Grace

*Disclaimer: Some of these photos are of a graphic nature.

Grace Like Rain

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.- Ephesians 2:8

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding -Proverbs 3:5

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. -Matthew 11:28

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. - Ephesians 2:10.

But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble and oppressed." - James 4:6

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. - James 1:27

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. - Romans 8:14

Blessed are those who persevere under trial, because when they have stood the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him. -James 1:12

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all peoples. - Titus 2:11

But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. - Isaiah 40:31

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. - Romans 8:26

Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.
- Isaiah 41:10

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. - John 15:13

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. -1 John 4:7

This ain't sea world, this is real as it gets!

There are few things in this world that make this Canadian backwoods girl happy. One of those is cheesecake. The other is Bass Pro Shops. I also love boats. Hence my love affair with this weekend.

Sorry, while I shed a few tears. RB and I went to the Toronto International Boat Show this weekend, as the company that he works for offered him free tickets. Let me tell you, it was a drool fest. RB used to sail lots as a kid and up until he was nearly twenty. He loves to sailboat. Me? I love two things about boating: Speed and fishing. If I can combine the two, then hallelujah!

We first went and took a few shots of some motors. I felt a bit like Tim the Tool Man Taylor and forgot temporarily about my estrogen.

Aw-yeah, baby! A 40hp Big Foot! RB is over 6' so you can see how big this motor is.

Well hello, beautiful. May I say you're looking rather "fly", all shiny and new with your beloved 60hp. This is the newer Mercury 60Hp Flyway.

After we had our fill of boats, we decided en route home to stop one of only TWO Bass Pro Shops in all of Canada. The other is in Calgary. What more can a girl ask for but to be greated by a great big Bass hanging in mid-air? Inside were mounted fish and game galore. In particular I enjoyed the "home decor" aspect. I quickly called my mama and said in the most southern accent a Canadian girl can concoct "Mama! I'm inna Bass Pro Shop and I've died 'n gone 'ta heaven!"..to which my ma replied, "Dawn, do NOT make your house look like a trailer park!". I'm sorry, but that glass coffee table whose base was constructed from a set of deer antlers was a beaut! And heck yes I WILL have those moose-decor lamp shades.

I digress, I did not purchase these. However, RB was nice enough to purchase me a ball cap I had been admiring and a brand new...skillet! Life is good my friends, life is good. We eyed up some fly rods and reels. RB gasped at some of the prices, but I know that sometimes you have to spend a little extra dough to get quality goods.

I don't know if RB was impressed I wanted to take his photo with the duck, or not. Regardless, I thought he looked kinda cute next to the fake ducks.

sigh, what a wonderful sea of rods, reels, nets and tackle. A girl could live here forever, except that if I lived here forever I'd never actually get to fish.

In the end it was a glorious day of outdoor-ness. It was a nice break from the winter cold to think about the warm summer ahead where I get to "get outside" and find my chi or my chee or whatever it is it's called. Find myself? I don't know. I just want to hook somethin' and fry it up for dinner.

What are you looking forward to doing in summer?

Perfecting the perfect cookie

Alright, another recipe. I decided after cleaning my kitchen, to mess it up again. It just looked "too" clean. I have been trying to learn how to perfect a perfect cookie. I don't like it when cookies spread out too much on the pan, get crunchy and flat. Crunchy does not a good cookie make. At least in my opinion.

So I set out into the world wide interweb in search of not a recipe, oh no, but some timeless information on how cookies work with specific ingredients.

Here is what I learned. You can get the full info from here.

Fats Cookies are made primarily with butter, margarine or shortening. Fats play a major role in the spread of a cookie--whether a cookie keeps its shape or flattens in the oven. Shortening and margarine are stable, and will help cookies keep their original unbaked shapes. Butter melts at a much lower temperature than other solid fats--it melts at body temperature, resulting in a “melt-in-your-mouth” burst of flavor. Cookies made with butter tend to spread out. Butter is essential in certain cookies, such as shortbreads; if they don’t hold their shape, consider lowering the amount of butter, sugar, or baking soda in the recipe. The amount of fat also affects the cookies: in general, more fat equals flat, crispy cookies while less fat equals puffier, cake-like cookies. Whipped spreads are not suitable for baking: use solid sticks of margarine instead.

Flour Flour also affects how cookies behave. Most cookie recipes call for all-purpose or pastry flour. Both bread flour, with its high protein content, and cake flour, which is high in starch, produce cookies that tend to spread less. (The gluten in the bread flour and the absorbant starch in cake flour are responsible for the similar results.) Higher flour-to-liquid ratios are needed in shortbread and crumbly-textured cookies.

Baking Powder and Baking Soda Baking powder and baking soda are the two most common leaveners in cookies. Baking soda is simply bicarbonate of soda, while baking powder is a combination of bicarbonate of soda plus cream of tartar, an acidic ingredient. Baking soda neutralizes the acidity of the dough, allowing the cookies to brown in the oven. Since baking powder already contains its own acid, it will not reduce the acidity in the dough, and the resulting cookies will be puffier and lighter in color.

Sugars Like fats, sugars liquefy in the oven. The type and amount of sugar used play a big role in cookie performance. White sugar makes a crisper cookie than brown sugar or honey. Cookies made from brown sugar will absorb moisture after baking, helping to ensure that they stay chewy. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes contain both brown and white sugars. If you lower the amount of sugar called for in a cookie recipe, the final baked cookie will be puffier than its high-sugar counterpart.

Eggs and Liquids Eggs are a binding agent. Liquids can either cause cookies to puff up or spread. If egg is the liquid, it will create a puffy, cake-like texture. Just a tablespoon or two of water or other liquid will help your cookies spread into flatter and crisper rounds. Egg yolks bind the dough and add richness but allow a crisp texture after baking, whereas egg whites tend to make cookies dry and cakey. To make up for the drying effect of the egg whites, extra sugar is often added. This is why cookies made with just egg whites tend to be so sweet--think of macaroons.

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So with this in mind I decided to create my own recipe based on this information to see what I could come up with.

Dawn's OC to the power of 5 cookies (I hope you get that or I'll look like an idiot)

Prep time: 10-15 minutes Bake time: 15-18 minutes. Yields: About 2 dozen.

Ingredients

1 c. shortening (I used Crisco just because I trust the brand)

1/2 c. white sugar

3/4 c. brown sugar (light coloured)

2 eggs (bring them out right away to bring them to room-temperature)

2 tsp. vanilla extract (please please please for the love of all things Holy, use PURE)

2 1/2-ish c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Whatcha do:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees f, pull out your eggs to sit.

2. In your mixing bowl whip your shortening and sugars together just until fluffy, then beat in each egg separately until well incorporated. Next, add your vanilla extract, but just stir it in gently.

3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt, and add little bits at a time to the liquids, blending until combined but do not over mix. We don't want air in here. Air does not a good cookie make.

4. Stop mixing. You're done! Just add your chocolate chips and fold them in until well distributed. Not that I have a problem biting into 5 gooey chocolate chips. No sir.

5. Make rounded tablespoon drops onto a cookie sheet. I like to use parchment paper but you can do whatever floats your boat. I just don't like cleaning cookie sheets.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes depending on your oven and the size of your cookie drops. For heaven's sake just watch them!

7. Let them cool on the pan for 5 minutes at least before you put them on the cooling racks or begin smacking your significant other's hand to get away. This is why I make them when RB's at work.

TA-DAH! The perfected perfect cookie. I hope ya learned somethin' today. Lemme know how you like 'em.

Cornbread

I'd like to prepare some cornbread tonight to go with our chicken and rice and veggies. I'm pretty excited about it, too because I've not yet tried cornbread but I hear it's delish by my fellows down south.

Fact is: I don't own a cast iron skillet as of yet. It's either something I'll pick up soon or put on the wedding gift registry. Though I happen to think registries are for things like china and knick-knacks, but that's just me and I'm not always in my right mind as many will attest. If you speak with some, the only real way to make cornbread is in a cast iron pan and that's it. I don't own one yet so this will have to do.


So, simple easy cornbread recipe I picked up goes as follows:

Ingredients
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. oil (I'm assuming canola or vegetable but it's not specific)
2 whole eggs, beaten.
1 cup milk (some recipes I've seen call for a buttermilk-milk mixture--prob just a personal taste thing)
1-1/2 cup Flour (again, I've seen some recipes say self-rising flour but maybe that's an American thing?)
1 Tbsp Baking Powder.
1/8 tsp salt (regular table salt, not the chunky sea variety of course)
1-1/2 c. Yellow cornmeal (though I've also seen white cornmeal stated. Not sure what the difference is...bleached, perhaps? Any of my American readers know this?)

To prepare:
1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl until moist. Bake in a greased 9" pan at 400F for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Note: You can probably play around with the amount of sugar you use, and or add things like onion, garlic, bacon, broccoli, jalapenos, cheese. I've seen it all...just never tried it. For now, though I will just try the basic recipe.

Post-cooking note: It turned out EXCELLENT! I actually ended up serving some marinated pork instead of chicken breasts and what I really loved was how the cornbread added a little sweetness to the savory of the pork marinade. It also picks up a lot of the flavours like most breads would do. RB is slowly devouring the pan of it. Oh, and instead of the square pan I decided to use a round cake pan which would have it turn out similar to using the skillet. A+ for this stuff!

Pills Pills Pills..at first we started out real cool...

Forgive the Destiny's Child pun, really.


Remember awhile back I was put on Metformin to induce ovulation? I have been trying to keep up with taking them, but alas I am horrible at taking medication. I forget, sometimes go 3 days without taking them, until RB reminds me.

Do any of you have advice on how to remember to take your pills?

And does anyone know of anyone who has been successful with taking Metformin and ovulating? It's been a few months for me now and I still have seen no action. Perhaps taking them on a regular basis might help! ha!

A blessing ~ Starting to Show

I have a friend from high school, who is now a blogger, Mrs. Shortcake over at 'The Haus'. Long story short, she's been attempting to become pregnant and glory hallelujah she is carrying a little one! Check out her blog to follow her journey to motherhood.

On that note, no pun intended...she does enjoy inspirational music and I think I found the perfect song for her heading into her 13th week. I think any mother would enjoy it. Click the link/title to go to CBC3 which has a ton of Jill Barber songs including this one. You can stream it. (Apparently the link I had earlier didn't work..darn).

Starting to Show

Jill Barber

From the top of my head
To my tippy toes
I am in love
And it's starting to show

I want you to know
But don't know where to begin
I can outline my feelings
But I can't fill them in

Oh I am in love
And it's starting to grow
With its roots firmly planted
In the earth below

It's true what they say
You will reap what you sew
You grow stronger and stronger
In time

It's so easy to tell
There's an apple in my eye
I can't hide it so well
So I don't even try

You are an arrow
And my heart the bullseye
You're a sure shot baby
Every time

I was walking in a circle
Staring down at my feet
When I met you half way
It felt strangely complete

Had a melody to play
But it kept missing the beat
Now I could carry that tune all the way
To the moon, to the moon

Oh my tongue hits the floor
At the thought of your touch
My heart next to yours
Skips double dutch

There isn't much more
That a girl could ask for
Please and thank you
Very much

Oh I am in love
And it's starting to show
From the tip of my cap
To the bottom of my sole

So tuck me sweet
And dance me slow
Get me high
And dip me low

I am in love
And I want you to know
It grows wiser and stronger
In time

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Gah! So I know I've got incognito for the last...I don't know...20+ days?! yikes! I have managed to get myself SO busy that I had no time for blogging or much of anything else.

But I'm back. Cue the band.

So what have I been up to? Mostly work and school and hanging out with RB. He's been off work for 2 weeks of holidays and we've been battling the new Wii Mario Brothers daily together. If you haven't purchased the game yet and own a Wii and have played the classic Nintendo Mario Brothers then you will certainly love this game. It's updated graphically with new levels and worlds but still has the side scrolling and a modernized digital music score from classic mario. The levels also have a similar look and many of the characters have not changed. Remember Goombas and the Hammer Brothers? Yeah.

However, I must share with you all the BEST gift, or one of the best gifts I received this Christmas care of RB. Cue Drumroll...

A PROFESSIONAL HD KITCHENAID MIXER! (audience applause)


This one in particular is my mixer, and I gotta say I'm in love with it. He also managed to surprise me with a related gift of three attachments for this baby: a food grinder, food slicer/grater and a pasta maker. Wheeee, I'm in heaven.

My mother also got me a second gift of a beginner's fly tying kit. I have wanted to learn to fly fish for awhile now, and luckily my friend LD is an avid flyfisherman and is willing to show me the 'ropes' or the 'lines' I suppose. Now if only we can find a good fly fishing spot in Ontario that doesn't only carry Bass. *sniff* I miss the cold-water fish of my homeland..the trout, the pike! The salmon!!

Luckily on our drive back to British Columbia this summer we will be stopping in historic Missoula, Montana. Home of one of my favourite movies of all time: A River Runs Through It.


This movie has some of my favourite lines of all time:

"My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - came by grace; and grace comes by art; and art does not come easy. "

"Neal, in Montana there's three things we're never late for: church, work and fishing. "

This was the closing line of the movie:

"Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. "

I tear up just thinking about it. I am wanting to purchase the novel so I can read it; by Norman McLean who is the lead character in the film/narrator.

Happy New Year folks! May this year be the best year yet. I cannot believe I can now say I am getting married next year! This year I am excited about finishing my thesis and driving home to BC for good.

What are you excited about for 2010?