Happy Fall Y'all!

Hey Y'all!

I'm super happy that it's fall and I had found some cute printables that said "Give Thanks" but I wanted to make my own that said "Happy Fall Y'all" and get some Texas spirit into the fall! I have made two different banners, one more simple, and one more complex and festive. I hope you enjoy!

Pictures to come!

Befit Go Beach Body AKA Operation Bride

We have officially started Operation Bride for the majority of the bridal party for the wedding coming up in January. The Official schedule was posted by Lionsgate Befit on their Twitter account, but we couldn't find two of the videos so we put together a schedule with all the links to the videos!

Week 1	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
	20 Min Total Core & Thighs Workout	10 Min Sexy Arms Workout	30 Min Total Body Bikini Blast – Level 1	REST	30 Min Powerhouse Yoga Workout	20 Min Lean Legs & Abs Workout	10 Min Beach Butt & Tummy Tuck Workout
Week 2	Day 8	Day 9	Day 10	Day 11	Day 12	Day 13	Day 14
	REST	20 Min Total Core & Thighs Workout	40 Min Total Body Bikini Blast – Level 2	20 Min Lean Legs & Abs Workout	REST	30 Min Total Body Bikini Blast – Level 1	10 Min Beach Butt & Tummy Tuck Workout & 10 Min Sexy Arms Workout
Week 3	Day 15	Day 16	Day 17	Day 18	Day 19	Day 20	Day 21
	30 Min Powerhouse Yoga Workout	REST	40 Min Fat-Burning HIIT Workout	20 Min Lean Legs & Abs Workout	10 Min Beach Butt & Tummy Tuck Workout	REST	20 Min Total Core & Thighs Workout
Week 4	Day 22	Day 23	Day 24	Day 25	Day 26	Day 27	Day 28
	30 Min Total Body Bikini Blast – Level 1	30 Min Powerhouse Yoga Workout	REST	20 Min Lean Legs & Abs Workout	10 Min Beach Butt & Tummy Tuck Workout & 10 Min Sexy Arms Workout	40 Min Total Body Bikini Blast – Level 2	REST
Week 5	Day 29	Day 30
	30 Min Total Body Bikini Blast – Level 1	40 Min Fat-Burning HIIT Workout

Be aware that at Day 25 we may switch to Befit in 90, which is their version of P90X. So this will be our ramping up month and then I think we're going to switch to a much harder workout but it's way easier to follow because it tells you what videos to do for each day!

Enjoy!

Big Swiss Cake Roll

Mom and I stumbled across this pin and thought it was worth a shot.

We followed the directions and made the cake in a half sheet pan, using Reynolds Wrap new parchment paper that is half foil half parchment paper

After peeling off the Parchment paper we had to roll up the warm cake so that it would retain a memory of the roll shape. I used a sackcloth towel

 Little Miss Thang kept our cake safe and in shape while it was cooling!

While the cake was cooling we made the marshmallow creme filling

 Spread it out on the cake

 And rolled the cake back up!

Then we made the chocolate ganache, using mostly semi-sweet bakers chocolate, still following their recipe

Then we covered the cake in the chocolate ganache

then cut it up and ate it:

We decided the cake was a bit dense and the ganache a bit bitter so we modified the recipe

We found a chocolate cake roll recipe in the Betty Crocker Bridal Edition Cookbook and decided to make that one, and we changed the ganache to include more milk chocolate.

 Then we cut it up and ate it. It isn't quite as pretty but it sure tasted yummy!

So here's the recipe to make the second Swiss Cake Roll:

Cake

4 Large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup cake flour

¼ cup baking cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

For dusting tea towel:

2 Tablespoons powdered sugar

1 Tablespoon baking cocoa

Marshmallow Crème Filling

1 Stick butter softened

¼ cup vegetable shortening

1 small (8oz) jar marshmallow crème

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered sugar

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

½ cup heavy whipping cream

2 Tablespoons salted butter

1/3 cup milk chocolate chips

1/3 cup semi-sweet chips

½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup powdered sugar

1.       Heat oven to 375. Line jelly roll pan, or half sheet cake pan, with parchment paper.

2.       Beat eggs in Kitchen-aid mixer on high speed about 5 minutes or until very thick and lemon colored. Gradually beat in granulated sugar. Beat in water and vanilla on low speed. Gradually add flour, baking cocoa, baking powder and salt, beating on medium just until batter is smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl down and mix it in. Pour into pan, spreading evenly with spatula to corners.

3.       Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean/ Immediately loosen cake from edges of pan and turn upside down onto tea towel generously sprinkled with powdered sugar and baking cocoa. Carefully remove paper. Trim off stiff edges of cake if necessary. While cake is hot, carefully roll cake and towel from narrow end. Cool on wire rack at least 30 minutes.

4.       Prepare marshmallow crème filling:

a.       Cream together butter, shortening marshmallow crème, vanilla, and salt. Slowly beat in powdered sugar.

5.       Prepare Chocolate Ganache Glaze:

a.       Warm heavy whipping cream and butter in small sauce pan on low heat. Continuously stir in chocolate chips until melted. Add vanilla and powdered sugar, continuously stirring until combined.

6.       Unroll cake and remove towel. Spread marshmallow crème filling over cake evenly, to edges. Roll up cake. Place on a wire rack on top of baking sheet.

7.       Generously coat with Chocolate Ganache Glaze. Scrape extras off the baking sheet, re-warm if necessary and re-coat the cake roll.

2nd Annual Running 2 Rescue, and Free Eggs and Bacon

This past weekend was Trinity Church's Second Annual Running 2 Rescue, it was AMAZING! This year they held it on the TTU Campus and a whole hour earlier so it wasn't crazy hot (Hello, it's June in Texas!). The turnout was a huge success and we beat the amount we raised last year! All the proceeds go to fight human trafficking, to save girls who have been sold into sex slavery in America and beyond. Fight for freedom! So as un-pretty as race pictures can be here are a few.

Above is a picture of pretty much our whole team. We thought we were being ingenious by wearing hot yellow team shirts... Apparently it was THE shirt color to wear!

The girls from our LG that were on the team (Ashley was busy running the whole show and wasn't present in the picture).

A before picture of me and my wonderfully amazing husband!

This is us holding hands as we run across the finish line together, I know you can't see our hands but just trust me :-) 

The ever so beautiful after picture! We did a run/walk for the 5K since we're breaking our legs into our Five Fingers, so we were slow coming in at 42:19 but it was worth it because we were sore enough from that.

Since then I've had a very busy week, working a lot on data and statistical coding, the joys of grad school. Speaking of grad school I will take just about any free food that is thrown my way, some of which were eggs and bacon. I had 4 packages of bacon and a rack of 30 eggs! So I decided to re-make my eggs in a bacon basket thing that I have made in the past. Unfortunately I didn't blog about it so I didn't have my comments to refer back to (I may be in grad school but I have the memory of a doorknob!). Hence the double post! So here are my semi-beautiful egg baskets with what I did do and what I would do differently for the next time I get a ton of free eggs.

A few things to mention first:

1. I made these so that I can freeze them and then microwave them right before putting them on toast or an english muffin.
2. My oven temperature notoriously runs hot (about 25°F) so if by chance you decide to follow my instructions yours might take a bit longer.

Alright, on to making these money-saving beauties!

• I cooked the bacon so that it was NOT crispy, just a slight cook to get most of the grease out, then let it drip on a paper towel.
• Preheat your oven to 350°F
• Spray the muffin tin(s) well with some Pam
• Here I used the bacon and wrapped it around the outside, I forgot that if you cut it in half and put it in the bottom in the shape of an X it stays better. You can see that my eggs kinda pushed the bacon towards the center. Plus then you can get a bite of bacon with almost every bite.
• One by one I crack an egg into a small bowl (to make sure that it's still good) and then gently pour it into the bacon ring, or on top of the bacon X. Be very careful to not break the yolk. 
• On a side note if you want you can also scramble the eggs and add a touch of water to make them fluffy.
• Season the eggs with anything you would normally season eggs with. My favorite seasonings are salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I added paprika to some of them to see if I like that!

Here you can see that I happened to have a twosie in one of my eggs!

• Put the muffin pan(s) in the oven for 15-20 minutes, I did exactly 18 minutes. You want it so that when you jiggle the pan(s) the top stops jiggling. But don't go much beyond that because then your yolk will overcook. This allows the egg to finish cooking when we re-heat them in the microwave and ensures that you don't overcook your egg.
• If you are serving these to people right away (no freezing) just let them cook a couple minutes longer. If they will be sitting in a well insulated serving dish while waiting to be served you don't need to cook a few more minutes because the eggs will cook themselves.
• Once the sides are bubbling and the top of the egg stops jiggling pull it out and let cool for 10 minutes.
• You should be able to use a plastic knife to run around the edges, or your fingers to just wiggle it away from the edge of the pan. Put in a ziploc bag and freeze!
• When you are ready to eat them put them in the microwave top side down for 30 seconds, then right-side-up for 30 seconds, place on an english muffin with some cheese and enjoy!

Time

We all have 24 hours in the day. We all have the same amount of time as everyone else does. Yet none of us have "enough time" to do everything we HAVE to get done and have "free" time left over to do fun things. I know when I was single I hated being home alone and would spend just about every night hanging out with friends, I had a very large spider web of friends. Now when Chris is gone for work I'm forced to have time home, ALONE and it really makes you think and makes you prioritize. I am in the middle of a sermon series called Simplify and it talks about removing overwhelmed, exhausted, and over scheduled from our vocabulary, and the power of actually scheduling time to do things, time to spend with your family, time in The Word, time at church on Sunday, etc. While I'm still a fan of randomness, many times leaving something up to random means leaving it up to never happening. I know that in our life group we all talk about wanting to spend time together outside of our every other Tuesday night meeting but lately it rarely happens. We have stuffed our weeks so full of stuff, cleaning the house, shopping for a new necessity, going to school, doing homework, working, taking care of other people that we forget to schedule time that is truly for ourselves. That ends up being detrimental to our mental health, to our marriage, and to our friendships, yet we just don't see that, or see it as selfish instead of refreshing or re-building.

We NEED to schedule time with our friends, we NEED to schedule date nights with our spouse's, we NEED to schedule time for worshiping and fellowshipping. We NEED to stop saying, I just don't have free time, we have chosen to not have free time and it's hurting us. When we are over-scheduled we feel overwhelmed and it makes it really easy for the devil to take a foot-hold in our lives and marriages and relationships, and start breaking them down.

Let's all re-check our priorities in life, let's make sure that they're not sucking the life out of us. Let's stop making excuses and spend time with the people who are very important to us before they're gone. Let's stop saying, "We really need to hang out," or "We really should get together sometime." and actually do it! Let's schedule peaceful time that is meaningful and loving and fun and refreshing all at the same time!

I love you all and my time in Lubbock is fairly short and I'd love to make the most of it with each and everyone of you! When I'm in South Dakota or Colorado I know that my time is short and I try really hard to make the most of every moment I get when I'm there and see the people that mean the most to me.

We all have the time that we have scheduled so let's look at our schedules and see where our priorities are.

Spring time in Texas

We've had a great spring. We've spent a lot of time together and have enjoyed all the time we got together. We've had some bad news and have had to re-evaluate things. Chris has been looking for a possibility of a second job in case we can't make it through the summer on his paycheck from his current job. Mandy's been making new friends and is always grateful for the friends that we've both already made.

It's been beautiful around here, it's already started to get hot, we have broke 90 degrees F, but then a cold front will move through and Mandy will sleep amazing. Unfortunately this last cold front had a freeze snap with it so many people lost their hard-worked gardens!

I've had a lot of time to think, and have been progressing on my research slowly but surely. I find it interesting the puzzle pieces that you brain puts together when you're trying to fall asleep. They may be simple things but they seem like way more complex matters until you figure it out. FYI 1 X 10^6 is equal to 10 X 10^5 NOT 100 X 10^5, that's what I figured out last night. I've had some very clear thoughts, I have been really focused on finishing school since I am feeling ready to be done. I realized today that I just need to focus on what I'm doing and enjoying it instead of focusing on finishing. I need to not be envious of other people, their lives are different than mine and we won't be sad to stick around Lubbock for a little bit longer. When it's time for me to get a job I believe that the right job will come along, so there's no reason for me to be worried about getting there!

I've had people that I didn't expect express to me this week that they're grateful for me, appreciate me, are sad that I won't be spending time with them this summer, etc. and it's done wonders for lifting my mood. When Chris is busy working I try to keep busy with work, but things like that always help to feel loved and needed when I can't necessarily get that from my husband (by no fault of his own).

I'm still dealing with the loneliness of a Friday night at home alone. During the week it doesn't bother me much because I've kept busy at night cooking, keeping the kitchen clean, and meal planning, but the weekends always hit me in a different manner.

I'm always grateful for my girlfriends that help me get through the tough times, who celebrate with me in the exciting times and share with me in all. Now I just need to figure out how is the best way to express that I love spending time with all of them even something as silly as sitting on the couch in sweats and that getting out of the house when I'm alone is pretty much the only thing that keeps me from going crazy. I don't have money to spend but I love going on walks, painting (houses or toes), cooking, watching movies, and doing crafty things and I'm not sure that people know that about me.

I think this all comes from spending so much time with my family growing up and being so far from them now makes our friends our family now so I desire to spend as much time with each of them as possible.

In the end I love all my friends and I love to spend as much time as possible with them and I'm still learning how to handle alone time as a married woman.

XOXO