What I did this Week: Weird Obsession

  This week, I started making bubble tea, which is some kind of iced tea with tapioca pearls in it. I had found the recipe on a blog and thought, "That sounds weird and cool. I think I'll try it." So I did. And I like it. I may have drank it almost everyday since then. Maybe I'm a little obsessed with its weirdness, I do not know.

 

  And here are the tapioca pearls in all their tadpole egg glory.

 

  Monday, I made avocado fries as I had mentioned before. And this is the face I make when someone picks up my camera.

 

  These glorious cheesecake brownies were also made.

 

  Tuesday, I bought something wonderful.

 

  Wednesday, I started a bunch of baby outfits.

   

  Then today I took a break from those to sew a big girl project.

 

And so went my week.

 










Bare-Bones Belief

This life has to be lived with an element of faith.  No matter what a body believes one must have faith in something. Be it faith that God created the world, or that everything in nature is the result of a freak chance; faith that God exists, or faith that He is the imaginings of the weak-minded; faith that after this life those who Christ has saved will go to meet Him and those who rejected Him will receive their just punishment, or faith that there is nothing beyond this life.

  The world is too big for explanation. There are things that will never fit into a collection of historical and scientific facts. We as humans are never allowed to ignore the unexplained. We search for some form of an answer to hold onto. Even when it does not quite make sense to our humanity, there is something about it we can hold onto with hope. There are aspects of God that cannot be fully realized in this life, and until we as believers can understand them completely, we must have the faith that they are real.

  To some men, God gives the faith to believe in Him. Others, He allows to trust in their own vain imaginings. The faith of others often does not make sense to one. Whether it is because one is so deceived they cannot comprehend the truth others hold to, or because one wonders at the blindness of others. There is no reason to why some are given faith and others are not. Only that God shows mercy to some and not to others. We who are believers must have faith that God will do what is good and right, even when it makes no sense to us. We must have plain, bare-bones faith.

'Cooking Tutorial': Avocado Fries with friends

  Today calls for another cooking tutorial. Today my best friend and I made avocado fries and they were yummy. Here goes:

  Gather your ingredients:

   Dip your avocado strips in flour..

  Then in milk.

 

  Then back in flour. Oh, I forgot that we put seasonings in the flour. Just whatever looked good in the spice cabinet.

 

   Then we fried them till they floated and rapidly consumed them once they cooled.

  Delicious.

 

   Seriously, so good.

  And that's how you make avocado fries.

What I did this Week: a day late

  This past week I finally took pictures of things I did, then I ran out of time to do this post last night. So here it is a day late.

  Monday, I went to the park with the younger of my siblings for the first day of Spring Break.

 

  Then in the evening, this cute little guy showed up.

 





  Tuesday, I tried to make pretzels with the littlest of my brothers but then they got bored and left me to finish them.

 

  As the sun went down that evening, I went to go take a picture of it.

 

  Then went I was on my way inside, I ran into the web this spider had made. My brother who saw me do it said, "You just destroyed hours of that spider's work." He kind of likes spiders.

 

 

Thursday, I made my first three-layer cake for my Dad's b-day.

 

  Friday, I found an old grungy pair of flip-flops I had somehow lost over the winter. So I hosed them down and wore them for the first day of Spring.

 

  Saturday, my family and I celebrated my Mom's parent's fiftieth anniversary. It was a lot of fun and I got to see my wonderful cousins.

 

So went my week.







 



 







again comes spring.

The season in which we fall deeply and irrevocably in love with the world.
Not that we fell out of love with the world before.
It is just that spring reminds us all over again why we fell in love in the first place.
After months of a clogged nose we can smell the world and remember what a privilege it is to do that. Flowers, young grass and crumbling earth all greet our noses with a kindness we had almost forgotten when winter offered nothing for us to enjoy with our sense of smell.
Day is a bright vision of beauty in the light of the sun.
Color has returned to the world softly green and somehow vibrant.
The sun sets later than before on a world of color.
Later it is still when the horizon glows faintly orange where the sun kissed it on its way out of the sky.
The night comes, gentle in climate.
Not driving a body away as quickly as it did before.
And also comes life.
Out of the earth and bare limbs of trees.
It burns now in our veins.
Rushing and red, driving us with a force we knew not in the cold of winter.
Filling us with the passion of spring.

Terminal Constant

   There are those thing I simply assume will always be. The sun, the sky, spring. Every March I know the world is going to come back to life. It is the constant I can hang on to when winter has left the world dead and miserable. I have a lot of faith in Spring.
  Spring is not really a constant though. Like all other physical things, it is passing away when we meet eternity. This morning I was reading Psalm 102, and verses 25-27 struck me. They read, "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you will remain the same, and your years will never end." I was reminded about the lack of constants in my life. The seasons are passing things in more ways than one. My constants are terminal, and that is okay. No matter what, I have the assurance that my God is eternal.

Spring Break for Homeschoolers

  I imagine most people do not end up wasted on the beach for Spring Break. I certainly do not. I end up doing things like my taking my little siblings to the park to feed the ducks.

A Review for Unbroken

 

  Because I am a millennial, and a homeschooler, I grew up learning a lot of things about the World War II generation. Their heroism and morality has been lauded countless times. Then I got a little older and started reading accounts of the men who lived and fought in the Second World War. By their own accounts, they were far from being perfect men, their lives not that much more moral than those of their descendants.

  Unbroken tells the story of Louis Zamperini, who was one such man. Laura Hillenbrand paints his story with an arresting vividness usually reserved for novels; chronicling his devious childhood, tempestuous adolescent and his career as a young Olympian.  

  As Louis' story continues we read of his life as a soldier, a cast-away and then as a POW in a Japanese prison camp. In the prison camp, Louis and his fellow POWs endured unspeakable violence and torture at the hands of their captors. Torture that should have killed Louis, torture that should have broken his will and his spirit. The story of Louis' life in the prison camp and after his release is both heart-rending and inspiring.

  Laura does us a great favor by not ending Louis' story right after he comes home from the war. In spite of all he endured, Louis was not unbreakable by himself. Louis' experience in the war left him with countless personal demons he could not will away. Louis' story is not just one of personal strength and unbreakable will. It is a story of love and grace and salvation and forgiveness. It is a story that chronicles the beauty of the gospel. And it is one that I highly recommend.

The Creation of Nothing in Particular

  The past few day have been cold and rainy. So today I hauled my craft box out of my closet and my brothers and I created nothing in particular. Usually I have some kind of purpose when I craft. But sometimes it is just fun to glue sequins, pom-poms and toilet paper tubes together.

One brother made a wonderful little nod to the greatest comic book villain.