Updated Tori

Want to write to Tori?  You can reach me at: secretsshallebb (at) gmail (dot) com  I hope you can figure out what to do with that mess!

Who is Tori!??

I'm striving to be a woman of God.

I am wife of Chef Jessie.

I'm striving to be a Joyful Mother of Children.  I am quiverful.  Once upon a time I balked at the idea of having eight children, but now I feel like I know those who are missing and I ache for them.  I pray for them often and hope that I will be able to grow them within me and safely birth them into this world.  Time will tell if my prayers are a truly righteous desire.

I am a bit of a Jackie-of-all-trades-master-of-none kind of girl. I am pretty darn good with a hook and yarn.  I've been crocheting off and on since I was about 11, I think. I'm 37 now. That's a good long time! I made a little matching jacket, hat, blanket, and a Pooh-n-Friends stuffed animal for each of my first three children. Number 3, 4 and 5 are still waiting for their hats and jackets, but I did finish the blanket for each and a Tigger for 3.

I'm striving to forgive myself for falling short of my own expectations AND not accepting others expectations of me unless they match what I believe the Lord has in mind for me.

I love to write. My blog is a place I am able to release and enjoy this passion.

Painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and other fiber arts are some of my "lost" hobbies. I still yearn to work in them, but the ability and time elude and escape me, for the most part.

I'm becoming interested in baking a lot more.  I have won a couple ribbons at the County Fair for two different recipes.  Pretty fun.

My husband is a Chef. So, I don't attempt much in the way of time consuming (read gourmet) food preparation. I'm much more interested in crowd pleasing (the crowd consists of my four table-food eating kiddos). Thus, the limits on time spent in preparation!

I sometimes enjoy watching movies.  Although I really used to enjoy TV serials, I began to see more and more often that the caliber is just poor.  It's not edifying.

I've been meditating and it has done and continues to do wonders for me!  I'm so grateful to our Awesome God for leading me in this direction, to this technology, and only wish I would've started when I first heard the whispers to begin it.

I'm a chocoholoic who is in recovery.  I've been off the use of it since January 2011.  I hope, someday, that I'll be able to have some again.  But for now, Father directs me to stay away.  So I do.

I'm working to improve my balancing skills.  This includes improving in all the following areas (though not all the time because I'm simply not perfect!): scripture reading/study, focused and purposeful prayer, homeschooling, housekeeping, frugal feeding, building food storage, broadening my preparedness skills, eliminating plastics (ever so slowly!), exercising, relationship improvement and nurturing (ALL of them), and (most importantly and probably inclusive of all previously mentioned) following the Lord's Will and becoming a TRUE Disciple of Christ!

edited January 20, 2014