Soli Deo Gloria

I see you!

2012-02-13T21:11:00.000-05:00

My sweet Ethan is nearing 9 months old already - and I can hardly believe it! He's a happy little guy and loves to smile and laugh. His list of solids/purees that he eats is growing, and so far there's nothing that he won't eat. I gave him a few Cheerios last week - what a hoot! The looks on his face as he "chews" them, and the cute little effort to get them in his mouth on his own. It never occurred to me while babysitting that eating Cheerios was a lesson in fine motor skills!
Since about 6 months old, he's consistently slept 7pm-7:30am without a fuss. He had a stomach bug 2 weeks ago (my, was that terrible) and even slept great through that. And then last week, he suddenly decided he didn't want to sleep at bedtime. Some nights have been better than others, but it's been rough. I didn't realize how much I'd come to appreciate that time from 7-10/11 when I was awake but he was sleeping! Teething is perhaps the culprit? Or time to drop a nap? Who knows...
Anyway - none of that was in the original mental draft of this post. What I really wanted to talk about was more "separation-anxiety" related. Ethan doesn't really have much - most of the time he's happy to be with anyone, especially if they're holding him - and I'm thankful for that. It's nice to have a break sometimes and for others to be able to enjoy him as well - and certainly makes going to work and leaving him in nursery a lot easier. But he DEFINITELY recognizes his Papá and Mamá. I can't tell you how many times I've seen him contentedly across the room, and when his eyes land on me, his face just lights up. And if Papá walks in the room, he reaches out for him and smiles. What joy it brings to my heart to see that sweet face and know that it's smiling because of me. To know that he loves and trusts me.
And then the other day, it hit me. That must be what God feels when we rejoice in His presence. But more importantly, when I see His face, do I look like Ethan does when he sees me? When I hear His voice as I read Scripture, do I burst out in smiles? When I see His handiwork in Creation or see evidence of His sovereign hand in my life, do I giggle and reach towards Him? I'm not sure that I always do. And I'm even more certain that I don't have much separation anxiety. I don't cry as soon as I feel myself moving away from him, and I'm not generally "fussy" and yearning for His presence when I fail to spend time with Him. And if that's not shameful enough, my promised future in His unadulterated and eternal presence in Heaven rarely even enters my mind. Why, oh why? Lord, PLEASE, give me that anxiety to sit at your feet, and that joy that lights up my face when I see your glory - as well as the anxiousness for an even purer taste of You!
Wanting to have separation anxiety... Soli Deo Gloria.

HT Super-Dups - 1/6

2012-01-06T17:03:00.000-05:00

Today is "el Día de los Reyes" in Spain (or Three Kings' Day, or Epiphany). Our family across the pond has the day off and spent the day enjoying each other's company and opening gifts. We saved a few little gifts from Christmas to open today, but we haven't gotten around to it yet. My treat to myself, though, was to get back on the coupon wagon and hit up Harris Teeter's super doubles sales. It feels good! Here's what I came home with:

In list form (with the final price after coupon/sale):

1 bottle Soft Scrub - $1.99
1 4oz can HT green chiles - 77¢
2 bags Snyders tortilla chips - $2
1 box Banana Nut Cheerios - $2.12
6 Clif bars - $4.10
1 8oz box Annie Chun brown rice noodles - $3.49 *no sale/QP for this one :(
4 boxes Honey Bunches of Oats cereal - 94¢
2 jugs HT premium orange juice - $4.54
10 Yoplait yogurts - $5
2 Chobani yogurts - 80¢
2 1/2 gals Smart Balance milk - $1.50
2 HT soda 2 ltrs - $1.74
tax - $1.10

TOTAL: $30.09
TOTAL SAVED: $38.90 = 56%

Definitely worth the trip. Now if I can keep the momentum going, but without buying so many deals that I blow the budget :)

Feeding my family on the cheap... Soli Deo Gloria.

AO Update

2012-01-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

I realize that after many months of not blogging, the LAST topic anyone who reads this expected me to blog about would be my produce delivery :) However, I've been meaning to do this math again anyway, so I went ahead and figured I'd share it with the world while I was at it. Here's a picture of the box of organic produce that I received from Absolute Organics just today:

And here's the cost comparison if purchased at my local Harris Teeter:

head of cabbage - $2.07* (assuming it weighs 3 lbs - who knew they sold cabbage by the pound? and i'm too lazy to go weigh it now that i've put the scale away.)
3 kiwi - $2.37*
1.5 lbs banana - $1.50
2.5 lbs pink lady apples - $7.23
2 red navel oranges - $2
1 bunch kale - $2.49
2 yellow bell peppers - $5.58
4 lbs potatoes - $8

TOTAL: $31.24 at HT and the * indicates that that item is not available organically. Not to mention that HT won't deliver to my doorstep. And I paid only $30 for 100% organic produce dropped at my door.
I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever owned a cabbage before! I have no idea how this is going to work out, but I have 2 recipes that I'm interested in trying with it, so when I saw it on the list I decided to take a leap and go for it! Within the next week or two I hope to try Lynn's Coconut Milk Asian Noodle Soup and Vonda's Spiced Cabbage and Apple Slaw. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the kale and potatoes will end up in a Kale and Potato Spanish Tortilla on a day when I have plenty of time to be in the kitchen!
So, nearly 2 years after starting to receive Absolute Organics deliveries, I'm still glad to be getting them and we're still eating more (clean) produce and saving money in the process... Soli Deo Gloria.

The Kitchen - part 3

2011-05-14T20:36:00.004-04:00

But wait... I thought the kitchen was done? What is this all about? Dishwasher details? Nope, sorry. But I was right there with you as far as thinking this was done... until my family came to visit for Easter. Not exactly sure how it happened, but next thing I knew we were back at Lowe's - my parents, sister and her boyfriend included - looking at Formica colors, sinks, faucets, etc. Somehow we managed to convince my husband that granite is not the only option for a kitchen countertop, and that we could make a wonderful - and much more reasonably priced - change by simply picking new laminate. We picked a color (from the 4 colors of countertop that they carry in-stock) and thought we could install it ourselves, perhaps with the help of a handyman with a bit of experience.
On their way out of town, Mom called her handyman, who gave her the name of a laminate installer buddy of his. Within a few days, "Bob the builder" (turns out he lives next door to a co-worker of mine whose young children lovingly gave him this nickname) was over to give us his thoughts. For various reasons, we couldn't use the in-stock pieces, but his price was very affordable, and his schedule was open enough to get us done before Baby, which was crucial since we were about 4 weeks from due date. Pro: we got to go back to the sample-board to pick a new color... great since I hadn't actually been 100% sold on the in-stock one we had picked. Con: we had to go back to the sample-board to pick a new color... this time, without the color-wise eyes of my family members in tow. We came up with the following options:

Didn't take too long to eliminate the middle option due to the distinct leaf pattern that I wasn't sure we wanted on as big a space as our kitchen counter (it was called "Frosted Leaves" after all). But then we got stuck. I wanted the lighter top color as I feared the lower would be too dark. Isaac wanted the darker color, fearing the other would be too similar to what we have and would show too many spots. We nagged votes from 2 family members... who were also split down the middle. Oh man. Headed out on the morning of my birthday to buy the new sink, faucet, disposal, etc. planning to poll my cousins that afternoon when they came over to celebrate, and hoping they'd break the tie. We stopped at the sample-board again, and (yeah God!) stumbled across another color we must have missed the first time around:

Though closer to the dark one, it was light enough that I thought it might be okay, and yet dark enough that Isaac felt comfortable. My cousins' votes, interestingly enough, had one going for either of the 2 lighter colors, and the other for either of the 2 darker! Thus, the middle ground won :) Isaac and I both felt good about it, and we had external confirmation that we weren't making a terrible mistake. By Friday, our buddy Bob was over and ready to get to work. He took it from this:

to this:

in about 36 hours (no worries, he went home to sleep for part of that time!). Wow. What a difference! I'll be honest, the darker countertop took a bit of getting used to.

But the sink, faucet, and filtered water dispenser had me at hello :)

In all it's completed glory:

FINISHING the kitchen project... Soli Deo Gloria.

Christmas in May!

2011-05-11T19:20:00.002-04:00

So much for being "back" to blogging. Oops. All kinds of posts in the works, but the long and short of it is that now that pre-baby prep is essentially finished, perhaps I can use some of my "down time" before his arrival to update this. No promises, since you see how well I did with that last time :)

Anyway, no time like the present, and what's a post without pictures? After using my 10% off Amazon registry completion coupon, this is what I came home to today:

Felt like just a little bit of Christmas, I tell you! Of course, I already knew what was in all these boxes, but still fun none-the-less. What was in them, you ask? I certainly wouldn't be so rude as to keep that a secret. Here you go:

What you see there is a Graco Travel Lite Stages playpen in Nottingham (to be used as bassinet & pack 'n play), some Seventh Generation wipes, a crib bedding set, some unbleached cotton cloth diapers, 2 Kissaluv's diaper pail liners and a pair of Lily Padz. Oh yeah, and an under-the-sink water filter. See - isn't that kinda like Christmas? I mean, if you have a baby on the way it is.

Shopping for baby... Soli Deo Gloria.

The Kitchen - part 2

2011-04-23T20:00:00.007-04:00

What I failed to mention at the end of the last post is that, when we decided to not renovate the whole kitchen, my hubby agreed to getting a new dishwasher. Ours still technically worked, but it was icky-looking on the inside and it gave me the heeby-jeebies to think about washing baby bottles in it. So at the end of my peaceful sleeping week, we were in Lowe's starting the dishwasher investigation, and Isaac stumbles across some clearance cabinets. Can't say I ever even knew they sold pre-made cabinets at home improvement stores. Next thing I knew, these puppies were sitting in our kitchen:

At $4 each, they had our "renovation" plans started back up, and at a whole different level. Wow. So much for sleeping well! Had to bring the "design team" back in, evaluate whether it would look tacky to add new cabinets on top of our existing ones, how we'd get them to match (i.e. whether we felt comfortable painting them or not), and determine whether neighbor/cabinet guy would be interested in the project and at what price. In addition to the significant savings on cabinetry, another benefit to this option is that we would not be forced to replace the countertop at the same time. We could split the cost by doing the countertop in a few months/years/decades. We eventually decided to move forward, and by mid-April, our kitchen looked like this:

We saved so much that we were even able to add fun features like the shelves to the left of the sink, and the roll-out shelves to the right of the fridge! Now... how to make them look like one unit, rather than a hodge-podge of miscellany?

Mom and I were in a paint store preparing to paint nursery furniture (post forth-coming), and "happened" to overhear a lady ordering paint for her kitchen cabinets. Always on the ball, my Mom starting asking her questions, and turns out she was an interior designer and had a cabinet painter that she regularly recommended to her clients, who was also getting ready to have him paint her own cabinets! Wow. Again. We snagged his number and called him on the way back home.

His price was very reasonable, and after painting (or assisting with) the nursery furniture, I was ready to never see another paint brush again, so we signed him up. We had picked a paint color back in phase 1, so that was easy-peasy at this point. Just a few days later, our kitchen looked like this:

Crazy! We went out of town for the weekend to avoid the fumes from oil-based paint, and then came back to hang the doors. By Easter, we had this:

And just in case you forgot where we started:

Beautiful. Lovely. Wonderfully spacious and practical. Fresh and clean. Not orangey. Oh, so many ways to describe our "new" kitchen. (P.S. Did you note the new dishwasher from picture 3 to 4? My hubby still let me follow through on that one. We haven't done a great job of capturing photos of that, but maybe one of these days.) Essentially, I was in love, content, and not broke. And there was even time to spare before Baby's arrival! Life was good.

Going green (really)... Soli Deo Gloria.

The Kitchen - part 1

2011-03-10T19:15:00.011-05:00

Get ready... this may be a long post (I mean, it's already long overdue, so why not just make it long as well, right?). Scratch that - I'm going to write it in phases, pre-dating it so you can see a basic timeline. Feel free to read it all, or just look at the pretty pictures :)

For Christmas this year, Isaac gave me a card that said we were going to renovate the kitchen. As that's something we've been talking about since we moved in but never felt like spending the money on, that was awesome and exciting! If it didn't happen now, one could safely assume it would "never" happen after Baby's arrival, so no time like the present. This is what we were starting with:

My pet peeves were the orangy tone of the cabinets, and the essentially unusable (and poorly decorated) space above the cabinetry. My husband's was the white laminate.

We had two contractors come to give us estimates, and essentially we discovered that our "budgets" were quite different... oopsies :) Lesson #1... at least minimally discuss budget with spouse BEFORE starting to get estimates. Then we found a neighbor who goes to our church who does custom cabinetry. Turns out, his price was in the same ballpark as the other folks, though of course it required us to track down our own countertop installer. And thus came our tour of granite shops. As it would be, we have expensive taste in granite. Who knew?

The whole thing snowballed into chaos - in an effort to find some clarity, we had several design-savvy friends (including my sister-in-law) and a realtor friend come to give us ideas. Of course, that just led to more confusion, as they all had wonderful - but very different - suggestions.

In the midst of all this, and with Isaac spending 3-4 nights out of town with work for several weeks in a row, our fridge broke. Appliances were never part of the original plan, so that threw us for a loop. Praise the Lord, we found a 1-yr-old but unused fridge on Craigslist for essentially half-price. My "blog-friend" Kim had recently purchased a new fridge, and thus had done all the hard work for me, and the fridge on Craigslist met all the requirements. Wow. Total God thing. So with the help of some cousin-muscle, we brought this puppy home one Saturday in February:

Tax refund unexpectedly put to wonderful use :) We continued to mull, plan and investigate, all the while realizing that most projects would take 6-10 weeks (order or build cabinets, install, cut granite, install, etc) and that we were running out of time if we didn't want a half-completed kitchen when we headed off to the hospital for delivery. Add in some potential job changes which essentially served to remind us that we have no idea exactly how long we'll be in this house, and we finally came to the conclusion that the project was not meant to be at this time. We could have our dream kitchen for way too much money, or we could have a half-baked partial upgrade for more than we wanted to spend for something only half-baked. The Lord gave us peace, and I slept beautifully for a whole week!

Putting projects on hold... Soli Deo Gloria.

Baby, I'm back!

2010-12-09T13:27:00.000-05:00

Anyone who actually reads this may have noticed a suspicious absence in new posts lately. Not that I've ever posted very regularly, but I generally try to post more than 1x/quarter! I'm going to "blame" my lack of posts on this little punk:

Yeah! I'm at 16 weeks along today, and can't wait to meet this little guy/gal in late May! In the meantime, while I can't truly complain about nausea, I definitely had a few months there when I wasn't feeling so hot, definitely didn't have much of an appetite, and was hardly cooking or grocery shopping. So... no posts about good ~~steals~~ deals. Cancelled a few Absolute Organics deliveries, so no post about that. In fact, pretty much all I did when I got home from work was lay around on the couch and maybe throw in a load of laundry - so no posting about anything else either, since I didn't figure that my couch or belated laundry would interest even the most bored among you. And when I did start to feel better, we weren't quite ready to "go public" with this great news, and everything else felt too inane to post about, with this shocker at the forefront of my life!

Other than growing a baby, cooking a bit less, and sleeping a bit more, the rest of life is about the same. I continue to love my job, my husband, my house, my church and my friends (in no particular order). Hopefully Baby will let me cook, shop and blog a bit more now, so until next time...

Incubating an infant... Soli Deo Gloria.

AO Price Check-Up

2010-09-09T17:24:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted about my Absolute Organics deliveries, but have no fear - I still get them! Don't know what I'd do without them. Well, not completely correct... I DO know what I'd do without them, but it wouldn't be pretty (i.e. wouldn't eat nearly enough fruits & veggies).
Anyway, no picture today (my kitchen is a bit of a mess), but I weighed and price-checked my goodies and have a list to share with you.

2+ lbs plums = $5.75*
approx. 1 lb carrots = $1.49
1 dry pint cherry tomatoes = $4.64*
1 lb red onions = $1.99*
1/2 lb spinach = $5.58
1 small head Romaine lettuce = $2.99
4 lbs 6 oz Fuji apples = $12.20

All prices are listed from my local Harris Teeter's website, and a * indicates that they don't seem to offer it organically, so the price is for non-organic. If my calculator adds correctly, that adds up to $34.64 - and mine was ALL organic and delivered straight to my door. Ummhmm. You know you want some. Go ahead, just call/email Vonda and she'll be happy to get you set up (if you live in her delivery area... sorry for those that don't!). Tell her you've got a brochure that says $10 off your first order (I'll give it to you next time I see you) and be sure to tell her that I sent you, too. I would love the free box of yumminess she'd send my way, just for you trying them out :)

Eating organic produce... Soli Deo Gloria

Bi-Lo Clean Sweep

2010-08-31T23:16:00.000-04:00

I most definitely should be in bed by now, but I'm practically too excited to sleep... which says something about me, I guess.

Anyway, a while back (think a year-ish) Bi-Lo sent me several flyers with coupons for free grocery items. Each flyer would have 8 total coupons - 4 coupons for free food (usually for related items), and 4 for $8 off a $50 total purchase - and they'd each be good for a different week. Somewhere along the line (I think when a flyer arrived after one had already expired) I found out that they take them expired - no matter how late. So, I've saved most of them up until I had a need for the particular item. Many of the items I haven't yet had a need for (or, at least not when Bi-Lo was on the list for that week, or I remembered about the coupon, or whatever).

This afternoon I went to Bi-Lo for the first time in probably several months to grab a few good deals (primarily Organic Peaches for $1.79/lb). I wasn't getting much, so I almost didn't go, but with my hubby traveling, I've got plenty of free time and I went. While standing in line with my 3 items, I saw a sign that said "As of Sept. 1 we will only except Bi-Lo coupons that are less than 30 days expired." As it turns out, Sept. 1 is tomorrow - and all those freebie coupons are waaaay more than 30 days past due.

You can imagine where this is going, right? I headed home, grabbed the coupons, went to Back-to-School night for a few hours, and then back to Bi-Lo - at 9:30 at night. I grabbed all the free stuff, and a few extra items so I could hit the $50 and get $8 off (essentially scoring $8 more of free food - mostly organic stuff that I would hesitate to buy because of the price), and headed to the (oops!) only open register. My list:

2 bags of Pirate's Bounty puffs
2 pouches of Uncle Ben's Ready Rice
1 loaf of Nature's Own Premium Specialty Multi-Grain bread
1 box of Strawberry Cereal Bars
1 8-ct bag of hamburger buns
12-ct brown-and-serve rolls
1 10-ct box of instant oatmeal
1 bottle of ketchup
50-ct heavy duty paper plates
1 8-oz bag of shredded cheese
1 lb of butter
4 yogurt cups
1 frozen pizza
1.5 qt Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream
1.33 lbs ground beef
4 lbs Earthbound Farm Organic Oranges
16 oz deli potato salad
1 small bag of Earthbound Farm dried mangos
1 small bag of Earthbound Farm dried plums

Total: $60.13.
I paid: $4.41.
That's an average of 18¢ / item.
I think that means I saved 93%.
See why I couldn't sleep 'til I "shared" this with someone?
I think burgers and ice cream will be on the menu for this weekend when our friends come in town for Labor Day.

Buying free food... Soli Deo Gloria.

A wonderful new "trick"

2010-08-24T15:56:00.002-04:00

Stopped at EarthFare the other night... great store, too far away. BUT - it was right on the way home from our friends' house where we had been for dinner, so I couldn't NOT stop :) Didn't get much, but I had a coupon for a free pound of organic grapes (wonderful, since they're on the so-called dirty dozen list), another for a free reusable lunch bag, and a third for $1.50 off some organic chicken. Needless to say, it was a pretty successful trip, savings-wise.

So what's the trick, you ask? First, a bit of history: I found a recipe a while ago for Pork Chili Colorado since I had gotten some cheap pork (also at EarthFare, if I recall properly). I stuck the pork in the freezer since the recipe is more of a winter stew-type, and will pull it out this Fall when the weather is better for that sort of thing. The recipe, however, calls for 1/2 tsp of Ground Coriander. As it turns out, I don't have that particular spice, nor do I have room in my cabinet for any more spice jars. Not to mention, since I have "survived" without it for the full 3 years of my marriage, I wasn't too keen on spending $5 for a spice that I'm probably never going to use up. Being a "perfectionist" - especially when experimenting with new recipes, I wanted to make the recipe correctly. So, I decided to be modern and offer a trade on Facebook... I buy Basil, Parsley, Cinnamon and Garlic Powder at Costco, so I've got more than enough to trade. I got a few offers, but all the local ones were for Coriander Seed, not the ground kind. Having it mailed by a friend in California was somewhat appealing, until someone posted that EarthFare sells bulk spices - who knew such a concept existed? Sure enough. I came home with this:

They don't have actual measuring spoons there, but it's close enough to 1/2 tsp to work for me. And it cost 14¢! I will DEFINITELY be keeping that in mind for future spice needs that are not native to my pantry :)

Buying bulk spices... Soli Deo Gloria

Calendar for My Classroom

2010-08-22T17:23:00.006-04:00

This past week I ordered a personalized calendar for my classroom to give a bit of "cultura" to my students. I used my own pics (and some from Isaac), and then was able to put all the special school dates and student birthdays (just my 13 homeroom students) pre-printed right on the calendar. I started with August so it follows the school year. Here are the pictures that I used.
Front cover:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

What $20 can get you

2010-08-22T15:46:00.000-04:00

I guess I took the latter part of the summer off of blogging, even though it wasn't exactly intentional. Oops. I've got at least one post in my head, but haven't taken the time to get it out yet... but you still have to wait for that one :) Don't feel too bad, though. Most of what I would've written would probably have involved commentary about the TV show Bones, since I spent a good chunk of my free time this summer watching the first 4 seasons on Netflix. Now I've got to wait until October for season 5 to come out on DVD... argh.

Anyway, I've also taken some time off from couponing a bit. Between 10 days of vacation (and the preceding days of clearing out the fridge), and then my husband's extensive business travel lately, I haven't been cooking much and thus haven't been shopping much. But with school starting up, I decided to stock up on some lunch snacks - especially when I saw the General Mills promotion on Southern Savers. Yes, I probably spent an hour finding the right coupons and trying to determine whether it was worth it or not to run the deal, but I'm totally thrilled that I did! Basically, a bunch of GM products were on sale, and if you bought 20 items, you got $6 off your order instantly. So... grab a bunch of items you've got coupons for, and it works out pretty well. Here's what I ended up with:

Grand total: $20.00 (yeah, even... which is awesome in and of itself), and most of these items have BoxTops on them that give money to the school, which I love. The organic tomato paste was not part of the deal, but in working up the deal I found $0.75 coupons which doubled to $1.50... and since they're only $1.55 and I needed some anyway, I grabbed some nearly-free ORGANIC tomato paste - sweet! I also realize that most of these items are very NON-organic, but there is a convenience factor :) And they were cheap. Let's face it - 7 boxes of cereal, 5 boxes of granola bars, 4 boxes of fruit snacks, 4 4-pks of yogurt, and 2 cans of tomato paste = 22 items for $20. Who could turn that down? I think my receipt said I saved $40+.

And it gets even better! The granola bars and fruit snacks had special promotions as well... buy 3, 4 or 5 and get coupons for $$ off your next purchase. So the 2-lb bag of frozen shrimp (normally $26) that was on sale for $8.65 ended up costing me a little over $3. See why I had to post? As one blogger I read would say - yeah, I took an hour to organize the coupons... but I saved over $60. That's like getting paid $60/hr :)

Saving money... Soli Deo Gloria

Birds' Nests... for dinner?

2010-06-25T09:36:00.000-04:00

We tried something new for dinner last night, and since it was kinda fun, I thought I'd share. I came across this recipe for Potato, Zucchini, and Carrot 'Nests' with Eggs while reading Denise's blog, Wholesome Mommy (formerly The Centsible Sawyer). I've been reading her blog for over a year probably, and I love the turn she's taken with it lately, focusing a bit less on general coupons/saving and more on eating healthy on a budget... I'm sure subconsciously she's affected my own healthy-eating focus over the last few months as well.
Anyway, she posted this recipe a few days ago, and it's just my style - 6 ingredients! Since I received some zucchini last week from Absolute Organics, I figured now was a great time to try it out. Stopped by the store (on the way to see my cousin Mimsies, who I'm thrilled to have living nearby now!) to grab some Organic Russet potatoes, and whipped up these bad boys for dinner:

We both liked them, and the recipe made just the right amount for the 2 of use for dinner with no side items (though we did try them with a little ketchup, which was also good). I'd only make a few changes to my preparation:

I'd remember to add the salt to the veggies. - Not a big deal, as it can always be added later, but it saves some hassle at the plate if it's already got it.
I'd shred the potatoes immediately before cooking. - Since I cooked them after my Zumba class and didn't want to eat dinner too late, I shredded the veggies ahead of time, but then of course the potatoes took on that beautiful pinky-brown shade that they get when exposed to air so they didn't look as pretty as they could have.
I'd follow her baking time. - Having never baked eggs before, I wasn't sure what they were supposed to look like when they were cooked. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but after 11 mins they didn't look "done" to me, so I left them another 7 or so... and they were quite hard. Still tasty, but hard.
I'd probably make 5 nests instead of 4, and use 6 or 7 eggs. One more egg mixed in with the flour and veggies may have helped the "hashbrown" part to stick together more, and a 5th nest would require an extra egg for the center and make them each a little bit smaller and easier to flip.

So there you have it. Buried vegetables + protein in a creative meal.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Splurge

2010-06-20T18:39:00.000-04:00

I don't spend money often. However, Kohl's had some good sales this weekend (for Father's Day, I guess), and with a 20% off coupon that they emailed me, I decided to go see what I could find. Since I wasn't looking for anything in particular, I found plenty of things :) So I splurged a bit and bought some fun little decorations for the house. Want to see? I knew you would! Here you go:

A new shirt

A little decoration and reminder for the entryway

A new decorative pillow for the guest bedroom:

Life takes us to unexpected places, love brings us home.

A reversible (and clean!) rug for the guest bathroom

A frame: Live, Laugh, Love... the most important things in life aren't things

Now I just have to replace the beautiful models in the photos with my own beautiful family and friends!

I'm not the best at decorating - I truly don't mind blank walls - but I have to say that in the 24 hours or so that these things have been around, I'm enjoying them so far :) I guess a splurge from time to time is okay, right?

Soli Deo Gloria

Pizza Party!

2010-06-16T20:43:00.001-04:00

Since I love my sister-in-law and want to be just like her, I'm posting this a few days late, and a few pictures short. My hubby and I had the privilege last Friday night of hosting a DiGiorno House Party. If you've never heard of HouseParty.com, you're not alone - I just found out a few months ago. Basically, it's a marketing gig. Companies sponsor parties - Individuals apply to host parties - Companies mail cool stuff to the Individuals they select - Individuals host parties to show off the product - Everyone is happy.
I received a party pack that included:

6 coupons for FREE DiGiorno pizzas
15 guest coupons for $4 off a DiGiorno pizza
a pizza cutter
a chip clip
some World Cup country flag bandanas
some blow-up "bam-bams" (you know, those silly things people wave around at sports games)
some soccer-themed whistles
DiGiorno paper plates/napkins

Since the party was to be held on the 1st day of the World Cup, clearly the host pack was soccer-themed. Unfortunately, they failed to take into consideration that the games were at 10 am and 2:30 pm - not quite party time on a Friday! Oh well... so we didn't watch a game. We still had plenty of fun! We had a great group of our friends show up, so pretty much everyone knew someone but still got to meet lots of new people. And we were a diverse group! We represented at least 8 countries: Spain, Peru, China, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, New Jersey, and the good ol' USA - haha :)
We ate 9 pizzas (good thing most of them were free!), a bunch of chips & salsa/guac/spinach dip, and some ice cream. It was the 1st time I'd ever tried DiGiorno pizza, and I really liked it - but my favorite part was definitely having 20+ of my favorite people around, hopefully enjoying themselves and getting to know each other better. For those of you who couldn't make it... we missed you! Maybe HouseParty will give me another excuse to host in the upcoming months - I'd do it again in a heartbeat!
I'll leave you with the one pic I remembered to take - BEFORE everyone showed up. Oops!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Mmm... lunch!

2010-06-08T14:10:00.000-04:00

Yeah for school being out! I finished up on Friday, had a fairly relaxing weekend, and am (of course) loving being out for the summer so far this week. Thankfully, I have been able to be rather productive so far - I even had the fleeting thought that I wasn't sure what I would do with the rest of the summer, since I'll probably finish everything on my list by tomorrow.
HAHAHAHA. And then I remembered all the non-urgent stuff that I haven't done for the past X months that really should get done. I might need a few extra months of vacation to finish it all.
Anyway, since I can, I thought I'd share my fun, non-lunchbox lunch that I just enjoyed. Really, it could work in a lunchbox, which almost makes it better. I started with this recipe for Creamy Apple & Carrot Roll-Ups that I stumbled across this morning. 5 ingredients - I can handle that! And I had them all on hand (organic apple and carrot thanks to Absolute Organics, of course). Don't tell Nature's Own, but I used tortillas that I had on hand instead of their bread. Even though it says "serves 4," I honestly figured I would end up eating it all... 'cuz that's how I roll. But alas! It was more filling than I thought. I used the big tortillas, so it made 2 and I've got 1 leftover for tomorrow. I ate the extra 1/2 carrot by itself, and the extra 1/2 apple I dipped in Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter that I got from EarthFare a few weeks ago. Yummy! Top it off with a Wild Berry Simply Tea that I got for free with a coupon at EF (with a little sugar, since tea is too bitter for my tastes) and I'm a happy girl.
Hope your lunch was as good as mine! I'm off to be productive again.

Soli Deo Gloria...

Look what the mailman dragged in

2010-06-02T17:25:00.000-04:00

I've always upheld that getting mail is fun. Granted, bills a little less so. And junk mail not so much either, but I don't get tons of either of those items... so getting mail is still fun. Especially on days like today.

$10 off ANY purchase @ Kohl's
new black ink for my printer
a reusable grocery bag from Earthbound Farm
Earthbound Farm organic produce coupons
an aluminum Sigg water bottle
Avatar

I paid for the ink (though not much, since I used Staples Rewards "money" that I got from recycling old ink cartridges). And technically I paid for Avatar, since we pay $10/month for Netflix. But everything else was free! The water bottle I won from a giveaway @ MummyDeals, the grocery bag and coupons I signed up for online during Earth week in April, and the Kohl's coupon was a straight-up surprise! I see $10 worth of free clothes off the clearance rack coming my way in the next few weeks!

Don't believe me? See here:

Soli Deo Gloria

7th Abs. Org. Delivery

2010-05-20T18:05:00.000-04:00

Life has been a little hectic lately (parents' move, end-of-school-year chaos), so forgive me for not posting about my last produce delivery. I'm excited about today's, and I've got some numbers for you - yeah for numbers!
Since my last delivery, I turned another year older (remember the deep freeze?), and my parents were kind enough to gift me this Salter Digital Kitchen Scale. My Mom never used a kitchen scale while I was growing up, but in the last several months I've felt like it would be handy to have. A friend said she loved her Salter, so I asked specifically for that one. I've used it several times (to weigh potatoes in this Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie recipe, for example) and am very happy so far. Necessary? Of course not. Fun? Absolutely!
Today I put it to good use and weighed my Absolute Organics produce. Here are the results:

1 large and 2 small broccoli crowns (1 lb 9 oz)
1 lb 8 ozs bananas (4 ct)
1 head of lettuce
1 lb strawberries
7.75 oz white mushrooms
2.75 lbs apples
1 avocado
2 green bell peppers

weighing in action!

Then, I did my little trick and hit up Harris Teeter Express Lane to check some prices. Here's what I found:

Broccoli - $3.29/ea = $6.58
Bananas - 99¢/lb = $1.50
Lettuce - $2.99/head = $2.99
Strawberries - $3.99/lb = $3.99
*White Mushrooms - $3.49/lb = $1.69
Apples - $2.49/lb = $6.85
Avocado - $1.99/ea = $1.99
Green Peppers - $2.49/ea = $4.98

This means that if I went to Harris Teeter and purchased the SAME amount of stuff, I'd have paid $30.57! And the mushrooms wouldn't even have been organic (it appears they don't sell fresh organic ones). WOW!! I was thrilled. This stuff was brought to my door for only $30. That means I saved 57¢, the gas to get to the store, and the excuse to not buy produce because it's too expensive. In case I had any doubts, I'm with AO for good. Thanks, Vonda and Steve!

Soli Deo Gloria

Spoils of CVS

2010-05-18T15:01:00.000-04:00

Saturday, after a quick trip to Winston-Salem for a wedding shower for one of my dear college friends, I swung by CVS in hopes of a few good "scores." I had been out of the CVS "loop" for a while (no great deals, good stockpile, and higher food spending due to healthier eating are the primary causes), but saw several potential deals and thought I'd try to snag them. Forgetting that the CVS nearest my house restocks on Friday night/Saturday morning (wow, it has been a long time), I was doubtful that I'd get much... but I ended up with EVERYTHING on my steals-list.

2 Right Guard mens' deodorant > $2.49 ea = $5 - $3/2 QP = $2... $2 ea ECB = $2 moneymaker
Stayfree > $3.79 - $2 QP = $1.79... $2 ECB = 21¢ moneymaker
U by Kotex > $5 - $1 QP = $4... $4 ECB = free
Carefree > $1 ea - 3 x $1 QP = free
Crest ProHealth toothpaste & Rinse (each) > $2.75 - 75¢ QP = $2... $4 ECB = $2 moneymaker ea
Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Detergent Sheets, 20ct > B1G1 @ $8.99 - 2 x $2 QP = $2.50 ea
Carmel candy > 33¢
reuseable bag (mine) to be able to scan Green Bag Tag > $1 ECB = moneymaker

I had no ECBs going in, but I shelled out less than $5.50 cash (which includes all the taxes, of course - I added the carmel candy in order to be able to use another ECB and not spend more OOP) and still have $6 in ECBs left to use next time I go in. Now THAT'S what I call a great trip to the store :)

Soli Deo Gloria

Ode to the GV house

2010-05-16T23:15:00.001-04:00

It's only fitting that it's a rainy evening... that's pretty much how my heart feels right now after taking my last walk through what has been my family's home for the last 7 years. With the official "closing" and key hand-over tomorrow at 9am, obviously it's completely empty now, but the rooms are somehow still terribly full of memories.

The entryway foyer and circular staircase where we took countless family pictures and my sister's prom pics.
The dining room that was initially painted a hideous Pepto pink until Mom corrected the painters and they made it a much nicer shade of red. Tons of buffets were served in there, as were huge family/holiday meals. And more recently, our first non-wedding picture as a family of 7.
The "powder room" with the sink cabinet that I picked out at Transit Damaged Freight... my one claim-to-fame in the whole building process.
The hot tub where my boyfriend asked my dad for permission to marry me.
The "crawl space" that we had to wake up at the dreadfully early hour of 8:30am one holiday (Memorial Day?) morning to paint, and where a few years later we did P90X together as a family.
The basement guest bedroom that hosted several of my former youth leaders as they were in stages of transition, as well as my fiance when he first moved to the USA.
The funky angled section of the ceiling in the living room where Mom's friend painted "Soli Deo Gloria" in a beautiful calligraphy - only to later admit that she was dreadfully afraid of heights.
The amazing stone fireplace that served as family-Christmas-picture setting for us and at least one other family over the years.
The custom-made "picture frame" out of moulding in the entryway where we deliberated for the whole building process and at least a year after we moved in as to which Bible verse we should have put there (we found another friend/artist to paint it though, since it was even higher up!) and ended up with a sword and shield from Toledo, Spain.
The closet at the top of the back stairwell that was always full of extra school supplies, random fabric bolts for the curtains mom always wanted to make (and eventually did, mostly) and the pictures and albums that were always in a state of disarray.
The Media Room that inevitably ended up 10 degrees warmer than you wanted it by the time the movie was over.
The closets in my sister's and my rooms that were supposed to be square, but then had to be L-shaped because the architect had originally forgotten to include room for the ductwork.
My room - purple, because I love it - where I was sitting when my cute friend from Spain finally found a program that would work for us to audio-chat (Skype - before the video years), and the intercom system that I used to refuse to come down to dinner immediately that night because I was actually TALKing to him.
The built-in bookshelves that still didn't actually hold my entire collection.
The huge picture window that looked out onto the street (with no panes or screens, so the view was always crystal-clear), and the side window that overlooked the neighbor's lake.

Clearly there's no sense bemoaning the end of an era - it certainly wasn't perfect, after all - but it is a reminder that we only walk through life once. Goal: to make sure it was a life worth living, full of love and honoring to the Lord. My prayer is that the house can continue to be used to minister to others in the future, in the same way it did in the past.

Now, I must look forward to the Lord's "plans to prosper [me] and not to harm [me], plans to give [me] a hope and a future" (Jer. 29:11b). If only those plans included calling in sick to work tomorrow... ;)

Soli Deo Gloria.

Happy Birthday to me!

2010-05-01T14:52:00.000-04:00

I've had a hankering for a chest freezer for quite some time now... like 2 years. I kept suggesting it to Isaac, and his constant response was "what do 2 people need an extra freezer for?" And, on one hand, he was right. It definitely wasn't a need, but it most certainly was a want. I love the idea of "once a month cooking" and pulling stuff out of the freezer 24 hours before eating it with little to no work involved after coming home from a long day at school. I love the idea of buying items in bulk at Costco (or just when there's a good sale) and having them easily on hand when needed without having to pay full price. And lately, I love the idea of buying a whole, grass-fed cow (with some friends, of course!). Since Denise did such a good job of explaining why, I won't bother repeating it. EatWild goes into a bit more detail and provides information on local farmers, too. Anyway, point being that I can only do so much OAMC and bulk buying with my one, small freezer... and buying a portion of a cow was completely out of the question!
However, after something akin to pestering for about a year, I finally got into a grocery-shopping rhythm and decided that we could technically survive without one, so I let it go verbally and tucked it away as a future dream. Thus, you can imagine my awe when he brought me to the Sears Outlet store on South Boulevard while we were out running errands one Saturday, and told me he wanted to get me a freezer for my birthday (which was, at the time, 2 months away). They didn't have much selection, and I had a basic idea of sizing and pricing, so we left there empty-handed, but determined to keep our eyes and ears open. We even contact a buddy of ours who works for Electrolux... he ALMOST got us a really good deal on a test dummy or something, but some other employee claimed it first.
Fast-forward to a week ago when Isaac said he wanted to extend our office bookshelves. I immediately jumped on Ebay to grab some 10% off coupons at Lowes to save moolah on the large-ish purchase. They arrived on Thursday, and you can bet that Friday evening he was antsy to go get the stair treads and flower pots needed to complete the project. Off to Lowe's we went. I figured we could check out the freezers while there, since we ended up with 5 coupons (for $3.25), and somehow we ended up in the clearance aisle. In God's amazing providence, we found this baby chilling there... without a box. Apparently, a box is worth 20% - who knew? After the coupon, we ended up paying $187 for the freezer that was originally sold for $279. That's a 33% discount - and it was delivered today for free :) Yes, there is a little dent in the lid (I don't care), and no, it's not Energy Star compliant (bummed, but for the $3/yr in electric savings, it wasn't worth the extra $100+ upfront).

Now, who wants to go in on a cow with me?

Soli Deo Gloria.

PUR Faucet Filter Giveaway Link

2010-04-26T20:45:00.000-04:00

We have a PUR pitcher to filter our water, but I would love to have a faucet filter since the pitcher is always empty when I want to use it! I guess that means we forget to fill it, right? Well, anyway. When I mix up powdered drinks in my 2-qt pitcher, there's not enough water in the filtered pitcher to fill it, so I either have to wait to filter more or mix in some non-filtered water.
However, every time I look at faucet filters, they're pricey, and I'm never sure if they'll be so in-the-way that it will drive me nuts. As a result, I've never taken the plunge. When I saw Clair's post and the opportunity to possibly win one, I knew I had to enter. And I got extra entries for posting this :) Feel free to enter here, and if you win and don't want it, you can pass it on to me. Haha.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Look, Gram! It's your pot!

2010-04-24T16:13:00.002-04:00

In the last post, I briefly mentioned an unexpected "produce delivery": basically, our Pastor got a call from someone who literally had a truckload of produce to donate. While this isn't a common occurrence, similar things have happened before, so he did what he always does -- call everyone in our small congregation, several friends, some folks he's met in the community and is reaching out to, and his neighbors, and then have everyone over to "shop" from his driveway. I ended up with 3 heads of Iceberg lettuce, a 10lb bag of potatoes, 11 small-ish apples, a 1lb bag of kale, and a few handfuls of key limes.
Adding that to Thursday's normal delivery, I've been able bit creative and "adventurous" this week, due to all the produce that came flooding in our doors! I was excited about the free kale, because I hadn't heard of it until recently and was hesitant to try it, but have had several friends lately say how much they love it.
Wednesday I made Chamberlayne Chicken and Kale Stew, posted by a friend of mine. I made a few adjustments (like no chicken, and all chicken broth instead of some veggie, as well as less pepper), but it was yummy. We both decided that, while kale is not our new favorite veggie, it's good for you and certainly doesn't taste bad, so we'd eat it :)
Friday, since I get off work early, I really spent good time in the kitchen and made a batch of applesauce with the apples. I got the recipe from the book I had just treated myself to: Food to Live By by Myra Goodman (the used copy cost me $4.99, shipping included!) She's got an affinity for raspberries, but I adjusted it since I didn't have any of those on hand. The first batch I made was just apples. When my hubby tried to eat the whole batch in one sitting, I knew I should use the other 1/2 of the apples to make more! This time, I replaced Myra's raspberries with 1 cup of chopped strawberries. Yumm! I can't even tell you how amazing this stuff is :)

apples before cooking, and the finished strawberry applesauce. nothin' but fruit and sugar. wow.

While I was chillin' in the kitchen (and avoiding the TV for TV Turnoff Week), I figured I'd try another way to incorporate the kale. Dear Vonda over Absolute Organics kindly sent me several recipes, one of which hit close to home: Kale and Potato Spanish Tortilla. I had potatoes, kale, eggs (thanks to my co-worker and her chickens) and salt, so I was good to go. The only hesitation: how would the hubby react when he saw green in the legendary spanish tortilla?

Thankfully, though it seemed to take forever, it was the best of the 5 tortilla attempts I've had in my life, and we both loved it. I think he was so glad to have a yummy tortilla for dinner that he didn't even complain about the green. And honestly, the kale didn't seem to change the flavor much either. Maybe the kale will become standard in my tortillas - adding a few extra antioxidants and vitamins to the otherwise protein-and-starch-heavy meal.

So there you have them - this week's kitchen experiments with fresh produce. They all were pretty good, and clearly it was an inexpensive week, grocery-wise, so I'm doubly happy.

Eating produce... Soli Deo Gloria

Yeah for organic strawberries!

2010-04-22T22:55:00.001-04:00

I have been waiting for this day since I signed up for Absolute Organics a few months ago - the berries have arrived! Since finding out that strawberries are in the "dirty dozen" due to high amounts of pesticide residue, I cringe just a little every time I bite into one that's not organic... yet I love them! So I was thrilled to find that they were going to show up in my box today. A whole pound! Yippee! The Lord unexpectedly provided a few handfuls of non-organic key limes (as well as potatoes, kale, apples and lettuce) this week, so this batch of strawbs may end up in a Strawberry Key Lime Pie that I found a recipe for.
While on the topic of organic strawberries, want to see my sprouts? I thought you would!

If you look very closely you can see one little sprout with 2 little leaves! Unless my pots got mixed up, those are strawberry leaves! They took 3 weeks and 1 day to sprout, and they are now about 11 days old. Whether I'll actually get any strawberries out of them I have no earthly idea (haha... no pun intended), but it's a fun experiment anyway! I have pretty much given up hope on the bell pepper seeds that were planted at the same time and have yet to show any signs of sprouting, but we shall see. Perhaps more patience is needed. Goodness knows if the Lord gave up on me after looking for evidence of change after only 4.5 weeks, I would be in a sad place!

P.S. Thanks to Vonda and Steve for the free pineapple in honor of AO's 5th birthday... may they continue sharing organic goodness for many more years!

Soli Deo Gloria

"New" Curtains

2010-04-11T17:44:00.000-04:00

My parents just sold their house here in CLT, after having it on the marker for 8 months or so, as they're in the process of moving to Orlando, FL. They got a contract 2 or 3 weeks ago, and they’ll be closing in mid-May. The whole family spent a 3-day weekend in ORL over Easter, so we got to see some of the houses they were looking at (I think they put an offer on one this week, so we’ll see what happens) and overall just got to scope out their new stomping grounds.

One of the added benefits of them selling the house is that I got some "new" (i.e. repurposed) curtains from my room at their house. Conveniently enough, they match in my bedroom here, so now that the house is sold, Isaac and I got them and hung them this week.

Master bedroom

Extra room

Guest room

The guest curtains were hanging already, but had been hung too high up, so while we had out the tools to hang curtain rods, Isaac went ahead and lowered these so they look better :)

Hanging curtains... Soli Deo Gloria.

Seventh Generation Giveaway Link

2010-04-10T12:20:00.000-04:00

In my desire to become more conscious of how I spend my money - and lately, of the health factor of my food and environment - I've been reading several blogs on a regular basis over the last year. One of the ones that I discovered more recently is The Suburban Jungle.
She's got a Giveaway going on that I like... Seventh Generation Disinfecting Kit! I've tried several of the Seventh Generation cleaning products, and really like them. And when I can get them on sale and/or with a coupon, the prices aren't bad either! Anything that will help me save money AND have fewer potentially negative effects on my health is a double-plus for me, so this kit would be perfect. Head on over and enter by commenting on her post, here.

AO is back :)

2010-04-08T14:28:00.001-04:00

Since we were out of town for Easter weekend, and have been a bit behind in consuming our bi-weekly produce, I opted to skip last week and start back this week. Despite the fact that I still haven't used the red potatoes they brought me 3 weeks ago (yes, they've started to sprout, but I don't mind), I was excited for my next delivery. And since I'm home on Spring Break this week, I actually got to meet the kind gentlemen who brought it to me :)

Above you can see the following bits of organic goodness:

5 Navel oranges
5 Fuji apples
3 Bartlett pears
3 HUGE Russet potatoes
2 zucchini
2 cucumbers
4 bananas
1 head of lettuce
approx 6 Rainbow carrots (which is where a lot of the leafy green comes from - they said to cut that off for better storage)

The varied colors of carrots might require an explanation for my somewhat skeptical hubby, but thankfully a snazzy article was posted to the Absolute Organics Facebook page not too long ago, which you can read here. And the zucchini is already slated for dinner tonight with the red potatoes, as suggested in this Rosemary Red Potatoes recipe.

That is, if I can pick out the zucchini from the cukes...

Soli Deo Gloria

Handyman

2010-04-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

One of the most frugal things I have ever done, whether I realized it or not, is to marry my sweet husband. While I love my Daddy dearly, he is seriously lacking in some handyman skills, which means he gets stuck hiring out a bunch of stuff that I don't have to pay for, because my husband can do it! In the last year, he installed ceiling fans/lights in both of our extra bedrooms. Granted, my Dad maybe could have done that, but he could never have figured out how to run the wires such that the switch (which originally operated a randomly-placed outlet) actually works the new fixture! Yahoo! Here are a few pics of the most recent installation - in the guest bedroom.

Hubby did the hard stuff.

My job was to attach the fan blades to the arms.

Finish product in action!

Installing ceiling fans... Soli Deo Gloria.

Swag

2010-03-24T22:47:00.000-04:00

Since there's already a picture here, just a few posts below, of me looking ridiculous and "eating" my homemade yogurt, I figured I might as well post the picture I just emailed The Swag Guy after receiving my first, official, tangible Swag prize.

Here I am "drinking" out of my Ecousable purple (yeah!) water bottle! At 16oz, it's a bit smaller than I had envisioned, but I think that will be good, because my other one was almost too big to carry around (maybe it was 24 oz? not sure). Plus, not having a straw should be nice. Notice how I am talking about the other one in the past tense, as if it no longer existed. It does, I just don't like it. So there. Just don't tell my sister... she gifted it to me for my birthday just under a year ago -- oops.
To get your own free stuff through Swagbucks, sign up using my referral link on the left sidebar. I think I've earned $15 dollars in Paypal, $10 in Amazon, and this neat-o water bottle. Just from searching via their site over time. Not bad, huh?

Soli Deo Gloria

Nacho Bake

2010-03-19T18:51:00.003-04:00

Toni, otherwise known as Happy, has become one of my heroes over the last 6mos? year? however long it's been since I started reading her blog. Whether she knows it or not, she's taught me a lot about saving money and raising lots of kids, though of course the former skills are getting more practice currently than the latter. Oh yeah, and she always has great, easy, inexpensive recipes. I recently made one that she posted not long ago and - surprise, surprise - it was a hit! You can find her Nacho Bake recipe here. I used black beans (couldn't find a can of kidneys lying around... haha), and added a can each of diced tomatoes and corn to the meat/bean mix. The hardest part was spreading the refried beans around, but this is not a recipe that has to be perfect - which is why I like it!! As she suggested, I served it with sour cream. It probably would be good with guacamole too, but I didn't think to take a package out of the freezer soon enough. The 9"x13" served the 2 of us with enough left for at least one more meal, if not two - and I didn't put any sides or extras with it. Well, unless you count the cupcake and cookie that we shared for dessert... courtesy of the St. Patrick's Day party put on by the 6th grade cooking class at school.
Are you salivating yet? If not, this should get you started:

Soli Deo Gloria

3rd Fruit/Veggie Delivery

2010-03-18T18:51:00.002-04:00

Need I say more? Pears (12 or so), Cameo Apples (about 9), bananas (6 or 7), lettuce (2 bunches), red potatoes (counted, but forgot how many while I walked up the stairs to the computer) and green onions -- all ORGANIC and all left AT MY DOORSTEP by Absolute Organics, LLC! That's 13.5 lbs of God-created yumminess. Broccoli was supposed to be in the mix, but since it's not my hubby's favorite and I still haven't cooked what they brought me last time, I asked them to bring more pears and/or lettuce instead. Since my next delivery is schedule to come right before Easter weekend, I think I'm going to have them "postpone" it until the following week as we'll be out of town for the long weekend and aren't quite eating everything in the two weeks anyway.
When my very basic photography makes you drool so much you just can't wait to get your hands on some produce of your very own, just be sure to tell them I sent you :)

Soli Deo Gloria

Windowed surprise

2010-03-08T22:40:00.000-05:00

I had a GREAT time at the church women's retreat this weekend. It's the second time I've gone, and I'm already looking forward to next year! I truly enjoy the opportunity to meet women from church and to get to know others better. We don't have a huge church, but since my husband and I work with the Hispanic church plant, there are plenty of gals that I don't get the opportunity to meet on a normal Sunday. There were about 40 women at the retreat, and together we enjoyed some great worship time, a few testimonies, some Bible study, free time (which for me included a walk around the beautiful Bonclarken grounds, tea and chocolate cake with some great conversation, a brief nap and some reading time), lots of chatting and games - which is almost the best part, since my hubby is not quite as much a fan as I am, so we don't play many at home.
Anyway, the official topic of this post is the surprise I stumbled upon when I arrived home on Sunday afternoon:

My dear mom did my dining room curtains and my living room curtains (I helped with the latter set) and these kitchen ones were on her To-Do list forEVER! Since she's moving, she finally gave up and hired someone to actually make them (since we had already picked out and purchased the fabric), and surprised me by installing them while I was gone (technically, she and hubs were still putting on the finishing touches when I showed up, but who cares). I was totally used to the no-curtain look, since it's been that way for 2.5 years since we moved in, so it's still a bit odd... but I love them! Aren't the colors perfect? Don't worry, the chip clip won't stay there forever, haha :)

Soli Deo Gloria

Another produce delivery!

2010-03-04T17:48:00.001-05:00

Today was an AWESOME day! The sun was shining and though it was chilly, it wasn't deceptively cold, like several days last week. It was Teacher Appreciation Day at school, so I didn't have to pack a lunch and we got a wonderful, homemade meal and 45 minutes to just chill with co-workers while volunteers supervised lunch/recess with the kids. I got some cheap Kashi cereal at CVS & Target (went to both places so I could use ECBs/gift card, and actually paid only 6¢ out of pocket for 4 boxes!). And last but not least, my second Absolute Organics delivery arrived! Who knew produce could be so exciting?
First thing I did was head to the bathroom scale to weigh myself with the full cooler, and then I reweighed after emptying the cooler. What you see on the picture below is 13 pounds of fresh, delivered, organic produce! That's $2.30/lb average, which seems pretty good to me. Did I mention it was DELIVERED?!?! :)

I'll give you a list, just so you know what you're lookin' at:

6 seedless, Gold Nugget oranges
7 Braeburn apples
2 Haas avocados
1 mango
1 lg. head of lettuce
white mushrooms
3 averaged-sized broccoli crowns
6 bananas

If I've convinced you, just be sure to give them my name when you order so I can get some free produce for referring you!

On another note, here's a picture of my homemade yogurt served over that granola-type cereal I had in the stockpile. Since mine turned out a bit thinner than I prefer for yogurt, it works great when mixed in with something like this!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Homemade Yogurt!

2010-03-01T23:28:00.000-05:00

I am pleased to report that my first-ever yogurt-making experiment went fairly well! I found the directions here. I read Alyssa's blog regularly, and when I saw this, I decided to try it, just for a challenge. And, since we do eat a fair amount of yogurt, I figured if it worked I could use it more often to save us some money and to be healthier (there are a fair amount of random ingredients in store-bought yogurt, if you actually read the list).
The directions are really detailed (especially if you click-thru to the more thorough version here), so I felt pretty confident. Worst-case scenario, I was out a few bucks for the milk and yogurt cup (starter), and would have a damaged ego; best-case scenario I could feel really cool (and save $$, be healthy, cut down on production of plastic yogurt cups, etc... but mostly just feel cool)!
I borrowed a candy thermometer from a friend/co-worker, since I wanted to be sure I was doing it right. The whole process took me about 8 hours, though most of that was just letting it "incubate" and didn't require much work. I did discover that my cooler probably isn't the most insulated one ever and when I went to take the yogurt out the temp had dropped, so I added some more boiling water and let it sit for another 1-2 hours instead. Here are some pics I took:

We had some of it for dessert tonight (yeah, I know... it's generally strange for Americans to eat non-frozen yogurt for dessert, but it's normal in Spain and now I'm used to it!) with a little sugar and honey - natural/plain yogurt all by itself is kinda icky if you ask me. It was pretty good, though if I do it again, I think I'll try to let it incubate longer (and add the extra boiling water sooner to keep the temp up) as it was a bit runnier than I'm used to, and I can only assume it's due to an incubation faux pas.

Overall, I'm just glad I have an edible result and didn't have to dump it out completely. I got some free Post Trail Mix Crunch a while back, and I'm thinking this yogurt will probably be a great substitute for milk with that, since the cereal has a granola-y texture.

Making yogurt, Soli Deo Gloria...

Oh, the irony!

2010-02-20T15:33:00.001-05:00

I went to Costco yesterday after a short day at work and lunch with a friend, to investigate their organic/natural/healthy options and get an idea of what kind of prices they had. I had no intention of buying anything because I was completely out of grocery money (literally ran out at the checkout at EarthFare on Wednesday... had to put something back and the guy still had to waive about a dollar for me -- oops! how embarrassing! but I digress...). I wandered around for almost an hour I'd guess, jotting down notes of what I was finding - perhaps I'll put them in another post later. Anyway, as I wrapping up, my hubby called to say he was on his way home from work, and requested that I buy him some bags of chips to take to work with him - he was even willing to pay for them with his "allowance"! I used my "allowance" money that I happened to have with me. The total was $10.70 and I bought 1 box of 50 Frito-Lay brand chip bags.

Today, while his car was being inspected, we went to Harris Teeter to get in on some Super Doubles. The pickin's are often slim on these weeks (harder-core couponers than I were already out to get the best deals first-thing Wednesday morning!), but I found most of what I wanted. I ended up with:

1 box of Quaker Quick Oats
2 bags of Quaker Mini Rice Cakes
1 Polaner All-Fruit Spread (Black Cherry - to mix things up)
2 small boxes of Kotex Pantiliners
1 pound of Tilapia (2 filets)
2 half gallons of Edy's ice cream (Spumoni and Mint Choc. Chip!)
1 half gallon of Tropicana OJ
2 8 oz bricks of Organic Valley Cream Cheese
2 4-packs of Dannon Light & Fit yogurt cups
6 Yoplait Whips yogurt cups
1 Chobani yogurt cup
1 half pint of Organic Valley Heavy Whipping Cream
2 Blistex chapsticks

A fairly random selection, I know, but that's what you do when you use coupons. Get what's on sale, and use it in the upcoming weeks. Anyway, wanna know the best part? My total was $10.80.

Now, which purchase is more likely to provide sustenance for a family of two for a week? See the irony?

Soli Deo Gloria

Organic Coupon Giveaway

2010-02-19T00:15:00.000-05:00

One of the only sites I've found that does Earth Fare coupon match-ups is Frugally Farming Family. I'm still adjusting myself to the "deals" at EF, which don't seem much like deals to me, compared to the amazing ones I've gotten in the last year on so-called conventional foods. I went ahead and entered their Organic Coupon Giveaway in hopes of some more deals/savings on healthier options for my small family. Go ahead... if you sneak it in today, you've still got time to possibly get in on the action!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Absolute Organics!

2010-02-18T18:20:00.001-05:00

Yeah! I'm so excited! My first delivery with Absolute Organics, LLC came today. Although they came highly recommended from some folks that I used to teach for (that's how I heard about them), I have to admit that I was a little hesitant of exactly what my hard-earned $30 was going to get me. I'm thrilled to report that I was pleasantly surprised! I don't have a picture for you, but I'll list off what came:

8 "Gold Nugget" oranges (supposedly seedless... wahoo!)
9 small-ish Braeburn apples
2 heads of Romaine lettuce
4 very green bananas
1 Haas avocado
2 medium-sized yellow onions
1 bunch of celery
1 large-ish head of cauliflower

Being as I'm not very used to buying organic produce just yet, nor do I know exact weights for the above items, I can't exactly quantify the value. However, a quick check on Harris Teeter's "Express Lane" shows that the non-organic value of all this is probably somewhere between $20-25. And the extra $5-10 is TOTALLY worth it, in my opinion, to have ORGANIC produce DELIVERED to my house. Additionally, some of these items (particularly the celery, cauliflower and probably avocado) I would not have bought on my own, so now I get to be creative with how to use them, thus incorporating more fresh produce into our diet! When I signed up, they had me select any dislikes from their complete list of produce, so while Chard and Grapefruit could have been on this week's menu, they substituted them for more of other items since I had told them we don't generally eat those. They'll deliver again in 2 weeks, and I'm already looking forward to seeing what that delivery will be (though there aren't any contracts, so if I needed to cancel, I could just let them know a week in advance and no problem)!
Summary... while $30 is quite a chunk out of my $70-every-two-week grocery budget, especially since I'm trying to go more organic in other areas too, I think I'll be able to make it work. It will definitely be good for us to eat more fruits/veggies, and will avoid the temptation to purchase all the nasty pesticide-ridden counterparts since I should be able to almost skip the produce section entirely when I go to the store.
Shameless plug... if you live in the Charlotte area and want to try them out, let them know you heard about them from me, and I'll get some free produce after your second box arrives! Come on... help a girl out!

Soli Deo Gloria...

EFTP/F Challenge Update - week 4

2010-02-01T12:23:00.000-05:00

Theoretically, this is the last week of the Eat From the Pantry Challenge. That being said, I'm still working through my lists! I don't know if that means I've done "too much" grocery shopping this past month, "too much" stockpiling for the last 9 months, or "not enough" eating this month. I'm not going to worry about it, though. I'm just glad that I haven't had to throw anything away (although, I was going to take some salad dressings and condiments to church yesterday morning to offer to anyone who wanted them, as I've got way too many and they are nearing their "best by" dates - but church was canceled due to snow/ice). So, I'm going to chug along, eating mostly from the pantry and trying to add as little as possible for at least another few weeks.
This week was a typical wacky week for us, but we did make it through a few items on the meal list and cleared a few things out of the pantry/fridge/freezer.
Monday: I had a Pampered Chef party, so Isaac ate a can of soup and some bread while I ate Santa Fe Meatloaf or something snazzy like that, that I didn't have to prepare!
Tuesday: Isaac was studying and I went to Bible Study, and since I got home from the grocery store only 30 mins before I had to leave, he ate a bowl of cereal and I had some yogurt with granola (finished up a box!)
Wednesday: After going to EarthFare, I made Hot Dog Noodle Casserole. Felt dirty while eating it, since hot dogs are full of high fructose corn syrup, but it was pretty yummy (not to mention it serves the purpose of getting my hubby to eat broccoli!)
Thursday: I was more than happy to let Isaac eat leftover Hot Dog Noodle Casserole while I was at my new Zumba class. Since I only had a few minutes before running back out the door to pick my mom up from the airport, I made a smoothie to drink on the way. SlimFast Chocolate shake + 1 banana + handful frozen blueberries and strawberries / blender = yumminess!
Friday: Used a package of Mahatma Yellow Rice (it's been free at the grocery store several times this year, so I've got a bunch) to make Golden Rice Casserole with a few tweaks. I added a grilled chicken breast, used a leftover 1/2 can of corn that was in the fridge, and some "fresh" green/red/orange bell peppers that I froze a while back. The saffron in this makes it a hit at our house.
Saturday: For what is now the 3rd week in a row, I made Fiber One pancakes and scrambled eggs. Of course, we went all out for the "dessert" pancake... mine included chocolate syrup, strawberry flavored ~~high fructose corn syrup~~ jelly, and whipped cream! As opposed to our normal cereal, the pancakes break up the monotony of an otherwise boring day at home, cleaning and studying. I'm so ready for Isaac's test to be over next weekend so we can plan a few social events!
In the afternoon I made Lentejas a la española! I'm so excited about this! I bought the stuff a while back (and hid it from my hubby), but hadn't found the right opportunity to make it until now. The snow/ice outside made soup a good plan, and the stuck-in-the-house-studying gave me the time. It was way yummy, and the surprise factor was way fun :) He posted a good pic here.
Sunday: Snow day from church (strange!), but since we had dinner plans with my parents, I spent some time in the afternoon preparing some Heavenly Potatoes and Ham. I used Russet potatoes instead of Red b/c I had a bag of them that I needed to use. I put it in an 8x8 and an 8x6 casserole (instead of a 9x13), and will probably freeze one after eating the first tonight with some veggies.

Soli Deo Gloria

First "Real" Purchase at EarthFare

2010-01-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

So... I scoped out EarthFare today (5% student/faculty discount on Wed. at my store). Spent a while just wandering around the store, annotating prices on items that I normally purchase and would be interested in buying organic - mostly produce, canned tomato products, and dairy. I'm still not sure if I'm ready for the jump - I guess I'm not convinced the sales are that great at EF, and since the regular prices are high... I just don't think I can do it.
I did purchase a few things though, and the checkout lady said I did "really great," so I'll take that as a positive! Here was my breakdown:

Blueberry Pomegranate juice (32 oz) - $1.99 after sale + coupon
Dr. Becker natural soda (6-pk) - $2.50 after sale (this was a treat for me out of my "allowance", not the grocery fund!)
1 kiwi - 50¢ after sale (I already ate it!)
2 bags of salad (10 oz + 12 oz) - $4.50 after sale + coupons
5 rolls Marcal Small Steps toilet paper - FREE after coupons

I saved 82¢ with the teacher discount, and paid $9.42 after tax, supposedly saving $7.77, or 45%. Without the sodas, it would've been more like $6.86 with savings of $6.96... 50%! I guess I didn't do too shabby after all!
A gallon of organic milk is, in fact, cheaper than at my regular HT or Bi-Lo... but for the 50-60¢ savings, I don't think it's worth almost an entire gallon of gas to get there and back unless I've got another good reason to go like a sale + coupon on something, or needing brown rice - quite a steal at only 89¢/lb (versus $1.85/lb at HT... just got it with a super-doubled coupon for 85¢/lb, but that's a rare occurrence - and Uncle Ben's is not organic).
Thanks for tagging along as I shop (somewhat) organically :)

Soli Deo Gloria

Marcal Small Steps Giveaway!

2010-01-26T14:25:00.000-05:00

Yup... not me. But Denise Sawyer over at Centsible Sawyer is doing a giveaway. All you've got to do is type your name and e-address into her form to be entered to win the following (as per her website):

One lucky reader is going to win a TON of Marcal Small Steps products!
Prize Pack will include: Dinner Napkins, 180ct Napkin Drawstring Bag, Upright-80ct Facial Tissues, 144ct Facial,Single Roll Giant Towel, 1,000ct Bath, 4 ct bath 1000 ct, 3 roll Regular towel, *subject to change for substitutions

I haven't tried any of these products yet, but they are on my list for this week. I'm going to EarthFare tomorrow (hoping for a good freebie coupon - have you signed up yet? let me know if you did!) to get 5% off my entire purchase as a teacher and to use the coupons to get free Marcal toilet paper. I'd be thrilled to win though!

Soli Deo Gloria

Fridge/Freezer Findings Update 2

2010-01-25T16:18:00.002-05:00

I'll spare you the REALLY long list, and I'm only going to post the changes since the last time I posted an update. The good news is, it looks like more of a dent in my fridge than on the list! It's nice to know exactly what I've got, but when I feel like I'm making progress and then only get to mark a few things off the list here, it's kinda sad :(

Freezer findings:

4 c. diced ham
London Broil (from a once-a-month cooking day a while back... may already be freezer burned, so I'll have to do it on a day with an easy back-up plan)
6 4 burgers
1 pkg guacamole
2 servings stuffed salmon
2 pouches pepperoni
2 individual broccoli/cheese portions
2 bags grn. beans
1 .5 bag broccoli
1 bag/1 box corn
1 bag mixed veggies w/ cheese sauce
1 chicken & pasta steam meal
1 bag seasoned rice
~~2 servings salmon~~
various mini-loaf sweet breads
1 lasagna
2 lbs. ground beef
2 x 2 chicken breasts
~~2 cups chicken broth~~
1 box coconut shrimp
various shredded cheeses
14 rolls
4 frozen pizzas
16 oz bag blueberries

Fridge findings:

1.5 tubs sour cream dips
turkey gravy
~~Salad Finishers kit - Ceasar~~
3 1 burger buns
celery sticks
1 tube buttermilk biscuits
3 Pillsbury pizza crusts
3 x 8oz cream cheese
2 x 16oz sour cream
~~4 +~~ 6 egg
~~leftover mashed potatoes~~
leftover turkey
leftover stuffing
2 pkgs guacamole
~~1 serving Hamburger Helper~~
~~1 serving cooked pasta~~
~~Romaine lettuce~~

Now, what's even more upsetting is the list of what all is hiding in my pantry! Not wanting to scare anyone away, I'll simply post a link to the Google spreadsheet I just made. Although we're 3/4 of the way through the official Eat From the Pantry Challenge, I finally took the plunge and actually made a list of what all is there. As lame as it sounds that I actually had to take inventory of my pantry, maybe by periodically updating the spreadsheet, I can clear some things out and make way for new! Anyway, for the not-faint-of-heart, I give you my Pantry Inventory. Because I have some wonderful extra shelving in my Laundry Room, the "location" column indicates whether the item is in my P(antry) or L(aundry) R(oom), or whether there is some in each location. Honestly, there are probably still a few things that escaped the list (cereals & lunch snacks definitely didn't make it on, but we rotate through those enough that I didn't think it was worth it, but I'm sure there's other stuff too). Maybe I'll add to it in the future, but I just couldn't take any more today! Not to mention that a friend from Spain had called and I wanted to chat with him for a bit before he and my hubby hung up.

Eating through my stockpile, Soli Deo Gloria...

EFTP/F Challenge Update - week 3

2010-01-24T16:07:00.002-05:00

What did we eat this week, you ask? Started off the week with dinner at Bible Study, provided unexpectedly by a single friend who "just felt like cooking" :) Though it slowed down the fridge-clearing process, I certainly didn't complain about not having to cook! The rest of the week we ate:

Leftover Pasta & Bean Soup
Cheeseburgers, White Cheddar & Bacon Mashed Potatoes
Salmon & Primavera Risotto
Ceasar Salad (with organic Romaine and a Salad Finishers kit I found in the fridge!)
Panera Broccoli Cheese Soup (variations: left the onions in the pan the whole time, frozen broccoli, pureed 1/2 so it still had some veggie chunks, no nutmeg b/c I forgot it) and bread
Fiber One pancakes and 4 scrambled eggs
leftover Hamburger Helper for my hubby, and I ate at my babysitting job
leftover Broc. Chs. soup and leftover pasta w/ sauce

I'm still in for week 4! Honestly, I haven't even had to get very creative yet. I mean, I've made minor variations to recipes (like adding 1/4c skim milk to the half-and-half in this week's soup b/c I didn't have quite enough), but nothing too unusual. So far, I've been able to use my stockpile to create recipes I already had, and that should last for at least another week since I still have at least 4 recipes with all the ingredients on hand. I'll post an updated fridge/freezer list, with the NEW pantry list feature (finally got around to listing off what's there today) in the next few days. Thanks for tagging along!

Soli Deo Gloria

Yeah for CVS! or how I got them to pay me to wash my dishes.

2010-01-22T17:10:00.002-05:00

Okay... so this deal was more about the challenge than about the current need. That being said, if I weren't on Pantry Challenge, I wouldn't have the time to track it down. First, the pic. Then, the monetary breakdown.

The SoyJoy bars were 6 x 12¢ = 72¢. At $6 each, with a $6 ECB, all I was paying was tax... and since they're food, tax is only 2% around here! Unfortunately, they were essentially out of most everything but Mango Coconut, so we'll probably be sick of that flavor before long. I'll just spread them out, mixed in with other lunch-packing snacks. And yes, there are only 5 in the picture... that's because I already emptied one into our snack bin and recycled the box :)

The Finish/Electrasol tabs is the biggest deal. In case you can't tell, I got 9 boxes of 20 dishwasher tabs (=180 dishwasher loads). I had a raincheck from a while ago for 4/$9, spend $20 get $10 ECB. Hmm... that's $2.25 each, not counting the ECBs!! When I saw the $2.50/1 coupon that came about recently, I was stoked! Now... how to track down 5+ of them to make these guys free? I had 2, and asked around to see if anyone didn't need theirs. Eventually, I ended up with the other 7 from two of my dear friends/coworkers/fellow-couponers. So...

sale price: $20.25/9
coupons: $2.50 x 8 = $20 (they wouldn't let me use the 9th b/c it would've gone over the total value... fair enough)
paid OOP including tax: $1.82
received in ECBs to use later: $10
TOTAL COST: -$8.18 or -91¢ each!

If I didn't have to keep eating for the rest of my life, I just might retire from couponing. You know, quit while you're ahead and all that. But lo, I do have to eat, and so does my hubby. Funny thing is, I already had like 3 of these boxes already in my kitchen. So that means I get to share most of them with my coupon-sharers, and my pastors' families... even better!
Now... what good deals will they provide me with during the next month to use those $10 ECBs toward? Hopefully something else I can share!

In other news, I had a very yummy & healthy breakfast this morning. Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: the organic milk featured here.

This box of cereal came from my Pantry Makeover that I did earlier this week at EarthFare. You, too, can bring in a near-empty box of cereal with High Fructose Corn Syrup and replace it for free with this better-for-you product, if you just go here, sign up, print out the coupon and take it to your nearest EarthFare. Oh yeah, and when you sign up before Jan. 31 (which I know you'll do, because you love me), shoot me an email telling me the email address that you used. If I can get a few more volunteers, I can get a $25 gift card to EarthFare, which I'd really like! For what it's worth, I was pleasantly surprised that this actually tasted like Frosted Mini Wheats, instead of like cardboard with sugar on it :)

Soli Deo Gloria

The Cheapest Cheesiest!

2010-01-19T17:47:00.001-05:00

Thanks to a Walgreens in-ad coupon and those handy Buy 3 Get One Free (B3G1) coupons from mid-December, I have now purchased 12 boxes of Kraft (is there any other?) Mac & Cheese for a whopping $1.35! Yes, that's right... if my math serves me, that's less than $0.12/box! Now, one of the stores I went to only had the "Thick and Creamy" variety, so I guess we'll have to see how they do. I definitely felt like a college kid in the checkout line :) Now... how to hide them from my hubby so they last more than a month!!

Soli Deo Gloria

Fridge/Freezer Findings Update

2010-01-18T18:03:00.001-05:00

About 2 weeks ago, when I started the whole "Eat from the Pantry Challenge" I posted a preliminary list of what was in my fridge/freezer. For my own sake more than for yours, I thought I'd post an update :)

Freezer findings:

4 c. diced ham
London Broil (from a once-a-month cooking day a while back... may already be freezer burned, so I'll have to do it on a day with an easy back-up plan)
6 burgers
~~4 waffles~~
1 pkg ~~each salsa/~~guacamole
2 servings stuffed salmon
~~2 servings sole~~
2 pouches pepperoni
2 individual broccoli/cheese portions
2 bags grn. beans
1 bag broccoli
1 bag/1 box corn
1 bag mixed veggies w/ cheese sauce
1 chicken & pasta steam meal
1 bag seasoned rice
2 servings salmon
various mini-loaf sweet breads
1 lasagna
3 2 lbs. ground beef
3 2 x 2 chicken breasts
2 cups chicken broth
1 box coconut shrimp
various shredded cheeses
14 rolls
4 frozen pizzas
16 oz bag blueberries

Fridge findings:

~~1/2 pepperoni pizza (from Costco)~~
2 1.5 tubs sour cream dips
~~1 tub salmon spread~~
turkey gravy
Salad Finishers kit - Ceasar
3 burger buns
~~2 pancakes~~
celery sticks
~~carrot sticks~~
~~cucumber~~ (unfortunately, this got soft before I was able to eat most of it and I had to pitch it!)
21 tubes buttermilk biscuits
3 Pillsbury pizza crusts
3.5 x 8oz cream cheese
2.5 x 16oz sour cream
8 4 + 6 eggs (we ate 4, but a friend gave us 1/2 dozen fresh eggs from her chickens!)
~~leftover sweet potatoes~~
leftover mashed potatoes
leftover turkey
leftover stuffing
2 pkgs guacamole
1 serving Hamburger Helper
1 serving cooked pasta
Romaine lettuce

So... apparently I've done better working through the fridge than the freezer! I guess that's okay, since the fridge stuff is more "urgent" as it's likely to go bad faster. The red items have been added since I started this... some from the store, others from my Mom's fridge when she moved out of state, and some of my own leftovers. I still need to make a list of all the stuff in my pantry... ugh.
I guess what's important is that I am making progress, limited though it may be... and I'm saving grocery money too! Thanks for truckin' along with me!

Soli Deo Gloria

This Week's Grocery Deal!

2010-01-16T16:19:00.002-05:00

This is what I went to buy today, and it was a good enough ~~steal~~ deal that I wanted to share :) I paid $10.11 OOP, and while it is more than the $5 goal I mentioned in my previous post, and I didn't end up getting the cheap lunchmeat (they were out, so I got a raincheck), I still think I did pretty well. The 24 washcloths are for this year's Operation Christmas Child boxes, and one of the Oust cans is going to Turning Point. The milk and lettuce are both organic! According to my receipts, I saved $41.85... a "mere" 4x what I spent :)

Soli Deo Gloria

EFTP/F Challenge Update - week 2

2010-01-16T13:23:00.001-05:00

This week worked out pretty well also. I can at least see the shelves in my refrigerator again and there are some small gaps of free space in my freezer. Pantry progress is slower, but at least there IS progress!
This week we ate:

leftover Mexican Chicken Skillet w/ guacamole, cheese, sour cream, salsa (and Tortilla Chips on the side)
Pasta & Beans w/ Bread
Stuffed Sole w/ leftover Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Hamburger Helper w/ Bread
Salmon Turnovers (using Smoked Salmon spread instead of the filling in the recipe) w/ leftover Mashed Potatoes mixed with leftover Hevlua Good White Cheddar Bacon Sour Cream Dip (a yummy experiment!)
leftover pancakes (2) & frozen waffles (4) w/ syrup, scrambled eggs (4) w/ cheese

Three of the above meals still have leftovers (one of the benefits of cooking for only 2), so we'll be working on those this coming week, interspersed with a few other recipes that I've got up my sleeve using on-hand ingredients. I think I've still got about 7 ideas, most of which will produce their own leftovers, so we should be good to keep this up for at least another 2 weeks, barring any random occurrences. I will be heading to the store in a bit to grab some milk, veggies and hopefully cheap lunchmeat, since we're almost out of that and it's almost exclusively what my hubby takes to work, but I'm expecting OOP expenses to be only about $5 -- yeah!

Some of the excess will be going to a special offering at church tomorrow for Haiti. I also went through my household goods stockpile yesterday and pulled some items to donate to Turning Point via my church's upcoming women's brunch. It feels good to be able to give when there's a need, and yet still be able to save! May the Lord be glorified as I Eat From The Pantry!

Soli Deo Gloria...

EFTP/F Challenge Update - week 1

2010-01-10T18:36:00.000-05:00

This hasn't been quite as bad/hard as I thought! Actually, I was doing really well and made it through the week without going to the store... until yesterday. There were some killer deals (free guacamole, yogurt, cleaner, almost-free cheese) that I just couldn't pass up. Not to mention the pizza deal... which wasn't that great, but since I had purchased 17 pizzas (on sale, of course) earlier toward the $15 rebate, and then someone had eaten one and thrown away the UPC, I just HAD to B2G1 free to finish it up. Argh. Looking back, I probably should've just bought 1 @ $5 and been done with it, but $5 for a frozen pizza just sounds like a lot, even as part of a rebate. $3.33 sounds so much better.

Anyway, I'm still trying to participate in the challenge... and while my grocery budget was "restocked" on Friday (pay day!), I technically didn't touch a penny of it as I had leftover $$ from the previous 2 weeks. And since one of the suggestions with the challenge was to do something "useful" with the leftover grocery money (donate/pay down debt), my hubs and I agreed to spend part of it to put towards a space heater for an underemployed family at our church that we knew needed one. And with the coupon for 15 ECBs that I got from doing a CVS online survey a few weeks back, it worked perfectly.

So, what DID we eat this week out of our stockpile-abundance?

Barley & Lentil soup (with Split Peas instead of Lentils)
Mexican Chicken Skillet with FlatOut wraps from the freezer instead of tortillas (I just discovered this recipe, but I think I'll call it Homemade Q'doba Burrito)
1/2 Costco Pepperoni Pizza (since it was fresh, it had to be eaten)
Cranberry Oatmeal cookies (taken to a party Friday night, so that's not ALL we ate!)
Frozen pizza (after buying 3 at the store, they didn't all fit so we had to eat one right away - plus, we usually eat pizza one weekend night anyway)
Leftovers of #s 1 & 2 above

There's still a wee bit of leftover soup that one of us will probably take for lunch this week, and we'll be eating some Homemade Naked Burritos one night this week since we're out of FlatOuts/Tortillas but still have the rice/chicken part.
I've currently got a list of about 8 recipes that I know off-hand I can make without heading to the store again, though I'll probably swing by one more time in the next 2 days to grab some more free yogurt, bread (that I forgot yesterday), and $0.50 bag(s) of tortilla chips (with a coupon from today) since we're out and they'd go well with the leftover "naked burritos".
Hope your challenge is going as well (or better) than mine!

Soli Deo Gloria

Eat From the Pantry/Freezer Challenge

2010-01-04T18:27:00.005-05:00

Starting back to work today after two weeks off does NOT make being creative with menu items sound like fun. However, my GroceryGame membership has lapsed so instead of paying right away, I figure it's a good time to get to work on "rotating" my stockpile (I have a bit of a hard time distinguishing that from "reducing", but I'll do what I can).
Anyway, tonight's menu item is Barley-Lentil Stew served with rolls. I've made this before (this time last year, when cold weather screamed soup) and it was a success. I still have barley leftover (tightly sealed, of course), and have some celery sticks leftover from a New Year's Eve party. My hubby and I have serious aversions to celery, unless it's buried in something else and hardly noticeable - soup is a great choice!
Tonight I tried it with Split Green Peas instead of lentils, because that's what I had on hand. I can't recall to compare with last year, but it was yummy anyway! After some research, I chose to add them in when the other ingredients had already reached simmer stage so they didn't get overdone... but then they were not quite soft enough, so if I were to do it again, I'd add them in right with the barley and they'd probably be perfect.
I used all water, 3 tomato bouillon cubes and 1 chicken (what I had on hand).
I also left out the rosemary (personal preference).

Since I about froze my hands off in the freezer/fridge, I thought I'd go ahead and share some initial findings of items that are available to work into menus for as long as I can handle this!
Freezer findings:

4 c. diced ham
London Broil (from a once-a-month cooking day a while back... may already be freezer burned, so I'll have to do it on a day with an easy back-up plan)
6 burgers
4 waffles
1 pkg each salsa/guacamole
2 servings stuffed salmon
2 servings sole
2 pouches pepperoni
2 individual broccoli/cheese portions
2 bags grn. beans
1 bag broccoli
1 bag/1 box corn
1 bag mixed veggies w/ cheese sauce
1 chicken & pasta steam meal
1 bag seasoned rice
2 servings salmon
various mini-loaf sweet breads
1 lasagna
3 lbs. ground beef
3 x 2 chicken breasts
1 box coconut shrimp
various shredded cheeses
14 rolls

Fridge findings:

1/2 pepperoni pizza (from Costco)
2 tubs sour cream dips
1 tub salmon spread
turkey gravy
3 burger buns
2 pancakes
celery sticks
carrot sticks
cucumber
2 tubes buttermilk biscuits
3 Pillsbury pizza crusts
3.5 x 8oz cream cheese
2.5 x 16oz sour cream
8 eggs

I'll finish this post at a later time... now I've got to go to bed!

Saving on Groceries Video Series

2009-10-03T23:08:00.009-04:00

I've been following this gal's blog for a while, and she's given me a bunch of good ideas. She's currently doing a video series called "10 Ways to Slash Your Grocery Bill." Some of the points are very basic, but they're good reminders. Plus, she's from England so her accent is fun to listen to! Check it out here:

God of small things

2008-05-14T22:33:00.000-04:00

You all know me and my somewhat obsessive compulsive tendencies, so perhaps it won't come as a surprise to you that I count my silverware as I put it in the drawer when I empty the dishwasher. Not only does this assure that the stacks are equal so they fit neatly and properly in the drawer (6 spoons handle side down, 6 spoons handle side up, etc.), but it also makes sure that they are all accounted for.

Alas, the other day -- horror of all horrors -- I discovered that I only had 11 spoons. After confirming that I had counted the one in the sink, and double-checking obvious locations like the desk and the fridge, I determined the worst -- one of them had accidentally been thrown in the trash, which had just been picked up the day before. Not completely illogical... it's prone to happen when you have more than 20 people eating in a house at any given time (which had happened about a week before, and Isaac -- not a "counter" -- had emptied the dishwasher the one time in between).

The idea was terrible. 12 of everything except spoons... we'd run out of spoons before bowls for breakfast, we wouldn't be able to have a complete setting next time we have 12 people over... argh. And with this set of silverware (which was a gift to me from my bank in Spain when I left) there is no way to replace just one piece. That's why I registered for a set of Oneida that won't be discontinued and can be purchased open stock. It's currently being used along with our fine china in lieu of real SILVERware, the idea being that in the event of losing enough of the current set, the Oneida could move in as everyday-ware. I just hoped it wouldn't be for at least another 10 or 15 years!

Anyway, after I fretted about this for several days, prayed to find it, and determined to use disposable utensils at every group function from now to eternity, Isaac was loading his plate in the dishwasher after dinner one night and I, from a weird angle on the other side of the room, noticed a spoon resting in the bottom of the appliance, completely intact, up against the motor unit piece. We triple counted and -- sure enough! -- we now have 12 spoons again!

Whoever said God only deals with the big issues needs to think again :)

rps

2006-11-12T09:14:00.000-05:00

so... i was just moseying (word?) about the internet this morning, procrastinating the inevitable paper-writing (not that i really have time to procrastinate any more, but for real... who wants to work on a paper within minutes of waking up? and since i had no emails to give me a "warm-up," random surfing will have to do), when what do i come across, but a club that i had never heard of. it's called World RPS and has its headquarters in Toronto, Canada (although previously they were in London). actually, when the group reached 10,000 members in 1925, they also changed the name from "club" to the World RPS Society, because it sounded more mature. haha...

so, to what does this "society" dedicate itself, you might be asking, and it would be a good question. the answer? Rock, Paper, Scissors. and yes, i mean the game that we've been playing since we were 5. nothing fancy about it. all i can say, is that it takes all kinds to make the world go round...

if you don't believe me (or even if you do), check it out at www.worldrps.com.

that's enough surfing for me... i'm gonna go get ready.

Soli Deo Gloria...

in the midst of the mire

2006-11-09T16:40:00.000-05:00

hey guys! life has been crazy and i know i haven't written much lately, so i figured i'd take a few minutes before heading off to class to update you on what's been going on lately.

work.

ok, that's all i really need to say.

what? that's not exciting enough? tell me about it! i'm the one who's been living it!

alright, fine. my grandparents came to visit one Sunday afternoon about 2 weeks ago. it's not normal for g'rents who live in New Jersey to come visit their g'kids in North Carolina just for the afternoon, but they did. it was fun to see them.

i also had Homecoming at Furman. have i told y'all about that yet? it was so much fun to catch up with people again, even though i stilled missed seeing quite a few. Homecoming is one of those times where you just have to make sure that your expectations are reasonable and you'll have a great time. since time on the FU Mall is invitably made up of interrupting someone's "catch-up" time with someone else so that you can hear their update, only to be promptly interrupted yourself by someone who either wants to talk to you or your conversation partner. thus, one rarely finishes a sentence, let alone a complete thought process. but, like i said, as long as you realize that going in... you're bound to have a blast.

since then, i've pretty much made myself crack down on work. as you fellow students can relate (and even you recently graduated folk), the end of the semester tends to be rather miserable. everything is due at the same time, and it's all stuff that either you were procrastinating or couldn't actually do until the last few days/weeks. this is made even more exciting when you are teaching (meaning you have to try to cram the last chapter into 2 days, write exams/compositions and then grade them) as well as studying (involving term papers, lots of reading). thankfully (the Lord is good, so thanks for your prayers and keep them up!), i have been able to nearly finish 1 of my 3 term papers. i'm still relying on Him to pull me through the last 2, but at least i've got one class that i'm fairly guaranteed not to fail!

part of the pressure, of course, is brought on by the fact that my beloved Isaac is coming to visit me in precisely 1 week :) i'm thrilled! maybe it's just the excitement that's somehow getting me through paper-writing madness. who knows. his time here will be short (just under 2 weeks, and lots of travelling), but we're gonna live it up.

ok, it's time for class. a bit of business translation craziness... let's see if we get our last exam back?!?!

Soli Deo Gloria...

movie "review"

2006-11-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

i am most certainly not going to consider myself a movie critic, not even by a long stretch of the imagination. however, i went to see a movie last night with my family, thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it to everyone i know (in fact, that's precisely what i'm doing). it's called "Facing the Giants" and is a wonderful portrayal of the Gospel. it's "about" football, but focuses on faith and glorifying God, something that we don't see much of (or at all) in movie theaters these days -- quite the breath of fresh air. besides, it happened to fit right in with what i'm studying in my small group... faith, remember? i'm too tired from paper writing right now or i'd probably begin to wax theological on you.

here's the link for the movie: http://www.facingthegiants.com/main.php. it's still showing in some theaters, so please go see it. it's worth the $6, $7 or even $8 it'll cost you, and above all, it will make a statement that this is the kind of movie we want to see.

Soli Deo Gloria...

belief?

2006-10-16T23:24:00.000-04:00

i've recently discovered that i'm scared of believing God. don't get me wrong -- not believing IN God, just believing Him.

let me back up. i started a small group Bible study a few weeks ago. it's by Beth Moore and is entitled, surprisingly enough, Believing God. in essence, it's really about faith, and i'm learning a lot. that opening statement is just the beginning.

i believe in Him alright... i know He exists, and trust Him for salvation... but i don't think that truth always carries out into my life; i don't always live as if it i believed it. as Beth says, my theology doesn't always meet with my reality.

a few big things are going on in my life right now. in theory, i've been praying about them for a while. in reality, they've sloshed around my muggy prayer life from time to time as i've thought about praying for them, but haven't carried it out. yes, i know God can read my thoughts, but there's still something to be said, i believe, for officially laying them before His throne in humble adoration. i begin to digress.

the issue at hand is why i haven't been praying for these things. i've come to the realization that i'm fearful. fearful that, if i give them over to Him, He'll say "no," and i'll have a reason to be mad/angry/bitter. i'm afraid that if i ask Him to do something, then i'll expect Him to "come through" because of my extremely amazing faith or something. if i don't actually pray about them, then it's not His "fault" if things don't go my way, and i can only blame myself for the mess. i think this stems from 2 issues: 1) a lack of faith that He is capable of doing these things (i.e. performing miracles), and 2) a lack of trust that He will do what's best for me, even if it's not what i ask.

long story made slightly not-as-long, i've committed to truly praying daily for a few things:
1) that the way would be made clear for Isaac to live in the States come January,
2) for his brother, Pablo, who is in the military in Spain and is being sent to Afganistan on Oct 25th for at least 2 months,
3) for my mom's good friend, my "Aunt" Cindy, whose breast cancer from 10 years ago has returned and is now vigorously attacking her bones (and possibly her brain, we found out tonight), and
4) for the ability and wisdom to write my term papers well and in a timely manner.

overall, i'm praying for God to be BIG. according to Psalm 77:14, He is "the God who works wonders (or performs miracles, depending on the version)." i'm praying to see them. i'm also crying out, as a father did many years ago "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24).

if the Lord tugs on your heart to join me in prayer for these things, or for my own unbelief, i'd greatly appreciate it. and whether or not that's the case, thanks for tracking with me.

may my life continue to echo "Soli Deo Gloria..."

today is a big day

2006-10-14T23:02:00.000-04:00

how many posts have i put up today? and one yesterday too! wow. y'all should feel special.

just wanted to let you know that i got back from the theater just now. saw "Shear Madness" at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. it's a murder mystery where the audience gets involved. tons of fun. and the $15 student ticket was pretty cool too. i think i'll just be a student forever -- that's $10 off the regular price! if you live in Charlotte i recommend it. it'll be there until the end of the year, and it shows nearly every day of the week.

it was also fun to see LA. it's not every day that one gets to hang out with friends that they studied abroad with!

now i'm gonna try to work a bit more on my paper before hitting the haysack... haha. good thing i don't have allergies.

Soli Deo Gloria...

why new posts are suddenly appearing

2006-10-14T09:45:00.000-04:00

quick note... i decided to "convert" my old blog into this new one, so i am (slowly but surely) moving over my old posts so that nothing is lost.

that's it! enjoy some "historical" reading, if it suits you.

oh, p.s. now that i'm in the blogger beta, things are much cooler but i can't use my fun new widget anymore! bummer. i'm sure they'll update it soon enough though.

trying out my new widget

2006-10-13T22:36:00.000-04:00

apparently, i can post to my blogs now without even leaving the comfort of my own dashboard. and i most certainly do like my dashboard, so this should be nice. for those of you who are not familiar with macs, a dashboard is a really cool function. you add widgets to the dashboard, and the do all kinds of neat things. i have one, for example, that's a world clock -- i have it set to Madrid time. another one can convert currency, measurements, etc. i have a calculator, a thesaurus, the Spanish dictionary, my new Gmail messages, and a countdown to when my baby comes to visit me for Thanksgiving (currently it sits at 34 days!).

so anyway, it's been one of those lazy days. i did actually get some work done, and will have to do some more before going to bed (the joys of getting a Master's, i guess). my parents are out of town, so i made dinner for my sis and i, and i'm getting ready to try to make some Spanish potato salad so we can eat it tomorrow (tastes better if it's been sitting overnight in the fridge).

random... (my Gmail inbox widget just popped up with a new email from Mastercard saying that my payment is due soon) has anyone seen the new Mastercard commercial? with an international couple... it goes something like "engagement ring - $9,000. plane ticket from Japan - $15,000." and then it goes into this impossible-to-reproduce introduction of Japanese and American family members... it feels particularly like my life (although, minus the whole engagement ring part so far) and really makes me laugh. i tried to find it on YouTube this morning, but couldn't. otherwise i'd share the link.

ok... off to peel potatoes. g'night!

Ready to start another week

2006-10-01T21:50:00.000-04:00

It's interesting to consider the cyclical pattern that is our life. Each week starts and ends, and oftentimes I find myself subconciously viewing each week as a "mini-life" and forgetting that they are all a part of a grander plan. "If I can just make it through this week," I think to myself, "then everything will be just fine." But that's so bogus. There is nothing that intrinsically separates Sunday from Monday, Monday from Tuesday, the weekend from the week, and on down the line. The mistakes I make today may very possibly have effects far into next week. On the flip side, the things I do right this week are very likely to carry forth into the weeks to come as well.

This applies to our spiritual life as well, without a doubt. When I trust God for His provision, I'm going to see the ripple effect of that beyond flipping the calendar. And I'm not only talking about "big" things... any minute detail of my life can (and ought to be) entrusted to God's care. When I begin to truly lean on Him and not only believe IN Him, but also BELIEVE Him, perhaps He'll show me how to step back and see the trees for the forest they are a part of. And maybe, just maybe, He'll allow me a small peak into how my forest is a small corner of His world.

on the move again

2006-06-27T20:02:00.000-04:00

I think I should be traumatized. Every time I write in this blog, I either have nothing interesting to say... or way too much interesting to say. Interesting, of course, being a very subjective word.

Interesting news for this week: I was (more or less) kicked out of the house with the family this past weekend. Long story made somewhat less long, the mom got Salmonella(sp?) Poisoning, and after discovering that her 14-yr-old had failed 3 classes, was in quite a bad mood. It was at this point that she decided to come into my room and tell me that she didn't need me anymore and that I "could" leave as soon as possible.

That was Tuesday. On Thursday, I came home from my last day of school to find that she had been admitted into the hospital at least until Sunday. On Saturday, Isaac and I went to get my bags. This morning I went by to, theoretically, say goodbye to the whole family. However, the mom is still in the hospital and only 1 daughter was there. Oh well... I turned in my key and I'll send them all emails later.

Isaac's wonderful parents have been kind enough to let me stay here, facilitated by the unfortunate delayed arrival from the U.S. of Miriam's best friend. Hopefully Jessica will be able to join us later this week, at which point I will likely go stay with some other friends who live close to the church.

In the meantime, I'm here trying to help out as much as possible, while tying up loose ends and saying goodbyes here in Spain. I leave for home early next Wednesday morning, July 5, and (Lord willing) will make it there by early that afternoon. I'll get my cell phone number to y'all as soon as I have it (although I'll send it by email, so if you don't get it, let me know).

Soli Deo Gloria...

making up for lost time

2006-06-13T02:09:00.000-04:00

A day... right.

The last week that Mom was here, my Aunt Nora came also. I took a day off of work to take them to Salamanca, and we got together for dinner every night they were here. We also spent a ton of time over at Isaac's house with his family... they are so sweet and giving!

Mom and Aunt Nora left early on Friday morning, April 28, and I left later that afternoon for a car trip with Isaac and some other friends from church. We headed up to a small town in Galicia (northwestern Spain) where we visited some friends of ours. We had a great time, just relaxing and catching up with them (and hanging out with their 2-yr-old twin girls!), and came back on Tues evening (since Mon and Tues were holidays).

The following week was also short, because then we left on Friday afternoon to go down south for Isaac's cousin's wedding on Saturday. Pics are up on my dotPhoto page. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and seeing his family again, and it was also my birthday... it was nice to have something different to do.

Monday the 15th was also a holiday (the last one while I'm still here, in fact), but we decided to just stay at home and chill instead of trying to take another trip.

Things here at the house and at school have been fairly calm and uneventful. We had Cultural Week at school, which was honestly more of a headache than anything, between trying to teach the kids skits in English, and changing schedules all week and such, but at least it was something different.

Then we hit the month of June, and things got even more crazy/calm... if it's possible to have both at the same time. School now ends for me at 1:30 every day -- it gets so hot here, and the schools don't have AC, so the months of Sept and June they have a shorter school day! It's kinda nice, but it's also kinda a race against the clock to finish the work in class periods that are suddenly much shorter.

It has given me a bit more freedom in the afternoons though. One day I went up to have lunch with Isaac at work, tomorrow I'm planning to give my class here at the house a little earlier than usual so he and I can go to the gym together afterwards, and I also want to have lunch with some friends one day this week. On days when I do come straight home, it gives me time to relax (and sometimes even nap!) before starting class at home.

Other than that, I'm down to the last countdown. 3 weeks and a day or so until I'm home. I'm super excited, but obviously there is a part of me that is hesitant also... and it's not only the part that realizes my boyfriend and I will be a bajillion miles apart! This year has been great, and I feel like it's not fair that I have to end another "chapter" of my life already... I mean, I feel like I just said goodbye to Furman!

But hey... I'm planning on being at UNC Charlotte next year for a Master's, which should be fun. And besides, God is in control and will work things out for His glory. Speaking of which...

Soli Deo Gloria...

family time!

2006-05-09T01:19:00.000-04:00

My goodness, my goodness. It has been a looong time. Sorry about that. Life has been absolutely CRAZY for about the last month -- in a very good way, don't get me wrong -- but unfortunately it hasn't left much time for things like emailing and blog or picture updating.

Quite certainly there is NO way I can do justice to these last few weeks, primarily because I was not blessed with enough patience to sit down and thoroughly describe 4 weeks of (almost) vacation in one sitting. The good news is, I suppose that very few of you were blessed with the patience to read it all anyway, so I kinda get off the hook. Anyway... on with the story.

It all began on Palm Sunday (which happened to be April 9, to admit just how long it has been) when my family (i.e. dad, mom and sister since brother had exam prep) arrived in Madrid. We (+ boyfriend)left the following day for Barcelona and spent the week there. We stayed in quite a nice hotel, which was fun. We walked a lot, saw quite a bit of the city and sampled lots of restaurants, but the best part was just being together. A few highlights: the bike tour through the city, Gaudí day (we saw the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Parque Güell and Casa Milá, all designed by Antonio Gaudí... look him up, he's interesting), and our hike/tour through the mountain village of Rupit (which sits about 1.5 hours outside of the city... it was gorgeous and the meal we ate there was by far the best!).

Upon returning to Madrid on Saturday, we were swept away to Barcience to show my parents where the house will be, and at the same time for us to see the progress on the neighborhood. It's slow going, but some changes can be noticed. Keep an eye out for new photos in the "Barcience" album. This trip was followed by a delightful dinner and conversation at Pastor Hanna's house. Easter Sunday my family and I spent at church, Monday we putzed about the city, and Tuesday my sister came to work with me while my parents toured the city on their own. Wednesday am early, Janelle and Dad headed back to the States.

Mom and I spent the next 2 nights at Isaac's house (she came to work with me on Thursday... remind me to tell you how we got locked in) and had a great time just hanging out with his family and doing a bit of shopping.

Unfortunately, you'll have to wait at least another day for the continuation of this saga, because between slow internet and a phone call, I've spent over 1.5 hours writing this, and I'm really tired.

Soli Deo Gloria...

overcoming the "reluctance"

2006-03-28T23:20:00.000-05:00

You're getting a two-for-the-price-of-one this week, and since I know you aren't expecting it I'll go ahead and warn you -- if you missed out on yesterday's posting, read it before you continue with this one or you'll be a bit lost.

So, I didn't want to go to the doctor, but I knew I needed to. The doctor that is covered under my insurance here is only open from 11:30-12:30 M-F and I couldn't decide if I should ask off one job (at the school) to go there, or ask off the other (at home) to go to an emergency clinic and beg Isaac to come with me so I wouldn't be alone.

When I got to school this morning, I decided I would ask what I needed to do if I wanted to go to the doctor (i.e. get permission from the Principal, sign a form... who knows). However (I'll admit the weakness), I was so stressed and worried about it that I started bawling. My coworker/supervisor, Sandra, pulled me aside and was like "are you OK?" I explained that I was nervous about going to the doctor... and she offered to go with me!! I felt really bad, but she said she didn't mind.

We left after my first class and she was very understanding. The doctor was a very nice, older gentleman. He explained that the normal cold virus has been accompanied by a bacteria this year, making it harder to fight. He prescribed me an antibiotic (thanks to Sandra I explained that I am allergic to Penicillin) and Paracetamol, which apparently is Tylenol (yeah for doing internet research). He also recommended some "home remedies" like eating a spoonful of honey with a few drops of lemon, gargling salt water, and boiling Eucalyptus leaves to breathe the air better or something.

Overall, I am glad Sandra came with me, although I probably could have handled it by myself. She served as a "mom-figure" for a scared little girl who was apparently so nervous that she turned to her right when the doctor said to make a left at the end of the hall :) It was nice to have an extra set of ears, and to have her be able to explain some things to me better after we left. Apparently she had warned their teacher that we would miss English class due to a doctor visit, so when we went in to Science this afternoon, all my cute kiddos asked if I felt better. It was precious.

The best part is that I ended the day having spent less than 8€... amazing difference from all the co-pays I would've been charged in the States. Of course, that doesn't include all the money I dropped shopping to celebrate my victory, but that's a story for another day...

Soli Deo Gloria..

post-Sevilla snot

2006-03-27T20:49:00.000-05:00

I was gently reminded by a faithful friend that I forgot to post last week. For anyone who happened to be worried... relax! I'm fine :) It just so happens that Isaac and I spent last weekend in Sevilla with his brother's family and we didn't arrive back to Madrid until very late Monday night (otherwise known as Tuesday morning). I usually write from his house and I didn't have time on Tuesday morning before heading off to work.

We had a good time in Sevilla, although it rained most of the weekend and Isaac's adorably niece had a sore throat and was fairly fussy all weekend. Oh well, at least we got to breathe air that wasn't from Madrid, get to know his family better, and get to experience long-distance bus travel. Of those 3 things, the only one I'm NOT interested in doing again is the part about the bus travel. We left at 4pm on Monday. The "6-hour" bus trip didn't get us home until 1am on Tuesday morning due to incredible traffic on the highway. At least I wasn't alone...

Last week went fast, since it was short. And then I didn't even have to work at the house on Friday afternoon because the family left town to celebrate their grandfather's 90th birthday. A bunch of us went to Hard Rock on Friday night to celebrate Kelley, Joy and Virginia's birthdays. We had fun, but remind me not to go there again... the music is too loud :)

Saturday was relaxing... around the house cleaning and such. Saturday evening, we got to see our friend Liz for a few short hours after Bible study. I wasn't feeling so hot, but seeing her at least distracted me. Sunday evening I started feeling pooey again and had a low-grade fever. This morning I woke up with no fever, but a super-congested nose. I went to work, and really have felt fine all day... except for that raw-nose feeling you get after blowing it so much.

Isaac keeps telling me I should go to the doctor, but I really dread the idea. I haven't been to the doctor for anything other than a regular check-up in years, and this one won't even speak my language! The irrational fear that most people have of dentists, I think I have of doctors. Although I prefer the term "reluctance" -- it's just not practical to go. I mean, I have to get time off work and everything. Skipping class was so much easier... you didn't have to ask for favors from anyone but yourself. So anyway, he's practically threatened me to go tomorrow, so we'll see what happens.

Soli Deo Gloria...

internet at home!

2006-03-09T23:15:00.000-05:00

I realize that I'm writing at an odd time and on an odd day. You probably think it's just another holiday that us crazy spaniards have (and I can say "us" because I live here and because I'm dating one), but it's not. The fact of the matter is that I have internet in my house now! Thanks to my wonderful spaniard of a boyfriend, who has graciously lent me his laptop and has come to the house to install the router. Unfortunately, it appears the family bought a rather cheap router so I get cut off quite frequently, but it's still an improvement from before.

These last two weeks have gone well and smoothly, both here at home and at school. I have recently been tied up with a few tasks (which certainly make me appreciate even more the internet access) which include applying to UNC Charlotte's MA in Spanish program, and planning part of the trip for us when my parents come to visit over Spring Break/ Easter.

My health has been a little sketchy... I think I already told you about the Monday evening that I spent completely in bed? I have definitely improved since then, but still have a bit of a cough and a stuffy nose. Hasn't really limited me in any way (I'm back to going to the gym, and haven't missed any work), but I'm not gonna lie that it's starting to get on my nerves.

The weather is improving a bit, although they say that Spring here is a bit wacky and practically means some nice days mixed in with really cold days which eventually turns into a blooming-hot summer by May. Maybe I'll complain later, but for now I'm very happy to have been able to leave my heavy coat at home for the last two days.

Isaac is doing well, although he did end up staying home on Monday 'cuz he was really congested and his eyes were red from sneezing quite a bit. But he was back to routine by Tuesday and is almost back to 100% by now. He and I are hoping to go to Sevilla next weekend to see Pablo and family, but we'll have to see about that.

I think that's all I've got for you now. Prayers are greatly appreciated as I'm attempting not to stress about things. Oh yeah - and I just put up a few pics that you may (or may not) enjoy checking out. Not exactly current, but the new house is included, and some of Isaac's niece from when they visited a few weekends ago.

Soli Deo Gloria...

a city snowfall

2006-02-27T09:47:00.000-05:00

Nothing too terribly exciting to share this week.

Monday afternoon I had a fever, I think, and the family was nice enough to let me go to bed at 6pm without giving any class. I slept all night (and took some meds they gave me), woke up fever-free Tuesday morning, showered, went to work... and have been getting better ever since. The congestion and a bit of a cough has been hanging on hard, but I think (hope!) that I've about shaken it. The worst part about the whole thing is that I couldn't go to the gym... and since I finally found one two weeks ago, to not be able to go during the whole second week of my membership really irked me. Oh well.

It snowed a bit on Saturday night. Started as rain. Isaac and I turned off the TV around 1am so we could listen to it (it's kinda rare that there's a good rain to listen to here in Madrid so we took advantage of the opportunity). As we sat there watching/listening/talking, it turned into a freezing rain, and eventually snow. It was a very relaxing evening, but due to the late hour at which we finally left the snow to fall by itself, we were once again thankful that church here doesn't start until noon!

Yesterday Isi and Rachel and their almost 2-yr-old twins were at church. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures, but we enjoyed a good time with them. Take my word that the girls are precious:) Hopefully Isaac and I will be able to go up to visit them in Galicia on our long weekend at the beginning of May. We'll see.

I always ending up coming up with more to say than I thought I would. Perhaps that means I share some not-so-interesting things with you. Not going to apologize though -- no one makes you read this :) Have a great week.

Soli Deo Gloria...

movie madness

2006-02-20T09:22:00.000-05:00

Same time, same place... here we are.

Nothing too super-crucial or new to tell you about today. Things are still going well with the new family and at school. I joined a gym last weekend (can't remember if I mentioned that before) and I was able to go 3 times this past week, which makes me happy.

I s'pose I could also point out that we took advantage of the "special day" this week as an excuse to go out for a nice dinner on Tuesday night. While neither of us are big Valentine's Day people, we don't get to do that kind of thing very often (or even see eachother midweek), so it was a nice treat.

I spent the weekend here at Isaac's house again (surprise! haha) and we pretty much just took it easy. We (or rather I, since he fell asleep after the first 1/2 hour) watched Sahara on Friday night, and we both slept in late on Saturday. Saturday night after Bible study we went over to some friends house to watch another movie (An Unfinished Life with JLo and Willie Freeman... I'd never heard of it) and eat pizza. And last night, after church, he watched The Rock with his parents while I spent all night on the phone with my parents and Jessica, who called. I think we need to work on our movie-watching timing.

Since there's not much exciting to talk about, I think I'll take my stuffed-up nose to get dressed and ready for work so I'm not late. Until next week!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Pablo and fam visit

2006-02-13T09:20:00.000-05:00

I am happy to share that things are still going well with my new family (and, less surprising but also positive, at school too). I actually thought that I wasn't gonna have to work at all on Friday, and was slightly disappointed when I ended up having to work from 6:30-8:30, but it turned out to not be a problem. Isaac was at home all day with his face a little swollen from having a tooth pulled on Wednesday, so I got to hang out with him in the afternoon for a few hours to keep him company before heading back to work. In the evening, I was able to sit on the sun-porch to catch some wireless internet and talk to him and my mom over the computer. Yeah for having some technology! In theory, they are going to install a wireless router in the next week or 10 days, which should mean that I can sit in the comfort of my own room and send emails ;)

On Saturday morning I headed over to Isaac's house again, but took a different route to the metro and ran into a gym, which I ended up joining. I'm excited about the opportunity... now I just have to take the time to take advantage of it!

Around 3 o'clock, after having some car trouble en route, Isaac's brother Pablo, along with his wife Sara and daughter Marta, arrived. We all had lunch and hung out for what was left of the afternoon. Marta turns 2 next month. She's still a little unsure about me, but she's adorable as she wanders around the house calling for her grandparents and her "tito" and "tita" (i.e. uncle and auntie -- Miriam and Isaac).

I had planned to sleep at my house so as to give them more room, but they refused to let me, so after Bible study Isaac and I took the metro to my house to grab my stuff and then back to theirs. We had a good time talking to his parents and Pablo and Sara for an hour or so before it was time to play musical beds.

Sunday was great -- the afternoon always is a bit crazy when there are extra people around, but I love it. After church in the evening we had Pastor Hanna and his family over, along with Kelley and Angel to celebrate Sara's 31st birthday, which is on Tuesday. More great time of laughter and fellowship, and besides, when asked "where's Justine?" Marta actually pointed at me! I was thrilled to be recognized... haha.

You should also be glad to know that no one stole my camera this weekend (which is what happened last time Pablo and Sara came) so I will eventually be able to post some pictures of the weekend, hopefully this week.

Ok, off to get ready for work.

Soli Deo Gloria...

good news about the new house

2006-02-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Gonna keep this short, but just wanted to let y'all know that things are going well in the new house! The girls are older and more mature, and understand why I'm there. I say it's time, and they immediately begin discussing who goes first. We sit down, do homework, and when we finish, play games (with the 8-yr-old) or talk (with the 13- and 16-yr-olds). After an hour with one, I move on to the next. They are nice, the food is good, and I already have a key (which I never had in the other house!).

In addition to all this, it takes me less than an hour to get to work, when before I was averaging 1 hour and 10 mins. And not only do I have weekends free, but it seems as though I'll be able to leave early (I usually work 5-8) on Fridays -- this weekend I left just before 6!

Isaac's brother, sister-in-law and niece were supposed to come up from Sevilla this weekend, but in the end they weren't able to. We missed them, but with all the craziness of 9 visitors from Northern Ireland on Sunday to celebrate Jonathan's ordination as Deacon, it maybe is better if they come on a more calm weekend.

Ok, gotta get dressed, make the bed and head off to work. Have a great week!

Soli Deo Gloria...

I've left!

2006-01-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

I'm posting a little bit later today due to the fact that we don't have school. Not that anyone will notice, since it's still really early in the States, but hey...

This week has been great. A week ago today I told the lady I was living with that I was leaving, and she told me to head out on Tuesday, so I did. I've been at Isaac's house with his family since then and it's been sooo relaxing! I moved my stuff into the new house on Friday, but they are out of town for this weekend, so I'll head there tomorrow afternoon after school and actually start working/living there then. I'm excited about the change, but I have been a bit spoiled this week so it might be a bit hard to adjust.

Wednesday night I had a 3-hour meeting for my job at the school, which was less boring than I thought it would be (and happened to run into the woman who was sitting next to me on the plane in December... small world!). Thursday night we got together with two of Isaac's friends, which was fun. I had met Dani before (you may remember him from pics of Segovia in the Fall), but the other I was convinced didn't even exist because he was never able to get together. But! have no fear... Manolo does exist, and he's a nice guy too! Saturday, Dani took us to Toledo and Barcience (the small town outside Toledo where Isaac's house is being built) and we took a bunch of pictures, which are being uploaded as I type, so check them out. There are also some pics from Christmas, etc. if you're interested -- the link is at the bottom of this page still (where it says "about me - read my profile").

Saturday evening we had Youth Group/Bible Study again for the first time since before Christmas, and enjoyed the opportunity to introduce a new topic for this semester, and then go out for dinner with everyone afterwards.

I think that's all I've got for this week. Hope all is going well with you!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Homefront Changes

2006-01-23T09:24:00.000-05:00

Good morning! I think I skipped last week, so I'm sorry to the few of you faithful travelers who were disappointed last Monday morning.

This week has been rather crazy, actually. Calm and normal at the school, but things on the homefront are changing around a bit. At the beginning of the week I realized that I'm still not happy with the family I live with, even now that we've been in the new house over a month. "Grin and bear it" wasn't seeming like a good option either, since I still have over 1/2 my trip left. So... I emailed the agency that placed me with the family and asked if it would be possible to change. Friday I met with a new family, and by next Monday I should be settled into a new context.

This family also has 3 girls, but they are 8, 13 and 16 so my job will be less playing games and disciplining, and more teaching English. They have had other Language Assistants before (many of whom they still keep in touch with), so they know the drill. Their house should cut about 15 minutes each way off my commute to work, and it's right near where I lived 2 years ago, so I'm familiar with and like the neighborhood. I'll work 5-8ish instead of 6-9ish, so it will be possible to go out for dinner, hang out, or see a movie afterwards if/when I want to.

Overall, I'm very excited about the change, and am praying that it will be as good as it sounds.

In other news, this weekend was the annual church dinner, so we all went to a nice restaurant on Saturday and had a great time enjoying fellowship among fellow brothers and sisters and good food. The meal was followed by a congregational meeting to give reports on the different goings-on in the church over the last year, including Youth Group, Sunday School, Budget, etc. Yesterday was Efraín's profession of faith, so a bunch of his extended family was visiting in the morning.

Well, off to school I go... it is Monday morning here, after all. Talk at you when I get a chance!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Happy New Year!

2006-01-09T01:07:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

I am (we are, I should say) safely back in Spain as of Thursday afternoon. They left our bags in Philadelphia again, which kinda stunk because it means the gifts in them were not given until later, but that's ok. January 6 is Three Kings Day (more commonly known in the States as Epiphany) and here in Spain they give gifts on the 6th instead of on the 25th.

Due to a random and somewhat frustrating, but eventually good, turn of events (which included me taking a different route back than was expected, and arriving 3 hours earlier), we were able to see the big parade that they always do through Madrid the evening of the 5th. We got some pictures, and I'll put them up for you next weekend perhaps.

Having not slept much on the plane, by 9:30pm the night of our arrival, we went to bed, simply to wake up around 12:30, hungry and not at all tired any more. I must be getting old, because jet lag has definitely affected me more on this trip than I ever remember before. After finally going to sleep again around 4, Three Kings day started when we were unwillingly dragged out of bed at 9:30am. After opening gifts, we all got ready before our Pastor and his family (who also happen to be good friends of ours, if you're just tuning in) came over for lunch.

On Saturday, we went to the mountains and played in the snow. Yeah for my new, super-warm Columbia coat! And to everyone here who provided me with good and rather water-proof clothing, since I certainly don't have any of that here. They made my day not only survivable, but quite enjoyable to boot!

Today was Sunday. It was good to be back in church again and see everyone else. This evening we dropped my suitcases off at the house in Aravaca (Alicia actually let Isaac in the door this time... maybe because he was still in his suit from church, instead of in jeans!) and then went out to dinner with a few other friends for one last good time before work starts again tomorrow. (Which reminds me... up until today, I hadn't even spoken to the family that I live with... this whole time I've been with Isaac and his family... it's been sooo relaxing!)

Anyway... this is getting long and is probably incomprehensible, so even though I'm not really tired yet -- body clock still doesn't realize it's 1:20am -- I'm gonna head out. Getting up around 8 tomorrow will come earlier than it should.

Much love, and it was great to see those of you who I saw over the break! Those of you who I didn't see... just let me know when you're coming and I'll work on which museums we should go see ,)

Soli Deo Gloria...

Christmas at HOME!

2005-12-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

Hello! I'm safely in the States and had a WONDERFUL Christmas with Isaac and the family.

It is soo good to be home, and it's great to be surrounded by not only immediate family, but also extended family this Christmas. In October, my Dad's twin brother and his family moved to Charlotte. Obviously I hadn't seen them here since they moved because I was gone already, but we've spent tons of time with them in the last few days, which I love. Also, yesterday my parents celebrated 25 years of marriage, so all 3 of my grandparents made the extra effort to come down to help celebrate. We went out for an excellent dinner last night and gave thanks to the Lord for that wonderful blessing.

Unless he's just a really good liar, Isaac is enjoying his time here as well. Everything is different, of course, including the meal schedule, but he's being a good sport.

I got a new digital camera for Christmas. It doesn't have quite the awesome zoom that my other one did, but it is MUCH smaller, so hopefully I'll take more pictures. Besides, since it's so small, there shouldn't be any problems keeping it attached to my body like another limb so it doesn't get stolen. Haha...

My sister pretty much still has control of my cell phone, but she's pretty much obligated to pass it to me if I'm around when you call, so go for it! And if not, she can at least give you the house number, where you're almost guaranteed to get me.

Hope this holiday season is giving you an opportunity to reflect on family as well as the Reason we are celebrating.

Soli Deo Gloria...

pre-Christmas

2005-12-19T09:20:00.000-05:00

Here we are... another Monday morning, another entry in the good ol' blog. The difference this week, however, is that you're probably not gonna get another one next Monday morning! And no, it's not because I'm being stubborn. The simple fact is that I will BE AT HOME! and therefore won't be following the same routine.

In case you were wondering, I'm very excited about said opportunity. I'm trying not to wish Friday here already, because I know that as soon as I arrive it will be time to return (12 days is not enough). However, the thought of seeing family and friends really excites me.

Isaac is excited too. I would assume he's a little nervous too. He says he's not, but every time I get off the phone with my mom and tell him about another person who's waiting to meet him, he makes some joke about staying here and sending someone else in his place. Hahah...

Back to life here for a quick minute, things are going fine in the house. I pretty much co-exist there, but that's OK. Alina (the housekeeper) and I spend lots of time talking, which I enjoy and like to think that it keeps her from being so lonely. They did actually get internet hooked up this week, so that has potential to allow for more communication, but probably not 'til after Christmas since this week is so busy.

Speaking of busy... I have to get dressed for work. Feliz Navidad to you, and I hope to see lots of you while I'm home!

Soli Deo Gloria...

This is a P.S. I was so excited about going home that I forgot some importantish things! Tradition here is to put up a nice plastic tree (they tell me there aren't enough trees to cut down/throw away every year). The Jimenezs have had the same one for several years, but apparently now it's broken. So on Saturday, after seeing the largest Nativity Scene in Europe (please note... largest as in most buildings, not as in life-size... I was slightly disappointed by that) with Christie (my other American co-worker), Isaac and I went to the local Wal-Mart-type store to buy a 180cm fiber optic tree. My favorite part was when Isaac pulled out a box, held it out to look at it, and said "I think this is the best one!" I mean, the box HAS to be good... it's got to uphold the next 15 or so years of storage! But it reminded me of my dad in Home Depot looking at TREES instead of BOXES. I laughed. There are a few select pictures of Miriam and I decorating said Christmas wonder on my pics page. Check it out.

post-pueblos

2005-12-12T09:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know why it's always so hard for me to sit down and type here. It's probably because I want to take like an hour to do it, so I try to wait until I have an hour but I never have that much time.

Oh well... this past week, super fast.

Monday -- received my student residence card here, so I feel official (even though I already was). Besides, now I don't have to carry my passport to be able to use my debit card. Also used it to get a library card so I can read books in the metro without buying them.

Tuesday -- holiday. Enjoyed sleeping in, had my English class with Feli in the afternoon, and hung out with Isaac and fam in the afternoon.

Wednesday -- back to work, to Aravaca in the afternoon, and back to Isaac's house at night.

Thursday -- another holiday, and the beginning of a long weekend. We left at 9am (Isaac, his parents and I) to visit their hometowns in southern Spain. We were able to borrow Jonathan's camera, so I did post some pictures (the link is below, if you forgot). You'll have to read the captions for more details since I don't have time here (although, now that I think about it, I didn't even finish the last few captions. oh well.) We returned on Sunday afternoon. Let's suffice it to say that it was a great time, very relaxing, meeting his family and eating lots of home-grown food. And that, even though the weather was nice outside, the lack of heat makes the houses supercold inside. I've never been so cold in my life!

Hopefully next weekend I'll get around to writing more, and the weekend after that is Christmas and I'm home! Wow, does time fly...

Soli Deo Gloria...

new house!

2005-12-05T08:17:00.000-05:00

Here we are, another Monday morning.

First, I would like to apologize to those of you who actually read this on a regular basis for not writing last Monday. I didn't wake up early enough to write... haha.

Plenty has happened in the last 2 weeks, including a lack of Thanksgiving celebration, which ended up to be harder than I had thought it would be. However, the most important event is that we finally moved last Monday afternoon! Having never been to the new house before -- and considering that boss-lady doesn't ever have to use public transportation so she was clueless for giving instructions -- it took me quite a while to arrive the first time. Now, however, it only takes me 1 hour and 15 mins to get to work (as opposed to 2+ in the other house), and without traffic I'm only a 5 min bus ride from the metro, which is significantly closer to civilization than I've been thus far.

I have my own room (which is not anyone else's office, like it was before), and the bathroom that the housekeeper and I share is in the hallway, instead of inside her room. My room is quite small, but sufficient, and at least I have closet space now so I'm not still living out of suitcases!

Things at the school are still going great, and we're starting to teach the kids Christmas carols in English to sing for their parents. The 5-yr-olds are doing a simplified version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and the first graders are singing "When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney", which unfortunately I had never heard before. I don't think we realize how complicated Christmas carols really are until you teach them to little kids who don't really speak English. I mean, for real... what ARE "bobtails" anyway?

This week is holiday madness here, as Tuesday AND Thursday are holidays, and in the schools we have Friday off too. We've worked it that Isaac and his parents have Friday off too, and we're leaving early Thursday morning to drive down south, hang out in his parents' hometowns, and meet some extended family. Should be a good time.

Now, before I get dressed, I'll leave you with one fun anecdote. It'll make me look like an idiot, but the few of you that read this certainly already know that, so why shouldn't I give you a good laugh?

On Friday I decided to take advantage of my new close-ness to civilization, and Isaac and I were going to see a movie with some friends after I taught class at the house. He waited for me, thoroughly exploring the shops around said civilized metro station (I keep repeating this, but I wish I could more thoroughly explain the joy that it gives me to be so close to stores and restaurants!). I arrived at 9ish, and we wandered around, waiting for them to pick us up, until at 9:45ish they called to say there was too much traffic and that we should take a bus. Long story, but the bus to get to that theater would take an hour, and Isaac had to work on Saturday morning, so we bagged the idea and just headed home. On the way, while changing metro lines, I decided it would be fun to fall DOWN the escalator. Yup, you read that right. I mean, I've fallen UP them before (just once). It kinda sucks 'cuz you feel like everyone around is laughing at you and you get escalator marks and grease on your hands, but falling DOWN is much worse. Thankfully, Isaac was only a few stairs in front of me, and even more thankfully he didn't fall over when I grabbed onto him on the way down, definitely saving me from smashing my teeth in. There is a small tear in one knee of my jeans, and each leg has 2 or 3 bruises from where I hit the edges of the stairs, but otherwise I'm unharmed. And I can laugh about it now... haha.

Hope you have a good week. I am super-excited about being home in less than 3 weeks. Which reminds me, if you didn't get an email invite to my New Year's Eve party, it wasn't on purpose, so just let me know and I'll send you the info.

Soli Deo Gloria...

non-Thanksgiving

2005-11-21T08:41:00.000-05:00

Good morning!

It's a typical Monday morning here in the Jiménez household, and I'm feeling the lack of sleep from the weekend -- maybe one of these days I'll learn how to get to bed "on time."

This past week was good, even though there weren't any holidays. It certainly felt long, and I kept waking up thinking it was Friday!

Finally Friday came, however, and it was good! Alicia, one of my "students" at home, turned 7 so she had a party for all her friends at the ice-skating rink, which meant that I got the day off. After my private lesson with my friend Feli, I headed into Madrid with my little suitcase and enjoyed my first Friday night like a normal 22-yr-old since I've been here. Isaac and I went to the SIMO, an annual technology exposicion. It was neat, but apparently it's been better in the past years. Besides, we didn't have more than 1 1/2 hours, and it needed more time than that to see it thoroughly. BUT, we did get to sit in a Ferrari... haha.

Then we went to the home of one of Isaac's coworkers. María and her husband, 2 other gals, and Danny (who you may remember from pictures of Segovia). We had a lot of fun, just talking and laughing, and looking at the wedding pictures/video (apparently our hosts just got married in May).

We didn't get to bed though until about 2am, and I felt really bad because Isaac had to work on Saturday. I got to sleep in, however, and didn't even crack my eyelids until nearly 11... it was great.

Yesterday was Youth Sunday, and I was in the youth choir to sing in both services. I also gave my testimony in the morning. As usual, I wasn't nervous until about 3 mins before, but ended up reading most of it. Considering it was in Spanish, I'm pleased with how I did. I pray that those who heard were encouraged to exhibit the joy of the Lord.

I was thrilled because my friends Mary and Feli were both able to come (although Feli arrived late and missed the song and my testimony, but she was able to stay for lunch). I take hope in these words from Isaiah 55:10-11: "As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

Now I face another full week, and I'm trying not to think about the pumpkin pie that is being consumed this week in the US. For those of you who didn't know (or simply haven't thought it through), there were no Pilgrims or Indians here in Spain, so we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here. It's kinda sad since it's one of my favorite holidays, but I certainly think I would be more homesick if everyone here was with family and traditions and I wasn't. Besides, Mom said we could make a pumpkin pie at Christmas :)

Hope y'all enjoy your holiday, and relish in the many blessings that you've been given. I know I'm giving special thanks for all of you, even though there's no turkey! Until next week...

Soli Deo Gloria...

short

2005-11-14T09:55:00.000-05:00

Ok, I don't have much time.

Not a whole lot to say anyway. Mostly, it's getting really cold. We can still see the light at the end of the "when are we moving" tunnel, but it doesn't seem to be getting any closer, so it will be a surprise when we finally go. Also (and part of the reason I'm so rushed for time on here) is that I finally bought a ticket for the second half of my trip. I return to Spain on Jan 4, and back to the States on July 5 -- so if you're getting married or doing anything else important next summer that you want me to attend, make sure to do it after July 5, ok?

I now have a stretch of 3 weeks without any holidays, which will be rough since we've had so many lately. It also means that I won't be writing at least until next weekend, unfortunately. Hope all is well there :)

Soli Deo Gloria...

news - both good and bad!

2005-11-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

Good morning! While most of you are still sleeping (primarily due to the 6-hour time change, which makes it 3:25am there!), I'm gonna fill you in on a bit of the latest news. Make sure you wake up before reading this though, or you'll lose some key stuff.

I'll start with the bad news. Last night, while we were in the evening service at church, someone came in and stole my camera and Miriam's camera from the back room. A little frustrating, considering that I just bought it with graduation money this summer, and it was a sweet camera. And moreso, because now it will be very hard to get pictures to post for you guys. Ugh. We're gonna see if the churches insurance will cover it, but it's doubtful.

Now the good news. This might be old news for those of you who are more observant and know how to read between my lines, but I've been informed that I need to be more straightforward, so here it is -- Isaac and I are dating, and have been for a little over a month. Things are going well and we're enjoying life, although we only get to see each other on weekends due to our work schedules (and that fact that I live "where the wind turns around", to quote a Spanish refrain). He officially has a ticket to come home with me for Christmas on Dec. 23, so those of you who are around can plan to stop by on New Year's Eve to meet him :)

As for more regular happenings... Pablo (Isaac & Miriam's brother), his wife Sara and daughter Marta were in town this weekend from Sevilla. We got to play magical beds here at the house, but it was good to see them again and meet Marta for the first time (she was born in March after I left 2 years ago). She is precious, but I think my blond hair wigs her out a bit... not quite comfortable with me yet! I'd show you pictures but...

Things at work and "home" (i.e. "the other work") are fine, although there's been another delay and it's looking like it'll be another good week or two or more before we move. So much for the hope I had last weekend. This past week was super short, since we had Mon & Tues off, and this week we have Wed off. Yeah for random holidays!

Ok... I just had breakfast and chatted with Sara, and now I'm gonna be late for work.

Soli Deo Gloria...

Halloween

2005-10-31T18:26:00.000-05:00

Hmm... it´s been a long time. Yeah for not having much internet access.

It´s a holiday again tomorrow, so I have today off also -- this time a long weekend. I got to sleep in a bit this morning, and have been chilling around Isaac and Miriam´s house all day today. One would think I would be all caught up on emails and such, but it´s amazing how time flies.

I was, however, able to put some more pictures up, so check those out. I added a few more of Segovia, and there are even some more recent ones of the girls I live with and my living arrangements. We are still living with Grandma far away, but should be moving in the next week or so (for real this time!), so that will be nice.

All continues to go well, although I am currently a bit congested. The weather is gorgeous here, but I do miss the beautiful Fall setting of Greenville and Charlotte (which are practically the country, compared to the city of Madrid).

It's Halloween today, but it's not celebrated much around here (it's becoming more well known as the years go on, but trick-or-treating is still not common). We did do some crafts with the kids last week, cutting out bats and singing songs about skeletons that lose fingers. It's amazing how stuff like that can be educational -- learning body vocabulary and counting backwards. Haha. The joys of being 6 years old, when learning how to count 10-8-6-4-2-0 in English is practically the hardest thing you do all week!

Anyway, instead of trick-or-treating, I think we're gonna go see The Legend of Zorro, since it came out this weekend. My sister saw it already and said it was good.

Thanks for those of you who have sent me emails with updates from home. Makes me feel at least somewhat connected to the Anglo-speaking world.

Soli Deo Gloria...

Segovia

2005-10-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

Hey guys!

One super thing about Spain is that their holidays don´t always purposely fall on Mondays or Fridays. For example, yesterday was a holiday and it was Wednesday.

Around 10am, Isaac and his friend Danny picked me up in Danny´s car, and we went to Segovia, a small town about an hour from Madrid that´s known for it´s aqueduct. You may remember the pics I took from 2 years ago. Haha.

Isaac took over the camera, so I got a bunch of pics. I put some of them up, but haven´t had time to put all of them or add captions yet... maybe this weekend. Danny took some of the 2 of us too, but he hasn´t sent them to us yet.

We toured the fort there in Segovia, had lunch, and overall just wandered around. On our way home, it started raining -- Praise the Lord! We need rain here very badly.

Soli Deo Gloria...

first week of school

2005-10-09T22:31:00.000-04:00

I know, it´s been a long time since I last wrote. Sorry about that.

I started classes this week at the elementary school. Things are going well, but the other language assistant hasn´t arrived yet, so I´m spending all day at the school. Hopefully once she arrives, I can cut 1 hour off my work day. The biggest problem is that the commute is 2 hours -- each way. The good news is that it´s all public transportation, so I can listen to my iPod (best bday present ever!) or read my book (getting close to the end of the 800-page novel I brought with me) and keep occupied.

The kids are cute. I would note a slight lack of discipline (as in, they don´t like to be quiet and listen), but that´s probably normal for a group of +/-20 6-year-olds, especially since we teach completely in English, of which they know very little.

Things at the house are going fine. Don´t feel "at-home" kind of comfortable yet, but that´s ok. I sleep there, eat there, and work there... and spend my weekends with my friends from the church. The girls are totally spoiled and have some trouble with authority, but for the most part we get along fine, and I can already see an improvement in their English.

Yesterday was Isaac´s birthday, so we wandered around the city seeing new (for me) places and riding the cable car that goes over the city. In the evening was Bible study, and of course he got treated to dinner when we all went out afterwards. Today at lunch someone had made a cake for him and we all sang "cumpleaños feliz." 24... how ancient ;)

Tomorrow is back to the daily grind. However (one serious benefit of living in Spain) they have mid-week holidays sometimes. So... Wed is a holiday (I don´t know what we´re celebrating, but who cares?). I also don´t know what I´m going to do, but I´m sure it will include seeing my friends from church.

To those of you who have sent emails, keep them coming! I hate that I can´t usually respond personally, but with approx 1 hour/week of internet access, I can´t even reply to my own mother! So don´t feel bad...

Soli Deo Gloria...

El Escorial

2005-09-28T16:26:00.000-04:00

I love random changes.

For example, when I arrived home after lunch on Monday I received a call from my employer Alicia. She told me to get my things... that the chauffer was coming to get me. I was thinking -- dinner, or maybe overnight. But no. She meant for good. So I had 1 hour to pack all my stuff! Thankfully, I knew my stay in Marta´s house would be short-term, so I hadn´t really unpacked.

The best part is that the house still isn´t ready (apparently they painted the whole thing the wrong color and therefore have to repaint it!), so we are staying at Grandma´s house in El Escorial. It´s far away from, well, everything. And I´ll be living out of my suitcase for about another 3 weeks. However, let´s look at the brightside... the views from the house are amazing! At night, you can see the lights from the city, and they tell me that on the weekends they light up the big Palace/Monastery for which the town is named.

In other news, I like the family. Honestly, I think Antonio, the chauffer, is my favorite, but he doesn´t live with us. Then there´s Alina, she´s Romanian. She´s 26 or 27 and has been with the family for 2 years, cooking, cleaning, bathing children, etc. Speaks Spanish almost perfectly, and we enjoy sitting on the porch at night, talking. Grandma, Maria (I think?) is a piece of work. I´ll have to think how to describe her better for next time. Alicia, the mom, is nice, but she´s been feeling a little under the weather lately, and we really haven´t spent that much time together.

As for the girls. Alejandra (9) is very much like me. Loves to read, loves to practice her English and does quite well with it, and is very mature for her age. Alicia (6) is a wild woman. She understands my English, but almost always prefers to answer in Spanish. She likes to run around the house, tearing things apart. Almudena (almost 3) is quite the copy of Alicia. One minute, she´s as sweet as can be. The next... a holy nightmare. Also understands me, but won´t answer.

Today, I have the priviledge (sp?) of writing you from the house of my friend Miriam. Since I had brought a bunch of stuff for her and her family from the States (mostly from Jessica!), her mom invited me over to lunch today. The 3 of us girls ate, and then her brother Pablo and her dad came home and they ate. She has since gone back to work, but her parents said they didn´t mind if I stayed a rato (while) to fill you guys in on what´s going on.

Once I leave here, I´m going to a hotel until Friday to have my orientation for my job (the one that got me here in the first place!).

Alright, I´ll leave you in peace to go to whatever it is that you should be doing. Thanks for reading! Oh yeah, and I put up a few pictures, so check out the link on the bottom that says "read my profile" and look for the España album.

Soli Deo Gloria...

after first weekend

2005-09-26T12:19:00.000-04:00

Ok... not much time. This weekend was wonderful. It was great to see the rest of my friends (and their parents) and just be able to hang out and relax. I stayed the night at the home of a couple from the church since my house is so far away. The preaching here is incredible too, so it was awesome to get to hear that.

I still haven´t met Alicia, whom I´ll be living with. Hopefully she´ll call me this week. Also, from Wed pm to Fri am I have an orientation for my job at the school, so I´m looking forward to whatever information they´ll give me there. I´m anxious to start some kind of routine.

Soli Deo Gloria...

first days

2005-09-23T11:15:00.000-04:00

So, I´ve made it for 2 days already. It´s great to be back. Yesterday I headed into the city and wandered around, met Miriam, a friend from my last trip, for lunch. It was great to catch up with her. Then I hung out with her brother Isaac after he got off work and we walked around my old "neighborhood" and past the soccer stadium. It brings back so many memories!

Thankfully, I´m feeling very comfortable with my Spanish and understanding what everyone says. The house I am currently living in is much larger than what I´m used to for Spanish houses, and is decorated in a Spanish version of Pottery Barn, more or less.

Last night the train took longer to get home that I had planned, so I arrived at 5 after 9 and Marta was a little upset becuase "the baby goes to bed right at 9, and he couldn´t tonight because you got home late." He wasn´t in bed when I got there, but whatever. Tonight I´ll be home by 8:30!

This morning I went for a run with the 50-year-old nanny at 7:30 before she woke the baby up at 8. It´s been a while since I´ve run and it was chilly, so it was rougher than I thought. Guess I´ll have to keep that up.

Ok, I´m out. I´m borrowing the computer of a friend of mine who´s an Au Pair in a neighboring town, and now we´re going to go eat breakfast of sorts. Taluego,

Soli Deo Gloria...

safe arrival

2005-09-21T20:50:00.000-04:00

¡Hola hola!

I am officially here safely! Our flight arrived a few minutes early this morning, but then it took almost an hour to wait in line at Immigration. A friend met me at the airport, as well as a driver to take me to the house where I´m staying. I´m in a temporary location now (with a friend of my employer) until my room is ready at her new house.

Marta is very nice, and her 2 1/2 year old son is adorable (although he didn´t like me at first... after his nap, we got along much better!). Her husband is in town this week also, but they are moving to Atlanta shortly, so he´s been there quite a bit recently, and leaves again this weekend.

I have a cell phone number now, so email me if you want me to send it to you. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

Soli Deo Gloria...

pre-Spain (x2)

2005-09-18T22:23:00.000-04:00

Ok... so a lot has happened since last time I wrote. Figured that since I'm getting ready to send this link to everyone I know, maybe the most recent post shouldn't be from March.

Besides, when I last wrote, what I'm getting ready to do was not even a figment of my imagination.

I leave -- in less than 48 hours, mind you -- to be in Spain for almost a year. I will be teaching English part-time in a public elementary school, and part-time to the 3 young daughters of the lady I'll be living with. I will also be improving my Spanish, soaking in the Spanish culture as much as possible, living and sharing the joy of the Lord, hanging out with my dearly-loved friends that I met last time I was there, and having other adventures that I don't even know about yet.

Before I forget, I want to thank those of you who took time out of your busy schedules this summer -- and especially recently -- to have lunch or dinner/tapas with me, or (if you're Emily, Kevin, or Donna) to plan a party on my behalf.

Even if I didn't get to see you this summer, I would be thrilled if you would join me on this journey with your thoughts and prayers. I would also love to hear what's going on in your life -- just because you're not in a foreign country doesn't mean it's not interesting!

On a more "technical" note, run your mouse over the links at the bottom of this page 'cuz I snuck around the system and changed them, but can't change what they say :) You'll find my pics and my Spanish blog. You can also email me with the "contact" link to the right (but you have to put the @ in the space... otherwise I'd get crazy spam mail).

¡Hasta España!

Soli Deo Gloria...

new blog!

2005-03-01T09:34:00.000-05:00

Still in Charlotte on Spring Break. The conference on language teaching went well. That doesn't mean that I know yet what I want to do next year (this particular minute is a "grad school" moment... most of yesterday was "teaching"... it fluctuates frequently), but it does mean I learned a lot.

This afternoon I'm going to have lunch with my sister and talk to the Spanish teachers at her school, even observe her class. There's a possibility that I may end up teaching it later this week -- wouldn't that be cool!

Other than that, I'm taking it easy. I really have a lot of organizing to do, and one of these days I'll get to it. Hopefully before returning to school :)

One more thing I want to share with you -- the main reason for this posting -- is that I have begun a new, Spanish-language blog! I used a different site that has lots of cool features such as audioblogs and picture blogs... I'm really excited about it. I may even have to move this one over there, but for now I'll keep it. Anyway, the address is http://justinita.blogspot.com -- check it out to brush up on your Spanish or just see me play with my passion for the language.

I'm gonna go lift some weights/get some exercise and then shower before heading off to Chick-fil-A to buy lunch for Janelle and I. Have a great day!

Soli Deo Gloria...

post-teaching

2005-02-23T23:53:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm home for Spring Break. Yes, I do in fact realize that it's still February, and no, I'm not wrong about which break it is. Now you understand why we force a "Beach Weekend" later in the year :)
I just finished a teaching practicum at a local Greenville high school. A lot of work and a lot of time, but overall enjoyable. I had a great mentor teacher who was wonderful to work with and from whom I learned a ton.
Now, I'm just trying to figure out if I want to teach next year. I've applied to several graduate schools (mostly for Linguistics, but one Spanish program). I was denied acceptance to Georgetown's Linguistics program, but am still waiting to hear from the rest. There's also a very good chance that I could get hired to teach at the same school I worked at this term, which would be neat. I am just praying that God leads me, since I'm totally clueless now about what to do. While they don't admit it, I really think my parents want me to choose the grad school option. Whatever.
So tomorrow I'm going to the Southern Conference On Language Teaching (SCOLT) here in Charlotte with a friend of mine. That ends on Saturday afternoon, and then I don't know what I'll do for the rest of the week. My roomies and I have talked about hitting the beach, but we all have small budgets, so I'm not sure it will work. I'll try to keep you posted!
For now, I'm gonna go remove the stench that is clinging to me from my workout, and then crawl under the down comforter that's on my bed.
Soli Deo Gloria...

senior year has started

2004-10-12T18:40:00.000-04:00

Umm... yeah. So I haven't written in forever. I'm seeing a pattern here. Been hanging out with some people who blog like their life depends on it, so I thought I'd post again, just for fun.
It is senior year, and it has started. All is going well. I've got a golf class T-F from 9-9:50, so I take some good wacks at little white balls quite a bit these days. I've got a wicked slice that doesn't want to go away, and I think God's trying to give me a lesson about patience.
My roommates are great (not that I expected otherwise, but they are). I've also been hanging out more with some RUF folks... they're cool.
Also getting plugged in more at Redeemer. Great place to be. God is teaching me some amazing things, and I'm enjoying the fellowship with people who I wouldn't otherwise see floating around campus (students and non-students alike). Almost makes me want to stay in Gville after graduation, but we shall see what God has in store.
Alright, I'm off to a spanish movie CLP. Perhaps I'll write more later.
Soli Deo Gloria...

Long Time, No See

2004-07-06T16:57:00.000-04:00

So, it's been a really long time since I've written. In the event that anyone is still reading this, I'll go ahead and post an entry.

In case you didn't realize it, I arrived safely back from Chile on Feb. 24, the same morning that my sister had surgery on her lower back and 2 days before it snowed 18 inches in Charlotte. We have both recovered quite well. It was great to be back at FU for 3 months and catch up with all my friends.

Now, I'm home for the summer and working for Wachovia as a bank teller. I'm enjoying it so far, although it's hard for my college self to adjust to waking up at 6:30-7, requiring a bedtime from 10:30-11:30. Strange.

It's really hot out now. I was out on a boat yesterday (celebrating Independence Day with my family and some friends in SC) and totally fried everything from my chest up, including shoulders, nose, and ears. I'm a little sore, and walking outside is painful due to the heat.

This morning I had a security training class, and then they didn't need me to work after that. So, as I'm walking into my house just after noon, I see a lizard go running across the deck, fly off the end, suspend in mid-air, and then hear him hit ground down below. It kinda took me a second to realize what had just happened, but then it was really funny. I looked over the railing and didn't see him down below, so I'm hoping he got away unscathed.

Currently, I'm working on backing up all my work on my computer so I can upgrade from ME to XP and not have to deal with the "blue screen of death" anymore - or at least not as often. It's not cool having to save 3 years worth of computer work onto CDs... I'm paranoid that I'll forget something really important.

Well, "My Documents" just finished copying to a disk, so I'd better get back to work. Have a great day!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Randoms and Ritz

2004-01-27T19:19:00.000-05:00

I just want to start by pointing out that it's sunny outside right now. Notice the time-stamp on this entry. If I were in the States right now, or in Madrid, it would most definitely not be sunny still becuase it's January and we all know that in January it gets dark early. I mean, the sun won't fully disappear around here for at least another 2 hours. Just a thought ;)

On top of that, this afternoon I walked into a little internet café place at the corner where the bus drops me off every day. I had some reasearch to do for a presentation so I was willing to pay the price. I sit down, and they guy next to me (who happens to work here) started to play a little Rebecca St. James, Jaci Velasquez, and other AMAZING Christian music in English... I mean, for real. What an encouragement... God, you are too good to me!

All this is exciting to me, but you might want to know more details about my daily life here. Things are going great! I'm enjoying getting to know my family more, and I'm finally feeling oriented in the city... and starting to really fall in love with it. Scary, I know. Classes are going pretty well, although this week is pretty rough. I probably should be more stressed than I am. I have a presentation due tomorrow, a test on Thursday, and rough draft of my 5-8pg term final paper due on Monday. After that, however, the workload is all downhill. I mean, my classes here end on Feb. 12, and I don't have a final in Lit because we have the paper. Still don't really have any chilean friends, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the companionship of my fellow Furman students and am thinking that not making native friends will make the leaving easier, perhaps?!?! I tell you, living in a foreign country(ies) sure gives one some good stuff to think about.

As a final note, we "toured" the Ritz-Carlton here today. The only one in South America, and it's pretty impressive. It's new within the last 6 months so they have promotional prices. A few of us are thinking about splitting a room the last night we are here... what do you think ;)

Well, folks, I'm out for the evening/week/whatever. Look forward to hearing from you -- my news from "up-north" has been minimal lately, and I'm thinking that all my friends fell off the planet ;)

Soli Deo Gloria...

first week in Chile

2004-01-15T10:59:00.000-05:00

¡Madre mía! Hace tanto tiempo q no he escrito aquí... lo siento.

Now, after apologizing in my current tongue of choice, I'll revert back to what most of you understand better :)

I did arrive safely in Santiago, Chile, spent 2 days in a hotel for orientacion, and then we spent about 4 days in Pucón (south of Santiago) just kindof chilling. Only it was hot. We went to the beach, I biked some 40kms with a few friends, went rafting, etc. It's a cute little town that reminds me of a ski town in Colorado. And the scenery is amazing!

We started classes on Monday... the literature class I think will be superhard, but the language class should be helpful, yet easy enough. We've had lots to do in the afternoons, in addition to lots of reading, so most of us feel very swamped, but the profs assure us that the excess activities will end soon.

I like my family, although it's been a little loco lately. Being as it's summer here, they've been rotating in and out on vacation. However, last night everyone arrived home, and we might actually have a "family dinner" tonight. I have a mamá, a papá, a 16 year old brother, and 2 sisters of 13 and 5 years.

The weather here is great. Very hot. Something absurd like 80-90 degress every day. Hot. After getting a little red in Pucón, I've been putting SPF 30 on my face just about every morning to prevent skin cancer. Let's hope it works. However, there is usually a nice breeze, and it's not as humid as in NC, so the heat is not as oppressive.

I tried to put pics up, but the comp lab here is not as good as the one in Spain and it doesn't have what I need. And the computer in my house is totally screwed up and won't do anything. My friend says I may be able to go to her house and try there, so I'll get some up if/when I can and let you know.

Also, by sending a short email to 86092160@smartweb.cl you can brighten my day because I'll get it like a text message! However, responding to you is not quite as easy, so don't be insulted if I don't.

That's enough for now... you're probably bored. Love to you all, and thanks to those who have emailed me!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Pre-Chile

2004-01-04T01:47:00.000-05:00

Wow... so I entirely forgot to update this the WHOLE time I was in the States until now... and now I'm about ready to leave again. Sorry 'bout that.

I had a GREAT holiday season. My grandmother and several cousins came in town, and between catching up with them, catching up with my immediate family, catching up with some close friends... I spent a lot of time "catching up" and it was all delightful!

Now I'm ready to leave the country again. Am I really ready, you ask? To speak spanish again, most definitely. There's a thrill about speaking and understanding what used to sound like mindless jabber that just can't be explained. To be away from home for 7 weeks? The suitcases are mostly packed, but I won't know until I'm back home at the end of the trip if I actually managed to pack everything I needed. To tackle a new city and culture? I think so. Having done so and survived once already, I feel like I can take on the world now!

Chances are, if you're reading this, you recieved my pre-leaving mass email -- if you didn't, I promise it wasn't intentional, so shoot me an email and let me know and I'll be sure you're added for the next one.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Soli Deo Gloria...

from Prague

2003-12-02T22:34:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm writing to you from a totally different place right now. And I'm not talking about an internet cafe instead of the school computer lab. I'm talking about the Czech Republic instead of Spain! Wow... it's a crazy world. That's one of those places that you only read about in history books because it's changed names about 80 times in the course of my life (not really true, but it sure feels that way) and, of course, isn't a real place. I'm here to say that it sure is, and quite a nice one at that. At least from what we've seen of Prague. Let me pick up quickly with where I left off almost 2 weeks ago.

Our theater play went great, my family arrived safely in Madrid and I spent a great 28 hours with them before they left the city to tour the rest of the country. My parents even got to meet most of my friends from the church. Monday morning the 24th, I left with the Furman group to tour Andalucia for a week. We had a great time. We saw Cordoba, Sevilla, Ronda, Granada, and Malaga. We had some stinky tour guides and some good ones. I got to hang out with a friend from the States who is studying in Sevilla, put my feet in the Mediterranean Ocean in Malaga, and see my family for an unexpected 20 mins in Ronda on Thanksgiving.

I arrived back in Madrid on the last day of November in time to attend church and say hi to everyone, met up with my Mom and had a great time of fellowship at the Campbell's house, and we left Monday morning Dec. 1 to fly to Prague. Our flight was interesting as we had a delay and missed our connection in Lyons, giving us an added leg through Paris and putting us in Prague a few (4) hours late. Thankfully, we had no difficulty in finding an ATM or in renting a shuttle to the hostel where my friends are staying (EVERYONE here speaks English), and we ran into the friends in the main square within an hour or so of our arrival. The hostel is a little sketch, but the beds are comfy enough and it's not terrible expensive. Today was cold and a little windy, but we saw most of the city (including the Castle) and had a great time. Tomorrow morning we'll see the Jewish Quarter before heading to Vienna on a 3PM train.

Who knows when I'll next get a chance to write, but it will be from a different country, that's for sure!

Please pray for traveling safety and continued good health and attitudes.

Hope you are doing well and I still love getting emails :)

Soli Deo Gloria...

sick as a dog

2003-11-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

The good news is that very few people actually read this on a regular basis. I say that because if you DID read this on a regular basis, you'd probably think I was dead since I haven't written in over 2 weeks.

The problem is, I hardly remember a lot of what has happened in the last 2 weeks. I saw the new Matrix, twice, in spanish. I liked it a lot better than the second one, and it was easier to understand in spanish that I had thought.

We had a trip to Toledo on Saturday, Nov. 8. When we got home, a few of us headed to the Bible study, but we missed the bus stop and had to walk through a random field and climb a fence (aka trespass) to get there, late and dirty. Good times :)

Last Wednesday I left school about ready to fall over, but it wasn't until I got home that it occured to me I might have a fever. I slept for 20 out of the next 21 hours, and thus begins a long struggle with something that I don't like nor understand. I skipped classes Thursday and Friday, and the trip to Alcala de Henares on Saturday -- and if you've ever even MET me, you know how unusual that is.

Yesterday and today I've had 2 exams and a paper to do... I don't know how well any of them turned out because I was too sick to study for anything. Oh well...

Besides, this morning the assistant pastor at my church here, who also happens to be a really good friend of ours, left this morning to spend 2 weeks preaching in Ireland. I'll see him one more time just before I come home in mid-Dec, but the other girls leave for the States before he gets back, so it was a very sad time for them. We did get to see him off at the airport, and hang out with him the night before he left, but that could have affected the grades a bit too. It's ok... I've got my priorities straight.

Anyways, all I've got left now is the fun stuff -- flamenco show tonight, theater presentation and goodbye dinner tomorrow, family comes on Friday, touring southern Spain with my Furman friends, and then traveling through Europe with my Mom. Don't be surprised, therefore, if you don't read anything new here until mid-Dec. when I get back to home sweet home.

Have a great month, and I look forward to talking to or seeing you when I get back :)

Soli Deo Gloria...

nothing much

2003-11-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

Hey there, loved ones!

I'm gonna make this short as I don't have a whole lot of time, and nothing terribly exciting happened in the last week anyways.

I spent all weekend with my friends from the church -- Friday night we saw "Basic" (I followed it until the last 10 mins, but I think I would've been confused in English too... if you've seen it, let me know what you thought), Saturday was Reformation day, so there was a conference and we spent all day eating and worshipping (there were a lot more people that normal because they came from other churches and parts of Spain!), and Sunday was a Lord's Day, equally as delightful as the rest.

The weather was gorgeous... lots of rain on Friday morning, but by early evening it cleared up, and it hasn't come back since!

I also wanted to share with you all 2 random observations about color over here. First, white cars are cheaper than colored cars, which explains why so many cars around here are white. Second, if you go shopping, you'll note that all the clothes are arranged by colors. Theoretically, it helps with color-coordination of outfits. Unfortunately, the results are not really noticiable, as much of the Spanish population wears outfits that don't match :)

That's enough for today... have a delightful week and I look forward to hearing from you!

Soli Deo Gloria...

post-Salamanca

2003-10-28T09:41:00.000-05:00

A delightful Tuesday to you! (Or whatever day of the week it might happen to be when you read this!)

This past week, as usual, has been an absolute blast -- full of lots of fun activities and not a whole lot of sleep :) Tuesday we hit a bowling alley and VIPS for dinner. Wednesday was the Real Madrid soccer game! We met up at Burger King before to eat and chill, and then headed over to the game. The game wasn't that great -- I think RM knew they were gonna win so they didn't push themselves to play very hard -- but they did win, it was fun to be in the stadium, and I had a great time with my friends.

Thursday we had Bible Study, and just before it started, I received a very exciting phone call from my mother -- she's gonna travel with me at the end! I'm so incredibly excited that I can't hardly contain myself. Friday I headed over to a travel agent and bought us some tickets from Madrid to Prague and then from Rome to Madrid. We have 12 days between the flights, during which time we will take trains to view other places -- probably Vienna, Munich, Venice, and Florence. Friday evening I went over to the Pastor's house with all the youth and we ate pizza (yummy!) and watched The Recruit in Spanish... it made a lot more sense this time, because when I watched it in English, I didn't get to see the first 20ish mins.

Saturday, the Furman group headed off to Salamanca, a small town about 200kms north of Madrid. It was colder than it's been since we've been here, and rainy most of the time we were there, but Marisa (our Art & Civ prof) was our tour guide, and she's wonderful! We saw the 2 cathedrals (aptly named "Old Cathedral" and "New Cathedral"), the University of Salamanca, several other buildings from the outside. We stayed the night, and with the time change, I got a full 8 hours of sleep... I don't think I've gotten that much in one night since I arrived in Spain! On Sunday we saw 2 convents, one of which sells Almond cookies to make money -- reminds me of Butter Letter that I haven't had in ages!

We arrived back in Madrid around 5:30, and I headed off with my pals to church. It was Youth Sunday, and it was great to participate in the service that was run by our friends and to hear them sing the songs we had practiced with them. We had dinner together afterwards, and next thing you know, it's Monday!

We have a paper due in Theater in 5 mins that I had to work on last night, but other than that, this week looks to be a fairly slow one. Something tells me, however, that plans will come up and I will have plenty to share come next Tuesday!

You can continue to pray, if you would, for travel plans as there's still plenty to be done. Also, just that God would make His Word come alive in my life.

And one more thing -- the father of the little girl who lives with me died suddenly last Friday. He wasn't married to her mother (who also lives with me), but it's still hard on them. Please pray for me as I minister to them in this hard time, that they would see the Love of Christ, and that if it be His will, that He would draw them to Himself through this trial. Thanks!

Soli Deo Gloria...

of bad movie translations

2003-10-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

Yeah, so it feels like just yesterday that I posted last time, but it has been a full week! On the other hand, so much has happened that I hardly remember the last posting. Oh, the joys of the human mind that can remember and forget at the same time!

This has been a delightful week. We "traded" profesors last week... Ángelica went back to Furman and Christina arrived. Friday we had our first Art & Civilizacion class in the Prado Museum... interesting, but it's hard on the back to stand for 2 hours while listening to a lecture in Spanish, taking notes on it, and looking at artwork at the same time. Friday afternoon I got a bit of a haircut before going to see "The Italian Job" in Spanish with my friends from the church. What a fun movie! There were definitely one or two spots that didn't quite come through in the translation where I found myself the only one laughing in the whole theater.

Saturday was a big day because we had the hike with the bilingual Bible study group. We had such a blast! I got some good pics, but they can't explain how much fun we had. After a bit of a hike/hard walk on the mountain, we had dinner at a Swiss restuarant (exceptional food!) and watched "Quigley Down Under." While we watched it in Spanish, it was hard not to read the English substitles because they were so much funnier than the Spanish! Thankfully, the rain held off until dinner time, but our return trip home (which took over an hour) was definitely rainy. I got back around 2:15am.

Spent a great Lord's Day with my friends at the church. Youth Sunday is this coming Sunday, so they spent a lot of time practicing the songs they are going to sing -- unfortunately I won't be able to join them because we are going to Salamanca this weekend. We went to Tony Roma's for dinner... yes, you read that right, I did have ribs for dinner in Spain. So much fun! Although, for some odd reason, the guys seem to think that I'm a big eater (where would they get that idea from?!?!), so I was the object of much laughter and ribbing (no pun intended) as I enjoyed my meal. Good times.

Due to the lack of sleep I got over the weekend, yesterday was a day to do some work and pretty much stay home. I did go to buy a ticket to a Real Madrid soccer game for this Wednesday, so I'll tell you about that next week. I also went to the gym, where I encountered a woman who wants to pay me to work with her on her English. I'm waiting for her to call me now, so we'll see what happens with that. I'll keep you posted.

Keep those emails coming... I love knowing how to pray for you! Thanks for your continued prayers -- I have come up with a topic for my Chile project, but I need to keep researching it to be sure that it will work and to clarify a bit more exactly what I'm going to write about. Free travel is still a bit up in the air, so pray for decision-making wisdom. And also, please pray for my relationships -- that I would be an encouragement to fellow Christians and a witness to non-believers. And that I would have the boldness to open my mouth... living a life of love is a good thing, but openly sharing what my Saviour has done for me is a good thing too, and I tend to have trouble with it. Until next time,

Soli Deo Gloria...