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How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You

Happy Father's Day to my dear husband!
Time slipped away from me and I didn't get a card.  He is my most avid fan and reader of my blog so I know he will accept this as a token of my love and appreciation for all that he is and does for our family on this Father's Day.  He takes care of us all.  Even though our children are grown, he is always there to help and assist them in any way he can.  He is a great Paw Paw to our Star Dutch and he is the best husband to me.  I don't know what I would do without him.  I was laughing the other day as I was thinking about us and how we take care of each other these days.  It's really sweet to me.

You are the best of the best and our family is so blessed to have you as our patriarch. I've been listening to an old Marvin Gaye cd lately and when I heard "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" I knew that is exactly how I feel.

We all love and cherish you so much and we know how sweet it is to be loved by you.

Love This Quote

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the Earth, "you owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that.  It lights the whole sky.    ......  Hafig

My Latest Project

Using up some used brick by making an edging around my front flower bed.  Really excited, I love the way it looks.  I hope to get it finished today. 

Vegetable Beef Soup with Basil Pesto

I saw this idea a couple of weeks ago on a cooking show and thought it sounded yummy.  Well, it is delicious!  Your flavor buds will go wild.  Make your favorite veggie soup and put a big dollop of basil pesto in the middle of the soup and sit back and relish the wonderful flavor.  Although this soup is delicious, I don't think I'll be able to eat this soup again without the pesto.  The pesto adds so much deliciousness!

Future Farmer and Environmentalist

Last weekend, this was my big helper.  He learned to water our tomato plants and how to pull weeds.  He loves the outdoors and literally stayed out all day.  No Nap!  :(

Laughter

Over the Memorial holiday all of our children were home for the weekend except one of our sons was traveling for his job.  It was fun having almost everyone here.  It's a little hard now for all of us to be together at one time because of work schedules, mostly. So, I always relish the times we are together.  I enjoy seeing them and listening to their opinions and views on different subjects, from politics, to the book they are currently reading, or an interesting you tube video or documentary although, our topics of conversation are all over the map.  But this weekend, I noticed that I really love seeing them laugh.  At dinner one night, my son got tickled and had a good belly laugh over something one of our daughter's said and I loved watching him laugh.  I always love watching Star Dutch when he really laughs hard or I'm tickling him and he can't stop laughing. 

After the weekend was over and everyone was gone, I was thinking about laughter and how I don't laugh enough and I certainly don't have enough belly laughs.  You know......laughing until you cry.  I've always been one to take life a little too seriously.  As I've gotten older, I've learned to loosen up and laugh at my mistakes and not be so hard on myself but I need more laughter in my life.  The Bible does say that laughter is medicine for the soul.  (paraphrased)  I've noticed that it does make me feel good when I have laughed hard.

I thought about people in my life who have made me laugh and I had a good friend in junior high and high school who could have me rolling on the floor.  When I attended her funeral, I sat there thinking that no one has ever made me laugh the way she did. My dear friend Bert is a comedian and hilarious but I don't get to see her that often.  My husband can have a great sense of humor and at times he comes up with some pretty good belly laughs. He came up with a great one the other night when we were looking at Venus, but he won't let me tell you what he said.  LOL  Our daughter is a good impersonator and she has had me on the floor at times.  I cherish my belly laughs because I don't have them very often. 

I guess I've have said all this to say, I hope you are laughing a lot. I know I want to have more belly laughs in my life.  I better say this before I end this post,  you may think I'm in the depths of despair but I'm not,  I'm a very happy person and my life is great I just want to laugh more and I want to see my friends and family have great belly laughs!

My wish is, that this year will be filled with more laughter for us all!  :)

Panna Cotta

This has become a favorite dessert around our house lately.  I made it several months ago when a dear friend came for dinner.  I've had the recipe for several years and finally got around to making it.  It is easy and a good make ahead dessert. I was curious about this dessert because it has balsamic vinegar and black pepper in it.  Unusual! but very delicious.  You'll have to try it.

1/2 packet (1 teaspoon) unflavored gelatin powder
1 1/2 Tablespoon cold water
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
1/3 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon
In a small bowl sprinkle gelatin onto the cold water, stir and let stand 10 minutes.
In a medium bowl whisk 3/4 cup of cream, yogurt, vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds.  Take the remaining cream and sugar and heat it bringing it to a simmer over low heat.  Off the heat add the gelatin to the hot cream mixture and stir well until combined.  Then add the hot mixture to the yogurt and vanilla mixture and stir until well combined.  Now pour into 4  (6-8 ounce) ramekins and refrigerate uncovered until cold.  Cover with plastic wrap if it sits over night.
Run a knife around the inside edge of the ramekin and dip the bottom of the ramekin into hot water to loosen the panna cotta. Then invert the panna cotta onto a dessert dish and cover with strawberries.

2 pints strawberries (4 cups) sliced
2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
Combine the above ingredients and mix well.  Let this stand for at least 30 minutes to an hour before serving.