Wedding Anniversary

“It is not your love that sustains the marriage —

but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”

~ Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Just a quick hello to say that Mr Letters From Home and I are celebrating our Wedding Anniversary this week, and a part of that celebration will be spending some time in a hotel in the same town where we went for our honeymoon, very exciting!  See you soon.

Working on my PhD.

I've just had such a funny email from my sister, who is a champion knitter.  She said:  When asked, tell people you are working on your Phd this year. They will show you great respect and you can decide whether to admit it stands for 'Projects Half Done' in knitting parlance.  Hahaha, I love that!  My sister raises a LOT of money for Oxfam every year through her knitting, which is hugely popular.

 I am currently working on my PhD, a jacket and hat for granddaughter Poppy.  They might not fit for a while, but  I will be seeing Poppy next Friday and want to give it to her then.  I'll try and remember to take a photo of the finished work.

I made a wonderful cake the other day from this recipe.  Give it a go, it's yummy.  I didn't have any lemons so I left them out, and I added some chopped apples and cinnamon and ginger, and I used Stork margarine instead of butter, and it was still gorgeous, this is my current favourite recipe.  

Braised Chicken Chasseur

I had a new recipe book of slow-cooking recipes from youngest son for Christmas, so I've been trying out some of the recipes.

The other day I tried Braised chicken chasseur.

It is supposed to take 1 3/4 hours and serves four, but I like to use my slow cooker and let it simmer for a looooong time, and I always cook up a double amount to save time on another day.

The ingredients stated in the book are:-

4 chicken legs (I used 8 chicken breasts)

2 tbsp olive oil

2 onions thickly sliced

250g/9 oz mushrooms

1 tbsp tomato puree

300 ml/half pint white wine

400g can chicken connsomme, or stock (I used good old oxo cubes)

3-4 fresh tomatoes, quartered

This Tesco market value vegetable stir fry is one of my kitchen allies.  It's fairly cheap, and I use it in heaps of things, sometimes I even use it in a stir-fry!  On their own, I don't find frozen veg to be great, but the secret is to combine them with fresh veggies, and then you really cannot tell the difference between the fresh and the frozen veg.

First I browned the chicken and popped it in the slow cooker.

Next I browned the onions, along with the mushrooms and some dried apricots and sultanas I happened to have in the cupboard.  I usually start off with a recipe as a guide, then I add whatever I fancy to make a concoction.  I also added carrots because I had a few that needed to be used up.

Then it was all popped into the big 6.5 ltr slow cooker.  Can you see his little brother alongside?  He only cost £9 from Tesco's a few months ago, and it is so handy for smaller meals, soups, sides or desserts.

And here is the finished result, with the fresh tomatoes added a few minutes before serving.  It was delicious!

And here are some of my recipe books, I love to flick through them and plan meals, although I often make meals up as I go along too, especially at the end of the week, when I have an odd assortment of foodstuffs to use up!

Giving the year to God

Today I read this wonderful post at the Girltalk blog, which has a wealth of Christian resources.

'Will you wake up on January 1, 2012 and say to God: “I don’t need to read your Word or pray or listen to your voice today. I am competent on my own. I can keep my New Years' resolutions all by myself, thank you very much.”?

Of course not!  We would never dare say these frightfully arrogant words.

But if we neglect God’s Word and prayer, we are saying with our hearts and actions: “I can do it all by myself.”

Jesus has a different perspective: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” He says in John 15:5.

We can’t start a new diet, stick to our budget, or kick that bad habit without Him. None of these things—no matter how hard we work at them—will have any “eternal value or…produce spiritual fruit” without God (ESV Study Bible).

To bear fruit, we must sit at Jesus' feet and listen to his teaching (Luke 10:38-42).

We must renounce our self-sufficiency.

We must repent from our arrogant independence.

We must come to the God of mercy who is eager to forgive.

And we must sit.

When we sit at Jesus’ feet, we are saying: “I need you! I can’t obey you without your help. I can’t serve you in my own strength. I can’t walk in a manner worthy of the gospel by myself. I need your grace.”

And you know what? He will give it! God doesn't correct our self-sufficiency to push us away. He wants us to draw near to sit and listen. He wants to speak to us, to teach us, to give us grace to bear fruit.

So let’s say—with our words, our hearts, and our actions—I need you, Lord, today and every day this year!'

What an excellent reminder or the all-sufficiency of our God.

Thank you

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who responded yesterday.  So often, when I am unsure about anything, or if I am feeling upset, I will 'disappear', which in the virtual world means I stop blogging!  But I decided yesterday to take a different approach and to share what is happening, and to see if anyone sheds fresh light on the situation - and you most certainly did!

Elizabeth, your blog is so beautiful, and you are right, things are not getting any cheaper, so we all need to be more savvy.

Pom Pom,  Thank you for your positive attitude!  This is how I feel too!  There is plenty to do at home, I love pottering about.  I hope your new dishwasher is NOT a lemon!

Jane and Chris, It's the simple life for me!

Susan  You also helped me to see the positive side of the situation, there are at least two ways of seeing everything, the secret is in choosing the right perspective.

Tina,  As always, you are a big encouragement, always there, with just the right word.

I have a wall-hanging in my kitchen, given to me by a good friend which says: "Friends are much cheaper than a psychiatrist."  I can vouch for that, and they are a lot more fun too, and that includes virtual friends.

So thank you everybody, that is exactly what I needed to hear.  I feel that I need to be doing a bit less, but that was also mixed with a tinge of worry, but I can see clearly now that this is a good opportunity to get my work/life balance a little bit more manageable.  Less stress, more knitting, baking, veggie-growing, more...............watch this space!

What next?

I started back to work today, and had some surprising news.  I work on a freelance basis, as a mentor to students in higher education.  For the past 16 months, I have been working many hours a week with one particular student, however it is currently not clear whether this student will continue studying, which basically means I may have less work, and therefore less money in the weeks to come.

Anyway, we'll see what happens, and I will continue to try and blog on most days, so you can come along with me on the journey.  Bye for now.

York again

Today we have driven to York and back home again, taking youngest son back to University.  The holiday seems to have sped by, as holidays often do.  

There was huge frustration when we arrived, as somehow the lock to our son's room seems to have broken, so we had to wait for a locksmith to come and fix it before we could unpack all his stuff.  But it finally got sorted, and we had a little wander around York.  We went to the minster, and just poked our heads in the door, as the entry cost is expensive, and we've been around it several times before, and then we found somewhere to eat.

Ahh, life will seem very quiet around the old homestead for a while.