Oct. 15, 2007 - A place of abundance
I had such a wonderful time this past weekend. My dh was so sweet and stayed with the kids while I went away for a ladies scrapbook weekend. I love completing pages in my scrapbook. I usually try to squeeze in two of these retreats per year but sadly, I had not been able to in the past year. I completed 52 pages this weekend, finishing our 2005 family album and starting on 2006. YES! I am not a fancy scrapbooker, although I am in complete awe of people who do those beautiful pages. Alas, my pages are fairly plain but I am so pleased that they are done. When you see another person's page design or layout that you like and you copy it that is what we call "scrapjacking." I'll just tell you right now, I've never been scrapjacked .
We had such a lovely mellow day today. We usually have our co-op classes on Mondays but my son is sick (just a cold) and we decided to lay low today. After finishing our work we went on the side of our house to pick apples. Our neighbor has a lovely huge apple tree in desperate need of a pruning. If I knew anything about pruning I would try to help her out by pruning it. Since I don't want to kill it I'll just leave it alone. There are several branches growing on our side of the fence and the whole tree is just bursting with apples. I filled my Longaberger basket with as many apples as I could carry (with permission of course). We made Crumb-topped Apple pies and shared them with all of our neighbors. We are blessed to have several neighbors that are quite kind and we enjoy friendships with many of them.
I'm just feeling grateful today to have had a great deal of scrapbook time this weekend, a loving husband, kind neighbors who share their apples and to have my house filled with the scent of cinnamon right now.
If you are in the mood for an apple pie try this recipe:
Pie crust: 2 cups of flour, 1/2 t salt, 2T butter (or oil), 5-7 T of cold water. Mix dry ingredients and cut in butter until crumbly. Make an indentation in the mixture and put in 5T of cold water. Mix it up with your hands - add more water if necessary until it's a beautiful white ball - not sticky. Cut in half. Place layer of flour on cutting board and roll it out. Each half will make one pie crust.
Crumb topping: 1/2 cup flour, 1/8 cup white sugar, 2/3 cup brown sugar, 1/8 t salt, 6T butter (you could also had 1/3 cup oatmeal for some fiber in there). Mix dry ingredients and cut in butter.
Pie filling: 4-6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced, 2t cinnamon, 1 T sugar (double this to make two pies to match your two pie crusts).
Put apples in a large bowl, add cinnamon and sugar. Put pie crust in dish and add the apple mix. Sprinkle your crumb topping over it or put your 2nd pie crust on. If you have extra crust after cutting it from around the sides you can break that into pieces and place it on the top of your apples, then add your crumb topping. Place on a cookie sheet and cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven to cool and open the windows. If the hubby or your kids are outside they will be sure to come in right away. 
Comments
Oct. 15, 2007 - Welcome to homeschooling!
Posted by netherfieldmom
Thanks for the recipes--I'm going to try the cookies tomorrow. #1 told me today that I never bake cookies--she's right--I hate the mess. But those sound easy and we love cream cheese, so I'll try to stretch a little. We do Sonlight too--it's great. Thanks for sharing!
Oct. 17, 2007 - 52 pages!!
Posted by 3JsMom
You're amazing!! It must be such a great feeling to get that much done in a weekend. I'm right around January of 2005 for my scrapbook now, desperately trying to catch up to the present ..........
Oct. 18, 2007 - welcome :-)
Posted by short
to the world of homeschooling and blogging :-) I love every minute of it. Thanks for stopping by my blog, I will add you to my friends list so I can keep checking back on yours :-)
Blessings to you on this wonderful journey!
