A few things I'm currently enjoying

1. This girl's cd. Her name is JJ Heller, and I think I might love her.

Her voice is addictive. Soulful, pure, puppies and butterflies, the perfect amount of spice and sweetness with a little Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday thrown in. I can't get enough.

Add that to the fact that her lyrics dig their way straight to my heart and somehow manage to perfectly articulate what I'm thinking....and some things I didn't even know I thought.

"Hope is holding on to You. And grace is You're holding me too."

You should listen to her.


No, really.



2. I've successfully made several batches of yogurt in my crock pot and we're LOVING it! In fact, we're flying through it!


It's incredibly easy to make, and then we add frozen fruit and honey. So, SO good.


So, if you were on the fence about it, you should totally try it.


I will tell you that low-fat milk makes thinner yogurt, and whole milk makes it thicker. I'm fine with the thinner stuff, but I have read that some people add powdered milk to thicken it up. I may give that a whirl.


3. This....

And then this....

And now this....

I'm pretty sure everything that is spring is trying to kill me.


A normal conversation between Josh and I in the car goes like this:


Me: Oh look. There's a pretty little tree that makes me want to die.

Josh: Uh huh.


(My poor mom is still in denial about my allergies because I was breastfed. Yeah, mom? IT DIDN'T WORK. But it's not your fault. You did the best you could.)



4. Speaking of cars....my MINIVAN! I feel like I'm part of a club now...one that exists only in my mind...but hey, me and my mind, we have a good time.


This, by the way, was my fun little surprise from God the other weekend.


(if you were expecting something more significant and patiently kept checking for the past 2 weeks to see what, for the love, the freaking surprise was....well, you may now start cussing your computer monitors and throwing your bloggy tomatoes. that was it.)


(I'm sorry.)


I don't have any pictures of it yet because remember, outside = Dana wants to die.


I can tell you that it's an older honda odyssey with plenty of miles, but the way God worked it out for us to get it at a CRAZY price (via Josh's parents who are amazingly generous to us) and the fact that it was well taken care of AND (bonus!) had power doors (ohmygosh, I had no idea how that would change my life) has had me smiling every time I get in it.


(I apologize for my over-use of parenthesis and run-on sentences, but there was just so much to say. I teach music, ok?)


Not fancy-schmancy, but just perfect for our family. To me, it represents a daughter's sweet gift from her compassionate Father at a time when she was struggling to trust Him to take care of her.


In fact, that whole weekend was a picture of that. I need to write more about that weekend. Man, He really loves me.



5. And speaking of how much He loves us....


This is the second year I've gone through these little Resurrection Eggs with Isaiah. The idea is that you start 12 days before Easter, and each day you open an egg together. Inside each egg is a little something that symbolizes part of the Easter story. Think: donkey, silver coins, piece of linen cloth, etc.


I have to admit that Easter crept up on me this year. I didn't start the eggs with Isaiah until today (we did 7), and my own heart hasn't really stopped to meditate and prepare for the significance of what it means to me as a Christian.


I had to make myself pull these out, and that was mainly because my Mommy guilt was getting to me about letting the season come and go without taking the opportunity to really teach Isaiah what it means. He understands so much more this year and just seems to be more sensitive to spiritual things in general than he was last year.


After going through the 7 eggs today, I'm not convinced he really gets much of it, but it was just what I needed. As we read each scripture and explanation of what was in each egg, I was reminded bit by bit of the vastness of His love and the bitterness of his sacrifice. Tomorrow the little eggs will tell us of the wonderful, epic twist in the plot...the twist that is literally the difference between life and death. And not just for Jesus, the main character, but for us too. I can't wait!


So anyway, you can buy them like I did or make them yourselves. I've found tons of websites that lay out simple instructions to do just that.



6. And one more thing that's really more of an idea than anything else.


The creators of a current obsession of mine, Young House Love, decided to take a door off the closet in their nursery and replace it with an adorable printed fabric hung by a tension rod.


GENIUS.


So here's what I'm thinking. Remember this closet door in our bedroom?



You know, the one that makes the possibility of Josh ever having his very own night stand a sad impossibility?


I'm thinking we ditch the door for a couple yards of swanky-ness, and make all of Josh's dreams of night stand equality come true.


What do ya'll think?



And while you're answering such important questions, why don't you tell me what YOU'RE enjoying right now?