Valentine’s Day! Humph! I am not a super huge fan. As Justine, at Traveling By Faith, calls it Valentine’s Day AKA Single Awareness Day. Justine called for a Valentine’s Day Prayer Challenge for Single Women. I am not sure that Valentine’s Day gets any better for those of us who are not single. It just adds…
Children of Addicts: Who Is Parenting the Children?
I remember kneeling to pray between the doors to my two boys rooms. Who is parenting the children I thought. Children of addicts struggle with the long-term effects of family trauma. Lord, I cried out, “I don’t know what to do. I am an angry exhausted parent. I say things I don’t mean, get frustrated…
Resources for Children in Addictive Families
My first child laughed a lot. The angry tension between his Dad and I only made him laugh more. At times this calmed us down and we laughed too. According to the Mayo Clinic laughter can: Stimulate many organs. Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles, and increases the…
I am Not My Addiction: God Says I Am
I am not my addiction. I am a child of God. Hello, My name is Tanya and I am a codependent. Hello, my name is Sally and I am an alcoholic. Phrases so iconic in our culture that anyone can finish the sentence for you. God never design me to be anything but his child. When…
Giving Out of Nothing: God Provides for Widows
My second marriage sat crumbling in the corner of our big, big house. Going forward one more day took extra effort on my part. God provides for widows and orphans. Yet, I was not a widow. No instead addiction just walked off with my husband and marriage at Christmas a month earlier. Not a widow…
12 Step APPs Work the AA Twelve Steps on Your Smart Phone, Read This!
The last thing I want, after I hop into my cozy bed at night to do my daily 10th step work, is to have to get up and look for my pen and my journal. Uggh, it is cold here at night in Colorado 9 months out of the year. These 12 step apps simplify…
Calling An Addiction Intervention Specialist
I just did it one day. I called the Addiction Intervention Specialist. lAfter reading Why Don’t They Just Quit: Hope for Families Struggling with Addiction, I just picked up the phone and called Joe Herzanek. I sat on that ordinary day with no big crisis looming and listened to Joe talk truth to me. Joe introduced me in his…
The Year Addiction Stole Christmas
It all feels like an upside-down fairy tale as I share with you about the year addiction stole Christmas. In a book for children,Beamer’s World, addiction is personified as a “joker” style villain. Not super scary, he is a creepy and sinister looking man that seems to appear everywhere. Addiction feels like this, lurking in…
Five Little Tricks For The Best Gingerbread House Decorating
Run, run, run, running down the side of the gingerbread house! Icing that runs, candy that smears, cookies that break, squeeze the fun out of gingerbread house decorating. Cracked gingerbread cookies still taste yummy but lose the effect. Confronting sticky gingerbread dough to non-hardening frosting frustrates even a seasoned baker. 5 Tips to Produce a…
How to make a Vintage Camper Gingerbread
In 2013 my husband and I focused on restoring our marriage after an almost two-year separation. We chose to restore a vintage camper as a “working together” marriage project. From that sprang the winter of vintage camper gingerbread (need a gift for a Vintage Camper Lover look here). We Need your Vote to Win- Please vote…