Happiness in an Envelope.

Just! In case you haven't, perhaps, noticed it yet, IT'S MONDAY! Do I hear whoot whoots and hip hip hooray's?! Well, lighten up, the sun's out in Abbotsford today! Not only that but I have embarked on a new project. A few days ago I was going through my favorite's list on StumbleUpon (if you don't have a Stumbler account Go. Get. One.! N.o.w.!!), and I came across the 52 Projects list. More specifically, project #29.
Immediately a list of people that could use "happiness in an envelope" (as I have named my project, rather than sticking to its assigned number) so I set out to make one.
Here's what it is:

Project #29 

in The Original 52 Projects

"Get a regular-sized envelope. Address it to someone special. Then, stuff it with as many things as you can: a letter, photographs, ripped out magazine articles, photocopies of poems, a short story, or passages from a novel, recipes, clipped newspaper articles, art work, poems or stories you’ve written… Anything that can be folded up and put in the envelope. Make sure to stuff it so full that you need to use tape to keep it sealed. This envelope should have serious heft. Once it’s sealed, get the proper postage put on it (definitely use stamps) and mail it off."

Thou needest:

 Obviously, because I can't seem to ever follow instructions without tweaking them a bit, I'm sending a large envelope verses a regular-sized one. The bigger, the more love (time,effort,thought) it will take and contain.

To me, the secret is to not over think it, sure these are random clippings and I mean random ...

..but that's the great part, for me the sender, and for the receiver..it's something new, a part of someone else's world...

I took time to write out a list of websites I like..because of their randomness of course, such as: Chris McKenzie or Bubble Wrap!

And here's where the randomness is up to your life..what do you have hanging around? I had stickers, cutouts from notebooks, cut out from the wrapper of a rose bouquet, a magnet puppy, post cards and mini calendars...

Write some inspirational quotes on those note cards you have in your drawer, for yourself, and for the love envelope!

I'm not finished accumulating things yet, I still need to develop photographs, find a short story, more stickers and cutouts, and print a poem. But I thought I'd share my Monday's project with you all. When you're finished, don't forget to finish it all up by giving the inside of the envelope one spray of your favorite perfume/body spray!

It's random, it's fun to make, it's something everyone would like to receive in the mail one day. Try it!
 

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Gary.

 If you have me on Facebook you might have seen, several months ago, I posted a note explaining Daddy's project of a  daily devotional for young people. While in Romania I had the opportunity to gather a few experiences from several of our delegate brethren. I won't post all the stories or devotionals, but I'll post a few every week or so. Here's one dictated by Les Bauer from White Creek Wellness Center.

It happened soon after I accepted Christ as my Saviour in 1975, soon after the birth of our first child, that my wife, Kathy and I, decided to visit some friends in Minnesota. While planning the trip, we decided that we'd first stop by Wisconsin to visit my family, and from there we'd head on up to Minnesota. The town in which my parents lived was the same town I had grown up in. I spent twenty-three years there before I moved away, and while I was back there I remembered a friend of mine that I wanted to visit.
 This friend had had a very rough life growing up; his father was involved in the Mafia, and would arrive home at night drunk and would attack his family. Gary hadn't had it easy. After my father died when I was twelve years old, I became really good friends with this boy. However, after we grew up we sort of lost contact, and now, being back in town I decided to visit him so we could catch up.
 I knew where to ask concerning Gary's whereabouts because Gary spent more time in jail as a young man than he spent in school. He was a very large, strong boy, and would often get into fights and trouble of the kind. I went to the police station and asked if they could give me any information on where Gary was. They informed me he was in a certain town a few miles away, and that he now owned a body building shop. The town was conveniently located on our way to our friend's house in Minnesota. So we decided that, on Friday on our way to Minnesota, we'd drop in and visit Gary. Friday came, we took off, and eventually arrived at the town Gary lived. I immediately felt like I should stop and go see him, but I talked my self out it. Instead I promised I'd visit him on our way back. So we passed through and continued on our way to visit our friends. During our stay there, Tabitha our baby daughter, became very ill. She had a high fever resulting in us being up all night taking care of her. By the time the weekend was up, Kathy and I were exhausted. On our way home on Sunday, we again passed by Gary's town, and again I was prompted to stop by and see him. But I was tired. I wanted to go home. So I did. We arrived home and early the next morning I got a phone call from the police who told me my friend Gary had committed suicide that past night.
The lesson I have learned, is that when you are prompted by the Holy Spirit, obey. Make sure you are devoted to Him, and then when you are prompted to do something do it. Don’t double guess, don’t wait. Do what God directs you to do. That way you can avoid the sad events of my life. On judgment day I will have to face my lack of decision. If I had stopped, if I had listened, if I had obeyed, I may have been able to have saved Gary’s life.

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Humor Me Friday.

As I've explained previously, Friday's are busy. 
Today's post will simply be something I hope will make you smile. I know it made me giggle. It's 1 minute and 22 seconds long, and no matter how many times I've seen it never fails to bring a smile to my face.
Smile, enjoy, and happy Friday!

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Stamp.Stomp.Stamp.

Victor's constantly coming up with something to amuse himself. Usually it's some sort of toy he needs, or a new profession he's into and must practice (last week he was debating if he should become a chef), or most recently, a new hobby. He will now collect stamps. Last week I was writing letters and had my stationary out, and he's been hovering over and around it since then, wanting to snatch my old letter envelopes, or more accurately, my old stamps. Any envelope that's in reach and has a used stamp on it, is his. We've googled how to separate the stamp from the envelope, stamp collecting for kids, and now our drawers are filled with old envelopes with little squares where the stamps used to be.

That's the extent of his collection so far.

And I thought I'd end this post with a comic strip of one of my favorite comic strip characters of all time, Sally Brown.

Anyways, happy Wednesday y'all.

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Autumn Morning.

Yesterday morning, we all decided to drop everything, to put Monday business on hold, to live a little and cave in to Victor's pleas to take him out to the field at the rec center to play around with his new Remote Control car. So we piled into the car (the gas consuming and large enough for four of us to fit in kind), and drove the three minutes to see what his car (the remote control, solely battery operated, and toy kind) could do. 

"Take me out to the ball game .. . "

                                     I wonder how many touchdowns this goalpost has seen.

                                         
                                                Moccasins wet with Autumn morning dew.

                                                                     A boy, and his toy.

                                                                                  Leaves leave.

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Cute as a Button.

On Sunday I received a message from Gabby  asking if I'd mind if he added PapaisaPreacher to his recommended blogs page. I happily said yes and immediately remembered that many bloggers have a little button on their blog's sidebar that other bloggers can put onto their page. So I set out to make one for us.

I came across several blog tutorials that where very well meaning but, very confusing. Until I found Oikology's tutorial. It's such a simple and fool proof tutorial and I'm so very thankful for it that I'd like to share it with anyone and everyone else who might be looking for help on creating a blog button. Click Here to be directed to her simple steps for creating a blog button.

For any bloggers out there, please consider adding our little button to your page as well! The code is on the left side bar.

And readers out there, that's what the little square with a code underneath is for, for fellow bloggers to post our link to their page! 

Happy Blogging and button making y'all!

Button Up:

   
<center> <a href="http://papaisapreacher.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l621/sociallilac/clickme.png"/></a></center>

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October News.

October is almost gone and November is coming up, and it's bringing with him a chilly breeze and blog changes! As many of y'all know, we'll be moving from Abby sometime in the future. So, I thought it'd be a good idea to give Live From Abby a makeover before then. I have changed the name once more, and hopefully for the last time. This name is now not dependent of location. So wherever we are, live, move to, the title will forever be a fact.
For those of you wondering where I got the name from, it's based on the title of a very cute movie from the 80's entitled Papa was a Preacher. It's a relatively unknown movie that I can't find anywhere on the web, but I checked it out once from the library in Texas ages ago.
I hope y'all like the changes, they will take some getting used to and I will continue to be tweaking something here and there throughout the week until I'm completely satisfied. Any suggestions?

P.S. The web address has now changed to papaisapreacher.blogspot.com! Unfortunately blogger doesn't forward addresses, so if you type in the old address it will not send you here to the blog, instead it will say the blog doesn't exist. I'm sorry about that, and if there were any way I'd fix that. So for now keep in mind, Live From Abby no longer exists, it's Papa is a Preacher (: 
Thank you!

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Life in Food.

One thing you must know about my family is that there's something very important to us. Not just my immediate family, but most of my relatives far and near. That important something, is food.

Each (how do I word this)...family, in my family..has its own signature meal. 

My grandmother makes the best gluten ever, but it's totally different from grandfather's amazing gluten that happens to be Tenorio tradition. Grandma makes awesome homemade pacoquinha (a Brazilian candy made from peanuts), Grandpa makes the yummiest healthiest cornmeal soup (even Victor likes it). 

Aunt Lidiane makes her own version of fugazza, Aunt Marianna makes the most delicious carrot cake with cocoa icing ever! Uncle Ne makes the ever so awesome sloppy Joe sauce ever ever ever! 

Aunt Ivone makes amazing sauted heart of palm, Aunt Lou makes delish flans for dessert, and well, on goes the list. 

Daddy, besides the traditional Tenorio gluten, makes coconut candy, soup, veggie medleys, and Mommy, makes divine homemade bread, feijoada, corn cake, and and everything and then some more.
I make...well I experiment with things. Sometimes, foods I experiment with don't..stick (as in nobody eats them), and sometimes, every so often, they do stick around. Namely, lasagna and cinnamon pull apart bread. So far, I've made the pull apart bread three times this month. I was pretty satisfied with the results, and neither batch lasted for two days. They just vanished as soon as they were out of the oven, I have a feeling they'll be around for a while.
Obviously, I'm a great believer food having a big part in family life. To me:
"Families that eat/pray/cook together, stay together!"
You should probably get cookin' good lookin'!
For recipes and inspiration, check out the Yumm! Recipes! link up top!

"Barbecued" soy protein and Tofu squares with onions and green bell peppers, amazing with a drizzle of lime!

The making of: Coxinha. We made these, Brazilian "dumplings" if you will, this week and had loads of fun. We had a chance to cook, talk and laugh together and it was time well spent. And the products were heavenly!!!

                                                      Hummus, humm haven't made this in a while..

               Baked olive oil and basil eggplants, I'm not big on eggplants, but these were too too good!

 Last, but most certainly not least, a photo of a food plate made over a campfire times and times ago. I miss camping!!!

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Fall in BC in Pictures.

A couple of weeks ago, we headed down to Keremeos again, and although we didn't see bears this time, we still oohhed and aahhed over Canadian scenery. From Keremeos we went to Kelowna...and on our way back, we stopped at a local fruit market with the produce of the nearby farms. Usually, I try to limit the photos so there isn't a huge photo post, which results in combined photos and many left on my computer unseen, this time however, I'm unleashing them all on you.
Here's British Columbia Autumn in photographs. in many photographs...

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A Time in a Boy's Life When...

There's a time in every boy's life marked by a special something. Not a special someone, not a special event, a special something. A special toy. For some boys, it is during this time that they believe their toys are, to a certain extent, real. They're sure to include each toy in play time every day so nobody feels left out, a time when each toy has a name, an age and a past. It's a sweet phase where worries are few and scattered, blessings are plentiful and most often come in forms of sandwiches, time with their friends and toys. Each boy, has his own toy. That special one, the one that marked that time of life, that phase, that year, that period.

This week Victor and the kids next door have been experimenting with their Bionicles and a home made parachute. As in...plastic bag parachute. It kept them pretty busy for hours at a time. Friday I asked them to pose each with their lego toy respectively. I asked them if they were having fun, but I didn't get an answer because my question wasn't heard amidst their shouts and ripples of laughter.

I'd say they were having fun. 

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ThankYou Notes.

Thank you Lord for health and life,
For the food we eat and a place to sleep,
For freeing us from worry and strife,
And for Your love so constant and deep.

For our family and our friends,
For a chance to sow, a chance to reap,
For the breath of life you to us lend,
For the many blessings that on us You heap.

For second chances, wisdom,
opportunities, and for promises to claim,
For Mondays and ways to become
better people. To bring honor to Your name.

Thank you for our enemies,
and for Your protection,
For simple things, and honey bees,
For miracles and Your direction.

Thank you for all things pleasant,
And for Your help when things are not,
For sons, daughters and our parents,
And most of all, Lord for Your Son, Who us a second time has bought.

Our Tofurky made Tenorio style (: 

Hope y'all had a Thankful Thanksgiving...

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." -                                      1Thessalonians 5:18

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Thanksgiving menu.

Last night I scribbled our Thanksgiving meal menu on the back of my Chemistry notes, so in order to organize somewhat of a shopping list, I'm posting the assigned meal menu and duties for the weekend:

Shepherd's Pie - Me
Gluten - Dad
Fresh Home-made Bread - Mom
Salad - Mom
Apple Pie - Me
Pumpkin Bread - Victor and Me

To do (other than cooking):
Paper Turkey Napkins (from old Abeka Academy art book). the only turkey on the table!
Find the candles in one of the boxes in the closet and the table cloth too.
Make sure the house stays tidy until Sunday evening/Straighten up the house because it won't be Friday clean on Sunday evening.

The great thing about living minutes away from the American border, having lived in America, having an American brother, and yet living in Canada is that we get to have two Thanksgivings! But this Thanksgiving is just two days away and lots to do away. So I better get started this instant! Happy Weekend Everyone!
And Happy Thanksgiving!
~*

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October Month Of.

HAPPY OCTOBER! For all of you thinking October is just month of witches and Halloween, think again!
This month also happens to be, Vegetarian Awareness Day! NAVS  is even setting up a contest to encourage all non-vegetarians to go meat-free this month, even for just a day, with the possibility of winning $1,000!
Speaking of food and vegetarianism, we'll be celebrating with a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal! Anyone else planning on making something special for Thanksgiving?! I hope so! All you Canadians, get ready! Thanksgiving is this Sunday!!! For vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes click here.  Yum, these recipes make my mouth water and make me want to go shopping for ingredients! I hope you all have ideas for Thanksgiving already, but I plan on posting ours, hopefully sooner, rather than late-r.
Happy Wednesday- Thursday everyone!

Last year, Toronto, Fall Colors.

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