The Ways of Her Home

Embracing the homeward call

Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 3

Hello, friends! I'm continuing today with our adoption story. In Part 1 I explained a little about our family and why we decided to pursue adoption. Part 2 shared how that pursuit took a turn into foster and respite care and I left off with us thinking this was where God planned for us to stay. This is the point in our story where, out of consideration of my son's privacy as well as the privacy of others involved, my details will become less detailly so please forgive my vagueness in some of this area. Sometime during the year that we were providing respite care, we got involved with a group home for children. Our Bible study group had volunteered a couple of times with babysitting ... Read more

Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 2

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3 :5-6 I've always enjoyed walking through wooded trails and along interesting paths with twists and turns. The anticipation of "what's around the corner" is so exciting! As we walked our path to adoption, there were so many unexpected changes along the way, which isn't always as fu\n as a wooded path, but watching God's perfect plan unfold was an amazing experience and more than made up for the rough spots. I'm continuing today with our adoption story which much like the pictured path above, took many turns along the way. If you ... Read more

Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 1

Hello! Today I'd like to share a very informal account of our path to adoption and all the amazing and unexpected twists and turns God led us through. His hand was in every step! This will be relaxed and probably with some grammatical errors (ha!) as I'll have little time for editing this week, so just bear with me and let me speak as though we're sitting on my couch chatting. Details in some areas of the journey will be omitted for a couple of reasons. First of all, I want to maintain privacy and security for my son, and second of all, this is not just my story to tell but really more his. Therefore, I'll spare some details that will be his to share one day when he's grown, should he choose ... Read more

The Blessing of God’s Refusals

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I would begin posting every now and then on the topic of adoption and I have been late in getting those posts started. My apologies! I have so much I want to share but I figure you'd first like to know how our family ended up adopting in the first place. Later this week I'll post that story with all its twists and turns. As a lead-in to our story, I'm reposting this little post from summer 2020 on how God directed our paths to and through adoption. So, without further ado… A couple of weeks ago while I was walking in the early morning hours, I noticed this turtle in the grass, just about to crawl over the curb and into the street. Aware of the ... Read more

Cook by the Book: Between Seasons Luncheon

Welcome back! In my last post I began to share a little about a luncheon my daughter and I prepared for my mom and my mother-in-law for Grandparents Day. Today I'd like to share the recipes. And since we're between seasons right now I selected recipes that would blend summer and fall! Also, as I've mentioned before, I'm challenging myself to use my cookbooks more, so I planned my entire menu from cookbook recipes. It was true lady food! Between Seasons Menu Rosy Raspberry Soup Chicken Salad Croissants, Broccoli Salad, and Cheese Straws Apple Raspberry Iced Tea Hummingbird Cake & Coffee The first cookbook I want to feature is actually not even a true cookbook but a ... Read more

Between Seasons Luncheon

Good morning, sweet friends! I had a post about adoption in the works for this week but since an adoption post requires more thought than my usual posts about recipes or cleaning, I'll need a little longer to finish it. So instead, I'll go ahead and share some photos from a little "grandmother luncheon" my daughter and I hosted last Saturday. Each year, we like to have our children help with something special for Grandparent's Day! This year my daughter and I prepared a girly luncheon just for the grandmothers while my husband and son took my dad to a downtown restaurant overlooking the river which serves the ultimate "guy food"--burgers, wings, fries, etc. It can be hard to plan a ... Read more

Snapshot Saturday: B is for Back-to-School

This week was back to school for us. Well, mostly. I like to have what I call my "soft opening" to the school year. You know how restaurants have soft openings before the official grand opening? Well, that's how we begin a new school year. We start with some of the core subjects the first week just to get into the rhythm and then ease our way into the extras during the second and third weeks. When my girls were younger, we waited until September to get started but as they got into high school, they needed the earlier start to keep up during the spring activities. Back-to-School Blizzards We usually go out to eat for a back-to-school lunch or dinner but since we'd eaten out several ... Read more

Snapshot Saturday: A Week in Waco

Happy Saturday! This post is coming to you a little late in the morning because I'm typing as we're heading home from Waco! We got to visit our daughter and son-in-law this week in their new hometown, and it was soooo good to see them! We enjoyed several fun activities with the newlyweds who gave us a tour of the town. Having more than just a few snapshots to share this week, I put them in collages so this post wouldn't be so long. OK, here goes! Magnolia Silos I'll begin with the one everyone is expecting from Waco: Magnolia! I've posted on this attraction before, so I didn't take as many photos of the property this time (Be sure and check out my Silos post from last spring!). The ... Read more