What choices will you make?

Our Daily Bread
The devotional hit me square between the eyes this morning.  Life (and following God) is about choices.  I made some not-so-good choices yesterday.  I prayed for forgiveness last night and again this morning.  Praying about it twice indicates that I am having trouble forgiving myself!  Yikes!

The weirdest part is that I read the passage from Philippians last week for my D2 class!  I should have known better!  I will do better.  I will continue to make better choices for my life.  The most difficult for me is making choices about my eating habits.  I am doing better and will continue to do better.  I will lose the weight that I need to lose this year.  It is all about choices.

Lord, I want to make better choices so I can represent you better on this earth.

Foodie Friday
I want to give a few tips and tricks about cooking this week.

First, if you are going to cook, you should learn to use spices.  I get my spices at several places depending on what I am looking for.  I shop for some spices, like for fish, at Trader Joes.  I pick up some spices at Costco if I want them in bulk.  Costco is a great place to get sea salt and real vanilla.  My favorite place to get spices is Penzeys Spices.  Here is a link to their web page.  Lots of variety.  High quality.  The prices are pretty reasonable.  My favorite part is receiving a package from Penzeys.  They add some bulk spices to the packing material so the box explodes with scents when you open it!

Second, I was reminded about cooking in bulk.  Who has time to cook each night?  I often make a big batch of something I like and then freeze some portions for later use.  I made a pot of chili yesterday.  I am going to freeze some portions for when the weather turns colder again next week.  Brrrrr!

Lastly, I find ways to make boxed meals taste better.  For example, I take the stroganof noodes mix, cook it per the instructions, and then add extra onion powder, garlic powder and sour cream to spice it up.  I also marinate some inexpensive steak and cut it up in to strips to add to it as well.  It is not difficult.  It tastes much better!

When cooking for yourself, or for you and your special someone, keep it simple and keep it healthy!

Other Stuff
My eye is healing slowly but surely.  I am very thankful.  I am taking things easy.  I did a few things around the house yesterday, but didn't do any lifting.

I FINALLY found someone to prune the mature trees in my back yard!  Woohoooo!  They did a great job and gave me a good price on the work.  I love the two trees in my back yard.  I was afraid of losing one of them because there were a lot of dead branches on it.  It should be fine now.

I have a service visiting this morning for an estimate.  I will determine if I can afford what I want.

I plan to visit my family tomorrow.  I have some things to drop off.  I want to get back to Columbus fairly early if at all possible.  I have some plans for Saturday night.

I plan to attend a church social tonight sponsored by the CGLF (Christian Gays, Lesbians and Friends).  I enjoy the socials.

Hang in there my friends!  I will be upbeat and steady.  That is what I do...