Hodge Podge Friday: Life isn't about compartments.

So what's Hodge Podge Friday's, you ask? Well, let me tell ya. It's going to be a project--a mixed bag of goodies. You'll never know what you're going to get, but I hope that you'll leave with something you can take along for yourself :). You'll get anything from a mix of new recipes, a new DIY project, some random or not-so-random photography, musings on life, musical recommendations, etc... 


Friday posts may have no rhyme or reason to them, but I'm going to embrace that. One of my goals this year is to do what I can to break away from a compartmentalized life. Life isn't about compartments--it's about experiencing it in whole. Who's with me?

Stay for a little while, stay for the whole time, it's your call!

Come along now:  

#1: Roomie Pizza-making Date

I love my roomie, but we hardly get time to hang out. Our schedules are polar opposites of each other's. She gets to see her man during the week, and I get to see mine on weekends, so that adds to our shortage of hang time. We set some time aside to make some delicious pizzas. I was too hungry to take legit pictures. 

It's too bad I can't take pictures of what my taste buds experienced:

[Butternut Squash and Rosemary and 

Pesto Salad Pizza (If you want this recipe, leave me a comment!]

#2: My Roomie loves Terrariums, and so do I!

She works down the street from the LA flower mart, 

so went nuts with succulents, stones, and our vases.

See?

#3: Don't take for granted a good chocolate chip oat cookie recipe.

Here's why:

It took a lot of willpower not to eat these 

little beauties for breakfast (Ok, I had one). These are best a little warm, so eat them fresh or throw them into the microwave for a few seconds.

What You'll Need:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 cup butter or margarine (a stick)

1/2 cup granulated sugar (I always use a little less than what the recipe calls for)

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup rolled oats

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

What To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 3-4 baking sheets.

2. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into mixing bowl. Set aside

3. With an electric mixer, cream together butter or margarine and the sugars. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy (TIP: If your butter isn't room temp, slice it up into pieces and microwave for 20 seconds)

4. Add flour and beat on low speed until well blended. Stir in rolled oats and choc chips. Drop heaped teaspoonfuls on baking sheets, spacing dough about 1 inch apart. 

5. Bake for about 15 minutes (depends on oven power) until just firm around the gue but still soft to the touch in the center. With a slotted spatula, transfer cookies to wire rack to cool.

Makes 60

Recipe taken from Cookies by Hilaire Walden

#4: On a Mission: Collecting

I love going to thrift stores and finding super deals

on super things. Well, i'm collecting amber or yellow-colored glasses, vases, etc. Why? Well, stay tuned :).

 These two are my newest finds.

#5: The Feed Store, in Long Beach, CA.

 If you live in Long Beach, CA, checkout The Feed Store on Retro Row. It's the newest, vintage-thrift store whose proceeds go to providing food and other necessities to those in need. They have everything from clothes to home goods.

I found some cute doilies to craft with: 

 #5:Know that you're loved and have the capacity to love others.

There's a Love that's beyond words, beyond feelings, and beyond your wildest dreams. It's not fleeting. It's eternal. It's hopeful. In it there is joy and peace.

"Oh, how He loves us."

Thanks for comin' along for my first Hodge Podge Friday. I hope you come back and visit really soon. Have a great day :). 

The Duality: Joy and Grief

I was sitting in a classroom observation today when the incessant vibrations of my phone continued to buzz against my lap. At first, I tried to ignore it, but then I figured it would be best for me to pick up (thankfully, the class my friend was teaching was on it's break).

All I could hear was my mom gasping for breath in the middle of sobbing as she tried to tell me that my grandpa had died. I had just talked to my mom probably a half an hour just to catch up, so getting this phone call with her in the described condition caught me a bit off guard. Though we've been expecting this for a while, there's nothing that can really prepare you for the loss of such an amazing person. My mom was impacted doubly seeing as how she and my dad were going to visit my grandpa tomorrow. 

When I first got the news, I had no option but to keep it together. I was with students and a colleague. Having gone into automatic mode, I was able to stay that way until probably an hour after class was over. As I was driving home, I broke down into tears for the first time. I have no doubt that these little bouts will continue to come as the truth of it really settles in.

Unable to focus on my work, I sat and prayed for a while. Part of my spirit is so excited to know that my grandpa is home with his Maker. He's is finally home! I can only imagine the celebration that happened in the heavens today as he was ushered into the presence of our God. The other part of my spirit is experiencing a certain level of grief, and then the Lord gave me this:

"The humanity that I know so well is that which causes Me to grieve as you grieve in loss, but My glory is also the glory that rejoices as one leaves the earthly and is ushered into the heavenly."

Yes, there is celebrating today, but the truth of it is, I can also find solace in the fact that Jesus understands my grief. He too experienced the duality of the situation, and I find great peace in that as I'm reminded how much He understands everything that we go through. This aspect of who God is reflects the depth of His love for us. 

Praise you, Father. Our lives are best lived in Your hands. 

 

 

Timely.

I started to write, but nothing seemed to suffice. If you've read the last few posts of mine, you'll remember that I wrote a blog about my grandpa. He's in the hospital again. Last Thursday he told my uncle that he was experiencing severe stomach pains, and the doctors informed my uncle that his stomach is shrinking. Eating is essentially impossible, and if anything is swallowed, it's excruciatingly painful. The doctors are giving him about 72 more hours. He is SO ready to go home. I also can't help but think that my grandma is so excited to be able to see her man again after 9 years of being apart :).

I'm in the midst of a Beth Moore Bible study and came across one of her poems. When I first heard it, I was immediately swept away in the posture of worship that it facilitates, but when I read it again, the only thing I could think of was the way it fully reflects my grandpa's life from the moment he met Jesus until he takes his last. I'm fighting back tears as I think about it, but you have to know that these tears are the kind that I can feel with my whole body--the kind that are bit required for healthy grieving but mostly comprised of deep, deep joy and celebration. He's about to be ushered into the Kingdom of Heaven by His Maker. I can think of no greater joy. He is going to be so welcomed!

I'll leave you with the poem. I hope it causes you to go to your knees, or to lift your eyes to the skies in wonder, or to raise your hands in adoration. I hope it stirs a holy joy within you.

River of Delights

I want to drink from your river of delights.

I want to dance before Your throne.

I want to chase You to the depths and the heights.

I want to live all my way home.

I want my eyes to be open till they're close,d

and faith gives way to that holy sight.

But while I've the dust of Earth between my toes,

I want to live with all Your might.

I want to shout hallelujah while I can,

Living life in the abundant and beyond.

Splashing in Your Spirit and lifting up my hands, 

I want peace life a river, not a pond.

I want to drink from Your river of delights.

I want to dance before Your throne. 

I want to chase You to the depths and to the heights.

I want to live all my way home. 

Grandpa's currently in San Jose, and I'm hoping to make a trip up there on Friday. Grandpa, wait for me, please.

Ain't no Easy Bake.

In a culture of microwaves, drives thru's and achieve-thus-and-such in x number of days, we've lost sight of a great necessity. We've loosened our grip on the process of being restored because it apparently doesn't happen quickly enough. It's too hard. It's too painful. We don't see results quickly enough. We want to be free, but we don't want to be freed from the very things that get in our way of attaining it. Habit, comfort, you name it.

Restoration is, in fact, a meticulous process. If it weren't, how would we explain the beautiful tapestries that He so carefully weaves (our lives). Again, I go back to the fact that our God desires wholeness--all of who we are to be restored and made well. We may disregard the teeny tiny little snags in the tapestry, but He desires the restoration of all parts. The process requires discipline and endurance. Though we may feel frail at times, it's imperative that we see how tightly woven the threads are. I hope we are astonished as to how the Weaver's hand has made us strong and sturdy.

In the middle conversation I had recently, I briefly but openly admitted that i'm in the midst of this process. You know when you want more than what you've typically had--or to experience more than you have before? Well, I know that deeper, fuller restoration has to happen in order for me to fully receive all that He has for me and for me to be freed up fully for His work. Sure it's easier to bolt, but I didn't ask for easy. I'm asking for life, for vibrancy, and for freedom. Does my flesh get in the way and tell me that it's too hard or too scary? Yeah, but my flesh is flawed and thankfully His Spirit in me is not:

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be made complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." 


We have great hope that what we are going through puts us in a posture of looking forward to something amazing. And even better? It readies us to behold the amazing: Him.  Exciting :D.

May we allow Him to do this work in us--more deeply, more fully, from the tops of our heads to the bottom of our feet.

So this time around I pray for increased discipline, joy in the process, and that we would see with His eyes.

Finally found chords to a song that really strikes me, so I'm sharing the song and the learning it process with anyone who's reading: 

Word to [His] Mother!

After writing a reflection for about a half an hour, a quick slip of the finger caused me to lose my whole post as I was typing out the last line. Go figure. I found myself frustrated for a split second until I realized that I could express the heart of what I was saying without taking you on all the semi-relevant tangents my mind went on.

I'm been wowed a lot by how creative and how funny God is lately. I mean, it may seem strange that God would be funny,  but why? If we're made in His likeness, we obviously can't be the only ones with a sense of humor.

This morning, I found myself thoroughly entertained, wowed and amused by the account of Mary visiting Elizabeth in Luke 1: "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit." Elizabeth shares with Mary: "When the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy." Baby John leaped for joy when Baby Jesus was in the house (I had to...).  C'mon, doesn't it make you want to chuckle because there aren't words to express how awesome that visual is?! Apart from John's joy, it's pretty awesome just trying to imagine how much joy was going on in that room.

This passage strikes a number of chords, but the most prominent finds its source in verse 11 of Psalm 16. "In Your presence is the fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever." This particular verse has been a constant theme that's been woven into the tapestry of my life for the last couple of months, and i'm thankful that I'm continuing to see how many layers of that there are--if you're curious, the answer i've settled on is that there are infinite levels :D.

Even as a wee babe in the womb of His mother, Jesus already brought about great joy. His presence demands joy would not be an appropriate adage because it would allude to some level of force. Though, we can rest in the fact that His presence evokes joy; It is joy. 

Thank you, Lord--for wanting us to experience greater measures of joy...for eagerly inviting us into your presence.