Joyfull Living

While changing my profile picture recently, I noticed the date of the beginning of my blog was August 2007.   I also noticed the post numbers recently - they are over 1,000!  It shocked me that I found enough to say to write over 1,000 posts??!!  There is just something in my personality that takes things seriously.  I hate to fail, so I try to do a good job!  When it come to something that I like (like blogging), it just becomes a part of me and sometimes, consumes me! The purpose of this blog in the beginning was to encourage women in their walk with God, in their roles as wives and mothers to grow and become all they can be with God's grace and strength. Several times a day things that I did or learned would become blog topics!  I learned and long to share that God can do a transformation in the heart of those who are willing and that He is never finished with us.  This is a journey that we as women are on, a place to grow in His love and grace and to share it with those aroun

February has flown in from out of nowhere!  Although this is the month of love, the next quality to work on in my Journey To Excellence is FAITH! I struggle with faith.  Not in the fact that I put my faith in God because of all that He is or that I'm unsure of His salvation, but my struggle lies in exercising and growing my faith. My temperament and personality are mild, easy going and peaceable.  I don't rock the boat, try not to cause trouble, hate conflict and like to glide easily through life.  I like 'comfortable faith'!  Secure faith that I can wrap my mind around. But, faith is like a muscle.  It must be exercised, tested, tried.  Comfortable faith is dull and lifeless while excellent faith is vibrant, exciting, strong and secure. Through the last few months, my faith has grown.  Through some trials, tribulations and battles, my faith was exercised because these things reminded me of my weakness.  When my resources are exhausted, when I can't change the

Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. II Corinthians 9:10-11 Growing up in the city, seeds, gardens, soil were not terms I associated with food!  Planting and harvesting were as a foreign language, never spoken of! Moving to the country as a teenager, then marrying one who was raised in the country, seeds, planting and garden harvests became a way of life.  Still, it never grows old, seeing how a small seed planted in the ground, breaks the ground open and grows into a treasure to be harvested, a living thing!  As a Christian, the terms, seed sown, fruits, harvest also apply to our lives.  We know what we sow, we will also reap.  We know about the fruits that should be growing in our hearts – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc. We know that seeds that choke ou

Just in time for Valentine's Day! A free printable to put in your home, to let those around you know just how much you love them, and why! Go to C r eative Juice to download this free printable.  Then, put in in a 8X10 frame, and write a special message on it each day with a dry erase marker. 

I love my kitchen!!  Not because it's glamorous, spacious or efficient.  In fact, it is 23 years old, with not many improvements made in it!  Same wallpaper, same cabinets, same appliances.  I love it because it is the heart of the home and it enables me to bless my family through it. As I write this, the kitchen is multi tasking!  There is bread being kneaded in the bread machine, strawberry oatmeal bars baking, beans soaking for dinner and tea steeping for an afternoon treat! My relationship with my kitchen has not always been so intimate.  My visits there were short, sweet and completed.  Cooking hasn't always been so important to me.  Get em fed and move em out was my attitude.  But, alas, with three sons, they have to eat...alot! Since I have been a stay at home mom, there is more time available for cooking.  But some of the age old techniques can be used today, with great results, even for those with little time for the kitchen.  It all comes down to the attitude. Wha

Does the phrase “Company’s coming!” send you running for cover?  It did for me, for years!  It took so much work to be 'hospitable" and open my life and home to others.  Cleaning, cooking and entertaining would become too much work to do, then after all the work, I was too exhausted (and grumpy) to enjoy the festivities. This book - A Life That Says Welcome, changed my view of hospitality.  It shared  the difference between entertaining and offering hospitality . Entertaining places the emphasis on you and impressing others. Hospitality places the emphasis on others and refreshing , not impressing, them. The author Karen Ehman   will be leading an online study of the book in March.   Some of the highlights this book and study will teach include how to: Recognize the reason for offering hospitality Identify the top five excuses for not opening your home and apply simple solutions to combat them Arm yourself with cooking-for-a-crowd menu ideas, make-ahead freezer meals