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life{in}grace

live with more presence, passion, & purpose

Edie Wadsworth

04: The Life You Love Manifesto|A Life of Faith [Podcast]

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This is part 4 of the 7 part journey toward Creating the Life You Love and this week’s focus is a Life of Faith.

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I think this will be different than almost anything you could listen to on this subject.  I hope you’ll give this episode a listen because these may be some of the most encouraging words I’ve ever spoken.  This is not a guilt trip.  This is not a  list of what you should be doing as a believer.  This is for those of us who never seem to measure up to our own ideal of spirituality.  This is a reset button for your struggles and your doubts in your faith life.

You can also click here to and listen.

The absolute most important book on Christian spirituality in my life has been Grace Upon Grace by John Kleinig.  PLEASE consider adding it to your library.  You will hang on every word. You will wish you had read it ten years ago.  You will read it over and over again. [Read more…] about 04: The Life You Love Manifesto|A Life of Faith [Podcast]

Summer Reading for Tweens {and their parents}

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 “No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” C.S. Lewis

This may seem like a regular post, but it’s not.  This is a community post, where I start the conversation and you jump in with your awesome two cents!

Summer Reading for Tweens and their parents! via lifeingrace

I LOVE talking books with you because you are the smartest, most thoughtful readers in the world.  I’ve included my best books for tweens list but by the end of the day, I hope to have a list just as large of books you love for your tweens.  I’ll add it below mine and link to you to give you credit!

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The kids and I all headed down to the dock yesterday with one goal in mind—to sit by the water and read.  It was too windy for boating and we were too lazy for swimming, but the weather was perfect reading.  (I’m not sure if there’s bad weather for reading!) The best part?  Discussing our books at random intervals throughout the afternoon.  One of the best ways to spend your summer is inside the covers of great books.  Since my girls are on the cusp of being teens, my time to influence their reading is quickly disappearing.  But, for now, while they’re still here, this is one of the best ways I can teach them—by letting the great books teach them.

Here’s what I recommend with my whole heart—no matter what age your kids are, read aloud to them.  The sitting, the snuggling, the words, the birds chirping in distant trees?  It’s all magical and it doesn’t have end when they can read to themselves.  Absolutely the best memories I have with my kids (other than nursing them) is reading aloud with them.  If you haven’t been in the habit of this, it will seem awkward, both to you and your 13 year old.  But read on through the awkwardness and the magic will start to happen, I promise.  Here’s are some of my favorite books to read aloud to tweens….. [Read more…] about Summer Reading for Tweens {and their parents}

Weekend Grace [6.7.14]

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It was the week for some awesome summer house tours.   I didn’t do one this year, but here’s a peek at last year’s summery pics.  I can’t do a new summer tour until the hydrangeas are in full bloom.  Obviously.  This photo also reminds me that the bust of Aphrodite needs to wear the #mamatried hat for summer.  Of course.

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From the tour, my favorites were— Melissa’s,

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Myquillin’s, of course,

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and Ashley’s—one of the most colorful and creative homes I’ve seen!

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(You can find a full listing of the tour participants at any of the above blogs.)

Heather came up with this GENIUS and adorable way to organize your desktop.  You don’t even want to know the level of sheer folder organization I’m capable of.  It could be a late onset spiritual gift.

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 I’m speaking in Asheville in August (8th and 9th) at the Becoming Conference and some of my favorite people in all the world will be speaking too.  It would make a great (cheap) getaway for you and some girlfriends.  I’d love to meet you there.  Register before it gets filled up!!

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Lastly, lifestyle bloggers like myself occasionally take some heat about the one-sided portrait we can sometimes paint of beautiful food, beautiful spaces, and seemingly perfect lives.   I need beauty in my life, not because I’m perfect, but because I’m so desperately broken.  Beauty is our teacher.  Beauty woos us, draws us to the Maker of all that is good and true. We were created for beauty.  It’s the air we breathe.  I’m so thankful for the artists and creators who, in the image of their creator, share the work of their hands with the world, reminding us that the beauty is in the giving, always.   I talk about why it’s so important here.

Happy June Weekend, beautiful people!

{Flourless} Monster Cookies

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Flourless Monster Cookies via lifeingrace

There’s a good chance that a batch of these monster cookies will be made in my kitchen every weekend from now till the end of  August.  Why, you ask?  Well.  There’s two good reasons.  The first reason is—these are the signature cookies that my beloved 12 year old makes and when someone else offers to make food around here, I do NOT,  I repeat, I DO NOT interfere.  The second reason is really four reasons wrapped into one.   These are the quintessential party/energy food when you live on the lake and your days and nights and meals get all mixed up,  because a) they can pose for breakfast in a pinch, what with all the oats and peanut butter, b) they can pose for lunch in a pinch, what with all the oats and peanut butter,  c) they can pose for dinner in a pinch, what with all the oats and peanut butter,  and d) they make the perfect middle of the night snack when the sky is too bright with stars to even think about sleeping.

All in all, this is a survival cookie.   That a 12 year old can make.  That tastes almost exactly like a beautiful summer hike.  Only better.  That freezes perfectly well.  That could well save you from having to leave the lake too soon on a perfect summer day.  And?  No gluten is employed in the making of these cookies, in case you’re trying to stay away from flour.  Add them to your weekend to do list and you’ll see what I mean.  Also, this week? I was shy a whole jar of peanut butter and substituted the rest with Nutella and I must say, THIS IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED in the event your find yourself in this desperate situation.  Or even if you don’t.

Flourless Monster Cookies via lifeingrace

 

What you’ll need:

  • 1 stick of softened butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1—16 oz can creamy peanut butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 1/2 cups oats
  • 2 t baking powder
  • 1 cup M & M’s
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 t vanilla
  • pinch of salt

What you’ll do:

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Cream butter and sugars well
  • Add eggs, peanut butter and vanilla and mix well again
  • Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well
  • Scoop them with a cookie scoop (or drop them with a spoon) onto an lightly greased cookie sheet
  • Bake for 11-13 minutes at 350
  • Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring
  • Or eat them warm off the pan, which is usually my preference!

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Go visit my recipes page for more tried and true favorites!

Also, I just started a podcast series on Creating a Life You Love so head on over and join the fun!

 

{Flourless} Monster Cookies

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 1 stick of softened butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 —16 oz can creamy peanut butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 1/2 cups oats
  • 2 t baking powder
  • 1 cup M & M's
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 t vanilla
  • pinch of salt

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Cream butter and sugars well
  • Add eggs, peanut butter and vanilla and mix well again
  • Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well
  • Scoop them with a cookie scoop (or drop them with a spoon) onto an lightly greased cookie sheet
  • Bake for 11-13 minutes at 350
  • Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring

Summer’s Dawn

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I get all philosophical and teary eyed in June because it’s just so undeservedly beautiful.  I was made for June.  We’re soul mates. June stirs up an ache in my soul that only Lewis has ever accurately described.

“In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory [Read more…] about Summer’s Dawn