Friday's Fun #4

I was looking through old pictures... here is Taylor and Katrina in 2005 - what cuties! :)

Thursday's Thing #4

This is my one miraculous thing for the day. What a darling boy! If I'm ever blessed with children I hope they have this fighting, positive spirit.

Woeful Wednesday #4

Tuesday's Tip #4

Want to know a handy tip to make the life of your mattress stretch for years? Just flip it! My mom does it twice a year, in January and July. On New Year's Day flip your mattress upside down from head to foot. Then on July 4 (for Americans) or July 1 (for Canadians) flip your mattress upside down from side to side. This will ensure that you are sleeping on every possible side and keep it from wearing out so fast.

*this penny stretching tip will not work with a pillow top mattress... so avoid at all cost!

Musical Monday #4

Fun Friday #3

Homemade Lemonade, not from concentrate

Fresh squeezed, straight from trees

It's really, really great! 

Thursday's Things #3

Sorry folks, I missed Wednesday's Woes this week but I really had no woes to report! (which is a good thing I think). I thought my woe might be a crispy sunburn since I went to the beach for the first time yesterday, but I was smart and wore some sunscreen so instead of returning home a flaming lobster, I came back sun-kissed and glowing ;).

Today's Thursday's Things is a bit of an update from last weeks:

1) I'm officially registered for Taekwondo! I'm excited but also a little nervous at the same time. Wish me luck! I can't wait to get my uniform and white belt. In a few months I just may be transformed into a lean, mean kicking machine :D

2) I'm really starting to look forward to our bi-annual holiday with the whole extended clan Up North! Any other Roth's with me on this one? Swimming, canoeing, hiking, reading, relaxing, camp fires... aaaaaahhhh....

3) Tomorrow's "Fun Friday" just might have something to do with me and Ange, since I plan on driving out there later today :)

Tuesday's Tip #3

Today's tip is once again brought to you by Anne Roth. Maybe you're not compelled to slather yourself with body lotion after every shower like I am, but if you are, you know how frustrating it is when you're nearing the end of the bottle and you KNOW there is more in there but you can pump till you're blue in the face and still no cream comes out... My mom's solution? Cut the plastic bottle right in half! Now you can easily access the remaining lotion in the bottle and stretch the life of it for at least another week. Now that's a handy and frugal tip!

Musical Monday #3

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." James 1:27

 

"God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity." Psalm 68:6

What are we doing to follow this biblical mandate? Think of a life you could change by welcoming an orphaned child into your Christian home, into your haven of rest, security, love and comfort.

Fernando Ortega - If You Were Mine

Sabbath Prayer

One day when I have a large family, me and my husband [even if he can't keep a tune ;)] will sing this song every Sabbath day to our daughters. Ok, I doubt that will happen but the idea sounds nice! A while back I wrote about traditions... sometimes I balk at some of the traditions, habits and customs of our close-knit Dutch community. But I also find some family and religious traditions to be so comforting! Every culture and family has its own particular set of traditions which is so evident here in Fiddler on the Roof. 

Fun Friday

This morning I hosted a tea party for my Canadian nieces. The weather was perfect and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Enjoy the pictures!

Thursday's Things #2

No big clever thing for Thursday this week! So instead I'll just share three things... but I better hurry, Thursday is almost over!

1) I planned a tea party for my nieces tomorrow - complete with dresses, hats, dolls, cupcakes, games, decorations etc. Pictures to follow hopefully!

2) I decided to change my plan for Friday's blog post from "Friday's Folly" to "Fun Friday". I don't know what I was thinking when I said Friday's Folly - what would I blog about every week?? So I think I'll save Friday for pictures of various fun and entertaining things that are taking place :)

3) I attended a Karate class tonight! Right now I'm not interested in all the fancy moves (but as I'm told, they're important to learn and memorize so that they will become a reflexive instinct), but I'm interested in learning practical self-defense moves. And it's actually fun! Sooo, anyone want to join me in learning some martial arts this summer? 

Woeful Wednesday #2

Talk of the book "French Women Don't Get Fat" has been floating around blogosphere recently. I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and so borrowed the book from my sis Nicolette.All was going well until I was caught lounging outside in the sun reading the aforementioned book with a half eaten bag of chips beside me... oops! Sigh... and that my friends is this week's Woeful Wednesday. Not near as exciting as last week's, but still woeful indeed as my female readers will acknowledge. Willpower, Irene, willpower!

Tuesday's Tips #2

Do you have an old trunk/chest that smells like mothballs? That is one of the worst smells to get rid of. But have no fear, Irene is here! (Well actually, the Tiptionary page from Mary Hunt's Debt Proof Living is) ;). Apparently what works like magic is to cut a paper bag in half and fill it with kitty litter, place it in the trunk for two weeks and voila! no smell. No more odour problems ever again. 

Musical Monday #2

When we were kids I remember absolutely LOVING music that involved bagpipes. We had a tape called "Scotland Pipes and Drums" that we would play over and over again (remember Ange and Dan?). I still enjoy the sound of bagpipes once in a while and think that the well-known hymn "Amazing Grace" sounds exceptionally majestic when introduced with a bagpipe. Here it is sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Enjoy!

Friday's Folly

What is folly? According to Webster's Dictionary, folly is defined as "lack of good sense or normal prudence and foresight." The Bible speaks about folly numerous times, especially in Proverbs. 

"As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly." Proverbs 26:11

"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself." Proverbs 26:4

"A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord." Proverbs 19:3 

"I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly." Psalm 85:8

"Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom: but a man of understanding walks uprightly." Proverbs 15:21

How many times has a person wandered off in self-destructive folly, only to cry out to God for help to pull him out of his trouble? Time after time God may reach down in grace to extract a fool from his folly. But there is no guarantee that He will always do so. What will you choose today? The path of wisdom or folly?

Thursday's Things

Today's clever thing is brought to you in part by Jeanette Van Ginkel. Well, actually by their farm dog Rosa. The farm they live on is naturally also home to cats, and this spring, kittens. Rosa the farm dog (a big lovable St Bernard) is just growing out of puppy stage and she has never been pregnanat. Interestingly and amazingly enough though, for whatever reason, she has taken to nursing some of the kittens! Whether it was because the mother cat wasn't producing enough milk for all her kittens or these kittens were just very greedy ;), Rosa has become an adoptive, nursing mother to them. I don't have a picture of her for proof, but here is another one I found online through Google Images:

Woeful Wednesday

What is my tale of woe this week? Let me tell you! Oh the shame and embarrassment that I feel when I think back to Monday evening... but I'm jumping ahead of myself. Let's begin my story. On Monday I spent a delightful afternoon going through all my files and organizing like mad, creating a recycle pile and pile to be shredded (old pay stubs/bank statements). At the supper table I mentioned that I had a bunch of stuff to shred and dad suggested that I just burn it in our woodstove. Seeing as we don't even have a paper shredder I thought, ok! good idea... "Just start with a third of the stack or so" said Dad. We already had a small fire started as a chill was starting to creep into the house (yes... it was hot and humid and May and now it's chilly in June!). I started tossing my old bank statement onto the fire... two by two.... four by four... wow, this is making a good fire! "Hey dad, there's going to be a lot of ashes!" says I. I threw some more papers onto the fire. Poke, poke with the fire poker... hey... what's that roaring noise? It's getting louder... "Dad? DAD?!? AUGGGGHH! Come quick!!" Dad rushed over and shut the whole woodstove down (closed the damper and whatnot) and I raced outside. Black/brownish smoke was BILLOWING from our chimney. Oh no! I started freaking out... oh no, oh no, please please please don't be a chimney fire. I raced back in to see how dad was doing and then raced outside again. Even worse this time! Flames were shooting out the chimney!!!! What have I done? What have I done? I flew back inside to holler the horrible news to dad and ran to grab the phone to call the fire department. This was my first time dialing 9-1-1 by the way. After screaming (well not quite :P) chimney fire! into the receiver and barking out our address, I ran back outside to see that dad had thrown a ladder up against the house, whipped out the garden hose and sprayed the fire out from the chimney. (I was quite proud about how quick thinking he was! Especially since he was sick!). In the distance I could hear the sirens wailing as the firetrucks approached. Oh the shame, the shame! The firemen poked around in the woodstove a bit, emptying it of the ashes, and on our roof checking out the chimney and spraying some more water down it for good measure but that was about the extent of their doing. I'm just so thankful that no damage (besides our downstairs and freshly washed laundry hung to dry reaking like smoke) was done. But I'm still awfully embarrassed that I did such a foolish thing. Here are a few pictures of the events. They aren't the best quality but I was pretty embarrassed to be taking their pictures!

 

Tuesday's Tips

Your cake is baking in the oven... the timer rings and it's time to check if the cake is done. Now, do people really use a toothpick to poke the center of their cake?! No way would I be reaching my arm way into the dark, hot recesses of the oven with a tiny toothpick! Or do people slide the rack out, poke the center of the cake, slide it back in and set the timer for another five minutes? I think that method would cool the cake (and oven) down far too much, especially if you needed to keep it in longer. Instead, why not do what my ingenious mother did and has used for years? All you need is a long, thin steel knitting needle. About an inch away from the end bend the knitting needle with a pair of pliers to form a 90 degree angle. Voila! A permanent solution to your problem. It's washable and reusable. No more singed eyebrows for you!

Muiscal Monday

Seeing as I'm not a consistent blogger I had the brilliant idea this morning to assign a theme to each day of the week and follow that as a guideline for posting. Here's the schedule that I came up with:

Musical Monday - I'll post songs from YouTube that I enjoy

Tuesday's Tips - handy dandy household tip day!

Woeful Wednesday - once-a-week outlet for any woes that are besetting me

Thursday's Things- I shall proceed to relate either one clever thing, two somewhat interesting things, or three very dull things (think Emma, by Jane Austen)

Friday's Folly - this will be the day I can post all manner of foolish nonsense :)

To start off our week, here is a beautiful rendition of "For the Beauty of the Earth"- I heard this on Classical 96.3 this morning and this is what actually inspired me to come up with themed days for my blog! What do you think?