Deer Chili!

FINALLY got to make some deer chili!!! (My favorite 🥰) It's been at least 5 years since I've been able to make it. (You can't imagine how happy deer chili makes me! lol) So there's this sweet guy at church named Ben. We got on the subject of deer on the roads one night when he came to pick up me and my brother for church, as he was doing the driving for transportation that night. I was talking about how much I love using deer meat for cooking, especially chili, and he said he loves hunting deer, just not eating them. So he said he had some to share some time if I wanted it. So I said sure!

Then one Wednesday evening, he showed up at church with a few frozen bags of it. That weekend (this weekend that just passed), I used my food processor to grind it up, and then I pressure cooked a few jars of it to share. I gave one to our Pastor Randy and his wife Debbie, and of course one to Ben, even though he said he doesn't really care for the meat, and that chili gives him heartburn. I told him "I bet you'll like my chili, though!" lol When he came in the door, I said "Alright, listen. You can either eat it or don't... If you don't want it, just give it to someone you work with, and you'll make their day because it's amazing." He said he will give it a try.

So thanks again to Ben! The kids love my chili as it is normally anyway, but even they agree that nothing beats using deer meat instead of beef! It really is delicious 😁

Update: So then today, I used some of the leftover chili and put it on top of some homemade hashbrowns for brunch. It was sooooo yummy! 🤤  I have just enough left to do it one more time lol And I only used 2 out of the 3 bags for meat, so I can make deer chili once more, probably in another month.

Never-Before Seen Content!

 On top of all the new blogs I plan on publishing soon (I hope), I also plan on bringing back some old stuff that you guys have never seen before! Pretty much a big chunk of my life, I have documented everything, from when I was a teenager until now, whether it be notes, photographs, blogs, vlogs, journals... I've always had a habit of documenting life and writing things down. I've added some old stuff on here before (sorry to my Mom for the times she didn't realize they were old entries that I was posting here even though I put "posted on a particular date" on the older ones) and I'm going to do that again.

Some of them are from old journals I had written down, or messages or tweets that I had sent on that particular date. Others are old blogs from places like deadjournal, or DeviantArt. Others may be from notes I sent myself or calendar events. And then there's blogs on here that are still marked as "drafts" that I want to finish and finally bring to the light. Either way, this is just a head's up to let you guys know that some old stuff will be mixed in with the new, so I hope you enjoy everything I have to offer.

Thanks for hanging out!

xoxox

Church Blogs?

 If anyone knows me, they will know how I've spent most of my life being a non-believer of the "common Christian concept of God". I never agreed with it in the past, and though I supported religion for inspiring others to be good and do good things, there was something that just didn't sit right with me... until November of 2023. That's when I was going through some changes, I was making bad choices, and I decided it was time to seek the guidance of God and follow my instincts. (One day I'll get into the story all about that as well. Never could trust my instincts until a few years back.)

I've been learning a lot and I've been very inspired by the church we like to go to. And because of that, I've decided to wake this old blog back up and start posting about what we learned in our Sunday School class, and discuss it on here; what it means to me and what I get out of it. That includes the evening services and recovery services as well. Any time I get to go to church and I have something I'm learning about, I want to discuss it here and share it with you all. I just got a Chromebook recently from the school auction, so I'm hoping to dedicate it to this purpose so that any time I feel inspired, I can crack it open and share my thoughts.

On another note, I hope everyone has been well! It's spring which means I've been gathering edible weeds and planting fruit trees. It's also income tax season which means I've recently gotten a lot of upgrades for our homestead. Hopefully I can post about them later as well. So much to talk about, and I've been so inspired! Hope ya'll will here from me again soon.

xoxoxox

Starting Out With the Bible (The Milk, The Mana, and The Meat)

For Sunday School basics today, we discussed 2nd Timothy 3:16-17. These verses say that "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong, and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work." So we talked about reading the bible. We talked about the different type of Bibles people have, different interpretations, different versions, different believes in the old and new testaments.

(Mine is a "New Living Translation" bible that my Aunt and Uncle got for me as an early birthday present. It connects to an app called "Filament" that if you scan the page number, it comes up with music, informational videos, animations, and documents to read that are all about that page.)

Then the Pastor said he would suggest that if someone is going to start reading the bible, he wouldn't recommend starting at Genesis, in the beginning. Maybe start with something a little easier, such as John 1, then Saint John. then the New Testament. Then once you've spent some time in the NT (don't spend too much time in the book of Revelations because that's more of a meatier chapter), then he'd suggest reading 1 Peter. Doing it this way, you slowly work your way up from the milk of the Bible to the meat of it. You start to understand it a little easier.

What did he mean by the milk and the meat? Well the "milk" of the bible is for newborn Christians. It's the stuff that helps us start to understand Christianity and how God wants us to live. It's best to start with the milk of the bible because some of the things you learn from the bible become your sword, shield, and holy armor. You wouldn't want to give a sword to a baby to play with, would you? Just as you wouldn't want to give a spiritual sword to a warrior of God to start out with, without them knowing how to wield it properly.

Then there's the "mana", which is the potatoes of the bible. It feeds you. It's good for you. It "fattens you up", you might say, with the storytelling about different people of the Bible (Noah, Moses, David, Mary, Abraham, Joseph, etc) and the important things they did.

That brings us to the "meat" of the Bible. It's the stuff that is hard to chew. It's the tough parts, like the book of Revelations. Sometimes it helps to take a second read, or to take a moment to understand what each of the verses are trying to say.

Then to understand this a little better, we read Hebrews 5:11-14, which says: "A call to Spiritual Growth: There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don't seem to listen. You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God's word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong."

Basically this is saying - if you've been in church for a long while, you should already be well into the meat. You should have that meat digested, and you should be now cooking up a spiritual meal for others. You should know the Bible, and the way God wants you to live, so well now that you're helping guide others on the path. But because not everyone is the same and everybody takes their spiritual journey at their own pace, you can be in church for a good long while and still just be a baby Christian if you haven't taken the time to learn the Bible. Not just read it, but learn it and understand it.