Husband chopping okra.  It’s his favorite side dish.

Fried Okra (adapted from Simply in Season)
1 lb fresh okra (choose pieces about 2 inches long)
1 c buttermilk
3/4 c (or thereabouts) cornmeal
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4-1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

Wash okra and remove stems and ends. Chop into half-inch thick pieces.  Place in a shallow dish and pour buttermilk over to soak.  In another shallow dish (or gallon size ziploc bag) mix cornmeal, salt, and pepper. If you don’t have cornmeal, you can use plain flour, but cornmeal gives a good crunch.  Dredge okra pieces in cornmeal mix (or drop by the handful into bag and shake).  Spread pieces evenly on a rimmed pan and place in the freezer for 15-30 minutes.  This helps the batter set and keeps it from falling off in the grease while you’re frying.  Pour oil into a large skillet, you want it about a 1/4 inch high.  Heat on medium until it sizzles when you sprinkle cornmeal grains on it.  Drop okra in hot grease (carefully!) and cook, stirring and turning, until golden brown and crispy.  Serve hot.

P.S. It’s best to do this while the biscuits are cooking.  The timing works out well. Did I mention my mother is an amazing southern cook and taught me everything I know?  Although recently she actually said buying frozen breaded okra is a sight easier than making it yourself.  I nearly fainted from shock.

In case you didn’t know, I’m quite good at faking it. Looking like I have it all together and organized and keeping my cool in front of people who have no idea who I really am and have never seen me ugly cry or throw a book or slam the lid of the laptop.

I apparently reserve all those temper tantrums for my children and those who have proven they won’t leave me on the side of the road if they have to stop and let me throw up because my stomach is all in knots over some commitment I secretly wish I hadn’t agreed to.

September, October, November, and December are staring me down on the calendar and threatening to delete all my neatly arranged events if I try to schedule one more item.  Sure, when there’s a neat table of a rehearsal schedule all sectioned off into scenes and hours and dates everything looks manageable.  Of course, when you help enter all 42 moms into the registration database for MOPS International, it feels incredible to know you’re part of a ministry that’s reaching so many.

But then another actor drops out of the show and there’s far fewer childcare workers than there are children and the baby only took one nap for one hour the whole day and suddenly those pictures aren’t just fun snippets into how I’m figuring out the crazy.

Suddenly they’re sirens screaming at me to figure out my focus and just. do. that.

Oh, too late.  Because I’m committed, I’m in, and from here until Dec.16 when I can lay Marley and Scrooge back to rest on the shelf, I’ve got to believe this instead.

I’m dreaming big enough to believe that where God leads, He also proceeds.

There will be more than enough workers for the sixty children that will accompany forty moms to our first MOPS meeting on September 6th.

The people I need are going to be in my show, and for eight days in December, people will remember that God truly does bless us, every one.

These next few months may not be my time to make this blog and my writing the highest priority, but someday soon I will have the opportunity to follow through the God-sized dreams I have for this.

Dare to dream big.

And when you get scared and need to cry on the floor of the bathroom, I’ll scoot over and let you sit by me.

Joining with Crystal Stine and an amazing community of women this week who dare to bare the soul behind the pictures.  Tell me, what’s behind your scene?

Joining with Crystal Stine and an amazing community of women this week who dare to bare the soul behind the pictures.

Last spring my sweet friend Myrna gifted us with their old dining set.  Her handy husband had built her an Ana White table (do you know about Ana White?  Oh, she’s amazing.).  She knew I was wanting one about the size of her reject to replace our gargantuan oval table that had lived in the basement of Joshua’s parent’s house long before we got married and thought we’d like a table but had no money.

Also, I was just sick of that style.  I wanted something new and fresh that had a little bit of me in it.

Be careful what you wish for.

So Myrna’s table wound up in our storage shed until I could find the time to work on it.  Fast forward three months of school ending and that heart incident and finally, this July, I felt like I had time to work on the table.  So I lugged it around the house and into the carport (not alone) and set up shop.  I did some extensive research, on Pinterest of course, and bought the first round of supplies.

Then we started step one.  Sanding.

Yeah, that’s not so fun.  I’m not really a power tools kind of girl.  Honestly, the sander scared me a little.  I was afraid I would drop it while it was on and sand off my toenail.  But I tried.  I really did.

Then my husband, who knew this project was bound to take years if he didn’t step in, finished the job. That’s when I saw how beautiful the wood grain really was, and I thought, Why am I going to cover this up with a coat of paint?

Enter plan #2.  The whitewashed effect.  It would give the table the distressed look I craved while also showing off it’s natural beauty.  And it had fewer steps than Plan #1.

Back to the hardware store for an exchange and good to go….except that the best time to work on the table is probably when the kids are having rest time.  Well, that’s when I write.

You can see my priorities, huh?

So I took a deep breath, put on my supermom cape, and let them help.  That’s right.  I put paintbrushes and rags in the hands of my 8 and 7 and 3 year olds and embraced imperfection.  Because ultimately, it’s not going to matter that it’s a little streaky and uneven.  This is the table I roll pizza dough on and where Amelia will learn to write her name.  It’s the table that’s dripped with syrup at least once a week, and it’s the place where I’m hoping to embrace more hospitality.

It’s a project we finished together and that we’ll gather round together, hopefully, for many years to come.

Because I don’t think I’ll be refinishing another table anytime soon.

So I spent six weeks writing reflectively on how I need to have more margin in my life.  And some days I thought I had found it.  Then there were some days when I knew I hadn’t and felt I never would.

Then school started back and holy moly, so did everything else.  Suddenly my search for margin has become a craving that’s not going to be satisfied until I learn a little two letter word.

N-O. No.

Yeah, still working on that.  In the meantime MOPS is gearing up, church activities are in full swing, and tonight I’ll finish casting one of my biggest projects ever: a community theater production of A Christmas Carol.

Did I mention that in October Joshua and I will attend three different conferences in two different timezones during the same two week period?

It. Is. Insane.  Or incredible.  I’m still deciding.

Anyway….so I’m going to have to find ways to build some more margin back into our lives.

Which is why I’ve got a new kitchen resource to share!

Remember, facebook fans, how I promised that when I had 100 likes, I’d host some giveaways?  Here’s the first of several, though I’ve got to be honest and tell you that while I’m ecstatic to share this with you, I’m selfishly giddy there’s copy for me on my ipad.

My online friend Jaimie over at Living in the Light (she guest posted here last month) wrote a cookbook! She teamed up with some other women who share her passion for homemaking and simply real food and together they have developed this incredible resource that’s more than just a cookbook.

It’s a life book.

The first few chapters aren’t even recipes, they’re glimpses into the very real, very personal lives of these young women who are striving to start their families on the path to healthy living, long before they get caught up in the whirlwind of McDonald’s or Hamburger Helper.  So while the recipes are great too (Cheeseburger Macaroni, anyone? Perfect Pancakes?  You know I need that.), it’s really a book that shares a simple philosophy on “real food”.

There’s the difference between butter and margerine.  A take on why you might want to jump on the coconut oil bandwagon.  An explanation of why gluten and carbs are not intended by nature to be bad for you, but rather to provide nutrients our bodies need.

But unlike some places that have always made me feel guilty for serving pasta or baking with white flour, Jaime and the girls don’t do that.  They are quick to admit that some baking recipes are going to need white flour if you want a desired lightness, but they pair those alongside recipes that are just as delicious and use way less refined products.

I’m thrilled to be a part of the team that’s helping launch this book and can’t wait to share it with one of you! There are so many ways to gain entries into this giveaway and so many wonderful things to tell you about this cookbook and these women, that I’ll be talking about it all week.

Tomorrow I’m going to share the Behind the Scenes of my recently refinished kitchen table and also divulge my absolute favorite feature of Real Food for Real Homemakers.

Until then, enter away!

a Rafflecopter giveaway//d12vno17mo87cx.cloudfront.net/embed/rafl/cptr.js

It’s Friday and that means it’s time to write for five minutes, no editing, no backtracking, no overthinking. Lisa-Jo provides a prompt and in this community we write and then we encourage one another.  So link it up, friends, and share the love.

This week’s prompt is….