Hearts in Service

Nathan will be turning 18 this Friday and we are having a birthday celebration with him on Saturday. We have always done just small family birthday celebrations and this is the first time we are having a major event. We will be having a time of blessing for him, where people can read scriptures. Dan & I asked Nathan to give his testimony. This has been very hard for him to do because he struggles so much with reading and writing. He had a melt down one night and said he didn't want a party and he doesn't like attention on himself. This is true but we felt that it was important for him to stretch himself and do something that was uncomfortable for him. He finally finished it and I wanted to share it here with you all: I would like to thank all of you for coming and celebrating my 18th birthday with me today. I am very nervous about this because is an important birthday. The age of 18 is one of the most important ages in this society. I was asked to give my testimony

I went outside to hang up the laundry yesterday and realized after about 5 minutes that I was hearing an awful lot of racket from the birds. I looked up and these two guys were flying around and around the sky above me, chirping up a storm. They actually dive bombed me a number of times! Our bluebird house has been empty for so long that I forget it's there. Obviously these two have taken up residence and are being very protective of whatever eggs or hatchlings are inside. I think I'm going to have to wear a helmet to hang up the clothes! :-)

The Year's At The Spring by Robert Browning The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his Heaven— All's right with the world!

Hi everyone! As I was spending time with the Lord this morning, I really felt that I need to take a fast from the computer. It's ironic that the Lord would point this out this morning, given that my last post was on living a disciplined life! I tend to go in spurts and while I am highly organized and fairly disciplined, the area of my computer usage is one that needs to be worked on. As the church secretary, I obviously will need to check my email every day but I'm going to take a break from blogging for a bit. I'm not sure if this is a permanent thing or not, but I do need to focus on my family. While I love to blog about my day, I often feel like I'm living outside my family looking in for a blogging photo-op. I'm not sure if that makes sense but often I feel detached. We could be in the middle of eating or reading or schooling or anything and I'm looking for a good picture or thinking how to blog about this. I'm not sure that's the healthiest

Dan & I worked for an inner city ministry for ten years in New Jersey. While we were there we had the privilege of working for a gentleman who was one of those men that are natural born leaders. He had been the field director for the Middle East for The Navigators for 20 years, General Secretary of the World Evangelical Fellowship, and President of the American Leprosy Mission among others. Each organization he worked for grew and flourished under his leadership. We were so privileged to have him as our mentor and we learned a tremendous amount from him for 10 years. I still try to live by many of the lessons he taught even though I'm at home because they apply to every area of life. I've always felt that I wanted my life to have meaning and purpose, so that's why I strive to do my best at all I do. Of course, I fall short quite regularly but with the Lord's help, I keep pressing on. We still keep in touch with Waldron and even though he is in his 80s, he stil

Every where I look now, there are things springing up and growing. I just wish the warm weather would hurry up and get here! My rhubarb patch. There are tons of daffodils all around the yard. Little swiss chard leaves in the garden. Tiny flowers all around. My little seedlings are even doing fairly well. At least the pepper & eggplants are. The tomatoes are looking sad and spindly. The plan this afternoon is to go out and keep working on the soil in the soon to be garden spot in the front yard.

I had my first experience filleting a fish today. Let me just say...... EEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!! Slimy!!! Someone gave us a fresh caught trout that was about 2 1/2 feet long. It's hard to tell from this picture but the thing was gigantic. I cut down both sides of the backbone to fillet it. To be honest, I could of done a better job but I had no idea what I was doing! :-) Then I used a pair of pliers to get the pin bones out. That part was actually kind of fun. We had it for dinner. I fried it in butter with fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper and cilantro. I never would of been able to afford that much fish and it was gutted for us so this was definitely a wonderful gift! There was none left so I would say it was a hit.

This is one of our favorite soups and it is so easy to make. Mince 4-6 cloves of garlic, chop 1 medium onion, and cut 1/4 lb. of pancetta into small pieces. Saute garlic and pancetta in 2 Tbsp. olive oil for 1-2 minutes. Add onion and saute for 3 more minutes. Chop 1 head of escarole into small pieces and saute until wilted. Add 2 cans of cannelinni beans and 1 quart of chicken stock and about 1/8 tsp. of nutmeg and simmer for 15 minutes. Serve with grated reggiano parmegiana cheese and crusty bread. Enjoy!

I've been working on curtains for Emily's room for what seems like forever. I finally got them done a few weeks ago just to find out I did not make them wide enough and they were also too long. They are just valances but they hung too far down on the window. I felt like crying! That's what I get for not using a pattern. Normally, I probably would of given up. However, after throwing them in a pile for about a week and a half, I finally got remotivated. I cut about 6 inches off the bottom. Then I added a border across the front of them and made a two inch binding on each side to add some width. I probably could of added an inch or two more on each side. I think they turned out cute. Here is a picture of the side so you can see the binding. Now I just need to finish that stenciling. I'm stenciling all four corners of her room and only have two done so far. That's it for this week. I've fallen down in the crafty department! :-)

In an effort to save some money this year, I decided to start some of my seeds indoors. Normally, I buy my plants such as tomatoes and peppers from a local nursery. However, I get tired of spending more money than I need to. So I bought two of those little miniature greenhouses from Walmart and planted a bunch of seeds. Emily has been excited to watch them come up. I have cabbage, 2 kinds of peppers, 3 kinds of tomatoes, eggplant, and a variety of herbs started. I'm hoping that this works otherwise I'm back to square one and will have to purchase them from the nursery.

To celebrate April Fool's Day, we decided to have a backwards day with the meals. Emily offered to be my model. :-) We had lunch for breakfast (leftover pizza). Dinner for lunch (salmon patties, brown rice, steamed carrots, cornbread). Breakfast for dinner (waffles, sausage, juice). The only problem was I felt like my whole day was mixed up!