The Food Part of the Blog :)

I really do love to cook and bake (more cook, than bake to be completely honest since so many things can go wrong with baking and there's not much you can do to fix it!) and as I mentioned in one of my first posts, being in the kitchen is like therapy for me most of the time. Sometimes it's out of necessity, but I love those leisurely evenings or weekend afternoons when I can just relax, put on some of my favorite music, and create away! I've really been wanting to start writing about my adventures lately and decided to start with my first food post tonight :)

So, here is one thing I made recently. It is something I found in this cookbook. I borrowed it from the library since the title really caught my attention per this post. I love the ability to check out cookbooks at the library and if I really like it, I put it on my wish list to get :)

We love Quiche and they are so versatile and easy to put together so I definitely wanted to try the Mushroom and Spinach Quiche with Potato Crust. It is only 210 calories per each of the 8 servings that it yields and we LOVE mushrooms and spinach and potatoes, so what could be better?

I varied it slightly and used frozen spinach which I don't know if that is what made it more "soupy" as I'll describe it (but I did try and make sure, as the directions state, to let the liquid cook out of everything). Or I'm not sure if it was my substitute of Evaporated Milk for the Skim Milk it calls for (although it says on the box you can use as regular milk in recipes!??). Or if I should have left it in a little longer although it stated to pull it out when center is still slightly wobbly. Maybe my definition of wobbly is not theirs. So when I cut into it, I was very disappointed to see liquid running out :( But I'm not going to write it off completely. I will just have to re-re-modify it next time. LOVED the potato crust (oh, I used Russet Potatoes not Yukon Gold and that part was totally fine)...Here is mine (notice the sliced cheese. Yeah, I thought it would melt and spread across the top, but it didn't!):



I am excited to try their Cheezy Chicken Parmesan With Zucchini "Pasta", this week. I will report in on that soon and also share some muffin and cookie recipes that I have made lately that have been delish. Muffins I find are a nice alternative to a loaf of bread which I am inclined to cut too big a slice of, and I'm really trying to practice portion control (which is another post. I'm not doing as well as I would like with my 20x30 goal...I really need to get serious again but am very discouraged in this area which makes it generally hard...).

Good night!

Man of God

Today is Father's Day. I think for us there is a little less pain in it than Mother's Day (although we still chose to stay home from church again this year), and I know that dh has said it doesn't effect him as much as MD affects me. I think because it is less "in your face" than the other. I've heard it said that that is because so many children don't even know who their father's are, which is so sad. I don't know. But today is a day that I wish I could scream to the world that any male who is able to produce offspring can do just that, but it takes a real man, a man of God, to be a parent to that child.

So today we will celebrate both of our dad's. Men of God. And I will thank my husband for being a man of God, because you can be one of those even if you don't have a child celebrating you today and your name never gets to carry on, on this earth.

"And let no eunuch complain, 'I am only a dry tree.' For this is what the LORD says: 'To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant— to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters;I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.'" Isaiah 56:3b-5 (bolding mine)

Myth Busting (etc.)

Hey there!

We've had a very crazy, busy, last week and by the time of the evening that I get around to potentially blogging, I just shut the computer down and head for bed :)

I've also been working in my garden a little (had to dust the plants last weekend since we weren't sure why the leaves on the green bean seedlings were disappearing, put up the tomato cages last night and planted some more green bean seeds- since doing the dusting we have highly suspected that the culprit is birds so I placed some shiny things around the garden to try and deter them). But I'm so excited to see the plants finally growing and spreading in just the few weeks since planting them! I didn't really notice it until this week since I check it almost every day, analyzing the leaves and any other changes I need to make note of in order to ensure we have an abundant harvest. And.....I've discovered that my worry wort nature is now manifesting itself in my gardening, not good. I need to work on that ;) Dh has reminded me that I need to pray about it (as he often does when I am worried about something), because God is the Master Gardener! How true is that!?

In the midst of all that we have going on I have had a myth busting post forming in my head. The topic being that we are not a family since we don't have children.

It seems everywhere we go, family is defined as including children. Maybe because it seems to imply more than just a "couple" of people. Maybe because infertiles are in the minority and a childless/free couple whether by choice or not (in our case) are not in the norm. Usually it is the exact opposite...We have even been told this before, that we are not a family. And it hurts. It also implies that in order to be complete you must have children and obviously, it's not possible for some couples.

So it takes a little getting used to the idea that a husband and wife are a family and are complete. But God says it is so. "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them," (Genesis 1:27) and then before any children were even conceived God stood back and looked at everything He had created and saw that it was complete. Complete. No children had been born yet, but the man and woman that He had created were complete without children.

I don't know what our family will look like in the end, but for now I have to trust God and rest in the fact that on our wedding day, our family was made complete, whether or not our family ever increases in members.

Myth Busting Will Resume Shortly...

In case you were wondering where it was yesterday, I do have one in mind that I need to write up (amongst other things on my 'to write about on my blog' list!). It's been a crazy last couple days. I will have it done shortly :)

Write to you later!

Another Installment of Wallpaper Encouragement!

A few I made up today. Just wanted to share:

(Taken in my parent's front yard last summer.)


(Taken on a road trip dh and I took 2 summers ago.)


(The view from our room at a Bed and Breakfast we stayed at for my birthday a couple years ago.)

Myth Busting Monday

"There must be some sin in your life (past or present), that's why you can't have children..."

I have never had this personally said to me, but I have heard this said to others in the IF community, and as someone who is childless not by choice, it makes me sad to think that is a idea that people have about those of us. It is a lie that Satan wants us and others to believe and it is so not true. And if the lie ever starts creeping into my head, I have to immediately remind myself of this verse, which sums up all the busting this myth needs. (It is in John 9 when Jesus' disciples have the misconception that a blind man or his parent's sinned and that is why he was born blind.) :

"As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' 3 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.'" (John 9:1-3)

And if this was true, for instance, what about all the "undesireable" circumstances that we are all familiar with that babies are born into? It just doesn't add up. We are all born into sin. It is God's grace that allows any of us to take our next breath. When we accept Christ's gift of salvation, we are forgiven. The curse is broken.

I love verse 3 of this passage. We know (or I should say, as I have come to learn and understand) that everything that happens to us good and bad in this life, first passes through the hands of God. So if He allowed something to happen to us that is undesireable, we know because it states here, that He wants to display His works through us in these difficult circumstances.

He is working everything together for His good. For His glory.

Desktop Wallpaper Encouragement!

I have been wanting to do this for awhile, but Thelma over at Life As Two, inspired me yesterday with her beautiful photography to get going making some of my own Wallpaper Encouragement as I just thought to call it, because that's what it is to me! I love photos with Scripture on my desktop and what better than to put some of my favorite photos I have taken over the years to use! So I have started playing around on Picnik tonight with creating my first pieces.

This first one was actually using Thelma's photo, as she prompted readers to do in her post, and this is what I came up with (I can't figure out for the life of me how to get any of these to be larger than the largest setting on here, so I'm not sure if you will be able to save it or not properly- feel free to do so if you are able to. Maybe someone can let me know if it works. Please and thank you!). The verse I paired this one with seemed to fit for some reason. I think it's the lighting that makes it seem like morning to me and I love this verse:



The next two are my own photography and I have been wanting to do this to these photos for awhile now. They are two of my favorites, taken last summer on a camping trip: