Mountain Musings

Got Even More Brick?

I'm loving this weather--beautiful November days and temperatures in the 60s this week call for working outside. Traipsing around town looking for brick, carefully not overloading the van, and then placing it around some flower beds have kept me busy. I need more brick and may run the ad again in the newspaper. Folks have been so kind. I even met a lady yesterday who offered me flowers (if I dug them) and three birdhouses in her backyard (if I'd come and take them down). Sounds like I might make a deal with her.

Here's the new flower bed by the dinner bell. (You can see some of the fertilizer we added from the local horse stables that will make a great planting bed come spring.)

These brick are the older ones that are solid; I really like this kind rather than the 3-holed ones. Now I'm working on completing another bed and will probably need even more brick - got any? This may be the last of the good weather before winter sets in. I'm going to make every minute count!

~Deb

Look Who Came For Dinner - Part 2

I thought I'd better get a post up before calls started coming in asking where we were and what was wrong. It's been busy around here since the holidays, and we've been getting back into the swing of things since our company left. We've decorated for Christmas, and everything looks ready for everyone to return again--which they will do in 3 1/2 weeks! Yikes!

Here are some pictures of our time together over the weekend.

We enjoyed Micah and Elizabeth spending time with us and appreciated them being around for Thanksgiving this year.

Granny (Deb's mom), Aunt Bunny (from Richmond), and Aunt Bet (from SC) with Barney were also part of the festivities.

We spent some time posing for some family pictures by an old barn on the property next door. We hope at least one of them will turn out good enough for our family picture for our Christmas cards this year. Do you know how hard it is to get 7 people perfect and not one of them blinking??!

Friday evening (our tradition) we decorated the tree together (although at this point Elizabeth had left to spend some time with her family in Georgia while Micah stayed behind to get some studying done).

And, of course, the annual Trim-the-Tree Party was in full swing with the traditional orange danish rolls, hot apple cider, and hot chocolate. It was a very fun time! And I'm looking forward to more of the same in a little less than a month.

~Deb

Guess Who Came For Dinner?

This Thanksgiving we had a full house, which included 3 dogs and a bird!                        Barney, Aunt Bet's miniature schnauzer

Little Bit, Granny's corgi

Teak, Micah and Elizabeth's new parakeet

"But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you; and the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you....Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?" Job 12:7,9-10

~Hannah

Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

We here at Mountain Musings wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving Day with your family. Let us remember to thank the One who gives us all things to enjoy.

Thanksgiving Menu

Hannah, Sarah, and I have been pouring over our recipes to come up with the meal for our guests this year, and here's the tentative Girotti Family Thanksgiving Day Menu:

• Roast Turkey (first time in my roaster oven)
• Rhonda's Old Fashioned Dressing (see 4th comment)
• Perfect Homemade Gravy (scroll down)
• Perfect Mashed Potatoes
• Cranberry Relish
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Green Bean Bake
• Marinated Carrots
• Sweet Potato Casserole
• Pumpkin Dinner Rolls
• Crystal's 30-minute rolls
• Butternut Squash Pie
• Peach Pie
• M & M Cookies (finally a dessert Jonathan will enjoy!)

What's your favorite dish to have served at Thanksgiving? I think my favorites are turkey dressing and sweet potato casserole, so I'm looking forward to trying Rhonda's dressing recipe this year. Sarah's making the sweet potatoes and isn't sure which recipe she will follow. Do you feel stuffed already?  Enjoy! :)

~Deb

Thank You For The Prayers

It was such an encouragement to read all the comments and prayer support from all of you--from Canada to Illinois; from Colorado to South Carolina and Alabama; and locally from around Virginia. What a blessing a blog can be when folks can connect from all across the country to pray for one another! Thank you for all the thoughts, hugs, and prayers for my recuperation. I'm still praying that the rest of the family stays well so we won't have to cancel the holiday plans.

I'm up today for the first time since Thursday evening with lots staring me in the face before Wednesday when the first of the company arrives. My family has been excellent! And, yes, I was definitely pampered! Now...I'm going to try to rev up s-l-o-w-l-y today so I won't overdo it.

If I have a chance, I'll post our Thanksgiving menu tomorrow.

~Deb

I Knew it, Didn't You?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The South That's a Southern accent you've got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.
The Midland
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Well, my sister posted this quiz...so I had to try it. I've answered other similar accent quizzes, and I'm usually pretty high in the Southern range in all of them. If you heard my voice, you'd know why without a doubt!

~Deb

Jonathan on...

   

...our love for Jesus Christ.

"1 Peter 1:8: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

... 1. Love to Christ: "Whom having not yet seen, ye love." The world was ready to wonder, what strange principle it was, that influenced them to expose themselves to so great sufferings, to forsake the things that were seen, and renounce all that was dear and pleasant, which was the object of sense. They seemed to the men of the world about them, as though they were beside themselves, and to act as though they hated themselves; there was nothing in their view, that could induce them thus to suffer, and support them under, and carry them through such trials. But although there was nothing that was seen, nothing that the world saw, or that the Christians themselves ever saw with their bodily eyes, that thus influenced and supported them, yet they had a supernatural principle of love to something unseen; they loved Jesus Christ, for they saw him spiritually whom the world saw not, and whom they themselves had never seen with bodily eyes."

(from A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards)

~ Tom

Sick Sweetie

You probably noticed that our main blogger (bloggerette?) has been missing from action for a few days. On Thursday night, Deb was afflicted with a stomach virus of some sort and has been laid out pretty hard. This morning, she is still in bed but seems to be over the worst part, if you know what I mean. She still is weak, has a headache, and needs to catch up on sleep (she has slept little since Thursday night). But in the last few hours she had enough energy to sit up in bed, sip some ice water, and eat a cracker. Oh, and she asked if I could set up her laptop on the bed in case she was able to dial up and use it. Good sign.

Last evening, the kids and I were praying together for her, asking the Lord to heal her. We also asked Him to help her cry out to Him and depend on Him while she is still going through it.  A few hours later, when I peeked in on her, she asked in her little weak voice if I could get the Bible and read her some Psalms.  Little sweetie. So, I read to her Psalms 40 and 42, and then she requested Psalm 91. She enjoyed it.

Well, please pray for her full recovery.

Thanks!

~ Tom