The Ramseys

Natural Cleaners: What Stuck

2012-01-27T10:25:00.000-07:00

Remember a while back when I laid out my plan to make a complete switch to natural cleaners? Well, time has revealed which things stuck and which didn't.

Things that stuck:

Laundry detergent I'm still using a "natural" detergent that costs around 9-10 dollars for 80 loads. So far, Ava has avoided all rashes and our clothes are clean.

Dryer sheets I'm using Seventh Generation's non-toxic dryer sheets. They don't have a scent. I really just use them to avoid my arch nemesis, static. Nothing on Earth can make me as crazy as static cling. Just ask Brian. More than once, I've screamed, "Get up! Get up!" as I've ripped static-filled sheets from our bed.

Laundry pretreat It works just as well as anything else and there really isn't a cost difference. This stuff is pricey either way you go.

Household Cleaners (multi surface, anti-bac, etc.) They non-toxic cleaners are easier on me as far as headaches and generally feeling yucky as I clean.

Baby Lotion I use coconut oil (the kind you cook with) on Ava and it exceeds any other product I've tried. She tries to lick anything you apply to her face, so I feel a lot safer with something that's actually edible.

Deoderant We've been back and forth on this one. I've made my own. It didn't work for me because it was too abrasive and the store bought kind didn't cut it at the end of the day. So I very defeatedly went back antiperspirant. Since then, a friend gave me a jar from a local natural's store that is the stuff. Better than antiperspirant!

Airfresheners/candles/etc I've started using essential oils in our humidifiers and in candles or boiling on the stove with water. It's an nice way to freshen my house without commercial sprays or candles that give me a headache.

Things that didn't stick:

Shampoo and body soap Baking soda and vinegar just didn't work for my haircare routine. And Brian was embarrassed by it. And thought the vinegar smelled bad, so that was the end of that. I think I'll give some more mainstream natural products a try at some point. But for now I'm just finishing what we have.

Dishwasher detergent I had a hard time finding anything that didn't cost a million dollars.

So all in all, we've made some good changes and it's been fun using products that I like a lot more. I just wanted to follow up with at least one my promises to update you on a project since I always say I will and then never do. For instance, our apartment progress. It's coming along my friends. Maybe one day I'll post some pictures.

Our New Place- Week 1

2011-11-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

It's our first week in our new place. So far we are enjoying the new space. It definitely has it's quirks, but we're working to find creative solutions for them. Today I'm posting pictures of each room at the "work in progress" stage.

All our books are still in boxes in our closets (we put them in the closets because they were blocking our walkways.) Once we make a decision about wether or not to keep our monster white bookshelf, then we can either shelve them there or get new bookshelves so we can use our storage space to actually store stuff :)

The kitchen is going to be the hardest room to organize. There is a lot less cabinet space than I anticipated, so I need some help finding the most efficient setup. I'll also probably end up buying a free standing storage of some kind.

The living room is also going to be tricky. We think it's going to be necessary to part with one piece of furniture. We aren't sure which one yet. Once we choose, we'll most likely be moving the glider in here where it will take up less space and accent the color scheme nicely.

Yes, that is John and Marlena on the TV. And no, we do not watch Days. I swear! I just turned it on and it was already on that channel from the morning news.

See what I mean about it being a little tight in here?

Not sure what I'm going to do with the mantel. I'm thinking I'll paint the mirror white and hang it above.

Remember these lanterns? I finally got around to painting them, but the white is kind of blah. The fireplace is disgusting even after lots of scrubbing. I think I'm going to find a way to detach the metal curtains and leave it open with some decor inside. we don't like wood burning fire places because of the smoke.

That red box is filled with my bakeware that has no place to go right now. I eventually want to have a coat rack and hang my in/out box here.

This is the biggest bedroom space we've ever had! I love the big window because without blackout shades, it gets me going in the morning. I have some ideas for curtains and accent colors but it will be a while since this will be my last room to subdue.

This is the only bedroom that my hope chest has not overcrowded.

The corner shelf is nice, but will have to go to make room for the treadmill.

This is the only room where we can fit the treadmill. It definitely isn't sexy, but it's functional and I can work with that until we have a multipurpose room one day.

I really needed Ava's room to be fully functional asap, so I got to work on it Monday and I'm enjoying the fruits of my labor. I still need to delete the coffee table that we're using for a changing table ...

And move the dresser to a different wall ...

And organize the closet ...

Even so, it's the closest room in the apartment to being finished.

The bathroom is just depressing. It's blindingly white and dingy and in need of a really creative storage solution. I have no idea what to do with it yet.

So there it is. My goal is to update my weekly progress until I've whipped this place into shape. I would love your ideas and suggestions for making our new home beautiful and functional!

Want to Hear a Joke?

2011-10-26T11:47:00.000-06:00

I'm washing my sheets for the second time this week. Ava had the biggest poopy diaper of her life in bed with me this morning. I still haven't figured out a contingency plan for that kind of poopy disaster. Poop up to my elbows, on the sheets, all over Ava. What do you clean first? I went with my arm, then Ava, then the sheets, then Ava again.

All that poop reminded me of the joke about the two brothers. Do you know the one I'm talking about? One brother, a pessimist, asked for a room full of toys for Christmas. The other, an optimist, asked for a pony. On Christmas morning the pessimist awoke to a room full of toys just like he'd wanted, only the batteries were not included so it was the "worst Christmas ever!" The optimist, on the other hand, awoke to a room full of poop. He grabbed his shovel and started digging because, "with all this poop, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

As a mom, I can choose to be one of those two boys when we have an epic mess like this morning. And thankfully this morning I grabbed my proverbial shovel and started digging because all that poop was just evidence of how blessed I am to have Ava to be able to stay at home with her.

Which leads to me think about my friends who had the same kind of morning but only after cleaning up themselves, the baby and the sheets had to put on their makeup and head out the door to their 9-5 job. You are amazing mommies and I pray God continues to give you extra strength and grace as you work both at home and away.

Update

2011-10-10T16:01:00.001-06:00

BeBe (my mom) is coming to visit this week! She hasn't seen Ava since she came to visit when Ava was born. We're all excited. We're going to keep the trip simple since Mom will probably just want to cuddle with Ava the whole time. I'm hoping to get a little decorating and organizing help from her in between cuddle sessions. Mom's a huge fan of Biaggi's Italian restaraunt and Wholefoods cafe, so I'm sure we'll hit those up as well.

Ava started eating solids this weekend. It was kind of a big deal around here. Since her 4 month Well Baby appointment 3 weeks ago, I've been planning on making rice cereal and starting her on solids. Making rice cereal isn't that hard. You just grind brown rice in the blender until it's a powder and cook it with water for 10 minutes. But even though it isn't that hard, I just couldn't muster the will to actually do it. I made it easy on myself and just picked up some organic rice cereal at the grocery store. I'm increasingly becoming less hardcore the longer I have Ava and the less I sleep.

This Sunday our pastor is going to be out of town, so in lieu of a sermon a few of us will be sharing our Grassroots stories. Brian and I are going to be talking about what it means to be the church as opposed to going to church, something God used Grassroots to really bring home for us. I'm thankful for the opportunity because this topic has been especially close to my heart lately. Next week I'll plan to share a summary of our story with you and maybe I'll have some pictures from Sunday as well.

What I Love About Moving

2011-09-29T10:30:00.000-06:00

You know what I love about moving? It's certainly not the packing. Not the cleaning the old house and the new house. Not having to bribe and beg your friends and family to help. Although I do enjoy all the purging I do before a move. When I give away a box or bag to Goodwill, I get a type-A organizational high. But that's not what I'm talking about.

What I love about moving is the motivation to make our new place more beautiful and functional than the last. I have ridiculously detailed plans for every room (even the teeny, tiny bathroom) in our new apartment.

Since we are saving on the new apartment, I have a little bit of an initial decorating/organizing budget. I'm going to try use to as little of it as possible on actual decorating so we can do something fun for both of us like a new TV.

One of my besties is moving too. Fortunately she is moving before me, so I can rummage through all her goodwill castoffs from her move. Today while helping her with some last minute moving I accquired:

Two black lamps that are big enough to actually provide light in the living room and are my style (I'll need to paint these to blend into my lighter color scheme and get new shades since these a little banged up)

Three small red metal lanterns that will look awesome above my fire place (also will need to paint)

A large Monet flower print that will tie all my living room colors together (I'll need to frame it, so I'll keep an eye out for Hobby Lobby's 1/2 off framing sale)

So these are my "free finds" for the new place. Can't wait to get started on their transformation!

Transforming

2011-09-28T12:09:00.000-06:00

If we are in Christ we are going to be continually transforming from our old selves to our new selves by His grace. Sometimes the changes are dramatic and rapid and sometimes they are subtle and slow. Today, I'm rejoicing over one of those subtle and slow changes in my life and I thought I'd share it with you so you could rejoice too.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember my post about taking over our budget and how I spent the first year of our marriage freaking out about money. Money is one of those things that brings out the true condition of my heart. I'm happy if the budget is in balance and all of our bills are paid on time and there are no unexpected expenses. If one of those things go awry, I'm depressed and sulking.

So normally when an unexpected expense crops up I feel cheated. The money I had intended for something else (it could be as small as a latte or as big as new dining room table) must now go to this hugely inconvenient unexpected expense. Or even worse, when I feel the Lord asking me to give money to someone or something I feel the same way.

For a long time now, I've practiced preaching the truth to myself in these circumstances: "Ashley, you can give this money/pay this unexpected expense gladly because your money is not yours, it's God's. He knew _______ would break and need to be repaired or He choose to meet this person's need through you." But no matter how much I told myself this truth, my heart still felt all those nasty selfish feelings. Until recently ...

We've had some small unexpected expenses the past couple months. The kind that would normally send me into a tantrum (just being honest, people. I never said it was pretty). But instead of going berserk over a 12.00 charge, I let it go knowing it's only 12 bucks and God is taking care of all our needs and a lot of our wants.

Well on Monday evening, I was leaving the apartment to make a cookie run when my car died in the parking lot. No warning. Just died. I tried to restart it to no avail. So I called Brian to come out and work with the car while I sprinted back in to be with Ava.

And not once did the repair costs cross my mind. I don't know if it will cost 100.00 or 1000.00 to fix the problem, but I'm still not sulking and I don't feel cheated. And believe me, there are a lot of things on my wish list that will have to be pushed back because of this unexpected expense. But it's okay because my money isn't really mine anyway. Neither is my car. It's all God's and I finally believe it in my heart as well as my head. Let's hope this transformation sticks when I get the bill from the mechanic ;)

Pumpkin Soup

2011-09-27T17:05:00.002-06:00

Two of my girlfriends and I had a Harvest Tea last week. Ava slept through our actual tea time, so I was able to enjoy real tea cups and adult conversation. I tried to keep it classy by using my cloth napkins and not talking about poop.

I contributed pumpkin soup for our Harvest themed entree. I read a few different recipes and adapted them to fit what I had and it turned out great. I'm thinking about bringing this to Thanksgiving dinner.

Harvest Tea Pumpkin Soup

4 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 large red onion, diced
1-¼ teaspoon Curry Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
¼ teaspoons Ground Coriander
⅛ teaspoons Cayenne Pepper (more To Taste)
3 cups Chicken Broth
1 can Pumpkin (15-16 Oz, Solid Pack)
1 or a little more cups half and half
a pinch red chili pepper paste

Melt butter and saute onions and garlic until golden brown. Add spices and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in broth and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Add pumpkin, stirring till smooth. Add half and half. Heat over medium heat for 5 minutes. Puree. I pureed mine with an immersion blender. It wasn't as smooth as I prefer, so next time I'll probably go to the trouble of putting in the blender.

In other news, Ava is rolling both from front to back and back to front. She is a very vocal baby, talking and cooing and squealing a lot. We love it. Except when we're trying to watch Psych (it's impossible to hear over her jabbering.) So we turn off the TV, thankful for the reminder that these early months fly by, and just enjoy her.

We are moving November 1st. We've been trying to relocate to an area here called Cragmoor. This is one of the areas of the city that our church is trying to reach, so we've been praying and looking at apartments there for a while. Last week we found one that will not only meet our space needs (unless you count my need for my own bathroom and an excessive amount of storage), but also will allow us to ~~save~~ pay Sallie Mae a nice chunk of money every month.

Since we are saving on rent, I'm going to have a decorating budget! I've got most of my paint colors picked out. If you have any paint suggestions or tips, I'd love to hear them.

7AM Grocery Trip

2011-09-20T10:17:00.002-06:00

I have found a new way to buy groceries. This is a big deal people! Grocery shopping is the single hardest part of my week. Ava is no longer napping in public, so taking her on a grocery trip means sacrificing a nap and having to shlep her and bags of groceries in the house. It's a nightmare. If you've been there, you either know exactly what I mean or think I'm being a total drama queen.

My MIL comes by once a week to let me run errands, but I can never finish all my shopping in that one trip. Yesterday she stayed with Ava while I did Costco and made some returns. Costco's produce has been sub-par (as in rotten) lately, so I still had all my produce left to get.

This morning I planned on sleeping an extra hour while Brian ate breakfast and hung out with Ava (Brian gets Ava up and keeps her with him for his morning routine every morning that he doesn't have church meetings at 6am), but while he was in the shower I heard Ava's congested breathing and knew if I ignored her any longer I'd feel like a child abuser. So, I got up and de-congested her nose. I won't go into detail about the decongesting procedure- it's far too glamourous. You'll just be jealous.

And then I had a crazy thought, "If I throw on some sweat pants and brush my teeth I can have a full hour to grocery shop before Brian goes to work ... and maybe I can grab a latte while I'm out." The last part of that thought is what got me out the door.

I had a full glorious hour to drive around praying, drinking my latte and getting my shop on. Now I don't have to find someone to stay with Ava or risk throwing off her nap schedule! I'm doing this every week.

Anyone else found creative ways to get errands or shopping done?

Beans

2011-09-15T11:15:00.001-06:00

I made crockpot refried beans without the refry this week. I wish I had pictures, but I ate them so fast I couldn't snap one in time. Just kidding, I'm super lazy when it comes to taking pictures of anything but Ava.

I recommend the crockpot refried beans. I bought a huge bag of dry pintos a while back, so instead of buying refried beans this week I figured I could actually act on the frugality I had in mind when I purchased them and make my own. Here's how I did it:

3 cups dry beans, rinsed

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped

1 red onion, chopped

4 whole cloves of garlic, peeled

2 T fat (I used butter, but you could use olive oil)

2 t salt (I used 1 T and 1 t and it was too much salt)

1 t pepper

big dash of cumin (I didn't measure)

9 cups water

I cooked these on high for 10 hours. At about hour 8, I pulled enough beans out for dinner and let the rest keep cooking. When they were tender, I pulled out the whole garlic cloves (some of them had broken apart and I left those in). Then I drained the juice and set it aside to add back in as needed. I used my immersion blender to blend them into a refried consistency and added the juice as needed. You could use a potato masher if you don't have an immersion blender (that's what the recipe I adapted this from called for).

I separated them into small containers for lunches this week and a large container to freeze for dinner next week. I'll be making these again soon, but I'll probably double my batch so I can freeze more. I make beans and brown rice (with a salad on the side of course!) for dinner often. It's really affordable since I buy the beans and rice in bulk bags and easy to prepare as long as I give myself enough time. It's been a great way to save on groceries and have leftovers for lunches.

The end.

P.S. I ended the detox last week when Brian brought home my ice cream cake. I did "cheat" a few times during the detox. But each time, the sugar was too much for me since I had kind of gotten it out of my system. Even my beloved Baskin Robbins Ice cream cake made me feel yucky. I'm not as drawn to refined sugars now as I was, so I feel like I accomplished my goal.

Having a Small Town Heart

2011-09-01T09:44:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I actually wrote something of substance. Something not about refined sugars, cleaning products, or baby gear ;)

But right before I posted it on here I thought It would be better to post it on my church's blog which I contribute to when the urge strikes. You can check out my post, Having a Small Town Heart in the City over at the GrassRoots Blog.

Another Crazy Homemade Product

2011-08-20T20:22:00.001-06:00

Brian is out of town today which means I am double sleep deprived and bored out of my mind. One can only clean a 900 square ft. apartment so much. I need another adult to talk to like I needed a double shot latte this morning. I do silly things when I'm alone and bored. Like rinsing my hair with vinegar.

Yes, I did it. I read on Pioneer Woman that it saved her hair. And I'm here to tell ya, I think it saved mine too. You can read her explanation of it here. Basically, she says it removes build up from your hair the same way it cleans your coffee pot. And I must agree. My hair feels great and it looks pretty good too. See?

And while I'm waxing on about hair, I want to let you know that washing your hair with baking soda is not all I said it was a couple posts ago. It was full and clean feeling on day one, but on day two it felt nasty, just nasty. I know no other way to describe it.

While I've gotcha here let me update you on the detox. I'm no longer offering to give up my first born for a cookie after dinner. The intense dessert cravings have passed. And just to be on the up and up, Brian and I did have birthday dessert at our brother-in-law's birthday party last week. We agreed ahead of time that it was okay.

Cloth Diapers take two

2011-08-17T14:25:00.001-06:00

As soon as my friend Stevie found out I was expecting, she started hassling me about cloth diapering. I was adamant that there were a lot of "natural" things I was going to for Ava like breastfeed, stagger her immunization schedule, make babyfood from scatch, use natural medicines and health products, but cloth diapering was not one of those things.

Then I watched the HUGE bag of diapers being taken out to the trash a few times a week by my Diaper-Genie-handling husband and I felt a little guilty. About the landfills. If you know me, you know that being "green" is a little lower on my list of priorities, but even my environmentally stone-cold heart was starting to twinge at all those diapers.

So I ordered a couple cloth diapers (gdiapers to be precise). They are adorable ... and leaky. My other friends who use them say they don't leak for them so I'm sure it's a user error. Even so, I'm a little discouraged. All my efforts to save the planet and make my baby's bottom even more adorable have been met with poop, leaky poop.

I got a Bum-genius brand diaper in the mail today so I'll give it a shot before I officially throw in the towel. I'm pretty sure I'm going back to Pampers though. They are so absorbent and soft and easy and not leaky. And I can Subscribe and Save on Amazon and get them so affordably.

If you have any suggestions for better cloth diapering, I'd love to hear them.

Sugar Detox Day 3-What we do instead

2011-08-16T16:44:00.001-06:00

We're still hanging in there :)

The more I've thought about my detox, I've realized it isn't actually a sugar detox so much as a "sweets" or dessert detox. It would probably be beneficial to cut all sugars out of my diet for a period of time, but like I said yesterday I'm just not that hardcore.

I've found that when I'm trying to stop doing something, it's not enough to just eliminate a bad or undesired behavior. I also need to put something good or better in it's place.

The last three evenings after dinner Brian and I have gone for a long walk around our neighborhood in place of having a several cookies. We load Ava up in the stroller and take a loop that runs through the park. At the park we watch people play frisbee with their dogs and dad's teaching their kids how to ride a bike. I noticed last night that we see the same people over and over again and that really gives me a sense of community, of being connected to the people around us.

We've even been playing on the playground a little ourselves. Is that creepy or youthful? I'm not sure. Either way, it's been a really sweet time for our little family. Last night while we played on the monkey bars (no, I'm not kidding) we reminisced about our elementary school playgrounds. It turns out we had very different playground equipment even though we were in school at the same time.

In giving up dessert we've found more energy than we previously thought we had in the evenings, more time to make memories instead of cookies, and found out new things about each other. So far, this is a win-win. Or if you're an Office fan, a win-win-win. ;)

Sugar Detox

2011-08-15T15:38:00.000-06:00

Every week I make a big batch of whole wheat chocolate chip cookie dough. And every evening after dinner Brian rolls six cookies into balls and puts them in the oven. I have been convincing myself that they are a "healthy" dessert since they are whole wheat and I use less sugar than the recipe calls for. And I really do believe they are relatively healthy, in moderation. Three cookies every evening is not what I would call moderation. (Not to mention my occasional afternoon cookie pick-me-up.)

One night last week when I asked Brian if he was going to make cookies, he said "we don't need cookies every night."

I was horrified. "What? Who told you that? They're a liar whoever they are!"

So I got up and made my own batch of cookies. And you know what? He ate some.

The next day I got to thinking about my ~~crazy~~ irrational reaction about the cookies. Maybe we didn't need cookies every night. The problem was that I really did. I was addicted. So I decided that as of Sunday, yesterday, I was going to go on a sugar detox so that I really wouldn't need cookies. I want to have them and enjoy them, but I don't want to need them.

Yesterday was day 1 of the sugar detox and it was hard. I think I said "I want a cookie" 600 times. It didn't help that yesterday morning we made a huge batch of my favorite cookies for our church picnic but since we were an hour late to church (read: completely exhausted and cranky) decided not to go. So the cookies sat on our counter all day and called to me.

I am not being hardcore about what defines sugar. I will still put honey in my muffins and if we have french toast for brunch on Saturday, I will still use maple syrup. I'm not however, putting sugar in my coffee or eating "sweets." I also will not be using any "sugar-free" products. I never do and never will knowingly put an artificial sugar substitute in my food. The calories and fat you save using these products are more than cancelled out by the health risks of using these fake substances, IMO.

Brian is doing the detox too. He's such a team player. Any time I want to do something like this for health reasons, he's quick to join me. It would be a different story if I said I was doing this to lose my last 10 Ava pounds. He would refuse to join me, tell me that he doesn't know what 10 pounds I'm talking about and that I do not need to lose weight. Do you see why I love this man? But since this is about health and not weight, he's happy to oblige.

Today is the second day of my detox and I'm feeling pretty confident after making it through last night with those cookies on the counter. I'm planning to detox until my birthday on September 9th. Then I shall eat a big piece of Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.

I'm posting this more for me than for your reading pleasure. If I make my detox public, I'll be more likely to stick with it. So I'll keep you updated on my progress and what strategies I'm employing to stay sugar-free.

Simplifying My Household Cleansers

2011-08-11T12:13:00.000-06:00

I'm slowly working to simplify my list of household and personal cleaners. Rather than having one product that cleans the floor, another for the counter, another for the bathroom, and another for mirrors I'm trying to move toward one or two products for everything. At the same time I'm trying to move away from toxic cleaners to more safe products.

I have a few reasons for this. My first reason is simplify our life. The more products I use, the more likely I am to run out of something and need to make a trip out. Anyone with a baby knows running to the store isn't as easy as it used to be. In fact, it's a real hassle.

The second reason is to save money. I've found that I can buy a HUGE bag of baking soda for less than 5 dollars and use it for many, many things. I use it to clean my bathroom, wash my hair, freshen my laundry and soak my dishes. I know washing my hair with baking soda sounds a little extreme, but I love it! My hair has never had so much volume. Another way I've saved money on personal products is reading the labels of the things I currently buy and figuring out what I can make myself. I buy natural toothpaste and mouthwash. Well, after reading the mouthwash label I saw it has a lot of essential oils like tea tree oil. So I did a little research on tea tree oil and found that some people use a few drops of it in water and use that for mouthwash. It doesn't taste as good as my store bought mouthwash, but it works great and costs almost nothing!

My third reason is I truly do want a less toxic household. As soon as I brought Ava home her presence in the house limited when and how I use toxic cleaners like bleach. I hate when I clean the bathroom and find the fumes have lingered into her nursery. I also get freaked out by how close she is to my super high aluminum count deodorant when she's nursing. So I switched to Arm and Hammer natural deodorant, and I'm not lying it's worked just as a well as my clinical strength antiperspirant.

I also realized it didn't do a lot of good to wash her clothes in baby detergent if I was washing everything else in Gain. So when I ran out of her Dreft rather than buying more expensive baby detergent, I researched non-toxic detergents for the whole family. I found Charlie's Soap and I love it! It's the same cost as what I was buying at Costco but we all can use it.

I'm not obsessed with having a non-toxic home and I certainly don't judge other people who clean with Scrubbin' Bubblesa and Mr. Clean. I've gleaned a little here and there for a while now and I'm feeling more adventurous about trying the things I've learned. I'm not throwing away my old products, only replacing as a run out. As I make these changes for our family I want to take baby steps that actually save us money and make our lives easier.

My goal is by the end of 2012 to have simplified to as few natural products as possible. I know that's a long way away, but I set the goal out there for a reason. I want this project of mine to serve our family; I don't want to become a slave to this project. I figured if I set it farther out than it would actually take to make the changes, I won't do anything frivolous to accomplish my goal.

I know some of you are probably thinking, "just buy some Lysol and get a life." And maybe you would have a point :) But I feel pretty empowered by understanding how cleansers work and making educated choices about the products I use in my home. I'm also in a season of life where I do have time for this kind of stuff. Days are coming when I won't, so I'm taking advantage of it!

Baby Lilie Update

2011-07-22T14:57:00.002-06:00

Please continue to remember Lilie's family today. We got this update from our pastor just a little while ago:

It is a very sad day, Family. Robby and Jenna are saying their goodbyes to their beautiful daughter Lilie. Words can't express the sorrow we feel for Robby, Jenna and family. We mourn for them and can't understand "WHY?"

Lord Jesus in our confusion and pain we take comfort knowing that Lilie will be in your arms. Lord Jesus, we ask that through your Spirit you would overwhelm Robby and Jenna with your Love, grace, mercy, strength and comfort. Comfort that can only come from you during this time.

I have no words of my own today. They all fall very short of the reverence due Lilie and her family, but I wanted to share this update and say thank you for joining us in praying for Lilie and Robby and Jenna.

Baby Lilie

2011-07-21T10:35:00.004-06:00

Lilie is the newborn daughter of our friends Robby and Jenna and as I write this she is fighting for her life in the NICU.

Brian and I have wept and prayed for this child since the night she was born. Normally, I only allow myself to empathize with the suffering of others for a moment before I mentally change the subject and get on with my life, but lately I've lingered there in the misty-eyed moments hurting with my friends who hurt, allowing the things that grieve God's heart to grieve mine.

I've found it's a hard place to be because the cliches aren't enough and I don't have the answer. I know some things for certain and those are the things I'm meditating on as I pray for little Lilie today.

God created us to live forever. Not just spiritually, but physically too. Our bodies were not designed to fail.
Sin has made a mess of God's creation. Our efforts to be good fail. Our economies fail. Our marriages fail. Our bodies fail.
God has a rescuing plan to save us from our failure. His name is Jesus.
One day that plan will come to completion in a new heaven and a new earth and with new bodies that will live forever with Jesus, our Rescuer.

It's all the stuff in between our failure and our rescue that I'm unsure of. It's intellectually more than I can do to piece all this together to form a theology of suffering. So today I'm just going to lift Lilie up to our Rescuer and trust in the things that I know are true about Him. He loves Lilie and He loves her parents. And if their pain hurts my broken, sinful heart, I know it hurts His perfect, loving heart.

Will you pray for Lilie and her parents today?

Recent Pictures :)

2011-07-20T10:36:00.001-06:00

Cuddle time with Daddy after work

Saving it for later

Sunday afternoon walk

Baby Product Review

2011-07-04T11:58:00.005-06:00

I have a lot of friends who are having babies. You know who you are ;-) So I thought I'd give a little product review of things we've been using the past six weeks for those who are interested. I emailed a list of ladies before I had Ava to get their "essentials" list and their advice was helpful in choosing what we would purchase and what we wouldn't. Maybe my review can help some you.

Moby Wrap

I read rave review after rave review for this wrap. And I have to say it has major perks, but also some pretty significant drawbacks. It's very womb-like for the baby once she's in it. Ava has taken an hour and a half nap in the Moby while at church. When I wear her in the Moby at gatherings like church, she sleeps peacefully, I can stand and worship with everyone else while only having to look down and kiss her head to know she's okay, and people don't try and touch her because that would require getting in my personal space. And if you're a germaphobe like me, that's a major plus.

The Moby is hard to wrap. It took me several times of watching the instructional video to be able to wrap it without guidance. Even though I've got the basic wrap down now, it's a hassle to do. I usually wrap it before we leave for an outing if I think I am going to use it. It's so long that wrapping it in a parking lot or store would mean letting the wrap touch the ground while wrapping- yuck.

Another thing to think about it that is isn't exactly masculine looking. If you're only going to buy one carrier and you want one you and your husband can use this might not be it. Brian wouldn't want to wear this one because it does look a little weird on a man (there are pictures of a man wearing it on the instructional booklet) and because it would take too much time to learn to wrap. But that's just my opinion. I would be really interested to hear if the moby has worked well for other couple's to share.

Ergo Baby Carrier

I had to buy an infant insert to go with the Ergo Baby. It's a little padded pouch that you put the baby inside to cushion their head. It was an extra 25.00 which I didn't mind since the carrier itself was a gift. If you want to use the Ergo with your newborn you'll need the insert. I could have used the Moby until she was old enough and then switched to the Ergo, but the Ergo is much faster to put on and Brian likes it too.

The infant carrier is padded which makes it hard to use in high temps. I've taken Ava hiking with it in the midday heat and I was worried the entire time that she was too hot. That doesn't make for a very fun outing. If we wear it at night when it's cooler, it works really well. So it depends on how you plan to use it.

Overall, I love the Ergo but I think I would get more use out of the infant insert with a winter baby.

Bright Stars Comfort and Harmony Swing

This swing has lots of different speeds and plays music. It's also small and easily condenses to store in a closet or out of the way. Since we have a small space it's perfect for us. Ava isn't a huge fan of the swing yet but I'm glad we have it to keep trying with her and for future little Ramseys.

Infantino Play Gym

This play gym is super cute. I love the colors and the toy attachments. Just beware of washing all the toys. One ~~makes~~ made music until I washed it. See germaphobe reference above. This has been nice to lay Ava on for tummy time. She's not old enough to appreciate the toys on it yet, but I use it because it's easy to clean and more padded than a blanket. This particular play gym can be set up with one hand, which is handy when you have a baby in the other. I think any version of the play gym is probably great.

Large Flannel Receiving Blankets

Two of my friends made double-sided flannel receiving blankets for us. They have been great for swaddling. For the first month I used the very thin Aden + Anias swaddling blankets and Ava wriggled her way out of them every time. Then one night it was cold and Brian put her in one of the flannels and she didn't get even an arm out AND she slept longer. Two hours longer. On the nights that it's warm in the house, I open our windows to make it cool enough to still swaddle her in the flannel because everyone needs two extra hours of sleep. ;)

Aden and Anias Swaddle Blankets

These are just a thin brand of swaddle blankets you can get at Target. They are on the pricey side ($30 for a 4 pack) but the perfect price for a baby gift. Like I said above, they aren't the best to swaddle with IMO, but they are great for keeping sun off of your baby in the carrier on a hot day, covering the carrier in public for the baby to nap, and to cover yourself when nursing. Basically, they are incredibly versatile, great for summer, and I love them. If you know of any blankets like these that are cheaper, let me know!

MAM Pacifiers
I resisted the paci for Ava's first two weeks. My mother begged me to buy one. Then my friend from Tennessee, who I emailed every day for the first month of Ava's life for advice, decided I needed a mini paci intervention and called me and told me to "get that baby a paci." Her position was that babies will self soothe with their thumb or fingers if you don't give them a pacifier and when it's time to ween them off you can take a paci away but you can't cut off their digits. That got my attention. I started out with the hospital style pacifier but Ava wouldn't take it because even the newborn was too big her her. Then I got a MAM. They are the same shape on top and bottom for better orthodontics.

Bouncer
We have a Fisher Price vibrations bouncer. Ava hangs out in it while I cook and shower. At her age it's the best way to keep her happy while she's awake and I'm trying to get things done. This is definitely a must-have for us.

Travel System
We got the chicco travel system. It was highly recommended to us by many friends. I like that it clips in and out of the car easily and I think it's a nice looking product. But it's heavy and it doesn't fit easily into shopping carts. I'm not sure if there are better travel systems out there, so I don't know if I'd prefer another one. Overall, I like this one but I don't love it.

These products have made our lives a little easier and we are blessed to have them. But I don't think any of them are essential to having a happy household with a newborn.

What's Really Important
The things I've found to be truly important have nothing to do with baby gear. It's important to sleep when they sleep. I think everyone I came in contact with those first few weeks told me that and I should have listened. Every one of my postpartum meltdowns was due to sleep deprivation.

It's important to connect with your spouse. Staying on the same page when your world has just been turned upside down by your newborn is tough. It's helped to have at least 20 minutes every evening when Brian I can connect.

It's important to stay close to Jesus. Those first few weeks I could barely brush my teeth much less have a "quiet time." Fortunately, I had gotten a short devotional book the week before Ava was born that I kept by my glider. At our first morning feeding I would read a page out loud to Ava. My smallest efforts to draw near to God were met by Him in big ways. I think I will always remember those early days with Ava being very, very weak and having God carry me in His arms like never before.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Happy 4th!

What Do You Do?

2011-06-15T15:49:00.001-06:00

"What do you do?" It's probably the most common question to ask someone when you're making small talk or trying to get to know them. I ask new people at church that question a lot. I don't actually like the question but after I ask, "How'd you find out about GrassRoots?," it seems like the only thing left to ask someone I don't know.

I don't like the question because it indicates that what you do is who you are or is how you find value or something like that. You know what I mean? And that's been confirmed for me by how people answer the question. In this economy a lot of people are going back to school or working jobs they don't like or unemployed or underemployed. So when they answer the question they answer in a tone that says they're not very proud of what they do. And then I feel bad for asking.

So my question for you is, what's a better question to ask? Is there a way to get to know someone better without asking what they do? Or just a better way to ask the question.

A Good Day

2011-06-09T13:04:00.003-06:00

Today is a good day. My awesome, baby whispering husband put Ava down at 10pm last night and she slept till 1am. When I fed her at 1am and 5am, she went back down without a sound. This made for the most sleep I've had since she was born. I feel so alive today!

Other good things include getting back into pre-pregnancy jeans. Even though they were my "I ate two slices of cheesecake last night jeans," not my "I ran three miles this morning jeans" and Ava threw up all over them less than an hour after putting them on, it still made me happy. I'm not sure who has to change clothes more times in a day, me or Ava.

I'm getting a hair cut today! A friend recommended a salon that's right beside my house, which is awesome because until I teach Ava how to take a bottle (I will I swear, I've just been busy) I'm always on a 2 1/2 hour countdown when I leave the house. As for the cut, I think I'm going to go shorter. But not this short.

That was a mistake of epic proportions. Any suggestions for the new do?

Another good thing is Joe Thorn's book Note To Self. The book is made up of about 50 short notes where the author helps you preach truth to yourself on a slew of different topics. If it weren't for this book, I'm not sure how i'd be having a quiet time right now. I recommend it for everyone, but especially for someone who's in a busy season of life. The Resurgence has published several of the "notes" as blog posts if you want to read an excerpt.

All of these small things are just gifts from a very good God. The best thing of all the good thing from today is just knowing I'm His child- a concept that has become even sweeter in the recent weeks.

Welcome Ava

2011-06-04T21:34:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you've seen Ava's pictures on Facebook, but I figured I'd post a few here for her blog debut. When I'm a little less sleep deprived I'll share her birth story, including how I went from being Mrs. All Natural to Mrs. Say Yes to Drugs. It's a wonderful 25 hour saga ;)

In the Hospital

First Bath at Home

Emergency Car Feeding

Car Burping

Hair Styling with BeBe

Weekend Update

2011-05-10T12:22:00.000-06:00

Brian and I had such a productive weekend! Friday evening we had planned on getting in some face time at the Wholefoods coffee bar to review our marriage small group material, but we got so caught up in the nursery that we ran out of coffee bar time and had to settle for a late night grocery trip.

Saturday morning we had our friends Jason and Stevie over for breakfast. Since we're not sure how having Ava is going to change our routines for a while we wanted one last pre-baby hurrah with them.

After waffles, they helped us with some nursery stuff like figuring out how our wrap and baby carrier work. We practiced with a stuffed bear.

Brian's was much easier than mine.

Then the four of us took our cars to a local car wash. Brian's and my car needed vacuuming in the worst way. We wanted to clean them before we installed our car seat. Which Brian did all by himself even though everyone had told us we'd need professional help because it was so hard. That's one thing about engineers, they can read an instruction manual!

Also this weekend, Brian gave me roses for my first ever Mother's Day gift. Wasn't that awesome?

Today we had our 38 week appointment. I tested negative for group B strep, so I don't have to have an IV during delivery and we won't have to stay an extra day in the hospital. I was prepared for it if we did, but I'm so glad we don't!

Friday

2011-05-06T18:12:00.000-06:00

I called this post "Friday" because I have no direction about what I'm about to say. I just feel like bloggin' and it's Friday.

Today my MIL came over and we she worked on the crib skirt for Ava's room. I originally bought the fabric for a crib bumper, but thanks to the hospital and the CDC, I have been scared out of using one. I figured a skirt could add the same kind of flare with a comparable amount of fabric.

She brought some old curtains to use for the middle part of the skirt that goes underneath the mattress and since I had washed the new fabric we figured we should wash those too so nothing would shrink. And that gave us time to kill. During that time I found these great tubs at Sams. I've been seeing the same tubs at Target in every color but the ones I wanted. I'm going to use one for toys and the other for dirty clothes.

Our travel system arrived yesterday. But we weren't home, so UPS left it with our neighbor. Which is a little weird considering we don't know our neighbor. This afternoon I knocked on her door and she had it waiting on me. I'm glad we have honest neighbors. I'm sure you could sell a baby travel system for a pretty penny on the black market.

Well Brian's home, so I'm going to sign off here. More randomness later!

Nursery Progress

2011-05-02T11:11:00.000-06:00

Even though Ava is due in just 3 weeks time (but would not be considered early if she came this week), I cannot post pictures of her perfectly decorated and organized nursery. But I'm getting closer!

This weekend Brian and I finally put together the crib and bought some of our last minute things. If she came early we'd be okay for the most part.

This is documentation to prove that we did something! My mother, mother-in-law and a couple friends have been worried that I'd never get around to doing the nursery. I'm posting these pictures to put their minds at ease. Ava has a bed and clean sheets!

I did nursery "research" while Brian did the heavy lifting. That's life around here these days.

She has more clothes than I do! Fortunately my friend Stevie sized and organized all of her hanging clothes. Now I just have to do the same with folded clothes.

I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Did I Do the Right Thing?

2011-04-29T13:26:00.000-06:00

Today at Costco I snagged a sample of some streusel and overhead another patron asking the sample lady if eating that everyday is what made her so beautiful (gag). He proceeded to ask her if she worked out and what she did to look so good. He had a bit of an accent and I couldn't place it. I'm not sure if shamelessly hitting on wholesale employees is normal in his country or not, but I felt bad for the lady. It was clear he wasn't going to be deterred. So I found the nearest Costco employee and said, "You might want to go rescue your sample lady. There's a customer hitting on her." Which he promptly did.

I don't know how that story played out because I went on to sample other things. But I wonder if I did the right thing. What do you think?

I Cut Hair

2011-04-23T20:20:00.000-06:00

Brian's been asking me to buy clippers so I could cut his hair to save some money. And this week on one of my meandering Costco trips I saw a pair of Wahl clippers for 24.99 and decided I'd give it a go.

I tried to cut his hair back when we were dating and his roommate had to preform some major damage control before he went out in public. So tonight I watched a couple youtube tutorials before I went to work. They were short clips that only showed how to do the sides, but I felt like I had a decent idea of how to go about it. The result was good!

Since it costs 12.99 for a man's hair cut at Great Clips it will only take one month for our new clippers to pay for themselves! This is going to be a yearly savings of 260.00. That's nothing to shake a stick at folks.

DMV and A couple new books

2011-04-21T11:12:00.000-06:00

I have lived in Colorado since September 2008. Since that time I've failed to obtain a Colorado Driver's license. I've registered my vehical and got Colorado insurance, but still no license. It's not that I haven't tried. I did. I went to the DMV last year but they only took cash or check (I had neither that day) and the line was literally out the door. So I did what anyone else would do: cried and gave up. Until this week that is. At our preadmission appointment we learned that if I did not change my license to my new married name, I would be Ashley Harris on Ava's birth certifcate even though my social security card is in Ramsey.

So this morning I grumpily pulled out my documentation and went to the DMV. I was there before it opened and got to the counter pretty quickly. But I had forgotten to bring my marriage license to prove my new last name. Even though I had my social security card with it. But the guy was nice and told me that when I came back I didn't have to wait in line, I could just walk right up. So I did that and now I have a Colorado driver's license! Well, more accurately I have a temporary slip of paper until mine arrives in 30 days. It feels good to be legal!

After my money post yesterday I saw a review over at Challies for Randy Alcorn's new book Manging God's Money. I figured I pass it on to you guys. I usually find Challies' reviews right on and Randy Alcorn's writing very true, so probably worth a read.

Randy Stinson and Dan Dumas of Southern Seminary also have a new booklet out that I can't wait to get for Brian, A Guide to Biblical Masculinity. Our friend Steve Watters is the editor and since I've seen a lot of Steve's work while at Boundless I'm super excited for this new project of his.

Paying the Bills

2011-04-20T10:28:00.003-06:00

Until this week Brian's handled all the Ramsey finances, but since I'm officially a SAHM it makes sense for me to take the day-to-day finances off of Brian's plate. He'll still review our overall budget periodically because he believes that as a husband he's ultimately responsible to God for our stewardship, but I'm going to be doing the general finances and that's a big deal for me. Let me explain.

I was a teller at a bank for almost 6 years, so my friends and family thought it was weird that Brian was the money guy. There were two reasons why Brian did the finances and not me. The first one, like I said, was that as the head of our home we believed that Brian was ultimately responsible for the stewardship of our money. By that I don't mean that how we spend our money is all Brian's responsibility or that I shouldn't ever be the money manager. But since he didn't have much experience with managing money prior to us getting married he needed to do the budget for a while to understand what our financial picture was going to look like to make sure that the way we were paying off debt, saving, giving and spending were in line with what we discerned to be honoring to God.

Second, I couldn't handle the emotional stress of dealing with the household budget. If we got an AT&T bill that was over the normal amount, I would go into full-fledged freak out mode, talk about canceling our service and how this bill was going to land us in the street and me in the hospital from a stomach ulcer. So I had to promise that I wouldn't open bills. Seriously. 24 year old woman who can't open her own cell phone bill for the sake of her mental health.

But over time (over a year) I was able to see Brian deal with money in really healthy way. If there were overage charges on a bill, he just called and nicely (without threatening anyone's life or crying) explained the overage and just like that the person on the customer service hotline removed the charge and all was well. I'm so thankful for the way Brian has not only modeled handling our household finances but also taken the time to help me see that the way I acted about money said money was the most important thing to me. It's not anymore. And since I can open bills and even pay them without any trips to the ER, I'm taking over the weekly budget.

As part of taking over the budget, I want to implement a new organizational system, but it's hard without office space. We do a lot of our stuff online like everyone else these days, but there are always papers to be dealt with. I LOATHE paper. It takes up space we don't have in our little apartment. We don't have a desk area to manage our necessary papers so we keep boxes in closets that really aren't accessible. Do you have any suggestions for organizing a bill center with no desk space? Or any sites that could have helpful tips?

Pregnancy Update

2011-04-19T13:00:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow marks my 35th week of being pregnant. It's been fun, exhausting, painful, awkward, and emotional but most of all, such a gift.

Life is accelerating toward Ava's coming at a speed that's causing me to clutch the proverbial door handle. We've had three sweet baby showers where our friends and family generously helped us prepare for Ava's arrival.

Then we had our first birth class. Our Doula/birth coach is awesome. Brian and I are incredibly thankful to have found her and feel so much more at peace about this whole process with her help. She is a believer who does birth coaching as a ministry for no charge. She's worked with our doctor many times before and they both have a great amount of respect for one another. Last week she gave me the homework of walking 30 minutes a day. That sounds easy enough, but it's proved to be a challenge when I have to head back to the house every 6 minutes to pee.

Today we made our pre-admission arrangements with the hospital (billing, birth plan, legal stuff). Everyone was competent and professional, but I did pick up a lot "drug pusher" vibes.

I'm not trying to be a martyr and if I have to have some pain intervention it won't be the end of the world, but I'd really like to avoid that. I'd also like to avoid the nursing staff asking me what my pain level is on a scale of 1-10 throughout labor. If I need something for the pain, I'll ask. And even though I wrote that very plainly in my birth plan the nurse explained to me how the scale works (1= uncomfortable - 10=feel like you're having surgery without anesthesia) and told me they would be checking in with me about my pain levels from time to time and needed to know at what number from 1-10 I would like meds. I told her that I could be at a 10 and still not want meds. I don't think she liked my answer. Then she went through the list of the possible drugs I could be given and some of the ones she went through weren't presented as optional.

One thing I've learned during this pregnancy is that it doesn't do a lot of good to let your alternative medicine flag fly in these situations. It can come across as disrespectful to their profession or just make you seem hard to get along with and both are counter-productive. So I'll wait and talk to my doctor next week about drug concerns. He tells me that if he were giving birth, he'd want the epidural but as long as I'm healthy I can give birth however I want. He's not a control-freak and he's not out to make it easier on himself- such a blessing!

I guess that's all there is to update on for now.

Are you Kidding me?!

2011-03-12T14:32:00.001-07:00

Brian and I are at a friend's house right now getting help with our taxes. He lives in a dorm-style setup with a bunch of other men. If you've ever been to a men's dorm or shared house you know most of them are unavoidably messy and ~~man-ish~~ boy-ish. But I just saw something that topped my list of messy and boy-ish. I watched one of his housemates walk into the bathroom with his laptop so he could keep playing video games while he used the toilet.

Enter Mark Driscoll:

Thank you Pastor Mark.

What to Expect

2011-01-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

I love my What to Expect When You're Expecting email updates. A couple times a week they email me and tell me fun facts about the baby and some not to so fun facts about me. Like this week:

This week marks the beginning of some serious weight gain. Your baby's weight in the next four weeks alone should double (and you may feel as though yours is too).

I'm glad they told me what to expect or I probably would have started to worry. This morning I was starting to think "I know I comforted myself with cheesecake when Brian had to work late last night, but geez..."

Birth Research

2010-12-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

I've started doing my research for birthing methods, but I still can't find enough information to feel informed. Anyone have any recommended reading?

Update

2010-12-10T10:18:00.002-07:00

Brian and I are officially settled in Colorado Springs. In August Brian signed on full time with Aspen Technologies, the company he's been temping with for about a year. He's enjoying the work and the fast pace they have there.

In August we also expanded our little family to three :) Baby Ramsey will make his or her debut May 25 2011. We would love suggestions for names if you have any. The first trimester was a little rough with constant nausea and fatigue, but I'm at 15 weeks and finally feeling good again. Everyone's been asking for pregnancy pictures but there's not a lot to see yet.

I'm working as a temp until the baby comes or until I get too pregnant to go to work. I'm on my second assignment in 3 months as an apartment leasing agent. This is the first time I've worked a 40 hour week since Brian and I married. In a lot of ways it's fun because we come home tired at the end of the day and feel like a team. In a lot of other ways it's draining because the laundry never gets done and my house isn't quite as clean as it used to be.

Aside from my growing laundry pile and dirty floors, it's a very rich season of life for us. I could say a lot more by way of updating, but I'd better run. I'll write again soon!

Happy Apple

2010-08-23T16:46:00.000-06:00

This weekend Brian and I went to Happy Apple Orchard. I'm sure a lot of people would have considered it too hot for apple picking, but we had a great time. The Gala and Jonathan apples were the only ones ready, so we got Gala for snacks and Jonathan for baking.

We rode on a trailer to the middle of the orchard where the tractor driver, in all seriousness, gave us our "snake instructions." If we saw a rattler we were supposed to tell him right away. If we saw a bull snake we shouldn't do anything- they're nice snakes. His speech was very comforting as we set out into the tall grass to collect our apples.

It was my first time at a real orchard, but it reminded me a lot of childhood. Walking around in tall grass eating fruit right off the tree.

I made an apple crisp after recovering from my heatstroke. It was light and simple and so perfect. Except that it could have used a little more butter, but other than that, so perfect.

Apple Crisp

4 c. thinly sliced Jonathan apples

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. oats

6 T soft butter

a hefty dose of cinnamon

1/2 c. raw sugar

Grease pie pan and fill with apples. Blend other ingredients, spread atop apples and bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Things I Read This Week

2010-06-26T10:16:00.003-06:00

Here are some things I read this week that I think are worth passing along:

Pray with Perspective from TheResurgence

This was particularly helpful this week because my prayers have been filled with "I," "me," "my," "us," ad nauseum.

Jesus knows our frame. He knows we generally don’t need to see our sin as the first item on the agenda at every meeting with God. Better in fact to get our eyes altogether off of ourselves. That way we gain perspective and hope.

As I mediated on that I realized the moments this week that I've had godly hope were the ones where I took my eyes off my sin, Brian's sin, our problems and put them on the God who is, and is good.

EARLY Will I Seek You from Candice Watters at Family Making

In Colorado, rising before the sun often brings the benefit of actually seeing the "purple mountains majesty." But that stunning view of Pike's Peak alone isn't enough to wake me. It's what happens when I miss that window that motivates me to roll out of bed.

8 Snares Set by Fear of Man from TheResurgence

When we’re overly concerned with “getting it right,” we turn people into projects to accomplish. We withhold our compassion and grow reserved and calculating in our pursuit of people.

I so wish this did not resonate with me. But it did, and in some way so did the other seven you can read in the original post.

Is it OK for Moms to have jobs Outside the Home? from John Piper at Desiring God

Mothering and homemaking are huge and glorious jobs. What children need at age one, five, six, fourteen, eighteen is simply amazing, and so is what those needs call forth from a woman's creativity and heart and mind, personally for each one of these little ones that are coming along.

I loved John Piper's focus as he answered this question. It was refreshing to hear him talking about the needs of children and the creativity of women to meet those needs rather than just talking gender roles.

Think of Israel

2010-06-18T15:51:00.001-06:00

This morning was a low morning for me. After a relatively peaceful hour of drinking coffee and praying with Brian, spending time with the Lord and eating breakfast I was absolutely overcome with anxiety about the uncertainty of our future. Brian suggested that I return to the kitchen table to read and pray some more -- to find peace he said. I hate being told to do the right thing when I just want to wallow in anxiety and self-pity. And Brian telling me to go and find peace reminded me a lot of when my friend Candice tells her 3 year old to go upstairs and find his smile.

So I kind of did that, but ended up back in bed with the covers over my head. (Which is what I imagine my 3 year old friend does too before he finds his smile.) Brian found me there and said, "Sweetie, I want you to think about the Nation of Israel..." I immediately burst into tears, "WE ARE IN THE WILDERNESS ... sob, sob... WANDERING AROUND INDEFINITELY... sob ..."

"No, actually I was thinking about Caleb and Joshua and how they went into the promised land to spy it out and came back saying that God was plenty big to deliver it into their hands. Let's be like Caleb and Joshua, let's trust that God is good and big enough to provide for us, to deliver a promised land to us."

"sniff... sniff ... Caleb and Joshua ... okay."

"I really think that's what would please God in this season of waiting, that we would trust Him and not see the circumstances as too big."

And while I can't really identify with Caleb and Joshua because I don't believe that God has yet shown us where He's taking us, I do believe Brian is right. It would please God for me to Trust Him for our future, however uncertain it may be.

Over the past six months I've had to stop trusting God for the big engineering job for Brian and a big house for us to fill up with little Ramseys. And I've had to begin trusting that He and His provision for us, whatever that will be, will be enough. God does not owe me stability. I don't have a right to an American dream-ish life and thank God, because the Life He offers is so much better.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

2010-06-11T10:40:00.007-06:00

No one really likes talking about digestion. It's yucky and a little too much information for most people. If it's TMI for you, you should navigate away from this page right now. However if you or someone you love have digestive issues, you should read on. Because more than likely your regular doctor will not be able to help you.

In my update the other week I forgot to mention huge part of the past six months: IBS. After months of severe abdominal pain and misery and refusing to see a doctor, Brian pulled his Husband Card and scheduled a doctor's appointment for me. After the tests came back finding a blockage in my digestive system but nothing to attribute the blockage to, the doctor concluded that I had IBS. There's no way to determine someone has IBS except to rule out every other option. My insurance agent put it this way, "IBS means "We don't know what the h--- is wrong with you." And that's why I love my insurance guy- he tells it how it is.

My doctor gave me a prescription for bi-polar medicine, saying that it would release serotonin in my digestive tract and relieve the pain. [I could go on a rant here about why I hate Western medical philosophy (a.k.a treating the symptoms NOT the actual problem,) but I'll spare you.] He also prescribed a two week treatment of laxatives ending with an all-day magnesium citrate cleanse. I did took the laxatives, did the cleanse, but did not take the meds.

I don't have anything against bi-polar medicine- IF YOU HAVE BI-POLAR DISORDER that is. But seeing as how I have IBS, I didn't see the logic. I took years and years of antibiotics and eventually acutane for acne and I believe without a doubt that is what caused IBS. IBS, as I understand it, is essentially an imbalance of chemistry and lack of good bacteria in the digestive tract that could be caused by a number of things, but in my case antibiotics.

After the cleanse I felt pretty good ... for about a day. And then all the pain and unpleasant side-effects came back. After some research and talking to other IBS patients I realized this is all too often the case when you see a general practitioner for gastro-intestinal issues. Finally, after much more research, many tears and almost giving up, I found, through a friend of a friend of a friend an online treatment that seemed legit. Two ladies in town had done the treatment and were IBS symptom free, so Brian and I read through the thirty-something page document and prayed about the possibility of doing the treatment. I wanted to wait a few months till we were in our own place and had full-time jobs but Brian wanted to start the treatment immediately. So again, like with going to the doctor, Brian got his way.

This treatment is a multi-faceted approach (including a restricted diet and supplements) that re-populates good bacteria in your digestive tract as well as healing what is known as "leaky gut" syndrome (the cause for IBS related food allergies). I know I'm explaining some things and not others, so if you're interested in the explanations check out this article and it will explain everything better than I can.

I want to sum up what changes I've had to make for this treatment:

The Diet
There are 3 Big, No Cheating Under Any Circumstance rules of the treatment.

No diary. That means no milk, no cheese, no yogurt, no ice cream. It means reading EVERY label of any processed food to see if it contains milk, milk solids, lactose or whey.
No legumes. No beans, chickpeas, no peanuts, no soy, no legumes of any kind.
a)When you drink. Drinking water during a meal dilutes hydrochloric acid (an enzyme that breaks down your food) in your stomach and makes digestion even more difficult. Because digestion is already hard for me, I cannot drink water during a meal or for an hour afterward or else the dilution of hydrochloric acid would make it even more difficult. b)When you eat fruit. Fresh fruit spoils quickly. To make sure it digests quickly I have to eat it alone or before a meal. If you eat fruit by itself, your digestive system will recognize fruit in the stomach and sweep it to the small intestine for quick digestion. But it you eat fruit with some other food everything in your stomach will pass first through the large intestine, giving the fruit enough time to spoil.

You may asking, "so when./what do you eat/drink?" That's exactly what I asked when I started this treatment. I was frustrated that almost every staple of my diet (peanut butter, chick peas, beans, fruit with grains, yogurt for smoothies, etc.) were eliminated. Not to mention the worst of all, that I couldn't drink half&half in my coffee. Can you say Horror of all Horrors?

But I was committed, so I substituted almond butter for peanut butter, and almond milk for cream or milk, and coconut milk for yogurt in recipes. The first couple weeks I was always hungry because I never knew what to eat. I just paced the kitchen lamenting my lack of options. But in the weeks since I've completely adjusted to the restrictions and now I can cook just as creatively as before.

Brian has been one of the biggest reasons I've been able to stay the course for two months on such a strict diet. He started out eating only the things I could eat. Now that I'm used to the diet I encourage him to have icecream or peanut butter if we are out or at some else's house. But he's always willing to pass if he's offered something I can't have. And while I'm talking about Brian I just want to point out that earlier when I referred to him getting his way about me going to the doctor and starting the treatment, that I am so thankful that he is willing to fight for me when I'm not willing to fight for myself.

The Supplements

The other part of the treatment are the supplements. I take 5 different supplements (about 12 pills) every day. In the morning and evening I take probitics for both the large and small intestine. With each meal I take a pancreatic enzyme and hydrochloric acid. And with lunch and dinner I also take an herbal GI support supplement. And lastly, twice a day I drink a mix of rice protein powder (that smells like horse feed).

I'll be on this diet and treatment for another month. After that I'll keep with the no-dairy and probitoics, but everything else will probably go back to normal. And let me say, that I'm not necessarily recommending my treatment. I'm not a doctor or an expert, but I have seen amazing success and I want to pass that on.

That's my IBS story and if it helps anyone at all, it will be worth all this typing. The stats say that 1 out of 3 women have IBS. And I believe it. I've been shocked as I tell people I have IBS that many of them, who otherwise would have never told me, say that they have IBS too.

Fruitful Discipline

2010-06-07T14:24:00.000-06:00

A good friend and mentor sat me down some months ago and challenged me with the following phrase.

"Seek fruitfulness, and train yourself in body, mind, and spirit."

His words have caused ripples in my pursuits since then, effecting my daily disciplines, my work, my job-search, and my marriage. You know what else has been changed? My physical fitness. I've taken his admonition seriously, and I thought by sharing my thoughts and actions with these things that you, our friends and family, might benefit.

Fruitfulness

In Galatians, Paul writes of the fruits of the Spirit. These are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In contrast to the Spiritual gifts (prophecy, teaching, tongues, healing, etc.), which are apportioned differently to each person, believers will all be growing in each of the fruits of the Spirit if aligning themselves in their understanding of scripture, their obedience to it, and their openness to repentance and knowing God moment by moment. What does this mean? A person in any circumstance, if desiring to grow in these fruits and walking in accordance to God's known will, ought to be growing up "to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13).

For me, this has meant taking my part-time work, my full-time job-search, my purity, my friendships, my marriage, my physical fitness, and my reading/studying of the Bible more seriously. I think Ashley would agree with me that I have grown in these things, not without flaws of course.

Training (Discipline)
One of the greatest resources I've looked to for growth is a book called "Disciplines of a Godly Man" by R. Kent Hughes. This book is a collection of insightful, practical, and purpose-filled words regarding growth in all kinds of ways. From the discipline of purity to the discipline of ministry, he lays out what scripture clearly calls us to as men of God. The verse drawn on throughout the book is Paul's straight-forward call to Timothy,

"... train (discipline) yourself to be godly." (1 Timothy 4:7)

What has been most challenging to me? Probably physical fitness. My friend Jason and I have been working out at the YMCA pretty consistently multiple times a week for a few months. I'm sure my doctor would be pleased!

A Little Sweat
I encourage you to take a look at your own life and circumstances and ask the questions,

"What am I weak in? How could I be growing? Am I going to do it?"

I'm thankful to my friend and mentor for challenging me with these words. Putting a little sweat into reading books intentionally for growth, seeking better relationships, and walking closer with God has eternal value.

May God bless you!

10 Months!

2010-06-01T19:33:00.000-06:00

I've never been one for month anniversaries. I've always thought they were kind of silly to be honest. Mostly because the very word describes a yearly remembrance. Wikipedia defines it as, "(from the Latin anniversarius, from the words for year and to turn, meaning returning yearly."

From the first month Brian has at least acknowledged our month anniversaries. And even with all my skepticism, who could scorn that? I thought it was incredibly thoughtful until about 5 months ago when I found out that his twin sister texted him on the first of every month and wished him happy anniversary. Thanks Michelle ;)

But even on the months she doesn't text him, he still remembers and sometimes even does something a little special like picking up a bottle of wine on his way home. I know what some of you are thinking, "Newlyweds." And I'm sure it's true, but I'm still going to enjoy it.

Tonight when I got home Brian kept commenting on how great my parsley looked. He's not the gardening type, so after a minute or two I poked my head outside and there were three friends for my parsley plant: Oregano, basil and chives.

I'm headin' up to the Walmart first thing in the morning for potting soil.

Happy Memorial Day

2010-05-31T17:11:00.000-06:00

Happy Memorial Day folks. I kicked off my national holiday at Target for new team member orientation. Brian took my picture this morning in my Target red shirt (Beside me is my new Parsley plant. Isn't it sweet?)

The HR rep that did my training was awesome. I could tell that she genuinely liked working at Target. And the typical cheesy training videos weren't that bad. I actually learned a lot. Target has a customer service motto of "Fast, Fun and Friendly." And as I walked through the store and met other team members I got the feeling that was really true of the culture of this particular store.

After work we went to Vic and Sandy's to BBQ with the fam and our friend Alex came along.

As we finished up burgers and brawts Brian read a excerpt about the history of Memorial Day. It was very appropriate and moving to stop in the midst of festivities and reflect on the reason for the holiday- the service men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy.

I'm back from my blog sabbatical

2010-05-30T20:52:00.003-06:00

It's been a while, I know. And to be honest I feel a little sheepish writing after so long. So much has changed since I last wrote here. Let me try and sum up quickly:

January:
Brian was job searching and we were pretty sure he would get an engineering job before our lease ran out. At the end of January we put 95% of our possessions in storage (yes, I parted with my dishes and pots, and pans. It wasn't without tears) and we moved to the Springs to live with Brian's folks while we continued to job search.

February, March and April
We started February with a long awaited trip to Tennessee. For a week and a half Mom and I did the two things we do best: shop and eat. Meanwhile Brian dutifully job searched and met with contacts in town. After our trip South, we settled into Brian's parent's basement. Brian started working part-time at Aspen technologies and I suffered rejection at the hands of Eddie Bauer, Origins and WholeFoods. So in March I employed myself to read the entire Harry Potter series. I also tried to steward my time and few resources well by babysitting for busy moms I know and being useful around Brian's folks'. Brian had a lot of great interviews in March and in April we found out that while his interviewers agreed he was great, he was not chosen for those jobs. The end of April was a real low point for us. We never thought we would be in the Springs for three months and after so long we were back at square one.

Job searching is not something Brian does half-heartedly. It is a job in itself. It's a rare day when Brian doesn't put in a full eight hours either at Aspen or at Starbucks filling out job applications. Words cannot convey the admiration I have for how hard Brian has worked these past five months. So you can imagine how disheartening it was that this season of working in the waiting was not over.

May
In May we realized that our hopes of moving straight from Brian's parent's to our new place with a new job in a new city might not happen as quickly as we thought. And I (after having finished my Harry Potter stint a couple weeks prior) decided to job search again. I landed a job at Target and we then had the income to move out and get a place of our own here in the Springs (with no lease just in case we need to move quickly for a job for Brian).

So we are settled comfortably in our new apartment for the third day. Brian had a job interview in Denver on Friday. And I have my first day of orientation at Target tomorrow.

A lot of people are going through much harder things than we have these past five months. I'm under no illusion that being unemployed and temporarily displaced is the worst of fates. But compared to the rest of my fairly comfortable life, these have been trying months. I'm thankful that while circumstances have been unpredictable and nearly all things uncertain, that God has not left us comfortless. We have experienced the indwelling of His Spirit in greater measure, our sin has become more bitter, and Christ has become increasingly sweet.

If you asked me what it was like living with my in-laws, I would have to say it was like living with friends. I enjoyed Sandy's company immensely. I'm thankful for the friendship we cultivated in my time there. I would also have to say that living my in-laws has given me insight into all those little things that used to make me wonder "Where does Brian get that from!?" Now I know ;)

So now that life is a little more normal, I will probably update more often. I better go iron my khakis for tomorrow!

Love,
Ash

Help Wanted

2010-01-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Brian is reading Safely Home by Randy Alcorn. It's a fictional account of the persecuted church in China. I read it years ago and loved it. I suggested it to him and now I'm regretting that. He's so into it that he reads it every chance he gets. And that would be fine except I'm jealous because I don't have anything that gripping to read.

I'm reading Grace-Based Parenting and Counterfeit Gods, but that's a disciplined sort of reading. I want a story. It could be fiction or creative non-fiction. Just something that will keep me as entertained as Brian is with his book.

Please give me your suggestions!

You Can Homemake That?

2010-01-20T19:14:00.001-07:00

I am so stuffed. Good Stuffed, not gross stuffed. This evening I made homemade cream of mushroom soup. I did not know you could make condensed soup from scratch until recently. I know it sounds very obvious that down the line it had to be "homemade" by someone, but it honestly never occurred to me.

I used the cream of mushroom in a chicken, broccoli, and wild rice casserole and it made all the difference. You have have not had chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole until you have made it with homemade cream of mushroom.

I write this to urge you at least once just for fun when you have some time make your own cream of mushroom soup. It's so easy and so yummy that it will make you lick the serving spoon as you load it into the dishwasher.

Pass the Blog

2010-01-12T15:03:00.001-07:00

Here are some things I read this week that I think are worth passing on:

My friend Lisa wrote a little blog about her bra. I know some of you participated in the breast cancer awareness effort by posting the color of your underwear on facebook and I know others of you were completely outraged by the awareness effort. I'm not including Lisa's take on it to shame or validate anyone, so hear me on that. I think she makes some good points and she blogs so infrequently that I want to reward her when she does in hopes she'll blog more. Hear that Lis?

Tim Challies is one of my go-to daily blogs. From time to time he writes little e-books. And this one for men is particularly fabulous. This e-book Sexual Detox has two versions, one for married men and one for single men. It's probably the best resource for men about purity that I have ever read and I worked for a singles online magazine, so I've read plenty. But I'm also a woman, so what do I know?

Not only am I entertained by this lady, I'm also challenged by her love for Christ and her commitment to her family. Put her blog on your feed and you'll be the wiser for it.

This is for my writer friends and English geeks. You know who you are.

Read Proverbs

2010-01-12T13:39:00.001-07:00

Brian loves Proverbs. Some stints of time he will read the "Proverb of the day" (there are 31 Proverbs, so you read the Proverb that goes with that day's date) and when he is feeling at a loss that's where he goes.

We met with our pastor a while back to see if he had any wisdom to offer us about the job search and planning our future. He told us to read Proverbs every day, and to trust God and a lot of other stuff that's not relevant to my post. So this year we committed to read Proverbs every day.

We are a whopping 12 days into the New Year and I can already feel this book changing me. Isn't that how the Scriptures are supposed to affect us? Glory! I was walking around the city talking with a friend of mine this morning and the words coming out of my mouth sounded a lot like the words I have been reading in Proverbs. I haven't been memorizing them, just stopping from time to time to think about what I'm reading and Brian and I talk about them as well.

If you haven't already committed to a Bible reading plan for the year, I would urge you to read the Proverb everyday. Read it, think about it, and apply it.

The Purge

2010-01-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

So far so good on the Gluten free deal. I can't believe I'm actually doing it. Especially since we just gave up sweets until January 30. We both agreed we'd had too much sugar over the holidays.

While Brian was the instigator of and willing participant in giving up sweets (to the exclusion of Ovaltine and honey) he is not joining me on my gluten free venture. I'm sure he would, but we have too many gluten-laden products that I would hate to go to waste.

And even though my stomach is doing better, I might have to give up my food projects for a GREATER project. Project Purge.

Brian and I are moving at the end of the month. We don't know where yet. The details are contingent on the job search. And one thing I want to do as we prepare to transition is to purge our pantry. I'm taking inventory of all our existing grocery items and planning our remaining meals here according to what I already have. I'll still be buying groceries but I would love to use as many on hand ingredients in each meal as I can.

I'm beginning the fun challenge today by making spinach chicken tortellini for our friends who are coming to dinner.

I already had all the ingredients for the entree (Cheese tortellini, fresh spinach, chicken breast, sun-dried tomatoes, milk/half and half, cream cheese, parmesan cheese, garlic and onion) and the salad, so all I bought was the bread (for the guests and Brian of course).

Tomorrow I'm making IGE's Santa Fe Chicken. I have both dried and canned black beans, so this recipe is going to help me use those up.

Emily posted a perfect recipe for my purge today. Even if you're not purging, it's still a great quick-fix recipe, so pay her a visit and check it out.

Before moving day, I'll post a picture of our cabinets so you can see how well the purge went.

Going Gluten Free

2010-01-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

Brian thinks I need to see the doctor. My stomach hurts everyday. Intestinal kind of hurting. One of the great things about having a spouse is that when you stupidly think something like chronic intestinal pain is fine because you're used to it, they let you know it's not.

But I hate doctors. Not personally, but in general. Most doctors treat symptoms and not root issues and I refuse to waste my time by paying someone else to tell me take an antacid. No thanks. I'll save my co-pay.

So I'm going to try a gluten free diet for a while and see if that makes a difference. There's a lot of research out there that says a good amount of people can't handle all the filler that's in wheat products. I picked up a bag of gluten free flour at Costco yesterday and made gluten free pizza last night.

There was a time when I couldn't have imagined my life without wheat. I lived for that little bread basket that comes out complimentary before the meal at sitdown restaurants and a day without a sandwich was inconceivable. Not so today. Brian and I have incorporated enough non-wheat grains into our diet like quinoa, barley and rice that we won't freak out when our last loaf of bread bites the dust next week.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Cutting Cookies with Boys

2009-12-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

A couple nights ago our friends Drew and Jason came over for dinner. Drew and Jason were also on the Summer Project where Brian and I first met. Drew goes to Mines with Brian and Jason was in a small group with us this past year. They're two friends we're glad to kept in touch with.

Before dinner Brian and Jason put together a cookie recipe that I found for them over at Girltalk. We let them chill while we ate Erin's Balsamic Chicken with quinoa and rosemary potatoes. After dinner I floured our coffee table and gave the guys cookie dough. I should have known that they would make weapons and sci-fi characters out of the dough.

We Found Cows Downtown!

2009-12-21T07:55:00.002-07:00

These cows are outside of the Denver Art Museum. Brian and I were so enamored with them that we didn't make it to the museum in time.
For Jerry :)

Graduation!

2009-12-19T09:59:00.008-07:00

As some of you may know Brian graduated yesterday. It's been a challenge at times, but overall has been a great privilege to be a part of Brian's last semester of his engineering degree. As I've mentioned before, Brian did the best he could to create a stable homelife for us by fitting all of his projects, homeworks, and classes into a 8-5 (which most days looked more like 7-5) work day. He finished up with the best grades of his college career. I'm so proud of the work he's done.

His family was proud too :) They came up from the Springs for his early graduation (9:30am) which means they had to get up WAY early. After one of the most genuinely interesting graduations I've been to, we went to Jose O'Shea's to eat some yummy mexican and then back to our place to have pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.

Brian made the crust:

1 1/2 graham cracker crumbs

5 T melted butter

1 T sugar

I made the filling:

3- 8oz.pkgs. cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup canned pumpkin

3 eggs

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. allspice

Mix crust ingredients together, just till coated and crumbly. Press onto the bottom and 2/3 up the sides of an 8" springform pan. Bake for 5 min. at 350. Set aside.

Combine cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl, mix until smooth with an electric mixer. add pumpkin eggs, and spices, beat till smooth and creamy. Pour into the crust. Bake for 60 min. or till the top turns a bit darker. Remove from oven and allow to come to room temperature, then refrigerate. After it has thoroughly chilled, remove the pan sides and cut

I also added a small top layer:

8-10 oz sour cream

1/4 c sugar

1 t vanilla

Spread this evenly after cake has been in the oven for 1 hour and bake 5-10 more minutes.

The cheesecake turned out to be good. I was a little worried since I combined three different recipes to make it ;) The time with family was even better though.

Congratulations Brian!

Young Married Life

2009-12-11T09:58:00.001-07:00

I've been blogging over at YoungMarriedLife.com again. This week I make a confession that you'll want to hear.

And The Winner Is ...

2009-12-11T09:47:00.003-07:00

Thanks to all 14 of you who voted on our whole sale club poll. I have to admit that what swayed me most wasn't the votes but the comments. I'm a sucker for healthy/organic foods and if Costco has the monopoly on them, that's where I'ma goin'. So Costco is the winner of the poll and the winner in my heart :)

Sleeping In

2009-12-09T09:28:00.005-07:00

This morning is the first time ever that I did not get up with Brian to fix his breakfast and drink coffee with him before he went off to work. I was SO tired and he let me sleep in. But now that I'm up ... three hours later, I'm a little worried.

Was he able to make his own breakfast? Surely, he did it before we married and does it on Saturday mornings when we have pancakes. And there's a dirty knife in the sink where he spread peanut butter on his toast, so all is good on that front.

Who talked to him as he ate it? No one, he actually got to read the scriptures in peace this morning without his wife interrupting every five minutes to talk about Christmas lights or dinner plans.

So I guess it was a win-win. He had an uninterrupted quiet time and I got three hours extra "quiet time." But I'm a little sad that I missed out on our morning routine.

Making Brian's breakfast at 6am can be a drag some mornings when I really want to sleep, but it's one of the ways I get to serve him. Brian serves me all day long by working hard and preparing for his engineering career. His study habits and posture toward his studies have radically changed since we got married and I know he's making his work a sacrificial offering first to God and then to me. And on my good days, I can see that and I'm thankful for it.

Being a companion to Brian and caring for his more domestic needs is how I'm best able to sacrificially love him in this season of our marriage, so I probably won't make sleeping in a routine thing but it sure was nice this morning.

Quinoa

2009-12-08T11:28:00.010-07:00

Ahhh. I love Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wah). I made some last night in my rice cooker and added some chopped green onion, apple, carrot and balsamic vinegar dressing and let it sit over night. It's one of the few things I buy at the health food store because it's actually cheaper there and it's so worth the trip. I highly recommend this for anyone who packs a lunch and is tired of sandwiches. I gave Brian a turkey and cheese break today by sending this with some spinach in his lunch bag.

Here's what wholehealthMD had to say about quinoa:

Nutritionally, quinoa might be considered a supergrain--although it is not really a grain, but the seed of a leafy plant that's distantly related to spinach. Quinoa has excellent reserves of Protein, and unlike other grains, is not missing the amino acid lysine, so the protein is more complete (a trait it shares with other "non-true" grains such as buckwheat and amaranth). The World Health Organization has rated the quality of protein in quinoa at least equivalent to that in milk. Quinoa offers more iron than other grains and contains high levels of potassium and riboflavin, as well as other B vitamins: B6, niacin, and thiamin. It is also a good source of magnesium, zinc, copper, and manganese, and has some folate (folic acid).
An ancient grainlike product that has recently been "rediscovered" in this country, quinoa has a light, delicate taste, and can be substituted for almost any other grain.

Picture with Santa

2009-12-05T07:33:00.002-07:00

Humbled

2009-12-03T09:44:00.003-07:00

I'm not the best cook or hostess on the block and I would never claim to be, but I can put together a decent meal and pull off a nice evening with people in our home. Or at least I thought I could.

Last night was a failure of EPIC proportions. Our friend and Brian's former roommate Zach is in town for work so we had him over for dinner last night. I planned on using my leftover turkey to make a homemade turkey pot pie. A friend of mine had rattled off a recipe to me with no measurements or specific instructions but I wasn't fazed. I don't much like to measure anyway.

I found a simple chocolate cake recipe for a 9x2 pan and made it strictly following the recipe, put all my fixings for the pot pie in the crockpot to soften and told myself that I would take a shower while the caking was baking.

Twenty minutes into the cake's baking time it quite literally EXPLODED in my oven. Cake on the racks, cake on the bottom, cake everywhere. Burnt cake. About this time Brian and Zach open the front door and smoke starts BILLOWING from the oven. And I look like I've never cooked a meal in my whole life.

Nothing like this has happened to me before, so stupidly I turned the oven temp up to 400 to bake the pot pie. And I thought there was smoke before. We opened the balcony door and got a fan. I asked Brian and Zach if they would see to the damage while I ESCAPED took that shower I'd been meaning to take all day.

It's amazing what a shower can do for ya. I felt better after washing away some of the embarrassment and Bran and Zach had some shoulder-to-shoulder man time cleaning out the oven. When the pot pie was done we found that the veggies were not. Most of them were still raw. And by this time all I could do was laugh.

Hospitality is about much more than a meal. So even though the food was gross, we had a great time. Zach is a gracious guest and ate the overcooked cake and undercooked veggies. And once I shook off expectations for the evening, I was able to enjoy some of the sweetest fellowship I've had in a long time.

Lesson: Don't take myself or my amateur culinary skills too seriously.

Blogging Again

2009-12-02T16:04:00.001-07:00

I spent the morning blogging for Boundless and YoungMarriedLife. Unlike writing on this blog, I actually get paid for the other blogs. I know you probably thought Brian gave me an allowance to keep up our personal blog, but he doesn't. Go figure. Hope you'll check out those posts I wrote this morning as the snow fell on the cold, cold Colorado ground.

Weather Update

2009-12-01T17:34:00.001-07:00

The HIGH is 24 degrees tomorrow.

Just thought you'd want to know.

New Poll

2009-11-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

I added a poll to the blog. Nifty, huh? I've been contemplating joining a wholesale club for a while now. I hate going to the store every time I turn around for the same products and I think buying in bulk is a beautiful thing.

I'd really like to make an informed decision, so I'd love your advice about which one to choose: Sam's or Costco.

You can vote at the poll on the right there and you can leave me a comment.

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-28T14:05:00.001-07:00

This was my very first year away from home for Thanksgiving. I wasn't away from home so much as I was at a new home. We spent the holiday with Brian's people in Colorado Springs. His twin and her husband came up from Mississippi and brought their friend Bryan Christopher and their german shepherd puppy. Brian's oldest sister and her family and Brian's grandparents live in the Springs, so they were there and of course Brian's parents graciously hosted all of us. We stayed for three days and each day there was a smattering of different people dropping by to visit.

Matt and Michelle

Grandpa and Grandma Ramsey

I'm not used to such large crowd since we always had comparatively small holidays and since it's just Brian and me up in here in Lakewood. But even though I wasn't used to all the excitement, I really enjoyed it. We went to bed tired but not drained each night and looked forward to being with family again each day.

On Thanksgiving we went on group hike through Palmer Park. I wore my house shoes because I forgot my tennis shoes at home. I'm sure it was a very nice hike, but all I could think about was how much my feet hurt.

As glad as we were yesterday to be sleeping in our own bed and back in our own house, we were a little sad driving back that we wouldn't be waking up to a houseful of family and friends.

Today we are back to life as usual. Brian is at Starbucks cranking out heat transfer homework and I'm washing clothes and trying to organize our Christmas decorations.

Leatherheads

2009-11-25T08:02:00.002-07:00

Last night Brian and I watched Leatherheads with Renee Zellweger, George Clooney and John Krasinski (The Office). Allstar cast right? I thought so, but even with a great cast the movie was a total waste of time. It was two hours long and very, very slow. When the movie was over I didn't like any of the characters. No one had integrity or likability.

So I write this morning to save you from wasting your 3 dollars for the rental and two hours of your life that you'll never get back.

On a less critical note, Brian and I are leaving this morning to go to the Springs to spend Thanksgiving with his family! We are really excited. Even though we live just a little over an hour from away we've only made it down two times since we've been married. It's hard to leave for a whole day when there's so much work to be done for Brian's classes.

I'm getting a hair cut today as well. It always makes me feel better to have a new hair cut and I've been feeling kind of yucky lately, so I'm hoping this will pull me out of my slump.

I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving wherever you are. If you feel like you have nothing else to be thankful for this year, remember that God's very nature is the believer's greatest source of joy. He gives us strength for today and hope for tomorrow!

Pea Soup

2009-11-23T14:19:00.010-07:00

This is the best soup. Ever. Seriously, ever. It's the only pea soup I've ever had because well, pea soup sounds kind of gross. A couple of weeks ago we had dinner at some friend's and this is what they made. I googled split pea soup for about a half hour before I found the exact recipe my friend used but it was 30 minutes well spent.

Pea and Basil Soup

1 1/2 cup (12 oz) frozen peas

1 onion chopped

2-3 cloves garlic minced

1-2 T EVOO

3/4 cup fresh basil chopped

1 can (12 oz) chicken broth

1 cup half and half

salt and pepper to taste

Optional garnish: fresh sliced mozzarella and sliced roasted red peppers

(I used some jarred roasted red peppers and skipped the cheese)

Cook onions and garlic in EVOO in large sauce pan until onions are translucent (5 minutes) add peas and basil until peas are thawed (5 minutes). Pulse pea mixture and 1/2 can of chicken both in blender until pureed. Return to sauce pan add the rest of the chicken broth and half and half. Cook until hot but not boiling (boiling half and half will not turn out well, trust me).

This recipe is originally from Giada on FoodNetowrk but I've tweaked it so that it's less heavy

This next one's for Jerry and Emily :) Growing up my step dad added hot sauce to lots of things like french fries and pinto beans. And my friend Emily is even more lavish in her application of hot sauce. It's one of the major themes of her blog. So after years of exposure from Jerry and months of subliminal messages from Emily's posts, I bought some. Wasn't sure what to do with it, but I bought it none the less. And slowly I'm putting it on more and more things. Rice, eggs, beans. What's next?

Sorry, no Louisiana.

Health Food Stores

2009-11-21T12:40:00.002-07:00

Brian has a theory about the difference between health food stores and regular grocery stores. He thinks that people are generally happier in the health food store (customers and employees). He says it's because the decor contributes to a better atmosphere and people like the food their buying more. I mean doesn't everyone love spending their kid's college fund on health food?

I vary going to Wholefoods and King Soopers and Safeway. I only go to Wholefoods once or twice a month to get a few essentials that I can't get in a regular grocery store. And without a doubt older women will find me and ask me about the items in my cart and where certain products are located in the store. People talk to other people in health food stores. When I tell them about my roasted red peppers or point them to the sundried tomatoes we end up chatting. Today I gave a lady my recipe for split pea soup.

No one has ever just come up to me in a normal grocery store like that. So I'm thinking maybe Brian's on to something. Or maybe, I look like a health food store employee?

Twilight

2009-11-19T12:54:00.007-07:00

Okay folks, I'm going to be unedited and maybe even a little offensive today. I know some of you are Twilight lovers. I'm not talking about the time of day immediately following sunset. I'm talking about all this vampire non-sense. I don't think it's satanic or anything. I just think it's stupid. I read the first chapter of the book=not my style of writing. I watched the first 30 minutes of the movie=Fell asleep.

I will give ole what's her name credit for even churning out that many 400 page novels. my opinion aside, that's impressive. And she must know how to weave a story if so many grown women, teenage and elementary school girls gobble up her series. I'm not trying to bash this lady at all or her writing for that matter. I just don't understand what drives our culture to the bookshelves and box office to lap up dark fiction. (I do like Harry Potter and the previously mentioned LOTR, so that probably makes me a hypocrite.)

Tim Challies has a great blog where he spends his days reviewing books from a discerning Christian perspective. I don't know if he's done a review for Twilight, but today he wrote a parody chapter of Twilight meets the Beverly Lewis Amish series meets the Left Behind series. And if you read Christian fiction or have any knowledge of popular Christian fiction, this will crack you up.

Forget E-Harmony

2009-11-18T08:09:00.014-07:00

I meet more and more couples who met through an online dating service. We have two such couples in our small group and another who lives next door. A few years ago I was skeptical about the online thing, but as culture continues to go the way of passivity about marriage and hostility toward marriage I applaud those brave singles who intentionally turn to the web for like-minded folks.

I have friends who've shelled out many monthly payments for these online dating services and never found a match. Or worse found one who ended up being a total loser.

I have other friends who really love singles and want to see them marry well, so they are building a different kind of online dating community. Marry Well takes the principles of Biblical dating and incorporates them into the online scene. Marry Well will also remove some of the online pitfalls and risks. Meeting someone online can be like meeting someone in a bar or coffee shop: You have no way of knowing if the information they're giving you about themselves is true. There is no third party to vouch for his or her character. One of the features of Marry Well allows and encourages participants to have mentors and peers (like a pastor or small group member) provide appraisal of the participant's character.

My friend Candice explains a little more about Marry Well and the upcoming beta period here. And yes, this is a shameless plug for what I think is going to be a life-changing ministry for marriage-minded singles.

Dear freshman Brian, pt. 1

2009-11-17T13:23:00.001-07:00

Dear freshman Brian,

It's 2005 for you, fall to be precise, and I have words of wisdom to impart to you. I'm the Brian of 2009, so trust me when I say you have a lot of growing up to do. What do you think it means to be a man? What are you even living for? I know the habits, the broken perspectives, and the cowardice in your heart, dude. There are a lot of things you're going to need mentors for in the coming few years, especially thinking about school, work, relationships, and the Gospel.

Freshman Brian

Let me provide a little guidance for you to start. There's a prevailing myth that because you're "young" you can skate through everything without taking responsibility for your growth. Look at all your friends and classmates. Some of them slack-off, complain about everything, date more girls than there are days in a year, and veg out on video-games. That means you are excused for doing the same, right?

Wrong. I know the lies you're believing and how they affect you. I want to bring you the truth on some things with the hope of life transformation for you and so that you'll exercise Godly wisdom in your relationships with others. You already know Jesus Christ. You've tasted His love. You have a hope living inside you. I'll tell you just how deep the meaning of this goes. I believe you know some of these things already, but I'll remind you out of love. You've missed some major pieces of wisdom along the way. Let me tell you what that will mean for you...

Sources of Tension and Relief

2009-11-16T12:55:00.001-07:00

I haven't written a blog for a long time, partly due to schoolwork, partly due to rest. Certain days mean long periods of homework, labwork, and job-searching, and I like to rest with Ashley on the days when Mines lets up a little.

I'm sure everyone enjoys Ashley's blogs (as do I), but I figured I'd take a quick work break and contribute today since my name also appears as an author on this blog (--->).

The long days of work take a toll on Ashley and me. Being at Mines most days (and now at Red Rocks to take the Dietary Nutrition class on Saturdays) means that I spend that time learning hard and working feverishly to get as much time at home with Ashley as possible. A lot of days, I walk in the door just relieved to see her face. I also generally feel a sense of pride knowing that I worked long and hard. Not yet having a job lined up after my graduation this December tends to worry me more than anything else most days. There seems to be something at the core of manhood that prompts us men to have a plan of provision for our family. That's a good thing. It puts on the pressure when we're being lazy, and it gives us a great way to spend our time: working.

The other day I heard a sermon by Mark Driscoll talking about our prayers, that they arise to God like an incense, and he hears them whether or not we feel it. Some days knowing that God hears and will answer our prayers in time is the greatest encouragement of all.

I know that God will hear our prayers for:
- Ashley's neck and back pain relief
- A job so I can provide for my family
- Our friends and family to know God's heart and mind in Jesus Christ

I don't have an eloquent end for this post, but I ask for your continued prayers for Ashley and me. We trust in God for provision, not only of our basic financial needs, but in his continued presence and love for us. Jesus Christ is our bedrock, and we have a solid place to stand in the day of adversity.

Say Cheese ... Cake!

2009-11-14T07:43:00.018-07:00

Cheesecake has always seemed too fancy and rich a dessert to make at home. Brian loves cheesecake and when we go out for dessert he typically veers toward it on the menu. But I stealthily manage to guide him to a less hip-widening sweet by saying something dramatic like, "Do you want me to be the size of our sofa!"

But not last night. It was his birthday, so he got cheesecake. Chocolate cheesecake. Drizzled with homemade chocolate sauce. I got the recipes from a local Cry-Leike cookbook that the Bank girls had floating around (hey ladies!).

It's called "Hershey's Best Loved Cheesecake," but I didn't use Hershey's chocolate and I don't love that name so I'm just going to call it:

Chocolate Cheesecake

3 pkg cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 c sugar

1 (8 oz.) sour cream

1 T vanilla extract

1/2 c cocoa powder

2 T all-purpose flour

3 eggs

Crust:

1/2 stick butter

1 cup chocolate graham cracker crumbs

Preheat oven to 450. Combine softened butter and crumbs and press onto bottom of 9 inch spring-form pan. Beat cream cheese and sugar. Add sour cream and vanilla. Add cocoa and flour. Add eggs one at a time (I added two at a time. Why waste time?) Beat until blended. Pour into crust and bake for 10 minutes at 450. Turn heat down to 250 and bake 40 minutes. Cool completely and refrigerate 4-6 hours.

Before I forget, let me give you the chocolate sauce recipe too.

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 2/3 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine in sauce pan. Bring to a boil for one minute. It wasn't too sweet or clumpy at all. And it refrigerated well. I will definitely use this one again.

Brian was so sweet. We went to a french place downtown for dinner. I had told them earlier in the week when I made reservations and requested a quiet table that it was my husband's birthday. I didn't think they would care, I just thought it might get me a table out of the way. Well, when our waiter brought the dessert menus he told us that it was complementary for Brian's birthday. They had written it down on the phone and even had a handwritten card for Brian with cards for complementary drinks the next time we came.

We were both really impressed, but even so Brian politely thanked the waiter for dessert and said we would pass because he was going to eat my dessert at home :) What a sweet guy to pass up free yummy french dessert.

And one last thing, I feel the need to confess something. As I wrote this post I ate a small piece of cheesecake. It's only 9:15 in the morning. Someone save me from myself!

Happy Birthday Brian!

2009-11-13T11:15:00.003-07:00

For those of you who are not Brian. I'm sorry to have subjected you to my singing and my unwashed hair. I tried really hard to compress this video so I could email it to Brian privately rather than embarrass myself on the blogosphere, but that proved to be an insurmountable feat. So laugh your little hearts out.

And, the dessert I mentioned after my enthralling rendition of Happy Birthday will be featured on the blog tomorrow. Trust me, you'll want to try this one.

Dear Colorado

2009-11-12T11:59:00.001-07:00

Dear Colorado,

The longer we're together the more my appreciation for you grows. The mountains are spectacular. The warm orange and pink rays that come through my blinds and onto the dining room wall as I fix breakfast in the morning are a really nice touch. The sun, well to be honest it burns my retinas but I'm learning the importance of sunglasses. The snow, it's growing on me. It helps that Brian knows how to play in it. I actually enjoyed the 2 feet that you dumped on us a couple weeks ago. Being snowed in has its perks.

But the weather fluctuations, that's why I'm writing. Today it's 70 and sunny. Yesterday Brian and I played frisbee in the park with our buddies because it was so pleasant. Tomorrow it's going to snow. The heavens are going to rain down freezing matter after a 70 degree sunny day?

What if I were a pioneer woman and I did not have weather.com to tell me how to dress in morning? I would just get dressed based on the day before and walk unsuspectingly out outside only to have to turn around and change clothes. I bet you got a lot of letters from pioneer women back in the day. I'm not sure how you could rectify this problem. Maybe be a little more consistent. You know how I like consistency.

Sincerely,

Ashley Ramsey

Pumpkin Cake

2009-11-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

I have made Laurie's Fresh Apple Cake for EVERYTHING lately. It's officially my go-to cake recipe now (but when Brian's not around to assist, I have to confess that I don't peel the apples). Sunday was dessert night at small group and they had previously enjoyed the amazingness that is the Fresh Apple Cake, so I figured it was as good a time as any to try something new.

I went to my one of my dearest and safest cooking resources, allrecipes.com, and found a simple pumpkin cake recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups canned pumpkin

4 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 12x18 inch pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine sugar and oil. Blend in vanilla and pumpkin, then beat in eggs one at a time. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in nuts. Spread batter into prepared 12x18 inch pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool.

I made an easy cream cheese frosting to go with by mixing:

1 8oz. box cream cheese (room temp)

1 stick of butter (softened)

2 cups confectioner's sugar

1-2 t. Vanilla

I thought I would be fancy and make a double layer cake. It fell apart a little and the top layer was wider than the bottom layer. But I managed to put them together just so that you couldn't tell it was a flop. But then I iced it. Have I mentioned that I'm terrible at frosting a cake? But Brian came home and re-frosted it. We make a great culinary team. Brian is wayyyy too meticulous to cook an entire meal. He can do it for sure, it just takes him forever because he does everything exactly right. But when it comes to tedious finishing touches, Brian is the man. He has saved many a cake for me.

And this cake was sooo good. At small group, I noticed that our leader's little girl who's about 3 or 4 was eating a piece. I asked her if her cake was good (because kids are painfully honest and she didn't know it was my cake) and she said yes, that it was yummy. So there you go.

If you live close by, Brian and I have a portion of the cake left and neither of us need anymore. Please come eat a slice and save us from obesity ;)

Brian's Dietary Nutrition Class

2009-11-09T15:31:00.002-07:00

This weekend was in Brian's words was "kind of a drag." He had to take up a one hour class at the local community college to graduate on time. Fortunately, the class is interesting. He's going to be taking Dietary Nutrition on Saturdays from 9-2 for three weeks.

I have a love/hate relationship with this class. I love it because it's affirming a lot of my health-related nagging and it's allowing me to get away with more healthy lunches than ever! Brian's usual lunch bag contains:

sandwich (PB&J or turkey and cheese)
crackers or whole grain muffin
apple or banana
carrots
raw nuts (walnuts or a mixture of pecans and almonds)

Today's lunch contained:

1 1/2 cup lightly crushed garbanzo beans with garlic, lemon juice, and cumin
plain organic yogurt with a banana and honey
apple
carrots
two whole grain pumpkin muffins

The beans had way more fiber and protein than any sandwich I would normally have made. Brian told me that we need more probiotics (according to his new found nutritional knowledge) so that's why I threw in the yogurt parfait. That's another reason why I love this class. Brian is starting to suggest that we are deficient in certain nutrients and observing how the foods we eat affect us.

Brian has been awesome about eating whatever I prepare without complaining, so I'm not saying he was hard to cook for before. But I am excited that we're even more on the same page about our health now that he's taking this class.

However, I'm not such a fan that Brian has to acquire all this knowledge from 9-2 on our one free day of the week. But all in all, I think it will be good for us in the long run: Brian graduates in December and we have a healthier family.

Date Day

2009-11-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Friday Brian took a half day off from school work and we drove into the mountains to visit St. Mary's Glacier.

Parking was expensive.

And I was sleepy.

But Brian paid the fee and talked me down off the rock.

It was snowy and pretty.

But I had zero energy, so we turned back before we got to the glacier.

And went to Beau Jo's Pizza for an early dinner.

And rented 10,000 B.C.

Lord of The Rings

2009-10-29T18:58:00.001-06:00

So I like Lord of the Rings. I'm not obsessed and neither is Brian, but we've watched the trilogy over the last three weeks because we ran out of The Office episodes. And I've taken up reading the books because they are epic and while I have the time to read I want to read books that I'd like our (future) kids to eventually read.

All that to say we've had a lot of LOTR going on at our place lately. As evidenced by how much we talk about it during normal conversations. For instance, the other day I was at dinner with my friend Denise. She's taking on old testament survey class at the local seminary. I told her that I'd started reading deuteronomy and I was really taken aback by how the nation Israel acted in warfare:

Ashley: I mean they went into cities and killed men, women and children. That's what the Orcs did Denise! God's people acted like Orcs!

And another example, last night at dinner I asked Brian if he could have been born in any country besides America which country he would have been born in.

Brian: Gondor. No, wait .... somewhere in Middle Earth like the Shire. Yeah, that's where I'd want to be born.

Ashley: Uh ... I meant somewhere that actually exists.

So there you have it. We are officially weird. After Brian's comment last night I decided to take a break from the LOTR books for a couple days. Sorry to our friends who haven't seen LOTR. You probably didn't understand this post at all.

Snowed In Part ll

2009-10-29T12:57:00.003-06:00

I know yesterday I whined about the snow, and I'm not taking it back or anything because it is lame to be snowed in alone. But today I found out that being snowed in with someone else, someone being your sweet husband, is awesome.

Last night Brian convinced me to go outside and experience the snow. I really don't like being cold or wet, but I did want to see if we got mail, so I agreed to braving the blizzard.

It was daunting.

And I was freezing.

But man was I fashionable. I wore my bathrobe with Brian's fleece overtop . Don't be jealous of my style.

See how deep! Brian's practically a giant at 6 '2 and it comes up to his knees.

All that adventure and no mail.

Snowed In

2009-10-28T14:59:00.001-06:00

I know I've whined about the snowed before, but today is different. Today the snowed has defeated me. It snowed more than six inches last night and it's still coming down. Brian just called to say I shouldn't even try leaving the house. Which if you know what today is, is very sad.

It's Wednesday. On Wednesday I get my housework done in the morning and head to campus to sit with Brian while he works at the coffee cart in the campus library. I talk to his friends who stop by and write thank yous while he works. And I get a free white chocolate mocha. It's a good day. But not today. Today I am stuck in the apartment. I think I need a pet (insert Jerry's laughter here).

So as a consolation I busted out the old Andy Griffith reruns and watched a couple disks. I forgot how funny they were. And how good the morals of the show are. I saved a couple episodes for when Brian gets home. He says he doesn't like Andy but we'll see.

***Whining Over***

I made Shrimp and Grits last night for dinner. I'd never had grits until Brian and I went to Charleston. Shrimp and Grits is a big deal there so we decided to try them even though we didn't think we would like them. And they were awesome. I tried to recreate them using a recipe from America's Test Kitchen but as usual I ended up just doing my thing because I hate measuring and I didn't have their ingredients.

My own thing went kind of like this:

Toss thawed pre-cooked shrimp in 1 T EVO with salt, pepper, and lemon and let sit. Thinly chop 1/2 onion and saute with minced clove of garlic. When soft, add 1/2 cup of half and half and 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil and add 3-4 T of quick (not instant) grits. Add a generous dash of hot sauce (that's for you Em!) and cook on medium-low for 5 minutes. Add shrimp and cook about another 2 minutes.

Brian, who does not like seafood, loved this meal. The proportions I used were too small for the two of us so we had to snack after dinner. Next time I'll make more and add some Cayenne pepper to the Shrimp.

Fall Decorating

2009-10-26T16:16:00.004-06:00

I want to decorate for the Holidays. But with this being my very first home, I've been unsure of how to go about it. I don't want to put a dent in our budget to decorate and I don't want to accumulate more things to pack should we move in a couple months. So I've just been sitting on my decorating desire and waiting for something to come to me. And it did. At Wal-Mart.

I don't much care for the Wal-Mart near our house (bad produce) so I've only been twice since we've lived here. But the other day I was close by and needing paper products so I figured it was as good a place as any. And as I pushed my cart up and down the aisles I remembered why we always shopped at Wal-Mart growing up: It's so much cheaper. Diced green chilies are at least .90 and sometimes a dollar at the grocery store but there were only .67 at Wal-Mart. I stocked up. Garbanzo beans were less than a dollar was well. Hominy was also much cheaper. With each aisle I felt certain I was in grocery heaven, so I decided to just check out the whole store.

Going down every aisle is not my style. It's never a good idea really because you buy way more than you need. But on this day it proved to be the answer to my Fall Decoration dilemma. On the holiday aisle they had faux suede leaf place mats for two dollars each. Another aisle over I found a square of brown felt for .25 and I knew I could make something seasonal out of my 4.25 find.

I already had the tea light holder so I used it. I think a big fall-colored candle would add more dimension and look better overall but this will have to do for now.

I got the leaf idea from my mother-in-law. She collected leaves and set them on top of a red table cloth and laid a clear covering over that to make a lovely fall table setting. On my Saturday run I walked the last 1/2 mile or so and picked up these leaves. A couple almost got away from me and I had to chase them down. One at a cross street and don't think the on-coming car stopped me from getting my leaf. Brian would've died if he'd been there.

I'd love to get some more fall/winter decorating tips. Please send them on if you have any.

Hidden Art

2009-10-26T10:48:00.000-06:00

My Mother-in-law has an enviable book collection. Every time I go to her house I make a point to scan the shelves for new additions. On my last visit I found a book that has no doubt been on the same book shelf since Brian was born: Hidden Art by Edith Schaffer. I'd heard some talk of this book over on Girltalk a while back when they were doing a fall decorating contest and it piqued my interest.

Edith begins by pointing to the first and ultimate artist: God. Since we are made in His image and likeness we also contain the ability to create and appreciate beauty. I know what some you are thinking at this point "I don't have an artistic bone in my body." Stop it. Just stop. You are probably very much like me, not too crafty, not too artsy and not to in-tune with your own creativity. If that is the case, then you are overlooking potential that is yours by your very design. Consider with me the ways you could explore some inkling of your dormant creativity.

To be honest I felt pretty silly doing just that this week. My attempt to find my inner artist was spurred by our niece. I water colored with her a couple weekends ago. It was too bad we had to leave because I didn't get to finish my watercolor family photo. When we got back home I bought some watercolors of my own. At the time I had no idea what I would do with them.

Edith says that Hidden Art is making the space you live your own by using simple things (including things you already own and things that are naturally around the area you live like old candles or wildflowers from a nearby field). She suggests "redeeming" items you already have rather than throwing them out.

If you know me at all, you know I cringed at the idea. I hate keeping things we don't absolutely need. The Goodwill pile and the garbage can are two of my very best friends. So I opted for something we already have and and could use in more creative ways: Brian's blank note cards.

I recently bought a "Happy Birthday" stamp so we could make our own birthday cards. Rarely can I find a decent store bought card and when I can I swear they cost upwards of 4 dollars. (I know my mother is shaking her head and thinking "how cheap.") About the time I bought the watercolors I came in need of a sympathy card. And again, it's not that I don't want to spend the money on a card for a loved one but most cards just don't suit me. So I decided to paint a sympathy card. And it was so much fun I painted another and another. And you get the point. I got a little carried away.

And in getting carried away I came across my artistic limitations. You see those small tulip-looking flowers? That is all there is to my Hallmark career. In suggesting that we explore our creative potential I am not suggesting that you plug away doing something you are absolutely bad at. Move on and see if you have some hidden talent elsewhere.

I think I will keep painting even though I do not have much room to improve apart from some kind of instruction. It's a calming thing and nice way to put a personal touch on my friendly correspondence. Let me warn you of one of the dangers of water coloring. Don't use the same looking cup for your water and your coffee. I had to pour out a couple cups of coffee before I chose a different cup.

Marriage, a thing of the past

2009-10-23T12:57:00.000-06:00

Since Brian and I have been married we've found that we are an anomaly of sorts. Our apartment leasing office keeps referring me to as "Brian's girlfriend." To which Brian always responds, "Ashley is not my girlfriend. She is my wife. We are married." With much emphasis. Actually, a little too much emphasis ;) Our neighbors always seem surprised to find out that we are married. And today the UPS man delivered a package for Brian and asked me if my last name was Ramsey too (while I am standing in the doorway in my bathrobe with wet hair). I said yes and he explained that most of the time it's the girlfriend who signs and he has to make a note if it's a different last name.

I've found that there is a new expectation when two people live together. It's that they are "living together" and "trying it out."

Laurie's Fresh Apple Cake

2009-10-21T08:32:00.001-06:00

I left this out of my Fall Break recipes because the post was getting too long. But I did also make friend Laurie's Fresh Apple Cake. I served it twice (half to D & K and the other half at Brian's family Monday night, it was a crowd pleaser with both groups).

Fresh Apple Cake
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans
3 cups peeled and chopped fresh apples (I've been using 3 large Gala apples)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-in. tube pan. Mix sugar, oil, and eggs until well-combined (about 2 min.) Add salt, soda, vanilla, cinnamon, and flour. Mix well. Fold in pecans and apples. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean (it took 90 minutes for Laurie and me). Remove from pan and pour glaze over cake while still warm.

Glaze:
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup margarine or butter (softened, NOT melted)

Mix well and pour over cake.

I hate peeling apples. I almost baked something else when I saw I had to peel apples. But Brian, being full of surpises, can perfectly peel apples. It's a skill ya know. A skill I don't have and now I don't need ;)

October 21

2009-10-21T08:05:00.003-06:00

This morning when Brian left for work I walked down to the car with him to get my camera. It was still dark because he leaves pretty early to open the coffee shop on Wednesdays. And since I had my camera I took a picture of him and the crazy precepitation.

The little white dots are snow flakes. I know I've already blogged about the shock and horror of snow in October, but mark my words any snow that falls to the ground outside my apartment before November 1 (the date I have deemed appropriate for snow) will be photographed and blogged about.

I'm going to be driving in this in a few hours. I'm a bad enough driver without snow.

Fall Break Recipes

2009-10-17T14:49:00.137-06:00

The past four days have been Brian's Fall break. And they have been some of the most fun days of our marriage so far. Friday evening when Fall break officially began we made Toscana Soup. If you've been to Olive Garden then you've probably had this before. It is going in the rotation of regular recipes we liked it so much.

Toscana Soup
1 lb. spicy Italian sausage
1 qt. water 
(2) 14.5 oz. cans (about 3 2/3 cups) chicken broth 
2 lg. red potatoes - scrubbed clean, cubed
 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
 1 med. onion chopped 
2 cups chopped kale
1 cup half & half (called for heavy cream but I found what I had on hand did the trick)
salt and pepper - to taste

Kale is my new favorite ingredient

You can see in the background I served this with some steaks I got on the cheap and spinach. But we ate the soup again last night by itself and it was hearty enough to eat alone.

Simmer potatos, onions, water, garlic and broth until veggies are soft. Add cooked and crumbled sausage simmer for 10 minutes. Add kale and half & half and simmer until warm throughout. This would be yummy with garlic bread or biscuits. Add garlic and italian spices to melted butter in the butter-dipped buscuits below.

Saturday was so relaxing. We slept late except for that brief moment when Brian's alarm went off at 5:30am (there was gnashing of teeth). I call it "Brian's alarm" because it's on his side of the bed. I'm unemployed so I don't really need one. My only job right now is to be Brian's helper which means that as long as I'm in the kitchen before he gets out of the shower, I'm good. So on second thought my alarm is the shower.

I tried a new biscuit recipe for breakfast. We had these biscuits at small group last week and I got the recipe from our host. They are very, very simple and delicious (and bad for you). If I can make these, I trust anyone can. (The recipe I linked to is twice the size of what I make for Brian and me, so if you want a bigger batch you'll want to check that out.)

Easy Butter-dipped Biscuits
Ingredients:

1 cup self-rising flour*

1 T sugar

1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)

1/4 cup butter melted

all purpose flour

*As a substitute for each cup of self-rising flour, place 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1 cup. This is what I did since I don't buy self-rising flour.

Directions:

In a bowl, combine the self-rising flour, sugar and milk; mix well. Turn onto a floured surface; sprinkle with all-purpose flour. Pat dough to 1/2-in. thickness. With a sharp knife dipped in flour, cut into 3-in. x 2-in. pieces. Pour butter into an ungreased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Dip one side of each piece into melted butter. Carefully turn to coat. Bake, uncovered, at 450 degrees F for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

I was so proud of them.

There was dispute on the allrecipes comment section about wether or not to cook the biscuits in the butter or to dip them in the butter. It seemed easy enough to me to just cut pads of butter on the cookie sheet and cook them in the butter but after doing that a couple times I found it's not the best idea. The excess butter burns and smokes in the high temp. So I would say dip 'em real good in a bowl and bake them on the sheet. These biscuits turned out great. I made them to go with chicken curry soup later that night too.

Chicken curry soup (crockpot style)

Ingredients:

1/2 head of cauliflower chopped

1 large sweet potato chopped

1 onion chopped

3 large chicken breasts cooked and thinly pulled or chopped

2 can chicken broth

1 cup apple cider

1 T EVOO

2 T curry powder

1 t cumin

1 T ginger (I used the spice since I didn't have fresh)

1 clove crushed and minced garlic

Curry turns everything bright yellow. If you can get over yellow cauliflower, you'll like this soup. I dumped all of these into my crockpot Saturday morning on low. I had a moment of despair when I realized that the apple cider I got for a bargin at Super Target was carmel apple flavored (it smelled and tasted gross). Mom always said that you get what you pay for. I bumped the crockpot up to high and added a little water and after an hour the flavors settled together and I could no longer smell the vile liquid that almost cost me my soup.

Dinner with Drew and Keano was so fun! They both study bio mechanical engineering so I enjoyed hearing them talk about how the body works, ergonomics, and some interesting tidbits about running barefoot.

Fall Break was made up of four of the most enjoyable days of our marriage so far. We ate good food and spent time with our friends and family. Brian's family came up to eat at Casa Bonita on Sunday and came back to our place so they could see our apartment. On Monday we went down to Colorado Springs to see them and visit with Brian's sister Christine who was in town on leave. Fall Break has left me eagerly awaiting the holiday season ahead.

Aren't You?

2009-10-16T20:49:00.001-06:00

Ashley has this cute and perplexing habit that seems to be coming up more frequently lately. When she wants something, or wants to go do something, what would normally be a statement becomes a question. Examples?

Rather than saying "I want to go to sleep" she'll say,

"Aren't you ready to go to sleep?"

Rather than "I think we should go brush our teeth" it's,

"Don't you want to go brush your teeth?"

My favorite quality about these questions is the cute lilting at the end which makes it seem less like a threat and more like a sweet pondering. I can see right through it, though. I know she's anticipating a positive response from me, and she's right to expect it.

What prompted this blog post tonight?

While enjoying milkshakes and an episode of the Office:

"Aren't you sick from so much milkshake?"

S.O.S.

2009-10-15T18:09:00.001-06:00

Remember last time how I said I was making a chicken curry soup for some friends on Saturday? Well I need a good bread to go with it. Rolls or biscuits or something like that. So I'm sending out an S.O.S. for recipes that aren't too difficult and don't require ingredients that I wouldn't already have.

On second thought, no biscuits. Emily and her Mom gave me the key to the mint with their recipe but I'll have to really work my ego back up before I try homemade biscuits again after my epic fail.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Pumpkin Muffins

2009-10-15T09:26:00.004-06:00

I really like allrecipes.com. I get most of my recipes from that site because each recipe is like a blog post in that people leave comments about how they liked or didn't like or changed the recipe. I read the recipe and then the comments where people made changes and make my muffins accordingly. I usually use the base recipe (flour, oil, baking powder, etc.) as the recipe prescribes and change the other ingredients like nuts, raisins, and spices to my own taste.

That's what I did with these pumpkin muffins and they are so good!

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup raisins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar (you can use 1/2 cup brown sugar instead of adding raw sugar)

1/4 sugar in the raw

dash of cinnamon

dash of ginger

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 eggs

a little more than a cup canned pumpkin puree (the recipe called for 3/4 cup but I wanted to be sure they'd be moist. Using whole grain flour usually makes for dry muffins)

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup apple sauce

generous squirt honey

1/2 cup chopped walnuts and pecans

I know that looks like a lot of ingredients but I just throw in whatever I have on hand and seems to go together.

Directions:

Put raisins in a cup and cover them with hot water until they're plump (until you're done with the rest of the recipe). Stir all dry ingredients then add rest of the ingredients (including raisins) and mix until all contents are moist and well distributed. Bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes.

These are the first moist muffins I've made using whole wheat flour. They aren't too sweet. If you want dessert muffins, you can add more honey. I used half of what the original recipe called for. The batter turned out to be enough for 16 muffins so I saved what was left over after a dozen and baked a small batch this morning.

In other news, Brian has an interview this morning. He just left. And he looked so handsome that it was a shame we weren't going on a date. I couldn't help snapping a photo :)

We are having our friends Drew and Keano over for dinner Saturday. I think I'm going to make a chicken curry soup that I found in a Rachel Ray magazine. It looked interesting. The broth is apple cider and the ingredients include, but are not limited to, a half a head of cauliflower and a large sweet potato. I hope our guests will be as excited about eating it as I am making it. I bought a HUGE jug of apple cider from the super Target in preparation for this meal. (It was the only size I saw and it was on sale.) I think we'll have apple cider floats for dessert since I have a lot of cider on hand.

Too-da-loo!

FAIL: Homemade Biscuits

2009-10-14T16:32:00.004-06:00

I would like to make it known from the outset that is a descriptive post not a prescriptive post. I am an amateur biscuit maker and would not suggest that you do as I do.

I found my recipe on oldfashionedliving.com yesterday. The website had "oldfashioned" in it, so it sounded credible to me.

Ingredients:
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
4 tablespoons butter or shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
about 3/4 cup milk

Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly "knead" for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.

I bought a sifter yesterday morning in preparation for this baking adventure. And I must say that sifting two cups of flour can really wear out my hand. I had to take a break and I'm not being dramatic. Making biscuits got me all homesick thinking about Maw Maw and her biscuits. And then it got all me all depressed because I knew mine wouldn't be nearly as good as hers if they were even edible.

The dough was really thin and I didn't have anything to roll it out with so I used my nalgene (for non-mountain people, that's a water bottle). I knew they were a little too thin as I put them on the pan, but I said a little prayer and shut the oven.

It turns out that God did not make my biscuits magically delicious. Which makes sense since God is not a genie. I reaped the natural consequences of years of watching Maw Maw make biscuits but not learning how to make them myself. They were terrible. Brian ate three anyway and said they were good. I wouldn't even eat them. So Brian and I had to have a talk about what it means to be credible. I explained that if he says that things are good when they are empirically not good, he loses credibility with me when I need to know if something is good enough to serve to other people.

Like today, I made pumpkin muffins (recipe will be posted soon) and brought one to Brian's friend who works the shift after him at the Coffee Cart. I didn't want to feed his friend a mediocre muffin but I couldn't ask Brian if it was good because he lost credibility with the biscuits. But I'm not complaining about Brian. He's a real gem, eats everything I make without complaining.

We had two left over biscuits and you know me, I hate to waste even the worst of foods. So this morning I made chocolate gravy in which to drown them. I was able to eat about a half of one and so was Brian. I didn't like the recipe I used for the gravy as much as the one my friend LaShanda's mom made when we were growing up. Does anyone have a good chocolate gravy recipe?

I Kid You Not

2009-10-10T10:28:00.004-06:00

It's october 10th for goodness sake.

I said the S- word.

2009-10-09T08:56:00.002-06:00

I think I've mentioned Higher Grounds before (the coffee shop whose internet I mooched before we got internet). The owner is what makes the coffee shop so great. Jeff knows his customer's names and at least pretends to be interested in their lives. He's from Iran and is a really neat guy. I like him so much that I'm afraid to ask if he's hiring at the risk of ruining our pseudo customer-patron relationship.

I dropped in for coffee with another Mines wife yesterday. I feel like a real regular walking up to the counter without my wallet since we have a credit. I was working there so much that we thought it would be a good idea to put twenty dollars on a tab and since we've got internet I rarely go anymore so our tab is lasting well into the semester.

I ordered a caramel macchiato and remembered that Brian said not all coffee shops make macchiatos like Starbucks. A real macchiato doesn't even have milk. So I asked Jeff if it was the Starbucks kind or the European kind. And you'd have thought I said the F- word. "Starbucks? I do not like Starbucks and I have only been there one time in my life and I will never go back. I would not know if it is like Starbucks."

I started mentally backpedaling. I had just deeply offended Jeff. It was like something out of a movie. You know how movies make foreigners look when they get mad? Like they will have some kind of life-long vendetta against you. "Uhh, I didn't mean I wanted it to be like Starbucks Jeff. What I ... uh ... meant was that Brian told me that there are two kinds and sometimes you have to ask which kind. That's just the only way I knew how to explain it."

I think Jeff could tell I was flustered and sorry so he changed his tone and his expression and went on telling me about how he goes to coffee conventions and knows how Starbucks roasts their beans. They burn them he tells me. And says it's very bad for your health. I think he even said it will give you cancer.

I'm not sure about all that but I'm easily swayed about health related things so I'm going to do some research. And never, never say the S- word in Higher Grounds again.

Hi. My Name is Ahsley

2009-10-06T09:27:00.003-06:00

I put off changing my name for about two months. I was busy (read: lazy) and not really sure how to go about that process. That is until Focus told me a couple week ago that they wouldn't draw up a freelance writing contract for me unless I changed my name (if I intended to change it). After a dramatic tear fest and a pep talk from Mom and some Social Security Office research from Erin, I dried it up and went to the Lakewood Social Security Office to stand in line with a really sick looking sea of humanity.

I normally would not cry over the privileged of taking my dear husband's name but it had been an emotional week and the task at hand felt daunting. Turns out though, that it's really simple.

Take a number (Literally take a ticket with a number and wait for your number to be called, I took a number beside a very ill-looking young man with a hospital face mask.)
Take marriage license to clerk and fill out a short form with new address and name.
Sign a very official looking document verifying that your new name and address are listed correctly.
Go home and wash your hands very thoroughly.

They said it would take a couple weeks for my new Social Security card to arrive. It came yesterday and my new legal name is:

Ahsley Brooke Ramsey

Looks like I will be repeating steps 1 through 3 and possibly 4 again this week.

It's Been a While

2009-10-04T13:56:00.004-06:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted. I think I mentioned that I'm having some neck/back trouble a few posts ago. It's gotten much worse. I've seen two chiropractors and a physical therapist, done all the stretches that they gave me, cut my time on the computer drastically (thus the reason for less posting) and tried to stay away from any activity that might prolong the healing process.

This morning in church I had to ask Brian to rub my neck during the sermon because of the pain, it was that or leave. I'm sure we looked like the disgusting, distracting PDA couple, but I didn't care. Please pray for me. I'm frustrated and feeling at a loss. And I feel sorry for Brian. He has been steadfastly compassionate toward me and pitched in more than normal even with his school work being at what feels like an all time high. I don't have that kind of endurance. After taking care of a sick person for a day my tendency is "You've had your day. Walk it off now."

My last day at Boundless was Wednesday. I'm not sure what capacity I'll have with them moving forward. We're still working that out. But I'm so thankful for this layoff. To continue to work from home would mean I would have to buy a completely new computer/desk setup since working on a laptop and ergonomically incorrect space was what caused all of this. I just didn't know any better. And now I feel really stupid for doing this to myself.

I had wanted to finish my wedding thank you's last week since I wasn't working, but looking down for a long time to write isn't very good for my neck either. If you're one of the many people who've yet to received a written expression of my appreciation, please know I have not forgotten you :) I really look forward to acknowledging the people who've made our little apartment functional and beautiful with their generosity and those whose encouragement and advice has enriched our lives. And writing thank you's has a very profound affect on my heart: it breeds gratitude.

Well I should really get off the computer. I do miss updating you guys on the blog and talking to you on the phone. Since we don't have great reception at the apartment, I make my calls when I'm out driving but talking and driving is bad for my neck so I haven't been doing that as much.

Tonight is the first night of small group. I cannot tell you how excited I am about being with people. Some days the only living creatures I see are Brian and the squirrel that lives on our porch. I'm hoping for some friends to come out of this. This morning we sat behind another newly married couple. The husband is a engineer (who offered to be a reference if Brian applies to the company where he works) and the wife is unemployed like me and they are in our small group! They have serious friend potential. I tried not to come off needy. I didn't want to scare them away like I do the squirrel.

I really hope this post wasn't a pity party or too complain-y. If it was, I'm sorry :). And again, I would really covet your prayers for my healing.

Say it with me, "I'm the Best!"

2009-09-30T19:54:00.001-06:00

Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." I read this recently. As I've skimmed this verse in the past, I've usually thought something like,

"Oh Paul. Yeah, you knew you were the worst. You drug around Christians to have them killed. Bad dude."

But, something different came to me next after this reading. You see, I hadn't connected this passage with Philippians 3:3-7 before. In it, Paul says, "...put no confidence in the flesh---though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more...[insert Paul's resume here]." I finally realized that Paul isn't so much down on himself in his writings to Timothy as he is prescribing a thought to Timothy, and ultimately, to me.

You see, Paul is saying that I should follow the thought, "I am the foremost sinner" because of the next verse.

"But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life."

I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. We're the worst (or you could say the best at sinning). Believe it. Believe it because it's true, and because we can rejoice that Jesus is displaying his patience with us and through us.

WHY: Grape Jelly

2009-09-28T18:26:00.000-06:00

I made an easy chicken and rice concoction for dinner and served it with colorful veggies. We were not lacking in starches but Brian insisted on having toast. My stepdad can't eat a meal without some kind of bread so I get that. I don't like it, but I get toast. What I don't get is why Brian would put grape jelly on toast and eat with the perfectly fine dinner I made.

You may think to answer that having a sweet spread on toast would be like having dessert but no, I made brownies for dessert. Can anyone explain this?

WHY is a new category that Brian and I've added for times during our "honeymoon phase" when we just don't get each other.

The Couple Side

2009-09-26T14:36:00.003-06:00

We finally met all our immediate neighbors. By immediate, I mean the neighbors living in the three apartments closest to ours. There are couples living in each, so I'm going to call our side of the apartment building "The Couple Side." Let me give you some first impressions of the Couple Side residents.

Our most immediate neighbors, namely the ones living behind the door that's one foot from ours are J and M. They've been married since February, so we've already found common ground with them talking about newly-married life and the fact that J graduated from Mines! I wish I knew the names of their two small dogs. Dog 1 is a light-colored chihuahua thing (this is probably inaccurate), and dog 2 is similar in breed but with black hair. We've seen those two dogs being walked more times than I can count, so clearly J and M have a commitment to being good owners.

Yesterday, we met N. N and his girlfriend, A, live in the apartment right below ours, and their balcony is like a functional greenhouse. Since moving in I've found the plant-life draping from their porch beautiful and abundant. As Ashley and I were on our way out of the complex for date night last night, we passed poor N, locked out of his apartment yet smiling happily. He's an art major, and he'd allowed some other artists to stay at their house overnight, then came home to find they'd left without remembering to return the key. We're hoping to have them over for dinner sometime.

The last apartment on the Couple Side will be affectionately dubbed "Party Central." This dating couple has apparently lived here for several years (according to N) and built up quite the collection of loud music and empty beer cans. Ashley and I often have to remind ourselves that our goal is not to get them to turn down the music, but to help them know the love of Christ. Surprisingly, I've had quite a few short conversations with them as they've sat on their balcony. Usually, our deep conversations go something like:

"How's it going?"
"Great! How're you doing?"
" Real good."
"Awesome. Later!"
"Later."

Now that you're in the know, please be in prayer for us. We are tempted to come home in the evenings and hole ourselves into our apartment, cut off from the neighbors around us. But, we really want more than that. Our hope is to develop relationships with all of our neighbors and have lasting connections. Maybe we can even bless them and talk about God's love and grace.

Thanks for reading! I'll keep you updated about the Couple Side.

I wonder if N ever got in...

Friday Roundup

2009-09-25T08:29:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite blogs Girltalk does a Friday edition called "Friday Funnies." I love their weekly blogs but I usually skip the Friday Funny, not this week though. This story will make you cringe with horror and laugh with delight. It's worth a read.

***

I've spent more hours than I wish to count in chiropractor's offices this week. My right side is significantly higher than my left due to misalignment and my neck is so tense that I have 0% curve (a healthy neck should have 30% curve). I'm taking breaks from the computer more often and doing some stretches Dr. P gave me.

***

At the pounding my friend Chryl gave us Snap peas. They are my new favorite snack! This is coming from someone who cringes at raw broccoli and celery. If you haven't tried these pick some up the next time you're at the grocery.

***

It's Date Night! This week we are going to the movies. We don't go often. In fact, we've probably only been to the theater together 3 times since we started dating. Brian has high media discernment (aka he doesn't put up with over the top language, crude humor, or sexually graphic material). I really appreciate Brian's leadership in the kinds of entertainment we choose.

We're planning to see "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" by Tyler Perry. I like Tyler Perry films, but I don't think Brian has ever seen one. I wasn't sure I wanted to see it until Bob Waliszewski gave it a good review and he's tough!

I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully we can get there early enough to get a seat that won't hurt my neck :)

Asparagus Victory

2009-09-24T12:41:00.002-06:00

Brian has always said he doesn't like asparagus. I love asparagus; it's one of my favorite vegetables. I've tried to convince Brian that if he had my asparagus he would like it, but he insisted that it didn't matter how it was cooked or who cooked it.

Until last night! He ate every bite. One olive oil-coated skillet + a little kosher salt and fresh ground pepper + fresh asparagus = asparagus-loving husband. I felt like a very victorious woman.

May I say Impressed?

2009-09-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

I have read a blog post Ashley wrote for the new Young Married Life blog on Focus on the Family's website several times and I am impressed. I am impressed first of all with Ashley's writing. Sometimes she is overcritical of her own writing (which I've noticed is common among writers. Even C.S. Lewis thought himself unqualified at first.) Then, I look at her work and can confidently encourage her that she does a great job writing about all kinds of things. Her humor, insights, and style flow well, and I find myself checking our website often to see if she's been posting while I'm on campus.

The second person I remain impressed with is my Mom. In the blog Ashley wrote you can see her loving compassion and deference to Ashley in all the ways that matter most. Ashley and I have both felt a sincere effort from our parents to remain unobtrusive, yet still expressing genuine interest and love.

Thanks Mom, and thanks to Dad, and Ashley's parents as well!

The last one I'll say I'm impressed with in this post is Jesus Christ (feels like I'm accepting a Grammy, doesn't it?). In all seriousness, he's been our close companion, teacher and comforter. Spending time in the Word in the mornings has given Ashley and I insight into His words and love for us and every other person. Lately, I've been challenged thinking about how Jesus was right when he said we'd experience many troubles in this life. The troubles we've found being married and working and studying and trying to know Him are great, but His joy is present even greater for us as a result.

Mexican Mishmash

2009-09-23T07:28:00.000-06:00

Now that I have the meat from a whole chicken I have to figure out what to do with all of it. I've found use for about half of it today with two new recipes. For both recipes I included the leftovers we brought home from the Pounding.

We have a lot of veggies like pepper slices and celery sticks that Brian and I eat in meals all the time but haven't acquired the taste to eat raw and by themselves. (As a side note, you should have seen us yesterday eating raw broccoli and grape tomatoes for dinner. We had them and by golly I was determined we were going to eat them. Since I can't handle another night of raw broccoli, I had to to do something with them!)

Mexican Mishmash

1/2 chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped red and yellow peppers
2 cups (ish) pulled chicken (dark or white is fine, I used mostly dark)
1 can rotel
1 can diced green chilies
1/2 packet of enchilada seasoning
6-8 corn tortillas
refried beans
1 bag of boil in the bag rice prepared (I had boil in the bag on hand from the pounding but I would normally make long grain brown in my rice cooker so whatever you have is fine)
shredded cheddar or mexi blend cheese
1 thinly sliced roma tomato

Cook onion and pepper in skillet with lightly coated olive oil until softened and add the next five ingredients and continue to cook until well heated and softened.

While that's cooking, line the bottom of a casserole dish with corn tortillas and spread refried beans on top of them (there was also leftover bean dip from the pounding that I used for this). For the next layer add the chicken and mixings from the stove top. for the next layer spread an even layer of rice and top with shredded cheese (however thick you want, I kept it on the light side). Place thinly sliced tomatoes on top.

I made this in the morning and refrigerated it until the evening so I had to bake longer that you would if you make it fresh. So I bet you could bake it at 375 for a half hour covered and 10 minutes uncovered.

This was so good! I served it with fresh corn (like I do most meals since corn is so cheap right now). I know I alluded to a soup recipe but I don't have time to put it up right now.

I've got to jump in the shower and head to the chiropractor. Relief is on the way! (And Sarah, don't worry they specialize in muscle work not violent cracking-- very homeopathic. I think Bobby would approve.)

Today is one of my favorite days of the week because I get to work with Brian at the coffee shop this afternoon. I'll work on my computer while he makes drinks. I always get a free drink: white chocolate mocha with an extra shot (for flavor not caffeine).

A Whole Freakin Chicken

2009-09-21T07:43:00.000-06:00

First of all, am I allowed to say "freakin"? If I have offended any of my more sensitive readers, please let me know and I'll more be mindful of my slang from now on.

Yesterday I cooked a whole chicken. My friend Emily is quite the homemaker. I always feel like less of a woman when I read her recipe blog posts and the all time low was when I read about how she can feed her and her husband with a whole chicken for a week.

A week ago I bought a whole chicken and put it in the freezer for when I was feeling brave or bored. And since yesterday was another homework catch-up day for Brian, I thawed my chicken.

I skinned the chicken (mostly)

I accidentally let some of the skin fall into the disposal. I figured it would be fine but when I turned it on the whole sink shook. Brian came to the rescue and fished the skin out of the drain. Brian = good husband.

Every website I found to read up on cooking whole chickens said to remove the giblet but none of them told you what that was. Lot of help they were. Brian tried to figure it out with me but in the end he was as clueless as I was. The chicken is cooked, pulled and in the fridge and I still have no idea what a giblet is (if you, dear reader, know please leave a comment).

I washed it and patted it dry. Then covered it with paprika, pepper, salt, rosemary and oregano and put two crushed cloves of garlic in the bottom of the crock and cooked for a little over five hours. All the recipes said to slow cook for seven but it was plenty done.

I'm planning on using the darker meat for an enchilada casserole tonight. I'll let you know how that goes!

The Pounding

2009-09-20T14:37:00.000-06:00

(Warning: This post will not flow naturally from one subject to the next.)

Yesterday Brian and I were pounded. Not with rain or rocks or anything like that. With groceries! Sandy hosted a Colorado party for the relatives and friends who couldn't make it to our wedding in Tennessee. She had the idea of making it a "pounding" where you pound the couple with food for their pantry that starts with the same letter as your last name. We got Almonds from the Allens and sugar from the Snells and Vegetable stock from the Valentins.

My mother-in-law (the afore mentioned Sandy) is a gifted hostess. Not only does she have a knack for party planning but she exudes true hospitality by making her guests feel at ease and at home. In the times that Brian and I have been able to have people over I've noticed my tendency to put the primary emphasis on presentation and the comfort of our guests secondary. Sometimes the most comfortable thing is not the most "presentable."

For instance, a couple weeks ago we went to dinner at a couple's house who've been married about a year. The husband finished up array of Indian dishes while his wife gave us a tour. (This couple is just as American as Brian and me, they're just more adventurous.)

When it was time to eat he spread out a bed sheet on the living room floor and placed all the pots and pans on pot holders right there in the middle of the sheet. We sat cross legged and ate all of the different dishes out of a rice bowl. It was the most relaxed I'd felt all week. After we finished eating no one jumped up to clear the ... sheet, we just continued to enjoy each other uninterrupted. I have not felt more loved and truly served since we've moved to Golden. I aspire to the kind of people-centered hospitality that both Sandy and our adventurous friends have modeled.

Back to the pounding ...

I met Brian's family's friends from church and his neighborhood. It was great finally putting names with faces. Quite a few of Brian's friends from Mines and my friends from Focus came.

All the different groups meshed nicely and enjoyed the spread. To the right is the dessert table. (I'd never heard of pistachio desserts until I met the Ramseys. I had my doubts in the beginning but now I love pistachio cake.)

Brian and I left the Pounding feeling very full of both food and love. And we're still trying to find pantry space for all our new groceries :)

On a crazy note, tomorrow the high here in 80228 will be 44. That's right Southern friends, say it with me forty-four degrees. The temperature as I write this post is 74 and it is sunny outside. I plan on going through my winter clothes bin as soon as I'm done here.