Life's hard...

...God still loves me. Doesn't feel good at all right now to say the least, but I still have faith. Sometimes I don't know why I do. I just do. There is still much to be thankful for.

Also an important post, but not mine...

This kind of goes with this. Helpful and important advice. If you read the first one, this one goes hand in glove. Written by her hubby.

Very Easy Broccoli Soup

This is a version of soup I saw on the "Living Like Daniel" Yahoo group. I rarely if ever stop by there, but this recipe was quite useful. Of course I changed it...*L*

Heat up a couple cups of broth, a can would probably work just fine, or half of one of those quart asceptic containers.

Then cook around sixish cups of broccoli in the broth. I think florets are best, but you could just use chopped broccoli too, I imagine. To me, this is a perfect use of maybe a pound or so bag of frozen broccoli florets.

Puree a can of white beans...cannelli, great northern, whatever. In this case I did not drain and rinse the beans, so you might want to use low salt beans, or not add additional salt depending on what your sodium needs are.

Once the broccoli is cooked, dump in the white bean puree, and use some salt (if needed) and white pepper. I guess you could use black pepper as well, but I like white pepper for cream soups.

Then puree the whole thing. I just use a stick blender for this right in the pot.

Add a cup of cheddar cheese. I wouldn't use the nonfat cheese, but you could use 2% cheese if you wanted. Probably sharp cheddar would have the best effect, but I used what I had instead.

Nice and very easy.

Christmas food...

We're dining with friends...and bringing

Grape jelly/chili sauce meatballs

Pecan cobbler

Cranberry Cake

Orzo Salad

Banana Nut Bread

that chocolate pecan candy (under "classy looking gift" if I remember correctly)

and a Goat Cheese Gratin with Yukon Gold potatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach, and cohja (sp?) cheese. yep, that was the challenging one that we hadn't done before, from the current Rachael Ray magazine. I'm not a huge RR fan, but the recipe sounded cool...and I liked the magazine, I'll admit it...

all these recipes are on this site if you are looking for them...if you can't find them lemme know and I"ll look for them with you! :-)

What kind of Christmas tree are you?

You Are a Minimal Christmas Tree

You're not a total Scrooge, but you feel no need to go overboard at Christmas. Less is more, and your Christmas reflects refined quality.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

This is a very important post

Read by thousands. Hey, she has a potty mouth sometimes, but this could save someone's life that you know. Read this. Please.

depleted

Warning; this post might be a good one to skip over.

The last few years have really taken it out of me. My reserves are low and my anger is often high. Feel pretty non-understood, not that this is a word. I know God understands, but a human face on that would help. I'm not saying this to get a comment out of anyone...I'm saying it more to be real and to acknowledge my feelings as being at least somewhat legitimate.

Several weeks ago when talking to a long time friend I mentioned something in an aside about the number of miles hubs and I drive every day to take care of kiddo (100 minimum) and somehow the amount of money we spend to pay tuition, gas, etc., came up. It was what is for us a huge, overwhelming number that leaves us gasping for financial breath every month, and frankly sinking beneath the waves quite a few of them. They were really surprised about both the mileage and the number. Somehow that felt really hard...like not even our close friends understand what we are going through.

People talk about vacations, buying cars, etc., and frankly I feel so left out. I am tired of a seventeen year old TV and a refrigerator that isn't working that great. I am tired of a roof that needs replacing pronto.

But Lord, you must have some kind of plan for me, and some kind of peace for me. Help me keep discovering it.

And my apologies to anyone who actually reads this post. Consider it only an honest cry of sadness (like what, Psalm 88 I think it is?) and hopes for the Psalm 89 after it.

I know we are making a difference, but it is still excruciatingly hard and so very lonely many, many times.

Please don't take this post the wrong way. I'm grateful to God anyhow. Take it more as maybe a weak example of how anyone can be honest with God even when things suck and still be loved and accepted. Sure am glad about that last part. Or maybe it's an honest statement that might help someone else at the holidays, the time where stereotypically all is supposed to be wonderful and you might not feel quite that wonderful today.

If you're where I'm at, maybe this will help.

And if you read this, don't stop there, I can tell you from experience. Read this, too. Pardon the french, but you can't tell me that the psalmists didn't have a helluva lot of problems, too. I am comforted by that realization.

Major yummy...and majorly rich

I had a special request from kiddo to make Pecan Cobbler. This is a very rich recipe. I have seen a bunch of different recipes like this on the 'net, but I would use this one because the oat flour makes a big difference. I did the oat flour in the food processor because I have been told that doing it in the blender can scratch up the inside of the blender if it is plastic (oatmeal being all exfoliating and such). ;-)

Personally, I would probably bake it a bit longer than the hour timeframe, but watch it carefully, of course. I baked it an hour and it was a wee bit runny. However, it flew out of the pan at the church potluck, and kiddo gave it a seal of approval. Of course, kiddo would rather I left the crust out entirely. But then it wouldn't be cobbler, would it? :-)

Kiddo wanted me to get vanilla bean ice cream to go with it, but hey, that doesn't really work with a potluck. So whipped cream it was. I'll bet cinnamon ice cream would be good as well.

Not what I expected

Today was the first time I sang before a mic in my life. And I lived through it. Actually, I wasn't scared. That was surprising in and of itself. Next time I'll ask for a different monitor mix, but hey, in music city, I'm more than a little self conscious.

God was gracious, because I didn't know I could do that. Years ago, performing on my instrument before hundreds or (once in a while) more than that was fine with me, but singing was not something I wanted to do in a small group. But it was okay. I think worship was not as scary up front as I thought it would be. Yay God.

Apronage for Sale

Well, I have finally posted some aprons for sale on my etsy site.

Lots more cut out and ready to sew, so you'll see lots more soon including some very cute holiday ones, if I do say so myself. Just right for Christmas dinner, and shipping is really fast on these since they go right in a nice big envelope.

Thanks!

Yummy, classy looking, and easy gift

Well, waiting on customers to need additional product (believe me, I made lots of it today), but I took a small break and made a special treat that I think will be a classy gift.

I think the name is unfortunate, but the candy is gorgeous and works great.

I didn't go as precisely as they said with the "checkerboard". I bought some Ghiardelli for the chocolate (next time I'll try the bittersweet as listed, but I used semi-sweet and you'll probably like it just fine unless you want to go a little further up the "adult palate treat" scale. For the white "chocolate" (as we all know, this isn't actually chocolate) I used Baker's white chocolate which I broke in half and laid on its side in the pan in a random pattern with the semi-sweet chocolate.

A couple toothpicks held together was just fine for the swirl.

My experience though was that the stated time was too long for toasting the pecans. Check them earlier to ensure that they don't burn.

Be sure to use the salt. It adds that last part of the "sweet salt crunch" trinity. I used kosher salt, which worked just fine.

Neat and easy gift that looks very classy.

Melting ice

No, it didn't snow here and the ice storm we often get later in the season is NOT early.

Here's something in case it helps anyone else, really briefly before I get back to the holiday onslaught...

There is someone who has helped me a fair amount this year. Not a real conversant person, rather detached. But I didn't let that stop me from trying to say thanks. The last time I saw that person I gave them a candle and said how much our family appreciated their help this year.

The person really did come alive at that point...got a joyful look on their face and animatedly conversed with me for a good while, making their appreciation known clearly. My guess is that they are not thanked often, and this made a very obvious difference in their life. I have to admit it was very surprising to have them react in that way.

I left our conversation feeling not only glad that I had so obviously blessed them more than I had thought, but also thinking of others that I wanted to bless and thank as well.

If you know someone that you don't think of as very engaging, don't let that stop you. You just might end up being surprised, as I was...and pleasantly so.