I thought we could all do with a reminder of who we are and how God sees us.
May you feel God’s love and faithfulness in your lives today, and always… Hugs
I’ve got a secret, yes I do…
It seems like just yesterday she was playing dress-up…
and now she’s having a baby!
And guess what?
I know the gender of my grandbaby, but it’s a secret… for now. My daughter asked that I take a peek at her test results and not tell her the gender, yet. This way, I can bake the gender reveal cake for her and my son-in-law. They want to experience the surprise together, as a couple. Isn’t that incredibly romantic?
So, guess what today is?
Baking day!
I need to get the cakes baked and cooled, but I won’t be doing the frosting and decorating til tomorrow. I want the frosting to be as fresh as possible, so I’ll hold off doing it til just before we deliver it.
For now, I can show you the cake baking part as long as it’s only the cakes. I’ll be sure to show you the whole thing after the reveal, I promise!
I’m making a 4 layer white cake with the surprise candy hidden on the inside. The recipe I found is crazy! It calls to bake them for 50 minutes at 325. Even though my oven runs a bit warm, they baked for 43 minutes before I pulled them… absolutely perfect!
I’ve cooled, wrapped, and refrigerated them til tomorrow morning. When I get up in the morning, I’ll make a huge batch of Vanilla Buttercream frosting. My youngest daughter bought a very lovely cake topper, as well as the candy that goes on the inside.
For now, the scary part is finished… that is, perfect cakes for the decorating. I’m a flavor girl, so I don’t care how pretty the cake looks on the outside. If it doesn’t taste delicious then what’s the point, right?!
Oh, and I even cleaned up my mess! Well, to be honest, it wasn’t that difficult. Ever since I began my baking adventures with that tiny Easy-Bake-Oven, my workspace needed to be clean. I suppose that every baker worth their salt, or more appropriately, their sugar, keeps things clean as they go along. It helps keep a clean and organized work space! Willy Wonka’s factory was always clean and organized… it had to be!
That way he could focus on the magic in the candy. Well, at least that’s what I think…
My Peepers…
Peepers… eyeballs… the windows to your soul… whatever you wish to call them, is entirely up to you.
Everyone has them, everyone takes them for granted, and everyone hopes they keep working right.
You can use them, abuse them, or hide them from others… but they go wherever you go…
I know that right this moment, they’ve picked out a glaringly obvious grammatical error in this ridiculous prompt!
If you wish to know more than one, prompt writer, shouldn’t you be using What’re rather than What’s?
Just sayin!
How bout them cookies…
Thursday Thoughts…
Have you ever wanted something so much that you can’t stop thinking about it? It consumes your thoughts, your dreams, and gives you a motivation that you didn’t know you had. You scrimp and save, make numerous sacrifices to afford the time, money, and anything else required to prepare for said thing. It might be anything from a vacation, a new car, or even a baby!
Unless you are very wealthy and/or were born with a big ENTITLED badge sewn on the left cheek your bum… there’s usually a vast distance from start to finish! I think sometimes we watch too much television, where they make it look like a walk in the park to become ALL THAT!
The last time I checked, there weren’t any badges on my bum nor do I carry a purse full of cash, so I’m looking across a vast canyon that’s deep and wide. In our particular situation, it’s somewhat like looking up from a very deep well. There’s a sensation of being slowly pulled upward, while sitting in a bucket that’s still half full of murky water.
Discovering such a great distance between that first rescue bucket and the really solid dry land needed has been a bit of a shock. Truly, it was ignorant of me to assume that we could get from homeless to successful overnight, just because we have keys to an apartment. When they hand you that so-called GOLDEN TICKET… you’re on your own!
When we were circling the drain, all I could think about was getting my books published and quickly leaving all the bad memories behind. Pipe dreams, I know, but it helped. Not only is it NOT so easy, but now that I’m here in this moment, I’m not even sure if it’s in God’s purpose… at least, not right now!
The program we are in does NOT allow for my husband or I to make any money while he is going to school. If any money is made, we stand to lose much or all of our housing money. No one tells you what to do for any actual dollars needed for things, outside of food stamps that only cover food. It makes me wonder how many people fail to ever recover, due to this little flaw in the system. We’ve actually found just about every flaw, crack, or hole in the system to fall into, which is why it took us nearly two years to get housing (the last six months was the homeless, homeless part.
In the end, I don’t care what president holds office… the system just needs to be fixed… for the people! That’s us, the feet on the ground, the workers, the farmers, the builders, the caregivers… the human souls that keep this country afloat with our hard work, our bloody and dirty hands, and our truly beautiful hearts!
This is the very reason that I rely on GOD alone, above any and all government! The only reason we are here, in this very apartment, had God stamped all over it! No government policy or case worker made that one person change their heart and allow us in… that was GOD!
With that being said, I still find myself wondering what now? Why did God put us here, and what is the next step? What if I step out in faith and start throwing manuscripts out there, only to find that I was the only one who believed in their value, you know? Yep! This loudmouthed frog, Chatty Cathy, Wiwohka Wonka, and redeemed woman of faith has doubt, just like everybody else. My journey toward eternity is just that… a journey! It’s how I intend to get there that will count. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to see God as our father. He faithfully carries us through our entire life, teaching and loving us through good, bad, right, wrong, darkness, and light.
It doesn’t matter if my steps go off track, if my faith is weak, or if I simply feel unsure about my next choice…
GOD IS WITH US!
GOD IS ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, FAITHFUL!
GOD WILL ALWAYS LIGHT THE WAY FOR US!
It’s not about whether our choices are the right ones, the wrong ones, or even the refusal to decide… it’s about looking up, getting up, and continuing forward in faith, hope and love!
If I’m to be fully honest about why any of this is even being written down and shared with others, it’s to remind myself!
Thanks for listening… hugs
It’s all in the bake…
Being either a leader or a follower is somewhat like knowing when to add sugar or salt, flour or water. In the end, what you want is a cake that tastes good AND looks good, right?!
It’s been said that to lead, one must first learn to follow. It’s also been said that to get you have to give, to speak well means to listen well, and to do a job well you have to learn the job in the first place… ok, that last one is maybe just one I made up but it seemed fitting.
Anyhow, we are all capable of leading when it’s truly needed, as well as the following bit!
Just follow the instructions on the back of the box, or in my case, what’s in the pages of scripture… just sayin!
Cookies?
Bailey’s been practicing…
Wednesday Words…
If Eustace is willing to learn how to read maps and navigational charts, when he can’t even read, then I think it’s possible for us. That is, if we set our minds to it!
As they say… Use it or Lose it!
Gotta love em…
When I picked out my favorite fruits for this prompt, none of them seemed to be too thrilled about it! It was all I could do to get them to sit in the same bowl together, and the fussing and crying was more than I could take… so I just ate them!
I’ll spare you the visuals of the mess I made, but I will say that it was rather shameful… banana peels, mango skins, and a pile of those little green tops to my strawberries lay mixed into a pile of mango and peach skins. That’s all that remains in the bowl now.
Oh well! In honor of those that were lost, I baked some cookies to make it all better…
Tuesday Tinkering…
Do you know how hard it is to work on my computer while at sea? I’m reliant on multiple back up batteries for power. Add to that, our internet connection is spotty at best when the weather is disagreeable. But, regardless of what the clouds are doing, I’m not one to give up on a task that I think should be done… like my tinkering.
Bailey suggested that we get high speed internet that’s wireless, so we only need be near land for our connection. We won’t even have to get off the ship! I knew she was a very smart puppy, but didn’t expect that the dog would think of a solution before I did. Don’t I feel silly.
Now that we’ve ironed out all the kinks, as they say, let’s get to work!
I thought it might be a good idea to design some better pictures of our ship, so as to reveal what a wonderful vessel we sail upon! I wouldn’t want you thinking that we were gallivanting across the sea in a cardboard raft, or something of that nature.
Obviously, she’s quite a big girl!
She would have to be enormous… that is, if she’s to carry all the babes, myself, and Brutus. I realize that the dragon can take any form or size that he wishes, but sometimes he just likes to relax in his natural state… like us wearing pajamas and slippers on a Saturday morning.
Speaking of enormous, the amount of food we go through on this boat is staggering. Due to the sheer number of mouths onboard, I made sure that our galley came fully stocked with all the sundries required for this journey…
Food isn’t the only thing truly necessary for a comfortable trip across the waters, no no! If you’ve ever had to deal with a little one that’s running on little or no sleep, which then means that you’re also running on no sleep… well, you can understand why I took such great efforts to ensure these babes get plenty of rest…
Before you start thinking that I stuffed all the babes in the same cabin, I want to assure you that I am most certainly not that silly! This is just Lilly’s room. As you can see, all the girls like to have slumber parties, tea parties, or just parties for the sake of having a party.
This is Dinky and Boomer’s cabin…
Tilly shares a cabin with mini me, along with both Bailey and Auzzie, as those two need constant supervision…
There’s a another cabin that was meant for the rest of the boys, but their never in it!
Eustace actually prefers to sleep on a pillow in the Captains Quarters for some strange reason, and Squagon has taken to sleeping in the crows nest full time. He says it’s to be on the lookout for any danger, but I think it has more to do with wanting to sleep in a tree. He is a squirrel, you know.
I didn’t make a cabin for Brutus because he generally sleeps wherever suits him at the time. Sometimes the dragon sleeps on deck, fully stretched out to his full size. On the more stormy nights he likes to sleep down below, to comfort the little ones.
Myself, well, it was important that it be comfortable an spacious…
You can’t imagine how often my bed is filled with sleepers from down the hall. Oh, and did you notice the nightstand there, next to my bed? That’s for Nugget!
Anyway, my battery is dying on this ole laptop, so I’ll wrap this up. I just thought you’d want to see what our ship looks like. Before I end this message, there’s one last thing that must be settled… our vessel has no name yet!
If you would do me this small favor, would you please offer up some possible names fitting of such a fine ship? It seems fitting that you be a part of the naming, since you’re the ones who give wind to her sails. Besides, if it’s left to everyone aboard the ship there’s no telling what name might be agreed upon.
I shall wait for your suggestions, but not for too long. We’re already far out to sea and I’ve heard that it’s quite dangerous to sail an unnamed vessel. I apologize for rushing things, but you understand the urgency, right?
I’ll just wait right here, if that’s alright?
Hush…
When I say shush, I don’t mean for you to shush. I mean for myself to shush… in answer to the prompt, of course!
As far as one small improvement that I can make in my own life, I would have to say that it’s listening more than speaking. Well, I might actually learn a thing or two, ya know?!
Oh, and I should probably start baking larger batches of cookies for everybody…
Yup! We definitely need more cookies!
Monday Messages…
It’s funny how dreamy one gets when living aboard a ship full time. Days and nights lose all sense of time, in terms of minutes and hours. Our days simply move between daybreak and sunset. Things also become reliant on the weather cooperating. If the winds are kicked up and the waters get rough, we spend our time within the ship’s comfortable cabins. Those are days for baking, stitching holes in little socks… and storytelling, which I happen to be rather good at. Needless to say, I think that the babes prefer the stormy days to the sunny ones.
This morning finds me sitting in my cabin, with great plans of writing some grand adventure quickly drifting away with the breeze. While I have many things I could write about, its all I can do to keep myself sitting here, as I can hear the crew having so much fun out on deck!
As you can see, the dragons have taken charge of everything above deck! While I am grateful that they’ve taken that part off my hands, I think it has more to do wind and wings than it does about work… if you know what I mean…
I can’t tell you how many times Brutus has had to pull one of the babes out of the waves. Squagon is the worse, by far! You know, the sea air has even gotten Nugget up on deck…
For a dreamer who normally finds joy in existing within my bedside drawer, life on the water has made her more outgoing.
While our winged babes take pleasure above deck, learning all they can from Brutus about everything nautical, the other babes spend more time below deck.
Lilly tends to spend all her time going over the maps on my desk. She’s always been rather good at puzzles and riddles, so I suppose that she sees all our maps and clues as just that… pieces of a bigger puzzle.
She’s working on a successful course that might lead us to the whereabouts of our missing troll, Peanut.
There’s plenty to keep the rest of the babes happily occupied, what with baking, and things of that sort…
I think that they play more than bake, if I’m being fully honest. Oh well, it makes them happy, which in turn, makes me happy!
And now you see why I’ve gotten nothing done this morning, aside from rambling on about our daily comings and goings. I suppose this is what it should be like, anyway. How else are you supposed to know what’s going on aboard our ship, while we sail the high seas? Getting to where one is going takes time. Who on earth would want to simply read the introduction to a story, only to turn the page and find that they’ve already arrived at the conclusion? That would be so boring and unfulfilling.
If I’m to write anything of value for this mornings Monday Message, it would be this:
The getting to a place isn’t what an adventure is about. It’s about all the things that happen while you’re getting there…
Journey With Me! 