Libby’s Lines

Hey. I know it’s been a while. Life has been a bit crazy the past couple of years. My job went to full-time rather unexpectedly, full-time took over my entire life for about a year and a half along with trying to be involved at church, a work-traveling husband, two boys and now an additional child (as of August).

I am no longer working outside the home and am enjoying the reduction in stress. I haven’t gotten too much done around the house yet, because I’ve been a little selfish with my “free” time since not working. I’ve been doing some reorganization around the house and some cleaning, but I’ve also taken time to do some scrapbooking, a little reading, cooking, etc. just for “me” time.

The kids are in private school this year: our oldest is doing much better with homework, played soccer and is in the Men’s Acapella Choir, our youngest is doing well and is on the robotics team while our newest addition to the family (a niece of mine) is doing better academically and was on the junior volleyball team this past season. She had never played before and it was good to watch her learn something new and begin to do pretty well at it.

Our oldest is driving: it’s fun and scary at the same time. He does pretty well, but like most adolescents doesn’t want our help or advice. More growing away from needing us and as his mom I want him to still need me, even though I want him to be independent and self-sufficient.
It’s a tough cycle, isn’t it? Letting them grow up, wanting them to grow up and still wanting them to stay little.

Well, time for bed. Good night. God bless.

Well, we’ve made a decision. We have decided that the Nazarene church mentioned in my previous note will be our church home while living in Illinois. We haven’t felt the strong 110% positive answer from God about this one like the last two, but we certainly feel that warm welcome and a comfortable fit when there. The people are genuinely friendly, they are a caring church concerned about being a true light in the world for Christ and the pastor seems like a stong Christ-centered leader.

It’s nice to know that we will now be able to get to know people here, make friends and begin to get involved again. As much as we miss our friends in Indiana, we need to develop relationships here. I look forward to in-home fellowships, going out to dinner with other families, etc. again.

We had dinner today with a family there. The parents teach the Sunday School class that Tim and I attend. It’s funny isn’t how wherever you go, people remind you of someone you know from places you’ve come from? The husband reminds us of the husband/father of a family we have become very close with from Indiana. It’s a nice familiarity with some differences thrown in. The wife reminds us of the wife/mother of a different family we were friends with Indiana. We haven’t seen them too often for the past 2-3 years, after they decided to attend another church in Indiana. Turns out that they are from the north side of Indy with strong ties to people we know there. Small world, huh? Anyway, dinner was nice, they have 3 children with the 2 boys being close in ages to our 2 boys.

We then attended a superbowl party at the church this evening. Tim and I don’t even watch sports (as man of you know), however the opportunity for fellowship was something we didn’t want to pass up. I’m so glad we didn’t. There weren’t many there, but that may have been perfect because we were able to spend time with a few and really get to know them a bit better. I spent 1/2 hour or so with one wonderfully nice lady and we talked about anything and everything that one or the other of us thought of. It was almost as if we had already been at least acquaintances for a while, if not already friends.

A number of people that attend this church are from, have lived or have friends/family in the area of Indy. It’s at least a place for conversations to start. The boys have already fit in with their age groups, which is so good for us to see. We didn’t want this move to be any more difficult for them than necessary, so settling into a church where they could make friends has been a top priority.

Well, all of that said to say this. Thank you Lord for providing places of worship and fellowship with like-minded people striving to follow You. We are so blessed!

Blessings on all of you.

Let me catch you up on everything since moving:

November:
Moved
Birthday for Libby
Finished a musical in Indy
2 new schools for the boys
2 new jobs for the parents
Thanksgiving with 2 sets of friends
No paycheck yet

December:
More friends visiting 1 st 2 weekends
Mid-month payday - Yippee!!!
Anniversary
Some Christmas shopping
Christmas with both sides of family
Paying up on bills - hadn’t been able to do that for a while
Quiet Christmas at home - just us - it was really nice
Nice end to a pretty crummy year.

January:
Quiet new year at home - just us
Still no church home up here
Celebrated John’s birthday back in Indy
Feeling isolated with no friends up here
Financially, things are improving

Now I’ll expound a little bit:

We are still looking for a church home. I don’t think our expectations are too high, but I do think that we will not attend some due to reminders of past hurts and experiences. We have visited 3 churches so far, 1 non-denominational, 1 another denomination and 1 Nazarene. The Nazarene is the best of the 3, making us feel the most welcome and comfortable. The non-denominational was nice too, but new and not offering much in the way of fellowship and no Sunday School: no times to get to know people and make friends, which is what we need right now. The other denomination is just not where we feel would be a good fit for us because of reminders of past negative experiences.

At this point we are looking at the Nazarene church being our church home here, but we are going to try one other before we make that decision. We just aren’t 100% sure this is the one God is placing us in. We haven’t felt that immediate connection like we have at the last 2 churches we’ve attended. Not to say that we have to feel that, but we don’t want to stop short of something else that God may have in store.

Well, gotta get to work. More later. My schedule is settling in, so I will be able to write more.

Oh wait! That’s us!

More on this later when details have been worked out!

Mmmm….

I have returned to bread baking and boy are we enjoying the results! I used to bake bread on a regular basis (a few years ago…) and enjoyed both the process of baking it and eating it. Due to work and increased schedule activities I stopped baking bread and felt that I had lost my knack for it.

Well, I haven’t! The first batch on Saturday left a little to be desired. The flavor was wonderful, but it didn’t rise as much as I would have liked and baked a little faster than I prefer, giving it a harder crust than the type should have had.

At the same time on Saturday, I started a sourdough starter and baked my first batch today. Boy, did it turn out tasty. The kneading, rising and baking processes couldn’t have gone any better and the outcome is as close to ‘perfect’ as it can get. We cut into one of the loaves this evening to ’sample’ it and we couldn’t, any of us, find one thing wrong with it.

What a great feeling for me. I haven’t lost my knack with bread baking and it will be difficult for things to cause me to stop again. I will enjoy making bread twice a week for my family (and myself).

Looking forward to it getting better and better (if that’s possible).

:)

What can I say. I’m a great James Bond (movie) fan. I even won a contest of James Bond trivia and received a trip to Jamaica; 5 nights, 6 days with spending cash! It was absolutely fabulous.

Well, this week I began reading the James Bond books and am I impressed with Ian Fleming as an author. However, the movies are almost nothing like the books! I was very disappointed. They take just a few similarities and almost completely change the stories (so far) for the movies. I understand artistic license being used, but man, after reading 3 of the books, I wish the movies had followed more closely to the stories! They is so much more to Bond’s character than the movies bring out.

Recreating the Bond movies according to the books, I think would be fantastic. And the loyalty to Bond, I think, would grow. It would be great to start at the beginning and show his character according to the books and follow their story lines, as they are even better the movies have been.

Am I disillisioned? Want to drop my fandom? NO! Just more informed. I plan to continue reading all of the James Bond stories and anticipate enjoying each one.

Bond, James Bond…. I like it!

No, I’m not talking about a person…

I am talking about the hot sauces my husband and I have been working on. Last night my husband combined some of the two sauces together, added a little vinegar and a little ginger and WOW! It was great! We need to thicken it up just a little, but it’s flavor is wonderful.

We are going to thicken it and then bottle it up.

We are going to take the leftover peppers from the sauce and add them to some cut up veggies: cauliflower, carrot and celery, pickle it and make a nice hot pepper mix. Something like a relish.

Our next adventure will be making a habenero sauce. This is so much fun.

Peppers. Hot sauce. Spicy.

Some of my favorite words. My husband and I have been receiving gifts of peppers: jalepeno, hot banana and now habenero. We used some of the jalepeno peppers to make a green sauce with onion and peach jelly added. It turned out to be a really nice marinade with a slow burn. It needs some tweeking before it will be a good sauce. Then, we used the hot banana peppers with a couple of hungarian wax peppers to make a red sauce. Quicker burn and pretty good pepper flavor.

Now we have habeneros. We’d like to continue working on a hot sauce that has a ton of pepper flavor with just a nice amount heat to it. Our goal is flavor not pain.

I think we are going to take small amounts of the two we have already made and try different additions with them, including adding the two together. In any case, the process is fun (and tasty) and I look forward to the eventual outcome.