White Chocolate Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cookies

I made some super yummy cookies this weekend! They are white chocolate cinnamon toast crunch cookies. I probably could have eaten the entire bowl of batter all by itself, but somehow I managed to make some cookies as well. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is pretty much my favorite cereal, so adding it into cookies was sure to be a winning recipe. yum :)

Project 365 - Week 4

Here are my shots from week 4:

Sick

Well, it's safe to say I am officially sick. I don't get sick ... EVER ... I guess I didn't really know what it feels like. It sucks :(

I took the day off today, which makes it my first sick day ever, and I went to the doctor. Too bad she didn't have a clue what was wrong with me either. She even went and asked other doctors about it. It's my mysterious nighttime illness. I'm calling it that because up until today, I have only been sick at night. I'm not eating much, but during the day I have had plenty of energy and felt fine. However, each evening around 6pm, I start to feel run down, and within an hour my temperature spikes up about 4 degrees. The rest of the night is just miserable, but the next day I wake up feeling fine. Today is the first day I don't feel fine during the day. I'm not running a fever (although just wait about 6 more hours and I probably will be; it's like clockwork, I'm telling you!) but I feel very weak. The thought of food makes me feel sick, and anytime I stand up and move I feel like I have to stop and get my breath back. It's like moving requires too much energy. I guess it's a good thing I took the day off, but if this is a virus who is to say tomorrow will be any better? I can't take off another day! Guess we'll see what happens this evening ... That being said, I am spending the day in bed. Other than my trip to the doctor, I have slept all morning so hopefully that will help.

On the plus side, I had no idea how good some of my friends are or how much people are willing to do to help me when I need it. I don't often ask for much; heck, I don't often ask for anything, but I've found multiple people, who I never would have expected, willing to go entirely out of their way to make sure I am okay and taken care of. Blessing in disguise I guess.

Treasure - Part II

Awhile back, I posted about what I had been doing in December to volunteer my time, and mentioned that I had something else in the works for this year. I am quite certain that you have all been on the edge of your seats waiting to hear what that was (haha!) and I am finally ready to share that with you.

So, starting in a few weeks, after all my paperwork is completed, I am going to be volunteering for a few hours, every Tuesday evening, at Texas Children's Hospital. :)

Despite the fact that I currently feel like death has wrapped his boney fingers around me and is slowly pulling me down into his black pit (I kid, but really, I haven't felt so sick in years! I feel AWFUL!) I made it up to Texas Children's today for my volunteer interview. Under any other circumstance I would have tried to reschedule, but I already had to schedule this over a month in advance, and today is the only weekday for awhile that I don't have to go to work. So, I got the fever under control, pulled myself together, and went to my interview at noon. I met with a very nice lady and we chatted for about 45 minutes. She shared with me all the different opportunities they have for volunteers, and I decided to start my placement as a patient pal. Basically I will go to Texas Children's every Tuesday from 5-7 and talk to individual patients, read them stories, play games, do puzzles, or just hold babies. The point is to give parents a break and give the kids something fun to do. I could not be more excited about this! I cannot wait to get started! Unfortunately, it will be a few weeks still before everything will be in order and I can attend an orientation.

After the interview, I got super lucky and they said they could squeeze me in for my TB skin test while I was there since I live so far away. This is really awesome because now I can just have my school nurse read the test on Wednesday, sign off my paperwork, and fax it back in. Saves me a LOT of driving just to have someone look at my arm for 2 seconds. So, I headed over to the clinic to get my TB test done. I have had a lot of these skin tests done because you have to have one every year in college to be allowed into classrooms, so I know what they are like. EVERY single time thus far, I have passed out afterwards. I have a serious fear of needles. This isn't even a big needle; I realize it's no big deal, but every single time after it's over I start thinking about the needle in my skin, get lightheaded, and pass out. I have now learned that I have to ask the nurse to let me sit there for a few minutes to prevent this from happening, but I was sort of scared of this lady as when I first walked in I overheard her making fun of the lady before me for crying when she got a tetanus shot. Didn't seem like she was going to be too sympathetic to how absolutely pathetic I am, so I didn't say anything. She gave me the shot, I felt a little lightheaded but shook it off, walked out of the office, my vision started to blur a little, I leaned back against the wall in the hallway (where the scary nurse could no longer see me) and stood there like a crazy person for a few minutes. But guess what?!? I didn't pass out! HUGE progress here! haha

Since I wasn't expecting to get the TB skin test done today I ended up being out a lot longer than planned. I felt fine pretty much the whole time, then on the way home I started to feel a little run down again. That may have something to do with when the last time I took any Advil was though ... but no worries, I have since taken some more.

So, that's my big news of the day! I'm going to be volunteering at Texas Children's Hospital every Tuesday for the next 6 months. I am SO excited about this I cannot even tell you! :)

Project 365 - Week 3

Here are my shots from this week:

Stuffed Roasted Red Pepper

I started this post a week ago and never got around to finishing it. Last weekend I went to the Farmer's Market and got some fresh vegetables. One of the things I picked up were red peppers. I found a recipe for stuffed roasted red peppers, and decided I wanted to try it. I don't cook much, not because I can't, but because it's a lot of work for one person. I love this recipe though because you can do most of the work beforehand and then just stick it in the oven when you are ready to eat. Also, the stuffing mixture refrigerates well so it can be saved for a meal at a later time. This was my first time to try quinoa - I really liked it! Oh, and this was definitely the first time I ever roasted a red pepper on my own. It was easy, and yummy!

Anyway, I found the recipe online and sort of just went with the general idea and added in as much of each ingredient as I wanted:

1 roasted red pepper

1 cup quinoa, cooked

black beans

frozen corn

diced fresh tomato (from the farmers market)

chopped cliantro (also from the farmers market)

cheddar cheese, shredded

dollop of sour cream

salt

pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roast the red pepper. Mix together all other ingredients in a small bowl. When pepper is done roasting, peel the skin off, cut off the top, and stuff with the quinoa mixture. Bake in oven for 30 minutes. See? easy! And, oh so yummy!

I'd say this goes along with my new years resolution to try new things each month. This was my first time to roast a red pepper, and my first time to try quinoa. :)

Fruit of the Spirit

24 has been a good year for me in a lot of ways so far. I credit this year of my life with being the one where I became my own person. This is the year that I stopped living my life through other people and started to figure out what it was I wanted from life, not caring what others thought or said I should do. Up until this year my life was not about me, it was about the people around me. It was about what other people thought, and what other people wanted at all times. I made decisions based on other people's decisions. I decided what I liked based on what others liked. I decided what to do based on what others were going to do. This year, I found myself hidden behind all those other people. Turns out, I like the person I am all by myself. It's unfortunate that it took me 24 years to figure that out.

That being said, who am I? Or more importantly, what kind of person am I now striving to be:

I want to be a person who:

- loves and shares Jesus

- loves others selflessly

- recognizes all the blessings in life

- shares their blessings with others

- helps others and gives back

- is approachable, forgiving, and friendly

- trusts in God's timing

I was driving around earlier, making this list in my head with the intention of writing it down later, when all of a sudden the idea of the Fruit of the Spirit popped into my head. It has been a LONG time since I have read, or heard about, the Fruits of the Spirit (seriously, since I was a kid I think) and yet, as if out of no where, I remembered this verse:

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control ... - Galatians 5:22-23

As I was thinking about this, I realized that a lot of the qualities on my list of things I want from my life line up perfectly with the things God wants from my life, as described in the above verse:

- loves and shares Jesus (faithfulness)

- loves others selflessly (love)

- recognizes all the blessings in life (joy)

- shares their blessings with others (kindness)

- helps others and gives back (goodness)

- is approachable, forgiving, and friendly (gentleness)

- trusts in God's timing (patience)

All that was missing from my initial list were peace and self control. I could write a whole other post only on self control, but I think for now I'll just go ahead and say that there are definitely aspects of my life I want to have more self control in. And peace? Well, haven't I been working on that all along? Ever since I got moved into second grade this year I have tried really hard to feel God's peace in every situation. Every time I get stressed I try and remind myself of this. In fact, just read my previous post and you will see an example of this.

Funny how without even realizing it I had come up with a list of qualities I wanted to be part of my life and part of who I am, that have a direct correlation to the nine qualities that God wants out of my life and filled me with the moment he entered my heart. I say funny, but what I mean is amazing. Isn't that just what God does? Isn't that exactly how He works? Isn't He amazing?!? I love moments like that, where I can clearly hear Him speaking clearly to me. No deciphering necessary; clear as day I can hear what He has to say.

I spent the first part of this 24th year of my life figuring out what I wanted from my life. I found myself behind all the people I had tried so hard to hide behind for so long. I figured out what I wanted my life to be. Now, in the second half of this year, I am going to really focus on making each of those qualities a central part of my life. I am going to work on making each of those things so deeply ingrained in who I am that when others see me, that is what they see.

Jesus Calling

For Christmas, from my ABF leader, I got the book Jesus Calling. It's a book of short devotions for each day of the year. I love it! It doesn't take much time to read, but has a pretty profound impact on the way my day gets started. Today's was just perfect, and just what I needed (to drag myself out of the back corner of my closet and actually face the day), so I'm going to share it with you:

Let me prepare for you the day that stretches out before you. I know exactly what this day will contain, whereas you only have vague ideas about it. You would like to see a map, showing all the twists and turns of your journey. You'd feel more prepared if you could somehow visualize what is on the road ahead. However, there is a better way to be prepared for whatever you will encounter today: Spend quality time with Me.

I will not show you what is on the road ahead, but I will thoroughly equip you for the journey. My living Presence is your Companion each step of the way. Stay in continual communication with Me, whispering My name whenever you need to redirect your thoughts. Thus, you can walk through this day with your focus on Me. My abiding presence is the best road available.

This is what I reminded myself all day today when I felt on the verge of having a total mental breakdown. I may not know where the day is going, or how it will turn out, but Jesus does. He knows, and He will take care of me no matter what happens. So, I chose to remind myself of this fact each time I started to freak out, and instead of having a mental breakdown, I chose to thank Jesus instead for knowing the path ahead, and walking by my side every step of the way.

Children make my heart smile!

8 year olds absolutely amaze me sometimes!

Yesterday, I got a new kid who speaks French and does not know a single word of English. I cannot even imagine how scared that child must be, but at the same time, I'm scared! I don't think I'm qualified to teach like this! Anyway, the kids in my class have been absolutely amazing! I know I've said it before, but I really cannot say enough how incredibly blessed I am to have the group that I do this year. They are perfect. They get along with each other, they listen, they follow directions, they are every teacher's dream. If I didn't love them enough before, I sure do now that this new child started.

Yesterday was our new friend's first day and one of my little boys immediately asked to be his buddy. I told him that it would be great if our new friend could just hang out with him all day even though our new friend would not be doing the work and would not be able to respond to him when he tried to talk to him. All day my student helped our new friend. During writing time he showed him how to write simple sight words while saying them aloud. During reading time he picked out easy readers and read each word aloud allowing our new friend to point and repeat after him. He played with him at recess, introduced him to other teachers, showed him what to do at lunch, helped him get his backpack, jacket, etc., and helped show him where everything was in the room. My student was phenomenal! It was SO incredibly helpful to me!

Today one of my little girls took it upon herself to be our new friend's teacher. While doing math he was pretty much just copying off the board and my little girl went and sat next to him to show him what to do. Step by step she said what to do out loud, then showed him. "you need 5 (holds up 5 fingers) let's count 5 (helps him count 5 manipulatives) that's 5 (holds up 5 fingers again)". Seriously, what a great little teacher! Then during science as she found each of the answers to the work in her text, she pointed out to him where the word was and where to copy it on his paper so he could complete the work as well. What a thoughtful child.

After she had helped him with a few problems he got a little more confident. We are working on two digit subtraction, which was a little above his head, but I was breaking it down into parts as we were doing them together as a class. When I asked what we needed to put in the ones place when we subtracted (and I'm pointing on the board to the subtraction problem) I watched him count it out on his fingers and then he raised his hand enthusiastically. Of course I called on him (if I can make him feel successful at ANYTHING this week I will have done my job) and he paused for a second like he was trying to think of the number in English. When he gave the correct answer my class cheered for him. They actually cheered! They were so proud of him! He had a HUGE smile on his face. That was pretty wonderful ...

I love children; I really do. If only everyone could be so accepting, thoughtful, and caring. I am so blessed to be able to spend time with these wonderful children every day. :)

project 365 - Week 2

Here are the shots I took this week as part of project 365:

Check them out on my Photoblog to see them up close. So far so good...

Snow Day!

Today, at church, we had a snow day for the kids. My church does it every year, and it's such a blast! They rope off large areas, bring in all this snow, and the kids get to go outside and play during Sunday school. This is no small amount of snow either; it's enough to make snow angels, build snowmen, and have snowball fights. I took a TON of pictures, but I haven't really gotten around to editing them yet. Here's a few though:

No mittens? No worries, we have SOCKS. The kids got a kick out of this!

Snowball fight!

Cuties :)

One of my favorite 5 year olds, right before she smacked me with that snowball haha :)

Try New Things - Farmers Market

One of my new years resolutions was to try at least one new thing every month this year. The idea behind this was to make a small effort to break out of my everyday habits, and add a little variety to my life.

Well, I did something new today! I woke up early this morning so that I could go to a local farmers market. This is something I had actually been wanting to do for awhile, but never really looked into. I eat a lot of different vegetables now, I like fresh grown vegetables more than the kind I generally buy at the store (I had a student last year who would bring me some from her garden at home), and I really like the idea of supporting local farmers. So, despite the fact that it was something like 27 degrees, I headed out this morning.

I'm glad I went, it was really neat! I talked to some super nice people, and I got some great fresh vegetables!

Stay tuned this week for more new things, as I try some new ways of cooking my vegetables. fun! :)

kids say the darndest things

Student: Ms. McCormack, this is something really weird ...

me: what is?

Student: well, usually my boogers are green, but today, they are red. Wanna see??

me: ew, no. and go get some hand sanitizer right now!

This is my life ... some days I love it much more than others. This would be one of those moments that I don't love it quite so much lol!

Money

After school today I was hanging out in my classroom with one of my favorite 7 year olds in the world. She stays after school with me every Tuesday, and we play games and chat for half an hour or so until her mom picks her up. She was telling me that her family is thinking about moving to a new house and she is really sad about it because it means she will have to go to a new school. The only good thing she said, is that she will get her own room, and she gets to choose what color it will be. So, I started asking questions about how she would paint her room, trying to get her a little more pumped up about the whole thing (she wants to paint it Aggie maroon btw ... can you tell why I love this kid so much?!? hehe). She asks me what colors I painted my room, and I told her that since I live in an apartment I'm not allowed to paint. She had this thoughtful look on her face for a second and then responded:

"well, why don't you just save up some of your dollars and buy a house"

Oh, if only it were just that easy. I'll just save a few dollars and buy my own home. haha. Oh I love kids, they are too darn cute!

Yoga Superstar!

Let's not talk about how I had to go back to work today and how I would rather have jumped off the highest cliff I could find, and instead let's talk about how I was a yoga superstar today!

Let me start by saying that it has been FOREVER since I went to yoga! For awhile there I was going at least two days a week, religiously. Then, my favorite instructor had to leave. I was so distraught about the situation that I stopped going. I wasn't willing to give the new lady a chance. The thing is, Monday is always a super long work day. There is very little motivation to do much after school on Monday, and without knowing if the new lady was good or not, I wasn't willing to give up the time.

Anyway, tonight I decided to go try out this new lady. Turns out, I really liked her. The class was very similar to what the Monday class used to be ... challenging, but not too difficult. So, toward the end of class the instructor tells us we are going to practice crow pose. For those that don't know what it is, it looks like this:

It's not that easy. I've been working on it for a long time and I've gotten to a point where I am decent ... I mean, I can get my feet up and balance for a few seconds, but then I always topple (I can't even tell you how many times I have literally fallen loudly on my face). Last year I had made it a personal goal for myself to master this pose before the year was over, but, I had sort of forgotten about it, as I hadn't done crow pose in months. So today, the instructor starts explaining what to do for those who don't know, but since I already did, I just went ahead and got started while she was still talking. All of a sudden I realized I was completely balanced; I wasn't toppling over at all! Then I heard the instructor say, "I'm still working on perfecting my crow, I'm not very good at it, but I know some people in this room can do it. Oh! Everyone look at the girl in the pink, she's got it!" and I was thinking in my head "oh crap everyone is staring at me now I'm going to fall flat on my face" but I DIDN'T FALL! Everyone watched me in my awesome crow pose and I didn't ever fall over! It was amazing! When I let myself down people were looking at me and nodding their heads like, "wow, good job". My face probably turned red, but that's okay. I totally got it! I totally met the goal I set for myself! I'm sort of super proud :) yay me!

Project 365 - Week 1

Here are my first 3 photos of the year.

I figure I will try to post some sort of picture collage here on Sunday each week, so even though this week only had 3 days in the new year, I'll go ahead and post anyway. If you want to see a better view of each picture then click on over to my photoblog and you can see each one separately.

Not so bad for the first 3 days. We'll see how this goes once I start work again tomorrow and don't have all day to drive around random places and take pictures. haha I do really love this photoblog site though. I just spent HOURS looking through other people's photos. It's great to see what other people have done and get ideas. Plus, random people can look at your stuff too and comment. I mean, who doesn't love getting comments?!? :)

Chocolate Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes - Two ways! :)

What else is a girl to do with so much time off but bake? (and with my new mixer which I am TOTALLY in LOVE with, I could bake every single day!) I have been wanting to try a basic chocolate cupcake for awhile now, so, today was the day. I used the Hershey recipe for these, and while the flavor is good, the cake was a little spongy for me. A decent chocolate cupcake for sure, but I don't think it will be my "go to" chocolate recipe. I'll have to keep experimenting for that ...

As for the frosting? I went back and forth between wanting a good vanilla frosting to top the chocolate cupcake, or a rich chocolate frosting. So, I decided to try both.

I'm not a huge fan of buttercream frosting in general (never really have been), but vanilla can compliment a good chocolate cupcake well, and I do like it in small quantities. That's why I made the mini cupcakes this time. Aren't they cute? These are perfect because each one only has a touch of the vanilla buttercream. And then of course there is the chocolate. I do really like this chocolate frosting. yum! :)

Accountability

I'm the kind of person that likes lists. I make lists, and I check things off my list. Heck, I've even been known to put things on my list that I have already done, just so I can cross them off. I like check marks, happy faces, and anything that holds me accountable for what I plan to accomplish in a given day/week etc.

I was thinking about all these resolutions I've made and how many of them are things I want to do daily (take pictures, read the bible), a few times a week (workout), or monthly (volunteer, try new things). I needed a way to keep track of all of this information and hold myself accountable. I like check marks and happy faces remember?!?

So, I started looking around and found this neat site: Joe's Goals.

It's free, and online, which means you can use it from where ever you are. You input what your goals are and then you can put check marks in each box as you complete them. If it's a daily goal, you can check it off daily. Better than that, you can see every day ever that you got a check. I love that it doesn't just go away after you've done it, you can go back and see how many times that goal has been accomplished. If it's not a daily goal, you can create a log book which shows up right under your weekly checklist. Then when you do something relating to that goal, you can make a note of it. This is totally right up my ally. Thought some of you might be interested in it as well, so I just wanted to share :)

Project 365

So, about Project 365 ...

I am going to make a serious effort to take at least one photo for every day in 2010. Just saying that sounds crazy, but here's the thing: not every picture has to be phenomenal. I would be kidding myself if I thought that I could take an awesome picture for 365 straight days. Some pictures will probably really suck, and I'm okay with that, as long as it's a picture. Not going to lie, some pictures may even be taken with my camera phone on days that I just can't get it together. Hopefully more of them will be decent photos than not, but we'll see.

I set up a photoblog to document my year in photos. If you would like to follow along, feel free to do so here: My Photoblog

I think I will try to post a collage of my photos at the end of each week here, but I can't guarantee that will always happen.

One day down, 364 to go. haha!