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A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,200 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
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I REFUSE TO COMPETE….
So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.—1 Corinthians 3:7-8
“Dear Lord, I refuse henceforth to compete with any of Thy servants. They have congregations larger than mine. So be it. I rejoice in their success. They have greater gifts. Very well. That is not in their power nor in mine. I am humbly grateful for their greater gifts and my smaller ones. I only pray that I may use to Thy glory such modest gifts as I possess. I will not compare myself with any, nor try to build up my self-esteem by noting where I may excel one or another in Thy holy work. I herewith make a blanket disavowal of all intrinsic worth. I am but an unprofitable servant. I gladly go to the foot of the class and own myself the least of Thy people. If I err in my self judgment and actually underestimate myself I do not want to know it. I purpose to pray for others and to rejoice in their prosperity as if it were my own. And indeed it is my own if it is Thine own, for what is Thine is mine, and while one plants and another waters it is Thou alone that giveth the increase.”
“Amen.”
~Tozer on Christian Leadership
Hello Everyone,
Here is a tasty recipe for you 4th of July celebration! I whipped this up today for a block party we are having tomorrow. I hope they like it? I hope they do too? 🙂 Happy 4th everyone and remember to keep your pets indoors or somewhere safe. All those fireworks can scare them really bad!
Creamy Potato Salad
2 lbs. potato’s peeled, diced and cooked in salted water just until barely tender, drain and cool potato’s down with cold water. I just lightly rinse them until they are cool.
6 green onions, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, peeled and diced
1 cup sliced green olives
1 cup diced dill pickles
1 cup chopped bacon
4 eggs boiled and diced
2 cups sour cream
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp. granulated garlic
1 tbsp. German mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground black pepper
Place all salad ingredient’s together in a bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together the dressing ingredient’s together until smooth. Pour over potato mixture and with a spatula gently fold ingredient’s together. Just until the dressing has coated all of the ingredient’s. Taste and adjust the seasoning’s if you wish to. Let sit overnight in the fridge for flavors to blend together.
Well until next time everyone…
Amanda… 🙂
Hello everyone,
Yes I said WAKE UP SLEEPING CHRISTIAN”S!!! No longer should you just go to church and be a bench-warmer, a bench-warmer is a sleeping Christian!!! When you go to church do you listen to the WORD OF THE LORD preached from the HOLY BIBLE? Or do you just sleep and think about thing’s you want to do after church? Pastor’s do you preach the WORD OF THE LIVING GOD? AND ONLY FROM THE HOLY BIBLE? People there is only one way to Heaven and that is through a relationship with JESUS CHRIST! Who was born from a virgin and lived a sinless life and was scourged and beaten until his bones could be seen! Did you know the Romans used special whips that had rocks, glass, and metal’s tied to the ends so that when Jesus was given 30 lashes HE was bleeding to death even before HE had spikes driven through HIS hands and feet and HE hung on that cross for YOU! HE died a horrible death, and raised up from death on the 3rd day so that you could have ETERNAL LIFE with HIM in Heaven! Every time I think about, see or read what HE did I cry out LORD WHY? We are not worthy of what you did for us! We rage at you, hate you, live in sin, we commit adultery, we commit fornication, lie, cheat, steal, covet what others have, commit murder, gamble our money away, have children out of wedlock, have abortions-which is murder of an innocent baby and in this country alone there have been 55 million abortions since it became legal, we condone and even glorify the homosexual/lesbian lifestyle, we take drugs, drink to excess, smoke, over-eat, exercise and glorify in our own flesh and become and make our bodies an idol to ourselves! People turn to false gods, and religion’s! Even with all this sin JESUS still love’s us and longs for us to come home to HIM! YOU even have a song you sing for each and every person living in this sin filled world! Oh Abba Father we are so unworthy of YOUR LOVE!!! Yet you still long for us! Father please forgive my hate, my anger, my frustrations I have against you! LORD JESUS, please forgive me… I have failed you Lord in so many ways! Yet I long to be with you LORD JESUS! I long for a deeper relationship with you! JESUS you are my SAVIOR, my friend, my constant companion! When I cry out in pain you carry me through it! I LOVE you with all that I have LORD JESUS!
My friends I know this a very different post than what you are used to reading from me. This post is my heart’s cry for myself, my husband Ray, a very special family member, my other family member’s, and all the people in this world I know and those I don’t know. As I know that my physical death is coming soon, I know I go to a better place. Where I will no longer be in pain, or cry. I long to worship and bow before my SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!!
Amen….
Mandy…
Hello Everyone,
I wanted to write about my AMAZING bucket list adventure and WOW what an adventure it was! We left on June 2nd and our first stop was Salt Lake City and it was just a stop over. 2nd stop was in Mesa, Arizona. I wanted to visit Sunshine Acres Children’s Home. My family lived and worked there in the early 90’s. They have done some amazing rebuilding there! I was really surprised on how different and beautiful it is now. We got a tour from Carol the founders daughter. It was 105 degree’s that day and Arizona was just as beautiful and HOT as I remember it! Our 3rd stop was in San Diego for 4 days. I want to thank Wish Granters of Idaho for setting up our stay in San Diego! The hotel was beautiful, It was called Doubletree by Hilton. They had a swimming pool, hot tub, fire pit and they fed us breakfast everyday! The staff was so nice and caring! Our first place to visit in San Diego was the Safari Zoo, and it was amazing to see all the animals as you would see them in Africa! We rode a tram all the way around and our guide was GREAT! The next day we went to Sea World, and oh how I LOVED it there! Our first ride was on the Atlantis and we got soaking wet, but I didn’t care! We went to every exhibit we could get to, and ride! We sat in the soak zone to see Shamu and boy did we get soaked! Lol, but again I didn’t care! I still can’t believe I walked all through that place! It was a great day! Our 3rd day I didn’t go anywhere. I guess I wore myself down at Sea World! We were going to visit the San Diego Zoo, but I just could not make it.. 😦 So Ray, mom and Bill went and toured a ship called the Midway Museum. Our 4th stop was in Los Angeles. We first went to Hollywood and visited the Hollywood Wax Museum, and it was cool! And Ripley’s Believe It Or Not was across the street and that place was cool too! The next day all we did was get ready for the biggest night of our trip. We went to Spago’s in Beverly Hills! I have always wanted to visit and eat there. I have admired and followed Chef Wolfgang Puck for years. I was so nervous there, and I don’t know why? Just such a fancy place that we are not used to. But the servers were so nice and the food was AMAZING! They started us with a bread bowl with 3 different kinds of delicious bread! One was called Lavash flatbread, the other was a crusty Italian bread, and the 3rd was a soft dinner roll with black sesame seeds and that one was my favorite! They had butter on the table in the shape of pyramid’s and round’s, it tasted really good! They made us what is called Amuse Bouche, the first plate had Sushi and the 2nd was a baked oyster in the shell and what a taste sensation they were! My starter course was a ½ oz Osetra Caviar, Sour Cream, Egg Yolk “Jam,” Egg White “Caviar,” Lemon-Herb Blinis, and I LOVED it! My dinner was Black Bass, Crispy Scale, Littleneck Clams, Herb Coulis, Garlic Purée, and it was fabulous! My dinner was a little late so the chef made a little plate of pasta and it just melted in my mouth! I wish I could remember what it was called! I was dying to take picture’s of all the food, but I didn’t think they would like that? Maybe? Everyone else had different entree’s and they loved them! And my aunt and mom had pre-ordered a cake for my birthday, it was a strawberry shortcake and it was mouthwatering delicious! The server sang Happy Birthday to me and I wanted to cry! We had the BEST server! And to top of the evening Chef Wolfgang and his son Alex came to our table and talked with us! He is so friendly and nice! He even gave me the cake, we didn’t pay for it! It was worth $150! It was an amazing night! I will remember every taste forever! Our next stop was in Pismo Beach and Ray and I went to a sea food place, and we loved it! Even through it took us 1-1/2 hours to pick all the crab meat out of the shells! It was really good! Now by this time I was getting really tired and I wanted to see the Redwoods, but I knew I was done. So we headed home, with a little side trip to San Francisco, and I hate to say this but we HATED it there! The traffic, noise, and people were so rude! That is one city I will never visit again! We got home about 10pm on June 14th. This was the longest trip and the best trip I have ever been on! I want to thank my mom, step-dad, Ray, my aunt Gayle, Wish Granters, and all of the other people that made this trip happen! You all are AMAZING people! I also want to say thank you to my beautiful niece Jacquelyn! I loved spending time with you and getting to know you better! You are a precious young lady Jacquelyn, and we love you so much! And if I missed anyone I am sorry, I am so tired today! Again thank you so much everyone!
Mandy…. 🙂
Hello everyone,
I haven’t been on here for a while and I have a good reason… Basically I am dying.. Yep you read that right, the Dr said I have about 2 years or less. We are trying to get hospice and other thing’s set up at home to help me and Ray until the end. I have stopped taking the methotrexate and the steroids even through my drs begged me to give it another try. She said maybe in a year or so a new medication might come out that will help.. I said no, I can’t do this anymore.. I hated what the steroids did to me. They changed my whole personality, and it showed in some of my past blogs post’s. All I know to say about that is I am truly sorry about all of it. I have tried for 6 years to fight this disease that has taken so much from me. The methotrexate started to kill of my liver so I had to stop taking it. I do have a few bucket list wishes and I hope I can accomplish them. 1 is to try all of Baskin Robbins ice cream flavors and so far I have tried 4 of them, and I think it will be easy to accomplish this wish! Lol! Since I love ice cream! I have some other wishes, but I can’t talk about them on here now. Later in the summer I can, if I make it that long. You see I no longer can drive, I have no feeling in my feet and up my legs away’s, nor do I have feeling in my hands. I can still write here, I just can’t feel the keys. I sleep a lot, since I am so tired all the time. I haven’t been able to do a lot of thing’s. I no longer make cakes for the charity and I really miss it, I wonder if they miss me? I had to leave my fair job, plus volunteering for the U of I food safety program. Do you think a person’s life matter’s if they can longer do the thing’s they loved or God called them to do? I wonder about that a lot…I wonder if anyone will even miss me when I am gone, or if they even miss me now? I’m sorry if I sound sad, I guess I am. I won’t even make it to my 40th birthday. At times like this you start thinking about where am I going from here? And I do know my home is in Heaven with Jesus. Since I knew what was coming I started being a bit more bold about my beliefs on FB and well it has cost me a lot of friends. People who say they care about you but when it really matters leave you. I guess they we not true friends? Or maybe they didn’t like thinking about what happens after we leave this life? People you have an eternal soul, and there are only 2 roads we travel on. The wide path to Hell that leads to death, or the narrow road that leads to Life. Where will you go? Salvation only come’s from having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and His Truth and Life can be found in the Holy Bible. Satan will lie to you and say you don’t need Jesus that there are many paths to your god or god’s. Satan is a LIAR! He will tell you what you want to hear. My biggest wish is for every one of my family and friends finds Jesus and learns the TRUTH! I want to see you all in Heaven! I don’t know what people will say about me when I am gone? All I hope they will say is that she loved Jesus and her life showed it, that’s what I hope for…
Mandy…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.
Click here to see the complete report.
Hello all,
I have been avoiding this blog for a while, most of the summer anyways. First just haven’t felt like writing and I was avoiding it for other reasons. We had a lot of fun with both of the fairs this summer and just still unpacking stuff… Seems like an endless project! I am loving our new home!!! We had a huge party for my grandpa’s 80th Birthday. Had about 50 people at the party. I met a lot of cousins I have never met before, so that was really great! I made my grandpa an active volcano cake. It took a lot of work and thinking about how to make it come together. But we manged the best we could with what cake pans I have unpacked so far… I have been doing a lot of volunteer time with the U of I food safety program these past 2 months and have had a lot of great questions! I love talking and helping people with their food questions! I haven’t been to active with Community Cakes. Seems like they have a lot more bakers that take all the cakes, which is fine with me. My health is declining anyway and I am not sure how much more I can do. On Oct. 4th I am having back surgery, and I am scared to death! I have to be off my sarcoid meds for 3 weeks and that scares me too, I don’t want to relapse.. After surgery I can not lift, bend or twist for 6 weeks, and I am not happy about this. I have never had to stay down this long. The only thing I am looking forward in Oct. to is being able to pass out Halloween candy this year. We haven’t been able to for so long, because of where we lived before. I do have a lot of thing’s on my mind, very stressful thing’s about my family, but I can’t write it here. Whenever I do write about it seems like they always get upset with me. I am not trying to hurt them, I just need to vent sometimes… This has turned out to be not the best place for that… The only thing I will add is that my brother and I are still not talking. We saw each other at grandpa’s party but avoided each other. I will say that I do love my brother very much and am sorry for the way things are between us. It grieves my heart and seems like this will never end. I pray for all of them, since that’s all I can do. So many bad thing’s happened between us that I don’t think we can ever really mend anything. This whole mess just makes it hard on the kids and I love them so very much… I feel misunderstood and letdown by all this… If Dave or anyone else reads this just know that I am sorry and I forgive you… I hope someday Dave you will understand… I’m sorry I didn’t mean to write so much about this..I long for heaven…. Love ya all… Mandy…
Hello everyone,
I am still here, I just haven’t felt like blogging much. But I did promise I would post this recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have! 🙂
Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies:
For the cookies:
4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4-1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
5 tsp. vanilla extract, or seeds from 2 fresh vanilla beans
For the frosting:
5 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter melted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4-6 tbsp. whole milk
Combine cookies ingredient’s together until you have a soft dough. Refrigerate dough for about 2 hours. Roll dough out on a clean surface dusted with powdered sugar. (Dusting with powdered sugar instead of flour help’s keep your cookies from becoming to tough.) Use any desired cookie cutter’s, but I like using a smaller round one. Place cookies 2-inches apart they can spread a bit. Bake in a 350 degree oven until cookies are just set. Cool completely before icing.
To make frosting: Beat all ingredient’s together until smooth.You can use food coloring if you want to. Frost cooled cookies.
I just wanted to update everyone on my health. I am doing ok. So far the methotrexate hasn’t killed my liver, yet…I have had some really good days and some really bad ones.. I really like my new Sarcoid Dr. He really knows what he’s doing, and it’s really an added bonus that he has his own lab. I don’t have to drive to the hospital lab to get my bi-monthly blood draws. Some of my blood levels have been off a bit and I had to increase some meds… Which is a bummer. We are still just working on unpacking boxes, some days I can’t do anything other days I can get a lot done.. I just have to take one day at a time..:)
Until next time…
Amanda..
Hello Everyone,
Here is a really good cupcake I came up with the other day. I wanted to make something different for my monthly U of I Master Food Safety class. Which by the way was great, a lot of great information was covered today. Here is the yummy cupcake recipe for you all to enjoy!
Sour Cream Spice Cake:
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup sour cream, not light or fat-free
1 stick unsalted butter, 4.oz. Softened
1/2 cup water
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
In a large mixing bowl beat all ingredient’s together on low-speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high for speed for 3 minutes. Bake cupcakes at 350 degrees, for 15-18 minutes. Makes about 30 cupcakes. Cool completely before filling and frosting.
Apple Pie Filling:
3-1/2 cups finely chopped apples, soft apples work better for this recipe
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 cup clear jel
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup cold water
3/4 cup unsweetened apple juice
3 tbsp lemon juice
In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat whisk all ingredient’s together expect the apples and lemon juice. Bring mixture just to a gentle boil, then add apples and lemon juice. Cook on low heat just until apples are tender. Pour into a bowl and cool completely in the fridge.
Cinnamon Buttercream and Topping:
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, 8oz. softened
3-4 tbsp whole milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. popcorn salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Jarred Caramel sauce.
In a mixer combine all ingredient’s and beat until smooth.
To assemble cupcakes, cut a small hole out of the center of each cupcake with a small spoon, and save cake for another use. Fill each cupcake with about a teaspoonful of filling. Pipe or spread cinnamon buttercream on cupcakes. Drizzle caramel sauce over each cupcake.
I know I have been gone awhile, and I’m sorry about that. I had foot surgery 2 weeks before Easter, and I felt lousy! We did have Easter dinner in our new home and it was great! My mom, step-dad and my grandparent’s came over for the afternoon. We had a lot of really good food and conversation! I will post a cookie recipe later that I made that day. They were so good!!!
Well I better be of for now, I’m getting tired… Had a long couple of days..
Until next time..
Amanda 🙂
cakebaker35
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