Saturday and Keepers...

Good Evening my friends.. 

Here we are another Saturday evening and once again I am posting.. 

I do hope you are having a good weekend.. 

This week I prepared for our Keepers of the Home meeting which we had today.. 

We had a roll of Christmas paper and a roll of brown parcel paper to make a garland.. 

A bit of twin and homespun rags and some sparkle.. 

We also made a table runner and some labels ... 

Here we used napkins and such..

I will show you more next post as I forgot to take pics of the labels and runners.. sorry.. 

I also took this Schnitz or Farmers Fruit Cake to have for our lunch.. 

It is an Ontario Mennonite recipe and uses dried apples.. 

I had a bag left over from last Fall and wanted to use them up.. 

It made 2 big cakes and is simply delicious.. 

Or I think so as I love fruit type cakes.. 

The flavour is very unique ... 

I hope to run my dehydrators this week getting a new supply of dried apples for the Winter.. 

Here are the girls learning a ribbon broach and ribbon roses from Carman.. 

We only had coffee, tea and Tim Hortons muffins for breakfast as we were going to have soup for lunch.. 

I love paper crafts as they are so relaxing to do.. 

A bit of glue and paper and such and voila you have it finished. smile.. 

We had a sweet visitor all the way from Manitoba today.. 

Melissa... 

She won one of the ribbon broaches ! 

So happy to have her company... 

Remember the soup base that we learned about a few meetings ago?  

Well, Carman went out very early this morning to her farmer's market and bought an organic chicken.. 

She took it home and cut it in two and brought a half plus her new cooker to our meeting.. 

The chicken was cooked in 20 minutes.. 

She adjusted the recipe from her Romanian way to Canadian busy ladies method.. grin...

She placed the chicken pieces, a whole onion, a few parsnip, half a bunch of celery, 3 carrots and water into her new pressure cooker which does 7 different chores (like rice cooker, canner and such) and cooked it away while we did crafts.. 

She bought this wonder pot from Costco...

Then later she added only a third of the soup base.. 

And a bit of her homemade tomato juice and several potatoes chopped up.. 

It simmered away while we crafted and then at lunch time it was ready.. 

This was served over polenta along with fresh rolls..  

So good.. 

We usually just have a breakfast together but this was a once a year craft day for Christmas.. 

Twas fun !

Our little devotional was on Psalms 91 and a challenge to read it everyday for 30 days.. We will learn to really appreciate that Christ is our refuge and dwelling place no matter what goes on in this crazy world we live in.. 

Psalm 91

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him,  for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

 Thank you dear hearts for visiting and letting me know you dropped by.. 
I appreciate it.. 
Still busy trying to get things done around here.. 
We were to the cottage and Terry winterised it for the season but our cold room still needs done and so on and so on.. 
It is sort of discouraging when you know a lot of people are all trimmed and decorated for Christmas !! 

The only thing I have done in that direction is to start a new Pinterest Board with some ideas for this year.. 
I plan to go a new direction by just using fresh and simple decorations.. 
When the holidays are over all I will do is take it down and not have to pack it all away... 
I have been wanting to do experiment with this for a couple of years so we will see how it turns out.. 
Here is my pinterest link...

 https://www.pinterest.com/fayehenry/a-fresh-simple-christmas/

Let me know what you think?  I will use special keepsakes and ornaments, of course but mostly fresh greens and such.. 

Terry and Dustin are gathering me lots of greens, mosses, cones and rose hip branches, etc. and putting them on the deck.. I will work away every once in awhile on garlands, wreaths and whatever but keep them in the cold until a few weeks before Christmas.. They would dry out if I did them before that, eh? 

Anyway.. we shall see....

Tomorrow is the Lord's Day.. Have a blessed one.. 
Sending you hugs from Eastern Canada...