Time for some pictures!

I thought he was hungry...

Fish tattoos!

Big hug for big brother

Divine Physician & Awesome Gardener

I think it's about time I put a positive blog on here & write up something on an inspirational note. I truly feel that the Lord is pushing me toward uprooting something in my life that has been holding me down and the hardest part is being patient enough for Him to loosen the dirt around it so that it comes out completely and cleanly. Case in point, I am in a bible study with my sister-in-law, Steph, her mom & sister, Jason's aunt and other ladies from the community. This study deals with breaking free from bondages that separate us from a fulfilling relationship with Christ.

Along with this study, this week our Area Faith Community parishes will have the priviledge of attending a Mission, which is a 5-day faith & community-building opportunity in which a speaker comes in and does a series of talks for one hour each day. This year's theme is, guess what, SPIRITUAL HEALING! How cool is that?! I am just jacked for what He wants to reveal to me & frankly it is hard to not try to get ahead of Him in the "digging" process, simply for the reason that I know there is something that is keeping me from living totally free in my walk with Christ.

Maybe it's a shortage of sleep, maybe it's hormones, possibly a weak prayer life & just missing spiritual direction with Father Tony every month. Fact is, I can't put my finger on it & only God knows what it is, where I've been and what I've been through and how to get me through it, and by just realizing that I need my Divine Physician to diagnose and heal me right now is enlightening and encouraging. I know that He loves me and that He's listening.

Yesterday, I woke up in a mood and knew I had to get my morning prayer time in or I was not going to have a nice day. Within that first few minutes, I had my affirmation in the first Psalm & its heading..."A morning prayer asking for help"

Psalm 5:2-4

To my words give ear, O Lord,

give heed to my groaning. (that was me!)

Attend to the sound of my cries,

my King and my God.

It is you whom I invoke, O Lord.

In the morning you hear me;

in the morning I offer you my prayer,

watching and waiting.

Doesn't get more straightforward than that! So this week will be a push for me to open my heart to allow Him to dig in. As one friend said last night at bible study, this process will be, in a sense, like getting stitches. It's going to hurt, but it needs to happen in order to heal completely and properly and if we don't let Him tend to our wounds, they will just continue to fester and scab over until something opens them up again, which will make the healing process take even longer.

D.S.T.

I really think the person who invented Daylight Savings Time did it without children in mind. Not only do kids not care about what time the clock says, (or the sun for that matter), it can and will completely mess up all things in a somewhat normal routine.

I actually thought the transition might go smoother this year as I witnessed them begin to adjust to the longer daylight on their own. They actually started being tired earlier but also waking up earlier, so when we went to "springing ahead" for DST, I thought, "This is great! They're already getting ready for when the time will be an hour later!" Wrong-o! Now that the time changed, they want to stay up later and still get up before the sun comes up. That makes for a recipe of crabby children and tired parents. I think I will enjoy returning the favor when they get to be teenagers...hopefully minus the crabby of course!

I think my friend Joy said it the best the other day. Some things are just better without kids, and Daylight Savings Time is one of them.

No-Bake Cheesecake

In a world with so many things to really be upset about, here's what really got on my silly little nerves today. I was in the process of making a meal for a family in town whose 8-month old baby girl was diagnosed with a terminal disease, so I wanted to make it somewhat special. While I was making the main course, I realized I was going to run short on time for Jason to deliver it before he had to leave. So, I asked him to mix up the no-bake cheesecake. Easy enough, right? The other day he just made an exquisite meal of ginger-honey asian rice noodles with chicken and some delicious fried rice, so this would be nothing for him to put together. He could follow a recipe, right?

To save myself some time, I bought a ready-made crust only to discover that the box actually had a crust ready to mix up, so there were 2 packages in the box...Step 1 Crust and Step 2 Filling. When I gave him the box, I told him that he didn't need to make the crust because I already had that. I figured the directions were pretty straight-forward from there...POUR milk into medium bowl. ADD filling mix. BEAT with mixer, etc, etc. (Note: That was the set of instructions for the filling...there were instructions above that for the crust.)

After the mixer was going for a minute or so, he asks me how thick I want it. What?? Huh?? I immediately ask, "What does the box say to do?" He tells me that it says to mix it for 3 minutes. I decide to look over and notice that the mixture is oddly dark as well as being super thick, and doesn't looking like a typical vanilla-colored cheesecake. I quickly glance at the spot where I laid out the 2 separate Steps & notice that they are both opened and empty. I then realize that he dumped them BOTH into the mixing bowl. Appalled at the outcome and upset that this was a dessert for someone else, I insisted he go to the store to get another one, which of course there wasn't enough time for. He managed to convince me of its worthiness and dumped and spread the concrete-colored mixture into the ready-crust and called it done.

I, on the other hand, was unfortunately far from done. I stewed on that darn thing for a good 3 hours until I could talk to him about it again & give him some grief about it. What really got to me is the thought that someone would think that I wouldn't have the sense to make a simple box cheesecake. Jason could care less what anyone thought about it (if he made it) & he said it tasted good and that he would have never had known the difference if someone brought it to him. (I joked that that's one reason I don't think we would ever do well together in the restaurant business.)

We eventually laughed about it all & he agreed that I should blog it so we could continue to laugh about it down the road. That's one way to get over it I guess! Who would have thought that this simple little thing could be such a task for one and a worry for the other! I guess we'll have to find out what they thought before I accept or deny responsibility for that darn dessert & chalk it up to doing my own meal if I have certain expectations about it...that, or learn that new things come from botched recipes and next time I need to hide the other package.

Demolition

I had the delight this morning of smashing something to pieces with a hammer. Unfortunately, it was the doorknob on the bathroom door that Faith had locked herself into. Actually, she didn't lock herself in; the doorknob has been tempermental since we moved in & sometimes the latch would not move when the knob was turned. I attempted to remedy the problem by taping the latch so the door would not completely close, rather than just replace the doorknob, but the tape drew attention to curious little fingers and therefore didn't last long. Now I get to shop for a new doorknob so that I can actually go back to closing the door all the way so I can have some privacy and not have to worry about getting trapped in the tiny bathroom.

The baby ate my homework...

It's a well-known fact that Ian likes to eat paper, but he recently got a hold of one of Laney's art projects that was colored completely by markers. It came off on his face from the paper, but wouldn't come off his face when I tried to wash it off. Go figure!