Hearts in Service

    I had been in a sewing slump this entire summer, but making the two baby quilts last week seems to have pulled me out of it.  As I was getting ready to post this morning I realized that I had made FIVE aprons this week.  That is a record! If you are friends with me on facebook, I apologize because you've seen these already.  But here are the aprons I put together this week. Two half aprons. A bib apron. A friend let me borrow an apron she had that was designed in such a way that the straps fit through a casing in the bodice.  This allows you to adjust the straps to your size.  Genius! Another friend wanted me to design her an apron with red in it, so as soon as she decides which she prefers I'll be putting the rest in my Etsy shop which is listed on my side bar. I realized that I haven't given others the opportunity to share so I'm going to start my link up again this week. Now is your chance to share.  Please feel free to link up so

Today was day #6 of the food challenge.  I'm happy that I made it through the week.  Dan gets paid tomorrow, but I'm going to keep going another day or two until we have time to go grocery shopping.  Dan did an airport run yesterday and got a few dollars so we did pick up milk, half and half, sugar and some lettuce.  Other than those few things, my goal was to make do and we did! Everyone fended for themselves for breakfast & lunch. Dinner was fresh tomato and basil pasta sauce over whole wheat pasta. Homemade Italian Bread and salad. This week was good because the meals were filling and no one felt deprived.  The only thing we were missing was fresh fruit and the veggies were limited because my garden stunk this year! lol  So I'd say it was a success!

Today was a pretty bland day in the food department.  We had granola for breakfast and leftovers for lunch. For dinner, I took some of the leftover pork from last night, cut it into chunks and then made chili with iti.  I actually think it was some of the best chili I ever made. I'm not sure yet what I'll do for tomorrow, but I'll figure it out!

Today is day #4 of my food challenge to use it up, make do and do without until Dan gets paid.  I do see one of the benefits of purchasing meat and other items when they are on sale because we've had pretty good meals because my freezer had stuff in it!  Months ago I had purchased a huge slab of pork loin when it was on sale for $1.99 per lb. and cut it into 5 different pieces.  We used up the last of it tonight. Breakfast - cereal.  I definitely need to step it up here but we are all on such different schedules and I never eat a big breakfast and therefore, dislike making it! However, I'm running out of cereal so I may not have a choice soon. Lunch - leftovers Dinner - was AWESOME! lol Butternut squash soup. Garlic & thyme pork loin Roasted potatoes & carrots. Homemade biscuits. So far, so good.  I'm actually enjoying this!  It certainly helps to post it here because it keeps me going.

Today's food challenge went fairly well.  I have tons of eggs as we get some almost every week from a couple in our church.  So I boiled a dozen of them today for lunch. Breakfast - Homemade granola Lunch - Egg salad on homemade oatmeal bread, carrot sticks and pretzels. Dinner - Italian sausage soup with the rest of the loaf of bread. I had cookie dough in the freezer so I pulled that out this afternoon and made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I forgot to mention last night's dessert.  I had about 2 cups of black raspberry ice cream in the freezer so I threw some ice cubes, ice cream, milk and a couple of globs of raspberry sauce in the blender and made milk shakes. So far so good!

Can someone be joyful in the midst of difficult circumstances?  Is it possible?   Does joy bubble up out of you? Do you find yourself looking at your glass as half empty or half full? Can you find the positive in almost any circumstance or do you tend to dwell on the negative? When life hands you lemons, how can you make lemonade? The best definition of joy I've ever heard was "joy is the settled knowledge that God is in control of all things". There is no doubt in your mind. You know that the Lord has things under control and it's up to Him to make a way. I like to believe I'm joyful, but if the truth were to be told, more often than not I act like God doesn't exist when it comes to difficult circumstances. I pray and tell the Lord that I'm turning something over to Him, but I keep taking it back and dusting it off and turning it over and over in my mind.   God is not one to pry my fingers off the thing I'm worried about.  He won

Today was the second day of my self-imposed food challenge.  Breakfast & lunch were unimpressive.  Cereal for breakfast and leftover pizza for lunch. Dinner was delicious.  I had set aside 3 chicken breasts from the family pack I had used for dinner last night to use today. We had a Middle Eastern dinner. Chicken, peppers & onions flavored with Turkish seasoning and wrapped in homemade naan, tabbouleh, a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes & onions with balsamic vinegar and jarred pears from a friend's tree. Yummy!

I started off my first full day of the food challenge pretty well.  I can already see that I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the kitchen trying to be creative.  The other issue is that everyone is home this week!  Dan finished up his summer program and has a week off (no pay, of course) before he starts the fall program at his agency.  So I have to work hard to come up with three meals a day. Breakfast - Cereal or homemade granola. Lunch - Homemade pizza.  Choice of ricotta with roasted garlic, tomatoes & basil or red bell pepper & mushroom. Dinner - Basil chicken in coconut-curry sauce, rice, homemade biscuits, creamed butternut squash.  Dinner was awesome! I'll keep you posted.

You know the start of the Bible verse, "Man does not live on bread alone...?" Well, in this case, we may have to this week! LOL!!!  One of the problems, or maybe it's a blessing, of living without credit cards is when you come to the end of your money, it's really the end!  Between the church and Dan's extra job we have enough to pay our bills (which are a few), purchase gas & eat.   There isn't extra for vacations, clothing, car repairs, a new vacuum (which broke), etc.   If we do anything out of the ordinary, like the recent trip to the aquarium, it cuts into the food budget. One glitch we ran up against is that both boys have their licenses but that raised our car insurance an extra $250 per month which we do not have.  Until they have jobs, they are unable to contribute to this.  Dan gets paid next Friday and after filling up the cars we have absolutely zero, zilch, nada to live on for the next week.  Anyone else noticing that gas prices

This morning I managed to pull together a quick quilt for the pregnancy center and when I went to pick up Emily she had finished her third one. Here is the quilt I finished. And Emily's. Quilts waiting to be hung on the wall for their service on Sunday. My friend, Tammy, who organizes this each year. More quilts. Emily came home and after sewing for 5 hours today, started cutting out fabric to make another quilt.  I've created a monster!

Emily went to sewing camp this week at a local church.  The girls and adults who were participating made quilts for a local pregnancy center.  I ended up joining in for two of the days. The thing that was difficult for me was the fact that the quilts were made out of recycled material.  I find that I am very visual and I spent an entire day and a half just trying to find material that I thought went together and then finding I didn't have enough!  So I only managed to turn out one quilt this week.  :-) Emily, on the other hand, made 3.  She will finish up her third one today and was so pleased with herself.  She has never really sewn by herself before.  There were people there to help if she had a question, but she pretty much was on her own and did a good job, considering it was her first time making a quilt and sewing independently. Her first quilt: Her second one: The third one is still in the works so I don't have a picture of that one yet.  Here is the q

I had one of those moments this morning when I thought that I really didn't want to post this because it's going to make me sound like a total flake!  But then I thought, "It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind!"  Right? Well, I'm not sure about that but I am having a change of mind about something in my life. A few weeks ago I had posted that I was not going to do the market anymore because I felt like I wasn't really engaging at church when I had to scoot out early to go twice a month.  However, the day of the market came and went and I felt down.  I also received an email from a fellow vendor saying that she wished I would reconsider. Dan & I moved to this area ten years ago as church planters.  We immediately got active in the community by tutoring and subbing in the school system, joining various organizations and heading up many outreach activities through our church.  Then we merged our church plant with an established church

I have a list of things to do about a mile long.  There are tomatoes sitting on my counter waiting to be made into sauce.  A morning preschool readiness program to prepare for the church.  Laundry sitting in piles.  And meat thawing for dinner. I often measure my success by how many items I can check off my to-list. As I've mentioned before, this summer has been frustrating for me because most of my time is spent driving kids somewhere and I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything. Yet, I am doing the things that really do matter in the long run. Housework, cooking, paperwork will always be there. My children will not. Working on my relationship with my husband and children should be one of the most important things in my life. Obviously, we still do have to do those chore items or we'll be living in filth. But my point is that instead of getting frustrated with the interruptions, we should view them as opportunities to work on relationship. I

I almost skipped this today because I'm busy and tired and feel like I'm not functioning well.  But how can you skip counting blessings that come from the hand of God?   Counting my blessings keeps me humble and thankful and joyful.  Counting keeps my perspective focused on where it should be.  Not on the bad, the complaints, the negative. But on the positive.  The hopeful.  The Lord! So today, I'm continuing the counting. This week I'm thankful for blessings #1,141-1150. ♥ Hidden treasures in the woods.   ♥ Hiking with my daughter.     ♥ A son starting college in a week. ♥ Friends through thick & thin. ♥ Stephen passing his road test on the first try. ♥ A much needed day off for my husband. ♥ Simple pleasures. ♥ Seeing a bit of God's creation. ♥ Enjoying the sights, sounds & smells of New York City.   ♥ A beautiful end to a perfect day.