Sunday, August 31, 2008

New search

Like last week or the week before, Jan and I trolled the sales. One of the veeerrry last ones we went to was labeled a yard sale but also said vintage sale. Our ears definitely perked! It turned out that this lady had cleared out her living room and put a bunch of vintage stuff that she had found all over and was re-selling it. There were a few cool items, but I guess after you come from other sales where everything is like $1 or less it seemed a little spendy. I did buy a cute little ceramic bird (for $4) that is brown with a gold glaze overtop. My Mom has one and so I had to have one as well, although I'm pretty sure hers is a green. Nevertheless - I did discover something that I am going to have to keep an eye out for, even though I've never actually seen one in circulation. Remember those old decorative scales??? I think one of my friends grandmothers had fake fruit on each side. Anyway, the lady had taken off the scale part and so it was the center beam which had a pretty glass accent and thent he crossbeam and she had necklaces hanging on it! I'm sure I'm not describing this correctly, but it was very cool looking. And functional. Now I just have to find one!
I did actually ask if I could buy hers but she wasn't selling. She knew she had a good thing. Maybe I will check ebay?

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Seeking God's truth

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; you works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you."
Psalm139: 13-18
This morning in my devotion I was writing out the lies that I have believed about myself so that I can then figure out what God's truth is. I was getting overwhelmed and upset with each thing that I identified. Each thought brought on another and another and so on. I had to stop otherwise I'd still be in my living room just crying. As Beth Moore says, "in a heap on the floor." I reached for my bible and opened it, the first scripture I saw was actually Proverbs 16:3, which was exactly what I needed to hear - "Commit to the LORD whatever you do and your plans will succeed." My plan (among many plans) is to find out what God's truth is - then I flipped again and in pink I had the above scripture highlighted. Oh!!! How that spoke to my heart! He created me, wonderfully and fearfully! He sees me just how I am and was in the past and loves me fully anyway. I may not always love myself, but the God of the universe does. I will be in search of more truth, but for now, that is enough just to know. There is also a song by David Crowder Band that says "you make everything glorious! - so what does that make me?" Just looking around at all the abundant beauty that God has made makes my heart squish!

Monday, August 25, 2008

The Paradox of Hot Flashes

I have been getting hot flashes every month since I was 13 or 14, which means that for more than half my life I experience what an older lady does. I was in Walmart yesterday literally panicking because I was sweating and roasting! I made a make-shift fan out of one of those free hand outs in the craft section and was frantically fanning myself. I got several funny looks but I just didn't even care! I had beads of perspiration over my nose/cheek area. The funny thing is, every time I mention that I get these I get a certain sort of disbelief from people (like I would make it up!) and a condescending "You're too young for those". I KNOW I'm too young for those! Believe you me that I don't WANT them! My internal inferno is not pleasant, but I have figured out a little relief. This is crazy, but those heating pads that you stick on actually help! Who knew that adding more heat would actually help cool me down??? I guess I was just thinking how strange that is.... But, I'm hoping that maybe once I do get to that certain age I will be over them! Until then - menopausal ladies - I feel your pain!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Apricot update











I was going to post a blog yesterday about the apricot project, but realized that I had forgotten my camera and it would be much more fun with pictures! I tried a batch with and orange juice dip, but let me tell ya - ewwwww! They were soooo tart! Which tart does have its place but not in this case! Also, they got extremely overdone! I'm thinking it's because of the altitude? We're at like 4500 feet and most recipes I have to adjust but didn't think about the dehydrating. The recipe said 24-36 hours and I only did like 17 and they were still super dry.
So, never fear! I tried again! And Hooray - I'm glad I did! The second try I used apple juice, nice and light flavor. And I cut the hours down to like 14, which turned out just about perfect. I'm very pleased with the final product. Next time I will know the right amount of time and I'm going to try guava juice. I thought that would be nice and sweet :)













On a completely different note, it has been so hazy here with fires and whatnot. And a little bit of oppressive heat - so I was sitting out in the yard doing my bible study homework since it was cooler outside than inside! And I took this pic because when it's hazy or foggy you can't see the hills in the backround of the lake that we live next to and I like to pretend it's the ocean! I know I'm a little silly - but it kinda does, doesn't it??? I like to think that we are on the coast and I could just walk down and put my feet in the sand and hunt agates! Or just sit on the beach and listen to the waves.


Wednesday, August 6, 2008

yummy stuff

Okay, so I am super duper excited about possibly making dried fruit! I have had a food dehydrator for a year and have not done anything with it yet. BUT, that's about to change! (hopefully) This past weekend I was walking the dogs up the hill behind our house and noticed an orange ball on the ground. I picked it up to discover it was an apricot! Lo and behold we have two apricot trees FULL of orange apricots! Yahooo! They are still hard as rocks, but I am going to keep watch on them and as soon as I can I'm going to pick them and put my dehydrator to good use! We also have two apple trees that have some teeny green apples on them. I hope every year that they will get big enough to use in a pie or something fun like that, but they never do. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the year! Wouldn't that we fabulous???!!!??? I've also got my eye on our blackberry bushes that have bloomed and have green berries on them. Oh, I just can't wait to make a tart or pie or pretty much some yummy baked good!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Fun stuff


Okay, these are the things that I got while visiting my Mom but forgot them in her car so she mailed them to me! Oh, how I love getting a package in the mail! Yippeee! Oh, and I put the broken plate in there also! I'm using the orange dish as a spoon rest on the stove. It is luminous! Mom found the pillow cases for me, and I love them! I still need to wash them before I can start using them, they are soooo soft! I have to say the beads are probably my favorite! I had been looking high and low here, but no luck. We kind of have some slim pickings, there are only two thrift stores! I wore them yesterday with my red and black scrubs and I know they didn't match but I just HAD to wear them because I love them so darned much!
So I reaaaaallly wanted one of these rotisseries. And wouldn'tcha just know that I found one whilst visiting my Mom at a thrift store. It was marked 16.50 and my Mom had a 50% coupon! As if it wasn't a low enough price! It is pretty much new, it didn't have the accessories, but did have the main parts. This is the first chicken I tried in it, it came out pretty good!















This is a lizard that was on the side of our house this weekend! He's kinda cute!

















Then, as I was taking a pic of the lizard I saw a buck in the side yard. We live on the side of a hill that has a bunch of wildlife, so I had fun taking some pics!















Okay, then I called my husband over to see the lizard and he noticed these snake skins in the grass! Creepy! We laid them out like this, they weren't just like that :)


















Some sweet peas with a ginormous bee!