Hey, Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?

There is something about her little angelic face that just makes my heart warm. Last night was the first time she has shown wear for this impending move. This little ballerina, with the beautiful face, sat here on the couch and teared up when she talked about leaving behind her friends. She can be tempted with new dogs, and the possibility of one day having a horse, but there is no way to prepare a little girl to turn her life upside down. Even as her mother, I am stumped for the great words of comfort. I just pulled her onto my lap, and loved on her.

Then I did what any good mother would do. I sent her to Nanna's.Where the rule is, there are no rules. Where peanut butter spoons justify a meal as long as accompanied by chocolate milk. Where Swiss Family Robinson is a movie favorite and where Nanna's lap can ease the heartache of a 9 year old little girl. Where shopping is mandatory and naps are relished.

Look at the smile.  That's what I love to see on my little girl's face.  I know that I can't solve all of her problems, and I can't keep her from every hurt... I can't, because in God's divine wisdom He knew that if I could I would.  Then, she wouldn't need a Savior.  Believe me I take my charge as a mother quite seriously (most of the time), I try to prevent as much hurt and pain as I can.  I send her to Nanna's for spoiling on bad days.  However, some of this is her own testimony, it's her own chance to reach out for The Comforter.  

She knows how to find Him...

And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. ~Mark 10:16

I praise you for her Lord.  I am humbled in her presense as she seeks you so diligently time and time again.  Father, put your hand upon her and bless her.  Comforter hear the cries of her mother and wrap her in your wings.  Thank you in Jesus Name.  

Life in the fast lane...surely make you lose you mind

I couldn't sleep last night,  one of those nights that you get a revelation that just leaves you sitting in the living room alone...with your thoughts.  My life as I know it is coming to an end.  That is just wild.  Not that I haven't done different before... the move here to NC was different but this is just another one of those goodbyes that you don't know what the hello is going to look like.

The response to my first post from my friends who knew me when were quite receptive... one of you wanted pictures.  They are coming... hold your horses or should I say herd your chickens?  I know this isn't anything that anyone - including myself  - would come up with.  Isn't that how you know it's God?  When it's not something that you would come up with on your own?  The fact that I am even talking about raising chickens cracks me up. 

When I began this homeschool thing, I started meeting these really weird people.  They rolled their own oats, made their own bread, ate things that said organic on them.  I remember telling my friend that I refused to give any of that unnatural stuff to my children, they would probably be allergic to anything that didn't have preservatives or at least red dye #5.  I remember an entire conversation about shaving ivory soap to make their own soap powder.  I thought they had three heads.  This city girl was not conforming to any of that mess...thank you very much.  Oreos and Little Debbies are staples in my house, like toilet paper and milk.  Hot chocolate comes in a silver packet, bread comes in a plastic sleeve and call me crazy but I LOVE Coke (Coca Cola for those of you not from Florida).  

Herbal teas... HA, tea was served over ice with sugar.  Herbal shmerbal... (as I sit here drinking my nightly cup). Next thing I know one of these women has me at the health food store and I am taking cough medicine that has horehound in it (I have no idea what it is, what I know is that it works).  What happened to the good old days of ibuprophen... no, belladonna she says and you know what, I now carry it in my purse instead of ibuprophen.  They have been slowly doing this to me over the last few years.  Like a turtle in a stew... they were heating it up until it was cooked.  I used to think country was just trucks and belt buckles, but it's so much more than that.  They have diluted the city girl and filled her with these grandious ideas of actually enjoying this stuff.  

For example, I now carry a pocketknife.  Granted it is pink, but I don't leave home without it.  I drive a 4x4, now I know it's an SUV, but it's the largest one ever made and it takes fuel (diesel for you non-countrified types) not gasoline. I own a handgun... now I know I could have done that in the city... but let me tell you... I grew up deathly afraid of guns in the city... now shooting with my girlfriends is something that I enjoy.  I have learned to make finger foods... like little pimento cheese sandwiches (I make 'em but I still won't eat 'em).  I have learned how to make grits that didn't come out of a packet and how to season greens fresh out of the garden.

So, here is what I have concluded.  Life in the fast lane almost made me lose my mind.  I love the slower pace of my life now.  I made homemade bread today and it wasn't the frozen loaves or the parker rolls that my mother and grandmother played off as homemade.  I put the yeast in the dough myself... and I survived.  My hair didn't braid on it's own and I didn't appear in a floral dress.  I had an entire day in the kitchen today... baking, making candy, cookies.  I feel pretty Proverbs Womany today.  I would much rather bake my own bread than to load up in my truck and drive to the grocery store to buy one.  This new me... I think I like her.  

Phillipians 4:11-12 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

Lord, I am willing to be willing.  Thank you for your provision and your love through Christ.  Lord, continue to show me the hard places that I withhold from you.  Continue to transform me, day by day... glory to glory.  I love you Father, Savior & Comforter.

We are in the memory making business...

As mothers, that is one of our primary responsibilities and whether we do it really well or really wrong, one thing is for sure, memories will be made.  It is my hope to have substantially more good memories than bad deposited into my children.  I believe that is one of the greatest gifts we are getting with the move, the farm.  I am amazed at God's provision for us as a family, for what it takes for him to orchestrate our destiny's.  

If someone had ever told me that I would be a homeschool mother - I would have laughed.  Now it is as much a part of me as my brown eyes and my large feet.  I love knowing that my kids are with me.  I love the way they argue, the way they laugh and the way that they fill a room. Homeschooling as afforded us such a unity that I find so precious.  

Today we had some friends over to make some Christmas cookies.  This is a picture of my two boys actually working together for a common goal... I know, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I broke out the camera just for proof when they are adults.

This is what happens when you get 9 kids in a room from ages 4 to 13, add cookie dough, sprinkles and just listen because the noises that come are the most beautiful.  The laughter, oh the laughter.  The older girls & Alex even cleaned up without being asked... I am telling you if I could bottle this I would be a millionaire.

They paid me to put up this picture. It was all completely staged.  I am just kidding, they really did clean up the kitchen.  They even handwashed the dishes in lieu of loading the dishwasher.  All of the sugar, the smell of baking cookies just brings out the best in kids.  Note to self... invite these kids over when we move to the farm and no longer have a dishwasher.

Being in the memory making business isn't easy.  Thank goodness for good friends to share the couch with  you.  There is already talk of carpooling to our new place, bringing these town kids to the farm and letting them do some planting of their own.  It's hard to let go and to move on when you have great things right where you are.  God is calling us though, to move, to do whatever he is laying on us.  It would be so easy to stay...to spend everyday like today.  The thing about memories is no matter where we go we take them with us.  

Unlike our friends, because well frankly... I just think it would be wierd.  Imagine having to travel in caravans like they did in the Old Testament? Can you even imagine what it would be like to walk near the "Red Tent".  I love you ladies, I thank you for putting up with my antics...but know that the blonde, the redhead and the brunette will forever be a joke just waiting to happen.  But just to settle the matter once and for all just exactly who is the coolest of all watch this clip ... 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Proverbs 3:5-6

Company Fudge

My Nanny used to make this when she was having company over at the holidays because it didn't take many ingredients & took very little time to make and set up. It has never failed me.

1 12 oz bag of semi-sweet morsels
1 12 oz bag of peanut butter morsels
2 cans of sweetened evaporated milk

optional.. 2 snickers bars chopped up.

Microwave in a small bowl 1 can of milk & 1 bag of chips. Spread evenly in bottom of foil liked square pan. Sprinkle with snickers if desired. Microwave remained ingredients and spread evenly on other layers. Refrigerate 1 hour before cutting.

Cheryl's Miracle Cookies

Mix together well in a large mixing bowl:

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 bag chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts - FINELY chopped... almost to a powder.

Mix this well with your hands to the chips get coated and also so you can make sure there aren't too many chunks of brown sugar.

Whisk together 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract. Pour this on top of your dry stuff but don't mix yet.

Finally, take 1 stick of room-temperature butter and plop that on the top. Now mix it all together as well as you can with a spoon. Don't get too far, do you? Now use your hands. (Kids are great for this!) Make sure you get all the dry stuff from the bottom of the bowl. It's almost like you're kneading bread dough, right?

Now grab two big spoons (not serving spoons... like your soup spoons) and drop some golf ball sized cookies into your greased muffin tin. Yes, your muffin tin. Bake those babies at 350 for around 11 or 12 minutes. Yes, they'll look under done. When you take them out of the oven, let the stay in the muffin tins with a towel placed over them for about 3 minutes, THEN take them out.

MMMM.... gooey.... and soft....... MMMMM.......


***I don't use muffin tins because believe it or not I don't have any. They are wonderful just globbed on a cookie sheet. My oven gets them just right in 10 minutes. ~JL***

You can find more of Cheryl's wonderbar creations on her blog.

New Occupation: Certified Chicken Herder

It's not every day that someone gets to do a redo.  That God just sets it up where it's time to start over.  Not really start over...how about have a new start.  I don't know that I would ever want to do any of this over again.  I wouldn't change it...but I sure wouldn't want to relive it either!

This city girl...Florida girl at that...is heading west.  Well farther west in NC anyway.  It's time to make the transition to the farm, to come out of our cute little tourist trap town and head to where the turkey and hogs run free.  There are 10 acres of land just waiting to challenge me to find God in new and more exciting ways.  

There is talk of raising chickens... I have done some women's ministry meetings that were what Momma Jan said were similar to herding chickens.  However, the only chickens I have ever seen have been wrapped in plastic at the grocery store. No wait how about the ones at the rotisserie cooker at WalMart.

I have never canned a thing.  I have eaten some things that my husbands parents have canned, loved them...but my solution for "putting up" vegetables was to put them in zippy bags and put them in the deep freeze.  I was reminded that isn't a really good option on the farm.  Especially if there is a storm that knocks out power.  Because being 20 minutes outside of nowhere means that you aren't going to have service back anytime soon.  Just think of my devastation if I woke up and found all those melted strawberries.  So I am determined to learn how to can.  Ande says the only memories he has of canning is it being hot in the house and his parents fussing.  Boy this sounds like fun already.

Why did I agree to this again?  900 square feet of small house love.  This is the house that Ande grew up in...well through high school.  Mountains on all sides...one of those old barns that is the color of burnt coffee...chocked full of fun stuff.  Dogs...I am looking for a Newfoundland and a huskey.  Oh and a goat.  Ande and I had this conversation about him going to pick up the goat. He said he would just put it in the back of his truck.  Well Ande has ladder racks on his big ol' F350 and the thought of putting a goat in the back of that truck and then heading out to the farm made me giggle, but the thought of the goat in the backseat of his crew cab truck with it's head sticking out the window ears just a flapping made me laugh out loud.  Can't you just see it?  This big old truck coming down the road with a goat in the back seat?  Come on...that's just hilarious.  

So what I have ahead of me is Christmas...with all that entails to a mother of 3...then the new year is bringing change.  A new address, a new way of life...new -new - new... Doesn't anything stay the same?  Oh yeah, God does, He is the same past, present and future...it's us, His wonderful creation that must change and conform to Christ.  I wonder if Christ chased chickens? What do you do when life hands you lemons...apparently you can them in a mason jar put a dollie on top and sell them to the Florida and Georgia people who head to the mountains for vacation.