Beauty for Ashes: 2/1/11

Saturday, February 26, 2011

♫ Brighten the Corner Where You Are ♪

I got these tulips today.

Aren't they pretty?
They made my already bright day even brighter. :)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

1) The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot 's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Jason interrupted, "My mommy looked back once while she was driving," he announced triumphantly, "and she turned into a telephone pole!"

2) A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class, "If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?" A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, "I think I'd throw up."

3) A Sunday school teacher asked, 'Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark? ''No," replied Johnny. "How could he, with just two worms?"

4) Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School. "Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt . When he got to the Red Sea, he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved." "Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you," his Mother asked. "Well, no, Mom. But, if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!"

5) A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible - Psalm 23. She gave the youngsters a month to learn the chapter. Little Rick was excited about the task - but he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Ricky was so nervous. When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said proudly, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and that's all I need to know."

6) The preacher's 5 year-old daughter noticed that her father always paused and bowed his head for a moment before starting his sermon. One day, she asked him why. "Well, Honey," he began, proud that his daughter was so observant of his messages, "I'm asking the Lord to help me preach a good sermon."  "How come He doesn't answer it," she asked.

7) During the minister's prayer one Sunday, there was a loud whistle from one of the back pews. Tommy's mother was horrified. She pinched him into silence.  After church she asked, "Tommy, whatever made you do such a thing?" Tommy answered soberly, "I asked God to teach me to whistle . . . and He did!"

8) When my daughter, Kelli, said her bedtime prayers, she would bless every family member, every friend, and every animal (current and past). For several weeks, after we had finished the nightly prayer, Kelli would say, "And all girls."  This soon became part of her nightly routine, to include this closing. My curiosity got the best of me and I asked her, "Kelli, why do you always add the part about all girls?"  Her response, "Because everybody always finishes their prayers by saying 'All Men'!"

9) Little Johnny and his family were having Sunday dinner at his Grandmother's house. Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When Little Johnny received his plate, he started eating right away.  "Johnny! Please wait until we say our prayer," said his mother.  "I don't need to," the boy replied.  "Of course, you do," his mother insisted. "We always say a prayer before eating at our house."  "That's at our house," Johnny explained, "but this is Grandma's house, and she knows how to cook!"

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

A father wanted to read a magazine, but was being bothered by his little girl. She wanted to know what the United States looked like. Finally, he tore a sheet out of his new magazine on which was printed the map of the country. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to her and said, "Go into the other room and see if you can put this together."

After a few minutes, she returned and handed him the map, correctly fitted and taped together.

The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly.

"Oh," she said, "on the other side of the paper is a picture of Jesus. When I got all of Jesus back where He belonged, then our country just came together."

Thursday, February 17, 2011

MY HOBBIES

Culottes gone awry -
[awry - away from the expected or proper direction; amiss; WRONG]

Sweet Christmas Dresses

Frogs, anyone?

My First Shirt

THE MANY EXPRESSIONS OF OUR LITTLE MAN

Our little man was watching his brother playing on his laptop. I happened to catch a glimpse of the faces he was making and managed to capture a few. I sure do wish I could know what he was thinking.

ALL I CAN EAT SHRIMP

"Oh, yeah!"

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

LENTIL SOUP

Well, we were expecting cold, ice, and SNOW. We got everything but the snow. I would've loved to have some for just a day or two. I must confess that this cold snap, which plunged our temperatures down into the 20's, has removed any desire I recently had to move where it is colder. Brrrrrr! I'm lovin' our temperate zone and livin' for the sunshine from here on out. Sorry, Mom. :(

The following are some pics we took the morning of our really cold snap. I sooooo wish there would've been snow, but the ice was neat to see. It's quite a rarity in our neck of the woods.

A thin coat of ice had formed on our wooden table on the back porch. It's not much, but was quite the novelty for us.

Here we see little tiny icicles. Aren't they cute?? Haha! We saw some pretty long ones hanging off TDECU's drive thru.

Our birds could skate, but not bathe in this birdbath.

There was even ice on our pine tree. Wow!

I hate this hose because it is sooo old. I'm so glad the water froze inside of it. Now maybe we will buy a new one. A prettier one. :)

More cutsie icicles. This time on our Jimmy.

Now doesn't this just look "cool?" (Pun intended)

Since it's been so cold, I wanted to make something warm and healthy for us to eat. I decided to try out a Lentil Soup recipe. It was very quick and easy to put together. It even looked kinda nice, but in all honesty, I gotta tell ya, I AM NOT LIKIN' THIS SOUP.

Of course, I didn't expect it to be as good as a plate of lasagna or a juicy hamburger, but then again ... why eat it if I don't like it, right? At least now I can say, "I tried it, and if I never eat it again it will be too soon."

So, I'm givin' this recipe a big THUMBS DOWN. Someone out there may like it, and that's great. I think I will try lentils again, just not in this recipe. Just sayin'.

Lentil Soup with grated Parmesan cheese

[If you are interested, the recipe can be found under my RECIPES button near the top of this page under my Stick Family.]

ICE CREAM BROWNIE BARS

We made these Ice Cream Brownie Bars (by Martha Stewart ) this month. The brownie recipe is from scratch. We choose chocolate and vanilla flavors for the ice cream. We used Baker's semi-sweet chocolate for the coating. We also tried Baker's white chocolate, but I couldn't get it to melt.

The ice cream bars were very good, but very rich. We cut a 9x13 pan of brownies and ice cream into twelve large bars as we were instructed. Never-the-less, we'll cut them into much smaller pieces next time because of how sweet they turned out to be. You know Martha, however, it's gotta be BIG and it's gotta be RICH! :)

[You can find directions for these bars under my RECIPES button near the top of this page under my Stick Family.]

MY DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

I LOVE DARK CHOCOLATE . . . especially with almonds. It's not so easy to find dark chocolate with nuts. It's usually p-l-a-i-n. I was excited to find these little beauties several weeks ago. Unfortunately, I wasn't careful with them. I put 3 of them in the pocket of my lime green jacket and did the unthinkable. I forgot about them.

Here's the mug shot. This is the criminal - not me!

Innocent looking, huh? Yeah, right. Don't be fooled.

[These babies are MESSY when heated.]

The three little lovelies made it through the washing machine just fine. However, they were unknowingly tossed into the dryer, obviously still tucked neatly into my jacket pocket, where they escaped detection until pulled from the dryer.

Everything in this pile had dark brown stains. I was certain I would never be able to get them out assuming they had already "set" with the heat. It was bad, folks. These pictures simply do no justice to the actual crime. It was U-G-L-Y.

UGLY, right?

SHOUT to the rescue!

Ladies, rest your eyes on a Beacon of Hope!

I rapidly obtained a bottle of SHOUT, and the rest was soon just a bad memory.

I used quite a bit of the bottle on just this one small load of clothes.

It was well worth it, even though my "trigger finger" caught a cramp.

Voila! I've always thought SHOUT was a good product and one that could be trusted. Now, after this experience, I am even more convinced.

The only stains on this jacket are the two that were already there before the chocolate incident.

If you are familiar with the Dove brand chocolates, then you know they come with a message inside the foil wrapper. I was only able to salvage two of the foil papers. It's funny, these are the two messages from the chocolates that were in my pocket.

"It's OK to be fabulous AND flawed!"

and

"Chocolate won't let you down."

SHOP 'TIL YOU DROP

The girls and I headed out for some shopping. It was our first time to visit a store called Charming Charlie. We liked it because it seemed to have a little bit of everything that had to do with fashion. I'd be curious to know if any of y'all have been there, and what you thought.