Menu Plan Monday - Week of March 31st

Last week's meals were a little mixed up for last week, so I am carrying over some to this week. First of all Dad ending up eating in town Monday noon and then Tuesday Dad and Jena went to Garden City for some things and were gone til afternoon. So I scooted some meals earlier in the week to later in the week! :)

So here is what we are eating for dinner this week:

Monday - leftover enchiladas from last week, garlic bread, peas

Tuesday - taco salad, boiled eggs

Wednesday - hamb. pizza, green beans

Thursday - fish/shrimp/tater tots, mixed veggies

Friday - BBQ Chicken, bread, corn, baked potatoes

Saturday - tuna casserole, bread roll, broccoli w/ cheese

Sunday - We are going to Oklahoma on Sunday, so we'll be gone for dinner.

Check out OrgJunkie for more great recipe ideas!

Final photo of Army of God

A couple final pictures of our "Army of God" for kid's club on Wednesday nights. Yesterday evening we started a new series on creation, which will go through the end of this semester.

The source of pink!

Now I know why there are little bits of pink on the floor that I keep picking up! Big surprise! :)

Menu Plan Monday

I've wanted to start posting my weekly menu that I plan for a while, but haven't started until now. I always enjoy seeing what others have posted and always get lots of new recipes and ideas!

I plan and type up the menu for all our meals - breakfast, dinner, supper - for the week, print it and stick it to the fridge. That way Jena know what to fix for dinner or supper if I am gone and Dad also knows what is for breakfast each day. It works well for us and is much easier for me to plan out meals Sunday afternoon than try to come up with something the night before.

Breakfast at our house is not too interesting since I have something planned for Dad for each day of the week and Jena and I are on our own for breakfast. Dad eats earlier than we do, since he gets outside early to check cattle.

Supper usually consists of sandwiches or leftovers in the fridge from the week. We always put peanut butter, fruit, carrots and such on the table in addition to something more substantial for Dad to eat. Jena and I are not big supper eaters, so usually fruit and veggies are our daily supper routine. Except on an occasional Sunday night that I eat popcorn for supper! ;)

So here is what we are eating for dinner this week:

Monday - Potato & corn casserole (I pulled this out of the freezer since Jena is working and I'll be teaching class tomorrow. I always keep things in the freezer for meals when Dad is home by himself.)

Tuesday - ham, cheesy hash brown potatoes, green beans

Wednesday - taco salad, garlic bread

Thursday - hamb. pizza, bread roll, broccoli w/ cheese

Friday - beef enchiladas, bread roll, peas

Saturday - tuna casserole, bread roll, mixed veggies

Sunday - church dinner (I plan to take lasagna, which I'll make Saturday night.)

Be sure to check out the links on Laura's blog for lots of great menu ideas!

Perfect supper combination!!!

The perfect supper combination and my three very most important food groups - diet mountain dew, popcorn and strawberry shortcake!!!

Yummy!!!! :)

Easter Sunday craft

For our Sunday School craft, we did this. I originally found an Easter kit with the tomb, Jesus and such, but when I put the kit together, it was a bit of a challenge, so I knew my SS class wouldn't be able to do it. I changed it around and put it together on a sheet of paper and they enjoyed putting it together as we read the story of Christ's death and resurrection from the Bible.

The Cross Upon the Hill

Last night as I knelt down at my bed to pray
I was overwhelmed with all God had given me that day.
I began to look back at the yesterdays I'd been given
And I had to marvel at why I had been forgiven.

I have done so many things, too shameful to recall
And yet Jesus died to make atonement for them all!
I know I'm so unworthy, so much I've left undone
But to think I've been forgiven by God's only begotten Son!

When I look into the mirror it takes away my breath
Because I am a sinner and responsible for His death,
For wasn't it my sins too that nailed Him to the cross?
So why did Jesus die for me knowing I am nothing but a loss?
How could He love this wretch I am, this wretch I'll always be?
Why would Jesus give His life for a sinner such as me?

God spoke to my heart in a voice tender and mild,
"All this I have done for you because you are my dear child.
Your sins have been forgiven for Jesus took your place."
On Calvary this was done for me by the Father's grace.

Though I don't deserve it, never have and never will,
I know I have been forgiven because the cross upon the hill.

Author Unknown

Inspiration from Cath's Corner

Photo from www.allposters.com

Finally finished among other things

I've been working on completing my tax information for over a month. Well, I actually didn't work on it for an entire month, just off and on during that time. I hunted up all 2007 invoices, orders, files and paperwork and camped out on the dining room table starting in February.

I spent a day on it then, filing and organizing and figuring my income. Since I have multiple sources, it makes it a bit of a challenge. Then I spent another day, figuring expenses, what I can and can't deduct as a business expense, depreciation on my equipment and such. Some of their terminology I just cannot understand...it is totally foreign to me, but hopefully everything is figured correctly.

And finally last night I entered the last bit on the computer and hit the send button!!! Hip, hip, hooray...done for another year! As Dad said last night, "You've been working on that for quite a while."

Yep, it sure seems like it. Now I can file away all my paperwork and have a cleaned up dining room table.

We are having an Easter brunch tomorrow morning at church, so I made a coffee cake this evening for that. And then I made a pound cake since Jena bought strawberries home this week. Jena has to work tomorrow, so it will just be Dad and I that are home. But I'm still going to fix a ham and scallop potatoes for lunch. I ran out of ham in the freezer, so that will leave some for us to eat this week and then I will freeze the rest.

I'm planning to put the ham in the oven and potato casserole in the crock pot before church tomorrow and then it should be ready when we get home. I've been on a hash brown potato recipe kick for the last several weeks. I've been trying out several new recipes involving hash browns, but I think this is the last one for a while. Dad will probably be glad to hear that; it's likely he's getting tired of hash browns! :)

With everything done and ready for tomorrow, I'm sitting here watching the Ten Commandments while answering some email and catching up on most of the blogs that I read regularly.

Out with the boots and in with the sandles!

Yesterday I went to Dodge to meet with a couple of clients for dresses I am making for weddings in June and the weather was so warm, very windy, but warm. I was able to wear short sleeves and even got out my sandals to wear.

I store my shoes in shoe boxes at the bottom of my sweater closet. So I had to dig through my boxes looking for my pair of brown sandals, which of course, were in the bottom box, the last one I looked in.

But the great and wonderful thing is that I can put away my boots and winter shoes and get out all my sandals! It's only the middle of March, so I'm sure we will still have some cold weather, but at least sandal-wearing weather is on the way!

I actually won something!! :)

I actually won something! Of all the bloggy giveaways I've entered, I never have actually won something until now! A couple weeks ago, I was delighted to receive an email in my Inbox saying I was a winner.

And then this week, here is what came in the mail: a matching bracelet and earrings in one of my favorite colors - blue! I have a tough time finding smaller sized bracelets that will not fall of my narrow wrist, but the size of this one is just perfect!! Thanks, Brittany!! :)

Brittany creates such beautiful jewelry and you can buy some of her wonderful pieces. Be sure to take a peek! :)

Dad & Lady

Right before lunch I looked outside to see where Dad was and found this as I looked out the front window. Dad has stopped picking up tree limbs to talk to the mailman and Lady is right there beside him, taking a break! For the 10 minutes or so Dad stood talking, she just sat right there, waiting for him to get back to work!

It just made me laugh!! :)

"Don't interrupt the teacher!"

This is just pretty comical. I had an "assistant rule administrator" in Sunday School this morning and being only 7 years old, she actually did very well! :)

I have two boys in class that are rather active and very talkative. They come in and want to tell me everything they have done this week. They stumble over each other trying to talk to me. Anyway, I have been working with them to not interrupt me when I'm talking.

We had just started reviewing our memory verse when one of the girls in my class said very emphatically to the boys, "Don't interrupt the teacher when she is talking! That is not very polite!"

It did manage to get the boys attention and I'm just standing there, trying not to burst out laughing! :)

Don't do what I did...

Computer batteries...got to have them! Last summer I ordered a new computer battery for two reasons - (1) I didn't want to be without one if this one gave out and (2) this one was holding power for only about 45 minutes, so I wanted one with a longer life time.

I received the one I ordered, inserted it in my computer to make sure it fit and my little battery light lit up. It did. So I packed it away for when I would need it in the future. I wanted to continue to use my old one until I could stand it no longer.

Last week I decided it was time to get out the new battery as my current one was only holding power for about 15 minutes. I put it in, let it charge overnight and the next morning it wasn't charged at all.

Ok, I didn't have it in correctly. Put it back in, make sure the little arrow is saying it's charging and I came back several hours later with still an uncharged battery.

Next option: give it to Dad to fix. After all he fixed my electric cord, so why couldn't he fix a broken battery? After messing with it several times, Dad could not figure out why it wasn't working, so his suggestion was to just get a new one saying, "They aren't that expensive, are they?"

Ummm.....yes, they are. If any of you have replaced computer batteries you know they are anywhere from $50-$150.

But I don't know what else to do, except to order a new one. Since I ordered this one last summer and most return policies are only 30, 60 or 90 days, I very much doubt I would be able to return it since it's now been almost 8 months. But I am going to hunt up my receipt and email the company, explain the situation and see if they will replace it.

For an item that cost me around $80-$90 (which is a bargain) as I recall, it's worth an email to see if they will replace it.

If you ever get a new battery, be sure to plug it in, fully charge it and make sure it holds the charge within a couple weeks of receiving it. I know I will from now on.

The week in review: locked keys, army of God, Grandma and cattle

This week seemed full and eventful until this afternoon. I guess every week is full and busy, so I'm not quite sure why I'm say that this week was that way, but anyway here's a bit of my week!

Monday - I taught my afternoon/evening local quilt class in Dodge City. It was a longer day since our class in the evening finished a little later than usual and I didn't get home until 10:30 pm. Partly because as we were packing everything up in my car, I locked my keys in my trunk. And...um...that happened not 10 minutes after another gal handed me my car keys saying that I should hold onto them because she locked her keys in her trunk a couple weeks ago. She gave them to me and guess what I did??? Yep, locked them in my trunk! And do you know how hard it is looking around for car keys in the middle of a dark parking lot? Let's say I was glad to get home! :)

Tuesday - An uneventful, normal day spent at my computer. Despite the fact that this was the day I became so frustrated at my Internet browser, I was able to get lots of computer work caught up.

Wednesday - This was our last night for studying the armor of God for kid's club. We did a review game, breaking up into two teams with each team answering a correct answer getting to tape armor on themselves. Quite exciting to be able to tape a helmet to your head, belt to your waist, shoes to your feet and sword in hand! The kids enjoyed it and hopefully learned lots. I have our finished army photos that I'll post this weekend. Next week is Spring Break, so we won't have kid's club.

Thursday - I actually spent the day sewing and embroidering on my new quilt! Exciting, exciting!!! It's actually the same quilt pattern I made last year, but with new fabrics. Since I am teaching another online class starting in April, I am stitching another quilt.

Friday - This morning was a rush to get dressed and ready, answer business email, get all my orders shipped and put lunch together in the crock pot before I had to take Grandma to Dodge at 9 am for a Dr. appt. I had to rethink my thoughts on switching to Firefox as when I was rushing to get shipping labels printed, my FF browser froze twice and I ended up switching back to IE to finish printing labels.

Anyway, I did manage to get everything done before Grandma was here a little before 9. She is doing much better since her accident, but needed new glasses since hers were a little mangled and lens less. Did her eye appt., picked out new frames, ran some errands and made it back home by 2pm.

I came home and Dad said that a cow had twins last night and both were dead. Why, he doesn't know. But that's the first calf we lost this year. And the first time we have had twin calves in 7 or 8 years. We've only had one pair of twins and we named then Snaps and Snoops. Cute, huh?

That was back years ago when us girls had names for each and every cow and named every new calf that was born. We came up with some fun and exciting names such as Whitey (never forget her...she chased Dad and us girls up a fence more than once), Peaches, Apple, Bossy, Skeleton, Fuzzface, Baldy, Pumpkin, Popcorn, Blackie, Big Mama and the list goes on....

We had a little book where we kept names written down and when a new calf was born, we'd pull out that book and choose a name. We did that for several years and were able to keep track of which calf belonged to which cow. That was much more exciting than how Dad identifies cows now, such as #43 or black cow or blue ear tag.....:) And he doesn't even bother with naming the calves! Fun times and great memories! :)

California decision on homeschooling

I've been seeing lots of posts around Christian sites and blogs dealing with California's recent decision regarding homeschooling. It's sad to see the courts hand down this ruling and it's scary to think that there may be other states to follow in the near future.

Crystal has an excellent post which is well worth reading for more insight into the issue regarding California homeschoolers. Be sure to pray for those involved in this battle and sign the HSLDA petition.

Internet Explorer or Firefox - Which one is best?

I have used Internet Explorer as my Internet browser for years, but this week I have just been a little frustrated with it. I know Firefox is a better browser, but I like some things in IE and am used to using it, so I haven't made the switch.

But this week I did. I was so aggravated with IE. I had several windows open (yes, they also had several tabs open) and all of a sudden, without any warning or reason (I'm sure there is a deep down, hidden reason which is totally beyond my understanding, but in my opinion, no reason) it just closes.

Yes, I'm serious, just closes. I'm typing away and suddenly am seeing my desktop. What happened, I had no clue. And it was no fun getting my windows back on my screen for what I was working on.

I have everything back up, get started typing again and in another few minutes, it happens again. I'm sitting at my computer, typing away and looking at my desktop.

Ok, I decided to quit for a while, do something else, non-computer related and come back to it later. Good plan. Except when I come back later and am very careful to only open one IE window with only a couple of tabs with different sites open, it still happens.

At this point, I am really, I mean really frustrated and I decide I'm moving my browsing to FF. I'm able to get all my windows open with multiple tabs and able to get my task accomplished in actually less time than it would have taken me in IE.

I've been using FF this week for blogging and it is so much easier to load photos and edit posts in Blogger than doing it in IE. There are other websites I would rather use IE for, so I guess I'm split between the two.

I still like IE for some things, but FF is much easier for blogging, so do I stick with IE and just deal with the hassles or do I start using FF and get more familiar with it. One of my drawbacks, I know with FF is that it will take me a little while to get my toolbars and such set up so my sites are easy to get to. But I can do that.

One thing I did like about FF was this little message:

The electricity flickered, which shut off my computer right in the middle of what I was doing and when I restarted FF, this is the question I was asked, "Would you like to restore the tabs and windows from your previous session?" WOW!!! I clicked the Restore Session button and what do you know - my windows and tabs that I had open appeared! I like that!!! :)

I think I will start using FF more and more and see how things go. I know it's the better browser, so I really will probably save myself some time and energy just switching over.

My question for you: What browser to you use and do you like using it?

Can you fix this?

It never seems to fail. When I need something fixed, usually Dad can do it! Like today.

Last night for some reason I had trouble sleeping (I'm not quite sure why, since I usually am so tired, I don't struggle with lying awake at night). But anyway last night, between waking up what seemed like every 30 minutes, I heard a chewing noise. Yep, a chewing noise.

Before I go any further you have to know a few things:

--Skittles sleeps on my bed every night.

--She is not a kitten anymore, but still behaves like one.

--My computer sits at the end of my bed every night, plugged into the outlet next to my bed.

Are you starting to get the picture?

I sat up in bed, saw her at the end of the bed where my computer was and knew that my electrical cord was being torn apart. I reached down, unplugged the end from and my computer and felt sharp wires with empty rubber tubing. Not a good sign!

This morning the first thing I did was give Dad the cord and ask, "Can you fix this?"

And his response, "Was that the same one I fixed before?"

You see, not only has he fixed this cord once:

But twice:

And now the third time:

Hopefully this will be the last time Dad will be fixing this cord. There's only bits and pieces of the cord that is not covered in tape. I'm just glad Dad can fix it or I'd be without a laptop computer for a while.

From now on either Skittles or my computer has to go at night. Hmmm....hard choice, but I think it has to be my computer....:)

Spring forward!

Don't forget to change the clocks forward one hour tonight! I rather like Fall better with gaining an hour than Spring and losing one. But at least I can look forward to longer daylight hours! :)

Typical bullets or little swirls????

Have I never posted bullets on this blog before? Apparently not because my bullets are nice little swirl characters instead of little round circles on my last post. And I would have remembered seeing those instead of typical bullets.

When I get a chance, I'll have to dig into the html code and see if I can get the bullet character changed back to normal. Until then....enjoy the little swirls!

My typical IE window...

It just drives me nuts to only have one IE window open when I'm working on the computer. Most of the time I have at least one or two IE windows open and they have multiple tabs open!

I was thrilled when IE 7 came out with tabbed browsing. Finally I could have multiple windows open in only one window - so much easier to manage and taking less of my computer memory! Firefox had tabbed browsing before IE ever did and I really should switch over to Firefox, but I just can't make myself yet....

Let's see what I have open:

• iTunes - always open when I'm at the computer!
• IE with 9 tabs open:

• http://www.oneplace.com/ - I was listening to some Bible programs earlier in the day
• http://www.ebay.com/ - posting on my eBay blog for the week
• http://www.blogger.com/ - uploading a video to my embroidery blog
• http://www.blogger.com/ - writing about Grandma on this blog
• www.embtreasures.com/blog.htm - responding to comments on my embroidery blog
• http://www.youtube.com/ - uploading part 1 my newest sewing room video
• http://www.youtube.com/ uploading part 2 of my newest sewing room video
• http://www.youtube.com/ - responding to comments on my sewing video posts (that's the tab that you see above)
• http://www.constantcontact.com/ - sending out my embroidery newsletter for the week
  

• http://www.blogger.com/ - uploading window for the above photo
• http://www.realplayer.com/ - I was downloading some programs from the net into RealPlayer

I just keep switching forth between tabs until I get everything accomplished. I have to do that when I'm uploading videos because it takes a while (they're actually still uploading as I'm typing this post!).

Maybe, just perhaps, could it be taking longer because I'm doing multiple things at once on the net and using up bandwidth all at the same time? Probably true, but that's what my typical computer screen looks like!

A busy weekend with Grandma

We had a busy and event-filled weekend! Saturday evening around 8:00 Uncle Ron called and said that Grandma had been in a car accident. He had just received a call from the ER nurse at the Dodge City hospital that Grandma was there, but in stable condition.

Uncle Ron and Aunt Cherie headed to the hospital where they would spend the next 6 hours waiting in the ER until Grandma was moved to a room. It turns out that thankfully all Grandma had was a broken nose and bruises on her face and knee.

She was sitting in the middle seat in the back and when the car hit, her head and upper body hit the front seat (no shoulder strap to prevent her body from going forward) ...hard! So hard that one eye was swollen shut for a while and her face and eyes are so swollen and black and blue. But thankfully other than a little tenderness, bumps and bruises and a broken nose, no other injuries.

There were four other ladies in the same car plus one in another car, all over the age of 80 and no one was extremely, seriously hurt. They all were taken to the ER and some were treated for broken bones, two flown to Wichita, but it could have been so much worse. We can be very thankful!

I spent Sunday afternoon in the hospital with Grandma. They kept her through Monday morning just to be sure everything was ok. She looked quite a site, but was doing very well and went home Monday morning. It will just take time for the bruises to disappear and her nose to heal...a long time!

Jena is taking some chili I made Monday and a salad she made today tomorrow to Grandma since she lives by herself and doesn't want to get out too much with her face the way it is. I wouldn't either; I'd hibernate in the house for a few weeks! And I plan to go over later in the week to check on her and bring some more goodies.

But that gave us quite a scare! But at least she seems to be doing very well.

My nose is telling me...

...that Spring is on it's way here. Yesterday and today I have spent the morning in fits of sneezes....meaning Spring is here and allergy season is just beginning. I enjoy looking forward to the warmer weather, not having to wear a coat and such, but the blooming flowers, pollen and other such growing things outside don't help my head one bit!

In other news, there have been lots of colds and flu going around and we have been free from all of it until now. Jena came home from work early today saying she was sick and felt awful. They've had a lot of that stuff in the hospital so I'm surprised she hasn't caught it before now. Now if she just won't share it with Dad and myself...:)