house for rent

After a long moving process, and complete "freshening" of one house, we are finally ready to rent our larger home (1800 s.f., 3 bdrm, 2 bath). Our realtor will be showing it tomorrow, and she asked me for pics, so you get to see them too!

Oops! I think I got 2 of the same one there, but since I'm still new to adding images, deleting them is just not possible tonight.

In other news, I'm fighting a cold - bleah...scratchy throat...hack hack

More cooking pictures

These are other pictures of our cooking-making experience, including some of the "new" stove finally in its place (my hubby found it by the side of the road in an upscale neighborhood - free!).

And here are the menus I promised but never posted:

BROILED FISH STEAKS1
CHICKEN POT PIE
MEAT LOAF
CHICKEN & RICE
HASH BROWN CASSEROLE
CHICKEN GOULASH
BROCCOLI SALAD
TUNA NOODLE CASSEROLE
EAT OUT
SLOPPY JOES
ORIENTAL CHICKEN SALAD
LASAGNA
HONEY WORCESTERSHIRE CHICKEN
OVEN FRIED FISH
SMUCKER’S CHICKEN SALAD
ENCHILIDAS
SPAGHETTI
ROASTED CHICKEN & NEW POTATOES
BEEF RICE-A-RONI WITH VEGGIES
OMELETS
CHILI DOGS
ORANGE-ALMOND TROUT
BEEF STROGANOFF
SOUTHWESTERN BEANS AND VEGGIES
CHICKEN SATAY
DELI SANDWICHES
CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS CASSEROLE
BROCCOLI QUICHE
GRILLED FISH
TWICE BAKED POTATOES
FRITO SALAD

Tonight we're having omelets - yummy

Menus

After 30 years of cooking, I am tired! Now we've come up with 30 dinner recipes, and I put them all together in a binder to make shopping, etc. easier. Here's the monthly menu calendar, and pictures of some of the recipes (in plastic sleeves). The last picture is some well-loved and well-used recipes, which I put in the back of my binder for easy access.

Valentine's Day

We had some fun this year with our International students - baking and decorating cookies. Here are some pics!

Profound words

As I've said before, I'm married to a pretty wonderful guy. Here are some thoughts he's prepared for a church program Friday night.

That “Time of the Year”

“Are you getting the Christmas spirit?” It’s funny, as many times as we’ve heard that, we may not be able to define it, but we know what it means. The stores thrive on it because something puts us in the mood to shop. Sure, it’s crowded and rushed, but there’s a whole cluster of warm associations and memories: family coming home, good food, music, bright lights, brightly-colored ads, and stores and clothing. It’s just so … so … festive! Before recorded history, people probably celebrated the time when the days stopped getting shorter and started getting longer as signifying hope that life would return to the land. Much later, the Christian church incorporated it into its tradition. The years have combined many ancient and cultural symbols, from Christmas CDs to Christmas specials, from Santa to gift-giving, to become the holiday we enjoy today. Recently, we shake our heads at the odd tug-of-war between “Merry Christmas” and “Season’s Greetings” – between school programs where “Silent Night” has been silenced and we ”rock” around the Christmas tree.

The “True Meaning”

The historical event at the core of this holiday has almost completely vanished from public consciousness. But isn’t Christmas just a tradition? After all, there’s nothing about a Christmas holiday in the Bible. And since it became part of the religious calendar so long after Christ lived and the New Testament was written, we’ve gotten both the year and the time of year wrong (the birth was probably 5-7 B.C., and the time of year was almost surely not winter.) So where does that leave us? Does this charming little story have anything to say in a cynical, modern world?

Perhaps just like God took his window of opportunity to send a very personal message to earth, we have a window of opportunity to bring a very hopeful message to a restless world. Incredibly, God broke into human history with a “whisper”, a threadbare, young couple; a newborn in a feed trough? Come on. … A cosmic shift was set in motion, and hardly anybody noticed. Don’t you see, God acts on His own terms, and those terms have little to do with earthbound power, worldly wealth, and human wisdom. All of those have a limited run on life’s stage and finally leave us hollow and still yearning for more. Remember that seasonal “spirit” I mentioned? Well, there is a Spirit – He’s God’s Spirit, and He calls to our spirits, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the water without cost; the water that truly satisfies.” Jesus said, “anyone that drinks of me will have springs of living water welling up from His soul.” Jesus wasn’t saying, “I’m this very profound teacher, bro, and if everybody just gets along, we’ll all be cool.” Is that our impression of Him? Not even close! He was God’s Son, sent from God Himself, sent to shake up the world, sent to welcome seeking hearts. He came to dies, He came to save us from our own self-centeredness, hurtfulness and pride, He came to draw us back to God’s own heart, to rise from death to life, to live among any who would give themselves to Him, to show us how to treat each other. And perhaps finding beyond our desperation the joy that comes as we reach out to touch the cheek of a certain sleeping Child.

Feel free to share this as much as you like...just give glory to God and credit Ken Hougey as writer. Thanks!

Pretty things

I've never been a great housekeeper...never been fond of "cutesy" things. Somehow in recent years, I've managed to collect a few knickknacks from gifts others have given me. I finally had to buy a doll display case because of the 4-5 dolls I received.

My brother-in-law and his wife have recently separated and moved out of their house to sell it. Right now the wife and kids are living with us in our 3-bedroom, 1800 s.f. home. It hasn't been as bad as you might think...we drafted an agreement between all parties about chores, curfew, etc. It has been great! Becauise we have chore assignments my house has never been cleaner, and because I can't live a cluttered life and expect them to pick up after themselves, it stays mostly clean. (And my nephew's comment was, "Someone finally taught my family how to keep a house clean!" I quickly explained it was definitely a joint effort, and something new for me as well.)

They were also selling a lot of furniture, so we bought this entertainment center from them:

Here's what our old one was like:

Here are my knickknacks, safely behind glass, so they need little dusting:

Lastly, just so you know it's still me, here's some things that aren't so great:

My knitting...I bought all sorts of needles and yarn, etc a few years back, and now hardly use them, but I hate to throw or give them away, because I still like knitting.

This coffee table was one of the first nice pieces of furniture that we owned...you can maybe see the chip in the glass (lower right corner of the glass, and taped to cover sharp edges - we had already paid to replace the glass once.

Hope you've enjoyed my little tour...I have even more pictures, but that's enough for now.

HAIR

I've had a love/hate relationship with my hair all my life, as I suspect most women have. When I was a child (one of 5 daughters), I was rarely allowed to have it long; it seemed that anytime it almost reached my shoulders, my father would have mom give me a haircut. Mom did tolerably well (better than I could ever do), but she struggled with consistency. Each time I would get a haircut, I would be disappointed in the result but would gradually get used to it (or it would "grow" on me). So the next time I'd say, "I want it like it was the last time," but of course it didn't turn out that way.

When I went to college, my hair was short, mostly blunt cut, and halfway through college, I got a really nice tapered cut (don't really know what'd you'd call it) at a salon. Most of my adult life it has been short like that, although when I had my first child it was to my shoulderrs. With each baby (there were 4), the hair got a little shorter - no time for anything fancy after all. Surprisingly, my very talented husband learned to cut hair, and he would trim or style mine when I asked. (He even gave me a few perms, with varied results.) And once I started dying mine, he even liked doing that for me. (We still have a few boxes of hair coloring, but since the grandkids came along, I think I'm entitled to go gray. I am the grayest of all my sisters, and I think even grayer than my brothers, even though I am the middle child, not the oldest.)

A few years ago, I decided to grow my hair long. I grew it for 3 years, and enjoyed it very much. Then one warm spring day I realized that I was wearing it up most of the time, so what was the point of the long hair. By the way, my aforementioned husband preferred it short, but was agreeable to my wearing it long if that's what I wanted.

Anyway, a year ago I had it cut, and as the stylist was working on it, she cut it off straight first. Although I had originally planned to go back to my earlier style, I decided to go with the straight cut. I got a good response, and I liked the look. The problem was, everytime I went to the salon, I got a new hairdresser, and each time it came out slightly different, but okay.

This week, as we began to head into warmer weather, I decided to get it trimmed again. I asked Ken to do it for me, and he agreed. First, I need to explain that in all the times that he cut my hair, it was a good cut and flattering. I told him - just trim it, about an inch or two shorter all over. Shortly after he started cutting, he said, "I have no idea what I'm doing." Which should've been a clue. After another 5 or ten minutes cutting, he said, "I think I'm going to have to layer it." I didn't want it layered, because that's always hard to grow out. So he let me take a break to go look at it in the mirror. It was ghastly - a blunt cut practically just below my ears - not a good look for me at all. We both agreed that layering was the only way to salvage the cut, and so he did that. (I guess because he can't picture things in his head, he couldn't remember what my hair looked like once he started cutting.)

I still don't like the cut - today is day 2, and after sleeping on it, my hair looks like someone randomly cut here or there, but with no rhyme or reason. At least it will grow back, eventually. I am not going to post a picture because it is really a bad look for me. Maybe later, if I can find a way to manage it. If you really can't wait, you can go to KKDV.com, click on the coffee break link, and look at the picture for 3/15 (yesterday) - I won a coffee break for my co-workers and me, and they took a publicity shot for their website. I'm on the right in the front row.

I could tell soo many hair-raising stories about haircuts (mine and those given by me) but you probably don't want to know all of them.

He still loves me!

31 years and 2 days ago, my boyfriend gave me a new bicycle for Valentine's Day. We had a wonderful time riding around that day, although starting and stopping was hard for me because I am only 5' 1", and it was a man's bicycle! (But it was top of the line for the times, and it cost over $100). Later that evening, he proposed in a roundabout way (it started out sounding like he was going to break up with me, but ended in a proposal), and after I accepted, we decided I didn't need an engagement ring because he had given me the bicycle. (I'm still not sure quite how that works, but I didn't want to press the issue.) I found his high school ring and started wearing that until he told me that felt "childish" to him.

Anyway we picked out matching wedding rings with a cross on them representing our faith in Christ. He lost his in the lake a week later, so of course, we hired divers (to no avail) and immediately replaced his ring with another one.

For our tenth anniversary, he surprised me with a diamond ring with ten diamonds (totatling 1/2 carat, I think) - one for each year - at the extreme cost of $1200! I was too nervous to wear it at first, but deeply loved it because not only had he chosen it for me, he had actually designed it, so it was one of a kind!

Time went on...I lost my wedding ring and 3 years later he replaced it with an identical one...then one very sad day, I lost the anniversary ring too (about 15 years later). Our insurance company accepted my claim and gave me a check for $5000(!), which I used to pay for finishing my college degree at long last (interrupted after our first year of marriage to allow him to go to grad school).

He promised to replace the ring, even though it was virtually irreplaceable, and shortly I found one that I liked, so I called and asked if I could buy it - he said, "If you like it, buy it." It was only about $300, but has diamond chips and emeralds (my birthstone). That was 6 years ago.

Recently I was up late watching TV (channel-surfing) and saw a ring I really liked, and I suggested he buy it for me for Valentine's Day. He sat down with me to find it on the computer later, but he didn't like it that much. After looking at rings and talking about them, I told him, "That's okay, it's silly for me to want another ring - I have two very special rings already."

Yesterday, the day after Valentine's, he brought home an orchid plant, cooked dinner for me, and then presented me with a ring box, containing a diamond and Tanzanite ring - very simple, but with some similarities to the anniversary ring. He said I could exchange it if I want, but that he thought it was the most beautiful ring at the jewelry store. What do you think?