Sorry It's Been a While

ES arrived a couple days ago. They were all right! I didn't realize how much a kid could change you. I pick up after myself almost 100% of the time. I clean up the kitchen more after I cook. I don't watch nearly as much TV as I did before.

My life has also changed in other ways. I work 2 jobs now, not 4, and this is such a relief! In fact this past weekend, between 1:30p and 8:30p on Saturday, I got 43 of my 53 things on my "To Do" list done. Can you imagine, a 'To Do' list of 53 items?! That's like a weeks worth of work! (or 6 and a half months of not working at that stuff!) I still have to clean Freddie's tank (Freddie the fish) but I'm tempted to ask Don to do that...after all, it is his tank.

We've been in our house for six months now (can you believe it? I can't, I keep thinking it's only been a couple months). The garden turn out to be almost a complete flop. The corn is coming along (at 15 ears sprouting) and the pumpkins have taken over EVERYTHING!! (By the way, in a little while, we'll be selling Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins for $3 a piece). We got three green beans total. Just a week or so ago we got some buds on our mellon plants (although I cannot remember if it is the Cantaloup or the Watermelon that came up). Our lettuce only grew to about two inches. The herbs got washed out (twice) in some massive rain. Four of the 20,000 approximate seeds from the mixed bag bloomed. Don transplanted a lot of our Hastas and they mostly died. The Sunflowers never broke ground. And three branches of my favorite tree (okay, that one isn't in our garden) came down...one due to a storm the other two were us being proactive and not wanting it to take out half our house.

So...some changes, not many. In case you didn't see, I cross stitched a picture of our house so you can check that out on Facebook.

I've been at Wedgwood for a few months now and I'm still so excited about seeing clients and getting started in the mental health world. It breaks my heart to see the situations that my clients are in sometimes but I love the challenge of a hard to reach teen...it's easy to see the progress, even if it is as simple as getting to them to laugh at a comment or joke I make. So worth it!

Not much else. The whole family is headed up north this weekend and I'm so excited about that. Sorry again, that it took so long to update. There have been quite a few changes in our lives and getting everything settled. A lot of energy has been put into ES's arrival and now that she's here, there is a lot of energy put into helping her adjust to everything. Everything...she looked at my french fries (the frozen kind from the grocery store) like she'd never seen them before...and as she taste tested one, I could see on her face she hadn't. Here we go, one grand adventure!!

Empty Words

I hate empty words. You know, those things people say to be polite, fill awkward silences, or just because 'that's what you say'. It's the: "Hi! How are you? ...' which immediately busts open into a string of something that has nothing to do about their concern for you. My undergrad was full of them and at first it felt warm and inviting but in the end, I realized that there were nice people on campus (a lot of them) but their words were not always ones of concern (or care sometimes).

So I resolved at that point, and after other events in life, ones that will remain mentionless...I would everything in my power, not to speak empty words:

I genuinely want to know how you are doing and sometimes that means, interrupting myself to hear your answer.

If I say to you I will pray for you, I am going to go and pray for you.

If I ask if there is anything you want me to do for you, I will genuinely go and do it or tell you that I cannot. ...And I really want to also (that is why I ask it).

If I tell you I will commit to something, promise something, or speak a yes or no, that is what I mean...take me for my word.

I find the greatest joy in being this upfront. Don't get me wrong, I do this in love and kindness. But I want you to know what I am saying, thinking, and doing. I am disappointed if and when you don't take me up on my offer. I want to practice this hospitality and in doing so, I want you to be blessed by it. I want to practice being the world that it should be so one day, the world will be the way it should be.

That is my resolve.

Not Too Much Excitement...

I hope you enjoyed the Bagels. ...Those of you who took the recipe. Summer has finally showed its face, only to go away again. Frustration.

My sister is in Kenya for a wedding. ...Who knows people that get married in Kenya??? Apparently I do. Of course, in the same breath, I could say I went to 3 or 4 weddings in Fiji and to boot, I saw a State Funeral in Fiji too.

West Michigan Counseling Center is officially open for business. For those of you who don't know, that is the Private Practice Nate Hansen and I started. We're officially filed with the State and everything squared away. We are here to meet your therapy needs. Nate does fantastic work with couples, families, and individuals struggling with a variety of issues. I will be around with all of my experience with teens, adolescents, and young adults, particularly those who are considered at-risk and high-risk. We are currently looking for office space so if you are interested in having a session with me, we can arrange to meet at one of our homes.

There are a couple job opportunities on the ground, clearly being laid out before me. Praise the Lord!!

We got a lawn mower for the house. The garden is starting to bud. My lovely flowers and plants are starting to bloom. My cabinets for my laundry room have a coat of paint. The shower downstairs has rod, curtain hooks, and a curtain ready to be put up. Little things like that are getting done. Thats about what I've been filling my days with.

This week I hope to get the second coat of paint on the cupboards and get them hung, bake blueberry muffins, vacuum the house, mow the lawn, and clean out that pile of junk behind the chair in the living room. Ambitious right?

If anyone wants coffee and a muffin...I'm free this week.

Bagels!

I've had a request for my bagel recipe. It is delicious and I've made different sorts of bagels from this recipe with greater or lesser success. I'll give you the recipe and then I'll make note (*) of the things I do to have different sorts of bagels. Here goes:

Oh yeah, you'll want to leave a bit of time to do this. Start to finish it takes about two and a half hours but there is time in there (waiting for the dough to rise) where you can fold laundry or do something productive.

Ingredients:

2 egg yokes and a dash of milk for an egg wash

3 TBS dry yeast

2 TBS sugar

*1 Medium Onion — minced

3 tsp salt (altho, I've never added salt and they're usually great)

2.25 C warm water

8.25 C flour

*3-4 C of wheat flour and 4-5 C of regular flour instead of 8.25 C regular flour

Dissolve dry yeast, sugar, (*minced onion) add salt, and warm water. Gradually work in 8 cups of flour (if making wheat bagels, add wheat flour first and as much regular flour as you can) (***if you're making chocolate chip, blueberry, and Cinnamon bagels). Turn out on floured board and knead until elastic and smooth. Let rise until double in bulk (on a warm day I put it outside in the shade, in the winter I put my oven on warm and leave it there with a wet towel over top ...that will prevent crusting/baking). This is where you do something productive for a while. Turn onto floured board and knead briefly. Divide into equal parts and roll into tube shapes and join to make the traditional bagel shape. The amount of bagels this makes will depend on how big you want them to be (I usually make 16-18...cutting into 16 parts and making 2 more out of the ends that I tear off to get them to stay in the circle shape). Time to pre-heat...400F. Drop them in rapidly boiling water. One minute on each side. Take them out and put them on a baking sheet (lightly greased). Brush with egg wash (*see instructions below if you're making Asiago Cheese Bagels). Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Variations:

*Cinnamon Bagels: Two things to do: add Cinnamon to the dough near the end of kneading but certainly before you let it rise. I've never measured the amount but put in as much as you would for cinnamon rolls. 1/2 C White sugar; 2 tsp Cinnamon; 1/2 C oleo/margine. Mix this together and put it on the top of bagels just before you put them in the oven.

*Asiago Cheese: 8oz shredded Asiago Cheese is needed. After the egg wash put the desired amount of cheese on the tops of the bagels before you put it in the oven.

*Chocolate chips...I've never made these but this is how I'd do it: 2 C of either ingredient and gradually put these in to the dough when its about done being kneaded and put them in to taste...if you'd like more, put more, if not, well, you know...

Now, all you have left to do is enjoy them!!

Gardening!

I have 26 different plants for my brand new garden! Tomorrow's job tho is to start pulling up the weeds and tilling the ground. Here is what my garden (and various parts of our yard) harvest will produce:

Flowers:

Wildflower Perennial Mix

Old Fashioned Garden Mixture

Shade Mix

Evening Sun Mixed Color Sunflower

Veggies and Herbs:

Cilantro

Basil

Thyme

Rosemary

Oregano

Dill

Hungarian Yellow Wax Pepper

Parsley

Pak Choi-White Stem

Watermellon

Cantaloupe

Garden Beans (Green Beans)

Eggplant

Lettuce

Salad Mix Lettuce

Roma Tomato

Jack-O'Latern Pumpkin

Bell Peppers

Broccoli

Cucumber

Onion

Sweet Corn

So, if you live nearby, I'm sure I will have extra veggies and herbs this summer. You can have all my eggplant, the only reason I'm planting them is because I can. I'm sure I won't eat nearly as many as I will produce. I'm so excited. Any gardening tips are welcome.

Oh yeah, and if you'd like a mum plant...we have 18-20 in various parts of our yard. I would LOVE to get rid of some. FREE MUM PLANTS!! Spread the word!

First Mortgage Payment

Well, I paid the first mortgage payment this morning. We probably own the kitchen sink or a light switch or something minuscule like that. I'd rather own a sink as opposed to a light switch...its more functional. Don will be so happy to know we actually own something of this house.

Its still relatively clean too. ...And I pick up the kitchen and its relatively clean when I go to bed and when it isn't, it is actually the first thing I do in the morning, even when I leave at 7:15. You'd be so proud...anyone who has ever lived with me.

Don and I actually remembered to take the garbage out this week too. We usually don't think about it till I hear the truck driving past the house and I think, "O crap!!" and then we have to wait a week. I then, will end up catching it on the recycle week (every other week). And this week is not a recycle week AND I got the garbage out. I'm impressed with myself.

We've already thought about yard work this spring and summer. Our next "big" purchase will be a push-mower for our yard. We also will pick up a rack because there are quite a bit of leaves from last fall. It is so great to see the landscaping since we viewed the house and up until the past couple of weeks, there has been tons of snow everywhere. I am planning a vegetable garden and there is already a spot dug up for it. So it is just a matter of transplanting some plants and planting new ones. I'm pretty excited about it. I can't wait to see our trees blossom and green and see the kind of shade we get over our house.

Other than that: same-o, same-o. I'm still looking for a job, trying to put things in their space, revisiting old hobbies, etc...

Things I Never Did In Our Apartment

After four years, nine months, and five days of leasing an apartment, there were a few things that I spent that time thinking I could only do in a house (or I flat-out did not want to do in our apartment). Here is the list:

Clean my kitchen on a regular basis. I know, that sounds horrible being the wife of a chef. You have to understand though, the kitchen in my apartment was five square feet, with two of those being counter top and one of that being a sink (or so it seemed, it wasn't really THAT small but it was small, don't get me wrong!). At that point, it seemed like anything (even one thing) on the counter, clean or not, kitchen thing or not, made it seem cluttered and uncleaned and it also seemed that because the place was so small nothing had a real home, it only had a place that something else (that was dirty or being used) lived in...space sharing...ich! My kitchen here is tidied up every day!

Entertaining. Maybe this is an obvious one but one nonetheless. We did have people over, on occasion, mostly they were single friends that also lived in an apartment that understood such space constraints. In the past week I or we have had people over on three different days! Shocker! The Ram's actually entertain! We had Bible Study here. We've had Mario dates here. I've had people here for coffee... The list goes on! (If you want to be invited, feel free to invite yourselves...we LOVE entertaining).

Exchange Students. Yep! You've heard right...we're hoping to host an exchange student(s).

Cooking Meals and Baking. Again, that sounds bad being the wife of a chef but really it was either what was right in front of me, a frozen meal of some sort or something special that I would cook for. Space was just NOT conducive to knowing what was in my apartment, stocking basic ingredients (or more than three) and I now have a cupboard all for baking stuff! (How amazing is that???). By the way, when we moved I found things I didn't know I had: 4 full bottles of ketchup, 1 whole bag of rice, five jars of peanut butter at various stages of being empty (two that were empty and one that was full, one of the other ones was crunchy where as the other four were smooth). This is probably why I had so much space problems.

Eating at a table. We didn't really have space for a table or patience to set up and clean up a table so we at at a coffee table in the living room in front of the TV... We also do 'family' devotions on a somewhat regular basis.

For pictures of my new place, check out my Facebook page because they take too long to upload here and blogspot does not make it easy to caption it. If there is a lot uproar about this decision I will add them here. Just let me know! I do have more pictures than what I posted on FB but they are boxes and other things that not many people really care about...again if there are things you want to see/want to see more in general, or want them posted here, just let me know!