long dark blues

As the title of my post indicates, I am giving myself a good ol' pat on the back for FINALLY overcoming my fear of my pressure cooker (it's ok to laugh) and using it TWICE today!  Not only did I soak some pinto beans overnight, but I soaked a couple cups of black beans earlier today to be used in this healthy and delicious-looking  Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake  from TastyKitchen.com (thank you Pinterest for another awesome recipe).  I even snuck in a cup of frozen spinach to take the healthy points up a level. We shall feast on these leftovers for lunch this week, and I've portioned out my remaining beans for freezer storage.  Whenever I use beans, I like to give myself another pat on the back for discovering how easy and economical it is to buy dried beans, soak, cook, and freeze them instead of buying their canned cousins.  I love saving money, avoiding BPA/sodium from cans, and using dried beans in vintage Ball/Kerr jars as decor in our dining room. I give my

Today was one of those days that made me realize I've truly hit adulthood: totally had the opportunity to sleep in but got up early anyway so that I could review/compare Eric's employee benefits with my own employee benefits to choose which plan I should enroll in major excitement with day's plans of shopping for groceries (bonus: cheaply!) at Aldi's, food prepping, and tidying the house epic anger/frustration over two food items that had gone bad in my fridge, which we all know equals wasted money (bonus adult points here) On that note, I absolutely hate wasting food.  I honestly wanted to shake my fists at God and ask, "why?!" when I found that the lovely free-range whole chicken I'd given in to purchasing at Whole Foods had spoiled.  So much meat and chicken stock to waste... :( My pity-party didn't last too long as I wanted to salvage some of the spoiling vegetables in my fridge by making a lovely veggie stock.  I hate buying stock of

Whoo! After being out of the blogging habit for some time, I have been re-inspired to start back up. After a lot of change in the past 3 years (marriage, new jobs, moving, school, new church, etc.), I finally feel like things have settled into a 'normal' of some sort. I can't believe it took this long! So here we are, the first Sunday of December. I finally got our Christmas decorations out of storage and, considering we only have a small tree and very few small decorations, am excited to get into the holiday spirit with a little decoration crafting. I love the rustic, Scandinavian aesthetic and am hoping to make this: source: Nap Time Crafts  I've also been cooking a ridiculous amount of soups from scratch. I am a HUGE fan of Katie Kimball's Kitchen Stewardship blog -- thanks to her, I now make my own chicken stock and yogurt among other things. Lately I'll buy a whole chicken (yay Whole Foods discount!), roast it, pick off the meat and stor

i have a mini-project right now. i've been wanting to do something like 'this' for a while, just not exactly sure what 'this' is. something like a group of people writing encouraging letters to each other, like a penpal group? i just know that there are friends of mine who could use encouragement and prayer and if i can be a vessel, i'd be encouraged too... life is slowly returning 'back to normal' and oddly, i'm not sure how to handle it! ive been trying to 'coach' myself into enjoying life again, saying 'its ok to be happy' here and there and to find peace again. i guess we really didn't know how bad this former living situation was until we were out of it, and now i want to slam that door shut and run like hell! God is so good in his provision and in the way he wants to bless us. i can't wait to grow into that person that he wants me to be and i feel like i'm getting closer and closer.

things are finally starting to look up... my last post was written from a pretty dark place. eric and i were both feeling very lost and hopeless for a while and it looked as though we might have to throw in the towel. God had other plans for us though, and through His provision we will be moving in to the apartment we looked at a few months ago which, by divine intervention, was still available (a serious miracle- the person who'd applied for it somehow got turned down). when we first looked at the place, we fell in love with it- it was in the area that i'd been wishing we lived in and it had everything we'd been wanting: more space, a dishwasher, and a balcony. i realize that doesn't sound like much, but in the DC area, a simple place like this is soo expensive (try $1025 monthly!) we thought it would be too expensive for us, and although we nicknamed it 'our dream apartment,' we forgot about it and planned to stay where we were. things got worse at our

if you read this (if anyone reads this, really), please pray for us... i'd mentioned in my previous post that i'm not a big fan of what i call "negative attention," meaning that i don't really like to throw myself a pity party, complain, etc. I really don't. but as you see here, i'm getting out of that comfort zone because, well, we need help. we need brothers and sisters. we need God. and it's been ridiculous of me to pretend that we didnt. right now our living situation is at a crossroads. the place we've been living for the past year or so is no longer acceptable for us, for a few different reasons. we're stepping out in faith, choosing not to renew our lease for next year, and totally relying on God to lead us to a place that we can be comfortable and safe in. the cost of living here is sky high and a lot of places won't even consider our application unless we make a minimum income (which we usually don't), which kind of tur