A Promotional Message

Here is something I have been thinking of mentioning for a while but wasn't sure if it was tacky or not. Today I've decided: it's my blog! Who cares if it's tacky! I am gonna tell all of y'all how to get some free stuff like I do, and it's totally up to you whether you do anything about it. I don't even actually think it's tacky.

Here's the deal. There is a website called swagbucks where you can collect made-up points and trade those points for real-life stuff. Like Amazon giftcards! That's all I've redeemed points for so far, but it's $15 towards Amazon that I didn't have three months ago, and that is not too shabby!

If you sign up, there are a bunch of bonus points you can earn at the beginning and it's pretty easy to accumulate enough to redeem for something. There are tasks that earn you small amounts of points each day, and there are special offers that can earn you a bunch of points all at once! One such offer is to sign up for a free trial of Netflix - if you do that, you will instantly (once they process it) have more than enough for a $5 amazon card.



^Click on up there and check it out if you're at all interested^

If you haven't tried Netflix before, you totally should! Matt and I have it instead of cable, and there are lots of great movies and TV shows available to watch. If it's not your thing, just cancel before your free month is up, but for $8/month it is cheaper than renting 2 movies, and it's available 24/7 at home without any hassle.

SO sign up for swagbucks, try out netflix if you haven't already, and download the toolbar if you want an easy way to earn points towards gift cards or the many other prizes Swagbucks offers! If you sign up through the banner, I will get matching points for the first 1000 points you win through searching!

Or, you know, carry on as usual :)

Seeker or Sought?

I really enjoyed the sermon I heard this morning and thought I would share some thoughts from it. For the second week in a row, the text was about Jesus calling his first disciples - last week was John's account, and this week was Mark's. The pastor emphasized the fact that these disciples were going about their normal work when Jesus called them, that they weren't a very spiritual group seeking God at all but that Jesus sought them out. The real trick in the passage is that when Jesus told the men to follow him, the text simply tells us they did. We don't know the circumstances they left or the emotions they felt or any decisions they weighed; we simply read that they responded to Jesus' call, and we know that ultimately this response changed all their lives.

The preacher put a spin on the idea we often have of seeking God, that people who go on a spiritual quest to "find God" are often very lost to themselves, that the distance we feel from God is often related to confusion or lostness in ourselves. He reminded us that God is not far off for us to search out and pursue but that God is constantly pursuing and wooing and inviting us to follow Him. When we do that, it is not uncommon to find ourselves in the process.

After all, how can we know ourselves without understanding the One who made us? Believing and trusting and trying are all tangled up in the idea of seeking God, but without understanding that He is also seeking us, those pursuits may end up in a wild goose chase. On the flip side, having faith that God comes after us can be the inspiration we need to take those steps that can bring us to Him.

This is very helpful to me right now as I am in a good place with God but not a good place with church. If I stick to the rules that I have always known, then I must settle down and get involved and put my faith into actions as a committed part of some congregation. My faith in people is shaky though, so the only steps I trust myself to take right now are to chase after God, to worship Him with others, and to believe that He knows where I belong even when I do not. I'm not afraid to lose Him, since He found me in the first place.

Three Things Thursday [Vol.3]

This week's theme is: things to enjoy on their own terms!

Being on this diet has brought Matt and I to try to replicate some of the things we love but aren't allowed to eat right now. We have been very pleasantly surprised by the results of our experiments, but we also agree that these are not substitutions you could slip by an unsuspecting guest. However, on their own terms, we love them! And we will continue to consume them, diet or no diet :)

1) Hot chocolate. We have a can of carnation hot chocolate mix sitting in our cupboard. It is sometimes tempting, telling us how rich and creamy it is, but we kept it out in case we have hot-chocolate-craving company, which in youth ministry is not rare at all (I don't think I mentioned this - we put our shelf-stable forbidden foods in bags in our storage closet. Out of sight, out of mind.) However, the first three ingredients are: sugar, corn syrup solids, and hydrogenated vegetable oil. Cocoa is nestled in the list right between modified milk ingredients and cellulose gum. To be honest, I don't see myself going back.

Our substitute has only four ingredients, and here is the recipe!
1 can coconut milk
1/2 can water
2-3 tbsp cocoa (can adjust to taste)
1-2 tbsp honey (again, adjust to taste)

This is a rich drink that is not meant to be as sweet as our carnation mix - thank goodness! It is full of good fats and has a slight nutty taste from the coconut milk, and the cocoa is relatively high in iron. Healthy, filling, and delicious on its own terms!

2) Spaghetti and meat sauce. Matt says this might be his favourite meal of life, but there is no pasta in the Maker's Diet (because God chose the Israelites, not the Italians!), so I tried to think of some alternative. I had heard of gluten-free families substituting spaghetti squash for real spaghetti, so I bought me a squash and baked it in the oven while I browned some beef to add to our Ragu.

[Here is an aside about Ragu - I was able to price match it for 99 cents a jar, and it only has one objectionable ingredient (soybean oil, listed third). I would consider making my own pasta sauce as many people on the internet love to do, but I tried it before and it was a disaster. I couldn't eat it because it tasted SO bad. I am not saying I will never make my own pasta sauce, but I certainly don't have the time to gamble on it right now. There are limits even to my DIY ambitions.]

When it came time to scoop the squash out of its rind (rind? husk? shell? I looked it up, it's rind), I second guessed myself for wanting to put meat sauce on a vegetable. Totally weird. So I put it on the side. Matt and I both ended up mixing them on our forks, taking a scoop of squash and dipping it in the sauce, AND it was so tasty! The squash was so light and sweet under the rich taste of the sauce, and it was delightful. There was plenty of meat in the sauce, so it filled us up, and I plan to buy another squash for next week. This diet has reminded me how much I LOVE squash.

3. Corn chips. Okay, really what we love is all kinds of chips! But we have found a very easy and frugal alternative to buying illegal bags of Tostitos! We buy a pack of corn tortillas, cut some up with a pizza cutter, and lay them out on a baking sheet in the oven at 350-400F. They magically turn into chips in a few minutes (I stay close because of the fine line between crispy and burnt). I love this alternative because we can make only as many chips as we want to eat, and the tortillas keep forever in the fridge. A big difference between this and commercial chips is saltiness, but you could salt your tortillas before baking if that mattered a lot to you. We find that dipping these plain corn chips in salsa and/or homemade bean dip more than makes up for the flavour that's missing, and they are just as crunchy and satisfying!

We actually tried this substitution before starting the diet, and since corn was listed as a food to avoid for phase 1, our tortillas have been abandoned at the back of the fridge. However, now that corn, beans, and cheese are allowed, I think it won't be long before we finish this pack right off!

Whew! That was a long post for just three things! Would you consider trying any of them? Do you have any suggestions for saving a little time, money, or nutrition on your own terms? I would love to hear it :)