~Bona Vita~

“All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

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Simple, unpretentious ingredients work synergistically to produce glorious golden gravy. Fat, flour and liquid. . .  the combinations and variations of these three components are too numerous to mention. Creative culinarians have produced sumptuous rich gravies from this uncomplicated trio for generations.
The gravy that embellishes the feast at our home embodies the flavors that I relish -  creamy butter [...]

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I want to encourage others to capture the beauty of simple objects in their lives through photography. Consider the loveliness in a bowl of fruit, a basket of eggs, a table setting, snow laden branches or even a stack of wood.  

Hopefully, this meme will inspire you to perceive charm and artistry in the routine. Here’s how it works:
1. Photograph [...]

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Fresh vegetables add a  lovely touch to a Thanksgiving banquet. The colors will brighten your feast as you arrange carrots, peppers, grape tomatoes, and celery on a beautiful platter. This is an easy, nutritious way to enliven your table.

Utilize trimmed, crisp vegetables attractively sliced into manageble sizes. This inviting display of crudites is certain to please your family and guests.
Join [...]

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I stumbled across a fabulous online source for a variety of educational helps catering to all grade levels. It is Ed Helper. This online subscription service offers reproducible and customizable material covering math, language arts, reading, and social studies (to name a few).

They even provide thematic materials for each month. Once you subscribe to this terrific group, you will have access to  [...]

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The traditional Thanksgiving feast can be rather colorless. The turkey, dressing (or stuffing, if you must), potatoes, breads and even pies all remind me of the earth. Brown, beige, taupe .  .  . even the red tones of this banquet convey the colors of . . . dirt. This is precisely the reason why we must add lovely, rich [...]

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After the fractured fairy-tale weekend, the “boys” gated the road leading up to our home. It was bitter sweet. I love the look. It reminds me of Texas where everyone gates their roads, and I love Texas. However, it represents a new era in our lives. My dear neighbors (I only see some of these [...]

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My favorite time of the day is the early morning. I treasure the peace, quiet and beauty that it delivers. Even more, I relish the idea of a fresh start, a new beginning - every day. How gracious of God to provide this opportunity every 24 hours.

It takes a little discipline and a bit of [...]

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I looked outside this morning and realized that fall is morphing into winter. It was 28° here in Indiana and probably 18° up in northern Michigan.

To think I finally got around to  fall decorating just yesterday - it was quickly tackled since I work best under the gun.

My mother made spur of the moment plans to [...]

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Do you serve dressing or stuffing at your Thanksgiving feast? This is a controversial issue. After a bit of research I have found that historically stuffing was the preferred terminology. Wikipedia refers dressing inquiries to their stuffing definition. This leaves me to believe that they discount the notion of referring to the seasoned mixture of moist breads, fruit and [...]

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