Menu Planning Monday

Homemade pizza with 1/2 pepperoni and 1/2 ham and pineapple, celery and carrots
(I made this crust for the first time yesterday and left out the wheat germ. It was a super easy, very tasty wheat crust.)

Homemade chilli in Wal-mart bread bowls, fruit
(Just a dump recipe using tomato juice, ground beef, beans, onion, celery and spices)

Italian Bean Soup, lettuce salad
Italian Bean Soup
3 celery ribs, chopped
3 medium carrots, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 cans of chicken broth
2 cans of butter beans, drained
1 can of tomatoes, diced
1 t. basil

Put all into a large pot and heat through.

Brown sugar and salsa marinated steak, baked potatoes, mixed vegetables
(I saw a recipe for marinating/cooking pork in brown sugar and salsa; I'm going to try it with steak because that's what I happen to have.)

Cheese and veggie quesedillas, fresh fruit
(Thinly slice whatever vegetables you want; I'm using red pepper and onion as well as some cilantro leaves.) Layer a layer of shredded cheese, the vegetables, and another layer of cheese on a flour tortilla. Add another flour tortilla on top and cook. You can do this in a regular skillet/griddle on your stove or if you have an indoor or outdoor grill, you can do it there too. You don't need a fancy quesedilla maker. To make it easier, start with the bottom tortilla in whatever you're cooking on so you don't have to try to transfer an uncooked quesedilla to the pan/grill. Then build the quesedilla.

Chill Dogs using left over chilli, fresh fruit, pudding

MM Hummel Bates, December 25, 1922-December 5, 2008

Motorhome adventures

Yardstick in hand

Shop 'til you drop

And great apple crisp

The last week in pictures

Christmas decorating (D is way into stockings this year, don't know why.)

Crazy quilt Huskers table runner for a Christmas gift

Homemade strawberry lemonade concentrate for a Christmas gift

Saying bye bye to my treasured orange kitchen floor (the dogs just kept tearing the paint to pieces)

3 purses for 3 lovely granddaughters of a friend, all for Christmas

Adoption Update-Kenson

Um, there is none. No new pictures either. Our update said that they are waiting for our passport to be printed and that Kiki (the processor) was hopeful it would be ready the first week of December. That projected date is not looking any too promising. Sometime we'll have a passport but when is anybody's guess. As for why it is taking so long to print the passport, no one seems to know. They were out of passport books at one point in time but I know that problem has been resolved. Sometime soon, we'll have a passport.

Those of you who think this is ridiculous, let me share the most ridiculous part of this. If I had given birth to this child in Haiti, he would have been issued an American passport not a Haitian one and, if I understand it correctly, he would not need a visa to enter the U.S. But because he is adopted, he has to get a Haitian passport and then an American visa. So because he is an adopted child and not a biological one, it adds time to the end of the process. There is currently legislation pending that would ammend current laws to allow children whose adoptions meet certain requirements to come home on US passports without a visa, so that these children are given the same rights as your bio children would have. EACH is an organization that advocates for children and has a site that explains this legislation. If you click on the legislation tab, it will tell you the name of the law, etc. and then you can contact your Senator or Representative to ask them to support the changes in the law.

God and Me 23-Death Where is Thy Sting?

As I write this, my maternal grandma is dying. Her 86 year old body is ready to be done. She's been in and out of the hospital for a month now with a variety of ailments including a cancer diagnosis. Really though, the cancer isn't what is the real issue right now. She hasn't eaten in weeks. She has fluid on her lungs. Her heart has been out of whack. And her kidneys are not functioning right. She has struggled with dementia for the last few years as well. Her body is just failing her.

We went to Omaha to see her last night because my dad said we should come. She has a breathing tube so she is unable to talk. I just stood by her last night and told her about my day, about the kids I taught and the weather. And I prayed for God's peace to fill her mind, for her to be able to rest in His promise of heaven in these last few days.

This is the second time in less than a year I've been with someone who is dying. My 52 year old mother in law passed away last January after a 4 month battle with lung cancer. Along with my brother in law, we spent the last week of her life with her. She was not really conscious due to the pain medicines but I prayed those same prayers for her as that week went on.

Both my grandma and my mother in law believed that God loved them enough to send Jesus to earth as a sacrifice for their sins. And I believe that both of them wanted Jesus to be a part of their lives. For my grandmother, she has known this most of her life and, to be honest, I think has struggled to put a relationship with Jesus as her top priority. I think living out her faith, while important to her, was hard for her due to her childhood and marriage. My mother in law only became a Christian a few years ago. For her, I saw many things change in those years including her priorities. My mother in law knew she was really sick, and she said she wondered if this illness and the way she would respond to it, were part of how God might use her now that her boys were grown up, that if she responded with grace and dignity and hope, that God might be glorified.

But the bottom line is this, for my mother in law and for my grandma, there are many things worse than dying. I know my mother in law hated the thought of leaving D and his brother behind and not meeting Kenson face to face. But she also believed that heaven would be good, that God's presence and the freedom from earthly struggles like pain were worth looking forward to.

A month or so after D's mom passed away, I was doing some talking with God. About her death. And God's reply to me was "Do you think you love her more than me? She's now in a place where she knows unconditional love, a love she won't ever wonder about. She doesn't have to wonder if she's good enough, if she measures up, if she's done the right things to make people love her. My love for her in heaven is the same as it was on earth, unconditional, but her humanness kept her from seeing it. And now she's free."

So death oh death, where is thy sting? For my grandma, hang on, He's coming. And for my mother in law, you're home at last, home at last, surrounded by the ever present, ever real love of Your Heavenly Father.

Why?

Lord,
At least if I have to have stress induced habits, why can't they be fruitful? Why can't I paint or exercise or clean? Why do I bake yummy high calorie foods or eat said foods or sleep way to long? Is it really too much to ask? Or at least make my friends who exercise and clean and paint stay far far away and not make me feel guilty!

More photos for another mom

Here's a photo for another family who was recently matched with their little girl. This is from May of 2007.