This Day

“I have this day, this moment in which to revel in.  Small celebrations are all scattered around the daily things of life like a sprinkle of wildflowers, I only have to pick one.”

Cindy Sigler Dagnan  Hot Chocolate for Couples

Oldest and Youngest

Loved this picture from being at Jenette's yesterday!  Our almost first teenager and six month old.  C1 has 9 more days until he is 13!!!  And I do believe he is officially taller than me now.

 And this was our dinner entertainment one night this week.   Baby S with an almost empty chip bag equals a lot of fun and laughter.  Part of which included chip crumb confetti!!!

Microwave Treats

Three weeks later and we still don't know if/when we are closing on our new house.  P asked for the first time when we were going "home" today. I'm surprised she waited three weeks to ask!!!!

So,I have a couple recipes to share.  A few of my friends don't use microwaves for health reasons, so you can also do these the old fashioned way; cooking sauce on stove, pouring over, and baking in oven.  But these have been handy while we don't have  a stove!

Microwave Popcorn
(History: came from my sister's college room mate!)

Place 16 cups popped popcorn in brown grocery bag.

Put 1 stick butter, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup (can use honey insteac), and 1/2 tsp salt in microwave safe bowl.
2 minutes on high - stir
3 minutes on high - stir
Add:  1 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Stir very well.

Pour mixture over popcorn in bag.  Fold bag and shake, shake, shake.

Put in microwave, following instructions below.  No peeking!

1 min, shake
1 min. shake
30 sec. shake
  30 sec. shake and pour onto waxed paper to dry.

I also adapted my Mom's Cheerio Nuggets recipe to this. 
Follow sauce and above instructions using this in the bag instead:
10 cups cheerios
2 cups nuts
1 cup raisens

For those that don't like raisen or nuts, you can add whatever you want, craisens, etc etc  .

ENJOY!

In Limbo

So much I could write about, so many times I think to blog something but w/o handy internet at my beck and call – I seem to forget!  So, will use a word document to hopefully rectify that.  I do enjoy having to walk up to either: one of my best friend’s house or sit in God’s beautiful creation to use the internet though!  During this transition time, I am realizing how very much I utilize the internet in day to day life.  With school we use it all the time to research and look up information.  When I or one of the kids is curious about something, the info is right at our fingertips. So, this also shows me how forgetful I am. If I don’t write it down, by the time I get to internet access, I forget it all!   

We started reading Little House in the Big Woods this summer and finished it right before we moved. So we started Little House on the Prairie.  God’s perfect timing, because I didn’t even think of the correlation of our move with the move in the book!  We have had fun making a covered wagon. See “Laura” and “Baby Carrie”?   

We had our friends over and watched the pilot episode.  

I have also been rather enjoying cooking here.  I have a microwave, crock pot, electric griddle, bread maker, coleman gas stove, and the grill.  It’s been fun getting creative with these.  Didn’t realize how handy the electric griddle, we were given by my parents as a wedding present for making lefse is.  Wow!  This morning J wanted to have biscuits and gravy.  We were able to make biscuits on the griddle. I rather enjoyed the challenge and fruits of our labor!!!

We  are still waiting to hear about our house we have under contract to get things finalized.

Quotes, Books, Martyrs

                                                   My outside office!!!  Can it get any better?

So enjoying being a country girl again!  Had started the following post awhile ago. Finally finished Bonhoeffer!!!


Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas

This is one of the books I'm working though...it's taking me a long time on this one.
A quote from the book: " If you board the wrong train it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction."  Deitrich Bonhoeffer
I'm determined to finish it since I have two friends I know will read it quickly and thoroughly enjoy it. It's fascinating.  Since I was fortunate to travel to Germany in high school, I find it even more interesting.  One area I wish I would have been more aware of growing up is all the amazing missionaries and stories of Christians around the world making a difference for His kingdom.  That their are and have been modern day martyrs is a new thing for me in the last ten years. How can that be since I attended a Lutheran school?  Why was I not praying for these brothers and sisters?   I read Heavenly Man by Brother Yun several years ago and I kept thinking, this was going on while I was busy playing the high school social game.

Another one of my favorite quotes.

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a  great street sweeper who did his job well."   Martin Luther King Jr

Are your beliefs Biblical?

 My dear friend's Dad posted this on facebook.   I read Francis Chan's books Crazy Love and Forgotten God and thought they were excellent.  This link reminded me of my journey when I first moved to Alaska and was working at Subway. I was surrounded by strong Christians that lived and walked their life.  Most of them from this group  This Hope, or friends.  Anyway, one of them asked me, while doing morning prep of veggies, etc,  what I believed, if I went to church, etc. I replied "I'm a Lutheran." She said, what's that? From where I grew up and my life, I thought... EVERYONE knew :-) I stumbled a bit and said, ah, well, I guess I'm not a follower of Martin Luther, I guess I'm a Christian. THAT started me on the journey Francis Chan talks about above.  Still on it.......and will be until Heaven.

More "Life Goes On"

You know my sewing machines are packed - wow I have more free time!    :-)  Thought these quotes were appropriate for now.  Put them in my book when I first moved to Alaska.

"The only life worth living is the adventurous life.  Of such a life, the dominant characteristic is that it is unafraid.  It is unafraid of what other people think....it does not adapt either its pace or its objectives to the pace and objectives of its neighbors.  It thinks its own thoughts, reads its own books, it develops its own hopes, and itis governed by its own conscience.  The herd may graze where it pleases or stampede where it pleases, but he who lives the adventurous life will remain unafraid when he finds himself alone."
Raymond B Fosdick


"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure to embrace the new.  But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.  There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."  Alan Cohen

"Money, although it helps, doesn't make real dreams come true; only faith, hope, and compassion can do that, and patience; but the voyager can't be too patient or time will erode his dream." 
Tristan Jones in The Improbable Journey