Day 1

Today our family is starting 30 days of being vegetarians. We won't go vegan, just will not eat meat including fish. It's not that I have something against eating meat, but it sounded like a fun challenge and generally healthy (If I can keep myself from eating lots of ice cream). I will post the meals we have each day here on this blog in case anyone is curious. If you have any ideas or good recipes please feel free to comment!

Breakfast:
Oatmeal with brown sugar (Josh does not eat breakfast generally, but when he does it is cereal)

Lunch:
Taco salad with salsa, black beans, cheese, veggie crumbles and rice cake "chips".

The chips are made by Quaker and are pretty good. I'm not usually a chip person, but every now and then the mood strikes me. Also the veggie crumbles are supposed to be like ground beef. I like the Morningstar Farms brand of veggie products but will probably branch out and try other stuff.

Dinner:
Spaghetti, bread, and salad



So it begins!

Ninja

My husband left yesterday to attend his grandfather's memorial service. He is driving through the night with his sisters (still on the road) to make it on time.

Back at the ranch - I mean home - we are enjoying some girly outings and plan on visiting my sister.

Now I leave you with a funny picture...

Spring all year

I was looking at one of my potted plants this morning. The first thing you have to realize is that me having even one potted plant that is still alive is a small miracle.

This particular plant I received as a gift when my daughter was born 8 months (has it really been that long?) ago. It's a succulent type plant (I think that's what they are called anyway) with beautiful little white flowers. It sat on my china shelf in the kitchen, brightening the room with it's lime green pot and white flowers. Then the trouble started.

I forgot to water it half the time. Then I would remember and flood the poor thing with a mini-monsoon. The white flowers eventually fell off except for one or two. The branches slowly died one at a time. It was near the "all-dead" mark being categorized as Miracle Max's "mostly dead". I had very little hope that the remaining branch would survive, but thought to give it a try anyway. The plant was placed by a window in the warm sun by the sink. Since I do dishes at least twice a day I see it all the time, so it tends to get watered more often. The dead branches were removed and coffee grounds were added to the soil to aid in nourishment. For a long while I saw no improvement. Then yesterday I noticed how much it had grown! It still was attached to that dead main "trunk", but it was steadily growing and putting out leaves.

Isn't that what the Lord does with us? When we come to Him, He takes us from our shelved and near dead state and brings us into the warm sun of His presence. He removes the dead branches, waters us with His Spirit and nourishes us with His Word. If we stayed stuck on the shelf, trying on our own to grow and produce flowers we would continue to die. We need the Lord's life giving presence, Spirit and Word.

I've got the joy...

It's amazing what a little sleep does to a person! The world will seem empty, meaningless and depressing - add a little sleep and it helps one's perspective immensely. That and prayer. I think that is what actually made me feel better more than the sleep. If I hadn't prayed what I did no amount of sleep would make me feel better.

I think it interesting that so often I find myself expecting my outward circumstances to make me feel happy or better or okay, but really those things happen when I choose to trust the Lord and lay at His feet my burdens. He is the secret to a good and joyful life no matter the circumstance.

This verse was brought to my attention a few weeks ago: "In Your presence is fullness of joy" ~ Psalm 16:11b

What's in a Word?

I finally figured out why I don't care for the term "preggo". It reminds me of spaghetti sauce. I know it's short for pregnant, but every time I hear it I would think of tomatoes. And it really doesn't shorten the word - it's still 2 syllables.





No. I'm not pregnant. Leastways that I know of.

The Evolution of the Gingerbread Man

I tried. Really. Twice.

You might not think it's that hard to make frosting. I didn't either until I ventured blithely into unknown territory armed with my Kitchenaid mixer and ingredients. It only called for 3. How hard could it be? Apparently one should not try to accomplish this task unless they are proficient in making souffle'. I am not.

The first time I made the frosting the perfect blend of creamy and frosting-like. Then I made the mistake of wanting to color it red. Christmas red! What better red is there? I guess the gel I used to tint the frosting has limited powers compared to its cousin the liquid food coloring, because I could only achieve a sad pepto-bismal pink. Yeah.

I threw the batch away. Nothing will break my optimism - how hard could frosting be?

Hard.

Actually it quite literally was hard: too stiff. For my second attempt I vowed to keep the frosting white. But I overdid the powdered sugar. It looked great, but when I put it into decorator tubes...let's just say it would take a gorilla's grip to get that sugary goodness out.

The picture could be seen as a gingerbread man evolving into it's beautiful traditional form. You also could see it backwards though (right to left) cause that's the order I frosted them. Is that devolving?

Questionable

Have you noticed there are standard questions that are asked all the time? If someone is pregnant you first ask: When are you due? And: Are you going to find out if its a boy or girl?

Then you ask when the gender is found out: What are you going to name him/her?

Then when your cute baby is born and you are grocery shopping the standard question is: How old is he/she?

I find it fun that in each stage of life there is some sort of question that is universal and asked at least once or twice.

People still ask me how old I am...I'm not sure I'm at the right stage for that question. The jury is still out on that one.

I give D. Chupp an A for asking thoughtful questions that almost always have to be answered with more than a yes or no. Not that standard questions are bad - I mean I've asked them and wanted to know the answer to them myself - but I think it's fun to think of creative questions.

Do you like white or black socks as a rule?