Sick and bored

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If this is what it means to be a lady of leisure, I want none of it. I’ve been sick since Sunday morning, nothing serious, but enough to completely rob me of energy. Almost everything productive has been postponed until I am able to muster energy again. No quilting, no cleaning, no exercise, nothing.

All I’ve been doing is reading, watching Japanese television (since I can’t handle actual study right now but don’t want to lose any of my progress), sleeping, and spending too much time on the internet. I want to clean!

Hopefully this will keep me productive once I’m on my feet again. There are so many things I want to do and wasting time keeps me from accomplishing much that I want to do. 24 hours in a day really is enough time if it is spent properly.

I sincerely hope anyone reading this is well and enjoying the last few days before Christmas.

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Quilt Top – Complete!

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I am so excited! Today I finished sewing together my quilt top. Tonight we’re headed out after dinner to purchase the fabric needed for the backing. I also need to buy a roll of batting. Tomorrow, I start assembling the quilt “sandwich.” Hurray!

I couldn’t hold the quilt high enough to get it off the ground. It’s 75″ long! I’m only 66″ tall. 😉 I finally decided to stand on a chair so I could get the entire quilt in the photo without having to lay it out on the floor.

So happy that the top is complete!

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Quilt Update

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I am trying to get this quilt finished and in the mail before Christmas! I’m not holding out too much hope but I’m trying the best I can. This should serve as a lesson to stop procrastinating. I’ve been working on this quilt for months but am trying to finish it in less than a week. I’ll finish the next quilt in a more timely manner!

When I started working this morning, I had three rows sewn together. Then I realized that I had sewn them in the wrong order and had to take it apart to avoid messing up my pattern. Thankfully, that was the first major mistake I’ve made. It took quite awhile to undo the stitches and put everything back together the way it was supposed to be.

Then I sewed on another two rows (correctly!) and thus have five rows complete. My goal is to have the other five rows added tomorrow. Hubby and I will be visiting Joann Fabrics after work to pick out the material for the backing and also pick up a roll of batting. I’ll be busy for the rest of the week!

Here’s a photo of what is completed thus far. Even though I’m way behind schedule, I really like the way this is turning out!

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Menu Plan Monday

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We’re not doing anything great for this week’s Menu Plan Monday. The menu is mostly based off of successes from last week, rather than a bunch of new recipes.

Monday – Breakfast burritos
Tuesday – Pizza
Wednesday – Enchiladas
Thursday – Sloppy Joes
Friday – Curry
Sabbath – Lasagna

The only new recipe this week is the sloppy joes and I’m actually going to attempt to create my own recipe based on several others I’ve tried. Hopefully they turn out. To me, a sloppy joe involves BBQ sauce. Most recipes I’ve seen use tomato sauce and a few spices but that doesn’t taste the same.

We’ve been watching a Japanese television series titled Bambino. It’s about a college student who decides he wants to become a chef. He is hired at a fancy Italian restaurant in Tokyo, but has to start from the bottom rung as a waiter in the dining hall. His greatest love is cooking but instead he only delivers the food to the patrons!

It’s fun watching all of the cooking going on in the show and it makes me want to become a good cook. I’m a mediocre cook. I can follow a recipe and I can make a couple things without a recipe (mostly family dishes from my childhood). But I’m not actually skilled at cooking or a baking, especially involving vegan dishes. I want to learn more about cooking and baking but I’m not sure how. Simply following recipes isn’t really teaching me more about cooking other than what doesn’t work. Are there books or online tutorials that teach cooking skills? I’ll have to look into that and see if I can find anything. I love food. I love to eat. Now I just need to learn how to cook!

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Sabbath is almost here!

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I am so happy that today is Friday and that it is almost sundown. Aaaah, an entire day of rest. No worries, no work, no pressure. Just an entire day to spend in close relationship with God and with my husband.

Friday is rightly called Preparation Day. Luke 23:54 says that “it was the preparation day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.” Amen and amen! Today was all about preparing for the Sabbath and I am very blessed with how much I was able to accomplish.

I followed my normal morning routine of Bible reading, exercise, and breakfast. Then it was time for work! I surface cleaned the kitchen, emptied the dishwasher in prep for tomorrow’s dishes, vacuumed, cleaned the cat boxes, scrubbed down the bathroom, wrote out next week’s menu and shopping list, wrapped the birthday present for tomorrow night’s party (my niece turned eight this year!), washed/dried/folded/ironed three loads of laundry, and picked up around the living room. Somehow, I also managed to squeeze in an entire hour of Japanese study!

The only thing I was unable to accomplish was preparing tomorrow’s lunch meal. It wasn’t a lack of time or energy but a lack of planning ahead and having nothing on hand to make in advance. It looks like we’ll be eating ramen after church.

Just for fun, here is Luke 23:54 in Japanese. I don’t yet understand all of this sentence (maybe 25%), but I’ll get there!

この日は準備の日であって、安息日が始まりかけていた。

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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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