New Year's Eve Fashion

There is nothing more lovely than a pretty bow tied around the waist of woman on New Year"s Eve.  Find the perfect sash and pair it with a dress, a skirt and blouse, a shirt and jeans and show off the gift of yourself this holiday!!  Cheers!!

Grab your aprons, Susie Homemakers!

The Proof is in the Pudding is a recipe book put out in 1965 by General Foods Corporation.  It's riddled with any dessert your sweet tooth desires.  The catch?  Every recipe includes instant pudding.  I thought you might be interested in how they wooed the baker into creating these masterpieces;-).  And it goes a little something like this,

   "One of the charms of this wild profession of homemaking is the unexpectedness of it all.  A solitary noon snack blossoms into a neighborly luncheon for four.  Dinnertime arrives at the end of a busy day and there's no dessert waiting to greet the hungry troops.
    All good reasons to be protected with Dessert Insurance, several packages of instant pudding and trimmings of hand in the cupboard shelf.  You can make up a variety of smooth, creamy desserts...."

  So in a pinch, get instant pudding--especially here at Christmas time [gasp!]!  Be prepared, adventure awaits!!
 

Rough.

I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday night, flipping through the newest edition of People Magazine that featured an overview of 2011.
  On the back couple pages is a list of the 450 soldiers that died this year in the war.  I wondered if Lucas was in there.  And he was--Daniel Lucas Elliot, 21.  I know his mother.  I got an email from her one day after Lucas died.  His humvee ran over an IED in Iraq.  I went to his funeral.
  I sat on that wooden bench up against the wall at Barnes and Noble and cried.  It is an incredible feeling to know someone, up close and personal, that had experienced one of a person's worst nightmares in regards to this war.  I know another young woman whose father was killed in Iraq five years ago.  Her husband is over in Afghanistan now.
  I am very glad Obama is bringing home the soldiers stationed in Iraq.   I am very glad that that part of the war is closing.
  I saw an interview with a Fort Bragg soldier on the news a few days ago.  It was a brief interview after Obama had given a speech on the base here in North Carolina, announcing the end of the war in Iraq.  Obama used the word "successes", but didn't use the word "victory" when describing the end of our involvement in Iraq.  The anchorman asked the soldier if that bothered him. 
   The soldier responded, "Sir, our unit did our job out there and completed our mission and now we are safely back home with our families.  That is victory enough."
  I thought that was pretty profound and really, really true. 

  My prayer for the new year--Dear God, let there not even be a list in 2012.  Please just bring them all back home safe and of sound mind.  Amen.

  

Pretty beautiful. Pretty inspiring.

A friend of mine offered this information out to me about an author I really like...Donald Miller.  Here is a video of Miller speaking at Willow Creek, a church in Illinois.  It's a good way to get us into the Christmas spirit...the real one.

http://media.willowcreek.org/

I am a witness.

I saw God take care of my two friends and their baby boy.  I saw God provide for them exactly what they needed and more to make their stay here a little easier.  Two friends of mine came up to NC from Ecuador to stay for a few weeks.  They brought their son and two pieces of luggage.  But as this vacation went along, visiting with friends and family and stores they do not have down in Ecuador, they accumulated four more pieces of luggage:-).  There was a birthday celebration thrown in there and a Christmas gift exchange, too!  It had been a long while since they had been in the United States as a couple and as newly made parents, so these items have been long overdue. 
  They flew back to Quito today.  They stayed with me last night.  The issue was: just how were they going to get 6 bags of luggage, a car seat, a stroller, a baby, two back packs and themselves to the airport by 10am Wednesday morning.  Yes, we could have taken a few trips to the airport to make this happen.  Yes, we could have me and another person drive all of this and them to the airport, but to coordinate these things was getting to be tough.  Then I thought to ask the couple that I work for if I could borrow their handicapped accessible van to tow all these things mentioned above, and they were generous enough to say yes.  This van is even equipped with a ramp that automatically folds out by the push of a button, so all 6 pieces of luggage could easily be rolled up into the van with no problem!  Everything fit in the van with room to spare!!!  Perfecto!
  So the story goes:  My friend's down in Ecuador have a friend in Raleigh who works with a disabled woman who has a handicapped accessible van and she was able to borrow the van to bring all of their things, along with themselves to the airport by 10am on Wednesday morning.  We all laughed at how easy this was, because we had already exchanged a few puzzling emails on just how was this to be done. 
I watched God take care of them.  And not just ordinary care of them, but beyond what we all imagined.  This couple has many more incredible stories of God's provisions over their lives compared to this one, but it was super sweet to see God love my friends so completely in just this simple (but not so simple) act!

Oooops!

Yesterday I went to mail a package at the post office.  When the man behind the counter asked me, "Are there any other postal products you are in need of...stamps, boxes?"  I said to him, "No thank you. I am locked and loaded."

Note to self:  Do not say you are "locked and loaded" to a man working behind a counter.

I am not sure how many times a post office gets robbed, but I am pretty sure this guy had his finger on the call button as he watched me walk out that door:-).