Joy...

I can honestly say that I don't live with a lot of joy in my life.  Certainly there are joyful moments, but do I feel the lasting contentment that comes with joy?  No.  I do not.  Instead, I'd say that in my head, I'm always looking for what's wrong, and how to improve upon it.  For years, I've said, "What's wrong with that?"  I find problems.  There is a need for people who do that.  I find problems and I solve them.  It's a commodity.  But like every weakness, this is an overflow of a strength.... and it robs me of joy.  Nice to know. 

Then today I read this fabulous quote:  "Joy is a deeply-rooted confidence that God is in control.” - TRUSTING GOD (Jaynes, Smith, Southerland), and I was reminded that everytime I find problems and stress out about them, and think about what I need to DO, DO, DO  --  that I'm not resting in the fact that God is in control.  He gave me the skills and aptitude to solve whatever life throws at me!  I have nothing to worry about.  And that when I really trust in God, that nothing will be a problem-- and all there is room for is joy. 

Just the thought is comforting.  Just the thought that I can have confidence in God to run it is joyful.  I don't know why I've been trying to run it.  Who do I think I am?  Compared to God?  Less than a speck on a flea.  And yet, he trusts me enough to give me skills to run things, and to handle it.  So why don't I rest in him? 

Horray for a Paradym Shift!  Joy is a deeply-rooted confidence that God is in control!  :)

He's growing up so fast!

My son is now about 15 months old, and overnight it seems like he get's it.

Two days ago, my mom was talking to Gregory about his bath tub experience and she said the whole story to him, and then said, "Tell me Gregory!"  After an exaggerated deep breath, he said to her, "It's true." 

Tonight, I said to Gregory, "Would you like a smoothie?" 
"Mooie?"
"Yes, a smoothie.  You'll have to sit here in the high chair while I make it."
After two-three minutes he asked, "Is it all done yet?" (It sounded like that too.)

He's so helpful too.  Tonight he helped me put away his toys, his cheerios when he spilled them, and also helped me pick up all the hangers.  :) 

When it was time to put pajamas on, I said, "Gregory, it's time to put on your pajamas." and he came running.  When I was done, he gave me a hug and said, "all done." 
Then I say, "Gregory, it's time to brush your teeth."  And he runs to the bathroom, and knocks on the door.

I'm trying to remember to treasure every moment, because it goes so fast, and soon he'll be grown up. 

Pumpkin Whip Pie

I recently had a huge taste for pumpkin, but wanted a light low fat recipe that would leave little guilt about what I ate. 

Here's my recipe for Pumpkin Whip Pie:

2 containers of fat free cool whip.
2 large boxes of fat free, sugar free instant vanilla pudding
1 can of pumpkin
1tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp ginger
dash nutmeg
2 Tbl Sugar
Graham cracker crust

Whip up everything but the crust, spread in crust, refridgerate for 2 hours, enjoy! 

Simple, fast, easy, delightful!

Can I comb your hair, Mom?

I was playing with my son last night in his room.  We were on the floor and in usual boy fashion he was banging, pounding, and playing.  Abruptly, he ran from the room, and returned holding a comb. 
"Dis?"  he said to me.
I said, "It's a comb." 
He walked up closely to me, and began combing my hair.  I melted into a puddle.  He combed my hair for several moments and ran out of the room, returning again with a brush.
"Dis?"  he asked.
"It's a brush."  I said.  He starts the same process of brushing my hair.  Then he alternated, some with the comb, some with the brush.  So terribly sweet.

YUMMY!!!!!! Cream of Mushroom and Potato Soup

I've been making soups once or twice a week for my meals at work, and also for supplements to meals.  I've tried to make sure that the soups are from scratch, and include items from meals that I made or that Greg made previously so that we're not wasting food.  We accidentally bought too many potatoes at the grocery store this week, so I made mashed potatoes for dinner tonight, and used some of the leftovers to make the soup.  We also had some mushrooms that were good but wouldn't have made it 2 more days.  So here's my soup recipe made from leftovers, and extras.

Cream of Mushroom and Potato Soup

2 cups of mushrooms chopped
3 cups of mashed potatoes
2Tbl butter, seperated
1 Tbl whole wheat flour
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of mixed veggies cooked
2 chicken bullion cubes
4 cups of water
1/8 cup of chives

Saute mushrooms with one TBL of butter.  Set aside.  melt remaining TBL of butter in 4 qt saucepan and stir in flour.  Slowly wisk in milk, and bring up temp and let it get creamy.  stir constantly with wisk.  after bubbling, keep stirring and add bullion cubes.  Then add mushrooms, potatoes, and veggies.  Use a handheld mixer to blend.  Slowly add 4 cups of water while blending.  Add chives.  Cook til bubbly again, and serve.

Makes 9 cups. 

Creamy Yumminess!

I plan on using two cups of this soup to make a chicken casserole either tomorrow or the day after that. 

Stove Top Rice Pudding

I was looking for an easy stove top rice pudding recipe to use on the stove (because my oven is broke), and I found a few recipes that looked great but called for HUGE amounts of recipe, and many ingredients.  In order to cook frugally, one must use fewer ingredients.  It saves money.  I wanted my rice pudding to be both great and economical.  Here's what I came up with:

1 1/2 cups rice, cooked.
2 TBL Sweetend Condensed Milk
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
one egg
1/4 cup of raisins

Turn the stove on to medium heat and add to a medium sized pan rice, sweetend condensed milk, milk, and egg.  Stir until egg is worked into mixture.  Add spices and raisins.  Bring to a vigorous simmer.  Stir VERY often.  Cook for about 8 minutes until mixture is thickened and raisins are soft.

Voila!  Serve warm.  :)

What Soup Was Made For

Somewhere in the last 20 years, with the advent of the Food Network, I think I stopped thinking about food in my pantry as a cumulative to be used together, but as a series of ingredients to fit whatever recipe I had.  If I didn't have what was in the recipe, I either went to the store to get the ingredients, or I didn't make the recipe.  But now that Greg and I are grocery shopping once a week, and not going out to eat, it's forcing me to look at the items in my pantry differently.  Now I look at items to see what recipes I can create.  So here's to the leftover ingredients that I had and the delicious Black Bean Soup that I made. 

(We've been keeping a bag or two of beans in the house, and then we soak them overnight, boil them, and use them for various things all week.  Black Beans were what we used this week.  The baby loves to eat beans which provide him with protein, and we love having more protein in our meals too!  We're also doing this with pasta too!)

Black Bean Soup-- From leftovers.

1 onion sliced (not left over)

1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilies (not left over)

2 cups of black beans ready to use

1 cup of peas

2 cups of pasta

3 strips of leftover bacon

2tsp of Italian Seasoning

1/8 tsp of cumin powder

add pepper to taste

2 chicken bullion cubes

Saute onion, and add tomatoes stir add chicken bullion cubes, then add 2 cups of black beans, and peas and 8 cups of water.  Bring to a boil.  Add cooked pasta, bacon and spices. let simmer for 10-20 min.  And Voila!    A simple soup made from leftovers, and the flavors were wonderful! 

I'm finding that I'm absolutely enjoying trying to stretch every penny out of my pantry!  :) 

Time is money

If time is money, that means that when we chose to spend our money on things/people/stuff/food/ fill-in-the-blank-here that means we're also choosing to spend time away from what we love in order to pay for what we chose to spend our money on.  So if we manage our money poorly, we're managing time poorly.

Thanks to TheSimpleDollar.com for pointing this out to me. 

I've also learned that if you don't value your time, you don't value your money or your stuff.  I never thought the two were so closely related. 

If time is money, and I have exchange my time for money, then a penny saved is a penny earned-- and probably a couple of minutes too.  This perspective on time and money management is making me rethink everything I choose to spend my time-- money on.  I'm thinking that I need to make sure that I spend both time and money wisely and focused around what I love instead of frivolous things I think I need.

Here's an example:  Starbucks.  One grande per week.  $4.55 for 52 weeks is literally a day and half of work for me.  I don't want to work a day and a half to drink Starbucks.  I'd rather work a day and a half to go on a great date with my husband or save for a vacation.  Starbucks out.  A penny saved is a penny earned.  Well, $236. 60 worth of pennies!  :)  I've been going through my head and thinking of all the ridiculous stuff that I spend-- waste-- my money on, and those things are out too.

I broke down my entire budget by how many days I have to work in order to pay for certain things-- like the mortgage, electricity, etc.  It's making me rethink how I spend all of my money.  I'd like to be able to spend my money on what I chose to spend it on.  I'll get there.  Baby Steps.  Realization is the biggest part of the battle. 

At this point, I'd like to give a shout out to my Creator for helping me to see all of this and answering my prayers.  You're an Amazing God.  Thank you for caring for me!

Cutting the fat

I've learned many things through the process of nursing my son.  One of the lessons that I learned while pumping was this:  every drop counts.  Every drop of breastmilk works with other drops of breastmilk to make a meal.  So there were days when I'd see drops, and I learned about economics through milk.  I never understood the quote, "A penny saved is a penny earned."  Because to me, it seemed like I had one wasted penny-- and why did ONE penny really matter.  But now I really know.  One penny, put with other pennies makes many pennies, which makes the money of my life.  And if I waste one penny, I'm wasting other pennies and that affects my goals and dreams, because there are less pennies to work with. 

My husband and I have always spent WAY too much money on groceries.  It's food after all, and I need to eat right?  So it's okay to overspend on the budget because it's food.  Wrong.  Although, I did operate for 10 years with this ideology.  And got fat doing it!  I'm now operating under the premise that every penny counts.  Even at the grocery store... and really this is the first time.  Most of my friends know that I've been into couponing, and I've gotten some really great deals!  But I've never made myself stay within budget, and even in couponing, I've wasted pennies. 

TIME TO CUT THE FAT!!

Well no more!  We resolved to stick to a number at the grocery store, and it's significantly less than what we used to work with.  We've cut out things that we used to do slowly.  For example, we used to eat out often, but with a toddler, that's really impossible.  So we cut that out.  Then last weekend, I planted a garden of beans and peas, and basil.  Obviously I could do more, but I'm operating with baby steps.  Next, I'm learning-- so is my hubby-- to cook with what we have instead of using recipes.  Recipes are just springboards for changing them to meet the ingredients we have at home. 

USING BEANS

Next, I'm learning to cook new recipes or use things I haven't used before.... like beans.  I've always used canned beans.  Now it's time to start using dried beans.  Yesterday, Greg soaked them for me, and then I made them the quick cooking method.  We'll now see how they work added to all sorts of meals this week.  I'm really excited to see what we come up with.

Crockpot Apple spice cake

Okay, so my oven's broke, and I badly wanted to make apple spice cake.  I wasn't sure how to make it because I couldn't find a recipe that used fresh apples, and I wanted to use some apples that I had.  So I looked at a bunch of different recipes and made my own Crock Pot Apple Spice Cake recipe.  Here goes:

Ingredients:

7 cups apples of various kinds, cored, peeled and sliced
3 TBL lemon juice concentrate
3/4 cup sugar
2 TBL flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Spice Cake mix
1/2 cup butter

materials (among other things)
1 large crock pot
microwave

Melt 1 stick of butter in microwave, set aside.  Prepare apples, toss with lemon juice, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg.  Bake in microwave for 25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.  Cover, but leave a little bit of room for the steam from the apples to escape.  Meanwhile take the butter that's been melted and mix it with the cake mix.  The batter will be more like flakey breadcrumbs than batter.  When the apples have been cooked down to what looks like the inside of an apple pie, toss into a well greased crock pot, and sprinkle the cake "batter" over the top.  Cook on high in the crock pot for 3-4 hours.  And Voila!  Serve while warm.

This picture shows what the "Batter" looks like on the top before it's been cooked.

I took this to a pot luck dinner tonight and it was gobbled up, and several people asked for the recipe... so here you go!  :)

A state of Joy

I've been wondering for years when I would feel joy.  I'm not talking just happiness, but the pure bliss that comes from unadulturated joy.  I feel snippets of this joy at various times in my life.  When I think back to the moments in my life where I have felt pure joy, it has always been fleeting, and almost--with the exception of the birth of my son, and the day I married Greg--always related to nature.  Like the time that I was on a bike ride with Greg and I got stuck out in the POURING rain.  Or the times that I sat on the beach at Warren Dunes, MI, soaking in the sunshine and running down the big sand dune.  Almost all of the joy that I have felt in my life is when I feel small and I feel the great bigness of God-- and how I am as tiny-- or tinier--as a grain of sand. 

Dictionary.com defines joy as:

"1.the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son's success.

2.a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.

3.the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.

4.a state of happiness or felicity."

 

I often think that I would like to feel joy constantly.  But looking at the above definition, it would be nearly impossible to constantly feel joy.  And yet, that is what Christians are called to.  It is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  When our eyes are not focused on ourselves--because we can't possibly create joy within ourselves-- none of us are that exceptionally good or satisfying, nor can we be the cause of keen pleasure or delight constantly, nor will we always feel glad, or festive gaiety.  However, when we focus on Christ, and what he has done for us, it is possible to be joyous.  Which makes me think that if I want more joy in my life, I'd better start thinking about my Creator more often!   

 

 

My Pasta E Fagioli Soup

My son really loves Olive Garden's Pasta E Fagioli soup, so this weekend, I decided I was going to make some soup.  After looking at recipes, and what was available in my pantry and fridge, here's the recipe I created.  It turned out to be super yummy with some zip!

1 cup of chopped onions,
1 cup of carrots shredded
1 diced green pepper

(saute above ingredients with Pam Spray in large cooking pot)

add the following once the green peppers are cooked:

1 can diced tomatoes
1 can northern beans
1 can of black beans

Stir it all up.  Allow above ingredients to heat up.

Add the following:  one jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce, 3 chicken bullion cubes, and about 32 oz of water.  Also add about 1.5 tsp of hot sauce.

Bring to a boil, add 1 cup of your favorite pasta noodles,  or whatever you had on hand.  I used mini bow tie pasta.

Let simmer for 40 minutes on low heat and voila! 

Super easy to make and a hearty and delicious meal!  :)

The Hairbrush

Last night when I was getting my son ready for bed, I was brushing his hair, and he said, "WHASIS?"  which I translate roughly to "What's this?"  I said, "It's a brush." and then I put his hand around the brush, and my hand around his hand and proceeded to show him how to brush his hair.  He yanked his hand away from mine and said, "Idoit."  And commenced to brush his hair.  I was shocked and pleasantly surprised.

I Thought of You.

I thought of you
--in the rhythms of my day
I thought of you
--in many ways
I thought of you
--and felt a rush of joy
I thought of you
--more than you'd think
I thought of you
--and felt desire rise--
I thought of you.

Night

When the blanket of darkness
falls on my house
and in my rooms
to the walls
I find myself at peace
with the night
knowing that it is just
alright.

Fear of Blogging

I sit down to write on this blog page so often.  I've got plenty to say-- if you know me, you know that.  But the thing is, whenever I sit down to write, I find myself deleting my words--even as I imagine sneering people reading what I wrote. 

Dessert, Gardens, & Sprinkles

I always thought that losing weight meant giving up dessert.  I love dessert.  Actually, I love sweets.  I should say I LOVE sweets.  It was hard to consider giving up sweets and still lose weight.  To me, I was like well, I'll be overweight as long as I have my dessert.  I don't want to live without dessert.  That's not living.  But my mom helped me see how I can still have dessert everyday and lose weight.  Granted, it's not a cannoli, or a rich slice of cake-- who knew cake had so many calories?!  Oh, that's right-- everyone who's skinny who passes up cake at the birthday parties knew how many calories is in cake.  Why do we serve cake at birthday parties anyway?!  Cake is the devil.

This week, I've managed to have my sweets-- in the form of fruit-- and still feel satisfied.  Mom puts sprinkles on all kinds of things.  A low calorie smoothie, gets decorated with sprinkles --and voila! -- it's more fun!

I also found out, that bratwursts are in the same category as cake, to be enjoyed about once a year!  Sigh.  All this healthy eating has me wanting to start a garden.  The thing is, my garden would be in hot Florida, not in the unseasonably cool Chicago weather that I'm currently enjoying.

So 7 days of healthy eating has me thinking of gardens instead of cake, and it's refreshing because I don't have to tell myself no to the garden.  I can say yes to the garden-- and forget about the cake!

Also, since being back here in IL for the past 10 days, I realize how much there is to do.  One can be outside here and actually enjoy it!  I feel like in Florida, by my house there is nothing to do.  It's sad.  There's not really a life for kids in Florida, especially in Pasco County.  But I have purposed to be more active when I get home, even if that means leaving the confines of my air conditioner to be out in the sweltering heat.

New Mom Fortifying Breakfast

My poor baby is teething and cutting his top two teeth, and has an ear infection to boot.  I've been up every 2 hours for the last two nights, and have only had 5 hours sleep last night.  While that's not downright sleep deprivation, I do feel tired... well, that was until I had my fortifying breakfast.  It consisted of the following:

• 2 Tylenol - for aches and pains from carrying a 25 lb child
• 3 fish oil for brain power
• 1 multi vitamin
• PSA--check with your doctor before taking supplements and medications.  :)
• 1 egg, two whites with milk and cheese - scrambled
• 1 serving of cottage cheese topped with blueberries for anti-oxidants, brain power, and flavor.
• water
• coffee to wash it all down.

I'm feeling more ready for the day by the moment!  I tried to keep the carbs low so that I wouldn't be tired.

Sweetest Moments

The sweetest moments in life can fly by you so quickly if you're not paying attention.  It's so easy to get caught up in busyiness... and when you do you get robbed of joy.  This happened to me very recently, and I was reminded by my Creator that life happens fast, and if I'm grumbling, I'll miss the sweetest moments.  I've been collecting sweetest moments for two days now.  My favorite sweetest moment is today, when I took Gregory to the beach.  We played in the sand, we went in the water, and went for a walk.  Gregory took it all in.  I decided it was about time for something to eat, so I took the baby back to our blanket, and gave him a cracker and his sippy cup full of water.  He looked up at me as if to say, "Thanks mom", and then started to eat.  While he was eating his cracker quietly, a seagull came up, rather agressively, and I knew that his goal was to get my son's cracker.  So I surrounded my son with myself as best I could by sitting in front of him, with a plastic shovel, ready to swat away any bird that might steal my sons food.  Gregory sat there, oblivious, enjoying his cracker, with his sun hat on, and his sippy cup near.  It's silly, but that's one of my sweetest moments for today.

The next sweetest moment is when I just put him down for a nap, and he let me hold him and rock him-- these days he's to busy for that.  It was wonderful just to hold my son.

Don't let your sweetest moments be absorbed in busyness or ridiculousness. :)

Portable Fabric Baby Chair Restraint

Since I'm going to Chicago in a couple of weeks, I knew I'd need a high chair, or at least a way to hold the baby down so we could feed him.    So I created this seat out of fabric and sewed it up.  It took me about an hour, so that wasn't bad.  These aren't great pictures -- the lighting was all wrong!  But they show how it works.  Tomorrow I'm going to feed Gregory at the table using this. 

Here he is all strapped in.

Here's my newly created child restraint device.

Here he is again investigating his new system. 

What if it's not a cannoli?

What if it's not a cannoli?   Then is it really cheating?  What if I make the wonderful creamy yumminess that goes INSIDE the cannoli?    Then I really didn't eat a cannoli!    I find myself wondering just how I can make the latest greatest dessert involving the filling of the cannoli.  That's what I really like anyway! 

I just checked out this great blog article about how to make cannolis.

http://www.recipegirl.com/2009/04/25/how-to-make-homemade-cannoli/

I'm a new mom.  I'll be leaving the cannoli making to the bakery.  But I am interested in creating something NEW with the filling.  :)  

Here are my ideas:  Fill a cream puff with cannoli filling, figure out a way to make cannoli cake pops, make cupcakes and use cannoli filling for frosting!  Oh yea.  now there's an idea!  CUPCAKE CANNOLIS.  MMMMMM HMMMMMM.   

First Trip to the Beach

I don't know why I'm this way, but I dread new things.  Maybe dread is a strong word.  Too strong.  Okay.  I don't dread new things.  I don't like the unknown about something.  Unknown=dangerous for me.  I don't know why either.  I'd never taken Gregory to the beach, but I knew I was ready to take him.  So I decided I was going to take Gregory to the beach when my friend Pam invited us. 

We went to a private beach near our home, and so that cut out on commuting time. 


First he was just sitting in the sand, picking it up with his fingers.  I was nervous he was going to try to eat it, but he decided that he didn't like the texture-- so he didn't try.  Horray!

Then he saw the water, and started crawling towards it.

and stopped to play with the shovel I gave him.

and found a seeweed.

Overall it was a really good visit to the beach, and I'm glad we went.    I'm also glad we did something new.  And I'm thinking we'll have more trips to the beach.  :)  It was definetely fun, and worth the effort!  :)

Boys, Kitchens, Cannolis & Coupons

So "The Purpose of Boys" is insightful.  It basically describes how in our culture we need to make sure that we institute multiple structures for our boys to be successful.  Boys need rites of passage-- we don't have enough.  Boys need strong discipline and guidance.  Boys need to have many mentors who can reinforce value systems.  Good read.  Worth the time.   Still working on the second half.  I'll be enrolling my son in Brazilian Ju Jit Su and also I'm thinking cub scouts-- and I'm magically going to turn my wonderful husband into a great scout leader! :)  (Not sure how yet, but maybe he'll just do it! )

Kitchens--  Okay!  SO before I challenged myself to keep my kitchen clean, I should have done the math!  30 days of a clean kitchen means the kitchen has to be cleaned 90 times!!!!!!!!  That's ridiculous!  Where can I sign up for the Jetsons robot?  What was her name again?

I've been to Publix 3 times and each time I've been able to completely avoid the bakery-- which holds the precious cannolis.  So far, so good.  At least I'm experiencing "easy" success with this one!  :) 

And now to my coupon total for the day:  I spent $86 dollars at Publix saved $119!  Horray!  I wish Publix doubled coupons.

The Purpose of Boys

Since my becoming pregnant with my son, I've endeavored to read everything I can get my hands on about parenting and child development.  I've read at least 30 books in the last 18 months covering topics from pretnatal development, breastfeeding, child development in the first 2 years, and parenting.  I've also read books about how different cultures approach parenting.  One topic that has been and continues to be on my mind is my concern for the men in our country and what we're doing to our boys.  An important parenting goal for me is to understand boys and to parent my son in such a way that he is ready for manhood when it comes to him.  I decided to start reading up on the topic.  My first book is:



This book talks about how many boys are lacking in purpose in our culture-- no surprise here-- and provides surprising insight into the development of boys as they grow into men.  I highly recommend it-- especially if you have any contact with boys.  I started reading it while my son was napping, and when my son woke up from his nap, I wondered if I should be allowed to be around my son before completing it.  I opted for a hands on afternoon with plenty of play and language development.  There's no way this book is gonna tell me these two things are bad.  I'm looking forward to finishing this book.

30 day challenge: Challenge 2: A clean kitchen.

I was rooting around on blogspot today, and found some blogs that I liked.  One woman, had a picture of her kitchen sink, full of dishes, having cooked for 4 hours to create some marvelous things.  Her dirty kitchen sink was cleaner looking in appearance than my clean sink.  I became disgusted!  I rolled up my sleeves and went to work in my kitchen.  I gave my son some cut up green beans to keep him busy-- he's just learning to eat finger foods-- and I went to work!

 I scrubbed and scrubbed my kitchen.  And I decided for my second challenge:  30 days, a clean kitchen.  Now to make this possible, I have to come up with several problem solvers before they start.  I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen.  SO I made two dinners tonight in order that I wouldn't have to cook tomorrow night.... thereby making my efforts to save money and have a clean kitchen more feasible.  In previous attempts to have a clean kitchen, I would simply stop cooking.  But since this is not an option, now that I have a wiley 10 month old, and it's easier to eat in then it is to go out.  Cheaper too! 

Here are the results of my efforts.

Which were immediately hampered by my son!  Who made me think that keeping a kitchen clean for 30 days with a 10 month old would be more of a challenge than I want to take on!

30 Day Challenges: Challenge 1: 30 Days - No Cannolis!

I've absolutely decided some things about my life are fantastic!  I have a great God, a great husband, a great son, and family, and I love my job.  But there are some things that need work.  So I'm instituting a series of challenges.  My overall goal in these challenges is to improve my life by learning to be satisfied with what I have been given. 

So here it goes:  Aristotle said, "It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it."  It would be rather ridiculous of me to give up on desire.  After all, God made me with desire.  I'm thinking though, that my desire needs to be aimed in the right direction-- and not at the cannoli! 

Seriously! 

When did my love for the cannoli get out of control????  I mean, it started with the occasional minature cannoli while shopping at Publix.  This has now grown into a disaster of gargantuan proportion.  I crave them daily.  I think about how light and sweet they are, and how they just feel so wonderful-- even now my mouth is watering--- and I just ate two BIG cannolis. So far, this week, I've had 3. 

I was planning to do a series of 30 day challenges.  I thought all day-- long and hard about what challenge would be first, and right now giving up the cannoli is a challenge!    So my first challenge to myself is:  No cannoli's -- 30 days! 

I need an outlet

My name's Lisa.  I'm a wife, mother, and full time teacher.  Learning to juggle all these hats hasn't been easy for me, but I'm learning.  I decided to blog because I want to share the tidbits of what I learn everyday, in the hopes that others will benefit from my learning.