First, I want to apologize for not checking the comments until today from last week’s post. I got caught up in a few things, and didn’t check my blog for a few days. If you get time, several great ideas came in about good foods to cook when you get unexpected company or are cooking for a crowd, so you might want to check the comments from last week’s post if you’d like to read them, and you can always add yours. Since my comments are all moderated, I have to read them before they post, which means I have to read them……you get the idea! I’ll try to keep more on top of things this week.
Today, one of my sisters came and we cleaned and started to set up for Thanksgiving. We had a great time chatting and the housework seemed to do itself. What fun!
I had fun putting out some fall decorations. Last summer, Rob stumbled upon a huge box of artificial fall flowers at a yard sale and it was free. So, of course he grabbed it and put it in the shop for me to see if I could use any of it. This week, I was delighted to find brand new stems of flowers, a basket, some burlap, and some already finished table decorations. I’m not done digging in the box and am already super excited. I put some things from other years with the new items and it’s starting to look festive around here.
There were quite a few people though the house this week. I have been cooking up a storm. Besides the puffy green bean bake (basically cheese, eggs, gf bread crumbs, dried onions, a little 1/2 and 1/2 and of course leftover green beans) and apple crisp, I made ham and beans, a huge vegetable-beef soup, and experimented with a new Instant Pot recipe for jambalaya. It’s the second time I’ve tried this recipe and switched it up to make it less ricey and less spicy. It came out great, but I have a little more tweaking to do.
I had 2 sizable, separate gifts of food this week. I’m very thankful. It seems that the more I serve out, the more God brings to my door. I never run out of food, no matter how many people eat here.
I took Patsy and my niece, Michaela, down to the church to help with the Operation Christmas Child collection. Michaela really wanted to help this year, and since she was spending the weekend with us, we got to tag along. This is actually something that is near and dear to my heart, so it was nice to get a chance to do it again. Our church is a collection site. That means individuals and groups from all over the area bring the boxes to the church, and volunteers pack them into large cartons to then be loaded onto semis and transported to the warehouse to be sent around the world. We received over 900 boxes just on Saturday! Wow! It was so nice to see the community coming together in such a powerful way to show God’s love around the world.
I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. We have much to be thankful for, and it will be so nice to gather together as a family again. I have some fun activities planned with the kids to keep bringing the holiday spirit to the day, so will share what we made later.
You haven’t mentioned your African friend and her little daughter that you used to visit with. Have they moved away from your area? Would love to hear how they are doing if you are still in touch with them.
They are doing great! Between Covid and the increased distance after they moved, our visits have been few and far between. But, my sister just made it up there the other day, and we sent our greetings and love. She has a job, her drivers license and lots and lots of friends in her area now, her daughter is in school, and that gives us less time to visit as well. I know we will always love each other, though, even though the season has passed where we get as much visiting time as we used to.
oops!!I posted twice last week because I didn’t think it went through after a couple of days LOL! Don’t you just love it when you get blessings like a whole box of decorations!! My son and his wife had a fall wedding and I helped with the decorations and also hosted the rehearsal dinner at our church fellowship hall. I used fall decorations in her colors. It is so fun to decorate with them each year and no wedding decor just sitting in boxes. Have a wonderful thanksgiving.
It is so good to be able to re-use something for me as well. It makes me feel good that whoever went to all that work in the first place is getting so much more use from their decorations than they even know. And, it helped me so much in a super busy week to have that all done!
Here goes a family story about the shoeboxes. My Mom’s brother who is the black sheep of the family and never sees past the end of his own nose, could not be found one Thanksgiving. Now, he does live on a sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico so he could have gone anywhere. When Mom finally got in touch with him later he said he had volunteered to take shoes boxes south to Central America so he had loaded up his sail boat with thousands of them and delivered them to their destination. I think it has been ten years now and we are still in disbelief that he did that.
That’s such a wonderful story. I love it!
The girls look like they are having fun helping with those boxes! What a wonderful opportunity to participate in the community!
I read all the suggestions everyone made on the previous post – such wonderful ideas!
Hope you and your family have a very happy Thanksgiving, Becky! 🙂
Thank you! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving yourself:)
We have the shoeboxes in Australia as well. I think most of them go to SE Asia, such as Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Laos, and Cambodia. Its a fabulous way of showing Gods love in a very neutral way.
Today, they announced that over 9,000 boxes have been collected from out surrounding area–(our church was a collection site for many towns around us) and I thought that was amazingly exciting to hear, especially when you think that we are quite a small city, as cities go. So, I cannot imagine how many boxes are collected when you add up our whole nation and other countries as well. That’s a lot of children who are getting a gift! Wow!