Bible in 90 Days – Sign up time!

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MomsToolbox

I blogged my way through the Bible in 90 Days program this spring. What a great experience! Reading the Bible so quickly gave me a new perspective on the overarching themes of salvation, God’s greatness, and grandiose themes. Covering the entire Bible in 90 days allows you to remember what happened in Genesis while reading through Revelation because you just read Genesis less than 3 months prior!

Earlier this year, I read the Bible in 90 days. Later in the year, I mentored a group through the program. In January, I will again be mentoring. If you’re interested, you can request to be in my group.

If you’ve never read through the Bible, or have never read it quickly, I invite you to sign up for the next Bible in 90 Days session, starting January 3rd. Pray about it. Clear your calendar to set aside time each day to spend engrossed in God’s Word. You won’t regret it!

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Adventures in Cooking Without Dairy

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My husband and I are very lucky in that most of our food preferences overlap. Occasionally we run into some minor differences, such as my love/his dislike of peas and his love/my dislike of mayonnaise. Blech.

Probably one of our biggest differences in taste involves soup. I LOVE soups, whether it’s vegetable soup, taco soup, tomato soup, etc. Hubby doesn’t exactly dislike soup, but he prefers it not to be the main course for dinner. I can eat a bowl of soup and a slide of bread and be content. He prefers something more solid.

Thankfully, hubby is awesome about letting me try out new recipes! I bribed him on this one, promising him a loaf of fresh garlic bread on the side. So, tonight we are finally trying out the curried butternut soup. It looks yummy!

First I found this awesome tutorial on how to peel and cut butternut squash. Oddly enough, I’ve never done it before and wanted to find a pain free method.

Beautiful!

The only problem with my butternut squash is that it looks exactly like cut squares of cheddar cheese. I’ve been vegan now for 11 months but sharp cheddar cheese was one of my favorite forms of dairy. Give me a block of Tillamook extra sharp cheddar and I was a very happy person. I used to make pasta salad quite often – WackyMac veggie spiral noodles, olives, cucumber, peas, ranch dressing, and little cubes of sharp cheddar cheese. YUM! I miss my (very unhealthy) pasta salad.

As soon as hubby is finished with work, we’ll run over to the grocery store and pick up a loaf of french bread so that I can make garlic bread. One of these days, I really need to learn how to make my own french bread… Hopefully the soup tastes as awesome as it looks in the recipe photo!

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On This Day in Christian History – A Book Review

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I had a hard time choosing between this book and another “this date in history” book titled The American Patriot’s Almanac. As I wanted to get better acquainted with the history of Christianity, On This Day in Christian History won. The tagline says “365 amazing and inspiring stories about saints, martyrs, and heroes.”

Unfortunately, I have not yet read this in full as I plan on using it as part of my devotional for 2011. I didn’t want to spoil too much of it! So, I read through the preface and the first five days of the year.

I’m excited about reading through this book next year! The very first story is about Ulrich Zwingli, born in 1484. He copied the entire New Testament by hand, making notes in the margins and memorizing Scripture. When he was done with this study, he decided to break tradition and preach through the New Testament verse by verse. This was during a time period when the sermons were decided by the church liturgy and weekly readings. But his local church loved the new sermon styles!

Not only was this man brave enough to break out of tradition, he studied the Bible as much as possible and attempted to live out what he had learned. I want to develop that type of passion!

I received a reader copy of this book from BookSneeze in exchange for an honest review.

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Songs at church bringing back memories

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Today at church, we sung several songs that bring back a lot of memories from my childhood.

This first one is titled “Side by Side.” The lyrics plead with the listener to meet in heaven someday. We’ll join hands and sing songs together, side by side with the Saviour.

Side by side we stand
Awaiting God’s command
Worshiping the saving King
Living by His grace
And moving out in faith
Jesus will see us through

Meet me in Heaven
We’ll join hands together
Meet me by the Saviours’ side
I’ll meet you in Heaven
We’ll sing songs together
Brothers and Sisters I’ll be there

This second song is titled “Jesus is Coming Soon.” Sorry for the poor audio, but I just love the OLD versions of this song. Beautiful music!

Troublesome times are here, filling men’s hearts with fear,
Freedom we all hold dear, now is at stake.
Humbling your heart to God saves from the chastening rod.
Seek the way pilgrims trod, Christians awake!

Chorus
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon,
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound.
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky,
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!

Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forever more,
When we meet on that shore, free from all care.
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye,
Homeward we then will fly, glory to share.

Chorus
Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon,
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound.
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the sky,
Going where no one dies, Heavenward bound!

Jesus is coming soon and we are heavenward bound!

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Vacation plans

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Hubby is on vacation tomorrow, Friday, Sabbath, and Sunday. We were supposed to go to California but our car repairs were a bit more costly than expected. Sadness.

Instead, we’ve made plans to mostly stay at home and relax. Tomorrow is the only day we’ll be out, other than church. We’re going to see Tangled and then eat at Republic Ramen. It’s our first visit to the restaurant and I’m very excited to try ramen that doesn’t come out of a 15 cent package.

The rest of his vacation, we’ll be staying home and watching Japanese shows, studying Japanese, playing games, and I’ll be trying to finish my quilt. I’ve also decided that I won’t be slacking on my housework this time. Last time hubby had some time off work, I skipped almost all of my housework and then paid the price the following Monday! It took me a few days to catch up and I really don’t want to do that again.

I’m still a bit bummed that we won’t be going to California, though…

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Great news!

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It’s been so long since I’ve posted. It’s amazing how much the holidays can throw off a routine, especially when one’s carefully made plans are changed at the very last minute!

Thankfully, I received some wonderful news! My mother had her biopsy done and there’s nothing wrong. No cancer.

I am so grateful to the Lord for protecting my mother. I am also grateful to everyone who prayed. Thank you so much!

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What’s On Your Nightstand – December

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What's On Your Nightstand It’s that time again! I haven’t read much this month and I probably won’t be reading much next month. As much as I want to finish the 2010 challenges, I find myself spending more time on learning Japanese, cleaning, and trying to finish a quilt before Christmas. Most of my reading has been sidelined…

So, this month I’m just going to continue working on my reading challenges. My number one priority is the Jane Austen challenge. I am slowly reading through Sense & Sensibility and am enjoying it, despite how long I’m taking to read it. Then I’ll be reading a S&S sequel – The Third Sister, by Julia Barrett. After that, I’ll be reading either Persuasion or Northanger Abbey.

If I read much more than that, I will be surprised. My reading goes in waves and I guess this is just a down time for me. As a plus, my Japanese studies have really taken off and I’m spending between one and two hours a day studying!

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Menu Plan Monday – 11/22/10

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I really am loving Menu Plan Monday. I’m happy that my menu planning is finally organized.

Something I’m trying to do with our diet is to make food from scratch as much as possible. I’m not making huge changes, just trying to make something new each week that we previously bought packaged. For the past three weeks, I’ve been making “refried” beans in the crockpot. Then we have beans for burritos all week and there are no weird ingredients in them.

Next week I’m going to make udon noodles from scratch. We recently finished a Japanese television series that featured a girl who was known for her handmade udon noodles. The food looked really good so I thought I’d give it a try! It doesn’t look too difficult and will be a lot more fresh than anything I can buy in the grocery store.

This week’s menu:

Monday – Skillet Lasagna – new recipe
Tuesday – Vegetarian Gyoza and Miso Soup – new recipe
Wednesday – Riblets, mashed potatoes, vegetable
Thursday – Thanksgiving
Friday – Curry
Sabbath – Spaghetti
Sunday – Enchiladas

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New glasses

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Today I went and picked up my new glasses. The new prescription is going to take an adjustment! Everything looks funny. The woman at the optometrist’s office said that it was a pretty big prescription change and that it can take two weeks to fully adjust! In the mean time, I feel like my depth perception is skewed.

Joann’s didn’t have the fabric I needed to finish my quilt. I picked out a similar fabric and will be replacing some of my blocks with it so that it at least looks intentional. Oops! I thought I had bought extra of each fabric just in case, but I guess I was still a bit short. I’ve learned my lesson for next time.

Hubby is working tonight. We’re watching a Japanese drama while his computer processes are running. It’s actually rather relaxing, despite having no idea when he’ll be able to go to bed.

Hope your week is going as well as mine!

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Quilting Update

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I’m still plugging away on Grandpa’s quilt. If all goes well, I’m hoping to have it complete by Thanksgiving. It will be a stretch to finish that quickly, but I need to get it done!

Here is a picture of today’s progress. I completed all the blocks and laid out my final design. Yes, I am missing one block of the red fabric on the bottom. Hubby and I are going to Joann’s tomorrow to buy another quarter yard of it. I hope they have some in stock or I will be redoing my design!

Once I pick up the last bit of fabric, I can sew the entire top together. Then I have to figure out how to sew on the border! I bought a really nice chocolate brown colored fabric for the border.

Bruno loves it when I spread fabric on the floor. He always tries to find a way to lay on it. Good thing my grandparents are not allergic to cats!

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