Living as a Victorious Christian Woman

I spent a three-day weekend cleaning and organizing the living room, much to the consternation of our dogs. Do they want clean, fluffy beds ... yes. Do they want to be able to see out the windows so they can bark at turkeys and deer ... yes. But do they want their furniture rearranged, their schedules altered, and their lives apparently ruined because of my efforts to make our home clean and smelling nice? Absolutely not. There's a second picture to the one here. Diesel is my biggest stick in the mud when it comes to my doing weird things at strange times without his permission. After staring at me with a scowl for several minutes, he retreated to the bedroom to pout. I rocked his little world with all my cleaning, and he wasn't about to sit there and watch me do it anymore. Isn't this how we often handle change in our own lives? God moves something, changes something, cleans something up, and we have the same reaction I just witnessed. We park ourselves in front of the sof...

After three months of not having any kind of decoration in my planner - and what a boring three months that's been - I'm starting my new 2025-26 planner this week. I can't wait to walk you through the first few pages because this has been a long time coming. I couldn't find a new July-June planner until the school supplies started coming out, so that was just a couple of weeks ago. My fiscal year at works starts in July, so this has been my go-to calendar for the past few years. Then it was time to pull out my sticker and wash tape collections and get to work. The month-at-a-glance pages are for keeping track of my blog posts and daily devotions for this site. I need a good bit of space to write, so I try to keep them pretty clean when I'm decorating them. For July, I was happy with the alternating long strip stickers, my favorite popsicle washi, and some strategically placed fireworks.  For the first week of July, I started with red and white banners on the left si...

This photo of our backyard early one stormy morning is the easiest way I can explain one of the most difficult struggles someone with fibromyalgia has to go through. You can see the trees, you know they're trees, but you can quite get them into focus.  That's what fibrofog feels like. Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition that presents as widespread pain, never-ending fatigue, numbness and tingling, depression, and - of course - fibrofog. I was diagnosed when I was 16, so I've lived at a 4 on the pain scale for most of my life. The difficult part of fibromyalgia is that it's not like a broken leg: you can't look at someone with fibromyalgia and see that there's anything wrong, you can't treat it (just manage it), and it weighs on your in every sense of the word. This frustrating symptom of fibrofog just blends right in to the other cognitive issues like depression, anxiety, memory troubles, and focus. The only way I can describe it is like looking through a sh...

Howdy y'all! Danny here, and sharing this super easy recipe for those of you looking for an awesome meal prep idea. With only 397 calories and 50 grams of protein, these chicken burritos are perfect for a quick meal and are sure to help meet those protein goals. Let's do this! Place chicken breasts in a slow cooker (as you can see I used four).   Add one can of Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. You can also use green chilis or any other you like.  Then goes in the liquid. Call me crazy, but the coffee really gives this dish a wonderful flavor. If coffee isn't your thing, you can use whatever you like. Laura likes to use raspberry tea. Be adventurous! When it's done cooking, about 4 hours, let cool and drain the liquid, or you could end up with soggy burritos. Unless that's your thing, then, by all means, go for it! lol! I transferred the chicken and peppers to a different dish and shredded it all together. These tortillas are a great, healthy alternative and taste am...

When we go to the zoo, I'm content to sit at the lion habitat for hours. The lioness is my spirit animal, and the way the lion surveys his territory from the top of his rock always makes me smile. If you do a search for Scriptures about lions, you'll get an odd mix. There are a few instances where the lion is regal and majestic, but not very often. Most times lions aren't portrayed in the best light, and sometimes they're just used in combination with human traits, as with this passage from Proverbs 26. The slothful   man   saith,   There is   a lion in the way; a lion   is   in the streets.  As  the door turneth upon his hinges, so  doth  the slothful upon his bed.  The slothful hideth his hand in   his  bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. Proverbs 26:13-15 Fortunately, southeast Iowa isn't the first place you'd see a lion in the street, exploring its natural habitat. Perhaps unfortunately, I'm the kin...

Don't ever, ever ... ever ... stop being curious. Look stuff up. Ask questions. Read new things. Be aware of your surroundings. Go from there. Yesterday morning I stepped outside with (was pulled outside by) the puppies, and we almost stepped on one of these beautiful webs. It was a cloudy, foggy, humid morning, and they were absolutely sparkling with dew. Looking around, I saw them everywhere. Something had been busy in the night because they definitely weren't there the evening before. But I was clueless. I assumed it was a spider, but I didn't want to assume so I took a picture and went to the interweb. (See what I did there?)  According to some experts, there are a few types of spiders it could be, none of which I had ever heard of before. One of my dearest friends is a naturalist, so please don't tell her that I don't know that much about spiders, please. But get this - the spiders who make them cling to the underside of the bowl-shaped web and hang there. Then...