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