When your day starts out with zebra footie pajamas paired tastefully with goggles, you know it is shaping up to be a good one. Poor picture quality is simply a result of the passion with which this moment was lived. We don’t slow down for photos. We keep the zebra blood pumping around here.
Have you ever noticed that when there is more than one straw in a milkshake, everyone sucks faster? Everyone knows they are competing, and every sip from someone else means less for you. People start breathing through their noses to minimize lost time.
I have felt for a long time that when you have little children, they have a straw that taps directly into your energy. The milkshake cup is me, and the milkshake is my energy, and every child is armed with a straw. Infants who are either in the womb or nursing have a competitive edge on this, and get to take as much as they want before it even hits the glass.
Continue reading ‘When the Milkshake Runs Low.’
I am pretty sure that you ladies have the solution to my trouble. My trouble is that I want to like cooking with a crock pot, but I don’t. It seems so handy. But so far in my crock pot career, I find it uninspiring. Sometimes I throw in a roast that I plan to shred in order to make something else. Sometimes I put in some chicken and beans and taco seasoning to make burritos. But usually, I don’t use it.
I have a couple of cookbooks that are slow cooker related, but if you have to sear the meat, caramelize the onions, and make a broth all before it hits the slow cooker, I think it has defeated the purpose. If I am going to do things like that, I use a dutch oven.
So, what do you make in the crock pot? Tell us about it! We need ideas!
So. Guess what I just ordered for the home front. Vomit absorbing granules. Yes. Turns out that they make this stuff that neutralizes odor (!!!), and absorbs all fluids, enabling the vomit to be swept. I know what you are thinking. Swept? Disgusting! Of course it is, but not so bad as paper towels. Not so bad as rags that have to go in the laundry. Not so bad as vomit. Anyways, work with that info as you will. I just thought we should all know about this. You know, to be armed when the time comes.
I love the analogy of seasons to describe our lives. The glories of Autumn are filling my windows with a breath-taking view right now, but in a few weeks the leaves will be gone. Middle-age is often compared to Autumn, and it has peculiar temptations like every other season of life. So I hope this little post, though targeting women who are in lower-middle, middle-middle, upper-middle or over-the-middle age, will get us thinking about some of the common bumps in the road, so we can steer clear. (Of course, women of all ages can be tempted in many of these same ways.)
These are common temptations, nothing new or tricky.
1. Over-sharing can be a sin. It’s tempting to share more than we should. We may be looking for sympathy, but we have an obligation to love our children and our husbands, and we ought to maintain a nice hedge around our family and be loyal. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
2. Forgetting is a sin. We should not forget what we are called to do! This is a high-impact time of our lives, and we are to continue to affect our family culture and church culture by being focused and faithful women. We should be a powerful force for good.
3. We can become self-absorbed. Because our children are grown, we may have more time and more money to spend on ourselves. This is not a bad thing in itself if we manage it properly. But we must be good stewards of our time and resources. Working out in the gym is fine. A pedicure is great. But we must not get too absorbed in ourselves, our weight, our looks. God has important business for us to be about.
4. Worry is a still a sin whether we are new mothers or grandmothers. We should not pick up new things to Continue reading ‘Middle-Age Temptations’
Now’s the time to shop at Canon Press at their Fall Sale. I’ve never seen prices this low on some of my own stuff….I think I’ll stock up! Some of the audio sets are priced at $1.50! Loving the Little Years audio is, I kid you not, $1.87. My book for unmarried women and Doug’s dad’s book on Bitterness are each going for three bucks! You can also pre-order the CD set from the Femina Conference. And lots of other cool stuff. Go shop around!
Four years ago (or so?) I led a study for women I called Women, Marriage, and the Fruit of the Spirit. We spent a week on each fruit and looked for applications in marriage. (That gave us plenty of material to work with!) I am going through this study again with a new group of ladies, and after receiving a request for the notes, I realized that I posted each study up here on Femina back in 2007. You can find them all here, or if you would prefer, you can go over to the category bar yourself and click on Fruit of the Spirit. Just bear in mind that you’ll have to go to the oldest posts to start at the beginning….and for some reason (and this is a real puzzle!) one of them has a name I do not know listed as the author of the post. (There’s no accounting for it that I know of. And I don’t know how to fix it either!)
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