Tea and Sweatpants...

Alright, I've had some time to perfect this one and I'm pretty pleased with the results. The recipes can be found HERE.

Some lessons learned:

1. I like having liquid soap to help with stains. When spots need a bit of extra help I dab the liquid soap directly onto the spot and it helps in a big way going through the wash load.

2. The liquid soap recipe requires a large bucket and a place to store that.

3. The sugested Fels-Naptha soap is a MUST for good cleaning.

4. For hard water (like we have here) add 1/2 c. of baking soda to any of the recipes.

5. My FAVORITE recipe is #4 from the link above with an added 1/2 c. of baking soda. This one was the easiest and worked the best for me. Also, it only takes up a tiny bit of space in the laundry room because it's super concentrated.

Now that I've found a perfect recipe that is super quick and easy I'll never go back:)

What a fun day I had today. I LOVE dreaming and planning! It is what moves me, it's what keeps me sane, it propels me to do more and be better.

Started the day with a 2 hour meeting collaborating about Thanksgiving food boxes, a Christmas tea, a large community Christmas event, and other things along the way. I had this meeting with two women who continue to inspire me. The boys ran around terrorizing the office but because these two are experienced mothers they continued talking around, over and through it like only mother can:)

I came home and cooked up a warm soup like lunch.

I spent the boys nap time writing all that I could about anything that needed done in November and December to make ministry happen through Koinonia and Bridgetown.

I then planned and started another creative Birch dinner. Tonight it was a whole baked chicken, frozen cooked potatoes (thawed partially by microwave and broiler), a can of peas, and more gravy! The chicken and peas were good but the taters were nasty mush. We ended up having chicken sandwiches.

Nick and I spend the majority of the evening talking about the morning meeting and planning our next major community project!

Oh how I love the planning, dreaming, listing, tweaking, detailing day I had.

I took the boys to The Art Park at the community center:

Little feet
Wet paint
Sticky stamps
Tiny fingers
Slimy glue
Salty dough

Squeaky voices
Pounding stamps
Splattering paint
Crinkling paper
Affirming mothers
Giggling children

Dinner was creative tonight:

We get our food from Birch and are blessed to have a full kitchen. All be it random, it's full! In my search for things to make spaghetti I found everything but what I needed for any kind of sauce. The dinner I pulled together seemed really weird to me, Nick didn't seem to mind (or so he faked) and the boys had 3 bowls.

Boiled pasta and frozen corn
Made peppered white gravy according to the package
Added what I had left of jack cheese (about a cup)
Put the gravy/sauce over the pasta and corn
Sprinkled dried parsley and bread crumbs on the top.

Haha, and that was it! Not so bad for my family but wouldn't be serving it to a guest unless they were under the age of 6!

Love your enemies. I've read the passage many times and as scripture happens to do, it took on new meaning yesterday.

I was reading Half the Sky and was thinking about doing something "great" for God. I spent some time chatting with God about what we are doing here in NoPo. I began glamorizing missionary life and praying that God would send us far away for a period of time to "refresh." Now, missionary friends, forgive me. Forgive me for spending any amount of time romanticizing your life or saying that it is easy or refreshing in any way, shape, or form. In that moment I was reminded that God called us HERE. He called us to this place and I must search for His love and my call to love in this place.

Later, at church, we were talking about this passage in Matthew. In something that Nick was sharing with us it stood out to me that God is asking us to take the supernatural and make it natural. Hmmm, sounds like what I had been praying about earlier. Later, in prayer/praise time us women were talking about how God blessed us. Our praises were simple. Thank you God for a peaceful morning, another said praise for connecting with an old friend, and another for some days without morning sickness. Simple love. A deep love for the ordinary. This is my God, one who loves the ordinary and cares deeply about our need for divine love in our ordinary daily living. This is my call, to show attention and care to the ordinary and simple in others the same way God does in my life.

I think this is what the passage is about but even more importantly it's all of these things for all people even our "enemies." To me this is a long list of people in my life who aren't necessarily enemies but people who aren't just naturally my friends. This includes people who stress me out, make me nervous, eat our food, call late at night, don't show up to commitments, walk away from our ministry after committing, have kids who teach our kids naughty things,and those who uninvitedly tell us how to parent. With the love of God calling me to pay attention and care to them and the ordinary in their lives I find such beautiful things in these people. These same people are the ones that (in the same order) bring our trash from the curb, stop by to learn some manhood from my husband, is learning healthy eating habits on a budget, desires to be in community, is vulnerable when here, developing a missions heart, learning to parent with love, and sharing Somali parenting techniques.

My prayer is that I would find such love and passion in loving better in all ways and in all things.