Some goals for May

Yes, May starts tomorrow, and as usual I like to try and set goals for a new month.  Here are my goals for May:

* Do a May Scripture writing challenge
* Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones

* Continue our discipleship study with new believers

* Continue to  help a recently widowed friend with the challenges of life in general
* Continue study for Sunday School -- A Woman Who Reflects the Heart of Jesus
* Get to bed by 9 pm each night  
* Limit sugar
* Drink enough water each day

 * Walk and/or exercise at least 3 times each week

* Keep up with Flylady's homemaking zones of the week (with some help from Clean Mama)
* Do something creative each day
* Post in this blog as often as possible
* Post in my Christmas blog as often as possible
* Continue planning for family birthday gifts and crafting any handmade ones

* Spend a little time on some UFO craft projects
* Continue stocking my Etsy shop and continue selling vintage items

* Work on Etsy and trust bookkeeping as necessary
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family
* Help and encourage my local daughter as I'm able

* Continue to encourage and support my hubby as he works through a pastoral search for our church
* Clean church and set up for fellowship time

* Plan some special family times as we have 3 birthdays this month

* Continue to sort out and declutter my dad's house, hopefully taking many loads to the dump and thrift store and consolidating the remaining items yet to dispose of;  work on estate

* Plan meals with a greater emphasis on healthy eating

 
HEALTHY HABITS FOR MAY:  Drink more water/get more sleep

And here's how April went:

* Do an April Scripture writing challenge -- DONE!
* Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones -- DONE!

* Read the March/April chapters in the Daily Walk Bible -- not done, so I'm going to wait until next year and start again.  I can't catch up now and don't want to rush just to say I've done this.

* Continue our discipleship study with new believers -- DONE!

* Help a recently widowed friend with the challenges of life in general -- DONE!
* Continue study for Sunday School -- A Woman Who Reflects the Heart of Jesus -- DONE!
* Get to bed by 9 pm each night   -- not done consistently, but we have managed it a few times.
* Limit sugar -- could limit it still more...
* Drink enough water each day -- I know I haven't achieved this!

 * Walk and/or exercise each day -- managed at least half the time; it has rained a lot.

* Keep up with Flylady's homemaking zones of the week (with some help from Clean Mama)  -- not done consistently, but things are looking better!
* Do something creative each day -- DONE!
* Post in this blog as often as possible -- DONE!
* Post in my Christmas blog as often as possible -- didn't manage even once in April.  I have ideas for posts, but just haven't gotten there.
* Continue planning for family birthday gifts and crafting any handmade ones -- DONE!

* Spend a little time on some UFO craft projects -- DONE!
* Continue stocking my Etsy shop and continue selling vintage items -- DONE!

* Keep up with Etsy and trust bookkeeping -- need to work on this
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family -- DONE!
* Help and encourage my local daughter as I'm able -- DONE!

* Continue to encourage and support my hubby as he works through a pastoral search for our church -- DONE!
* Clean church and set up for fellowship time -- DONE!

* Cook and bake for Easter breakfast at church -- DONE!

* Plan some special family times as we have 3 birthdays this month -- DONE!

* Continue to sort out and declutter my dad's house, hopefully taking many loads to the dump and thrift store and consolidating the remaining items yet to dispose of;  work on estate -- DONE! (but there's still a long way to go)

* Plan meals with a greater emphasis on healthy eating -- DONE!

 
HEALTHY HABITS FOR APRIL:  Drink more water/get more sleep -- did better with this, but still need to work on it.

So there are my goals for May and a little review of April.  Even though spring is an ugly time in our part of New Hampshire, I'm glad it's here!

Hot dog! It's the Wednesday Medley!

 

Another Wednesday, and I'm trying my hand at this week's topic for the Wednesday Medley hosted by Terri at Your Friend from Florida.  It's National Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day (of all things!), so why not head over to Terri's and get the the questions to answer them on your own blog?

1.  Typically served as an hors d'oeuvre, have you ever made or had a Pig-in-a-Blanket?  Do you like Pigs-in-a-Blanket?

 I used to make them a lot when the kids were younger, as a change from regular hot dogs to serve with baked beans or corn chowder.  I had a recipe that used crescent rolls and I believe cheese was also involved.  They were tasty!  I've also made them for appetizers,  using the tiny cocktail sausages (Little Smokies) wrapped in pie pastry.

2.  Pigs-in-a-blanket are also known as devils on horseback, kilted sausages, and wiener winks. (Seriously.)  Please make up another name for this fun little appetizer!

My mind's a blank.

3.  In the UK, pigs-in-blankets are small sausages, or chipolatas wrapped up in bacon.  Which country's version is most appealing to your taste buds?

Hmm, wrapped in bacon sounds really good.

4.  The first written record of pigs-in-a-blanket occurs in Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids in 1957.  In this digital world, do you still have a favorite cookbook you use most of the time?  Is there a recipe you can share with us from that cookbook?

I owned that Betty Crocker kids' cookbook as a child and loved it!  I use lots of different cookbooks and I would be hard pressed to say there is one I use more than another, except for my own handwritten recipe collections which I store in photo albums.  Most readers here have already seen many of those recipes.  Check the label cloud for categories.

5.  What is your favorite cooking show on TV?

Don't have one.  We don't have a TV -- well, we do, but we bring it out for movies only.

6.  Tell us something random about your week, please!

April 24 is also my grandson Josiah's birthday, which is even more fun than National Pigs in a Blanket Day.  He turns 11 today.  (Photo was taken last year on his 10th birthday.)

 

And so ends another Wednesday Medley!

A Blessed Resurrection Day to You!

Mr. T and I would like to wish all of our friends a blessed and meaning-filled  day of celebrating Christ's resurrection on this Lord's Day.  "He is risen, as He said"!  (Matthew 28:7)

Our Resurrection Day celebration began with a meaningful outdoor service which was a real blessing.  Although the field where we usually meet for this service was  still mostly snow-covered, we were able to stand on dry gravel in the church driveway adjacent to the field.  The temperature was in the 50s and felt so balmy.  Jackets were not even necessary!

We then adjourned to the fellowship hall to enjoy a bountiful breakfast (including a waffle station and another station for crepes!) with our church family.  After breakfast, we enjoyed a lovely Easter worship service together  We hope that all of you will have as lovely a day and that you will spend time pondering on what Christ's resurrection means for you personally.

Happy Easter!

A poetic Wednesday Medley

   

Graphic by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings

Another Wednesday, and I'm glad for the opportunity to share in the Wednesday Medley hosted by Terri at Your Friend from Florida.  This is National Haiku poetry day, so why not head over to Terri's and get the the questions to answer them on your own blog?

1.  Haiku poetry is actually pretty easy to write.  Give it a try right here...

 Oh, let's see ...

 Mud season is ugly:  
My driveway's brown and oozy.  
Hope it dries out soon. 
 
2.  Haiku poetry aside, have you ever written a poem?  Will you share it with us?

I have written a few poems.  Here is a link to one of my favorites: A Birthday Moment.

3.  Do you have a favorite poet or does poetry usually make you yawn?

Robert Frost is probably my favorite poet, though there are others I enjoy.  I was just thinking today, for obvious reasons, of these lines from his poem Two Tramps in Mud Time:

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March."

These lines could not describe today more perfectly!

4.  April 17  is National Ellis Island Family History Day, too,  Did any of your ancestors or relatives immigrate through Ellis Island from another country? 

Not that I know of.  Many of my ancestors immigrated from Scotland, but that was before Ellis Island existed.

5.  We also celebrate National Cheeseball Day on April 17th.  Do you have a favorite cheeseball recipe to share with us or have cheeseballs basically disappeared from parties today?  

Oh, I definitely do have a favorite cheese ball recipe to share.  I usually form it into two logs, though.  Seems easier and is less messy to serve.  It always seems to be well received at gatherings I take it to.  Here's the link: Festive Cheese Log.

Photo from Taste of Home.  It doesn't look exactly like my cheese logs, but close.

6.  If you want to share, please tell us something random about your week. 

 Let's see ... so far it's been pretty chilly.  Windy, too.  And it looks like a busy one, with food to prepare for Easter breakfast at church, and maybe a birthday party thrown in there too!

And so ends a poetic Wednesday Medley.  What a fun theme!

Early spring decorating

Yep, early spring.  And actually it doesn't even look like early spring up here.  It still looks like winter.  Saturday was beautiful but we were out and about doing errands south of here all day.

Today is in the high 40s but very cloudy and rainy.  It feels cold and raw.  We're still surrounded by snow and the woods are full of it.  I was reading this morning about some folks from southern NH who thought the past weekend would be a fine time for a simple hike in the White Mountains and ended up having to be rescued.  Here's a quote from the article:

"The hikers were not prepared for the winter conditions that are still present in the White Mountains, and did not have adequate cold weather gear, lights or navigation equipment such as a dedicated GPS or map and compass.

"Conservation officers remind people planning to hike the White Mountains that trails there remain packed with feet of snow and ice.  Weather may appear warm and comfortable at lower elevations during daytime, but temperatures quickly turn colder at higher elevations or when the sun sets."

There you have it on the very best authority: hiking trails in the White Mountains remain packed with FEET of snow and ice.   It doesn't appear to be too much different in our own woods out back.

So with all of that, it's easy to see why I have not been in any hurry to take down my lighted winter houses or to remove the maple-sugaring decor I bring out in early spring.  Sugaring is actually still going on.

Still, with Easter coming this weekend, I feel as if I need to change to something that looks more springlike, so I'm posting about my early spring decor while it's still in place.  I'll just post pics and say a word or two about each one.

 I love this sugaring themed linen towel that I found in a dresser drawer at my parents' home.  Beautiful!

 This is the centerpiece on our dining room table.  Little cake dome on a doily, centered on the sugaring themed towel.

 Inside the cake dome, a little maple syrup tin in the shape of a sugar house, and a little wooden pine tree, barely visible.

 Here are the maple sugaring shelves on the hutch.  Syrup tins, labels and spiles, maple candy molds that were my grandmother's, even a little bottle of maple syrup.

The bottom shelf I did in green and white as a nod to St. Patrick's Day and the eventual coming of spring leaves and grass.  The jadeite came from my childhood vacation cottage.  The Colonial Homestead sugar and creamer are from my collection, and match the set that is in my grandmother's pondside cottage.  The little "Love is Kind" cross stitch (to the right of the ironstone soup tureen) was done by one of my daughters as a teenager as a gift for grandparents.

I recently came upon it in my sorting, and was struck by how nice the frame looked with the jadeite and other greens on the hutch. 

Here's a somewhat blurry photo of the hutch in its entirety.  Love the jadeite teacups on the top shelf!

Hope you've enjoyed this peek at our early spring decorating.  I'm still liking how it looks.

A few snow pictures from this morning

Yes, from April 10!  Sigh ...

I seem to really be falling behind with blogging these days; it's been a week!  I have so much in mind that I want to blog about -- recipes, cleaning/decluttering projects, crafts I never got around to sharing photos of, recent happenings, and more -- but finding the time has been what's been difficult.  I decided that for today I would just put up a quick post concerning our weather.  These photos were all taken early this morning.

 From a corner of our balcony

 Wintry woods and stone wall

 Driveway from the dormer

That triangular shape in the middle of the photo is a metal sawhorse that was used in putting wood in the cellar in late fall.  It never got put away, and we've been using it as a benchmark to measure our snow accumulations.  For the longest time we couldn't even see the top of this sawhorse,  just its mounded shape.  You can see that the snow has settled a bit since then, but this morning it's frosting the top of the sawhorse again!

I must confess I've been having trouble keeping this wintry weather in perspective.  I actually told my husband this morning that this would be pretty in late November, but ...

Then I read what our friend Rand Hummel from The Wilds of New England wrote on Instagram this morning: "Although summer camp is only two months away, God is not finished painting glorious winter scenes like He did this morning. Thank You Lord!"

And thank you, Rand.  What a great way to think about this morning's wintry scenes!  That certainly altered my perspective.  I almost never look at Instagram in the morning, but today I'm thankful that I did.

Catching up on Wednesday

Since I didn't get here on Friday to share five things, I'm trying to catch up a bit today.  Here goes!

1.  Getting out to walk several times, and seeing this sight along our route:

 It's always so lovely to see this seasonal reminder of maple sugaring season!  Today we also saw robins and pussy willows, and heard red-winged blackbirds.  Such wonderful reminders that Spring always will come "while the earth remaineth" (Genesis 8:22).

2.  A little bit of blogging time last week.  I even got to post here:

That's always fun!  I have plenty to post about in my Christmas blog; it's just a matter of finding the time to do so.

3.  God's strength as we finalized all of the details for a dear friend's memorial service at the church.  And believe me, there were lots of details to pull together.  So thankful for how God gives guidance and direction and how He uses His people to accomplish His purposes.  More on that below ...

4.  A truly beautiful, meaningful memorial service for our friend on Saturday.  So many people at the church pulled together and used their gifts and talents and and time -- and yes, even their money -- to help this happen.  It was a testimony to our wonderful Lord and a meaningful goodbye to our dear friend.

5.   Opportunities for fellowship with friends, some from far away.  Dear missionary friends from England were with us on Saturday evening for supper, at church with us on Sunday, and then we all went out for supper together on Sunday.  We also had a nice meal and time of Bible study with our friend Noah on Friday night.  Fellowship is so sweet and so important!

Below you see the creamy sausage stew I made for Saturday night.  So thankful for slow cookers!  We got in the door from the memorial service around 5 pm and our friends arrived at about 5:50!

And there you have a few things from the past week that I'm praising God for!

April goals

Time to set some goals for a new month!  (If I had posted them yesterday, everyone would have thought my list an April Fool's joke!)  Lovely graphic at top is by  Abby at Little Birdie Blessings.

So here are some goals for April:

* Do an April Scripture writing challenge
* Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones

* Read the March/April chapters in the Daily Walk Bible

* Continue our discipleship study with new believers

* Help a recently widowed friend with the challenges of life in general
* Continue study for Sunday School -- A Woman Who Reflects the Heart of Jesus
* Get to bed by 9 pm each night  
* Limit sugar
* Drink enough water each day

 * Walk and/or exercise each day

* Keep up with Flylady's homemaking zones of the week (with some help from Clean Mama)
* Do something creative each day
* Post in this blog as often as possible
* Post in my Christmas blog as often as possible
* Continue planning for family birthday gifts and crafting any handmade ones

* Spend a little time on some UFO craft projects
* Continue stocking my Etsy shop and continue selling vintage items

* Keep up with Etsy and trust bookkeeping
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family
* Help and encourage my local daughter as I'm able

* Continue to encourage and support my hubby as he works through a pastoral search for our church
* Clean church and set up for fellowship time

* Cook and bake for Easter breakfast at church

* Plan some special family times as we have 3 birthdays this month

* Continue to sort out and declutter my dad's house, hopefully taking many loads to the dump and thrift store and consolidating the remaining items yet to dispose of;  work on estate

* Plan meals with a greater emphasis on healthy eating

 

HEALTHY HABITS FOR APRIL:  Drink more water/get more sleep
WORD FOR 2019: Courage

 

Lovely printable with my word of the year, framed by my daughter for my birthday

 And here is how March went:

 

* Do a March Scripture writing challenge -- DONE!
* Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones -- DONE!

* Read the March chapters in the Daily Walk Bible  -- not done.  Our friend went to the hospital on March 5 and ended up going Home to heaven on March 8.  I think it no coincidence that I stopped reading on March 4.  Something had to give, and it was the yearly read through the Bible.

* Continue our discipleship study with new believers -- DONE!

* Help a recently widowed friend with her husband's memorial service and life in general -- DONE!
* Continue study for Sunday School -- A Woman Who Reflects the Heart of Jesus -- DONE!
* Get to bed by 9 pm each night   -- not done consistently,  but quite often
* Limit sugar -- not done consistently
* Drink enough water each day -- not done

 * Walk and/or exercise each day -- managed 3 or 4 times weekly so I'll call this -- DONE!

* Keep up with Flylady's homemaking zones of the week (with some help from Clean Mama) -- not done
* Do something creative each day -- DONE!
* Post in this blog as often as possible -- DONE!
* Post in my Christmas blog as often as possible -- DONE!
* Continue planning for family birthday gifts and crafting any handmade ones -- DONE!

* Spend a little time on some UFO craft projects -- DONE! (and I wish the projects were!)
* Continue stocking my Etsy shop and continue selling vintage items -- DONE!

* Keep up with Etsy and trust bookkeeping -- DONE!
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family -- DONE!
* Help and encourage my local daughter as I'm able -- DONE! (though I never feel it's enough)

* Continue to encourage and support my hubby as he works through a pastoral search for our church -- DONE! (and I wish the search was!)
* Clean church and set up for fellowship time -- DONE!

* Help set up for and serve at our friend's memorial service -- DONE!
* Continue to sort out and declutter my dad's house, hopefully taking many loads to the dump and thrift store and consolidating the remaining items yet to dispose of;  work on estate -- DONE!
* Plan meals with a greater emphasis on healthy eating -- DONE!

* Possibly plan a spring getaway -- not done
  

HEALTHY HABITS FOR MARCH:  Drink enough water/exercise/eat healthfully/get enough sleep
WORD FOR 2019: Courage

 

Hoping for a productive April!