Women Who Eat Chocolate

Thanks Tina ,  for brightening up my day and awarding me the Sunshine Award!  I've been working hard on that authenticity -- we need it more than ever in these precarious days.  Tina's blog always lifts me so back at ya! ;)

Remember these guys?  I loved The Hardy Boys with a passion -- especially Shaun Cassidy.  Now that's a trip down memory lane....

Have you ever been told that you're just not doing it right?  "IT" could be anything.  They way you cook something, clean something, build something.  We've somehow been led to believe that the way we do things here in Holmes County are the ONLY way to do something.  I can't even count how many times someone told George he wasn't doing something right.  I try to fathom in my mind why someone would feel led to tell a grown man something like that.  Is it because he's doing it differently?  Or just differently than WE are doing it?  Maybe because he comes from another country he IS doing it differently.  Wow -- I just answered my own question.   Let's take for example raising children.  In Mexico, most kids do not have their own room. They share bedrooms and often times share beds.  They think nothing of it.  When Belle was little I would repeat the oft-used American saying of, "She just needs some alone time" .  I wo...

Trouble is part of your life — if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.  ~Dinah Shore

Here's a link to my newest Amish Country Living post.  It has my Timbrel article that was published this month.  Tiny little article, but still mine -- with my picture and name to boot. :) Go here to read it!

Yesterday I said I would be posting a big blog post today -- sorry if I made anyone think something major was going on!   Sometimes my mind goes off on a tangent and I get all sorts of ideas.  Then they just disappear.  In December I wrote an article for a small publication called Timbrel .  It came out this week and for the first time ever, my picture and name were beside an article for the whole world to see .  I was pretty happy about that.  I will see if I can post a link to it somewhere on here soon.  It's small commentary piece, but still it was published. Yay. I've been thinking alot, praying alot, and giving alot of things up to God.  My kids, my husband, our life together, my house -- all sorts of things kind of jumbled together.  Belle is on my mind alot lately and I've been especially doing the mom thing with her --- praying, but letting her initiate contact with  me.  Lucky for me she doesn't let more than a day go by ...

THANK YOU LORD, FOR THIS BLESSEDLY WARM DAY IN NORTHEAST OHIO.  I'M LOVING EVERY BLESSED 63 DEGREES, MY WINDOWS ARE CRACKED, AND I FEEL GOOD.   BIG BLOG POST TOMORROW. :)

The last 24 hours have been interesting.  I've been through a maelstrom of emotions that seemingly were caused by a simple google search.  Yes, I said google search.  Are any of you guilty of doing a little snooping or poking around in the past?  Whether by curiosity or outright nosiness?  Well, I have a warm feeling this morning, and I def think I should feel guilty about it.  tee hee. George has had a very colorful past -- and I mean colorful.  He's lived in so many different locations, known so many people and had/or been involved in so many situations.  I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of girl who likes to know  how many girlfriends my husband has had before me.  You know the kind of convo I'm talking about.  "Come on honey, I just want to know.  What did she look like?  Was she short?  Fine...but did she kiss better than me?"  These conversations took place before we were married and sometimes after ...

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone

"The Lord is compassionate and gracious , slow to anger , abounding in love .  He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever ;  he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear  him ;  as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us .  As a father has compassion on his children , so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him ; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.  As for man, his days are like grass , he flourishes like a flower of the field;  the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more .  But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him , and his righteousness with their children's children -- with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts ."  Psalms 10...