Working Together

Mmmm... can you smell the apple sweetness and spices?  My daughter and I worked together to make shepherd’s pie for dinner a couple of nights ago.  She wanted to have a bottom crust, but since the pie crust recipe was for a double crust, we had leftover dough.  She asked if we had any apples, because she had seen a recipe for mini pies made in a muffin tin, and she wanted to try it out.  So I peeled and chopped the apples, while she worked on the sweet, buttery, cinnamon sauce and rolled out the remaining crust.  Aren’t they cute?  And oh, so tasty!

 

I wanted to be sure to get a photo of them, and I was delighted when she wanted to once again work together.  I’m so glad she did, because she is more creative than I am.  We have turned my married son’s bedroom into a sort of mini studio.  It has a nice exposed brick chimney in it, so we used it as a backdrop.  I used my son’s 60mm macro lens to create the blurry background.  One of the things I’ve learned when composing a photo is to have an odd number of objects, rather than an even number.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it has something to do with the Golden Ratio?

My daughter thought you might be interested in seeing our unorthodox setup:  one of the shelves from a bookshelf, a couple of wooden bowls, a paperback book, a box of tissues, and a box of old flatware.  Hey!  Whatever works, right?

Love Rocks

"Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart..."  --Proverbs 27:9

My new favorite scent from Victoria Secret!

Thank You...

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday.  I am grateful for birthdays and for those who express their love through birthday greetings and gifts. I am also grateful for my daughter's creativity and resourcefulness. The wrapping paper is actually old wall paper she spotted in a recycle shop.  Doesn't it make a beautiful gift wrap?   The tabletop tripod is from my son, and the camera battery and card are from my husband.  God is good...

Just Ask

My daughter and I went on a road trip a few days ago to deliver a cheesecake to Sam, a nice young man in college.  I’d met him last year at a youth group all-nighter he’d attended as a friend of one of our group’s teens, and he is now one of my friends on Facebook.  A few months ago, Sam jokingly asked when I was going to make a cheesecake for him.  I told him he’d have to wait until his birthday.  He probably thought I was joking, too, because we’re really only acquaintances and he lives a distance away, but I was serious.

I like doing things for people, but I don’t always know what to do or for whom to do it, so it’s nice when people make their needs or desires known.  I’ve been reflecting, as I often do, on how some people often ask for things and get them and how others don’t and miss out.  Has that ever happened to you?  Or are you one of those people who is not afraid to ask?  A young girl in our church is very bold about asking for things, and she’s so cute she often gets what she asks for, but her older brother is a bit more reserved... and mature.  I think he has learned something from her though, because I’ve noticed that he has loosened up a bit and will sometimes sheepishly seek to obtain what he desires.  Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”  (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9).  And in James’ letter, as recorded in the Bible, James said, “...you have not, because you ask not”  (James 4:2).  Now, we know that we don’t always get everything we ask for.  James also said, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives...”  (James 4:3)  And just like any good parent, our Heavenly Father knows when to say, “No or not yet” for our good and for the good of others.  So knowing that God gives good things to those who ask, “let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need”  (Hebrews 4:16).  Just ask!