When I started blogging on November 29, 2006 {seven years ago today}, I only had three grandbebes. I tried to make the first post lighthearted to cover up a pretty dark time in which I was seeing much of my life’s “work” as a total waste, my churchy-ness/ministry as being much too motivated by the fear of man (“The fear of man is a snare“), rather than by love and basically realizing what a Pharisee I had been. Pride. It was not a pretty sight. But I thought I’d just write into “the air,” sneak in some confessions about my ridiculousness and and hope people only read the cute grandbebe stories.
First blog ever, called “Top Ten Reasons I’m Blogging Now”
I’ve told on myself a thousand times since then. And haven’t told on myself thousands of times because, geesh, I wouldn’t want anyone to know how thoroughly rotten I can be.
It took me two months into the blog to really say the shocking thing out loud, that I was mourning loss. My heart palpitated as I pressed “publish.” I laugh now, because I wasn’t very transparent. {{see here}}
Then I confessed to my prideful religiousness. Dung happens. {{see here}}
And I shan’t show you all my yuck-stuff, but I wrote about how I know that “It takes one to know one” is true. Bleh. {{see here}}
Lots has changed since I started this blog. I have 8 grandbebes now. Almost nine. I’m older, sweeter {*ahem}, less certain of my once rock-solid-strong opinions and I’m much more hopeful for all the days I have left than worried over the ones I have lost. Though I haven’t aced life’s testings, I am pretty happy with my grade. I {{love}} so much more now than I did then, I am more grateful for my heritage and so thankful for all the people along the way who have touched my life and altered its course and blessed me so much. My family has grown by leaps and bounds and songs are in my heart again. I had tomatoes from my garden at my Thanksgiving table (first time in years) and I am learning to receive the {completely unmerited, but so freely given} love of the Father, rather than just trying to work my tail off impressing Him.
One thing that hasn’t changed and likely never will? My blog posts are too stinking long and I cannot curb my wordiness. That is just how it is. I thought I’d have run out of all the silly nothings that spill out of my brain and heart and onto the screen. But I haven’t. More words to come. Thanks for those of you who stop by and read. I LOVE that!!! :)
Here is the thing~
Here at my Thought Collage, I have tried to say, in a million ways, God is faithful. He is so faithful. Please promise me you’ll always-always-always look past me to Him and don’t ever let anything I have done or said disappoint you in the Everlasting Father. Because- He. is. Faithful. For sure. Forever!
So, on the occasion of the 7th anniversary of my very first blog post ever~
Isn’t this scripture from John 1.16 just so TRUE!??
Really, despite inconveniences and yucky stuff life can throw at us, even though every single day may not be perfect and there might be unbelievable challenges in our lives, whether we need new jobs, healing, relationships mended, financial breakthroughs, more sunshine – whatever: we HAVE been blessed, all of us in millions of ways! We GIVE THANKS to You, Lord!
From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another (John 1.16)
after another…after another…after another…
To all who happen by today ~ Be blessed, be whole, be healed, be awesome, today and always!
I find it crazy the amount of food we gobble-gobble up on Thanksgiving. But there is something so ingrained about it, isn’t there? I was watching an old movie the other day and they mentioned the Thanksgiving meal: there was turkey and ham and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry, too. For all the dishes that come and go, the menu doesn’t stray too much. Even when we get crazy and add Cajun or Mexican sides (or even go vegetarian), it is pretty hard for most people I know to do away with these traditional fixings all together.
My own very cosmopolitan and trend-setting children by day, at Thanksgiving, are among the most traditional in their desires. They will gather here today, Dave and Tara and Hunter magoo, Steph and Tris and the three Kelley kids (Guini, as always, will have first dibs on the wishbone), Tredessa and Ryan (this is their first Thanksgiving as a married couple, because the wedding was 2 days after Thanksgiving last year). Rocky and Jovan and the 2 little girlies will be here and Stormie and Saber-the-German (Shepherd) and The Garcias and Leif (Ryan’s younger brother) will join us, too.
And as I stood at the counter this morning chopping vegetables and mixing ingredients in a quiet, sunny kitchen (Christmas music drifting in from the room where Dave is rearranging every piece of furniture we own to accommodate our little table for 23), I just found myself loving that we go to the trouble anyway. There is something in the ritual of it, in fixing this huge meal that reminds us of the sacred and sweet and all the blessings we have had and all the blessings that will come to be. And it is just this bountiful moment in time to thank God for all of it.
In everything GIVE THANKS for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1 Thessalonians 5. 18
And standing there, knowing we will have more than we need to eat and eat too much, I remembered all the Thankskgivings of my life (there have been more than 50, now) and how the crowd has changed so much. All the Grandmas and Grandpas are gone now. Some of the aunts and uncles have passed, too. I remember thinking as a kid they were all trying to starve me to death because the meal was never ready “on time,” but when finally we could eat, ooooooh-delish! Then later: mommy, my tummy hurts, I ate too much (Tara was 4 the first time this happened to her). How glorious to have all the pumpkin pie I could ever want (and my mom always made THE BEST pumpkin pie, until Stormie came along).
I thank God for it all, the family I was born into and all the times they crammed all of us into tiny house with tables and tables and food and we ate all day long (pre-microwave, people!). Mostly at Grandma Bakers, we also met Aunt Sue’s once. But Aunt Rosie’s quite a bit, too…Aunt Rosie introduced me to the romantic notion of one very long table for all of us eat together – no kid table! I am doing that for my grandbebes now. They like it! And I love that the aunts and uncles and all the cousins would descend from near and far because even though we were wall-to-wall people, the importance of all of us together saying “Thank-you, Lord,” was valued. Stop life and say thanks – this was the message imparted to my heart. We may not have a lot, we are just regular people, but we are blessed and we say thanks to You, Lord.
Oh my, in spite of their humanness and mistakes and oddities as a family (plentiful, for sure), oh how I cherish the fact that they all helped me settle on the solid foundation that is Jesus Christ.
Then there were the years the extended family times dissipated as grandparents died, and my siblings and I, with our growing families, would gather with my parents (the new matriarch and patriarch). The last time were all together for Thanksgiving was 1991, I believe. That era ended too soon as we were living all over the nation, but we’d always touch base and today I think of each of them with so much love my heart actually hurts. Happy Thanksgiving, my brothers (by birth and the one we got when my sister married you) and my little sister and all my beautiful sisters by God’s design (and marriage to my little brothers). Happy Thanksgiving to the nieces and nephews and to the whole big, colorful family I married into. Be blessed, I decree it.
And how blessed and grateful I am to get to have this Thanksgiving feast with my own babies and their families today. The little cousins will file away so many details of this day as trivial: running up and down the stairs, playing dress-up, maybe coloring and painting together or playing a board game. They will eat and eat and be back in an hour for more. They will go home totally unaware that in 40 or 50 years they will be standing at their kitchen counter assembling food on a sunny morning for a Thanksgiving meal for their beloveds and suddenly the memories in sharp detail, of being at Nonna’s house so many Thanksgivings past, will suddenly rush back in “like waves upon the shore” and they will, like I am today, thank God for all the Thanksgiving Thursdays family gathered just to show gratefulness. And they will know that is it good to give thanks unto the Lord.
Psalm 71.17-19
Since my youth, God, you have taught me,
and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, my God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your mighty acts to all who are to come.
Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
you who have done great things.
Who is like you, God?
My intent in writing this blog, when I began it a thousand words ago, was to say this (I am so wordy, huh?) in ONE paragraph: Happy Thanksgiving, from our family to yours. Like all families, the treasure must be guarded and tended like a garden to make sure it lives and thrives. We are just normal people with issues and oddities, too. But today, we gather in His name to tell Him we are grateful. This foundation is firm. So, I pray you will be blessed and happy in all things today, just as I am praying for my family.
I simply cannot help being so graphomaniacal. Just can’t. xxoo
I get melancholy in the fall. I fall in love with the smells and sights and sounds and the changing leaves. It is ridiculous. But true. Below are parts of a few different things I mentioned about fall and the autumn leaves along the way…
Glory. That is the color of fall. What started green and bright and light, unfurling after a stark winter, now reaches its’ full and most beautiful stage, and having held on with strength and determination throughout the summer, through both drought and drenching rains, now falls, now tumbles. Now, peacefully and content with itself, dances right down before me, a gift. Glory. {{READ ENTIRE POST HERE}}
I feel things more deeply at this ripe and fruitful time of my life. I feel like a full-grown woman, as opposed to some foolish girl, a woman who knows her mind and risks her thunderous-beating heart to more vulnerability and tenderness than I’d have allowed when younger. And my experience in life and love and heartbreak and second chances have made me more deeply passionate and compassionate and warm. I’m old enough now to understand the rich treasure my nurturing provides for those who are lucky enough to be planted in my heart and the wildly increased ability I now have to love. {{SEE FULL POST HERE}}
I have chased autumn into a Missouri mood that lingers like musk on my skin. I have escaped to turning-leaves on proud trees and the deep intensity of autumn colors that hold both the memory of exuberant youth with its’ fresh, green-spring growth, and the exploding red-to-the-core ripeness of the late summer tomato, now seasoned to a complex beauty, indisputably richer and wiser for the aging. The blazing urgency of the season, so much to experience before it all passes into winter, is salty on my tongue. I inhale the cinnamon-scented air, and taste the pungent, spicy and intangible gift of the equinox while the crickets sing that haunting song I have always loved.
Burnt sienna and ochre rustle restlessly as autumn falls and the cool night air sprinkles wet diamonds onto my keyboard and into my mouth filling my lungs with cool, brisk air and enduring toasted warmth at once. Halley’s Comet spilled burning meteor fragments in the wee hours, punctuating the night sky with light, a spectacle for late-night lovers young and old. {{SEE FULL POST HERE}}
Hey, remember the meteor showers that year? CLICK HERE
I got to spend the weekend at the Powers family cabin near Peaceful Valley in the Rocky Mountains (thank-you! thank-you! thank-you!). For over 11 hours on Saturday, I sat near the rushing river tumbling down boulders and powering it’s way through fallen branches and sharp rocks in dappled sunlight that warmed my skin while the gentlest of breezes brought cool refreshment. I read and sang and thought and rested and listened and wondered and cried and smiled and prayed. In that setting, you cannot help but be drawn into spontaneous conversations with God. The evergreens, greatly varied in their hues, all strong and tall were punctuated by Aspens I am certain I could actually see changing color before my eyes – a bit more colorful hour by hour.
The underbrush, having gotten an earlier start is already deep oranges and reds, even browns and purples. Brilliant berries are being found out by small birds which, having swiped a treasure as such from the bush quickly flies to a needle-rich pine branch nearby and looks for all the world as if I have just opened a Christmas card…”Oh! May the God of green-hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing-lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!” (That’s in The Message, Romans 15) {{SEE ENTIRE POST HERE}}
Then just some miscellaneous quotes about the fall season from various blog posts:
“I like October for the crimson and pumpkin, for the eggplant and rust, and all the colors of the deepening, mature, lusty, whole and passionate part of the year when the autumn moon hangs heavy in the sky like the warm embraces of a tattered, weighty quilt sewn years ago for the need of heat and not some contest of a county fair. Have you ever been covered in one of those?” {{10.22.13}}
“Today is mostly yellow with a smattering of red, turning into deep wine by late afternoon. A steady falling of leaves with a call for possible white-flakes on Thursday afternoon and a blast of cold-blue air which will effectively ruin the perfectly coiffed-in-color hues for Autumn 2012.” {{10.23.12}}
October is orange. Of course. But it is also a red that is so full of depth and dimension and fiery-variance it can hardly be described.
My neighbor’s Maple has languoriously (not a real word, I know), gone from deep late-summer green, the leaves still fully affixed due to mild fall days and nights, to a light-to-deepening golden peach-to-orange over the past week. Then yesterday, I swear, as I walked back into the family room with a hot cup of coffee, it went red. Just like that, before my eyes. It nearly took my breath away. Moments before, a glowing, lovely amber-rusty orange, then, poof.
Red. A fully florid, cherry, sanguine scarlet. A puce, a rufescent russet, a bloody, blushing, gushing, infrared hot pink mixed with flaming chestnut and rubies and gleaming copper, all at once. It is shimmering and iridescent fuchsia, yet dense and heavy garnet, a ruby. It is bittersweet in both color and the evoking of raw autumn melancholy. [So, it’s red, right?] {{10.17.11}}
My mom and I were drinking coffee on the deck this morning and enjoying the rustling leaves in their fall coat-of-many-colors. Autumn is romantic. This is from my mama’s heart and mind:
“The butterflies are taking one last dance across the meadow. Please hurry back, I’ll see you in the spring…” -Norma Moslander {{10.21.09}}
I quite obviously become a waterfall of words come autumn. This year has been splendid! Good job, Autumn!
It’s been two years since the beautiful, small, intimate, but huge-with-love-and-meaning wedding. It was a lovely day and a beautiful night and the whole family, from near and far, from his and hers, chipped in and celebrated and served and rejoiced.
We got a new son. Tredessa had waited a long time, doing Kingdom work, serving and working for God, waiting, waiting and then: Ryan. Ryan? He got a most amazing girl, our 3rd daughter – the best thing we could have shared with him.
Happy Anniversary, sweet ones. What a lovely year you’re having. Soon – the fruit of your love (due in 20 days!) and you are radiant, both of you. You are wearing love well. So well.
Ay-yi-yi…this blog-o-ver-sary is telling on me TOO much! Not only have I gushed over God’s great love and faithfulness towards us and simply melted in sappy, love-oozy words about these grandbebes who call me Nonna, I have also laid bare my junk and my faults and confessed my regrets and sorrow over everything I meant to do, tried to do, FAILED to do…with epic grandeur. I do, at least, have some pride at that. If you are going to fail, fail REALLY badly, –really, really badly.
In its’ own way, that is also wholehearted living, n’est ce pas?
Baby books. The records of first teeth emerging and the brilliance of the first roll-over from back to tummy and the first ma-ma or da-da. Who wouldn’t record every single second of these life-altering moments with extemporaneous memorandums? Who?! Well, me…and oh my, the regrets it has brought me, as proven by various blog posts from the past seven years.
Who will buy this beautiful morning and put it in a box for me?
So I can see it at my leisure, whenever things go wrong.
And I can keep it as a treasure to last my whole life long?”
I failed my children in baby-booking. I did. I just stunk at it. Their entire lives, the guilt of the knowledge that I had not filled out the dates on the teeth-cutting-arrival charts gnawed at me relentlessly. Pages with the words paste photo here nakedly jeered at me, taunting my inability to create a wondrously meaningful book for posterity.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have photos to paste. It wasn’t that I didn’t delight at the clink of the spoon on a newly emerged tooth or want to remember every single, tiny moment of their first days. I saved everything for each of my children from the second I knew they were coming. It was almost a sickness, induced, I fear, by having a parent who saved nothing. We took untold thousands of photos of these 5 incredible children. They were also often undeveloped for a really long time.
But somehow, I just didn’t do well at putting things in their books. I think my perfectionistic tendencies (aka my all-or-nothing sickness) interfered. “Today I must focus entirely on the babybook and fill in each line and glue the proper photos as directed,” was my heart’s desire, but didn’t happen, couldn’t happen, because life was happening. When you are deeply involved in your husband’s ministry, right at his side AND almost annually producing a new human being, leisure time to cut and paste and record gets put on the back burner – or in my case, books safely tucked into their original boxes, high on a closet shelf.
The other day my daughter Stephanie kind of snickered that when I’d presented her baby book to her there was nothing in it. I guess I thought maybe “the thought” would count. “Yeah-there is nothing there, but look at this beautiful book I was thinking about fixing up for you!?” Stephanie has Gemma’s babybook close by, on top of the television armoire and is a really good baby-booker. She obviously did not inherit this from… {{READ MORE HERE}}…
“THE CHOSEN TREASURE OF YOUR HEART ~ To my children – What do with this stuff…
I know receiving all these odds and ends and bits and pieces of your lives may cause you to wonder: what am I suppose to do with all this stuff? And why is mom giving back to me the things I made for her as a kid?
Well, I am keeping plenty of little momentos and scraps myself. As you know, I am hard at work cataloguing our lives, creating a chronicle of the adventures that we have enjoyed. I am placing everything in books that I can pull out at a moment’s notice and peruse and enjoy, but I am simplifying at this stage in my life. I hope the fact that I have held onto these things for so many years will speak to you of the importance they have had in my heart.
As I have prepared to give these things to you, I have looked at every single item again. I have touched each memory, smiled and cried over piece after piece of our family history. There were little scribble drawings and coupons you gave me along with your incredible artwork and report cards filled with teacher’s notes (nearly always good!), and it is all so precious to me. Now I hope you can enjoy it, too…
…Memories are a tough thing sometimes. They can play tricks on us. At [48], I have made a decision to spend the last half of my life remembering the good stuff, the laughs, the successes, the wins – my chosen treasures. This is why I am cataloguing the blessed life I have been given. I am remembering the goodness of the Lord, the heritage He gave me, the legacy He is allowing me to leave. I am recalling His provision and His confidence in me to be your mother.
You lucky, lucky people, you. I am going to share how you can bake and enjoy three amazing cakes that are so easy to make (because you get to start with a boxed mix), and yet so moist and rich and dense and tasty ~ people will think you’ve been mixing an old, secret family recipe and baking all day long.
I like making cakes from scratch…sort of. Developing unique flavors and pairing them with tantalizing fillings brings me a special joy – way more so than “decorating” a cake does, which actually gives me anxiety hives – even when they turn out really well. I have found that using a Duncan Hines mix and adding a special ingredient or two gives me something a grocery-store bakery cannot hope to achieve.
Here are three yumm-il-i-scious (and I do not use that word lightly) cakes…
Pumpkin Spice Cake
I first created this one for Audrey’s wedding a few years back. She requested 3 off-set square tiers, each a unique flavor and custom filling. Like this: cake-filling-cake-filling-cake-buttercream x 3 tiers! She allowed me to test out a cake dream I was having based on a very fortuitous mistake I’d once made on another recipe and a pumpkin-spice cake with cream cheese filling family-recipe was born! It totally turned out, scrumptious!
1 box Duncan Hines Spice Cake made according to box instructions, except, add an additional egg and use milk in place of water. Then add:
1/2 teaspoon almond or coconut extract
1-3 teaspoons cinnamon (you might think it is overkill here, but I love cinnamon with a passion, so mine gets 3)
1/2 teaspoon each of ginger and nutmeg
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
Blend well with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Pour into prepared pans. I used 3 9″ rounds. Bake for 30 minutes.
I basically doubled Martha Stewart’s Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, so I’d have lots for filling between the layers, but for Jovan’s birthday I also added a few drops (just a very tiny bit) of orange extract and it was so so so good. It added just the right twist of fresh and tangy and sweet and surprise.
Aunt Dawn’s Banana Cake
The one thing I missed on my last visit to northwest Indiana (in the greater-Chicago region), was my sister-in-law’s rich, dense, but somehow still light banana cake.
Basically, Dawn just prepares a boxed banana cake mix and adds a mashed, ripe banana and bakes it in a regular 9 x 13 cake pan. That is what makes it denser and so moist. Then she whips up a simple buttercream, made with real butter, please. Use about 2 sticks of softened butter, 3-4 cups of powdered sugar, which is about a pound (sift this in as you beat the butter), a teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract, and 3 tablespoons of milk (more if you want it softer). Dawn says she is still tweaking the icing recipe, but all I can tell you – I still think about how good it tastes and want to make one soon!
There is no picture because – well, we ate it. Fast.
Aunt Robin’s Chocolate-Cherry Cake with To-die-for-Frosting {the quick, “cheater” version}
There is no picture of this one, either and Stormie just made two last week for her workmates. But no evidence can be found…
Since the official Ross-and-Norma-Moslander Family reunions got into full-swing in 1995, Aunt Robin has always been our go-to dessert and baked goods specialist. She has surprised us many times with fresh-baked cookies and a variety of cakes and this Chocolate-Cherry Cake with a cooked icing you just cannot get out of a can, people! So- well – it’s a treat! On my recent trip to Indiana, my sweet-niece-Elise replicated her mom’s amazing cake using a boxed mix and it was still, as ever, amazingly delicious! Because anything you spread that icing over is crowned with royal goodness. DO NOT let the fact that it is cooked scare you away. Make this and serve it warm from the oven the next time you have company and they will talk about you behind your back for days to come – really good things about how amazing dessert was. :)
Cake:
1 Betty Crocker Super Moist Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
1 20 oz. can of cherry pie filling
Mix well and put in a greased, floured cake pan. Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes. While it’s baking, make frosting on the stove.
Frosting:
5 Tablespoons of butter
5 Tablespoons of milk
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of chocolate chips
Bring the first three ingredients to a boil for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate chips.
Want my advice? Double this recipe so you can just eat some of this frosting because it is soooooooo good!
There you have it: 3 amazingly delicious, scrumptious cakes.
If you’re very sweet, I may try to get some of Patrice’s cake recipes to share, too. One year Patrice made a different cake every single day for a week for the staff and leadership at the church where I worked. Everyday she increased the WOW level!
Bonus:
And just for good measure, don’t forget the world’s moistest, richest, creamiest, richest Coconut Cake by Heather, see {{HERE}}.
During an agonizing {excruciatingly painful} Broncos versus Patriots game (the very reason I do not want to watch football), Guini and Gemma and I made 33 air-dry clay wishbones for Thanksgiving.
Since the turkey can only provide us with one, and everybody always wants a chance to make a wish and win the contest ~ well, we are solving the problem by providing every single family member a wishbone of their very own.
While a perfectly sweet, light snow is drifting down this morning, the wishbones are just drying in the air (www.sculpey.com). Tomorrow I’ll spray paint them…gold, maybe. They are very magical wishbones, you see. For, no matter who gets the bigger piece after they are broken, both contestants will get their wishes! Who says so? Guini, Gemma and me. That’s who.
Hahahahahha, Channel 9. {{“If you like it then you should have put a thing on it.” }} Hahahhaa.
We do own snow. But I must admit, I have taken pictures of my patio furniture with snow. Shhhh. Don’t tell Kyle.
She has been teaching me about childlike faith and following Jesus for 54 years, 6 weeks and 4 days. Each time I get to see her, I learn more about loving life and finding joy in the beauty around us. Whether it’s a clear blue sky, a Cocker Spaniel’s floppy ears, hedgeballs (the woman can get some distance on those things, “bowling” them across the yard) or falling leaves ~ all of life is to be treasured, enjoyed and celebrated.
This was the day mom met Blake , Elise-the-Niece’s baby boy, and my mom’s 11th great-grandchild. they were fast friends.
To my mom, there is nothing that isn’t just {{wow-isn’t that wonderful!}} stunningly, marvelously, unbelievably fascinating. She has 75 years and counting to back it up (even though, people, even though the beginnings were hard, tragic, even, the middle was challenging and the things she faces these days are heavy on the heart)! Still, she can give you a million reasons to stay the course because God will be faithful.
I drink them up, all her reasons. I soak her in.
Is it any wonder I still want to be just like my mom when I grow up?
