I tried to make lemon bars once, but they turned out more like lemon erasers. They looked like Lemon Bars, and sort of tasted like Lemon Bars but felt like biting into an eraser. I learned a big lesson that day… reading is fundamental!
What a Lemon…
Category: babies
Monday Messages…
Don’t miss Tuesday Walk and Talk… we are feeding squirrels, I hope!
Investigating Truths continues to follow the adventures of our band of misfit hero’s, in Just a Bag! I would love some feedback from you as to whether or not to continue the audio clips of the episodes. If it enhances things for you, then I am happy to continue… but if you prefer to just read, then that too is good for things.
Hopefully, you have all had a chance to see the different pictures in place for the fall season. Thank you so much for your feedback in helping me choose.
I would love ideas and suggestions for our upcoming virtual season. If you have something you think would be fun, please share it here… the more the merrier!
Don’t forget to sign up for our Live Wire Potluck this Sunday! Let’s fill up the potluck list with some fun suggestions… if you describe what you want, I will find virtual displays to match your description. I think this will work great! Let me know what you think. I have no desire to monopolize the lobby with just me sort of things… this is your lobby too!
I put this additional comment block in for actual potluck ideas and suggestions specific to upcoming events. This will hopefully allow me to separate comments about posts and comments directly related to questions I ask. We shall see…
No Brainer…
If I could share anything with my younger self, it would be to Slow Down… Enjoy the Moment!
When we were small, the world seemed so big, and full of new things to see and learn. As time marched forward and we continued to grow, time seemed to begin moving much faster. The older we got, the faster time flew by, and with no guarantees for tomorrows, we rushed through life hoping to accomplish all our dreams while we could. We got married, had a passel of kids, had a career, owned a house and car, and prayed we saved enough for retirement.
I finally learned to slow down and enjoy the little things a bit more than I did back in the day. I would like to say that I appreciate things more now. I am ok with not noticing the world pass me by, as I enjoy being present in the moments that are precious to my spirit.
Friends, Family… love, laughter… tender moments, and endless pages of happy memories to recall and share. Perhaps I am telling my younger self the same thing they have been shouting through the years… Life is short… There is no guarantee for tomorrow… You can’t take it with you… or Slow down and smell the roses.
The problem with sayings, mottos, or messages to our younger selves… the advice is there, but if the listener is too busy, or stubborn to accept it… well, I suppose we can move to the other old adage left for us by our predecessors … “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make em drink!”
I could go back and tell myself a whole lot of things, but as I recall that younger me, I highly doubt I would have listened!
Here, have a cookie…
Ok, so its a brownie… But I couldn’t help it! Look at the fudgy line in the middle! I bet these are so chewy…
Live Wire…
This song really spoke to me for some reason this morning, so I decided to shape todays Live Wire around the power of love, and restoration…https://youtu.be/ihrUIPfvTh8?si=QSajBP7QXqi4375g
Please listen to the song before reading further…
The bible gives us countless examples of the restorative power of Gods love for us… He has given us what we need to love, but we are the ones who must choose to accept or deny employing it.
As the music video began playing, it took me a moment to realize things were going backwards. Once things began to roll forward again, we can see how love can change the outcome… transforming things right before our eyes when we allow love to go before us, even before we have a full human understanding of things.
As humans we have an inborn capacity to love others, but only as long as we get love back. Restorative love… love for another over self, now that is another story. Love is a verb… an action word! Only God can instill a selfless love within us, and only He can sustain this type of action through us.
Were it not for God, we would simply work ourselves into the ground, so to speak, and eventually burn out and become cynical towards others. Eventually everyone encounters a situation where the last thing we want to do is reflect love, in place of anger, blame, or misunderstanding!
The part in the music video where the husband just stops and says, “I’m sorry” struck a chord within my spirit! It was as if he just suddenly surrendered his anger to God, acknowledging the need for love in the middle of that moment… I don’t know, that is just what I got out of it. You may get something totally different.
There are times where God lays something on my heart to share, and even I am not sure what I am trying to say, or why… if nothing else, He is teaching me something, so there’s that…
It’s POTLUCK SUNDAY people! I will do all the heavy lifting this week, but if you want to participate next week, just leave a message on the Monday Messages comment section, and we can plan ahead…
God Bless!
I went with a picnic theme today to celebrate the end of the summer months…
If all this doesn’t feed us all, I will be surprised…
F F F Food…
Never mind the five food groups, I want to tell you about the F F F Food groups…
What exactly are the FFF Foods, you might be asking yourself? Let me give you more information to go on, otherwise, you’ll all just think I have a ridiculous way of saying that I like food. There are three types of foods for me…
F #1 – The Farm food…
When I say Farm Food, this should cover all fresh eggs, fresh meat, fresh Milk and cheese and butter… all that stuff! I was born on a farm and my tummy always goes back to what I knew from birth. I remember sitting in the strawberry fields, making myself sick on the berries that my mother was painstakingly trying to gather for making Jams.
Whatever we could not grow on our farm, we would get from all the other surrounding farms and visa versa… they bought our cows, and our milk and eggs. I was raised in the farmlands of Oregon, so there were plenty of farms to pick from, and pick we did… every year!
All these years later, I found that my body wants to go back to eating like I did back then.
F #2 – The Fresh Food…
I have distant memories of teething on carrots and green onions fresh from the dirt… There are very few fruits and veggies that I would turn away from… I like them raw, I like them steamed, and I even like them roasted… I will eat them by themselves, or as part of a dish… I am not partial.
and last but not least, F #3 – The Fair Food…
Cotton Candy to make our fingers sticky…Caramel Apples with the nuts on top to pull out any loose fillings… Elephant ears, Corn on the Cob, Strawberry Scones, and who could pass up an Earthquake Burger! If you wish to have a visual that would better explain my love of fair food, I will leave you with this one…
Do you remember the rat in Charlotte’s Web? Remember that night at the fairgrounds when he did his wonderful song and dance about his love of going to the fair… That could be Me!
Here have a taste of my faves…
See, it’s balanced… the oatmeal cancels out the calories and cavities from the caramel… I got you covered!
Note to Self…
Working with metal is a conundrum of sorts…
It takes a man using one piece of metal to pound out something strong and useful from another piece of metal. The only difference between the two is shape and heat…
Both metals are strong, but if you apply heat to one, thereby softening it into being moldable, it can be reshaped…
In the end, it comes down to the one wielding the hard piece of metal. If the one hammering does not use wisdom and skill, the end result would be quite different…
The same thing goes for mankind…
Note to self #5
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” Proverbs 27:17
Ahhh… The Life of a Turtle…
If you were to guess the meaning of the picture, then you would have your answer as to which one I am. The turtle or the hare question seemed so fitting for me, as I am an avid walker.
Most of my pictures and all my videos on my site are from my walks, some from the river and some from the park where our Acorn Valley squirrels live. I may not be able to run anymore at my age, but I can walk, and walk I do…
As a small girl I spent most of my time on the streets, running away from home at a very early age, and continuing to run away from every foster home they tossed me into. Running was my finest quality!
After all these years, with an accumulation of injuries, children, Fibro, and arthritis… I relinquished the running shoes and picked up walking. That was 2 years ago.
When I began this walk, I was 100 lbs heavier, on 6 different medications and still in pain from the time I woke up, until I went to bed at night. There I would toss and turn all night with that restless leg syndrome thingy. It was my lowest health marker I have ever dropped to, and it was not pretty!
I guess I began to walk because I wanted to run away from things at the time, and I couldn’t! I started walking just the same, figuring that it was either going to kill me or save me, one of the two. God took me on two journeys, simultaneously! He raised my spirit up from the ashes, and He set me walking! Both have saved my life!
I walk around 6 miles a day, not fast miles, but miles none the less. If the weather is too warm, I either go early or not at all… so I do take time off. But for the most part it averages out to around 5 days a week.
I may not be running out there, but I can walk. I walk through struggles and trials now, instead of running myself into the ground trying to avoid or run away from painful things.
By walking instead of running, I find that I don’t hurt myself by expecting more of ME than is possible. Had I not lived a life that exacted such heavy penalties, perhaps I would have more energy for running at my age now. Perhaps not!
At this stage of the game, I have to pay attention to where I put my keys… why would I want to spend hours out on the trail looking for my left kidney and self respect. Both would have dropped out on the trail about 1 mile in, from me thinking I could run it! I will stick to walking, thank you!
Now that this chatty Cathy rambled on for five minutes about walking, I think it is safe to say that you understand the reason behind the picture and title I chose for todays prompt.
Turtles are slow, but they never stop! They have long lives usually, and eat mostly salad… like me!
I like Turtles!
Have a treat…
There should be plenty to go around, but I wouldn’t eat the one in the middle… I think it’s taken…
I spy with my one good eye…
What do you think it looks like?
Ok, I know my eye is not the best… but, is it just me or does this stick look like a squirrel???
It’s the Lobby for Me…
If you ask any of my fellow band of rag tag adventurers, they will tell you that we already have a leader, and it’s not me…
If you look through my stories, you should find that I have a passion for serving… for helping others. I guess a better descriptor for my natural bent, would be facilitator. Being that I am such an emotional creature, I seem to gravitate toward those in need of love, compassion, and often some elbow grease. You could call me a worker bee, but do not take this as a bad thing. I prefer it!
I do not do well in situations where I am the one getting noticed, or being required to take charge of things. Again, I am a very emotional creature… I would not be the one you should put in charge of things.
For example, it would be a catastrophe if I were in charge of the power company, because when people acted like putzes around me, I would just turn the power off. I know how to get back at you for talking about me at the water cooler!
See what I mean? I made for a mean mom, if you were to ask my kids. While I did ensure that they went to school and became responsible adults, I was not averse to underhanded mom tactics to get what I wanted. You could say that I was great at putting the fear of God in them, but not the best at inner office relationships.
My point is, a leader should be someone with more than knowledge and skill, but also an even keeled temperament. Be grateful that I stay in the lobby because I am NOT even keeled… Wiwohka… raging water… It’s a no brainer…
Yay, cookies… they’re what’s for Breakfast!
They are good for you… I mean, there is milk in there… and flour, and butter, and eggs. See, healthy…
Your Know…
It almost looks like an otter is chillin with his homies, and is like, “Hey man, toss me an oyster, would ya?”
You know?
Journey With Me! 
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