Sweetness.

This past weekend was a wonderful one for me as I was blessed enough to spend it with Jonathan and his family! As I mentioned in my previous post Jonathan’s brother Jason, sister-in-law Amy and nephew Parker were there to visit for the weekend. It was just a really fun time filled with a lady shopping outing, yummy strawberry pie, good conversations, belly touching (there are two pregnant ladies in the family) and a lot of play time with Parker! On Sunday, Catherine and Dan, Jonathan‘s sister and brother in law, made the trek to the Shaffers from Cleveland after visiting Dan’s parents and it was really awesome to see them. Dan has been hired by the University of Findlay (he’s math professor) and they’ve just made the move from Lexington, Virginia to Ohio. Catherine is currently pregnant with their first child, a baby boy, to be named Silas Daniel. Silas is one squirmy little wormy and it’s always fun to feel him moving all around, but I’m looking forward to him actually being here for me to hold. I’m also very excited that Cat and Dan are going to be living so close. Since Jonathan is the youngest in his family by eight years I’ve only been able to get to know his siblings when they come to visit or if we go visit them since they all live at least an hour and half away and it will be nice to have the Baczkowskis so close! Plus, I absolutely adore Cat and I’m looking forward to spending more time with her. As I said, there are two pregnant ladies in the family; Amy is pregnant with their second child, a little girl, whose name is not being disclosed until she is born. Jason and Amy are already wonderful parents, but Parker is going to make a wonderful new big brother.

Today, I (finally) mailed the package I made to Erica as she spends her summer on Summer Project in Vail, Colorado. She is doing some sweet things for the Lord and I am so proud of her. I was also lucky enough to spend today with my little buddy Jagger. Jagger is the son of my mom’s best friend Jenese, but to me he’s really an unofficial nephew. He’s two years old, an absolute hoot and a half. He loves Cars (think Pixar movie) and he thinks Mimi (my mom) is the best. My whole family loves Jagger and we were so glad he could come spend the day with us today.

The next six days will be filled with pretty much nothing but work, but I’m trying to stay grateful that I have been blessed with a job when so many can’t find work. The Lord has blessed me with so much and still my heart can be so fickle and unappreciative. I’m definitely a complainer so I’ve been trying to write a list of all the wonderful things that have happened to me during the day instead of just focusing and whining about the bad ones. It’s still new, but I think it’s really helping. 

Keepin' On.

Today was kind of a hard day for me. It did start off with a very loving and encouraging phone call from my man, but after that it took a tiny dip. My job comes with a lot of unnecessary drama and it’s really unfortunate because besides using the accucut machine (I seriously hate this machine, in fact, I’ve accidently broken it twice and my boss still has me use it) I like my job. Occasionally there are rude customers, but for the most part the atmosphere is pleasant. I will not post anything specific about the drama, I just wish it was no longer there and today seemed to be a particularly bad day for it. One of the main reasons I enjoy my job is that my boss is a creative person and not the slightest bit administratively minded. I, on the other hand love tedious, administrative tasks. Once my boss realized this she started leaving all of those tasks for me and that made my job even better. So while today was a bad day for drama is was a great day for clerical work and that was nice.

I’ve been sick the last couple of days and it’s been kind of a bummer. Thankfully it’s not the throwing up kind of sick. I just have a stuffy nose and congestion in my chest. I am SO thankful for medicine. I took two little pills today and was able to breath and it was so lovely. I felt almost completely normal.

Yesterday I took my sister shopping for her birthday presents since her birthday is in nine days. I always let her pick them out because I want to buy her what she likes. Also, it makes her happy to get to pick stuff out. While we were out and about I bought myself a pair of awesome sparkly green sunglasses and a new shirt. Since my sister works at hot topic I get a 40% discount because I’m family and that’s really awesome! The discount also works on already discounted items so I got my sunglasses for less than three dollars! Crazy! I just love getting good deals! 

I am really looking forward to this weekend because I get to actually spend time with my man and his family! Jonathan's brother Jason, sister-in-law Amy, and nephew Parker are coming for the weekend which is very exciting! Jason is hysterical, Amy is truly lovely so I really look forward to my time with her and little Parkosaurus Rex is the cutest little ball of energy and I can't wait to scoop him up in a big ol' hug!

Parker and Jonathan. Aren't these two adorable?!

PS- I've got pictures of some fun crafts coming, but since I'm mailing them to Erica Reese I don't want to ruin the surprise until she gets it! 

Yummy Guacamole!

I am really excited to post my first recipe! As a hardcore foodie who loves to cook, I'm glad that I can share some of my favorite recipes with my friends! Today, while at the store, I got a hardcore craving for some guacamole and since my mom has a weakness for my guacamole she agreed and we started shopping for the ingredients. This recipes is super easy, but it is a bit time consuming because of all the chopping and pitting.

Ingredients:

4-6 Avocados

2 Tomatoes

1 Medium Onion (I only had 2 small so I used 1 and half small onions)

2 Limes

1-2 Serrano Chilies

1 tsp Garlic (or two cloves if you have fresh garlic)

Garlic Salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

How to tell if avocados are ripe: 

Having ripe avocados is very important to making a good guacamole. The best way to tell if avocados are ripe is to gently squeeze them. You want them to give slightly, but not be too mushy. The best comparison I can give it to first press your forehead; if the avocado feels like this do not purchase it, it is not ripe enough and it will be hard to work with. Press your hand to your cheek next; if the avocado feel like this when you squeeze it then the avocado is overripe and most likely has brown, rotten spots on the inside. Now press your nose, this is what it should feel like. It should be soft but not too soft. 

The best way to get to the inside is to cut the avocado like so:

The pit should just come out if you slip a spoon underneath it and lift it out. If you have difficulty getting the pit out of the avocado use the corner of you chopping knife and gently hit the pit with it, once it is lodged give the knife a gentle twist and the pit should come right out.  

To get the fruit out of the skin you can just slip a spoon between the fruit and the skin and scoop it out.  

Then just dice it up and put it in a bowl. I put in directly in the container I'm going to store it in for less mess.

Next you get to mash it up! I use a potatoe masher and do it by hand because I like my guacamole to be a little chunkier but if you prefer yours to be smoother you can just pop it right in the food processor! 

Next just chop up the rest of your ingredients!

If you like a lot of heat feel free to keep the Serrano seeds in the guac, but  if not make sure get rid of them. You can use jalapeños instead of serranos if you'd like as they are less spicy. Also, make sure you dice the chilies really small, no one wants to bite into a giant piece of spicy pepper. 

The best way I've found to chop up cilantro is to gather a bunch of the leaves and twist them together, then chop.

Once all your ingredients are chopped add them to the smashed avocados along with the garlic and stir. Next you'll want to grab your limes and firmly press your hand on the lime and roll. This will loosen up the fruit and make it easier to juice. After you loosen up the limes slice them in half and squeeze the juice over the guacamole. 

Next, you stir in the lime juice add some garlic salt and pepper to taste. Then enjoy!

If you try this recipe out I hope you enjoy it! It's always a hit in my house.

On a different note, my mom bought me this cute lemon container today and I'm really excited! I love lemon water so there's always lemons in the house and now I have a place to store the other half of the lemon until I need to use it! Sure, I could just use a tupperware container or a ziploc baggy, but this way is just more fun!

A Day Redeemed

Today was interesting, I didn’t have a particularly good day, in fact it could be considered a pretty lousy one. I had to work from 10-6 today, but I forgot my lunch at home. My nose can’t decide whether it wants to be stuffed up or leaking snot so my indecisive nose keeps giving me headaches and stomach aches. Both of my knees are swollen and my boss shorted me sixteen hours worth of pay on my paycheck. All sorts of icky things kept happening today, but I just could not get upset over it. My heart has just been overflowing with joy all day God just kept wooing me with the little things. A beautiful sunrise, wonderful time in the Bible, one of my favorite songs on the radio, a butterfly landing on my shoulder, a lady bringing her trained therapy dog into the store and getting to play with him, working on some crafty things to mail to my friend Erica who is on Summer Project in Colorado, a customer offering to pick up lunch for me, a customer sharing her recent hardships with me and being able to sit with her, then have her accept when I offered to pray with/for her, and a beautiful evening to enjoy a walk at the reservoir with my family. There’s nothing sweeter than being pursued by God in the midst of what could be a no-good-very-bad-day. 

Blogging, Round 2.

I’m afraid that my blog bested me my first time out, but this time around I’m going to try and post at least once a week. I believe that making a commitment to myself will actually help me continue my blogging.

This post will be a bit hodge podgy, but I love randomness so that's okay by me. 

Today has been such a beautiful day. I was able to talk to one of my sweet friends Lauren on the phone today and just share life with her. Lauren just recently moved two-hours away from me so having these moments with her are like a balm for my soul. Lauren is truly someone who is beautiful inside and out and I just adore her.

Another wonderful thing happened today; Jonathan accepted his spot in The University of Findlay’s Doctor of Pharmacy program! He will start in the fall as a P2 student and I am so incredibly proud of my man! He has worked so hard and I couldn’t be happier for him.

Okay, it's confession time. I have started playing RPGs. Yes. Me. I once mocked those who played and now I am one of them. Recently, Jonathan and I have played two games within the Hero System, one was a fantasy style where I was a drawf and the other set in space where I was psion. They were very different, but I’ve loved them both. Our friend Ben has been creating these games so that he can take them to conventions to teach others about the Hero system. Ben has done a wonderful job with the games and I am really looking 

forward to playing a game set in the Victorian era on Sunday.

The song Beautiful Things has been stuck in my head the past two days and I wanted to share. God does make beautiful things and what a sweet reminder this song is.

Beautful Things- Gungor

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us