Buzzard Invasion!?

If you look closely at the top of this house (the neighbor who lives behind me) you will see several buzzards sitting on his house-right here in the neighborhood! LOL

If you look on the left-you can see one flying just below the peak of the house. :0)

I don't know what the attraction was, but I couldn't resist the photo op!

Financial Freedom....

Who doesn't long for Financial Freedom?? I know I do! :0)
I know that I truly long for the day when we are totally debt-free! And because of this, my family and I have been doing the Financial Freedom tape series so that we can try to understand the biblical principles of finances.http://iblp.org/iblp/discipleship/financialfreedom/history/
(The link above will take you to more information about it if you are not familiar)
If you are seeking to know more about what the Bible says about finances, I highly recommend it! It can change your life! I know it's changing mine! :0)

BIG Cooking Day!

I don't know how many of you ladies do "Big Cooking", (I don't do it as often as I would like to.....) But, it helps me out so much in the long run!

Basically, most of this batch is just ground turkey. I cooked it in garlic and onion (yum) and I will put it in freezer baggies to be used for whatever I need... like spaghetti sauce, or baked ziti, sometimes I just warm it in a pan and throw cheese on it, tacos, nachos, whatever! :0)

I also cooked my sausage for tonight's dinner, and am making applesauce from the apples my sweet father-in-law brought me from his tree!

Now I'll have several meal starters in the freezer to help me out on those days I'm pressed for time!

Vision Forum Drawing!

I am so excited! Kim who has the blog Life in a Shoe: "http://www.inashoe.com/" is hosting another
Vision Forum ( http://www.visionforum.com/) Drawing this year!
She will choose 5 people for $150 each in free VF Merchandise.
Follow the above link to enter--but do it before Oct. 26th!
Here is my wish list in case I win!
84332 Passionate Housewives $16.
68213 Discovering Life Purpose 10.
68538 Raising Maidens of Virtue 20.
32303 Victory for Daughters 16.
35460 Jonathan Park 25.
58762 Manliness 10.
43752 The Masters Plan 4 Fathers 35.
52014 Thoughts for Young Men 8.
58773 The Centrality of the Home 10.

You can view and request the Vision Forum catalog online if you aren't familiar with it--they have great items! Check it out.

Still harvesting in October! Wow!

I do believe that in my more than 20 years of gardening, that this is the longest growing season that I've ever seen! We are still bringing in tomatoes (cherry and regular), peppers, grapes, raspberries, apples, and have lettuce, cauliflower and brussel sprouts yet to come-Lord willing! (along with many varieties of herbs as well).

My cherry tomato plant is growing in a 1/2 whiskey barrel, and it is about 7 feet tall! :0)

Carpe diem "Seize the day!"

Seize the day! That's what we did today...And I'm sooo glad we did!

Yes, it is the 22nd of October. And yes, it was near 80. And yes, we played hooky and went to the beach! It was gorgeous! And the water temp hasn't cooled down much, so you can still swim.

I was able to talk my dear hubby into taking off and escaping with us too! AND, to top it all off, we took our little dog Maddie to the beach with us--her first trip! (It's usually too hot to take her).

Not long after we got there we all took a long walk. When we came back to our spot, there was another family next to us--and here it was someone we knew! LOL So, we had a chance to visit a bit--and the mom was kind enough to take a family picture of us! :0)

My son loves nothing better than to dig a huge hole in the sand...what is it about boys and diggin' anyway!? LOL

And, as much as I try not to think about it... now that I have a daughter who is almost 18...I had to wonder how many more trips we would make with our whole family together...I thanked God many times today for this one! :0) It was a blessing of a memory that I will always treasure in my heart.

Science on our doorstep

My dear son saved cornstalks from his garden to decorate our porch for the fall, and low and behold, two praying mantis's took up residency in them. :0)

I walked by the cornstalks last night, only to see this praying mantis laying her egg sack! My daughter-who is a huge lover of God's creation-ran and got the camera to capture this science project in progress...

God is so creative! :0)

Surprise blessing!

We had company for dinner last Thursday night, and the family showed up at the door with these lovely flowers for me!

I thought you might like sneaking a peek at them--I think they are gorgeous! :0)

I appreciated it so much, and they get prettier every day!

A wonderful surprise blessing!

Two Lovebirds

We have such an interesting situation pictured here....

You see the little striped female cat that we call Shadow, is shown curled up with our big gray male cat Muffin.

What is unusual about this, is that Shadow is a feral cat. She has always been wild. Several years ago we trapped her and a litter of her kittens.... found home for the kitties, and had Shadow vaccinated and spayed, and then we released her.

Even though she spent several weeks caged in our home for recuperation after being spayed-she would never tame. :0(

But, as you can see, she loves our totally domesticated cat! Our Muffy is really an indoor cat, but he will go out in the daytime in our fenced yard. Mostly, he lays on one of the chairs on the patio.

These two will curl up together, or lick each other just like 2 domestic cats.

Even more unbelievable? This totally feral cat also loves our little dog as well! Will rub on her and everything....

My Bargain--Freebie!

Anyone who knows me--knows that I love a good bargain. But FREE is even better! LOL

Pictured above is a little something I picked up with a free $10 coupon sent to me by our local Kohl's store.

I got the cute little leaf soap holder, soaps, and the little finger tip towel for free with my coupon!
What a fun shopping spree! Yippeee!

Camping!

A couple of weeks ago my family (pictured above) had the blessing of going camping with two other dear families in Pennsylvania. We had such a nice time!


I don't know about the area where you live, but here it is still very warm-it's about 80 today! It was about the same on our trip. You can see my children are shown here in their short sleeves!

These are the 3 moms in the group- I'm in the middle of my two dear friends-Ruth and Jeanne. We paused to take this as we were hiking around a portion of the lake on our way to Hopewell Furnace, a historic site.

The girls (Briana, Audrey and Emilie) made a friend at the paddock of Hopewell Furnace! All three of these girls are big horse-lovers!

This is some partial remains of Hopewell Furnace.

Pictured above is the main house where the managers of the furnace lived. My daughter loves old houses, and took this picture.

My husband, son, and Ethan, a son of one of the other families chatting by the lake.

It was a lovely time, we had been there before, but our visit was made sweeter by the fellowship, the fireside singing, and devotions.

We look forward to doing it again! SOON! :0)

Link to enter a free giveaway!

One of my fav sites has a great giveaway for you ladies! I've already entered, and I hope you do too!
Here's a little info from the site:
There are many good books. There are some really good books. And then there are a those few and far between books which deserve to be called a "truly excellent book."Passionate Housewives: Desperate for God is one book which definitely fits the excellent category.

http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/2007/10/giveaway-10-copies-of-passionate.html

Hope you win! :0)

Skyline Drive 2

To finish my Skyline Drive posts and pics....

This is taken when Phil and I went to Skyline Drive for our 20th, a kind passerby took this of us together. :0)

(These pictures are from the film camera, and couldn't be included in the other post...

We took a little trip just off Skyline to visit Luray Caverns. This is taken of Phil at the very beginning of the tour. It's a pretty neat place, (but beware if you are visiting there, and taking children, you may want to warn them of the evolution they spout in the tour.) One thing that struck me while I was listening to the tour, was how they go on and on about how wonderful the guys are that discovered this miraculous cavern, but give no credit to the God who created it! There was only one small mention of God, and that was on a plaque posted at the organ.

We had a wonderful time. Now...time to plan #21 :0)