Home again...

My car is home again. :)
My dad and I went out after I got home from work today to get my car. We called a locksmith and he came and met us at the GRCC parking ramp. He couldn't get the buttons on the front two doors to open, but he got it on the first time when he tried a back door. Yay!
Well, we tried the electric locks and I guess now, they only work when they want to. He accidently locked the doors again, because when I went to get into my car, it was locked again, so we had to call him to come back and open them again. Then when I got home I tried it, and it works to lock the doors, but not to open them. I guess I won't be locking my doors anymore!!!

Baking catch up

I thought I'd share some more things that I've baked recently. I had a snowday (from college!!!) on Wednesday, so I baked biscotti, breadsticks, and a Jamacian rice dish for dinner...



Banana-Nut Biscotti










Wheat Breadsticks











Rice with pork carrots, red pepper, egg, pineapple, and BBQ sauce






I don't have class on Friday, so I usually bake. Today my projects were Chocolate Chip Cookies (especially for Anna because it's her birthday today! Happy 14th Anna!!!) and Crab Rangoons.




Before










and After. Yummy!







Next was crab rangoons. I bought some imitation crab meat last week Horrocks'. Who knew that "imitation" crab meat was really Polluck with crab coloring and flavoring?!?!?
Anyway, cut it up really small...










Then mix in 1/4 cup light mayonaise and 4 oz Nauftechal cheese. I also threw in some dried onion (I didn't feel like cutting any fresh onion!)









I made homemade dough, instead of using wonton wrappers. Roll out and cut into 3"x3" squares. Can you tell I didn't measure?! Then put the crab mixture in the middle.








I couldn't remember how Rangoons were supposed to look, so I improvised. I checked online later and apparently you can make 'em look however you want!











Put in a muffin tin. Bake on 375 for 20 minutes, until they're nice and golden brown.












Simply delicious!!!










I had some extra crab mixture left over, so I threw in some Chive Rings. It will make a great cracker dip for Super Bowl!

4 things

I was tagged by Jennifer, just for reading her blog, to do this meme... It looks like fun, so here we go...

Four jobs you've had in your life:
1. Babysitting
2. Mowing the lawn
3. Laundry aide at the nursing home
4.

Four movies that you would watch over and over:
1. 300
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
3. Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
4. Remember the Titans

Four Places where I lived:
1. Mescalero, NM
2. Culterville, MI
3. old house in A-town MI
4. current house in A-town MI

Four TV shows that you love to watch (or used to watch):
1. Bones
2. House
3. Don't Forget the Lyrics
4. American Idol

Four places you've been on vacation:
1. Kentucky
2. Nashville, TN
3. Canada
4. Washington DC

Four websites you visit daily:
1. facebook.com
2. hotmail.com
3. google.com/reader (to read blogs!)
4. grcc.edu

Four of your favorite foods
1. Chicken
2. Chinese
3. Pizza (Romanian style)
4. Anything sweet!

Four places you would rather be right now:
1. Hanging out with my friends
2. Romania
3. Curled up on the couch with a book, or watching Rachel Ray
4. In the kitchen

I won't tag anyone, but if you want to do this, go ahead!

Here we go again....

Oh. My. Word. I am so frustrated right now.

So, I'm leaving school at 11 and I called Julie to see if I can come say hi to Adam. She says sure, so I head to my car. Well, I get there and my key won't turn in the lock. Ok...it's frozen, I'll just figure out how to unfreeze it. I called Heather after trying for about 10 minutes, because I needed to talk to someone a little more calm than me. She recommended that I call the car place (groan), so I did. Here's the advice he gave me for fixing a frozen lock...pour hot water on it (I'm at school, no hot water here), use a blowdryer (again, I'm at school!), pour silicon in it (I would if I could get to the windshield de-icer that is IN MY LOCKED CAR!!!), or use a lighter to heat the key and stick it in the lock. So I headed in search of a person with a lighter. Julie called again to say that she had to run out for a minute, and to double check what time I'd be coming. I told her my situation and she said she'd call back in a while to see if I got it fixed.

By this time I'm freezing, and really upset. I went into the school to buy a cappicuino, thinking it was as close to hot water as I'm going to get. Then I realized it would be kind of stupid to pour something potentially sticky into my car locks. Duh. So I stuck my key in the burning hot drink, let it warm up, and then tried it in the lock. No luck. But the drink did warm me up. When I had got up to my car, I noticed a blazer sitting beside me and the driver still in it. He got out and I asked him if he had any de-icer or a lighter. He had a lighter so we tried it three times. I was ready to give up. He started to walk away, but came back and gave me his lighter so I could keep trying.

Julie called again. She offered to come out and help me out, and buy some lock de-icer on the way. Both my parents were at work, and so of course I took her up on the offer. I went inside the school to stay warm. My feet were so cold, I couldn't feel them. Well, after trying at 5 stores to buy de-icer (hello? we live in Michigan!!!), Julie came. We tried the de-icer, but nothing worked. So I ended up going home with her. This was one of the two highlights of the day. I had a good afternoon with her and the kids.

At 3:30, my dad got out of work and came to get me from Julie's. He said he didn't think my lock was frozen, because the de-icer would have fixed it. But we went back downtown anyway. Of course, the lock didn't work. The second highlight of the day was that when I got out of my dad's car, I found $16 laying on the ground outside my door (there were no other cars near where we had parked). The driver's side lock hasn't worked since I bought the car, so I never bothered to try it. We tried multiple times. Then we tried kicking my back seat down from inside the trunk. This would have worked, except for that when the exchange students were here this summer, something happened and my seat hasn't gone down since then. By the way, lying in a trunk is a really creepy feeling!!! I couldn't kick it down, and my dad tried and he couldn't. So then he tried kicking the door lock area, maybe something would jiggle loose. No luck. Nothing we could do, so my car is still sitting in the parking garage at school.

Tomorrow, I'm going to have to call a locksmith and take the bus to meet him at the garage. Hopefully this will work. Dad said that it might be a problem with the electric stuff in my car, and that we should just try to sell it. I should probably relinquish my attachment to "the green ghost", but I really like this car because it's got everything I wanted, and it's going to be hard to find something "worthy" to replace it. Plus, I just put $872.40 into fixing it!!!!!!!!

Please pray!

Please keep the Guatemala team in your prayers. I'm babysitting the Janssen kids, and I stayed here all night because the roads were too bad around Lansing that the team had to stay there overnight. They should be on the road now, please pray for safe travel.
Also, the Haiti team is supposed to leave today, I don't know if they were able to do to the weather, but continue to pray for them. Thanks!

******12:04pm. I talked with Michelle earlier (I'm home now, so are they) and the Haiti team was able to leave. There was some problems with their flight, but they got to Chicago. Pray they make the connection in Miami!

Meme and give-away!

I have seen this meme on multiple sites, and because I don't really have more to blog about today, I thought I'd do it! :)

I am to list 6 Non-important things/habits/quirks about me!
These are the rules:
(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) Post the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
Here's my six things:
* Sometimes I forget that I'm wearing contacts and I don't take them out until I get into bed and realize that I can read my alarm clock!
* I love to write, but I don't like being told to write about a certain thing. I'd much rather write about what I want to
* I love fruits, but I'm not a fan of vegetables (ask Jennifer, her daughter eats mine for me!), but I like to eat healthy and low fat as much as possible (however, I have a strong sweet tooth!)
* I love to run, but I only do it if I have a partner to motivate me
* I rarely get mad, and I don't hold grudges. If I do get mad, I usually forget what I was mad about after 5 minutes!
* I sing on the praise team at my church. I'm singing all the time and if I can't be singing right then, I can guarantee I have a song running through my head.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if want something to blog about and feel like sharing random information about yourself, go for it! :)

Also, the girls over at Two Sisters Blog are having a fun giveaway for Valentine's Day. Go check it out!!!

Martyr Monday

Today is the first day of Martyr Monday's. I bought a new book after Christmas called Extreme Devotion, it's a "production" of a non profit and interdenominational organization called The Voice of the Martyrs. Each day has a story about a martyr, along with a Bible verse, and a short explanation or something to think about. I've really been touched by the stories, and I thought I would share them with you each Monday.

EXTREME WILLINGNESS

Philippines: A Young Girl

"My dress," the young girl murmered, her words slurred through swollen lips. "Please give me my dress. I want to hold it."

The Christians surrounding the girl's bed were sad. Because of her extensive internal injuries, doctors could do nothing for her. Weeks ago, the believers had bought her a white dress to celebrate her new life and pure heart in Christ Jesus.

Her father had not been pleased with his daughter's decision to follow Christ. One night, in a drunken rage, he attacked his daughter, beating and kicking her. He left her lying in the muddy street to die.

When she did not show up for church, her Christian friends went looking for her. They found the girl unconscious, lying in a heap, her formerly snow white dress now covered in blood and mud. She was brought to a doctor, but her injuries were severe.

Now she was asking for her dress.

"The dress is ruined," her friends told her. They tried to talk her out of it, thinking that seeing the ruined dress would break down the girl's spirit.

With the simple faith of a ten-year-old, she whispered, "Please, I want to show the dress to Jesus. He was willing to bleed for me. I just want Jesus to know that I was willing to bleed for Him."

Shortly afterwards, the young girl died.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. Philippians 2:13

God is not interested in our ability. We may be talented. Resourceful. Wealthy. Professional, popular, and punctual. Offering our various abilities in God's service, however, is nothing like offering our availability. Our availibilities are about ourselves - we can see ourselves doing this or that for God. In contrast, our availability is about God alone - we can only imagine how God will use us in his service. Being available to God means being willing to obey no matter what the cost. God wants our willingness to serce him regardless of our specific abilities. How do we become so willing? That, too, is God's gift. He gives us the "want to" - the will or desire to be available to him.

(White, Tom, comp. "Extreme Willingness." Extreme Devotion. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2001. 33.)

New Favorite Store

Yesterday, I went shopping with my mom. Really, I only needed to go to Walmart (I ran out of all my hairstuff at once!) and Walgreens (Carmex for 0.99!!!!), but I figured I might as well go with her. We decided that since we were out that way, we'd go to Horrock's. We had gotten their flyer in the Sunday paper and they had fruit on for really good prices, so I said that we should go buy some fruit. Anyway, this store has everything! It's a greenhouse in the front, then in the back is the store area, and on the side is a bunch of gardening stuff. Anyway, we bought a bunch of fruit...mangoes, oranges, pears, lemons, limes! I had a new recipe that I wanted to try out for supper, so I picked out a few things for that too. They had aisles with Asian, Dutch, Italian, French etc. food. Spices. Meat. Drinks (peach nectar!). Vegetables. Milk. Eggs. Candy (peach licorice!). Whatever cooking ingredient you would want, they had! A chef's dream store! So anyway, I really really like that store, and the prices are really good!

Well, then when we got home, I went to make supper. I was going to make a recipe that I had seen in the Kraft Food and Family, Beef Noodle Bowl. Anyway, I realized that we hadn't bought broccoli and I had bought peppers. Plus we didn't have sesame dressing, so I just made my own version. Here's what I did.

Boil linguine noodles.
Cut up:
Beef Sirloin Steak
Carrots
Green Peppers
Red Peppers
Baby Corns
Toss those into a frying pan with olive oil in it and cook until meat is cooked thru and veggies are crispy. Add in dressing (I used Asian Red Sweet Chili Sauce and Teriyaki). Let it marinate for a few minutes. Stir in noodles and heat all together. Cut a lime in half and squeeze the juice of one half over the noodle bowl. This "secret ingredient" added a kick to the flavor and it was delicious!
Oh no! I'm so disappointed! I just went to add on the pictures and the one I took of the Beef Noodle Bowl is gone!!! :( I wish I had it to show you, because it looked so good. If you want to see kind of what it looked like, click on the link above...



I bought a bunch of "leafy greens" and added tomatoes and Italian dressing for a salad.










Chocolate pudding and a European cookie for dessert

Thank you Julie!

Julie gave me this award. Thanks Julie!!!









I'd like to pass it on to some people who I think are loveable and have loveable blogs!
Jennifer
Cheryl
Tori

I don't like self portraits...

...but upon request, here is a picture of my new hair cut (see yesterday's post) :)