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A Taxing Hodgepodge? Think Again!

Posted on February 1, 2012 by auburnchick

Go ahead and be envious of the creative titles I come up with for my Hodgepodge posts.

heehee

I’m feeling goofy.  Sorry.  It’s been an i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-i-n-g two weeks at school, and I fear that either pre-menopause or teenage highs and lows are invading my body.

Anyhoo, join in the fun, link up with Joyce, and visit other Hodgepodge bloggers!

1.  It’s that most wonderful time of the year…tax season! Do you complete your own returns or farm that job out to the professionals?

The Mr. was blessed with a math/financial brain, so he does our taxes each year…with a little help from TurboTax.  He’s just about done, in fact.  Now, if only I could find the papers for the cars we bought the kids last year.  Um…see my previous blog post if you’re wondering how I could lose something that important.

2. This next question comes from Kansas Bob…he posed it in his response to something I asked in an earlier Wednesday post and I asked him if I could add it to the Hodgepodge some day. Today’s the day….

Which do you think has changed you more-love or pain?

I think that I would have to say pain.  Last week, during my classes, I shared some of the hard times I experienced during my childhood.  I wanted them to understand that I understand some of the pain they are going through, despite me looking like I have my act together.  I’ve often wondered why I’ve had to endure the things I’ve been through.  Then, I see why later.

The Bible talks about the refining process.  Precious metal cannot be purified without heat lifting the impurities to the surface.

That’s how it’s been in my life, and ultimately, I’m grateful for the times of growth, despite the pain.

3.  Tangerine Tango has been named color of the year for 2012. Your thoughts? Would I find this color anywhere in your house? How about in your closet? If not, will you be adding this color to your life in some way in 2012? If you’re not sure what tangerine tango looks like click here.

While you won’t find this color in my house, you might find it on my fingernails!  What a great spring color!

4.  Are you a collector? What do you collect and does it get admired, used, and/or dusted regularly?

I used to collect Christmas village pieces, but the collection got so large that it takes hours to set up and put away, so I haven’t used it in a while.

Something I do collect that that you will see around my house is…YARN!!

As a knitter, I feel it is my duty to buy it as often as possible and show it off.  Thought I don’t have time to knit much right now, the yarn sits in front of me…in baskets around the house…calling like a siren…”AuburnChick…take a break…knit me into something…”

Yes, I’ve completely lost my marbles.  Don’t judge.  You could be next.

5.  February is National Heart Month…besides a green salad what is one tasty heart healthy dish you like to prepare?

I love the black bean soup recipe I make from the book, The Daniel Fast, which I posted here with the author’s permission.  It’s vegan friendly, which means it’s completely heart friendly!

6.  When was the last time you had car trouble?

I refuse to answer this question because I don’t want to jinx myself.

7.  Have you been more demanding on yourself lately or less? Is that a good trend?

Oh, definitely more demanding of myself!  I’m a perfectionist and a control freak (see my previous post).  It’s my second year teaching, but honestly, I’ve always demanded a lot of myself…in certain areas of my life.

Ultimately, it’s not the best trend because I’m causing myself undue stress.  I’ve cried a lot the last couple of weeks, feeling like I’m letting my students down as well as myself.

It can be quite difficult to live up to unreasonable expectations.

8.  My Random Thought

I’ve reported that I’ve been having some problems with one of my classes.  I asked the advice of my school’s ROTC instructor, and while he asked to mull it over, he did say something that I’ve been chewing on…

“To get respect, you have to give respect.”

I think it’s safe to assume that as adults, we expect…or rather DEMAND respect from those younger than us.  However, how often do we stop to consider if we’re giving those same people…in my case, my students…that which I’m expecting to receive from them.

Oh, it’s not a pretty thing when you look inside of yourself and see another area you need to work on.

A student, one of my favs, called me out on it today too, telling me that I could have told her nicely that she couldn’t go to the bathroom.  Instead, I snapped at her.

She’s been snippy with me, but does that give me the right to snap right back?  What does that say about respect?

I think about my favorite EPI teacher, and I’m reminded how she always addressed us as either “Mr. So-and-So or Ms. So-and-So.”

You know something?  What she did made our relationship formal.  We had business to take care of.  However, it was respectful, and she received respect in return…even from students who had to redo their assignments time after time.

Respect is something I’m giving a lot of thought to right now.

Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: , , | 13 Comments »

End of the Daniel Fast

Posted on January 17, 2011 by auburnchick

My Daniel Fast officially ended last night.

Although a lot of people might be glad when fasts end, I will tell you that I was not.

I will admit that I struggled during the beginning of the fast.  Some of the food was weird, and my sugar cravings were very hard to overcome.

However, something happened after Day 10 or so.

I started looking forward to dinner time and the preparations I needed to make.

I mentioned before that I was enjoying chopping the vegetables. Salads became tangy when I added chopped apples to them…

Fruits became like dessert.  When you deny yourself regular sugar, your taste buds rejoice at the taste of naturally sweet fruit.

I began trying more recipes and discovering, to my utter surprise, that they tasted good.  Dare I say that I became a decent cook during the last three weeks?

The health benefits from this fast surprised me and were the icing on the cake.  I cannot believe how quickly the flab that was hanging over my belt disappeared.  My thighs, which were getting thicker before, have thinned out.  I have no trouble getting into my pants; the legs are no longer tight.

I used to get headaches regularly.  I think I had one or two at the beginning (probably as a result of my body purging itself of the sugar I’d been regularly depositing).  However, the headaches stopped.

My energy level has gone up.  I no longer come home from school exhausted and brain-dead.  This has been especially important to me because of the classes I am taking.

And sleep…oh sleep.  I am sleeping about seven hours a day, and I wake up feeling great!  I am usually a person who requires ten hours to function decently.

One thing I really enjoyed about the fast was spending time reading a devotion every day.  I usually read devotions with Rooster every school morning, but that’s about all that I have done in that regard.

I’ve actually grown to look forward to my own personal devotion time.

The devotions really gave me food for thought.  Good stuff!!

So, I’ve been giving thought to what I’m going to do now, given all of the physical and spiritual benefits I derived.

I’ve decided to continue the fast….for a while.

My goal is to keep going until I am finished with my certification classes.

That is six months, folks.

I need to function at the highest level possible to get through the workload ahead of me.  I honestly don’t know how I’ll do it if I’m on the roller coaster of sugar/high/low.

I also don’t want to give up my devotion time.

Because the devotions in the book only run through 21 days, I bought this book yesterday…

If you’ve ever tried to find a new devotional, you’ll understand the angst I went through as I looked through the books.

I finally found this one, and it struck a cord with me.  My juniors and seniors are studying the part of English history that Martin Luther impacted so much.  The readings are a little deeper than others I’ve read, which I am thankful for.

The fast taught me that I need to dig into God’s word deeper.

And so I begin the next facet of the fast.  I can’t wait to see what other lessons I am going to learn!

Filed under: Christian | Tagged: | 4 Comments »

The Daniel Fast

Posted on January 8, 2011 by auburnchick

When Chicky came home for Christmas break, one of the first questions she asked me was if I’d like to do the Daniel Fast with her.

Never heard of this?  Well, you can read about it on Susan Gregory’s blog or in her book, The Daniel Fast…

Basically, this is a 21-day fast based on what Daniel, a prophet in the Old Testament, ate during one of his fasts.  During the fast, you are encouraged to stay away from all processed food and eat only a vegetarian diet.  Dairy, sugar, and caffeine are strongly discouraged.

Is it any wonder that it appealed to me?

You know my history.  I’ve been on two ten-day juice fasts in the past.

Plus, all of my daily runs to Starbucks were starting to catch up with me.

Chicky wanted to start before Christmas, but I advised her not too.  The glorious food that would be set before us during the holiday would be too much to deal with emotionally.

So, we started as soon as we got home on the 27th.

Chicky made a long list of the food we would need, and off she went to the grocery store.

Thus began our journey.

In her book, Susan included quite a few recipes, along with daily devotions and other information.

As the days have progressed, my focus has shifted from something I originally set out to do for health reasons to the proper mindset of drawing nearer to God.

I have to admit that the first three days were very difficult.  Although I expected this, having done fasts before, I was surprised at how strong the desire for sugar was.

However, I can honestly say that by day 5, I could walk past the box of chocolate covered cherries that Santa brought me and not even drool.

One of the biggest challenges has been the cooking aspect.

As you may have surmised, I do not enjoy cooking.  The thought of coming up with meal ideas makes me want to run to a corner and cry.

Chicky took care of this chore for the first few days.  I had immersed myself in lesson planning and had little time or interest.  In fact, I’d just as soon go without food than cook.

Chalk it up to laziness.  Honestly, I’m not super-needy in the food department.

However, Chicky does like to eat.  Thus, she cooked.

One night, she made cabbage rolls, and oh my word.  They were divine!  Though she did not care much for the taste of the cabbage, I adored the dish.  I grew up eating cabbage rolls (with meat though), so I have always loved the taste of this vegetable.

Another night, she made stuffed green peppers…

Oh my gosh, but they were sooooo yummy!!

One day, she declared that she was done cooking.  She’d had enough.  So, I took over.

One night I made cabbage soup, using the leftover cabbage from the rolls Chicky made…

I am a soup/stew kind of gal, so naturally my attention was also drawn to the Basic Black Soup recipe.

Now, I love Panera’s black bean soup, so I knew I had to try this recipe.

I don’t know if my cooking skills have improved or if the recipe is that good, but oh my goodness.  The soup was heavenly!

It was one of those nights when I was multi-tasking…watching football…making lesson plans…and I could not resist the pull of that soup.

I kept going back for one more spoonful.

And another.

The longer that soup sat, the thicker and tastier it got.

There was just enough left for two servings, which I saved for Chicky and me to have the next day.

She cautiously tried it and, to her surprise, actually liked it.  A lot.  So much so that she asked me to make it again.

Folks, that is saying something.

So, last night, I made a double recipe.  I had three college kids and one teenager (Rooster) in my house.  Everyone except Rooster ate some (he’s very picky).

It was a huge hit.

Several people have asked me for the recipe, but I knew I could not share it because of copyright issues.

However, I left a message for Susan on her blog, and she quickly and graciously granted me permission to post the recipe here!

So, here it is…

Basic Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped onion
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped celery
  • 2 teaspoons finely chopped jalapeno pepper (use precaution when handling)
  • 2 cans (15 ounces each) black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 can (15 ounces) diced tomatoes, including liquid
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • Salt, freshly ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste

1.  Heat oil in saute pan over medium heat; add onion and garlic and saute for 2 minutes.

2.  Add celery and jalapeno pepper and sweat for 1 to 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.

3.  Place 1 can black beans and 1/2 diced tomatoes and all the water in a large saucepan (if using immersion blender) or blender.  Puree until smooth.

4.  Combine the puree, the remaining beans, and tomatoes with the onion, garlic, celery, and jalapeno in the large saucepan.  Stir in cumin and then season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes as desired.

5.  Cover pot and simmer over medium heat until well heated; reduce heat to low and adjust the lid to release steam while simmering for 20 minutes.  Serve hot.

Makes 6 servings

Gregory, Susan. "Daniel Fast Recipes." The Daniel Fast. Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers,
     Inc., 2010. 130. Print.




A couple of my thoughts…


If you don’t know how to sweat vegetables, google it.  That’s what I did.  It’s very simple.  All you basically do is add them to the pot, turn down the heat to the lowest setting you can, and let them sit there, barely sizzling, for the time prescribed in the recipe.  Don’t put the lid on the pot.  This will steam them.  Sweating does something to the flavors of the vegetables…makes them better, from what I read.


Also, as I said before, this soup gets better the longer it sits.  It really thickens up into a hearty soup, and by sitting, the flavors have time to really permeate throughout the soup.


There are a number of recipes on the Daniel Fast’s web site.  Click here to check those out or just to read other information about it.


Chicky and I haven’t finished the fast yet.  We’re starting day 13.  She won’t be able to do all twenty one days because she has to return to college on Monday (boo).  I’m not sure what she’s going to take away from this experience.  Everyone fasts for different reasons or with different goals.


I’m still figuring out what I’m supposed to carry away from my experience.


One thing I have become aware of is that I am beginning to enjoy cooking again.  I think I’m starting to chop my veggies using the same technique as TV chefs.  How’s that for putting my TV viewing to good use, eh?


“Real” food actually tastes pretty good.  Fruits have become sweeter now that I don’t have my taste buds trained to respond to processed sweeteners.


I’m really enjoying my waistline, which seems to be getting smaller.  It probably hasn’t shrunken as much I think it has, but I feel better knowing I’m putting better stuff in my body.  I can tell that my thighs aren’t as jiggly.  My pants are fitting better, and this makes me happy.  Those who know me in person would scoff at this, but when you’re petite, you feel every extra bit of fat you accumulate.


Mentally, I’m in a good place.  God is drawing me nearer.  I need this…especially right now as my life is about to get crazy with the advent of my teaching certification classes.


And so day 13 begins.


I wonder what’s for dinner tonight…


		

			Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged:  |			3 Comments »
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