yummy pie & an adorable friend

last night i made an cheddar crust apple pie because...well, i needed to bake.  i made a pie like this when i was about 9 years old for 4-H, losing highest honors to somebody's cherry pie (that had boiled over!!).  no i'm not bitter about that thank you, but i have always been sad that i promptly lost the recipe and never was able to make that yummy goodness again.

so i tried again and if my housemates give it a thumbs up at family dinner tonight i'll post pics and the recipe.  i'm excited about the dinner that will precede the pie too, lemon chicken with sweet pea tortellini that i got out of my most recent rachael ray magazine.  mmmmm...

now, while this may lower my chances at getting something fun, i do want to share about my friend rachel's giveaway.

because who can resist sharing a friend this adorable with the world?

i dream that someday when we are 50 or 60 we will open a bakery together.  we will change the world one cupcake with a sprinkle of Jesus' love at a time.  can you see it?  rachel, have i told you this before?  are you in?

so head over here to visit her giveaway.  all you have to do is tell her a dream or something you're thankful for...and who couldn't use a reminder of God's goodness in the middle of the work week?

pray for Gigi

my niece, Gianna, had pneumonia recently. her lung hasn't drained properly during her recovery, so tomorrow (tuesday) morning at 11 am she is having a surgery to insert tubes to drain her lung. she'll probably be in the hospital for about a week for recovery.  please pray for a complete and speedy recovery for her.  also for endurance and peace for my brother & sis-in-law, Ashley Wade & Jen.  I'm sure they are worn out considering how long this illness has been, Gigi's earlier hospital stay from the pneumonia and caring for Gigi's baby brother, Dominic.

aunt abby wants her baby girl back to playing and having fun!

who woke up with her cranky pants on??

i woke up this morning Cranky.  yes, cranky with a capital c.  i can't say that i even woke up that way, because i'm not sure i even slept all that much last night.  instead of thankfulness that i had an extra day off for the weekend yesterday (thanks President's for the day) i was cranky that it was over.  i didn't want to get up and ended up running way behind all morning.

and yet God is gracious to me.  even with my crummy bad attitude.  even when i feel like i'm about to fall over tired.

first off, jennie called and said that a family friend had stopped by and the kid's wouldn't be over for school for an extra half hour.  exactly the time i needed to finish getting ready for them.

(wait, back up a second, Abigail - have you told anyone yet that you are homeschooling full-part-time this semester?  nope?!  that's what i thought.)  ahem.  i'm homeschooling 4 of my former coat kids this semester while their family gets settled into the community here in fort myers and their mom does homeschooling for 4 of the older siblings.  so every morning i am trying my best to pack a full day of school into the lives of a preschooler, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders!  and it looks like this:

okay, not exactly like this.  although the cribs have become their favorite spot for silent reading.

it actually looks more like this, only with less workbooks now - this picture is from during their time with me in COAT when we were doing bare minimum homeschool.  now we are doing all out projects and lessons.  tiring and so rewarding.

anyways, back to ungrateful cranky-pants morning.  

the key to it all is in that sentence.  ungrateful.  here comes the confession - it's good for the soul, right?  just yesterday i cried to my housemate as i told her i realized i had been basically spitting in God's face.  i've prayed for a family of my own and He's told me to look at the family He's given me in my house and i've been telling Him it wasn't good enough.  i've prayed for children and He's shown me all the kids that are in my life and i've been telling Him it wasn't good enough.

how ungrateful i've been!  how untrusting of my Abba Father!

i think that's why it didn't take me so long today to realize the source of my crankiness.  and God opened my eyes.  and so many have blessed me today!  3 people in the past 24 hours have out of nowhere (well 2 out of 3) told me how much they see God working in me and also how excited they are for me to someday be married and what that will be like for me. oh how that spoke to my weary heart.  because i don't see those things.  and i think a girl can start to wonder if they have a giant "gift of celibacy" tattoo on their forehead that she can't see - and to hear others dream for me and to see something good in me - all i can say is that God is overwhelmingly good to me.  i am so thankful that He continues to work in me even when i'm stubborn, sleepy, and capital c - Cranky.

God's painting

though not intentional, i seem to have taken a nice long break from blogging.  surprisingly, i have not missed it.  yet, i shall try to return.

i was just walking back upstairs into our office building.  (NMSI's offices are the entire second floor of an office building and one large suite downstairs.  we are able to rent out the other downstairs suites to various places, including a coffee/ten thousand villages shop, a hearing clinic, a church and others.)  i took the stairs, since it's better for me and i can avoid our terrifying elevator.  both of our stairwells have a large picture window high up on the second story.  one of these windows is blocked by a tree, but the other one faces south towards the beautiful open sky.

i love looking through this window.  the "picture" changes every time.  sometimes it is clear crystal blue.  other times it has pretty wispy clouds or dark, powerful clouds.  other times the picture is deep blue and full of stars.  i know that all i have to do is step outside and i can take in the view of the sky as a whole.  but outside also comes with trees and power lines and traffic.  inside the stairwell, i get a quiet beautiful glimpse of something glorious.  a painting created by the most amazing creator.

and God knows that i'm limited.  that sometime He must give me His glory in small, yet gorgeous bites.  it's why He "never gives us more than we can handle."  and somehow, looking through the picture window, i get a daily dose of how good God is and how much He cares for me to paint such a beautiful blue canvas for me to enjoy.