Facebook

Hello, Friends!

I have decided to cancel my facebook account for a variety of reasons. Here are a few of them, not in order of importance by any means:

1. Privacy. The frequent changes of Facebooks privacy controls, often with very little disclosure to the users, make me very uncomfortable. Even though I post very little content, I want to have control over how much of it is publicly available.

2. World vs. Christ. Naturally Facebook drifts toward encouraging gossip and time wasting, and does not encourage or enhance sold-out Christian living. This isn't to say that everyone who has a facebook uses it to gossip, or that no one can use their time on facebook to honor and glorify Christ (I know some who do). But I have found that the best facebook can offer me is a few minutes of wasted time each day as I peruse impersonal status updates. I could be much more effective for Christ in those minutes doing something other than facebook.

3. Shallow Friendships. Facebook encourages shallow friendships through impersonal status updates. I love my friends and my family, and I love the personal contact and deep Christian fellowship that other forms of communication encourage.

Due to these and other reasons, I have decided to cancel my account as of February 15th. For those of you who wish to keep up with me, I'll still be very much online. I post regularly to this blog (much more regularly than I ever used Facebook), and would enjoy your company here.

Also, I absolutely adore correspondence--so if you wish to drop me a letter please do. My email address should be attached to my facebook account if you need it, or send me a PM, or comment on this blog and request it. I promise a prompt response to any emails!

God be with you! 

Soli deo Gloria!

A Mini Freezer Cooking day--Chicken

Yesterday I had a blessing delivered to me from my mother. She had found a company that, as a one-time deal, was selling all-natural, hormone-free, boneless, skinless chicken  breasts for $1.50 a lb. Because the price was so low they only sell the chicken by the 40lb case (each case is divided into four 10lb bags).

I was so excited about the price that I decided to purchase an entire case!!! My mom was kind enough to pick the case up for me when she got hers, and delivered it right to my door. Now THAT is the way to get meat!! :-)

Of course, 40lbs of chicken is quite a lot for our little family of two, and I really don't want us getting sick of chicken. So I decided to make a wide variety of meals, that way we aren't eating the same thing twice. I'm also only going to serve the chicken 3 times a week (one night is date night and we eat out, one night is for fish, one night for beef, one night leftovers). I decided to major on easy marinades, with some fancier things thrown in here and there.

So far I've made:

6 dinners worth of Teriyaki Chicken   (half of these are chopped for stirfry)
5 dinners worth of Cheesy Chicken Bundles
4 dinners of Asian Chicken (Stirfry)
4 dinners of Italian Chicken (I just used Italian dressing as a marinade)
4 dinners of  Cranberry Chicken
4 dinners of Italian Chicken Roll-Ups

I still have about 7 chicken breasts left that I wasn't able to get to today. With those I plan to make:

Chicken Marsala I picked this recipe because both my man and I love the Chicken Marsala at Olive Garden. I would love to be able to fix something similar myself.
Chicken Packets--I was reminded of this old favorite when I was looking at other recipes. My mama used to make this, and as I have an abundance of cream cheese it was a no-brainer!

With all this freezer cooking it's getting to be a challenge to find ways to creatively fit everything in!! But from my estimates we'll have over a month worth of lunches, and about 40ish dinners when all is finished. As much as I enjoy cooking, I'm really looking forward to having some easy-to-throw together meals ready to go in my freezer!!

Daughters of Islam

Daughters of Islam, by Miram Adeney, is a very thorough book. I remember getting this book some time ago, and it was a more in depth look at the beliefs of the Islam faith than I was expecting. I gave up on reading it in favor of some lighter weight material. Needless to say, this book is anything but light weight, but this time I WANTED to learn.

Mrs. Adeney leaves no stone unturned in her quest to translate the Islamic faith to Christian women. In various chapters she delves into relationships, beliefs, money issues, geographic location, and how all these complexities work together to shape a woman. She manages to tech our differences clearly but respectfully.

Each chapter is full of testimonies of women that turned from Islam to Christianity, and the most amazing thing about these women isn't their similarities, it is their differences. God uses such a variety of ways to bring them to himself.

This book was particularly encouraging to me in the area of witnessing. Witnessing has always been a struggle for me (I am shy by nature and struggle weekly with simply visiting with known friends at church, much less approaching strangers!). In addition to being shy, I also feel particularly unworthy. Who am I to talk when I have so many weak points in my own life?

One story in this book very thoroughly took care of my excuses. It was about an Islamic girl (not practicing, but committed) who was attending college in the states. Her roommate was a Christian, and often took opportunities as they were together to enthusiastically witness, using day-to-day occurrences as springboards. The roommate, however, was also living in sin by regularly sleeping with her boyfriend. Despite an (obviously) flawed witness, the roommate continued to promote Christ and through her witness and the witness of another friend (who also had deep flaws) this girl eventually came to Christ.

If they can choose to witness, despite not "having it all together," what excuse to I have to sit on my rear?

As you can see, while there is a lot of GREAT stuff for understanding Islam and the women who practice it, there is also a lot of stuff for the Holy Spirit to use in refinign your own life.

I would recommend this book to anyone, but particularly to anyone who has (or hopes to have) a ministry to Islamic women, whether by prayer or by personal contact.

Adventures in Housekeeping--Freezer Cooking (the bean edition)

My apologies for missing last Wednesday's Adventures in Housekeeping. Last week was such a whirlwind ride that I really don't remember much of what happened--only that it happened fast!!

Last Saturday my sister-in-law and I had our second monthly Freezer Cooking Day. Friday morning we had already picked out our recipes and done the majority of the shopping when my 5 months pregnant sister called to say she was so sick she couldn't keep water down. She hoped to be well enough to cook by the next day, but wanted me to know just in case.

I told her I wasn't about to let her spend all day cooking after having a stomach bug.

So, Saturday I was on my own.

Here are the recipes we planned:

Yummy spinach soup stuff--Amanda

Tasty blended tomato soup--Amanda

Coconut Corn Soup--Sophie
 
Ministrone--Sophia


Brown Bag Burritos  These looked pretty awesome. A tasty freezer meal good for packing to work and something to break up the "soup overload"

 Marinaded Chicken Breast--  plus some other marinades

Chicken Spaghetti--Too tasty to skip.

Chihuahua Chili--I picked this mainly to spice up an otherwise poultry dominated meal plan. My man likes his meat.

Enchilada Sauce--To be used in the other recipes.

As you can see, a number of the recipes called for beans--particularly as I wanted to make my own refried beans. I've  never done much with beans before, mainly because I don't usually like them. As I've been married, though, I've learned that beans are a GREAT budget stretcher. This month it was time to start taking advantage of that.


Unfortunately I didn't do a lot of research about cooking with beans before I (enthusiastically!) dived into it. Therefore, I didn't realize that beans double in size after soaking overnight. I didn't know that when 24 cups of pinto beans are called for, that actually means just 12 cups of dry beans. 


I thought that if I wanted 24 cups of beans I should, logically, soak 24 cups. On the off chance, I reasoned, that beans expanded after soaking I should probably just soak 20 cups. Just to be safe. And if that wasn't enough we could just make do, right?


Right.


So, Saturday morning, I was faced with ALL the largest bowls in my house (three) plus ALL the crockpots (three again, one large two small) bubbling over with soaked beans. It must have been about 40 cups of pinto and 10 cups of black, but I can't really be sure. Measuring wasn't particularly possible.

My mom just laughed when she saw it. So did my husband, actually. 

My mother graciously donated most of her day to help me cook, which really was a life saver. Tomorrow I'll post a bit more about how the day itself went, and what the final results were. (plus what in the world I did with all those beans!!!!)

 

Sanctuary

The last three weeks have been intense. My Man and I haven't had a weekend rest because we've been working on things at our church, and then the week-days have been the usual crazy. It got to the point that the only uninterrupted time we had was our sacred weekly Date Night--and even one of those nights my man couldn't get out of some work.

This past weekend topped everything off. It was supposed to be our first real weekend off this year. We both had some chores to do--my hubby at the church and me working on some freezer cooking, but only expected it to be a couple hours. Our estimates were both off. By about 8 hours. We dragged ourselves home afterwords, and went straight to bed.

After the past few weeks we've both agreed things need to change. We can't be moving so fast that our only evening at home is Date Night. We can't be doing so many things (even things that help the church) that I am unable to attend (or, at least, unable to remain conscious during the service). We can't be so busy that my man can't be sharp at work.

And I'm reminded....

God isn't glorified by busyness.

Exhaustion isn't necessarily the sign of a productive spiritual life.

Nor does resting necessarily mean spiritual atrophy.

That's why this week we are slowing down. We are saying "no."  We are recuperating. We are choosing to rest in the sanctuary of our home.

And that is good.

Choosing Joy

While generally I'm a steady, cheerful type person overall, I also tend to be a "glass half empty" kind of gal. When I hear an idea I can immediately see flaws in it. When I'm late I don't take it in stride--I get upset. When I think of people often I remember the hurtful things they have done before thinking of the kind things.

I don't try to be this way. Sometimes negative thoughts are just more natural than positive. But does "more natural" mean "okay?"

I read this a couple days ago, and haven't been able to get it off my mind since then.

What if I choose to see only the good?

What if I refuse to see anything but good?

Lord, make it so.

One Thousand Gifts--an introduction

I just found Ann Vocamp's "online home" a few days ago, and already have been challenged by her writing. She has just written a book, which was officially released yesterday and was #13 on Amazon's Bestseller list. She is a testimony of what God can do through a consecrated life.

I do not own her book yet, but I plan to order it within the next week or so and participate in the community book club at (in)Courage working through it starting Feb 6.

Also, I plan to start my own list of 1000 gifts. I will be posting 10 gifts daily starting on the 2 year anniversary of my husband's proposal (Feb 15), and ending late May or early June.

In the meantime, this video is truly inspiring.