salvaging furniture

A couple weeks ago I was out for my morning run on Sunday and as I was running by a house nearby there was an old bench on the side of the road waiting to be trashed.  I got an idea!  Maybe I could salvage it up and fix it up?!  So when I got home I dragged Rollin with me to carry it back.  The bench was extremely wobbly and Rollin thought it was a lost cause.  I still had hope!

A couple weeks later my parents visited and I asked my dad if he could help me sturdy it up!  We got brackets from the store and strengthened the joints so the bench was almost as good as new!  At this point I didn't know what I was going to do next, but spontaneously decided I wanted to paint it.  I tend to like neutral colors because it goes with everything, but I wanted to be different this time and go bold so I got a paint color called "bold sangria."  Yup, it sure is bold.  I painted the bench the color and ended up bringing it inside and threw gray pillows on it.  I think it looks pretty good.  What do you think?

 Before doing anything to it.  It was a dark brown and a purple color.  Gross!

 Mmmm....paint!

 Painting with my dad!

 Done!

Brought it inside and put some gray pillows on it!

Oh, and I had leftover paint so I painted an unfinished bookshelf I had too!

 Before painting the bookshelf

 After painting the bookshelf

The finished product!

cleaning the fridge

I've been inspired to do various sorts of cleaning, organizing and crafting projects thanks to Pinterest.  Yesterday I deep cleaned our refrigerator.  They are really dirtier than they seem!

I took out ALL of the shelves and compartments, filled the tub with hot water and dish soap and vinegar, and soaked all the compartments in it for a while.  I also soaked our trash can to clean it too.  It works REALLY well.  While the shelves and compartments were soaking I wiped down the fridge.  Then I dried off the shelves and compartments and put them back in place.  I bought some storage baskets to organize the food.  I have one basket for all our cheese!  Another for our creams, one for our meats, and two more for fruits and veggies.

My Cooking Accomplishment: Lasagna

Since we've been married, Rollin's actually been doing most of the cooking.  He loves it!  And he has more time than me.  But I've sort of been feeling a little insecure because I'm the WIFE!  This past year I started getting a little creative and doing more cooking and making things.  But last night, I made the all-time meal: lasagna.  To me, if I can make lasagna, then I can definitely cook!  And it was tasty too!!!  

Accommodating for my gluten sensitivity!

Lots of cheese!

Tada!!

Anniversary Trip to Corpus Christi!

June 5th we celebrated our 2nd Anniversary!  We went on our 2nd annual roadtrip to celebrate.  This year we went to Corpus Christi.  We left Sunday morning and stayed through Wednesday morning and then headed back!  Here are a few snapshots below.  To see the entire album from our trip go HERE!

At the beach on Mustang Island.

It's our anniversary!

Aboard the U.S.S. Lexington!

Going out to dinner to the Water Street Oyster Bar, yum!

After dinner...

The Corpus Christi Bay Beach...

It's Summer!

I haven't posted in almost two months.  The end of the school year was busy and very tiring.  I felt like I was crawling to the finish line this year.  I hope to be able to blog more this summer.  Probably about once a day I remember it's summer and that I am FREE to relax and do whatever and I get excited all over again, and sometimes scream out loud.

I especially feel a big sense of freedom since I will be teaching at a new school in the fall.  This summer feels like the start of a new chapter.

My heart for this summer is to rest and relax.  My desire is to spend more time with Jesus than I did during the school year and really pursue His heart and grow in revelation of Him.

I've already started doing little projects around the house to keep myself busy like cleaning and crafting and cooking.

I love summer :)

it's time for a new post

But I'm not quite sure what to write about :)

 At the end of March Rollin and I went out to look at all the wildflowers and took a bunch of pictures.  They were so beautiful this year because of all the rain we got!

We celebrated Rollin's birthday at the end of March.  I went out on a limb and bought a "maxi" dress.  Haha!  I wore it to our annual homegroup luau.

This year has been so rough.  It feels at this point it should be summer already, but it's not.  This is the never-ending school year for me.  But I keep having to put my trust and hope in Jesus.  This year has forced me to literally call on the name of Jesus every day when I wake up.

Listen to this song:

                        

This is a good song.  My heart has been yearning for Jesus and to remain fixed upon Him.  Before Easter I watched "The Passion of the Christ" again.  I was so moved.  The next day, Easter Sunday, I couldn't help but weep thinking of Jesus.  How beautiful it is to be moved to tears by Jesus.  He really is everything.

Last week I got this cool image/vision in my mind.  It was actually two images: a foreground and a background.  The foreground image was my life and the worries and anxieties of my life.  The background image was the face of Jesus.  What sticks out to me is Jesus' eyes.  They are so piercing and so full of love.  Everyday I go back and forth focusing on the foreground image and then the background image.  But I really want my heart to just focus on the background image and trust Jesus to take care of my life.

St. Patrick's Day

I've never gone all out celebrating St. Patrick's Day, not sure why, probably because I'm not Irish.  But today I celebrated St. Patrick's Day more than ever before.  I made Thin Mint Cookie Truffles to celebrate!

All you need is thin mint cookies (either the Girl Scout kind or the Keebler Grasshopper cookies), 1/2 package (4 oz.) cream cheese, mint chips (I got the Andes mint chips), and vanilla candy coating.

First, take all of the cookies and crush them into tiny crumbs.  I  put them in a food processor (it took 2 batches of doing this) and chopped them up, it worked very nicely.  You could also put the cookies in a Ziploc bag and pound the bag.  Next mix the cream cheese in with the cookie crumbs (I used a hand mixer).

Next, roll into 1-inch balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet.  Put in the fridge for about 30 minutes so they firm up and won't fall apart.

Take a 10 oz. bag of Andes mint chips and melt in the microwave in 30 second increments, mixing with a spoon between each microwave zap.

Place balls in the melted chocolate.  I used two forks to roll the ball around to get it completed covered in the chocolate and then placed it back on the wax paper.

Lastly, I took vanilla candy coating (melted it just like the mint chips) and spooned the candy coating in a Ziploc bag.  I cut a TINY corner off and used to decorate the truffles.

I also celebrated St. Patrick's Day having dinner with friends.  One of my Irish friends made corned beef and cabbage.  It was quite tasty!  The end of spring break is upon me.  Back to school in a little over a day.

Homestretch...I can make it...

Holy Spirit, let me feel what You feel

This morning we went to church.  Like always.  The worship was soooooo good!  Every time I'm about to go into church or homegroup I pray, "Holy Spirit, let me feel what You feel and let me see what You see."  I pray this to be more connected to the Spirit so that I can hear him speak more clearly and receive anything prophetic He has for me or for people.

During worship the last song we sang was "With Everything."  Every time I hear this song or sing this song I get a vision of a multitude of people in white robes singing to Jesus....

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands [...] Then one of the elders addressed me, saying 'Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?'  I said to him, 'Sir, you know.'  And he said to me, 'These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.  They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9-17)

This song is the song I imagine hearing and singing when Jesus returns and we, who endure the tribulation and end times, are caught up with Jesus.  It moves me to tears just thinking of it.

The chorus in the song goes like this: "With everything / With everything / We will shout for Your glory / With everything / With everything / We will shout for Your praise."  When we sang this song in church today and got to this part people actually starting shouting the name "Jesus" and shouting out prayers to him.  The climax of the song is an interlude when the people just sing "Woaahh" and people were shouting out to Jesus.

This has never happened to me before, but I was so moved by hearing so many people in my church shouting out for Jesus with a passionate heart that I started crying with joy.  Really, I was bawling.  I knew at that moment, I was feeling what the Holy Spirit was feeling, He was moved to tears by the passion for Jesus that was in the room.  I was seeing what the Holy Spirit was seeing: a beautiful Bride longing for Jesus.  I could feel how pleased Jesus was and how much he adored our worship to Him.

In that moment, everything fades but Jesus.  Everything that seems important doesn't matter.  It's just Jesus.

This is what I imagine worship will be like when Jesus returns to reign the earth in person and we are with him.  I cannot wait :)

By the way, here's the song I was talking about.  I have a bunch of favorite songs.  But this is THE MOST FAVORITE of my songs.  This song inspires me to endure.  This song inspires me to look to Jesus and to be excited for His return and to eagerly await it and to eagerly PRAY for Him to come back and make everything new.

my wife instincts are kicking in

I think my maternal instincts...or maybe WIFE instincts are finally kicking in.  I've recently been inspired to try cooking some new recipes and bake desserts and use some of the bakeware I got when we got married.  Last weekend I made spaghetti squash with sausage.  Yesterday, Rollin was gone in San Antonio support raising and so I did a lot of baking.  First, I made a double layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting for a girls nights I had Friday night, then I made peanut blossoms and marble swirl pound cake!!!

Here's the double layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

It's not perfect.

Making peanut blossoms!

Then last night I felt really guilty for baking all of this sweet stuff that I definitely don't want to eat!!!  So I've been giving it away so I'm not tempted to eat too much :)

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit

About 15 minutes ago I finished this book.  Awesome book!  I highly recommend reading it.  The book is a "narrative theological argument" talking about the gifts of the Spirit and healing and talks through scripture that supports those beliefs.  The book also contains amazing stories of people being healed and miracles that are really encouraging.  Reading this book has really challenged me on those topics: the gifts of the Spirit and healing.  Since reading this book I've felt really convicted that I need to start praying for healing more; I need to obey the Lord and trust him in faith.  It's okay if I pray for healing for 20 people and nothing happens, the most important thing is to pray and ask the Lord and to obey when I feel like he puts it on my heart!

What I like about this book is that Jack Deere talks about all angles of these sensitive issues.  Yes, I think gifts of the Spirit and healing is a sensitive issue.  Why?  Because it's been abused and so there's fear.  You can tell by reading the book that Jack Deere isn't some crazy charismatic just throwing out his opinions, but that he has diligently read the Bible and studied it and asked the Lord about these things.  Also, the underlying basis of this book is Jesus: having intimacy with Jesus and having passion for Jesus.  The last chapter of the book is about developing passion for Jesus and he talks about how scripture even shows that the disciples walked in the power of the Spirit because they had intimacy with Jesus.  Healings and miracles were the overflow of their passion for Jesus.

Jack Deere talks about developing passion for Jesus at the end and shares a prayer that he prays daily:

"Father, grant me power from the Holy Spirit to love the Son of God like you love him."

I like that.  I think I'm gonna start praying that everyday.

Red Velvet Cake Cookies

These are cookies made out of a Red Velvet Cake Mix!  I read through the recipe on the blog and saw the pictures and it looked too yummy to resist!!!

If you'd like to try making these yourself click, HERE to go to the blog where I found this recipe!