Humble Pie

My slice of life is sprinkled with the flavor of humble pie.

There have many days, more than not, that Paul has come home to hear this-- me saying, I just couldn’t get it all done. My day has spiraled out of control, or slipped through my hands and ended up in a mess on the floor. Sometimes, quite literally.

It is maddening, painful and refining all at the same time. Maddening because I couldn’t handle the outcome that had come to be my finish line each day. Maddening because I was being tripped up by a four year old. Maddening because I still had breakfast in my hair and it was dinner time. The madness goes on from there…

I could not handle that the sprinkles of humble pie were not to my taste.

It is painful to realize you cannot do laundry, dishes, cuddle a child and eat healthy 24/7 all at the same moment... that is my pain in a nutshell. It is often overwhelming to feel the pull of this pain in various directions. Knowing that when you calm one pain, another is flaring on the side.

This is the point that Paul has always comforted me in saying, it cant all be done. That’s okay honey. Or it doesn’t matter whether you win the race each day, simple the fact that you ran your best… is all that matters… BLAH BLAH BLAH.

All the while being taught that…

"And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent,"

Mosiah 4:27

I wasn’t keen on hearing that perfect was not my recipe for the day, or most days in fact. I can remember the rare occasions when I was able to get all that I wanted done, to my liking. AND, I can remember them at the same time, because they all fit into that a SMALL space in my mind quite painfully. Needless to say, God’s recipe, medicine, or lesson of the day(s) was prosperity is not becoming of you. By this I mean to say, prosperity makes up proud, confident, mighty, and arrogant even. Oh yes, I could get arrogant over a clean empty sink, or a fancy dinner with myself done up nicely. Having well behaved children, on occasion, has been known to make me mighty and proud, painfully so in the sight of others I imagine.

This has brought us to the refining moment of the day, and quite possibly the lesson of this past decade for me. Pauls words, it cant all be done.


My slice of life is not meant to be a life of perfection, but a slice of mediocre, humble pie… served to refine me. To change my tastes, to satisfy me not with my tastes, but with God’s taste. I am being molded to HIS liking, and not my own. And it seems having it done to MY liking was a recipe for PROUD SUMPTUOUS TART, rather than the humble pie I am content to being served. That is my life of a mother, teacher, and often as a wife.

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.

Ether 12:27

Paul would never have me believe I was less than perfect as a wife (wink wink), but there are days in which my slice of pie… how shall I say… runneth over.
It is okay not to be perfect, it is okay to be mediocre… if it is the best I know that day. I see that through this I can learn to be content with my failings… for in these refining moments, I can feel God’s love, and know that He is refining my tastes to His, and preparing me for a delectable dish.

The Joy of GINGERBREAD

Sharing Thanks on the Farm

The pictures below were taken on my uncles farm in Missouri. His farm was our inspiration for moving our family and home to the Midwest. Thank you Steve, for sharing your love of home and family.

"At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city... of great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his back with the first step he takes into these precincts. Here is sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heros. Here we find Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic beauties daily wrap us in their bosom.

The incummunicable trees begin to persuade is to live with them, and quit our lives of solemn trifles. How easily we might walk onward into the opening landscape, absorbed by new pictures and by thoughts fast succeeding each other, until by degrees the recollection of home was crowded out of the mind. All memory obliterated by the tyranny of the present (cares), and we were led in triumph by nature.

These enchantments are medicinal , they sober and heal us. These are plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would persuade us to despise. We never can part with it..."

Ralph Waldo Emerson