Fridays Unfolded #138

It's Friday again!

With most of the hard work behind me, I find myself looking to see what little things I can do to help make the season a little brighter for those around me.  I'm running out of time, but food is always welcome and my features from last week are are all about the kitchen.

We have these little squares of deliciousness from Decor to Adore:

These fun little snowmen, showcased at Home Decor Designs, are the cutest:

And then there is this delightful piece of winter from Simply Suzanne's:

While we are on the subject of food, I wrote a fun little poem this week I thought I'd share:

There are cakes and stacks

Of wispy snacks

Of bars and turtles and pies.

There is food galore

Always there's more

Bread: pumpernickel and ryes.

I stand and stare

Completely aware

Of the joyful festive treats

The January fast

Will come with a blast

On the heels of perpetual eats.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas!

Let's see what you all have to share this week...

How it works:

• follow your hostesses in some way 

Nancherrow

Inspiring Hearts and Homes

Sew a Fine Seam

More Than Mommies

Frazzled Joy

Skipping Sideways

• link up as many posts as you like-recipes, decorating, faith, kids, homeschooling, humor, giveaways…whatever unfolded for you lately
• grab the button and post it or linked text somewhere on your blog
• visit a few links (it’s a party, people!)
• pin only from the original posts
• by joining Fridays Unfolded you are giving us permission to post a linked photo from your shared post
• try to use nice, big photos in your posts.

An InLinkz Link-up

Fridays Unfolded #137

This week.

I don't have words enough to discuss how busy this week was.  Well, I probably do.  But you would be bored to tears reading about it.

Let's just move onto the features from last week's party, shall we?

I have some frozen blueberries and am going to use them in this recipe from Future Expat this week.  Just think! Pancakes without standing over the griddle for 30 minutes! I'm intrigued.

Isn't this the cutest ornament??  She has more examples on her website, Artistic Endeavors.  We are going to make these this week as well.  

This story from Pattie Tierney was so fun to read.  I love stories about things being cherished, lost, and found again.  

Let's party again, shall we?

How it works:

• follow your hostesses in some way 

Nancherrow

Inspiring Hearts and Homes

Sew a Fine Seam

More Than Mommies

Frazzled Joy

Skipping Sideways

• link up as many posts as you like-recipes, decorating, faith, kids, homeschooling, humor, giveaways…whatever unfolded for you lately
• grab the button and post it or linked text somewhere on your blog
• visit a few links (it’s a party, people!)
• pin only from the original posts
• by joining Fridays Unfolded you are giving us permission to post a linked photo from your shared post
• try to use nice, big photos in your posts.

An InLinkz Link-up

Fridays Unfolded #136

Thanksgiving passed us by, a blur of turkey and family and pie and coffee.  I trust the holiday found you thankful, full, and ready to move forward to the season of our Savior's birth.

A dear friend of mine has, over the last few weeks, enlightened me to metaphors surrounding Christmas that I've never heard before.  Or if I have, I wasn't listening.

Truths about shopping and exhaustion akin to the traveling and the exhaustion of a very pregnant Mary.  Wrapping the gifts reminding us of our God wrapping Himself in flesh and coming to live a perfect life for us.  Selflessly giving all month, cooking, giving, wrapping, preparing, all pointing to a Savior who has spent eternity preparing for us, giving to us, selflessly serving and watching us unwrap His perfect Gift.

So much for commercialism and the meaning being stripped of Christmas.

I feel like I'm able this year to see through the propaganda and straight into the beauty bound up in the hustle and bustle.

This post today was a sort of icing on this cake I'm being fed, one of enjoying Christmas, embracing the buying, loving the wrapping (okay, loving the idea of the wrapping...baby steps), and joyfully being full of expectation for the coming of Israel's long-awaited Savior.

We are reading Jotham's Journey for Advent this year, a book I bought three years ago but was always too busy to think about beginning, and the kids are just enamored with this story.  Always, the stories are what astound them.

Last week, I shared a rather long-winded note to mothers and did a lot of Christmas shopping the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  (I actually think I'm almost done. Be jealous.)

Let's see what you've been up to, shall we?  But first, some features from our last get-together:

This card from Paper Seedlings was just precious.  I am not crafty like this at all and am always amazed at the things people can create who have this gift:

I am enamored with chalkboards right now and so was drawn to this cute globe created by Hearts in my Pocket.  

And, last but not least, Elizabeth at Just Following Jesus has done a great job of putting together a wonderful idea for Advent.

We have decorated for Christmas and I'd like to get some pictures up for you.  I, however, am not the photographer some of you are.  So consider them "snapshots" not "photographs."  

Now it's your turn!  

How it works:

• follow your hostesses in some way 

Nancherrow

Inspiring Hearts and Homes

Sew a Fine Seam

More Than Mommies

Frazzled Joy

Skipping Sideways

• link up as many posts as you like-recipes, decorating, faith, kids, homeschooling, humor, giveaways…whatever unfolded for you lately
• grab the button and post it or linked text somewhere on your blog
• visit a few links (it’s a party, people!)
• pin only from the original posts
• by joining Fridays Unfolded you are giving us permission to post a linked photo from your shared post
• try to use nice, big photos in your posts.

An InLinkz Link-up

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The Journey Without End: A Thanksgiving Note to Mothers

My baby was born six and a half years ago.  My oldest is almost eleven.  She is, what they call, a tween.  My middle one?  She's eight going on thirty-two.  What does all this mean for me?  I'm not really sure yet.  But I spent the day today at a friend's house who's oldest is turning seven.

And I realized.  She is in a different place than I am.  

The place where I melted and was rebuilt just a few short years ago.  The place where everything revolves around laundry and dishes and nap time.

I saw it in her eyes - the desperation of a woman who is trying to be everything to everyone and keep the floor clean in the process.  The heart of a girl turned mother who just wants to smile at her kids genuinely and clean perfectly and make the right meals and love her husband and plan the parties, wrap the presents, keep the laundry done, nurse the baby, keep control, love big. You know.

You know.  

I know.

The perfectionism that runs deep and leaves us entangled in a web of deceit.  It's a hard place to live - where perfectionism and ineptitude meet and beg us to pick one.  The place where we are never enough but have to be enough and who, exactly, do we believe?

I don't feel old enough or wise enough to offer advice to anyone.  Especially not mothering advice.

But I do want to offer something.   Because I did, just a few short years ago, nurse the babies and empty the dishwasher and fail at laundry and react all. day. long. Then I cried into my pillow and wondered why I was so bad at it and why was it all so much harder than it was supposed to be?

Oh but there was love and there were playdates and there were giggles and markers and cookies and flour-dusted cheeks, and of course we all know it's not all as awful as some women want to make you believe.  We all know there is true joy in service and that, at the end of the day, giving all you had is therapeutic and Biblical and life-giving.

But it doesn't make it easy.

Here's the thing, though, mother-newer-than-I.  I have a confession for each and every one of you, the ones who just know it will all be easier in a few years.

It's not.  Not really.

Oh sure, the laundry is usually caught up and the I have children who actually help empty the dishwasher and don't just grab the knives and take off running, laughing.  And I know the truth - that right now, when I say, flippantly, "Oh sure, the laundry is caught up," that you roll your eyes and think about how I don't remember how stressful that is.  I know because I did it to.

But I do remember.  I remember that stress and it is real.  But you know what's real to me right now?
What keeps me awake these days?

What I'm going to tell my daughter about sex.  How I am going to prepare her for her body changing and the monthly inconvenience that awaits her in such a short time.  How I am going to help my other daughter through her anxiety issues.  How I'm going to protect my youngest daughter from the things my older girls knew nothing about when they were six.

How do I protect them from the world as they start to enter it?  With one foot inching steadily into womanhood, dragging her sisters right behind her, I find myself wishing my only issue was the crying or the dishes.

Here's the thing.  I read plenty of books about nursing babies.  I did not, however, take the time while I was chasing the toddlers and folding the laundry and nursing those babies to read anything about what to do when they ask you what the f-word is or how to explain that ass means rear-end or donkey, but you can't say it aloud.

We have to talk about communion and what it means and how holy it is and we have to discuss big life issues that, honestly, I don't even understand sometimes.  They need to see me reading my Bible and how I react to their father suddenly matters in a big way because they are watching.  And listening to every word I say.  All day long.  There is no hiding, there is no naptime, there is only me in my sinful, very sinful, state, living alongside them, messing up even more things than before and this time the stakes are a lot higher.

So why do I say all of this?

Because there is a lot of advice and admonishment going around and it looks like this:  "Enjoy it because soon enough it will be over."  Really?  Is it ever really over?  And do we really want it to be?

The problem with all the advice about enjoying it and getting through it and leaving the mess behind you is that it cheapens it.  It pretends that right now doesn't matter.  Only later.  Only when it's over can you be happy because this part is hard, but it's almost over.  What a horrible way to live, always looking for the end of this holy thing you are doing.  What if instead I told you it never ended, only evolved?  Then could you, could I, could we, collectively, stop just surviving, waiting for the proverbial light at the end of this dizzying, mystifying, beautiful, ordained tunnel?

Motherhood is not like some crazy fast ride at an amusement park where, if we can just hold on, we will arrive at the end breathless and alive, giggling loudly, "Wow! What a ride!  Hey, you over there! Is this your first time?  Be sure to enjoy it...it goes so fast! It'll be over before you know it."  Then we wander into the park, looking for the next cheap thrill with which to amuse ourselves.

Motherhood, parenting, loving, purifying, discipling...these are not tasks to be taken lightly. They stand together as a single, never-ending act of worship.

It's not a sojourn, this momentous calling placed upon us by the King of the universe.  It is not a stopping over until something better comes along, until we have fulfilled our duties, or service, only to be thrown aside as "that thing we did once when we were young."  It is, in fact, a journey.  A journey to the cross, to the destruction of perfectionism, to the execution of our flesh, the end of which is only the beginning, where we stand, holding our grandchild in our arms, look up at the face of her mother as she implores, "Does it get easier?  Will I ever sleep again?"  Your heart squeezes tight as you ache for her to know that the sleepless nights wane but the essence of always being available does not.  That her milk will dry up but her tears will forever run in the wake of the child you hold.  And I'll say to her that day what I say to you now and what I believe to be true.  

The problem with always looking to tomorrow for joy is that it robs us of today.  

Motherhood is not something we are supposed to simply survive until its finally over.  It is, in fact, a journey without end.  A joyous, beautiful, heart-wrenching, soul-squeezing, love-filled, miraculous journey.  Every insecure step drenched in grace and love and beauty.

Because a life spent traveling is a life spent living.  You've heard the old adage that we should always choose the experience when given a choice between that and stuff.  We can both agree, even while you change the diapers and clean up the spills, even while I stumble over a succinct explanation of the trinity, that this particular journey is one upon which we were called to commence and therefore, there is life in the walking. There is joy in the giving.  There is hope in the running.  Not hope that it will soon be over...but Faith that it never will be.  And relishing in this truth, loving our lives, slowing down to embrace it all and count it as joy, because it's the life we were given and our Father gives only the most precious of gifts.

Let's be thankful today for the path laid out before us.  That the road we walk has no end.  That we can stop waiting for the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and start pointing out landmarks along the way.  That today, and every day, is right now.  That right now is available, beautiful, meant to be wondered at and embraced in the fullest of ways.

Fridays Unfolded #135: Pies, Salmon, and a New Word

Thanksgiving is knocking down on our door with Christmas following close behind.  For some reason, however, it feels more like January outside than November.

In other words?

It's freezing.  Every day, it is freezing.

I hear we will have some warmer temperatures this weekend.  If they are right, I will sit outside all day and stare at the sun.  I am completely serious.

Around my house, we have been cooking.  The girls and I have been working together creating warm meals and a pie (or two) to help ward off the frost in our bones.  (Did I mention it's cold?)

Let's see what you all have been up to this week...

I think the girls would love to make these little miniature pecan pies from Natasha in Oz.  They look adorable.

This next one is right up my alley.  I adore salmon.  I've never eaten a salmon dish I didn't like and this one from Two Kids and Tired Cooks looks just as good, if not better, than the others I've made.  I can't wait to try it.

This next one is probably my favorite.  It's a new word (we all know how I love those) and it...well...it is just...so me.  I keep turning my head, reading her titles and trying to decide if I need any of them.  You know.  For my own stack of similarly acquired books.

Which reminds me of this quote that someone sent me a while back:

That's it for my week.  Now it's your turn!

How it works:

• follow your hostesses in some way 

Nancherrow

Inspiring Hearts and Homes

Sew a Fine Seam

More Than Mommies

Frazzled Joy

Skipping Sideways

• link up as many posts as you like-recipes, decorating, faith, kids, homeschooling, humor, giveaways…whatever unfolded for you lately
• grab the button and post it or linked text somewhere on your blog
• visit a few links (it’s a party, people!)
• pin only from the original posts
• by joining Fridays Unfolded you are giving us permission to post a linked photo from your shared post
• try to use nice, big photos in your posts.

An InLinkz Link-up

Fridays Unfolded: The Dawning of Winter

This week it began.

The finality of life
The end of fall
The beginning of the season
That undoes us all.

I know death always brings life and the freezing temperatures, fat socks and toasty fires.  I know there is beauty in the season.  Although the older I get, the more I grieve over the passing of life and the long, cold days ahead.

But there are coffee dates with friends where strangers are nice to your children.  There are peppermint mochas and Christmas trees and presents and glee and warmth and love and books and yarn.  There are hot ovens and hot cookies and hot cocoa.  There are epiphanies about my ministry at home that move in with the frost the same as with the sun.

There is redemption even in the coldest and darkest of days.

And there are always Fridays. The day where the anticipation of nothingness or bustling activity rests.

It's time again to share what unfolded in your week, in your home, in your family.  I have really enjoyed reading your blogs this week and getting to know some of you.  I love how different each of you are from each other and from me.  Just as the snowflake's beauty is one of unique splendor, so your creativity is the sweet piece of you that you share with the world.

Some features from last week:

This salad from My Sweet Mission looks amazing.  I think if I could take pictures of food that made it look this good, my kids might be more inclined to eat the uknown things I put before them.

This journal posted by Amy at Delineate Your Dwelling is genius.  I already have it in my Amazon cart and am excited about this.  And while we're here, let's just say the word "delineate" again.  It's one of my favorites.

And last but not least, there is this adorable headband posted by my friend Liz over at The Quick Journey.  I have the privilege of knowing this lady in person and can speak to the fact that her home, her creations, and her children are just as sweet as they look online.

So that's it for me.  What about you?  What unfolded for you this week?  

How it works:

• follow your hostesses in some way 

Nancherrow

Inspiring Hearts and Homes

Sew a Fine Seam

More Than Mommies

Frazzled Joy

Skipping Sideways

• link up as many posts as you like-recipes, decorating, faith, kids, homeschooling, humor, giveaways…whatever unfolded for you lately
• grab the button and post it or linked text somewhere on your blog
• visit a few links (it’s a party, people!)
• pin only from the original posts
• by joining Fridays Unfolded you are giving us permission to post a linked photo from your shared post
• try to use nice, big photos in your posts.

An InLinkz Link-up

Fridays Unfolded: A Party!

So I'm starting something new this week.

I am not a big participator in link parties or online communities. My time is limited and I am always hesitant to spend a lot of it online.  But a favorite blogger of mine, Alison, threw out an idea on Twitter that actually found me intrigued.

Every week, she hosts a link party entitled Fridays Unfolded.  It is unique from the others I've seen in that the only requirement to post is that it be something that unfolded for YOU this week.  What did you create?  What did you learn?  What would you like to share with the world?   There are no boundaries or limits, just inspiration laced with beauty.

Alison, being a creative writer, decorator, cook, and homeschool rockstar, endeavors to admonish you that your week, your life, is worth writing about AND worth reading.

Her idea, with regard to this link party, is simple.  One party.  Six bloggers.  SIX!  She invited me to participate and I agreed to help her encourage women everywhere to unfold their mess, their beauty, their life, love, photos, and inspiration to the world.

So will you join us?

A few guidelines:

• follow your hostesses in some way 

Nancherrow

Inspiring Hearts and Homes

Sew a Fine Seam

More Than Mommies

Frazzled Joy

Skipping Sideways

• link up as many posts as you like-recipes, decorating, faith, kids, homeschooling, humor, giveaways…whatever unfolded for you lately
• grab the button and post it or linked text somewhere on your blog
• visit a few links (it’s a party, people!)
• pin only from the original posts
• by joining Fridays Unfolded you are giving us permission to post a linked photo from your shared post
• try to use nice, big photos in your posts. 

I had the privilege of reading through the last Fridays Unfolded party and choosing some of my favorites.

A few features for you:

I love apple desserts, and this looked absolutely fabulous. I can't wait to to try these cookies from Elizabeth at Just Following Jesus.

This thrift store crate makeover from Bonnie at Our Secondhand House is cute as a button.  I see these crates at shops frequently and may pick one up next time.

I want to go to Rome myself someday and this synopsis of a day in the life of a traveler was fascinating to read. Beyond that, the pictures are breathtaking.  It also reminds me of a really funny story in a book I read this summer that, as an aside, is well worth reading.  

So that's it!  Let me know if you have any technical difficulties following any links or hostesses.  

Now it's your turn.  What unfolded for you this week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Musings

The day is overcast and the leaves fleeing. They can only stay so long before they scatter, the leaves. Set ablaze by cold and fire, the cloak inevitably molts.

The wind sounds different now, the air growing quieter as it no longer hums through the tree. The beautiful dying changes everything.

It always does. 

Empty and bare sits the tree and begs us to remember her dress, the shade under which we sat, the beautiful grandeur with which she rustled in the day.  She cries for us to remember the locusts and the caterpillar and how she housed them all. The birds that nested and sang and the life that they bore. 

She is brave and bold and, naked before the world, she stares us down and says beautiful dying is worth the sacrifice. 

And when she brings forth life again and the wind plays longer in her bough, she will want us to remember her barrenness.  The days she spent bearing no fruit have prepared her for this. The lush bursting with life, the sanctuary for all who need rest. She will be bigger and stronger and more lovely than ever before.

You see, the beautiful dying will have changed everything. 

It always does.

Doughnuts, Messy Counters, and Redemption

My daughter was listening to Farmer Boy this morning and, always, what stands out to us is the FOOD these people ate.  She ran downstairs claiming she wanted apple pie, doughnuts, and pancakes for breakfast.

Um, no.

BUT, I did look up a quick recipe for homemade doughnuts and I fried up some gluten for breakfast this morning.  She was in charge of the powdered sugar and, by "in charge," I mean she dumped gallons upon every doughnut hole that came out of the grease.

Exasperated, I wailed, "You are making a huge mess!"  To which she replied with a deep and powerful truth.

"Yes, but it's a gooey, delicious mess."

She didn't refute the mess or deny its presence.  She simply saw it for what it was - messy, gooey, and...delicious.

I could use some of that perspective.

Day in and day out, my life is, quite simply, a MESS.  The house gets messy, the laundry gets messy, my words get messy, the schoolwork gets messy, my attitude gets messy.

But what's the alternative?  Perfection?  Neatness?  Everything piled up nicely in a row in our quiet little ordered lives? (Yes, Tia, that's exactly how I was thinking I'd like to live.)

But...really?  I mean REALLY?

What if everything always stayed in its place and we lived a life of....of what?  Of sipping lattes?  Of freshly fried doughnuts void of sugar, or, worse yet, covered with a pre-measured portion that was...perfect?  What is our life if it doesn't get a little messy from time to time?  Boring?  Predictable?

No thanks.

Once upon a time, a Man was born in a dirty, filthy, MESSY stable.  He dined with messy people who led messy lives and He made a mess out of their rules and He reached down into the mire and arose a redeemer.  He walked up a hill carrying a mess of wood, bleeding and broken and arrived only to be nailed, thrown in a hole right beside two men - whose lives were a mess.

The cross is messy.  Redemption is messy.  LIFE is messy.

He didn't come to eradicate our mess...He came to redeem it.

He came to rescue the fallen, to hold tight to the wailing, and to whisper loudly to the world His voice of reason and righteousness.  He didn't promise a life of order.  He promised a life of carrying our own bloody cross up a messy hill and dying to the mess that is our flesh.

Will I give thanks for the morning and the counter dusted with flour and the little girl inspired by a book and the sugar all over the plate and the doughnuts piled high with snowy white? Will I see it all from the perspective of a Father who loves me enough to live the mess, give me the mess, and call it all delicious?

I like to think that the more messy things become, the more I'm being molded into the image of a Creator who used dirt to do molding and arrived incarnate in a stable.  I want to be just like a King who sat down with the thieves and whores and wasn't afraid of their mess or the men who hated it.

I'm sure He wouldn't have minded a little extra powdered sugar.

I needed today.

I needed a little girl to dump sugar merrily, call it gooey and delicious, and remind me that this life, this home, this family, this task to which we are called, this living joyfully amidst the messy, it's Kingdom work and it IS a mess.

We are all a mess.

"Yes," says the brown-eyed girl, standing tall on the black chair in the messy kitchen, sprinkling triumphantly, "but it's a gooey, delicious mess."

And her mother laughs.