I had a fabulous Christmas with family and friends! An awesome Christmas Eve church service, a long standing Christmas Eve party with friends and a very special Christmas Day with family.
Here is a little video of the Christmas Day highlights.
Category: Life
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Christ came to be our peace
Extracted from a devotional I’m reading.
Yet Christ came to be our peace. Everything—our hopes, worries, fears, doubts, dreams—are met by him and found in him. He can put our worries to rest and surround us with an everlasting peace that calms the raging storm in our lives.
Let’s set aside quiet time with our family and more importantly ourselves to reflect on God’s promises and let his peace wash over us. Through the good and bad, through times of laughter and tears, Christ came to be our peace.
An encouraging reminder.
From @YouVersion plan 'The King Is Coming'.
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Rullu pylsa, or Rúllupylsa
The annual (sort of) tradition of making Rullu Pylsa is living on this year with a bit of a first ever twist.
In late November we called Thor’s Meats in Selkirk, our normal supplier of boned lamb flank, and were told it was unavailable and we should have called in September to secure this hard to come by cut of meat. This was a little disappointing, which led to some googling which led to some “other” recipes where they used beef flank. So, that’s what we did this year, same recipe, different cut of meat. It will be interesting to find out how it tastes! So different, beef vs. lamb, lean vs. quite fatty, but we got them done and are now in the 5 day marinating period. Here is the prep stage.
I started with 3 beef flanks and managed to split two in half to make a thiner layer for rolling. The third flank had “issues” so its in the original thickness and resulted in a much fatter roll. End result, 5 Rulla Pylsa for Christmas.
The “official” recipe from my mom.
If all this is too complicated, time consuming etc. there is a Canadian made option! Order it from vinaterta.ca, and while your there get a Vinaterta too! My wonderful sister made me a Vinarterta and shipped it from Saskatoon for my birthday, yum!
On a more tech/blog note I was looking at the site stats recently and while the site traffic is very low, the most popular post ever is Rullupylsa in the Raw and visits peak in December, prime time to make your Rule Pylsa. Happy cooking!
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How I’m feeling
These days I get asked how I’m feeling a moderate amount, most likely because some folks know about my health challenges I faced earlier in the year. I’m actually feeling quite well physically as well as most “other” ways, but this is about my current physical status.
The way I’m judging my physical status is basically two ways. The first is just how I’m thinking about my physical status. Are things working OK? Do I have adequate energy? Sleeping well? How am I feeling compared to a prior timeframe like last year or the year before or some other timeframe when I thought things were really, really good. Basically it’s just some sort of overall internal evaluation of how I think I’m doing and generally the answer is “good’.
The other primary way is by my cycling capabilities some of which is how I feel about the various rides and the other measure is the analysis provided by the various bits of technology that I use while riding like a heart rate monitor and a power meter.
Today, I had an experience with both on my ride.
While doing the ride I noticed that I was able to hold 225-250 watts with a moderate amount of effort. Only a very short time ago this was not possible. Granted, I’ve been riding more frequently to improve my fitness, and it seems to be paying off. While riding I was thinking this was the kind of pace I could hold a couple of years ago while cycling around the Kenora area on the Bypass loop. Feels good to be getting back into better shape. Hopefully, in the summer of 2019 I won’t be hanging on for dear life to the back of the pack on group rides and back into taking my full turns pulling on the front like the “old” days. This internal personal assessment was backed up by the Strava stats. This was one of my better rides in quite some time.
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Diamonds are a girl’s best friend
Doing a little shopping for the 45th anniversary. So far, this one is the leading contender.
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YouVersion, The Bible App: End of the Year 2018
Well, 2018 is not quite over but they have produced some stats for the year.
I’m feeling pretty good about mine….
…. and what’s happening around the world is amazing!
YouVersion, The Bible App: End of the Year 2018
— Read on share.bible.com/2018/ -
Up Early
I’m awake in the early hours. Thoughts of all kinds are zooming around in my mind. After a while I get out of bed. It’s 5:00 am.
After the usual morning routine I settle in with a coffee to read the Bible. Today is a bit of a big day for me, it’s day 365.
Today is the day I’ve completed reading the entire Bible for the first time. Certainly being retired has helped with setting aside the time and I know I should have done this a long time ago, but here I am. I’d say the daily reading habit is now firmly entrenched.
On occasion I’d miss a day or two, but always managed to catch up in short order and get back on track. The YouVersion app has been a really big help. Some parts of the Bible were tough slogging (might have skimmed through parts of Numbers and Lamentations) and with other parts I found myself looking forward to the next day to find out what happens next! (Job, Daniel, Revelations).
So now what? What will I read now? Well, it’s Advent and focusing on the coming of Jesus into the world seems quite appropriate. I actually miss the Advent traditions from my days in the Anglican church, so this will be good.
I scan a few reading plans and pick up on two that seem good for me. I’m sure one or both of these will stick.
The first one is this.
I’m reading the @YouVersion plan ‘The King Is Coming’. Check it out here:
The other is this one.
I just finished day 1 of the @YouVersion plan ‘One On One: 100 Days With Jesus–ADVENT’. Check it out here:
Now I’ve read John 1 before, several times in fact, but it’s never impacted me like it did today. So beautiful, powerful, profound and more, beyond words
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Word for today
The end of the last verse of Psalm 142, “for You are good to me.” just rang so true for me today.
Really caused me to stop and re-read it several times and reflect on God’s goodness and mercy towards me, especially over the last 10 months. So thankful.
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Morden Road Trip
Dane and Clark on a road trip to the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden, Manitoba
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Keto becoming challenging
Ok, the fun of doing something new and crazy, eating keto, is wearing off. In fact I’m having a major “cheat” moment with a raspberry scon at Starbucks! First bread with n two weeks. Need to stay strong. Got to get some more varied “go to” recipes / foods. Bacon and eggs is fun for only so long.