some assembly required

This is our favorite spaghetti. I got the recipe when we were on a sailing trip in the Virgin Islands about 20 years ago. The sailboat was from Spain, so this might be Spanish style spaghetti. We call it Bacon Spaghetti.



Here's what you need to make it:
1 lb box of spaghetti
bottle of marinara sauce
pint of whipping cream or half and half
package of bacon
parmesan cheese

Here's how to do it.

Use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the bacon into 1 inch pieces, then cook it in a sauce pan to the doneness you like. Drain the grease.

In the meantime, cook the spaghetti. If it gets done before the sauce, drain the water and add a little olive oil and keep it covered.

Then add the marinara sauce to the bacon and heat through. Add as much of the whipping cream as you like. I usually use almost the whole pint. (I've also saved calories on this recipe by using turkey bacon and evaporated or skim milk.) Heat but don't boil.

That's it! Pass the Parmesan cheese.

Thanks Mom!

Holding hands - Joelle and Wally

"I have learned to place a high estimate upon the love of mother. I have often said, and will repeat it, that the love of a true mother comes nearer being like the love of God than any other kind of love."
(Joseph F. Smith, “Love of Mother and Father,” Ensign, Aug 2004, 8–10. Joseph F. Smith became an orphan at the age of 14. He served a mission to Hawaii at the age of 15, where he became deathly ill and was nursed to health over a period of months by a Hawaiian woman who he later referred to as "My mother, my dear old mother.")

don't be a goat

What did the goats do that was so bad?

In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), the goats end up in everlasting fire after the King has separated them from the sheep. When I read this, I imagine you have to do a lot of really bad things to be sent off to everlasting fire with the goats rather than to be called blessed and welcomed into God's kingdom with the sheep.

As He separates the sheep from the goats, the King does explain why the goats are sent one way and the sheep the other. He tells the goats that they did not help the hungry or thirsty, did not take in a stranger, didn't give clothes to the naked, didn't visit the sick or those in prison.

And when they didn't do those things for the people around them, they didn't do it for Him.

So it turns out that the goats didn't do a long list of bad things, or really, any bad things. They just didn't do the good things.

Now that's a sobering thought.

proverb from the philippines

The early bird may get the worm
but the late rising worm lives.

dessert for breakfast

This is my favorite way to have oatmeal.
Use a pretty big bowl.
Scoop 1/2 cup oatmeal into the bowl and add 1 cup milk.
Cook in the microwave for 2 mins or so, be careful that it doesn't boil over.
Slice a banana into the warm oatmeal, slice a few strawberries in, break up a few pecans over the top. (You can use any fresh or dried fruit you have.)
You'll think you're having dessert for breakfast!

take off your shoes

Earth is crammed with heaven,
and every common bush is on fire with God;
but only he who sees takes off his shoes;
the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.
Elizabeth Barret Browning

I take my camera on my walk each day, but I just can't capture the way the sun reflects on the leaves and the grass. It's like diamonds.
There are some other things I wish I could capture.
The feel of the breeze at the perfect temperature.
And the scents. Today there was sweet jasmine, fresh mowed grass and woodsy piles of leaves and pine needles.
And the sound of the birds who greet each day so exuberantly.
It really is a bit of heaven right here on my street.

Birthday pie

Thirty years for Ajay!
He wasn't here to celebrate, but we didn't let that stop us.
Nobody could have a better friend or a better son.