Christmas 2012

We took a nice long two and a half week vacation to go visit family and friends in Virginia and North Carolina over Christmas and New Years.  It's tough living so far away from family and sort of surreal to be back in Virginia where we grew up now that Austin feels more and more like home.  Time with our family is extra special now that we see them so much less often.

We started in Asheville, NC on Christmas Eve at my uncle's house with my family.  Christmas Eve at their house is always beautiful with a massive tree, a gorgeous table, delicious food, flowing wine, gift exchanges, and carol singing.  Sweet times with sweet people! Here was our crowd:

We stayed with my grandparents and were so pleased with how great they are doing! Family gatherings with them are always such a blessing.  My mom brought supplies to make her famous aebleskivers - a traditional Danish pancake-like treat.  It's not Christmas without them!  One day I'll have a full post about how to make these beauties.  Until then, you'll just have to dream.

Before we left Asheville, Matt and I went to tour the Biltmore House which I've always wanted to do at Christmastime.  Every room open for the tour is decked out in spectacular decor similar to how it would have been decorated when George Vanderbilt opened it on Christmas Eve in 1895. The house and grounds are one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited.  The only tragedy of this particular trip was that it rained all day so we weren't really able to get many pictures.  I'd love to go back in the spring when the tulips are blooming and take the Butler's Tour!  I highly recommend making a day of it if you're ever in the area.

After Asheville we drove over the mountains through snow and fog up to Roanoke, VA where we stayed with one my dear friends, Melissa.  We spent a day in Blacksburg touring Virginia Tech and reminiscing.  It was snowy and windy and freezing as it always was in Blacksburg in the winter!  We remembered why we love Austin.

Back on the road we went to visit Matt's family!  We got to spend a whole week with them and had loads of fun playing with our nephews and all of the Thompson pets.  We visited with old friends, went shopping, toured Christmas lights, ate lots of food, and just had good times of enjoying each other's company.

We ended the trip in northern Virginia visiting my parents and brother.  Somehow I have no cute pictures from this part of the trip.  We checked out the Air and Space Museum and saw The Hobbit, which we enjoyed greatly.  All in all - a memorable and blessed Christmas!

Happy New Year everybody!

My New Life Resolution! January's Theme: The Great Commission

Happy New Year!  We are back after a lengthy trip back to North Carolina and Virginia to visit family and friends.  I'll get on a blog about that soon. First:  I have a New Year's resolution.  Really it's a life resolution, and I want to invite you to join in it with me: scripture memorization!  I know I know...I can already hear the groaning.  This is something I've tried numerous times and failed at every time.  Those of you that I can hear groaning probably have too.  It can quickly turn into a tedious and frustrating task.  After several years of attempts,  I still have only a small handful of verses that I could accurately quote and give the scripture reference to you on the spot.  I long to be able to call scripture to mind in the moment and be able to more easily discuss the gospel with others.  The Lord desires it for us and Jesus himself quoted scripture in his teachings.  

"You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead." Deuteronomy 11:18

So, I'm setting a smaller, more realistic goal for myself this time.  And I'm using this blog to organize me and keep me accountable.  I hope that this will be a bit more fun and motivational and that it will serve you in your relationship with the Lord!  

Here's my plan:
I will post a monthly blog with 2-3 memory verses with a specific theme that I will commit to memorize.  They must all fit on only one side of a 3x5 index card (Only 2-3 verses per month - small goals!  We can do this!) I'll post several of these cards around my apartment, in my car, in my school agenda, etc.. I will use them in my quiet time each morning too.  I'll also post on the blog 1-2 Bonus Verses that I will try to memorize if I get the others down quickly. I downloaded a neat app that will help called Remember Me: Bible Verse Memory. Yay technology! It has flash cards, puzzles, and other memory tools.  All my verses will be in NIV translation because that just happens to be the bible version I own.

My first several themes will focus on verses that can be used as evangelism and spiritual discussion tools - verses that give a well-rounded presentation of the gospel.  Many verses are ones that we easily recognize and maybe have parts of them memorized.  Getting down the scripture reference is always the hard part for me.  I also want to be sure that I know some of the who/what/when/where/why of the verses.  My hope is that this will deepen my understanding and my discussions with others.

Ready for January's theme?  I think it should be a nice easy one.

The Great Commission

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, 

"All authority in heaven

and on earth has been given to me.

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father 

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 

20 and teaching them to obey

everything I have commanded you. 

And surely I am with you always,

 to the very end of the age.

Matthew 28:18-20

Context: A command spoken by the resurrected Jesus to his disciples before his ascension

*Bonus verse: 37 Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Matthew 9:37-38

Context: Spoken by Jesus to his disciples while traveling through towns teaching and healing.  Jesus was moved by the crowds and their helplessness.

Post-Turkey Day Stock and Soup

Thanksgiving was a fun time.  Our friends and their baby boy joined us and we made an obscene amount of food for only four of us! We are grateful for a lot this year.  Matt lost his job but was only jobless for four weeks before finding a new job for a small company that he really enjoys! The whole experience has been the best bad thing to ever happen to us.  I am thankful that God knows exactly what we need exactly when we need it and always provides.

 This post is about thanksgiving leftovers.  Due to the loss of my sanity over the past few weeks with finals, it is severely delayed, but don't leave yet. The tastiness can be enjoyed year round.

First - make homemade stock.  I've had several people express shock and admiration over the fact that I make my own stock.  But the secret is that there is no set recipe, you can make it very easily with things you usually have in your pantry and fridge, you can make a lot at one time, it freezes well, and it just tastes better.  

Here's how I make it:  Whether you're using a turkey or chicken, clean as much meat and fat off the bones as you can.  Or if you don't feel like it - then don't!  While the stock cooks all the extra meat will fall right off the bones and you can fish it out later.  Throw the bones (I really don't like to use the word carcass...ugh) into a large stock pot or crock pot.  If you have a turkey and it is too big, you may need to get it into pieces.  I'm sure there is a technical way to do this, or you can just be like me and hack and rip at it and work out some energy.  The bones of a chicken usually fit perfectly, and using a rotisserie chicken eliminates cooking the bird.

Now, at this point you could literally just fill the pot with water and some salt and let it go.  But, because you want loads of flavor you can add any or all of these ingredients:

Onion (about 1)

Leek (about 1)

Celery (about 2 stalks)

Carrots (about 2)

Whole peppercorns (about 1/2 tbs)

1-2 bay leaves

Kosher salt  (just a light sprinkling. Go low sodium!)

The amounts really do not matter! Use what you have!  Use enough for good flavor but not so much that you won't have any room for water.

Because you're just sucking all the flavor out of everything, you don't need to worry about peeling stuff or even throwing out the ends! In this batch I just threw in some boiling onions that I had in the freezer.  And speaking of the freezer, I'm going to share a tip that makes throwing some stock together even easier.  This is courtesy of my dear friend Ashley, we're such a good team!   Get a gallon freezer bag and label it "stock," when you have any of the above veggies that are at the end of their fridge life, or you have ends/peels/scraps throw them in the bag in the freezer.  When you have bones to make stock you can pull the veggies straight out of the bag and throw them in the pot!!  Genius or what?

After this, fill up the pot with water.  If doing it on the stove, bring it to a boil and then simmer, covered, for at least 3-4 hours but really as long as you want.  The longer the better. You can also put your crock pot on low and let it go for 24 hours.  By the way, your home will smell very very yummy.

When it's done.  Remove the large chunks with tongs and then pour the rest through a sieve and into a large bowl.  Go through the solids and dig out any extra meat that came off!  Allow to cool.  I often just stick it straight into the fridge without the lid on.  When my mom makes stock in the winter and it's cold out, she puts the bowl out on the porch!  Here in Texas, we rely on the fridge... Anyway, once it sits for a while the fat will rise to the top and harden.  You can then skim it off and throw it away or if you're feeling really fancy you can use it as a starter for some gravy.  

After that, bag up the stock (I use quart size freezer bags of 2-3 cups of stock).  Lay them flat in your freezer.  Once they are frozen they will be perfectly stackable!  This batch made about 8 cups of stock and I had enough bones from a turkey to make three batches!  I ended up throwing some bones and leftover veggies into a bag in the freezer for making more stock at a later date.  I have lots of stock.  Must make soup.

Speaking of soup, I have to brag on my husband.  He came up with this Turkey Tortilla Soup - inspired by a soup at Chuy's, our favorite Tex-Mex place.  This was seriously some of the best soup I've had in a long time.  

Turkey Tortilla Soup  (or make it with chicken) - 4-5 servings

Drizzle of olive oil

1/2 onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 cloves garlic, chopped  (The chunks of garlic really added something extra!)

1 serrano pepper, chopped   (For less spice, remove all or some seeds)

3 cups stock

1- 1 1/2 cups chopped turkey

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Juice of 1/2 lime

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1 avocado, chopped

Tortilla chips

Brown onion and garlic in large sauce pan in olive oil.  Throw in serrano for last 30 seconds then add all other ingredients through lime.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer one hour, covered.  Garnish with cilantro and avocado and serve with tortilla chips.

Christmas on Your Thanksgiving Table: Spiced Cranberry Sauce

My mom, the Kitchen Goddess, puts together an awesome Thanksgiving spread.  One dish that we never did without was her cranberry sauce.  I think cranberry sauce tends to get a bad wrap, something that most people really think is just ok and a traditional dish to have.  I never hear anyone getting really excited about it.

But....I get really really excited about this cranberry sauce.  It's special.  It throws you into the holiday season.  It tastes like Christmas. It smells like Christmas.  It makes your whole house smell divine while it cooks.  It is excellent with turkey.  It is fantastic to eat like jam on fresh biscuits or rolls.  If you enjoy cranberry sauce, or you have always wanted to enjoy cranberry sauce, or you're a skeptic - please try this dish.

What makes this dish so Christmas-like?  Oranges, cloves, and candied ginger!  Heaven.  Here's the full list of goods:

Cranberries, sugar, oranges, crystallized ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves

What is cardamom? I'm glad you asked.  Cardamom is used in many Indian dishes as well as Scandinavian dishes, which is why my mother cooks with it, being Danish and all.  It is the secret ingredient to her pancakes.  It is also a common spice in the popular and tasty Chai tea.  Cardamom  is an expensive spice, but oh so tasty and a little goes a long way.  It pairs very well with the "fall spices" like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg and it makes people stop and wonder what magic you have infused your dish with.  For these reasons I highly recommend the splurge.  If you choose not to use it, you could add some nutmeg to the sauce for the good fall spice flavor.

Crystallized, or candied, ginger is another addition you don't want to skip out on.  (You could do ground ginger...but again, not really the same.) If you have trouble finding it, check the bulk sections of your local grocery stores, especially places like Whole Foods or Sprouts.  Chop it up finely.

Set aside your measured spices and then zest two whole oranges.  And here is what makes this cranberry sauce so incredibly aromatic and flavorful!

1 tsp Cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1 tsp cardamom, 2 tbsp crystallized ginger, and orange zest of 2 oranges!

Measure out three cups of sugar and set that aside. Peel the two oranges that you just zested and chop them up.  Use a sharp knife to trim off as much white pith as you can.  Take two more oranges and squeeze the juice into a two-cup measuring cup.  Add water to the juice to total 2 cups of liquid. 

The prepped ingredients.  Your kitchen will already smell super yummy.

Combine all ingredients, except cranberries, into a large saucepan.

Bring to a boil.  Throw in the cranberries!

Bring it back to a boil.  Keep stirring until cranberries begin to pop.

Now the intoxicating smells will waft throughout your home to bring joy and delight to all!  Put the lid on and turn down the heat to low.  Simmer for about an hour.  If you happened to use frozen cranberries, as I did today, then take the lid off for the last 10 minutes since they will be juicier. 

Bonus: While you're waiting and cleaning up, go ahead and throw some of those orange peels into your garbage disposal while you run it for a fresh smelling sink. 

Here's the best part. After an hour, taste it!...Then taste it again...and maybe again.  Add any extra sugar or spices that your heart may desire.  (This is a pretty sweet sauce!)  When you are satisfied, take it off the heat and allow to cool before transferring to containers and moving it to the fridge.  It will have a thickened, syrupy consistency and will set in the fridge to become more jam-like.  You should make it at least a day before Thanksgiving for it to set and all the flavors to mingle together in glory. 

Here it is the next day after it has had time to set!

 Enjoy, friends!

Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:
4 cups cranberries, washed and picked over
3 cups sugar

4 oranges - and this is what you do with them:
2 cups liquid: Juice from 2 oranges + water = 2 cups
Zest from 2 oranges
Orange sections from the 2 zested oranges, chopped

2 tbsp crystallized (candied) ginger, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Directions:
Combine all ingredients, except cranberries, into a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil. Add cranberries and continue to stir until berries begin to pop and it is back to a boil.  Put the lid on and allow to simmer for about an hour. **  Taste and add sugar if desired.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Chill until ready to serve.  This is best to make one day before serving.

**UPDATE - I've found that this recipe followed exactly can occasionally make some fairly runny sauce.  To increase the consistency to a more jelly-like texture, remove the lid around the one hour mark and allow to simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes.  This makes it about the consistency of fruit preserves.   Increase the time without the lid on even more if you like it really thick or you're using frozen cranberries.  Expect it to stiffen a little more once it's been chilled as well.

Fall in Texas - Lost and Found

Fall in Austin is really more like Spring #2.  The temperature becomes more tolerable so you get back outside, rainfall increases (hopefully!) and if it does then the grass greens up and wildflowers bloom.  We might get a few days of cool crisp real fall-like weather, but not much until later in November or even December.  The weather is gorgeous here, but we do miss real fall and the trees changing colors.  So yesterday we went with some buddies of ours to find fall!

Lost Maples, west of San Antonio, is one of the few areas that has numerous maple trees in the area.  Maple trees mean fall colors!  We had a fun 3.5 hour road trip down and back and a 4.6 mile hike through the park.  We were famished after the hike and found a delicious small-town BBQ restaurant as soon as we were done.  We love Texas Hill Country and Texas BBQ.

Halfway through the hike we had a steep climb up the side of a mountain.  Yes there are mountains in central Texas - or very big hills!  When we got to the top I was thrilled to see a view not unlike back home in areas of the Appalachian mountains.  That is part of our trail to the right of the river - really steep climb!

The maples were just beginning to turn pretty colors.  In another week they should be looking really great!

Hubs has enjoyed working on his photography skills!

I love fall!

Tough Stuff: Joblessness

It's the season for thankfulness. This year we're thankful for something that we never really thought we would experience much less be thankful for - joblessness. Hubs lost his job three weeks ago, and I don't work because I am in school pretty much full time. So we very suddenly found ourselves completely and utterly jobless.

Our first response? Anger, fear, panic, shock..... We were humbled. We filed for unemployment. We cut spending. We hunkered down and prepared for months of financial uncertainty. Our earthly security had been stripped away and we were left with each other and God (and thankfully, a savings account). What an opportunity to experience God as our true source of security and hope! It turned out to be a surprising gift.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. - James 1:2-4

It was a beautiful thing to see my husband grab onto God as his life preserver. There has been more prayer and scripture reading in our house than ever before. This experience has brought us closer together and closer to God over night.

For us, the loss of this job was actually a relief - because it had been a truly miserable one. The new freedom and time Hubs had to focus on God, work through issues, and find God's path for future employment has been so special and priceless. We have had a difficult couple of years in this area of his job. We had been praying and searching for what felt like endless months for where he belonged, and God had seemed silent. The past few weeks we have rejoiced in God's discipline, grace, mercy, and love. We are seeing job opportunities shape up far more quickly than we anticipated. God does not always work on our time line. Oh wait....make that never....He never works on our time line! His timing is perfect.

The following verses of James are just as special:

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. - James 1:5-8

In praying for wisdom, we have found humbleness. While leaning on God wholeheartedly and believing Him to be a God that delivers the impossible, he has acted even beyond our expectations. But, in order for God to really work in our lives, we first had to let go of pride and earthly security - even if it meant He had to physically remove it from us.

Thank you to everyone who has been so encouraging to us during this time! We appreciate you. I hope that this encourages someone else who is going through difficult times. Let go and give God a chance. He can be trusted.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord.

For he will be like a tree planted by water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. - Jeremiah 17:7-8

Choosing NFP

I hope you all enjoyed my little mental break post about freezer breakfast sandwiches.  Back to the juicy stuff. More people, by far, have viewed these posts than any other so you all are either really curious about my personal life or this is hitting home. Maybe both!

Moving right along then - the day we decided that I should go off of birth control, I sat down to have a talk with God.  There were about a billion reasons why this frightened the bejeebies out of me. Just to name a few:

• As I mentioned before, I was about to start an intense two year program that I had just spent over a year trying to get into.  A baby would make it extremely difficult or impossible to get through the program.  
• I liked birth control. I loved it.  It was easy and the negative parts of my period had lessened or disappeared!  I didn't want to go back to that.
• All the other options for delaying pregnancy - (barrier methods such as condoms amd diaphragms) sounded distinctly more unpleasant.  And Natural Family Planning (NFP)? Yeah right - that never works!

And then I found myself saying to God, "I just don't trust you!!"  

Oh.......  Have you had this moment?  When you listen to your own words and hear how foolish you sound?  When you look at yourself and you look at God and you are immediately humbled?  Praise God for his patience and grace.

It was clear to me almost instantaneously that this was not an area of my life that I trusted God - and it's a really important area.  I trusted a pill or a stupid flexible ring thing more than my Creator and Lord and Savior.  I liked having that part of my life controlled by me.  It occurred to me that birth control is maybe a sneaky way that the enemy has captured us and tempted us.  Our culture is becoming more and more convinced that sex is a primal human need that we can't live without, we have a right to it because we just might die without it, and we should do everything we can to be sure that it has no consequences. How devious... and ridiculous.  I suddenly wanted to be rid of birth control as soon as possible.

Important side note here:  If you face real challenges with your fertility or menstrual cycles, then the use of hormonal contraception may be very valuable to you as a treatment for a real condition. I am in no way trying to undermine such use.

I also took a practical look at birth control.  I like to make healthy and natural choices, and there's really nothing either healthy or natural about hormonal birth control.  You have an increased risk of blood clots, stroke, heart attack, high blood pressure, and certain types of cancer.  And it essentially causes you to be infertile and can decrease your libido.  Changing your body through man-made chemicals to cause yourself to be infertile when you are only wanting to delay pregnancy seemed a bit extreme to me when I thought about it.  Fertility is a gift never to be taken for granted.  I'm all for embracing my womanhood and not squashing it.  The feminist movement shouts from the mountaintops that contraception and abortion gives women freedom - I now believe that that culture is overwhelmed with deception and shackles.  I am asserting myself as a woman who stands against it because it has become evident that while they are shouting from the mountaintops we are keeping silent to avoid the discomfort and conflict.

So Why NFP?
First, NFP is foundational to the Catholic beliefs and a lot of the information out there is from them, which is why I will reference them.  However, NFP should not be discarded simply because you're not Catholic.  There's good stuff here for everybody.  We researched NFP and have been practicing it for over a year now.  We have combined NFP with barrier methods during fertile days and we have done NFP only (which is abstaining during fertile days).  The Catholic church strongly discourages the use of barrier methods.  The problem with those methods for us Christians is that they both reduce the mutual pleasure during sex and prevent pregnancy. Since it interferes with both of the two purposes of sex designed by God, they can interrupt the union that God desires us to have.  To clarify, I don't at all believe personally that using these methods is wrong, but it's something to evaluate as a Christian couple.  It's up to you!  If I haven't said it yet and if it isn't obvious, it's very important that you openly discuss these issues and make decisions together!

Here are some benefits to NFP only:

• It's as natural and organic as you can get!
• It's pretty much free!  You only pay up front costs of a digital basal thermometer, book, class, or maybe an online membership or app for charting.  
• It's also freeing.  I can just be me.  It is so incredibly empowering to take charge of your own body and not just pop a pill.  Because nothing is wrong with me!  Man, I feel like a woman! (sorry, had to do it)  God ended up allowing me to keep control, but first I had to give HIM control and have faith.
• Time with your Hunny is better.  Yes, there is less of it.  Yes, it is an adjustment and it is difficult, especially for the guys (My Hunny jokes that it is the "No Fun Policy!").  But it's never taken for granted, there's nothing plastic involved or weird side effects from your birth control, and it's in it's purest form.  It's a great way to keep anticipation and excitement in your marriage.  It's like having a little honeymoon every month.  And, there are other fun ways to be intimate...I'll leave it at that. Sorry mom!
• If you would like to have children in the future, charting can reveal issues with your cycle that may affect your fertility. Likewise, it can be reassuring to see the green light for whenever you're ready.  You can go ahead and start working on trying to straighten an issues out, which may simply be a change in diet or an added supplement.  There likely won't be any big surprises when it comes time for you to try to conceive.
• When it is time for you to try to conceive...just do it! (But be sure to read up on post-baby charting because it gets squirrely or pretty much impossible while breastfeeding.)
• It can bring you closer to God and each other.  When you keep the principles of patience and self-control in that aspect of your life, as we should in all areas of our lives, it is humbling and God will honor it.  I have also been blessed that my cycle has not fallen back into the discomfort that it was before I started the pill!  What an answer to prayer.  

If you just can't wait to get started, here are some basics:
The Symptothermal Method of NFP involves taking daily observations on a chart of your basal body temperature, cervical fluid (or "mucus", but eww, who wants to use that word?), and you may check cervical firmness and position.  Since you observe all of these signs, it is more effective than other methods of NFP that have you observing only temps or only fluids.  Similar to remembering to take a pill at the same time every day, you need to take your temperature at the same time every morning before getting out of bed.  Your body temperature will shift an average of 0.4 degrees after ovulation and then decline again before your period if you are not pregnant.

To learn the ins and outs, we actually went to classes with the Couple to Couple League, a Catholic organization.  This was partly because I wanted to meet people that actually use it and can vouch for it working and partly because I just learn better that way and it was pretty important that I get it right!  Yeah, it was a little weird and awkward, especially when we found ourselves watching the videos in their living room with their teenage children wandering around!  Don't worry, that's not a normal occurrence.  Anyway, the class was still very helpful, and it's spread out over a few months so that they can look over your first charts and answer any questions.  They give very straightforward, specific, and conservative rules to follow as well as providing you with everything you need to get started with your fee for the class- 99% effectiveness with perfect use.

Another popular book and website for learning and charting is Taking Charge of Your Fertility.  This is from a non-religious viewpoint and is also the Symptothermal Method.

I'm praying that I have cleared up some misconceptions about the use of NFP and have encouraged you!  

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. - Gen 2:24

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. - 1 Cor 6:19