1,000,000,000 % Vitamin C or Carrot Cupcakes, you decide.

Its been a while since I have partaken in the blogging of some foodtackular object.  When my alarm clock went off this morning at 7:00 (which is, for the record, not my favorite time of day), I knew that today was the day.  Everything about today screamed bakefest. So, I obeyed.  I cracked open my new 1001 Cupcakes and More cook book and...  

I am not exaggerating when I say this recipe must have 1,000,000,000 % vitamin C.  I included a massive amounts of oranges and carrots.  Thus far, the batter was orange and looked kinda like eating sunshine.

Post batter mixing came the hardest decision (which to be honest I am still doubting).  What decision was it? Cupcake wrappers.  The choices were endless and the decision was crucial.  Wrappers result in personality.  I opted for green and blue. Earthy wholesome family fun was what we were going for.

The power of a little baking powder! Edible chemistry is the only kind of chemistry I care to partake in.

This picture is momumental.  Reason?  When I purchased this utensil approximately 11 months ago, it marked my identity as a cook.  Zesting, in my opinion, makes you legit.  This photo thus results in the assumption of the title "legit". As a matter of fact, do zesters have a club? Can I be a member?  Can I have a card to prove this membership?

Can't wait for the taste test of these babies.  Ooooohhhh yeah! *cough cough* Feel a cold coming on yet? *cough cough* You might want a cold because this is a finger-lickin' good excuse to get that vitamin C.  YES PLEASE!

Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Psalm 34:8

What Is Love? Baby Don't Hurt Me

February 14th, 2011, a mountain was formed.  Not a mountain made from plate tech tonics, blasting volcanoes, earthquakes, but more so a mountain of valentines that piled onto my desk at school. It was an overwhelming feeling.  I will be swimming in chocolate for a while.  People all have their opinions of this day we call Valentines but love is love no matter the form.  I am all about a celebration, and chocolate to boot? I'm there!  

So to follow are my musings on love in regards to this holiday (mostly pertaining to the romantic type): One of my favorite things about life is the opportunity to love and love well.  Surrounded by family, friends, students, my man, and God, nothing could be better.   One of the reasons I think that people get so disillusioned by this holiday of love is because of the anticipation and expectations.  We expect a significant other to always fill this void in us and spend the remainder of our lives on cloud nine.  We recall the people in our life we have loved which resulted in disappointment.  Love is complex but I tend to think that as we continue to know and love, the love evolves to something much deeper.   The challenge of finding love of such caliber requires relinquishing our expectations of what love is all together in our humanness.  The most beautiful rocks after all are the result of much heat and pressure, wear and tear much like our closest relationships endure. 

St. Augustine once wrote "Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two." 

Love is necessary.  Surround yourself with it and seek a Love that is higher.  A Love that never fails.  Check this song out: paints a beautiful picture of Love.

And to conclude:  a Valentines joke.  Y'all know I love my cheese!

Q: What did the Valentine's Day joke say to the stamp?

A: Stick to me and we'll go places!

That, and many other reasons are why I teach 2nd grade...

Daniel's Fast Day 38: Peace out Babylon!

I am pretty sure that every 5th Christian's favorite verse is Jeremiah 29:11.  Legit, it is an awesome verse, but today it hit me in a fresh way but mostly also with the verses that surround it.  Being stuck for the last year in Babylon awaiting what I believed to be promised to me, plans are beginning to be unveiled.  It is sweet, beautiful, and much more than I had hoped for.  PRAISE THE LORD!  Thats about all I can say right now.  I am overwhelmed.  So check it y'all: Jeremiah 29:10-13.


¹⁰ This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 


Fact: He knows what's up.

Also, for the record, I only have two more days left and I plan on rocking it wednesday night with some delicious lava rock chocolate cookies for my crew on Thursday.  It is also consequently Skate City night!  I tell you what, I am know roller derby, nor should I wear roller skates and party pants simultaneously (@ Kelly Watts), but I do love a good skate.  If you were to make a list of all of the awesome perks to being an elementary school teacher, I would put Skate City near the top of the list.  Along with: letters, laughter, Skippyjon Jones, the Pigeon, Valentines Day parties and being a celebrity whenever you walk down the hall or are spotted in the store.  Notice my list DOES NOT include Halloween: definitely not a favorite.  Halloween is chaos in Swahili.  If you didn't know that, now you do.  Wikipedia won't tell you that, but it is true.

In other news, check out this hilarious clip:







Peace y'all!

Daniel's Fast Day 31: Let it snow, just add comfort food

Reality: Cold weather brings on an insatiable hunger for comfort food.  It is currently 5°F... 5!  That is verging on I-might-as-well-be-living-in-the-south-pole-with-the-penguins cold.  


The one down side to being on the fast, is that these cold days require massive amounts of comfort food and rabbit food is NOT comfort food no matter how hard you try to pretend it is.  


One upside to this glorious moment of life is this splendiferous thing otherwise known as a SNOW DAY!  I'm not gonna lie...I, the workaholic, did a snow day dance when I found out.  I love snow days!  They are one of life's many blessings here in this beautiful state.  For clarification all you Texans, a 1/2 inch of snow DOES NOT merit a snow day.  Our snow day tomorrow is totally legit.  


I plan on spending my snow day with a book.  A good book.  Maybe two books.  The world is my oyster tomorrow.  Ok, well not the world per say because I am probably not leaving my 1000 sq. ft. apt for anything except the gym which is a building away.  


So plans thus far include:

1. Getting my book worm on with a book that has been
sitting on my bookshelf for far to long.

2. Some solid thoughts on God from my man John Piper.

3. Hamster wheel aka the gym.

4. Spaghetti squash = delicious. In terms of spaghetti:

 if the pasta and the squash were put in a cage, pasta 

you are going down, the squash wins.

5. Of course, no snow day is a snow day without a
cozy fire. In my papasan. Oh yeah, be jealous.

So, despite the lack of comfort food, I will celebrate my snow day in style enjoying my favorite things. Now if only Sin Banderas could be here with me giving a private concert, then well... I wouldn't be complaining. <3 

Thus begins project I-need-to-learn-how-to-relax.  Git R zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Daniel's Fast Day 24: Apple seeds and Ishmaels

Okay, so there is one thing that you must know about me.  Or maybe not, but you are gonna know it anyways because it is coming in the following sentence whether you like it or not.  I eat apples whole.  As in, from top to bottom, core and all.  I twist off the stem and go at it.  The reasons are mainly ridiculous and are as follows:
1.) If they are going to say that my red delicious apple is 127 calories, I want to eat every last one of those calories of deliciousness.  I say that the added calories of that core are somehow absorbed like freebies.
2.) My dad does it, and my dad is rad.
3.) When I actually cut the apples into 8 sections, it is adding 8 more slices of the knife until I get to chomp into all that deliciousness.

Why it is important to life at the moment: (apart from the fact that this fast has got me craving apples like they are going out of style) let's return to my first argument as to why I should eat apples whole.  Common sense obviously makes it a false statement.  If I eat more of the apple, I will consume more calories.  My caloric consumption obviously increases by bite.  Still, I love the mentality. It amazes me to think about what we can convince our mind into making sense.  Our minds can be excellent manipulators of truth and we can be excellent manipulators of life.

So a long time ago, there was this dude named Abraham.  God had promised to bless him and multiply him exceedingly.  Time passed slowly and his wife was still without child.  So, Abraham had a son through a maid servant named Hagar.  This son was called Ishmael.  He was blessed by the Lord, but this was not the Lord's plan.  With Sarah, his wife was now 90, God finally unfolded his plan and out of that body, ancient by the world's standards body, she birthed Isaac.  Through that lineage, Israel came with the multitude of blessings and descendants promised by the Lord.  (Check it in Genesis)

I tell this story because Abraham heard a clear promise from the Lord.  Impatient and waiting, he manipulated.  Whether it's caloric counts, illegitimate children through maid servants, or plans for our life, I bring this challenge: don't manipulate.  After spending this year maneuvering through what I wanted, a plan is unfolding that is far more blessed than any Ishmael plan I could have made for myself this last year.  Fact: God knows what's up. Letitgo y'all, and enjoy the ride.


"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11



 

Daniel's Fast Day 15: Spare change

In spite of this current diet that is considered bland by most, my life has been anything but. I have embarked on a season of life full of unique and rich new flavor. With a dash of new adventures, a sprinkle of rekindled feelings and a pinch of surrender, as Emerill would say, life has been "kicked up a notch, BAM!". 

I just finished reading the book Forgotten God by Francis Chan.  It was a compelling book, but the most intriguing thought was when he talked about someone living stranded on an island, having only the Bible, then coming to America and joining a local church. They might be shocked at what they find.  All throughout the Bible, it talks time and time again about how we are transformed, a new creation.  In that transformation we are given the Spirit, and instilled with His power, a power that is unrivaled by anything this Earth has to offer. Yet, how changed are we? What marks our lives as different?  If a seal has been set upon our hearts and we are claimed as His, do we even look or act differently both individually and severally as the body of Christ?

I have been mulling over these questions for a few days now.  I yearn to be different, to be set apart, captivated so much by my Creator that my life is noticeably marked.  Is it? Is the Church? Is the Body? My prayer and desire is that with the blandness of food that the Daniel's fast, I can focus more on seasoning my life with the Lord.  No more bland, colorless, lukewarm life, no more toe-dippin, we are called to go all in. We are changed, live like it.

This encapsulates my feelings with some soul.

Speak it, sister!

Speaking of toe dipping, my Grandma is bound and determined to get me hooked on pedicures.  As a result, for every celebration this year so far, she has given me a gift certificate to get a pedicure.  While I must admit they are enjoyable, something that makes my visits awkward is that I am insanely ticklish on the bottom of my feet.  I glance at the people getting pedicures around me, they are calm and relaxed, reading a magazine and I am there incapable of reading due to my uncontrollable giggles.  I cannot stop laughing.  In turn everyone is just staring at me.  Since I am stuck in the chair for the bajillion hours it takes to get a pedicure, the staring continues for an immensely awkward amount of time.  I think I just wasn't made for such pampering.  They don't leave you with an escape route in salons.

Also, for my followers on the cooking front.  February 9th, marks the last day of Daniel's Fast, so be ready! I have a request for a "heart"-y meal and its gonna be a "love"ly one... hehe. Haha suckers, you are all stuck with my cheesy valentines puns.  Do you kinda wish you had that last minute of your life back and didn't read my puns? Sorry... 

Peace and love to y'all!

Daniel's Fast Day 8: Will Power is like Will Smith's ab's only harder

I have to say that will power is an incredibly difficult thing.  It probably doesn't help that I have been around wedding cake and cookie batter for the past two days. So there are 32 more days to go.  32 two more days of pretending like chocolate and soda do not send me to my happy place.  32 more days until I can use my 1001 cupcake recipe book that I got for Christmas that taunts me from the bookshelf.  32 days of constant surrender, because this is not my first response. 

Will power is hard.  Temptation after temptation floods into my brain as I fast. Everywhere I walk I am weakened.  I feel like my cravings and the fast go into a wwf throw down every time I encounter the thought of partaking in the consumption of a delicious chocolaty morsel or a effervescing liquid otherwise known as soda. 

Learning to surrender has been beautiful.  This whole experience has taught me so much about discipline.  Life distracts.  We crave so many things other than the Sustainer of life every day, hour, minute, even second.  My cravings for earthly things so often supersede that which can give me the most.  "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10. So I am on the trek of seeking the life God intends for us to have.  In my obedience and surrender, I am learning and enjoying more life to the full. 

I am anxiously awaiting that which is to come and praying it is used for the glory of the Lord.  <3May it be rich and blessed <3

P.S. You should know that this was written as I curled up by the fire on a snowy day.  I call that a win.