Walking With Faith ... Holding God's Hand: How Do You Take Your Mornings?

Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.

The title of this post is a spin-off of ... how do you take your coffee or tea? I take my coffee with too much Coffee Mate and I take my tea with no additives most of the time.

But the question this morning is ... How do you take your mornings? Let's just say that I'm not a Garfield, the cat, that's for sure. I look at mornings as a new day, a new opportunity to make a difference, a new opportunity to share a smile or offer a needed ear for someone who needs to talk. When I get up in the morning, I'm ready to go. I love mornings ... OK, so you're saying ... she's weird ... I'm saying ... I'm not. I wake up talking ... first to my awesome Lord and then to anyone who will listen to me. <smile> I am not chatty Cathy or anything (well maybe just a little) ... I just wake up and I'm ready for the day. I don't need a hour or two to get out of my sleepy time funk ... it's a new day so I say ... let's get this party started.

When I got married, I married a Garfield. <smile> I did not know this at the time and much to my surprise he didn't bounce out of bed like I did and start talking. Quite the opposite actually. He needed his 'quiet time' plus a stack of chocolate chip cookies and glass of milk while he read the paper first. I had to learn this ... the hard way. <laughing> After I learned that he was not a chatter in the mornings, I learned to talk to myself and most of the time, I answered myself. <laughing even more> He taught me that not everyone is the way I am and I'm thankful for that lesson. I do not know if he still needs his quiet time in the morning or his cookies and milk ... but I know I haven't changed ... one bit. I would love to hear how you take your mornings ... leave me a comment or send me an email.

Have you ever watched a small child interact with others or play alone? Their innocence to me is so touching and has often brought tears to my eyes as I watch my grand babies play. (My girls would probably tell you that I think grass growing is touching and that I shed a tear over that ... they're right <smile>). As I've watched Braxton and Madelyn play with the toys they have ... the many toys they have ... it makes my heart smile. Each in their own little world playing out their little lives as they now know it.

Let me tell you that I have been taking lessons from my youngest daughter who is the ultimate money saver. She has an incredible talent for planning out their meals for the week, making a grocery list and buying only what is on the list. Her grocery list is also categorized by the aisles in her Kroger that she shops. Recently her and hubby were running a little short on time and I was at their house keeping the babies so I told them to go ahead and go grocery shopping while I was there. When they got to the store, she was able to tear the list down the middle because it was organized by aisles from one side of the store to the other, they both grabbed a cart and met in the middle of the store, each with their listed items. So ... I decided I needed to plan our meals, make a list and buy only what's on the list (OK, so I might pick up a couple of things off the list) but for the most part, I am sticking to my list. It's really unbelievable how much money I'm saving as well as changing from Walmart to Kroger where I get discounts of my gas. It is .10 per gallon for every $100 you spend.

Last Sunday I think I shared that I had the croak pot going with red beans. Honestly ya'll they were the best red beans I've ever eaten. We had them Sunday night for dinner with cornbread. I put them on the menu for Tuesday nights dinner with meatloaf and frozen potato wedges (Kroger brand). Weekdays I get home about 4:00pm in the afternoon and get dinner going so that when Alicia and Madelyn get home about 5:00ish, dinner is ready and when they are ready to eat, it's all done. I made up a new recipe for meatloaf and it's divine. Meatloaf in a loaf takes longer to cook so I decided that I would make meatloaf muffins. Around my family, everyone loves the end pieces of meatloaf because it usually has the little crusty crunchy that forms from being thinner on the end so with muffins, everyone gets an 'end piece". Meatloaf muffins also cooks much quicker than a meatloaf. I only filled the muffin tins up to the top of the tin because of the grease in the meat and I didn't want it spilling over in the oven because we all know that cleaning an oven ... stinks! <laughing> Here's a picture of the meatloaf muffins. I do not put ketchup on my meatloaf any longer until we eat. That way if someone doesn't want ketchup then they don't have to have it.

Meatloaf Recipe by Me...
Package of ground meat (I use 80/20 myself)
Package of dry onion soup mix (use the store brand, it's cheaper)
Handful + shredded carrots diced up
Handful + diced onion
Kroger brand Garlic Bread crumps - eyeball these ... remember this is the binder
Plain bread crumps - eyeball these ... they are binders too
1 egg --- this is the reason you need the bread crumps <smile>
Celery salt ... I don't measure, I just sprinkle

Preheat oven to your desired cooking temperature ... mine is usually about 350 or 400 if I'm a hurry. Put the diced carrots and onions in a microwaveable bowl with a pat of butter. Stick them in the microwave for about 3-4 minutes so they soften. While they are softening, put the rest of the ingredients in a mixing bowl and wait for the carrots and onions to soften and get your muffin tin out. When the carrots/onions are ready, add them to the meat mixture and put on rubber gloves (I don't like touching meat) and mix it all together. Put the meatloaf mixture in the muffin tin and put in the oven. It does not take long at all to cook meatloaf muffins.

Now you're probably saying CARROTS in meatloaf. Well I figure if you're having meatloaf, red beans and potato wedges, you need a different type of non-starchy vegetable besides you can't taste them and I had two bags of them (bought before the grocery list started). I do this some anyway ... add some vegetable to a recipe that doesn't call for it but what the heck ... I'm cooking it and I can cook it anyway I want. Be creative with your cooking. By the way, I'm not much of a follow the recipe or measure kinda gal when I'm cooking ole southern dishes. Little of this and little of that does it for me.

Today is my day off ... three loads of laundry down and a couple loads to go. Tootie is at the groomer. Good start to the day I would say. Breakfast is calling my name now so I better go answer.