More S'mores!

For my Amazing Grace's Graduation last year,

I made the cutest little S'more bags ever.

If you don't mind me saying so myself.

I vowed to make them again for camping.

S'mores Deluxe, coming right up!

This Tupperware is old, vintage, almost.

It perfectly fits a box of graham crackers,

and has been my Graham Cracker Storage Facility for years, and years and years.

This year, the crackers didn't fit in the box.

They were much smaller and looked pathetic

all pulled away from the edges of the container.

I called the company.

Oh, yes I did!

I was also making garbage bars and needed to know

if I would have to adapt my recipes that called for

"one package of graham crackers, crushed."

My crazy call probably made the top gossip in the coffee room.

The pleasant woman assured me the packages were the same weight,

the dimensions  were varied, because they were produced in different plants.

So I kept working.

Skipping the fancy bags, I settled for cheap sandwich bags with the fold top.

This was supposed to be super organized,

super amazing and super efficient.

Not sure what that saying "the best laid plans of mice and men"

really means because mice don't usually plan,

they just gnaw their way through life,

but this wasn't such a hot plan.

First mistake - I didn't put the bags in the cooler.

DUH!

It was in the 90's for the weekend.

Second mistake - We were camping with younger kids.

They couldn't open the twistie-ties easily

and they couldn't open their own candy bars,

which had to be kinda' smeared on because they were so melted.

I would still make the bags with the marshmallows and the crackers,

but put the chocolate in the cooler.

Despite my failures, the S'mores were still devoured.

We had to lick our fingers a little more

with the melted chocolate,

but it didn't matter.

Everyone loves S'mores.

Even when you fail,

you win,

when chocolate is involved.

Chocolate makes everything better.

Wish I could just smear a little chocolate on all life's problems

to make them more palatable.

Oh, that's right, I can.

Not exactly chocolate, but honey.

Ezekiel 3:3

And He said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly,

and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you.”

So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness.

God's Word makes everything better.

Don't Spit Me Out!

 There's nothing better than a drink of cold water on a hot day.

If you really think about it,

nagging your kids to stay hydrated is Biblical.

Well, maybe not the nagging,

but providing cold water for them is.

 Matthew 10:42  

And whoever...gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink,

truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.”

OK, I might be stretching the application a little, but

when I found this baby at a thrift store while shopping with my son Daniel,

I knew I needed it.

Red, vintage, useful to keep water cold,

what else could a woman want for her camping supplies?

I experimented freezing cups of water that fit perfectly in the opening.

Each block of ice was slipped into a sandwich bag,

then all into a gallon bag.  I didn't want them to stick together.

It worked!

I had cold water the entire 90degree day.

Amazing.

I proved my hunch,

the colder the water  the more the kids drank.

Yea, I was Biblical without nagging.

As a new believer, another cold water verse was introduced to me.

^{Revelation 3:16}

 So because you are lukewarm,

and neither hot nor cold,

I will spit you out of My mouth 

It was explained that God wanted me either hot,

 as in on fire for the Lord,

or cold, as in not on fire for the Lord,

but not lukewarm.

This didn't make sense to me.

 Why would the Lord want people to walk for Him or against Him?

Every verse I read seemed to contradict this theory.

But, kept hearing this explanation.

It was a young man, Scott, who cleared this up for me.

He said this verse means the Lord wants us to be

useful.

Cold water is useful. 

It refreshes the thirsty.

It soothes burns and lowers fevers.

Hot water is useful.

It makes wonderful coffee and tea.

In bathing, it cleanses and soothes aching muscles.

It sanitizes.

 

Lukewarm water is good for nothing.

You don't want to drink it,

You don't want to sit in it,

You don't want to wash with it.

The Lord wants us to be

 useful.

like cold water, refreshing and healing,

or hot water, soothing and cleansing.

That vintage red cooler was so

useful

I intend to keep it around for a long time.

That useful young man, Scott?

I kept him so long he's vintage, too.

Now, I have two tools to help me follow Revelation 3:16.

I just don't want the water of my life and service

to  be spit out...

We Love Us Some Coffee

Seven years ago,

when I first found out we were being transferred to Seattle,

I cried for a week.

I didn't like big cities.

I didn't like traffic.

I didn't like paying 3x as much for a house that was half the size.

I'm a small town girl.

I learned to drive in a town with a four way stop sign on Main.

I got lost in the huge town of 38,000 where we were living.

I reminded myself that I pledged  to go where hubby went,

his God would be my God and his people would be my people.

It's just easier when he goes where I want him to go,

and his people were already my people. 

After a week, I dried my eyes and put on my big girl pants.

Throughout the whole move and all the challenges,

I kept telling myself if the women in covered wagons could handle it,

 so could I.

We discovered we love the Pacific Northwest.

We also discovered that Seattle is the coffee capital of the US...

and we love us some coffee.

OOH-LA-LA!

Imagine living in a place

where you smell coffee and cedar all day long.

Oh yea, baby, it's true.

Imagine living in a place

where you can choose from four different types of coffee-

in one city block.

Imagine living in a place

where even our gas stations have really good coffee.

No Folgers here, no sirree.

Yea, our family,

we love us some coffee.

Why did I cry about moving to Seattle?

Camping in the summer can be challenging.

We need our morning cuppa' Joe,

but don't really want to start a fire.

My hubby bought this little wonder to brew our morning coffee.

Instead of planting flowers in this aluminum coffee pot,

we actually use it for coffee.

Watching the coffee gurgle in that little glass spout,

is almost as much fun as watching the dryer dry clothes.

We sit and sip our morning coffee,

not minding that it tastes a little tinny

and sometimes there are grounds in your mouth.

It's Camping Coffee,

not be to confused with the $5 latte kinda' coffee.

As you swirl those stray grounds around in your mouth,

it's the taste of

relaxation.

Imagine my thrill when I found this little gem at a garage sale.

I just needed a little tin cup.

Think, think, think.....where did I have one in my house?

Ah, the laundry room. 

It holds all things left in pockets or picked out of the washer or dryer.

I put all the whatnots in this little tin,

and packed it all up for camping.

It worked great!

I just forgot to pack

espresso grind coffee.

Apparently, my coffee snob daughters thought it was too weak

with regular coffee.

After our camping trip, I found a nice little green speckled enamel cup,

without any rust or chips and threw it in the camping box.

It's all packed away,

ready for our next camping adventure.

Cuz' we Seattle people,

we love us some coffee.