Fattoush

This is my favorite salad from Syria. I ate it all the time. There are some variations of how to make it but I think this is the one most commonly made in Syria.

1 Romano lettuce (chopped into bit-size)
1 cucumber, sliced
1 large tomato cut into small chunks
1 cup fresh mint, stems off
1 onion chopped
2 minced cloves of garlic
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp sumac spice
1 pocket bread toasted and cut up into bite-sizes

Toss all the veggies in a salad bowl (lettuce, cucmber, tomato, mint, onions).
Mix garlic, oil, lemon juice, and spices in a small jar.
Cover the jar and shake to mix the dressing.
When ready to serve, toss the salad with the dressing and toasted pita bread.
Serve immediately.

Cotton Candy

That is what I call Lucy when she wears this outfit. Since Maggie has one on similar I have been calling them both cotton candy today!

What I’m into

I could write about the two pee pants accident this morning or the poop that I found on the floor after I had taken off her wet pants and was sidetracked by the phone ringing! For sure I am into potty training and all the chaos that goes along with it!

Instead I am going to share about Sarah Groves. She is a great musicain and I totally recommend her to anyone. Her songs are real and honest and often help me to articulate my own thoughts and feelings. So many of her songs have become prayers for me. They also have really captured diffrent chapters of my life.

When we were in Syria one song I listened to all the time was Painting Pictures of Egypt. It mainly talks about how when you are somewhere and you keep longing to return to where you were. But how you can’t go back b/c God has changed who you were and you don’t fit there anymore anyway.

Another song that has really ministered to me is He’s Always Been Faithful. I listened to this song over and over after Owen died. I realized that God is always faithful and always gives more of Himself to us during every trial.

The last song I’ll point you too is Less Like Scars. This song encouraged me and really summed up how I was feeling after emerging from the “grief fog”. I could see how God had done and was doing healing in my heart.

So all that to say I’m really into Sarah Groves!

Tyke Topic

This post is from Christa (my mom) so it will be titled after my hometown newspaper.

So far I am not quite so sure about Blogs.  Especially knowing how everyone reads them, especially when my grandson writes about his best memories!   I hope someday I won’t be remembered for my farts but for my caramel corn and hard fudge!  I love that oldest grandson so much so I can’t get mad. Even though he is just like his Mother on their own bodily noises!  It has been quiet days in Titonka this week as Gramps has been on snow removal and works all night and day too.  Then he comes home and sleeps. 

In the last week I have read three books, Fat Girl, The Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman and Innocent Man.  The last of the books made me really think about my belief in capital punishment and I really don’t know if I am still for it.  A very sad book and also a true story.  It also made me hate Oklahoma! 

I am itching for another good book so if anyone knows of a good one let me know about it. Tuesday is always my “Virgie” day and I always enjoy her.  I hope someday when I’m 94 I will still be able to iron my sheets.  Who am I kidding, I am 53 and don’t iron them now!  

I have been counting down the days till my second little grand daughter makes her appearance.  I am so excited for this little baby girl I can hardly stand it.  We are going to visit them this weekend so I can talk (through Emmy’s belly) to her so she will know Nana’s voice when she comes out.  I did this with Lucy and I think she did know me as a newborn.  Oh the great fun of being a Grandmother!    

Night, Night Tus

I was cleaning out my pajama drawer b/c it was so jammed pack I could hardly close it.  As I was doing this Lucy was sitting in this little nook trying to put on a pair of my pajamas.  She then covered herself up with a Bedouin scarf that she found in my closet.  The whole time she was doing it she was saying over and over “night, night Tus”.  She is such a little card!

God’s Mercy

I have been studying the book of Titus for about 3 months now and have really enjoyed it.  Right now I’m on the following verses

Titus 3:3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

 I have spent time thinking about what I was and still would be if it weren’t for the kindness of God.  It’s amazing that He sent His Son.  That is how He made His love known to mankind by sending His Son to die on a cross.  So today I am really thinking about God’s kindness toward me in Jesus.  Because of His kindness it enables me to forgive others.  I thought this was a good quote from Charles Spurgeon:

If you have judged yourselves with candour, you will not judge others with severity. You will be more ready to pity than to condemn, more anxious to hide a multitude of sins than to punish a single sinner.

Thanks be to God all of our sins our hidden in Christ!

Lucy

Thought I should post a picture of my little toodlie winks!

Jumped on!

The bandwagon that is!  I decided everyone else has a blog I might as well too! 

 I am not sure of what to title this blog as of yet so for now it’s called waiting.  That is because I am waiting for a very cool title to pop in my head or to be suggested by someone much more creative than me!

 I will give you a little low down on my blog.  I hope that it will be used to share a little bit about what is going on with us, what I am learning and will also have some guest bloggers weekly (Dustin and Christa Kay or mom as most of us know her).

 So welcome to my blog.  May it be pleasurable and edifying to all who read it