turkey day...

This year for thanksgiving i cooked. it was so much fun and i must say my family was amazing. they let me run rampent in that kitchen. they were helpful and most of them (cough*cough tyler cough*cough) were able to sense when i needed a little space to focus.

there was a big difference in our holiday this year, though. this is the first major holiday we've had since tyler and rachel got engaged. the night before thanksgiving day i was sitting at my kitchen table with rachel and we were pouring over a new cookbook i have called sauces (more updates in the future about this book. it is amazing!). as we talked about the food i was struck by how grown up that moment was. when i was little i remember watching my mom and my aunt lisa do the same thing together. it seemed to me that sister-in-laws were the best. you always have a buddy but you don't have to share a room or clothes. and here i was with my very own. rachel is the best blessing and she is one of the things i'm most thankful for.

here's some pictures of the food. you'll notice that there aren't very many. it was hard to be the photographer and still make sure the food came out.

long time no blog...

i have been avoiding my blog. to be honest i have been avoiding my life (well, aspects of my life). recently i was visited my an old and cherished friend and he (as old and cherished friends often do) called me out on some of my... hmmm... i have no good word for this. let's use "habits". we sat at my kitchen table and he spoke with me about my natural inclination toward hiding and distrust. he talked (i cried) as he pried into what makes me so closed off. at the end of the conversation i just sort of wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there.


there are a lot of people in my life who would consider themselves to be close friends of mine. but if i'm being really, painfully honest i would say that i don't trust many of them. i don't say that to be rude. i say it as an example of how easy it is for me to play a part. and i'd love to blame that on the pastor kid thing, but i just don't think that's the truth. my whole life i've felt like if i show who i really am then people will leave. people won't love. people will hurt. so i hold it all inside. thusly (i just love the use of "thusly" here) i've been avoiding my blog because for whatever reason i find myself totally able to be completely myself here.


but something has been happening this week: i'm not exactly sure what it is. i'm still the same uncertain, insecure, worry-wart of a girl that i've always been. but somewhere along the line this week i started to think that maybe, just maybe i don't have to be.


i've been reading brennan manning's book: the ragamuffin gospel and he writes something that just begs to be repeated:

"think about this with me. your Father God loves you as you are, not as you should be. He loves you beyond fidelity and infidelity, beyond worthiness and unworthiness. He loves you in the morning sun and the evening rain. He loves you equally in your state of grace and in your state of disgrace. He loves you withouth caution, regret, boundary, limit, breaking point. no matter what happens or what you do... He can't stop loving you!!"

When I read that I thought: "what if you believed that Chelsea? what if you trusted that no matter what happens God loved you?" it would change everything. what if we really truly believed that there was no where we could run from the love of our Father? and here's an even crazier thought...

WHAT IF WE LOVED OTHERS THAT WAY? wouldn't everything change if we loved ourselves less and others more. and i'm not just talking about the people we already love. i'm not counting our mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters or husbands or children. what if i loved a stranger or an enemy the way that Christ loves me?

right now it's just a jumble of thoughts. right now it's just a baby step; a whisper in the back of my head. but i think as i work so hard to be someone who is worthy of love i am finally beginning to get it. He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.

some love from martha...

so my posts have been of the serious nature lately and i thought i'd change it up, just for fun. one of my favorite things i do with the youth group kiddos is cookie points. whenever they do something sweet or make me laugh or are helpful i give them cookie points. when they reach 100 cookie points i hand them martha stewart's cookie cookbook and let them choose the ones they'd like. cookie points not only keep the chaos to a dull roar but they also force me to attempt recipes i'd never go near (ask me about the disaster that was making fortune cookies). i thought i'd share a recent recipe with you. it was pretty simple and ricky loved his cookies so slam dunk!

Vanilla Malted Cookies

ingreidents

- 2 3/4 c flour

- 3/4 c plain malted milk powder

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 3/4 tsp salt

- 2 sticks (1 c) unsalted butter at room temp

- 3 ounces cream cheese at room temp

- 1 c sugar
- 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

- 1 egg

- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. preheat the oven and mix the dry ingridents together.


2. Cream butter and cream cheese. Then add sugar, vanilla, vanilla bean, and egg. Slowly add in the dry ingriedents a bit at a time.

3. Transfer dough to a pastry bag (or you can use a gallon ziploc and snip the end of it) fitted with a large star tip. Pipe 2 1/2 inch stips on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

4. Bake until edges are golden brown (for me this was about 7 min). Transfer to wire racks to cool and enjoy!