Kudos To Starbucks

This is a shout-out to Starbucks and we're not even going to talk about coffee!! 

Starbucks donates its out-of-date pastries to Christian Community Action, the local food pantry here in Ruston. As volunteers, one of our first jobs in the morning is to count and record the Starbuck's donation.

When we pack a bag of food for a needy family and get to tuck in decorated cookies or cake pops for the children...well it just makes your heart swell.

Thank you, Starbucks!!

And I'm sure you've seen these signs in your local Starbucks.

YES!!!!!!

It's really not just about the coffee!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart,

but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.

~Flash Rosenberg

A morning without coffee is like sleep.

~Author Unknown

As a rule, I do not approve of messing around with coffee.

No sugar, no milk, no chocolate, hazelnuts, cinnamon, no nothing....

Just drink it black, the way God does.

~Clay Thompson

In Seattle you haven't had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine

while it's running.

~Jeff Bezos


Herbal tea tastes so much better when it's coffee.

~Author Unknown

Count Me Out

The first presidential debate is tonight and I am opting out.

I recognize the importance of this election and take my right to vote seriously, but if choosing between these candidates is like going to the dentist (painful, but necessary), then watching the debates is like going to the dentist and refusing Novocaine! Why make it worse than it already is?!

Instead, James and I are going to The Fabulous Equinox Orchestra concert at Tech.

At the end of the night we'll be happier :-)

Love ya'll,

Shelli

We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.

~Kin Hubbard

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President;

I'm beginning to believe it.

~Clarence Darrow

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country — and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. ~Charles Krauthammer

If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.

~Jay Leno

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

~Ronald Reagan

We have plenty of Confidence in this country, but we are a little short of

good men to place our Confidence in.

~Will Rogers

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

~George Jean Nathan

Sunday Schoolisms Plus #27: Reading Your Bible

Seven Benefits From Reading Your Bible

(All seven come from Psalm 119)

1. The Bible will help keep you from sin. "I have hidden your work in my hear that I might not sin against you" (verse 11).

2. The Bible will lift your burdens. "My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word" (verse28).

3. The Bible will guide your steps. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" (verse 105).

4. The Bible will bring you joy. "Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart"  (verse 111)

5. The Bible will lead you to wisdom. "The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple" (verse 130).

6. The Bible will give you peace. "Great peace have they who love your law; and nothing can make them stumble" (verse 165).

7. The Bible will being you back to God. "I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands" (verse 176).

Changes at the Creek

Things have been changes here at Turkey Creek Garden-some good and some sad.

Dolly, our bossy chicken, has gone to live in Homer with our sweet chicken friends. Their flock is larger and they have roosters, both of which should solve Dolly's bossy-lossiness!

Here she is in the truck about to be delivered to her new home. She won't even look at us......she knows she's been bad, but I was still sad to leave her.

James and I went to Bonnie and Clyde Trade Days to replace her. I REALLY wanted to get a turkey for Turkey Creek Garden, but James reminded me that the hole into my coop was too small for even a modest sized turkey...

  so we settled for a red sex-linked instead. Such a pretty bird!!

 Oh well, out with the old-in with the new!! This laissez-faire attitude I now realize is essential to chicken raising. As much as I love my hens, they're just not as permanent as dogs.

Meanwhile in the little circle garden, it was also time to let go of the summer and make way for the fall; an attitude that I am happy to adopt.

Tuesday's job was going from this......

 to this.

Most of the flowers had shot their wad for the year, but I couldn't let go of the morning glories, they make my heart sing!!

Because this garden is relatively new, I needed to condition the soil. 

 I used peat moss. I had considered using mushroom compost, but it contains some degree of fertilizer and I have been amending these beds with chicken manure tea so I was a bit afraid of additional fertilizer.

 As always I was thankful for my perfect little Honda tiller; just the right size for raised beds. Soon the soil was ready for planting. I planted Brussels sprout and broccoli transplants, but am trying everything else from seed- collards, spinach, kale, arugula, lettuce.  I did put in a bed of strawberries and am looking forward to enjoying them in the spring.

By the end of the morning I had a clean, planted garden and a full burn pile!

And speaking of changes.......

 Look who can sit up in a buggy!!!

The Olive pit!!!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

Life is change.

~Heraclitus of Ephesus

Sunday Schoolisms Plus #26: The Final Half Truth

Today we'll look at he final half truth in Adam Hamilton's book Half Truths with his summation at the end.

Love The Sinner, Hate the Sin

"Though Jesus certainly loved sinners, he never actually said, 'Love the sinner.' What he did say (and it's an important distinction) is 'Love your neighbor'."

"When 'Love the sinner' is our mantra, we've put ourselves in a position of seeing others as sinners rather than neighbors."

"If I love you more as a sinner than as my neighbor, then I am bound to focus more on your sin. I will start looking for all the things that are wrong with you. And perhaps, without intending it, I will begin thinking of our relationship like this: 'You are a sinner, but I graciously choose to love you anyway.' If that sounds a little puffed up, self-righteous, and even prideful to you, then you have perceived accurately."

"My hope is to be a Christian without being a jerk. I'd like to help people in my congregation to be Christians without being jerks. And I'd like to encourage you who are reading this book to be Christians without being jerks."

"Our job is not to convict but to love."

"The truth in 'Love the sinner, hate the sin' stops with the first word: Love." 

The following quote comes from the last paragraph of Adam's book:

" Half truths confuse, discourage, and often alienate people from God. The whole truths we've discussed give hope and encouragement and draw people to God. Let's set aside the half truths, eliminating them from our spiritual vocabulary, and in their place, let's share and live the whole truths that God doesn't cause evil but redeems it. Let's share that God helps those who cannot help themselves. Let's seek to be the people through whom God works to help people handle all that life gives them. Let's read scripture not as a divine dictation, but as the witness and reflections of God's people, influenced by the Spirit yet leaving room for questions. And let's be people whose lives and faith are defined by our willingness to love."

Happy

I love these ladies that live on the side of a garage here in Ruston.

They are just so happy!!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.

~Frederick Keonig

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.

~James Openheim

There is no way to happiness — happiness is the way.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.

~Colette

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

~Mark Twain, 1896

Blue Apron

James and I will have been married 35 years this November. That means that for 35 years I have been a lucky girl living with a man I love and admire, a man who is fun, funny, steadfast and true. He is a great dad and great granddad. But that also means that for 35 years I have been deciding what we will have for dinner.

I don't mind cooking dinner or even cleaning up afterward, but deciding what we will have for dinner is a pain in the neck and after all these years, I'm over it!! Enter Blue Apron or as we call it, Blue Bayou, because at our age your mind sort of has a mind of its own and my mind immediately replaced Blue Apron (the food service) with Blue Bayou (the water park in Baton Rouge), and when that happens at my age it is easier to just go with it. 

  
Blue Bayou (Apron) is a meal delivery service- not prepared meals, but meal ingredients. Nothing processed- all fresh. There are two meal plans, one for two people and one for four. Our plan sends us three meals for two people. We choose the meals online. There are six to choose from each week. If we don't want to receive meals on a certain week, we just cancel online for that week.

Each Friday we get this box delivered to our front door. We chose Friday as our delivery day because it fits our schedule, but you can choose the delivery day that works best for you.

The box is packed with ice packs to ensure freshness. Last Friday I was working in the garden when the FedEx guy drove up so I met him at his truck. There were a gazillion Blue Bayou boxes in there!! He told me that he delivers about 40 per day!

I remove the ingredients for our meals and store them in a plastic container in the fridge- a tip from my sister. I freeze meat, chicken, or seafood that I am not going to use immediately.
(James was telling me that a sports radio personality that he listens to was recently talking about his Blue Bayou experience and that he had really enjoyed it until they sent him rancid chicken. Then he admitted that he had let the chicken sit in his fridge for over a week. Men!)

When it is time to cook, I choose a recipe page and take its ingredients out of the container. Everything needed for the recipe is included- EVERYTHING!!! Well, that's not true, you have to use your own olive oil, salt, and pepper. Everything else is included. The recipes are easy to follow and aren't too involved. Last night bok choy was one of the ingredients and I have never cooked with it. That's one of my favorite things about Blue Bayou, the variety that it has given us after being stuck in a culinary rut.

James, who was a bit skeptical of the whole idea, has really been impressed with the meals. He has declared them tasty and ample. They are easy enough for him to prepare when I am gone to Bible study on Wednesday nights, an endeavor I believe he secretly enjoys. The three meals work perfectly for us because James plays tennis the other two nights a week and we just Lean Cuisine it those nights, then usually eat out on the weekend.

This past weekend, James and I went to New Orleans to help Katherine and Collin move into a new apartment. When we got home late Sunday, it was so nice to know that my meals for the week were planned, purchased, and waiting for me in the fridge, and I hadn't had to do a thing!! Thank you Blue Bayou!!

https://www.blueapron.com/

Love ya'll,

Shelli

If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don't.

~Michael Pollan

Sunday Schoolism Plus #25: The Fourth Half Truth

The next half truth from Adam Hamilton's book Half Truths is about the Bible. This chapter begins with a verse about where to go to the bathroom (Deuteronomy 23:12-14) to set the stage for an interesting debate about origin, circumstances, interpretation, and relevance of scripture. Here are three quotes from the book, but you REALLY need to read the whole chapter!

God Said It, I Believe, That Settles It

"I remember speaking to a Christian some years ago who said to me, 'I don't interpret scripture; I just take it all as God's word and try to live it.' I asked him, 'So you refrain from eating pork and go to church on Saturday?' To which he replied, 'Well, no, that's the Old Testament.'  'Okay, so you insist that your wife prays with her head covered, that your daughters not braid their hair, and you have no savings accounts?' He replied, 'No, those passages were about the times when the biblical authors lived, but not today.' To which I replied, 'In other words, you interpret scripture!"

"Keep in mind that Jesus was part of this rabbinical tradition. He was often pushing back against prevailing interpretations of Scripture among the rabbis of his day. You can hear this in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus repeatedly says, 'You have heard that it was said....' and then quotes a Scripture or a part of the Oral Law followed by the words 'But I say to you...'  and then offers a different interpretation of the text from the prevailing one."

"It's a half truth to say, 'God said it, I believe it, that settles it.' My version of that statement might not fit on a bumper sticker, but I believe it is more truthful: 'God influenced it. I read, study, and sometimes struggle with it. And, as I interpret it in the light of Jesus Christ, I hear God speak through it and seek to live by its words as best I can."

Carole's Hot Bacon and Swiss Dip

You lucky duck!!

You are about to receive my sister's recipe for the best appetizer dip ever!! I recently took it to a get-together of James' tennis buddies and it, as always, was a big hit!

(If you are a health nut, exit this site immediately.)

Carole's Hot Bacon and Swiss Dip

1  8oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1  cup grated Swiss cheese

2 Tbs. chopped green onion

8  slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

1/2 cup crushed Ritz crackers

Soften cream cheese. Add mayo, Swiss, and onion. Mix well. Transfer to baking dish.

Top with bacon and cracker crumbs.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until bubbly.

Serve with Ritz crackers.

How To Water Your Yard In The Heat and Drought of Late Summer When It Hasn't Really Been Hot or Dry!!

Here is our August Master Gardener article for the Ruston Daily Leader:

Forget Porgy and Bess, the words from the song Summertime by George Gershwin must have actually been written for gardeners experiencing an August with unexpected rainfall. The living really has been easy! It is such a treat to lazily linger over my morning coffee rather than rush into the yard to haul and position water hoses to administer desperately needed moisture for dying plants and trees.  If not for  two negative consequences, this wet gardening situation would be heavenly -  the devastating flooding of our south Louisiana friends, and the North Central Louisiana Master Gardeners’ decision for today’s topic to be… Watering in the Drought Conditions of Late Summer.  Hmmmm….

I considered changing topics, but decided to adopt a Zig Ziglar approach: “Expect the best, prepare for the worst.”  Let’s hope we continue to get regular rain showers through October, but let’s prepare to return to normal hot, dry late-summer conditions. Here are a few practical watering tips to keep in mind:

1. Only water when it is needed. Use a rain gauge.  You can buy rain gauges in most garden centers or find directions online for making one from a 2 liter bottle. The optimum amount of rainfall is 1 inch per week. Record your rainfall amounts on your calendar so you can keep up with it. Another way to determine if it is time to water is sticking a screwdriver into the soil. If it easily goes down about six inches, you don’t need to water. Don’t be afraid to turn your sprinkler system off!!! Leaving your sprinkler on when you have been getting plenty of rain (or worse, when it IS raining) is like leaving your car blinkers on after your have completed a turn. Seriously, people are judging you!

2. Water at the correct time. Run sprinklers early in the morning. Watering at noon is a waste due to evaporation, while watering at night promotes fungi and other diseases.  Set your sprinkler timers for 4:00-7:00 a.m.  This will give the water time to soak in before the sun comes up, yet keep the foliage from remaining wet too long. Running sprinklers in the heat of the day or after dusk is a sure sign that you didn’t pay attention to your elementary science lessons about evaporation and fungus. Seriously, people are judging you!

3. Know how much you’re watering. Measure your sprinkler’s output.  Set tuna cans or other straight sided containers in several different spots covered by your sprinkler. Determine how long it takes to put out an inch of water. Shallow, frequent watering is detrimental to your plants and grass because it encourages shallow roots. Weekly, deep watering is your goal. But don’t overwater! Overwatering promotes weed growth and diseases. If your summer water bills are $500, not only are you overwatering, but you may be single-handedly sucking the Sparta Aquifer dry!! And people are judging you!

4. Group bedding plants according to their watering needs. All plants are not created equal when it comes to water requirements! Verbena, salvia, and rosemary need less water than cannas, elephant ears, and spiderwort. If these plants are mixed together in one flower bed, it is not going to end well. Keep that in mind when planning your landscape. But even Master Gardeners forget this when lured by fabulous color combinations, so we’ll give you a pass on this one. No one will judge you!

5. Random watering thoughts. Here are some final thoughts on watering that didn’t fit into the above categories but are still worth mentioning.  When watering a tree, be sure you are watering out around the drip line, the area directly beneath the edge of the tree’s limbs.  Grass goes dormant when affected by drought and will bounce back to life with the next rain; don’t panic. Try not to wet a plant’s leaves when watering; this promotes so many diseases.  And last, invest in drip hoses; they are much better than overhead watering.

Well, who knows what the next two months may bring! We still have rain in the forecast so we will hope for the best, but we may be glad we’ve prepared for the worst.

Sunday Schoolisms Plus #24: The Third Half Truth

The third half truth from Adam Hamilton's book, Half Truths, is one that most of us have said or heard before. And although this statement could be encouraging when trying to overcome temptation in your life, I can see how it could be detrimental when someone is dealing with death, illness, or other tragedies.

The book does an excellent job of systematically laying out a new thought process where this half truth is concerned. Buy the book for more in depth explanation, but until then here are a few direct quotes from Adam:

God won't give you more than you can handle

"Like many spiritual half truths, this one has some scriptural basis. People usually cite

1 Corinthians 10:13 as the source for this data...."

"And so the context for this verse in 1 Corinthians is self-discipline in the face of temptation with the hope of avoiding sin..."

"God is not tempted by any form of evil, nor does he tempt anyone" (James 1:13).

"Surely we lead ourselves into temptation."

"The problem isn't that God fails to provide a way out of temptation; it's that when a way appears, we usually don't pursue it."

"So the first problem with the idea that God won't give us more than we can handle is that, in my view, God doesn't give us bad things to handle."

"Those things are not part of God's perfect plan. They are not sent by God. But they are part of the human experience."

"I trust that when bad things happen during the course of life, God will sustain me, walk with me, hold me near, comfort and care for me."