A Shower Of Blessings

The fellowship hall was adorned with fall décor. It was the day of Natasha’s bridal shower. In a corner, a few gifts graced a table, along with signs specifically for the occasion. Round tables set about the room, awaited guests.

Arriving early, we assembled the two charcuterie boards we brought. There were also cookies, cupcakes, and also small candies. Slowly the guests began to arrive. When everyone was assembled, we all had fun playing games and snacking. My personal favorite was the challenge, Name That Couple. On paper, there was listed the names of famous couples, such as, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, Amy March and Theodore Lawrence, Romeo and Juliet, etc. It was obvious that our family are lovers of the Classics. Every one of us won.

The games completed, Natasha made her way to the heaped-up pile of gifts. The unwrapping began! What a ‘shower of blessings’ was lavished on Natasha and Jeremiah! I made them a sign bearing her and Jeremiah’s names, the date of the wedding, and a big opaque letter M for McDaniel in the background. Jayla had crocheted them a beautiful large doily.

All told, we had a wonderful afternoon. I was reminded of God’s promise in Ezekiel 34:26 “And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessings.”

 

As everyone prepared to return home, Natasha was “drenched” with well-wishes, and hugs. Soon, she will be married to our brother Jeremiah. We are excited for the big event!

~Halayah

Birthday Diversity

This year's birthday celebration was full of diversity.  While not really planned for my birthday, we bought a new to us 2010 Chevy Suburban. 

Since I worked the night before and then with sleeping in the morning,  we then went to look at the car and then purchased it! We had been keeping our eyes peeled for the right car.  We were blessed to find one nearby. 

After sleeping, purchasing the car and getting the title and license, a large part of October 13th had passed. I had originally thought that I would take the children to a ball diamond and play a little baseball with them. Since time had slipped away, we opted for delicious cheese-sticks from Huck's and a movie about baseball!

We watched the 1950 Jackie Robinson Story, where he played himself and Babe Ruth did as well. After viewing the movie, I believe that Rhonda has a new favorite baseball player.  

We capped off the evening with nice gifts, notes, and my favorite traditional Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake with Penuche Icing! Life is good at fifty eight!

~Mark

Marigold Mayhem

This spring, I once again set about designing our vegetable garden.  Since it is primarily raised beds, I penciled in the details on the graph that I designed specifically for the task.  It helps me to keep track of the what was planted in which box the previous year and how many plants or seeds we need to accomplish our goals of feeding our family. 

This year,  I had a novel idea! I adore the old fashioned beauty and long lasting color of the simple marigold. Some eschew the marigold's strong scent, but I find it a pleasing reminder of simple times and self sufficiency. 

I planted the humble flower from seeds harvested in prior years. Each corner and middle of each box in the garden got its pinch of these companion planting nematode warriors! I could envision the autumn ablaze with the orange, rust, and yellow frost resistant blossoms. They would outshine the traditional chrysanthemums in lasting radiance. And they have! 

The main problem,  is that they totally overtook practically every tomato and pepper plant that we tried to grow! No nematodes! Only weak sun starved spindles of a plant! The marigolds thrived and overshadowed the others! 

Needless to say, we do have a beautiful garden. Did you guess that we didn't have enough tomato crop to can juice, sauce, or salsa? By the time we noticed, they were too big to pull out without harming the vegetables. 

I suppose that there's always next year.  But you can bet that the marigold mayhem will be limited to the perimeter of our garden!

~Rhonda

Knit One, Purl One, Repeat

The house smelled of holiday spices and pine as our family settled into the living room at Christmastime. In one of the many brightly wrapped packages under the tree, I received a book entitled Whimsical Hats to Knit, Wear, and Love. Inside it was filled with pictures and patterns of fun and cute hats for atop children’s heads. I imagined what perfect gifts they would be for my ever-growing number of nieces and nephews! I could already picture them snug and warm in the winter, cozy in the hat I would make them. Little did I realize that the sheer volume of projects was to be the beginning of many interesting, challenging, and frustrating hours of knitting for me. Oblivious, I could hardly wait to get started!

Towards the end of January, the first birthday was fast approaching. As it was time to start knitting, I settled on the couch with supplies and the pattern book on my lap. What was I going to make? Every hat was adorable, but none seemed to just be the right one for Justus, my ten-year-old nephew. The days before his birthday quickly slipped by until I only had five days left to create something for him. Finally, I found a pattern for a great winter cap, and then clack, clack, clack, went my knitting needles. My how I knitted! It ended up being finished in time, but I learned a lesson, start early next time.

It would seem that I was not destined to have an easy time creating hats for my dear little relatives. The next hat, I started on in plenty of time, but now horrors! It was going to be too small; I was sure. Mama assured me that it looked like it was going to be the perfect size, but I fretted about it the whole time. Guess who was right as always? Mama, of course. During all my time of knitting, Mama was a great encourager and helper. She helped me understand the patterns sometimes and encouraged me as I worked. I definitely could not have made it without her.

The “pattern” continued. . . On one hat, was I running late, and the next one gave me some technical difficulties.  It also got sort of monotonous knitting one, purling one, for what seemed like 987 rows!  I kind of fretted a little, thinking of how many nieces and nephews I have!  “Focus!  Only think about the hat I am working on!”  Those were the words I told myself frequently. 

So many hats were knitted during a movie, or I should say several movies. Sometimes, I listened to Spanish while I worked earflaps, other times I listened to audio books while I cabled a border. Jayla was kind enough to read Plymouth Adventure to me while I crafted a fox hat. I soon learned to balance a book and turn its pages while I worked. I read through a couple of G.A. Henty’s novels, turning a page here, while kitting a bumblebee, turning a page there, while creating an American flag! In short, I became very innovative.

My adventure of hats is now winding down as the year comes to a close.  I have only a few more hats to knit. To tell the truth, I’m two hats behind right now. Which reminds me, I had better get back to knitting again!  Just keep knitting!  Until next time, bye bye!

~Halayah

Home Made Bread- Worth the Endeavor!

Most homes today are not fortunate enough to enjoy homemade whole wheat bread. Not so here! Indeed, it does take a little extra effort, but I feel that it is worth the endeavor! Here at our house, the smell of freshly baked bread wafts through the air about once a week. I remember my older sister making the bread for our family. Once she was married, I got to wear the apron!

 

We start out by grinding the wheat into flour in our Nutrimill. While that is going on, I measure out the warm water to dissolve the yeast. Then the salt, gluten, oil, honey, and half the amount of the freshly ground flour is mixed in. We proof the dough or let it rest, to make sure the yeast will do its job of making the bread rise. Tiny bubbles assure us that it is indeed alive. After this, the rest of the fresh flour is mixed in and kneaded in the Bosch mixer for five minutes or so. Kneading the dough stretches the fibers and helps produce gluten which forms when certain proteins in the flour are moistened. The word gluten comes from a Latin word meaning glue. The yeast in the dough produces carbon dioxide gas and the gluten from the wheat traps it in. This allows the bread to inflate or rise.

During the five minutes of kneading, I busy myself oiling the eight bread pans and getting the supplies needed for the next step... forming the loaves.

The dough gets transferred from the mixer to the lightly oiled tabletop and cut into eight equal parts.

One by one, I slam each piece down on the table a few times to remove any unwanted trapped air bubbles. If these remain, your loaf of finished bread will have large hollow air pockets inside. Ask me how I know!

 

Then, the each piece of dough is flattened with the rolling pin into a long oval shape and rolled up tightly as a scroll. I say tightly because that is another way that large pockets of air can get trapped inside.

 

The ends are now pinched and folded over onto the loaf.

Now it is flipped right side up, tucked around, shaped just so, and placed into its loaf pan. It takes me about ten minutes to get all eight loaves formed.

Then, covered to keep them from drying out, they rise for one last time before going into the pre-heated oven.

 

After spritzing some water into the oven to increase the humidity, thus keeping the tops flexible and allowing each loaf to spring, the timer is set for twenty minutes. This is when the lovely aroma makes its way about the house.

 

Once the beautiful golden loaves come out of the oven, they are carefully taken out of their pans and placed on a cooling rack. After cooling a while, into the bread bag they go. They are then stored in the freezer for freshness until we need them.

Fresh, warm, whole-wheat bread is so delicious. So much so, that occasionally, as a special treat, we take a loaf fresh from the oven, break off a hunk, butter it, and oh. . . simply enjoy! Home made bread. Mmm!

~Jayla McDaniel