Let's cut the cheese!!!

For Christmas Eve, my husband and I went over to our longtime friends home to visit and spend some time with them. They are Filipino and as a tradition in the Philippines, they eat this special cheese called Queso de Bola which is this REALLY aged cheese for like 40+ years and according to my dad! there's no real special reason on why they eat it on Christmas, they just do!

So as we were seated at the dinner table, my friend kept saying, " Ok, let's cut the cheese!" Of course, me being me, I had absolutely no choice but to reply, " please don't, we are at the dinner table!!" Of course myself, her husband and mine all chuckled, but it didn't seem to phase her, so she just looked like us quizzically and we continued on with our dinner.

After dinner and dessert, she again became excited and once again said, " I'm going to cut the cheese now," to which...like I said! me being me! I had no choice, " please don't cut the cheese, or at least not in front of us!!" Again, we started laughing but she just looked at us like we were crazy, until her husband asked her, " do you know what that means? That's a saying for farting!" She gave a half hearted chuckle and said " oh you guys ok well I'm going to go cut the cheese now!" LOL.....that was one of the highlights of my Christmas Eve and I just thought I would share...Until next time beloved.....please don't cut the cheese!

New year, New me

Everyone is mainstreaming all of their highlights for the year 2013, but for me, I'm just ready to get this year over with!

I didn't have any highlights for the year, nothing that I can say was TOTALLY AWESOME, or amazing...Although, it didn't have as much heartbreak or as many depression setbacks as last year, if I had to reflect, I would say this past year for me has been MEH!

If you have been following me, I'm sure you have read how I was mistreated, betrayed, stabbed in the back and just straight out hurt this year, but I really don't think those things were such bad things! You see my beloved, if it weren't for those moments, I wouldn't be the strong, more confident person that I am today. It's because of those trials and tribulations that I found out a little bit more about myself, I learned about my limits, my own expectations and who I really am! I am the type of person that knows what I want and who I am and I am willing to put in the sweat and pain to get it, but the moment you hurt me, or make me feel taken advantage of, then it's so long, goodbye, don't let my fist slug you on the way out!

It says in Isaiah 43:18  "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past"and also in Ezekiel 36:26 " I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

This past year has made me a new person, with a new spirit and an even deeper love for my Lord and Savior.  So good bye 2013 you are now history and I am ready for the adventure that 2014 brings!!

Happy New year my beloved, may it be a year filled with much joy, peace and above all else....LOVE!!!!! Until next time.....

Oatmeal Banana Bread Cookie Recipe

Hello my beloved friends around the world! How the heck are you? As for me, I'm doing well, the seasons are finally changing and Baking Season is full on!! So I made these cookies once before and everyone LOVED them, but I never wrote down the recipe, so I had a baking day with my mom the other day and while I was making them, she wrote down all the ingredients and what I did. Now that I have the actual recipe, please feel free to try it and make it your own...Lots of love and until next time!

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ginger

 1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

3 cups oatmeal

1/4 cup milk

4 mashed riped banana

Optional Ingredients: Chopped walnuts, raisins or anything else you want to add for texture and crunch

Prep time 15 min

Bake time: 15 min

Instructions: 

1. In large bowl mix all dry ingredients first, then add, egg, milk and vanilla. Mix well, then add 3 cups of Oatmeal, use which ever brand you like, doesn't really matter.

2. Mash four bananas in a separate cup. The more ripe the banana the better! The ones I used were pretty much black.

3. Combine and stir with fork until all ingredients are mixed well together.

4. Put baking wax paper on a cookie sheet or simply grease your cookie sheet ( I line them for easier clean up), then With a rounded measuring spoon or tablespoon sized scooper, start to line the cookie sheet with cookie batter

5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and once heated, place cookie sheets in for 15 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom. 

6. Take cookies out and let cool for a minute on wire rack. Cookies should be really soft and the consistency between a cookie and bread ( maybe I should call this my banana bread oatmeal cookie recipe instead huh)? Next place on a plate and watch them disappear before your eyes because they are so yummy!

Simple Bread Recipe for beginners

Hello all my beautiful friends around the world, as you may or may not know, my husband and I have been trying to live the simple life, and in these hard times with the Government Shutdown , the economy going down the crapper, etc, etc., we need to do everything we can to save. To continue on with this point, I decided that instead of buying bread every week, I would just bake it at home from scratch, which I think is really saving us a couple of bucks considering how expensive bread is getting. So being a beginner bread maker, I did some extensive research online and found this really easy bread recipe that I thought I would share with you all. As always feel free to make it your own as I did and hope you enjoy:

Prep Time: 3 hours

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1-1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp butter or vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup milk ( if your lactose intolerant like me, use Almond Milk)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, approximately

Preparation:

1. In large bowl, add the warm water. Slowly stir in dry yeast. Continue to stir until yeast is dissolved.
2. Add salt, sugar, shortening, and milk to bowl. Stir.
3. Mix in the first 2 cups of flour.
4. If needed, begin adding more flour, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough chases the spoon around the bowl.
5. Turn dough out onto floured board and knead, adding small spoonfuls of flour as needed, until the dough is soft and smooth, not sticky to the touch.
6. Put dough in buttered bowl, turn dough over so that the top of dough is greased with butter. Cover and let rise in warm spot for 1 hour.
7. Punch down dough. Turn out onto floured board and knead.
8. Preheat oven at 375 degrees farenheit.
9. Form dough into loaf and set in buttered bread pan. Cover and let rise for about 30 minutes.
10. Score dough by cutting three slashes across the top with a sharp knife. Put in oven with foil cover to prevent over browning and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.
11. Let cool on cooling rack and enjoy! I ate mine with olive oil and Balsamic vinegar...yum!

Perseverance

Hello my wonderful friends around the world! It feels like we haven't spoken in ages! How are you? As for me, so much has happened in the last couple of months, don't even know where to begin?!

Hmmm, let's start from the beginning then; so in the beginning God created the heavens and earth. Too far back? I agree, let's fast forward to the beginning of this month better. So as I mentioned before, my husband and I were well on our way of starting our own company and everything was being set up and what not. We were doing medical billing services for this collection agency and for reasons only known to the owner, we HAD to be in his office?? We requested to work from our own location, but the owner insisted the work needed to be done in his office so we went, but it turned out they didn't want me, they only wanted my husband, the bad part for them was that they had no say so because it was OUR business and my husband needed me there. Truthfully, myself and the owners girlfriend are not on very good terms which is why they were not happy I was there, but what could they do? Well let me tell you what they could and DID DO!! They or should I say the owners girlfriend made it a point to do everything in her power to get me out so one day she pouted and huffed and puffed and made a HuGE deal out of the absolutely nothing so we left and truth be told, we couldn't be happier!

In all honesty, we weren't very happy there, the environment was very hostile and negative, I felt like I was in High School everytime I stepped into that office if you can catch my drift? All they did was gossip, mess around, curse and talk about the most inappropriate things all the time and it was just so negative! 

So there we were without work again but this time we just praised The Lord and knew it was from him so we didn't worry we had nothing but peace in our hearts, then my older sister called me and asked us to do her a favor? I'm not one to pry so if someone needs my help I'm all in, so I was like sure whatever. The next day she came with her training manager and showed us this new company she joined. Being that we were currently out of work we were intrigued with this new opportunity and decided to go all in and joined the company as well. When we got to the office for the open house we were met with the warmest smiles and hugs and I think the most positive people I ever met on this earth! Everyone spoke to each other with encouraging words and when someone was down and frustrated, everyone gathered around to uplift them and as I sat there witnessing all this, I was like oh my gosh this is like the complete 360 of where we just came from!! This excited me because we just need positivity in our lives right now, so we got even more excited and with our excitement, plus all the positivity, positive things started happening to us. My husband got a job the following week, plus he's still getting job offers. I'm getting job offers left and right and we are even getting money pretty much out of thin air that we didn't even expect to get. God is so good!! That's all I can say!

 It says in Jeremiah 29:11 for I know the plans I have for you, declares The Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. I truly believe that God is doing great works in our lives right now and I'm just blessed and excited to see where he leads us next! In the meantime, I want to leave you all with this last bible verse my beloved "Do not be anxious in anything, but in every situation prayer and petition, with thanksgiving give your request to God" Phillipians 4:6

Yummy meatloaf recipe

Hello my beloved, hope your lives are happy and well?! I just made a yummy meatloaf and wanted to share the recipe before I forget what I put in it:

As you all know from my previous blogs, I don't really give precise measurements or ingredients; I guess you can say I'm somewhat of a mad scientist when it comes to cooking or baking in the kitchen? At any rate, I really should of written it down as i went, but heck I was in experimenting mode so it didn't cross my mind until now..oh well, here is more or less what I put in it:

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground beef

1/3 cup of diced white onion or more if you prefer, like I always said, just make it your own

1/3 cup Diced tomato

Little bit of diced jalapeño ( I can't have spice so I put very little, but I think next time I'll try a little more)

Cayenne  pepper

Garlic pepper

Pepper 

Garlic powder

1 egg

Bread crumbs

Serving size: 2-3

Directions: 

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees and while you are waiting for the oven to heat up, grab a bowl and put the pound of ground beef in it, along with one egg and mix it together, I find it best to mix all the ingredients by hand. next add cayenne pepper ( as much as you would like in it), along with the diced tomato, onion, jalapeño, bread crumbs and garlic pepper, again mix with hand and fold all ingredients. Then put all mixed ingredients into a bread pan or whatever oven pan you use. On a side note, I lined my pan with foil for easier clean up and even cooking. Shape your meat batter into the form of a loaf, then add your pepper and garlic powder on top. Oh wait I think once I did this step I ended up mixing those ingredients in the meat as well, so I will leave it to your own judgement on how you want to do it whether to add it with the other ingredients or just sprinkle on top. After you formed your mixed meat into a loaf, cover the top with ketchup. Make sure it's evenly spread on top. After you get your loaf to perfection, pop it into the oven for one hour. After the hour, take it out and drain all the juices that accumulate at the bottom of the pan and check if meat is fully cooked in the middle. If all is good, cool for a minute and enjoy. Or if you are like me and like to over cook to make sure your meat is actually dead, then after you drain it, pop it back into the over for another 15 minutes and voila you will have the most yummiest meatloaf!!! I couldn't stop eating it and my husband wasn't even hungry, but he inhaled his portion..the below is a picture of the finished product or at least what was left of it.....until next time my beloved

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Hurt people, hurt people

Hello my beloved, how are you all doing this September month? The season is finally changing and I'm so glad because I don't think I can take anymore of the heat! These past few weeks I've been really dehydrated and having dizzy spells which is why I haven't been on here that much lately. But I'm back now and that's the past, so lets move forward on today's topic of interest: why do people hurt people?

I don't know if it's the heat wave or what, but this whole summer or better yet, this whole past year, I've been pushed down, mowed over, stabbed in the back, crushed, mutilated and the worst one of all.....hurt. For awhile I reflected on myself and what I've done wrong to cause these certain individuals to attack me so hateful and spitefully? I prayed, I meditated, I asked the age old question of why? And after it all, I've come to the conclusion that it's not my fault, heck it might not even be their fault?

For my situation, I looked back long and hard to try to find where I could of done these individuals wrong, but the truth is, all I ever did was try to be there for them, love them, give them loving advice and support, but they took it as me "trying to control them, take over their lives, get involved in their business, when it's none of mine?!" To that, I reply, then why did you come to me with your problems if you didn't want my help? It's not like I was forcing them to conform or change...the fact of the matter is, as you know I am Christian and all I tried to do was give them Godly advice and spiritual guidance in a loving and encouraging way, but my mistake was that these individuals are NOT the spiritual type so any advice other than "do what you want," is considered " judgemental and critical" which makes me un Christian because supposedly I'm suppose to just accept them as they are. Well yes, that is true, I do accept you as you are, but I don't accept your sin. The problem with unbelievers is that they choose to pick and choose parts of the bible that rule in their favor, but the problem with that is, they don't read the entire context of the word before they start accusing and throwing judgements. Instead, they want to continue hurting and in return hurt you more, thinking that would make them feel better. 

For that, I'm sorry but you can try to break me, hurt me and say whatever you want, but I'm not going to compromise my faith or beliefs and conform to your worldly ideals just to make you feel better. As a Christian it is my job to love you with the love of The Lord and out of Love, help guide you on the right path for your life which God wills for you. It's not my doing or your doing or any one's doing BUT Gods, the only thing is he gives you the free will to choose wether or not to accept it. So for all those who have been hurt or make it a point to hurt, just know the only way you will ever find true happiness in your life is through Christ Jesus as your Lord and savior and I promise you that your life might not get any easier as a Christian, but it will be more fulfilled and joyful. It's like I said in the beginning, I've been trampled on, dragged across the mud, have personally gone through hell and back. Honestly, I'm going through a couple of trials and tribulations as I write to you now, but beloved despite it all I have peace in my heart knowing God Rules it and joy in my life knowing God is in control and will take care of me and for those of you who want to hurt me for standing steadfast for The Lord, while then I will not say anything to you accept, Matt 5:44 "do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." Just know my beloved, God knows our hearts and our pains and it says in 2 Corinthians 1:5 "for just as the suffering of Christ flows over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows"..........Until next time my beloved