Saturday, January 29, 2011



I love orchids.
I distinctly remember buying a beautiful orchid when I was in high school. I was certain i could keep the thing alive because I'm pretty good with plants, but orchids are like cats: they want to be left alone, and I've never really been a cat person. All that to say, when I bought my first orchid, I promptly killed it because I overwatered it and then underwatered it and it eventually died because of my misunderstanding of how it wanted to be handled.

Now, when Jake was born one of my best friends brought an orchid to the hospital because she, like me, loves them. She gave me instructions and told me not to kill her. I told her I would try my best.

One of the things I had to learn was that orchids will bloom forever, but when they drop their flowers, you must prune them. The flowerless stems have to be cut back in order for new flowers to come. It usually takes about a year for a new shoot to form, but when it does, it is so satisfying.

Here's the hard part. I am now nurturing 6 orchids. My second one just started blooming with new flowers about a week ago. She's lovely. In the meantime, one of my newer ones dropped her last flower, and I hesitated to cut her stem because I thought, maybe, just maybe, she'll put out a new bud. So I waited. No new stem. This morning I cut her. Down to nothing.
Why do I write this. Well, I think there's a spiritual lesson here. So many times, God prunes me: he cuts back the things in my life that he knows are dead and lifeless. And it hurts. It's never fun to have something that is a part of you taken away, but ultimately those times are for my good. God wants me to bear good fruit and to produce something beautiful. Those flowers may not come overnight. As a matter of fact hey most certainly will not. It will probably take time for God to cultivate the things in me that he wants there, but the result is more beautiful than before and much more satisfying.

What is God doing in you?

Friday, January 28, 2011

It's time for a savings post


Okay, I haven't put one of these up for a while, so I thought you might like to see my haul today. I hit 3 grocery stores (which I normally don't do, but we needed milk, and when I can get Pet milk for $2.98 a gallon, I'l go wherever I need to).

Included in all of this are two large packs of chicken breasts, a Boston Butt, asparagus, lots of oatmeal and cocoa (for chocolate oatmeal cookies), cheese, frozen pizza, 3 gallons of milk and a half gallon of chocolate milk along with several other items.

I would call this a success in shopping. I have to admit, Publix is my very favorite place to shop, but today I had a wonderful little girl in Bilo who made that experience delightful.

Here are the totals:

Ingles - spent $6.95, saved $11.97 and got $5 in Catalinas
Bilo - spent $27.08, saved $17.09 and got $2 in Catalinas
Publix - spent $47.07, saved $60.41

That breaks down to a savings of 52%. Now, some of you may say, "Come on, Alicia, you brag that you can save 60% when you shop," and normally that's true but when we became a 3 gallon a week family, I'm happy to save half. All in all, I'm thrilled that I can buy the things my family needs without breaking the bank. Ultimately, that's my goal.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

What I'm praying for Abby


My mom gave me James Dobson's book The New Strong Willed Child , and it is a book that we desperately needed in my house.

You see, that little rocker girl has an iron will. Dobson would call her a revolutionary, and I've no doubt that she has the potential to be just that.

I started reading the book, and of course, when I read anything I have to talk it over with folks, so several weeks ago, I was talking to a wonderful friend and colleague of mine who also happens to have a strong willed child.

She gave me a wonderful prayer to pray for my Abby. You see, the strong will isn't a bad thing - it is something that God gave Abby because he knew she would need it. After all, you don't start life at 2lbs 15oz and only stay in the NICU 10 days, coming home weighing a whopping 3lbs 6oz and no be strong willed.
It was something that served her well in those early days, but left unguided and if not taught to control that will and reign it in, the results could and most certainly would be disastrous.

So, what am I praying? I'm praying that Abby will be strong willed for her Savior, that she will cling to him with an overwhelming passion. After all, aren't our children arrows in our hands, not to be broken, but to be aimed and shot into this world?

What do you pray for your children?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

About Daddies


Since my sister doesn't have a blog - I know, all science and no fun - I thought I would share this story with you, which turned out to be quite a lesson in the care that daddies take of their daughters.

About a year or so ago my baby sister moved into an apartment. It was her first time being truly alone and on her own, and my dad, knowing my sister, put a chain lock on her front door. Several months after she moved in, she went to visit a friend in the same complex and noticed that her door didn't have a chain on it, so she said, "You know, Katie, you really should call maintenance and tell them that you're missing the chain on your front door." To which Katie replied, "No, Heidi, your dad installed that chain on your door when you moved in. Didn't you know that?"

Well, obviously, my dad put the lock on without my sister ever knowing it - for her safety - and my sister credited it with just being a part of the apartment.

Do you see where this is going? My Daddy took care of my baby sister and she never even knew it - and wouldn't have known it had her friend not told her the truth.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was out of school on break and Jason had taken the week off after Christmas to be home with us. Jason left to go play disc golf, and I stayed at home to wash clothes. Now, we have dryer issues. Those of you have been to my house while I dry clothes will recall the horrible sound our dryer made. It was something akin to a pig being slaughtered and I couldn't dry clothes during naptime because no one could sleep through that racket. We assumed it was a felt pad that had decided to go MIA, but I realized later that it was something worse.

While Jason was gone that morning, I put a load of clothes in the dyer, turned it on and noticed that it didn't sound like it was moving. It was running, but the barrel wasn't turning. I turned it off and called Jason. By the time he got home, and I went back in the laundry room, the top of the dyer was hot to the touch and when we looked in the barrel we could see the back glowing red. Jason and my nephew pulled the dryer away from the wall and we could see burn marks on the dyer and the wall and soot was coming from the back.

Now, I tell you, we were so very close to a major catastrophe, but God - my heavenly Daddy - was taking care of me without my even knowing it. Kind of like my earthly Daddy did for my baby sister.

Scripture tells us in Matthew 7:11 -If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

That's the thing about Daddies, they take care of their children, even when they don't know it.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Fear of the Lord

I was reading this morning in Job 28, and something jumped off the page at me. It's not something that I've never heard before; in fact, it's something that I say to my students and something that I've often reminded myself over the years. I'm not sure why it had the impact that it did this morning, but it did.

Want to know what it was?

Here you go: "And he [God] said to man, 'The fear of the Lord - that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.'" (Job 28:28).

As I read this, I began to think - what do I fear? That something bad will happen to my family, that my husband will lose his job and we won't be able to make it financially, that I'll be diagnosed with some kind of horrible disease, that a natural disaster will destroy our home and way of life.

Most folks would look at this list and say that it is a reasonable list, things that most people fear. None of them are too far-fetched, okay, sometimes they're far-fetched if you lived in my brain, but they are all things that could happen.

So why then does God tell us that the fear of him is wisdom?

I think it's because it is much wiser to fear the one who ultimately controls the things we fear than to fear the things themselves.

For instance, I can't control whether or not I contract an incurable illness. God can control that.
I can't control whether my home is wiped out by a natural disaster: God controls the wind and the waves and orchestrates them just as He sees fit.

When I fear the one in control, knowing that He loves me with a steadfast love and always has my best interest at heart (Jeremiah 29:11), I find incredible peace (Philippians 4:6-7).

So, perhaps when I'm afraid and worried about things that are obviously beyond my control, I should remember the one who never loses control.

Monday, January 24, 2011

We did it




Well, we had to bite the bullet and get a new computer, so now we're those people - Mac people.

Last week our power went out because someone hit a transformer. The next day I went to turn our computer on and got an error message. I called Jason frantic because I was sure that the machine was dead. By some small miracle, after 10 minutes of coaxing it decided to come back on. At that point we knew we had to get a new computer. We wanted something that was easy to use and durable, so we chose the basic MacBook. We've never had an Apple computer before, so we'll see how this goes, but the reality is that after we lost most of the pictures of Abby's first and second year when the old computer crashed before, we didn't want to chance it.

So, maybe the easier and faster access to pictures like the ones above will make blogging easier.

We'll see.