Loving the Snow Days, but Ready for Some Sun Rays

Well, winter in the Midwest means lots of cold weather, hot chocolate, and my personal favorite, snow days! The first thing I have done every morning since December 1st (after pressing snooze a few times) is check for school delays and closings. And I love when "Huntington County Schools" pops up and I get to crawl back in bed. I've had five snow days so far, which unfortunately means I am now teaching into June, but it has been fun while it lasted! We've also had several relaxing weekends in a row, which does not happen very often. It has been the longest streak of free weekends in a row since we have been married, and it has been wonderful. We're starting to get cabin fever after being stuck inside for so long, but have enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan (our record is twelve games in one day- don't judge us), trying some new dinner and bread recipes, starting our vacation scrapbook, intramural soccer for Josh, and sledding (or Josh rolling down the hill in a tarp). We also got to go to a Derek Webb concert at our church this weekend, which was a-mazing.

Overall, it has been a beautifully boring month for us. We have enjoyed time at home, while at the same time are looking forward to our next adventure and some sun rays.

Spending our snow day sledding with some of Josh's co-workers


We just had to include these pictures of our nephew, Elijah, These are his 9 month pictures. We really miss seeing him through each little phase that he goes through. Isn't he adorable?

A Whole Wheat Treat

2010!

Well, ladies and gentleman. You did it. You made it to the tens. The holiday season has come and gone. We had so much fun being with our families and our friends this Christmas and New Years. One of the benefits of living in Huntington is getting to see all of our friends come back for New Years. People literally travel thousands of miles to get to see each other, and we hope that tradition continues.

If you have been keeping up with our blog, you have probably noticed that we are seeking better ways to consume less, produce more, and to become more mindful of the things we purchase and the things we eat. We are trying to eat more earthy, whole foods in order to be healthier and feel better! In our quest to live in a more 'monastic' way, we were blessed this Christmas with a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer! It's our hope to start making our own bread, rolls, cookies, etc.

I never thought that I would be this excited about a kitchen appliance, and definitely never thought that making bread would be blog worthy. But we are definitely both excited about this!

Here is this bad boy in all its glory. We have yet to name it. Any suggestions?


Yesterday we made our first loaves of bread! I must say, it is a very empowering experience to make your own bread. It makes you appreciate eating it so much more. It is quite a process, and it makes me wonder how people used to make bread before modern technology.

Here is the beautiful cook, getting ready!

We used the Stand Mixer to mix the milk, water, wheat flour, and yeast. For the next step, you had to hand mix 6 cups of white flour into the bowl. That's right- hand mix. I couldn't believe Kristi chose a recipe that required us (me) to HAND MIX when we had a $300 mixer! The irony.... I will say, the only time I was smiling during this 15 minute process was for the picture.


The risen dough in the stand mixer bowl from the Thompson parents!

Ready for the oven in bread pans from the Miller parents!

Finished Whole Wheat Bread!

There were lots and lots of dishes, but it was worth it.

Our first slice of bread was served with Chili!

Now as you will notice, we sort of ruined the whole eating healthy goal by having a Vanilla Coke with our meal (all that sugar and high fructose corn syrup), but we figured we should celebrate. Kristi later took that celebration too far and craved, purchased, and consumed McDonald's french fries.

We want to give a special thanks to both of our families for the Christmas gifts to make all this possible. We hope to have some good bread for you next time we see you!

Trees, Lights, and a man in Tights!

Merry Christmas season everyone!





It is starting to feel like Christmas at the Miller household. We put up our trees (Christmas Tree and Charlie Brown Christmas Tree), wrapped some gifts, and kicked off the Christmas season with Elf (hence the Tights reference).

Here are a few of our favorite Christmas movie quotes: (Can you name which movie they come from?)

1) "If it makes you feel any better, I forgot my reading glasses."

2) "This is just a real nice surprise. Just a real nice surprise."

3) "Nine million terrorists in the world and I gotta kill one with feet smaller than my sister." - (may be a stretch...)

4) "Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

5) "Have you seen these toilets? They're GINORMOUS!"

6) "I can count to ten. One, two, three, four, five, nine, six, eight... Well, I can count to five."

7) "Deck the harrs with boughs of horry, fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra."

8) "My name is all wrong. No child wants to play with a Charlie-In-The-Box so I had to come here."


What are some of YOUR favorite quotes?


We always love this season. May we all rediscover the wonder and the joy in the Christmas story. For the God of the heavens became an infant child!

Enough, Stuff, and Enough Stuff

Kristi and I attended the "Through the Consuming Fire" conference in Indianapolis this weekend at the Englewood Christian Church. We found out about the conference through our friends Kurt and Katie Williams and the four of us all were able to go! The conference theme was "Economic Faithfulness in an age of Consumerism", and "Community and Creativity in resisting Consumerism."

The main speakers were Shane Claiborne, Kelly Johnson, and Will Samson. The conference was designed to challenge our consumeristic mindset, as well as think creatively about how to be producers. We read Will Samson's book Enough in preparation for the conference, and here is an excerpt:

"One day, Jesus was walking down Main Street on his way out of town, and a rich and influential young lawyer came up to him and asked him: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

And Jesus replied, "Give what you can to the synagogue. Ten percent is a good rule of thumb, but whatever you do, don't be a legalist about it. And make sure you have enough left over to contribute to the economy. You know, 'Give to Caesar...'

And the man went away very happy, because that was exactly what he was already doing."

Each of the first several chapters of Enough starts with this scene, with the young lawyer coming up with all the excuses that us Christians come up with when confronted with the difficulty of selling everything. The book challenges the reader to ask the question, is Christ enough? So often we get caught up in the consumption of material goods that we find ourselves not thinking that Christ is enough for us. The book also asks us the question, did God create enough on earth for everyone? If so, why (according to a 2000 United Nations report) are 1 billion people in the world suffering from over-nutrition, while 800 million suffer from malnutrition? I would recommend this thought provoking, easy to read book, and not just because its the only one I've read this year (and I'm still not completely finished...).

A way of life introduced (at least to me) is known as The New Monasticism. Kristi and I have had a lot of thoughts similar to this way of living the Christian life, and it was good to learn about an established 'ism', if you will.

With all the topics, sessions, speakers, and ideas discussed this weekend, the strongest suggestions to us were to start a garden, and eat with others. It almost sounded too simple, too boring. So often we think so radically and globally that we forget to think practically and locally. I was personally challenged by thinking about how much I consume compared to how much I produce. I really don't produce anything, except for various forms of body odor.

Although they weren't specifically mentioned at the conference, here are a couple other quotes that relate to the topics addressed.

"The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried." - G. K. Chesterton

"The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly." - Soren Kierkegaard

Blessings to all of you as we approach the season of American Consumption known as Black Friday and Christmas. We are challenging ourselves to consume less, and produce more, and challenge you with that as well.

Here are a couple of great videos about consumption if you are interested:
The Story of Stuff
Advent Conspiracy

Green Thumbs, or Garden Bums?

This is the question we asked ourselves at the beginning of the summer. Which would we be? Would we be good gardeners? To test this inquiry, we planted a very modest amount of red tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and beans. Let us explore our gardening journey with some photos, shall we?

The babies with their parents.

Our potted red tomato plant on the left, and 2 cherry tomato plants on the right.

Beans.

Our grounded tomato plant.

What most of our tomatoes ended up looking like.

What happens to potted cherry tomato plants when the pot floods. Death.



We did have some delicious tomatoes, though. We enjoyed the experience of having even a small garden, and we hope to try some other vegetables next year. Look at this delicious BLT!



So here are the lessons that we have learned from our first season of gardening:

1)Potted tomatoes don't do as well as grounded tomatoes. Especially if the pot doesn't have a hole in the bottom. Or if you accidentally break the roots going through the hole to the ground.

2)Tomatoes that are planted in plenty of sun and are watered daily produce worse fruit than tomatoes that are planted in the shade and ignored.

3)Four bean plants take about 3 pickings before a side dish for two can be collected.

4)We have a lot to learn about gardening.