I’m having fun with this program and my photos. The photos are from our dinner on Friday night with our Northeastern Washington family.
This thoughtful Thursday happens to be Valentine’s Day, too.
Here’s a heart shaped box of handpicked See’s chocolates. True confession: I bought these as a gift to myself a few years ago to fulfill a wish I had in my head for a heart shaped box of candy. Some of the desires in your head won’t be fulfilled by wishing. Truth be told I’m not comfortable with some earthly person knowing the thoughts in my head. Many thoughts and desires aren’t worthy to be known or fulfilled. I’m thankful God is gracious and kind and He will not keep His justified wrath against me. This graciousness and kindness comes to me because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross for me and because God called me to follow Him. His kindness transforms me and my thoughts.
Here’s a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I didn’t buy these for myself. I don’t expect flowers on Valentine’s Day or any day. When flowers do get delivered I really appreciate them.
While I type I’m listening to a sermon on Biblical love by John MacArthur. Some of my takeaways: I need to be motivated and guided by self sacrificial love if I’m following Jesus. Biblical love is self-sacrificial love that motivates me to serve friends and enemies in love.
Hope you can accept the love that God has given to you in Jesus Christ.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
This Thursday is Valentine’s Day. For mosaic Monday I’m featuring a few pieces of décor I’ve purchased in the past for this day. Last year after Valentine’s day I added some pieces that I was able to pick up at Hobby Lobby for 90% off the original price.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
I prefer the Valentine’s Day Cards from the 50’s or antique cards.
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!
Time will tell if we will have some company to sit around the Valentine Day table for a meal.
And here’s our favorite little Valentine enjoying her M & M treats for being a big girl.
Do you make plans for Valentine’s Day or do you just let it slide by?
Linking up with Angie for Mosaic Monday. Thanks for being a great hostess for this meme, Angie!
1. When’s the last time you had a heart to heart talk with someone? A change of heart? Experienced figurative ‘heart failure?’
We’ve had lots of heart to heart talks recently around our Pop’s failing health.
A change of heart: I’ve had a change of heart by praying for some folks in my life that I’ve wanted to give a piece of my mind to or punch. Praying for them gives me a different perspective.
Heart Failure: Watching the Olympics and seeing some crashes or falls or amazing spins in the air. Yikes!
2. Champagne, chocolates, flowers…what’s your Valentine pleasure? Any special plans for the day?
A confession about the heart shaped box of chocolates above. I had never in my life received a heart shaped fancy box of candy on Valentine’s day and a few years ago I decided to treat myself to one. I’ve received flowers or chocolates (not in a heart shaped box) or a nice card but that evasive heart shaped box of chocolates was haunting me. It haunts no more! See’s Candy’s are favorites in these parts.
I like all three of those things but I don’t need them on Valentine’s Day. Tonight we are having our weekly small group gathering at our house. No one had plans so they all opted to continue on. I did a little decorating for the day.
3. Are you a hopeless romantic or do you fall more in the category of practical and pragmatic? What’s a gesture you find romantic?
Absolutely more practical or pragmatic. I find kindness, encouragement and service on Dear’s part to be romantic.
4. Do you ask a lot of questions in life or are you pretty content with what you already know?
I wonder a lot and that’s why I named my blog The Happy Wonderer. My wondering leads me to research and find out, to travel and see, and sometimes that involves verbal questions.
5. Your favorite power ballad?
First off, I had to google Power Ballad to see what it was. I’ll have to go with Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers. I went to our Junior/Senior prom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1967 and my date made reservations for dinner at the famous Cocoanut Grove where the Righteous Brothers sang. Pretty amazing. Then in 1968 I was watching television when presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel. Talk about a heart failure moment. If I hadn’t packed away my scrapbook from those years I would have taken a photo of some memorabilia from that time. Here’s what I wore for the prom and the Righteous Brothers. My dear mom sewed this dress for me.
6. Insert your own random thought here.
Bottoms up! Still basking in the hours I got to spend with this little one who has learned so many new tricks. Our kids will all be together this coming weekend and that makes me smile. It’s been a long time since uncles and aunties have seen Addy face to face. Dear and I will be heading to eastern Washington the end of February.
Speaking of love…
These two are the last of the Bagdanov siblings left who fled Russia walking to Persia and later immigrating to the U.S.A. My Aunt Anna came to visit my pop last week and she walked into the room with her walker and took a few steps on her own to hug him, give him a kiss and then she asked him not to leave her alone on this earth. She said, “Don’t leave me”. The doctors told Anna she had a month to live several years ago. That comment from the doctor made her consider her future and she told our pop that she was ready to listen to him about the gospel of Jesus Christ and was ready to be born again. Such a sweet moment for our pop and mom and all of us a few years ago. My pop and mom witnessed to all of their siblings over the years from 1963 on when my pop was born again.
Linking up for Wednesday Hodgepodge where Joyce asks the questions From This Side of the Pond and we answer.
We’ve had a lovely string of days without rain and with lots of sunshine. It’s good for the soul. It’s been quite cold but the sun warms things nicely.
Tuesday of this week is Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday for our friends across the Pond and Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday for some in the U.S.A. Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s day lands on this day this year. That’s a cruel calendar joke if you are giving up sweets or sugar for Lent.
My Christmas poinsettia that I bought for ninety seven cents after Christmas is now a Valentine’s day poinsettia with the glittery hearts I added to it. It’s holding up with no help from me.
I brought out the red and pink for Valentine’s day and I am ignoring the purple/green/yellow of Mardi Gras. I’m considering making a good batch of pancakes for Shrove Tuesday joining our friends across the pond for Pancake Tuesday.
Pigs in a blanket for Shrove Tuesday?
Or Potato Pancakes? I’ll probably try some yogurt pancakes because I got a free tub of plain yogurt this week.
No heart shaped box of chocolates this year but I will buy a couple bags of chocolates for our small group who will be gathering here on Valentine’s day evening. We gave them the option to cancel but no one had plans so we are forging ahead with the group gathering.
The vintage Valentine’s are the best…do you agree?
I haven’t decided if I’ll set something aside for Lent this year. I will do some reading and listening to devotionals that prepare my heart and mind for this Lenten season culminating with Easter.
Head over to the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog for my Ground Chicken Chili recipe.
We invited Josh and Laura over for an early Valentine’s Day meal. (We also invited Katie and Andrew but they were booked solid for Sunday and Tuesday) This happened on Sunday late afternoon. At first I set the table with these plates but then decided the main course would be served better in a bowl.
Dear and I tackled Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon buying all the ingredients on Saturday and starting some of the steps then and finishing it on Sunday.
This one is a bit blurry, so here’s another one.
This meal deserves lots of photos since the process was more complicated than it needed to be. I love Julia but her editors could have made the instructions easier and more precise. The final product was delicious and we’ll make it again with just a few adjustments.
One of the steps was preparing these lovely pearl onions and then adding mushrooms cooking them to their delicious state and then adding them to the beef that had cooked for a few hours.
On Saturday we picked up several meaty soup bones and per Jacque and Julia’s instructions (a little vague) we made our own beef stock after roasting these bones topped with these vegetables. The steps after the roasting were the really vague part but we used our own skills to pull it off and the stock was delicious and ready for our Sunday Boeuf Bourguignon creation which is simpler to just call beef stew. Everything came together nicely even though we laughed and scratched our heads about some of the instructions, reading them out loud to each other several times. Besides Julia’s 2 classic cookbooks we have a cookbook called Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home (Jacques Pepin). This cookbook also has the stew recipe in it so we were flipping back and forth between the two books.
It was a fun thing to do together. I got the idea for cooking a Valentines meal with your love instead of going out from a blog post and I forget who is the one who suggested this. If it was you, please let me know. The suggestion was to pick something you had never tried cooking before. There were only a couple times we stepped on each other’s toes.
When we got the text saying Josh and Laura could join us on Sunday I realized I was so wrapped up with Julia I forgot about dessert so before church we stopped by the store to buy a chocolate cake mix and raspberries. It was my plan to make these small heart shaped cakes but there was enough batter left to make this medium heart shaped cake, too.
This medium sized cake with pink pearls went home with Josh and Laura so that Laura could take it to work and share it with her co-workers. It was devoured and enjoyed.
I served the little heart shaped cakes on a bed of raspberry coulis (sauce) for the four of us.
I forgot to take a photo of the four of us while we enjoyed our meal so I’ll add this photo of Josh and Laura taken another time and in another place.
And in the “spirit” of selfies I’ll add this one of Dear and me taken yesterday with our shades on, too.
Our evening together was so enjoyable and it was good to get caught up on some current details of our lives. After dinner and dessert we watched a couple episodes of Hunted together. It was new to all of us but Josh and we all enjoyed it. I may or may not have watched a few more episodes after Josh and Laura headed home. It’s a little disconcerting learning how much of all of our lives can be found out if someone with skills wants to find out. Big brother really is watching us.
I’ll leave you with a couple sentiments and a solid truth for this and every day, not just Valentine’s Day!
The upper sign was a gift from Josh and Laura for our anniversary one year. The heart has part of the solid truth you can depend on. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 (KJV)
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. Hug your loved ones and tell them you love them!
1. What’s the last thing you did that someone else thought was super?
Dear and I drove some important papers that needed to be north about 80 miles from us on Tuesday morning. The roads were fine on the interstate but when we arrived in Bellingham the side streets were compact snow and ice. A little tricky to drive on. We were happy to make it there and back again in record time and safely. Our son thought we were super to do this for him and his firm.
While in California we had many superb meals with family and friends. One day my sister and I picked up our dear old pop and took him to his favorite Armenian restaurant in Montebello, Golden Skewers. The food is superb and we all enjoyed our choices.
7. Write a three word (or less) phrase you’d like to see on a Valentine candy heart.
Later today I’ll link up with Sunlit Sunday hosted by Karen at My Little Home and Garden and InSPIREd Sunday hosted by Beth and Sally. Here are more churches from San Francisco and some other sunlit inspirations.
St. Agnes Catholic Church in the Haight Asbury neighborhood of San Francisco.
Another church I saw on the upper deck bus tour I took. Wish I knew what church is is.
The First Congregational Church in Downtown San Francisco that is now the Academy of Art.
A recent sunrise out my stairwell window beyond my neighbors huge maple tree.
A timely sunlit photo for this particular Sunday. This sculpture in Kirkland Washington always is decorated according to what’s happening in our world or for holidays.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
Friday morning we had quite a deluge of rain in our area. Dear and I had reservations for an early Valentine’s lunch in Bellevue at Daniel’s Broiler. We decided because of the weather not to go to downtown Seattle to our favorite Steak house. When it was time to leave for our lunch the rain had stopped and the skies had puffy clouds with lovely blue. The views out the 21st floor were spectacular. You can see downtown Seattle across Lake Washington.
We decided on Filet Mignon sandwiches and a Coconut Fudge Sundae. Both recommended by our waitress. We chatted with her about Valentine’s day and she said that the restaurant opens at 4:00 and they already had 600 reservations for dinner on Sunday! Yikes. We were happy for the quiet relaxed atmosphere around our lunch celebration. On our way home from the restaurant we drove through Kirkland with more beautiful views of the lake that was glistening and then we got to see how the iconic cow and dog sculpture were decorated for Valentine’s day!
Hope you have a relaxing Saturday y’all!
Thankfully today is President’s Day and Dear has the day off. We’ve been working and celebrating all weekend and our yard project continues today. I’ll be strapping on my back brace and helping Dear after my coffee. I’ll show you a little of what’s gone on this weekend already and I’ll show the complete before and afters of our yard project soon.
On Saturday, Valentines Day, we headed to the Home Depot and bought what we’d need for the beginning of our yard project. We finished the first half of what we planned and will continue with the second half today.
On Sunday we took the day off from our project and after church we had a nice brunch/lunch with Josh and Laura catching up on a lot of what’s been going on in our lives the last few weeks. It was a good time filled with fun, laughter and some hard things, too. That’s life, isn’t it? After the kids left we changed up a bit and headed to downtown Seattle for our belated Valentine dinner at Morton’s Steak House.
The food was delicious and that Grand Marnier Souffle for two was a very nice way to end our meal!
I’ll end with a little tribute to one of the presidents we celebrate on this day, Abraham Lincoln. The quote is from Lincoln’s Devotional.
Communion with God
a Source of Joy
There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou has put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. Psalm iv. 6, 7.
Lord, what is life? if spent with thee,
In humble praise and prayer,
How long or short my life may be
I feel no anxious care:
though life depart, my joys shall last,
When life and all its joys are past.
Hope your cares are few and your joy is full. Do you have today off? What does your day hold?
The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b. 