Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thanksgiving 2010


We had family (Brent, Tracy & Andrie, Ernie & Dodie Blok, Al & Ellen Wanek),and friends to share our meal. We had a wonderful day sharing with family & friends.

I have much to thank God for this year. We hoped to have moved to PA by now, but we are still in Wisconsin. Winter has started, its in the 20's this weekend. Today the sun is shining so the will be good. Both Ed & I are healthy and stay busy. We are interim pastors at Watertown Assembly, a great group of people given to hospitality.

Several things are highlighted for me this year. 1) I worked at the Compassion Clinic Praise Fellowship hosted again. 2) My husband is an executive board member for Teen Challenge in Milwaukee, they invited our former president George W. Bush to be our speaker for their fund raiser banquet this month. Ed & I had our picture taken with the president!!! The entire evening was one I will forever remember!!!

God has been good to me. Growing up Amish and Thanksgiving meals with my family. We raised turkeys on our small farm for several years.

Our customers came from nearby cities. They would place their orders and mom, along with my older sisters would butcher these turkeys for Thanksgiving mostly. The most I remember was having an order for 100 turkeys for one day. Mom asked a neighbor to come and help. I went to school so escaped lots of work!!! My job was to feed them daily which I mostly enjoyed. (Of course I am sure I did lots of grumbling too!!)

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Christmas 2010

Its hard to believe Christmas will soon be here! I promised my family that I would post my Christmas list. I don't have many needs so its hard to get a list together. There are several things that might be nice.

1) Victoria Secret gift certificate
2) Pizza Stone
3) 6 qt over the sink colander (oval)
4) Microwave Bacon Plate (really want this!)
5) Marcus Movie gift certificate
6) Good smelling candle
7) JJill gift certificate
8) Measuring cups (with straight sides)
9) Flannel PJ bottom (any color - size L or M?)

That's all for now.

If anything more comes to mind I'll let you know.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Family Together Again!

Family - its so important! My family is planning to spend a long weekend together in Sheboygan. We have 3 children and 3 grandchildren, yeah! (5 children!) Growing up, after we left home and would come home for a visit, my mom would always cook our favorite meals and look forward to spending time with us. I would notice that mom would slave over the hot grill, etc. So one day I had a wonderful idea that would give mom time to spend with her family. Our family started buying chicken and chip in to help pay for the meat. My family continues this practice to this day.

I have a cute picture of us together at Steve's house, with mom in the background enjoying all of us playing together. Will that be my future? :-) I continue to tell my sisters that I am not old!!! :-)

Now as I am getting older, yes, I am getting older every year!!! I am the one in the back ground watching our children sharing family together and playing, chatting together. I will love this week with our grand children and children!!! Several years ago when Chris & Holly came to Sheboygan, we didn't think ahead and ask Josh to come home. So we plan to take a family photo, hopefully on the shore of Lake Michigan. This should be a great memory maker with the lake as the back ground.

Check back if I'm not too tired I'll blog about how our family spent time together and interesting events that took place. Did I say it already? I can't wait until tomorrow!!!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Holiday Celebrations

Growing up we didn't celebrate many holidays. I don't remember ever acknowledging Father's day or Mother's day. I love both Father's day and Mother's day celebrations which I have always enjoyed since becoming a parent. I have a birthday in April and Mother's day in May so these 2 special days in my life sometimes feel like they run together, but that's OK too.

Growing up Amish, as a family we had a big meal for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Easter is a Church event; I don't ever remember eating a big Easter dinner. The Amish have a special membership day in the spring and fall, which sorta takes in Easter.

Before the Amish have their fall membership, teens around 17 - 18 years of age take a membership class during the summer, then join church in the fall when the church serves communion. The people get water baptized (they pour a half cup water over their head while kneeling; the bishops wife holds the girls cap and helps put it back on her head.) I was always fascinated by all of this, and never got to participate because my parents left the Amish before I became of age.

The membership take communion in the spring and fall. The members fast the Saturday before this service for the first half of the day before participating in communion. A regular church service is 4 hours long, when they serve communion the service lasts at least 5 hours if not longer. Its a long day as I remember it. The entire service is orderly and very religious!

The girls before they become members wear a white cape and apron, along with a black pleated cap. After the girls become members, they start wearing a white cap. The men are supposed to start growing their beard, which they continue to trim with scissors until they get married.

Friday, April 2, 2010

More on Modern Conviences

As I was cooking lunch the other day I had to marvel at how easy it is today to cook a great dinner. We have a George Foreman that I love to cook on during our long winter months. Then there is the microwave that makes wonderful veggies, heats up soups, etc. I have a great toaster oven, so I don't always need to heat up the big oven on the stove. And of course where would we be without a toaster, a blender and a mixer. Sometimes I choose to use the slow cooker, another small appliance that plugs in to cook up tasty meals.

Growing up, cooking had to be thought out and planned for. First of all you couldn't (at least we didn't) run to the store for a forgotten item on the list of what might be needed to make a great dinner. The stove needed to have wood to burn and the fire needed to be stirred up so it would be hot enough and last long enough to cook dinner.

Baking bread was the biggest challenge for me growing up. Of course I was pretty young when I helped bake the family bread too. One of my nieces has a great oven that runs with kerosene which does make the task easier. It must bake at least 8 - 10 loaves at a time, which would make baking bread so much easier and less time consuming.

I don't think I want to give up these conviences and go back to the old ways anytime soon. Of yes, I have a dishwasher that takes care of the dirty dishes. Yeah!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Being Healthy and Aging Well

Another milestone for me; signing up for Social Security! Yikes! I can't believe that I will be 62 in another month!

I can't complain because I have a good life! Serving God has been VERY GOOD! Yes, in this world you shall have troubles, but Jesus said "I have overcome the world". And you can too! (I added). Thank God that the Holy Spirit helps us walk through life! God gave the Holy Spirit to the Church to guide us.

To walk "by faith" has a new meaning for me these days but I'll leave that for another day. Today I want to talk about signing up for SS. Easy, just like they say, SS office actually wants people to sign up online but I did it the old fashioned way - I called up and made an appointment. I actually got in the next day! Ed & I went together.

During the appointment the clerk looked at my appointment and commented that I called the day before. I actually had a choice for 2 times! I won't get my first check until June but that will be for the rest of my life! Very exciting! (Not the aging part!)

I actually will be getting money for being married! Who would have thought the government would pay me to be married! I know it healthy to be married. I have someone who knows me, someone I can talk to, pray with! Yeah!

Psalm 91 talks about God watching over his people. Verse 7 talks about A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, I like to think about this verse, when 2 people pray together. I believe agreeing with someone is very powerful. As a couple we have great prayer potential.

Its been enjoyable thinking about cooking good food. We don't eat out often because the food at home is very good! Plus I have time to cook.

I try out recipes that I have time to think about now since I don't work outside our home. I'll try to include a recipe every time I make another post. I don't know where this came from but I think about this soup as old people's food. :-)

Split Pea Soup

2 1/4 cup dried split peas
2 qts cold water (don't need to soak peas)
1 1/2 pound ham bone (I use the ham I cut up when I get a spiral cut ham)
2 onions thinly sliced ( I use chopped onions and not 2 cups, only 1 onion)
3 stalks celery, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 potato ( I never use any potatoes)
(Saute this for 5 minutes) Add:
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teas black pepper
pinch of dried marjoram
After sauteing the veggies, add water, split peas, ham and cook an hour or until the veggies are soft. (Uncovered, but I like to use a lid, tilted. Serves 6
(from All recipes)

Monday, January 18, 2010

Modern Conviences

I baked some whole wheat frozen rolls today, they are the best! They have seeds in them that give it some crunch, which we also love, along with them looking healthy too.

I started baking bread using the bread machine to knead the dough. Kneading the dough takes time and energy so I started using the bread machine and then shape the dough into loaves or whatever I want the bread to look like. Lately I have been using regular bread pans. (I tried to post a picture but something isn't working correctly because the pictures aren't posting, just get lots of lettering).

I started baking bread way back when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My family baked at least 6 or 7 loaves of bread and at least 1 pan of rolls each week. It was an all day job and really hard work kneading that dough. It took at least an hour for me as a young girl.

I remember about the 2nd or 3rd time I was stirring up the liquid and mixing the flour with the water, the pan had cracks in the bottom and I hit the bottom of the pan with my spoon and the liquid started leaking. If I remember correctly I started to cry because I didn't know what to do to stop the leaking. Mom came around after awhile and helped me fix it. Interesting looking back, who wouldn't know how to fix it? I was inexperienced in cooking.

When our children were very young, before bread machines were invented I would make homemade bread pretty often. I enjoyed taking the time to knead the dough. It was several years after the bread machine started becoming pretty common that I finally decided that it might be fun to use.

The machine I use now we bought at a garage sale at Praise Fellowship for several dollars. I have more then used up what we paid for it. We love the smell of bread baking. I'll include the recipe at the end of this blog, its the best recipe.

My mom used her kitchen stove to bake the bread. It was tricky to keep the oven heated evenly for the entire hour to bake the bread evenly. Summers we used a kerosene stove which was much easier to keep the oven (portable oven that sits on top of the stove), at the correct temperature.

Here's the recipe to use in a bread machine: 1 1/2 cups water (not too hot), 3 tble dry milk, 3 tble honey, 2 tble olive oil, 2 cups white bread flour, 2 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour, 2 tble wheat gluten, 2 tble whole flax seeds, 1 pkg active dry yeast (make sure the yeast does NOT touch the liquid), 2 teas salt. Start the mixer. I always watch it mix up and add more flour carefully if the dough is too sticky. This can be tricky.