Hearts in Service

Psalm 7:17 ~ I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High. So many times in my life, I have a tendency to focus in on the negative and the things that are not going right. However, the Lord has given me so much and I constantly want to remind myself of the many blessings He has given me. Doing this now and then on my blog helps me tremendously. So many times I go back through the old posts and take a look at them. Here are the blessings from the past week. ♥ 14 excited girls who look forward to 3D Girls. ♥ A dear friend who helps me out with 3D Girls each week. ♥ Continued bounty from my garden. ♥ A basketful of green goodness from friends. ♥ A girl who still enjoys playing with squishy playdough. ♥ And her stuffed animals. ♥ A patchwork quilt of changing colors. Have you counted your blessings lately?

This is my 4th week of working a full-time job. I have to say that I'm starting to get into the swing of things and feel less stressed out. One thing that helped tremendously was to realize that I just cannot keep trying to do all the things that I did when I was home full-time. One thing that I have implemented to help relieve some stress is asking the children for more help around here. They have always been good about doing whatever I ask, but because I was home full-time I did the bulk of the work. Now, that I'm gone 35 hours a week I need them to pick up the slack. So every day I have been trying to leave them with one or two chores that they need to do when they get home. This way the house is not a disaster! Saturday was our big cleaning day and they chipped in. Nathan was gone from 9-9:30 for a fireman's event, but he changed his sheets and cleaned his room before he left. Emily did the breakfast dishes for me and vacuumed the living room. Stephe

I made candied pecans today and they were so good I thought I'd share the recipe. You should be warned though that they are addicting! I think I gained about 5 lbs. :-) Candied Pecans 2 cups pecan halves 1 cup sugar 1 tsp. cinnamon 2 tsp. vanilla extract 1/4 cup of water Place all the ingredients in a stick proof skillet and cook over medium high, stirring constantly for 6-10 minutes. The pecans will start to glaze and the liquid will evaporate. Remove from the pan and add 2 tsp. of water to steam the pecans. Stir to coat all of the pecans with the water. Place on parchment paper on a cookie sheet until cool. Store in an airtight container. I used them in a salad made of spinach, red pepper, cucumber, blueberries, chopped apples, and blue cheese. Delicious!

How did this happen? A few short months ago she looked like this..... And now she is turning into a young lady. The time is flying by!

There is a little nip in the air and I have a free day today with nothing to do. I'm in the mood for fall! I have three large mum plants in my flower garden and even though the other flowers are dead or dying, these are loaded with yellow flowers. They are one of my favorite flowers and it's probably because autumn is my favorite season and they remind me that it's here. I'm going to spend some time putting out my autumn decorations today.

Isaiah 61:1-3 ~ "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified." Sadness and a heaviness. That is how I've been feeling lately. I feel this way because I loved being home and caring for my family on a full-time basis. It took me years to get to the point where I was content to stay at home. I actually was at the point where I viewed that as my ministry and enjoyed all the little things I did throug

My garden is coming to the end now that Autumn is on the way here. I have a patch of Swiss chard and two teeny-tiny pumpkins. Everything looks shriveled and bare. However, there are a couple of things that are still producing fairly well. I have tons of grape tomatoes ripening every day. Also, there are quite a few Roma tomatoes left. My pepper plants are still doing well. The habanero plants are loaded, though I notice they are not ripening as quickly with the cooler weather. There are also many green peppers to pick. I had put in a late planting of beans and peas, but I think it has gotten too cold for them. It has been a good year for the garden. I do need to improve the soil in my front garden before next year though. I'm sad to see it almost over, but I won't miss the hours of canning!

I had to make a soup for our soup and sandwich dinner at church tonight. This soup is not only delicious, but simple to make. Potato Leek Soup 3 tablespoons butter 3 leeks, thinly sliced* 1 medium or large onion, chopped 6 – 8 russet potatoes, thinly sliced** 3 1/2 cups chicken broth (or enough to barely cover potatoes) 1 cup heavy cream salt to taste fresh ground black pepper to taste 1) Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat then add onions and leeks. Cook, stirring, until onions are limp and just slightly brown. 2) Add sliced potatoes to saucepan then pour in enough chicken broth to just barely cover the potatoes. Continue cooking over medium heat until potatoes are tender. Using a potato masher, mash and stir potatoes until desired consistency is reached. As you mash the potatoes and the soup thickens, turn down heat and stir frequently with a large spoon to prevent scorching on the bottom. 3) Blend in a food processor until smooth. Return to pan. 4) Add one cup of heav

Well, school started for all of us on Tuesday and it was a number of firsts. * Emily's first day in a brand new school. She is now a 6th grader at the middle school. * Nathan's first day as a Senior. * Stephen's first day in some challenging courses. * My first time working full time in 9 1/2 years. Overall, it went great. I came home to smiling faces and excited talk about the first day of school. That was nice! I had a wonderful first day of work. The teacher I'm with has a great personality. She is calm, low-key and patient and great with the children. The children were sweet too. We had nobody crying either Tuesday or yesterday which is amazing for their first time in Kindergarten. We do have a few that are going to be challenges, but nothing too difficult. It's going to be an adjustment working full-time, but so far it's been good. Of course the first day of school excitement has worn off. Today, when it was time to get up there were very slow resp

I am a very organized person by nature and I always try to stay one step ahead of things. However, now that I'm going to be working full-time, I want to make sure that I am on top of things around here. I know that it's going to be difficult and I would be lying if I said I was overjoyed about going back to work full-time. However, I know this is necessary and yet, I don't want to lose the things that I enjoyed about staying at home. Yesterday, I spent most of the day baking. I wanted to put some things in the freezer to make my life easier and still be able to have the home baked goods. I have children with allergies, so when I make something from scratch, I know exactly what is going into it. I spent from 9 a.m. until around 4 p.m on my feet stocking up on some things. I made 2 loaves of Italian bread, 3 loaves of French baguette, 16 onion bagels, 16 whole grain bagels, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and dough for hot pockets. On top of that, I cann

At the beginning of the summer I made a decision that I wanted this one to be fun for our family. We've had a horrendous couple of years and I felt like we really needed to actually enjoy a summer for a change. Well, today is the last holiday before the Fall season starts and in looking back, I think we accomplished what I wanted. We didn't get to do everything I planned. Some of that was because this was the first year that the boys had jobs. Also, Nathan's participation in the local fire department and all the parades limited our time. I looked back at my list from the end of June and decided to see what we actually did. I highlighted the things accomplished in red. ► Emily going to camp for a week in July. ► Stephen going to adventure camp for a week in July. He will be roughing it by backpacking in the Adirondack Mountains. ► Nathan is marching in a parade and helping out with the town carnival run by the fire department. He actually marched in 7 parades! ► Trip