~Photo-a-day~ Nov 26-Dec 1

I ran the drumstick dash again this year. Even though Christina and I did it together, we didn’t run together. I ran alone and it was positively boring…I shouldn’t HAVE to run so fast then. I should be fine with running slower. I had my first cup of coffee, in over a year, after finishing this race – I deserved it after running in that freezing weather. IT WAS AMAZING!!!! no sweetener just straight black=) We stopped by my grandmas to enjoy a bit of the traditional meal. The cranberry salad, my mom made, was excellent! It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it.

I went hunting all day Friday with Steve (my boss) and Isaac, way down in Canaan Indiana. We didn’t see anything, but had a wonderfully grand time out there in the woods. This was my very first all day hunt. And let me tell you it was perfect! I had such a good time=) Sitting there, thinking. All by myself all day long, no phones ringing, no costumer needing anything, I didn’t have to put my glasses on all day, and I didn’t have to talk to a soul. A neighbor dog came out of the woods and began barking at me non-stop for the first half hour of legal shooting. Tried my patience to the max, to say the least.

Sunday my mom and Victoria sang the Handle’s Messiah with a community choir. I’ve listened to this song all my life on CD’s my mom has blared off and on my entire life …but have never ever heard it live. It was beautiful – the hallelujah chorus gave me the chills. Everyone standing to their feet wow!!!! Mom has worked so hard the past few months to get to this point…music lessons etc. She’s one of the best singers I’ve heard (of course I’m bias) but come on, believe me, she like sang opera in collage…so I hope you get the picture of how GOOD she really is=) She underestimates herself so much…All of us kids were there to hear her sing, minus only one - Jonathan. She was so happy…and that’s when she’s the most beautiful to me.

 

Day 330

~starts with “S”~

Spice=) The king of the spices in my book is cinnamon…I love the smell, taste, looks everything about it.

Day 331

~texture~

Day 332

~a blessing~

We cooked our normal stuffed Thanksgiving turkey for Sunday. This stuffing is soooo good! we only have it once a year and wow after I eat it - every time no fail, I wonder why we don’t make it more often that this.

Day 333

~warmth~

no kidding it was fifty-three degrees, it felt like a heat wave. I went running in a tank top and actually was pouring sweat=) I could totally get used to this!

Day 334

~I went…~

I went to the Handle’s Messiah performance=) 

Day 335

~mail~

Mailing out the Christmas letters to soldier. I will be mailing out 31 letters to 31 soldiers this month.

Day 335

~red & white~

I’ve actually begun my in store Christmas shopping!!!

 

Happy Wednesday Folks!!!

 

I’m Thankful for…=)

21 things I’m thankful for this year!

1. The cruise I was able to go on in February (read about it here, here, here, here, and here) the biggest learning experience so far for me.
2. Having the health and endurance to run the 500 mini marathon 
3. Another year with my horse Sam. He’s 22 and starting to show his age, which reminds me to cherish every second we spend together.
4. Friends. I’ve shared so many wonderful memories with so many of them this year and feel so blessed to have each one in my life.
5. My best friend Christina, this year we’ve gone through so much together. I don't want to image my life without her
6. My entire family, I am so blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive group of people to claim forever=)
7. My mom…when no one else will listen, she’s always there.
8. Celebrating my 21st birthday in North Carolina
9. The best vacation of my life (Smokey Mountains)
10. My job…that has slowly begun to turn into a career this year and given so much more purpose to my life
11. These books…for helping my dig deeper in my personal study time each day.
12. New beginnings. and believe me this year I have needed a lot of them
13. Our home…it’s so peaceful here. Our second year was even better than the first=)
14. So many wonderful evenings on this boat this summer.
15. My new found love for cooking…I have had so much fun in our kitchen this year.
16. Electronics…I don’t over use them, but boy am I glad I have them.
17. My schedule book. Since I started using one since Mayish, my life has been much more structured and I accomplish more. I don’t go anywhere without it.
18. My boss…he’s practically my second dad.
19. Fabulous Amish neighbors, I spend so much time at their house.
20. Braces, I don’t like the way the feel or look. But the results I saw/am seeing this year are amazing.
21. Dave Ramsey, listening to this at the beginning of January has revolutionized my year and the way I handle my money

Happy Thanksgiving!

p.s. I’m running in the Drum Stick Dash this morning…it’ll be cold but so fun. Christina’s joining me this year. It’s always a good way to start Thanksgiving, by helping others.

P.S> I’m missing this guy today…my first Thanksgiving in my life without my younger brother. This is when growing up isn’t fun….

casey crocker’s Sweet Potato Casserole

With Thanksgiving as our inspiration this month, Casey made Sweet Potato Casserole…I’m sure you all already have your pumpkin recipes baked for the season. So here’s a yummy Autumn side dish that will help to break up the pumpkin monotony… it’s is just SO delicious! Oh and look at all that color…they were so orange! I enjoyed this dish so much I might make some for my mom’s sides Thanksgiving meal. Now of course that I know how to make it=) thanks to Casey….

Casey cooked the sweet potatoes before hand in her crock pot. I’ve only heard of this, but haven’t ever tried it. She just wrapped them in foil, placed them in the crock and they cooked on high for four hours. Talk about super easy! They were cooked to perfection…and smelled amazing!

Click here to find the recipe and make this for yourself=)

They were still a bit warm…=) BTW isn’t her outfit choice so cute! She even had the silver nails to go with it=)We dídn’t have the eggs the recipe called for sooooo…Carl (Casey’s amazing husband) ran to the store and picked us some. See why I say she’s lucky, girlies…=)I loved this casserole dish…so beautiful! I just wish the marshmallows wouldn’t loose this puffiness…She decorates her house with all sorts of amazing things like this…candles in coffee beans. And you can just image what it smells like when the candles get warm. Heavenly!!! coming from a former coffee addict=) It looks as good as it tasted!

I love a plain sweet potatoes, but you can always make it better. At least once a year for the holidays.

What’s your favorite casserole?

 

Kids playing for real

As a kid when I wasn’t doing my chores, I would normally be found playing outside. I had a constant supply of playmate in my siblings. With ten of them who wouldn’t =) We played house (in an old chicken house, my sister “remodeled” ), baked mud pies, had corncob wars, rode our bikes in “rodeos”, climbed trees as ships, played ‘hide-go-seek’ after dark in the fall, kick ball was our go to game in the spring, and I could go on and on naming the different things we did growing up.

But then again I was a loner at heart and a morning person. I enjoyed waking early in the morning and skip to the pasture for my morning visit with the farmer’s cow and calves. (we lived on 400 acres in the middle of no where) I would sit for hours to just tame that one calf. As I got older I took up bird watching and then I would be drawling birds, while sitting on a log in the middle of a bluebell patch. Now that I’ve mentioned the bluebells, I love picking wild flowers and would wait impatiently for the first to bloom in the early spring, running out each day to check to see if it had opened. When it did I’d carry it proudly to my mom and hold it behind my back and ask “do you love me?” before showing her my treasure. I still remember walking through that pasture, so quiet. No sound other than the birds singing and grass waving in the wind. In the middle of this wonderful picture was little me, soaking up the blue sky…all alone in my world…a perfect world.

All of this was done when the weather was nice…when the weather wasn’t conducive to outdoor play we resorted to blocks (that my dad made) and old fashion fisher price people/sets. We built barns and farms, castle and large mansions. Or we were in a wild west town, then it was bank robbing and bad guy chasing=) Normally playing something around what book mom was reading to us at the time or what we were studying in history. I always had animals – I’ve always wanted to be self sufficient, young dreams never die=)

So when I saw all these kids (children of the horse people at the state fair) playing with all these horses, while the rain poured down outsider I couldn’t help but travel down “memory lane” once again=) Took me back to a time before cell phones and video games. Back to a time when kids entertained themselves instead of needing something do the thinking for them. To the time when I was young…btw: I had fantastic set of parent to raise me like that=)

I just loved these=)

I hope you enjoyed my little bit of childhood reminiscing… 

 

4th of July!!!!

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine!

O Beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

-America, The Beautiful Lyrics
by Katharine Lee Bates - 1913

That song always causes goose bumps….I love it!

Happy Fourth of July everyone and remember what this day is really about…

Our nation’s Independence Day.

Thoughts from my childhood

I came into the kitchen one evening, to make my lunch, last week and saw this. Books everywhere=) My mom spent the day at a library used book sale and returned home with loads of books. She’s very cleanliness minded…these were in the process of all their covers drying from being washed.

Some of these were the very books she had barrowed from the Library and read to us when we were kids. My mind flooded with memories of my sweet mother reading to us as kids as I looked through the titles. She had the best reading voice I know, bringing every single story to life. Changing her voice for each and every character. And using all the emotion needed to engage even the most reluctant listener. She read to us everywhere: in the car, while we were doing homework, for school, for devotionals, over a meal, - and my all time favorite time – at night.

Like this one by Jean Fritz read by mom over lunch…I would always hurry with my food so I could go stand behind her chair and look at the pictures. It was always a great spot until it got crowded by my other siblings who also preferred to listen from this place.

Laura Ingalls I can picture it like it was yesterday. Christmas time and we were all just out of the tub, in our pajamas, squished on the couch around mom listening intently to this well loved story.

I loved this one…he was such a hero!

When my school crossed into American early history in 7th grade mom had me read this…wow I couldn’t get enough. I read this one in a week. Those that know me know a book hast to be very interesting, to me, for this to happen.

Galileo. I read this one and wrote an essay on it, mid grade school I believe.

And who doesn’t love the Laura Ingalls series?!?! I remember my mom reading the series to us (for a unit study) through the opened door  so that not only us girl could here but also the boys in their room. Whenever the furnace would kick on, it would get pretty hard to hear her. I would just lay there and watch the flames behind her as she read. I loved those days!

Isaac doing homework…he’s the last one of us ten still in school. Mom’s graduated all ten and he’s her last…and out of us ten I think he’s the best student of us all=)

How some of the books were transported from the sale to the car and from the car to the house.

“The Little Auto” now this was my favorite nap time story=)

One of my favorite stories of all time (mom gave me this book=) She read this over lunch and I can still remember it was soup and popcorn. And she cried when she read the last paragraph …”so a man can stand up”. that line gave us all chills

My mom read to us for hours, sometime she would have to stop because her voice was hoarse. Her water breaks which only took minutes, seemed to us eager listeners more like hours, because we were always left on a cliffhanger. But she loved to read to us. She was telling me the other day how she misses when we were all young and she’d read in the car when we all traveled together. She instilled in me a love for good literature and I hope to pass this on someday. possibly to children of my own

I know I had the best childhood growing up, without a shadow of a doubt. With parents who poured their time, not finances, into their kids (making all the difference) who wouldn’t.