The Extraction

Soft vs weak.  I was weak.  It's easy to get to a place where the line gets blurry. Being soft is important - when I say soft, I mean living out love in speech, conduct, etc.  I endeavor to be soft and so often miss that mark, but  remind myself that I am a work in progress.  Then there's plain old weak.  Weak moments tend to creep up on you.  You can be going strong all day long and then the one weak moment where you make a choice out of the weakness and then, BOOM...no bueno.  But I think about Paul and that where he says in 1 Corinithians about him become strong in his weakness b/c of God saying: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  The Message paraphrase says, "My grace is enough; it's all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness."   I like that.  It's all I need.  His grace is all I need.  His strength shows up in my weakness.  Showing weakness used to seem too "un-spiritual".  I wouldn't allow myself to show others and really just deceived myself  by not acknowledging its existence.  Pride - again, showing up in my life.  Now I am working on facing the weakness by first admitting it's there and then submitting it over and accepting His grace and strength so that I can gain a victory over it.

My moment of weakness this week:  not wanting to face the challenge of a possible disobedience moment (and therefore the need to follow through with discipline) so I just left it alone, watched my 4 year old go play on a zipline and wound up with an unexpected run to the dentist for a tooth extraction.

Well, I was definitely leaning on His grace and strength that afternoon!  And the argument in my mind that plagued me afterwards..."I should've _____"...but as I prayed I told myself to let it go and I literally had to fight to keep it out of my thoughts.  There'll always be something that we should've done but it does nothing for us to constantly rehearse our mistakes.  We must trust Him at each moment - not looking to what I could've done or should've done but knowing that He knows all and that in the end facing my weaknesses leads to me gaining His strength!  How can I lose?

I have to admit, when it was all said and done, one thing I kept thinking was about how he would look in family pictures for quite awhile...*sigh...I am going to have to get over that.  ;)  Maybe a little pride creeping through on that one, too...

Oh, well...Grace and Strength!

Eggplant Parmesan Remix

I have developed a taste for Eggplant but don't want to take the time to make it and bake it...I don't want to wait, I guess.  So the other day I did my own easy and quick version of the yummy meal...here it is:

1 eggplant, peeled and cut into cubes
2 Roma Tomato, seeded
onion, chopped
olive oil/coconut oil/butter
italian seasoning, garlic salt and pepper
fresh parsley, chopped (optional)
freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese

Saute onion (as much or as little as you like) in a mix of coconut oil and butter (or olive oil) on medium heat until soft.  Add the roma tomatos and cook for another minute.  Raise heat to medium high and add in cubed eggplant and sprinkle with garlic salt, italian seasoning and just a little pepper.  Add more oil as needed if things start to get dry and if you don't want to add more oil, just add a little water.  Stir while cooking.  I like it to be a bit al dente but you can cook it has the consistency you like.  Put your mixture into your serving bowl and sprinkle with fresh chopped parsley and as much freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese...yum!

Yummy Squash Soup and Simple Greek Style Salad

I made an amazingly simple and delicious soup last night...thanks mom for your idea!

I had a huge butternut and acorn squash so I only used half of each. So if you have small ones then just use the whole thing. 

Using a sharp knife, cut squashes in chunks and scoop out any seeds (and use a spoon to get all the stringy bits out) and steam until soft.  While still hot, scoop out the meat of the squash and place into your mixer (I wear gloves when I have them but last night I just held each chunk with a clean dish cloth while scooping the insides out.)  Add 3-4 Tbs  of butter (unpasteurized is ideal) and then add a llittle of the hot water used for steaming (about 1/4 cup) and then add 1/2 cup of milk.  Mix and then slowly add more milk until you reach the desired consistency. Add garlic salt (or salt and freshly fround garlic) to taste and pepper to taste.  Voila!  All done..super easy and super tasty!  Perfect for the chilly nights!

While my squash was steaming, I peeled 2 cucumber and seeded it then cut them into thin 1 inch chunks.  I cut up 2 roma tomatoes (you can use more...I only had 4 and wanted to save some for today), one avocado (again, feel free to add more - my other ones weren't ripened so I only used one), onion (optional as cut or as dried onion flakes - I opted for dried since the kids aren't fully onion-people yet), and feta (the chunk is cheaper and you have to crumble it - so it's a bit more messy, but no biggie).  I added kalamata olives (mine had seeds I took them out and cut the olives in slices).  Sprinkle juice from one half lemon (of course, if you have opted to increase the amounts of veggies, you should probably juice a whole lemon) and then sprinkle garlic salt (I use that a lot!), some pepper, and olive oil.  Stir until coated.  Oh, my!  Amazing!  I could've eaten the whole bowl!

It was a delicious meal...my hubby is a meat guy so I did make a huge meat patty (ideal is grass-fed beef) and I seasoned with, you guessed it, garlic salt, sage and pepper.

Hope you try it, it's so yummy and best of all - easy!

Chocolate and Peppermint Shakes

There's something about winter that makes me want minty things...and even though we aren't technically in winter, the minty excitement has begun.  Last night the kids and I made Thin Mints.  Oh, what fond memories I have of those small round chocolate cookies bursting with minty-wonderfulness.  Those were my number one choice when those little Girl Scouts made their way around to our home.  Well, I happened to find a recipe for them - completely unmeditated, I assure you - so it must've been fate that I came across it.  They turned out abosolutely delicious!  Tonight, the kids are sipping on our own homemade Chocolate and Peppermint Shake...I had a sip and it was mintastic!  ;)  Super easy, too! 
Here's the minty how to:

P.S.  The organic sugar that I mentioned, that is NOT the good kind (even though it says organic - they can do a lot of stuff to foods and still put the organic label on them) is the Florida Crystals along with anything that says RAW, Turbinado, whatever...one of the kinds that would be best to use is Rapadura.  (The info I got on sweeteners - which to use and which to avoid - comes form Sally Fallon's book and you can find it at :http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1  or if you want to look through it without purchasing, you can find it at the library).

The Second Poop Did It!

All is quiet on the Chicken Front.  It's 6:16am and I actually woke up at 5:24 (well, that's when I looked at the time).  Baby did a poopie in a half-sleep state and so I got up to clean and change him.  I had the great idea to just get up and get a bunch of stuff done, including my journaling, while the others slept.  So what did I do?  Snuggle back in bed and try to sleep.  I had such great intentions, the voice inside me said to get up so that I could accomplish much but I willingly went against it.  I closed my eyes and moments later hear a little grunting followed by a splurting noise.  The second poop did it.  I figured I might as well get up.  So again, I washed his sweet little bum, changed him and fed him and back to bed I did not go.

It's been a good chunk of time since I have sat down to write my thoughts.  I have been listening to a series that is challenging me by Terri Savelle Foy entitled "Can You Imagine".  It's talking about the fact that vision is the sight of the mind.  The famous blind/deaf Helen Keller was asked, "What would be worse than having no sight?"  She replied, "Having sight, but having no vision."  Wow.  Getting my goals starts with my imagination.  I have realized that I have stopped imagining.  Listen to kids.  They imagine all day long!  But somewhere along the lines we are programmed to stop doing so.  We are taught as children, "You get what you get.  You can't have this or that.  Eat all the food on your plate whether you like it or not.  In life, you don't always get what you want."  Then we wonder why we are where we are as adults.  Last time I checked, my God was the God of the impossible.  We learn to put limits on ourselves so those limits translate into how we see Him and what He is allowed to do in us.  It's not a question of His ability - b/c we know He is able - but more what we allow Him to do. 

Albert Einstein said that the imagination is a preview of life's coming attractions.  When the people of the Tower of Babel in Genesis were building their tower to reach heaven (something that seemed impossible - they didn't have power tools back then!) God Himself came down ⁶And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have ^[a]all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them."  Look at that...nothing they imagined they could do would be impossible for them.  But, we have lost the art of imagination.  We get so caught up in what we are doing on our day to day that imagining seems silly and a time waster.  But dreaming and imagining leads us to do something greater.  It leads us to open our hearts to the possibility of great things that God can do in and through us.  When we don't, we are determining to  ourselves, "this is what my life is, so I'll just go with what's been dealt me".  The truth is, our mind has the ability to see things as they COULD be, not as they actually are.  I've never been to Tahiti, but in my mind's eye, I could picture myself there, feeling the hot sun tingling my skin, hearing the crashing waves.  God created our amazing minds and I believe that the greatest doctors and thinkers of the world today can't even begin to understand the mind's capabilities! 

Walt Disney died before Disney World, in Orlando, was ever launched.  During the opening, the master of ceremonies introduced Mrs. Disney and said, "Wouldn't it have been great if Walt could have seen all this?"  She stood up and said, "He did." And then she sat back down.  Before it ever became a tangible reality, it was a mental reality.  And just like in the tower of Babel story, the people not only imagined that they could reach heaven, but they had the plan to accomplish it.   And that's what comes after the imagination stage.  We get a vision for what we want to see accomplished in our lives and we write out our goals and make them plain.  I heard a story of a veteran that said that in WWII if an unidentified soldier was come upon at any time and asked what his mission was but was unable to immediately state his mission, then he would be shot wihtout question.  If I were faced with a life or death need to know my mission, my vision, where I am headed, would I be able to say it immediately?  "My people perish for a lack of knowledge."  Perish means die.  If I don't have a vision for my life, I'm dying.  If someone asks me about my goals and vision and I respond with, "Well, I haven't give it much thought."  Then what I'm saying is, "I'm content to stay right here in this exact state for the rest of my life."  But I'm not content to stay here.  I don't want to live like I'm living today for the rest of my life.  I don't want to be the same wife and mother.  I don't want to live in the same house.  I don't want to be giving the same amounts to good causes.  I want to continue to grow and move forward in every area of my life.  But yet I have lived without a mission for so long.  And it's time to get out of the rut.  I say I want to be out of debt.  Yet, if Jesus himself showed up in my living room and asked me, "How much money do you need to get out of debt?" and I couldn't answer him, then I'm not serious about getting out of debt.  If it's a vision that I have written out, and I make it plain (broken down into realistic/measurable goals) then it's at the forefront of my mind and I could answer him immediately.  Remember what Habakuk said, Write the vision and make it plain.  If I don't have my vision written down, then it's just wishing.  I need to have the exacts, right there and ready.

So I am starting my dreams book.  A book that has every dream - small and large - physical, financial, emotional, mental, spiritual...the whole kit and kaboodle.  Something that I can look at every day and thank God for it coming to pass.  I will keep it at the forefront of my mind - they will be plain so that I can run with it - take the action steps so I can see them become a reality.  I am going to let my imagination run wild and see God be glorified through the completion of each goal.