by Amy | Oct 30, 2013 | Blog, Crafts, The Art of Projects
If you’ve ever visited me here in Practically Canada, or talked with me about this place, or read my blog for a while, you know I like it here. Despite the cold and the remote location, I like it here. Despite the small town living and the limited Saturday-night options, I like it here. I really, really do. I like it because the people are hard core during the winter. They walk boldly into -20 temps without flinching. In the spring when it hits 35 it’s officially sweat shirt weather. I like the people because they have cute accents and they use the phrase, “Oh, for cute,” when they like something. I like the people because they are nice and they have quirky traditions. For one, they refer to wedding receptions as “wedding dances.” For two, often at these dances, the whole crowd does the hokey pokey. I mean everybody. Not just the kids. Cutely, adorably bizarre. Generally the natives are nice and genuinely care for one another. Someone once told me that the cold weather keeps out the riff raff.
Which leads me to the point of tonight’s post. North Dakota, Practically Canada and their traditions. Since tomorrow is Halloween, I thought I’d share a spooky tradition I just learned about. Boo-bagging.
Ever heard of it? The super-cute example above from Simple Girl give you a pretty clear idea of what a Boo Bag is. You can follow the link to get her free printable!!
It’s sweet and simple really. You pack up a bag with Halloween themed goodies. As extravagant, as Martha, or a lazy and store bought as you want. Some people make fancy bags, other people just store bought bags, or just paper lunch sacks.
Once you’ve got your goods, it basically turns into a game of ding-dong-ditch. Go to a door, ring the bell and hide or get away before the recipient opens the door and finds the bag. Cute, right? Speaking of cute, you can also be inspired by this Boo version from I Heart Nap Time. She shows you how to make this bag and how to make candy corn trail mix.
Some folks include a poem that asks those who have been “Boo’d” to Boo someone else. But I’m not a fan of pressuring people into things, so I’d just as soon leave that out. Gifts are more fun if they have no strings attached.
I love this tradition so much, I want to spread it to the world. If I had known about this I would have done it years ago. How about you? Have you heard of Boo Bagging before? I’m sure there are other places that do this, I just haven’t lived there yet. And since I have no plans for 10/31 I think I’ll drop some off tomorrow night. {Mine will be of the lazy, store bought variety.}
Amy
by Amy | Oct 29, 2013 | Bible Reading, Blog, The Art of Faith
I learned about an amazing Bible study resource a few weeks ago at my Bible study. When I learn amazing, applicable things I like to share them with you. This one is good…and I apologize for taking so very long to get it up on the blog for you.
I’m guessing you won’t dispute that computers have changed the way we do things. I spend most of my day on the ol’ lap top. I make lists on it, I brainstorm on it, I conduct business on it. There is one point during my day that I almost always close the lap top, though. It’s when I sit down to do my Bible study. But now, that’s changing too.
Derek and I have come to the end of the Bible, and we are about to start again at the beginning. This time, digging deeper and approaching it with an attitude of study. We have read through several times, so we know what it says…now we want to go deeper. We want to know all the things that the text doesn’t say.
Sound weird? Here’s what I’m talking about. Much of the Biblical text can be enriched when we fully understand its context. That means understanding who wrote what books, understanding culture, political climate, and the use of words. This may come as a shock…but the Bible wasn’t even originally written in English. So even looking at the original meanings of the Greek and Hebrew words can give us a greater understanding of what is being said. Can you tell I get jazzed about this? Geeky, I know.
So tonight is the night that we flip back to Genesis and start at “In the beginning.” This time through we are armed with a very large commentary as well as our concordance…and a new electronic resource: Blue Letter Bible. Now that I’ve made a case for studying the Word, let me tell you about BLB.
Pretty much, it’s every Bible study resource you will ever need in one place. Yes, I did just say that we have paper copies of some of these things. I’m still old school. But the study tools at BLB are so easy and quick to use it’d be silly for us not to have the lap top on hand as well as our book resources. For years I’ve been a big fan of Bible Gateway. Many of you probably know of it and use it too. It’s a great site. But…BLB takes all the features I love and makes them even easier to use…and adds some extras on top of it.
You can search for any passage or word and choose which translation you’d like to use. For my example, I’ll use a traditionally misunderstood, scary verse. 1 Timothy 2:12. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. Once the text comes up it is separated into individual verses like this.
Beside each verse is a “tools” button. If you click there, you’ll get a box with six tabs across the top. This is your gateway to study bliss. You can see the original language translation, different translations, cross references, dictionaries, and miscellaneous tools like maps, video or audio clips.
My favorite tabs are the “Bibles” tab and the “Dictionaries” tab. I love that many translations of the verse will appear in the tool box instead of navigating you away from your original page of text. In the “Dictionary” tab you can select any word that appears in the verse you are examining to get more details about it. There are also options that will give you more information about the general topic a verse speaks to or an overarching topic.
For instance, in the famously misunderstood verse {1 Timothy 2:12} you can learn from the Dictionaries tab that the word “quiet” used in this verse actually refers to maintaining tranquility/peacefulness, not absolute silence, as many assume. Under the Commentaries tab you can learn even more about this verse by understanding the culture of the time. We learn there that in the churches of Paul and Timothy’s time, men and women often sat in separate sections during a teaching. Timothy’s congregation was having issues because wives were shouting out comments and questions to their husbands across the aisle, causing a stir in their congregational meeting time. Paul was simply insisting that women listen and remain tranquil/peaceful, so that everyone could have a better learning experience.
Suddenly, thanks to in depth study tools this verse doesn’t seem so sexist and scary. Just imagine what else you can discover. But seriously, Blue Letter Bible. Check it out.
Amy
by Amy | Oct 26, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Kitchen
by Amy | Oct 23, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Faith, The Art of the Moment
by Amy | Oct 22, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Kitchen
Like most endeavors that I undertake, this one didn’t turn out as planned. Also like most of my endeavors, this one is comical. Which is good, because when something goes the route of the unexpected, it’s always best when it’s funny too.
This year Derek and I bought in on a cow. Yes a cow. This isn’t new territory for me. I grew up eating farm fresh animals. Either from our own family stock or from friends who raised bigger things {like cows and pigs.} So, yes, I’m familiar with buying part of a cow. I’ve just never been the one to do it. That was always a mom and dad kind of ordeal.
But up here in PraCan cattle ranches abound. So it seemed pretty silly not to buy in with four other friends on a North Dakota original, grass-fed, cold-weather-tested cow. So we put our money down, expecting to get some ground beef, T-bones, roasts…the like. My wonderful friend Jessi and her husband, Craig were kind enough to organize the whole thing. So when the butcher had done his job, I got a call that the meat was in.
Jessi said that we got a little more than expected…and asked if I had any extra coolers. I didn’t. But I headed over to pick up my share.
Now, I was under the impression this would be a quick in and out kind of thing. Which explains why I wore my jim-jams. You see it was about 7pm on a Saturday night and Derek was out of town. Obviously I was in the middle of a crafting and eating marathon at my Minot bestie’s apartment. {No need to be fancy.}
But again. Unexpected. When I got there I found out just how much extra we had received. See, there is no way to tell exactly how much meat your cow will provide…until it’s hanging. Yes, hanging. Like on a hook in some butchery somewhere. Ours turned out to be a real fatty…putting out 700 pounds of meat more than we anticipated. All in all we were looking at nearly 2000 pounds of beef. Which meant that Jessi and Craig’s garage was turned into a temporary meat packing plant.
We put out tarps and divvied everything up. Each share included 57 lbs of ground beef. That’s the only number that sticks in my mind. Fifty-seven. That’s a lot of beef. Everyone also got a vast array of steaks, roasts, soup bones, stew meat, you name it. So much that one friend’s freezer looked like this once she got it all jammed inside.
And my freezer looks like this.
Which is fine. We just won’t be buying meat for a while. Probably not until we move.
On a different note, it is delicious. And you can totally tell that it was grass fed. It’s weird, because I didn’t think I’d notice. But it’s so good and has virtually no fat on it.
But I’ve learned a lesson from all of this. Next time you want to split a cow, split it 6 or 7 ways. I also learned that a dead, packaged cow can still take up a lot of space {like 10 coolers.} And that butchers make good money {I saw that butcher fee.} And that even thought it was a lot of meat, and I spent quite a bit of time in my jim-jams sorting it out, and it was pretty comical, and we may have to try really hard to eat it all in the next 12 months…I’m glad we did it. Even if only for the funny story we can tell later…
“Remember when we bought that cow and it was an obscene amount of meat?…”
Amy
by Amy | Oct 21, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Faith
It’s snowing.
That fact alone is leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed. When did it get to be practically-2014? I bet some of you are feeling the same way. Then I get overwhelmed by all the things I wanted to do and didn’t do, and should do, and could do, but don’t do…
Ever feel that way?
The problem for me is that when I start to get in that rut I begin to feel enormously inadequate. I look around and see people who have it together and are making strides. And I feel like a hot mess on an August afternoon.
So this afternoon while I was feeling a little blah, I began re-reading 1 Corinthians. It’s what the high school Sunday school class is studying now, but I’ve only taught on chapters 7 and 8. I hadn’t gone back to the start of the book until today. In chapter 1 I’ve got a whole paragraph highlighted. It’s verses 26-31.
“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
What a passage for those of us feeling overwhelmed or not up to par today.
When God called us into a life devoted to Him we probably weren’t super stars. And we probably still aren’t. This is His design. His plan, His work has always used the weak to lead the strong. It has always used the lowly to shame the mighty, and used the small to do His biggest work. Most of the Bible’s most iconic players were average, below average, and riddled with imperfection. So if you are feeling that way today, take heart. You are in the perfect place, the perfect state of mind, the perfect position to be used for greatness. You only have to submit to His plan and the possibility He has for your life.
For further reading check out James 1. Especially verses 9-11. It’s another reminder that God uses those who are not an image of wealth and perfection from a mortal view.
Amy
by Amy | Oct 18, 2013 | Blog, The Art of Faith, The Art of the Moment
Tonight Practically Canada is expected to get mixed precipitation. As in rain…mixed with snow. It’s only a matter of time now and winter will be upon us again.
I love fall and I hate to see it come to a close. I’m a fan of sweater weather and the smell of dry leaves. I like the eerie feeling in the air as things begin to close up, grow dark and quiet for a long winter season. I like cemetaries and the way they look with deer peeking out from behind grave stones and crow circling overhead. I love the colors and the flavors and the spooky side of this time of year.
So I thought I’d take this opportunity to put together a little image essay. These are a few things that caught my eye as I walked around my block. The beautiful thing about photographs is that you can savor a moment forever. This way, even if snow falls tonight, we’ll still have the color of the leaves, the smell or fresh apples, and the sound of crunchy leaves lingering in our minds.
by Amy | Oct 16, 2013 | Blog, The Art of the Moment
This is Hannah. She’s a senior and she is especially dear to me. Last year she approached me and asked if I could begin mentoring her. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of encouraging this fine gal along her spiritual walk. I’m so blessed to call her a friend.
Hannah is incredibly, musically talented. She plays the violin and the piano, and sings. She plays in the youth worship band at church. And she is a hot tea connoisseur. Which I totally dig, because I love chatting over a good, hot drink.
Hannah has ambitions of traveling far and wide. Dreams of seeing Norway and Ireland and all kinds of other places. I know this one is going to grow some major wings. I know this girl will {indeed} go places and do great things.
