Bean Day

Today was a bean day at our house. On a friend's blog she tells how to make your own "canned" beans. I must admit it really is quite a bit of savings. I bought two pounds of Kidney beans and 4 pounds of Pinto beans at the grocery store for less than $1.00/lb. Out of that I ended up with 12 quarts of canned beans ready to use in any recipe at a moments notice. Normally I would buy cans of beans at the store for about $.70 each but with this I spent about $4.00 and ended up with 12 quarts. I think it was definitely worth it. Sometimes when I make up a big batch of beans I freeze them but I always ended up forgetting to set them out to thaw for dinner. This way all I have to do is pop open a jar and make a meal with it.

Here is how you do it if you are interested...

Soak a big ole pot of beans overnight. I did a huge bowl and a stock pot. Drain and rinse the beans the next morning. Fill your quart jars 3/4 full, add a teaspoon of salt and fill with water. Put your lids and rings on and pressure can according to your canner directions at 10lbs for 60 minutes. Voile...canned beans.

My pictures above are backwards...the first one is the finished product and the bottom one is some of the jars awaiting their turn in the pressure canner.

Next I am going to make homemade refried beans. If you have any tips on that, feel free to leave a comment.

Valentine's Day at our house

Decorating sugar cookies with Big Brother who came for a visit especially to decorate cookies with his little brothers.

Cinnamon breakfast biscuits shaped like hearts...

One of B#6's friends made this heart shaped cake and brought it over for us...

Heart shaped cinnamon rolls to go with our heart shaped biscuits and Orange Juice(which is a special treat in our house)....

We spent the day with the kids, just relaxing and enjoying being together. DH and I are starting a new budgeting system so our gifts to each other were heart-felt but very inexpensive. Aren't those the best kind?

What's been keeping me busy

This is a picture of our oldest and his fiancee. Their wedding is coming up in 34 days. Although we aren't planning the wedding, planning the rehearsal dinner is keeping us busy along with finding new outfits for everyone.

"100 Days of Blessing" book review

I don't get alot of time to read so when I read something great I want to share it with others. Recently I was able to go to an "Above Rubies" ladies retreat. While there I purchased a devotional book for wives and mothers called "100 Days of Blessing", by Nancy Campbell.

There are so many good daily readings but my favorite one so far is Day 42 called " Don't waste Brain Space". I would love to write out the whole devotional here but that probably isn't legal or feasible but here are a few of my favorite parts:

Casting ALL your care upon Him for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7
Many women spend most of their brain space worrying about this and that. What a waste! This space could be more profitably used to think positively. When we worry and think negatively, we do not help the situation.Worry makes the problem worse. Worry stifles creativity. You can't even see a way out of the problem when you worry. Worry strangles the effectiveness of God's Word in your life and makes you unproductive. Matthew 13:22 tells us that "the worries of this life" choke the Word and we become unfruitful.

God does not tell you to give some of your worries to Him. He tells you to give ALL your cares to Him. That means EVERY ONE. The big ones and the little ones.

If we spend all our brain space thinking about ourselves and insignificant things, we leave no room for God to bring to our mind the needs of others.

These are just a few passages of this days devotional and this one is just one of many wonderful daily devotions in this book. I would love to be able to purchase a boatload of these to hand out to all the wives and mothers I come in contact with.

If you are interested in this book or any others written by Mrs. Campbell, you can find them at www.aboverubies.org

Winter

We woke up this morning to beautiful snow. I don't mind a bit of snow for just a day or so. Great excuse to stay home by the fire with family and snuggle up in footy jammies...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all. We pray that each of you has a personal relationship with the ONE who gives us the reason for this season, Jesus Christ. As we left church yesterday we noticed one of the churches in our town had a sign saying they were not having a service on Christmas day and that struck me as so very strange. Now I know that people may choose not to attend church if Christmas falls on a Sunday, maybe visiting family etc. but for a church to choose not to have a service just struck me as strange since the reason we have Christmas is because of CHRIST. Anyway, I do hope you had a great day. We chose to open our gifts today, Monday, not only to avoid a very busy Sunday but also because our oldest and his fiance both had to work yesterday, medical people just don't always have the option to not work on holidays. We had a very nice relaxing day today with the children.

Again, Merry Christmas and we hope you all have a Happy Jesus loves you New Year.

ps Sister Kristy I would love to be invited to read your blog:)

JOY

Isn't this the most joyful time of the year? A time for us to be joyful about our Saviour, Jesus, who came to this world as a helpless baby and then He died on a cruel cross to take the punishment for our sins so we could be reconciled to the God who created us and loves us so much. Why wouldn't we be joyful at the thought of this. But are we joyful? Am I joyful?

The Lord has been bringing that word to me lately...Joy. Do I have joy? Or do I let the cares of the day rob me of my joy? Am I crabby and short tempered? I must admit that ,yes I am. I blame it on lack of sleep etc. but it just boils down to choosing to be UNJOYFUL. Is that even a word? Well now it is. One of the things I blame my lack of joy on is my children's crabbiness. But then I realize that they are only crabby because they see mama being crabby.

So for our Advent readings this year we are focusing on Scriptures about Joy. Last nights verse was from Nehemiah 8:10, the second part, where it says...

"Do not sorrow, for the JOY of the Lord is your strength"

The notes in my Bible concerning this verse, which is actually speaking to the Isrealites as they are hearing the Law read to them by Ezra, say that the joy of the Lord is the joy that springs up in our hearts because of our relationship to the Lord. It is a God-given gladness found when we are in communion with God. When our goal is to know more about the Lord, the by-product is His joy.

So what I am taking away from this is that we in America try to manufacture our joy during the Christmas season. We sing about Joy, we may even read Scriptures about joy but if we (meaning me) are not in God's Word DAILY then we will ever be striving to find our JOY. Only in Christ Jesus can we have that because everyday will have trials that want to rob us of our joy. And He is the only constant thing.

I was planning on writing out my favorite poem about my children mirroring me and how I need to have joy if I expect them to have it but then I realized that I had already written it. So if you want to refresh your memory of it or never read it to begin with, click on Poems on the side bar. I think it is an excellent reminder to us that our children will become what they see in us(most of the time).

Again, I ask us, "How's your joy?" Can I challenge you and me to daily find our joy in the Lord? Can I challenge each of us to find someone we trust to hold us accountable to be in God's word daily and to practice the joy that we know we should be exhibiting? How can we reach others for Christ when we show no joy in the life that He has given us?

I hope we each have a JOYFUL Christmas season and beyond!