Thoughts for Today

More thoughts and wisdom from my favorite little Pooh bear...

• "Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it."  Winnie the Pooh Pooh's Little Instruction Book

• "A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference." Winnie the Pooh Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh

• "I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." Winnie the Pooh
•  "I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."
  Winnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh

• "Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." Winnie the Pooh Piglet, Pooh's Little Instruction Book

You just can't go wrong with the wisdom of Pooh!

Family friendly Vegetarian Lasagne

One of my family's favorite recipes is one that I adapted from a Pennsylvania Dutch Cookbook about thirty years ago. I was really young at the time...of course! The recipe called for a lot of ingredients that a poor starving student was unable to afford at the time, although I loved the idea of the recipe.
I decided to try to reproduce my own version of the recipe using fewer ingredients as well as less expensive choices. At the time, I was a college student and stay at home (working very hard) mom, so cutting corners and saving time were two very important assets in my hectic life. Every recipe I had tried from this cookbook had been wonderful, and I really wanted to try the vegetarian lasagne, so I set about planning how to best approach the recipe change. What came about was a dish that even die hard meat eaters and those who detest spinach have tried and loved. This recipe has been well-tested over the course of time and eaten by many of my family, friends, and strangers alike; all of whom love it and ask for the recipe. The recipe is simple, takes only a small amount of time to prepare, and is easily adaptable to your own taste.
Easy Vegetarian Lasagne - Susan Style!
Preheat oven to 350*

• 2 to 3 cans well drained, chopped spinach
• 1 pkg. oven ready lasagne shells (newly adapted in the past few years to save time and one less step in the recipe)
• 2 (16 oz.) cans tomato sauce (more if you like it saucy)
• garlic salt to taste
• 3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese ( I prefer Tillamook or Vermont white sharp cheddar myself)

Cover the bottom of an oblong clear glass or corningware pan with tomato sauce. Place a single layer of oven ready or cooked lasagne shells on the tomato sauce. Add more tomato sauce to cover the shells , then top with garlic salt. Add one can of chopped spinach; spread to cover all the shells. Add more tomato sauce, garlic salt, and sharp cheddar cheese. Repeat this step. Finally, layer remaining shells, tomato sauce, garlic salt, and cheese. Place in preheated oven for about 60 minutes until shells are tender and cheese is bubbly. (If you use cooked shells, you can cut the cooking time down to 30 to 35 minutes. Serve with warm garlic bread and watch your family smile as they devour their food nd ask for more.
That's it! To serve larger crowds, just double the recipe.
I have actually converted a lot of folks who say they don't like spinach into spinach lovers with this recipe. I hope you and your family will enjoy it as much as mine does.


Blessings,
Susan

Thoughts For Today

On being yourself... 



Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.  ~Dr. Seuss


To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~e.e. cummings, 1955

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.  I was naïve.  I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.  It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with:  that I am nobody but myself.  ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.  ~David Carradine


A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.  ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942


I am told to just be myself, but as much as I have practiced the impression, I am still no good at it.  ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.  Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.  ~Boris Pasternak


It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.  ~e.e. cummings

Have a blessed day being just who you are, a beautiful creation of God!
~ Susan

Please Join me at the North Texas Book Festival

Last year's festival with former Dallas Cowboy and Author Drew Pearson

Please join me at the North Texas Book Festival this Saturday, April 16 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.. This year's festival will be held at The Center for Visual Arts · 400 E. Hickory · Denton, Texas. 

The North Texas Book Festival, Inc. is a 501(c)3 corporation that was organized in 2000 by a group of individuals, led by children's author Lynn Sheffield Simmons, to help school and public libraries and literacy programs in the North Texas area. Since its beginning, more than $45,000 in grants has been awarded to deserving programs. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Recent Reviews of Moon Dance ~ a novel by Susan K. Earl:
    “I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novel, Moon Dance, by Author Susan Earl.  It is very easy to discern that Susan is passionate about her relationship with God as she so skillfully intertwines her own values in her novel about Maggie and Joe. The story takes place in Texas during the Great Depression yet despite the poverty and hardship that so many people endured; Maggie and Joe manage to find love and romance. Although, the main plot of Moon Dance revolves around the love they share, there are many other delightful characters that enhance the story line. There is much sadness and sorrow that is also addressed in this well-written, descriptive novel, but the faith of the family and the love that they all share manages to bring it to a happy conclusion. This book grabbed my attention right from the onset and I enjoyed it immensely.” ~ Dolores Ayotte,  author of  Growing Up and Liking It

I turned on the TV and planned to read a little during commercials, but I was flabbergasted when I got so involved in the story that I turned off the TV and just kept on reading and reading. I finally went to bed, and then got up and finished reading Moon Dance.  I never really read, but this story kept me so involved I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next! Now I’m sharing Moon Dance with my friends and they love it just as much as I do! You’ve got some talent there, Susan! ~ Kathy Element (Michigan)
  
Susan K. Earl’s characters in Moon Dance were so vividly described that I found myself wanting to go back a page or two to see a picture of a previous scene, but that scene was only in my mind! It was almost like watching a movie of these two poor families who were brought together by their children’s love for each other. Both families lived their faith in God and shared that faith with others. The time setting of the Great Depression allowed us to learn how the families coped during hard times and how they relied on neighborly love and God. The lessons taught in this beautifully written romance can and should be lessons we are teaching today in our families. — Linda Duff Niemeir, Co-Author, Sharecropping in North Louisiana: A Family’s Struggle Through the Great Depression

    I loved this book…It has great character development and a great story that kept my interest, in fact, I couldn’t put it down- I read it in one night! The love story is sweet, and how the characters dealt with hard, lifelike problems was touching to me. I really enjoyed it! ~ Jennifer N.

Hope to see you there!!
Blessings,
Susan

Thoughts For Today

 Today and everyday I am so grateful for one more day to share, laugh, love, and be. To all those who have touched my life in the past and to those who will in the future, I am ever grateful. Today's thought revolve around my gratitude by sharing some of my favorite quotes with you. Blessings,
Susan



As each day comes to us refreshed and anew, so does my gratitude renew itself daily.  The breaking of the sun over the horizon is my grateful heart dawning upon a blessed world.  ~Terri Guillemets

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.  ~Thornton Wilder


Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.  ~William Faulkner

 
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy