Top 2 Tuesday: Worry Reliefs

Yesterday when Jonah freaked out because the toaster went off, I couldn't help but chuckle.  I felt so bad for him being so scared, but at the same time I knew he was FINE, because I had the understanding that toasted bread safe in its place on the countertop didn't threaten his safety like he probably thought it did.

That moment reminded me of God's perspective on us.  We worry about so much.  LEGITIMATE worries we exclaim.  But God knows that our soul is secure if we've accepted Him.  So we're fine.  Anything in the world could happen to us and we're fine - and that's just it.  It's the world.  We're not made of the world.  It's a wonderful place to live and there's really so much good about it, but there is chaos and destruction too, and our souls are protected from that.  It's a temporary location for us.  We're made of spiritual stuff, not material stuff.  I've always liked the saying: 'We don't have souls: we are souls. We have bodies.'  Of course God doesn't like it when we're hurt or afraid, and our souls aren't immune from the experiences of this world - in fact they are shaped by them. But God has that sixth-sense-toaster-understanding that it's still OK.  We won't perish in the face of adversity.  We'll actually do the opposite: grow and thrive.

Our Sunday school teacher mentioned reading a great word from Chuck Swindoll on worry.  I'm not sure if this is the one he referenced, but I found this article to be excellent.  You must read it.  TODAY.

That is thing one.

Thing two is that cookies also seem to be a great form of worry relief, and last year my MIL took me to a cookie class at the Cooking Cottage here in Boerne where I learned the recipe below.   I am telling you:  YUM.  I love making up a bunch of jars of this at the start of Christmas season.  It's great to have ready for gifts, and I even discovered yesterday I love having it for me!  Easy cookies, all measured out and ready to dump in my mixer (which Jonah seems to love...future baker?) with a stick of butter, an egg, and a splash of vanilla.  The jars are fun to give, but the finished product is also worthy of company or cookie exchange parties!  I treasure recipes I know I can count on (read: I know I can make without crying) for serving.

If you don't have enough cookie sheets or oven space, my MIL (Lolli) realized that having the dough ready on parchment paper shaves some time by having the batches ready for the oven.  I like to use a melon baller for fast (and germ-free) scooping.

They have a funny name, but I learned in the cookie class that "hootycreek" is the what you call a combination of pecans, white chocolate, and cranberry.

                                         

Cranberry Hootycreeks, Cookies in a Jar recipe courtesy of Boerne Cooking Cottage
Only to be made if they help you, not if it will stress you out

Ingredients:

1 1/4  cup            all-purpose flour
1/2     teaspoon    baking soda
1/2     teaspoon    salt
1/2     cup            rolled oats, uncooked
1/3     cup            granulated sugar
1/3     cup            brown sugar, packed
1        cup            dried cranberries
1/2     cup            white chocolate baking chips
1/2     cup            pecans or walnuts, chopped


Directions:

1.  In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.

2.  Layer 1/2 the flour mixture in the bottom of a 1-quart canning jar, then add oats to the jar.  Continue layering the remaining ingredients: flour mixture, granulated sugar, brown sugar, dried cranberries, white chocolate baking chips, and chopped nuts.
3.  Seal the jar, print and attach a printable gift tag...or hand write the recipe tag below:

Cranberry Hootycreeks Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 350* F.  Grease cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, beat together 1/2 cup softened butter, 1 egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla until fluffy.  Add contents of jar, and mix until well blended.

3.  Drop rounded tablespoons onto prepared cookie sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes, until edges start to brown.

4.  Cool on wire rack.

(I didn't cool mine on a wire rack - just let them sit on the sheets.  Don't say that five times fast.)  

Our day

Wake up with a smile (and weird shadows) on the face

Clean the bottles, put the dishes in their place

Catch some zzz's in a shrinking crib 

Stretch a little

Be such a cherub 

Petrified when the toaster popped some bread

Made some cookies for Papa

In whose arms rests a sweet head

My sweet chubby lovey

OH.  He just melts me.

Don't overspend!

Jonah wants to remind you to stay on budget this Christmas shopping season!  Don't spend money you don't have!  Use this awesome tool to stay on track with your spending this month.

Don't have a budget?  YOU NEED ONE!  A budget doesn't have to be restrictive.  It can be whatever you want it to be!  It's simply a PLAN.  John Maxwell says, "A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went."

As Christians, we are called to be excellent stewards of our money.  It's not ours!  It belongs to our Lord.  Make Him proud with your responsibility of it!  He wants you to enjoy it.  He wants you to share it (and by the way the two are the same : ).  He wants you to owe no man anything but to love him, and to flee from debt with gazelle intensity.

How awesome would it be this Christmas season to pay a single mom's light bill for the next year?  Or pay for the repairs on your friend's car?  Build a well in Africa?  Pay for the coffee for the person after you in line at Starbucks?

Wherever you are in your financial journey, find ways to experience giving (and put it in your budget)!  The more financially stable you are, the more giving you can do.  

Do you have debt payments?  Are you living paycheck to paycheck?  Learn more here about living like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else.

Christmas Photography Sale!

I just saw this didn't publish from yesterday!

***

I got little bug down for the night (until about 1:30 or 2:00 probably) 

and wanted to tell you my artwork at Shine Salon is half off this week only!  The Christmas special runs through Saturday!

 I'm going now to finish the meal I started at 2:00 this afternoon.  

He's making his list and checking it twice...

We have had some long hard days lately.  Here's Jonah's 3.5 month checklist:

1.  Puppy dog face gets results - check!

2.  When I splash in my new tub mom and dad get wet and squeal - check!

3.  If I cry when my paci falls out someone puts it back in - check!

4.  If I cry when mom leaves the room she comes back - check!

5.  If I cry when mom sets me down two feet in front of her she picks me back up - check!

6. If I cry when it's nap time I get to sleep on mom - check!

You get the picture.  I don't know if he doesn't feel good or is off from our Tulsa trip or is just older and in a new stage but the kid is working me. Today at 4:00 when I was making my lunch with Jonah strapped to me in the backpack carrier I realized all I'd done all day was put the pacifier back in.  It fell out as I thought that and I looked at Jonah and said, "Sorry buddy.  Mommy needs both her hands to make food or neither one of us gets to eat and we all die.  So you'll have to live without the paci for a few minutes."

(No, I'm not dramatic.  Why do you ask?)

He started fussing and I told him to think about something else.  So we sung the ABCs and then he was fine.  That's right folks.  My child LIVED without his pacifier for a whole 3 minutes.  

Must have been that classical music I played him in the womb. 

 

National Lampoon's Thanksgiving Vacation

We are alive.  Know that the story ends that way.

Since Howard (and I when I'm not running around having babies and whatnot) teach, he is afforded a wonderful full week off for Thanksgiving.  

We, in our naive new parent ways, decided this would be the perfect opportunity to drive across half of God's beloved creation and visit my parents in Tulsa, OK.

Oh we.

Friday night kicked off with our first date night since Jonah's birth and of course, guess what we talked about?

Then Saturday we loaded up the car and headed out.  My 'packing light' plan ended up resembling a natural disaster rescue operation.

The gallons of purified water, first aid kit and backup first aid kit, and month's worth of diapers and wipes are one thing.  But I packed toys.  Our 3 month old doesn't play with toys yet.  

Somehow Howard got our refugee camp supplies into our tiny car and we were off!  

And stopped two hours later to breastfeed.

And change some diapers.

And breastfeed.

And then we made it to our first stop!  Abilene!  Jonah got to spend some time with his precious great grandma.  We call her Gape (Gah-pea).

Then Sunday morning we (and by that I mean Howard) loaded up the car again and we were off!

Until we hit what I can only describe as an iceberg.  In west Texas.  

This huge chunk of ice (what I thought was about 5 feet tall but Howard says came up to about our front license plate) fell off a semi and was in the middle of the road.  It wasn't safe to swerve so we hit it head on.  

It's funny how life is so foretelling.  I have been reading about the Titanic.

So here we are in the middle of NOWHERE at 5 something in the freezing morning and we hit this thing and our heat goes out.

Then the car starts overheating.

Now we're on the side of the road with a car that's cold and won't drive a minute without overheating.

OH.  AND AN INFANT.

We were terrified.  As Howard was trying to figure out what to do I start telling him about this documentary I saw one time about this couple who got lost on foot in a Colorado snowstorm and how they put their baby in a duffle bag to keep him warm.

Howard said his hair stuff was in the duffle bag so we needed to make it to the nearest town by inching along in our car.

It took us 45 minutes to go 9 miles.

And we finally arrived in Haskell!  Yay?

We spent most of the day camped out in the lobby of the AmeriStay motel. Because the gas station was too crowded and the Dairy Queen was closed.

FYI, you can't eat Paleo in Haskell.

But they have a lady there who will be your grandma if you don't have one handy.

It was a Sunday so we stressed about how to get the car fixed and what to do.

One couple at the AmeriStay offered to drive us to Oklahoma City, but we'd need to stop and visit their brother in jail first.

Tempting, but no.

We finally got the car towed back to Abilene where it could be fixed that day, and a saint of a family friend came to get our little trio and take us back to Great Gape's.

This sign hung in the AmeriStay lobby:

I have no doubt about that.

So then on Monday, we tried for Tulsa again.  

This time we made it!  And it only took THREE DAYS!

We had a blast and Jonah loved his first Thanksgiving.  Mom (Nonni) worked so hard and it was so delicious and so special.  And Dad (Poppy) cleaned and tended to our car.  We call Tulsa home The Heritage, and we are always treated to such sweet services and perks as part of our stay. :-)

Yes, Jonah got to watch a few minutes of football.  Sigh.  What can you do.

He even got to watch the Christmas lights come on at Utica Square!

He was more impressed by the football.

He grew up so much in the last week!  Here are all the new things he is doing:

-reaching

-grabbing

-no more newborn baths

-sleeping unswaddled

And he would tell you he's also talking, because he definitely thinks he is :-)

The trip back home was much smoother.  Traveling with Jonah was a bit more familiar now and I no longer felt the need to email everyone I knew to announce mid-trip things like we're going to try bottle feeding in the car.

This time we stopped in Dallas for the night and Jonah got to meet his Great Aunt and Uncle and second cousin!

Our Thanksgiving Day prayer included thanks to our maker for both Elijah and Jonah.  We love our little boys and would be the worse without them.  Here's to making it back home, and to people who love us along the journey to our final home.