Cooking Therapy

Sometimes when life gets stressful, I just need to spend some time in the kitchen. I need time to work out some stress. It results in an accomplished feeling, a nice smelling house, and wonderful treats! When Back to School season starts, life starts to get a stressful again. As I am heading back to work in just a few more days, I am starting to feel the crunch. So instead of working on school stuff I headed into my kitchen. Of course! Today I took on two NEW recipes, and one that I needed to work on a little. (I absolutely can't wait for the taste tests!) Of course I have one more recipe on the table for this week that I will be trying either tonight or later in the week.

The late morning started with a chicken salad recipe. I always love the chicken salad you get at like Arby's or someplace like that, but have never really thought to make one myself. I have to say I loved the fresh taste of my new creation.  Very delicious and fresh. It will be a wonderful lunch tomorrow when it has chilled completely.

Yep, it's a blurry picture of chicken salad!

Then after lunch time I moved on to Zucchini bread (I was a little nervous to attempt this one, because my sister's Zucchini bread is AMAZING!) I decided to experiment with the recipe a little. Creating a two plain bread loves, one with pecans, and one with chocolate chips. Only time will tell if any of them are very good.  ;) I'm sure they won't be as good as my sister's breads, simply because I had to make these myself. Yes, I really did make four loves of Zucchini bread today! I'm thinking there will be more because I have some Zucchini in the freezer, and two more on my counter.


This turned in to four loaves.

While the bread was cooking, I took on my Granola bars. This is something that I have wanted to work on because I can pronounce all of the ingredients in my granola bars as opposed to some of the ones you buy at the grocery. Not to mention it's just kind of nice to have something homemade. This is a recipe that I have made before, but my granola bars were a little two crumbly. They would just fall apart when you unwrapped them. However, I think it might have worked this time. they went back in the Saran wrap a lot batter this time.  I guess when we eat them I will no for sure!

I probably started cooking at around 11:00 this morning, and worked on it until well after 3:00 pm. I am just thrilled that I had time to get the kitchen all cleaned back up before my husband came home to see the mess. Yes, I'll admit it I am a messy cook! There is always flour spills and this and that. Of course it always wipes up. My dear friend Cathie says "That's why you have tile floors!" lol.


I have to say that after all my cooking/baking today I do feel a little more relaxed, and well a little sore and tired. But I feel accomplished! I'm sure a nice hot shower and some relaxation is in my near future when my husband gets home.

Unfortunately, I will probably have start working on school work tomorrow. At least I'm ready to go now.

If anyone is interested in the recipes I used this afternoon, please let me know and I will post them!

Changes, Changes, and more changes!! Whew!

It has been forever! Last time I wrote I was still in school trying to finish up the school year. At that time I had no idea all the changes that would be taking place in my life over the course of the next couple of months.

Now I have never been one to particularly like change. As a matter of fact I would just assume everything keep going the same way all the time. However, GOD often makes me work on these aspects of my life. By throwing curve balls at me. I like to call them curve balls, you make call them bumps in the road or trials.

A few years ago I had a lot of changes all at once, and decided that I would really enjoy not having an changes at all. The LORD blessed me with, with a nice simple life for awhile. And then the changes began. Here is a small list of changes that have taken place since school has let out. Of course because I didn't write them down they probably aren't in order.

After school let out this summer I changed classrooms. Which results in me spending a lot of time at school this year redecorating and reorganizing a classroom. Everything is different. Big change. The new room is going to change a lot of things. It's even going to change the way teach the class. Who knew! I am really excited for these changes, and am finally starting to feel a little settled into the new room.

Then comes the switch over from Moodle to MyBigCampus. This is resulting in all students and teachers learning a new system in order to manage information and assignments. It should be a very interesting. It is definitely a lot of work. The learning curve is out there again.

We are also getting a new Principal that all of us will be getting to know as the new school year begins. This comes with a number of people switching positions and new teachers being hired in. This will definitely change the climate in the building. The prayer is that this is all of a positive change, though it make be stressful and difficult. Change always is.

Of course by this point you are thinking is all the change school related? Well no! Mom and I recently decided that we needed to find a church. So we picked a church that was exactly half way between my house and hers. So it is great to get to meet in the middle and enjoy some worship time with my mom. This is something that hasn't happen in quite some time. At least when it was happening I wasn't old enough to appreciate it. We've decided to keep giving this church a chance. Of course with summer being busy we missed a few Sundays. To come back to church and realize that the pastor has changed. The first sermon of the new pastor and the first sermon mom and I got when we returned after our absence was a sermon on nothing other than change! She was good! Not to mention I knew the LORD was speaking to me, since I had been so upset and concerned about all the changes taking place.

Some other more fun changes that have taken place this summer are: my husband got a new to us car, which is really nice. I went on my first big family vacation with my new family. I repainted a redecorated our bathroom (this was interesting). We have started redecorating our living room.

One of my goals was to learn to sew and I did! I have made a skirt, a couple of curtains, and a sewing machine cover. I can't wait to see what other projects I will end up making. I'm super excited.

Well that is just a few things that have been going on in our household over the last few months.