Sunday Thoughts

I feel compelled to unleash some thoughts now (not too long after church) because I might just forget some of them. I don't think that I have too many to begin with anyway. Not all of these thoughts are spiritual in nature, just what I happen to be thinking today.

~ I love chips and salsa. I finally learned how to make what I believe (as do my taste buds) is a good salsa. I've always made a pico de gallo type, which I do like. But, my good friend Nancy filled me in on how to make the other salsa. I embellished a little on her recipe and along with some corn tortillas I fried up myself into chips, I am definitely enjoying it!!! I've got a side of guacamole also (recipe courtesy of Alton Brown from the Food Network). Mmm, mmm, good. I am afraid when it comes to dinner, I might not have much room. The baby is currently occupying the space that my stomach would normally expand into when over-eating!

~ I don't want to jinx anything by saying this, but it is a beatiful day today. The sun is shining, the wind is not blowing (which is a small miracle where we live) and I think that is giving me more energy than I otherwise would have. I was yawning at church, but those yawns have subsided and I can only think that I wish it were slightly warmer outside.

~ The room in which I am currently sitting looks as though a tornado has blown through. Or a hurricane. I think I am naming this storm "Gunnar-n-Paden". That might be out of the normal alphabetic order naming convention for storms, but usually there's only two letters we need to use around here. An occasionally "N" or "T" have have been known to blow through at slightly less wind speed and create some messes as well, but all the credit on this one goes to two little joys I usually like to call my sons. So, I am hoping that the extra energy which is coming from the sunshine will enable me to clean up the aftermath of storm "Gunnar-n-Paden".

~ Along those lines, a rhetorical question (unless someone really does have an answer): Why do freshly steam-cleaned carpets attract things like red gatorade, pink strawbery smoothie, something orange that remains unidentified, mud, dirt, grime and the like?

~ We had a couple of great talks by some friends/neighbors of ours (there's 6 LDS families on our block, like we're in Utah or something!) on provident living and self-reliance. I have really been pondering those topics a lot over the last several months. I have a goal this month to purchase 4 backpacks at "save money, live better" store and put together 72-hour kits for each person in the family. People also say to not forget your pets. I'll think about that too. We usually keep our dog food in a rubbermaid tub, so I guess we can just throw that in the back of th truck along with the kennel (that seems to have been living in the truck anyway) and Max will be a-ok. We've also decided to stash cash, in case of emergency, in a safe place - in case we aren't able to access the bank for any reason. I really like that idea. Our safe place has one little flaw - I can't get into with without Neil, so that could be an issue. There's a great web site on provident living, which you should check out. http://www.providentliving.org/ A great resource for anyone!

~ For those of you who don't know, Paden has super speed and has red beams that shoot out of his eyes. He just informed me of that, so if you weren't aware don't feel bad, neither did I. :-) At least he's speeding around with red beams shooting out while singing a primary song. We have a great music leader in primary!

~ As we sang the sacrament hymn today, a phrase struck me. Hymn number 191 - Behold the Great Redeemer Die has a part that just made me ponder. "Although in agony he hung, no murm'ring word escaped his tongue." How amazing those words and how selfish can we be with our murmmering. . .

So, my Ghirardelli's chocolate brownies are beeping to come out of the oven, so I guess that's my cue to go. Not to mention the speedy, red-eyed, song-singing 4 year old who is climing/hanging on me asking if I am done yet!