What Are Your Favorite Stock Photo Sites?

Let’s face it, every once in awhile, you simply can’t take your own photos for your blog.

Well, I mean, not all of us can.

For instance, I’m a wife, mom, homeschooler, blogger, freelance writer and bass player in a band, so it gets kind of hard to get out there and take the perfect photos all the time 🙂

Just hanging out at the park!

Every now and again, I will throw in some stock photography. I’ve heard enough about all the ways you can be sued for using other stuff and I stay away from that like the plague! It is certainly never my intention to step on any toes, that’s for sure!

In my search for stock photos, my favorites have turned out to be Pixabay and Pexels. With these two sites, there are no attributions needed, you don’t have to join, sign up or pay, and you are free to use the images however you want.

Other sites I have found are just not as good, but I keep looking. So…

I was wondering if you would be willing to share your favorite stock image sites? Please, list them in the comments below and when I get enough, I’ll make another post for the benefit of other bloggers as well.

Also, if you’d like a link back to your own blog, please make note of that in your comment and know that I greatly appreciate it!

Thanks!

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The History of Public Education

This is something I’ve been meaning to do some research on for some time, but I just haven’t had the free time to set aside for it as of yet. The beginning of public education, it really makes me wonder. I mean, I can certainly see, when it all got started, how important it was for children to learn to read and write and so on. That’s how it all started, right? The three “R”‘s… readin’, ritin’ and rithmathic?

Yes, very funny…but still…

I know that government and civics are taught to “make better citizens”… or is it? Just this year, or was it the one past, they decided to take out the part in history books where George Washington said his trip across the Delaware was by “Divine Intervention”. Lord knows what else they’ve taken out and not made a public spectacle of.

I don’t know, I guess I just think about it because it has failed my own children so. My son, a high functioning autistic, who was allowed to misspell words, so long as they were “phonetically correct”, although I believe he would have learned, had someone taken the time to teach him. But, how can we expect most public school teachers to do something like that? They are overrun every single day with overcrowded classrooms and a list of demands from the higher up’s that dictates what they can and cannot do. OH the rounds I’ve went with special needs supervisors and principals and tutors and on and on and on.

And my daughter, who suffers from SEVERE social anxiety was labeled DEFIANT because she wouldn’t do her work. Even when her therapist and case worker came to the school and were present at meetings I asked for, they only responded that they were following protocol. Well, I could easily turn that into a rant, but I’ll not, for now.

Anyway, please enjoy this read, as I did. It contains some information I was unaware of, which only leads the way for more questions…we may have a topic miniseries on our hands here, lol.

As always, thanks for stopping by and do share your thoughts in the comments. Any other good reads like this out there? I’ll be researching myself later, as I said, but right now with homeschool and writing and music and all the house stuff that’s always on the list, I’m just strapped for time 🙂

Source: The History of Public Education – Practical Homeschooling Magazine

Non-Verbal Autistic Writes An Important Letter!

A 16-year-old with nonspeaking autistic wrote a letter about autism and law enforcement.

 

This is definitely worth a read! As a mother of a child with autism, it really matters, but it should matter to more than we parents. These autistic children of ours are members of OUR society and one day will have to interact with everyone out there in some form or another. It’s best everyone learn what they’re really like…

Source: Nonspeaking Teen Explains Autism in Letter to Police

See A Need, Fill A Need!

You know, being the mother of a special needs child whose diagnosis’ includes: autism, central auditory processing disorder, sensory dysfunction, obsessive compulsive disorder, dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, I’m fairly well versed in what that entails. Upon first receiving the news of the diagnosis’ I spent more time researching than eating or sleeping or pretty much anything else. This was happening to my first born child, and I was GOING to understand it!

My son, at the age of 5, when we received the “actual” diagnosis of autism.

After compiling enough research to wonder why I hadn’t pursued a degree of some sort in the field, I decided that I needed an outlet to share it. So, I founded a family support group. And it wasn’t just your run of the mill “support group” because I wanted it to be all the things I couldn’t find when I was looking for a support group to attend. (I never did find one, by the way).

I had been looking for a support group just to have some like-minded parents to talk to, but every time I found one, upon further investigation, I realized I couldn’t go. By this time, we’d had our second child, our daughter, who was not special needs and was only a toddler. So, instead of either myself or my husband going, and one of us staying home to watch her, we just decided not to go because none of them offered child care. OR, of all things, they didn’t have anything for the special needs child, the reason we were suppose to be coming together in the first place!

One thing led to another, and I had finally reached the end of my rope. While dropping my son off to school one day, I stopped to talk to the Family Resource Center Director and was telling her of this dilemma. She asked me why I hadn’t started one myself, and at first, I simply laughed. Start a support group? Me? Why, I couldn’t do something like that! Ah, but you can, she told me with more excitement than I would have for awhile even myself 🙂

She went on to tell me about a grant that was being offered by our state mental health agency. This was the first I had even heard of such a thing, but listened to what she had to say as we walked to her office. She gave me the paperwork that she had printed off, just a bit earlier, and told me I should give it a try. I said I would think about it.

That night, I looked over the paperwork and realized it would be quite a job. I had to write a grant proposal, which didn’t seem like such a big deal. I’d been a “writer” all my life in one form or another, and the instructions looked pretty simple. It laid out everything I had to include: names of parents in the area who might be interested in going, what I hoped to accomplish, how I would spend the money, and a slew of other laundry-list items.

Over the next few days, little by little, I put everything together and mailed it off. It wasn’t that very much longer that I received a reply, and our little support group that had started from one parent’s desire to fill a need, got $1,000 for that year! To say that I was elated was the understatement of the year! I wouldn’t have made it without the help of that Director, and she helped me put everything together and it was wonderful while it lasted. I had to turn the group over to another wonderful friend I had made along the way when we moved out of the area.

Over the course of the 4-5 years or so, we got that grant each year. Our little group of – originally – three families, grew exponentially. We put together a lending library with books and other print resources, we offered referrals to specialists in every field imaginable that family of a special needs child might need, we hired students from our local community college who were pursuing careers surrounding special needs to provide activities and entertainment for our special needs children while someone else would oversee the siblings, and the two groups were always together, we had community outings monthly, to provide a group atmosphere in which to play and relax and by the last year, we were offering continuing education certificates to foster and adoptive families who attended our meetings and seminars where we would have expert speakers.

Our meetings were weekly, and for at least two of them, we would have special speakers who spoke on a variety of topics relating to life with a special needs child. There were experts in education, therapy, home-helps, medicine and an array of others. We always served refreshments and had a time of “visiting” before and after the meetings. It had become like family.

So if you’re in a situation where you see a need, and there’s any inkling of a chance that you could possibly do something to fill it – GO FOR IT! You might be surprised what you’ll wind up with.

So good luck! And thanks, as always, for stopping by to have a read.

7 Stellar Ways to Pray for Your Teenagers

Are you the parent or grandparent of a teenager? As you are raising them and seeking to wisely deal with them, why not pray for them? Here are 7 great ideas for how you can pray for your teenagers PLUS a FREE PRAYER PRINTABLE!

Source: 7 Stellar Ways to Pray for Your Teenagers

 

This is an absolute “must-read” for parents of teenagers! I have it bookmarked, liked, shared and most of the tips written in my journal that I keep with actual paper and pen 🙂

We are admonished in the Word about our children, not to back down, nor give up. My mother always said, “Train up a child in the way that they should go and when they are old, they will not depart from it.” I remember it word for word because that’s how often she said it. Every time I didn’t want to go to church, she said it. Every time I was mean to someone, she said it. Every time I spoke in a way that was unbecoming, she said it. And so on and so forth. But it stuck with me, and now, I say it!

It took me awhile to come back around, much to my mother’s dismay throughout my early years I know, but she knew…

My Top-5 Favorite Free Homework Help Sites

Here we are, on the eve of a brand new school year. Everyone is finishing up gathering supplies, clothes, shoes, backpacks and other school essentials and the excitement about that first day is mounting!

What better time to get a few ducks in a row concerning homework? I know, teachers never give homework on the first day, so why start thinking about it now? Because, preparation is a great way to keep from falling behind in the first place. So, in lieu of the impending moaning and groaning about homework that is sure to come, I have compiled a great list of online homework helps sites that provide free help.

1. Free Math Help – I’m just going to go ahead and put this one first, because I know it’s the one my daughter, at least, will make the most use of. And she gets it honest – I’m no good at math. Well, I was good at math, but when they started throwing letters around like numbers, then things got tricky 🙂 !  This site helps with Algebra (pre-algebra through algebra 3), Geometry, Trig and Calculus. They have lessons, games, calculators, a Q&A section, a forum and more. Believe me when I tell you you’re going to want to bookmark this one to keep it close.
2. Another bookmark worthy site is HippoCampus with over 5,700 free videos in several different subjects from middle school through college. Teachers can even create a free account and customize it for their students.
3. Khan Academy is an awesome, absolutely free, not-for-profit website that allows students to learn at their own pace and practice on exactly what they’re struggling with. There are no ads and no need to register, however you do need to sign in with either Facebook, Gmail or an email address. There are SO many things to work on: math, by subject or grade level, science and engineering, computing, arts and humanities, economics and finance as well as test prep and college admissions. The site will keep up with all your progress, which you can check at a glance on your profile page.
4. Though it may seem a little busy at first, Discovery Education is another great free site that offers help for students, parents and teachers alike. Featuring homework help, games and interactives and step-by-step webmath, there’s more than one way to get moving towards understanding that homework better. They even have archived webinars, if you’d like to take the time to watch.
5. Project Gutenberg isn’t actually a homework help site, but I absolutely COULD NOT leave it off this list. It has been monumental to me, as a homeschooler, and I wanted to put it out there in the hands of as many other people as possible. This website hosts over 50,000 public domain books that you can downloaded and read. There are classics, fiction, non-fiction, Bibles, text books and more. You can search by book or just browse the categories, but I bet you’re sure to find something interesting. The great thing is, with all the apps for reading eBooks out there, you can utilize this site from a desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone, easy as pie!

So, there you have it folks. My top 5 list of free homework help sites. Do you have a preferred one that you use for your kiddo’s? If so, I’d love for you to leave a link to it in the comments below so I can bookmark it for later use – and maybe even update this post with the goodies!

Also, if you happen onto this post and any of these links are broken, please do let me know so I can take it down. The last thing I want is to offer misleading information.

As always, thanks for stopping by, and have a blessed day!!

To Rosewood Blaze, With Love

There’s been a long list of advice that I have given you over the years…some of it you’ve asked for and some of it you haven’t. Some of it you’ve taken to heart and guarded and some you’ve taken like a dose of nasty medicine. But you never complain. I just wanted to put a few things down that you can look back on from time to time. Only if you need to, of course.

Remember that self-image is indeed important. Everyone should strive to be their best in everything that they are and do. However, if someone tells you something you know to be false, then by all means, feel free to disregard it. Don’t allow a person who isn’t even important in your life, someone who isn’t a permanent part of your life, to define YOU in any way, shape, form or fashion. Listen to those that love you, and those that truly care about you. You know who they are and you know you can trust them to tell you the truth. Not because they are “so and so” – that doesn’t matter. The fact is that the people closest to you will not lie to you. If you DO need to be told the truth about something unsavory, they are also the people that will tell you the truth in love. Believe that and commit it to heart because it will serve you well.

Remember the quote by Albert Einstein that I told you about: “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Public education, while always striving to be better and better has only effectively gotten worse and worse. With things like “common core” and “no child left behind”, they have forgotten that children are PEOPLE! They have forgotten that some are slower than others, or learn in a different way, and some are gifted and easily get bored with classwork that they are already far past on an intellectual level. Unfortunately, in today’s educational facilities, if you are either one of those, you are a bother in the classroom. BUT, this doesn’t mean that you are wrong, or stupid, or lacking in any way. You have your way of learning and don’t be ashamed of it. Learn, that is the important thing, and learn well. It does matter, and someday you will look back and see that.

Remember that I always told you “today is another day down”. Whether you’re trying to move away from something unpleasant, or towards something you’re anxious for, every day is a new day. The Bible says: Lamentations 3:22-23 “It is of the Lord‘s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” His mercies are NEW EVERY MORNING! That is an amazing promise! That we can wake up each day and thank God that we made it another day, the old day that was yesterday is gone and the new day that is starting is fresh and new, laid out before us like a blank canvas just waiting for you to paint, and create a masterpiece. And you will. I could tell you what you’ll feel in another 20 years, but you’d think me sentimental. It is true though, that one day you will look back on these days and see that the small things really were the big things. Every day, we make memories that will last our lifetime. Choose them well, and try your best everyday.

Remember that I told you, “this too, shall pass”. Well, in a manner of speaking. Sometimes we go through things that hurt so badly we feel as if our heart will beat right out of our chest and we wouldn’t care that it did. Maybe the pain would be less, and we surely wouldn’t mind that! I know, because Lord knows I’ve been there more than once. And at that particular time in space, I felt like I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever feel better. That nothing would change, and I would carry that heartbreak or pain or disgust or sense of loss for the rest of my life, like a heavy coat I just couldn’t shrug off. But…it WILL pass and better days WILL come. They always do. And for every one that passes, it will begin to take root and the understanding will come. You’ll learn to lean on God a little more, because He is the only One that can give you peace that passes all understanding. And it truly is past ALL understanding. During the times in my life when I felt like dying would be the best thing, God was always there to lift me out of that muck and mire and cause my soul to be still. I can’t tell you the how or the why, that’s just the way it happened. It’s my prayer that you will let Him do that for you too.

And remember…if you don’t remember another thing I ever said…that you shouldn’t “wait” to pray. There’s no reason to put it off, no time better than now, whenever now happens to be. “Now” is always with you, if you really think about it. “Now” is all you have. Thirty seconds ago is gone and you’ll never get that back, and thirty seconds in the future will always be the future. Oh, it will come, but when it does, it will be your “now”. Again, you can find in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 6:2, that says… (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, …behold,now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) I’m sure you’ve always heard it said that there’s no time like the present. Well, really there isn’t, because it’s all we have. And so, live in it, but pray. Trust Him, because He loves you even more than I do…

There are probably a million other things I could add to this, but I suppose I’ll leave off here. Maybe I’ll update this post someday, with extra things that come to mind. But until then, think on these things. They may not be the smartest things that have ever been said but they’re true, and they’ve been tested. If nothing else, learn from someone who has been there and done that.

And never be afraid to be the best YOU that you know how to be. It’s who you are. It’s what you were meant to be. And I love you.

Storm Season, Power Outages and How To Handle Them

It’s been raining cats and dogs around here for the past couple of days, with severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, high winds, and all that good stuff. I’ve been telling the children to make sure they know where their flashlights are and be ready to use candles because storm season is here. And that means the very real possibility of power outages. We’ve actually weathered some pretty tough ones so far this year with no problems, but we just sat through about 3 hours with no power tonight.

Luckily, we were ready!

As soon as the electric flickered off, it immediately tried to come back on, but wound up just fading away. And that brought some things back to remembrance from about ten years ago…

We’d had a doozie of a winter ice storm and power was flickering. When it finally went out, we were without it for eleven days! Talk about getting creative with cooking and keeping the kids from getting bored! I think we pulled out every board game we had. Thank God we had a pretty good sized grilled so we were able to cook and heat water. We lost quite a bit of food though. From that, I’ve learned not to keep quite so much stockpiled in the freezer during storm season. I keep a lot of canned meats and such in the pantry for just such occasions.

Anyway, when they finally did start getting the electric back on in certain places, it would be on for a short time and then go right back out. This went on for well over a day, but into the second day, the electric company started sending out one simple message, over and over again, asking everyone to pass it along. They wanted everyone in their service area to make sure that everything in their home was turned off. Apparently, when the electric had gone off, everyone had just left light switches on, televisions and appliances, furnaces, etc., etc.

We who have never worked with electricity before had no idea what the big deal was and needed further explanation. Come to find out, when they attempt to turn the power back on, there is a huge surge created as everything in all the homes all over their service area try to come back on all at once. It was blowing transformers and not only causing our wait time to practically double, but it was putting the linemen at great risk as well.

So, sitting here in the dark tonight, waiting for the electricity to come back to us, we went all over the house making sure things were turned off. When it came back on, then we turned on what we needed to, and just left the rest off, but it got me to thinking, it just might be a good idea to share a few pointers, just to sum things up…

• As soon as you hear that bad weather is coming into your area, make sure you have your flashlights and/or candles close at hand. The last thing you want to have to do is go stumbling around your very dark house trying to find them. Oh, and don’t make the mistake I did – if you stock up on candles, make sure you have a few candle holders  as well. There’s also nothing quite like trying to get a tapered candle to stand up in something it was never meant to stand up in!
• If you lose power, wait just a moment to see if it’s going to come right back on. If it does, great…then there’s nothing to worry about. For now. If it does stay off, go from room to room turning off everything you can. Leave at least one central light on, of course, for getting around when the power comes back on. Turn off coffee pots, televisions, radios, computers, and lamps. Turn off your air conditioning or furnace; believe me, it’s not going to matter until you have power again anyway.
• A special notice about COMPUTERS, LAPTOPS THAT ARE PLUGGED IN AND GAME SYSTEMS WITH HARD DRIVES AND INTERNET CONNECTIONS: if you don’t unplug these before the power comes back on, there is a very real chance they could be permanently damaged or fried all together. They should be plugged into a surge protector anyway, but sometimes even that doesn’t help.
• If you are going to call in and report your outage, remember that if it is a widespread outage, you aren’t going to be the only one calling. Emotions run high at this time, but try not to lose your patience. These linemen don’t want to be out there in the weather anymore than you want to be at home without power, so they are doing their level best to take care of the situation. Also, if possible, use a mobile phone instead of a land line to make the report. Lightening can carry through the line on rare occasions, resulting in serious injuries.

I hope you don’t have to be without power at all, but if you do wind up in that situation, I hope this might help just a bit. If you have any other tidbits of info on this subject that I failed to mentioned, please, post them in the comments below. We can all benefit from “been there, done that” knowledge, which is all this is.

As always, thanks for stopping by, have a blessed day, and don’t forget to smile!

See ya soon!

It’s Never Too Late…

May I just say, it’s never too late?  Speaking from experience, it’s never too late.  There are lots and lots of things in life that can smack you right in the face, and some of them may even make you think there’ll be nothing afterwards, so why go on?  There have been times my heart has hurt so badly in my chest that I was sure I would simply die.  There truly IS such a thing as “heartache” and when your heart aches, my how it can twist your thoughts.  It can make you believe there’s nothing left to live for.  If there’s more pain like this ahead of me, you might think to yourself, what on earth would I want to continue going through it?  Why, why, WHY would I want to go on?

Why?  Because it’s never to late.

You may be a prisoner in a loveless marriage, or you might be a prisoner to drugs or alcohol, or something else that has you in a complete stupor.  I know what that’s like too.  It can make you do things and say things and be a kind of person you only thought you’d only ever hear about, but never be.  It can make you doubt your sanity, and make you doubt there could ever be any good left in you.  And it can make you think they’d be better off without you.  But you can’t give up!

Why?  Because it’s never too late.

You may have lost the one person in your life that meant more to you than any other person or anything else.  You may have watched a loved one breathe their last breath, and at the same time, taking a piece of your heart as they passed on into eternity.  I know that feeling too, I do.  You may have no one else, no friend or family member to turn to, but still, you can’t give up.

Why? Because it’s NEVER TOO LATE!

I know, because I’ve been there.  I’m not going to delve into all of it at this time, because it doesn’t feel like the right time.  But maybe it is THE time, that you need to hear, friend IT’S NEVER TOO LATE!

Listen to this… it’s a song that has gotten me through some pretty rough times.  After all…

And let me say before I go… if you are in a place where you just don’t think you can take another step or another breath, and you don’t feel like you have any tears left to cry, PLEASE, talk to someone.  People care, they really do, and I pray right now, that if you’re reading this and you’re in that place, that God will cause someone to cross your path to be just that person.  You don’t have to tell them your life’s history, but sometimes just bouncing thoughts off someone else helps to clear your mind, helps give you a place to send those thoughts that are battering away at you day and night.  It helps.  And don’t forget…

It’s never too late…

How To Make Biscuits Just Like Mom’s!

Step 1: Follow the recipe to a “T”, the way she told you, showed you how and wrote it down for you (at least half a million times, I swear!).

Step 2: Try your hardest to make sure to do everything the same way she did.

Step 3: FAIL!!

HAHA!  This is how my every attempt at making my mother’s perfect, light, fluffy, mouth-watering biscuits has always turned out. Of course, they don’t teach you this stuff in school!  Home-Ec never saw anything like my mother, coming or going, OR her biscuit making abilities.

I watched her all of my growing up years.  I saw how she did it, morning after morning.  I thought I was taking mental notes of her technique and I just knew I could do it.  Let’s see now, how did she describe it…?

Okay, so you take out your big old vintage McCoy bowl that Dad bought at a flea market in Knoxville…no, wait, I don’t have one of those.  Oh well, any old glass bowl will do, right? It’s not as big as the McCoy, but that’s okay. Check!  Now, fill it about half full of flour, then make a “well” in the middle, shoving all the flour up on the sides of the bowl, but don’t – under any circumstances – go all the way to the bottom of the bowl.  Leave some flour on the bottom too, so that when you put in your wet ingredients it doesn’t stick to the bowl.  Check! (This isn’t so hard, I got this!)  Now drop in some lard…

At this point I’d like to interject that I don’t believe I ever saw my mother with a measuring cup or measuring spoon in her hand.  That’s not to say she didn’t have them.  I think I remember some yellow ones that use to hang above the sink in our kitchen. On a nail. Out of reach. Dusty.

Get my drift?

Now where was I? Oh yeah, the lard. Drop some of that in.  Was it two spoonfuls or two cups? (Just picture me, if you will, standing over my own glass bowl, flour everywhere from trying to make it look like it did in Mom’s bowl, with my head cocked trying to see far enough back in my memory to that lowly lump of lard…)

Oh, sweet Jesus, a good fistful should work!!  Check!  Now how in the name of all that is sacred did she even get the milk out with that lard on her hands?? She did use two hands for the lard, right? I mean, you have to use one hand to grab that fistful, and the other hand to scrape it off of the hand that grabbed it in the first place…

Well, now it occurs to me as I’m washing my hands for the sixty-fourth time,  that maybe that was the dough she was getting off her hands after the mixing.

Have I messed up already?  Oh surely not…

Okay, back with clean hands, putting in the milk.  Oh no, how much of THAT did she use?!  Okay, be calm, just pour til you think it’s enough (I tell myself).  There.  Check!

Alright, now if memory serves me correctly, she said NOT to squeeze or dig your fingers down into the flour.  She said to just squish the lard and milk together and once that’s mixed, you take your fingers and just swirl it around and around and the wet mixture would start to collect flour off the sides of the bowl, and as you just tossed that around, eventually your dough would come together…

And hers did.

Every time.

Flawless and without fail or mess, my mother’s biscuits would just appear.  Once her dough “came together”, she would pat on it for a moment and then begin “choking off” the biscuits.

She laid each one either in a cast iron skillet or a baking sheet and put them all nice and close together.  As if she hadn’t already put magicians to shame with her ninja-bread-making skills, she bent her first two fingers and made knuckle imprints in the tops of every one of them. (Please, Lord, don’t ask, I have no idea).

And then, a few minutes later, out came the sheer perfection…

I know, right? Perfect. I never knew her to burn a batch or make a batch that didn’t get completely devoured.

What happened to mine, you ask?

Oh, haha, well, right after the whole lard and milk thing, I did try to “bring it all together”.  I’ve lost a lot of bowls that way, come to think of it.  Anyway, have you ever seen ‘Edward Scissor Hands’?  Well, you could just as well have called me ‘Stacey Dough Ball Hands’ because at about this point in my own feeble attempt to make those biscuits her way, I would inadvertently wind up standing there, dough covering both hands (none left in the bowl now) screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to “please turn the water on!!”

Annnd, out come the whop biscuits. You know, the ones in the can you have to whop on the side of the counter to bust open?  Yeah.

Hey, step 3 was “FAIL”. Might as well fail all the way.

Ahem, now I can’t exactly close here without saying that I CAN, in fact, make biscuits from scratch.  They are good and tall and fluffy and my family absolutely loves them and my heart gets all warm and fuzzy…  I found the recipe on the side of a baking powder tin and I even use measuring cups and spoons, the whole nine yards.

I can’t help but feel like I’m cheating though, especially when I take the whole lump of dough and plop it in my cast iron skillet and cut it with a knife while it’s still uncooked.  I even learned (the hard way) to brush melted butter on top before doing that, so it doesn’t make a huge mess, use up the last of my patience, and get thrown in the trash. Again.  Anyway, cutting the dough before baking means we can just tear them apart when they come out.

Ah, my nice square “not Mom’s” biscuits.  Not Mom’s, but not bad, so I guess it’s not a complete loss.

I’ll share my own recipe, with pics, a little later.  In the mean time, I’d like to thank my mom for sending me the picture of her biscuits.

I love you Mom!