JamWithMe Thursday - Keep Faith Fresh

What is one area you’d like a refill of encouragement? (e.g. work, parenting, marriage, friendship, ministry, faith, health, finances, or ___? )

I regularly read Dayspring’s blog (in)courage and sometimes check out the writer’s sites. I really like Faith Barista. On Thursdays she hosts “JamWithMe Thursdays” where she serves up the topic of faith and we write the post. This week I’m wanting to write a post each day (M-F) so I thought, why not? I’m discovering her prompts make you be transparent.

The area I would like a refill of encouragement is friendship. My husband is my best friend. My sister is my best girlfriend and I’m thankful to be in the same town. I have my FB and bloggy friends. I have friends at church and I’m thankful for the time we share. I get to see friends in Texas soon. What I want is a like-minded friend locally who I can connect with on a weekly basis.

Sometimes it’s hard to make those connections when a friend’s kids are different ages than yours or they have girls and you have boys or your schedules are different. Sometimes people are friendly, but they have that “one” friend and don’t need a deeper friendship than being friendly. I don’t want to make excuses and I’m open to an unlikely friend.

Lord, please stretch my faith and open my heart to encouragement in friendship.

Make 5 Dinners in One Hour

***Side note to the potato salad: I made about 24 servings of potato salad for $4.50. Buying five pounds (about 15 servings) from the deli would cost approximately $10.**

When M. was very young I did some Once a Month Cooking. It was nice to have the dinners in the freezer, but was a real pain to make. Literally, after a day of cooking I hurt all over, especially my back. In Texas I went to one of those neat little dinner stations where I made up several meals and took home to either make soon or freeze. It was a luxury I did maybe three or four times - super expensive!

I found this blog, Make 5 Dinners in One Hour. You can either just enjoy the blog (there are recipes on it from time to time) or subscribe to the menus. It's $15 for three months. It comes with recipe, serve with suggestions, instructions AND shopping list. It's something you could just do once and rotate the recipes if you don't want to continue.

It's wonderful and worth the price to me not to have to think about what's for dinner or making a list. We've never had a bad dinner from it. In fact, now I am cooking much more flavorful food and I'm using all kinds of spices I didn't before. I also love that the food is "real"- nothing is complicated or expensive.

Please leave me a comment and let me know if you try out the sample menu.

Potato Salad and Vintage Bowl

Yesterday evening I made something that I have made a total of three times in my life. Potato Salad. Now, I've eaten plenty, just not made it. BTW, I do not like the already made up stuff in a tub that you can buy at the grocery store. The recipe I made last year when we went camping at Father's Day called for sweet relish, but I didn't have enough. So, I made a recipe that I found by the Idaho Potato Commission. Potato Commission - Potato Salad. Perfect match!

This recipe turned out great! I doubled it since I was making enough for Hubby's work potluch and our dinner the next night. I used half the amount of eggs though because they aren't my favorite and I used a bunch of green onions because it's what I had.

In addition to sending the potato salad I sent a really cool bowl. Hubby said it got lots of compliments. It's a Texas Ware melamac mixing bowl - brown with confetti splatters. I found some on blogs and Ebay with quite a wide range of prices. It's from the 1950s and was my Mom's. I love it!

The potato salad - it's not as runny as it looks. I don't like runny potato salad!

The bowl
Left hand side near bottom - the bowl in use.
Photo of my mom and sister (Aunt) in the late 60s.

Multitudes on Mondays - June 27

363. Hubby knows how to fix wall board
364. Supplies
365. Safety
366. Electricity
367. Better air flow for the ac
368. Lower humidity
369. Watching someone we know on HGTV
370. A flowering vine starting to climb the fence
371. Hubby home early
372. Answered prayer
373. Going to Home Depot with my best friend
374. 20 kids in a pool
375. Stopping to talk to a neighbor – not being in a hurry
376. The scent of my Aveeno lotion
377. M. thinking of me by bring a CFA sweet tea home
378. Aunt taxiing M. while I mow
379. Boys starting thankful journals
380. Boys getting along
381. Triple berry muffins
382. A road trip
383. Personalizing a devotional thought
384. Rays of sunshine streaming down to the ground
385. Ear to ear grin (L. after getting call from soccer coach that he made his team)
386. Being included and belonging
387. Going to Walmart late at night to get a new soccer ball
388. Friends to meet at IHOP at 1am
389. Children who teach me
390. A swimming pool in the neighborhood
391. A new tree better suited for our climate
392. New leaves on the rubber plant
393. Dog laying in the grass with her chin on the cement of the porch
394. Garden growing

Even though the fig trees are all destroyed, and there is neither blossom left nor fruit, and though the olive crops all fail, and the fields lie barren, even if the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be happy in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:17, 18 (NLT)

Daybook - June 27

Outside my window…sunny, unusually still – hardly any breeze

I am thankful for… seeing different planes and life flight at the fly-in and just generally being with my family there.

I am wearing… still wearing jammies!

Some plans for the rest of the week… I need to get busy on projects! I added another week away to the summer so that means I only have three weeks left at home before school starts (and all our trips).

I am hoping … that the business we have to do with the water dept. doesn’t cost any money!

On my mind… my boys. We watched a Phineas and Ferb episode last night and I’m thinking about summer vacation and hoping that my boys look back on ours with fond memories.

Hearing…. draws shutting from boys getting dressed.

I am praying for… friend whose son has MRI today.

From the kitchen….. ate yesterday at the fly-in “burger bash” (and my scales show it today!) Dinner part of this week: M – chicken chili, T- grilled food, W – bbq pork in the crock pot

Around the house… things keep piling in my office. Grrrr. Oh, a good around the house – our air conditioner seems to be cooling better.

One of my favorite things…. mornings in my porch swing

From my picture journal…

Please note: L has a new hairdo!

To view more daybooks visit Simple Woman's Daybook.

Giveaway

My friend at A Homemaker's Heart is giving away a mini ant hill by Insect Lore. Check it out here! Tamara is a wonderful home schooling mom and you'll love her photos, homemaking and home school information.

The Meaning of Love

I was browsing through an issue of Real Simple and read about their essay contest to answer “When did you first understand the meaning of love?”. Although I’m not in to writing for their contest, I thought it would make a good blog post for me.

God’s love has been evident to me from an early age and consistently since then. I am thankful that I don’t ever recall a time where I felt unloved. Awkward and not fitting in during growing up years, yes, but never unloved. Also, it was during most difficult parts of my life that I felt especially loved and cared for by my Heavenly Father.

I have also felt loved by my earthly family. Maybe even when I didn’t understand it with my head as “love”, I did with my heart. My mom always tucked me in at night and woke me up each morning. She had breakfast for me and either took me to school or watched for the bus if the roads were bad. She helped me study and quizzed me on almost every test I had in high school. Dad spelled love “t-i-m-e”. On Saturdays I was his shadow for whatever errands and projects he had going. My sister (Aunt) helped take care of me, she taught me to read in the grocery store, she carried my bag of stuff when we went to the cellar in the middle of the night and she looked out for me in a million ways. Sundays were my favorite day at home. Every Sunday the same thing – Aunt and I went to church, when we got home Mom had made my favorite dinner – cube steak and Velveeta shells mac n cheese, then we’d hang out in the living room where Dad was watching TV. We’d read the Sunday paper and nap in the afternoon. A snack in the evening and Heehaw or The Wonderful World of Disney rounded out the day.

The love of my life – Hubby – helps me understand a bit more about the meaning of love every single day! He always inspires me, is hardworking, seeks to be redemptive in all relationships, and is self-sacrificing. He made my day, week, month, year – the other day when were on an errand together he declared “I get to go to Home Depot with my best friend”. Our boys, M & L, are a precious blessing to us. I understand love more as I care for them, as we spend time together and with every sweet gesture of their love.

I John 4:11-12, The Message: My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

I think I was 8 in this picture.

I'm curious, does your family take pictures in front of the fireplace?