Simple City Life: It's a Baby Shower!!!! #babyshower #littlefootprint #ecofriendlybaby

Simple City Life Blog is hosting it's first eco-friendly Virtual Baby Shower in correspondence with my little baby girl soon to arrive. The shower starts October 1st through the 14th with lots of reviews and a bundle giveaways at the end of each week. Make sure to head over to the blog and get a head start on reading the reviews and following the company's social media sites!!

Summer Squash Skewers

I posted this onto Simple City Life last week..thought I would share it here too! 

I love summer time grilling;) 

Summer Squash Skewers 
3 small squash
1 small zucchini
1 green pepper
2 TB olive or grapeseed oil ( I used Grape Seed Oil with Natural Butter Flavor from Wildtree)
1 TSP of chopped chives
1 TSP of chopped dill
1 TSP of garlic seasoning ( I used Garlic Galore Seasoning Blend from Wildtree)
Salt and Pepper to season

Cut up the squash and  green peppers and tossed them with oil, lime juice garlic seasoning and salt and pepper. Threw in chives and dill and let them sit for about 30 min to an hour.

Then skew the squash  and put them on the grill for about 15 minutes.

baby, blogging and saying good-bye

So the last two weeks have been so full and crazy. I officially said goodbye to my job of almost  3 years at Cyclelogical and have been hitting the ground running. I spent a few days in Chicago with a friend  Courtney at the Blogher13 conference, which in and of itself was crazy. Who knew there were so many woman bloggers out there. I got to attend a great baby shower while I was there, a fun party and walk through a massive expo hall. ( you can read more about it here!) Also last week I started writing for my friend Courtney's blog Simple City Life.

Courtney and I at a party in Chicago

It's actually so much fun to be in a new season where my days are open and the word I keep hearing is "available." The next few months I just want to be available! Available to prepare for this baby girl, available to spend time with friends, available to clean the house, available to spend time with Kevin and Madi, available to sit in the quiet and play my guitar,  and so much more. I am well aware after November when this little baby makes her appearance my availability will be limited for a time, so for now I am taking advantage and waiting to see all the treasures that are unpacked for the next 3 months!

it's summer and we are in full swing

I have to be honest I absolutely LOVE my life! Not only am I surrounded by some of the greatest people on earth but I am so honored to have a family that is undeniably fantastic. Our summer has resounded with the the same cadence of fantastic and I am loving every minute. We got back from our family vacation in Colorado on July 3rd and have been hitting the ground running ever since. From midwife appointments, ultrasounds, bonfires, coffee dates, walks around the park, house concerts, and more summer planning, our days are full and our hearts so very happy!

There is a bit of transition happening as well...I am getting ready to say goodbye to Cyclelogical this month as 1 of it's 2 full time employees. I am so excited for what is next, even though I am not sure what it all looks like, I know it does involve having a baby in November and getting our house ready for all that the little one will bring. We have decided to go the "non-traditional" route and have this baby at home, so that in and of itself will be full of surprises, twists and turns. My hope is I will be able to blog a bit more during my time this fall to debrief, process, encourage and express some of the awkward beauty that will come from being a mom to a new born.

For now I will leave you with a few of my favorite photos from the summer so far and a sweet video of how we all found out the sex of the baby:)

November 6th-Election Day and Remembering

I shared my story on a friend's blog last week. My story of  loss and love. My story of Hope! It's been an interesting week listening to what is going on in our country and the memories of the last 10 years of my own life.  As I glanced through all the Facebook posts and TV ads about today being Election Day for our country, I was struck with a thought. "I'm not worried at all about the outcome of the elections!" Because on this day, 10 years ago my world was ripped a part and my life changed forever. I have looked back on my life and the ups and downs, the bad choices, the sad endings, the happy times, and realize one thing-MY HOPE is ANCHORED in GOD! It doesn't matter who is running this country, it doesn't matter the outcome good or bad of a day, what matters is the Father who loves me and us with an never ending love is still King, He is still Lord, and nothing not the little details of my life or the details of a country's future takes Him by surprise. It really doesn't matter if people believe He exists or not, He is still God- and our unbelief or the worlds trust in Man will Never EVER Keep him from being who He has said He is over and over.

I have been meditating on this Psalm since yesterday and find it has bound itself to my heart during this week, especially verse 7!

Psalm 20

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ 

May the Lord answer you when you are in distress;

    may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.

² 

May he send you help from the sanctuary

    and grant you support from Zion.

³ 

May he remember all your sacrifices

    and accept your burnt offerings.^[b]

⁴ 

May he give you the desire of your heart

    and make all your plans succeed.

⁵ 

May we shout for joy over your victory

    and lift up our banners in the name of our God.

May the Lord grant all your requests.

⁶ 

Now this I know:

    The Lord gives victory to his anointed.

He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary

    with the victorious power of his right hand.

⁷ 

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,

    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

⁸ 

They are brought to their knees and fall,

    but we rise up and stand firm.

⁹ 

Lord, give victory to the king!

    Answer us when we call!

sugar and spice

What are little girls made of?
"Sugar and spice and all things nice
That's what little girls are made of!"

Today is the last day of 3rd grade for The Peddler's little girl. It's amazing how time goes by so quickly and how all of a sudden we are leaving another school year, getting ready to embark on one more epic summer adventure.  

The little peddler is full of all the sweetness of life and the innocence of youth, but at the same time her sassy humor and questioning mind flavors our life day after day.  I am so honored to be in her little world and have the privilege of watching her heart unfold into a beautiful woman. 

I was terrified 3 years ago when I first met her, afraid she would not like me, nervous I would not have what it takes, plagued by the stories of Disney and the portrayal of the evil step mom. But all of those emotions and fears were only smoke screens of reality. From day one the little peddler and I fell in love. Don't get me wrong we have had our challenges and I know there are many ahead, but it has been an amazing transition for both of us. I love truly love her with every bit of my heart and can't imagine my life without her in it!   

pulling weeds

So we are the care takers of the 3 units in our complex, the yard work, the shoveling, the small maintenance (including the kicked out sliding screen door from our 3 year old neighbor's kids every month) and taking out the rubbish and recycling. Anyway there are many Saturdays we spend mowing the lawn, weed eating and pulling weeds. Yard work is NOT my favorite house hold duty but since it knocks off a few bucks on our rent, I put a smile on my face and I pull away. 

A few weeks ago as I was sitting and hacking away at lots of nasty pesty green demons  in the front of  the complex, I had noticed that these certain dandelion weeds, (the really big ones) had these massive thorns all around them, so the only way I could get to them was by chopping them off close to the ground and then pull them out by the roots. I also was surprised how the roots of my nemesis were not very deep and quite easy to pull out, even though they were massive. The hardest part of pulling them was the huge thorns around them made it difficult to get a good grip. In the middle of my conquest I heard the Father whisper to my heart about the weeds. "These weeds are  like the lies in your heart!" My first reaction to hearing this was "Oh great now I am one of those people who have some spiritual metaphor for gardening!" HAHA...but as I started thinking about it and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal more, it hit me. The lies that are contrary to the truth of who the Father says I am, they are like weeds in my life. They produce some kind of flowery looking thing but it just gets blown away in the wind. The root of the lie do not go very deep, or at least it might go deep but it's super easy to pull out, but there are so many thorns blocking the root, that it makes it so difficult to pull it out. The thorns are those things that other people get hurt by when they get close. For instance my husband, or friends. The Peddler always refers to these as "pricklies". It's true we all have some form of prickles... they are those rough edges that when people walk away from encounters with each other they might think, "ugh that was not fun", or "ouch that kind of hurt", or "man what's her deal?"

 My friend Robin talks about some of these lies as the  difference between facts and Truth. Sometimes we take thing in our hearts that are facts, but it is not necessarily the Truth of the Father. Here is an example-when I left my time in Whistler, Canada, I had been very concerned with the economic state of the United States. You see, I had been raising financial support for almost 10 years and I was not sure what I was supposed to do with the next season. I felt as though I needed to not ask people for money any longer but to get a job and leave the life of missions (the kind you have to raise financial support for). The "fact" was, yes the U.S. was and still is in economic struggle but the TRUTH is, God is my provider, He is the one that owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he is the one that gives and takes away. The funny part is my sweet husband has been saying to be for a few years, "I really want to be in full time ministry." Every time I heard him say it, I cringed, I freaked out, I would be anxious internally and immediately shut the idea down. My thorns were seen and felt.  I allowed the weed to grow that said, because the economic status of the United States was poor, I could not, and would not ask anyone for financial support to do full time ministry any more. I have been growing this weed in my heart for a long time, I honestly thought it was good, because it looked like there was some kind of flower and growth, but every time my husband and I talked about it, he got hurt and I felt like a fish out of waster.  My heart beats for people and I love ministry so why would I shut the door to it? Because that's what weeds do, they mask themselves as flowers in the garden of our hearts and keep us from being the beauty we are intended for. 

I am not sure what will happen with our lives and what the Father has in store for our future, it might be full time ministry, or continuing down the road of business, or even having 12 kids and living on  farm, who knows, but I do know this...I want to live in Truth and not in it's weedy counterfeit. It's pretty easy actually, just to ask the Holy Spirit if there are weeds in our heart, and He will point them out and pull them out if we ask, and always being true to His nature, he will plant something beautiful and true.