Interesting comparison today on Janet’s blog involving Blue Jeans.
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A Day Without Laughter Is A Day Wasted
9 JanFrom my Heart
Louise Gibson
Stressed? Try Humor!
Laughter is good medicine.
You can’t laugh and feel bad at the same time.
Remember, a good sense of humor
prevents hardening of the attitudes.
And attitude is the result of reasoning and rhyme
Bad things happen to everyone.
That is a fact of life.
But experience has taught me-
A positive attitude chases away strife!
I have lived to a ripe old age,
and this one thing I know-
Love and reliance on God, our Savior,
will set your heart aglow..
Use humor to cope with illness.
” Live each day as if it was the last day of your life:
one day you will be right.;” (anonymous)
” Life does not cease to be funny when people die
any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh,”
George Bernard Shaw
Painting by DiVoran Lites
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Making Biscuits
8 JanOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
For many years the first stop on our family vacation was at my mother’s house. She lived a few blocks away and on the route to I-95. Mom would get up early to fry sausage patties and bake homemade biscuits for us to take with us. Most of the time, she would bring them to us at the car so we didn’t lose time loading and unloading the kids (you KNOW the havoc that creates!) A good question to ask now is why didn’t I make the biscuits? Well, there is a story to that. You see, my mother taught me how to cook full dinners with everything being ready to serve up at the same time. She taught me how to bake cakes. She tried to teach me how to make biscuits, but I was hopeless. My biscuits could have been deemed lethal weapons. They were so hard a chicken wouldn’t eat them.
Finally, she forbade me from trying to make biscuits, the cost of flour and buttermilk was too expensive. Fast forward fifty years and I came across a recipe on Janet’s Appalachian Kitchen Facebook page for homemade biscuits made the way my mother made them. I decided to give it another try, with a twist. In the past, I could mix the biscuits fine but kneading them was my downfall. My daughter Rebekah has the knack for kneading so I would work with her to make them. Finally mother’s biscuits would be back on the family table. The first batch was edible but not soft and flaky. It seems Rebekah doesn’t have the knack for mixing. Round two we used our stand mixer with a dough hook to mix the dough into a ball, then we turned it out on a floured mat and Rebekah gave it a knead. To make biscuits like my mom, the dough is molded into a log roll, then each biscuit is pinched off, placed on the biscuit pan and pressed down with the back of three fingers. These turned out delicious! We ate them for dinner the night before our road trip to Florida and guess what? We cooked sausage the next morning and had sausage and biscuit for the trip. Biscuits are back!
Unfortunately we didn’t take a picture of ours.
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My Colonial States~Trip Part 8
7 JanA Slice of Life
Bill Lites
As I headed south again, I passed thru Poughkeepsie, NY, Morristown, NJ and on across the border to the America on Wheels Museum in Allentown, PA which is a museum of all types of “Over the Road Transportation” vehicles that have been beautifully restored and displayed.
While I was in Allentown, I visited the Zion’s United Church of Christ (formerly the Zion’s Reformed Church) which houses the Liberty Bell Museumand a replica of the original Liberty Bell. The museum contains exhibits relating to the Liberty Bell (which was hidden, along with other bells, in the church during the Revolutionary War from September 1777 to June 1778) and other interesting memorabilia pertaining to liberty, freedom, patriotism and local history.
As I walking back to my car, I came across a Mennonite Choir singing hymns on a street corner. It was a beautiful day, and their music echoed off the adjacent buildings and was a delight to hear. They were passing out gospel tracts and giving away CDs of their choir music. I had wanted to visit these museums in Allentown because my route the next day took me south again, so I did a little back-tracking a short distance to Easton, PA for dinner and the motel that night.
The next day my first stop was to visit the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles in Boyertown, PA but they were closed that day. Fortunately, the front door was unlocked and I just walked in and was surprised when a lady behind the counter said, “Since your here, I’ll turn on the lights and you can go ahead and have a look around.” I took her up on that deal, and was amazed at their wonderful collection of vintage vehicles and equipment, which included a 1920s Sun Oil Company gas station and wrecker truck and the old 1930s Reading Diner.
Only about 15 miles down the road was the Daniel Boone homestead in Birdsboro, Pa which was also closed that day, but I stopped and got as close as I could to take a couple photos. The homestead is located in the beautiful rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania just north of the French Creek State Park.
Then it was on over to the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum located at the Carl A Spaatz Field in Reading, PA where many of their over 50 aircraft are on display. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I saw a beaver scurry down and embankment and into a drain pipe. What a surprise that was! The Mid-Atlantic Air Museum is in the process of restoring a Northrop P-61B Black Widow fighter to complete flight configuration, which will make it the only flying P-61 in the world. The P-61 has always been one of my favorite WWII aircraft, ever since I attended Northrop University where I went to school to receive my BS degree in Mechanical Engineering along with an Airframe & Power Plant license. Of course, the P-61 was used as an example in many of the classroom courses of study, such as sheet metal, electronics, hydraulics and pneumatics.
—–To Be Continued—–
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Cappuccino or a day when we were very rich
6 JanThis is the post I meant to reblog. I hope you enjoyed my oops too. I was trying to work from my iPad
First time I tried cappuccino in February of 1975. I was 40 years old. We lived in Lido di Ostia and waited for American visas.
Another immigrant who somehow had a lot of money and liked to play chess with me bought cappuccino for both of us.
I was afraid to try it as in the Soviet Union I had terrible allergy each time I drank a cup of coffee. However, my partner insisted that cappuccino is very good and I must try it.
What could I do? I raised a cup, opened my mouth, took a mouthful and …fell in love. Not only this. Somehow cappuccino became for me a symbol of freedom, a symbol of Italy, of this wonderful beautiful country with very warm people.
Years passed and we visited Italy again. We took a two weeks trip from the north to the south. Every day I drank…
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Unique paintings?!
6 JanI enjoyed this delightful story. I hope you enjoy it too.
After publishing the story “ULTIMATUM” I decided to check further how my first digital paintings (made in January and February of 2014) look after processing with the kaleidoscope effect.
I want to stress one more time that before January 2014 I’ve never painted anything and I believed that I had no chance to learn how to paint.
However, I met many good artists in different countries and some of them highly valued my opinions of their art (there are still very polite and patient people).
Tonight I can proudly state that all my paintings are unique. For 80 years of my lives I produced less than 20 paintings. So I think that collectors must pay a lot for each of them.
My discovery of the painting and photo editing program with the kaleidoscope effect allowed me to produce more interesting unique paintings in seconds.
Below are kaleidoscope paintings based on…
View original post 30 more words
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The best New Year’s resolution.
3 JanMonday many of us will head back to work or school armed with our New Year Resolutions. Will they fall by the wayside of good interntions or will they thrive?
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It is Always Too Soon to Quit
2 JanFrom my Heart
Louise Gibson
Let your dream be bigger than your fear.
Hold on to your vision and persevere.
The fuel for your journey is a spark.
By perseverance the snail reached the ark.
Love always perseveres;
a force strong and true.
It motivates your best interests
and brings out the best in you.
Don’t despise the day of small things.
It is the small thing that forms the framework of our day.
Keep an attitude of gratitude
as the Lord leads you to do all things His way.
Father Jean Nicholas Grou wrote:
“Little things come daily, hourly, within our reach.,
and they are no less calculated to set forward
our growth in holiness than are the greater occasions
which occur but rarely. Moreover, fidelity in trifles, and
an earnest seeking to please God in little matters is a
test of real devotion and love. Let your aim be to please
our dear Lord perfectly in little things.”
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Angels Unaware
1 JanOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
When my beloved dog, Max died, I decided to not adopt another dog. One reason was that it just hurt too much to lose him.
When we moved to North Carolina I was delighted to discover our new home came complete with a porch dog. At first we didn’t know his name so the grandchildren named him Oreo, so named due to his black and white markings. We later learned his name is Gus. We call him our porch dog because he comes to sit with us on our porch, he is always polite never begging for food or jumping( he does occasionally try to be a lap dog). He just wants to share his love with us. On days my husband works in his wood working shop, Gus is there to guard the door and keep him company and is always ready for a walk to the mailbox. In return we share juicy tidbits of meat scraps. His owners don’t mind.
One day last week Gus did the sweetest thing. It was a very chilly morning and Mike was in the garage, changing the oil in our car Even though he laid some blankets on the concrete he was still freezing. As he lay there, shivering, Gus found Mike and crawled under the car. He laid down next to him, then sensing how cold Mike was, he snuggled closer, molding his body to Mike, sharing his warmth with him.
The Bible speaks of entertaining angels unaware, I wonder if Gus might be ours.
Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Wishing each of our readers a year full of blessings in 2015. In the words of Corrie Ten Boom, one of the most inspiring women I know of, the best is yet to come.
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2014 in review for Old Things R New
30 DecI am so proud of my friends who blog here. There faithfulness inspires me to be better.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
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Old Things R New 