My Aunt Thelma's Paprika!

Last week I cleaned out my spice cabinet and when I reached way back in I found this vintage tin containing my precious Aunt Thelma's Hungarian Paprika! Memories flooded my mind of back in 2005, Aunt Thelma was living down the street in assisted living, my Mom, Dixie was here to visit and we brought Aunt Thelma to my house for the day. Our goal was to have her teach us to make her delicious Paprika Chicken! What an adventure that afternoon was.
My Aunt Thelma was known for her amazing cooking and her royal treatment of her many dogs over the years. She never had any children of her own so she also treated all her nieces and nephews like royalty too! I threw out all my very old spices but I think I will keep this one. That day, she had me retrieve HER Paprika from a box she had kept back her spices in when she moved to assisted living. This is HER Paprika. It must be decades old! I won't cook with it but, yes, I will treasure it, or at least the tin, and the memories it evokes.

I really can't imagine just how old this is! Very, very old, I am sure! We tease now, that everyone raved that she was such a good cook because by the time she got the meal done and served it was so late we were all starving!! She truly was an outstanding cook and entertainer!

Here is a recipe that is very close to the directions she gave my Mom and I that day.

I love this photo when she was young! This was taken at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. Aunt Thelma of course is the lovely one in the hat! That is my dad to her right in the Navy uniform.

She was a very elegant, regal, and refined lady! She was like a mix of Elizabeth Taylor and Martha Stewart!

This is Aunt Thelma's famous recipe in her handwriting for hot chicken salad! We all loved eating this in her home. She also made a mean carrot cake!

I still have this beautiful cotton handkercheif she gave me at my wedding and I carried it with my boquet as my "something old". My delightful Aunt Thelma was the only girl with three brothers. We cousins tease and yet truthfully say that we don't know for sure how many times she was married. Six, maybe seven? Our favorite of her husbands, and the one she was happily married to until he passed has to be our Uncle Fritz, or Fred. He was a criminal lawyer in Dallas and always had season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys!

Aunt Thelma and her brothers. Left to right, Robert, James D., my dad, and W.J.


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My mom, Dixie, Aunt Thelma, and Aunt Audrey. sister-in-laws

Aunt Lillian, Uncle W.J., and his sister, my Aunt Thelma.

Siblings and spouses. All in heaven now except the youngest, Aunt Audrey is still doing well and has survived them all.

This was at Aunt Thelma's 90th Birthday! Bill and I at her birthday luncheon in Kemp, Texas. She was very lucid and lovely as always, even at 90! This was in the summer and she passed the following November.

My beautiful mother, Dixie with Aunt Thelma at the Birthday party.

My oldest brother, Marc, with Aunt Thelma.

She was quite a lady! Many summers I flew up to Dallas by myself and got to spend a week with her. If my mother only knew what all Aunt Thelma taught me and let me do, I bet Mom would not have let me go! She taught me how to play poker, she let me drive before I was 16 and I realize now that my Uncle was usually pretty well inebriated when he came to pick me up from an afternoon of swimming at their country club! He drove me back to their lovely home in the country with a glass of scotch in one hand and the other on the steering wheel! I had no idea that was not really ok. I didn't drink, still don't and my parents didn't so I didn't really know that was dangerous. I must have had really good guardian angels! Aunt Thelma would cook, decorate, feed her dogs on china plates, garden, and entertain lavishly yet simply and elegantly. She worked at the court house several years and then got a job with her Aunt Sibil at the trade mart selling fine linens and the likes. She later ran a catering business and she bought, redid, and resold many darling houses in the Kaufman Kemp area. She delighted her siblings and their kids often with lovely weekends, holidays, parties, and various celebrations. Aunt Thelma touched my life by teaching me to live beautifully and savor every day. She demonstrated how to live graciously and how to make wherever you find yourself living, the most beautiful place you can and to entertain and love your family there often! She loved life, food, men, dogs, beauty, martinis, and much more! She said that she was really a Methodist even though the rest of her family were and are all Baptist! Laughter, good food, beautiful surroundings, and fun are all things that came to my mind when I found that tin of my Aunt Thelma's Hungarian Paprika.

Thank you Lord for my Aunt Thelma and how I have part of her in me today. Thank you for family and food and good memories!

I hope you all have an "Aunt Thelma" in your life. I hope you can be an "Aunt Thelma" TO someone in your life!

Things that are priceless...

Watching the Astros sweep the Brewers and get their 3rd grand slam of the season,

Time with Jonathan, Melissa, and Jonathan's dad, Randy,

Time with my son and daughter,

Visiting my daughter and seeing her so happy and married to the love of her life,

Having fun with my husband and kids at Minute Maid Park,

Getting to congratulate Drayton McClain on the Astros sweeping the Brewers and on the Astros 3rd grand slam of the season while we were sitting in his seats! He had gone up to a suite where his class reunion was taking place when the grand slam occured and his executive assistant, Eileen had moved us into his seats! During Pence's homerun Jonathan's dad was sitting there next to Bill if you watch the replay on the MLB website!

Time with my son, daughter, son-in-law,and husband,

Time with my husband, daughter, son-in-law,

Time with my one and only daughter! Priceless!

Why do I love the Astros so?

Yes, I live in the middle of the DFW metroplex and yes I like the Texas Rangers and enjoy going to their games. However, my first major league baseball game to ever attend was a Houston Astros game at the old Astrodome! Bill went to high school in Humble which is North of Houston and his dad worked at the Deer Park Shell plant. They were really Houstonians. After we married we moved to Missouri City, a suburb of Houston where Bill was a minister and I started my career as a speech language pathologist. We attended Astro games occasionally with his dad and sometimes his brother Keith accompanied us. I was wide eyed and amazed with the Dome itself, the Astro's huge bright scoreboard that ostentatiously displayed a snorting snarling longhorn when the Astros scored a run! It was truly a sensory experience like nothing I had ever seen out in West Texas where I grew up! The wonderful smells of hot dogs and nachos and the give aways on different nights drew the crowds in as if they were giving away gold bars! If it was hat night there was a frenzy of fans in droves to jockey to be the first thousand to enter and claim a coveted Orange Astros cap! I loved listening to the sports announcer as he called out the names of players coming up to bat! My favorite was when he'd introduce Jose Cruuuuuuuuuuuuuz!!!!! It was hilarious and yet respectful at the same time! Jose was so beloved and a great player! He became a coach for the Astros and his son came to play as an Astro. We lived around Houston for 15 years so the news and sports we watched every night featured all the latest about our home team, the Astros! We identified ourselves with this team and took pride in their success as well as sticking with them in the tough times too.
After we moved to Grand Prairie in 1999, we met a precious, lovely lady, named Joann. She was an active member at the church Bill was the new pastor of and she just happens to be a sister of Drayton McClain, the owner of the Astos! When she learned that we love baseball and the Astros she offered to send us once a year to enjoy a weekend of Astros games on the Diamond level, meet her brother, and her son who was at that time the president of the Astros operations. Her son is a successful lawyer, investor, businessman, and a fine Christian man and was a deacon at 2nd Baptist Houston. We have enjoyed our Astros weekends over the past 10 years. Sometimes Joann and her son Bob and his family would be there with us. Early on we got to meet Nolan Ryan and get his autograph and a photo! We always get to visit with Drayton McClain at the games. Mr. McClain is an amazing Christian man, a deacon at First Baptist Temple, a Baylor graduate, a brilliant business man, and a family man. He admits he is a workaholic and yet he is very personable and humble. He is gregarious and will walk right up, offer you his hand, and ask all about you and your family. He will get up from his prime seats during a game and go out and walk the dugout level among the fans and greet them stop and answer questions and pause for photos and autographs. He is truly a kind, smart, famous, and giving man of God. We are so thankful that we have been able to enjoy his Astros annually and grow to love them more and more every year. Minute Maid Park is air conditioned and beautiful! It is a fantastic experience to be in the park and partake of all the sights, food, sounds, and game! Does this help explain why we love the Astros so?

Three more weeks...

I have three weeks left of my summer break! I am going to savor every minute! I am so thankful to have a job I love, doing speech therapy, with wonderful breaks, hours, and holidays! I am blessed. I truly have the best of both worlds. I love being a pastor's wife AND I love having a professional job as well. I do love the congregation of members at First Baptist and I am so grateful for the amazing friendships we have there. The people are what make up "the church" and we are blessed with so many kind and sincere people who are serious about joining God at work in Grand Prairie!
OK, three weeks left before heading back to my caseload on three school campuses with awesome co-workers and precious students to help! What do I want to accomplish before heading back to that routine?
I want to get Bill's desk chair recovered, the leak fixed in the study, and I want to stroll the Dallas Arboretum and have a picnic there again with Bill (if we can find a time it's not too hot!). I want to finish the book I am reading, "Take Four" by Karen Kingsbury. I want to go to Houston and visit my daughter and we are going to take in some Astro's games too! I have three days I have to attend trainings for work and we have one more summer wedding to attend. Oh, and my new kitchen floor goes in next Monday! Thank you Farmer's insurance after my old dishwasher ruined the old wood floor! I'd also like to learn to shoot a gun and eventually buy and pack a pistol just for safety when I am on the road to Houston or driving on my own around the metroplex but that is not urgent, just a "want". I may wait to fulfill that "want" until the Fall. My bigger brother finds this absolutely hilarious! I am so glad to give him a silly thought and make him laugh so hard he can hardly walk! His baby sister wanting to pack heat, makes him laugh until he cries! This makes me smile!
hmmmmm..... That was a huge sign of contentment. I am just so happy, content, relaxed, and thankful. I am proud of my husband and kids, I love my job yet I am thrilled with my plan to retire from TRS in 3 years and then work maybe just 2 days a week doing speech therapy. I am loving joining God at work in Grand Prairie and at FBCGP with such energetic and enthusiastic people who love God and want to serve Him. I am enjoying reconnecting and keeping up with friends from high school and from every church God has placed us in over the years, through Facebook.
These 3 weeks will go fast, I know, so I better get off the computer and get busy making the most of every minute!

This temple

I Corinthians 3:16 says, "Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of god dwells in you? 17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are."
The body of a Christian becomes a literal temple or dwelling place for the Holy Spirit! How amazing! How wonderful and what a responsibility and privilege! After Christ died on the cross and paid the penalty for our sins, the Holy Spirit was then able to actually inhabit us! There was no longer a need for the veil in the temple and that room called the Holy of Hollies where only the high priest could enter into. Christ death and resurrection changed all that! A new covenant of Grace began and at Pentecost our bodies became temples for the Holy Spirit!
I want to be a good steward of this one earthly body, this dwelling place for the Holy Spirit of the one and only true God! I want to do my best to care for the health of my body and make God proud! I want to do my part to live a long and productive life as healthy and vital as possible so I can do the things God has for me to do!
I grew up under the care and training of a wonderful mother who was also a registered dietitian! Dixie Ann modeled and lived out healthy balanced food preparation, presentation, and dining! Mom always cooked very healthy and tasty meals and even taught us how to do the same! She taught home management skills as she had learned at TWU and she modeled regular exercise and weight control as she had been trained how to manage the diets and meals for an entire hospital of patients who had everything from diabetes to renal failure. She was amazing and I am so thankful I had her has a mom! I knew the four food groups and how much of each you needed a day way back in elementary school years! She made sure we knew how to eat healthy and she provided amazing meals in our home. I have such good memories of smelling her cooking and it was always ready right after Walter Cronkite said, "And that the way it is" as he signed off.
As a result of Mom's training, I have always been aware and concerned with healthy eating, weight control, and exercise. In high school I struggled with my weight somewhat my junior and senior year but while at Baylor I became borderline anorexic my Freshman year. So many people said "you'll gain the freshman 10 or 15 off at college". That actually scared me so I set out to prove them wrong and developed some unhealthy habits of starving and over exercising. I lost 10 pounds that first year instead of gaining but my hair also began falling out and my hands turned orange from eating so many carrots and oranges! Mom had me meet with a dietitian friend of hers the summer after my freshman year of college and she taught me how to maintain my desired weight while still getting my nutritional needs and going about it in a healthy way. From that point on I was successful at maintaining a healthy weight that was even 10 pounds less than my high school weight. As I studied Speech & Language Therapy at Baylor I also learned more and more about our spiritual lives and through BSU Leadership Trainings, various Bible studies, Christian friends and my experiences there I grew and learned the importance of caring for our physical bodies not just for vanity but instead to be responsible stewards of what God had given us. This changed my motivation from selfish motives to scripture based motives.
Hebrews 12:1 & 2 "...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,..." and in 2Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."
We have to be good stewards of our physical bodies if we are to run the race (live the Christian life) with all the gusto we can and at our very best! We can't be physical slobs and expect our bodies to perform at their best to do the tasks God has for us to do and for His glory! We can't fight a good fight if we are out of breath, sluggish, tired, lazy, over weight, drunk, unorganized, etc. We must be at our best to give Him our best!
In about 2002 or 2003, Melissa asked me if I would join Weight Watchers with her. She was in high school and we had just built this house and were adjusting to moving from Livingston to Grand Prairie. It was a very stressful time in our lives and I had gained about 20 pounds and Melissa just wanted to shape up and trim down a bit. We went together and it was the best thing we could have done! It as really funny at first, you sign in and pay, then you have a private weigh in and then you go to a 30 minute class. It must be much like AA because people share how their week went and if they lost or gained and what they struggled with that week. Recipes are shared and the teacher gives a very motivating lesson and pep talk and everyone claps for each person who lost weight that week! So funny but it REALLY WORKS! We didn't have much to lose and within months we were at our goal and became Lifetime members and I get to go for free now! As long as I am not more than 2 lbs over my healthy goal weight I am free and only go once a month to weigh and the psychology of it all just really WORKS! You can still eat the things YOU like and lose or maintain, you just count their point value and when you have eaten all your allotted "points" for the day you stop. It's that simple! Weight Watchers was life changing for Melissa and me both. We learned that when you get disciplined in one area of your life, it spills over into the other areas (physical, mental, spiritual, and social) and you get motivated to be the very best you can be in all four of these areas.
At church, our members that know Bill and I even just a little, know that I am the "dietitian" in our house and I keep a Weight Watcher friendly pantry and kitchen. We joke about it allot and people tease and try to sneak doughnuts and other sweet treats to Bill in fun! Our friends know I make Bill take the skin off his chicken and not eat it, won't let him eat fries, (when I am with him!) etc. I make him go to the doctor when needed and I tell him "thank you" for taking care of himself and in turn, he voices his appreciation regularly to me for taking care of myself as well. We walk/run 3.2 miles together regularly, he plays racquetball four or five times a week, golf when he can, I go to Curves and do my new elliptical regularly. We tease allot, splurge once in a while, but all in all we do try to live a healthy and active lifestyle so we can live long and serve God many years to come. We do take seriously the challenge to be good stewards of our earthly bodies or temples as we join God at work wherever He calls us.

My earthly house of this tabernacle! Lol!

2nd Corinthians 5:1 says, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens!" (I added the !) Isn't that nice to read and such a happy thought! Yes, I am constantly reminded (like it or not!) that my "earthly house" or earthly body is in a progressive state of dissolving or deteriorating! Lovely! Lol! And darn you, Adam and Eve! If they had been obedient and not given in to temptation to taste from the tree of knowledge of good and evil we would never have to age and grow old or even die an earthly death! Oh, well, I HAVE come to grips with growing old and I am striving to do so with grace! Maybe a little Botox, hair color, spray tans, and anything else I can afford to do within my means, but yes, with Grace! God does give us His Grace when we need it and in the exact amount we need!
Ok, so I go this morning to my final doctor's appt on my list of recommended things all 50 year olds need to start getting done every year! This was the Opthalmologist with full exam, eyes dialated and retinas checked for tears or possible beginnings of detachment, glaucoma screening, and vision prescriptions updated for contacts and for progressive bifocal glasses! I HATE getting my eyes dialated and I dread that glaucoma pressure screening where they puff that air in your eye and tell you not to jump! Yeah, right! Just like during that lovely mammogram when part of your body is smashed between two panels of plexiglass and they say, "now hold your breath and don't breathe or move!" Like I'm going to even if I could???? Oh,my!
Anyway, I did the full eye exam and all is well! Praise the Lord! I was a little worried due to some floaters and flashes I had in my right eye, and a well meaning friend said my retina may be about to detach! Yikes! I got right in! I went to the Kleinman Eangelista Eye Center in Arlington and love this place! All these very young people buzz around and make you feel very welcome! Then when I got in the little exam room to see the actual doctor this cute asian Dr. Tran comes in and does the exam, says my retinas look good and healthy, answers all my questions, updates my prescriptions and says, "the floaters are just normal age related symptoms!" I wasn't sure if I should slap him or spank him!! He himself looked like he was just in junior high and I could be his momma and he is making remarks to me about "age related" symptoms? Lol! No, seriously, I was relieved and he then very quickly said, "oh, I mean, this is just normal, you look much younger than your age!" God love this young doctor! He does have manners after all! Lol! Yes, it is a defining moment when ALL your doctors look like they are 16 or younger! Truly, I am so thankful to still be here and all kidding aside, I am so thankful to God to really have good health and to have a job with insurance and then I have additional insurance through my husband's job so I am 100% covered! What a blessing!! What do people do that don't have insurance and then need more serious intervention? I am grateful and SO very blessed!
I am now good to go for another year, before I have to do all the medical check up stuff again (but not the colonoscopy for 5 years!). I am renewing mine and Bill's commitment to "always have fun" everyday! We want to LIVE each day to the fullest, laugh everyday, tell our loved ones we love them, use our good dishes, wear my red dress (so to speak!), and dance with my husband, everyday! Life is short but God is good so I will seek to glorify Him by enjoying His blessings while I am still here!
Blessing to you and to yours!

We are like the woman at the well...

My favorite religion professor at Baylor was my New Testament professor, my uncle, Dr. W.J. Wimpee. The lecture I remember most was his teaching about the woman at the well from the book of John, chapter 4. We are so like this woman. Christ came to her, she a Samaritan, he approached her and asked her to "Give me a drink". Jews hated Samaritans because they were a mixed race. She was known to be living in sin and was in a public place. No respectable Jewish man would would talk to a woman under such circumstances. But Jesus did! The gospel is for everyone, no matter what race, social position, or past sins. We must be prepared to share this gospel at any time and in any place. Jesus crossed all barriers to share the gospel, and we who follow him must do no less.
Aren't we so much like her? We are sinful and in a disgraced position, yet He comes to us right where we are and offers us not only the most important gift of eternal life, freely given, but he offers us forgiveness, freedom, joy, hope, healing, peace, wisdom, all the spiritual gifts like mercy, exhortation, knowledge, miracles, discernment, prophecy, teaching, stewardship, ministry and more! The fruit of the Holy Spirit is ours to receive if we just believe He died to pay for our sins and we accept that free gift of eternal life!
Back to this fascinating woman sitting by this well of Jacob in Samaria! Jesus honored her and elevated her as a woman just by speaking to her! Then honored her again by asking her to give him a drink! Then He went on to tell her of living water, analogous to the gift of salvation! Our God, our Christ, models the honoring of women and demonstrates the act of lifting up the position of all women everywhere! He also modeled how we are not to discriminate based on race. Christ didn't harshly judge her for living in sin. She was amazed that he knew all about her private life yet he shared with her and challenged her to worship the Father in spirit and truth. She was quick to go back to the town and call others to come see "a man who told her everything I ever did!" Despite her reputation many took her invitation and came to meet Jesus. Perhaps we are ashamed of sins in our past but Christ changes us! As people see these changes, they become curious! Use these opportunities to introduce them to Christ!