Scripture of the Month:  “A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands.” Proverbs 14:1

Quote of the Month: “If you have to ask the question, ‘Does this make me look fat?’ you already know the answer.” – Charla Krupp, style advisor

 Did you know?  May is National Camping Month.  And Teacher Appreciation Month. I believe it’s also Cheeseburger Appreciation Month.  Hmmm…

We’re parents again!  Sort of.  A lovely mother robin [you saw her lovingly created nest in last month’s newsletter] hatched three beautiful eggs and we got to see her babies squawk, open their eyes, be so ugly they were cute, change nearly hourly, fly away.  Treasure this season of mothering, precious girlfriends; whichever one you’re in, will not come again.  Our little chicks will be flying and leaving the nest before we know it.

Life Notes:

Man, to be honest with you, I just hate it when things don’t go my way.  Anybody else?  I’m simply not very fond of “waiting on the Lord.”  There are days that the wait seems simply too much.  Too hard.  How I wish the scripture read, “Scurry around like a crazy woman while you wait on the Lord.” I could do that.  Seriously.

That way we could feel productive, couldn’t we?  We could join a committee, organize a banquet, make a triple-layer cake, write an article, repaint a room, send off a gazillion cards, teach a Bible Study, take a trip, go to the mall, make a list.  But we’d be doing something about it.

Waiting is so hard for me to do.  Worshipping while I’m waiting is even harder.  My sweet friend Sara, made us a little care package when we drove to St. Louis for Greg’s transplant testing.  It included snacks and John Waller’s CD that included that song.  While I’m Waiting.  It was a powerful reminder to remember that God’s ways are not ours; His timing isn’t ours either.

In our Bible study last fall, Beth Moore joked that “God is never late, but He misses a few good opportunities to be early.”  If you’re in one of those spots, would you be willing to covenant with me to at least try and wait?  To acknowledge that while prayer might not seem like doing something, it’s actually the greatest power we could invoke.

I’d be honored if you’d e-mail me about what it is you’re “waiting on.”  I’ll be praying for you.  Let’s be wise women, girl friends, the kind that build up, rather than tear down our own houses.

What’s On Our Table: Pasta Con Broccoli

Sauté 2 heads fresh broccoli in 6 T. olive oil; Sprinkle with garlic powder and seasoned black pepper

Meanwhile, boil one box of bowtie pasta for 9 minutes.  Drain.  Add sauted broccoli with olive oil, one small package hard salami, diced and one package grated parmesan cheese.  Heat and toss gently until warm all the way through.  Serve with garlic bread & a tossed salad.  Ta da!  Fancy, easy dinner.

[This is our version of a recipe I got with my daddy in St. Louis while doing the grocery shopping with him; I was likely about 17 years old.  They were serving a sample at Dierberg’s and we loved it!  Bought all the ingredients and went home and made it that night.  Yeah, that’d be dad, not me.]

This is WEDDING SEASON.  Hot Chocolate for Couples makes a wonderful shower gift for the Bride and Groom.

Laugh Out Loud

A woman had been doing some gardening and got really muddy.  She came in and went straight to the basement, stripping down to just her bra and panties, in order to put stain remover on her clothes and wash them right away.  She flipped on the radio, and in a silly mood, took her son’s old football helmet off the wall and put it on.  Waiting for the stain treatment top soak in, she started doing some old cheerleading moves.

Meanwhile, the meter reader, having called through the screen door and not gotten an answer, came down the stairs to read the meter.  The woman was startled and yanked the laundry basket in front of her.  “Lady,” the meter reader said, “I don’t know what team you’re cheering for, but I hope they win!”

Fast Fact:

Children are exposed to more than 1,000,000 words every year with just 15 minutes of out-of-school reading a day! [Parenting, March 2010, 67] Run to your public library and sign up for their Summer Reading Program.  It’s free!!

From Our House to Yours

I had the privilege of speaking at Westside Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas on May 1^st.  I took my youngest two girls with me and got to chat with a dear long ago friend, meet the lovely Jana who planned it all and partake of a chocolate fountain.  It marked a first as the only time I’ve driven through Kansas without getting lost.  The highlight of the day for me, was meeting Jan and Jennifer, a mother and now-grown daughter who had gone to West County Christian Church in St. Louis, where my father had preached as I had grown up.  They joined the church right around the time I was leaving for college so we didn’t recognize one another. By the time my presentation was over, they had figured out that my daddy had baptized Jennifer and her brother Jason.  I was tearily reminded of the power of legacy.

On May 7, puppy Joy got spayed and I got the chance to attend the same Chik-fil-A sponsored leadership seminar as my husband.  I came home refreshed and inspired.  I’ll be sharing some nuggets from that with you throughout the summer.

I will be addressing the Joplin Writer’s Guild on Thursday evening, May 13, about writing for Christian markets.  I am petrified to speak to dignified members of my own profession.  Would greatly appreciate your fervent prayers.

Not sure when school is out for you, but for us, it’s only eleven days INCLUDING weekends!  This school year has flown by.  We wish you precious memory making with you and your sweet ones this summer!

Watch your summer newsletters for great ideas!

Hugs and God’s best chocolate blessings,

Cindy

Congratulations to the May contest winners, who each received a signed copy of one of Karen Ehman’s books!!

Leesa Chesnut

Natasha Miller

Becky Leija

Watch for a special JUNE contest!

Following is a list of things I have done today:

Smacked the snooze button on my alarm clock. 

Showered and made three vain attempts to make fluffy a determinedly flat side of my hair. 

Took the puppy out and the bills to the mailbox.

Drove children to school. 

Walked two miles and prayed. 

Ate a muffin and drank a glass of chocolate milk. 

Attacked a pile [I loathe piles] of “stuff” at my place on the kitchen table. 

Started the dishwasher. 

Sorted laundry and did two loads. 

Picked up four pieces of fuzz off the stairs. 

Looked out the window longingly.

Gave up and sat on the porch for my devotions.

 While I was there, I finished the last twenty pages of a fiction book I was almost done with and the Lincoln biography, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Loved it.

Unloaded the dishwasher.

Squished an ant who was lazily exploring the bottom of my [empty!] laundry basket.

 Scooted things off the floor so the bug man can spray this afternoon.

Saw this book at the store and had this random thought- guess whose life I am NOT interested in hearing about?  Kate Goesslin’s.

Thought really hard about vacuuming the baseboards, but Thursday is housecleaning day, not today.

Pretended I was Julie Andrews.

Pretended I was Erma Bombeck.

Wished my hair would behave.

Wondered if Kirstie Alley weighs more than I do. [She was on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal, which came in the mail.]  Oh yeah, I got the mail.

Moved things around on my desk.

Reminded myself that this is my writing day.

Wondered why then, wasn’t I writing.

Made a list on really cute cherry-bordered paper of my writing assignments for the week.

Knew you would wonder whether or not there was some deep spiritual point to this.

I’ll save you the trouble.  Nope.  There isn’t.  It’s just sometimes, all of us, this Wannabe Woman included, put off things we know they should be doing.

So, to quote Father Timothy from the Mitford Series, “Philippians 4:13 for Pete’s sake!”  All things girls!  We really can do them in Christ.  Read, set, go!

     My mother doesn’t have any talents.  At least that’s what she’d tell you if you asked her.  She can only play two songs on the piano: Take My Life and Let It Be and Silent Night.  One-fingered.  She doesn’t sing and loathes being in front of people.  As a preacher’s wife in St. Louis, I think that bothered her. 

     But she doesn’t see what I saw.  I’ve leafed through photo albums full of pictures in which my sister, my mother and I all wore matching dresses, sewn by her loving hands.  She wanted us to be able to play the piano,so for an entire year the only furniture in our family room was the piano.  She made  it seem like all the extra space was planned for our personal gymnasium enjoyment. We had no idea it’s because we started out poor.

     That’s because she started out life even poorer.  She’s a hero.  Her parents divorced when she was five years old.  She can barely remember a happy time.  Her mother lived with a cruel man who drank and brought violence into their home.  By age nine she was splitting and carrying in wood to cook dinner. The arthritis in her hands now, began then. She and her four sisters often spent the night in the apple trees, hiding from temper stirred by hard drinking and harder living.

     She saved up for and bought her own toothbrush with babysitting money when she was eleven.  No one ever came to see her in a volleyball game or in her Senior play.  I think that might be where she started her best talent.

     You see, her gift is loving.  She married my daddy and decided that any children of hers would never know that kind of life. She was the consummate hostess, a fabulous decorator, a great listener, superb bargain hunter and because of her I learned how to mix and match items in my wardrobe to make it seem endless.

      To this day, she is my etiquette expert of choice.  If she lavished love on us then she bathes her eight grandchildren in it.  She spoils everyone.  She cooks, she crafts, and she organizes. She cannot ever die or the only turkey we’ll ever have on Thanksgiving is deli slices from Wal-Mart. 

      Mother was an amazing and fun wife. She was faithful to my daddy for 34 years, one month, eleven days, eight hours and seventeen minutes, loving him well and laughing with him until cancer brought him Home early, at 56-years-young. 

        This love has made her an encourager extraordinaire.  My mother has been in the balcony, on the sidelines or on the floor of every event in my life.  She suffered through hours long piano recitals and saw all of my high school plays.  She was the Matron of Honor at my wedding.  I can look out into any audience and see her face smiling; her hands clapping.

     She still frequently accompanies me to speaking events and is usually one of the first to read anything I’ve written.  “This is REALLY good, Cinso, truly.  I read all the time and it’s as good as or better than anything out there.”  You can breathe in one of her compliments for weeks.  I have lived in such love all my life and it’s easy to take it for granted.

     Now it’s my turn.  Way to go, Mom!

Here’s the deal.  I’ve been forty for four years now.  The last time I had rock-hard abs was when I was ten and a half months pregnant with my youngest daughter, who is now eight.  I knew you wouldn’t believe how awesome they were, hence the picture.

     Fast forward to now.  Things are, ahem, a bit different and I have noted that the only persons who possess perfect bodies in anyone’s home are the smaller ones who began the ruination of your own.

     I don’t know about you, but I’ve kinda been having reality/mourning issues and a coming-to-terms with things like hail damage, the introduction of my thighs to each other and a vague jiggly quality to my upper arms.  Yep, I fear that the Wannabe Woman is reaching the years of becoming a “used-ta be,” as in formerly hot.

     Formerly.  Sigh.  No stretch marks, but a bit of a muffin top.  No turkey neck or wrinkles on my face, but enough spider veins to use as an arachnid exhibit for show and tell day at my girls’ elementary school or to entertain them as they use them to plot our vacation route with Sharpies.

     And every nine weeks, I have to visit my hairdresser for a Natural Hair Color attack.  I told her to look closely and she could see the names of my children engraved on the roots of the grays.

     It’s all I can do not to grab these young girls at the mall and shake them until their teeth rattle.  Someday, they’re gonna be forty also.  I’ll be the one in the walker laughing my head off.

     I told my beloved a few months ago that body parts are falling so far south that if God doesn’t return soon, all I’m going to have to buy are shoes!  I’m fairly certain that he put that in the plus column on the Dave Ramsey system.

     Furthermore, every year, either my doctor or some childless, work-out goddess/nurse casually mentions, “Mrs. Dagnan, we really need to lose those last 15 baby pounds.” 

     What I want to know is – Who’s we, Kemosabe?  I don’t see you helping motivate me!  The only thing more aggravating than that are the extremely overweight health care personnel telling me that, which causes me to laugh my abs into better shape when I see one of them taking a smoke break ten minutes after telling me how to be healthier!  After checking with one of my nurse friends, I found that I can decline this service at next year’s check-up.  “Um, no thank you.  I don’t care to be weighed this year.”  Can’t wait to see how that goes over.

     Frankly, I exercise only because I want to live long enough to see my children grow up and to hold my grandchildren and great-grandchildren someday.  When am I gonna get those promised endorphins that magazines are always touting?  It’s a lot of work and between you and me, I’d rather be a bit on the pudgy side if I have to swear off pasta, bread and sugar.

     Aging also brings about other indignities.  Take the mammogram, for instance.  I’m all about prevention and detection of almost anything, but girls, I value my modesty!  I’m just asking for the cape to cover whichever one they’re NOT photographing.  Is that too much?  And should someone else have pictures of something which even my husband does not?

     Were that not enough, they placed hot pink floral Band-Aids, sporting a silver metal tab in their middles, directly across the critical parts of said breasts.  “What are these for, I inquired?”

     “Those are so the technician can tell where center is.”

     I snorted.  “Um, Ma’am?  No offense, but if he can’t tell where center is, then I probably don’t have anything wrong with me that can be fixed!”

     I got the glare which clearly meant, “We are not amused.”

     She doesn’t have to be, ‘cause I am.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  God numbered and knew my days before one of them came to be.  I can laugh and walk and be amazed.  I can appreciate the value of a sack of warm Krispy Kremes and a glass of chocolate milk.  A bag of peanut M & Ms is the mother lode of calcium and protein and the color I’m supposed to have on my plate.

     I have said farewell to my metabolism and I hear that the older I get, the more my annoying habits will be passed off as “charming eccentricities!”  Yay. I will say, though, that tan fat does indeed look better than pale fat and that I currently have abs of Styrofoam. I am darn proud of them!  That almost makes up for the fact that I’ve heard in a few more years I’ll have to walk around with tweezers for the chin hair that is supposed to be coming.  Sigh.

[WINNERS: Please e-mail me with your “snail mail” addresses so she can sign & mail your prizes! Congrats.]

Organization: I put my spinning spice rack on my lazy Susan in my kitchen.  Herbs and spices are supposed to be in a dark cool place so the counter top wasn’t working!  This also gave me more countertop, plus my spices stay better longer.

Hospitality: I put a small basket in the guestroom with soaps, toothbrush, shampoo, a small book, etc. I know this has made such a difference to me when others did this.  I also ALWAYS take a hostess gift when I visit someone.  People always seem so surprised!

Blessings,

Leesa Chesnut

Organizational tip

1) I keep a bag inside my boys’ closet.  When an item of clothing is too small it goes in the bag.  When the bag is full we make a trip to good will.  

2) I put all my CD’s and DVD’s in albums made for them.  (I actually put a few in regular photo albums!)  I cannot believe how much clutter it clears when you can toss all those cases!

I hope I win!!!!  : )

Becky Leija  

Food and hospitality seem to go hand in hand.  Something about eating seems to make guests feel at ease.  When our large family of six expanded to nine four years ago, it seemed I could hardly make enough food for them-let alone company.  I began doubling every recipe.  Although it made more than enough, I always had enough to ask someone extra to stay for supper.  (If no one comes over, I’m just grateful for the leftovers the next day at lunch.)  Also, I found cooking my meat ahead of time really helps.  I try to cook up and freeze the meat I need for the week all in one day.  It really doesn’t take much longer to brown 10 pounds of hamburger then it does 2 pounds.  And you only have to clean up the mess once.

Keep up the good work, Cindy.  You bless many lives.

Natasha Miller