Barbecue Chicken Pizza

January 14, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

The secret’s in the sauce, folks.

This is one of my family’s all-time favorite pizza recipes, and when I made pizza for my houseful of siblings and our parents at Christmas, this was praised the most. And had no leftovers.

Barbecue Chicken Pizza

1/2 recipe pizza dough
3/4 cup your favorite barbecue sauce
1 green pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced (optional)
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken
8 oz shredded monteray jack cheese (or combine some cheddar in there if you want)

1. Roll out your dough to your desired shape. It’s okay to think outside the circle.
2. Spread the barbecue sauce liberally over the dough.
3. Spread the chicken over the sauce.
4. Spread the pepper and onion over the chicken.
5. Sprinkle with cheese. Add more cheese as necessary. (In our house more cheese is always necessary.)

Bake on a pizza stone in preheated 500 degree oven for approximately 7 minutes.

Enjoy with the adult beverage of your choice 🙂 We usually have sweet tea.

Five Minute Friday: Dive

January 11, 2013 Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

It’s Five Minute Friday!

“Let go, I’m diving in…”

Isn’t that some Christian song that gets overplayed on my local station? I think so. In fact, now I’m thinking it’s Steven Curtis Chapman, who I do love, so maybe it’s not so overplayed, but rather a repetition I need to hear.

Let go. You have to let go to dive. To get there.

I am struggling with the letting go. With the final release of toes and head and heart and accepting what I am learning about myself each and every day.

I can’t please everyone. I can’t agree with everyone. I can’t make nice in every situation and in every social circle and in every political arena.

Not that I’m surrounded my many of those.

But I can’t. I have to let that go if I’m going to truly dive in to what could be an amazing, beautiful, incredible, surrendered life.

I need to dive deeper into the Word, into the reflection, into the quiet.

I need to let go of insecurity and perfection and the idea that anything that comes to me is something that I deserve, that I have earned.

I’m taking a plunge today at my local MOPS group. I’m telling some of my story, some the most raw parts that I’ve published here, but they’ll probably get an even deeper admission. A true dive into where I’ve really been.

Plunge is our MOPS theme this year….going deeper….letting go. Dive.

Uncategorized

FInding the Right Rhythm

January 10, 2013 Lindsey P. Brackett3 Comments

I have no rhythm. Seriously, none. It’s comical, except that I’m incredibly insecure about it, so unless I can laugh at myself first, I really don’t want anyone else laughing at me.

But this summer, I will be incredibly proud of the fact that I will have been a member at my local Jazzercise center for five years. These two left feet and off-beat hips have somehow found a rhythm that works, mostly because I always watch the feet of the person in front of me.

Motherhood is a bit like that. Sometimes if we can get past our own insecurities and stop comparing ourselves to the next mom over in the carpool lane or the celebrity mom on the cover of the People magazine we had to sneak into the bathroom to read, we can find a person whose rhythm it’s okay to follow.

And sometimes we can find our own, even if it’s a little off beat.

At my house, we are three days into a new school semester and three days into a new morning routine. As a family, we have often had devotions and Bible readings and prayer times at night before our girls head off to bed and I utter a silent plea to the Lord that no one will wake me in the middle of the night just because they have to go the bathroom. (By the way, I realize that eventually I will have to stop referring to my kids as “the girls.”) But, here’s the problem we’ve had lately. Now that the big girls go to big school, there’s a pesky little nuisance called homework. Reading logs. Spelling practice. AR book reading.

I suddenly have new sympathy for parents who used to complain to me in their conferences. It’s not that they have a lot of homework, it’s just that between dinner and nursing and rocking Amelia and baths and finding clothes for tomorrow and lunch money and dance lessons and AWANA and committee meetings for daddy and Bible study for mommy, our evenings are jam-packed.

So when I told the girls that we were going to start having family devotions regularly again and asked if they thought we should do them in the morning or evening, I wasn’t surprised when they both said morning. I was surprised when Madelynne said, “That way we can all be together.”

Ouch. But reducing commitments is another topic for another day.

Today I am just happy to say that I think we might be finding our own rhythm for this season of our life. Joshua and I committed to one simple act: we get up earlier. Now that’s hard. Especially since Gus doesn’t sleep through the night and it’s winter and our house is cold. But we’re doing it, and for the past three days, morning has been the best part of the day.

He gets ready for work. I make the coffee and breakfast. (I’m on a hot breakfast kick. It will probably last about a week and then we’ll start integrating cereal back in.) We wake the girls when he’s ready and lure them out of bed with promises of cheese grits or cinnamon toast or oatmeal. We sit down as a family and he reads a few verses while we eat. It’s simple. It’s far easier than I expected. It will have to be adjusted when Gus decides to change his morning rhythm again, but for this moment? It works.

Madelynne wanted to start in the beginning. So, we did. I’m going to start looking for a devotion series that suits us right now and maybe I’ll even jot down some ideas of my own.

But don’t think we came up with this routine on our own. Remember, I told you I like to watch the feet of the person in front of me.

Some feet I’ve been watching…

HomeLife Magazine (the article “Everyday Devos” was really my inspiration to consider the morning)
Michael Kelley Ministries (author of the article)
The 1 Habit at Every Meal that will Change Your Life (the always inspiring Ann Voskamp)

Christmas · motherhood · resolutions

My Delightful Confession

January 8, 2013September 30, 2015 Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments

You know that feeling when you keep trying and trying and working and doing it different and still you can’t finish? You can’t accomplish even a small task like making a new blog header or writing up a great recipe or matching all the socks?

I knew you’d know what I’m talking about.

That’s kind of where I’ve been these past couple weeks. Christmas kicks my tail every time, people. It’s hard. And busy. And stressful. And lots of traveling.

Then it’s over and it gets a little quiet and we still have ten days before school starts back and trying to find words for days of overwhelming chaos and quiet just seemed like a little too much for me.

So I waited until today. Today I’m home with one RSV-recovering baby who just cried himself to sleep, one sticky kitchen floor that hasn’t seen a mop since Thanksgiving, and two rooms of little girls that are in desperate need of a Lego-sorter. Today I’m beginning my new year with a confession.

Sometimes I don’t like motherhood.

You’re probably not shocked. I write about that struggle quite a bit. But it’s hard to admit. We’re supposed to love it, right? Every moment, every milestone, every milk-filled cup left under the carseat. Except sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I want to put on real clothes and give instructions to people who actually listen and be respected for being a productive member of society.

Motherhood doesn’t always make me feel productive.

I’m not good at just playing. I’m terrible at following through with chore charts and sticker rewards. My kids aren’t the best listeners and they almost never remember to pick up their toys without being asked. We make grocery store cashiers cringe when they see that car buggy coming with two on top and one beneath in perfect violation of the warning labels. I can start the day with a full sink of dishes and somehow, after two rounds of the dishwasher, end with a sink full of dirty dishes. Today Annabelle couldn’t wear new clothes to school because she wore them all last week and I haven’t done their laundry yet. Oh, and somewhere under the blue sparkly toothpaste blobs, I have a bathroom sink.

Sound familiar?

But here’s my true confession of the new year:

They went back to school today and for the first time since I started this motherhood journey, I wanted to have more time.

You see, despite all that unproductivity, all that fumbling around I do to make things better, all those piles of laundry and dishes and toys all over my floor, I have finally unlocked a secret to being a better mom to my kids.

Delight. I delight in them, in their silly stories and gapped teeth and ridiculous tantrums.

Oh, they still drive me crazy. Sometimes I still want to run away. But this year, this year I feel awake. I feel alive. I feel awed by who they are and who they are becoming. I truly, finally, feel the blessing that motherhood can be.

It only took me eight years to get here.

So if you’re just beginning this journey of mothering, or if you’re stuck in the middle and stumbling around like me, or even if you’ve finally made it to the other side of the little years, I hope you find some encouragement here.

This year I’m going to focus on growing this blog and I’d love to have you help me. So, please, share it, tweet it, pin it if my words meant something to you!

Blessings for 2013!

Christmas · motherhood · reflections

A Long-ish Post about Just Joy and Grace

December 20, 2012December 16, 2016 Lindsey P. BrackettLeave a comment

I let myself go blogging dark for a bit because I didn’t have words for a week that ended like that. I wrapped my arms around my kids when they got home that afternoon and then I made pizza and later I prayed and wept and apologized over and over for thinking my own trials were anything in the face of insurmountable grief.

Philly Cheese Steak Pizza

Since Columbine and Pennsylvania and Virginia Tech, I’ve birthed a first grader and a second grader. I’ve earned a degree and five teaching certifications. I have sat in a faculty meeting and been assigned to a team for the worst case scenario and heard my principal explain why our Connections teachers would have to be the ones to identify because they often know every student in the school. I’ve hidden students in the corner for the drill and wondered if it would really do any good if they madman came. So Friday afternoon when facebook and CNN and text messages kept coming, all I could whisper was a feeble thanks that my children and my school and my family have thus far been spared, and all I could realize was the humbling acknowledgement that I can’t keep them safe. I can’t live in a bubble that doesn’t have schools or malls or theaters or cars or cancer. All I can do is thank God for another day. So I got up Saturday morning and made muffins.

Pumpkin-Cranberry Cream Cheese Muffins

We went to Christmas on the Square and children sang “Away in a Manger” and goats stole the scene at the live Nativity. We saw Santa and the Chipmunks sang in the furniture store picture windows and the girls were carefree and happy and silly.

We were just normal, and I was grateful. It’s all we can really do isn’t it? When we hear of tragedy? Be thankful and find joy because it forces the evil back a little bit more.

Gypsy Mama and Holy Experience gave some words to comfort any mama’s heart.

Now we’re into another week and some believe the world is ending and for others it already did, but I’ve got Christmas baking to start and presents to wrap and an 8 year old home with the stomach bug that has wiped out two-thirds of the second grade.

It’s by grace that this is my life.

We’ve been spreading a little joy all around this week in an effort to give thanks for Christmas but also for those who cherish our children for so much of everyday. Wish I had pictures of the hugs bestowed when we brought Starbucks for the car greeters at school yesterday. Wish I’d taken pictures of the gorgeous baby biscuits and golden jars of homemade apple butter we handed out to teachers.

Something small can say a lot.

Small can be big. Our account is low and our cash is now change. But there will be gifts under our tree and goodies in the cookie jars and a feast on our table.

My sister is home from Maine and she’s carrying another blessing and chasing her first up and down the stairs at my mama’s house and around the giant Fraser Fir that has sat in that same corner for so many more years than I can remember.

May your Christmas be blessed. Ours already is.