Life on the Vine

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of my girlfriends, for her New Years Resolution, set a goal of cooking one recipe out of every cookbook she owns during 2013.  She apparently has quite the collection.  I thought it was a fun idea and contemplated taking on the resolution for my own.  I even took a photo of my cookbook shelf just in case I decided to take on the challenge and blog about it.  I figured I'd need to cook about six new things a month in order to get through my nearly 70 cookbooks.  I'm far from that goal but I have been trying some new stuff.  Just in the last few weeks I've cooked three new things out of two of my newly acquired Rachel Ray cookbooks from our local used bookstore.  You may be able to tell from the photo that I own several, about 10!  Without fail, Rachel Ray's recipes always take me more than the 30 minutes advertised, usually because of how long it takes me to prep everything; however, her recipes and her ...

Spring has arrived in the southern Arizona desert.  Spring arrived quickly in an unexpected burst of blossoms on the two trees in our front yard.  I think one is an ornamental cherry tree but I'm not sure about the other.  Tom thinks it might be a peach tree.  One of our three (!) rose bushes is blooming and there are more roses every day.  This is accompanied by poppies in my father-in-law's yard and a green quilt of leaves on the usually spiky, barren spines of the ocotillo, one of my favorite cacti. While Tom and I have visited Arizona almost every year since we've known each other, visiting during all four seasons.  These visits were a long weekend here and a couple weeks there.  Never have I experienced a full cycle of the seasons.  And, since this is also our first Spring in our temp house, I'm pleasantly surprised by trees that blossom and rose bushes too.  I wonder if I had mistaken resigned myself to no blossoming trees with this...

I'm a bit behind on my March Gospel for Asia blog.  Seeing as how the day after tomorrow is the first day of April I figured I'd better get busy. Recently the GFA staff has started sending out a couple different ideas for blog topics.  One of the options this month is to write a book review/blog about one of K.P. Yohannan's early books, The Road to Reality.  I love telling you about free resources and an electronic version of the book is available for free download by clicking here . Keeping things honest, I didn't read the book this month but I actually read it two years ago.  My copy is marked with several passages underlined and highlighted so it was easy for me to scan back through the book, re-reading the themes and passages that resonated with me.  I'll tell you that I found the book very blunt and striking in its discussion of modern Western Christianity.  Yohannan, who was born and raised in India, doesn't pull any punches and he is able to lo...

Life continues in the Dalrymple household and we are doing really well.  It seems that Tom and I are both facing furlough with the implementation of sequestration.  Honestly we both have a real peace about it.  I think the way DoD is talking about dealing with it is fair -- one furlough day a week for 22 weeks.  I think it would be WAY too painful to face 22 straight days of furlough.  I've been joking with Tom that we need to consider diversifying with both of us working for the federal government, could get painful. I think the thing we are most concerned about is how this will impact us getting a loan to build the new house.  Stay tune on that.  We are still awaiting approved plans from Pima County so we haven't been able to go to the bank yet.  The hold up is some additional civil engineering reviews we needed to get done because we are considered a hillside development. All the fuzzy kids are doing well.  Having a puppy in the house ...

Tomorrow is President's Day and just a couple weeks ago free pancakes were given away by IHOP for National Pancake Day.  You might be surprised to learn what other foods have their own day or month.  There is National Cream Puff Day (Jan. 2).  February is supposedly National Macadamia Nut Month (who knew!?!?).  National Potato Chip Day is in March, 14th to be exact.  Soft Pretzels get a whole month, April.  Just in time for baseball season.  Pigs-in-a-Blanket are celebrated April 24 and National Fudge Day is June 16 -- now that's a day I could get behind.  The month of September has been made the month of chicken, honey, mushrooms, papaya, potato, and rice.  An interesting combo.  I'm sure an Iron Chef could make something pretty tasty out of those ingredients. My birthday is supposedly National Cheese Pizza Day...Tom would probably think that is fitting as I'm a bit of a cheeser.  Everything you could think of seems to have a Nat...

It might surprise you to learn there is a location just twenty miles from Tucson that receives 180 inches of snow annually.  It's 9,000+ feet above sea level and it's called Mount Lemmon. Mount Lemmon is the highest point in the Santa Catalina Mountains, which are part of the Coronado National Forest .  It had been thirty years since either Tom or his Dad had driven up to the top of Mount Lemmon, and I had never been there.  So, this past Saturday, we decided to take a nice leisurely drive up through the winding Catalina Highway, which was recently designated as the Sky Island Parkway, and is part of the US National Scenic Byway system. As you depart Tucson from the North it's about 21 miles to the top.  It's a fairly slow climb; the speed limit is 35 mph.  The landscape goes from a sea of saguaros, to scrub oak, to pine.    We brought the puppy along for the ride.  Hoping to find a couple piles of snow for him to play in. Here are some pi...

On the Gospel for Asia website there are many free resources you might want to check out.  A booklet published by GFA's founder, K.P. Yohannan, in 2004 is available for free download.  The title is Stay Encouraged .  The booklet is available in PDF, as well as formats for iPads and Kindles.  It's a short 56 page booklet with four chapters.  In the third chapter Yohannan shares some things that have helped him during times of struggle and discouragement. First , think about the Lord , no matter the reason for the discouragement.  He references Hebrews 12:1-3 .  Yohannan writes, "It is when we look horizontally that we get discouraged.  When we let what people say or think and the expectations people have of us to influence us, then discouragement sets in.  When we look to men (horizontal) rather than to God (vertical), we easily become weary." Second , think about the good things in life .  He quotes from Philippians 4:8 . Thi...