Living as a Victorious Christian Woman

On the way home from a tourism conference this week, I turned on my favorite music, cranked the volume up and sang for the entire drive. As I drove, the songs turned into background music for my prayers. God an I had an amazing time during that drive, and I just had to share a few of those prayers with you. One Step Away - Please, Lord, don’t let me give up! Let It Go - I give my burdens to you, Lord, as I trust You to handle them. Run Devil Run - Devil, you have already been defeated! All The People Said Amen - I will praise the Lord in the congregation and share how He has blessed my life. Tell Your Heart To Beat Again - The wait may seem long, but God is working everything to give me His best. I Need A Miracle - Lord, please answer my prayer and if it’s in your perfect will, give me the miracle I so desperately want. How He Loves - Nothing in this world can compare to Your love, Lord. Revival - When I’m exhausted and can’t go any farther, God meets me there and car...

These cookies have been part of my life since I was old enough to eat cookies. So it’s been a while. When I left home for college, my grandmother sent this recipe card with me, and it has been a treasure ever since. When her chocolate chip cookies came up in a conversation recently, Danny and I realized that I had never made them for him. So that was quickly remedied, and I was also able to share them at a church fellowship and with our youth. My grandma loved coconut, so she would sometimes make these with coconut pudding mix and shredded coconut. Feel free to try that combination as well. P.S. She mixed them by hand. I use a stand mixer, and that makes me appreciate the hard work she put into making these for me. Ingredients: 2 1/4 cups flour 1 tsp baking soda 1 cup butter, softened 1/4 cups sugar 3/4 cups light brown sugar, packed 1 tsp vanilla 2 eggs 1 sm package vanilla instant pudding mix 1 package chocolate chips 1. In a stand mixer, combine butter, sugar, b...

Things change. Circumstances change. Our minds change. The red light changes. Our feelings change. The wind changes. Our priorities change. The menu changes. Our love changes. The situations you are in right this minute - they will change. It may be for the better or for the worse, but we can rest assured that they will change. When we’re in the middle of trials and troubles, we pray for things to change. When times are good and we’re blessed melons measure, we pray nothing will change. Our bank account will change. Our families will change. Our weight changes on a daily basis. Our address changes. Change is inevitable. Unless you’re living under a rock. But even then, the rock will change over time, too, so yes - change is inevitable. We experience change every day, minute by minute and breath by breath. Something, somewhere in our life is changing even as you read these words. Except Jesus. From before “In the beginning ...” to after “Surely I come quickly...”, Jesus ...

I’m going to spend part of this week at the Iowa Tourism Conference, so I felt like a road trip planner layout would be more than appropriate. Sometimes the layout comes from the embellishments I find, but sometimes the theme dictates the embellishments! I can’t begin to tell you how long I’ve had these stickers. They’re super thick and some are textured, so they look pretty amazing. I vaguely remember thinking I would use them for a fun scrapbook page, but I have no idea what pictures I thought I was going to put with them. I guess I was just having them for this layout! I added more arrows to compliment the road sign theme, and since I have them in every color, I coordinated them to the photo stickers. I’m using green number stickers for the entire month of March, just to have one common bit on every layout. And since it’s the first of the month, here’s my March layout. I use this page each month to keep track of my blog posts, and I absolutely adore this on...

I was convinced that we were almost out of treats. If you ask the puppies where the treats are, they will go straight to the living room coat closet. They’re not subtle. Not. Subtle. Judging by the shelf, I thought we were going to have to pick some treats up the next time we were out. There were plenty of little biscuits, but the longer-lasting chewies were down to an odd number - and with four puppies, that doesn’t cut it. But then I did a little digging. All of a sudden I had a pile of beef sticks, tiny training treats, some big bones and even little pork chop-shaped meaty bits! There were treats all over the place, I just didn’t know it. To say the puppies were concerned about what I was doing is putting it mildly. They were watching the pile grow bigger, too. I will never again assume the treats are gone. All I have to do is open the treats closet and let the puppies sniff them out. It will be like a treasure hunt, and all the prizes are edible! That ...

This weekend is our city’s home and garden show. More than 50 vendors are on hand to talk spring home improvements, both indoors and out. The CVB was asked to set up a booth at the show and fill it with all the information we had about Ottumwa and Wapello County. We said, it would be our pleasure. We often overlook the special and interesting attractions of our own hometowns. We get wrapped up in working there, living there and often complaining about there. And then we tend to gripe and complain instead of seeing the community for its bright spots and blessings. That makes living in that place boring or dull or frustrating instead of enjoying everything it has to offer. That’s why being a tourist in your own hometown is so vitally important. There are two specific reasons you need to know what your town has to offer and share those highlights with everyone you know. 1. Being familiar with your community and finding all those hidden treasures in it benefits you and your family ...