Monday, September 26, 2011

How's it going?

Today was a good day.
You know why?
I started it off by going to mass.

AND I got to celebrate my baby brother's b'day (who is adorable)!

Another cool thing that I got to do today was go on a field trip - homeschooler style.  My family and I went to the Mt. Vernon Gristmill and Distillery.  The distillery is George Washington's "liquid gold" aka whiskey producer.  Now I know how to make rye whiskey!  First, you take some rye, barley, boiling water, and something else.  Second, you mix your ingredients, add yeast to the top, let it ferment, and than you put in through this cool process of turning liquid to gas to distilled liquid.  That process is done by heating the liquid and turning it into gas that goes through a copper tube.  This tube gets cooled by running cold water, which turns the gas back into a liquid.  In order to make the best whiskey, this distilling process gets repeated multiple times.  Pretty nifty stuff.  The Gristmill is used for grinding corn, wheat, and tobacco.  It was cool to see in action - man, the engineering behind all those levers and pulleys makes my head spin.  That picture of corn is how it looks right before it's about to get smashed by the rock below it.  My mom even bought some fresh cornmeal for dinner tomorrow night...

Thanks for reading, now it is time for me to go to bed!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

May we never forget...

September 11, 2001.

I remember we were playing outside, taking a break from schooling.  My older brother told us something bad had happened.  My mom had gotten a phone call from a relative asking if my dad was OK.  After watching the TV, I remember my heart was breaking.  My dad finally called us and I remember breathing a sigh of relief.  I was 7 and I didn't understand what was going on.
I still don't get it.
Now ten years later, I just recently asked my dad if September held any significance for terrorists.  He replied that one of the similarities he found with the date is that 9-1-1 = emergency.

I recommend watching United 93 - very poignant. Trust me, I was crying throughout it.  It's about the aircraft that was aimed for the Capitol, but the passengers fought the terrorists for control over the plane.  They saved lives by losing their own.  That's what Christ taught us, that true love means sacrificing oneself. Here is a trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOzXECzchTk

God always brings good from bad.  Look at all the heroic actions from just one day. All the sacrifices made, lives lost.

May we never forget...

xoxo,
me

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Yumminess


So I’ll tell you about a recent hobby of mine: Homemade Ice Cream

See I got a 2 qt Cuisinart ice cream maker for my b’day.  It is so beautiful! The best part about it is that you don't need rock salt to make the ice cream.  There is this tub that has ice on the inside so that after freezing it for 8 hrs all you have to do is add the ice cream mixture, press on, and presto! In 25 minutes you have ice cream/sorbet/frozen yogurt.  So far I’ve made lemon/lime sorbet, frozen vanilla yogurt (we get our yogurt plain from a farm so I had to add lotsss of honey and sugar to it, but for frozen yogurt it tasted pretty good), strawberry ice cream, raspberry ice cream, peanut butter ice cream (YUM), coffee ice cream, cookies 'n cream, vanilla bean ice cream, and strawberry sorbet.

OK, I sorta made the strawberry sorbet 3 times.  But it is so good! I’m addicted :D.
One of the blessings of being in a big family is you can never have too much ice cream...

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Alrighty Than...

Pretty much sums up how I feel about my most recent pre-season tournament.
You know, the one I was bouncing off the walls for...
*dramatic sigh*
Yep.

See it wasn't all that awful, but it was.  Sorta.
Gosh, that's a horrible way to approach this.
Let's just say that I don't feel like talking about it....

Wait.
Did you just say you wanna know what happened?

OK. Fine.
Alrighty than.

See the first game I played fine, the second I was horrible, and the third I wasn't so hot.

There, satisfied?
You want more? Seriously?

My team lost (to the #4 team in NC), lost even more badly (to the #4 ranked team in the NATION), and lost again (to a team that we killed last week :/ ).
So I just keep telling myself that whatever happens from this I cannot control.  I just have to trust that if it's not the result that I want, it was meant to be.  I played my heart out and my best is all I can give.

I don't even know if the Belmont Abbey assistant coach came to my game (I'm guessing that I'll get an email from him).  But, I do know that VT and JMU coaches were watching my games.  They weren't there for me though.  Nope, the girls on the other team who scored the upper 90 goals from outside the 18 yard line were the ones they were watching....

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Sincerely,
disappointed me