Beautiful Crown

Today is Chocolate Day! If you’re unsure how to celebrate, I’m just full of ideas. You could have a chocolate doughnut for breakfast, or toast with Nutella, or a chocolatey cereal, or a steaming mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows. For lunch, you might have a chocolate crepe with a tall glass of chocolate milk. Chicken with mole sauce would be great for dinner, followed by a slice of chocolate cream pie. Of course, today is also National Strawberry Sundae Day, which presents a slight problem. There’s really only one solution - an ice cream sundae: chocolate, strawberry and vanilla ice cream, fudge, strawberry and pineapple toppings, banana, whipped cream, crushed nuts and a cherry on top.Don't worry; you can always start your diet tomorrow - the day before National Sugar Cookie Day.

Mineral Wells

June 9, 1830, the first conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was held in New York with 27 members in attendance.  Thereafter, conferences were held wherever members were gathered – in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. In 1940, the Church moved to a semiannual schedule. That same year conference was held in Great Britain; summaries of talks were published in the Millennial Star. No conference was held during the great exodus of 1846 and 1847. The first conference in Salt Lake took place in an open-air bowery. Later the pioneers built an adobe tabernacle and then moved to the Temple Square Tabernacle in 1867. The flu pandemic in 1919 postponed general conference by two months. Asian flu cancelled the October 1957 conference altogether. The Conference Center, built in 2000, seats 21,000 and fills for each of the five general sessions. Conference is viewed in 175 countries and territories and is translated into nearly 100 languages.

Colt's Corral

I first found this recipe on a package of frozen chicken. It fit my schedule perfectly. I’d get it oven-ready and refrigerate it before my first piano lesson. I’d pop it in the oven between my third and fourth student, and when lessons were done, so was dinner!

Chicken Picante

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, frozen

1 cup medium chunky salsa

1/4 cup Dijon

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/4 cup sour cream

1 lime sliced into 4 segments

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking dish with foil. In a small bowl mix salsa, mustard and lime juice. Place frozen chicken breasts in baking dish. Top each with 1/4 salsa mixture. Cover with foil and bake 45 minutes. Remove top foil and continue cooking about 15 more minutes. Remove chicken to serving platter. Put a dollop of sour cream on each breast and top with 1/4 lime. Serve while still warm.

Salute to the Colours

“No constitution on earth has endured longer than ours. We seek and usually find the answers to today’s hardest legal questions within this document of yesterday. The Constitution was and is a miracle. Both Washington and Madison referred to it as such. It was an inspired document, written under the divine guidance of the Lord. James Madison, commonly called the Father of the Constitution, recognized this inspiration and gave the credit to ‘the guardianship and guidance of the Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations whose blessings have been so conspicuously displayed to the rising of this republic.’ We believe that the Constitution was brought about by God to insure a nation where liberty could abound, where his gospel could flourish.” – L. Tom Perry

Windmill

Here’s another 365 Challenge block that I had to redesign. I tried! I really did try to follow the directions precisely. I made 32 half-square triangles and stitched them together in groups of four with all the dark triangles pointing in the same direction. Then I made eight more half-square triangles, gave them each two triangular “wings,” and then sewed them to much larger triangles. The instructions said nothing about pressing the seams, but I did the best I could. The result was a horrible, lumpy mess that refused to lie flat or be square. The third time I pulled the block to pieces, I gave up and turned those awful big triangles into squares and added 16 more half-square triangles. It was the only way to swirl-press all the corners. It’s still far from perfect, but it's almost flat and almost square. It doesn’t look too bad if you don’t look too close.

Girl's Favourite

In June 1996, the KKK announced plans for a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. On the day of the rally a fenced area was set aside for peaceful protest. At some point one of the protestors announced there was “a Klansman in the crowd.” A middle-aged white man wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt and an SS tattoo was knocked down as he tried to run. The crowd began to kick and beat him with their signs. Keshia Thomas, an eighteen-year-old African American, shielded the man from the protestors and screamed at them to stop, saying, “You can’t beat goodness into a person.” Shortly afterward the police arrived and put an end to the violence. Keshia said she acted as she did because she knew what it was like to be hurt. The man never thanked her for saving his life, but some months later his son commended her for her courage and compassion.