Through the Glass Dimly

I love soup! It’s such an easy thing to make and have homemade-fresh-on-hand. Once upon a time I would make a big pot of soup once a week, and it would serve as lunch for my little two-person family throughout the week, or for a quick supper on a busy night with added homemade biscuits.  I have always heard of Butternut Squash Soup, and have wanted to attempt it. Today seemed like the right day, as I had a bit of extra energy (energy which is gradually leaving me completely as I am now 36 weeks pregnant), a butternut squash, some alone time while Josh was doing yard work for a woman at my parents church, and a need to eat something wholesome for lunch. I absolutely LOVED this soup. So I thought I'd share the recipe with you. It has such a rich creamy texture with a warm fall spicy sweetness. Let me know if you try out the recipe! Butternut Squash Soup Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter (you can substitute a cholesterol free substitute if you prefer) 1 small onion, ch...

I'm pretty sure this song will forever remind me of this pregnancy. I listened to it so much when I was first pregnant, driving to work and feeling oh so nauseous. I heard it again last Sunday morning, on the way to church, and it meant so much more to me then. Since Josh isn't legally able to work right now, and I was put on modified bed rest just a few days previous to said Sunday morning, I was struggling in my spirit. I don't want to complain about how bad I have it. I am blessed. However humbling it may be, it is pure grace that we are able to live at my sweet and generous parents home right now. I could just as easily be out on the street this very moment, but I am blessed with a roof over my head, and food to eat, though I will not say that it is easy to live like this. Wondering how we will pay bills, and whether we will have what we need for Ellie when she arrives. Needless to say, this is not the position that I had dreamed of when I thought of ...

When I was a kid, Friday nights were reserved for only fun dinners, and family night. We'd start with something like tacos (which have always been my favorite), and brown cows (a brown cow is A&W root beer with just a shot of milk in it: kind of tastes like a melted float! Soooo good), and then we'd watch TGIF complete with the best shows like Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters, etc. Friday nights were always so much fun growing up. When I was in college Friday nights became date night, and mine and Josh's favorite place to go out for a date night was Carino's Italian Grill (where I later worked for 2 years doing things from hostessing to waiting tables to being a salad/dessert chef). Because what is more romantic than Italian food? When I first got married I had the same mentality: Friday Equals Fun Time. And so I've always tried to make something fun for dinner. Tonight was no different. I thought I'd share the recipes with you (which I...

One of my favourite things to cook is soup. Saturday used to be my soup making day. I would make a big pot of some delicious piping soup that would serve as one dinner in the week, and several lunches. Soup is just such a well rounded food. It can be a nice light meal, or a hearty wintery dinner. In honour of fall inching its way closer to us, I've decided to post a recipe that I made for lunch today. Feel free to substitute any bean you fancy. I used white kidney beans because that is what I had, but black beans would be excellent as well. Lemonisious Bean Soup 3 Cans White Kidney Beans (feel free to try out other types) 1 Cup Water 1/2 Onion, finely diced 1 Rib Celery, with leaves, finely diced Freshly Ground Black Pepper (you can use regular ground black pepper, but freshly ground is nicer) 1 teaspoon celery seeds Juice of 1 lemon 1 lemon, sliced paper thin, for garnish Celery leaves, for garnish Method : Heat the oil in a medium sized pot over medium heat. Add...

Remember how when you were three years old it really made you feel like your daddy loved you when he let you climb up into his lap and just rest there? Or how you really knew your mommy loved you when she saw you watching her with awe whilst she put her makeup on, and she dabbed just a smidge on your cheeks? As children we saw that our parents loved us when we got a brand new pretty pink dress instead of a hand-me-down, or that brand new Safari Barbie Doll we wanted oh so much. But even then, as children, we did not think about how our parents loved us with everything they did, including the difficult things, like not allowing us to go to that school party that was on Sunday because it was better for us to go to church than to do cool fun things with our friends, or giving us the hand-me-down clothes so they could provide us with other good things like food to eat. I've been thinking about the love of God a lot for the past few weeks, and how sometimes its a comfortable kind of ...

It has been far too long since I have written anything. After I poured out my spirit in my last post about Patience being a Womanly Virtue , I found out some rather unexpected news. On April Fools Day, at 4:41 in the morning I found out that we are expecting a baby! No joke. In fact, when I wrote those words about how I feared I would have to wait forever to have a baby, I was with child. Way Un Expected. And oh how I wanted to write about it then, but I had to wait until those that needed to hear it from me had heard it before I told the blog-o-sphere. And then. The nausea hit. And oh how it hit. And the sleepiness. I pretty much hibernated the last two months away because if I wasn't at work, or eating, I wasn't feeling well, and sleeping came so easy. It is tiring work growing a person. And then my heart started irritating me, once more. Palpitations galore. Racing heart beats. After all of my adventures to get a healthy heart, and thinking I was all...

Patience. There's a certain patience that is required in being a woman. Its a lesson that I've been learning for a while now. First, the patience was knowing who I wanted to marry, and having to wait for said person to get ready to marry me. It only took eight years**.... but still. So there were many many nights of tears, wondering why. That story is far too long and we won't go into it now. I'd rather talk about other issues of patience, but I did want to let you know that, yes, patience is something that I've struggled with... at least since I was 15, if not my whole life. So then you get engaged, and then you have to wait for the big day. The wedding day. Then you're married. And everything is lovely. You are learning how to be a wife. How to meal plan. How to manage to keep the whole house/apartment clean. How to budget. How to do all these things and still hold down a grown-up job. And then it hits you. Because there is always something else. ...