Spicy Bean Salsa Recipe from Allrecipes.com

So my cookout was a blast. All of the kids were incredibly well behaved and all around the same age. Gabby had a blast! If and when I ever get pics I'll share. My good friend April came to the rescue with this super easy and delicious side item recipe.

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
1 (15 ounce) can black-eyed peas
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 (4 ounce) can diced jalapeno peppers
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 cup Italian-style salad dressing
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

DIRECTIONS
In a medium bowl, combine black-eyed peas, black beans, corn, onion, green bell pepper, jalapeno peppers and tomatoes. Season with Italian-style salad dressing and garlic salt; mix well. Cover, and refrigerate overnight to blend flavors.

Good grief does it get any easier than that? Ok, well short of driving to Costco and scraping the label off of one of their delicious entrees and passing it off as your own. Which I have never done. Which I will never do again. {{whistles}}

Anyway, she told me she always gets asked for the recipe when she brings it, and true to it's reputation I got asked 3 times for the recipe. Mine didn't even look as nice as the one in the picture! It makes a ton which the Kid Army was more than happy to take care of afterwards.

Mine had a lot of "juice" and I think that next time I will add 3/4 of a cup of Italian dressing instead and do a better job of draining everything well. It wasn't very spicy though so I added a can of green chiles and 2 tbsp of Cilantro. This upped the tasty factor but still didn't make it what I would consider spicy. Good stuff!

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My latest challenge

As we get older things just start to seem to challenge us more. I was never one of those people who had a VCR that blinked 12 and I could pretty much fake my way through anything else that came along. This whole blogging thing has driven home the point that the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be if you know what I mean. It's a struggle to not curse, throw a temper tantrum or some other unladylike reaction every time I try to understand how to change code on this darn thing.

I know why it's called code now, because it's a secret to anyone who is not a computer guru or is over the age of 15. I think HTML is really some sort of underground language and the little people will soon be staging their grand coup. Most of us won't even know it happened because we didn't DVR it.

anyway, I'm going to shamelessly post pics of The Cute One because they came out so darn cute:

Trust me, the cat had it coming....

here she is trying out for the Price is Right. Hey, Bob Barker she's not even 2 yet ok? Hands off but momma sure would like to win that showcase:

and here's the grassroots (pun intended LOL) of her path to the nobel prize for botany: Hey, a mom can dream can't she?! Look, one of us has to be able to grow something other than weeds and anthills and the future of our landscaping is resting on this girl.

Now my next challenge... trying to channel Martha Stewart {{cue chant music here}} for a side item for my Starting Point cookout. I'm so uncreative when it comes to these things. Time to start blog hopping to find that one recipe that's nearly dummyproof yet still fab. Yeah, that's probably not far off from that nobel prize.

Princess Leadfoot

ahh, so my assignment this week for Starting Point is to follow every single traffic law that exists to the fullest extent. Hereby this is your formal notice that it's safe to be on the roads again. Well, this week anyway. So how am I doing with that you wonder? Mr.M has been driving to and from work most days this week and I don't go too many places other than that so I'm making out remarkably well LOL.

The few trips I've taken I realize how quickly that even consciously thinking about doing everything 100% right, my speed still drifts up or I'm tempted to roll a little more than I stop. I mean, I'm in a hurry and what I'm doing is important so it's ok to do the little things right? Uh oh, I'm thinking not...

Speaking of driving, I used to love to drive. If I had a day off and enough gas I was pretty much game for any destination mentioned. I guess it's another sign of getting older that I see it pretty much as an inconvenience now. I have soooo many things to do (ahem, not that *blogging* is really helping that but I digress...) that I feel like I'm wasting time driving. I remember that feeling though of the windows rolled down and the radio blasting some great song and just belting that puppy out to my heart's content. Age wasn't the only reason the paint was peeling off of that car.

Come on baby, let's get out of this town
I got a full tank of gas
With the top rolled down
There's a chill in my bones
I don't want to be left alone
So baby you can sleep while I drive

Weekend Pieces

How can you get so little done and be so exhausted?! I have done a little crafting, a little reading, a little cleaning but not a LOT of anything.

It seems like I've been reading so much bad news lately. I'm really counting my blessings some days. Strangely enough I've been reading a lot about brokenness through my Starting Point, through the Baggage Series at church and just through random reading. It's so true that clinging to past hurts and failures drags us down and keeps us from greatness. God chooses simple people like Abraham to do great things. If we let the stumbles and roadblocks along the way trip us up, we might not achieve our purpose. There is nothing without a purpose. We may not even see the fruits of our purpose in our lifetime, but can only trust that they are great.

I keep coming back to one of the few old hymns that really makes me stop and put my heart in a more Godly place and that's It is Well With My Soul.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,When sorrows like sea billows roll;Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,It is well, it is well, with my soul

In reading a little of the history of this hymn I found out it was written by a gentleman by the name of Horatio Spafford who endured multiple tragedies in his life, most notably the tragic drowning death of his 4 daughters. He penned this hymn on the boat journey to meet up with his wife who was spared and wrote it as the boat passed closely over the spot where his daughters perished. Unbelievably his wife said she was reminded most of the words of her friend: "It's easy to be grateful and good when you have so much, but take care that you are not a fair-weather friend to God."

I've been so blessed not to have suffered like these people have suffered yet they have maintained their faith and servitude to God. I can only hope that I could rise to such a test with a fraction of the same fortitude. Have I? Will I?

I've been chewing on some ideas about reconciliation but they aren't really that clear yet. I'll save those for later.

About choices

Still trying to get over Strep. For some reason over the past few years I've become a veritable breeding ground for strep. Ugh! I got some sweet gifts for mother's day from the kids and stopped after church to treat myself and Gabby to lunch at BK. Guess what?! They have Star Trek glasses. Lunch was lousy and they only have one ebola seat, I mean public high chair, so Gabby had to sit on my lap and needless to say it was mercifully quick. But hey, I am now the proud owner of both the Kirk and Uhurra glasses. They are gen-you-wine cheap glass not plastic too! woo hoo!

So last night in between fighting the dark forces of strep and handling my piranha of a toddler, I got my work done for Starting Point this morning and managed to get through telling my "story" today without losing it too much. We later discussed brokenness and it was, as always, quite a riveting discussion. The time really does seem to fly in there.

The question was raised as to why God placed the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden if he did not want man to partake of it. One of our members pointed out that love is a choice. Interesting. When we love anybody or anything we are choosing to love them. Would you really want to be "loved" by someone who had no choice in the matter? Isn't that just mere obedience?

I guess this really describes so much of what is going on in the world. For some of us the choices seem so easy and natural that they don't seem like choices. Do we even realize that we are choosing to love that fragile baby we hold in our arms for the first time? Most of us felt a rush of love somewhere in those first few moments, days or weeks when we've met our children. Is that the moment we've made our choice? Some people would credit the hormone surge most new moms have with these intense emotions. Maybe so. Is it possible that God's hand is in that surge making our choice so easy? It's only when we start controlling things after that, that things become so complicated. Also, it's unfortunate that not everyone makes what seems like the easy choice. Then again what's so easy about sleepless nights, constant worry about the status of our children's health and happiness?

Anyway, we also quickly revisited the image of the X-structure at the center of the whirlpool galaxy as taken by the Hubble telescope as shown above. If you are interested in any of the background of this, check out this video by Louie Giglio where he talks about how he feels about it: here. Hard not to see the Hand of God in that. I mean, it's no Star Trek glass, but it sure is something to ponder.....

Where to begin?

There are so many things on my mind these days that I don't know where to begin. Probably my largest new development is that I've joined Port City Community Church and feel like I have fallen into a new home. God and faith are all things that have been bubbling to the surface in the past few years and months. Hopefully, I've found a place where those thoughts and feelings can take root and grow. I've been listening to a lot of the old topics from services and several things have been resonating with me. Strange though how I've always felt like my marriage is one of the most secure I know but after examining several things while digesting the talks from the podcasts, I realize I've been doing so many things wrong and looking at things from a flawed perspective that it's only by the grace of God that I've made it this far. More on this later.

I'm working on some things for a small group at church called Starting Point and I have discovered so many new things. I came into it with so many questions and things on my mind and of course, it has only sparked the flame of curiousity even higher.

I've been super busy with creating some adorable new things for my Etsy shop too. It's nice sitting down to work because it gives me time where my mind is free to roam and really medidate on what's been cooking in my brain. Let's hope it comes out over easy instead of overdone and rubbery.