Important to me

This is a quick post today. I just wanted to state somethings very important to me.

1) My family is important, and I KNOW that we will be together, even after death. My religion and faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gives me this knowledge.

2) With that knowledge, I know that families must be started with a man and woman, of which their genders are indeed determined at birth, and whom also have spirits which are of the same gender as their physical body. If one acts otherwise (same gender attraction, gender reassignment, refusal to date, etc.) one risks their eternal salvation.

This is not meant to be a debate, this is not meant to offend. I'm stating what I know to be truth, what I teach my kids, and what I share with people who are important to me.

Utah Weddings...

I saw a silly article about cliché Utah weddings, and reading through it, I giggled! And I also was glad that I only had 2 (and 1/2) of the 10 on the list 😀

http://www.mercolocal.com/blog/10-clich%C3%A9-signs-you-might-be-attending-a-utah-wedding.php

The article goes into a little description of each, but here are the ten things listed:

1. Invitations with Train-Track Photos

2. Giant Princess Dress

3. Lots of Curls

4. Basketball-Court Reception Halls

5. Ice Cream Catering

6. The Line

7. Over-the-Top Centerpieces

8. Family-Made Food

9. Missing Sibling

10. Photo Booths

Darren and I did indeed have #1... And we enjoy the photo!

I don't think my dress was a princess dress, my hair doesn't stay in curls more than about 45 minutes so it was done sorta wavy, we didn't want to have our reception at the church, so we planned it in my parents back yard, but had to move it to the garage due to weather, we had Tandoori Oven cater our reception, we didn't have a formal line, no over-the-top centerpieces, or photo booths...

I did have a missing sibling (but no cardboard cut out 😃) and the 1/2 I mentioned above? We did have family made food, but it was not funeral potatoes or pot luck - we had a sweet pork salad/taco luncheon.

You know what? This claim's to be a cliché list, but most of the weddings I've been to recently also can only claim a few of the items on the list... What things can you claim from your wedding? And was it even in Utah? 

The sacred union of Marriage....

Darren and I had a great discussion with some friends a week ago, and it was great to hear that they had the same opinion on a touchy subject as we do: Divorce. And some of them even have divorced parents and still feel this way.

Except for a few reasons, divorce is never an option to solving problems in marriage. Never. End of story. Exceptions are abuse and/or habitual (or unforgivable) criminal activity.

Any other issue, problem, disagreement or miscommunication can be solved without separation. Especially when the marriage is founded on trust and Christ!

Somewhat unrelated to this:

I read a blog post about someone's opinions on gay marriage, stating that our country's divorce rate is absurd, and there are more single mothers than married mothers and that these straight people have destroyed the sanctity of marriage.

I say, FALSE!! How can men expect to become husbands and fathers, to fulfill their life's calling, to step up and keep the divorce rate from climbing even more when they aren't expected to be part of a marriage any more? How can women hope to become the best version of themselves, which only her husband can truly help in succeeding with, when they aren't expected to be part of a marriage anymore?

In the Bible, Eve was created from Adam's rib. She was created to be a helpmeet and companion. A man and a woman. Then after (Genesis 2:24) they leave their parents and become one flesh.

(Also, I found this awesome explanation of 'help meet' and how its so much more than 'worthy enough for' http://www.womeninthescriptures.com/2010/11/real-meaning-of-term-help-meet.html )

(Nerd Alert!!!) I just finished reading The Blood of Olympus (the final book in Rick Riordan's Hero's of Olympus series). Just in passing, the myth about Zeus splitting men and women apart because they are too powerful as one was mentioned. This quote explains best:

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

― Plato, The Symposium

The original speech goes into how there were three forms of humans, male, female, and one that is both male and female. After Zeus would split them, they would search forever for their other half, some looking for the same gender, some not. However, once the same gender half's found one another, they don't wed. 'The intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse.' In other words, they are pretty much best friends with all the same interests, but never desiring to procreate and grow their family. The male/female humans were the ones that Zeus expected to continue their race...

Anyways... I just wanted to voice my opinions on traditional marriage and disapproval of divorce and same-gender marriage, and the historical support (even if ancient myths) of traditional marriage.

I KNOW that marriage is a sacred union, and must be taken seriously. I know that the Lord puts people in our lives to lead us certain directions and to certain people. I am so grateful for my husband, for his love and support in all that I do, he's truly my missing half. I'm so grateful for the friends and family we have in our lives that are such great examples of strong, happy, healthy marriages. I know that with Christ, nothing is impossible, especially when you have your spouse to help you and your family get where you desire to be.

New recipe sucesses

In a recent post of mine, I said I was going to try new recipes, hopefully one a week. So far, we've actually done well!

The first thing we tried was a shredded beef taco with jicama slaw. I just used leftover roast from a pot roast dinner and cooked it up with red onions, garlic and taco seasoning, served it on tortillas with a mixture of jicama, red onion, dried cilantro and Italian dressing. Surprisingly, my three year old loved them, when my hubby wasn't a fan. And I should have saved some jicama without the dressing, as my one year old liked the bite she got while I was chopping, but she doesn't like Italian dressing. But still, I say its a success!

The latest dish I attempted was a wild rice/potato soup thing with rosemary tilapia. We just made a thick potato soup and added wild rice (rice-a-roni) and served the pan fried seasoned fish on top. Huge success, flavor wise, and everyone loved it, I just need to cook the rice and soup separate next time....

So, does anyone have any yummy recipes that you think are different/unusual that you'd love? Please share!

Reader's Gold!!

Is just read The Maze Runner series (however not the prequel ... Yet...) And thought they were pretty good. The language is a little off - the author has made up his own curse words, but very suspenseful story line. Over all, I'd recommend if you like action/adventure books, especially if you liked the Hunger Games and/or Divergent books.

Speaking of which, I came upon a gold mine while trying to find The Maze Runner, as my local library had two copies and over 100 holds on each...

http://www.ibookpile.com/2014/08/maze-runner-series-james-dashner.html

I have a Kindle app on both my tablet and my phone. That site has tons of ebooks to download! There's a search box in the top right corner that is started with by searching for the titles of books I know are being made into movies, buy after I exhausted that list, I just looked in the 'series' tab. For me - Pure Gold!!! Things like Divergent, Kingdom Keepers, Percy Jackson (and other Rick Riordan books) and more are there!

Most books were an epub format (and all super easy to download), which doesn't work with kindle or kindle apps, but there's another website, www.epub2mobi.com, which converts the files to the right format. (Some didn't work with this site, so I had to use a different one, I just Googled 'convert epub to mobi'). Also, I had to do the converting on my desktop, it wouldn't work on my tablet.

After I had that finished, I could transfer the files strait to the kindle folder on my tablet by connecting via USB.

However, to read the books on both my tablet and phone, I download another of Amazon's apps on my desktop, 'Send To Kindle',  find those files that you converted , right click, and select 'Send to Kindle'. I found added 100 Free ebooks, mostly from the ibookpile site, and still have oodles of space on Amazon's cloud!

(If you have a kindle app, you should automatically have Amazon Cloud Drive storage space,)

(You may not have to convert your files from epub if you are using the Send to Kindle desktop app, I just barely wanted access on 2 devices so mine were already all mobi format)

I hope this will be worth something to someone, as I had a hayday finding all these free ebooks!!!😁😄

Oh I probably should mention, both my devices are android- not sure what format ebooks with kindle on apple would take - if they'd even be different...

Grocery challenge: complete

So its been a while, but I was sorta waiting till I has completed the challenge I had issued myself before I added any new thoughts.

Anyways, the Sam's club grocery challenge from my last post was indeed a success - not only did my family like most of the recipes (except for the one with quinoa) on the list I found, but it lasted us many more meals then the 20 it was intended for. Plus, 2 month's later, we still have a few freezer meals left, and some groceries left from the initial trip!

I considered trying the 20 meals for $150 Costco list, but I decided with the new year I'm going to just try at least one new recipe a week. I have so many cookbooks with so many yummy looking or sounding recipes, and I still plan my menu ahead so we can do budget friendly, and I want my girls to continue to be so adventurous and willing to try at least one bite of anything with out fights.

So here's to some adventures at dinnertime!!

Grocery Challenge

I had a good friend post a link from this site (www.5dollardinners.com) a week or so ago, and I decided to try out the "20 Meals for $150" with options for 2 lists for Sam's Club and 2 lists for Costco.

We started out with the first one for Sam's Club.

The recipes so far are yummy and simple, but the 4 servings that most the recipes make are too much for my family of 4 as two of the mouths are three or under. 😃  So I took it into consideration when I made my initial list. I already had a few things, like rice and canned tomatoes, but after making my list and comparing it to the one the site had, I found it was missing a pricey item: quinoa. Once we went to the store, I found that our Sam's didn't have some of the same things that were on the list, like the spaghetti sauce and salsa; the prices were also different, which i expected. Plus (as stated above) two of our four mouths are very small, So I didn't get as much meat as on the site's list. Then I didn't get the avocado (only my hubby eats it) or mango (that's one I just gotta do fresh 😉) or bakery rolls (I got frozen Rhodes rolls instead). Oh. And we got bacon.

That being said, (before taxes) we spent $137.

And by my estimates, not only will we have the 20 meals plus leftover food, we'll a few extra whole meals and maybe enough to 'create' a whole new meal!

As of right now, I believe I have dinners planned thru Dec 14, but that is taking out most Sundays as we're usually with extended family... We'll see if it works out to not have to buy much for dinners in the next month!

Here's a secret though, I just copied and pasted the recipes from the listing she had, and didn't buy the printables, (being the designer I am, I will make my own printables). However, (the site changed since I last got on it) the links to the recipes aren't in the meal plan page anymore, but i bet the recipes are still on the site.