Day 4.

Day 4. Into the Kitchen.

I love to cook and bake. I'm too lazy to do it on a regular basis, but I do love it. One of my favorite things about it is deviating from the recipe. I love looking at a list of ingredients and changing them or adding my own or exchanging something for something else. Rarely do I completely follow a recipe.

Today I decided to come up with an oatmeal, muffin, cookie hybrid that would satisfy any sweet tooth without getting out of hand.

They look good, don't they?

They're very easy to make and healthy! Win win!

You will need:
3 mashed bananas (the riper the better)
2 eggs
1tbsp. baking powder
3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. cinnamon chips (you can also use raisins or regular chocolate chips)

To start: preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Mix everything but the cinnamon chips together in a bowl (I used my hand mixer). Then add the chips in.

Spray your muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray or you can use cupcake liners (use good ones though, mine were crappy and stuck to my muffins). scoop in the batter.

Let them back in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Viola! You have a healthy breakfast, or snack.

For those of you who have never used cinnamon chips, you have missed out! They are just like chocolate chips except they are cinnamon flavored. You can find them in your baking aisle right next the the chocolate chips. I use them in almost everything!

Day 3

Day 3. The best kind of challenge.

Today I am blogging about my absolute favorite challenge of these entire three months. It’s a challenge that is nothing short of a gift, one I am humbled to have received and one that I hope to live up to.

In August of 2014, my friend Joanna was diagnosed with melanoma, underwent surgery, and is currently walking through treatment. She is such an amazing woman, no blog post can describe her to you as I see her. Joanna and her husband have 4 adorable children, full of energy and life. And I currently get to spend most of my time with them.

Joanna is the kind of mom I want to be. The kind of in-love-with-Jesus, real, beautiful, strong, supportive, loving, kind woman that I can’t help but look up to. What a gift to know her and to spend time with her, to watch her kids grow every day, and to walk beside this family that I love so much.

I’ve been learning so much the past few weeks about taking care of a family, what that really looks like. For instance, going to the grocery store is not a leisurely trip. Shopping includes bundling up the kids, packing them into the car, enduring the drive to the store, getting them out of the car, putting them in the shopping cart, saying “no” to a variety of food items that somehow ended up in the cart, getting through the checkout line without drawing attention to yourselves, putting groceries in the car, putting the kids in car, driving home, and finally unloading the kids and groceries from the car. My normal shopping trip goes something like this: climb into the car, drive to the store listening to calming music, get to the store and get what's on my list, go through the checkout line like a pro, load up the car with groceries, go home. Less steps, but honestly way less fun.

Today I walked into preschool with three kids, two of them still in their PJ’s (luckily just the two who weren’t going to preschool). I think that I actually felt embarrassed for a second, like all the other moms were judging me, “9:00 and she didn’t even get the kids dressed yet? She’s obviously unqualified to care for another human being”. But after a moment or two I made a decision: I refuse to be one of those moms who projects her perfectionism on her kids. So now I’m working on it.

My sweet Ella (4) gave me another lesson in letting going of perfection this afternoon…

She painted my nails.

At first, with every stroke of the brush, every glob of nail polish that landed on my skin, I think I cringed a little bit. She worked so hard, wiping off  (smearing) the nail polish that ended up "out of the lines", and making sure she covered every inch in sparkles.

As she worked, I began to scold myself for caring about nail polish on my skin. When I watched her cute little fingers holding the brush, and her determined face as she opened a new bottle of polish, I couldn’t help but relax into my mish-mosh manicure. Of course I’ll probably take it off tonight when the OCD kicks in and just can’t help myself, but for now I am content in the imperfection that this taste of motherhood has brought me.

Day 2

Day 2. Not saying No.

I have found that when working with preschoolers, the word "no" comes out of your mouth a lot. Okay, it comes out of my mouth a lot. Usually it comes flying out in a moment of fear or chaos, without even passing through my brain for analysis. Today was an 11 hour workday for me, so I knew that I would need to challenge myself in the environment I would be in all day. And for me, today, that was teaching a group of adorably energetic preschoolers that seem to get into everything.

As I was driving to work today I was feeling really confident in my ability not to use "no" all day. I rehearsed various phrases to use instead, reciting them over and over, I was ready for anything. For the first hour or so everything was going smoothly (there was a 2 hour delays for most school districts in the area so I only had 1 kiddo for a while). By the time 9 o'clock rolled around, however, I had dropped the "n-bomb" over ten times.

Don't get me wrong. I consider myself a decently patient person. I'm not running around all day screaming "no" at everyone. However,  I spend my days hanging out with 10 three-year olds (who I love dearly). And those of you who have three year-olds, know what they are capable of. Somehow, no matter how hard I try to swallow the word "no", it explodes out of my mouth in dire situations, which are plenty in my classroom.

Whether someone is eating something un-edible, or wrestling someone else to the ground, or climbing some piece of furniture; "no" seems to be the fastest and most effective way to convey the danger of the action. Somehow the phrase, "sweet pea that shelf is about to fall over on top of you please get down" doesn't seem to get the point across that something needs to happen fast. But today I decided to try.

Sometimes my three yr-olds are way smarter than me. Okay, usually they are. I began to realize that I was in trouble today when a small brawl broke out over the play dough. I calmly told those involved that we needed to share, someone was going to get hurt and all that good teacher stuff. I'm pretty sure that no one even heard what I said. As soon as I said "Absolutely not, friends, play dough goes away if you can't share", I am visible again. Granted that wasn't the word "no", but it was the same idea.

So I learned something valuable today. First off, just because one challenge may seem easier than another doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Sometimes the ordinary things in life are the hardest ones to change. And secondly, three year-olds need to be told "no" sometimes, and that's all there is to it. As a teacher it is my job to teach them gently, but firmly, and always with love.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. 
Proverbs 22:6

Day 1

Day 1 of my challenge. Super Bowl Sunday.

I've thought a lot this week about how to start off this challenge with a bang. How to get the most likes, comments, and visits to my blog. I want to entertain and shock and deeply touch lives all at the same time. So naturally I have been burdened with the pressure of the first day.

I had a small list of challenges that I was sure would be winners, I just had to pick one, do it, and that was that. But then my older brother called me Friday night. He called just to say "hi", but as always, we talked for a while about the meaning of life and true purpose and facing things without fear. He told me that If I wasn't writing for myself, what was I doing?

His words stuck with me as they always do. What kind of writer do I want to be? Do I want to encourage and inspire by writing what I think will most interest others, or by what will most soothe this aching world? The answer was at once very obvious to me, which is why on day 1, I am challenging myself to talk about something that selfishly, I pretend is not happening all around me.


The Super Bowl is fun. It's a great excuse to hang out with good people, eat good food, and yell a lot at the TV. But I don't think much about it outside of what it means for me. A few years ago I read an article about sex trafficking during the Super Bowl. I read it, saddened and disgusted and dutifully shared it to my facebook page so others could read it too. I wasn't bothered by the truth again until the next year when again articles about sex trafficking were everywhere and again I read them and shared them, overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.

This year I again read the articles, but one gripped me in a way the others hadn't. You can read it here.

One of the things Annie says, hit me right in my gut:

So instead of jumping on an “awareness campaign" during the Super Bowl let’s all be pro-active and learn more about the trafficking going on right now—in and around our cities. While awareness campaigns to “stop trafficking” are great, they don’t solve the issue. There is so much more work to be done. 

As I read this I knew that I was one of those people that jumped on the "awareness campaign" during the Super Bowl. I was one of those people who stood up for injustice when I couldn't ignore it, but as soon as the hype disappeared, so did I. I was the person who was so overwhelmed with the brokenness of the world that I went about my life pretending that broken things weren't happening.

I don't want to be that person.

This isn't an article about the big bad Super Bowl. It's not an article telling people everywhere to quit their jobs and end sex trafficking once and for all. And ultimately, this isn't even an article about sex trafficking. This is an article where I am begging my readers not to ignore the world around us. Don't be so tightly snuggled into your own world that you miss the things happening to others right under your nose.

It is so easy to go about our days without once thinking about something that doesn't directly affect us. I know that this can be true for me, and that sickens me. Life is so much more than my little world. There is a battle going on all around us between good and evil. We can step into it and fight, or we can ignore it and live in our own little bubble.

I want to fight. I don't want to live in the comfort of my own ignorance anymore.

So as we go about our days doing whatever it is that we do, let's open our minds and our hearts to what's going on around us. Let's be aware and proactive in the ways God leads us. Let's not ignore anymore.

my 3 month challenge-pushing my limits

50% of me doesn't like change, but the other 50% is an adventurer to the core. Super conflicting combo... So I decided to challenge myself this winter to try some new things that are out of my comfort zone. Starting February 1st I will actively feed my sense of adventure and push myself beyond the limits of comfortability by trying a new thing every day!

But this is where I need help from you guys...I need some challenges. Comment on this post with any ideas you might have. I've already come up with a few things to try and Eric is excited to make me eat some weird nasty foods that I would never touch normally, but 3 months is a lot of new stuff.  So get creative people! The more awesome ideas you have the more fun this will be for you to watch and the more enlightening it will be for me to engage in. 

Again, just so we're clear, my challenge will start on February 1st and will go to May 1st. Every day I will try something new and then blog about my experiences, feelings, blah blah blah. SO if there's something you've been dying to try, but aren't motivated enough to actually do, I'm you're girl!

Here I come winter boredom,  get outa the way!

how to survive winter

http://www.weighitup.com.au/fitness/977/guide-to-surviving-winter

Something about Christmas delays the feeling of sorrow that accompanies the winter months. But as soon as the holiday season is over “winter” is upon us, stealing Joy, and warmth, and adding inches to our waistline by the second.

And as trivial as it all may seem, winter is tough for everyone. As someone who has struggled to function from November to April since they were very small, I have developed a few tips that may make things a little more bearable.

1. BUY A HEATED BLANKET. I tell you the truth, I did not live until I had one of these. I actually carry it around with me to every room of the house, plugging it in as I go. Everything is better when you are toasty warm under a blanket. A word of caution, however: Once you are under the blanket, you will lose all motivation to complete obligations.
2. START DRINKING TEA. I honestly don’t know why anyone wouldn’t love tea. It’s like a heated blanket for your insides. I know a lot of people don’t. But here’s the thing, not only does it keep you healthy, but it keeps you happy. Try not to add extra sugar and junk, stick to honey if you absolutely can’t drink it plain. Tea has tons of benefits for your body and can help relieve stress, digestive issues, cold symptoms and much more. Seriously, give it a shot.
3. GET MOVIN’. Okay, so I totally have no authority on this one because although I consider myself to be a lover of running, I really struggle to stay active when even my bones are shivering and it’s dark before dinner. So how do you stay moving? Well, If you have the money buy a treadmill and the Total Gym and call it a day. For the rest of us, getting to the gym can be pricey and inconvenient. If you have cable, check out the channels that offer a variety of workout videos in the am. It may be different for different areas, but a lot of major networks are programming workouts for viewers. Thanks to good ole’ Google, you can basically type in any kind of workout and find someone out in cyberspace to lead you through a body busting workout for free. My personal favorite workout routine for the winter months is to do handstands and other gymnastics moves in the living room while watching my favorite TV shows. So pick one and give it a whirl! You’ll have more energy and be happier with your self for getting off the couch (and out from under your heated blanket).
4. DRINK WATER. This isn’t just good advice for the winter months, but the colder it gets, the harder it is to remember to hydrate. I keep a water bottle with me at all times. It holds 32 ounces of water, so If I make sure to drink about 3 a day I’m good. Once you get into a routine, drinking water just becomes a part of your everyday life (as it should). Do not underestimate the power of H2O, it helps hydrate your skin and keeps your organs working as they should. Water also helps keep off the lbs. and speed metabolism.
5. EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. Let’s not go crazy with the “after Holiday dieting”…ok? I understand that you may have put on a few extra pounds and are desperate to lose them, but try not to focus too much on controlling everything that’s going into your body. Try to think of food as nourishment. Make adjustments to your diet as needed, but do not forbid yourself to eat certain foods every once in a while. 

I leave you, beautiful people, with this verse. To me, it is a verse of hope in a season that brings a heaviness I cannot lift on my own.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. ~John 14:27~

how Maslows steps lead to Jesus: according to Lizz

Well here I am, back in the writing game. Writing, like most things in my life, is something that I phase in and out of. I absolutely love everything about it, but somehow, at times, it gets left behind.

I am sure most of you have heard of Maslow's hierarchy of need. I studied it in college and somehow, 3 years later I am finally using it! For those of you who have never heard of this let me fill you in. It's a psychology thing introduced by this dude named Abraham Maslow in 1943. Basically he presented this pyramid...

The bottom of the pyramid represents a human's basic needs and then it works its way up. These needs can occur at the same time, but basically his argument was that when a person fulfills a need at the bottom of the pyramid they go to the next one and so on and so forth.

When I started thinking of Maslow's theory a few days ago I was thinking about it in terms of faith. I spend a lot of my time at my church and with my husband and closest friends, all of whom encourage my relationship with Jesus Christ on a deep spiritual level. But I have begun thinking about what happens to our faith when we are missing the first few things on the pyramid, or if we never had them.

Of course the gift of God's love and peace is that we can find His joy in every situation, but let's be honest, it isn't always that easy. And what about the people Who have never been able to get above the two lowest levels on the pyramid or even the first three. Those people who are starving, homeless, jobless, alone.

Just like so many things in life, the transition from empty to full is one of many steps. Those steps are so incredibly important. It's not the talking about Jesus that brings people to Him, it's being Him with skin on, showing people love by leading them through the steps of the pyramid, not expecting them to launch themselves from the bottom to the top.

Do not underestimate the power of being God's hands and feet. Loving the least of these should not be taken lightly. Feed the hungry, house the homeless, tend to the sick. You don't need to go to another country to do it. There are people in your life right now who need to see Jesus living and breathing through you.