I had no mental space this week for reading Charles Martin novels because I exhausted all of my emotional energy on watching the last two episodes of This Is Us.  Those writers.  They are so talented.

I also watched my first ever Super Bowl and turns out, it was kind of fun.  Sausage cheese dip and good company help that out too, of course.

 

 

funny

 

In honor of that Super Bowl viewing, here’s something funny.  A Bad Lip Reading.  (Here’s hoping there’s no creepy ad that comes up first for you guys.  When I went to this link the ad was for the newest Fifty Shades movie.  I want to start a rant right here about that, but I won’t.  I’ll just say – y’all.  That such a movie even exists for “entertainment” is GARBAGE.)

 

 

fashionable

 

She’s been making cool stuff since I’ve known her.

I mean, she was five years old when I first met her so her cool stuff making skills have dramatically improved with age.

(Although, she was a pretty clever little kid.  With really great hair.)

 

 

Now she’s a grown up.  She HAS a kid.  (With really great hair.)  And a husband.  His hair is great too.

 

 

Now that I’m typing this, I’m reminded – Maggie and I have had a lot of different roles together in our lives.  First I was her babysitter.  Then I was her teacher.  She was the babysitter for my kid.  And now we’re just better than regular old friends, we’re framily.  (Yeah, we made up that word before some cell phone company claimed it as their idea.)

In another odd turn of life events, Maggie is actually living at the farm, in the same house, where my family spent a darling decade of happy days.  (The same house every child except Otto first came to call home.)  And, ironically, in the first photo of little Maggie, she’s standing in the same yard because that was her first home as a little kid too.  What a special place, I’m telling you.

A gifted potter (I still cherish the five remaining pottery plates I commissioned from her college pottery making days), she has taken up the art of weaving.

And she’s really good.  Plus, you guys, she’s just the coolest human.

 

 

 

 

You can follow her designs on Instagram at Grayson Girl Designs.

 

flavorful

 

Their bread was a real hit this week.  The one recipe makes three loaves (although one was certainly smaller than the other two) and the texture is dreamy perfect.

This is the link and the recipe is from there too.

 

 

faithful

 

I’ve been reading a book called God Has a Name by John Mark Comer.

In one of the chapters Comer talks about the different ways that we approach God.  One way is based on what we have done and how God sort of owes us.  One way is based on what we’ve suffered and had done to us and one way is based on what God has already done, on HIs mercy.

I’ve certainly been guilty of the first approach.  Coming to terms with that personal tendency to feel that God owed me a certain life (like a bank account I’d been making deposits in all my life) was actually a piece of the story of my nevertheless tattoo and my journey through a Redemption class at my church.  This approach is pretty much useless and self-serving and terribly inaccurate.

I don’t think the second approach – coming to God in a lamenting manner about the train wreck of life – is out of place.  There’s a time and there’s a place for crying out and God is not afraid of your cries.

But the book has been a good reminder for me of coming to God through that last approach.  Relying and counting on his mercy.  Speaking the truth of what God has already done.  Of the promises God has made and of the Truth of who He is.

 

feels

 

Piper and Otto were both able to take a horse back riding lesson this week.

The miniature horse was a show stealer.  Our friend Chloe taught the riding lessons and although she is a teenager herself, she is skilled, patient, talented, enthusiastic and good at what she’s doing.  And I love that she is creating and embracing an opportunity to learn a skill, to earn money, to build a reputation as a committed and reliable young person.  That’s lovely.  (And if you want her to give your kids instructions or horse riding lessons or just a farm experience, let me know – I’ll share her info with you.)

Growing up on a dairy farm, one of my routine chores was the care and keeping of the calves.  I was in charge of giving bottles and training the calves to learn to drink from a pail.

Today my little Lacey (named after my mother and grandmother and so on – as it was a maiden name) took her turn at a task as familiar to me as the dirt driveway we lived on.

 

 

She laughed and let the calf suck on her fingers and both she and Otto even let the calf chew on their ears – which we all know they wouldn’t keep doing if they lived on a dairy farm for long.

It was sweet and lovely and I treasured watching my children enjoy a slice of farm life.

 

 

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