Healthy Meals

My buddy Lydia has started a new blog, dedicated to healthy eating. I can testify to the fact that she has been "living" her blog, and trying new recipes and sharing them, for quite awhile now. I am very excited for her, and hope her blog ministers to lots!


I have been one to scoff at "food rules", generally. Why? Because you name it, I have done it. Complete with cooking an entirely low-fat and no-fat Thanksgiving dinner, for which my family has mercilessly mocked me for over a decade ever since. I've done a whole foods diet, tried soaking my grains, and have been on a low carb diet. I still eat entirely whole grain bread and pasta and rice, and I still grind my own grains when I am in the mood.


I still believe in "real" food. I use butter. I use olive oil 95% of the time. I don't think twice about splashing real cream into my whole grain mac-n-cheese recipe. You won't catch low fat this or that in my fridge. I'm more concerned about fake food than I am fat grams.


Back in the day, I was adamant about eating "chemical free" food. Still, all that control over my food didn't do a whole lot for me. (I also don't have any known food allergies. If I did, that would be different. A few rules would have to apply.) In fact, it was precisely when I let go of the food rules that I felt dramatically better!


Nevertheless...I turned 40, a few years back. I swear, there is some invisible line you cross at 40. All at once, you have to wear reading glasses, and you have to eat consciously. It is time for me to be a little more mindful about my diet. This is what I love about Lydia's blog. It inspires you to conscious eating, not rule-based eating. (There is a strong link, by the way, with food rules and legalism. One is often a manifestation of the other!)


These days, I do notice a difference when I load up on Omega 3's, B vitamins (through fresh food sources, as well as a sublingual supplement), and I do so much better when I have a bit of protien with each and every meal, and when I have four or five tiny meals instead of two or three larger meals. What I eat, and how I eat it, now noticeably affects the quality of my day.


Inspired by Miss Lydia Joy, I want to share some particularly healthy recipes with you - recipes that constitute a nourishing breakfast and lunch.





Free range eggs, with salmon and fresh squeezed orange juice...


Salmon, any way you can get it, is crucial, in my mind. Unlike many, I won't even quibble over farmed or wild - canned or smoked - whatever you can afford. Just please eat your salmon.

Ingredients for hummus: 2 TB tahini, chickpeas, 2 cloves garlic, 3 or 4 TB lemon juice, coarse salt, and a splash of olive oil.


I love hummus with organic blue corn chips. Yum!

Fresh spinach is another very important food for us girls over 40. Walnuts. Flax seed and yogurt. And I am getting carried away.

Do visit Lydia's blog. I think you will enjoy it.

The Sad Reality of Offenses

The person most in position to advance you into the next level, is the person you are most likely to get offended by.

I plead with you, when this happens ("when", not "if") when the offense comes, stick and stay. See it through. Come under the authority of the word of God. You must come under to get over the mountain. Otherwise, you will have to repeat the lesson, and take the test over and over and over and...

...you get the idea. You can experience ten years worth of spiritual growth in a week, by simply coming under. Or, take ten years to "get" what could have taken you only a week. Either way, you never advance to "C" without going through "A" and "B".

I don't get to pick the vessel through which I am to be dealt with or promoted. I don't get to pick who I will hear and who I will not. The moment I choose not to hear, the very moment I run from the lesson, my life becomes like...

"...the song that never ends!
It just goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it
Not knowing what it was
But they'll just keep on singing it forever, just because
This is the song that never ends!
It just goes on and on my friend.
Some people started singing it..."

There is one, and only one, common denominator in all your broken relationships: you. The day you give up and face that fact, change your mind, deal with your issues, and go mend those relational fences, will be the day of your greatest glory. All of heaven will record it.

Memorial Day

Ribs for a small army...


tablescape


empty platter, eagerly awaiting smoked ribs.


The view outside my bedroom window, looking out to the master bedroom deck...

The family has gone fishing now. Ribs were outstanding. I'm here, enjoying the quiet. Hope your Memorial Day was blessed...remembering the great sacrifices of our men and women in uniform!

Grown Children - Another Perspective

And so tonight, I hear the familiar sound of a piano. I didn't think I'd be hearing that sound again.

You see, it is Hannah's Piano. I'm hearing the instrument she prayed for when she was about thirteen years old. Three days after that family prayer time, her pastor-father was sitting at his desk at the church, and received a phone call from a man, a total stranger, who wanted to find someone to give a piano to. Tim quickly let him know that his own daughter had just prayed for a piano.

And so it was. We picked it up that night. Not a shabby piano - a nice one.

Last May, Hannah was married. Of course, she and her in-college-studying-to-be-a-highschool-math-teacher husband moved into their little apartment together. They had no room for her piano. The keys that had been oft played suddenly fell silent. I thought that was that.

Lesson number one thousand-eleven: "that" is never "that".

Here is The Big Announcement: last week, almost one year to the day that Hannah married and moved out, she and her husband, and baby in-utero, have all moved back in.

Uh, remember that home office I was so excited about? I was going to design it and blog it?

Nevermind. I'm now in the market for a crib.

Some grown children move out, and move back home because they can't yet achieve in the "real world".

And some grown children move out, and move back home precisely because they are achieving...

Justin earned his college degree two weeks ago - and is going on for his Master's degree. He has snagged an internship in one of the most, if not THE most highly sought after public high school in the city. Families by the score re-locate just to make sure their children can attend this high school.

But the state of Tennessee pays their teacher-interns....nothing. You read that right: nothing. They must intern one year, and with no salary. It is impossible for Justin to finish his internship, earn his Master's, and also try to find a second full time job, so Hannah can have a baby. The only way these two high achievers could make it work was for them to...

...move in with us. This way, Hannah can work full time, and Justin can finish his internship, get his Master's degree in Math Education, and they can become parents.

Yeah. Not exactly your low-achievers.

They are looking at it this way: their job here at home is not done. They need us, but we also need them in this season. With them here to help with our youngest son, Tim and I can do the work of the ministry more effectively. Lord knows that lately this labor of love, this care of the souls of men, never seems to stop. We need the reinforcements. In-house reinforcements.

God sent them.

Justin is prepared to tutor Isaac so that he'll rock the ACT. This couple could absolutely run this whole household for us, if Tim and I had to, say, go on a mission trip. Heck, they could run the household for us, and we could actually take a vacation. Imagine that.

They will be with us for only one year. And yes...when the baby comes home from the hospital, he or she will be coming here. You know I hate that.

::goofy grin::

That is the news I've been dying to tell you, friends. This home is once again-again bursting at the seams. The big bedroom with the half-bath has been painted the happiest shade of robin's egg blue, and a very happy couple sleeps there, across the hall from our youngest son.

Isaac, who is no longer "all by himself", is more than fine with this latest turn of events. He is loving it. I wonder if he isn't looking forward to the baby as much as I am! He told me the other day, in a moment of unselfconscious teenagedom: "Mom, the best things keep happening to me lately. I mean...I am close to getting a car, my sister is back home, and she's having a baby..."

He didn't know what he'd just said. His heart was fully revealed in that snapshot of a moment, and it was a fine sight for this mother's sore eyes. Sharing his domain with his niece or nephew seems wonderful to him.

I know this post is long. I beg your pardon, and entreat your patience as I leave you with a last thought. In a moral climate (and economic climate) where "boomerang kids" have become a social category, what of the grown ones who come back home for all the right reasons? No grown child should be permitted to come back home, if all home is, is a place where they can have all the freedoms of being an adult, with fewer responsibilities.

But again, what of the adult child who cherishes the generational bond, and wants to contribute to the family....Walton's style? (Remember that old show, The Waltons?) That is a different perspective altogether. One that the church would do well to revisit. What of the adult children who want to come home for a season, and contribute?

Not because they can't make it, but because they already are making it.

One of Hannah's favorite fiction authors, Grace Livingston Hill:

"For a girl who had a home and dear family, to leave them to get along without her as best they could, and go away for a fuller freedom and a selfish life of her own, seemed to Jane nothing short of contemptible."

~Grace Livingston Hill, from the book Happiness Hill

Sarah's New Blog

Now that my daughter Sarah is married, she has decided to start a new blog. Her life as pastor's daughter, and artist's wife, is anything but dull or routine. The sort of life where you get up, go to the same job every day, and come home, is not a life that either of these newlyweds can relate to. For them, each day is truly brand-new, and they are doing an amazing job of living artistically and purposefully.

Young as they are, they are already sculpting a style that identifies them - a marriage full of affection, and a life that is fresh and fun. They are growing a teeny garden, mostly in containers, they live in urban Knoxville - a little white house smack-dab in the middle of the city, they love having guests often (sometimes a crowd!), tending to their exuberant puppy, and being fully creative - all in a "normal" day.

Artsy couple, they.

Without further monologue, please visit Sarah's "A Grace-"FULL" Life".

Almost Done...

What a week! We're not done yet, but we have the end in sight. I'll post pictures of all the fun, pretty details when the kitchen repair/redecoration is finished.


The wall we had to tear out was replaced by Monday night...

Beginning to get the full effect of our new all-white kitchen...I snapped this picture of the last bit of the old red wall.

Installation of track lighting - again, is there anything this man cannot do? This kind of lighting, and going with halogen bulbs, made as big a difference as changing the wall color! Had I known the "power of light", I would have done this years ago! (The right side wall still needs primer and paint.)

Not done yet - but here is where we are as of the weekend. Time to put away the tools and paint brushes temporarily, as we have a busy weekend to tend to. This kitchen is going to be so light, airy, and serene when we are finally finished.

Kitchen Chaos

It had been a long but productive day. Twelve (or was it thirteen?) for lunch, followed by birthday cake and a silly alien movie. A lovely Sunday, it was. I was feeling so complete and happy - ready to end the day on a soft note. Then, last night, about 9 PM, I let Tim know that I thought there might be a problem in the kitchen...someone noticed that the wall on the far end of the kitchen had a strange, wavy look to it...

...we were still working at 11 PM, tearing out water-damaged wall, moving cabinets out to the garage, stacking drawers and cookbooks and pots and pans all around the perimeter of the dining room.

Life. Has. Descended. Into. Chaos.

That fast. ::snaps fingers::

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, my house is being defibrillated. Resuscitated.

But hey...remember that kitchen makeover on the schedule for this summer? It's getting done right now. This week.

Before:

Is there anything this man cannot do?




The washing machine has been leaking into the wall for who-knows-how-long. We had to rip out the whole wall, both sides between the kitchen and laundry room. Tim had to re-plumb the guts, install a box for the fixtures, and fix the leak. Now, it is on to new sheetrock, and the requisite taping and mudding and sanding.

I'll post detailed pictures of The Unveiling as soon as we are done!