Emerging

We had a new visitor in church yesterday.

My husband was preaching a  sermon to the fathers and future fathers in the congregation, challenging them to become a godly, loving, purposeful example of a father to their children. Very good, very encouraging...

Then I saw the man next to me stifle a laugh while looking up past my husband who was wrapping up his Father's Day sermon. Following his gaze, I saw a blip on the white wall near the top of the baptistry.  The men in our church just finished remodeling the front and it looks great, tall white walls sweep up to the dark black ceiling. Between the walls is a stone work embellished baptistry. Very nice. While I was watching, the blip started moving. It was a bug, but it wasn't crawling, it was kind of inching very slowly upwards, caterpillar-ish maybe?  It was right in the path of the spotlight that lights up the back wall. I noticed this because the tiny thing was casting a shadow that would get big and short, then long and thin. The shadow of it's head would go back and forth, caricatured by the shadow.

I did keep trying to look away from it and concentrate on the sermon, but I kept staring at it, drawn to the ridiculous. Then it was time to pray. And the only thing I could think of was keeping my eyes closed even-if-it-was-a-winged-bug-and-it-suddenly-flew-into-my-hair. It didn't, thankfully. But it was gone when I did open my eyes. I had to ask Alyssa where it had gone because I saw her watching it too. She said it crawled onto the black ceiling....

....where I can only assume it will spin a cocoon. I was musing with Charles today that  by next Sunday we will have a beautiful butterfly flying around the sanctuary.

A sermon in itself, yes? Transformed fathers....maybe it was a word picture, a prophetic sign. Pity if it was just  a bug.

Father's Day 2010

The kids for Kids' camp left after church, so we had to run our kids to get lunch at McD's, wait for the pastor to finish talking to people, then we were going to go out to eat on the way home. I asked him to choose the place, even Denny's if he so chose (I don't like Denny's except for breakfast, so it was a real sacrifice on my part) But no, he chose Schlotzkey's....yuck! I only go there with him when I really like him a lot. And he was really cute today and it is Father's Day...so.....there we were.

It was so funny, we had to get the Johnsons to sign their passports so that we could get our visas for the trip to Africa. After trying to get them on the phone, we finally decided to go ahead to lunch and left the passports with Bethany there at church, where they would eventually end up since David is going with the  Kids' Camp kids to be pastor for the week. We get to Schlotzkey's and they were there!! How odd! It was only us, them and a few other couples in the whole place! Diana said they were eating there only because it was Father's Day too....she doesn't like it either I guess! I was so cracking up!

And now Charles is settled happily watching golf (oh my, what a confusing sentence, sad sad sentence). Happy Father's Day Charles. I can't believe what wonderful children we raised. Thank you for being a great father to them and husband to me.

Truly. Thank you.

Pitiful bragging

Today.....laundry, Gilmore Girls season 2, discs 1 & 2, cleaned out hall closet (full of blankets slopped onto shelves), board games and gift wrapping paraphernalia, and vacuum accessories. pfft! Now all the blankets are neat and on correct shelf, games are back with all their pieces and wayward gift bags are in one large bag hanging on the rack. 

I walked by the closed closet a few minutes ago and I heard faint singing "I feel pretty! Oh so pretty!" (I only report it people, I don't judge)  My sewing machine is in that closet too and so I got it out and sewed some clothing that had rips. Cheryl will be so proud of me! 

So now the mending is done but still out on the dining room table, laundry is all over the dining room chairs and the kitchen is full of food people bring in but can't fit into the fridge. (see post below) 

But my closet is pretty! Oh so pretty!

Soul food

Last night some friends of ours took us to a soul cafe. Mrs. White's Golden Rule Cafe in fact. Talk about yummy! I had the fried chicken, cabbage, yams and cornbread. Charles had chicken fried steak (HUGE) with homemade brown gravy (amazing gravy), black eyed peas and okra gumbo. We had the other half of our dinners as leftovers for lunch today and we are stuffed...again!!

Mrs. White knows how to cook some good southern food! She also has famous signatures ALL.OVER. the walls.....it's covered. Pretty cool. There are pictures of it all on the link above.

Very friendly place too....I believe they do practice the Golden Rule.

Strange and unexplained garage events!

Our big upright freezer kept opening the other day. We would go through the garage and find it wide open all throughout the day. Well, my kids and dh did. They didn't tell me til later that night. I went out and looked and moved a few things and it stayed shut....just imagine what genius I am to think of that.  I went to check on it about 2 hours later and things were still thawing, not freezing. There was blood from some stew meat running down the freezer wall too....gross. So I cleaned out my side by side freezer in the kitchen and moved all the meat and veggies over. The breads in there were ruined by things dripping on them. All my homemade stocks and soups had to be dumped out. 

What a chore to do at midnight! So I left the breads in there and closed it and got up this morning around 8 and the breads still are not frozen yet, so I think it is broken. I cleaned it out and it is turned off now. grrrr It's old ....70's model....so maybe we'll get a smaller new one later on. For now...no bulk shopping!

UPDATE:

We left that afternoon, pulled the car out of the garage and went to do some shopping. When I got home, I opened the garage and saw something in the middle of the garage on the floor. It was the cake I was supposed to bring to small group last Wednesday. I had put it in the big freezer to make it cold, then I forgot to take it to small group. Aack, I am so forgetful. 

I guess it had fallen out of the freezer the day no one could keep the freezer door closed and slid under the car. So I fed it to my kids. ha! They don't care, it was still wrapped up perfectly and didn't need to be refrigerated. Very strange events. Such is my life. 

And I'm sick of jello.

Get Real

Okay this is interesting. Maybe...my entertainment value perceptiveness may be a little off lately due to blandness.  ;)

Cool Whip is a brand of imitation whipped cream named a whipped topping by its manufacturer. It is used in North America as a dessert topping and in some no-bake pie recipes. It is generally described as "non-dairy" as it contains no cream or milk and no lactose; however, it does contain the milk derivative casein. -Wikipedia

If you believe Wikipedia....people write all kinds of explanations on there and you never know if it's fact or not.  I know....cynical. I'm becoming more and more disestablishmentarianist in my midlife. ha!

Here is an article on everything you really didn't want to know about Cool Whip in Wired Magazine. Scary.

It says that one of the lesser ingredients in Cool Whip is:

Sorbitan Monostearate

Chemists call this stuff synthetic wax, and it's sometimes used as a hemorrhoid cream. It's one of the magical substances that keep Cool Whip from turning to liquid over time in the fridge.

Disgusting. But it's so perky and light that we just keep topping everything with it.

I think I'm going to go real people. Real whipped cream! (after I use the 2 containers of Cool Whip in my freezer)

 

Yeah...jello

I am running out of interesting jello combinations.

Raspberry jello with very cherry fruit cottontail  was kind of a hit. My little nephew ate it up! When Hannah was very little, I told her we had fruit cocktail for dinner. When she saw it, with it's fluffy white mini marshmallows standing out to her little kid eyes, she called it fruit cottontail. It's been called that in our family ever since. My 4 year old nephew was watching me put in the fruit cocktail and I called it cottontail. He looked up at me with a smile and I said, oh yeah, here are the cottontails. And I poured in some mini marshmallows. He laughed...I love it when little kids get my jokes.

Also very popular from the week, was a poke cake I made for the youth girls who are having their small group here during the summer. I made a strawberry cake from a mix, then poked little holes all over it, poured over a small box of raspberry jello, made according to directions, let it chill in the refrigerator, then topped it with Cool Whip.

Did you know there is watermelon jello? I was leery of it at first but when I poured in the hot water, the aroma was exactly like watermelon Jolly Ranchers! I made 2 layers, which was a mistake. The bottom layer was regular jello. For the top layer I mixed in a little bit of Cool Whip to make a foamy layer. (I am really debating lately whether Cool Whip is a food product at all. It's nondairy. hmmm, then what IS it? Discuss amongst yourselves if you wish.) Watermelon with dairy does not go over well. (even though it is not dairy at all) It's like drinking a glass of milk (or non milk?) while sucking on a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Makes me shudder.

I just made another poke cake for tomorrow's small group. It is a yellow cake with lots of peach chunks mixed in, then I poked it and poured over peach jello. I will top it with something completely out of the range of real food, but light and creamy so we eat it, tomorrow.

....how boring is this anyway? There are things going on in my life. The most meaningful and/or hilarious are not mentionable in public however. Not that they are off color, just not things to share publicly. So....that's boring too really. *mouthing the word "Wow" dramatically*

Lazy days of summer

Well everyone went to the ball game, but Charles and I stayed home. The weather has been HOT lately (108 today) and we've been busy almost every evening. When we were trying to decide how many cars we needed to take the girls and all their friends to the ballpark downtown, Charles looked at me and said, "I wish we didn't have to go, I'm so tired. I'm just going because you want to go." 


I said, "I don't want to go! I thought you did."


So we didn't go. And it was a good decision.


We floated in the pool for a long time and talked. The water got a little too chilly after the sun went behind the wall, and we came in to eat some dinner. Feeling too relaxed to cook, we ate lunchmeat sandwiches and some jello I made today. I am so into jello lately....craving it. It's gotten hot here so maybe that is why. It's so refreshing and perky. ;) 


The jello of the day today was orange jello with pineapple, mandarin oranges and bananas. I topped mine with a little squirt of canned whipped cream and it tasted like a dreamsicle. Yesterday we came home from a church concert and devoured the grape jello with pears I had made the night before.


Today when one of my daughters opened up the fridge, she shouted, "Jell O!" It has really been a hit. I think you'll be hearing more jello ideas as the hot summer days march by. And if you have any jello ideas, send them my way!

Rethinking the crazy idea of a crate-less dog in the night!

Well my furniture is still all askew and I don't have much hope that it will be reasonably rearranged anytime today. My mind is all afog (my Mac doesn't think that is a real word, but I think it should be) because the dog who was so reluctant to be freed of her crate, acted like a newborn baby, she was so needy last night.

It is amazing how pokey a little 10 pound dog's feet are in the middle of the night, walking around your bed, looking for a comfy place to lie down, staring at you until you wake up, sighing because she's bored or restless. And the place she thinks is just right to settle into pulls your blanket across too tight or makes your legs feel claustrophobic or just makes you want to hurl her across the room. (it was a long night but I vaguely remember thinking that would have been a good idea at one point) She also broke into shrieking barks once while looking out our bedroom window. I had to pull down the blinds after peeling my fingernails out of the ceiling.

I guess I really don't mind having a dog crate in my room like I think I did. If fact, in the light of a brand new day, it's beautiful, aesthetically as well as in theory, and in practice, quite peaceful.

Furniture and dogs

I rearranged my house today, trying to find a better place to put the treadmill. 


After moving stuff, getting rid of 3 big pieces of furniture and cleaning under all of it, I've decided it was better in it's original place. Oh well.  


We got rid of a ton of old kids' books and the bookshelf it was on and moved out Maisy's crate, thinking she can just sleep on the floor on a blanket now that she's trustworthy. I moved it away from the wall and she pawed at it like she wanted to get in it. Then we carried it out to the garage and when the garage door closed we could hear her crying her heart out inside. I put her blanket down in the spot where the crate was so I think she's a little more understanding, but she's still following me around and keeping an eye on me. ;) You can teach an old dog new tricks but it's a little traumatic for them at first.