"Purrsonally Speaking"

Maple, 02/16/11, Sweet repose~on a box of chocolates >'.'<

Purrsonally Speaking

In this world of hustle-bustle
You may have your this and that;
But there's nothing quite so pleasing
As the purring of a cat.
~ Marcy Stewart Froemke ~

Happy Birthday, Katherine

How can a young [girl] keep [her] way pure? By keeping it according to God's word. Psalm 119:9

We enjoyed a fun celebration last Saturday for the 12 bountiful years of blessings the LORD has graciously heaped on our family since Katherine's birth.
Katherine is fast becoming a young lady, and we're so very grateful for her sweet, teachable spirit and desire to be molded in the image of our LORD, her Savior, Jesus.
How do parents raise their children today without Him and His Word?

We're so very grateful for you Katherine.
We love you deeply and dearly~

Making Butter Just for Fun~

Recently, Katherine decided to make some butter after viewing a wonderful blog we follow.

She began by pouring 1 cup of heavy whipping cream into a container with a lid that could be sealed tight. Before closing, she added several beads, because she could not quickly find marbles as recommended by Vivi. After sealing the lid tightly, she began shaking and continued shaking the bottle until she could feel the liquid cream had turned to clumps, separating from the sides of the container. Katherine said she should have taken a few more minutes to shake, but didn't... and this is what she discovered.













For much anticipation of seeing her first butter fun experiment, she began spooning out the contents of the bottle...



















Beads were uncovered, until...



















all were found.
She definitely recommends using marbles or larger beads, because small beads take more time to find!













In the next step, Katherine separated out the 'butter milk' so the clumped butter could be molded, but first, "a blog photo" of my "Preciousness". You can drink the buttermilk if you'd like. It's better chilled and fresh!



















Before molding, Katherine added sea salt to taste and then stirred well. Next, she shaped the butter into balls, finally wrapping with wax paper to keep the balls from drying out before dinner.

Later in the day, Katherine proudly served her very own homemade butter for dinner, which we enjoyed with our DEAR Neighbor. We had yummy roast beef, mashed potatoes, sauteed broccoli with sliced fresh garden carrots and onions. Mmmm good! We were all thrilled to share in the special treat of spreading homemade butter on our warm rolls.













Katherine has since learned that Ma Ingalls tinted her homemade butter by shredding a carrot and adding it to some milk warmed over the stove. The strained colored milk was then added to cream ready for churning. The combination turned out a beautifully colored butter to press into molds.

Hope you're now inspired to make some butter for your family, just for fun.
Watch Vivi's post, which is especially fun and inspiring!

Earthen Vessel

Pitcher, "Made in Italy"

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (2 Corinthians 4:7).

We aren’t what we possess or what we pretend, but only what we pour out.
Ann Voskamp~

A Heart of Love

Every true wife makes her husband's interest her own. While he lives for her, carrying her image in his heart and toiling for her all the days, she thinks only of what will do him good. When burdens press upon him she tries to lighten them by sympathy, by cheer, by the inspiration of love. She enters with zest and enthusiasm into all his plans. She is never a weight to drag him down; she is strength in his heart to help him ever to do nobler and better things.
J. R. Miller, "Home-making" 1882




















Grateful for the sweet expressions of love that have filled our home this week.

A Worthy Idea

Blooming Christmas Cactus plant given to me by my Mother Dear

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee" (Isaiah 26:3).

"Imagination is the greatest gift God has given us and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. If you have been bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, it will be one of the greatest assets to faith when the time of trial comes, because your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in Nature-the sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but will always be at the service of God."
Oswald Chambers~

Test time

There's always a great sigh of relief when a day of TKD belt testing is complete.
So quickly one test leads to another, and John is now preparing for a black belt.
My mother's heart has three months to prepare, but John?
He's ready and set to go!














By far, the more important work at hand...

"...Exercise thyself ... unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."
1 Timothy 4:7-8

Our Garden's Winter Harvest

An early morning check on the garden one morning last week led to the discovery that some veggies in our garden were ready to harvest. What a blessing it was to find what the LORD had accomplished there when we weren't looking.
In spite of the wet, cold weather we've had, this is what grew...

carrots...



















and collards!













Even in the midst of what seems a barren wintry garden, God's gracious gifts are growing!


"Life is a school. All its experiences are lessons. God is educating us. School is not easy. All true education looks to the building of the finest, noblest character, in the end. It is especially so in God's school, for he is the perfect Teacher. His purpose is not to give us an easy time at present—but to make something of us afterward. Sometimes we chafe and fret, saying that God is harsh and severe, perhaps that he is even unkind. We cannot see that good ever can come out of the painful discipline. But perhaps we can only attain godly character, in 'the school of severity'.

There are some plants that would die in the warmth of a conservatory. They must be kept in the cold, if they would live and grow. One of the papers not long since told of a strange plant recently discovered in northern Siberia. It shoots up out of the ice and frozen ground. Its leaves grow on the side of the stem toward the north. Each leaf appears to be covered with little crystals of snow. On the third day the extremities of the anthers show minute glistening specks like diamonds. These are the seeds.

Is not this plant an illustration of many Christian lives? God seems to set them in beds of ice and snow—and yet they grow up out of the wintry cold—into lovely and wondrous beauty. We would say that the loveliest lives of earth, would be those that are reared amid the kindliest influences, under summer skies, in the warm atmosphere of ease and comfort. But the truth is, that many of the noblest developments of Christian character, can only grow in the wintry gardens of hardship, struggle, and sorrow.

Trial, therefore, is not something meant to discourage us, to stunt and dwarf our life and mar its beauty. The snow plant would die in a tropical garden. There are lives that never could become Christlike and never could reach heaven without the discipline of severe affliction. No hardness is too severe—which teaches us to live worthily."

(J. R. Miller, 1908)

The Optimum in Stability

I remember having a four legged stool in the kitchen of my parents’ house. I remember Dad sawing the legs to make the stool more kid size. I also remember rocking back and forth on that four legged stool. It illustrates the point that the legs have to be equal to be stable.

We also have a unicycle in our garage. No one in our household has yet mastered that machine!

Do you see where this is going? One leg cannot offer very much in stability. Two legs are not much better. Three is the optimum number.

The three pillars of civilization are the family, the church, and the civil government. Each institution has its own jurisdiction and responsibilities. Each one is responsible to protect and strengthen all three.

These three pillars don’t seem to be equally strong these days, or even understood.

The church has relinquished many of its responsibilities to the civil government. The family has relinquished many of its responsibilities to the church and to the civil government.

The result is weak churches, weaker families, a unicycle civil government, and a wobbly society.

“If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do? ” (Psalm 11:3, KJV 1900)

A Song on My Heart: The Love of God

"And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen."
John 21:25


The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Words: Fred­er­ick M. Leh­man; he wrote this song in 1917 in Pas­a­de­na, Cal­i­fornia, and it was pub­lished in Songs That Are Dif­fer­ent, Vol­ume 2, 1919. The lyr­ics are based on the Jew­ish poem Had­da­mut, writ­ten in Ara­ma­ic in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Ne­hor­ai, a can­tor in Worms, Ger­ma­ny; they have been trans­lat­ed in­to at least 18 lang­uages.

"One day, dur­ing short in­ter­vals of in­at­ten­tion to our work, we picked up a scrap of pa­per and, seat­ed up­on an emp­ty le­mon box pushed against the wall, with a stub pen­cil, add­ed the (first) two stan­zas and chor­us of the song…Since the lines (3rd stan­za from the Jew­ish po­em) had been found pen­ciled on the wall of a pa­tient’s room in an in­sane asy­lum af­ter he had been car­ried to his grave, the gen­er­al opin­ion was that this in­mate had writ­ten the epic in mo­ments of san­ity". Frederick M. Lehman, “History of the Song, The Love of God,” 1948

Music: Fred­er­ick Leh­man; ar­ranged by his daugh­ter, Claudia L. Mays