Inspiration From Mitford: Make Me A Blessing

On the first page of “At Home in Mitford,” we find Father Tim uttering a prayer that he had offered every morning at the door of Lord’s Chapel for the twelve years he had been its’ rector.

“Father, make me a blessing to someone today, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

There’s something about that prayer that strikes a chord in my heart. As I pondered adding that short and simple prayer to my daily quiet time, I realized that there is more to it than uttering a few, heartfelt words. Asking God to “make me” a blessing requires action on God’s part, as well as my own. Praying that prayer requires me to be willing to be made a blessing each day. Asking God to make me a blessing and then intentionally thinking about how I can be a blessing puts feet on my faith. My heart AND my feet must be willing.

As a reminder to be intentional, I took a small piece of cardstock and propped it on my kitchen windowsill. It says: How can I be a blessing to someone today?

Whether a phone call or a visit or an encouraging notecard or simply a smile, I desire to put feet on my prayer and be a blessing to someone this day and every day. And, as is so often the case in the work of the Kingdom, when I choose to bless someone else, I, too, am blessed in the process.

A Birthday Tea

A few weeks ago my dearest girl friend turned 40 and as her gift I gave her a present of High Tea one afternoon at our local tea room. From the first moment we walked into the tea room and smelled freshly baked scones to the last moment of stepping outside and viewing the lovely flower-strewn patio, it was a delightful experience.


The delicious High Tea menu we enjoyed:
* Ambrosia – Fruit with Cool Whip, White Chocolate Pudding and Toasted Coconut
* Fresh Greens Salad with Pine Nuts, Bacon Bits, Mandarin Oranges and House Dressing
* Peach & White Chocolate Scones and Crème Broulee Scones with Dried Cherries with Devonshire Cream, Lemon Curd & Strawberry Jam
* Italian Garden Green Bean Soup with Chicken Broth, Tomatoes, Green Beans and Herbs
* Tea Sandwiches of Chicken Salad with Nuts & Fruit, Cucumber & Dill Sandwiches, and Roasted Pepper Cream Cheese Rounds
* Chocolate Mousse Cake with Raspberry Filling and Strawberry Trifle with Sliced Almonds & Freshly Whipped Cream
* Glasses of Peach Iced Tea




Once again, Happy Birthday, Candy! Your friendship has enriched my life more than words can possibly say.

Inspiration From Mitford

Every summer I get the urge to read through the Mitford books again. If you’ve never been to Mitford, you’re due for a visit. This delightful series of books by Jan Karon contains a cast of quirky yet lovable characters who live, work, love, struggle, and serve in the little town of Mitford. Reading these books again and again has strengthened my faith, encouraged my heart, inspired my homemaking and service, and caused me to laugh and cry out loud. Ms. Karon’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ shines brightly through these books as she uses her gifts to weave a tale about living out an extraordinary faith in the midst of an ordinary life.

For a long time I’ve had an itching of sorts to share with others the abundance found within the pages of these books. They are so full of wonderful word pictures, of beauty, of descriptions of soul-comforting food, and examples of hospitality.

When browsing through the archives of Monica’s blog, The Homespun Heart, I was excited to find that several years ago she began fleshing out some of the very ideas I had swimming in my head. She created a series of posts called Mitford Moments. (I would encourage you to visit her blog and type “Mitford Moments” into her search option to read the fun and helpful posts she put together.) In her posts, she quoted various passages from the series and shared how she desired to create an atmosphere in her home and community like Mitford. I loved this quote she wrote, “. . .the Mitford experience is one we create in our hearts and attitudes, not one that we find in a location.”

Monica's posts have inspired me to study the Mitford books as I read and jot down some ideas about how to put into practice the things that I find there. So from time-to-time, I would like to share some Inspiration From Mitford of my own with you - that your heart, too, would be encouraged, that your faith would be strengthened, and that you would be inspired to live out your faith in your everyday world.

From A 6-Year Old's View

Last week we kept our 6-year old nephew for the week. He came out from Ohio and is jumping from house-to-house taking turns spending a week or so with each of his cousins. M. and I forgot what it was like to take care of a 6-year old but were rapidly jarred into a blast from the past – memories of raising our own 3 boys past 6-year-old hood. There’s quite a lot we forgot, like . . . you have to answer (or ignore) at least 4 dozen questions a day, you have to remind them to whisper in church when they need to ask you something, you HAVE to provide a snack before bed (and graham crackers don’t count), and last but not least, you have to take them to the potty when you’re out.

Now lest you think that there’s no joy in keeping a 6-year old, here’s the other things we remembered:

* that laughing loudly over Fred Flintstone’s antics is good for your heart
* that eating 4 tacos and proclaiming how good they are to the cook after each one is very encouraging
* that loudly cheering on your cousins when they make a good play during softball comes naturally
* that being the first to use a fresh bar of soap is pretty cool
* that having fruit smoothies for breakfast is awesome
* and that spending a week together is good for the 6-year-old, the teenage cousins and the middle-age aunt and uncle in more ways than one

Taco Dip

I made this Taco Dip last Sunday for our church picnic. It's great scooped onto tortilla chips and is fun for picnics, parties and other get-togethers in general. I made it in a 13x9 casserole dish and put an ice pack underneath. Serve it with a spoon and stick a couple of tortilla chips in the sides so people know it's a dip versus just a salad.

Combine 8 oz. of light sour cream and 3 oz. of cream cheese; mix well. Spread in bottom of dish. Layer a desired amount of the following on top: a jar of salsa, lettuce, diced tomatoes and cheddar cheese. Serve with a bowl of tortilla chips.

An Eternal Reminder

I was reminded of something in a fresh way the other night. We had been visiting M.'s parents at the nursing home complex where they volunteer full-time. They needed help moving some furniture and possessions out of the room of one of the residents who had had a severe stroke, been taken to the hospital and would probably be dying very shortly.

As I helped pack this lady's possessions into boxes, I was suddenly struck with the thought that not a bit of that stuff I was packing was helping her in any way now. It was all useless, pointless - not a bit of it was she taking into eternity. I thought of the incredible rat race going on outside the walls of that building to obtain, collect and hoard more "stuff."

Since that evening, my mind has often been reminded that I need to store up my treasures in Heaven - collecting not things that will remain here when I go Home but instead things that will last into eternity - things done in the name of the Lord, relationships built, sending out the Gospel message through word and deed. In other words, people not things. They are what will last into eternity.

Thank You, Lord, for the reminder.

Ice Cream & Pretzels

My six-year-old nephew is staying with us for the week, so yesterday we decided on a field trip to the neighboring county. Our first stop was to a dairy farm in the midst of beautiful Amish country. Joseph enjoyed feeding calves and playing with barn cats while Eli followed the peacocks around collecting any feathers they dropped. We had a picnic lunch in the shade of the tall-growing corn and then enjoyed some of the dairy's homemade ice cream. (I had a small dish of their maple-walnut flavor - delicious!) We drove down the road then to the Interc*urse Pretzel Factory for their 15-minute demonstration of how they make soft and hard pretzels. None of the boys wanted to try their hand at pretzel-forming but did enjoy butter pretzel sticks on the drive home. Our last stop was to Kauffman's Fruit Stand where I picked up a nice big box of Red Haven peaches and a bag of ground flaxseed.


A good time was had by all!

Homemade Cards

I spent some time at the end of last week creating a few cards for some special people. I love crafting things - especially when the purpose is to use the creation to bless someone else.


This first card idea comes from Lady Lydia's blog. She's provided the instructions and template to cut out here. I LOVE the quaint look of this card! It went to a friend of mine who treated me to lunch last week - a bright spot on a rainy day. We dined on Tomato-Tarragon Bisque and Tomato-Bacon Quiche with a view of the river. I went there with the hopes of being of encouragement to her and left being encouraged myself. She's a Titus 2 older woman who intentionally makes it a point of ministering to younger mothers. I came away feeling inspired by her example, thankful that I got to know her better, and encouraged by the wisdom she shared.


This card was inspired by an idea I saw at this helpful, card-making idea site. It went to the lady who blessed us with her piano last week. She loved music, and I thought this card would be appropriate. You could buy scrapbook paper with the musical design on it, but I just photocopied an old page of music and tore it around the edges for the card.

Oven-Fried Zucchini Sticks

This is a new-to-us recipe that I adapted to use up some of the zucchini from the garden. It was suggested to dip them in ranch dressing or warm spaghetti, neither of which I had. So we tried salsa and pizza sauce, but decided we actually liked them best just plain.

1 C. Italian bread crumbs
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 C. Parmesan cheese
1 medium-sized zucchini
1/4 C. milk
1 egg

Spray cookie sheet with oil. Preheat oven to 450. Put bread crumbs, garlic powder and cheese into a plastic bag and shake well to combine. Cut zucchini into sticks. Beat egg and milk in shallow bowl. Dip each stick into egg mixture and drop into bag of crumb mixture. Shake until well coated. Place onto sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.

Floating Flowers

I took this shot last Friday evening at our favorite mini golf course. The course is about 40 minutes from here - a delightful back-roads drive that I always enjoy. We like the course because it's extra long (24 holes), is beautifully landscaped and meanders through a shaded woods. The reason I took the photo is because I loved the look of these baskets of impatiens floating in the pond at the entrance to the first hole. I don't know what the container is or how they went about putting these floating flowers together, but I want to experiment with the idea. Several of these bobbing around our pond would be so pretty!

A New Addition

This week a new, old piano came to live with us. It was given to us by an elderly music teacher who was sad to give it up but happy to know that it would be enjoyed by our family. It's a 3/4 upright and has a fuller, richer sound than my old 1/2 upright. I find it charming and LOVE the flowered designs carved into the wood all around the top. There's a marking on the inside that says 6/18/52 which I'm guessing is when it was made.

The piano's arrival has resurrected by desire to play though I know just a bit - my beginner's book of hymns has been dug out and the evenings find me at the piano for awhile. In the fall, it will be played even more as I plan to ask a young woman from our church to give her in-your-own-home lessons to Eli to supplement what I've taught him.

"Trust and Obey" never sounded so sweet.


(Photos by Eli)

Dealing with the Log

"Consider the words of Christ on how we should address the sin of another person.

How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

Imagine a husband, railroad tie protruding from his face, attempting to remove a dust particle from his wife's eye. He will have whacked her silly long before he can address her speck. Just approaching her brings pain.

In using the image of logs and specks, Jesus reveals this approach as wrong, ineffective (to put it mildly), and absurd. When our goal is to address someone else's sin, Jesus tells us, our own sin must loom large in our sight. It must be, by far, the primary and more significant issue. What is striking is his use of the word "hypocrite" to describe those who are speck focused. Why such a seemingly harsh assessment? It has to do with the blatancy of the log. Jesus is saying that to ignore the "obvious" log in favor of the not-so-obvious speck is not simply wrong, it is hypocrisy. In other words, it lacks integrity to ignore a major problem to deal with something trivial, simply because that's where you prefer to focus.

Let's say you and your spouse have recently had a conflict to which both of you contributed some sin (this, by the way, probably describes every conflict you have ever experienced!). What would happen if you evaluated that conflict in light of this passage, and your spouse did too?

What if, to you, the log (not the speck) was yours . . . and to your spouse the log (not the speck) was his or hers? Would one of you be wrong? Would that be a misapplication of this passage? I don't think so. I think it's exactly what is supposed to happen!

Jesus is not concerned here with which of you is more at fault in a particular instance. His emphasis is your focus, what you find to be the most obvious fact to you whenever sin is in view. He's calling for inspection to begin with me. In light of who we are compared to God, and because of the reality of remaining sin, it is nothing more than basic integrity to consider our sin before we consider the sin our spouse. To do otherwise lacks integrity. It's hypocritical."

- Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say "I Do"

Soap Balls

Late last week I finally got my soap balls made. When I made lavendar soap in January, I cut it into heart shapes to give as Valentine's gifts which means I had lots of soap scraps. Making soap balls is incredibly easy and though I used my homemade soap as a base, I understand that you can use Ivory soap as well. For every 1 cup of grated (just use a cheese grater) soap you have, you add 1 tabl. of water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to soften for about 20 minutes or so. If you want to add a bit of essential oil with an eye dropper, you can do that. I didn't add any oil as my soap was already fragranced when I made it originally but I did add tiny pieces of dried lavendar. (Check out a hand-milled soap book for recipes and ideas - you can have fun adding scads of things to the scraps.) After you have everything in that you want, mold the mixture into balls with your hands. You can make them as big or small as you like. Place them on a wire rack to dry for a few weeks. Enjoy!

Inspiring Messages

Once a year when we visit M.'s sister in Ohio, we have the privilege of visiting her church where the Word is preached in such a relevant and practical way. Because I so appreciate her pastor's messages, I've begun downloading them onto my computer and listening to them while I do my housework. If you want to hear some helpful, applicable preaching on how to daily walk out the way of wisdom, click here. (I just recently finished listening to the "Tension" series of sermons - highly recommended!)

Jesse Tree Ornament #2

This Jesse Tree ornament of the serpent and fruit is to represent Adam's original sin and the promise of the Redeemer - Genesis 2:4-3:24. (For more information on Jesse Tree ornaments, see my introductory post on them here.)

Party Punch

One afternoon a few weeks ago, I helped to serve at a funeral luncheon at our church. One of my friends, who was in charge of the luncheon, made up a beautiful and delicious punch for the guests. She explained that it was a recipe that her late mother-in-law was known for and graciously shared it with me. I hope to use it in the future - it would be lovely for a shower of some sort. Not only is it pretty and refreshing, but the ingredients are simple and inexpensive compared with many other punches.

Party Punch

Make up a simple sugar syrup: Bring 2 C. sugar added to 1 quart of water to a boil; allow to cool. When cool, combine the mixture with a thawed 12 oz. can of 100% orange juice concentrate and a thawed 6 oz. can of lemonade concentrate. After combining, add enough iced water to make a total of 6 qt. of punch. The sugar syrup and thawed juices can be made up ahead of time, and the iced water added right before serving.

My New Porch Swing

Caleb decided one day that he needed to make me a new porch swing. He worked on it for several days, painted it and then decided that he needed to paint the porch railing to match the swing! So now I have not only a beautiful, new porch swing but the railing's freshly painted, too - I love having a houseful of handymen!

Kitchen Shelf

Each weekday I try to pick a very small project in a different room of the house and organize, clean, and/or declutter it. Last week the project for the kitchen was this shelf which hangs on the wall above our table. After cleaning and rearranging, it looked so nice I had to take a picture!

Turtle by God; Photo by Eli

Exalting Christ

"My dear friends, let a man stand up and exalt Christ, and we are all agreed. I see before me this afternoon members of all Christian denominations; but if Christ Jesus is not the topic that suits you, why then I think we may question your Christianity. The more Christ is preached, the more will the Church prove, and exhibit, and assert, and maintain her unity; but the less Christ is preached, and the more of Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas, the more of strife and division, and the less of true Christian fellowship."

- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon - The Great Orator

Festive Firecrackers

This is another idea from "Family Fun" that I adapted a bit as a treat for the boys this weekend. The original instructions called for you to wrap a pack of LifeSavers in red, white and/or blue electrical tape. I didn't have the tape so used some vintage rick-rack to wrap around and glue onto packs of sugar-free Breath Savers. The top is a piece of a frilly, appetizer toothpick. This would make a cute favor for a summer party or picnic -

Eli's Homemade Calendar

Morning Teatime

This week I enjoyed an opportunity that only occurs every few years - a visit from a friend of mine who lives and ministers as a missionary with her family in South Africa. She only comes home once every few years, so when she does I always grab the opportunity to have tea and catch up with her. Susanne is such a sweet and thoughtful person. She never fails to bring me a gift from Africa when she comes. This time she brought a special blend of African handwash which contains various herbs grown in Africa - on the bottle she taped a tiny South African flag. She also brought a gift for Ben - knowing that he'll be driving soon, she brought him an air freshener for the car in the shape of the mascot of South Africa's World Cup team!

Though the day was warm (and we decided on cold juice instead of tea!), we ate and visited on the shady porch where a slight breeze was blowing. Susanne loved showing me the recent photos she brought of her family. And I so enjoy peppering her with all sorts of questions about her life and work in Africa. Our two hours went quickly as usual. Hopefully, it won't be too long until we meet again.

Morning Teatime Menu:
* Bing Cherries
* Blueberry Muffins with fresh berries
* Pumpkin Tea Cake
* Cold Fruit Juices

Pumpkin Tea Cake - This is very similar to a pumpkin bread, but I like it even more. It's got a denser texture and fuller flavor.

2 1/2 C. all-purpose flour (I used 1 1/4 C. white flour and 1 1/4 C. white whole wheat flour.)
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tabl. plus 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (I used 1 tabl. cinnamon and 1 tsp. ginger.)
2 large eggs
1 1/4 C. granulated sugar (I used 1/2 C. Sun Crystals.)
1/2 C. unsalted butter, melted
1 - 15 oz. can solid-pack pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and lightly flour a 9x5" loaf pan. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt and spices. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, melted butter and pumpkin until blended. Fold in dry ingredients just until blended. Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth top. Bake 1 hour, until toothpick inserted in center comes out with just-moist crumbs. (I only baked 50 minutes.) Transfer to wire rack; cool in pan 15 minutes. Run a knife around pan edges; invert cake onto rack. Cool completely.

A Wreath For the Fourth

I found the instructions to make this wreath in the June/July 2010 issue of "Family Fun." You wouldn't really need the instructions though - it's just making and attaching paper cones to a cardboard circle and then glueing a foil-covered, cardboard star to the center. Easy yet festive!