There is one in all of us

So we watched "Where The Wild Things Are" last night. I unlike a lot of people, had never read the book growing up. But our friends Josh & Emily were with us last night & Josh read us the book while we waited for our dinner at A1 Sushi. The book was cute, I enjoyed the pictures a lot.

The movie was good as well, although I don't think I would recommend it for little kids. It was rather sad & just in my mind would be better for children 8-10 or above. I do recommend for adults though, it was not the "Kid" movie that I was prepared for.

It got me to think though and I like how Josh put it after the movie. It reminded him of being a kid and sometimes either doing something bad (disobeying, being mean to other kids, etc) and just the way that made you feel (I hope it put it right Josh). Also even as an adult how we can sometimes take things to far, such as joking, sarcasm, etc. I think in the movie for sure Max went to far when he got lonely, sad & upset. Such as destroying things in his sister Claire's room after her & her friends messed up his igloo in the snow outside, or when he got mad at his mom & started screaming, kicking & bit her. Or even further in when he ran away and lived among "The Wild Things" and started to create issues among them, while pretending to be king.

He defiantly left home under bad circumstances, but thankfully made things right after messing them up with "The Wild Things".

Anyhow, after watching it, then discussing the movie I really got to thinking Biblical perialls. How we "kick & scream" sometimes when God wants us to do something or to change something in our lives. How we sometimes take out our anger on others & seak revenge. How we rebell against him sometimes & run from what he has for us. We think in our minds (which are small & do not know all) that we can do things better on our own, so we take flight, go out on our own & pretend to be king of our lives. But even though things may go well for a bit, in time we realize what we should have all along, that we do need God and that we are just making even more of a mess of things on our own. So we run back to God, and God welcomes us back, he forgives us & gives his support to us & doesn't rub in our faces our sin or how we ran away, but gives us a second chance. He always looks out for us, and is happy when we realize how much we need him in our lives. In the end of the movie the mother of Max does the same for him. She welcomes him home with a warm hug, tears & prepares a meal for him. She, I am sure was saddened by what we had done (just as God is when we turn our backs on him), but is willing to forgive. It just reminded me how much God does for me, and how little I am able to do on my own. I need to fully surrender to God daily. This may be a little deep for what was meant to be a youthful movie, but just thought I'd share.

Caroline

Summertime

So this summer has really been flying by! It is sad as summer is one of my favorite times, but I look forward also to fall in Ohio & the fact that our vacation is coming! We are taking a multi family vacation to Salvo, NC (Part of the Outer Banks) in October for a week. My parents & sister are going, Paul's parents, sister & brother, Paul's Grandma Dixie is also coming. It should be really fun! We rented a big pink house with 7 bedrooms & 5 bathrooms. I think there will be enough room :)

Work has been going well for me, it has also been going well for Paul. We are both very happy being back home. We spent a lot of time this summer looking for a house to buy, nothing yet but I am sure we will continue in our search (if not now, then in a few months). Our realtor has been very understanding & helpful and of that I am thankful! It is a hard process, lots of decisions.

A few months back I had an MRI of my brain and tissues. Everything came back okay, thank God! I still get little bouts of lightheadedness or a feeling of "fullness" in my head, but more days then not anymore I have been feeling good. Another Thank you GOD!!!

Not much more on the news front. I will try not to go so many months between posts next time.

Tax day blues......

Sometimes it is so hard not to be discouraged. I mean how could I not be, on this Tax day 2009 after finding out we owe in $1500.00. I was so excited that after our move & the first few paychecks at Paul's new job that we were starting to get back on track. Money was starting to go into the savings, rather then out. We were about to get back onto our budgetting system. Monday I started working a part time job at a place I used to work a few years ago, things were looking up. I was pulling the info one how much we owe on our car, which is low & we were looking to get another one. I feel like we've been obedient to God with tithing (not to brag, it is hard) and it really threw me today to hear about having to pay in on taxes. I am ashamed to admit but I question how wise it is to tithe in times like these, but God has promised to provide, He has in the past, even while tithing & I just need to keep trusting & obeying him. But it is still hard at times. Times like these. I just thank God it wasn't more that we owed. I know He will be with us & help us get it all paid off but I just pray that things start to look up as the discouragement is setting in once more.
Oh and to top it all off our tax guy had kind of gone MIA on us from February (when he got our info) till just today when he told us we owed. NICE.
Well I think I will end this post before I complain anymore.
Ciao,

Caroline

After another long silence a blog post from Caroline! I have been meaning to update but then either get too busy or get too lazy. Paul and I are very happy in our new place back in Ohio. It feels so good to be home, finally! Looking back at our time in Virginia it just feels like a long trip away from home. Not so much a vacation, because it wasn't all sand & sun, but a lot of work, stress & missing family & friends. Not that there weren't good times, there were. Not that there weren't friendships built & cultivated, there were. But it is nice to be home regardless!


I have been happy to be getting back in touch with people here, doing some lunches with the girls, dinner parties at our place, going to dinner at friends homes & spending time with our families. Paul is loving his new job at Suarez. He is allowed much more creativity then at CBN so that is making him happy. He is planning on taking on some freelance or part time work for the evenings/weekends to make a little extra cash. Our goal is to be debt free. The cost of living has gone down for us, well except for gas prices so the goal of being debt free is getting closer. I am still searching for employment but have some very good oportunities in front of me. I am training right at the moment to be a server at Bravo, and so far that is going well although it is a lot of information to take in. We are still looking for a church to call home, but have visited a one that we did enjoy. I have been doing a lot of cooking in my new big kitchen here at our apartment. Below is a picture & recipe for a margharita pizza that is absolutly amazing!

The Margheritan Pizza - Grilled

1 grilled pizza crust *

1 tablespoon Herbed Grill Oil **

1 tomato

1 ball (8 ounces) fresh mozzerella

Garnish - 2 tablespoons basil leaves

1: Brush the grilled side of the pizza crust with the Herbed Grill oil. Lay on fresh tomato slices and fresh mozzerella slices as desired.

2: Grill pizza. Garnish with the basil leaves before serving.

* Pizza dough, you can either use a mix or make your own. Roll out on a floured surface in a size that is good for your grill & serving dishes. I don't have an outdoor grill so I use a large cast iron electric griddle set at 400 degrees. After pizza dough is rolled out, put in griddle & grill each side about 2 minutes or until "grill marks" apear. Take out of griddle. After toppings are put on place back in the griddle for about 8 minutes. Take out & place on broil pan, broil for about a minute or two.

** Herbed Grill oil -

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 small clove garlic

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

Makes 1/2 cup

Place all of the ingredients in a small bowl or glass jar, mix well, and refrigerate. If it solidifies, take it out a few minutes early or microwave it at 5-second intervals until it starts to liquify.

ENJOY!!

The second time I made this pizza, instead of using tomato slices on it I made Chunky Tomato Basil Sauce and did everything else with the pizza the same, just used the sauce instead of tomato slices.

Chunky Tomato Basil Sauce

2 small cloves garlic

8 large fresh basil leaves

1 1/2 pounds (about 3 medium) rip tomatoes, cored & quartered (or use canned, diced, well drained tomatoes)

2 tablespoons tomato paste (or more)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 Place garlic & basil leaves in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the tomatoes and pulse briefly (unless canned tomatoes are used, then I didn't put those in the processor). Do not puree the tomatoes, as the sauce is meant to be chunky. Or chop all by hand.

2 Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in the tomato paste, salt, pepper, and sugar until mixed well. If the sauce looks watery, add more tomato paste until you see no more juice.

3 Refridgerate the sauce for an hour to accentuate the flavors.

Happy pizza eating!

Ciao, Caroline

Moving back to Ohio

"If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
Annie Dillard

There are people who would say "Why are you moving back to Ohio, a place where it is cold & snowy, where the economy is poor." Trust me we have thought of those things.
But since living in Virginia, we have greatly missed our families. We wanted for a while now to move closer to them & friends. The quote I started this post with encourages me. We need to take chances in live, even if at times it is easier not to, to stay where we are & not where we want to be. We've been praying for months that God open & close doors, guide us & direct us. He has answered our prayers. Paul is taking a job at a company in Canton, OH doing video editing. The company has been in business for 26 years & going strong. We will live halfway between my parents & my in-laws. It is has been wonderful for us this first year of our marriage to be together in a new place & have to lean on each other more than maybe we would have had to if we'd never lived far away from family. I feel like it was good for us. Now as we enter our second year of marriage & look toward the future with our desires to own a home & have a family it makes sense for us to move back to Ohio. The cost of living is so much better, the area much more the setting in which we'd like to do those things.
Life is an adventure, not always easy, often challenging & it gets hard to know what choices to make. But to grow & learn sometimes we need to "Jump off cliffs" and "Build our wings".

Friendship

I have been thinking about the subject of friendship for a while now. I think the subject came up in my mind about the time I saw Sex and the City (the movie) and was talking with someone about why that movie is so popular & why we love it so much. Today I watched The Sisterhood of Traveling pants 2. I never cry watching movies, or shall I say very seldom do I, but today I did. I know it sounds lame to cry during a movie such as that (don't call me sappy, I am not!) but parts of it touched me. I got up from watching the movie & was just moved by the friendships the girls portrayed in it had. I think for me there is a certain longing that comes up when watching such movies as I long for a group to be a part of like in the movie.... where if there is sadness I can go to them, decision making help needed, joyous times to share with them. I had a group that was very similar once & while the four of us our still friends, life has changed & the closeness & contact with eachother is not there. Then I had a close friend that I did everything with for about a year & some of the elements came back again of having a group of friends like that. I may be rambling, but I think so much of why girls love movies & shows such as the two mentioned, Lipstick Jungle, The City, The Hills, etc. is for the closeness of friendships portrayed. The knowledge that someone going through the same things is there and just a phone call away. Someone that you can share it all with, without worry of judgement but knowing that they will give you sound advice. The day to day life they share with eachother, the separate lives they have but that they talk about weekly over coffee. In The Hills there have been rifts in close friendships, in my life as well there have been rifts. But even though the rifts happen, in the show they eventually try to move past them.... something that I also try to do in my life.

I think though in part why all these shows are so popular is because it portrays things we are longing for in our lives. Close friends. All of this to say, hold on to the friendships that you make! Try to mend differences, hurt feelings & move closer together. Friends are an integeral part of our lives. Try to open up & let close friendship develop, even if like me you have been burned by them in the past. Maybe once again we can find the close friendships we've been missing.

A little about being a Mennonite:

When I was 3 my parents joined a Mennonite church, Beachy Amish Mennonite that is. We were members of the church until I was 12 or so. I just was thinking about it the other day when the subject of church background came up in our church. I found a description of some of the beliefs of the church online as follows:

The Beachy Amish Mennonites are an evangelical, fundamentalist Christian group with an Anabaptist heritage and a conservative practice. Some distinctive beliefs include:
-Baptism only upon confession of Jesus Christ by a person who has reached an age of accountability.
-Nonresistance, that is, returning good for evil and not resisting a persecutor. This includes non-involvement in combat, though alternative service is acceptable.
-Emphasis on the essential role of church community as a supporting organism for individual spiritual growth and fellowship.
-An extent of practical everyday separation from mainstream society, especially in areas of social and recreational activities, personal adornment, amusement, speech, gender roles, and schooling.
-A covering for women in obedience to 1 Cor. 11:1-16.

There were a lot of rules; No pants for women, long hair worn up with a headcovering at a young age, no make-up, no ankle socks, no printed fabrics, caped dresses, strings on headcoverings that also have x amount of pleats. Men must wear plain clothes as well, no prints, no graphic tee shirts, hair must be parted in the center, no shaved faces.

In church acapella music only, separate seating for men & women, two cups for communion (one for men, one for women).

But amist all the rules there were really good things about growing up Mennonite. We spent a lot of time together as a family, involved in church & Bible studies. We grew up listening well in church & sunday school. I felt like I got a good knowledge of the Bible & Christian life through the services. We weren't confused as to right & wrong by tv, radio or secular media. My parents chose to homeschool us but if you did go to school it was to the private Mennonite school. Most graduated at 8th grade, some did go on through 12th.

This is just a little bit that I thought I would put on my blog for anyone who is interested.

I realize I am a horrible blogger and to anyone who may actually read my blog, I am sorry! Life has been rather insane the past few months & I am still trying to make sense of things, unwind & figure out what updates to put on here. I was working for a periodontal office, where for whatever reason the office manager started to have it out for me. She would make promises to me about which offices (they had 3) I would work in, what days I would travel to other offices, what days I would have off etc. But she was forever regenging on the promises she was making. When I started to see a pattern of that I started asking for agreements we made in writing. She was the kind of manager to never want things in writing or a paper trail of what she was doing. She would always tell me how I had no experience in dental (kind of as if I didn't have a right to the same treatment as others) and that it was an ever changing practice. Well the last straw for me was when she last minute tried to schedule me to help out on my day off in another office and when I said I had a doctors appt & couldn't she fired me. Needless to say this all caused a ton of stress & my last day there my blood pressure spiked to 170/100 and I ended up in the emergency room. This has been the first I can even write all of this without it wanting to go up! I have been now trying to get un-employment but the office seems to be fighting that too so we have a hearing over the phone Jan 23rd. It is all been so stressful but God is bringing us through! It is crazy to me but the firing happened a few weeks after I felt God strongly calling me to join Paul in prayer daily to pray about getting out of our debt.
It is harder to do now with only one income & it doesn't make sense but I know God's plans are bigger then ours. I will be starting to waitress soon at a bbq type restaurant & that is a blessing & answer to prayers.


Christmas was fantastic & a great blessing to go back to Ohio and spend time with friends & family! We got into Berlin on the 20th & spent till the 24th at Jake & Ivy's B&B. We were about 7 miles from my parents & spent those days with them & Hannah (my sister) who came in from NYC. We had a great time, spent time with family, saw some friends & went to several local places that I hadn't been to in a long time.... Natures Food Market, Lehman Hardware, Kauffman Bakery & Heini's Cheese. I felt like the tourist I used to make fun of! Enjoying the quiet, the snow & even seeing buggies on the road.
I felt like a lot of my friends have had babies this past year & I got to hold Leah's baby boy Taylor & Monica's daugher Lara which was fun!
On the 24th we headed up to my in-law's and spent the 24-28th with the Janssens. We had Christmas eve at Grandpa & Grandma Janssen's, which was fun. Christmas day was a relaxed day around the Janssen house. Day after Chuck, Shelley, Paul & I headed up to Middleburg Heights to see a long time friend of my families, Sam Bender. He was one of the first baseball chaplains. He & Paul got to know eachother at our wedding as did Chuck & Shelley. Paul was able to produce the first story to ever honor Sam this summer with CBN.


We had a great time with Sam. On Saturday I put on a birthday party for Paul's 30th at Max Doogan's in Chardon, OH & about 20 some people came out which was very nice.
We decided to squeeze in one more day and stayed through Sunday. All in all it was a wonderful trip & Christmas time!

Life back in VA has been busy with me trying to get a job, etc. But good. I have been having some really long days at home alone but am thankful for the time to relax & get back to normal. I have finally been sleeping really well which is fantastic.
I hope all of my friends & family have had a wonderful Christmas & New Years as well.