Oven Fire

Oven Fire

A golden, flaky crust, baked to perfection.  Cinnamon infused apples: not too hard, not too soft... perfect.  The homemade filling... spilling over the pie, dripping over the metal rack, and burning on bottom of the oven.  Sigh.

Overflowing pies.  Cheese dripping from pizzas.  Mostaccioli sauce exploding from it's noodles. Somehow food has a way of escaping it's container.

So yesterday I decided I would tackle the task of cleaning the beast.  The Oven.  I wore myself out... It takes a lot of effort to push the "self cleaning" button.  It had been running for around twenty minutes when Rich came downstairs.  He started to make himself breakfast while we chit-chatted.  He glanced over his shoulder and said, "huh, look-it." I peered in the oven, and there was a fire!!  To me, it was like the oven was encased in a raging inferno.  What really existed was a fire mass that was four or five inches tall.  But still!  A fire!  I stuttered, "w, w, will it burn itself out?"  He kept fixing his eggs, raised his infamous eyebrow and said, "Well.  We'll see."  Um, we'll see? I nervously shifted my gaze from Rich to the stove, drumming my fingers together as if I had to keep time to "The Flight of the Bumblebee."  All the while, he strolled about the kitchen, getting a plate, a fork, some salt, my sanity...not worried at all.  I watched the flames lick the racks for a minute and then slowly die down.  Geez.  There's a year off my life.  Scared the crap out of me.  Stinkin' fireman.  So calm.

"Honey, you put it out with your eyes." Nice.  He's so hilarious.

Well, now I know my Thanksgiving won't turn out like this, now that my oven is nice and clean.

The Gratitude Dance

The Gratitude Dance

The other side of the pillow.  Fuzzy socks on a cold night.  No socks on a hot day.  Leave-in conditioner. The belly laugh of a toddler.  The belly laugh of anyone.  Icepacks to put on a fevered brow of my child.  My children.  My husband.  My family.  My Lord.  These are just a few of the things I am grateful for.

Yesterday, Pastor Todd, in his sermon, reminded me to be thankful.

It's easy for me to say that "I am blessed" or "I'm thankful" or even "thank you" but do the words extend from my mouth to my heart?  Do I take my blessings for granted?  Am I ungrateful? 

I live in a "blessed" country.  Yes, America is blessed.  She is full of all kinds of freedom.  Freedom for us to speak our mind. To worship the way we want to.  To vote.  To be innocent until proven guilty instead of being guilty until proven innocent.  A crap load of freedoms.  Yet, just like my blessings... does America take them for granted?

I remember a lady who came to our church from City of Hope and talked about poverty.  She said when teenagers come to the center to volunteer, to put things into perspective, she asks, "Who do you think is rich?" Inevitably they say people like Bill Gates, Beyonce', Michael Jordan, etc.  

Then she says, "How many of you live in a house?" All of them raised their hands. "How many of your parents own a car."  All raised their hands. How many have more than one pair of clothes and more than one pair of shoes."  All raised their hands. "Then you are considered very rich by the worlds standards."

My husband and I have our own home, have two cars, have more clothes than we need, and I alone have so many shoes it's a sin.  I am very blessed.  

When I was growing up, my parents brought in every wayward child, person, animal and insect that you can imagine.  Many were deformed, unhealthy, broken and abused.  I have three children.  All were born healthy, whole... perfect.  I am blessed.

I am thankful.  I am grateful.

As I stated in my previous post, our family has been through our share of storms.  The Bible says to be thankful in all circumstances.  Not for all circumstances, but in them.  Hard to do.

I keep a journal that I write in on a consistent basis.  A few years back I started a blessing journal.  At the beginning of each entry, I would write five things I was grateful for, or five blessings in my life.  It changed my perspective on life and how I looked at things...even changed my attitude. 

Pastor Todd gave another tool.  The Gratitude Dance.  It's freakin' amazing.  Do the dance everyday and see if it changes anything.  I'm going to do it.  There are two videos.  The first one, Pastor Todd showed.  The second one, I found online.  It's ahhh-mazing.  That guy has literally brought The Dance all around the world.  See if you can bring it to your house.  Be grateful I don't come over and do The Dance with you!