1. When we wait too late to start dinner on a Friday, it’s time for cheap burritos from Taco Bell!

2. If screaming toddlers are your thing, head on over to my place! I’ll set you right up….

3. It’ll be a miraculous day indeed when my boys can clean their room without whining and fighting.

4. London, England is a place I always wanted to visit, but haven’t yet.

5. When I’m sad I eat; when I’m happy I eat.   Hence my weight problem…

6. I don’t have any real complaints about my community.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to chilling out with the family, tomorrow my plans include Eli’s end-of-year drama class performance and tons of housecleaning, and Sunday, I want to enjoy a very busy day full of church,time with friends, and learning about orphan ministry!

Click here for more Friday Fill-Ins!

(The first still-life I painted in college — in watercolor)

I am not sure who to credit this list to…I looked it up and couldn’t find an original source. (Nor did I have time to research every claim…but you can do that for yourself!) My friend Nathan shared it on Facebook and I thought it was worth re-posting here.

I know that I, my family, and most of my friends have health issues we’re dealing with, and it’s intriguing to see the healing properties God tucked inside many of our favorite fruits and vegetables. I’ve been working on increasing the amount of produce we eat and it’s good to know that there are extensive benefits beyond just eating well!

Look at the list and see which fruits or vegetables could help the problems you’re struggling with. How many of these do you have in your kitchen today? I counted 16!

Here’s to good health and happy eating! (And if weight loss is a side effect, Praise the Lord and pass the spinach!)

❥ Pineapple: Speeds post-surgery, Promotes joint health, Reduces asthma inflammation

❥ Blueberries: Restore antioxidant levels, Reverse age-related brain decline, Prevent urinary tract infection

❥ Spinach: Helps maintain mental sharpness, Reduces the risk of cancers of the liver, ovaries, colon and prostate, Top nutrient density

❥ Red Bell Pepper: Reduces risk of lung, prostate, ovarian and cervical cancer, Protects against sunburn, Promotes heart health

❥ Broccoli: Reduces diabetic damage, Lowers risk of prostate, bladder, colon, pancreatic, gastric and breast cancer, Protects the brain in event of injury

❥ Tomato: Reduces inflammation, Lowers risk of developing esophageal, stomach, colorectal lung and pancreatic cancer, Reduces cardiovascular disease risk

❥ Apple: Supports immunity, Fights lung and prostate cancer, Lowers Alzheimer’s risk

❥ Artichoke: Helps blood clotting, Antioxidant Superfood, Lowers “bad” cholesterol

❥ Arugula: Lowers birth defect risk, Reduces fracture risk, Protects eye health

❥ Asparagus: Nourishes good gut bacteria, Protects against birth defects, Promotes heart health

❥ Avocado: Limits liver damage, Reduces oral cancer risk, Lowers cholesterol levels

❥ Blackberries: Build bone density Suppress appetite, Enhance fat burning

❥ Butternut Squash: Supports night vision, Combats wrinkles, Promotes heart health

❥ Cantaloupe: Bolsters immunity, Protects skin against sunburn, Reduces inflammation

❥ Carrot: Antioxidants defend DNA, Fights cataracts, Protects against some cancers

❥ Cauliflower: Stimulates detoxification, Suppresses breast cancer cell growth, Defends against prostate cancer

❥ Cherries: Alleviate arthritic pain and gout, Lower “bad” cholesterol, Reduce inflammation

❥ Cranberries: Alleviate prostate pain. Fight lung, colon and leukemia cancer cells. Prevent urinary tract infection

❥ Green Cabbage: Promotes healthy blood clotting, Reduces risk of prostate, colon, breast and ovarian cancers, Activates the body’s natural detoxification systems

❥ Kale: Counters harmful estrogens that can feed cancer, Protects eyes against sun damage and cataracts, Increases bone density

❥ Kiwi: Combats wrinkles, Lowers blood clot risk and reduces blood lipids, Counters constipation

❥ Mango: Supports, immunity, Lowers “bad” cholesterol, Regulates homocysteine to protect arteries

❥ Mushrooms: Promote natural detoxification, Reduce the risk of colon and prostate cancer, Lower blood pressure

❥ Orange: Reduces levels of “bad” cholesterol, Lowers risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, breast and stomach, and childhood leukemia, Pectin suppresses appetite

❥ Papaya: Enzymes aid digestion, Reduces risk of lung cancer, Enhances fat burning

❥ Plums & Prunes : Counter constipation, Antioxidants defend against DNA damage, Protects against post-menopausal bone loss

❥ Pomegranate: Enhances sunscreen protection, Lowers “bad” cholesterol, Fights prostate cancer

❥ Pumpkin: Protects joints against polyarthritis, Lowers lung and prostate cancer risk, Reduces inflammation

❥ Raspberries: Inhibit growth of oral, breast, colon and prostate cancers, Antioxidant DNA defense, Lower “bad” cholesterol levels

❥ Strawberries: Protect against Alzheimer’s, Reduce “bad” cholesterol, Suppress growth of colon, prostate and oral cancer

❥ Sweet Potato: Reduces stroke risk, Lowers cancer risk, Protect against blindness

❥ Watermelon: Supports male fertility, Reduces risk of several cancers: prostate, ovarian, cervical, oral and pharyngeal, Protects skin against sunburn

❥Banana: Increases Fat Burning, Lowers risk of colorectal and kidney cancer, leukemia, Reduces asthma symptoms in children

I got this idea online and gave it a try today. Instead of using clothespins, just turn the diaper inside out (so that the lining benefits from the bleaching and deodorizing properties of the sun) and snap one of the tabs over the clothesline to secure it.

I’d always worried that the pressure of the clothespins would damage the PUL. Now I don’t have to worry! And if you’re like me and have more clothesline than clothespins, it frees them up for other garments.

(Sorry for the poor pic quality — it was taken with my phone, through a window screen! But if you click on it, it gets bigger.)

(OH, and notice the cotton receiving blankets drying behind the pocket diapers. I thank my friend Celeste for sharing that tip with me — pad-folded, they make great pocket diaper inserts! Just as good as flats or prefolds, and they dry super-fast but tons cheaper — I got these at a yard sale for .10 cents each!)

It’s definitely my least-favorite season –I despise heat and humidity and both are annoyingly abundant in Georgia from May through September.

It’s been a somewhat trying week, so I didn’t greet today’s warm weather with the best of attitudes. But because I believe that attitude changes everything, I am trying to change mine for the better by making a list of things that I like about summer. I need to encourage myself for the long, hot days ahead.

Trouble is, I could only come up with five:

1. Swimming

2. Going to the beach

3. A break from schoolwork

4. Fireflies

5. Hummingbirds

AND…that’s about all I’ve got.

What about you? What would you put on a list of “Things to Love About Summer”?

Mother’s Day always raises memories of so many special women, some still with me and others long gone. I’m a mother, but today isn’t really about me. It’s about all the beautiful mother figures who’ve invested into my life and taught me how to live. I honor these mentors who’ve made me into the woman I am now—nowhere near perfect, but nowhere near the mess I’d be without the gift of their influence.

Let me tell you about a few of them today.

First, of course, is my mother.

I grew up during the 1970’s, when women were returning to the workforce in droves. But my mom taught me that staying home was nothing to be ashamed of. Being there for your children, taking care of your home, being at every recital, every art lesson, every parent-teacher conference was just as important as going out to earn a paycheck.

Mom was always there. I didn’t appreciate that much as a teenager, but now I’m grateful because I realize how many awful things her involvement saved me from. She taught me that any man I’d deem worthy of marriage should treat me like a queen—and encouraged me as I waited for him. I began to worry that he wouldn’t come, but she never seemed to doubt it. And of course, Mama’s always right—he came.

I was born a night owl and a bit of an insomniac. I used to wake Mom in the wee hours to talk about what was keeping me awake, and I can’t remember her ever being cross or impatient with me even though I now understand how precious sleep must’ve been to her. We’d sit up in the darkened living room, lit only by the light of the ceramic pineapple lamp she’d made, and she’d listen before sharing her wisdom with me.

Mom has always liked to have fun. She was our partner-in-crime when my sisters and I felt puny but not really sick enough to stay home from school. She’d let us stay home anyway—teaching me the value of taking a mental health day when you really need one.

My mom carried to me the goodness deposited by her own mother. We called her Honey, and she was sweeter than anything any bee ever thought about making. Honey taught me gentleness and steadfastness, how good it felt to have someone’s face light up at your presence and the security of knowing that they’d always be there for you. She showed me how to cook without using recipes, and that baking something from scratch was the best way to make a guest feel welcomed and loved.

My Dad’s mother, Granny, was a real character, rough around the edges, but with a heart of gold and a deep, contagious laugh. She taught me that it was OK to relax, that the world wouldn’t end if you had dust bunnies on your carpet and toothpaste in the sink. From her, I learned that material riches didn’t matter if you had loved ones to share your life with—and that no matter how much or how little you have, you share it with others.

In adulthood, God has blessed me with several women whose examples I cherish. There was Lydia, the lady who trusted me to be a nanny to her four precious children. She taught me so much about mothering with patience and grace, how to see the world through a child’s eyes and sympathize with what he is experiencing. I have utilized her example countless times in parenting my own children, and am so grateful for it.

There was Sister Lowman and later, Pastor Beth and Colleen, all three pillars of faith, spiritual mamas who taught me what it meant to be a strong Christian woman. Each graciously guided me through some hard times in life, showing me how to not be afraid, how to rely on God instead of my own strength.

If you ever see any good in me, you see all of them, too. And though I don’t have a daughter of my own, I love opportunities to invest in the lives of girls and women younger than me, so that everything I’ve been given by these beautiful mentors will continue to live on long after I’m gone.

It’s a beautiful thing we celebrate today, this chain of connectedness from generation to generation, this most amazing gift of mothering.

“Being a mother is one of the highest salaried jobs… since the payment is pure love.”

~Mildred B. Vermont

Of course, he didn’t know it was Star Wars Day, so it was just a funny coincidence that he brought it to Zach and begged, “Put it on!” until Zach complied.

Anyway, the crazy kid wore it for about an hour — while having chocolate pudding, then swiping his brother’s toothbrush from the bathroom, and then sneaking not one, but two lollipops from a party treat bag.

So for Top Ten Tuesday, ten pics of pure silly cuteness!

The child loves to brush his teeth.

Unfortunately, it’s often with someone else’s toothbrush.

Which may or may not also end up in the dog’s mouth.

We go through a lot of toothbrushes now…

Eli says that in the next pic, Jonah looks like he’s meditating, like Yoda.

If so, he’s definitely pondering what mischief he’d like to get into next…

“I know! I’ll have a lollipop!”

…or two.

And then another little household ham had to get in on the Yoda-loving fun!

When it is said,

Some say.

I say it just

Begins to live

That day.”

- Emily Dickinson

I’ve seen this graphic a few times on Pinterest. As a mother, that boy’s expression just breaks my heart. I try to control what comes out of my mouth, but I can’t help but recall the idle words I’ve sometimes flung at my children in moments of anger and frustration.

A spirit is such a fragile thing, so easily crushed by something as light as words.

Except our words aren’t light at all. They might possibly be the heaviest, most powerful things God ever entrusted us with.

I know what it feels like to wear the expression on that boy’s face. Though time has buffered the edges off the memories, those eyes take me back to all the times I’ve looked like that, verbal cruelty clenched around my throat like a boa constrictor, tightening until my breath was gone, stolen by the hissing breath of another.

Through grace, I’ve also known what it’s like to live long seasons of life surrounded by love and encouragement. And I’ve come to realize that you never forget what either feels like — living with the agony of verbal abuse, or immersed inside the peace of graceful kindness.

But as they used to tell my husband when he was in the Navy, “One ‘Oh $*+#’ erases 100 ‘atta boys.”

Unfortunately, I’m still stinging from an incident that brought home the truth in that.

Because that’s all it took. One hateful, angry, betraying diatribe, one lengthy explosion of bitter ugliness and I’m yanked right out of my peaceful place, left with a lap full of verbal diarrhea to clean up — and the violation of having dozens of poisonous seed-words planted inside me against my will.

Every one of those awful words started living that day.

And every one of them are weeds, good-for-nothing weeds that I’ve yanked up by the roots, repeatedly. But if you know weeds, you know they only do one thing well: they keep coming back.

There’s a stubborn potato vine that curls around the azaleas and gardenias below my bedroom window. Every summer, we yank it out of the ground, but every spring, it returns, and we never seem to notice it until it’s well-established. The summer after Jonah was born, in that crazy-busy, sleep-deprived year, no one pulled up the vine. So it slowly snaked itself around a lovely, tall, narrow shrub, choking it down until it was so badly bent over, there was no way to salvage it.

Today I looked out the window and there was the vine, two strong green cords springing out from between the fading gardenia blooms. Each vine’s leaves were uncurled, drinking up the sunshine to fuel another season of destruction.

I’m so tired of fighting against that stupid vine.

I’m so tired of fighting those words echoing inside my mind, wrapping themselves around what is good, pulling me down to death, if I let it.

It’s doubtful that the person who verbally assaulted me will ever read these words, ever understand that “I-meant-what-I-said-but-I’m-sorry-it-hurt-your-feelings” is almost worse than never offering an apology at all. Because it’s the same as saying, “I really do think you’re a rotten excuse for a human being. What a pity that it bothers you to hear that.”

This person will probably never know how their words took up residence in my mind, how they pop up daily to steal joy, strangle peace. How their rough edges claw scabs off old wounds, bloody drops of doubt staining again things I thought had been redeemed long ago.

The Bible speaks in many places about the power of words. I love The Message’s simple paraphrase of Proverbs 18:21:

“Words kill, words give life;

they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.”

I’m sorry that this person chose poison. The aftermath hasn’t been pleasant or fun and if I could’ve avoided the whole thing, I would have. I know God will heal it, the scabs will reform, the unwatered word-seeds will eventually wither and peace will come again. I know that God could yank up by the roots all the weeds that were planted, and sometimes that is how He deals with us.

Quick, merciful elimination of pain. It’s so very nice when He does that.

But sometimes, other times, there’s a lesson hidden in the process, uncovered only by living through the messy sorting-out of the garbage we are handed. For me, this is one of those times.

Though I wouldn’t have volunteered for this abuse, I think I needed to be reminded that we’ve all been given the power to make our words as bitter as poison or as sweet as fruit.

We get to choose.

I have to pause and ponder that: WE get to choose. Every time we open our mouths or type a word, we choose.

That’s why it’s called self-control. The devil doesn’t make us say cruel things. We decide to say them — we alone control our tongues.

And we alone are responsible for what our words create in this world.

As a writer, I know I’ve been given a bit more to manage in that regard, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more acutely aware of the power I have to build up or tear down with my words. It’s been a humbling and trying season. But I have really begun to notice the things I say to those closest to me, especially to my children. My belly is sometimes uncomfortably stuffed with eaten words, because I never want my kids to feel like the child in the photo above. Not at anyone’s hand — but especially never at the hand of their own mother.

There’s wisdom in this saying, “Forget what hurt you in the past. But never forget what it taught you.”

Forgive. Forgive again. Seventy times seven, forgive and let it go.

If it comes back home to roost again, forgive and let it go.

But always let the process make you stronger.

I’ve been wanting one for a while, if for no other reason than to take colorful pics like this:

I love the “cha-ching!” ringing in my mind over the money we’ll save on electricity.  Of course, here in the south, not using the clothes dryer saves money two ways — the electricity needed to run the machine, plus the break the air conditioner gets from not having to fight against the heat churned out by the dryer during the long, hot summer.

I also love the fresh, clean smell of air-dried clothing!

And I hear the sun is great for getting stains out of clothes, particularly cloth diapers. (Which, as you can see, we are still using, and probably will be for a while since Jonah’s reaction to the potty is to scream “NOPE!” and run away, or ask to “Pee-pee on da potteee?” but then sit for one second, just a ruse to get us to let him wash his hands. But that child’s potty training is another blog post entirely.)

I’m finding that I really enjoy hanging the clothes out. It’s a good excuse to get outside for a while and adds a little more physical activity into the day. It’s always peaceful and quiet, and today the most beautiful pale blue butterfly kept dancing in the grass around my feet.

You might think it’s cheesy, but I get kind of sentimental when I’m using my clothesline. I love how these frugal, back-to-nature things connect me to my ancestors and women around the world.

Clotheslines.

Cloth diapers.

Breastfeeding.

Baking from scratch.

It all just feels warm and fuzzy and all “Little House on the Prairie”-ish to me.

Can’t you just hear the laundry, softly flapping in the breeze?

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” ― C.S. Lewis

Never do I feel this more acutely than when I have to work but want to revel in His goodness.

I’m listening to praise music as I write about construction standards for a client. I’m not even moderately interested in construction on a good day, but I am quite interested in paying my bills. So I write about project managers and safety standards while “You Won’t Relent” plays through my headphones, and my spirit dances in rebellion against the hands and mind struggling to craft the most mundane words into something interesting.

I want to write about the deeper things on my heart, the passions of my spirit. I want to write a poem to someone I love, paint a picture or just look at photos of my precious children and thank God for the millionth time for blessing me so abundantly.

But I dutifully type about contractors and machinery instead.

And that’s when Lewis’ quote resonates with me. My soul was made for God; like a colorful balloon bouquet, it always reaches up toward heaven, longing to release from the tethers keeping it down. The soul must be tightly bound to keep it from flying up and kissing the clouds, as it was made to do.  This body is the heavy weight that grounds the soul, that keeps it firmly planted here until God decides to cut the strings and set us soaring back to Him, happily flying free.

I don’t want to go before His time, but I welcome the day that who I am — the REAL me — bobs up joyfully away from the shell that’s held me, free to return to my Father and to all that is lovely and wonderful — finally, fully escaping and leaving behind all the leaden weight of this world…

“Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.“ ― C.S. Lewis