Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.
-Jim Davis, Garfield

Well. much to my surprise and great pleasure, my obsessive battle with a sinister enemy paid off. We have been enjoying a plentiful harvest of zucchini this summer. 

(The funny little surprise of our summer was finding out that our heirloom zucchini from last year must have been cross-pollinated with my pumpkins, resulting in some very interestingly shaped zucchini this year. Suggested name choices have been "pumpchinis" and "zumpkins".)

Here's the truth about me. I'm not real wild about just eating a piece of zucchini. The flavor puts me off a bit, but I'm really not a fan of the texture. Thankfully zucchini is delicious prepared in all kinds of ways that tend to hide what you're actually eating.

I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you, just in case your fridge is overflowing with the green stuff too.

First off, the quickest way for me to get everyone in our house to eat a whole zucchini with no drama: I grate it up into spaghetti sauce. You'd never even know it's there. I've made spaghetti, lasagna, baked ziti. Nobody notices it at all!

Second, nothing can taste bad when it's been battered and fried. These zucchini slices are amazing. And a new recipe I just tried recently for zucchini cakes was delicious. The cakes were also great reheated for breakfast and used as hash browns.

As of last summer this is my absolute favorite recipe for zucchini bread. My only tip is that it doesn't keep well unrefrigerated (I probably should have known that, but I didn't and found out the hard way when it soured).

And last but not least, the new treasure I found while waiting in the dentist office on that dreadful day. I found the recipe in a magazine… Parents or Parenting…something like that. But I totally tweaked it, so now it's mine right?

Blueberry~Zucchini Muffins

(pictured above)

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Combine all of these ingredients in a large bowl.

Then in a separate mixing bowl combine:

3 eggs
1/8 cup honey
3/4 cup melted butter (NOT margarine)
1 tsp. vanilla

Stir all of that together. Then add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and combine.

Last fold in:

2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup blueberries.

Spoon batter into greased muffin pans and bake at 325 for 8-15 minutes. (I know that's vague but it just depends on the size of your muffin pan. If you bake muffins regularly I would just go with the amount of time you normally use)

or

You can also pour it into greased loaf pans and bake 40-50 minutes. 

But the muffins are cuter. Especially if you do mini muffins like I did.

Also, I don't remember how many pans of muffins this made. (Can you tell I'm not a food blogger?) It's more fun that way though. A little surprise!

So, all of that is what I've been doing with my zucchini. Do you have anymore great recipes I should try?

What a fitting theme for the week I've turned thirty. And the day following a look back at my younger years.

When I look at recent photos of myself, I see it in the lines across my forehead. When I was little my dad would always say "Don't wrinkle your forehead or you'll have lines like me!" Obviously I didn't listen.

Looking at youthful photos of myself last night, I asked my husband "Do I really look much older?" His honest answer. "Yes."

I get a little sad and wish for that smooth, rounded face of youth.

But honestly I'm really happy to be older.

It's true what people say: I wouldn't want to trade the wisdom (small as it may be) that I have now, for the youthfulness I had then.

Many days I find myself wishing I were a wrinkled up little old woman, with the perspective of almost a century behind me. That just seems like such an amazing place to be. I try to imagine how I would look at things then, when the difficulties of today overwhelm me now.

Simple ways (besides the lines) I know I'm growing older.

I say things like "I don't understand the fashion styles lately!".

But better than that, I just don't care. I don't need to be fashionable. I don't feel like I need to impress anyone. This is me. And if there's one thing that has changed from twenty to thirty it would be that (minus the sinful nature) I'm quite content just being me!

For more on older, visit the Gypsy Mama.

(shopping for bridesmaids dresses for my wedding. when we were children!)

It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

-John Leonard

Every year for the past 16 years of my life, following right on the heels of my own birthday is the birthday of my dearest friend.

We met at summer camp when I was 14. She was 12. That seemed like an enormous gap in age then. But as years passed the gap became insignificant.

The wonderful thing about a friend you've grown up with is that you know all of each other's stories. Sometimes you even remember the other's stories better than your own. 

I love that we've got so many shared stories. High school, weddings, newlyweds, mothers… Through changing seasons of life there's been the confidence that the other will always be there.

Such a gift!

On my birthday she sent me a text saying we've now known each other for more of our lives than we haven't. Wow.

If someone had told me that summer at camp that this girl was the one I'd talk to almost daily a decade and a half later I would have laughed and told them they were crazy.

I'm so glad God's plans for my life are so much more amazing than I could ever imagine!

I’ve really been looking forward to my birthday this year.

When I’ve talked to friends about turning thirty, I tend to get one of two reactions. The ones who have been in their thirties for awhile say they don’t mind it at all and that it’s been fun. The ones who have yet to hit that milestone seem to look on it with a bit of dread. Because it’s so old.

Well, today I’m thirty.

And I’m so, so excited about it. Happy, thankful, thrilled, blessed, full of joy; all these emotions can be applied to the way I feel about turning thirty.

For those of you who remember my birthday thoughts from last year, I’m sure what I’m sharing today is no surprise.

But of course being the “thinker” that I am, I have to stop and reflect again this year.

There’s something more than just the gift of another year that has me feeling so full of gratitude over this birthday.

I’m going to drive you crazy by being a bit vague, but as I share a bit of something personal that’s just what I feel I need to do.

Early in my twenty-seventh year, I was hit with some very difficult circumstances. I’m not just throwing out a common cliché when I say it was the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. Have you ever been in a situation where everything, everything, your whole world feels as though it’s been shattered?

Well, that’s where I was. The details of why don’t really seem important to go into right now. I’ll just sum it up by saying it was a dark and trying season in my life. The first time in my life I truly understood what it means to be in despair.

I don’t know why, but during that time I remember having a very specific thought repeatedly: if I make it until I’m thirty it will be a miracle. Why that kept going through my mind I can’t really say. But it did. And I believed it with all of my heart. There was no real reason to believe my life would not continue for decades to come. But if the weight of sorrow and suffering crushing someone to the point of a loss of hope were able to steal someone’s life away, then I suppose mine was vulnerable.

It was an overwhelmingly difficult time in my life.

As each birthday has come these last couple of years, there’s been this little bolstering of hope. What if I made it? Maybe I could make it. I’m getting so close; I really want to get there.

And now, here I am.

Thirty.

A miracle.

Again, I’m not choosing my words here lightly. I purposefully and intentionally use that word. Because I know with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength that my arriving at this day is all by the hand of Jesus. And I want you to know that too. To know that no matter how things seem or how you feel, He is there. He is good. And He works all things in our lives for good.

I’m so excited to be thirty. For the first time I feel like a real true grown-up!

And if there’s one truth I know without any shadow of a doubt after three decades of life, it is this.

But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
John 6:68-69