Summer squash

My sweet friend, Colleen, gave our family some yummy fresh squash out of her garden. The squash was wonderful...and the gesture was beautifully appreciated. Thanks for sharing your garden goodies with us!

I'm more than inspired, Wendy!

OK, normally I would try to think of something brilliant to write about on my own. But today...I am enamoured. I am coveting. I am downright awestruck, really.

I was browsing some of my favorite blogs. Wendy, over at The Shabby Nest, posted these pictures from Country Living today of this incredibly fabulous farmhouse, for her Inspire-Me Tuesday post. I'm sorry...I want this. I almost NEED this. (Ok, that may be a little strong....)

I'm not sure this is your style. But I hope you enjoy looking. Or at least you get a glimpse into the dreams in my head.

This house, is exactly what I dream about.

This kitchen....I love. The beaded board. The glass cabinet doors. The little desk. The chippy paint on the chairs. The farmhouse sink. I could go on.....

I love this piece of furniture! I almost want to marry it.

This sweet bedroom.....the beaded board...the iron bed...the sweet quilt....how dreamy.

This fabulous built-in.

I love this fold-down table and the white on white.

Thank you for indulging my illness. Now pray for my forgiveness.

"Oh God...do I hafta?!"

I don't know about you...but this is how my spiritual life goes....


I go along "just fine" for awhile. No deep valleys. No big mountains. Maybe some tiny little dips or some minor hills to climb along the way. But no real "issues"...and also, generally speaking, no new growth.

Then, WHAM!

I tend to get "hit" by so many stretching and growing lessons in the Lord. It doesn't even have to be a valley or a mountain experience. It's just God's way of simply nudging me to grow up more... stretch...become discontent wth the "just fine" and go deeper with Him. It usually occurs when all of a sudden, the Word of God begans to come alive. More than normal. The Father's Words just click in my heart and mind.

For the record...I LOVE THIS TIME! I love when my heart is stirred, when my stale thoughts are challenged, when I'm reminded of my fullness of life...in HIM alone.

And so I dig in and get moved.

I just completed Numbers. And now I'm reading Joshua. Both are so rich. So full. So encouraging and convicting and beautiful.

Obviously you can tell, I am having one of these moments with the Lord. I wish I could share ALL that God is teaching/reminding me of. But I'll just give you one small glimpse from this morning.

I was reading about Joshua, leading the Israelites into Canaan to take Jericho. When the walls of Jericho came down, the people charged straight in and took the city. The Word says "they devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it -- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys." (Joshua 6: 21)

Ouch! Seriously?!?! He allowed the little kids to be killed? The innocent sheep, even? That does not sound like MY God. Would he really be so vicious?

Then, as I studied this more, I was reminded of the reasons for this act. God was carrying out severe judgement on a nation that was so completely wicked. And they posed such a threat of contaminating the right kind of living he was requiring of his chosen people. He wanted his people to live purely. Without evil distraction. That is how seriously God treats sin. It's big business.

God wants ME to be pure, too. He wants me to take sin that seriously. In all arrogance, I thought, "I guess I'm glad that I have nothing in my life that is that sinful. There's nothing that I need to clean up or deal with, thank the Lord. I'm obviously not allowing any type of evil distraction to invade my Christian life. Whew...what a relief!"

For the record, don't say that to God...or yourself, for that matter...God hears.

God began to peel back my proud little eyelids to see so many areas of my life that I allow things to infiltrate my mind and heart...that are not of him. I'm so "culturized", I didn't even see them.

One particular area is a weekly tv show I watch. It's really not a big deal...culturally-speaking. But there is nothing about it that is uplifting or honoring to God. Why do I allow that in my life, when I am walking with a holy God?

"But I LOVE this show, God! It's really not a big deal. It's entertainment, that's all. Several of my friends watch it...and THEY are good Christian girls."

Heart stirring.

"God, do I have to?"

"No, you don't have to. But do you want to please me and grow closer to me? Then you make the choice..."

Ouch...

Have you ever dropped one of these (of the 29 oz. variety) on your bare toe?

I have. Not pretty. Not pretty at all.

The FIRST "official" day of summer vacation

Official=no school, no end-of-school parties or presentations...and the pool is open!

Here's how this day went:

7:15 am -- Kid "A" (name withheld to protect the "innocent") spills coffee onto his Bible, my paperwork, down the kitchen cabinets, all over the floor.

7:16 am -- Mom cleans it up.

7:18 am -- Mom feels a trickle of liquid on my foot, wondering what that could be, seeing as said coffee has been cleaned up. Mom discovers that Kid "B" (who is supposedly recently fully potty-trained, and of course, whose name is withheld to protect his "innocence"), has tee-teed on himself, the bar stool his bottom is planted on, Mom's floor and Mom's foot.

7:19 am -- Mom cleans it up.

7:25 am -- Temper tantrum #1 for the day occurs. Nameless child wants Mom's homemade cereal for breakfast, but Mom has just prepared some applesauce bread and cut-up fruit. Said child and Mom disagree on the menu. (Mom wins, by the way...but who is keeping score?!)

9:00 am -- Mom puts a check in an envelope for the yard guys coming to the house today to mow the lawn. While licking the envelope to seal it, Mom's tongue is sliced. Paper cut from hades.

9:20 am--While exiting the car to go to the gym, Mom gently opens the door to let Nameless child out. Nameless child proceeds to push the door open more forcefully, slamming the car door into unknown person's BRAND NEW black, beautiful car parked next to ours. Of course, leaving a nice souvenir.

11:30 am-- Temper tantrum #2 for the day occurs. The same nameless child who threw the first temper tantrum of the day decides to throw another one. I can't even remember what it was about. (And I can't even remember who won this one!)

5:00 pm-- Temper tantrum #3 for the day occurs. The SAME nameless child who threw temper tantrums #1 and #2, throws another one...larger than the first two. Said child does NOT want to leave the pool. (Mommy is beginning to lose...patience....grace....energy.)

5:20 pm -- Temper tantrum #3 finally ceases.

7:00 pm -- Nameless child "B" (mind you, the newly potty-trained one), poops in his 'big-boy' pants. Mom is happy....NOT.

7:10 pm -- Nameless child "B" crushes his cupcake into a million...no...make that a zillion...little, tiny, annoying pieces on the kitchen counter. And then he decides to rub his hands quickly across the counter to see the crumbs fly.

7:10 pm -- Mom leaves the house. (Nameless kids are in Dad's care...Mom didn't abandon them :)

9:15 pm -- Mom returns home. Mom kisses my unbelievably precious, Nameless kids, while they sleep soundly and sweetly in their beds.

We'll do it all again tomorrow...hopefully yielding different results.
Happy Summer-ing to you!

In the crazy kitchen

I wanted to share with you a great new recipe I tried.

...while cooking with Iron Man and Super Why flying (literally with arms stretched out and mouths making flying sounds) around me and through my kitchen, rescuing animals in distress. (If you are at all familiar with any kid's things, then you can observe that my kids have combined a SuperFriend character, a PBS cartoon character and Diego, all in one pretend world.)

Sorry...I just had to set the scene for you.

Back to the recipe now.

They are homemade pizza pockets. I made these today. I have two words for you...YUM-EE.
These are tasty!

Homemade Pizza Pockets

Crust:

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp. sea salt

1 cup melted butter

1 cup plain non-fat (or low-fat) yogurt

Stir ingredients together until thoroughly mixed.

Pizza Sauce:

1 1/2 cups tomato sauce

1/2 tsp. garlic powder (I was out of this...and used garlic salt)

1 1/2 tsp. oregano

1 1/2 tsp. basil (I was out of this, too...and used parsley)

Stir together and simmer for a few minutes.

Additional pocket fillings you can add:

Grated cheese (I used mozzarella)

Cooked hamburger

Pepperoni

Olives

Peppers

Mushrooms

To form a pizza pocket:

Roll a small ball of dough into a circle. Place one tablespoon of pizza sauce in the center. Put in a small amount of your choice of toppings. Fold the dough in half. Use a fork to pinch the edges together. Lay pizza pockets on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Freeze for about one hour. Pop them off the cookie sheet and put them into a freezer bag and put back into the freezer.

Bake your pizza pockets:

For frozen pizzas, bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. If the pocket is thawed first, bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. (Thanks, Laura, for the recipe.)

These will be fabulous to have on hand for quick lunches or snacks. Hope you get the chance to try them!

Cupcake bliss

Although our little guy's birthday was on Monday, we won't be partying until Saturday. But he DID request "vanilla and chocolate" cupcakes ON his birthday.

Enough said.