…across the room to share my recipe…..

…the plate was full….

…yes, the plate WAS full but now it is empty.  Because it was just THAT good!

I made a pasta dish today that was so awesome I just have to brag about it a little.  I just made it up so there is no recipe except for the fact that I'm going to document here what I did so that if I ever want to make it again I will at least have an idea what I did.

Since I didn't know what I was going to make I took 3 cloves garlic and smashed them, added 1/2 chopped onion and one stalk celery.  I sauted this in some oil and then added 2 chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh dill, and black pepper.  Then I poured in some white wine and let that cook for a few minutes.  Meanwhile I sprinkled some shrimp quite liberally with a lemon pepper mix and added them to the tomato mixture.  When the shrimp was almost done I added some heavy cream to the pan, more black pepper and finally some freshly grated parm cheese.

I served this over a very thin vermicelli noodle.  DELISH!

...across the room to post "Grace Tells Another Story" by Mercy Me

They say don’t waste your time
You simply cannot find
An ounce of good within the heart of man

They say we’ve got to lay
In the bed we’ve made
And live this life without a second chance

But I’m inclined to say
There must be something more

Chorus
We’ve been told that the heart is just too far gone to save
But grace tells us another story
Where glory sends hopelessness away
Oh grace tells us another story

They say we cannot change
There is no other way
Get used it cause this is all there is.

They say don’t raise your voice
Cause we don’t have a choice
We’re dealt this hand so learn to live with it

Well I have to believe
There must something more

Chorus

Bridge
And though we may not understand
Why You’d give us another chance
We praise You who lets us start again

...across the room to declare my opinion......

So today I read about another teenage "coming out" and a mother who praised him for his bravery.

"Zach, I was surprised by your Facebook post where you came out. I want you to know that I love you unconditionally. I love you with my actions, not just my words. I'm so proud of you. You are the bravest person I know. I'll fight for you always. Your sexual orientation does not define you. You are still the boy who forever won my heart. The only thing that concerns me is the number of empty soda cups and tea bottles in your room. Throw them away before ants come inside. I love you always, Mom." 

What I find disturbing is that we never get to hear of any discussion between parents and their children mentioned in these coming out stories.  It would be so good to hear parents talk to their sons about the fact that males can have what society would refer to as feminine tendencies, preferences and interests and how they can be embraced rather than ignored or hidden without it becoming an issue of sex.  How refreshing it would be to hear  dialogue between parent and child regarding moral values and conduct and becoming people of integrity and good character.  Heart to heart talks between parents and their daughters addressing past relationships, disappointments and failures and the fact that they were not to blame for past hurts and that concentrating on healing and becoming whole is more important than giving up or making a rash decision based on past failures.  That just because relationships with males in the past did not work out does not mean they have to be gay.  Are parents really too afraid, or lazy, or ignorant to have these discussions with their teenagers?  Mostly what I've heard parents say is that they knew their child was gay at an early age because they preferred activities or toys generally favoured by the opposite sex.  REALLY?!  

My heart bleeds for these young people who are so confused and hurting who are getting no input or help to find out why they feel the way they do.  Perhaps they are being bullied into thinking they are gay?  Could it be?  The bullying out there is not just from the heterosexual community.  I've seen it myself and it is very real from the homosexual community as well.  Isn't it worth the effort to walk alongside your teenager and do the hard work of digging into their childhood to see if there is something that needs to be addressed?

It's time for parents to get educated and not take the easy way out when their children come up with these ideas.

I absolutely do not agree that people are born homosexual.  I believe it is a choice people make because of what is happening in their minds.  They believe lies.  When we want something badly enough we will always be able to find an excuse to defend our actions.  Just because we have tendancies uncharacteristic of our gender does not define us as homosexuals.  We can embrace those tendancies, enjoy them, and not turn them into an excuse for a perverted sexual preference.

NOTE:  This may be a work in progress...today I was just so sickened I needed a place to talk and this is my place.

...a walk across the room to get stung and confess....

It started off innocently enough with the two of us going for an exercise walk.  We only do two kinds of walks.  There is the stroll for which he must hold my hand.  We don't need to use our words, inside or outside voices to decide what type of walk we will do.  When he takes my hand as we leave the house I instinctively know we are not exercising on this walk - we are strolling.  This day he was not holding my hand, we were using our inside voices outside - we actually never use outside voices inside or outside.  Whoever came up with this idea anyway?!
This walk was planned carefully and we hit the sidewalk at a good pace all the way down our street to the set of stairs at the bottom of our street.  There was no slowing down as we began the 150 stair trek up to the street above us.  No slowing down until we reached the first landing that is!
I gasped at the pain I suddenly felt in my ankle and within seconds I did what would come naturally to most ...I began slapping at my ankle trying to get rid of whatever was causing the excrutiating pain in it.  So far I hadn't even had the courage to take a look in case I might find something protruding from it that would horrify me even more than the pain already did.  As I glanced down at my ankle I saw a little wasp seemingly squeezing the last drop of poison left in his stinger into my ankle.  The intense anger I felt at that miserable sucker is beyond reason!  That's when the wild out of control slapping began.  Nothing premeditated ... just a reactioanary impulse to turn that poison loaded beast into a quick unrecognizable mess of road kill....a mere smudge on the concrete!  That's when the whimpering started.  And the jumping around on one foot.  Round and round, on one foot, whimpering and gasping, staggering and sucking in of breath.  I have no idea what that all looked and sounded like I was so angry and in pain.  I guess it looked and sounded bad enough that my guy offered to walk back the five minutes to the house to get the car and drive me home!  For just a few seconds I considered continuing this adolescent behavior and letting him baby me in this way.  Especially when I looked down at my already swollen red and blue puffy bruised foot.  Thankfully I quickly grew a back bone and assured him that I could make it home on my own while he continued our exercise walk on his own.
For once I couldn't quite read his eyes as we parted ways.....Disbelief?  Empathy?  Pity?  Maybe a little of each!

...a walk across the room to share a prayer....

Lord, thank you for trials.  Help me to consider them pure joy.  Thank you that trials are a testing of my faith.  Thank you that trials develop perseverance in me.  Thank you that perseverance will make me mature and complete.  Lord, this trial is developing in me something that I am lacking.  Thank you that this trial is showing me where I need wisdom.  Thank you that this trial is pushing me to ask for wisdom.  Please Lord, give me wisdom each day.  Lord, thank you that this trial is causing my faith and belief in You to grow.  Thank you that this trial is forcing me out of double-mindedness and into single-mindedness.  And this trial can ultimately produce stability in me.  Lord, thankn you that persevering through this trial will bring about blessing in my life.  But if I get out of this trial too soon, it will only be a try.  Help me to endure it until the end.  Thank you that persevering through this trial will bring about the crown of life.  Lord, this trial is bringing out temptation in my life.  This temptation is not from You.  This temptation is from within me.  This trial is bringing out a reaction in my flesh (the temptation).  This temptation is producing a desire in me that will entice me.  If I give in to desire,, it will lead me into sin.  The trial - which comes from You - is revealing the weakness in my flesh (the temptation).  Lord, help me to remember that if I give in to temptation it will robe me of the fullness of life.  Help me not to be deceived.  This trial is a good and perfect gift!  (Look at all the good that it will produce!)  Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of heavenly lights.  Thank you Lord that you chose me.  Thank you that you chose to give me birth...Thank you that I am the first fruits of your creation.  Thank you that this trial has a purpose in line with your great calling for my life.
                                                      Based on James 1:1-18 and written by Steve Pauls

...a walk across the room to do figure eight's....

Keep your soul at peace.

Some time ago I found myself so worked up and distressed about something I was literally walking through my house in figure eights.  (It is possible to do that in my house!)  Much to my chagrin, I had allowed myself to get offended, troubled and distraught over a situation that left me in a weak and helpless state.  I was half way through another figure eight when God got my attention in a very real and miraculous way.  Without going into every detail of how this happened let me just say that before I sat down to allow God to intervene (and I absolutely KNEW He was going to intervene) I knew that I needed to get a book my husband reads every morning as a short devotional....a book I have never read myself and not one that he has talked to me about much, other than the occasional interesting thought.  I placed the book on my kitchen table face down because I also seemed to know that it was the last page I needed to read.  God REALLY DOES speak to us and lead us by His Spirit communicating with our spirit.  And that is how He led me to the following writing and the Scripture that is is based on.

Imagine my relief as I began to read the words of a seventeenth century writer....that our soul is the centre, habitation and kingdom of God.  Our job is to keep that place clean, quiet, void, and peaceable. Clean from guilt and defects, quiet from fears, void of sinful affections, desires, and thoughts, and peaceable in temptations and tribulations.  I have work to do in order to enter into that place of peace that is really only most comfortable when all is well between my Lord and I.  It is the most blessed state of being.  It is where I am fully satisfied.  He writes "Do not be upset or discouraged if you feel fainthearted, for He will return to quiet you that he may still stir your heart.  Because this divine Lord will fill you and rest in your soul, forming a rich throne of peace.  He does this by means of internal recollection and through his heavenly grace, so that within your own heart, you may look for silence in the tumult, solitude in the crowd, light in darkness, forgetfulness in trials, strength in weakness, courage in fear, resistance in the midst of temptation, peace in war, and quiet in tribulation."

This is the Scripture this writing is based on......

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."  Eph. 3:16-19

As I read I felt His strength coursing through my entire being.  I am at a loss for words to describe the feeling of the most incredible outpouring of God's love on me.  All I could do was sit in wonderment and gaze at this writing and thank God that this Spanish priest, Miguel de Molinos was inspired by God on a certain day in the seventeenth century to write words for me to read February 21st, 2013; a message so clearly understood, bringing peace to my soul,  they may as well have been spoken audibly that day by God Himself.

Oh the wonder of it all!

...across the room to share my poem.......

trouble will find us
in this big world
smooth sailing waters
change with the wind
what should I do
where can I go
shaken, incredulous
sad and afraid
then, words about mercies
new every morning
grace sufficient for me
comfort, assurance and trust
lighting up pages
all there for me to see
filling my soul
with comfort and rest
reminding me once again
I will walk and not faint
His burden is light
and JOY is mine once again.

...across the room for a rant.....

We must need more food channels...too many people in the industry don't seem to have access to the education out there.  In ONE day I was served raw fish for lunch (no it was NOT Sushi); a greasy old mess at a take out for supper; and then the clerk at the supermarket dropped my apples, tomatoes, pears and bananas into the grocery bag at least 12-15 inches!   I told her "PLEASE!  You must PLACE them into the bag...not DROP them....you will BRUISE them".  To which she replied "You no want wegtable and fluit in same bag?"  I gave up and took my bruised fruit and low grade temper out of the store, to the privacy of my car where I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs but realized it would put the elderly man walking near my car into cardiac arrest.
Just for the record though....I have determined that I will no longer pay good money for lousy service or  poor quality food.  If I can't eat it, I won't pay for it.  In my opinion we as a society have for far too long been brainwashed to believe that a tip is necessary no matter what kind of service we get and also that when we are served a plate full of slop we are to think that this is just simply how food is cooked at the restaurant we are visiting.  Well NO MORE!
When I ordered my lunch I specifically asked to have the fish cooked well and not rare and was assured that was not a problem.  In this case I sent it back to have the fish cooked.  For the most part I will not send food back to the kitchen any more.  I just won't eat it.  At the fast food place I asked to have them make fresh food for me after I checked the bag they gave me and saw that the food was barely warm and dripping with grease and the cheese and pickles were missing from the burger I ordered.  They complied but their attitudes were AWFUL!  In the case of the supermarket clerk I believe she had either not been taught properly or there was a language issue...neither is an excuse for handling produce the way she did.
I do not expect the quality of food I make at home but I do expect my food will not be cooked in rancid oil, my coffee will be hot (there isn't a HOPE of ever getting a good cup of tea in a restaurant because they are afraid of bringing the water to a boil!), a fresh cold salad and not something that has been sitting under the heat lamp while the waitress is on coffee break...well, you get the picture.
It was hard to believe that all the food I encountered in one day was abused in some way.  Well I for one will do my best from now on to help STOP THE ABUSE!

We work hard for our money and I do not like to spend my hard earned money getting second rate products and service and I'm going to start speaking up about it.  I'm only one person but I think these businesses have to get the message that it is not OK to expect the public to frequent their businesses when they don't bother to give their best service and provide superior products.

My husband and I have both worked at professions where it is imperative that you do your very best....in other words, "It's never good enough!"....it has to be perfect, it has to be the very best!  Maybe that is why I find it so difficult to pay for a meal that was obviously prepared by someone who just simply does not care or take pride in what they do.