Valentine Fun

There isn't much going on these days that is blog worthy, so I thought I'd share some Valentine "art" just for fun.

 

I tried another attempt at subway art. I made this using different Picasa fonts.

I had this small vase stored away and when I unpacked it this week I noticed that the heart had turned a very lovely rusty patina. I played with the different effects in Picnik for this picture.

Saturday was cloudy but I took a few pictures of the lovely pink roses. I needed a few fillers but the only thing in the yard right now that would work was the variegated euonymus. It has a sweet pink blush this time of year, so it was perfect.

I hope that your nest is filled with love this week! I know, I know, way too cheesy! :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

No Picnik

I was sad to read yesterday that Picnik was closing in April. Until they close they are offering their free Premium effects to everyone.

One of my goals for the year is to learn textures on Adobe Photoshop Elements. I played with a few of the textures offered on Picnik and I really like the way they look.

I took this picture of the chickadee on Friday and added texture and the frame on Picnik..

This winter I have been busy in the kitchen learning to make things that I would normally buy. Between the cost of gas and groceries, I am really having to pinch pennies these days. Even though I am southern and my grandmother and mother always cooked their biscuits from scratch, that gene kind of skipped me. I have always bought them frozen, (and even canned). I love to bake bread, so it really bothered me that I couldn't make decent biscuits. I think I handle the dough too much for them to be light and fluffy and rise like they should. Determined to make them, Saturday I tried two different recipes. One was acceptable but the second one was exceptional!The bad thing is that now I can't find the recipe online. I thought for sure I saved it to Pinterest. At least I have the ingredients penned on a piece of paper!

Speaking of pinching pennies, Jen, from Muddy Boot Dreams, is joining Brenda, from Cozy Little House, along with a few other ladies,  for a series on Thrifty Living 2012. I am looking forward to reading their blog posts on living more frugally!
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Lunch- Homemade Hummus

I started the new year off,  like I usually do, trying to eat healthier and lose weight. With us having had eight months of unemployment in 2011 and the price of food, (Anybody else get nauseated buying groceries these days? Wow!), I need to find creative ways of  keeping my grocery costs down.

I prefer snack type lunches and hummus is a favorite. Over the Christmas holiday I had the pleasure of eating authentic hummus made by someone originally from Syria. It was delicious and so much tastier than any store bought that I have tried! I knew I had to learn to make it and I knew it would be cheaper too! So, I used my new favorite internet source, Pinterest, to try and locate an authentic recipe, I was not disappointed. Desert Candy had a detailed blog post on hummus and an authentic recipe. The picture of the finished hummus, with the drizzle of olive oil and cumin,  looked like the one I had previously eaten.

The recipe was not difficult at all, the only thing that was difficult, well not really difficult, just time consuming,  was removing all of the skins from the chick peas. Most of them come off pretty easy after soaking overnight and the rest were picked off after the peas were cooked. From what I had read about making hummus, removing the skins is necessary for smooth hummus.

I didn't have tahini on hand, in fact, I have not made hummus before now due to the price of tahini. I was craving that hummus and I seriously  thought about making a special trip to the store and getting tahini, but I am really trying to limit trips to the store and save money on groceries. I had a bag of sesame seeds in the freezer and decided that I would make the tahini myself. After the seeds were lightly toasted I made a paste using  a coffee grinder, (only used to grind flax and sesame seeds for bread baking). I added a little drizzle of sesame seed oil and then just a little of the water the chickpeas were cooked in. Thankfully that worked and now I will save even more by making my own authentic hummus!

It is so good! If you like hummus you should try this recipe!

Birds

We had a light snow today and the birds finally found my feeding station! I had not fed them much since spring and I wasn't sure if I would see very many of them this winter. Usually I have quite a few doves and dark eyed juncos but I have only seen one of each. I am sure they will find their way here when we get a heavier snow.

I hadn't seen many cardinals since last winter, but today I saw five females and two males, (at one time).

I'm so glad they came back! Not seeing cardinals during the winter would make me very sad indeed.

Once again this year I set up the swing frame as my feeding station. I wrapped it with fake greenery and also some branches from real Christmas trees.

It is next to the patio so the birds come right up to the house. From the warmth of my kitchen, I can stand at the sliding glass doors or sit at the table and take pictures and read. The pictures aren't as crisp since they are taken through the double pane glass door, but I'll take that trade off, especially on frigid days like today!

I only put a handful of peanuts out for the blue jays every day. I wait until they come to the house and start making a racket for their food, otherwise the sparrows eat them and I can't afford to feed peanuts to the house sparrows too.

It is pretty funny watching the blue jays when the peanuts are gone! They look so perplexed and they hang around all day hoping for more.

I am a little late but I wanted to wish you all a very....

A Christmas Miracle Part 3

With these new leads and a possible location, Robin began scouring the internet for contact information. With each name found, she would go to Facebook and search. Many hours were spent trying to find some connection to them. Finally, on December 18, on a people search site, she found someone with another brother's name, N.M.  The site listed several family member's names along with his. Thankfully, one of them had a Facebook account that was easily accessible. A quick scan through the "Friends" list revealed a K.M, the very same K.from the My Space pictures!

Robin sent the Facebook link to Diane. Overwhelmed with so many emotions, Diane sent a private message to K. After not getting a response and determined not to lose this opportunity, she took the risky chance of posting a few pictures on his wall.



One of those, was a picture of three little boys. The picture of him with his older brothers was familiar, and removed some of the doubt he had. He sent a response to Diane and they arranged a phone call. For the first time in her life, at 52 years of age, she spoke to her brother. As soon as that conversation ended there was a flurry of activity on Facebook with family connecting for the very first time.

Robin had to wait a couple of days to make her call because all she could do was cry every time she thought about talking to her brother. How wonderful it was for her to finally hear his voice and talk to him after all of these years. Emotions are still very raw and conversations with the other two brother's are waiting to be had, (they don't do Facebook). It will happen in time. There is so much for them to process.

This is where the story gets even more complicated because it is not mine to tell. So it must be told with great care out of respect for the brothers, their mother and the new relationships. (The fact that I am not a story teller or writer also complicates the matter greatly.)

K. was quite stunned to get this message from Diane and he was very confused! For you see, they had never known anything about their father or his whereabouts, the M. family or the name they carry, least of all, the fact that they had three older siblings. That thought had never crossed their minds. Their mother had refused to speak a word to them about it.

It has been shared that these boys grew up longing to know their father. They had a very difficult childhood and many are the emotional wounds they bear. It seems that they have gone to great lengths searching for their dad, and like the searches for them, they always came up empty handed. The impenetrable secrecy and unanswered questions have haunted them their entire lives.

From the responses read and heard, it is known that many prayers have been prayed over the years, both for them and by them, for answers to their many questions so that their hearts could be healed from the scars and wounds of childhood.

While the members of the M. family are thrilled that K, N, and A  have finally been found, the real Christmas miracle is theirs. It is not by chance that these boys have never been forgotten or that family felt compelled to find them. No, they needed desperately to be found, and to be told that they had family all of these years that loved them and had searched for them! They needed to know that they were never forgotten.They needed to know about their dad and they needed closure and healing.

To be found was a "Christmas Miracle" indeed!

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Thank you all for reading this and for your comments. It has been a very emotional few days. I wasn't sure how to write this story so that you could keep the people involved straight. I also needed to make it less personal as it was emotionally draining to do this.

We are so thankful for this opportunity to get to know our brothers and their families. Plans are already being made to see each other face to face. My brother Mike is very sick with his cancer and treatments and our three brothers are very anxious to meet him and offer him encouragement. If I can't make it down to Alabama when they go, they plan to come here to see me on their way back to New York. I look forward to seeing them face to face!.

While our parents, (whom we all love dearly),  made some very bad choices that hurt us deeply as children and even as adults. We are moving forward and, with God's help, we will allow good to come from their mistakes.Uniting this family somehow rights at least part of the wrongs.

Thank you for reading our story!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!