Gratitude
A Genuine Colorado Country Christmas
First I saw the funniest FB announcement yesterday! On our community bulletin board it said:
“Has anybody lost this chicken?” with a picture and everything.
You’ve just got to love living rural. And the chicken did find his way home too!
Then we went out to cut our own tree! Pretty nice huh?
We decorated last night…
…and this morning we had a new coat of six inches of snow!
It feels just like Christmas!
We have fallen in love with living in tune with the sun and seasons, waking up each day amazed to find ourselves in such a beautiful, quiet, natural place…
Are you ready to follow your dreams? Here’s how we found ours!
Please feel free to contact me at: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com to order any of my books as Christmas gifts for family & friends who are struggling with midlife mayhem!
& Please follow us on TWITTER!
An Amazing Week of Spanish Peaks Sunsets!
Those of you who come to this area just for the summer are really missing out on the best sunrises and sunsets! This week they just keep getting better…
This is the daily view from our home.
Some have suggested that it is the strong winds here that create the complex cloud arrangements over the peaks at dusk. I don’t know…
I just know I love having front row seats to this kind of momentary natural beauty!
Last night I was sitting in my living room trying to resist taking one more photo of our sunsets. I mean, how many do I need? But then this happened right at the end of the day. See what I mean? Who can resist taking a picture of that?
Who can resist feeling gratitude when we are given such fantastic gifts each morning and evening?
Cranberry Nut Bread
Now for something completely different…
I have always enjoyed fixing meals. What’s new is my love of baking. I find that I can change old recipes into semi-healthy alternatives so I can enjoy them instead of store-bought varieties whose main ingredient is almost always sugar.
I’ve been making this recipe since 1976, when I got it from a boyfriend’s Mom. She said I might want to learn how to make it for him. Him I got rid of decades ago, but his Mom’s recipe lives on!
Cranberry Nut Bread from Kent’s Mom
2 cups white flour & 2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sugar OR 4 packets of stevia plus 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups cranberries OR use one whole bag
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs beaten well
1 and 1/2 cups orange juice
5 Tbsp. melted butter
Sift all dry ingredients together. Add cranberries and nuts. Mix well. Add eggs and OJ mixture and mix until all ingredients are moist. Bake in 2 greased loaf pans at 350 degrees for one hour. Check with toothpick after 55 minutes.
The Colorado Spring Fire: Deja Vu
As the death toll continues to rise in both northern and southern California, I cannot help but remember this past summer, when we were evacuated from our home for the Spring Fire. For one week we watched and waited to see if our area would survive bone dry conditions and high winds. Luckily we received a good rain just in time to quell our fires and save most of the area, except for homes west of here in the mountains. They were burned down before the nation’s firefighters arrived to save this valley and the town of La Veta.
Words cannot describe my anger at our ridiculous president for criticizing anyone whose home is burning down before their eyes. Or worse, who died simply because the fires came through so quickly that there was no way to escape. Who is this IDIOT, criticizing those who risk their lives everyday to save the lives of others?
Those who are suffering now in California will suffer for the rest of their lives from this kind of trauma. It is impossible for those who have not experienced something like this to truly understand the feeling of loss and hopelessness when everything you know goes up in smoke before your eyes. Think about these poor souls as you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner or gather around the tree at Christmas…
P.S. I feel no sympathy for those stuck in traffic on the East Coast right now. Try burning to death sometime!
Fight Hate with Love
Have you ever considered the power of hate versus the power of love? Which do you believe to be stronger? In a nation where it is not so unusual for parishioners to be shot down in their own church or synagogue because of their beliefs, this can become a serious dilemma. How many Jews have died for their beliefs in the history of mankind?
If I were the president today, I would recommend a day of reflection for our country, a day to reflect on how hate and violence have become far too common. We might also reflect on who we are as a people and who we aspire to be as a nation.
Hatefulness is not the way to greatness, for a person or a nation.
In this season of nastiness and negativity, better known as election time, stop and notice who the haters are. Who has the most nasty and negative ads to represent the way they see their opponent and their world? Stop and think about how this reflects on their character. We already have a nasty, negative president who apparently enjoys disparaging more than half of us for not supporting his policies or his way of running our country. Do you want others to join him in embarrassing us around the world?
Let us instead meditate on love and peace around the world. Peace for the families who have lost so much in this most recent act of hatred and violence. Peace to those who know not what they have done…
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 