Happy New Year!

In case I wimp out(I'm still tired from the flu) and go to bed early, I want wish you a Happy New Year!

Chocolate!

I got this sweet birthday surprise today in the mail.

British chocolate my oldest daughter ordered for me.  We shared the Flake chocolate bar. It was exactly that. A flaked chocolate bar that tasted really good. We will have to see if some of this candy is available in the here in America.

Thank You and Goodbye 2018

Thank you everyone for your kind notes for me while I was sick. I'm much better even though I have a cough still. My energy is returning slowly. My daughter Shannon is recovering too and feels better. She ended up sleeping in the living room in the recliner so she can breathe better.

Can you believe 2018 is coming to an end? Doesn't it seem we were just saying Happy 2018? What a year it has been.
This was a year of health challenges , learning new craft skills, becoming a book reviewer, learning new recipes, losses of friends who've passed on to glory, challenges in our church, etc.
But most of all I feel I've grown stronger spiritually despite going through a period of  feeling defeated when a prayer wasn't answered the way I wanted.

Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens in 2019. Today is my 58th birthday! It's cold and snowing outside so I plan to sit and relax and sip tea.

Got a Flu Shot But Still Got Sick

I got sick on Christmas Day and so did two of my daughters. We have, drum roll please. The flu! I even got my flu shot recently.  I will be away a few days. Good thing you all can't get the flu from reading my post!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a Merry and blessed Christmas!

Post With No Name

I couldn't think of a title for this post so it's a post with no name. I mailed batch of Christmas cards yesterday through  a Christmas card exchange group. This group consists of members of a snail mail pen pal group I'm a part of.  So through that group, I sent out thirty cards to U.S. addresses and one card to Chile.  While I was writing out cards, I had the television on to the old Dennis the Menace show from the 1960s. Some of you might remember watching it. Anyway, it was a Christmas episode and Mr. Wilson was complaining  to his wife about sending a bunch of Christmas cards but not getting as many back as they sent out. The scene made me laugh because, I secretly wondered how many cards I would get back.

I don't mind actually not getting as many Christmas cards as I sent. The coordinator told us we may not receive as many cards as we sent out. As a matter of fact we weren't required to send to everyone on the list but I thought it would be fun to send a card to all the U.S. ladies and at least one foreign lady on the exchange list.
 I couldn't afford the cost of postage to all the ladies on the list who live in foreign countries so I chose Chile.
It's been a number of years since I even sent Christmas cards so doing this was a nice way to get back into the tradition. I don't have the patience to write a Christmas letter. Most of my friends read my blog and know what's going on anyway.

I'm so excited our oldest daughter, Miranda is flying in from California to visit for Christmas.  We haven't seen her in a year so we are looking forward to her visit. We also have our  "adopted daughter" Grace visiting from Texas. She's Miranda's friend and we call her adopted because when she visits, she crashes at our home for a few days. We let her know she is always welcome at our home, especially when she doesn't have a chance to visit her own family in Washington.

Well it's getting late and I need to take my medicine and go to bed so if this post doesn't make sense it's because I'm so tired.

Christmas Around Here

Hello dear ones! Well we finally finished getting our  Christmas and winter decor up. I usually take forever to decorate because I'm sort of a procrastinater. We brought the Christmas bins in last Thursday and we finally took  the bins out today. My poor husband was tired of walking around them.

Some vintage decoration from my in-laws except the cabinet thingy that is behind them.

My husband made the wreath from a wire wreath frame from Dollar Tree and a embroidery hoop also from Dollar  Tree. The stocking on the far left is his from his childhood. 

                     Our homemade tree. Sorry the lighting is bad.

               My absolute favorite nativity scene. My husband made the last year stable from items we here at home.

This nativity wall hanging came from my husband's aunt when the girls were little.  I think it came from Israel but I don't remember.

More old stuff we had here at home. The train engine and bear came from a friend after I had a miscarriage at Christmas time. She knew I love bears and trains.

Homemade Napkins Giveaway

Hello dear friends! I wanted to let you know that Mrs. White over at The Legacy of Home has made some homemade hand stitched tea napkins that she is giving away.  Head over to her site to enter the giveaway.  Mrs. White is a lovely Christian lady who loves being a keeper at home and grandmother.

Ornament Exchange Reveal and Linkup

I got to participate for the first time in a ornament exchange hosted by dear Stephanie at The Enchanting Rose.
My package came from Sam who put together a lovely package for me.

These are the Christmas ornaments that Sam gave me and oh how pretty they are!

I'm linking with other ladies who participated in the Christmas Ornament Swap Reveal

Book Review: Jesus Our Perfect Hope by Charles Stanley

This devotional by Charles Stanley has become my new favorite.  There are 365 daily readings. Each day has a verse of the day, a teaching by Dr. Stanley, a short prayer and ends with an affirmation about Jesus being our hope.  If you like Charles Stanley, then I think you will like this devotional book. The cover is soft leather feel and there is a ribbon marker in the middle.

I received this book from the publisher (Thomas Nelson) in exchange for my honest review.

Handel's Messiah

A few weeks ago, our family had the pleasure of going to see Handel's  Messiah at our middle daughter's college. She is in one of the school's choirs so they had combined all five of the college's choirs for this performance.  The performance also included the Arizona  Philharmonic Orchestra and four talented singers to perform the solo parts.

The presentation included the complete work of Handel's beautiful piece of music. In all honesty, the only piece I'm familiar with from The Messiah is the Hallelujah Chorus. And even then, I never paid that much attention to the lyrics.
I happened to see my daughter's  music binder a few days before the concert. I read through some of the lyrics a few of the songs and friends, let me tell you, the lyrics are powerful!

I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to truly listen to what the singers were saying through their songs during the concert. There were songs that moved me to tears and I kept wondering how any of the singers from the choirs or the soloists could not be moved at what they were singing? Were the singers just singing for the sake of performing? Was the audience mostly Christian believers or were people there just because it was what they do as a tradition?

This brings me to the subject of Christmas. I know there are Christians who choose not to celebrate Christmas. I respect their choice.  We celebrate Christmas . At our home we honor Christ's birth, His death on the cross and His resurrection.  We thank the Lord for coming as a helpless baby, for dying for our sin and finally rising from the dead.  If Jesus had never come, where would we be?

So getting back to The Messiah, if you have never seen or heard this beautiful piece of music, you can find several presentations on YouTube. The Messiah is all about the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus dear friends!  As a side note, if your church has hymnals, you may find hymns written by Handel.

Tips for Successful Cookie Baking

1. Assemble your ingredients.  No scratch that.  Check that you have all the ingredients so that you don't discover you are one egg short.

2. Assemble your ingredients in order they will be used. ( Where did the ginger go now?)

3. If you are easily distracted you might want to ban people from the kitchen. This is because that cute guy who you married might come into the kitchen while you are carefully following your recipe. As a result of him commenting that the crazy glue we had been looking for suddenly shows up in the junk drawer ( how many times did we look in that junk drawer?) you totally missed putting the four teaspoons of baking soda in the gingersnap  recipe. Instead you put four teaspoons of cinnamon instead!

4. Watch cookies very carefully otherwise they will be overly cooked.( Well they sure looked like they needed more time to me!)

5. If someone comes to the door while you are trying to white chocolate and shortening  for the cookie topping  wanting to sell solar, be very polite and explain you are trying to do Christmas baking and cannot talk to him. (Actually you are slightly irritated in this rude intrusion)


6. Rejoice in your the fruits of your labor and even though you you missed the baking soda and put in way too much cinnamon .

Yes this all happened to me yesterday and the cookies tastes really good. They don't look like or tastes like I made mistakes. 

There may be several posts coming in one after the other today and/ or tomorrow.  I have a lot to post including book reviews 

By the Way

I'm very behind in  reading everyone's blogs but I hope to try catch up on what's happening with you all and your families.

Thoughts

I watched both the state and Texas funerals for President Bush.  I will say that I was especially impressed with thes state funeral. I never realized that he was a man of great faith . There  was something said at President Bush's state funeral by his family pastor that went something like "Preach the gospel always, and when necessary, use words."  Now I'm sure I quoted him wrong but nevertheless I was inspired to do just that.  I hope that when people see me they Jesus.

The music at both funerals was wonderful but my absolute favorite was  "How Firm a Foundation" the military band played as the casket was being carried to the burial site. Have you ever heard it? If not, then you can find it at The Cyberhymnal  including other great old hymns.

One thing I'm sure that blessed the Bush family, was the many people that came out in the rain today to pay their respects along the very long train route carrying President Bush's body.  I would have imagined it was probably overwhelming to them to see such love poured out for our former president. It brought tears to my eyes that's for sure.

Well I feel a ramble coming on so I better end this. If you didn't get a chance to watch either funeral, I encourage you to watch one or both. The Texas funeral is shorter than the state one.

Still Here!

I can't believe I let so many days go without posting here. It's getting rather late here in Arizona but I wanted to at least pop in and say hi.
I will do my best to post later tomorrow after President George Bush's funeral. Please keep the Bush family in prayer. It has to be incredibly difficult to first lose their mom Barbara and then a few months later their dad.  The holidays I know will be hard for the family members.