Hearts in Service

The past six weeks have been emotional, stressful, heart-wrenching, and paralyzing. However, I have, have to get things back to some sort of normal around here or we are all going to be locked up at the funny farm! :-) So, in that spirit, here is what I've done today: ♥ Kids up and dressed ♥ Made eggs, bacon and toast from my homemade sourdough ♥ Showered & dressed ♥ Cleaned up the breakfast dishes ♥ 2 loads of laundry ♥ Dusted living room ♥ Cleaned upstairs bathroom ♥ Worked on math with kids ♥ Boys read ♥ Made some phone calls, doing church business We are getting ready to eat lunch and then I'm going out in the garden and try to deal with the massive amounts of crabgrass that have taken over. Let's just say if I can't get it under control, I'm going to have to find some crabgrass recipes! ;-) I'm planning on sewing with Emily later, get dinner on the table and relax later on. I've been focusing on just praising the Lord in the midst of our storm and

I love sourdough bread and have wanted to make it for awhile. I finally tried my hand at making starter. I cheated and did it the quick way. Generally you just add equal amounts of flour and water in a sterilized glass container to catch airborne yeast. I'm still planning on trying this, but this takes about a week and I wanted to make bread today so I went ahead with this recipe. 2 cups lukewarm water 2 1/4 tsp. yeast 1 1/2 cups flour Mix all the ingredients together and whisk until well blended. Cover the bowl loosely with wax paper or cheese cloth and set in a warm, draft-free place for 12 hours. After I made the bread, I transferred my starter to a glass jar. Today I went ahead and made bread with the starter and the loaves turned out great. I think if I let the starter sit longer next time, the bread will have more of the sour taste, but it was still delicious. Just remember to feed your starter equal amounts of water and flour to keep it going.

We just got back from visiting our inlaws and guess where I spent my vacation? In the hospital! We arrived Thursday night and I woke up in the middle of the night in pain. By Friday afternoon, it hurt too much to bear and I thought I had a urinary tract infection and went to the emergency room. I figured I better go so I could enjoy the rest of my time. However, it turned out to be diverticulitis and I was there for the entire vacation. When doing the CAT Scan they also found a fairly good sized cyst on my ovary so I do need to take care of that. It was a wake up call that I need to take better care of myself. I'm in and out of the doctor's office so much with the needs of my three children and don't really think about me. I'm feeling better now but definitely will be making some phone calls tomorrow to my doctors!

"From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the LORD is to be praised."

We had a bit of a peaceful interlude today in the midst of our chaos. A couple in our church invited us for lunch. They are the caretakers of a very large estate that trains Peruvian Pasos. We actually lived there for 2 months when we first moved here 6 years ago and it was a wonderful place to live. Look at these gorgeous views! The owner has a lot of money so he is able to keep things pristine. Emily loves horses so she spent most of her time with them. However, when we got home this is what her face looked like. Actually her eyes are looking better here. They were almost swollen closed. It happens every time with horses! The boys spent their time doing this. It was nice to get away for a bit today.

I saw Emily doing something over by the trees in our backyard yesterday so I asked her what she was doing. She decided she was going to trap a chipmunk. First she dug a hole. Then she put a flower pot down in the hole. Then she covered it up with branches and leaves. She had it all hooked up with a string over the tree branch. I didn't really have the heart to tell her that 1) she didn't need the string and 2) a chipmunk would climb right back out. She's a trapper in the making! :-)

My herb garden isn't fancy and it is definitely in need of weeding. However, the plants are starting to take off and I love being able to walk out my kitchen door and snip any herbs I need. A pot of mint. I also put the oregano in a pot. It needs to be thinned out. One of my favorite, herbs is cilantro. Flat-leaf parsley. My other favorite, basil. Dill. Sage. The only thing I never got around to planting is rosemary and thyme. I need to run to the local nursery and see if they have any plants left. For more on gardens, check out Jean's blog.

I took the raspberries, black caps, and mulberries that I picked this weekend and combined them together to make a triple berry pie. First, I made two pie crusts. I combined the berries into a bowl. Then I added 1-1/2 cups of sugar, 3 Tbsp. flour, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, and 1 tsp. lemon and mixed well. Bake at 400 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Enjoy!

I'm finding all sorts of treasures in my yard lately. About a week and a half ago, I noticed all these berries that looked exactly like blackberries but they were hanging from a tree. I tasted one and while it was sweet, it didn't really have much of a taste. Since I couldn't figure out what they were and I didn't want to inadvertently poison anyone, I left them alone. Well, come to find out they are mulberries! Unfortunately, by the time I figured it out most of the berries are either dried up or the birds got them. Emily climbed the tree to help me out and we ended up with about a 1/2 a cup of berries. I could kick myself because the tree was loaded with them! Then I wandered over to another part of the yard and came across a patch of black raspberries, or black caps as they are called around here. All in all, we ended up with about 2 cups of mulberries and blackcaps. I have about 2 cups of fresh raspberries in the fridge so that will be enough to make a pie. Ne

Psalm 19:1-4 (American Standard Version) 1The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 2Day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge. 3There is no speech, nor are there words; Their voice is not heard. 4Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their utterances to the end of the world

In an effort to try and get things somewhat normal around here, I thought I'd share some pictures of my garden. Thank you so much for all your sweet notes and prayers. Our family has been through a tremendous crisis but we are working our way through it with the Lord's help. Dan has taken the month of July off so that we can focus on getting our son the help he needs. Anyway, we've had so much rain that my garden is full of weeds. I keep waiting for it to dry up some, but it rains almost every day. My flowers are gorgeous and are attracting all kinds of butterflies and hummingbirds. These are my favorites! The veggies are doing well except for the cucumbers. They just don't seem to be growing at all. Cabbage Beans I'm looking forward to a good crop of tomatoes. I have three different kinds and a total of 25 plants. Lettuce The one thing no one is crazy about always does the best - squash. Melons. We are hoping that the weather starts to get better. It's b