Tap, Tap, Tap,... Is this thing on?

HELLOOOOOOOO!!!

Well, that was hard. (Ha-ha!)

Seriously, it WAS hard, but it was SO worth it, folks. I needed some serious time with the Lord and, boy, did He come through. I now have clarity in areas that I didn't, provision where I needed it, and strength where the monster of insecurity had robbed it. Among other things, but I'll mix all of that in with upcoming posts.

So how the heck are YOU?! I've missed you all something fierce and thought of my sweet bloggy friends often. I've said it 780 times before, but it bears repeating, that this community of friends is such a huge treasure to me. Y'all make me run the gamut of emotions (sometimes all in one post!), and being the emotional girl that I am, I LOVE it. :D I look forward to catching up with you.

Lots has happened here in Westie World over the last 6 weeks. Everything from getting FOUR inches of snow here in Sweet Home Alabama....

....to the acquisition of a chihuahua.

We'll call this "Yo quiero keep me?". The kids named him Taco, but I nixed that pretty quickly. We ended up settling on Mikey. He's a zillion kinds of rotten and I'm a huge pushover. The end.

We still have our Oreo and if you'll look in the top left of the snow picture, you'll see her in all of her glory. Sorry. :)

Let's see what else...

*Jacob bridged over to Boy Scouts which caused even more emotional trauma for a Mama who feels that time is flying faster than the speed of light.

*Julianna lost her first tooth. She's 8. To say that it was a much anticipated event would be a GROSS understatement.

*The flu decided to strike my boys while they were on a campout in Tennessee with the Boy Scouts. Thankfully, Mark was there and was able to get them home early. Sadly, it was not before 90% of the troop was exposed. I bet I won't be winning any popularity contests with the Mom's there any time soon. :/

*We spent some time at the nursing home where my Grandma lives. The kids and I watched as she commenced KICKING SOME ELDERLY BUTT on the Wii. I'm still pretty amazed at her mad skillz. I am so taking my camera next time.

*Speaking of my camera; My beloved little Kodak EZShare... I fear it is on it's last leg. It won't toggle anymore and the do-hickey that closes over the lens won't open all the way. I am deeply saddened, especially because replacing it requires coinage, and coinage is being utilized for such luxuries as FOOD right at the moment. Hopefully, she'll hold out for a little while longer (7 years should do it) before I retire her. ;)

I guess that's about all for now. Hope each of you have a most blessed Easter! Please go to the song I posted below and just listen. It's perfect.

Much love,

Happy Easter

She's Doing WHAT?!

Alrighty girls (and boys if you're out there.... Are you out there?) I think I've mentioned a time or a hundred how much I love my computer, or more accurately all of you who are in it. ;) However, it is a GREAT time consumer. As if I really need to tell you that, right?

Anyway, we are on the eve of this little thing called Lent. If you are not familiar with it, I can give you the most simplistic version of it ever, by saying that it's a season of fasting from something during the 40 days before Easter. For a more detailed explanation, I give you the great Wikipedia. Honestly, I don't know how accurate the explanation is and I'm not even sure of all the theology behind Lent, but for Gayle, it is a pre-determined amount of time for focus. And for Gayle, that involves a fast. A fast from ye olde networking which includes blogging, Facebook and Twitter. See, I can hardly speak about myself apart from the third person. Thank you Facebook. ;)

So my plan is to spend the time I would have spend here, on the computer, on concentrated study and prayer for the next 6 weeks. I am so excited because I KNOW God is going to use this time. He's already opening up the blessing.

However, I'm not foolish enough to think that this isn't going to be HARD, peeps. I'm on this thing A-LOT. I'm not even kidding when I say that I consider y'all my friends and truth be told, this is mostly how I keep up with my in-real-life friends, too. The enemy is already in my ear over this, and I'm sure many attempts will be made to throw my butt into a pit, but I'm trusting my Father. So, pray for me if I come to your mind, k?

So to recap: I'll be gone from Wednesday, February 25 - Sunday, April 12. I can be reached via email at westiecrew6@gmail.com . I hope you have a really, really great 40 days! Is anyone else giving something up.... or better yet, is anyone thinking of joining me?

Love ya lots,

Chocolate Cake in a Mug

So the other night, I was about to croak for something chocolate, but living in the barren wasteland that is my kitchen right now, this Irish gal was outta luck. Or so I thought.

All of a sudden, one of those half-dead braincells drew new breath and cried out about this chocolate-cake-in-a-mug recipe that has saved my deep rightthissecond need for the fruit of the cacao in times past.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, people, and this desperate measure isn't a half bad one to have in your arsenal. Chances are, you will have all of the ingredients on hand, so give it a whirl the next time the Chocolate Monster is upon you.

Here is what you need:

4 Tablespoons flour (cake flour is really the best, but use all purpose in a pinch)

4 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons cocoa

1 Egg

2.5 Tablespoons milk

3 Tablespoons oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

Take a largish mug and put all of the above ingredients in. This is my beloved Campbells Soup mug. It holds the perfect amount of coffee each morning and I triple heart it.

Also, it helps tremendously when you have awesome friends who make you something as wonderful as the following for Christmas. Can you say YUMMMM?! I triple heart this, as well.

Take a fork or whatever and mix it all together. Please make sure to get into all the nooks and crannys or you'll wind up with a flour lump which isn't exactly palatable. By the way, "nook and cranny"? Just try to find the origin of that little idiom. It's no piece of cake, that's for sure. ;)

Once you've achieved nook and cranny mixage, pop your triple hearted mug into the microwave...

And don't freak out when it does this:

Tis totally normal. In fact, find something else to do during those three minutes because it kind of goes against everything in you NOT to stop the microwave when this occurs. And we already know that your probably stressed out if you're employing desperate measures, so why raise your blood pressure any higher? Especially when you can come back to this:

See? All better. If you're REALLY desperate, you could pour some Hershey's syrup over it. But, don't tell anyone I said that, k?

The Good, The Bad and The Sad

I am going to try to simultaneously blog, teach a 5 year old his phonics AND oversee a math lesson, so if this winds up being a little disjointed you'll be all over the reason why, k? <---- See, we're already off to a great start with a massive run-on sentence that has about 50 grammatical errors, but who's keeping track? Oh, please don't keep track. :)

So, the Crew and I have been up to our eyeballs in "stuff" lately. Good stuff, bad stuff and sad stuff, actually. Here's the low-down...

The Good Stuff:
*The weather was pretty warmish for the last 2 weekends, PRAISE the Lord, so we took advantage of that. The first weekend, we took our new-to-us pop up camper and got the heck out of Dodge for a few days. It was SO good. We hiked a beautiful trail and simply breathed in the fresh air of God's nature. I don't know about you, but that's like taking a spiritual shower for me. To get away from all of the distractions of this 21st century to just "be" is sweet freedom to this girl.

*This last weekend, we did some MUCH needed yardwork. We all got plenty of exercise AND the back yard doesn't qualify us for one of Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be a Redneck" routines anymore. Gotta love that.

*I started reading the Little House series to the kids at night. I don't think I mentioned it here, but we turned off our cable last month. It was because we wanted to save $70 a month, but also because we just flat-out were watching too much t.v.. It was to a point that the dumb thing was pretty much NEVER off, so we ditched it. It was kinda weird for the first week or so; we just kept staring at each other like we didn't know what to do, but we've adapted relatively well since then. Now, I couldn't be more thrilled and we actually look forward to story time on the nights that we are home.

The Bad Stuff:
*Being a Weekend Warrior with yardwork makes one unable to move for the next 3 days. I am so disgustingly out of shape, y'all. I have got to get moving somehow, someway, on a relatively frequent basis. But, me + exercise = enmity. Dern. I can't talk about it anymore...

*Steroids make me crazed. Remember when I whined a week and a half ago when I was so sick? Yeah, well the Dr. gave me steroids along with my antibiotic (which is a story in and of itself, believe me). I haven't had that particular drug in my system since I was a teenager, so I was unaware that it would make me 16 kinds of psychotic. Ho-ly smoke, people! Talk about SIDE EFFECTS. Too bad THAT wasn't on the list, huh? I could be happily sitting there when all of a sudden something minor would happen and I would instantly transform into a head-spinning-pea-soup-spewing nightmare. We were ALL relieved when that worked it's way out of my body.

*So when I was weeding around the house last weekend with my BARE HANDS, I inquired of my husband, who was watching me while scrubbing the house, what he thought these 3 foot long weeds were? He replied, as if it weren't the beginning of his own personal Hell, "Probably Poison Oak". "Well. Alrighty then, Mark. Any chance you might have informed me of this A LITTLE SOONER?!" Then it dawned on him as I was glaring (he probably had a flashback), that the way they treat people covered in Poison Ivy/Oak/Whatever Else, is with. a. steroid. We could use your prayers.

The Sad Stuff:
Really, it's only one. And it's probably one that has made you sad at least once in your lifetime, too. It's cancer. I knew two fine women that passed away last week because of it, and I know several more people that are suffering terribly with it. It is so heartbreaking and scary and maddening and almost plague-like, and it can really get me down....but then I look at our Father. And I realize that He's got it ALL under control, even when it doesn't appear that way to the random observer. I may not understand it all, but I definitely believe what He says to His children, and that's that nothing EVER happens to us that isn't the very best thing for us (Rom. 8:28). So I rest.

I hope each of you are having a decent week. You bless me so much...

Love,

The Mom Song

HO-LY COW. Someone showed me this video and I laughed and loved all at the same time. SO perfect!

Doubling Up... Oh the Shame

I've heard a few of you mention on your blogs (what I've named) The Great Facebook Apostasy recently, and I must confess right here on my own innocent little blog, that I, too, have had my attentions captured by that wicked Connecter of ALL Peoples. It's like the show "This is Your Life" only it's amped up on speed. Or crack, more accurately, because it's just about that addicting.

Anyway, as so many of you already know, there is this "thing" going around FB wherein you record 25 random facts about yourself (see, it's even stealing the dern meme's). And then you put it up there, hoping, but pretending like you don't really care, that the boyfriend you had in the 8th grade doesn't think your weird.

Oh wait. Mine does. But he married me that way. ;)

To prove this, I give you a picture, that I was recently tagged in, of Homecoming Court, and look, that's me and Mr. Mark right there on the far right.

I've said all of the above to say, that I am not going to allow FB to have a meme that isn't shared right here as well. Maybe this will release some of the guilt I have about 2-timing. We'll see...

1. I love to talk

2. But for some reason, I’m having trouble coming up with 25 things to say.

3. My life is awesome.

4. Even though there have been some pretty sucky parts, I’m still thankful for the lessons.

5. Being “real” is pretty important to me. I’m not a big fan of pretense.

6. I hate cherry flavored anything. Except for cherry limeades at Sonic, but that’s absolutely where I draw the line.

7. I LOVE to laugh.

8. But not at others.

9. Well, unless you fall in front of me, because then, I’m totally gonna laugh at you. I’ll feel bad for doing it, but I’m gonna laugh. Probably hysterically. Sorry.

10. I HATE it when people feel bad. I mean really hate it.

11. I love my husband and children more than anything on the planet.

12. I love my Father even more.

13. My friends are ALL awesome. Even if you and I are way different, I appreciate what you bring into my life, and I’m grateful.

14. I love quiet.

15. I rarely have it.

16. Coffee first thing in the morning is non-negotiable. After that, I can do water or whatever…

17. I can’t have caffeine after about 4 p.m. because I won’t sleep that night. And if I do fall asleep I have WHACKO nightmares.

18. I hate it when people talk when I’m trying to listen to something. It drives me NUTS.

19. I absolutely LOVE to travel, but I share Dorothy’s sentiments in saying “there’s no place like home”.

20. I love to learn. That’s something I wish I would have realized while I was in high school. ;)

21. I’ve probably learned more while home schooling my kids than all the years of my education combined.

22. Lists make me happy. (Except this one)

23. However, spontaneity and flexibility are the way I roll.

24. I used to be a night owl, but now I’m more of a morning person.

25. I actually HATED to admit that last thing.

Oh, and I am feeling MUCH better! Thanks guys...