Cardi Party - Meet 3 of 35

The last time I consistently posted more than a year ago. Blog fail. Life gets busy, you get behind, you know there are 346,143,690 other things you SHOULD be doing besides writing a blog, but where's the fun in that?  So with all of my spare time, I am going to TRY to post once a week.

Also, as of late, my blog traffic has exploded due to a few Pinterest posts that link to Journaling the Bible (yay, Jesus!), Our First Christmas as Mr & Mrs., Laundry Room Reno, and Front Door Makeover, so with these new people rolling in, I should write new content, right?

Or maybe I just to need to write again for my own sanity. I miss writing.

So what better way to kick it off, than joining Meghan's Cardi Party? Ahhhh accountability clothed in... well, cute clothes! A fabulous excuse to get back in the habit.



I am a very clothes-minded person. I. LOVE. CLOTHES. And shoes. And purses. And pretty things in general, but really clothes. I used to work at Gap and Banana Republic and this just fueled my addiction. I was really good at "wearing and selling" and I pretty much handed my paycheck back to them every single month.

My name is Vanessa. I am addicted to clothes. I have a "Dressing Room" (not a closet) and I have 35 cardigans. This makes me sound like a hoarder BUT I seriously wear all of my clothes. Not at the same time.

I am going to attribute the cardi collection to being cold blooded. I freeze to death all of the time. I have a space heater in my office. And my bathroom. And next to my bed. With an electric blanket.

Do you know just how much my fireman husband HATES my space heaters? It's a wonder he married me.

Without further adieu, meet my top three cardi's, left to right (close-up picture above):




Orchid Gap Cardigan with sequin embellishment - I loved this cardigan so much, I bought two of them  from Gap's Spring 2005 line. No joke. This cardigan just sparkles and because of that, just looking at it makes me happy. The only downfall is that it's difficult to wear on curly hair days because my hair gets caught in the sequins.

Multicolor CaBi Kimono - This has an odd mix of colors (I am slowly coming around to mustardy yellow) but it feels amazing. It is warm AND feels like a nightgown. It's flowy, fun and not fitted, so I am all about it on those days I feel... bigger. And cold. ;)

JCrew Poppy Cardigan - One simple phrase can sum up my love for this one: loud print, loud colors. I love bold prints and colors and this cardigan is killing it in those categories all in the name of warmth.

Do you have anything you have just-so-happened to accumulate large numbers of in your closet? Do you love a beautiful cardi, too? Join the kmac cardi party! You don't have to blog, you can post pics on IG in your favorite cardigans and use #kmaccardiparty.

This will be super fun! Do it! :)

Meal Planning: The Grab and Go Method (lunch)

I am not a great cook. I can cook a few things, but not a lot. I have some family recipes, Pinterest recipes, but baking is more my thing. Hands down. 

I have pinned a million pins (okay, ten) about meal planning. I have printed off cute templates to help me. I bought a dry erase board for my fridge. But the bottom line is that it's really hard to meal plan when your life has a scattered scedule. 

Here's a recipe for a Meal Planning Disaster:

• Lack of cooking knowledge combine with
• Lack of time and throw in
• Actually eat dinner with husband 12 nights per month
• Measure out LOTS of meal planning for one along with
• Meal planning for lunch every single day  {you can only eat so much Chickfila, y'all}

So today we went to Costco and we bought a lot of food. I am bound-and-determined to make sure for the next TWO weeks, I don't have to buy lunch at the hospital OR be tempted to grab Krystal on my way up Signal. BTW, GREAAAAAT place for a Krystal. AH!

My Mom always told me that "participation takes preparation" -- same thing with meal planning. Make time to do it, and you are saving money (and calories) by not eating out. So this meal plan is more for lunches, not dinner. I would eat these things for dinner, but some people need a meat and two sides. When it's just me, a salad is a-ok.

As soon as we got home form Costco, I made:

7 chef salads with cheese (buy the 3 lb bag of salad for $3.00, y'all!!), turkey and bacon bits with dressing on the side (in condiment cups), 3 turkey and cheese croissants (no mayo), 2 chicken salad sandwiches. 

I also bought HUGE bags of Skinny Pop, Snap Pea Crisps, and other snacks at Costco and put small servings in sandwich bags. Buying those teeny bags to throw in lunches may save you time, but it doesn't save you money usually ($ vs. oz).

Then I made a list of everything I had made by category, and stuck it on the fridge so we would know what we had, and could mark it off when things were gone:

And the most crucial part of the "Grab and Go" method: ORGANIZE YOUR GRAB AREA.

I LOVE my panty with my fabulous Elfa system from The Container Store. I love those wheeled baskets so much I could hug them. I combined two half full baskets, moved some bigger snack items down to the big drawer on the bottom, and made TWO snack drawers with all of my snacks in them and labeled it, of course:


    

Now when Sam or I walk in the kitchen needing something to snack on, OR food to pack for lunch, we know what's already divided up and prepared and we can grab it and go. In case you are interested, here is the complete list of snacks (including snacks that are pre-packaged):

G&G Snacks: Pantry
Skinny Pop Popcorn
Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Annie's Organic Fruit Snacks
Cashew Mix
Chex Mix
Cranberry Almond mix
Snap Pea Crisps

G&G Snacks: Fridge
Applesauce in squeezy pouches (organic)
Chia Seed squeezy pouches (taste like grape jello!)
Mango and Kale squeezy pouches (so good)
Fresh cut pineapple in rubbermaid boxes

Blue Crab Dip  (crackers in sandwich bag in pantry)
Hummus (carrots in bags OR crackers)

The "main entrees" include salads, turkey or chicken croissants (I only made four today and froze the rest of the pallet) or sandwiches, chicken salad, crab spread, pimento cheese, and when all of those run out, Lean Cuisines. ;)

Hope this helps those of you that struggle with meal planning like me! 

Journaling the Bible

This is adapted from "Reading the Bible in a Twitter World", an amazing seminar I had the opportunity to attend as part of the National Youth Worker's Conference. These "notes" are for my HS Girls Bible Study Sisters, as a recap to help remind them of the ways to journal God's word in their quiet time. At the bottom of this post there are verses listed that you may want to start with journaling.

There are four ways (okay, WAY more than that -- but these are a good start) to journaling the Bible. It is my hope that as you start journaling that you:

• Learn more about God and His love
• Continue to make a habit to spend time in God's word and reflect on it
• Remember to bring your journal to Wednesday night Bible study :)  (and on Resurrection this weekend!!)
• Remember to start each session with a prayer -- it doesn't have to be long, you can even just say something short like "God, help me to understand Your word, crave Your word, and live your Word"

Without further adieu, below are four ways to journal your Bible :)

Start with a cute journal -- CHECK! And fun markers, pens, colored pencils, whatever. CHECK!

1. Journalistically - 

This is a two pager :) On the left page, write the verse exactly how it appears in your Bible, including where it is from. Then go back and place quotations, brackets, squigglies, whatever to draw attention to certain parts of a verse. 

On the RIGHT page, break down the verse. Write your thoughts about the words that your drew brackets around, deconstruct it, write the who,what,when,where,why,how?

Reflect through your writing. 

Or as I said tonight, write down your pretzel logic ideas :)

{click images to make them bigger} 

2. Doodle - my FAVE!

We all have them pinned on pinterest, beautiful works of art that incorporate God's word. These are great for short passages! Think infographics, colors, fun fonts, outlines, anything! Here are some examples, be creative!

3. Detail

Basically you compare and contrast. On the left page, write the original verse, on the right page draw a line down the middle and compare two people. Example below is from Matthew 18 -- if you have a study Bible that cross-references passage in the Bible, this is especially helpful as you will know where to get more information. Another idea is to compare it to today, to yourself, etc. 

4. Rewrite Personalize :) 

This one gets deep (or at least for me, you may be totally different). Basically you take a passage and make it real to YOU. You can invert a passage or write an inspired psalm. I don't want to say rewrite because I have the utmost reverence for God's word, so we will call it "personalize" as we are making it even more personal to us. 

To invert - write the original verse, then break it down -- if it asks questions, you write a statement. If it has a statement, you write a question. For example: Psalm 15:1-2 

Lord, who may dwell in your house?
Who may live on your holy mountain?
The one whose walk is blameless,
who does what is righteous... 

The inverse would be: (in my own opinion)
Lord, I want to dwell in your house.
I want to live on your holy mountain.
Is my walk always blameless?
Is my life always righteous? 

To "Personalize" -  On the left page, write it as it is written. On the right page, replace words with something important to you. Tonight we talked about Psalm 23 -- the Lord is my shepherd... The seminar I attended had people saying, "The Lord is like my Grandpa" "The Lord is like a camera" and then tying all of these aspects they loved most about those things into God's love. As a I mentioned tonight, this one guy said "camera" and talked about how God showed him the perfect angles to capture, and flooded his lenses with light, and it was amazing. Here is my example of my "children": 

REMEMBER - there is no wrong way to do this. There are no "stupid" things you write down, no "has to be flawless" drawings. These thoughts and doodles are for you and God. This is to help you study God's word and get into the habit of doing it more routinely (and me, too!). 

Homework time! :) 

• I have asked that you all bring your journals to Resurrection this weekend - GO, pack it now. Rubberband it to your Bible.
• BRING YOUR JOURNALS EVERY WEDNESDAY (and your Bibles, not your Bible apps)
• Please, journal your favorite verse (or one that is important to you) this week and be ready to share either this weekend or next Wednesday, BUT if it is super duper personal and you don't feel comfortable sharing, you don't have to. I won't force you to share ever, but I might ask you to make a doodle you can show us ;)  This journal is between you and God. And if you want to show us all pieces and share, awesome. If you don't, that's okay too. 
• Pray :)

Verses to help kickstart journaling:

• ANY Psalm  -- this is especially helpful for #1, #4
• For doodle - check out the fruits of the spirit - Galatians 5:27-28
• For Detail (#3) - check out Romans 6. It describes Christ's followers. Compare "who I am/was" vs 
• "who I am supposed to be" 

I am praying for you all as we start this together! I hope you are as excited as I am! If you have questions, text me or email me at vmcguin@icloud.com    <3 - v.