House of Horne – Page 29 – our very obsolete blog

January 13, 2008

Yummy, Gone-in-a-Flash Soup!

Last night a few members of our church Home Group weren’t able to make it for our gathering – and at first everyone was a little disappointed. But there were certainly plenty of people here, and everyone quickly settled in to visiting and eating, and the soup was dished up to rave reviews. By the time supper had ended (and several guests had enjoyed hearty second bowls of the aforementioned, beloved soup), we realized that had each and every person actually come to supper, as we’d originally expected, we certainly would have RUN OUT OF FOOD!! Guess that new, bigger crockpot of mine didn’t make quite as much soup as I thought it should have.

My extended family who frequent my blog will gasp at this admission on my part, because while I have many faults, not preparing enough food for a crowd is not one of them. I usually overdo! But, it is good for my pride to realize I don’t always have it all together!

As it was, we were grateful for Providence and I made a mental note to make at least 50% more soup next time this crowd comes for dinner! Here is the recipe I stole, and modified to my own taste. It was really quite delicious, and very simple to make – no roux or anything to mess with. I tripled the amounts for our group, substituted in pork loin for half the sausage meat, took out the celery (husband can’t stand the stuff) and lowered the ratio of kidney beans significantly. Since our group included a very large amount of children, I did put out that bowl of pasta as was suggested, but it was hardly touched, because, did I forget to mention?? EVERYONE JUST LOVED THIS SOUP (even and especially the children!)! So, today I used the leftover pasta to make a couple meals of Macaroni and Cheese with Ham.

And the very little bit of that soup that was leftover will go to school with Abigail tomorrow, happily ensconced in her silver thermos, to be eaten at lunchtime. For those of you who don’t realize the significance of this, I am happy to report that as of tomorrow, Covenant starts school on their own property for the very first time. For the last five years the school has leased space from a very kind, but very Kosher Synagogue. So meat of any kind on campus was an absolute no-no. But not anymore! My little girl will scoop up her meaty soup tomorrow with great rejoicing!

January 12, 2008

Inconvenient is….

waking up Saturday morning to put soup in the crockpot for the 23 people you are looking forward to having over for supper this evening. Only to find your trusty crockpot has a ginormous crack all the way up and down one side, rendering it useful only for the trash heap.

Convenient is….your pick of several stores within a four mile radius, any one of which your kind husband is happy and willing to browse through in order to buy you the crockpot that will save supper. Here is what he brought home to me. I am happy to say that now the soup is simmering…and I feel better. Ah, the many blessings of living in a metroplex.

January 6, 2008

Happy Birthday, Sweet Abigail!

My little girl is nine. Where, oh where has the time gone? Nine feels so big for some reason. In another nine years, our daughter will be an adult by legal standards. She will likely fly from the nest that year, be off to college and other adventures. I know that as their parents, our goal is for our children to grow and learn, and become adults eventually, but sometimes life feels like it flies by so fast.

We conceived Abigail after almost a year and a half of trying, actually during some fertility tests, a round of which my doctor was conducting to see if there were any measurable “reasons” we had not yet gotten pregnant. During those months we asked a lot of “What if?” questions. What if we never got pregnant? What would we do then? And our answer without hesitation was that God willing, we would most certainly pursue adoption. We desperately wanted children, and a family of our own. After what seemed like forever, but wasn’t actually all that long relatively speaking, we got that positive pregnancy test, and to say we were elated is an understatement. How completely surprised, how excited Jay and I were at the thought of a little Horne arriving to join our family.

I still remember the day of my sonogram so vividly, the day we were to learn whether this little Horne was a boy or a girl. Though I honestly did not care too much about gender, so thankful was I that we actually had a little baby on the way, I had pretty much assumed we would only have boys. I had learned the scientific fact that the father is responsible for determining the gender of the child (see here for a little biology lesson on the topic), and I had done a little family research and learned there were no girls for several generations directly back in Jay’s, his Dad’s, or (I think) even his Dad’s Dad’s generation. His only brother was at that time father to two boys himself (neither we nor they knew that was about to change!). Of course, being the highly trained scientist that I am, I extrapolated and came up with my own theory: that we were not likely to bring any daughters into this world. I was actually pretty convinced of this! So, when the nurse performing my sonogram announced to us that there was indeed a baby girl hanging out in my tummy, my very surprised squeals of joy could be heard all the way back to the waiting room (so they told me). I was ecstatic, and could not wait to meet this little lady of ours.

From the time she was born, Abigail, true to her name, has been a joy to us. I feel as if we were given a very special gift the day God placed her into our care. She is a delight, a sweet, kind and mostly very patient big sister to her three crazy little brothers, an encouragement to her Mom and Dad. She cares tenderly for all the little animals and creatures she comes into contact with, is a loyal friend, and has an air about her that is far older than even her big nine years. It is such a blessing to have another girl in the family besides myself!!

Throughout our next pregnancies, I never again remembered my very false assumptions about children’s gender. And secretly, I sort of wished for another girl to join our family, but that has never happened. Even the little baby whom we lost before ever having the chance to meet him is a boy, whom we someday look forward to seeing face to face in Heaven.

Abigail’s special day took place on Saturday, and her treat was going out with Mommy to have her ears pierced. Afterward, we celebrated with some family in town over pizza, cake, and presents, and it was a wonderful evening.

I am so thankful for our precious girl, our only daughter, our Abigail, our joy. I pray she may grow in grace, in her love for Christ and the people around her, and that she may always know just how deeply her family loves her.

January 4, 2008

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!!

We’ve dragged Jonathan’s birthday out some, since he actually turned 7 last year (well, just back on the 29th)! This morning we celebrated along with two sweet buddies from school at a local roller rink, where we were joined by most of the first grade class at Covenant, along with other friends, family, etc. What a good time it was!! I actually took much more video footage of this event than pictures but I must include one fun shot of the three birthday boys hamming it up! Happy birthday to all of you!!

January 3, 2008

Christmas Blessings

We have had a whirlwind of activity the last week or so and have not posted much as a result. Now that the festivities are mostly over, we are feeling lazy, slowly taking down the Christmas decorations, and trying to put some 2008 resolutions into action, even as we diligently work on polishing off the still rather large pile of holiday fudge, cookies, chocolate and candy.

But before the new year gets into full swing, it seems fitting to remember some of the highlights of our family’s Christmas holiday. Here are a few of the things that come to mind as we reflect on Christmas 2007, which we are so grateful for:

* Houseguests aplenty to make the days around Christmas that much more festive.

* Major answers to prayer regarding the health of not just members of our immediate family, but also extended family, which made getting together with everyone, and celebrating a LOT more feasible!

* 53 pictures taken of the famous Baby Isaac sitting in his bouncy chair by none other than our own Nicolas, with his new Christmas camera. (They all looked pretty much like this):

* Baking with the children: pies and cookies, and enjoying eating the fruits of our labor!

* Advent devotions as a family.

* Lots and lots of sunshine-y days to help the cold weather seem not quite so cold.

* Jay home from work for two wonderful, long weeks!!

* Josiah’s two year old rendition of “Away in a Manger” – so precious!

* Visits throughout the holiday with TONS of family on both sides: grandparents, uncles, aunts, first and second cousins…and all the fun that went along with this.

* Christmas stockings finally sewn for the three oldest children (though my efforts toward this lasting until past 5am on Christmas Eve were NOT a high point for me!).

* Jay’s and my Christmas present to each other, which consisted of hiring some professional painters to finish out the common areas of the house just in time for the holidays. And the results of which we are enjoying SO MUCH!!

* The blessing of another year to celebrate the wonder that is the birth of Jesus, the Christ-child, our Emmanuel.

December 22, 2007

Christmas Craft You Can Do With Your Kids

Here is an easy but really pretty little something you can put together with your children to bring a little more Christmas sparkle into your home. You will need:

silver platter or other type of tray

assorted pillar candles of varying sizes

small red ornaments or jingle bells

assorted nuts with shells on

paintbrushes

glue

glitter

The “crafty” part involves jazzing up those nuts with some glitter to make them SPARKLE!! My kids were able to do this step on their own (we let Josiah have a paintbrush and a container of water to encourage him in the illusion that he was helping too. which in fact he was since he didn’t get into the glue and glitter and make a mess!!)

So…give each child a tiny paintbrush, a small cup of glue and a little bowl of glitter. Paint nuts with glue (you don’t necessarily need to cover the entire surface), roll or shake them in the glitter, and lay them on newspaper to dry.

When the nuts are ready, arrange your candles on your tray at varying intervals, and fill in the spaces between with the jingle bells and sparkle-y nuts. Light the candles and enjoy the happy looks on your children’s faces when they see how clever and crafty they are!!

December 20, 2007

Aging Rockers Who Rock

Over the last year or two, I’ve bought numerous albums from bands that I had ignored (at least all their new stuff) for a decade or so. And in many cases I have been very pleasantly surprised. Downright thrilled by a few of them. Here’s a quick selection of aging rockers who rock.

Iron Maiden: Wow! Just wow. Brave New World (2000) showed a return to form with some great tracks, Dance of Death (2003) was okay, and then A Matter of Life and Death (2006) blew me away. I’d easily put that last one in a top 5 list of best Maiden albums ever.

Dream Theater: They never really slowed down, but I didn’t know it, because I wasn’t buying their albums. They pretty much all rock, with Systematic Chaos (2007) being no exception.

Rush: Some of the best stuff ever on their latest. When Snakes and Arrows (2007) opened with “Pariah dogs and wandering madmen/Barking at strangers and speaking in tongues” to a heavy hitting sound, I was floored. I need to go back and pick up Vapor Trails (2002).

King’s X: Ogre Tones (2005) is glorious, full bore King’s X, with the diverse sound of the early albums that includes both Doug and Ty on lead vocals, but with much of the more hard-driving sound that was developed on Dogman.

Savatage: Probably need a separate entry on them, as their music is all over the map. But it used to rock, and it still does.

Megadeth: I only have a few tracks from The System Has Failed (2004), and I have not heard United Abominations (2007), but what little I have heard makes me glad Dave Mustaine recovered from his radial neuropathy.

Here’s a couple bands that didn’t make the list even though I have their newer stuff and still listen to them.

Dio: Killing the Dragon (2002) and Master of the Moon (2004) are okay, but don’t compare to Dream Evil (1987) and some of his other earlier work (not to mention Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules from his Black Sabbath days).

Queensryche: I like many of their more recent albums, but I just don’t think they stand up to Operation: Mindcrime (1988) and Empire (1990).

I’ve probably missed some good ones. What other established metal bands survived the grunge movement and have put out a great album recently?

December 19, 2007

Pandering

It is shocking to hear a modern politician refuse to pander. Not merely so, but to mock the very notion that pandering is healthy.

December 19, 2007

Dumb

Let’s see. We are running a huge retail business. We need to cut costs. How should we go about cutting back costs without hurting sales?

I know, let’s come up with an incredibly simple scheme that ensures we fire all our top sales people. Every last one of them.

It boggles the mind.

Here’s a chart of Circuit City’s stock performance over the past couple years. I’ve marked the spot at which they took this bold cost saving action with a little red explosion. Yeah, that really helped stop the bleeding.

December 18, 2007

A crumbling foundation

My brother comments:

Here’s a confession: I actually don’t know what I think about Ron Paul when I think of all the responsibilities of a president. And I, frankly, get tired of hearing about what a perfect document the Constitution is and how it should be followed forever and ever world without end. But sometimes I don’t care. I just want to vote for the guy who will spend his term trying to destroy these bureaucracies.

I’d add a clarification. In my opinion, Ron Paul doesn’t represent the constitution per se, but rather the state of being constitutional. It’s the rule of law that is at stake, not the specifics of the document as currently written. We have a means of amending the constitution, and it has been amended quite a few times. I’m fairly certain Dr. Paul would want to amend it himself if he had his druthers. But the rule of law transcends the particulars of the document, and that is what is at stake today. The rule of law is, as far as I can tell, a necessary foundation for liberty, and as the foundation goes, so goes the house built on it.