Death, Defeat, Destruction and Victory

Alex of The Frugal Couple was recently posting videos of himself doing push-ups. Twenty-two a day for twenty-two days. Why?

To raise awareness of the twenty-two veterans who kill themselves daily.

President Trump either did or is wanting to declare a national health crisis because of the forty-eight people who daily kill themselves through the use of opioids.

That's seventy people a day, dying because of defeat.

Add to that the destruction of lives in Las Vegas. New York City.

Yesterday 26 people were killed in their country church house in Texas. What makes a man murderous?

Let me ask you some questions.

Did you grow up in a two parent home with no divorce?

Did you have the privilege of being home educated or have you had a good private/public school experience?

Do you have enough food in your house for a week?

Do you have a clean record with the state?

Do you have a home that you do not fear having to move from any day soon?

Do you have a clear conscience?

Is there one person in your life who cares whether you live or die?

Are you debt free?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have much more than most people.

If you think about these things and realize how much people are hurting throughout this land, what does it do for you?

It makes me cry.

It makes me realize why someone wants to destroy themselves or others.

Pain is pain and too much pain is overwhelming.

We have the answer for these people if we know Jesus. If we know God the Father. 

Theirs is a wondrous plan. Jesus came to earth to take all the pain there ever could be and nailed it to His cross. 

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: (Isaiah 53:4)

When we believe in Him, He takes all the pain away and gives peace in its stead. Peace that passes all understanding.

As humans we feel like we need to be angry. Or sad. Hurt. With everything that has happened to me, poor me, how can I have peace? It just isn't fair the things I've suffered.

And that is the truth. Life isn't fair. It also isn't fair that Jesus offers to take all that for us after He lived a sinless life and suffered unbelievably and unjustly. But it's the truth.

And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32)

And once you know that truth and it has set you free, you will have incredible compassion for those who do not know it. You will want to share the truth with them. 

They don't need to live in fear. In shame. In hurt. In anger. In hatred. In "control". In depression. In defeat. In destruction.

There is hope. There is peace. There is joy. There is freedom. There is love.

Let us find and apply this truth to all areas of our lives. We are a broken people who face pain daily. What we do with it- carry it or give it to Jesus- makes all the difference. 

Is something in the past still painful? Do you still feel awful when you think about it? Jesus will heal that as well, if you allow Him to.

Allow the Son to shine through and bring you light and hope and then spread it to others.

Why would I wish to be all things negative when Jesus gave so much to make my life positive?

Prayer: Jesus, my heart hurts so much when I think about what ___________did. It makes me feel so ___________. I choose to forgive ___________ and I take upon myself all the pain he/she caused me and allow him/her to go free. What is Your truth about this situation?

The amazing thing about this prayer, prayed from the heart, is that Jesus transfers that pain to Himself and we go free, praising Him!

The Arrow Over the Door

(Book review)

The lives of Samuel, a Quaker and Stands Straight, a Native American are juxtaposed and brought together in this true story. The time is the Revolutionary War and the Quakers, a neutral, peaceful people are called cowards because they will not join the war effort.

Samuel's energetic, protective teenage soul does not think that he should just do nothing to defend his family in the case of an attack. How can his father and brother be so peaceful? he wonders.

Stands Straight reviews how his people have been treated by Americans, French and English. No one has treated them well. What should they do about this war?

The two boys meet as the Native Americans scout the countryside to see what the white people are doing.

Finding the Quakers in their meeting house, sitting silently, giving no cry of alarm at their entrance, the Native Americans realize that these are a peaceable people, friends, not to be feared. They place a headless arrow over the door as a sign to all their brothers to leave these people alone.

How does Samuel come to realize that being a lover of peace is not cowardice? How does Stands Straight see the truth about things around him? Read the book and discover for yourself.

It's a short book, 90 pages, easily read in an evening.

What do you believe about war and peace?

Mug

Stephen has really bad luck with coffee mugs. Every nice, high-dollar one he gets, lands on the cement floor or falls in the ceramic dish sink and breaks. What is a man supposed to do?

For just a couple dollars I found a very appropriate mug for him. He spends so much time on his computer when he's at home. 

He says it holds almost half a 12 cup coffee pot.

How ya like it?

Cheesy Chicken Chowder Recipe (Gluten Free)

Ingredients:
4 cups cooked chicken
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups milk
2 cups peeled potatoes, cubed
2 cups peeled carrots, cubed
2 cups diced celery
2 cups cheese (I use American)
1/3 cup cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Cook vegetables in chicken broth until tender. Add 3 cups of milk. Heat to nearly boiling while you dissolve cornstarch in the remaining cup of milk. Add cornstarch mixture to vegetables and stir until it returns to a gentle boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the cheese until it melts. Add salt, pepper and chicken. Serve.

Did you notice how many ingredients begin with the letter C?

Chicken soups are so nourishing, especially if you make your own broth from bone-in chicken.

Kitchen Hacks II

Keep the counters clean. Remember that? And how in the world do you practically do that??? Just do it! Do you rinse and stack your dishes? Well, why not just get the hot water running into the sink (if you have hot tap water), squirt in some dish detergent and make that rinsing a washing instead? Presto! The dishes are washed and can air dry in the dish rack instead of collecting on the counter top or in the sink.

I have such a good mentor in these things. Donna Goff at Mentoring Our Own is constantly reminding me how important a clean kitchen is. It is our choice to keep it clean. If we are too busy to keep up with our dishes (or laundry) we are too busy! Her kitchen rule is "Leave no trace". I'll let you interpret that.

Use a food chopper when you fry burger. It is handy to use that instead of a spatula or pancake turner, whatever you call it. Just chop and mix as the burger fries.

This tool is actually very versatile- chop onions and nuts, cut out biscuits and donuts, chop strawberries. Just use your imagination.

The crock pot is a wonderfully useful kitchen gadget. Fill it in the morning with some meat, veggies and spices and by evening your main dish is ready. Add a green salad to make a complete meal. For even more fun, put a bunch of meals in the freezer and you'll have peace of mind for a week or two.

Soak your beans before cooking them. Best done in a glass jar with some vinegar or lemon juice added. Let them set a couple days- 2 or 3- and then drain, rinse and cook them. If you've suffered from internal gas when eating beans, this should eliminate the problem. 

An hour after you put them in the jar, pick up the jar, turn it upside down and then return it to it's place. If you don't, the swelling beans will pack themselves tightly in the bottom of the jar. 

Shake garlic and eggs to peel them. Oh, but that sounds really strange. 

My daddy taught me about peeling hard-boiled eggs. After they're cooled and the water is drained off, put the lid on the kettle and shake away. Up and down. Back and forth. Not so vigorously that the eggs break but hard enough to get the shells cracked all over. The eggs will slip right out of their shells if they aren't lying in the kettle peeled already once you remove the lid. (Another tip for HB eggs is to leave them unpeeled if you want to store them for any amount of time.)

Garlic works similarly. Take a bulb in your hand, stem end against palm, root end out, and slam it on the counter top, giving good pressure with the heel of your hand. This makes the cloves fall off. Put the cloves in a big bowl and cover it with the same size bowl or one that fits tightly over it. Hold the bowls together and shake for all you're worth for twenty to sixty seconds. Check after twenty seconds and shake longer if necessary. The cloves should be lying inside, peeled when you're done. 

Till next time, happy cooking! Make it short and sweet.

Watch for Kitchen Hacks III in the future.

More

More was the word for Saturday, October 28. 

More ideas. Melvin cleaned off the bar which was populated with burnt matches, wax and etc from where they played with the candles and fire. He found a taper candle and then decided to bring in some holly branches. Pretty.

You may think, "Decorating for Christmas already?" No, we don't do Christmas so the boys think only of using what is available for decor.

Then the string lights that I had been gifted some time ago suddenly found a purpose. They reflect beautifully in the counter top. In the photo you see more in the counter top than otherwise.

More food from the garden. Melvin dug two sweet potato plants and came up with all this good nutrition! Why are they so cracked?

The island counter top got one more replacement of fabric and plastic. It needs a good Formica top but all in good time.

Old, cut up, worn out (nasty) top.

New fabric

New plastic

Good helper

Completed

More tomatoes from our friends made more juice for the shelves.

There were more jars than we needed so we found homes for them. 

Matthew went to the woods with his bow one more time. I snuck in behind him and grabbed a photo from the mirror while he camouflaged himself with scorched cork. He's seen deer but never gets a shot. 

How much more is in your life?

Notebooking Pages

This is a website review. (I do not get reimbursed for anything on my blog. I only give honest reviews of whatever I like!)

The search for a good way to educate children led me to NotebookingPages.com. Don't ask me where I first heard of this website. Several years ago they offered a lifetime membership and I bit. I've never regretted it and have often been grateful for this wonderful site.

Have you ever wondered what you learned in school? Have you wondered what to do with all the school books your mother stored for you? What about all the workbooks your children fill out? Should everything go in the trash? All that labor? Should you store it? To what purpose?

How about allowing your children to build their own memories? Make books for your shelves that are worth re-reading? Wouldn't that be a better option?

That is what we've found. Reading through textbooks where others have done all the research and are telling you what to learn is both boring and ineffective. 

Reading from the sources of information and writing your own "book" will cement information more firmly in your mind. And it will give you a beautiful book to look back through, full of memories that you created yourself.

Write down what you learn rather than being tested to see what you don't know. How would we adults function if we were constantly told that we're less than we should be because of all we don't know? 

Oh, the world is full of so much to learn. Let us give our children the joy of learning it in their own way and time! As we ourselves do.

We did a little of that at Kid's Club this year. I wish we would have done more. If we only lecture, tell stories and etc., the retention is nearly zero percent. But if a child knows she must fill out a paper with facts (written or drawn) from the evening's lesson, she will listen more carefully.

The girls are great artists. These papers come from Notebooking Pages. 

Then the thing I really, really like is their Notebooking Web-app. I designed the papers below with the app. They recapture many of the stories we went over this year.

Borders were already there and I did everything inside the borders. You can see how a child could write and pull in clip art to create pages with beautiful memories.

There are lots of free pages available at NotebookingPages.com for you and your child to print off and enjoy. 

With the Web-app (which you must purchase) you can also design and make greeting cards. Or use their ready-made designs.

Be sure to listen to Debra tell how she decided to use this method of teaching her 10 children.

Get ready for fun learning with your own child(ren).