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words from a Christian, a wife, a mother, a reader.
I have moved my blog to a new domain - please go to www.philoxenos.info to visit my new blog
There is a freshly baked cheesecake sitting on the top of my oven, cooling. It is, by far, the most decadent and delicious dessert in my repertoire. It also costs about $12 to make, considering it contains 750 grams of cream cheese (priced at about 2.50 each for 250 grams here in NZ) and nearly 1/2 cup of Bailey's Irish Cream, along with half a package of Oreo cookies. I've never stopped to think about the THOUSANDS of calories that are probably contained in every sliver. But for all these reasons I only make it about once a year.
I have discovered a way to manufacture more time in the evenings - do the dishes more often. I don't know how this is possible, but it's true. I have struggled with regular dish washing for the entire course of my 7 year marriage. Some weeks go by when we're struggling to find a clean fork or knife or we have to actually wash a cup in order to have a clean one to get a drink of water from. To many people (including my mother) this is disgusting. I can't say that I like it either, but it's a real struggle for me.
Tape. Tape. Tape. My oldest daughter LOVES scotch tape. She has discovered that we use tape to mend our books when they have a little tear in order to keep them from tearing more. Now she is constantly on the look out for any small tear in a book and we MUST fix it immediately. We have a system - I fix one side and she fixes the other. It works for us.
The next question is probably "How many CDs does a person really need?" Yesterday afternoon and evening J and I decided to sort our CDs to see if we had any we'd be happy to part with (for a price!). We have all of our CDs recorded onto the computer so we have our own little jukebox, which is very handy. For example, we've started doing just 5 min pickups in each room. This is particularly helpful in the evenings when we're wiped out but need to pickup. Knowing that we have only 5 minutes makes us work harder and then we're done. Normally our combined 5 minutes (so a total of 10) can make a big difference and we're satisfied with that. So J made a playlist on the computer of songs that are between 5 min and 5 min 30 sec long. We push play and it randomly selects a song. We know that each song is 5 min so we do just one song (or two or three, depending on what we've agreed) and then we're done! It's brilliant.
How many pairs of underwear does a person really need? As I was putting away some clean clothes just now I realised that my drawer was getting rather full. I've been in a decluttering place for a few days, so I pulled out the drawer and had a look. Ridiculous. So, I started culling. Some knickers I've had a bit too long. Some I will never be able to wear again due to baby-induced body changes. So, I tossed them. Although I'm normally quite happy to donate my second-hand clothes to the local op shop, I do NOT pass on my underwear, so they went into the rubbish.
I was just outside hanging up the cloth nappies to dry (you know it's summer when you can hang clothes out at 3 pm and bring them in at 6 pm and they're bone dry. Gotta love it!) and almost stepped on a dead baby bird. Ick.
I'm sitting here drinking Coke (with ice, because any other way is inferior) from a lime-ish green cup from Tupperware, which my friendly Tupperware demonstrator just dropped off, along with the rest of my order and the order of my friends who recently attended a Tupperware party that I hosted. [I'm pretty sure that should be more than one sentence.] Unwrapping everything that I got was like an early Christmas! My youngest daughter thought it was fun, too, as she stacked and re-stacked everything. My parents very generously bought me Tupperware for Christmas, which allowed my party sales to go high enough that I got some really great gifts (to the tune of NZ$120 in free products, plus the normal host gifts). One of the things that I bought was a mystery gift for $20, but was worth at least $50. I got these great lime-ish green cups (I've yet to figure out how to post a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it), a cheese saver, and a great Tuppertoy Train, which is no longer being sold! I was really stoked.
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17Although Tupperware might change its colours along with the changing fashion trends, my Heavenly Father remains constant and very much the same.