My favorite breakfast these days

Hi everyone! I have been away and I have been busy. We did some travelling (which I plan on posting some pics later) but I really just wanted to share with you my newest breakfast fav.

I have been juicing - and I LOVE it! But I decided not to purchase a juicer. When I watched the online videos comparing juicers I realized that my Vitamix blender and a nut bag (this is truly a bag that is finer than a cheesecloth and acts like a strainer-which I found at my nearest health food store) well, combined they produced the clearest juice. Plus my nut bag cost less than $8 and that was totally affordable.

Then, as I was walking through Chapters/Indigo with my girls I discovered Molly Sims new book. Inside was this amazing recipe for a green detox smoothie. Note- this is not a juice but I totally love it! My two girls love it too, which is saying something. My husband is not so fond of it...yet!

Molly also has a website/blog mollysims.com if you're interested. 

Well, until next time - let's continue to find happiness in our journey...

Happy Thanksgiving

The thought occurred to me that I should perhaps start off with a pumpkin pie link, seeing as it's Thanksgiving here. I have not yet tried it-as I am sitting here, at our campsite, reading and reflecting.

The leaves are a plethora of beautiful colours, the evergreen trees sit majestically on the mountais with happy little orange and yellow surprises amongst them. The sun was shining and the mountain sparkled when the light rested upon it.

This is part of my reflection. When The Son rests upon us, if we are patiently obeying, how much of His light will reflect and sparkle from us?

I have been fighting a battle again. This has been ongoing for sometime. It snuck in until it grew too large to be ignored. Anger. When you mess with evil feelings they grow larger and can invite more unwelcomed feelings too. Hurt. Resentment. (You get it)

I have been hurting and mad at my Maker for taking my best friend. I needed him here to baptize my two little girls. I have needed Brian when my girls miss him and are crying and I can do nothing to make the hurt go away. As the anger grew, my spirit suffered. My faith weakened. My relationships began to suffer too.

The heavens had slowly been closing their doors and I was no longer basking in His light. The blessings that I had enjoyed so effortlessly were fading and as I look back, that may have been when I began to struggle. As I was required to stand on my own-again.

I am still reading (since I began to homeschool my personal reading is time limited!) Journey to the Veil by John Pontius. I found his words enlightening.

I wish to quote his words, "When we pay the price for some new spiritual growth, we arrive at a spiritual high, or a type of honeymoon period where we bask in the new blessings, the powerful prayers, the peace, and constant revelation. Obedience is there because everything is so wonderful! ...But alas, we are living on borrowed light-the Lord's light. We are glowing with spiritual power that is not our own.
     The Spirit begins to withdraw to give us the opportunity to continue in this level of obedience through the darkness...
     The adversary whispers, '... See, you're not good enough. You're too weak to maintain any great blessings. '
     The truth is that the rise of this additional opposition and loss of spiritual power is part of the plan. It gives us a chance to be tested at this new level of spiritual growth. "
     He continues,"We are not lost in some spiritual wilderness but are climbing upward upon the ordained path that leads to eternal vistas.
     It is the way of growth."

Phew. That makes me feel better.

Remember when I wrote about a great gift I received from the Lord? I felt unworthy because of the hurt, disappointment and anger I had been experiencing. I was feeling depressed on occasion too and beginning to doubt my worth. John's words are comforting when he says, "We should cease to chastise and punish ourselves because we are struggling.  We should cease to berate ourselves because we have not yet conquered every obstacle. We should cease to shame ourselves because we seem to lack the strength to climb out of the hole we find ourselves in."

There is so much to learn in his life. Relying on our Savior is key.

There is so much to be grateful for.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Do You Feel Worthy? REALLY?

Something wonderful happened to me the other day. I don't wish to announce it to the world so let it suffice that I had been wanting an "object" for some time. I prayed about it to make sure I wasn't being greedy, and then one of my younger daughter's reminded me to,"send it out into the universe," because a goal isn't a goal unless written down with a date and specific details. It's just a dream. Well, I followed her advice and did so. That very day as my family and I went looking for this "thing" again, a small miracle happened and we found ourselves in possession of said object.

It was a wonderful surprise. I was shocked. But then I started to weep, then cry. I did not feel I was worthy of such a gift from my Father in Heaven. I felt guilty, confused, selfish, spoiled and sad. Yet, I didn't feel it was a bad choice. (Hard to articulate.) I wondered if I, me, little me, deserved such a thing. My husband was very confused and said we could get rid of it. This was not what I wanted to hear. But, since he does't speak "girl"I decided to translate my girl language for him. I needed to be reassured that I was good enough to have nice things.

I wondered if I had done any good…as the LDS hymn goes, "Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad or made someone feel glad?…"Had I done anything like this to be worthy? Was Heavenly Father blessing me? I had a hard time accepting that. (#223 Have I Done Any Good?) 

So I cried a lot that night. My husband assured me and I had my own spiritual assurance as well. However, as soon as I felt the judgement from a loved one or friend, ouch. The adversary would tell me I didn't deserve anything nice.

Well, Satan- you're wrong!

Let's look at the differences between self worth and self-esteem with some help from Ardeth….=)

"Self worth cannot be earned. It is a part of our divine nature as children of God." (Ardeth G. Kapp, "Doing What We Came To Do" p. 15)

(It's interesting how you can read a book and then feel the need to go back and find what you need. So, here's a whole whack of quotes from her book, cuz I need to quote them for me and for you.)

"Feeling loved, with an assurance of our infinite worth, has a tremendous effect on our ability to accept and love others."

" The source of all righteous love is centred in God. A feeling of who we were, who we are, and who we will always be. We did not come to this earth to gain our worth; we brought it with us." 

"Worth is constant and unchanging. It is a fact that worthiness does not determine wort. You cannot sin enough to change your worth to the Lord who loves you. In Jacob 2:21 this principle is explained very clearly: 'And the one being is as precious in his sight as the other."

(check out Psalm 49:8, Alma 31:35 and Isaiah 13:12 as she suggests, to find a little evidence)

"Self-esteem is defined as 'a confidence and satisfaction in oneself' (Meririam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary). In other words, it's your perspective of yourself…Circumstances of life appear to have a tremendous influence on self-esteem, to the extent that people who have been verbally, emotionally or physically abused may even respond as they have been treated…That's a challenge we all face - to not allow our perception of ourselves to be negatively impacted by the way we might sometimes be treated."

(Italics and bold added by me =)

"God loves all of you! From your eyelashes down to your toenails, He sees marvellous perfection. When He looks at you, He does not complain and say, 'Oh, I'd like you better if you had fuller lips and caramel highlights.' That never enters His mind."(Precious in His Sight, Seeing Yourself as God Sees You by Jodi Marie Robinson p. 38…this is another book worth discussing)

So, I have been blessed with many wonderful blessings. My children, my two husbands, (one on either side of the veil), health, wisdom, increasing talents, new experiences, and new "things". Even though that woman at the gym this morning was without body fat, I will think about her on the inside (which probably has no body fat either! haha Just kidding.) I will love my curves and my all my edges* and I will try to remember that I already have worth. My self esteem is my perspective of myself and I will love myself and that should transfer into loving others more. I have already seen a bit of this which I explained in my previous post entitled Summer Milestone. Now if we could just be happy for each other and not jealous….
well, good luck on this journey!!

*(John Legend "All of Me" song )

Wedding Cake

I decided on trying a different homemade cake for the wedding. This was Martha Stewart's Devil's Food Cake. It made about 8 cups of batter. I think I ended up making three batches for my three their (10, 8 & 6") 2", double layered cake. (Which I made with imported extra fatty butter!-which, if you are losing weight…I found it! I had been sampling this cake far too much.)

This recipe was from Martha Stewart's Wedding Cakes book.

Firstly, get your pans and your oven ready. (I either spay or butter my pans, parchment paper them and spray or butter them again. Then dust with cocoa powder since it's a chocolate cake. Remember not to leave your cake in the pan once it's baked for more than 10 minutes or you could have trouble getting them out!) Preheat oven to 350'.

You'll need:
1 1/2 cups  (3 sticks- shown below is 2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature. (Plus some extra for your pans)
3 cups of cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder, (plus more for dusting your pans)
1/2 cup boiling water
2 1/4 cup regular white sugar
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup Homogenized or 3 %  (or whole) milk

This is the PEI butter. YUM!  & the Dutch processed cocoa from Costco. You can see in the back ground that I've already melted my chocolate into a paste. 

Stir together cocoa powder and boiling water to make a paste. I used my measuring cup for this.

Mix butter and sugar together in mixer with paddle attachment. (cut cubes are easier to work with). She says about 4 minutes to make the mixture pale and fluffy. Mine took bit longer.

Hopefully you can notice a change in the colour. It did get nice, white and fluffy. Next, I added the beaten eggs. Nice and slow.

Keep mixing until it is no longer "slick". Shiny and slimy, more like.

Sift together your flour, baking soda and salt into a separate bowl. In your mixer, gradually add your cocoa mix, then add (mixer on low speed) flour mixture. Then pour batter into prepared pans. 

This is the yummiest batter I had ever tasted. 

My pans were 2" deep.

10" - ~ 6 cups of batter, 50 minutes

8" - ~4 cups of batter, 40 minutes

6" - ~ 2 cups of batter, 35 minutes

* Remember to turn your cake pans halfway through the baking process.

This is the cake straight out of the oven. I still had to trim off the top. Once cakes are removed from pans, set on a wire rack. Then once they were completely cooled I wrapped my cakes up with plastic wrap and set them in the freezer for about a week,  I then iced them frozen and set them back in the freezer until I was ready for the fondant. 

Next time I will post icing tips and my pics. 

**I'm still trying to be happy in my journey? Are you?**

Wedding Cake Ideas

My sister-in-law is getting married and I have volunteered to make her wedding cake. (The same weekend that I plan on holding my daughter's science birthday party) Am I a little overzealous or is this just how life happens? Both have seemed to sneak up on me…

Here are a few ideas that I came across in my search for the "perfect" cake.  She likes polka dots and apparently this is one of the newer trends...I do believe I found all these pictures on Pinterest.

(My Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/netshappyplace/pins/ )

I just really like this one…;)

A different version of the polkadot. I think this one is more elegant. Quite charming.

I found a really great website for a new frosting that I have never tried before plus I have in one of my books, a great Devils' Food Cake recipe. Once I have tried these myself I will post them for you.

New Scriptures

I also am super excited about my new scriptures that are coming in the mail. My scriptures have been used to the max. I got them when I was baptized, 20 years ago. The pages are worn out and some even torn from babies trying to "feast" on the scriptures. We ordered online and voila! Sooo cute! (As our son says though, "It's not what they look like on the outside that matters, it's what's inside that counts." So true, however, reading these cuties will put a smile on my face before I even open them!)

Another Great Book

I finished another book I had on the go. This one is very easy to read, but you may find you (as we learned in elementary years ago) -"Stop, Look and Listen" (which quote I am paraphrasing from another book I am working on)…taking the time to really think about what you just read and how you may apply it in your own life. An interesting and insightful read.

The Peacegiver

Okay everyone, Let's be successful on being happy in our journey!

Creative Grief

I know many of my friends and loved ones are experiencing grief. Some of you view my blog just for the how to's, others for the pictures, some for the books I choose, others for curiosity's sake and still some view it just because they love me. Well, this entry is to help those who grieve. I have seen death hit far too many friends and family in the last five years. I hope this helps who it may.

I was skimming a book a friend had lent me, "Grieving. The Pain and the Promise." by Deanna Edwards. In it she speaks about creative grief:

Grieving. The Pain and the Promise.

"Creative grief and recovery involve taking the pain and making something of positive, lasting value with it. It doesn't need to be something monumental. A display in your home, a journal entry, or a new flower garden can be meaningful. If your creativity accomplishes nothing more than an outlet for you and a better understanding about life, it has served it's purpose. This process provides therapy for the person who is grieving. It also increases awareness of and respect for others who have the courage to open their hearts and minds in order to learn form their own pain.

Grief means something good only if it changes us for the better and strengthens us. The added dimension of creative grief is that as we use it to clarify and define our feelings, we gain an increased awareness of others. The unbearable becomes more bearable when it is shared. It is that refiner's fire that challenges us to call upon the divine within ourselves and to invite the comfort and presence of the Holy Spirit when we need it most. Creativity is the essence of life and the evidence of immortality!"

She goes on to say that pain can be a tool to create something better instead of a weapon to hurt or punish us.

I knew that I was going strong, overboard, crazy busy with my creativeness but this makes me understand why. When Brian's Dad just passed, and with hearing that my friend's daughter was dying of cancer, I got busy. I didn't want to think about anything. Especially not the pain. What kind, human being likes pain? No thanks.

I hope you are enjoying what my blog has to offer in the sense of how to's. Not only the how to's of home improvements, but on self improvements as well. It's okay to mourn our loved ones. I do everyday. In fact, I was reading an LDS church magazine - the Ensign, and I quote the writer, Stephen Havertz who said about feeling pain all the time- in the article entitled "Lifting the Hands which Hang Down"

"People who want to help should be very careful about placing a time limit on someone's grief. Some believe that people should be finished grieving after a year and a half…I have learn that the pangs of grief can recur years latter without warning. This type of grief doesn't mean that I'm depressed or inconsolable, but rather it suggests that I still miss the people I love."*

"I have found that the most helpful conversations occur when people share their favourite memories of my wife and daughter with me; it's also helpful when they are willing to listen to my favourite memories. I often cry during these conversations, but that doesn't mean my day is ruined. These interactions actually brighten my day. You don't have to help people who are grieving to stop crying. It may seem counterintuitive to cause more pain, but I have found with my own grief that I'm in pain anyway, and these conversations provide a chance for me to release my feelings."*

* (highlighted quotes) My sentiments exactly.

A Few Tidbits

I love these little red shoes! They work with so much. I've worn them with my cute church dresses and last night my parents and I went out to Vic's steakhouse with my Kevie to celebrate his birthday (which is today) and I wore them with my white jeans. So cute...

I'm reading the Great and Terrible series, which consists of 6 books. I am only on the second but thoroughly enjoy them thus far. The tale of our life before earth - as most would know as the war in Heaven- always grabs my attention and gets me thinking outside the box. I like remembering that this life is just a small part of our existence.

The other book of choice is Ardeth G. Kapp's - Doing What We Came To Do. Again, very uplifting literature. Ms Kapp explains (with references) how we as women already have our worth, we came with it, and we need not put ourselves down; the difference between worth and self esteem. What we truly are (worthy beautiful individuals) and what we perceive ourselves as (which is always far too critical and often wrong).

Next topic, cleaning. I'm trying this Woolite product on my chair seat. Hoping this works. I'm glad that my five year old daughter and I took this one outside, seeing as we sprayed most of the house, the sidewalk and the wood.

Now it's pouring outside so the rest will have to wait. Which is fine with me as I'm off to decorate my homemade Skor cheesecake I made for Kevin's birthday, and then open up my Arbonne skin products that were just delivered to me. I love these products and am excited about the way they make me look and feel. More on that another time.  Keep smiling!!!

A Few Tidbits

I love these little red shoes! They work with so much. I've worn them with my cute church dresses and last night my parents and I went out to Vic's steakhouse with my Kevie to celebrate his birthday (which is today) and I wore them with my white jeans. So cute...

I'm reading the Great and Terrible series, which consists of 6 books. I am only on the second but thoroughly enjoy them thus far. The tale of our life before earth - as most would know as the war in Heaven- always grabs my attention and gets me thinking outside the box. I like remembering that this life is just a small part of our existence.

The other book of choice is Ardeth G. Kapp's - Doing What We Came To Do. Again, very uplifting literature. Ms Kapp explains (with references) how we as women already have our worth, we came with it, and we need not put ourselves down; the difference between worth and self esteem. What we truly are (worthy beautiful individuals) and what we perceive ourselves as (which is always far too critical and often wrong).

Next topic, cleaning. I'm trying this Woolite product on my chair seat. Hoping this works. I'm glad that my five year old daughter and I took this one outside, seeing as we sprayed most of the house, the sidewalk and the wood.

Now it's pouring outside so the rest will have to wait. Which is fine with me as I'm off to decorate my homemade Skor cheesecake I made for Kevin's birthday, and then open up my Arbonne skin products that were just delivered to me. I love these products and am excited about the way they make me look and feel. More on that another time.  Keep smiling!!!