Taste and See!

Last Friday night we had a Chocolate Tasting for our women at church.  It was titled, "Taste and See that the Lord is Good!"  We made these cute little recipe books full of chocolate recipes for each lady.  I got the inspiration from the beautiful artwork here from Julie Collins.

Every cover was different.  We used paper flowers, beads from a thrift store necklace, lace from my heirloom sewing projects and buttons from my grandmother's sewing box.  I also tea dyed little tags with the date.  They were very labor intensive, but a BIG HIT.   This young lady was one of our speakers.  She shared her incredible story of God's faithfulness through extremely different circumstances.  This picture was taken before she was to speak.  Do you sense a little apprehension? Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of our second speaker.  It's difficult to take pictures when you're in charge! Sandy was one of my council that helped.  She even dressed with pink and brown, our color scheme. We ate LOTS yummy chocolate desserts, even a chocolate fountain with fresh strawberries.  There were a lot of great door prizes and pretty decorations.  It was a great evening!

Lots to say, so little time

Hello there.  How are you all out there?  It's a gorgeous day here and I'm getting ready to go on a fun trip with friends we haven't seen in several years.  So, looking forward to spending time with them again. I have a lot I should share with you and I will, eventually.  I thought I'd post a quickie.  Here are some of my favorite things lately.

I was asked to contribute to a group blog called Grateful Living.  I just started back up yesterday and my post will be tomorrow, Friday the 13th.  I'd love for you to stop by and check it out.  Its challenging me to put into words what I am grateful for, which is a good practice, I think.

I follow the blog of this very personable and fun artist who teaches fourth grade in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles.  I mostly follow her because of her beautiful art journals.  I thought you would enjoy this sweet story she shared recently. It made me smile.

I'm still journaling and enjoying it.  I've started Bible Journaling.  If you haven't run across any of this loveliness I encourage you to check out Illustrated Faith.  Here are a few of my pages.  I'm such a beginner!

Another thing I've started is using a planner.  Its very fun to "dress it up" how you want.  It is helping me be more organized, but I'm also fairly new to that as well.  We will see how it goes.

 I hope all is well and you're up to some fun new things too.  I post more often on Instagram if you'd like to join me there!  Have a great weekend!

As I Was Saying. . .

Okay, I need to take my own advice.  My last post was about how I saved some family photos while on vacation.  All the while, I had several piles of my own family photos spread out on the floor of my craft room.  Confession time, they've been there since last August when we had a wildfire scare up here.  Here's the post I did following that scare.

Well, guess what happened last night?  The view from my patio at about 5:30 pm.

The wildfire started about 5:15 pm.  So the troops were called in and handled it very fast.  It was pretty much out by 8 pm. They used four tanker planes!  FOUR.

They're awesome to watch in action. Especially flying so low above my house!

 Can you see the orange fire retardant they release? 

There were also several helicopters dropping water and many ground crew.

I grabbed my scrapbooks. And threw together the piles of organized photos that were on the floor of the craft room since LAST AUGUST.  So much for organization. 

Thankfully, no such panic was needed.  I definitely need to work out a plan and scan, scan, scan!

Thank you Firefighters!

Tasty Pecan Recipes

Thanksgiving Thursday was a lovely day.

I know you're not suppose to try new recipes for company. So, WHATEVER, I decided to anyway. We go to my cousin's house for Thanksgiving and I just take a couple different things. Country Living Magazine had some wonderful looking recipes in their November issue. I have never made a pecan pie before, but their Chocolate Chunk Pecan Pie was so enticing. It did not disappoint! FABULOUS!  

I also made their Roasted Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Streusel.  What's with all the pecans?  I have no idea.  I almost took a green salad with sugared pecans, but ran out of time and thought better of it.  Back to my point, the sweet potatoes were also AWESOME!

{via Country Living}

Sorry, no good pictures of the feast.  I was busy eating.

 But the young-uns burned off a few calories afterwards.

While us old-uns sat and watched.  I had very high heels on, so there, that's my excuse. I hope your day was lovely too. There's so much to be thankful for, isn't there?

Country Life

You might've heard a little about a wildfire last week out my way. It was in my neighborhood on the west side.  Thankfully, we're on the east side. The trick is, there is basically only one way out of the area.  The fire got very close to that access road.  Sadly, one family lost their home.  As you can tell by the photos that it's the dry season here.  It's very, very dry.  It was definitely too close for comfort.  

 I'm very thankful that the fire department worked so hard for days to keep it under control. It only burned 355 acres.  Not nearly as big as the Colorado, Oklahoma, or New Mexico fires this year.

VERY THANKFUL!

 Today I had a visit from a little roadrunner.

Yesterday, I watched two Egrets check out my neighbor's yard.

And the moon was beautiful over the Valley.  

My Country Life.

thankful for. . . thunderstorms

"it never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya, it pours, man it pours"

Well, I don't know about that, at least those are the words as I remember them. It does pour once in a blue moon. All I know is living in California has made me appreciate a good thunderstorm. When home visiting in the Midwest, we love a good storm.  We've been known to run outside to watch and smell the rain. We don't like the tornado kind, but a good, rip roaring thunderstorm. Last time the thunder clap was maybe one second after the lightening.  Which if you're familiar with thunder means that the lightening strike was pretty dang close. Too close for comfort. Makes you wonder if you can smell smoke. Please don't critique my stitches too closely. It dawned on me that I could see much better without my glasses or contacts on. Hence, little squiggly lines.  My previous squares.

Friday Flowers - Thankfulness

This little askew embroidered flower is a departure from the usual beautiful blooms on Fridays. I think it fits because I love gardening, beautiful flowers and am thankful for the opportunities it has brought me over the years.  Master Gardening and garden clubs have brought me many lovely friends. My yard is getting the best of me these days, but I still love to putter.  This was my first square.

thankful for. . .

What crafty thing can you do when you have no sewing machine, are on an airplane or vacation?  Well, besides my never ending knitting projects, I decided to begin a Thankfulness Sampler. This was not my original idea. In fact, it's similar to a project that Amy from Inspire Co did called 39 Years. Here is her finished sampler. She even had a blog specifically about it and others joined in. She had a new suggestion that I don't think went anywhere, but it stayed in the back of my mind and simmered.  Embroider one inch squares to document what you're thankful for.  So, while headed on a trip to visit family, I began.  I'm not very far along, so this may take awhile. 

{love}

I'm thankful for not only the love of my husband, girls and parents, but especially for the unconditional love of God that never fails.

Whirlwind Weekend

I just got back late last night from a very fast trip from California to Oklahoma City.  There I met up with 15 friends in order to celebrate our 50th birthdays.  This lovely young lady was the organizer.  She was my friend in college and in my wedding 29 years ago.  We haven't seen each other since 2001.  

Some of us haven't seen each other since graduation in 1981!  How does the time go so quickly?We had lots of laughs, stories, hugs, tears and prayers with each other.  

The food was fabulous and presentation beautiful at Nonna's in Bricktown.  This is chicken pot pie. Do you notice the rooster on the top?

Yes, we piled up on the staircase for a group photo.

Later we ate more, laughed a whole lot more and here we're eating Chocolate Chip cookie dough just like we did in the dorm rooms.  What a very special weekend it was, in spite of my travel difficulties.  There is no need to bore you with them, but it was not good. 

My Girls

The next natural addition to my thankful posts this November are my girls. They are wonderful girls. Both are unique individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. They keep me hopping. Their Dad just runs for cover. It is wonderful to watch them grow into fantastic young women. These pictures were taken in September at DD1's wedding. Below is DD2 who was the MOH. She's enjoying herself at the reception. She did a great job and looked beautiful. She is working hard at getting her degrees (yes, double major) and navigating the bumps and mountains of the 20s. Below is DD1. Doesn't she look beautiful? She worked really hard at having a uniquely personal wedding and pulled it off beautifully. She lives across the country from me and had to do most of the planning by herself. Even though she was working full time and taking college classes she managed to plan a perfect wedding. Right now she's a hair stylist, but her new focus is on young married life and reaching her next goals.

Here I am with my girls. DD1 is much taller. She must have been bending at the knees to get so even with DD2 and me. This was before the ceremony. The excitement was just beginning! More pictures to come later.

My Guy

As I noted in my last post, I was on my way to Roma last week. We had a fabulous time and are now trying to get rid of the jetlag. In light of this month's theme of Thankfulness I wanted to let you know about my amazing husband. I would never have had been to such interesting places or the had the wonderful life I have led without this man. He is my husband, partner, friend, soulmate. He works incredibly hard and is an awesome provider for our family.

This is not my favorite picture, but you can tell we were having fun. The first afternoon we arrived before everyone else and started exploring on our own. We got lost even WITH a map but ended up eventually finding our way to the Trevi Fountain.

It wasn't too busy that day. Over the weekend it was a crazy place. I also didn't know till later that you're suppose to throw coins over your left shoulder with your right hand and make a wish. Never did it. The wonderful thing about this place was all the nationalities that were represented and how they were taking pictures for each other even if they didn't speak the same language. It's a great place to people watch.