Friday Foto Friends

Friday Foto Friends!

I am sharing the sunset from a couple of nights ago ... August 29 to be exact. As I was reading, I just happened to glance out the window and behold! This beautiful sky!

(My neighbor's gutter always gets in the way though!)

And, of course, one of my favorite Psalms fits here as

I love to look to the heavens!

Speaking of Heaven, our Tuesday morning Bible study will be reading and discussing Randy Alcorn's book about Heaven.

It's a lot to absorb and think about as you ponder what awaits us! It will be more magnificent than anything we can imagine. Won't it be wonderful there?

"You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

Psalm 73:24-26

This past weekend my sister and I were looking at old pictures. They're a little fuzzy, however, they are memories of a day my brother and sister and I spent with our Dad in Arkansas at a place he liked to visit. Withrow Springs State Park. 

We very seldom wore slacks or shorts back then. It was always dresses! It was cold that day, too. You notice both my Dad and brother are wearing jackets!

I don't remember if my brother got to shoot that new gun or if he just got to pose.

Here is a nice colorful picture of the Withrow Springs State Park taken from their website.

And below is a picture of my Dad in front of the school he attended. I think this school was from first grade to eighth, but I'm not positive about that. He lived up in the hills outside of Huntsville, Arkansas. When he was eight years old, he contracted typhoid fever and each day his dad would walk down to the town in Huntsville to get medicine for Daddy. I'm so thankful to my Grandpa for his commitment to his children in those hard circumstances as this would have been 1932, during the Great Depression.

I have a love for Northwest Arkansas that my brother and sister don't share with me. It's a beautiful part of the country and my memories of time spent there with my parents and grandparents are very special ones.

Thirty years ago this week, my precious Mom passed away. Although she had fought a hard battle with cancer and its ups and downs, you could just bet that every time the doctor told us she wouldn't make it through the night, she would stubbornly show him. And the night he told us once again, I didn't believe it. My brother and his family and I were living in Seattle because my brother was also fighting his own battle with cancer having just undergone a bone marrow transplant. I was there because I was his donor and giving him my platelets following the transplant. The news about my mother was shocking and I remember crying out to God to save her and let her make it again. She did not. The sadness of our not being able to be with her was almost too much to bear, but as He always does, the Lord brings us through in His faithfulness and love.

I’ll meet you in the morning by the bright riverside.

This week I've tried to cook from what we have in the freezer and the pantry, along with the beautiful zucchini and tomatoes we picked up on our way home from Tulsa. Tuesday night we had a mix of roasted vegetables, Wednesday night a mix of vegetables stir-fried in butter and ginger, and tonight we had crescent chicken roll-ups, along with a zucchini chocolate cake!!! Yum, yum!

photo credit and recipe

And DH really surprised me by loving the chicken roll-ups, which seemed a cross between chicken pot pie and chicken and dumplings. We ate the whole thing!!!!! In three weeks, we will be attending my 50th Class Reunion. You would think I would be trying to lose a few pounds rather than putting some on!

Mama's Chicken Roll Ups

Ingredients

• 2 large chicken breasts (can also use chicken thighs)
• 1 can crescent rolls
• 1 10.5 oz. can cream of chicken soup
• ½ soup can of broth (use what the chicken cooked in)
• ½ soup can milk
• 1 T. all purpose flour
• 6 oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• pinch of salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Place the chicken in a pot and cover with water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and cook till chicken is cooked through.
2. Remove chicken (save broth).
3. When cooled enough to handle remove the chicken from the bone and shred, set aside. Whisk together the soup, broth, milk, flour, salt and pepper.
4. Unroll the crescent dough and separate into the triangles.
5. Place a little cheese over the dough and at the larger end place a good heaping of the chicken.
6. Roll up and place in a 9x13 casserole dish. Repeat with remaining.
7. Once all are in the dish, pour the soup mix around each one and then drizzle a little over the tops (not too much).
8. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes, remove and top with a little more cheese and return to the oven for 5 minutes.
9. Let sit for a couple of minutes before serving, the soup mixture will thicken up like a gravy.

Recipe by Intelligent Substance at https://intelligentsubstance.com/mamas-chicken-roll-ups/