Random Ramblings.

Wednesday:

I went to school. And then I drove to the happiest place in Alabama (that's Auburn, fyi. Not Disney. But Disney is pretty cool too). And then, I studied. And then, Ivy and I had tacos. And went to church. And studied Romans 12 (pretty cool, you should check.it.out.). And then, I went nighty-night and was freezing cold. Even with the portable heater and a gazillion blankets.

Thursday:

I woke up. And spent all day working on a powerpoint on my unit plan for my educational technology class. But, it's really pretty and cute, and that's all that really matters, right? Yeah. And then Ivy and I had pizza. And then, we went to DIVE and sang really awesome worship songs to a really awesome God. And heard the Word (1st Corinthians 13). Always a good thing! And had an awkward moment with some Mormons. And then went nighty-night. And wasn't freezing cold because I moved the heater closer to me. Yay.

Friday:

Woke up. Ate biscuits that were cooked by my awesome roommate. :) Ate a random lunch of tacos and pizza (yay leftovers!). Then, met up with people for the Auburn gymnastics meet against Georgia. Figured out that gymnastics would be a very painful sport. Especially for clumsy people. Saw Auburn beat Georgia for the first time ever. Got an ice cream craving (not good when ice cream makes you sick. Found out TCBY cake batter frozen yogurt is pretty awesome. "Awkward" became the word of the day. Came back to a complete power outage at the apartment. And a eerie sky. And trains on the train tracks. So, Ivy pulled out the flashlights. And we looked over camp scrapbooks for over an hour. And then, power came on. Bed soon. :)

be.

Come to Me, you who are weak
Let My strength be yours tonight
Come and rest, let My love be your bed
Let My heart be yours tonight

Peace be still, Peace be still
Please be still and know that I am God
and know that I am God

Come empty cup, let Me fill you up
I'll descend on you like a dove tonight
Lift your head, let your eyes fall into Mine
Let your fear subside tonight

-Rush of Fools "Peace be Still"

Is it possible to forget to simply be? One of the definitions Webster's gives of the word be is to "remain undisturbed or uninterrupted. I think so often, myself included, we get caught up in everyday life and we forget to be. We forget that sometimes we need to just slow down. I know one of my biggest problems is that I don't always make room of uninterrupted time. It's not that I don't want to or that I don't desire my relationship with God to grow deeper...it's that I forget. I spend my free time reading, or Facebooking, or catching up on my lengthy blog list. I hate sitting still and just listening to the quiet. It's awkward. It's uncomfortable. But, I believe that sometimes (okay...maybe more often than not) God wants us to enter into this "awkward and uncomfortable" silence so that we can listen for his still, small voice. I used to think that if God really wanted to tell me something, he would yell it really loud. He'd say, "LAUREN! I WANT YOU TO GO DO THIS!" and there would be no way to deny it. I also imagined some echoing. Like "LAUREN, Lauren, lauren..." Something like that. But, I've come to discover that God doesn't always do this. He doesn't write it out in the dirt. I mean, I think it's crystal clear when he wants you to do something, BUT I think it's also easy for us (me) just to ignore it and get on with our lives. And then, we grow immune to hearing and we just...don't.

I like to be in control of the situation. Like, when I'm doing a group project...I normally end up doing most of the work. Because then I know it's going to get done and I know it's going to look like I wanted it to. Nice and neat. So, this whole concept of being doesn't work well. Because it requires me to be still...calm down...and turn myself over and lose control to God. Which isn't a BAD thing. It's actually really good and we should all try it sometime. That doesn't mean it's easy. I'm just saying what the Bible says. Exodus 14:14 says "The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." Psalm 37:7 says "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes." Psalm 46:10 says "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Zechariah 2:13 says "Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling." It's pretty obvious we need to slow down and be still.

I mean, the Bible says so.

When we're in the middle of a battle (figuratively or literally), we need to just be still and listen to God. He knows EVERYTHING. He even knows what I'm going to eat tomorrow for lunch. Surely he knows what is best. Like, sometimes it's the easiest just to be and listen for God when nothing else is going on. When it's all good. I can give over some of my control then. But, like, when everything's going wrong, I'm failing Astronomy, and have a HUGE test tomorrow, I don't really want to trust anyone with any of my control power. I like to make sure I know what's going on. But that's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to give it all to God and listen for direction from HIM. And then. Supposedly. If this book is right, he'll work it all out. It might not be the way we wanted, planned for, or anticipated, but he has a plan and we just need to trust him.

We just need to be.

Still.

Quiet.

Trusting.

Un-control-freak-ish.

Just...

Be.

blessed.

I'm ridiculously blessed.

I have a home to keep me warm and dry when it's cold and rainy outside.

I have a family that loves me (and I love them) oh-so-much.

I'm not worried about having clean drinking water or food to eat for supper.

The town I live in didn't have an earthquake happen a few days ago that knocked down pretty much every building and killed a bunch of people and is causing mass chaos.

Yep.

I'm blessed.

So, I was reading blogs today and I stumbled across a link to TheRustedChain on etsy. Now, let me warn you, I have a weakness for pretty much all things etsy, I just don't ever act on them. But, you see...today...I found IT. The perfect opportunity to help somebody that really needs help...and get something super cute, too! TheRustedChain is selling a necklace that says "blessed" on it (there's something to do with Haiti in the name too!) and $10 from the sale of each one will go to Compassion International to help with disaster relief in Haiti! (And no-I'm not being compensated in any way shape or form! I just think that it's super cute and like to help people that need help!)

This is what it looks like:

image from TheRustedChain.

In other news, I've heard that you can text a certain number (I'm not sure of it) to donate $10 to The Red Cross. Donations to World Vision and Compassion are other good choices that will distribute aid where it is needed the most. Here (click it, my links don't like to show up right!) is a link to a family that is living in Haiti as missionaries right now, and they post really good up to date information of what is going on over there. Of course, I think the best thing we need right now, and what many people say is the biggest need of all is prayer. Right now, the only thing that can "fix" the brokenness is God, and our way of talking to Him is prayer! Pray for the people in Haiti, for the missionaries and aid workers to best know how to reach and help the people, and for God's will to be done in this whole situation. :)

I'm blessed.

apple pie.

America is supposedly known for baseball and apple pie.

I didn't know why until I Wikipediaed it (yes...I just made Wikipedia into a verb). And apparently the apple pie part had to do with the colonists. But, not really. Because there weren't apples in early American history and the apple trees had to be sent over from England...and most of the time he apples were just used to make cider...or something like that. It wasn't until the 1970s that the apple pie became known as a symbol of America, and even then, it was just an advertising scheme. Apparently, since cider was outlawed during the prohibition, people didn't think too fondly of apples. So, the Apple Marketing Board coined phrases like "an apple a day keeps the doctor away!" and "as American as apple pie!". So, that's your apple pie history lesson for the day...according to Wikipedia.

Anyways, teaching people about the history of apple pie was not what I set out to do in writing this blog post (though, I did write a speech on the history of peanut butter for Public Speaking last year!). I wanted to share something. Something super important.

THIS.(click on it. it's a link.)

It's also know as the "Scrumptious Apple Pie" or heaven on Earth. (Okay. So I might be a bit biased in the fact that I made it for Bible Group on Tuesday night and I think it tasted pretty awesome and so did everyone else and everyone was like "Lauren you're like the bestest cook ever!" and I don't hear that very often so it's super cool. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But, you get the idea.)

It all started when I was looking for something to cook for Bible Group desert. I was one Facebook getting ready to leave to go by Chickfila and get a chicken biscuit for breakfast (yes, the details matter!) and Mom said I should probably look up a recipe so we could run by Publix while we were in town (because Publix is super awesome like that!) So, I decided I should go look at Pioneer Woman's recipes. And I went to the Fruit Category for the deserts because I was looking for something healthy. And I found IT. And IT looked amazing. And not healthy at all. But, I told Mom that I HAD to make IT. Because, I had my mind set on some apple pie now. So, I made it (and Mom helped me get those apples ready!) and even though the pie crust overflowed a bit and it wasn't the prettiest pie ever, it tasted amazing. And I'm making it again. But putting it in a bigger pie crust. Or putting less filling in.

So, you should all follow the link above, because The Pioneer Woman has more detailed instructions and pictures that are prettier than mine. But, here's the recipe for those that might be curious.

Scrumptious Apple Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 whole Pie Crust
• 6 cups (to 7 Cups) Peeled And Sliced Granny Smith Apples
• ½ whole (juice Of) Lemon
• ½ cups Sugar
• 4 Tablespoons Flour
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• ½ cups Flour
• 1-½ stick Butter
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• ½ cups Quick Oats
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• ½ cups Pecans, Chopped
• ½ jars (or More) Caramel Topping

Preparation Instructions:

In a bowl mix peeled apples, lemon juice, sugar, flour and ¼ teaspoon salt. Set aside. For crumb topping, cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter, then add in brown sugar, oats, and ¼ teaspoon salt.

Add apples to prepared pie shell and top with crumb topping. Cover crust edges with aluminum foil and bake in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil from crust and place back into the oven for another 30 minutes. Chop pecans, and when five minutes remain, sprinkle them over the pie. Finish baking. Quiver with anticipation.

Remove the pie from the oven and pour ½ jar (or more, if you’re feeling dangerous and naughty) of caramel topping over the top. Allow to cool slightly before serving, or don’t if you can’t wait. Eat. Enjoy. Smile. Cry. Then smile again.

not me monday.

[Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head on over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.]

So, if you've paid any attention to the blog as of late, you should know that I have Project 365. Seeing as I started the project with such good intentions, I most definitely did not have to take multiple pictures in one day that summarized previous days, so that I would not get behind. Nope. Not me.

Seeing as I'm a nice Christian girl that only thinks happy thoughts and never negatively upon people....I was totally not jealous when I read the fact the MckMama was getting to go on a trip with Compassion International Bloggers to Kenya. I mean, that makes no sense since I have classes that week, right? And I most definitely did not have the thought that I needed to sponsor a child through Compassion so that maybe one day I could be cool enough to go one of those super cool trips that everyone keeps talking about. Nope. Not me.

I was not a complete nerd that took pictures of myself with my backpack on ready for my first day back at school for the semester. You can definitely not see the aforementioned picture on my Project 365 blog. They did not turn out looking like they belonged on MySpace. I was not super pumped about spending the day out of the house in class. Because I'm definitely not a dork like that. Nope. Not me.

I was not completely excited when I showed up to my Educational Technology class this morning to find out that we would be using Blogger and creating blogs. And I was not further excited about the fact that I would get to create a Unit Plan and Lesson Plans and all that fun teacher stuff. I did not proceed to spend thirty minutes in the Teacher's Edition Textbooks section in the library to find the perfect book and then not find one that was "good enough". I'm not that big of a dork. Nope. Not me.

I did not get super excited about the prospect of decorating and blogging on yet another blog (because I do not have a reason now to procrastinate and make blog headers and make it all pretty). And-my first thought upon learning about our classroom blogging adventure was definitely not "Yes! Now I can use those super cute back to school digiscrapbooking kits that I have!". When I saw other people in my class pick super boring and not colorful Blogger templates, I did not cringe. Because, I'm a dignified person. And dignified people don't let silly things like blogs and super cute digiscrapbooking kits rule their lives. Oh, and- I was not the only person in my class that blogs. And I'm not going to put a link right here to my EdTech blog just because I think it's super cute even though it doesn't have any blog posts yet. Nope. Not me.

greatness.

they say

it's great*

to be

an Auburn** tiger!

*or we think it's pretty great to be an Auburn tiger. January 2, we went to see the Auburn Men's Basketball team play Georgia Southern in Auburn. As you can see from the above pictures, Auburn won 95-75. War Eagle! :)

**As opposed to an LSU tiger. Or a Clemson Tiger. Or a Missouri Tiger. (Yes, I googled "College Football Tiger") You get the idea.

(Oh-and you may have seen this post a few days ago. But, Blogger was messing up on me and so I had to delete it. But, hopefully we're all good now!)

Random Ramblings.

If you haven't already noticed...Christmastime is over and the New Year is here. That being said, I still have a few last minute pieces of 2009 pieces to post.

Firstly...we made Gingerbread men on Christmas Day. Here are some pictures. I envisioned this superdedooper post with a bunch of pictures and a cute little story...but it failed. So, instead you just get some cute pictures. :)

Secondly...Max and I just returned from the youth ski trip up to Winterplace in West Virginia. It was cold and snowy (haha...I know, you'd never expect that one!). Max skied, and I played the role of lodge mommy. Cue cute, snowy pictures here.

Finally, we get to the year twenty-ten. I decided to do a Project 365 this year. A Project 365 is a pretty easy concept. You post one picture a day for three hundred and sixty-five days (that means a year!). Instead of taking up a bunch of space and causing confusion on this blog, I started a new blog to post the pictures at. I'm still going to blog here though, don't worry! For my Project 365, I'm just posting pictures and not blogging about them. If you want to find the story behind the pictures, you'll probably have to come by here. Click on the button below to check out my Project 365 blog!