Living as a Victorious Christian Woman

It’s time for another amazing blackberry recipe using berries picked fresh right here on the property. It’s a great vanilla ice cream to begin with, but I turn it up a notch with our home-grown blackberry crop.  If you don’t like seeds, make this recipe just plain vanilla or substitute another mix-in of your choosing. Whatever you pick, it’s a fun way to make specialty ice cream, made to order. Ingredients: 2 cups heavy whipping cream 2 cups half and half 1 cup sugar 2 Tbsp vanilla 2 1/2 cups partially crushed blackberries 1. Place a 13x9 glass baking dish in the freezer. You need to have it chilled for this recipe to work well. 2. Combine all four ingredients in a large bowl, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. 3. Pour the ice cream mix into the baking dish and return to the freezer.  4. Stir the ice cream after 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes. 5. Mash the blackberries until they are mostly crushed, making sure there are few-to-no whole berries. This will ...

It’s almost my birthday! I’m turning the big 4-4 this year, and I felt like my planner needed to reflect how excited I am! With just three supplies - a sheet of textured birthday stickers, a roll of washi tape and some puffy numbers - I created an adorable planer spread that just screams birthday fun! You don’t have to do anything fancy or spend a bunch of money to make your planner look a certain way. You probably have everything you need in your craft supplies already. I literally spent $3 on these pages, plus a few pennies for the paper, and I leftover supplies for other pages down the road. The second page is the one I designed myself because I wanted certain boxes to write in every day. On my birthday, this is extra special, as I can look back on these answers and prayers next year and see how far I’ve come and the miracles God has performed in my life over those 12 months. How can you make your calendar or planner special this week?

In my daredevil exploits of sorting and cleaning every room of our house and gathering things for a yard sale, I’ve come across some pretty interesting things. I learned that I will never have to buy another safety pin, ever. I learned that I have more old Christmas cards than I realized, so I’ll be up-cycling them for years to come. And I learned that I have always loved to write. This folder from the Young Writers’ Conference my eighth grade year was a surprise and very enlightening. Plus, on the back of the bookmark is the best quote ever: “To do is to be.” - Socrates “To be is to do.” - Plato “Do be do be do.” - Sinatra   I honestly don’t remember writing this story about a little boy who learned two very important lessons from his mischievousness and disobedience. My 13-year-old brain created a 4-year-old boy who had authority issues, destructive tendencies and a knack for doing the worst things at the worst moments. He did learn his lessons from the school of hard knocks, but...

It’s full-on blackberry season at the Carrell Wildlife Preserve, so everything I cook and bake for the next few weeks is going to have blackberries in it. Sit back and get ready - we’re starting with pork chops! While the chops were cooking according to the recipe below, I also made noodles and vegetables in the microwave. You can add whatever sides you want, timing them to be done at the same time as the chops. And wait until you see what my secret ingredient is! Hint: I don’t deglaze my skillets with wine. Ingredients: 1 Tbsp chili powder 1 Tbsp  1 tsp cayenne powder Salt and pepper to taste 4 pork chops 2 Tbsp olive oil 2 Tbsp minced garlic 1/2 cup Sprite, divided 3 cups blackberries, crushed 2 Tbsp sugar 1. In a small bowl, combine chili powder, —-, cayenne, salt and pepper. 2. Heat olive oil in large cast iron skillet. Coat one side of each pork chop and place spice side down in the skillet. Rub remaining spices on top of each chop. 3. Brown both sides of the chops, 3-4 minute...

I have the best husband in the entire world! Not only did he order exactly what I needed to organize a huge part of my craft room, he spent half the night putting them together so I would have an early birthday present. This was my storage system for wood-backed rubber stamps for years. It was unsightly, incredibly heavy and completely awkward for actually finding stamps in it. Danny listened when I explained what I actually needed - shallow, wide drawers to hold a single layer of stamps. I wanted to be able to see them at a glance, which is the exact opposite of a big bucket. After Danny put my two sets of drawers together, I spread out every single stamp I own on the floor of the craft room by theme. I honestly didn’t think I had this many, but I also have a huge drawer full of cling stamps in another container. Another day… Now I have 12 drawers of neat, organized and sorted stamps. I don’t have any room to grow, so I can’t invest in any more stamps right now, but that’s ok too. Aft...

We call this the ridge. It’s Danny even wrote me a song several years ago called Turkeys on the Ridge. And I’d rather watch the turkeys climb it than trek up myself. I can do it, but it’s not easy. Between my asthma and my fibromyalgia, I have to stop two or three times on the way up so I don’t pass out and roll all the way back down the hill. That seems counterproductive. So it’s not a sprint, but a marathon when it comes to the ridge. So why bother? The very best blackberry patch on the entire property is at the top of this hill. The thickest vines with the largest berries are up there, and for that reason I will make the climb. There’s good stuff up there, so I’m willing to put my body through a workout to get there. Oh my goodness, how much easier it is to come back down. Gravity takes over and I’m back to the house in no time. Thank you, gravity! Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in t...

Are you ready for the explosion of floral patterns and colors I’m bringing to you today? I hope so because this layout is so much fun to make and so pretty when it’s finished! To make this spread, you’ll want two clean, white pages. The one on the left is the one I designed myself to go with each printed daily page, on the right. Then you gather up all those great floral stickers you have collected somewhere. Yes, you know the ones I’m talking about. We all have them. First you’ll line up your pages so they’re touching, then overlap the largest florals you have down that seam. The bigger the better here, and it doesn’t matter if you cover the holes because you’ll fix that later. Then go back for a second pass with slightly smaller flowers, overlapping even more. The idea is to cover up as much of that white middle as possible. Pass #3! This time you’ll add some filler leaves and tiny flowers, just like you would if you were making a real flower arrangement. It’s totally ok for the stic...

It’s been a couple of weeks since I check on the wild blackberry bushes that are spread all over the property. The last time I looked, they were almost all green, meaning the flowers had just fallen off and they were waiting to soak up the rain and sunshine. This morning, they were almost all red! They’re coming right along. I noticed several other things while I was out walking the property, and hopefully they’ll be as much of a blessing to you as they were to me. First, if I’m only looking for berries, I miss out on the other plants and colors spread all around. I have to keep my eyes up and open for other beautiful things, too. The one thing that’s different always stands out. In a sea full of red berries, the black ones look like flashing neon signs. So if you are something special, or do something different, you’re going to stand out in the crowd. There’s often snags in your plan, a hitch in your giddy-up and a beaver slide in the middle of the trail. You can’t control them or pre...

Oh my goodness. There’s something about tiny little things that makes me beyond happy. And these tiny notecards definitely fall into that category. They’re just 2.5 inches square, but the possibilities are endless! When I make cards for Stuff From Trees, I start with a 8.5x11-inch piece of card stock and cut a 6.25x9-inch card from one corner. Then I cut the longest strip into three pieces: two that are 4.5 inches and one that is 2 inches. The remaining piece is perfect for a bookmark! Then I use double stick tape to cover each tiny card with patterned paper. Tape is so much more permanent than glue and way less messy. Each lovely little card gets its own personalized embellishments. Very rarely do I ever make the same card twice, and only when it’s a special order, so they’re one-of-a-kind little treasures.  I’m not a fan of just throwing stickers onto a piece of paper, so I layer them with die cuts, card stock punches and other fun embellishments. When they’re all pretty and read...

If your comfort food is brownies (or baked treats of a similar kind), you never have to settle for plain, boring sweets. Spend less than a minute in your pantry and you’ll find dozens of ideas for brownie mix-ins that will knock your socks off. If you’re wearing socks. I made brownie bars last weekend to take to our youth group, using a Nordic Ware bites pan that I found at Goodwill for $2. The bottom of each cavity is slightly raised to help the batter bake evenly. It takes quite a bit of time to use, though, because it has to cool just a little before you run a knife around the edges and gently scoop them out. They turned out perfectly crispy on the edges and gooey in the middle, so I was quite pleased!  And now to say goodbye to boring brownies forever. Are you looking in your pantry right now? I’ll wait. A few ideas to jumpstart your creativity: - chocolate chips - peanut butter chips - cherry chips - caramel bits - hazelnut spread - creamy peanut butter - peanuts - pecans - ca...

I’m saving money for two very special things: living room furniture and new carpet. (Dog owners, I know you feel me.) But there’s a difference between saving money and saving intentionally. The first one is just tucking some money away whenever there’s a little extra. The second is telling your money how much you need to budget for a dedicated savings plan. That’s where this savings tracker page in my planner comes in. Creating a page like this is simple if you have a word processing program or an app like Canva. I made this one in Canva, as you’ll see when you scroll down, but the same directions apply to Word or your favorite computer program. I know that my planner pages are 5.75x8.25 inches, so that’s the size I use to create a canvas. If you’re doing full pages or have a special size you want, this is the easiest way to make sure you have the correct dimensions. Then I make a circle. Yep, that’s a circle. Then I copy and paste several of them. Yep, that’s a bunch of circles. But t...

There’s a great line in the movie War Room when the main character is evicting the devil from her home. She says, My joy is found in Jesus, and just in case you’ve forgotten, He’s already defeated you. So go back to hell where you belong and leave my family alone. I’ve had to remind myself of this truth over and over again in my own life, but never before have I seen the enemy working so hard to destroy the joy of Christians and their families. He can’t have our souls, but he does everything in his power to steal our joy. Right this minute, I’m praying for several couples whose marriages are being attacked.  Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve me from the fear of the enemy.  Psalm 64:1 I’m praying about teenagers who don’t have the best home lives and are struggling day to day.  Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve me from the fear of the enemy. I’m praying for several people who have stressful work situations. Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserv...

At the end of June into early July, I start exploring the property with one thing on my mind: are the blackberries black yet??? We have acres of wild blackberry bushes all over, so I wind my way through the trails and up the ridge to the largest patches just to see what colors I can find. Right now, there is still a lot of green in many patches. Once the flowers fall off and the berries start to grow, they’re a lighter green than the leaves around them. Then the green slowly turns pink, then red, then a dark maroon color. It’s like watching pink lemonade going up a straw, seeing the color changing little by little. In several blackberry patches, there is a good range of red colors, meaning some are about ready to turn black. And by the looks of things, it should only be a few more days until they’re ready to start picking - a week or two at the most! My favorite part of these reconnaissance missions is seeing how heavy the branches are with berries. If you look for me on Pinterest, you...