SSMT - Adventures in scriptures, verse 2

January 15, 2015 I started to work on memorizing my next verse as a part of Beth Moore's Siesta Scripture Memory Team...this one has been a tad more difficult, but it's such a great reminder! 

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. (Philippians 2:3-4 NLT)

Here's another version of it that I like:

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna

I found this recipe in Pinterest and tested it out...it is DELICIOUS!! For the instructions I followed, check out the blog I got it from: Favorite Family Recipes blog. (They originally got it from the Skinny Taste blog where you can also find all of the nutritional content!) I tweaked the recipe some since I was only making two squash boats...

Below are step by step photos of when I made this delicious dish!!

Scooped all the seeds out of the spaghetti squash...

After steaming squash on stovetop for 15-20 mins, I scooped all the spaghetti squash out...you keep the outside layer to use as a bowl!

One filled! One more to go!

Add meat sauce, then ricotta cheese mixed with parsley & more cheese...

2nd layer of meat sauce...

Top with mozzarella and bake for another 20-30 mins or until cheese is melted...

ENJOY!! It is very yummy!

SSMT - Adventures in scriptures

On January 1st, 2015, I joined Beth Moore and Living Proof Ministries in a 12 month Scripture Memory challenge, AKA Siesta Scripture Memory Team (SSMT). The goal is to memorize 24 scriptures in 12 months - just two a month! I'm very excited for this endeavor because every person chooses a scripture that is meaningful to them in their stage of life and because this will help me to get in the Bible to search the scriptures, to dwell on them and to hide them in my heart. To learn more about this adventure, check out the initial blog post from Beth Moore: http://blog.lproof.org/2015/01/siesta-scripture-memory-team-2015-verse-1.html



For my first scripture I have chosen:
"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."
Romans 12:12 NIV 

I found this beautiful printable on Pinterest that another blogger had posted, if you would like to download it, check out her blog here.

I am looking forward to the amazing things to come for my future in 2015!

New Year, old year...

‘May the LORD bless you and protect you. 

May the LORD smile on you and be gracious to you. 

May the LORD show you his favor and give you his peace.’ 

(Numbers 6:24-26 NLT)

May you draw closer to God in 2015...be thankful that He has blessed you in years past...never forget what you've come through...

Here's a recap of my December 2014!

Seeing the Christmas lights in my sweet little town. 

Made reindeer cupcakes with my sisters and nieces! 

Helped our church youth group and an awesome organization wrap presents for local children for Christmas!

Drank lots of coffee at our local coffee shop (recently re-opened in a an awesome new building!) The Bull Shack is awesome and they have a great back story!! To learn more about them click here. Or visit their FB page! 

Decorated my little house for Christmas to celebrate our savior's birth!

Took a "pre-shopping" nap...because that's necessary! 

Went to see The Nutcracker at the Houston Ballet!

Made some homemade presents! 

Decorated Christmas cookies for Santa Claus! #Texas

Watched A Christmas Story! My husband IS Ralphie! #familytraditions

Had some wonderful quality time with my man!!!

AND had a wonderful family Christmases with both my side of the family and with his! I love family time! Oh and we managed to smoke an amazing turkey for Christmas dinner!

This year has been great! Looking forward to what God has in store for 2015!!

Green Drink!

Green Drink!

This last week I started a regimen of oil that are supposed to help detox your system and flush out fat (will post more about that later...) and in conjunction with the oils cleanse I've been drinking this Green Drink suggested by my doctor!

It's so very easy to prepare! I've had one nearly every morning on my way to work this week.

Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 frozen bananas
1 cup of grapes (or other fleshy fruit)
2 fistfuls of spinach (or kale, I use both)
1 tsp of milk thistle
1/4 cup of flax seed (I use approx. 1/8 cup of flax seed meal)
1-2 cups of water depending on consistency preference

This Green Drink is surprisingly delicious and fills me up without having to eat breakfast too! Note, adding blueberries to it is delicious but it turns the drink a brownish purple color! Lol :) 

Kathrinka thinks...4 years ago today

Four years ago today, I prayed it would stop raining long enough for me to marry my best friend, Mr. Jesse Emerson. We were blessed with a humid, but sunny outside ceremony.

I remember beautiful vivid memories from that whole day...and many memories of our adventures for nearly 10 years we have been together. I love you Jesse, thank you for asking me to marry you! 

With all my respect,

Mrs. Katherine Emerson

Chicken, veggies & ranch crockpot meal

I looooove having a crockpot for cooking easy meals! This last weekend I spent most of my morning prepping and cooking meals for the week. One of the meals I prepared was one I discovered by throwing together the very few ingredients I had in my kitchen a couple of weeks ago! 

All you need is: chicken, celery, bell pepper, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of chicken broth and a packet of ranch dressing mix. 

I cooked 6 chicken thighs with these ingredients in my crockpot on high for 4 hours. While it cooked I also had time to prepare other meals!

Let me know what crockpot recipes you love! 

Kale, bacon & onion

I've been working lately on eating healthier, especially homegrown food and when I heard a friend still had kale growing in her garden I asked for some! 

Kale is a leafy green that is packed with flavonoids which have antioxidant and anti-inflamatory benefits. It's called a "super food" that can help lower cholesterol, detox your body, and lower your chances of certain cancers!!

She said she loves to sautée the kale with a little bit of bacon and some onion. So this week I tested it out!

It was delicious! Thank you Gaytha for the fresh kale from your garden! 

Tips on cooking kale: cut the stem out from the middle of the leaf, it can be very tough and difficult to eat. Please let me know if you have other recipes that include kale!

Kathrinka thinks...

...we need more JOY in our lives! 

Do you ever feel like this: 

Yeah...me too sometimes. But it doesn't have to be that way, we make the decision to be joyful. It's even found in the Bible:

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4 NIV)

So, next time you feel down, REJOICE in The Lord! He has given you life! Enjoy every moment of it! Today I will rejoice because:

- I have breath for another day!

- I have a God who loves me unconditionally!

- My husband is a great man who I highly respect!

- I have a home (a 552 sq ft "square" room, but it's our home that we've been blessed with for the time being!) 

- I have a great job!

- My family is awesome, supportive, and loving!

- I have five beautiful nieces!!

- My church family is just as awesome as my biological family! 

- I am blessed with wonderful friends!!

We are called to be like Christ. I encourage you to find out who Jesus Christ is, how he shared love with people, how he sacrificed so that we may have eternal joy, how he loves unconditionally and how he helps people. 

"Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus..." (Philippians 2:1-5 NIV)

Let's look to the needs of others, express your joy today in what you're thankful for and then seek out how you can attend to the interests of others. Be a blessing to someone else today! 

Here's a little handmade token from me as a reminder to find the joy in your life today...

Aaaannnnddd something cute to make you smile. :) This photo is of me and my brothers when we were young. Enjoy your day today! 

I am a pro-procrastinator!

I am a pro-procrastinator! 

Procrastinator confession: I wrote this post yesterday and told myself I would post it tomorrow! 

I started this blog, to the day, 5 years ago. May 29, 2009. I blogged off an on for a little while, quit completely for a while and then blogged again about my food adventures...but quit again a little while later. 

I have such great ideas, plans, dreams...but I just can't quite seem to get them off the ground. My goal at the beginning of 2014 was to start blogging again. Well...Here we are almost halfway through 2014, and I just keep thinking about it and never doing it! 

Oh believe you me, I've come up with excuses:

• I can't commit to even one post a month

• My pictures aren't pretty enough

• I ramble too much 

• No one is really gonna want to follow my blog anyway 

• ...I need to go cook dinner

• I should be working on my budget right now

• Laundry, laundry, laundry

• It's midnight already...

• I'm not interesting enough

• Work takes up all my time

• I don't have time to blog

And yet I keep coming back to a desire to blog! I want to share exciting experiences. 

I want to show the young, newly married woman that you CAN learn to cook! (I thought I was gonna be the biggest failure of a wife/cook/housekeeper...don't get me wrong, I'm still learning, but that's the point! You CAN learn to do what you really want to do!) 

I want to share my love of the color yellow. 

I want to enrich people's lives with beautiful photography. 

I want to help people live healthier lives by introducing them to the multitudes of benefits that Young Living Essential Oils has given to me. 

I want to encourage the depressed, to share the Love that my God so generously shares with me. 

I want to share how awesome marriage can be. 

I want to be adventurous!

I want to share my adventures in cooking, life and love! 

SO... here's to the end of procrastination and the beginning of adventures! 

Five years ago, I prayed this prayer and I'll continue to pray it: ((Lord, please give me your revelation to help guide me in my everyday walk, so that I can be the woman that I want to be. I pray for your guidance and direction, help me to be receptive to all you have to offer me. Give me clean hands and a pure heart so that everything I do will be done to the best of my ability. Thank you Jesus for all that you have given me already, and thank you for the days to come…Amen.)) 

May we all be reminded to pray: 

"Dear Jesus, give me revelation...I've got nothing without you."

New! Cut, Color and Style!!

Well I decided recently that I wanted a change in style...therefore I decided to cut and color my hair = A NEW STYLE!! :D Here are my photos!!

BEFORE

AFTER:

Jesse and I - his hair is longer than mine now!

Crazy Metal Pic!!

Cute-ness!
You can see the hair color!

TA-DA! Brown, Red and Caramel

I hope you all like it and get to see it in person soon!! I LOVE it!! Thank you Sarah Everett for a fantastic job, well done!

life...in 5 years...

Krystina asked me about my ambitions for the next five years…and it really almost surprised me some of the things that came out of my mouth. I do of course want to be married to Jesse by then…but the other things I spouted off were –

- I hope that we will be buying a house by that time
- I want a job that is steady, but not “same ole, same ole”
- I want to have the ability to travel…to experience things outside of my ‘normal’ life
- I’d love to live in a city
- I want to have an office with a big window where I can see the sky/trees/pretty buildings
- I want a yard and a dog that we can take care of
- I would love to be financially stable enough to do whatever we wanted
- I want to go, go, go….
- …to do FUN things while we’re still young…
- I want to take long weekend trips
- I don’t want to be old and boring…
- I do NOT want to get stuck in Livingston
- I want a job that is exciting and that I really enjoy being a part of
- I want to take adventures
- I want to be the kind of person that other people really like to be around…

I want us to be able to enjoy the time that we have…and I want to keep that enthusiasm for years to come.

Reading list

Here is my summer (or next couple of year's) reading list:

Harry Potter series - Book 1 done already! Six to go!!
|
The Last Juror - John Grisham
|
Devil in The Blue Dress - Walter Mosley
|
Twilight Series
|
Come Thirsty - Max Lucado
|
|
|
...and more to come!

I have already complete 5 books since the beginning of the year! The first Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, A Painted House, Pelican Brief, and The Firm by John Grisham and Angels & Demons by Dan Brown.

Dinner #2

Dinner #2 for the family...Spaghetti & meatballs, garlic bread and salad.





The finished product!! :)

Twilight {and wine}

Yesterday Krystina and I watched the Twilight movie. We've been hearing about the movie and books from most all the other women in our lives and decided it was time that we also knew what all the fuss is about! :) (most girls I know just absolutely LOVE Edward Cullen - the main actor...and vampire)
We sat down with our wine and began the movie for our viewing pleasure!
It's really a pretty good movie...different and interesting. We both enjoyed it and already want to watch it again! A little wine and a good movie with my sister was a blast!! :)

I think the wine made me a little chatty because after the movie we were up for another hour or so just talking and talking...I love having the chance to stay the night with my sister, to relax, enjoy a glass of wine and spend time with her!


Now....we both want to read the books!!....need to find the time to do so.....
I'm off to work now...

finally...

So...I have fallen a little behind on my blog...and I need to catch up! :)

My summer classes here at Texas A&M Univ started up on the first of June. I'm taking my last two communication courses and all I have left to earn is my internship credit. I have found two very interesting internships that I am applying for this weekend. My classes are Communication & Pop Culture where we discuss the trends of pop culture over the last century and how they came to be "popular" in our culture as well as how these trends can change so quickly. The second class is American Oratory where we read many different speeches that have been crucial in the history of America and analyze them according to Aristotle, Burke and what we think of them in their historical/rhetorical context. Sounds pretty cool...but sometimes it can be a bit much! :)

The first weekend in June I went home for the weekend and spent time with lots of family! My youngest brother David was confirmed into the Catholic church and almost all of the family was there to participate in his very exciting day! Other family/friends that came included Amanda Fite and Sarah Cutler - two fantastically exciting & fun ppl!
That same weekend Joshua left to begin his new job with the construction company named WRL that builds schools.

By the second week of June I had two tests! That's how 5 wk summer classes work! I did really well on both, a 90 on the first and an 84 in the second. I had really hoped for a better grade on the second but the oratory class is really difficult and the average was an 82...so I did do slightly better than the average! :)
Also, the second week of June, my brother Daniel managed to hurt his foot while playing with Marin (I'm not totally sure how it happened, but I know he's a hoot when he's picking on our niece!!) He was able to take a break from work for a couple of days and decided to visit two of his favorite band members and friends, Jesse and Talon, in the great city of Houston! These two have been on a quest recently - "a quest?" you may ask? Yes....it is called "Quest For a Million Hits." Daniel joined the boys in their quest by being a part of their most recent post on their YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/questforamillionhits. If you would like to view some of their endeavors...click here!

The second weekend of June, I invited Krystina and Marin to come spend the day with their siblings in College Station! Joshua came in to town from his new workplace in Godly, Texas (his temporary location). Elizabeth and Kyle came swimming with all of us at the pool here at our apartment and Marin had a blast throwing a ball back and forth with all of us and then chilling out in the sun while I (aunt K) was trying to lay out and get a tan! See the pic Krystina took of us?! ssoooo much fun!




















I love it when she talks to me! She is the cutest little one ever!!
:) I had a blast that weekend! While Krystina was taking engagement pictures of Elizabeth and Kyle...Joshua and I took Marin to her first movie in the theater!! We watched Pixar's newest movie UP! and I think that she enjoyed it...she was really quiet during the whole thing and I think she really enjoyed the M&M's I gave her through the 2nd half of the movie!!



NOW.....I'm finally getting to this week! :)
On Monday I babysat for my Mary Kay representative, Claudia...Let me know if you need anything from MK and I'll let her know, she's really great! She has two very cute little ones who were a delight to take care of! I realized that it's fun taking care of kids...but it's always really nice to leave them with their parents too!! hehehe...
On Tuesday I went to class, studied and then exercised with a friend.
Wednesday I went to my church Homegroup and we talked about "life verses". We decided that each person would memorize a verse this week.

My verses are Psalm 1:1-3
¹Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
²But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
³And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
I am going to delight in the law of the Lord this week!

Today, Thursday, I had a test in my first class - made an 88! And then we talked about Women's Suffrage in my second class. After class I came home, ate lunch and then went to visit my friend Ellen from school. She and I met at A&M Transfer Camp in 2007 and have been friends ever since. She is a married student and she and her husband, Bryan, welcomed the newest addition to their family last year!! She is now a beautiful little girl with the prettiest little smile I have ever seen! As well, they both graduated in May! I made a trip to see Ellen and her baby today because they will be leaving next week to start a new stage of their lives in Oregon with Bryan's family. I will miss you Ellen, but I know that you and your family will do wonderful up north!

Well...now that I have written a novel, I hope that I have not scared off all of my blog followers!
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read all of this!! :) LOVE YOU ALL!
I am now off to read more about women's suffrage and try to get some sleep...goodnight!