Today ‘s post is like a bulletin board.

No profound ponderings.

No clever tips.

No “gotta try it” recipe.

No giveaway. (Sorry. But there will be two more this week!)

I just wanted to use today to bring you up to speed on some happenings and ask for your prayers on a few things.

So, random items in bullet point form to follow:

• First, I am in the process of overhauling my blog. The new look should be done October 1st. The fantabulous Vicki at Bytes of Blessings is working as fast as her “awesome-website-designer-but-still-a-homeschool-mom” fingers and brain can work.
• For content, I want to continue to provide ideas that will help you as a woman, wife and mom, but most of all as a one of God’s gals trying to live out what the Bible says we should. Not always easy, I know!! (Spoken after blowing up at her 19 year-old daughter for no good reason and hanging up on her. Yep. Had to ask for forgiveness for my ‘mama mouth’ on that one! Thankfully, she is as grace-filled as her patient daddy.)
• As for frequency, I am going to try to be a consistent Monday, Wednesday, Friday blogger. I usually do 3 posts a week, but not always on the same days. I’ve looked over my new fall schedule (teaching speech and creative writing at my boys co-op this year) and have decided I think MWF will be a good fit. Of course, during our 3rd annual 12 Days of Christmas GIveaway, I’ll post 12 days in a row. Or, I may have a special occasion or holiday to post on that is not on a MWF. But for the most part, those three days are when you’ll find new content here.
• I’d like to begin to gather ideas for some projects I am working on. So, occasionally I will ask you for ideas or feedback on such things as these: friendship; marriage; mothering; weight loss; dealing with extended family (oh, buddy!); how not to be a control freak; how to be  a woman who trusts God; what does gossip look like and how do you know when you’ve crossed the line; in the Christian life, what is the difference between an absolute, a conviction and a preference; what are some great busy day recipes I can feed my family; organizing; hospitality; making memories through celebrations; finding your life’s calling.
• I‘ll also try to find guest bloggers on topics I see come up repeatedly in the comments. For example, last Friday when I asked what “on the back burner” project you’d most like to get to, “Scrapbooking” came up repeatedly. So, I have already twisted the arm of a dear friend who is the scrapbooking Queen. She will guest post soon.
• I would like to gather a group of women who will be my cyber circle of friends who will help my ministry in a couple ways. First, by praying for requests I send them. Secondly, by being ones I can bounce ideas off, ask for feedback on book titles, stories or examples that go with my content. It will be done by email.
• If you are interested in the above bullet point, please send an email to karen@proverbs31.org with the words “Cyber Circle of Sisters” in the subject line. The actual email can be blank if you are in a hurry, just make sure the subject line reads this way.
• Finally, could I ask you to please pray for our P31 president Lysa Terkeurt, her assistant Holly and our executive director LeAnn from now until Wednesday evening? They are traveling to my Michigan so Lysa can record her new dvd video series for her new book Made To Crave that releases in December.

Well, that’s about it for now! Random bulletin board is now closed.

NOTE: Tune back in Wednesday when I’ll feature an interview with one of my P31 sisters, Rachel Olsen,  on her first solo book–an AWESOME “how-to-do-life-and-do-it-well” book. She’s giving away a copy WITH a Starbucks gift card! Then, Friday there will be another giveaway based on an Encouragement for Today devotion I’ll have running. It too involves a book and TWO gifts cards!

Finally, the winner of the weekend organizational giveaway is Marty; timestamp August 28, 7:34 pm. Send your address to me at karen@proverbs31.org, so I can mail you your goodies!

NOTE: This post will remain up until Monday morning when the winner will be announced. And stay tuned for two more giveaways next week. One will be an interview with a P31 sister and her FABULOUS new book release and one will be in conjunction with an Encouragement for Today devotion I will have running. Oh, and it involves dark chocolate, coffee and gift cards!!!

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Welcome to all you who’ve joined us via the guest post I have running over at LeAnn Rice’s She Cooks. There is a fun kitchen giveaway over there. And right here you have a chance for a back-to-school organizational giveaway for grown ups!

Double the fun!

Double the chances!

I don’t want to take time here to chat since I really hope you’ll visit She Cooks and see what’s cookin’ over there So, I’ll just tell you about the giveaway and give you chance to win!

Since all the kiddos are buying pencils and pens; notebooks and notions, I thought we’d give away some organizational “officey” stuff for big girls! This giveaway includes:

~ Some funky push pins

~ Some matching funky big paper clips

~ A set of push pins with clips for items like coupons, reminder notes, lunch money, etc..

~ An equally funky desk pad that lists the days of the week. You can use this to display your to do list, your menu plan, your prayer list. Anything goes! It is undated so you can begin using it any time of the year.

~And a signed and personalized copy of my book The Complete Guide to Getting and Staying Organized. It tackles how to take care of the ‘have tos’ of life (cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, errands, dealing with paper piles, etc) in an efficient manner so you can get around to the ‘want tos’ of life (spending time with God, your family, or friends or pursuing a hobby or interest)

So, simply leave a comment telling us the one project you’ve had on the back burner for waaaaay too long that you wish you could tackle this weekend.

I’ll go first.

I wish the world would stop so I could take about three hours to steal away at a coffee shoppe (with some friends along for company of course–working on their chosen projects) to sip lattes and transfer all of my sticky notes, scribbled napkins, pieces of scrap paper and corners of Christmas card envelopes with all the latest addresses I need to update into a nice, new address book.

I’m talkin’ about 5 years worth of addresses, people! Currently, they are all shoved into my old, falling-apart, excuse-of an-address-book. Positively pitiful!

Now, how about you?

Well, I saw it.

I could take it when the back-to-school supplies hit the shelves long before it was the Fourth of July.  I know some states begin school in August. We in Michigan do not. The public and private schools mostly head back in September. And even though my kids attend a homeschool co-op, we too don’t make the little darlins’ hit the books till after Labor Day.

I’d been trying to squeeze the last bit of summer out of August, minding my own business, planning a few days trips and summer treats before we start our co-op in a mere 17 days- YIKES!!

Then Saturday, while stopping off at a store while our 16 year-old Mitch was at tryouts for the 2011 summer travel baseball season in Grand Rapids, “it” stared me right smack-dab in the face.

Halloween candy!

P-uuuu-leeeease!!! Can we not rush from one season to the next already? I swear (not the cussin’ type but the I-am-so-sure-I-am-remembering-this-correctly-type) that when I was a kid, the retailers did not push and rush the seasons and holidays so much.

I wish it were still that way.

Yes ma’am, put out the Halloween candy the day after Labor Day and not one minute sooner. Easter egg dying supplies? I do not need to purchase them on January 1st, thank you very much. So, I say let them line the shelves the day after Valentines Day, okay?

Geeesh!

I know, I know….we need to be ahead of the ballgame on Christmas. It would be a little late to just put the decorations out the day after Thanksgiving. So I’ll grant ya that one.

Still, please don’t back that bus clear up into September. It makes my blood boil. (And I’m sure it is the reason I never had an illustrious career in retail merchandise marketing!)

I’m not sure if it bothers me because seeing the products of the various holidays so early on makes me feel behind when in reality I am not. Perhaps it is because I feel that our society in general is way too rushed.

We whip through the holidays with little regard for what they really mean. I say it is time to slow down and savor.

So, this week, you will not find me out stashing away mini-candy bars for the munchkins that will descend on my neighborhood in 69 days. I’ll buy them a week or so before the big day and then put them in my big hand-carved wooden bowl and wait for the doorbell to ring.

Okay…truth be told, what really will happen is this:

I’ll buy them a week before. Then, my husband will locate the stash and pull out all the milk chocolate ones to nibble, sneak, dip in peanut butter or take in his lunch to work.

The boys will smell the sweet scent of their daddy’s sneaking and promptly finish all the crisp-filled ones and the “Mr. Goods” (their absolute favorite!) Finally, I’ll slowly polish off most of the dark chocolate.

Then? Well, I’ll have to run out  on Halloween afternoon and buy more! And since the mini-bars are so expensive and we’ve already bought a batch, I’ll opt for the jumbo bags of hard candies at the dollar store.

Sorry kids

Well, for now, I will determine to take one season, one holiday, a holy day or daily day, one day at a time. Will you?

Which reminds me….Tune back in later this week or next for a back-to-school organizational giveaway.

If your kids are headed back to school, you’ll have a little more time to organize your stuff. That is, until you need to dash off to get your kid in the carpool line or run them to an activity. If you homeschool, well, then you’d better get organized or you’ll soon find yourself sitting in a corner, eyes glassed-over and drooling. Trust me, I know!

I actually live both lives since my kids are homeschooled but also take classes from others as well. Both lifestyles have their own brand of busyness, but well….that is another post.

So I’ll see you later this week. I’m off to sip some iced tea while I post some items on Craig’s List.

Notice I said “iced tea”, not hot cocoa.

Let’s not rush things….

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Congrats to the winner of the “Pie, Oh My!” giveaway from over the weekend. It is: Sarah; Timestamp August 20th at 4:00 p.m. Send your home address to me at karen@proverbs31.org so I can get your gift to you!

(NOTE: Be sure to read all the way to the end for the giveaway!) When I first married Todd and we lived in a tiny apartment in Three Rivers, Michigan, I loved to putt around in our minuscule kitchen.  The shiny new kitchen gadgets we’d received at our showers and for our wedding were a delight to me.

If you have read my book on hospitality, A Life That Says Welcome, you know I had about zero culinary skills when I began. To make matters worse, I married into a family full of people adept at interior decorating, sewing, baking, cooking and one who even ended up crafting a wildly successful bed and breakfast that was featured in Southern Living Magazine!

Well, I wanted to learn to be wildly successful in the kitchen too!

I started with pies.

Yes ma’am! I wanted to learn to whip me up a from-scratch crust, picked-the-fruit-up-at-a-southwestern-Michigan-roadside-stand, gen-u-ine perfect pie!

So I started with peach, since the fuzzy fruit was in peak season.

And folks, I took it waaaaay too seriously!

I stressed and obsessed.

I peeled and sliced, making sure all the slices were the same size.

I measured and sifted and rolled out the dough.

The result?

It was edible, but ugly.

Well, 24 years of practice has found me still making pies.  (And it is true–practice does make perfect. Got myself three blue-ribbon rosettes from the Clinton County Fair to prove it!!!! Yes that is total bragging! But it was also to encourage you. If this Betty Crocker drop-out can learn to do it, anyone can!)

Seriously, pies are so versatile! They can break the ice with a new neighbor, say “I am praying for you” to a troubled family, “Thank you so much!” to the man who fixed your kitchen sink or “We are thrilled for you!” to the couple welcoming their first baby.

It has been a pie week around here.  In our circle of friends pies were needed for two families who lost loved ones, one who welcomed baby number six, a dear grandpa of my son’s friend who ran him to baseball games at times we could not and we wanted to say thank you, a new friend who stayed home from work with a serious case of vertigo and couldn’t cook for her family, and yes, the friend who worked on the plumbing under my kitchen sink (uh…even thought that was many weeks ago and I’m just now getting him his promised peach pie. Sorry Doug!)

So, the total so far this week?

Seven and counting.

Now, while there are times I can make my blue-ribbon, flaky, from-scratch crust, let me just say, those roll-out refrigerated kinds work wonders too!!! And I did me some shortcut rolling this week to save time and my sanity.

Yes, I still love making pies. And I love the look on the faces of friends and strangers when I deliver one.

How about you? Will you set aside time this weekend to ask God who might be encouraged or cheered by a pie made from your sweet hands? Here are a few EASY recipes to get you started. (I’ll post the from scratch crust recipe here too for the brave.)

Easy Cheesy Chicken Pot Pie

One box roll-out refrigerated pie crust

2 1/2 C. chopped, cooked chicken

1 C. sharp cheddar cheese

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 bag Freshlike frozen vegetables for soup (don’t just use mixed vegetables, find one that has potatoes in it too)

Salt and pepper

Mix all but crust in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I use about 4 shakes of salt and 6-8 of pepper.) Roll out one crust in a pie pan, leaving the edges hanging over.

Place ingredients from bowl into crust. Roll out second crust on top. Use your fingers to crimp edges of both crusts tightly together to seal. (I like NOT to have them hang over the edge of pan, but instead push them in close to the pie so the edge of the pan still shows. This prevents the edges of the crust from burning.)

Seal well with Saran wrap. Add a note that says: “Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.” Note: if they’d like to freeze the pie for later, it will be all wrapped and ready. Just make sure they know to fully thaw it before baking or it won’t be done in an hour.

Fresh Peach Pie

(This recipe is taken from the 1963 Martha Dixon Cookbook. She was a local Lansing, Michigan TV personality whom my mother loved. Her cookbook was re-released in 1984 and my mom bought me a new copy for a bridal shower gift. It is now vintage with splashes and stains, the way a cookbook should be!!!)

5-6 cups sliced fresh peaches

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 C. sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon butter

One box roll-out refrigerator dough (or from-scratch recipe below)

Mix all but butter in a bowl. Turn into a crust-lined pie shell. Dot the top with butter. Cover with remaining edges. Crimp tightly, pushing toward pie and not leaving crust on the edge of the pan. (This prevents burning). Bake at 425 degrees for 30-40 minutes until bubbly.

From-Scratch Crust:

2 cups unbleached flour

scant cup butter-flavored Crisco (about a teaspoon or two less than a cup)

1 teaspoon salt

6-8 tablespoons of water from melting ice (seriously–cold tap water will not work, so get out a bowl, fill it with  ice and let it begin melting a while before you begin).

Mix flour and salt. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender (or two forks if you don’t have one) Stir water in lightly to form a ball. DO NOT HANDLE TOO MUCH! It will make the dough tough, not flaky. Divide in half and roll out on a well floured counter to make a circle just a bit bigger in diameter than your pie pan. Repeat with top crust. Follow recipe for your favorite pie.

Okay–now for the giveaway. Leave a comment from now til midnight PST Sunday on pie. What kind of pie you like. What pies  you make. Why you have never, ever made a pie. A funny flop-of-a-pie story. What kind of pie your hubby likes. Anything! One random winner will be chosen to receive a copy of my book A Life That Says Welcome along with a Paula Deen Apple pie-scented candle and a gen-u-ine kitchen pastry blender.

Happy Baking!

Congrats to the winner of the $25 Starbucks gift card from the last post. It is Brandae; Timestamp: August 12 at 10:20 a.m. Send your home address to me at karen@proverbs31.org so it can be shipped to you! Enjoy!

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We women love to talk.

A lot.

In fact, my ability to talk is the only complaint my elementary teachers wrote on my “progress reports”.

Remember those? Little boxes stood at attention across the crisp, white page?

Poor.

Fair.

Satisfactory.

Good.

Very Good.

I worked my little  performance-driven tail off to nab all “Very Goods”.  I do remember my mom showing me that I’d reached my goal, except for one category in which I only received a “Good”.

Classroom cooperation.

The teacher made it clear that it wasn’t necessarily that I didn’t cooperate. It was just hard for her to gain the cooperation of the entire class when I was flappin’ my jaws so much.

My ability to talk also got me into trouble in junior high.

Not with teachers.

With peers.

Think the “talkin-behind-the-back-to-this-one-so-that-one-will-like-me-only-now-that-one-sat-at-lunch-by-this-one-and-repeated-what-I-said-about-her-so-now-no-one-likes-me-and-I-am-forced-to-stop-sitting-at-the-popular-table” kind of stuff.

In high school I discovered that I liked to talk in front of a crowd. Mrs. Lewis’s 9th grade speech class and I hit it off real well, followed by forensics (not the CSI kind, the speech contest kind!)

Then, in college, my ability to yack it up is what my husband says first attracted him to me.

He asserts “You could talk to anyone. From the college president to the grocery store clerk to the shy girl on your floor, for Pete’s sake! Come to think of it, you were even pretty good at talking to Pete!. You knew how to work a room, making everyone feel included and noticed. I loved how you could talk.”

“Then,” he continues, “About three days into our honeymoon, I had this thought. ‘When is she EVER gonna shut up?!?!?”

In fact, he told me not too long ago that he has decided, if I go first, just what he is going to put on my tombstone.

A period.

“She’s finally done talking!”

(It was a cold night in our house that night with no….shall we say “horizontal fellowship”!)

Today, I get paid to talk.  So I guess I have the last laugh!!

Anyhow…. I hope for us to have ourselves some good ole’ girl-talking discussions here in the next few months.

Some changes are coming here on this blog that I am oh-so excited about.

Some in the look.

Some in the features and content.

And I really hope it will provide us ALL a place to talk.

About living our lives. Our families. Our men. (Be nice, now!) Our priorities.Our passions and pet peeves. Our attempt to live like Jesus wants us to when sometimes we really stink at that.

But I don’t want to leave out the practical. The tips, secrets, recipes and such that enable us to take care of the ‘have tos’ of life efficiently so we can get around to the ‘want tos’.

How about you? What do YOU want to chat it up about?

Sweet-talkin’ Blessings,

Ever feel like your world is swirling?

Now, I’m not talking about any huge, dire piece of news that alters the course of your life as you know it; not tragedy, sickness, calamity or such.

I’m just talking swirling.

Fires to put out; people to call; decisions to make; responsibilities to tend to.

A too-full plate that includes screaming items beckoning for attention; awaiting a decision.

~ Do we send our 12 year old to his beloved church camp tomorrow although he is still dealing with a lingering cough, due not to anything contagious, but to minor lung damage? Will the doc give him another round with an inhaler? Will it help? And will we even be able to get in for an appointment on a Monday after half of Lansing waited all weekend to “call the doctor in the morning”?

~What do we do about replacing our now totaled 1999 Buick? Our daughter Kenna was in an accident in Charlotte, NC early last week. All people are fine. Two cars are not. Her ‘other mothers’ (my Proverbs 31 sisters) have stepped in to offer a shoulder and direction at the scene; serious lovin’ and even a temporary loaner.

~What do we do about our other two cars here at home, on their last legs…er….um…tires? Both were made in the last century (literally!) and have over 200,000 miles each.

~School starts in 4 weeks for us. I’m teaching speech and creative writing at my kid’s junior and senior high co-op. Might be nice if I got my lesson plans together, eh?

~Other swirlings this week:  a devotion to write; an article due; flower bed to weed; a house to clean; stray garage sale items to donate; a mom needing a ride to the car repair shop….

On and on it goes.

So I’m trusting in God to bring calm to my chaos. I’m straining to hear his quiet voice in the rant and the ruckus.

Things could be so much worse, I know. But sometimes you can’t see past your own life’s swirlings.

My mama always said when you were down in the dumps, remember there is always someone who is even further down.

(Although I used to wonder who was at the base of the “downed dump” pile. Wouldn’t they be at the bottom? Or was it a rotating pile and the guy that hit the bottom was only there long enough to spot someone further down? Oh the wanderings of my grade-school mind! No wonder my teachers said I  “thought”  too much!)

Anyway, today I will peel my eyes off of my self. I will find another soul who is in need of some cheer.

I’ll idle my crazy day for just a moment to bring her a smile.

And maybe that way, I’ll find calm in my chaos.

It is true the only calm is in the eye of the storm.

How about you?