Humble Pie

Back in October I was making pies for our family reunion. I thoroughly enjoy making the crust for pies, seeing it take shape and working with the dough. It is times like these when I feel close to my mom, my grandmothers, and their mothers, and their mothers before. I love the kin-ship that comes from working with pastry (or bread)dough, knowing that the women who came before me made treats for their families just like I do now. That is the sweet side of making pies. There is another side, though.

It feels good to accomplish the task of pie-crust perfection. It is a pat-yourself-on-the-back-kind-of-good. I look at my pie plates and see the crimped edges, the pretty cutouts. I have my butter out, ready to help the crust get that pretty golden color after baking. Then there is the cinnamon or sugar used to sprinkle on the buttered crust in hopes that every single bite will have a sweetness to it. In secret? There are high hopes that I will get oohs and aahs from the crust alone.

Now, that is just the pie crust! Which is enough to be ashamed of:: for finding pride in pastry AND for my self-seeking recognition of culinary perfection. But, no....I have to go one more step in the pride ride: the filling!!!!

I won't go into the Fudge Pecan pie...God has mostly kept me humble with that: Pecan pie can be challenging in and of itself.

Let's dive straight to the apple.

I do not have an apple peeler outside of my own hands and the paring knife I use to cut the apples. Yet, I have found great pleasure in the challenge of peeling an apple without the peel breaking. On this day, I had 8 apples, more than half peeled in one long strip. I was SOOOOOOO excited. Super-duper-ridiculously excited. So excited I wanted to call my friends and tell them about it. And, since no one was answering their phone, I decided to take a PICTURE (or 12) of my great accomplishment!


Look what I did!! Look at what I can do!! I am apple peeler extraordinaire!!!! I am Super Apple Peeler Woman!!!! snap the photo! snap the photo! Ha!!! I am sooo gooooood! I am giddy with my own self-importance! I take some more pictures: snap. snap. snap!

And then, I hear it.

Barely, but I hear it just the same.

Laughter...

...but, sweet, gentle laughter.

It was probably my imagination, but I felt like I was hearing laughter from God.

And then the humbling began. In a great and gentle whoosh I am brought back to recognizing the powerful One, the great One, the true "I AM." And the whispering to my heart said, "You may be able to peel those apples in one long strip, but can you put the peel ON an apple? And do it whole?"

ahhhh---no.
Huh-uh.
Nnnnope!
Not at all!
Aaaaannnnnnd...there goes my pride (thank the Lord!)!!!

The mercies, provisions, graciousness, and wisdom of the Lord swam before my eyes and filled the corners of my heart. I do not think that it was any accident that my Bible studies a few days later focused on the things God revealed about Himself (and man) when speaking to Job (Job 38-39).

I think I will still struggle with finding satisfaction in my own self-importance, with taking pride in places where none should be, and in being all-to-often self-righteousness and judgmental. I am grateful to know, though, that in the midst of those times, I have a gracious Father who will show me my errors and, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with seriousness, He will guide me to His better place.

I erased a lot of the pictures of those apples, keeping just a few to remind myself where my pride should be placed (in God) and how easy it is to misplace it(in my abilities). Humble pie is not always easy to eat, but it is what my apple pie turned into that weekend. There were so many desserts at the Family banquet table that no one ate any of my pies. I had to bring them home...and eat them myself...fortunately with the help of a few children and my sweet husband. :o)

Anticipation Builds

After the feasting of Thanksgiving, our 4 kids and 2 of their cousins, full of Christmas anticipation, began building their own little Christmas village. Here is a slide show of the process and the town that rose from the labor of their hands:

> >

Thanksgiving

We were all able to go to Nene and Poppa's house for Thanksgiving

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It snowed just after dinner Thanksgiving day. What a neat treat!

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Family Photo time!


And time for more goofiness!!!

Dressing Up

The kids, mostly D-D and E, are still at the age when they dress up for fun things at school. D-D, being in Kindergarten, gets the most "dress-up days"

D-D had "Cowboy Days" back in October. Funny story about that. Tuesday night, we got a letter coming home saying that she had to dress up for the next day (Wednesday). I frantically began looking around for cowboy garb, traveling to a friends house a few miles away to borrow a hat and a shirt. I sent D-D to school all decked out...only to find out that she accidentally got the note that was supposed to be sent home Thursday night! She was the only one dressed up. Suffice it to say, she was a bit embarrassed that morning, but fortunately, she had a change of clothes in her backpack. On Friday, though, she was ready!!!! She enjoyed the day with a hayride and being pampered by her "Big Buddy" (a 6th grader who hangs out with D-D several times a month)!!

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The next dress-up day both E and D-D got to participate. THANKSGIVING at school!! They each had to dress as pilgrims. We borrowed a dress for D-D and she looked sooooo adorable!Unfortunately, she was upset about the shoes she had to wear. This is her looking pitiful as she laments wearing her shoes.

A picture is worth a 1000 words.Here are my words for this picture:
"I have to do WHAT with that turkey?!!?"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This child in D-D's class wore his hat backwards. Cracked me up!

D-D, the backwards-hat boy, and D-D's big buddy.
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E wore tapered pants and a white shirt. He got his Pilgrim collar and hat once he got to school.

Does the size of the hat show

how pious a pilgrim is?Or is he just a Texas Pilgrim?

At Home

There was a really great place for purchasing mums at a fabulously low price. Usually when I find places like that, the mums are in sad shape...
...but not with The Mum Man!!!
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Fog moving in one morning.
I loved how the side of our hill looked as the fog rolled through.
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Thanksgiving Decoration. Remembering Squanto and his people.
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Z and his cars.


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Z's newest way of showing his displeasure.
Some days I
wish you could also see the beautiful sight of his foot
stomp and hear that lovely sound of
his ire. Our work is certainly cut out for us, isn't it?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love it when D-D poses!

Humpty Dumpty x 3

We have loads of trees, which means a huge abundance of leaves during the fall. Dana and E worked on raking and gathering the leaves all on one side of our yard...just below our retaining wall. The kids quickly discovered the fun of jumping off the wall into the leaves. D-D enjoyed watching, but she would not jump. I also loved seeing MG and E helping Z-boy enjoy the fun of autumn leaves.

Sock It To 'Em

Laundry. Really, I do not like to do it. It piles up quickly and there is almost always one load I forget. And, please remember, even when you think you have done it all, there really is always more to do. But of all the laundry that must be done at our house, the part that I detest the most is socks.

Maybe it is because there are 6 people who have lots of different kinds of socks.

Maybe it is because so many of them are wrong side out, or folded and balled into a cotton or polyester-blend origami.

Maybe I am just too particular.

DEFINITELY sock-OCD. Which makes the matching very difficult.

So I thought I would try an experiment to hopefully get the family in on the sorting and matching of their own socks. I decided to just skip the socks and put all of the clean ones in a separate basket...and I found that when I just threw all the socks in that basket, the folding of the other things was not so bad (it was even somewhat enjoyable!)! However, it did not take long before the kids began complaining that they were out of socks. I would point to the basket and they would sigh and go digging until they found a match. This was working rather well until Dana ran out of socks. When he told me he had no clean socks, and I pointed to the basket, I got the nicely put, but no nonsense request of, "Can you match these today, please?"

So....
I matched 'em...
I did!!!
But...with attitude:

I think my attitude needs some working on! Pray for me.

MisPrints

I was looking for some prizes the other day for our Chili Cook-off, and I saw these decorative wall hangings at Fred's. Once I really began to look at them, I had a hard time controlling my mirth!

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A missing letter makes a big difference!!!:::

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Two Mistakes:
needs an apostrophe...and...

...a letter change:

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Psalm 119: 165a
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ps%20119:165&version=NIV


OOOOOOOOPS!!!!!!

Breath of Heaven

"Breath of Heaven" That is one of my favorite songs about Mary and her journey to bring Christ to his birthplace. We all have our times where we feel God's breath blowing over us, sometimes as a gentle breeze, and sometimes as a life changing wind. It draws us nearer to Him, holds us together, and though we may not always realize it, it is always and forever with us. Those moments of recognition are so very precious.

This fall, I experienced one of those breathing moments. A dear friend of mine died in the Spring...a friend I had not visited with in about 3 years...and the absence of those 3 years was felt deeply. After we moved out of state and then had a new baby, her new address got lost in the shuffle and readjustments that life brought to us. Anytime I remembered to ask about her new address, I would forget what I was going to ask as soon as I got to the computer or found the phone.

So.

This spring she died.

Not knowing I ever thought of her those three years.

Not knowing I missed her so much.

Not knowing the things I was storing up to tell her.

Not knowing how much I loved her.

regret. Painful regret on my part. Regret for my neglect of our friendship. Regret over the silence from me. My heart could hardly pray about this for the pain that was there. Victor Hugo spoke about such moments, "Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees."

And, indeed, my soul was on its knees, for God answered to the pain in my heart. He gave me a gift in response to those prayers so painful...a response to pleadings I never realized I uttered until they were answered so sweetly.

When my friend Martha was a little girl, there was a print hanging in her home that was part of defining who she became. She showed me this print years ago and told me the story of how this print would occupy her childhood imaginings for hours, of how she dreamed she was the same little girl, how of all creatures God made, it would be birds she loved most and enjoyed watching for. She even designed her garden toward attracting different types of these birds. She loved their songs, their flight, their very natures. That print reminded her of the mother she missed so very much, and the provisions that God would provide for her because she knew He loved her more than these little creatures.

In life, through the grace of our Savior, she had given me so much. After her death when guilt and regret weighed heavy on my soul, she gave me a final word from her heart riding on the breath of Heaven, on the wings of His dove:

I miss you Miss Martha! I am so Thankful to her for loving me beyond the grave....and thanks be to the God of a great heart, full of mercy and grace, who allowed me to hear from her in this way. How awesome is HE?!!!?

p.s. Dear God, please let her be on my welcoming committee when You call me home!!!

Sidewalk art

The kids are breaking in the new driveway. I think the house NOW feels like home. :o)

Hiking Gear: 3 year old Style

Z, after a few tumbles hiking up to the tree house, has figured out how to outfit himself for the steep trek to and fro. I love the walking stick he found!

Grandparent's Day

The new school where the kids attend this year has a fabulous program for Grandparent's Day. Really, they go all out. Children singing, playing instruments, activities, games, book sales, bar-b-que lunch, etc, etc, etc. Really, they go all out. It was an enjoyable day for the grandparents, and such a joyous one for our kids. They loved showing off their school and classrooms to some of their favorite people ever (2/4 of them, that is!)!E and Z waiting for the grandparents to finish in MG's class...~~~~~~~~
Bookmark made by D-D: Where the light is shining so brightly, it says
"I taste 'pis-ketti' with
cheese on it' "
and
"I hear the city bell"