True blessings come when you least expect them!

Many blessings to you, my friends, this chilly Tuesday morning....I have been up for a while! I had a stomach ache, so I decided to get up and be productive rather than lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to Mark snore! It's a bake day, for me so I have to have my house a little warmer than usual. Yeast dough does not rise in the cold. So go get you a cup of tea....my tea d'jour is Oolong, (nice on a cold morning, when one has a sour stomach) ....pull up a chair and let me take you through my memories of holiday baking. Okay, here we go.......

I do so remember my girlhood days. My father was (and is, still) a home baker. When making holiday preparations, he'd work for three or four days, baking from before sunup, til dusk. Growing up, we had no forced air heating....Our house had a fireplace in the living room and a pot bellied stove in the kitchen. Dad would get up very early and set fires in the fireplace and in the stove. By the time we got up, it was toasty warm in the living room and in the kitchen and Daddy would be shelling walnuts or getting other preparations made. He'd make me a bowl of Cream of Wheat and I'd set at the kitchen table, just watching him. He loved to cook and bake (to my knowledge, he still does, though since Mother got sick and he has to do it all the time, he is less enthusiastic about it now, than he was before) My relationship with my father, growing up, was troubled at best. He was very domineering and I was very headstrong.....He was also very demonstrative of his anger and not very nice, with his words.....When I was a teen and my father and I couldn't talk about anything, we could still talk about food!! We can still talk about food....though we don't talk about much of anything else, so I guess not a lot has changed! (God, Bless my father and help him find comfort in You! ) Anyhow, back to the story! I'd watch him mix and knead and rise and shape and bake, literally, for days. He was always truly happy, creating. I know now, that I learned my true love for food, from my foodie father and that even though I wanted to learn absolutely nothing from him, I acquired all of my culinary skill from my Dad. And like him, I get so much out of having people enjoy my creations.....Daddy always just glowed on Thanksgiving Day and at Christmas Dinner.....He loved it when people loved his food and I am exactly the same way. ( As I age, I see more of my father in me than my mother and that's really surprising to me) I remember the house always smelled of fresh bread, right before Thanksgiving and Christmas and it is that scent that I most closely identify with a holiday, than any other. I bake my own bread, as much as possible, but with the advent of bread making machines, it's far less labor intensive as it was, when I was growing up. Still, my house always smells like Christmas, to me and it makes my heart smile, even if just for a moment! Allowing myself the indulgence of the end slice of bread, right as it comes out of the oven, schmeared with butter is another memory that for me, is absolutely saturated in the immutable pinkish blush of childhood!

I'm listening to my dishwasher running...finishing my third cup of morning tea and trying to formulate a plan for today.....I have a pie and two cheesecakes to bake, along with bread and rolls.....I need to make my cranberry sauce (yes, I make it myself) and get my stuffing veggies sauteed and in the fridge to let the flavors mature and combine....I need to prepare the marinade for the roast, so that those flavors can combine and mature.....and I still have a bunch of cleaning to do...I didn't get as much done yesterday, as I'd wanted....facebook was more interesting than housework!! I also had a disagreement with Mariah and removed her from my facebook friends list, for blatantly telling me to shut up!! I don't know that I'll add her again and the way I feel right now, if she never came to visit again and stayed in Texas for the rest of her life, I wouldn't have a problem with that!! She needs to learn some respect for the adults in her life....She needn't like me, as a person, but she must respect me, as an elder.....She's just so flagrant about her comments and such and I know, that Mark will end up taking her side, like he always does when it comes to his children. I cannot say as how I blame him....I would probably be the same way! Being a blended family is difficult, at best sometimes....I have always felt a little bit like an outsider....I know that Mark's God-given responsibility to me, his wife, is always going to take a back burner to his perceived responsibility to his children. Whereas if I were the mother of his children, there would be no conflict! He was already terse with me, yesterday, about deleting her, without waiting for him to read all of her nasty comments. Like he wanted to decide whether or not I had a valid reason for being upset with her. And for the second time, yesterday, I had to explain to Mark, that I was an adult and did not need his permission to do what I felt I needed to do to get my point across. The biggest thing his children both lack is respect for elders and parents. It's sad! I know very few children who respect elders....There are three....Michaela and Anna Winn, my soul sister Cindy's girls, who are 13 and 15....and Kaylee Ferreira, my soul sister Laura's youngest daughter.....she's 10. They are wonderfully respectful, gracious and well spoken young ladies.....I have been praying that God will help us in dealing with all of this....praying that He will show me what to do and how to proceed!!

Anyhoo...I have been up since around 3:30 this morning and I am still very weary!! I am going to fill my teacup again and try and settle down for another hour or so of sleep or I'm never going to get anything done, due to exhaustion.....Take care of each other, my friends and love like He loves....
In Him,
Lisa