By the end of the week a lot of us are needing a good laugh, I know I do sometimes.
First another gem from my favourite cartoon, Vimrod.
And now a video. My son keeps threatening to make videos for our announcements at church, but i doubt he’d get any of our church leaders to do anything like this:
And yes, this guy is one of the leaders at the church concerned.
If you still need more laughs, head on over to homesteaders heart by clicking on the Friday Funnies banner at the top of this post.
Years ago, our dear friend Natalie started Friday Felicities. I say “our” because she was a friend to so many women online.
Natalie passed away on June 7, 2007 after a sudden illness. Becky took over hosting Friday Felicities and while she may not manage to post every week, those of us who participate now still consider her the host.
What are felicities you ask? Why they are things that make you happy! So, this is not a hard meme at all! Becky gives permission to use the graphic in this post but please load it to your own site. List your happies and please go over to Becky's to sign the Mr. Linky if she posts and link up with other Friday Felicities participants.
So, my Friday Felicities for Friday 19th June are:
Heeheeee, Apparently, our local town crier is not strong enough on his legs to participate in the parade part of the carnival and has to use a disabled scooter thing.
But the real memories this day brings back are of this:
The samba band from my son’s school. He’s in there somewhere!
Here’s another clip showing their samba teacher. Bear in mind that they had only been playing samba for a year when they took part in this parade. And they weren’t even getting lessons every week.
head on over to Cheaper than Therapy for more fascinating photos by clicking on the Thousand Words Thursday banner at the top of this post.
Ooops, I forgot to post my Tell Me Thursday last week, and since I did not post a Wordless Wednesday THIS week, let me tell you the story of last week’s photos. Last Week’s Post on Wordless Wednesday showed these photos:
They were taken when we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary with a weekend away at a pub/restaurant/b&b called the TALBOT at Knightwick in Worcestershire.
Those photos were taken in the car park and they are of giant thistles, not normal sized ones. I had NEVER seen thistles that size before and the colours were beautiful and they were just growing as weeds in the car park.
The Talbot is right next to the river Teme, and when hubby and I went for an evening stroll, we stood on a small bridge over the river and watched two swans swimming around. As we stood there, watching these swans we saw something else neither of us had seen before, and have not been privileged to see since either. We watched for a good 10 minutes as a kingfisher dipped in and out of the banks of the river, flying this way and that, it was beautiful!
Neither of those were the best thing about the weekend however, because the Talbot is famous for its food.
A unique style has developed; Annie is firmly rooted in the traditions and seasonal produce of the Teme Valley, and strongly believes that anything that cannot be produced on the premises should come from a known local source e.g. hams, bacon, sausages and cheese.
We believe food should have an identifiable character, be distinctive and prepared with thought for both the ingredients and the customer.
We produce and make our own preserves, breads, black pudding and raised pies. We grow 'chemical free' vegetables and herbs and brew beer on the premises; mixed and green salads also come from our own garden. We glean and gather wild food from the fields and hedgerows around us and buy in no processed food. This is labour intensive and means high costs, but we think the results are worth it.
The only exception to our 'local' rule is fish - we have fresh deliveries from Cornwall and Wales regularly.
When we were there one of the local farmers had found a puffball mushroom and we were lucky enough to have a piece as part of our cooked breakfast.
I’d love to go back there again!
If you participated in Wordless Wednesday and would like to share the story of your photo, head on over to Tell Me Thursday and share your link.
13 books in Mt TBR
(that would be mount To Be Read)
The last 3 are actually Re-reads, but so good I DO want to read them again.
You've Got to Be Kidding, I Thought This Was the Great Tribulation!: How to Stay Saved When You Are Going Through the Fire by Cathy Lechner
In her own special style, Cathy addresses times when only God's grace and a good laugh will help you get through. She writes of times when going back is not an option, and when staying where you are is intolerable. Times when you need answers, and you ache to hear a word from Heaven. Times, like the day, when for her, nothing was funny anymore.
And while trials and tribulations are not funny, Cathy manages to bring balance to serious subjects, while helping to lift the reader's spirit with fun titles like: Where He leads me, I will follow...as long as there is room; What to do when you want to give up and eat chocolate, and I'm almost positive God just wanted to see if I was willing!
She also goes straight to the heart of the tribulation issue when she asks: Are you a victim or victor?; Do you know that God loves a nobody?; and Will I find faith?
If you want to read more Thursday 13 posts, head on over to Happy To Be At Home by clicking on the Thursday 13 banner at the top of this post.
And then over to Thursday 13 by clicking on that banner as well!
TESCO CLUBCARD POINTS
We usually shop at one of two main supermarkets. We stick mainly to own brand and budget brand products and that works for us on keeping our budget down.
One of the two supermarkets has a loyalty points card. we often do a large shop from there, via their online shopping service with home delivery. We probably use this about twice a month.
Through our loyalty card membership we often get vouchers for extra points when buying certain items.
I ONLY buy them if they are items we will really use AND I work out the value of the points to me and consider that in my decision when it something a little more expensive than I would normally purchase.
You see, you can use your points for deals.
I used to just collect my points up and spend the vouchers in store, 100 points equalled £1 to spend. More recently they have started to offer to double your vouchers for buying certain items, so I can make my 100 points into £2 to spend on wine, clothes or certain other things.
BUT MUCH MUCH BETTER THAN THAT is to use the vouchers to buy deals tokens. 100 points buys £4 of deals tokens. They have a deals website or a printed brochure where you can see what you can spend your deals tokens on.
There are so many options from dry cleaning, to books, and magazine subscriptions, from Amusement park entrance to car breakdown cover and all sorts of things in between. Every year we pay for our car breakdown cover with these tokens, something that would normally cost us over £100. We also have enough each year to have a meal out, and indeed these tokens are paying for my eldest son’s 18th birthday family dinner in 3 weeks time.
This post is being linked to:
If you want to read more hints and tips, head over to We Are That Family by clicking on the Works For Me Wednesday banner above.
If you want to read more frugal tips head on over to Life as mom by clicking on the the Frugal Fridays banner above.
Sadly this week’s post is a little bereft because I don’t have a photo of the actual animal concerned to show you, it just never occurred to me at the time to get my camera.
This week I learned, that right here in the middle of a town we do have hedgehogs, because there was one in my garden.
We had just come home from church and youngest (14) went out into the garden and the next thing I hear is him shouting “hedgehog”. I had to double check what he had said and then went out to investigate.
Sure enough, hiding behind our compost bin was a fairly decent sized hedgehog. I was a bit concerned about it being out and about in the middle of the day, especially such a hot day. We decided that since it was in the shade and such a large specimen we would leave it alone and see what happened.
Pretty soon it had disappeared.
Later, on searching the net, I discovered the following:
However, none of the other websites I looked at said that about ANY hedgehog seen in daylight, and this one was definitely not underweight or injured, and so I am not going to worry too much. He’s disappeared now, and we only have a tiny garden (yard) with nowhere for it to hide. My guess is it’s nesting somewhere near by and had been disturbed.
I also think the hedgehog may well have been the mystery intruder into our raised bed for the veggies, rather than one of the neighbours cats. hmmm, in the absence of a night vision camera, I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Talk About Tuesday is a blog carnival where we all write a post of something we want to share or talk about and link them all together on the lazy organizer’s blog. It’s a great way to get to know other bloggers and make connections in the blogosphere.
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After last week’s story telling, I thought I’d share the links to some of my other stories.
First, the story of Abraham and Sarah, in verse, as written by someone whose name I should remember but can’t. I’ve been doing this one for years.
| Abraham.wma |
Then we have the story of Dr Good and the Strangers as written by Bob Hartman
| Dr Good and the St... |
Finally for today we have a story which I would suggest you do not play for young ears without previewing first, it’s not a kids story, this one is for grown ups.
The Meat of the tongue as told by Anamation.
| Meat of The Tongue... |
Later in the week, I MIGHT share the story of Tattercoats, but that is a long story so I’ll keep it to a post on it’s own.
If you want to read more talk about it posts, or even participate yourself, head on over to the lazy organizer by clicking on the talk about it Tuesday banner at the top of this post.
10 things Tuesday is a weekly reminder to stop and be thankful and share that on your blog. So, what 10 things are you thankful for today?
If you want to participate in 10 things Tuesday, go visit X-Box Wife by clicking on the Ten Things Tuesday banner at the top of this post.
I just asked my 14 year old for an idea to use for this week’s Works for me Wednesday and his reply was “Don’t blow M…… up.” M…… is his older brother. The joys of living with teen boys!
OK, on to the serious stuff.
If you really can’t cut your family’s hair and believe me, I tried and I’m awful at it, try and find a local stylist who will come to your home and cut your hair there.
Usually it works out at about half the price of going to a salon and you can get the whole family done in one go without having to drag everyone out of the house and off to the salon. They save money because they don’t have to pay for all the costs involved in running a salon, they get to be their own boss, and as long as you tell them ahead of time if you want anything unusual, they will bring everything they need with them.
I’m blessed there are two ladies at our church who cut hair at home and I have had both of them now and they are both amazing!
They will even come out and spend just a short while with me if I just want my hair styling before an evening out, anything like that.
Most home hair stylists don’t advertise much, they rely on word of mouth, so if you don’t know of anyone, ask around, you never know who is using one.
This post is being linked to:
If you want to read more hints and tips, head over to We Are That Family by clicking on the Works For Me Wednesday banner above.
If you want to read more frugal tips head on over to Life as mom by clicking on the the Frugal Fridays banner above.
If you want to see other Wordless Wednesday photos, go check them out here.
And make sure you come back tomorrow for Tell me Thursday, the story BEHIND the photos I chose this week.
Talk About Tuesday is a blog carnival where we all write a post of something we want to share or talk about and link them all together on the lazy organizer’s blog. It’s a great way to get to know other bloggers and make connections in the blogosphere.
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Big Bad Brian the Lion
Heeheee. What a title.
I realise that over the past few weeks I have gained a number of new readers who don’t know what I do for a living, so I thought I’d tell you about my job!
I am blessed! I am blessed indeed!
I am employed by my church to make contacts with local primary schools (ages 5 to 11) with a view to eventually running some sort of weekly outreach club that would invite all the children aged 6 to 12 in our town to attend.
So far the contact making process is going slowly, very slowly. But it is still moving. And this week I am in two local schools talking to large groups of their children, in their assembly time.
This week i will be using the story of Big Bad Brian the Lion to lead into a little talk about bullying and the need to speak to an adult if you or a friend is being bullied.
I’ve written a synopsis of the story over on my Children’s ministry blog, but if you want to hear the story you can listen to me telling it by clicking below.
| Big Bad Brian the ... |
If you want to read more talk about it posts, or even participate yourself, head on over to the lazy organizer by clicking on the talk about it Tuesday banner at the top of this post.
10 things Tuesday is a weekly reminder to stop and be thankful and share that on your blog. So, what 10 things are you thankful for today?
If you want to participate in 10 things Tuesday, go visit X-Box Wife by clicking on the Ten Things Tuesday banner at the top of this post.
On Saturday there was an emerging church feast day at our church building. They had rented our building but one of our ladies was doing the catering and she had asked church members to bake for her.
I made a lemony sheet cake that I found the recipe for while blog visiting last week and some apple nut cupcakes.
There was not enough lunch because more people turned up than had booked in but there was LOTS of cake, I mean LOTS AND LOTS of cake. Thankfully there was a bring and share meal after church on Sunday, so we knew we could use them up for that.
THEN we all started talking about what we had planned to make for Sunday, and there were cakes, trifles, more cakes, more trifles and very little savoury stuff! Heeheee, so a few of us started trying to work out what we could do savoury with what was in our homes as we would probably not have much time for shopping after we were finished at the Feast day.
I had a root around in the church cupboards and discovered that the crockpot was still there, so decided to do something for that.
On Saturday night I fried some mince (ground beef) until it was all browned, put that aside to cool and in a lidded container mixed the other ingredients for beefy Mexican Rice. When the mince was cold we mixed that in as well.
The recipe is on my Food and Fitness Blog.
On Sunday morning I took it down to church and put it into the crockpot on high before church started, so that it would be ready by the bring and share after church. the only thing was while at home I had forgotten the size of the church crockpot and this mixture filled it RIGHT TO THE TOP! I was really worried that it might either overflow or not cook properly. I needn’t have worried, it was delicious and all went!
So this week, I learnt that when using items of cookware that are unfamiliar to you, it really is a good idea to check the size before you start!
This post is being linked to
