So several weeks ago I was tired, suffering from a headache and a long day of teaching, and in desperate need of some coffee to help me wind down. Since McDonald’s is within 2 minutes of the studio, it was a quick and easy option.

Or so I thought. I spent at least 10 minutes standing around watching the tired and unmotivated staff oh-so-slowly mix up my quick-fix coffee. It didn’t occur to me (in the cold weather) that I should specify whether I wanted it hot or iced.

Another 5 minutes later, hot coffee in hand, headache a little worse, I jumped back into my Buick to head to the office. I had a 25 minute drive to relax and sip my brown liquid. It only took one sip for me to realize that the lid had some serious issues, and that most of it was ending up all over me, my shirt and my seat. Between attempting to dab off my clothes with tissues, figure out the problem with my lid (I have to drink this stuff NOW!) and drive through traffic, I wasn’t feeling very pleasant.

After about the third desperate try at taking a sip of my drink (and failing; the stains are getting pretty obvious now) I gave up and waited until I arrived at my destination to assess the damage. I had set the cup down on a table in order to repair some of the wardrobe damage and pop a Tylenol , only to have a certain unobservant male set his large messenger bag down… right where it would fall and knock over my coffee.

At this point I was literally looking up into the heavens, asking what providence God was trying to reveal in this trivial (okay, ginormous!) issue in my day, while knowing deep down that someday I would be laughing about it. (Thank you Lord for laughter, and coffee when we can get it down.)

Needless to say, by some miracle a portion of this costly brown liquid had survived, and I was even able to share a bit with an unfortunate observer of my mini-meltdown over spilt coffee.

And no, this story really has no point to it. I think I just had this deep need to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading; this has been very therapeutic. In the end, I’m looking forward to going to heaven and finding out the totally providential reason (yes, even for my sanctification) that God gave me a headache and coffee-stained shirt that cold Tuesday afternoon.

But anyway, my latest thing has been ICED coffee. It’s super easy to make, it’s convenient to grab out of the fridge on my way out the door or on a hot day, and it tastes waaay better than that bottled Starbuck’s liquid you paid way too much for at the gas station.

My mom goes to this Asian Market to get our stock of coffee packets. Believe it or not, their instant 3 in 1 packets are pretty good. This one is just the coffee grounds and a teeny bit of sugar, but it’s super easy to drop in a cup of hot (or cold) water instead of having to measure it out.

It looks like a tea bag, it acts like a tea bag, but it’s COFFEE!  (And it works as well in cold water as it does in hot, so you don’t have to wait hours for your drink to get cold.)

I stick it in the fridge for an hour, though technically it’s done soaking in like 10 minutes. (Please ignore the monster sized mayonnaise jar…)

A couple “mini moos” creamer to taste. Mmmm… plus some sugar stirred in. Sweetened condensed milk would be so much better, since the sugar does kind of sink down to the bottom. But if you’re like us, you don’t buy the stuff very often.

I’m sure it’s not revolutionary, but it’s so very handy and not overpriced like most iced coffees are. Just don’t drink it on the road.

I’m catching up on pictures from two weeks ago. So far every Presbytery “family camp” has fallen in early May on our calendar, which has allowed me to take a break prior to the dance performance madness. This year, our Church hosted Presbytery at the “Hidden Acres” Christian camp in Iowa.

I focused on staying relaxed, trying not to think about moving or performance details, and just soak up the sun and fellowship. So few pictures were taken… except for at the ladies’ tea, which my own mother, our dear friend Kit, and some other ladies from Church organized. Here are the photos ensuing:

Kit and her talented son made these beautiful cupcakes ahead of time and brought them to the camp. However, the morning of the tea there were some frosting issues which created some stress… but they still turned out lovely and tasted great.

Making tea.

Paper clips to hold the tea bags while they steep.  One must be creative when hosting a tea at a camp!

My mom gave the introduction.

Mrs. Kayser led the devotional, and afterwards we tried to get through the discussion points at our tables. Too many women to get to know, and not enough time!

Hi Grace!

Cake and cuteness!

I’m thankful for the opportunity to connect and reconnect with sisters in Christ every year at Presbytery!

Our original closing date of May 15th (tomorrow) is no longer in affect per issues with a slow and unmotivated bank system. After waiting to get this house since November of 2011, we are so ready to actually be moved. Thinking about moving just isn’t the same.

But regardless of setbacks and frustrations, we hope to (Lord willing) at least start the moving process this week. Whether we are able to live in the house by Sunday is debatable. However, once we have the keys in our hands I will be a much happier girl.

Here is our family in what we thought (and hope) to be our last Sunday in our home of 19 years.  I love my childhood home, but I’m ready to move on to the next adventure.

Mother's Day, Sunday May 13th 2012

Which means “eat hearty” in Greek. I think. And yes, I googled it.

The other night I was invited over to Miss Becky’s house for an evening of cooking and eating wonderful Greek food. She had some things prepared and readied so that we could get it all done in 2 hours.

Making the Roux, a thickening base made out of butter and flour (and later, milk)

Pastitsio; a pasta dish containing onion, ground beef, tomato paste, a hint of cinnamon, butter, parmesan cheese and some other basic ingredients

Buttering the filo dough layers for Tiropitas, little hor dourves with feta cheese, cottage cheese, eggs and butter rolled inside

The filling for the Tiropitas

Ready to bake

The Pastitsio hot from the oven

Greek peasant salad; vegetables topped with a vinaigrette, feta cheese and dried oregano

Baklava hot from the oven; brown sugar, pecans, and cinnamon sprinkled on layer upon layer of buttered filo dough, and then topped with honey.

Hungry yet?

Today was one of those days… one of those days when I just have to sit down and collect myself about every hour. Collect my scattered wits, that is. Between moving, lining things up for our short vacation next week, preparing for my students’ dance performance and planning for my trip to Switzerland, I seem to have left a piece of my sanity back in March along with the life I once knew. And the predictable weather.

But enough of the dramatics. A few weeks ago I spent a lovely, refreshing few hours on a green lawn in the shadow of a very old, gorgeous white German Church. It’s located only about a mile north of my hometown, and was heavenly solitudinous. Along with my camera, my journal, and that classic itchy wool blanket from the trunk, I spent a wonderful afternoon soaking in the sun and the quiet history hidden away in rural Nebraska. Here are the photos resulting.

Old tombstones

A beetle’s view. Or a spider’s, if you want to be specific (where did they all come from?).

The steeple

Self-portraits. Always flattering… not.

I was dying to get inside, and even though I’m pretty sure I could have taken down the rickety front door… I restrained myself.

I love, love, love history and old architecture. Soaking up the amazingly gorgeous Spring day, the solitude, and the quiet history of this vacant place made for an afternoon well spent.

Every year my students’ dance performance rolls around (too quickly, I might add), and every year I find myself inflicting new forms of chaos and so-called creativity on my already full to-do list. Last year I tried dying a backdrop for photos, which I was fairly pleased with. This year my dilemma was finding costumes for our all-liturgical performance that are modest, cost efficient, unique, and practical for re-usage throughout the year.

Dance costumes are typically pretty flashy and sparkly, which wasn’t what I was going for this year. The mainstream “liturgical” outfits are pretty boring and a little bit too “frumpy” if I am allowed to be so bold. And the gorgeous, flowing, more lyrical watercolor dresses are hand painted and very pricey. So it’s back to bottles of rit dye and venturing into the great unknown for this dance teacher!

After doing a test run on my own skirt, I decided to go ahead and buy two sheer, handkerchief style skirts for each student. The underskirt would be either black or white, and the overskirt we would dye. After doing some research online and finding nothing to help me create a watercolor look with material (no, I don’t want tie dye!), I just had to figure out what worked best with the material I had. I also tried to keep in mind that I had 5o skirts to do; so the idea of using a paint brush to slather some dye on and letting it run down was quickly ruled out.

In the end, I decided to try mixing liquid rit dye with water, pour it into a spray bottle, and simply spray the liquid onto the skirt (starting at the top) and let it drip down. The effect with 100% chiffon would have been absolutely gorgeous, but the “nylon tricot chiffon” pretty much just soaked through and left some streaks where it didn’t dye the white material. Which was fine in the end; it just didn’t exactly have the “watercolor” look that I was hoping for.

Materials:

• Spray bottle ($1 at a dollar store, the quality of the nozzle probably won’t make any difference)
• Measuring spoons
• Glass measuring cup
• Liquid rit dye ($50 for 8 bottles)
• Skirts ($14-$16 each)
• Plastic gloves
• Old sheets
• Newspaper
• Hangers

Remember that rit dye will stain. Use newspaper whenever you can when you’re dealing with it. There is a handy little color chart on the rit dye website, but in the end I just tried to purchase colors I could use as-is and avoid mixing, which didn’t work very well anyway. I would mix one tablespoon of rit dye liquid with one cup of water, mix in the measuring cup and pour in the spray bottles.

I wanted to have two contrasting colors for each skirt, but sometimes the dyes looked very similar even when I watered them down more. It could also be due to the fabric content, but most colors came out lighter than I was expecting. The navy blue and hunter green, however, were total disappointments. The navy came out as purple and the hunter as a green-esh gray. Needless to say, one class has a turquoise/purple blend, and the other a gray-with-a-tinge-of-green blend. Oh well. The nice thing is that the skirts will still have a neat effect and look more interesting than just a solid color would, even if they weren’t what I had in mind color-wise.

Once I had the dyes all mixed up, I invited some dance moms to help me spray all 50 down to speed up the process. We strung up rope in a garage and hung the skirts on hangers. The dripped a LOT, so unless you want a speckled garage floor, old sheets and newspapers are good to have on hand.

And then with spray bottles in hand we would spray on the first color, leaving some white streaks, then after a few minutes of drying we applied the second color to fill it in. I did try doing both at once and found the colors mixing too much, which could be pretty disastrous, unless you like puke green…

The bottle instructions will tell you to use really hot water to help bring out the color. I was unable to do that since I mixed the dyes in advance, but if you can try to use warm-hot water. It might help to bring out more vibrant color.

The skirts aren’t perfect, but that’s part of the fun. They have more character than the solid colors bought online.

It took 5 of us an hour to spray down almost 50 skirts, and after a few hours of dripping they were pretty much dry. Since rit dye is pretty permanent, I’m expecting the color to stick even when washed, but not having tried it I think I’ll hold off putting it in the laundry until AFTER the performance.

So that was my little adventure for the week. I like to try new things, especially when it means that my students are investing in something more practical than a tutu that they can wear again. We’ll see what they end up looking like on stage. Only 2 more months!  (P.S. If you found this post helpful for your own project, leave me a comment and tell me about it!)

It’s a good thing that I, his sister, took Caleb’s senior pictures, because a swooning photographer wouldn’t get much done. Caleb is not only dashing, but he’s a good sport when it comes to trying out different poses and humoring my love for anything vintage.  Note the rolled up sleeves… the golfer cap… the vintage vest ($20 at a vintage thrift store)… and the jeans thrown in for a slight modern flavor. And of course, my handsome brother to make it all look good.

The hat tip

The hobo look

 These photos were taken in a small Nebraska town by the name of Hooper. It has an adorable Main Street, a beautiful golf course, a cute little lake and, more importantly, an old train station perfect for taking photos at.

When Caleb mentioned something about an “Inception” pose, it took me a while to get it. If you’ve ever seen the movie, this might make sense, unless you’re like me and found the film so exhausting and confusing that you gave up trying to understand it.

It was odd to be on the other side of the camera. Usually I’m the one dragging Caleb along as my photographer.

At the bridge just outside of Hooper.

Everybody is growing up. *Sniff*.

Some girls are photogenic.  And some girls are really, really photogenic.  And then there people who just look good all the time… period. Miss Christa is not only a lovely lady to interact with, but you rarely see her without a smile. Having some free time this past weekend, I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and invited her to do a mini photoshoot.

The G family lives in a charming old neighborhood of historical houses that just ooze character.  Just up the hill is a beautiful cemetery with a wonderful view of the city below.  Yes, we totally did a photoshoot in a cemetery.

“Look dreamy!”

*Giggles*

Notice the tombstones in the background.  Very gothic-romantic if you ask me.

Just ignore that fact that the sun was shining happily that day, and this picture is very charming.

The Nancy Drew pose.  You never know what might be in a crypt.

Singing in the rain- er, sunshine.

Thanks for a lovely afternoon, Christa!

We came home the other day to find that our Apricot tree had blossomed in one morning. So beautiful!

It’s a known fact that old barns make great photography subjects.

Now THESE are lady bugs. We have been infested with hideous, hateful orange “Asian Beetles”, so it’s a sight for sore eyes to see these cute little guys.

More Apricot Blossoms.

Old corn crib.  I’m going to miss that too.