Monday, December 31, 2012

2012

One year ago today my ex-husband told me out of the blue (to me at least) that he wanted a divorce.
2012 has by far been the hardest and at a lot of times the worst year of my life.
On the other hand, I have seen God working in my life. He has provided for me such loving, supportive family and friends. He has provided a new career path, a newer car, a divorce support group, an amazing church family, and a place to live with a friend who understands. And so much more.
God has showed me what it is to be His beloved daughter. He carried me through this year when so often I wondered how I'd make it to the next day. Here I am, a whole year later.
And I am thankful.
Some verses for the future:
Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Numbers 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Psalm 27:3,5,13-14 Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear; Though war may rise against me, In this I will be confident. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
1 Peter 5:10 (The Msg) The suffering won't last forever. It won't be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ — eternal and glorious plans they are! — will have you put together and on your feet for good.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Mr. Becks

I'm watching Mr. Beckham over break while his mom is in Korea.
He's been very helpful around the house
trimming the tree
making breakfasts
entertaining everyone with holiday songs
he also caught up on some emails
dressed up as santa
got ready to go outside
and played in the snow
but mostly there's been lots of lounging
hope everyone had a very nice Christmas!!!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Grandma

My grandma fell yesterday morning and broke her hip (femur). I spent a lot of the day yesterday in the hospital with our family. I'm happy grandma had so many kids and grandkids and was surrounded by people who love her. All the nurses and doctors kept commenting 'oh wow, the whole family is here'... um, nope, this is only like 5%.
They put a rod in her leg and the surgery went well. So now we'll see how it goes. There will be PT, and she'll need to be in a recovery home for a few weeks because their house has stairs. There's been a lot of talk in the family about what to do about their home- and so maybe now's the time to go to a 1 floor. My vote is for that riding-up-the-stairs chair, those are so fun, but it might be best to downsize too.
It was sweet seeing my grandpa lean over grandma before they wheeled her in to surgery. She looked scared, and he held her hand and called her sweetheart and kissed her and said he'd he waiting for her to come out. Ahh, 71 years, that is true commitment. Get better grandma!

Friday, December 21, 2012

Looking Back

So last night in my 5 year journal I read the entry from last year. One year ago, Andrew and I were at the last meeting of our small group for the year and we were talking about upcoming 2012. We sat there and shared our hopes for 2012 and he shared about wanting to be a better husband. Then less than 2 weeks later, he told me he wanted a divorce. It still makes no sense to me. Now it's almost a year later and I still have no more answers than I did then.
However, God has helped me to accept Andrew's choice and I am doing my best to allow His healing to work in me.
I get these divorce emails and I want to share some important things that have stuck out to me.
Dr. Craig Keener says we should do everything possible to save the marriage, but ultimately we are not responsible for the actions of another person. He explains, "If the marriage is taken away from you against your will, after you've done everything you can in love to preserve the marriage, God doesn't hold you accountable for that any more than He would hold a rape victim accountable for rape or a murder victim accountable for murder."
In Psalm 55 David cried out to God. He was in distress because a friend of his, someone he trusted and loved, had turned against him, becoming vicious and hateful. David's relationship with his friend had been severed because of the friend's sinful actions toward him. In response, David brought his anguish to God, giving God his burdens and trusting God to sustain him.
David says, "If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is . . . my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship. . . .
"War is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords. Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall" (Psalm 55:12-14, 21-22).
The next email was called 'you're still valuable to God', it seems so obvious, but when you've been rejected - it helps to hear that you do still matter
Regardless of the reasons behind your separation or divorce, no matter what you have done wrong or where you have failed, you can fully restore your relationship with God and be used by Him.
"If you think that being divorced disqualifies you from being used by God, then you have to cancel a million different people today who are being used greatly by God," says Dr. Myles Munroe. "You're saying that divorce is stronger than the blood of Jesus, the forgiveness of God, and the grace of God. That's ridiculous. Divorce is an incident. It's not a lifestyle.
"God forgives. God forgets. What God forgets, you shouldn't try to remember. God will use you no matter what you've done. If I were to ask you the question, 'Is divorce worse than murder?' obviously you would say, 'No way.' If divorce is not worse than murder, then why did God use Moses? Moses was a murderer and a convict."
Also in the Bible, Paul was responsible for the deaths of many people, and God chose him to be one of the greatest preachers ever. God wants to use you for great works that honor Him. Choose to surrender your life to Jesus, and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish through Him.
"Immediately he [Paul] began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, 'He is indeed the Son of God!' All who heard him were amazed. 'Isn't this the same man who persecuted Jesus' followers with such devastation in Jerusalem?' they asked. . . . [His] preaching became more and more powerful, and the Jews in Damascus couldn't refute his proofs that Jesus was indeed the Messiah" (Acts 9:20-22 NLT).
There was also an email about prayer
Sabrina Black says, "Prayer is a person going before the Lord being vulnerable, being open not only to talk to God but to listen to God. There is significance in a 'listening prayer,' where you don't just go to God with your wish list, saying, 'Lord, set me free from this. Help me to flee temptation.' "Those things are important, but it is also important to ask, 'Lord, what is it that You desire from me? How would you have me live my life?' Then, after you have asked, sit still in the presence of God and allow Him to speak to you. This is an essential part of daily prayer."
"Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live" (Isaiah 55:2-3).
Maybe someone else out there needs to hear that there is healing, and there is hope in Jesus.
For more information about DivorceCare, including how to sign up for daily emails, please click here.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Dipped Pretzels

So I wanted to do something for the people at work for Christmas without spending a fortune. In our firm it is just my boss and me, but we share office space with 3 other law firms and we all do everything together. At my old job last Christmas a co-worker made these awesome dipped pretzels, so I got her recipe and made those today.
Pretzels, chocolate, white 'chocolate' (which I don't like, but other people seem to for some unknown reason), sugars, candy
I had to buy a candy thermometer, and those 2 silver tubes are aluminum tubes my dad cut for me to have a cylinder for 'easy dipping' (good ol' dad always helping out with my endless projects!)
Stirring together butter, cream and salt
Boiling the sugars, corn syrup and water... they weren't kidding when they said to use a 3-4 qt pot, this was right before it almost boiled over
All mixed together in a bigger pot boiling, boiling, boiling until it got to 248*
There it is at 248*, or so I thought, I can't figure out what happened, because her caramel stayed kind of chewey and mine got super hard :(
So my plan for those tubes was to rubberband on a layer of saran wrap and then pour the caramel in there for easy dipping of the pretzels. Turns out saran wrap cannot hold up to magma hot caramel and it quickly started pouring out the bottom and onto my finger. OUCH. So I just smeared it on with a spoon instead.
Turns out plastic cooking spoons are no match for 248* caramel either
Ok, well after the pretzels were all carameled I wanted to try again with my tubes. So I melted the chocolate
It worked a lot better with not as hot chocolate and a foil banded-on bottom
Same thing with the white 'chocolate'
And now the finished project
M&Ms, candy cane, salted. I might just use quart bags because the grocery store was out of cute ones and I couldn't stand the thought of another stop. I hope they're good even if the caramel is hard. They look pretty and took forever! So I hope they like them.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Cinnamon Rolls and Elf Party

Last week was my boss's birthday so I made him some cinnamon roll cupcakes with a recipe I'd been wanting to try for awhile.
rolling out the dough and spreading it with butter
covering it with brown sugar/cinnamon mixture
rolling it up
smushing it into baking tins
baking up unevenly
and frosted with cream cheese frosting
All in all, these were pretty delicious. This batch got a minute overbaked, but the next ones were ooey-gooey cinnabon-esque. Yum. But at the end of it, I threw the recipe away never to make again. They just took forever. The dough used yeast so I had to wait for it to rise, knead it, roll it out. Then the frosting used up all my cream cheese and a lot of butter.
If I was rich I would have a fridge full of butter. I love baking, but I hate using up all my butter all the time.
So this weekend we had our annual Elf party. At said party a bunch of the college friends get together and watch Elf (at least it plays in the background) while we eat and catch up and have a good time together. You are supposed to dress up like an elf as well. So this year I went to the salvation army looking for a green skirt. I found a 2x ladies shirt that I thought I could make into a skirt.
I cut the arms off and threaded the top with a ribbon to make a waist
added some snowflake earrings
a stripey scarf and almost matching stripey tall socks and I was off.
It was a fun night, lots of good food and seeing friends that I hadn't seen in awhile. We attempted a Christmas carol kareyoke but sadly youtube was a fail and the songs were mostly horrible midi files in a super high soprano key. Jill had warned me that maybe I ought to double ribbon my skirt waist and I thought 'nah, ribbon is always so hard to break through', turns out she was right. Toward the end of the night I was standing in the kitchen and looked down and my skirt was hanging down and I could see my underwear! I'm not sure anyone else saw but it was hilarious and I had to go tell the girls why I was laughing so hard. Whoops!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Meteors

Here is a pic of what I didn't see last night:
Last night was supposed to be the peak of the Perseids Meteor shower. So 11:30 pm last night, me and Becks went and sat out on the sidewalk in my pjs, coat, and boots, but I didn't see a thing. Becks was not impressed at all and used his stargazing opportunity to take a poo on the lawn.
We live just outside of downtown so maybe it was too much city lights, it would have been guaranteed awesome at my parent's house in the country, but too late to drive there on a work night, too tired.
The last time something came around I faithfully set my alarm for 3am and went out to see something, and clouds. Maybe someday I'll see something!
My top celestial dream would be to see aurora borealis, someday, someday.
Anyway, I passed all my exams! So I can continue on in my program. Now I get to enjoy almost 3 weeks of freedom and visiting with my family. I still have some reading I have to do over break, but not as crazy as it's been. Yay!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Hospital Experience

Today was my first time in the hospital, I won't start my for real clinical until January, today was just a 'taste'. I felt so awkward at first, I totally bumbled my blood pressure, but the rest of the day went by pretty good. I did vitals, gave a bed bath, changed a bed with my patient in it, and then I watched my classmate change a guy's ostomy bag and I looked at his stage 4 pressure ulcer. Ouch. His nurse came in and evaluated the wound to see how deep it was and if it was tunneling, it was, and it started to bleed. I was almost crying imagining how it hurt and just to see a giant hole missing from someone's back and to know it will probably never heal. Sad. But all in all a pretty good first day.
After that I was still able to make it to my work Christmas party. I didn't think I could make it so I called my boss and told him no one could make fun of me in my scrubs while they were all festive/business casual. But I'm glad I went. Who passes up free lunch at Andiamos?? We had appetizers, salad, I got gnocchi, and chocolate dessert. Mmmmmm. And more and more I'm really loving my co-workers. They are so fun. Over the past months we've started doing girl's dinners, baseball games, and we're planning to go dancing next week. And it was just super fun today. It totally sucked getting fired from my old job back in January, it made an already worst month of my entire life even more terrible, but besides the paycut and loss of benefits, I'm glad I don't work there. I really love my job now and am a lot happier here. I finally feel like I know what I'm doing, I'm pretty good at it, and I just love my co-workers and boss. So I am thankful. I hope God has more good things for me up His sleeve in a nursing job someday 2 years from now!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Crockpot Caroling

Last weekend was another weekend that was mainly spent studying... Well, studying and cooking.
I made chicken and cheese sliders soo good, make these if you like to sweat while you eat. I accidently put in too much chipotle peppers, but yum!
Peppers, onion and garlic in the pot
Surely some chicken fell somewhere!
So easy - just simmer for 30 minutes!
A masterpiece.
The next day I studied a lot.
It was so hard to get into it. Back up was called in.
A little help staying awake please caffeine?
Another good thing about Christmas, (no comparison to the birth of our savior of course), but seasonally delicious, mint m&ms- yum!
Then Saturday night it was time for a break. Jill had been invited to a Crockpot and Christmas Caroling party, so we made a dump cake in the crock pot and she and I and another friend headed over. It was so fun! There were like 40 people and crockpots of amazing food everywhere. A lot of us all crammed into the living room and then we sang Christmas songs together. I loved it. My family is pretty musical, and we used to go door to door Christmas caroling to the neighbors. Not that I want to do it everyday, but it was really nice. I hope someday I have a home that I can open to friends and family and have a community of people in my life like that.
Sunday was church and more studying and more food making. This time I made a tortilla pie. I used to make this all the time, but haven't made it in awhile. I think it's coming back into the rotation, it's so good.
Mix the black beans, tomatoes, and salsa
Mash your pinto beans (hard work!) and add in the garlic (press- do not chop otherwise it's too garlicky!)
Beans ready to be layered
Get mad about the cheese being wasted stuck to the foil
Hot out of the oven
Yum!
There should be a salad or something green on the side of this. Since I have been husbandless I have cared a lot less about balanced meals. But I should try and be better about this, I need vitamins too!
Well I'm happy to report all the studying paid off, I got an 'A' on my exam yesterday! And passed my one assessment class. Now all I have left is another final on Thursday and my first orientation day in the hospital tomorrow. I'm excited... and nervous.
Maybe after finals I will finally start sleeping better again. Last night I had super weird dreams I was at the house of this guy from my church and he was showing me his apartment where he had to share a bathroom with his landlord. And then he showed me this giant wall sized rack of bacon he was dehydrating, and I was going to have to hurt his feelings when he offered me a taste since I don't eat bacon. Dreams are so weird!

Friday, December 7, 2012

Compliment?

At work we're working on a strange case that is becoming more movie plot-esque by the day. A lady is pretty much being harrassed by the police and I was in my boss's office brainstorming of ways we can possibly help her more practically than by just working on her in-progress lawsuit.
My boss looked at me and said, "the thing that is so charming about you is you live in a different world; there's Anne's world and then there's reality".
I'm not sure if that was meant as a compliment or not, he was smiling, but while pretty much telling me I'm oblivious.
Anyway, I took it as a compliment. I do dream of a world where people are good and have purpose and love each other. But yeah, that world probably doesn't fully exist this side of heaven. Even if people are "good" we all still fall short.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23
Even so, God still calls us to do good.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21
And He gives us the ability to do so.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Phillipians 4:13
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9
And even when it seems too hard, we can be confident God will win the battle for this world.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. John 16:33

Yums

I made dinner the other night and took my usual few pictures. My friend/roommate Jill was like 'do you always take pictures of your food?' and I said if I'm going to write about it I did, and she said something like, 'the blogs going to be hopping tonight'... ah... well probably not, but I like writing it anyway!
I made my favorite veggie burger recipie
It kinda looks all gross when it's just sitting in the bowl. But it does cook up tasty. Ground oats, ground almonds, flaxseed, sunflower seeds, bread crumbs, onion, garlic, shredded carrot, spices, black beans, and parsley. Sometimes I'm not crazy about the parsley flavor, but overall, very tasty.
I also made some sweet potato fries, looks like I waited too long on this guy
I also made a cranberry crumble. Sometimes this blog girl's recipies are hit or miss, but this one was really good. I only had about 3/4 a bag of cranberries left from Thanksgiving so I tried to scale down the crumble part a bit, I would definitely make it again with all the cranberries, I love a good thick fruity layer. I also made this with all brown sugar instead of maple syrup. That stuff is like $6 a teeny jar, so it gets rationed.
Here are the oats,ground almonds, and spices, my blender did do a good job on this recipie, good job blender.
So here it is
I'm even eating some cranberry crumble right now layered with greek yogurt and sliced banana. Yum.
I saw some of these at Kroger for $1 each, I was excited, my new favorite wine!
Maybe I'll have to dip into that this weekend when I'm studying nonstop for next week's finals!