let it all out..

I just want it to be known..

I do think about writing in here, and I really want to.

But I never feel like typing everything out.

Lazy?

yea, I know...

Back in my life

So I've been back in normal day to day life, my vacation to portland and north pole was everything I wanted it to be. Good times with good friends.

great talks.

and of course good food.

amazing sites and views of a new world.

I could definitely live in Portland, that city is huge and packed filled with everything. Amazing things to do, great restaurants to check out. I thought of it just like NYC but way less crazy.

North Pole was pretty, that town loves christmas. they love it all year long it seems. the moose loved me. I saw six or seven of them in the four days I was there. apparently my friend who lives there doesn't see them that often.

I loved the airports. I loved my layovers in the different cities, I know. I am weird, but who isn't in this world. I loved seeing a new part of the world, it made my heart yearn to travel more often. I wish I could.

i wish i had someone to travel with...but i'd rather not write about that. i don't need to dwell on it, i know it will eventually happen, patience is what i need though.

and not just about relationships, but with everything. my greatest desire right now is to claim some independence and own a house. i know that i am comfortable here in hampton roads, i love my life here, my friends, my church, my (kinda, sorda) job. I don't wanna leave it all yet.

i just need to practice my patience in the process of buying a house and all that jazz..its hard.

life is hard.

have i mentioned that i love my friends and my church. because i do.

i am ready to go back to the west coast again. i miss them so much. it was nice to be with them again, they truly are my best friends.

I am ready!

I am sure people are tired of hearing me say this, but I cannot believe that tomorrow is when I leave for my trip to Portland and Alaska! I am so very excited, I can't wait to spend time with my two best friends. These ladies are by far my two bestest friends and I am so glad that they are allowing me to come visit them!

I am just so ready for a vacation, I have been non-stop working and schooling for almost two years, it feels so weird not to have had classes the last two weeks, but it also feels good too. I've accomplished my first Degree! I can't believe it, I say my first because it is likely that I will go back and work on my BA. But I'm not going to think about that until much later on in the year!

Thanks to a great family who allowed me to borrow their camera I will get some SAweet pictures while I am there and I will definitely show everyone!

My first big trip, my first degree, I feel like life is going in a good direction! I recently stumbled upon a newer singer/songwriter named Joey Contreras. I love any type of musical theater songwriter and this young man's music is amazing, seriously look him up! He has one song titled 'Ready', after listening to this song multiple times I consider this song to be my little montra to keep me going through the day. This is the chorus, I love it! Its like he wrote it for me!

"I am ready, I am getting stronger on my own, heading straight into the unknown. I am worthy so I'm just gonna try. Maybe I will crash and burn, but there are lessons I can learn from every, person that I get to know, loving what can make me grow, who knows how far I'll go. I am ready. I am doing what I wanna do, after all I've gone through, no matter what people say, I'm getting better with each day. I am ready!"

I love this song it has really become part of my everyday life. I am looking for to this new journey ahead of me. Not only my trip to the West Coast, but also my life after I get back. In my job, in my graduation, and also my personal life!

T-minus 8 days!!!!

I can't believe it! Only nine days until I leave on my vacation. I think everyone who knows me is probably tired of me talking about it, but I can't help it. I have never been on the West Coast, nor travel further then Kentucky! Its going to be a big adventure for me, and its going to be awesome because I will be with two my bestest friends!! Theres a little part in me that wishes something would happen that I have to extend my trip a couple days, hahaha. :)

Another huge thing in my life right now, is my completion of school!!! I am officially done with school! Graduation day is June 24th! Such a long way away, but I am so glad that I am done now. It has really been a awesome time and I will never forget the people I've met and the things I have been taught.

Other things in my life are doing alright I guess, I am not sure what I am going to do with all this spare time I have in the mornings. I've thought of some ideas, find some ballroom or tap dancing classes, start going to the gym to tone up a bit.

Another thing I am going to start doing is to go do as much stuff as I can. I want to take trips to places and see things! This trip to Oregon and Alaska have got me thinking about things or places I wanna see and do! I'm super excited because I am going to go to Mexico this year with my church. Nothing can stop me this year, I am going to go.

And can I just say, I spent all day with my sister and my little buddy yesterday and it was awesome. Well I'm going out to try and enjoy my saturday till I have to go to work.

Only 8 more days!!

Good times..

I promise I will write in about the Banquet this past friday, and even more good stuff going on, but right now I'm pretty busy!

only two more weeks of classes!!

Just a thought --

So yesterday was Superbowl Sunday. Whoo, I don't pay attention to sports at all, any type of sport.

Yesterday also church day! I have to say that I really needed my church by the time Sunday came yesterday. This past week at work had to be one of the most stressful for me. I try not to let work stress me out, I try to take it one day at a time and do what I can. But its hard for me not to bring this stress home with me and I sit and think about it and it builds up in me. I need distractions when I am not at work..

In turn I can see that it has affected me at home with my family. I snap at my brother and sister, even my parents. I can't stand it.

I just don't understand how they (being my chefs, and even the higher ups) think that what they are doing is good for the business or even more importantly their employees.

But thats not what I came on here to talk about...

Yesterday at church we finished our series called Ekklesia (I don't know if I spelled that right), but the idea behind the series was talking about us as the church. Not a building or whatever but US. We are the church. And yesterday we heard about worship and what it means to worship. Not just going to church and playing in the band or singing along with the band playing. But truly worshiping, and not only at church but in everything we do.

and I know that its one thing I struggle with. It showed a lot in this past week. Through out my whole stressing out I never gave it to Him. I never talked to him. I never gave him worship through the hard times, I mean look at Paul. Paul went through the CRAZIEST stuff, and through everything he gave God the glory and worshiped Him.

Why don't I do that? My life isn't like his, I haven't been stoned, beaten, put in jail numerous times, abandoned. I only deal with people who don't run a staff very well, some confused guests, and some annoying servers. Why can't I turn everything over to Him.

Oh I know why, I am selfish. I want to try to fix everything my self or I just hold everything in till one day I may just burst.

I need to give Him my troubles and worries, rely on him, and worship Him for who he is and what he has given me.

Another sad thought that I had last night, we have a group coming to the Inn this weekend and their name is FamilyLife. Not sure what kind of group they are, whether a church group or business group, or whatever. But, one of my friends and she is the BEST server, came and asked me who FamilyLife was and I didn't know but suggested that it might be a church group. Sadly both of our faces frowned after answering. We both knew what that meant, it meant that we would have a group of picky, selfish people eating at the craziest of times and demanding everything without the kindness that God would want them to show. And not mention forget to tip their servers.

Isn't that sad, a group of people coming together in the name of Christ and they can be the rudest of all the groups and conventions we could have there. As my friend said at the end of our conversation. She said this as if she were talking to a guest.

'Stop complaining and LOVE JESUS!'

What Timing!

So how about this for timing. My dads niece and her daughters made a pit-stop here on

their way to Florida. The oldest of the two girls has taken a interest into cooking and baking

recently. In her short time here she and her sister wanted to be able to do something with me in

the kitchen. So I cut class early on Tuesday and came home to do a little something with them.

She wanted to make cream puffs, which is funny because in my last post I said that I wanted

to do a blog on Choux. Cream puffs are made with what it called Pate a Choux. Pate a Choux

is a pastry used for Eclairs, profiteroles, CREAM PUFFS, you could do many different applications with it.

These cream puffs we made were filled with a Pastry cream we also made, and I lighten it

a bit by folding in some whipped cream. So I had my brother and my sister try to get pictures

of the process in making the pastry cream the choux pastry. So lets take a look!!

Above we are mixing together our Egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch. The yolks are going to be a

natural thicker for the cream and the cornstarch is added in just to help. Before this step we

have put our milk and Vanilla Bean on the stove top to begin scalding.

Then once scalding, we tempered the hot milk into yolk mixture. We temper it slowly that way the

eggs don't cook right away. Return everything back to the

pot to cook out the cornstarch and allow it to thicken. It could happen fast.

Here is the finished cream. We are not done here, we need to strain out the vanilla bean and

any little pieces of cooked egg.

After straining it you want it too cool down. And always cover it with parchment or plastic wrap

so a skin doesn't develop on the top of the cream.

So from here we move on to the Choux Pastry.

To begin the process we bring our water to boil, with butter and salt. We want to be sure

that we really mix the water and butter together. Then we measure out our eggs, my cousin

Tori was the egg-lady. She handled all the egg in our production.

When our water is boiling, we are going to add the flour all at once.

Above, we have just added all the flour, so we want to mix it in and start to form a dough. Use a wooden spoon for this, and we also want to leave this dough in the pan on the heat for a bit to dry out and remove all the moisture.

Then the dough is put in a mixer bowl, and we will slowly add the eggs.

Once we have reached our desired consistency, we need to pipe these out right away. Since this was just something fun for the girls to do I let them make whatever shapes and dots they wanted.

After piping, into a HOT HOT oven for 15 minutes at 400 then we turn it down to 350 till they have puffed and colored to a golden brown.

Once cooled down, we filled them with our whipped pastry cream and glazed them with chocolate.

Thats it! It is really pretty easy to make. I went through it pretty quickly and left out some details,

but I'll put another post about it some time.

Oh, did I mention that my sis and her husband were there too, and of course my cute little buddy!