Went to a Southern Living Luncheon this past week. It is requested that All recipes that the ladies bring be from SL. This salad was a hit as well as all the other dishes that were served. The theme this month was “Picnic” and our hostess even found a small quilt that had watermelon material as well. We had mason jars of iced tea or strawberry lemonade! We feasted on fried chicken, ham sandwiches (also know as funeral sandwiches), baked beans, pickles, pasta salad and then topped it off with caramel corn and Angel Food Toasted Croutons with homemade Vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries! Need I say that each dish was simply wonderful and the talk around the table was just delightful! If all this sounds great, think of starting your very own SL Lunch group. You will love the fellowship and great food that graces the table. We keep our group to 6 as it makes it easy to manage no matter the size of the home. We take turns hosting and we also pick themes that then determine what dishes to prepare. We began the first meeting with salads, then this month the hostess choose Picnic! In Oct the Host has already choose Brunch as the theme. We meet every other month so is always great to catch up with each other and look forward to a great time together! This recipe I’m posting goes so well as a side dish for just about anything!

Ingredients

1 cup chopped pecans (toasted)

1 pound fresh broccoli

1 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup diced red onion

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

8 ounces bow-tie pasta, cooked (½ of a 16-oz.

package)

2 cups seedless red grapes, halved

8 cooked bacon slices, crumbled

1 cup chopped toasted pecans

Toast pecans in a preheated 350 degree oven for 3-5 min. Watching closely so pecans don’t not burn. Cool and set aside

Cook bow tie pasta according to directions and drain! Set aside to cool!

Chop broccoli Into small pieces.

Stir Mayo, vinegar, sugar (I deleted the salt but add if you wish) together until smooth!

Add the broccoli, pasta, onion, grapes and stir gently. Stir in most of the dressing if not serving rt away. Then right before serving add the bacon and pecans and rest of dressing. Or you can leave a little of the pecans and bacon to sprinkle over the top before serving. I made this about four hrs before serving!

Our Sunday School class at church (yes I’m old and still call it Sunday School) has been having members share their testimonies! It has been so wonderful to hear how God has worked personally in each of these we have heard thus far. My Testimony was going to include how I still try to tell the Lord what I’m going to do and still expect Him to bless it instead of asking Him what His plan is or for guidance. I’m a slow learner in that respect! Even after seeing how much smoother and easier things went when I followed His will, I would still fall back into…”I want to do this or that and live here or there”…without even thinking about what Gods will was for us! Well yesterday it was my turn! I had told our Director that I would give my story either Aug 20th of 27th! (See I told you I still tried to control matters). But he texted me on Thursday and ask if I could do it yesterday! I quickly began to read over the words I had written trying to memorize as much as I could! I worked all day Fri on it as I didn’t want to have to read it, I wanted to be able to just talk about it! We had been told to try to limit it to about 10-12 min still giving our teacher time to teach the lesson! Saturday morning at 5:30 am the Lord woke me up and laid on my heart a new direction that He wanted me to tell! So I got up and started all over, writing about all the ways God had led us to different houses in different cities and how He had used each of these houses for His purposes! As i began to think back over the last 27 years we had been married, there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to tell all the ways He had worked in our lives allowing us to use our homes for so many wonderful ministries! But after praying about it, I decided to use the ones that had the most impact on in Randys’ and mine lives! As I thought back on so many different stories, I couldn’t help but stop and thank Him for the many blessings we both had received when we allowed Him to guide us and surrender to His will instead of trudging ahead with what we wanted! First of all you need to know that I love to move and in 27 years we have moved 13 times! That was the old me. It’s not as much fun to the new me! Just having to now pack and unpack isn’t as much fun as sitting with a piece of pie watching Wheel of Fortune! BUT…..in each of those 13 houses God has gone before us and used each and every one in so many different ways! Instead of making you read about every one of them, I thought I would share just one that has meant so much to us both as it shows Gods Hand of guidance as well!

This testimony begins with the fact that right after Randy and I married in 1996, we realized that with our track record, it was going to take more than just love to make this work, so we walked down the aisle of First Bapt Dallas and surrendered our marriage and our hearts to the Lord! It brought a whole new meaning to our marriage. We told the Lord that we wanted to not only surrender our marriage but our home as well. That He could use it for whatever He wanted! Each house that we have lived in has so many precious memories! Each move to a new city gave us so many different ways in which we were allowed to serve! God is a God of not only forgiveness and grace! ( not to mention second and third chances) but He gives us so so much more than we ever deserve! He is the God of impossibilities that ultimately shows us that He wants to be involved in our lives! For the sake of time (if you are still reading this) , let me just tell you one story of how God blessed us in leading us to one of our many houses!

We were looking to move closer in from Frisco to Plano to Randys job! We found a house that seemed to be perfect for all the entertaining we loved to do. It was in an area of town that we had driven through many times, always dreaming of living in! Well a house became available in our price range. We put an offer in and it was accepted. We were both so excited that finally we were going to be moving to this neighborhood to a house that mentally, I had already arranged the furniture, started picking out wallpaper and began to plan the first party. When Randy went for the inspection, he called me to tell me that we would not be buying the house. It had to have structural repairs, all new wiring and so much more! I cried! We both were so disappointed! This dream house would have been a nightmare to repair! Well this inspection was on a Wednesday and on Saturday, we went back to a house we had looked at before putting in an offer on our dream home! When Randy ask me what I thought, my reaction was “I guess we need to take this one, it will be ok”. My heart was not in it and I was having a pity party. But we bought it, made it us with new wallpaper and paint and carpet! The Lord knew He wanted us there and before 6 months was behind us, different ministries began to ask us if they could use our house for different purposes. This house was right across the street from our church and it became a hub of activity! We housed summer interns, a friend used our home on Monday nights for a program for girls healing from abortions! The Women’s Ministry used our home for so many different aspects that it seemed like every week there was something The Lord used our home for! It was truly a glorious time in our lives and the last night before moving to CA for Randys new job, we sat there on the bottom step of the inside stairwell and cried. We both knew that Gods Hand of protection had been over us in not allowing us to buy a house that would have cost a fortune to repair but also was so far from our church that all these ministries would not have been able to use our house. He had led us to a home that we were so grateful to have lived! A home that had truly been used for Him and His purposes. As we locked the door behind us for the last time, we knew, God had been with us in that place as He would once again lead us to a new place that would be used for His glory for new purposes! And He did! That is the faithfulness of our God! He goes before us as He did the Israelites as He led them to a place of Hope and Promise!

His love endures forever!

Knowing that traveling is now a little more challenging with Randy needing a Walker, wheel chair and my knee needing a replacement in next couple of weeks, we had some concerns about how the trip would be!

This morning we left for Phoenix to go see our kids, a new family member (yes Jodi got married), meet some new extended family, watch a grandson play the role of Linus in Charlie Brown, celebrate Caleb turning 14 and test our surviving skills in 114 degree (but a dry heat, yeah like that really helps to stay cool) heat! (I hope I finish all the chocolate I brought with me before we get off the plane)

One of our kids. Jason, picked us up to take us to the airport so we didn’t have to worry about parking our car and then trying to load all our extra items onto the cute little polka dotted busses that drive you to the airport. We felt one concern was now covered. As we entered the airport, one of the SWA employees immediately came over with a wheelchair for Randy and took us over to the ticket counter.. He took care of the cane and Walker and got us checked in ever so quickly and then walked us over to another porter who pushed us thru security and all the way to gate 18. His name was Titus and we began to talk about the stack of Drivers License’s that he had a rubber band around. They were from 33 different states he had lived before coming back to Dallas. I ask him where he went to church and he told me that he went to a baptist church over in Richardson! It was then that I told him he needed to come hear our choir of about 300 one Sunday. He continued to push Randy to the seating area as we continued our visit where we discovered that some of his good friends and some of his family owned the first Mexican restaurant Randy took me to when I first moved to Dallas. Ojeda’s! He gave us a card with his family member that worked there and told us to tell them Titus sent us. He smiled the entire time that he was with us and told us how much he loved working in the airport and had been here for 4 years after retiring from a previous job! He then took Randys Walker up to the ticket agent to get it tagged and brought it back over to us. We felt like royalty! Back at security, while waiting for my bag to be screened, I was standing beside a most beautiful young lady who was so sweet and friendly and helped me gather my things since I had mine and Randys. As soon as Titus left us to go help others I couldn’t help but thank God for going before us today and taking care of each and every concern we had. Not only did He take care of some new challenges of traveling in a new season of Parkinsons, but we got to hear how the Lord healed Titus after a brain aneurysm! He was not expected to ever walk or talk again…..But God…. He is still a God of the impossible and is still in the healing business! What a joy it was to hear this sweet man’s testimony!

We are still in the plane headed to Phoenix and as I thought back over the entire morning, the blessings that we have already experienced were just a wonderful reminder of Gods presence and faithfulness to us! I thought about the conversation I had with 3 young ladies behind me when I went to buy us a coffee and pink drink to the sweet young lady at security, who told me how to do my eyelashes if I wanted to try them, after I complimented her on her eyes! Then Of course Titus! Before we left home this morning, we prayed and ask the Lord to go before us and help us! He did just that but also so much more. On FB this morning, I had read and took a picture of a list of ways to be kind to others. It is so good, I thought I’d share it with you at the end of this post! And of all the places that we sometimes experience people being rushed or sometimes rude because of altered or cancelled flights, today was just a morning of pure joy! And to top it off, we made sure we stopped by Sprouts last night for double dipped chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate covered covered gummie bears and butter toffee peanuts!

(Yes Dee, thank you for introducing us to those and we are still addicted to them). We are so excited to be able to come see family we have not seen in a few months! And my guess is that we will come home with some new great memories! But will probably need to stop back by Sprouts for more chocolate.