Through Jesus We Can Live For Eternity

The Lord has been working in my life in many ways and – in the past year – has blessed me with more health and enjoyment of life than I would ever have thought possible. Out of these blessings (of feeling up to doing things again), He has brought many new friends. I am very happy to say that at the end of this past March one of my dear friends and I entered into courtship.

Courtship is not engagement or betrothal, but simply the time wherein two friends commit – not to each other – but to seeking the Lord’s will regarding their relationship with each other. There is more openness and trust, but no more physical benefits than a close friendship. A successful courtship is one that determines God’s will for the relationship.

Needless to say, this is a very exciting development, and I am enjoying the journey of getting to know this man better. Please do pray for us and our families – that God would bless us with wisdom and strength to do His will and that we would bring Him honor and glory through this relationship.

I appreciate your prayers!

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Well, Bee Season is drawing to an end… Soon it will be time to clean bugs again, pack ‘em up and send ‘em out.

Does anyone have a clue of where I could edit the html of my template on here?

Emil (2/27/98 – 4/3/10) went to be with our Lord on April 3rd. While we are very sad, we ‘do not grieve as those who have no hope’, and we enjoyed celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and the reassurance that we will see Emil again in Paradise. Thank you to everyone for your prayers.

Please pray for my 12 year old cousin. He has down syndrome and was recently diagnosed with leukemia. Please keep him and his family in prayer.

 Since I haven’t posted about cooking in a while, I’ve decided do a quick post with pictures and a recipe. (let’s see if we can get your mouth watering… or your stomach growling.)

 Last night I made "Potato Poppets" (if you want to know why they’re called that, look up ‘poppet valve’… they are a similar shape).  Now they may sound a little strange, but believe me, they taste GREAT!!! (Even if I do say so myself.) I made them up, but I did get the idea from one recipe (stuffed potatoes) and the seasoning from another recipe (skillet chicken).

 Ok, now I just kind of threw this together (of course it took about an hour, but you know what I mean), so I’m not sure as to the exact amounts, but here is the basic idea.

6 to 14 potatoes (I only stuffed 10 or so, but I ended up with a ton of stuffing left… so it kind of depends on what size potatoes you’re using)
 
 2 lbs of ground turkey/beef
1 head of broccoli
6 carrots (or 1 bag of baby carrots)
1 handful green beans
1 pkg frozen peas
1-1/4 cups of water
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 tsp dried oregano

First make baked potatoes (wash the potatoes, stab them with a fork a couple of times, and bake them at 425* for 45 min-1hour) While the potatoes are baking, cook/brown the ground meat in a large frying pan. When the meat is cooking, cut up the broccoli, carrots, and green beans. When the meat is thoroughly cooked, mix the soy sauce, water, and oregano and pour into the pan over the meat and put the vegetables on top.
bring the liquid to a boil and then cover the pan and simmer until the veggies are cooked the way you like them (Amy likes her broccoli cooked till it’s ‘dead’, and I like my broccoli steamed… just depends on what you like).
 By this time the potatoes should be ready, so you take them out of the oven and let them cool for a minute if you have time. (If you don’t, just use a pot holder so you don’t burn your hands) Now put the potatoes on a cookie sheet and cut a hole in the top of the potato with a sharp knife.
When you’ve got the hole in each of them, take a spoon and hollow out the potatoes, putting the extra potato in a separate bowl (Also scoop off the ‘lid’ so that it’s more flat on the bottom).

 Next, take the bowl of potato ‘filling’, add a couple tbsp of butter and mash it all up.
When you’re done it should look more like mashed potatoes than scooped out potato filling.

By now the meat&veggies should be done, so pour on the peas and mix it all up.

Now turn off the pan and scoop the mixture into the hollow of each potato.
Put the mashed potato filling on top of that (don’t feel like you have to use up the meat or the mashed up potatoes… you can eat the left over or for seconds)
put on the cute little caps (optional, though this is what makes them a ‘poppet’ instead of just ‘stuffed’), and stick them in the oven at 425* for 20 minutes.


 While they’re going, you can cut up, cook, steam, or whatever some fresh veggies and mix up some buscuits to go with the Potato Poppets.





And while you’re waiting you might just want to take a picture of yourself.
 Isn’t that apron Amy made for me just great?! I LOVE it.
 
 Then, finally when the 20 min timer goes off it’s time to eat. Enjoy!

 For a variation you could leave off the ‘poppet’ top and put cheese over it instead before putting it back in the oven, or you could make mashed potatoes instead of baked and serve the meat over top of them.
 This is a good recipe for a cool day.

Hungry?