I am so grateful to my husband and children! They gave me as a birthday present a whole new design for my blogs…(you will soon can NOW see some changes in my Spanish blog too)

Have you seen the new image on Daily On My Way to Heaven?

I would love to see you there!

Daily on My Way to Heaven, Under His Sun by His Grace.

P.S. Thank you for journeying with me!

I am still writing about my daily journey under the sun by His Grace. Come join me, be a sojourner!

Daily on My Way to Heaven is now here.

Today I will be moving this space to somewhere else, please come and follow me, I would love to see you there! (“Why I moved?” read about it here)

Daily On My Way To Heaven

(don't forget to bookmark it!)

This space, however, will be still open for you to come and read through the archives in a quiet evening.

Thank you…and see you “around the corner”, one click away from here.

“My Cry Ascends is a graceful collection of new Psalms and hymns for the church composed by Greg Wilbur. The music is recorded in a folk tradition with elements of Celtic style and southern harmony. Listeners will enjoy the hardy musical instrumentation: piano, viola, flutes, tin whistle, acoustic guitar, mandolin, bagpipe, hammer dulcimer and percussion..”

Keep reading…

May this Lord’s day be one full of praises, and songs, and psalms!

Just a note: I bought my own copy in iTunes!

The most probable thing is that you don't own a Molcajete,
but don't worry, you can use a food processor, or a blender.

From the Mercado:

6 round tomatoes

4 green tomatillos

3 serrano chiles

1 medium onion cut in fourths.

3 garlic cloves

1 bunch of fresh cilantro

salt to taste

The Secret:

The secret to this salsa is this:

Roast all the ingredients until their skin is a bit burned.

Yes, you read well, roast all the ingredients over the stove top, (and if you have a gas stove it’s even better) roast them directly on the fire! (Use tongs to turn them over)

Then put all the blackened ingredients in the molcajete or food processor. I am assuming you will use a food processor, so pulse few times being careful not to make it all liquid; we want to have some little chunks here and there.

Enjoy!

Next time you see a molcajete, don’t hestitate, buy one!

Another salsa recipe, worth “seeing” is the one Gennine posted here.

Enjoy.

This is one of my son's drawings.

Codes can not only be used in Wars or Top Secret documents, but also in having fun. Even though codes are fun when using them, it is not that fun when you write them out for the first time. It will take a while, thinking of all the little symbols, and it also will take patience, because code writing is not exactly what some people would call “fun.”

There are easy, simple codes, difficult codes, and the third type, which I like to call “insane” codes. The first type, the G rated codes, are simple, easy to memorize, symbols. No upper or lower case; only one symbol per letter. This kind of code, of course, is the best one to start with when you are a rookie in code writing. It is painless but entertaining at the same time. The PG-13 rated codes are not easy; not at all. You have to write an upper and lower case for every single letter and use more crazy symbols. You think that’s all? No, there’s more “fun”! You also have to make a symbol for every single preposition, conjunction, and subordinating conjunction. If you just fainted, that’s a normal symptom. And finally, for the grand finale, I present you, the Beast; the R rated code; the dark side of code writing. Darth Vader. Not Luke Skywalker, not Obi Kenobi; Darth Vader. This code is vicious. The description can be resumed in thirteen words: make a symbol for every single word ever invented in the whole planet. If you have reached the doors of heaven, that’s a normal symptom.

To memorize your code, you can do it the boring, cheap way, or the fun, awesome way. The boring one is to sit on an old stool with your code in front of you and write the same letter or word over and over until you have memorized it. Then you move to the next one. Write, write, write, write, write. Memorize. Change to a different word or letter. Write, write, write, write, write. Memorize. Change to a different word or letter and so on! See? It is boring. The fun, awesome, party, cake-fight way is way better. You take a piece of paper and start writing with the code. If you don’t know a symbol, look for it in your code guide. The trick is to just keep writing and writing with your code. Eventually, you will have looked up the same word so many times, that you already will have it in your brain, memorized.

So code writing is always fun, no matter what type you use. So far, I have just used the PG-13 code, and have written 4 of them. But when you write a code and have memorized it, make sure you keep using it! At least once a day, just to always have it fresh; otherwise you’ll forget it. I say that from personal experience. And one last thing, if you ever do a VILE, R RATED code, let me know how it goes; I’m not doing one.

If you’re wondering how my “love” for codes started, ask my mom*, or memorize the Greek Alphabet.

*Mom here:
Just to let you know (in case you were wondering)
my son's love for codes started the year we studied
Greek!
And, of course, he is not displaying pictures of his
codes, because those are "top-secret"!

“Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.” Eccl.9:9 ESV (emphasis mine)

This we read tonight at the family table, and these words struck me hard. The advice is for the husband, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love…” but I am in there too; I am the wife whom  my Beloved loves, and the questions here are these:  Am I a joy to live with? Am I being the kind of wife he would enjoy being all the days of his life? Am I being lovable?

God has blessed me indeed with a godly man whom I know loves me dearly and esteems me high. He bears with me and my sinful nature every day, but all these makes the challenge even greater… Am I really being every day the wife God wants me to be to make my Beloved’s life more enjoyable with me?

I have not walked an extra mile lately to serve him better, to love him more, to make his life happier; and this I promised once, on the altar before God.

Being a wife is more than just being there, managing the house well and being a super-mom. Sometimes, I forget that he married me to be his wife, his companion, his best friend and lover forever; it was later that I became the mom of his children.

When I said “Yes”  I was 20 years old, 18 years have passed and I am still a wife on the making.

My children know it, summers are the perfect time to visit our big city museums. Living in a big city has many inconveniences, but one of the great things about the big city is all the museums you can visit.

Visiting a  museum, for me, is a gift. I love to see and imagine the story behind the paintings, behind the objects. What was the painter thinking when he brushed each stroke of painting, sometimes so smoothly, others so thickly? Just standing in front of it and watching carefully the masterpiece, is a unique experience.

We have visited museums since my children were very little; every trip to a big city, they know, includes at least one visit to the major art museum. And this summer, we opened the vault with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

And it was a joy to see our little one, holding hands with her best friend, and walking with such an enthusiasm through it. We just studied this past school year, the Ancient World, and she was so excited to walk from one room to the other discovering what she had learned at home. Both girls loved the visit, enjoyed the walk, talked about the art exhibited, and all this holding hands, just as best friends do!

This summer, won’t be the exception, today we are heading to a new temporary exhibit entitled Moana, Cultures from the Pacific Islands; some of our friends are coming along and we are excited.

We will, again, discover things together.

Just an idea:
What we have done in past summers is visit one of the many galleries
of a big museum every week. When we finish with hat museum we
start with another. This has worked out great, because little children,
and those not so little, have benefited the most, and truly enjoy the
visit.
If you have little ones, do not be intimidated, take them too!
Short visits, and lots of talking afterwards will be great for them.
They will learn to love it!
And finally, I have this saying "A visit to the Museum is
never complete until you visit the shop and the café"

Enjoy your little ones, enjoy your journey; remember that all goodness comes from our Heavenly Father!

He goes to the bookshelf and takes out two books, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci  ,who will be (I can already tell), his best friend this summer and a huge one full of Leonardo’s paintings and drawings, and he enjoys this time;  and I see the fruit of a Classical Education at hand. He is following the masters, he has been exposed to them, he knows he can find the best teachers in the books around our home, and he enjoys doing so.

But his best teacher is his Dad, and  now his little sister comes and asks him to  ride her bike with him, he agrees, he has learned this from Dad. He always comes to him.

So Big-brother comes and teaches her to ride her pink bike without the little training wheels, and she smiles, and he does too. And behind the scenes, my older daughter captures the moment, she loves to do so. She comes out from the living room where she has been, behind the piano trying to play by ear a new favorite piece, and grabs the camera and follows the wheels, the smiles, the feet, the joy.

I smile, I have learned by God’s grace to love the simple things that happen in our daily lives. I am grateful, for there could be no other better place for me than this, my home, and God has given me grace to understand that.

I am excited that our summer is here; summer in our home is not meant to put the books away, but to take out our favorite ones again; summer is here and it is about enjoying our children’s play and capturing the moments and keeping them in our hearts.

“O God, I adore You as the Author and Giver of every good and every perfect gift. You are daily loading me with Your benefits. Every returning morning brings with it fresh causes for gratitude—new material for praise. I bless You for Your temporal bounties—”how great has been the sum of them!”

Lord, thank you for friends over for lunch after Church.

Two young men and a Grandfather flying safely home.

My  Beloved’s diligence.

Rain pouring, us holding hands while watching it; and the question in the air; How do you hold so much water in the palm of your hand and let it flow in just a second?

Perfect hail.

Green grass.

Plucking apples and oranges from our trees, and the question again…How can you make grow from a small seed a tree, a flower, a fruit? I know my biology, but to be true, this amazes me. How can this be? Why did you choose to “invent” this beautiful, perfect way to feed us such delicious fruits?

Perfect sandwiches and the so many compliments from my Beloved!

My son’s passion for drawing.

A godly teacher that has inspired him to keep filling his sketchbook.

A delicious frozen key lime pie, a gift from a grateful friend.

Him in a cold, freezing cold room, with me.

Songs of praise.

Poetry that glorifies Him.

A snail and a little girl wondering about it.

Staring a summer of prayer here in our home. (this book, my first companion)

Friends that just finished their first year of homeschooling.

Friends ending a cycle of homeschooling.

Summer reading lists.

Grace Gems

“Lord, this day shine upon me with the light of Your countenance; may every mercy I experience in the course of it be hallowed and sweetened by the thought that it comes from God. And, while ever mindful and thankful in the midst of present mercies, teach me to keep in view the crowning mercy of all—the hope of at last sharing Your presence and full fruition, and of joining in the eternal ascription with the ransomed multitude above, who cease not day nor night to celebrate Your praises.

Bless all near and dear to me. Defend them by your might power.Give them, too, gratitude for mercies past and the sure and well-grounded hope of a glorious inheritance in that better world, where mercy is unmixed with judgment, and joy undarkened by sorrow. And all I ask is for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

“Cause me to hear Your loving-kindness in the morning, for in You do I trust.”

Quotes from Grace Gems