What a great weekend, it was cloudy and rainy and perfect baking weather. We had glorious worship services, both at church and here last night with our Bible Study group. We are studying the book of Hebrews with some precious friends who have come to mean so much to our lives. We have dinner some of the nights together and then sometimes, like last night, we had dessert, yummy apple and cherry cobbler with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream.

Sunday nights are just made to have friends and family over. Because of the times, laughter and going through some illnesses, prodigal children, tough times due to unemployment, etc…..these friends have become like family to us. It is such a blessing to open up our home to people who love the Lord and come together to pray, to study God’s truth, to cry, to laugh, to share “glory stories” and simply just to enjoy being together. We are truly blessed beyond anything we thought possible. I think of the times when shopping in a mall, purchasing something we have “thought” we wanted, or traveling to far away places. Yes, those things seem nice at the time, but the newness wears off. Nights like last night never “wear off”. They bless our hearts and are reminders of God’s goodness to us and how His plan of “meeting together in His Name” will never grow old. It just continues to grow us not only spiritually, but in our genuineness and in our “likeness of Jesus Christ”. Go out today and bless someone with a smile, a hug or tell some one that Jesus really does love them and share what God has done in your life. You will come away so blessed, you will be looking for the next opportunity to share His goodness!

Just thought I would let you know….went to Costco yesterday and they have a new item. It is about a 3 lb bag of cooked, cut up chicken breasts. I bought a bag to use for casseroles which I have to make 60 this week for Mistletoe Market. It will sure help cut down on time and energy.

Today was awesome. It is about 9 p.m. and I have been on the couch for about 45 min, looking over old Southern Living magazines, enjoying the last page in each one, titled, “Southern Journal”. These are just little short stories about how we “southerners” don’t understand when restaurants up north or out west do not offer “sweet tea”, or why “chicken fried steak” would not be on their menu. It was great looking through some tried and true recipes and cutting my favorite ones out, thus allowing Randy to throw the books out. He just doesn’t understand why I would love a closet dedicated to boxes of old Southern Living, Southern Lady and Taste of Home magazines. So I am being forced to go through the ones dating back to 2000 and just cutting out what I want to keep and throwing them out.

We came home tonight driving through the rain, after going to one of our old places we use to eat, Sicilian’s out in McKinney. It is just the best italian food and so very cheap. They bring huge garlic rolls and put them on the table and then you order speghetti with meat sauce for $5.25. I splurged and ordered chicken piccata with artichokes and mushrooms for a$8.00. We had been to see a dear friend who is in the hospital who suffers from ALS. Michael is such an inspiration to us all. He is only 55 and he radiates a smile to everyone who enters his room, even though he cannot even hold a pen or glass of water. We pray every day for a miracle for Michael, but maybe the miracle is going to be on the other side of Heaven when he is walking with Jesus around the streets of gold. He wasn’t wanting to talk about himself, he was asking us to tell him about our vacation. It was a wonderful visit and we came away feeling blessed to be called Micahel’s friend.

Visiting Michael, eatting speghetti and looking through Southern Living magazines, it was a most glorious “stormy Saturday”.

It’s been a nice day. Had lunch with a dear friend, then grocery shopping and cooked in the afternoon for company which was in from California, that Randy had invited from work. Thought, “hum, if I was in the south and I was invted to dinner, what would I think they would cook?” So I made roast, with mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans cooked with bacon and hot rolls, chocolate pie with REAL (no Cool Whip in this house,ha for dessert.

They loved it!. Thought they were really in the south when I asked them if sweet tea was ok with them to drink. I love this time of year, I decorated my fall trees in the entry way with pumpkins, fall leave garland, white lights and fall flowers. It makes me feel so good just to walk in and see all the lights. I always pray that before any company walks in the door that they feel welcome and feel that a  love and sweet spirit while here. The lights from the trees just make a warm feel as they walk into the house.

It felt like a southern living evening. We had conversation for 2 hours, no television and enjoyed meeting new friends. My kind of night!

If you enjoy reading this blog, would you please pass it on to friends, co-workes, family, etc……..thanks for your encouragement and comments…

Praise God for a wonderful Dr’s report today! What a wonderful day. Began the day with hubby and I having our prayer time before he left for work. I cannot explain what this means to me. Iknew that he was running a little bit late this morning and I was prepared to hand him his lunch for him to walk out the door and he paused and said, “no, we need to pray before I go”. Each day when we begin our day together before the Lord just blesses my heart. Jodi, my daughter came over and brought precious little Caleb and we had lunch together and just visited for a couple of hours. We moved some furniture and laughed and she and I read a devotion together. Monday laundry day turned out to be a very glorious day!.

Our brother and sister-in-law leave for Italy on Saturday, so they came over last night and ate supper and we had the chance to show off our Italy pictures. All 600 of them. They were troopers to sit through an hours worth of memories, which I’m sure were alot more fun for us to watch than Don and Janece. Thank ya’ll for being such good sports. We had smothered steak, mashed red potatoes, mixed veggies and cauliflower with cheese for dinner. Ate cherry crunch with ice cream during the slide presentation. I thought that if I fed them during the slides, they wouldn’t complain so much, ha…..yes, I am posting the recipes for last night’s dinner!

Well, we are down to one day. We are pretty much packed and ready to go.  Just wanted to share a recipe for Roast which we had on Sunday when Jodi, Eric, Jaden and Caleb came over to eat. It was one of the “old fashioned Sunday meals” which we enjoyed so much. Even the great laughter of Jodi and I watching Randy fall asleep reminded me of just the “good ole” days when we used to sit and watch our parents on Sunday afternoon sleep on the couch pretending to watch golf on TV. It is times like these that make me forget that the world, she is “achanging” and we seem to not have time to create these special memories which do not cost anything. We laughed until our tummies ached. Eric and Jaden were watching car racing on television and Randy snored, oops, I mean slept in his lazy boy recliner and the smell of chocolate cake still permeated the room. So until I find a hotel with a computer while we are in Italy, this is the last recipe I will post for a couple of weeks……Maybe when you cook this roast, it will remind you of the lazy Sunday afternoons we grew up with……Enjoy! and God’s blessings to you.

Well, as many of you know, we are preparing to leave for Italy on Tuesday and I have heard from many friends that I need to “blog” while there. If I can have some time at a computer, I will be most happy to do so. I have enjoyed writing so very much. I am reading a book by John Eldridge, as I have written about before called, “Walking With God”. John is writing that we need to learn to listen to God during our day and not just set Him on a shelf after spending time with Him in the morning. but asking the Lord what does He have on His agenda for me each day. Well, I am really trying to do that. It has been amazing to see His hand at work and since I am learning to look for the ways that He speaks that sometimes, before I have passed off as just “oh, wasn’t it nice to hear from so and so today.” When in actuality, God brought them to mind or crossed my path so I could be praying for them or to encourage them or to help in some way. That is exactly what happend this morning. I was driving down Parker Rd when I saw a car that reminded me of a special lady who stayed with us a couple of years ago for the summer. I really began to think of her and think of how precious she was and how we were so blessed to have her in our home. Then a couple of hours later, I receive an email from her. It has been several months since hearing from her. And wouldn’t you know it, God had laid me on her heart to contact  about something she was needing. Now I know many of you might be thinking, hum, “that was just a coincidence” but as we come closer to God and learn to hear Him and to invite Him into our daily walk, we haveHis  Spirit that tells us “with God, there are no coinsidences”. Everything is purposed and planned and “He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in his paths.” Isaiah 2:3

Now, go out and be a blessing to someone today! Love to all of you and thank you for checking out my blog! Let me hear from you sometime!

Have I mentioned that I love the rain? It is just so great to be sitting and listening to thunder and watch the lighning. It always makes me want to get in the kitchen and bake something. It was a busy but great week. I was able to cook until my little heart was content. I cooked for 25 ladies on Tues, cooked a meal for Randy’s parents and a family in our Sunday School class and will make dessert for some friends coming over tomorrow night. This week I have had probably 15 people ask me if I have seen the Julia/Julia movie because when they saw it, they thought of me, which I considered a great compliment. Not that I cook like Julie Child, but cooking is such a favorite passion of mine. I think I would be happy if I could stay home 3 or 4 days ever week and do nothing but cook. But life has to go on and right now, there are many things to do, so I cook when I am given the time. The potato recipe that I wrote today was one dish I served to the ladies on Tues and many of them wanted the recipe so thought it would be fun to put it on here. You will find it under appitizers/sides, until I figure out how to add another category to the list,ha.  We are leaving for Italy in a couple of days, so hopefully I will learn several new dishes while we are there. We are meeting friends and will explore places which we have never been. Since I have been painting, it will be fun to see the different type of pictures we will take. Hopefully I have learned a little from my cousin, Marion, on how to take pictures I might want to paint. Enjoy your Labor Day and will write when I get back!