Good day to read a book

Today was a rainy day and made me think about how nice it would be to curl up on the couch and read a good book. Of course, I was stuck at work doing nutrition assessments, but if I could have had my way, I would have been engrossed in a book.
The most recent book that I read was Divine by Karen Kingsbury. This story is supposed to be a modern Mary Magdalene story and, like most of Karen Kingsbury's books, made such an impact on my life. I already want to read this book again.

If you like to read fiction, I highly recommend this book. Karen Kingsbury's book are great because although they are fiction they are what she calls "Life Changing Fiction". She has a great way of creating fictional stories that also teach biblical principles and teach about faith and grace and redemption and hope.

I'm not sure what I will read next. I haven't read all of Karen Kingsbury's books, but I also noticed at the mall last week that another one of my favorite authors, Jodi Picoult, has a new book out, Change of Heart, as well. I'm also behind and haven't read Nicholas Sparks' most recent book, The Choice.

I love to read when we go camping, so I will have to be gathering some good reading material for our camping trip in a few weeks. A friend recommended Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I haven't read anything by her...Sounds like a trip to the library is in order!! But...only if I can scrape up enough change to pay off my late fee debt.

Nabs anyone?

I walked into my friend's office at work the other day and said "Mr Doe's daughter called and said that he might eat nabs and a coke for a snack in the mornings." Now, I thought this was a good thing because Mr. Doe happens to be not eating and losing weight, but then I noticed that my friend had a strange look on her face. She said, "Nabs? What is that?" We then proceeded to have a conversation about how she had no idea what nabs are. She had never heard the word. She is originally from Michigan and last week we also realized that what I call "pantyhose", she calls "nylons".

So, we did a little research and found the history of the word "nabs" online. We have asked around at work and, interestingly, several native North Carolinians haven't heard of nabs.

My husband said that some people refer to "round" and "square nabs". I think of nabs as being any of the crackers in packages of 6 while some only call the square cheese crackers "nabs".

I found some other websites that have lists of Southern slang and had a few laughs. The thread on the Southern Living website mentions "fixin' to" and I know that I am guilty of saying that lots of times. Another website lists "no 'count" which I had never heard of until I started dating my husband.

What other words can you think of that are regional? What words have you used that others didn't know when you used them?

Easter weekend pictures

Last weekend we had beautiful weather welcoming in the Spring and we took advantage of it by playing outside. Here are pictures of the boys dying eggs, a great picture of Elijah pouting, a picture of Elijah being a pirate, and a picture of Nolan being a monkey!

New Recipes

This weekend I had my dad and stepmom over for supper and cooked a new recipe that we all enjoyed. For dessert, we had one of Brent's favorites and we enjoyed it as well. Now, there's one thing I should point out before I give out these recipes . As a registered dietitian, I feel that it's my duty to tell you that these are NOT my idea of healthy recipes. These are what I would say are "splurge" recipes. I feel that 90% of the time you should eat healthy and then the other 10% won't be such a big deal. It's when we "splurge" 90% of time like we find ourselves doing often that we get into trouble. I love to cook and I love the field of nutrition...most of the time those interests mesh together well, but just because I cook something DOESN'T mean that it is healthy. So, here are the recipes that I made this weekend.

Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts - cooked and diced
3 carrots - peeled and cut into small pieces
1 or 2 large potatoes - peeled and diced into small pieces
1 small onion - cut into small pieces
1 can green peas
1 stick margarine
3-4 tbsp flour
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 15 ounce cans of chicken broth
1 large container of canned "flaky" biscuits

Combine carrots, potatoes, onion, and 1 can of chicken broth in a saucepan. Boil until vegetables are done. In a large skillet, melt the margarine. Add 3-4 tbsp tablespoons of flour, the cans of soup, and can of chicken broth to the skillet. Add cooked veggies, can of green peas, and diced chicken. Spray 9 x 13 dish with cooking spray. Pour ingredients from skillet into dish. Cover with torn-up biscuits. Bake at 375 degrees until biscuits are golden brown.

**This was the first time that I made this recipe but I think that you could short-cut the steps by purchasing cans or frozen potatoes and carrots. Then you could skip the step of cooking the vegetables. Also, I will use the broth from cooking the chicken in the future instead of buying chicken broth. To make this healthier, I would recommend purchasing the "healthy request" cans of soup, low-sodium chicken broth, reduce the margarine by 1/2 or 2/3, and use less biscuits for the crust. By doing these things, the recipe would not be nearly as high in sodium, fat, or calories.

Apple Dumplings

1 can (10 count) biscuits
1 cup sugar
cinnamon
1 12 ounce can Sprite
1 stick margarine
2 Granny Smith apples

Cook sprite, sugar, and margarine until boiling. Chop apples and roll biscuits out flat. Place chopped apples in biscuits and pinch together. Place in a 9 x 13 dish and then pour sprite mixture over the biscuits and apples. Bake until brown and then put cinnamon on top.

**This is the way the recipe reads, but when I cook it I usually just put the chopped apples in the sprayed casserole dish and then place the biscuits (with the layers separated) on top of the apples. Then, I pour the sprite mixture over the biscuits and apples. I also put the cinnamon on before I bake the dumplings.

Let me know if you try it and what you think of it!

Happy Easter!

Today is Easter, which, for me, means spending time with my kids and doing some fun things with them. I am trying to develop some traditions with them so that they will have good memories of childhood. Since they are still young, we are still developing these traditions. For Easter, we always dye eggs and hide them in the yard and they always receive a gift on Easter morning. Brent and I aren't into the holiday "characters" and telling our kids that these fictitious characters leave them gifts, so for holidays we give Nolan and Elijah each a gift from us. (So far this year, Nolan hasn't even mentioned the Easter bunny, for those of you that are wondering.) Later today we are taking the kids to the park for a picnic. Maybe this will become part of the tradition. Last year during Easter we were camping so we had lots of "picnics". Our family loves to camp, so I guess that is one of the traditions that our kids are learning. We are excited about Spring Break because we are going on our first camping trip of the year. Then, later on in June, we will be going camping at the beach for 8 days.
I love traditions. Those things that I remember most about my childhood usually center around our own traditions. Remembering these traditions helps me to remember different members of my family. On Sundays growing up we always went to my Grandmother's for lunch (who we called Maw) and a tradition that I had was always eating off the same plate. That same plate now hangs in my kitchen. We even had some traditions that were just plain silly. My brother and I often recalled a silly game that we played once during childhood and several times growing up we tried to "replay" the game but it was never as funny as we remembered it being that first time. (I'm not even going to describe the game, because it would make sense to no one else!) Recalling that game was a kind-of tradition for me and my brother...when one of us thought of it we would tell the other and we would just laugh and laugh about that time. I remember hearing something once that made an impact on me. It was that "friendships are just a collection of shared experiences". Spending time together with our friends and families creates memories and traditions. Taking the Lord's supper at church on Sunday mornings is also a tradition. It allows us to remember and focus on Jesus and the sacrifice that He made so that we can enjoy eternity with Him one day.
For today, I am thankful for traditions and the memories that they invoke.
"I thank my God every time I remember you." Philippians 1:3

Today, I thought I would share some (sort-of) recent photos.

Below is a photo of Brent showing Nolan how to hold a bowling ball. This is a photo of me and Brent on the cruise that we received as a Christmas gift from Brent's mother and stepfather. We had a nice 3 day weekend in the Bahamas with Karen, Michael, and Brent's brother and his wife - Shane and Tina. Nolan and Elijah had been wanting to ride on a big tractor with Grandad. This is a picture of them riding with Grandad on the bulldozer (I think...don't laugh, Dad!)
This is a picture of Elijah drinking coffee on Christmas morning. Brent's not too thrilled with his liking coffee but he learned this from Grandma!

(Please ignore the background and focus on the adorable 2 year old!)
This is Elijah and Nolan at Nana and Papaw's house with Cassie.
I am so blessed to have such wonderful boys and a great husband!

Reward Money...Take 1 step forward, 2 steps back

Well, I was suprised to find out when I looked at the front page of the Davie County Enterprise today that the reward for information leading to the arrest of my brother's murderer has been increased. The governor approved a $5000 addition to the reward that a family member of mine posted the week following my brother's death. We have heard rumors that they may be close to making a connection in the death of my brother. Occasionally, people ask me about whether or not his killer has been found and how I feel about that. That's really a difficult question to answer. For me, the damage is already done, so it is difficult for me to really care if the person is identified/found/charged/convicted. I am not really a revengeful person so it is not in my nature to want to seek punishment for this individual. Also, so much of the circumstances of the situation seem unreal to me because I didn't see them happen. The killer is nameless and faceless. Would I, or will I, become more interested in the person's conviction if I know who he was or put a face with the crime? I don't know. That remains to be known. I am sorry that the individual is so "messed up" and that his life took the direction that it did. I am so hurt and saddened that my brother is gone. I miss him and I am sorry that he never got to fulfill a lot of his hopes and dreams. On the other hand, my brother was right where he needed to be and did what he knew to be the right thing at the time. My brother always said that he would do anything for anybody and I could give you countless other examples of how he always did go the extra mile for people (anyone, really!). It was difficult to see this info in print today though. It is like a healing wound being re-opened. Part of grieving about a loved one's murder, unfortunately, involves hearing news about the situation via the media. We relied on the news channels for updates on the case in the days following his death, some people that know my brother or our family found out about his death via the media, today I find out about the reward by reading the newspaper, and I think that it is definitely possible that one day I will open the newspaper to find that an arrest has taken place or that the investigators know who committed the crime. That won't be fair and it will hurt, but I will personally not be surprised if this happens. God will lead me through this process and He will see me through to the other side. I know that I am already more understanding and empathetic of other people's pain and sorrow and I will be able to listen and, hopefully, help others get through difficult times in the future. I have said before that I can't imagine what I am going to have to experience "next" in order to grow in Christ. I guess we really don't want to know...but God tells us that he will never give us more than we can bear (1 Cor 10:13) and I cling to that.

On a more positive note - I want to share something that each of my children said today...

Elijah said in his 2-year old language in reference to his Easter candy: "No-No (Elijah-speak for Nolan), I will share with you.

Nolan said "I think the reason that I am so smart is because I ate so many Smarties when I was little."

FYI - Nolan, at age 5, has his 1st girlfriend (her name is Claire) and he has invited her to come to our church's Spring Fling next Sunday afternoon. Her mother has agreed that she can attend the Easter party with us. Stay tuned for further info!!