Tag: Daily Thoughts

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Desert Dreams

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

We have lived in Arizona for a little over 2 years, moving here from Texas. We arrived here thinking that we were where we would live out the rest of our days, hoping that those days would certainly turn into many years. It has been a time of growth, both spiritually and emotionally. We have fallen in love with the beautiful sunrises and sunsets and the people who have befriended us in this short time.

While we were here, it became evident that we had moved here thinking that we would just stay here since one of our daughter’s and her family were here and could help us as we grew older. It was with this mindset that both of us realized that we weren’t ready to “get old” yet. We missed the adventure that we were use to living. We have been so fortunate to be able to travel quite a bit with Randy’s job the past 20 years and have seen so many different places that we began to dream again, once again, about hitting the open road.

When we truly sat down one day to talk this out, we realized that we weren’t ready to just sit here and live with a certain routine. We have never had the opportunity to live by our daughter which lives in Florida. We had always dreamed about staying in Italy for a while and live like a local. Being our age, we have been very blessed with great health and decided to live our dream. We put our house on the market and it sold in 6 days. A sweet friend has given us use of her condo in Florida for a couple of months and we are thrilled to be able to begin planning our trip to Italy.

We began with these plans by asking the Lord to guide us and to either open or shut the door of this opportunity. We have gone ahead of Him before (doing our will, not His) and do not want to do that again. We don’t want to make our plans and ask Him to bless them, but to give Him our desires and then surrender our will to His. We aren’t saying that there might not be bends in the road, or maybe He will shut the door on us going to Italy. We don’t know but we do know that we can always trust Him for his faithfulness and goodness. He does know the desires of our hearts so He will either bless those or show us some other plan that is best. Either way, we are fine. Some of the lessons we feel that we were to learn during our time here are very simple in words, but so hard to actually live.
Be content with where you are and with what you have.
Leaving behind people and memories which have greatly impacted our lives have been hard to adjust to. I remember hearing a lady back in Dallas whose husband had been transferred many many times was once ask which place that she had lived was her favorite. Her response every time was this: “the place where we are now”. Those words have stayed with me and have played an important part of this season. We can always find negatives anywhere we go, but the challenge is to find as many positives and dwell on those. It has taken me a couple of years here to truly do just that. I’m not proud of that, but that is reality. We have found a group of people who we truly love and enjoy “doing life” with. We have found our new normal of not always being on the go and being so involved with activities that we barely had time to breathe. But in the process, we found that we do miss some of the life that we left behind. We do not know where we will settle after Italy, but our prayer is that God will let us finish strong and fulfill our purpose, wherever and whatever that may be.

Proverbs 16:9 “The heart of man plans his way,but the Lord establishes his steps” We know that to be true.

When we signed the contract last week for this house, we still had so many concerns such as where will we go for the months of Nov and December? Will we have to move to an apartment for a couple of months? The Lord took care of that also. The new owners were thrilled to have us rent back from them until December 31st. That took a huge concern from us. We don’t pretend to know exactly what the next few months hold for us. We understand that things could arise that are not expected, or our plans to go to Italy might or might not come to fruition. As I read this devotion this morning by Elizabeth Elliot, it says so beautifully what I am trying to say.

FAITH IS HOLDING OUT YOUR HAND

“SOMETIMES WHEN I WAS A CHILD, MY MOTHER OR FATHER WOULD SAY, “SHUT YOUR EYES AND HOLD OUT YOUR HAND.” THAT WAS THE PROMISE OF SOME LOVELY SURPRISE. I TRUSTED THEM. SO I SHUT MY EYES AND IMMEDIATELY HELD OUT MY HAND. WHATEVER THEY WERE GOING TO GIVE ME I WAS READY TO TAKE. SO IT SHOULD BE IN OUR TRUST OF OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. FAITH IS THE WILLINGNESS TO RECEIVE WHATEVER HE WANTS TO GIVE, OR THE WILLINGNESS NOT TO HAVE WHAT HE DOES NOT WANT TO GIVE.
FROM THE GREATEST OF ALL GIFTS, SALVATION IN CHRIST, TO THE MATERIAL BLESSINGS OF ANY ORDINARY DAY (HOT WATER, A PAIR OF LEGS THAT WORK, A CUP OF COFFEE, A JOB TO DO AND STRENGTH TO DO IT), EVERY GOOD GIFT COMES DOWN FROM THE FATHER OF LIGHTS. EVERY ONE OF THEM IS TO BE RECEIVED GLADLY AND LIKE GIFTS PEOPLE GIVE US, WITH THANKS.
SOMETIMES WE WANT THINGS WE WERE NOT MEANT TO HAVE. BECAUSE HE LOVES US, THE FATHER SAYS NO. FAITH TRUSTS THAT “NO”. FAITH IS WILLING NOT TO HAVE WHAT GOD IS NOT WILLING TO GIVE. FURTHERMORE, FAITH DOES NOT INSIST UPON AN EXPLANATION. IT IS ENOUGH TO KNOW HIS PROMISE TO GIVE WHAT IS GOOD-HE KNOWS SO MUCH MORE ABOUT THAN WE DO.”

TAKEN FROM A LAMP FOR MY FEET…ELIZABETH ELLIOT

Hebrews 11:8 “it was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going.”

Following God is always an adventure! sometimes not easy, but ultimately grows our faith and dependence on Him. Thanks be to God for His goodness and blessings.

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Lemons & Lattes

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

I just had to post about the lemon meringue pie that I just had to have last night at 7:30 p.m. We were watching AGT and I looked over at Randy as the first commercial hit and said, “oh my gosh, we don’t have any dessert in the house except a frozen package of little cheesecakes and that is not what I am craving.” His response to me was, “well, what do you feel like making?” After a few minutes of different images of desserts swirling thought my mind, the only thing that sounded good to me was a lemon meringue pie. So at 7:40 p.m. I pulled myself up and headed for the kitchen. First thought, did I even have a package of cook and serve Lemon pudding? Second thought, did I really want to start this at 7:40? But when I crave a certain dessert, what am I suppose to do? Was dancing a jig that I had one box of the cook and serve pudding. This is FYI…about a year ago when we were in California visiting friends, we had a lemon meringue pie served as dessert. When I ask our hostess about her recipe she told me that for years, every time she makes a LM pie, people comment about her pie and ask her for the recipe. She always just said it was a family secret. In truth, she uses the Jello Brand recipe on the side of the box of Cook & Serve Lemon Pudding. The next grocery store visit I stocked up on said product. That was about a year ago and still to this day, that is the recipe I use except that on the side of the box the recipe for the meringue calls for 3 egg whites. So instead of using just two egg yolks that the box recipe calls for, I just add that 3rd egg yolk into the saucepan. After all, that just adds a little extra richness.
By 9:00 p.m., we were turning on Netflix to Call the Midwife (which we both hight recommend) and having a wonderful slice of lemon meringue pie.

It us unusual for me to not bake something pumpkin or apple when the tempts drop below 110, but all that would do last night was this wonderful pie, which made me crave a pumpkin spice latte. So today, we will stop at Starbucks for our first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season…..and come home for another slice of pie!

Daily Thoughts

Frosty’s Big Surprise

Chocolate Castles3 Comments

We have hit an all time low. Today after running errands, Frosty tells me he has a big surprise for me. Since it was around lunch time, I began to wonder if this was going to be the day he drove us down to Neiman’s for a special lunch ending with our favorite coconut cake that has always been one of the huge reasons we would drive down to North Park. But as we pulled into QT, I’m thinking that he will be filling the gas tank for our little trip across town, when he pulls past the gas pumps right up to the front door. I thought that maybe he was going in to get a drink so I wouldn’t get thirsty driving so far, but as he puts the car in park, he just looks at me and tells me that, “surprise, we are getting some of the best hot dogs and they are 2 for $2.12..what a deal. They have all the condiments you could want” he says, I just look at him and follow him into the store. We head to the hot dog counter where Frosty pulls out the buns from out of the warming tray. Is this gourmet or what? When I tell him that it’s not a real hot dog unless we have chile and that I don’t see any pot of chile. He points to a machine that has a lever which lets you pull it for chile  or cheese. You have got to be kidding me. I am topping a hot dog that has been warming for probably several hours with chile that comes out of a machine just like getting soft ice cream at Dairy Queen. I get enough napkins to cover my face for the walk back to the car. My big surprise was lunch at QT. It was at this moment that I gave thanks for our car windows being tinted and that you can’t really see in. The thought that friends might visit QT and see us sitting in our car eating hot dogs was just too much. It’s ok to do that at Sonic, but QT? It was not to long ago that he surprised me with a Walmart picnic. He buys Hawaiian rolls and gets chicken strips from their deli and sits in the car with his sandwich of chicken strips on the rolls. We do live an adventuresome life, Walmart parking lot picnics one week and QT picnics the next. Retirement just keeps getting better and better. Who knows what next week will hold? But if he pulls our car into Golden Corral Thanksgiving day, I will be calling a divorce attorney first thing Friday morn. It will be easy to find Frosty to serve him the papers. I know at the swell places where he hangs out now.

Daily Thoughts

Saturday Mornings

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I know I’m not alone in loving Saturday mornings. They are the mornings that make it feel like a holiday. It is the one morning that you can sleep in without guilt, although, it is the one morning that I seem to wake up earlier than the other days. Going to bed Friday evenings, as I am crawling into bed, I get that little “spring”  in my step, just knowing that I can sleep past 7 if I want, but invariably, my eyes open between 6:15-6:30. One of my favorite things is to come into the living room and while covered up with my soft blanket, watch the sunrise coming over the beautiful houses across the street. Since we have windows from ceiling to floor, the view from our condo, which is on the second story, affords us a most spectacular site. The streaks of orange, yellow, pink and blue of the sunrise are great reminders of God’s gorgeous creation that He has given to us to enjoy. We only have 16 more mornings here in California before moving back to Texas and I plan to treasure each and every sunrise from the best seat in town…my window. It also reminds me that we are to look ahead and not behind, as I sometimes do. I need to focus on what lies ahead and know that God has something for us in this new season we are entering.

So whether it is Saturday morning, or Monday or Thursday mornings, may I trust in His unchanging grace and know that as Randy and I leave this most beautiful place, we will go with a “spring” in our step, as we ride off into the sunrise of a new beginning.