Happy Thanksgiving to You!

My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know not its measure.  I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign LORD;  I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone.  Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.

Psalm 71:15-17

In a world where there is uncertainty about the economy, uncertainty about our jobs, uncertainty about home values, and even concern over the swine flu, and health care…

Lets be Thankful.

Thankful for God’s Faithfulness!

He is our Rock.

He is our Provider.

He is our Salvation.

He is our Sanctuary…

…and our Refuge.

I’ll be taking a break from posting this week and enjoying a little extra family time.  But I wanted to take a minute and let you know that I am thankful for each one of you!  Your encouragement is a blessing in so many ways!  I’m still hoping to do a little visiting (at your place) as time allows.  I’ll bring the pumpkin spice creamer and we can chat over coffee!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Yes, They Do!

Yesterday, I watched Wii’s on EBay while consuming large quantities of chocolate.  (Yes. I have stress issues.)

Ignoring all the things I should have been doing, I sat on the proverbial fence and prayed over questions like: 

• Can we afford it? 
• Would it be better to buy it from a retailer and get less, or in an auction and get more? 
• Is the risk in auctions worth the money saved? 
• Will having a Wii in the living room make it harder for my boys to focus on their responsibilities?  (O.K., dumb question.)
• And, where did I stash the rest of that Halloween candy?

With just minutes left in a tempting auction, I hovered indecisively over the bid button.  I even called a friend for moral support.  Then, just like that, I suddenly lost my connection.  Door closed.  The deal slipped away and I gave up the search for the day. 

But I continued to give thought to the whole Wii-thing-for-Christmas idea. 

• I think we can afford it. 
• And I’m not sure there is a right or wrong answer about retail or auction.
• I found the chocolate. 
• But, how will I help the boys be responsible with their play time?

Then God spoke.  Well, maybe it wasn’t actually God.  But it was as clear to me as the closed door on the auction. 

My oldest son and I were listening to the morning news on the radio and tying our shoes in the living room when this story made us stop and look at each other.

Maybe you heard it, because I think it was on the national part of the news.

A teenager made a call to 911 but then had the good sense to hang up when the dispatcher came on.  The police followed up on the call and when they questioned the boy, he asked, “Do my parents have the right to take my video games away?”

The officer replied, “Yes, they do.”

The look on my son’s face was priceless, and I could almost hear God say, “duh” in my ear.  Lol!

I’m watching some auctions again, knowing that there is plenty of room in my gun safe for all the Wii motes we might own.   

Thank you, Lord, for obvious answers and a good sense of humor!

Four Ways To Buck A Buck

O.K. That’s a corny title.  But hear me out.

When we bought this house, it was pretty much a house in a field.  There was little in the way of trees to offer protection from the wind or the sun.

So before we were even unpacked, we set about planting hundreds of trees.  Many of them white, blue and Norway spruces.  But some were ornamental flowering and shade trees.  We dreamed of how nice it would be in ten years.

Only, many of the trees took serious hits from the deer.

Deer would eat all the tender new growth in the spring.  And then in the fall, the bucks would rub on the trunks, totally decimating any branches that dared to grow.  Often, the buck would break the poor little trees clear in half!

So we declared war (insert Rocky song).

The first year of our war, we spread moth balls at the base of each little tree and even hung moth balls in fabric sacks from their branches.  We bought BOXES AND BOXES!  The deer didn’t like them much. 

But neither did we! 

One neighbor told us later he spent weeks trying to figure out what that smell was and where it was coming from!  Lol!

Then another year we tried soap.  Irish Spring, to be exact.  We did it two different ways.  Rubbing a bar on the trunks.  And then dissolving a bar in warm water and using a spray bottle to apply the  solution to leaves and buds.  (Great for Roses, btw.)

It worked, and smelled a lot better.  :)  But we kept having to re-apply it.  That was no fun.  Not with that many trees.

So I got to thinking.  What about dryer sheets?  I found the smelliest ones I could find and began ripping them almost in half lengthways to make long strips.  Then, we tied them onto the tops of the little trees. 

This time, neighbors shook their heads and asked us who TP’d all of our trees, lol!  It did look ridiculous.  But it worked!  The bucks bypassed our trees.  And the dryer sheets lasted much longer than the soap.Here’s a buck rub on a willow tree we didn’t catch in time this year.  The dryer sheets we hung have kept him from abusing it further.  But the damage is already done.

And finally, we have discovered that if you leave Christmas lights on trees year-round, the deer don’t like that either.  Yes, we do that! (Don’t worry, we stop plugging them in by Easter.)

If you have tender vegetation the deer keep damaging, perhaps one of these ideas will work for you! 

Bucking the Bucks works for us!

This post is linked to the Works For Me Wednesday Meme over at We Are That Family.

Six Personal Updates

1.  The female cardinal lives on.  She is thumping on my window as I type.  I guess my husband was too busy on Friday to notice her.  That is good for her.  Bad for me. 

Do Cardinals fly south for the winter?

2.  After being down for the count with the Mother Of All Viruses, my computer has been “healed”.  Unfortunately, many files became casualties.  So although my computer lives, and I am typing on it now, it doesn’t remember what I would like it to. 

Hey!  That sounds like me!

3. My mom is doing pretty well after her fall at a restaurant on the way home from visiting us in Indiana.  Her knee (which she had surgery on in the past) is stiff and swollen, still.  But she claims it is no worse than before, and that it might be getting a little better.

I’m not sure if it is wishful thinking, or if it’s true.  But she does seem to be getting around, so I am thankful.

4.  My oldest son is 7 months into his Orthodontics Treatment.  He has upper braces and a Herbst appliance.  (If you are new around here, you can read about my family’s introduction to the Herbst appliance here.)  The device looks intimidating.  But the adjustment to having the appliance put on was so much easier than what we had prepared ourselves to go through. 

Even he is glad to be going through it, because it has made a drastic change in his appearance.  Not that he, or we, noticed much before.  It’s just that he looks totally different, now, and we realize how much he needed it.

But this really deserves it’s own post.  A post with “before” and “after” pictures that he approves of and doesn’t mind me putting out there.

5.  Our renovation project in the boys play room is nearing completion.  The patio door is installed, the drywall is up, and the wall has had its first coat of paint.  There is light at the end of the tunnel!!

6.  A Home Depot crew came in Friday to blow additional insulation into our attic spaces. Hopefully, we will enjoy a warmer house this winter and reduced energy costs next summer.  For the most part, we are happy with their service. 

I do, however, have a few repairs to make.  Several drywall nails in my hallway “popped” through the plaster on the textured ceiling.  I’m not at all sure what to do with them.  Anyone have any ideas?  I’m all ears.  :)

That’s about it, for now.  I think I’ve covered all the big happenings around here.

Have a great Tuesday, friends! 

Easy Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

 

Peanut Butter and Chocolate are one of my favorite combinations.  So this Taste Of Home recipe caught my eye and I soon found myself adapting it to fit the ingredients I had on hand. 

It’s a rich, moist and delicious bar cookie that would be great to take to a party or get together.  (It’s easy, and looks pretty, too!!!)

Ingredients

• 1/2 C Butter, softened
• 2/3 C sugar
• 1/2 C packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 3/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 C creamy peanut butter (I used @ 1/2 C, since I didn’t have peanut butter chips on hand)
• 1/3 C peanut butter chips
• 1/3 C baking cocoa (I plan to use a little less next time.  The chocolate flavor was pretty strong.)
• 1/2 C semisweet chocolate chips (Again, I plan to use slightly less here, too.)  

Directions

Cream butter and sugars.  Add eggs and milk.  Mix.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt,  Add it and mix.

Divide batter in half.  To one portion, add peanut butter and peanut butter chips (if you have them) and mix.  To the other portion, add the cocoa and chocolate chips and mix.

In a greased 9 inch square baking pan, spoon chocolate batter in eight mounds in a checkerboard pattern.  Spoon seven mounds of peanut utter batter between the chocolate batter.  Cut through batter with a knife to swirl.

That’s it!  Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. 

This recipe is linked to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, and Tasty Tuesday.

Rats!

Over the weekend, my husband realized that we picked up the Mother-Of-All viruses while surfing for some video gaming information.  (Feel free to groan with me and feel our pain.)

The good news is (first) as far as we can tell, the virus did not get the vital information it was designed to steal.  And (second) it only severely infected one computer when it could have traveled through our entire network.

The bad news is, the computer that took the hit is the computer on which I work the most.  It has all my Live Writer files and photos which making blogging so much fun for  me.

For now, I’m borrowing time on another computer.  And hoping that my husband will be able to discover a trick to kill the so-far indestructible virus.  He has used every program he has, and then some, and so far, none have been able to remove it. 

This morning, he took it to work to see if any of the guys can think of something else to do with it.  It’s funny, or not, how dependent we become on these machines and those little things we call our favorites!

If I Say “Uncle”… Will It Stop??

Last Spring, we had a male cardinal that kept thumping on our window.  It’s one of those stories you have to read.  So click on back and read it.  I’ll wait.

Are you back?  Well, that bird about drove me crazy, and I was ever so glad when he “mysteriously” disappeared.  (My husband later confessed that he “may have had something to do with it. ”)

Now, there is another demented cardinal who is tormenting me. 

From sun up to sun down.  She thumps.   And thumps.  And thumps.

She has been at it for more than THREE WEEKS, now.  I can’t see out my windows in places and there’s no point in cleaning them.

Once again, I’ve tried everything to discourage her.  Rubber snakes.  Window clings. 

Sending my screaming five-year-old running out the door. 

Throwing whatever-I-can-get-my-hands-on at her. 

She’s giving the energizer bunny a run for his money.

And I know what you are thinking.  Maybe it’s the mate of the male cardinal who met his demise in our yard last spring.  I don’t think so. 

She has a mate.  Who sits idly by.  Just watching her shenanigans.  (He’s desperate, if you ask me.  He could do far better than this crazy chick.  If he had any pride at all, he put a stop to her foolishness.) 

Indeed, if her dear mate loved her, he’d make her stop.

Because danger lurks.  I know.  Which is why I feel compelled to issue this one last plea.

Dear Little Messed Up Birdie,

Consider this your very last, deep from my heart, warning.  My husband is staying home tomorrow and he has less patience than I.  If you want to survive to be crazy another day in another place, you’ll fly far, far away. 

Just say in’.

You all might want to pray for Mrs. Cardinal.  No doubt tomorrow will be life-changing for her.