Well today has not been overly busy and the weather wasn't brilliiant until around 3ish this afternoon it brightened up enough for washing to be hung outside and dried - so that was good.

Saturday I tried another of Crystal's recipies which was Hoagie Rolls and I was quite pleased with the result - even though they were not evenly sized but hey ho! Andrew had a couple of cheese and tomato Hoagie filled rolls for lunch today.  Also on Saturday, I made Tri-Berry Muffins which was a Barefoot Contessa recipe, again, these turned out really yummy.  I have frozen a lot of the muffins and rolls but I will have to make some more as they won't last very long.

I made one of Crystal's recipies of Yummy Pinto Beans and amended the recipe slightly. I also cut the recipie down so this feeds two people easily  (3 at a push) and it was yummy.  I served the beans with rice and a simple salad, next time I will add some french bread.  There was a small amount left over so this will go into the freezer and there will probably be enough left over for one potion for either lunch or supper.

Yummy Crockpot Pinto Beans

1 cup dried pinto beans

¼ tsp black pepper

1 tsp molasses

3 – 4oz bacon lardoons

1 400g canned tomatoes of which I drained the juice first and then chopped the tomatoes

¼ tsp dried mustard

¼ medium onion finely chopped

2 – 4 tsp's maple syrup

v     Put beans in large pot and cover with water and salt well.

v     Cook beans until soft.

v     Check often as you may need to add more water. 

v     When beans are completely cooked drain them, setting aside a cup or two of the bean broth.  

v     Add tomatoes, spices & molasses. 

v     Slowly cook onion and bacon lardoons in frying pan.

v     Drain and add to beans.

v     Add the maple syrup.

v     Add enough of the reserved bean broth to cover beans by one inch.

v      Let this simmer slowly on low for one hour (this should not need any longer) to allow flavours to blend. 

This dish is excellent with cornbread, French or other bread and a salad.

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Last week I also made another of Crystal's recipies, Tuna fishcakes made with rice instead of potatoes.  I also deep fried these as I had so much oil in a pan already and I didnt want to use any more oil.

I also made some flapjacks which I drizzled chocolate over the top and Andrew made the most scrummy Raspberry cake that was so moist but as we found out this does not keep very well beyond about three days, as the raspberries started to turn mouldy (we had finished 3/4s of the cake :lol).

Have a wonderful blessed day and I will post some more photos soon

Below are some photos taken from our garden which is forever changing in regards to vegetables growing on a daily basis which is good of course

This is a photo of our back garden but it does go back much further. We have fruit trees growing down the middle, two apple, one pear and one victoria plum.

Next is our corn which has grown even more so now since this pic was taken last week:

 Pepper plants:

This is where our main vegetables are which includes corn, runner & dwarf beans, one squash plant, more peppers, beetroot and green vegetables of some kind (silly me forgot to put in a label when planting for these :lol):

Tomato plants, we have around five different varieties of tomatoes growing:

More vegetables including carrots & onions:

This is the actual length of our garden - as you can see it is long:

Here you can see peppers:

This is our cat Biz's favourite hiding/sleeping place away from the sun:

Ok, the week before last we picked a lot of raspberries (I forget how many lbs we picked) and some redcurrants:

So here you have it, a few photos of our garden & some of the vegetables we are growing so far

Does anyone have any good recipies for slow cooking pinto beans in the Crock Pot preferably without adding ham or other meats.  I would like a recipie that I can use for tomorrow if possible.

Thank you :)

Hi Everyone,

First of all I need to apologise as my grammatically some of what i have written may not make sense, I am very tired and need to go to sleep but needed to get this post up.

Well, hallelujah, Andrew has been offered a new job which is going to be sooooooooo much better in so many ways than where he is now. 

Let me briefly explain, Andrew is a Baker and has worked in the same job, for the same company for 28 years up until two months ago when his last employers sold the business with little warning or hardly any goodbyes (after this family have owned this little bakery for 50 years) to a polish father and son.  Now the son owns and (supposedly runs the business but does zilch practically) and here it comes.............he is only 17 years old. his English is quite good but his father's english is appalling and his dad does most of the hard work.  I could go on but I won't except to say since we have gotten back from honeymoon they have been doing their hardes to push Andrew out and all the shop girls too just so they can employ polish workers there only (as they are cheap labour).  They have just been so nasty to Andrew and the poor guy has had enough but it is just a shame that he has been treated so badly after all these years.  Andrew started with this bakery soon after leaving school.

Andrew went for an interview last week to a supermarket (a fairly reputable one and this supermarket Morrisons is in most towns) fairly local to us and today when we went in to do some shopping, he saw the manager who interviewed him and Andrew has been offered a job as one of their bakers - woo hoo. No moe of getting up at 3am for a 3.30am start and no more having to go to bed by 9pm and then no more having to go to bed by 6pm on a Friday night to start work for midnight Saturday through til 7am and then come home and sleep - 6 days a week for the past 28 years................

Andrew will be starting between 5 - 8am five mornings a week and will be finished by between 2 - 4pm of an afternoon and that is it.  He will get a pension scheme, discount for shopping, other rewards and benefits plus opportunities to go on courses. Andrew is going to apply for the bakery assistant managers position that they have going which will be greater money and more prospects to climb the ladder. Andrew will get breaks, work clothes provided for him, first aid courses etc which is all positive.

The down side is that even though the money is more per hour, he will be losing around $650 - $700 a month as he will be working 39 hours over a five day week. At the moment he works 54 hours over six days.  Andrew needs  another part time job for about 10 hours to make up some of the monies as we can not survive financially especially as I am not working and trying to find a job.  We are also applying for working tax credit and we are praying that we will qualify and if we do we should hear pretty quickly but we still need Andrew to work extra hours. Please pray that extra work and the right work will come up for Andrew (his working days will vary every week including some Sundays at the moment) and I need a part-time job to come up fairly quickly preferably working from home.

It is so great that this job has come up and will make life easier for us, though financially we are going to be struggling and on a very tight budget with no leaway for a few months but God knows this.

I need to go to sleep now as it is late.

Thank you for praying
Hugs
Page

It is absolutely beautiful outside and I do believe it is going to be very warm which is about time I hasten to add.  We don't appear to have had much of a summer so far and it is almost the end of July.

I am feeling good today & especially after ministry that both my DH & I had yesterday evening.  This was ministry and prayer that was much needed after the sadness we suffered during our honeymoon. It was a very emotional evening last night for both of us. There were lots of tears (and sobbing from me at one point), but more importantly we were able to hand over our situation to Jesus.  Andrew was brilliant here too and I don't think he has opened up emotionally or cried before with others being around - so this was a bit of a breakthrough for him too. 

I am believing & praying that the Lord is softening & opening up Andrew's heart and will continue to do so.

I have also been looking for some part-time work whilst waiting to get my own business working from home up and running.  I saw an add in the local paper yesterday for a telephonist/dispatcher for a local taxi firm.  This vacancy involves working from home and it is part-time. I telephoned one of the partners of the company and I have an interview at her home on Friday in the morning.  I am praying that I will get this job as in a lot of ways it would be perfect whilst I get my own business up and running (which is going to take a little while).  The only thing that I don't like is that it involves working for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning 7 - 9am as I don't agree with working on Sundays - two hours is fine though & I can just get up earlier, get ready for church, work and then go.  Please pray that I do get this job.  This will also involve a couple of training sessions at this lady's home (who part-owns the Company) but this job would get me started.  I also need at least 16 hours as I would then qualify for Working Tax Credit which would help our finances especially as Andrew's job is no longer secure especially after working for the same Company for 28 years!

Well, I need to go and do some cleaning before heading off into town to run a couple of errands.  Have a wonderful blessed Tuesday

My personal view on this movie!

DH & I went to see Mamma Mia when this first came out which was 10 days ago at 00.01am.  it was a very late night and the film finished around 02.10am so we arrived home just before 3am and as you can imagine went straight to  sleep. 

Ok, the film, as well as being a musical,  is also a romantic comedy, very funny in places and on quite a few occasions the few of us that were in the cinema were laughing quite a bit during some of the scenes.

On the other hand, I felt it was a shame that some "crude" language had to be added especially in the first hour of the film plus, there were two scenes again, verging on the point of crudeness. - To be honest this kind of spoilt it for me in some ways. 

The storyline was very good and with a slightly added twist towards the end . The singing from Merly Streep, Pierce Brosnan (excuse spelling here), Colin Firth and Julie Waters was good even though they are not singers as such!

Would I recommend the film?
Yes I would but please take note of comments I made above.  Considering this film is PG, I dont think this is suitable for children or teenagers - if the language and sex references were taken out, then the film would be fine.

I am not sure if I would go and see it again but the music was great. I guess being an avid ABBA fan anyways I could listen to their music anywhere.

When the film comes out where you are and you do go & see it, please let us know what you think.

First of all I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who have left some awesome comments regarding our wedding photos  

I had to share this photo of this beautiful gift that I received from my family - isn't this gorgeous. It is a patio rose called Lovely Bride 

The next three photos were taken at my sister's home the day after our wedding. We stopped by before making our way to the beautiful little fishing village of Beer in Devon.

This photo is of our rings plus a close up photo of my rings as it is difficult to see the detail in the photo below!

I will be sharing more photos next week but these are (a) of a very beautiful village called Branscombe that we visited in Devon and (b) of a store/canteen of a well known television chef based in Axminster, Devon.  These will be scenic photos and especially the ones of  Branscombe will be well worth the wait as this truly is a very beautiful and picturesque village.

Have a wonderful and very blessed weekend

I am starting to read this book again from cover to cover this time as I really do need to.  There are a lot of different views over this book but most I have to say are positive ones.  My friend who so kindly gave this book to me purchased the book and started reading it but was just about ready to throw the book out the window as she did not agree or like the book at all.  I asked if I could have it so she very kindly sent this to me as a gift. 

I know there are different view points on this book and I can to be honest see both sides but I do have a lot of time not only for this book but for Michael & Debi Pearl and what they stand for.  I have discovered that in Northern Ireland there is a small distribution business who are independent distributors of No Greater Joy, I have received a couple of  the NJG magazines as a gift when I ordered another book that I wanted by The Pearls.  The books plus postage was next to nothing.  I will no doubt order some more books in the future.

Going back to "Created to be his helpmeet", this is a brilliant book, why?

v      Because this is based soundly on the Word of God

v      There are so many examples of how the Lord has changed not only marriages but hearts of women and led them back to the simple truth which is the Word of God

v      There is so much in the way of help and advice for both older and younger women

v      The chapters of this book are backed up by the bible - going back to the first point here

v      The chapters in the book are set out very well and very thought provoking

v      At the end of each chapter there both "times to consider & times of reflection"

v      testimonies and questions and answers - again very thought provoking

v      I would say various parts of this book are based on both Proverbs 31 and Titus 2

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone without question.

There are definite thought provoking statements throughout the book, for example:

v     Live with thanksgiving, forgiveness, and joy, and enjoy all your moments as if they were your last

v     Do you have enough fear of God not to question His Word?

v     A wise woman is always learning. She is open to change. She is ready to hear. She pursues knowledge.

v     A wise woman learns to adapt to her husband

v     From the beginning, God meant for us to be a comfort, a blessing, a reward, a friend, an encouragement, and a right-hand wo-man

v     Man was created to subdue; woman was created to assist

v     A wise woman understands that her husband’s need to be honoured is not based on his performance, but on his nature and his God-ordained position. She learns quickly to defer to his ideas or plans with enthusiasm. She looks for ways to reverence him. She knows this is God’s will for her life.

Yesterday I made some tuna fishcakes but made with rice instead of potatoes.  This was a recipe that Crystal (Quiverfull) posted on her blog yesterday.  The tuna cakes turned out fine and later on today I will post a recipe plus a photo. 

And finally............on the wedding side I will also post a picture of our wedding rings

Ok on to today:

More later on - have a blessed day :)

********THIS SET NEEDS TO BE SEEN LAST OF ALL********

If you haven't seen the first set of photos, please see the post below this one

There are three sets of wedding photos as I was not able to fit all the photos into one slide show. 

I will send the remaining two sets either this evening or tomorrow.

Here are the photos from our wedding rehearsal. The photos include Andrew and myself (which would help :lol), my sister and her husband, My sisters daughter and her daughter Chloe who was one of my bridesmaids.  My other bridesmaids were also there, Jayne (Chief Bridesmaid) and Naomi.my "spiritual mom" Juliet, Andrew's best man and Naomi's father, Ron a good friend and one of our usher's and finally Haydon the Reverand who conducted our blessing service (he is the one in long shorts and prominent throughout).