Friday, September 29, 2017

Homemade Granola Recipe

These ingredients or amounts are not set in stone. You can add all you want to make a delicious granola. Just experiment to see what you like.
Preheat oven to 300°

2 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup dried unsweetened or reduced sugar cranberries
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup unsweetened carob chips
1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup raw chopped nuts of your choice
2 T raw honey
2 T coconut oil
1/2 t. vanilla extract
Pinch of fine sea salt (regular salt should work fine)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Spread on a foil lined cookie sheet.( I used nonstick foil). Bake for 10 minutes to lightly brown. After 10 minutes give it a stir and if you want it a little browner, then bake for another 10 minutes or so.  Watch carefully that you dont burn it. Allow to cool and store in an airtight container.
This is really good mixed in yogurt, straight from the container or as a cereal with milk or almond milk.

National Coffee Day

Found this cute picture by Matt Hoffman in honor of National Coffee Day. To bad it's  not National Take Regina to Tea I mean National Tea Day 😆

Feminine Friday

Later in this post, I will go slightly off topic. I'm participating in  Renee's Feminine  Friday today
http://thereisbeautyingrace.blogspot.com/2017/09/feminine-friday.html
This dress was made by a friend from California and it is a common style of many Conservative Mennonite ladies. I wasn't always a headcovering, dresses only woman. I have been dressing this way though for several years. It is my standard of modesty. Not every Christian woman needs to dress this way to be modest. Yesterday on my daybook I put a quote saying we should dress the way we want other women to dress around our husband and it's so true. Sure, we can say "Well he shouldn't be looking!" Really? So if  is Miss Queen of Immodesty dressed in a low cut see through dress and your husband or boyfriend looked , who are you going to blame?

I read this morning that Hugh Hefner passed away.  It's sad that he passed without Christ. It's sad because he became extremely wealthy off a sin that has destroyed so many lives. Sadly he is going to have to give an account to God. It really makes me shudder to think about that.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

The Simple Woman's Daybook

For Today


Looking out my window I see the grasshoppers are awake
the cicadas are still sleeping

I am thinking how fun this Simple Woman Daybook will be

I am thankful that we have been living in this house a year now

One of my favorite things is sipping afternoon tea

I am creating well actually coloring in my coloring book called
"I Love My Hair"

I am wearing my red plaid flannel nightgown 

I am reading Created to Be His Helpmeet

I am hoping my friends who have cancer are healed

I am learning how to be a godly wife

In my kitchen, well I think we will have leftovers for dinner


In my garden I need to harvest some mint. There is chocolate mint as well as spearmint and sweet mint

Post Script
My favorite Etsy  https://www.etsy.com/shop/RosePetalBlessings

Shared Quote


A moment from my day

Homemade granola

(The Simple Woman's  Daybook was started by Peggy at www.thesimplewoman.blogspot.com)

Sunday, September 24, 2017

"Sneaky" and Not So Ways to Get Exercise In

I confess I hate to exercise. Never been a fan of jogging, sit-ups or any of that stuff. So since my doctor diagnosed me with pre-diabetes and told me the importance of watching my diet and exercise I have been trying to figure out something to get exercise in.  One thing she suggested was walking though she recommended brisk walking she said any walking is better than nothing.
She also said you don't need to join a gym but use what you have at home so here are some ideas I have come up with:

1.Do a prayer walk around your neighborhood. Even if you live in a rural area like I do this can still be done.

2. Walk around your property or your house if the weather is bad and you can use this also as a prayer walk.

3. Get an exercise bike. You can probably find some nice used ones at a yard sale or thrift store.

4. Get your family involved. It's more fun to exercise when our family is involved and supporting us.

5. March in place. I used to do this for awhile when we lived in CA.

Those are all I can think of at the moment. I have a slight cold so I can't think very clearly. I hope this has encouraged us all to get some sort of exercise.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Healthy Eating Part 2 and Lessons Learned

Some of the lessons we learned while we were on this fast were:
1. Healthy eating can be expensive. We ate a lot of organic fruits and veggies, whole grain foods like brown rice, black bean pasta and the like. There really isn't a reason for healthy food to be expensive.

2. Plan menus. Because I didn't do my complete research on the Daniel Fast we were stuck eating a lot of the same meals with no variety. I didn't make the meals enjoyable.

3. Read labels. I didn't do that well with reading labels during the fast but we still managed to eat very healthy and still avoid most added sugar in foods like dried fruits and salad dressings.

4. Pray. It's important to take time for prayer which I managed to do.

That all being said I don't want to tell you ladies what you should or shouldn't eat. Truth be told I don't like being what to eat. Perhaps in a way I'm a bit of a rebel. After Tim's heart attack we did lean towards healthy eating but somehow slowly started going back to our old eating habits.

So instead of telling you all what to eat, I will share some of our family's favorite foods:

Plain greek yogurt mixed with fruit, homemade granola, and or honey
Homemade granola
Almond milk yogurt mixed with homemade granola( can you tell we like homemade granola?)
Brown rice with sauted veggies
Stir fry veggies
Fruit salads
Turkey meatballs
Healthy homemade peanut butter cups
Chicken and Dumplings
Curried tofu and veggies
Fruit smoothies made with unsweetened almond or coconut milk
Chicken tacos seasoned with homemade taco seasoning
This is just a few of our favorite foods. We will be trying to reduce the junk foods we eat which means, if I don't buy it, we won't eat it.

We will have another family meeting to discuss our feelings about the fast and if we would like to do it again in the future. I personally would like to do it again in the future. I just bought The Daniel Fast book which has some interesting recipes to try. If I had bought the book sooner I would have avoided the problems of meal planning for the fast.
Some of the dishes I plan to make for meatless meals which I hope to do at least twice a week.
Well I have rambled enough. If you managed to read this far, thank you. Maybe you might want to try some of the foods listed. Perhaps you have some favorites you like to share.



Sunday, September 17, 2017

Our Family's Healthy Eating Plan(Part 1)




Recently our family decided (with a little prodding from Tim and I) to begin an adventure of a 21 day Daniel Fast.  If you are not familiar with the Daniel Fast it is taken from the book of Daniel chapter  and 10.  Daniel had requested only to eat fruits and veggies, with only water to drink. No sweets, meat,dairy, not even a cuppa tea!

So we explained to our living at home girls that basically we would be eating vegan for 21 days. Well the girls were on board with but we failed to explain about Daniel diet and what he might have eaten. Many recipes they researched would be considered a no-no for the Daniel fast.   So we decided to just not make a big deal about it but to concentrate on making better food choices. We are still following the basic idea but we are avoiding junk food because we haven't bought any since we started the fast.

My youngest daughter did make some  peanut butter cups using carob chips, coconut oil and natural unsalted peanut butter. They help satisfy our desire for something sweet. These are much better for us than Reeses peanut butter cups.

The hardest for Tim and I is fasting from coffee. We both love our morning coffee. As an alternative to coffee we found some chicory at Natural Grocers.  It's caffeine  free  and it's actually really good but not as good as coffee. I put almond milk in it instead of 1/2 n 1/2 since we are fasting from dairy.   I miss my Lady Grey black tea so I have been drinking herb teas. Good thing I enjoy drinking herbal teas otherwise I might be rather cranky.

As I mentioned earlier, the idea we had for the Daniel Fast was more for learning to make better choices for eating but I really want it to draw us closer to the Lord. That was the original way it came about.
Anyway by the end of this fast I hope we have a better understanding on how to treat this temple (our bodies) the way God wants us to.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

11th Tea Cup and Mug Exchange

Hello friends!
Next Wednesday the 11th Tea Cup and Mug Exchange signup begin over at The Enchanting Rose. My girls and I did this in the spring and it was so much fun! If you are interested in signing up or just curious just click on The Enchanting Rose link above. The image isn't clickable for some reason.



Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Taking Care of Our Spiritual Health







Ladies I apologize for my absence from blogging. I had "blogging block" and couldn't figure out what to write about. My heart has been heavy over the victims of Hurricane Harvey, especially those families who lost loved ones. Now there's Hurricame Irma which is forecast to hit next week. Prayers for those affected by both these hurricanes will be appreciated I'm sure.

So many of us want to be healthy.  As a result we decide to eliminate or reduce certain foods from our diets. We commit to more exercise more. While these are actually important things our spiritual is even more important. So I want to share some ideas that I hope will encourage you.

1.Get into God's  Word. I can not stress to you enough about how we must read our Bibles daily. I don't mean just doing a daily reading and be done. I mean really reading His Word and meditating on what God is saying to us.
Highlight verses that speak to you or you want to study more. I really like the Thompson-Chain reference Bible which allows you to study a particular subject further.
You can also use a devotional to help you get in the Word. I use Beside the Still Waters published by Still Waters Ministries.


2. Pray daily. This is our time us to communicate with our Lord. It's also God's time to let the Holy Spirit speak to us. But we need to LISTEN! I know I'm guilty of going on and on when I'm praying and not letting God get a word in edgewise. There is a lot going on in the world now that needs to be committed to prayer.

3. Try to avoid people or social media that discourages  you. This is a hard one because often times the ones doing the discouraging is a family member.
Be very careful of the social media sites like Facebook, Instagram or blogs.
I've been following a particular Christian blog for awhile but unfortunately because the blog authors want to allow all points of view  as a result there are many negative and downright mean judgemental comments. It's really not enjoyable to read anymore. I even find myself even questioning my beliefs because many of the "trolls" are non believers  they say the most blasphemous things about the Bible and God.

All that to say just be careful. There are a lot of lost souls out there who don't care or truly understand the love of God.

There's more I'd like to say but I started this post on Labor Day actually. And it's taken me this long to finally post the little bit. I hope it has encouraged you in a small way.

I will talk next time about healthy eating and exercise.

Moving My Blog

 After still trying to figure out the subscription thing with MailChimp and never having success, I've decided to go ahead and use my Wo...