Tag Archives: PostADay2011

Operation Beautiful

Posted on by under Faith

I love reading Kristin Armstrong’s blog at Runner’s World Online – Mile Markers.   Kristin is a runner, author, motivational speaker, and happens to be the mother of Lance’s kids.  Yes, that Lance.

While she does write about running, she also has a wonderful ability to put her finger on the habits, motivations, failings, and truths that we all, as humans, face each and every day.  She writes as if she knows your thoughts.  And indeed she does, because all of us deal with the same fears, walls, and insecurities that stop us from being the best we can be.  Yet, as an over-comer, she helps her readers move past those walls so that they can be over-comers too.  After reading her weekly post, I am always moved and inspired.

But one thing I love about her posts, almost as much as I love the post itself, are the comments.  I’m always amazed by the stories and experiences shared by other readers.  The comments, in and of themselves, inspire me too.

So today, as I read her latest column, and the subsequent posts, I saw a link to this site:

Operation Beautiful

The mission of Operation Beautiful is “to transform the way you see yourself one post-it note at a time.”

Tears began to roll down my cheeks as I looked over the website.  I LOVE that someone  made it a mission to let random strangers look at themselves with kindness and love, rather than loathing and repulsion.

Case in point: when you look in the mirror, are you generally pleased with what you see, or do you tend to look at each and every one of your flaws?

Show of hands here…  be honest.

We never – despite our blusterings – rarely do think as highly of ourselves as we sometimes lead others to believe.  Usually, there’s a voice – or two, or three – in the back of our minds telling us that we:

Can’t.

Aren’t.

Won’t.

My daughter is in a small group at church.  Her small group leader is just wonderful, and recognizes that the way we deal with life’s hardships are learned when we’re young.  She knows that especially during those teen years, we start listening more to the can’t, aren’t, and won’t voices, than the can, are, and will ones.  She just started the girls reading a book called The Divine Dance.

The back cover carries this message:

When we realize that the One who matters already loves us, we will flourish in this life that is the Divine Dance.

And that’s really the crux of the matter, isn’t it?

We’re all so focused on what others see, that we don’t really see ourselves.  Beyond that, we don’t see ourselves the way He does.  We might think it on occasion, but He knows it from the beginning to the end.

He knows you’re beautiful.

He knows you’re amazing.

He knows you’re smart.

He knows you’re kind.

He knows you’re loving.

He knows you can.

He knows you are.

He knows you will.

I know it about you.  I hope you know it too.

Wash Your Face… With Oil

Posted on by under Delights

A few years ago, I received an unsolicited catalog in the mail.  It was from DHC, a Japanese skincare and makeup company.  Included in the catalog were a few free samples.  Nice little sizes too; the kind you can throw into your purse or travel beauty kit.  I like that because I don’t always want to tote a full bottle or jar of certain products with me.  And believe me, I would travel with my whole moisturizing, hair-cleansing, make-up drawer if I could.  I never wear the same outfit everyday when I travel – but I do at home; why is that? – so why would I want to wear the exact same shade of eyeshadow every day?

But…  I digress.  The catalog had a sample of one of their most popular products: Deep Cleansing Oil, made from olive oil and vitamin E.

Now, I know it sounds contrary.  It sounds odd, even wrong to wash your face with oil.  But this stuff rocks!  The older I’ve become, the more my face (not to mention the rest of my body) has changed from it’s combination state to just… dry.  Even if my skin were oily though, I’d swear by this stuff.  It doesn’t add oil, which you think it would; it just makes your face nice and velvety smooth.

It also is the best makeup remover I’ve ever tried, bar none!

To cleanse your face, you squirt a pump or two from the bottle, and then rub it all over your face.

This is important:  It will feel like you’re rubbing oil all over your face.

But then, when you add the water to rinse it off, it literally dissolves off, leaving absolutely no residue or gunky feeling.  I promise!

Because product websites can be a bit biased, I skated over to Amazon to look at user’s reviews.  Here are a couple samples of what some other people have to say about it:

  • I have been using this for about a year and it has substantially cut down the shine on my forehead. Who’d have thought that putting oil on oily skin would be a good idea?
  • ...the oil does make your skin feel squeaky clean after you rinse it off.
  • It has cleared up dry patches while at the same time reducing the shine in oily areas, and improving the overall appearance of my skin.

By the way, it gets a 5 star review out of 5 stars on Amazon.

A 6.7 ounce bottle is about $25.  And they have handy travel sizes (LOVE those!) for about $12.

A large bottle lasts for around 4 or 5 months.  A nice little perk, too, is that when you order from DHC, you can choose several samples of other products that will come with your order.

You can even request a sample from the company before you buy!  How cool is that?

If you have dry skin, try it.  If you have combination skin, try it. And even if you have oily skin, try it.

The end.

It’s Good to Move, But Sometimes It’s Better to Just Stay

Posted on by under Musings

Yep. That pretty much sums up my life here the past few days, starting with the marathon.

In a marathon, by definition, you must move to finish.  I’ll post more about the actual marathon later, but I had some issues with my calves cramping.  I’m pretty sure the cramping was caused by me slowing down and stopping on more than one occasion to get my picture taken by one of the Disney photographers scattered throughout the race.  So in this instance, it was good to move.

Likewise, after the marathon, I needed to move. One thing most experts recommend to speed post-marathon recovery is to walk – a lot – immediately after the marathon.  And so I did….  through the long, winding road that is an IKEA showroom.  We hadn’t managed to fit it in ahead of time, so we fit it in afterward instead.  And, really, it was very extremely helpful; I did recover so much faster this marathon.  I’m glad I walked.  It was good to move.

But the past few days, I’ve had the stomach bug, so it’s been good to just… stay.  For obvious reasons, but like I said yesterday, rest is good.  Sometimes our bodies need to not move, but just stay.  Plopped on the bed or couch with a good book, or an endless array of Doris Day movies on TCM, it’s good to let a body heal.

And then there’s this:

These were taken coming back in to Atlanta after leaving the marathon.  At home, we got over 12″ of snow, but in Atlanta, they got snow, and then ice on top of that.  The bottom picture is of I-285 after we turned around.  And I’m glad we did.  We moved.  If we hadn’t, we would have slept overnight on I-285 with about 400 other people stranded in their cars.  It’s no understatement to say that I’m glad we chose to go at that particular time.


But considering the roads were like that, and more ice was expected that night, we decided to find a hotel for the evening.  Notice the road above.  That’s not snow.  It’s not salt.  It’s pure ice.  About 1/2″ thick at least.  My poor husband looked like the Hunchback from Notre Dame by the time he finally managed to skid the car into the parking lot, he was so tense!

Here’s another view from the hotel balcony.  You can see just how thick it was.  In fact, nothing around us, save the gas station next door was open.  Although the kids would have enjoyed it, we didn’t particularly want to eat Snickers and Ding-Dongs for dinner, so at about 3 pm we ordered Domino’s.  They promised they’d deliver no matter what.  Our pizza didn’t arrive until 7:30.  My husband very generously tipped the driver.

I’m glad we stayed.  I like living.

After checking the reports in the morning, the forecasters said to stay put.  The roads in Atlanta were “atrocious” they warned.  Conditions on the interstates were passable though, if just barely.

We chose to move.  But I’ve never seen Atlanta so ghost-like.  Our daughter said it was too bad that there wasn’t a major sci-fi movie filming in town, because studios have to pay big $$$ to keep the roads so clear.  It was frighteningly eerie.

This exit is usually a parking lot, no matter whether you’re headed North or South.  Normally, we’d be in the HOV lane.  Not today… too icy.

The roads were better in some places than in others, but we could still crawl home.  Literally.

If we saw one car on the side of the road, we saw 70.  I kid you not.

I-75 was temporarily closed due to an accident on the Southbound side.  The night before, 5 semi-tractor trailers had jack-knifed heading North, closing the entire length of I-75 down through the downtown area.  I’m glad we stopped and stayed.

Here’s one of over 20 accidents we saw.  We saw on the news the evening before that Metro Atlanta emergency crews were only responding to accidents with injuries, with some 300+ accidents reported!

But thanks to the wonderful, definitely overworked G-DOT workers like this one, we were able to make it home safely.

I’m thankful for all the friends and family that prayed for us.  It was good for us to stay when we stayed, and good to move when we moved.  By the time we got close to our town, the roads were clear.  We were safe.  And we were home.

Best Laid Plans

Posted on by under Musings

Why, when life is scheduled to the nth degree, do things go awry? Is it one of Murphy’s laws?

I’m supposed to leave town tomorrow. I’m heading to Orlando (Woohoo! My hometown!), and I should have about 11 things crossed off my to-do list by now.  But I think I only have about 4 things completed.  And there are 20 something items on the list.

Like Scooby says,  “Ruh-roh.”

I feel like I’m paddling against the current trying to get it all done, and in danger of falling out.

And yes, I know the old adage:  “You’ll get done what needs to get done.”

Yeah, right.

Because all 20 of those things need to get done.

And in the meantime, I find that things that weren’t on the list, are now super-ceding my most important to-do’s.

Because I have to drive it some 600 miles tomorrow, I wasn’t planning on our car getting stuck in 4 wheel drive and heading to the shop.  Yet it did.  So today, I’ve had to drive to pay the mechanic, and later, after my husband finishes work, I’ll have to drive over again to pick it up.  Sure, I’m glad it works again, and I’m very blessed it’s going to be drive-able, but that’s an extra hour and 15 minutes out of my day that I wasn’t planning on.  And then, because we had company that left yesterday, I completely forgot that I had to get my daughter to her babysitting job this morning.  Another half hour out of my day.

So what am I doing instead of my laundry, and my packing, and planning of school for the minute we walk back in the door next week?

Blogging.  But I’ve signed up to PostADay2011,  and I’m stickin’ to it!

I guess it’s just not the unplanned things that mess me up.  I really think it’s ME that’s messing me up!  Like I said… best laid plans….  Aren’t those really the things that make life so much more enjoyable?

What to make for Norwegian Guests? Norwegian Pancakes, of Course!

Posted on by under Chow

For some reason we know several families of Norwegian descent.  Several year ago, we were visiting one of those families in Seattle and we happened to be there during the birthday of one of their little boys.  For breakfast he requested Norwegian Pancakes.  I’d never heard of them before, but when I tasted that first bite, I was hooked.  I’m more of a waffle person than a pancake person, because my stomach tends to feel like I ate a lead balloon after I’ve eaten American pancakes.  Norwegian pancakes, while filling, are thin and delicate, and not so dense and heavy.  I’ve become a fan of these, and make them a lot when we have company.

Which brings me to today…

Another family of Norwegian heritage has been staying with us to celebrate the New Year, and they brought along a real Norwegian!  She’s an exchange student that’s living with them for this school year.  Being that there is a true Norwegian in the house, I thought it only appropriate to serve these for breakfast.

We wondered whether this recipe is just an Americanized version, so we asked her if this was what she was used to at home.  Her response?

“Yes.  It’s so nice to have a normal pancake for a change.”

So I’m fairly certain this recipe is authentic.  And it’s pretty delicious too!  Enjoy it!

Norwegian Pancakes

3 eggs
1 1/2 C milk
3/4 C flour
1 T sugar
2 T butter, melted
1 t vanilla

*2 T butter, melted to brush over finished pancakes

In a large bowl whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, and 2 T butter. In a separate bowl , mix together flour, salt, and sugar. Slowly pour liquid ingredients into the dry, blending until completely mixed, and there are no lumps.  It helps if one of your bowls has a pour spout, so you can pour the mixture – which will be thin and liquid-y – directly into a hot skillet, but I have this handy-dandy Hershey’s Syrup Chocolate Milk Mixer that I use.  I sent in some box tops once upon a time when my children were little and it was a special treat for them to make their own chocolate milk with the “plunger.”

These are basically crepes (although Norwegian Pancakes sound so much more exotic) so you will need to have some sort of omelet pan to make them in.  You could use a griddle, but because they are so thin, it helps to have that graduated side to slide them off enough to flip.

To begin, heat your omelet pan to medium high heat.  If you don’t have a non-stick pan, spray a little bit of cooking spray to coat the bottom and sides.  Even if you do have a non-stick pan, I spray a bit on regardless so that the pancake will slide a bit easier.

Pour a scant amount of the batter into the pan.

I’m guessing it’s somewhere between 1/4 C to 1/2 C of liquid, but it will depend upon the size of your skillet.  I’m using a 10″ pan.  You just need to lightly coat the bottom with the batter.  The amount you pour in is very similar to making an omelet.

Let the pancake sit a moment or two.  When it begins to bubble, you will want to check around the edges to see if it’s beginning to brown on the bottom.  If it is, wait another few seconds so that the middle will be done enough to slide to one edge.

If it’s not done, because these are so thin and delicate, you’ll likely tear the pancake in the middle like I did here!

If it is brown, and cooked enough in the center, gently slide the pancake to one edge of the pan, and use your spatula to flip it over.  By the way, I LOVE these Matfer spatulas.  They’re safe for non-stick pans and are angled in order to easily get anything flipped or even just get cookies off the cookie sheet.

The 2nd side of the pancake only needs a short time to brown.  At this point, I will lightly brush some of the 2 T of remaining melted butter on top.  After the butter is brushed on, use your spatula and begin rolling the pancake into a tube shape, and slide it directly onto your serving plate.

Now, I will say that you can fill the pancake before it’s rolled (traditionally with Ligonberry jam), but it’s excellent as is, with maybe a hint of powdered sugar or maple syrup.

This recipe makes about 8 or so pancakes; I normally double it for my family of five.  But two was the perfect number for our Norwegian guest…

What a sweet, beautiful Nordic girl!