Last Day of October ~ Why Does It Have To Be Scary????

Hi there everyone....how is your last day of the month going?? I will be glad when this day is over....never cared for Halloween. Too many bad things happen on this day. A very sad commentary for this country and world.

I have heard that Halloween is becoming more popular then Christmas......why???? Why is Satan more popular then Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Isaiah 5:20-21 says, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil: that put dark for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Verse 21 says, "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" WOW, WOW, Wow....now if that does not put a fear in you....Israel had so perverted the scripture, they no longer knew right from wrong....does this not sound familiar for our country now??? Yes, and self-conceit is the antithesis of humility; as humility is, in a certain sense, the crowning virtue, so is self conceit a sort of finishing touch put to vise. (the words in red are from my King James Expositor's Bible commentary)

Should we not Fear God more then Satan???? There are more then 100 verses in the Bible that say, "The Fear of God". God is God, He is the Creator of this World...."in the beginning, God created" So why do we allow satan to put fear in our hearts.......we are not to fear him....BUT....Fear God and God alone!!!

When I look around my city, state and country I see so much that is not right....it is even hard to recognize what I used to know. People have changed, friends change, rules change, laws change, church has changed (and that is one thing that should have stayed consistent, because God NEVER changes). Life changes daily, there are times I find life very hard to cope with on a daily basis as I get older (and wiser?).

When this present administration said, "Change" would come, little did we know our whole world be turned upside-down. I remember many years ago, our prayer in the back room of the church was...."God, turn this world up-side down so that many people will know that you are God and come to know you in a personal way" Hum....I guess He is doing just that!!!!!

So why should we be scared on this last day of October???? Why? God is in complete control of everything and even though things look bad on the outside and it looks like Satan is taking over from our vantage point...Keep Calm ~ God's Got It!!!!!

Have a great day and keep looking up.....see Jesus in all that you do and say this day and every day until His return!!!!
Cheers ~ Louise

Made a Few Things Last Night ~ 4 Sanity's Sake

Hi there everyone, hope you are all doing good this lovely last Wednesday of October. Where did this month go??? I know, I am always asking that question. The older I get, it seems the days zip by so quickly, I wish I could get a handle on this retirement part of life. After working for over 40 years, I guess I feel I must be doing "something", cause if I am doing nothing I must be lazy and sitting on my thumbs. Oh well, so yesterday about 3pm I gathered myself together and started making things.

I made a pot of "winterland" Roobius tea (sipping on it right now). I usually send JP to work with a large cup of hot tea. So he received this tea yesterday and today. Do you notice the Popsicle stick trivet?? I made that years and years ago. I am almost thinking it is over 55 to 60 years old and that I made it when I was in either Brownies or Girl Scouts.....My mother kept it for a long time, then I inherited when she died. I have kept it in the china cabinet for these last 13 years. Cleaning the drawer out, I thought is was time to start using it. What am I saving it for????

In this picture is my cranberry water. I have been buying a bag of cranberries every time I go shopping. I rinse the berries, then put them in a microwave glass pot with one cup of water and some organic coconut sugar, cover and cook in the microwave for 5-6 minutes. Let them cool a bit then mushed them with my pastry masher and Wah-Lah! Cranberries!!!! Then I take a couple of large tablespoons of cranberries, a packet of stevia and pour filtered water in the bottle, mix together and I have some wonderful cranberry juice. Sometimes I even add this juice to my smoothies in the mornings IF there is any left, as the husband likes this also.

So I am still working on those two large cabbages  I received about 2 weeks ago. This last cabbage, I cut up and made this awesome cabbage dish. My stepfather used to make this all the time and now I do. Fried some onions in bacon grease till the onions are translucent. I added some garlic to the pot too.



In this picture I have added the cabbage that I had soaking in a little salt water so it was already soft and easy to work with. Cooked it down a bit and added some caraway seed and pepper. (no need for salt as the cabbage is already salted) Then I added some of my tomatoes from the garden (yes, I still have a lot of tomatoes from my garden which are slowly turning red for me.) I should have taken a picture of all my tomatoes. It was a very good year for them....so I was pleased.

In this picture is the almost finished cabbage dish. Added some fresh and frozen tomatoes and red peppers from the freezer, and some already cooked bacon from the freezer, mix it all up and you have this wonderful cabbage dish. MMMM I think I shall have a bowl of this tonight.


So while I was doing the cabbage I decided to cook up my small spaghetti squash in the microwave. 10 minutes was all it took and I was able to cut the squash up like in the picture below. Why did I cut it like that? I read someplace that cutting it length wise causes the strings of spaghetti to be short. If you cut it like I did in the picture below the strings of spaghetti will be longer. Honestly, I did not notice a difference. After I seeded them and stuck them in the oven to roast, I then was able to scoop out the squash..........now what to do?????

Well, I did not take any pictures, but I made some tomato sauce with my Roma tomatoes, nope, no pictures. I par boiled them, then dunked them in cold water, peeled them and squeezed  the seeds out. Mushed them up, added spices, water, garlic, onion and then added the spaghetti squash. I turned it into Italian sauce.

Today's lunch for JP was the Italian tomato sauce over macaroni and hamburger patties along with some fruit and salad. He eats well, as you can see.

Well, time to go walk Kylie before it gets too dark. It is 5:39 pm. Daylight Savings starts this next Sunday (Nov 2nd). So this time next week it will be DARK OUT!!!! Gosh, I wish there was no Daylight Savings....I like the light!!!!!

Have a great evening and keep looking up. Tonight I will be working on making some cards. My next post will be a few cards I have been making....yep.....I like to make things I guess. This keeps my Sanity!!!!! LOL!!!
Cheers ~ Louise

WHAT?????

Hahahahahaha......hope you had a wonderful Sunday. It was beautiful today, sunny and crisp, a good day to be alive!!!!

I put a pork tenderloin in the crock pot along with some of my homemade sauerkraut at 8:30am this morning, by the time we got home at 12:30, the meat temp was 160 degrees. So I waited for about an hour,  putzed around the house, sat on the front porch and turned my water fountain on. Got dinner ready, toast, salad and applesauce. It was a lovely meal to savior on a beautiful day like this.

Checked out what was on the computer, took a short nap and then took Kylie for a little walk. About 5:00 we raked some leaves, cut my peonies, lavender and irises down. Tomorrow is leaf collection. So we need to get as much out there for the city to collect as possible.

So here I am typing away on this blog....nothing much important going on this week that I know of....maybe just finish winterizing the front and back yard. I still have one tomato bush producing, it sits on the front porch...the frost has not gotten to it yet....so little tomatoes for salads are on the agenda for them.

Well time to close....the Packers are about to kick the ball and play tonight...time to go watch them play and win......hopefully. Have a great couple of days and enjoy the beautiful weather till the snow begins to fly!!! Cheers ~ Louise

F.R.I.D.A.Y.

Hi there everyone....how did your day go today???? Well......

Its Friday!!!! Smile the weekend is about to begin!!! Why do we so look forward to the weekends????
"You are wishing your life away"....as my mother always said. I see now what she meant.

We finally got our roof fixed on the 21st and 22nd....the men did a really great job, I feel secure now. They said there was "a lot of mistakes done up there" it is no wonder we had a leaky roof. It's too bad, the damage has already been done.

Now we have to get the ceiling fixed in the kitchen. It sounds like the whole ceiling will have to come down and the supports have rotted and will have to be replaced. Everything will have to be removed from the kitchen (oh yuck)!!! They are supposed to give us an estimate on how much it will cost to get fixed. At this point, I am not sure if "Rebuilding Together" will fix the ceiling or if I need to start saving towards it. If so, that may be awhile before I can get the ceiling fixed.....we will see what happens.

Well, time to close here for now. Have to go make JP his super. so far, he is having hamburgers and soup....not sure what else.

Have a great day and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise

Chocolate Please..........

Hi there everyone. Hope your Sunday evening is special and relaxing. My husband is on a "pity party" right now, and seems to like blaming me for his problems. Although he says it is not, I still feel guilty. So my evening is not so special and relaxing. I think I will go hide in the basement and make some cards till the storm passes by.

Lately the "lemons" have been falling in abundance!! "Sweetest Day" came and went yesterday and my "supposedly sweetheart" did not acknowledge me or the day, he's not very romantic. Oh Well. Finally I reminded him and he said, "what do you want??" I said, no card, no flower, how 'bout a nice "Prime Rib from Festival Foods???" He said, "okay"...huh!...maybe I should ask for some chocolate too?????

We went out to eat today....that was nice. I had a "freightliner omelet" 3 eggs, cheese, fried potatoes and bacon and rye toast. Gosh was that delish. I took half of it home for breakfast tomorrow, or lunch. I did not do my smoothie this morning so I must more then make up for it tomorrow. I have lost a couple of pounds...but not enough to say "I am losing weight" because of my smoothies every morning.

Oh well....I guess a smoothie a day will hopefully keep the Doctor away. I do feel better, so that is a plus. My blood sugars today was 110 this morning....good numbers for me.

The roofers may show up this week and work on our roof.....I hope....the weather is suppose to be nice this week. I will keep you posted. We still have lots of leaves to rake in the back yard. But we have 2 more leaf pick-ups, so we are ahead of the game at this point. I have a leaf blower, so that makes the chore a little easier.

Let's see, what more lemons can I give you today that deserve some chocolate?????  My husband says there is dirt in our drinking water....and does not want to drink it. He wants a Brita water pitcher....okay I said, I will buy a new one for myself, in purple and you can have this one. Oh goodie, I have been wanting a new colored Brita pitcher....Chocolate!!!!!

I am not so sure where this blog is going, or where it went, maybe it is a bit of complaint here and there....but what are blogs for but to get things off our chest. I do feel better though, so thanks for listening.

You all have a good evening and enjoy your week.......don't blink your eyes too long cause these two weeks will fly by pretty fast!!!
Keep looking up and enjoy some chocolate this week!!
Cheers ~ Louise

A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That!!!

Hi there everyone. Hope you are enjoying these fall days. They are going by way too fast. Been a little busy at this end. Winterizing our little place. Gathered in all my tomatoes and cut the bushes down. Put my ceramic creatures away in the shed and cleaned the garage so I would have more space for the outside garden furniture. I guess in the next few days I should empty the water fountain (sniff and sigh). Then rake the leaves into the street and cut down all the flowers....a sure sign that "fall is over and winter is coming". Brought some of my plants in from outside...my hibiscus, that has been blooming like crazy and JP brought in the begonia plant today.

Our roof still has not been fixed. The scaffold was put up on Monday....but it's been raining everyday just about. The roofer said he would not open the roof till the weather was better. That might be next week. My life seems so un-organized what with this roof. Be glad when it's finished and the ceiling no longer leaks.

Been busy cooking. This is my last batch of potstickers. I cooked the meat first (this time) then placed the meat mixture on wonton skins. I think I will use the wonton's the next time I do these....and most likely cook the meat before stuffing the dumplings. Seemed to work out better.

JP came home with 2 large cabbages Tuesday night, they both measure about 10x10....pretty large!!!. So Wednesday I made sauerkraut, this was my first attempt....I think it will turn out pretty good and I can hardly wait to try some along with a pork roast. Here is the site I went to .

The 1st jar in the above picture is day one......this same jar in this picture is day two. Can you see how much more liquid there is in the jar....if the cabbage stays under water we will be good to go and the kraut should be good. I probably will tap it down again tonight....it is smelling very sauerkrauty.

Here is a picture of the other cabbage......oh I have some plans for this one. Stuffed cabbage, cabbage, tomatoes and bacon. cabbage and sausage, cole slaw....yeah and probably freeze some cabbage which I will use in soups and stuff. I went to Pinterest and typed in "cabbage recipes" oh my goodness so many ideas for cabbage. My all time favorite though is stuffed cabbage.....yummy. Reminds me of my step-grandmother, her stuffed cabbages which were awesome, were called "ho-lip-she's" (I am sure that is not how they are spelt, and probably have a different name depending on the country) Gram's came from the Ukraine but called them by their polish name.

Here is a picture of both the cabbage and sauerkraut.....yep it's been a busy week with still more to come.

You all have a great rest of the week. I will let you know how the sauerkraut is going in about 7-10 days, when it should be done fermenting.

See you in the next blog and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise

Making Cards at a Friends House

Hi there everyone. Wow...this week sure went by fast. It's been almost a week since my last post, my, my! Either there's not much happening or there's just too much to report!!! I thought the roof was going to be worked on this week....but that did not happen, maybe next week????? Hopefully the weather will be beautiful next week, as I don't feel like dealing with a dripping ceiling.

Kylie got attacked by another dog the other day while we were walking around the block. Gosh that is so scary, the dog is the same size as Kylie. I could not get a hold of Kylie to pick her up. They went around and around, growling, snapping and biting, not sure who won, Kylie is okay, not sure about the other dog. I was more in shock then Kylie, but she held her own. I have not seen the other dog since the attack, so they must be keeping the dog someplace else now. The other dog sneaked out the front door and was not on a leash...Kylie was on a leash. I am so much careful when I pass by the house. This is Kylie's 4th dog attack, (2 on our block, 1 on Commercial and 1 on Hancock) not sure what she is doing to a attract these dogs to attack....but I wish it would STOP!!!!!

Thursday was card making day at Betty's. I always look forward to this outing and getting a few new ideas for making cards. A little bit of inspiration goes a long way. The above and below pictures are of the 1st card we made. Betty stamped and embossed the Lilly of the Valley stamp and we colored in the flower with copic markers, trying to blend in the colors the same way Betty did.

Here you see the card I made and the card Betty made.....can you tell which one is which????? That's my card on the right. Pretty close huh?!?!!?!

This was a really neat card....It's a die cut of flying geese or ducks. We colored in the grass, ducks and sun, blending in the colors with  copic markers. I think it turned out really nice. Looks almost like Tiffany glass.

In these two pictures is a "Hershey's" candy bar holder. He is a cute little pilgrim....I think he turned out great. Can hardly wait to get at that candy bar!!!

Now this is a lovely Christmas card, again, using the copic markers and blending in the colors. Wish I had that stamp....makes for a really nice Christmas card.

Next month will be some more card making, so I will probably post those too. I may be going to a Stampin' up work shop in November, so there I go, two classes, for sure I will learn some new stuff!!!

Well time to close, it is getting late and I need to go downstairs and ride my bike for a couple of miles and I need to think about what I will make for JP for dinner tonight. Thinking I will make some "Chinese potstickers" tomorrow. Possibly after raking some leaves as they are starting to fall in abundance!!!! Plenty to do, not a dull moment around here.

You all have a great weekend and keep looking up.
Cheers ~ Louise

I Made SomeTortillas

Hi there everyone. Hope you enjoyed this Saturday...it was a little dreary, a little rainy and about 45 degrees. The sun popped out a couple of times, but not for long. It was one of those days that I felt like making something. Probably should have gone downstairs and made a few cards....but I decided to make some tortillas. This is a first in my books...never thought to do this, it was one of those fun things to do for a dreary day. Here is the link that I went to and followed the recipe (almost) to the tee. Recipe Well as you can see I took some pictures, sort of a short tutorial to mark my experience in tortilla making. 

Well, as usual I got my picture turned sideways, but you get the drift. After mixing all the ingredients together (flower, baking powder, salt, oil and warm water), knead the dough till it is smooth and elasticity, let it rest for 5 minutes giving the baking powder a chance to work. Then cut in half, then half it again. As you see in this next picture. I got 8 pieces, but you can even cut them in half again if you are just make regular sized tortillas. I am making "Pizza" tortillas. This is my favorite way to make a crisp cracker like crust. Mmmmm so good.

So I rolled out each piece of dough then placed the tortilla in a hot pan, browned on one side then flipped it over to brown some more. One by one I finished them, let them cool and started another tortilla.

Here, if you can see closely are all the tortillas, sitting on each other and cooling.

Here is one of the finished products. My "South of the Border" Pizza. It was so yummy. I spread the tortilla crust with some refried black beans, topped with pepperoni  and on pretty heirloom tomato and topped with kale or spinach and cheddar cheese. After baking at 425 degrees for about 5 minutes or until the crust is browned around the edges. Then I sprinkled some multi colored tortilla strips on top for that extra crunch.

I think these are pretty healthy pizzas, not sure what the calorie content is, well, I will see what the numbers are tomorrow morning when I weigh myself and check my blood sugars. (uge, one of my unfavorite things to do.)

Well, time to close this blog for today....you all take care and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise

O.C.T.O.B.E.R.

Well, here we are in October....what happened to the summer???? Did I miss it or something???

I have some really good news.....FINALLY we are going to get some results on our roof. We got a call today that next week will be when they start working on it. Do you want to hear something funny??? It was 3 years ago this month and next week to be exact that we had our roof worked on the last time. Maybe this time, the leak can be caught.....I sure do hope so, I am SO tired of catching water drips from a leaky ceiling.  Rain is predicted for the next couple of days....so hopefully it won't be downpours of rain.

Today I am making the BBQ chicken in the crock pot. I used the marinara sauce adding ketchup, brown sugar and Worchester sauce. Ummmm, it tasted really good. JP will have the chicken over toasted tortilla's, chicken soup, salad and fruit.

I guess in the next few days, I will start bringing in my plants and ceramic animals for the winter. Our first frost will be this weekend...hopefully I will get a few more tomatoes to ripen before that happens.

Well, this will be a short blog for today...you all have a great day tomorrow and keep looking up. Cheers ~ Louise