Lost Links

Sorry I haven't posted much here lately. Blogging seems to go in waves for me. For a time I have a lot to share and time to write, and then other times it's pretty slow.

I was looking back over some ideas that I had started to write about but never finished. Almost all of my drafts were links to other web sites that I meant to come back and comment on, but never got a chance.

So here are some great links. Food, friends, my pastor's preaching. It's all good stuff. Enjoy!

Pork Tenderloin with Rosemary-Orange glaze

Speaking of food, does anyone want to try this idea with me?

A little late for this years Valentine's day, but this article is a good one to deal with expectations in marriage throughout the year.

We went through these questions with some good friends on New Years (I told you I was behind!) But they are great for reflection at any time, a birthday, or start of the summer would be perfect too.

My friend Alicia has a gift for poetry. This one spoke to me awhile back.

This past Sunday (OK, it was in October!) our pastor preached about God's amazing grace. It was so helpful and encouraging. You can listen to the sermon here. It may take a minute to get started, but it's worth it.

Guest Blogging

Today I am guest blogging over at my good friend Jessica's blog. She is doing a series on the challenges of motherhood. You can read what I have written here.

God's Grace and Fear

"So often we ignore the awesome displays of God’s faithfulness to people in trials and instead imagine ourselves in their situation, minus the grace of God. We would do well to heed Elisabeth Elliot’s wise reminder that there is no grace for our imaginations. The next time we observe someone going through a trial, let’s turn off our imaginations and instead fix our gaze on the marvelous, abundant, overwhelming and timely grace of God—the same grace that will be available to us when we actually need it."

Taken from Girl Talk. To read the whole (little) article, go here.

The "Christmas" Spirit

Our pastor is getting ready to go on sabbatical next month. Since he finished preaching on Hosea, he wanted to spend a couple of weeks helping us as a congregation to press on in love while he is gone. (I'll link the sermon when it gets posted.)

This morning, I was reading "Knowing God" by J.I. Packer. It fit so wonderfully with what Pastor John Marc was saying.

Packer was talking about the incarnation and how Christ became poor for our sakes. How He laid aside His glory, voluntarily restrained His power, accepted hardship, ill-treatment, malice and misunderstanding so that we could have hope of peace with God.

"It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round. ......

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor-spending and being spent-to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others-and not just their own friends-in whatever way there seems need.

There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things he will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit." (Knowing God by J.I. Packer page 63-64)

On the Way to Bed...

Me: Time for bed my sweet tired girl.

Emily: I not!

Me: You're not sweet or not tired?

Emily: I not sweet; just tired.

My Birthday Present

I came home yesterday to this.....


What used to be a big pile of dirt is now a beautiful flagstone patio ready for outdoor eating and entertaining! My husband is an amazingly hard worker. He can also get a bit romantic at times.

All my favorite flowers are starting to bloom too. Spring is here in sunny Ca!

Comments

Of course, all bloggers love comments. It's really the only way you know that someone read what you wrote. Plus there's usually good encouragement or discussion. However.... If I commented on every blog post that my friends wrote, I would never get my dishes done.

I was out of town this week, visiting my nephew Noah, who just turned one. When I came back there were 49 emails and 55 blog posts. Yikes! I gave myself an hour and got caught up. But, I didn't comment much. So I just wanted to tell you all that I did read your blogs this week. Thanks for sharing all the great posts, cute pictures and thoughtful insights. Sorry that I didn't comment much. Now I have to go do the dishes!

Four

Four jobs I have had in my life: Mom/Home educator, Lab Assistant, Food Service Director for a Christian Camp, checker at a grocery store

Four movies I've watched more than once: The Princess Bride, Star Wars (The old ones), Anne of Green Gables, Most Preschool Videos

Four places I've lived: Different places in California, sorry, no specifics on the blog =)

Four TV shows I watch: I don't watch TV


Four places I have been: Ireland, Germany, Canada, Boston

Four places I want to go someday: France, Maine, Vermont, Italy

Four favorite foods: I like a lot of foods, so I'm having a hard time with this one! But I really like fresh, seasonal, home made food that has complex flavors. I also love dessert.

Four places I'd rather be right now: I actually really like where I am. I can't think of a place I'd rather be. The struggle I have is with situations, not places. (Thanks Joanna for the suggestion of Phil 4:8!)

Four places I love to shop: Farmers Market, Trader Joes, Timberdoodle, Ebay

Four Places I always go: Church, the library, Karate, Art Class

Four people who always email me: The Flylady (she'll email you too if you sign up!), Alicia, Sean (from work), Cat

Four people who will respond (to this meme): I have no idea! You can do it if you want to.

Finally A Chance to Blog...About a Servant's Heart

Life has been very busy, stressful, and hard for us lately. Last month Sean was gone for three weeks and the fourth he had to work overtime. I think we saw him for three days. That's why my mom came for a week! I am so thankful for my parents who love Jesus and love us.

Right now, my older kids are in the kitchen and I am not allowed to come in. I think they cleaned up. I know they are baking something. Sean said he heard the dishwasher and went to go check. There were a total of 5 dishes in it! Too funny!

I was going to write that they are such great kids, but then I realized that the truth is they are little sinners. (And don't I know it!) And God is so great. Just this morning, we were talking about serving. Last night our family had the opportunity to serve at church and watch 16 kids. We had 7 older kids from the church (including ours) who helped out. Sometimes the kids were very thoughtful and helpful while at other times they were pretty self-focused and really just wanted to go out and play. Our own kids flip-flopped between the two. But overall, the night went well.

This morning I talked to our kids about having a servant's heart. They knew that last night was a lot of kids, and they could see how helpful it was when the older ones helped out. They understood it was tougher when the older ones were just looking out for themselves. We had a great talk and then ran off to our day's activities.

So it is such a joy to see God work in their hearts to help them to decide to do something to bless and serve our family! And I am relieved since the kitchen was a mess and I still have baking to do for a baby shower tomorrow.

... They let me in, and they are making lemon bars! Maybe I won't even have to bake tonight! (But I LOVE to bake, so I probably will.) =)

*Sean's note* Yes, they managed to get five dishes in the dishwasher before they started it. Very funny to find another fifty on the counter that didn't make it in! And another yes, they were supposed to be lemon bars. But there were no lemons or lemon juice! So they substituted oranges, tangerines, and any other citrus fruit they could find in the kitchen. It should be pretty interesting when its comes out. *

Guess I'm baking after all!

Check This Out!

Our pastor has a new blog! Check it out here.

A Good Letter Day

The other day I got 5 personal letters in the mail. FIVE! I don't think I've gotten that much mail since college and even then, that much in one day would have been a rarity. Two were thank you notes. And three were notes of encouragement from the little talk I gave last week. I was so blessed!

I also got on the same day, my first free-be from the links I've signed up with through Money Saving Mom. I got a coupon for a free full size bottle of Coffee Mate Creamer. Yum.

It was a good day!

Unplugged

My mom is coming for a visit so I'll be off- line for awhile.

Flower Arranging Class - Week 3

This week I'm going to teach the kids how to use wet floral foam. It's sometimes called Oasis. If you put it in a bowl of water and let it sink for a few minutes, it absorbs water and you can make an arrangement in any container. We're going to use baskets that I found at the dollar store. I lined them with ziplocks because they are not water proof. (On the right are what the daffodils look like when you buy them at Trader Joes. They open up two days later.)

The procedure is basically the same as last week. I made the top flower a bit shorter so that the overall arrangement would be more compact. Since we're not filling in with any filler, the flowers needed to be tight and not have much space.

Daffodil stems are a bit fragile, so I used a pencil to push a hole in the foam first, then put the flower in place.

After placing the top flower, I put some on either side at an angle, slightly shorter. Then I came down to the bottom and filled in the bottom row.

After that I just went around, placing the flowers at an angle to make a round dome of flowers. Here's the end result before I finished off.
To finish, I just stuffed a bit of moss around the edges securing with an "S" pin where necessary.

Deals

I've been following some of the coupon deals over at Money Saving Mom. This week I got free shampoo, rinse, Advil, toothbrushes, toothpaste and deodorant (for Amy). Actually, I spent $13.68 and got a coupon for $26.98 (like a rebate) to use at my next visit on anything I want. So really I made $13.30. I just followed the links that MSM gave me. The poor cashier. Some of the coupons didn't take at first, so I showed him the small print that said that they should. He was very confused. My older kids were getting embarrassed. Emily was throwing a tantrum. So while it was fun to get free stuff, I'm not sure how much more of this I'll do. It's a lot of work, even if MSM does the front work for you.

At Walgreens I got free makeup and almost free air freshener. They were out of the coupon special one so they offered to give me any other brand for the same deal. Again, the cashier was flustered. When you're stacking coupons it gets confusing. He was shaking his head as he rung up the freshener at $.49 and $.01. All total I spent $1.43 at Walgreens.

But the deal I was happiest about, because it was free, because no coupons were involved, because the lady begged me to take more, because she wasn't flustered but extremely cheerful as she gave them to me, was my free 5 gallon buckets with lids. The bakery at Albertsons gets their frosting in these buckets and they throw them away when their done. I called ahead and asked for one. When I got there they had three all rinsed out with my name on them. The bakers were glad that someone was going to put them to good use. (I'll use them to store my grain for bread baking.)

Flower Arranging Class- Week 2

This week for Amy's Keepers of the Faith class, we did a silk flower arrangement. I went to Walmart and bought bunches of roses, irises, daffodils and daisies. I also bought some flowers at the dollar store.

For the girls we started with a terra cotta pot. (I ran out, so I used a cute pail I had on hand for the sample above.) The green stuff you see inside is called floral foam. There are two types. One type called Oasis, you get wet and use with fresh flowers. The other is made specifically for silk and dried flowers. I used half a block. After cutting off the corners with a sharp knife, I wedged the foam into the pot. If you use a container that is slightly bigger than the foam, just hot glue it to the bottom so it doesn't move.

Next, put a little moss around the edges to cover up the foam and use "S" pins to hold it in place. This also allows you to have the foam be a bit taller than your container if you want to have flowers spill over the side.

Next, using wire clippers, cut the silk flowers. Starting with the flower that will go in the middle, the tallest flower will give you an idea of how big your arrangement will be. We made round arrangements so that it could be viewed from all sides and placed in the middle of the table.

Then you place flowers at angles around the pot coming down to the front and sides. If leaves were cut off when you cut your flowers, add them back in with a fake stem made of wire or parts of the silk flower stem that you didn't use.

After filling in with the larger flowers, we used one other accent flower or berry. These were different texture and many of them were tall and kind of spiky or very airy to contrast with the bigger, fuller flowers. Most of the girls chose a contrasting color to work with too. A lot of the girls who chose roses also chose some white berry looking things that I had. It gave a very classic look. One girl chose bright pink Gerber daisies with blue little spray flowers. I wasn't sure how that would turn out, but it came out looking very Hawaiian, and very beautiful! (The girl is Hawaiian too.) Everyone's project turned out really well and I think the moms were surprised that the girls finished and had made such pretty arrangements.

How God Provided an Opportunity to Know Him More

* I am getting ready to give a testimony at our ladies tea next week. This is the talk I'm working on. If you're going to the tea, and don't want to read my story first, skip this post! Otherwise if you have any suggestions I would welcome the feedback.

How God Provided an Opportunity to Know Him More

About three years ago, when I was pregnant with our third child, Emily, I spent 6 months
on complete bed rest. We knew that was going to happen when God put it on our hearts to have a third child. But we were ready. Evan and Amy were now old enough to help out. We were home-schooling so they just brought their school books to the couch for me to help them. We hired a housecleaner. And we had a wonderful and loving church family and extended family for support. Even though the church was big, we were involved in smaller groups for accountability and care. Several of the women sincerely wanted to help. And I was counting on them being there!

Everything seemed great. ….But God was going to show me that I put too much hope and dependence on men and not enough on Him.


When I was 12 weeks pregnant, I needed to have my cervix stitched closed to keep Emily “in” for the next six months. The night that I went into the hospital for this procedure the group of ladies who were my closest friends, that I had met with regularly for prayer and accountability, had a major fight and split. Unfortunately, this affected how they related to me. Also the church we had been going to for the past 10 years had been in the process of some major changes as well. The Sunday School group that we had been a part of since we were married had been disbanded a year before. Most of our friends were in that group and while we thought we still had close ties with many of the people there, logistically, we didn’t see many of them very often.


So, at a time when I was counting on friends for support, God allowed for me to lose most of them. During the 6 months of bed rest, very few friends called me or came to visit.


During that time, Sean, in addition to working full time, mostly nights, making meals, and doing laundry, was building a 960 sq. feet addition on to our house. This kept him busy without much time or energy to sit and “visit” with me!


As I cried out to God during this lonely time, He helped me to trust Him rather than other people. But I still didn’t quite get it.


After Emily was born, I thought that I would be able to jump right back into the life that I had before. I could go to church now, with a cute baby, the addition was just about finished, and Sean went back to the day shift.


However, God again had other plans. He didn’t take me through the “valley” he had chosen for me, to come up again the same person. It was at this time that Sean and I both felt that the changes at church reached a point that we could no longer stay there. We actually came to Cornerstone the first time when Emily was just a few months old, but it would be over a year later that God would lead us back to call this church our home. (And I’m so glad he did!)


So now, I was church “homeless” for the first time in my life! During the search for a new church, I was very lonely. Many Sundays I would take Emily in her stroller for long one and two hour walks where I could cry and talk to God. God was helping me to wrestle with some bigger ideas about Himself (otherwise known as Theology). I also had quite a bit of time to read. Between bedrest, not having a church family, and sitting down to nurse, I had a lot of time to read! I started reading books by men and women who where passionate about God and His glory. One day I read this,


“God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of Him in every part of our lives”. -John Piper “Don’t Waste Your Life” (emphasis mine)


This stumped me, because as ugly as it sounded, if I was truthful with my self, I thought I would be happy if people made “much of me.” This was a new thought, that I would be happy if I made “much of God.”


And as I started learning more about the sovereignty of God, I realized that God could have brought friends into my life if it was His will and what was best for me. As I learned more about who God is and what He is like, I began to experience that He alone was enough whether He brought me friends or not. I became more satisfied in Him. And I realized that I was no longer so lonely or unhappy. God had brought me joy, not from friends, but in knowing and loving Him.


Looking back I can see how I misused the gift of friendship. I put more trust in the gift, than in the giver of that good gift, God Himself. So, now as God is bringing friends back into my life, I have a different perspective. Rather than loving people because I want to make sure that they love me back, or to make sure that they don’t reject me (or I lose their friendship), I can love people out of a thankful heart, out of love for Christ.


I am actually thankful that God took away my friends for a time, because He gave me something more, a deeper knowledge of Himself.

“And now come, broken, to the cross,
Where Christ embraced all human loss,
And let us bow before the throne
Of God, who gives and takes his own,
And promises – whatever toll
He takes – to satisfy our soul.
Come, learn the lesson of the rod:
The treasure that we have in God.
He is not poor nor much enticed
Who loses everything but Christ.”

-John Piper from “The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God"

Wreaths

Well, the first class went well. The girls seemed to enjoy the project and they turned out great. One of the girls said to me, "I didn't think I'd like flower arranging, but this is really fun."

Today, all my kids wanted to do more. Emily picked up a couple of silk flower bunches (for next weeks class), stuck them in a french flower bucket and said, "Look what I made!) She was so proud of herself. It was really cute.

Evan and Amy clipped some rosemary and bay leaves and made some wreaths today too. They used the same methods with the wire. Because the pieces are bigger, they didn't need to wrap bunches up first. You just put a piece in place, wrap, add another piece, wrap and so on.

Evan's is on our front door now and here's a picture of Amy with hers.

Free Stuff

I found a blog with all kinds of links to free stuff and good coupons. Check out Money Saving Moms here. Posted earlier today was a link to a free download of G.A. Henty's With Lee In Virginia. I'm also taking to the store a coupon for a 12 pack of retractable sharpies for $2. Not two dollars off, but $2 cost at Office Max.

John Piper Is Coming To The Central Coast

Get all the details here. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

Flower Arranging Class- Week 1

Amy is involved with a group called Keepers of the Faith. It's a club for girls and kind of a cross between Girl Scouts and AWANA. They memorize scripture and do projects to earn pins.

I'll be teaching a project on Flower Arranging this spring. It's a 5 week class and I thought I'd post what we're doing each week.

I had to keep the cost of the class down to $15 per girl for the session. That works out to $3 per class! So I tried to come up with projects that a) would be simple enough for 8-12 year old girls to do, b) not cost too much money, and c) be projects that they would be able to do again at home.

For the first week we are going to make lavender wreaths. I have enough lavender dried from our garden that I didn't have to buy it. And I found these vine wreath bases at the dollar store.

Here's how to make the wreath.

Supplies:
Wreath base
flower materiel (dried flowers, or silk)
floral tape
paddle wire
hot glue gun and glue









Method:

If you are using dried flowers like lavender, it is helpful to bundle a small handful of stems. Floral tape is a special "tape" that sticks to itself when stretched. I've made a sample bundle that is next to the paddle wire in the picture.


For this wreath I used 15 little bundles of lavender. Start with the first bundle (or silk flower) and wrap the wire around a few times to secure it to the wreath. Be careful with dried flowers not to pull to tight or you will break the stems.



Place another bundle over the bottom of the first bundle so that you cover the stems, keeping the flowers going in the same direction. Wire that bundle in place. Continue around the entire base until you come back to the first bundle. Tuck the last bundle under the first one to conceal the stems. After you wire it in place, run the wire a few times through the wreath frame to secure and make a loop for hanging. Clip and tuck under to hide the wire end.


With a hot glue gun, glue a few individual flowers over any other exposed pieces of floral tape or bare spots that need filling in.


If cost were not an issue, I would hot glue a freeze dried rose and leaves at the bottom of the wreath or little baby pink or white ones all around the inside of the wreath. You could also add a ribbon at the top or bottom.