uptomytoes

Category: Joy

  • Up to My…Head

    When I started this blog I wanted to offer hope with a dash of humor thrown in for good measure.  I can, at times, be a little funny.  My amusing side has been slipping a bit lately, and I’d like to find that voice again. As I begin this new year, I’m thinking I want…

  • More Than a Conqueror Mentality or Starting The Year as NOT a Failure

    You know how sometimes our children show us a lot about ourselves…usually the stuff we don’t want to see displayed for all the world to see.  My kids are really good at it.  I can be sure if there is something I don’t want repeated, it will get said.  If there is a behavior I…

  • What Do You Think About Gifts?

    I LOVE giving gifts.  Like really love it. This year I’ve been careful though.  I’ve set a certain amount of gifts each child will receive and an amount I’m willing to spend.  So far, I’m doing pretty well with it.  Although I’ve been known to blow the whole budget in a minute so the jury…

  • Advent for the Overwhelmed

    For a little bit longer….today is December 12th – I am officially 12 days behind.  I’m always behind when it comes to Advent.  It’s not like December 1st surprises me or that I haven’t thought about Advent in November.  I just all of sudden get overwhelmed by the days and nights and before I know…

  • Whatever It Takes

    I’ve become a late-night person…through no design of my own. I desperately need more hours in the day…more days in the week…and more sleep in my bed. Last night as I lay my head down on my crazy configuration of multiple fluffy pillows, I began to pray for friends and family, for my children and…

  • A Deep Breath

    There is a place I find myself…sometimes…it is no longer a place of deep grief, but of deep sighing. A place where I find myself needing  the strengthing of a deep breath, the focus of a whispered prayer, and the hope of an all-powerful God. In the past, this place has been about me…about my…

  • Trusting Him with Them

    I’m sitting outside on my back porch with my laptop, my Bible, and 3000 MOSQUITOES!!!! It is so beautiful out here – cool breeze, sunny, and quiet!  I love it. But I HATE these mosquitoes!  They have even bitten my hands!  It is very difficult to scratch my fingers and type. My 14 year old…

  • A Moment of Still

    A long wooden farm table, enough to seat a quiverful and some friends, tea in the cup my oldest daughter chose for me while at the beach with friends, a highlighted, underlined and well-loved Bible open before me, and quiet…my perfect morning. God has blessed me this morning with this beautiful moment of still. A…

  • Wanna Stop Swerving?

    It’s a bit earlier than I planned to get up, but up I am.  Thanks to one pain in the rear Labrador Retriever….and, I think, thanks to the Lord. As I lay on the sofa trying to get my mind to stop moving so I could fall back to sleep, I decided maybe this was…

  • It’s In A Box…Somewhere

    My mom’s garage is packed almost to the ceiling with all my belongings.  I thought when we were loading them in that there was some sort of organizational plan. Yeah…nope. There might have been, but I’ve messed it up with all my digging and moving and climbing around the mounds of stuff! And I can’t…