Category Archives: Fall

Blessed With Good Friends

Monday Evening November 5th…

The Table is set ~

 

The Candles are lit ~

Our dear friends Dave and Jody arrive from Washington for the night ~

 

We are truly blessed ~

 

For an extra treat here’s a great recipe from the Barefoot Contessa for Mustard-Roasted Potatoes ~

 

2-1/2 lbs. small red potatoes (I used gold), 2 Yellow onions, 3 Tblsps. good olive oil, 2 Tblsps. whole-grain mustard, 2 tsps. kosher salt, 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, 1/4 C. chopped fresh parsley ~

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the potatoes in halves or quarters, depending on their size, and place them on sheet pan. Remove the ends of the onions, peel them, and cut them in half. Slice them crosswise in 1/4 inch-thick slices to make half-rounds. Toss the onions and potatoes together on the sheet pan. Add the olive oil, mustard, 2tsp. salt, and the pepper and toss them together. (I mixed these ingredients all together before I tossed them with the potatoe/onion mix) Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until the potatoes are lightly brown on the outside and tender on the inside. Toss the potatoes from time to time with metal spatula so they brown evenly.

Duhlicious (I spelled that wrong on purpose!)

Serve hot sprinkled with the chopped parsley and a little extra salt.

For dinner with Dave and Jody we had these Potatoes with Filet Mignon, Mushrooms and Onions sauteed with white wine and cream, and a Fiesta Salad.

For dessert we had Milk Chocolate & Hazelnut filled Brioche Bites.

And Dear mixed up a Kensington Dream for Jody and I.

Good Friends, good food, good conversation, good times….

And with all this fun I’m having you’ll understand why I’m a little slow in getting around blog world today to comment…

As of June 2017 Photobucket has blacked out all my photos that I had stored there and are holding them hostage. Hopefully I can update my photos on all the posts they have ruined, over 4000 of them.

A Day with Friends…

The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.  ~Elisabeth Foley

On Saturday Dear and I spent the day with our old friends Jim and Jeanie. Jim is my cousin and I was friends with Jeanie in college before they met. Jeanie and I both majored in Home Economics and we both became teachers. She’s still teaching in high school in the Fresno area.

When we were just married we lived in Huntington Beach and attended the same church. All of our children were born in the same years 1979, 1981 and 1985. Jim was a policeman in Huntington Beach but then left this work and started his own business building pools. We moved to Washington, they moved to Central California so now we see each other maybe one or two times a year. When we get together we can still catch up quick and relate and pray and laugh with each other. Oh and we eat too…I’m still stuffed.

There’s a great story behind this little booth that now sits at the entrance of the driveway to J & J’s house. When Jim was younger he worked at Hume Lake Christian Camps in a security position. He’d be in this booth stopping traffic into the camp conference grounds to make sure people knew where to go or be turned away because they had no business there. Hume Lake Christian Camp is located in the Sequoia’s. This booth went up in auction after it was replaced and Jim had the winning bid. Now he has a fun piece of his and Hume Lake’s history at his home.

 

These are some photos of their beautiful home that they had built on 4 acres of property they purchased. Jim is gifted in landscaping and of course he’d build a beautiful pool to have on his own property.

 

After lunch at their home we drove over to get a tour of Jim’s Pool Company. It’s located on the main drag through their town in a remodeled old home. He’s done a beautiful job with several partial pool designs on display and water features and water falls etc. It was a fun tour of Vineyard Pools in Clovis, California!

 

These are the photos of some of the pools, waterfalls, and water features…

 

Across the street from Vineyard Pools was Rossetti’s Biscotti and Fine Foods. We had to run across and do a little shopping. We bought some Triple Almond Biscotti to take home. We headed back to J & J’s house via Starbucks.

 

These are some of the cactus plants around the home that I had to get photos of and some roses.

These are in abundance.

We went out to dinner and headed back to Southern California very full of fellowship and food…

I have to share one more photo with y’all that I got such a kick out of on our way to J & J’s on Clovis Ave.

 

Have a wonderful joy filled week….

As of June 2017 Photobucket has blacked out all my photos that I had stored there and are holding them hostage. Hopefully I can update my photos on all the posts they have ruined, over 4000 of them.

108 Car Pile-up on Highway 99 near Fresno, California

Our road trip to the Fresno area got complicated…

Dear and I left home on Saturday before dawn. We stopped for breakfast in Santa Clarita (hi Ryan, Michelle, and Jack!)

We continued north through the Grapevine after breakfast to get to Highway 99 in Central California. This is pretty much what Highway 99 looks like through Central California.  I took this photo at the city of Goshen.

22 miles North of Goshen on Highway 99 in Central California is where this horrible crash occurred. Thankfully we were a couple hours behind it. We came upon signs on the Highway that said it was closed. We pulled to the right and ended up making a u-turn to get off the freeway using an on-ramp at Manning…that was weird. We called Jim and Jeanie and got alternate directions to their house. None of us found out until late in the afternoon what a horrific pile up had occurred.

“Two people are dead after a massive 108-car pileup on Highway 99, just south of Fresno. The crash happened between American and Clovis Avenues. At least 39 others were injured. The crash flooded local hospitals with victims.”

They believe the accident was caused by low visibility because of fog. Thick seasonal fog known as “Tule fog” typically occurs in Central California in the late fall and winter. To read about Tule fog click here.

Clovis Avenue is the street we ended up taking to get to my cousins house.

Praying that God comforts those who lost their loved ones and that the ones who are injured will heal quickly and for everyone involved that they would be comforted and turn their eyes to our creator…

The northbound highway was still shut down when we headed back home to Southern California.

Today is Reformation Day!

WHAT IS REFORMATION DAY?

Reformation Day is an important liturgical festival that is celebrated by Lutherans and Christians of many Protestant denominations.  It commemorates Dr. Martin Luther’s posting of his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31st, 1517.  This act triggered the movement in world history known as the Reformation.  While the historical date for the observance of Reformation is October 31st, most churches celebrate it on the last Sunday in October.

WHAT WAS THE REFORMATION? While it had profound and lasting impacts on the political, economic, social, literary, and artistic aspects of modern society, the Reformation was at its heart a religious movement.  The Reformation was the great rediscovery of the good news of salvation by grace through faith for Christ’s sake.

By grace God’s Son, our only Savior,
Came down to earth to bear our sin.
Was it because of your own merit
That Jesus died your soul to win?
No, it was grace, and grace alone,
That brought Him from His heav’nly throne.

 If you’d like to know more about this click here.

 

WFMW ~ Halloween Fun (Tongue in Cheek)

As of June 2017 Photobucket has blacked out all my photos that I had stored there and are holding them hostage. Hopefully I can update my photos on all the posts they have ruined, over 4000 of them.

I really was at a loss this week on what tip to post for WFMW. Ahh, but then I remembered WFMW lands on Halloween this week so here’s my tongue in cheek WFMW tip for what to wear as you hand out Halloween Candy!

 

I hope this will work for me Wednesday night…

And now for some better tips click here.

Fall Y’all! Bloggy Giveaway ~ October 29th – November 2nd

As of June 2017 Photobucket has blacked out all my photos that I had stored there and are holding them hostage. Hopefully I can update my photos on all the posts they have ruined, over 4000 of them.

Update: Besides the U.S. and Canada I’m also opening up this drawing to anyone in Great Britain or Ireland just because I’m so drawn to these countries…

Ellen B. at the Happy Wonderer is giving away an Apron for the Fall Giveaway sponsored at Shannon’s BloggyGiveaways.com

 

The apron I’m offering is an April Cornell Classic Floral ~ “Bring nature into your home with classic colorful floral prints.”

 

 

Hope you enjoy my Classy Ironing Board Model!

 

Just leave a comment with a good email address and I will randomly draw the winner when the contest is over. Blessings on you all and may the best Homemaker win 🙂  My giveaway is open to anyone in the United States or Canada! Giveaway will close at noon on Friday. I will announce the winner by 6:00 PM on Friday!

To see many more giveaways go to bloggygiveaways.com.

 

Hunter’s Moon Tonight ~

Tonight’s Full Moon is the Hunter’s Moon!

I hope to get a photo later tonight to add to this post tomorrow! This photo is the Hunter’s Moon at 6:35 P.M. Pacific Time. I’m wondering if the orange glow to it is because of the smoke here in Southern California. I’m still hoping to get a better shot later…

Tonight’s full moon is the Hunter’s Moon. It’s also the closest and therefore biggest full moon of 2007.

Tonight’s moon will be about 50,000 kilometers – or 30,000 miles – closer to the Earth than 2007’s most distant and smallest full moon, last April.

This October full moon is the Hunter’s Moon for the northern hemisphere. That’s the name for the full moon following the Harvest Moon in September. This October full Hunter’s Moon comes at precisely 4:52 a.m. Universal Time Friday. For the continental U.S., that means the full moon comes this evening or around midnight Thursday night, when the moon will be shining sky high.

At the same time – on the opposite side of the world in East Asia and Indonesia – this same full moon will be reaching its peak at noontime Friday.

No matter where you live, all of you will see a large and full-looking moon all night tonight. You’ll see the moon rising in the east around sunset, highest in the sky around local midnight and setting in the west around sunrise.

http://www.earthsky.org/radioshows/51820/hunters-moon-closest-full-moon-for-2007

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ~ California Fires Continue

We happen to live by the coast where all the smoke clouds from the Saugus, Magic, Castaic, Santa Clarita, Wood Ranch, and Moorpark fires are being blown to because of the Santa Ana Wind conditions. The clouds in the photos above are smoke clouds not storm clouds. The smell of smoke is heavy in the air and the ash is all over everything. We do not have any fires in our immediate neighborhoods we are only getting the side effects of the poor air quality because of the smoke. It seems that there has been some improvement as of Wednesday. There are still many fires that are not under control and many homes are threatened. We hope that when the winds die down all the fires will be under control. We’re continuing to pray and to be sorrowful for all the hundreds of thousands of people who had to be evacuated and the thousands who have lost everything…

W.W. ~ Tuesday Edition ~ Homecoming 1966 ~ Montebello High School

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos on my blog posts and is holding them hostage. As Time allows I will try to restore some of my posts with new photos.

Some words about the photo are in comment #1 if you are interested.

For more W.W.  Tuesday edition click here.

This is a different photo from the original I posted here.