Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas from Kentucky!

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! It's hard not being with family this holiday season but Lee and I are enjoying making new memories with our little family, like these cinnamon rolls I cranked out this morning. My favorite part was that I was able to make the dough in the bread machine!


Thank you friends and family for the many blessings you've given us. The biggest blessing has been your love and support. And what better time of the year to remember the greatest love of all.

9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10)

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Full Disclosure by Dee Henderson

I LOVE Dee Henderson. It can't really be said any other way. I'm pretty sure I've read just about everything she's published and was very excited to see she had a new book after several years. Full Disclosure comes out on October 2 this year and I was stoked to get an advanced copy to review.

Ann Silver is the Midwest Homicide Investigator and travels all across the country helping law enforcement agencies solve murders. She has also made some powerful friends along the way. What originally seems to be a routine car accident in the town where she is acting as temporary sheriff turns out to be anything but and leads her to the office of Paul Falcon, the FBI's top murder cop.With Ann's help one of Paul's biggest cases is about to bust wide open. Even with his hands full working the female murder-for-hire case, Paul can't help but be interested in Ann and have a deep desire to get to know her better. But Ann has secrets. Big secrets. Can the two work everything out in both their professional and personal lives?

Full Disclosure is different from many of Dee Henderson's books in that it's not quite as action packed. Because of this it took me a bit to get into the story, but once I did I was hooked. I think if you go into it expecting that then you'll love it from the very first page. If you've read Dee's other books you'll recognize many of the characters from her series, The O'Malley's and Uncommon Heroes, but in a way that you don't expect. I wish I still had all my other books so I could re-read them but they're in a good home with a friend now. Paul and Ann were great characters, and you really couldn't help but root for them. The plot just kept twisting until the very end. It was a great read, and I can't help but hope for more books from Dee Henderson.

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A special thanks to Bethany House for my ARC copy. All the opinions posted are my very own.
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Kacie Woodmansee is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Give With Target! - Donate to Schools!

If you'd like to give to local schools here's your chance! Target is giving away $2.5 million in gift cards to K-12 schools and you can be a part of it. For every 25 votes a school gets, Target will give that school a $25 gift card up to $10,000. You can vote once a week until September 8, 2012 (or until the $2.5 million total is reached). You do have to be on Facebook and allow Target access (like pretty much anything else on Facebook), but if you're okay with that then click here to get started or click on the banner above to vote for the school I'll be teaching at. Every school may not be on the list, but it doesn't hurt to look and vote. Have a good one!

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Fairy Tales

Hello all! I hope everyone is doing well and you aren't as hot as we are here! Hopefully it will cool off here in the next few days, especially since our air conditioning isn't working too well. Other than that, things have been going quite well.

Well folks, I have a job! I'll be teaching math at Southern High School here in Louisville. I don't know exactly what course I'll be teaching yet, but I'm super excited. There's so much to do in the next month and a half, including finishing up the class I'm in. I'll keep everyone updated on all that, and as always, I covet your prayers.

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. We got to spend some time with the lovely Penick clan. Hero, however, hasn't been enjoying the festivities. Hero is slightly afraid of the fireworks...and thunder...and pretty much everything, but mostly fireworks. He's been acting even more strange this year. He's been hiding under the covers, and under the bed, and recently he's tried to hide in the closet. Here's a picture of His Weirdness. Our dog is quite odd, if you haven't noticed.
In other news, I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately and some of the books I've been reading are from the Once Upon a Time book series. If you know me, you know I LOVE fairy tale stories. These are for young adults and are very short and simple to read. So far I've read Violet Eyes by Debbie Viguie which is the princess and the pea story, and The Diamond Secret by Suzanne Weyn which is the Anastasia story. Both are fun reads and I look forward to reading some of the other stories. My favorite fairy tale book ever is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, and I also enjoyed the Healer's Apprentice and the Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson. Do any of you have favorite fairy tale books? I'd love to try them out while I still have time!

Friday, June 29, 2012

Every Good and Perfect Gift

So, Lee and I decided to study the book of James this summer. Now, Lee and I do bible study completely different. This can cause friction some times, but most of the time it's awesome because we each have a different perspective. As soon as we decided to do James I knew I wanted to do Beth Moore's James study, and thanks to my super fantastic BFF, I was able to get the book and even the videos. I love Beth Moore studies, and two weeks in, this one promises to live up to my high expectations. For this study she has it broken down into levels of participation. I'm doing Level 4 which means I watch the videos, do the homework, handwrite the entire book of James, and read the amazing extra articles (Level 5 is memorizing the entire book of James, which I decided not to do...yet). So far Lee is doing Level 1 with me, which is just watching the videos. His reactions to the girliness of it all is priceless, but he seems to be getting something out of it. He's also doing his own study of James.

I wanted to share one of the exercises that I did today. Today's passage was James 1:16-18. I do my study in the ESV so here's vs 17 in that translation: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." Most of us have heard this verse before and tend to blow past it. Just before this James talks about temptation and how God doesn't tempt us, but our own desires do, which leads to sin and death. All bad stuff right. Verse 16 is a turning point and says, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers." Bad things happen as a result of sin in the world and we tend to focus on those things. Sometimes we even tend to cast blame on God and get so bogged down in the awful things that we are deceived. There is good in our lives and all of it comes directly from the Lord. We should remember those blessings and the one who blessed us, which is what this exercise is about.

Take your present age and divide by 4: 26/4 = 6.5 (yeah, I'm a math person)
Divide your life into quarters and list blessings from each time.
Newborn to 6.5 years:
I was born into a wonderful loving family.

 6.5 to 13 years:
My family moved to Arkansas so I was able to see extended family more often. I became a Christian.

13 to 19.5 years:
I graduated from high school and attended the UofA on full scholarship. I made amazing friends at school and began to develop a true relationship with Christ. I met this guy named Lee.

19.5 to 23 years:
I started dating and eventually married that guy named Lee. I graduated from college (twice), and I now have the opportunity to go BACK to school and be a teacher.

These are just a few of the many blessings God has given me. I just think it's so neat to see how God has been giving me gifts throughout my entire life. He is constant and He doesn't change. Yes, there have been some hard times too. But those trials have made me into who I am and have created a steadfastness in me like it talks about in James 1:2-4. How about you? How has the Father of light blessed you throughout your life?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Transitions

Sorry it's been forever a month since I last updated. I lot has gone on as you can probably guess. I figured I'd update you a bit, but let me apologize in advance for my lack of pictures and the fact that this post is just a huge block of text. The Kentucky air has done nothing to improve my photography skills.

Lee and I got an apartment and we quickly moved in on June 1. It was an adventure to say the least. A big shout out to our friends who helped us pack and unpack (especially you Joy)! It was enough so that we'd contemplate moving again in, oh, maybe, 10 years. Maybe. Anyway, we got moved in okay and our apartment is set up like we want it now. It's amazing to me, though, that you can move all your stuff that filled one apartment to another and still find several things you need. I guess that's just how it works. 

I started classes on June 4. I have 3 hours of Summer Institute and 3 hours of UofL classes 4 days a week. I've done a lot of reading, some practice teaching and even got to work with some real live kids. I spend half my time being super pumped about starting teaching in August and half my time afraid out of my mind of everything this will entail. I keep coming back to the fact that I know this is the path God has for me so He'll get me through it, one way or the other! I have had a few interviews, but there has been a bit of a backlog on hiring here so I'll update as soon as I get officially hired. 

Lee has a job, and he'll actually be working quite a bit this summer. He was pretty bored for the first few weeks, but it also allowed us to get a lot done to move our residency over to Kentucky. He also signed up for his seminary classes and I think he's getting pretty excited about those. 

We've also been looking for new churches which is interesting for us since we've never looked for a church as a married couple. We've been a few places and are discussing what we're looking for. We're praying for a church that has sound teaching and is a place for us to serve and be served. You can imagine with a great seminary in town that there are a plethora of wonderful churches. I'm confident God has one in mind for us. 

For my book loving friends, I have been doing quite a bit of reading (besides my teaching textbooks) and I went and got my library card pretty quickly after we moved. Living in a city that's big enough to have more than one branch of the public library is bizarre to me, but I've mostly been reading the free ebooks anyway. For those who don't know, if you have a library card, see if you can check out ebooks from your library. I'm a huge fan of this to say the least. 

Now, I need a few things from my teacher friends. First, any helpful advice since I'm a month and a half away from my first teaching experience? Also, and this is especially for the high school teachers, what kind of rewards and consequences do you find effective in your classroom? There is so much more that goes into teaching than I ever realized so I'm doubly appreciative of every teacher I know. I'll be teaching in an urban setting which is completely different from anything I know, but any advice would be appreciated. 

Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this transition Lee and I are in and keep those prayers coming!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Review of The Messenger by Siri Mitchell

Product Details
Hannah Sutherland is a Quaker, loyal to her faith and family. When Hannah’s twin brother joins the Colonial army and is captured and imprisoned, she’ll have to make a choice between these two loyalties since the Quakers oppose war and have decided to not help the rebels. Jeremiah Jones is a Colonial spy, and is loyal to struggling, war-torn America. When he is asked to do the impossible, he’ll have to decide just how far that loyalty will go and how much more he’s willing to sacrifice. And he’ll need Hannah’s help. Hannah and Jeremiah have too many differences, but they’ll need each other in order for a daring escape plan to succeed. In the process they’ll discover they need each other for a lot more too.

I’ll be honest, I had a hard time getting into this book. It had a bit of a slow start and I didn’t particularly care much for Hannah or her family. Their religious legalism didn’t cause me to have much sympathy for them and they seemed very hypocritical. Jeremiah is very brooding, but even in that he was more likable than Hannah. About halfway through, though, Hannah began to redeem herself, mainly because of Jeremiah.  The last half of the book was more action-packed and suspenseful, although the ending seemed a bit abrupt.

I didn’t know much about Quakers before this book, and I’m sure I still don’t know all that much. I agree with many things they believed, but completely disagree with a lot as well. We can draw many parallels to Christianity today though. It’s all about activism and taking a stand politically and Jesus is lost completely. Social issues are important, but they’re not what Christianity is about. Yes, it’s important to help orphans, to stop human trafficking, and to give equality to women, but if you lose sight of Christ what’s the point. I think that’s what Hannah figured out at the end, and that’s why she became a better character. It’s a good reminder to us all really.

I thought this book was okay, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. I’ll give Siri Mitchell another shot though if anyone has any suggestions.

Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book to review. All opinions, however, are my own. If you'd like to receive books from Bethany House Publishers to review please go here.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Road Trip

So, Lee and I went on a little road trip last week. We drove all day Tuesday (it's a 9 hour drive from Fay-town to Louisville). We spent most of the day Wednesday looking at apartments. Lee and I have been incredibly spoiled by the apartment we've been in for the last 3 years. It's a great size, great rate, and good location. Finding an apartment with all this in Louisville is difficult to say the least. But, we found some we liked and applied to one and are hoping to hear back this week. 

On Thursday we met with our good friend Joy over some Chicago style pizza. The food was good, but the company was better. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her. That afternoon we drove to a nearby county to visit with the Assistant Superintendent of that school district and tour the high school. I'm embarrassed to admit how long it's been since I've been in a high school. It was a good experience. I'll have to keep everyone posted on the job front because I still don't know where/what I'll be teaching.

We also drove all day Friday down to Charleston, SC. A friend of ours from college was getting married and we figured since we were close closer (as in 9 hour drive instead of 16) we would pop on over. Saturday we did a little driving in downtown Charleston and got to see the harbor and Battery Park. Of course Lee was giving me history lessons the whole time. Then we went to the wedding and hung out with friends and family afterwards. I know Lee was glad to see some of those guys again. 

Lee and I at the waterfront in Charleston

Sunday was a LONG 16+ hour drive home, and Lee actually let me drive some. He had stayed up too late having a slumber party with his friends. Hehe. This is my last week working in the lab. Then one more week and I'm in Louisville. It's going to be a crazy few weeks and an even crazier summer for sure. But we're excited for the adventure!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Next Steps

Oh, boy. It's been forever since I last updated. Sorry about that! Today is a big day for our family so I just wanted to do some quick updating.

Today is graduation day! Both my sister and my husband are finishing their undergraduate programs today. And of course, both are going on to do more school. I'm so proud of both of them and look forward to the celebration today!


I still love my wedding pictures from the Beatys almost three years later. My beautiful sister and my goofy amazing husband.

I'll be going to my sister's graduation and spending time with family. Lee won't be going to his own graduation though because he's in a wedding of some friends of ours. I'll forgive him this time. Congrats to the soon to be newlyweds the Reids!

In other news, I finished my classes I was taking this semester and I've officially been accepted in to the University of Louisville for the M.A.T. alternative certification program. And classes start in 3 weeks!!! I'm really excited about this opportunity, but there's a lot that has to happen in the next month or so. Lee and I will be visiting Louisville soon to try and find a place to live. This has proved more difficult than expected, but we have some options. It may turn out that I'll stay in a dorm for a few weeks and then Lee will meet me in Louisville later to get moved in to a place. A non-ideal situation, but we're trusting that everything will work out. Also, when we're visiting Louisville I'll be meeting with some people about a possible job. Obviously we'll be needing a LOT of prayer about the whole situation and God is teaching us to trust in His provision. Many exciting things!

Obviously things are busy in the Woodmansee household, but we're excited about the adventure we're about to embark on. Maybe now that things are rolling along I'll be motivated to update more!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Mmmm, Breakfast Burritos

So, my attempt at trying a new recipe to eat for leftovers did not go so well last night. So, I won't even be discussing that. I did make some breakfast burritos to put in the freezer (after eating one to test of course). These are a favorite of my family (they're our traditional Christmas morning breakfast) and I've been wanting to freeze some for a while to pop in the microwave during busy mornings. We saute potatoes and add scrambled eggs, bacon, usually cheese and of course salsa. So delicious. To freeze, wrap a paper towel around it then wrap it in aluminum foil and put them in a freezer bag. Take one out in the morning, remove the foil and microwave while wrapped in the paper towel for a few minutes. Super easy and so yummy.

I'm hopefully going to get to do some more de-cluttering this weekend. I think the closet in the spare bedroom is next which is a little scary. We have so much junk stuff in there. On the job front, the UofL should have all of my application stuff now (they couldn't find my GRE scores because they were in my maiden name) so now I just get to wait. God has been teaching me a lot about waiting and not being in control (even though I've tried very hard to be). I want to know exactly how things will work out, but I can't. I have to trust that things will work out one way or another and know that God is sovereign and in control. What a mighty God we serve and he can handle all my junk.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Soup, Blankets, and Sequins

So, not a lot has happened since I last posted. I did get my application to the University of Louisville mailed off so now I'm just waiting for ETS to send them my GRE scores. So, things are going pretty well on that front. Now I just get to wait. Joy. 

Thanks to everyone who bought some books from us. Every little bit helps. We took a big load to the library to donate, but we still have quite a few left if anyone is still interested. We are going to try to get rid of all of them in the next few weeks though, one way or another. Last weekend I worked on the spare bedroom. My favorite part was that mine and Lee's costumes from camp were in the spare bedroom so I got to go through those. I donated most of it, but Lee HAD to keep his mullet hat and he told my I HAD to keep my sequined shirt. Well, I guess I wasn't too hard to convince on that one. All in all I had two bags of trash and one bag for donation come out of that room. Not too bad!

I think the next step is the closet in the spare bedroom, but I'm not sure I'll get to it this weekend. The ladies at our church are working on making cut and tie blankets for Loving Choices which is a crisis pregnancy center. We've done this a few times before and it's been a lot of fun, and it goes to a great cause. Here's the fabric I bought to make the baby blanket. Cute right?! If anyone is interested in helping with this you can either get some fleece fabric to drop off at FBC Fayetteville or give to me by Saturday (1 to 1.5 yrds and I believe all the major fabric stores in Fayetteville are having a sale on fleece; for reference mine were a total of $13 for 1 yrd each), or you can give me some money and I'll go pick out the fabric for you. If you can't give, just pray for the young ladies these will be going to and their babies.

Fleece fabric for baby blankets!
 I also wanted to share this recipe for Tortellini and White Bean Soup that I tried tonight. I got it from All You magazine. On Wednesdays I'm home by myself so I've been making things that I can have for lunch for a few days. Soup is so good for that. I followed the recipe mostly except I didn't have celery and I didn't have quite enough broth so I just used a bit of water instead. The soup was pretty good although I feel like there were too many tomatoes (although these might have been balanced out by the missing celery) and I accidentally bought tortelloni instead of tortellini so they were pretty big. Other than that, pretty great. We'll see how the pasta does when it's reheated. You should definitely give it a try though. Even buying pre-packaged tortelloni it came out to a little over $2 per serving!

Tortellini and White Bean Soup

What about you? Been doing any decluttering lately or have you tried any good new recipes? 

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Great Book Purge

So, a ton has happened since I last posted. Lee is in his last semester at the UofA (yay!), and I'm taking classes so I can try and get into the MAT program for teaching high school math (boo homework!). Things are crazy busy but good. I'm working my way through the steps to get into this teaching program. I've been interviewed, passed my Praxis exams and now I'm working on filling out the application to University of Louisville. Lee's trucking along with his stuff at the church and he's looking forward to starting at Southern in the Fall. 

One of the things we (aka I) have decided to do in preparation for the move (which happens in a little over 3 months) is start cleaning out a lot of the stuff we don't need. Today we went through our books and decided what we wanted to keep, what we wanted to sell, and what we wanted to give away. We have a TON of books. I knew I was a pack rat, but apparently Lee is a HUGE pack rat when it comes to books. It was a little painful, but we got a lot done. Now we'd like to offer you, our friends and family, a chance to take advantage of our book purge. We'd like to sell as many books as we can to help raise money for the move. Below is a list of everything we're wanting to sell. Everything is $2 unless otherwise noted. We'd prefer to sell to people close by so we don't have to ship, but if it's something you really want we can work it out. Please let me know if there's anything you're interested in soon so we can get these books out! I've not read all of them and some we don't even know where they came from, but I've included an Amazon link so you can check them out. Thanks guys. I'll try to post more often.

Christian Living/Theology, etc



For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn




Holy Vocabulary by Michael Kelley

Simple Life: Time Relationships, Money, God by Thom and Art Rainer (Hardcover $4)






Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health by Donald S. Whitney




The Way of the Master by Ray Comfort












Christian Fiction





(All 4 Uncommon Heroes for $6)

The Witness by Dee Henderson

Before I Wake by Dee Henderson






(Don’t know what happened to my 5th O’Malley Series book but all 5 others plus prequel for $9)





(All 3 Lady Trent Mysteries for $4)



And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers (Hardcover $4)



Classics



Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray




Heathen Books (aka Secular)

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Deception Point by Dan Brown

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown



Fairest by Gail Carson Levine