Indian Food!

So, as many of you may know, one of my most favorite past-times is cooking Indian food!  And I must say, I've gotten pretty good at it.  I love the accomplishment of setting out to find a perfect recipe for a particular dish, and finally having the satisfaction of making it mine!  Samosas are just one of the many recipes I have tried and if you check out my other blog, you'll find a great recipe for them!  Hope you like! :)
http://heathersmanyrecipes.blogspot.com/2011/08/summer-samosas.html

It's amazing what can happen when you get in contact with an old friend.  Recently, I got wind that a friend of mine had been sent to pastor a church in Bangkok, Thailand.  Of course, human nature stepped-in with the curiosity factor and so I emailed that friend an inquiry.  Lo-and-behold, she and her family truly were in Bangkok!  I could hardly believe it!  She responded with how fast it happened and all that was going on.  Being someone who also feels the "call of God on our lives", I began to really take this all to heart.  What am I personally doing, or not doing, to prepare for that myself?  Am I bogged down with "other stuff" that is not necessarily bad, but takes my eyes off of "a heart for India AND BEYOND"?  (The beyond part can be anywhere...including my own city of Denver/Lakewood, by the way.)  I began to realize that some of my daily pursuits (online social networking, product reviews, giveaways, etc.) were not bad at all.  But are they contributing to the overall higher calling of leading people to Jesus?  Another moment of reckoning came last night, while I was in bed reading one of my favorite book series, "Anne of Green Gables".  In this volume, Anne has come home from college, to discover that a dear school chum of hers is deathly sick.  Anne has a realization that I will type out here, hopefully with the author's acceptance:  "The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth."  I realized that the one true thing that matters in this life is to strive for a better and closer relationship with our Savior and Heavenly Father, and to develop as many relationships with people as we can.  Anne realized this and my friend Socorro is living it.  Now, it's my turn. No more product reviews or giveaways (even though I only truly did one).  No more silly social media stuff (although I'll stay "linked" for others to contact me occassionally).  It's time to live the life of heaven here on earth. 

Giveaways & Product Reviews

I follow quite a few blogs!  Besides my love of anything Indian, I also follow blogs about homeschooling, cooking and other topics of (my) interest.  Two of my favorites are The Traveling Sisterhood and Meet Virginia.  Recently I participated in a giveaway on Traveling Sisterhood and won a whole box (24ct.) of PopChips!  That definitely made me a hero in my family's eyes!  Then I saw some reviews on Meet Virginia, and contacted her about it.  So, since I joined a website that provides blogger reviws, one new thing I'm going to add to future posts are product reviews, and possible giveaways!  If you're like me, you LOVE to get stuff in the mail, especially surprises!  With that said, I get to review my first item that "suprised" me from today's mail.

Funky Monkey T-Shirt

So, I was a little hesitant about selecting this review item, because although I think monkeys are cute, I wasn't sure if there was some "hidden meaning" with this monkey themed shirt.  But, it's actually quite a cute logo!  It's bascilly a screenprint of a fuschia monkey head, colored yellow on the face, with a aqua outline.  The quality appears to be very well both of the screenprint and even the material used for this shirt.  GILDAN Heavy Cotton (90% cotton/10% polyester) was used, and even though the name wouldn't sound familiar, the actual tag is.  I selected a size Large, which is probably a man's size, since this would actually be considered a XL for women.  Oh and the color of the shirt I received was a heathered gray.  Overall, I would be willing to pay $15-$30 for this shirt, probably depending on what logo (or famous band name) was on it. The cute and playful Funky Monkey logo may actually become a conversation starter. 

You can purchase one for yourself at http://www.tshirtprinting.net/printed-t-shirts/

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Morning Musings

Some things stay with you forever.  Even places you have been to that seem as though they were only a dream!  But then something happens, which triggers your rememberance of that destination...a smell, a sound, etc.  A couple weeks ago, I was out running errands and happened upon a cawing crow, which reminded me of the myriad of crows in Mumbai.  After Sunday morning church service, we passed by the smoke shop next to our church, and I smelled incense.  Immediately I was reminded of our hotel in India, where every morning, the owner would light inscense in the reception area and say a quick prayer to his Ganesh shrine.  This morning, as I drove my husband to work, we were sitting at a traffic signal, and a couple blocks away I heard a car honking that induced another trip down the Mumbai-memory-lane!  After he got out of the car, I decided to pop-in one of our Bollywood soundtracks in the tape-player (yes, you heard that right, lol), and proceeded home, escorted by a longing in my heart for the country that only God could place there.  And to top it all off, I received an email this morning with new "mini-episodes" of Chris from Mission India, having gone back to India at the same time we were there!  To see the videos just got my silly heart-strings being plucked again!  I guess I was foolish and naive to think that one trip to India would "get it out of my system".  Yes, it was a trip of mixed feelings and experiences, but now just battle the "I'm a little exerienced now, and would love to try to do it better the next time" mentality.  But for now, I will just have to keep on savoring these little reminders as a reminder from God, that He has given me "a heart for India and beyond"! :)