Camera Case #1, and…Books!

Two weeks ago I placed an order for two camera cases.  They were both very reasonably priced and I REALLY liked them both so I bought them!  Anyway…yesterday one of them came!!! 😀

Yay!  I’ve had my eye on this case for a while, but on Amazon is was almost $30, and I couldn’t find a brown one on Ebay, so I waited…a long time, so it seems!

It is a dark brown (if you can’t tell) and it fits my camera perfectly!  I really love it!

It snaps shut on the bottom of the case, and there is a screw on place for my tripod, which is awesome!  You can keep the base of the case on while taking pictures!

The inside is more of a suede material and lighter brown as well.

Here’s my camera getting all cozy in it’s new case! 😉

   

It’s a nice little case and I’m excited that it came and very happy to have it!

(Sorry for the tiny pic!)  This is the other case, which I am still awaiting it’s arrival!  Yippee!

~*~*~*~

Also, I have been inspired lately to read LOTS of books!  Bess let me borrow a bunch of books, my friend keeps telling me about some books I must read, and last year I got a stack of books for my birthday, so I have plenty to read, I just need to sit down and start reading!

   

ha ha…there!  The book I am holding in these pictures is an old 8th grade literature book!  It’s a good book though.

Here are just a few of the books I plan to read!  Well, I don’t plan on reading the literature book just for pleasure reading, and I’ve already read Little Women (highly recommend it!), but anyway, there are a few of the lovely books I intend to read.

Have a grand day!  I hope you will find some good books to read too! 🙂

Much love,

Jenny~

Post #150!

Shake and Make Ice Cream!

So…today my mom and ALL of the kids (except Joshua and I) went to Dalton, GA.  They left much earlier in the afternoon and have been gone for quite a long time, and it turned out that the keys to the car got locked in the car and dad had to drive all the way to Dalton (which is about 2 hours, I believe, from our house!) and help unlock the car with his spare key! 😦

Anyway…

While they were gone, Joshua and I were home alone, the dogs were barking at everything, and we were getting a little bored, so we made ice cream! 🙂  We used a recipe from online for “Shake & Make” ice cream, which means you put the ingredients in a small plastic bag then you put the small bag in a big plastic bag with ice and salt and shake it until it forms into soft serve ice cream…it’s very fun, easy, and quick, and lucky enough, we had all the ingredients!

First we made the heavy whipping cream recipe:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 Tablespoons of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

1/2 cup of salt (bigger granules are better)

a LOT of ice

plus 2 sandwich/zip-lock bags, and one big freezer/zip-lock bag

Mix ingredients together in one small bag then double up the small bags so they don’t leak!  Put ice and salt in big bag then small bag in big bag and seal nice and tight.  Shake around the bag (wearing oven mitts or using a towel) for 5-10 minutes.  It should turn out soft and creamy and YUMMY! 🙂  (Sorry if that’s confusing!)

Both of these pictures are of the milk ice cream which we made the second time around (just replace the the heavy whipping cream with milk and follow the rest of the instructions above).  They both tasted really good.  The milk hardens a LOT quicker then the cream though, so it was made a lot faster and tasted really good!

 

A taste of the ice cream; yum yum! 🙂  It was very good, and it satisfied both of our cravings for something sweet (I added some chocolate syrup to mine).

~*~*~*~

Cael, dear little bubba, was so cute this morning!  I asked him if he wouldn’t mind posing for a few pictures, and he relentlessly said “Okay” and let me snap a few shots of his sweet little face!

He wouldn’t look at me at first…

Then he wouldn’t smile! 😉

  

Then when he started to smile he stuck his tongue out! 😉  Oh well…he’s still cute!  (I had fun with some editing, if you can’t tell!)

Here are some other random pictures I took the other day!

Flower clip

More flowers!

And my new sunglasses!

I got this very cool journal on Sunday at Books-A-Million!  The paper is very cool, and I really like the cover!  Can’t wait to use it!

And here is Judy and her puppies!  They are getting bigger.

Well, that’s all I have to share right now.  Try out that ice cream recipe sometime and let me know if you do and if it works out well!  I hope the rest of your week is lovely.  Much love and God bless.

Jenny~

Writers Block

Writing.  I…love…writing!  Ideas/inspiration.  I…have…NO…ideas or inspiration!

Why?!

If someone loves something, don’t you think it’s only fair to be granted the ability to pursue the thing that you love doing?  To have ideas to write about and things to say and big words to use?!  It’s very aggravating when you want so badly to write, and you get out your pens and paper, and then all you can do is stare into the wall with a complete blank mind and nothing to write!

Of course right now I have something to write about because I am angry, annoyed, upset, and sick and tired of NOT having ANYTHING to write about!  So I write about myself being angry and what has gone wrong or right in my life, etc.  I don’t want to complain, but I always do.  Why is it so easy to complain?  It’s like the alternative: If nothing goes “right”, complain!

Why?!

Today is a beautiful day.  We went to church and worshiped the Lord and read the Bible and talked with our church family and friends, and all that.  Now I am home from church and I don’t know what has triggered the annoyance I feel right now, but something has made me not very happy.  

Dear blog, I do NOT want or expect any sympathy.  I only want to express what I’m feeling so I’ve decided to express it through publishing a post.

I have figured out that I will probably never publish a real story or right a great poem or print a 100 page novel; especially with my negative attitude.  Sometimes I feel uplifted and encouraged to write, but still in those times when I’m not in despair I have nothing to write about!  I guess I just wasn’t meant to be a writer…of books or stories, that is.  I tend to write better when I’m composing a letter to someone or writing to someone.  The only problem about that is no one writes letters anymore!  There are about two people who ever reply to my letters, and although I appreciate their correspondence, I wish I could get other people to write letters!  Not because I want to receive a bunch of letters in the mail, but because letter writing is so enchanting and so much fun too!  I LOVE sending letters to people, and even though it’s sad not getting a reply, or you might never hear if the receiver received the letter you sent, it’s so fun knowing that someone got a letter to open and enjoy in the mail.  I should be one of those people who goes through the phones books and picks random people to send random letters to and sign them all “Sincerely, Anonymous“!

Well, I have ranted enough and after I press this lovely, big, blue, button that reads “Publish” I will probably look back at this post and say to myself “I probably should not have posted that!“.  But right now I don’t care.  I’m going to go in the woods and hide there for as long as I can surrounded by peace and God’s creations, after I take pictures of the puppies for my mom.

Thank you, blog, for being there when I need to just unload my aggravation!  I greatly appreciate it, and I plan on posting some more positive and happy posts soon!  With much love, and may God bless this day and bring some warm, sunny, happiness to us all.

Jenny~

(P.S. It is my choice to have a sour attitude, so hopefully I’ll choose to be happy for the rest of the day because it is SO nice outside!  I wish I was riding my bike on a long, never ending, scenic trail…*sigh*)

Puppies (once again)!

Well, as you might be able to tell from the title of this post, we have more puppies! 🙂  Yes, Judy had eight puppies yesterday.  Six boys and two girls, and they are all so CUTE!  (I don’t understand why they have to grow up into big, slobbery, smelling dogs!?!)  Oh well…

We had the first out of many photo shoots with them today, and you can click here to find out more about puppies and to see all the individual pictures that we took (you can also view last years litters here).

~*~*~*~

The past few days we have had some lovely weather!  Sunday was decent weather, but very cold.  Monday and Tuesday were brilliant though!  I spent a lot of my time outside on Monday and Tuesday and wanted to yesterday (and today), but by the time a made it outside it was very gloomy.

This picture was taken Monday.  I’ve probably said this before and will probably say it again after this, but I love the sky!

If you click on this picture to enlarge it you can see that there are little black speckles all over it!  I wish I had gotten a better picture, but these little birds flew over my head so quickly that I didn’t even know I took a picture of them until I loaded my picture on the computer! 🙂

Here’s the marvelous moon up in the sky on Monday right before the sun set all the way.  It’s fun taking a picture like this; the moon with the blue sky instead of the dark night sky!

Here’s a random thing (but it was delicious!).  I made chicken, broccoli and rice  with teriyaki sauce for lunch and it was quite satisfying. 😉

~*~*~*~

On to other things.  Spring, I am very happy to say, is appearing all around our yard!  I do enjoy the cold winter weather, but cool breezy spring weather is so wonderful!

   

The crocuses are blooming and they are so pretty!

There are daffodils and other bulbs that are sprouting all around.  Skylar planted TONS of bulbs earlier this winter, so our yard will be quite colorful (I hope)!

   

We have always had lots of crocuses planted around our yard.

They are cute little flowers, and quite photogenic! 🙂

   

The weather was nice today, even though the sky was cloudy.  At least it didn’t rain.

(This little gnome looks very cozy)

Have I introduced you, Blog, to my rose yet (I don’t remember)?  Well, here it is!  Soon it will be bigger and full of red roses!  I cannot wait!

It’s doing pretty well and there are lots of pretty new buds on it.

Daffodils are such friendly looking flowers.  This particular bulb has been planted along our driveway for many years.

So yellow!

I personally like the white and yellow daffodils best.

Flowers are wonderful!

~*~*~*~

Before I sign off I must share a short little story.  John had something of Cael’s hanging out of his mouth, and Cael did not like the sight of it, so he went over to John and yanked it from his mouth and John came running into mom’s room and said “Cael punched out my tooth!” and sure enough John’s mouth was a little bloody, and there was a tooth in his hand!  Ha ha! 😀  (The tooth was already loose, and as Cael says, he was just trying to help his tooth fall out faster!  Lol!)

Eli

I hope spring is finding it’s way into your yard as well.  Have a wonderful evening and I hope your weekend is blessed with a cool breeze and lots of sunshine!

God bless!

Jenny~

Bluebird

Yesterday was a beautiful day!  Besides the perfect weather (not too cold, not too warm), my sisters and I went on a very nice picnic!  We went to a little park a few minutes from our house and to our luck we had the whole place to ourselves! 🙂  The sky was big and blue and the grass was so green from all the rain we’ve had lately, and it was just lovely.

   

   

(Hopefully we can go to this park again sometime because it was very pretty!)

Susanna got everything together with a little help from us all.  Really, it was all her.  She bought all these cute Valentines Day stuff and made little finger sandwiches and everything!

Esme, Skylar, and Susanna

It was very pink and red, of course!  I was holding a bowl of Jello and Sylvie and I bumped each other and it splattered on my LIGHT blue dress and WHITE tights!  Luckily it did now stain my dress, but there is a little pink tint where it fell on my tights.  (Just thought I’d share that)

   

Chocolates, Ferrero Rocher, rice crispy treats, et cetera!  Yum! 🙂

Skylar

Skylar was rocking her new blue shades and red lipstick! 😉

Esme

Es with her bubbling chocolate milk!

Aren’t the heart cups cute?!  She even got pink and white straws!  SO festive!

Look at this!  I zoomed into a jet flying across the sky!  I put a pink arrow pointing at it, if you can’t tell.

Esme

Here is Esme jumping with some hearts.  ha ha!

Sylvie

I was going to get a picture of all of us jumping, but the one of myself turned out really bad, and I forgot to get one of Skylar…*sorry Sky!*

Susanna

Of course Susanna has a pretty awesome pose!  I like this picture.

Well, that was our lovely Valentines Day!  I hope you all had a glorious day yesterday as well.

~*~*~*~

On our picnic I got some great pictures of birds!  I don’t mean to be bird crazy or anything, but I really enjoy photographing birds, and these pics are AWESOME!

The first bird here is a vulture.  Not a very attractive bird, but I like how this pictures turned out. 🙂

Next up is a charming little Eastern Bluebird!  I will have to say that I was SO excited to have captured this picture!  I have been wanting to take a picture of this bird for a while now, and thanks to Sylvie I saw the bird just in time before it flew away.

It’s so pretty!

Last, but not least, this lovely hawk sat so still in the tree and let me get some stunning shots of it (hawks usually sit still).

   

I love hawks.  They are such strong and beautiful birds.

If I was a bird I would want to be a hawk…or a cardinal. 😉

Today was beautiful weather as well!  I wish I had spent more time outside today!  Hopefully tomorrow will be nice (I hear there might be some morning snow!).

~*~*~*~

One more story from yesterday then I’ll be off!  Before dinner Skylar and I went on a walk.  The weather was so nice and we left just in time to watch the sunset!  As we walked up our neighborhood, a huge flock of little blackbirds flew over us and we stood still to watch them and as we watched them fly away all we could hear was the pitter-pattering of their wings flapping!  It was almost magical! 🙂

Well, Bess and Evelyn just arrived, so I am going to visit with them and then eat dinner and then do something else!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and may the Lord be with you.

Much Love,

Jenny~

Dream Come True

(I didn’t take this picture)

“I was walking down the road that we live off of, and the sun was setting.  The sky was warm with shades of yellow and orange and big, swirly, white clouds.  I had my camera strap around my neck and my camera in my hands ready to snap a shot of whatever came out of the beautiful scene I was in.  I reached the end of one of the horse pastures and noticed a flock of birds in the field.  They weren’t your regular robin or blackbird; they were bright, red, cardinals!  All over the place they were scattered.  Every inch of the grass.  I quickly turned on my camera and tried to take pictures, but my camera would not focus and it kept zooming in and zooming out and I couldn’t keep my hands steady!  Finally, the flash of the camera went off and all of the brilliant red birds flew up in the air and landed on what seemed to be a huge cork bulletin board in the middle of the field…” that’s about where I woke up.

So, two or three days after that dream occurred, I woke up and went downstairs to find my little brother, John, looking out the window into the backyard.  I didn’t have a clue what he was looking at, for it was very wet and rainy and muddy, but his face was lit up by the sight f something back there.  As I walked closer to him he looked at me and said “Jenny, come here and see whats all over the backyard!” I reached the window and to my great surprise there were tons of male and female cardinals all over our backyard!  I couldn’t believe it!

Apparently my mom and dad didn’t believe it either because John said he told them and they said no way, but after I told mom to come see for herself, she couldn’t believe it and was very sorry to have not believed John in the first place (he is a trickster sometimes, so you never know when to believe him)!

It was so pretty!  There were other birds flying around too, but the majority of them were cardinals.  As long as I can recall, these lovely red (and brown) birds have always been my favorite wild bird.

If you can’t tell, there is a male and female in this picture.  The females blended in with the ground so well that my camera was having a hard time capturing a good picture of them.

I wish I could have gotten a full view of the backyard with all the birds hopping around, but I was taking the pictures from the window because it was still raining outside, so it just didn’t turn out when I tried!  Oh well!

John drew a picture of a female and he did a great job!  If you look closely you can tell that the female has a greenish tent to it’s color and red on the tip of it’s tail and wings, and John drew a greenish bird with red accents!

This picture is my favorite one…it turned out really clear and in focus.

When I was 10 or 11 I actually “saved” a cardinal.  It was raining really hard outside and we were sitting at the kitchen table and we heard a big THUD on the window and I looked out and there was a cardinal lying on the deck!  I thought it was dead, so I grabbed a towel, ran out in the rain and examined the bird to see if it was breathing and then I picked it up and wrapped it in the towel and then I brought it inside.  It stayed in a cage in my room for about three days until it started moving well again.  It cracked a side of it’s beak and got a black eye, but he seemed okay when we let him go.  That is always a wonderful memory to think about!

I’ve learned that cardinals like the rain and the snow.  It is SO wet at our house! I’m sick of it!  I wish it would be sunny!  Hopefully tomorrow the sunshine will come out and shine down upon all the lovebirds that will be flying around. 🙂

   

God is so marvelous and wonderful and I am so grateful that he let my eyes witness this lovely scene!

Happy Valentines Day (tomorrow)!  May your day be blessed with the people you love surrounding you. 🙂

(A heart!) 🙂

Much love.

Jenny~

News and the Blues

Hello blog.  How have you been?  Well, I have been pretty good!  Not much has been going on around here and yet I feel so busy and tired all the time!  The weather has been so gloomy too that I’ve just wanted to sing the blues!  *sigh*

 (Me singing the blues…not really)

Valentines Day is in two days!  Not that I have anything “romantic” planned, but I intend to have an enjoyable day!  My sisters and I are going on a picnic! 😀  I think it will be fun, and hopefully Mr.Sun will come out and say hello!

(Pretty bouquet that is now dead)

Well, our dog, Judy, is expecting puppies in a few weeks (I believe), and once again I shall be on Puppy Picture Duty…*yay* 😉  They are pretty cute, I must admit, and as long as I don’t have to deal with the messy part of the job, I’ll be happy!

(Our cat, Clay)

If I could have a different eye color, I would want green.  Bright green!  Like Gracious, our adventurous little cat (her eyes are amazing!).

(Gracious and her big green eyes!)

Tomorrow I have a guitar lesson which I am pretty excited about because I haven’t had a lesson in a few weeks and I miss it!  I’ve learned that when I don’t listen to or play music during the week I get kind of bummed and depressed…music makes me happy and I’m glad it does because I love it! 🙂

(Cool tree blooms in the backyard)

I was reading a chapter today from the book Kisses from Katie and I was thinking about how badly I want to feel the Lord’s presence in my life like Katie Davis feels in her life in Uganda.  So many of the things she talks about and explains I can also accomplish in my life, it just takes me to trust God to do His work in my life and for me to follow Him.  I get so wrapped up in daydreams about an “easy” life with everything I need at my feet, but if you want to succeed you must work; if you want to get anywhere you must work for it!  If I want to truly feel the Lord’s presence, I need to really pay attention and read the bible and pray and worship Him!  (That was just on my mind!)

Anyway!

That’s all I have to say right now!  PLEASE shine sunshine!  We miss you.  It’s been so dreary.

Have a wonderful rest of the week, and may God bless your day!

(Male cardinal in the backyard a few days ago)

Much love!

Jenny~

P.S. I am going to post about cardinals SOON (probably tomorrow) because I had a dream and my dream came true…kind of.  I’ll explain later. 🙂

The Sun Rises

February 4th, 2013, 7:32am.

My Sister was gracious enough to wake me up this morning, about 20 minutes ago, and tell me to look out my window, and boy am I glad I did!

Whoa!  Aside from my lack of view (because I was not going to get all dressed up nice and warm and go outside to find another view on this cold day!), it was beautiful!  Deep pink, red, purple, and blue!

I wish my eyes could take pictures that I post on here because this was a million times more wonderful to see with your own eyes!

If I had gotten up, and slipped on some shoes and my winter garb, I could have gotten MUCH better pictures to post…but truly there was no way I was going outside right when I got up all groggy and half asleep to try and take a picture (next time)!

The colors in the sunrise were magnificent, and I wouldn’t trade being able to see a million sunrises or sunsets for anything in the world.

Well, good morning world, and good morning blog!  For those of you who woke up to a brilliant display of God’s handy work, I hope your day is even more blessed by it! 🙂

(If you can’t tell there’s a heart over the sunrise!)

God bless and much love!

Jenny~

P.S. The sky is awake now!  Blue cloudy sky with a ball of sunshine.  (It’s crazy how fast the sun rises and sets!  A few blinks of an eye it’s over.)

February 2nd

“I am renewing your mind.  When your thoughts flow freely, they tend to move toward problems.  Your focus gets snagged on a given problem, circling round and round it in attempts to gain mastery.  Your energy is drained away from other matters through this negative focus.  Worst of all, you lose sight of Me.

A renewed mind is a Presence-focused.  Train your mind to seek Me in every moment, every situation.  Sometimes you can find Me in your surroundings: a lilting birdsong, a loved one’s smile, golden sunlight.  At other times, you must draw inward to find Me.  I am always present in your spirit.  Seek My face, speak to Me, and I will light up your mind.”

Romans 12:2; Psalm 105:4

Jesus’ Calling, February 2nd.

~*~*~*~*~

Hello hello!  The weather has been extraordinary lately, has it not?!  Tuesday it was warm enough to wear shorts, Wednesday there were tornado warnings and watches, stormy weather, and lots of wind and rain, Thursday was beautiful, although quite cold, same with Friday and today!  Wonderful weather, but chilly and icy!  And today is Groundhog Day I believe…who cares!  ha ha! 😛

Well, my siblings and I have made mailboxes for our rooms!  I have always wanted to set up a mail system in our house because getting mail is one of the most exciting things!  To me anyway.  I love writing and receiving letters, so, I made a mailbox earlier this week, and my brothers and sister have made their own as well!

Here’s the front of mine.

I stuck with white, blue, and red, as you can tell! 🙂

My address is 1196 Upper Folding Lane.  We made a different address for each floor of the house.

The red heart that Skylar made for me is hung above, as you can see!  I love that heart.

Here is the inside.  I have hidden a wire in my mailbox so that I can get in my room if ever I happen to lock myself out. 😉  And that pink envelope is another part of this post…

I was going through some boxes in my room and came across this very inviting pink envelope.  On the front it says: “Do Not Open Until February 14 2013!”…so, this Valentines day I get to open a letter that I wrote to myself! 😀

I’m not absolutely sure, but I think it was composed in 2008 or 2009, so a good 4-5 years ago!  I am very excited about opening it, and I honestly don’t know what’s it says!  If it’s something I feel like sharing, I will share what I had to say to myself with you once I open it…maybe.

~*~*~

Well, for now that’s all I have to say!  I hope you have a glorious day!  Don’t forget to comment and say “Hey”, before you are on your way!  (I am a poet and I didn’t even know it!)  lol! 😉

(Moon pic taken Monday, Jan. 28th)

God bless!

Jenny~