Who is it for?

Things have been rather quiet here at Something Simple for the last couple weeks.  The past month has been full of traveling and visiting family and just life.  I have had time in between trips for blogging, but for some reason I wasn’t really inspired to sit down and write out what the Lord had been teaching me or finish up one of my drafts on different aspects of natural mothering.  With my old blog I struggled a lot with feeling obligated to blog regularly and since starting this blog was a big part of turning over a new leaf in that area, I didn’t want to get sucked into that again.  But I had another struggle.

Thanks to my handy-dandy WordPress dashboard, whenever I want to, I can see at a glance (in graph form) how many visits I’ve had to my blog on any given day.  Obviously it started out rather low, but I was surprised that it climbed somewhat steadily.  When I joined the YLCF team, it majorly jumped and I was excited to see how many readers I had.  However, in the last month or so, as my blogging waned some, the numbers slowly dropped.  And I found myself getting discouraged by that.  But then I was brought up short by a blog post at one of my favourite blogs, Pursuing Titus 2.  The post is called “Blogging By Numbers” and in it she related a similar struggle to mine, where you determine your blogging “success” by how many readers you have.  And that essentially is focused on glorifying you…which should never be the case.   In her post she quotes a bit from a piece by Ann Voskamp the really cuts to the heart of the matter…

“”Jesus Himself only had 12 followers. And He lost one.“

This has prompted a change in my thinking in two areas, closely related to one another.  I need to remember Who’s glory I am blogging for.  “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men…” (Colossians 3:23)  And with that, if I’m truly blogging for the Lord, my “success” isn’t measured by how many readers I have, etc., it’s measured only by my obedience to what He has called me to…which, for some seasons of my life, may be to step back from blogging and use that time to focus on other things.  Those are both lessons which I have by no means learned completely or even mostly, but I’m so thankful for the patience, grace and mercy extended to me, new every day, as I stumble along.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Sauteed brussel sprouts

After getting settled back into life here at home, the last few days found me simply exhausted, both from being pregnant and being a mama to a little boy who still doesn’t know how to sleep through the night.  This mama brain was not at all conducive to writing profound blog posts, no matter how much I missed blogging in the last week.  Thankfully, last night we all got a bit more sleep which made today much more productive than the last few have been, but still all that’s being blogged today is a recipe.

But it’s a very yummy recipe…I was craving these most of this past week and finally made them a couple nights ago…mmm!  I never had eaten brussel sprouts until a couple years ago since my dad didn’t like them so we never had them growing up (and I heard horror stories of how bad they were!).  Aaron’s family, however, loves them and so I was introduced to how good they were and they’re now one of my favourite vegetables.  When I got married and had to figure out how to cook them, I did what I usually do when confronted with a veggie I’m not sure how to cook…I saute it in lots of butter, salt, pepper and garlic powder…and oh. my. goodness.  Now that’s the only way I bother cooking them…they’re so good!  And it’s so simple, I’m not even sure it would be considered a “recipe”, but I’ll put it here as one anyway, in the hopes that some of you will try them and discover just how amazing brussel sprouts can be.

Sauteed Brussel Sprouts

Place a good amount of butter (about 1/3 to 1/2 cup) in a large cast iron skillet (I’m sure a non-cast iron skillet would work fine…I just love how cast iron cooks things).  Quarter brussel sprouts, cutting off tough ends and bad leaves.  Place in skillet and heat over medium-high heat.  Once butter has melted, stir sprouts to make sure that they’re coated completely.  Sprinkle very generously with garlic powder, salt and pepper and stir well.  Saute, stirring every so often, until sprouts are bright green and just starting to wilt.  Hopefully the seasonings will have coated the sprouts and the cut ends/sides are starting to brown and crisp up.  However, do not overcook the brussel sprouts since supposedly (according to the Trader Joe’s brussel sprout bag) this is what cause the unappealing taste that most people associate with brussel sprouts.  Enjoy!

My week…two weeks ago

I’m a little late in posting this here, but last week YLCF had their “Peek Into Your Week” carnival.  Several of us team members posted what a week at our homes looks like, and mine was posted on Monday.  If you haven’t already read it, I hope you enjoy hearing about how things look at our house over a week…

We just got back from a week-long trip down south so I’ve been busy getting the house and everything back in order, but I hope to get back to blogging in the next couple days…I missed it!