Sunday Thoughts

I had this whole other post planned, but I decided to go this route:

Today, at church, we were reminded how to speak and act appropriately.  And while I get it--I get why we do things like this--I left with the feeling that maybe people would be more...

I don't know...

excited to come to church if it didn't seem like someone was always telling you what you should or shouldn't say or how many people you should or shouldn't have at your special religious events. Maybe it would be easier to come if you didn't feel like everyone was judging you.  But most importantly, maybe you'd feel a little more excited about coming if it didn't just seem like such an eternal trudge to the next life.

Like I said, I get it.  This isn't a complaint against the powers that be that decide these kinds of things. It's just  a thought. My  thoughts being that heaven forbid if I stand up and tell you all how I feel about Christ lest I say something that doesn't follow the "guidelines".

Sometimes, I wonder if in our quest to make tangible guidelines that pinpoint exactly what should or shouldn't happen, we forget the important parts.  Like, how church is suppose to lead us closer to the Savior and how we should want to come and not leave feeling like we're less worthy than anyone else.  We should be excited about each other and our accomplishments.  We should celebrate big milestones and events.   We should feel comfortable expressing thoughts close to our hearts without feeling like we are breaking rules.

I get it.  I get why there are even guidelines.  People like to toe the line.  Some people don't understand that you can't have 50 people blessing a baby.  But, those guidelines that are handed down are relatively broad.  And some people are okay with broad.  But, some people have to quantify everything.  They have to make it fit into a little box and in the process, they forget that not everything has to--or should, even--fit into that little box.  Maybe they are general for a reason.

I know.  It's me.  It's my attitude.  It's because I  feel like I'm trudging through life spiritually, always afraid that when I die, God is going to be like "you stood up and said this at church and I clearly told you that you had to have one of these five things in there, and you didn't really have any of that, so there's no room for you here."

Except for I KNOW that won't be the case.  I know that when I die, I'll realize that so much focus was put on the details and not enough focus was put on the big picture.  I would do better to remember that when I'm sitting in church and getting lectured on these things that matter to everyone else.

But I didn't really have any plans on standing up and saying anything ever again after today's lecture.  I mean, I don't want to be the person that everyone blames when we have a revisit of this topic. I'm pretty sure my reluctance to share my feelings isn't part of the big picture God had planned either.

Sometimes, I look at other people in other faiths and think "they look like they get it."  Maybe their beliefs aren't necessarily what I believe, but it seems that they seem to be saying "This is who I am. I might not be perfect, but I'm doing my best.  And in the end, God will understand and He'll welcome me with open arms because I welcomed Him with open arms." And everyone else around will nod their heads and say "me too." instead of "you need to be better.  You need to do this and this and this and this to prove that you're doing your best.  And guess what, we keep telling you that your best is good enough, but then we keep telling you that you're not doing your best."

And so it's going to be my philosophy from now on to say "Hey, listen.  I'm doing my best here.  I'm giving it my all.  And in the end, will it really matter if my kid stood up and repeated the same words we've heard from every other kid for eons of time, because we all have to start somewhere, right?"

I know, to some, this will seem like a complaint of the church I've chosen to belong to.  And it's not.  Not at least to the fundamental teachings that make it the church I've chosen.  I realize that things are open to interpretation, and part of being faithful is believing that the interpretations you've been given are the best ones to follow.  Nowhere does it say that I have to blindly follow without any questioning.  I firmly believe I can still be faithful in following and still have my reservations.

So there.  There's my Sunday Thoughts.  Pretty deep for having taken the last two weeks off, right?  I'm back on track this week.  New recipe and everything.  Maybe even a few laughs.  It's been so...tense...around here.

The Big Unveiling

So, we were kinda busy this Christmas season.

With what, you might ask?

Well, for starters, Wade went a little Griswaldy on the house.  He put up strands and strands of lights.  It really did look pretty neat, and we got them up Thanksgiving weekend.  That has been the earliest we've ever gotten them up.  But it was a blessing in disguise because had we waited any longer, they wouldn't have gotten up at all due to the misfortune that December became.

Speaking of which, we just received our ER bill.

HOLY FREAKIN' COW!!!

But that's for another day.

What else did we do?

Wade took two weeks off (there's a story there.  A funny story about how Wade saved all his vacation up, but I'm still too pissed to talk about it).  And in that two weeks he built me this:

Yep.  A kitchen island.

The man is amazing.  He just used stock cabinets from Lowes.  Screwed them together.  Mounted everything to the floor.  Painted it.  It looks incredible.  The pictures don't do it justice.  I have no idea how I've lived this long without an island.

What's that?

Oh. Right.  Granite countertops.  Yeah, we did those too.  Back in November.  There were a few hiccups with them, but now I love them too.  There's another post in the workings about those too.  I'll get there.  Patience.

The next task on our list is to do something with the cabinets.  We have a pretty good idea of what we want to do, but we need warmer weather.  I'm really excited for the updated kitchen and can't wait for it all to be done.

What else is going on?  Oh man.  If you knew.  But that revelation will have to wait.

What's for Dinner Wednesday--Penne Sardi

Yay for new recipes!

I asked Wade what he'd want for New Year's Eve dinner if he could have anything.  He immediately said Penne Pasta Sardi from Biaggi's, an Italian restaurant found at the Gateway.

I googled it--yay for the internet--and luckily, someone had done all the dirty work for me.

http://www.whitewaxflower.com/2011/05/biaggis-penne-sardi-copycat-recipe.html

One day, I aspire to be one of those people that can take a taste of a dish at a restaurant and then go home and recreate it.  Until then, I'm glad that there are people out there that can do it.

So, if you want pretty pictures, head over there.  Otherwise, I'll tell you what I did here.

First, I had to make the bread crumb topping.  I took 3 pieces of bread and broke them up into pieces.  Then I put it into the blender and blended it until it was only crumbs, but not superfine, because they'll only burn.

Next, I had to brown the bread crumbs.  I added garlic, garlic powder, oregano, parsley flakes, onion salt and onion powder in with the bread crumbs.  I didn't measure out the amounts, just shook the bottles and tasted the crumbs until I thought they tasted good.

I spread the bread crumbs in an 8 x 8 pan and put them in the oven set at 200 degrees.  The recipe said to stir them every three minutes for about 10 minutes and they'd be done, but after 15 minutes, I had to turn on the broil for just a few minutes to get them toasty enough.

The next step took the most time, but probably made the dish.  Melt 3 Tablespoons of butter in a pan on the stove.Take a medium onion and cut it into thin slices.  Add about a cup of mushrooms and add the onions and mushrooms to the pan.  Salt and stir.  Salt some more and stir again.  Keep cooking over VERY low heat until the onions go from being stiff and white to clear and flimsy to brown and syrupy.  This process takes about 45 minutes so don't fret when it doesn't happen right way.

Next step is the sauce.

2 1/2 C heavy cream or half and half (I went all out and used heavy cream)
1 C butter (yep.  That's right.)
1 1/4 C mozzarella cheese
5 T grated parmesan cheese
1 C sun-dried tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter and cream together in a large sauce pan, and bring almost to a boil but not quite.  Stir in the cheeses until they're melted followed by the tomatoes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside.

*a sidenote about the tomatoes.  The only sun-dried tomatoes I could find were found in the canned tomato aisle packed in oil.  They were tomato halves.  I just threw them in.  I would suggest washing the tomatoes and then chopping them up into more bite-happy pieces.

Cook a bag of penne pasta according to the package directions.  Drain the pasta and put it into a bowl.  Add the sauce and the carmelized onions and mushrooms and another 1/2 cup of mozzarella and stir it up.  Put it in a baking dish, top it with more mozzarella cheese and layer the top with the bread crumbs.\

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, checking occasionally to make sure the bread crumbs aren't burning.

*Another sidenote: I also added grilled chicken to the pasta.  I just grilled some chicken and cut it up into bite-size pieces and added it with the sauce and onion/mushroom mixture.

I got rave reviews on this dish from both Wade and our friends we had over for NYE.  It really wasn't that hard to create either, as long as you leave enough time to not rush the onions and mushrooms.  Maybe not the healthiest dish, but for special occasions, it was perfect.

Life Happens

Saturday, it snowed.

Which is good for the whole water sense, but not for my Saturday morning run.  Which turned into a leisurely walk. 

Then, later on during the morning, I noticed that it was really cold inside the house.  Turns out the furnace wasn't working.

I spent the early afternoon cleaning out the deep freezer that had so much ice it needed to be defrosted because apparently, it was staying open all the time.  This project then turned into cleaning out the whole storage room,  but now we can actually get to the stuff  we need to.

When I went upstairs, I happened to glance inside the kids' bathroom and noticed that the floor was wet.  Turns out the toilet was leaking.

Luckily, Wade was able to fix the furnace and the toilet stopped leaking, so that was nice.  The freezer got defrosted, cleaned and the food all put back in before it melted--thanks to the snow that was insulating the coolers used to house said food outside in the backyard.

We decided to reward ourselves by getting a babysitter and cashing in a gift certificate to Iceberg for some shakes and fries.  But first we had to stop by Cabela's and buy winter boots for Wade using a gift card he had gotten from work.

In the end, we didn't have enough time to stay at Iceberg, and ended up getting our shakes and fries to go.  They weren't nearly as tasty as I thought they wouldd have been.

I still had to go grocery shopping and make two posters for church the next morning, and so after dropping the babysitter I did just that.

I crawled into bed at about 11:30 and the power went out.  I was cold to begin with, and I started getting colder, but eventually I fell asleep until about 3:30.

So I ask you, what are the chances that something would happen to the freezer, the furnace, the toilet, the power would go out AND I would end up with a stomach bug all on the same day?!?

The Beginning of the End

Right, right, right.  It's the new year.  Yay.  So let's just forget that last year I only wrote 96 blog posts (and some of those were picture posts, so had no writing whatsoever) and concentrate on my goal of 3 posts a week = 156.

Or you know, 2 1/2 posts a week.

Whatever.

But, I do want to resurrect my What's For Dinner Wednesday posts.  So that will definitely be here.  Other than that one weekly thing, I have nothing else.  Just more of the same, I guess.

Speaking of more of the same, I unearthed my resolution list from last year sometime last week and sadly realized that I only completed one thing from it.  And not because it was on the list either.  Just because I was in the right place at the right time.  Looking over it, I see how ambitious I was at the beginning of 2011.  I'm not feeling that same ambition at the beginning of 2012, so let's just see if we can work on one or two of those original 11.

We'll say 2 for 2012.  And I'm not even going to pick which ones either.  Just look again in December 2012, and hopefully I will have gained some momentum in 2 of those areas.  That should suffice, right?

Ah...I'm beginning to feel a little more like myself already.

 Sit back.  Relax.  And hopefully you'll leave with a smile, 2-3 times a week. :)

Happy New Year!