Inexpensive but nice decorations for my home!

Yummy Zucchini Brownies!!!!

Supper!!!!!

I think we now have about 30 bags of zucchini frozen!

Home grown tomatoes on Grandma's dish

Just a few pictures of things that have been keeping me busy...preserving food, baking and even some crafting. The tomatoes were from our garden and were delicious! One night we had all fresh produce and hamburgers. Another day I made zucchini brownies...a recipe from one of my favorite blogs.

The framed words are so simple to make. I am planning to make some with Bible verses, lines of poetry or such for Christmas presents. I bought frames from the Goodwill Store that already had the matting in them...usually for 1/2 their price! (Sometimes the frames were just too perfect for what I wanted and I actually paid full Goodwill price!! YIKES!! haha) Most of the time I removed the picture that was in it and just cleaned it up OR even sanded it in places. I bought scrapbook paper with bits of rose petals in it and then just wrote the words using caligraphy pens. On some of them, I have lined the area next to the matting with more scrapbook items...in these cases, I used sticky border to make it look older. This is an easy and fairly inexpensive craft! For more ideas, browse the picture aisles at the store and write down phrase ideas or look in magazines and catalogs! Some other phrases might include "Simplify", "Country", "Primitive", etc.

They were lots of fun to make and I now have these two hanging in one of our bathrooms. When my son and daughter in law married in early August, I made them a phrase that they say to each other all the time...."Love you Most!" and then added their names and wedding date. I think they liked it and they knew that I made it from my heart!

Our new Camper!

I've been working on organizing the girls' school books and all the papers and notebooks that go along with them! WHEW! I bought two Rubbermaid type files for my part and quickly found out this morning that I will need more! I hate to spend money just to get organized but I think it is important to be organized in AT LEAST this area of our lives!
It was a much colder weekend than we have been used to and I had a terrible headache yesterday to prove it! I made it to morning Sunday School and church and then went to bed as soon as lunch was over with. I didn't make it to evening church but my hubby did. He is doing something with the sound booth at church, using a computer or something...they won't let ME near it and good for them!!!!
There's not much happening today...the girls are working on their schoolwork and have recited their verses and their poetry this morning. They did a good job!
I'm going to help my husband bring home our new(ish) little camper this afternoon! I can't wait to outfit it with things around our house, quilts, dishes, etc. My husband (otherwise known as "He who has put wife on purchasing restrictions") admitted to having already bought plates and bowls for the new camper. He said that he could already "see" me going to the Goodwill Store and buying all kinds of things for our little home away from home. I told him that I can decorate our camper from things already in our house. He said, "I BET YOU CAN!!!" Hmmm...I'm not sure how to interpret that! Do you think he means that I am soooo talented that I can create some lovely things from items in our house....or could he possibly mean that I have already purchased so many things that are laying around our home that there is plenty to pick from???
Hmmmm.......
We are planning a trip to "Holiday World" (a nice amusement park) in Southern Indiana soon and plan to camp closeby. That will be our first time in our camper. I am considering how much fun it might be to let just us girls go camping sometime! (Since I work Fridays and Saturdays, it is hard to take advantage of camping!)

By the way, my daughter Jennie has now posted some videos of our little granddaughter, Seraphina and well as our silly kitten...the baby is about 9 months old and the kitty is about 12 weeks old...just in case you want to check them out! Please pardon my messy house in the background!!!!
Well...lots and lots to get done today and not much time to do them in! So have a lovely day! Blessings to you all!

Start of a new school year and cleaning!!

We have been so busy here at our house. I'm TRYING to get organized with cleaning and having the girls start school this week. They are both very excited about it. I think that Jennie is having a much easier time with it because she went from public school last year to online streaming for school this year. So she is used to the routine and the necessity of the school tasks that she is doing. Becca was homeschooled last year but since I worked outside of the home last year, she did much of her work on her own time schedule. She did fine for me but it wasn't as regimented as it will be this year.
I bought a new laptop so that each of them would have a different computer to work from. It was nearly impossible for them to put in a full day's worth of school sharing the computer. Becca has been saving for a computer (and so has Jennie) so Becca and I went in together to buy one. Jennie will continue to save her money until she has enough to buy her own laptop. However, they help support a little Kenyan boy and Becca helps me to pay for her trumpet lessons so saving money is rather slow around here!
I think it is so cute, though, to see them doing their schoolwork. Becca answers questions out loud and sings during their Bible class when the teacher asks them to sing a hymn. They have LOTS of Bible memory to do and I am pleased but somewhat worried about them getting it all done. I can't imagine anything any better for them to do, though, than to memorize God's Word! God has been putting that on my heart as well so I may try to memorize it along with them! So far Jennie has taken several quizzes in different classes and has gotten 100%! Yay for Jennie!

It is also neat that the girls' cousins from Pensacola Christian Academy are "in" their classes. These are pretaped classes from a year or so ago so even though the cousins are a little older than my girls, they are "in" the same class! It's fun watching them answer the questions. These are good kids so I don't expect the teacher will ever have to tell them to pay attention, etc. in the classes. (I'm just so happy that I was never in a taped class...my parents would have had evidence that I was NOT paying attention, talking, or just plain goofing off in class! WHEW!)

I've been cleaning out cabinets and washing the tops of cabinets in our house. I'm rearranging our pantry and cabinets a little bit as well. I just don't quite know what to do with all the stuff. Maybe it is time to DROP OFF at the Goodwill Store instead of BRINGING THINGS HOME from the Goodwill Store!

I'm also trying to figure out how to organize all the school books and manuals, test and quiz books, etc. for their school. I think I need to "purge" some book shelf space for this important time of their lives! I have to be better organized! That is my biggest problem...lack of organization! I would love to BE organized, I just don't know how to GET there!

I have some pictures to share but I don't want to disturb Jennie while she is studying...she is going to give me some computer lessons and show me how to get pictures from my camera on to the computer! Hmmmm....THAT should be a task for her!!!! Maybe next week...tomorrow and Saturday are those long days at work...I come home and just SLEEP!

We have new neighbors accoss the street. I was praying for some people who possibly homeschooled to move in but they look like they are an older couple. They are probably very nice and soon we plan to bring them a loaf of home made Zopf bread!

Blessings to you all! Have a lovely day!

Oh...by the way, I've talked about "Trinket" the kitten...Jennie has decided to put a short playful video of her on my blog. Hmm....Oh well, I guess I told her my password???? Not sure why. She was working on a video about a slum in Kenya and about the growth of a baby in the womb so she is sharing them with us. I DID tell her to put her Kenyan video and the baby video on there. I LOVE THAT GIRL OF MINE!!! :)

I have a funny kind of story about going to my friend's funeral yesterday...if I can find anything funny about that, I will try! So I was running around here yesterday trying to get everything done, getting the cake frosted to take and getting the summer sausage cooked, sliced and placed into a crock pot with barbecue sauce. I had not yet dressed for the funeral or fixed my hair, put in my contacts or put on a dab of make up when my other good friend called. I rushed to the phone, greasy hands and all (being in the middle of the sausage preparation) and my dear good friend asked me if I happened to have any corn chips to take to the funeral meal. She had forgotten to get some and was in the middle of other things as well. I said, "No, but I would be happy to stop and buy some for you!" She was very appreciative. I got back to the food, washed my yucky hands and ran upstairs to try to fix my hair and to dress. I picked out a straight brown dress with a short sleeved jacket and rushed downstairs to load the car with the goodies. I choose NOT to wrap the big cake with plastic wrap because I live pretty close to the church where the funeral was to be and decided that it would make less of a mess if I just carried the cake open. Oh, was I wrong. By the time I got it into the car, I had chocolate ALL over the place...I kept finding it all over my clothes. But, I choose to wipe it off, after all, I had on a BROWN dress and no one would notice! So I ran back in and got the sausage stuff. As I was carrying it to the car, the big serving spoon flipped up and added to my dress. Still, I chose to wipe it off...since I was running late...no one would notice, right? Right!
Let me explain about my dress...it is very long...just above ankle length...but with a very modest slit in the back to allow for movement. WELL....at least it WAS modest until I tried to get into the van..rrrrripppppp!!!!!! I just sat there for a second or two trying to decide what to do. I decided that it surely wasn't THAT bad of a split seam...NO ONE WOULD NOTICE!!! RIGHT??

Off I went, to the local Marsh Grocery store and I ran in to get the chips for my friend. I also realized that I forgot to order funeral flowers and I decided that I would just buy a beautiful floor plant to take with me. As I bent down to pick up a floor plant, I smoothed the back of my dress....or should I say "my Slip!" because the little tear was not so little. The rip had stopped only about 3 inches from my rear end! I then had a slit that went from nearly floor length to my.....ummmm bottom!!!! I immediately hurried to see if I could buy some safety pins and the chips and hurried out to my car...wind blowing, billowing my brown skirt and my big white slip all over the place! Of course, the parking lot was full and, by the way, I live in a fairly small town where you always see someone you know! (I almost ran to the car, pushing the shopping cart ahead of me!) I refused to look up or look anyone in the eye...after all, if you don't see them, they don't see you, right? RIGHT?????????
I raced to the church...late, of course...and made many trips back and forth taking the food and flowers into the church...dress billowing again, of course... Oh by the way, have I mentioned that I am not exactly skinny? My big white slip was trying to cover my full figured frame...Get the picture??

My husband called me on the cellphone as I was trying to get everything into the church. He was not having a very good day at work...one of those days that he knew better than to ask to take some time off to go to the funeral with me. But instead of sympathy from me, when he heard what was happening to his wife, he just kept saying, "Oh my...oh, Honey...."

A lady walked in with me and noticed the torn dress..."Oh dear...." she said.
Oh dear indeed!!!! Indecent, I am sure!
I was able to get to the rest room and pinned up my dress. I rushed into the sanctuary to find a seat...all alone by choice!! By that time, I was burning up, "glistening"....NO, I was just plain sweaty and breathless.

It was one of those decisions that you have to make...either to let it upset you...or laugh about it. I decided to laugh about it...inside. No one would have understood if I sat there at my friend's funeral laughing. However, I am sure, knowing Evelyn as I do, if she were there with me, instead of being with God, she would have been laughing, too! (Actually, she would have been in the restroom with me, trying to help me pin up that huge rip instead of just saying, "Oh dear..."!!)

Maybe I can tell her about it when I get to heaven!!

Saying Goodbye to Evelyn

Thank you to those who wrote to me about my friend Evelyn who had cancer that had spread to her brain. She went home to be with the Lord on Friday morning.
My husband and I went to the viewing yesterday afternoon and I am getting ready to go to her funeral now. I'm about to frost a chocolate cake and making some sliced sausages in barbeque sauce for the family dinner afterward.

It is hard to say goodbye to someone like her.

She was tiny and I am very tall. We looked like Mutt and Jeff. We have shared some fun times and some difficult times together. She had a big big heart and she loved people and was a very giving lady. She used to come to our house for New Years Eve celebrations. (You know, those "stuffy" kind of celebrations when people don't drink alcohol on New Years Eve!) We had so much fun! One year she was there and we had a "Murder Mystery." She was always at every church party we had and even came to my step son's graduation when he graduated mid term this past year. She was a part of our lives.

The last year she came to our house, we spent time at midnight asking the Lord to heal her. For some reason only known to our Lord, He chose to take her home instead.
Evelyn knows why, I guess, and she is safely home in his arms. She is experiencing such ultimate joy that I know she doesn't want to come back home...in fact...she IS HOME.

Dentist and Bargains of the Week!!...and dead chickens

What is it about having a huge...or seemingly huge...drill in your mouth accompanied by smoke that is just not terribly comforting? Yeah...that's what I was faced with at 7am this morning! And to think that we actually PAY for dentists to do this stuff!!!

I broke one of my back teeth a few weeks ago and was waiting until the wedding was over with to get it fixed. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...or as I fearfully imagined that it would be! As my kids call it, I kept trying to "go to my happy place" during the drilling but the man with the big drill kept interfering! But there was relatively no pain...but I just get "creeped out," another of my girls' favorite sayings! I have this fear/terror of going to the dentist. But it's all over now. WHEW!

There was a really good deal this week at Kroger's. They had Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.98 a pound. (I liked the days when I could buy them for $1.67 a pound...but those are long gone, I suspect...) I had 26 $1.00 off coupons for them! I dug around and found the smallest packages of chicken...usually around $3.00 - $3.50 per package. So I got $1.00 off each of those packages! What a deal! They are all in our freezer now except for one that I am going to grill and put in our salad for supper tonight. I am pretty excited about stocking our freezer with chicken breasts for such bargains! (I also cut each of the chicken breasts in half so that makes the meat go farther in our family. Sometimes I slice them before I cook it and it REALLY goes farther then! I only use about 1 1/2 pounds for supper for 5-6 people.)

I really like having chicken breasts instead of bone in or whole chickens. First of all, as much as I like to PRETEND that I am from Pioneer Stock...and I am, really!...the whole chicken just kind of "grosses me out." I've done it plenty of times, skinned the chicken, pulled it off the bone but it still makes me cringe. I'd just prefer to have boneless breasts instead! My husband is just as bad. He can't stand to have the bones on his plate. So, we're a good match, huh?
My grandmother would just be shaking her head at me, wagging her finger, and then telling all my aunts about my inability to handle dead chickens. After all, she was the one who would wring the chickens' necks and then pluck them, clean them....ewwww.....etc.....

When I was growing up, our chicken were ONLY for gathering eggs...they were more like pets and WE DON'T EAT OUR PETS! I'd prefer the kind of chicken that you can no longer identify as little chickies...I'd have been a total vegetarian if it were up to me to do what my old grandma did! Yuck.....

I bought some more fresh strawberries as well. I don't have a bit of a problem cutting them up...or cutting their little "heads" off!! I got them for $1.25 a pound. I'm not sure that is such a wonderful price but I will be glad that I have them in the freezer this winter, I think! We have bags of them already and now we have a few more to freeze tomorrow. We just wash them, dry them off as well as we can, layer them on a cookie sheet to put in the freezer. Then the next day, when they are all frozen hard, I place each of them into freezer bags. I can then pour out however many I need when I use them later on. My mom has always done that with her raspberries and blackberries as well.

I guess sweet corn was on sale as well...but I forgot to get some! RATS! My husband and step son would have been so happy with me! Maybe I can get some later on to blanch and cut from the cob and freeze.

Well, that's my big bargains and big happenings for the day! We did have a good time at the grocery store...we had the precious little grandbaby with us. It was fun also because several different people asked my two daughters if they were twins! (They are 4 years apart...12 years old and 16 years old!) They have started to really resemble each other. That has been a question that they have been asked very often the last few weeks! So we got a lot of laughs and conversation together from it. I love being with my kids!

By the way, yesterday the house was full of our kids and grandkids all day. It was wonderful. There were almost no arguments and everyone agreed to our newly instated rule cutting back on tv time in our home. I actually rewarded good behavior last night by giving them a little bit more time. (and then I realized that the dishes weren't done and I wondered why I was such a pushover????) Oh well....small baby steps........

Trinket the rotten kitten is playing with the cursor on my computer screen. Right now she is fascinated with my typing the letters on the screen! She is so much fun!

Huck, one of the dogs, recently moved out to live with my husband's adult nephew...He had a difficult time adjusting to us ladies living in the house and decided to mark his territory ...which happened to be our purses, backpacks, beds, whatever he thought should be marked. So,...now he will happily live with his favorite person anyway! Good all the way around...although we do miss the little guy! We are now down to one dog and the kids immediately think that we should get another one...NOT! At least not for a while. Eventually I would like to get a nice dog that we could have trained as a therapy dog. That would go just right with my weekend job working with special needs adults!

I got some really good deals at the Goodwill Store yesterday! I found a signed and dated and dedicated homemade quilted throw in beautiful brown, rust and burgundy colors for just $2.99!! What a deal! It kind of made me sad to think that someone would get rid of something that someone had made just for them just 2 1/2 years ago as a Christmas gift!! But I will love it! I also found another queen size quilt for I think $3.99. I don't see a tag on it but I think it is a manufactured quilt bought in a department store. I still love it and have added it to my quilt collection. We use most of the quilts that I have...a few are for display only. One of these days I hope to get a little farm house or country house and use them as bedspreads on our beds! We do take them camping and on picnics so I'm not terribly finicky about most of them. (especially since I bought many of them at the Goodwill stores!)

My hubby has complained that our colored towels just don't ever seem to smell fresh even when they are washed and dried immediately. I wonder if it has something to do with our well water. Anyway, he has suggested that we get rid of our colored towels and only get white ones that we can bleach each time. We are due to get new towels anyway because they're in bad shape but there are a few that I will keep. Some will go in the dog crate and some will be our "camping" towels. So, anyway, I was able to find nice almost new towels at Goodwill for $1.99 each. They're freshly washed and bleached and folded to be put away!

I have so much to get done today...taking care of two grandchildren, my own children, and cleaning the house! I have lots to pack up from the wedding from the weekend so I'd better get things going! Bathrooms to clean and disinfect...counter tops to clean...dining room table to clean off...we haven't seen the whole top of it for many weeks due to 4H projects and wedding preparations! I'd love to surprise my husband with a MUCH cleaner house tonight when he gets home!

It's a very rainy day here in Indiana but those are the nice kind of days to "piddle" around the house, light a fragrant candle, brew some hot tea and get some cleaning done!

Have a lovely day! Blessing to you all, Beth

Big brother Aaron toasting (with sparkling GRAPE juice, of course) toasting the happy couple. Aaron could hardly get through his little speech...it was so precious!

A new family started with "I do." I am so happy to show pictures of my "kids" at their wedding! They were so cute and I was so touched at the ceremony! I wish them all the love and happiness two people can have! So many people have told me the last couple of days that " it's a real love story" and a "fairy tale romance." I think it's even better than that! I believe God set it into place!

On the left is Erin and of course, Danny is on her right, cutting the cake!

Beautiful Wedding!

DID YOU HEAR THAT???? It was a HUGE sigh of relief!! The "wedding of the year" is over! It was wonderful, beautiful, touching, and...tearful!
Danny and Erin have dated for 6 1/2 years and it seemed like they were made for each other...I believe they were. God ordained it and yesterday all our hopes and dreams and wishes for them came true.
Their words to each other were precious...but the look on my son's face was beyond description.

He is a joker...the class clown...yet serious enough to have been elected "chaplain" of his senior class at the Christian school they both attended. But to see his face as his precious bride walked down the aisle was amazing. He cried and had everyone else crying as well. My husband couldn't even look at him a second time. I, on the other hand, looked at him more than I looked at our sweet Erin. I am used to seeing her pretty face and was able to see her and even pray with her before the ceremony but to see my boy brought to tears at the sight of the love of his life was just amazing.

They spoke words of love and commitment to each other that had themselves and all of us choked up. Two of my daughters (who were bridesmaids) were almost unable to contain their emotions.

This isn't just an ordinary love story about two childhood sweethearts finally getting married.

These young people have been put to the test and have come out golden.

Erin's dear mother was the victim of domestic abuse and is in heaven. Her father will not be able to actively be a part of her life for many many years...if ever. The wedding was on Erin's mother's birthday in memory of her.

This happened when the kids were only sophomores in high school. Danny refused to leave her side and slept on the floor in the living room of her aunt's house for many days while Erin slept on the couch. During a period of complete fatigue and emotional exhaustion he even blamed himself for not being able to stop what had happened.
That's an awful lot for a couple of children to have to handle.

I know that God has blessed them and will continue to bless them. He has blessed others through them. God has used both of them to talk about their experience to groups of people and I am so grateful and humbled to have these kids as MY kids...she's mine OFFICIALLY!!!!