Thanksgiving

This year my thanksgiving is deeper than my normal...in a year everything I knew, believed and trusted was stripped to an ugly rawness. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty....in the dirt of faith I grew....Oh man...everything and anything that truly matters in my life is there because of HIM. In HIM I trust...My new moto is day by day or in Amharic kas by kas...I am thankful for today.

Splendor

I tend to find myself in the most incredible places with the most incredible people to serve the most incredible God and yet....my biggest fear is that I will somehow and somewhere forget or minimize how incredible it all is..My prayer. My hope...is that I will NEVER lose the wonder, the sense of awe...the beauty and awesomeness that life is meant to be....

Cooking up a Family

Have I ever wrote about how much I love cooking? I love it. I love everything about it. I love preparing the ingredients. I love chopping. I love sweating over the stove. I love choosing between following precisely a proven recipe or creating my own masterpiece. I love how science and artistry work together in the kitchen. You have to use both. One without the other...or at least in my experience ends up being a disaster. I love the smells. I love the expectation you get...wondering if your hard work, dedication and plan will pan out. I love tasting everything as it cooks. What's it missing? What does it have too much of? How can I fix it? Can I make it better? I taste. I analyze. I adjust. It's like the one thing throughout my day I can actually control the outcome of (too the extent of my knowledge and/or creativity). I even love seeing the mess that is left behind! It's a reminder of the process. The bigger the mess, the more I pour into it. In my home of feeding 9 or more every night...the mess is HUGE! The clinging of plates, utensils, dishes and my screaming orders at everyone drowns out everything. It's like the world stops. Nothing else matters. The kids aren't getting bigger. Life isn't moving fast. Bills are waiting. School is on hold. All that matters is THIS moment. Then we sit and no matter what is happening...we pray. We give thanks. Yeah...some nights we are heavy with thought when we eat. We are frustrated with each other. Someone may get sent to their room. It can get loud with chatter. Everyone asking for more before I even take my first bite. Complaints that they want Kraft. Yeah....and some nights we are smiling as a family. Everyone is engaged and happy. We are enthralled with stories from each others day. The air is filled with "This is the BEST dinner ever mommy"! The thing is...no matter what I cook, the way it tastes, the mood my family is in, the mess it creates...time stops...the world comes to a halt. It is about this moment...where science meets artistry. You are sweaty, messy, creative, following recipes, serving, praying it comes together...This is family.



To show how much I love cooking and the process...I share with you my "attempt" at preparing chicken in Ethiopia. *not for the weak stomach or anyone that thinks buying McNuggets from McDonalds is cruelty free...This my friends is Africa!

Read Between the Lines

Last night I got a major case of PAWU. Yeah, got my "panties all waded up" and it wasn't pretty. The thing is...It hurts, it comes on unexpectedly.... like a wedgie in pants you have no business wearing..thus the phrase:) It's surprising. It over takes you.. more often than not it's followed by panic and over reaction. You just want to grab it. Pull it. Heck...even rip it apart. In the midst of it all...I forget ...yeah, it's uncomfortable, but easily fixable. Instead I immediately react then I regret it. I'm not gonna lie, it was instant relief...but it did nothing more than embarrass me as if I just adjusted my panties in public for the world to see. Lesson learned. I can yank on those panties all I want...privately or publicly...thing is...they got waded up because they don't fit. Something is wrong. I can pull. I can panic. I can cuss. I can over react. I can even continue to wear the same old waded up panties and complain that they hurt or embrace the wedgie they cause or even ignore it...OR...frickin' change them! My point is...my bad case of PAWU was MY OWN FAULT! It always will be. I am a big girl and I choose which panties to put on everyday. Yesterday, I wasn't wearing my big girl pair...pretty sure it was more like a diaper. Sticks and stones may break my bones...panties may pinch and ride...and words WILL hurt me, but I will NOT let anything cause me to stumble.

Top Ten Excuses

So...the whole blogging everyday thing hasn't happened....not yet anyway:) I haven't forgotten about it..nope. Not at all. Just the opposite really. I'm thinking about it constantly...It's there..just like the mosquito that buzzed around my ear every night in Ethiopia for a month. Okay, that sounded bad. My blog is not a nuisance. It's therapeutic. It's needed. I need it. I live so much in my brain. Every detail etched in my memory. Every thought a dot on the etch a sketch. Going left. Right. Down. In circles. Sometimes, I can look at it and see God's artistry. Beautiful. Then other times....it looks like scribbles on the wall made by a defiant toddler. So, why? Why haven't I blogged?

My Top 10 List

Starting with the most obvious:)

1. I have 6 kids.
2. I run a growing non-profit (I spend 4-12 hours daily on this)
3. Blog block
4. The last 48 hours I haven't left the bathroom that much
5. Jet lag...spent one month in Ethiopia only to fly straight to Disney World
6. Halloween
7. I view it as another obligation...even though I love it..Yeah...kind of like.... to be honest...dare I say it? Kids. Marriage. Church...etc...
8. The older I get and the more I do...the less I really care about filtering myself for approval. Yet, your support (not of me) but the women I serve means EVERYTHING to me.
9. Just going to say it....What if I spend a whole day writing my whole heart out and NOT ONE SINGLE person even reads it? Yeah...vain. I know....I know I'm not alone though;)
10. I will have to be responsible for what I say.

Whew....now that my excuses are out in the open, it really doesn't change much. I will still go about my day taking care of 6 kids, working on Because Every Mother Matters 4-12 hours a day, stressing about obligation versus relationships in regards to my husband, kids and most importantly my GOD, bathroom breaks from choosing food that I know triggers everything, if I'm going to get hate mail, constant demands for halloween candy, sleep deprivation, writing for the sake of writing and not audience participation and finally laying my head down on my pillow only to be reminded by the imaginary mosquito buzzing around my head...that I am responsible for what I say and what I do...AND it DOES matter!