Melva Gifford

Today’s blog is dedicated to making apple sauce. It tastes great yum!

A friend at work thinks I have a version of fugi apples on my tree in my back yard and they are wonderful apples plain or in apple sauce. Apple sauce is a good way to take care of apples that have occupants or squatters. You can cut away the bad parts (worms don’t pay rent), the core and skin and wash the apple and then dice up into small pieces. A crock pot full of sliced apples ends up melting down to about a third of the crockpot.

You put the apples in the crockpot and cook on high for about three hours. Add about a tablespoon or palm full of red-hot cinnamon candy. That way you get some wonderful cinnamon flavor with some sweet. Yum.

Once it’s melted you can put the cooked apples into a blender and mix until it has a smooth texture. Put them in serialized quart bottles and put on sterilized lids and tighten the rings but not excessively so.

A family member cooked my apples in her water bath canner for about 40 min. that will seal the lids and then you can make sure the rings on the bottles are tight. My sister said it took about 93 medium, apples, (this batch didn’t have squatters to make about 8 quarts of apples. So it takes a lot of work to get the end product but it sure tastes good.

If I don’t watch it I’m going to learn how to do all kinds of things. Within the laws few weeks I’ve done quilting, homemade grape juice, and homemade applesauce. I had better stop before this becomes a habit.

I hope today’s lesson can be of use to youth ministries, family devotionals, family counselors and family home evenings. I am always looking for new ways to present a theme. And right now I’m see how humor can contribute to the theme of Pride.

Joke: In my senior year I reluctantly took a required psychology course. The first day, the professor commented on each student’s major, trying to provoke a response. It was working – some students were becoming defensive. When it was my turn, I told him I was a music major.

“So,” asked my professor, “what does your father think of you wasting your education to study music?”
“He’s just thankful,” I shot back, “that I didn’t go into psychology.”

Lesson: When we work hard to achieve a goal, it is very good to feel accomplished for reaching that objective. We remember the effort and sacrifice of our efforts and so it would be logical that we have a satisfaction that we were successful. Achieving a goal often includes gaining knowledge, some object and can improve our self worth.

I see PRIDE as an excessive sense of accomplishment and it might even be unjustified. We might enjoy flaunting a title we possess or feel better than someone else because of our possessions. We might feel we are better than someone else because we dress better than them or we think we’re are more enlightened intellectually, politically of socially.

Pride can often interfere with us being open to learning. We may think we ‘know it all’. Often a prideful person can be a person who is difficult to interact with because they may act cocky.

As a family or class discuss the consequences of too much pride. Maybe include the positive effectiveness of Pride’s opposite, humility and being teachable.

If you have a joke that would make a good lesson, or if you have some thoughts on the consequences of pride, please feel free to comment at the bottom of this blog.

It’s been several weeks since I’ve seen the Peter and the Wolf story telling presentation but I’d like to present some useful Story telling techniques which I found works in regards to marketing and presentation.

When it comes to marketing, it’s always nice to have multiple draws to an event. The promise to have a pet instrument zoo for the kids before story telling is an excellent draw for children and their parents. The full sized poster was also complementary of Rachel.

At the beginning of the presentation Rachel set the mood for the evening by sneaking out and tip toeing around the small orchestra. It was like pic-a-boo. She set a mischievous mood from the start. At another point of the evening the orchestra members became part of the performance with the appropriate head attire and actions which I thought added a positive embellishment to the evening. Their participation outside of playing music was a nice surprise. It was a fun evening enjoyed by all.

Think of double brains. There are two Is and two Ls br ILLI ant. And I finish with the sound of ant at the end.

What memory trick would you use to spell this word?

Last weekend some friends and I tied baby quilts for Colorado victims. So this makes a perfect opportunity to make a to-do list for quilting.

Material (pattern in back needs to match in some way with material in the front.) Often quilts with have a pretty desin in the front and usually a more solid color, usually darker, in the back. The back is two inches wider and longer than the material in the front. That way you can fold the longer material over the front and sew it so that it creates a frame design for the front of the quilt. Experienced quilters tell me that flannel is good for baby quilts and throws. Cotton is a universal cloth for quilts. Denim is good for very sturdy quilts and I see these used for outside and camping.

Batting: there are various thicknesses. Modern batting is much better in not shredding or clumping in the wash than those of previous years. By doing tying of the quilt throughout the surface helps keep the batting to its assigned area. That is the additional purpose of the 2 inches material of the backside of the quilt. When you tuck it around the frame and sew it. (I believe they call it the ditch) then that will also bind the batting to not bunch up after washing.

Yarn: the most popular is 4 ply and for lighter quilts 3 ply. You want to get a color that will match the materials that will sandwich the batting.

Quilting needles: These are usually around 3 inches in length and have large eyes that the yarn can thread through. Thimbles are good to protect the fingers as you move the needles through the cloth.

Quilting frame: When my mother made quilts and we would help, we used big wooden frames with clamps on the corners. She would use tacks to adhere the quilt to the frame along the sides to keep it in place. After we would do several rows of tying we would loosen the clamps and roll them up to the unstitched area and after several hours (dependent Upon the number of people working on the quilt you can get a king or queen quilt done. This weekend I was introduced to the much smaller plastic baby quilt frames that have plastic bars that can keep the material in place. I am told these smaller frames can do big quilts but you have to do them a section of the time. People will safety pin the cloth/batting/cloth throughout to keep everything lined up as you work on the quilt.

One friend introduced us to the yarn pinch. This is a wonderful way to thread a needle as the yarn has a tendency to be very bulky and sometimes hard to thread the needle even with a big eye. She explained the technique this way. You fold the end of the yarn across a needle. Pull it tight and then remove the needle so that the bend piece of yarn is held within you thumb and finger. Press the head of that bent yarn toward the hole of the needle. As you press the yarn through and your fingers pull away; the yarn expands on the other side of the needle hole and it’s threaded. It was a cool trick.

Some quilters will mark with chalk or washable markers where they would like the quilters to tie the quilt or you might chose certain areas of the pattern and quilt in that area and then after you’re done you look over the quilt to see if there are open areas that need an extra tie. For tying, some quilters with loop the yarn down and up in the cloth/batting/cloth, and with the two inch tails on each end tie both ends a double knot. Others will do a loop one inside the other to create a knot that will bind the material. and then do a double knot.

Items on the checklist:
Scissors or finger-nail clippers, yarn, batting, frames, Cloth for top and bottom, safety pins, thimbles,
Quilt needles and threader, and a bunch of friends

One of my coworkers had a surger so that she was able to trim off the excess material and batting and the machine sewed up the edges of the quilts. That saved us a lot of time. If you don’t have a surger than the edges of the quilt need to be finished by hand. You will need quilting thread that has the capability to go through two pieces of cloth plus the batting.

There’s a lot more to this than what I’ve described and many full-fledged quilters might be cringing right now with though of “but what about—“ But this is at least a brief introduction to quilting. Sewing patches and doing designs on material is a more advance form of quilting and will not be address here but is reserved for the big Whig quilters.

There is nothing more physiologically satisfying than resting in the comfort of a quilt. There were many Christmas I asked my mother to give me a quilt. She was one talented woman.

Joke: A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy

Dear Tech Support,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5..0, MONEY 3.0 and CRICKET 4.1.
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.
Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5..3 to fix these problems, but to no avail. What can I do?

Today’s theme is on the value of romance between a couple. When a husband and wife are together, research shows that kids feel more secure at home. When parents show their unity the kids see the positive effects to parents and the family unit.

But when life gets in the way, a couple may often not devote as much attention to each other as when they were dating. Sometime couples may feel apart as they raise their family and concentrate upon work. This sense of separation can be combated by seeking out ways to keep the romance alive. It can help both husband and wife feel more satisfaction as their relationship deepens.

As a class or family discuss the values of the family unit. Family members can learn first-hand the strengths of brothers and sisters. Parents can teach children important values by being strong examples and through daily instruction. Tasks can be made lighter by multiple hands combined in a cause compared to doing something solo.

In order for kids to feel security at home, they also need to feel the strength between father and mother. That is what is humorous about this piece is that often we can often lose track of an original goal (marriage, raising a family or achieving personal goals) because life seems to get in the way.

Business will have a business statement that shares with their customers what the intent of the company is. What is the statement of your family and as a couple? A couple, secure in the relationship between husband and wife, can lead their family to combat life’s challenges on a united front.

Discuss different ways of how to keep the romance alive which might include a weekly date night.

If you and your companion have had some fun activities that you’ve enjoyed on dates, please feel free to share them.

People who fell superior or elite over others because of money, family or position. They feel they are LIT (play off the word enlightened) with superior knowledge or skills.

Another possible memory device could be that sometimes a person who has attended one of the big name universities may make them feel elite. With pinky extended they may want to discuss a certain piece of literature thus LITerature or eLITe

Those are two possible brain teasers. If you have a better idea on how you remember this word, please feel free to share it. Thanks.