February-Peg-A-Day!

I started this blog with the intention of writing and posting regularly. Thus far I think I have put forth a solid effort and I think I have averaged about one post every week or two, which isn't too shabby. Sometimes I go a bit long without a post, and it is much easier when there is an ongoing theme to provide inspiration. November was a fun month for me because I kept up with a post about the things for which I was grateful, and I added to it each day. It was nice having a reason to log into the blog every morning to add an update.

In the same spirit of "A Thankful November," I have come up with a new project for myself. I have named it the "February-Peg-A-Day." My goal is to paint a new peg person each day and add a picture of it to this post. It isn't necessarily going to get me writing a lot, but it will help me check off a lot of the pegs from my "to-paint" list! Normally when I get into peg-painting-mode I work on many at once and so it takes me a while to get a finished product. By giving myself the goal of only one peg a day, it simplifies the process and I finish the single peg much faster than I normally would. I might not be able to do a peg 100% of the days in the month, and maybe some days I will do more than one, but I will do my best and if I miss a day or two I can rename the project, February-Peg-A-Nearly-Everyday.

I do have my own ideas of what I'd like to paint, but I think it would be more fun to hear YOUR ideas. If they are super fantastic, maybe you'll see your idea come to life! Er, well, not actual life, but to existence on a wooden peg.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre the completed February pegs!

February 1st: In honor of the baptism of my niece and goddaughter, I present Saint Anne. I apologize for the poor quality, I took the picture on my cell phone.

February 2nd and 3rd: The Olympics begin later this week! To celebrate this year's winter games in Sochi, Russia, I decided to paint pegs that look like the nesting matryoshka dolls. I feel like the pair needs another friend to make the set complete, though. I'll see what I can do!

Problem solved! I got brave and made a tiny addition to make this pair of dolls a trio! Anybody notice that all of the colors I chose come from the Olympic rings?

February 4th: Mama suggested that I paint an octopus, and because I love her, I decided to tackle it! When the four of us kids would constantly hassle her with, "Mom I need this! Mom do that! Mom! Mom! Mommy! Mama!" She would cleverly respond, "I'm not an octopus!" We thought it was hilarious, it kind of became a thing, and every time I see an octopus I think of her. Painting an octopus peg turned out to be harder than I anticipated; my original intention was to make it more "real" looking, but that was frustrating and I was using up a lot of my eraser, so I took a more abstract approach. It doesn't necessarily look like an octopus right away, but once you know what you are seeing, I think it is pretty cute. Originally I was going to draw and then paint all the legs, but I ended up free-handing it, which meant that I accidentally only gave it seven legs. Luckily there IS a seven-arm octopus, so this peg is legit. The camera had a hard time focusing on the whole peg, but it loved my favorite part, the bottom, where I tried to give the impression of those little suckers under the tentacles. Enjoy this cutie patootie! All it needs now is a name. Any suggestions, Mama?

February 5th: It is late, but I am happy to bring you today's creations! I outdid myself today, making four pegs, instead of one, but the theme was Harry Potter and I couldn't help myself. More than a year ago, I made my first Harry peg, and it was a little rough: I messed up his face and had to paint over the whole thing, his glasses were hard to paint, and I was still getting control over the paintbrush. See?

I have come a long way since then and I am very pleased to show you what I did today. I based the pegs on the costuming from The Sorcerer's Stone, because, let's face it, that is when the trio was most adorable. I absolutely love them and I will just come out and say it: Hermione is precious and her hair is probably the best I have painted yet.

I also decided to give myself a challenge and paint Harry the Seeker! Please ooh and ahh over the Gryffindor crest, the broomstick, and the snitch.

February 6: Yesterday's Harry Potter characters were so cute that I had to add more today: Draco, Snape, McGonagall, and Dumbledore. From here on out I really need to stick to one peg a day or I am going to run out of pegs to paint!

Coming Soon . . . Princesses and Star Wars! 


February 7: I didn't get to complete my new set of princesses that I made in the fall because I ran out of pegs. Now, I have just enough to complete it, so today I got started with Jasmine!

February 10: I'm back! And here is Jasmine, ready to marry Aladdin. :)

February 11: I never really watched Disney's Sleeping Beauty as a kid (There was something about an animated Maleficent that freaked me out), but there was a live action version that I loved. As a grown-up now, I'd like to someday buy the DVD to view and share with my future kids. Here is the first of a trio of Auroras!

The sun is finally shining today! Natural lighting made photographing this beauty so pleasant.

February 12: Here is Aurora, part 2 - pretty in pink!

February 13: Blue Aurora, backed up by the rest of the trio.

February 19: I admit it - I am a slacker. I spent much of February 14th working on a peg that just wasn't working out. Over the long weekend I hung out with my awesome husband and did not a stroke of painting. I picked up the brushes again yesterday and finished the peg today. My ultimate plan is to create a set of pegs to represent the months of the year. In honor of St. Valentine's Day, I began the project out of order and I hereby present to you this handsome February peg, complete with a heart shaped box of chocolates and a bright bouquet of flowers.

February 20: Today I wrapped up my current installment of Disney princess pegs! I know they are not all actually princesses, but I don't care. In the future I do want to paint a set of seven dwarfs and the adorable fairies from Sleeping Beauty, and I am going to need some princes for the ladies, but that is all for a future project. For now, Mulan is ready to train for war against the Huns!

February 21: Perhaps I spoke too soon about being done with princesses; I began work on my Star Wars collection today and started it all with the lovely Princess Leia. I think this is one of my favorite pegs ever, because of her hair, of course. And her adorable belt. And because the white paint came out so clean thanks to my new white-only brushes. I am a happy painter. Gosh, this one just makes me so happy!

February 22: Here is our favorite hairy Star Wars friend - Chewbacca!

February 23: Time for Leia's twin - Luke!

February 24: Hans Solo- a wookie's BFF.

February 25: Obi Won Kenobi!

February 26:  A tiny green Jedi master Yoda is.

February 27: The baddest darth of them all - Darth Vader! I was really nervous about this one, especially after drawing the details on in pencil first, but I am SO happily surprised at how wondrfully it turned out. I didn't want to use flash on the camera, but I had to so that you could see the details on his face. In real life, the contrast is much less noticeable and much more Darth Vader-like. Dun dun dun, dun, dundun, dun, dundun!

February 28: Here is the last day of the peg-a-day! C3PO and R2D2!

The February-Peg-A-Nearly-Everyday is complete! Alas, I didn't complete a new peg every single day, but since I pulled extra weight a few days, I ended up painting 29 pegs in 28 days! The only one I don't have anymore is St. Anne, because she is now with my Goddaughter, but here are a couple of shots of the other 28 pegs. I felt like a photographer on school pictured day lining them all up just right.

May the Force be with you!

I introduced the new princesses to my existing collection. All together they are so colorful and beautiful!

Leave a comment telling me which February Peg was your favorite!

Crock Pot BBQ Beef Tacos

Back in September, Drew and I went to a small town festival in Celina, Texas – the Celina Balloon Festival (as in hot air balloons, not the blow up birthday kind.) It was a HOT and sunny day accompanied, fortunately, by a brisk breeze. The wind prevented the hot air balloons from launching, which was a bit of a bummer, but the festival featured a classic car show, which was a lot of fun for me as a first timer, and wonderful for Drew who drooled over most of the cars. All good festivals are sure to feature tasty food and we were not disappointed! Searching for a food truck serving gluten free food is nearly impossible, so I got tacos, hold the shell and just give me the stuff that goes inside. Drew picked out barbeque brisket tacos that were delicious! I took a bite and thought aloud, “I bet I could make this.” Drew’s skeptical response was, “You can’t really do something like this without a smoker or grill.”

Oh, yeah? Really? GAME ON. Me and my crock pot got this.

Going back to my historian roots, I did a lot of research, read a lot of recipes, and came up with my own strategy for replicating the tacos.

The apartment was filled with the summery smell of smokey barbeque sauce, and like any slow cooker recipe, the hardest part of making this meal is waiting for it to be done!

In the end, Drew was very impressed with the results. Dare I say that we thought my version was even better than the tacos at the festival?

An arctic chill seems to have taken over most of the country, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the flavors of summer! In fact, this warm, tangy, melt-in-your-mouth meal might be just the comfort food you need to get you through this installment of the polar vortex.

Here is what you need:

A 2-4 pound hunk of meat – I like to look for a brisket, chuck roast, tri tip loin, etc. anything with a decent amount of fat will do. Brisket has given me the best "pulled" finish, whereas with the others, you have to cut them up into small cubes, which is still tasty!

½ cup bbq sauce – I have been using Stubbs Smokey Mesquite – choose your favorite!

½ cup apple cider vinegar

a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

one can of Coke – make sure it is REGULAR! The sugars in real Coke help tenderize the meal. The artificial chemical junk in Diet Coke just won’t work.

one onion, sliced

one clove minced garlic

salt

pepper

Here is what you do:

Season the hunk o’ meat with salt and pepper (you could also sub Montreal Steak Seasoning in place of the salt and pepper). Place the meat into the crock pot with the fat side up if possible. Place the sliced onions on top. Mix all the liquid ingredients and minced garlic and pour the mixture over the meat. Cook on low for 6 hours. Wait. It will smell delicious and you will want to pick up the lid every five minutes, but be patient and wait. Get out of the house if you have to! After the 6 hours are up, take out the meat and onions and discard the cooking liquid. Shred the meat and put it back into the crock pot. Add in more bbq sauce and cook for one more hour. 

We like to serve this with broccoli slaw, sour cream, cheese, and corn taco tortillas, but it would be great with rice, on buns, or even on top of a green salad! It doesn’t really matter how you eat it, just eat it and enjoy!

An Ode to My Aunts

When I married my husband, I not only committed myself to the love of my life, I also became officially part of a large and still growing family. I now have five nieces and two nephews and there are more little ones on the way. On my wedding day my friends and family started calling me, “Mrs. Smith,” but some of the greatest joy came from hearing the littlest ones call me, “Aunt Angie.”

The Smith family is big, and only getting bigger!

I am honored to have become Uncle Drew’s wife, Aunt Angie. Newlyweds often stress out about getting along with their parents and siblings in-law, but I think it is even more significant to gain acceptance by nieces and nephews. Children possess an innocence that makes their perception and reception of adults honest and true. Every moment spent with one of my nieces or nephews easily becomes the cutest moment of my life. The things they say and do, their mannerisms, their smiles and giggles, and the things that make them unique individuals are little treasures that warm my soul; to earn their love is to have in my heart something more precious than all the gold in the world. I realize that in ten, twenty, thirty years, those little girls probably won’t recall that I spent a lot of time playing in their new tent with them over the weekend, but they will remember it when I see them again in a few weeks, and that is what matters the most. 

When I think about the kind of relationship I want to have with my nieces and nephews, I immediately see the faces of all of my own aunts. They have played with me, read to me, given me awesome cousins to grow up with, fed me the most delicious food, supported me, been role models, shared my excitement about good things and my concerns when I faced challenges. In my aunts I have a godmother, a confirmation sponsor, and a host of perpetual cheerleaders. They are all beautiful, inside and out, they aren't afraid to be goofy, and for my whole life they have made me feel special and loved. I distinctly recall many a sleepover when my cousins and I would request a bedtime story. Sometimes it was told by one aunt and sometimes it was a team effort, but the stories were always magical and intricate and as a child I had no idea how they could be so creative on the spot. I admired them and wanted to grow up to be like them. This past Sunday evening I was snuggling with my niece at bedtime, and as I looked at her I thought about my aunts and thought to myself, “If she asked for a story, I bet I could do it for her.” For me, that was a very special moment. 

It causes me to pause in awe that I am now charged with the same responsibilities and privileges of my aunts whom I have looked up to for so long, and I think it is a wonderful blessing.

And since I have an affinity for rhyme, I just couldn't help myself and I wrote a poem:

Ode to My Aunts

To all of my wonderful, sensational aunts,

with your beautiful hearts,

and warm, loving hands:

Thank you for all for being a good part of my life,

I think I appreciate you more

now that I'm a wife.

You traveled frequently and sometimes long distances

to be there for birthdays, baptisms,

Thanksgivings, and Christmases.

I always enjoyed the times you'd come to stay,

the fun things we'd do,

and the games we would play.

It's fun to have an aunt to talk to and make you smile,

somebody other than a parent

who always thinks you are worthwhile.

I could go on and on from here to Kalamazoo,

so to just put it simply,

I'll say, "I love you!"

Cooking is a Little Bit Like Teaching (But Only Just a Little Bit)

Happy New Year! Welcome, 2014!

As I think about all of my teacher-friends who are getting ready to return to work for a new semester, I can’t help but be thankful for the break I have been enjoying. I now seriously believe that sabbaticals should be incorporated into K-12 education and not just reserved for college professors. 2012 and 2013 were full of sress for me: I planned a wedding, overcame undiagnosed health issues while teaching for a third year, and then got married and moved 1500 miles away from “home.” The last several months out of the classroom have been a time for me to explore my interests and passions outside of education, to learn new skills, and to be a good wife to my fantastic husband.

One thing I have had more time for is baking, which always intimidated me a little bit, but became even more time-consuming when I went gluten-free. When I was teaching, I hardly had the time to make dinner, let alone bake cookies and other treats. As I was working on my first batch of donuts for New Year’s Eve dessert, my teacher brain got to work contrasting cooking and teaching. I know it might seem weird, but since I am happiest when I am creating something, it makes sense to me to compare creating something in the kitchen with enlightening young minds.

Here are some comparisons made by my optimistic self:

• Cooking and teaching both require a lot of preparation. If you are missing something key, things just won’t turn out right. 

• Recipes usually turn out how I want depending on what I put into them. Sometimes I do everything right and it still doesn’t turn out as I expect it to.  The same can be said for student performance.

• In both the kitchen and the classroom, one learns best by doing.

Okay, so the optimism was short lived; here is my more cynical side:

• In cooking, formative assessment consists of licking the bowl, tasting the sauce, and nibbling at dinner to make seasoning adjustments. In teaching, formative assessment means endless tests and data analysis, which just are not as fun as eating raw cake batter. (For those of you who are not teachers, formative assessments are given throughout the learning process to track progress, whereas summative assessments are given at the end of a unit of learning.)

• In the kitchen, I can cook and bake whatever I want, whenever I want, and I can spend as much or as little time on it as I want. In most classrooms in this country, teachers are bound to curriculum maps and pacing guides that dictate what they can and cannot teach and when they have to teach it.

• If I am teaching someone how to cook something and it turns out badly, we laugh and order pizza. If the students I am teaching do poorly on their summative assessments, I get a bad rating and my job security and/or reputation could be jeopardized.

• At the end of a tough day, I can eat the cookies that I baked. I can’t eat the students who wear out my every last nerve.

• Dinner smells great while it is cooking. Not all classrooms, or students for that matter, have a pleasant aroma. I hated it when the boys had gym before coming to my class.

• Kitchen appliances, batters, doughs, soups, and roasts don’t talk back to me (yes, I talk to inanimate objects). Students talk back ALL THE TIME.

• The mixer doesn’t get distracted by a cell phone. Students can’t function without one.

Is it any wonder that I am less stressed out this year compared to last? I love teaching, don’t get me wrong, but taking a break has been so wonderful. All of the great "teacher-highs" that make the job so worth it only happen after the stress, frustrations, and hours of work that go into a successful lesson. Sometimes I miss it, but I am also happy in this stage of my life right now.

Here is a look at some of the other stress-free things I did in 2013:

I made this awesome mug for my Daddy's birthday. I am pretty jealous of him for having it.

I spent much of August and September painting these peg nativities to give as Christmas gifts. I kept this secret for a long time! In the background you can see the Christmas tree skirt I made.

I had so much fun making these super heroes and Christmas sets for a craft sale. My favorite is the Elf collection.

I made Christmas stockings for Drew and I. His is made out of an old shirt! I also made a festive banner and mistletoe.

I thought these little owls would look adorable on our garland. I was right! In 2013 I also made a turkey, a turtle, and two elephants!

This was so exciting - a family asked me to paint them onto pegs as a stocking stuffer! 

I had a lot of fun renewing my blogging efforts this year and I hope to keep it up in 2014! Thanks for reading and for your comments and feedback. May God bless you in the new year!

And the two shall become one flesh . . . and what about their stuff?

The Gospel reading at our wedding was not that for which this post is named, but since the phrase is so frequently employed in marriage ceremonies, it was running through my head a lot this past weekend. Allow me to explain why:

Marriage preparation is all about getting to know your future spouse, discovering potential areas of tension in your relationship, and figuring out how to work through challenges together rather than in opposition to one another. It is a beautiful time of excitement and anticipation and then the wedding day arrives and you “are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matthew 19:6) Woohoo! Mission accomplished! Months of planning have come to fruition and now you are married! Your happily ever after can begin! And then you get home from the honeymoon and re-enter the real world.

Now, I am pretty sure that back in Bible days, a couple’s consolidation of their belongings worked a little bit differently. Girls weren’t out living on their own before marrying . . . were young men even living independently? I guess what I am getting at is – you had some clothes and some livestock and you were good to go. Therefore, Matthew does not go beyond the union of the flesh. If he was writing today, he might have followed up his profound commentary with:

“And their two piles of junk will become one pile of junk, regardless of whether the husband or wife likes the other person’s pile. And this will be the first great trial of a marriage and those who successfully get through it will be strengthened by the Grace of God.”

Daddy arrives with the moving truck!

I don’t know if it is a good or bad thing, but the process of combining our belongings has been ongoing, and has yet to be finished, after 6 months of marriage. While it may have been nice to rip off the band-aid all at once, so to speak, slow and steady supposedly wins the race. Since I have moved so frequently in the last 8 years, I have had many opportunities to pare down my pile of stuff, to decide what sentimental items are worth keeping, and to donate or get rid of what I no longer need or want. I still have some work to do on this front, but what I brought to Texas was pretty much my minimum pile (in my world, craft supplies are part of the bare essentials required for life). All of my stuff and “our” things made it here on one truck in the move from Florida. It all fit easily into the apartment, and while we don’t have all of the major pieces of furniture we would like to someday have, what we are currently living with makes us happy.

Poor Drew, though, moved to Florida in such a hurry three years ago that almost all of his belongings got put into a storage unit in Texas two hours away from Arlington. I think he was scared to show me the inside of the storage unit the first time, and probably for good reason; we were still engaged and in my head I was thinking, “oh my gosh. holy crap. oh my gosh. holy crap.” Drew most likely thought I’d turn and run the other way after he raised the storage unit door and I gazed inside. Since moving here, we have slowly been going through the storage unit, re-claiming the things we want and selling or donating the rest. Once in a while I have a Christmas-morning-moment, like on Saturday when Drew found some “forever stamps” - YES! Or a book I have been wanting to read - YES! Or kitchen gadgets that I thought would be great to have but didn’t want to buy - YES!

The hardest part has been watching my husband go through all of the boxes of books, clothes, pictures, gizmos, gadgets, and odds and ends that represent his life before he knew me. He didn’t get to gradually go through his things like I did, and I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to decide, on the spot, which parts of his past life to give up and which to bring into his new one. I am sure there is an added pressure on him when I am standing right there saying, “And what about this box? And what is this stuff? And I don’t know what these things are?” Try being helpful while not trampling on your husbands memories, it's harder than it sounds. It might not be important to me today, but since his pile of stuff is part of his story, I want it to become important to me, too.

Each time we pull up to our apartment with a full truck it is hard to see everything fitting into what we thought was an already-full living space, but miraculously, there always seems to be room to integrate his belongings and his memories into our current existence. Somehow, too, we get more organized with each trip home from the storage unit. I am starting to understand my mother’s tendency to purge the superfluous junk that seems to build up inexplicably over the course of time, and although sometimes I think it would be easier to give up all of our stuff and start from scratch, it is also a fun adventure to bring our lives together. I actually kind of feel bad for people who don't get to experience this as newlyweds. When we open a new box I get a little peek at Drew’s past, which is a time and place to which I can never actually go (until I meet the Doctor, that is). My husband has had such diverse interests and experiences in his life, and this is one of the few ways that I can glimpse who he was before I knew him. It has all been a fairly smooth process, and really, when I look past the dust and the clutter, it is a tremendous blessing.

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

Having Myself a Crafty Little Christmas

This time of year is inherently wonderful thanks to its religious significance,but also for the generally gracious and giving attitudes it brings out in many people. One of my favorite parts of the season has always been the decorations that illicit such joy and hope in all of us. Wreaths and holly on store fronts, garland and snowflakes draped everywhere, and ALL OF THE LIGHTS! White lights should grow on trees. Just saying.

Sadly, when my family moved from Maryland to Florida, one box that got lost contained some of the items I looked most forward to seeing each year – a couple of wooden reindeer, a Precious Moments nativity, and a countdown calendar with a small stuffed bear that moved among numbered pockets each day that brought us closer to Christmas. My sister and I used to fight every morning over which of us would get to move the bear and, oddly, it is one of my fondest memories. I want my children to someday have the same experience of fighting over Christmas countdowns (is that weird of me?) and for me to smile while assigning them odd and even days to end the argument.

The logical solution was that I make my own calendar to replace the one that was lost. One bear, 24 pouches, not too bad. I can handle that. And then came Pinterest. Evil Pinterest. In my browsings one day I stumbled upon something called a Jesse Tree. It is a Christmas countdown based on Bible verses and key people leading up to the birth of Jesus. I was drawn to it because it will give my children a symbol to attach to different bible verses and adds to the Advent focus on spiritual preparation for Christmas. This website was very helpful by explaining the purpose of the tree, the construction of it all, and her links to other resources helped me design my ornaments.

Basically, the Jesse Tree is like the countdown I had in mind from my childhood, but on crack and steroids and skittles. Midway through the project I thought maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew; after hours upon hours of working on it I was ready to be done! I persevered, though, and completed it this afternoon. It was a “praise Jesus!” moment when I got to hang it on the coat closet door in place of our autumn wreath.

I had briefly looked at Etsy to see how much such a Jesse Tree would cost to purchase, and the one that I liked best was completely hand-sewn and went for almost $300.00. I was a little stunned at the price – I mean, it is felt and embroidery thread. WELL, I now understand the logic behind the cost, and let me tell you that no amount of money can tear my newly made calendar from my grasp! I spent too much time cutting and sewing and pricking my fingers and getting cramps in my elbow and back to ever part with it. It had better not ever get lost in a move and my children had better cherish it and treasure it and treat it very well, or else I will be hanging all the ornaments on the tree myself! Okay, maybe I won’t be that mean, but this was a lot more work than I bargained for. Take a look-see for yourself:

I learned how to properly chain stitch and back stitch.

I freehand stitched that!

First go-around with a satin stitch.

French knots in the house!

Here is what the tree looks like on December 5th.

The back of each ornament is labeled and there are Bible verses assigned to each one as a daily meditation.

Full size shot from December 5th. 

Here is what the tree will look like all filled with ornaments!

I am looking forward to December 24th!