Ramblings-n-Writings

Archive for October, 2008

As Election Day is drawing closer, I’m proud to be an American where I have the freedom and right to vote and the ability to place my confidence in our leaders.

Twelve years ago, I spent two months living in New Zealand as part of a missions trip. One nugget of truth that I’ll always carry with me from that trip is a gratefulness for our freedoms and our rights as Americans.

Living in another country, even for a short time, opened my eyes to what we really have here.

While in New Zealand, we celebrated the 4th of July. As part of our celebration, we listened to Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA” (multiple times, if I remember right).

Today while driving to town for my husband’s doctor’s appointment, we came across the same song on a CD. Talk about exhilarating. There’s just something about the song that tugs at my heart and makes me proud to be an American.

(If you live in our neck of the woods in central W.Va., we were the crazy ones in the Jeep blaring the song and singing at the top of our lungs totally loving the 4 or 5 times we played the song too!)

If you’ve not heard Greenwood’s song or listened to it in awhile, please listen…

P.S. – Did you notice the old man with the wheelchair standing in honor of the flag when all the others around him were still seated? Something tells me he was a former defender of our freedoms.

Frugal Friday is back! One of the ways we’re trying to be frugal is with our pet food. With a herd of cats, a large dog, and 3 puppies, we’ve tried to figure out how to cut the pet food bill a little bit.

It’s easy to cut a people food bill – coupons, growing own produce, raising livestock or participating in a co-op. But pets are a little more challenging.

A couple of months ago, I received a free subscription to Rachael Ray’s cooking magazine. Besides yummy people food recipes, the magazine always has a pet food recipe in the back.

Right now, my goal is to make one meal for the dogs each week – I’m still learning! While it sounds simple, the challenge is knowing how much to make for them and also keeping the meal nutritionally balanced for dogs.

Just giving them leftovers of people food is not a good choice; however, the basic components of a pet food meal are similar to people food meals – meat, veggie, grain, seasonings, liquid.

Once we master how to make the food, I’d like to feed a real food meal every other night and eventually every night.

So how could that be a frugal choice? For us, it is logical as well as frugal especially with the rising cost of commercial pet food. Since we live on a farm, we have access to a variety of meats and vegetables. In the future, I envision us planting a portion of our garden strictly for pet consumption.

As far as the extra time involved in making the food, a lot of the meals could be coordinated with our people food meals. Instead of cooking 1 lb of chicken, we can cook 2 lbs. And some meals could be prepared ahead and frozen for future use.

Do you have any experience making pet food? I’d love to hear from you about the pros and cons!

(Jump over to Crystal’s blog for more Frugal Friday ideas.)

Do you see the white stuff? That’s snow!!! Having snow in October seems really weird, but it’s still fun! The ground isn’t cold enough yet for the snow to stick, but I love it! I’m soooo excited!!!

Come back tomorrow for Honey’s fall photo shoot. =)

P.S. – Someone remind me of my excitement in the middle of February when I just want spring to come.

At Saturday Christian Fiction Carnival, Amy asked: What’s the best Christian fiction horror or suspense novel that you’ve read? What book would you recommend to someone who wanted to try out these genres? What’s a book in these genres you want to read but haven’t yet?

I don’t know that I’ve read any Christian horror novels. Ever. But, in my opinion, the master of Christian suspense is Dee Henderson. Her O’Malley series had me sitting on the edge of my seat and unable to put any of the books down. A couple of times I even had to look over my shoulder just to make sure everything was okay.

(With that said about Dee, I did not enjoy her Uncommon Heroes series.)

Another suspense series that I really enjoyed was Mel Odom’s NCIS series (Paid in Blood and Blood Evidence). I enjoy the TV shows JAG and NCIS, so naturally I liked his series.

While I wish there was a new Henderson book on the horizon, I’ll settle for Odom’s next book in the series, Blood Lines. It’s due to hit shelves in January 2009.

Want to know what others recommend? Click here.