Random "Cooking Tutorial": Nacho Cheese

  I did not take enough pictures this week to do a 'What I did this Week' post, so here is another attempt at a cooking tutorial. Early this week I saw a cheese dip recipe on the side of a chip bag (great place for recipes I know). So I tried to make it.

  First, gather your ingredients:

 

 

 Melt your butter in a pot.

 

Add the green onions to the butter.

Cook them down for about five minutes.

 

 Add the tomatoes and chilies to that.

 

 Cook the whole thing for about three minutes.

 

 Add your cheese.

 

   Mix it together until its all melt-y.

 

 I ended up adding a couple of tablespoons of water and a little extra cheese.

 

 Voila!

  
  The dip ended up being really stringy, and it hardens fast so you have to eat it immediately after making it. But it gets a couple stars for taste and that does count for something.

A Good Thing

In living I have discovered something.

Love is the most powerful force on earth.

And not the Disney love.

Not romance: love.

Brotherly love.

The love of sacrifice.

The cry of a baby that who needs you in the middle of the night, that is love.

The sorrows a friend needs help to carry, that is love.

Getting lost in the needs of someone else, that is love.

Sacrifice.

Love is giving up splendor unimagined.

It is perfection dying in the place of sinners.

Then it is perfection that too strong to be held down by death.

So it conquers death.  

It is love that pours grace in wondrous abundance upon an underserving people.

Drawing men together as brothers, regardless of nation and language.

Love is the Son of God dying to save men who cannot save themselves.
Then men, in turn living lives that overflow with love for their Savior and laying down their lives for one another.

 

Strange Tales of the Night

   Midnight turns a body into a strange creature. And it usually finds me asleep, but there is always the weekends where I spend my nights laughing at everything or hating the world. Last night, I was simply confused when I found myself awake at 12:00am.
  I gone to bed planning to wake up in the morning and make waffles for breakfast. So when my sister woke me up at 12:00am, my first thought was waffles. I reached to the shelf above my bed and pulled down my Bible and notebook so I could do my devotions. Most mornings, I am a little sleepy when I so my devotions, because I do them when I wake up. But this particular time, I found that I was unusually tired. It was hard to focus on what I was reading and then harder still to articulate my thoughts with my pen. After awhile, I looked up at my alarm clock. It was 12:30am, but for some reason the first two numbers did not register in my sleep-hungry brain. I just thought, "I need to make waffles soon." And then I realized I never heard the alarm go off. I pushed down on the alarm button and saw the time I had set my alarm for, and when I released it, it finally hit me that the clock said 12:30, not 6:30.
  So midnight found me a very confused individual. I went ahead and read my Bible, because reading the Bible never hurt anyone, no matter what time it is. Then I went back to sleep and woke up and made waffles six hours later. My mind is still boggled when I think that I woke up at midnight and thought it was morning. Me, Hannah Scott. The girl who values her sleep dearly was trying to live life at midnight.

Still Winter or Almost Spring

  Sometime after the New Year begins, I spend almost the entirety of winter complaining. Either it is too cold or too wet or spring is too far away. Consequently, I hate winter. One might think I hate winter because I complain, but like most things in life, it is really the other way around. The heat can be just as uncomfortable as the cold, but I always find a way to see the bright side of summertime.

  Winter is the time for sweaters and hot chocolate, both of which I love dearly. Christmas comes during the winter, as does the new year and my birthday. During the night frosty stars shine in the velvet black sky. The limbs of trees are revealed, fantastic twists of gray and brown. The dampness feeds the earth for the coming of spring. Winter is the season of rest, of waiting. A season rich with delights of anticipation. And the anticipation is never disappointed.

  When the waiting watchfulness of winter passes away and spring comes from the ground and rippling water and the scales of tree buds, it again stuns us with the wonder of life anew. So now I am learning to wait in the still of winter, now that it is almost spring.

wedding pictures.

  Here are my favorite pictures from my cousin's wedding the week before last. Since nothing bugs me more than constant commentary on a picture-heavy blog post, I will let the photographs speak for themselves and these will be the first and the last words in this post.

What I did this Week: lots of baking

  The week was busy, so Sunday feels like it was a long time ago. Anyways, last Saturday, after my cousin's wedding, we went to see our friends, the Pitts. Then Sunday we went which them and here is a picture of my lovely friend Carolyn and I.

 

  Monday, after my family and I got home, I went to the store and found these wax bottles containing some unknown liquid which I enjoyed as a child. Now, not so much. My brothers liked it though.

 

  Then in the evening I baked peanut butter Nutella cookies and they were everything peanut butter and Nutella cookies should be.

 

  Tuesday, I got a tattoo. A fake one that I had been given for Valentine's day.

 

  Wednesday, my little brothers brought me some flowers they had found outside that morning.

 

  Friday, I started a dress, which I have yet to finish.

 

    Today, I made lemon-meringue pie.

 

  Then I made pigs-in-a-blanket.

 





 And now I need to make some cinnamon rolls, and that was my week.









mopping.

  Cleaning has never been my strong suit. I cannot convince myself that cleaning is good or important. The result of working on a pan of cinnamon rolls is so much more visually pleasing and palatable to a body's mouth than a basket of folded clothing. Dishes, dusting, laundry. I would much rather be in the kitchen making a mess. But then I like to mop.

  It has become part of my Friday morning ritual. There is something satisfying about it. I clear the floor of all the moveable furniture, fill a bucket with hot water and  mop the floor. It slides around the floor and the dirt under get washed away. By the end of my mopping the floor is cleaned and the mop water is a gray-brown color for which the English language has no name.



  Or course, one of my brothers manages to trace muddy footprints on the floor within the first ten minutes of my putting the furniture back into it respective places. While do not appreciate my brothers' carelessness, I do not regret mopping. It is the chore I like.