Soup and Peter Pan

Today, the time has changed and I am trying to mentally prepare myself for the sun going down at 4:30 (and earlier as we get closer to Christmas). I always considered myself a cloudy/rainy day type girl, mostly because the sun burned me every time I went outside. However, being here has taught me that sun = warmth, and 50 degrees feels a whole lot better with the sun than with wind and rain and clouds. All that being said, the sun was out today, and I enjoyed the warmth flooding into our living room.

But thanks to the cold, dreary days, I have begun to enjoy making my own soup as well. Since I'm still on the job hunt, money is getting tight, and we are needing to be creative with groceries. The usual cheap staples (loaves of cheap wheat bread, rice, oatmeal, beans, pasta) are unacceptable for my Primal Husband. We've started making all kinds of soups because 1) they're warm, 2) they're filling, 3) they're cheap, and 4) leftovies.

I thought I would share our favorite soup recipe with you. It's cheap, it's awesome, and we make it at least once a week.

Chicken Veggie Soup

What You'll Need:

• A whole chicken. You can do chicken breasts, but we've found whole chickens are cheaper. At Morrisons here, after about 6pm, you can get a whole cooked one for half price, which comes out to around £2.50.
• 1-2 tbs of olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3-4 (or 5 or 6 or more depending on who your husband is) garlic cloves, chopped/minced
• 2-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into half-inch pieces
• 3-4 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 2 celery stalks, cut in half long ways and sliced
• 2 zucchini/courgettes, cut into little half-moons
• 1 cup or so of fresh green beans, cut into bite size pieces. 
• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
• Your Favorite Spices, to taste (we use parsley, oregano, sage, salt, and pepper, and sometimes Tony Chacheres' Creole Seasoning if we want it spicy)
• 4 blocks of chicken stock cubes (each yielding 500ml of stock) - so roughly 2000ml stock, or about 8.5 cups. You can do more or less, this just fills up our soup pot. I make them one at a time and add them at different times throughout the process.

What To Do:

• Start out by cooking your chicken in the oven. Whether it's whole or pieces, just cook it however until it's done, shred it, and set it aside. It will be the last thing you add to the soup, so it can be cooking while you start on everything else, and you can shred it while veggies are cooking.
• Cut up your onion and garlic first and add to your soup pot with the olive oil. Turn your stove to a medium temperature and saute the onion and garlic until they are pretty soft, maybe 5-10 minutes. 
• While they saute, prepare the rest of your veggies. I divide them into groups based on how quickly they cook. We usually put beans alone, carrots and sweet potatoes together, and zucchini and celery together. 
• After your onion and garlic are soft, prepare and add 500ml of stock to the pot and throw in your green beans and spices. Bring them to a boil and let the green beans cook almost all the way. This takes forever, so if you don't mind a bit of crunch, you don't have to cook them as long.
• When the beans are soft, add another 500ml of stock and the carrots and sweet potatoes. They will usually take about 5-10 minutes to get soft.
• Next, add the last two batches of stock and the zucchini and celery. They don't take long to cook, and they'll get softer while it simmers.
• At this point, you can add your chicken and tomatoes. Everything will simmer together for 10-15 minutes or so. You can add more spices for flavor and taste test everything along the way. 
• EAT THE SOUP. It's really good with cheese and Becky Michelson's homemade bread. 

Hope this recipe makes enough sense for someone to make it and enjoy it. The whole time I'm cooking it, I'm running around from checking the pot to cutting the veggies to making the stock to shredding the chicken, so I don't really think about what I'm doing. You can add whatever veggies you like or whatever is in season. But we tried it with eggplant once, and that was just weird. Like eating wet Styrofoam pillows.

RANDOM:

Also, a lot of groceries here are super cheap. This particular day, I filled up a big canvas bag with all these groceries and spent £12 and some change. 4 cans of tomatoes, two bags of puffed rice cereal, 2 litres of semi-skimmed milk, ketchup, squeezy honey, 6 sweet potatoes, a bag of onions, 3 courgettes (which is fancy for "zucchini"), 15 free-range eggs, 7 bananas, three bell peppers, 8 breakfast sausages, and a pack of 8 pork chops. I mean, really guys. 

I also wanted everyone to experience this. The following is a picture of a lion stuffed toy that I won in a random box of stuff at the auction last week next to a picture of my parents' cocker spaniel, Nicklaus in a lion costume. I think the resemblance is uncanny.

Lastly, as we approach Halloween, I would like you to see the best costume of all time. Our senior year of college, my friend Emily and I decided to go to Incognito (BCF's unofficial Halloween extravaganza) dressed as Peter Pan and his Shadow. We had identical costumes, except I was black from head to toe. We even had little felt hats with feathers that Emily made with duct tape and hot glue in like 4 minutes! Soooooo great. I followed her around, mimicking everything she did all night. 

I can't believe this was 5 years ago!

She caught me!

Love it. 

Carm

Starting Over

Well, I delayed writing for a few reasons.

The first is that we still don't have internet in our flat. I've spent the hours of 10-3 at Starbucks just about every weekday to get things done that we needed to: Set up internet/phone access, set up electricity and gas in my name, move more money from savings to checking, search for things we need for the flat once we have an income.

We are missing some odd things from this flat. I was told when we were preparing to move (by the lovely Krisi Hillebert!) that "furnished" meant different things to different people and it's really the luck of the draw what you get. I didn't really expect this though. Since nobody has lived in this flat before us, the furnishings are bare minimum. We have two arm chairs in a giant living room. No trash bins, no cookie sheet, no hangers, no DRESSER! CLOTHES ARE EVERYWHERE!! Also, there are no drawers or cabinets in our bathrooms. TOILETRIES ARE EVERYWHERE!

We thought it was pretty ironic that, in our little seminary apartment, we had loads of stuff crammed into it, into every drawer and cabinet and closet, and now, we're in a much bigger place with probably a quarter of the things we had in Crutcher. Just feels empty.

Another reason I delayed in writing was because I was really hoping to start a new blog with a new job. Unfortunately, I didn't get the job that I interviewed for. We are both pretty bummed about it, and we don't really know what to think. We approached everything with the right heart and the right attitude. We praised God for his provision above and beyond our expectations, so it made sense that he would provide us a job above what we were willing to settle for. We were reading James and talking about faith and asking God for what we need. We earnestly asked God for this job, but it didn't come. We spent the weekend asking ourselves so many questions:

Did we not ask enough? (James 4:2)
Did we ask with the wrong attitude? (James 4:3)
Did God not want me to have this job?
Why would God give me this interview for no reason?
Should I have gotten a coffee shop job months ago and quit wasting time?
Am I going to find another job?

We don't really have any answers. We are back to the drawing board. All 18 of the other jobs I applied for have fallen through.

Kind of depressing, I know. I don't want to use my blog to be sad. Just wanted to be informative. I had a lot of other things to write, but none of them really seem pressing or important. Just continue to pray that we find a job that will provide for our needs.

Carm

Character

I want to tell you a little story about this shutter. But first, let me tell you some history about Castle Rowe.

Our flat used to be the schoolhouse for the New Park Preparatory School, which encompassed the whole area around the building, including several buildings and recreational facilities. The school was founded in 1933, with 13 boys. By 1938, they began boarding students and by the 1970s, they admitted girls to the school. Here's a lovely picture of what their school kids looked like in 1983.

There was another school in the area, St. Leonards, that began accepting boys, which made recruiting difficult for New Park. Eventually, in 2005, the two schools merged into one and the few students left at New Park relocated to St. Leonards' campus. This meant the New Park School and all the surrounding buildings were left abandoned... for years.

The whole complex was boarded up, waiting to see what they were going to do with the property and the buildings. The New Part Trust decided to demolish most of the building to build affordable flats in their place. The one building, however, that they weren't going to demolish was the original schoolhouse, which they decided to renovate and turn it into a flat and maisonette to provide affordable housing to families involved in education. From what I've read, there used to be security.  There were gates at the entrance to keep intruders out. But you and I both know that kids will find their way in.

Fortunately (I guess) for the trust, some lovely arsonists took care of the demolition for them. I found a local blog where someone happened to walk up on the fire.

Thank goodness the schoolhouse was spared.

After years of planning and preparing, they began building two apartment complexes on the site along with the renovations of the schoolhouse. They set off with approved building plans with an expected finish date of March 2013. Praise the Lord it wasn't ready then or it probably wouldn't have been available for us when we got here.

Less than two weeks before we were supposed to fly out (and I was in full we-don't-have-anywhere-to-live freak-out mode) we received an email from Martin who saw an advert about our need at his church. He just *happened* to be the chair of the New Park Educational Trust and they just *happened* to have a flat available for us September 1. After some further delays, I'm happy to say we are settling in to our new castle. Still a lot of issues to work out. Caulk the shower to prevent leaking. Get a timer for the boiler. Figure out why the towel radiator in the spare bathroom isn't functioning. Fix the cracks and holes in the living room ceiling.

Fix the shutter in the living room. 

Knowing the story behind the house helps you to understand why I love this little broken shutter. After the schoolhouse was boarded up in 2005, local kids began breaking in and disturbing the property. Somehow, someone made off with the shutters in the living room. (Who steals shutters?) Somehow, they FOUND THEM. Not sure where they were or who took them or what it took to find them, but they got the original shutters and put them back in, and gave em a nice white coat of paint. They are an eyesore to Martin, and he apologizes profusely for them. But I love them and their story.

They are broken. They were lost and found again. They were brought back to where they belong. Whenever I see them, I remember how God delayed the renovation of this house for it to be ready at the exact right moment. I remember how my faith got to such a low point through this whole "moving-to-Scotland, I-am-freaking-out" process as I wasn't able to plan everything so perfectly and I worried through it all.  But God took broken Carmen and put her back where she belongs.

Carm

NEW HOUUUUSSSSE!

EVERYONE. We are moving into our flat! Slowly but surely, we are moving everything from Kilrymont over to New Park House. We had some friends who were kind enough to help us move the giant suitcases with their car (vehicles are hard to come by around these parts), and they also were giving away a futon, so we took that with us as well! Woohoo! Free stuuuuufffff!

As of right now, we have a few items of clothing and our food left at the temporary housing. It's been a fun, adventurous month and a half, but we are ready to settle in to our flat. We realized that it's been a little over 5 months since we've had our own place. That's crazy to think about.

So. Tomorrow, the chair of the New Park Trust (and also our kind-of landlord) is going to put together the rest of the furniture that has been delivered (dining table, chairs, coffee table) and put everything in its place. Our beds won't be delivered until Thursday, but we're going to just sleep on the futon and GET OVER IT.

So here comes the fun part. Get the electricity set up. Get the gas set up. Get the water set up. Get the internet set up. Yay. I looooove being a grownup. Oooooh, and I have a doctor's appointment Wednesday. Hopefully, they can give my eye a little Harry Potter fix.

Still waiting on a job. I have a few more big jobs that I'm waiting to hear back from. So far, rejection has been pretty difficult. I've been turned down from the Fairmont Resort (2x), the Old Course Hotel (2x), the University (4x), and haven't heard back from quite a few others. Sooooo, I'm still holding out for a few jobs that I would love before we start to panic. We've still got time, so I'm trying not to worry about it.

Gotta make this quick since church is in less than an hour, but I wanted to give yall a video tour of our new place! Hope you enjoy!

Carm

It's back

I woke up this morning with that familiar twinge of pain in my eye. I knew what was going on before I even looked in the mirror.

My uveitis decided to flare up today.

If you are reading this and have no clue what I’m talking about, go back and read the posts from April and May. I promise, they’re very interesting and hilarious.

It’s been 3 and a half months since that last flare up where I called the eye doctor to make an appointment and then called back crying because I couldn't afford another $100 appointment. What a long way I've come… or so I thought..

I got some coffee and sat on the bed, having my own little pity party. All those same questions crept back in. Why me? Why now? What’s wrong with me that my eye won’t just heal already? Am I doing something wrong? I think these are all natural questions for us to ask, even as Christians. For the last 6 months, I've been pondering a lot of things.

Do I think God allows my suffering? 

I do. I also know that God works everything out for his own glory, even if I totally screw everything up, which I am prone to doing. In the beginning, I begged God to heal me. He could have, but he didn’t.

Do I think God caused my suffering? 

Well, he hasn't come out and told me yet. He very well could have. This is an interesting question though. The Bible is very clear about God controlling sickness. He yells at Moses in Exodus 4:11 (I imagine it as yelling because of the way my mom always read it to me) “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind (or uveitisy)?” In Deuteronomy, God also said “I kill and make alive; I wound and I heal.” God could have chosen me to have weird blood problems and a weird red eye.

Do I think God is punishing me for something I did wrong? 

“Punishing” is a strong word. I think “discipline” is a good possibility though. I’m about to get real with you guys. I can talk all day about being a Christian and God working in me and here I raise mine Ebenezer. How is my sanctification? Pretty lousy. When crazy things are possible, I tend to avoid God because he likes to take me places that are uncomfortable. (i.e. Scotland, not having a job)… even though he takes me there anyway, whether I pray about it or not. I know it doesn't make sense. Everyone has their struggles. Mine are consistency and giving up control of the crazy.

So does this mean I think God gave me uveitis because I’m not reading my Bible or praying enough? 

He could have. I’m not going to rule that one out. It’s interesting that the girl with control issues has an internal problem that she can’t control.

So, how has God gotten glory from this?

Well, for starters, I still have my vision, even if it is funky. When I think about the way things looked out of this eye in the beginning, it’s a miracle that my eye didn't just fall out.

Secondly, it has alerted me to possible blood issues that I would have never known about had the uveitis symptoms not shown up. HLA-B27, mixed connective tissue disease, Lupus. These things weren't even on my radar at all before this. On the outside, I was completely healthy.

Also, through the whole 4 months from the beginning of my uveitis to the time when we left for Scotland, we were paying thousands of dollars in doctor bills and prescriptions. On top of that, we had to pay for visas, passports, the deposit on Clay’s degree, and some other pretty ridiculous emergency bills. And after it was all over, we had somehow accumulated enough money to live for a year without jobs. Whenever I think about how expensive my eye has been, I can’t help but think how God provided for us above and beyond our wildest expectations. And this always comes up in conversation. “Yeah, Carmen had uveitis, and our health insurance paid for none of it, but somehow, money came from everywhere…” It absolutely makes no logical sense how it happened except that God has control of all of it.

His strength is made perfect in my weakness.

So, today, I have uveitis again. And it’s ok. 

Carm

The Primal Life

I wanted to take this opportunity to blog about something I haven't blogged about yet. It's about our adventures in the Primal Life.

Now, some of you may have heard about the Paleo diet, and the Primal diet is very similar. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'll go back to the beginning.

Clay woke up on Ash Wednesday in 2011 feeling like God was calling him to fast from food completely until Easter. Long story short, he completed the fast, and lost a lot of weight in the process. It was at this point that he realized he needed to do something about his weight. On our first anniversary in 2011, Clay begged me and begged me for P90x until I caved. I don't know if you realize this, but P90x is expensiiiiiive. And since I control the money in our relationship, he had to ask permission. He purchased the videos, got some resistance bands, and set out on his P90x adventure.

day 1

working out like beast.

He worked out like a champ and sweated all over the living room rug that John and Lauren gave us. He started Couch to 5K and finished it. He downloaded this Calorie Count app to track his eating and exercise. We completely changed our diet and eliminated most processed foods and drank only water. We opted for turkey bacon and whole wheat pasta and egg whites. We incorporated more veggies and fruit than I think he ever ate when he was a kid. He dramatically lost weight, like, to the point where people were telling him he needed to stop (in Louisiana, you're not allowed to be skinny). A year later, in 2012, we were running the Crescent City Classic 10K, he was getting all tan as a lifeguard on campus, and he had lost 100 pounds.

one year later

Crescent City Classic!

That was when we needed a transition. Calorie counting was becoming old and tedious. Clay stumbled upon Mark Sisson's book The Primal Blueprint and pulled some concepts out of it. Basically, it is a lifestyle based on the diet/exercise of our ancient ancestors. Eat plants and animals (it says insects too, but GROSS). Play. Move around a lot at a slow pace. Lift heavy things. Get lots of sleep. Use your mind. Avoid poisonous things (one of which is sugar). Get a little sunlight. Run occasionally. This is what our bodies were designed for.

So we deleted the Calorie Count app. Clay quit running 30 miles a week. He still did P90x, but we started eating differently. The most drastic was absolutely no carbs, and not just the sugary things. No bread, no pasta, no flour, no oats, no grains, nothing. This was/is the hardest thing for me to deal with, which is why I'm still only about 50/50. But Clay plunged into it and guess what? He is maintaining a healthy weight without killing himself or denying himself. In fact, if you've seen his primal breakfast omelets, you'd think he was going to turn back into Fat Clay.

But here's the fun part. We get to experiment with new things. At first meals were just chicken or pork, and two different kinds of veggies. Booooooring. Now, I bake cookies with almond flour and coconut flour. I made a chocolate/cookie dough cake for his birthday that was completely primal. We use honey, agave nectar, or pure maple syrup instead of sugar. We slice up zucchini and saute it into "pasta" (and it's much tastier, lemme tell ya). We stick cauliflower in the food processor and cook it over the stove with spices to make "rice." We ditched the chips and baked veggies until they were crispy. We make pie crusts out of honey, butter, and cashews. Fajitas come in lettuce wraps now (and OhMyGoodness are they sooooooo good). We've started buying spices and seasoning everything ourselves instead of seasoning packets or sauces that are packed with sugar, salt, and corn syrup. Dessert became dark chocolate, strawberries, and homemade whipped cream sweetened with honey. Our friends Matt and Elise got on board and started to lose weight as well.

Zucchini Pasta

Birthday Cake!

Do I miss carbs? Yeah. Do I still binge on ice cream and cookies and bread? OOOOOOH yeah. But the Primal Life is completely satisfying. We don't have to "give up" anything. And Clay is still Mr. Skinny.

Wedding and 3rd Anniversary

2010 vs. 2013 - note that I'm in the same dress!

Sooooooo. For those of you who had questions about what we were doing or why, there ya go. For those of you who have never seen Fat Clay, welcome to the World of Crazy. And for those of you who are struggling with your weight, who are exercising a lot but not seeing results, or are dieting and experiencing the rollercoaster of weight loss/gain, maybe this is something to check out.

Until next time,
Carm

PS. I could not be more proud of Clay!

Scottish things.

Well, I think even less has happened since I posted last.

We are still staying with Alex. We have been in contact with the person renting our flat to us, and he has been keeping us updated on all of the setbacks with the renovations. Originally, we were supposed to be in the flat September 1. When we met with him and looked around the flat and decided we wanted to take it, he told us it would be more like the second week of September. Wellllll. Apparently, the water is not hooked up, and that is keeping the contractors from being able to release the property to the trust, allowing them to put in carpet and furniture and GIVE IT TO US. So, we were informed it would be more like October 1 before we can get it. I'm still praying for a contracting miracle and that we'll be able to move in earlier than that.

The other miracle we need is a JOB for me! Unemployment is driving me insane. I am used to working 45-50 hours a week and being in constant motion. All we've really done is wander around and watch That 70's Show and the Vicar of Dibley. I have applied for 7 jobs now, all across different fields: restaurants, administrative, library, dorm cleaning staff. I'm going to start on hotels next. So far, I've been rejected for 2 and haven't heard back from any of the others. Let's hope someone out there is desperate for a girl who has a Christian Ed degree she doesn't want to use and lots of management and customer service experience!

So, in an effort to keep y'all entertained, I have compiled some fun facts about the UK that I've noticed since I've been here.

Someone somewhere told me that the water here had a different taste. I guess because of the filtration being different from the states. Some people have said that it tastes like soap. Some have said that it's really super sweet. PEOPLE. It's WATER. It tastes like water.

I also want to talk about the wonderful invention called roundabouts. Four cars coming into an intersection. Everybody goes left. You yield to the people already in the roundabout. You get off on whatever street you want. No pesky red lights to wait on. No turn lanes and yielding to the other side in order to turn left or right. You just ride around in circles. It's genius. But the COOL thing is... the redlights? They are for pedestrians! You know that button you push in the states? That cross/don't cross button that doesn't really do anything? It triggers a red light here, so the cars stop and you can cross! Yaaaaaaay!

Yesterday, I saw a rabbit on a leash the size of a cocker spaniel. I was going to get a picture, but I was just too stunned to make it happen. If I happen to see the rabbit again, I will get a picture for sure.

Lastly, I want to tell you about something very serious... Breakfast cereal. They have the same brands of stuff here, but a lot of them have different names. I literally stood in the cereal aisle of Morrison's for 10 minutes looking at all the different cereals and being very confused.

Same concept, different taste (probably the lack of corn syrup!)

say whaaaaaaaat?

almost the same. the dog wears a sweater in the UK. seems appropriate. 

i don't understand why they keep Tony the Tiger, but they change the name?

same little talking shredded wheat mascots, but different name. 

slightly different little elves, but exactly the same. 

Hope this was good enough for now. Gotta go apply for more jobs!

Carm