Making Better Bacon

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted and all I’ve got to talk about it bacon.  What is wrong with this picture.  Anyway,  we’ve had some sickees around our house this past week.  Keith has been really sick and Leah has a confirmed case of the flu.  Paige and I are praying we don’t get it.

Anyway, back to bacon.  Last year I made a decision to remove pork from my diet.  I love bacon so I started buying turkey bacon, but its just….lacking.  You know what I mean.  I recently saw this idea either on a TV cooking show or online somewhere and tried it and now the turkey bacon is palatable.   Here’s the recipe:

Package of turkey bacon

light brown sugar

cracked black pepper (I use a pepper grinder, but you could probably use regular pepper)

Lay your turkey bacon on a baking sheet and sprinkle the light brown sugar and then grind black pepper over the top.  Put in the oven and bake  until done.   I think I usually leave it in around 15 minutes.

You end up with much better flavor.  It really, really helps. 

Enjoy,

♥ Joy

LiveJournal Tags: recipes

My Reality Show

Right now Reality TV shows are all the rage.  Whether you are a

Kardashian

 

or a Duggar,

it doesn’t matter.   People are  putting their life out there for others to see,  and a lot of people seem to be watching.   Soooo, I don’t have a film crew to follow me around all day, but I thought I would give you an idea of how I grew up.   It wasn’t Duggar style or Kardashian style, but it was a happy childhood.

I grew up in Central Florida.   Palmetto bushes and Pine trees filled the landscape and Spanish moss waved from the oak trees.   My parents purchased a tropical fish farm when I was little.  [I know some of you may not have any idea of what that is.  I’m trying to get some pictures of it and I will show you in another post.]   Anyway, they worked hard together running a successful business off that 25 acre farm.  We also had a horse named Candy and a bunch of cows.

Below is a picture of my second birthday.  Parents, Grandparents and Great Grandmother are all pictured.

Here is my dad.  My cousin and I are on the horse.  The fish farm is in the background.

Some of my cousins lived just across the street (I’m the one on the end):

I’m the oldest in my family.  I have one sister.  Here we are posing for a picture before church one Sunday.  My mom made most of our clothes.  She was a great seamstress.    This was probably Mother’s Day.  My mom always had us wear a corsage on Mother’s Day.   She also loved to give me perms for some reason.  Those curls are not natural on my little head.

Just a little glimpse into my little life. 

♥ Joy

Hi My name is Joy

I feel like I need to introduce myself.  Where have I been?  I really don’t know.  I blinked and it was Christmas..now a new year and I haven’t written a blog post since September.  I’ll do a brief catch-up:

October was pretty uneventful except for Halloween.  My neighbors had a costume party and I dressed up as Beth Chapman.  She is Dog the Bounty Hunter’s wife.  They have a “riveting” reality TV show here in the U.S.  Riveting might not be the right word, but it is quite a cast of characters.  Trust me I do not do her justice.   It was a fun night:

  

In November we celebrated Paige’s 15th birthday.  She is truly growing into an amazing young woman.   I can’t believe she’s 15 and takes me back to the phrase of blinking…There is a country music song called “Don’t Blink” by Kenny Chesney. It is so true and makes me cry when I hear it.  When Paige was little she called country music  ~crunchy~ music.  Love that.

At the end of November was Thanksgiving and we decided to do something different this year.  We drove 10 hours to Destin, Florida and rented a beautiful condominium on the beach.

My parents and nephew joined us there and my in-laws and Keith’s cousins stayed nearby.  We all spent Thanksgiving together and it was wonderful.  Who knows, maybe we’ll make it a tradition.  Here is one picture at the Thanksgiving table.  This condo was great. It had a huge dining table and a perfect kitchen for all the cooks.   We had turkey, dressing and collard greens, sweet potato casserole and some cranberry stuff (which I never eat) and much more.    What do you think  of our fine china?  Ha.

We woke up  Thanksgiving morning and some talented folks down the beach had created this beautiful sand art.  Pretty cool.

The water was a little too chilly for me, but when you are 10 and 11 years old I guess you don’t feel the cold.   Here is Leah and my nephew:

Well, that catches me up thru November.  I’ll stop here and not make this post any longer than it already is. 

Happy New Year.  Hope you are living and loving the life God gave you and giving the ones you love a squeeze along the way. 

♥ Joy

September Serve

Each year the Missions Pastor at our church organizes September Serve.   Everyone is encouraged to find a mission or service type project to work on in our community during the month (and hopefully continue through the year).

On Saturday the 24th over 25 teams from our church spread out all over the Houston area working together on various projects.  Some hosted a camp for 125 inner city youth.  Others painted a Habitat for Humanity  house and our family signed up for this project:

We helped paint, clean and do maintenance projects at Harper United Methodist Church in Monaville, Texas.    This church was founded in 1881.  It is tucked back down a country road and is home to  a small, mostly elderly congregation.   I’m not sure how far back this  building dates, but it was probably built in the early 1900’s.

We painted the front porch, scraped and cleaned the windows.  Worked on ceiling fans and light fixtures, and other miscellaneous items on the ‘to-do’ list.

It was a blessing to work together as a family and with others on this beautiful church.  This historic church needs much more TLC, and hopefully we can go again and help to scrape the wood and re-paint the rest of the church. 

Here we are working away:

The group hard at work on the porch:

I just noticed on their sign it says “Catch the Spirit of Love”  There was definitely a spirit of love on that day in Monaville.

♥    Joy

Aprons

Do you wear an apron when you are in the kitchen?

If you read around the blog world or check your local stores, you will see that aprons are definitely making a comeback.  They are cuter than ever and as much of a fashion statement as they are useful.

I wear one everyday when I’m cooking.   Here is my collection hanging in the laundry room.   I made the blue one on the left and won the cute one that has the pink pocket and polka dots.  The others I purchased. 

Here is a close up of the adorable apron that Yoli made.   I won it from a blog contest she had a while back.  She is an awesome seamstress and so creative.   Check out her Etsy shop and sidebar for her creations.

No signs of Fall here in my part of the world except for the fact the temperature is 89 F today.    Anything below 90 degrees F may have to qualify as Fall.

Tanner Update:

The new little four legged furry man in my life is doing just fine.  He has me wrapped around his little paw already.  It is fun learning his personality.  He loves to move items he finds on the floor around the house.  So if he can fit it in his mouth and you leave it on the floor,  it most certainly won’t be there when you check next time.   (including my bloomers that I have found next to the backdoor hehe) He doesn’t chew on things, just moves them.

Here’s another close up of his adorable face.

I had a dog trainer come over and do a consultation on Saturday.  Of course, Tanner does what he is suppose to when the trainer is here, but with me…..not so much.    Surely this little 12 pound ball of cuteness and fur won’t be the pack leader in our house...   

♥ Joy

Meet Tanner

On Saturday our family went to look at a couple of dogs at a local rescue and this little guy stole our hearts.  He is approximately one year old and was found wandering the streets.  He was very matted, dirty and covered in fleas.   The rescue cleaned him up and groomed him as best they could.

He is a Miniature Schnauzer.  We named him Tanner because he is brown and tan.  Brown coloring is pretty rare in Schnauzers.  I’ve never seen one anyway.  He is adjusting wonderfully.   He is so sweet.  He has some healing to do from all the flea bites and I’m sure he wishes I would leave him alone.   I believe he thinks that  all I do is bathe, brush and check him.   I’ve been walking him around the neighborhood and he’s meeting his new dog and people friends.  The first night he slept all night without a peep in his crate.  He loves to be near us, but doesn’t understand toys.  This is our first experience with a male dog, so we’re getting use to that.

Just had to introduce you to our new little guy. I’ll get more pictures up of him soon. 

♥  Joy

Leah’s Day

We’re back from our vacation and boy was it wonderful.  I will do a post soon because, more important things are happening at our house:

I can’t believe I’m doing another birthday post.  Seems like they come faster and faster don’t they;  especially when it is your baby that is having them.

Leah’s birthday is this week and there is so much about her to celebrate. She fills our home with laughter and has such a quick wit about her.

Here are some pictures of Leah in the past year and our recent vacation:

Leah portrayed Grace Kelly at her Wax Museum at school:

(she was loving the make-up)

 

On the ice in the middle of summer!

High Fiving in Breckenridge:

Kicking back in the gondola in Breckenridge:

  Leah at Garden of the Gods in Colorado:

 

Celebrating an early birthday in Florida:

Leah loves people, pigs and going places.  

She is such a blessing to our family.

Love you Leah!

Happy Birthday!

 

 

LiveJournal Tags: My Chickadees

Libby

I know it has been five plus weeks since my last post.   When I returned home from Florida, we picked up Libby our Miniature Schnauzer.  She wasn’t acting herself and had lost weight and her eyes were runny.  I took her to the vet the next day thinking she had an eye infection.   Unfortunately, I was given the news that she had Lymphoma.  The prognosis was not good, but I did expect to have a couple more months with her.   She had perked up some and was eating good and seeming not to know she was sick.

But things changed in the last few days.  She started going downhill quickly and we had to do the best thing for our sweet Libby.

Libby came to live with us back in September 2004.  She was a rescue dog.   We never really knew how old she was and knew nothing of her background.     She is the first dog I ever really had that was mine.   Libby really took me by surprise as I never consider myself a “dog” person but she loved me and taught me so much about unconditional love.  She made herself right at home in our house and in our hearts.   Our time with her was shorter than we thought it would be.  But I’m so glad she was ours for that time.

 

I’m sorry this is a sad post.  I know some of you already know thru Facebook about Libby.   I will get back into the blogging groove eventually.  I just wanted to let you know what has happened.

Thank you all for your support.

Joy

Old Florida

In my last post I ended with a note about the cowhide chair that  now sits on my fireplace hearth.    It has been in my family for 125 years and I feel honored to be the caretaker of  this beautiful historic piece.  In the second pictures you can see there is a little patch that still has hair on it.  I’m so amazed that has lasted on there all these years.

Here are some family pictures that I have recently come across.   The internet is truly amazing.   A cousin of mine was doing family research  online and came across some pictures of  our family posted by a lady in Texas.  We contact her and come to find out she is married to a distant cousin of mine and loves genealogy.   I have never met this cousins.   We now are comparing notes, sharing pictures and stories catching up via facebook and e-mail.  We hope to meet soon.  Who knew we both  grew up in Florida now live about an hour and a half apart in Texas.   They shared some of these wonderful old family pictures with me.

This is a picture of my great-great-great grandparents (seated).   See the chairs lined up across the porch.   One of these could possibly be the chair I have today.    This is truly old Florida living.   Yes, my family tree has deep roots in Central Florida and those are orange trees you see.  Notice the well pump on the right side of the porch.  On the left you will see a separate building that housed the kitchen.  The kitchen was built separate from the main house so if there was a fire hopefully the main house would not burn.   This picture was taken around 1910.  Clayborn Taylor (seated) was born in 1842 and his wife Sally was born in 1850. 

 

In the picture below my great-great grandparents are photographed along with four of their eventual eight children.  The wife is the daughter of the older couple in the picture above.  The little boy on the left next to his daddy is my great-grandfather Malcolm.  I love his short pants and dirty bare feet.  Once again, you see similar chairs on the porch.  This picture taken around 1900.

 

I will be leaving this week for a long road trip in the car to Florida.  It will be just me and the girls as Buster has to work.  Since I’m driving we (I) can take as many bathroom breaks as I want. ;0

I will check in on all your blogs now and then while I’m gone, but probably won’t post until I get back.   

Joy

Warms My Heart

 

We moved into this house five years and I was never crazy about the fireplace in our den.    So this spring we made a change…out with the old and in with the new look we chose for our fire place.

BEFORE:  The black hole…

AFTER:

We chose stacked stone for the fireplace and fieldstone for the hearth.  I’m so happy with the new look.  It seems to brighten up the room.    We also painted the walls  Sherwin Williams Latte.   The mantle is a solid piece of cypress.  I kept it. I sanded it smooth, distressed it and stained it a warmer brown.

The picture above the fireplace is very special to us.  The frame was handmade and designed by Keith’s dad.  He used old barn wood to construct the frame.   His dad passed away over a decade ago, so it is very meaningful to have this.

The art work in the frame is a pheasant painted by Artist Lynn Ash.  Lynn is my mother-in-law’s cousin.    Lynn is a lifelong resident of Tampa, Florida.  He was employed by Busch Garden’s in Tampa as an artist for years and is now retired.  He has painted so many beautiful wildlife pictures as well as the mural below.  The Tampa Bay area is my hometown, but  I haven’t lived there in nearly 20 years.    I have a small copy of the mural below by Lynn.  I just wanted you to see other work he has done.

In 2003, the City of Tampa's Public Art Program commissioned artist Lynn Ash to create a large painting that would weave together many of the notable aspects of Tampa's unique character and identity.  (from Tampagov website)

This is the 4’ x 8’ mural that Lynn painted and is in the lobby of the Tampa Municipal Office Building.  To read more detail about this mural you can visit the website above.

 

You will also notice on the fireplace hearth a chair that is near and dear to my heart.  This chair was handmade approximately 125 years ago and has been in my family all these years.  The seat is made of cowhide.  In a future post I will share pictures of my family dating back to the late 1800 – early 1900s and you will see what possibly is this chair on the front porch of their home. 

Here is a little closer view of the chair.

So the fireplace in our home is now a focal point of family history and treasured items.  Just the look I was going for.

  Joy

I’m Mature Now

A few weeks ago I pulled a box down from the storage area of our garage. I was looking for old family pictures.   I found my diary from my when I was a little girl.  It spanned several years.   Buster and the girls had many laughs thanks to my diary entries.

This particular entry was pretty funny from 1977.  I’m sharing it with you all…don’t laugh cause I don’t know if I’m mature enough to handle it.

If you can’t read my handwriting it reads…

Dear Kitty ‘77'  (yes, my diary had a name actually two: Kitty and Sarah)

today I’m in the 7th grade.  I’m mature now and I got a locker today.

I met some deaf girls  I don’t know there names.  They  can’t here nothing but silence.  I don’t know sign language but I’ll try to learn some

Dear Kitty

I am almost through with my Laura Ingalls Books.  I wish I had more I love them.

Who knew getting a locker and being in 7th grade made one mature.  Apparently, it did in my little pea brain back then.  After going back and reading some of the entries, I  was also very boy crazy.  I will spare you those details.  I think I should have quit chasing boys and worked on my grammar and spelling.

The school I attended started a deaf school around this time.  I think it was my first time being around deaf kids - thus my insight into their world.  Astounding huh.

In other news,,,, speaking of maturity…which I still wonder if I will ever achieve some times, Buster and I celebrated twenty-two years of marriage this weekend.  We had a nice dinner out.   Leah sat on the coffee table and took this picture of us before we left for dinner.

So….at what point in life did you start feeling mature or are you still waiting on that moment? 

Cars

Joanna over at Fifty Factor wrote a post the other day that was so fun.  She recounted how she got her first car and what kind it was.   I loved reading it.  It made me think back to my first car.  She named her cars, but I never have really.  Although Buster was driving Little Blue Thunder when I met him.  He names his cars sometimes.

I can not find a picture of my very first car, but here is what it looked like except for the wide green stripe.

  I found this picture on the internet of an original advertisement:

My first car was a 1977 Datsun 200sx.  My dad and I bought this car in 1984 during my sophomore year of college.  So it wasn’t new, but it was a great car and I loved it.  It was sporty and fun.   I remember the top of the back cloth seat was so faded and sun damaged.  You could poke your finger right thru the fabric.  But I didn’t care.   It got me thru the years of college that I attended and then  I rolled into Atlanta at the ripe old age of 19 ready to start working and a new life.

One morning on my way to work, I was in the middle lane of I-285  that loops the perimeter of Atlanta, GA and my car just quit.  It was 7:30 a.m. in rush hour -  bumper to bumper  morning traffic.  I was petrified.  I had no idea what to do.  This was before cell phones of course.  I could not even get to the shoulder of the  road.  I got out of my car and put the hood up and got back in and started crying. 

I remember all I could think of  while I was sitting there in my broken down car was the traffic report on the radio.   I just knew I  would be the one they were talking about.  I would be the one that was making a half million people late for work in Atlanta, Georgia that morning.   TEARS!

Anyway, this wonderful trucker (God Bless him)  came to my rescue.  He stopped his big rig right behind my car and got out and looked at the engine.   He immediately spied the problem.  One of the battery cables had popped off the battery.  He put it back on and tightened best he could by hand and my car cranked. I was so relieved and off and rolling again.  I looked under there too but I guess thru the tears I couldn’t see the dangling battery cable. ha.  I’m such a girl…I’m sorry.

Not too long after that the clutch went out.   I know it was normal wear and tear, but I started thinking I needed a newer car that wouldn’t break down on me.

So in 1986 I  headed out to the Nissan dealership by myself and found the car I wanted.  I fell in love with it. The headlights rolled up at the turn of a switch.  I felt so cool.   It was  a 1985 barely used 200SX, but now it was called Nissan and not Datsun.   I negotiated with a saleslady as I recall.  She was as new to selling cars as I was to purchasing them.   As we finished the negotiation I had the dealership call my dad in Florida and tell him everything they were telling me so I wouldn’t be making any huge mistakes. He felt like they were making me a fair deal so I drove off the lot in the first car I purchased on my own.  With the help of 48 month financing…. 

Here I am the proud owner of my first picked out and purchased myself car:

I wrecked this car (my one and only wreck so far) back in 1987 just  before Buster and I got engaged.

I was fine and it was repaired, but it was never really the same.    We continued to drive it for about a year after we got married and then traded for another car in 1989. 

So there you have it.  The story of my first car(s).

How about you.  I’d love to know about your first car.

Joy

It’s what I wanted….Really

Every year as Mother’s Day approaches, Buster and the girls start asking me over and over what I want for Mother’s Day. 

This year I told them I wanted a wheelbarrow.   I usually borrow my Neighbor Steves.   Neighbor Steve may be moving to Connecticut so I needed my own.

This was not their idea of a Mother’s Day gift,  but they went along with it and I am so happy to have it.  It is perfect to move my compost from my compost pile to the flower beds and garden beds.  So I’m thrilled.

I’m so thankful for these two girls.  I love them more than they will ever know.

They are so big now I can’t carry them in my arms so….

Joy

 

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Because Nice Matters

 

(Virginia with the girls)

A few months ago my neighbor and I enlisted the expertise of Virginia Johnson to teach an etiquette class entitled Polish Plus to our daughters and their friends.  Polish Plus has been a  wonderful experience for each of the girls.  They have learned so much from Virginia regarding etiquette and what to do in social situations.  I know it will give them so much confidence as they make their way in the world.  One of the things I love about Virginia is she teaches them above all to be kind.

These pictures are from the formal tea the girls set up and hosted directed by Virginia.   Virginia knew if they were the ones to organize the food, set the table and then serve each other they would learn so much more. They loved it.  I wish I had taken a picture when the table when they first set it. It was so pretty.

Virginia has a blog that features manners and etiquette not just for young people but for all ages.

You can find it at

http://www.nicedoesmatter.blogspot.com/

If you have a etiquette question she will be glad to answer it. 

Go say hello to Virginia on her blog as Virginia says …. because nice matters.

Joy