If you roll your mouse over the pictures, their titles will pop up, which may help with full understanding! OK, no more words!
Category Archives: Life
Thankful Thursdays #27: our fallen soldiers
I made a thanksgiving resolution to find something to be thankful for every day until next Thanksgiving. Here’s what I am thankful for this week!
Thursday: Dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs! We have made three new puppy friends in our area while taking Jessie on her nightly walk and it is such a joy to pet those wriggling happy bodies over the fences. I think we’re up to 7 dogs on our walk that love us and one that loves to hate us. I melt for those lovers! I used to detest dogs, but now they have a magical power over me. I almost wish I could take them all home, but I’m pretty happy with the stinker we can call our own.
Friday: I’m the treasurer in our home and I made a miscalculation that prepared us for the worst after paying all the bills, but the bottom line was a lot prettier than I had expected once the last check was mailed. Facing a bigger balance than we have had in several weeks after expecting to live off canned goods was a pleasant surprise! Thankfully I don’t make the other kind of miscalculation too often.
Saturday: To get the grocery shopping done ON TIME! Saturday is grocery day but we’ve skipped it for two or three weeks now, which has led us to eat out more often that we should have, which has led us to have less money than we should have. Thankfully, we had a free day with nothing scheduled so we could use it for errands and chores. Hahaha, did I just say “thankfully” right before “errands and chores?!” What is wrong with me? lol
Sunday: That my Dad’s foot, which has been giving him a lot of trouble, has healed enough that he can walk without the assistance of a walker. This is good, because the chances of getting him to the doctor other than for his quarterly check-ups is .001%.
Monday: For those who lost their lives fighting for the quality of ours.
And to spend a day with dear, dear friends.
Tuesday: Free tickets to a Wingnuts (Wichita’s baseball team) game! Wingnuts won 6 to 2 and we had a great time.
Wednesday: Grilled burgers. Amen.
Thursday Thanksgivings #26: a new church building!
Thursday Thanksgivings will be a continuation of a weekly post I started on my weight loss blog and am moving here, in which I recap what I am thankful for every day of the week. I used to post them on Tuesdays, so this first one will be a little longer.
I made a thanksgiving resolution to find something to be thankful for every day until next Thanksgiving. Here’s what I am thankful for this week!
Wednesday: It was announced at church that it is official: negotiations have settled and we are getting the new building we put an offer in for!! Pillar church of Christ formed in 2008 and we have been in a strip mall nearly the entire time. We first tore down a wall to make more room as we grew, and now just squeeze in tighter to one another, adding chairs as necessary, as members and visitors are added weekly. Hallelujah, praise Jehovah! I’m excited to have a larger classroom for the toddler Bible class–right now we are squeezed into what was turned into a storage room before a toddler class was necessary. We started with just one Bible class for preschoolers, and now we have three classes in addition to the adults, filling all the spare rooms in our tiny space ! We planted seeds in our community, appealing to those who want to learn from God’s word as it is written, and God has definitely provided the increase. Thank you, Lord!
Jerry's wife, Jenni, took this picture as we began to file in for the gospel meeting on Wednesday night. The lesson this night was on how we can improve our home life by applying Bible principles.
Thursday: I got off work a little early so I had time to bake a cake between work and the gospel meeting that night. I’m a big fan of down time, as well as cake time. :)
Friday: This was the last day of the week’s gospel meeting, and I am so thankful for brother Jerry Crolius for traveling from Arkansas to bring us such wonderful lessons from God’s word. The lessons were edifying and it’s so encouraging and uplifting to be in the daily presence of Christian brethren. As soon as you walk through the door, it’s smiles and hugs all around!
Saturday: I fit into a pair shorts I hardly dared to try on since I haven’t been able to wear them in two years! I was also thankful for my husband, for coming with me to walk a 5K and annoying me the whole time. (Annoying me is how he gets his kicks, and secretly I find it amusing too.) He makes things so much more fun!
Wearing my old shorts and hugging cake pops...yes, you can lose weight while eating cake pops! Real girls eat cake...and count the points. :)
Sunday: Do you ever have days where you plan every minute of it and realize you don’t have any spare time leftover just to relax? That was Sunday! We were giving a brother a ride to and from church for both services, had the worship services themselves (we meet twice on Sunday, once in the morning and once in the evening), I wanted to stop by a dairy-allergic friend’s house after the morning service to drop some cake pops off, another brother wanted us to follow him to a sister’s house to deliver a care package we helped pay for, we had a house warming to go to, and I needed to get to my Dad’s house to lay out his medicine for the week, go through his mail, and pay the bills. We needed to go grocery shopping too but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. God must have been smiling down on us, for things worked out to where we actually had a couple hours of down time and I was so thankful just to have them and squander them as I pleased!
Monday: A devastating mile-wide tornado swept through Joplin, MO, destroying a third of the city. Most of you have probably seen pictures and coverage of the aftermath. It is horrific. My maternal grandparents live with my uncle in Joplin, so when I found out about it on Monday, I called them with my heart in my throat. The first call didn’t go through and I thought for sure they’d been hit and the phone lines were down. I tried again and the call went through. Uncle David informed me that they are all doing fine and they were fortunate because their home wasn’t hit. It was close but did no damage to their property. Great Aunt Mary’s home was destroyed so she and her husband are living with my grandparents right now, but thank God everyone survived. The death toll is at 122 right now, and there are many affected families who need our prayers. Click here to find out how you can help financially.
Tuesday: Not a great day, but I’m so thankful that I was able to finish my enormous recipe index! I started working on it a year ago so it’s about time.
Wednesday: That I only burned the tar out of ONE of my hands with boiling honey. In the haze of recovering from low blood sugar, I put a partially crystallized bottle in the microwave to make some of my favorite muffins (recipe coming next week) and forgot about it. It was boiling and the container was shrunken when I removed it and when I went to pour it, it bubbled up and exploded on my hand! OwieEEEEEEEEEE! I was unable to use my left hand most of the day, as it hurt to touch anything, which also makes me thankful to have hands in the first place. Often we take what we have for granted and don’t truly appreciate them until we realize how hard life is without them! Thankfully, the pain has subsided and I’m able to type again so I can get this posted on time. :)
Thankfully the picture looks better than real life. I have 5 blisters now, one on my pinky and the others all on my thumb and the web between my thumb and index finger.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time my left hand has suffered a serious burn. Upon closer inspection, you can still make out scars on my fingertips where I pulled a loaf pan out of the oven without mitts as a kid (duh!), and you can still see the scar I got when I planted my hand on a space heater to stand at six months old. I’m so glad I can’t remember that! Guess there’s a reason I was known as the “burn victim” growing up. All I can say is, thank God I haven’t singed off my fingers yet! LOL, I’m a mess.
What are you thankful for today or this week?
Thankful
On Thursday, I will begin a “Thursday Thanksgivings” series in which I list what I am thankful for each day of the past week. I started this endeavor on my weight loss blog and wanted to copy the original post that started it all onto Veronica’s Cornucopia so you will have the story and the background behind my thanksgiving resolution.
Posted on November 25, 2010
I adore this picture. The big, genuine smiles. My husband took it while my mother-in-law and I were preparing scalloped potatoes from her old recipe file that she’s had since she got married 48 years ago.
Phyllis is one thing that I’m hugely grateful for on this day of thanks. Making scalloped potatoes with her makes me happy in such a ridiculous way that is hard to describe. I won’t get into my childhood, but let’s just say that Phyllis is the kind of mother I always wanted and I’m so thankful to have her in my life now. I’m thankful for my own mother as well, who I know loves me dearly, but it is much more difficult to find this deep-seated happiness when sharing a kitchen with her.
Our scalloped potatoes (in the red dish) turned au gratin with the addition of some Velveeta. Also pictured: sweet potatoes (two kinds), scalloped turnips, and smoked turkey.Today was a good day. God has blessed all of us abundantly, and recognizing these blessings is something I need to do more often. Therefore, I have decided to make a Thanksgiving resolution. From now until Thanksgiving next year, I’m going to find something to be thankful for every day and do a recap every week to keep myself accountable to this resolution. Here’s to more enjoying what I have and less complaining about what I don’t!
Past weekly thanksgivings can be found here.
Weight Watchers Walk-It 5K
Saturday morning, my husband and I dragged ourselves out of bed sporting eye bags heavy enough to weigh down our faces so that we could participate in the Weight Watchers Walk-It 5K at Sedgwick County park. I was so tired that I probably would have gone back to bed if I hadn’t bought a shirt, but I didn’t pay $17 for a special hot pink Walk-It shirt just to sleep through the 5K. Funny, the things that can motivate you.
I fueled the upcoming walk with my favorite fruit. Mango!
We arrived a few minutes late, and I was told my leader, Marsha, wasn’t that far ahead so I made up my mind that we were going to catch up to walk the 5K with her. I really wanted to introduce her to my husband because they both have a great sense of humor and I knew they’d get along famously. Dennis tried to talk me into running, but the woman is in her seventies and I thought if we walked really fast we’d catch up easily. Boy, was I wrong!
Notice the lack of people? They’re out of sight in the far distance with Marsha in the lead. I liked the way the sun was streaming through pockets in the clouds. The clouds were moving quickly and that heavenly searchlight forged along in a steady stream–quite a sight to behold!
Marsha became my figurative carrot on the end of a stick and we walked like a house afire to try and catch up to her. (I’m not sure how a house afire walks, but apparently it’s very fast because Grandma Millner always used that expression when observing someone walking quickly.) Have you ever walked so fast that it felt like it would be easier to just take off running? Usually when I get to that point, I go ahead and start running, but everyone else was walking except the few radicals that weren’t in our Weight Watchers group, and I didn’t want to attract any more attention than Dennis’ amazing bedhead (I don’t know how he does it, but he wakes up with the same exact hair sticking up every morning!) and my racoon eyes were drawing already.
I know what you’re thinking, but the wind wasn’t blowing.
I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not related to a basset hound. Doesn’t the background look just like you imagine the Kansas prairie looked before the first settlers?
We passed people. And passed more people. Some I recognized from my meetings and I asked each group if they’d seen Marsha and every one of them laughed and wished me luck catching up. Apparently Marsha has a reputation for being a very fast walker, so we kept our speed up and our eyes on the horizon, hoping for a glimpse of her, but I never even caught sight of my carrot. But having that carrot definitely made me work harder to finish the 5K than I normally would have.
I have a unique ability to appear as if I’m moving at the speed of molasses in photos, even when I’m running! Despite the posed look of this photo, I promise I was bookin’. I had Dennis run way ahead to take a pic so that I wouldn’t have to slow down. I had a carrot to catch!
GASP! I see babies!
How dare these runners buck the system and pass us during a WALKING challenge?! The nerve.
By the time we finished, I was sore! Dennis grabbed the camera while I was stretching, so I raised my arm for a victory pose. (I think I may have invented a new yoga stance! Or is this one taken already?) I guess my eye bags were too heavy for me to keep my lids open at this point.
Dennis wanted to show off his flexibility as well. You never know what sort of pictures you’ll have after he gets a hold of the camera!
You never cease to amaze me, honey. ;)
Dennis had to see how he fared on the Möbius strip in the park before we left.
LOL, I adore that goof! Crazy bedhead and all.
Dennis awarded his hard work and support of me (thank you, honey! You rock.) with his favorite fruit, a raspberry bismarck. :)
And I went for a yummy fat-free vanilla cappucino, probably my favorite coffee drink as long as it’s not from Starbucks. Sue me, but I prefer Dillons or Quik Trip.
Although anti-climactic, since I never caught up to Marsha, I thoroughly enjoyed power walking a 5K and the sore feeling that still resides in my hips and thighs reminds me of the only part of working out I enjoy–that lovely sore and spent feeling afterward. I really need to get my cardio back on–it’s been hibernating for several months now and I can tell my fitness level has suffered! I know that saying “some day” means you’ll never do it, but….some day. :)
Pressing related questions (pick one, answer all, or ignore–up to you!): Have you ever heard or used the expression “like a house afire?” What motivates you to push yourself during a workout? What’s your favorite fruit? Any fellow Starbucks haters out there?
April Fools! My Kitchen Disastrophies In Review
I know I said I was done posting until I return from Texas, but I couldn’t resist having a little fun before I leave. Instead of playing a joke on my lovely readers today (though I admit, I would have liked to if I’d had more time to ponder a really good one), I thought I’d let you in on the fool I am in the kitchen at times. Let’s have a laugh at my expense, shall we?
Maybe the bride will appreciate that I made a peace sign in her wedding cake?
Cinnamon rolls that were just that bad. Yes, it really is possible.
I hate bread failures because it takes so long to make it that when you have no reward, it is a major let down. You think this loaf looks bad? You should have tasted it. It tasted like sin feels.
Nothin’ a truck-load of ganache won’t fix!
I’m pretty sure these sweet potato cinnamon brownies are served in hell. My husband has never fully recovered from his first bite.
The only thing worse than Clean Eating’s Sweet Potato Cinnamon Brownies could possibly be Rocco DiSpirito’s Black Bean Brownies. Please. Just say no to Rocco’s brownies. Try his mac and cheese instead.
No, these aren’t fancy piles of intestines…or the stuff that comes out of intestines in a horrifying color. But these sugar roses would have been great if I needed to decorate a really morbid cake.
Seriously, have you ever seen blonde peanut brittle in your life? Major fail. Couldn’t hardly pull your teeth back apart once you chomped down. And the raw nuts? Not such a great idea.
My mangled Razzcherry Pie. I made this for a pie competition at the state fair and somehow managed to drop it when I was boxing it up. I caught it upside down on my hand…and still submitted it for judging. Needless to say, it didn’t place and the judges wrote “practice doing your lattice work” on my paper. LOL!
I know it looks like bruised chunk of raw chicken breast underneath the coating, but it’s actually a strawberry petit four with a big icing failure covering it. After several experiments, I finally came up with a beautiful and delicious petit four coating and maybe some day I’ll get around to blogging it. Anyone interested?
Chunks of concrete, aka Irish Soda Bread fail.
This is after I pulled out the largest chunks of potato. A word of advice: don’t try baking potatoes at the same time you’re baking a cake. Or if you do, poke them first. Because if you don’t, they will totally explode all over your cake and potato chunks will totally land in your cake batter.
And my biggest fail….
A July 4th wedding cake order gone terribly wrong. Worse happened after this. Yes, it is possible. So glad I quit making cakes!
How about you guys? Pulling any pranks today? What is your biggest kitchen failure?
Veronica's Cornucopia 
