Friday, April 29, 2011

Crabtree Falls

Last weekend I got to go on a hiking trip with the young adults from my church. It was such a fun trip and a great chance to get to know everyone a little better. We hiked at Crabtree Falls, which is a fun hike that I highly recommend. There were great views of the waterfall as we hiked up and a great view from the top of the mountain. I loved spending the Saturday enjoying God's beautiful creation!
The view from the top!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Silk-dyed Easter eggs

Leslie came to visit me on Easter weekend, and the one big Easter project I was really eager to try was dying eggs with pieces of silk! I saw the idea for how to do this on Our Best Bites, which is an excellent blog full of creative ideas, recipes, and crafts. When I saw the pictures of the silk-dyed Easter eggs, they looked so beautiful that I desperately wanted to try it myself. Plus, it didn't look that hard. Basically you take old silk ties, wrap them pattern-side down on the egg, secure with a twisty tie, wrap again with a piece of an old pillowcase, then hard-boil the eggs for 20 minutes, and voila! The dye from the ties transfers to the eggs and you get wonderfully intricate designs. (Complete instructions can be found here).

Leslie and I put off buying the ties till the last minute, but luckily we found a thrift store that was open on Easter and picked up six ties with cool patterns. Then we went to work cutting apart the ties, wrapping them around the eggs, and waiting while they boiled. After they were done, we let the eggs cool for awhile. When we finally got to open the little packages we were so excited to see how the eggs had turned out! Below we have pictures of the ties we used and how the eggs turned out (kind of a before-and-after).
This one turned out to be such a pretty blue!
I also love this one. It looks kind of old-fashioned/vintage.
Here's one that didn't turn out so well. The yellow and green didn't transfer very well at all.
This one is pretty. I love that the colors became lighter on the egg- very Eastery.
This is one of my favorites. I love how bright and beautiful the blue and pink look, and I love the swirly design!
This one is my favorite of them all. The pattern turned out so clearly and you can see all the details! 

 I told one of my friends about this idea, and her eggs turned out beautifully, too. I already have some ideas on how to get better results next year. I'm going to get ties that have very busy patterns, because I loved the more detailed eggs the best. I'm also going to try to wrap the egg so that more of the surface is in contact with the tie. The less folds and ruffles in the tie the better, because the dye transfers more easily and you get less streaky parts on the egg. But all in all, I loved how our eggs turned out and I'm excited to try again next Easter!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Politically incorrect

I saw these pictures of Republican and Democratic "brains" on The People's Cube and thought they were pretty funny. Some people might be offended, but I really don't care.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

De's bridal shower

This weekend I was in Lynchburg for De's bridal shower! As the maid of honor, I planned most of it, but since the shower was in Lynchburg (and I am not), I had help from De's amazing roommate, Sarah. I have to say, the event went better than planned. I was a little nervous because I was sure I would forget something or that I would run out of games, but it turned out fine. Everyone had a lot of fun, and they all loved the games and food! I made these Irish Creme cookies and decorated them with De's wedding colors, and they were a big hit!


De arrives at her bridal shower!
I started out by having everyone who arrived take a notecard and write a message for De. I'm planning to put together a photo album later with all the notes plus pictures of De with each of her friends. Then we played some party games. Instead of the typical bridal shower games, we did Minute To Win It games. I was nervous that some of the games would be too difficult (and some were) but it was hilarious watching people try! These are some of the games we played:
De and I try to "Face the Cookie" (aka slide the cookie from our foreheads to our mouths)
Danielle and Jeanne try to thread penne onto spaghetti by "Noodling Around".
"Matchmaker"- Amie sorts M&M's hiding under cups
These are just a few of the games! We also played "Paper Dragon", "Don't Blow the Joker", and "Bite Me". A complete list of these games can be found on the Minute to Win it website. After the games, De opened her presents while Sarah secretly wrote down what she said as she opened them. Then we read back what De had said and told her it's what she may say on her wedding night. She had lots of good phrases, like "It's so pretty!" and "This is cute", but my favorite quote was "This is the right size!" Hahaha!- we were all laughing so hard. We finished the night playing "Fishbowl", which is a really fun party game. I'll post instructions on how to play that in a future post. All in all, the bridal shower was a big success and a lot of fun!
Leslie, De, and Me

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Sick as a dog

I was really sick last week. I woke up in the middle of the night with nausea and stomach pain, and spent the rest of the night vomiting and feeling really horrible. I threw up six times in six hours (it was like every hour from 3:30 to 9:30am- that was probably too much detail- sorry!). Needless to say, I did not go to class the next day (or the day after that). After missing those two days of class last week, I had to do some catching up this week. I borrowed notes from several people to fill in what I had missed. And I discovered something- I really, really prefer to take my own notes. I think this is one of the reasons I hardly ever missed a class all throughout college. I love taking my own notes and making sure that I get down all the important information.

Now I'm not saying that all my classmates don't take good notes, but I have noticed some extremes in my peers. Either they don't really take notes at all, preferring just to sit back and listen; or they frantically scribble continuously, trying to capture every word the professor has said during class. I think I've come up with a good balance of writing down what I think is important and leaving out stuff that doesn't matter. It's worked pretty well for me so far. I don't have to study everything to get good grades. I study the important things and I don't try to memorize every little detail. It's a lot less stressful that way, trust me!

Something else that I learned after I've been sick- old habits die hard. When I was lying in bed, sick as a dog, the thought of food was literally disgusting to me. Fatty or greasy foods were especially unappealing. I thought at that point that I could possibly go the rest of my life without eating another cupcake or greasy cheeseburger. I thought that even when I felt better it would take awhile for me to think those foods seemed tasty. Well, it's only been one week since I've been sick and today I stopped at McDonald's for dinner and got a cheeseburger and fries. When you don't have stomach problems, all that greasy food just tastes so good! In all honesty though, being that sick did make me want to eat healthier foods, so I'm going to try to limit the sweets and fats.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Artsy


Last week my roomies and I went to the Virginia Musuem of Fine Arts here in Richmond to see the Picasso exhibit. It's a limited time special exhibition of pieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris. VMFA is the only East Coast venue for the exhibition’s seven-city international tour. With such a unique opportunity to see some of Picasso's artwork, we had to go!

I loved the way the exhibit was set up. We got to walk through different rooms, and each room had artwork from a different period of Picasso's life. It was interesting to see how his art progressed and changed from one period to another. Some of it I liked and some of it I didn't. One of my favorite paintings by Picasso is to the left. It's a picture of Picasso's wife, Olga. I love the quiet simplicity of this one, and it's quite a contrast to his brightly colored abstract works of art.

Last semester I acquired some artwork of my own- at a thrift store! I went shopping with my friend Julia and we picked up a pretty still-life painting. I have it hanging over my bed right now and I love how it looks. I love how a painting or picture can brighten up a room, bring inspiration, and add a little bit of beauty.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Gnats and camels

In my Bible study on Monday nights, we're going through the book of Matthew. Yesterday we got to a "Woes" section, where Jesus repeatedly says "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!" In the midst of that, we came across this verse:
"You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." Matthew 23:24
What does this mean? Well the Pharisees were the religious leaders at the time. They were very legalistic and tried to keep in line with every detail of the law. So much so that the strict Pharisee would carefully strain his drinking water through a cloth to be sure he did not swallow a gnat, the smallest of ceremonially unclean animals. Yet Jesus said they swallowed a camel, one of the largest ceremonially unclean animals!

In reading through the text, it's clear that the Pharisees sought earthly approval- they loved sitting at the place of honor and hearing men call them "Rabbi" (Matt 23:6-7). They kept all the laws externally, but inwardly they were dirty and rotten, like whitewashed tombs (Matt 23:27). Although they were following the letter of the law, they had sinful hearts- and God cares about our hearts, not our outward appearance!

As I read this verse, it struck me how often I can be like that. I'll follow all the rules and I'll do everything "right" but inside I'm holding a grudge, or selfish feelings, or mean thoughts. We can look like we're following God, but all the time our hearts can be in the wrong place. And sometimes we can get so bogged down in the details (don't do this, stay away from that) that we forget the BIG picture (love God and love other people!) God wants a sincere heart more than he wants someone who tenaciously follows all the rules. We can get bogged down in the law like the Pharisees did, or we can follow the One who came to FREE us from the law. Christianity is not about following a bunch of strict rules, but about following Jesus. Let's not lose sight of the big picture:
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices- mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law- justice, mercy, and faithfulness." Matthew 23:23

Sunday, April 3, 2011

My weekend in a few words

  • Spent the weekend at Tristan's.
  • Got to see her and Leslie.
  • Went shopping at Target.
  • Ate lunch at Panera.
  • Got long islands at dinner.
  • Drank a little too much.
  • Vowed not to drink again for awhile.
  • Watched "Say Yes to the Dress".
  • Played Dutch Blitz.
I felt sad when I left today, because Leslie and Tristan are two of my favorite people, and I won't get to see them again for awhile. But I'm so thankful I got to take this weekend-long break from school and hang out with some of my besties, because that was exactly what I needed!

Friday, April 1, 2011

April Fools!

I started reading a blog called Our Best Bites, and on it, I saw the cutest cupcakes for April Fools day! These ideas are from the book Hello Cupcake, a book I might have to buy since I'm never that creative on my own! I loved that these cupcakes look like a dinner, and they looked so easy to do, I had to try. I used the idea suggested on Our Best Bites for how to save time- I simply went to the bakery section of the grocery store and bought plain white cupcakes. Then I was free to have all the fun of decorating them without any baking involved.

Here's a picture: You have your spaghetti and meatballs, mashed potatoes with a pat of butter, and peas and carrots!
 Here's a picture of the tops. The meatball is a Ferrero Rocher candy rolled in warm jam, the pat of butter is a flattened yellow starburst with some butterscotch topping drizzled around it, and the peas and carrots are green runts and cut-up orange starbursts.
Here's a picture of a dozen of the ones I made. I brought them into class and they were a big hit! I think the meatballs were the favorite- they were gone the quickest.
Happy April Fools Day!