- I have a running to-do list I re-write every day, otherwise things just get lost in the mix. They can be recurrent (homework, volunteer projects) or things specific to the day (choir on Thursdays, volunteering on Tuesdays/Thursdays, grocery shopping usually on Mondays), even the minutest things like trimming my nails or switching over loads of laundry. I promise you, they honestly don't get done unless I have it written down these days. Today, out of my original list of 13 bullet points, I was able to partially or completely mark off 6 of them! God be praised! That is truly a freeing feeling.
- Food is hit or miss sometimes, but last week was a hit on all three of my main meals through the week, and so was tonight's (an easy chicken enchilada recipe).
- I've been learning more about my little three personalities in my one year old room, detecting "fake cries," and figuring out how to make them crack up with laughter. It's amazing how putting a rubber snake on your head, pretending to sneeze and making it drop to the floor can elicit the fullest belly laugh from a one year old. Ah, simplicity!
- I have some really inspiring friends still here in KC from high school and college. While they may not be here as long as Matt and I will be, I'm still grateful that they're close and we can make it through the joys and struggles of studying for grad school together.
- Matt is a really awesome husband. He's sensitive to my needs. He can be light-hearted and explain Doctor Who to me. One day we will have children, and dynamics may change, but for now I am grateful for growing together in our first year into our vocations as husband and wife.
- Is it too terribly trivial to say that I'm super excited for season 4 of Once Upon a Time? We just caught up on all the seasons on Netflix, and I'm excited to keep up with another show.
- You know when you're looking for a job and nothing pops up, but then you're no longer looking for a job and God dumps a whole bunch of opportunities on you? I started my volunteer job in June, then was able to begin at the preschool in August; my Reditus/Lighthouse CD work finally transferred from Wichita to KC in August, and in the past couple of weeks, I've come in contact with a parish that is rebuilding its ministries and is going to be hiring me on part-time (I mean super part-time, 5-10 hours a week maximum part-time) to be pastoral associate/middle man between priest and parish groups/youth leader/superwoman (okay, not the last part). Um. Woah. My feeling of all that going on is this: God: *holds out two big handfuls of opportunities cupped together* Here ya go! Me: *looks at Him with a weird look and attempts awkwardly to hold onto all of it* Uh, what do You expect me to do with all of that? God: ;-) You'll figure it out. Me: Riiiiiiight...
- For reconsecration to Mary. Even if life throughout the year gets crazy in prayer ups and downs, I can count on the reconsecration to stabilize me.
- This weather. Oh my word, this weather, these temps. Instant mood booster.
- Riding off of the weather and temps: the return of layering clothes, houses smelling of autumn and baking, the hint of color change in the trees, the humorous explosion of all things pumpkin spice and apple spice everywhere, SCARVES, boots, coziness... I was a bit reluctant to let go of summer--after all, it really is a change from our first season of marriage, so now it feels like we've been married a long time (feel free to laugh, it's alright, I give you permission :-) )--but I am so appreciating the newness of the season, and what it will bring.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Thankful
I've been noticing a bit of my negativity popping up in my posts lately, and knowing I don't want it to set the tone for forever on this blog, I've decided it's time I list some points in life for which I was grateful today.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
All things Aquinas: Quote of the Day XXXVI
All of my reading this semester is from the Summa. Have I complained about that on here lately? Ugh. Gosh darn, I love Aquinas and what he did for the church, but I'd rather not read 20 pages a week of his craziness which is the Summa. Good grief. This week for class we had an essay for each class due. In typical fashion, I turned them in about 10minutes before due time (Saturday at 11:59pm EST/10:59pm CST).
On that note, here's something cool Aquinas said:
"Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder."
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
I tried!
So, if we're friends on Facebook, you saw that I made oh-so-good-looking pancakes. I doubled the batch. They look great. I froze them and pulled some out this week for breakfasts. And...
They're made with buckwheat flour.
A few weeks back when our flour supply was running low, I had a moment of "No bleached flour for me, I will eat more whole foods!" moment in the store and bought buckwheat flour. Which I have never worked with.
It turns out that buckwheat flour is much more grainy, with a very distinctive earthy taste. And, unfortunately, has not been too much of a hit. I recently made a chicken and biscuits recipe where the biscuits needed self-rising flour. Of course, I'm not one to go out and buy one or two groceries when I believe I can substitute with something else, so of course I used what I had on hand already...buckwheat flour. Well, the biscuits were flat and rather tasteless. I attributed it solely to not having the self-rising and didn't think the taste could have been affected *that* much.
So this week I tried the pancakes, and they were...weird. That strange, earthy taste that comes from the buckwheat.
Sigh.
They look fabulous, they just taste weird. I tried them again today, this time doused in peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips, which tasted good but defeated the whole "eating healthier" purpose. (I wonder, in the future is it possible to do a mix of buckwheat and regular flour to make it a bit more whole-grain/"real" food-ish?)
Overall food and meal planning has been a battle for me. With our budget on groceries, I end up having to focus on ingredients for the main entrees each week and haven't been able to branch out to try more side dishes and such, so we mostly just have plain fruits or veggies for sides. And with hubby's much more selective tastes, I really don't experiment too much, which makes it oh-so-hard to look through my Pinterest recipes and recipes saved on my computer and realize that a good number of them are just not going to be made around here.
What do you do to make plenty of good meals that fit your family's taste on a budget? I went to a couponing class recently that suggested having 15 recipes to return to regularly and fill in inbetween with different new recipes, as well as going through coupons/what's on sale in the store and THEN making your meal plan for the week. I welcome more suggestions! Matt makes a good point of reminding me that we've only been married for a few months, so the fact that I'm no expert is not something that should be causing me so much stress, but when meal planning is consuming so much of my day-to-day life, I know it's something I need to address.
They're made with buckwheat flour.
A few weeks back when our flour supply was running low, I had a moment of "No bleached flour for me, I will eat more whole foods!" moment in the store and bought buckwheat flour. Which I have never worked with.
It turns out that buckwheat flour is much more grainy, with a very distinctive earthy taste. And, unfortunately, has not been too much of a hit. I recently made a chicken and biscuits recipe where the biscuits needed self-rising flour. Of course, I'm not one to go out and buy one or two groceries when I believe I can substitute with something else, so of course I used what I had on hand already...buckwheat flour. Well, the biscuits were flat and rather tasteless. I attributed it solely to not having the self-rising and didn't think the taste could have been affected *that* much.
So this week I tried the pancakes, and they were...weird. That strange, earthy taste that comes from the buckwheat.
Sigh.
They look fabulous, they just taste weird. I tried them again today, this time doused in peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips, which tasted good but defeated the whole "eating healthier" purpose. (I wonder, in the future is it possible to do a mix of buckwheat and regular flour to make it a bit more whole-grain/"real" food-ish?)
Overall food and meal planning has been a battle for me. With our budget on groceries, I end up having to focus on ingredients for the main entrees each week and haven't been able to branch out to try more side dishes and such, so we mostly just have plain fruits or veggies for sides. And with hubby's much more selective tastes, I really don't experiment too much, which makes it oh-so-hard to look through my Pinterest recipes and recipes saved on my computer and realize that a good number of them are just not going to be made around here.
What do you do to make plenty of good meals that fit your family's taste on a budget? I went to a couponing class recently that suggested having 15 recipes to return to regularly and fill in inbetween with different new recipes, as well as going through coupons/what's on sale in the store and THEN making your meal plan for the week. I welcome more suggestions! Matt makes a good point of reminding me that we've only been married for a few months, so the fact that I'm no expert is not something that should be causing me so much stress, but when meal planning is consuming so much of my day-to-day life, I know it's something I need to address.
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Heading into fall
Life update time!
Marriage: going well! We had a *ahem* rough week last week, between his funny work schedule, my computer and car troubles, and all around moodiness...it was...rough. Yay to a new week! Our September is going to be super busy, so just grateful for any downtime we get together.
Work: I have 3 lovely, spunky, sometimes mischevious one year olds that I watch for a couple hours each morning. I say only a couple hours, even though I work 6:30-10am, because in reality 6:30-7:30 is just watching the preschoolers and grade school kids until my kiddos start trickling in. Then there's breakfast, washing hands/changing diapers/cleaning up food spilt, attempting to herd them towards either the playground or the tumble room unless I really feel brave and try to let them in the classroom the whole time, and then more diaper changing/clean up until the main teacher gets there at 10. They can be stinkers and get the best of me, but their cuddles *do* make up for it, I confess. I wrote my dear friend Emily that this must be God's plan for helping me gain a bit of patience before we have children of our own...not that this is anywhere near parenthood, I know it's only a glimpse in the life, but still...it's definitely revealing of my patience level (or lack thereof).
Volunteering: It goes. I try to stay in the loop, but the doctor kinda does his own thing most of the time and forgets to let me do things for him. I try. I'm more personal assistant than researcher at the moment, which is fine...I just hope some research opportunity comes along at some point.
Le apartment: I'm heading to get my TB test for work, I'll (finally!) post pictures when I return, as I know there was some curiosity from at least one friend about what it looks like here.
...
I'm back! Complete with a nice teensy bump on my arm. Anywho....apartment pictures. From one of those rarest of rarest times that things looked tidy all at once.
Just have to say that it was after I took these (and the apartment got messy again) that we got our wedding pics in the mail, so those are now adorning our living room :-D.
School: I don't know what gave me the great idea to take two core classes that are taught by the same professor in the same semester, but I wish I hadn't set it up for myself that way. Alas. My classes this semester are One and Triune God and Christology. And the readings for both are questions from the Summa. Great. Nothing like some light reading through the week. (Please understand this is dripping with sarcasm.) Both have summaries due Wednesdays and replies to other students' summaries due Saturdays. With kinda crazy expectations for depth of insight. Oi vey. One more year, one more year...
Marriage: going well! We had a *ahem* rough week last week, between his funny work schedule, my computer and car troubles, and all around moodiness...it was...rough. Yay to a new week! Our September is going to be super busy, so just grateful for any downtime we get together.
Work: I have 3 lovely, spunky, sometimes mischevious one year olds that I watch for a couple hours each morning. I say only a couple hours, even though I work 6:30-10am, because in reality 6:30-7:30 is just watching the preschoolers and grade school kids until my kiddos start trickling in. Then there's breakfast, washing hands/changing diapers/cleaning up food spilt, attempting to herd them towards either the playground or the tumble room unless I really feel brave and try to let them in the classroom the whole time, and then more diaper changing/clean up until the main teacher gets there at 10. They can be stinkers and get the best of me, but their cuddles *do* make up for it, I confess. I wrote my dear friend Emily that this must be God's plan for helping me gain a bit of patience before we have children of our own...not that this is anywhere near parenthood, I know it's only a glimpse in the life, but still...it's definitely revealing of my patience level (or lack thereof).
Volunteering: It goes. I try to stay in the loop, but the doctor kinda does his own thing most of the time and forgets to let me do things for him. I try. I'm more personal assistant than researcher at the moment, which is fine...I just hope some research opportunity comes along at some point.
Le apartment: I'm heading to get my TB test for work, I'll (finally!) post pictures when I return, as I know there was some curiosity from at least one friend about what it looks like here.
...
I'm back! Complete with a nice teensy bump on my arm. Anywho....apartment pictures. From one of those rarest of rarest times that things looked tidy all at once.
 |
| The living room |
 |
| Dining room |
 |
| Kitchen |
 |
| Kitchen (admittedly, there is a dirty pot hiding behind the fridge in this picture) |
 |
| Hallway |
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| Desks. Perpetually cluttered, as I still haven't figured out quite how I want to organize my space. |
 |
| A closer look at our "prayer corner." Of course, complete with our wedding kneeler :-) |
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| Our bedroom |
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| I was working on a puzzle in the office for a few days. |
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| Our porch. If we're here next summer, I'd like to do some potted plants out here, as long as I can get rid of some of the carpenter bees/wasps that hang around. |
 | |||
| We have a fireplace. Whether it's usable or not is quite questionable. I'm not sure I would even want a workable fireplace in an apartment. So, it's kinda covered over. With Bible stand, clock, and an engagement pic :-) |
School: I don't know what gave me the great idea to take two core classes that are taught by the same professor in the same semester, but I wish I hadn't set it up for myself that way. Alas. My classes this semester are One and Triune God and Christology. And the readings for both are questions from the Summa. Great. Nothing like some light reading through the week. (Please understand this is dripping with sarcasm.) Both have summaries due Wednesdays and replies to other students' summaries due Saturdays. With kinda crazy expectations for depth of insight. Oi vey. One more year, one more year...
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