Towel Shower

We were talking in the office the other day and a great idea was born. 

The idea...well, we decided that women should throw a shower for each other every 5 to 10 years.

Instead of waiting for bridal showers, we should just bless one another.

Because towels only last so long.

Take a look at these poor towels that I finally boxed up.

My bleached, frayed and well-worn towels that had, seriously, been our daily towels are boxed.

They have become rags.

Officially...rags.  They were rags a few years back but I just couldn't bring myself to the buying of all new towels.

But this shower idea is not such a bad one.  I'm not sure, however, if "Towel Shower" will catch on or not.

Anyone got a catchy name for the non-bridal-I-need-new-towels type of shower?  Let me know!

Courage Works

Courage.  The cowardly lion asked for that in The Wizard of Oz.  I think we chuckle at that lion and don't realize the importance of what he was asking for.

What is courage?

Merriam-Webster defines courage as:  mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.

Within the past two years, there was a point where everytime I turned around I saw or read that word.  Courage.  It was like God wanted to me get this...to understand what courage was.  Over and over it would seem that word jumped into my life.  So I looked up every occurrence of the word courage in the Bible and wrote out the verses.  Time was spent reading those verses over and over and eventually I came to a place of saying:  we all need God to give us more courage.  It is a powerful gift that He can give us.

Life is not for the faint-hearted.  There is some real ick in this world.  Sometimes the ick happens because of me.  I know there have been times in my life where I naively made a choice or decision that made a mess.  Yet there are times where I know full well that I am making choices and decisions that not good. There is no naive in these decisions. We all do it.  We just push through the "nudges" we feel inside and do what we know we shouldn't.  And the result of those decisions is ick. 

Yes, you've done it, too.

At the point we decide (that is another big word) to make a change...courage should be right around the corner for us.  Hmmmm.  Think on that one for a minute.  Some of the ick in my life could be changed if I had more courage to make better decisions?  Or perhaps if I had courage I could just not create ick situations!  Isn't that an interesting concept.

When I pray for people now, I always pray for courage.  It doesn't matter what circumstances the person is in, I pray for courage.  And I ask God to give me courage, daily.

Courage works.  Unfortunately each of my Kidlets has faced huge obstacles already in their lives.  Each of them has faced life-threatening obstacles.  I now see how courage played an important part (and still plays an important part) in their safety.  Courage works.

Today I want to give a public shout out to Kidlet Two.  He has made the decision to quit smoking.  He has tried several times before and that strong hook of addiction wouldn't release.  This time is different.  I feel it that this is the time he will be released from cigarettes.  Praise God! 

It has taken great courage to get to the point of wanting to quit.
It has taken great courage to admit to his parents the addiction and desire to quit.
It has taken great courage to pursue his treatment plan to help in the quitting.
It has taken courage.

Today is Day 12 of no smoking.  We are celebrating each day that he doesn't smoke.  Join with me in shouting out...WAY TO GO KIDLET TWO!  And then, please, thank God for His courage for Kidlet Two.

Courage works.  Ask Him for some.  You'll be amazed at what He does in your life with courage!

Quilting Again

My grandma was a home economics teacher.  She could cook, sew, mend or make anything.  I am so grateful that she taught me how to sew. 

When grandma passed away, we found she had boxes and more boxes and an entire closet full of fabric.  Sewing was her passion and whenever she found fabric she liked, she bought it.  I don't have the passion like she had (for sewing) but no one else in the family sews so I took most of the fabric when we were cleaning out her house.

I had this dream of making quilts from Grandma's fabric.  When Kidlet One was a toddler, I took a quilting class. I worked diligently on my quilt squares but then Kidlet Two came along and I was busy.  The quilt never got finished and the fabric was moved to storage.  In the back of my mind there was this wish that I could spend time sewing/quilting. 

Move the clock ahead many years now.  Within the past year or so, I realized that at some point in my life I started believing a lie that I couldn't quilt or do crafts until I was retired from my full time Outside-of-the-Home job.  It was quite a revelation when I realized that I could sew an hour or two during a week night.  It may sound strange to you, but I had become frozen in this lie and it makes me sad now.  But, oh the freedom I have NOW to sew!

For Christmas I decided to make my Dad a lap quilt.  The fabric would be from his mother.  Isn't that cool!  So last fall I pulled out the many boxes of fabric and started dreaming of what I could make.  Grandma sure liked flowers and feminine-looking materials!  I had to really dig to find fabric appropriate for my Dad!

 Then I pulled out my quilting supplies and went to work.

 Cutting strips and sewing them together...

 Squares and strips of fabric being placed together...

 Using the quilt pattern called Turning Twenty

 Here I'm laying out the squares trying to decide

where and how each should be placed

The actual quilting (the meandering stitch) was done for me by a co-worker.

Here I am sewing a fleece binding along the edges to turn and finish off the quilt.

And Dad opening the quilt at Christmas. 

Ignore the broken lamp/lightbulb just above his head...that story is for another day.

Right now I have fabric for two more quilts sitting on my sewing machine.  I'm ready for my next projects!

Get Rest

I share all of the following from the book Starting Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer.  I felt a "God Nudge" that someone needed to read this, so here is a good word:

As for me, I will continue beholding Your face in righteousness; I shall be fully satisfied when I awake beholding Your form.  Psalm 17:15

The Message Bible states it this way:  And me? I plan on looking you full in the face. When I get up, I'll see your full stature and live heaven on earth.


Each evening the sun sets on all of our problems and on all of the mistakes we made that day.  But something marvelous happens to us as we sleep--the Lord gives us rest physically, mentally, and emotionally.  We are renewed and rejuvenated to face the next day.
 
Today we may wake up with the same problems we had when we went to bed, problems that yesterday we felt we just couldn't take anymore.  But somehow today, after proper rest and sleep, we think, I can do it; I can face it again.  God promises to renew our strength when we rest in Him.

A Recipe From My Brother...

The following came in an email from my Wonderful Brother..he is getting to be quite the chef! 

I did an egg bake last night.
grease a 8 x 11 pan
get two tubes of cresent rolls
lay flat in pan
roll up on edges of pan
rise in oven 5-10 min @ 325-350.
a tube or two of pork sausage (browned) 2 is too much I think
take 5-6 eggs and beat with a little milk.
I added chopped onion...skys the limit here. green pepper, other veggies,etc
put browned sausage over pastry
pour eggs over that
bake for, oh, 25 min.
take out and lavish with shredded cheese
and bake for another 5.
its almost like a big omelet!!
mum mum.
but don't spray your pan over the tiled kitchen floor.
it becomes an ice rink!!!!!!
whoa!!!

I so understand what he means by "don't spray your pan over the tiled kitchen floor..." Have any of you ever turned your kitchen floor into an ice rink with Pam?

Don't you love the way Wonderful Brother wrote out this recipe!  I'm going to try this recipe soon.

Hey, anyone else have a fun recipe to share? 

Butter Beef

Just saying the words, Butter Beef, makes me lick my lips again.

I found a crockpot recipe using stew meat that I tried last week. The meat almost melted in my mouth.

Seriously, I have already written stew meat on the shopping list so that I can make this recipe again soon.

Here is the easiest, most delicious Melt-In-Your-Mouth beef recipe:

Butter Beef

3 lbs. stew meat, browned

1 stick butter

1 envelope onion soup mix

Melt butter in crockpot.  Add beef. Sprinkle soup mix on top. 

I did add about 1/2 cup of water for more broth.

Cook on low 3-5 hours.

We ate ours over mashed potatoes.

And had second helpings...

Butter Beef.  Check this recipe out.  It is amazing!

Lethal Luau

Oh my goodness....did you hear hilarious laughter ringing through the hills on New Year's Eve?  The laughter was coming from The Lethal Luau.

What is The Lethal Luau?

A murder, mystery party that The Husband and I were invited to with two other couples.  I'd heard of these dinners but had never participated in one and now I am hooked!  This was so funny and quirky!

The day of the party, the hostess dropped off an invitation that described the scene of the crime, a luau.  This was a lethal luau in that a man, Chase Diamond, was poisoned and died.  There were six of us guests at the luau and one of us put the poison in Chase's drink. Thus, the name, Lethal Luau.

Also on the invitation was the assignment as to which of the six guests The Husband and I were.  There was a brief description of each person and suggestions for costumes.  This was a dress-up, costume party!   We were to really play up our part.

I will not give away the details of this storyline in case you ever play this one out.  In other words, no spoiler alert in this blog!  You can know, however, that I was Holly Day, the wife of a billionaire and I was a meticulous dresser.  I wore my magenta suit with matching nail polish and lots of jewelry.  Take a look at my bling ring...

Now The Husband got to be a Polynesian tribal chief.  He had a really long name but for short he was called Chief Wiki Wiki.   He really got into this part...

 Arriving at the party we had place cards at the table and a script that we read through.  Well, we laughed and acted out the script!

This is  Bo Jo, a surfer dude.  He started the evening with sunscreen smeared on the end of his nose, like a real surfer dude!

And then there was Nadia Seymour, the swimsuit model!  She was very clever in that she had a turtleneck on and put her swimsuit over the turtleneck!  Especially since the outside temperature this night was like 1 degree above zero!

Leilani had the only grass skirt of the night!

Unfortunately I missed getting a picture of the last guest, Les Baggs, the tourist with the missing luggage.

As mentioned above, each of us had a script and questions we were to ask. 

And then at specific times, each of us had a clue that we were to reveal.

Our hostess made food around the luau theme. 
Including pineapple salsa that was out of this world good! 
This was one luau in which the pig could not be roasted in a pit in the back yard...there were several inches of snow on top of the frozen tundra! So we had pulled pork sandwiches and lots of fresh fruit and munchies.

Chief Wiki Wiki's headdress kind of fell apart during the evening so he wore his feathers in all different ways...

The disclosure of the killer was a suspenseful surprise!  Only one of us guessed the right person so it was a Well-Acted-Out night, ha! ha! 

I hope you had a special New Year's celebration!