He put a song in my heart...

I sip my coffee.  Reflect on passages in Acts.  Birds eager to begin the day greet morning light in song.

What if we humans did this?

What if before our day even began, we sang out melodies of thanks...even if it was just thanks of the gift of a new start?

I know why I haven't.  I haven't because of thoughts that I LET myself focus too much on:

~what I have to get done~

~how much I have to get done~

~what little time I have to get it all done in~

Like clanging cymbals over a serene string quartet, the thoughts I LET overwhelm me, drowned out any song I had in my heart.  

As I am learning, moment by moment, to stop listening to the chaos loud drums called 'overwhelming thoughts,' my ear is being tuned to hear the sweet harmonies...

There IS a song in my heart and HE GAVE it to me.

He gave you a song too.  Be still and listen.  There is a beautiful and good Composer behind those runs and trills.  

The key to knowing this good Composer is being still enough, quiet enough, to hear His song played over you.  

When you hear it, sing it back to Him...because it was His to begin with.  

This is where joy rests...

The Song of Moses:

Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak;
And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
“Let my teaching drop as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
As the droplets on the fresh grass
And as the showers on the herb.
“For I proclaim the name of the Lord;
Ascribe greatness to our God!
 “The Rock! His work is perfect,
For all His ways are just;
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He...

Deuteronomy 32:1-4

Will Reagan's song:

...rediscovering the lost art of thanks...

I have a confession... 

I have been discontent.  Dissatisfied.  Ungrateful.  

And all of these roots have borne the fruit of anger in my life over a long period of time.  

It started about the time I stopped...

Stopped taking the time to pause and share what new treasures I had found at a thrift store.  Stopped taking the time to share funny moments like making a birthday cake with a concussion.  Stopped taking the time to be thankful for the little things.  

Interestingly, it started about the time I stopped sharing here...in this matrix of numbers and letters I call my blog.

And then something so sweet happened.  Holy Spirit woke me up.  He extended His hand to me as a wallowed and flailed in my own muck.  He led me to a book someone gave me a couple of years ago.  A book that I had picked up and lost interest in quickly...probably because it wasn't the right time for me to read it.  He led me to this book and I am DRINKING up every word droplet.  My carelessness in keeping the art of thanks has left me parched and wanting.  

I am thankful to my sweet friend Terri for obeying the voice of the Lord in giving me this book.  

"One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp.  

I was slow in getting to it, but man has the timing been ever so perfect.  I am thankful for the sweet refreshing sense of grace that I feel.  Towards my husband.  Towards my children.  Towards myself.

I breathe in deep.  And I am hopeful.

It's just a start, and I'm a little rusty, but today, I did stop.

I stopped to take time to be grateful for the small...

...and by stopping, I already feel the joy starting to rise in my soul...

~the craters and cracks in my concrete floor~

~varying shades of chocolate~

~making this house more home~

~the orchids in my office...smiling at me~

~new curtains~

~new paint~

~new office~

~new puppies & older puppies~

~Sam and his love~

~Tozer and his discovery~

~warm light trickling in patterns on the floor~

~fresh pedicures~

~much needed order in my life~

~free fonts~

~knowledge of photoshop~

~office supplies~

~spelling games~

~children that enjoy learning~

~vintage desks~

~chubby fingers faithful with the day's work~

~resources enough so I can stay home with my children~

i.  am.  thankful.

paper, paper and MORE paper...

It comes every year...

That time when I have to rip out my heart from my chest, lay it aside and ignore the attachments I have to every single piece of paper my children have touched.  

It's portfolio time.

Yep, as a homeschool mommy, I have lots and LOTS of papers.  Completed schoolwork, handwriting practice, drawings, paintings the kids did on their own accord.  If I didn't make myself have a heart of stone and throw some of it out, I would drown in paper.  

So, once a year I get a 1 1/2 inch binder, sheet protectors and go through the years work.  I pick out the good days we had...and the not so good.  We like to keep it real around here.  When I get to the artwork, that's when I grab the tissues and my camera.  I justify being able to throw away anything that doesn't make it into the binder by taking a picture of it.  I know.  It's pathetic.  

After it's all nice and neat I find a picture I LOVE of my boys from that year, print it out and slap it in the front of the binder and there ya go!  Portfolio (aka PROOF) that we completed another year of homeschool!!! :)

Here's the photos I used for their 1st and 2nd grade binders:

Aren't they just the cutest?!?!?!  

Not only does this serve a way to organize, but it's so sweet to watch the boys go through their binders and see the progression of what they have learned.  They truly enjoy looking through the binders from years past.  They ask me to get them down at least twice a year.  

So to conclude this post, I wanted to share the pictures of the portfolios I did for the boys' kindergarten and 1st grade.  I actually took these photos many moons ago - October of 2011 to be exact.  I was INTENDING to write a post about how I do these binders back then but got caught up in life.  So here they are now.  I hope this helps some of y'all organize the paper waves we homeschool mamma's get every year.

It's been awhile...

Hello.  I'm still alive.  Suprise! ;)  

I have been waiting for the perfect time to be able to collect my thoughts, organize and write them down...

...well, it seems there will never be the "perfect time" to sit down, reflect and write out my thoughts here.  Truth is...time must be made.  That is what I hope to do more here in the future.  I think it actually might be therapeutic. 

To catch up, here is what my life has consisted of the past year... almost 2 years...in bullet form for ease:

* transitioned and finally planted in a wonderful church family

*homeschool...goin' sometimes not steady, but strong

*accepted the honor of becoming Kingdom Life Fellowship's

Director of Worship Culture

*Dave accepted the honor of being KLF's youth pastor

*closed my photography business for a season

*opened photography business on a MUCH smaller scale

*gained weight

*recently lost 25 lbs

*started running again (training for my first 5K)

*started kettlebell workouts

*trying to do fun improvements to the house

*completed Dave Ramsey's FPU

*ate fried pickles for the first time...and LIKED it

Lots of life has been happening at the Brown home...some overwhelming...some fun...all of it welcomed.  We are growing more than ever where we are now and are so thankful for this season God has us in.  I don't know if anyone actually reads this thing, but I am sorry for being absent for so long.  I hope to keep going...I think it will be good.  

As I type, I hear the laughter of my boys playing with the water hose in the back yard.  I am trying to start letting go of my compulsive tendencies to keep everything "perfect" and let them be boys.  Let go of the reigns and start letting them make choices...make mistakes...and learn from them.  Little stuff now, nothing crazy...but Lord help me...

...I'm sure a mud pit will develop shortly...

Love to you all, and believing that you are finding rest in HIM...

XoXo

I'm inserting the "homeschool kick-off" photos and journaling in my scrapbook...I thought I would share my journaling here :)

Of course...with pictures.

September 19, 2011

It was time for me to get back into a routine for the kid’s homeschooling.  We had enjoyed our summer and literally were cramming all the previous years curriculum in so we wouldn’t start too late for their 1st and 2nd grades.  I decided to make it fun by having a “back to school kickoff” - going to Chick-fil-A for breakfast and then to Starbucks so I could indulge on a Pumpkin Spice Latte while the kiddos journaled and I looked over what was ahead in our Konos curriculum.  

The kids brought their freshly filled pencil boxes and new journals along.  I guess one can tell that Mamma had alot of influence on the design of their journals.  They truly did have fun painting the cover and picking out their little paper pieces they wanted.  Ashton and Parker had been patiently waiting to get to use their new supplies.  I said that they had to finish all of last years work before enjoying the new stuff so they were definitely excited to start the new year!  This year, I splurged and let the boys get these nifty twist up crayons.  They were a few dollars more, but honestly I think it’s worth not having crayon wax all over my floors this year :)  Plus, how much fun do these crayons look!  I love how you can kind of see through the barrels to each color!  I’m always a sucker for office supplies though...

After the boys sipped up their last bit of chocolate milk in their kid sized Starbucks cups, they started on their journaling...I love allowing my kids to be able to express themselves however they want to in their journals everyday.  It’s such a great start to the day, plus I usually get a good laugh to start out most mornings.  Today, they journaled Target, since that’s where we were. It was so sweet to watch their faces as they tried out their new crayons!  

We also saw this little bird with one leg.  It was such a sad sight but gave a great opportunity for me to talk to the kids about determination.  Although this bird only had one leg, he was just as active as all the other birds.  Of course, our pity couldn’t keep us from sharing our crumbs of biscuit.  I believe the bird was happy to oblige :)

It was a fabulous morning to start off a fabulous new year of school!  Parker is so excited to be in 1st grade and Ashton always welcomes new challenges.  I am thankful that I can do this for my kids...it’s not always easy, but it’s times like these that I can look back to when it gets rough.  I never thought I possessed the patience to do this...but for now...I’m doing just fine.

Recipe anyone???

So I have been asked for this recipe a couple of times and 

thought I would just make it official by making a post about it.  

My family and I started a little journey to eating healthier about 5-ish months ago and since then I have learned SO much about the truths of FOOD.  I have realized that just because you are skinny does NOT mean you are healthy.  Not saying that thinner peeps aren't healthy, but that MY personal reason for eating better didn't need to JUST be about weight.  Although, cutting out sugar and such absolutely has been effecting my weight :)  

So, we have tried to slowly switch out our pantry items for better organic choices.  Granted, when folks come to the house I think it overwhelms them a little bit, but I like to encourage by saying, "It took over 5 months, changing one little thing at a time."  One of our first switches being getting rid of iodized salt in our home and switching to a good grey celtic sea salt.  I learned that just because the bag says "sea salt" doesn't mean that it is packed with all the minerals associated with it's name.  If the sea salt is white, then it ISN'T real sea salt...so get a good colored sea salt.  Then it went on from there to going from pasteurized milk to raw milk, and then finding a good source for our organic veggies, then finding a source for grass fed and finished beef and range chicken meat...some of these things were super easy to do...some weren't.  But through it all, we have FELT a difference in these small changes...

Over time :)

SO, with that said, I was needing to fix lunch for the boys one day and had to get creative with what I had...so I invented this soup.  The boys called it a "veggie smoothie."

All ingredients are organic :)

Pound of celery - wash and cut roughly

10ish carrots - washed with ends cut off, cut about 1/2 in. pieces

Half a BIG onion or a medium onion - peel and cut into chunks

About 3 - 4 garlic cloves - same as the onion

2 large tomatoes - wash and YUP!  Cut into chunks

Celtic Sea Salt to taste

Organic chicken stock paste 

OR, if your super domesticated, use some real chicken stock you made up from the bones of a roasted chicken, and substitute for the water...but I'm not that super domesticated yet, so I just use organic chicken paste.

*Remember to leave the skin on your carrots and also to cut up all the wonderful leaves from the celery and throw that in too...these are both wonderful sources of extra minerals.

I'm seriously so lazy with the cutting.  PLOP, yes...plop all the veggies into a big pot.  This is what mine looks like...

Except, this is a double batch and I took this picture before realizing how AMAZING this soup would be with the tomatoes...so let's just imagine that there are happy little tomatoes in there...

There, much better.  

Ok...after plopping, cover the veggies with water about an inch over the veggies with filtered water.  

(If you have that real chicken stock, use that instead of water)

Put about 1 to 1 1/2 tsp of celtic sea salt to start out and just boil until all the veggies are tender.  When veggies are tender, then add the chicken paste to taste.  I use Better than Bullion organic paste and usually like mine slightier more "chicken-y" then what the ratios are on the jar.  Incorporate that through thoroughly to make sure the paste is all dissolved and here's the fun part...

Get your blender out and put about 4 cups of the veggies and liquid into the blender and BLEND BLEND BLEND!!!  You can either put the blended stuff in a different bowl to mix it all up good OR you could be like me and just PLOP it back into the pot.  Sure, you'll have a few stranglers that will be stubborn and will want to escape your ladle, but everyone will live if they get a yummy chunk of carrot in their bite of soup.  I've even lived through a small celery leaf once ;)

So after it's done, it will look like this:

Well, kind of...you will probably have more since your family wouldn't have devoured half of it while you went to go grab your camera ;)  That's ok...we can pretend that there's more in there...

And lets go ahead and make it happy too...

So that's it!!!  A deliciously simple and did I mention CHEAP?!?!?!  Meal to make for your family.  This soup is really yummy and Dave has likened it to the tomato bisque soup at one of our favorite Montana restaurants called Rikki's.  Although our "veggie smoothie" is so much cheaper and WAY more healthy.

Hope you are able to try it out and let me know if you explore any other variations...I would love to try :)

Have a FABULOUS weekend!!!  XoXo

Horses...inspired by...Horses

I love how entertaining my munchkins are...