Dear Mothers,,well i finally got my Black Bean Soup made yesterday..Oh wow it was good,,i had only had the black beans in with other beans in my soup …But i wanted to see how it wud be with mostly black beans ..To my surprise these beans are sorta sweet..i cooked them with green peppers and chopped tomatoes,And i had a pkg of onion soup so i put that in,,And at the end i added a can of plain corn..Oh i almost forgot..i had fried up a bit of bacon in my soup pan first,,i use an old cast iron soup pot with a bale handle,,with the cast iron you can do anything with this,,i guess they call this pan a dutch oven,,Anyway i put this soup in the oven at about 300 degrees to cook for about 3 hrs,,put in salt and pepper,,But anyway do you like black beans Cindy or anyone? i thot they were sweet they tasted almost like a berry to me,,Is that how they are sposed to taste?..These black beans i wud think wud be good in a Pasta Salad..But in useing the b. beans you wud want to make sure you had alot of color around them,,i soaked mine first as the beans make everything else black if you dont,But the dried beans store well..And they are cheap and taste good,,i just bot a big sack of red beans too lately ..And i have other beans too ,,i just think its a good time to stock up on dried things like rice etc,,You cud store all of these things in jars,,i wud suggest that maybe you cud store your sacks of beans and rice in the freezer for a while incase there is any bugs in the sacks,,i know it sounds gross,,!!!!But i have read to freeze flour too for a few weeks..At our Dollar Stores they have about every kind of dried beans you cud want,,JOhns wife Christina will sit down and eat a can of red beans right out of the can,,she loves them,,Anyway i just think its good to stock up on all the differet kinds of beans and lentils and dried split peas and chick peas ,,Are the chick peas the little yellow peas? Gabonzo beans wud be good to have on hand too..My Mom used to make 3 bean salad,,She used green beans and yellow and red beans..She put in onions and peppers too and made a dressing with vinegar and sugar salt and pepper,,Jim loved my moms 3 bean salad,,But i think there is alot you can do with beans,,and serve them hot or cold..i wont plant green beans this yr i will just use the dried beans,,i love planting tomatoes and peppers of all kinds,,i want to plant alot of basil this year too..And hopefully many different kinds of lettuce,,includeing mustard greens,,Onions and potatoes are cheap so i wont bother with them,,Carrots are cheap to buy too,,But nothing beats a backyard Iowa tomatoe and i want to can some this year,,Last yr i froze mine..Peppers freeze well too,,i just wash them and slice them up and put them in a bag,,A few yrs ago my brother Scott had millions of hot peppers from his garden,,And he took a needle and thread and sewed them together,,and hung them in his kitchen to dry,,He wound them around so they hang all together not on a line,,And the the bunch of peppers is about a yard wide and 5 ft long,,its a work of art,,And Scott uses the hot peppers when he makes chilli each week..He LOVES chilli..like no one i have ever heard of,,He has eaten it every week for about 30 yrs,,He also makes burritos with it ,,Then he makes stew each week ,,and he adds lentils and other beans,,He eats alot of beans and he is healthy as a horse,So you girls sit up to the table and eat your beans and i mean it,,love mother

Nuff said about that,,We are all in different stages of knowing Christ,,Yesterday my friend Jan and i went out for lunch,,We had a nice time,,and then she stopped by to visit here at the house,,She is very political and keeps up with World News etc,,I think many of us need to talk about the world and whats going on in it,,As we ate our lunch at the grocery store Cafe,,they had the TV on..And they were telling about the shootings in NYC,,I cudnt hear it all from where i was sitting but i wanted to just put my head down and cry my head off..What if my daughter was there,,?Well when we got back to the house i turned the tv on to see what it was all about,,and i knew it didnt involve my daughter..Christian ..i get a kick out of these preachers that tell their people that we live in the Kingdom of God so we dont have to notice what the world is doing,,Our economy is supposedly different and we wont go broke because we live in a different kingdom,..Hello? ???? Unless you Christiams get into reality? we will all die,,The laws arent what will change our world,,Its revival??Its always been revival? See the fat cats are goin down,And they shud do it like men? Cryin and beggin is very unbecoming to all of us,,But its this stuff that makes our apponents the unbelievers laugh their butts off,,While we are hiding our heads in the sand the unbelievers are taking over,,And why does Fat Cat want us to keep away from the News of folks goin broke and losein all rhey have ? Let me see,,um..Dont get me goin,,But this morning i am thinkin of the KIng of England and the heavy taxes he put on Gods people..And i am thinking of the Catholic Priests that you had to pay to get your dead loved ones out of Pergatory.. Hmmm not good,,And i am thinking of Dolly Madison this morning,,she opened her home for the men of God to get together snd discuss their great ideas of how to change their country..They got together in small groups and talked things over,,Up to then they only had the local taverns to discuss things in,,Yesterday as i talked with Jan i felt their was important things happening in my livingroom,, She encouraged me to speak out with what i had to say,,And i encouraged her,,But i feel more then ever it is not a time for the Believers to run and hide ,,But a time for private conversations to be had,,To intermingle with folks you believe in,,Toot often has good points of view and she agrees with you Angie..And i agree with you too Angie on alot of your ideas of Christianity, ,But we need to agree to disagree sometimes..But i think its a time to talk,,As i said in my earlier writings that only Jesus is the answer for our country,,only revival will change the Spiritual temperature of our country,,But as we get together with friends and say what is in our gut concerniing our world ,,i think then we can really see what is honestly in our own hearts as Christians,, and in our own hearts is an answer ,,We as Christians are the dreamers and visioneries, ,God speaks to us concerning our Nation,,We have an answer,,and it needs to be drawn out..

Yes i  want to write a reply here and Aunt Tootie we can put this on the blog if you wanna,,And this will be the Part 1 today of my writing Vicki ok ? Thanks,,i really want to write on this,,And go to the link  ladies and see this interview with this punk rocker,,its good,,Ok well the little film was an interview with a punk rocker who was a Christian but isnt  in the church.Ya know i can get the ear often of kids like this because i tell them i dont go to church,,i am a friend of the church but i dont indulge,,ok this boy on the film i forget if it told his name ,,but i will call him John,,Anyway  John is a Christian but is a baby Christian..He sees the Lord thru his own eyes and from where he is at,,As he grows in Christ he will see that being gay is wrong..and he will be able to minister to gay people..But he is at the level he is at now and if the religious folks dont interupt him he will keep growing in the Lord,,But shouting at him about the sin of homosexuality isnt going to teach  him anything,,Yes these kids make us nuts,,But this age was different then when i was growin up,,Heck all of us girls in highschool worried if our skirts came to the bend of our knees or not,,,Everyone wore about the same stryle,,And if our skirts came like an inch below our knees or an inch above them we were considered unstylish,,And ya know sex wasnt out there like it is now,,,Now the gates of sexual perversion is wide open.You can do  ANYTHING,, and thats ok,,There is no morlal compass,,And our kids have to deal with this,The gay lifestyle is the worst of sins,,Jill prayed for her sisters who were gay and they are both delivered,,And first her brother and he was on the 700 Club giving his testimony,,He got delivered in about 1978..and for this boy John in the film to be with the Gays is playin with fire,,But JOhn is a Christian !!!! And God will deliver him,,He will grow out of it,,After i got saved i tried to win folks to the Lord,,Cussin ..with a beer can in one hand and a cig in the other,,preachin like a wild woman,,Well i learned better for God sake,,And Jim and i wud beat  the hell out of each other,,And he was milder then i was,, i loved to fight especially if i was bored,,i think being bored is the worst feeling i can have still,,But ii learned thank God,,that their was no peace in fighting,,And it breaks things,,One time this old boy friend of mine came to the house and was visiting with  Jim and me in our first apt..,,And Jim got tired of  the guy and  he got up and threw this guy over our balcony..But Jesus knew that we wud eventually get straightened out,..We had Jesus with us,,And the kid on the film has Jesus,,And Jesus will grow in this kid and he will see the light  of Chirst in all parts of his life..We have to let Jesus do His job ya know? Yellin Bible verses at  punk rockers aint gonna do it,,We as older Christians  need to pray for these kids and let the Holy Spirit convict them and set them free,,We cant manipulate these kids,,We have to be honest with them and love them where they at..They have to understand thru Christ why drugs are wrong or the gay lifestyle,,As they are young they are in a training time with Christ as teacher,,i told MaryL right after Jimmy got out of the Navy that Jimmy was really cocky,,And she said “Dont worry Connie ,,Life will take it out of him”..And thats true ..life can be hard,,And when some of these kids come eyeball to eyeball with the devil they will surrender all,,They are tossing satan about like a beach ball right now,,,But wait untill satan turns into a   heavy ball and chain on their ankle ..life wont be so fun then..,,And they will long for the comforts of Christ,,And they will then go on a spiritual journey to find HIm..And they will thirst for Him and give their lives for Him the true and living God,,The further down these young people fall the deeper many end up in Christ,,They seem to build a fortress for satan and then the rest of their lives they find ways to climb back out ot the  pit they dug for themselves,, But if they love  Jesus that is the key,,And the kid on the film loved the Lord and He is ok ..He will make it,,love connieh

Here is the link that Connie is talking about: Country Boys

http://www.pbs. org/wgbh/ pages/frontline/ countryboys/ view/religion_ hi.html