Are you looking for some special recipes?  And not only special recipes but healthy ones as well?  When loved ones and friends come to visit or even if it’s just our own family at home, we like to fix something special for them on holidays or certain occasions and might need a new recipe.  Or maybe we’ve gotten into a recipe rut and fix the same things week after week and need a recipe revival.

Whatever the reason, here are some delicious sounding recipes I’ve seen recently on a Bed & Breakfasts Foodie Blog: Eight Broads in a Kitchen.  These recipes come from Kristie at Lookout Point Lakeside Inn which got an award of Innkeepers of the Year a couple of years ago.  I can’t wait to try them!

• Monte Carlo Sandwiches– a lower fat twist on the Monte Cristo
• Fruited Ricotta Muffins: a recipe adapted for all seasons
• Nutty Fruit Bars–A Healthful Snack
• Almond-Coconut Crisps, an Afternoon Delight in Hot Springs
• Berry Breakfast Shortcake
• Healthy Organic Quinoa Salad, Perfect for Weight Watchers!

Have you ever driven through fog and couldn’t see where you were going? Probably everyone has. This week on my way to work, I drove though a patch of fog and just followed the road. Once while on vacation in Colorado, we were at the top of a very high mountain pass with NO shoulders and a steep drop-off. We hit a patch of extremely dense fog (like a cloud) and could only see a few feet in front of us. Very scary, but we just followed the center stripe and prayed!
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Sometimes, life is like that. When it gets to the point where we don’t know what’s ahead, we just follow God’s direction and trust He will lead us though the fog of life!
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I like this new song by young singer, Jamie Grace, called “You Lead.” It’s a fun, up-beat song that shares about letting God lead us!
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When traveling around the country, do you ever pick up the little pamphlets that say “Homes for Sale” or something similar?  Sometimes, they will be in restaurant lobbies or motel lobbies, and we might pick one up to look at just out of curiosity.  If someone happened to be traveling in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, for example, they might pick up outer banks homes for sale.  It can be interesting to see how much homes sell for in different areas compared to the area we live in.  And it’s fun to see the different styles of homes in different areas.

What an unassuming little cookie!  Just to look at Dad’s Original Oatmeal Cookie, one would never guess how delicious they are.  We first encountered them a year ago when we visited the St. Louis Gateway Arch (the nation’s tallest monument at 630 feet).  Unseen from ground level is an underground mini-mall area complete with an impressive little museum and shops.  We (hubby, me, and our son) went in this cute little 1900-style market.  On the checkout counter stood a cookie jar filled with oatmeal cookies, priced modestly at 3/$1.  We needed a little snack so I bought several cookies.

When eating these cookies later, we were surprised how yummy they were and wished we had bought more.  We were headed to Springfield, Missouri, and figured we might could buy more there but were disappointed to find out the cookies are sold only in the St. Louis area.  Sometime after we got back home, I researched Dad’s Original Scotch Oatmeal Cookies and found out their interesting history. I searched and searched for the recipe but didn’t find one that sounded suitable until one day I found this Whole Grain Thin and Crispy Oatmeal Cookie Recipe (minus the walnuts) that sounds like it’s very close to Dad’s cookies.

My dear husband suggested ordering some of the cookies from Dad’s website recently, but I would rather wait since I’m trying to lose weight.   If I need to bake a batch of cookies to take somewhere, though, I just might try the recipe I found online!

Photo courtesy of our son!

The past six weeks have been so hectic with a lot of teacher training for the new state testing system plus seven ARD meetings to prepare for plus just the regular day-to-day stuff that goes with teaching. Add in all the shopping and getting ready for Christmas and I’m ready to go to somewhere like the st lucia resort to recuperate! Remember the old commercial that says “Calgon take me away?” That’s how I feel as well as nearly all the teachers I work with. We’re exhausted and so ready for a break to revitalize!

There are a lot of people who love to travel and pull their travel trailer behind them. They just get a trailer hitch put on back of their truck or vehicle, and then they’re set to go all over the country. We have several older friends and relatives who just love to do that, and they used to make one or two yearly trips and stay gone for weeks. Of course, someone would need to be retired or else have a really long vacation in order to do that. The great thing about it is that when they go to visit relatives, they have their own place to stay.

A couple of years ago, our son went on a trek up a mountain in Colorado with a group from church. They had two experienced guides with them which eased my mind about our youngest child (age 17 at the time) going up to the top of a huge mountain. I don’t know if any of them used Trekking Poles or not, but I know they wore cleated shoes to grip the mountain as they went up steep slopes.

The hikers spent the night in tents and ate campers food (the exact opposite of deli food).  Some parts of the mountain trek were extremely challenging (and sounded almost dangerous to me).  I must say that after hearing from some of the other trekkers, we were very proud of our son and how he carried the gear of weaker hikers who were about to collapse, even though that made his load twice as heavy.  That is a memory of his trek that I will always treasure!