A note....

My wonderful sisters, given to me in grace.....

You know, I seem to follow deep posts with lighter ones. :-)


You may not know that I do not have any biological sisters. I have a brother (whom I love DEARLY...he is definitely the golden son of the family :-) ). But I sort of have had a little desire to have a sister, especially in these later years.


But then I realized that I HAVE sisters. I have sisters in Christ. Now, to many, that is just words "Brother Joe and Sister Sue". But to me, those are NOT just words. To me, that is a promise, a blessing. I have sisters! I have many sisters!


I have Sisters in Christ who are also related to me in some way (Jeninlaw, Colastie, Precious Heart, among others). I have Sisters in Christ who are also friends of my heart. And I have Sisters in Christ whom I have never met, but who I still ponder and consider and pray for.

That makes me happy :-).

I made an incredible recipe the other day out of a cookbook called "Just 4 Things". I got it from Jo Anns (for some reason, craft stores seem to have great cookbooks that are cheap and colorful--my kinda cookbook!). It was a roast that used a lot of onions and then a Guinness Stout and cooked for hours. I used an arm roast, which is pretty tough I think normally (as far as I know it is anyway....i am SO bad about knowing which meat cut is good!). But this recipe made it literally melt in your mouth. It was altogether pleasant!

I am eager to get this book-type thing about anxiety disorders (OCD, panic disorder, and chronic anxiety disorder, etc) set up. I am going to try to get copies printed, but I also want to put everything on the web. The Lord healed me for free, and I want to provide the information He gave me for free to others. I am not sure if a website or a blog is better. I am not sure if it is better if I restrict it to those who pm me first OR if I should just leave it out in public. I am not sure if I should just have the website with no posting, or if I should have a forum as well (forums can be pretty touchy.). I have no idea how the best way is to present this information, and would gladly take input if anyone has a suggestion.

We got our first snow this weekend. Not enough to play in, but enough to let us know that winter is here :-). I am excited about building fires in the woodstove. I really love that! We homeschool in that room, and my sewing machine is there, so it is all tucked in and cozy, a room for the most blessed of homemaking and home keeping and home experiencing. I just need a (very small) loveseat to go in there because we do not have any really comfortable seating except a rocking chair.

Please pray for Colastie and The Colonel as they travel to get more tests done on Colastie. The Lord has been working in our lives with Colastie's illness for years, and the blessings have been too numerous to count! Please pray that He will continue to give her improving health for many years to come!

I cannot wait to try my tomatoes that we finished inside. I have some tiny transparent yellow ones, some very green (they are supposed to be green!) ones, a dark burgundy one, and a few red ones that are not smooth, but are sort of ...... can't describe it. Kind of pleated looking.

OH! And I went out and dug up potatoes! I use potatoes as bedding plants because they are cheap and big lol. Frankly I was about out of giggles for how un-summerlike this summer was, but TWS told me that I needed to go dig up the potatoes and see what there was. Yeah well....sigh....

So one evening, he dug up a few and he got several potatoes! Then i knew I was not getting out of this without me getting in there and digging up a few. So the other day I dug up as many as I could. WOWOWOWOOWOWOOWOW! What a bountiful harvest of yukon gold and purple potatoes! And digging for them was actually kinda fun :-). It was like a treasure hunt. Now, when you plant a potato, at least up here, the one you plant sometimes just turns into icky goo....ugh. So it was a high stakes treasure hunt--would I find a little purple gem? A bit of yukon gold? Or gooey toxic slime? I wore gloves lolol.

Mostly the dirt did not stick to the potatoes, so when you unearthed them, they looked so pretty! It was really a blessing. Now I have no idea what to do with them! I do not like mashed potatoes, and these are too small to cut into french fries. But I think I am going to dice them and oven roast them...the family likes that :-).

Ok, my dear sisters, it is time for me to get BUSY. I have some sewing to do! OH that reminds me! Many years ago I used to make and sell soaps, milk bath, bath salts, etc at bazaars around here. I dressed up in costume (the one I wore to the Victorian tea). It was fun but hard work. Up here there is a really independent spirit, plus not a lot of turn over in people. So after the novelty of you wears off, the same people who go to the same bazaars know what you sell and may not come by the table to see if you have anything new. We stopped doing this a couple of years ago. Just was not worth the hassel of doing the bazaars.

BUT I have one customer who has been faithful all these years. Her husband, apparently, does not want to use any soap but the one I make (it is REALLY REALLY moisturizing. I mean REALLY). So a couple times during the year, she buys whole batches of soap from me. :-). She just recently got a couple of other people buying the soap as well! I had also mentioned to her on the phone that I was going to do a bazaar. When I delivered the soap to her she was SO excited! She said "If you don't mind, I want to volunteer to sell the soap for you at the bazaar!". She had told lots of people that that was her plan! I felt so bad when I said "Ummm.....I am not selling soap at the bazaar, I am selling aprons.". She looked stunned! I said "But you are my only customer!". We had a good chuckle about that, and she informed me that I do not do a good job of selling my soap and that she needs to sell it for me because I am too modest about it, but she has no problem gushing over it to other people--she cracks me up! :-)

SO....it looks like I might be selling aprons at one end of the table and making soap for her to sell at the other end! She has so much energy, it will be a blast to have her keeping me company :-).

So I need to get to sewing the aprons. I am really excited about them because I have not seen anything similar, even online! We will see how they go at the bazaar! If they do not sell, people can expect a lot of aprons at Christmas lolol. :-).