Tackling this month - my storage area! Finished, sorted and organized...finally!

My goal this month in addition to defrosting the freezer, was to clean and organize Dad's den and my storage area. Hip, hip, hooray - it's done!!! An-over-week long ordeal, but done none the less. And just in time since this is the end of September.

I'm so glad to say that I am finished sorting, organizing and cleaning downstairs! Hooray!!! It feels so nice to have everything on shelves and easy to find. And it will be so much easier to get to whatever was in that bottom tote without having to crawl over that whole stack! :)

There's just enough room for walking...a bit tight, but it works!

Everything is labeled and it just "feels" so organized! I was even able to get everything out of Krissa's room and onto those shelves! Won't she be surprised?!?! I'll still use her room til she comes home. I wouldn't want that space to just sit!


I even cleaned/organized Dad's bookcase and office area. Filed some books and paperwork, dusted and put some things away that were just sitting.

Cran-Raspberry Gelatin Mold

Yesterday I helped with a funeral dinner at church and made this jello salad to take for the meal. I did a quick search on allrecipes.com for recipes with raspberries since I found so many frozen in the freezer when I cleaned it.

I never, ever take anything I've made from a new recipe without trying it on my family first. But this sounded fail-proof (The first time I made jello, it was a flop, so I'm always careful!), so I went ahead with it. And it turned out very well, even with my making some changes to the recipe!

I'm not a jello fan, so I will make those kinds of salads but never eat them. So I rely on others to tell me if they taste ok. One of the ladies asked me for the recipe and I told her I'm glad it turned out so well, especially being a new recipe.

She said dinners and family reunions are the best place to take new recipes, because if they don't turn out well, you don't have to eat it. And one of the other gals piped up, "Just don't tell anyone you are the one who brought it and don't put your name on the dish!" We all just laughed!!!

I thought it needed a little decoration,
so I added little swirls of cool whip.

Cran-Raspberry Gelatin Mold
10 servings

Ingredients:

1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries - thawed and drained, juice reserved
1 1/4 cups water
12 ounces cranberries
1 (10 ounce) can pineapple tidbits with juice
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3 ounce) packages raspberry flavored gelatin mix

Directions:

In a saucepan, combine the reserved raspberry juice, water, cranberries and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the skins of the cranberries burst.
Remove from heat and add gelatin; stir until dissolved. Gently fold in raspberries, pineapple and pineapple juice and pour into a 2 quart mold. Refrigerate until chilled. Top with whipped topping if desired.

An onion smelling freezer

Today I discovered the freezer smells like onions. No surprise actually, since I chopped up onions last week and stuck them in the freezer. The thing I forgot to do was to take the pans of onions scoops OUT of the freezer and put them in ziplock bags. But hey, it's not like I've not been busy doing anything...

Kinda looks like snow cones on that pan and reminds me of the ice crusher machine we had when my sisters and I were just little girls. You put in ice cubes and out came, slushed flavored ice. Fun memories!!!

I just hope the onion smell in the freezer doesn't last too long...

Menu Plan Monday - week of September 22nd

I know it's been a while since I've actually posted our weekly menu here. And to be honest, I haven't even printed a menu to put on the fridge for a month. But sometime I just have to let things go because other things are more important and printing a menu was just one of those things.

But as you can tell from some of my recent posts (before all the shelving ones!), that I have been trying out some new recipes. We've also had lots of watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches and apples from our garden to eat, which has been yummy and keeping the fridge full of fruit!

Here is what we are eating for dinner this week:

Monday - macarioni & hamburger casserole, watermelon, banana muffin (Dad's home by himself today since I'm teaching and Jen's working, so these are leftovers.)

Tuesday - bbq macaroni casserole, lettuce salad

Wednesday - taco pizza, breadsticks (I'm going to try to improve these!) , broccoli (I didn't get to try this last week, so it's still on my list!)

Thursday - fish & tatertots, green beans, banana muffin

Friday - chicken fried steak, roasted red potatoes (these are really good and healthy too!), peas

Saturday - baked pizza mac, lettuce salad

Sunday - whatever is left in the fridge from this week! :)

Check out OrgJunkie for more great recipe ideas!

What happened if the Internet crashed?

That was the topic of our supper conversation last night. Jena and I were on the offensive side of if the Internet disappeared, we would be in huge trouble. Not just us personally, but there would be major problems in this world because we are so dependent on the online world.

Dad, being the practical person that he is, said you could most certainly live without the Internet. Life would continue. Of course, you have to understand that he only visits about three online sites: the weather, cattle markets and grain markets. Simple for him to revert back to non-online life. (Just a note here - for some of us, ahem, life would just NOT continue without the Internet.)

This whole conversation started because I found a bookcase full of Mom's old nursing books and Dad's old horse books while I was organizing downstairs and was asking Jena if I could just toss the nursing ones. Mom kept them just because she could never bear to part with them, even though she rarely used them. Jena said toss them since she has her own updated nursing books and even then, she usually searches the Internet before looking at her books.

Then Dad remarked that if something happened to the Internet, we might want/need those books. Well, if the entire Internet crashes, the last thing we would be concerned about would be researching nursing or horse books. Yep, we would have much greater concerns than that.

Jena and I talked about how rarely we opened a paper book for research; if we want to know something, Google holds the answer. I can't even recall the last time I opened a dictionary or encyclopedia in book form. Even in my quiet time, studying for kid's club or preparing for Sunday School, I look to online Biblical resources.

Really the Internet holds so much more information that could be printed in books and takes up much less space than books ever could. In addition to that, the search feature is so much faster and easier online than looking through a book. That's not to say that all books can be replaced by the Internet, because there are some wonderful books that I'm keeping, but as for research books - I'm all in favor for looking online!

Jena and I are in total agreement to that fact. Now we just have to convince Dad......

More and more shelves...

Let's see....where did I leave off from my last post??? Oh, yes, I finished the freezer room and had started on the den. Putting together the large shelving units (72"h x 48"w x 24"d) is a much bigger task than the smaller ones.

Part of the difficulty in organizing the den is that it is so full of all of my totes, that it takes a while to move everything out before I can even start moving the shelves in. And meanwhile, the entire basement is a wreck.

I didn't think I would be able to get all the shelves put together yesterday because according to my calculations below, there's just not enough hours in the day. And frankly, my legs and arms would give out as well.

Here's what I had figured:
the large shelves-
I have to make 6 trips up and down the stairs to get them from the garage to the basement. Then it takes 1 1/2 hours to get it put together, moved into place and wooden shelves set in. I have four left to put in the den - 6 hours.
the small shelves-
I have to make 4 trips up and down the stairs and then it takes an hour to put one together, in place and shelves in. I have four to put in the den - 4 hours.

That's a total of 10 hours and that doesn't count the moving everything around to get to the area to put in the shelves. Yeah, I had a very big goal, one I was confident I couldn't complete in one day. But I wanted to give it a try...

These are the majority of my totes I have stacked in my storage area. They are filled with fabric pieces I have bought over the years plus picture frames, misc. notions and other stuff. Believe it or not, there are 32 of the large ones....there two rows plus there in the back, stacked 4-5 high. It's always been quite a challenge to get something out of the one of bottom of the stack! :)

Yes, there is some empty space back there...even the fireplace we never use downstairs. And of course since I'm moving everything, I'm also cleaning everything while I'm at it.

Getting the large unit in place. I put those little furniture movers under the legs and shove it into place. Works well!

Once I get it set in place, I then hammer all the sides to be sure they are snug into the fitting holes and are very secure.

Then I put in the wooden shelves. That can be quite a challenge, since the metal pieces are already together. But with a bit of maneuvering and twisting around, it finally fits!

I also put some plastic cups under the metal uprights so it doesn't make such an indention in the carpet and helps protect it.

Finally the first back row of shelving in and even some totes loaded on it. I just put those on to see how they would fit, but I know I will rearrange as I need to, getting everything where I want it.

The rest of this area will be the same rows of shelving just like the one above....there's a fair amount of space there! It's been a while since I've seen this room look that empty.

I was able to get all the units up and in place - all except for one small one. I was more than pleased!!! Thrilled!!! Excited!!! About 4:00 I was ready to quit, but just kept pushing, determined to get as many done as I could!

By the time 8:30 rolled around last night, my body was hurting, I was exhausted and my mind was wondering what in the world I got myself into. It will so wonderful when it is complete and finished, but I think it will take a few weeks for my body to recover.

Once the shelves are all up, I have to get everything into place and where I want it. But that is the part I enjoy doing - the organzing. It's the building part that's the hard part and that's just about complete.

My goal this week (among other things): organize my storage room!

The Fruit of the Spirit - Love

Last Wednesday we started studying the Fruit of the Spirit for kid's club. Our first fruit was love; represented by an orange. Jena cut out large trees to stick on the wall for the kids to put fruit on for each verse they memorize. We had orange juice to drink which went right along with the fruit theme.

We start our class time by Jena leading the memory verse review and saying the verse several times by playing a game with it. Then we pray, talk about prayer requests and have refreshments that various people in the church provide for each evening. Next is our Bible lesson time and then fun and game time for the remainder of the evening until parents come to pick up their kids.

Memory Verse: I John 3:16
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Bible Lesson: I first explained what the fruit of the Spirit is and then moved on to the our fruit for the evening - love.

What is the fruit of the Spirit?
Open your Bible, find and read Galatians 5:22-23 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

The fruit of the spirit the Bible is talking about is not fruit that we eat, but godly character traits or attitudes that we as believers in Jesus Christ should have. If you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you to save you from your sins, you are a believer in Him and God commands us to have these attitudes. The word, Spirit, is capitalized, telling us that it is the Holy Spirit in us that helps us produce these attitudes.

"Ross, what is your favorite fruit?", I asked. Ross responded with, "Peaches!. So here's my illustration...just think of some emotion with it! It was so funny to see the kids faces when I did this! I said the following in one big rush, holding their attention. Went better than I planned, so I embellished a little as I was talking. :)

Ross loves peaches so he plants a peach tree in the spring. He waters it and watches it grow. It grows taller and taller and weeks and weeks go by. The tree trunk grows LARGE and TALL with branches FULL of green leaves. Ross goes outside every day, waters the tree and looks at how tall it's growing and how full and luscious the green leaves look! Oh, how he can't wait to see peaches on that tree!!! (All eyes are watching me, waving my arms, imagining this large and beautiful tree!)

He keeps waiting and waiting, taking care of the tree, watering it. He looks and looks for peaches. The tree gets taller and taller and more and more branches start growing with beautiful, large leaves! Every day he looks for a sign on the peaches, but......nothing. The summer months go by and soon fall is here. There should be peaches galore on that tree, but......nothing. Just a large trunk with beautiful green trees. Ross is so disappointed that the yummy peaches he has looked forward to for so long aren't there. The tree was useless; it did not produce any peaches.

It's the same way with us. Sometime are just like that peach tree; we grow, but we aren't producing any fruit. But God doesn't want us just to look nice, He wants us to produce fruit. And that doesn't mean that you will wake up one morning with a peach growing from your arm. (A few laughs at that!) No, we are supposed to have the attitudes that God describes in the Bible as the Fruit of the Spirit.

Fruit of Love - Orange


What does it mean?
Love in the Bible has different meanings in different verses. In this verse, love means to make a choice. To make a choice that leads to willing service. Seeking the greater good of someone else above your own wants. Love is a choice we make to help others and do what is best for them.

Who is our example?
The Bible gives us many examples of people who showed love to others, but the greatest example is Jesus Christ. John 15:13 says, " Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." Jesus gave us the ultimate example of love by dying on the cross for us. Do you think He enjoyed being nailed to a cross? Do you think He liked the pain that came from that?

No, but He willingly did that for us. Because He loved us THAT much. Because He knew that would be good for us...to save us from our sins. He set aside what He wanted to do and died for us. John 15:12 says, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." God commands us to follow His example of love. We are supposed to love others. That doesn't mean we should die on the cross for someone, but we are to put their needs above our own. Do things for them that would be pleasing and honoring to God.

How can we show love to others?
What are some ways you can show love to someone in your family? How about when your mom buys groceries and she is carrying in all those sacks from the car? What should you do to your bed when you get up in the morning and get ready for school? What do you do with your plate when you are finished eating? How about the chores Dad and Mom expect you to do? Do you do them without being told or do your parents have to keep reminding you?

I had each of the kids write down one thing they could do this week to help and show love for someone in their family on two dye cut oranges. Then they hung them one up in the tree on my sketch pad and the other one they took home to remind them to do it. Next week we will pick the oranges from the tree and see if they produced the fruit of love the previous week. (see first photo for orange tree)

Getting started on those shelves in the freezer room!

I started in the freezer room, planning to get all my shipping supplies and boxes onto shelves and hopefully be more accessible that what it has been in the past. My goal is also to get the majority of the boxes off the floor and out of the pathway and onto shelves. This is actually all my stuff pulled out so I could work in the space underneath the staircase.

How difficult and time consuming can it be to hammer metal pieces together to create shelving and then insert a piece of wood for the shelf? Much harder than I anticipated!

Thursday evening I put together one of the smaller shelves (72"h x 36"w x 18" d) and it took me three hours to get that thing put together! Yes, THREE hours! At that rate, it would take me forever to get all eleven put in place.

I started by actually following the directions by starting with the bottom posts and attaching the ends and sides. Then they said to continue building up, adding each wooden shelf as you go. After trying to get all four uprights to stand up straight while hammering in the side pieces is impossible. Yes, totally impossible, unless of course you have six hands. And I was home by myself.

I finally did get that one together and set up in the freezer room where I have all my boxes and shipping supplies. Before I went to bed, I threw some things on the shelves so I could at least get around in that room and be able to ship out orders this morning.

This afternoon I went back to work on another unit. This time I stared building it sideways on the carpet in the other room. It works so much better. I can put a whole side together on the floor, which holds the uprights in place. Then I can add the ends and sides much easier! It still takes a while to get one together, but at least it's not three hours.

After I put the metal pieces together on the floor, I could stand it up, crawl inside and walk it into the freezer room. After it is in place, then the wooden boards just fit in. I put two shelving units (72"h x 36"w x 18"d) together, boxing in the area underneath the staircase to hold extra boxes.

I have everything labeled and organized into hopefully a logical place. I love the organizing and cleaning part, but could do without the building/lifting/moving. But I created so much more space by getting almost everything off the floor and onto shelves! It just looks so great - I love it already!!!!
I climbed up on the freezer to take a photo of the finished shelves and Skittles jumped up there just as I snapped the button. Yep, she's been crawling around on everything I have spread out all over the place. She's a little more clingy to me since Tibbles is gone.


Can you actually see the cement where the step-stool is sitting??? That was completely covered with boxes and such, clear up and onto the carpet! It looks so nice and free to have that much of a pathway instead of just squeezing in and out! I even straightened up some of the shelves on that wall.

You know how one thing leads to another? Yeah, well that happened too. I put a couple things in the fruit room and decided it wouldn't take but a moment to straighten up this a little too. So, yep, I did that too!

I didn't spend too much time on it, but putting away some jars, taking some things off the floor and onto shelves, boxing up extra candles (I'll have to tell you about these - they are the BEST smelling candles I have come across and they are wonderful!!!) and sweeping up the crickets on the floor makes a HUGE difference! Don't you think?

Then I started on Dad's den and put together the larger shelving unit (72"h x 48"w x 24"d). And it gets even harder......but for now, my hands hurt, the muscles in my arms and legs are aching from hammering and running up and down the stairs and I'm more than ready for bed!

Tomorrow it's back to building shelves with hopefully renewed energy....

Our trip to Home Depot

The last couple of months I've been planning to add some shelving (that's my other thing I'm tackling this month in addition the the freezer!) to my storage area downstairs. I have a certain amount of space in Dad's den to use as storage, so I drew that area to scale and started thinking about what size of shelves I would need.

As Dad would say, I got my "puzzle pieces" out last night and made the final decision as to what size and how many units I would need. But the goal of that is to get as many shelves as possible in the area I have. How better to do it than make a drawing and "arrange" my paper shelves, trying different arrangements until I found the right one?!?!


Today Dad and I drove to Home Depot in Garden City to buy the shelving. I wanted to look at the shelving in person instead of just online and do some more measuring and figuring. So while Dad shopped for several of his things, I again got out my "puzzle pieces" and started arranging.


Finally we got it figured out and all the shelving loaded on the cart! Driving a cart filled with eleven units is quite a cart full! Thank goodness for DAD!!!


Dad loaded them all in the back of the pickup and we were ready to head for home. Those boxes were quite heavy and I know there is absolutely no way I would have been able to go and do it by myself. I'm just so thankful Dad was willing to go to Garden, help me pick out what would work best (he always seems to know those things and I trust his judgment more than my own) and load everything.


Dad commented several times at how heavy the larger units of boxes were as he transferred five of them from the store shelf to the cart, from the cart to the pickup and finally from the pickup to the garage. As he unloaded the last one in the garage, he started looking for a weight amount on the box....


Ummm...perhaps this could be why???? Weight - 128 pounds!!!! I always knew Dad was really strong!!! After they were unloaded we noticed the little tag that said, "Team Lift!" Too late now....:)


But they are all now in the garage and ready to be carried downstairs and put together. Dad said I could probably put one together and see how it fits, so I unboxed one of the smaller ones in the garage and carried down the pieces little bits at a time.

And putting together that thing is a totally different story for another day...right now I'm exhausted from trying to put those metal pieces together and am headed off to bed!

An email from Krissa

To update everyone on Krissa, here is the email we received from Krissa this morning....they laughed and laughed about their adventure last night and they did get to meet their neighbors!! She went with some friends to the beach over the weekend and had a good time! I haven't written anything on my little sister way down south for a while, so here is an update!

Good morning,

Suzanna and I laughed so hard about everything that happened last night. Lol. At least we met our neighbors through it! :) Me and my wild imagination...haha

The beach is beautiful! Although, I think I prefer Clearwater Beach in Tampa, FL — it’s still by the gulf, but it’s a little bigger than Orange Beach. Clearwater Beach is a little more natural too — the palm trees are native to FL, but the palm trees at Orange Beach were not. But our condo was right on the beach, so we just stepped out of the patio and out into the sand practically! It was great!

In other news, it’s cold in Birmingham this morning! My car thermometer read 64 degrees and it’s only Sept. 16! However, my office manager said this is typical and the temperature will go back up again in a couple days.

This is going to be a long week. We have the ASID (American Society of Interior Design) judging, so I get to meet all the judges at a formal dinner on Wednesday night and then sit in on the actual judging all day Thursday. But as for today, I’m working on my museum story for Jan/Feb — my contact, however, is in Houston, and apparently the museum got hit pretty hard by Ike. I visited with him yesterday, and he said the city is pretty much a wreck. :(

Ok, I’m off to get some coffee and get started on the day.
Hope everything is well in Kansas!
Krissa

An open apartment door, a bad dream and a wrecked car - what's the combination??

Today I went to Dodge and met with several people to drop of some embroidery and sewing as well as do some church related things and run several errands. One thing I did very carefully is lock my car, hang onto tightly to my purse and tuck my keys into my purse. I always do that, but all the more so today.

But before I go into detail as to why I took more care to do that especially today, you have to understand this. Last night I had a horrible dream; actually not a dream - a nightmare since I woke up sweating hot at 4:08 in the morning. Never does a dream seem so real except when you first wake up.

But before I can explain exactly the reason for that dream, I have to tell you our conversation with Krissa last night.

Last night about 9:30 Krissa calls and wants to talk to Dad. (That usually means she's in trouble or needs advice!) She got home from work around 6:30 and found her apartment door open. Clue #1. She went in, hung around the apartment for a couple of hours, wondering where her roommate was. Clue #2. Susanna's car was there, her phone in the apartment and her door was shut. Clue #3. Krissa is concerned, so she tries Susanna's bedroom door and finds it locked; odd since she never locks it. Clue #4.

All is quiet and all kinds of horrible thoughts are running through Krissa's mind, so she goes outside to her car and calls home. She tells Dad what happened that evening and that she is afraid to go back inside and she's not sure where Susanna is since her room is all quiet and locked and she can't find her.

Dad tells her to go to a neighbors and ask someone to go back into the apartment with her to knock again on Susanna's door and see what's going on. She hangs up the phone and we are left wondering what is going on and what they will discover in the apartment.

She calls back in a little while, laughing. One of the neighbors went in with her, knocked on Susanna's door and they discovered she was sleeping. Apparently she was sleeping hard enough and had something over her head that she didn't hear Krissa before. And as to the locked bedroom door, she wasn't sure why she locked it because she never does.

So Krissa felt pretty silly after the whole incident, but at the time she called us the first time, she was scared and didn't know exactly what to do. The longer she stayed in the apartment, the more her mind conjured up all kinds of things that could have happened.

Ok, so that explains Krissa's adventure in Alabama last night.....right before bed. Now onto the dream part....

I usually am so tired at night that I never remember my dreams, if I do dream at night at all. Last night I did. I woke up at 4:08 am sweating and have to make sure I really am awake. Then I had to remember that it wasn't real. And keep in mind that dreams are always strange and weird after you are awake, but are so real while you are sleeping.

I had planned a bunch of shopping and stops to make in Dodge this morning including the library. Before I fell asleep last night, I was planning my minute by minute itinerary and what I needed to get done. I knew also I had to be sure and take my sewing and embroidery to drop off, my SS supplies and my computer.

In my dream I walked into the library, reserved my dates for my quilting classes, visited with Linda there and walked back outside. As I'm walking out the door, I see my purse lying on the cement, torn open. No dollar bills inside, no credit cards inside, no checkbook inside, no keys, no cell phone, nothing. Not even sure why it's there, but it is....

I look toward my car and discover the doors widely torn open and as I get closer, I see a huge mess of seats and metal all smashed together, but no computer, no clothes to deliver, nothing except a huge mess.

So I called Dad. (Yeah, I know this sounds familiar, but that's how dreams usually are - they tend to mirror the events of the day before.) I'm not quite sure where the phone came from since my purse was totally empty, but somehow I had my cell phone to call Dad.

My first thought and horror was my computer and then my financial information I lost in my purse. I had Dad on the phone, searching my records at home for my credit card companies to close those accounts before who knows what was charged to them. It was a mess telling Dad where they were and having him relate the info back to me.

About that time I woke up. And I told myself my computer was still on the bed, my purse was safe in the house with credit cards intact and my car was parked unharmed in the garage. But was it ever so real in my mind!

That's why I was sure to lock my car today, hang onto my purse and enclose my keys in my purse. And when I went to the library....I parked in a different spot than where I was last night.

Call me crazy...probably true, but I'm sure that all came about because of Krissa's phone call last night and the fact I had today's list of my things to do on my mind. But it did remind me of one thing I need to do.....make copies of my credit cards and driver's license.

I did that several years ago in case my purse or cards were ever stolen (that was a from mom - you must do!), but since then I have new and different cards and need to do it again and make a couple of copies to keep.

I'm not sure that was worth the scare of my dream and being on alert today, but it did remind me to do that!

The start of kid's club for fall 2008

Last Wednesday was the first evening for kid's club this school year. We did a review of our theme last semester which was the Armor of God and God's 7 Day Creation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upon mentioning our Creation series, I realized in looking back at my posts from kid's club last year that I didn't finish up what we did for kid's club. I posted those and dated them back in May, so if you want to see the rest of the series, see here, here and here, plus photos and a video from our last evening cook out, see here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had 6 kids, including a couple of new ones, come last week and our evening went really well. The kids listened, answered questions, participated and had a fun time!

Our theme this year is the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23. We will be studying a different fruit as listed in the Bible corresponding it to edible fruit. Jena's in charge of memory verses, Terri's in charge of refreshment and games and I'm doing the teaching every week.

In my teaching, I'm planning on challenging the kids to practice that week the fruit we talked about. My goal is to explain what each fruit is and means, highlight a Bible character who demonstrated this fruit and then discuss ways you and I can apply this fruit in our everyday lives.

I have fruit dye cuts and I'm going to give them two pieces of "fruit" each week and write down something they will DO that week that relates to what we talked about. They will put one piece of fruit in the basket and the following week the kids will get to ask each other if they actually did what they wrote down. And the other piece of fruit they will take home to remind them what they wrote down and plan to do that week.

Our plan is to theme every week with a different fruit including the verses, teaching, game time and refreshments. I'm looking forward to it!!! :)

Birthday cookies

I took these cookies I made yesterday to church this morning for Samantha who is in my Sunday School class. Her birthday was last week and she informed me the week before that she would be gone on the 7th, her birthday.

She's actually been telling me for the last month when her birthday was and that it was on a Sunday and that she would be at the state fair that day! I think she was excited about turning 9 years old! So today she had her birthday cookies. :)

Goodbye, my little one

I didn't know if I could do it, but I did and it just about broke my heart to do - give away Tibbles. At one time, I thought it would be neat to have a batch of Siamese kittens a couple of times a year and then sell the kittens. Nope, I just can't do that. It's been a while since I've had to give away a kitten and it's just too hard.

Becky called Thursday and I was excited that I had found someone who wanted a kitten to keep indoors. I put Tibbles in a box in the car and started out the driveway to meet her at Ensign since she didn't want to travel on our muddy, slippery dirt roads. The box was a silly idea since he immediately crawled out. Then it suddenly dawned on me - Skittles. Put him on my shoulder and he was perfectly happy for the 5-10 minute drive.

Poor Skittles...I drove in the driveway and there she was sitting on top of the couch, looking out the picture window waiting for me to come home. I knew I was in for a long couple of days and nights of meowing. And yes, last night she ran all over the house screaming and wondered around on the bed, looking under the blankets for Tibbles. But by tomorrow she should be over it, but it will take a few days of adjusting for me.

It was sad to go to bed last night and no little black kitten sleeping right beside me or wake up in the night to little paws bouncing on the bed, playing with my feet or to get up this morning and discover no Tibbles looking and yawning at me before pouncing off the bed. But such is life and hopefully in another few months we will have a Siamese kitten to keep!

sleepy little kitty

isn't he just sooo cute?!?!

I looked down from where I was
working on my computer and found this!
He's just about as big as Skittles!

Thursday night he crawled up into my lap and
I began to think, "I really can't give him away!"

"Where are we going?"

"Looks fun outside; I wonder what I could play with?"

"I better hang on; she's a crazy driver in all this mud!"

"I better watch to see where we are going!"

"I think I'll just take a nap."

I FINALLY found it - the ONE Beef & Noodles recipe!

What exactly? I've been searching for the perfect recipe containing wide egg noodles and hamburger with a yummy flavor to it. When Mom passed away almost two years ago (In some ways, it's hard to believe it's almost been two years!), someone brought us a huge bowl of beef and noodles and it was exceptionally good!

At the time we had so much food delivered to us, that I kept some out and put the rest in the freezer. Several weeks later when I pulled that dish out of the freezer, I was again reminded how good it was and determined to scour my recipe books looking for it.

In the past two years, I've tried several recipes and made up several of my own. In the back of my mind, I've always kept that dish in mind as I look online and through recipe books. They have all been good, but it hasn't been THE ONE until today!

Last night as I was looking at the Beef and Noodle recipe and getting things out of the freezer to thaw, I really had forgotten about finding that certain one. Even as I was chopping the meat, adding spices and spooning in the noodles this morning, it didn't hit me that this might be the one.

Finally I tasted the noodles to see if they were done and everything else tasted ok - and guess what!!! I FOUND IT!!!! THIS IS IT!!!!

Of course, I changed a few things in the recipe, but that yummy flavor it still there. And it's so simple and easy! I did go ahead and use the chopped steak, but I think I would prefer crumbled hamburger just because of the texture.


Beef & Noodles

1 pound beef round steak (or can use hamburger)
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1/4 cup chopped onion (simple with my frozen chopped onions)
1 tsp garlic powder
3 cups beef broth
1 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. pepper
8 ounces wide egg noodles

Cut meat into 3/4" cubes. In a large saucepan brown half of the coated meat in hot oil. Remove from saucepan. Brown the remaining meat with the onion and garlic, adding more oil, if necessary. Drain off fat. Return all meat to the saucepan.

Stir in the broth, basil and pepper. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 1 hour or until meat is tender.

Stir noodles into broth mixture. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cook, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes or until noodles are tender. Makes 4-6 servings.


Then in addition to that, I tried baking some bread sticks. This is only the first batch, so I'm going to try some different things to make them better. Dad said they tasted good, but I thought they needed a little more flavor. I will probably be serving bread sticks on a regular basis the next several weeks, since I will be tweaking the recipe to find THE PERFECT ONE! :)

A REAL bacon cheeseburger pizza!

Our family has always enjoyed going out to eat pizza and for the majority of my lifetime, we have always ordered the same one-topping pizza every time - hamburger or sausage. Until about a year ago when Jena and Krissa (who else, but my wonderful-always trying something different-sisters!) decided that we needed to make a change.

Over the past year we have tried several kinds of pizza in addition to the old favorites. And amazingly enough; they are really good. I don't know why we didn't try these yummy-tasting pizzas long before now! When we ordered a bacon cheeseburger pizza, we expected something different than just hamburger. And it did just a little. There was a little bacon flavor to it, but other than that...just a plain hamburger pizza.

So I decided to make a pizza that to me seemed more like a bacon cheeseburger pizza! I rolled out the dough, making it thick like a Pizza Hut pizza. Spread a little pizza sauce on it, crumbled hamburger on top, sprinkled some crisp bacon and topped it with cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Because bacon cheeseburgers have cheddar cheese, not mozzarella.

And it was very, very good!! I need to work on the crust a little to give it a little more flavor, but I'll keep trying. Since this one turned out so well, I'm going to try some different toppings and see what happens; it ought to be good! The other thing I'm going to work on is creating a perfectly round pizza - without the mountainous edges! Because you know, a perfectly round pizza tastes so much better than an uneven one. :)

Next week - taco pizza!