Spending hours poring over cookbooks to find the perfect sugar cookie recipe to make our annual neighborhood Christmas cookies. Then calling all the kids in to decorate with bowls of white icing and tubes & tubes of food coloring. Going up to the freezing attic to find just the right pretty containers I bought at yard sales, washed and stashed away for this very season. The kids have so much fun decorating the cookies, and I pack them so carefully in containers to hand out to the neighbors. Then the kids set out on bikes to deliver them, and then proceed to drop every single container . And then drop some again while trying to balance them in their arms while picking them up.
Kids love to help. We have two kids of our own, and in addition, I run a little daycare out of our home, so we always have lots of extra friends here who are always ready to assist. One night I let a couple of boys help make chicken for dinner, and within 8 seconds, they had dumped the entire bottle of garlic powder on it. That was a hard meal to get through. And kids love to cook so much - and it is so good for them. But man...the things you have to eat while they are stretching their cooking muscles.
Every year around Easter time, my family gives something up for Lent, to show respect to God. God is so good to us all the time, and we feel that we can give up something indulgent for a small time a year for Him. One year my husband gave up candy. It's all fine and good sitting around trying to decide something to give up, in theory. But when the time actually comes and you get a couple of days into it, it can get hairy. The no candy season was a big hairy beast. Easter morning is when you can go back to whatever is was that you gave up, and that year for Easter, I bought him a Easter basket FULL of candy. It was a good day.
I love going out to eat! But sometimes it doesn't love me. One example is when I went out with some very wonderful women to a fancy restaurant in my town. I wanted to order something basic, but the menu didn't have anything basic - so I ended up ordering pesto. Pesto is a pasta with very green sauce. It did taste good, but I am an airhead and don't think things through. And it certainly never occurred to me that the green sauce would stick to my teeth, gums and lips, and that maybe I should whip a mirror out of my purse to check my face - or excuse myself and make a trip to the ladies room mirror. Because I ate, and then we sat around and talked and laughed for a long time, like friends do. I gave my most winning smile to the waiter a couple of times (he looked like Bradley Cooper.) And then left with a friend who gave me a ride home, only to check the mirror, and see that I did indeed have green teeth, gums and lips. And EVERYONE saw them, especially Bradley Cooper with my huge smiles I shot his way.
A couple of years ago my husband Bret turned 35. I decided to throw a party for him at our house and ordered a big cake from our grocery store bakery decorated like a hockey game. I walked up to the check out and set the cake on the conveyer belt. Now it was Saturday morning at a grocery store - people were everywhere. Everyone around me had to admire the big hockey birthday cake. Everyone asked, "Awww, what a cute cake, does someone have a birthday?" To which I would reply, "Yes and it is a big one." "Awww, how old is he?" To which I matched in their same tone and smile, "35." Then all of their faces would fall and they would look confused. LOL
Now let's talk about the mother of all food - birthday cakes. When every child here has a birthday coming up I always ask them questions about their party, and what is the first thing they want to talk about? Their birthday cake!! I am not a person who can make big amazing cakes, but for my daughter's first birthday party, I did actually find a recipe to make a super cute cake that I could do, with the help of a very talented friend. (If you have read any of my previous posts, this is the same friend who I got lost with on a walk to the park, and got on the wrong exit ramp on the interstate and had to sit at a semi truck weigh station.) I bought a store bought cake (cause I'm not wonder woman) and then she and I decorated it to look like a carousel. I am always in complete and total awe of what people can do with some cake mixes, icing and fondant. Cake makers are true artists and have my complete and utter respect.I love eating anything so much, and I am in the right church for it. My family goes to a wonderful Baptist church, with the warmest, friendliest people there. They really are a family for us. The best thing about belonging to a Baptist church, is that baptists like to eat! Every occasion is marked by a meal. Spaghetti supper talent shows(yum), pie and cake auctions (yum.) I got to spend a lot of time with my grandmother and aunts and uncles this past winter, and one day her pastor came over. He was such a nice man and we were talking in general about church services, and he said that they had different worship services at different times but they always made sure that they dismissed in time to beat the baptists to the buffets! LOL. I laughed and laughed and said, "I'm a baptist, and it's true! Our church dismisses a little early sometimes too so we can get to the restaurants first. Ain't nothing wrong with that!
Everything about food is good to me. Going to the movies and getting salty popcorn and big cold sodas to wash it down with. And getting up to go to the bathroom 3 times in one movie from that big soda. I love hayrides and hot dog/marshmallow roasting in the fall, and chili cookoffs!! Woohoo! And Dairy Queen and Tropical Sno in the summer. And now, having just written about food for the last hour, I am going to go ransack my kitchen. I wonder if we have any of that really garlicky chicken left...
Don't Worry About Anything, Instead Pray About Everything.
Tell God What You Need And Thank Him For All He Has Done.
Philippians 4:6
I made the cut! I'm even in a picture on this one! =)
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