Trip to Tennessee

Wow, I haven't updated in a long time!  Things have been pretty busy lately.  On Saturday, February 12, I drove to Dayton, TN, to visit my friends at Bryan College for a week.  I made a pit stop in Knoxville for a short visit with my friend Michael, then completed my journey after a total of about 9.5 hours.  It was a long day, but God helped me stay awake pretty well for the whole trip.  I spent the first few nights at the Tromanhausers' (where I lived last year), then moved down to the new town houses on campus to stay with my friends Alicia and Stacia for the rest of the week.

Here's a rough break-down of my week:

Sunday ~ Attended Westminister Presbyterian Church and saw all my friends there, had lunch back at the Tromanhausers' with the girls who are renting rooms there this year, enjoyed a relaxed afternoon, and went swing dancing on campus that evening (ohhhhhh, how I've missed the chance to go swing dancing every week!).

Monday ~ Visited my former film professor Chris Clark, sat in on chorale practice, visited with some friends in the cafeteria, had dinner with the girls at the Tromanhausers', and watched "Independence Day" for the first time (we figured that an action film would be an appropriate way to celebrate Valentine's Day).

Tuesday ~ Sat in on Mr. Clark's photography class, visited with a friend working in the Alumni office, had lunch with a friend from chorale, went ballroom dancing with the group of friends pictured below (minus the girl on the left, whom we met that night), then moved down to the apartments at about 11:00 pm.

Wednesday ~ Had lunch with the Clarks and met their new baby, then drove to Chattanooga and visited with my friend Eve for the afternoon (who graduated with my class in '09).

Thursday ~ Enjoyed the beautiful weather with Erin, Rob, and Steve while munchin' on some yummy triple fudge brownies I had just taken out of the oven, then spent a quiet evening in the apartments while the girls were in rehearsal for their Showcase. 

Friday ~ Had lunch with a friend, visited with my former theater professor, Mr. B., briefly chatted with another professor, Dr. H., and finally got to see the long-awaited, highly-anticipated, SENIOR SHOWCASE!!!  My friends Alicia, Stacia, Emily, and Jason (the latter two are newlyweds, by the way!), did a fantastic job performing songs from a wide variety of Broadway shows.  It was very entertaining!

Saturday ~ Spent the afternoon with my friend Jenni, who was house-sitting for a couple who are part of a yacht club!  Ohhhhh, how I love the water...and sailboats!  It would be so fun to belong to such a place.  :-)  Then I returned to Dayton just in time for the second and final performance of the Senior Showcase.

Sunday ~ Drove most of the way home, and stopped to spend the night with my dear friend, Stephanie.  It was wonderful to visit with her and her husband Joshua, and their two little children, Gideon and Tirzah.  I was delighted to meet 3-week-old Tirzah for the first time!  My maternal heart thrilled at the feel of holding such a little one in my arms.  And isn't she just the cutest little girl you've ever seen???  :-)

Monday ~ Enjoyed the incredibly warm weather by walking around the property with Stephanie, Gideon, and Tirzah.  I hadn't noticed this johnny house across the creek before...

Monday afternoon I drove home.  And that, my friends, is a brief accounting of what I've been doing during my absence from the land of blogging.  Stephen is very glad I'm home, since he had to carry the full weight of caring for the puppies while I was gone.  We've bought a second crate and separated them into our respective rooms, and that is going surprisingly well.  The Lord has really blessed us!

Also, Stephen apparently got the puppies on a new sleep schedule - 8:30 pm to 6:30 am.  After such an exhausting week, I wasn't quite thrilled about starting to get up so much earlier than I would like, but perhaps it's God's way of getting me on the sleeping schedule that I have desired for myself all along, but haven't been disciplined enough to start following.  My biggest problem is getting myself to go to bed early enough, since I love the quiet evenings after my family goes to bed, and that's usually when I do most of my writing (whenever I'm working on a story, which isn't all the time).

Speaking of sleep, it's high time I went to bed.  The puppies will be waking up in just over seven hours (if they don't get me up at 4 am, like they did last night).  I hope everyone is doing well!  May the Lord richly bless each one of you!
 

Recent Alteration Projects

Here, my friends, are some of the main reasons I haven't posted in so long.  I've been asked to do several alterations recently, and I've also been trying to prepare for my 12 day trip to TN (and staying busy with other things).  Yesterday was particularly crazy, since I was left home alone all day and had to do take care of the puppies, maintain the fire in the wood stove, clean the kitchen, wash laundry, clean the bathroom, run some errands, hide all evidences of puppies having been in the house and generally prepare for our Small Group meeting, fix dinner, and finish these dresses (among other things)!  

Packing for TN was on yesterday's list since I was planning to leave this morning...but that didn't get done.  So I'm not leaving until tomorrow morning.  Now that all my packing is done and my room is partially straightened, I thought I'd take a break and finally give you a little update and explain my recent absence from the blogging world.

Here are the two formal dresses that some girls from church needed me to alter before they could wear them to a banquet next Monday.  I had to take both of them in on the sides, and the purple one needed to be hemmed and have straps added.  The hemming was a little bit of a challenge, since the skirt sweeps around to a train in the back.  I had to make it four inches shorter in the front, but still grade it out to keep the length of the train while maintaining a nice curve.  

As for the straps...we ended up finding silver ribbon at Wal-Mart.  I overlapped two lengths of ribbon and stitched them together, then used the scrap fabric from the shortened hemline to make two strips to go over the ribbon and help preserve some continuity for the dress.  I thought it turned out well, and the girl I was altering it for seemed to be very pleased with the end result, so that's good.  :-)

Below are three Civil War skirts I had made for the same girls at church (plus their foster sister) as a Christmas present from their parents.  But because the skirts were supposed to be a SURPRISE, I couldn't fit them to the girls, and the measurements I was given didn't end up being exactly right.  So I had to take out the hems in all three and let them about about an inch and a half.  Also, I still need to put hook and eyes on the waist bands.

I've also started working on my summer dress, but I'll post pictures of that after it's done.  :-)  I'm excited to be sewing more, and I can't wait to finish some of my own projects.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to be heading to Tennessee for about a week to visit with my friends at Bryan College!  I'm not looking forward to the long drive (about 8 hours), but I'm equipping myself with my new CDs (Big Band music and the Newsies soundtrack!), plus "Lights, Camera, Action: Highlights from the 2009 Christian Filmmaker's Academy."  That should keep my mind pretty well engaged for several hours!  :-)

I haven't seen most of these friends since graduation last May, so I'm really excited!!!  Between current students, faculty, and my graduated friends still living in the area, I'm going to have a LOT of people to see.  It's a good thing I have a whole week to make the rounds.

Well, it's time for family devotions, some dessert, and the old Disney movie, "In Search of the Castaways."  Then SLEEP!!!

I hope everyone has a blessed weekend!
 

Giant Breakfast Cookies

Today I tried a new recipe!  Behold the Giant Breakfast Cookies... 

Don't they look yummy?  I'm eating one right now (even after a filling dinner) because uploading these pictures gave me the urge to nibble on another one of these delicious and very healthy cookies.  They are full of nutritional value and can be grabbed for a quick meal-on-the-run (they are called Breakfast Cookies, after all).  

Here is the recipe so you can make and enjoy them for yourselves!

1 1/4 cups Granulated date sugar (or) raw sugar

3/4 cup Brown rice syrup (or) honey, molasses

2 Tbsp. Canola oil, expeller pressed (or) olive oil

10 oz. Prune puree or prune baby food

4 Egg whites (or) eggbeaters

1 tsp. Vanilla

3 cups Old fashioned rolled oats

2 cups Unprocessed bran, such as Quaker

2 cups All purpose flour (or) whole wheat

1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda

1/2 tsp. Baking powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 cup Raisins

1 tsp. Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350.  Coat baking sheets with cooking spray.

In bowl, combine sugar, syrup, oil, prunes, egg whites, and vanilla.  Add oats, bran, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Stir in raisins and cinnamon.

Drop 1/2 cup at a time onto prepared baking sheet.  Bake 20-22 minutes until lightly golden.

*For peanut butter cookies, add 1/2 cup peanut butter instead of raisins.

I had never pureed prunes before, so I didn't realize they should soak overnight first.  I had already started the process of mixing things together when I figured that out (by reading instructions HERE), so I ended up letting them soak for about 3.5 hours, and they were fine.  Also, the recipe calls for 10 oz. of pureed prunes.  We bought an 8 oz. package of prunes, and by the time they were soaked and pureed, we only needed about half of that for one recipe.

Another note - 1/2 cup of batter equals one HUGE cookie!  I went a little shy of that, and I ended up with eight large cookies on one cookie sheet (for a total of 16 cookies). 

Today I found a recipe for Warm Vanilla Soothers, which I plan to fix tomorrow morning to supplement these cookies for our breakfast.  The recipe for the soothers looks like it should be amazing, but I'm going to experiment a little and see if it will turn out well when made with Almond milk.  I have a slight lactose intolerance, so I've eliminated cow's milk from my diet.  We'll see how it turns out!  Hopefully the rest of my family will like it...  They're not exactly fans of my Almond milk (although I think it's delicious, and I'm the pickiest eater in the house!).  

ANYWAY...what's really neat is that the Vanilla Soothers recipe calls for 4 egg yolks, and the Breakfast Cookie recipe calls for 4 egg whites...so when you make them together it is a great way to utilize the entire egg and not waste anything!

  

Well, certainly had a beautiful day!  The temperature climbed up to 61 pretty quickly, and it was so wonderful to enjoy some warmer weather after all the cold temperatures we've been having.  My friend Laura came by after work, and we drove out to the new walking trail.  We walked pretty briskly for about 1.5 hours and covered approximately 4.5 miles.  We were both really feeling it by the time we got back and collapsed in the car!  We're going to sleep good tonight!  This is the third day in a row that we've exercised together (the last two days we used an exercise video), so I'm pretty excited about that!  Hopefully we can keep it up on a regular basis.

This evening, I stopped by a local Mennonite fabric store and bought some ADORABLE fabric for a summer dress!  It's so light and thin, and it has lovely pastel embroidery on it.  There is a special pattern around the bottom and the edge is scalloped.  Most of the fabric in the store was $5.25/yard, so I was very happy to find out that this was on sale for $2.50/yard!  That clinched the deal right there.  I only needed 3 yards, and you can't beat $7.50 for a dress!  Hopefully I can find time to start sewing it soon...even though I won't be able to wear it for a few more months yet...

Well, that's all the noteworthy news I have for now.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!  I'll leave you with this lovely passage that was used for a benediction in church last Sunday...

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)