The Saturday 7

1. I've been watching a ton of Property Brothers on Netflix lately. In case you're unaware, the premise of the show is that Drew and Jonathan (twin brothers) sell couples a nasty/rundown house and then completely renovate it. But at the beginning, they always show the couple their dream home that's way way over their budget. I hate that part. The couple always gets excited about the beautiful dream house and then the brothers say "but this is $500,000 over your budget!" The poor couple is always heartbroken. So I've started fast forwarding through that part. Haha. Here are my observations from watching that show:

a. Each couple is given a choice between two houses. One is almost always well below their max budget, while the other maxes it out. Without fail the couple always chooses the house that maxes out their budget! It drives me crazy!

b. When the husband wants one house and the wife wants the other, the wife always wins. Stinkin' feminism.

c. Every couple wants an "open concept" and the property brothers always promise that they'll knock out all the walls and make the house open concept. Pretty much every episode they discover that one of the walls is "load bearing" and will cost an extra $5000 to put in a new beam. Every time.

d. Everyone wants a gourmet kitchen so they can entertain. Who are these people? How do they have so many friends? Doesn't anyone hate cooking as much as I do? Haha.

2. The stupid car update: on Monday we gave them the go-ahead to rebuild the transmission. They called me later that day and said once they got it torn apart they found another problem. I'm not even going to attempt to explain it. Suffice it to say there's no easy fix. My car has a special kind of transmission that Ford only made for a few years before deciding it was causing too many problems. So the parts are hard to find and very expensive. We've gotten opinions from lots of different mechanics and transmission shops and they all say the same thing. Kent City Ford rebuilt the transmission and we picked it up on Friday. We decided to drive it to Auburn Hills since it has cruise control and Justin's car doesn't. We made it ten minutes down the road when the transmission jerked and the check engine light came back on. Sigh. We ended up taking Justin's car just so we wouldn't risk getting stranded.

3. I really struggled with the car news for a couple days. The depression came roaring back with a vengeance. I wrote this entry about some of my depression journey. But I wanted to add that I'm not always moping around in the depths of despair. Most of the time things are good, I enjoy my life staying home with my girls, we laugh and dance and sing and tickle. And even when the depression starts creeping in, I'm good at faking it and putting on a happy face for my girls. It's only on rare occasions that it really knocks me down like it did this week. Thanks for all your words of encouragement and compassion.

4. I recently signed up for daily devotional emails from Skye Jethani. Every week, he highlights a prayer. This was from last week:

from Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167) Lord, I sometimes wander away from you. But this is not because I am deliberately turning my back on you. It is because of the inconstancy of my mind. I weaken in my intention to give my whole soul to you I fall back into thinking of myself as my own master. But when I wander from you, my life becomes a burden, and within me I find nothing but darkness... So I come back to you, and confess that I have sinned against you. And I know you will forgive me. Amen.

I love the part I italicized. Struggling with depression points to the darkness inside me. I don't have the power to cheer myself up. I can't summon the joy. It has to come from the Holy Spirit.

5. Enough about depression! I made a new meal this week. It was so easy and quick and delicious I figured I'd share.

Crockpot Chicken and Wild Rice
Put 4 chicken breasts in the crock pot (I threw them in frozen)
Sprinkle one chopped onion over the chicken.
Cover with a can of cream of mushroom soup.
Cook on low for 7-8 hours.
Make a box of Uncle Ben's wild rice with seasoning.
Add prepared rice to slow cooker. Mix it all up.

Delicioso! (Recipe from Southern Plate via Pinterest)

6. Justin and I went on our second annual getaway to Auburn Hills this weekend. In the past couple of years he's become obsessed with interested in fishing and has asked for Bass Pro Shops gift cards for his birthday/Christmas. The closest Bass Pro Shops in our area is Auburn Hills. So we make a weekend trip of it and stay at a hotel and do some shopping at the huge Great Lakes Crossing mall. Last year, he spent three solid hours browsing Bass Pro and I was bored out of my gourd. I eventually found some Pioneer Woman cookbooks and a camo recliner to sit in. But this year, I came better prepared with my fancy schmancy Kindle. I read an entire book in a nice camo recliner. (It was just a novella. Justin shopped faster this year and was done in less then 2 hours. Haha.)

We used Christmas gift cards and ate well all weekend at Red Robin, Applebee's, and Olive Garden. And I got to do some shopping too! When we sold our house, Justin told me to take a certain sum of money and buy myself some new clothes. I only buy myself clothes when I can't fit in my jeans anymore or I find some kind of clearance deal that allows me to buy a shirt for less than $5. I didn't realize how fun it is to shop when you have money to spend!! I shopped until I dropped - aka started limping and whining about my bunion like an 80 year old woman. Haha. It was fabulous! And I read 3 books (including the novella which doesn't really count as a whole book) over the course of two days! A pretty great getaway!

7. About a month ago, we were at our WIC appointment waiting forever in a little back office. For some reason, Lucy started asking questions about Heaven and how we get there. I said, "Do you believe that Jesus came to earth to die for our sins?" She said yes. I asked her if she's ever sinned. She said yes. I asked her if she wanted Jesus to make her heart clean and take away her sins and she said yes. So I told her that meant she gets to go to Heaven. I didn't make a big deal about it. Mostly because at this age, I could tell Lucy the way to get to Heaven is by clicking your heels together saying "There's no place like Heaven" and she'd believe me. But she started asking again yesterday. I reminded her that because she believes Jesus came to forgive her sins she gets to go to heaven. It's exciting to see her getting interested and asking questions! Even if I'm not sure her dialogue with me counts as a salvation decision, I think she's starting to have an age-appropriate understanding of it!