Author: Tammy

Something to Ponder from my Guest Today!

Posted on by Tammy
As we all prepare to gather around tables across America tomorrow, I want to stop and pray for each and everyone of you and tell you how thankful I am for you.  I am grateful for all of you who have become my followers and I have loved the responses you have sent to me privately or have commented on the bottom of blogposts.  Besides expressing my thankfulness for you, I pray that you will all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day surrounded by people you love.  I will be cooking for my family and guests at noon.  I will then cook again and take food to our three parents in the nursing home for dinner.  It will be a full day surrounded by family and friends.  

I will be back soon with some fun stories about Black Friday…last year and the ones to come starting midnight on Thursday.  Oh yeah! I’m going with our daughter again this year!
I’ll tell more later! But until then…

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

And now…please enjoy my blog visit from my sweet friend, Jessica, from Texas.  I met her at my conference this summer.  I just love this girl!  She is writing some cool apps for kids. Her first one is “The Sounds of the Night”. I love it!  She has another one coming out really soon.  I can’t wait!

So without further ado, here’s Jessica…



Home
By: Jessica Kirkland



The bright yellow leaves swirled around as I set my pace. My feet began to move swiftly. I was running for the first time in many years. I had been building up to this run, walking 3-5 miles a day in hopes of running just one solitary mile. Despite the wind in my hair and the beauty of fall, I felt the tingling of my abdomen.


Dead nerves and scars.

The result of a triplet pregnancy and multiple surgeries before and after. It’s funny to not feel a piece of you that you always thought you’d have. It’s an odd sensation to feel your nerves try to come alive, only to have them go silent again. I’ve learned that there are two types of hurting people in this life:

Those who are numb, but desperately want to feel again. Those men and women who long to be whole on this side of Heaven. And those whose pain is so great, they long for numbness. They chase it and drown it with destructive behaviors and desperate thoughts. Those who have lost hard, felt unimaginable pain, and pray to be swept away to Jesus. 

I had picked a marker, a starting line and a finish line. 

I reached my designated finish line, but it wasn’t the real one. It was simply the minimal distance I told myself I could go.  

So, I kept running.

The path ahead was steep, but beautiful. I have never been much of a runner. Always mile-relay, the one-lap kind of girl, but never the long-distance track star. Always the girl who got to hand the baton off to someone who could finish faster and stronger. Someone with more courage and perseverance. My breathing labored as I reached the pinnacle of the hill. Yet, I was still not home. 

Life is a gift. For it is God who “gives breath and life and all things” according to Acts 17:25. We cannot chase yesterday and still move forward to tomorrow. Through numbness and pain, we can still see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)

I believe. I know that abundant life is within your grasp. It might be a steep climb, but keep going. Keep running to the pinnacle.

Two more sharp turns.

I prayed I could do it, despite the tingling and the lack of breath.

As the bright yellow leaves swirled around, I kept my pace. My feet moved slower, but I was still running. For the first time, in a very long time, my lips curled into a smile. 

I saw home. I saw the real finish line.

It stood cloaked in falling leaves and hovering trees. The driveway filled with a big blue suburban whose insides were cloaked in Kindergarten jackets, Happy meal wrappers, and car seats. 

My toes touched cement and I gave God glory; for breath and life and all things. 

I was home.



Bio:

Jessica Kirkland lives in Southeast Texas with her husband, Robb, and five-year-old triplets. She is the Founder of http://www.christianapps4kids.com, where she writes and creates interactive book apps that are Christ-centered. Jessica is an author and speaker whose greatest passion in life is to see young families grow deeper in their walk with God. When she isn’t writing, playing with her kids, or chasing her rebellious dog through the neighborhood, you can find her blogging on her personal blog Jessie’s House found at http://www.jessicakirkland.com. 









I hope you all enjoyed this blog visit.  Please check out her blog, listed above.  Also, for all my friends who are living Gluten-Free, you’ll want to read all about Jessica’s trials and triumphs on her Gluten experiences.

Blessings to you all!

…and that’s all I have to say about that!

Tammy


I Make the Best Lemon Meringue Pie!

Posted on by Tammy

No seriously, I do!  This is what I was told, no lying!  So, what does a girl do that is told, “Your Lemon Meringue Pie is the best I’ve ever had and looks the prettiest I have ever seen.  One with perfect peaks, browned just right”?  She never makes one ever again.

As all of you know, next Thursday is Thanksgiving.  Can you believe it?  That bad boy just came up on us really quick.

While doing all the planning for the day, as I always do the cooking for my family pretty much since 1986, hubster and I began talking dessert.  If it were up to me, it just wouldn’t happen, I could care less about dessert.  For hubby, there would be an issue with no dessert for Thanksgiving.  With our three parents in the nursing home, and all three deciding not to wear their false teeth, meal planning to take to the nursing home each holiday presents itself with problems.  The dessert is a big problem.  There are only six of us, so making a pie to suit everyone’s needs would mean making five different pies.  The daughter passes on any pie, so I wouldn’t need to make one for her.  My Mom and I like pumpkin and only my Father-in-Law might eat it.  Hubby will usually eat anything sweet – but draws the line at the pumpkin.  I even try to shame him into eating it saying “but it’s a vegetable, and it’s good for you”.  No such luck.  Then there’s my Mother-in-Law who reminds us all that she has to watch her “SHUga” (insert German accent here), because she’s diabetic.  While she’s watching her “SHUga”, she will eat any and all sweets that come into the room.  Though she will always make comments on how she doesn’t like that kind of pie, cake, etc.  Once everyone else is eating it, she’ll have her piece and often reach over and eat my Father-in-Law’s as well.  She’s such a sweet one (insert sarcasm here).

We have our menu down and we are back to the dessert issue.  We are discussing whether we should buy cheesecake slices (not Thanksgiving-y too me, but 6 choices of flavors per tray), or I should bake an apple crisp, or oh yum – a Pecan Pie.  We both say, “Yes.”  Then we realize – wait, they don’t wear their teeth, they can’t eat the nuts!  But—handy that I am—I decide that I could grind those suckers and it would make do!  Then the choco-holic hubby comes to my mind and I remember that I have somewhere in the archives a recipe for Chocolate Pecan Pie.  I say that out loud and a smile goes over his face.  Now we are talking!

Then it happens….he brings up the Best Lemon Meringue Pie.  “Why won’t you ever make me another Lemon Meringue Pie?”  I have to tell you, this had to have been some fantastic pie.  Can you guess when I made it?  Would it have been while I was going through cooking school as I got my diploma?  Nope.  Are you ready for this?  It was October 1982.  Yep, you read that right!  It was 1982 folks.  And the man still pines for that Best Ever Lemon Meringue Pie!  Here’s a photo of this masterpiece.  (Yes, he was so excited about it he took a photo and we STILL have it after all these years!   And yes, I was that small.  Once.)

So folks, I’m asking you these questions today.  What is YOUR favorite Thanksgiving dessert?  What is your family’s traditional dessert?  These are not always the same!!  Please comment below, I’d really love to hear what your plans are for dessert!

And if you think I’m digging for ideas for dessert next Thursday and the recipes….you would be absolutely correct!

…and that’s all I have to say about that!

Tammy

She Put Them Where?

Posted on by Tammy
Happy Wednesday Everyone!

During my weekend at my Writer’s Conference back in July, I had the best time meeting fellow Writers and Speakers.  Many of them I continue to correspond with regularly.  The other wonderful thing that happened from the conference is that we set up a Facebook Page for Graduates of She Speaks.  Through that page, we are all getting to know each other better, even if we did not have the opportunity to meet one another amidst the 650 attenders as well as meeting new ladies!  We have been introduced to each other’s blogs as well as the blogs we are all following.  It is through this I have had the privilege of meeting Kimberly Rae.  She has lived all over the world and has some amazing stories that I’m betting you will enjoy reading.  You can read them here.  She also has a book out entitled, Stolen Woman.

Recently, Kimberly has been going through some health issues that I can relate to.  The idea of living with something that has no cure, or easy solution is at times overwhelming.  I’m drawn to Kimberly’s honesty as she embraces this new phase of her life.  I’m touched how she is sharing the ups and downs of living life differently now due to a change in health.

Kimberly has sent me a couple funny stories of her life around the world.  I laughed out loud!  You can read them below.  Then I hope you will head over to her blog www.stolenwoman.blogspot.com and read some more!  Enjoy…


At a hospital in third-world Bangladesh, the nurses have some interesting difficulties to face when trying to treat people who have little or no medical knowledge.
One day a woman came in with an ear infection.  They gave her some antibiotics and sent her on her way.  She returned, however, complaining that the medicine did not work.  She felt just as badly as before.
The nurse asked her some questions.  Finally, the nurse thought to ask, “Did you swallow the pills?”
The woman looked at the nurse in astonishment.  “Swallow them?” she said.  “No, I put them in my ear!”
This is a true story, told to Kimberly Rae during her years in Bangladesh.  Kimberly has since lived in Kosovo, Uganda and Indonesia, where she had an unpleasant encounter with a shrew . . .
We had not been in Indonesia long when one night we heard scurrying sounds and realized a shrew (like a rat with a really long nose) had come to visit.  My husband, Brian, got a broom and started hunting the creature down.  He chased him into a corner.  “I’m going to scare him out of the corner and then get him,” he told me.
I was standing several feet away, holding a mop, ready to shoo the thing back toward Brian if it tried to escape.
Brian used the broom to scare the shrew out of the corner, then he swung high and WHACK, slammed the broom down.
I shrieked and ran.  Brian couldn’t understand why.  He’d gotten the shrew, hadn’t he?
What he did not realize, however, was that he’d actually decapitated the thing, and its head had come flying through the air to bounce of MY BARE FOOT!
Let’s just say that, after that, I was much less inspired to help him out when it came to rats!
Kimberly is the author of Stolen Woman, a Christian suspense novel on international human trafficking.  Find out more at www.stolenwoman.org.

kimberly rae
I hope you enjoyed the above stories.  Take the time today and tell somebody near you a funny memory.  Everyone could use a laugh—anytime!
And don’t forget, that not all your antibiotics are applied directly to the affliction!  Jus’ sayin’!!
…and that’s all I have to say about that!
Tammy