Snow in Southern New Mexico

It's snowing again (yes, I typed "again") here in good ol' Las Cruces. This is the THIRD time in the last month that we have had snow grace our desert ground. Desert snow really is different from all the other types of snow fall. The juxtaposition of snow and dry land is mesmerizing, at least to me. There is something so ironic about it, it almost makes it more beautiful, more majestic. I grew up here in New Mexico. As a native, you kind of expect to have mild temperature winters, perfect springs and falls, and a relatively uncomfortable summers. "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" usually stays in the dream form. But this year, we have snow fall. It really is an amazing sight.

Look! The leaves are still green and they are covered with snow!!

Charlie uses the snow as an excuse to sleep on the couch all day. Every once in awhile he will pop into the room that I am in to check on things, but other than that, he is sleeping. It really is kind of cute. When I have to put him outside to do his business, I have to lift him from his resting place and carry him to the door. During this time he is imitating a wet blanket, limp and unresponsive. Sometimes I wonder if he would prefer a catheter to having to go outside to potty. I am sure if it were possible to ask him his preference, he would hands down go for the catheter. He hates being outside.


I, on the other hand, use the snow as an excuse to drink coffee all day. Yes, all day. Have I ever told you that I love mugs. Well, I do. I feel like a morning will be much better if I get to drink a warm beverage from a fun/beautiful mug. At this very moment, I am enjoying Starbucks Christmas Blend from, what I like to call, my "prize mug". It's shaped like an upside down pear, is a beautiful brick red, and is the perfect shape for cold hands to fold around. Chris got it for me as a prize for making it through a long week at work. He's a good man.


In celebration of a snow day, I am going to make a pie. A cherry pie. My mom's tried and true recipe. Once, at a bake sale to help raise money to send me on a missions trip, my moms Cherry Pie brought in $800! Then the people who bought it, turned around and sold a single piece for $100. Needless to say, it's really good. Yum, pie! Speaking of which, I made a pretty stellar pie for Christmas, a Gingersnap Pumpkin Pie. That was good too. I will share the recipe if you want, but I am not going to type it out without a request...I know, lazy. Sorry, there is no way you will get the Cherry Pie recipe. I have been sworn to secrecy by my mother and to break her trust would reap catastrophic consequences. Just joking...but seriously, I can't.

Happy New Year. New year, new hope.

Easy as frying an egg...

It's been awhile. Good to be back...I don't really know why I was gone, but I just was lacking the inspiration. I got it back!

Have you ever seen Julie & Julia? If not, you need to. It is a wonderful movie and one that I could totally relate to. I will tell you more about it after you have seen it. I don't want to ruin anything for you. With that said I will give you a few days and then I will continue on with my pontification of the film (I say this like there are so many people reading my blog, but, you never know).

I have I ever told you that I love to cook? Well, I do, I really do. I haven't really had enough energy to do a lot of it, so it is kind of a rare event for me to be able to get in the kitchen and produce something that wasn't previously prepared and frozen, then purchased out of the grocers freezer. With that confessed, the other day I was watching Rachael Ray (one of my faves!) and she was doing her "Whats for dinner" segment. She prepared a delicious looking "Steak and Eggs Ranchero" and I thought to myself "Self, you should make that. It doesn't look like a hard recipe." So I went to the store and got all the ingredients. I didn't get around to making it until a few days later, but here is how it went.

The general outline of the recipe is this: cook a few steaks, make a quick salsa and red chile sauce, fry a corn tortilla and a few eggs. Really not that complicated, but for some reason frying eggs is a very difficult task for me and in the process, I TOTALLY WRECKED the kitchen. There were dishes and splatters everywhere! And for some reason, my food processor was malfunctioning and it wasn't pureeing ANYTHING. When I turned it on, it created a lovely fountain of beef broth and ancho chile chunks. It's hard to make red chile sauce when you can't puree your ancho chile... Chris got home just in time to see the chaos ensue and graciously went to the office to wait for dinner to be finished and listen to me whoop and holler (picture the dad from "A Christmas Story"). Finally, he heard me announce that dinner was served and emerged from the office to see a messy kitchen, a frazzled wife, and a BEAUTIFUL plate of food (not to brag, but to kinda' brag, it looked very nice. Rachael herself would be proud). We sat down to eat and it tasted as good as it looked. I wish I took a picture.YUM! Here is the recipe. Watch out for those eggs, they can be tricky.

After all was said and done, I looked at Chris rather sheepishly and apologized for making such a mess. Just get how he responded, "What's the point in an awesome meal if the kitchen isn't a wreck? I'll clean." and continued to chow down. There are daily interactions with my husband that remind me why I love this wonderful man, but this one tops them all. I love my husband. Why? Plain and simple, he is profound without even knowing it.

Bliggiddy Blog

In all my 3 1/2 years as a Sheehan, I am going to officially experience a Sheehan Thanksgiving. Why? You ask. Well, Chris and I have made it a point every holiday season, since our nuptials, to spend Christmas with his family. Why? Chris' dad lives and works in Alaska and only comes home for Christmas and the summer months and this has been the main deciding factor behind spending Christmas with the Sheehans.

Like any new member of a large family, transitioning into the new Christmas traditions of the Sheehan's was a bit of a shock to me. Not for any reason in particular, I think I was just being an emotional girl and wanting my own mommy. Poor Chris had to console me every night when we went to bed. Looking back, I was being a sissy and probably a little insecure. :) After 3 years of Christmases, I feel like I have it down pat. It all happens with time.

Now to transition into Sheehan Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday. I think it all came about because my birthday falls on Thanksgiving every once in a while. So as a little girl, I really thought that it was a holiday to give thanks for me (I know, how conceited)! We would eat wonderful food and my mom would make me one of her famous Cherry pies (I am not lying, those pies have gotten $800 at church pie auctions!). I'm not sure if the Sheehans have gotten the memo that Thanksgiving day is REALLY "Give thanks for Emilie" day, so this could be an interesting holiday. However, one thing I know for sure, I will eat VERY WELL. Kathleen (my mom-in-law) is a top notch cook (Just so you know, BIG shoes to fill if you marry a Sheehan man. Megan has done a stellar job in filling those shoes, but I, on the other hand, made (or should I say, made Chris make?) 4 pre-prepared frozen dinners this week...). I am looking forward to seeing what Kathleen has planned for Thanksgiving. She is so good at putting a menu together. Hmm, now I am getting hungry.

Have you ever made a long trip with books on tape? If not, I highly recommend it. But not those mind exercising self help books, I mean the real good ones like The Chronicles of Narnia or A Series of Unfortunate Events...kids books. Chris and I made our last trip do Denver with Aslan, Lucy, Susan, Edmund, and Peter, and it made our trip MUCH FASTER! Oh yeah! Prince Caspian was there too!

Holiday travel. Hmm.

Matchy Matchy square pants

Charlie has had to start wearing a sweater at night. It is actually pretty funny because he looks like he is wearing a mid-drift sweater due to his LONG body. Makes for a few good laughs!

Charlie and I accidentally put on the same outfit one morning. Chris decided that a picture was in order. Charlie was completely bored with the whole situation.

Blessed

Well, I have has a pretty eventful couple of weeks. No, nothing fun, but a lot of doctor visits. YUCK! But the good news is that I have a few more answers concerning my issues. I have no idea why it took so long for my doctors to figure this out, or to listen to my pleas to get an ultrasound done, but they finally did an ultrasound and found that I have poly cystic ovarian syndrome. Which accounts for my cycle issues and all of my energy issues. I am now taking a medicine that was formulated for diabetics but they accidentally discovered that it eliminates ovarian cysts. So, now we wait and see if it really works. It's supposed to make me hungry more often, but if that is the only side effect, I am OKAY with that!

I have another appointment with a fertility specialist on December 7th. Hopefully I will have more answers after that appointment and hopefully the next ultrasound I get is because I have a baby in my belly. If that doesn't happen, I will be okay with that too, but it would be nice. So, I know that there are way more pressing things to be praying about for other people, that actually are related to life and death, but if you think about it, would you pray for my health and healing? Even if I never do have kids of my own, I really don't think that I would be a very good adopted mother if I am this tired all the time.

I was right about that "baby boom". There are so many woman who are pregnant right now and I keep hearing about more. Jealousy is a ugly and terrible thing and I hate it, but sometimes I am just plain jealous. I hate being jealous, I absolutely hate it. But true to form, God is teaching me so much through all of this and He has giving me more peace than I have experience about this situation ever. And when I really think about it, it's not that big of a deal. I am blessed with so many things that so many people are not blessed with, so I have no reason to be jealous because others can get pregnant and I can't. I have no reason to be unhappy. I am blessed, so blessed.

On a less heavy note. I would like to announce that I won the game of Settlers TWO times in a row after a long and sad streak of always coming in last for the past two years! I really am proud of myself because I was playing with very good players (Tommy, Tiffany, and Chris). Hold your applause, I don't want to get too prideful. :)

Also, it is my birth month! I love my birth month!! Happy November! I sure am blessed!

The Woman with the Issue

From the time I was a little girl, I have always been intrigued by the story in the Bible about the woman with the issue of blood. As a child, I had no idea what "issue of blood" meant and would fabricate ideas about how this woman could have an issue with her blood. For example, maybe her blood was wine instead of blood (I think I was getting "turning water into wine" confused with "wine into blood". Bible stories are a lot to keep track of when you are a kid!). There was also a time that I remember seeing a children's movie about this particular story and this particular woman was crawling on the ground trying to reach Jesus and receive healing. Of course that was totally lost on me and all I could think was, She would probably feel a lot better if she didn't crawl on the ground and let people walk all over her. It made perfect sense to me. Genius, really.

As a young girl, I never thought that I would one day relate to this woman in indescribable ways. I can relate, really I can.

I first noticed my "issue of blood" when I was a sophomore in college. For no legitimate reason at all, I was absolutely and inexplicably exhausted. I remember walking to class one day and willing myself to lift my leg to take my next step. It was kind of surreal to experience, there I was barely 20 and I felt like my body had aged on me, over night. I wish this wasn't the case, but I skipped a lot of classes because of that very fact. It was hard not to feel like I was just a lazy bum, but I know now that really I wasn't. Not only was I exhausted, I was also experience unbelievably heavy bleeding during my cycle, bleeding that would last weeks at a time. There were a few times that I had to go to the ER due to so much loss of blood. Lets just say that it isn't a good idea for a 98 pound woman to loose that much blood.

These occurrences continued into my first year of marriage and into the "Lets make a family" stage. After a while, I decided to go back to the doctor and see if they had any more answers for me. They ran a few tests and found out that I have Thyroid Disease (An autoimmune disease that causes my white blood cells to attack my thyroid gland and slowly but surely kill it off. Dramatic, I know.) I am so blessed that the doctors discovered that. It was a long and hard road getting my thyroid numbers to the place that the need to be, but I am thrilled to inform you that they are still well within normal range.

However, I am still loosing a lot of blood on a monthly basis for an amount of time of anywhere between 2-6 weeks. Not fun. So what do I do now? Good question. I am asking the Lord that very question. He knows and I don't. I mean, for Pete sake, He made me! I can trust Him, even with my fragile and temporary body. I will be seeing a doctor as soon as they can get me in, so hopefully there will be some resolution to an issue that has plagued me for a long time now. God can use whatever He wants to make me whole, even a dusty old hem. Here are a few verses that have been running through my head the past week. I hope they encourage you as much as they encourage me.

Praise the Lord O my soul,
All my inner being, praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits -
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Psalm 103:1-5

The parts that really stick with me are "Forget not all his benefits...", "...and heals all your diseases...", "...who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagel's". I am so blessed, blessed with good things. Just because things haven't gone as "planned" doesn't mean that they haven't gone as He planned. What a good God I serve.

If you think about it, would you pray for Chris and I as we navigate our way through this again.

Food bloggers

I love to read food blogs. Well, mostly I like to look at the pictures. Food is so beautiful. I don't know why I think it is so beautiful, but whenever I see a plate of deliciously beautiful food, I get warm fuzzy feelings. Mmmm.

I thought I would share one of my most favorite food blog with you We Are Not Martha. I think you will like it.

Baby Boom

When you are a woman who has a hard time getting pregnant, you go through what I like to call "baby booms". You know, when everyone around you gets pregnant. So far I have survived it through one of those "baby booms" and I am emerging into another one. This one is a little less surreal than the first one because everyone who had a baby during the first boom is having or had another baby, but still, it is kind of weird nonetheless.

When I find out that another woman is expecting, I like to buy them presents. Why? Well, I think it helps me to feel excited and joyful for the expecting family, otherwise I could just get stuck in a "poor me" cycle. I like to buy people gifts anyways...it makes me excited to find something special for a special person, so it makes sense for me to want to buy something for an expecting mother and baby because it does in fact get the excitement going. Chris just thinks it is weird that I have to buy presents for people whenever I find out they are pregnant, but he doesn't try to stop me. He knows it is kind of cathartic for me.

I think that I am at a healthy place right now. I don't necessarily break down every time that "that time of the month" rolls around, I keep it together pretty well. But I can't help but wonder what it would be like to have a living being growing inside of me, a part of me. Sometimes I catch my self staring at pregnant bellies imagining what kind of sensations they are experiencing, that kind of discomfort they are learning to adjust to. I have to admit, I would love to experience the emotions of being excited yet scared spit less of labor and delivery. Sometimes I just wonder, I wonder what it would be like or should I say, I wonder what it will be like.

Well, here's to making it through another "baby boom" and here's to one day being a part of it! Cheers dears!

Rest and Relaxation

First and foremost, today is my honey's birthday! Happy birthday Chris! The world is a better place because you were brought into it.

This past weekend Chris and I went to Santa Fe with our good friends Mike and Bryn for a marriage retreat. This was our third year going. We like to think of it as our yearly scheduled maintenance. Usually we stay in Glorieta, NM where the conference is held, but this time we got a room in Santa Fe (one of my very favorite places on this earth!). Mike and Bryn stayed in Santa Fe also and we had a WONDERFUL time double dating with them all weekend.

On Saturday morning we decided to spend the whole day having fun in the down town Santa Fe area. We went to the Farmers Market (which was one of the best I have every been too), had a unbelievably good lunch at Flying Star (my absolute favorite restaurant), went to REI and let the guys shop to their hearts desire (Chris got a great soft shell jacket for his birthday), walked around the plaza, had a great dinner from Trader Joe's, went to a great seminar at the conference and ended the day off with a delicious dessert from Flying Star. It was a wonderful day. I think that Bryn and I wore out the boys a bit though, due to the fact that shopping energizes us and it wears them out. But they were incredibly good sports and let their girls have fun. Here are a few snap shots of the great day!

The Farmers Market was at the newly renovated Santa Fe railroad yard.

All of the produce the so fragrant and at the peak of freshness.

The sky was so big, clear, and blue. Classic New Mexico.

We also took the Starbucks Via challenge and loved it! While we were walking around the plaza Bryn found the perfect Camel Back, a Starbucks coffee dispenser!

And here is the happy couple! :)

My little New Mexico Sunshine

As most of you know, Chris and I have the great honor of being the God-parents to Wesley Morgan Etterling. He is such a fun little guy! Wes is my guy and we love each other and have such a good time when we are together! Tommy and Tiffany have been so wonderful to allow us to be a part of Wesley's life. Seeing him grow and change has been such a fun experience for me! Wesley is has a piece of my heart and I am so happy to have him in my life as my little dude.

Thanks Tiff, for being so generous and allowing Chris and I love on Wes! You are such a dear friend to me.

Here are some super fun pictures of the Wes man and myself. Isn't he just a looker?



Yep, he melts my heart! I love you Wesley and I am so proud of you!

A little of this, a little of that.

There are very fun and unique qualities about being a girl. For instance, as a girl you can compliment other girls with out looking like a creep. This is in fact my favorite part about being a girl (with lip stick and high heels a close second and third). I love to give genuine compliments to other girls. We have all heard the wise saying, "If you can't find something good to say, don't say anything at all." I am physically incapable of not saying anything at all, so I have made it my mission to find something good to say about a person, even if I have to scrounge for that something good. You know what I have come to find? There is always at least one good thing to discover and compliment in a person.

For this reason, I believe that I am at the best possible job in the world for myself. I get to compliment women all day long and help them find products to make them feel pretty (because whether we like it or not, we all feel good about our selves when our beauty products are working with us and not against us). If you can't tell, I still absolutely adore my job. It fills my tank!

With that said, I will now go on to some other fun things. I have revamped another piece of furniture! I wish I thought to take a before picture, but I'm not that together. As those of you who have seen my house know, I have been using a bar stool as my night stand for the past 3 years. I am not sure why I have done so for 3 years... I will have to file that under my "unsolved mysteries" mental file. However, to my credit, I have bugged Chris about buying me one for quite awhile now. For some reason we just never found the right one for the right price. I finally got desperate and decided to take matters into my own hands, literally, and one day I looked at this little book shelf and thought, "That would be a wonderful night stand." It was a little too short for our mammoth bed so I went to Home Depot and picked up some pre-made legs, drilled some holes (with Chris' help), bought two $3 paint samples and made that dinky book shelf into a very functional piece of furniture. My room now feels completely like an adult room with real adult furniture, no "make shift" going on. Here is a picture!

From the front.

From the side.

In the room. There is a definite "His and Hers" thing going on.

Oh, and we also got a great antique mirror from Good Will! I feel like it gives our living room exactly what it was missing...well, maybe a leather couch would be nice...and a flat screen T.V. too! :) Here is a picture of the great mirror. Pay no attention to the husband holding it up, although I enjoyed the view, I realized that it just wasn't functional/practical to have Chris hold it up all the time, so we nailed it up.

Cute, huh? I mean the mirror! ;)

The fur baby (thanks Tiff!) is doing well! We have taken to calling him "turd burglar" and "dirt bag" but we love him nonetheless. Good thing you can't irreversibly emotionally scar dogs. :)

I Love My Job!

I just wanted to let every one, who is interested, know that I really like my new job! It is the perfect work environment for me! I get to talk to people, learn about things that make you prettier, and do a lot of domestic things (i.e. washing dishes, laundry, cleaning, keeping things running smoothly). Today, I got a make over just because they wanted me to learn about Aveda cosmetics! How fun is that?! Also, they are sending me to Albuquerque for an Aveda training for three days. If you can't tell, I am pretty excited!

And the best part is, I still have energy at the end of the day. With all of my thyroid issues, it has become kind of a struggle to maintain a normal energy level. I am usually exhausted by mid afternoon. But this job is just the right mixture of being active and an not being active. I was at the salon for 9 hours today and I still had enough energy to make dinner tonight. Yahoo! I think God gave me the perfect job for the season of life I am in.

Just wanted to let you know. :)

Unexpected growing

This weekend Chris and I spent the whole time together. We read together on the couch, took naps together, figured out dinner together, played with Charlie together, and did household chores together. We really like to be together, which is a good thing, because we are married. He is my favorite person to be around. I tend to get very chatty when I am around him, I just want to tell him EVERYTHING! We talk and talk and talk about things that don't really matter and things that do really matter. However, it is pretty unusual for Chris to remember to tell me things. Well, that sounds bad, but he has a hard time telling me things that I think are important (i.e. who he talked to that day, what they talked about, who is getting married, how they proposed, who is pregnant, who had their baby, et cetera, et cetera...). So this weekend, he had a list of information he knew I would want to know about. It really was pretty cute.

One thing, in particular, that he told me was about a few people in his office who are expecting. He beet around the bush a bit before he actually said it outright. Poor Chris, he wants to tell me these kinds of things but I think he is afraid it will upset me. Yes, there are days when I wonder why we aren't having a baby, but there are other days when I am secure in the fact that God has me in His hands and He has everything under control. Saturday happened to be one of those days where I was comfortable with the place that God has us and I was excited to hear the news about his co-workers. But he didn't seem very excited to tell. After he was finished, he went on to say that people at work have been asking him when he and his wife were going to start a family and that he doesn't know how to answer that question because we have been trying for two years. I could tell he was sad and my heart wrenched a little. Then Chris looked at me and said "I wonder when God is going to give us our kids, but I don't really know what to say when people ask about it." Let's just face it, we've been married for three years and people are going to ask. Whether it's their business or not.

It was a little surreal hearing that come from Chris' mouth. My heart hurts for my husband, not just because we both want to have kids, but because he would be such a wonderful father. With faith like a child, we have faith for a child.

For now we have Charlie. I know it sounds dumb, but in a small way he helps to meet the need that both Chris and I have for a child. We really do love our Charlie dog and if we don't have a baby in the next 12 months, Chris said I could get a friend for Charlie. So maybe our family is growing...just not the way we expected it to. Here are some great pictures of our Chuck.



Charlie loves to take naps with us, especially on the couch.



Charlie loves to ride in the car! I think he likes having Chris and I in the same place a good amount of time. He fell asleep on my shoulder on the way to white sands.



White nose Charlie.






At the park.



This is such a funny picture to me because it is totally Charlie! He is with Tim and Alli in this one.

Updates

It has been a long time since I have sat down to blog, wow. But, such is life, right? I wonder what people did before blogs, internet social networking, and cell phones? It must have been a lonely time in the history of the world.

Well, I got a new job! Hooray! I am now the proud employee of Carmona's Salon and Day Spa. This isn't just any spa, this in an Aveda spa and I will be an Aveda adviser! I know, right?! I am so excited! I have wanted to work at Carmona's ever since I moved to Las Cruces and now it has come to pass. Today was my first day of training and I really enjoyed it! All of the people are super nice and my boss is a believer (I didn't even know that when I gave them my resume!). God has been really nice to me. I am blessed. Want to know the best part? Everyone that works there has to wear all black, so I never have to worry about what to wear in the morning or if my shoes match my outfit!

Charlie is as funny as ever and keeps Chris and I laughing. He has developed a habit of barking at us when we ignore his pleas to play fetch, but other than that, he is generally good (I am using the word "generally" in a very general way). We still like him, so that is pretty nice. I think it would be impossible not to like a being that is as cute and as little as Chuck, so that helps his case. He is pretty smart too! I am proud to report that I have successfully taught Charlie how to sit, lay down, and roll over. I would have taught him more tricks, but I ran out of tricks to teach him...I am not very creative when it comes to teaching a dog a trick.

Chris started playing soccer. I am pleased with this because he really needed a hobby. All he was doing on a daily and weekly basis was going to work, coming home, playing with Charlie, loving me, and then going to bed. I was bored with his daily routine!! As a result of his new found hobby, he mentioned that he would like to get some cleats. I immediately said, "Well, then lets go get some!" He then replied, "I can wait until my birthday" (his birthday is in OCTOBER! I couldn't even wait that long, and the cleats weren't for me!). I had to push him to even think about buying them sooner than months from now. I finally wore him down and he found a KILLER deal on some AWESOME cleats. I am so proud of him! He shopped a super sale and he scored. I like to think that I am rubbing off on him. Clearance is a heavenly word to me!

In true tight-wad form, I have developed a new passion of coupons. Those things are AMAZING! I have been under budget in our grocery category for 2 months in a row now! Couponing is kind of like searching for hidden treasure/shopping the clearance rack at your favorite store; it's just so satisfying. The best part about it is that my friend Tiffany is a couponer too, so we get to share awesome deals and great finds with each other.

Organization is the name of the game these days in the Sheehan household. I have been thinking of new ways to organize every thing! It probably doesn't help that I purchased a Martha Stewart book on getting organized. I have big plans for my kitchen, linen closet and guest room closet. I will post pictures as soon as I get things organized how I want them. I already did a few things in our kitchen, and it is looking a lot better! Now all I have to do is get Chris on the same page.

Chris' younger bother, Tim, and his girlfriend, Alli, came to visit us this past weekend. We had a great time with them! Alli is such a sweet girl. Because we had guests, we needed to show them around Las Cruses. We went to the farmers market, Coas Bookstore, Stahman's, and White Sands. It was a great time! I had fun being the hostess. Here are a few pictures from their visit, compliments of Alli's camera.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Here is a WONDERFUL summer cookie recipe that I got from Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Yummo!

12 ounces strawberries, hulled and diced into 1/4 inch pieces (2 cups)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 C. plus 1 Tbsp. granulated sugar
2 C. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
6 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter
2/3 C. heavy cream
sanding sugar, for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 7 Tbsp. of granulated sugar in a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, or rub with your fingers, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in cream until dough starts to come together, then stir in strawberry mixture.

2. Using a 1 1/2 inch ice cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop dough onto baking sheet lined in parchment, spacing evenly apart. Sprinkle with sanding sugar, and bake until golden brown, 24-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool. Cookies are best served immediately, but can be stored in an air tight container at room temperature for up to 1 day.

Enjoy!!! Bon appetit!

Living Room Changes

For those of you who know Chris, you know that he does not like buying things unless we have saved up money to buy them. Chris loathes debt and would rather live in a cardboard box before going into it. Obviously we have the standard school debt, but he is determined to have that payed off before we make any substantial purchases. Because this (annoying, but very responsible) fact about my husband, ALL of our furniture was either given to us before we got married or purchased at a yard sale/thrift store. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY thankful for all the furniture that we have and I actually LOVE the character that it adds to our home. However, truth be told, we do have some pretty ugly pieces of furniture.

Our couch for example was given to us by my wonderful Aunt RoseAnn and it is one of the most comfortable couches I have ever sat on. It is so long that Chris can lay down on it fully stretched out! The down side to this cozy couch is that it is a velvety orange/gold color. In the beginning, I tried to find a couch cover that would work for it, but because of its unusual length and size, it was impossible. So I just worked with the color that it was and made myself like it by focusing on how cozy it was. This worked, up until a few months ago when I realized that I couldn't handle the color anymore and the deteriorating upholstery.

My dislike came just in time for me to find a couch cover at Target that fit the size and the cushion shape of my couch. Of course, as all couch covers are, it was around $100, a price that Chris would insist that we save for. As life would have it, other, more pressing things, took precedence over the need for a couch cover (it really is necessary to have a working AC in your car in Las Cruces). So I prayed that God would provide the money. A week later, my mom called to inform me that she found a savings bond that my grandma had purchased for me while I was a baby. After all was said and done, I had the money to buy my couch cover and a few throw pillows! Isn't it nice when God gives you those silly things that you really don't need?! Here is the newly covered couch.



Because of the new throw pillows (the purple ones in particular), I needed to incorporate more of those colors in the other areas of the room. So, as fate would have it, Glidden paint was giving away a free pint of paint from June 28 - July 2 and I signed up to receive one in a deep purple color, hoping that it would match this pillow.



Choosing a paint color online was rather tricky and I didn't match it perfectly, but I got pretty close. Then the next job was to convince Chris that I needed to paint the dilapidated coffee table that is serving as our "entertainment center" (mostly because our TV has been sitting on it). It took some convincing, but Chris finally gave in. I got some new hardware too, so I think it looks pretty snappy. Here it is.

Shoes

Hello, my name is Emilie, and I am a shoe-aholic. It's not any easy thing to confess, but it is very true...very true. I LOVE shoes! If Chris would let me, I would buy a new pair of shoes weekly, if not daily. I have all the colors of the rainbow represented in my shoe collection, I have way to many brown shoes, and even more black shoes. No matter what kind of an outfit I am wearing, I always feel like a new pair of shoes would make the outfit even better. I love the feel of a new pair of shoes on my feet, I especially love the feel of a new pair of super cute heels on my feet. I have been known to do my house cleaning wearing my most recent high heel acquisition.

I woke up this morning to Charlie scratching at his kennel. Nature was calling and I needed to let him out STAT! In my half asleep stupor, I decided that Charlie was going to be needing a walk, at the same time, Chris decided that Charlie needed a run. We decided to take turns. First Charlie would go for a run with Chris and then I would take Charlie on our usual walk around the neighborhood.

While Chris was on his run I started getting my self put together, threw my hair up in a pony tail, put on socks and went to the closet to get my running shoes. They weren't in plain view, so I had to dig through a mountain of shoes to find them. It was then that I realized that I have a problem. I asked myself: Is it really necessary rummage through a countless number of super cute high heels?

I haven't answered that question yet. I even pondered it during my walk with Chuck. So, I decided that I would take all my shoes out of my closet and get rid of some of them. This is something that I am usually pretty good at. My motto is "If I haven't used it in the last 6 months, I don't need it." However, that doesn't count for winter clothes, because, depending on the time of the year, winter weather could have been upon us longer than six months ago. But that is neither here nor there, back to the story. As I was taking shoes out of my closet I evaluated them and critiqued them in an effort to find something that warranted them getting tossed. Shoe after shoe came out of my closet and into the keep pile. In fact, I couldn't get rid of a single pair. It's sad really. I even tried to make myself, but to no avail. Here is what my floor looked like afterward. Notice how bored Charlies looks with this project.



This is my favorite sections of my shoes. It's sad that I have a favorite section...



Growing up, I had (at most) five pairs of shoes at any given time: a black pair (maybe), a brown pair, a tennis shoe, a sandal, and maybe a fancy pair of white shoes. I remember always wanting more shoes (I was a shoe addict at a young age) but, understandably so, there wasn't "shoes for the heck of it" kind of money in the budget of a ministry family. We got the basics, we always had what we needed, but no frills. Which, I think was a very responsible way for my parents to raise both Anna and I. However, as soon I was making my own money, I was buying shoes. I remember the first pair of red shoes I ever bought. They were lovely, absolutely wonderful.

Where I think that I really have a problem is in the black shoe department. As stated, as a young girl I had one pair (if that) of black shoes, until those were worn out and I needed another pair. That may be why I have an abundance of black shoes now. I have a thing for having the right black shoe. I know, black is black, what is the difference? But in my head there has always been a huge difference between one black shoe and another. Here is my sea of black shoes, and yes, I NEED all of them.



So there you have it, I am in fact an incurable shoe addict. I LOVE SHOES!!

When I grow up...

When I was a kid, I had a lot of ideas about what I was going to be when I was an adult. Some ideas were grandiose and others were actually pretty good. Here is a sample of some of the plans I had for my adult occupation.

- A mermaid (it only took me until I was ten to realize that this was an impossibility. However, I still daydream about how cool it would be to be an actual mermaid!)

-An astronaut (I actually have no idea where I got this idea from, but I stuck with this plan for quite a while, you know, if the mermaid thing didn't work out. Then I saw Apollo 13 and decided that I wasn't astronaut material.)

- An overseas missionary (I am still very open to this idea. However, both Chris and I don't feel that God is calling us to overseas missions.)

- A nurse (I waisted the first year of my college career in the nursing department at NMSU. Lets just say that the science of nursing eluded me. In order to keep my scholarship, without which I would not be able to go to college, I had to change my major to get my GPA back up to scholarship standards. I am not sad about it, I actually hated my year in nursing school.)

- A "Beth Moore" (Who knows if this will ever happen, but a girl can dream:)

- An author (The problem with this idea, is that I don't have any idea what I would write a book about! The migrating patterns of sheep?)

- An artist (I LOVED art growing up and would watch my parents create beautiful things with their artistic talent. I guess I could still attempt this one, but I would definitely need formal train. I don't think a doodled-on napkin, signed by me, would be found in any ones art collection.)

-A flower arranger (I have applied at many flower shops at any given time in my working years and still haven't had the chance to see if this would be a fit. Hmmmm....43rd times the charm?:)

-A wife and mom/homemaker (This is my dream job. I like all aspects of the home and all things domestic. I am not saying I am good at them, but I am the boss of my home and I can get things done the way I want them to be done, so I don't have to worry about pleasing any one but me and Chris. I heard someone call this occupation a "domestic engineer", I like that term! I kind of feel like I don't have a good excuse to be a homemaker right now because we don't have any kids. Maybe I just need to get over that.)

Now that I am grown up (or as grown up as a 5'2'' woman has the chance of being) I am trying to figure out what I want to be. I know, I already have a college degree and probably should be doing something in that field. Maybe I will, maybe I won't..maybe I still have some growing up to do. All of this to say, does anyone really grow up to be what they thought they would be, even if they did become what they dreamed of? Things always have a good side and a bad side. No one ever told me that, when I was dreaming about all the great things I would be when I was a woman.

I am revising the "when I grow up" list. When I grow up I want to be a good wife, a caring and compassionate friend, a loving mother, and a someone that the Creator of the universe would be proud to call His own. We'll see how that turns out. :)

Waiting

Chris' sister Kelly got married last weekend. Kelly is 38 years old and has been praying for a husband for a while now. God answered her prayers with a wonderful man named Rodger. He really is a great guy! Rodger is so tender to Kelly and looks at her with adoring eyes. I can tell that Kelly's wait was worth it when she is hugging the man that is now her husband. According to popular standards, Kelly had to wait a very long time to meet the right man and marry him. Kelly isn't a woman who is completely dedicated to her career and decided to wait on marriage until she was established as the CEO of her company. In fact, she is not that at all, she has always wanted to get married and become a mother. But God had her wait. Wait until the right person and the right time came along, wait until he was finished working in her the things that he wanted to work in her, wait until Rodger was ready to meet her and marry her, wait until the time He had planned.

Kelly and Rodger's wedding was a celebration of their season of waiting coming to an end. The music played at the wedding was the perfect sound track for this celebration. Kelly walked down the aisle to the lyrics "I thought that I would never know love, maybe I would never know touch. And then you came and awakened me." Her recessional was the Hallelujah Chorus and their first dance was Etta James' "At Last". The wedding was a celebration of waiting on the Lord and the blessings he gives you for waiting. I will not soon forget the spirit of that momentous occasion.

Waiting is a part of life. Waiting isn't something that can be avoided. Waiting could be lumped in with death and taxes, one thing that you can be sure of and cannot avoid. Because of this reality of life, a phrase has been coined, "Patience is a virtue." It' true, if you can learn how to wait with patience and not get all bent out of shape because of the circumstances you are experiencing, it truly is a virtuous thing.

Very few people know how to wait these days, with the world at our fingertips, instant gratification isn't a rarity it is a normality. Waiting isn't something that we have much opportunity to practice, unless of course you are at the DMV, but everyone there has a bad attitude and once again proves my point, people don't know how to wait, especially with patience. To learn to wait with patience is truly important and it is something that I have been trying to learn these past two years. Instant gratification has never been promised to any of us. Getting what you want the moment you want it, isn't realistic. Waiting on things, people, and situations is realistic, is normal. Waiting is good, really it is.

"Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary." Isaiah 40:31

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.

Here are a few pictures of Kelly's wedding.

The Groom seeing his bride for the first time.

The bride with eyes like doves.

The joyous exchange of vows.

The kiss. This was the first time Rodger had kissed Kelly on the lips. Pretty sweet.

Mr. & Mrs. Rodger Wills

Guest Book

I was asked to create a guest book for my sister-in-laws wedding this past weekend. I had a pretty good time doing it, too! Here is the finished product. The cover of the book was covered with paper and ribbon and the inside pages were embellished and scrap booked with pictures and pretty paper.