Sunday

Well, the "hub" got home from ice fishing with the son, son-in-law, and his Dad! They had fun, slept on the ice in a shack with holes in the floor by their beds! Only guys would think of this!!! So, I got alot of things done before my surgery, lots of washing done and meatballs made for easy meatball sandwiches! I found a few new websites the other day and want to share with you, go to karenehman.com. She has very practical life lessons for all of us! Then there is Lysa Terkeurst, I'm not sure on her website, but she has a few books out that I plan on reading while I recover(like 3)! Love you guys and I will blog later on my surgery! Blessings!

surgery

Just to let you all know that I will be having back surgery on Tuesday morning! I'm so excited to get this done! I will stay over night and be home sometime after 12p.m on Wednesday! I'm so at peace with this and know that Jesus is walking beside me all the way! Thank you for all your precious thoughts and prayers at this time! So, needless to say I will not be posting for a while, maybe a week or so, kinda like now! :) Blessings!

Sunday

Of course, most of you know that today is church day for us. It's also a day of rest for us! I made a few exceptions today and did some laundry. I also tried out a new recipe from Rachael Ray's tv show called "Beef Tinga". Of course I had to change it up! Recipe: chuck roast cut up into 1 inch pieces,

salt and pepper each side(I used soup meat because it was cheaper than chuck roast), our homemade chorizo(from venison), 2 small onions diced, 1 can of diced tomaotes and 1 cup of water. Brown the chuck in some oil and make sure each side is browned, remove from pan, in same pan brown the chorizo meat and onions. Put the meat and onions is a stock pot and add the tomatoes. I used 1 teaspoon of cumin and 1/2 teaspoon of cayene. Put the stock pot in a 350 degree oven for 2 hours or 275 degrees(while we went to the show for 4 hours. The meat just falls apart and you can eat it with tortillas or as we did with homemade blueberry muffins! YUM!

pound cake

We have had well issues for most of this week, joys of country living! Our son and son-in-law helped Gordon pull the well pipe up and put on a new pump today, I'm back in business for dishes, showers, washing, showers, washing my hair, washing clothes, and showers!

So, I made pound cake, but no one ate it because they ate too much for lunch! So, I cut a piece so you could see it with the fresh fruit on top! Pineapple, blueberries and raspberries! It looks so pretty! Blessings!

bobcat

Our bobcat is back along with his lady friend, Bobbette! We call him "Bobby" for short and not to freak out city people! We are on looking terms with him through our game camera, no one sees them otherwise, they are afriad of us also! Gordon and I have seen their paw prints in the snow and saw they were looking for something to eat, like last year when we put out the deer carcasses from deer season! Picked clean between the bobcats, eagles, crows, bluejays, and bear! So, Gordon hauled out the carcasses from Novembers hunt and hopefully we have some more pictures! Blessings!

cookies

Friends of ours gave us "refrigerator cookies" for a Christmas gift. She had them frozen and I have kept them there for a few weeks until tonight, but I was good and only baked 6! They are a slice and bake kind of cookies! They are called Icebox Cookies: 2 cups of brown sugar, 1 cup of softened butter, 2 eggs, 3 1/2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 cup of chopped walnuts. Cream sugar and butter, add the eggs, Beat in flour, and soda, then add the walnuts. Form into a brick or roll and let stand in refrig.

overnight or freeze. Slice and bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes. They are one of my favorites for the holiday! Blessings!

book

I have been absorbed lately by this book "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp, what a wonderful, mind blowing, thought provoking book! I love it. Thank you Ann for writing it! Gratitude, what are you grateful for these days??? That is what the main theme is in this book. I picked it up thinking it was a gift making like of book, but gratitude is the main thing. I'm so grateful for so many things these days because of my thoughts going to that subject! I am grateful for the beautiful whiteness of the snow, for my friends on this blog, for a car that runs, and on and on it goes!!! She has a download at her site for the calendar where you can write everyday one thing that you are grateful for, I did download it! I'm excited to write down gratitudes for the year, I hope you will check it out and maybe join the website

! Her website is aholyexperience.com. Ann is a young mother of 6 children and a wealth of poetic writings! I'm grateful you read this today, blessings!

recipe

Remember a few posts back I was talking about making fruitcake if I could find a good recipe??? Remember I was cleaning out papers the other day amd trying to organize Gordon's business mess that he and I have created! Well, lo and behold I came across a piece of paper with my Mother's beautiful handwriting on it, want to guess what it said????? You are right, it was a fruitcake recipe that she had written down in pencil! My Mom, what a gift!!! I don't remember her making it, but maybe she had copied from someone's recipe and

forgot about it! I'm so overjoyed!!!! I took it work to have it laminated, it's pretty fragile paperwise and I didn't want it to get any worse, but I'm excited to try it out! I'm not waiting till next year either if I can find the fruit mix to use! God is so great, I'm so grateful for finding this and not tossing it! Blessings!

Happy New Year!

It's late in the day and I am finally getting around to wishing all of you Happy New Year! I pray that this 2012 will be the best year yet for all of us! My wish for you is that God will shine wisdom where you need it, guidance when you ask for it, grace when you fall, and mercy for all the rest! Please keep in touch with me and know that I pray for you all! Blessings!