Tracy Ruckman

We're wrapping up the Holiday Recipes Blog Hop today. We hope you've had fun and found a few new recipes to try. If you're just joining us, here's a handy list so you can find them all. Holiday Appetizers – Tracy Ruckman Holiday Beverages – Rachel Hartsfield International Holiday Foods – Peggy Cunningham Holiday Breakfasts & Brunches – Betty Thomason Owens Holiday Main Courses – Sheryl Holmes Holiday Sides / Potluck / Buffets – Tracy Ruckman Holiday Sweets – Rachel Hartsfield Holiday Recipes Master List – Tracy Ruckman I want to thank all my precious friends for participating during this busy time of  year. I loved reading your stories and I'm looking forward to trying all your food! A huge thank you to all our readers, clients, and customers - we do what we do for YOU. We appreciate your support, your encouragement, your purchases of our books, products, and services. All of us are "small business" a...

Hello, again! How are you enjoying the Holiday Recipes Blog Hop? In case you're just tuning in, be sure to drop by Rachel's for some warming and fun  holiday beverages , Peggy's for an international flare , Betty's for breakfast and brunch ideas , Sheryl's for the main course , and I offered some recipes for holiday appetizers , too. Rachel will offer some sweet recipes tomorrow, and I'll round it all up on Saturday, with an extra surprise or two. Today, we're talking side dishes, potluck, and buffet recipes. My tip for all of these recipes is to adjust accordingly for crowd size. All of these recipes can be doubled or tripled for large crowds, and even be scaled down for a small gathering. Variety is the key to a successful buffet - smaller in quantity, more in variety. In our family, it's rare to have a regular sit-down dinner during the holidays. Many of us are awesome cooks, and we all know the hard work involved in preparing a bountiful meal...

Good Morning on this Cyber Monday! Did you survive Thanksgiving and Black Friday and all the college football rivalries? Today, my photo and pattern stories are rather random but fun. The first isn't yet a pattern, although eventually, one of the throw-away photos from this same photo shoot might just become one. We have a Japanese maple tree in our front yard. I love that tree. Every year, I watch it as the seasons change, noting the different colors of its leaves and how it changes so gracefully, yet - just like life - sometimes at lightning speed. A couple of years ago, I took a photo that I eventually turned into a paint-like print. That year, the leaves were large. Available on  Zazzle (also available as a jigsaw puzzle ) This year, however, the leaves were tiny. I wanted a different kind of image, but never could get a good one. The wind took away leaves one by one, until there were only a few left. Most of those were already shriveling up, but I looked at...

Scrolling through Facebook this morning, I realized that other people may be in the same kind of boat I’m currently in, so I decided to write this blog post in hopes of offering a word of encouragement and to let you know you’re not alone. I also wanted to write this blog post to just be real. To let everyone know that although life may be hard at times, the Lord is still on the throne, and our Hope is in HIM, not our present circumstances. I love the holiday season. Love the Reason for the season, love the time of Thanksgiving for all we’re so richly blessed with, love the sparkly lights and the jingly bells. Love the sights, the sounds, the smells (oh, my, the delightful smells of cloves, sage, evergreens, gingerbread, wood-burning fires, fresh snow). But for many years, I’ve let my holiday season be controlled by a dear, precious loved one who suffers from mental illness, but was only recently diagnosed. We hear mental illness tossed around all the time, and we recognize th...