Whatever

"Whatever" is an interesting word. It can mean wildly different things according to the context, voice inflection, and, mainly, the heart of the one saying it. I've witnessed teens rebelliously muttering the word under their breath. The scowl on their face shows their meaning: "Yeah. Right. I don't think so."

Adults, beaten down by tough circumstances, have heavily sighed out the word. Their hardened tone relays their meaning: "I can't do anything about this anyway. Bring it on. I'll attempt to survive it."

Yet the word "Whatever" is the only way to truly serve God! "Whatever" breathed out in a humble prayer is a powerful word. I dare say it is THE most powerful word in the English language. "Whatever You tell me to do, God, I will do for You." If it means going someplace I DON'T want to go - "Whatever." If it means staying when I really WANT to go - "Whatever, Lord." If it means painfully enduring hard circumstances to learn patience or display true peace and calm, then - "Whatever." If it means giving up my dreams and be willing to let God give me NEW dreams - "Whatever You want of me, God."

God doesn't need important people, the rich, or the highly talented. He is not scouring the earth desperately seeking the possessors of special gifts, the most intelligent, or those successful in their chosen professions. He just wants one who will totally surrender. That's it. He'll do the rest. The Bible is chockful of exciting histories of the completely average who turned their world upside down: a young shepherd, simple fishermen, tent makers, a destitute, widowed daughter-in-law, a favored son hated by his brothers, a carpenter, a teenage virgin girl. All had different plans for their lives; all surrendered their dreams for His dreams. All made a difference beyond their wildest dreams. That's because God is only looking for surrender...for those who are willing to say "Whatever".

Cooking for the month

Wow! It is so difficult to work a very physical job 24-30 hours a week, check your children's homeschool work, and have the time, energy, or even brain cells left to blog! Most work days I'm so exhausted upon returning home that I only have the energy to take a bath, throw in a load of laundry, and crawl into bed. Recently, when one of the girls asked for school help, I whined as I trudged past my husband - " But I don't wanna do math!"

"You have to." he replied dryly. "You're the teacher."


Days off are usually spent catching up on school work, house work, yard work, and taking the kid's on field trips. One thing in particular I've been struggling to keep up with is the daily meal question. What will we have tonight? If we are what we eat, then my family is cheap, fast, and easy! OK...enough is enough. I'm going to fix that. In the past I have tried the "once-a-month" cooking books with some success. Unfortunately, my very picky eaters (ummm...every family member but me), didn't like most of the recipes. But I HAVE learned enough tips from my "once-a-month" cooking experiences, running a catering business, and from now working in a bakery (most of our products come in frozen!) to know how to utilize my freezer as another "servant" in my home. So I don't have the servant girls that the Proverbs 31 woman had (although my girls will swear to you that they ARE those servant girls!), but I DO have machine "servants" that she did not have that I can utilize to make myself more efficient. I have a washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, a crock pot, a bread machine, a grain grinder, electric oven, toaster oven, a refrigerator that makes ice, electric weed whacker, a computer (for self-grading schoolwork!), a printer, and a large freezer in the basement!


So...I took the bull by the horns this week when I lucked out and had 3 days off in a row at work. The first day I spent half the day working on unpacking random boxes from the basement (an ongoing project I want to finish before we've been here a year. Help! That is coming up fast!) I then devoted the other half of the day to cooking my little heart out! As I cooked each item I only allowed it to cool slightly before packaging it in a tupperware container or ziplock bag and placing in the downstairs large freezer. I started with an easy one: sloppy joe meat for 2 meals. I then prepared enough pizza sauce for 8 pizzas and froze them in some old tupperware hamburger press containers. I completed the "tomato sauce" section of my cooking by simmering some cheap canned spagetti sauce with some of my own spices and some ground chicken (I literally can't stomach beef). I followed that with simmering a homemade low-fat chicken noodle soup made with lean chicken breasts. I accidently boiled too much chicken breasts for the chicken noodle soup so I made a wonderful chicken salad with Blue Plate mayo (which my sweet mother brought me from Georgia!), fresh celery, and finely chopped pecans. this will not freeze well so I stuck it in the refrigerator to eat in the next few days. I browned several pounds of stew beef and threw them in the crock pot with carrots and diced potatoes. I used a little white wine to recover the good fried flavor out of the frying pan and added it to the crock pot mixture. Yummm....a hearty beef stew for my family.


The next day I had to go to the chiropractor and stop by the grocery store for a few more ingredients. I only cooked for half the day again and I started with my family's favorite breakfast : Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins. I then made a big pot full of a quasi vegetable chili (I have to add a little ground chicken...my husband wants SOME meat!). I tried a new recipe: a lower calorie version of sweet and sour chicken and froze it with some brown rice. I left some out for Rodney to eat for his supper since he was getting home after we left for church that night. I have been trying to avoid products with high fructose corn syrup,which can be very difficult if you pour syrup on your waffles or chocolate syrup on your ice cream. I found a recipe and made both of these! Neither was difficult! Both just need to be refrigerated instead of freezing, however they will last a while in the fridge. I finished up the day by making some fresh ground whole wheat chocolate chip cookie dough. I froze 2 rolls of them to bake later but baked a large cookie sheet of them to cut out to make my own chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches. I have some ice cream sandwich containers from tupperware that I rarely use. I put Breyer's vanilla ice cream inbetween 2 homemade cookies quickly hid them in the freezer!


Day 3: A bread day! I made the best bran muffins ever. But since I only use recipes as a general "guideline" I hope I can replicate these later on! It was a banana bran muffin recipe with cinnamon added...yuuummmm. I baked homemade whole wheat hamburger buns for the sloppy joes, two braided loaves of whole grain bread to eat with the soups or stews, and four whole grain pizza crusts for the pizza sauce I already froze. I baked dozens of corn muffins....some with cheese added...some without. I finished with two containers of corn chowder...an experiment, since things thickened by corn starch sometimes won't freeze well. We will see.


I ran out of time and was scheduled to work for the next four days. No matter. I have a freezer full of good nutritious food! It has been so nice to come home at 5pm and have a nice dinner on the table by 6pm without much fuss. My next day off is Tuesday and I will resume with the basement cleaning and the cooking marathon. Some of the recipes upcoming: Scones with blackberry butter, Orange chicken with rice, Golden Corral's Bourbon Street Chicken with rice, whole wheat waffles with mini chocolate chips, blueberry sauce for waffles, blackberry cobbler, and more desserts (a request from my husband)! I'll let you know how things turn out.


Some "once-a-month" cooking tips:


Some things that sometimes don't freeze well are mayonaise or sour cream based recipes, rice by itself (you can sometimes get away with brown rice in casseroles and one-dish meals), potato based recipes (same thing...you can sometimes get away with them in some casseroles and one-dish meals....like my stew meat with carrots and potatoes), and cooked eggs.

Lessons learned....

Since I have not sent a list of "things I have learned" in several months, I now would like to post a "Top 10 things I have learned from working at the area's busiest chain retail store bakery":

#10 - I do not need to watch TV soap operas. The real thing is so much more dramatic.

#9 - Every bakery worker must have carpel tunnel, shoulder, or foot surgery within a few years.

#8 - ALOT of parents are WAY too hung up on getting the shade of purple just right on little Lola's first birthday cake. (Come on, people! Little Lola is not going to remember this birthday...or the next 3 most likely.)

#7 - Most people, even if in a horrible mood, if treated with courtesy, friendliness, and a understanding ear, will respond with gratitude. (Most people....)

#6 - Some people, however, do not see employees as people at all, but see them as their paid slaves who they can treat with absolute contempt.

#5 - These same people usually will not even meet your eyes or respond to you when you ask "May I help you?"

#4 - A few tortured souls will dissolve into tears if the cake for Sally's graduation is not perfect. (Again, people, get a grip. In the large scheme of things....world hunger, wars, people dying and going to hell....the shade of maroon not being just right for Sally's graduation party is REALLY not life-changing. We'll do our best.)

#3 - I now fully understand why some people drink and play the lottery. (OK, Baptist friends...not saying I condone it....just saying I understand why.)

#2 - The hardest worker...the one that cares the most for doing it right...the one willing to get down on her hands and knees and scrub the floor to get it really clean...is the 70 year old grandmother!

#1 - When a retail store chain hires you as a cake decorator, what they mean is: we want you to go to the dock and load rolling flats of heavy boxes of bread dough and put them in shelves in the freezer...dozens of heavy boxes...every day AND stock the shelves with yummy goodies all day without getting fat AND give free cookies to kids and adults (and super fat employees) AND take out the trash AND take the boxes to the cardboard baler, load it, stand on a stool and pull down the gate and crush the boxes AND wash baking pans...lots of them AND price everything AND learn a CAO gun and scan out all old products AND go retrieve and organize product in a negative 20 degrees room size freezer where, even with a coat and gloves on, you freeze AND bake cookies and sometimes pies AND refill and decorate the cold case every 3 days AND ice cupcakes AND slice people's bread AND take orders AND spray down a cement floor with a hose and squeege it dry AND decorate cakes. Lesson learned.

God Winks

A few months ago, I read a book called "When God Winks at You", subtitled "How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence" by Squire Rushnell. It is a much "lighter" book than I am used to - no deep theological debates...mostly stories of large or small things that "just happened" to people at exactly the moment they needed a sign or confirmation or encouragement. It was intriquing to me because so many times I have experienced this. And so has my eldest daughter.

My daughter, Vickie, came home from a wonderful "gap" program called Impact 360 in May 2007. Impact 360 (http://www.impact360.net/ ), while giving her 18 college credit hours, teaching her how to live in Christian community, giving her a community internship at the local Pregnancy Resource Center, and arming her with a solid Christian worldview, ALSO made her even more adamant about not incurring any debt. She is considering missions as her life's work. She also didn't think it was wise, as a woman, to saddle a future husband with a wife's educational loans. So....she decided she couldn't afford to go straight into college like all her other friends. Her frustration increased as she emailed and talked on the phone with her Impact friends that were enjoying college life and then crawled into the bottom of her little sister's bunk bed to retire early so she could get up before light to make greasy donuts and decorate cakes at the nearby Ingles. Near the end of her friends' first fun-packed semester she told me in tears that she still did not have enough money to go to college and would have to delay another semester. I felt for her so that I began to ask her to consider maybe a small loan so she could start in January 2008. "Maybe", I said, "You are being unrealistic to think you will have NO debt from college."

But she was determined to wait on the Lord. "No Mom. I am NOT going into debt for college. If God wants me to go to college now, He will provide the means."

And that He did. The DAY before classes started at Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, GA, Vickie got a call from their offices saying she should show up for classes. The cost? The small amount she had in her account. She didn't know how she would continue after that but God had shown her a verse in her Bible study and devotion that very morning that (Joy's paraphrase) when God tells you to go...you don't even say goodbye to family...you just GO!" She went to Ingles, quit her job, threw her possesions in the car, and took off the next morning before dawn. When she got there the office told her that her work/study could be crisis pregnancy center work, something she was already trained to do, and that her post box number was 47, her favorite number; the school didn't know either of these things. It WAS as if God winked at her as He provided. Since then He has provided a FULL scholarship for her at Truett-McConnell.

This summer God winked at us again through Vickie. Vickie had signed on for a second summer as a staff member for the Worldchangers organization ( http://www.world-changers.net/ ). She ended up as part of the TX staff, which meant she would be even further away from us in the Cincinnati area. We were all very upset about this because, after a quick visit when Truett let out for the summer, we would not get to see her again until Christmas! Then I get an excited phone call from Vickie....her TX team was going to have to drive to a different area during an off week to take care of an inner city project. That project was in Cincinnati! Out of all the other teams, only the TX team had that week free and they were going to have to drive from Texas, manage the Cincinnati project, then drive back to Texas for the rest of the summer. Just a coincidence? I think not! Not only that but a second member of the TX team just had a brother and sister-in-law move to a tiny, little town near Cincinnati two months earlier...that tiny, little town was Walton, KY....where we live! AND that brother and wife was about to join our church! Crazy! Both families enjoyed some time together.

God doesn't always work so blatantly, but I challenge you to look for it. Did that friend "just happen" to call when you were feeling so lonely? IS it a coincidence that another homeschool family with a daughter exactly your daughter's age moved into town two months before you and are visiting your church? Were you really "just lucky" to have asked for a cake decorating job in that store JUST after their main cake decorator retires? I submit that we "hear" from God much more than we think. But funny thing is - you have to be looking AT Him to see Him wink.

I will serve you while I'm waiting....

As I was driving home from choir practice tonight, I caught the very end of an intriguing song on the radio. I didn't remember till I googled the lyrics that this song was from the movie "Fireproof". The words struck me as revelant to where I'm at and where several of my friends are. We are in limbo and waiting for God to tell us what our next move is. But this song is a reminder that we should not just be "doin' nothin'" while we are waiting for our answer. I've seen people paralyzed by not knowing God's will for their life...so they do nothing. But so many things are discovered ON the journey. So many times I have "accidently" stumbled onto my answer as I was continuing to serve God in other ways....while I'm waiting...

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I'm waiting
I will serve You
While I'm waiting
I will worship
While I'm waiting
I will not faint
I'll be running the race
Even while I wait

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it's not easy
But faithfully, I will wait
Yes, I will wait
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve You while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting
I will serve you while I'm waiting
I will worship while I'm waiting on You, Lord

Process of elimination

Right now I have several young friends that are searching for God's will in their lives. Well, what Christian isn't really. Several have expressed such frustration when I tell them to keep praying for God to show them His will. "But I HAVE and things keep falling through. I've seen no lightening bolt with the note attached. No doors flung open yet." I know that frustration. I've expressed it myself in the past. In some situations God has made His will abundantly clear to me. And that is amazing since I am so dense! Many times He has thrown people into my path SEVERAL times before I say "Oooohhhh, you want me to help THAT person!" (Can almost see God sighing and slowly shaking His head.) Sometimes a door has flung open so fast that I don't even know what is happening till I'm pushed through the door and halfway into the room before I can even reflect and think "Wow, this is definitely YOUR will, God!" But with much greater frequency, God's will is revealed to me in the slow agonizing closing or even slamming shut of all other windows and doors except the right ones.

Fresh out of high school with a straight "A" average....SO MANY windows and doors open. Would I continue with my goal of being a medical technologist? Should I continue further than that? I was smart and driven enough! A scientist? A doctor? I wanted to go away to college! SLAM! No scholarships. So I stay at home and go to Georgia State University...but I DO meet my future husband close by. SLAM! After 2 years of pre-med and working at a hospital I don't even WANT to be a medical technologist any more....now what? But I do get married, move to a quaint small town. SLAM! Pregnant...within one year? But we were going to wait at least five!!!

But four years after the birth of my precious son, I find out about homeschooling...which leads me to start a local homeschool support group...which leads to my husband and I opening a homeschool supply store for 3 1/2 years, giving Homeschool 101 classes, and personally mentoring many families in how to homeschool and raise a special, different generation until the Lord. I even started a second support group and became the homeschool "guru" of the general area. Then SLAM! After the birth of my fourth child (who never slept more than 30 minutes at a time for two years!) my health went downhill fast and we had to close the education shop. Now what?! Well, concentrate on homeschooling my four children while I work a little part time job which allowed me to throw myself into church work (library, drama, VBS, etc). THIS was my mission field and I was good at it! Mentoring younger women, becoming assistant Sunday School teacher ("Hey, I'm pretty good at teaching! I like this!"), becoming the best VBS teacher ever, organizing the best mission fairs ever, directing sermon starter skits, and even some Christian dinner dramas (What fun!) Then a window squeaks shut and I am pushed through at break-neck speed through a door as the founder, chairman of board, then director of a crisis pregnancy center! Then as a two-time director for the community theater! Wow! What an interesting life! And I have not even told you half of it! But you get my drift, don't you? The most interesting turns in my life happened not because God presented an opportunity to me on a silver platter; they happened because of a closed door or something that, at that moment, was a painful paring down of choices. A big "Road Closed" sign. So I took the turns and my life so far has been much more interesting and exciting than I would have ever dreamed! I don't for a minute think that it was an accident that I ended up married, a homeschool mom of four, in a small town less than a hour from Atlanta, GA. It was God's will ....even if I did have to find it out one closed door or window at a time....through the process of elimination.




Some skits and dramas Rodney and I directed
Vickie and Christy in a church skit

Michelle, Russell, and Jeana...sermon starter

"If the Good Lord's Willing and the Creek Don't Rise" community theater

Crazy cast of "Holy Cannoli" our first community theater dinner drama

Lost and Found

The girls and I have been enjoying a new pastime....bird watching! I was so upset about having a dinky little backyard which backs up to everyone else's dinky little backyard, that I set about immediately trying to turn it into a miniature paradise. Rodney cringed as a spent precious money on trees, shrubs, and mulch. But he protested when I bought THREE birdfeeders (WHAT?! Your mother bought ANOTHER one? WHY?!) He definitely did not understand the logic of essentially pouring money into 3 feeders and watch them being quickly drained. I mean, we were already spending hard earned cash on a huge outside dog, a cockatiel, a canary, and our recent acquisitions: two dwarf hamsters. Why, he wondered, would we now commense to feeding wild animals also? When I purchased the bird-house-on-a-stick, he really thought I had lost it.

"Didn't we already have two birdhouses?"

"They aren't the right kind and I don't have a pole."

*Long, drawn-out sigh*

I AM feeding a few too many Brewer's Blackbirds at the feeders. (dang greedy varmits!) But now the birdhouse is paying off. We have a beautiful momma and daddy tree swallow raising a family! It is so much fun to watch them taking turns going in and out of their little house. The daddy sits on our fence to watch out for lurking dangers and actually covers the hole to protect his babies when he senses danger is near! (Even if it IS just me with a garden hose watering two nearby raspberry vines.) He will allow you to get quite near before he flies into the birdhouse so Michelle took some great photos of him from just three or four feet away. I wondered out loud why we have never made a bird sanctuary before. Ah yes....because of "Shut-up."

Shut-up was our part-time cat in Jackson, GA. We did not adopt Shut-up; Shut-up adopted us. He really belonged to, what Becca called, our "back-door" neighbor...but he never went "home". When he first starting living on our front porch, he would meow constantly, a loud bawling meow, to get us to pick him up, give him attention, and feed him. My easily irritated daughter, Vickie, promptly named him "SHUT-UP"!!! The name stuck. Shut-up in some ways was more like a dog; he would show his affection by licking you on your face and he loved your attention. Everyone agreed he was the perfect cat.

When the time for our move to Cincinnati area was quickly coming, we were debating what to do with Shut-up. Rodney said legally the cat still belonged to the "back-door" neighbors so we would have to ask permission if we took him. Since we were going to live in an apartment for a least a couple of months we were also debating where we would put Shut-up; Rodney is allergic to cats in the house. But, alas, the decision was made for us. Just a week before Rodney left for Cincinnati, the girls heard a commotion in the front yard and found, to their horror, that the "back-door" neighboring kids where trying to catch Shut-up and put him in a carrier. When they asked why, the neighboring kids said that they were moving in the morning and taking their cat with them! My girls came in crying. They said "Momma, don't let them take him - Shut-up hates them!" But I pointed out to them, while that was true, that Shut-up wouldn't be living with them anyhow. He was a smart cat and would find another family like us that he liked better and live with them! They agreed....but we all still miss Shut-up.

However, if we still had Shut-up, we would NOT have birds. Shut-up was quite the efficient bird hunter. It was the only thing I DIDN'T like about Shut-up. Along with the offerings of a freshly killed mouse on our welcome mat, we also would find a clump of tail feathers. Yuck. So we have found that one door being slammed shut often opens another one. We lost the best cat in the world...sad thing. But we have gained a new-found love of turning our soon-to-be-miniature-backyard- paradise into a bird and butterfly sanctuary. The liquid twittering of our new tree swallow family is a healing balm.