Thankful, Reminiscing, Projects and a Tip

Good Monday morning!!!!   Did that sound all chipper and upbeat?     Well, I tried.    Look at the second word, that answers it all.    Yes it's Monday!!!   And I am really trying to type this in as chipper and upbeat manner as I can and I do hope it comes across as such.    I have learned that one of the best things I can say about Monday's is this.   "Praise God I lived to see another Monday"!    Monday's make me feel like a weary soldier climbing another mountain, getting ready for another long battle.    And you know what, if you love  and serve the Lord, that is exactly what we are doing.    Every day is one more day that we are in the battle of our lives.    Trying to stay alert and aware of the snares and traps that the enemy sets for us.      Scripture says the enemy is like a roaring lion.   I believe it!!!   But, scripture also says that the enemy is like a wolf in sheep's clothing.   I believe it!!  When we see the roaring lions, we know to beware.    But, when we see the wolves in sheep's clothing, most of the time we don't think about the possible danger we could be in, till it's too late.    So, even tho it's Monday, and even tho we are pushing into an uphill battle, let us not grow weary in our minds.   Let us stay alert and on point and seriously question everything.    Especially the things that give us just a bit of a twinge that maybe, just maybe, something is not quite right.   More than likely, that is the Holy Spirit warning you to steer clear.     Just some food thought as we go into this week.

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I was blessed to get to go to Ky yesterday and go to church with Mom.    I love our Sunday's together.   One of the things I get to do is stop in at Arby's and have breakfast with "The Brother's Five"!     That is what I have started calling my brothers, officially.     And when I show up, it's "The Brothers Five, Plus One".    So Plus One gets to have breakfast with them.   hahahaha     It sure is a fun time.     I was thinking last night on my way home about how blessed by God we truly are and we do talk about that.    I do not know know why God has put His hand of favor on us, but He surely has.    Yesterday, we was talking about when we were younger, just kids really.   Mom still has one brother alive and he turned 91 on Oct. 31st.     His wife is our Dad's sister.     They are the only 3 left of their generation.    All the rest of our Aunts and Uncles, and our Dad has passed on.    One of my brothers had a picture of our uncle on his cell phone from where our cousin had posted his picture on facebook and we were talking about it.    He was leaned up beside a really old, cool looking car and the Brother's Five was wondering what the car was.    One of them said, "If Dad was still alive, he would know what it was".    And he would have.     The conversation kept on in that vein and then you know the laughter ensued.     

My dad and brothers used to build houses.   They were the best in their occupation!!!   If you had a house built by their hands, you had a GOOD house.    They was building a house in Muhlenburg  County one time and that was a big coal mining county.     One evening they was heading home and a coal truck was tailgating dad for several miles.    He had a camper on the bed of his truck where he stored his tools, so the driver couldn't see how many men was in dad's cab.    The trucker kept riding dad's bumper, dad told one of my brothers to hand him that big old pipe wrench in the floor board.    Dad rolled the window down on his side and held that 2 foot wrench out the window and waved it around a bit and the coal truck backed off.   (Yes, he would have tossed it back at the coal truck if he did not get off his bumper.   The truckers in that area had a history of being notorious for bullying drivers and intimidating them.)  Well, a few more miles down the road, the coal trucker decided he wanted to see if he could stir up some trouble.    So he came alongside dad's truck and was leaning over to look into the cab and seen 4 grown men in that cab and he backed off, big time!!!    

That was a new story for me.   I had not heard that one, so I'm glad I did.   But that was something you didn't do.    You did not want to mess with one of them, because they was like a hornet's nest.   You don't just stir up one, you get the whole hive on you and I will make a promise that it's not what a sane person would ever want.    They bothered no one, but they took nothing from anyone.     You always wanted them on your side and the same holds today.    My brothers have all grown up to be awesome, upstanding men in their communities.    They set good work examples for their children and anyone else that wanted to know what it meant to be a man.     So, today I'm feeling kinda thankful for all of my brothers.     I am feeling kinda thankful for all the guys that appreciate their roles as being manly men.    My husband certainly fits that category.     And I am ever thankful and blessed by God for having such an outstanding, upright, and godly husband.

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I have neglected my blog for so long and have so many projects to share and I want to share them all, but I will just share a few of them for now.   I can't even remember what all I have done, but I will just put pictures up and talk about them.   How does that sound?     I hope that thru it all you can get some inspiration from them.

 Ok, so I decided to go with the watercolor paintings I had done back earlier.    +Heather Kraafter  had painted a watercolor sunflower.   She made it look soooo easy and I loved her painting and I thought I may be able to do that.  Well, I didn't blow dry ANYTHING, and as a result, mine looks like a blob, but hey, what the heck, I never said I was painter anyway.   hahaha    But I will say that I had fun painting it!!!   Heather is an awesome inspiration and does beautiful art!!!!

So, for this one, I watched Lindsay of the Frugal Crafter do a leaf painting with 4 leaves.   I loved what she done.   I just didn't want to paint that many leaves.    So, I just painted one.    I have some cardstock with leaves on them.   So for this and the rest of the leaves, I traced the leaves lightly with a watercolor pencil, onto my water color paper,  once I had fussy cut them.   Then I took packing tape and fully covered the traced image.    I took my craft blade and cut around the traced image and peeled off the excess from around the leaf.  I painted the background and dried that, then I peeled the clear tape from the leaf area itself and painted the leaf.    Lindsay had painted the leaves, with them looking like they were laying on the deck outside, so that's what I tried to do too, with the one above.    I was pretty dag gone happy with results of it.

So, this is the 2nd leaf I painted.   I painted it in the same method I painted the one above.   I just painted a different background.    You can click on each one to make them a little larger. 

 This is my 3rd leaf, in the same manner as above.     I really love the technique and would suggest you to go to the frugal crafters site and find the tutorial on this.    She is listed in the list of sites on the  right hand side of my blog.

This is the 4th leaf  and I showed the leaf I traced around once I had it fussy cut.    I thought it turned out pretty good.

 This is the 5th leaf and a little different background.   I really love the background of this one.   I did finish off all the leaves with a brown pen and some white highlights.

This is the 6th leaf, but the 7th painting that I done in a short few days.    Overall, I was pretty delighted with my painted leaves.    I scanned them all into my computer and I can now print them for card fronts.    But, by scanning them in and trying to print them, I found that I now need a new printer!!!!    The print head is all dried up and makes streaks across my prints!!!!   UUGGHHH!!!    If it's not one "thang", it's another!!!!    It was all kicked off by Heather painting her sunflower.    I would suggest anyone going to the Kraaft Shaak and searching out Heather's videos.    She is such a great artist and she makes you feel like you can do anything she does.     She is also taking her art on the road.   So be on the lookout, you may see her rolling thru your community some day.   If you do, chase her down, you won't be sorry.     Also, check out Lindsay of the Frugal Crafter and look for the watercolor video of the leaves and the new technique of using the packing tape to get a perfect background and peeling it from the main focal point and painting that.    It's a pretty neat technique.  You will find links to both of these ladies on the right hand side of my blog in the list of blogs that I like.    Check them out, you won't regret it.

So, that's all I'm gonna share today, I just want to push myself to post more often.   Just got in a rut of not posting, but I have been doing a lot of fun stuff and I need to share it!!!!   hahahaha

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My tip for this post is to go to the grocery market as soon as you get done reading this and snatch up all the riced cauliflower you can get your paws on!!!!   Yes!!!!   Seriously!!!!   Did I say "seriously"?  Well, that's exactly what I meant to say!!!!

Last Wednesday, on my way home from a visit with Mom, I popped into the new Ruler store up there and done a quick sashay through the store.     I picked up some packets of taco seasoning and some of the new flavored taco shells.   I didn't know why those struck me to the point of picking them up.   It's not my usual grocery fare.    Anyway, I also got 3 cans of refried black beans.     Just unusual items for me, but by now, I was all in, so I keep on foraging.    I got some other things and then I hit the frozen veggie freezers and I was in my happy place.     They had some riced cauliflower!!!    I started throwing that in my buggy like a mad woman!!!   Hahahaha   Yes, I just did that!!!!!    I figured a good half dozen bags was enough for starters.   Hehehehe

I got all my goodies loaded up in the car and happily headed on my merry way.    I was jammin' to my good ole' Southern Gospel Music on my thumb drive when all of the sudden, "I heard the angels singing and the heavens split, and right there, right then and there, in that very moment, Patty's Heaven Sent Taco Recipe was born!!!"    It did, I kid you not!!!!   It's a funny thing what the brain can do when you got nothing but Jesus on your mind!!!!    Praising God and Glorifying His Son is great on so many levels!!!!    If you don't think so, try it sometime.     It just lets the puzzle pieces of so many things in life just slip together, easily, when we are not stressing over something, but Praising our Creator.

So, without further ado, here is my-----

Patty's Heaven Sent Tacos

1 12oz pkg of frozen riced cauliflower
2 tablespoons of water
1 pkg of taco seasoning
1/2 cup water
1 can of black refried beans, or whatever kind you can get
Taco shells

Put the frozen riced cauliflower in a good sized skillet sprayed with a little non stick spray, with 2 tablespoons of water and cook on med low till browned slightly, you may have to add an additional tablespoon of water or so along.   (I did not do this, but next time I will add some diced onion.)

Once the cauliflower is browned, add the pkg of taco seasoning and 1/2 cup of water.   Stir that really well till all the seasoning is mixed well thru the cauliflower.    Open the can of refried beans right into the same skillet and mash it up and get it stirred around into the mixture and just make sure the refried beans get up to heat with the rest of the mixture and just simmer for a minute or two, adding another tablespoon or two of water if necessary.

While the mixture was cooking, I popped my shells in the toaster oven to toast them (and also get some of the grease out of the shells).

I did take a couple of slices of kraft cheese and break each slice into 3 strips.  Since I used 6 shells, I put one strip on each filled taco and that was all I used then.   Just the filling and a little strip of melty cheese and those tacos were the BESTEST!!!!    Did I just use bad grammar again?    Oh yes I did, but do you think this little ole gal from the sticks gives a hoot about that?    Heck NAW!!!!!     I been using bad grammar my whole adult life and I ain't gonna change now!!!   hahahaha

That was some of the, again "BESTEST" taco mixture I ever eaten and it did NOT have a speck of ground beef in it!!!!    Probably the healthiest tacos I ever ate!!!   You can go ahead and add some of the typical taco fare, diced tomatoes, diced jalapenos, shredded lettuce, just dress them up nice.   My husband said they were DELICIOUS!!!!!     He had no idea he was eating refried black beans and riced cauliflower till I told him and even then, he said they was still good, knowing what they was made from.

So, again, after I leave, go and get the rest of the riced cauliflower you can find and hoard them!!!!  That's what I am doing!!!!    hahahaha    I'll give you a pint of blood, but I won't give up my riced cauliflower!!!!   Just sayin'!     hahahahaha

And a word on Ruler.   The Ruler franchise is owned by Kroger.    There are a lot of places that won't let a Kroger store come into town.   Kroger's answer to that situation is Ruler.    Kroger store sells other brands and Kroger brands.     Ruler sells mostly Kroger brands and other brands.    Plus, if you have a Kroger card, they will scan it and you get the Kroger points for gas.    Yay!!!     Anything I get at Kroger, I can get a Ruler for a few cents cheaper.   If you see one during your travels, check it out.

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Well, this is about all I have today.   I hope y'all enjoyed your visit here today.   I know I sure enjoyed having you here.     I would love for you to leave me a comment.   Tell me something you are thankful for.   Share with us your favorite riced cauliflower recipe.    Tell someone you know that Jesus loves them and that He is waiting for them to call on His name.   There is no sweeter word in the human dictionary than Jesus.   It's sweeter than honey and a whole lot better for you.   Let's say it together.    Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!!!   See, what did I tell you.     Have a blessed day in sweet and precious name of Jesus!!!    God loves y'all and so do I!!!!!     hugs and love, patty