I recently learned of a new website,  I Am Second. I Am Second features the testimonies of many people, from many different walks of life. All dealing with the typical struggles of everyday life that we all are. Life can be tough on all of us. Yes, Christians have the same problems as everyone else. We are not immune to the problems and hurts of this world.

You’ll be able to watch videos of actors, athletes, musicians, business leaders, drug addicts, your next-door neighbor, people like you. All telling their story in their own words. Their stories give hope to the lonely, and the hurting, help others from destructive lifestyles, and give inspiration to everyone.

I spent quite a bit of time, on a few different days, exploring the website, and watching videos. Some of the categories of videos are Abortion, Abuse, Contentment, Anger, Death, Disabilities, Divorce, and more. My favorite video, out of all the videos I watched, is Bethany Hamilton talking about when she got bit by a shark. She talks about the day it happened, and how she hasn’t let it stop her from living her life. She also talks about staying close to God in the midst of it all, and allowing God to use her.

 

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I spend canning green beans and corn. Thanks to some very generous church family, and neighbors who gave us the green beans and corn. We planted green beans and corn TWICE this year. Both times it was so wet, that the seeds rotted in the ground. So I’m very thankful for a great church family, and great neighbors!

Thanks to my kids helping me, we canned 62 quarts of green beans, and 13 quarts of corn.

Have you done any canning this year?

 

Now…. to answer the question that I get asked about a hundred times a day……….What’s For Dinner?

 

In the Kitchen with Linda – Dinner Menu:

 

Saturday – Sabbath- Make ahead meals- Fish filets, tator tots, sliced tomatoes

Sunday – soup & sandwich day – BLT’s on homemade bread, with turkey bacon, hot dogs & chips

Monday – chicken – Chicken, sweet potatoes, and onions in the crockpot, green beans

Tuesday – pizza/pasta – Spaghetti with homemade meat sauce, zucchini from the garden

Wednesday – chicken – Baked chicken, brown rice, yellow squash from the garden

Thursday – beef – Tacos with all the fixings including tomatoes from the garden

Friday – Sabbath Dinner –   Chicken Pasta Salad, carrot sticks

 

 

For more ideas, visit Menu Plan Monday

Welcome to this weeks Making a Home – Homemaking Linky!

The featured post from last weeks linky is……. Bathroom Windows are Creepy at Planet Weidknecht.

 

I, too, have a window in my bathroom and it is creepy. Stop by and see how she fixed her window so it isn’t creepy anymore.

 

Making a Home – Homemaking Linky

Now it’s your turn!  Share your posts about homemaking ideas, recipes, crafts, decorating, cleaning tips, basically anything that has to do with caring for a home and family. The Linky is open all week, so come back to see the other links later in the week.

 

 

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No giveaways, please. Giveaway links will be deleted. You can link your giveaways on my Thursday’s Giveaways linky. Thanks!

Please provide a link back to me. A text link is fine. Of course, family friendly posts only.

I shared my Chicken Pasta Salad recipe last week. It’s easy and delicious. But the best part is it can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge.

I’ve got two kids going to church camp this week. I declared that I was going to be on vacation this week with no cooking. I know that’s not going to work, though. So I went ahead and planned the menu. I’m keeping it super simple with crockpot meals, and made ahead salads.

 

Now…. to answer the question that I get asked about a hundred times a day……….What’s For Dinner?

 

In the Kitchen with Linda – Dinner Menu:

 

Saturday – Sabbath- Make ahead meals- Take out pizza * gasp *

Sunday – soup & sandwich day – Egg sandwiches

Monday – chicken – Super Easy Crockpot Chicken, Crockpot Mashed Potatoes, broccoli

Tuesday – pizza/pasta – Spaghetti Casserole, green beans

Wednesday – chicken – Taco Salad

Thursday – beef – Chicken Pasta Salad

Friday – Sabbath Dinner – Cheesy Crunchy Onion Chicken in the crockpot, carrot sticks

 

 

For more ideas, visit Menu Plan Monday

Welcome to this weeks….

Saturday on the Farm Garden Tour.

It’s been awhile since I shared any of the vegetable gardens. Well, today’s the day!

We’re going to start this tour with the Apple Trees. The branches on this tree are so full of apples, that they are hanging down to the ground. Last year, we didn’t get any apples because a frost killed all the blossoms. So I’m really looking forward to a good apple harvest. Apple pies to eat, applesauce to can…..

There is a big mystery plant growing out of the compost pile. It’s huge! My husband thinks it’s a watermelon. I think it’s a pumpkin. There are quite a few blossoms on the plant, so I guess we’ll see who’s right in a few weeks.

 

The leaves of the cabbage plants are just starting to curl in to form a head.

 

Unfortunately, some of the plants are being eaten by what I believe to be cabbage worms. ugh… I’m going to be putting self rising flour on them tonight. I guess I should have done that already. sigh But it’s been so hot, I haven’t spent anytime in the gardens. I guess your wondering about the self rising flour. When the worms eat it, the flour will “rise” in their stomachs and kill them. It’s an easy, non-toxic way to get rid of the worms.

 

Below, is part of our tomato plants. Thanks to the cardboard, there are very few weeds growing here. I planted Romas, Beefsteak, and I had some Rainbow tomatoes that I had given to me. I’m excited to see how the Rainbows grow. They were organic seedlings, too.

We  have a lot of blossoms, and a lot of tomatoes growing. yay!

 

The Zucchini and Yellow Squash have a lot of blossoms on them. I planted twice as many Zucchini as Yellow Squash this year.

 

Here’s our Potato Patch. We covered the potatoes with hay, so we have very few weeds here. We have lots of potato plants, though. I will be canning the potatoes when we harvest them.

The picture below, isn’t from my vegetable garden, but I’ve been trying to take some pictures that showed how many flowers were on the Mimosa Tree. I took this picture the other evening. This picture is unedited. The pink is the sunset. The leaves on the Mimosa Tree close up at night, which you can easily see in this picture. When the leaves are closed, you can see the flowers better. I still wasn’t able to capture the flowers the way, I wanted to, I guess because I’m so short, and the tree is so tall. lol You can still see quite a few puffs of flowers, though.

 

What’s growing in your garden?

 

 

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I love entering giveaways, and have even won a few things. I really love hosting giveaways on Linda’s Lunacy. It’s so much fun to give stuff away! Now, with the Thursday’s Giveaways Linky, you can find lots of great giveaways to enter!

Have fun, and I hope you win something!

 

 

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My Mimosa Tree is blooming. It’s so pretty! The fluffy pink flowers fall to the ground while they are still pretty, and the ground gets covered in them. It’s like having my own flower girl every time I walk under the tree. 🙂 I feel like a princess walking on flowers. lol The fragrance from the flowers is beautiful, too. It’s hard to describe as it doesn’t smell like any flower I’ve smelled before. If you ever see a Mimosa Tree, walk under it, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.  🙂

 

The Peppermint in the herb garden behind the house is getting huge. Some of it is four feet tall. I planted ONE plant. lol Guess I better get busy drying it. We’ll have plenty of peppermint tea this winter. I do like fresh peppermint in my ice tea, and we do like mint ice cream. But I don’t think we can eat all of this! lol I think I’m going to have to start digging some up and giving it away to guests. lol

See the dead grass on the sidewalk in front of the peppermint? That’s my newest garden secret. When I make homemade ice cream, I dump the salt water (ice) on the grass, weeds, etc. Within a couple of days, it all dies! I need to go out and pull the dead stuff out before the roots start growing again. But the salt water does a great job of killing it off.

 

We had this old bike in our pile of broken down bikes and I had my son move it over to this spot in the backyard. He said, “What do you want to put it here for?” lol  This is behind the house, by the creek. There is a Hosta, and an Iris in this garden. And a bunch of native plants. lol Eventually, there will be some more shade loving plants here. For now, the bike dresses it up a little. And gives my kids something to ask me about. lol

 

I conclude this Saturday on the Farm update with something fun.

As I went to work at the clothes closet yesterday, I started laughing so hard when I went by the neighbors house. I just have to share pictures of what I saw. Yes, I stopped in the road and took pictures! lol

Someone hung their “bloomers” in the tree! roflol I think they are actually some sort of coveralls they hung in the tree to scare critters away from their garden. A couple of other trees nearby had white squares of fabric tired to them. I think they look like long johns, though.

I do wish the wind hadn’t of blown the one leg over the other. But it’s still the funniest thing ever to drive by and see the “bloomers”  blowing in the wind from a tree! By the way, doesn’t their garden look awesome?!

 

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