Creekside Cottage

A quote -

"Only with time do we come to know who the other person is, and come to love him, or herself and not just for the feelings and experiences they give us."  

                                         Tim Keller



I like this quote.  
I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Kris asked if I would do a post about Trim Healthy Mama products.  I don't use a lot of their products, but I'll tell you what I do use, or have tried.

The sisters, Serene and Pearl, who began THM, began offering these products because many people who were following their eating plan couldn't find these kinds of products where they live.  I still use some of the products they recommended and used before they started offering their own.

Baking Blend



I haven't tried any of the 'make your own' baking blends, but I love and use this one.  Its ingredients are - Oat Fiber, Organic Coconut Flour, Golden Flax Meal, Blanched Almond Flour, Collagen Peptides, Glucomannan (organic konjac extract powder).  

I have had good success baking with this.  If you are gluten free you could easily use this.  I also bake with almond flour, and some coconut flour, but I buy them locally.  In fact I get my almond flour from Costco.  Very good price and it is ground very fine.

Gentle Sweet



Th…

First, my daughter in law, Kayleigh, has gone back to work and for this week anyway, I will have the girls here 4 days from 7-3:00pm.



I'll be doing school with Kamryn, and we'll all be keeping our eyes on Klaire, who at 16 months is a big explorer.  It'll take a few days for her to learn her boundaries here at our house.

This is all added in to our regular routine here of school, and physical therapy for our friend, and work, etc.  It will be an adjustment for all of us, but we'll find our groove soon enough.

And second, 

Isla is getting a baby brother!  


We are very excited for a new baby in the family!  This will be our first grandson, so that is very special.

I started a baby blanket for him last week, when I found the perfect yarn in Emma's favorite colors.

Our family is growing, God is at work in our lives, and everyday we have the opportunity to walk in His grace toward one another.

I hope you all had a restful weekend.  Ours was full of good things, and time to knit…

I created a smoothie recipe this past week.  I made it based on a Trim Healthy Mama recipe but I modified it.  I was wanting something protein filled for our friend who is recuperating from surgery.  The pain meds have made him have less of an appetite, but we always need good nutrition, especially when our bodies are healing.

I use a cup or a bit more of almond milk (unsweetened, vanilla flavored), about 3/4 full fat greek yogurt, a heaping cup of frozen strawberries, a scoop of Great Lakes Collagen, a nice scoop of Baobab powder (highest form of vitamin C), a dash of vanilla, and a few pinches of mineral sea salt.

Its delicious, in fact I'm drinking some as I write this!

I've really enjoyed your comments on the last two posts and I hope to keep the conversations going!

Have a lovely weekend!

There's been some conversation on social media about how people are stressed out trying to make their lives 'perfect' like the people they follow.

I know that it is easy to fall into the trap of comparison.  For me its not comparing my life to theirs, but comparing my business opportunities to theirs.  However, the more longer I've been at blogging (almost 11 years) the clearer my thinking has become.

I have three goals in my social media usage.

ONE - Hospitality.  In our real life we practice hospitality a lot.  Some of it stems from having teenagers in the house (who've grown up with hospitable parents).  Last week there were several movie nights here, and last night there was a huge game night. There were nearly 20 young people here.  That's a lot of loud!  But they had fun, and the girls cleaned up afterward!  Win!

Hospitality is messy and I don't always show you photos of that.  

Two - Friendship.  I want to be a friend to the people who frequent my blog an…

For the last several years, I've been trying to bring more live plants into my home.


I first bought a wee Mother Fern and then a Pathos.  

I am very good at growing Pathos.  They're easy.



Lindsay has take some cuttings from mine and given me two cuttings from hers.  They were tiny when she gave them to me and they are growing full and tall.  Its time for them to be transplanted.

She also gave me a ficus.  I love ficus and this one is really growing too.  It likes the light in my house.  I need to transplant it, but I'm afraid to shock it and kill it. 

As for my fern...It was growing beautifully and two summers ago I had it out on my deck.  It was full and lovely, until a sweet little girl pulled off almost all of the fern fronds! It hasn't been the same since.

At times it does really well, growing and getting full and then other times, its sparse.  I'm not sure why.

Obviously, I need some more plants.  I don't have the space for a lot in one area, like Lindsay has in …

Has lead to stalled weight loss, a bit of gained weight.  

It all has to do with mental laziness.  Sometimes eating according to how my body loses weight seems to hard. (its not at all) Or I have to think through my day, and prepare snacks or a take along lunch, so I can stay on plan.  It comes down to just not doing the things that will bring me success.

I've had success with this eating plan (Trim Healthy Mama), I know it works for me and for hundreds of thousands of other people.  When I started and saw that it worked for me, I just couldn't understand how anyone would go off plan!  Then I got so confident in how the plan was working for me, that I made a lot of weekly compromises and ate too, many off plan things, at least enough that wouldn't allow my body to get into fat burning mode.

I'm healthy.  The doctor is very pleased with all my 'numbers' etc. But I am not satisfied with my weight loss stall.  So starting today, I am fully back on plan!

I'm making…

We had a mild year, weather wise, last year.  This winter is cold, and snowy, but we're not buried in it like a few years ago.  I'm thankful.  We're going to have a warm up this coming week, and we'll all enjoy that, but there could be flooding along the major rivers, due to snow and ice melt.  I'm praying that it will not flood.

I'm headed out today to take our friend to physical therapy, then home, then out again for groceries and errands.  Kyle went to work with Tim today, he needed an extra pair of hands.  He took some reading along too, and they'll get lunch out and time together.  He's growing fast - he'll be 13 this summer.  

Time moves on, more swiftly as we get older.  We're so thankful to have these delightful young adults and near teen in our home.  They keep us young, and tired!  (grin)

I hope you have a lovely day. 

Photos from the youth rodeo event at our local ag fair that is held every September.  Lindsay did a few adult events this year, but none of the younger ones participate these days. 


Rachel
Lindsay
 Kyle

                                                                              Sarah

I'm guessing their ages at 16, 9, 6, and 3.

Fun memories!

How I thank God for this woman.  She walked in grace through many hardships and trials, and came to find the truth of this quote.

I'm grateful that she is still mentoring women through her writings and the recordings of her radio program, Gateway to Joy, even though she is with the Lord now.

One day, I'll be able to hug her and thank her for trusting God and how it influenced my life.

We had a bit of snow last night.  Just enough to dust everything and keep the roads clear.  It is been very cold here.  It is still cold but it is going to be 35 today and that's a warm up!  However, the forecast is for more snow today.  I don't mind but I have people who must go out to work.  We pray and trust them to the Lord.


This tablecloth was so pretty during the Christmas holiday.  When I got home from Florida, I saw that it had become torn and wanted to throw it away.  There's a problem though.  Its frozen to the table and when I tried to pull it off it was stuck but tearing even more.  So its going to remain until I can take it off in one piece.  I may even try later today.



Let's not focus on the torn tablecloth though, okay?  Let's look at how lovely the snow is on those fir branches.  Yes, much nicer!

Onto prettier things now.  The woods along the edge of our property are so beautiful in the autumn but their barrenness in the winter is lovely, too.


Here is a…

I accomplished all my home keeping goals for Saturday.  In the photo below you can see that I even removed my garland and lights from the top of the bookcase.  I'm working on a new arrangement for that shelf and not quite finished with it yet.
One of my goals was to polish some of my silver (plate) so I could use it in my January decor.  I really like Cape Cod Polishing Cloths.







I've got more to do, but getting this pretty set done made me happy.  I'm using it on the coffee table in the living room.  My youngest granddaughter, Klaire, likes to play with the creamer and sugar bowl.  Did you know that a creamer makes a handy bowl for popcorn?  Klaire thought so.

Nate and Kay and the girls stayed the night at our house last night due to their heating unit not working.  Their property management is hoping to get that fixed or replaced today.  Its bitterly cold here so they could not sleep at their place.  We're happy that we have plenty of room to add them in.  They slept in R…

was just what I needed today.

After a busy week, I was needing a bit of a pick me up and I was inspired by Sherry's post today. {here}

After breakfast out with Tim this morning, I headed out in the balmy rain to get groceries and run errands.

I always get groceries at Aldi (tonight we had their jars of Tikka Masala and chicken and rice for dinner - Yum!) and I know they sell flower bunches, too.

I picked up a bunch of roses and a bunch of other pretties.




I have a home keeping planned for this weekend.  The rest of the garlands will be packed away, I realized I have a "home for the holidays" sign still up in the kitchen, too.  I think the plaid plates  will be packed away for now and I am going to do some candles and other lights in the living room.

I also found a nice small lamp at Christmas Tree Shops today.  They have a new line of household items including furniture, and this lamp is just right for my kitchen counter.  I'll get some photos and show you next week.

What ar…

Our friend Denny came through his surgery very well!  Thank you for your prayers.  Kyle was my hospital buddy today and I was grateful for his company.  We got to the hospital around noon then the  surgery started around 2:30pm.  He was done buy 4:00pmbut they didt have a room for him until we’ll aftre 7:00pm!  We finally got to visit him for a bit then headed home around 8:00pm!

I am tired from doing nothing but waiting all day!

We had good news all around today - our friend passed her driving test and Tim’s mom is doing better, as well.  

I can’t wait to climb into bed tonight!