Immeasurably more

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

We have been riding on a glory cloud for the last three weeks. My mind can scarcely keep up and comprehend all that has happened. At God's prompting, we listed our little house on the market and ten days later we had an offer. Now we just need a place to go.

At the beginning of this season, God gave Toby a quadrant in town where He wanted us to live. Toby and I started searching the internet for available homes in the area and ran across several builders putting up new construction in this quadrant. After talking with several friends who had built homes with these builders and running the numbers, it became apparent that we may be able to build what we wanted at a cost equal to buying an existing home. We have resigned that we are likely not leaving Mobile any time in the near future. We are finally putting down roots and hope to find the "perfect" home that will fit our family's needs. A home we can grow into. We started scouring through floor plans and touring model homes. We would love to have a large family and we're hoping to have a bedroom for boys and a bedroom for girls (they'll bunk up), a nursery for new babies, a guest room for our family and friends, a space for entertaining and loving on anyone who pops by, and a space for homeschooling our children. We sat down with the base price lists and started narrowing down our options...this one's too small, this one's too expensive, etc. These details became exciting and our fantasizing became consuming. Once again, we were getting ahead of God.

Sunday, January 22
Yes, before we even listed our house on the market. I was visiting my mom in Montgomery and attended her church that morning. In Sunday School, through an impromptu discussion, in my spirit I heard loud and clear, "All things work together..." It was a piece of a popular verse from Romans. It was so loud that I thought maybe I was suppose to share it with the group, but for whatever reason I kept it to myself. Later that morning during worship we sang a wonderful praise song, Your Love Never Fails. If you're familiar with this song, you know that the bridge is a one liner that repeats over and over..."You make all things work together for my good." My sweet Jesus met with me during worship, "I know what you want and what you need. I am working on something great...even more amazing than what you have imagined...something that's not even on your radar. Your job now is to focus on the task at hand...sell your house." And with that, all anxiety and confusion vanished. My job was to work on my little house, clean it well, and present it to buyers to the best of my ability. So I returned home, we listed our house that week and I focused all of my attention on selling and left the house shopping up to God.

On Sunday, Feb 5, we received an offer on our little house and extended a counter offer. By Wednesday we still had not heard back from the buyers, but decided to take a peek at some houses, at Elaine's prompting. Over Toby's lunch break we knocked out six houses and then Elaine and I saw another five or so that afternoon. Toby and I are fast shoppers, so I knew we'd be able to make a decision quickly. We looked at several existing homes, but ruled them out knowing we could build exactly what our family needed. We went out on a limb and decided to look at one monster house, way out of our price range. Honestly, I'm just nosy and wanted a peek inside the big house...it had everything we wanted and then some. In the back of our minds we knew that this house was a new construction and had sat vacant since it's completion for over 9 months. Maybe, just maybe the builder would be motivated to let it go without much of a fight. We went home on Wednesday, cautiously excited about the slim possibility of such a nice house. And so we prayed, and waited...

Friday afternoon we finally received the call we'd been waiting for. We had a contract on our little house. We had less than three weeks before closing and we knew exactly which house we wanted to go after. Our sermon series this month has been "Immeasurably more" focusing on how our God can, does, and loves to blow our minds with His goodness. I think this situation fits perfectly...we were asking for a house that was immeasurably more than anything we ever thought we would ever own. It was beautiful, it was spacious, but it was expensive. My mottos had become, "All they can say is 'no'" and "You have not because you ask not." Prayers in hand, we made an offer (a very low offer) on the monster house. Not only did we offer a crazy low selling price, but we asked for the builder to add a privacy fence, a fridge, and pay some of our closing costs. When we were nearly finished writing up our offer, it occurred to me that we forgot to ask for blinds. Ugh...there are lots of windows...25 to be exact. Toby sheepishly asked, "Is it too late to add blinds?" The listing agent hesitated, "I'm gonna be honest with you. You're really close to the line here." We let the blinds drop. In fact, our offer was so low that Elaine asked the listing agent, "What do you think the chances are of this going through...1 to 10?" He really, really didn't want to answer. After several stutters and lots of hesitation, he answered with a, "Um, maybe a 3 or 4." At first I was a bit disappointed, but the more I thought about it, a "3 or 4" was just more room for God to show His power...to open doors that man can't. And so we waited...

Over the weekend we prayed constantly. At one point I broke down, overwhelmed and humbled by the possibility of living in this beautiful home...the perfect home for my family to grow into. When I begged, almost in disbelief, "Can we please have this house for our low offering price?" His answer was consistent time after time..."Trust me." His words were firm. Solid enough for me to rest on.

After a long 48 hours, we finally got an answer on Sunday afternoon. They had countered. They agreed to our extras, but wanted a higher selling price. Toby and I discussed and prayed. We took in some counsel, prayed some more and slept on it. Monday morning we put in another counter offer. We met them in the middle on price and asked that they throw in blinds. They accepted. *insert Jesus' happy dance* The monster house was ours! I was lost and dizzy with shock. God had really given us this house. Really! I was amazed! When we headed over that afternoon to sign the final papers and show the house to our kids, the listing agent was as shocked as we were. He kept saying, "I've never seen this before...I can't believe they took that...I'm as shocked as anybody." A door that man couldn't open was no match for my Jesus!


We will close on both houses on February 29, but the excitement far outweighs the stress. I've collected lots of boxes and have a good jump start on packing up our stuff. At the time of this writing, we've got 12 days to go!

In hind sight, I am so grateful for our 18 month detour in the flip house. Had we moved straight from Tennessee into this big house, we would be tempted to take the credit...a successful career, the next step toward the American dream. This way, God clearly showed us that He is in control and He is the giver of good things. We never, never thought we would ever own a home of this size or caliber. In fact, "not on our radar" remember...we had marked this floorplan off during our initial search. It was simply too expensive to even entertain. We never considered it. My Jesus not only opened the door, but gave us immeasurably more than anything we deserve. We will boast in Him and share this story with all who enter our new house.

Speaking of "not on our radar"...Toby's parents have a house in California and have wanted desperately to live close to my kids. In fact, their house has been on and off the market for two years with little activity. They listed it again in September and once things started shaking in our world a month ago, Toby set forth a challenge for them...get on your face and with thanksgiving, present your request to God. We settled the contract on our new house on Monday. On Tuesday, they received an offer on theirs. Coincidence...of course not! In the last week, they have come to an agreement with their buyer and put in an offer on a house in West Mobile....in our neighborhood! MiMi and Pop will no longer be a plane ride away, on the other side of the country. They will be a red wagon ride away! We are all thrilled to live close to them, but more than that we are excited to watch God reveal His great power and His great love in their lives. They have a front row seat in an amazing adventure.

The last three weeks have been almost too much to bear. My mind is still spinning with all of the changes happening so quickly, but I know He's not through yet. We're holding on and waiting for the next big reveal!

Free stuff

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows." Malachi 3:10

Our pastor has a saying..."You can't out give God." We are here to share that that can't be more true. God has given back to us more in the past year than we have ever given Him...it's almost comical.

From the beginning of our marriage, Toby and I have committed to tithe, a tenth of our income, to the Lord. Despite our financial season, feast or famine, we have been firm in this monthly giving...and God has opened the windows of heaven!

When we moved to Tennessee in 2008, Toby surprised me with a "happy moving" present. The day we pulled into Knoxville, we stopped by the AT&T store and picked up my new iPhone. At the time, he had a company phone, but was always jealous of my toy. A few months later Toby's company took back their phones and we were left to provide our own service. Of course, Toby went straight for an iPhone, but God had told him no. For whatever reason, God didn't want him to have this toy. I'm guessing He knew how much time it would steal. Despite His warnings, Toby marched himself to the store and came home with an iPhone anyway. Well, because my Jesus has a sense of humor, Toby's new phone started malfunctioning a few weeks later. Apple's tech support was baffled, "Man, I don't know what's wrong with your phone. I've never seen that. Send it back, we'll send you another one." Toby didn't make the connection and traded his phone in. Long story short, the new phone also broke with no explanation...and so did the third. Toby finally caught on and begrudgingly settled for a "basic" phone. So, here's the good part...four days before Jake was born in July, Toby walked out on our front porch to find a box sitting there with his name on it. He brought it in, curious, opened it and was shocked at it's contents. A letter..."Dear Mr. Toby, Please accept this iPad 2..." WHAT?!??

He tore into the rest of the package...sure enough, there sat a sealed, brand new, 32 GB iPad 2. He nearly jumped out of his skin. After going back to the letter he learned that his company had mailed out a two question survey back in January. I had opened the mail that day, filled it out and sent it back without a second thought. Out of all the returned entries, company wide, worldwide, they had a drawing and Toby won the iPad! So, Jesus was testing Toby...I asked you not to buy and iPhone and to be obedient, and in this case He had something even cooler waiting in the wings! Woot woot!

Another cool gift...Toby's old boss at work was transferred to China and asked him to come to his house and help him tear down his kids' playset. The people who had bought his house were older and had no need for it. It was a nice, wooden playset...one we never would have spent the money on, but would have loved to have. Toby asked, "Well, what are you going to do with it?" "Uh, I guess we'll just haul it to the dump." Hesitantly Toby asks, "Would you mind if I just took it off your hands?" And just like that a $400 playset was headed to our house...without a dime from our pockets. And as a cherry on top, Toby noticed some railroad ties lying around the plant where he works. After inquiring about them he was told they were up for grabs. The next day he took our trailer to work, gathered up an intern, and loaded them up. Our Haley has enjoyed hours of fun on this sweet gift from Jesus.
And the gifts just keep on coming...a friend that Toby works with recently built a new house and paid an upgrade fee for stainless kitchen appliances. Once they moved in they decided they wanted something a little more upscale. The friend mentioned this to Toby in passing, so Toby inquired, "How much are you asking for the others?" After a brief chat with his wife, he came back and said, "Well, why don't you just pay us the upgrade fee that we paid when we built the house." So, for $650 our kitchen now boasts a new stainless steel dishwasher, range and microwave...and that doesn't even take into account the $240 we've received from selling some of our old appliances. Now, was there a need for new, pretty appliances? No. Do I enjoy cooking for my family on new, pretty appliances instead of the coil top stove we had before? You better believe it. Are you catching on? God doesn't always stick to our needs...sometimes He loves to throw in a bonus.

While we're on the subject of updating our little house, my shower has always grossed me out. Somewhere along the way, a previous owner decided to handicap enable it...minus the necessary skill. The panels didn't cover the sheetrock right, the grout was all but gone, the flooring didn't drain right and black mold grew everywhere. I felt like I needed shower shoes in my own home...gross. When we first moved in we talked about replacing it, but because of the poor construction we concluded that the cost of renovation outweighed the necessity, so we just lived with it. A few months ago the topic came up again with my brother-in-law who owns a marble shop in town. He came out and looked at it, "Oh yeah, we can put in a 19" tub and surround walls...no problem. It'll look good." And with that the ball started rolling. It still cost us a bit, but we got a great "family discount." His work was wonderful and instead of a sense of arrogance and entitlement I would have had if we'd replaced the shower when we moved in, now I step into my shower with a sense of extreme gratitude. And by the way, do you have any idea how deep a 19" tub is...it's glorious!

And the gifts don't stop there...we've had tons of other small "happies" land in our lap. Nearly every week for the past few weeks we've received a random check in the mail...unexpected copay refunds, gifts from old friends, a safety award from work. He is so good and so generous. But you see, He doesn't do all of this just for me or for Toby...He does it for you. Yes, you there. He wants you to know how good He is and that what He's done for me, He would love to do for you, too. There's nothing special or "super spiritual" about us. We're just ordinary people, just like you, who have decided to be obedient in all things and then stood back to watch the rain. I am firmly convinced that the more we want to know Him and the more we freely give...the more He pours out. Our blessings this year are not only financial, they're simply the most visible. Even greater blessings than these include a strengthened marriage, healthy children, financial peace, and Godly, encouraging, life giving relationships. He is so good.

"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." James 4:8
Go ahead...test Him. He is always faithful and would love nothing more than to pour out blessing upon blessing on you, too. Are you ready to receive it?

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!

"The borrower is slave to the lender" Proverbs 22:7

We are thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to have reached a HUGE goal for our family! First and foremost, this post is not meant to brag, but to give total glory to Jesus for the work He's done in our hearts, our lives, and our finances over the last few years.

So let me start by filling you in on the details. Early on in our marriage, Toby and I wanted to take some sort of Christian finance course for years - be it Dave Ramsey, Crown Financial, whatever. We just wanted to learn truth in this area and operate our finances from Biblical principles. At this time we were both working during the day and I was either working late nights for tax season or spending hours on end at the library in preparation for the CPA exam. So the timing just never really worked out...the times these classes were offered were not "convenient" for us. I've since learned, that we do what we really want to do and honestly, we just didn't make this as big of a priority as we should have earlier in our marriage.

Fast forward a few years...Toby got transferred to Tennessee and I quit my job to stay home with sweet Haley. Out of desperation for adult interaction, I started attending a moms group at a local church in Knoxville. While I never really clicked with any of the moms, other than the two that invited me, I still felt like I was suppose to go. Turns out that during my second semester in the group the course "Financial Peace University" by Dave Ramsey was offered as a choice. I was thrilled! Now, this was a "bare bones" version because they didn't charge the big fee (good thing, because we were broke) and we didn't get the materials, but we would watch the videos together each week. While Toby and I wanted to go through it together, I figured this was better than nothing, so I jumped on the opportunity. After two or three weeks, every one else in the class seemed to disappear and I was left alone. Several times I was left to watch the video...alone as even the leader went off to do other things. I didn't mind...at least I was getting exposure to this awesome information. Anyway, after two weeks of solitude, the leader asked me, "Do you just want to take the DVDs home a few at a time and watch them with your husband?" What?!? I was floored! So over the next few months, Toby and I watched the entire 13 lesson program...together, in our own time, with a chance to discuss it afterward. We were so grateful for this miracle!

Dave talks a lot about being debt free and now we can totally understand his point. Debt puts you in bondage and ties up your resources. It keeps you from being able to do other things for His kingdom with your finances. For us, we now know that we will serve in the ministry at some point, and God is positioning us to live "comfortably" with little or no income.

So we finished the DVDs in the fall of 2009 and took a good hard look at our financial situation. For the sake of giving God ALL the glory, I will go against all cultural norms and give you real numbers. At the close of 2009, here is what we were faced with:

$ 195,000 - mortgage on our TN house
$ 77,800 - mortgage on our vacant AL rental house
$ 8,300 - Toby's student loans
$ 19,400 - Carey's student loans
=$ 300,500 - total debt

Our monthly debt payments were as follows:
$ 1,400 - mortgage on our TN house
$ 918 - mortgage on our AL rental house
$ 82 - Toby's student loans
$ 173 - Carey's student loans
=$2,573 - total cash going out of our hands to the debtors each month

Now, you can do the math here. Toby had a great job, but once you tack on groceries, utilities, gasoline, etc, etc, etc...things were tight to say the least! However, as hard as those days were, God forced us to learn some really hard lessons. Lessons about stewarding His money well, lessons that we will carry for the rest of our lives. In those days, the choice laid out before me was A - get a job and put Haley in daycare or B - figure out how to stretch a buck. Since it was my heart's desire to be home with my babies, I got busy stretching away. We put Haley in cloth diapers, I made all of her baby food, I learned from a friend how to make my own laundry detergent, I learned all about cutting coupons and planning our meals around what was on sale. We rarely went out to eat and if we did it was to the cheap Mexican place where they would serve us endless free chips and salsa and we could split a $5 quesadilla. Most lunch dates consisted of sandwiches from home in the back end of my 4Runner, backed up to the river. Honestly, those are some of my favorite memories from Tennessee. We also learned that life went along just fine without fancy dinners out, new clothes, luxury cars, or extravagant toys for our daughter. God had blessed us with an incredible amount and we were learning that the "American dream" is not all it's cracked up to be. We were finally content with what we had and were able to take stock of things and start digging out from under our debt. [See the $ Savers tab for details.]

So, how did we get from there to here? Yes, we cut back tremendously in those first few months, but the monumental changes are all tied to the miracles God worked in moving us back to Alabama. In February 2010, God told Toby to quit his job, move us back to Alabama, attend "seminary" and live in our little vacant house. If you haven't heard this story, please take the time to read it...God is SO good! Anyway, after months of no job prospects in Mobile, one finally landed on the scene. With it came full relocation, additional funds for moving and temporary housing expenses, and they bought our TN house from us...for what we paid for it, even though it had declined in value during the two years we lived there. This was our starting point. So that takes care of our TN mortgage and we were able to put some of the extra moving funds toward Toby's student loans and knock them out. That alone was a huge relief...to finally have some breathing room in our finances!

Once we moved into our tiny, vacant rental house (that conveniently God was holding on to for us...haha, the joke's on us!) we refinanced the mortgage to get out from under PMI, cut the loan term to 15 years instead of 30, and significantly reduce the interest rate. Even with reducing the life of the loan, our mortgage payment now is still lower than it was before.

Over the course of the nine months that we've been in Mobile, we have been slowly chipping away at my student loans. Our pastors, John and Tracy, have said a million times, "You can't out-give God." One of the biggest things I admire about Toby is the stance he took at the very beginning of our marriage. He said, "No matter how tough things get, we will always give our tithe." And so we have. Faithfully, with each paycheck we have cheerfully turned over to God what belongs to Him...even though there were days I would day dream about how far that money would go, from my perspective anyway. We kept up our end of the deal when we moved to Mobile and with our first taste of financial freedom we began to offer above our tithe...a huge joy for my heart! Well, I think John and Tracy are right. For months now we have been receiving random checks in the mail...a refund on a utility bill from TN, or an overpayment due to a miscalculation on the closing of our refinance, or a dividend check I hadn't thought about...it seemed like the money just kept coming in! It was crazy! Now, nothing was huge...$40 here, $70 there, but those things add up and we knew where they were coming from. So all of those things combined with Toby's income and freedom from not paying other debtors each month, my student loan balance was falling quickly and yesterday I made the last payment...the payoff amount! It was a day that I never thought I'd see!

So, we still have our mortgage on our little Alabama house, but it's next in line. Again, I tell you all of this not to brag or boast of any wonderful thing we've done, but to point all glory to Jesus! He is the one who put the resources in our hands. He is the one who changed our hearts. He is the one who provided the new, amazing job. He is the one who provided the resources to give us the freedom He wants us to have. He is the one who paid off over $200,000 in debt in 18 months. We are thrilled to have this weight off of our shoulders, but even more so to be in a position to serve Him in whatever capacity He asks because we are not bound by these obligations anymore!

You can do this too. I promise, it can be done! But you must be intentional and you must seek His help. He will guide your heart and give you wisdom to walk it out. If you've overcome this hurdle, I would love to hear your story. Please feel free to post a comment or send me an email at soakinginlife@gmail.com.

Stock Swap

Retail = about $27; Carey's out of pocket = FREE

I so loved this event that my MOPS group did last week, that I had to share it with you! Anybody who's been couponing for any amount of time, knows how easy it is to find a great deal and stock up with 4 or 5 items. You'll use two or three and the rest will get pushed to the side. Or maybe it's a new product and you decide you don't really care for it, but now what do you do with it? Well, stock swap to the rescue!

The idea is for everybody to bring 10 items from their stockpile that they will not use. We each get to take turns "shopping" and then you go home with 10 things you will use! This is brilliant! I contributed things like canned blueberry pie filling and chicken stock...some of which moved from Tennessee with us. Don't worry, everything was still in date. Other moms brought things like swim diapers, air fresheners, pastas, canned goods, toothpaste and shampoo. I was thrilled to come home with cake batter, snacks and dressing.

I love how God works in this! I had planned to make cupcakes this coming week for my old CPA firm...you know it's a "fun" time of year for them and everybody could use a cupcake to make the day brighter. Well, I didn't have any mix at home and had planned to buy some, until two boxes showed up at the stock swap!

This year's stock swap held an extra huge bonus! One of the moms has just finished the baby food stage with her son, but had tons (and I do mean TONS) of baby food leftover. She brought it all and offered it to any moms in that stage. After checking the dates, it will still be good by the time our new little guy is ready for baby food, so we were able to bring some of that home as well. What a great treat! Thanks, JM!

Any of the items, including ample baby food, remaining at the end of the swap were contributed to the church's food pantry for them to distribute to families whenever needs arise. Thank you Jesus, for such a fun and practical way to provide for our families and be resourceful with what You've given us!

A handmade Christmas

Our goal at Christmas with gift giving has been to give something personal, meaningful and inexpensive. I think we can all agree that presents for a long list of family and friends can quickly add up. Last year, we were in the throws of mucho tight times financially and therefore everybody got a picture of Haley and a jar of apple butter from one of our favorite stops in Tennessee. Ok, not so personal I know, but it was meaningful and inexpensive.

This year I was really inspired by an idea I saw at the Shrimp Festival in October. A vendor had taken pictures of architecture and nature to bring out the shape of a letter in the alphabet. She then took these letters and spelled words with them in art. I have since learned that this was a new craze and there's even been a successful company selling these Alphabet Photography art pieces worldwide. Anyway, I got really excited when I saw these and started thinking of what word I would want for our home...until I realized they were $8 per letter. Toby pulled me aside and said, "You could totally do this yourself." He's so encouraging and that's one of the things I love about him! I quickly came up with lots of excuses, laziness and lack of creativity being chief. But in the end, my frugalness and not wanting to drop $40 on art we really didn't need won out.

The idea didn't die there. During our 90 minute drive home that afternoon, I couldn't get the idea out of my head and I began seeing letters all over the landscape. Slowly some motivation began to grow. Long story short, I spent a few hours out one afternoon while Toby played with Haley and then another afternoon while Haley watched movies in the back seat...I'd drive around town until a found a fun letter, hop out, snap the picture and then run back to the car. Honestly, for my stay at home mom self, it turned into a fun project.

So this idea morphed into Christmas presents! I wanted to offer our family something meaningful. Not just from me and Toby, but from our Jesus Himself. So I spent several weeks in prayer over our family members and God faithfully gave me a word for each person. The original idea was to write a letter to each person to explain the art and the word God had for them, but as busyness often gets in the way, the letters got put off. Eventually, His Spirit became so heavy, the letters got written just in time, and I am SOO grateful for our obedience. I wrote the letters to my family and Toby wrote letters to his. To watch my family read Jesus' words and to see His love come across their face was priceless and afterward I reflected for a long time...Who am I to deny my family Jesus' soothing words that their soul so badly needed to hear? It was a wonderful reminder that I am here to serve Him...to do His work...to spread His love. My laziness nearly cost my family a beautiful blessing.

PEACE

REST

CHERISH

I took all of the pictures myself around Mobile, the boards came from Lowe's and were painted black. The clip frames came from Quadro frames ($1.49/each). Toby attached hangers on the back and I glued the frames to the board with wood glue. Being an accountant by trade, I've always considered myself "lacking" in the creative department, so if I can do this, so can you!

Thank you Jesus for a fun, creative and inexpensive way to share Your love with our family this Christmas. Thank you for loving each of us so much that You know exactly what we need to hear when we need to hear it. You continue to amaze me!

Monumental cooking

Many months ago the mentor moms at my MOPS group introduced me to "once a month cooking." The idea is to get 3 or 4 friends together, purchase ingredients in bulk, and work together to prepare and freeze 30 meals for each of you. You could do it on your own, but it's much more fun together. This weekend I have gathered with some girlfriends from college and we have decided to give this project a go. We didn't quite make it to 30 meals, but we did tackle eleven. After one day of mega shopping and nearly three days of cooking, the four of us each have at least eleven meals to take home. Our delectable treats include beef taco bake, chicken casserole, vegetable soup, lasagna, sundried tomato chicken pasta, homemade spaghetti sauce, sausage balls, pizza dough, meatloaf, squash casserole, and spaghetti pie. After doing the math, this project cost each of us $68, and breaks down to about $6 per meal. For our small families, each "meal" will feed us for dinner and even offer up a leftover meal or two.

I feel like the ultimate hunter gatherer for my family! My freezer will be full and I will be prepared to whip out a full meal with virtually no preparation...well, at least eleven times.

a freezer full of yummy meals

I have to say that I think our first go round at massive cooking went pretty well, but we have learned a few tricks that will make things a little smoother next time...we need a deeper dish for the lasagna, stacking the lasagna pans before they're frozen will likely lead to leakage, print extra and more extra labels, and the host freezer needs to be cleaned out and space maximized before the big weekend. Other than that, it was a great success and we will be doing it again.

In addition to endless hours of cooking, I have enjoyed painting my toenails, cheering on the Auburn Tigers, watching chick flicks and sleeping late, thanks to my mom enjoying Haley for the weekend. All in all, it's been a great few days away from reality and responsibilities and catching up with old friends...now I'm ready to head home refreshed and ready for the holidays!

Pancake breakfast

A rainy day was upon us, so Haley and I planned to spend it at home catching up on laundry, cleaning and paying bills. Ok, so Haley has mostly played with her little kitchen and watched Woody and Buzz, while I have worked today. The point is, I wasn't in the mood for the same old breakfast.

My mom makes the greatest pancakes on the planet and she always makes them for me when I'm in town. See...she cooks from the heart too, so I know I come by it naturally. She laughs at me when I praise her pancakes and insists it's just baking mix, milk and eggs..."It's so easy. You could do this." Well, for whatever reason, I am incapable of duplicating her pancakes, so I've quit trying. They're either too runny, too thick, they burn easily or don't cook evenly. When we're at home we do waffles and I let the world's greatest pancakes be a special treat. Anyway, this morning I decided to go at it from another angle and searched for a quick pancake recipe and whipped up a batch. Oh my, they were so yummy! I think it was the vanilla in the batter, but the list of ingredients way complicates them compared to mom's, but they were so good!
The recipe had a great tip that I will be utilizing in the near future...mix up the dry ingredients in advance and put it in a zip top bag so it's ready to go when you are. Kind of like buying those pre-made pancake mixes at the grocery store, only without the high price tag or preservatives. Since I wasn't sure of the yield, I went ahead and made the full recipe which gave me 13 beautiful pancakes. Obviously, Haley and I didn't put away 13 pancakes at breakfast, so I froze the leftovers and will pull them out a few at a time over the next few days. Again, kick the breakfast freezer isle to the curb.

Click here for the recipe. I added an extra 1/4 cup of flour because the batter was a little runny for my taste. Just to warn you, they're not as great as mom's, but they're a close enough second. Enjoy! (And just for the record, I think my picture looks way more yummy than theirs...I'm just sayin'.)

Home Sweet Home

We followed Jesus' lead and moved to Mobile, Alabama 2 1/2 months ago, knowing there would be tons of adjustments ahead. One of the biggest was our home. We had a house waiting for us (cool story, click here and here to read about it), so we were grateful to skip over the house hunting headache. The problem was that our new house is about half the size of our house in Tennessee. Like most red-blooded Americans we started our marriage with the biggest house we could afford and subsequently upgraded with the next one. And what good is that big, pretty house without lots of nice things to fill it? I am almost ashamed to say that I was dreading leaving my beautiful, 2-story, 5 year old house for one that was half the size, six times the age and severely lacking many of the conveniences...snobby, I know.

In the last few weeks, God has helped me to understand that "home is where the heart is". Before this experience, I would have told you this wise Cracker Barrel saying was true, but now that I've lived through it, I can honestly say that it's not the size of the house or it's fancy furnishing that make it home...it's the love that is shared within the walls. Soon after our move here, God told us to "possess the land" and so "possess" we have done. In fact, this small, old house strangely feels more like home than any other place we've lived. I guess it's the extra effort we have put into making this house really become ours. Our previous two houses were beige...beige carpet, beige walls, beige furniture...blah. Truth be told, I hated it. But we were too concerned with resale value to actually make our house like we wanted it. This house has been different...we've painted the kitchen, Haley's room and the hall bathroom (and they're all different colors, mind you) and we've screened in the back porch so we can enjoy the outdoors all year. But even with all of these cosmetic changes, it's been the life we've lived in the last few weeks that has transformed this house into our home.

One day last week I grew a wild hair and made homemade cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. And when I say, "homemade" I'm talking flour, yeast, the whole nine yards! I love to bake, but this was my first time baking on this level, unsupervised and all by myself. I wish I could show you a picture, but my orange rolls were less than impressive looking, but oh how they were delicious! A little tweaking to account for this ridiculous Mobile humidity and I think they'll be perfect. A big thank you to the Pioneer Woman for the recipe! (recipes: cinnamon rolls / orange rolls) From this point forward when we make these rolls for guests or the holidays, they will always be tied to this sweet house.

Today, a new friend came over to make laundry detergent with me. Now, I realize that saying this out loud makes me sound like a 1950s housewife, but this is one of my favorite money saving tips! With about $4 and 30 minutes of effort, you can have a year's worth of laundry detergent stashed away. I first made this recipe last year on Halloween weekend, having been inspired by a super creative Tennessee friend, and am just now making another batch today. This is crazy easy and I hope you'll get a chance to check it out. My friend today even said she has one of those new fancy HE washing machines and her research has said this detergent will work fine with it! Please let me know if you discover differently. Thanks to the Duggars for this recipe, by far my favorite TV family. (recipe: laundry detergent)

As great as these things have been, they are still topped by the surprise my Jesus had waiting for me in the front yard last week. I pulled up in the driveway to see flowers blooming in my...ahem...flower bed. Our poor flower bed has been all but neglected over the last three years. While we were in Tennessee, a great friend kept up with the lawn and last fall gave the flower bed a face lift, but it hasn't received much attention since then. Among all of the weeds was a group of beautiful, purply-pink flowers...I wish I knew enough about flowers to tell you what kind, but my Jesus knew how much I would love them and I have really enjoyed having this little bloom in my front yard!
For those of you keeping up with Toby's schooling (aka, the reason we returned to Mobile), he got an A in his first class and his second class starts this week. This new class is "Christian Worldview" and is an undergraduate class required by all university students. My understanding is that it teaches the students to approach their professions through a "God-filter." I think I'm just about as excited as Toby. His books for this class are Think like Jesus by George Barna, How Christianity Changed the World by Alvin Schmidt, Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis and God at Work by Gene Veith. Our prayer for the coming weeks is for Toby's reading. He's not the biggest fan of reading, so tackling four books in six weeks will be a challenge! Hopefully he will only be required to hit the highlights in each one...we'll see. Thank you for your continued support and prayers in this journey. It's been an awesome ride so far...