This is not normal!

As I write this it is before ten in the morning, the sun has been shining for hours, it is very warm outside and the temperature is to reach the high 80's. I am wearing my summer shorts and a light cotton short sleeve purple top. I am sitting outside by the pool as the pool man prepares the pool for the days activitiy. Why am I telling you all this?

Because this is not normal for me for the month of March. However, this is normal for the folks here in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

As I reflected on life and lessons learned along life's journey, I thought about the times when life just doesn’t seem normal. Often it is when I am facing an especially busy season or when I am going through some particularly trying times. I find  myself saying, "this is just not normal". Often during these times I also find myself thinking, "I will be glad when things return to normal".

The lesson I am trying to learn is to accept the not normal times as God's journey. He wants me to depend on him doing the normal and the not so normal days. The life journey God took most people in the Bible on was not normal according to most people's version of normal. Peter walked on water (not normal), Jonah found himself in the belly of a whale (not normal), David fought a giant (not normal), Moses crossed the sea on dry ground (not normal) and Lazarus came back to life (not normal).

Perhaps what is not normal to me is normal to God. He has a plan for each of my days and my attitude should be to accept what He brings my way each new day. Right now, I’m lovin this 80 degree day in sunny Florida!

Recipe to feed a crowd

I was having a conversation with my 4 year old grandson, Andrew last week. We were talking about his new baby brother that will be arriving at the end of April. We were discussing how tiny baby brother will be. He then proceeded to ask, “mimi, when were you tiny? A hundred years ago?” I replied, “not quite that long ago, Andrew”.

Truth is, I have lived a lot of years. With all those years lived comes lessons learned, recipes collected, helpful tips, tried and true systems and some systems that just didn’t quite work the way I envisioned. In this blog I hope to share some of those fun tips and also pass on what others have learned along life’s journey. Sharing life’s lessons and experiences will hopefully making life just a little easier for some one else!

I thought I’d start with a recipe to serve a hungry crowd! Now that I have 5 grandsons and another on the way, I’m looking for meals that will feed a crowd of hungry boys! This is a recipe from my mother-in-law for beef-o-roni.

1 to 2 pounds of hamburg (the nice thing about recipes with hamburg is you can add as much hamburg or as little hamburg as you want.

A couple of cans of whole tomatoes (I mash these with a masher so that you don’t have big tomatoes – I tried using diced tomatoes once but they don’t cook down real well – it’s up to you)

1 can of tomato soup

1 small can of tomato paste

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼  tsp. all spice

½ cup sugar

sprinkle of parsley

Onions and celery and/or celery seed

Fry hamburg and onions. Add remaining ingredients. Pour over elbow macaroni!