Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'  What's something you've seen recently that you thought was beautiful?

The daffodils in my flower bed!

2. Our culture and beauty...your thoughts?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don't really know what our culture says about beauty. I think there would be a lot of variation of what people think is beautiful among different people groups.

3. Age before beauty, beauty queen, beauty mark, beauty sleep...which beauty-ful phrase resonates with you today? Why?

Beauty sleep! As I write this, it is past my bedtime. I am not a night owl, by nature. I like my beauty sleep. ;)

4. I read here a list of the top ten 
beasts animals that scare us the most-

alligators, coyotes, black bears, birds (but pigeons in particular), sharks, bats, bed bugs, rats, rattlesnakes, and the black widow spider. 

Which 'beast' on the list scares you the most? What is the liklihood of you having an actual encounter with that particular beast? Did a movie contribute to your fear of this creature? Have you ever had a real life encounter with any of the animals listed?

Of all the animals on that list I would be most afraid of the Black Widow spider. I have discussed the topic on this blog of my fear of spiders. I am not sure what the likelihood of me encountering a black widow spider is. I think they are not very common this far north. A movie did not contribute to my fear of spiders, spiders contributed to my fear of spiders! :) I have never had an encounter with a black widow spider, but my grandma survived a black widow spider bite, and when I was a girl a wolf spider bit my toe when I put my foot into a boot it was occupying.

5. Where were you when you last heard a bell ring? Was it alarming or musical?

I was at the U. S. S. Constitution museum in Boston last week! There was a display about how they kept time on a ship. They used a bell and divided the day into 4 hour segments. The passages of time would be signalled by ringing a bell.
It was more musical than alarming, I would say.

6. What's your favorite carb? How's that for random?

I have been on a no grain Autoimmune Protocol diet for the last 7 weeks. I would love to have some grain! Some oatmeal! Some toast! Some rice! I am really missing those foods right now.

7. Let's wrap up another month of Hodgepodging and life with an acrostic. Recap your month using the word MARCH.

I am going to admit that I had to google acrostic. :) Here goes:

This Month has been a flurry
     of Activity. We travelled down
 to SpRingfield and up to Maine!
ProjeCts, there were a few. And
          Hosting some friends, that was new.


8.  Insert your own random thought here.

I only have 2 chamomile tea bags left. I will have to put chamomile tea on my grocery list, but I think I will start some chamomile seeds this week. My sister-in-law gave me some chamomile seeds and I am very excited about being able to grow some chamomile in my herb bed this year! :)

Chicken Cracklings, A No Carb, THM Compliant, Paleo, Snack

These Chicken Skin Crisps are just as good as pork rinds. I don't know if any of you like pork rinds, but I consider them a special treat! If you don't know about pork rinds surely you know how scrumptious crispy skin on roasted chicken is. That is my favorite part of a roasted chicken. :)

I came up with this idea because I skin and de-bone chicken thighs all of the time to use the meat in recipes. I always use the bones in stock, and some times I throw the skin in, too, but it seems like a waste of skin when I know how delicious it could be on a piece of roasted chicken.

Here is my method for making crispy chicken skins:

Chicken Skin Crisps
6 chicken thighs
Seasoning
Salt

Remove the skins from the chicken thighs. Set aside remaining thighs for other recipes.

Cut the skins into large pieces. They shrink considerably as they cook. I cut each thigh section into 3 pieces.

Season skin pieces. I used ground Thyme and salt. You can flavor them however you like.

Heat skillet on stove top. Put skin pieces into hot skillet feather side down. (There should be no literal feathers) There is no need to add any oil, the skins will render quite a lot of fat as they cook.

Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Flip the skin pieces over. Turn heat down to medium-low. Cook 5 more minutes or until brown and crispy.

Remove from pan. Cool slightly, and enjoy!

First Time Flying In A Commercial Airplane!! And Some Details About Our Trip.

This week I had the opportunity to fly on an airplane! I had never been on a commercial aircraft before, and I was really excited to fly!

As we took off from Detroit.

Looking out over lake Erie.

Snowy fields in New York State.

Sunset from above the clouds.

On our descent into Boston.

Flying was a fun experience! We flew from Chicago to Detroit and from Detroit to Boston. We drove from Boston to northern Maine on a business trip.
We only had half a day to sight see in Boston. We picked one thing to visit.

U.S.S. Constitution in her berth.

Someone had recommended that we see the U.S.S. Constitution, and that is what we did. There was an interactive museum about the U.S.S. Constitution that was well worth the time. They had family friendly exhibits that where very interesting and educational. The museum is run on donations so there is no admission fee only a suggested donation which makes the museum very affordable. The U.S.S. Constitution is one of six battle ships commissioned to be built in 1794. She was finally launched on October 21, 1797. During the war of 1812 she became famous and was nicknamed, "Old Ironsides," after British cannon balls bounced off of her hull!

The Navy is currently doing some restoration work on the U.S.S. Constitution.

While in Boston we went shopping at a really interesting Walmart. There was a parking deck below the store!

You had to ride an elevator or escalator up to the store! And, there was a really neat type of escalator for carts full of groceries to ride down on! Sorry, I don't have any pictures of that contraption.

Other than that, the store was just a regular Walmart on the main floor.

What Has Quickening Power? Q And A

Q. What has power to quicken?

John 6:63

A. The words that Jesus spake cause life.

Q. What has the power to save?

Romans 1:16

A. The gospel of Christ has power to save.

Q. What is the seed that a soul winner sows?

Luke 8:11

A. The seed is the word of God.

Q. Who hath the words of life?

John 6:68

A. Jesus has the words of life.

Q. What incorruptible seed causes a person to be born again?

1 Peter 1:23

A. The word of God is the incorruptible seed.

See how important the words of God are? They bring life to the soul.

One's salvation testimony is a wonderful and encouraging thing to hear, but, sharing your testimony without any of God's words has no saving power.

If you want to be able to throw The Life Raft to a person sinking down into Hell you need to use God's life giving words.

Something I, personally, need to do, is commit to memory verses from the Bible that contain the gospel of Christ. That way I will never be without the ability to lead someone to eternal salvation.

Q. What are those words?

A. Here are some:

John 3:15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knowest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; you wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
John 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
John 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believes thou this?

Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Fruit Snacks In Two Flavors!

My sister over at My Beautiful Bubble shared a recipe for fruit snacks and the story of how she developed the recipe a couple weeks ago. She made some tasty looking flavors, apple and a berry/cranberry flavor. You should go check out her post. :)

Cute little containers of Fruit Snacks that Haley put together. Click for link.

Here are my variation of Haley's Fruit Snacks.

 Prune And Grape Flavored Fruit Snacks

Ingredients:

2 cups grape juice

3 envelopes Knox gelatin powder

1/3 cup of dried prunes

1/2 cup water

2 TBS. honey

 Chop the prunes into small pieces with a knife.

Place the chopped prunes and 1/2 cup of water into a one quart saucepan. Bring to a boil, turn heat down, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Blend prunes and cooking liquid in a food processor until pureed. Should yeild about 1/2 a cup of prune puree.

Pour prune puree back into the sauce pan. Add juice and honey. Sprinkle Knox gelatin powder over the juice. Give it a few minutes  (5ish minutes) to hydrate. 

Heat over medium heat until gelatin is dissolved.

Pour into a small pan.  My sister used a bread pan. I didn't want mine to be as thick as they would've been in my bread pans. I used a small 10"×7" casserole dish.

Chill in the refrigerator for 3 hours. Turn out of the pan and cut into pieces of whatever size you desire.

These turned out very good! Getting them out of the pan was a little tricky (as you will see with the next flavor I show you). I found that cutting them while they were still in the pan made them easy to get out.

Orange And Sweet Potato Fruit Snacks

Ingredients:

2 cups orange juice

1 baked sweet potato (For 1/2 cup of sweet potato puree

3 envelopes Knox gelatin

2 TBS. honey

Optional:

1 drop Christmas Spirit Young Living Essentially Oil

Peel skin from sweet potato. Puree peeled sweet potato in food processor.

In one quart saucepan combine 1/2 cup of sweet potato puree, orange juice, and honey. Sprinkle Knox gelatin powder over the liquid. Let set a few minutes (5ish minutes) to hydrate.

Over medium heat, while stirring, heat mixture to dissolve the gelatin powder.

At this point you may add ONE drop of the Y.L. Christmas Spirit oil. I used two drops, and, although pleasant tasting, was a little to strong. After a couple days the flavor mellowed out quite a bit and was more enjoyable.

The primary flavors in this oil blend are orange and cinnamon.

Remove from heat. Pour into 10"×7" dish.

Chill in refrigerator 3 hours.

Cut into squares.

This batch fell apart as I was trying to turn it out of the pan. I should have tried cutting them into squares before trying to take them out of the pan.

This Orange Sweet Potato flavor was very good! I really liked how the texture turned out. They are a little chewy and squishy.

Playdough Recipe!

Homemade playdough is the best kind of playdough, in my opinion. When my mom made playdough it always outlasted the store bought stuff by a long shot.

If you make the three primary colors; blue, yellow, and red, you can do blending to create all sorts of colors!

Playdough can also be a fun learning tool for young children! My son, who is not quite two years old, was repeating the colors and shapes back to me. He seemed to pick them up very quickly!

Colored Playdough

Materials

• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
• Food coloring
• Saucepan
• 1 cup flour

Directions

1. Combine water, oil, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring in a saucepan and heat until hot.
2. Remove from heat and add flour.
3. Stir, then knead until smooth. The cream of tartar makes this dough last 6 months or longer, so resist the temptation to omit this ingredient if you don't have it on hand.
4. Store this dough in an airtight container or a Ziploc freezer bag.

I made three 1/2 batches of playdough. To make each color I added:

Red

 40 drops of red food coloring to a 1/2 batch of playdough.

Blue

30 drops of blue food coloring to a 1/2 batch of playdough.

Yellow

20 drops of yellow food coloring to a 1/2 batch of playdough.

I rinsed my pot out between batches so as not to contaminate any of the colors.

I hope you give this a try if you have small children in your life!

Snow And Muffins, Again! Blueberry Oatmeal Muffin Recipe

Last time I shared a muffin recipe I titled the post Snow And Muffins. The recipe in that post is Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.

This morning we woke up to about 3 inches of snow! There must be something about snow that makes me want to bake muffins. :)

Today I made Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins from a recipe I saw on Sunshine Country Blog a week ago. My sister-in-law is the author of that blog. You should really go check out her blog. :)

Sunshine Country Blog

Her Blueberry Muffin recipe looked so good. I was looking forward to trying it!
I had to make a few adjustments to the original recipe.

Here is the recipe that I followed:

Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

1 2/3 cup old fashioned oats
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar or brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups kefir or buttermilk
1/4 cup melted butter
2 tsp. lemon zest (optional)
2 tsp. molasses (omit if using brown sugar)
2 large eggs
2 cups frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

• Preheat oven to 400°.
• Place oats in a food processor or blender; pulse 5 to 6 times until oats resemble coarse meal. Place in a large bowl.  Add flours and sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt to the oats in bowl; stir well with a whisk. Make a well in center of mixture. 
• Combine kefir or buttermilk with the melted butter, lemon zest, molasses, and eggs in small bowl; stir well with a whisk. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.
• Toss berries with 2 tablespoons flour, and gently fold into batter. 
• Spoon batter into 16, greased, muffin cups; sprinkle 2 tablespoons granulated sugar evenly over batter. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. 
• Remove from pans immediately; place on a wire rack. Serve
• 
• Wet ingredients and dry ingredients.

 Dusting the blueberries with flour is an important step. It keeps the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the batter.

You can also use this technique of dusting frozen blueberries with flour when making blueberry pancakes.

This is the first time I have sprinkled sugar on top of muffin batter before baking. It produces a crisp sugary crust on the finished muffins.

To insure that the bottoms of your muffins don't get soggy always turn them out immediately onto a drying wrack.

When I was girl doing 4-H I can remember the food judges always checking the bottoms of your muffins for marks from the cooling wrack. They explained that was a sign of a well finished muffin. :)

I Serve A Risen Savior! (Hymn)

Acts 17:3
Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.

He Lives!

I serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today;

I know that He is living whatever men may say;

I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer,

And just the time I need Him, He's always near.

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.

He lives, He lives, Salvation to impart!

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

In all the world around me I see His loving care,

And tho' my heart grows weary I never will despair;

I know that He is leading thro' all the stormy blast,

The day of His appearing will come at last.

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.

He lives, He lives, Salvation to impart!

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian, lift up your voice and sing

Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ the King!

The hope of all who seek Him, the help of all who find,

None other is so loving, so good and kind.

He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.

He lives, He lives, Salvation to impart!

You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Wednesday Hodgepodge is a linky party at From This Side Of The Pond blog.

I don't read From This Side Of The Pond, but I do enjoy reading A Joyful Chaos blog from time to time.

A Joyful Chaos does Wednesday Hodgepodge and I always think it would be something fun to do when I read her answers.

So, here goes, my first Wednesday Hodgepodge!

                        
1. What is one area of your life where you're a perfectionist? Is that a good thing?

On my sewing and quilting projects, most of the time. And, yes, I think it is a good thing.

2. What's something you find perfectly ridiculous?

Daylight Savings Time!! Don't get me started, I can really rant about this one. :)

3. What's a skill you've developed by way of that old fashioned saying, 'practice makes perfect?

I think there are probably to many things to count. Piano playing, sight reading music, rolling dinner rolls into perfect little circles, rolling out pie crust and pizza dough with a rolling pin, milking goats (haven't done that in a while), reading genealogies in the Old Testament out loud, just to name the things that come to the top of my mind.

4. What's your idea of a perfect breakfast?

This one is hard! My ideal breakfast that I really want, and I think would never get old, is Cranberry Apple Soaked Steel Cut Oatmeal. 
Here are some honourable mentions; biscuits and gravy, bacon and eggs, warm rice pudding, and a ham and egg sandwich with strawberry jam spread on the bread.

5. What's a trip, holiday, vacation, or day outing you've taken that you'd rate a perfect 10? Tell us why.

I can't think of one.

6. What quote or saying perfectly sums up your life right now? If you can't do perfect, how about one that comes close?

Smooth sailing. I feel very blessed, grateful, and productive. I am meeting my goals, things are going well in our home life, and so "smooth sailing" fits well.

7. How would you spend $300 today?

I would spend it on building a clothesline or  building raised garden beds.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

We are reading through the book of Judges, currently. It contains so many great, vivid stories of faith and courage. And, characters like Samson clearly illustrate the fact that you cannot tell whether someone is saved based on their lifestyle.

This was kind of fun! What would your answers be?

P.S. I have no idea why my font size is doing crazy things! I am sorry about that.