Author Archives: By Quiet Waters

Easy Steps to Prepare Healthy Soup for Your Dogs

31 Saturday Jan 2026

Posted by in Garden and Home, Recipes, Soups

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My pups, Luna and Pippen bring so much joy to my life. They are each rescues, and rescues really do make the best pets. My life has been made so much richer with these two around. But, Luna is getting up there in years and was really beginning to slow down. Pain seemed to be a growing concern, which is common with older dogs, especially German Shepherds. When she stopped jumping into the truck I was so sad and concerned. That’s when an idea that had been on my mind took shape.

About that time we started making soup for the dogs. It’s been about a year and the difference in Luna is remarkable. I first noticed the change out with the chickens. I had just closed them up for the night and turned around. Luna had been milling around because she loves to boop the chickens. But as I turned around, Luna looked at me and started doing little playful jumps! I was overjoyed. To see her invite me to play with her, instead of slowly, gingerly walking back to the house was amazing.

I know the poultry broth in the soup is doing so much more than the supplements I had been giving her.

So here is what I do.

I buy turkeys or chickens. Once the bird is rinsed in the sink I either roast in the oven or put in the crockpot.

Then when fully cooked, the bird is deboned, and the meat is stored in the fridge until assembly day. The bones go in the crock pot or a stock pot for 12 hours.

poultry broth in large mason jars

While the meat is cooking and the broth is brewing, it’s time to chop the sweet potatoes and other veggies. I like to add green beans or broccoli, carrots, celery, lentils and rice to the soup.

On assembly day the 1/2 gallon ziplock bags are filled.

1 C chopped or shredded sweet potatoes

1/2 C shredded carrots

A few florets of broccoli, with stems finely chopped, or green beans

1/4 C chopped celery

1 T dry lentils

2 T rice

1 C chopped meat

Then, 2 C of broth are added to the bag. Gently squeeze out the air and arranged into trays that fit in the freezer. Freeze.

Sustained

14 Wednesday Jan 2026

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As I continue to process by writing, I’m finding the breadcrumbs I left on this blog years ago.  Just about 18 months ago, I was in a terrible place.  My mental health was at an all-time low while people I love dearly when the telling of horrific things came to me.  I don’t like to use the word “triggered”, as it seems to be overused these days, but that is the word my therapist used.  While I was working with my therapist, I was diagnosed with PTSD.  I really had a hard time with that diagnosis, as my father, a Vietnam War Veteran had PTSD. 

I’ve never been to war.

But now I know. 

I grew up with someone who went war, and didn’t get his PTSD diagnosis until the 80s.  I also grew up with long-term abuse and neglect.

So after a little while I pressed for EMDR.  The therapy was good, but not enough.  I was tired of living the way that I was.  I wanted something more.

And EMDR changed my life.  Maybe saved my life, because I just couldn’t go on the way that I was.

Life is wonderfully different.  There are still had unresolved things going on.  And I am healing, growing and learning who I am beyond unresolved trauma.

And something I can see so clearly that I mentioned in this previous blog post, I have been sustained. Adonai has always been with me and has tended me through the years.

And this is true for you. No matter what you have been through, what you have endured, He has been with you. He has good for you. And maybe it is time for you to reach out and receive help that can bring you to someplace wonderfully different.

A Few Favorite Things, Dec 2025

07 Sunday Dec 2025

Posted by in Favorite Things, Gratitude, Joy

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Last week I made it to the post office to pick up a package that had been waiting for me. I was really excited about the items in the box, but just hadn’t been able to make it over, due to working in the very opposite direction. It’s also tricky to get mail picked up as our post offices lock up entirely when they closed. No picking up your mail on Sunday or in the evening!

Anyway, I did get it picked up and my FAVORITE lip balms are back in my pocket and bag and truck and sewing table drawers. Did I mention these lip-balms are my favorite?? I love them so much, and talk about them a lot, so I became an affiliate with MadeOn.

MadeOn Skin Care has many good products that my family has used over the years. But as time has passed and the kids grew up and found their own favorite skin care products, I spent the last couple of years using up all the lip balms. It is pretty crazy how many of these I had stashed, until I didn’t anymore. But now I’m back in stock and so glad.

Another item to arrive this week are one of my favorites to put in stockings. Skout Snack Bars and Skout Cookies. And I don’t just put them in the grandkids stockings. They go into MY KIDS stockings 🙂 I love that they are yummy and have good ingredients AND they are vegan! (I have a daughter and son in law who are vegan and it is so fun when I find something like this!)

I’m not an affiliate with Skout but maybe someday. I do love them!!

One last favorite thing I want to share with you. For several months I’ve been squeezing a lemon into my water bottle every day. The lemon flavor keeps me drinking water (I actually don’t like water) and now that we are in the winter months, I am noticing that I feel healthier, lighter. The flavored water doesn’t just hydrate, it gives a good dose of Vitamin C too!!! If you try this out, let me know!

So there are my current favorite things. Do you have a couple favorites, especially that you put into stockings? Please share in the comments. We all can use some fresh ideas!

It Won’t Always Be This Way

16 Sunday Nov 2025

Posted by in One Life, Truth

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“It won’t always be this way” This is a phrase that has held me up during a difficult season, and it is true. Now I’m at a life change that I didn’t expect, and I’m reminded once again, no matter the season, it won’t always be this way. The river of life keeps rolling and the scenery changes are continual. Maybe you’ve never heard this phrase, but I imagine that you know the truth of it as well.

A month ago I went back to work, outside the home. It is good and fine, but boy howdy, it’s taking me a minute to find a routine and get things done! That said, I am finding pockets of time to get CBQ orders out quickly and hopefully will get back to longarm work this week. I’ve missed that work for sure.

During all this CBQ’s biggest vendor event happened November 8th in Castle Rock. It was fantastic! My friend Susan has been encouraging me for a few years to get a booth at the event, and last year I did. But Colorado Front Range got a lovely deep snow and the Castle Rock Senior Center Craft Fair was cancelled. Along with nearly everything else that weekend. So we had fine weather this year and the event was on. It was fabulous and I plan to participate in years to come.

So this is a behind the scenes of life and also Colorado Beauty Quilts. Here’s to it won’t always be this way, and life can be beautifully different!

Strategy and Post Traumatic Growth

12 Thursday Jun 2025

Posted by in Life Long Learner, One Life

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Last week I experienced a very low week. It felt as though depression was flooding in, but as I did some reflection, I found not depression, but loneliness and restlessness. It did not make sense.

Why the loneliness? Why the restlessness?

Next, I am a part of a business coaching cohort, called Strategy, hosted by Leslie Burris. And this group, and the coaching by Leslie, is so very good. I’m being able to put in place many of the ideas and suggestions presented for my quilting business. But I’m also feeling like outside of the quilting business I just don’t know if I have anything to offer. Everyone in the cohort seems so very far ahead of me.

This was really troubling me and I brought it up in therapy. I am so thankful that while I have completed the EMDR treatment, I’m still meeting with the therapist a couple times a month. After I shared what I was feeling and experiencing the therapist told me that I am now experiencing Post Traumatic Growth. Goodness, there is even a “trauma” name for what comes next, insert nervous laugh.

So here I am, celebrating in a strange way that I felt another emotion, loneliness. That I was able to do self-reflection and identify the feelings and communicate about them with my therapist. As someone who didn’t really feel for a very long time, this is good progress. And it is an indicator of the opportunity to press in and grow further out of trauma. So here I go, forward.

I’m sharing my journey here, partly as a way of journaling because I tend to not journal about what I am really experiencing. And also, because, most of us are like the rest of us. And what I am experiencing after trauma, maybe someone else is too.

Panto of the Month Promotion over at Colorado Beauty Quilts!

05 Thursday Jun 2025

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We are excited to announce the Panto of the Month promotion that will happen every month at Colorado Beauty Quilts!!

This is my longarm quilting business and I’d love to quilt for you! Check out the site!

Bumps in the Road

20 Tuesday May 2025

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Hello again! It’s a sunny spring afternoon and I’m trying to sort out my thoughts and write something meaningful, helpful.

A little while back I wrote about the healing I’ve experienced through EMDR treatment. It really has been remarkable, how much freedom I’m experiencing.

Last weekend I fell into some old ways of thinking. And while I did try to communicate, I ended up miscommunicating, and things went sideways. I’m pretty sure my insecurity and mind mess ended up triggering my husband. Healing and forward progress into healthier relationships can still have bumps in the road. This is a hard reality.

Thankfully, as I prayed, and thought it through, that is where I landed. This was a bump in the road. It’s a little frightening at times when some of the old patterns of thinking show up, but I’m so very thankful that I have tools and practice to interrupt them.

The tools that I have are varied. I do continue in therapy, but I have employed some other things to help me grow and thrive. One of those things is a course on Udemy. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Practitioner Training. I’m not taking this course for certification as a practitioner, but to increase in my ability to have a healed mind and healthy relationships. I’ve been so encouraged as I go through the course that it builds on and reinforces what I’m doing in therapy. I’ve linked the course above if you want to check it out.

If you ever want to chat about mental health or EMDR, message me. I’m happy to listen.

The Women by Kristen Hannah

08 Thursday May 2025

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The Women by Kristin Hannah is the most recent book I’ve read/listened to. I’m an audible book reader for the most part and use Libby.

This book caught me by surprise, as somehow I did not know what it was about. Looking at the cover now, I realize that the image was small on the app and I just didn’t notice the trees and helicopter.

This was a “can’t put it down” type of book for me. As the daughter of a disabled Vietnam Veteran, this story filled in so many of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding of what my father went through. He shared very little and avoided any questions.

But the story is about the Women of the Vietnam War. The layers of injustice and trauma ran so deep, for men and for women. But for the women to come home to all the turmoil and hatred this country held for the veterans, and to be rejected by the VA and the male veterans. The women’s trauma dismissed because they didn’t “face combat”. Like a combat nurse didn’t face combat. I wish I could say this is unbelievable. But I do believe it.

I am thankful to have a fuller understanding of that war and the people who answered the call to serve our country, even while I am grieved over the same.

Have you read this book? Would you share your thoughts?

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

25 Friday Apr 2025

Posted by in Gratitude, One Life, Truth

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There is something I’d like to share with you today.  You may know me as a quilter, or a writer, or not really know who I am anyway. But this story begins with quilting, and then continues on in hope.

Quilting is my job, my hobby and it has been the “place” I go to cope, to hide, to SURVIVE. And that is what one of my daughters said to me in this past year. The process of taking a collection of fabric and cutting it into pieces, then moving the pieces around and sewing them back together is methodical and creative. It is a process I can pour my focus into, and other things grow dim for a little while. I didn’t even realize how in this thing I love to do, I was hiding, numbing the pain.

BUT a change has been happening, healing is happening. And recently I was able to see it. A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to go on my first solo trip in over 2 years, my husband asked me a question.  It’s a question that he has asked me many times, and sometimes I’ve been a little annoyed by it. The answer has always been “no.”

Builder asked me if I was excited about my upcoming trip and I realized in that moment, that YES!  I was excited!  I was feeling an emotion that was not numb, or fear or anxiety.  I was excited. I WAS EXCITED!

For the past 18 months I’ve been in therapy.  And for about 8 months I’ve been receiving EMDR treatment for chronic PTSD.  I am beginning to understand myself so much better than ever before.  It appears that I have lived in flight/fight/freeze or survival mode for most of my life. I now recognize how much of my life has been lived in that way.  How much of my life has been lost to hiding, withdrawing, disassociating.

I’m learning though, while it is okay to allow myself to experience some grief over these things, I can now look forward.  All the thoughts that come to my mind like “it’s too late”, “you are too old”; I can tell those NATs (negative automatic thoughts) to shut up, and be thankful for right now.  All those things lie behind, and I have today to continue to learn how to heal, to walk in wholeness, and to encourage someone else to begin. I cannot really express how good it is to be in this place. I am so very thankful.

Life can be brutal.  People can be brutal.  AND healing and goodness can be experienced.  

I share this today for you. The one who may feel like it’s too late. You may feel like it doesn’t matter.

You might be dealing with shame, thinking you should be over “that” by now.

If you have breath, it’s not too late. It’s right on time.

Some things, we need help to get over. It really is acceptable to need a little help.

It’s doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to stay this way.

Life can be wonderfully different.

SO

Make an appointment.  Ask for help.

Gather all your courage and go to the appointment.

It will take time, but it will not take forever.

Healing can come, and life can be wonderfully different.

This is my hope for you, may the day be not far off, that you will experience the moment where you realize that you are living beyond the pain, and find hope, goodness and joy.

The Chicks Are 4 Weeks Old!

16 Wednesday Apr 2025

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Well, the past month has just flown by.

The first week after the chicks arrived was very difficult. Chicks kept dying, some in my hands. Several people reached out to me, on Instagram, but I had every box checked, warmth, food, water, safety. Finally on day 8 I called the hatchery and told the person answering the phone, “I’m not getting off this call until someone can help me figure out what is happening, half my flock has died.” That got attention and I was able to talk to someone in depth about what was happening.

It is now believed that my chicks got too cold during shipping. That the box was left on a loading dock or in a truck. Finally, it made sense. There were six unalive chicks upon arrival and by 8 days I had lost half the flock. The nagging thoughts that I was doing something terribly wrong dissipated, and grief set in.

The surviving birds are doing fantastic. We moved them from the house to the coop last week, and they’ve settled right in. This week I’ve been opening the door to the run, but so far none of them have ventured out. I’ll be out there working on the run roof today and tomorrow so maybe they will join me.

Introducing “Robin” aka Robinson Crusoe
This little one reminds me of the chickadees that used to nest in our Pinon tree.
So her name is “Chickadee”

I also posted an update on Instagram, and am sharing it here.

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That’s all for now. I hope you have a great day!!