Tea, winter, and resolutions

These days I am pounding down this tea.

It's full of yummy ingredients like Cinnamon, roasted chicory, roasted carob, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg! Incase you're wondering, the perfect combination is a cup of water in the microwave for 1:30 minutes, seep the tea for 6 minutes, and add a glob of raw local honey. It's pretty much perfection. Especially at this time of year. Oh, and it's from Walmart. 

Even though our ENORMOUS amount of leaves are still on the ground under that snow, it's really really pretty outside this morning. Secret? I really want it to snow today. I dunno. I know it goes against everything I ever felt towards winter but don't you think it'd just look nice and make today cozier? I do. Since I don't have to go anywhere, it would be nice.

Yesterday I read Elder Uchtdorf's talk "Of Regrets and Resolutions". Find the talk HERE. I highly recommend every person read that talk! Even if you aren't a mormon, it applies to everyone and I PROMISE you, it will uplift you. In the talk he mentions three resolutions we should strive for:

1. Resolve to spend more time with those we love.
2. Resolve to strive more earnestly to become the person God wants us to be.
3. Resolve to find happiness, regardless of our circumstances.

That's what I'm trying to work on.

Well, I hope you have a good weekend.

A cold cold day

Well, today was cold and lousy.

I woke up and I saw the brightness shining through our drapes, a brightness which I easily recognized as, "it snowed". So I double checked and sure enough, the ground was covered in white! Honestly? It looked pretty and seemed cozy and I wasn't at all sad about it!

Then I went to work and spent half of my day trying to figure out a dang printer and honestly? It just drove me nuts. Then everytime I go outside it's freezing cold. Then I realize I'm starting to get sick because my throat feels tense and my body feels heavy and I am so so tired and just feel sick. Then I go to this Young Women's training meeting for church and I kid you not, I FELT COLD AIR COMING FROM SOMEWHERE. It was so cold! I am going to sound like an oldie here for a second, but really. If we can put a man on the moon, can't our church figure out how to keep the thermostat at a temperature that doesn't have everyone shivering in their coats? I guess not. And ontop of all this I just was having some real emotional struggles probably because lets face it, it's about that time of month.

And seriously? I just had the worst attitude all day. But I was thinking all day, "I'm supposed to be looking for happiness, remember?" So...all day I planned on making hot chocolate. So...that's what I did tonight. It was basically honey, vanilla, chocolate, and milk. The "recipe" I used didn't have NEARLY enough honey...it was like really not sweet at all. So I added tons more honey and it's not too shabby. Not the best hot chocolate I've ever made, but it'll do.

I got one of the Photography books I ordered at the library today. It's called, "Digital Photography Book". Hopefully it's a good one. And then maybe I can figure out how to use my dang camera. Holy smokes, my pictures are awful without automatic settings! It's basically cause all I do is just hit buttons hoping they do something.

So, what am I happy about today?

Hot chocolate that warms my bones.


Long johns and soft socks that keeps me comfy and warm.



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P.S. I don't work tomorrow- hallelujah! Plans?

-Sleep
-Relax

Honey Honey

My son, eat thou ^ahoney, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste -Proverbs 24:13

What makes me happy today? 

 
Honey!

Clay was making fun of me for HOW EXCITED I was when I got this honey. I don't know, it just makes me happy. This is healthy, inexpensive, raw honey. 

Did you know that Elder Ballard, an apostle of Jesus Christ, spoke about the benefits of honey?! Yes, I admit, it wasn't the purpose of his talk...but he said this, 

"Father loved his gentle honeybees and marveled at the way thousands of them working together transformed the nectar gathered from his peach blossoms into sweet, golden honey—one of nature’s most beneficial foods. In fact, nutritionists tell us it is one of the foods that includes all the substances—enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water—necessary to sustain life."

So...you know, honey is good. I use it in a lot of baking, I put it on top of peanut butter on toast, I sometimes eat a spoonful for allergies or indigestion, and I put it in tea. 

The truth is, honey has SO many health benefits. Which is why it ticks me off when people say, "Well it just ends up being the same as sugar." NO- NOT TRUE. Does sugar contain antioxidants that help prevent cancer and heart disease? Does sugar boost your immune system?  Is sugar a probiotic? Yeah, all these answers are no. I suppose I must clarify that most honey you buy at the store that is highly processed and pasteurized is much like sugar. I'm talking about RAW honey. 

So anyway, I am happy today for my honey. 

If you live in the area, I got the honey from Hoopers Honey Farm in Rigby, ID. They sell their honey for about $2/pound and you can just drop off jars, containers, whatever you want, and they fill it and will even drop it off at your house for you! It's great. And they are so nice. 

As much as I DESPISE bee's buzzing around my house where they aren't suppose to, I sure am grateful for honey bees! 

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PS. I seriously took like a billion blurry HORRID pictures. And I feel like that picture above is pretty craptastic. Shooting on manual type settings is really confusing so I'm really hoping my DSLR Photography for Dummies book becomes available at the library soon. I'm not even joking. I'm actually going to use one of those "for dummies" books. Oy. 

PPS. Clay just came up to me and said, "Well, gonna go save the world...actually I'm gonna be saving the UNIVERSE". He's off to play video games in the basement :)

Two Goals

I have wanted basically for years to learn how to use my camera manually. I have only ever used it on two settings, A) Flash, or B) No Flash.

Pretty technical stuff!

So anyway...I just love pretty pictures, just like everyone. So it's time to start learning my camera better. Which is why Goal ONE- learn to use my camera manually...I suspect some library books will be on order!

Next, oh man. You know how like I go through phases of blogging where I'll blog everyday for a week and then none at all for a week? Well it's cause I suck at moderation. Just like this weekend- I got SO MUCH DONE! This happens all the time. I'll just have a SUPER few days, and then I'll crash and do nothing but watch tv and sulk and hate life for a few days. I think it's not the best habit. I mean, yeah it's not awful. At least I'm balanced. But I'd rather be consistently balanced. Make sense? So along with my new goal to learn my camera, I am going to try and capture some sort of happiness in my life every day...WITH my camera, and then blog it. I know, not that original. But I think it just might help me keep moving and keeping a sort of happiness with me each day.

I don't think of myself as a depressed person, but I definitely am a goal oriented person. An acheivement person. If I'm not like...doing something awesome then I feel like I'm so lazy and awful. So in a small way, I am resolving to achieve something each and every day. I am going to capture some sort of happiness in my day. Which I think will probably cause me to try and SEEK OUT or CREATE a sort of happiness each day. Sometimes, I'm just not motivated to even try. Maybe this little project will help me be more motivated.

A while ago when I was reading the happiness project (again, LOVED this book and highly recommend it) I was talking to my mom about it and how I think it'd be nice to just own the book (I had checked it out from the library) so I could go back and refresh myself when I needed it...but then I was like, "Well...I know it's not scriptures or anything...so..." and my mom was like, "Well we are taught to seek after all good things." and kind of ever since that conversation the thirteenth article of faith (in our church we have 13 articles of faith. They are kind of like 13 things that our church holds true to) has been strongly planted in my mind. And here it is

 13 ^aWe believe in being ^bhonest, true, ^cchaste, ^dbenevolent, virtuous, and in doing ^egood to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we ^fhope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to^gendure all things. If there is anything ^hvirtuous, ⁱlovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

It's kind of a huge part of my belief system that we are supposed to seek after good things and happy things. Our life is about finding joy in the journey. If we just sulk by through our whole life and don't enjoy the huge blessings all around us, what's the point? I don't want to JUST endure. I want to endure with joy. 

So obviously I wont be perfect. I'll probably have many breakdowns and think my life is awful. But I am hopeful that these days will be less and less and I will soon see happiness all around me! Anyone want to join me? A picture a day of something happy in life? 

PS. This little project is perfect timing since it's supposed to snow tomorrow. Eeeeeeeek! I shall endure with joy! I hope!

Weekend of Cooking

So I had a great weekend. I had that 40 pounds of chicken and got busy! First I canned chicken. Now...I don't quite understand what the confusion is here...but every time I tell someone about canning chicken they get all confused. I am sure most people have used or eaten canned chicken in their life. They sell it at the store. You use it for soups, sandwiches, salads, anything. It's basically just like canned tuna. 

The other pot on the stove is for chicken pot pie! The most delicious chicken pot pie you'll ever eat in your entire LIFE is this recipe. No joke.

So anyway the whole time the chicken was in the canner I was praying, "Please let this work! Please let this work!" I'd never canned before and I seriously was not sure. I mean...I read tons of instructions, but it turns out it was really simple! Once I was able to open the canner up and look in and test the seals, I was SO HAPPY! Seriously I was like dancing around the house kind of happy. I ended up with 19 or 20 half pints I think.

What I don't have pictured is I put a bunch of chicken in the crock pot to make that Sweet BBQ Chicken I mentioned earlier this month. Shredded it up and froze it. Yum.

I woke up to do all this around 8 or so...and around 11 Clay came strolling out of bed requesting cinnamon rolls! Once he realized this was my big cook day he said, "Oh you don't have to- I forgot you were doing this" but of course...once I got cinnamon rolls in my head they sounded DELICIOUS. So I was a crazy girl and decided to add that to the list.

They were so so good.

This is me being all homemakey. 

Then I made a new gluten free crust that turned out GREAT! You can find the recipe here. I made it for the chicken pot pie, which we had for dinner! Then we ate leftovers of that for a couple days. It was great.

Sunday I don't really know what came over us but we decided to play scrabble. I LOVE scrabble. This is what I had at like the 3rd turn or something. 

No fun. But don't worry, I still won. 

Monday I made a bunch of creamy chicken taquitos! I froze a ton so it'll be great. 

I plan on making some more chicken pot pie filling and then freezing the rest of the chicken as individual breasts. Woohoo! Then I'll finally be done with the chicken. 

It was such a good weekend! I seriously just loved canning, cooking, freezing, it was all wonderful. I felt so domestic and happy. I decided I'm going to try to start making double batches of lots of stuff when I make dinners and freezing them so that I don't have to cook too much. Cause really? I don't cook that much as it is and so we eat a lot of PB&J/Grilled Cheese. It's not good. 

Weekend plans

Well, it will be a busy weekend. 

Today's list:

Pickup Chicken

Grocery Shop

Clean Kitchen

Make Chicken Pot pie (but only one cause I'm not positive on the crust yet!)

Start prepping chicken

Tomorrow's list:

Make chicken stuff (sweet bbq shredded chicken to go ontop of pizzas, creamy chicken taquitos, possibly more pot pies, canned chicken, and packs of 2 breasts)

I plan on finishing the book Insurgent (sequel to divergent), playing the piano, and relaxing. I will have a lot of working which means I must have a lot of relaxing too. That's basically how it works in my life. We shall see. 

PS. I got a chair from the DI for $15 bucks. Clay was a bit irritated, but it's all good. He thinks that I need to get rid of a chair now...but I'm pretty positive I don't. One of them will go in my sewing room- which doesn't have a ton of room for a chair, but the truth is, it's nice to have a chair in a sewing room for visitors, and yourself when you want to rest and watch tv after a frustrating bit of seam-ripping or other hard things. Anywho, the chair is fabulous. I will need to reupholster it, which will probably have to wait until Christmas...we'll see. 

5 happy things

Thanks for all the nice thoughts on my last post. I've kinda decided here on the blog I kinda just write whatever I'm feeling that day, and it usually passes! Whether that be good or bad. Today I'm excited for a number of reasons.

1. It's definitely fall here. It's crispy cold and it's raining leaves. It's nice. And I am trying to soak it all in before the snow hits, which is bound to happen here in a few weeks. 

2. As a lot of you know, I grew up playing the piano. Basically I'm not gonna lie, I was purty good back in the good old days. Then I stopped taking lessons and stopped practicing and anyway, I'm pretty rusty! One thing that is just the truth is I am TERRIFIED of playing in public, ESPECIALLY accompanying people when they sing. I have now accompanied the young women in public TWICE! Twice people! And guess what? I was less terrified the second time. So I have decided this: the more I do it the better I'll get and the less scared I'll be! So I'm pretty much going to jump at any chance to do this because I'm deciding life is about diving in, growing your talents, and of course serving, and a whole bunch of other stuff...but the point is, I am trying to grow this talent of mine back to where it once was, and even further than it was. I really do love to play the piano, and I LOVE my piano, cause it's beautiful and I made it that way. I mean, obviously the original creators made it beautiful, but then some idiot painted it poop brown, and then I made it beautiful again! All this being said, basically all I'm saying is I've been playing more lately and trying to overcome fears more and it's been great. 

3. I made pumpkin bread again this week and the truth is...Clay and I essentially ate two loaves in 3 days. We are okay with that. Cause A)It's delicious and B)It's got a boatload of almonds in it, which gives me permission to say its healthy for us! 

4. It's decided. I'm getting bangs. Shaggy long bangs. Cause the last time I got bangs the person cut "little girl bangs" (Clay's words). It was a horrid experience, so I'm gonna make sure they are extra long. I can always trim them you know? Besides, I dig that look. Hopefully they don't drive me too crazy! 

5. Good music. At this very moment I'm listening to The Civil Wars. I was reading the little red house blog and she mentioned them and so far I've liked all her recommendations for music, and what do you know? They are awesome. And okay. I have a confession. The other day when I was making pumpkin bread...GAH! I caved. I listened to some Christmas music! Can you believe it?! My big plan to get more into halloween in order to ward off the Christmas cravings FAILED. But don't worry, I only listened to maybe 3 songs. And I'll try my best to hold off till Thanksgiving to listen to any more. They were so good though! 

Well, that's pretty much it. This weekend I am getting 40 pounds of chicken. Remember when I got 20 a while ago? Well we went through that faster than I expected, so I decided to get the full 40 this time. So I will be cooking, bagging, labeling, and maybe canning? Wish me luck.