Skype discovery!

We’ve discovered Skype and are calling each other from upstairs to downstairs. I’m downstairs eating chocolate and talking to my family on their laptop upstairs. My three-year-old will be down soon, because he now can SEE that I’m eating chocolate.

I’d move to protect it, but it’s hard to pry my wrists off the laptop pad to actually see each other...


..... Oh... I think I can do it! No. It’s just too hard. More vultures are coming to steal my chocolate. It’s better than being alone. And, what if I ate it all myself. I’d just have to spend more time away from them doing Zumba to wear off all that sugar.

Skype is cool. Think of the possibilities. Online book club! That’s where I’m headed. How about craft day with friends who have moved....read a story to your grandchildren from another state.... show exactly how that fudge is made on my last post. 

(Mary... are you reading this???)

Grandma's Fudge - No Marshmallow Allowed!

In the summers while I was still a child, I visited my Grandmother on the east coast. She was a German immigrant and came here to this country at 17.

Things I remember about her include her 5:30 a.m. stolen making binges, and her cooking fudge in a pot on the stove. We always waited to see if the batch was going to “turn out”. I don’t remember any not “turning out”, but I was a kid, not a connoisseur. It was a lucky and smart kid who “helped” grandma in the kitchen, because a lot of fudge stuck to that copper bottom Revereware pot.

Grandma was not a recipe person. I followed here with a notepad once in a while, but there didn’t seem to be any concrete measurements to write down. When she died the recipe seemed lost.

Twenty-five years later, I’m now a candy baking, cookie making expert myself and I’ve discovered a recipe for the “Famous Fudge”. All I could remember about Grandma’s fudge recipe was that no marshmallow fluff ever entered her kitchen. I wanted my fudge to be smooth and silky. None were, until this.....which I’ve aptly renamed “Grandma’s Fudge”

In a medium size pot over low heat combine
1/4 c. light corn syrup
2/3 c. half and half
2 cups of sugar
1 square unsweetened chocolate

(get 1/4 c. butter and 1-2 tsp. vanilla out for later)

Butter the bottom of an 8x8” pan.

Cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved. If crystals are sticking to the side of the pan, cover and let them wash down. You can also keep up on this with a rubber spatula. You don’t want remaining crystals on the side after your fudge comes up to temperature.

Cook to soft ball stage 238 degrees.

Next you'll need

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp. vanilla (you can put more, but I prefer less)

Remove from the heat. Dump the butter on the top and then the vanilla.
DO NOT STIR!!!!!

Let the mixture cool to 110 degrees. Do not let it get lower that this.

The old way.... sit at your kitchen table with a wooden spoon. Call the strongest person in your house and have them stir that pot until the fudge loses its sheen. You’ll know it when you see it. You are adding some air to it.

My new way..... dump that batch of fudge into your Kitchen Aid and let it work! Stir it at low speed until it turns a lighter color brown, losing it’s sheen.
Pour it into the pan and butter your fingers to spread it out to the corners.
This fudge improves with age. I like it best a few days later, that’s the way it was when it came in the mail from Grandma at Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our kitchen.

Grief in the Holiday Season - Hope and Peace

Grief knows no season. Our church offers a “Service of Peace” each year. It’s a quiet time in the middle of the “joyful” Christmas season, where those who may be grieving, lonely, under strain, or just blue, can come to be be encouraged, share communion and sometimes tears together. I am sharing this talk I gave because it may help others whose pain may overwhelm them at this time of year.

Our Christmas season 7 years ago was peaceful. Not the kind of peace you casually send on a Christmas Card, but rather the kind that is there when God is the only one who matters, when he is the eye in the middle of the storm. We were expecting our third child. Our son Ben, was 2 1/2 and our second son, Jonathan, just celebrated his 1st birthday.

Although Jonathan got presents, as other kids did, he also got Neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. God always had his hand on Jon. We were thankful that when Christmas approached, Jonathan was recovering from surgery.

Our challenges were just beginning. After telling our doctor what the strange “thing” on Jonathan’s adrenal had turned out to be, he ordered another ultrasound for the new baby. On December 21 we learned that the little girl we were expecting had a diaphragmatic hernia and a slim chance of living. Her little organs were not giving her lungs enough room to grow. We celebrated that year with our unborn daughter, with God and in the quiet, because it was the only Christmas we might have with her.

Jonathan is here today. The “miracle baby” the doctors called him, but our daughter, Elizabeth Joy, didn’t stay here long. Seventeen days after her birthday, the life support machines, the surgery to give her lungs room and all the “miracles” of medicine were not working. We were finally allowed to hold her, because there was not hope. Our beautiful baby girl became lifeless in my arms. A body with no soul. I understood the fact that she was God’s and not mine, and I was understanding that I was God’s and not mine.

God carried us through that year. The next January, we were expecting our fourth child. Still recovering from Elizabeth’s death and her first birthday nearing. The trauma continued, in April, our ultrasound revealed a lifeless body. I came near death, hemorrhaging while delivering a little boy that we already knew was gone.

Through life, there may not be one defining moment. Life is a walk with God. In a world where sin, sickness and death still torment us. How can we find peace? What is it?

It begins with obedience and is found in letting go... denying yourself.. as Paul said.

Denying ourself is to deny the things in our lives that are inconsistent with the glory of God and the highest good of others. It is to let go of self. It meant that I could not spend the rest of my life mourning. Denying myself meant to reach out to others in my situation, teaching them how to survive and to walk with God, yet I was also preaching to myself.

Are you wondering what you have done to deserve suffering, or why God allows it if he loves us? I challenge you to let go of those questions and to refocus on the greatness of God, The better question to ask is....what the condition of your relationship with Him?

I do understand your need for questions. There were months when the world was a foreign place to me. I didn’t know what to ask anymore. God seemed silent. For many months, all it seemed I could do in prayer was hold my hand out, reaching for help from God. The enemy was working hard to keep me down. I came to a point when I knew that for the good of my family, I could not stay in this place. I needed to know what God’s will was for me in all this. I found these verses that were so simple, that I adopted them as my map from god. I repeated the following verses daily to myself and shared them with others who were hurting. Only a person in complete grief themselves can tell others drowning in grief these words.

2 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Be joyful.... always
Pray continually
Give thanks.... in all circumstances
THIS IS GOD’S WILL FOR YOU IN CHRIST JESUS.

My eyes have continued be opened so has my understanding of peace. I could stand here for days and tell you the miracles I’ve seen God do since then in the lives of others, but mainly in me. Things that would not have happened if I had not discovered how passing life is.

When I prayed for wisdom about what I could share with you tonight, in so little time. I sat in silence, waiting for wisdom. A word came, then another. I wrote them down one by one. Sometimes we question that God has given us clear words, but when I studied each word, I saw God’s hope and peace in them. The show how I have rearranged my life and understanding in this way so that no circumstance will be able to steal my peace.

The first was pre-empting, a strange word, I thought as I looked it up. It meant “To take for ones-self”. To let God replace the hurt and confusion we live in with His wisdom. God wants us to be his, wholly and undividedly, His. It also means reconsideration of who we are. We were created wholly for fellowship with God. He is to be THE priority, not a priority.

I find peace and purpose in knowing why I’m here.

The second word was all-sustaining - The Creator of Life carries us. He “supports us from below”. The Maker of the universe cares about our every need and promises that if we seek Him first, he will provide all.

Peace is born again when I relax in his arms.

Third word, re-generating - The Master reshapes us. With each person we love the volume of our hearts grow. When my child died, it left a gaping hole it seemed nothing could fill. It was the space God was looking for to move in.

We find peace when we invite him to fill that.

The fourth and last word was overflowing - For many, peace comes from knowing. I was on a desperate search to know, why? When I needed to fill the painful holes in my heart. I began to flood myself with the things of God. I read about God, I journaled and I prayed. I am still amazed at what happened. God is so generous. He never stopped giving and I never stop asking.

I pray that in your sadness, grief and questioning that the

Pre-Empting

All-Sustaining

Re-Generating

Overflowing

God of Peace
would be your answer.

Fear in the Night

Howling wind and crackling house,

Feet shuffling like a mouse

Too my bedside coming near

In a little whispering voice I hear

“Mom, I’m scared

can you sleep wiff me?”

A storm is hard when you’re only three

Made to be loved

I pull him near

Awoken from sleep, 

he’s filled with fear

Together we seek the Father’s face

The generous giver of comforting grace

In the name of Jesus “Fear, go away!”

This is how in the night, we pray

Laundry 101: Sharing Life and Laundry

When Kid #2 arrived, laundry became like the plague at our house.   It seemed long ago, but I knew I had to get  grip on it all.  I tried putting a basket in each kid's room, but then I had to re-sort that into the color groups every time I needed a load, and I had a mess on the floor.   With younger kids, there is no advantage to this system, since you do it all anyway!  Fortunately, they grow up and eventually, become useful.  Helping can start as early as age three (don’t be picky) and complete autonomy can be achieved by age 9 (plus or minus a year for some).

To some, our laundry management system may seem a dull topic, but for those drowning in laundry despair, perhaps a new idea will offer you a glimmer of light.  I remember a time, not to many years ago, when I felt overwhelmed and laundry just seemed to put me over the edge (or it could even have been at the root of it all).   

When we added the third child, we also upgraded the washer that came with our home to a large front loader.  A big washer makes a big difference!  In these tough economic times, it may not be so easy to upgrade, but it also could be a time when you could get a deal you can’t pass up!   

These days, laundry goes pretty smoothly.   Our boys are 10, 8 and 3 so they are active helpers.  Here’s how we manage it:

• We have sacrificed a corner of our room, but you can choose any place that three tall sorting bins fit.   
• We have these three bins together with a sign over what goes in each, dark, warm for lighter colors, and whites.  
• Everybody puts their own things in to the proper bin.  
• Each morning, one child takes the first load down.  He just has to fill a basket from the fullest bin.  
• Between our class subjects, I pick a child to “rotate” the laundry,  meaning move from washer to dryer or dryer to basket.  
• Once its in the basket,  a child who is strong enough to carry it up, takes it.  
• During the afternoon, we have a laundry “party”.  We all fold, stack and put away that day’s loads until it’s done.  

If you have room, your kids can be turned out with their own with their own three bins and they then become completely responsible for their own laundry.  No matter what method you choose, a routine and involving your kids is essential to success.  They wear the clothes and they must help the family.  I have one son whose big on rewards, but when it comes to laundry, I simply reply, “You get to wear them, you get to wash them. You may choose not to, but you will either be cold or will eventually smell pretty bad.”  

Training is essential.  Give them each a job according to their skill level and insist that no one is excused until the job is done.  Your goal should be for them to be completely self-sufficient (eventually).  I don’t believe that allowing piles and a lack of order should be allowed in their room either.  They need to have standards for themselves and to know basic hygiene principles. Your sanity and their independence are important!  

Make it fun!  Laundry can be a fun time to put on some music and enjoy each other’s company.  Set a timer and see how many baskets you can get done in 20 minutes.  

If you have great laundry tips, PLEASE take a moment to comment below.   I’m not an expert, only a survivor.  

Blessings to you! Anne