The Way of Love...

¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. ^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

^8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

¹¹When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

¹²We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

¹³But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

~I Corinthians 13, The Message~

Heart shaped cut-out cookies for Valentine's Day

The big day isn't quite here yet, but our cookies have all but disappeared already. Why? Because I have the best recipe for cut-outs and frosting. I would love to share it with you. I actually published this recipe before on this blog but here it is again for any newcomers.

My granddaughter stayed overnight the other night so we could have time to make a batch of these. The size of the heart shaped cookie cutter that we used allowed us to make 5 dozen cookies. She took about 15 of them to her pre-school for their little party. We wrapped each one in a little cellophane bag with a tie, then put them in a pretty red box for easy carrying.

Then she got to keep a dozen that she personally decorated, and her mom took some to work, and...can you tell I'm trying desperately to account for the 60 cookies???

Grandma's Sugar Cookies

Cream together:

2 sticks butter (1 cup)

2 cups sugar

Beat in two medium eggs with mixer.

Sift together and add to the first mixture:

1 tsp. salt

4 tsp. baking powder

4 cups sifted flour

Blend into mixture 1 tsp. vanilla

Bake in preheated oven at 400 degrees F. Time depends on size of cookie. Start checking at 6 minutes. They are "perfect" when you see just a faint browned edge. Take cookie sheet out and set on wire rack till they cool off.

Note: This is a large recipe. It will make about 100 small to medium sized cut outs, or about 50 large cut outs. It can easily be cut in half.

Butter Cream Frosting

2 sticks butter, softened (1 cup)

8 cups powdered sugar

4 tsp. vanilla

milk

Cream together first three ingredients with beaters. Gradually add milk by the tablespoon to desired consistency. Note: this is a large recipe. It will frost about 100 small to medium sized cut outs, or about 50 large ones. The recipe can easily be cut in half.

I got a new car for my birthday!

I had so much fun playing with the new toys the grandkids got for Christmas that my hubby decided I needed a new toy for myself. So he bought me a new car!

I think he's lost his marbles, but then again, this thing is actually pretty impressive. It has a remote control, and can not only go backwards or forwards, but can turn corners too. And it goes really fast! My eye-hand coordination isn't what it used to be, but I'm getting the hang of it! So never let it be said this old granny is just wastin' away in her rockin' chair!

My birthday happened to be a babysitting day, and when Elylah arrived, she started pulling balloons out of the drawer and trying to blow them up. She just assumed we were having the only kind of birthday she knows about...with a lot of fanfare. I told her I was too old for that, but what I really wanted was for her to make me a cake! She happily obliged!

She is using the electric hand mixer for the first time. She's always been afraid of the noise before.

We used a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix. It called for a whole stick of butter which made it very yummy! I just love yellow cake with chocolate frosting...but I don't care for prepared frostings. This is the recipe I like to use, which is very simple and the taste is well worth the extra time.

Fudge Frosting

2 cups sugar

1/2 c. shortening

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2/3 c. milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix all ingredients except vanilla in saucepan. Heat to rolling boil, stirring occasionally. Boil one minute without stirring. Place saucepan in bowl of ice and water. Beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency; stir in vanilla. About 2 1/2 c. frosting.

from Betty Crocker’s Everything Chocolate Cookbook (1993)

...they each got to lick a beater of course!

Elylah found four candles in the drawer, since she is four...and that was fine with me! So we sang the birthday song and blew out the candles...and I got what I really wanted for my birthday: another precious memory!

January 27, 2010