Love is Patient

"1 Corinthians 13:4-8New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end."

(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13%3A4-8&version=NRSVCE)

I had an ah ha moment the other day. You've probably already had this epiphany, but I'll write about it anyway...just in case. I was watching "A Walk to Remember" last week on TV...remember that movie with Mandy Moore and Shane West where two unlikely teens fall in love and teach one another some of life's most important lessons? I'm a sucker for those kinds of movies and will sit mesmerized (and tearing up). This time, though, I realized something that I had never thought of before. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. It is a series of verses that many are familiar with. It is a very popular reading at weddings--it was read at our wedding. Its description of love helps set guidelines that a husband and wife can use as they build their family and life together. I've only ever thought of romantic relationships with this passage from the Bible but it applies for so much more. (my ah ha moment!)

As a mother it helps me keep my patience with children who are tired and cranky. As a coworker it helps me put away the irritation I'm feeling in the moment to listen to the concerns of another and work through it together in a positive way. As a friend it helps me to be truly happy for someone who is getting an opportunity I wish I had (even if that opportunity is a date night and a babysitter!). As a human being it helps me to keep myself in check when I want to think "well, he had that coming to him." 

Every relationship "hat" provides a different perspective and different lenses to read and understand these words. That is something I had never noticed before. This is a road map to interacting with the world with love. It is the answer to WWJD?! I can't tell you how many times I have listened to and read these words and had never seen these things. Realizing this has changed the way I think and my attitude over the past week. I'd like to challenge you to take a few minutes to reflect on all the "hats" you wear in your day to day life. Try reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 with each "hat" in mind and see how it changes you :)

Creative in the Kitchen

I am always on the look out for good ideas on how to save money while giving my family the best quality food possible. Sometimes this can be quite a daunting task. 

My children love yogurt! I was very happy when they tried the more protein rich greek yogurt and liked it. Having tried and made faces to the plain greek yogurt (who can blame them!?) I settled on the vanilla yogurt and have been buying tubs of that trying not to feel too bad about how much sugar was in it.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking through Costco and noticed that I could buy plain yogurt there for less money and my mind started to wonder...My husband is a chef and I have heard him talk many times about adding new and exciting things to his menu without negatively effecting his budget (food cost). To do this he works to create menu items that use ingredients that he already has in house. This allows him to diversify his menu without adding something new to his inventory that might go bad if it doesn't all get used. I started to think about how I might be able to apply this to plain greek yogurt and our daily lives (I know...way too much thought over some greek yogurt...). After a couple weeks of thinking and looking through what we have in the house, here is what I came up with.

I got out a bowl and my trusty immersion blender (a regular blender would work too...but then you wouldn't need the bowl) along with

Plain Greek Yogurt

Frozen Fruit

Vanilla Extract

Sugar

I started buying frozen fruit when my oldest was an infant and I was making her baby food. I had read an article (unfortunately I don't have it anymore to reference) that said that frozen fruits and veggies were just as good if not fresher than fresh produce because they're picked and frozen right away while fresh produce was picked and then shipped over the course of who knows how long. I read this article at a time when I was getting frustrated because I was buying groceries and throwing away produce that went bad before we could use it--it didn't seem to be lasting long at all. I started to buy a lot more frozen fruit and veggies so I always knew I would have it on hand allowing us to have well balanced meals without the fear of it going bad. Some recipes are much better with fresh produce that hasn't been frozen, but for the most part this has worked nicely. (I have even put frozen fruit in a container in the kid's lunchbox and by the time lunch comes around it has thawed...it is also a good healthy frozen treat on a hot summer day).

Getting back to the yogurt--All of the ingredients I listed above I have in the house and I use in other ways while cooking (even the plain yogurt!), so in terms of food cost and usability, so far so good!

I took about half of a container of the yogurt and put it into the bowl. I added about 1.5 tablespoons of Vanilla Extract and a teaspoon of sugar and mixed it all together. I then added about half of a bag of frozen strawberries and mixed it together with a fork. Then, the fun part. I got out my immersion blender (one of my favorite kitchen toys!) and started blending it together until it was the consistency I wanted it to be (I didn't want too many big fruit chunks). This recipe is completely to taste. I shared the amounts I used, but honestly it is not a recipe that I will get out the measuring spoons for. Next time I think I will even skip the sugar to see if the fruit sweetens it enough.

If you make this and eat it right away it is very cold and thicker because of the frozen fruit--it could almost pass for a frozen yogurt. After sitting for a little while the fruit completely thawed and it was back to a more typical Greek yogurt consistency. The kids had some with dinner tonight and it was a hit! I already have some spooned into small containers for their lunches tomorrow! I just restocked the freezer with frozen fruit and can't wait to try it with something else the next time. I may be wrong in my logic here, but I feel that this is giving my kids a healthier snack than some of the other yogurts I was buying because there is less sugar and less processed ingredients. At the very least, it is a fun way to make a snack with ingredients we have in the house! Happy New Year!

Toddler Friendly New Year's Eve :)

I have always enjoyed celebrating New Year's Eve at home. Growing up I loved it when we would watch festivities on TV playing boardgames and counting down as the ball dropped in Central Park. I get caught up in the excitement of the moment. It's just so much fun! Last year I decided that my children were old enough to have some fun with some of the silly things that go along with New Year's Eve so I tried to think of a way to celebrate it with them while still getting them to bed at a reasonable time because you know as well as I do that they will wake up at the same early time regardless of when they go to bed. We've done it again this year and we had so much fun with it I thought I would share :)

While at the store earlier in the week I picked up some sparkling Welch's Grape Juice, noise makers, and fun 2014 cardboard glasses. At our normal time we got into our pajamas and had a party. We talked about what a new year meant on their level and had a little party. I had gone onto youtube and found a clip of the ball dropping in Time Square from last year and we watched it and celebrated the coming new year. The kids had a lot of fun. Juice in our house is usually consumed watered down, so having carbonated juice was a treat for them. D said it was spicy. They had so much fun being silly with the glasses and asked me to play the youtube video of the ball dropping a few times :) All around a good time was had...and we even got to practice counting down from 10! :)

However you have decided to ring in the New Year, I pray that it is filled with many blessings and much happiness! Happy New Year!

"...but MooOOoooom, I want to be very busy!"

This morning as we were driving to school I was going over our planned activities for the day and the weekend. I told them that we would be visiting a lot of people this weekend. L asked "We're visiting a lot of people today?" When I told her that we would be making our visits tomorrow and Sunday she started to whine about wanting to be busy. This made me sad. I know that what she meant by that was she enjoys having fun things to do, but the it coming out that she wants to be very busy made me sad and here's why.

The past few weeks I've learned a lot. I had the opportunity to participate in an amazing retreat weekend called Cursillo through my church. The theme of the weekend was Be Still and it is exactly what I needed. As a busy working mommy still is something that I have looked at as more of a luxury instead of a necessity. We very quickly get more and more hats to wear: Wife, Mommy, Teacher, PTA board member, Volunteer Coordinator, taxi driver to dance, soccer, basketball.... and so on and so forth. All of the extras are very fulfilling, but if you let them they can take away from what is truly important. This doesn't mean that you can't be involved in outside activities it's the way you go about it.--That's what I've been learning this year...and trying to implement in my own life. It sounds like it would be easy to do. I just have to set aside some time right? Other mommies out there are laughing right now, I know :) What I've found the past couple months since going on Cursillo is you have to be creative while scheduling your be still time.

A friend and I were talking about this a couple of weeks ago. We were trying to figure out how we could make sure we spend more time on a daily basis in prayerful reflection and studying the Bible. Both of us work full time,  have young children, and husbands with demanding work schedules. My friend was telling me how she has even signed up for alerts to help her remember to make time, but she ends up turning off the alert not being able to be still in that moment. Here are some creative solutions we came up with:
-At work, take your phone (if you have a smart phone) with you on a bathroom break and go to your favorite Bible Study site or prayer/reflection site, pull up an online copy of the Bible, etc.
-If you find yourself waking up before your alarm take that time while still lying in bed for prayerful reflection or even reading the Bible out loud to your spouse.
-Keep a family friendly daily reflections at the kitchen or dining room table to read before or after a meal the family gathers for.
-When the kiddos go down for a nap or at bedetime take the first 10 minutes to be still yourself before starting on the to do list

What I've been reminded is that taking the time to be still and have prayerful reflection and spiritual development time for myself is a necessity for a less stress, more optimistic perspective. This ultimately makes me happier and able to more thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the blessings around me.

Twinkie-like fun :)

Last week we had back to school night at work. The tricky part about back to school night is it takes place after the required pick up time for my own kiddos. Some of the teachers I work with have children in middle school--we set them up in a classroom that wasn't being used to watch a few of the younger children and they all had a blast. I wanted to do something to say thank you, so I took Fun da-middles and made them using my mini bread loaf pan. They came out very Twinkie-like and were a hit! And sooo easy to make :) 

I used the directions on the box cooking them just a couple minutes longer than suggested because they were slightly larger than the typical cupcake.

I got the mini bread loaf pan from Amazon. (I noticed it's on sale!)

1 Box of Fun da-middles made 6 cupcake-twinkies and it was a hit. One of my co-workers came to ask me what my recipe because her family had enjoyed them so much!

Hope you're able to give this a try. My next feat is to try and recreate it using cake mix and using different cupcake filling recipes I found online...when I get around to trying it out I'll let you know how it turned out :)