Today was a bit better. Samuel discovered he loves blackberries. It is a wonderful thing to sit in our kitchen and watch him pluck a blackberry and shove it into his blackberry-stained mouth. With each eager bite, I prayed that he absorbed abundant nutrients.
Life is such a rollercoaster.
Challenging times make me appreciate normal times. I look back at posts that I wrote — about snow forts, and ballet, and homeschooling, and crazy life — and long for that life that didn’t have the added stress. Kind of like noodle salad. Simpler.
Things have changed. For now.
Tonight I completely enjoyed the task of peeling potatoes and chopping them for dinner.
How can something so simple bring so much joy? It’s as if I had forgotten the beauty of the every day. The blessing that is found in preparing a meal for those you love. It’s when everyday normalcy is taken — ripped — from you that those moments of simplicity regain intense meaning.
Life. So varied. And still in all of it there are good times.
Me? Grateful for the normal moments of today. Potatoes. Costco. Cleaning.
Gluten-free noodle salad.
Enjoy the everyday. There’s abundant joy there.
It can be found.
….
(curious about the title? It’s a quote from one of my favorite movies As Good as It Gets.)
16 comments
Praise the Lord. God is able. He lifts up our heads, and our hearts. He can do those miracles! When we hit the bottom the only thing we can do is look up. In looking up, we expect nothing, but we are pleasantly and completely surprised by joy. Look full into his face, Rachel. You and your home are being lifted up to the Restorer and Healer of hearts.
Yeah!!! Hurray for blackberries and noodles 🙂
One favorite drink of ours is a Strawberry Spinach smoothie. 2 cups of water, a handful of spinach, 1-2 handfuls of frozen strawberries. Whiz, whiz, whiz in our vita-mix and ALL the kids line up for a cup.
Sending hugs~ Cinnamon
Praising God with you for the “everyday.” Potatoes, Costco, Cleaning. A whole new meaning.
And blackberries. How sweet it is!!
Much love,
Stacy
Yeah for blackberries and potatoes! So glad you were feeling some joy today 🙂
“Life is a rollercoaster”…That’s what my Nana says to me all the time.
It is amazing when things go out of sorts, you really do start to enjoy the simple things…you find comfort and balance.
I am praying for you and your family, stay strong!
love that movie. i love the fact that sam is eating even more! what a gift! – something that seemed so simple before, now means more than ever, huh?! sam is so sweet and adorable; i’ll give hunter a hug tomorrow in sam’s honor because i just want to give sam the biggest squeeze! i’m sure there are plenty of hugs, though, to go around for him! i saw on fb what hannah said your dinner was…. mmmm… it sounded delish; gluten free never tasted so good! like i said before, praying for this new to become normal. pretty soon, you won’t even remember eating gluten. : ) xoxo! and of course, please keep us updated on sam’s upcoming tests. praying for his lil’ body!
YAY for blackberries! 🙂 So glad Samuel is enjoying new things. And I’m so happy that you had a good day, a day of normalcy and the ability to find happiness in that. 🙂 Life is good. Things will get easier and better. 🙂
how true to say that there’s abundant joy in the normal times…:)thanks for reminding us to appreciate and enjoy these normal times!!
Love,
Ruth
I loved the quote you said about everyday normalcy being taken is when moments of simplicity take on a whole new menaing. I love this!We do take for grantide the every day monotonous dailies in our life. I am grateful and will cherish them more after reading this. Glad to see Samuel eating and being happy!
I am so thankful to read this! Continue to look, God IS bringing you abundant joy, even in these things that seem so small to others.
This is great news!
http://www.glutenfreebaking.com/products/department1.cfm
http://gingerlemongirl.blogspot.com/2008/01/elizabeth-barbones-easy-gluten-free.html
http://celiacinthecity.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/easy-gluten-free-baking-by-elizabeth-barbone
http://www.glutenfreebaking.com
The above are the gluten free sites for ‘Easy Gluten-Fee Baking’ by Elizabeth Barbone. This is the only cookbook I use and I love it and you can pick it up in Coles or order it on line. You make the flour combination from scratch but it is very easy to do and inexpensive. You can buy big bags of rice flour from any grain mill. This is the route I take because buying from a health food store gets pretty costly. I have switched my whole family over to rice flour since I am pretty sensitive to contamination and truth be told they prefer it to wheat flour. You can buy corn noodles instead of wheat noodles for spaghetti and they are tastier! The only concern is eating out as almost every fast food has gluten in it. You have to watch out for soy sauce and liquid smoke as these can contain gluten. Email me anytime I can give you a hand on how to eat gluten free, it really is not hard at all
cpr[dot]ezra[dot]8[dot] 23[at]gmail[dot]com
I am praying that Samuel heals up quickly and there isn’t anything else going on.
God Bless,
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Praising God with you and continuing to pray for you all. I re-posted a post that I thought you might like to read…here’s the link: http://mastomama.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-we-cope.html
Blessings to you!
So glad that things are getting somewhat back to “normal” for you. I pray that the days ahead of adjusting will go smoothly and little Samuel will soon be enjoying restored health. Blessings!
Sounds like the perfect kind of day to me! I hope Samuel keeps eating lots of wonderful, healthy, and safe foods for him 🙂
Oh, yes, what TheBabyMammaChronicles said!!
So glad things are looking brighter!
Short verse today, but a powerful one! Praying right now!
1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Prayer Bears
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