Chatting with Charity ~ 22

 Good Morning! How are you enjoying the HEAT and HUMIDITY? I will admit that I am dreaming of crisp cool mornings and days that my hair doesn't melt from the humidity...but until those days come I have been trying to beat the heat by serving a cold plate dinner a couple of nights per week. One of my current favorites is pimento cheese and today I am sharing my recipe! It ...is a simple recipe and made from things I am normally stocked up on.

Pimento Cheese

2 cups shredded extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (optional)
1 (4 ounce) jar diced pimento, drained salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients together, I do this in my food processor because I like it to be very smooth but you can just use a spoon if you like it chunky and serve with veggies, pretzels, or on a sandwich. Now, sit back and be thankful you kitchen is not hot from cooking ;)

Do you have any cold plate dinner ideas? Or any great ways to beat the heat?

 

Charity

Chatting with Charity ~ 21

 

 

 Good morning! One of my favorite parts of summer is all the fresh veggies! Today, I thought I would share one of my favorite tricks with you. We love the ease of eating and serving fresh corn off the cob. I know many people love it still on but I am going to be very honest and tell you I hate the way it gets stuck in my teeth, TMI I know! For years I would struggle to keep the cob upright on a plate and then gather the kernels that went everywhere while I was cutting it but then one day I discovered that if I balance the cob in the hole of my bundt pan the cob stayed in one place and because it was elevated all the kernels fell into the pan. AMAZING!

Have you ever tried this? Or do you prefer your corn still on the cob?

 

Charity

Chatting with Charity ~ 20

 

 

 

Good morning!  Today, I am going to share something I shared on my personal Facebook page yesterday.  I showed a peek into my Real Life and I think it is something we need to be more intentional to do!  Whether it is on social media or in person we need to all agree to show the truth of our lives.  Now don't get me wrong we do not need to all become "Debbie Downers" and only ever talk about the bad!  But my thought is that if I don't show you the mess you can't appreciate the beauty of the end product.  This can be as simple as a home project or more importantly as deep as a difficult situation that you need prayer for!  If someone I know is struggling with something and they never share and I never come along side of them in prayer then I will not be able to fully celebrate with them in victory!  I want to live life with the people around me...Real Life! 

 

Here is my Real Life post from yesterday ~

 

Just in case you were feeling that you are the ONLY one, I thought I would share.... This is the current state of flooring in one room of our house and there is still more mess to make, the check engine light is on in my car, and Jeremy's Blazer needs tires and a power steering something or another!  But you know what?  It is just life and those are just things.  I am choosing today to keep my eyes on God and not the mess!  He is the only one that matters!  He has perfect timing, protection, and provision.  If I were to list my blessings they would be too many to number but people complain that social media only shows off the good in people's lives. Well, here is today's messy. It does not change how much I love my life!

 

Charity

Chatting with Charity ~ 19

Good Morning!  Hope you are doing well!  I can NOT believe that today is July 1st, where has the summer gone?  One of my favorite parts of summer is the fresh veggies!  We currently have more yellow squash coming out of our garden than we know what to do with!  My sister mentioned the same thing the other day and said she was making her kids eat a squash at every meal, ha!  While I am NOT going that far, I am serving them regularly with our dinner!  Today, I thought I would share one of my family's favorite squash recipes.

Squash Croquettes 

You will need

2 cups of finely chopped squash

1/2 cup of all purpose flour

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated 

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Combine all ingredients but the oil.  Put 1/2 inch of oil in a frying pan and bring to a medium-high temperature.  Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, scoop squash mixture into oil.  On a side note, you can put the mixture in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to thicken the mix, this will make for neater scoops but not necessary.  Allow each scoop to come to a golden brown before flipping.  Once your second side has browned, remove croquette from the oil and allow to rest on a paper towel lined plate.  These are very hardy and even my meat and potatoes guy will eat these in place of a meat.  Also,  any leftovers reheat nicely in the oven at 350* until warm.

Hope you will try these and let me know if they become one of your family favorites!

Charity

Chatting with Charity ~ 18

Sometimes life is HARD!

Good morning!  Today, I want to talk about one of the jobs of being a wife and mother that I am not always good at!  Our life lately has been hard.  You know what I mean?  Nothing awful has happened to us but life has been filled with disappointments, and frustrations, and people around us, close to us, are suffering with deep hurts and loses.  We have been feeling the weight of this for at least a full two months and we know there are more hard things coming....a dear friend moving away.  The weight of all of this has slowly changed the mood in our home, we are not as light hearted and joyful as normal.  I was praying about how I could help get us back to that place and that is when God started reminding me to be a fun wife and momma!  This is not something that comes naturally to me, I like quiet and order but I knew it was my job!  I am well aware that as wives and mothers we have great power over the mood of our homes....if momma ain't happy ain't nobody happy!  This week I have on purpose set aside time to be fun.  I even used our kitchen chalkboard to write a fun message on!  I am happy to report, It has worked!  We are not without cares, they are all still there, but we are having fun and finding joy in our day to day life!

Has your family recently gone through anything like this?  What did you do to lighten the mood?  Or if you are a fun mom, what are some of your favorite fun things you do for your family?

Charity

Good Morning!  I am not sure about you guys but I have to tell you that I am feeling my age!  All this weeding and such in the garden has me sore from hat to stake! I was so thankful when my friend Samantha brought over some Deep Blue essential oil!  It has helped a ton and I have to say I am smelling much fresher too! You can get your Deep Blue from Samantha, just email her at kevinswife@gmail.com.  And she has promised to include a special surprise in every order! Have a great weekend!

Love, 

Clarence, The Scarecrow

Chatting with Charity - 17

Father's Day Gift

Sentimental Penny Keychain

Sentimental Penny Key Chain

This keychain makes a great sentimental gift for all the men in your life. Find pennies with your sentimental years (birth of your kids, when you got married, etc.…).  Then, gather all the other supplies and get busy making yours.

 

 

Supply List

• Pennies with sentimental years 
• Hammer 
• Nails 
• Scrap block of wood 
• 6mm or larger jump ring 
• Keychain jump ring 
• Brillo Pad 

Use the Brillo pad to clean the pennies.

Grab a handful of small nails, a hammer and a scrap block of wood and hammer a hole into each of your pennies.

If you have trouble getting the nail all the way through, flip the penny over and hammer from that side.

This not hard but you will bend a few nails, just be prepared with extra nails.

Use a small jump ring to go through the pennies and then attach to the keychain.

This makes a great gift for the men in your life!!

Charity

Our Junk. Your Trunk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Saturday Morning!!!!

I have been up since before the rooster crowed dreaming about redoing the barn this winter.  Last week I got in touch with my friend Coleen about some new furniture.  She is a pro at making vintage and antique pieces look new and modern.  I pretty much LOVE every single piece that she does.  I am thinking one of these pieces would make a great addition to the barn...now I just need to decide if I want to stay more traditional or go fun and modern. Hmmm!  Well, the good news is I will be stuck here for a few more months and have plenty of time to think about it.  If you need a new piece of furniture for your barn...I mean home, please get in touch with my friend Coleen and see what she has in stock!  You can find her on Facebook at Our Junk. Your Trunk.​ and Instagram @ourjunk.yourtrunk

Love,
Clarence, The Scarecrow

Chatting with Charity 16

 

 

Good morning! 

Do you ever struggle with what to get the person who has everything???
I recently had this struggle! My precious grandmother was about to turn 80 and I had NO IDEA what to get her!  She has everything she needs and is downsizing what she has constantly.  I love my grandmother deeply and I wanted to mark this occasion with a meaningful gift, one she would treasure.  That is when the idea came to me... I would make her a memory jar.  It was a simple project to make.  I gathered a large jar, scrapbook paper, scissors, and a print out of what I wanted on the jar made from vinyl.  If you do not have a vinyl machine you could easily do this with stickers from the craft store.  I put the words on the front of the jar and cut the paper into strips.  Then we got busy writing our favorite memories with my grandmother and rolled them up and put them inside of the jar.  By the time we were finished the jar was full.  I have to tell you that this gift was to her exactly what I wanted it to be!  After she opened the gift she gave me this great piece of advice, when you are young you need to gather all the memories that you can so that when you are old you can sit and "unpack" them!   Now, I have a new memory to add to the jar!

 

 

This is her telling me about collecting memories.

 

 

Charity

 

Chatting with Charity 15

Hi everyone!  Today I am excited to share one of my family's favorite weeknight dinners.  It is super fast and let's be honest most weeknights we need FAST!

Ingredients
 1   cup asparagus chopped
 1   pound pasta 
 1/4   cup extra-virgin olive oil 
 4    cloves garlic, minced 
 1/2   cup left over pasta cooking water 
 1/2   teaspoon red pepper flakes 
 1 1/4   teaspoons salt 
1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Directions
1.Cook the pasta according to the package directions. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water and drain.
2.Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and asparagus and heat through, stirring so it doesn't burn.
3.Add the pasta water, red pepper, salt, and bring to a boil. Toss with the cooked pasta.
Serve with a salad and some yummy bread and you have a wonderful and easy weeknight dinner
4.Sprinkle top with cheese

Serve with salad and some yummy bread and you have an easy, fast weeknight dinner!

Chatting with Charity ~ 14

 

Good Morning!

 

Today, I am excited to share with you a book that I discovered several years ago.  The book is called Personality Plus, by Florence Littauer

 

 

 

This book is about the study of temperaments and places everyone's temperament into one of four categories.   Each of the temperament categories has strengths and weaknesses and these are normally where conflict with others happen.  Normally, we expect that what is easy or obvious to us should also be to everyone else and that is where hurt feelings and disappointment often happen.  The enemy would love for this to rip apart relationships but the cool thing is God means for our strengths to cover others weaknesses.  What a beautiful vision of the body of Christ that is, that your strength can cover my weakness and my strength can cover yours.  I wonder what the world would think if they could see the church living this out regularly?  Also, what if I stopped saying that is just the way I am with my weaknesses and actually took ownership of them and started to die to myself and allow God to live through me more.  WOW!  That is a change that I am sure my family and those close to me would like. 

 

For those of you wondering...I am a Choleric and I my weaknesses are: anger, revenge, opinionated, insensitive, unemotional, impatient, unsympathetic, sarcastic, cruel, domineering, inconsiderate, unforgiving, manipulative, bored with details, demanding, intolerant of errors.  Whew, for sure I am not naturally warm and fuzzy!

 

Have you ever read this book or others about temperaments?

What is yours?

 

 

Charity 

 

Photo Prints

I have exciting news!

The Heartfelt Home Shop is now offering Photo Prints for framing.

 

I have a great LOVE for words and want my home filled with words that point those in it to God!

These prints are a great way for me and you to do just that and in a way that doesn't break the bank, BONUS.

5x7 - $8

8x10-$10

 

You can purchase them here.

Here is a sample of the designs we have to offer and each design comes in multiple colors to choose from.
 

I hope you love these as much as I do.
Also, if you are local you can pick them up at Woodstock Market.

Charity

Chatting with Charity ~ 13

 

 

Good Morning! Who is happy to see the sun shining? I know that I am!

Today, I want to personally invite you to come to The Women's Conference. You can click this link to find out more information http://johnnyhuntwomensconference.com/...
I know in church as BIG as ours it is easy to get lost and feel like you haven't made a deep connection with other women. Please, do not let that stop you from coming. I will be there and easy to find, I will be at my booth The Heartfelt Home. If you come alone, find me and we will sit together and get to know one another. Or step out of your comfort zone and start inviting ladies to come with you. It would be a great way to invite your neighbor or coworker to church!

I hope to see you there!

Who has already has there ticket?

 

Cha Cha