Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Home again, Home again
Jiggety jig. I'm home and happy and about to eat pizza! Thanks for following my updates and for your prayers!
Monday, August 20, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Go/No Go for Launch
I’m a list maker. Grab any notebook in my (vast) collection and there’s a 90% probability you’ll find a list. Lists of chores, of movies, of quotes, or websites. Lists detailing things to do and the order in which to do them.
And, of course, you’ll find packing lists. I’m crazy about packing lists. I make a list for the clothes I’ll need to pack and which days I’ll be wearing each outfit. I make a list for all my electronics, a list for games and books, a list for toiletries, a list for socks. Every major trip I’ve gone on (and most of the minor ones) have been planned by lists. It’s a way to keep my scatterbrained forgetfulness to a minimum, but it also gives me a sense of calm. Like my mind mellows out when I’m charting out how many days I’ll be gone and writing in how many pairs of pants I’ll need.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Your friendly neighborhood SpiderJen
I have received a spider bite at some point in the past day or so. It’s got this weird ring around and it’s itchy but since I have no idea when I was bit or what the spider looked like, so I can’t prove it was radioactive.
On the other hand…I can’t prove it wasn’t! Bring on the spidey senses!
edit: Found another spider bite! I will either gain superpowers faster or turn into a supervillain. Eh…I’m fine with either.
Looking for joy
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
I am a big believer in happiness. But there are definite drawbacks to the emotion…one of the biggest being that it’s dependant on circumstances. I’m a pretty happy person and I can be happy even when life isn’t happy around me, but even I get sucked down by crummy situations and people. I find my default state of happy plunging in the doldrums of grumpiness pretty fast.
There are times when I console myself with other things to try and bring back the happy. Sometimes it’s people, or food or baby hedgehog pictures or South Korean music videos (my tastes are varied) but while those things can give me the warm fuzzies and even, at times, make me happy…it’s still fleeting. It’s still dependent on things that I am experiencing here at the human level. It’s still all about me.
What I need is joy. Fruit of the spirit type joy. (Side note: If it’s joy that comes from God, does that mean it gets capitalized? A little Bible grammar help here!) I forget about asking God for joy when I’m praying. It’s easier for me to remember to ask God for His peace, because my brain is like a skittle-fueled ADHD monster and peace is hard for me to manage. It’s certainly easier for me to ask God for His love because I’ve tried that on my own and it was a giant selfish disaster. I know that I stink at these things, so I know that God’s way is the best way.
Maybe my ability to be happy is impeding my ability to ask for joy. I’m so good at being happy most of the time that I don’t have this burning need for joy. It’s not till the circumstances get bad enough and my happiness fails in the face of really crappy situations that I realize I’ve been operating on my own strengths. By then I’m scrambling and desperate. What I want is to learn to ask for God’s joy before that point. (Yes, it would be great if I learned to ask for God’s anything before I got desperate, wouldn’t it? Baby steps, folks, baby steps). If I could train myself to lean on God for joy all the time, then when life kicks me in the face it wouldn’t be able to shake that joy.
I don’t think it’s going to be easy. But if it works, wouldn’t it be awesome?
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Ha!
Google has informed me that today is Julia Child’s 100th birthday. After my last post with my soup of questionable origins, I feel bad. My chunky (hahahahahaha) soup is such a poor showing for a day honoring Julia Child, so I feel like I should share my favorite recipes.
Unfortunately most of my personal recipes consist of “see what you have leftover in the fridge and then add cheese. Lots of cheese.” I’m not saying that’s a bad thing (who hates cheese? No one, that’s who.) But there is at least one real recipe that I use and love. It’s not actually mine, but like all good cooks, I’ve made changes of my own. (I also added cheese…because seriously, yo, cheese is awesome.)
Taco Soup
1 lb ground turkey
1 large onion, chopped
1-2 ribs celery, chopped
1-2 tsp minced garlic
1 carrot, chopped
1 pkg taco seasoningmix
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
1 can pinto beans
1 can seasoned chili beans
1 can kidney beans
1 bag frozen corn (roasted in oven)
1 can stewed tomatoes (Mexican flavor)
1 can stewed tomatoes (garlic flavor)
1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1 can chicken or veggie broth
Brown meat, onions, celery, garlic, carrot. Mix ranch and taco seasoning mixes into meat mixture. Then add with all other ingredients into crock pot and simmer all day.
Serve with tortilla chips. You can also serve with sour cream and shredded cheese.
Freezer Burn Soup
Or alternately… “How Jen cleans out the freezer”. While meal planning, I found a turkey breast from Thanksgiving in the back of the freezer. Despite being double bagged, it looked a little icy and I was wary about the taste. I was right. After thawing it out, I realized that all the mayo in the world was not making this turkey taste delicious.
I considered making turkey potato salad but that would have involved me having to boil potatoes and apparently that takes a lot of time and peeling and nonsense. I didn’t want to throw away all that turkey so I scavenged in the freezer for ideas. I came up with a huge tupperware container of homemade broth and a ziploc bag of stewed carrots and celery. I tossed everything into a crock pot and then laughed myself silly over the fact that it looked like spaceman food. A giant rectangle of broth, a square of veggies and chunks of icy turkey. Just call me Julia Child.
Or maybe we should wait on the nickname till the soup is finished.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Coolest Thing I’ve Read
Via Reddit – NASA’s mission to put a man on the moon was successful, but as the anyone who has watched The West Wing knows, the presidents speech writers have to be prepared for anything. The National Archives has released a copy of the speech that was written for President Nixon to read had the mission failed and the astronauts were going to be stranded on the moon.
Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.
These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.
They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.
In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.
Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.
For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.
There is such beauty in these words and the sentiment behind them, that despite everything, the search for knowledge will not end. That man’s growing desire to reach out to the stars wouldn’t stop that day. With Curiosity’s recent touchdown on the surface of Mars, that same sense of adventure and desire to understand continues on today.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Now Hiring
Saw a sign today looking for a honky tonk piano player at my local grocery store. I’ve decided that would be an awesome job! I would travel the country, stopping only when my skills were needed and then moving on when the job was through. My boots would always stay dusty and my songs would always be wistful for that’s just the life of a honky tonk piano play for hire.
*yes, I know, I don’t know how to play the piano in any style, much less ‘honky tonk’. I also don’t own dusty or non-dusty boots. I do have a sense of adventure and a wild imagination which makes up for a lot of things.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Memorization
Working on memorizing scripture verses for bible study this week. I knew it was too good to be true when the first week was "I thank God every time I remember you". This week is a doozy, Philippians 1:9-11. I'm going to try and type it out first without cheating.
"And this is my prayer, that you abound more and more in love and depth of insight, so that you may discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God."
Ugh. Can I just say that I have no idea how to spell righteousness? Thank you, Spellcheck!
So, let's see how I did!
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God."Hey, not too shabby! A little mixed up in the beginning, but overall I have it down! Yay me! I actually really like this verse and it's been fun working to memorize it this week.
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