Finding Contentment

Secret Sister & my absence

Ah, Vista. One day maybe I will be singing its praises, but for now I am having violent urges towards the program. When I had to buy a new computer a year ago, I was forced to get Vista as it was the only Windows program available in stores.

I have been having problems ever since. In all reality, it's not really Vista's fault. It's that all my programs weren't compatible. By now most of the programs I use have patches. Most.

About six months ago my computer crashed, and the technician said I had loaded a program that wasn't compatible with Vista. But who knew which program caused the problem, since most of my programs weren't compatible yet. I just kept going.

A couple of weeks ago my computer crashed again, and I went on a mission. Rather than having a technician tell me the same thing again, I decided to find the culprit. I would do a complete systems restore on my computer (back to its original factory settings) and then one by one download every program back onto it. Eventually, it would crash again, and I would eliminate a program and begin from the beginning. But I discovered the culprit. Actually, I already suspected the culprit but didn't want to admit it.

The bad guy was my beloved HP All-in-One printer, copier and scanner. Which utimately meant I had to buy a new printer. What did I get? Another HP All-in-One, of course. But this is an updated, fully compatible version and, unlike my old one, it has a lot of new features like a niffy LCD screen on the printer.

So I am happy with my new printer, but all that crashing and reloading took time and I was without my computer for awhile.

When I finally did figure everythng out my computer sat for awhile except for a couple of absolutely essential things, because I didn't have the heart to work with it after it dissapointed me so.

But I have slowly but surely began using the computer to once again manage my life (no lectures, please... I KNOW that's bad). Which eventually brought me back around to my blog. Maybe tomorrow I can get back around to beginnng to read everyone else's blogs again.

Unfortunately, unless you are a homestead blogger and listed in my friends (or are listed in my links), I may not find you again as I lost all my bookmarks in the Great Crash.

On another happy note, during my online absence my Secret Sister sent me some lovely lavender smelling, hand poured, soy, tea candles. Which I would have taken a photo of if I had my digital camera program reloaded....

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

Well, we are set. We will be closing on our home in three days and I am so excited! With Christmas and trying to do everything necessary to purchase a home in three weeks, I had to stop blogging for a while. But Christmas is over, the home buying process will be over on Friday, and I can't wait to get back to our regularly scheduled activities! Sometimes there is something to be said for routine days, don’t you think?

I had a message from my Secret Sister. Obviously, her identify is a secret so I don’t know who she is. But to answer your question, Secret Sister, I haven't received anything in the mail. I'll double check my address with Tamara but I'm not sure what the issue with the mail is. Anyway, I hope you had a Merry Christmas.

This was our first Christmas since our homesteading commitment, so even though we were busy with the house I tried to make some homemade gifts this year. I started by using Barb's recipe for Homemade Cracker Jacks, a.k.a. caramel and peanut popcorn. I gave a tin of these to each family on my Christmas list and to each person in my Sunday School class. These were a huge hit so I'll have to do them again next year.

Then I made some "gifts in a jar." I made brownie mixes, muffin mixes, etc. and used them, along with some of my homemade peach jam, to make up gift baskets like this one for each family on my list. The reaction to these was varied. I could tell that some of my more worldly or modern relatives didn't think much of them, while others loved them. However, these took a lot more time and effort to make then just going to a store and buying something, and they were frugal, too! I'll probably do something similar next year.

You can find recipes all over the place by googling "gifts in a jar." There are also books you can buy on Amazon just on that subject. I bought baskets and dish towels at the dollar store. I filled the baskets with shredded color paper, which I also purchased at the dollar store. Next year I'll probably just shred my own. I bought a yard of shimmery Christmas fabric for about $3 (I cut it into circles to cover the jars) at Wal-Mart and paid a buck each for a couple of bags of cinnamon sticks from the dollar store. I tied everything with raffia, which gave the baskets a great country look. I ended up making nine baskets, each with three jars and a dish towel.

Last night we had our annual Christmas Eve dinner at my MIL's house (pray for her, she recently broke her collar bone and is facing surgery). Today the kids woke us up bright and early and dove into their Christmas stockings and gifts.

DS, 4, opening one of his gifts this morning.

We just ate cereal instead of a cooked breakfast because we wanted to make it to our church's annual Christmas morning service. Usually only a handful of people come on Christmas day, but this year nearly the whole congregation was there! I love the Christmas day service. They are kept short and sweet but there is such a spirit of love there.

Then my brothers and their respective families came over for dinner and a gift exchange. I'll share some photos and then sign off. Merry Christmas!

From left to right:  My older brother, my younger brother, one of nephews and one of my nieces.

Remember my two nieces that I kept while their mother was in the hospital? Here's the 2-year-old. And here is the preemie newborn, now almsot four months old. Aren't they both cute?

New Secret Sister session

Secret Sister revealed!

I just had to blog this morning to tell you about my latest (and my last) gift from my lovely Secret Sister. What you see is a very cute "red barn" birdhouse, a canning book full of old recipes that she picked up at a thrift store (I can't wait to read it), and a jar of home-canned sweet pickles.

I absolutely adore the birdhouse, it will find a place of residence in my home where all who come by can see it - then I can tell them about my lovely Secret Sister. I can't wait to taste the pickles. I just starting canning this year and haven't done any sweet pickles yet. And I'm sure I'll get some great ideas out of the book.

But perhaps the best thing about this gift is that I finally got to learn who my Secret Sister is! It's Adena from Friendship Alley! I have begun reading her blog and will continue to read it so that I can find out more about her. She has been very sweet and encouraging this summer, and I really have enjoyed her blog thus far.

BTW, Adena is having a great homeschool giveaway that you should check out. I'm going to enter!

Thanks Adena, for your support, prayers and encouragement over the past summer.

Secret Sister prescription

The other day my Secret Sister sent me a prescription. On the bottle, it says to "Take one a day as needed."

Don't worry, passing this prescription along is not illegal. It's a little flip up book, that I now keep on my desk, with a collection of 126 capsules of scripture and insight from wise people such as Helen Keller and George Washington. It was compiled by a nutritionist from a university hospital, and it certainly does nurture my soul. Here is today's verse that really spoke to me:

"I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?"  Jeremiah 32:27

Thanks for the encouragement, Secret Sister!