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My blog has moved!

2012-02-06T14:12:00.000-08:00

Please check out my new site if you want to keep following my blog:

http://tracy.houtz.tv

This site will be migrated over there completely soon.

Thrifty Ornaments 2011

2011-12-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

I had lots of holiday crafts and plans that didn't happen this year. I decided to make them crafts to do throughout the year so they will actually be done for Christmas 2012...a book wreath (semi completed), homemade snow globes, and time capsule ornaments! I did find many cute ornaments at thrift stores this year right around Christmas day for 50-75% off making them around 50 cents a piece. I started following the blogs Goodwill Haunting and Living the Goodwill Life and found out you can resell many Hallmark ornaments on Ebay for $12+. Since Ebay started offering 50 free posts a month I may look into some reselling this year.

Value Village had several ornaments bagged together, so I found a few cute ones grouped together like the Winne the Pooh Hallmark ornament above and the Hallmark New Home Ornament below. I am keeping that one in hopes for the 2012 tree. We spent last Christmas in Hawaii, so I snagged a hand painted shell ornament to commemorate that at the St. Paul de Vincent thrift store. I am adding my own hand painted dates and details on some of the ornaments to note their meaning.

I was thrifting with my sister-in-laws at the Share House near Ann Arbor, MI and found this adorable little girl ornament that was screaming Zoraida. It captures the essence of her toddlerhood. A side note, the Share House had these amazing framed butterflies in glass cases that I immediately asked the clerk,"How much are those?" and of course they were sold. She has also been in love with Penguins after watching Happy Feet, so I got her S.S. Iceberg Hallmark Penguin ornament from Value Village.

On a thrifty note, I was going back and forth at a Goodwill in the furniture section deciding whether I should get an Ethiopian inspired table that was very cool but had little current function for my home. The hard working employees in back then brought out two mint condition bookshelves priced at $12 a piece. We are in dire need of bookshelves so that made my decision easy with limited trunk space. This is why I love Goodwill, it is ever changing and sometimes things just fall in your lap.

Essence of Toddlerdom- Share House, MI

S.S. Iceberg Hallmark Penguins- Value Village

Hand painted Hawaii Shell Ornament- St. Paul de Vincent Store

Baby's 1st Christmas- Value Village

Carlton 1994 Caroling Ornament- Heart to Home Thrift Store

Hallmark New Home Ornament- Hoping this has special meaning in 2012!

Too Good to Be True

2011-11-28T21:54:00.000-08:00

Cyber Monday has come to a close. My adrenaline started flowing yesterday around 8 pm when I saw Half Price Books Marketplace would be offering free shipping on everything. I pulled up my Amazon Wishlist and started searching. I was delighted to find many books for 99 cents!

The endless possibilities of books I could get for thrift store prices shipped to my home started flowing...was this really going to work. When the deal went live at 9 pm I had 15 books in my cart and clicked BUY. The deal cleared and I think I uttered to Wyatt I can't believe it and I will probably be up all night searching. Alas the dream was short lived and as I continued to search all the prices that should have been 99 cents were 4.99. (they had added the shipping cost to the book prices making the deal a scam in my opinion)

Wyatt said I should be thankful for getting the 15 books at rock bottom prices. I am giddy thinking about all these books currently in route to my house from around the country, but I can't help but be disappointed about all the ones that got away.

On another book related note, Zoraida and I have gathered all our Christmas books together in baskets for this month. I have amassed quite a few mostly from thrifting. Here is the list:

Messiah: The Wordbook for the Oratorio, George Frideric Handel
A Christmas Testament, Phillip Kopper
The Christmas Day Kitten, James Herriot
The Snow Tree, Caroline Repchuk
Cookie Count: A Tasty Pop-up, Robert Sabuda
Lift the Flap Nativity, Allia Zobel-Nolan
The Newborn King, Cindy Robertson
The Christmas Cross, Max Lucado
Frosty the Snowman, Hallmark book read by grandma
The Polar Express, Chris Van Allsburg
Journey to Bethlehem: the story of the first Christmas, Dorothy Van Woerkom
One Wintry Night, Ruth Bell Graham
Religious Christmas Stories for Children, an Ideals publication
The Carols of Christmas, an Ideals publication
Nativity, Winston Press
A Child's Book of Christmas Carols, Illustrated by Masha
The Kingfisher Book of Classic Christmas Stories, selected by Ian Whybrow
Norman Rockwell's Christmas Book
Usborne Lift-the-flap Nativity

Do you have a favorite Christmas book?

Building a Library

2011-06-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

Its been about three years since we stuffed a van cab with a handful of boxes, dropped them off at curbside checkin and flew to Seattle to find an apartment, buy a car and start new jobs in a few days. Out of those few boxes, 2 were full of books. After 3 years, we have gone from a couple hundred books to 1287. The number is probably 70 higher, but I didn't count each volume of our 1953 Encyclopedia Britannica, Tyndale commentaries, and Calvin commentaries as separate books in the catalog.

Being 30 plus weeks pregnant, I decided it was the perfect time to channel my organizational energy into cataloging our growing library. I kept it pretty simple to start by using Excel to record the title, author, year, awards, and category. Wyatt has grand ambitions to now alphabetize the books in each category.

The majority of our books fell into Christian (537 books) and Childrens (349 books) categories. I plan to further refine these later into subcategories. Our oldest book is an 1879 New Devotional and Explanatory Pictorial Family Bible. Wyatt acquired it for $25 at a Half Price Books using a 50% off coupon. I found an 1884 book titled Historical Records Concerning Jesus the "Christ" Messiah at a Woodinville library book sale. I will pick up anything older than 100 years just to have it as a piece of history. We do buy new books too, the most recent a Father's Day present for Wyatt entitled, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (2011) by Michael Horton.

The most prolific author we have is Dr. Seuss with 27 entries. Wyatt thought it would be one of his favorite theologians, which I guess if you count Calvin's commentaries as separate books he would win with 30 books. Other authors with more than 10 books include Graeme Base, F.F. Bruce, Eric Carle, C.S. Lewis, John Piper, Plato, R.C. Sproul, and B.B. Warfield. We also 32 Bibles, so you could say God is our most prolific author.

We had 41 duplicates, so I may be selling some on Ebay to free up bookshelf space. Having gone through them all, the duplicate buying should decrease since my memory is pretty solid, ha! Right now we have bookcases scattered throughout our home. We have dreams to have a dedicated library someday when we are homeowners.

Thought for the Day: You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis

Avocado Smoothies and Asian Spareribs

2011-06-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

Summer is the perfect time to do some simple cooking with the help of kitchen appliances. I ended with two extra racks of ribs after making oven roasted bbq pork ribs for father's day, so I searched for an easy recipe on Crockpot 365 blog and found this recipe. Since I already had some kalbi sauce in the fridge I substituted it for the sauce she uses. The jalapenos added a really nice amount of heat and the ribs were really tender and delicious!

Wyatt and I were craving bubble tea the other day and reminiscing about the amazing Joy Yee's tea in Chicago's chinatown. I loved riding the El down to Chinatown with some girlfriends on the weekend to get my favorite avocado bubble tea at Penang. It then dawned on me I could make this at home. We actually would make bubble tea at home in Chicago, but I never have made the avocado. I bought bubble tea straws and tapioca pearls at wonderful new Uwajimaya in Bellevue.

Slow Cooked Asian Pork Spareribs

2 racks spareribs
1/2 cup kalbi sauce
2 jalapeno peppers

1. Add all ingredients to slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.
2. Turn ribs over half way through cooking.

Avocado Smoothie

1 ripe avocado
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
3 Tbs Honey
4 ice cubes

1. Scoop out avocado into blender and combine with all ingredients until smooth.
2. Add more or less ice depending on preferred consistency.

Half Price Finds Today

2011-05-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

I am currently cataloging all our books, so I added these to the list today. Today's entries make the total 756 with about one room left to do. A blog with all the statistics will be coming shortly. We happened to be near a Half Price Books today and took a peek. Of course, we both walked out with a few finds.

Tracy's Cart: (All from the Clearance Sections)

Illustrated Robinson Crusoe ($1) - I already have a nice copy of this book, but the illustrations are really well done in a Japanese print-like style by artist Felix Lorioux, so I couldn't resist.
Galapagos: Discovery on Darwin's Island ($2) - I was slightly obsessed with the Galapagos Islands in my teen years and had a really hard time finding books about it back then. Now they are prolific and this one has beautiful watercolors of many of the unique animals found here.
The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization ($3) - I actually had the Timechart of World History and Biblical Times on my book list to buy, so I got this one to check out the series more closely. The fold out time line looks will hopefully help me get dates straight!
Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago ($3) - Wyatt and I have many fond memories of this museum from our time in Chicago, so this was a nice find to reminisce.

Wyatt's cart: I am proud to say he actually stayed around $3 a book.

Jesus the Jew : A Historians's Reading of the Gospels by Geza Vermes
The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
For All God's Worth by N.T. Wright
The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach

An Edwardian Note

2011-05-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

What will today's era be called? In terms of my decor, I would go with the Craigslistian period. Happenstance has again weaved together my interests. I think that shopping at thrift stores, following rabbit trails from books, and reading an array of blogs lends itself to these wonderful coincidences.

The Edwardian period is where my latest trail has led. The all knowing Wikipedia labels the Edwardian era as the time covering the rule of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910.

I recently read Teaching the Trivium by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn. By the way, the authors also have a blog Trivium Pursuit that is quite helpful. One recommendation the Bluedorns make for teaching young kids science is keeping a nature notebook. They recommended the Country Diary of an Edwa rdian Lady by Edith Holden as a great example of a nature notebook.

Whenever a book is recommended in my reading, I immediately stop and go add it to my library hold list and amazon wishlist, so I do not forget it. The Diary came in from KCLS and I was blown away by the talented illustrations in it and inspired by the monthly notes that Edith Holden made. I then ordered Edith Holden's The Nature Notes of a n Edwardian Lady used from Amazon and The Country Diary Book of Days is currently in route to our home. Zoraida and I go on nature walks near our home, so I started a notebook myself. I am working on identifying and illustrating everything we see thanks to the wonderful wildlife guide provided by the city here.

I have been spring cleaning and recently dropped off some bags at the local Goodwill and of course did a little browsing myself. I came across an Edwardian Dollhouse: A Three-Dimensional Book in the kid's book section. It was in mint condition with all the paper dolls still not punched out. Zoraida has really enjoyed the house especially using staircase as you can see from the photo above. A portable dollhouse that folds into a book is a genius idea.

We do not have a TV or Netflix, which I have blogged about before, but I do love film. I get my contemporary film recommendations from a little podcast called Filmspotting (see earlier blog for more details). We primarily get our movies for free from the library, where I manage a queue of them on our hold lists. A blog I follow recently listed their top 10 movies most of which are suitable for kids and one was Miss Potter, a movie about the life of Beatrix Potter. And of course Beatrix Potter lived during the Edwardian period, so it was another glimpse into the era.

Thought for the day: From The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady ~"Saw a little grey Lizard come out of a hole in a wall, he didn't seem frightened but sat on a stone blinking his eyes at me and basking in the sunshine. The bogs here are full of small white Water-Crowfoot; but I have seen no signs of Bog-bean, nor Butterwort nor Sundews, such as you find in the Welsh and Scotch marshes." Edith Holden, May 8, 1905.

Second Hand Store Finds

2011-04-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

I may be addicted to deals which would include shopping at thrift, second hand, and consignment stores. We may have gone to a few Goodwills on our honeymoon for instance. My regular list of places I treasure hunt at include Value Village, Goodwill, Half Price Books, Forget-Me-Not Consignment, and Treetop Consignment.

I hope to blog about some of my finds. Today I am featuring wall hangings from the kid's room. Admittedly, I am not much of an interior designer. My childhood room by design had the iconic picture of Seinfeld's Kramer on teal green walls with metallic foil vintage butterflies flying out of it.

One thing I love about thrifting is you often find out of print materials. I am in love with maps and will buy about any book that has interesting maps in them. At the Bellevue Goodwill, I found this over sized (3' by 2') cardboard Atlas of all the countries of the world called, It's a Big Big World Atlas. It goes for $42 new on Amazon or $12 used and I snagged it for 99 cents in the kid's book section. It is easy to hang and flip on a daily basis. I like to keep it on the map of area we praying for from the Operation World book that day. April has been focused on regions of China, so Asia has been the focus lately.

We are doing some rearranging in preparation for baby boy Houtz. We got a twin bed for Zoraida to free up the crib. Coincidentally, Zoraida climbed out of her crib for the first time on Sunday announcing when we opened the rattling door "I got out!". She now is now able to reach my alphabet prints from Graeme Base's book Animalia, another reason to have cheap art in a kid's room! I found an extra copy of this book at Value Village for 69 cents. Not only are their children's books super cheap, they are buy 4 get 1 free. I cut the pages out and mounted them on free foam core I recycled (took out of the trash) from the architecture firm downstairs.

Black and white are the only colors babies can focus on for about the first 2 months. I read about these Wee Galle ry Flash Cards for babies in a recent baby magazine. They retail for $13, so I was surprised to find them on clearance at Half Price Books for $1. I doubt if I will ever be using them as flash cards for a 2 month old, but they make a great temporary gallery installment.

Click on any of the pictures for a closer view and happy hunting!

Split Pea Soup Success and Slow Cookers

2011-03-08T15:40:00.000-08:00

One of my fond food memories is from an Alaskan cruise Wyatt and I took in 2008. Our tour included passing through Glacier Bay National Park. Icebergs float along in the water and hump back whales breach alongside the boat while you are surrounded by breathtaking glaciers. Holland America chooses this moment to serve Dutch pea soup deck side. You find yourself enveloped by beauty sipping delicious soup while it is cold enough to see your breath.

I soon after tried making split pea soup and it was a disaster. It just tasted of sweetness and I could hardly eat a few spoonfuls. Our Best Bites, one of my favorite food blogs, recently featured a split pea soup recipe. Their recipes are usually dead on, so I decided to give it another go. I was intrigued by the malt vinegar in the recipe and indeed that was key! I love malt vinegar and dose my fish n chips and fries in it. I suggest adding more to top your bowl if you are a fan of it as well. The soup is savory and smokey and using my homemade chicken stock gave it extra depth of flavor.

The recipe calls for using a slow cooker. I had gone without a slow cooker for years, since I have a Dutch Oven. Dutch Ovens are so versatile since they will brown your food and go between stove top and oven for slow cooking perfection. The downside is mine weighs about 15 lbs and I was looking for a more transportable dish to bring to monthly potlucks at our small group. I have been happy so far with the 6 quart Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker with clip tight lid.

Also check out these gluten free Quick Brazilian Cheese Rolls, which are super simple and yummy. A great side for the soup!

Sweet Potato Buttermilk Whole Wheat Pancakes: A Recipe

2011-03-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

Pancakes are one of Zoraida's favorite foods. She will almost always eat them, so they have become a staple. I like to make a larger batch at the beginning of the week and then have leftovers to reheat easily for quick breakfasts. They are even great to take on the go and eat them cold!

I typically make blueberry buttermilk pancakes, but have been trying to pack more nutrition into them. I had some left over baked sweet potato from dinner, so I thought I would try adding them into the batter and behold success! I had heard of sweet potato pancakes, so I thought it would work. I added cinnamon and brown sugar since they are a perfect pair with sweet potato. I love it when my experiments turn out!

Dry Ingredients:
3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Tbs. Sugar
1 Tbs. Brown Sugar
1 Tsp. Cinnamon
1 Tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 Sweet Potato
A pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups Buttermilk
1 Tbs Butter (melted)
1 Tsp. Vanilla
1 Egg

1. Heat cast iron skillet over medium.
2.Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another.
3. Pour wet ingredients into the dry and combine.
4. Spray pan with canola oil.
5. Use a 1/4 cup measuring spoon to ladle pancakes into pan.
6. Wait for bubbles and flip. The buttermilk should make them puffy.

Enjoy!

Thought for the Day: In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that's ok, there are a lot more coming along. ~Anthony Scalia

Tandoori Chicken and Mango Lassi Recipes

2011-02-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

These are quick and easy recipes for tandoori chicken and mango lassi. I buy a lot of whole chickens and like to have something in my pantry that I can use to mix it up.

I find most of my Indian ingredients at Saagar Groceries in Kirkland. The owners are very friendly and helpful. On Saturdays, they sell homemade warm samosas and baklava which are unbelievable. They recently switched Tandoori pastes brands from Deep to Laxmi. The brands have different spices and tastes, but I like them both.

Quick Tandoori Chicken

1 Whole Chicken
1 cup plain yogurt, preferably Greek
1/2 cup Tandoori Paste
Sea Salt
Lemon

1. Spatchcock the chicken (Cut the back out of the whole chicken with kitchen scissors so it will lie flat.) I freeze the backbone because its great for making stock.
2. Remove all the skin from chicken.
3. Score breast and thighs so the marinade can get further.
2. Mix tandoori paste with yogurt and cover the chicken in it.
3. Marinate in refrigerator for 4 hours to overnight.
4. Lay the chicken flat on a broiler pan. I sprinkled a little sea salt and pepper on top. Broil for 40 minutes or until internal temp is 165 degrees. Depending on how hot your broiler is you can optionally cook at 400 degrees instead.
5. Squeeze fresh lemon on it if you like.

Mango Lassi

1 cup Mango Pulp
1 cup Plain Yogurt, preferably Greek
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbs. Rose Water (optional)

Blend all ingredients and enjoy!

Amazon Fresh Review and Homemade Cleaners

2011-02-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to try out Amazon Fresh for a while, so when I got a $50 off $100 coupon from Amazon Mom I got the motivation I needed. I have also seen random promotion codes for this same deal for first time customers. If you can get 50% off, I would definitely jump on the deal.

The prices were pretty close to what you would find in a typical grocery store without any sales. First I purchased items I needed to fill out my meals for the week. Shipping is free if you order over $75 and I was able to schedule my order for the next day.

The produce was very fresh and good quality. If you have the mentality its 50% off, then the prices were very good and beat most sales in store. Wyatt loves pork, so I got two 10 oz. french cut bone in center cut pork chops. It is actually hard to find this cut in stores in Seattle. We had these grilled for dinner last night and they were superb.

My 7th Generation stockpile was dwindling from the last Fred Meyer 50% off sale and I have had making my own cleaners on my to do list for about 2 years. I ordered Castile Soap and Borax from Amazon Fresh. The prices were actually cheaper than any I have seen in store. I plan to use the recipes for all purpose cleaner, glass cleaner, mopping liquid, etc from the Wholesome Mommy blog. She even has labels with the ratios you can print out. My Whole Living magazine had a recipe for DIY Sugar Scrub this month. I am a bath person, so I bought raw sugar and lemons to try out this for myself!

Finally if you need to fill out the $100, the wine prices are really good. Several local wineries from Woodinville are featured on the site. I really like going to the Novelty Hill/Januik winery in Woodinville for tastings and they have affordable delicious wine. The Novelty Hill Royal Slope Red is only $11.99, which is the cheapest I have seen it priced. Overall, I think Amazon Fresh is a great option to have on those weeks when you don't want to venture out to the store.

Book Log

2011-02-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

Wyatt suggested I start a book log that I can add to in one place, so this will be it. I often don't get through my inter-library loans in the 3 weeks allotted, so I need to keep track of the page I left off as well. My husband has his book list here.

The King County Library lets you elect to keep track of your check out history if you set it up online. It is helpful for keeping track of books as well. I welcome recommendations for reading!

2012

1. Holcomb, Justin and Lindsey, Rid of My Disgrace, 288 pgs

2. Driscoll, Mark and Grace, Real Marriage, 256 pgs

3. Keller, Timothy, The Meaning of Marriage, 288 pgs

2011

1. Rockness, Miriam Huffman, A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter, 232/368 pgs
2. Spurgeon, Charles, Come Ye Children, 160 pgs
3. Ryle, J.C. The Duties of Parents, 34 pgs
4. Oberlander, June R., Slow and Steady Get Me Ready, 338 pgs - In Progress
5. Pitamic, Maja, Teach Me To Do It Myself: Montessori Activities for You and Your Child, 165 pgs
6. Bauer, Susan Wise and Wise, Jessie, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, 864 pgs - In Progress
7. Tripp, Tedd, Instructing a Child's Heart, 43/200 pgs
8. Mandryk, Jason, Operation World: The Definitive Prayer Guide to Every Nation, 978 pgs - Ongoing
9. Case, Andrew, Prayers of an Excellent Wife, 239 pgs - Ongoing
10. Hardage, Rachel, RealSimple: 865 New Uses for Old Things, an encyclopedpia of innovation ideas for everyday items, 180 pgs
11. Bluedorn, Harvey, Teaching the Trivium: Christian Homeschooling in a Classical Style, 637 pgs,
12. Dodds, Elisabeth, Marriage to a Difficult Man: The Uncommon Union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, 264 pgs
13. Eldred, Gary, 106 Homebuyers Make (and How to Avoid Them), 320 pgs
14 . Holden, Edith, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, 1906, 176 pgs
15. Marshall, Collin and Payne, Tony, The Trellis and the Vine, 196 pgs
16. Wilson, Elizabeth, Books Children Love- A Guide to the Best Children's Literature, 300 pgs
17. Lewis, C.S., The Abolition of Man, 128 pgs
18. Machen, John Gresham, Education, Christianity, and the State, 181 pgs
19. Simkin, Penny, 4th Edition Pregnancy Childbirth and the Newborn, 479 pgs
20. Holden, Edith, The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady, 191 pgs
21. Abbott, John, The Mother at Home, 184 pgs.
22. Gaskin, Ina May, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, 315 pgs

2010

1. Hunt, Gladys, Honey for a Child's Heart, 256 pgs
2. Bennett, Arthur, Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, 223 pgs
3. Trotter, Lilias, Parables of the Cross, 48 pgs
4. Trotter, Lilias, A Blossom in the Dessert: Reflections of Faith in the Art and Writings of Lilias Trotter, 256 pgs
5. Carmichael, Amy, You are My Hiding Place, 128 pgs
6. Wilson, Nancy, The Fruit of Her Hands: Respect and the Christian Woman, 109 pgs
7. Wilson, Nancy, Praise Her in the Gates: The Call of Christian Motherhood, 105 pgs
8. Wilson, Douglas, Reforming Marriage, 144 pgs
9. Wilson, Douglas, Standing on the Promises: A Handbook of Biblical Childrearing, 168 pgs
10. Elliott, Elizabeth, A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship between God's Mercy and Our Pain, 201 pgs
11. Tripp, Tedd, Shepherding a Child's Heart, 211 pgs
12. Tolkien, J.R.R., The Silmarillion, 35/365 pgs
13. Murkoff, Heidi, What to Expect the First Year, 806 pgs
14. Murkoff, Heidi, What to Expect the Toddler Years, 928 pgs
15. Ezzo, Gary, On Becoming Babywise- Parenting Your Pre-Toddler Five to Fifteen Months Book Two, 135 pgs
16. Farro, Elvira, Montessori on a Limited Budget, 247 pgs
17. Wilson, Douglas, The Case for Classical Christian Education, 256 pgs
18. Chattin-McNicholas, John, The Montessori Controversy, 240 pgs
19. Keller, Thomas, The French Laundry Cookbook, 336 pgs
20. Korte, Diana, The VBAC Companion, 208 pgs
21. Ruhlman, Michael, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, 272 pgs

Botanical Blooms for a Winter's Day

2010-12-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

This blog is mainly to catalog a project I have been working on, but is rather long since there is a bit of a rabbit trail that led to its inception.

Several months ago, I was reading Elisabeth Elliot's A Path Through Suffering and was really struck most by these botanical quotes from Lilias Trotter she used to drive the book. Who is Lilias Trotter you might wonder as I did? I found out she was an gifted artist and Christian missionary in Algeria.

I checked out several of Lilias Trotter's books through Inter library loan and the library even bought Parables of the Cross for me! Some of the books have her artwork of botanical watercolors with quotes that are exquisite. I often use her books in my daily devotion because they elevate the soul. For me, its like listening to opera while cleaning.

Ms. Trotter's work inspired me to pick back up calligraphy and flower painting that I had learned years ago. I was on the hunt to find some other botanical art for reference. By chance, as I was looking for a new yearly planner, I saw a planner LeMoyne's Botanical Watercolours at Half Price Books.

I was intrigued by Jacques le Moyne de Morgues after reading a sonnet by him included in the calendar. I will print it at the end because it falls in the category of soul elevating material. He was a Huguenot (French Calvinist) that lived during the 16th century. Wyatt has Huguenot ancestors, so that was a nice discovery. In addition to these beautiful botanical watercolours, he also traveled to the New World to catalog life there. I haven't had a lot of luck locating other books documenting his work, so I am quite happy with this serendipitous find.

Since I purchased a laminator from Amazon for a wonderful price- $17, I decided to use it to preserve the prints. Zoraida needed some new visual material for her bedroom wall, so I thought to hang the prints there for the meantime. I mounted the prints on a gold cardboard to make them sturdier. I also wrote the plant's name and Latin name in calligraphy on the back to be used for reference art cards once removed from the wall.

A large number of the water colours are flowers and fruit with a few herbs and vegetables. Zoraida likes the insects included on several of them since she is into buzzing bees lately. She loves to lay and look at them, so I hope they will be some inspiration to her.

Thought for the Day: Sonnet

Discordant harmony and balance movement,
Winter and Summer, Autumn, reborn Spring,
Renewing her sweet scents and colouring,
Join in the praise of God's unfailing judgment.

This loving God gives every argument
To look for zeal from each created thing,
To bless His Name eternally and sing
All He has made in earth and firmament.

Above all He made man with head held high
To watch each morning as new light arrives
And decorates earth's breast with varied flowers.

There is no fruit, or grain, or grub, or fly
That does not preach one God, the least flower gives
Pledge of a Spring with everlasting colours.

Jacques Le Moyne, 1585

Honey for a Child's Heart: A Recommendation

2010-12-14T12:55:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading Honey for a Child's Heart (The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life) by Gladys Hunt. It is a quick read, about 4 hours, and very encouraging. I believe I first heard of the book from Nancy Wilson's blog Femina . She had recommended it for a book on books and also linked to Ms. Hunts current blog by the same name Honey for a Child's Heart. I link to her post on Christmas books since that is timely.

I finished this book after two evenings of reading on the couch with Wyatt. It was nice to dialogue on our own experiences of books from our childhood. We had quite different experiences with books. This book brought back many fond memories of countless hours at the library and reading.

Honey for a Child's Heart advocates books as being a fundamental part of the family. She recounts how reading books aloud was a daily part of her family. I was quite impressed that her family read the Bible every meal (3 times a day) and additionally read other books aloud each evening. This is a traditional that was passed down through generations of her family.

She includes a chapter on "Making Decisions About Books". She emphasizes that there are so many good books at each maturity level that you don't want to rush your child into reading higher level books just to see how advanced she is in reading. She also discusses building a child's library and the influence that owned books have over ones just borrowed from the library. Seattle has exceptional second hand book stores and thrift stores, so we have been fortunate to build up our own library. One of our favorite family activities is going to the bookstore.

Ms. Hunt includes a large reading list at the end of book that is helpful for choosing good books. I had fun going through it and reminiscing on some of my childhood favorites. Wyatt uses a reading list that has been very helpful while hunting at Half Price Books. I recently brought home several books I found at Goodwill by B.B. Warfield including one missing from his reading list. Wyatt called me the Proverbs 31 woman for the rest of the day, I don't think anything else would have made him happier!

Encouragement from the book: The choice will sometimes be between a clean house with television as morning baby-sitter or a partially clean house, no telephone conversations, and a half-hour of sharing a picture book.

Things I am in Love with Right Now

2010-11-09T12:00:00.001-08:00

Fried Capers

Wyatt and I had a date a while back at the Barking Frog restaurant. The meal was somewhat memorable, a pork belly appetizer, short rib entree, something chocolate for dessert. The thing I remember most was the bread served with this sun dried tomato jam and fried capers.

I had never thought to fry capers, but have a large Costco jar in my fridge that I only used to sprinkle on fish. I am slightly obsessed with frying capers whenever I want a salty fix now. The jar is nearly empty, yikes! I also have a Costco jar of sun dried tomatoes that I whip into a quick jam. The capers get crispy and hollow when you pan fry them for about 10 minutes in a little olive oil and intensify in saltiness. Slice up a baguette, spread some goat cheese or soft cheese on it and top with jam and capers, delicious!

Poached Eggs

A perfectly poached egg on top of crispy fried seasoned potatoes equals perfection. This has become a regular lunch for me because its ridiculously easy to make and insanely yummy. The key to the poached egg is cook it 3 minutes. This ensures a creamy yoke that will break and flow over the crispy potatoes. The key to getting crispy potatoes is to slice them thinly and make sure the pan and oil are hot before adding the slices. Also do not overcrowd the pan and do them in batches if necessary. This is a fundamental for any type of pan frying to achieve browning and crispiness.

Cookbooks

I get on a kick and check out a ton of certain genre of books from the library. This week is cookbooks. I follow food writer Michael Ruhlman's blog who is great for fundamentals. His book Ratio lays out basic formulas for all cooking like doughs, sauces, charcuterie, etc. I like to experiment, so having the ratios in my head makes sure things don't go way wrong.
I love Tony Bourdain and recently watch a clip of him dining at the French Laundry. This inspired me to check out the cookbook. Frankly, I will try only a few of these recipes because truffles and caviar are not in my budget. Thomas Keller is a genius and I learned a lot about basic cooking from reading through it. He has a very interesting and easy way to make powder out of tons of ingredients I am eager to try. I am excited to check out the El Bulli cookbook I have on hold.

Bulk Spice

A frugal and flavorful tip is to buy your spices from the bulk section found in many stores organic section. Prepacked spices are severely overpriced. Most of the bulk spices are organic to boot! Since you can buy as little as you need, your spices will always be fresh too. You can fill a spice a 3 oz spice jar for almost any spice for pennies to 50 cents. This November Fred Meyer has all bulk spices on sale for 30% off, so stock up! I also buy bulk tea in this section, the quality is amazing and incredibly affordable.

Stevia

When my dear friend Tilly was in town for a visit, we had a lovely tea tasting at an Asian shop near Pike's Market. I tried a lavender and stevia blend that was divine. I couldn't believe the sweet flavor that came from just a few of these leaves. I typically drink my coffee and tea black, but adding a few of these leaves to tea balances the bitterness in the tea leaves. I also have been experimenting by adding lavender, rose, and other dried flowers to make my own tea blends. Stevia is getting more buzz as a natural sweetener; I highly recommend trying it.

Don't Throw out those Broccoli Stems!

2010-09-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

I love broccoli. Our family eats it at least once a week. Broccoli is cheap, often on sale for 70 cents a pound. Broccoli is a nutritious "super food". It is high in vitamin C, K, A, and fiber. Broccoli is a member of the Clean 15, a group of fruits and vegetables that contain little to no pesticide residue. I skip the organic broccoli due to this fact.

The dirty dozen on the other hand, I do try to buy organic, especially berries. Luckily Trader Joes sells most of the organic variety of the dirty dozen at very reasonable prices. Trader Joes organic frozen berries are great for mixing into yogurt (preferably full fat plain or honey Greek yogurt!) and pancakes.

I digress, back to the broccoli stems. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, of American Splendid Table on NPR, featured broccoli stems on a segment of a recent podcast. I knew broccoli stems were edible, but usually tossed them. She mentioned a method for quick pickling them and I was sold. I am crazy about pickled things. I would go to Korean restaurants if they only presented the 20 or so tiny pickled dishes and left out the bbq kalbi and bimibap.

Besides quick pickling the stems, you can also use them in stir fry or a simple salad. I have not bought broccoli crowns since I made this discovery and even look forward to the stems more then the crown now! Here is the easy recipe for a quick pickle ready to eat within a day.

2 or 3 broccoli stems

1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably kosher salt

1 medium size garlic clove, minced

1 tablespoon apple cider, white wine or whatever vinegar you have

1 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1. Peel the broccoli stems and cut crosswise into thin coins.

2. Place in a jar (I use a glass clamp lid jar) with the salt. Shake and store overnight. The salt will draw out excess water from the stalk.

2. Drain the water. Add the garlic, vinegar, and olive oil and toss together. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight and then enjoy!

Thought for the day: I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli. George Bush, U.S. President (1990)

Detox and Kumquats

2010-07-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, a handful of people at my church were doing the master cleanse. I really wanted to try it, but Wyatt talked me out of it. The master cleanse is a detox diet where you only drink a concoction of lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper for roughly two weeks. I can't remember why it was so compelling, but I have had it in the back of my mind for a while.

Several months ago I started receiving this design magazine Ready Made in the mail out of the blue. I have really enjoyed its innovative design ideas and ways to recycle items in the home. An article a few months back featured a detox tea with lemon, agave, cayenne pepper, and ginger. At Last, I thought, I can give this a try. I would never replace honey with agave as the norm, but it is a perfect natural organic sweetener for tea.

The mag recommended drinking this tea every morning before eating anything else for an hour. I like to drink it as a pick me up in the afternoon, since coffee past noon tends to make me a little crazy. The tea varies every time for me since I like to experiment and don't like to measure. I add Earl Grey or English breakfast tea if I want a caffeine boost.

Typically, this would be the recipe...

4 cups water
1/2 lemon
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbs agave
1 thumb size piece of ginger

1. Boil water
2. Grate ginger with a microplane into french press.
3. Add lemon, cayenne, agave to ginger.
4. Pour boiling water over and stir. Let steep for 4 minutes and enjoy!

Continuing the tea theme, I had the most intoxicating tea at Facing East Taiwanese restaurant. Kumquats are one of my favorite fruits. You must try them if you haven't. The beauty of them is that they intensely sour and sweet with a bonus of eating the skin. No waste, you know how I love being green. I have tried to replicate this tea at home, but haven't nailed down a recipe.

So far I crushed the kumquats, mixed in agave, much like the recipe above. It hasn't had the potency of the restaurant thus far. A lovely Taiwanese lady at the park gave me a great tip for making the tea (she was also a Facing East fan). She said I should create a slurry like soup of the kumquat to extract the flavor for the tea. Kumquats aren't in season, so I haven't tested it to perfection. Stay tuned....

I must also mention PORK BELLY "burgers". I beg you, if you are in the Seattle area, and haven't tried these, you must. Its sheer genius. Facing East was my first time to experience distinctively Taiwanese food and wow! They were a fraction of the cost of my pork belly appetizer at the Barking Frog and ten times more delicious. Go, now...well, wait till they reopen after the renovation because they needed more space due to their ridiculous popularity.

Thought for the Day: I got nasty habits; I take tea at three. ~Mick Jagger

Dutch Babies

2010-06-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

I first had a dutch baby at the Original Pancake House a few blocks north of my apartment in the gold coast of Chicago nearly 6 years ago. It was reminiscent of poffertjes (tiny dutch pancakes) I had growing up at the Tulip Festivals in Pella, but in a super-sized form.

The baby looked very impressive with the sides puffed up two inches and crusty yet the inside was light and airy. I imagined it was very challenging recipe like a souffle, but have now learned its actually easier than making pancakes! I have started a tradition of making these babies for birthdays, but actually make them more often...like lunch today : ) (See recipe below)

Speaking of dutch babies, Zoraida is actually semi authentic. Wyatt's side of the family has some roots in the land of giant windmills. Oh wait, that's the Zoraida's name origin. We got dressed up in authentic Dutch costumes sans wooden shoes and tip toed through the tulips sans ukulele.

Zoraida absolutely loved poffertjes. She had one in her mouth and one in each hand at all times. I think she would like to wear the dutch baby as a hat and eat pieces off of it as she roams.

I have tried 3 different dutch baby recipes that vary the number of eggs and a few of the ingredient amounts. This one is my favorite that I modified from the magazine Everyday Food.

Dutch Baby

3 tablespoons butter
3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup milk
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
1/2 lemon

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425° and heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over moderate heat. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in skillet.
In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, salt, vanilla, flour and milk until smooth and foamy. Pour batter into skillet and then bake in oven for 20 minutes until pancake is puffed.
Dress baby immediately with butter, lemon, and powder sugar.

Treasuring God in Our Traditions: A Recommendation

2009-08-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to feel a little like Granger from Fahrenheit 451 piling up books in our house while everyone else lines their walls with 60 inch plasmas. We don't own a TV and its quite peaceful not having one. Wyatt has been reading voraciously and I have been picking up speed as of late.

Wyatt found me a nice hard backed copy of Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper at Half Price Books. If you haven't been to a Half Price Books, you should go now if there is one in your area. We are lucky to have 7 stores nearby. Its become a line item in our monthly budget ringing in on average around $100.

I love a deal as you may know, so I usually browse the Clearance section and Wyatt heads straight to the Religion section. Some great finds so far: Synopsis of the Four Gospels, Church Dogmatics by Barth, Michaelangelo the Painter and other large print art books for $1, 3 Presbyterian Hymnals for $1, and several classic kids books $1 and last but not least...Your Best Life Now (Joel Olsteen). I am working on acquiring all the Canonical books for our home school. I'll post a list on that in the near future.

Now onto Treasuring God in Our Traditions (Read it free here). The best thing about this book is Noel's examples from her own life and practical ideas for developing your own traditions. She walks through the everyday traditions and also the especially traditions like Easter, Christmas, and Birthdays.

One anecdote that stuck out to me was John Piper singing to one of his sons the same short hymn every night since his son was just a baby. His son later remembered the red light from their German apartment he used to see while John sang and walked the halls with him when he was under 2. Its a good reminder that the everyday traditions we do with our children are being absorbed even now and are important to establish early on.

I am excited to take from her example's of creating traditions for Advent and Lent during the Christmas and Easter seasons. I did not grow up with these, but appreciate their meaning now and importance of developing these in my own families life. She also laces the book with family recipes, which I plan to try! Look for blogs on our family traditions in the near future.

Thought for the day: You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury

Suffering and the Resurrection

2009-07-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, but Sunday is coming. I went into labor on Good Friday unexpectedly as I guess most people go into labor unexpectedly. My hour had come and with it much, much pain. The number of verses in the Bible that compare sufferings to the pains of childbirth is astounding. They jump out at me now as I read the Bible daily because I can feel them.

Labor was incredibly painful for me possibly intensified by PIT and no medication and an end I did not want. I don't think I thought of the birth that was coming from the labor, the joy that was coming from the sorrow, the Resurrection that was coming after the Cross. John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

I am very thankful that a week after Easter, I heard an incredibly powerful message by Gary Habermas. It was one of those times when you hear something at the exact moment you need it. I was still questioning why things happened the way they did and wallowing in the pain of my labor experience intensified by hormones.

Dr. Habermas gave an address on the resurrection unlike any I had ever heard. It was incredibly applicable to our lives and deeply moving because of his own story of unexpectedly losing his wife to cancer at a young age. ***UPDATE: This is the message I heard*** It builds as it goes, so I highly recommend that you listen to his message in entirety on Suffering and Doubt (HERE...click play Jutebox)

Where would you be if it weren't for the resurrection of Jesus? Gary was asked by one of his former grad students during his worst kind of suffering he could imagine (his wife suffering and dying of cancer), "Did God raise His Son from the dead?" God watched while his Son died the most agonizing death you can think of. Do you expect better than Jesus received, God's only son? Should we suffer less than Jesus?

Another key take away from his message that he says is what you will spend thousands of dollars for modern psychologists to tell you---The most painful thing that will happen to you is not what occurs to you, its what you tell yourself about what occurs to you. After that message, I did not feel anguish over my c-section again. I stopped telling myself negative things about what happened. Instead I counted my blessings one by one. I acknowledged that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord. I took hope in the resurrection.

Quote for the Day: "This is a world where we suffer and a world where we dont always know why things happen. But this a world where there is a resurrection and a world where there is a heaven." Gary Habermas

I Cancelled Our Netflix Subscription Today

2009-07-17T16:03:00.001-07:00

A Land Rover nearly side swiped me today after doing a ridiculous U-turn on a busy road. Wyatt told me to honk at people so they realize that they are doing something wrong. So I honked and the teenage boy driving the vehicle flicked me off and threw a piece of gum out of his sun roof onto my car.

The more fruit I see from wealth the less I desire it. I don't want to make decisions now that will have my daughter cruising carelessly in a BMW and treating people disrespectfully. I don't want to take a step down the road that gives us a mortgage payment indenturing us to a company. I don't want to selfishly pile up money in a 401k to have it drop 50% in one year.

I thank God for a renewal of my Spirit. For reminding me His Word should be directing my living from how I spend my time to how I educate my children to how I spend my money. I was listening to a talk on Sarah Edwards given by Noel Piper today that you can find here. She was the wife of Jonathan Edwards, a great Puritan preacher and theologian to say the least. I am humbled by her example of raising children and managing a household.

As a result of these things, I decided to cancel our Netflix subscription. Ten dollars a month certainly isnt breaking the bank and I do enjoy foreign film and documentaries...but I don't have the time for it. Looking forward to more transformation by the Word.

34 Weeks and Still Kicking

2009-03-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

Wyatt's Nikon D70 conveniently broke last week, so we upgraded to the Nikon D80 just in time for maternity and baby pictures. Hopefully I will have some more shots up soon after he plays around with it a bit more. Tae Kwon Do is a good stress reliever in the final weeks of pregnancy. Actually I am just recreating scenes from inside my belly for Wyatt.

Two Sweet Desserts from your Pantry

2009-02-15T19:40:00.001-08:00

I have been posting delinquent for quite some time. Blogging hasn't been a high priority with moving, working full time, and getting ready to have a baby in 8 weeks. I have had a few recipe successes that I wanted to share and record for myself for future use.

I am always looking for incredibly easy recipes that can be made entirely from your pantry and are delicious...so if you have any send them my way. The Pioneer Woman has an out of control blog that posts step by step photos of each recipe she does. She posted Baked Fudge a week or so ago that takes about 5 mins to assemble and uses just eggs, sugar, cocoa powder, flour, butter, and vanilla. The result reminded me of Roy's Chocolate Souffle I posted on several several months back except with much less leg work. I highly recommend this for an instant chocolate fix. I would also like to give a shout out to the PW's homeschooling blog if your interested in that kind of thing.

A friend posted a link to a recipe on Williams-Sonoma on Facebook, so I decided to check out the site. It has an awesome database of recipes that I wasn't aware of! Shortbread is one of my favorite cookies because it is a perfect accompaniment to my favorite beverage tea. This recipe takes 5 minutes and is great for a last minutes dessert using only butter (of course), confectioners sugar, sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt. Check it out here: Scotch Shortbread. I am looking forward to trying some of their seafood recipes in the near future.

I'm not big on kitchen gadgets, but I saw the Misto listed as one of the must have items for the kitchen in some magazine. It essentially pumps to spray any oil you like. Mine is stocked with olive oil, since I now spray it on veggies, meat, bread instead of the drizzle I used to do. You can get one on Amazon or Bed, Bath, and Beyond. If you do get one, the trick to keeping it in top notch shape, is to release the pressure on can after each use. My baked fudge timer went off, so I have to stop blogging. Bon Appetit.

Thought for the Day: We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.
~Alfred E. Newman

Around the Belly

2008-12-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

Amazingly, I am half way through my pregnancy. I think I stopped counting for a while and suddenly we were at the midway ultrasound. Technology is pretty amazing, we got a video to take home that has our baby girl doing high kicks and swimming around.

I don't have a lot of tips for the first few months, since I hardly noticed I was pregnant. Aside from being slightly fatigued occasionally, nothing else was out of the ordinary.

Now that I am putting on a few pounds, I am enjoying maternity wear. Really the stretchy waist bands are great, I think I will wear them from now on even when I'm not pregnant. My biggest tip about buying clothes for maternity is to shop in the Junior's department clearance racks (my favorites are Ross and Marshalls). The styles lately are leggings with balloon or bubble tops...perfect for a growing belly! I've found most items for around $5, which is about 10 times less than maternity sections at department stores. Ross also has a great discount maternity section with pants typically for under $10.

Pregnancy podcasts are a great way to get quick information on topical issues. Pea in the Podcast (Peas in a Podcast was already taken by us on Itunes) has a podcast for every week of pregnancy with the most important information that week. I usually upload a few episodes to my ipod to ponder during my daily run.

The blogosphere is overflowing with wonderful deals for pregnancy and parents. I have found amazing deals by subscribing in RSS to Baby Cheapskate and Freebies 4 Moms. They clued me into a $300 car seat for $40. Unfortunately, Target had a slight pricing error and I did not get the deal, but they gave me a $25 gift card for the inconvenience. Add them to your RSS and you won't be disappointed.

Thought for the Day: You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment. ~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

Pregtastic

2008-10-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted a freebie for a while, so its probably overdue. The world of pregnancy has opened up a whole new world of free things. This freebie came from a wonderfully informative podcast Pregtastic which has tons of pregnancy know how from several pregnant women.

The Essential Pregnancy Organizer, which normally runs $20, can be found for free here. You do pay shipping, but it has enough good content that its worth the fee. I must say the market for maternity and babies far surpasses the wedding machine.

I about passed out the first time I walked into a Babies R Us. You wonder how women living in huts in Africa are able to raise multiple children without a super baby bobby bouncer or sassy tummy time mat. More rants to come I'm sure.

Thought for the Day: Neighbors' children are always the worst in the world.

My Very Own Werner Herzog Movie

2008-10-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

Mt. Rainier looms over the Seattle skyline. A sister volcano to Mt. St Helens, but nearly twice as tall. It is a reminder that man has not conquered nature and there is little we can do to prevent this mountain from blowing.

Our foray into the mountain was certainly not as extreme as Timothy Treadwell cavorting with grizzlies in Katmai. I did imagine Herzog's lovely German voice narrating our ascent half way up the mountain surviving snow and bears.
It might have been the decrease in oxygen that brought on an adventurous spirit, but our intended short hike turned into a five hour climb into the fog and later snow.

We have been talking about seeing bears for a while. It was shock when I saw a rather large black bear jogging up the path behind me. We also saw a large sow with two cubs from a distance, which was more my comfort zone. Most people we talked to on the path seemed like seeing a bear was the same as seeing a rabbit. Apparently a black bear has never attacked anyone on Mt Rainier and are usually shy tending to the berries.

I highly recommend camping at Cougar Rock in Mt. Rainier National Park. The campsite has a Japanese bio-toilet with the wonderfully warm heated seat found on most Japanese toilets. We managed the below freezing temperatures and snow with our 20 degree mummy bags.

Thought for the Day: We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him. ~Samuel Johnson

Frugal Living is Fun!

2008-08-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

Blackberry season is in full swing in the Northwest. Our property has blocks and blocks of thorny bushes. We have picked enough to last us well into the winter.

It took us a while to get used to eating food directly off a bush in nature after living in Chicago for so long. Now I scout out fruit trees at friend's houses and in the wild. I saw one man standing in bed of a truck stopped on the side of the road with gloves and pliers snagging the top branches of blackberry bushes...that's dedication.

My great aunt would always have homemade blackberry sauce with angel food cake and ice cream when I visited. To carry on this tradition for visitors to my home, I sauced up several batches of blackberries and stored them in the freezer using ice cube trays. Ice cube trays are one of the greatest tools in the kitchen. I have learned the value of freezing left over sauces and even herbs for later use.

My new monthly ritual is making chicken stock. Homemade stock is typically more flavorful, healthier, and cheaper than store bought stock or broth. I buy whole chickens when they are on sale for .69/lb and freeze them for later use. To make stock, I put the whole chicken in the stock pot with a few carrots, celery, onion, peppercorns covered with water. This should be brought to a boil and then simmer for 3-4 hours.

The top of the pot should be skimmed every so often to remove any impurities. Pour the stock through a sieve and refrigerate. The fat should be removed from the top after chilling. Freeze the stock in ice cube trays for use over the next month. The individual cubes are great for portioning for sauces, soups and really any dish to add extra flavor. The left over stewed chicken should be used for other dishes like curries or chicken salad.

The Frugal Living blog has many other tips on living on the cheap. I enjoy their top 10 ways to to start living frugal: 1. Befriend the Library 2. Clip Coupon 3.Eat out less often 4.Switch to online bill pay 5.Group errands 6.Make your own cleaners 7.Seek Freebies 8.Wash in Cold 9.Flip a switch 10.Change your own oil. Check the site out for many more advanced frugal living techniques.

Thought for the day: Washing and hanging the Ziploc bags on the clothesline to dry might be taking this frugality thing a bit too far. ~Me

In the Beginning

2008-07-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Piss Christ, Dung on the Virgin Mary, Yo Mama's Last Supper were highlighted in my university contemporary art class. Of the numerous visits over the past few years to modern and contemporary art museums, I cannot recall a single piece of art uplifting religion. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to learn the Tacoma Art Museum would be displaying 100 pages from the Bible.

Several calligraphers undertook hand copying the Bible in the tradition of scribes prior to the printing press. The project plan of this work made the Microsoft Vista project plan look like they were building a sandbox. Goose and swan feathers formed into quills and 1oo year old ink sticks were the primary tools for writing. Calf skin stretched into vellum forms each page. The project is known as Illuminating the St. John's Bible.

The precision and elegance of each word in this nearly billion word project blew me away. The Word is illuminated with pictures reflecting upon the text. Genesis begins with seven strips highlighting the seven days of creation as one example.

The power of this exhibits goes far beyond the artistic mastery. In the appendix of The God Who is There, Francis Schaeffer describes the Bible as "...not 'just a religious book'; the Bible is rooted in space-time history and speaks of the totality of reality" The Bible has given truth to people in 1500 B.C. and truth to people today in the 21st century.

Calligraphy has been an interest and hobby of mine for several years. Wyatt was inspired by someone doing calligraphy of the book of John and Deuteronomy 17:18 to produce a copy of some scripture by hand. We are hoping to create an illuminated work of a few of the New Testament books. We will forgo the quill and calfskin for cartridge filled pens and parchment most likely.

The exhibit of the St. John's bible will be in Tacoma through the end of September and a few other cities. I highly recommend checking it out.

Thought for the Day: When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Olympic National Park Tour

2008-07-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Road tripping around the Puget Sound is our new hobby. Its a wonderful thing to throw a tent in your car, grab an amazing latte from a drive through espresso hut, and hit the road. With little planning, we rambled through the ocean, rain forest, and mountains in a matter of days.

The Washington coast feels like the edge of the world. Apocalyptic beaches stretch for miles and sea stacks dot the shore. You might notice that there are virtually no towns on prime beach front property. 100 inches of rain per year and tsunami warning signs every several miles may have something to do with this. Although it is not the ideal place to live, I highly recommend a visit to see the tide pools and hike along the rugged coastline.

Camping in the Olympic National Park is first come, first serve. Everything is on the honor system and you place your money in an envelop to claim a site. We camped next to giant 10 ft diameter trees and overlooking a crystal clear blue lake.

The Hoh Rain Forest is a temperate rain forest that receives 12 feet of rain a year. Hiking around the mossy covered spruce, giant maples, and firs feels like stepping into an ancient place. Elk wonder through the woods, woodpeckers echo above, and banana slugs elegantly move along the floor. Trees frequently fall over and become nurse logs for several other hopeful seedlings. Wyatt calls it tree cannibalism.

Somehow glaciers are the answer to all things formed in nature. I will let you know once I see a real glacier in Alaska this fall, as of now I am a skeptic. Lake Crescent was carved out by glaciers and now sits 600 feet deep in places. We kayaked on its glass-like surface where you could see 60 feet deep. We waded in the water at dusk and watched the fog roll in over the surrounding mountains...serenity now.

On our way home, we drove up 5000 miles to Hurricane Ridge. The views of the Olympic mountains and Mt. Olympus are stunning. We did a few hikes among snow (in July!) and caught glimples of the Straight of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver Island, Canada.

On the road back to Seattle, we stopped off in Sequim, the lavender capitol of the world and had crab on the water in Dungeness Bay, WA. An end to the perfect weekend always ends with a ferry ride home.

Thought for the day: You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Isaiah 55:12

We Will Dance

2008-07-08T09:34:00.001-07:00

This video makes me happy. This video makes me want to dance. This video makes me want to travel. This video makes me think of heaven.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Thought for the day: Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. Psalm 106:47

Cast Iron and Cheese

2008-06-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Its not a weapon, I swear! Sure I think that Coyote hit the Road Runner with one, but I don't think I will be hijacking this plane with my cast iron pan. TSA did not buy our plea and confiscated my cast iron grill pan as a weapon.

With little cookware, I decided to go almost exclusively cast iron upon restocking my kitchen. Cast iron is amazing for several reasons.

First it is cheap! I got a cast iron grill/griddle pan from target for $4.99. On average the pans will run cheaper than the potentially cancer causing Teflon coated variety. Cast iron is very versatile, it holds heat well and can be transfered between the stove top and oven. So you can get a beautiful crust on a thick juicy Tbone on the fryer and finish it off in the oven to perfection. A potential negative for some is that the pans are heavy ~8lbs for a large skillet. I use it as part of my workout plan which saves time!

Homemade mac'N'cheese is my comfort food when Wyatt is away. A quick recipe for to die for cast iron mac. Make a rue in the cast iron pan with butter and a little flour. Add milk to this and any combinations of left over cheeses in your fridge (highly recommend including a sharp cheese like Dubliner Irish Cheese from Trader Joes). Once a nice smooth cheese sauce forms, stir in enough cooked elbow macaroni to almost fill the pan. Top with homemade bread crumbs and a little Parmesan. Cook at 350 in the oven in the same pan for roughly 30 minutes or until a beautiful crust forms around the edge.

Its a miracle! Cheese that does not melt. I finally found this jewel at Whole Foods - Halloumi. Halloumi is a mix of sheep's and goat's milk that is only made is Cyprus. You can fry it, grill it, bake it and it will not melt. The taste is close to Saganaki - the flaming cheese you find at Greek restaurants (usually made with Kasseri or Kefalotyri). I chose to fry it in olive oil in my cast iron skillet and top with a lemon vinaigrette with lemon zest served with homemade pita chips.

My last plug for cast iron is the enameled Dutch Oven. You can buy enameled cast iron of other pans for a significantly higher cost. The Dutch oven is one item thats worth it. You can use it like a crock pot and slow cook about anything in the oven. You can braise in it, make stews and soups, and simmer curries. I love it and use it several times a week.

Thought for the Day: There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves ~ Thomas Wolfe

For the Love of God

2008-05-30T09:06:00.000-07:00

If you are a high school graduate, there is a 33% chance you will never read another book for the rest of your life. If you are a college graduate that number goes up to 42%. However, it is highly likely you spent 28 hours of your week watching TV.

Conservatively speaking, you could finish an average book in 6 hours. If you read 15 minutes a day you could finish 20 books a year. We do not own a TV and I haven't turned one on in my home for a year. So I should easily have met this mark, but I am writing this blog for myself because I did not read 20 books last year.

I have turned into an accountant of late. We have scrapped Quicken and track where our dollars and cents go with Excel spreadsheets and charts. Now I am moving on to my time. Wyatt has been disciplined in getting up early and reminded me that by pulling myself out of bed 1 hour earlier would result in 30 more 12 hour days a year.

After seeing my abundance of time, I realized I lack discipline. On a Crown Financial podcast recently a successful business women shared that she has a list of ten things she must do no matter what she feels like. Case in point 20 minutes of exercise a day, which would be on my list if I had one.

Discipline naturally flows into accountability. So I have given Wyatt license to use whatever means necessary to get me out of bed earlier in the morning. He will ask me if I ran today and what did I read. We both do a Bible reading plan that goes through the Old Testament once and new Testament twice a year. To enhance this, we got D.A. Carson's commentary on the plan entitled For the Love of God Vol I&II. We read the 2 page commentary aloud together which has incredible insight and sets aside time for us to discuss what we read that day.

A site of free audiobooks was recently recommended to me called LibriVox. It is quite extensive and the quality it good. I am working my way through G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy currently~just a mere 6 hours and 1 book under my belt.

Thought for the day: Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. ~C.S. Lewis

Oregon, Oysters, and More Oysters

2008-05-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

One year later and one year more in love. Is the honeymoon over, I don't know. We are still experiencing new things together, like both our first times in Oregon and Wyatt's first taste of oysters.

I don't remember my inauguration to oysters, probably some posh corporate function, but I have been talking about them non-stop to Wyatt since we moved to the Pacific Northwest. I was on a mission to eat oysters after passing through Willapa Bay and the self proclaimed Oyster Capital of the World - South Bend, WA.

I really love oysters on the half shell, which are actually alive when eaten! Talk about fresh. So did Wyatt enter a haven of bliss upon encounter with this heavenly mollusk. This skeptic was turned into a believer and shuckers be ware we are working our way through oyster bars near you.

Oregon is an amazing place. Not only is it tax free, but gas is pumped for you by law for a cheaper price than Washington. Ok, not to mention the breath taking coast lines, commitment to locally grown product, the ocean, mountains, and rain forest within a few miles striking distance. And the tide pools, orgies of starfish at every turn and waves begging to suck you into the ocean.

I highly recommend Cannon Beach for your Oregon coast stay. You might recognize the scenery from such movies as cult classic the Goonies. Everything is local in this town, no Marriott or McDonald's in a very touristy town.

The picture to my left has been my dream ever since I knew this was possible- kayaking with killer whales! I have a very strong affinity with the ocean, my husband can fill you in on the numerous dreams involving sharks. This is a teaser to a future post...after my close encounter of the orcas kind.

Thought for the Day: He was a bold man that first eat an oyster. Jonathan Swift

A taste of Japan in Seattle

2008-04-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Two of my favorite things from visiting Japan were the food and 100 Yen shops. A recent move across the country has unexpectedly brought me half way around the world again. Ah yes, for those of you who haven't heard, we now reside on the left coast. Hopefully that explains why I have been MIA for the last few months.

Daiso is sensory overload at its finest. My heart starts racing as I see the 5000+ items the store has to offer....all for around $1.50! No need to price compare, everything is dirt cheap. This Japanese Walmart has made its way to the West coast. Seattle is currently home to two stores as well as a few in California and BC. Wyatt and I have found the best compromise; he drops me off at the store and heads to Cafe Ladro or another fine Seattle coffee establishment. A few hours later he returns to peel me away from the glittery, overstocked shelves.

APM's Splendid Table recently ran a podcast including a piece on Ramen noodles. I'm sure that brings to mind your college days where $5 would get you 30 meals, but this is serious cuisine in Japan. The guy on the show recently went all over Japan just to eat Ramen! I would have opted for discovering the subtle differences in toro around Japan, but to each his own. The podcast prompted my craving and I dug up Samurai Noodles in the Chinatown/Uwajimaya area of Seattle. Think about bones simmering away for 30 plus hours to produce a lovely collagentaed white broth, fresh, homemade noodles and yummy toppings like scallions, sesame seed, and seaweed. Cup-o-Noodles has nothing on this stuff.

Ethnic foods have become my new comfort food over the last several years. I cook and eat Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) more than anything else. Curries, coconut milk, and chilies stock my pantry. Dim sum is my weekend brunch. I work my way through the Indian Buffet line like a pro. I find nothing unusual about picking raw tuna, salmon eggs, or sea urchin off a conveyor belt for my dinner. Viva globalization!

Thought for the Day: Variety's the very spice of life that gives it all its flavor~William Cowper

Meat!

2008-01-23T22:05:00.000-08:00

I applied to host a Meat! Party for Hilshire Farms today and it got me thinking about my favorite food group. I subscribe to many Foodie RSS feeds and they often feature Vegan and healthy recipes without meat which are rather tempting, but something just can't replace a crab leg that is larger than your own arm.

I came home from a late night on the new job to find my husband had purchased a 1 lb. Colossal Crab leg. I held it up to my arm and indeed it was longer and close to being meatier. Where in Russia they find these things is beyond me. I was up for a light meal (ha!) so I whipped up an orzo, tomato, and super duper king crab pasta. Amazingly the larger the crab, the sweater the meat.

As much as I bag on Jewel, it does feature some reasonable and unique cuts of meat. Over the holidays they had a really cheap prime rib roast at 2 lbs that I whipped into a nice and delicious meal with garlic mashed potatoes and roast asparagus. This recipe is easy, rub is a lil' horseradish or garlic salt and roast at 325 for 1 hr/lb.

We honeymooned in Austin, TX, which still gets questions like is your family around there? (What!?!) No, actually we like to experience the culture of America in its various facets. BBQ is high on the list of Americana and Stubb's BBQ (Austin local restaurant) takes the cake. Thankfully, many grocers including Jewel and Meijer carry this delicacy in your specialty sauce section! I vote for the Original sauce which has more vinegar, but the Mesquite comes a close second (although seems to burn easier for the higher sugar content). 1.5 hours at 325 F for a rack and you are set for some succulent, tender better than Carson's in Chicago ribs!

Thought for the Day: If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat? John Cleese

Potpourri

2008-01-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

I for one would much rather have a bouquet of peppers than flowers any day. My lovely husband brought me a beautiful bouquet from Pike's Market for my birthday. An added bonus was the garlic for extra aroma. The great thing about this bunch is that it is edible for up to 2 years!

I hate it when people give statistics without support, but I am going to do it anyways. Al Mohler of the Salem Radio Network did a podcast a few days ago called The Twilight of Books?. He gave a statistic that 39% of homes in the US have the TV on from when they wake up to when they go to sleep. I have had the TV off for several months now and the silence is glorious. I can't say I miss seeing whether Britney Spears goes to Target or Costco.

Another rather alarming statistic is that nearly 90% of children born in the inner city are out of wedlock. I believe I got this statistic from Dennis Prager. The face of society is definitely changing. The push for so called "change" is ringing all around from the potential candidate for president. What are the implications of the above statistics? Feel free to post your thoughts.

Thought for the day: All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching? ~Nicholas Johnson

Mars Hill Music Rocks!

2008-01-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

Soulja Boy might be the music of the day. I'm not so hip, so I just learned this dance on Friday when my co-workers demonstrated in front of 300 people at Navy Pier. I'm not gonna lie, I have since been rocking the dance courtesy of youtube instructional video, superman then hoh! Despite my mad hip hop dance skills, I kind of dig hymns and songs with a lot of deep feeling and meaning behind them. Leave it to Seattle based church Mars Hill to bring some seriously rooted music back to life with their various worship bands.

The videos in this blog link to biographies of great Christian composers from John Newton to Johnny Cash. I may have heard some of these stories in passing, but they never really stuck until I saw these very moving videos. I've linked two videos here that I especially enjoy, check out all of the saints here.

Additionally, Mars Hill puts out tons of free quality Christian music. In fact, if it weren't free, I would buy each song for 99 cents on itunes over anything else out there. You can subscribe or listen to all Mars Hill band music here under Media. I gave out a Christmas CD with several of my favorite songs including: Ex Nihlo's All my Tears, Come Ye Sinners; BCG's Man of Sorrows, Nothing but the Blood; E-Pop's Come Thou Fount, How Deep the Father's Love; and Praise Hammer's Psalm 69. Add them to your itunes and enjoy the best free music out there!

Thought for the day: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall he no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Rev 21

Out with the Old, in with the New?

2007-12-31T07:32:00.001-08:00

I don't have a list of New Year's resolutions, but I thought I would share some things I plan to do in the New Year. A lot of them I started last year and have been worthwhile.

Bible Reading Plan
Wyatt and I read through the Bible in 2007 using the Discipleship Reading Plan. It targets about 20 minutes a day to get through the Old and New Testament in a year. This year we're kicking it up a notch to the M'Cheyne Schedule, which goes through the Old Testament once and New Testament twice. This site is awesome and will RSS the daily readings to you in what ever version you would like (mine is set to ESV).

RSS
That brings me to my next point, if you read blogs you should use an RSS reader. Wyatt got me addicted last year and my Internet surfing efficiency has increased 100 fold. I recomme nd Google Reader if you already have a gmail account. A sneak peak into my RSS reader and you would find BBC News, Desiring God Blog, Justin Taylor Blog, Joshua Harris Blog, Solo Femininity, Stand to Reason Blog, TheResurgence Blog, Hungry Magazine, Slashfood...and so on.

Shop Clearance
Walmart never ceases to amaze me. My best find of the year was a George brand black 3/4 dress shirt for $1 (marked down from $15.82)! I really can't remember the last time I spent more than $10 on a clothing item. Walmart and Meijer has seriously shifted my price points. January tends to be a great time to get 75%.

Get Creative
I'm not really into all the scrap booking and pre-packaged DIY that's popular these days, but I do enjoy making thing with left over items around the house. Lately I have been into making cards with buttons and wire. Also a great way to recycle and curb your carbons.

Try Something New
Its easy to fall into the same routine of the Sizzler on Friday night, must see Thursday TV, and Saturday morning freebies at SAMs. From the predictability of our monthly spending patterns, I am convinced the government could easily pinpoint a time to kill me at the grocery store if needed (sorry just watched the Bourne Ultimatum). The tea picture on the left might look odd, but it is some of the most delicious jasmine tea around. Happy New Year!

Thought for the day: The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. ~GK Chesterton

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

I have been blogging my way through this year, so I don't have a year in review post this year.

Look for posts early in the 2008.

I do want to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Thought for the day: The God of all creation humbled Himself to become a human being—our Savior, Christ the Lord. Because Jesus was born He could die, bringing the abundance of life we enjoy through Him. May each of you rest in the security of the Babe who’s birth we celebrate this day.

Curbing my Carbons

2007-11-27T22:09:00.000-08:00

I am trying to inhale as much propaganda about global warming as possible. Then I will be able to make a well informed decision and reduce my carbons. I was especially delighted to hear they are showing the Al Gore documentary in many elementary schools and Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Did I miss the news flash that the sun grew 5 times in size or we are changing our orbital pattern? No, the sun has not changed, but apparently if I change one light bulb in my house I will be one step closer to saving the planet from....

Global warming was the cause of the fires in California that lambasted the news for weeks. I guess arsonists are going out of style. Ok, so I might have been listening to a lot of conservative talk radio lately, but this is getting ridiculous. The number of things caused by global warming is sky rocketing out of control.

I watched the Democratic debates on youtube this week and Im pretty sure the amount of hot air released will drastically reduce glacier sizes this year. My podcast plug for this blog is Dennis Prager's daily show on Townhall.com. This is a great way to get your daily political/news listen on your way to work. I am especially fond of his theory that TV and widespread college education are making us the "dumbest generation ever".

Don't worry, I am still a huge proponent of Earthpark 2010. Wyatt and I had a chance to visit the future site at Lake Red Rock, Pella, IA over Thanksgiving. Latest developments show agreements with Rwanda to bring the Great Ape Trust.

Thought for the Day: "If you asked me to name the 3 scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming, and Windows"~Dave Barry

Calling all Chicago Foodies

2007-11-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

Forget Metromix, Citysearch and the like, Check Please! has gone BETA. This is especially exciting for me, since it was my favorite TV show before I stopped watching TV. Now you can take a peak inside Chicago restaurants from the comfort of your own computer.

Check Please! is reality TV at its finest. The show brings together 3 individuals to recommend their favorite restaurant and then review it with each other. The CP on TV site has a short clip taking you inside of the restaurant typically with the owner. Additionally you can watch the review by 3 different people online.

Several of the restaurants on the site are some of my favorite Chicago spots. Top of the list is San Soo Gab San for my Korean BBQ fix. Santorini's is a great Greektown spot featured where Wyatt took me on our first date : ) I first heard about Paprikash on Check Please. Wyatt had been craving Hungarian goulash with the "ball of noodles". I took the recommendation from Check Please and we hit the only Hungarian restaurant in Chicago.

If my entry makes the top of the list from 20,000 applicants to the show, I would recommend Toro. Great quality sushi at a nice price point. Mitch, the owner, makes the place with his hospitality, often giving free samples if you sit at the sushi bar.

Thought for the day: The disparity between a restaurant's price and good quality rises in direct proportion to the size of the pepper mill~Bryan Miller.

Grand Canyon Camping Anyone....Anyone?

2007-11-10T21:02:00.000-08:00

Some people may say I am not an outdoors woman. Sure I enjoy a good 5 star hotel provided by my company every now and again, but I can rough it with the best of em. Does that mean downloading nature music on Itunes and putting up a tent in my living room...sometimes.

I can now say I have camped in 100 F and 32 F. Of course, Wyatt was the first to point out frost had formed on his hair after I took everyone's blankets in the tent, but I was there when it formed snuggled up in a cozy, warm...anyways. When the rental agent said he had a Mustang, I quickly replied Woohoo, without thinking about the lack of space for camping gear and Wyatt's sister Holly. I was concerned with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic while shopping for foodstuff for camping, but didn't think about matches, firewood, hot dogs.

What a better place to camp than the Grand Canyon? I am still in awe of the beauty, which these pictures cannot do justice. We spent several hours hiking into the canyon. I was terrified of the drop offs where one slip of the foot would have been my demise. I am currently learning about humility and as Mark Driscoll would say--You [I] am ridiculous. So I laugh at the video now of my camping adventures.

I look forward to our next camping foray, whether in the living room or nature. Where do we go from here, only God knows...

Thought for the day: God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

Who Ya Gonna Call!

2007-10-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Thought for the Day: 1. Chicken dance like no ones watching.
2. Arm wrestle a bouncer.
3. Race a taxi.
4. Hug a cop.
5. Break into your friend's house in less than 10 seconds.

Free GB Memory,WOHOO!

2007-10-17T20:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, heres the deal...Google checkout is giving $10 off any order, so if you order $10 of stuff its free! Here's what I got, 1 GB Flash Memory ($30 on clearance for $10). Go to buy.com and try to find the best deal, if you can beat my $30 value let me know, I searched pretty hard for the best deal : ) 100% Free, Yesssss!

Thought for the Day: If this is your Christmas present for someone, don't feel cheap, it took a lot of work to find this deal!

Am I a One Issue Voter?

2007-10-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

Abortion is an issue I personally have a very strong stance on. With the upcoming elections, I think this topic will come to the forefront again in the media. So how now shall we vote? Many people are up in arms that people would not vote for a candidate simply because he is pro-choice. John Piper offers an interesting article supporting being a single issue voter.

"No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was."

"So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those." Read the whole John Piper article.

Apologetics.com recently ran a podcast with this tag line--Right now America is up in arms about cruelty to animals but relatively quiet about the murder of its own unborn children. How did this state of affairs come about? Why are they not, at least, regarded with equal moral indignation and abhorrence? Listen to apologetics.com podcast on abortion for a relevant discussion on abortion and reproductive issues.

So what is all the abortion fuss about? Let me leave you with a description of the abortion methods out there today. Suction aspiration is a method used during the first 12 weeks where a hollow tube with knife-edged tip is inserted into the womb and rips apart the fetus and placenta and sucks it out into a bottle that is discarded.

The Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) inserts a pair of forceps into the womb to grasp the fetus and twists it until the bones are broken, skull crushed and spine snapped to remove the unborn child.

Saline Injection inserts a long needle into the womb which poisons the baby and burns off the outer layer of skin then labor sets in and the mother aborts the dead baby.

Lastly a partial birth abortion-the baby's legs are pulled into the birth canal and the baby is delivered except for the head, which is cut open with scissors and the child's brains are sucked out to collapse the skull to remove the body.

Thought for the Day: In 1960 alone there were 1.6 million abortions in the United States. Since 1973 there have been over 35 million babies aborted in America. This is an average of 1.5 million abortions a year. It has been referred to as "The American Holocaust". And the debate continues - Is it all RIGHT or is it WRONG?

When You and I Collide

2007-10-03T13:31:00.001-07:00

Blogging at you now from Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. I have landed with 6000 other geeks to get technical. This is my second time on the strip. I have now stayed at the Bellagio, MGM Signature, and Mandalay Bay. They are all basically the same with nice rooms, expensive restaurants, and casinos. I have a view of Mandalay's six pools including a beach and wave pool with lazy river, which was voted best hotel pool in world? We will see.

No exciting strip stories, but I am anxiously awaiting my husbands arrival tonight. Oh, I did "win" $30 for previewing potential TV shows, watch out for Wives of Dallas, Women of Atlanta or Jersey Girls on the tube. We will be hanging out with his sisters in Las Vegas and then camping in the Grand Canyon. Look for some amazing pictures next week!

We have been making the rounds to several weddings this year, including our own. It has been great to catch up with friends and have mini reunions throughout. We recently celebrated with our friends Beth and Dan in the quad cities a la pictures. This might have been our worst dancing foray yet as it included not only the worm, but some crazy swing moves where I found myself flying over Wyatt's back and the limbo.

Thought for the Day: Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.

Food 911

2007-09-27T12:46:00.001-07:00

Since I will not be cooking for the next week, I thought it would be a good time to post on food. This time of year the farmers market is in full bloom. The prices this year have been better than the year past, which of course makes me happy.

My favorites market items are heirloom tomatoes-especially the green zebra, peppers galore-serrano, poblano, jalepeno, bell, onions-sweet and vidalia, and eggplant. I just started cooking with eggplant and I am addicted.

I am trying to perfect roasted chicken, so far putting herbed butter under the skin has worked bet. I tried cream cheese as one recipe suggested, but it was too overpowering for my taste. A bed of cous cous is perfect to pick up all the jus from the roast. Roast onions and peppers are an easy and delicious accompaniment.

I will definitely miss the homegrown tomatoes as they are perfection dressed with just a little salt and pepper. The hydroponic or "vine ripened" tomatoes we have to live with at the grocery need a lot of doctoring.

I have been roasting eggplant lightly brushed with olive oil frequently. To give the veggie some taste I have been make some chimmi churri like sauces with cilantro, garlic, peppers to top. I made a stuffed Italian eggplant the other day which was an interesting and easy dish.

If I haven't mentioned before, I love to use Foodnetwork's website to search for recipes. The search engine is great and I find I start to like certain cooks recipes better. Tyler Florence is one of my favorites at the moment. I'm not big on the 30 minute meal recipes, but I do love Rachel's travel tips for food.

Since it is Oktoberfest season, I will end with German fare. We made a stop last weekend in the Amanas, which I blogged on in my Iowa travels. We had a nice family style German meal with plenty of Schnitzel with my parents and grandma for her 84th birthday. We make brats at home every now and then with German potato salad and artichoke salad. Sides of sauerkraut, mustard, and horseradish are a must!

Thought for the day: You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.

Son of Sam, Son of Hope

2007-09-19T07:46:00.000-07:00

I first heard David Berkowitz's story over 2 years ago. A coworker asked me what I was listening to and I said the testimony of David Berkowitz on Focus on the Family. I went on to explain he was a serial killer who converted to Christianity. My coworker immediately said he is going to hell, but I saw David as God did--forgiven. I was overwhelmed with compassion for a serial killer.

Unfortunately FOF no longer has the podcast up, but I recently came across a video that relays the powerful story. Check out David Berkowitz's homepage where you can view several videos on the first page. The video is so much more interesting than me writing out his testimony, so I highly encourage you to listen (Video link)

A lot of people talk about being good people or classify certain people as good people. I imagine in their minds David Berkowitz would fall under the category of a bad person. Somehow there is this scale under the law or under personal choices that make them good people or bad people.

The fact of the matter is all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When I think of David Berkowitz , I see someone not so different from myself. How big is the grace of God? How deep is God's love? How wide is His mercy?

Thought for the day: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his troubles. Psalm 34

Emerald City Epilogue

2007-09-11T11:40:00.001-07:00

Its been about 2 years since I called Seattle my home away from home. I enjoyed revisiting my old stomping grounds and exploring new ones with my husband. We spent the majority of our time wondering through the eclectic neighborhoods of Seattle and took a trip to the mountains to see the Snoqualmie Falls and go hiking. People always talk about how much it rains in Seattle, but we had 5 days of sunshine and 70s. In fact, NYC and Boston get more rain typically than the 38 inches Seattle gets each year. The Washington Coast is another matter, which receives a whopping 200 plus inches a year.

Coffee shops were on the agenda since this is where it all began in 1971, Starbucks that is. Luckily there are numerous independent cafes with a lot of personality and great espresso. Many shops were housed in old garages as seen in the picture. Lonely Planet had good recommendations as always.

Seattle is a geographic wonderland. To the North you have the San Juan Islands, Skagit Valley tulip fields, Vancouver, Whistler, to the east are the Cascades including Mt. Rainer and the Snoqualmie Falls, to the South you have Mt. St Helens, the Columbia River Valley and Portland, and to the West you have the Puget Sound, Olympic National Park, Hoh Rain forest and the Pacific Coast. If you plan to visit I highly recommend at least a week and check out all directions from Seattle.

We hiked around Snoqualmie Falls and found one of my favorite critters, a brown slug! I know it may be strange, but I had many pet slugs growing up and have a warm affection for them.

We visited Alki beach in West Seattle, where the water was surprisingly warm. It was low tide, so we made our way out to sea. I noticed a jelly fish close by and then Wyatt noticed one by him. Luckily we didn't wander

into a bloom of them. On shore, I managed to step on the top of one, but did not get stung.

We made a pilgrimages out to Ballard just North of the downtown area. Salmon were heading from salt to fresh water for spawning. At the Ballard locks, the have a fish ladder where you can view the salmon making their journey. Tons of salmon were jumping above the water too. We also made a trip to Mars Hill Church which was in downtown Ballard in a dark warehouse building. It was great to worship there.

Other activities included touring the Pyramid microbrewery and Chateau Ste. Michelle winery. The filtration equipment and heat exchangers made me nostalgic for chemical engineering. I could have been a brew master, alas.

Thought for the day: When you feel neglected, think of the female salmon, who lays 3,000,000 eggs but no one remembers her on Mother's Day.

No Intelligence Allowed

2007-08-30T08:06:00.001-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting Ben Stein a few years back and was delighted to hear he was venturing into documentary film making. I was even more excited to hear he would be taking on science and essentially the problems I addressed in my last blog.

Ben Stein has a long list of credentials including lawyer, comedian, actor, political speech writer, economist, and professor. I'm not a Gore hater (hey, I have a Gore '08 sticker on the fridge), but if I have to hear him narrate one more documentary I just might have to take that sticker down. So it is incredibly refreshing to hear an intelligent, funny and wonderfully gifted voice will be addressing a very poignant topic that needs to be revealed.

Essentially this film looks like it is going to expose the discrimination against many scientist who bring up any questions against Darwinism. Stein explains this is a matter of freedom stating Freedom is not conferred by the state: as our founders said, and as Martin Luther King repeated, freedom is God-given. A huge part of this freedom is freedom of inquiry. This includes the ability to inquire whether a higher power, a being greater than man, is involved with how the universe operates. This has always been basic to science. ALWAYS. Ben Stein is bringing to light the issue of how science is defined and ultimately practiced.

I remember back to my days of evolutionary biology in college where my professors frequently mocked the idea of God and that it had no place in the realm of science. You don't have to go into a science classroom these days because leading atheists Dawkins and Hitchens are bringing this message to you by way of the Best Sellers list and prime time TV.

Additionally, Ben Stein is Jewish, so I hope this film will open the eyes of some Americans who immediately dismiss any critiques of who they perceive to be Right Wing Christian wing nuts. I'm looking forward to a full review when the movie comes out. I hope you will be encouraged to check it out. Watch the trailer here.

Thought for the day: If science can't even disprove the existence of unicorns, how can it disprove the existence of God?

The More You Know, the Less You Understand

2007-08-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

I have been interested in philosophy ever since I first read Plato's Republic in my early teens. I then dabbled in existential writers like Camus, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Objectivist Ayn Rand. I was just shy of a minor in philosophy in college where I was especially enjoyed medieval and religious philosophies of Augustine, Algazali, Aquinas, Anselm and the list goes on...

So I was delighted to find a new podcast and website that has thoughtful and interesting information on relevant philosophy, science, ethics in relation to Christianity. Special thanks to my friend Jen, who introduced me to the group Stand to Reason. The founder of Stand to Reason is Greg Koukl. He has a talk radio program that comes weekly as a podcast and this blog will touch on his most recent podcast Science-Is God Out of Bounds? (Subscribe here!)

The podcast is formatted to have around an hour to address a relevant topic, in this episode its science and then an hour of listener calls. Recent podcasts include discussions on Christopher Hitchen's bestseller God is Not Great, How Christians Should think about voting for a Mormon, and Raising Children to be Adults.

Greg is addressing an article by Edward Larson called If its Supernatural it is not Science. Larson makes the statement that even if God did create the universe, its not science. Science as it is currently defined is to explain the material world by naturalistic explanations. Thus science by definition leaves no room for the supernatural.

Greg raises a point that this definition is problematic. He draws a good analogy in that if you find a man with a gun wound, knife stab, and head lopped off, you aren't going to say he died of natural causes. In fact, you will probably search for an agent that caused the death. Why is it that science limits itself arbitrarily to rule out certain agents as causes?

"Is it possible that there are some nonscientific enterprises like philosphy, theology and ethics that might contribute legitimate, defensible conclusions that represent problems for some scientific views? If truth is really the object of the scientific enterprise, scientists should welcome it from any source. So Greg propose that the definition of science should not limit its causes to only the material world.

Greg also addresses scientism. Scientism is a belief propelled by Carl Sagan and others that science is the source of all reliable information about the world. Plainly stated, only that which can be proved by science is true. Society is infected with scientism and you will find a good number of individuals who dismiss anything that is not science. Science is fact and everything else including philosophy and theology may or may not be true, but we will never know.

The limitations of the definition of science as previously stated make this view a rather dangerous one to hold. If science is the only way to truth then science itself is self-refuting because science is built on a series of truths that cannot be demonstrated by science but must be in place even for science to be valid.

Check out more science related articles here. I recommend Sagan and Scientism, Unbelievable Unbelief, and Science Isn't, Science Is.

Thought for the Day: If the wager is your life, what odds will you take?

Where in the world are all the Christians?

2007-08-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

The media would still have you believe Christianity is a religion that is synonymous with the right wing whose main concern is running the US. The majority of the world's Christians; however, are not in the US. In fact there are Christians in every country of the world, countries that you may have not heard of like Djibouti and Tuvalu.

Christianity is the only truly global religion. You will find missionaries in New Mexico from Indonesia witnessing to the Navajos. You will find Nigerians starting churches across Europe. The Chinese church is sending thousands upon thousands to the Middle East.

The world continent by continent has an almost even distribution of Christians today. This has of course changed over history and even the last 100 years. I am throwing out all these stats without support, but hey this is a blog. Operation World has a wonderful podcast and presentation where I have pulled these pictures on their website. Check out the YLG podcast and presentation.

The majority of the world's mission force comes from non-Western countries. To my surprise, Mongolia sends the most missionaries per Christian- 1 missionary for every 222 Christians. The next greatest sending countries per Christian are Lebanon, Singapore, Niger, and Nepal. I think this should send quite a message to the much wealthier churches of the West.

In closing, Operation World has a great resource that outlines all the countries of the world in good detail and also how you can pray for all the countries more specifically. I would highly recommend getting this book.

Thought for the Day: When man works, man works. When man prays, God works.

Food Roll Overs

2007-07-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

I have too many food pictures, so I need to do a quick post to display them all. Wyatt and I aren't big on left overs. I personally like to get my knives and frying pan out and Wyatt likes variety. There are many terms for reusing left overs in new ways, my favorite thus far is Rachel Ray's coined name Roll Overs.

Lately, I have seen many recipes calling for a store bought rotisserie chicken. Recently, I saw a show where Tyler Florence broiled a chicken beautifully by cutting out the back with scissors, so I decided to use that for a base of several roll over meals. Not to mention the whole organic fresh free roaming chicken was 79 cents a pound, so I got a 4 pound bird for a little over $3 (about half the price of rotisserie I think). Meal 1: Broil chicken in lemon, olive oil, and thyme with roast vidalia onions, garlic rice and bulgar, and garden tomato salad.

I took my traditional America meal and transformed it into a Southeast Asian staple, chicken tikka. Meal 2: Sliced broiled chicken with reused tomatoes, vidalia onions with tikka spices, a touch of cream and topped with coriander over rice. Note: The broiled chicken was so tender on the second day and absorbed the flavors of the spices perfectly.

If you still have some left over chicken, try this last combo. Meal 3: Puff pastry squares stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese, chopped vidalia onion, mushroom and shredded broiled chicken served with brown rice and seasoned tomatoes.

Veggies can be rolled over too. I prepared roasted acorn squash with cinnamon and sugar as side dish in Meal 1 with roast pork and onions. Meal 2: I added the left over squash to chicken stock and blended with a submersion blended and added a touch of cream for a rich soup.

Finally frozen shrimp are a great way to roll over meals, ok so this technically isn't a roll over, but a good tip. Shrimp are sold frozen in larger bags at the store, often at significant discount. We especially like the jumbo freshwater shrimp cooked with shell on to keep a nice texture. Meal 1: Angel hair pasta tossed with grilled shrimp, roasted cherry tomatoes, Alaskan jumbo king crab meat, parsley, lemon, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Meal 2: Spicy Cajun fried shrimp with lemon and green beans. Both meals are super easy and can be made from your pantry if you have the frozen shrimp on hand.

Believe it or not I have several other shots I wanted to blog about, but I will save them for later. I would love to hear about your roll overs and the largest number of meals you have made from stretching one option.

Thought for the Day: The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook. ~Julia Child

From Vampires to Jesus

2007-07-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

I know nothing of God or the Devil. I have never seen a vision nor learned a secret that would damn or save my soul. A quote from one of Anne Rice's main characters in Interview with a Vampire. This movie was a favorite of my youth. Was it Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in one movie or the existential search for meaning?

Anne an atheist for 30 years now pens stories of another supernatural being, Christ the Lord. You might wander what journey brought this women from devout atheism back to devout Catholicism. A new found podcast reminded me of the fascinating conversion Anne underwent that suddenly transformed her main character from a vampire to Jesus.

The Whitehorse Inn a delightful podcast that interviews many leading thinkers and answers difficult questions recently interviewed Anne Rice (Listen Here). Anne discusses her return to Christianity, as well as, the reliability of some New Testament scholarship.

Anne grew up in a strict Roman Catholic home in New Orleans. She left the church and her faith upon entering college where she describes, "No personal event precipitated this loss of faith...there was the world itself, without Catholicism, filled with good people and people who read books that were strictly speaking forbidden to me. I wanted to read Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Camus. I wanted to know why so many seemingly good people didn't believe in any organized religion yet cared passionately about their behaviors and the values of their lives..." (Read more here.)

So Anne threw herself into her work, embracing atheism, and began publishing many best selling books (50 million plus). Anne's novels have always tried for complete historical accuracy, whether it be the 18th and 19th century for her Vampire Chronicles or the 1st Century for recounting the life of Jesus. Fascinatingly, she does not use an editor for any rewrites and brings each work to perfection herself.

In fact it was her own research into the first century and Roman culture that brought her to the questions--How did Christianity actually 'happen'? Why did Rome actually fall? The mystery she couldn't explain was the survival of the Jews. This set into motion the idea that there might be a God. She returned to the church in 1998. She read the Bible now with a state of utter amazement at its variety, poetry, and startling portraits of women. She posed herself to exhaustively research Jesus and how Christianity emerged.

Anne did much research into New Testament scholarship. She first looked at the skeptical New Testament scholars of the Enlightenment. To her surprise, she did not find strong, well examined arguments, but incoherent, inelegant assumptions and conjectures that reached absurd conclusions on the basis of little or no data at all.

In summary Anne found--"the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified by it if he knew about it-that whole picture floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years- that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read."

Anne had never seen such kind of emotion in any other field of research. Luckily she came across other scholars who took seriously the words of the Gospel and presented their individual authorship and unique coherence. Among those include A.T. Robinson, N.T. Wright who addressed that Christianity achieved what it did in fact because Jesus rose from the dead. It was this fact that sent the apostles out into the world with the force necessary to create Christianity, nothing else would have done that.

Given these two directions in scholarship, Anne was confronted with how to write her novels about Jesus. Anne has accepted that challenge and chosen to write about the Jesus of the Gospels! So with that I am encouraged to read her work and happy to know I will not find the ill researched, poorly presented history of someone like Dan Brown.

Please let me know if you have read her work and your thoughts.

Thought for the Day: If God were to make reasonable promises: a spiritual high, a tax break, then a secular age might credit the word of the Almighty. But God promises a new nature, physical resurrection, a new heaven and earth, and eternal life.

Chicken and Noodle

2007-07-11T07:04:00.002-07:00

Some things are just great combinations, like chicken and noodles, cookies and milk, Tracy and Wyatt. I am currently reading The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaeffer, which was recommended to me by Noel Piper. It is a lovely book that encourages us to be creative as we are made in the image of God, the ultimate creator. Creativity can flow in many areas of everyday life from music to decorating to cooking.

Cooking is something I love to experiment with as you have seen from other posts. Last night I made steak tacos and changed our normal flour tortillas and crispy corn shells out for fresh soft corn tortillas. It made a world of difference, so I highly recommend trying it. We used the Migas brand made in Chicago. Also add a homemade salsa of tomato, cilantro, and lime and queso fresco (fancy cheese aisle) to give it a very fresh taste.

Wyatt and I started having a tea time where we sometimes have a devotional, podcast, or just discuss the day. To switch things up, I made homemade chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. This was courtesy of the Toll House package directions, since it was a whim inspired by the Food and Wine magazine I was reading at the moment. As always I am trying to convert Wyatt from Starbucks to coffee at home, so we bought Intelligensia espresso beans and Ghirardelli mocha powder and I whipped up a Chocolate Mocha with my espresso machine. The satisfaction of creating things from nearly scratch is definitely worth the time.

The same evening as the mocha, I introduced Wyatt to the wonderful world of soap carving. Astonishingly, he had never heard of such a thing. I would consider this a lost art, as it has been buried in my repertoire for many years. We both opted to carve turtles at my suggestion. Toothpicks make the perfect tool for chiseling. I dug out my bag of hotel soap and we each selected our medium. These were pretty quick pieces, so look for more developed ones in future blogs.

Thought for the Day: The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

Free is not always better

2007-06-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

Blasphemy you say! Time is money, yada yada yada, there is no such thing as a free lunch, etc. Ok, ok, I hear you. Although I do gain much joy out of finding a good and especially free deal, some of them are a risk. I was bitten by a trip to the Shedd Aquarium, my favorite museum, when on a free day the wait just to get inside was several hours (no, I did not wait). It was a good lesson and reminds me to think a little bit harder when I see the word FREE.

On the brighter side, I had a wonderful free lunch last week at the all you can eat Brazilian steak house Fogo De Chao. A salad bar that alone I could have made 5 different meals from plus unlimited amounts of 16 cuts of meat. I believe I sampled every cut with my favorite being picanha, the best part of the sirloin. Other notable mentions were beef ancho and bacon wrapped filet mignon. Even though the food is great, I give a mild recommendation since the price is steep and it would be difficult to eat your money's worth.

Colombia is a neighbor to Brazil and also boasts delicioso meat dishes. We recently hosted a birthday party for a friend at a very festive Colombian restaurant Pueblocito Viejo. The fact that you have to make a reservation in Spanish speaks to the authenticity of the place. Not

only do you get many authentic dishes like carne asada, arepas, and platanos, but the jungle like atmosphere will place you on a house patio in Bogotá. Salsa and dance music kicks in around 9 and you can dance your meal off till 3 am.

Wyatt and I love Ethiopian food and have found many people aren't exposed to this unique cuisine. Chicago has several options for Ethiopian, but we have declared the creme de la creme to go to Ethiopian Diamond after many thorough tastings. We love to sit at traditional or basket tables and split a platter of several meats and veggie stew-like dishes. The unique part of the meal is your utensil, injera. This crepe-like bread is quite sour if made right since it is fermented for 4 days. If its your first time definitely get the spice tea and a sample platter of several dishes.

To end this eclectic blog I want to share a tip I found out by accident this week. I recently discovered that the special weekend rate for Avis kicks in at 9 am on Thurs. So by booking 30 min later than I wanted I went from a rate of $161 for the weekend to $90. Play around with the hours when you book cars and flights and you just might get a super deal. This will come in handy as we plan several upcoming adventures to Seattle, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Iowa!

Thought for the day: A free lunch is only found in mousetraps?

Dicern Your Food

2007-06-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

I primarily shop in one aisle of the supermarket, fresh produce and meat. My local Jewel consists of about 90% processed food and 10% fresh food. I'm not on a diet nor do I want to be, but I have decided to become more food conscience. One couple at our young marrieds class at church reminisced about how they knew the honeymoon was over when 3 months in they were 20 pounds heavier and realized its time to cut back on the three course gourmet meals every night.

Every now and again my Time mag has an article worth reading. What the World Eats was fascinating, see the pictorial here. The photo essay pictures 16 families from around the world and what they eat. The essay outlines how much each family spends weekly on food. Not surprisingly, an African family only spend $1.50 a week for a food budget. A German family came out on top spending over $500 a week. The most appealing layouts to me where Japanese and Mexican food diets. Japanese of course for the fresh fish and sushi, although Wyatt and I found ourselves worn out on sushi after 2 weeks in Japan. I still cannot eat Udon since getting back. Mexico seems to sport the most fresh veggies and fruits and I am of late a chili fanatic.

The article in Time had some interesting observations. I will relay a few for you. Tomatoes didn't come to Italy until Columbus brought them back from US. Japan got chopsticks from China and tempura from Portugul. Food's purpose is to keep us alive, but something we rarely think about. Africa is one place where this reality can be see. Meat is a luxury in many areas and last year the starvation in Niger spoke to the great need for the basic necessities for this continent.

In closing I will plug an upcoming food movie I am soo excited to see, Ratatouille! From my favorite movie company, Pixar, makers of Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc, comes this animated feature of a mouse in Paris with a knack for the culinary arts. France, food, and furry animals, sounds like a winner to me.

Let me know which country food appeals to you and why.

Thought for the day: Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. ~Jim Davis

Two Sweet Freebies!

2007-06-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

Two excellent freebies, you should download and listen! Christianaudio.com has a free monthly download and this month its an audio book on the best of Jonathan Edwards Sermons, $15 value. Download here and use code provided. I just downloaded it, so I will let you know what I think once I get to listen. It includes his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God...good stuff.

Secondly, the New Attitude conference from two weeks ago is up for free at Sovereign Grace Ministries. The conference is on discernment and features great speakers like John Piper, Mark Dever, and Joshua Harris. Still working my way through the seven part conference, but so far its great.

Thats all for now, I should be back soon : )

Food and Wine Introspective

2007-05-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to eliminate TV from my daily routine, but the Food Network and Travel Channel are making that hard. I do enjoy the simple tips from Rachel Ray like grating garlic into your marinade or exploring delicacies of half born chicken eggs or halo halo with Andrew Zimmerman. Today I will simply post on a few meals that have had some inspiration from TV shows, some from podcasts, and some from my curiosity of mixing interesting ingredients.

This is just a glimpse into a few dishes I have done recently. I try to keep them affordable, healthy and tasty (also maximizing a very small kitchen space). I'm still working on portion control . Yesterday I marinated a chicken breast in several spices with an emphasis on cayenne and paprika and grilled it (on an indoor grill). I broiled a vegetable kabob of baby bella, red onion, and yellow pepper. Amazingly, heirloom tomatoes were the cheapest in the store, so I simply prepared them with salt and pepper. Oh, I can't leave out my new found love, quinoa! It looks like cous cous and is an Incan organic grain that contains the most high quality protein of any grain. I paired it with a Pouilly Fuisse, an exquisite chardonnay from Burgundy.

Wyatt likes pork, I'm not a big fan. As a compromise, I made him a center cut pork chop and myself a pork cutlet dredged in lemon and Parmesan. I oven roasted asparagus with lemon zest and made a side of angel hair pasta with fresh tomato sauce and baby bellas in marsala. Normally I wouldn't recommend a Malbec with pork, but I didn't mind overpowering the dish : ) Malbec is very fruit foward and a great value wine out of Argentina.

After a trip to Mitsuwa, I was stocked up on Asian goodies. We love making miso soup from fresh miso paste. It tastes just as good as the sushi restaurants and is very healthy. Miso paste is a great ingredient to add to marinades or sauces and has an unbeatable shelf life of six months, now thats value! Asian stores often have marinated meat, so we grilled a nice helping of bulgoki, alongside fresh shitake mushrooms. No Asian meal is complete without a side of kimchi, fermented spicy cabbage. Wine pairing for this is an Anderzon Cote de Rhone, which is a Syrah. Very bold and flavorful, again probably not the best choice for spicy food, but we drink what we like and enjoy trying things out for ourselves!

Thought for the Day: You gotta have fresh intestines for chittlins~Andrew Zimmerman

Keeping Austin Weird

2007-05-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our trip to Austin, I decided to watch David Linklater's Slacker to get a feel for Austin. The movie was one character after another and had little cowboy hats or country. I then found out that the motto for Austin is Keep Austin Weird. So at that point, I didn't know what to expect. Luckily Rachel Ray had made several trips to Austin and reassured us that we were in for some culinary treats.

The BBQ was phenomenal in the Austin area. We enjoyed ribs, brisket, and turkey at Stubb's in downtown Austin. The sushi scene was great too. Lonely Planet gave us the tip to head to award winning Uchi. Foie gras and fatty toro on the same menu, now thats my kind of place. Of course we hit the coffee houses, which boasted many unique and yes weird spots, ala Spider House and Ruta Maya International Headquarters. The common theme amongst the food and drink joints in Austin is a stage and live music, it is the live music capitol of the world.

Wyatt soon discovered my passion for Goodwill as Austin or Texas, for that matter, appears to be the thrift store capitol of the world. He was very patient and even found a beautiful triple X beaver cowboy hat and leather cowboy boots.

We enjoyed two stepping and the rodeo at Cowboy's Dance Hall in San Antonio. Riding a bull for eight seconds takes a very brave individual. The Broken Spoke was reminiscent of Station Inn, our favorite spot in Nashville. With cowboy hats and boots, I'm sure we blended right in with the locals.

If you have any suggestions for locations that have a great two stepping or country dancing scene, let us know while we still have the bug.

Thought for the Day: I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other's gaps. Rocky

Happy Birthday to My New Husband!

2007-05-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Week in Pictures

2007-04-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

Nearly to my wedding and art and eating are preoccupying my time : ) I made delicious Alaskan king crab legs with Irish butter (sans garlic for Wyatt). I experimented with a papaya, red cabbage, and sprout salad with lemon dill dressing, which was very pretty and actually tasty. I cooked a brunch for 10 today that turned out wonderfully, but I forgot to take pictures : ( We spent one night coloring boxes with pastels that will be sent to refugee kids in Angola. Finally a picture of my fired pot!

Don't Waste Your Life

2007-04-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

If you've had a conversation me for any length, chances are I have dropped the name John Piper. If you have yet to read anything by him, listen to a message or read his short articles, you have no excuse now because he is putting out a vodcast series (think YouTube) of short clips around themes from his excellent book Don't Waste Your Life.

The Don't Waste Your Life site is awesome, check it out. I must recommend that you watch the Podcast (Vodcast) series. If you only have a few minutes watch Risk, Treasures on Earth, and The Shell.
Treasures on Earth simply displays a nice house being crushed in a matter of seconds with overlaying text Matthew 6:20. The Shell is a blip about this couple who retire to Punta Gorda, FL and spend the rest of their life collecting shells, which Piper aptly calls a tragedy.

I started a book group reading Don't Waste Your Life (If any of you are in it, I promise we will get back to it after my wedding!) A chapter you must read from this book is Risk is Right (The entire book is free to read online!). Piper defines risk as an action that can expose you to the possibility of loss or injury. I cannot even begin to expound to this chapter as I found myself underlining and writing all over it...it is that good!

Yesterday as I was reading Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy on the Self Existence of God I was reminded of a quote from the Risk is Right chapter which I think gets at the heart of the matter of why we don't risk as we should--Without Christ, we are all legalist or lechers at heart-wanting to do our own thing or wanting to do God's thing in our way to prove our own ability.

In closing, I want to highlight a talk Piper gave at Texas A & M this week called Radical Effects of the Resurrection. Piper makes the claim that America is the most dangerous place in the world to raise a kid. He states--Jesus did not say its hard for a missionary kid to get into heaven, its hard for someone in Somalia to get into heaven, he said its hard for a rich man to get into heaven.

Thought for the day: Jesus isn't into giving you lists or prescriptions, he's into shocking the hell out of you.

(Note: Subscriptions to my blog are available at the end of this page ; )

Thank You!

2007-04-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

My wonderful friends surprised me by driving quite a distance to come to my shower!

What a great idea for a shower, painting pottery! Thanks to my friends for finding this, I highly recommend it.

I decided to go for a stained glass look for a semi-bowl-dish, I still don't know what to call it. We had 2.5 hours to paint and I was definitely needed every minute. Here is the before, come back next week for the finished fired product hopefully in bright primary colors. So much fun!

Free Dunkin Donuts Coffee March 21st!

2007-03-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Celebrate the first day of spring by making the inaugural switch from hot to cold coffee! On March 21st, the first day of spring, Dunkin' will "put winter on ice" with their first ever Free Iced Coffee Day. All day long, Dunkin' Donuts locations all over the US will be giving away free 16-ounce iced coffees.

The company reports that iced coffees are their second most popular menu item after hot coffees and that they sold over 150 million cups last year alone!

In my opinion Dunkin' Donuts coffee is far superior to Starbucks in both taste and value. Yes, you cannot sit and feel the vibe of being ultra hip sitting at a coffee house, but I still believe coffee is for drinking and not sitting.

On a complete tangent, isn't that the cutest turtle you have ever

seen : )

Suprised by Chef!

2007-03-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

It's not everyday you are listening to a podcast about food and get a wonderful testimony! I like all things food...looking at food pictures, reading about food, watching food on TV, listening to a podcast on food, and especially eating food : )

A podcast for Hungry Magazine popped up in my window when I did a search for food pocasts a few months back. To my delight, the host is a Chicago native and captures stories of local restaurants and chefs, which are among some of the top culinary experts in the world.

You might have seen him whipping up a risotto on iron chef, launching a cookbook in your local B&N, or leading your child in the local church youth group? Rick Tramonto is among the leading chefs in the world. He started at Wendy's and worked his way up through Tavern on the Green, Charlie Trotters, Trio, and Tru.

In the egocentric world of chefs, you would expect him to tout his James Beard award, his appearance on Oprah, or his world famed restaurant Tru. Yes he does mention a few of those things, but the emphasis that comes through is his relationship with Christ.

I was impressed by the transformation his life has gone through and the direction it is going.
At the pinnacle of his culinary career, he wants to go to seminary school and be a youth pastor. From having a parent who was in prison himself, he now is very active in the Angel Tree ministry, which actively ministers to families of those in prison.

While working for Charlie Trotter, he remembers this daily statement from him--What one thing can you do better today than you did yesterday, now multiply that times the 50 employees we have working here and you have 50 things that are better than yesterday. Tramanto has carried that value into his own kitchens now and emphasis the importance of working at something with all you heart.

Ending the podcast, the interviewer asks Rick what people he would have to a dinner out of anyone in the world. Rick exclaims Jesus with a passion and remarks he would cook fish, definitely fish because Jesus ate a lot of fish.

Bon Appetit: Culinary Podcast

Thought for the day: Man should not live on bread alone, but on every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Duet 8:3

Do you want to be a Buff Bride?

2007-03-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

This is actually the campaign being run at my gym right now. The phenomenon of women trying to loose weight for a wedding never crossed my mind before, but now I find myself even telling Wyatt how I plan to lose a few pounds. I get the feeling that many women look at getting married as starting off with a new slate, kind of like starting off a new year...or at least marketers believe that.

So this blog is about deals and weddings. We really don't belong to a gym, but are sampling a free membership of 21 days at a posh Gold Coast gym. I kid you not, membership here is around $120 a month ($80 with my corporate discount)! To join or not to join, that is the question.

Many gyms will give you a month trial free if you just go in and talk to them. If anything, its a nice perk to beat the winter blues and also a nice way to break a routine if you are stuck in a rut. And yes, join right before your wedding and loose those pounds! I've even found it to be a bit of a sociological experiment.

People in the city take working out very seriously. Wyatt and I get as many noodles as we can and float down the lap lane like its a lazy river. Those in speedos and swim caps find us mildly annoying and to them I say have a little fun with your workout!

Every machine in the gym has its own TV! Fahrenheit 451 here we come. I tried watching the TV one time working out without headphones and was amazed at the number of commercials! 30 minutes of news and all I learned was--Dick Chaney has a blood clot. So I've decided that the stair machine will provide a great time to catch up on podcasts. I'm listening to a fascinating series called Cults and Sects, look for a blog soon : )

The last if not largest portion of my workout consists of sitting in the hot tub, sauna, and steam room (eucalyptus steam!). I have always enjoyed the spa, but after experiencing the sento in Japan I have a deep affection for it. Wyatt and I semi-joke that we will put in a Japanese bath in our house or at least the Japanese sitting shower. I can't believe the number of women who just go the gym to run on a treadmill and pass up this glorious experience. The spa just hasn't caught on America. Its unfortunate because after watching many an average Joe train like hes in the decathlon at the Olympics, he could use a little relaxation.

In closing, pick up a noodle in the pool, play a game of horse, cha cha like there's no tomorrow and by all means have fun when you exercise!

Thought for the Day: If it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all.

Staying Married is Not about Staying in Love

2007-02-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

What do you tell someone who is getting married? Good luck, best of luck, better luck next time... Marriage is a mystery, thats for sure. Lately I've been thinking about marriage mostly because I'm getting married.

Sitting at a wedding a few months before your own big day is quite an experience. If you manage not to pass out, you may learn a few things. After listening to John Piper, all I could think was Christ and the Church, Christ and the church, Christ and the church...and then nearly passed out.

The symbolism is truly remarkable. The bride or church is put on this pedestal and dressed in pure white and praised and honored as the highlight of the day. Anyone who helped in planning the wedding, is probably thinking that woman is crazy...she doesn't deserve this (aka bridezilla)!! The groom also realizing this woman is crazy gladly accepts her and takes her as his own.

The idea of marriage being about Christ and the Church is sinking in the more and more I think about it. Wyatt and I each had to write a word which sums up marriage for a workbook we are doing...I wrote selflessness and he wrote sanctification. Loving someone else is all about doing stuff for them they don't deserve because lets face it we've all got issues and when you get married you now have multiplied your issues by two.

I don't think I've heard anything explaining marriage nearly as poignant as the series John Piper is currently doing on marriage called Staying in Married is Not about Staying in Love (Listen now!). Frankly, its the opposite of what the majority of people will tell you marriage is. Marriage is all about love isn't it, its about marrying your best friend right?

He starts with the assumption that "our own sin and selfishness and cultural bondage makes it almost impossible to feel the wonder of God’s purpose for marriage between a man and a woman." He hopes to "set you free from small, worldly, culturally contaminated, self-centered, Christ-ignoring, God-neglecting, romance-intoxicated, unbiblical views of marriage." I definitely needed that! You will not regret listening to this podcast : )

He even unveils the mystery of marriage near the end of it, which I don't want to spoil, but will hopefully encourage you to listen. Listen to the whole series if you get a chance and let me know what you think!

Thought for the day: And I have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay ~Iron and Wine

Japan in a Nutshell

2007-02-13T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have not been able to share as much about Japan in this blog as I have wanted. My lovely fiance has uploaded a selection of pictures from the Kansai region: Kyoto

Unfortunately, I will not have time to write about all our adventures, but you might get some idea from the shots. Here is a snapshot of Tokyo.

If you like the cuisine you see, you can get a taste of a large portion of it at a Japanese store near Schaumburg, Mitsuwa. The food court there feels like a little piece of Tokyo.

Next up, San Antonio and Austin. We love cultural travel and it doesn't get much better than the country of Texas!

Thought for the day: Good-bye, Japan! I'll miss you Kentucky Fried Chicken and your sparkling, whale-free seas. ~Bart Simpson

Are you getting married or getting a new lifestyle?

2007-02-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

Materialism at its finest. I'm not even talking about the Cartier, Vera Wang, and Beverly Hills Hotel weddings you see the celebrities have. I'm talking about the Zales, David's Bridal, and Marriott weddings taking place across the country.

Where to begin, there's so much I can say from being in the world of brides for the last few months. Lets begin where it all begins...the engagement. I was looking at rings on amazon.com yesterday, they have a great selection! You can get the traditional solitaire on Amazon for $7.99 (see here)! And yet, I hear the stories about not being able to make monthly payments on an engagement ring or postponing an engagement for almost a year so the man can use his work bonus to buy an ginormous ring.

Yes, David's Bridal is the Costco of wedding attire, but from my price surveying and many visits there I would say the average person walks out of there spending $1000 plus on a dress they will wear once, a veil-again wear it once, and associated must have accessories. Tradition is definitely a good thing and is wonderful to preserve, but when did having a white dress for marriage turn into a designer event?

Last, but not least, lets tackle the wedding reception. I like a good deal, so I shopped around a bit to see what the usual reception places had to offer. Most hotels and banquet halls offered a special package for weddings. Let me translate, special package = $$$. Quite frankly, its almost criminal to charge people getting married twice as much as they would a business organization. Our pastoral counselor said he's been to many weddings where you see about $15,000 worth of food in the trash a few hours after the reception.

Ok, I have to talk about registries since its been on my mind recently. Wyatt and I are hoping to reduce our lifestyle and really don't need that much to furnish a 0-1 bedroom apartment. We went to register at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and the wedding consultant gives you a list of literally 1000 things that you must have to get married and should use as a checklist, just so you don't miss anything. Call me crazy, but I just don't think I need to have matching fine flatware that matches perfectly with my fine china and my fine stemware.

To end this long rant, my main point is that we live in a materialistic culture that tells you everything you need and constantly pushes you to increase your standard of living. Pretty soon you'll find yourself living in a $500,000 house with 4 cars, a TV for each room and wonder how you are just barely getting by.

Stay tuned for a blog on a podcast that has a perspective on marriage everyone should know.

Thought for the day: Subscribe to my blog, see the bottom of this page!

SUBSCRIBE!

2007-02-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

Enter your email at the bottom of the page and you can now receive email updates when I write a new blog!

Norwegian Film at its Finest!

2007-01-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

They're packed and ready for the greatest adventure of their lives. All they have to do is get out of the house. I simply have to put a plug in for this movie because its not everyday you find a gem in a Blockbuster.

I don't have any insightful truths to push on you from this movie, but only a guarantee you will feel good after watching this movie. The characters are still vivid in my mind as I reminisce on this film.

Here is the plot:
When his mother, who has sheltered him his entire 40 years, dies, Elling, a sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin in his 40s. After two years, the men are released and provided with a state-funded apartment and stipend with the hope they will be able to live on their own. Initially, the simple act of going around the corner for groceries is a challenge. Through a friendship born of desperate dependence, the skittish Elling and the boisterous, would-be lover of women, Kjell Bjarne, discover they can not only survive on the outside, they can thrive. But as their courage grows, the two find oddball ways to cope with society, striking up the most peculiar friendships in the most unlikely places.

I will leave you with a snippet of the script:

[Elling is about to order two train tickets to Oslo]
Train ticket salesman: Yes?
Elling: Yes!
Train ticket salesman: You're going to?
Elling: Yes, we! Kjell Bjarne and I are going to Oslo of course.
Train ticket salesman: One way?
Elling: There are more ways?

[Ticket ordering continued]
Train ticket salesman: That'll be 130 kroner per ticket.
Elling: 130 kroner? The last time mother and I took the train to Larvik the ticket cost 25.
Train ticket salesman: That must have been about 30 years ago.
Elling: Yes

Thought for the Day: Seize the day!

I Eat, Therefore I Am

2007-01-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

One of the best deals in the city are the ethnic grocery stores. Some ingredients may seem intimidating, but not knowing what it is, is half the fun! Yesterday I was shopping up at Argyle in Chicago (essentially Vietnam-town).

I came home with a large loot all under $20 that will feed me for a few weeks. Ingredients like mushrooms, herbs, fruits, spices are typically 3 to 5 times cheaper at ethnic stores than the large markets like Jewel.

Lately, I have been trying to mimic some of the dishes I had in Japan. A very simple and tasty cuisine in Japan is Yakitori. In Japan, yakitori is essentially bar/pub food, but in the USA I have only seen it at upscale Japanese restaurants. To do it yourself you can use a broiler or grill pan if you don't have an outdoor grill. My favorites are asparagus, okra, or tomato wrapped in pork (bacon). Eringi and Shitake mushrooms (pictured above) are also delicious. Simply skewer the food and grill for 2-5 min a side. Be sure to salt the mushrooms after grilling and lightly dose with lemon. (Note: I tried lime today, but it just doesn't work as well)

Another Thai delight is Tom Yum soup. I do several varieties on this soup by adding some Thai and some Vietnamese ingredients (a la pho). I thought to add Thai Chili today, thinking they would be similar to Serrano chilies since they look very similar. I was wrong! My mouth and fingers are still burning from these peppers! After looking on the Internet, I found out the chili I used are some of the hottest in the world. The soup pictured here is very simple and starts with a pho broth (from cube), chili oil, fresh rice stick noodle, shitake mushroom, lime, and cilantro. You can add lemongrass, shrimps, duck, chicken, Thai chili and the list goes on...

In Chicago, Argyle, Chinatown, and Devon (India-town) all host excellent stores and are conveniently located off public transportation. Let me know if you have other great deals in the Chicago area!

Thought for the day: No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

Killer Salon Deals in Chicago

2007-01-10T09:29:00.000-08:00

So I am currently looking for a salon to get color treatment. Today while searching for coupons, I stumbled across this amazing site: CHICAGO BEAUTY

It has tons of Chicago's best salons listed and if you click on one, it gives you several coupons!

If anyone has a recommendation for a place to get coloring that is in this list and has a coupon let me know!

Thought for the day: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Wedding Planning 2007

2007-01-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

My blogs might switch gears as I plan a wedding for April 2007. Above is a snippet of the invitations in the works. Right now I only have time to post a little detail of the swirling ideas...more to come I hope.....

I am Time's Person of the Year!

2006-12-20T19:50:00.000-08:00

And so are you! As I stared into my shiny Time cover at myself, I thought this a new high in lameness for Time. So I did start a blog this year, began podcasting, created a myspace page, made a few digital videos, but not really the same thing as finding a cure for cancer.

Anyways, this is officially my Christmas letter/Year in Review edition of the blog. Since I began this blog in July, I feel that most of this will be a flashback for my faithful readers, all 3 of you ; )

I tried to pinpoint the initial domino in the chain reaction of great things that happened this year. I would give Wyatt some credit, but I met him last year : ) Certainly the change of jobs in March was a catalyst for some wonderful '06 happenings. With the new job, I was able to stay firmly located in Chicago. So when I entered the airport I was one of those smiling I'm going on vacation people instead of one of those its 7 am and I have a 4 hour commute to work in coach people.

Being in Chicago during the week, I was able to start up a new bible study at church with my dear friend Tilly. I also met many wonderful women through an in depth Precepts study on Ruth. It was also a great blessing to work with the young kids in Awana on Wednesday nights!

Although I left the high flying world of consulting, I did not leave without a new found passion for traveling and fondness for airports. In February, I was two stepping in my boots at the Wildhorse Saloon and getting down in a blue grass jam at Station Inn in Nashville, TN. An unexpected end of a work project in April, sent me packing to Paris. My college roommate Tiffany graciously hosted me in Rouen, Paris, and Strasbourg, France. June brought a training class in Toronto, where I was lucky enough to meet up with my high school friend Steph for a good 'ole time eh. Summer road trips to my wonderful hometown of Pella, IA for a few weddings made many memories for Wyatt and me. October brought the awesome Desiring God conference in Minneapolis, MN with many Moody friends. And of course the grand finale in Japan where Wyatt and I were engaged!

An earlier blog is really what I was reminded of this year--risk more, reflect more, and do more that has a lasting eternal impact. Going into 2007, I will hopefully keep these things on my mind and take one day at a time.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
MANY BLESSINGS IN THIS NEW YEAR!

Memories, Like the Corners of My Mind

2006-12-19T06:36:00.000-08:00

I may just become a food painter, for some reason this subject keeps me inspired. Next up, bento box with sushi. Bon Appetit!

When in Japan, Do as the Japanese

2006-12-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

As the Vapor's sang, "I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so." If I could highlight some things that I found to be uniquely Japanese (or Asian, but likely since Japan conquered them ; ) they would be face masks and sentos.

With the outbreak of SARS, even the West started to see these surgical safeguard popping up on flights. In Japan (at least in the city), I would say 1 out of 50 people sports one of these shields as the run out of the subway. We are still trying to figure out the reason for these masks. So far we have heard it is a.) because the person is sick and does not want to spread his disease, b.) because he is paranoid of getting sick from others, c.) because he feels the air is unclean from pollution, and d.) because it is a fine accessory to knee high socks. Ok, not d.) but if you do know the true reason or have heard another reason, please post a comment. Wyatt had fun drawing grillz on his mask and walking through the busiest subway in the world!

The classic anime movie Spirited Away introduced me to the Japanese public bath (sento), but it did not prepare me for this wonderfully weird experience. We did our first sento on day 5 of the trip and we're hooked...this soon became our pre-dinner ritual. The average age in the sento is around 60 and it is an interesting experience to have a elderly women take you by the hand and try to lead you around the sento speaking only Japanese while you are both completely nude (this is not the place for the modest!). The biggest shock was sitting in a tub for a few moments and then realizing I was being electrocuted! (Yes, electroshock tubs are popular among the Japanese) I quickly departed that tub and sploshed over to the wonderful mineral tub. (something like a hot bath with a giant tea bag in it) We absolutely loved sentos and for an average of $4 a visit, you must make this a daily routine if you are in Japan.

In closing, just a few thoughts on the irony of the face mask and the sento existing in perfect harmony in Japanese culture. Imagine a man wearing the surgical shield on the subway deathly afraid of breathing in air of a fully-clothed, pristinely-dressed stranger 20 feet away in the car. The man exits the subway as quickly as possible, careful not to touch anything, and jogs up the stairs to exit. He turns the corner and enters the building with the Octopus kanji sign. After removing his shoes, his demeanor changes, removing everything, even the face mask. He takes a plastic bin used by several other people that day and enters a public shower room, he sits on a seat next to many au naturel men. Without restraint he enters a hot (bacteria cultivating) tub packed with people. After 30-60 minutes of communal soaking, he dries off, returns the dressing room, puts the face mask on and heads home.

Thought for the day: Diving in head first is sometimes the easiest way to enter the water.

Surviving Fugu and Getting Engaged

2006-11-30T20:42:00.000-08:00

Just a few highlights on my two weeks in Japan. Many more blogs to come on Japanese food, fashion, culture, religion, wildlife, and people. A quick overview...we were in Japan in the height of fail foliage (I love saying that word!) and got a great flavor of Tokyo, Kyoto and surrounding Kansai region.

To get right to it, the picture to the left is the last evidence of a single TLC. Unsuspectingly snapping photos like the Japanese tourist I am, a plot of proposal was in the works. A few moments later, in the foothills of the Arashiyama region, just past the bamboo forest, atop a bridge, overlooking the city (ok, ok) Wyatt proposed! I said "Of Course" : )

Another pinnacle moment in Tokyo was facing the fugu. I really wasn't seeking it out when I arrived in Japan, but by the end I was ready for the challenge. Fugu is the deadly blow fish that you may have seen highlighted in the Simpson's as Homer hilariously deflates the deadly puffer. I read on Wikipedia, that 100 people a year die from fugu poisoning, the toxins are 160,000 more deadly than cocaine, and 50% fugu deaths caused by liver, 43% caused by ovaries, and 7% caused by skin. You can see me posing with the puffer preconsumption as they are coyly swimming outside most fugu establishments. We opted to try just the fugu sashimi (thinly sliced raw fish). Without request, they also presented a salad of fugu skin (seen here)! Having read up on the more deadly skin, I was a little scared with the first bite. The fugu itself did not have much taste, but the accompanying ponzu sauce made the dish delicious. Next time I am ready for the 6 course fugu feast! By the end of the meal, Wyatt noticed a bit of numbness in his mouth and leg and I kept think my hand was going limp, but this all was likely paranoia. You can see a picture post fugu below, WE SURVIVED! (Notice us siting on the floor, I love that about Japan : )

Switching gears, I received the freebie of a lifetime yesterday! I filled out an online form for a free Nestle Cacao Reserve Chocolate Party (literally 5 min application). I was notified to be one of the 1000 winners nationwide. I received boxes of truffles, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, hot chocolate, exotic chocolate totaling over 500 pieces of chocolate! This is not your run of the mill Nestle either, the milk chocolate is 35% Cacao and dark is 65% Cacao. After a box of truffles last night, I can happily endorse this product as a quality chocolate product. Check it out here and apply for future chocolate parties! Cacao National Reserve

Thought for the day: Embrace the blow fish, harness the Cacao.

Arigato Gozaimasu

2006-11-18T19:51:00.000-08:00

FREE Stuff Friday

2006-11-02T20:28:00.000-08:00

So busy lately that I must shorten my blog to a few freebies. I am proud to introduce FREE Stuff Fridays. Ok, so this is a ploy to get you to visit my site at least on Friday because I will be giving out great deals. No worries, I will be back with podcast reviews soon.

The theme this week is keeping your lifeclean:

The first step is learning speed cleaning. This book will cut your cleaning time in half: SPEED Cleaning 101.

Step 2, mix in the biz and start the rinse cycle: Biz is Better.

Finally, refresh the your home with scented oils, not to mention the added mood lighting: Glade Light Show.

Happy Cleaning : )

Thought for the day: Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.

Pella Peeps

2006-10-29T16:38:00.000-08:00

Thought for the day: The best mirror is an old friend.

Free Stuff for His and Her

2006-10-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

My readers have alerted me that I have been neglecting my free stuff sixth sense. So I have searched out some top freebies for women and men.

Ulta is a store that offers a range of beauty items for women. I have seen a few stores in the Chicagoland area and they appear to have some excellent deals and coupons. Let me know what you think about the store. Best of all, they are offering a Free 10 Piece Cosmetic Set! for signing up for email alerts.

For the men, I will offer something you all need to use...shave gel. No more soap and water, you can have a clean finish for free- Fusion Hydra Soothe.

Thought for the day: No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

Robbed the Jewelry Store, Made Me a Grill

2006-10-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have a day where your perspective on life shifts a little? I had the epiphany this week where I realized I am in the season of least responsibility in my life. Thanks to a lunch with some elder co-workers who shed great light on the aging process and stages of life. Case in point, a glimpse into my week:

Chillin with my grillz in Wicker Park

Dabbling in acrylic

Pumpkins for Jesus

Not only did I do these things, I had time to take pictures.

Thought for the day: Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.

O Canada!

2006-10-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving last Monday, I would like to pay tribute to our friendly neighbor to the North. Every time I prepare to go to Canada (6 or 7 times last year), I get a rush of excitement and anticipation. My love for this country goes far beyond the exchange rate....which used to be .7 to 1, alas it is almost 1 to 1 nowadays. These are a few of my favorite things:

Banff National Park- quite possibly the most beautiful and peaceful place in North America.

Munchkins and Iced Cappuccino from Tim Hortons

Love it or hate it- Canadians have pride, eh!

Let me know what your favorite things about Canada are, leave a comment!

Thought for the day: A Canadian is sort of like an American, but without the gun.

My Hometown to Build a $155 Million Rain Forest!

2006-10-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

The world might possibly be going mad or at least the governor of Iowa. Pella, IA (population near 10,000) is the future home to Earth Park. Earthpark will feature an indoor rain forest, a 600,000-gallon freshwater aquarium, an exterior prairie and wetland exhibits. In an earlier blog I did mention that my town is not new to the ridiculous. We built a multimillion dollar nonfunctional canal...(4 inches of water deep!) and also a ginormous windmill imported piece by piece from Holland that grinds Bulgar wheat.

A similar venture in England draws 8 million tourist a year. I will believe it when I see it, but I will be the first in line in 2010 to check it out if and when it opens. The president of the local college says "It [Earth Park] could very well be the salvation of this planet that we all call home." My guess is either Al Gore or Philippe Cousteau will do the ribbon cutting.

MSNBC Article

EARTHPARK WEBSITE
[Check out the video on this site!]

Thought for the Day: If you build it, they will come?

AWESOME

2006-10-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

This post is to clear the air on any Piper/Driscoll controversy. As I said in my blog yesterday these men are united in proclaiming the Supremacy of Christ. Congratulations to Mark and Mars Hill on their 10th Anniversary. 1.5 million raised in one day, awesome!

Even yesterday as I surfed the blogsphere, I became aware of the influence the cyberworld has and also the potential danger. A reminder to myself from this is to be careful not to engage in or put out gossip online.

Piper and Driscoll exchange emails

Thought for the day: Be slow to anger and quick to forgive.

I Want to be Hip Too, Man!

2006-10-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

So much to blog, so little time. I could write a minor novel on the wealth of knowledge dispersed from last weekend's Desiring God Conference. Instead, of course, I will direct you to quite possibly the best podcasts you have heard this year to ponder for yourself. You must check out the conference podcasts (Listen Now)! This was the conference of all conferences!

The conference was inspired by a book entitled Above All Earthly Powers by David Wells. Dr. Wells kicked off the conference with a message on the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern (1) World. Wells is an elder theology professor with the most endearing British accent. He listed some facts that Christianity is moving South and East in the world. On Sunday less than 2% of New Zealanders go to church, while nearly 80% attend in many African nations. Questions to think about: What is your treasure? How can we reach suffering people--both physically and psychologically suffering?

Definitely check out both of the Q&A sessions for some candid, touching, and affecting conversation. Highlights include precious David Wells asserting, "I want to be hip too, man!" in response to a question comparing him and younger Mark Driscoll. John Piper saying "smart ass" quoting some people from the emergent camp. D.A. Carson's emotional recounting of his father's faithfulness during a time of little fruit in ministry. Wow, these two sessions were worth the trip, so much fun!

Voddie Baucham, an African American preacher from TX, delivered a moving message on The Supremacy of Christ and Truth. He describes the two prevailing worldviews of Christian and Humanist perfectly. Africa came to my mind during this talk and how it in many ways is a modern day Holocaust. Voddie is a powerful, powerful speaker; you must listen if you haven't heard him before.

Tim Keller who heads a church in NYC had many insights on the topic of The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel. This guy is smart and I can't help but think prophetic. He describes the nation as having pockets of "Christ-haunted" people, but also large populations of people who have no idea what the concept of sin, man, hell are. He is an advocate of contextualization of the gospel, which in short is something like if you live in Japan you would speak Japanese, learn to use chopsticks, etc. Solid gold, you must listen!

My personal favorite, Mark Driscoll, was the talk of the conference! Some people were upset John Piper invited him, but I still can't figure out why. Driscoll was genius with his example of the closed and open hand. The closed hand is where you hold things you won't compromise, like theology. The open hand is where you hold things that should be adaptable, like music. Piper lightly rebuked Mark during the conference saying his cleverness might get in the way of showing the glory of God. However, later Piper humbly stated an observation by a young fellow that while Mark was culturally clever, he was academically clever and therefore just as much in danger as Mark.

John Piper was the closer for the conference and the highlight for me. He again shows how our joy comes from glorifying God. Deeply passionate and stirring, you will be moved to make changes in your life from this message!

I definitely thank God for each speaker at this conference and the vastly different gifts they each possess. The impact of their ministries and even this conference will be great. Driscoll may best reach the tree huggers of Seattle, Piper might best reach academics, Keller might best reach NYC intelligentsia, but they all are united in proclaiming the Supremacy of Christ above all things!

Personally, I have been moved to do and change many things in my life from this conference. Earlier this year I got onto a blog site of the EBay Atheist that was run by the emergent church movement. I was drawn in by the conversations and dialog this group was trying to create. I thank this conference for helping me see the great danger in what this movement is doing. Stay tuned for more life changes....

Other blogs to check out: Joshua Harris (pastor and author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye) and Challies (live blogger at Reformed Christian Conferences)

Thought for the Day: Christ is Supreme!

(1) [Definition of Postmodernism as stated by D.A. Carson: Postmodernism recognizes how much of what we "know" is shaped by the culture in which we live, is controlled by emotions and aesthetics and heritage, and can only be intelligently held as part of a common tradition, without overbearing claims to being true or right. In the domain of religion, postmodernism focuses on relationships, love, shared tradition, integrity in discussion.]