What Takes You Back?

Recently our neighbourhood has been graced by several visits from a fantastically airbrushed, magically musical ice cream van. Yes, you read that right. It's an ice cream van. It cruises up and down the streets in our area, piping out its tantalizing circus music for all the children to hear. It's so funny to watch the kids' reactions because it's a perfect reenactment of my own childhood experience.

"Mom, Dad!!! It's the ice cream truck!!"

"Yeah, I hear the music...it really is!"

"Everybody run! Get your money!"

All three of them go roaring down to their rooms (moving faster than they have all summer, the little rascals) and then fly out the door with coins in hand. As the chief launderer of the household, I'm also sad to report that they are usually in white socks without shoes. As I said, this is perfectly reminiscent of my own ice cream truck years ...with the exception of one little detail. OUR ice cream truck was more technically an ice cream BIKE. It was ridden by a solitary rider dressed in white (many of us girls saw him as our knight in shining armour) and was basically a chest freezer on wheels. Does anybody else remember these things? The music that caught our ears was the simple ringing of the bells ... but those little bells caused quite the uproar when we heard them!

It's amazing how a little thing like an ice cream van can make you feel like a kid again. Will you think I'm weird if I tell you that my heart rate increases a little bit when I hear those words, "It's the ice cream truck!!" ?? I think a lot of it is just watching my own kids enjoy something that I used to find so exciting. Life can be pretty fun sometimes.

How about you? Is there something that "takes you back?" A song? A smell? A place? A book? I have lots of them. I'd love to hear some of yours!

Yummy Recipe!

My kids love tortillas. Not tortilla chips (although they like those, too). Tortillas. Round flat soft taco shells. They like them with almost anything in them - melted cheese, lunch meat and lettuce, pb and honey, hot dogs cut up, refried beans, fajita fixins ... the list goes on and on. It's hard for me to believe that as a kid I didn't even know these babies existed! For us, white Wonder bread was the pinnacle of the bread family!
Anyway, I just tried a new recipe for supper last night. This is always a risky endeavour, as you other mothers know. Four pairs of eyes looked upon the steaming pan in the centre of the dinner table with suspicion and disdain. My family likes to eat familiar yummy things, so I always have to tie a new dish into something they already love.
"What is this, Mom???"
"It's called Cheesy Enchiladas..."
"Cheesy what? What are enchiladas?"
"Are they like chimichangas?" (This from my husband.)
"I don't know because I've never had chimichangas. BUT they're in tortilla shells and they have ground beef and cheese in them SO I'll bet they taste a lot like tacos, which we all already LOVE!!"
After the pep talk, I just started dishing it out. No negotiations, no grumbling ... adventurous attitudes only, thank you very much. Well, they LOVED it! Yippee. Another one I can transfer into my new green recipe book for keepsies.
Thought you might like to try it, too.

Sunni's Cheesy Enchiladas (I don't know who Sunni is - I knew you'd ask, though)
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. Velveeta cheese, cubed (I used nacho cheese product plus grated cheddar instead)
1 can diced tomatoes
16 oz. sour cream
1/8 cup butter or margarine
1 medium onion, chopped
garlic salt (dash)
salt and pepper to taste
approx. 8-10 tortilla shells, depending how full you make them

Brown meat with 1/2 of onion. Add garlic, salt and pepper. Drain and set aside. In saucepan, mix sour cream and tomatoes. Add butter and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. Add cheese. Add remaining onion. Simmer 5 minutes on low, continually stirring. Add a portion of the cheese sauce to the ground beef mixture and fill tortillas. Roll tortillas, then place seam side down into greased baking dish. Spoon remaining sauce over tortillas. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.

What with the heat wave we've been living with around here, I actually did these in foil on the bbq, just for a shorter time, and they were great. Hope you like 'em!

He Keeps Messing with my Ducks!!

I truly am a thankful person. I should be thankful for we are a blessed family. I live in a nice house with a fenced-in yard and central air conditioning. We have two working vehicles. We have a dishwasher, a fridge full of food and clothes to wear every day. Compared to many people in this old world, my family lives a life of luxury and I know it full well.

Living smack dab in the middle of North American culture, however, can sometimes make it easy to forget about my blessings. I don't always feel as rich as I am! Does anyone know what I mean? My nice house always seems to need an update and the "working" vehicles just recently hit their double digit birthdays. The dishwasher leaves crumbs and crud in the glasses and I've noticed that our clothes are starting to look a little long in the tooth again lately.

Our family, like so many others, lives on a fluctuating income - Dad does sales and marketing and Mom is a career substitute teacher. We both love our jobs and are thrilled with the family time we're able to pull off. If you've ever worked for commission, however, you understand how challenging this lifestyle can sometimes become.

Especially if you're a ducky girl like I am. I like my ducks in a row. Always have and probably always will. Seventeen years with a free-spirited, entrepreneurial husband have rubbed off my sharp corners a little bit, but most often I'm still arranging those ducks .... just ...... so. I like to research, plan, make lists and organize stuff. That's just who I am.

Yes, it's been an interesting journey, this life I'm living. Most of the time I'm really fine - and why wouldn't I be? Like I said, I've got it good and I know it. But every once in a while, when the commissions haven't come in quite on time for the next pay and we're already playing catch-up from that last time when what's-his-face didn't open the invoice when it came in (or whatever!), I get a little tired. A little tired of having to be careful. Of having to say "No" again to something that the kids want to do or buy or attend. Is it always like that? Not at all. But it is sometimes and those are the times I long to get my ducks back in a row.

So I found it interesting in my morning Bible reading as I read the story of God's people wandering around in the desert. He had just finished rescuing them (in a most dramatic and miraculous way) from their slavery in Egypt and was now getting them organized for their trip to their very own homeland! There were a lot of them, though, and they were going to need food for their travels. God provided a rather unique solution to this problem by sending down "manna" from heaven - little white flakes of bread for them to gather from the ground every morning. Cool. God just gave them one stipulation: Only gather enough manna for one day's use. "Gasp!" said all the Israelite duck arrangers (there had to be a few in a crowd that big). If they even tried to save a litle bit of one day's manna for the next day's meal plan, it would be filled with MAGGOTS by the morning.

Why? Why wouldn't God just let them store some up and plan for the future? Surely He wanted them to be industrious and efficient! Surely He wants all of us to be that way! Yes, I think He does ... sometimes. But at the bottom of my Bible page I found an intriguing note from the editors. It read like this:

We instinctively resist a style of life in which it is necessary to depend on God each day to supply our needs. We wish to have supplies in advance so that we can feel independent. God was training the people for a life of faith.

Slam. Right between the eyes for Stephanie Biffany. It's what I needed to hear that day and it's what I've been reminding myself of ever since. God values my faith more than my efficiency or industriousness. He's more interested in walking each day with me and building my dependence on Him than He is in all my attempts at self-sufficiency. If that means He has to mess with my ducks, then He's going to knock them out of line every once in a while. And you know what? I think I'm okay with that. I've known Him for most of my life and He's never let me down. If He says that dependence on Him is more important than my own independence, then I choose to believe Him. He is awesome. He is everything good and perfect and I know I can trust Him. And so can you.

I'm not saying I'll never put my ducks in a row again. I'll just try not to complain when I see His hand reach down to move them around a little.

FYI

Read it. Seriously.