My husband grilled pork chops yesterday, and I thought I’d share with you his mouth-watering recipe. 🙂 I don’t remember quite how we stumbled across this stuff, but it’s wonderful. He just sprays the pork chops with spray-on margarine for a little flavor and for something for the spices to stick to, then sprinkles them with McCormick’s Garlic Season-all Seasoning Salt, then grills them. That’s it!
No, this is not a paid advertisement — just sharing a good find. 🙂
Yesterday Jim, Jeremy, and Jesse went to the men and boys camp out sponsored by our church at a lake about an hour’s drive away. They have these every other year or so. They even took Suzie-the-dog, though she’s not male. 🙂 She loves any type of outing with her people, though. I’m not sure why Jim enjoys camping so much — seems like an awful lot of work in preparation to me!! But his family camped out a lot when he was younger, , or at least spent a lot more time outdoors. Jeremy says about once or twice a year is enough to get it out of his system. 🙂
And me, well, I was gleefully anticipating a whole almost 24 hours of quietness and solitude. Oh, I dearly love my family, and after just a few hours I am ready for them to come back. But I’ve always craved a certain amount of quietness and solitude to keep my sanity. And a little bit of absence does make us appreciate each other more, I think.
So last night I splurged and got a take-out meal from a restaurant (with the rest of it tucked away for lunch!) I had planned to spend some time reading others’ blog entries and then write a letter or two or even work on an article I’ve been thinking about. But I got caught in the YouTube vortex and spent way too much time there! I had seen a couple of links on other blogs and message boards to a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent who wowed the judges and the audience with his rendition of “Nessun Dorma,” Paul Potts. I would venture to guess that that’s a crowd not usually inclined to listen to opera (on the American version, at least, not much of anything anywhere near classical gets through). Of course — that is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, and if you think of the human voice as an instrument, you can admire the power, the emotion, and the beauty whether or not you know what it is about or what the words are. And Paul, a mobile phone salesman, aced it! Beautiful voice! So, I was looking around last night for Andrea Bocelli singing the same song, then his singing of “Time to Say Good-Bye” with Sarah Brightman. Then the “related videos” links led me to “The Phantom of the Opera” by Sarah Brightman and Antonio Banderas (I hadn’t known he could sing!), to a couple by Michael Ball (Marius in the 10th anniversary video of Les Miserables — just loved him there), even to Hugh Laurie. Then I looked up the lyrics to “Nessun Dorma” and “Time to Say Good-Bye,” then went back and found Paul Potts singing the latter and the the video of him winning Britain’s Got Talent as well as the little girl who was one of his competitors. So — it was enjoyable though not the way I had planned to spend so much time.
Then I listened to the second message in a series on the Deity of Christ (if you click there, scroll down for the links to these messages) that I mentioned earlier, dealing with questions like what the Bible means when it speaks of Him being only begotten or the first begotten since He is eternal. I did the same thing as before with a Word document open to take notes and the BibleGateway program open to look at and then copy and paste the Scriptures in. I am almost wishing I had a laptop to take to church, that’s such a great way to take notes. My husband and oldest son do that with their PDAs at church.
After spending probably a great deal too much time on the computer, I went to bed. So this night alone was pretty enjoyable and relatively calm. But the funny story I mentioned in this post’s title happened the very first time the guys went on a men and boys camp out a few years ago. I was also at that time joyfully anticipating some extended time with the house all to myself when I suddenly realized that it would be the first time I was completely alone overnight at home since before I’d had children. Being alone in the late evening and overnight gave me pause. But I once again got dinner out, then checked out some chick flicks from the library (Little Women starring Winona Ryder was one — just loved it!) and did some ironing while watching. I was doing all this upstairs in my bedroom when I heard the sounds indicating something was caught in the window. I took a flashlight and looked, and there was an enormous beetle stuck between the window frame and the screen. It was making a lot of noise, but I didn’t want to open the window to try and get it free and take a chance on it getting out into the room. So I just left it there, and eventually it quieted down. A few hours later when I was getting ready for bed — it started up again flapping around! I took the flashlight and looked again — and it was no longer stuck where it had been! I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. I thought — of all the nights and all the windows in this house, it has to go flapping around in this one on this night when I’m by myself! I couldn’t do anything else with it — once again I didn’t want to open the window even to spray bug spray and take a chance on it getting into the room. So I went on to bed with all the flapping going on in the window. Once again it quieted down after a while. But all through the night, whenever a strand of hair fell across my face I flailed around slapping it away thinking it was the beetle. 🙄 It wasn’t funny then, but when I think now how that must’ve looked, it would have been pretty amusing to see, I think. The next morning I couldn’t hear or see a sign of it anywhere, so it either got out or died somewhere!
Finally, the contest I mentioned is from 5 Minutes For Mom in honor of Independence Day. Like they did for Mother’s Day, they will be giving away several prizes on July 4. You’ll need to enter for each prize you are interested in individually. All the instructions can be found here.
Have a great rest of the weekend! I’m off to do laundry and dusting. The guys got back a little while ago, so I’ll wait for them to take showers and unpack their stuff. I am told the lake was pretty muddy and the things they had on that were white will probably never be white again….
Elle at A Complete Thought tagged me for this meme based on eating out — one of my favorite things to do! Thanks for thinking of me, Elle!
The instructions are:
1. Link to name of person that tagged you.
2. Include state and country you live in.
3. List top 5 favorite local restaurants.
4. Tag 5 other people and let them know they’ve been tagged.
I am in South Carolina of the USA.
It helped me to think of this in terms of favorite types of restaurants, so I’ll do it that way.
1. Favorite fast food place: Wendy’s. Love their singles and fries! I think Fuddruckers probably has the all-time best burgers, but only a couple of us like them, and they don’t have a drive-through. 🙂 Wendy’s is probably where we go for hamburgers most often.
2. Favorite Mexican food place: Corona’s. Love their chicken chimichangas! I did look up the recipe for those once — but when I can get them so expertly done, why would I go to all the trouble? 🙂
3. Favorite all-American restaurant with a little shop: Cracker Barrel. I tend to order the same favorite things at particular restaurants, but for a while there a few of us were going to Cracker Barrel for lunch pretty often, so I tried several different things there. Love the chicken and dumplings, meatloaf, and sugar-cured ham, and in the fall they often have a baked chicken with gravy and dressing entree that I am nearly drooling just thinking of. Sadly, my family doesn’t like to go there much and my lunch buddies are teaching, so I haven’t been there in ages. It is decorated with a lot of antique-looking signs and pictures and objects and has a fun little shop connected to it.
4. Favorite Australian restaurant: Outback. Honestly, I don’t like the atmosphere — it’s too noisy and dark. But I love the Drover’s Platter — ribs and chicken with a baked potato and side salad. And because I can’t eat all of that at one sitting, there is enough for lunch the next day. It’s pretty expensive, though, even with getting two meals out of it per person, so we only go once, maybe twice a year, usually for someone’s birthday or our anniversary.
5. Favorite “nice” restaurant and steak place: Steak and Ale. We actually don’t eat steak a whole lot, but I like theirs. I like to go there for anniversaries. This was the first “nice” restaurant that I ever went to on a date, and I remember when the waiter came to our table and told us his name was Vincent and he would be taking care of us tonight — well, it sounds silly now because I’ve been to many restaurants where the waiters do that — but I was just so impressed! That one also definitely had more of an old English feel to it.
Now that I am thinking types of restaurants, I am also thinking of favorite place to go for breakfast, favorite Italian place, etc. — but I’d better stop since I am at five.
You’ll notice that these are mostly chains (at least in the southeast) and not local, unique restaurants. One reason for that is that I don’t want to reveal my city or name a place that could be g**gled and traced to my city — I don’t think anyone would go to the trouble to stalk me, but I just want to play safe. And we tend to go more for the tried and true rather than the local places — we should try those out a little more. But I’m afraid I haven’t liked some of the local indigenous places. There is one in particular that is only in our city that’s pretty famous — and I was so disappointed in it when we tried it! My husband and I even discussed whether it was an “emperor’s new clothes” type of thing, where everyone was saying how great it was while secretly they all thought it was awful. 🙂 But I don’t think so — I think we’re just out of the loop on that one. There is another little place that is an old house converted into a restaurant. It’s reservation-only because it is not very big and it’s very popular. The meal is served buffet-style and is always great. My husband has taken me there for an anniversary or birthday lunch a couple of times and I’ve gone with my friend Carol a few times. Love it!
Now I am supposed to tag five people. But I have seen this around a lot and I can’t remember who has and hasn’t done it. So if you’d like to, consider yourself tagged and let me know in the comments, or let me know in the comments what your favorite restaurants are.
Theme: Shiny | Become a Photo Hunter | View Blogroll
This picture of Jason was taken just before he left for the Junior-Senior banquet his senior year of high school, a Really Big Deal here. He had washed his car and gotten it all clean and shiny and gotten himself all spiffed up in his tux, so he was “shining,” too. 🙂
Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts the “Show and Tell Friday,” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky.“
Last week I showed one of the few pieces of needlework I made that I still have. This week I want to show you a few cross-stitched pieces that two of my sisters made and gave to me.
The first two are from my sister Leigh Ann. I love Paula Vaughn prints — in fact, I first knew of her through her cross stitch patterns, and then some time later realized that she was a watercolor artist. This first one I had planned to make for myself “some day” but never got around to it, so Leigh Ann made it for me as a gift.
Here is a close-up:
The calligraphy underneath it in the first picture is from Doorposts.
I can’t imagine how many hours it took her to do that!
This piece is from another sister, Shelly, and has been a fun (and true!) thing to look at in our bathroom for several years:
I was reading tonight of an acquaintance who was thinking of going into a religion that is very much based on one’s works plus the church’s directives plus Christ for a right relationship with God — and my heart is so pained. I wish folks could see and understand that we can’t “do” anything to earn a right standing with God except repent and believe. One old song says it well:
My hope is in the Lord Who gave Himself for me,
And paid the price of all my sin at Calvary.Refrain:
For me He died, For me He lives,
And everlasting life and light He freely gives.No merit of my own His anger to suppress.
My only hope is found in Jesus’ righteousness.And now for me He stands Before the Father’s throne.
He shows His wounded hands and names me as His own.His grace has planned it all, ‘Tis mine but to believe,
And recognize His work of love and Christ receive.(Words and music by Norman J. Clayton)
But a song is only as good doctrinally as it is based on Scripture. And the Scriptural basis for this one can be found in the following:
Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;
7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Romans 4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
It’s beginning to look like Book Week here at Stray Thoughts, isn’t it? 🙂 Sorry about that. The last two I have just finished up in the last couple of days. I normally would have spaced out the discussion of them a little more except that the Spring Reading Thing Wrap-Up is today!
I had read Gracia Burnham’s In the Presence of My Enemies during the fall reading challenge, the story of how she and her husband, Martin, were captured by Islamic militants in the Philippines and held for a year, ending in Martin’s death during a rescue attempt. Gracia has written another book with Dean Merrill, To Fly Again, which kind of updates us on how the family is doing and shares more of what she has learned in the time since this ordeal. Actually, the whole title is To Fly Again: Surviving the Tailspins of Life, using an analogy from her husband’s experiences as a pilot.
Gracia, as her name implies, is very gracious in her dealings with others, yet she doesn’t shy away from facing the hard questions and problems she has dealt with. She deals with many topics — faith, anger, confusion, impatience, forgiveness, contentment, praise, and so much more, sharing something of the wrestlings of her own heart and mind, always coming back to the God Who loves us and is trustworthy even if circumstances are excruciating.
This book is an excellent read, really, for anyone, but especially for those who have gone through a crisis and wrestled with some of these same topics.
I want to share just a couple of excerpts. In a chapter dealing with praise, she writes:
I am not claiming that the praise of Paul and Silas directly triggered the earthquake. But I do believe it is fair to say that affirming the goodness and power of God is always appropriate. It tells God we have not lost our bearings. We still know who is ultimately in charge of the world. And we invite his intervention in the midst of our trauma.
She refers to the battle King Jehoshaphat faced against overwhelming odds in II Chronicles 20 and is prayer that “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” The king then appointed singers to walk in front of the army to sing to and praise the Lord — and the Lord provided a marvelous ad unexpected deliverance. Later in the same chapter Gracia writes:
In the battles of our life, when we face overwhelming threats to life and limb, it is always good to praise the Lord. It states a higher reality than what we see with our natural eyes. It affirms our place in the hands of a loving and strong heavenly Father, who will never stop caring about our welfare. He is, indeed, worthy of every accolade we can offer, whether circumstances seem to agree or not.
In another place she quotes a poem by Annie Johnson Flint that I think sums up the experience of those whose lights are to shine in dark places, as the Burnhams’ did:
His lamp am I, to shine where He shall say,
And lamps are not for sunny rooms,
Nor for the light of day;
But for the dark places of the earth,
Where shame and wrong and crime have birth,
Or for the murky twilight gray
Where wandering sheep have gone astray;
Or where the lamp of faith grows dim
And souls are groping after Him.
And as sometimes a flame we find,
Clear-shining, through the night
So bright we do not see the lamp,
But only see the light:
So may I shine — His light the flame,
That men may glorify His name.
The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:
Since school is out for the summer (in most places, at least), here’s a school-themed question for the week:
I don’t have any text books from elementary or high school — those all had to be turned back in to the school. Workbooks, notes — I don’t know if I have any from that time. If I do, they’d be in boxes of papers in the shed that I need to go through.
I do have several texts from college days: probably all of the ones from my Bible courses, several from my home economics courses: nutrition, meal management, child care, and sewing books. I also kept the textbook from History of Civilization (the first history class I liked, largely due to the teacher, and the last one in my curriculum), from my English and American Literature classes, from my Advanced Composition and Rhetoric class (that course title scared me, but it was just a basic writing class) and my trusty Harbrace College Handbook from freshman English which was a quick reference guide to basic rules of English. I also kept notes from several of those classes (and actually do have them in a filing cabinet by subject rather than in a box!) One special project I kept was a study of what the Bible had to say about raising children. I did keep several research papers I wrote as well.
Now — have I looked at any of that since school days would be a different question. 🙂 Actually, I have looked at many of the textbooks for reference. Some of them are outdated now and much of the information can be found online, but some I would keep because I know where to find what I am looking for easily. Others I keep for sentimental reasons. Probably through the years to come some of them will be gleaned out as I make room for more books (unless I want to start a library….)
I just finished reading Persuasion by Jane Austen this morning, and so far it is my favorite of the Austen books I have read. I have a video of it from 1995 with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds as the main characters, and the video, as I remember it, is remarkably faithful to the book. The book I checked out from the library is an Oxford World’s Classic with footnotes in the back explaining some of the practices Austen refers to or phrases she uses and several appendices explaining the “ranks” of the time as well as dances, the navy, etc. There was also an alternate ending, several lines of which were included in the video (now also available on DVD).
Persuasion was Austen’s last novel. The story flowed, for me, much better than Sense and Sensibility did. There is no witty repartee such as there was in Pride and Prejudice and there is a lot less sarcasm than in either of those books, though peoples’ foibles are in evidence. Persuasion is the story of Anne Elliot. She is the quiet and not very well-favored daughter of a man who, despite his initial wealth, has gone into debt due to indiscreet spending. His late wife had economized and kept things in check, but with her gone, the expenses rose. The best way to deal with the situation and “save face” among their social set was to move to Bath and rent their home to others.
Anne’s father and older sister don’t dislike Anne so much as they just disregard her as being of any importance. It’s not clear why (unless I missed it) except they are both selfish and vain creatures and seem to disregard anyone who can’t raise them in their social standing. So when the younger married (hypochondriac and complaining) sister, Mary, is ill, Anne is sent to help her.
Seven years earlier Anne had been in love with a Frederick Wentworth, but had been persuaded by a longtime family friend, Lady Russell, who has more or less taken Anne’s mother’s place as adviser, that it would not be a good match. As it turns out, the wife of the couple renting Anne’s home is Frederick’s sister. Anne doesn’t feel she’ll meet him, though, since she is out of town visiting her sister and will then travel on to Bath to her new home. But she is surprised to find him among the party of friends of her sister’s in-laws.
Frederick, now Captain Wentworth who has made his fortune in the Navy, is still smarting from Anne’s earlier rejection, so their conduct around each other is very polite but distant. Anne discovers her feelings for him have not changed.
It is peace time, so naval officers have time to spare, and Captain Wentworth is looking to get married. He seems very interested in Anne’s sister’s sisters-in-law. And later Anne’s estranged cousin, Mr. Elliot, attempts to make amends with the family, and people seem to think that he will eventually marry Anne…
If you don’t know the story, I’ll leave you there to find out what happens.
I liked Anne’s character. Somehow she has escaped the foolishness of the rest of her family and seems not only normal, but reasonable, kind, thoughtful, and gracious. I don’t remember if this is stated, but it seems she took after the mother who had passed. One thing that spoke to me was that, in situations where many of us would have been miserable (such as with the complaining sister), she was glad that she was able to be of use to her family. To my shame, I have to confess that that’s not what I would be thinking in the same situation, and that was a rebuke to me.
Overall it is a very sweet story about the power of different types of persuasion and the ease of being persuaded the wrong way by outward appearances. Anne learns to avoid being at the mercy of others’ persuasions and learns to know her own mind.
I was in the middle of making this dessert this afternoon when it occurred to me to take a picture of it and post the recipe, a la Barb. 🙂
Four Layer Dessert
2/3 cup butter or margarine
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
8-ounce container whipped topping
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
3 cups milk
2 3-ounce packages any instant pudding mix
Turn oven to 350 degrees. Place margarine in a 9 x13 baking pan and place in oven until margarine is melted. Remove pan; add graham cracker crumbs and sugar; mix well, spread evenly over bottom of pan and bake for 7-8 minutes. Let cool.
Mix the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and 1 cup of the whipped topping and spread mixture evenly over the graham cracker crust. Mix the instant pudding mixes and milk and spread over the filling. At this point you can refrigerate the dessert for 15 minutes, if you’d like, so it congeals a bit. Spread the remaining whipped topping over the top and refrigerate 2 hours.
You can make up the graham cracker mixture in a separate bowl and then put it in the pan: I’d just rather do all of that in the same place.
We usually make this with chocolate pudding, and, if you’d like, you can take a Hershey’s candy bar and vegetable peeler and shave little chocolate curls over the whipped topping. But another variation we like involves fruit. I use banana pudding and, in between the cream cheese layer and pudding layer, I add strawberries cut into bite-sized pieces and banana slices (in which case I guess it should be called Five Layer Dessert). Here is a picture of the layer with the fruit. I didn’t take a picture of the completed dessert because it just would have looked like whipped topping.
Our church has “family camp” on Wednesday nights during the summer with different men in the church or guests speaking on some topic relating to the family, then we have a fellowship afterward, usually with some theme involved. Tonight it is supposed to be “Fruit Filled Desserts.” I don’t make pies very well. They taste ok, but they’re not very “pretty.” So I went with this dessert instead.
You may notice the little bowl above the pan. Well….whenever I make this, I always want some right then. There is always a chance that it might be gone before I get to it at the fellowship, right? And if I take a scoop out of the finished product, it will be really obvious (though I have thought of doing so and leaving a little paper that says “Inspected by #12” in the empty spot. 🙂 ). So today I thought of putting a spoonful of each layer in a different bowl for me to…ah….taste-test. 🙂 😳
Stray Thoughts 