Memories On the Scenic Route
Refreshment in marriage · The Scenic Route

Memories On the Scenic Route

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Why travel the busy interstate, full of traffic, construction zones and high speeds when you can take a gorgeous, slower paced scenic route?

That’s the philosophy my husband and I have taken on! Oh, the gorgeous scenery we have enjoyed on the Scenic Route! Beautiful old barns, kayakers on rushing rivers, rainbows over country churches, and hot air balloons skimming open fields are just a few of the sights we have seen.

Our third week of Sabbatical was not without more scenic routes and beauty! I’ve pictured some of them here in this post.

Travel can really be an illustration of how we approach every day of our married lives! Sadly, I believe too many marriages are daily on the Interstate. Both the husband and wife are each in their own “cars,” driving over the speed limit, hurrying to the next thing on their agenda.

Occasionally they may pass their spouse and give a thumbs up as they keep traveling independently on their journey. Every now and then their lives may merge onto the same road, but not long after, a construction zone interrupts their unity and it’s back to stop-and-go once again.

This is not a fun way to travel, and it’s an even worse way to live out married life!

When you’re on the Interstate, it ‘s necessary to get off at a rest area when you’re weary. Marriages need restful times, too! I’m thankful for the rest our sabbatical allowed us. Not only did it strengthen our ministry, we were also able to pour into our marriage. We did lots of reminiscing – thinking back to the days when the Lord brought us together.

We even had the blessing of spending time in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, because, like many young couples, part of our honeymoon was spent there. We were thankful for time to sit, to talk, to dream about the future, and thank the Lord together for the blessings of the past.

Is your marriage on the high-speed Interstate, or have you taken the time to get off and enjoy the scenic route recently?

You don’t need a sabbatical to travel the scenic route! Find a spot where you and your spouse can watch the sun set. Go to the lake with a picnic supper. Drive together down a country road with the windows down and your old love songs playing on your Amazon app. Make some new memories on your own scenic route.

It’s your choice which route to take – both as your travel and as you live out each day of your marriage.

Interstate or Scenic Route. Which are you on today?

Popovers ~ the Perfect Dinnertime Bread
Bread · Dinner · Easy recipe

Popovers ~ the Perfect Dinnertime Bread

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I don’t know why I never made popovers before; they’re so good and also easy to make!

It was my daughter who said that to me recently, and I’m wondering who else has not made popovers for dinnertime?

They are whipped up in a matter of about 5 minutes. You simply mix and pour the batter into pans. They are then “POPPED” into the oven where they bake and POP UP in the pan in about 40 minutes. The outsides are crispy and the insides are moist and tender. They’re a great accompaniment to so many different kinds of meals!

Popovers

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon shortening or nonstick cooking spray
  • 2 beaten eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon salt 

Directions

Instructions Checklist

  • Step 1 Using 1/2 teaspoon shortening for each cup, grease the bottoms and sides of six 6-ounce custard cups or cups of a popover pan. (Or, lightly coat cups with cooking spray.) Place the custard cups on a 15x10x1-inch baking pan; set aside. Note: I use a regular muffin tin and it works great!
  • Step 2 In a medium bowl use a wire whisk or rotary beater to beat eggs, milk, and oil until combined. Add flour and salt; beat until smooth. Don’t overbeat. Just mix until everything is well combined.
  • Step 3 Fill the prepared cups half full with batter. Bake in a 400 degree F oven about 40 minutes or until very firm.
  • Step 4 Immediately after removing from oven, prick each popover to let steam escape. Turn off the oven. For crisper popovers, return popovers to oven for 5 to 10 minutes or until desired crispness is reached. Remove popovers from cups; serve immediately. Makes 6 popovers.

If I have leftovers, I put them into a 400 degree oven to warm them and crisp them back up again. It only takes about 5 – 7 minutes.

Are you one that has never tried popovers? I hope you’ll remedy that this week!

Sabbatical Fun!
Refreshment · Sabbatical

Sabbatical Fun!

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Busy lives don’t lend themselves for time to pursue hobbies. However, our recent sabbatical offered the time to refresh a favorite pasttime.

When I was in high school I took two years of art – not because I was gifted – but because I wanted to learn how to paint. It has been years since I’ve painted anything, but recently I had an itch to try my hand at watercolors. I’ve had so much fun! Here’s my first painting using the cheap watercolors I had on hand from Target! I did purchase watercolor paper so I could blend the colors.

We have so many beautiful barns around us. I decided to snap photos and paint some of them. Here’s the barn that is on my daily walk…

Wow, time painting has been such a blessing. I have a weekly plan to work on my watercolor techniques. I’ve found some great tutorials online that I’m planning on watching. I’m trying to remember that we can each create sabbatical moments! What hobby to do you love that you haven’t taken time for?

We also had the fun of time with my family. We hired a photographer to come and take pictures at my parent’s home. We had never had professional photos taken together. It was a fun and very special evening! I especially love the picture of the back of my parents. Isn’t that sweet?! My mom made the quilt that is in the background (it’s one of MANY she’s made!). Which photo is your favorite?

When we left Kentucky and headed home to Tennessee, we decided to stop for the night in Berea and enjoy the Boone Tavern. I’ve mentioned it before, but this is a super-special place. It is very southern, very elegant, and very restful! Also, their dining room serves amazing meals. If you ever visit, be sure to try their Kentucky Hot Brown! We always leave refreshed and wanting to return! Do you have a special hotel you return to over and over again?

We love sitting outside in the front porch rocking chairs or on the side yard in the shaded garden area. We enjoyed having our morning Quiet Time out there the day we left.

It seems we are always looking for the outdoor spots wherever we are. We love the sunshine and the fresh air!

That’s a wrap for the second week of sabbatical. I hope you’re getting the idea of our time away. Restful, fun, refreshing, and restorative! How we needed it and how thankful we are for that time!

Again, let me remind you that though you many never have a 30-Day sabbatical, we each need to create sabbatical moments. Our minds, hearts and bodies need it so we can press on and serve with strength, energy and a full heart of love for God!

I’d love to hear your answers to the questions I posed in the post!

Refresh your own heart with some fun!

Donuts Even On a Diet!
dessert · Weight watchers

Donuts Even On a Diet!

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There’s nothing worse than having a craving for something sweet when you’re wanting to watch your sugar intake or lose a couple of pounds! Am I right? However, I love finding recipes that fit into my WW way of life that allow me the pleasure of something sweet without killing the whole day’s points on one treat!

I recently found these Double Choclate Banana donuts on Drizzlemeskinny.com while scouring Pinterest for a baked version of this sweet treat. The addition of the banana gives enough sweetness that they don’t need much sugar. We loved this recipe and found them to be the perfect dessert, or even an addition to breakfast! These aren’t Dunkin Donuts variety, mind you, but they will certainly do just fine when you want to be a little better at watching your calorie intake!

  Double Chocolate Banana Donuts

  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbl sugar
  • 1 medium mashed banana
  • 1/4 cup milk – I used 2%
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/3 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 1/2 Tbl. dark chocolate chips

INSTRUCTIONS 

  • Preheat oven to 350F and spray a 6 hole donut pan with some cooking spray.
  • In a bowl whisk the egg and stir in the sugar, mashed banana, milk and vanilla.
  • Stir in flour, baking powder and cocoa powder then fold in chocolate chips.
  • Divide batter into the donut pan; they should be filled to the top.
  • Bake for 16-18 minutes or until baked through, let cool then gently remove from donut pan.
  • Store in sealed container, best in the fridge after a day and the donuts will freeze well.

Her website says these are 2 SP for the blue plan and 3 SP for the green plan. Not bad, huh?!!

These made for a delicious addition to our anniversary breakfast a couple weeks ago!

I hope you’re hungry for donuts now and will give this easy recipe a try! What do you get hungry for when you’re trying to watch your calories?

Our Sabbatical Weeks and How You can Create a Period of Rest for Yourself
Refreshment · Sabbatical

Our Sabbatical Weeks and How You can Create a Period of Rest for Yourself

RefreshHer6 Comments
My sweet husband made this breakfast feast for me on the first day of our sabbatical!

You may never have a sabbatical, but at the end of this post I’m going to share how you can create your own times of rest on a weekly basis, so keep reading!

As of yesterday, July 1, my husband and I completed our month-long Sabbatical. Wow. Our hearts are so full of all the things the Lord has done during those precious 30 days! You can be sure that I kept a journal each day to recount what was happening, what we were doing, and how the Lord was speaking to my heart.

I thought perhaps you would be interested to see how we spent some of our days. I mean, what do you do with 30 days of no ministry when it normally fills every day of the year?

We got outside. We got to choose the month for our sabbatical, and we chose June for a couple of reasons – one being that we love summertime and being outdoors. We took opportunities for drives to beautiful spots where we saw the hand of God. Here it is beautifully displayed in this double rainbow at Watauga Lake!

We enjoyed celebrations. The first day of June was Tennessee’s birthday. Jonesborough is the oldest city in the state, so the governor here came to speak briefly to the large crowd that gathered. The Oak Ridge Boys were there to sing the anthem and a couple of their oldies. It was the perfect beginning event! They were really popular in 1981, the year we were married, so their songs were pretty nostalgic. Anyone remember Elvira?!

So patriotic and fun to enjoy Tennessee’s birthday at an outdoor event!

We rested and read. We spent about five wonderful and quiet days at a lake cottage friends of ours graciously loaned to us. There’s no Internet; that in itself makes it a vacation! The beauty surrounding the cottage is always breathtaking and so relaxing!

One thing I prayed about were the books I should read. The Lord clearly led me to each one – even the fictional book about a pastor who takes an interim pastorate at an island church. There were so many parallels in our lives. But just having time to read was so wonderful!

We invested in our marriage. My husband chose a month-long devotional for couples that he found on-line and we read it together each day. It was on the love languages. You would think that at 40 years, we would each know the other’s love language, but this was a real learning time for both of us! Just having time to talk as a couple with no distractions, to read this devotional and pray together was another huge blessing.

We visited churches. Each Sunday we visited a new church in the area where we were. That was a blessing and also a time of learning. When you’re always in your own church, you don’t see your blind spots. As we visited other churches, it made us aware of things that might need change or adjusting in our own church. The preaching and worship (in most cases) were a true joy.

Now, how can YOU create your own regular period of rest in order to refresh yourself and be ready for the work ahead? Remember that we rest so we can work. It’s easy to think “I’ve worked hard; I deserve a rest!” But God’s directives to His people were that they would rest on the Sabbath so they could work the rest of the week. I began taking a “Sabbath rest” early last spring. Here’s my formula for refreshing myself each week:

  1. Choose one day a week for your Sabbath. For ministry families, Sunday is generally the busiest day of the week, so my day is Friday. It doesn’t have to be Sunday. Choose the day when you can really rest.
  2. Determine to spend quality time in God’s Word and prayer.
  3. Keep your busyness and chatter to a minimum.
  4. Decide what kind of things will fill your time. This doesn’t mean filling your day with busy things, but if you normally are doing work with your hands, then choose things that would work you mind. Read, work a puzzle, memorize a passage of Scripture. If you are normally working with your mind, do work with your hands. Work in the yard, organize or clean, work on a project.
  5. Rest. Allow yourself time to sleep in and/or take a nap.
  6. Get outside. Take a walk, ride bikes, go swimming. Sit outside and read.
  7. Spend time with those that will aid your rest.This isn’t the day for planning events or giving counsel. Spend time with others who will refresh you and you them.
  8. Plan ahead so your meals will be “easy” meals. Either prep a meal ahead and have it ready for the oven, or go out or pick up carry-out.

Does this Sabbath rest appeal to you? Does it seem do-able? I’d encourage you to pray about it and ask the Lord to help you come up with the best plan for you and then implement it as soon as possible!

Refresh yourself with a Sabbath rest!