minutes, but it tasted even better at supper when it had the chance to sit. It would have tasted even better if I'd been able to let it sit overnight, but I wasn't about to eat it for breakfast.

And there you have it, easy summer salad. I'm looking forward to trying it again when I have fresh tomatoes from the garden to use. Mmmm...

And I just have to say this in response to the glorious thunderstorm and driving rain on my roof that woke me up last night at 2am:
"God's voice thunders in marvelous ways;
he does great things beyond our understanding.
He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth,'
and to the rain shower, 'Be a mighty downpour.'" Job 37:5-6

"Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;
make music to our God on the harp.
He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills." Psalm 147:7-8

That Moment

2011-07-23T07:03:00.000-04:00

I love it when my kids blow me away.

Reuben likes playing games and watching kids' videos on the Internet. I'll be the first to admit he probably spends too much time doing said activities, but that's an issue for another day. This particular story happened one day as I was helping him to get started with one of his videos, and he asked me to sit with him and watch one for a little while. So I shoved aside all thoughts of getting dishes done before the kids went to bed and sat with him.

My first impression of the video wasn't a great one, and even though it was supposed to be geared towards kids, the story line was about a ghost train, and it had some pretty spooky music. So I told Reuben I didn't think he should be watching that video and that we should find a different one to watch because I thought it was too scary for him.

He proceeded to tell me the following: "It's okay, Mommy. I won't be scared. I have God in my heart."

Yeah. It was that moment.

And I have to admit, it was tinged with just a little bit of guilt that he hadn't heard of the idea of having God in his heart from me. I haven't figured out yet how to teach my kids this concept. So I had to ask him how he knew about having God in his heart, and eventually, through some strategic question asking, figured that he must have heard it at church.

Isn't God's grace amazing?

As much as I felt that twinge of guilt, I also felt so humbled and then so extremely thankful to know that God truly can work in my kids' lives, even as often as I screw up as a mother. And I am also extremely thankful to have found a church that takes such an interest in kids, because although I know they need to hear about God from me, it helps to take the pressure off when I know they're also hearing it from other places.

"You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:11-12

Open the fridge

2011-07-22T07:11:00.000-04:00

I don't know if it's the ridiculous heat, or feeling extra tired, or maybe both, but I just have not felt this inspiration to post this week. I've wanted to, but I just haven't had anything to say.

Until last night.

Given the extreme heat over the last few days, we've had various family and friends come over to visit our air-conditioning, and my sister has actually been staying over in our spare bedroom so she can actually get some sleep as her apartment, alas, does not have A/C. This, of course, has led to some great evenings of fun and conversations enjoyed over some cool drinks.

Last night, my husband was getting up to grab himself and his friend another drink, and he asked me if I wanted anything. I couldn't decide what, if anything, I wanted, so I said not to get me anything. A few minutes later, I got up, went to the fridge, and picked out a drink.

Naturally, conversation ensued around why I couldn't just have told him what I wanted, and he could have gotten it for me, thus sparing me the trip to the refrigerator. I pointed out that I didn't know what I wanted, so I had to go and see for myself. He then noted that I knew what the choices were, so why didn't I just decide without looking?

We determined that sometimes, you just need to open the fridge.

And for about 30 seconds, we all felt deep and philosophical about how life is like that when it comes to choices. Sometimes, you just need to open the fridge and check out your options. Even though you know what your choices are, there's something about seeing them laid out in front of you that makes it easier to know which one you want.

And either way, when you're trying to beat the heat, sometimes it's just nice to stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open and enjoy the cool air.

(Not to mention, isn't it great how the most random things can lead to a blog post?)

Why I Write

2011-07-16T07:10:00.000-04:00

It's morning again. I sit with my coffee, reading my morning blogs and listening to quiet music and trying to figure out what I can say that sounds half as inspiring as the things they say.

And then I remind myself that I don't have to say what they say or sound like they sound.

Because I'm not them.

This is my blog, my writing, my place to remember the feelings, my place to bring Him glory.

It's still sometimes hard not to envy the following these wonderful blogging women have, seeing the many comments they receive and the many subscribers they have waiting on their every word. But I remind myself: it's not about glory for me. Why do I want those things? I don't need to have many people reading what I say. What matters is the One. What matters is that He sees and that He is glorified.

I could write as beautifully as the wind and have thousands upon thousands of readers with hundreds of comments daily, but if my heart isn't focused on the real reason for why I write, it is all for nothing.

I write to use up words. :) I write because I spend a lot of time alone or with just my kids, and if I don't write, I will explode. I write because if I don't, I am not being true to me, and if I am not true to me, I am not true to the One who made me.

And so I will continue to write, and I will remember Who I am writing for, and one day, I hope I can look into His face and hear Him say, "Well done."

His compassions never fail

2011-07-15T06:36:00.000-04:00

And God is faithful to provide bright spots of joy to move me through the days, and I can count myself blessed...

seeing the beautiful face of this blue-eyed girl, laughing as she clings to my hands as I tip her down to the ground, ever trusting that I won't let her fall, and then asking for "More, more!" that the game might never end...

for good old-fashioned retail therapy, and actually having some significant success, too...

for long hugs from the man I love...

this monkey boy who loves to dangle from my neck and gets so excited when I ask him to help me take out the recycling...

beautiful summer days with the windows wide open and feeling the breeze ruffle my hair...

and looking forward to loved ones returning home...

an encouraging voice mail message from a friend...

long, hot showers...

for finally returning to an old friend, who's been sitting in my garage since we moved in last October and sat unused in my living room for months before that, to dust off the keys and pull up a chair and find that some things you never forget, even if you get a bit rusty...

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

And I cling to His love...

2011-07-13T06:52:00.000-04:00

My dear readers, I'm sorry for such lack of posting lately. I'm finding it hard to put into words a description of this newest storm of life -- I've lost track of how many times I've started a post only to delete it because nothing is coming out right. Even this is a pathetic attempt at giving you something -- anything -- at the very least, a request for prayer, because I so need His strength and comfort right now.

To praise Him in the storm, to bless His name while feeling the searing pain of loss. It is bittersweet to experience the joy of knowing a loving Father while my heart bleeds with sorrow. Such an odd thing to go from singing His praises in one breath to overflowing with tears the next. How can I feel so empty and mere seconds later feel so full of His grace?

I don't bother with all the "why" questions. Why me? Why now? Why again? It's simple: we live in a world full of sin and evil, and we are still waiting for Christ's return to make all things new.

I cling to the hope of the joy we will feel on that day -- such joy -- to see the loved ones waiting for us on the other side.

And to see the face of our Lord, the great Comforter, who daily grants me the grace to look to Him for strength, who daily binds the wounds on my heart -- not just daily, but hourly -- this one whose love for me goes deeper than anything I could imagine.

How to praise Him in the storm? The answer to this is also simple: He loves me. No matter what life throws my way, this will always be true. I will always have the love of my heavenly Father, and so I praise Him. I can find rest and comfort in knowing that I am surrounded by His powerful arms of love, now and always.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21 (NKJV)

"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" 2 Cor 12:9a

[untitled]

2011-07-11T07:09:00.001-04:00

To somehow say what my heart feels, but words cannot seem to express...

"Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and my body with grief." Psalm 31:9

"How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?" Psalm 13:2

"My heart and my flesh may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26

"For I am the Lord, your God,
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, 'Do not fear;
I will help you.'" Isaiah 41:13

"It is God who arms me with strength
and makes my way perfect." Psalm 18:32

And I pray that I maybe be able to say with full confidence:
"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21 (NKJV)

May the light of His love shine on you all today.

How to Get Deodorant off the Wall

2011-07-08T07:08:00.000-04:00

Yes, you read that right. During naptime earlier this week, while the rest of the house was sleeping, my precious son decided to take my stick of deodorant from my bedroom and smear it in several different places in his bedroom. In his words, they were drawings of "dinosaurs". Some were just practice ones because they didn't turn out, and then one or two were "good ones".

For me, it meant several really sticky, greasy messes to clean up. His locations of choice included two places on the wall, the headboard of his bed, the side of his dresser, and the wicker ottoman that sits beside his bed. Yes, wicker. So of course, the deodorant was also embedded in the little cracks between the fibre weaves.

How I cleaned it up:

1. Having never had to clean deodorant off of anything before, my immediate reaction was to head to my trusty friend, Google. Believe it or not, apparently this kind of thing hasn't happened before, or at least, it hasn't happened to anybody who's thought to write about it and share their wisdom with the rest of the world. The best I could come up with was how to get deodorant stains out of clothing...not really all that helpful.

2. Since Google failed me (*sob* I can't believe it...), and I was left to my own devices, I decided to attempt to tackle the problem using the old tried and true method of vinegar and hot water. I made sure the water was as hot as I could stand, and I added a significant splash of vinegar to the bucket to make the solution as effective as I possibly could.

3. Then I took a regular kitchen cloth, and Reuben and I went off to the bedroom to do some serious scrubbing. (His punishment was that he had to stay inside and help me clean up while Daddy and Kaylee went out to play in the sprinkler. One of these days, he's going to learn he's not allowed to take Mommy's things from Mommy's bedroom.) So we set to scrubbing with less than stellar results. Deodorant is extremely greasy, and it didn't take long before my cloth was coated in it. It was very difficult to rinse off, so that by the time I got to the last and worst section of deodorant-covered wall, it took me quite some time to get it cleaned enough to call our job done. In the end, it felt like all I was doing was smearing the deodorant around more, and you could still see the greasy outline of my son's "dinosaur" drawing.

4. Talking to my Mum later, she suggested dish soap as a way to cut the grease, so I went back for a second shot at the residue I just couldn't get off with the vinegar and water mixture. The dish soap seemed to work well, although it took quite a lot of rinsing to get the soap off the wall. Unfortunately, I think I waited too long to try it because after the wall dried, you can still see a grease stain on the wall, but I couldn't feel anymore residue on my fingers. It really doesn't help that the paint someone used in that room is the non-glossy stuff, so everything just soaks right down into it right away. Whoever THAT genius was clearly wasn't thinking when they painted a potential child's bedroom with that kind of paint...

In conclusion, I think dish soap is the answer for getting deodorant off the wall...or any other surface it might happen to have been rubbed on. Heck, it may even be the solution for getting it out of clothes, although the Google searches generally conclude the vinegar and baking soda option works best.

I think from now on I'm going to keep my deodorant under lock and key...

Sensational Strawberry Dessert

2011-07-07T07:55:00.001-04:00

Given that it's the season of fresh Ontario strawberries, I thought I'd give this recipe from Kraft
a try. It was amazing. Really, really amazing.

Ingredients:

4 cups of strawberries
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
8 oreo cookies
2 1/4 cups Cool Whip

Shape a piece of tin foil using the outside of a loaf pan, and then put the piece of shaped foil inside the pan.

Start by mashing two cups of strawberries in a bowl.

Add the sweetened condensed milk and the lemon juice.

Stir in one cup of the Cool Whip.

Pour the mixture into the tin foil mold.

Chop the Oreo cookies into fine pieces.

Add one tablespoon of melted butter and stir.

Sprinkle the cookie crumbs onto the mixture in the loaf pan.

Fold over the extra flaps of tin foil and use it to press the cookie lightly into the bottom of the dessert. Put into the freezer for at least six hours. Remove from freezer and invert the dessert onto a serving dish. Remove the tin foil and spread the rest of the Cool Whip onto it. Slice the last 2 cups of strawberries and arrange them on the dessert.

Voila, strawberry yummy goodness. If you don't eat it all in one shot, store the leftovers in the freezer. Enjoy!

Just life...

2011-07-04T06:51:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days. I had a few transcription files to work on over the weekend, so that's kept me busy, and we also made an impromptu visit to Chatham to see my parents after Tim got home on Saturday afternoon. I don't think he's been back there since Christmas, so it was a good visit. The kids always love going to see Grandpa and Grandma. :)

Life continues on. Kaylee speaks more and more every day and continues to come out with words we had no idea she knew. Reuben is, as always, full of energy and seems to be constantly fighting a cough because he just doesn't slow down enough to ever get all the way better. Tim's work as a driver is the same as always, and we're looking forward to having him around for a few days till he goes back out on the road again after his schedule being weird for the holiday weekend. We celebrated our sixth anniversary this weekend by going out to dinner while the kids were with my parents, and it was a wonderful evening of looking back and seeing how far we've come. As I said on Facebook, still young, still in love... (although with two kids, sometimes it's hard to feel so young...)

And I am doing all right, too. I've had some good days lately with the kids, being able to enjoy them for who they are and taking pleasure in watching the great joy they get out of life. And then these are usually followed by extremely challenging days where I spend the entire day praying for patience and struggling not to snap at them for every little thing. It's the life of a mother I think, and I am ever thankful that I have the Lord to rely on for strength. He never fails to get me through.

"My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26

Strawberries with White Wine

2011-06-29T06:57:00.000-04:00

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats waiting for this one, so here it is, as promised.

Strawberries with White Wine

Ingredients:
1 cup strawberries
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup white wine
vanilla ice cream

The ratios for this can easily be adjusted. The amounts I used made enough for two servings.

To start, chop up the strawberries into small pieces and place them in a bowl.

Next, sprinkle the sugar over the strawberries. I didn't end up using the full 1/4 cup because the strawberries were well-coated, and I didn't want them to be too sweet.

Pour the wine over the strawberries.

Cover and let stand in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Remove from the fridge about 15-20 minutes before serving as strawberries taste better at room temperature. Scoop the ice cream into bowls. Stir the strawberry mixture and use a slotted spoon to put them on the ice cream.

And there you have it! Strawberries with wine...mmmmmm...

Oh, wait! I almost forgot the best part. After you scoop the strawberries out onto the ice cream, run the wine that's left in the bowl through a bit of cheesecloth to strain out the seeds and excess sugar, (yes, excess sugar). You will be left with a lovely strawberry-coloured dessert wine. Enjoy!

Progress on the Garden

2011-06-28T06:47:00.000-04:00

As promised, to continue my discussion on the progress we've made on our yard, here's some of the progress we've made on the gardens. Basically, the previous owners of our house did nothing to keep up with the landscaping of the property, and we've been fighting quite the battle with overgrown gardens filled with weeds, shrubs, and other plants that I can't identify, and therefore, don't really want even if they might actually be something nice.

I'd like to start by refreshing your memory with a picture of the back of our house as we saw it when we went to view the house for the first time. Take note of the garden behind the garage and in the corner of the house.

They look a little better now. I've pruned the shrubs behind the garage significantly, and they look much better. There was also a plant at the front left corner that I moved to a garden at the side of the house.

And I completely removed the euonymus bush that was in the corner of the house as well as another plant that was growing there, but I don't remember what it was. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this little corner yet, but the rocks are kind of fun.

The garden along the fence in the backyard still requires much work. I've cleared out about half of it and put in some tomato plants for a friend that is moving soon and has no place to put them. We also picked up a bunch of annuals, and I've put two of them at the end of the space I cleared out. There are three sections of peonies, but I think I might cut that down to one. They are huge plants, and I'm learning that I'm not into huge plants. Also, the one set is blocking my rose bush, which has actually done rather well, but I haven't been able to enjoy it because of the peonies standing in the way. I also have a small lilac bush/tree that I'll keep, but there are a few other miscellaneous shrubs and plants that I think I'll just get rid of because everything is just such a mess. I think it might be easiest to start from scratch.

Also, the one set is blocking my rose bush (seen below), which has actually done rather well, but I haven't been able to enjoy it because of the peonies standing in the way. I also have a small lilac bush/tree that I'll keep, but there are a few other miscellaneous shrubs and plants that I'll probably get rid of because everything is just such a mess. I think it might be easiest to start from scratch.

Here's a close up of my barrels. I've planted herbs in them, and I'm pretty excited to have fresh herbs to use in my cooking. In the barrel on the left, I have cilantro (aka coriander, which I didn't know), lavender, aloe, and chives. In the barrel on the right, I planted two kinds of rosemary, parsley, and basil. I already used some of the basil to make bruschetta on the weekend, and it was lovely.

The last garden I'm going to show you is the one around the big tree in our front yard. This tree was surrounded by massively overgrown euonymus bushes, which I cleared out with the help of Tim and my dad. THAT was a chore, let me tell you. I will never plant euonymus. Ever. The rest of the annuals we picked up went in this garden, as well as a hosta that I had in a pot from our old house. I'm hoping to get more hostas to put in between all the annuals.

And that's the progress we've made on our gardens so far this year. I haven't shown you the garden along the front or side of the house because we haven't really done anything with those yet. I'm hoping to do some planning over the winter to figure out what I actually want to put in them. It's a bit exciting to be able to plan my own gardens, but I can definitely see why the previous owners let it all go so much. The amount of foliage we have to keep in line is crazy!

Well, I hope you all are having a good week so far...

Asparagus Puffs

2011-06-27T07:21:00.004-04:00

I know I'm supposed to be showing you my garden progress today, but my sister Justine and I made Asparagus Puffs last night, and they were delicious. I'm super excited, so I decided that I'd share this instead. The garden can wait until tomorrow... Observe...

Asparagus Puffs

Ingredients:
puff pastry, asparagus, red onion, goat cheese, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil

Photo Credit: Justine

First, cut the red onion into rings and saute in a saucepan with 1 tbsp olive oil until soft.

Photo Credit: Justine

Add 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and stir to coat. Set aside.

Photo Credit: Justine

Next, unroll the puff pastry and cut into squares. You can buy puff pastry in the frozen section of the grocery store by all the pre-made crusts. Use the parchment paper it comes in to line the baking sheet you put the squares on.

Photo Credit: Justine

Spread about 2 tbsp of goat cheese onto the puff pastry, leaving about a 1/2 inch border around the edges. We did 1 inch because that's what the recipe said, but upon eating the finished product, we determined that less of a border would work just fine. Also, for the record, goat cheese is hard to spread.

Photo Credit: Justine

Next, break the woody ends off the asparagus, and then cut each stalk in half. Place on the goat cheese. (Check out the picture; I don't know how to explain this any better.)

Photo Credit: Justine

Top with a few of the onions that were cooked earlier.

Photo Credit: Justine

Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes and enjoy!

Photo Credit: Justine

These were amazingly delicious and would make a great appetizer for any dinner party. We decided that one puff per person is plenty, as we had two each and ended up quite stuffed. The onions add incredible flavour, although we decided we might sprinkle on a bit of salt and pepper next time for a bit of added taste.

For dessert, we had strawberries soaked in white wine, but that's a recipe to share for another day... (And yes, I'm just going to leave you hanging with that...)

Progress on the Yard

2011-06-26T08:20:00.000-04:00

When we first moved into our new house, the yard was a mess. Actually, the yard is still a mess. But we are making some slow but significant progress. Allow me to show you with a few, somewhat not great pictures. I really wish I'd been better at doing the before and after photos thing.

This is a picture of the back of our house. If I may direct your attention to the actual yard portion of the picture, you can see a couple of things. First of all, we're not sure which owner previous to us did this, but there used to be an above-ground pool in this backyard, and when it was removed, they didn't bother to remove all the gravel and plastic sheeting that surrounded it and replace it with something like, I don't know, GRASS. You will also note that at the back of the garage there is a garden with shrubs that is looking very, very overgrown, and way at the back corner of the house is also another garden that is very overgrown.

This is the view looking from the deck out to the back of our yard. Believe it or not, this is actually somewhat of an "after" picture -- okay, more like a "work in progress" picture. I'll get you an actual "how it looks currently" picture in a minute. The fence-line of our yard was basically a long row of trees and shrubs. There was actually a cedar hedge here that had completely overgrown and then died. Tim could actually rip the stumps out of the ground with little to no effort. Here, you see my studly husband in action using a chain saw to cut down one of many trees that have been removed from back there.

Here's the "what it looks like now" picture. Please excuse the toys. There's still a lot of trees back there, but clearly, we've removed a lot.

Here is a shot of Tim in action again, as well as his friend Tak who gave him a hand for a few days. At this point, they have removed all the gravel and plastic sheeting from where the pool was, and they rented a roto-tiller for a few hours to plow the area under. Behind them, you can see our garden along the fence. This picture was taken early in the spring before anything had much of a chance to grow, but let me assure you, I fight a constant battle to keep the overgrowth at bay. ...but that's a post for another day...

Here's a view from the deck of the area where they are roto-tillering.

Unfortunately, since they've roto-tillered, we haven't had a chance to plant any grass or make a whole lot of progress, mainly because of this massive pile of brush that came from all the stuff we've chopped down or ripped out of the gardens.

The brush is accompanied by a large dead tree, and we are waiting for the tree guy to come chop down the tree and remove the pile of brush for us. We called him a couple of weeks ago, and we're starting to get a little anxious for him to come so we can get some more work done.

Anyway, that's the yard progress that we've made so far. Tomorrow I'll show you the progress I've made on the gardens so far...

On smells in my house...

2011-06-25T07:04:00.000-04:00

I got to do something yesterday that I haven't done in absolutely ages: sit alone at a Tim Horton's with nothing but my coffee and a book for company. It was glorious. I even had a moment of epiphany as something I was reading made me suddenly stop and think.

You want to know what I was thinking about?

How to make my house smell better.

Yep. That was my deep and profound thought. The first time in ages that I get to sit and think by myself during daylight hours, and the best thing I can come up with is how to change the odor in my house to something more pleasing than cat pee and garbage.

A few solutions came to mind. First things first, I need to change the cat's litter box and the soiled newspaper from around it. I don't know why, and we even recently bought her a larger box, but she still has a horrible habit of missing the box when she pees. Yeah. Yuck. (Don't deny it. You know you said it, too.)

I should probably also start a habit of taking the garbage out more frequently, as in before it becomes so crammed full I can barely get the bag out of the can without ripping it. Ditto this for my bowl of compost, although I am slightly better at emptying this on time just because the bowl gets full pretty quickly when you have two kids that frequently don't finish all their food.

There's always the standard air freshener options like deodorizing sprays and scented candles, but who wants to be breathing in all those nasty chemicals I'm sure they're chock full of?

I could try some natural air freshening options, like pot pourri or pots of cinnamon sticks boiling on the stove, and maybe I will do some research on some of that later.

And I'm sure it would also help if I toilet trained Kaylee and eliminated her diapers from the garbage mix. But go figure, she hates the pull-ups I picked up for her last time I got groceries.

Overall, one thing has become glaringly obvious to me. I am really just not that perfect housewife whose house is always sparkling clean and smelling of sunshine.

And frankly, I'm okay with that. (Although I might still try to do something about those nasty smells...)

So many ideas...

2011-06-22T07:06:00.000-04:00

There are so many blog post ideas running through my head right now, I don't even know where to start.

I could write about how my garden is doing and about the slow progress we're making on our yardwork.

I could write several posts about life as a trucker's wife and what that means for me.

I could write about dreams, and how disconcerting it is to dream about people from your high school days who you haven't seen in years, and then how completely disoriented you feel after being woken up by your son, who has no idea these people even exist.

I could write pages upon pages about God's everlasting faithfulness and how the simple fact that I have so many blog posts I want to write is further proof of His faithfulness and the way He carries me through each and every day with my sanity intact.

He is so good. I'm even finding the time to write up some of my posts in advance instead of on the morning I post them. (Gasp! It's happening!)

If you'll allow me to just exude some joy for a few moments... I love that I have so much to say. I love that my brain is functioning enough to let me actually put into words the millions of things that I think every day. I love that people are actually reading what I have to say -- although even if they didn't, I would still say it because I love how therapeutic writing has become for me.

God is awesome. He truly is. And while I've definitely gotten better at putting into words all the things that are in my heart, I don't think I could ever really explain just how much He is doing for me and how totally and completely I need Him to get me through each day.

"Praise the Lord.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever." Psalm 104:1

Thoughts while driving

2011-06-21T06:18:00.000-04:00

With Tim gone so much, it's rare that I actually get to be the passenger in the vehicle when I go anywhere. More often then not, I'm the one driving while dealing with two children in the back seat, and the experience ends up being less than relaxing.

However, this past weekend, my sister Justine and I decided to surprise my dad for Father's Day, so we packed up the kids at 7am into HER car, and I got to sit for four whole blessed hours in a vehicle NOT DRIVING (two hours to my parents', two hours home at the end of the day). There were still two children in the back that I had to deal with, but when you're not trying to focus on the road at the same time, the experience was significantly more enjoyable.

I actually found myself with some time to ponder while we were on the way home, but it struck me how the way I travel as a passenger has changed so much now that I have kids. It used to be that I could sit for hours, just looking out the window day-dreaming, or I could sleep for a chunk of time, or I could read for the whole drive.

None of that really happened. Yes, I still do those things (well, not the sleeping because of the dealing with the children thing), but I'm not doing them for chunks of time anymore; the pattern is a little more disjointed.

How can I explain this better? Basically, I spent the drive home on Sunday going from one thing to the next, but never focusing on any one thing for a long time.

I'd go from staring out the window day-dreaming to staring out the window writing blog posts in my head. I'd go from just sitting quietly marveling at all the awesome shades of green God created to chatting with my sister about random things and mental images, and then we'd randomly start singing along with the John Denver CD we had playing -- ah, the good old days. (And yes, I just admitted that I sing along with John Denver...) I'd go from feeling melancholy about the passing of time to feeling content and at peace with just being in the moment.

I'd go from enjoying the silence to desperately trying to figure out what book of the 20-some-odd books we had with us my daughter meant when she incessantly yelled, "Cat!" and, "No, no, no, no!" when I'd try to give her the wrong one...

I don't know if it was the constant interruptions from the kids in the back seat, or my brain was just not having a good day with focusing, but it was a weird feeling not to be able to focus on doing any one thing. I think part of it was just that I wanted to be able to do all of those things, but the two hour drive just wasn't long enough to fit them all in.

I need to be a passenger more often...

Remembering...

2011-06-20T06:29:00.000-04:00

That I may never forget the little one we never knew, who would have been due four years ago today.

For Meditation

2011-06-18T07:01:00.000-04:00

Today I'm too tired to even think straight after being up every two hours through the night for Reuben who's got a bad cough right now. May these words strengthen my soul and yours as we get through this day.

"...For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say: 'The LORD is my helper; I will not fear.'" Heb 13:5b-6a (NKJV)

"Praise the Lord, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits --
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion...

For as high are the heavens above the earth,
so great is His love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm 103: 1-4, 11-12 (NIV)

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Heb 15:13 (NIV)

Don't mess with the morning chi

2011-06-16T07:04:00.000-04:00

The postal strike is ruining my morning chi.

I know it's a bit sad, but getting the mail is close to being the highlight of my day. I don't know why. There's just something thrilling about opening the mailbox, finding there's mail in it, and then looking through it to see if there's anything more exciting than bills. Generally, there's not. But I can honestly say I would rather get even just one piece of junk mail than no mail at all.

And the days when there does happen to be something other than a bill, like say, a paycheque, or an unexpected tax rebate cheque, or the postcard from Starbucks that tells me I get a free drink for my birthday, those are the sweetest days of all.

I'll be the first to admit, I don't know the a whole lot about why Canada Post is on strike/locked out. I did some reading on the Canada Post website and on the CUPW website, and I have to say, I understand Canada Post's side of it significantly better than the CUPW side of it. Sorry CUPW, I love my mailman, but you are not doing a whole lot to make me understand why I don't get to see him everyday anymore. Show me that you have a good reason to be on strike, and then maybe I will be a little more understanding about why I'm now having to look at switching to e-billing for all of my utilities. I've managed to hold off this long for most of my bills, and the prospect of relying on my email to tell me how much money I need to pay to keep my hydro running does not fill me with joy.

So stop messing with my morning and the small things that I take pleasure in to get through my long days at home with small children. Bring me back my mail service!

Have I found our new church?

2011-06-14T07:22:00.001-04:00

It's been about six weeks since our last gathering with our "old church", and I've now had the chance to visit a "new church" for a few services. I thought I'd give you all a bit of an update on how that's been going.

The church we've been checking out is the Presbyterian church down the road from us. It is literally a five minute walk from my house, ten with the kids in tow. I can honestly say the proximity to my house has been a real draw for me to make this our permanent church home.

The first service I attended was their Good Friday service, which also included participating in communion. It was a little daunting because they perform this sacrament by having everyone file to the front pew by pew to partake of the bread/cracker and wine/grape juice, and I felt a little out of my element just because it was a new church, and I didn't know anyone. Awesomely, it turned out I did recognize someone there as our neighbour from across the street was also in attendance that morning.

I found out later that it was also her first time visiting the church, and they are also looking at perhaps making it their church home. We've gotten to know those neighbours quite well since moving here, and I find it really cool that we might end up going to the same church together right here in our own neighbourhood.

Since that day, we've gone to three more services, and each time I go, I am more and more convinced that this is the church God is leading us to make our new church family. They have amazing kids' programs there, which is something I was hoping to find in our new church, and the kids have handled the adjustment really well.

I feel such a sense of community and togetherness from these people during the services, and they have been very welcoming to me and my children. Several people have already introduced themselves to me, and I'm looking forward to more chances to become part of this church family.

And all that aside, this past Sunday during the service it really struck me that this church is a place where I sense God's presence, and it's a place where I feel comfortable to worship and meet with Him among these other believers. They have an incredible praise team, and since music has always been a big part of my life and the way I worship, this has helped significantly in making me feel at home here.

Have I made a firm decision that this will be our new church? Not quite, but I'm getting close. I haven't spent as much time in prayer over it as I need to yet, but that will come. I'm also hoping that at some point Tim will be able to come to a service with us, but given that he works on weekends, this might be a while.

Anyway, I could write more, but the kids need breakfast. Till another time...

Birds in the Morning

2011-06-11T06:57:00.000-04:00

I have a love/hate relationship with the birds outside my window.

Sometimes, I think they're great. I love to hear birds chirping, especially in the spring after they've been relatively quiet all winter. They remind me of those early morning hours when you're camping, when everyone's just starting to wake up, but the birds have been awake for hours.

And sometimes, when it's 3:45, and the birds are so loud they're waking me up with them, I'm ready to buy a gun and shoot them all. Okay, maybe I wouldn't actually shoot them, but I'd sure like to find a way so that they're not disturbing my slumber quite so much. It really doesn't help that the branches of my lovely birch tree are directly outside my bedroom window, and said birch tree seems to be the preferred dwelling for several birds.

Because let's be honest here, people, my kids get me up at ridiculous hours as it is. I don't need endlessly chirping birds ruining my good night's sleep on top of that.

I'd invest in ear plugs, but then I wouldn't be able to hear my children when they wake up.

Wait. Maybe that's not such a bad idea...

God Doesn't Need Coffee

2011-06-08T07:27:00.000-04:00

"I lift up my eyes to the hills--
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip--
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep." Psalm 121:1-4

It's good to know that God doesn't need sleep.

I don't know about you, but when I find life the most challenging as a mother, it's usually because I haven't gotten enough sleep. When it's hard to be patient, it's usually because I'm tired. When mornings are difficult, it's because I just want to go back to bed and get more sleep. When I'm grumpy, it's often because I've been or am being woken up at some ungodly hour.

Except if God doesn't sleep, then technically no hour is an ungodly hour.

I need to get better at looking to Him for the strength to get through those hours when I'd rather be sleeping. I need to get better at trusting in His limitless patience while I dangle at the end of my rope. I need to get better at keeping my focus on His never-failing love when I'm staring bleary-eyed at my coffee maker trying to figure out why there's no coffee in the pot even when I scooped the grinds into the filter and pushed the button to make it go. Oh wait. It needs water? (And yes, one morning I actually forgot to put water in the coffee maker when I tried to make my morning coffee. See what being tired does to you?)

Because God's strength is the only thing that can overcome my desire for more sleep. And the joy that comes from relying on Him is WAY better than any caffeine buzz...

On pests and homeownership

2011-06-07T07:18:00.000-04:00

Something ate my garbage last night.

I don't know if it was a raccoon or a squirrel or something else, but when I looked outside this morning, our garbage can has been tipped over, the lid is off, and there's garbage all over the ground. Given that we're also having a lovely thunderstorm this morning, it's going to be very yucky to clean up later. Joy.

I strongly suspect that most homeowners have to deal with pests of all sorts, but it feels like the battle is never-ending. Whether it's bugs in my laundry, chipmunks in my basement, ridiculous amounts of spiders living in the corners of every room, and big black ants that crawl on me while I'm sleeping, I never know what to expect next!

Obviously, the next pest problem is whatever is tearing the lid off my garbage can to eat my garbage. Frankly, I'm surprised they haven't gone for my compost bin because that's where all the food scraps go. Although given the smell coming from said bin lately after all the warm weather, I can't say that I blame the poor bugger.

The neighbour suggested a way to rig up the lid so that it's tied down and nothing can get in. That sounds like a lot of work to me as it involves drilling holes in one side of my garbage can because we only have one handle. I think we'll probably just end up keeping the garbage can in the garage.

Stay tuned to find out which pest we get to deal with next...

About nothing

2011-06-05T06:56:00.000-04:00

So I haven't been feeling a whole lot more inspired to write anything this past week. I'm sorry I can't be one of those bloggers that gets to write all kinds of posts in advance so that you still get regular posts even whe I don't feel like I have anything important to say. I wish I could do it differently, but of course, whenever inspiration strikes me, I'm usually nowhere near a computer or my kids require my attention so I can't write it out anyway. And then, inevitably, when I sit down at the computer in the mornings when I do have time, the inspiration is gone or the idea that I had just sounds boring.

Figures.

Unfortunately, it means you get stuck with either dull posts or no posts. Again, sorry.

In fact, the only reason I'm posting at all this morning is because I'm so tired of not having anything to post that I'm forcing myself to sit here and post SOMETHING, even though it means I'm posting about not having anything to post.

Anyway, I'm sure ONE of these days, some real inspiration will strike, and hopefully at the right time of day, and then you'll get some decent posts again. Until then, you'll have to make due with, well, dull posts.

For the last time, sorry.

The birthday girl always cries

2011-06-02T07:42:00.000-04:00

We had a party for Kaylee's birthday last night. At one point, the irony struck me that there were actually only three children at the party, two of whom were mine, and the other 14 people were adults. I think my kids need to get out more and make some new friends...some younger friends.

But no offense intended to any of our party guests. In fact, all of them were specifically requested by my kids, and interestingly enough, the names of two children my kids have been asking about seeing all week didn't even come up. So there we have it. A child's relatively child-less birthday party.

And it was fun. At least, I think it was fun. The kids got extremely excited when the first guest arrived and got progressively more and more worked up as more people came. It was good the weather was so nice so they could spend some of that energy outside.

We had burgers and salad and cake. Kaylee opened her presents and said some really cute "thanks" to everyone. She kept asking for a Buzz Lightyear toy, and I'm not sure if she was actually disappointed or not that she didn't get one. I don't think I had even realized she wanted one. Do two-year-olds get disappointed when they don't get toys they want for their birthday?

And of course, the birthday girl ended up in tears when it was time for her to go to bed at the end. Can you blame her after having so much fun?

Lemon Rosemary Chicken

2011-06-01T06:57:00.001-04:00

This is a recipe that I found a few months ago. It is amazingly delicious and simple. Not to mention, I always feel like I'm a real cook when I use things like fresh herbs and lemon zest. :)

You will need a few sprigs of rosemary, a lemon, 2-4 chicken breasts, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Chop 1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary and put it in a small bowl.

Add 1 tsp of salt and 1/4 tsp of black pepper.

Add 1 tsp of lemon zest (about one lemon worth). Lemon zest is ridiculously hard to measure accurately.

Add 1 tsp of lemon juice and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Stir it all together.

Rub the mixture onto all sides of the chicken breasts and place onto your baking pan of choice. I have cooked these both in covered casserole dishes in the oven and also straight on a baking tray in my toaster oven. I have yet to determine which way is best. Cooking times vary depending on how many chicken breasts you use, but for those pictured above, I believe I cooked them in the oven at about 350 for approximately 30-40 minutes. The trick is not overdoing them because chicken can dry out pretty easily when it's overcooked.

Unfortunately, I don't have a post-cooking picture for you as once the meal was done, I got a little crazy trying to put it all on plates to feed my hungry family.

So there it is in all it's glorious yumminess. If you try it, I'd love to know what you think!

Tylenol is my friend

2011-05-29T06:54:00.000-04:00

I want to apologize for the lack of super awesome posts this week. After coming home from convention, my immune system finally caved in to the virus that had been attempting to infect me with the vicious cold that my children introduced to me already before I left.

I think being exhausted from convention hasn't helped because it is a monster of a cold involving knives stabbing into my throat when I swallow and much coughing that keeps me awake half the night. Halls cough drops are only so helpful.

I went to the naturopath on Wednesday, so I've got two pages worth of things to do and take for myself and the kids. I will honestly say, as much as I hate being sick, I can't even remember to do half of it because there's just so much on the list. And it's one thing to remember to do a list of things for yourself; it's another thing entirely to have to remember two additional lists for the small ones.

That being said, my sore throat is finally feeling significantly better today, and my lungs don't feel quite as congested, although the pounding head leaves something to be desired...something like Tylenol, and lots of it. I think we just might attempt to get to church this morning as the kids seem to be doing significantly better than I am, and I would love to have a little bit of a break, even if it means sitting on an unpadded pew for a little while.

So Happy Sunday, people. And hopefully I'll be a little better at posting something interesting this week...

My Princess

2011-05-28T07:34:00.000-04:00

Then

Now

Two years ago, this precious little angel joined our lives. She is an absolute gift, and her smiles never fail to cause my heart to melt with love.

Happy Birthday, Kaylee!

I'd Forgotten

2011-05-25T07:19:00.000-04:00

I'd forgotten just how completely physically exhausting the AOYC actually is, especially for the tech crew who spends a lot of time running around lifting and pushing heavy things.

I'd forgotten how sore you get from using muscles you should probably be using all the time, but don't.

I'd forgotten how dirty your hands get from wrapping so many cables, how good that sandwich tastes for lunch because you're working so hard you almost forget to eat, and how incredibly painful it is to be on your feet all day for four days straight.

I'd forgotten the high that comes after a show well-done, knowing you've put your heart and soul into doing the work the best you can.

And I'd forgotten just how absolutely amazing it is to hear the voices of over 800 young people singing about amazing grace and a God that is might to save, how these youth can bring you to tears with their raised hands and their commitments to serve, and how with a few prayers, they can bring such unbelievable encouragement to their leaders.

"Look to the Lord and his strength;
seek his face always.
Remember the wonders he has done..." Psalm 105:4-5A

On see-through bacon...

2011-05-22T07:37:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day: "I can see you through my bacon!" - Jon

Let's just say university cafeteria food leaves much to be desired, at least when it comes to breakfast. The unfortunate thing is that word on the street has it we won't be eating a whole lot in the way of lunch today either. It's a bit hush hush, but you know there's something going on when they only have half an hour scheduled to feed 900 plus people. I'll probably have more on how that goes tomorrow...

The weekend is going well. The kids seem to be really enjoying themselves, and we are having a great time working together as a crew. As always, each show gets better and better as we get all the kinks worked out and find our groove. We have a busy day ahead of us today with several Reach-In rooms to set up and both a morning and evening worship session. Sunday night is typically the climax session of the weekend, so it will be interesting to see how God is at work today.

Please continue to pray that I and the others keep in good health. We're all a little sore from lifting heavy equipment and generally using muscles we're not used to using. The exhaustion is setting in, and although we had an easy enough day yesterday, today does look to be a little more challenging. Please pray that we will keep up our strength and continue to keep our focus on the One who is faithful to keep us strong until the end.

Peace, my friends.

Blogging from All Ontario

2011-05-21T07:41:00.001-04:00

The sun glares into our eyes as we stumble from the cafeteria to the gym where the morning's worship session will be held. Getting coffee is the only thing on our minds now that we've eaten breakfast. Someone has brought a Keurig from home, and that man deserves a medal. (University coffee is apparently quite bad.)

But we're thankful the sun is shining. Because it means we don't have to walk around from breakout room to breakout room dragging equipment through the rain. Because it means we get to wear shorts when it gets hot later. Because it means the youth will have a great time playing sports outside during leisure time.

Because there is something about walking with the sunshine on your face that makes it okay to be completely exhausted. Especially when there's good coffee waiting for you at the end of your walk...

Last night's session was a good rehearsal for the rest of the weekend. There were a few minor glitches with the production side of things that should be ironed out by today, if not this morning, then by tonight. It didn't rain, so the outdoor stage was able to be outside as planned, and it was well received...(except for a noise violation...*cough*) We finally made it back to our rooms around 12:30, which isn't too bad for us actually.

I'm hoping to do a couple posts over the course of the weekend. We do have some Internet access, albeit a slow connection, and there's enough laptops kicking around that I should be able to put up the occasional update.

Prayers are always requested, especially because I am now concerned I might be finally getting that cold my kids have had for a week or so now. The last thing I want right now is to be sick, so please pray that I (and the others) remain healthy. Please also pray that we will be able to keep our focus on working for the glory of God, and also for the youth, that their lives will be touched by all they see and hear this weekend.

Peace, my friends.

Mostly just an update

2011-05-20T07:38:00.000-04:00

The sun is finally shining again after what has been a full week of rainy days. Reuben actually slept in this morning, small miracle, but I'm late getting my morning coffee, and for some reason, extra sleep seems to have the effect of slowing my brain down. I'd love to have something more inspiring to say, but you'll have to make do with a more update-ish post today.

Prayers are needed. Reuben has had a cold for about a week, and I had to take him in yesterday to find out that he now also has an ear infection. He's on antibiotics, but the poor kid really needs God's healing hand on him right now. He cried for nearly two hours straight the other night because he was in so much pain. Well, in pain and overtired, which is never a good combination.

I leave for convention tonight, and I'll admit, it's now with some misgivings with Reuben feeling so crummy. I know he's in good hands with my parents, but I'm also not sure I want to subject them to a sick kid.

That being said, I am still planning to go, and prayers for myself and the rest of the crew would be much appreciated. All Ontario has a way of being both incredibly uplifting and incredibly exhausting. Please pray for safety, and strength, and that God's glory will be shown in the work that we are doing.

My coffee is kicking in, and my brain is starting to function again, but I'm going to leave it there.

"Let the name of the Lord be praised,
both now and forevermore.
From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the Lord is to be praised." Psalm 113:2-3

It's that time of year again...

2011-05-18T07:00:00.000-04:00

It's the weekend of the All Ontario Youth Convention! This is an event that Tim has been involved in for over 10 years helping out with the sound & lighting aspect of things. Before the kids were born, I went along to help. It is always an incredible weekend, both in the fun we have as a tech crew and also in watching as the lives of these youth are changed by God's grace. It's been challenging the last three years to send him off for it while I had to stay home with babies.

This year, thanks to my parents graciously being able to take care of my kids for me, I get to go again! I don't think I can possibly express just how excited I am. The reasons are many: a weekend away without the kids, getting to work with my husband again (I admit; he's turned me into a bit of a techy........okay, so I just wrap lots of cables...), working with the crew (we have the same people year after year volunteering with us), listening to some really awesome worship sessions, hearing some really cool speakers, being part of something bigger than myself...yeesh, I'm getting more excited just thinking about it.

For the youth, the weekend doesn't start until Friday evening, but in this house, planning for it started almost as soon as last year's convention ended. Tim has spent that past number of months plotting diagrams and putting together equipment lists. The frenzy to finish organizing everything has stepped up over the last few weeks, and today he is heading off to pack the gear at the company we rent everything from. I get to spend my day baking, doing laundry, and packing suitcases. Tomorrow, we load in at the university.

Let the fun begin!

My mornings

2011-05-15T07:31:00.000-04:00

I have a morning routine.

One of the kids, (usually Reuben, but sometimes Kaylee joins too), wakes me up early. By early, I mean before 6am. The rule, however, is that we do not go downstairs until at least 6:00, so I keep him quiet-ish in my room before we sneak down the stairs, trying not to wake Kaylee up if she is still asleep. I put on my pot of coffee, and I get Reuben a snack of cheerios or crackers and a cup of juice.

And then I do the blog thing.

I'm not like other moms that get up at 5am to have quiet devotional time and workout. I tried that. It didn't work for me. I am all for starting my day by focusing on God and bringing Him into the journey with me, but my kids are just too distracting in the mornings for me to get that quality one-on-one time with Him, and I just do not sleep well enough at night to try to get up before they do.

So I read blogs of other women who do get that quality quiet time, and I am inspired, and I think of Him and pray as I write blog posts while looking up scripture passages on BibleGateway.com.

And sometimes.....who am I kidding.....CONSTANTLY, I am interrupted by curly-blond-haired beauties clad in footie pajamas covered in robots. More juice. More goldfish. The show is over; can we pick another one? Sometimes, against my better judgment, I give into my sinful urges to grumble.

But other times, I reach out my arms to draw that precious little soul in for a hug, and I watch her tiny feet stretch onto their toes as she reaches up to put her arms around my neck. How can my heart do anything but melt?

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul." Psalm 143:8

Two Things

2011-05-14T07:36:00.001-04:00

Thing One: I absolutely love the sound of rain on the roof while I'm in bed at night. It is such an incredibly soothing sound. Last night, it poured, and I reminisced about childhood days camping with my family when it would rain while we were all in the tent together.

I think this is the first place Tim and I have lived where you can actually clearly hear the sound of those many drops hitting the top of our house. Home 1 was a high-rise apartment, and we weren't on the top floor. Home 2 was a main-floor apartment in a house with two floors above us. Home 3 was a townhouse with an attic. Here, there is no attic, so I get the full effect of every downpour, to the point of being able to hear the water trickle its way through the shingles to the eavestroughs.

Thing Two: The view outside my kitchen is becoming more and more beautiful every day. And by view, I mean the birch tree. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, spring is my favorite time of year. I am loving that I get to watch this tree wake up from the dead of winter. The leaves on it get bigger every day, and slowly I see more and more green dressing those lovely white branches.

"Shout with joy to God, all the earth!
Sing the glory of his name;
make his praise glorious!
Say to God, 'How awesome are your deeds!'" Psalm 66:1-3a

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2011-05-13T12:49:00.000-04:00

You know how you can get those compilation recipe books that schools and Coffee Break programs put out as fundraisers? I have one, and it is probably the best recipe book ever. All the recipes are so practical and stuff that normal people eat when they don't have hours to spend preparing gourmet meals.

One of the favourites in our house is a recipe someone called "Best Ever Banana Muffins". We tend to agree, but I usually just call them "Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins". You should try them; they are excellent.

"Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins"

3 large bananas
3/4 c. white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. melted butter/margarine
chocolate chips

Mash the bananas in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and the egg. Add the melted butter. Sift together the dry ingredients and add them to the banana mixture. Add about a handful of chocolate chips. Spoon into muffin cups. Bake at 375F for 20 minutes.

Best eaten warm when the chocolate chips are still melted. ;) Enjoy!

Worn Out, but not Broken

2011-05-11T07:26:00.000-04:00

Great title, right? As I read those words, I realize there can be so much meaning found in them beyond what I am actually using them to describe.

The transmission in our van is worn out, not broken. This means the warranty that we paid for when we bought the van last August won't cover the necessary repairs. I'm sure most of you are well aware, fixing your transmission is probably one of the most expensive repairs possible on a vehicle, and one of the things you can't really fix yourself either. It figures.

But I can still praise Him in the storm.

We were pretty excited this year for our tax refund. We've got a long list of things we had planned to do with the money, many of them things around the house, and I was looking forward to getting some much needed new clothes and a new bed frame to get our mattress off the floor. It looks like we'll be putting those plans on hold.

But the tax refund means we can actually afford to get the van fixed. Praise the Lord for His provision!

I'm not going to lie to you. It still totally sucks, and I definitely started crying on the phone with the warranty guy when he told me the news. (I hope that makes you feel good and crummy, you cursed warranty company man! I'm sorry....that wasn't nice.....) But the only way to get through this without sinking into the pit of despair is to look on the bright side.

So the title of this post also pretty adequately describes the state of my spirit right now, "worn out, but not broken". It's like the passage in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." It helps to focus on knowing that God has provided, and we are able to have it fixed without going into further debt.

It also helps to have an overgrown garden that I could hack away at yesterday and vent off some of my frustration... :)

Losing a Church: Moving Forward

2011-05-09T07:18:00.001-04:00

This will be my last post in my "Losing a Church" series. I have loved sharing this journey with you all, but now it's time for me to put this series to rest.

Are there some lingering personal issues around our church closing that I may need to deal with yet? Probably. But I think the hard work has been finished, and the time for publicly blogging about it is done. The slow work to come to complete healing and forgiveness will continue, but by God's grace, I am truly in a place of acceptance over the situation, and I am ready to look forward to the next steps.

The next steps. Finding a new church. (Do I sense another series?)

Ugh. The initial excitement over finding a new church has waned, and I am left with a sinking feeling of dread over having to be the new face in the crowd again. I have never been good at getting close to people, and it took three years to form the tentative relationships I have/had with people at our previous church. (It is so weird to call it our "previous church".)

And I hate small talk. I am so not good at it. I'm not even good at it with people I've known for years.

This does not bode well for how easy it will be to fit in with a new community of believers. And so, first order of business in my journey to find a new church, crash course in small talk. Google, here we come. Or maybe there's a "Small Talk for Dummies" book I can find...

For My Mum

2011-05-08T07:11:00.000-04:00

I had in mind to post something completely unrelated to Mother's Day today; I didn't want to be cliche. But I've changed my mind. Mother's are worth being cliche over.

I don't think I ever really truly appreciated my own mother until I became a mother. Sure, I loved her, and I said the appropriate "thank-you for everything's" on days such as today. But that deep-down, heartfelt appreciation for all the little things she did and sacrificed for us that I never even know about, that has not come until more recently.

Frankly, I don't think it's ever possible to truly appreciate your mother until you are one. You can try, but you probably will still never quite get it.

I now understand how often my mum probably had to do things she really didn't want to do, but did them anyways because she loved us. I really wish I had appreciated her cooking more when I was a kid. (There is nothing more frustrating than slaving over a meal, only to be told by two small children even before they sit down that it's "yucky". Mum, I deeply apologize if I ever called any of your food "yucky".)

I now understand why the waterworks always seemed to flow so easily for my mum. I've decided that once you give birth, your hormones are irrevocably changed, and you can now cry at the drop of a hat. Really, if your kid drops his hat somewhere you don't want him to, like in a puddle, you just might cry. I'm kidding about the hat. :) But not about the tears; I cry for everything now. It's ridiculous.

I now understand just how much my mum must have sacrificed for us to give us the loving home that we grew up in. I now understand just how often my mum's needs must have been pushed aside for the needs of us kids. I now understand just how much she must love us.

So Mum, even though words could never say it well enough, thank you. Really. Truly. Thank you. I think I'm finally starting to appreciate all you've done for us over the years.

I love you, Mum.

Oh cat...

2011-05-06T06:55:00.001-04:00

This is my cat. Generally, she is a good cat. However, in more recent months, I have discovered that she has a major flaw. She likes to eat things. Rubber things. Important rubber things. Like my yellow rubber gloves (which I've gotten very good at hiding, so she actually hasn't eaten them lately) and also, like the rubber sleeves from the ends of my earphones.

"Why are these so important?" you may ask. Well, let me tell you.

If you have been hereto uninformed, as well as being the part-time admin assistant for our church, I also work part-time from home as an independent contractor doing transcription work. As such, it is extremely important that I have a good set of headphones so I can clearly hear the audio that I am working on.

Triple Flange Sleeves

I have a set of Shure earphones that has been lovingly provided to me by my dear husband. These are the ends that I like to wear with them. I have been rather unfortunately endowed with small ears, so the standard black, grey, or yellow ends just don't fit well into my ears, and I end up spending more time shoving them back in so I can hear than I do actually typing my file.

Well, last week, my cat decided she would eat the ends off my earphones. It was probably my fault because I left them laying out on the desk. But in all fairness, I've been doing this for two years now, and I've never had a problem with her eating them before.

*sigh* Just my luck. So now I have to get new ones. Which of course, costs lots of money in shipping. Figures.

In other completely unrelated but even more frustrating news our van is having transmission troubles. Some prayers that the warranty company comes through for us would be appreciated.

That's all for today...

Bruschetta Chicken

2011-05-03T08:20:00.004-04:00

This is what I made for supper last night. It was delicious, and the best part is that I didn't even follow an exact recipe. I know. :) Go me.

Here's the recipe, written by me:
tomato
red onion
feta cheese
basil
salt & pepper
chicken breast

Chop up tomato, onion, and feta cheese. Yes, chop the feta cheese. Good quality feta cheese comes in blocks and must be chopped to get the crumbly texture. Mix in a small bowl. Add some salt & pepper and about a pinch of basil. You might need more basil depending on how much tomato you've chopped. I only used about a quarter of a really large one, so a pinch was perfect. Fresh basil is always better than dried, and then you'd also need more than just a pinch.

Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan, preferably one with a lid. Add chicken to pan and and cook on medium heat, 3-5 minutes per side depending on how thick your chicken breasts are. I only did 3 minutes, but it wasn't long enough. After you've flipped to the second side, turn off the heat and pour the tomato mixture over the chicken. Put the lid back on the pan and let it sit on the the stove for about two minutes.

At this point, my chicken wasn't quite done, so I tossed them into my toaster oven for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. They came out perfectly, and it was absolutely delicious.

(And yes, we had Sidekicks with it. I needed to make something that the kids would eat.)

Losing a Church: The Goodbyes

2011-05-02T06:57:00.001-04:00

There was coffee, and cake, and a table filled with yummy things made by loving hands. There were songs, and a gift, and a slideshow presentation of memories. There was eating, and talking, and running, and sitting, and standing, and listening. There was hugging. And there was praying and blessing.

There was laughter, and there was tears.

And so we said our goodbyes. We made our promises to keep connected. The end has finally come, and we are left standing at the precipice of the future, trusting that God knows the plans He has for us and is working all things for our good.

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt 28:19-20

On windstorms and whispers

2011-04-30T06:56:00.000-04:00

We had a windstorm in the Niagara region this week. What an amazing show of God's power! I don't mean to diminish the damage that happened, but when I drove into work that day, I had was given such a sense of awe over how great and mighty a God we serve.

Thursdays are the day I spend at the church office while the kids go to my sister's place. My drive in requires me to cross the Burlington Skyway bridge, something I generally dislike given my odd fear of bridges over water. I knew traffic was going to be stupid because of the wind, and my expectations were confirmed when the sign over the QEW read, "Severe winds on Skyway. Reduce speed." It's always bad when they upgrade it from "high winds" to "severe winds".

It got even worse as I was driving along, and I could see in the distance that there wasn't even any traffic going over the bridge at all. I knew right away that they had actually gone and closed the bridge due to the wind. Luckily, they had just closed it, so the traffic wasn't too horrible yet to go around on Eastport Drive. I don't really know why, but I was in a good enough mood that morning that the bad traffic and forced detour didn't actually bother me that much.

It turned out to be a way cooler way to drive in to work that day than taking the bridge.

Obviously, we were traveling at rather slow speeds, but this just gave me a chance to look around at the bay and the lake on both sides of me. I could watch what the wind was doing to the water, and it was incredible. Have you ever seen waves blown backwards? It's a sight to see, let me tell you. The lake had spots of mist rising out of it, kind of like what you would see sometimes when it's early in the morning and the water is warmer than the air around it. When the sun managed to find a few moments to shine through the clouds, it turned the water an odd green/blue/gray colour that I've never seen on Lake Ontario before.

To say the water on the bay side was choppy would be an understatement. Turbulent might be a better way to put it. Some might even call it "tempestuous." All I know is there was water in the air, and I couldn't tell if the spray hitting my car was actually rain or the bay being blown out of it's cradle in the earth.

Then God showed up.

The sun broke through the clouds again long enough to light up the mist, and a glorious rainbow filled the sky from one side of the bay to the other, a massive arc of colour over the city. And God reminded me of His promise to Noah that He would never destroy the earth again with a flood...(although I'm not too sure about His position on windstorms...) I think every hair on my body stood on end at the reminder of His majesty.

And in the quiet of my soul, I heard a whisper, "I am God. And I am here."

Armadillidiidae in my laundry

2011-04-28T07:19:00.000-04:00

I have bugs in my basement. I used to call them "potato bugs", but then this morning I Googled it, and the pictures that came up are not the bugs that I have in my basement. Now, granted, other people call these bugs "potato bugs" too, but it turns out a more correct term is "pill bugs" or "roly polies" because of they way they curl into a ball when they're on the defensive.

I have to admit, Googling bugs before 7am in the morning is not recommended, especially if you haven't had breakfast yet. There's something about those close-up photos of insects that really turns one's stomach. But I did think that if I was going to the effort of blogging about these little creatures, I should probably make sure I know what I'm talking about.

So why am I talking about bugs before 7am in the morning? Well, it turns out these funny little roly polies not only like to live in my basement, but they also like to crawl into my washing machine. I have had to make a habit of checking inside it before I put in my laundry to make sure there isn't anything that's decided to take up residence there, and more often than not, I'm forced to evict an unwanted guest or two.

Now, I could just keep the lid to my washer closed all the time, but all good washer-people know that you're supposed to keep the lid open between loads so that your washer has a chance to dry out and not start growing things. At least this is what I remember being told at some point when I started doing laundry...

And so I've resigned myself to being on a constant look out for these "pill bugs" when I make my forays into the basement to do my laundry. I never venture into the abyss without wearing slippers in case I step on one, as inevitably, they are crawling on the ground around the washer and dryer as well. I always check my baskets before putting the clean laundry back in them in case the bugs have crawled in there as well...which they occasionally do. And I've located an excellent ultra heavy-duty set of pliers near my washer with which I can oh-so-not-at-all delicately remove any undesirable tenants from my laundry appliances before I wash my family's clothes.

I am awfully thankful that with the coming of spring, it seems that they have stopped attempting to expand their territory up from the basement and into the rest of the house. Now if we could just figure out where all the spiders are coming from...

Losing a Church: The Final Service

2011-04-25T06:41:00.001-04:00

I apologize if this post isn't as well written as some I've done lately. I'm having a hard time articulating what I'm thinking today, and I'm not entirely sure of all the reasons, (although one of them may be that Reuben woke me up at 5am today because his cough is bugging him). But I did think that this is a post that needed to be written, however rough around the edges it may be. So you'll have to bear with me.

Yesterday was officially the last service for our church. Next week will be our Celebration of Ministry potluck, and then we are done. It was a little bit hard to work through the mixed emotions about the service given that yesterday was also Easter Sunday. It felt very surreal to think that the end is finally here, and that we were celebrating the joy of Jesus' resurrection at the same time as feeling the sadness of our last time worshiping together.

Over the past few weeks, I have largely come to a quiet acceptance of the decision that's made, and I am able to trust that this is God's will and that He will carry us on into whatever future He has in store. There was a certain sense of relief that I am now experiencing that we will soon be able to put this church experience behind us and move on to a new church. As much as I know it was necessary to be able to have these last few weeks together, it has also felt like a long way to end.

But the end is now here. It came quicker than I expected. I think I am ready for it. By God's grace, I will be.

In a way, it has helped that yesterday was Easter. I can focus on the great joy that I feel in knowing that I have been set free by my Lord's death and resurrection. Jesus is alive! Those words struck such a chord within my being when I read them yesterday. He is alive, and I am washed clean by the blood He shed for me, and I can look forward to a new life with Him because He has conquered the grave. Can there be any greater joy than that?

How to Travel Alone with Small Children

2011-04-23T08:03:00.000-04:00

As promised, I'm finally getting around to posting some tips for traveling with small children, particularly if you are traveling with small children by yourself. This is something I do quite frequently given Tim's hours of work and him being gone four nights out of the week. Over time, I have found a few ways of coping to get through those long drives trapped by myself with two small ones in the backseat. Here's what I've learned:

1) Bring lots of books. The one way I have found that will consistently keep my kids entertained is to have them look at books. Make sure you teach your kids to pass the books back to you when they're done instead of tossing them on the floor, or eventually you will run out of books and only one kid will have gotten to read each of them. Besides, if the trip is long enough, sometimes you can recycle through them.

2) Bring kids' music or kids' books on CDs. I know, listening to Max and Ruby or Thomas the Tank Engine for hours on end is enough to drive one bonkers, but if it keeps the screaming me-me's in the back to a dull roar, you must learn to put up with it. You could also teach them to like the same music you do, but this is both challenging and not as effective at making them be quiet.

3) Bring food. And by food, I mean anything you think your kids will eat, although preferably things that are healthier. My kids love apples, so I will try to cut up a couple before we go and have them in a container or a bag ready for me to hand out. Crackers and raisins also work well, especially because you can put them in individual containers for each kid. Be prepared to clean up a mess when you get home no matter what kind of food you serve. Inevitably with kids, food will always end up on the floor and mushed into the seat.

4) Bring drinks. Preferably in sippy cups. I don't care how old your kid is. It is hard to drink liquid in a moving vehicle.

5) Be flexible, as in physically, and if possible, grow longer arms. Seriously. I'm not kidding about this one. You must be able to reach the children in the back seat while you are sitting in the front seat. Find a way to grow longer arms.

6) This goes along with Tip #5. You must learn how to keep your focus on the road while passing said books, food, or drinks to the children in the back seat. Believe me, this takes a special kind of brain power. Harness it. You are no good to your children if you get killed in a car accident because you were trying to keep them happy while you were driving. If this is too difficult to master, (or something has fallen that you just can't reach with your super long arms), pull over.

7) Bring the kitchen sink. No, really. Bring the kitchen sink. ...okay, not practical, but bring something that you can use to wipe sticky fingers, as in wet naps, dry napkins, kleenex. If you are feeding your children, they will get messy. Also, my kids are notorious for needing me to wipe their noses while we are driving. (My super long arms will not permit me to pull this off while the vehicle is moving, so they either end up doing it themselves or waiting until a stop light...or I pull over...)

8) Plan for your trip to take an extra half hour to an hour for unplanned stops. I once took had a trip that should have been two hours actually take three hours, and we had to pull over four times for dropped toys. It sounds silly, but when you're stuck in a car alone, you really have no choice but to pull over because it's just too insane to try and listen to the screaming that will ensue if you don't stop.

9) Pray your kids sleep in the car. I will often plan my trips around the kids' nap times in an effort to up my chances that they will sleep. As they get older, this gets harder and harder, but the drive really is that much easier if they sleep for a good chunk of it.

10) When all else fails, crank up your music really REALLY loud. This will accomplish one of two things, (or if you're lucky, both things). First, if the music is loud enough, you won't be able to hear the incessant "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" coming from the back seat. Second, if your kids are anything like mine, they'll hate that you've blared the music, and you can use it as a bargaining tool for them to be quiet. If they're quiet, you turn down the music. If they start whining again, you can crank it again. It's surprisingly effective...at least for my kids. Once your kids get to the age where they actually like having the music super loud, this might not work as well. In that case, make sure you have music on that you can stand listening to at ridiculous volume levels.

11) My last and final tip for traveling with children alone: if at all possible DON'T. Beg, plead, cajole, pay someone if you have to, TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU. I don't think I can stress enough just how much easier your life will be if you have someone in the passenger seat (or you in the passenger seat with someone else driving).

I could probably come up with some more advice on how to travel with small kids, but these are the most important ones. There are never any guarantees that the trip will go smoothly, no matter how prepared you are for every possible situation, but I've found that these few coping methods do go a long way to making a long drive easier.

Falling on His grace

2011-04-20T07:40:00.000-04:00

Do you ever have one of those days where nothing seems to go right, but you can't really put your finger on what's wrong? That was my day yesterday. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe I still need more sleep after the weekend. Maybe it was the fact that I had to wear the same pair of socks two days in a row because I really needed to do laundry that badly...(did I just admit that online?)

Whatever it was, it felt like the kids and I were miserable all day long. Or maybe I was just miserable, and it rubbed off on them. Who knows? But Kaylee was still cranky from getting over her fever -- she seems better now thankfully. Reuben and I kept arguing over everything -- my three-year-old tries to reason with me...seriously...my brain can't keep up with the kid. And it was too cold and yucky to go outside and blow off steam at the park.

Ugh.

I am so thankful that we have a gracious God that we can turn to at the end of it all. I am so thankful that He gives us new mornings and puts our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. I am so thankful that He has His hand on my children, so that on days when I screw up, it doesn't necessarily mean my children will be irrevocably screwed up for life (I hope and pray).

And I am so thankful to know that He will give me the strength to get through this new day, even though a thunderstorm woke me up at 1:30AM and went on for at least an hour and a half, leaving me feeling not a whole lot more rested then I did yesterday.

But today will be different from yesterday. Today is a new day. And today, I am choosing to keep my focus on Him, and not on all the little things that drive me crazy.

Today, I focus on His grace.

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." 2 Cor 9:8

And two became one...

2011-04-18T07:52:00.000-04:00

I'll admit, in the excitement of the moment, I was watching her and not him, but when I remembered to look back at the groom, the obvious look of joy on my brother's face as he watched the woman he loved come down the aisle toward him was unmistakable. I had tears in my eyes as I watched the two of them standing together gazing at one another after they had said their "I do's" and lit the unity candle. In most weddings I've been to, the bride and groom will stand side by side looking out at the congregation after they've signed the registry/lit the candle/done whatever symbolic ritual thing. But at this wedding, the wedding of two incredibly special people, they did it this way, and it was a precious moment to see them filled with such obvious love for one another.

Overall, the weekend and the wedding went very well. The drives there and back were long, as expected, but my sisters came with me so I had help with the kids, which was awesome. Reuben was a great little ring-bearer and did his job very well. Of course, him and Kaylee couldn't sit still during the ceremony, but what do you expect with small children? I was extremely thankful that we had arranged for them to have a babysitter for the night so we could enjoy the reception. Which we did. It was a great time. I love family weddings because the speeches actually mean something and you actually recognize the photos in the slideshow. :) And of course, how could it not be fun to drink wine and dance the night away?

Update on Ang's father: he was able to walk her down the aisle in the end, although he was still in some pain and had limited mobility in his left arm. The MRI results showed a disc pushing up against a nerve, which may or may not need surgery. Please continue to pray that he will be able to come to complete healing.

Strength for the day...

2011-04-14T06:14:00.000-04:00

Reuben had me up at his standard ungodly-early hour this morning (5:30). Usually, I lay in my bed, and he joins me or lays in some blankets beside my bed, and I try to convince him to lay quietly enough that I can doze for another half hour or so. We didn't do that today. Today is The Day. The Day I have to finish all the packing, mine and the kids and Tim's, so that we can all leave tonight. The Day I still have to somehow fit in a visit to the church office to take care of my responsibilities there. The Day I have to drive six hours to Michigan with the kids in our van, and hopefully with one of my sisters if not both to help keep them under control, and even more hopefully that they end up sleeping most of the way since we won't be leaving till 6pm.

The Day that I actually remembered to turn to prayer when I started feeling anxious while I was yet in my bed thinking about all the things I had to do today.

God brought to mind the song "Always Enough" from Casting Crowns that I've been listening to lately.

"In a dry and weary land
Lord, you are the rain...

Your love is peace to the broken,
faith for the widow, hope for the orphan, strength for the weak
Your love is the anthem of nations, rings out through the nations
And you're always enough for me"

Today I want to remember that when I'm dry and weary, He is the rain that brings refreshment. Today, when I'm tired and weak, He gives strength. Today, when I'm going out of my mind with craziness and packing, He is always enough to get me through it to the other side, and He's drawing me closer to Him.

I remind my soul to sing,
"I rejoice for my Savior reigns
I rejoice for He lives in me
God on high, He has set me free
And worthy is the Lord."

He reigns. He lives in me. He has set me free. He is so worthy of all my praise.

Even when I'm crazy busy packing.

A Prayer Request

2011-04-13T09:06:00.001-04:00

Please join me today in praying for my future sister-in-law's father Ed. Angela has let us know that her dad is suddenly experiencing a lot of pain and is unable to use his left arm. With the wedding coming up on Saturday, this is certainly adding unnecessary stress to their week. Please pray that he will come to complete healing so that he will be able to walk Ang down the aisle and enjoy the wedding day. Pray for strength and peace for him and the family. Please also pray that they will get the answers they need as to what exactly is wrong.

"Again, I tell you that if you two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven." Matt 18:19

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us." 1 Jn 5:14

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Mark 11:24

"Now to Him who is able to do more thank all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, for ever and ever. Amen!" Eph 3:20-21

Our Crazy Busy Week

2011-04-12T06:52:00.000-04:00

At the risk of boring my small readership with no new posts, I thought I'd least give you a little blurby on what our week is looking like so you'll understand a little when I don't have much to say right now. This coming Saturday my little brother is getting married, and Reuben is the ring-bearer, so we are busy getting ready for that right now. Tim is picking up an extra over-night run down to Boston that leaves tonight, and he won't be back until late tomorrow hopefully. I'm still working in the church office during the day on Thursday, and then we're dropping Tim off again that evening so he can do a short run to Michigan where he'll meet up with us for the wedding, and I'll be caravaning down there with my sisters and praying the kids sleep in the van.

That basically gives me today and tomorrow to get everything done and packed. Ick. I need to clean out the van, pack clothes, do laundry, get groceries, figure out what we're going to eat while we're down there, call to confirm our accommodations, put together our tax papers so we can bring them away...and that's just the beginning. I'm pretty sure there's all kinds of other things to do that I haven't even thought of yet.

I need to start a list so I don't forget anything.

So this is why you probably won't hear a whole lot from me this week, but hopefully once we get back, I'll have more to write about. I'm planning a post on how to take a long trip on your own with two small children. Ha. I'll let you know how it goes...

Peace, my friends.

Losing a Church: The In Between

2011-04-08T07:18:00.001-04:00

The official announcement of our church closing has come and gone, but our final service on May 1 is still four weeks away. It's an odd place to be. I've traveled the road of intense emotions that come when a grief is first observed, and by the grace of God, I'm left in a place of quiet acceptance, albeit tainted with some lingering sadness.

But the end is still yet to come. At the risk of overstepping my bounds, I find myself seeing parallels between the situation we're in with our church, and the situation the wider Church is in with regards to waiting for the return of our Lord. The only difference is that our church knows when our end will be, but the Church does not know when to expect the return of Christ. But we all know the end is coming, and everything we are doing now is in anticipation of that day.

Our last services have been focusing on glorifying God and looking back at how He has been working in each of our lives through our church. In a more practical way, my job has completely switched focus into working on wrapping things up and preparing for our final Sunday. I've been given the task of putting together a slideshow presentation using all the pictures from the last six years of our church's short history -- there are a TON of pictures! I've been busy putting together inventory lists and removing our church from various mailing lists. And that's just the beginning. There is still so much more to do...

Back to the point, it's not a particularly easy place to be, this already come/but not yet stage. We know we're closing, but we're not there yet. Sometimes I think it will be easier once it's all over. We'll be able to turn our focus to moving on and finding new church families. It will be time to put the past behind us and look forward to the future.

But just as God has a purpose for keeping us waiting for the Glorious Return, He also has a purpose in giving us these last four weeks together as a church family. It is good to have a chance to look back, and it will be good to have a chance to celebrate on our final Sunday. Through it all, we need to keep our focus on Him, and He will be glorified.

"You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being." Rev 4:11

The continuing saga of my yellow rubber gloves...

2011-04-06T10:13:00.000-04:00

I have no luck with my rubber gloves. There's nothing special about them. They're just yellow rubber gloves that you can buy at the grocery store, and I use them for when I do dishes. The cold air of winter gives me enough trouble with dry skin, and constantly having my hands in water doing dishes only makes the problem worse. So I wear gloves.

The problem is that I have gone through at least four pairs of gloves in the last two or three months. First the issue was with my cat. Apparently she has a taste for yellow rubber, and I wasn't very good at remembering to put my gloves back under the sink when I was finished doing dishes. It was partly logical thinking on my part; I would drape them over the sink so that they could drip dry before I put them away. But of course, in those few minutes or hours while they would lay there drying, the cat would inevitably snatch them up and chew the fingers off of them.

And of course, she always picked the right-hand glove, which is the hand that I use to hold the dishes in the water.

So after losing three pairs of gloves this way, I have learned to always put my gloves in the cupboard under the sink to dry, and I have managed to keep my current pair of gloves safe from my glove-eating feline.

But now, it seems my gloves themselves are betraying me. Go figure, one of the fingers has sprouted a tiny hole in it, and now every time I do dishes, the glove slowly fills with water, negating the purpose for wearing them in the first place.

And wouldn't you know it, it's the right-hand glove that got the hole.

I blame it on a stray fork or knife piercing my poor defenseless glove, although my finger seems to have escaped unscathed, so I have no idea when or how it actually happened. All I know is that once again, I have to buy another pair of rubber gloves.

I can't win.

For Meditation

2011-04-03T06:32:00.000-04:00

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." 2 Cor 1:3-5

"I have put the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." Psalm 16:8

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:3-9

God's Sense of Humor

2011-04-02T06:32:00.000-04:00

Shhhhh...I have a secret. Don't tell anyone.

I'm actually beginning to like doing dishes.

Yes, you read that right. The one chore that has been the bane of my existence is now becoming the one chore I enjoy doing the most.

Why the sudden change you may ask? Well, it seems that God has a funny way of taking things in life that I never said I'd do or things that I say I hate and turns them into things I do or things that I enjoy. For example, I always said I'd never live in Hamilton. (This was as a kid growing up; I'm not sure why I had such a bad impression of this place.) And now, I've been living in Hamilton for almost six years. I always said I'd never marry a truck driver. (Again, not really sure why I said this.) My husband is a long-haul truck driver. I always said I'd never marry a smoker. (This one is self-explanatory.) My husband is also a smoker...although this we might still try to work on. :)

And now, lo and behold, the chore I always said I hated the most, God is turning it into the chore that I almost look forward to doing. Before you think I've gone completely off my rocker, let me explain further why this is. Doing dishes has become a time of day when I can actually get the kids to more or less leave me alone, and I get to spend time thinking, praying, and having a bit of a breather. My kitchen window has a great view of a beautiful birch tree, and I get to watch the little birds making their homes in it and the tree coming back to life after winter. Added to all that, there is definitely a nice sense of accomplishment in going from a cluttered counter to a clean kitchen, just by doing a sink full of dishes and wiping things down.

So there it is people. Point and laugh. Doing dishes, the chore I previously detested with all my heart, has now become the one chore I love.

Losing a Church: The 5 Stages of Grief

2011-04-01T08:10:00.003-04:00

In an effort to come to a place of personal healing and also to share with you the experience of having our church close down, I'm working on a bit of a series of blog posts. Today I'm going to be focusing on the 5 Stages of Grief and how those relate to the loss of a church.

Just to give some brief background, the 5 Stages of Grief are commonly known as Shock or Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. When experiencing a loss, everyone goes through those stages to varying degrees, although it doesn't always happen in a straight line. What often occurs while grieving is that one travels back and forth through the stages, being first in one stage, then another, sometimes being in more than one stage at a time, and not always in the order they're listed here. There is also no set time limit for how long one might be experiencing these stages of grief. Some people might take a very short time; others might have a longer struggle with it. The important thing is that eventually, in order to come to healing, one must reach the final stage of acceptance.

I think it's safe to say that I have been through the first stage of Shock/Denial. What this looked like for me: the day before the official announcement was made in church that our Board was recommending that we end our ministry, I was visited by a Board member at home who broke the news to me in advance; this happened because I am technically an employee of the church, and as such, this decision has the added implication of my job ending. I spent the rest of that day and the next feeling a bit numb. And then I ignored it. I went on with my life. The decision hadn't been formalized yet as the church still needed to vote on it to make it official. I think that was the denial part of it.

I moved onto the Anger stage for a while. I focused on and struggled with feelings of extreme frustration and anger at how it seemed as if this decision was coming completely out of the blue for myself and the other members of the church. I didn't understand how it hadn't been more clear to me that our church was having issues that went this deep.

I think the Bargaining stage also came into play a little bit while I was dealing with that Anger. This came out as questions of "What if" things had been done differently, "what if" people had been given a chance to talk more about the vision of the church, "what if" I had done more to help earlier on, "what if...what if...what if..." It is very easy to get stuck in this stage until you get so wound up in asking "what if" that you find yourself back at the Anger stage over all the what if's that never happened.

Once the official decision was announced in church following the vote, there was a brief moment of Shock, with some disbelief thrown in, before the Depression hit. I could go into long descriptions of what this stage could look like, but that would take forever, so for the purposes of this post, let's just say that for me, it involved tears and sadness, and throughout this past week has taken on the form of feeling very melancholy and down about the situation, mixed with an inability to focus on little else. Given my past struggles with depression on its own, it has been slightly frustrating to be back at this again, even though the circumstances are vastly different.

This past week has been filled with various moments spent in all these first four stages of grief. There have been moments still of Shock and disbelief, often feeling a numbness that it can't possibly be real. There have been moments of Anger over how it has all taken place, and of course, the Bargaining and what ifs to go along with it. There have been the moments of Depression, looking back at what was while going through photos to put together a slideshow presentation, wishing it didn't have to be this way.

And so we come to Acceptance. I would be lying if I didn't say that this stage has come into play as well over the past weeks, at least in part. God has been gracious and faithful to bring me into a place in my relationship with Him where I am able to trust that through it all, this decision is His will. I question His timing now and then, and the way that it has come about, but I have actually not had that many moments of questioning the actual decision. I know that the only way to come to complete healing is to be fully in the place of Acceptance, and for that I am looking to God. Daily I wrestle with Him about how to feel this grief, and process it, and move through it to come to healing and Acceptance. I know that He will carry me through, and I know that at some point, the grief will move on.

And I'm sure at some point, forgiveness is going to play a part here. But more on that in a future post...

The Quiet

Crock Pot Bread

I miss coffee...

Long, long overdue

Halloween is a Horrible Holiday

For Reflection

Ponderings on dumb drivers

A rhetorical question

Apology to my Morning Coffee

For Reflection

Update on "Get Dressed" Challenge

This trusting thing...

The "Get Dressed" Challenge

For Reflection

Just another Fall morning

Dear Readers

For Reflection

It's His Strength

The Robot Cake

It spins its web outside my window

He's in the storm

For Reflection

Yesterday, four years ago

*grumble* (Letter to a raccoon)

Easy Chicken Parmesan

For Reflection

Things I've learned to do as a Trucker's Wife

Two things I like about Fall

In the early morning light...

Two Pet Peeves

Today's Gift

It's Chicken Pox?

Be Strong

Turning off the autopilot

As the smell of breakfast sausages fills the air...

The Changing Seasons

Letter to the workmen behind my house

The busy-ness

Ode to Coffee

Mornings at the kitchen table

As they eat...

Herbed Garlic Butter

A bright moment among the grey

Processing the sadness...

Easy Tomato & Cucumber Salad

That Moment

Open the fridge

Why I Write

His compassions never fail

And I cling to His love...

[untitled]

How to Get Deodorant off the Wall

Sensational Strawberry Dessert

Just life...

Strawberries with White Wine

Progress on the Garden

Asparagus Puffs

Progress on the Yard

On smells in my house...

So many ideas...

Thoughts while driving

Remembering...

For Meditation

Don't mess with the morning chi

Have I found our new church?

Birds in the Morning

God Doesn't Need Coffee

On pests and homeownership

About nothing

The birthday girl always cries

Lemon Rosemary Chicken

Tylenol is my friend

My Princess

I'd Forgotten

On see-through bacon...

Blogging from All Ontario

Mostly just an update

It's that time of year again...

My mornings

Two Things

grumble (Letter to a raccoon)