Snow, Black Beans and Bucky

Hey my dearest readers....can I vent? maybe just for a second? I really need to...indulge me...PLEEEASSSEEE!!!! It all started this morning..woke up late, almost got in a wreck on the way to take my little angel to Mothers Day Out, then I had my workout schedule all screwed up and missed it altogether. Not life changing but all the sudden I remembered I was supposed to be doing a 24 day body cleanse, I didn't notice till I looked down at my half eaten egg mcgriddle from McDonald's (don't judge me please total stress food for me) . There were so many series of annoying things that happened to me today. A painful conversation, a temper lost, the past drug up, a teething baby, a bowl of black beans covering my kitchen thanks to the darling little blonde headed boy in the high and chair and screams at the kitchen table from a 3 year old who swears black beans are really "fat black bugs". OMG OMG....to think I was alone with my husband skiing a week ago, drinking wine by the fire and having all this great quality time with my man and my God. Whew....its back to real life. Today was one of those real days. I'm just being honest. I find that blogging is a great way to be transparent (or be fake) I choose transparency cause all I have ever wanted is to be real and be free from a very jaded and fake world that honestly nauseates me with their simple conversations that say the same things over and over again with almost no answers. I had a few break downs today. My day was lighted when my ever darling and amazing sister came by for a visit to love on my babies...I honestly think i stole all the loving in my pity party. She let me. That's what sisters are for. I am so thankful for her. She has always had a way at seeing people pretty much for who they are and loving them in spite. I beg to be more like that. Then I realized that January has already been a very eventful month for me. For one 2011 is here, seconding God saved my dear friend from death during childbirth!! Thank you Abba Father! Glory and Honor to you! That I braved the gorgeous rocky mountains with the coolest guy I know and loved EVERY SINGLE SECOND of it. That by the time I got home another very dear and precious friend delivered her baby girl when a terrible delivery went very wrong and minutes later they were left with a baby girl with a bleeding brain and the reality of brain damage or even death. Glory! Glory to God in the Highest....neurology report..."brain activity looks normal" sweet mama and baby girl coming home tomorrow. Thank you Jesus. We are humbled, we are beyond amazed by your ways. Let us not forget you are the author and finisher of our faith. So, with the melting of the miraculous snow we have had around here...tomorrow is a new day. I spent time today rearranging my house and organizing a few treasures I found at my favorite local antique gallery. It was bliss among my "angst" today. Now, the girl who is supposed to be on a 24 day body cleanse is making the pioneer woman's cinnamon rolls. Smart huh? Well, cooking relaxes me and I don't fall asleep like when I drink my wine. Cheers (imagine me holding a cinnamon roll) to a new day tomorrow. To the miracles of faith I wrote about in my last post and oh cheers to Bucky the 10 point Buck I bought to hang above my mantel. Crazy I married a very southern, raised on a farm good ol' boy that does not hunt. I have to buy my game loot. Bucky (named my my 3 year old today) brought a smile to my face today as I watch my children talk to him, pet him and watch in amazement as their mama pranced around the house figuring out where to hang that furry guy. Not too many bad problems to face when you think about it. A friends life spared, a friends baby spared, beautiful snow melting and children enamored my God's creation. I guess in retrospect..life is good. Its real good. Why? I pretty sure because our God is so Good. XOXOX

Meet Bucky

Vintage Wire Baskets

Items for the party barn!!!

My little pond and barn all covered in snow....

my main man and I in Beaver Creek Bliss

The year of Miracles.....2011

Caroline & her girlfriends playing in our white Christmas snow!!

My entire world (and Frosty)

Tender Tennessee Christmas

I have a roast in the oven, the laundry is ALL done (miracle number one) both babies are sleeping (Miracle number 2), I am packed for our ski trip (miracle number 3), I am writing a blog post (miracle number 4), I have a precious friend recovering in the hospital from early child birth and a life threatening delivery (MIRACLE number 5)! God is so good. His grace unending, His favor unwarranted, His love everlasting. In 2010 I asked God to reveal to me things about relationships in my life. I asked him to show me those who were not "for me". I wanted my eyes to be opened to the flesh we all have, but I no longer wanted to fall prey to it. DID HE EVER. It was both heartbreaking and freeing all in one. I asked God to give me tremendous will power this year as I so desperately wanted to get my body back in shape after back to back babies. Everyone who knows me, knows I think its absurd you actually have to workout and almost stop eating food all together. Some how, some way with the power of the God almighty himself and A LOT of lunges and A LOT of miles...the 35 pounds is gone. Notice I did not say MIRACULOUSLY gone. There were other things that I asked for that did not happen, either because God had not planned it that way or I did not do my part. All I know that as my husband and I look back on the year we are humbled by what God has done. HUMBLED beyond words.

This year we are asking big. This year we are stretching far. Its way scary cause I know that I know that when you do that you are signing up for the pitfalls and the pressure. This year at the annual Catalyst Leadership Conference the theme was hilariously was "Tension is Good" which is exactly what our family was feeling on many fronts. The tension is what is stretching our faith, the tension is what is demanding that we reach out to our creator. Its been real. Its been good. Its been hard. I want more.

So....this year I am asking for Miracles. On the actual day of Jan 1. I sat in my closet and asked God to reveal HIS powerful self to my family and to all those that I love and to the world. It all started a few days before when my precious husband woke me up with a Christmas kiss and said, "baby look outside, its your first white Christmas". I don't mean just any white Christmas I mean a REAL one like a 7 inch snow one (for East TN that might as well been a blizzard). I took a walk in the woods that afternoon, just me, my camera and my God. It was so still I could hear my heart, it was so gorgeous I had to fight back the tears. I told the Lord, "Thank you for this snow". I felt like He told my heart, "I did it cause I thought you might like it". Isn't that like our God? To grant us the desires of our heart even through the pressure. Then January 1rst the day of my asking God for miracles. I see post on Facebook that a precious friend of mine has given birth almost 2 months early (her fourth little prince). I am scared, but find out that she has birth one of her monster sized babies..all 6 pounds of him perfection and pure sugar. It was her, she was sick, something was wrong, bad wrong. She was rushed into surgery where her life literally lay on a table in an operating room. There is no doubt in my mind that she was held in the arms of Jesus as the surgeons worked desperately to save her precious life. Some how, some way she has been spared. A crazy thing called Amniotic Embolism tried to rip her life away. A weird thing so bad it claims the life of 90 percent of women who get it. Its rare, its bad but God is Good. I can't even really grasp how she has been spared. I just know she has a beautiful husband that loves and adores her, four gorgeous Princes that call her Mama and she is herself a woman after God's own heart, a woman who loves and lives life with all she's got, a woman so full of laughter and fun she sucks oxygen out of room when she enters.I am so thankful to my heavenly Father for sparing her. Thank Jesus. Thank Jesus. Thank you

JESUS.

What a way to usher in a year of miracles. I pray for each of you who read this blog that no one really cares about including the writer who never takes the time to post...that you too would have a year of miracles, a year of authentic relationship with God and Man. Lets go deep this year. Lets dream big. Lets ask big. Lets love big. Lets give big.

With all my Love.......The Glamour Girl....who is more in love with the Miracle worker than ever before. xoxox