Advent is coming . . .

John R. Brokhoff,

Preaching the Parables—Cycle C. p. 28.

"What has happened to the old-fashioned, spiritual Christmas? The cause is our disregard of Advent. The church set aside this four-week pre-Christmas season as a time of spiritual preparation for Christ’s coming. It is a time of quiet anticipation. If Christ is going to come again into our hearts, there must be repentance. Without repentance, our hearts will be so full of worldly things that there will be ‘no room in the inn’ for Christ to be born again.…We have the joy not of celebration. Which is the joy of Christmas, but the joy of anticipation."

Best quote yet!

A balanced diet is a Christmas cookie in each hand!

Brownie Drops

I like brownies but also like a cookie with 'edges' that are a bit crisp and chewy. This recipe takes core of both those tastes. The touch of coffee brings out the chocolate flavor. Less crumbs, too!

Brownie Drops
1/2 cup butter
3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee powder
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Melt the butter and chocolate together over a gentle heat and stir often to avoid burning. Pour into a mixing bowl and stir in the sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in the vanilla and coffee powder. Fold in the flour thoroughly and then the nuts. Refrigerate the dough for 2-4 hours or even overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls on vegetable oil sprayed baking sheets or baking sheets linee with parchment paper. Bake for 10-12 minutes our until cookies spring back when touched. Remove to a cooling rack.

Ideas . . .
A drizzle of chocolate icing will make them more festive.

My Productive Day!

Earlier in the week, I wished I had a project to inspire me and now have two shawls to crochet and an order for tote bags which I just completed. Be careful for what you pray! The friend ordered two tote bags so I made up four so she would have a choice.

I'm finishing up the turkey soup with stuffing dumplings and after dishes and a quick floor mopping, I have a couple of hours to work on my crocheting project. When I went to the store for yarn, the first skein I grabbed had matching dye lot numbers. Just in case, I decided to purchase two and put a second skein in the cart. Suddenly I looked closer and they didn't look the same . . . I checked the wrapper and the second one was vanilla rather than off white. Some employee, not being artistically inclined, decided to dump all the 'cream' colored yarn in the same bin.

Had an interesting driving experience. I was making a left-hand turn with a green arrow on my trip to the store. Just as I was about to complete the turn (arrow was still green!), some frumpy woman, without looking left or right, decided to make a right-hand turn on the red. Since she wasn't looking and I didn't want to hit her, I honked. Oh, boy! She blared her horn back at me, shook her fist, and followed me down the street, honking her horn? I had to wonder why as she was clearly in the wrong.

My husband had a similar experience a while back. He had already merged into a left-hand lane and a woman came careening off the freeway offramp and was peeved that he was in front of her and kept within inches of his bumper up to the intersection. About 20 feet from the intersection, the light turned yellow, so my husband came to a stop. He glanced in his rear view mirror and the woman was shaking her fist, getting red in the face, and, basically, having a tantrum because she had to wait. What amused my husband was the fact that if he had run the yellow light, the woman would have run the red one. He couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing at the stupidity of it all.

In defense of blondes . . .

An old, blind cowboy wanders into an all-girl biker bar by mistake. He finds his way to a bar stool and orders a shot of Jack Daniels.

After sitting there for a while, he yells to the bartender, "Hey, you wanna hear a blonde joke?"

The bar falls absolutely silent. In a very deep, husky voice, a woman next to him says, "Cowboy, before you tell that joke, I think it is only fair, given that you are blind, that you should know five things:

1. The bartender is a blonde with a baseball bat.

2. The bouncer is a blonde girl.

3. I'm a 6-foot tall, 175-pound blonde gal with a black belt in karate.

4. The woman sitting next to me is blonde and a professional weightlifter.

5. The lady to your right is blonde and a professional wrestler.

"Now, think about it seriously, cowboy. Do you still wanna tell that blonde joke?"

The blind cowboy thinks for a second, shakes his head and mutters, "No, not if I'm gonna have to explain it five times."

The memorial service for the cowboy will be held next Tuesday.

Remember this would save a lot of relationships . . .

With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing.

- Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Thanksgiving is coming . . .!

The onset of the holiday season became more real, yesterday, when I actually sat down and made up my chore list for Thanksgiving. I'm not a terribly organized person but I do rely on lists to see me through company dinners and Christmas parties. The most important guest for Thanksgiving arrived . . . and is in the freezer . . . a twenty-pound turkey! And, said turkey was only 47 cents a pound. This is a nice savings when everything else in the grocery stores continue to soar up in price. My new shopping plan is to stock up on products I use when they go on sale for prices only seen four years ago or so. I don't use coupons much but I still save in shopping only for sales. Also, the fact that I make most of our food myself saves a lot of money. Bread at the store can cost up to four or five dollars for a good brand while making my own, including grinding grain, costs pennies . . . and tastes better, too.

After a quick trip to the store for yarn for a project I'm working on, I'm sorting out my cookie recipes. I keep a lot of them on-line so when I make my baking decisions, I just run off copies and clip them to the refrigerator for easy reference when I bake. I dug out several 'antique' recipe books my mother gave me that date back to the 1950's. It was like a trip down memory lane as I recognized recipes my mother used to make at the holidays and I had forgotten about. My proposed project, during Advent, is to get my recipes for cookies collected, typed up, and put in booklet form so my children will also have some great memories at hand.

I got a good start on my crocheting project last night. It was going way too smoothly as I suddenly realized the finished shawl I was matching up to the new one ordered . . . did not match! Sure, both were off-white but the new yarn now has a sheen so I am off to purchase enough yarn to redo the adult-sized one. God likes to keep me on my toes! I almost finished the one shawl while I watched television last night so they both should be done and mailed off in good time.

Today, I'm making turkey soup with the leftovers from our 'trial' turkey from the weekend. Seems kind of backwards to have turkey leftovers before Thanksgiving! I'm also going to try the recipe for leftover stuffing dumplings for the soup. My son is a great kid in that he is always open to trying any new recipe I come up with. The only complaint I get from my family is that I don't usually have a recipe when I cook dinner so seldom can repeat and especially enjoyed meal!

We can tell the weatherman might be correct about the possibilty of rain this weekend. Whenever there is the slightest chance of rain, our dog drags out her pillow from the dog house and leaves it exposed to the elements. The pillow was out last night! Chick is a very mellow dog. She lays out in the sunshine during the day and isn't even interested in the multitude of little sparrows that wade in her water bowl and nibble on her dry dog food. She does have a good memory, however. During the summer, we purchased some of those tiny packets of fancy dog food on sale and put it over her dry food for a treat. When I came home from shopping, I had gotten five packets and set them on the table as we put away the groceries. Chick immediately jumped up and when into her 'pointer' mode, eyes fixed on the goodies on the table.

I think those fancy dog food packets are funny with their fancy names. The one she had last night actually had miniature pasta in it. I did hear that the taste group for developing new pet foods are humans! Dogs don't buy dog food so I guess the names, etc. on the package have to appeal to the owners. Not a job I would want, that's for sure. It is all I can do to open those goopy packets and dump it on the dog's food. Taste it? Not me!