Weekend Menu

Feedings this weekend...nourishment for the spirit and soul.

I will be attending this conference with a friend. I have seen Sally Clarkson in person several years back at a homeschool conference. I appreciate her ministry of encouraging women in their faith and calling.

There are frozen turkey potpies in the freezer, Rose's idea of preparing dinner. I do not sweat what my family will eat when I am away. They get hungry...they eat.

When I arrive home at 5:30 on Saturday afternoon, I will have four out of town guests at my house. This morning, between packing and schooling, I have cleaned the guest bathroom, changed the bed sheets and vacuumed and dusted the guest room. Instructions have been given for Rose to clean her room for the other two guests, a young mother and her adorable one year old.

These guests are very good friends. They go into your kitchen cabinets, grab what is needed and generally make themselves at home. I am not sweating this either.

A basket of chocolates atops the bureau, a little sweetness to feed any cravings.

A Dream of Spring

All nature seems at work,

slugs leave their lair

The bees are stirring-

Birds are on the wings

And winter slumbering

In the open air

Wears on his face

A dream of spring.

S. T. Coleridge

Isn't Coleridge's metaphor of winter perfectly defining? I imagine the most detailed picture of winter (masculine) with a spirited smile as he dreams of spring(feminine) yet to come. I think I might wear a dream of spring on my face too these days, especially after some of the springlike days we have had this week. Or at least the dream of spring has greatly affected my afternoon pursuits.




After reading in last year's journal that my lettuce and spinach seeds had sprouted by mid-March, I plowed my little rows with a blue- handled spade and carefully planted the light- as-a-feather lettuce seeds and round spinach seeds into the rich brown soil. The empty seed packages now edge the rows and so begins the wait... for those first sightings of green.

The winter's dirt and grime was hosed off the white wicker porch furniture and then the job of giving it a fresh coat of white paint was begun. Shake, spray, shake, shake-S-P-R-A-Y... a rhythm all its own.

When not being carried around in the arms of the six year old owners, the dolls commenced their first sun bath of the season. Like me after their brush with winter, they were in dire need of those extra doses of Vitamin D!

Chocolate Dessert

If you are looking for a fabulously scrumptious chocolate dessert, look no further.

And let me highly recommend this one.

It can be found here.

Except the next time I make this dessert, I will have a crowd over to help eat it. A little bit goes a long way, and makes for a very pleasing ending to a meal.

Now that I think of it, several of the recipes in this book were tried and hailed as excellent by those I serve on a regular basis. I am highly considering purchasing this book. For the most part I find her recipes simple to make and accommodating when certain alterations are desired or needed.

I thought I would prepare the veal chop saltimbocca recipe included in this cookbook using boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of the veal, served over angel hair pasta...yum! It was elegant, delicious and simple, just add a fresh green salad. One of those meals that would be perfect for company, and only taking about 30 minutes from stove to table.

A bit of randomness concerning today

The spring-like weather created new ridges in what would have been normally just an ordinary Monday.

I downloaded some pictures onto the computer and there was my lovely daughter at the ball, all dressed up and ladylike

with a bun of rhinestones and wearing pearl earbobs.

I received a phone call from a friend one day last week asking if she could come over Monday morning and see my tea things. She is planning to host a Ladies' Tea in a couple of weeks and wanted to borrow some things that she thought she might need. I loved hearing about her plans for the tea, the foods she would be serving and how she intended to set her tea table.

I brushed the cat outside on the front stoop after lunch. Her soft light undercoat blew away in the gentle breeze as I imagined an expectant robin finding it and carrying it off to weave it into its first nest of the season.

Grabbing a cup of water and a cookie, I sat in the sunshine to give myself a good dose of Vitamin D. A handwritten letter was begun to a dear friend on a note card that included a knitting pattern for a weekend sweater. We enjoy sharing patterns and recipes. She sent me a unique block pattern to knit in her last letter.

Tiny crocuses surprised me as I glanced at their random dispersions throughout the flower beds in my yard. Since their life span is short I forget where they hide dormant during the other months. Their annual surprise never cease to delight anew.

Coming in because the lengthening of the late afternoon shadows hid the sun's warmth and I had become chilled, the letter was finished with my shoulders wrapped in a wool shawl.

Then I observed the sun as it was leaving it mark on random places in my house, on the schoolbooks still resting on the kitchen table.

And giving a rosy glow to the white china sugar pot on the dining room buffet.

Brighton Ball

Tonight our local homeschool group is hosting a Country Line Dance, better known as the Brighton Ball, for teen-aged young ladies and young men. They held a practice event last Friday night to learn the dances, and it was so much fun just watching them spinning, twirling, curtsying and bowing.




But tonight the girls will be wearing their ballgowns and the men their best dress-up wear of suits or tuxedos. We watched the ball scenes in the movie Pride and Prejudice several times to catch the proper flavor of how to make and adorn Rose's dress. Then we would get lost in all the fun of the ball and have to go back and watch it over and over! I used the Sense and Sensibility pattern, regency gown. Just the sewing gave my heart a little skip every time I heard the faint swish of the purple-headed needle whishing through the pink silk fabric.

As she walked through the door I heard the gentle swishing of her gown. I don't know who's heart is skipping the most, mine or Rose's!

the warmth of sepia

And how I desire to express the warmth of serving my elderly parents at this time in their lives.





Daddy turned eighty-four yesterday, so we baked a basic buttermilk cake and frosted it with ganache icing, knowing how much "Granddaddy loves chocolate".

We drove the one and one-half hour on the interstate with Mr. Putter riding in the crate in the back of the car. To celebrate life.

Our times are treasured with them, regardless of the realities of the giants in their lives that become even larger giants in ours on an almost weekly basis.

Nothing is easy about this road.


Sepia highlights it beautifully.

master design

" I was also learning that most of us are not anything like as realistic as our God. We like to deal with high-flown theological abstractions. (After all, they can be kept at safe arm's lengths).

He deals with the lilies of the field,

the yeast in the housewife's bread

patches on garments

and curing Grandmother's arthritis.

So of course the master design for us to advance toward our heavenly home via the nitty-gritty of family life would be just like Him."

Catherine Marshall

Meeting God at Every Turn

what I was doing when March stopped by

mindfulness: a time to read, usually in bed at night or perhaps at kitchen table while waiting for the potatoes to boil


fruitfulness: a time to plan when to begin planting the tiny lettuce and spinach seeds in the raised beds outside my kitchen window, where the daffodils are stretching from their long winter nap



wellness: a time to warm the cold hands and fortify with hot drinks laced with honey and lemon

Welcome March!

the music of the piano

Consequently, music of other artists playing the piano began to take space in my repertoire of music selections. So when David McClintock came to my church one evening to do a mini concert, I knew I had found yet another means of listening to good piano music. The piano talks when he plays, and I understand the song it is playing. His music includes a variety of hymns and classical music, along with some of his own originals. So lovely.

Here he is playing "Fur Elise" with his added features under a black light. He actually performed this for us that night as part of the concert. Self taught, he plays by ear. I do like his piano playing.

Most mornings while preparing breakfast, I will put on one of his CD's and as the sweetness of "Blessed Assurance" pours forth , Charlotte will do her ballet moves across the floor.

It is all very good!

Enjoy!

bread for my table

It does not take much to entertain my mind these days. I am nurtured in being carried away with just the thought of the most simplistic of activities. So it has been this winter with the desire of making bread on a more regular basis.

This book landed in my book basket at the library with a loud thump this past week and I knew I was destined to discover how to make this activity possible in my already full day.

Almost a week was needed to acquire the suggested tools given in the book, but I had decided in order to make it work as flawlessly as possible, I would take the author's advice. After all, he did write the book. The pizza peel was a tool I did not own until now.

Today was rainy and dreary, therefore, the smell of bread baking in my kitchen was a good thought. There were a few minor mishaps. Note: Be sure to use a container big enough to hold the rising dough.

The timing of steps given in the book were rather accurate, so I was able to bless my family tonight with an artisan loaf of bread to eat along with the turkey meatball soup.

Another mishap was the making of only one loaf...two would have been better, especially since Witt stopped by and ate dinner with us.

I now have a large circular Tupperware container in my refrigerator holding dough that will be made into tasty loafs of bread in the days to come...in just five minutes.. and I do believe that is correct timing.

Quilter's Basket

The basket is resting.


It is waiting for later use. This basket will be used when I make my quilt, because it is called the Quilter's Sewing Basket with dowel.

I prefer to call it the Quilter's Basket of Dreams since every time I pass its resting- self I dream of the quilt I shall make one day in the future.

In the meantime I will find some sort of use for it because nothing created for such purpose should be resting for too long.