November This and That

"For we walk by faith, not by sight... "   --- 2 Corinthians 5:7 (Or... don't be blown away by the news!)

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1.) So Tom brought home a dozen new, tiny canning jars from Goodwill, not even knowing I needed them for storing my air-dried garden herbs.

I'd placed the washed herbs on sandwich plates (after snipping the leaves) and paper towels upstairs on top of my waist-high white bookshelves, the only place available (and cat-safe) in all our Hobbit Cottage land.

This is a s-l-o-w way of creating dried herbs, but what's the rush?

2.) Along that line, though I'm not a tea-drinker (forgive me), I thought I'd attempt to make dried mint tea. Diffusers online appeared so dull utilitarian, then hooray! Miranda Mills at Youtube used one like my head had imagined.

Aren't they lovely? --

I also ordered an extra set for Naomi (preferring Christmas year-around, I couldn't wait). She pronounced them beautiful. 

You can find them here.

The herbs I dried?  Catnip, mint, basil and chives. Hopefully I'll add some oregano this week.

3.) Truly, daily gratitude can change our regular ol' life into one that feels brand new. Try it!

4.) After again hearing the name, Wink Martindale, during a televised football game, I told Tom, "Wasn't there a tv game show host ages ago with that same name?"

Tom chuckled. "No," giving me a 'there she goes again' look. "This guy's a coach with the Giants."

But I felt rather certain about this one, so I reached for my iPad. After a bit of research I laughed, "Aha! We should've bet on this. Wink Martindale was a game show host and since this coach had the same last name, his fellow college players nicknamed him 'Wink.'"

Well, Tom was surprised, but as I told him, "Hey, just face it. I am the queen of useless information of long ago."   ツ

(Read about the older Wink, here and the younger one, here.)

5.) My very favorite Youtube recipe lady? Julia Pacheco. And because she's sweet, encouraging, and so terrific with easy recipes, I wanted to show my appreciation by buying her just-released, first-ever cookbook

If anyone else is interested, you can order it here. Ways to encourage those who have encouraged us abound everywhere.

6.) Here are a few cozy mysteries waiting in my Amazon Wish List. In case you'd like to also look into them, here you go:

Twelve Slays of Christmas

Murder Wears Mittens

A Doomful of Sugar

Syrup to No Good

A Peach of a Murder 

7.) You may not believe this, but I've never read an Agatha Christie book(!). Yet since all my favorite booktubers enjoy them, I thought I'd begin with Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories.

So far, so good.  (You can find inexpensive copies here and also through Bookfinder.com.)

8.) And along those lines, the 'lovely autumn ladies' at Youtube created incredible videos this Fall, but uh-oh. Some of their book recommendations positively curl my (so straight) hair.

I stare up at the tv screen and tell them, "Oh Honey! You don't really want to read that book about witches/wizards/ghosts, do you? The Bible is so clear about staying away from those things which open scary doors."

Then I pray for them.

Life is certainly full of hundreds of prayer opportunities, right?

9.) Last week Joyce Meyer reminded me, first thing while sitting on the edge of my bed, to say aloud: "I believe something good is going to happen today."

Love that, and you know? At each day's end I'm now asking myself, "Which good thing(s) happened to (or through) me today?" Always there's something. Always.

(Update: Woo hoo! My 'good thing' for today is discovering a Michael's craft store is coming to our neighborhood. The first one in our county and it'll be next to Dollar Tree, both only about 5 blocks away. Yay! Never before have I lived so near a craft store and this will certainly get me out of the house more often.)

10.) Remember The Globetrotters? A good documentary about them is here.

Have you watched any of Corben Bernsen's inspirational movies? We'd seen one (two?) and watched Rust last week and enjoyed it, though the first half hour was a bit slow and depressing. But it picked up and taught lots of good lessons.

(Be sure you watch the correct Rust for whew, there are lots of movies with that same name.)

Oh, and we watched the squeaky clean mystery, Hazardous Duty, and liked it. (The main guy, though, reminded me so much of Donnie Osmond that it was distracting. heh.)

And I'll just end by encouraging you to hang in there! Truth is truly rising to the top (as the saying goes) in our world and it's so exciting to watch it happen and to do our part, as well.

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Autumn Afternoon around here, well, after my iPad washed out all the colors. heh.

Please remember: My posts are always about more than they appear to be.

 

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 "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15