Friday, February 14, 2014

God talks to us ...

… through others or events.

As an afternoon snack today, I had a smoothie and watched some “Let’s Make A Deal”. I don’t do that very often - watch that particular show, though it IS very entertaining. What has this got to do with God talking to us? Here’s how it was today: On the show there was a lady that picked a key out of a bunch of keys. She took it and tried to open a lock.  Moved on to pick a different key. Then the next. And next. Her time ran out.  She could have won a car. But: the first key she picked WAS the RIGHT one! She just did not turn it. Soo … through that I learned “When you have the right tools, you also have to use them right”.

How is God talking to you today?

A Valentine's Day

Since our schedule will be quite full tomorrow, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day today. I had bought a card that expressed gratitude for the love he shows me that I gave to him and he gave me a very sweet card expressing the joy he feels for my love for him.  As if that wasn't enough, he gave me a heart shaped glass bowl with a ring holder. That’s so sweet <3 Now I can place my wedding ring there on the few occasions I don’t wear it. I gave him a tool box (of paper) with a plush little heart pillow in it. He really liked those.

Other things we did for one another today (and every day) : when I made a rice cake and peanut butter  snack, I asked if he also wanted one.  When I cooked, he asked me if he could help me with anything. And we said spontaneous “I love yous”.

My Valentine's Day card from my husband.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Day 11 of the Daniel Fast

Yesterday I searched the internet to see if there was any education available to vegetarian chef - just out of curiosity - but I couldn't find any. Instead I stumbled upon a very informative article listing reasons for eating vegan/vegetarian: Health benefits of course. Caring about mother Earth another. The article also had pictures and names of vegan creations served at restaurants and I was inspired to create a dish from that. I boiled asparagus and fingerling potatoes separately and heated a can of butter beans. Then I created a vinaigrette made with 2/3 of virgin olive oil, 1/3 of apple cider vinegar and stirred in salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder and dried chili pepper flakes. After placing the vegetables on plates I spooned over the vinaigrette. Delicious! :-)

Sunday, February 2, 2014

The Creation Of A Song - Gloryville

Some of you may already have seen and heard the song on youtube or dowloaded it on Amazon or itunes or a similar site or maybe even heard it on the radio. Either way, let me tell you about its creation:

I was on the way home from a gig in Sweden in the village of Holmsveden. Fredrik, my guitarist at that time, was driving and he had some favorite songs of his he wanted to share with me. One of them was a description of a man walking around in his loneliness in a city. There I received the inspiration to the last phrase of the verses "It's just an ordinary day in the life of the people, living by the streets in the town of Gloryville".

The name of the city "Gloryville" is a name that can describe the city of our dreams or the city we live in that is not yet the place in life where we want to be. Simply a state of goal setting. Or the world that we live in. When arranging the music, I had Ravel's "Bolero" in mind with a constant ascension leading up to the finale.

I was attending a course at the Mid Sweden University in Harnosand during this period of the song's creation. My class mates were teachers in the making or teachers wanting to upgrade their education to start teaching higher grades of school. A lady was venting her frustration with communication with parents of children. It was not unusual for her having to set up two different times to speak with the parents of a child whose mom and dad were divorced. Simply because they could not be in the same room at the same time. That's where I got the idea for the first verse.

The second verse is about a friend of mine. He was one of my promoters in Sweden and he had been badly burnt by a relationship with a woman whose only objective was to ask him for money for her mother. She never paid him back, just took the money and left.

Verse three - the spoken part - is the true story about my dad's aunt and her lost love. She never married the love of her life because of her loved one's parents' rejection. He never married either.

But wait, 'nuff of these sad stories now: the last verse is about the glorious place of Utopia we all really desire to live in where "each one's neighbor is each one's friend".

"It's just an ordinary day in the life of the people living by the streets in the town of Gloryville"!


All lyric excerpts and song and video: Copyright Kriz Rogers.

Song available for download here http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/KriztinaAhsCountryfied  It is track #9

First Day of the Daniel Fast

First day of this years fast .... my husband and I are doing this fast for the third consecutive year. This day has really been a blessing for me. I started my day with having orange juice and rice cakes with peanut butter, then I went to church. On my way over there, I had green lights all the way. No cars were coming as I turned out on the main road either. 4 blessings in a row. At church the message was about not quitting and I met some new people from different walks of life with that in common that we all want to grow closer to our Creator.

The afternoon was spent driving the beautiful countryside outside of Nashville. The sun was shining and coloring the ridges and fields golden yellow. A blessing as well.

For dinner I cooked a tomato and mushroom sauce and had that on whole wheat spaghetti. It is a very easy meal to fix. I brown chopped onions, a clove of chopped garlic and chopped mushrooms in olive oil. Season with salt and black pepper. Pour a can of diced tomatoes on there and simmer while the pasta is cooking. Add Italian seasoning and then it's yum-yum time. Another blessing.

This was the first day of 21. Looking forward to the rest!

A Diverce Album

  The songs on here are mostly downbeat. Is that the proper way of saying the opposite of upbeat? (musically speaking. the answer is no. Jus...