1/14

Day one of fourteen days of thankfulness.

Thanks, Grace, for posting about this.  I think it's going to be a good exercise.

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A two bedroom duplex.

Seriously.  God knew we needed it.  We intended to get a one bedroom because we thought we wouldn't need the extra bedroom and that it would just be wasted space and money.  Jesse and I were somewhat disappointed when we found out that all the one bedrooms were taken and there was only a two bedroom left.

However, we've been able to use it much more than we anticipated to be "hospitable."

36/100 days of living in Arkansas (36/111 days of marriage) we've had somebody with us, two of those days overlapping with guests' visits.

I am thankful for this.

Lost

One night.  One life.

 

One thought.  One desire.  One cry.

 

Betrayal.  A cry for help.  Innocence lost.

 

Pain.  Regret.  Guilt.  Self blame.

 

Fear.  Anger.  Torment.  Living, yet dead.

 

What was once precious has been lost.

 

One choice.  One action.  One time.  A life forever changed.

 

Tears shed.  Blood spilled.  What once was will never be again.

 

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A poem I wrote 2 1/2 years ago.

Butter

Awhile ago I was making my own butter.  It tasted really yummy.  I liked that is tasted fresher and that I could control how much salt was in it.

 First, you have to shake cream for a really, really, really long time, until it looks like this.  You could have super toned arm muscles if you did this frequently, I'm sure.  Who doesn't want to have nice arms?

Then you have to separate the buttermilk from the butter.

Isn't it such a cute little ball?

 Next, you get to squish it and play with it under cold water so you get rid of any excess buttermilk... otherwise the butter will spoil quickly.

This is my favorite part... it's so squishy and you can make so many cool shapes out of the soft butter.

The finished product!

More food

I haven't posted photos of food for awhile.

Israeli Couscous and veggies

Israeli Couscous and veggies

This was sort of a made up recipe.  It had a sort of oriental taste to it.  It was yum.

Summer roll ingredients

Oriental chicken

Summer roll ingredients

Summer rolls

These are super easy to make, but super hard to work with.  They are refreshing though - lots of flavors, vitamins, crunchiness, and freshness.  They're also low calorie and low fat, but the downside to that is they're not very filling

The chicken was yummy, but unfortunately I don't remember how I made it.  I need to start a food journal or something, because it's so frustrating when I make something but don't remember what the heck I made it out of.

I like food, but I need some more recipes!  I'm running out of resources for new recipes.

October happenings

October was a busy month.  It flew by.  I miss it.

Now it's November, the month of Thanksgiving, Earnest's birthday, Jesse's birthday, Meemo's birthday, more visitors and. . . probably lots of other stuff I can't remember.

In October, lots of things happened too.  Like, Sarah Beth visiting, getting a job, my family visiting, getting wedding photos and our niece living with us for three weeks.

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Remember my little plants I grew from little seeds?

This is what they looked like a few weeks ago:

Parsley

Basil

Cilantro

My little plants were doing really well, until Bailey knocked my cilantro off the window sill... it never fully recovered and was wilted and slightly brownish yellow after that.

Then I noticed all the bugs my plants were attracting.  Parsley had hundreds of these tiny black bugs on it.  So, I moved them outside.  Alas, I left the plants outside a few days too many in the cool weather and they are now worthless to me.  I think it was the coolness plus the lack of consistency of watering them.

So now I am plantless. :(