“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…come further up, come further in!” ― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
We used the left over vanilla splits from making vanilla extract to make vanilla bean paste.
I followed this recipe: https://thesaltedpepper.com/vanilla-bean-paste/#recipe
The paste should be thick in a couple days and less alcohol-y in a couple weeks. It already tastes phenomenal!
Today Josh and I finally got to process some of the things we have been fermenting and extracts we’ve been… extracting?
Here are some photos of the process
Franklin, In
photo dump from a trip to Franklin College for an America Women’s Summer conference for Indiana and Kentucky.
conference
Josh’s photos
just post to spam photos of our garden over the last few weeks. ignore the weeds….they live here.
We’re on an adoption journey.
Our son is due to arrive at the end of July.
Do you have any book recommendations for adopting parents, adoptees, etc?
The background
As a lifelong Protestant and dyed in the wool Baptist, I have traditionally steered clear of Catholic practices. Growing up, no one ever explicitly told me that Catholics were “bad” but the insinuation was always in their tone. We never said the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostle’s Creed because that ritualistic behavior was too “catholic.” How could anything meaningful happen from something you do so frequently? PLUS, the apostles creed specifically has a statement about “the catholic church.” I can’t confess a belief in the catholic church if I’m protestant!
Years later, I feel so silly. I had to come to terms with the truth: my foundational need to distinguish myself from Catholics was built on a strawman’s argument. While I am in my core a Baptist and not Catholic, I see God’s beauty in their denomination. Catholics are my siblings in Christ. I can even have a holy envy (here’s a nod to Barbara Brown Taylor’s book!) for Catholic traditions. You may detect I’m still deconstructing unhelpful and divisive language and I ask for grace as I’m learning.
After many years of pondering, I built a hands-on Holy Week experience akin to the Catholic Stations of the Cross. This creation is not to critique the Catholic practice but to identify a practice rooted strictly in scripture alone. After all, how can Baptists celebrate Catholic traditions!? (I say with clear sarcasm).
This idea all fell together when I found, through Pinterest, a Holy Week Scavenger Hunt kit sold on Teachers Pay Teachers. Grateful for a framework to build upon, I purchased the download and got to work. I ask if you intend to follow my trend, go to the curriculum link and support this teacher!
My actions were quite simple: purchase the curriculum, create posters from the curriculum, print the handouts, and collect elements to represent each specific day. Below, I will show you my end results.
I ask if you intend to follow my trend, go to the curriculum link and support this teacher! I also used these two maps to highlight where things were happening each day during Holy Week.
The set up
Palm Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
Holy Saturday
Easter Sunday
Ascension Day
other pictures
We have a small congregation and usually very small attendants on Good Friday. we had about a dozen families attend and every single one of them were very grateful for a Hands-On Holy Week.
I will add another bonus here to say our Monday Thursday service had a little kids space set up. normally we just have a small service including communion and foot washing. this year we set up our tables with candles like normal and added a little kids spot with coloring pages and snacks and activities for them.
Last year for Stevie’s first birthday. my mother-in-law bought Stevie a bluey bed set.
I told her I would make curtains for Stevie’s room. Well, Stevie just turned two and I am finally hanging up curtains… After we switched her bedroom with Josh’s office and started preparing for our adopted son to people born. … parent of the year over here.
We still have some projects like patching the drywall in the closet and making the crib sleep safe but it’s a work in progress.
Shout out to Lori Hoback for lending me her Cricut press and for my mother for chasing my toddler and giving me the confidence to tackle this task. Honorable mention to Josh who was working on his master’s homework in the same room as our chaotic mess.
Here’s a few pictures of the birthday girl (birthday yesterday!) as a bonus.
At the end of 2022, I had to admit to myself I had not been really reading. As someone who writes and speaks publicly, I realized how much of a problem this truly was. How can you speak into the world? How can you stay informed if you are not constantly engaging with new material?
Recently, I discovered a Tiktok revealing reading statistics for the US in 2023. Spoiler alert: Our reading statistics are abysmal. Apparently my reading habits 2022 and prior were not unique. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8qppVMk/
I could easily create an excuse for myself based on academic burnout. Personally, I think it is completely normal after graduating (from high school or college or graduate work, etc) to have a reading burnout time.
Considering I graduated from graduate school in 2017… it was time to get back in the proverbial saddle. I used the Goodreads app to set a goal of 15 books in 2023. Surely I can read a little over one book a month right?
I’m proud to say that my reading soared in 2023.
Three revelations lead to my reading increase: the Libby app, identifying my learning disabilities, and releasing the stigma behind audiobooks.
I, too, am a reader even if it looks different.
I have pictures showing my reading log from 2023. You’re welcome to judge me, I judge myself. My goal was to balance genres, interests, interests, nonfiction and fiction, etc. AND I tried out some new things! I’m proud of this list.
(Disclaimer: a reading list doesn’t mean I endorse any of the books or authors or ideologies represented. Talk to me about the book, that’s the only way you’ll really know what I think)
Ultimately, I cannot stop praising my library for using the Libby app by overdrive. I can get ebooks or audiobooks through this app and have a constant stream of something to read.
As a way of appreciating my library, keep reading:
There is a Tiktok trend to go to Barnes & Noble with your book lover and give them 5 minutes to scope out the store and then 3 minutes to grab anything they can carry in their arms. At the end of 3 minutes, you will purchase whatever books they have picked up.
I love the passion for reading but I also wonder about the cost and the waste. How many of us have giant TBRs?
What these trends don’t identify is how many books are purchased by Book Lovers and forever stay in our TBR pile. Are we being good to the environment by mindlessly purchasing?
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8qsNtGA/
The tiktok above is a perfect example of us Book Lovers gone wild in a bookstore. I think we believe we are immortal based on the number of books in our TBR.
No judgment or shame on this woman and the fact that her books read is 1/4 the amount of her books puarchased in the same year. All of this keeps me turning back to the need to support our local libraries.
Because of the book buying challenge on Tiktok, I decided to tally up the cost of every book I read in 2023.
Thank you Kokomo-Howard County Public Library for providing for all my book lover needs.
Meriah J Tigner 