A Fabulous Forty Project: Light Art

I have been wanting to do this Pinterest project for over a year. I have had the supplies for over a year. For months, I have been looking at that blank canvas and wondering 2 things: when will I find time to do this and will it look as cute as the "pin"?

There has definitely been this hesitation to start it because I just didn't want one of those Pinterest Pin Fails. I really wanted it to look cute so as long as I didn't start it I couldn't fail it.

But that is not the 40 year old way - or at least it shouldn't be. So you can call this my first Fabulous Forty Event (Event for lack of a better word.)

One day this January, I just decided to do it. Baby Girl was sleeping, Little Boy was watching a show and I just started poking holes in the canvas with a meat thermometer.

In the end, it is not perfect but it turned out much better than the fail I feared! I was pleased and I love the extra light. It has a nice festive and happy feel. I need that during these arctic vortexes that keep hitting us.

I guess I just figured putting off the project was bothering more than fearing the results. I guess that is a good lesson for just about anything.

Putting stuff off out of fear keeps you from possible success.
That sounds like something a 40 year old would say.

Rosie's Birthday Cake

It is hard to believe my baby girl is 17 months today! She is a piece of work. She loves climbing on stuff, meowing like a kitty, wooting like an owl and is happy to sit on her brother's bed and look at books. Oh, and she roars like a dinosaur.

In honor of this 17 month milestone, I am sharing photos from her birthday. I really wanted to make a cake that looked like this.

Unfortunately, this novice cake decorator couldn't pull it off. In the end, I was happy with the way they turned out. It was reminiscent of a drippy castle down at the shore. I made a large cake for the family and a smaller one - like a giant cupcake for her.

I went with the Fabiani favorite "Can't Fail Chocolate Cake" with "Fluffy White Icing" died pink with a little strawberry jam. Yum! It was super hot and humid - a vast different kind of weather than what we are experiencing this week!

Downtown Dinners 1 & 2

We are doing Downton Abbey Dinner Night again. Pulling out the china dishing up something yummy, which really seems pretty hard lately because I feel like I have lost my cooking edge. Nothing satisfies me or comes out right. Mrs.Patmore I am not! As I was thinking about it though, it is what she gets paid for and she has all day to put it together. I don't. Maybe if facebook disappeared I could at least get things started earlier...

Episode 1 comprised of lamb shoulder chops. Very yummy. Very little meat. Rosie that little carnivore wanted more and more.... I made fancy twice cooked potato puffs. They were more pretty than tasty.



Episode 2 consisted of salmon cakes. These were the best batch I have made in a while. It might be that I finally have Old Bay and I also used Ritz crackers instead of breadcrumbs. I am using panko bread crumbs for the outside coating and they give them a really great crunch! With a side of overcooked green beans and pasta with garlic, olive oil, olives and spinach.

My One Word

New Years Resolution Time has come and gone. I fine with that. I refused to be guilted into losing my baby muffin top or reading more books or getting my son to eat veggies. Its just too much pressure. Too much failure.  Last year, I heard about the One Word idea for starting of a new year. Pick one word you want to focus on. Last year, my one word was Consistency . Round about spring looking at sign over my sink that said "Consistency" just wasn't working for me.

I just wasn't succeeding - enough. So I changed my word. The word that came to me was "Lighthearted" so while I was at the sink washing dishes I thought to myself "Be Lighthearted." I am still am saying that to myself because I need the reminder! Throughout the day, I am often reminded at just how unlighthearted I am.

So when I was thinking about my One Word for 2014 I wanted one that felt more uplifting and less convicting. I was outside and noticed the sun rays shining like a spotlight through the clouds. Shine. Seek. Either one will work nicely.

I decided to go with Seek. Seek to be more lighthearted. Seek to do things more efficiently. Seek to play more and yell less. So, I printed out a bunch of verse about seeking. "Seek first the kingdom...."

Seeking will no doubt lead to Shining something I want to do for my children. Shine the love of Jesus so they will love Jesus someday because they saw Him in me.

So my One Word is just a little more.

Seek to Shine. I like it. It works for me, sure as heck sounds better than "consistency"

My Audience

Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I can't seem to find the time and I am often reminded that "no one reads it anyway."  Except for Carrie and Brandy! I will never be a household name kind of writer like I once -kind of- hoped for. I am ok with that.

As my little one sings along to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood or tries to climb on furniture they shouldn't be I realize why I write. I blog for them as much as I do for myself. I want to write. I want to have an avenue to process and share. I also want to leave my kids a history, my recorded journey with God and the little things they do and how it intercepts with my growing as a person and a parent. I want them to have something that will lead them to Jesus. So that is the best reason to continue and to persevere and find the time -for them. You too Brandy and Carrie!

It is refreshing to have a targeted audience in mind.

Fabulous 40

a little wet out, wearing my modcloth.com dress that hubby picked out for me.

So I am 40 now. To be sure, 40 was much better than 30. When I was 30, I was still living with my parents, I hated my job and I had something akin to a nervous breakdown shortly before or after the big 3-0. Not a good time.

I had had it in my mind that I would just keep being 39. The closer December came the more I thought 40 is no big deal. I don't look 40. Some days I don't even feel 40. Young children have a way of making you feel both old & fatigued but they also help you blend right in with those young moms who have kids the same ages but who have been driving a full 10 years less! We are in the same season of life even if age wise I am more summer and they are more spring! Or however that works out.

I contemplated what to do. I wanted it to be memorable -40 should be. However, crashing a wedding where they were serving roast leg of lamb and playing Come on Eileen or that timeless song by House of Pain Jump Around didn't seem very realistic. I thought about going ice skating. We decided I better not start a new decade off with a broken tailbone or something like that. So we went to one of  my favorite spots - Ithan Creek Park. This is the park I use to go to after work, where I would pray for a husband and children. It is also the same place where my husband proposed and where we had wedding pictures taken. Each of my kids have been there with me -separately though. So it only seemed fitting that I should bring my family to the place where I often prayed for them.  It was a little wet but we enjoyed walking the trail and taking pictures. It was a fabulous way to kick off a new decade.

I am planning to look for other fabulous things to do over the year to mark this new decade. I don't know what they are yet but I have some ideas... I haven't completely ruled out ice skating for one...

A First Lady Vacation

Or should I call the Title a "Tax-Payer Funded Vacation." So the First Lady gets to stay in Hawaii for an extra week. No children, no responsibilities and yes the Obamas will be paying the equivalent of the a First Class ticket for her to come home separately out of their own checkbook. However, the Americans taxpayers are on the hook for everything else, security, transportation of security personnel and all their accommodations. I could dwell on the fact that there are millions of people unemployed, people waiting for their paychecks or rent checks that are delayed because someone else doesn't have the money in the account to pay them. But what's the use really. Because the average mom is thinking more about the tundra that is the backyard.

Record lows and wind chills are keeping kids in, schools closed and moms hating Michelle because she is in Hawaii and the rest of us are listening to the whiny voice at our side say, "Can we go out and play in the snow?" "Sorry honey it is dangerously cold outside!" We are sweeping pizza crusts off the floor because the extra heat from the oven is actually keeping the house pretty warm. We are the ones suffering from cabin fever and dreaming of out own Tax-payer funded vacation. That raised the question for me what would I want to do if I had a week to myself. Now honestly, I don't know if I could survive a week away from babies. But if I could and of course if the taxpayers wouldn't mind footing the bill....

I would :

*Work on Walter's fairly bare baby book and Rose's vertually blank baby book
*Work on putting photos into photo albums
*Go through all the drawers, cabinets, and closets and purge out the clutter & junk that we aren't using and don't need.
* Watch Anne of Green Gable and Avonlea, Pride and Prejuidice whilst working on Rosie's Cathedral  Window quilt
*Work on Katie and Cora's quilts - due in late Feb/early March.
* Catch up on quickbooks
* Cook up meals and freeze them
*Spend some time on Pinterest without feeling guilty, mostly likely looking for homeschool crafts
*Take down the Christmas decorations
* Go to BBs discount grocery store
* I would blog till my brain hurt and my fingers where numb!
*Oh yes I would sleep in as long as I wanted!

If the taxpayers are very generous:

I will get a hair cut, go to the dentist, chiropractor/acupuncturist and go shopping without rushing so I can get the best deals.

I am not sure what it means that my list is mostly family centered. These are the things that irritate me that I can't get done because I have a family that keeps spilling stuff , wanting to eat or play or nurse or climbing on something and needing to be rescued. I am also not sure what it means that I can't come up with a list of extravagnat things. Ok let me think....

I would like to take my good friends out to dinner and pay for it all. Follow it up with dancing.
I wouldn't mind being someplace warm and sunny right now - someplace other than my single paned plastic covered kitchen window. But I am not the first lady, I don't want the taxpayers to cover my holidays, I will just continue to try and chip away at my list one naptime at a time. One TV show at a time.

So if my Christmas tree is still up in June don't give me any flack.

Now to put away the Christmas cookie tins - I have been trying to do that all week - I haven't been able to because some little person will climb up the chair with me!

Holy Ground

Thoughts from Fall Bible Study:


Sometimes things can't be explained they are far to frustrating, far too ironic, far too out of our control. Someone in Bible Study said in those times that's when you, "Just take off your shoes because this is Holy Ground." Yes. That makes perfect sense. God is always at work and in those moments when things just don't make sense or He wants you to do something that just seems too hard that's when you throw up your hands and take off your shoes. When it can't be explained, it doesn't make sense you don't know how it will work you can be sure you are walking on Holy Ground.

A fellow mom, lost a baby (invitro) and on the day when that baby would have been 1 she came home from the hospital with a healthy baby girl. That's Holy Ground  that's God' timing and irony at its masterful work.

I know I find myself many times a day wondering how to manage and cope with little ones who need so much of me (all at the same time) and I feel a great responsibility to be the mom who will lead them to Jesus. The magnitude of that leaves me no other choice but to take off my shoes and say, "This is Holy Ground, I don't know how to do what you want but I will trust you that you will help me do what you ask."

In some cultures, taking off your shoes is done to cut down on muddy rugs. In other cultures, it is a form of respect and submission. What I have noticed about being barefooted, I am more aware of where I am stepping. If it is sticky then I know what I must mop or wipe. If there are clovers, I know I need to watch out for bees. Being barefooted forces us to pay attention to our environment and our path. If we find ourselves barefooted on Holy Ground, we just might feel in our feet what God is doing and where He is taking us.