Giveaway

Today is an exciting day!!!!

I'm hosting my first giveaway over at The Orchard House!  I'm featuring a gift from one of my absolute FAVORITE bloggers!  The one-of-a-kind Edie of Life in Grace.

Come over and read all about it and of course enter!  

Dreamer

source

This year I have embarked on a new venture with two of my dearest friends.  

You see, I am a dreamer.

I could spend hours talking about those passions that God has placed in my heart and that fill me with wild ideas and roads I want to travel.

And you know what, these two friends of mine are the ones that I find myself sharing those wild ideas with.  Most times late into the night and early into the morning.  They fan the flame of my imagination and encourage me to walk boldly with my ideas.

So that is just what we decided to do this year.

Together, we have started a blog called The Orchard House.  It is a place for us to explore our passions and share them with other women.  It is also a place where we desire to promote others who have great passions and wild dreams living in their heart.  It is meant to be an online haven of encouragement, challenge, and belief.  

I would love for you to check it out here.  I am excited to see what the Lord will do with it.

Pasta Primavera

I have had several friends request that I add some more recipes to the blog so because I love you so much Amanda & Melissa this is just for you! 

This is a recipe I made the other day for a couple in our community group who just had a baby.  I was reminded of how easy and nutritious this dish is.  It's full of fresh veggies so it looks like a garden on your plate!  

Pasta Primavera
Source: Giada de Laurentiis

Ingredients:
3 carrots cut into thin strips
1 large zucchini cut into thin strips
2 yellow squash cut into thin strips
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper cut into thin strips
1/4 cup olive oil
Kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon dried Italian herbs
1 pound penne pasta
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 450.

On a large heavy baking sheet, toss all veggies with oil, salt, pepper and dried herbs to coat.  Bake until carrots are tender and veggies begin to brown, stirring after first 10 minutes.  Bake about 20 minutes total.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water about 8 minutes.  Drain, reserving 1 cup of cooking liquid.

Toss pasta with veggies in a large bowl.  Add enough reserved cooking liquid to moisten.  Season with salt & pepper and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

~Sometimes I add grilled chicken.

Enjoy!

Renew

Another year has been closed.  The new calendars have been opened.  It's the first year that I have not made lists of goals for all facets of my life.  There have been no sheets filled with bulleted items of physical, spiritual, relational aspirations.  There have been no revolutions within our home of pursuits toward forming new habits.  That energy that usually infuses my mind and spirit during the month of January has been absent.  But this year I don't feel that push toward making those lists and setting down on paper those goals.  This year I just long for one singular focus.  One thing to keep me on track as the months tick by.

This year instead of those lists I have chosen one word to pursue:  RENEW.

"He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." 

~Titus 3:5

I chose RENEW because for too long I have felt like I was in a holding pattern.  Every day my mind wages war and I enter into battle to find the truth that will sustain me.  Some days I wave a white flag and find myself allowing the enemy to gain ground and other days I have stood firm and fought back.  

"And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." 

~ Colossians 3:10

I need a renewal of my mind, of my heart, of my identity, of my spirit.  2012 gave me a beating and these weary bones need some new life infused into them.  

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." ~2 Corinthians 4:16

How does one go about finding renewal?  

I believe the only source capable to restore me is the One who made me.  It is to Him that I will surrender myself.  

I plan to embark on The Romans Project where I will hide His sacred Word in my heart.  

"What a heart knows by heart is what a heart really knows,"  urges Dennis Lennon.  And what the heart knows by heart is all that can calm the heart.  And direct the heart.  And strengthen the heart. ~ source

God's Word never returns void.  I'm counting on that this year.