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.

My Early Morning Wake Up Call

I remember hearing once that some mathematician calculated the cost of raising a child in Western civilization. He came up with this staggering number in the millions, I think - a price tag so astronomical, I'm sure it sent many a newlywed husband off to the surgeon's office for an immediate and hasty vasectomy.
It's true, though, the fact that kids are expensive. I, for one, am not keeping a running tally on the moola John and I have shelled out so far in order to keep this family machine in motion, but there's no doubt that our three little treasures are hard on the bankbook. We were driving to Emma's horseback riding class the other night and, as I was scratching out the cheque on my lap (John was driving - safety first), I decided to peruse the entries in the register booky-thing ... you know, just curious as to where we spend most of our money. Bottom line: We spend most of our money on the kids. Piano lessons, drum lessons, school lunches, class trips, karate, hockey and church youth events. Yikes, I thought. These guys make up the biggest chunk of our investment portfolio!
But this morning I was the one on the receiving end. Still in that muffled world of half sleep and dreamy cobwebs, with my arm thrown over my face, I heard seven-year-old footsteps pad across my bedroom floor. I sensed a presence beside me, heard the soft breathing of a child (couldn't smell it, thank goodness, seeing as it was morning breath) and knew it had to be Ben. Being our youngest, he still loves to come and visit us first thing in the morning, more often than not climbing in between his parents for a start-of-the-day cuddle. Today's agenda, however, did not include any cuddling. No. Today, for some reason unbeknownst to all but Ben himself, my son was focused on his mother's beauty regimen. For as I lay quietly in the early morning shadows, as I continued to pretend I was sleeping for just a few more minutes of peace and quiet, I felt .... not his soft little arms reaching around me for a hug ... not a kiss on the tip of my nose. I felt a COMB begin to work its way through my tangled, flat-on-the-left-side, rat's nest of a bedhead.
I think I deserve some credit for the self-control it required to lay there quietly for the five minutes or so that he took to finish the job. Without laughing, might I add. I mean, no self-respecting hairstylist wants to see their client start shaking with laughter in the middle of an appointment. He'd never have allowed me back in his salon had I insulted him that way!
I'd like to say that I climbed out of bed glowing with beauty and sveltness. I'd like to say that, but I cannot tell a lie. No fault of the hairdresser's of course ... imagine what he had to work with! No, I wasn't aglow with beauty or sveltness, but my early morning wake up call was exactly what I needed to start my day off right. Thanks, Ben! You're worth the million dollar investment ... and so much more!

The End of an Era

Today my three kids marched out the door to walk to school together. For the last time. This is Duncan's last day of Grade 8 and in two years Emma will start high school as well. Then Benji will finish elementary school all on his own and go solo for his high school years. So today was it. The last "all together" day.

It's strange how these milestone moments can feel so normal. I mean, I still had to rush around making lunches for everyone. Benji's hair required a little extra attention seeing as he woke up with a big wing across the front. The cookies I'd baked for Emma's class party barely fit into the Rubbermaid I dug out of the cupboard. And, horror of horrors, Duncan's new Aeropostale t-shirt was nowhere to be found! Dig, dig, dig through the baskets of unfolded laundry.

And yet as normal as it "felt", I knew it was a morning to be savoured. I parked myself at the back window and watched them toodle out the gate and down the street to meet their friends on the way. I thanked the Lord for watching over them thus far and thanked Him for what He has in store for the future. I could almost see His mighty hand cupped behind the three of them there on the road - providing protection, guidance and the occasional poke to keep them all in line! And although the tears well up in my eyes and my heart aches just a little for the door that is now swinging silently closed on this season of our family's life, at the same time I say, "Thank You Jesus!" for carrying us to this point. And for promising to carry us all the way to the end.

Happy Birthday to My Sweetheart

It's late at night (which is when I always find myself sitting down to the computer, darn it all) and I really should be running off to bed, but I must take a second to send out a Happy Birthday to my very own Johnny Boy. He, of course, will never know I even did this because he doesn't read my blog, but for all you faithful followers, I must tell you that my husband is celebrating number 43 tomorrow and he is PUMPED!
John is always pumped about his birthday. He's not one of those grown ups who modestly tries to downplay the celebration. Nope. "Bring on the party," is his motto, and so we do. Now if it were up to him (which it's not) we'd have a huge bash every year, but seeing as his wife is a little more low key, we've learned to strike a balance and alternate between "everyone parties" and smaller get-togethers. This year he starts with breakfast in bed (bacon and eggs), then garage saling (please don't even ask me why anyone would want to kick off their birthday this way) in the morning with good buddy Deve; then we'll have good friends over for dinner and a games night; then Sunday night is his "date night"with moi, complete with dinner out and a movie.
Happy Birthday, honey bunnicula! You are my best friend in the world and the one who makes me laugh the hardest. I told you tonight you were a great "consolation" to me and that, I think, is one of the best words I can think of to describe you. You listen to me when I need to talk, rub my head when I have a headache, calm my fears when I'm stressing and basically turn my days from black-and-white to colour.
We've had our ups and downs, of course, in the 22 years we've known each other, but you truly are God's gift to me.


Happy Birthday!