Product Review: Pinch of Yum
What’s your go-to website for recipes? Finding healthy, exciting, and approachable recipes, such as those on Pinch of Yum, can be a challenge in the giant universe of cyberspace. It’s not that they don’t exist, but that there are so many websites to choose from. Let me introduce you to one of my favorites. Pinch of Yum is one I discovered in the last few years when a friend shared a yummy recipe I had tasted at her house. Now I regularly find myself clicking on the links in their newsletter or searching the blog for a recipe featuring whatever food items I have on hand that night so I don’t have to go to the store just to make dinner. The ability to sort recipes on Pinch of Yum by categories like quick and easy, dinner, Instant Pot, vegan, tacos, freezer meals, etc. makes it easy to find particular things. Another thing I love is the beauty of the website! Not only are the recipes a delight to taste, the website is a feast for your eyes from the fonts to the colors to the photos. Whether you want printed recipes, videos to follow, or explanations, you can get…
How to Answer the Questions Kids Ask About Life and God
How do I explain the basics of the Christian faith to my kids if I didn’t grow up in church? What do you do when your kids ask you big questions about life and God, but you struggle to even answer those questions yourself? A friend recently asked me this question. She wanted to know how to answer the questions kids ask about life and God. She knew what she believed but was hesitant to try to explain it to her kids for fear of messing up the answers because she didn’t grow up in the church and missed out on hearing all the familiar stories taught in Sunday School. Essentially, my friend and her kids needed to learn some basic theology (the study of God) and basic Bible doctrines (Bible beliefs) together. What you believe affects how you live so understanding and talking about theology with your kids is important to Christian parents. It doesn’t have to be as hard or complicated as it sounds. It can be reading and talking together at the dinner table or storytime. I actually get excited about the questions kids ask about life and God. It means they are thinking. It means they…
Product Review: Esteamed Coffee
How do you choose your coffee shops? The title wasn’t a typo. It wasn’t a mistake. The mission of Esteamed Coffee is to “build esteem and employment for adults with differing abilities.” This delightful coffee shop is in the heart of downtown Cary, NC, and employs several friends of mine. The concept of the shop came together after the stroke and long recovery of an 18 year old friend of ours. Did you know that there’s an over 70% unemployment rate for adults with disabilities? Esteamed Coffee hopes to lower that rate and show other businesses that it’s possible and meaningful to employ people with differing abilities. They want businesses to steal their employees! Along with their coffee for a cause, they showcase local artwork and have space for small meetings and events. If you have not visited this coffee shop, grab a friend and go see why Esteamed Coffee was nominated as one of the top 5 finalists for “Most Innovative Local Startups in 2021.” Or pack up your laptop and work for a few hours inside or outside the shop while sipping on one of the specialty lattes. The staff is happy to make drink recommendations! The hardest…
Product Review: ASANA
How many sticky notes are on your counter or desktop on any given day? Asana is an application designed to help you organize, track, and manage your work. It’s a game changer for teams! If you are unfamiliar with ASANA, it’s a work management tool. I love the project and task features where I can see what I need to do and check it off when I complete it. I use Asana for home and for work. I LOVE it! All my EVENTS go on my Google Calendar and all my TASKS go in Asana. There’s a free version (called the Personal version) that you can begin using today, plus lots of tutorials such as this one from Louise Henry or these from the Asana Academy. When a friend shared an Asana board with me a few years ago, I was instantly intrigued. We used Asana to manage event planning for a church conference. I felt a bit overwhelmed by all I didn’t know about Asana. After the event, I took some time to watch tutorials and become an Asana Ambassador. Even now, there’s so much more I could be using Asana for. I just keep adding to my knowledge…
Product Review: Manual Pencil Sharpener
What’s your favorite non electric office product? I have a serious love of office products. Zebra striped paperclips and pastel sticky notes make me swoon. I wrap my trademark blue tape around my brand-new Sharpies so nobody walks off with them. I wasn’t brand-specific until I discovered Dixon Ticonderoga pencils. However, for years, pencil sharpeners frustrated me. I kept bent paperclips and screwdrivers in my desk drawer to unclog them after kids sharpened colored pencils or cheap pencils down to the nubs or inserted the wrong end of the pencil in the sharpener. Grrr. Manual. Electric. New. Used. Handheld when we broke the remaining one in the supply closet. Grrr. Pencil sharpeners. Then one day I got a gift. My best friend said her husband bought a box of pencil sharpeners and wanted to give me one. She didn’t seem overly excited about this as she handed it to me. Considering mine were always breaking, I was happy to get a new pencil sharpener. Life suddenly went from good to great. I had a new office product love! Where had this gem been all my life?! I found myself teaching kids and adults how to use my Groovy Green pencil…
Ministry Review: Moms In Prayer International
Is praying for an hour straight hard or easy for you? “Moms in Prayer International impacts children and schools worldwide for Christ by gathering mothers to pray.” This tagline says it all and it’s probably one of the best parenting decisions I ever made. For many years, I joined like minded moms in praying for our children, their schools, and their teachers. What started as two moms praying together in 1984 has now grown to groups in over 150 countries with the vision that eventually every school in the world would be covered by a group of praying moms. The premise is to pray for your kids and their schools for an hour each week. I really liked the format they provide weekly, which is an outline for your prayer time and starts with highlighting an attribute of God. Since the groups are organized by schools, it’s not likely that everyone is from the same church which I found to be a strength. The best part of my week was the hour spent praying with sisters in Christ, passionate about our kids, schools and teachers. When I went back to work as a teacher, I also really appreciated knowing that…
Book Review: Blazing New Homeschool Trails
Are you more of a trailblazer or a trail follower when it comes to raising and educating kids? No matter how you answer this question, this BRAND NEW book, Blazing New Homeschool Trails: Educating and Launching Teens with Developmental Disabilities, could be for you! My friend, Natalie Vecchione, did not set out to be a trailblazer. She set out to be a wife and mama and along the way, realized that the path was no longer clear for her as a mama of a child with FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is a brain based disorder). She unexpectedly became a trailblazer and is now leading others down the path though FASD Hope. I had the privilege of tutoring Natalie’s son, so I got to walk a little bit along their path. So many hindrances to their path could have broken their family, instead, it made them stronger. When Natalie said she was co-authoring a book, I couldn’t wait to read it. In fact, I happily volunteered to be on the launch team so I could read it early! I also looked forward to reading the story of Cindy LaJoy and the business, Buckaroos Slices and Scoops, that her kids launched.…
Cold Brew Coffee Review
Did you know that cold brew coffee has been around for many, many years, and it’s not just a current craze? My parents and grandparents made cold brew coffee all of my life. Our fridge always housed bottles of liquid gold, cold brewed coffee concentrate. We never had to worry about shelf life because we went through it quickly. Hot black coffee was the natural way to start and end the day and to offer to guests. Once some friends even let themselves in our house just before we returned home from a trip and hid my mom’s cold brew and ate up the ice cream in the freezer. The ice cream was forgivable, but we couldn’t imagine a more horrible prank than to hide the coffee! While I had to use mini 4 cup coffee pots thru college, I soon got my own Toddy Cold Brew system. Cold brew regular and decaf liquid concentrate are always in my fridge. While we dabble with French press and pour overs at our house, we always have cold brew on hand for hot or iced coffee. My favorite benefit is the lower acidity of the cold brewed coffee than the traditional hot…
Book Review: Wurmbrand
What book have you read that was life changing? Hopefully your first answer was the Bible. In addition to God’s Word, there have been a handful of books that have impacted my thinking and actions. WURMBRAND Tortured for Christ the Complete Story was one of those books. A friend gave me the book and movie as a Christmas gift. 376 pages will have you staying up at night wanting to know what happens. The movie Tortured for Christ is graphic and a shorter way to get the gist, but not nearly as rich with details as the book. Apparently, the story has been around for years in several different books and sermons, but this is the complete story based on the words of Richard and Sabrina Wurmbrand themselves. It tells the life story of the Wurmbrands who were imprisoned for their faith in Communist Romania post-WWII yet never gave up on their faith in God or in their desire to help others. Could the same be said of us? Would we be brave enough? Strong enough? Would we have memorized enough scripture should our Bibles be taken away? Could we survive mental and physical torture for years on end and…
15 Parenting Books
Ever wish you had a quick list of helpful books for raising a child? Here are 15 parenting books! This list is not comprehensive nor will you agree 100% with every chapter in each book, however, it’s like a recipe. You take the basic ideas and tailor them to your family’s needs or what’s in the pantry that day. I find it much easier to modify a recipe than to make one up, wouldn’t you agree? No book list should ever replace solid Biblical truth. The best parents are those who understand that solid parenting skills come from the unchanging truth of God. They also reach out to like-minded others who are just a few steps ahead of them. A friend recently asked me for some parenting resources, and I literally went to my bookshelf and pulled off a few favorites. These are parenting books I have read or used over the years. I ask that you use discernment in whether or not they are the best resource for you. Whether you are a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or a favorite friend, I hope this list will be helpful. It’s divided into 3 sections, and I’ve included Amazon…