Easy Blueberry Oatmeal Pancake Recipe

Blueberry photo by clarita

Hope you enjoy our blueberry oatmeal pancake recipe. If you try it I'd love to hear your thoughts and if you modify it I'd love to hear what you did and how it worked for you.

 Ingredients:

• Your normal pancake mix ingredients

• ½ cup fresh blueberries (although you can substitute canned)

• ½ cup oatmeal (any variety, but I use steel cut)

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Water

Directions:

• Make your usual pancake mix but use only half the amount of fat (oil, butter, lard, etc.)

• Add blueberries and stir until mixed

• Add oatmeal and stir until mixed, adding small amounts of water as needed to maintain regular pancake consistency

• Add vanilla extract

• Let stand five minutes

• Cook pancakes as per your regular recipe

• Enjoy your easy healthy blueberry oatmeal pancakes with your favorite topping (we like to use real maple syrup or home made apple sauce)

Tulips, Daisies and More Flower Photos: This Week in My Maryland Yard

This is our first orange Angelique tulip. It makes me smile just to look at it. I took the photographs for this week's photographic flower tour of our Maryland garden. yesterday. Let's take a look at the prettiest blooms of the week.

Here you can see the orange tulip contrasting with its pink counterpart. Tulips are blooming all over the Mid Atlantic region this week.

 A white African daisy with touches of purple in it's petals and a nice lavender/violet center.

 The hellebores (also called Lenten roses) are still blooming.

The ajuga, both in the grass and the transplanted ones, are blooming. The transplanted ones are smaller and have smaller flowers but by next year should look healthier as they won't be competing with the grass for nutrients.

Thanks to those who have commented on the blog and in person about saving the violets! Ben still thinks they're weeds but now sees that I'm not alone in appreciating them. Turns out we'll be loosing a lot more than violets from our garden this week. I'm sad to say that most of our front flower bed will be victimized by a backhoe tomorrow. Although repair work from the November flood is not yet complete, we have even more serious plumbing challenges now so the garden will be taking a back seat to managing these new trials. Prayer appreciated.

What's growing in your garden this week?  May God bless you and all you set your mind to this week dear friends!

Don't Waste Your Trials

Photo by PatriciaEGreen

Just read Don't Waste Your Cancer by John Piper. You can download this free Christian resource (it's an 18 page booklet) here. It was written by Pastor John Piper on the eve of his prostate cancer surgery.

When I first read the title I was a bit shocked. It seemed insensitive. But usually John Piper's writing inspires, enlightens or encourages me in my Christian walk so I decided to read it, thinking more about whether I would use it as a resource for others than for myself but it turns out that I benefited from it after all.

When reading this booklet you could replace "cancer" with any affliction/trial that you are personally facing so it really applies to all Christians. I've been having some health challenges (not as serious as cancer) so I replaced "cancer" in the reading with "health challenges" and there were some eye openers for me. I hope if you read the booklet that you will be encouraged and challenged in your Christian faith. If you would like me to pray for you I'd be glad to do so. Just comment below or email me at lovejoypeas@gmail.com.

May God bless you and may you feel His loving presence in your life today.

Sources: 

• Darlene's Facebook post
• http://dwynrhh6bluza.cloudfront.net/resources/documents/5137/Don't%20Waste%20Cancer.pdf?1319729290

Fresh Spring Flowers: This Week in My Maryland Yard

Spring is my favorite time of the year and this has been an exceptionally great week for flower gardening. I took this picture of our first iris bloom of 2012 two days ago just after a rain. God willing, we'll have blue, purple and yellow irises following in the next few weeks.

 A walk around the yard this morning revealed our first azalea bloom of 2012. You can see a bunch of buds promising more flowers soon. This bush is on our sunny side yard. We have three azaleas in our shady back yard and they have buds but no blooms yet.

I love violets but my husband thinks they're weeds. If you love violets please comment below so I can show him others appreciate them too and maybe he'll let more of them live!

Remember photo from a couple weeks ago when the bleeding heart foliage was just pushing through the ground? As you can see in the photo above, the bleeding heart plant is blooming freely now.

Our Virginia blue bells are just starting to flower.

My beloved husband may not like violets but he likes these purple African daisies because he bought three pots of them last week to brighten our front walkway.

This week hubby also purchased and planted this nifty fringe petaled gebera daisy. We still have a lot of weeding to do, mulch to lay, seeds to plant and more but I find when I focus on the beauty of the flowers (instead of all the work that still needs to be done) I enjoy our garden a lot more. The flowers God created are beautiful and they bring joy to my soul. May God bless you today and always!

Cherry Blossom Dog

Photograph by Ben Wheeler

Turns out my husband was disappointed that I didn't post his cherry blossom dog photographs so, not being one to disappoint my husband, and in hopes that you'll get a big smile (fitting in with the joy part of my blog's theme), here you go. He shot these pictures near the Tidal Basin in Washington DC, close to where the Cherry Blossom Festival is held. It appears that the dog's tail was actually dyed pink; however, the dog didn't seem to mind and was happily prancing down the sidewalk. Not knowing the dog's actual name, I call it the Cherry Blossom Dog because its tail matches some of the more pink blooms. I loved that its leash was also pink. Of course, I love pink anyway.

Photograph by Ben Wheeler

Hope you enjoyed my beloved's Cherry Blossom Dog photos. May God bless you and keep you this spring and always, dear friends!

Happy Spring! Floral Photos: This week in My Maryland Yard

Happy spring, dear readers! I took all of these photos today on this first day of spring, 2012. Can you believe our first tulip is blooming today? It seems so early but I don't mind at all. I think this is an Angelique tulip. We saw them in the U.S. National Arboretum and had to try them in our yard. The Arboretum's were much taller and pinker but it's still neat to have them in our own yard.

Here's a lovely  primrose with raindrops on its petals.

We do have forsythia in our yard but no sweet gum trees and I thought the combination was uniquely beautiful. The photo was taken on my "celebrating the first day of spring" walk today. I thought about changing the title of the post to "This Week in My Maryland Neighborhood" but because "This Week in My Maryland Yard" is a regular blog feature I kept with the tradition.

 This is a neighbor's bi color daffodil. We have some of these too but theirs looked better.

And this is the same tulip as the first picture only I cut it, popped it in a tiny vase and added it to my inspirational arrangement on my dining room table. It's amazing how changes in light, location and angle can make a flower look so different. We'll have more tulips outside but I wanted one inside to symbolize and celebrate this first day of spring. May God bless you this springtime and always dear friends!

"Love Finds A Home" Book Review

Enjoyed this lovely "heartwarming inspirational romance" story by Kathryn Springer. It's the second in her Mirror Lake series (I enjoyed the first one too). I read this on Sunday both on the way to and from viewing the Washington DC cherry blossoms and finished it up last night. I read a lot of these Love Inspired books but I don't always review them. What stood out as special to me about this book were two quotes that  I'll share them with you.

On page 43 the heroine's friend points out "When God gives you a gift, it's part of His plan." I've been blessed in so many ways and I am very thankful. There are a few gifts I have that I'm not sure how God wants me to use them but this reminds me to keep my eyes open for God given opportunities.

On page 100 the hero's youth pastor brother reminds him that "We're both under divine construction." This is true for all Christians. As long as we're here on this earth, God is working on our hearts, minds and souls. We aren't perfect and we never will be on this side of heaven. That's ok. That's not an excuse to be sinful but it is a very freeing observation. Confess any sins and move on. Let's get out of God's way and let Him work his divine will in our lives. May God bless you!

Note: I borrowed this book from my local library and have no material connection with anyone or thing mentioned in this article (although I do envision myself publishing a Christian romance novel in the future).