Christmas Party - #1!

A company Christmas party - our first as business owners, is a good reason to dust off the old blog, huh?

We really have some amazing employees. It's been some crazy months with taking over the grocery store here. But, thanks to steady employees and the way the former owners helped us transition, all is going well. At the end of the year, in the season of tradition, giving, and goodwill it is natural to stop and reflect on how grateful we are.

So, the Christmas party... we had such a good time! We had an ugly Christmas sweater contest, which produced some great laughs! We had wonderful food and did some hilarious mad libs. We had a "Secret Santa" gift exchange.

The sweater contest judges huddling to make their very important decisions.

Mostly we appreciated the joy of relaxing and showing appreciation to the the people we work with every day.

Stacked Pancakes {Pure Maple Syrup}

When I was a child my mother loved the Little House on the Prairie books. She read to us in the evenings in the winter months. I don't know how many times we read through the series. We had our favorites for various reasons. Farmer Boy was about the food. We would try making what we read about. Mom even tried apples and onions once. That wasn't so great, but the bacon and pancakes and jellies... those were fun! It was thanks to Farmer Boy that we started sometimes dipping our bacon in flour before cooking it to give it a different crunch.

I've always wanted to try the amazing-sounding stacked pancakes that Almanzo's mother made on Sunday mornings. The fluffy pancakes slathered in butter then liberally sprinkled with maple sugar before being added to the stack were described in great detail including the way the sugar and butter melted together and ran down the sides of the pancakes. The only problem was, out in West Texas we didn't exactly have lots of maple sugar. So we never tried it.

This week Keith decided to add pure maple syrup, maple cream, and, you guessed it, maple sugar to our inventory at Ebenezer Groceries. As soon as I saw it I knew what we would be having for breakfast on Sunday morning.

And they were good. Really good.

And the butter and maple sugar melted together and dripped down the sides. It really did. It was everything I hoped for. It even had a little bit of crunch from the sugar that I wasn't expecting, but that added to it! And the pure maple flavor was simply amazing!

How else should I use the rest of my bag of maple sugar? How do y'all use it?

My next thing to try is going to be the maple cream. I'm pretty tempted to just open it and eat it straight out of the jar, but I'm guessing there are better ways to use it. Any suggestions?

On Buying A Grocery Store

This is all new to us, the whole buying a business thing, the whole getting ready to run a grocery store thing. I mean, who knew that so many vendors were involved? Who knew that getting the POS to communicate with the scales was a very important step in the printing of labels? Who knew that buying produce was one of the most time consuming things an owner/general manager needs to do?

Certainly not me, but I do now!

We are about a week and a half out from taking over. Thankfully the current owners will plan to stay on for a while to help us learn the ropes. I think that is what is keeping these days from seeming overwhelming. As it is we are just pretty excited! We know that the learning curve will steep, but we are counting the days!

Apparently we need 5 gallon buckets of pepper...

It is funny that at the beginning of this year as I was looking ahead I decided to not make this a year of trying to do big things or make big changes, but just to shore up and strengthen the things already in place.

The bulk food room.

So far this year:

• I went to Panama for a new treatment.
• Douglas got engaged!
• We are buying a grocery store!!
• The children are changing schools.

That is a lot of changes for a year of no changes! :) :) :)

In 1 Month...

The last time I was in Taiwan I got a text from Keith. Now remember, it is a 13 hour time difference this time of year, so it was sent in the daytime here meaning it arrived in the middle of the night. I tend to wake up more often during the night while there (thank you, jet lag!), so one of my awake times I glanced at my phone to check the time and saw these words:

"Do you mind if I buy a business?"

At that point I was just like, "Whatever, sure, do it."

We did speak more about it over the phone when I was actually awake and he was really excited. I was a little blown away. Before I even got home, and I was only gone a week, he had gone to see the business and had made our interest in buying it known.

A few days after I got home, while I was still a bit fuzzy-headed from travel, we had a conversation with the sellers and got a tour of the business. And I got excited too.

There are a lot of steps that come in next. The waiting to hear if we would be the ones they would decide to sell to was a little hard. But when the answer came it was a YES!

So here we are, working through all of the legal steps to having a family business! I'll give more details soon, and {hopefully} some cute pictures. For now, we are looking at a real change of pace in about 1 month when we actually take over the business.

For those who don't know, what type of business do you think it might be?

And for those who do, please don't say quite yet! 

Pictures From Panama

We have been here in Panama for almost a day now. Our hotel is gorgeous and comfortable. We have an ocean view room with a balcony on the 26th floor. The view is mind-blowing. We can see ships waiting to go through the Panama Canal from our balcony.

We walked around a little today. We went inside a basilica, which was lovely.

Then we found ourselves wandering through some non-tourist-y parts of the city. I think my favorite part may have been when we saw people gathered in a shaded area playing dominoes.

I love the way photography is such an amazing way to bridge cultural differences. I could not speak with them, but I could understand that they wanted me to take their pictures. And I wanted to, and I loved showing them. The whole interchange was so fun!

The heat got to us and we headed back to the hotel for a cool, restful afternoon. Tomorrow I have my first appointment.

She Said Yes!

A few months ago Douglas talked to us about his desire to marry his girlfriend, Kayla. We gave him our blessing and through the last few months we have known that the time he was going to propose was getting closer.

Last week he talked to her dad and went to the jewelry store to buy a ring, fully expecting to need to order it and wait 3 weeks for it to arrive. Well, that day they had a jeweler in the store, this one happens a couple of times a year. So Douglas got to watch him make the ring and he walked out with it that day! He FaceTimed me later that day and the grin on his face said it all. He was so excited!

After some talking he decided that last night would be the night and that he would like to have pictures of the event, so I was more than happy to fill that role! It was sweet to see the smile on his face and her response... well, it was perfect.

She had a phone call to make to her best friend shortly after. Had to show off that ring.

We celebrated at Rita's where Kayla's mom joined us. The whole time Kayla kept looking at her hand, admiring the gorgeous ring. I gotta say, this boy of ours has done well!

We are so happy. So happy...

And yet... I'm still not finished telling you about the big things going on around here! :)

Resurrection

It's been a long time since I posted. I've been busy. Life has been challenging. Isn't it always? But we have so many things changing and happening in our life that I want to resurrect the blog to document it all. And to have a place to process it in the way I process best- writing.

I have thought a lot about resurrection recently. It is that time of year. We just celebrated Easter. Every day the world around us is showing new life. And I want to tell you a little story about another resurrection taking place in my own heart.

Keith and I went to the Together Called marriage retreat for adoptive parents a little over a month ago. It was a refreshing time in many ways, but more than that, the weekend held one recurring theme for me: healing. As we opened up about my health issues people offered to pray for me then and there. One person even anointed me with frankincense she had in her purse. A sweet friend told me that God put on her heart to pray for me one night and she stayed up praying and claiming scriptural promises for me.

I went into the weekend in a great deal of pain. And I ended up handling it all well. I believe that God heard those prayers and touched a specific place in my back that was causing exceptionally high pain levels, but I also believe He used that weekend to resurrect hope in my heart.

I came home and made some calls about a treatment we had been looking into and occasionally talking about for a long time. And we decided to move forward.

Keith, Freeland, and I leave for Panama where I will be receiving stem cell therapy on Saturday. We plan to be gone for 1 week. I will be receiving, God willing and if everything goes according to plan, stem cell from cord blood or cord tissue from live, healthy births by IV and injections directly into my worst joints. Please pray that God uses this for healing!

I'm throwing some pictures from my recent trip to Taiwan in this post just because they are pretty and I am so grateful to be able to do what I do.

Y'all stay tuned. This is not the only big thing on the horizon for the Martin clan!