>My sweet Grandpa has had multiple strokes here recently and the doctor has decided that he MUST stick to his diabetic diet (in addition to 100 other things on a list) to keep himself healthy. I was just there a month ago, measuring, reading labels, watching FOX news and napping sitting up on the couch while hanging out with two of the most AMAZING people at a place I fondly call “412” (not an area code a street number). BUT, a year or so ago Grandpa and Grandma and my family went out and we we were living large, we ate a feast, an unbelievable Greek feast at their favorite restaurant. I was so blessed to get the kids cleaned up and dressed from a day of playing with cousins, I pulled my hair back and said a prayer of thanks. I was thankful then and now for the chance to take two people out to dinner at their favorite place who had taken me out to eat and served so many meals in my lifetime. These two people took me to a Pizza Hut when I was 17 years old and I told them that I didn’t have time or room for them in my life, that I couldn’t deal with relationship. Grandma and Grandpa sat me down at their kitchen table with leftover Gumbo Burgers when I was 15 to tell me that if I wasn’t going to behave with a certain boy I wouldn’t be leaving the house again for the summer. Throughout my elementary years I spent summers eating zuchs from the garden covered with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella, zuchs with ranch, zuchs with salt and butter and tonnnnnns of fresh tomatoes, mostly on a back slab patio that as a family we have watch evolve to a covered room with drywall and everything. All summer while eating these meals I sucked up the sunlight, the Son of God, and the sweet smell of chlorine. I have shared many, many meals with my sweet Grandparents and last summer I had the blessing of buying a meal for two people who had foot the bill for so many of meals that involved so many long talks and for that night I sat back and listened to the table while my six kids had their on talks with them. It was an incredible blessing . Last month I served food to my grandpa and sorted out more questions over meals with my grandma. The conversations were different and I was pleasantly surprised that I had become a grown up right before there eyes at the kitchen table now with coffee instead of soda and I could handle another talk at the table over a meal AND I have become profoundly aware of how grateful I am for the meal I gave them last year before our lives all changed.
Have you thought about the meals you eat with the people you love the most?
Can you take an opportunity to give a sweet, un-warranted meal to someone who has given you meals for a lifetime
It is an important moment to take.
These are my original thoughts posted with all sorts of funnies, hurts, happies
at http://www.himhimthem.blogspot.com please honor that they are owned by myself (Suzanne Pike) and don’t share them without attributing where they are found and who they came from in the material you share.

>Here in Pike Paradise it is not as loud as most would suppose, with 6 kids, a dog, a couple cats, some kind of lizard/dragon, a grouchy momma and a tired daddy. We have loud moments….when the washer is off balance, the math isn’t finished, the dishes are stacked, the tvs are on, daddy is coming in from work and momma can’t find her purse, but mostly not so loud. I am a momma that requires a level of peace and quiet, this is not totally obscure in a large family, it is just not always found in the most easily thought of places. I find quiet in the kitchen chopping onions, no one wants to come in the kitchen, I might give them a job at supper time. I find quiet at the dinner table full of all 8 of us, usually everyone is getting along for a minute and I can go to a place in my thoughts where gratitude lives. I can find quiet while I fold laundry, the sweet smell of fabric softener and the warmth of fresh towels is a place that I feel peaceful. I find quiet on Sunday mornings when I sit in the far right row with the kids taking communion remembering what the Lord did for me. I find quiet even when it is crazy and laughing or crying and fussing, because in the depth of my soul I know that there is a peace in this house that I must NEVER take for granted. I can not take for granted the peace when I am ranting (yes I rant like some take vitamins, once or twice a day just in case so no one gets out of line). I can not take for granted the peace we have in this home when I am watching the evening news and see there are so many who are not safe or loved and that there story has not turned out so nice as mine. I can not take for granted peace when I look at the picture of my friends sweet soldier son with his arm wrapped around me in a sweet embrace for a short visit home. I will not take for granted peace when I am chopping onions or heating left overs, because we get to eat. I must remember that peace is a gift, it isn’t found or earned, or deserved, or obtainable outside of myself or because of anyone else. Peace will be felt and gratitude will be given over flowing today in our home with so much going on.
These are my original thoughts posted with all sorts of funnies, hurts, happies
at http://www.himhimthem.blogspot.com please honor that they are owned by myself (Suzanne Pike) and don’t share them without attributing where they are found and who they came from in the material you share.