Be Encouraged

 

A Day in the Park

 I should warn you that this post is going to be mostly pictures from our day at our favorite state park...Cathedral State Park.  It's about an hour away from our home.  It is the home of one of the largest stands of virgin Hemlocks in West Virginia.  I love going to this park and just hiking one of the trails.  Walking into this forest truly melts away any stress.

Gone-All-Day-Stew

 When our children were younger there was a recipe that I made quite often.  I'd forgotten about it until just recently when I was going through my recipe box.  The original recipe came from Taste of Home magazine, I believe.  I made this on Saturday of last week for us to enjoy over the weekend.  It was just as good as ever, so thought I would share the recipe with you.

Gone-All-Day-Stew

1 can tomato soup, undiluted

1 cup water or red wine

1/4 cup all-purpose flour (I used King Arthur's 1 for 1 gluten free flour and it worked fine)

2 pounds beef chuck, fat trimmed, cut in 1-inch to 2-inch cubes

3 medium carrots, cut in 1-inch diagonal slices

6 white boiling onions or yellow onions quartered

4 medium potatoes, cut in 1-1/2-inch chunks

1/2 cup 1-inch celery chunks

12 whole large fresh mushrooms

2 beef bouillon cubes

1 Tablespoon Italian her seasoning or 1 teaspoon each oregano, thyme, and rosemary

1 bay leaf

3 grinds fresh pepper

Mix together soup, water/wine, and flour until smooth; combine with remaining ingredients in covered roasting pan.  Bake at 275 degrees F for 4-5 hours.  

I would recommend that sometime around three hours you check to make sure that there is enough liquid still in the roaster to keep everything from sticking.  

Kindness ...

 is showing up everywhere...

in books..."I don't know what other people think-but I know what I think," my mother replied.  "I think everyone needs to be kind-especially doctors.  You can be a very great doctor and still be kind. That's partly why I like Dr. O'Reilly so much more than the first oncologist I saw-not because she's a woman but because she's kind."

"But you always taught us that sometimes people aren't nice because they aren't happy."

"Yes, but maybe those people shouldn't be looking after other people.  And I'm also talking about kindness, not just being nice.  You can be gruff or abrupt and still be kind.  Kindness has much more to do with what you do than how you do it.  And that's why I didn't have much sympathy for Hanna's mother in People of the Book.  She was a doctor and a mother, and she wasn't kind."  This was part of a conversation between a mother (who is undergoing chemo for her cancer treatment) and her adult son in the book The End of Your Life Book Club...page 110.  I enjoyed this so much because of this post that I did last week...it fit right in.  

And kindness is also showing up in other places...

I found this journal a few months ago when we were out shopping one day. 

It's one of those things that you know was placed there just for you.

It's now my place for keeping special quotes.

From My Journal

 TODAY IS: September 9, 2024

AROUND ME: The high for today is expected to be 76 degrees with hazy sunshine.  We've been enjoying those beautiful early foggy mornings.  I just love those kinds of beginnings to a day!

I AM PONDERING: "When your dreams are vague, it's easy to rationalize exceptions all day long and never get around to the specific things you need to do to succeed." James Clear

AMONG MY FAVORITE THINGS:  

BOOKS I AM CURRENTLY ENJOYING:  

  Refreshment for the Soul is a collection of Richard Sibbes thoughts on different topics and is compiled as a devotional.  So, it will be an ongoing reading throughout this year.

The Soul's Conflict by Richard Sibbes

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

I AM THANKFUL FOR: Our grandchildren who call us and stay in touch even though they are all grown up.  Our "baby" of the lot started college last month!  But she still calls "just to check to see how you and Pop Pop are doing, Grandma".  Our grandson called yesterday afternoon on his way home after church and doing some shopping.  

I'm also thankful for our church and our pastor who preaches the truth of the Gospel.  Also thankful for our church family.

FROM THE KITCHEN:  I don't have a picture, but we finished up the grape juice production this past week with four more quarts of juice, for a total of 20 quarts for the winter when the snow starts to fly!

SOMETHING I REALLY ENJOY: 

We took the day off on Friday and went to visit one of our favorite state parks.  This is from the trail that we hiked.  After our hike, we sat at one of the picnic tables and ate our picnic lunch. Such a lovely day.

TO DO LIST FOR TODAY:  Making red raspberry juice with the fruit steamer so I can have it for jelly making a bit later this autumn.

"So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom."

Psalm 91:12

Be Encouraged

 

Is Kindness Simply Being Nice?

 A comment on last week's post that I did on Kindness gave me food for thought.  I decided to explore the subject a bit more, as it is my One Word this year of 2024.

Barbara mentioned that as a Christian kindness should be a hallmark of our interactions.  While I totally agree with her it also caused me to wonder about something.

Is interacting with others with kindness merely something that we do or is it who we are as human beings? 

Could it be that kindness is simply being nice?  

While I know my friend Barbara well enough to know she was saying that as Christians kindness should be who we are, I wanted to compare the meaning of the words kindness and nice.  You know, just for the fun of it because I'm curious like that.

Webster's Dictionary defines kindness as, "the quality or state of being kind".  It also listed some synonyms for it as, "service, courtesy, indulgence", but it continued on with some other surprising synonyms such as, "grace, privilege, blessing, mercy, benevolence".  I enjoyed that because it definitely backs up the idea that as Christians these last five synonyms speak of God's lovingkindness to us that we might pass them on to others.  It really is the core of Barbara's statement that kindness should be the hallmark of our interactions with others!  

Finding that just spurred me on to see what Webster's had to say about nice.  This is what I found, "polite, kind, pleasing agreeable, appropriate, fitting".  Synonyms listed for nice included "polite, satisfactory, proper, acceptable, respectable, decent".  

In my way of viewing the two definitions, especially when looking at their synonyms, kindness (or kind) is the root of who we are as Christians, while being nice is what we do as a result of who we are. 

 It's the whole being versus doing scenario in a very good way.  They compliment each other ~ we do because of who we are.

What are YOUR thoughts?  Please leave them in the comments!  I'd love to hear!

Chewy Granola Bars with Coconut Oil

 

CHEWY GRANOLA BARS WITH COCONUT OIL

2/3 cup coconut oil

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup honey or maple syrup

2 1/2 cups Old Fashioned Oats

1 1/2 cups Rice Krispies

1 1/2 cups mix-ins such as dried fruit and coconut

1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Melt oil and 1 cup chocolate chips together, remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and honey or maple syrup.  

Mix together dry ingredients and then combine with liquid.

Line a 9 x 13 pan with parchment paper.

Press into pan.  Top with mini chocolate chips and press down.

Refrigerate for 2+ hours.

Cut into bars and store in fridge.

SIDE NOTE:  After cutting these into bars, I wrapped each one individually before placing them in Ziplock bags and putting them in the fridge.  I had heard that these could be a little messy because of the chocolate but by wrapping them individually, we just used the "wrapper" to protect our fingers from the sticky.

Where Do You Live?

 Do you live in a rural area or do you live in or near a college town? 

 Perhaps you are one who dwells in a large metro area and enjoys the big city living?

Have you considered how where you live affects your daily life?

The lives of your family?

I live in a rural area, one county over from a college town, about 30 minutes away.

I actually grew up on a dairy farm outside of this college town.

It is still the same now as it was then in the respect that the University provides many jobs for people in several counties surrounding the college town.

Its students also provide income for the businesses in that town, so it benefits the local economy.

I am curious.

If you live in a college town, are academics or sports what you hear the most about?

I am curious.

And the reason I am curious is because of an incident that happened just last week in regards to an event that was happening in the college town.

It's the University's biggest rival and is often referred to as a "backyard brawl".

The big game was played on Labor Day weekend.

News articles were reporting that hotel rooms were sold out long ago and the few that still remained were charging $500 a night.

I realize sports plays an important role in college life.

I honestly get that.

But what I don't get is this...

All schools in the county where the University is located were closed on Friday before Saturday's big game because of all the anticipated overflow of traffic!

So because of one college football game academia was put on hold.

It disturbs me.

What are your thoughts...especially if live in or near a college town?

Is this the "norm" now?

Please let me know in the comments.

From My Journal

 TODAY IS: September 2, 2024

AROUND ME: Birds and crickets are chirping,  and we have a week of temperatures in the 70s forecast!  My kind of weather!  Autumn loving friends, it is definitely coming! 

I AM PONDERING: how just very small and simple changes that we make can have such a huge impact on realizing our goals.  I'm amazed.

AMONG MY FAVORITE THINGS:  

Memories made with this man.

BOOKS I AM CURRENTLY ENJOYING:  

  Refreshment for the Soul is a collection of Richard Sibbes thoughts on different topics and is compiled as a devotional.  So, it will be an ongoing reading throughout this year.

The Soul's Conflict  by Richard Sibbes

I AM THANKFUL FOR: the closeness we share with our adult children and their spouses.  Even though neither of them live close to us they are faithful in their care of us.

FROM THE KITCHEN:  

The yummiest of granola bars.

And, yes, even more so than the ones I made a few weeks ago!

SOMETHING I REALLY ENJOY: 

Stuffed Peppers!

TO DO LIST FOR TODAY:  Making more grape juice!

"So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom."

Psalm 91:12