Monthly Archives: June 2018

Much Accomplished in Spite of Circumstances

Although this week did not start out the best, I had my sciatic nerve act up on me, which is a first for me; seriously, I could have gone my entire life and not experienced it and have not feel deprived at all. :D Thankfully Michael doesn’t let these kinds of things go without him trying to find some kind of help online. Well, he did. He found a couple of videos on youtube that addressed it. One I can do myself and it is really helps. Of course it means I have to get down on the floor to do it but it really helps. :)

Because of said pain, I did not do a whole lot of moving the first part of the week. That might have compounded the problem but whatever. At any rate, by the middle of the week I knew I had to buck up and get some baking done. We’d been out of low carb bread for a while and it was high time I made some. So I made a loaf of the Wonderful White Blender Bread from the Trim Healthy Table cookbook. I made it using my Kitchenaid mixer instead of my blender because although my Vitamix is amazing, I have not figured out how to make this bread successfully in it. :\  But whipping the egg whites in my kitchenaid with the wire whisk works like a charm and I have many less fallen loaves.WWBB ~ Lifeofjoy.meI made a double recipe of the Peanut Butter Bust-A-Myth Banana Cake (a.k.a. BAM) and baked it in my largest casserole dish, I think it is like 10″x14″ or so. It looked beautiful!!! And about 15-30 minutes later, it deflated. :( But I’m sure it will taste just fine, even if it isn’t the prettiest. AND we’ll have a nice E (energizing, healthy carbs) snack or dessert available.

PJ BAM ~ Lifeofjoy.meThat is only half of it. I’m freezing it because we don’t need it until next week. :)

That was Wednesday’s adventure. Then yesterday I worked on my grocery list for quite a while. I should have started the baking earlier in the cooler part of the day but my head was really wanting to figure out the grocery list.

Michael is working outside in the horrible heat this week and ended up getting a gatorade because the air conditioning in his work van is broken once again. Well, that did not sit well with him, so I set out yesterday bright and early to figure out what I could fix him that would be as good or better than the gatorade . . . Singing Canary for the win. I used Baobab powder for the suggested vitamin C needed.

If you are not familiar with the Singing Canary from the Trim Healthy Mama cookbook, it is a jolt of adrenal nourishing rehydration. It is made with a full lemon for a half gallon container. I had not made this drink before so it took me a little longer to get it done than either of us would have liked but in the end, he left with a thermos full of wonderful hydration. :)

In order to make future batches quicker to produce, I set out to prep the remaining dozen lemons. This included  cutting off the outer most layer of the lemon rind and leaving as much of the white pith as possible. Then I proceeded to cut it into quarters and remove the seeds. Painful business when you have some sores on your fingers/hands. But my baby’s worth it. ;)

Cut lemons ~ Lifeofjoy.meThat’s enough for two and a half gallons of singing canary. Now I just need to prep a few batches of all the other ingredients that go in it, to make it really quick and easy. But that’s a job for another day. :)

I’ve rambled enough for today. I’ll pick up here next time because I baked even more things. To say I am sore, is an understatement. :D

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Summer Fun Ideas

Summer Fun Links ~ Lifeofjoy.meSome time ago I came across this webpage on the Dating Divas site. They have a lot of cool things there if you have never visited their site. Usually I go there for marriage ideas but some of them are moms too and provide some ideas to do with kids too.

Here they have 50 things to do with kids. They have all kinds of ideas including indoor and outdoor activities from scavenger hunts to pajama night to “paint slip-and-slide” and much more. In true dating diva fashion, some ideas even include free printables. :

In case that isn’t enough, here is a list of 101 things to do this summer. This list has a good variety of suggestions with many that are more on the tame side. ;) There are suggestions from “Take a Hike” to “Cloud Watching” or “Stargazing” and “Plant a garden” to “Make Homemade Cards.” There really are a lot of great ideas. You could print of the page and have the kids highlight/check off the items as they do them. With 101 suggestions, it will take a little while. :)

Need even more ideas? Here’s a list of 50 free or cheap things to do this summer. And if you and your kids are still bored or in need of suggestions, me thinks you’re too picky :D but you can find so many more ideas on pinterest.

I hope you and your family will have fun making memories this summer. Read some books, make some food, spend time outside, and be sure to get in some cuddles. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Watercolor Soul Star

I seem to really love Soul Star even though I don’t really do it justice. :D I like it almost as much as I did Cadent and Paradox when I first started tangling back in 2009. It seems that it is what comes to mind quickly and I am enjoying drawing.

This week I got some new art supplies but I’ll share about that next week. One of my new purchases was some watercolor pencils and I’ve been wanting to try them out.

So all I did was tangle Soul Star largely on my tile. Here is the lineart.

Soul Star ~ Lifeofjoy.meYeah, I know, the lineart is not that great. ;) I’m always so thankful for shading. This time I tried my hand at some color. If you remember last week I added just a bit of color. I added a bit more this time around because I had watercolor pencils. :)

So here it is colored.

Soul Star Colored ~ Lifeofjoy.meHere’s what’s up. I like blues and purples right now. Then I remembered that you should use a color opposite on the color wheel for contrasting. Orange is opposite blue, so I attempted to put orange in the middle but my orange was more yellow than orange. So then I got out some pearly watercolors and added a dab on each orb (I’m thinking I’ll make some large orbs next time I use this tangle–if I remember) and add some in the middle.

Then I went back and used graphite to shade the sections I left white and the one side of the “spokes.” All in all, I like how it turned out, especially for my first use of these supplies.

Here are some pictures I took; I didn’t get natural lighting because it was dark out by the time I finally got this done and that’s saying something considering it’s summer and it stays light so late now.

Watercolored Soul Star ~ Lifeofjoy.meSoul Star ~ lifeofjoy.meSoul Star Tile ~ Lifeofjoy.meSo, what tips do you have for me? Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your kind comments.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Warm Veggie Salad and Roased Okra ~ Lifeofjoy.me

Warm Veggie Salad

Okay, I am probably going to mess with some of your thoughts on salad here, so hold on to your hat. ;) The first time I was introduced to having warm foods on my salad was when I ate in my cousin’s restaurant, where I had Steak and Fries Salad. I loved it soooo much I recreated it at home using chicken since my hubby cannot eat beef right now.

That experience opened up a whole realm of possibilities to me. There was something about adding French fries to a salad that unlocked my salad eating, although I must admit, it wasn’t completely unlocked until the last couple of years or so.

I’ve realized that you can sauté or otherwise cook almost anything and add it to a salad. You are only limited by the items you have on hand. ;)

Today I’m going to share the salad Tiffany and I had for lunch yesterday. We started by putting some cut okra in the toaster oven to roast. Then proceeded to sauté some cauliflower and broccoli for Tiffany (I’m currently cutting back on cruciferous veggies so I didn’t have any).

Cruciferous ~ Lifeofjoy.meWe also sautéed some onions, mushrooms, and radishes for us both, as well as some squash for me.

sauté squash ~ Lifeofjoy.meThe we added some ground beef for our meat choice and cooked it with the onions, mushrooms, and radishes.

Meat and veggies  ~ Lifeofjoy.meWhile that was all cooking away we tore some lettuce leaves. We used some green leaf and some baby artisan lettuces from Aldi this time.  We added some diced colored peppers and some shredded carrot.

Lettuce and Peppers ~ Lifeofjoy.meLettuce carrot peppers ~ Lifeofjoy.meWhen the veggies and meat were cooked to our liking, we added them to the salad.

Warm Veggie Salad ~ Lifeofjoy.meWe could have added the okra too it but we decided we wanted to enjoy that on the side. (For the record, before THM I did not like okra. It’s pretty good roasted and sprinkled with nutritional yeast.)

Roasted Okra ~ Lifeofjoy.meWarm Veggie Salad ~ Lifeofjoy.me

There really isn’t a recipe to write down. Cook veggies to your liking and add them to what cold veggies you want. Tiffany and I have also added cooked salmon to a salad like this. Yum!

Oh! Don’t forget the salt and pepper! It’s the key to a good salad.

Until next time, God bless,

 Michele ºÜº

Showing Compassion in the Little Things

Caring ~ Lifeofjoy.meFrom time to time, Michael has had soreness or pain. Thankfully I have been relatively free of pain (with the exception of my menses in years past).

Recently I have had some pains surface in my body. One is a pain in my wrist that travels up my arm. Michael had a similar pain within the last year. I think I rubbed it some and prayed for him, and tried to offer what supplements we had on hand that might help. But with my recent pain, I realized that I may not have been as sympathetic and considerate as I might should have been.

I have found that it is always a good idea to ask yourself what you would appreciate if you were in a similar situation. I really like the practice of asking people to rate their pain level from 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst. It helps give perspective into how the person is coping with the pain. I have a tendency to rate my pain lower because I compare it to something horrific rather than just how bearable the pain is for me at the moment.

I guess what I’m learning is to try to be more mindful when he says he has some pain and show more compassion or concern. We tend to minimize things like that around here. This was not always the case. ;) For those who might be concerned for us, we do have a doctor we go to when pains persist or we are unable to get things controlled.

My point is that I’m finding out that I probably could be a bit more compassionate and sympathetic to the one I love most on this earth. Sometimes we get caught up in all we have to do and don’t put forth the extra effort to do nice things for each other. I’m hoping I’ll remember this and be more considerate in the future. ;)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Flower Update

I thought I’d give a bit of an update on my flowers. :) I especially love flowers that come up without any work from me. :)

Here are my sunflowers. I love that some of them are red and some are a mix.

Bee on Sunflower ~ Lifeofjoy.meSee the bee? I love catching interesting photos like that. :)

Here you can see one of the blossoms blooming and then there is another bud beside it. If you look down a bit lower you can see one that doesn’t have much red in it at all.

Unfurling sunflower and bud ~ Lifeofjoy.meHere you can see how these self-planted (or maybe bird planted) sunflowers really desired to live in spite of their shallow planting.

self-planted sunflowers ~ Lifeofjoy.meYou can also see how the “grass” is encroaching on the flower bed. We’ve had a bit of rain, which the flowers are enjoying, but my right wrist/hand/arm is challenging me right now and I cannot get rid of the weeds and such. I am afraid I may end up with one of those “natural” looking flower beds again this year and I really don’t want that. So, we’ll see.

As you can see in that last picture, my marigolds are doing well. My lovely vincas are too.

Pink vincas ~ Lifeofjoy.meThe white ones are doing well too. And you can see my ?mini coleus? are doing well too, in spite of the pesky “grass.”

white vincas ~ Lifeofjoy.meMy new rose bush is doing pretty good too.

Yellow Roses ~ Lifeofjoy.meJust look at that flower!

Yellow Rose ~ Lifeofjoy.meSo pretty!

Unfortunately my lilies did not bloom this year. :(

Not Lilies ~ Lifeofjoy.meBut there is something growing next to them, other than the weeds. ;) I’m not sure what it is right now.

Unknown Plant ~ Lifeofjoy.meYes, that is the plant steak there. I just forget what it says. :D And that is Darcy. I’m not sure what he was waiting for.  (hee hee)

Here was a pleasant surprise . . .

Pretty Pink Flower ~ Lifeofjoy.meI’m not sure what it is but it is one that we planted last year and reseeded itself! Love that!!!! As you can see, it won’t be a lonesome flower. It has some other stalks coming up too.

Pretty Pink Flower 2 ~ Lifeofjoy.me

I saw a hummingbird at the mimosa tree this week but by the time I got the telephoto lens on, it was gone. But I did catch some butterflies in action. :)

Butterfly & Mimosa ~ Lifeofjoy.meMimosa & Butterfly ~ Lifeofjoy.meButterfly Mimosa ~ Lifeofjoy.me

Well, that’s my flowers. :) I hope you liked the update. If you know what that pretty flower is, let me know in the comments.

Until next time, God bless,

 Michele ºÜº

Civics

Vote ~ lifeojoy.meThis coming week is the primary elections in Oklahoma. I don’t generally vote in the primaries. In order to vote in the primaries you must be registered for a specific party. The reason for this is so that people from the other party can’t get the weaker candidate on the ballot to oppose their candidate. If you want to see if your state is having primaries this year, you can check this webpage.

It is important to teach your children about civics and their responsibilities as a citizen of this country. In Oklahoma it is one of the few requirements we have for educating our children. One way we teach children about civics (and really most everything) is by what we do. If we spend time researching which candidate to vote for and go vote, we show our children that we place importance on it.

If you are looking for a curriculum to teach your children about our government and how it works, the HSLDA has some good information on teaching civics here.

I hope this is helpful to you and reminds you to check into your state’s upcoming elections.

Until next time, God bless,

 Michele ºÜº

 

 

Fun Font

I started a tile a few days ago and got caught up doing other things and did not get back around to it. I went to pull it out today and it had gotten a big oil stain on it. :( Won’t be finishing that tile.

My wrist has been bothering me a bit, so I don’t exactly feel like drawing much right now.

I found this font on pinterest and love it! I’ve used it a lot. I used it on a Father’s Day card to my hubby last week. (I did it on white card stock but it didn’t show up very good, so I colored the background so you could see it here better.)

I used a glitter pen and it looks really nice in real life. :)

I went outside and took a picture of it in the sun this morning. :)

Glittery Father's Day Card ~ Lifeofjoy.meGlittery Card ~ lifeofjoy.meYeah, it doesn’t show up very good but Michael liked it. ;)

I love the curls and the fat lines.

I found the font on pinterest. I only wish the lower case letters were shown too.

Journaling Addict FontHere’s the link to journaling addict, who is the source of this photo. I really appreciate that this picture is online because I’ve enjoyed creating things with this lettering style.

Well, that’s it for today. I hope you have a good one.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Slice Zucchini Chocolate Cake ~ lifeofjoy.me

Mostess Bundt Cake

Think Hostess cream filled cupcakes but bigger. :)

So, I took the Mostess Cupcake recipe from the Trim Healthy Table cookbook page 395, doubled it, and baked it in a fluted pan.

Mostess Bundt Cake ~ Lifeofjoy.meThe reason I doubled it is because it makes twelve cupcakes and I know that a usual cake batter that can be baked as cupcakes, bundt cake, or two layer cake makes 24 cupcakes, so I figured it would be a very short bundt cake. Doubling it made it the right height. :)

I made the cake one day and then the next day I made the cream filling and ganache, combined it and refrigerated it to eat the next day. It was scrumptious! :)

Inject Cream in Cake ~ Lifeofjoy.meI shared a video about filling it with the cream on my instagram account on Saturday. The next picture shows the injector I used. It was a cheap one but it has a tip that allows you to inject the cream in the cake without removing any cake bits. :) Then it has other tips for decorating.

Cream blobs on top ~ Lifeofjoy.meTiffany’s is better but we couldn’t find hers. They can be found rather inexpensively. We found her nice one for $2 at TJMaxx, I think. Mine was a little bit more at Walmart. Mine holds more cream but isn’t all that great. ;)

Every time I make the ganache, it is too thin and I have to add more chocolate chips. It thickens nicely at first but it is like I pour it the cream too slowly and it gets too warm to thicken after that. Hmmm, I may be on to something here . . . I do mine in a double boiler . . . maybe I need to turn the burner off when I add the cream so it doesn’t get too warm.

Well, anyway, just be aware that you may need to add more chocolate chips or not add all of the cream but it is worth the effort. :)

Mostess Bundt Cake ~ lfieofjoy.meCut Mostess Cake ~ Lifeojfoy.meSince my ganache is so thin, it makes a bit of a mess. ;) But we eat it anyway. :)

Slice Zucchini Chocolate Cake ~ lifeofjoy.meWell, I hope you enjoyed my spin on the Mostess Cupcakes.

Until next time, God bless,

 Michele ºÜº

Fathers

Michael and I ~ Lifeofjoy.meI know I’m a day late but I didn’t want to let it pass without me saying anything. Since it is “Marriage Monday,” I just wanted to encourage you not to make your appreciation of your hubby be a once in a while thing. Men enjoy hearing that you appreciate them. Pump him up, if not on a daily basis, on a weekly one.

I’m sooo blessed to have a man who loves God with all his heart!!! I think it is probably the reason we have made it nearly 31 years together. When a person is seeking after God with his whole heart, he will naturally better himself and his marriage as he grows in God.

Michael and I may not have what the world would consider prosperity but our hope, faith, and trust is in God and we know that we have what we need for today. We are content with the things we have and trust God to take care of us as we follow and obey Him. We are just stewards over what He gives us.

Michael & Grandson ~ Lifeofjoy.meMichael and I made a choice when we started our life together that we wanted to do life together. We wanted him to be here for the kids and involved in their daily lives. We wanted me to be home with them and to educate them ourselves. We made these choices and are happy we did. Michael is just as good with our grandson as he was with our kids. When he is here, Michael gets down on the floor and plays with him and shows interest in him. It warms my heart.

I guess “loving the Lord with all his heart” was a trait I looked for in a man because that is the kind of man my daddy was. When I was young, we moved a lot but it was usually because we wanted to live closer to the church we were attending. :) We even moved nearly five hundred miles once when I was young, one of the main reasons was to go to a different church.

God and church has always been a big part of my life because of the importance my parents put on it. I remember even when my dad worked long hours and I didn’t get to see him much, he would ask me on the weekends or late in the evening when he finally got home, if I had read my Bible.

My Daddy ~ Lifeofjoy.meMy daddy always worked hard to provide for us, making our lives comfortable and enjoyable. Even after retiring he still worked hard. I think it is hard for him to realize he is now in his seventies and cannot do all the hard work he is used to doing. ;)

Daddy always believed in me! He even spent his hard-earned money to allow me to do something that I felt God wanted me to do. Not only did he have faith in me hearing God but he also helped me believe in myself, that I could do anything I put my mind to, a trait I still have today.

Thanks Daddy!!! Thank you for following God even when it was hard and for teaching me to do the same (especially by your example). I am forever grateful! Love you bunches!!!

So, I encourage you today to make a point to tell your man how much you appreciate him. Respect is not something that is earned with a husband and wife, it is something that is required of the wife. Voicing your appreciation is a good way to show respect.

Until next time, God bless,

 Michele ºÜº