comfort foods

i've been enjoying more time to cook different meals or try new yummy recipes, and i'd thought i'd share a few of my recent comfort foods:

meag and i made Chicken and Root Vegetable Pot Pies on saturday.
peas, carrots, onions, corn, celeraic root, (parsnips)
sweet potatoes and rustic potatoes, cubed chicken
milk and flour and salt/pepper
buttery pastry dough for topping


then i made a Fruit Protein Smoothie with Wheat Germ
blueberries, a banana, cran-raspberry juice and plain yogurt.
that's tim's spiderman cereal 'spraw' spiraling upward to my mouth!

for our sunday night dinner group this week we made
Sweet Potato Ravioli with Lemon-Sage Brown Butter
cinnamon, nutmeg, fresh parmesan and sweet potato.
tim and I had fun mashing the stuffed wanton wrappers together with egg whites before boiling the raviolis. never would have guessed.

i also made cincinnati chili using Garam Masala as one of the main spices. more yumminess to come (after we eat the leftovers!)

the sickies

lately i've been eating, crying, napping and playing just about us much as the babies i'm watching. my whole schedule has been thrown off. i shower at odd times. i wake up hungry; i go to 'work' and play; i just about fall asleep when they do; i snack when they do; i play some more; i come home hungry; i'm tired so i take a nap (these have been averaging about 2 hours this week!); and usually i wake up feeling poopy...well never mind about that. (poopy in my HEAD and about this school decision). the past three days have been worst as i've gotten the sickies. there were piles of kleenexes strewn all over the house in every room, partly from my runny nose and partly from my runny eyes. what an emotional roller-coaster my life has taken! i don't cry much as long as tim's around. he's so great, and he responds much better to me when i forget the baby voice:)

springinnings

around here, there have been signs of spring popping and perking up everywhere.

although days of rain still abound, it's refreshing to see some heads of color deciding to break through anyway.

a much-needed reminder for me in this crazy time of indecision!

Boston Bound?

well friends, the curve ball thrown last week was a closed door to the MPH program at UW in Seattle that we were hoping for. after 5 long days of moping, i received a big envelope from Boston U welcoming me to their program! just not exactly how we had imagined this all working out...and we're still not certain whether we're packing our life up and heading to the other coast or not. we love the idea of such an adventure, and this is a great time of our life to pursue it. we just don't love the idea of moving away from our community and tim's family, which is growing! (thanks to everyone who's told us they'd come visit though:) it's just much more complicated than Seattle would have been! and maybe that's what God has in mind - something to stretch us WAY beyond our comfort zone to grow our faith, as we've been praying. is this our answer? a detour? a better way, or a closed door? we need some major discernment and have until april 1 to decide. here's to difficult times! and to something bigger than we can see with our eyes. without Hope, we'd be lost puppies! at least it feels that way sometimes. again, we're open to suggestions. comment away. we'll keep you 'posted.'

arch cape escape

is it just me or are we totally spoiled? another weekend away. i do have to say it's not every day that things go our way, but there are definitely some. part of me has never quite grown up in that i somehow still expect my way anyway, and i throw tantrums (possibly equivalent to when i was a two-year-old?) when it doesn't happen. the mature-me (that is, the spirit-me) recognizes that life to throws curve balls and that happiness is rarer than joy. the kid-me often trumps the latter.

well this weekend was an example of spoil and joy in the midst of confusion. the sun was a welcomed friend on the coast of oregon, at arch cape, just south of cannon beach. nothing beats good friends, good food, the sound of unending crashing waves, baby smiles, and a hot tub. oh, and settlers, of course.

good friends
(hellekson's, eyes, brown's, moody's)

baby smiles

(micah)

Babe Tim

Arcadia Beach

PS - happy birthday, Julie!!

permacation Oscars

it sort of feels like i'm on permanent vacation.
granted, i've only been one day on a new job playing with a sweet little guy...
(here he is ready to go out for a walk)
but i'm liking this new season so far!

Owen, almost 4 months:)

just waiting now to hear back from UW and BU. i feel like :?>:<(;^+]} inside (that was supposed to be all the keyboard emotional faces put together) but hope to hear where my life is headed soon! in the meantime, check out scenes from my trip home to colorado, which was definitely worth it! Pike's Peak
(no one brought their cameras skiing north at keystone, but it was gorgeous flying down the Rockies! thanks again Paul!)

goooooin' to the chapel...(Kate's getting married june 1!)

the betrothed
(Kate and Jesse)

the (formerly) ignored....Gracie chillin' on her bed

And now, a speech for all the great moments of the past week:

"First, I'd like to thank the Academy - the Air Force Academy - for allowing my sister to have her reception there so I could come all the way to CO to see it...and I'd like to recognize my mom, dad, and siblings for always being there and supporting my decision to come home and letting me sleep in on a nice water bed. Thanks to Paul for graciously accompanying me to the top of keystone with squished pb&j sandwiches, and to Ryan and Jaya for helping me overcome my altitude sickness along the side of I-70. Thanks Noah for sharing your engagement story and treasure map, and to all the housemate guys who put up with my Lost questions and let me crash on their couch. Thanks to the moon for eclipsing and giving me some extra joy in the King Soopers parking lot. I couldn't have had the same experience without the support of the Marble family and their friends and party food, including the excitement of Lindsey and Brittney's protruding bellies, soon-to-be children. Thanks Bekah for sharing your pop tart friend story with me, Diane for wearing the hippest jacket I've seen, and Erin for your smiles, polka-dot sweater and assurance that Jesse will be visiting soon! Thanks Amy and Sarah for keeping my laughing, and especially dad for finding that surprise in the hot tub that had us laughing all day. Finally thanks to my selfless husband and all his supportive friends and all who made it possible for me to be back today!! I hear the music starting so if I've forgotten anyone, please forgive me! See you in a few months!"

there you have it. i'll keep everyone posted when i hear about school (and the blog won't be your first notice, hopefully). now tonight i'm prepping to talk food planning with friends for another weekend away, at Archcape (OR coast). life is good! and glory to God, who has blessed it.

from the hood

canal, that is. the Hood Canal, from which we've just returned, having relaxed and recreated ourselves happily. waterfalls, beaches, snowshoeing, scrabble, scattergories and suspension bridges filled our weekend (so did a couple movies i probably wouldn't recommend.)

the waterfall sounded like it was rushing over my head


oyster eyes

heading toward mt. ellinor

good thing we took the jeep because we got stuck a couple times going up to these high places! even in nearly 50 degree weather, we had trouble. we still had fun though just shoeing on the road rather than the official trail, which we couldn't reach.


that's the shadow of the suspension bridge we were standing on

a field of some crazy old trees

i have plenty of new ideas of places to go once the snow melts - olympic wonderland! dosewallips, duckabush, hamma hamma, and staircase are next on the spring agenda:) say that 5 times fast!

shoes and solutions

today i'm self-employed. that means i've been taking pictures of my shoes for my amiga Roxie, getting to know baby Lincoln (and Owen), and biking to Bartell's Drugs to buy some candy. quite the change from full-time work so far. i'm 'transitioning' from employee to student.
that's it!

one of my happy moments this week was an arrival of a Christmas gift (thanks Joanie!), new earth shoes:)

earlier, my other shoes from Nordstrom just weren't cutting it in comfort so they took them back and gave me cash to buy these comfy Clarks:)

another breakthrough this week is my purchase of a southwest airlines ticket to fly home to COLORADO!!!! next week! the blues have been subdued! and will be most likely replaced with a much nicer pair of blues, the eyes of this here 1 year old who i get to play with for the next few months.

self-employment is grrrrreat!
of course it comes with responsibility...
which will come after Tim and i return from 3 nights at a cabin on the Hood Canal. we're leaving tonight! reporting to come!

open to suggestions

so i've just discovered i have an unexpected week of vacation conveniently positioned between my last day at REACH and my first day with the babies (thanks Bosh grandma!). i feel like asking for the highest bidder of all my long-distance friends...who wants me?? just kidding. i am tempted to search for wacko crazy good travel deals though, much to Tim's sha-grin ('what?? you'd leave me??'). most likely i'll look forward to fun day trips into the snow with abbie before her birthday, visiting another class at UW, and...well that's only 2 days already. see how i think about these things! i'll pretty much have a half day 'free' for the next 6 months, so that looks like plenty of time to catch up on local happenings here. so i should get away, right?

sorry mom and dad, i just barely missed the $89 round trip tickets to Denver. if you find a similar deal i'll reconsider!

one final thing is i lost my purse. if anyone has seen it please notify me:) and say a prayer in the meantime...

i'll let everyone know what's decided with the mystery week off. open to suggestions!

home stretch

weird feeling. i'm on the home stretch at work, with no more repeated last days. today is my last friday. tomorrow my last saturday. monday my last monday. all the way to valentine's day. the past 24 hours have been filled with weird emotions, naturally i suppose. it makes sense to feel kind of attacked toward the end. i start wondering, am i going to get the closure i desire? is God's big enough to get me into school? has my time there been truly valuable?
yes, it was carefully appointed. God is definitely big enough.

Watchman Nee was encouraging as I laid awake at 6 am this morning (early for ME!):

"gradually we learn increasingly to look to Him, having recognized that
everything depends upon Christ, and not upon us. ..
After we learn bit, we receive some understanding as to the necessity of trusting Him:

not in the sense of believing Him to grant us item after item,
but in the sense of trusting Him to do
what we are unable to do by ourselves."

amen.