Repurposing items is a fun and inexpensive way to use things you already have laying around, or find at yard sales. I found this decorative plate display rack at a yard sale for $1 and thought it would make a great towel rack out by the pool. This is as simple as it gets since this required no changes in design. Only a change in purpose, and a handy husband to hang it up for me.
Make your own frappe from home with this simple recipe. This is a basic mocha recipe so add or change it up to make your favorite blended frappe drink.
Blend it up in a blender or smoothie maker and top it off with whipped cream and your favorite flavoring and/or chocolate syrup. For extra flavor, splash some chocolate syrup and or flavoring on the inside of your cup before pouring the drink in.
Happiness is the most sought after, yet the most elusive goal of so many people. The dream of someday attaining happiness is often the motivation for beginning things and the loss of happiness ultimately becomes the undoing. It dangles in front of us like the proverbial carrot on a stick but no matter how much we chase after it, it never gets any closer. We experience small highs as we gain or achieve the next thing that we were sure would satisfy the unending want, but not only does the satisfaction never come, but the longer we chase after our own happiness, the further we seem to feel from it. We look to other people to fulfill this but because we are all broken in nature, we are unable to be fulfilled by people apart from God. The book of Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon, who was known for his God-given wisdom. He describes his journey of trying to understand the meaning of life as he sought after happiness in every way imaginable. As King, he had anything and everything that could ever be desired from status, wealth, pleasure and even love and yet he described it all as vanity.
In the beginning, God created people because he desired relationship. We were made unlike anything else that God ever created because although he gave us free will, he also put in us a need to connect with Him that absolutely cannot be fulfilled by anything else. In order to teach us this, Jesus left his place in Heaven to come down to earth and relate to us. He lived a life free of sin and selfishness and told us to follow after his example. He died so that we could live and not only join him in Heaven someday, but also so we can be fulfilled and connected with him while we are living here on the earth. His life and death was the ultimate example of self-sacrifice, but his promise to us in this is happiness and fulfillment. This is the exact opposite from what our instincts tell us. Because we were born with a sin nature, our instincts tell us to self-preserve and pursue our own desires and happiness and to earn our own satisfaction. How is that working for us? It doesn’t take much to look around and see that selfishness does not bring happiness, so more selfishness will not bring us closer to our goal of happiness. Throughout the gospels, Jesus tells us how to find life and he lived it out as an example and simply said, “follow after me”. Matthew 10:39 says “whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake shall find it”. This seems completely backwards to our sin-natured minds and I emphasized “for my sake” because it is completely possible to sacrifice and give yourself over to other things or other people and still lose your life. We were created by God to love and serve only Him by loving and having a servant’s heart towards people. This is why he intentionally chose to use people to spread the truth about his love for us. He made us in His image and he wants people to see His love through us like an image reflection of Him. We are happy when we are fulfilling the purpose we were created for and every unselfish sacrifice that we make towards God by loving His people, he replaces it and turns right back and blesses us because everything from God is good and this is how he intends for us to receive happiness. It’s no wonder that in our distortion of these truths by those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, our selfishness has reflected a negative image of God towards people that God really loves. People who are desperately searching for answers have been detoured and felt rejected by the negative and unloving image we have reflected. This is because too many of us who say we are following after Christ really don’t understand the incredible nature of His love for us. We feel condemned and unrighteous so we reflect that condemnation and accusation of unrighteousness towards others. We need to understand how much God really loves us so that we can reflect that image of God to a world who is desperately seeking something real and genuine. John 13:34-35 ” I give you a new commandment that you should love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too should love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” .
If your cookies come out flat and thin, add a little extra flour to your dough. When the dough is a little more dry, the cookies come out more cake-like. If you happen to like your cookies crunchy and flat, add a little less flour.
If your cookies burn or bake unevenly on the bottoms you may need a thicker cookie sheet. All ovens vary slightly. I learned this when I was forced to replace my very basic old oven when it suddenly quit. I had used lots of different cookie sheets in my old oven and never had a problem, but with my newer, fancier double-oven unit, I suddenly had crunchy cookies that kept burning on the bottom. I was completely flustered and tried several things until I finally tried using a thicker, more insulated cookie sheet. This took care of the problem and my cookies went back to coming out thick and soft.
Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper and your countertop with aluminum foil. This keeps the bottoms of the cookies from becoming too dry and crispy while baking and helps hold in the moisture when they are cooling off on the counter.
Experiment with your baking times and figure out the ideal amount of baking time for your oven. It may vary slightly from the recipe you are using. Pull the cookies out of the oven just before they begin to brown. They will look slightly under cooked, but as they sit they will slowly continue to bake internally without drying out. My personal “Magic time” for my cookies is 13 minutes. They look a little pale and still wet and doughy when they come out of the oven, but after a few minutes of resting on the countertop they are perfect.
Once you have your perfect cookies mastered, you will want to keep the leftovers fresh and soft so be sure to bag them up in a ziplock storage bag or an airtight container. If you put them away while they are still warm, you will have softer cookies. Just be careful that you don’t put them away when they are still hot or else they will stick together.
If you have a favorite tip or suggestion to share about cookies, please feel free to leave it in the comments. It would be great to hear other thoughts and ideas.
Over the years, I have carried out many different roles. Some are lifetime roles, like being a wife, a mom, a sister and a daughter. Others have been short-term roles depending upon jobs I’ve had, or seasons in my life of trying different things. If we aren’t careful, it’s very easy to confuse any one of these roles with being our identity. While all of these roles we carry out are a huge part of who we are, and are done with a personal touch unique to only ourselves, not one of these roles define our identity. Why is it so important to understand the difference? Because throughout our lives, these roles change. The temporary roles have their seasons and we phase out of them completely and move into other roles. Some of our prominent roles transition to become more like background roles as we age and our life seasons change. If our identity is tied into any of these roles, we could find ourselves in an identity crisis when things change. When this happens we may try to continue in a role that has ended it’s season, we may feel a sense of loss and worthlessness or a feeling of being displaced, or we may panic and try to pick up a role we weren’t meant to do. If we don’t know that our roles are not our identity, we may get stuck for long periods of time before we figure out what we’re supposed to do next. The good news is that even if we get stuck in one of these places, we don’t have to stay stuck! Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, -plans to give you a hope and a future”. What great news!
Unfortunately, some people are a little further back than even this though, because they never knew who they were in the first place. They have just been going along doing what someone else has told them to do, or copying what they believe they’re supposed to be doing. There is great news for that too. Jeremiah 5:1 says “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb”. I couldn’t help but notice that it says “I formed you”. This means that no matter what circumstances led to your conception, God himself formed you. This is wonderful news for those who have felt insignificant, unplanned or unwanted because of the circumstances they were born into. Psalm 139:1 says that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. I find it incredible that God made so many people, yet not one of us is a copy or replica of anyone else. You are the only one that God made like you, with your personality, abilities and heart. Knowing who we are is critical in a world where there is so much opportunity and temptation to compare ourselves to others. I challenge you to talk to God about your identity and your purpose. God has awesome plans for you and you are the only one he will use to complete those plans!