Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive

This Saturday, May 10th is the National Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive by the National Assocation of Letter Carriers. In it's 14th year, this is the nations largest one day food drive. Last year it collected over 70 million lbs of food! Amazing huh!

Your family can participate by putting out no perishable food items next to your mailbox this Saturday. Your letter carrier will pick up the food and bring it to your local post office where it will be sorted and delivered to a local food bank. It is a great way to help out the hungry in your own community.

Those wonderful cookies

I have received a number of calls and e-mails asking for my mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe. Here it is. Enjoy. As you read the ingredients, note that I just said they were wonderful, I didn't say they were good for you. :)

Nancy's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 20 cookies

1/2 cup Crisco

1/2 cup Sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sifted flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

6 oz chocolate chips

Cream together shortening, sugars, egg, vanilla until fluffy

Sift together dry ingredients

Stir into creamy mixture - mix well

Add chocolate chips

Bake on greased cookie sheet for 8 -10 min (she takes them out when they are still soft) in a 375 degree oven.

Enjoy!

Amazing Mama Monday - A mom who mothers many

I think that having a celebration of mothers which lasts only one day is a great travesty. So each Monday during May I am going to share an amazing mom with you. Each of the women inspires, encourages and changes the lives of the people around them. I am so excited to share them with you because their lives reflect things that everyone can do. They are from all appearances "average" suburban moms, but in reality they are spectacular women. I hope that in reading about them, you will be as encouraged and inspired by them as I am.

There was only one woman whom I could kick off this series with, that's my mom of course. I have been talking to my friends about my mom for the last week or so. Each of them has such beautiful things to say about her. My mom has two children of her own, but throughout my life I have watched her be a mother to many. She quietly watches people, sees their need and reaches out in ordinary ways full of extraordinary love.

A package for Nicky - when I was 12, I went to summer camp in Minnesota with my friend Nicky. Each day, I received a letter from my mom and once a week a care package. Nicky's parents were traveling a lot that month and letters were not as frequent. I wrote to my mom, and told her that Nicky had not received a care package from home. The next week there was a package for Nicky. It was from my mom. I can't remember everything that was inside, but I remember watching Nicky open it, and how very happy she was. That package was worth its weight in gold to a little girl who was far from home and needed a motherly touch.

Cookies for Ryan - My husband tells people that my mom's chocolate chip cookies were my dowry, they are that good! While I was at UM, my mom's cookies developed quite the reputation. When I was seen walking from the post box with a brown paper box, word spread quickly. The cookies never lasted long. Oh how we all loved them! My friend Ryan really struggled in school. His grades were not great and he had little support from home. His mom had moved out when he was young and he had been raised by his father. For Ryan, a care package of cookies from a mom was something that only happened on TV. On one of my mom's visit's to Miami, she talked to Ryan about his grades and made him a deal. (I can't remember the details, but he had to get a rather average grade and mom would send him cookies.) Ryan worked all semester toward making his end of the deal, and he did it. The next week, sitting in his post box was his own brown paper box of cookies. Ryan still talks about those cookies. Through two dozen homemade cookies, my mom gave Ryan a glimpse of what the unconditional love of a mom could look like. To this day, it hurts my heart to think of what those cookies meant to him.

Showers of love for the girls – While I was in college, my mom also send countless loaves of pumpkin and zucchini bread. I lived with four girls throughout college, who are now sisters to me. When they each got married, my mom made them a cookbook and put the recipes of the bread she used to send us. My mom's zucchini bread has now because my friend Fara's signature dish which her parents and kids ask her to make. When each of the girls had her first baby, my mom knit them a baby blanket. My friend Manya's son was obsessed with his blue blankie. It was his comfort and friend during the first few years of his life. I love that my mom's recipes and blankets are part of my friends' children's lives. Through them, my mom's love is already touching another generation of kids.

A letter in the mail, a dozen cookies, a cookbook, a baby's first blanket, all such ordinary things. But the extraordinary thing about them is the love which they were given with. One of the questions at my mom's bible study this week was, "How are you loving your children's friends?" It is such a good question. There are children all around us who need some love. Children who need to see the love of Christ through our lives. The wonderful thing about my mom's example is that is shows us that you don't need lots of money or a PhD in Psychology to touch children's lives, it is something we can all do.

All you need is a willing and loving heart.

Thank you for your example mom – you are an AMAZING Mama! Happy Mother's Day! I love you.