Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

TEN | BUCKET LIST

Today’s prompt: 10 items off your bucket list. If you haven’t made one, now’s a good time to start!




College Bucket List - roadtrip with your favourite people. http://www.facebook.com/unisouthdenmark:

1.  Go on an all girls road trip with my bests.
Playlists.  Laughter.  Food.  Craziness.  Chinese fire drills.  Random stops.  Heart to heart talks.

2.  Go to New York during the holidays.
Radio City Music Hall.  Ice skate.  Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.  Light tour.  See Santa at Macy’s.  Shopping.

I don't want to necessarily write a book, but more like create a book out of my photography. I have a few in mind, but I'm not sure if I will ever do it.:

3.  Write a book.
My Mama always did say I was wordy, ha.

4.  Design my dream house.
With barns, a guest house, custom coop, outkitchen for canning…so so many ideas.

5.  Travel to Italy.
Bathe in the mineral baths.  Eat a cannoli.  Take crazy amounts of pictures.  Go on a food tour.

visit redwood national park #bucketlist:

6.  Visit Redwood Nation Park.
I’ve been obsessed with this ever since looking at my Grandma’s pictures when I was little.  She was a traveler and loved to see the world and take pictures along the way.

1972 CHEVROLET CHEYENNE CUSTOM PICKUP:

7.  Own an antique lifted Chevy.
pleaseandthankyou

Who needs an atlas when you have an algorithm? Data tinkerer Randy Olson, who is now known across the internet for developing the optimum search path for Where’s Waldo books, has used this same algorithm to compute the optimal American road trip. At the urging of Tracy Staedter from Discovery News, Olson set out to […]:

8.  Travel across the US with my love.
When we retire, this will be our first trip.  I would love for it to be based on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

I've wanted to ever since I saw Soul Surfer. I think getting away from everything and doing something amazing for people without anything being given back is exactly what I need to remind me that I live a very lucky life.:

9.  Go on a mission trip to another country.
Oh how I would love this.  And to serve alongside my family.

Want to dance in the rain?... So do we! @Graced By Grit 's Land and Sea line makes moments like this possible with quick dry, compression fabric that's made for the water. So laugh your heart out, dance in the rain, cherish the moment, live, love, forgive and forget, because life's too short to be living with regrets.:

10.  Dance in the rain with my love.

Gather Around the Amish Table {Book Review + Giveaway}

Gather Around the Amish Table
Treasured Recipes and Stories from Plain Communities
By Lucy Leid
Incorporate Amish cooking traditions this fall in your kitchen with Lucy Leid’s Gather Around the Amish Table. Straight from Amish kitchens to yours, this cookbook offers favorite family recipes and charming stories from Amish and Mennonite cooks. Gather your family around the table to sample the nourishing fare and trademark charm of the plain people. In the words of one cookbook contributor: “Bake someone happy!”
This cookbook combines two of my favorite things…food and the Amish.  In the past few years, we’ve had quite a few Amish families move in around our area.  Actually, I can sit on my porch on any given day and watch buggies drive past.  One of our favorite summer activities is visiting the Amish bake sales.  Their baked goods are like no other!  You just can’t beat pies, cookies and fry pies baked from scratch.  So when I saw this book, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!
I had an evening alone, so I snuggled on the couch with a blanket and a cup of coffee.  I pulled this book off the coffee table and began leafing through it.  What I found inside the cover was amazing..not only recipes but pictures and stories to go along with each one!  Oh my, if it wasn’t so late I would have been running straight to my kitchen.
This cookbook came at the perfect time, my bread machine quit last week.  I know, I’m still ridiculously sad about that.  So if I make bread, it has to be hand kneaded and let to rise.  There was a cheesy bread stick recipe in this cookbook that I was dying to try.  The recipe was so descriptive, even I could do it myself!  I made them to go alongside baked ziti and they completed our meal perfectly.
Gather Around the Amish Table is absolutely a keeper and will be going straight on my cookbook shelf.  I highly recommend it!

Special THANK YOU to LitFuse for providing me with a complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.  My review is my own personal opinion.

Get your fall baking underway with an Amish baking basket giveaway from Lucy and MennoMedia!

gather-400 

One grand prize winner will receive:

gather-lasagna-recipe 

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on September 29th. The winner will be announced September 30th on the Litfuse blog.

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You can purchase your own copy HERE.

Lucy Leid is an Old Order Mennonite wife, mother, and cook in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

NINE | DEAR BEAUTIFUL GIRL

Today’s prompt: Write a letter to sixteen-year-old you. Any advice or funny stories?

Dear Beautiful Girl…

Oh pretty girl. If I could give you anything right now it would be a hug.

I would stand there and just hold you, look you in the eyes and promise you that it does get better. It really does. These years don’t define you. I’m so sorry that you’re going through all of that right now, but it gets better. So much better.

I know you’re listening to Garth Brooks while everyone else is listening to Metallica. I know you’re driving a John Deere and plowing a garden while everyone else is hanging out with their friends. I know you’re sharpening the blades on the lawnmower while everyone else is heading to the beach. I know you feel like you don’t fit in. It’s all good chickie, someday being country is actually cool!

Your hair is amazing. Enjoy every single second of your big hair, soon it goes out of style and never comes back in. I know, unbelievable. But the adult you is still holding out hope it will come back in style someday.

I know how badly you want to try out for cheerleading. You came so close, but you allowed someone else’s words to ruin it. Stop doing that! One statement of “Amy, a cheerleader? Are you serious?” completely ruined your confidence and thoughts of trying out. Ignore them and just try out! If you don’t, you will regret this your entire life.

I know how critically important it feels to fit in, to be cool, and most of all, to be beautiful. And thin. Oh, how important that is.

I want you to know a few things. First of all, you are thin! And your 40something self will wish she looked like you. Secondly, a woman’s worth is not determined by her weight. You know that. Deep down you have to know that.

But yet…

I see the days when you eat a candy bar, sneak out into the bathroom to try to vomit it up. It doesn’t work and just makes you feel like more of a failure. I see the days when you can’t concentrate because you’re hungry. You’ve convinced yourself that food is disgusting and when you glance around the lunchroom, watching everyone shove food in their mouth, it makes you nauseous. Again, you revise your daily 600-calorie or less menu. One thing it can never include is food at school in front of others. I see you leafing through the pages of the latest issue of Seventeen, tears dripping down your cheeks because you’ll never look like those girls, and it makes you feel like your worth is less than zero.

I know you hate your lips and how full they are. Those kids around you certainly haven’t helped that matter at all, calling you horrible racist names. But guess what? Some day women are going to pay to have amazing lips like yours! I know, right? And God gave you them for free 🙂 You trendsetter you.

So, you’re finally old enough to date and you’ll finally get your first boyfriend. But sadly, for two years he fills your head with “I won’t date a fat girl, remember that”, “Look how fat your thighs look in those pants” and “If you would just lose weight, you’d be so beautiful.” You will spend countless date nights sitting in restaurants watching him eat because he feels you’ve had your calorie fill for the day. And countless nights hungrily crying yourself to sleep. Eventually he is out of the picture, but his words aren’t.

Those words will haunt you for decades.

Darling, gorgeous, lovely, wonderfulness…you are beautiful and worthy exactly as you are, and nothing anyone can say or do will change that truth. Do you hear me? Your body type does not dictate your worth, no matter what society tells us.

God has told you the truth about who you are. You are beautiful simply because He made you. The only perspective that matters and the only One who defines us is our Maker. How freeing is that truth?

You are beautiful. Nothing can change that fact. Ever. Not aging, not gray hair and not scars from surgeries. The only thing that can change is whether you believe it or not.

Despite what all the guidance counselors tell you, these years do not define you. You will be so much more than high school. You are a child of God…and no prom dress, hair cut, boyfriend, car, or fight with a friend can ever change that.

You are wonderful and worthy. Please remember that. You are amazing!

Love,
Your Future Self