Although it felt a bit like spring in my neck of the woods today, winter is still with us. In fact, I’ve always found February to be the coldest, snowiest, and dreary month.
I was trying to find a hearty soup to cook and then freeze up for one of those snowy days that are sure to be coming soon, and I thought this recipe, which includes a good portion of super healthy butternut squash, would be just the one to make.
Spring won’t officially get here until March 20th, but the poor bulbs don’t know it. Like most of the country, we’ve had unseasonably warm weather and hardly any snow.
Growing up in California, I never really appreciated spring until I lived through my first Maryland winter. Actually, as far as winters go, most of ours aren’t too bad. We do get snow, but it tends to not stay around for very long.
Sorry for the pause in my posts. I’m still getting over a bug I picked up, and the antibiotics have been slow to kick in.
We’ve finally gotten some snow on the ground in my neck of the woods, and, gratefully, it hasn’t been too much so as to cause a lot of problems. Snow is actually a very calming force in nature. I love the way it covers everything, gently reminding the viewer of how much we take for granted. Watching the snow come down always relaxes me (unless I’m driving), giving me plenty to reflect upon.
All things considered, we have it pretty good.
Sometimes, we can easily get balled up in our own problems that we fail to recognize that there are many, many people who are struggling with much bigger issues and concerns.
Over the past month, I’ve been talking with a good friend just about every morning. He has a long commute, and I get up really early.
I’ve been under the weather with a bug for the past few days, and haven’t been able to eat much.
Today, I’m starting to come around and wanted to make some soup. For some reason, I was craving split pea soup, and the results were tasty.
This is an easy recipe, and with the cold weather most of us are experiencing these days, it might just do the trick. Be sure to through in some croutons just before serving.
I had the chance to attend a wellness seminar last night led by Dr. Laura Ruby. Dr. Laura works primarily with women to help them understand the relationship between chronic symptoms and core nutritional imbalances, environmental factors and poor lifestyle choices.
I was one of the few guys there to hear what she had to say, and I left impressed with what I heard. When I got home, I jumped on to her website and found the blog post below. I wanted to share it with you today, as a gentle reminder that good health is one of the keys to a happy and fulfilled life. We all have to work with what we’ve got, but simple, everyday changes can make a huge difference in our overall health. Even though the post focuses on women, guys can also benefit from putting her tips into practice.
One of the staples in my pantry is good quality vegetable broth. Most of the time, I am too rushed to prepare my own, so I usually settle for Trader Joe’s Vegetable Broth, which comes in a low sodium variety.
Paying attention to the sodium content in any store bought broth or soup is very important, because almost all of them have way too much.
As we move into the New Year, I thought I would post a home-made broth that would be easy to prepare and freeze in smaller quantities. Give it a try sometime soon, and then compare the taste with what you normally use. I think you’ll find it was worth the effort to prepare it yourself.
I had to help a friend with a legal issue today, and it involved going to file a protective order against someone in their family.
I want to be fair and give this person his day in court, so I’ll just say that he allegedly attacked my friend’s two-year old daughter and she ended up in the intensive care unit with a severe skull fracture. My friends heard that the alleged attacker was going to be released on bail, and they wanted to prevent the person from coming near them or their children.
Back to the grind. I hope you enjoyed the long weekend, and that you’re now ready to tackle the challenges ahead.
My New Year’s Day was off to a great start. I had a peaceful and prayerful morning, and later a good friend came over to talk about our hopes and goals for the year ahead.
We had both established some pretty heavy-duty expectations, but at the same time we were excited to talk about them, encouraged by each other’s trust that we could indeed accomplish them.
Happy New Year! I’m so grateful to have survived 2011, and am certainly ready to launch into 2012. How about You? That being said, 2011 was a great year for Making All Things New. I received a nice little year-end summary last night from the folks at WordPress, the blogging platform I use.
Much to my amazement, this blog had hits from the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Bolivia, Columbia, South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, Philippines, India and Pakistan. That certainly is humbling to me, but also very exciting 🙂