Hello December

I'm writing this from my mobile so I'm not exactly sure what it is going to look like when it post. It has been exactly seven months to the day since my last post. Maybe doing this photo challenge with my fellow twenty somethings I will get back into making post. For today's picture here is "my view"

  Watching Jeopardy

December Photo Challenge

I am really bad at photo-a-day challenges. I love to take photos but I have trouble keeping up with it everyday. So, I asked my fellow Twenty-Somethings if they would like to take part in a December photo challenge with me and Captain Something Fun, Martha S. and Granny Eyre all agreed. We're going to share them on our blog with our large audience of readers. So get ready to see a couple photos every day of various themes.

For day 1, the challenge was "Your View"

It's been a dreary day. The rain outside the window is what I've been watching all day. 

                                                                                                                    See you tomorrow! 

                                                                                                                    The Farmer's Daughter 

Note to all our followers

Yet again, life has taken over and I have neglected to make posts on here as frequently as I would like. I noticed that the majority of the information in my "About Me" section is outdated, so I will be updating that as soon as possible to include my new job information! Yes!! I got a new job on September 28th!! But that deserves a blog post all in itself....so I apologize to our millions of readers who I know are just sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to hear about my life! Unfortunately, you will have to wait just a little while longer :p

Now on to more interesting, but less important stuff!

On Friday (10/16), I caught an adult red-headed woodpecker with my bare hands! It had smacked into one of the windows in our patio room.  I held it for several minutes while it caught it's breath, and then it flew off. I've been able to catch numerous wild baby birds, but I will have to say this was definitely a first getting to hold an adult bird. So neat! And I'm glad that it was okay!




As the TwentySomethings already know, Sunday (10/18) was our birthday party for The Farmer's Daughter. The theme was doughnuts. Martha S. put a lot of hard work into making sure that it was a nice event. I really enjoyed getting to fill myself up with yummy treats,  busting the doughnut-shaped piñata, and getting to see everyone again.
Below are a few pics from the party:

 

-Miss Ellaneous

Baking Adventures

This weekend I discovered that The Great British Bake Off is now on Netflix! Of course when the show started airing in the United States it became known as the The Great British Baking Show. Not as cool of a name but a great show nonetheless. I became attached to this show when I was couchsurfing in England. One of my hosts watched the show the first night I was there. As soon as I returned to the US, I was pleased to find it online. Now I am ecstatic to find the first season on Netflix. Hopefully more will be added in the future.

Watching this show inspired Heather and I to make a cake at 9 pm on Friday evening. We are the greatest of homebodies: watching cooking shows and baking on a Friday night. Since I was dogsitting, it was an adventure in the kitchen to find everything we needed without having to go to the store. We were successful in finding everything except cinnamon; we substituted cinnamon sugar. Here are the results:

Since the verse on YouVersion that day was Psalm 34:8, we found it fitting to make a picture. 

Once I'm in the baking mood, I must continue. This month I am also trying to slow down my grocery spending and learn to use what I have instead. This is inspired by the 31 Days of Living Well and Spending Zero Challenge, but I have modified it to fit my lifestyle. Maybe a future post on that adventure. Because of that challenge, I didn't want to buy anything for my baking except milk, bread, and eggs. Thankfully, I already have flour and sugar and the other basics on hand.

My latest baking started with this recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook for chocolate chip cookies. Naturally, I couldn't just make boring chocolate chip cookies. During the mixing process, I threw in some cocoa (I just emptied what I had left) and used Toll House chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips. I guess I created double chocolate chip cookies. Then I decided I wanted to make s'more cookies. I started melting butter and marshmallows just like I would for a rice krispie treat. My plan was to put marshmallow and graham cracker on the top of the cookies. Maybe it was a lack of recipe or maybe I was trying to do too many things at once, but it didn't work. The marshmallow was hardening in the pan faster than I could get it on the cookies. 

Well that's all for my baking adventures thus far. Next I want to try making bread again. I'm still on the search to find the perfect bread recipe.

For now,

Granny Eyre

I AM a teacher...hear me roar.

"You look like a teacher."

It may have been my professional work attire or the fact that he remembered me from children's church, but I chose to believe it was because there was something about my aura that screamed "TEACHER". That made my heart warm a bit and settled the butterflies in my stomach.

It was the first night of teaching AWANAS. Middle school AWANAS. I think the butterflies were there for good reason. Middle schoolers can eat a person alive if she's not careful.

AWANAS stands for something that I can't remember, but basically it's a Bible study program for elementary and middle school students that runs on Wednesday nights at my church. They eat, play a game, and do a Bible study together.

This first night I had a lesson planned but I didn't intend to actually need it. I wanted to lay some ground rules and get to know my students. I had them write out three things about themselves on index cards. Rule #1 was created. No flying objects. I then read the cards aloud and asked them to guess who each card was describing. No difficulty in this activity. I should have thrown in my own card to mix it up. I was pleased when the first thing one student listed is that he is a Christian. Pretty cool.

After that, we laid some ground rules. I let them suggest the rules. They are old enough to know how they want to be treated in a classroom. They got all of the major ones that I would have listed, even if they were written a bit differently than I would have said. One rule says "don't yell at the top of your lungs." I quickly added to not yell at the bottom of your lungs either. They laughed at my pitiful attempt at a joke. Success!

I almost forgot to pray at the end, but other than that, the meeting went well. They didn't even complain too much when I gave them homework for next week. I'm excited about this opportunity to teach. I think it flows in my blood because I just feel so much more at ease when I'm in the front of a classroom watching students think.