Worship Wednesday - Lead Me

Last week, I heard a song on the radio called "Lead Me" by Sanctus Real. I quickly wrote down the name and finally had a chance today to look up the group.  The song is great - it talks about a Wife who needs her husband to lead, Children who need their Daddy to lead and the prayer of a Husband and Father to God to help him be the man he needs to be.  The words are strong but it goes further than that.  Check out their website ( http://sanctusreal.com/) There is a video that gives the story behind the song and there is also a "book" you can click on with the "Lead Me" prayers. A Prayer for Husband, A Prayer for your children and grandchildren, and A Prayer for Wives.  I love when Songwriters have a reason behind their songs and this is truely a great reason. 

Lead me is now the top song on my play list.

Good Morning Girls

In my search of blogs, I came across one called Women Living Well ( http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/ ) that was pretty interesting.  I noticed one item she posted about was the Good Morning Girls group.

  It is an accountability group of friends who e-mail each other every morning to check in on their daily devotions. I thought it sounded like a good idea and before I had time to try and "convict" people into joining a group, she set up a website where you could connect with women all around the world to set up accountability group.  That is what I did :-)  I've met up with 9 (I think that is what we are at now) women.  As we shared backgrounds, we found that we all come from some very different backgrounds which makes us very well-rounded.  Feel free to click the button on the side of my blog to read more about this opportunity.

I wanted to share what I'm working on in my devotions right now.

First, I am Reading a daily devotional book called Today is the First Day which deals a lot with loving yourself as your are and being a light for God even with your uniqueness.  It has been on my shelf for years and I figured now was a good time to start it.  For my Bible Reading, I am using the Woman's Devotional Bible (2) and reading the daily passage along with the daily devotional.  The "A New Day" is actually my journal for where I record what I learn.  Than there my prayer journal.  I'm also, as part of the 40 goals by 40, starting my journey of reading through the Bible so I have my Bible for that with the spreadsheet.  Finally, the book on the top, Miracles by Karen Kingsbury, is a weekly devotional that I plan on using on Sundays in place of everything else to add some variety.  In case you are worried this is too much, to do everything each day only takes about 20 minutes :-) 

Darn Bee

Isn't it amazing how something as simple as this

can cause so much pain?

Today, Josh was doing his favorite thing - lining up all of his cars and trucks in the window sill, when I heard a blood curdling scream.  I looked over at him and saw him shaking a truck like crazy on his hand.  I thought he had gotten pinched but as I held him and tried to inspect his hand I saw the tell-tale sign of the sting.  Than I noticed his thumb start to swell, the redness start, and than the red going all the way up his arm.  All the while, I'm sure the neighbors three towns over, heard him screaming.  I called the doctor to make sure all was well, which it was, and just held him.  He screamed for the next hour - I think more because his hand felt funny and he doesn't like things on his hands.  (And this feeling he couldnt' just shake off)  Eventually he settled down and I let him watch cartoons the rest of the afternoon, which is not a normal thing, but if it kept him quiet, it was ok today!  This is his second bee sting of the season and I'm glad the season is just about done!  I have no idea where that bee came from but I noticed he didn't touch that car the rest of the evening!!  So, that was the excitement for our day - I'd rather have had a boring day !

On a seperate note - I was looking through some of my crafty blogs and am SOOO bitten (see how it kinda ties in . .) with the craft bug.  I have seen a few postings for using corn husks for making wreaths and I really need a fall wreath for my front door so maybe I'll try to pick up those supplies this weekend and make one . . or several.  I could also hang one outside on the garage too . .. this gets me thinking about decorating my home by season . . .making a bunch of fall stuff and putting that out from Sept until Nov . . than Christmas . . .than snow stuff . . .than all my spring stuff . .. maybe I can have an excuse to craft.  Now my problem is storage . . ;-) So many ideas!

Garlic Bread from Heaven and Crock Pot Pork Chops

Yes, I really did have garlic bread from heaven tonight.  I said to my husband, "You know how sometimes, I make something and we wish I had never tried it? Well, tonight, I wish I hadn't made this garlic bread."  Why- he asked, fearing the worst.  "Well, it is so good I will never be able to buy a frozen bread again!!!" 

So here ya go:
Garlic Bread

2 sticks of butter, softened
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 scallion, minced
1 tablespoon Parmesan
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley leaves
Hot sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper
1 French Baguette

IN a small bowl, mix butter together with garlic, scallion, Parmesan, parsley, hot sauce and salt and pepper.  Preheat broiler with rack 4 inches from heat.  Slice baguette horizontally.  Spread butter on both halves.  Place on a sheet pan and toast under the broiler, about 2 minutes.

Notes:  I did not use hot sauce nor did I have a scallion but it was still fantastic
* I cut the Baguette in half and only made a half batch of the butter.  I'll make the second off tomorrow. 

And to go with it - we had Crock -Pot pork chops
Season pork chops and put in crock pot.  Slice one onion and put onions on top of chops.  Than add 1 box of stuffing mix, 1 can cream of mushroom (I used cream of celery) soup and 1 cup of water.  Cover and cook either 4 or 8 hours (high or low).  It is SOOOO good!!!

A relaxing Sunday afternoon

What a beautiful Sunday afternoon and it coincides with the first Sunday of football!  I love this time of year not only because of fall weather but because of Sunday afternoon football . . and Sunday and Monday night football too!!  I can sit and watch it all day and yes, the Lions got robbed of a win today.  Truly robbed.  For all the dumb plays that they make - this one should have been legit and the score would have been the win.  I'm sure there is a lesson in good Sportsmanship in there somewhere but for today - they just should have won!!  And yes, for those of you wondering - Joshua loves football.  When a player gets tackled he says "Ohhhggggg"  LOL  And when he sees a game coming on, he pushes his shoulders up, clenches his fists and says "huuuuuttttt"  :-)

Another random thought today - are your Sunday's stressful?  If not, what do you do to NOT make them stressful?  I'm working on new routines for my Sunday so that we have less stress and more relaxing (speaking of routines, I need to share those with you soon!).  We figured out the before church routine but are still figuring out the after church routine.  Today it worked - we walked in the door and Darryl took both boys to change diapers while I get their lunch on the table since they are both already starting to melt down due to lack of food and long over due naps.  As I start to feed them, Darryl got dinner going (today we grilled but often it is in the crock-pop or oven).  By doing this, the kids can be taken care of and put down for naps before we ever eat (even though we are starving LOL)  I did learn today though that next week, I will have their lunches ready in the morning so I just have to pull them out of the fridge.  What would be easier?? A 9:30 service so we were home by 11:00 - but since our church doesn't offer that; we'll make it work! 

I did one productive thing this afternoon; I looked through some cookie magazines and picked out cookies for the Cookie Challenge

If you haven't checked it out yet you can go to http://theunworkingmom.blogspot.com/search/label/Christmas%20Cookie%20Challenge  (my original post) to get more details and the info on how to "link up".  It sounds like fun and I'm looking forward to baking some new cookies.  Sorry, I'm not going to list my cookies :-)  I want to get them nailed down so I can make the master shopping list and start watching for things to be on sale.  Still working on getting that grocery budget as low as possible!!  (Which this week, Darryl looked at the shopper, picked out the best meat deals and suggested some meals - he thinks he can get the budget smaller .. . we'll see!)

Blog Stalker . . .Kinda

What have I been doing on this cold, rainy Saturday (which, by the way, I enjoy!)?  Well, I started out by canning Raspberry Jam.  Quick and easy - really.  Raspberries are nice because you don't have peel, cut, or remove a pit.  I like all the seeds in the jam so I just have to squish them up some and cook them before pouring into canning jars and "bathing" for 10 minutes.  Than I started my salsa - two batches planned for today which should be done right about . . .now. . .except . . .I forgot to buy one main ingredient; the tomato paste.  Grrrr!  It would be an easy fix except my husband has our truck . .. with the carseats . .. and is working . .. .  a double!!!  So, for now, the salsa is sitting; waiting to be cooked once he gets home with my forgotten ingredients.  He even told me he'll stay up with me tonight . . .maybe LOL 

So, while waiting, I got sucked in.  Into what?  Blogs.  Yes, I'm kinda a blog stalker.  I like the blogs I like and than I like to search the blogs they like.  Today my speciality was crafting blogs.  I added buttons to my page and the sites that didn't have buttons, I added to my list of blogs for now.  See, I love crafts - especially easy, cute crafts.  So what is the problem?  Where do you put all those cute crafts you make?  I have no idea!!!  But they sure are fun to look at and sometimes they can be used for holiday decorations instead.  I saw several today that I'd like to make for Christmas to decorate my house (just what I need - more Christmas decor!) but at least I can put it out and than put it away. 

I also decided that I think (hows that for deciding) I'm going to create a "dummy" blog.  I want to make my blog pretty; functional with cute little buttons and challenges but I haven't figured out how to make them yet.  (I've read the how-to's just haven't gotten them to work!) So instead of constantly messing with my good blog that works fine, I think I'll do this tester blog for all my ideas; layouts, etc so it doesn't matter if it gets messed up!  So when you see that I have a second blog (and I might make it private since it will be always a weird, odd work in progress) just know that it really is nothing - just a testing site :-)

31 in 31 - Day 31

Well, it's been 31 days since I started this little photo challenge so this last picture seemed fitting.

Yesterday, when I took this picture (just didn't get a chance to post it last night!) I got to go out for while while my parents spent time with the kids.  I went to my favorite place for lunch - Grand Traverse Pie Company.  I get this awesome Turkey with apple smoked bacon and Grand Traverse Cherry Chutney sandwich followed by the best pie ever.  This is Strawberry Rhubarb Crumb and it is SOOOO good!  I enjoy going to the Pie Company and not only getting lunch but kicking back and usually scrapbooking on my computer for awhile.  Yesterday I worked on some other things I needed to get done but it was nice to have a couple of hours to just relax.

I really enjoyed this photo challenge.  Taking time to watch for a photo.  I will say I took a ton more photos of my family the last month as I was always looking for the perfect shot and I plan to continue to pull the camera out more and more so I don't miss any of those cute moments.  Now I just need to carve out more time in my day for scrapbooking!!!

This is just one challenge - who knows, I might do it again some time but right now, dont' forgoet to check out the Christmas Cookie Challenge (click the button on the side  of my blog for full details)  And, I have plans to do another challenge myself  . .. if I can figure out how to make a button! LOL