Tasty Bites: The Best Dressed Salad

By Candy (Steele the Day)

Salads make perfect meals and are great ways to use up leftover vegetables, fruits, beans, meat, and rice. But what about the dressing? What’s the most tasteful way to dress a salad?

If you’ve stood in the salad dressing aisle for any length of time, you know how confusing it can be. There are literally hundreds of choices – some good, some not so good. It’s hard for me to purchase bottled salad dressing anymore because I don’t always want the same flavor on every salad, and it can be quite pricey to stock your fridge with several bottles. I saw a bottle for $7.00 the other day! You don’t want the flavors to fight with the flavors in your salad, so it’s always nice to have a couple of different blends on hand so you have a choice. If you look at a bottle of dressing, you’ll likely see things like high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, additives, and artificial color.

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A God Who Allows Us To Struggle

By Pat

I have to admit something that I am really ashamed of: God scares me! I know He loves me, because if His redemptive love shown in the resurrection of His son, Jesus, for us. The Bible tells me from Genesis to Revelation that God is loving, forgiving and merciful. But in reading the Old Testament, we find many accounts of God's vengeance and punishment upon His people for the disobedience and disrespect shown to Him. Plagues, diseases and famines sent to cause suffering, destruction and death, in hopes that the guilty offenders will repent and turn back to Him. Even the killing of infants and children. I don't understand.

Is this a loving God? I get angry sometimes. And no matter how hard I try, my feelings do not waver. Although I pray about it, the anger remains. The doubts. The FEAR. But luckily, we serve a God who understands our confusion and our fears. He knows our struggles, and when we feel angry, He allows us and even invites us to struggle with him. To become angry. To wrestle. He hears us when we say "Why, God?" And He does have an answer for us.

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YOB: #18. Build Something Together

By Beth

I am a big fan of creating things. I always have some sort of project going. OK, I'll be honest, I usually have 2-4 projects going at one time. These can range from doing a challenging puzzle (1000+ pieces, with cats in the house who like to play guess where I hid the piece your looking for), to painting/re-painting rooms in the house, to rearranging furniture (I do this once every six months or so, I don't like to be in a furniture rut). Over the past several years I have found new projects in miniatures. It is one of my favorite hobbies and I only wish I could do it and get paid for it.

My love of miniatures actually started long before I ever built my first dollhouse. I had wanted a dollhouse for a long time when I was a kid and one Christmas my parents delivered. But it was in a box, it had to be put together. For a while I insisted that I was going to do it but after six months or so of it sitting in the basement untouched, I gave in and let my dad build it. I wasn't too great with power tools at that point in my life.

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Girl Interrupted

By Michelle (Graceful, Faith in the Everyday)

Obedience. What do you think of when you hear the word obedience? My dad was a sergeant major in the Army for 37 years, so for me, the word obedience conjures images of obeying the barked command, “Michelle! Get your head outta your duffle bag!”

St. Benedict, I’m learning, had a different view. As I methodically make my way through a book called St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living, by Jane Tomaine (stay tuned for more on this topic; during Lent I’ll be writing a Blogging Benedict series), I came across an intriguing interpretation of the word obedience.

"I read somewhere a long time ago that life happens in the interruptions," writes Tomaine. "Interruptions are opportunities to practice obedience."

As a mother to two young boys, my life is a constant stream of interruption. No matter what I’m doing – writing, reading, cleaning, cooking, dressing, eyebrow plucking – I am interrupted. "Mommy! I’m thirsty!" "Mommy, can you wipe my bum?" "Mommy, come look at the cardinal!" "Mommy, can you read me a book?" Frankly these endless interruptions make for a fragmented, disjointed existence.

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Works For Me Wednesday: A Sav For Anything

By MAD21

As I was growing up, if anyone in our family had any kind of injury to our skin (burn, scrape, dry skin, hang nail, blisters, etc.), my parents pulled out this green can of very stinky ointment called Bag Balm. I did not like smell, but I never had a problem with my parents using it on me for two reasons... One: It didn't sting or hurt, and Two: It worked! It made whatever was wrong heal very vast. Two very important things to a kid (and a grown-up).

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