Apple Chips

It's fall meaning it is time for all things apple & pumpkin. So far, we have gone & picked apples and I have baked apple crisp. I recently found a recipe for apple chips and randomly enough no salt pickles, on the same blog. I had to figure out how I wanted to core the apples so that I could have round chips. I found two different ways to core the apple and kind of merged them together.
As far as doing the chips themselves, all you need is as many apples as you want, cinnamon, a pan & an oven set to 275 for 2 hours.

I cored my apples without cutting them up. I didn't cut the first apple at all , just cutting  to the outside of the core.  The next apple, I cut in half to the core, but not through the core. I then cut around the core and just pushed it out. The second apple was soooo easy! the only way, I will do it now. lol. 

The knife on the right is the one I cut the first  apple  with  and the first cut on the second apple.  The  knife on the left , I used to core the second apple. 

This is my pan of apples. The recipe said to use parchment paper but I don't have any so none got used. :) 

My battle wounds if you can see. It is two cuts just to the right of the middle of my nail. 

When I do my pickles, I will post again! :)

Homemade cleaners are for me!

So growing up, my family never made our own cleaners, BUT since I have grown up gotten married, I have realized how expensive things are in the real aspect of having to buy things for my own household. Having my own household now plus thinking about how gross store bought are, I started looking for different things that I could made on my own. More cost effective + better for me (i.e. no chemicals I can't pronounce) sounded like a great thing to me so I started with an all purpose cleaner that a friend of mine, Elise, blogged about. I made it and started cleaning with it. I love it. Really. 
It is a vinegar water solution and the recipe is as follows:
 All- Purpose Cleaner:

• 1 Cup distilled white vinegar 
• 20 drops of essential oil
• 2 cups of purified  water

               Shake to mix together and start using


Window Cleaner:

• 1 Cup distilled white vinegar
• 10-15 drops of essential oil
• 1 cup purified water

Shake to mix together and start using


If you want a cost break down, Elise has done it on her page so I won't do it for you here. 


Another homemade cleaner I started using is homemade furniture polish. I made it up this morning and used it for the first time and really like it as well! 
The recipe for it is:

• 1 cup olive oil 
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix together in a bowl or a spray bottle and use! 


I used the all purpose cleaner and then the furniture polish on our coffee table and was very pleased with the results. I really should have done before and after pictures. There was candle wax and just plain dirt on the table and it really took it off and made the table shine. 
The table is a little oily but I think that will subside as the table should soak up the oil. I will let you know how it goes. 


Another project that I will be working on in the near future is homemade laundry soap. I have not done this yet but I found a recipe that should take less than 10 minutes to make and will be .05 a load/ 64 loads a batch. When I try it and if I like it I will let you know. Until then. 

Susie Homemaker, that's me!

I can cook and cook well, BUT I don't cook often. Something about being on my feet and taking care of children probably takes the joy out of cooking for me. (I work at a preschool and my class is eight children large.)
Today though, I got out of work early and had all the stuff to make hummus so I decided to make my own homemade hummus- for the first time. The recipe I have and will be posting does not really have exact measurements so I will tell you how much I used in parentheses.
I was really jazzed to make it when I got home and went searching for my can opener. I thought that would be a quick find but I think with moving three times in less than a year will cause you to lose some things you would otherwise have. (can opener, hand mixer blades, water filters, etc.)
After I realized this, I thought well this is not going to happen today. I think got on facebook in somewhat of a bummed mood and saw that Krista French had just posted and knowing that she was probably home along with the fact that she lives just around the corner from me, I asked her if I could borrow hers. She okayed that idea so I ran up there and used her can opener and I was back in business to make my hummus. :) Thanks Krista.
Okay, so this is my recipe base.

1 big can chick peas (also known as garbanzo beans), drained (2- 15 oz cans)
1 big clove garlic
lemon juice (a couple tablespoons, or to taste)
a big spoonful of tahini or peanut butter
a drizzle of sesame oil if you have no tahini
a glug or two of olive oil
a big spoonful of plain yogurt (optional; Greek-style if you have it)
a pinch of cumin is good
a big pinch of salt
a roasted red pepper is good too

Whiz all in a food processor until smooth.

Okay, so I just kinda dumped everything in like it said, but you get the idea. 

This is what mine looks like. It is pretty good especially for my first try! :)

There are lots of ways to make variations of hummus. Get creative and let me know if you come up with good ones! :)

Small re-cap of the semester....

It has been a while again, but here is another update on life. Last Sunday, our pastor was out of town & and had previously asked my husband to preach for him which he said yes to. This was the second time in a few months that he preached in front of 50 or more people! I am so proud of him. :) While I don't have a picture of him in front of the church preaching I do have a picture of him preaching in front of the college ministry that we interned at this last semester. :) Enjoy & I hope it gives you a feel for what we are doing.

There he is preaching at the campus ministry.  I think he was more nervous for this one than last week.

The band at the campus ministry practicing! They are excellent! :)

Patching the ceiling so it would not leak as bad...

So the picture just above is of Austin (one of the campus ministers) patching the ceiling because of all the rain we had while there. The building is actually two separate buildings and the one building got a new roof  last year but they did not reconnect the gutters correctly so it would leak in the offices every time it rained. With all the rain we got down there, it was more like a river at times.  We ended up pulling up the carpet in this office (which is where the water came in through the ceiling). It was interesting to walk in when it was raining to see what was wet. My husband with his roofing skills was able to fix it enough that it did not leak again. Shortly after that, the roof got replaced. No more leaking! 

This is a picture of hail, while & rain. The white though is the hail. 

I went on a trip to Joplin MO to visit the headquarters of Rapha House & just has we got into town it started hailing and when it quit, it looked liked it had snowed, er or hailed. I will post about Rapha House & all they do later. 

Bob & baby Norah Maeleigh

The last exciting thing to happen (at least that I have a picture of & remember right now) was the birth of Austin & Amy's third baby! She arrived our last full week in Fayetteville. Kris, Kirstyn, Cory, Bob & I went to the hospital and visited the family, while minus their other two kids. Bob was a little apprehensive about holding her but he finally did & I got a picture. :) She is such a sweet little thing. She was BIG though!  If I remember correctly over 10 pounds! 

Well that is all over now. I will blog again soon.

I haven't...

Blogged in two months. Exactly. I know, I need a good scolding. First there was spring break, then there was traveling- Lots of that, then moving out followed by more traveling, a wedding ( I'll get to that in a bit) & moving in again.
Sufficient to say, I have been a busy girl & I start back to work tomorrow. In someways, I am ready & in other ways I wish I did not have to go back. Ah well, I will enjoy working while I am.

Anyway to catch you up a bit about life lately.

So we were at the University of Arkansas doing a campus ministry internship.

At the fountain in the middle of campus, doing the Bob pose

Shortly after this, we were packing up our apartment & loaded down our car. Literally. My poor car was practically dragging the ground. I wish I had a picture to demonstrate how loaded down it was.

We drove to my friend Jessica's house & spent the night with her family plus a random trip to the ER because her sister is pregnant and thought she might be going into labor- that was the COLDEST waiting room I have EVER been in. Seriously.

The next day we drove to Williamsburg, KS for our good friend Lori's wedding! Out of our group of twelve girls, Lori was the 5th of us to get hitched. :)

First there was Sydney (& Jonathan)- 

Then Tiffany (&Tim)-

Then Annie (& Tyler)-

Then Me (& Bob)-

& now Lori has joined us (& Daniel)-

(Photo credit: Lacy Howard)

After this is was back down to AR & my hometown. This is where my dad pulls out a bunch of guns & my husband gets scared. Kidding, kidding. Guns did come out but only to shoot at targets and have a good time, which we did. :)

Well that is all I have for now. I will write again soon. I promise.

Revive Me

So has we all know, spring has yet to, well, spring. We seem to get a taste every now and again but for the most part it seems as though it is still winter. I was talking to one of the ConC ministers today and jokingly asking her why she is letting it be winter still. She kind of went on this imaginary spill about how amazing it will feel when it finally feels like spring.
She was talking about how the rain must come before the greatness of spring. She said think about what it will feel like to breath in and those breaths feel like we just went for a run and how good that run felt and how blue the sky is and how good the wind feels and how we could just find a patch of grass that is mostly unkept, how we will just plop back in it and enjoy how soft it is against us, there will be in mud for us to get on us, no dog poop to accidentally lay in (there is a lady who brings her dog to do its' thing in the front lawn). We will feel cleaner after getting up than when we laid down in the grass. There were probably so other things said but those are the ones that stuck out to me especially when this song by a band called Take No Glory called I Run to You came on my playlist.
We keep asking where spring is and whether it has forgotten about us and while we ask that about spring now, we often as that about God and I think this song describes it all perfectly...

Long time, I know!

So I promised my good friend Lynn that I would post last week and it just did not happen. Not because I was too busy but I did not have internet and I simply did not feel like going somewhere where the was internet. So no good excuse just wanting to hibernate I guess, well and then the ickies hit. Mostly just the congested kind but I will spare you the details of anything else that came about.

I will tell you though that I read 5 books in about three and a half days and would have read more if I would have had the books. I read insanely fast sometimes, especially when I am bored it seems. Oh well that seems to be a lot as of late.

Now since I have told you what I did last week instead of blogging, well my husband went on a spring break missions trip and I stayed in Fayetteville for the week. I did go to my best friend, Wendi's, house for the first weekend he was gone and we had a blast! I was going to go to visit friends where I went to college but gas went up like crazy and we just could not afford for me to do that.

Going to my best friend's house was so much fun! We have not seen each other since I got married except for a couple of hours when I first got back to my beloved Arkansas. The weekend started a little early as I went up Thursday afternoon (St. Patrick's Day). Me & my Route 44 Vanilla Cranberry Coke made the two hour drive and were there by 1ish. She always cooks something fun while I am there and this time was no exception! She had beer bread going into the oven when I got there so when it came out we were waiting with mouth's a-watering for a piece! Dinner was delicious roast beef, carrots and potatoes! She is such a good cook! Friday morning she made cinnamon scones for me! They were so delicious! I am going to be visiting the blog she got it from and jotting down the recipe for myself. :) We are both really getting into couponing and she needed to grocery shop so we went together to do this. That was um, interesting. Society has changed in such a way that now when 2 people of the same gender are together, people are wondering if you are a couple or are just friends. Seriously, we got so looks and we were even talking about our husbands! That was entertaining when we realized it.

Wendi and her husband are looking to buy land and build or buy a house with some acreage to it. Friday night, Wendi and her husband drive me to land that they are looking at buying and Saturday, Wendi and I went and looked at a house that online looked like a possibility. What a joke that was. Oh well, it was fun!

I think that is all I will include in this post, but more to come soon! I think the writing bug is coming back. :)

Just a quick note....

I have been absent from blogging for a while. Just a crazy life... of a campus minister's wife. I will be writing a few updates next week though so be looking out for those! :)

Home!

This past weekend, Bob & I went home. Home as in Mountain Home. Home as in my parents. Home as in my very warm water bed which I still love a lot. Home as in home church. Home as in hometown. HOME! We took off from Fayetteville late Friday morning and arrived home around 1pm and ate lunch with my mama. She had made something new with homemade yogurt. It was yummy! :) After that is was just hanging out with my parents and enjoying the day.
Saturday was a full day. We went to shop for my brother's birthday & get him presents so we could send it to him (he is overseas right now). After that, it was a quick trip to a place where I used to work in MH to see people and then dinner with a wonderful friend at a super yummy Thai restaurant! Plus she brought us homemade treats! After lunch we went to my church, watched a little Upward basketball & met with my home pastor. :) Homeward bound was a little worrisome as my car decided to act up a little bit. We made it home safe and sound and then my best friend, whom I have not seen in 7+ months came out before she went back home and she, my mama & I sent concocted a new dish. (I will post it when I get it from my mama, lol.)
Sunday ended up being more interesting than I was expecting. We got there in time to help in the nursery during preschool and instead of it being easy breezy, the baptistery somehow turned back on and overflowed all the way down the hallway so Bob & I keep the kids until it was cleaned up and in church service my pastor introduced us and had us stand up and the service ended up going long with 10-15 people ending up and joining the church which was super cool.

It was a good weekend up and I can't wait to go back in a couple of weeks for the CCW class.

Have you heard??

So being a campus minister's wife means a few things- 1. I meet college students, 2. We work under and with a a campus ministry organization, 3. This campus ministry organization has other campus ministries in other places.

Number 3 is significant because one of those other college campus ministries is in South Bend, IN. They work with a few different college campuses, but the exciting thing about that is that they are experiencing REVIVAL! They have been praying for it and seeking God for it & God is answering and bringing revival to that area of the college world. The revival has been coming but showed up in a BIG way at Bethel College. Last Wednesday, Bethel, which is a Christian college, went to its' chapel service, a chapel service that is normally 50 minutes. Well 50 minutes turned into 7 & 1/2 hours and the students, faculty & staff were greatly moved & things are still moving and changing and God is still moving greatly. I believe that God is moving everywhere not just in South Bend at Bethel. Let's pray and seek God for see-able evidence of revival.

V Day

So as all of you know, Valentine's Day was on a Monday this year. The only problem with that was that Mondays on campus are busy days for us as we both have CORD meetings until 10ish that night plus we are on campus all day on Mondays.
Well Tuesday, my hubby took me to a frozen yogurt place for lunch which was totally yummy!

Our yummy yogurt! They have all kinds of toppings- from fruit to candy to fruit bo-bo balls

The Arkansas shirt in the picture is my V Day present to my hubby from me. 

He also went out that morning and got stuff to make chocolate chip pancakes & ice cream and out fudge topping! I was a little groggy so I did not take a picture of it. 

SNOW!!!

So I am sure that most of you are sick and tired of hearing me talk about snow. But can I tell you what I think my fascination with snow is and why I like it so much?

Well, see there are songs that we sing that talk about how Jesus washed us white as snow and I think of that every time I hear that it is going to snow. Seeing the pure white snow is just a wonderful reminder that Jesus came and blessed me with the gift of being forgiven.

Strange Dreams.....

So we watched the Super Bowl & Glee and got home & went to bed about midnight and I had the CRAZIEST dream last night!! I mean seriously!! The CRAZIEST! My husband, parents, a really good friend from college (and her parents) & one of my uncles were all in it.

I am not exactly sure in what sequence it all played out in my dream but this is how I remember it.

I was going into a grocery where I used to work to grocery shop and these girl scouts start running across the street towards me and start trying to sell me RANDOM stuff, not the normal girl scout cookies. I didn't want any of it and they begged me to talk to the management of the grocery store so that they could set up pallets to display what they were selling. I did not that and they begged me to help them set up the stuff so I did that as well.
I got done with that and went back out to the parking lot for some reason and saw one of my uncles and his dad in the parking lot. We said hi and then went our own ways. That was really strange.
I, then, saw my parents way out in the parking lot with their hydro-mulcher, trying to get it started. I went to help them but by the time I got there, they had it started.
Then it went to my house & my husband & his our roommate (apparently he lived with the guy before we were married & we could not afford to get our own place so we had to live with him) & my good friend from college were all there. We were all sitting around and my friend was said she was feeling weird and then she had a baby out of the blue. I had to help her deliver it & then I called 911 but the call would not go through & I kept redialing the number and one time it went through to my dad's cell phone & I was like I don't want to talk to you, I am trying to call 911, my friend just had a baby. I hung up on him and my friend's mom was there then (she is a nurse & apparently neighbors with my parents) so she cut the baby's umbilical cord and then her dad came and we took her and the baby to the doctor.
All the while, there had been a guy going around the town that day & if he could tell you were home, he would knock on your door and when you answered, he would throw a fireball in your door and catch your house on fire.

It was the CRAZIEST dream I have ever had (& for the record, my friend is not the type to randomly have a baby, oh me oh my)

Super Bowl 2011 && GLEE

so the Super Bowl was last night & not that I really follow professional football nor care to follow, it is a chance to get together with the college students we are working with here in AR while we are here. We went to the foreign student hall called Holcombe Hall. Most of the students in this hall are from different countries around the world and have never seen American football.

The Super Bowl started @ 5:30 but to introduce these students to the joys of football, we had this thing @ 5 to tell them about some of the stuff they would be seeing as they watched the game. It was fun seeing the game get explained to them with some demonstration. I wish I would have thought about getting pictures of this because it was seriously hilarious.

Everyone is watching the game....

And fooding it up... Nachos, wings, coffee, kool-aid, hot chocolate, brownies, cake,  Chex mix, m&m's,  lots of goodies

Playing Ping Pong

More game watching

There was a ping pong table and one of the other ConC (Christ on Campus) staff members had her kids there and a couple of us started playing ping pong with them and they were cracking us up! Her little girl is 6 and when she would hit the ball it always seemed to find its way to my face so I was constantly dodging.

After the game, a few of us watched GLEE!! Love that there was a bonus episode last night!!

So Boy Meets Girl Who Meets Sushi?

So boy meets girl at bible college (ring by spring?) This particular boy happened to be from New York and this particular girl happened to be from Arkansas (a north/south clash?). This boy would talk off and on to this girl on facebook and the girl did not think much about it or him at all. That happened for about a year and a half with no consequence. The last spring semester that this boy attended classes at bible college he started talking to this girl again and suggested they hang out with some mutual friends. The girl agreed and after it was all set up, the friends ditched the girl and boy and they decided to meet up anyway. They went to a movie and ice cream afterwards where the boy told the girl that he liked her. The girl went for it and agreed that they could start dating. They dated the last three weeks the boy was at college, the entire summer and the girl's last year at college. In February of the girl's last semester, the boy surprised her by coming to visit her the weekend of Valentine's Day and proposing. The girl said yes. 

With this boy came a liking for sushi. The girl had decided a long time ago that she did not like sushi nor would she ever. Well this boy liked it so much that he learned how to make California and got this girl who is by now his wife to try it and she liked it! So I guess that is how I met sushi and became friends with it.

California Rolls- precut

Homemade Wabashi (very hot, girl does not like)

Cutting said California Rolls

Yummy California Rolls

Before he got a taste of the homemade {way hotter than store bought} Wabashi 

Despicable Me {one of my favorite movies of all time}

The Boy

The Girl

It's another snow day!

We got SNOW!!! I am/was so excited about that! It is snowing again today as well with more snow expected Sunday into Monday and then another storm on Wednesday!!! I am really excited about the snow! I LOVE snow! We got about 6 inches of ice and snow, it is snowing now and more is on the way!! 

This first three pictures are from our apartment windows, the last one from today @ The Rockhouse, where Bob is doing his internship.