Lesson Learned: Read the Directions!

On Sunday's recap, you saw my Pinterest-inspired project. Yesterday I explained the reason I made it.

Today I bring you a little piece called Why it is imperative to actually read the directions before doing a project. Please enjoy.

1. This was my inspiration piece as found on Pinterest.

Source: virginiaandcharlie.blogspot.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

2. The note on the pin when I pinned it said, Elmer's Glue on canvas. Then paint the whole thing one color. So....I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a canvas and a bottle of Elmer's glue (because it's true...I don't own a bottle of glue). I had leftover spray paint from the snowman wreath project earlier this year, so I pulled that out of the closet. Given that I had a gift card to Hobby Lobby, I spent a grand total of $0.00 on this project.
3. The inspiration piece has the nice tiny lines, but I wanted a chunkier look to mine, so I found a font I liked and printed it out in something like size 250, which took several sheets of paper...4. Then I had to figure out how to get the letters onto the canvas. So...I put the paper on the canvas to see about where to center the letters... 5. And then I folded the paper over the canvas to get a "line" on my paper so I would make sure I had all the letters lined up as evenly as possible. 6. Then I turned the paper over and scribbled over the letters with a pencil (fun for when you're feeling aggravated).... 7. Then I turned the paper BACK over, arranged it where I wanted it, and traced the letters with the pencil... 8. Tracing over the paper with the lead scribbling on the back left the outline on the canvas. 9. It's hard to see on here...but I got the entire word on the canvas... 10. Then I picked up my bottle of glue and got to work. Problem...it didn't make a very fine line...so I filled in the letters fully. Decided I liked it. Put it on the buffet to dry (aka kept it away from curious whiskers of four legged inhabitants of this house)... 11. Checked on it later...the glue was totally spreading. Started to panic and then decided not to. (Too much energy expended.) Decided to look at it as impressionistic art. Went to bed. 12. Checked on it the next morning...the glue had entirely disappeared INTO the canvas. 13. It was raised on the back side. Woops. 14. Went back to the pin, clicked over to the original source blog link and discovered the look was actually made with PUFFY PAINT, not glue. Went back to Hobby Lobby and (after asking for directions) found the puffy paint. 15. Redid the outline in puffy paint. Also learned, while reading, that the original artist painted her design onto wax paper, peeled it off and glued it on the canvas...that would have helped for when I messed up! Doing this directly on the canvas meant I was forced to work with whatever I had.

NEVERTHELESS... (get it?? nevertheless??) I loved this project and would make another canvas (using the easier method to start with) for my house! Bottom line - don't make a project based off the picture alone. Read the directions!

Nevertheless

If you saw the recap yesterday, you saw that my Pinterest-inspired project was a little DIY canvas art that I used to display the word Nevertheless.

Odd.

So I thought I'd explain.

Earlier this year, on Mid-Morning, we interviewed Angie Smith about her book What Women Fear. (Fantastic book on fear if you happen to struggle with it...even if you're not a woman.) I love Angie, I love her book(s), and helping to interview her goes right up there on my list of "is this really my life?" moments.

I underlined a LOT while reading her book, but this one particular part struck me. She wrote about Jonah and how God repeatedly provided for him even in the middle of his rebellion:

"He knew Jonah's heart, so He did something drastic, something epic, something that to the naked eye, looks like a tragedy, and He used it for His glory.

"The words of Jonah are profound in their earnest simpicity:

"So I said, 'I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple.' (Jonah 2:4, NASB)

"I want to live the 'nevertheless' life, don't you?

"Many times in my life I have seen an obstacle as the enemy, but looking back now I see it was an appointed mercy." (P. 143 What Women Fear)

I. Loved. That.

Imagine being Jonah and seeing that fish coming straight for you. Imagine opening your eyes (because face it, you slammed them shut when the fish headed your way, jaw dropped) and finding yourself floating in its belly. Would your first thought be Nevertheless, I will look again toward God's temple?

Doubtful!

God specializes in impossibilities, and He also takes the unlikeliest of circumstances and turns them around into our greatest lessons...and His greatest victories.

There were days, in the desert, when I thought I would physically die from the pain of it all. There were days I HOPED to die from the pain of it all. But my favorite days were the ones when I clenched my fists, gritted my teeth and said, "I choose to believe that You will be glorified in this."

A shorter way to say that?

Nevertheless.

My life aches until I think it can ache no more....nevertheless...

Since I'm a visual girl, I wanted something tangible in my presence every day that reminded me I want to live the nevertheless life. So when I saw the canvas idea on Pinterest, I decided to adapt it to reflect the word Nevertheless. I hung it up at the entrance to the kitchen, because you know I frequent THAT room, so each day I can be reminded that regardless of what I see coming toward me...swallowing me up...engulfing me...trapping me...nevertheless...

It's the Weekly Recap!

* Last Sunday I had lunch with my parents after church. And I took pictures of these very pretty flowers - which Dad bought for Mom.
When I got home, I found the movie Dante's Peak was on TV...haven't seen that for years, so I curled up in the fat chair to watch it/nap and when I got up, I went on a cooking spree! I made the entire VAT of chicken tortilla soup you saw a couple of days ago and a batch of quick bread. My dishwasher got a WORKOUT.

* Monday was of course, President's Day, and in honor of that...I worked. I've never had a job that had this (and various similar holidays) off work, so I attend and mourn the lack of mail delivery. :) But I'm telling you what...this was NOT the day to miss work in the land of radio. Check out what showed up in our break room! (And NO, the missing pieces were not mine.)
* Tuesday evening, I went over to visit my friend Ronda and to take her some get-better-soon food. Hard to believe this time last year we were just about to take off for our Florida vacation!! Ahhh Florida...how I miss thee. :) Also on Tuesday, I got my nails done for the first time in two months! I have SO MISSED my nail lady! She spent almost two months visiting her kids and I learned I truly am incapable of taking care of my own nails. Ick! So now she's back and I am all fixed. (It's black with sparkles....they didn't show up too well in the picture.)
* Wednesday was the first day of Lent, and I was excited to survive day one of being dessertless. (MAMA.) Thankfully I didn't give up SUGAR and a little caramel latte on my trip home kept me from falling over completely. I had a GREAT surprise that evening when Angel from my old office came by my house to see me. I hadn't seen her since last fall and I've missed laughing with her. (She has THE best laugh in the world.)

* Thursday, Lynne and I took the afternoon to cook for Friday's show...and to catch up on other random work details. Here is one of our dishes. (No, I didn't cheat on Lent in the name of work to try it.)Can I just say one more time how much I adore spending time with Lynne? Hours just fly by...she's so much fun. I may or may not have stopped by the Hobby Lobby (again) on my way home.

* Friday evening I actually had plans! I was so excited! After work, I went to see my friends the Crandalls...and Julie and I went to see Jonathan (as in her husband) in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace. I'd never seen (or even known anything about) the play before, but it was FUNNY! Jonathan did a great job!
While we were at the play, slick roads descended upon Indiana, so it was a little bit of a wheel-gripper drive home. I was just glad that I was not ON I-69...when I drove under it, the traffic was at a standstill. Jackknifed semi.


* Saturday morning, I got a text at 7:30 telling me the sunrise was pretty. My first thought was "Did I oversleep on a work day?" LOL! I couldn't figure out why anyone would text me about a Saturday sunrise! But I got up and checked it out - and indeed: GORGEOUS!! And then I went back to bed. My friend Kristin stopped by to see me for a little bit, too, and I loved that. I also loved the way she asked if it would be okay to stop by. She texted me on Friday and said "I thought about stopping by around lunch time on Saturday...will you be up?" LOL!!! Does this girl know me or what!?! (I was up...just not out of my jammies yet.)

One Thousand Gifts: Do you know how hard it is to pick just one gift every week? Here's one I chose at random. I did a new workout this week and it um...nearly killed me. I awakened the second morning to muscles that said ATTENTION: PLEASE DO NOT MOVE. WE NO LONGER LOVE YOU. :) But even so, I was grateful to have muscles that do move...I know people who can't move and wish they could. So even though my body hated me for a bit, it was a gift to have the strength to do that crazy workout.

Organization Confessions: Confession...I have not organized one thing this entire month! I think this plan may not be working. (You think?)

Pinterest Inspired Project: You will be seeing more of this project over the next couple of days, but here is the Pinterest version:

Source: virginiaandcharlie.blogspot.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

And here is my version:
Stay tuned for more on this one!

Leaping into Lent

I'm not sure why Lent seems to sneak up on me like it does.

Two years ago I was driving to church on Ash Wednesday when God whispered that I needed to turn off the music and leave it off until Easter. I thought silent drives would kill me, but I learned to cherish that prayer time...and I had NO CLUE how much I'd need it, because I didn't know a desert lurked around the corner.

Last year I was in Florida riding to the beach when Marie texted me to ask if I was giving anything up for Lent...because it began the next day. Uhhhh...let me think about that! And that was the day God urged me to embrace the lyrics of FFH's song Undone and work on giving up my tight-fisted control on my life. I had no clue I was about to uproot my whole life and career and change directions.

So you can imagine my consternation this year when He said "You're getting awfully attached to dessert. I think you need to lay off the dessert for a season."

It's true. Dessert and I have long had a love/hate relationship. I love it. It loves me...in all the wrong places. I end up hating myself...and so the cycle goes. I'd done well with limiting my intake...until recently when I found myself cutting down on dinner so I had even more room for dessert. Bad, bad plan.

Do not mistake this...I'm not giving up dessert for Lent so I can lose a few pounds (though I would ever so happily welcome that side effect!). I'm giving up dessert for Lent because I was becoming dependent on it and I need to refocus. I need to remember that my greatest joy is not found in a brownie. My greatest joy is not encased in a warm cookie as it emerges from the oven. (Yes, my mouth is watering just writing about it.) My greatest joy is found in the Lord. And He has given me the willpower, should I choose to use it, to say no to dessert.

(I can see why sacrifice induces prayer.)

I leave you with this quote, which I read on Will Davis Jr.'s website. I thought it summed up Lenten sacrifice pretty well...and this is my own hope: "The Lenten season is a call to release things, to let let go of things and to set aside things that might interfere with our relationship with God so we can know him better. It’s not about setting aside cokes and snacks so we can lose weight. It’s about denying yourself things so you can gain God. And, it’s a great concept.
God is rarely found in the world of surplus...So the Bible calls us to seasons of fasting, prayer and self-denial so we can keep things and God in proper perspective."

Care Packages

I need to begin this blog post by saying these might be my WORST pictures ever. I had grand visions...and then I hurried through it, and if ever you needed proof that "haste makes waste," as my mother used to say, look at the pictures!!

Occasionally, in years gone by, I've been called upon at church to take a meal to a family who just had a baby...or perhaps someone had surgery. I never knew quite what to take, because sometimes I didn't know them all that well and I wasn't sure about their food preferences. And other times I knew they had lots of food coming in, and I wasn't sure if they had room for more!

So this week I took a little care package over to my friend Ronda, and I wanted to show you what I took in case you want to steal the idea. (Or adapt it to your own needs.)

First things first: balloons. Balloons are just cheery, so I picked up a few of those. (And of course, I picked THE windiest night of the week to make my delivery. Good grief.)
Then...the food!

Remember the chicken tortilla soup recipe I shared yesterday? The VAT of chicken tortilla soup? Once it had simmered and cooled, I dipped some into quart size Ziploc bags. (Before the dipping...I wrote on the bags in permanent marker "chicken tortilla soup.") There is enough soup in each bag for one REALLY GOOD sized serving or two small servings.
I stuck the bags on top of each other just like this and tucked them in the freezer so they froze in a flattened state. Little space saving trick I learned from Lynne.

I wanted to take her some quick bread, so I made snickerdoodle bread. We'll talk more about that another time. I like to take quick bread to people because it can easily be frozen if they don't need it right then, and when it is eaten, it works well as dessert or breakfast food. Versatile!

I also dipped some of the soup into a regular serving container so she could eat some of it right away. I sent some mozzarella cheese with it because, of course, soup tastes better with cheese in it!

And right before I went over, I pulled the soup packets out of the freezer and added little individual cheese bags to that, too. She can freeze them together and after everyone goes home and she gets hungry but doesn't feel like cooking...she can defrost and eat!

I also bought a bag of lime chips to go with it - and would you believe I COMPLETELY forgot those at home?? WOOPS!!

So that's my care package menu: chicken tortilla soup, mozzarella cheese, (the forgotten) lime chips, and quick bread! Easily frozen for later or gobbled up right away!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Lynne Ford is many things. Among them - a fantastic cook. Several times, either when I've stayed at her house or when we've shared a whole day together in the office, she's served me a treat of her chicken tortilla soup. SO YUMMY.

My best memory of her soup was the night when I had to make a last minute decision to stay in Fort Wayne because of weather. The roads were SO slick and it took me an hour to get to her house (wayyyyyy longer than it should have). By the time I got there, I was tired, cold, shaking and scared. I put on my jammies, sat on her couch, and she brought me a fuzzy blanket. Then she brought a tray with a giant glass of iced tea, a HUGE bowl of chicken tortilla soup, and a plate of jalapeno flavored tortilla chips. She gave me the remote and told me to relax. Now THAT'S a hostess.

So I asked if she shared her recipe, and she said a hearty absolutely!!!!

The Recipe

2 cans of black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cans of garbanzo beans, drained
2 cans of corn, drained
1 onion (red or yellow), diced
1 rotisserie chicken (or package of chicken breasts/tenderloins)
32 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
2 ginormous (that was Lynne's term - I think she meant 64 ounce) cans of chicken broth
1 packet each of taco seasoning and ranch dip mix

In a VERY LARGE pot or Dutch oven, cook onion until it is translucent (add salt and pepper). Add beans and corn and a little more salt and pepper. Add crushed tomatoes and chicken broth. Dice the chicken and add o the soup. Stir in 2 tablespoons of taco seasoning and ranch dip mix. Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat and simmer with lid half-on for 45 minutes or more. The longer you cook it, the better. If you have fresh parsley on hand, add 2 or 3 Tablespoons of chopped parsley to the pot before you serve it.

I could not ind a 32 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, so I bought the closest I could find, which was 28 ounces. I also had a package of chicken tenderloins in the freezer, so I chose to use those instead of buying a rotisserie chicken. And in a rare Bekah-move, I did buy a real onion rather than using the dried onion like I always do.

If you use fresh chicken, put the raw chicken in a pot of water and boil until cooked through.

While the water boiled and the chicken cooked...I chopped the onion. Many tears later, I was done.

The first time I boiled chicken, it freaked me out when it got all frothy looking on top but it turns out that's normal.

Check the chicken to make sure it is cooked ALL the way through - no pink middles! - and then pull out of the boiling water.

Put the onion in the bottom of the pot...it will look SO little down there! Trust me. You will use the rest of the pot. Keep stirring - don't let it burn!

Cook until the onion is translucent....or if you're Bekah, cook until it looks "soft enough" and proceed to the next step. I have NO patience.

The grossest part of the whole recipe for me was draining and rinsing the black beans. They are awfully syrupy. Kind of freaked me out.

It's really colorful once you add both kinds of beans and the corn to the onion!

Add the crushed tomatoes....more color!

Then add the broth. There might be a little fat on top and you can just skim that off. (Tip: onion will also float to the top and look like fat. It's not. Don't skim it all out. That makes the chopping from the previous step NULL AND VOID.)

Shred/dice the chicken in a bowl.

Add the ranch seasoning....

...and the taco seasoning.

....soup done! Oh it is good. Add a little sour cream and cheese..mmmmmmmm.

This freezes well! Just FYI!!!!!!

Livin' Lists

You've heard of Bucket Lists, right? I've never actually seen the movie The Bucket List which made the things so popular in everyday life, but I've heard of them. Angela had one. She made a good dent in it before she died in December, but she didn't mark off each item. Angela so fully engulfed life, though, that I have a feeling she could have lived to be 120 and never finished her bucket list. She'd have just kept adding to it...

I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago, and we got into a discussion on embracing life. "Don't think; just live" was his advice. (He's not nearly as list-loving as I am...can you tell?) I'm not sure I can scrap thinking entirely, but I did like his philosophy in don't overthink. Skip the tendency to analyze everything to death and just live.

Kari and I talked about it the next day and we discussed whether or not we had bucket lists. (We don't.) Then she told me of a similar list she'd heard of, called a "leap list." It was more focused on things you want to do before you exit the next stage of life. (Before you get married...before you have kids...before your kids are in high school...before your kids graduate from high school...you get the idea, right?) She shared with me some of her leap list thoughts.

Well good gravy, I could be single forever, so I'm not sure about any sort of leaping. SO...I have decided to make mine a livin' list. Things I want to do...in the time frame of "the near future"...to live. To so appreciate the time and energy and abilities and resources God has given me that I want to stop overthinking it and just live.

This is new for me, so it's still a fledgling list. Maybe I'll post more things as I think of them. But for now, here is the start of my Livin' List thoughts:

1. Finish Volumes Two and Three of the Bible study I'm writing. Back in the fall of 2010, Julie Crandall's church (well, the ladies' Bible study) did volume one of this study I'd written. A few weeks ago they asked for volume two. It's not done yet. So I'm working on it and then I want to plow right on to volume three. A longer term goal would be to publish these, but for now I just want to finish writing them so the group can use them! 2. Seven Pillars Photo Shoot. One of my friends' moms is a really good photographer and as I perused her pictures on Facebook one day, I found this photo shoot she'd done with her daughter and the scenery was amazing. She said the pictures were taken at a place called Seven Pillars - which is just a county or two over from where I live. Are you kidding me? This place has been right here the whole time and I've never heard of it? This isn't her picture, but to give you an idea: *picture from wanderingsol.comule.com*
So....my livin' list idea is to pack up the car with my camera and Rachel Ashley (who appreciates these sorts of things as much as I do...) and head that way to do a photo shoot. Furthermore, I would like to go one time each season to get four seasonal pictures of this place and blow them up into ginormous prints to hang in my house and swap out with each season. (Okay, spring buds. Hurry up so I can start!)


3. Take a ride in the Conner Prairie Hot Air Balloon. Believe it or not...when I was five years old, I took a ride in a hot air balloon. Like a for real ride. In an honest-to-goodness non-tethered hot air balloon. That may have been the last time I jumped into adventure before I wised up to the knowledge that adventure can be scary. Lo, these many years later, I'm pondering adventure again.

If you're not from Indiana, you might not know about Conner Prairie. It's about an hour south of me and while I haven't been there since the fourth grade field trip, I remember it as a pretty cool place to visit. And now...they have a hot air balloon:*picture from aroundindy.wordpress.com*


This one is tethered and holds a lot more people (up to 20) than the wicker basket of the one I rode back in the day. But I think it would be so fun to go up in it and check out the view (which of course, translates to taking pictures) and return to earth in a more civilized fashion than skidding across a cornfield. (Yep. That was the landing site last time.)

So there you go. Uno, dos, and tres from my list. What's on your livin' list?

Confessions of the Television Kind

I don't really like to talk about TV on my blog because, my goodness, people are opinionated about TV. So let me begin this post by saying that I'm sure you'll disagree with some of my TV choices, and that's okay. But I'm always curious what other people watch...so here are some of my faves/must-have/can't-stand-but-watch-anyway choices.

* 19 Kids and Counting. I've been watching the Duggars since the days when they were just the occasional TLC special, living in the 3 bedroom ranch house with a dozen (plus) kids. Do I want 19 kids? Not on your life! (Probably mathematically impossible for me now anyway.) But even though such a life would make me ever so tired, I think they do a great job with their kids and I appreciate their firm stand to their convictions, even if I don't agree with all their convictions.

* picture from the Duggar's family site *

* Sister Wives. Okay so maybe I watch this one for the polar opposite reasons! Actually I mostly watch this because Kody looks like David Phelps. SERIOUSLY! Look them up. Could be twins. I don't (of course) agree with the polygamist lifestyle, but the show fascinates the hooey out of me and I can't help but watch.

* picture from TLC site *
* House Hunters. I'm driven by the need to guess which house they'll pick. Not only do I have to pick it, I have to pick why they'll choose it. I love it when I'm right on both counts. And I'm just a house-nosey kind of person so I love peeking into all the homes. I was that way even before I became a house hunter. This show has also taught me what NOT to say as I'm walking through homes, though I'm not being followed by a camera crew, so it really doesn't matter.

* The Voice. Why do I watch that? Blake Shelton, of course! I watched most of it last year just because I liked the concept. This year someone I've actually heard of is auditioning (his audition aired last night) so I'm really excited to see how far he makes it!

*picture from thatgrapejuice.net *
* My Fair Wedding. I love David Tutera and if I ever get married, my secret wish would be for him to be my wedding coordinator. I'm always fascinated at what he can manage to do with the ideas the brides have. (Some of which are good and some are total train wrecks. And yet he makes both turn out amazingly well!)

* picture from cincinnati.com*
* Dharma and Greg. A golden oldie that airs here on the TV Guide channel, so I catch it when I can. I love those two! It's one of the few sitcoms I could watch over and over and over...quoting right alongside them...and never get tired of it.

* picture from sharetv.com *
* Friends. Ditto above. I watch this every single night as I'm falling asleep.

* Picture from friends.wikia.com *
* When I'm NOT going to be falling asleep, I like to catch reruns of Law and Order, SVU (love the team on that one more than the other Law and Order shows)...

* photo from epguides.com *

...or Criminal Minds (which is Greg of Dharma and Greg reincarnated from lawyer to crime-solver). I cannot watch them before I go to sleep or I WILL have nightmares. * photo from epguides.com *
* New shows I like to catch when I can are Price this Place, which is a "game show" on HGTV where people can win money for accurately guessing things they SHOULD know from being a House Hunters addict...and My 600 Pound Life. Fascinating.

I do feel the need to say that other than Friends, I do not just sit and watch any of these shows. I watch while doing other activities. I'm not a couch potato, you know. Though I do like couches. And potatoes.

Do we have any of the same faves?