As I was thawing the shrimp, I noticed a little tiny chart on the back that I could barely read which I found helpful. It is the average number of shrimp per serving based on size. A little bit of “googleing” found that the accuracy of the terms given to shrimp (Colossal, Jumbo, Extra Large, Large and Medium) is questionable depending on the manufacturer. The term “Large Shrimp” may result in numbers anywhere between 21/25 to 31/40. That is a pretty large variance, so my nowhere near professional advice would be to rely on the numbers instead.

I had no idea what I was doing when I installed WordPress locally. My friend Franklin always tells me that these things can be done, and basically gives me the right terminology to google it for myself! I knew that I needed XXAMP for Windows and this tutorial was extremely helpful. I’ve now got three installs going: one for Praise & Pray Ministries which is a site in creation, one for Crossroads Baptist Church which is an existing site, and one for testing PHP in general. Now I can play around with a theme or plugin, and know that I am not messing anything up. I back up theme folders regularly in an entirely separate place on my computer as well as the “live” sites.

1. We hosted our first Pampered Chef party which is something I have wanted to do for years but never followed through until now.
2. I finally joined MOPS. We eat potato casserole and chili at 9:00 in the morning, but it’s cool.
3. The new web site for our church was launched after a ridiculous amount of time and energy talking about it!
4. Completely silly, but I bought some boots, which I’ve wanted for years.
5. We painted the living room and dining room and hung curtains after living here for 7 years!
6. I conquered the sewing machine. Exaggeration, but I did became a little bit more comfortable with sewing.
7. I started Bible Study Fellowship (although at first I completely resisted the discipline and structure it required).
8. I finally rolled over my 401K after almost 5 years of thinking about it.
9. We saved some money and I now have a crazy fast laptop instead of my husband’s hand-me-down college machine!

Ingredients

1 pound Hot sausage, cooked and drained
5 slices Bread, cubed or torn
6 each Eggs, beaten
1 cup Cheddar, grated
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Mustard
2 cups Milk

Instructions

Grease a 9×13 pan. Cover bottom of pan with bread pieces. Sprinkle cooked sausage over bread. Mix eggs, cheese, milk, salt and mustard together. Pour mixture over sausage. Sprinkle extra cheese on top. Cover in foil. Bake at 350°F for 45-60 minutes.

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2354671 bytes) in ../public_html/wordpress/wp-includes/http.php on line 1331

After several days of putting it off and simply not upgrading, I finally found the answer at Lancelhoff.com and it was much easier than my last WordPress problem. All I had to do was open the wp-config.php and add the following line below the other define lines:

define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’);

See more details about this problem and solution here. Thank you, Lancelhoff!

After reading many forums and staring at the php admin screen trying to figure out how to do what the really technical forum people said would work, I opted to export my wordpress posts, comments, etc. and create a new database. After upgrading and importing, now I’m good to go. Well, almost. There are a few minor issues to work out, like category hierarchy and  amazon links, but the main thing is that some semblance of Home Sweet Homemaker is running smoothly again.

Ingredients

4 salmon fillets
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 package baby spinach, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon pesto*
3-4 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon pine nuts

Instructions

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Make a slit two-thirds of the way through center of each fillet. Season each with salt and pepper. In a bowl, combine the spinach, pesto, tomatoes, and pine nuts. Spoon mixture evenly into each slit. Arrange salmon on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Broil 8 to 10 minutes or until the salmon is cooked and the spinach mixture is heated through.

Here is the original recipe as posted at Allrecipes. Check out the reviews as they have lots of ideas for variations.

* For the pesto, I use a couple of tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, a cup of basil, a little garlic and Parmesan cheese. Blend in the Ultimate food chopper for a few seconds and you’re good to go. If making pesto to serve with a pasta dish, I would follow a recipe but since this is stuffing that goes along with spinach and tomatoes inside the salmon, I just wing it.

I’m sorry I forgot to take a picture. It really is an attractive dish. Enjoy!

If you grew up in the church, you’ve probably heard the wonderful old hymn “Great is thy Faithfulness”. The title and concept behind that old hymn is even more ancient, coming straight from Lamentations. Calamity has come as God foretold through Jeremiah and yet there is hope. There is praise to be given to the Lord (as there always is):

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. – Lamentations 3:19-26

I have hosted a book club on Monday nights for two years now. I rarely post about book club so I thought I would share what we are currently reading. We just started the Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. It’s by an ethnically Jewish but very secular guy who decided he will take the Bible as literal as possible and live accordingly – especially the laws of the Old Testament. The result is pretty crazy. He grows out a beard, wears tassels on his clothes and even attempts to “stone” an adulterer (he uses pebbles). It is at the same time hilarious and thought-provoking. Check it out at your library, or go ahead and buy it! It’s a very enjoyable read and worth calling your own!