here's one more

I entered another contest.
[you can vote everyday if you want ;]

My Favorite Photo (I've Ever Taken) 2 Brickfish

btw

Oh yeah, I forgot; I'm done with high school.

oh scholarships

I have spent the majority of my time for the past two days online looking for scholarships for school next year.
I was very successful in finding a large number of scholarships.
Unsuccessful, though, in finding a large number I am applicable for.
But, I did find a few, so I did apply for those.
I also found a site that you enter photos in different contests and the images with the most votes when the contest ends receive scholarships [depending on the contest].
If you want to vote for mine, dat's coo wit me:

Show Us Your Best Facial Feature - Part 2 Brickfish

Show Us Your Best Facial Feature - Part 2 Brickfish

french silk pie

Upon request, I am putting up the recipe I used for french silk pie. I've never made it before but just wanted to try it the other day. It's so easy, and it turned out well.

• 1 refrigerated pie crust, softened as directed on box (or you can make your own if you want. I tried that but I'm not good at making crust apparently...)
  
• 3 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, cut into pieces
• 1 cup butter, softened (do not use margarine)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 pasteurized eggs
  
• 1/2 cup sweetened whipped cream
• Chocolate curls (optional)

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell using 9-inch glass pie pan. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.
2. In 1-quart saucepan, melt chocolate over low heat; cool. In small bowl with electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in cooled chocolate and vanilla until well blended.
3. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating on high speed 2 minutes after each addition; beat until mixture is smooth and fluffy. Pour into cooled baked shell. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate curls. Store in refrigerator.
   

NOTE: If you want a richer chocolate pie, add another square of chocolate; I like it that way.


Whipped Cream

1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Beat all ingredients in a chilled bowl with chilled mixers until fluffy. Then eat it 'cause it's good!

thoughts from A.W.Tozer

. . . "I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain."

feed my starving children

Last night we went to a packaging location in Eagan MN for Feed My Starving Children and volunteered an hour and a half of our time to make a small difference in our world.


It's an organization that packages food and ships it to starving children in third world countries.


One bag of food has 6 servings. They send in enough food to a given location or orphanage to feed the children there for a full year. It costs 17 cents per meal.


The meals consist of chicken flavoring [which has a perfect supply of minerals and nutrients for malnourished children], dehydrated veggies, soy, and rice. A simple meal, but a meal that saves a childs life.


And theeen, we came home and ate homemade chocolate gelato. A blessing we take for granted. The kids that get these packages of food we made up for them don't get anything more than that. They eat the same meal everyday. If they don't receive this food, they often don't have anything to eat.

fmsc.org

thanksgiving in minnesota

an epic new project

I have decided to make a quilt. Oh dear.

It is going to have a black background...

...with a pink star...

...a yellow star...

...a green star...

...an aqua star...

...and a purple star!

^ [my inspiration] ^
I will also use all those colors to make a bunch of little stars to place throughout the quilt as well. The image below is a rough sketch of what I plan on doing.

My original colors were red and aqua, buuut... I knew that would change once I got to the store and started picking out fabrics, and of course it did. But with these colors now it's kinda like the night sky. I'm excited. I think it will look cool when it's done, (or at least I hope it does).

nadly.etsy.com

I finally got some bags made to post on my Etsy account.
Check them out.

i'm in!

Yesterday afternoon my mom got the mail from the mailbox and was looking through it. I saw it in her hands and asked, "Is there anything for me?" She flipped through a few envelopes and replied, "Yeah, Jackson Hole Bible College," and then handed me a small package. Up to that point I hadn't heard anything from that school. Both the other 2 schools I applied at had notified me and said they received my applications. But since I had emailed Jackson Hole and never got a response from them I didn't know what to expect from this envelope. So I opened the package quite anxiously. Inside was a few brochures, a student hand book, and a letter. I proceeded to open the letter and read the first line typed on the page: Congratulations on being accepted into the 2010-2011 class of Jackson Hole Bible College! I got a huge smile on my face and was all jittery inside. Actually, right when I saw 'congratulations', I got really excited. JHBC was my first choice, but I also felt that it might be the hardest to get into because [I think] they are even smaller than the other two schools, which only have about 60 students themselves. The most exciting part was the fact that I never heard from them and then, bam, I'm accepted. I wasn't expecting that, and especially not this soon. Getting a letter of acceptance to a school is more exciting than I thought it would be.

from the garden

oh, sorry

Believe it or not, I didn't bring my camera with me this time.

Yes, it's the truth.

I honestly just didn't feel like spending a fun weekend at camp for the retreat looking through a camera lens. Also, I didn't think I would need it that much while I was up here in Rice Lake again. There was about three times I wanted to take a picture since I've been up here, but I can always borrow a camera if I really need to shoot something. Since I have a lack of images to post on here, I have also been slacking on posting. See, I prefer to post pictures rather than words, and if I don't have a photo to share, it's just not as fun for me to post.

Perhaps in the near future I might have some pictures to post again.

See you then.

mhm, again :)

The Chosen - Chaim Potok
God Spoke Tibetan - Allan Maberly
It's Not About Me - Max Lucado
My Antonia - Willa Cather
A Place of Quiet Rest - Nancy Leigh DeMoss
The Pursuit of God - A. W. Tozer
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers - Maria Augusta Trapp
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

I just finished reading The Chosen last night. That's a good one. It took me a while to get into it, but eventually it got interesting and I wanted to keep reading. I think I'll watch the movie sometime... though it does deviate from the book a little [at least I thought it does, don't remember]. I only have 3 more to read. Next up: The Story of the Trapp Family Singers.

In recent news:
Tomorrow is the Fall Teen Retreat at Camp Fairwood. I'll be there until Saturday then I'm going home with some Rice Lakers from camp and spending another week up there at the Kiffmeyer's. I love last minute plans.

baking fail

October is pastor appreciation month. We were planning on having a fellowship time at church yesterday in honor of our pastor. I volunteered to make the cakes. I was pretty excited about this, because I had some new recipes I wanted to try and also, I like making cake. So Saturday I spent the day baking.
One lesson I learned: try new recipes yourself before you make them for an event.
Here is my epic cake making adventure.

#1: Banana

I was planning on making a two-tiered banana cake, and I did. So I figured I would need to double the recipe. Um, no. The recipe is already meant for two tiers. So I ended up mixing up enough batter for four tiers. I only made three though, and just kept one aside. Simple solution. The fail part was the frosting. I have no idea how to make frosting because this stuff did not work at all and it was a simple recipe. Too much butter? Not enough sugar? Too much milk? What? I don't know. It was frustrating. It tasted ok [very sweet] but just wasn't creamy.

#2: Pumpkin Cheesecake

I have never made cheesecake before. This was the first. I should have kept it in the oven longer because it turned out the center was still gooey. Alas, it tasted splendid despite.

#3: Marble

I made a yellow cake recipe, and then a chocolate cake recipe. This was enough batter for 4 round cakes, but it was in one large pan. The edges cooked must faster than the middle so it was in the oven a long time. Because of this, it turned out a little dry.

#4: Blueberry Muffins

Simple enough right? Wrong. New muffin recipe. They were mixed up like a cake, not by hand. The batter was very thick so I added more buttermilk to fix it. I thought they would turn out fine, but after they were out of the oven, the tops all shrunk down so they were concave on top.

#5: Completely Successful Banana Cake

This was the extra banana cake. I decided to spread it with the extra [store bought] chocolate frosting from the marble cake and take it to youth group. Everyone liked it.

I still took the cakes to church, and everyone enjoyed them. So I guess I was the only one disappointed because I knew how they should have turned out and didn't.

Banana Cake Recipe [upon request]

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed ripe banana
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add banana, buttermilk, butter, eggs, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed till combined. Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes.
Pour batter into 2 greased and floured 8x1.5 or 9x1.5-inch round pans. Bake in a 350 oven for 30-35 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on racks 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on racks.

college apps

The first half of this week I spent filling out, completing, and sending in college applications. Man, those things are time consuming. I'm glad I'm done with them... for now. I applied at three different Bible schools. His Hill in Texas, and Ravencrest Chalet, in Colorado, are both schools of Torchbearers International. They offer a one year intensive Bible program in a small classroom setting, which I like. I also applied at Jackson Hole Bible College in Wyoming. Also a small classroom, one year Bible program. I discovered this one when we went to the Creation Museum. Ken Ham readily supports this school. It has an emphasis on creation and so they incorporate field trips to Mt. St. Helens and The Grand Canyon and other places as part of the program. This would be my first choice, but I guess I'll see where I get accepted, if at all.
Now, if only I could find a job...

in a pickle

Back in August my mom decided she wanted to can a bunch of stuff. We had a lot of tomatoes from our garden, and strawberries that we had picked and my mom wanted to make some pickles. So we had a few days of epic canning.

We went to the farmers market...

...bought some pickle cucumbers and peppers and onions for salsa...

...canned jam, salsa and pickles...

...and just yesterday we opened the first jar of pickles...

...which proved to be excellent!

...aaand we're back!

Oh road trips... how I love thee. The Creation Museum was pretty cool. It's actually located in Kentucky, not Ohio like I thought. We stayed in a hotel near the Cincinnati airport [which is actually in Kentucky] which was pretty close to the museum. We bought a family pass to the museum good for the next year, so we went and spent all day there yesterday and we went back today as well for a little bit. [Plan is to possibly go back in spring? Hm? Ok!] I think my favorite part was the Stargazers room. It was similar to a planetarium but it was a digital presentation on the solar system projected onto a domed ceiling. It was so incredible, it showed how huge and vast and amazing and uncomprehendible <-[is that even a word?] our galaxy and universe truly is. It makes me feel like a tiny helpless fly. We're a small little planet in a gigantic sea of God's glory. It's a cool place. The best part is the way it's a whole museum about creation and it all points to God. Because it's from a Biblical perspective; you won't be reading about evolution or millions of years there.

Hooray for nice hotels!


Dad thought this would make a cool picture I guess...


Sittin' in the hot tub.


The museum had lots of dinosaurs.

The museum was filled with scripture. One room, we walked into they had a video of people quoting verses from the Bible about God and His glory. It was so cool, just hearing the scripture being read as you looked at the apostles and read about what they accomplished for God's kingdom.

The tropic-like gardens and petting zoo outside were fun times.

On a different note: our family is shrinking. Oh sad. This was our little family vacation for the year. Notice how we are missing three members [or 5, counting spouses] and I am the oldest child of the four. Eh, I guess it's something everyone faces: growing up.