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.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
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!
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)
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.
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.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Being Thankful
Its the end of the year, again. I am thankful for so many things today! My husband, we have been married for over 41 years, our family, and grandchildren just for starters. Ed and I have a nice home to live in, warm, nicely furnished. We have many wonderful memories in this home.
Ed retired after pastoring Praise Fellowship Church for 29 years; they were wonderful, busy years. I will always call this our home church where our children grew up, went to college and moved away to start their own families. Well, Brent, our oldest son moved away from our house, but he's employed by Praise Fellowship for which I am thankful for.
Ed and I have a nice life, nice memories from our PF family. Good friends from town, in the district . . .
Yes, this is a blog about Amish/English but sometimes just sitting back and reflecting is wonderful and necessary. Having grown up without electricity, I will say that living with all these modern conveniences have been wonderful. Sometimes in my reflections, remembering in the mid-nineties learning to use computers, we now use cell phones, blogs, facebook, etc.
Ed & I travel which we enjoy. With our daughter and her family living in NC, we love visiting our grand children in NC! Growing up Amish we used horse & buggy for our every day going here and there. Now we fly to places much further then any where I traveled growing up. Maybe we'll get to fly or drive to NYC again this year and visit our youngest son. Its a fun city to tour and I love leaving again too.
Ed retired after pastoring Praise Fellowship Church for 29 years; they were wonderful, busy years. I will always call this our home church where our children grew up, went to college and moved away to start their own families. Well, Brent, our oldest son moved away from our house, but he's employed by Praise Fellowship for which I am thankful for.
Ed and I have a nice life, nice memories from our PF family. Good friends from town, in the district . . .
Yes, this is a blog about Amish/English but sometimes just sitting back and reflecting is wonderful and necessary. Having grown up without electricity, I will say that living with all these modern conveniences have been wonderful. Sometimes in my reflections, remembering in the mid-nineties learning to use computers, we now use cell phones, blogs, facebook, etc.
Ed & I travel which we enjoy. With our daughter and her family living in NC, we love visiting our grand children in NC! Growing up Amish we used horse & buggy for our every day going here and there. Now we fly to places much further then any where I traveled growing up. Maybe we'll get to fly or drive to NYC again this year and visit our youngest son. Its a fun city to tour and I love leaving again too.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Growing up without TV
Our Rick Warren devotional today talked about moral values and how it effects decisions we make. So I didn't grow up watching TV and I would love to say it doesn't effect my decisions. But on the other hand I didn't hear Gods Word taught in Sunday School either. I read Bible Stories out of our tattered book growing up so I wasn't a total heathen and attended church hearing God's Word preached. Still I needed a personal experience with Jesus which happened in my early teen years.
We had a garden and canned vegetables from the garden. We canned chickens because that's what we had mostly during my lifetime. When I was young I remember butchering a pig and smoking hams. At one time in my life dad bought my grandmother's farm next to our farm and my older sisters and brother took care of that farm. I don't think that lasted for many years until my dad sold the farm to "English" people.
We entertained ourselves playing games outside in the summer along with good hard honest work. I loved helping to put up hay and when the "thrashers" would come. Yep, we went "bare footed" all summer. When I became a teenager I started wearing shoes to church. I do a double - take now going "back" into their homes.
We had a garden and canned vegetables from the garden. We canned chickens because that's what we had mostly during my lifetime. When I was young I remember butchering a pig and smoking hams. At one time in my life dad bought my grandmother's farm next to our farm and my older sisters and brother took care of that farm. I don't think that lasted for many years until my dad sold the farm to "English" people.
We entertained ourselves playing games outside in the summer along with good hard honest work. I loved helping to put up hay and when the "thrashers" would come. Yep, we went "bare footed" all summer. When I became a teenager I started wearing shoes to church. I do a double - take now going "back" into their homes.
Friday, August 7, 2009
My Hobby - Reading
My mother instilled the love of reading to most of my siblings. Whenever mom would have some time she would find a magazine, or later on in life, books someone brought home from school, she would read them, sometimes overnight.
Growing up we didn't have many books in our home. We had a worn out Bible Story book I read from cover to cover many times. Mom would go to my grandmothers who had like a library and bring books from her house. The bad side to this; dad couldn't stand to see us sitting around reading. Even after all our chores were done it would aggravate him. Sundays was a day we didn't work so I would take a book and crawl into bed to read. Our upstairs didn't have any heat so this was partly to stay warm too. (Out of sight, out of mind!)
My dad played games with us after our evening meal and mom would sit and read. With 12 children she didn't have much time to herself.
I love the library that stocks great books. I have learned to use the internet and request the books then get notified through emails when they come in. Plus you don't need to spend time looking them up.
Growing up we didn't have many books in our home. We had a worn out Bible Story book I read from cover to cover many times. Mom would go to my grandmothers who had like a library and bring books from her house. The bad side to this; dad couldn't stand to see us sitting around reading. Even after all our chores were done it would aggravate him. Sundays was a day we didn't work so I would take a book and crawl into bed to read. Our upstairs didn't have any heat so this was partly to stay warm too. (Out of sight, out of mind!)
My dad played games with us after our evening meal and mom would sit and read. With 12 children she didn't have much time to herself.
I love the library that stocks great books. I have learned to use the internet and request the books then get notified through emails when they come in. Plus you don't need to spend time looking them up.
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