Goals Inspired by Priorities

Marriage

- find time for a date this week

- find one way to serve him this week

Relationship with God

- write up scripture study on Christ and new life

- improve my prayers

Family

- write 7 things I love about my husband and kids and tell them

- Plan ahead more for Family Night

- Go to Museum at Thanksgiving Point with Grandma (ended up not going last week)

Health and Well-being

- Drink 64 oz. of water a day - cut down to 3 cans of Diet Coke a day (I know it is a serious problem)

- paint my nails and finish painting my toes ( I have one foot painted and the other toenails bare)

Work

- Make a March Madness Video with my brother for a Youtube 

- go pick up food in Lehi for the Food Bank

My Blog has Moved!

I failed to mention the fact that my blog has moved.  My new blog address is:

www.familyhandshake.wordpress.com


Come visit me on my new site and leave a comment.

With Every BLESSING Comes a Challenge

Apples, Apples, Apples I had been swimming in apples for two weeks.  All around the house I was finding apple cores and half eaten apples that my three kids had been snacking on.  My Grandma has a Golden Delicious Apple tree that every other year when it is on produces mounds and mounds of large delicious apples.

 I look forward to it and my mouth starts to water just thinking about it.  Since it is only every two years, I appreciate the apple abundance because I have been waiting for it.  But when I am faced with canning, drying, and cooking the apples often I forget the blessing and just remember the challenge before me.  

I was shopping for journals for my sister-in-law's birthday and I came across one with a saying on it that really struck me.  It read: "With every blessing comes a challenge and with every challenge comes a blessing."  I find that life has blessed me more in the number of blessings lately but it does not make life more simple.  With blessings come responsibility and challenges.  Which I am grateful for most of the time.

Now on to the APPLES.

Apple Pie Filling on German Pancakes, Applesauce muffins, Apple butter, Applesauce cake, and Cinnamon Applesauce to name a few of the wonderful ways I love to eat apples. I have made about 15 pints of apple butter this fall in the crockpot.  And the picture of my crockpot is the result of all that apple butter.  Click here for the Crockpot Apple Butter recipe. 

The leaning Slow Cooker of Goodness

 Crockpot Apple Butter

I have also dried about 36 trays of apples, in my sister-in-law's 9 tray Excalibur Dehydrator that she picked up at a yardsale for $10,  and canned about 14 quarts of Apple Pie Filling.  

Now after the challenge of canning, dehydrating, etc  I am looking forward to the BLESSING of my family getting to eat it all.

Menu Plan 10-29 through November 11-2

One thing that I love about menu plans, is that even though I am the kind of person that is not always good at following plans, at least I know we always have food for the meal plan in the house.  Knowing that I have all the ingredients for a recipe helps us eat out a lot less.  I also have to go to the store less often and save money since I am only buying what is on  the list.  I also stock up on items on sale that we use often.

I have found that doing this eliminates stress from my week,  As I am making my meal plan, I plan out the rest of my week and life runs much smoother.  I am only planning meals for a couple days this time since I will be doing another meal plan and a big shopping trip this weekend.

Wednesday, October 29th - Breakfast for dinner - Amish Baked Oatmeal

 and fruit

Thursday, October 30th - Soup - Hamburger Vegetable Soup with rolls

Friday, October 31st, Halloween -  Halloween Dinner at Nana's 

Saturday, November 1st - Taco Night - Beef and Bean Taco Casserole

Sunday, November 2nd - Sunday Roast - Peach Glazed Pork Roast Potatoes, and Green Beans

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Four Ways to Serve (That Work for Me)

To paraphrase some thoughts spoken at our Sunday Relief Society Meeting (women's meeting), "Service is not always going to be spending the whole morning baking bread and walking it over to someone then spending the whole afternoon watching their kids or helping them around the house; although some days it may be."  Most of the time, service is the little things.

Here are some ideas I have had of ways to serve or things I have done that work for me:

1.  Drop by some of my excess food: apples, pears, zucchini or whatever I want to share and if I can, include a simple favorite recipe, like crockpot apple butter.

Be Honest, this looks gross.  But it tastes and smells so good after cooking down for 24 hours.

2.  Send someone a text that you are thinking about them.  It could be your brother that lives three states away or a good friend that moved that you miss.  Let them know you are thinking about them.  For example, I was taking a walk in the park with the kids and remembered the time we went there with my brother and had to text him to let him know we remembered that day.  I was in that same park a couple of months later and saw some moms talking while their kids played and remembered many days, my friend, Nicky, and I would get together and talk while our kids played so I texted her right then and there.  I find that if I wait to text or call I forget.

3.  Pray for them you never know who is praying for you.  Secret be, there are certain neighbors of ours whom my kids often pray for individually.  Know you are loved more than you can know,  We hope our prayers are helping in some way. 

4. If you get a good deal on something, like diapers or chocolate, think about who could use some or both and drop it by.  

That's it for now.  What ways of serving work for you?  Or in what ways have others served you?

Serving from the Heart - The Beginning

From February 2005 through August of 2006, I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as a missionary for my church.  For 18 months, I wore a name tag with two very important names right next to each other, my name and the name of Jesus Christ.

On my mission, I learned that love is about service.  When you love, you want to serve people and you do.  We helped people move, declutter, clean up their house after a tragic fire, quit smoking, host a baby shower, decorate a Relief Society room, make drapes, and much much more.  Those were the best times.  There is something enlivening about rolling up your sleeves and going to work.

Love is work.  And it is the best kind of work.  As a missionary, I learned that one of the most important people to serve was my companion.  I have a binder from my mission and in it is a list I made entitled Things Sister Villela Wants.

They were small things, some things we could do together like memorizing scriptures, and some things she needed time to do, like take a short nap in the afternoon or work on her mission farewell paper.  I had fun making the list and checking things off as I did them,  Sister Villella was easy to love.  

Women's Session

Women's conference is something I look forward to every year.  Associated with it are vivid memories of answers to prayers and an overall feeling of peace.  While listening to Elder Uchtdorf's talk this year I think a lot of people focused on these words below but I think other words he spoke delivered more power.

"Do you suppose it matters to our Heavenly Father whether your makeup, clothes, hair, and nails are perfect? Do you think your value to Him changes based on how many followers you have on Instagram or Pinterest? Do you think He wants you to worry or get depressed if some un-friend or un-follow you on Facebook or Twitter? Do you think outward attractiveness, your dress size, or popularity make the slightest difference in your worth to the One who created the universe?"

These are some of the words I think speak more clearly to the message he was conveying:

"You will always and forever remain a daughter of God. Your Heavenly Father has high aspirations for you, but your divine origin alone does not guarantee you a divine inheritance. God sent you here to prepare for a future greater than anything you can imagine."

"Once you understand the true nature of God and His commandments, you will also better understand yourselves and the divine purpose of your existence. With this, your motivation for following the commandments changes, and it becomes your heart’s desire to live the gospel joyfully."

I know we are Children of God and since we are there is a work for us to do.  Sometimes we look at work as drudgery; I know I do.  But can our attitude about the work we have to do change; especially when it comes to the work and commandments of the Lord?