Photo Hunters ~ Wild

Some Wild views from my walks

I think these are Mule Deer. This is from Willow’s neighborhood, my bloggy walking buddy.

Looking through a space in a wooden fence at a field near my home that is still in it’s wild state.

The Sea, the tide, the shore, the Sea birds, all untamed and wild.

For more Photo Hunters visit tnchick. If you want to see Wild early click over to Carver’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Show Me Something Relaxing…

Robert from Thoughts of a Father has a photo challenge this week with something different every day. Today the challenge is to show something that relaxes you. This is my first contribution and I thought that this represents some relaxation waiting to happen…

For more relaxation posts visit Robert.

Fave Five for Friday

It’s time for Fave Five for Friday. If you want to play along visit Susanne at Living to tell the Story. Here are my favorites since last Friday.

1. Starting with Saturday I have two favorites. The first was a return to the beach with Dear for our early morning Saturday walks at Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura, California. We were there at 6:30 A.M. and we saw a lot of birds…

2. After our walk we got ready to drive south for a family get-together to visit with my brother Leonard, his wife Mandy and their new daughter Hope. She’s 7 months old and they all live in Dallas so it’s a wonderful event when they come to Southern California for all of us to get our fix!

3. This made me laugh out loud on Monday when I listened to this You-Tube on Mighty Mom’s site. Click here and give a listen. It’s only about 23 seconds long…

No – I don’t think it’s for real but it still is so darn funny!!

4. Dear turned 55 on Tuesday and a highlight of the week was celebrating Him and celebrating with him at a nice Steak house close to us.

5. Today I’m headed to a planning meeting for our new year of Women’s Bible Study. This year I’ll be a table leader so I’m looking forward to the discipline and the friendships that I’ll form with the ladies at my table. We’re studying Grace.

For more Fave Five head over to Susanne’s and consider joining in. Blessings…

September 11, 2001 ~ I’ll Never Forget

I will never forget this day. Where I was, what I did, who I talked to. My TV was still in my living room in Washington in 2001. I sat on the edge of an ottoman in shock. I started dialing, first my husband, then my married son and his wife, (they were married 2 weeks before 9/11 so they just celebrated their 7th anniversary this year, too) I woke my 2 kids that were still at home. That day seemed like it would never end. Called my SIL to find out if she’d heard anything from my niece who works in Manhattan. My niece was in route to Manhattan, no one at work had seen her yet. She wasn’t a casualty that day. She made it. She had to turn around and try to get home again. It took her over 6 hours to get home. Small price to pay compared to so many…

Praying that God will continue to lead and direct our leaders in how best to protect the people they are called to serve. Praying that God will protect us from evil. Also praying that God will build us up to be able to persevere and endure whatever suffering comes our way.

I’m headed out to my porch now to put out the only little symbol of our flag I have here in Southern California. My big flags are all in Washington State. I’ll add a photo soon.

Psalm 20:7 ~ “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

So for my morning walk I was on a quest to find U.S. Flags displayed today. I have a hard time walking past 30 minutes by myself and challenging myself with quests helps me stay out longer. At first I was sad that I wasn’t finding any flags but as I plugged away I finally found some. Here’s a collage of some of the flags displayed on my neighborhood 7208 step walk.

Sky Watch #9

My Sky Watch photos this week are all from a morning walk in my neighborhood in Southern California. The mountain you see is in the north western end of the Santa Monica Mountains.

For more Sky Watch Photos from around the world click here.

ABC’s of the Word ~ Happy

H is for Happy

Psalm 68:5 ~ “But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.”

Proverbs 15:13 ~ “A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.”

For more ABC’s of the Word on the letter H head over to Pam’s at Grey Like Snuffie

Magic Bars ~

We were having a family get together on Saturday and I decided to try this recipe for Magic Bars that I saw on Trish’s blog and that she posted on the MGCC blog (Mennonite Girls Can Cook). I blew it right off the top cuz I only bought one package of Fig Newtons and 42 Fig Newtons means you need 2 packages! Hey did y’all know that Oreos come in a Golden Variety??

Magic Bars with a twist by ellen b.

45 Newton cookies/ Strawberry or Raspberry/ Trish and I used Fig (you’ll need 2 packages)
1 (14oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup pecan pieces (walnuts would work, too)
8 Golden Oreos or regular ones if you can’t find the Golden broken up into pieces
1/4 cup shredded coconut (Lana and Steve B. you can omit the coconut!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper. Lay Newtons side by side in pan to fill bottom. (Here’s where I went wrong so I improvised and used the Golden Oreo’s to fill the rest of the pan. Yikes I hope they turn out ok… Pour condensed milk over the top of this layer.

Yep one package left me a little short…

Sorry to say as creative as this improvise was it did not work!!

Stir together chocolate chips, nuts, broken up pieces of Oreos, and coconut. Sprinkle over the Newtons and condensed milk.

Bake for 22-25 minutes. Let cool and then chill for a while. Cut into 24 bars.

The finished product out of the oven. The Fig Newton side cut well into squares but here’s the improvised side…

Thankfully there were enough bars to share from the Newton side…

These were easy and good when you follow the recipe and buy enough Fig Newtons. The Fig flavor was well received but I’m thinking I’ll try Raspberry next time. Enjoy…

WFW ~ Matthew 9:37-38

Matthew 9:37-38 ~ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

For more Word Filled Wednesday click over to Amydeanne’s

I’ve been Tagged!

Susanne from Living to Tell the Story has tagged me for this meme which originated with Seedlings in Stone this time around.

1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.
2. link back to the person who tagged you
3. link back to this parent post (I’m not so much interested in generating links, but rather in tracking the meme so I can perhaps do a summary post later on that looks at patterns and interesting discoveries.)
4. tag a few friends or five, or none at all
5. post these rules— or just have fun breaking them

5 specific ways blogging has affected me, either positively or negatively. I will start with the positive…

1. Blogging has opened up the world of technology to me. I have learned so much about computers and Digital cameras that I stubbornly refused to learn before. I never knew what you could do with a right click. I didn’t know how to copy and paste. I was a wimp at the keyboard. Sheesh, I was so afraid of this world my brother had to force me to start a blog.

2. I look at the world so differently with a blogger’s eye. I’ve always been very visual and now I see more than ever before and now I can easily document what I see and I really enjoy that. I was adventurous before but not nearly as adventurous as I am now.

3. I have met people around the world through my blogging that I consider friends. I have even had the privilege of meeting some of these friends face to face. I plan to meet more in the future. It’s a privilege to pray for and be prayed for by people around the world who I never knew existed and who never knew I existed. The “body” is huge and I love being connected to it more.

4. Blogging challenges me to communicate a thought with as few words as I can. Sometimes posts are rambling posts but I like to challenge myself to express a thought as simply as possible.

5. Blogging has taken time away from other types of communication that I was regular with. Sending letters or cards of encouragement, etc. When I pour a thought or encouraging word from myself or another author into a post I think my job is done when in reality there are people that are in my day to day world that also need other forms of encouragement from me.

True to form I’m not tagging anyone but leaving it up to you whether you are inspired to consider this question. If you choose to play let me know because I’d like to read your answers.

Oh and about the illustration at the top of this post. I’ve loved Racey Helps since the first time I saw books and cards in England in the early 70’s. I just threw that in to brighten up the post :0)

Birthday Dinner

Well Dear’s birthday landed on the night that Holdren’s has their Sirloin and Bacon Wrapped Prawn Special with soup or salad for only $20.00 and that included potato or vegetable on the side. This meal is usually $35.00. Yummy! Then we were treated to dessert on the house. A lovely filling meal in a nice setting just minutes from our condo.

Thanks to everyone who left Dear birthday wishes. He appreciated and enjoyed seeing them.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage