God Sometimes Gives Me Blessings I Don’t Even Pray For: My Story of Meeting the Candy Bomber

Posted on November 1, 2020 by treeoflifemama

A few weeks ago I had one of the major surprise blessings of my life. It was amazing! It was a tender mercy that Elder David A. Bednar has spoken about. It left my heart feeling as light and bouncy as a rubber ball.

So this story goes back to last February. My friend Olivia was helping me mentor a class for young teens called Hero Project. I’ve blogged about that before here. It’s officially about World War 2 but we expanded it to World War 1. We had fun sharing a picture book every week at the start of class relating to the two wars. So one week Olivia read aloud the book below.

In case you can’t read the title in the flowing script, it’s called Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot. It’s the true story of the Candy Bomber, Lt. Gail Halvorsen. His story is summarized below by Tom Brokaw.

Olivia and I started fantasizing about getting the Candy Bomber to come speak to our class of young scholars so they could ask him questions (this was all pre-pandemic). We had heard he lived in southern AZ, which is where I was living at the time. We had so much fun laughing over how we could somehow sleuth out his residence and show up at his church. We imagined ourselves sitting in the back of the church meeting, scoping out the congregation and spotting him. After the meeting, we would casually walk up to him and say, “Oh, excuse us, we’re just visitors…(introducing ourselves) and…might you possibly be The Candy Bomber? You are?! Oh my, we are so pleased to meet you! Fancy meeting you! We had no idea you lived around here! By the way, we teach a class on World War 2 and would be so honored if you could be interviewed by our students.”

You can start watching the Candy Bomber’s story in the above video at the 34 min, 10 second mark.

Well, we talked to a bunch of people we thought might know his whereabouts, but could not find out any contact info. So the fantasy fizzled out. The pandemic hit, so then a lot of things took precedence and I completely forgot about the dream meeting with a hero from The Greatest Generation.

Fast forward to October of this year. I had moved to Utah and was busy unpacking and settling into our new home. Imagine my surprise when I got an email invitation from a friend to the Candy Bomber’s 100th birthday party! Yes, he’s still alive and just turned 100!

To top it off, I found out when I told my parents that I was going to his party, that they knew some people very close to him, his daughter and son-in-law. I discovered that his son-in-law was my dad’s co-worker for 30 plus years.

Lesson learned: I knew someone who knew someone who knew where the Candy Bomber lives the whole time, and I didn’t know, until the day before I met him. It just makes me wonder what else I want to know that is as close to me as reaching out to my family and finding out they know someone who can help me.

Anyway, I went to the party and it was delightful! He’s amazing to be 100 years old and still kicking! I got to visit with his daughter for several minutes and found out that my mom is one of her favorite people. They have attended several social events together and love to sit by each other to gab. I spoke a few words to the Candy Bomber as well. I didn’t want to monopolize his time so courteously ended my conversation and went on my way after wishing him happy birthday. I went away feeling as giddy as if I had just met Julie Andrews.

I felt so humbled and blessed. It’s just a little thing. I didn’t even pray to meet the Candy Bomber, but God heard my conversations with Olivia. He knew that it would delight my heart if I could meet him. As I’ve blogged about before, God truly “delights to own and bless me, when I strive to do what’s right.” Those words are from the hymn, Dearest Children (Hymns, no 96). The words are below:

Dearest children, God is near you,

Watching o’er you day and night,

And delights to own and bless you,

If you strive to do what’s right.

He will bless you, He will bless you,

If you put your trust in him.

verse 2:

Dearest children, holy angels

Watch your actions night and day,

And they keep a faithful record

Of the good and bad you say.

Cherish virtue! Cherish virtue!

God will bless the pure in heart.

Verse 3:

Children, God delights to teach you

By his Holy Spirit’s voice.

Quickly heed its holy promptings.

Day by day you’ll then rejoice.

Oh, prove faithful, Oh, prove faithful

To your God and Zion’s cause.

I’m grateful for this experience and look forward to living up to “Zion’s cause” so I can receive more blessings, both prayed for and “unprayed” for.

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Pumpkin Spice Popcorn

Posted on October 29, 2020 by treeoflifemama

I’ve been making this popcorn since my early days of mothering when I joined La Leche League (LLL). I got it from LLL’s Whole Foods for Kids to Cook cookbook. It’s one of the easiest treat or party foods to make. I remember making it for my older daughter’s November birthday party when she turned 8. It’s such a yummy fallish treat. I’m making it for our Heroween party this week!

8 cups popped popcorn (if you want to be fastidious, lift the popped popcorn out of the bowl with your fingers spread apart to strain out the unpopped kernels and transfer to another bowl)

2 T melted butter

2 T honey

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Combine the butter and honey and spice. Pour over popcorn. Mix well and enjoy!

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Insights into Next Week’s Election: is this True Prophecy?

Posted on October 29, 2020 by treeoflifemama

The above video features Rod Meldrum and James Prout. James has interpreted the apocryphal writings of Ezra, the same Ezra who has a book in the Old Testament. He interprets a prophecy of Ezra as pertaining to next week’s presidential election. He says that Trump is going to win, but that his second term will be cut short. I encourage you to watch the above video as well as James’ videos below and tell me what you think.

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What to Watch for the Week of Reformation/Halloween/Heroween

Posted on October 28, 2020 by treeoflifemama
See the source image
image credit: byutv.org

This is the week I’ve struggled with as a mom for 23 years. I won’t go into all the reasons I don’t like Halloween right now. This post here shows my thoughts which I wrote up years ago. Since I penned that, I’ve found more moms’ thoughts that bolster up my thinking. Amy Roberts of raisingarrows.net has a blog here about it. Then my younger, artistic sister Emily, who has always loved Halloween (until being a mom of 6 little kids, aka candy-lovers caught up with her), wrote here about her current hatred of the day.

So I don’t feel quite alone in being a “mean mom” to her kids because I refuse to let them go trick-or-treating. Ever since Baby #2 (she’s 24 now) was almost 1. None of the seven kiddos have memories of doing it. The result: we have no memories of being sick during the winter with horrible coughs, colds, or ear infections because of the overkill of sugar from Halloween.

I love the idea from Amy of raisingarrows.net to call the day Reformation Day. That’s because Oct. 31 is the day Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. In honor of that on some of the nights this week, I’m watching all three parts of BYUTV’s Fires of Faith series. You can watch all the parts for free here.

It’s all about the Reformers/martyrs who paved the way for religious freedom and the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I also love my friend Emily Satterthwaite’s idea to call it Heroween instead of Halloween. That completely gels with the plan I’ve had for decades to celebrate heroes on this day. Heroween is easier to say than Reformation Day. It’s so serendipitous that the Quest class I mentored a few years ago for teens is all about heroes moving the cause of liberty forward. So when I mentored that class, we had a Quest Heroween party as shown here. Another year, before that, we gathered around my firepit in AZ, ate s’mores, played the Guess the Hero game, and then I shared stories about heroes.

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This year my friend and I are going to have a Heroween/Harvest of Heroes party. The kids will give clues as to what hero they dressed up as and then we’ll play Guess the Hero. We will eat chili in a pumpkin, pumpkin spice popcorn, and watch Greater. If you haven’t watched Greater, you are missing out! It’s a great movie about a scholar athlete. The football theme, as well as the fact that it’s a true story, aaaaand that he was Christian makes it THE perfect movie for the day. I thank my friend Cyndi Hampton for tipping me off about it.

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You Can Have Joy and Sadness at the Same Time

Posted on October 25, 2020 by treeoflifemama

We watched this fireside tonight. It’s so good! I especially loved hearing from Lisa Valentine Clark. I blogged about her here a long time ago, with this post of funny videos of being a mom by a real mom.

Tragically, Lisa’s husband passed away from ALS in June. Here’s more of their story here. They are so inspiring! And here are Lisa”s fun Chatbook commercials below. As she said in her talk above, she filmed these commercials during the day, laughing all the way, then went home and took care of her dying husband and laughed and cried with him. I admire their tremendous faith and goodness and grace in accepting joy and pain at the same time.

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The Covid-19 Video For Everyone to Watch

Posted on October 22, 2020 by treeoflifemama

I encourage everyone to watch this! The presenter is Tom E. Woods, Jr., who holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, and a master’s degree and PhD in American history from Columbia.

Here’s the summary from YouTube:

“When it comes to Covid-19, bureaucrats and politicians keep moving the goalposts, changing the rules, and engaging in bait-and-switch tactics, so they can maintain the ‘new normal’ dictatorship. Those who object, we’re told, ‘just want people to die.’ It’s now becoming clear that ‘you can’t have your life back’ in some states unless you take it back.”

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Pumpkin Ice Cream

Posted on October 22, 2020 by treeoflifemama

I don’t know why it took me so long to decide to make this! I love pumpkin flavor for treats. This was one of the first ice creams I made after moving back to Utah.

4 c cream (or if you don’t have that much, any combination of cream and raw milk, or even some water, just know that the more water you use, the more icy it will be and less creamy)

1 c maple syrup

1 c pumpkin puree

1 tsp mineral salt

1 T vanilla

1 T pumpkin pie spice

Mix together and then put in your ice cream maker.

For more ice cream recipes, go here. Yum!

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Keto/Low-carb Cheesy Bacon Squash Casserole- THM (S)

Posted on October 21, 2020 by treeoflifemama

We had this last week and then again today for dinner. So yum! I tweaked the side dish recipe over here and doubled it to turn it into a super hearty main dish for my big family, with planned leftovers. It’s so good! It reminds me of the stuffed spaghetti chicken enchilada recipe in the Trim Healthy Mama Table book p. 132.

I’m looking forward to making this at least once a week this fall and winter. It’s a dinner that makes you glad we’re headed into cold weather blues because it heats up your kitchen and makes you feel toasty roasty happy. It just exudes fall/winter, harvest-y coziness! It’s so variable too. You can use different meats or veggies. It’s a heavy S meal in Trim Healthy Mama lingo. One piece will be enough, especially if you snitched some of the grated cheese as you were assembling it and then licked the mixing bowl, and the mixer blade, and the rubber scraper. 🙂

Before you make this, have a whole spaghetti squash baked up so the “noodles,” the strands, from the spaghetti squash are pre-cooked. Do this by poking it with a fork all over, then baking whole at 375 degrees for 90 minutes or an hour at 400. If you forgot to plan, then you can cook it in a shorter time in an Instant Pot according to these directions. Carefully cut in half, avoiding the steam that releases, and then scrape out the seeds to discard. Then scrape out the squashy noodles to use in this dish. Blogger Rachel over here says she uses a grapefruit spoon.

Grease a 9 x 13 pan or dish. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Decide on your protein source. Either cook up a package of bacon or 1-2 lbs of ground beef or use 1-2 cups of shredded roast beef or chicken, leftover from another meal. If you use only 1 lb meat then you can stretch it to seem like 2 lbs if you cook the raw ground beef with 2-4 cups shredded cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, or any other non-starchy veggie. If you are cooking ground beef, then rinse with hot water after it’s cooked if it’s not grass-fed to discard the toxins in the fat. If you use precooked meat and want to stretch it then saute up your non-starchies in melted butter until they are tender and mix with the chopped up bacon or shredded meat.

Here are the other ingredients:

1 T softened butter

1 cup of sour cream, or Greek yogurt, or cream cheese, or some kind of mixture of two or three of those things

2/3 c cream

8 c spaghetti squash, which you will get from one big, large squash (with probably some left over)

1 T garlic powder

mineral salt and black pepper to taste (I think I used 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/4 tsp pepper)

chopped green onions

Mix all the ingredients except half the grated cheese and the green onions. Put the mixture in the greased dish. Top with the other half of cheese. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and green onions. Bake for 20 minutes. Take out and then set the oven for broil and put back in for 1 to 3 minutes to get a golden brown effect. Watch carefully so you don’t burn it. Take out and let it sit for 5-10 minutes, if you can stand to wait, to firm up a bit.

The photo of the top is the dish with bacon. Next time I’ll try it with chicken and a can or two of Rotel-type diced tomatoes. Oooh, I can’t wait! Then it will be similar to the Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole on p. 120 of the THM Table book, which mentions using THM noodles but you could totally use spaghetti squash strands. They don’t mention that as an option but squash strand noodles would definitely work.

Serve on a big bed of spring mix or shredded romaine lettuce. You don’t need to add any salad dressing, there’s plenty of dressing-ness oozing from the casserole to add to the greens.

Here’s the recipe made with ground beef instead of bacon.

Enjoy!

Here are my top ten ways to do THM on the cheap.

Are you having a hard time losing weight on THM? Here’s what to do. I lost 40 lbs in 6 months doing it.

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Using the Book of Mormon to See the Future

Posted on October 18, 2020 by treeoflifemama

I highly encourage you to watch these videos! They talk about the earthquake that happened when Christ died, as recorded in the Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi, and how that earthquake relates to today and the future.

Here’s a description:

“In Part One (video above): Rod Meldrum discusses the amazing destruction to the North American Continent, at the time of Christ’s Death. He looks at different possibilities including the heartland site of America’s largest ever known earthquake found at New Madrid, (Missouri).”

Did you know that we can expect another solar eclipse in 2024, seven years after the eclipse in 2017? Could there be an earthquake after that?

Here’s the video of part 2.

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The Blender God Gave Me This Past Week for His Karma

Posted on October 13, 2020 by treeoflifemama

I’ve had some hard stuff go on in my life, but I’ve also had amazing things happen as well. I just know God is watching over me. He truly delights to “own and bless me, when I strive to do what’s right.” We moved into this “new to us” house a month ago when we moved from AZ back to UT. All of the rooms have either hardwood or tile flooring. I knew it was just a matter of days before someone would break something on the tile floor in the kitchen. Tile floors in kitchens plus porcelain or glass kitchenware plus children equal a disaster in the waiting.

Yep, so far we’ve had six things break, all in the kitchen. The last casualty was a blender jar. Nooo! I can’t tell you how many blenders/blender pitchers or jars I’ve been through! I know you can use a quart Mason jar on an Oster base but that’s inconvenient when I want to add stuff while the blades are whirring.

We use our blender multiple times a day. My 16 year old guy likes to make protein smoothies and I like to make THM drinks. When I’m in a pinch and need a meal to go, and drink on the go, I rely on a THM Chocolate Frappa. According to one of my friends, it tastes like a Wendy’s Frosty. It’s been a while since I’ve had a Frosty so I’ll take her word for it.

This question was plaguing me for day: How am I going to function without a blender? I didn’t want to pay full price for a new replacement one. I started checking thrift stores. I checked four stores in two days and found nothing. So then I checked online for a used one in my community. Two people each had one for $10 but I didn’t want to make the 20-45 minute one way drive to get either. Amazon showed just the blender jar replacement for the same price. So I was leaning towards doing that, but I wasn’t sure if the size would work.

I decided to go to bed and sleep on it before I made the decision. The next day, when I checked my email, I noticed an email from someone in my Relief Society (women’s organization for my church). Someone was offering a free blender. She said it was just sitting in her garage and she had no use for it! Wow! I emailed back and asked if it was still available since it had been five days since she sent the email. She said yes and that I could have it!

So that’s how I got my new blender. This whole story takes me back to living in this same city, around 20 years ago. I have come full circle. Back then I was on the giving end. The details are fuzzy, but I somehow ended up with two blender jars. I thought, “Someone will need this so I’m going to save it and give it to her.” Shortly after that, my girlfriend Shauna sent a group email out asking if anybody had a replacement blender jar for an Oster blender. So I gave that one to her. Now this time I am on the receiving end for an Oster blender jar. I love God’s give and receive cycle! It’s the perfect karma. By the way, I got the blender base too. So if any of you out there need an Oster blender base, let me know!

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