Fireflies and Songs

Well everybody, Sara's new CD came out yesterday and it is phenomenal. I know I've raved about it before, and another time after that and I know I just might sound like a broken record. But we got the pre-sale package yesterday (anyone else get this thing?!!) and watched the five music videos, listened to her audio book of the stories behind the songs and listened to the four extended play songs and there is so much good stuff to chew on. She did a remake of Jars of Clay's 'Flood' that is crazy amazing.

So, if I just can twist your arm a tinsy bit harder, I think you'll like this record. It's more acoustic and calming than anything else and I just can't get enough.

Beth Moore

I just completed another Beth Moore Bible Study called Believing God, and oh man, did the Lord use this time to teach me. It was a sweet time of me learning how to trust, taking steps in the right direction and God gently showing me his faithfulness over and over again. The premise of this study is Do you merely believe in God? Or do you Believe God? Each session began with five statements that we had to memorize:

1. God is who he says he is.
2. God can do what he says he can do.
3. I am who God says I am.
4. I can do all things through Christ.
5. God's word is alive and living in me.

I have lots I could share, but actually, I have an idea. Beth has another Bible study available online (you watch the videos online and print the weekly homework into a binder) called Living in the Spirit. I would LOVE to do this study with a group of ladies who are needing their own personal way to recharge. (I know some of you are already in a study at your church. Awesome! But for those of you who would like to connect this way, please do!)

My thought is that we would start the study the second week of January, and do a weekly check in, sharing what God has shown us through studying his word. I did something similar to this with my sisters-in-law, all of us communicating over email. I knew some of the women in the group, and didn't know others. But that wasn't really the point. We were all learning different truths as God revealed them to us, and we were able to share our joys and excitement and the faithful stories of God's movement in our lives with each other. It was a really unique and special community.

Just think about if this might be something you'd want to participate in to kick off the new year. It's a ten week study, with five days of Bible study homework each week (but don't think of it as homework...it's learning and praying and growing in all the best ways!)

And to get a better feel for Beth Moore, check out this link I just found. She is on a morning talk show on Wednesday's and this archives of her Wednesday lessons. She is excitable, very much a Texan, and so passionate that you cannot help but be inspired.

Pretty Gift Wrapping

I enjoyed another day of Women's Christmas Craft night preparation and today I worked on making demonstration pieces for the gift wrapping station. I found this pattern for a paper iris on this site. Pretty easy to make, and lovely on the present.

Fizzy Bath Bombs

A while back I found this awesome tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets. I love this blog...three crafty friends who do cool things together. How fun is that?!! The site is full of inspiring and thoughtful projects to tackle and I have many bookmarked that I want to try. So, anyway, I found this tutorial, and later my co-worker, Casey, and I decided to host a Women's Christmas Craft night at Carol Joy Holling. The hope was to get a bunch of crafty-types in a room for a night of food, creating and childcare done by camp counselors. Genius. So this Friday night we have 20 women coming to make three different projects, one of which is the Fizzy Bath Bomb. Today I did a trial run of this project and basically decided that I have the best job in the world.

First I gathered all of the supplies. This was the hardest part of the entire process. I had to track down five cups of citric acid. And figure out what witch hazel was (it's not a vitamin, so don't waste your time looking in the vitamin section in countless stores across omaha...just head over to your local walgreens and go to their face wash section. who knew?!! not me, obviously.) But once I gathered all of the ingredients it was a pretty simple process. I told Rory that by the time the ladies actually come and do the crafts, it will only take them 10 minutes because the prep work has already been done for hours, and if I were really honest, days. It reminds me of watching someone on a cooking show and they say, "simply toss your chopped vegetables in the pan" and you think to yourself, 'well who chopped those vegetables?!! All recipes would be easy and simple if your ingredients were premeasured and ready to dump into your pot!' Basically, this is what I have done for craft night.
So from there it was a pretty straight forward process...mixed the dry ingredients first and then added the oil and coloring. Apparently the citric acid and baking soda are the two things that really make these babies fizz. Again, if you want the actual instructions with step-by-step pictures, click here for great easy to follow directions from Little Birdie Secrets.
Adding the witch hazel was maybe the trickiest part, but it would be hard to screw this up, so I use the word tricky quite loosely. The key is that you don't want to ever saturate your dry ingredients or it will activate the fizz prematurely. So you spray on the witch hazel until the mixture clumps easily in your hand.

Then I packed the mixture into the cupcake cups seen below. The stuff hardens really fast, so I filled them fast. I plan on making mostly cupcakes, but wanted to try the actual "bomb" like you would purchase at LUSH.

For the cupcakes, I made a lotion frosting to go on top. It actually is a pound of powdered sugar, meringue powder and cream of tartar. I was sort of weirded out about bathing in powdered sugar until I realized that lots of people use sugar scrubs, so it can't be that horrible for you.

It stiffened up really quickly, so we filled the icing bag fast and decorated our fizzy bath cupcakes. This is my friend, Gina, who showed serious skill in her use of the piping bag. Very impressive, Gina.

They hardened up within two hours. Hard as rocks, actually. I was still curious how they would react in the water, unsure if I had done everything exactly right. So we tested one. I can't explain how thrilled and relieved I was that it worked, because I have been promoting this entire event based on these things, raving about how cool they are when they fizz up, while thinking, "Lord, please let them fizz up!" Not only did it work...but it fizzed like a hottub jet shooting up out of the water. Well, I mean, like the little spits of water that shoot up from a hottub jet. Not really like a gushing fountain. I'm just trying to say the fizz was impressive!

We wrapped them up and are all set for Friday night. If you're in the Omaha area and want to come, drop me a line. We'd love to have you!

Rory's podcast

My husband's company has just launched the newest edition of Weather Defender. They are in the marketing phase of the release and last week Rory was featured on CodeRed podcast. If you don't quite know what Rory does be sure to listen by clicking here.