The Cost of Credit

It may be surprising for you to know how expensive it is to borrow money from a credit card and how long it takes to pay off a credit card balance. There are many good tools for figuring out the true cost of credit. On your search engine, enter “Credit Card Calculator”. Choose a website for calculating your personal credit card debts.

For my example, I used this website: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/MinPayment.asp. According to this calculator, if you owe $1000 on a credit card that charges you 18% interest, and make only the minimum payment each month, you will pay a total of $2115.41 ($1000 principle + $1115.41 interest) and it will take a whopping 153 months (12 years, 9 months) to pay off completely! And that assumes you don’t add any new charges. If you make more than the minimum payment, say $100 a month, you will pay the loan off in 11 months and pay $91.62 in interest. That saves you $1013.79 in interest and 11 years, 10 months in time. The church’s Provident Living site has many other tools to help you manage your finances. Check it out! You can link to it from this blog.

Chocolate Fondue

Serves 4

Ingredients

• Dipping foods
• 1 pint fresh strawberries
• 1 red apple, cored and sliced
• 1 green apple, corred and sliced
• 1 banana
• 1/4 cup jumbo cashews
• 1/4 cup Brazil nuts
• 
  
• Light chocolate sauce
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons Spelnda Granular
• 1/2 cup skim evaporated milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation

For dipping foods
Thoroughly wash and dry strawberries and apples. Cut apples and banana into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Arrange all fruits and nuts on a plate.

For chocolate sauce
Whisk together cocoa, sugar, and Splenda in a medium-sized bowl. Slowly pour in milk to make a paste. Mix together to remove lumps. Transfer to a medium-sized saucepan and bring to a low boil over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Transfer chocolate sauce to fondue pot. Place pot over candle or canned heat burner. Slide fruit pieces onto fondue fork or toothpick and dip into sauce. For nuts, spoon sauce onto a plate and dip nuts in sauce by hand.

The skinny

• 183 calories per serving
• 6.8 g fat (1.8 g saturated)
• 32 g carbs
• 5.4 g fiber
• 5 g protein

Gospel Consistent from the Beginning of Time

"As the restored Church of Jesus Christ blossoms throughout the globe—now with more than 13 million members—'the faith of our fathers' has an expanded meaning. . . . Often when people learn of the restored gospel, they are impressed by it—many even want to join the Church. But they are reluctant to disappoint their ancestors; they feel they should be true to the faith of their fathers. . . ."What, then, is the faith of our fathers? Is it the religion of our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents? "But what of the faith of the ancient ones before them? What of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? . . . of the Savior and those disciples who followed Him? "The faith of our Father in Heaven has been consistent since the beginning of time, even from before the foundation of this world. . . . "We believe in the great plan of happiness, the plan of redemption, the plan of salvation, whereby God's children may experience mortality and return to the presence of the Father—a merciful plan established from before the foundation of this earth. "This is the plan and the faith of our Father!"

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf Second Counselor in the First Presidency "Faith of Our Fathers"

No Knead Bread

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

¼ teaspoon instant yeast

1 ¼ teaspoons salt

cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 3/4 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack. (Watch that last 15-30 minutes -- it's usually done in a shorter time.)

Bread on left let rise 24 hours, Right 8 hours rising time

Lots of fun and YUMMY!

Video:

Instructions for preparing quilts for

Hearts and Hands

These are the three quilt sizes:
baby: 45 x 45
lap: 45 x 60
twin 60 x 85

1. Cut top fabric, bottom fabric, and batting to twin, lap or baby size. The quilt in my example is baby-sized, so both fabrics and batting are cut to 45"x 45".

2. Layer the fabric in this order: bottom layer, face up, top layer, face down. (These two layers ae now right sides together.) Finally, cotton batting goes on top. The corner has been turned down so you can see the order and direction fabric will face.


3. Pin the three layers together, and stitch with cotton side up, making sure you catch all three layers. I used a 1/2" seam to make it easier. Leave a 6"-10" section unsewn so that you can turn the quilt right side out.

4. Trim corners and turn quilt right side out.

5. Sew opening closed by hand or by machine.

6. Your quilt is now "fit to be tied"!

Welcome

Welcome to our Stake Relief Society Blog.
Here are the top 10 reasons why you will like this blog:

10. You will find information about the Stake happenings.

9. A place to connect with other sisters in the Stake.

8. A chance to post about things happening in your ward.

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6. A step into the future.

5. Please leave comments on this blog. You will feel special.

4. A chance to leave a link to your blog and increase it's popularity.

3. Blah, Blah and Blah

2. It is cute and fun to look at.

1. Because I spent time working on, you will enjoy it!