Encouragement

I was wandering around blog-land when I stumbled upon this entry: Living an Imperfect Life

I have often had similar feeling as Anissa shares here. There are days that I feel like a failure at everything, but it is good to remember that by clinging to the Lord through everything, HE makes us perfect. Thank You, God!!!

Hats

Do you ever look at all the things you do in a day and all the roles you play? In other words, how many hats you wear? I have been feeling a little overwhelmed of late. It doesn't help that I have continuous sinus headaches and need to constantly have Tylenol Allergy Sinus coursing through my veins to keep the discomfort and my grumpies under control. The headaches are due to my allergies. The mold count has been high of late and now every time it rains, the basement in this old house floods and therefore mold has taken up residence in my home, as well. So, I have not been a clear thinker lately!
During my quiet time this morning, I was thinking about my to do list and feeling tired just looking at it. I started listing out my different roles/hats. I counted 12 that I have been wearing lately! These could actually be broken down much further because each of these roles involves a multitude of duties.




(Hat graphic from Mo Jackson's Caroline kit www.mojackson.com)



These hats include:
child of God
wife
mother
teacher
cook
maid
home manager
accountant
apartment manager
home designer/decorator
digital artist (volunteer work, hobby, business)
friend

It is no wonder that my head hurts! Now, I am sure that I am not the only woman with many hats to wear. I am sure there are many out there with more! So how does one do this? Often I feel like a do many things in a mediocre way and perhaps I should focus on doing fewer things better. The thing is that during this season of my life, few of these can be eliminated. Sadly, the only ones I could give up are some of the things that give me much joy and refresh my spirit. I don't have any answers. I have a tendency to want to compartmentalize my life and separate my different roles into different parts of my schedule, but so much seems to need to happen at the same time and requires lots of multi-tasking. I know that "I can do all things though Him who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13) and I am clinging to this. I also keep in mind that "ALL things work together for good for those who love the Lord." (Romans 8:28) I am seeking God's wisdom in all this.

Good Friends

Two of my very old friends and I took a cooking class at Williams Sonoma last night. My friend Wendy and I signed us up as a birthday gift for my friend, Laura (pictured on the left). The class title was "A Night in Florence." I use the term cooking "class" EXTREMELY loosely! We expected a cooking class. You know where we would be taught how to cook several recipes. Cooking demonstration would have been a more appropriate term. The store has a very nice kitchen right in the center of it and we all had chairs to sit around and watch. The gentleman "teaching" the class was soft spoken and told us very little about what he was doing and why. We learned mostly about his difficulties finding the specific ingredients for his recipes in our town. The recipes chosen were from a Williams Sonoma cookbook and listed specific products to be used, but he informed us that because the book was a couple of years old, they no longer carried these products. It ended up being a very expensive dinner of small samples. (Sigh) A slightly disappointing experience to say the least. We could have learned more by staying at home and watching Food Network! The saving grace of the evening was that I got to spend a rare evening with two great friends!
After our class we kidnapped my friend, Wendy (pictured on the right) and took her out for dessert at a nearby Italian restaurant to celebrate her birthday which is Saturday. On our way to our cars, we discovered this giant Superman in the window of Sharper Image. For a mere $5000 he could be yours!!!

Superdate!

New blog! I started a new photo blog. Several digital scrapbookers have taken up the challenge to take photos every day. That way daily, ordinary life is captured. I love that idea and decided to do this. I call it "a Slice o' Life" and I have 3 entries for today that capture all four of my children.

Holding Henry

Last night, I was unable to sleep so I started playing around in Photoshop. I had the bug to play around with aging a photo. I grabbed this one taken last Sunday of my oldest holding my little nephew. He's such a cuddler and my two girls just adore him although you can't tell that by Elizabeth's expression. She is at an age where whe is vey self-conscious about getting her picture taken.

Anyway, if you're interested in what I did to age this photo... I adjusted the levels, darkened the edges and then placed a textured layer that I had created using a Machine Wash filter (Clogged Mesh) over it and set the blend mode to linear burn. I also created a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in a sepia tone and set the opacity to 90%. The photo was a bit grainy looking to begin with and this was a great way to disguise my poor quality snapshot.

The rest of the goodies used to create this layout are from Mo Jackson (www.mojackson.com). Most are from her Melissa's Feast digital scrap set. The only element created by me is the little piece of string on the tag. I really have to look up some tutorials - there's is much room for improvement there.

The journaling on the little tag reads:
11 year old Elizabeth loves to hold her one month old baby cousin, Henry. But she isn’t fond of having her picture taken. 7-31-05

Blueberry Butter Cake

This is an untried recipe that was recently discovered by my daughter in a book she was reading called "Escaping into the Open - The Art of Writing True" by Elizabeth Berg. The author says that it comes from the Black Dog Cafe on Martha's Vineyard. She's that you better plan on making it to take somewhere and share. She says, "You don't want any leftovers, because you will suck them down in the car on the way home."

Blueberry Butter Cake

CAKE:
1 cup sugar
1tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups flour
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup melted butter
1 tbsp pure vanilla
3 cups blueberries

TOPPING:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cold butter in bits
cinnamon

Sift together the dry ingredients and in a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients. Then add the wet to the dry and mix until blended. Pour the mixture into a greased and floured 9 X 13 inch pan. Sprinkle with blueberries. In a separate bowl, with your hands, crumble together sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon for the topping. Sprinkle the topping evenly. Bake at 350 degrees until knife comes out clean, approximately 50 minutes. Serves 8 - 10.

If we become ambitious and make this, we'll post a review and perhaps a picture.

Play Dough

Play Dough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup water
2 TBSP. vegetable oil
1 tsp. food coloring

1) Combine flour salt, and cream of tartar in a medium saucepan.

2) Gradually stir in water mixed with oil and food coloring.

3) Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until a ball forms.

4) Remove mixture from heat, let it cool a little, and then knead.

My daughter made this playdough with her little brother for her 4-H Child Development project. She made a poster with these colorized photos to exhibit. She got Champion in her level and will go to the state fair with it.

Peek-A-Boo!

Abi plays peek-a-boo with my friend Cory during our visit to the lake last Friday.

Need for Speed!

Another lake picture!
This time of my 3 year old son, Patrick. He was very cautious about getting into the water, but had no hesitation about taking a ride on the jet ski with my friend, Cindy. He loved it!