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Thursday, March 31, 2016
dear you
Dear you,
may you give yourself permission
trust your voice,
step into your power
and know that what you're
doing matters.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
It's really just the fear of falling we need to overcome
Until you spread your wings,
you have no idea how far you'll fly.
Cheesecake Cupcakes {With Strawberry or Salted Caramel Topping}
Cheesecake Cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes
Ingredients
2 cups finely crushed graham crackers (from 15 sheets)
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
7 Tbsp salted butter, melted
4 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salted Caramel Sauce or Strawberry Sauce, recipes follow
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together crushed graham crackers with 3 Tbsp granulated sugar. Pour in melted butter and stir mixture until evenly coated. Divide graham cracker mixture among 24 paper lined muffin cups, adding a well heaped Tbsp to each (so nearly 2 Tbsp). Press mixture into an even layer. Bake in preheated oven 5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool while preparing filling.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar with 3 Tbsp flour until well blended. Add softened cream cheese to a separate mixing bowl and pour sugar mixture over top. Blend mixture on low speed until smooth. Mix in eggs one at a time and blend on low speed, while scrapping sides and bottom of bowl and mixing just until combined after each addition. Add vanilla, sour cream and heavy cream and mix just until combined. Tap mixing bowl against counter top about 30 times to release some of the air bubbles. Divide mixture among muffin cups filling each cup nearly full. Bake in preheated oven 18 - 23 minutes, centers should still jiggle slightly, don't overbake (if they begin to crack they are starting to become overbaked). Remove from oven and allow to cool 1 hour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and transfer to refrigerator and chill 2 hours. Serve chilled with a spoonful of Salted Caramel Sauce or Strawberry Sauce (note: for best results spoon topping on just before serving). Store in an airtight container in refrigerator or freeze.
Strawberry Sauce
Ingredients
1 lb fresh strawberries, rinsed and dried
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp fresh lime or lemon juice
Directions
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until well chopped and mixture is beginning to break down and liquefy (I liked it with some small pieces not completely pureed). Transfer to an airtight container and chill 30 minutes or until ready to serve.
Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
1 1 /2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp water
6 Tbsp salted butter
3/4 cup heavy cream
Maldon or coarse sea salt, for sprinkling
Directions
Gather all of your ingredients and have them nearby ready to add to the mixture as needed. In a heavy-bottomed 3 quart saucepan, heat sugar and water over moderately high heat whisking constantly to dissolve sugar. Once mixture reaches a boil, stop whisking and allow mixture to boil until it reaches a dark amber color, carefully swirling pan occasionally. Once mixture reaches a dark amber color, immediately add butter and whisk until butter has melted then immediately remove from heat. Wait 3 seconds then carefully pour in cream and immediately whisk to combine (it will bubble vigorously). Whisk until mixture is smooth. Allow caramel to cool several minutes then pour into a glass jar to cool. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt after spooning caramel over cheesecakes.
Recipe Source: Cooking Classy
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Happy Easter from Claire! Gethsemane - Claire Ryann at 3 Years Old
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Sunday, March 27, 2016
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Nothing compares with the tutoring of life.
We were created to grow. Life is an adventure in learning and progress, becoming a little wiser and better each day. In this sense, without some kind of growth or improvement, we cease to live. And this life, where we are surrounded by fellow learners, is the best setting for learning.
In fact, one could say that there is no such thing as truly "independent" learning. Reading a lot of books can expand your mind, but deeply connecting with another person can enlarge your heart. These words from a wise teacher ring true: "I learned a lot in school and from reading, but I learned the most from people living with them, working with them, rubbing shoulders with them, making mistakes with them. . . .People have always been my greatest teachers."
It's been said that if you want to become wise, treat every conversation as an opportunity to learn. Care about others enough to learn from them. Everyone knows something you don't know: lessons learned from experiences, knowledge gained from work and study, perspective earned from challenges and sorrow.
Nothing compares with the tutoring of life.
For example, children can obviously learn a lot from wise and experienced parents. But you don't have to be a parent for very long to realize that parents often learn just as much from their children. Family life also teaches us that we learn and grow the most through caring for and about others. A young man learns about courage by watching his dear mother fight a debilitating illness. A father learns to be more patient by parenting a willful child. A young woman gains a new perspective on life when she visits an elderly neighbor to talk but mostly to listen. No one is ever the same if they embrace opportunities to learn from others.
Human relationships are the raw materials that make a rich, meaningful, fulfilling life. So instead of using people and loving things, the best people use things and love people. They know that in every person, every conversation, every experience is an opportunity to learn.
Lloyd D. Newell
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
He is the means of bringing hope.
Lazarus reminds us of the unexpected hope that will spring forth from the darkest moments of our lives.......
It had been four days, four dark days of weeping, of wondering and of asking why.
"If you had been here..." Martha whispered to the Lord as she ran to meet Him.... "If you had been here..." Mary falling at His feet, the grief too much for her to bear. Sorrow overflowing, still she clung to her faith in Him. He saw the tears streaming down her face, streaming down the faces of the friends who had come to mourn, and Jesus wept. "If you believed." He pled with them "you would see"
They took away the stone from the place where Lazarus lay. Then Jesus prayed, and the Father heard, and Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth"
Come forth from the darkness. Come forth from the mourning, the sorrow and the anguish. Come forth from that which holds you back and be healed.
And so, still bound with grave clothes hand and foot his face covered with the napkin, Lazarus came forth. He whom Christ loved was risen from the dead.
The scriptures do not tell us what happened afterward, we can only imagine the celebration that surely followed, the gratitude and the awe. What we do know is that this miracle of miracles marked one of the highest points in the ministry of Jesus Christ up to that moment in His mortal life.
The miracle was an unforeseen answer to a call for help that have been expressed by two sister four days before. It came when every human condition would suggest it shouldn't have. In the darkest moment. Unexpectedly.
I wonder if you have ever found yourself in a similar circumstance. Maybe you have cried out to the Lord in anguish from a dark place. Perhaps you know about the waiting and the wondering that come in those moments when you question if the Lord has forgotten you. It's not that you don't have faith. It's just that sometimes it feels as if the timing of the miracle you are pleading for goes unanswered. We must remember that sometimes the miracle we are hoping for is not the miracle the Lord holds in store. Sometimes miracles come in unexpected ways, and they come in the Lord's timing rather than in ours.
And yet, the Lord is constantly aware of us. He knows what is about to happen. He sees the mourning, the yearning for answers, and He hears the questioning why. Surely He weeps with us, just as He did with Martha and Mary. We must remember that ours is a God of miracles, and in His own time He will heal us. Most often that healing that deliverance, will come in unexpected ways that is the way of the Lord. Always, He is the means of bringing hope.
...may our eyes be open to believe to see the unexpected, to recognize the hope that is before us! For there will be dark days, moments when we are lonely or forgotten, days when we carry a burden so heavy we wonder if the weight of it will ever ease. Out of these dark places, hope will come forth.
It always does. It always will.
Emily Belle Freeman
Monday, March 21, 2016
It is finished
The Greatest Sacrifice of all required the loss of every single pure drop of blood that Jesus Christ had to offer. The process of the Atonement began in Gethsemane and was completed on the cross at Calvary when He said "It is finished."
The three most important words ever uttered are not
"I love you" but rather "It is finished."
"Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends."
John 15:13
Instead of thinking about how much we are loved by others, perhaps we could focus on what it means to truly love others, as He loves us. In this small act, we emulate God's love and become LOVE.
"Love is the motivating principle by which the Lord leads us along the way toward becoming like Him, our perfect example. Our way of life, hour by hour, must be filled with the love of God and love for others."
Henry B. Eyring
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Easter Marks of Love
It has been a rough couple of months and I don't have it figured out yet. But I know He loves me, and I just have to take that next step into the dark and that is easier said than done.
I had a pretty deep heart to heart with the Savior, and I imagined He held his hand out for me to touch and I imagined all of His wounds. The ones in His wrists, the ones on His back and shoulders where the whip ripped Him up, the ones on His feet, the ones where the sword pierced His ribs, the ones on His forehead from the thorn crown, and I wept and wept and wept.
He paid a heavy price for us to have peace in this life and
most of us don't know how to accept that gift on our behalf.
He knows our pain and then some.
Our suffering makes us a part of the fellowship of the suffering of Christ.
He is our fields of diamonds.
We search elsewhere, but He is the real gift.
~Diane Myers
Dawn will break shadows flee
"As we approach this holy week—Passover Thursday with its Paschal Lamb, atoning Friday with its cross, Resurrection Sunday with its empty tomb—may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear."
"We must constantly remind
ourselves that He is God
and we are not."
"Trust in God hold on to his love. Know that one day the dawn will break brightly and all the shadows of mortality will flee"
Jeffery R. Holland
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Life is a long walk on a long road.
It's common in many cultures to compare life to a path, a road, a journey. And anyone who has ever embarked on a long journey can see why it makes such a useful metaphor. It helps us to see life with purpose and direction, to feel that we are making progress, that we're getting somewhere and not just anywhere, but toward a specific destination we want to reach.
But even when we're not really sure where our life is headed, seeing it as a journey can still yield helpful insights. Some days we walk the road of life with the wind at our back, sunny skies overhead, and a paved, well-marked path beneath us. Other days we walk into the wind, with dark skies above, and the path covered with potholes, detours, and roadblocks. The road of life is never entirely smooth
or easy for any of us.
During those rough patches, it's easy to become discouraged, especially when we look at others whose way seems much smoother. We hear stories of people who accomplish remarkable things and wonder how they got such an easy path. But the truth is, there is no fast lane, no shortcut to true happiness and peace. Every life path winds its way through sorrows and setbacks before cresting on the sunlit highlands of contentment and accomplishment. Every autobiography—written or unwritten—has its plot twists before reaching its "happily ever after."
So instead of comparing our road to someone else's, it may be more productive to see each other as fellow travelers along what ends up being pretty much the same road. After all, none of us makes it very far without help. Indeed, we were sent here not to compete with each other but to walk side by side—to help each other when the road gets steep and to enjoy the pleasant stretches together.
Be our days many or few, life is a long walk on a long road. And so we might as well walk it together. As we do, we will find that our experiences lifting, encouraging, and supporting one another along the way are just as much a part of our "destination" as anything we expect to find at the end of the road.
Lloyd D. Newell
What we think we become
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.
REPEAT AFTER ME
It's time to believe in MYSELF!
Changing our mindset could make us happier people
Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction.
Break the habit.
Talk about your joys.
"Change your thoughts and
you change your world."
Norman Vincent Peale
Friday, March 18, 2016
Great possibility
"May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility"
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