Wednesday's Wisdom: A Few Random Thoughts

Getting behind in my posting recently has served as a reminder that neglecting the blog schedule is one thing but neglecting the Bible reading schedule is quite another. My first word of wisdom is that as you reach a busy time in your life, which these days pretty much covers anyone who lives in the northern hemisphere, make your Bible reading and prayer time your top priority. Nothing is more important than spending time with the Lord. Relationships become weak and sickly whenever they are neglected and the same holds true for the spiritual relationship.

Speaking of relationships, it will not be long until we celebrate the day I officially became a mother. I say officially because I cradled my daughter in my womb many months before I cradled her in my arms. Anyway, in honor of the "second anniversary of her 29th birthday" my oldest daughter, Karen, is having a give-away on her blog. The wise person will register to win this fabulous prize. Does that mean I'm going to enter? Of course!

And speaking of birthdays, it was pointed out by my friend, Vicky, that I did not post a link to the recipe I used last week when making strawberry pies for The Bear's birthday. That was probably because I had the recipe written on a piece of paper and not bookmarked on the computer. But that has been corrected now and I am more than happy to share the recipe and give the person that submitted it the credit due them.  You can find the recipe here.

There were a few suggestions under "reviews" that I intend to try (see #5 below the recipe at the link) but the recipe I used was almost exactly like the original at the link. I may cut the sugar back a bit as one reviewer suggested.

And as a final tip, let me suggest that it is wise to shop frugally for the ingredients. I bought store brand pie crusts for the sake of time but homemade crusts would have greatly reduced the price. The same could be said for whipped cream made from heavy cream and piped onto the pies with a tube decorator (I'm a bit snobbish when it comes to whipped cream because I prefer the real thing over the topping in tubs) but a can of the real stuff had to suffice. There was just barely enough in the can to go around the two pies.  The cost of the pies (minus crusts and cream) breaks down as follows:

• 3 quart cartons of strawberries (used 2 1/2 for the pies) = $2.50. Aldi had them for $0.99 per carton;
• 1 package of strawberry gelatin = $0.34 from Aldi
• 3/4 cup of sugar = who knows but not much; I estimate less than $0.25 based upon 11 1/4 cups per 5 lb bag
• candles = recycled from previous birthday parties; rare is the person in this family who gets new candles (and when they do it gets deducted from the cost of their gift. Just kidding).

And if you've read this far perhaps you'd like to see what happened to the leftover strawberries and a few melted chocolate chips:

They don't look as pretty as they would have if moved to a another platter but The Birthday Boy requested them at the last minute.