The Diaries of a Fruitcake in a Half Baked World!

What a wonderful movie!  I am by no means a cook and my husband would waste no time admitting that fact but one thing I learned from this movie, is that I am much like Julia Child.  Watching her trying to find something to do with her life while her husband worked was exactly what I have done.  Her passion was right in front of her and it didn’t click until after trying to become a hat maker, a bridge player and I am sure much more that we don’t know about.  The one thing she loved was eating French food.  She wanted to learn how to cook french style but there wasn’t any cook book teaching in english.  So, she took french language classes thinking she would be able to read the cook book and eat french cuisine. After a time, she decided to go to a french cooking school.

Some movies make you wish you never watched them and wasted the 2 hours of your life on nonsense.  This movie was a definite joy and made me look back on my life and see where I am now.  We all have a passion for something and it could be staring us right in the face. Mine is writing.  I don’t have a problem putting words on paper. It comes fairly easy and I love coming up with ideas that would possibly get the attention of the reader.

Watching Julie write every day for a year was inspiring.  To actually follow through on something that took a year, especially cooking recipes that don’t look easy to make, that was awesome.  She was faithful in her posting on her blog and it took months but she started to get readers and comments, which are hard to get.  That is what I plan on doing, being faithful to my Diaries of a Fruitcake and to my readers.

This movie is one to see.  I watched it off of Netflix.  The name, Julie & Julia.

Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations.  The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days!  I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.  Great stories.  But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by!

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder, almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn’t realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy!). By the way, she was one of the many people who attempted to do that.

My yard couldn’t take it either.  I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

Happy Holidays!!! J

Posted with permission of: Kate Matties

Yes, I say “Our” because their spouses are doing something for us.

It is a very hard life and can be so rough on a marriage when the spouse is gone for over a year and then comes home to find out in the next few months when he or she will be going back for another tour.  I have seen the hardship first hand and I was speaking with a friend tonight who had it placed on her heart to try and help the families, to let them know she is here for them.

Do these families need encouragement and an ear for someone to listen? I believe they do.  But where are they going to go to get it? Will it be online or would it be at church or out with the girls or guys?  I know when my husband was deployed, we lived on base and the women came together with a Bible study group named P.W.O.C. Protestant Women of the Chapel.  I would help babysit when the Catholics had their C.W.O.C.  It was a place to come together and pray and learn and allow the Father to listen and heal their hearts and grow in the Word.  The Lord is our strength.  I was involved for three years while he was gone on and off. It was like a sisterhood.  A place of refuge.  Would a bible study be the place you would go or maybe a coffee once a week?

Do you know a place where our families who have spouses on hardship tours can go to get encouragement? If so, please let me know… others are reading who might not want to write in and by those who do, they see something familiar and will go. Whether it is online or in our community, please don’t be silent about what you know.

As I lay my head on the pillow tonight, I will be praying for the marriages of our Military and the children without their parent.

Blessings to all.

What?

I’ll say it again…life is about rules.

There are rules to a football game, rules to a job or you’ll be fired, rules in school, rules for driving.

We follow these rules because of our wants and desires.  Living Holy has rules too.  These rules aren’t to make you unhappy but to help aide you in the quest for holiness.  You have choices and are free to make them.  Standards aren’t to take freedom from you but help you live free.

For example.  I am 39 years old and I have 3 teenagers.  I see the stage they are in, each one of them, and remember that age. I remember thinking almost exactly like my oldest daughter, so when I see her going down the road I went, I want to tell you the shortcut because I know it now. That way she won’t have to take the long route.  Well, that is how it is with God’s standards.  He see’s the big picture of our life and the Word is our road map.  If we decide not to be obedient and follow the directions, then we will be on some bumpy ground.

Like my daughter hearing my advice to make life easier for her, she wants to be in control of her choices. It’s hard to give up control and stay on the right path.  This control is really a false sense.  We aren’t in control of our life, really.  We just choose which road to take when we are given a choice. In a sense we are in control of our choices.  We really aren’t free, we have just been told over and over again that we are.  I think of the movie, “He’s Just Not that into You” when at the beginning of the movie it shows that a little girl is treated really badly by a boy she was being nice to.  She runs to her mom and tells her through her tears that she is hurt. The mom then tells the little girl that the boy was mean to her because he likes her. What did that teach that little girl? That whenever a man is mean to her, that means he likes her. When we are told things we tend to believe it.  Being free without Christ is one of them.

We are all in bondage until we give our life to Christ.

Maybe we have lost faith? Faith in putting ourselves in the hands of our Creator.  If this is the case, we become our own God.  Someone that knows better. Why else wouldn’t we put our faith and trust in Christ? We think we can do better because we don’t have faith.

Forget that a certain religion has standards.  This is YOUR life! To live holy, what standards must there be to help YOU?

What is faith? Read Hebrews 11.

Something to meditate on…

In people’s selfish ambitions to be more, get more, etc… our world changes.

In this day and time, change has happened to make life easier so we are lazier, heavier and our morals are dying with the ages.  There is more selfishness to make one’s life easier.  When it’s distancing one farther away from righteousness.

What is “righteousness”?  It is living right.  That is how I remember it. To help you live “right” requires obedience to the Lord.

How can these selfish ambitions and obedience live together?  Selfish ambition leads to death, obedience leads to life.

Righteousness is living right. Once you find yourself being obedient to the Word, next would come sanctification. read More >

Alright, how many of you have been to a Bible study?  Did you like it?  I was involved with Bible studies from 1995 until 3 years ago. I haven’t been to church except maybe 3 times in the past 3 years.  Why?

Well, I just don’t want me or my family to get hurt again or get in the wrong frame of mind.  ”Get in the wrong frame of mind”? How can you get in the wrong frame of mind by going to church?  Very easily. read More >