Dyno's Whine

This is the very best Peanut Butter cookie I’ve ever tried: actually chewy rather than crumbly. Luckily, I saved a copy locally because it disappeared recently from Taste of Home’s site, so I’m sharing it here so that others (including myself heh) can find it. Ingredients 1 cup butter, softened 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter 1 cup sugar 1 cup packed brown sugar 2 large eggs 1 Tbsp real maple…

The Library Will Be Closed in October

Did you know that wood and paint don’t like the weather? That’s why the right door on the little library sticks in the winter, and why the unicorn keeps spinning, and the strip along the bottom comes loose sometimes. So, to address some of these issues, make it a little more weather-tight, and just freshen up the look, Mr. Tarp is going to be coming back in October and the library will be…

Challenge #4: BACK TO SCHOOL!

School is back! Sometimes school doesn’t seem fun. But being with friends and doing new things IS fun, and those are a lot of the things we do at school. And here’s the coolest part: the more you learn, the more fun things you can do! Whether that’s learning a sport or a game, or how to make cool things, or reading stories or learning about animals or any of a ton of things! So for September’s…

Welcome to Li’l Winchesters’ Li’l Library!

I built this library because I love books and sharing stories with people. I hope you enjoy it! Here are some guidelines for using it: The basic rule is take a book, leave a book. If you don’t have a book to leave, that’s okay. If you have a few books to leave, that’s okay, too. Most of the books have stamps in them. This isn’t because I need you to return them (though if you enjoy it, it would…

Quick and Dirty High-Carb (well…Cookie) Tips

Recently at church we were doing a service project where we were asked to make cookies. And I was aghast at how many otherwise functional adults found making even 2 dozen cookies to be a daunting task. Cookies are some of the easiest, most versatile, most portable, most tasty snacks ever! Any making them really well is easy enough that the extra expense and limited selection of the store is not…

Quick & Dirty Low-Carb Tips

My journey figuring out the carbohydrate intolerance has been rather twisty and challenging and will probably continue to be both for the rest of my life. But I’ve learned a lot of things, and I figure some of them might be useful, so I’m gonna share some of the things I’ve learned in case it’s helpful to you. First, I gotta point out: this was originally recommended by my doctor, with a few…

Sometimes you just want to feel like you’re eating carbs for breakfast, yanno? So this morning I experimented, discovered this, and liked it well enough to post. Ingredients: low-carb flour tortillas (I use Mission, but other brands would probably work, or you could probably make your own) eggsheavy cream buttercinnamon (about half a teaspoon. Can mix with nutmeg, cloves, or other spices if…

Fancy French Creamy Chicken & Veggies Alfredo

Warning: this stuff is RICH and NOT remotely low-calorie! But it IS low carb! Ingredients 2-3 Tbsps butter1 1/2 – 2 cups cream (I use heavy cream)1 1/2 Tbsps Herbes de Provence1 lb chicken tenderloins1-2 medium zucchini8 oz. fresh mushrooms (I usually use crimini or button)1 Tbsp xanthan gum (if you want thicker sauce)1-2 Tbsps Parmesan cheese (the real stuff, not the green can stuff!)4-5…

Ingredients 3-4 medium (8-10 inches) zucchini)1 Tbsp minced garlic1 packet (about 2 Tbsp) onion soup mix1 lb. stew meatoil (I use peanut oil but any high-smoke point oil will do) 1 can of Roasted Garlic Cream of Mushroom condensed soup8 oz. fresh mushrooms (I used crimini) Instructions Mix the stew meat in a zip-top bag with the onion soup mix and let it marinade in the fridge for 15-30…

So, I am still (kind of) doing this low-carb thing and I also made the mistake of planting 2 zucchini plants this year and am increasingly desperate both to find a way to use up zucchini and find creative ways to make tasty, easy low-carb stuff. Being that I also hate the overly-monetized recipe pages with 14 pages of useless bleaarrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhh text, I am going to start posting the…

Why You Should Hug and Give Presents to Your Local Tech Support

Tech support is 40% detective/psychic trying to figure out what actually went/is going wrong from a user who wasn’t paying attention, doesn’t know what is important on the screen, can’t describe what they saw/see/are trying to do/did, and doesn’t have the patience to read what’s on the screen. 10% therapist dealing with anger and anxiety from users who hate and fear technology and project all…

Health Issues, Diets, and the Power of Saying No

Lesson 1

Those that know me, know that I’ve suffered with health problems for years. Some are rooted in congenital metabolic and hormonal disorders. Some were caused by serious illness when I was younger (which is one reason I take COVID-19 seriously), and some by freak circumstances during/after surgeries or other injuries. 

One of the side effects of these issues was weight gain. This is a…

Discerning Truth from Error

Truth is Truth. And everything that is reflects it.

Truth is indifferent to our individual needs or wants, and our beliefs or level of understanding make no difference to it whatsoever. Yet it affects all of us at all times, so whether we want to seek understanding or not, it is important that we have at least some level of understanding to reap the greatest benefits in our existence. 

Truth’s…

What comes to your mind when I say the word confront?  

If you’re like most people I’ve met, you think of words like attack or contention, or just plain start a fight, and your instincts might be to tense up internally, prepare for unpleasantness, and seek to avoid that confrontation at all costs.  

Did you know that this is only one potential outcome of one of the definitions of the word?  

The…

Two Kinds of Respect

There’s a lot of words in English with multiple meanings. Sometimes the meanings have so much overlap or similarities, that the different meanings start to meld into one in many minds, which can make communication difficult.

One of the words I’ve realized I really need to clarify the similar meanings of is respect, because the cloudiness seems to cause some conflict in our society.

Respect,…

The Power of Giving Up

Wait…

How can that…

Didn’t Winston Churchill say to never, ever, ever do that?

He did.

And Hollywood loves to capitalize on the idea, because it makes for heart-warming underdog stories.

But here’s the thing.

Every single day, I see people believing in and refusing to give up on things that simply cannot be done in this life.  To the expense of their well-being, their families, their security,…

Photo by Gabriel Santiago on Unsplash

The summer before 9th grade, I was blessed to be able to attend a program in the Tulsa area called Summer Arts.  This program ran for a few weeks, during which you had a primary focus (mine was writing) and 2 different side foci, which I had a hard time choosing because all I cared about was writing, but I ended up with a mime class (a matter of shame to me…