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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

Feasting & Foraging (free for the weekend!) 🍊🌿

October 18, 2019 by HappyGoStuckey Leave a Comment

I wrote a book, called Feasting & Foraging, and I would like to tell you why. 
About a year ago on a Friday night, after an extremely long and hard week, it was suddenly and inexplicably dinner time. I walked into my kitchen to cook dinner and as I stood in front of the fridge, I said out loud– there is nothing in here. 
Nothing. 
I wanted to order pizza or asian or anything else but because we are adults on a budget, I took another look. 


I didn’t find a surprise dinner, perfectly cooked and waiting for us. I didn’t find anything miraculous, but what I did find was building blocks. Pieces of what we did have that would come together to make a meal– a meal that would fill us. Half an hour later, instead of eating cereal or another frozen pizza, (let’s hear it for the quality frozen pizza though, the treasured gift of mothers everywhere,) we ate what would become an end of the week favorite, Fridge Forager Nachos. Half a bag of Multi-grain tortilla chips, half a grilled chicken breast, leftover cheese and a handful of leftover vegetables came together to make our Friday night supper. 

As we sat at the kitchen table peeling crispy chips off the aluminum foil and breaking off edges that sat a little too long under the broiler — it hit me. 
This meal is not miraculous, it is just the result of a second look. 
We weren’t eating dinner because I’m a magician in the kitchen, we ate a decent dinner because we looked again to find what we did have, and went from there. It’s not usually about the food, but the time we spend in the glorious everydayness matters when it points us up to the Giver of our gifts.

I wrote this book because I believe that Gratefulness changes our vision. And I think you believe it too. 
I think that whether you cling to hope or are in a season of needing to be reminded of what grace you hold in your lap, you too believe that perspective makes the difference.


 It is the dance of want and plenty that keeps us twirling from gratefulness to supplication and back again. We need both the days of feasting and the days of foraging to remind us of our longing. Just as it is a particular kind of delight to step back and see God provide for an abject need we’ve had for so long, it is the same with cooking from sparse ingredients. (Feasting & Foraging)

I hope that you know that as I scrawled recipes on scrap paper and tested them countless times, I thought of you in your own home. I thought of you scrambling eggs and finding lost shoes and remembering to pay the water bill and juggling all the things you juggle– and I prayed that this would find you at the right time.

And speaking of time, you can get your own copy of Feasting & Foraging for free this weekend-– It’s essays on food and hope and it’s recipes and photos– and I loved making it for you. I hope that you love it too.

XX, Cynthia

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a tiny percentage for qualifying purchases made as a result of links I share. I will never share products I do not honestly believe you will love.

Hello, July.
Loving Lately in November

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Hey There!

I'm Cynthia and I'm so glad you're here. I am an introvert with an extrovert's love of gathering people together. I love good books and capturing moments. Whether you visit me here or on my own front porch, I'll be the one holding the Iced Coffee for us both.

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happygostuckey

Joy is the courage of people who don’t have all Joy is the courage of people who don’t have all the answers, yet.

While you sit in a season of waiting,
the calendar can often be a cruel companion, reminding you that days go by, weeks, months— with what feels like very little change in the right direction.

Perhaps you can easily assent to: 
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but you strain to see just how it will be when: “...a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Wherever you and I are today— whether we wander, wait, stand firmly planted, or some pressed together combination of all three — we can take heart.

We are not alone.
And this will not be wasted.
What seems to be an unending blank space, an indefinite pause, is a space for new things.

Long before all is made right, and whether or not it all is tied up neatly with a perfectly crafted bow— we can know this:

We do not have to know the outcome to be faithful today.

✨Joy is not disregard for reality as much as it is obstinacy against despair.✨
Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. T Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. There. I said it. These days I’m gravitating to the true & the beautiful as rest for my weary self... and I wonder if you are too.

So much so, that I’m starting a new little offering, it’s called “The Feast: Wonder for the Weary” and the first issue goes out this weekend. It’s a bit more personal (okay this first one is WAY more personal. 🤭) It will be a little bit of everything, all with the goal of offering REST to both the feasters & foragers alike. If you’re already a subscriber— no need to do anything, if not— click through my bio to “keep in touch” and join the feast.✨
We are a people of both lament and praise. We hol We are a people of both lament and praise.

We hold questions without answers— yet we hold them in hands already full of good things.

We hold our daily bread, our daily gifts, and we hold the daily closeness of the God Who Sees.

The God who is no stranger to our lament, and Who Is the reason for our every hope.
He does not grow weary of our asking. Of our need to be told again, He will. 

You friend, are not invisible.
You are seen and cared for by the God who does all things well. (Even when they feel anything but.)
Married love ambition: making the kids roll their Married love ambition: making the kids roll their eyes at our “gushy-ness” as often as possible. 

President & CEO of the Lance Stuckey Fan Club— in every season, but especially on days like today.
Rainy day Mocha date, courtesy of our own toasty k Rainy day Mocha date, courtesy of our own toasty kitchen.😍🌧📚

On this chilly Saturday, we spent entirely too long browsing for books at our library and then all came home to a fire, mochas, and cocoa, respectively. Of all the things we do not know at this very moment, we know the gifts abound, and are worth counting.

PS, if you haven’t spread whipped cream on a foil-lined baking sheet to freeze, and then cut out cute shapes with cookie cutters to top your coffee or hot cocoa, may I suggest you get thee on that at once.
“If God sends us on strong paths, we are provide “If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.” — Corrie Ten Boom

✨File under, things to save in a fire.✨

The prayer journal pictured here contains six months of the hard & the sweet.
Six months of prayers asked & answered for ourselves and for others.
Six months of seeing through prayer, not how it changed our circumstances necessarily but how it changed us.

I always appreciate a record like this— being able to clearly see the paths we are led down, rocky though they may be? Priceless.

The ways God has come near us & drawn us to Himself again and again are written on these pages and I’ll treasure it forever.

Also pictured: Psalms Illuminated Scripture Journal. Highly recommend. Thank you always, @allifarnell
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it th “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

While scrolling through my photos today, my heart was heavy to realize how far back “before” was.

Before masks and distancing, before loss, before other, more personal bits of hard. Multitudinous change, neither all bad nor all good.

With our free time, we’ve introduced our girls to Tolkien, Bilbo, Frodo, and especially Samwise the Brave. They are officially hooked and we are delighted to watch them discover another world where evil doesn’t win, and the courage of the small matters much. {they close their eyes at the Orcs and we haven’t had a nightmare yet!}🤞🏻😂😬
I’m leaning increasingly more into the analog th I’m leaning increasingly more into the analog these days.

It started with the Sourdough and a dozen different kinds of jam last year.
I suddenly find great calm in activities that stand in direction opposition to hurry, the textbook definition of ✨work in progress.✨ And really, if you could see the other side of this piece, you would believe me. 🙃

Thank you to @thebarmyfox for making embroidery so accessible!
@thenester says, “It doesn’t have to be perfec @thenester says, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful,” and I believe that the weeknight meal equivalent is, “Just because it’s easy— doesn’t make it a second-tier supper!”

Thank you, Spaghetti with Meat sauce for being both a ministry to mom AND a crowd pleaser. Especially on a dreary January-ish day. It is ✨quite alright✨ to make something we’ve made a million times just because we know it makes the people happy.🍝
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