CVS Flag Winner!

Thank you all for entering the contest, as always I only wish I could give each and every one of you a flag to fly at your house. 

I used Random.org and the winner is:

#8 - Katrina Garza

Congratulations Katrina!  I will be emailing you shortly to get your info!

Happy Homemaker Monday - October 25

The weather in my neck of the woods:
66 degrees outside, I really have been enjoying the cooler temperatures


Things that make me happy:
Reading a good book while the rain is pounding against the windows


Book I'm reading:
O Pioneers by Willa Cather


What's on my TV today:
Episode 5 of Downton Abbey
Merlin Season 3 new episode
Ghost Stories
The Haunted


On the menu for dinner:
Thanksgiving Dinner for a review on the blog that is going up later today or tomorrow morning, there is a giveaway too so stay tuned for that.

On my To Do List:
Finish off the Laundry
Bathrooms
Sweep and Mop Floors


New Recipe I tried or want to try soon:
Crunchy Chicken Tenders....so so good.

In the craft basket:

Granny Stripe Crochet Blanket.

Looking forward to this week:
Just hoping for a stress free good week at school for the kids.


Tips and Tricks:
I buy my parsley fresh at the commissary and then bring it home and hang it up with some twine on one of the cabinets in the kitchen.  It dries up nicely and I'm able to use it in my recipes whenever I need it.



My favorite blog post this week:
There have been so many, I finally got caught up on my blog reading, I just honestly can't think of a specific one right now.


Blog Hopping (a new discovered blog you would like to share with the readers):
One of my very favorite blogs is Eyes of Wonder and I'm sure a lot of you know which one I'm talking about, if you don't you'll have to go check it out, but be prepared to spend a couple of hours catching up.  One of the author's daughters, Rosie has her own blog and I just LOVE it, as much as her mamas.  I spent most of yesterday reading her blog posts.  Go on over to Rosie's Ramblings.


No words needed (favorite photo or picture, yours or others you want to share):

Lesson learned the past few days:
To continue trusting in the Lord and that He will get me through the hardest moments of my life....to quit questioning His path for me.


On my mind:
My children


Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

John 7:38

Home Life

Bringing a bit of Fall to our home

Working on my Granny Stripe blanket, it's slowly coming along.  When it's finished it will fit a Queen Bed, that being the reason it's so slow to progress but I'm thrilled with it so far, my only problem is that I'm running out of the yarns so pretty soon I'll have to go hunting for the colors.

I made a trip to our base library this afternoon, all by myself, no one else wanted to go.

I always enjoy going with the family but I must admit to really liking the few chances I get to go alone, I tend to browse and peruse and go through book after book in my search for the right one.

I just never know which one it will be, I tend to go through phases in my reading and just recently I was really into Vampire books but quickly got tired of those.

Now, I'm in a historical, biography phase most specifically Pioneers, Pilgrims, Oregon Trail, Gettysburg and Underground Railroad, so it was fun looking for reading material in the library.

Here's what I came home with:


Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch
The narrator, 16-year-old Rose Nolan, arrives at Ellis Island with her family, but right away they are beset by obstacles. Her baby brother is diagnosed with trachoma, and her father must take him back to Ireland; her uncle's family, while taking them in, makes it clear they are unwelcome. Rose finds work in a sweatshop and, after her mother, too, gives up on America, Rose rents a tiny room with her 12-year-old sister from the father of a union organizer, a girl named Gussie. High-minded Gussie helps Rose deal with her dishonest boss and finagle a job at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. There, Rose makes friends and begins to enjoy New York, but when the infamous fire breaks out, she finds herself trapped, along with all of her fellow employees (management locked the girls in each day); Rose's friends, including Gussie, are among the 146 fatalities.


Biscuits, Spoonbread and Sweet Potato Pie by Bill Neal
This delightful cookbook celebrates the glories of southern baking, with 300 recipes for the breads, biscuits, cakes, pies, cookies, and sweets that have been the pride of southern cooks for generations. 


The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales (every bit as magical and sinister as Grimm's) whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children.

 Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael
The publications aren't instant successes, and shortly after Charlotte's Jane Eyre creates a stir in London, a wave of deaths in her family leaves Charlotte as the sole caretaker of her aging father. That responsibility, combined with her average looks, seem certain to fate Charlotte to a life of spinsterhood—until a confession of undying love comes from an unlikely corner. Charlotte has a choice: will she settle for less than that all-encompassing passion she writes about? Or would she rather be alone for the rest of her life? Through letters written by Brontë herself and research on her life and life's work, Gael paints an accurate and intriguing depiction of the author, though her dedication to her material leads portions to read like straightforward biography. 

The Times of their lives by - Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony
The authors demystify both the political realities and the daily social lives of the New England colonists popularly identified as "Pilgrims." Both casual readers and researchers are offered an engaging and edifying introduction to the actual ramifications of life in the early 17th-century colony.

 Best of Covered Wagon Women 
The women who traveled west in covered wagons during the 1840s speak through these letters and diaries. Here are the voices of Tamsen Donner and young Virginia Reed, members of the ill-fated Donner party; Patty Sessions, the Mormon midwife who delivered five babies on the trail between Omaha and Salt Lake City; Rachel Fisher, who buried both her husband and her little girl before reaching Oregon. Still others make themselves heard, starting out from different places and recording details along the way, from the mundane to the soul-shattering and spirit-lifting.

Confederates in the attic : dispatches from the unfinished Civil War
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returned from years of traipsing through war zones as a foreign correspondent only to find that his childhood obsession with the Civil War had caught up with him. Near his house in Virginia, he happened to encounter people who reenact the Civil War--men who dress up in period costumes and live as Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks. Intrigued, he wound up having some odd adventures with the "hardcores," the fellows who try to immerse themselves in the war, hoping to get what they lovingly term a "period rush."

 Harriet Tubman:  Conductor on the Underground Railroad
Born a slave, Harriet Tubman dreamed of freedom. And through hard work and her willingness to risk everything-including her life-she was able to make that dream come true.But after making her escape, Harriet realized that her own freedom was not enough. So she became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and devoted her life to helping others make the journey out of bondage. An invisible threat to plantation owners, she served as a symbol of strength and inspiration for her people. 

Land of the Buffalo Bones:  The Diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers, An English Girl in Minnesota
Land of the Buffalo Bones is the diary of Mary Rodgers, known as Polly. Promising religious freedom and fertile land, Polly's father, Reverend Rodgers, moves their Baptist community from England to the Minnesota prairie. 
 
A Little House Traveler
This volume combines three Wilder travel diaries: On the Way Home, recounting the 1894 trip from South Dakota to Missouri, with husband Almanzo and daughter Rose; West from Home, featuring letters written by Laura to Almanzo during her 1915 solo visit to Rose in San Francisco; and The Road Back, highlighting Laura's previously unpublished record of a 1931 trip with Almanzo to De Smet, South Dakota, and the Black Hills. 

North by Night:  A story of the Underground Railroad
In January, 1851, Lucinda Spencer, age 16, writes her second entry of the new year from the free state of Ohio. In answer to God's call and as a matter of personal conscience, her father has made the family farm a station on the Underground Railroad.

O Pioneers
The book takes place on the plains of Nebraska in the late 19th Century as the Prairie is settled be Swedish, Bohemian, and French immigrants trying to eke out a living from what appears to be a harsh, inhospitable land. The heroine of the book is Alexandra Bergson who inherits her father's farm as a young woman, raises his three sons and stays with the farm through the harsh times to become a successful landowner and farmer. 

 There is plenty here to keep me busy for a few weeks and I just can't wait to dive into these books and to be transported back in time.

Now I have to get dinner started, I'm making Chicken Curry, yummy! 

Have a blessed night!

Moonlight

I absolutely love nighttime, not necessarily going out at night but being able to sit down on my patio furniture with a glass of wine and enjoy the evening.

We have one of the most stunning full moons tonight and I only wish I could fully capture it on camera, but shooting at night time is one of the hardest things to do.....maybe not for all the brilliant photographers out there with the special cameras with all the doodads, but for a stay at home mom with a pretty inexpensive simple camera, yes.

Even so, it didn't stop me from stepping outside and snapping some shots to share with you all.

We're having a barbecue, pretty late at night for us considering we're early folk and usually eat dinner around 5pm.  It's 7:40 and we just couldn't help it, it's a beautiful night, with nothing but a few wispy clouds in the sky, not a breeze in sight and the scents of fall all around mingled with grills, the only sounds I hear right now are my children playing on the swing set (in the dark), my pugs sniffing around in the yard and the crackling of my candles on the table.

It's pure bliss!

America's Prophet by Bruce Feiler

  America's Prophet by Bruce Feiler

The pilgrims quoted his story. Franklin and Jefferson proposed he appear on the U.S. seal. Washington and Lincoln were called his incarnations. The Statue of Liberty and Superman were molded in his image. Martin Luther King, Jr., invoked him the night before he died. Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama cited him as inspiration.

For four hundred years, one figure inspired more Americans than any other. His name is Moses.
In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler travels through touchstones in American history and traces the biblical prophet's influence from the Mayflower through today. He visits the island where the pilgrims spent their first Sabbath, climbs the bell tower where the Liberty Bell was inscribed with a quote from Moses, retraces the Underground Railroad where "Go Down, Moses" was the national anthem of slaves, and dons the robe Charlton Heston wore in The Ten Commandments. 

We all know the story of Moses but what if it was told in relation to what America is today? 

In this book the author Bruce Feiler does just that, he goes back in time and traces the influences that Moses had and still has on America.

I hadn't even stopped to think about how many times the name Moses has been mentioned in the past, many Presidents have done so, they've touched on the commandments and the need to follow the Lord's word.

One thing I love is History and learning about what makes the world what it is today, where did we come from, how did we get here, what sacrifices were made and who was responsible or served as a great example.  This book has it all, it teaches us, it instructs us, it gives us hope and faith.

We learn how the Liberty Bell came about, what God's role played in it and even down to the inscription and what it means.

"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF LEV. XXV X."

I absolutely love how Feiler went above and beyond to trace these steps, often times attempting to put himself into certain situations to make us understand, like when he retraced part of the Underground Railroad.  I truly felt like I was right there with him.

It's a wonderful book, chock full of information, it will definitely make you stop and think about the role of Moses in the shaping of this Nation.

For more information on the author Bruce Feiler, you can visit his website,  twitter or facebook page.

I received this book compliments of TLC Book Tours for a review.  All opinions are mine and mine alone.