Category: Titus 2 (Page 3 of 36)

I just watched a video about a 72 year old woman in Massachusetts who was homeless for a year because she was evicted with a “no-fault” eviction, which means, “Eh, we just don’t want you to live here any more because we can get a lot more money from someone else”. Then she couldn’t afford anything else that was available.

What Happens When You Lose Your Home at 72 in Amesbury, MA

The video made me cry. I felt so bad for her. Knowing what it’s like to be in my 60s I can’t imagine being homeless and alone, especially in my 70s. She did end up getting some help to afford an apartment and I’m really glad of that.

The video got me to feeling very thankful for our little house and the fact that it is paid for. I don’t really think we could afford rent or a mortgage now. I am so thankful about how God has provided for us.

When you get to feeling like you don’t have enough or that what you have isn’t good enough, what do you do? Do you stress about it? Get sad? Feel jealous of what others have? Feel angry or deprived?

My advice is to remember the woman in the video. There are thousands of other women and men in her shoes and God loves them. He is working in their lives even in these hard times they’re in.

You though, do you think about what you DO have? Do you think about how you have been blessed and taken care of through all the rough things of life? Be thankful. Give thanks.

It’s true that God doesn’t take us out of the trials of the world and bad things do happen to us. Some people just can’t get over that. They think a God wouldn’t allow His people to suffer.

Bad things and hard things sometimes hurt a lot, this is life. We’re here for a purpose. He allows us to experience these bad things and uses them in our lives to make us the people we are supposed to be, to reflect Jesus. I’ve seen that play out in my own life, I know it is true.

I’m just so glad that He preserves us through them and I think He shows us just what is important in life as we travel with Him through it. I am giving thanks today and every day that He has always been faithful and good. I hope you do too.

This is my tried and true sourdough flat bread recipe. It’s easy to make. The long rise time makes for a really tasty bread. The milk makes it very tender. Sometimes I substitute yogurt or kefir for the milk and that makes it tender as well.

I just use regular all purpose flour but you could use whole grain flour in this recipe. You could use Einkorn or Spelt but the amounts of liquid will be different and I don’t know what they would be, exactly.

I hope you’ll try this flat bread, its good with most every meal.

2 cups flour

1 cup active sourdough starter

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

Combine the flour, starter, milk and salt. Stir well and knead it about 5 minutes. The dough will be soft and maybe kind of shaggy. Cover the bowl and let it sit on the counter over night or 8 hours.

Next morning, knead the dough briefly and divide it into 8 equal pieces.

Roll out each piece to about 1/4 inch thick and fry it in a medium hot skillet with a little olive oil. Brown the bread on both sides.

Sourdough Starter

A simple starter can be made using 1/4 cup fresh flour (I prefer rye) and 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of water added to a tall jar like a quart sized mason jar.

Stir it well, cover it with a cloth or a coffee filter and allow it to sit on the counter. After 12 hours, feed it with another 1/4 cup flour and 14 cup plus 2 tablespoons water, scrape down the sides of the jar and cover.

If you feel like it is too dry, and that can sometimes happen depending on the weather and the moisture content of the flour, just add a bit more water.

Let this sit another 12 hours. There should be some bubbles in your starter now.

At this point you will discard 1/2 of the starter. I use this discard for things like waffles and pancakes that don’t need to rise much. I usually add a bit of baking powder to those recipes so that they have the yummy sourdough taste but still rise because of the baking powder.

To the remaining starter add another 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of water. Stir it well, scrape down the sides of the jar and in another 8 – 12 hours it will be at its peak and be ready to use in bread.

This is what a healthy, active starter looks like.

Being a little girl seems to be much different from what it was when I was young. I guess it is to be expected, times are certainly different. I am pro-woman, I hope that all girls will pursue their dreams and callings. But there is just something sweet and homey about a little girl playing with her doll.

I know a few little girls and most of them don’t play with dolls. I see a lot of dolls in stores though so someone is buying them. I don’t think playing with dolls has gone completely out of fashion.

Dolls were a favorite of mine and actually they still are. I think I got my last doll when I was 16. It was a porcelain doll and I still have her. It was a while ago but I think I was almost 13 years old when I finally stopped playing with my Barbie dolls.

So it’s really nice that my youngest granddaughter (not including the one who is on the way) still loves baby dolls. She is 4 years old and I hope she will continue to love dolls a while longer.

For Christmas I bought her a baby doll that came with a bathtub and her PawPaw (my husband) made her a baby bed. She was in love at first sight and is so tender with the doll.

Times change but can we still say that it is healthy and desirable for little girls to play with baby dolls? I think it teaches them how to be with real children and babies. It is a natural impulse for most girls to care for a doll and good practice for real life.

I’m old fashioned I know. But in this case I think I’m right.

It is another cold but sunny day here in Tennessee. The sunshine is deceptive because it is only 33 degrees F. We are definitely entering into the heart of winter here where the sunshine really makes little difference to the day time temperatures. The sunshine makes me long for spring though.

It was a real joy this weekend to have my house cleaned and all the beautiful Christmas clutter put away. I left up my three little trees because I like the lights, but I imagine that come spring time I will take them down so that I can have that uncluttered look I prefer in the warmer months.

My oldest daughter, Sarah and I worked in the house to get it clean and tidy and all the Christmas things put away in the attic. I’m so thankful for her and how she is willing to help us out.

I am also really thankful that we cleaned out the attic last year, it is now very easy to find items up there and everything is in boxes and stored properly. It really was a load off my mind to get that done. The attic is about as large as the whole house and it can get really unorganized quickly if it isn’t consistently taken care of.

While I work online today I am enjoying my coffee and my view out the office doors. I’ll be sewing again today. I’m out of the raw silk facial cloths I make for my employer, so I’ll make 5 or 6 of them just to keep up with the week’s demands. Dishes and laundry done I have only to sweep the floors to be finished for the day.

After that’s done, it will be time for my granddaughter to nap and I’ll read while she sleeps. Before she drifts off I like to read Brambly Hedge stories to her, she loves the little mice.

Supper tonight will be ham and split pea, lentil and rice soup. I’ll make cornbread to go with it and we’ll both enjoy the warmth while we watch a movie.

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o’clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.”
 ~ Thomas De Quincey 1796 

Our Christmas celebrations are over now and they were so enjoyable. Company, good food, games and laughter abounded. There was much eating and drinking of sweet tea and hot cocoa. There was much playing with new toys by grandchildren and their parents alike.

These things mean so much to me. I hope my family knows how much I love to be with them, I am devoting myself to telling and showing them this in the coming months.

It’s time for me to settle down a bit. We had snow and it was very quiet for a while. Now it is warmer and raining. A pot of tea, some Belgian chocolates and a good book are next on my list. Then some thought to the spring and garden. Will there be a garden this year? I don’t know yet.

I’ve tried so many pie crusts. This is the only one that I like and I use it for everything. You can omit the sugar for savory pies or pie fillings that are already very sweet.

I use a food processor to make pie crusts, it’s just faster and gives me more consistent results. This recipe makes one crust. You’ll need to double it for a double crust pie.

1 cup unbleached, plain flour (scoop it into your measuring cup and then level it off with a butter knife)

8 tablespoons cold butter cut into small chunks. Unsalted butter is best but you can use regular salted butter.

2 teaspoons sugar

1/4 heaping teaspoon salt

3 – 5 tablespoons ice water

Put all ingredients except the ice water into the bowl of the food processor and pulse the processor until all the ingredients are mixed and the butter is blended into the flour mixture so that it looks a little like cornmeal.

Now add the ice water, a tablespoon at a time, pulsing the processor and adding just enough water so that the dough comes together, forming a ball in the processor.

Take the dough out, shape it into a flat disc about 6 inches round. Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for about 60 minutes, so that it gets firm. If you skip this step, your dough will be too fragile and soft to roll out.

When you’re ready to use it, take it out of the fridge and wrap, and then roll it out on a floured surface to a circle that is about 12 inches. Lightly flour it and then transfer it to your pie plate and continue with making your pie.

We have had our early cold snap here in middle Tennessee and now we’re back to warm days and blue skies. This is the kind of Tennessee weather I have always loved. It is near perfect. The smell of tobacco barns has come and gone and now just the smell of wood smoke greets me every morning.

Soon though we’ll be back down in the freezing temperatures and all the leaves will be on the ground. We don’t get a lot of autumn color here mainly because we don’t get cold enough in the evenings leading up to the leaves changing colors. There are some sugar maples here though and they are the most beautiful of all the trees in the fall.

I’ve made candles this year already and got that out of the way, though I could stand to make another few dozen. I’ve canned lots of beans, soups, meat and tomatoes, plenty to get us through the winter.

A friend of mine was talking about making real Mincemeat this year and I haven’t made that in probably forever, 50 years most likely. So I may make some and can it. I have fond memories of making real mincemeat, the kind that actually has meat in it, with my Grandmother and Mother. It really is good, I know it sounds strange to modern folks, though.

Fall brings out the creativity in me. Baking, cooking, making, decorating, sewing. I like it all and it seems like autumn gives me permission to slow down and do these things I love to do. It has always been my favorite season.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats