Thirty-Five

Last week I celebrated my 35th birthday. 35! -HA!- I still think I'm in college!
As I read my Bible that morning, I picked a verse to work on this year. I wanted to pick a verse that would be my overall theme for year 35. Something to chew on and push hard on. The Lord brought me to Psalm 37:4.

Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of
your heart.

Some things I'm hoping to understand better:

Delight....what does delight mean? How do you delight? What does does true delight look like?

in the LORD....where is my delight right now? when it's not in the LORD, what is it in?

desires of my heart....what are my desires? are they holy? do my desires match the LORD's desires?

All over the Bible it talks about delight and joy in God-

Nehemiah 8:10-And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Psalm 16:11-You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy;

Hebrews 12:1-2-Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

How can I have that kind of joy? Right now my joy/delight is based on how my kids are behaving, or what kind of day I'm having, or if things are going the way I want them to go, or if my house is clean.

I pray the LORD will use this year to impress upon me truths from this verse.
He has already provided one learning tool through Tony. A few hours after I picked this verse, Tony surprised me with a book he bought for us to go through together. It is 'When I Don't Desire God-How to Fight for Joy' by John Piper.

On the back of the book it says that "if joy in God were merely the icing on the cake of Christian commitment, this book would be insignificant. But Piper argues that joy is so much more. Our being satisfied in God in necessary to show God's worthiness and to sustain sacrifices of love."

I think that's how I'm feeling right now, that my joy in God is the icing on cake that you experience once in a while, but I know it needs to be more than that. If the joy of the Lord is my strength, and I'm a wimp, then there should be a lot more joy in my daily life of mothering/parenting. I'm finding my satisfaction in unworthy objects.

I'd appreciate any insight you have. Please share with me what the LORD has taught you/is teaching you in this area.

Clean-up, clean up, everybody everywhere!

After working a double wedding, 9 hours of driving, and being down with a bad cold this is what my house looked like....
...and that's just one room of our house! To say we needed a little motivation to help us accomplish our daunting task would be an understatement. So, I did what any good Harms kid would do and made it into a game. That's our family crest motto "when all else fails-turn it into a game" !

Today's game: The Cooper Room Inspectors.

I made up some inspector sheets, each kid got to take turns being 'inspectors' and wrote down what needed to be cleaned and couldn't sign off on the sheet until it was deemed 'CLEAN'!
And now our room looks like this- It worked! And we even had some fun while doing it. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but for now it's working, and when it doesn't we'll come up with a new game!

How do you keep chores fun?

Paneer

I saw this recipe at Heart of Light and thought it would be really fun to try! Make your own cheese? How cool is that?! It's really easy and simple and turned out great! A great project for kids too!
Paneer is a traditional Indian cheese and it only takes 2 ingredients: milk and lime juice. (I added salt to ours).


The cheese is firm enough to cut into cubes or you could crumble it. It has a creamy texture, and does not melt, similar to the mexican cheese queso.


Paneer
from Heart of Light

1/2 gallon of whole milk
juice of 1 lime
1 t salt

Bring milk to a boil.
Turn the heat down and add the lime juice.
Stir and wait for curds to form (at least 5 min)
Once large curds have formed, turn off heat and pour into a strainer lined with a lightweight dishtowel.
Sprinkle the salt over the curds.
Tie up to hang and let drip for 30 min.
Twist towel to form ball and hang another 30.
Unwrap and put in fridge to chill.


1st drain and 2nd drain

Vanilla Extract

As I mentioned before, I have a ton of vanilla beans thanks to this place. They have amazing prices! I bought them because I wanted to make my own vanilla extract. It's super easy! And WAY less expensive than buying little jars of pure vanilla. And it's fun! Here's how.

Vanilla Extract

3 vanilla beans
1 cup vodka*
container with tight fitting lid

Split vanilla beans lengthwise, leaving about an inch together at the top.
Place beans inside of container and fill with vodka.
Give it a good shake and store in a cool dark place.
Vanilla is ready to use in 2 months and lasts forever. You can keep topping it off with vodka and giving it a nice shake every so often.

You can order some cool bottles from this company. They are crazy cheap and have all sorts of cool containers.

* If you want GF vanilla extract be sure to use a potato vodka such as Luksusowa.

Etsy Shopping

Hey, check out these etsy shops for some great Christmas gift giving ideas! I could browse through etsy shops all day. So many crafty people! Here's a few to get you started.

Cozy Creations

How About Orange?

My Little Dear

mncmoon

Housewifes Unite!

Alright Housewiferians, quiet down! Let's bring this meeting to order!

A fellow housewife needs our help.

Mama has spoken....my mom...Mom Judy.

My mom has asked for help and I always obey my mom, and you should too...my mom and your own mom :)

Mom Judy is in charge of serving about 70 people each Wednesday night at her church. She needs ideas for easy, inexpensive meals that could keep warm in 2-3 crockpots and feed about 70 people. She has already served spaghetti, BBQ's (sloppy joes), hot dogs, and chili.

What do you have?
What are your ideas?
What would you do?

Let's give her as many ideas as we can think of. Let's give her so many good recipes that she won't know which one to do first. She'll be set for the year. She won't have to repeat a meal.

Go through your recipe repertoire and see what could be adapted.
Search every corner of your memory.
Surf every food blog you can think of.
Dust off that 1970's crockpot recipe book and see if there is anything usable.

Don't come back until you have found something!
Let's go!

Leech Lake

We were able to spend some time with Tony's folks at a beautiful cabin on Leech Lake about a month ago. And I realized I hadn't posted any pics yet, so here they are.
The beautiful cabin
The eating area in the great room
The great roomThe upstairs 'bunk house'. This place could sleep like 22!

View from the lake.Addie in the boat. She claims she didn't fall asleep :)
Her favorite part of the trip was riding on the jet skiis.
Evan in the boat.
Isaiah. He wasn't too sure about the boat.
Evan exploring Goose Island
Evan kayaking
Addie on the dock
Grandma Carol and Isaiah playing on the beach
Campfire and s'mores

Carol surprised the kids one meal by dumping it right onto the table. No plates allowed!

Then when everyone's finished, you just throw away the tablecloth and dishes are done!

The Coopers
We had a great time at Leech Lake!
We are so grateful to the family that let us use their beautiful place!

Senior High Camp 2009

Once again, camp was great! We didn't want to leave! We had such a good time working in the kitchen, judging cabin clean-up, helping with the ropes course, going to chapel, and just hanging out. Here is a taste of some of the fun we had during our week at Camp Shetek.


Evening chapel with Tim Lemmens



Evening activity: involves cans full of water, campers with a paper cup, and counselors sitting in a chair with a tray to block water. Driest counselor wins.


Cousins playing with large bins of water.


Senior high campers. I think there were around 100 10th-12th graders.

Prayer Chapel


Canoeing


Morning activity: sandcastle building


Morning activity: ropes course

The Cabana: smoothies, iced coffees, and snow cones


War Games! One of the highlights of the week for most campers and the staff too.

The staff dress up differently each year for war games and are snipers who hide a camp flag and a bible at the nearby Boy Scout Camp. The campers split up into 2 teams, wear flags that stick out their waistband (like flag football), and try to find the flag and Bible.

Morning activity: Cooking with Judy. Some made thumbprint cookies with Mom. I helped the others make zucchini flat bread.

Addie helping in the kitchen as a 'kitchen girl'. And Evan helping run the dishwasher.


Friday night skit night. Another highlight of the week. It is run kind of like 'The Tonight Show' with host Guy Conrad (who is actually my brother Grant in costume). And each cabin performs a skit and then the moment that everyone has been waiting for all year happens. We get to see the new Camp staff video. And here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Musical Shares

It's time to shake-up my play list. I need some new tunes to listen to. What are you guys enjoying listening to these days? Please give me some suggestions.

Fresh Start

The start of a new year. A chance to do things different, or better, or not at all. This year I've decided to:
-drink more water each day
-put things away right after using it
-set a specific time/place to read my Bible and pray

I think this is a manageable list. It's not overwhelming like when you get that first look at a course syllabus and think "how will I ever get through this!"

I've already got my "place" set up where I will read and pray. I'm hoping that by making a special spot in my bedroom it will remind me to sit and visit for a while. Tony and I totally re-did our bedroom. If anyone saw it before (which we never let anyone in except for maybe grandparents who were helping with laundry) you would know that our bedroom was anything but inviting. There was just enough room to walk from the door, around the bed, to the bathroom. But now........there is nothing but floor space, and I love being in there. The kids love being in there too. It's like we added on another room. All this to say, I hope I can establish a routine of reading and praying in there before the newness wears off. Accountability helps, so feel free to ask how I've been doing. I hope to post what I'm reading/learning about too.