The Sparrow's Home: Life is hard. God is good. We need each other.

This custom art makes unique family portraits and beautifully personal gifts

November 15, 2021 by Susan Leave a Comment

Get custom art that is totally creative and unique to your family, or give a perfectly personal gift. And you’ll be supporting a gifted young artist, too!

A creative piece of art that makes you happy can be pricey. One that is unique to your family could be priceless.

These are such fun and different display pieces that I have already ordered them as gifts and for my own family. Besides that, it’s always a pleasure to support an artist who is such a delight.

I love pointing people in the direction of things that I love, and I am definitely pointing at this.

Oatmeal Bread: Two soft, easy to slice homemade loaves

October 11, 2021 by Susan 14 Comments

This simple homemade oatmeal sandwich bread smells amazing baking, is easy to slice, and soft and delicious to eat. You’ll be glad the recipe makes two loaves!

Sometimes you just want a good, sliceable, toastable, loaf of bread.

This is that loaf.

It’s perfect for slicing and serving fresh with just about any meal. We like it with butter, honey, or my dad’s homemade strawberry freezer jam. Mmmmmm…

It’s also totally delightful sliced and toasted with Nutella, or peanut butter, or lots of butter and cinnamon-sugar or more jam or honey.

I’m not particularly good at thinly slicing homemade loaves, but if you are…this would make fantastic saandwiches as well. Yum!

The 5 best and worst things you’ll face with your empty nest

August 2, 2021 by Susan 4 Comments

Beginning the empty nest season of life can bring a lot of different emotions. But you might find it is more sweet than bitter.

I expected to be the mother who wept uncontrollably when my children left home.

Turns out… not so much. In fact, kind of the opposite.

My eldest son got married last summer, and my youngest just tied the knot in June.

Don’t get me wrong–there have been moments of deeply missing my children’s presence in my home and of questioning my role as a mother now that they’re gone.

But honestly, overall, this empty nesting business has been more sweet than bitter.

Old-Fashioned Peach Cream Pie: A Fresh and Decadent Bite of Summer

July 5, 2021 by Susan 14 Comments

This simple, classic peach pie recipe is made rich with cream. It’s bursting with summer flavor and is easy to make using just a handful of ingredients.

Peaches kind of scream summer, don’t they?

And there’s something about peach pie that is nostalgic just all by itself. Simple flavors and ingredients, dripping with sweet sentimentality.

But this particular peach pie is particularly nostalgic because it’s my Grandma’s recipe. My childhood summers were spent at my grandparents’ lake cabin and there was always something cooking in the kitchen. Always.

Grandma rolled and dried homemade noodles, fried raised doughnuts, made every variety of cookie from simple sugar cookies to her spicy ginger snaps, baked caramel rolls and custards, and made dumpling soup from her garden vegetables.

Would you be shocked to see the amount of time you spend looking at a screen every day?

June 7, 2021 by Susan Leave a Comment

What would it feel like to see an actual accounting of your daily screen time? Would it match what you say your priorities are, or not so much?

Guest Post

I’m pleased to have my friend Jeremy back to share with you today, and am sure you all will appreciate his honesty on this issue as much as I do . Scroll to the end of the post to see more from him.

From Jeremy:

I did something on a whim the other day. I’m not exactly sure what led me to do it, but perhaps it was a combination of the following things:

The angry glances from my wife.
The feeling of disconnect between those around me.
The frustration of never having enough time.
Or maybe it was a simple observation of my son about his dad.

And what was it I did, you ask? Nothing bad, but something that will hopefully lead to a better husband, father and friend.

I downloaded an app for my phone.

Use these questions to break the ice ‘a Skittle’: An easy ice breaker for people who hate ice breakers.

May 7, 2021 by Susan 9 Comments

Low-pressure questions and candy ease tension and set the stage for people to have fun and get to know one another with this easy ice breaker. *Free Printable*

Ice breakers are not my favorite thing.

But getting to know people is not unpleasant. Candy is not unpleasant.

So when I needed to come up with a new way to engage a class in a sharing activity, my mind went to a couple of other things I’ve done before. (Why re-invent the wheel, right?)

I thought of a question activity where folks got to choose the question they wanted to answer. Because isn’t it always the case that when you get assigned a question, you always wish you had the question someone else gets??

And I thought of an M&M Ice Breaker activity that is a lot of fun. Because…chocolate.

Liking both of these ideas, I decided to combine them to create something new!