I thought I would pass on a bit of info to you re: a way to save yourself some time. When you have some extra time, take 3 or 4 gallon zip lock bags and put your dry ingredients in them for your favorite recipes. Such as: cookies and cakes. For instance, when making chocolate chip cookies, bag your 2 1/4 cups flour, the 1 teas baking soda,1 teas salt, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 3/4 cup granulated sugar. Then label the bag and put it in the freezer if you are planning on not using it for a month or so. Then when you are ready to make a bag of the cookies, simply pull it out of the freezer that morning and when you get home at night, all you have to do is add 1 egg, 1 teas vanilla and your stick of margarine and 1 stick of butter. You are ready to bake. This really saves you so much time. Same for cakes, just mix your dry ingredients together in the bag, label them and freeze until ready to add your liquids. It seems like when you have the dry ingredients already mixed, it is simple and fast to whip up something on the spur of the moment. Try it and let me know what you think.

This morning sitting looking out at the sunshine, remembering that yesterday, the first full day of Spring, we woke up to a winter wonderland again, which is unbelievable here in Dallas, for the 3rd or 4th time this year, we are so blessed to have eyes to see the beauty that the Lord continually sends our way. Easter is two weeks away and signals in a season of rebirth, renewal and rewards!

Rebirth in that our Savior died to save us from our sins. Renewal that we feel that in each day, “His mercies are new every morning” and we can begin each day under His grace and love and have the opportunity to serve our risen Savior!

Rewards in that we get to see new growth, not only in the flowers that we have planted, but rewards in the spiritual growth that has hopefully taken place in each of our lives, as so many of us have been in the “winter” of our lives, for the last few months. The times when we felt that God was not answering or responding to our “needs”. Yet, it is in those “winter” times of our lives that, coming out on the other side, we know that He has grown us in a specific area of our life.  Remembering that He is always faithful and true, Jesus could answer our needs immedieately, but would our faith grow if he did? It is in those times of waiting for answers that we can look back and see that indeed our faith has grown, as we have had to wait for Him. Knowing that He does hear, he does care and He does always answer. But in His time and His way…….How are we different this spring than last spring? Is our lives serving Him in a way that others know that we are His child?

Do we wake up each morning and give Him our day or do we selfishly keep our selves to what “we” are wanting to do? This Easter season, let us allow Him to show us “rebirth”, “renewal” and sit back and see the spiritual “rewards” that will take place in our lives in His Time…….Let us remember that  delayed obedience is “disobedience”…….How can I go out and serve Him today? Ask Him to show you someone you could minister to today, and then WATCH, He will answer your prayer!

Right now, I am baking about 100 cupcakes for a ladies retreat at church plus frosting another 80 cupcakes for a friend who cannot frost hers. So thought I would pass along this information in case you are ever needing to frost a big batch and you keep wondering how many hours it is going to take you to do so.

First of all, William Sonoma has a frosting tube which sells for $25.00 which has saved many hours for me. Each time you fill the tube, you can beautifully frost 7 cupcakes in the time it would take to frost 1 to 2, by hand. If you do not want to buy this, another simple way to frost them is to make a ganache type of frosting and simply turn each cupcake upside down and dip the tops in the ganache. They look smooth and baeutiful and this beats the heck out of taking a knife and frosting each one seperately…….Just a thought!

OM Gosh, I had forgotten what it is like to be in a house which does not have a phone. The server was out today on my phone and it was so quiet. I actually got so much done around the house. Because I didn’t have texting, or phone service, it was just so quiet. I even left the radio and tv off and just folded clothes in the quiet. It was a cloudy day, so it would have been the perfect day to take a nap. BUT……….I just couldn’t go that far….so have worked on the computer, made cupcakes and finished the laundry…well, you get it. It is amazing how much you get done when you cannot talk on the phone.  I even finished two days of Bible Study work….I would do more, but Randy will come home and wonder what in the world is going on, if the house is too clean. Even wrote a few hand written notes today. I don’t want him to think that he is going to come home everyday to a super clean house, dinner on the table, laundry done, the bills all paid, the fridge cleaned out…….so guess I will close and go see if my phone is working..wouldn’t want to give him a heart attack!

What a beautiful day. We have worked outside, pulled out the old flowers left over from last year and generally, just started trying to spiffy up the yard, getting ready for spring. This is just so much fun, to think about how pretty all the yards will look after everyone gets new spring flowers planted. I love this time of year. It also makes me want to clean out closets, loose weight, plan the meals instead of just walking in and opening up the fridge and taking out the first thing I see. But, that thought will not last long. As soon as we begin to work outside, due to the time change which occurs tonight, we find ourselves staying outside until dark. Then we walk in, dirty from pulling weeds and planting and are so tired that neither one of us want to cook, so we end up either grabing a hamburger, frying eggs, or making boxed  macaroni & cheese.  It is then that I remember my good intentions. We were NOT going to do this. We were going to plan our meals, buy the groceries accordingly, and stick to the plan. But, somehow, that just doesn’t happen. Then we sit in front of the television and watch all the cooking shows, as we are eatting our McDonalds, and I think, “man, wouldn’t it be fun to come in tomorrow night and grab some fresh veggies and make a stir fry, grill the salmon outside and light the candles out on the patio and we would be eatting healthy, and enjoying cooking together and….and….and………and then I remember that it is “us” we are talking about. The  “us” that doesn’t stick to plans very well, yes, we have good intentions, but we so enjoy staying outside as long as we can, so I guess that we will probably continue to try to do what we should, but will end up at the hambuger joint, driving back to the house, sitting in front of the tv and start the routine all over again. Oh well, maybe next week, we will get more organized and cook at home more…..That’s it, next week….!

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule. 

4 minutes later: 

The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.. 

6 minutes: 

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again. 

10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:

The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition..

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment aboutperception, taste and people’s priorities. 

The questions raised: 

*In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? 

*Do we stop to appreciate it? 

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: 

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made. 

How many other things are we missing?

How many special persons pass us by and we do not MAKE ANY EFFORT TO get to know them? 

Wow, what a whirlwind it has been the last 10 days. We have seen such miraculous sights, dined on the finest of foods and seen some of the sweetest family gatherings. We are back from California. Although it was good to sleep in our own bed last night, I missed waking up, knowing that someone would just come in and clean up our mess, make the bed and there would be coffee, fruit and hot tea waiting for me downstairs. I could get used to this traveling thing. We have had In And Out Burgers, twice, Pork Belly (which I had never had before), three times, pigeon, duck, cavier pizza, chocolate grilled shrimp, raw kibbi, lobster, the best tiramasu I have ever had in my life, had my picture taken with Ryan Seacrest, two other famous people who I didn’t know, but the group that I was with, was just so excited about seeing them and being with them at dinner, so I just went along with the crowd, and hooped and hollared right along with them (but even when they told me who they were, I didn’t know them, except one, who is the owner of Disney). The other guy was the guy in the Twilight Series of movies. The most favorite thing of the whole week, was spending all the time with my sweetie, and experiencing sitting out over the water at NewPort Beach, just enjoying the sunshine, eatting shrimp salad and just relaxing one whole day. We drove down to Laguna Beach, San Juan Capistrano and took some gorgeous pics of the mission there. So that will probably be my next painting. It was just an amazing week. Spending time with some friends, some old, some new. A family whose house we went for an Academy Awards dinner on Sunday to watch the awards, was one of the most fun families. There were all Armeanian and Italian. They treated us as their own and just made us feel so welcome. It was a great reminder of how easy it is to welcome others in our homes and to make them feel loved, special and wanted, if we just take the time. It renewed my spirit of desiring to make strangers who walk in my door feel like they are special and wanted. Yes, we are home, tucked away in our abode for awhile, feeling so thankful for people who love us, here at home, as well as in homes 1500 miles away. God is so good to us. He protected us, He protected our family here and our home. He gave us quite a lot of beautiful things to see, one being the most beautiful and largest rainbow we had ever seen, snow topped mountains….blue water, families getting together and enjoying each other and the feast which they had prepared, green valleys, magnificent architecture, and awesome sunsets………it was a most wonderful 10 days to remind us of God’s love to us. We are truly blessed.

What a most glorious day. We awoke to the sun shinning and not a cloud in the sky. We decided to go to Lake Ave Church and was so blessed. After church Randy said that he had our whole day planned. We were now off to Marstens for breakfast and we sat on the patio and had breakfast, just enjoying the sunshine and the great food. Then we headed over to Simi Valley to tour the Ronald Reagan library. Unbelieveably beautiful. The grounds alone were worth the trip out. Then the Air Force One which was on site for us to tour was just a highlight for us. We had a picture taken of us going onto the plane, so we came away with a great picture of us both giving it the ole “Presdential wave”. We came home and walked around downtown Pasadena and stopped at Il Fornio for pasta and salad. Now, we are back at the hotel, just thinking back about our wonderful first day of vacation here in California. Will keep you posted on our adventures as we anticipate each upcoming day….gotta run, Brad and Angie just called and want us to come over for coffee……….talk to you tomorrow!