What I'm loving Wednesday

Linked up at This Kind of Love

I'm loving the random community events Scott and I get to attend through the bank. On Friday night, we went to a fundraiser for the local detoxification/residential treatment program for people with drug addictions. While the highlight of the night was supposed to be hearing former Arkansas Razorbacks talk about their time on the team, what really resonated with me were the moving testimonies of several recovering addicts who had been through the treatment center. Their stories of finding themselves at the lowest of lows and, through grace and the help of those at the center, found themselves sober and trying to undo the wrongs of their past were beautiful. 

I'm loving that I won a sewing lesson at Bunco last night! I'd been lamenting most of the week that I can't sew and just want to be able to make a simple skirt. I should've listened when mom tried to teach me. As luck would have it, my Easter egg coupon (such a cute idea) was for a sewing lesson. Well, at first it was a pedicure, but that got stolen from me. No hard feelings though. I'm excited about my sewing lesson.

I'm loving if you would vote for me in the Jess LC Design Your Look contest! (Shameless. Just shameless.) Simply click here and write "Jennifer H. Facebook" in the comments. It's that easy! Some jewelry and $200 could be mine if you do (not to mention bragging rights over some girl named Tequila).

Bits and pieces: picnics on the front lawn; the royal wedding in Legos; the Chalk n' Talk app (it's like Pictionary); "Cosmic Love" by Florence and the Machine; and this picture because it speaks to my soul.

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Happy blogiversary!

It's hard to believe that one year ago I began this little blog. And look how she's grown. I wasn't sure how long I'd keep it up when I wrote that first post, having hopped on (then off) that Xanga trend a while back and attempted (and failed) to pick up blogging intermittently after that. I'm glad this one stuck, though. 

(You know what makes an excellent blogiversary gift? Voting for me to win some lovely jewelry and $200 at Makeunder My Life. Simply visit their site and write "Jennifer H. Facebook" in the comments!)

To honor this occasion, I thought it would be fun to recap the top three most read posts of the year. 

1. Where I discover I'm turning into my father: Tackling the root of my question asking/borderline interrogation 

2. Love me do: The story of "our song" (or the song that I choose to call "our song")

3. Off the wagon, off the treadmill: Working out just wasn't working out for me 

I look forward to see what the next year will bring! Thanks for reading!

Vote for me! (Please?)

Click banner to visit voting site

I've entered a contest through Jess LC to win two pieces of their jewelry as well as $200 toward the look I've created. I would love love love it if you would take a minute to pop over there and vote for me. Click on the banner to get to the voting site. All you have to do is leave a comment saying you're voting for "Jennifer H. (Facebook)." Scroll all the way to the bottom for the comment form.

Here's the look you'll be voting for:

There's a hug in it for you if you do! Voting ends Friday, so feel free to bribe others to vote for me as well. :)

Thanks so much!

Direct link to comments form:http://makeundermylife.com/vote-for-your-favorite-design-your-look/#comments

I do not have Rubella

I guess a more on topic title would be "I'm going to grad school," but, if I've learned one thing as a writer, it's that you've got to hook them with the title. Rubella is excellent bait.

But yes, starting this summer, I'll be pursuing my Master of Education with an emphasis in English here at Harding. I'll still be working full time, but I'll be taking classes at night. I guess I just couldn't take that Scott would be the only "master" in our house.

But let's get back to the Rubella, OK? I've been gathering up all the pieces to my application puzzle this week, and it's turned out to be a much larger undertaking than I'd originally thought. I'm a weirdo and love filling out forms, so when it came application time, I was pretty excited. But then there's all the extra stuff that I wasn't  planning on.

The first piece is my teaching licensure. When I graduated in 2008, I was given an initial teaching license, which gave me three years of teaching time and passing the Praxis III before I got my full license. Basically it was a teaching license with training wheels — you can't ride it that way forever.

Well, I never ended up teaching, and that license found its way into a closet. That closet found itself in the cross-hairs of my always cleaning husband. If you've done the math, then you know that three-year teaching license has expired. You throw out other expired things, right — like milk, medicine and sandwich meat? (Side note on expired things: Ask me about the cucumber that we left in the fridge too long that got soggy and soft, pickling itself in its own produce bag. I guess there's no need to ask me now, though, since I just told you all the good parts. It's why I have to be very seriously committed to eating the cucumber when I buy one now.)

In that same way, I threw out my expired license. The trash bag it now calls home was picked up three days before I met with the director of the graduate program who told me I needed it. This is my luck. So now I'm trying to figure out how to get an expired teaching license reissued to go with my application. That's dilemma number one.

Dilemma number two was my immunization records and the Rubella which I do not have. In order to enroll, I had to verify that I'd had all my shots and would not spread deadly diseases to my classmates. My initial reaction was, haven't I already done this? I mean, to get into Harding as an undergraduate, I filed that paperwork. Have I been exposed to mumps since then? Probably not.

My luck turned around, though, and I was able to find that the University still had my shot records on file, signed by my pediatrician in Nashville. That was kind of funny to see for some reason. I find it strange to thing that shots I had way back in 1985 can affect my enrollment status in 2011, but what do I know?

I am also not a chicken pox threat as my immunization form states I had them in May 1993. I just remember it was after I'd been to Disney World for the first time and being thoroughly disappointed by the oatmeal bath, picturing it more like sitting in a giant bowl of thick oatmeal and not a tub with some oats floating around. But, again, what do I know?

Dilemma number three is the letter of recommendation. That's always an awkward one and a little presumptuous. I mean, you pick out people you know (or at least hope) will write you a good one. In high school, you ask your favorite teacher, not the teacher whose class you sleep or talk through (not that I did that). The question is who do I pressure into writing one of these forced complements? You can see the predicament.

Overall, though, I'm excited about starting school again, in a truly nerdy way. I miss being pushed and learning new things, not to mention school supplies, which I love so much. I look forward to what the next two years will bring, not to mention the cool hood I'll get to wear at graduation.

I'll have regalia! But not Rubella.

What I'm loving Wednesday

Linked up at This Kind of Love

I'm loving my little tomato plant. It's become like my child. I worry about it and check on it several times a day. I brought it under the cover of the patio during the terrible thunderstorms on Monday because I didn't think it could handle the wind. Thanks to Cassie, it is now known as Sally in honor of the character in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sally Tomato. I'm toying with the idea of weekly pictures of its growth like people take weekly pictures of their growing baby belly. Yeah, it's reached a crazy point.

I'm loving Pinterest. It's become my new Internet addiction. Basically, you can "pin" things you find around the Web to one centralized location, with links so you can find it later. It beats my "Ideas" folder on my desk top, full of swiped Facebook pictures of people's hair I like and jumbled Etsy listings. I have several boards in progress: style inspiration, hair ideas, what my future child's nursery will look like, crocheted stuff (which includes a really awesome ball of yarn and crochet hook tattoo), and the Beatles, as seen below.

I'm loving seeing God's hand active in my life. Scott and I decided we needed to improve our prayer life, namely in prayer with each other. We started last night and are already seeing God at work. It's amazing and sad how easy it is to neglect one of the most powerful "tools" provided to us.

Bits and pieces: Greek salads; playing bean bag toss in the backyard with my beau; alliteration; and raspberries.

Brothers and sisters

Short people and standing-room-only concerts don't mix. My sister and I learned that the hard way this weekend. Courtney came down (up? over?) to see the Avett Brothers concert as part of the First Thaw Festival  that Harding was hosting this past weekend.

The concert wasn't in the Benson, per the usual Harding concert standard, but in the Rhodes Field House. It gave the concert a different vibe, although predominantly white church of Christ folks look quite silly standing at a concert. We don't know what to do with ourselves. We severely lack rhythm. And only half of us feel comfortable clapping to music.

After trying, and failing, to sit in the higher up seats so we could see, Courtney and I staked out our spot in the back, trying to maintain a good distance from others. We like our space and prefer not to smell the body odors of others. That also failed. At standing concerts, no one ever, ever stays where they started off. Can't they just sell the tickets for a marked off square foot? I can stand in my little box happy and free from the body heat of others? We got stuck behind some mammoth guys who obviously obeyed their mothers and ate their veggies to grow big and strong. 

"Sister, sister! Never knew how much I'd missed ya."

I always feel like I'm too set in my old lady ways when I go to things like this. I like to be in bed at a reasonable hour, and loud noises bother me and my already poor hearing. It's always nice to have a partner in old-ladiness, though, and Courtney is just that. By the end of the night, we were bemoaning our sore feet and bad backs, ringing ears and scratchy voices, not to mention how hot it was inside. Yes, there's no denying we're sisters.

All of that aside, though, we did have a wonderful time. We did manage to steal a few glimpses of the Brothers on tip-toes and peaking around the broad shoulders of others. The Avett Brothers put on an amazing show, and we were happy that they played all of the songs we wanted to hear. Even if it meant being in bed far past my bedtime.

Prior to the concert, Scott and I took advantage of the pretty day and meandered around town. After a trip to Lowe's, we had all the makings of our first patio garden. Scott got a bunch of herbs, and I got a tomato plant. There's nothing quite like a homegrown tomato, and I'm reminded of that every summer I don't have any. This year I'm changing that.

I've become very protective of my fledgling vine. I pulled it out of the elements last night because I was scared today's thunderstorms would wreck it. In 50 days, my Early Girl tomato plant should be producing fruit. We'll see if I don't kill it first. 

Good eats: Nutella almond cookies

After my post about the Kitchen Aid mixer, I got a lot of requests to share my Nutella almond cookies recipe. So here it is, by popular demand. Don't say I never did anything for you.

I must first give credit where credit is due. This is a tweaked version of a Giada De Laurentiis recipe.

Cast of characters (a.k.a. ingredients):

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup Nutella

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

3/4 cup slivered almonds

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

(Chef's note: You don't need every shape and size Lock-n-Lock to make these cookies. We just happen to be avid collectors.)

Once you've set all your ingredients out and photographed them like so (or not; it's up to you), put your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl and mix it around a bit. This is what those in the biz call your "dry ingredients." Also preheat your oven to 375. 

In another bowl (the bowl to your mixer or another larger bowl if you're using a hand mixer), plop the butter, sugar, brown sugar and Nutella. Nothing makes me feel more pro than when I remember to set out the butter beforehand so it gets all warm and soft. Go, me! 

Cream those ingredients together with your mixer for about 4 minutes. It's going to smell really good. Lick the spoon you dug the Nutella out with while it mixes. This is a very important step.

Once they're creamed together, add the egg and vanilla and mix for another 2 minutes. (Ina — you know, Ina, the Barefoot Contessa — would fall to the floor of her pretty little house in the Hamptons if she knew I cracked the egg directly to the the batter and not into a separate bowl to make sure the egg was good. But what Ina doesn't know won't hurt her. I'm sure Jeffery would catch her before she hit the ground anyway.)

Now mixing with a spoon or rubber spatula, mix in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in thirds until well incorporated. Add the chocolate chips and almonds and mix them in until combined. Side note on the almonds: I used to use sliced almonds until one day the store was out and all I could get were slivered. I actually prefer the slivered now because they don't get as overly crisp as the sliced ones do. I've also been tempted by chopped walnuts or pecans a time or two and thought they would add something special to these cookies. If you go that route, let me know how it turns out.

Using a tablespoon, scoop the dough into balls and place them on a cookie sheet thusly: 

The original recipe recommends baking them for 10-12 minutes, but I've found 8 to be the magic number. They get crisp on the bottom while remaining gooey in the middle. Once they've baked, let cool on a wire rack. You'll get about 30 cookies out of this recipe.

Eat one straight off the sheet. You'll thank me.

Now, go forth and bake. Have a happy weekend!