One foot on the dock, the other on the boat--choices!!

I have often felt as if I were stepping off a dock into a fishing boat with the possibility that the boat slip away from me without being able to jump in fast enough and yet being unable to regain a foothold on the dock with my other foot. Splash! Indecision is often the greatest risk we face in life. But life forces us to choose to do something at all times and even not acting is a choice. Time being what it is, if we use our time to pursue one course of action, we cannot also use that time to pursue another.

 Unlike us, it seems that God is able to live outside of time. I know we as mortals desire to do more projects, have more interests, and learn more than we could ever pursue in our short lifetimes. Surely we are destined for a type of eternal life in which we can do so. But in this life God wants us to be proven worthy so he can trust us with such an increased knowledge and power. Such freedom would require great responsibility for which we are not yet ready to assume. 

If almost anyone were asked if they would like to be given a few million dollars, they wouldn't turn it down. But without the ability to use money wisely, most of us would probably not learn some important lessons that come with restrictions to our lifestyle. Hard work for our living makes us appreciate what we do have more. We develop an empathy for the poor if we have had to struggle. We can't just “throw money” at a problem but may need to actually sacrifice our precious personal time and energy to solve it. Character is forged by having to decide how to spend our limited resources. Most who have gained great wealth have experienced struggle and failure on their way to riches. A few  seem to be able to retain good character and not resort to corruption on the way up while others abandon it along the way.

A Year Later!!!

I am continuing my blog that I started almost exactly a YEAR ago.  I had forgotten all about my blog until my daughter-in-law mentioned that she had started one.  I went back to see the blog I started and find that I am doing the same things again this year--such as coming to the end of the garden/canning season and selling tickets to the North Dakota Policy Council's speech, this year to be Ron Paul.  We are getting to be Ron Paul junkies.  Duane looks him up almost daily on the web to watch his videos etc.  Saw him twice in 2008 (in Fargo at NDSU and in Appleton, WI, at the JBS 50th Anniv. Celebration). 

A lot has happened in a year.  Our granddaughter is 15 months old now and we just enjoyed visiting with her and our son and daughter-in-law last weekend.  She walks well now and also enjoyed the baby swings in the park and wanted to go down the small slide over and over and over!!  She still eats cooked broccoli and likes it.  We last saw her just after her first birthday in Aug.

Today we listened to a CD made from a tape our family made at Thanksgiving in 1997.  We had made it for our youngest son who was serving a mission for the LDS Church in Argentina.  We were visiting at our daughter's in Denver then and our other son had brought his girlfriend along.  (They  later parted.)  I remember how much fun we had.  It seems like yesterday--14 yrs. ago.

In March we had to put our cat Chicago down at the vet's but got two part-Siamese brother cats who have been so much fun.  They have settled down a lot from when we first got them, although they still have lots of energy.  They are Si and Sam.  Si used to jump on everything and on my back but now seems to be over that.
Sam is more cuddly and less outgoing.  Their personalities are so different.

Got to make dinner--continued later.

Some thoughts on homemade applesauce, frugality.

How great homemade applesauce is--and it smells so heavenly when cooking! I have been gleaning the windfall apples from our neighbor's tree.  They usually fall down when disturbed due to squirrels chewing on them, then attract hornets if they lie on the ground and decay.  So I pick them up, cut off the bruises and brown spots, and the cores, and cook them with a small amount of water in a large kettle.   I run the cooked apples through my food processor and the sauce turns out reddish from the peelings.  A little sugar can be added but this batch today was sweet enough.  Sometimes I freeze it in plastic bags--about one cup size as that is easy to thaw in the microwave--or if I have a lots, I can it.

I'm a thrift nut, I suppose.  My favorite kitchen utensil is my red silicone scraper.  I hate to waste leftovers and scrape every last bit into a plastic margarine container for later use.  I also do stuff like cutting bottles of hand lotion in half with a scissors, then use a spoon or knife to put the last 1/2-3/4 inch of lotion into a small bottle so that it isn't wasted.  I think there is about 1/4 c. left in those pump bottles of lotion that would be wasted otherwise.  When a person pays $8 or more for a bottle, that's probably $1 worth.  Another thing I do is to save the last couple of slices of dry bread of every loaf that nobody seems to eat, slice off the crusts, dice into 3/4 inch cubes and freeze it in a Ziploc bag.  When I get enough, I make bread pudding with raisins and apples, eggs, milk, cinnamon and sugar or perhaps make Thanksgiving type stuffing/dressing.  There is something creatively fun about finding a use for things that would normally be thrown away--I am always thinking, "I wonder what use I could find for that?"

I should be going to bed as it is 11:30 PM but will write a bit. I canned more applesauce today. We will never run out! Cooked some more ripe tomatoes too and by tomorrow may have enough more ripening for 7 qts.--a canner full. Picked more windfall apples today too and the other day wild grapes. I must pick beans tomorrow. It seems that my garden's abundance all seems to need to be dealt with at once. I am thankful to God for a problem like that, though!

We are busy calling people to sell tickets to a dinner and speech in Fargo with Thomas Woods and Barry Goldwater Jr. at $50/ticket. We have been trying to sell 10 tickets and then we (The John Birch Society) can qualify to have a free booth there. We have 10 now so are happy that we made the goal. We had to assume we would be able to sell 10 and go ahead with ordering materials etc. for the booth before we knew we had sold the tickets on faith that we would. Woods will be talking about nullification of Obamacare by individual state legislatures which is what we are working toward. His book is called Nullification. This concept can be applied to other unconstitutional federal legislation as well.