ByGrace

Wishing you and your family  Peace Joy and Blessings on this Christmas Day! The Hutchens Family Wes, Susan, Sam, Andrew, & Beth

  tommaync Sorry this is late today. I have been really trying to write my blog posts ahead of time so that (1) I have new content for you most days of the week, and (2) I am not slapping something on the page at the last minute. I did good for a couple of weeks, but this week I've fallen by the wayside. Life has just been too busy. We had our Ladies' Fellowship Christmas party Monday night. This is the highlight of the year for the ladies, as we all bring snack foods and gifts and play games. We laughed a LOT Monday night! For the devotion, I taught a much-abbreviated lesson about the three wise women who surrounded Jesus' birth.  We're always hearing about the three wise men, but not so much about the women! These three wise women, of course, were Elisabeth, Mary, and Anna . Each of these ladies was very different from the others. Elisabeth was a wife of many years, in "the ministry" as the wife of a priest and of the priestly line herself, and ...

  Welcome to The Week In Words , where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read .  From Michele at A Quiet Gracious Life . . . "Four things you can never recover:  The stone after the throw.  The word after it's said.  The occasion after it's missed.  The time after it's gone."   ~ Unknown  How true those words are! I've said many a word in haste that I wish I could take back. It took me many years to learn to hold my tongue, and I'm still working on it, in case you're wondering when I arrived! I've missed occasions to witness, to say "I love you," to help a friend in need; I can never get those occasions back. And time . . . how I've wasted...

Written by blogger , ranch wife, and mom of four Ree Drummond, Pioneer Woman Cooks is full of home-style man-pleasing recipes that Ree actually cooks for her family and the cowboys on the family's working ranch in rural Oklahoma. I had seen - and made - several of her recipes before the cookbook came out, so I knew the recipes would be down-home fare that my own man would love. Ree delivered . . . and so much more than recipes. The first few pages give an overview of Ree's family, Marlboro Man and the kids, as well as the details of her favorite kitchen tools and ingredients, butter taking a starring role, of course. This cookbook is a photo journal of life on a working cattle ranch. Each picture was taken by Ree herself and chronicles their family life, right down to working calves in the mud and riding the range at dawn; their pets, which include basset-hound-who-thinks-he's-a-ranch-dog Charlie and his faithful sidekick Suzie; a wild-mustang beauty contest; and th...

A couple of years ago my now 18-year-old daughter had her first opportunity to make dinner for her dad. She's done lots of baking and some cooking, but this was the first time for her to cook an entire meal without me around to answer her questions and reassure her that she was doing fine. After a quick phone call to ask exactly how to coat the chicken, she was on her own, and her dad said she made a fantastic meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas. And it all got done at the right time, too, which is more than I can say for many of my meals as a young woman! A few days later, Beth said to me, "You know how you've always said that when the chicken's done, the juices will run clear? Well, I kept cutting into that chicken, and it would look kinda cloudy, but then I cut into one piece . . . and the juice was clear!" I laughed right out loud! Had she doubted all this time that I knew what I was talking about? That maybe only the chicken that I ...

Welcome to The Week In Words , where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read . Only one quote this week . . . I've been reading How To Be a Writer by Barbara Baig recently. I'd never heard of her before beginning this book, but I love her philosophy! Here is what she says about "talent" in relation to writing (which I feel can be applied to any creative pursuit): Talent is the assumptions we make about other people's abilities that keep us from developing our own . . . The question is not: "Do I have any talent?" The question is, "Am I willing to find out whether I really want to do this?"  Barbara Baig, How To Be A Writer , p. 32 Those words spoke so deeply to me on ...