Finding Balm in Gilead

I found my serving spoon and other things.....

***I wrote most of this last week and finished it this morning.

I'm sitting here at J's office answering the phone for him while he meets with a customer in Amarillo. The kids are at Ms. LuAnn's today, and I'm about to go pick them up and head to a birthday party tonight for one of their little friends.

Anyway, it's funny how my mind works when I get away from the house and sit here in J's office with literally nothing to do except answer the phone when it rings. I have no laundry calling me, no bathroom toilets begging for pinesol, no dishes to be scrubbed, rinsed, and loaded in the dishwasher. In a word, I have nothing to distract me from thinking, writing, and praying.

Nothing except for J's candy basket that is presently full of Almond Joy candy bars.

I'm watching the winter clouds roll in, the big semi-trucks drive by, and a very long train rumbling into big D on the rails.

I just looked inside J's desk drawer for a pen and found an invitation for our customer appreciation dinner tomorrow night. A dinner I knew was coming but hadn't been told the final details.

I'm glad I opened the drawer.

Furthermore, I was studying the old pictures of the kids that he has on his shelf behind the desk when I discovered my Arthur Court serving spoon propped up there looking all regal and lonely and very crusty....I've been looking for this spoon for six months. And there it is, still caked with the remnants of potatoes from the a customer cookout we had about that long ago.

It's like a treasure hunt in this here office, I tell you.

This is my husband's most stressful time of year. Actually most of the year is stressful getting farmers their seed, and then helping check on their corn crops, and then the general monitoring and planting of test plots, and then the weigh wagons at harvest, and then the gathering of all the seed totes, and then the final tallies on each farmer's yield. (I feel certain I haven't described all this accurately, but you get my drift).

And then comes the sales for the next year. He is busy I tell you. Busy providing for us and building a career.

I'm tempted to get really frustrated this time of year because this is it: this is where we find out how the corn did, and what the farmers want for the next year, and J's time is covered up all the way to Thanksgiving. Actually I do get frustrated more than I care to admit...these last two months before Thanksgiving are a hard push for him, and that trickles down to me and the kids. But oh, the sweet mercies of Thanksgiving Day, when all is said and done and my dear beloved can finally relax a little and breathe a sigh of relief.

Thanksgiving Day around here is truly a day of thanks for us. Of course, I know it is for you too.

But as I sit here and think about the year, and smile at all the little chicken-scratched post-its that cover J's desk - post-its that are filled with phone numbers and corn yields and all sorts of CORN CODE as I like to call it - I am filled with love for this man I married, who is working hard for us. I am filled with admiration that he desires to do a good job, serve his customers, and make a good living.

I don't take it for granted. I don't ever want to take it for granted.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this except to say that I'm grateful for this quiet time in J's office....in his world of corn.

That sounds pretty funny, especially even now as I just looked to my right and saw several ears of corn from some guy's field on top of a box across from me in his office. I am not kidding - I am surrounded.

But I am so very thankful for all these things.

Not the least of which is finding my potato-caked serving spoon.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.....and may all your platters, pyrex, and silver be returned to you crust-free.

In This Last Week of October......

 - I broke my inner vow to not fix any desserts this week and caved with a baking extravaganza of Pecan Pie with a side of whipped cream:

 

 - My son, in an effort to conceal the fact that he had a tee-tee accident on the floor(even though his pants were obviously soaking), proceeded to cover up the scene of the crime with these buckets:

 

Not only do these eight dollar buckets from Sam's serve as helmets, turtle impersonators, Easter baskets, and toy gatherers, they also "discreetly" camoflage evidence of wayward behavior. They're international masters of disguise, I tell you.

Best money I ever spent.

 - I am eagerly anticipating the "hard" freeze we're supposed to get any day now. Every night J and I watch the weatherman and his upper level disturbances and wonder, "Will this be the night?"

By the way, J refuses to turn the air conditioner off until it does indeed freeze. And we can't even consider shutting down the ceiling fan.

 - I have just discovered Francine Rivers' Mark of the Lion trilogy, written way back in 1993ish. Oh my. These books, based in Rome and Ephesus about 50+ years after Jesus was crucified, tell the story of Hadassah, a young Jewish Christian who survives the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Titus and is taken captive back to Rome.

People, these books are reading my mail. I realize they've been around for awhile, but golly, I feel as if Ms. Rivers wrote them yesterday in direct response to some issues I myself have been facing lately regarding forgiveness, love, and that incredible thing called REDEMPTION. I just started the third and last book, and I am a sight this week.....I can hardly wait to get to bed every night and snuggle in with my little purple booklight under the covers and read until midnight or one in the morning. I've even cast aside my newest issue of Southern Living, and I've not even thought, I tell you, NOT EVEN THOUGHT about catching up on our DVRed episode of Chuck from Monday.

These books are that good, y'all. Of course, if you've ever read Francine Rivers, especially her landmark book Redeeming Love, you know of what I speak.

 - And finally, my son is batting the baseball with astounding consistency for an almost three year-old, my daughter is learning to crack eggs efficiently as we happily cook together, and my husband is on the home-stretch of another successful year of corn, corn, and more corn.

I am blessed.

A Summer Memoir (Reader's Digest Condensed Version) - Part I

So many thoughts and vignettes have run through this brain of mine that I made a "mental note" to retell on the 'ole blog......yet those "mental notes" are somewhere lost in the deep recesses of my mind, having never made it onto paper (or rather the computer screen). Yesterday, this post of Antique Mommy's perfectly summed up exactly what has happened in my own little mind world - wonderful anecdotes and little funnies the kids say that I have great intentions of writing down, only I forget to write them down...and thus, those anecdotes are forgotten.

So today, for my own peace of mind and your questionable reading entertainment, I thought I would recap what I can remember about our summer adventures and events, though the specific details and funny comments made by the kiddos or my onery husband might be a little fuzzy.

So without further ado, I shall begin the memoir with an ode to America via this pic of the kids in front of our Memorial Day flag:

I don't know about you, but our nation's flag strikes a chord with me - especially in these uncertain times. Just yesterday, my good friend Shelly was commenting on the latest "politically correct" movement going on Washington and this was the jist of her words, "It feels like our nation has blurred the lines of morals and absolute beliefs to the point that everyone is confused. I get confused. Yet all I know is to keep going back to what God says in His Word. Thank goodness we can still do that."

Amen.

Next up: the Great American Couch Giveaway and Remodeling Extravaganza......

Though clearly this couch is dated and sad-looking, the above pic brings back a flood of fond memories for me. Thankfully, we found a good home for the blue beauty. And people, I have pics coming in the next post of the new chocolate brown masterpiece sitting in my den. I am in love.

One of our main events this summer was to pour a new porch off our den in order to alleviate a leakage problem caused by a rickety old deck built by the previous owners. So, while the inside living areas were being spruced up, our outside living area was getting a makeover as well. However, the cement truck that backed into my yard in order to pour said porch made quite a mess everywhere else. But you should see the yard now - it is LOOKIN' GOOD.

Yet, my attempts at laying a brick border along the porch for my flower beds have fallen WAY short. Apparently, I was supposed to prepare the ground and even it out before burying the bricks in it. Furthermore, I should have made sure there were enough bricks to finish the project before starting it. But that's all about to change, my friends. I've located an ample supply of bricks to finish the job. Since our small town does not have a dedicated brick store, I had to use my wits (i.e. drive around town looking in alleys for unwanted extras lying around - I can't believe I'm even admitting to this) to locate the exact bricks I needed. This would have been a lot more simple had I just driven to Amarillo to Acme Brick and loaded up a pallet, but alas....I didn't need a whole pallet of bricks, and also... I prefer to do as much business locally as I can. It boosts our little small town economy...and helps make our alleys beautiful while introducing myself to the neighbors. Hee hee.

And you'll also be relieved to know that I have hired our handy yard man slash odd job hero to finish the brick-laying job. I know my husband is relieved.

And by the way, my husband is NOT the yard man. ALTHOUGH he could be if he wanted to be. But he doesn't want to be.

Which brings me to this last picture of the day:

This is J's new grill. After years of touting the Big Green Egg's superior cooking abilities (albeit excruciatingly LONG cooking times), one of J's buddies came forth selling the newest MUST HAVE for outdoor grilling -  the GMG wood pellet grill. I have no idea what GMG stands for.

However, it cooks WAY faster than the Green Egg. Furthermore, J cooked SIX racks of ribs for a seed meeting the other night ALL AT THE SAME TIME in four hours. On the Green Egg, this would have taken twnety-four hours because it can only hold two racks per cooking period.

But the Green Egg is not without purpose. It still cooks chicken to tender perfection - better than the wood pellet grill - but it takes forever and ever to heat the grill to the right temp. So, it has found even greater purpose shading a particular section of grass on the right side of our yard ......

People, if I could lift the Green Egg into it's new, improved, and space-efficient metal stand, I would. But I can't. And the hubby is in no hurry to move it since he has fallen in love with the GMG (Good Men's Grub? Great Minds Grillin? Green [Egg] Must Go?)

And so the Green Egg sits. In the yard. Turning the grass underneath it brown. Pining away for the owner who recklessly abandoned it for a newer, faster, and sleeker model.

Tomorrow, I'll show you what else is sitting in our yard that on the contrary has NO LACK OF LOVE, though its purchase usurped my desire and need for the new, stylish, washable, and gorgeous dining room chairs I found in the Ballard Designs catalog.

So I too, like the Green Egg, am pining away over lost love.

Happy Friday, friends.

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and the Edge of Darkness, Finale

Thank you for coming back. I'll try to wrap this up and make it worth your time.

After J declined the flight offer from the AA rep and hung up the phone, all the events of the past several hours suddenly took their toll on us both, and we rode in silence for a while.

Truthfully, having already made peace in my mind that we were going to have to stay in Dallas one more night, I wanted to make the best of it. Of course, I couldn't wait to get my arms around those little ones that I knew were wondering where in the world we had gone.... but at that point, it seemed we had no other choice.

Oh, but I had forgotten about that car option. J, on the other hand, had NOT.

I love him. I love that J came out of that movie ready to go to war for the sake of getting us home to our children. I love that his mind thinks of all the options and does not hesitate to play all of the cards. I love his determination and the steely look on his face when he is trying to right a wrong, even when the world is against him.

And even though I really wanted him to CHILL (and I think I actually said this to him at one point), oh how nice it was when we drove that little compact rental car into Amarillo at five in the morning going 30 miles an hour on snow and ice. We were home. We were in the same city as our babies. We were going to get to wake them up in the morning.

Actually, it was already morning. We were going to get to wake them  in approximately 2-3 hours.

Furthermore, after the first initial half-hour of silence, the drive home became a jumping off point for some dialogue about topics that we had not been able to sit down and really discuss in detail in a while; for example, visions for our family, careers and ministry, and -drumroll please - home improvement (Yee-hah!)!

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but the 7 hour drive home was a blessing. To sleep one more night at a hotel would have been a luxury, but it wouldn't have yielded the conversation and time together that the drive home did provide. Sure, talking was necessary to help keep us both awake....particularly for that last sixty miles that took two hours because of the conditions. But our visiting throughout that time was a gift - these days we so rarely get to visit at length with nothing else to distract or interrupt us. Not even our time relaxing at the beach prior to this midnight drive in the darkness encouraged as much conversation and COMMUNICATION.

Though at one point, a train chugged by going the opposite direction and J joked that if the silence had lasted much longer, I could have caught a ride back to Dallas on the caboose. Funny.

And thus the full meaning of the title of this post.

Yes,this two-day airport/car rental debacle was a headache. Yes, our interaction with the various airline reps was disappointing and frustrating. But in hindsight, the inconvenience of it all made our homecoming all the more precious. Standing over those two sleeping toddlers and watching them open their eyes to the realization that yes, their parents did in fact come back for them....well, it was a memory I'll never forget. It was well worth the dark, icy drive home. They're my babies.

I'd go to the edge of darkness and back again to be with them.

To be with J.

God has so tremendously blessed me.

Just to Be With You....

Today is my man's birthday. He would be embarassed for me to write a long essay about his qualities and talents(though it would be very easy for me to do); so instead, in honor of this momentous 36th occasion, I decided to pictorialize some significant moments of his life....

This first pic is with his Mama - what a darling boy - I could just eat him up...

 

And here he is as a new big brother with his beloved late grandfather Paw Paw....

 

When we were first married, I found this pic of him in high school buried in a stash of mementos I was going through... I love this picture of him - so focused and determined....qualities he still exemplifies today. 

 

Here he is with his dad and brother at the farm where he grew up - and even though he isn't technically farming anymore, he is still very much a farmer at heart - and a lover of the wide open spaces...

 

Here he is as the oldest of four  - he says no one gave him the memo about wearing black in this picture....but I think it's a perfect example of his personality because he has never been one to conform...

My husband has no fear - it is a quality I so admire in him -  and here he is about to bungee jump off one of the highest jumps in the world in New Zealand....

 

Again, here he is on this same trip having just jumped out of a plane, good grief, and has obviously landed safely....look at the view!

This trip to New Zealand and Australia was the trip of a lifetime, and the best part was that he and his brother went together....here they are camping in the Outback... 

 

A year later we met and my life was never the same.Within a year we were married...and God gave me more than I ever dreamed in a husband....

 

 

One of the things about J that I fell in love with when we were first dating was watching him interact with his nephew - I knew right off that he would be an incredible dad, and it is one of the things I love about him most still today....

Five years into our marriage, after a bout with infertility, here he is as a new dad with Gracie, and he couldn't be happier...

 

 

And then, tada, the Cashman arrived fifteen months later....

 

A visit to Daddy's office (where he keeps CHOCOLATE)....

 

Reading to Gracie...

Feeding the giraffes at the zoo while on vacation...

 

Trying to console two cold, crying babies at the top of Pikes Peak on this same vacation last fall (we thought it was a good idea at the time...)

 

 Our Phoenix trip last Christmas with J's family... (that's his dad waving in the background....priceless)

 

There are so many more pictures I would like to post , but the point has been made....

There is no one I'd rather live this life with than you J....

 

Happy Birthday to the best daddy, friend, and husband a girl could ever hope for. I'm so glad you were born this day. I love you.

Dinner Impossible

I planned on making chicken stir fry for dinner tonight. Easy. No brainer. Done it a thousand times.

Then, I ran across a new recipe for ground beef this afternoon as I was flipping through a highly reputable southern magazine while the kids napped.

I had all the ingredients. It had a somewhat sophisticated seasoning in it. I'm always looking for new ways to use easy-on-the-budget ground beef.

So I decided to give it a whirl.

And ended up whirling it all the way to the trash can.

As I was putting the casserole together, I began to suspect that it was not going to be all I thought it would be, so I started thinking of dessert options to go with the meal. However, I didn't think the casserole would be a total failure...just something we would eat, talk about how it could be better, and then maybe remake a tweaked version in the very distant future.

It was a total failure. The only way it could be better was to try to forget it ever happened.

J ate it because it is his duty as a husband to eat what is put in front of him. But, he didn't go back for seconds. I ate it because I am a proud woman. I did go back for seconds, and then spilled it all over the floor when I came back to the table.

This was a sign.

The kids would not have anything to do with glop put in front of them. They each took one bite and that was it. No apologies.

The dish reminded me of something I might find in a school cafeteria. Or, better yet, a prison.

Thank goodness I had thought ahead and had shortcakes baking in the oven along with fresh blueberries, warm apple "compote" and fresh whipped cream waiting to redeem the meal.

Except I burned the bottom of the shortcakes because I was busy trying to clean up the glop I spilled on the floor.

The blueberries were a little wrinkly.

AND, after we ate our dessert, I forgot about the remaining apples on the stove while I started the bath for the kids...and, as my mother would say, I burned the snot out of them (the apples, of course).

The burned smell is a gift that keeps on giving.

And the shortcakes were definitely short...short on taste.

Later after bath, Cash got into my makeup drawer and smeared foundation all over his clean face and jammies, and also every piece of furniture marking his trail between the bathroom and the kitchen. Gracie kept taking her jammies off because she was busy putting several applications of Bath and Body Works peony lotion on her body.

So now we have a peony burned smell wafting through our house.

Furthermore, my husband decided that now was a good time to return the movies we had rented a few days earlier. He has impeccable timing.

I searched the satellite for some children's programming to turn on while I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, and found The Incredibles. This kept them busy while I pitched the whole dinner, dessert and all, in the trash.

However, I forgot that The Incredibles gets rather violent at the end, especially when the baby turns out to have what I would call disturbing superpowers, and thus I had to turn it off because I have toddlers.

Right before bed, Gracie requested some almonds to eat. If you recall, she did not eat any dinner, and had mainly whipped cream for dessert. So there she sat, eating almonds at 8:30 pm, like she hadn't eaten in days.

Cash joined in on the almond eating, but since he tends to carry partially chewed up foods in his mouth for hours and then spits them out in secret, I later found bits and pieces of almonds in my water glass after I put the kids to bed.

On a good note, my kids did go to bed relatively quickly and without protest. I think they, like me, were ready to end the evening.

I have never looked so forward to our breakfast oatmeal in my life.

And just now, my husband kissed me goodnight, chuckled, and said, "Have you smelled your hair?"

No, sweetheart, no I have not.

Random information

So I went back to the store yesterday. With the kids.

The whole event was better, but not perfect. I give thanks for the deli lady who gave the kids free slices of cheese - after noticing the crazed looks on their faces since they both were confined to the basket.

And yes - that was part of the problem with Monday's trip to the store...I mistakenly let Cash get out of the basket to walk with Gracie...and then there was that long checkout line....and we just happened to be standing near the Easter displays.

It wasn't good.

In fact, I thought I detected looks of consternation on all the faces of the employees as we walked in yesterday - I think they remembered us. Maybe that's why the deli lady was so generous.

The reason I went back to the store was to pick up extra ingredients to make shrimp and grits. J caught an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay a few days ago where Bobby was challenging someone in the South to a shrimp and grits throwdown. J was so moved by the show that he immediately went to the computer to search for the recipe, printed it off, and left it on the kitchen counter to remind me of his desire to recreate the dish this week.

Keep in mind that we live in the Texas Panhandle, not the Deep Coastal South, and our shrimp comes in the form of a two pound, frozen Member's Mark bag from Sam's Club.

But we tried the recipe last night anyway. It's actually pretty simple, and very heavy, and the first two bites weren't bad.

But, as the eating continued, we decided we better leave the shrimp and grits to the Bobby Flay's of the world, and just visit the Deep South from time to time.

In other news, I am happy to be back online after being strictly forbidden by my husband to stay away from the computer for a few days while the internet "experts"(and I use the term lightly) figured out this virus thing. Meanwhile, J researched new virus protection software to download. Apparently, J feels that some of the blogs I read, as well as some shopping websites I frequent, could pose a threat to the well-being of our laptop.

I believe he said (with a touch of sarcasm) "Can you handle staying off the internet for a few days???"

People, that is just an invitation for a stand-off. I briefly contemplated in my mind staying off the computer for a month just to show him I could HANDLE it.... but why punish myself? It wouldn't phase him a bit, he'd decide to cancel the internet, and I would lose contact with the outside world.

Which probably wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

Finally, to cap off the randomness of this post, my sister-in-law and I joined a Strollercise class yesterday in order to get ready for the swimsuit season looming on the horizon. I am officially the oldest person in the class at almost 36, with everyone else being significantly younger. I am happy to say that I kept up with everyone yesterday - mainly out of sheer determination not to let my age trump me, and I felt pretty invigorated by all those endorphins reintroducing themselves to my body after a long winter hiatus.

Of course, I later took a nap with the kids, and I could barely get out of bed this morning.

Because, after all, I am 36.

Have a good day, friends.

Pantry Veteran

I made salmon croquets for dinner tonight. Much to my husband's dismay.

I am trying not to go to the store until Saturday, and therefore use everything I can in our pantry....these two cans of salmon were the veterans of the entire pantry collection.

According to my husband, there is a reason why canned salmon is a pantry veteran everywhere.

This all comes on the coattails of recently calculating our yearly expenses for our taxes.  Our average monthly grocery bill for 2008 was ridiculously high for our little family of four. So, I have made it my personal goal for the remainder of 2009 to reduce our monthly grocery expenses by $150-200.00.

This is not an easy challenge for me. It will require better planning and using what we have instead of going to the store for one thing, and coming out with ten.  And I am not a planner by nature.

 But, I am determined not to go to the store for two more days. We have everything we need. Hence, the salmon croquet appearance on our dinner table tonight.

However, I happen to like salmon croquets. My mom made them all the time when I was growing up, and it seems she always served them with canned beets and some sort of rice. Now that I think about it, she  was probably at the end of the month trying to use all those lonely pantry veterans out there too. Still, salmon croquets to me symbolize home...and I like the taste of them.

But J most certainly does not.

He called right before dinner to say he would be a little late and what, by the way, were we having? After a few sarcastic static-filled comments when he heard the news, I half expected him walk in the door with a McDonald's or Dairy Queen sack in hand.

I have to applaud him though, because he took it like a man and bravely came home to his least favorite dinner in the history of the world and a house that smelled like canned salmon.

Thank goodness I wasn't serving canned beets as an accompaniment. If I had, J surely would not have come home for dinner at all.

Instead, I paired the salmon with long grain wild rice and fresh asparagus. Describing it like that sounds like the beginnings of a menu item in a pricey restaurant... which is how I could have presented it to J:

    "Honey, for your enjoyment tonight, we will dine on beautifully aged and packed atlantic salmon patties lightly crusted and broiled in a cornmeal canola glaze, served alongside a bed of freshly boxed long grain wild rice, and paired with recently shipped grocery asparagus tips bathed in a salty pepper and dried onion marinade."

And what J would have heard was, "Canned salmon."

As a consolation prize, I made homemade pudding for dessert so J wouldn't count the dinner as a total loss. Both he and the kids were relieved delighted.

And I am proud delighted that I did not make yet another trip to the grocery store. But.. I still have one more day to use what I have....

Friday's menu - beans and cornbread.

This, actually, will go over much better.

Deep in my heart in Texas.

I have a new respect for all those who have gone before me in taking long road trips with toddlers. You haven't quite experienced all of life until you have traveled ten hours in a car with two little ones.

We traveled this weekend to J's brother's wedding. He got married in the woods(literally)of east Texas, just a stone's throw from the Arkansas state line. It was a beautiful, sweet wedding on a piece of land owned by the bride, complete with a wooden cross altar surrounded by daffodils and a grand white tent for the reception. Truly, the ambience was perfect for love and romance.

Which is more than I can say for the ambience in our car. 

Before I had kids, I always said I would never resort to any kind of DVD/TV combo in the car because I was going to be the mom who would always provide an educational and entertaining travel experience for my children, complete with pre-made activities, area research, blah, blah, blah. 

Never say never. EVER.

I would now like to thank every manufacturer IN THE WORLD of the DVD/TV car combo, because without it, we would have made it about two hours down the road before turning the car back towards home - and J's brother and new wife would have received a nice congratulatory gift via the old-fashioned mail service.

Really, though, the kids did pretty good considering their age and the amount of time we spent in the car. Besides the fire alarm sounding in our hotel at 5 in the morning, and a near-miss driving incident with the scooters in the Canton flea market, our trip was pretty enjoyable. It was a long drive both ways with some cries of discontent and one meltdown, but that is to be expected with any kid (or adult, for that matter).

And now that I think about it, one of the best moments was when J reached over and took my hand, nudging me to look in the back at our enthralled children singing the lyrics to the "Go Diego Go" movie. The way he looked at them, and then looked at me...well, I'll just have to amend my former statement....

Because the ambience was perfect for love and romance.