breathe: Creating Space for God in a Hectic Life

First of all, I would just like to celebrate the fact that this may very well be the first non-fiction book I’ve ever finished. Seriously. And I’m hoping to improve on that record.

Paige (and Todd) got me this book, breathe: Creating Space for God in a Hectic Life (along with another similar book, rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity) for Christmas. I stuck these books on my amazon.com wishlist after Paige and I had dialogued a bit about the Sabbath and it’s relevance in today’s culture.

It took me about a month and a half to get through all 250 pages. The book mostly consisted of stories about women trying to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from their lives. I found a lot of golden nuggets (as I like to call them) and really enjoying reading about different women with different situations trying to slow down their lives in different ways. However, the same things I liked about this book are the things that made it generally long and arduous to get through. As I mentioned above, it took me a month and half to get through.

All the same, if you’re looking for a good read on simplifying your life, I would recommend this book. Here are some golden nuggets:

“She seemed to be the epitome of unselfishness-always doing for others. Looking back, Laura says, no one really knew the anger and resentment that bubbled below the surface. ‘I wanted to give people the perception that I was available,’ she says. ‘I said yes mostly to validate my importance.’ In other words, she was bearing burdens she was never meant to bear. And doing it because she thought it would please God.” (pg. 64)

“‘…I would get these leadings…maybe leave them a gift, or send them a note, do something nice for them.’ She still does these things, but lately, ‘I’ve been practicing secrecy…it really tests what drives me: God’s approval or other people’s.'” (pg. 72)

“The opposite of simplicity is not complexity but duplicity. Duplicity means we are divided-we have a split personality. We don’t have a singular focus but rather multiple focuses, which create a feeling of being pulled in a thousand directions.” (pg. 75)

“If I say I would ‘like to’ spend time alone with God, but I don’t actually do it, there’s this disconnect, this duplicity, in my heart…When we actually take steps to live out the things we say that we value, we are moving toward simplicity.” (pg. 145)

My personal favorite quote:

“‘The Sabbath command is especially relevant to contemporary life. How difficult it is for people in our achievement-and-production-obsessed culture to rest. Keeping the Sabbath means trusting God to be God, recognizing that we are not indispensable. When we refuse to take a single day a week for genuine refreshment and rest, we try to outdo even God! In the light of God’s rest, our anxious, compulsive activities may be exposed as little more than efforts to stay in control, or to fabricate life’s meaning out of constant activity.'” (original quote from Soul Feast by Marjorie Thompson, pg. 164)

Check out Keri’s blog at Deep Breathing for the Soul!

Mom’s Meatloaf

Just a confession: I loooooooooove meatloaf. I even order it at restaurants when I (rarely) find it on the menu. It’s always been one of my favorite meals.

Needless to say, I was broken-hearted when my husband told me that he, in fact, did not care for meatloaf in the slightest.

But, I was confident enough in my mom’s recipe (as she has had her shining moments in the kitchen) that I made this for him anyway. His response? LOVED IT! I hope you will too!

Ingredients:

2 lb. Ground Beef (thawed)
2 Eggs
1 Packet Onion Soup Mix
2/3 c. Bread Crumbs
1/2 c. Brown Sugar
A few squirts of Milk (if necessary)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix first 5 ingredients until completely incorporated
If you’re having trouble mixing, use a little milk
Press into loaf pan
Squirt ketchup on top
Bake for at least an hour or until completely cooked

It’s that easy! We had ours with Asparagus the other night, yum!

Finance Friday: The Secret to Success

Photo Credit: Your Organized Home

Before a budget, before a program, before you try that new personal finance system that only costs 7 easy payments of $19.95, you’re going to need to have:

GOALS

Personally, I don’t think there is anyway we, as a couple, would make this whole budget thing happen without them. Seriously.

The age old saying, “That money is burning a hole in your pocket!” is so true.

When money is in my hands, I just want to spend it. If it’s in my checking account, I want to spend it. When it’s in my savings account, I want to spend it.

And seriously, I can rationalize anything. Bryan’s even better than me. We so often connive against our budget and try to find ways to escape it’s difficult grasp.

Do you recognize the feeling? Spending money totally feels good. Retail therapy can totally be effective. There’s just that remorse later when you have to pay your rent and you can’t or you get your credit card bill and realize you can’t pay it off. That’s worse than the spending was good.

Our solution for this attitude of spending? Well, having a goal or two works just great for us!

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: What’s your goal?

Make it challenging
Make it reachable
Make it wise

We think our goals last year fit all those categories. Pay off all of our debt in 7 months-challenging? [check] reachable? [check] wise? [check]

Maybe your goal will be completely out of necessity, as in, you have to change something or you’re not going to be able to eat. Maybe, you just want some discipline in your life and you’ve decided to reign in your spending habits as a result. Maybe you want to have more money lying around for a rainy day. I don’t know what you’re motivation is, I just know you need a challenging, reachable, wise goal to accomplish what you want.

Step 2: What’s your time line?

Again, maybe your time line will be based on necessity, as in, you’re going to have a baby, and it’s definitely going to come in 7 months, so that’s gotta be your time line. Otherwise, use the guidelines from above-is it challenging? is it do-able? is it wise?

A year is a nice amount of time to work with, but maybe it needs to be two years because there’s a lot to accomplish. Maybe you just want to go as fast as possible.

If you have no idea where to start, a helpful way to figure out your time line take your goal and divide it by how much you can afford to put towards that goal. We’ll talk more about this later, but think about making temporary sacrifices in order to reach your goals. If you make some sacrifices and live below your means, you’ll be able to reach your goal a lot quicker.

Example:
Goal (pay off vehicle): $5,000.00
Extra money to put towards that goal each month: $275.00
Time line: about 18 months

I like a bit more of a challenge, so a more challenging way to figure out a time line is to divide your goal by your time line.

Example:
Goal (pay off vehicle): $5,000.00
Time line (12 months): about $417.00

It pushes me to be a little more creative and figure out how I can come up with that extra money each month.

In Conclusion:
In my opinion, goals are even more important than a budget for this reason: there is no way that we would stick to our budget with out goals. If I don’t have a designated job for the money that magically gets direct deposited into our account every two weeks, my mind considers it discretionary. And if in my mind our money is discretionary it would be really easy for me to forget about the bills each month, especially when I would love to go shopping for clothes or decorations or that super-cute-must-have-item at Target.

On the contrary, we have set goals for our finances and those goals motivate us to actually spend less than what we can afford. Amazing, huh?

One of my favorite blogs, Money Saving Mom, also recently posted a great blog on setting goals, you can check it out here.

So set your goal(s) today! You could even post your goal in the comments so you have some accountability, here are our financial goals for 2010!

Next week: The Hardest Part about Managing your Money

Productivity Day

Well, I’m home for another snow day. I think I’ve had 5 snow days so far this winter-this weather is relentless!

On the bright side, I finished Gilmore Girls Season 2 yesterday so I have no choice but to be productive. Which is stellar, because my home could really use a deep clean:

To Do:
-List last updated at 8:54pm-
~~Work Out~~*
~~Clean Living Room~~
~~Vacuum~~
~~Clean Kitchen~~
~~Sweep Kitchen Floor~~
~~Clean Stove~~
~~Clean Microwave~~
~~Make Bed~~
~~Clean Bathroom~~
~~Finish Laundry~~
~~Chop Lettuce~~
~~Chop Broccoli~~
~~Cook Chicken~~
~~Make Beer Bread~~
~~Make Bacon Bacon Dip~~
~~Make Dinner~~
~~Watch LOST~~

DONE and DONE! Hooray for productivity!

*By the way, I’m so excited I just have to share! I’ve finally getting into a manageable work out routine! I worked out twice last week and once the week before. This week I’ll easily get to work out twice again. But the especially exciting news is that I’ve lost 6lb. in the last month! WOOHOO! I want to keep this trend going!

a little inspiration and a free kitchen table go a long way…

A little inspiration: I fell in love with this painting as soon as I saw it in my Elle Decor Magazine. I love the dark gray and simplicity of it. And I figured it’s just stripes, right? I can do that. I put it on my DIY list.

So when I picked up our FREE kitchen table last week (thanks again Andy & Laura Lynn!), I knew the perfect spot for my inspiration to take form, and I knew I wanted to make our kitchen cute and home-y. I’m also going to take the time here to put in a plug for Art Night at my house every other Monday. The next one is February 15th! You should come!

Anyway, here’s the before shot:

and here are the after shots:

Much improved? I think so!

Finance Friday: An Introduction

Photo Credit: Personal Finance Blog

Hi, I’m LisaGrace, and I love personal finance.

I wish you could see my face light up when it’s time to balance our checkbook. I love forming our budget. I love figuring and re-figuring, until everything is just right. Some may call it a chore, I call it a wonderful hobby.

God created this passion within me, and one of my goals for 2010 is to dialogue all the more about it.

Specifically, I wanted to blog about it because I find it incredibly inspirational to read other financial success stories. Real people, dealing with real money, in today’s “I want it now” world-when there is success, it’s a cause for celebration! It’s also encouraging to know that everyone has a different story and a different way of doing things. I love to be able to pick and choose different methods and try them out for myself-and it’s so helpful to have a real example and experience to follow.

So my mission is to encourage, to offer our methods of handling money and to record our successes and our failures. I plan on posting a finance post every Friday in February and March. Let me know if you have any questions, or want to know more details about how Bryan and I handle our finances-I’m an open book!

Next week: The most Important Step to Financial Success

homemade chicken & spinach alfredo pizza

As far as extremely delicious and slightly healthy meals go, we found a definite winner in the Alsbury household! I got the idea from Lauren’s Kitchen, used a homemade pizza crust from Money Saving Mom, and made a homemade alfredo sauce from Tammy’s Recipes. Yes, I love blogs.

This recipe caused Bryan to say, “This is greatest thing I’ve ever tasted,” for the second night in a row! (the first being when I whipped up some Grilled Panini‘s)

For the crust:

1 Tbsp. Active Dry Yeast
1 cup Warm Water (105 to 115 degrees F.)
1 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
2 Tbsp. Vegetable Oil
2 1/2 cups Flour

Dissolve yeast in water. Add remaining ingredients in and mix. Dump onto a floured surface. Knead into a smooth dough. Roll out and press down onto a greased pizza pan.

For the sauce:

3 Tbsp. Flour
1 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Pepper
1/4 tsp. Dried Basil
1/4 tsp. Parsley
2 1/2 cup Milk
2 Garlic Cloves, minced
1/2 Onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. Oil
8 oz Cream Cheese, cubed
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, all spices and 1 cup of milk. Set aside. Cube the block of cream cheese. Set aside. In a large saute pan, saute the garlic and onion in the oil. When the onions are translucent, stir in 1 1/2 cups milk and bring to a boil. Gradually pour the flour mixture into the hot skillet. Heat until thick and bubbly. Reduce heat, add the cream cheese and parmesan cheese. Stir until smooth.

*Note: This batch of alfredo sauce will make at least enough for two whole pizzas. Just store in the refrigerator and use on pasta later! Or better yet, see my time saving tip at the bottom!

For the Pizza:

1 cup Chicken, cooked & cubed
1 cup (or desired) fresh Baby Spinach leaves
1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Red Onion Slices
2 tsp. Italian Seasoning

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Pour warm alfredo sauce onto prepared crust, spread evenly to edges. Add toppings in the following order: spinach leaves, chicken, cheese, onion slices, italian seasoning. Bake on center rack for 12-13 minutes

Time-Saving Tip:
Admittedly, this took me about and hour and a half to make everything from scratch, but it was so worth it!

To save a little energy later in the month, I made two pizza’s at the same time. It added nothing to my prep time. As I noted above, the sauce is more then enough to cover two pizzas, and doubling the crust is really simple.

I prepared the second pizza on tin foil (as opposed to directly on the pan) and stuck the pizza on a pan in my freezer for two hours. Then, I removed the pan, covered the pizza completely with saran wrap and replaced it in my freezer for whenever we feel like eating it again.

what do i do after i share the gospel?

Of all the hard things God has been teaching me, this topic was less of a hard lesson to learn and more of reminder to be thankful for such a blessing:

Currently, my main ministry is high school kids.

I started youth ministry with a handful of 7th graders. Most of them stared at me while I talked their ears off and pretended to communicate. We had an unspoken exchange of favors: I got them out of their house, or helped them avoid taking the bus home by picking them up from school, and they pretended to listen to me. Sometimes, I think they actually did listen to me, and that sweetened the deal for me a little bit.

Youth Ministry has been a really great ministry for me to be in for several reasons, but one in particular being that I am more well-suited to people coming to me to hear about God. (I’m just being honest, here-and I’m always going to have something wrong with me, so judge me and move on, ok? 🙂

Anyway, after almost four years, I’m now leading mostly sophomores (I’ve known some of my girls since 7th grade) and I feel like I’m a decent small group leader. I really like it at least. I really love hanging out with all of my girls. I love getting to know their worlds, their friends, their point of views. It’s amazing.

Due to my involvement with high schoolers, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the answer to the title of the this post: discipleship. If I don’t have any talent at all in evangelism as I implied above, I do think God has given me a heart to disciple.

Mostly, I love discipling students because I myself am learning so much about how to live with Jesus as my Lord and these kinds of lessons naturally want to overflow from my talkative mouth. Another aspect I love is that there are very few ways to mess it up. All you have to do is live life with them, challenge them (and be challenged by them), and love them.

The rewards are wonderful, amazing even, to watch a kid blossom each day, week, month, year.

Watching the light bulb above someone’s head flick on is so fun. But in discipleship, I get to see that so often, all while my own light bulbs are flicking on.

Thanks, God, for blessing me with such an amazing group of girls to love: Anna, Katey, Sirena, Hana, Ellen, Kayla & Shelby. *oh crap, here come the tears* I’m REALLY going to miss all of them when we move to Iowa City. But I’m very thankful we have eachother now.

Click here for all the other links to my thoughts on what God has been teaching me.

What’s your review?

I just read this review about The Anthem Band. Anthem originated at our home church, Cornerstone Church of Ames and Bryan plays a mean bass guitar in the band. For the last few years, they’ve been writing original songs and last May recorded a live album. They were recently featured in Relevant Magazine (check out the ad on page 6). And NOW they’re popular enough to have a review on a Christian Blog.

The only bummer is, it wasn’t exactly a great review (Click here to read it).

When it comes to music, I’m not much of a reviewer. I don’t know anything about the musical technicalities or the tone of the instruments, or the correct ebb and flow of a good album. All I know about music is:

When I like it, I like it.

I may not know anything about anything when it comes to music, but I know that I can hear music and clearly define whether I like it or not.

And I will say this:

I like this album.

grilled paninis

This is a fun little meal I kind-of made up when I didn’t want to cook a full out dinner after a big grocery shopping trip. Unlike most of my culinary creations, this one actually got rave reviews from my husband! YUM!

Ingredients:
(dinner for 2)

2 thin Chicken Breasts (or one sliced in half the long way)
1/4 cup Italian Dressing
4 slices Pumpernickel Rye Bread (or a yummy bread of your choice)
Butter
Swiss Cheese
Red Onion
Romaine Lettuce Leaves