And then life happened...

I am very excited because TOMORROW my best friend is flying in for an all-too-short-but-long-overdue-visit (most of our visits are that way, but we take what we can get!) As she has never seen my house, I have been full of ambitious plans to whip it into beautiful shape...make it all clean and sparkling...finish all the projects that needed doing...in short, totally impress her with my amazing home.

And then life happened.

For starters, all of my babysitters are, of course, out of town this week. And if you have ever met my kids...or know anything about them at all...you know that they possess a peculiar talent for destroying things faster than I can clean them. So, the past few days the score has been kids: 42, Mama: 3.

Also, baby Elora, who just turned 3 months and is quite a darling, is also teething. This makes her want Mama within chewing distance at all times. Yes, her favorite teething toy would be....me.

And finally, to top it all off, last evening I bent over to lift a giant pile of laundry that needed to be washed, and I pulled something in my back. Again. (This has been going on at random intervals since Elora was born...I tried doing yoga to stretch out my muscles and pulled my back doing yoga...yes I just am that talented!) Screaming spasms of pain all down my spine...inability to do anything but sit in a chair and take ibuprofen...all these things have greatly hampered my ability to clean house and get things ready! It was a little better today...for the first part of the day...but this evening I am back in the chair.

Maybe God is trying to teach me the truth of "pride goeth before a fall" (or a back spasm?!). Or maybe He is just trying to give my husband an opportunity to serve me - which he has been so very sweet about doing, taking over lots of my chores and working very hard to get all these projects done. I greatly appreciate him! (Or maybe he is trying to show Robert how I need to hire my own personal masseuse...yes, that must be it!;-) As much as I keep talking about how I would love to sit down and do nothing, the reality just has me frustrated because I keep running over all the chores I SHOULD be doing in my head! But I am trying not to fret but to just focus on my wonderful upcoming visit. Besides, Rachel knows me WAY too well to be fooled by a clean house anyway! ;-)

Eating in the rain...

There are lots of things that I am going crazy about today, but I am not going to complain about them. Instead I'm just going to talk about our lovely dinner last night! It was lovely mostly because A) I did not have to cook it ;-) and B) we ate it sitting on the front porch watching, listening to, and smelling the rain!

Growing up in New Mexico, I adore rain because of its scarcity. I don't know about you mountain people but we here in town have really been suffering for it, and I am so thankful that we got tons of it last evening! We got some roasted chicken on the way home from the eyeglasses store, sat on the porch, and had a fun little impromptu picnic.

The kids were in heaven - they love anything that is new, or involves picnics, or involves water, so it was their perfect meal! And it reminded me of my own childhood - whenever it rained, our family would go sit on the front porch and cuddle up under blankets and listen to my dad read aloud. Right now the kids are a little young to sit still very long, but someday I hope to carry on that tradition! For now we will have fun little picnics on the porch in the rain; I'll bring the food if You'll bring the rain, Lord!

One of the women I most admire...

I have a very dear mother in law whom I love very much and don't get to see enough of. (Yes, I realize that I ended that sentence with a preposition but that's not the point.) Although she lives here in town - well, actually in Tijeras - she has been suffering from a mysterious illness for several years now. The doctors can't seem to agree on what is wrong with her, and she has been on countless regiments of steroids, drugs, homeopathics, vitamins, etc, none of which seems to have helped long-term. She's not bedridden, but she is in pretty much constant pain and unable to do much.

And one of the sad side-effects is that we don't get to see her very often. She just doesn't feel up to going out or having lots of visitors, and let's face it, four little ones can be overwhelming even for a perfectly healthy person! Sometimes on one of her "good days" Robert will take one of the kids (usually the best behaved ;-) out to their house and visit for a few hours, and I'm glad he's able to do that. But since the kids need me, I usually don't get to see her, and that makes me sad. She has been  nothing but sweet and gracious to me since the day Robert and I started courting, and she was introducing me as "her daughter" even before we got married. Sometimes I send her a card and some pictures of the kids, or something I baked, but I wish I could do more. All I really can do is pray for her.

The thing that amazes me most is her attitude. When I am hurt or in pain, it usually makes me quite grumpy and feeling sorry for myself, but not Barbara. She told me yesterday that "her body may be broken but her mind and spirit were safe." She added how thankful she was that God hadn't let her feel sorry for herself or experience any bitterness. While I know she is frustrated over the doctors' inability to diagnose and/or treat her, she demonstrates so much gratefulness for what she has and for other people's help that she receives. She went on to say that even if God chooses not to heal her current body, she knows she is getting a new one someday. I must say I broke down crying at that point! I am so thankful for her godly example of patience and trust...she has had more trials in her life than anyone else I know, and they have served to bring her closer to God. I only pray that I can face my own trials with as much faith as she has hers.

Barbara really doesn't like to have her picture taken, but here is a lovely one of her and Robert dancing at our wedding

Mr. Literal

The following is an example of children applying Biblical truth to their own lives:

Today in Bible, we read the story of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. For fun, I made the children march around seven times and then yell like the Israelites did (they loved that part!). Then I told them to go push on the walls of our house and see if they could push them over (needless to say, they couldn't). We talked about how God was the only one who could have knocked the walls down. They thought it was great fun, and I thought I had taught them an important lesson.

from this website

A few minutes later, I heard Joseph praying the following prayer:

"Dear God, please could You knock down the walls of our house after we march around seven times? Thank you, Amen."

It's four o'clock...must be time for...

SCONES! My sister Daniella and I share a deep and abiding love for scones. Must be a remnant of our English ancestry. When she lived just a few streets away, we would very often drop in to visit one another in the late afternoon and make tea and scones. I miss those impromptu tea parties a lot since she moved away...so whenever we do manage to visit, tea and scones are definitely on our list of "sister time events!"

This weekend she and Phillip came down for an all-too-short visit, and there was so much going on that we didn't manage to fit in our tea party. But Joseph persuaded me to make some gluten-free scones for breakfast yesterday, and I managed to save one for her - no easy task, because Joseph is definitely my son in that respect! (Evidenced by the fact that he talked me into making scones again for breakfast today! okay, so it wasn't very hard...;-) I recently found an incredibly easy and delicious gluten free scone recipe that I am very excited about. It uses Pamela's gluten-free baking mix, which I found on an amazing deal at Amazon.com. I adapted it for my favorite scone flavor, but you can change the basic recipe to include whatever flavor you like best. Here's the recipe, in case you're interested:

Cranberry-Almond Gluten Free Scones

2 1/4 cups Pamela's all-purpose baking mix
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar (these are sweet enough to eat plain, but you can reduce the sugar a bit if you want to eat them with jam)
3/4 cup dried cranberries
4 T butter
2/3 cup milk
1 egg
1/4-1/2 tsp almond extract
slivered almonds (optional)

Whisk the dry ingredients together until well mixed. Cut in the butter until mixture is grainy and resembled coarse crumbs. Stir in the cranberries. Mix together the milk, egg, and almond extract, and then pour into the dry ingredients. Mix together gently with a fork until a thick, moist batter forms. Use a large spoon to scoop little mounds of dough onto an ungreased baking sheet. (Makes about a dozen scones, depending on the size of your scoop.) Sprinkle slivered almonds on top, if desired. You can also brush with milk or cream and then sprinkle raw sugar on top. Bake at 375 for 15-17 minutes. Scones will be light brown on top. Finally, eat the entire batch. (okay, that's not actually an instruction, but its hard not to!)

I suspect these would be really good with blueberries instead of the cranberries, or with poppyseeds and lemon flavoring, or chopped apricots...I just haven't had any other ingredients. But the recipe seems fairly adaptable, and they are sooo good. Enjoy!

6 years and counting...

Today I have been married to the finest man that I know, in my not-so-humble opinion, for six years.  I know that he's not perfect, but he is perfect for me.

It constantly amazes me how God managed to put two people together who are so different as Robert and I are (he doesn't even like to read fiction, for goodness sake! ;-) but who complement each others strengths and weaknesses so well. He teaches me how to trust and how to discipline; I teach him how to be compassionate and patient. It just proves how God knows exactly what He's doing!

Some people say the first year of marriage is the "honeymoon period" and then the disillusionment wears off. I would definitely disagree with that! In lots of way, I think the first year of marriage was the hardest simply because it took a lot of getting used to living with someone else, and adjusting to the melding of two separate lives into one.

But now I can't remember what life was like before we were married. When Robert's gone, no matter what I'm doing or how enjoyable the time may be, I feel his absence constantly, like I would if one of my arms were missing!

Suffice it to say, I'm crazy about this man, and I look forward to spending the next 294 years with him!