Friday, April 11, 2025

Fields of Purple

 


There are a few types of purple flowers that show up in early spring and cover the fields with their vivid hue. I can sometimes confuse two of these ground covers: Henbit and Purple Dead Nettle.

  The flowers in the pictures here are Henbit.

Purple Dead Nettle is another purple plant that will cover fields at this time of year. The top foliage is actually where a majority of the purple display comes from. The flowers are also purple but they don't stand out quite as much. 

I don't have any pictures of Purple Dead Nettle that I personally took. I found the picture below on Pixabay.

I found a very helpful web page on Identify that Plant .com that has good pictures and explanations on how to identify these purple plants. Please check it out if these topics interest you! They have a lot of good pictures and even talk about a third plant that can be mistaken for these two: Creeping Charlie. 

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Book Review: Crucial Conversations

    

    Crucial Conversations is a book about having improved dialogue when emotions run high. These conversations happen among neighbors and coworkers, with bosses and spouses, and in many of life's situations. The authors lay out good reasons why you would want to engage in dialogue and keep lines of communication flowing. They go over common pitfalls and explain some techniques that can help you keep your focus on the objective so that you don't fall into these pitfalls. 

The section that I felt most impactful for me at this time is about sucker's choices and the stories we tell ourselves.
A sucker's choice is when we tell ourselves there is no possibilty of agreement so we have two bad choices: just clam up or say abrasive things that aren't going to help dialogue. Because this book laid out so clearly this common behavior I quickly identified my weaknesses. I know I choose to clam up when I don't think there is any other way to be honest. Here is a quote from the book:
"Sometimes we choose personal safety over dialogue. Rather than add to the pool of knowledge and make waves along the way we go to silence. We are so uncomfortable ​with the immediate conflict that we accept the certainty of bad results to avoid the possibility of uncomfortable conversation. We choose, at least in our minds, peace over conflict."

  Thankfully, the authors have some helpful skills to practice implementing so that you catch yourself and stop making sucker's choices. They also make a convincing case on why this behavior is not in anyone's best interest. Clamming up and not sharing your meaning does not equal peace. Focusing on the shared goal and being more creative is the key. You must find a way to engage and also be understanding.

  The other part of the book that I found so helpful at this time is the section about the stories we tell ourselves. We come up with stories about why someone did or said something. This story is not a fact and the sooner we realize that the better we can try to understand the other person. Ask the other person and be curious instead of assigning assumed motives. It is also very useful to get the other person's story and hear what meaning they are assigning to your actions. Not to say that their story is the fact of the matter but so that you can see where they are coming from and understand why they are treating you like... (fill in the blank,.. the villain, the oppressor, the fool, etc..)

   None of these skills will help if you have no interest in keeping an open dialogue with another party. Engaging in dialogue and seeing the value in having dialogue is the whole point of this book. I feel that there is a lot of good information in this book and that I have only scratched the surface. There are chapters on decision making, and how to make sure that all parties feel safe to share their opinions, and so on and so forth. As I get better at using these initial skills I will need to revisit this book and try to add to my skill set. 

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Breakfast Pizza

 

This breakfast pizza is inspired by Casey's (the gas station) breakfast pizza. Their breakfast pizza is so good! I have thought about it a lot and I think what makes their breakfast pizza so good is the cheese sauce.

To make the cheese sauce I cut up about 8oz. of processed cheese (like Velveeta), and add about 1/4 cup of milk or broth, if I'm out of milk.

I stir this over med/low heat until everything is smooth and melted.

I would be willing to try jarred cheese spread like nacho cheese, but I rarely buy those products. I rarely buy processed cheese to begin with so I don't make recipes like this very often.
(Here's an abbreviate recap: 3 cups water, 1 1/2 T. salt, 1 1/2T. yeast,  6 1/2 cups flour. Stir barely, rise 2-5 hours. Refrigerate for upto 2 weeks.)

Spread the cheese sauce on the dough and top with things like; 
•cooked scrambled eggs, 
•breakfast sausage crumbles, 
•bacon pieces, 
•jalapenos, 
•bell peppers 
•and shredded cheese

Bake at 400° F. for 20 minutes.


Saturday, March 29, 2025

Flower Update as of 3/28/25

 

   So many things are happening in nature this time of year. These flowers all popped open over night. I see these flowers on my walk in the morning. I'm not sure what type of shrub this is, but it's flowers sure are pretty. 

  I found my Bleeding Hearts! I was so happy to see them. I have been looking for them for a couple weeks. This morning I was looking again and gave up. I figured they must have been too trampled during the summer and frozen solid in the ice over winter. As I straightened up and turned to leave, my eyes landed right where they are coming up! I had been looking in the wrong place all along.

The Lilac buds are forming. I am looking forward to their sweet, sweet perfume.
The Daffodils are going to town! Pretty blossoms and more infant buds coming up still.

Matthew 5:44-45

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, 

bless them that curse you, 

do good to them that hate you, 

and pray for them which despitefully 

use you, and persecute you; 

That ye may be the children of your Father 

which is in heaven: 

for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 

and on the good, and sendeth rain 

on the just and on the unjust. 

Thursday, March 27, 2025

March Stitches

 

I finished the dress! This is 100% hand stitched. It is the first time that I have made a dress all by hand. It feels good to see what I can achieve.

This month I stitched the skirt pieces together, gathered and attached the floral contrast bit, hemmed the skirt, finished the seams and put in gathering stitches at the top edge of the skirt. I got to this point by the 18th of March.

Next I attached the bodice to the skirt with a backstitch and a running stitch for reinforcement. Then I finished the seam with a blanket stitch.
I sewed the zipper in the center back. 
I sewed the collar and facing on to the neckline. I understitched the collar to help everything lay smoothly.
  And that is it. The dress is done. All the seams are neatly finished. There is nothing left to do. It turned out great!

I, also, had to make a repair in my compression hose this month. I took a few minutes to stitch this hole closed.


"A stitch in time saves nine."
That's is a good quip. I hope you have had a good March and that your projects keep marching on to the finish line!

Sunday, March 23, 2025

To Everything A Season


 Do you need some sunshine today? We have had a cloudy day in the sky but these little packages of sunshine made up for the lack of real sunshine.

The red tips of the peonies are starting to unfurl! They look so promising. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 To every thing there is a season, 
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; 
a time to plant, 
and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; 
a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; 
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, 
and a time to gather stones together; 
a time to embrace, 
and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; 
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 A time to rend, and a time to sew; 
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; 
a time of war, and a time of peace.



Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Chocolate Cookies With Peanut Butter Chips Or Chocolate Chips Recipe

 This recipe came from the back of a Reese's peanut butter chip bag. I added chocolate chips because chocolate. 😋 I have doubled the recipe quantities from the original and used a combination of butter and oil.

1 cup Butter, softened 
1/3 cup Oil
2 cups Sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. Vanilla Flavor 
2 cup Flour 
3/4 cup Cocoa Powder 
1 tsp. Baking Soda 
1/2 tsp. Salt
3 1/3 cup Peanut Butter Chips Or Chocolate Chips Or Combination 

Beat butter, oil, and sugar until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. 
Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a heap. Gently blend the heap of dry ingredients with one another (to distribute the baking soda, salt and cocoa amongst the flour) before mixing them into the butter mixture below. Stir until well combined. Stir in peanut butter or chocolate chips. 

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 8-9 minutes. Cool slightly; remove to wire rack. Cool completely.
Yeilds about 6 dozen cookies.


Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Meatballs Cooked In Sauce Recipe

Meatball Recipe 

1 lb. Ground Beef

1 lb. Ground Pork (or sausage)

3 TBS. Onion, Chopped

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Pepper

1/4 c. Breadcrumbs 

1/4 c. Milk or Cream

1 Egg

Mix all ingredients together until well blended.

Form into balls about the size of a walnut.

Bake at 400°F. for 15 minutes on a sheet pan with shallow sides.

      ---OR---

Cook meatballs in sauce. This will add meat flavor to your sauce and dirty fewer pans.

Pour a layer of prepared spaghetti type sauce on the bottom of a large oven safe casserole dish that has a good lid. 

Place the meat balls in and then pour the rest of the sauce over top.

Cover with lid and bake at 350° for an hour. 

  --OR---

Simmer meatballs and sauce in a large pot with the lid ajar on the stovetop for half an hour or until meatballs are cooked through.





Thursday, March 6, 2025

I Spy With My Little Eye!

 


Poking through the frost

Bringing sunshine in their folds

Springs the equinox


I saw these this morning and they made me so happy! I had to write a haiku to celebrate. 

Here is an old post in which you can read about my excitement over daffodils back in 2015. I haven't changed in that regard.

Friday, February 28, 2025

Sewing Projects In February

I wanted to use this flower print for my daughter's newest dress. I left my fingers in the picture for scale.

I didn't have enough yardage to cut the entire dress. I decided to use this blue material for part of the skirt and make a tiered skirt.
After cutting out the pieces I marked the seam allowance in pencil. Since this is a hand sewing project I need the seam allowances marked.

I stitched most of the seams with a back stitch instead of a running stitch. I learned my lesson on using a running stitch on the pinafore last month. I had stitched all the seams with a running stitch on the pink pinafore. My daughter was wearing the pinafore not more than a couple hours before someone pulled on her skirt and burst the side seam. What a pain! (I fixed it straight away, but come on! Really?)

A running stitch might not be solely to blame. The thread that I used was some old mercerized cotton thread so it is not as strong as modern polyester thread.
Anyway, on this latest dress I used a polyester all purpose thread AND a backstitch. 

I finished most of the seams with a self enclosed seam.

Right about this stage in the dress project my son's coat zipper broke. So, I had to switch gears and replace a coat zipper. Sometimes it would not be worth my time to replace a zipper, but this is a nice coat and I happened to have the right size separating zipper. I also had a black or gray separating zipper that were long enough but I decided to use the red one because I thought neutral colors might be more likely to come in handy later.

First, I had to rip the old zipper out.

I basted and stitched the new zipper in place. This job was not fun and I was really happy when I finally finished. It took me 9 days.


I also took care of this little tear while I was at it 

While I was on the mindset to fix coats I repaired this hole.

My three year old has been begging me to fix this hole in the hood of his coat for a month. 
He had been standing in the vicinity a brush fire when a hot ember must have landed on his hood melting this hole.
Now he his happy!

Back to sewing on the dress.

I have finished the sleeves and the base of the bodice. I am working on the skirt now. Hopefully, in March I can finish the skirt, install the zipper, add the collar, and do the hem. Check back in March to see far I get!




Tuesday, February 25, 2025

A Story By Eddie Ogan: The Rich Family In Our Church




I am so inspired by this story! It is a story about sacrifice, gratitude, and finding joy. The way she tells it makes it exciting. She draws you in and makes one feel invested in their goal in a way that makes one cheer them on.

The Rich Family In Our Church 

By Eddie Ogan

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was like to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.

 A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us baby sat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.

 That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in our church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the Pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

 The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet, but we sat in church proudly, despite how we looked. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.

 When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!

 Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, but instead, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.

 We kids had had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That Easter Day I found out we were poor. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.

 I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn't want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time.

 We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor.

 We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they need money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?"

 We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering plate. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

 Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? Deep down, I knew that we were actually a rich family.


Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Moon Setting And Sun Rising

 

Last week the moon was full. One morning I saw the moon setting it looked so amazing. The picture doesn't even come close to showing how pretty it was. 

At the same time the sun was beginning to rise.

It was a memorable experience. On one side of road to the western horizon the moon was setting and on the other side of the road to the eastern horizon the sun was coming up.

I imagine that the timing of the sunrise this time of year made this possible. I don't think it happens every full moon.

I like to use the site Date and Time to look up sunrise and sunset times. They have some other handy tools and astronomical information on that site.

Psalms 19:1
The heavens declare the glory of God;
 and the firmament sheweth 
his handywork.

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Bible Verse Song Psalm 84:8-12

 

I took this picture while out walking on the morning of February 1st. The frost was so pretty that morning. I was hoping for a good photo opportunity. This picture turned out better than I could have imagined. The sun rays must have pasted through some ice crystals and split into colors just as I snapped my shot.

The verse is from a memory passage that was part of the five-a-month verses that our church does. This was actually from the first month we began attending back in May of 2023. I had some heavy things on my heart at the time. When I looked up the memory verses after the first service that we attended I was so amazed at how well they articulate what I wanted to say to the LORD. I was able to put them to a tune and commit them to memory within a day or two.

Here is the resulting Bible verse song. Perhaps it will be a blessing to you.



Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Self Enclosed Seams Demonstration

 A self enclosed seam is one way to finish a seam and keep the raw edges from unraveling.


#1. Trim one side of the seam allowance down to about 1/8".


#2. Fold the long side of the seam allowance over twice to enclosed the short trimmed side of the seam allowance. Pressing is advisable. (I didn't.)

#3. Pin or baste the folded edge to keep the seam enclosed while you stitch everything in place.

#4. Stich the folded part in place. This can do done on a machine or by hand. The stitching is not seen from the outside of the garment.
You can barely see my stitches in this picture. I am going to have to take another picture using a darker thread so you can see what I am doing.

That is better. There are few stitch choices to choose from if you hand stitch this. A running stitch, ladder stitch, or slip stitch would all work. What I am doing here is a whip stitch.

Have you ever used a self enclosed seam technique? What is your favorite way to finish seams?


Tuesday, January 28, 2025

January Sewing Project

 

I sewed this pink pinafore this month. January was a one project month for me.

The pink pinafore goes with this butterfly dress that I made in November. The pinafore really finishes the look.

The top part of the pinafore is lined  with a light weight muslin. The pinafore fastens with a tie at the side and a hidden button on the inside.
I am happy with how this pinafore and dress turned out. I plan to make one more set starting in February. Check back next month to see how that goes!