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Blissdom 2012

February 28, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 35 Comments

blissdom 2012

(Patty, Tammy Wynette , and Ruth)

Going to your fourth Blissdom is like having your fourth child. With the first one, you do everything right and fret and worry over every last detail. With the fourth one, you realize that all those things you fret about don’t matter that much. The first Blissdom I took oodles and oodles of pictures. This time it I was there 36 hours before I took the first photo. That poor fourth baby.

I had decided not to go this year since I’m speaking at The Pearl Event in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS! {the event is sold out and I’m literally shaking in my boots}

The night before Blissdom began, my friend Ruth at Living Well Spending Less—who wrote the sweetest post about how we met at Blissdom last year—-told me she had an extra ticket and would love to give it to me. I was so amazed at her generosity and was ecstatic at the opportunity to see my friends and be inspired by the most amazing women on the planet. My dear sweet Stevie encouraged me to go and my sister agreed to love on my girls for the weekend. I threw some things in a bag and headed down the road. My wonderful friend Patty and my new friend Emily were so kind to take me as their roommate. It was such a blessing to spend the weekend with them.

I texted Stevie during the first session and said, “I was SO meant to be here. I love you and am so thankful that you get this.”

I came back full to the brim with inspiration and ideas and a serious line-dancing, lack-of-sleep hangover. The re-entry is the worst!

The sessions were great but by far my favorite part was learning at the Blogging School of Ruth. She is the woman. She is hard core blogger mom, ultra-organized and motivated and when we asked her how she gets it all done, she told us she gets up at 3:30 and works until 7:30 every morning so that she can still be a full-time mom. She runs four blogs and has become a successful momtrepeneur and is somehow able to balance it all, despite the fact that she’s been blogging only a little over a year. Her spread sheets scared the heebeejeebees out of me and when she asked about my ‘editorial calendar’, I looked at her like I had seen a ghost.

After a lot of pondering and hemming and hawing and after my server crashed and I was faced with upgrading my hosting capabilities, I’ve decided to accept a few ads on my blog. Ruth was so helpful and gave the best advice of anything I’ve read or heard at any conference. She is a conference unto herself. She couldn’t believe that I’ve been paying all this out of pocket for all these years without ever monetizing. I’m kind of a purist and have resisted the trend to monetize but I’ve come to realize that if I’m going to continue doing this, I need to be able to earn enough to pay the hosting and design fees etc.

I hope you won’t mind the changes in the sidebar but I promise you that the writing will continue to be the best quality original content that I can produce.

So many of my faithful Blissdom friends couldn’t make it like Melissa and Emily and Nester and Ruthanne. I missed you so much:)

But I made some wonderful new friends and had this been my first conference, I’m sure I’d have ample decent photos to show you. Since this was number 4, their names and blogs will have to suffice.

I absolutely loved meeting Angela, Heather, Jaima, Mary Lauren, Jenni, and Sarah. I even took Angela, Heather, Jenni and Ruth out into Nashville for a little Anthropologie eye candy. I played Stand by Your Man for them and sang it real loud. They may or may not be traumatized. Which reminds me of my favorite tweet of the weekend:

This is what I wearing at the time, for those of you who asked! Maybe I’ve missed my calling although the girls in the car with me this weekend who had to endure my karaoke would beg to differ.

{Best Ever} Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

February 27, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 107 Comments

I’ve written about this recipe before but it’s been a few years and this chocolate chip cookie recipe is absolutely my most requested one. And trust me when I say that I’ve made more versions of the chocolate chip cookie any one woman should. My wonderful friend Kimmy introduced me to these delicious cookies and I am so thankful and indebted to her for sharing it with us. My sister now makes these cookies all the time and they recently won “Best Dessert Award” at her church’s Super Bowl party. They took down some serious cakes and pies to win the prize. And here’s why I like them so much: 1) They have the best taste and texture. 2) They are just as good on day 4 as on day 1. 3) They freeze very well. 4) They turn out perfect EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

They never disappoint. Ever. And the best news yet? They never flatten out on the pan.

These cookies are gonna change your cookie-making life. And that is not a word of a lie.

After you make them, send me your testimonials and maybe I’ll set up a Facebook page in honor of these culinary delights. Ok, I’m kidding.

But they’re just that good.

Without further adieu, I give you the chocolate chip cookie of all chocolate chip cookies.

2 sticks butter, softened

1 cup of vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup of white sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

1 t. baking soda

1 t. cream of tartar

1 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

2 t. vanilla

4 1/2 cups of flour

1 12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 T. milk

Cream butter, sugars, and egg until fluffy. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. For best results, use a scooper to scoop cookies onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 9-10 minutes until the edges are slightly browned. This recipe makes 4-5 dozen cookies depending on what size you make them.

My recipes page has plenty more goodies for you to try!

House Fire Story

February 26, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 127 Comments

While at Blissdom this weekend, I met some great new friends and I’ll tell you about them soon. They discovered that it was very hard to find and read about our fire story on my blog so this is a compilation of posts that I wrote in the days and months after the fire to make it easier to share the story with those who may be going through a similar devastating loss. We hope you find some encouragement and hope in our story. I’ll add a link in my sidebar so that it’s easy to access. And just so you know, I’m so exhausted from Blissdom that I can barely function. I’m too old to line dance and then get 3 hours of sleep. Way too old.

Mercy Made Flesh

Send Some Rain

The God of Promise (the account of the fire)

Not Alone (the demolition of the site)

What kinda horse you got?

February 23, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 41 Comments

I was in the Walmarts last week.

I have a love/hate with the Walmarts as much as the next guy but I just so happened to need deodorant, duct tape and green onions all in the same day. When I got to the check out line, there was a girl behind me who noticed my new riding boots. This is the exact conversation that followed. And THIS is why I love the fact that I live in Bean Station, TN. You couldn’t pay me money to live anywhere else.

Fellow Bean Stationer: “I like ’em boots. Is ’em ridin’ boots?”

Me: “Yes, they are, darlin’. I love them so much. I got them for my birthday.”

FBS: “Well, let me ast you su’um—–what kinda horse you got?”

Me: speechless

Me (still speechless and pondering the ramifications of the conversation and then talking to myself): Um, actually I drive a Excursion and though it may seem like an oxymoron, I have riding boots and have never even considered owning a horse. I also have two pairs of cowboy boots and have never lassoed a steer. And then there are the aviator glasses with no airplane. You get the idea. My life is string of paradoxes. It seems I’m living a lie any which way you slice it. What’s this world coming to?

I know. You’re jealous.

And next time you snicker when you hear the name Bean Station, remember all the fun you’re missing with your high falutin’ life 🙂

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And I’ll tell you all about it later but I’m headed to Blissdom in the morning! Yeeeeee-hawwwwww! Are you going? Save me a hug, would ya? I’ll be the one with the riding boots trying to find somewhere to tie off my stallion.

Lenten Devotion::Grace Upon Grace

February 20, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 35 Comments

Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday and I want to invite you to go on a Lenten journey with me. I’ll be reading the book Grace Upon Grace by John Kleinig and posting once a week about the reading. The book has an introduction and then five chapters so we’ll take the introduction this week and meet here to discuss it next Wednesday (Feb. 27th) and then take one chapter a week until Easter.

The book is about spirituality for the christian, perhaps the most misunderstood topic and word in our modern vernacular.

Kleinig introduces the book with this:

“The modern interest in spirituality is a bit like our interest in health. Our obsession with health is not at all healthy; in fact, it emphasizes the problems that we have without providing much of a solution to them. So, too, with our concern for spirituality! Despite the multitude of books on spirituality that can be found in the bookshop, Christians seem to find it harder than ever to practice what they believe. So many aspire to be spiritual high fliers but never seem to get off the ground for any length of time. As the failures mount, so does the fascination with what seemingly cannot be achieved. The only thing we learn is that something is lacking in this part of our lives. But we end up with no understanding on how to fill the void……If we have problems living the life of faith, if we have challenges in our practice of prayer, the solution is not to be found in what we do, our self-appraisal, or our performance. The solution to our problems is found in what we receive from God Himself, in His appraisal of us, and in His gifts to us. Like our physical life and health, our spiritual life is something that is given to us, something that is to be received and enjoyed and celebrated. Our piety is all a matter of receiving grace upon grace from the fullness of God the Father. “

Isn’t that good stuff? The book is chocked full of this all too rare theological truth—-that we already have everything we need from the Father and we are merely learning to live from His fullness, which was bestowed on us at our Baptism.

Too often our Lenten journeys are ‘try-hard’ failures. We give up coffee—-for a while. We pray daily—-until we don’t. We pull ourselves up with our spiritual bootstraps and suffer, by-golly.

But Lent is not about our supposed sacrifice of some earthly passion. Lent is a journey with Christ to His passion.

Lent is not a time to focus on ourselves and our own particular abundance or lack of self-discipline. Lent is a time of self-forgetfulness, where we learn to live more in union with Christ and less from our own capabilities.

Our Lenten discipline does not make us more holy. We have the very righteousness of Christ and His holiness already.

Our Lenten failures do not make us more wretched but serve to remind us that our wretchedness has cost our Savior His life and that He has gone to every length to secure our ransom.

We take this journey with Him to learn from Him what it means to be His child. To remember what it’s like to be loved by Our Father.

To learn to receive from His hand nothing more and nothing less than what He Himself gives.

Lent is about Christ and His pilgrimage to the Cross, where His love is poured out for all humanity.

Spirituality is His work in us as He creates faith and repentance.

But what does that daily spirituality look like? Dr. John Kleinig will be the perfect study leader as we explore what it really means to be spiritual. Join us for lenten devotions.

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You may purchase Grace Upon Grace through this link and I’m donating my Amazon Affiliate funds to purchase 4 books for anyone who would like to participate in this book study but isn’t able to buy the book right now. Just email me with your name and address and I’ll choose the first four people who respond:)

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Winner of Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman is Sarah Pinnault! Email me with your address, Sarah, and I’ll get the book out to you.

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You can find podcasts of Dr. Kleinig’s teachings here.

Shame

February 12, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 35 Comments

We go to great lengths to cover our sin. We hide it, deny it, justify it, psychologize it, and rationalize it.

Perhaps we are even so far removed from our sin that we call it by a different name altogether. We make ‘mistakes’, we are ‘inclined’ toward certain things, we have a ‘tendency’ to get angry, we are in the bad ‘habit’ of lying, gossiping and cheating. And perhaps we do this unconsciously because the word ‘sin’ makes us uncomfortable. Sin often travels with his big brother Shame and we’d do almost anything not to have Shame around. Psychologists have gone so far as to convince us that we need not have shame at all, only ‘repressions and inhibitions’.

C.S. Lewis said this of shame, “Unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one….In trying to extirpate shame, we have broken down of the ramparts of the human spirit.”

Shame literally means ‘to cover’ and it’s one of the most uncomfortable human emotions that exists, which is why we avoid it like the plague.

Shame is the painful feeling that arises from the consciousness of something dishonorable, disgraceful, humiliating. Shame makes us seek cover. It makes of want to shrink to nothing.

Lewis claims that we as a civilization have lost our ability to know real shame and thus lost our ability to appreciate the depth of our depravity.

But we’ve all been there. We’ve all been guilty of that ‘thing’ which we hope noone ever finds out, ‘that ugly and mean action which not even the worst of our friends would have done.’

Lewis says, “At such a moment we really do know that our character, as revealed to us in this action, is, and ought to be, hateful to all good men, and to God.”

And then he makes a leap that I’m still wrestling with in my mind.

He entertains the thought that though our sins are forgiven fully in Christ, they are not washed out by time. Time does not cancel them. His argument is that all times are present to God and perhaps it’s possible that He forever sees you ‘lying and lusting and in that moment of cowardice.’ “It may be that salvation consists not in the canceling of these eternal moments but in the perfected humanity that bears the shame forever, rejoicing in the occasion which it furnished to God’s compassion and glad that it should be common knowledge to the universe.”

“Perhaps the lost are those who dare not go to such a public place.”

So, my question to us all is this; why will we do almost anything to prevent ourselves from being exposed, from feeling shame?”

Why do we so violently protect our ‘good’ name and ‘good’ reputation. I suspect we have not plumbed the depths of our own sinful heart.

But it is at that precise moment—-in our despair—-that our hearts can perceive the need for forgiveness. It is on the bedrock of guilt and shame that we can know true Rescue. Our brokenness and disgrace has brought death, a literal wasting away, and now the mercy and compassion of Christ can raise us to life. Shame is not our enemy. He may well be the gatekeeper to our freedom and joy.

“The perfected humanity that bears the shame forever…..”—–that will take a Divine intervention.

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All ideas and quotes taken from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis