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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

On Being Settled & Apple Crisp

October 27, 2017 by HappyGoStuckey 5 Comments

When we moved to Georgia several years ago, we left North Carolina at the height of a colorful Fall. Admittedly, I was afraid that the classic Autumn patchwork I loved would not show up in the South.

But I was completely wrong.

Three days after we moved into our new home, a parking lot made me cry. In my new favorite spot at my brand new Target, I shut off the car and looked up– straight into a row of fiery red trees. Hot, happy tears brimmed my eyes. Because as crazy as it is, I thought we were moving away from a proper Fall — and I was more than happy to be surprised.

In seven Autumns, I have been educated on all the things that surprised me about that first season. I know that our house requires sweaters and cozy socks beginning in early November. I now know what shade of blue an October sky is. I know that Halloween is often balmy and warm. And by the time I stand in the kitchen amidst pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce– our backyard is ten thousand show-offs of a finally realized Autumn.

With every single October that starts steamy and ends crisp & colorful– I am home all over again.

In all this slow realization that I am more settled with each season, I find the deep desire to relish my today. To know that I mustn’t cling where I haven’t been grounded. To remember that God is good, no matter how I feel.

Do you know how it is to be caught between a once home and a not-quite? I do. I’m not in that place of change anymore, but I might find myself there again one day. That knowledge makes me want to be the one who speaks into the places you’re feeling green, and new, and not yet comfortable. I want to tell you it’s ok even if it isn’t easy yet.

Because it takes time to make a place in a new location. Our hearts need room to settle slowly, one new memory at a time.

We do different things now than we did back then. Our Sundays are different. Our Saturday mornings, too. Our coffee shop has changed and changed again. But in the years that we’ve learned the song of our opening kitchen door, we have found it– the familiarity of place-making. Still, I feel like home is more an act of surrender than it is an address on our electric bill.

You might feel that– at least the painful part of the surrender. You know it doesn’t always come easily. Sometimes the work is in the love that we choose for the place we are given. We make accidental memories and then return to them again like a child in a twirl. Sometimes we build it with conscious decisions to celebrate the present. Other times it is built in us despite our desire to run away, back to what was familiar.

But I know that even when we are not yet comfortable, God is good. I know that when we would choose to change a thousand things, He is doing a thousand things deep within us. In that place that is only uncovered in the uncomfortable, He is at work. And He can be trusted.

*******

One of our family’s accidental traditions has grown into a brief, yearly trip to the Georgia Mountains. This year we picked apples in late summer and hiked and rested and laughed until the very last minute was over. My sweet mother in law made this delicious Cinnamon Apple Crisp and we’ve made it three times since then. See what I did there? Accidental tradition. It’s warm and simple and spiced and delicious. Make it. You won’t regret it.

Print
Apple Crisp
Author: Cynthia Stuckey
Prep time:  10 mins
Cook time:  30 mins
Total time:  40 mins
Serves: 8-10 servings
 
Ingredients
  • ⅔ cup melted butter
  • 7 cups sliced, peeled, cored apples
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 cup chopped pecans
  • ⅔ cup All purpose flour
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp white or raw sugar
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon plus ½ tsp cinnamon
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 375' F
  2. Butter or spray a 13x9 Glass Baking Dish
  3. Layer apples in the bottom of the dish, sprinkle with lemon juice, tbsp of sugar and ½ tsp cinnamon
  4. In a large bowl, combine flour, pecans, brown sugar, salt, oats, melted butter, and cinnamon. Mix.
  5. Sprinkle topping evenly over apples
  6. Bake for 30-35 minutes until light brown.
  7. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
3.5.3228

 

Roasted Vegetables (they’re simpler than you might think.)
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Comments

  1. Rachel says

    October 27, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    I’m in a green place right now and this is a good word from a good girl. Thanks, Cynthia ? also – I am excited to make this Apple crisp!

    Reply
    • HappyGoStuckey says

      November 3, 2017 at 4:18 pm

      Thank you so much, friend. I hope that green place deepens with time. <3 Much Love!

      Reply
  2. Sonya Earnest says

    November 8, 2017 at 5:44 pm

    God spoke to my heart through your words. We moved September 9th from a 4 bedroom house in a neighborhood to 13 acres w/ pond & a 2 bedroom trailer. Our plans are to build a house but in the meantime…..!!!
    Different seasons take some adjusting but I’m learning. Thanks for your encouraging words.

    Reply
  3. Amy says

    September 20, 2018 at 11:02 am

    Cynthia, what a beautiful testament to home and place. I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to do it.

    Can’t wait for the apple crisp to spread cinnamon perfume all over my house. 🤤

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. What I Learned & Loved in the Fall. says:
    November 30, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    […] Four. With every single October here that starts sweltering and ends crisp & colorful– I am ho…. We celebrated our seventh anniversary of moving to Georgia this fall and each year it seems I learn a new lesson about surrender and finding and making home. This year’s lesson was a quieter one. A more peaceful head nod at how far God has brought us in our place-making, how much more delight I find with every new autumn. I feel more alive in the fall. I just do, and it seems that our initial surrender has deepened into a slow contented sigh. […]

    Reply

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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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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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