1) DR Congo mission stuff. Lot’s going on there! I’m really excited to be a part of this really small team of people from our church. Our mission dates are May 18th to May 31st! Crazy that it’s only like a month and a half away! I pretty much sway between excitement and anxiety over going. Shots are up to date, our visas have been sent off for approval, support is coming in (thanks a million to anyone who has sent in support) and I’m in full yard-sale mode for our big shebang happening on April 10th! If you have anything you want to get rid of from around your house please let me know I’ll be taking donations right up until the event! If you’d like to donate to this mission you can click here to download the donor card and then send it in with your check to Port City Community Church.

2) Then there’s my job. We’ve been busy bee’s since Christmas 2009. Just kind of cranking crazy things out like this “The Whole World” series intro video and this “That’s Why” video of my former housemate Hannah That’s Why – Casey & Hannah Sikes.
Just to name a few things. But the big deal coming up is Easter. We’re starting a new series called “Collide” and I’m pretty excited to say that the video elements we’ll be showing for Easter Sunday will probably blow your mind. I work with some of the most amazing Directors, Film makers, Animators and artists in the greater Wilmington area! What a great blessing!

3) Then there was LOST. I’m totally sucked in. There really isn’t anything else to add to that. It’s finally getting good. And there’s V which starts up again today. I’m interested to see how this show pans out. And Biggest Loser is pretty great this season, too!

I think that’s about it. Will post more on Congo soon. Can’t wait to see what the next 3 months will bring!

So for your viewing pleasure today I present you with the Wedding Invitation package for Olivia and Tommy Prevatt. I work with this couple at my 9 to 5 and have know them for a few years now. Each design I have done this past year has been a great pleasure and challenged me creatively but the out come of this particular couple’s wedding has got to be my favorite so far. I hope you enjoy the designs as much as I do!

I have her this weekend and I’m excited.
She belongs to my boss

xoxo

So it’s November 1st. I woke up this morning tired but happy to have earned an extra hour of sleep last night (thank you daylight savings time). I started a quick dialogue with God and immediately strolled into the kitchen. I started fixing my daily brew (Starbucks of course) and then stood in the middle of the kitchen staring at my recipe pile. I’ve been wanting to do some baking. I even made pumpkin chocolate / white chocolate chip cookies yesterday; that was sort of a disaster… but anyway I decided that I was going to make Sweet Potato Biscuits. The same sweet potato biscuits the Connection Cafe used to make (they called them sweet potato ham biscuits, there’s were slathered in this incredible apple butter and topped with honey baked ham…yummy!).

I gathered my ingredients to realize that I didn’t have any buttermilk on hand, no surprise there. I remembered Jennie Scoggins saying something about adding lemon juice to regular milk to make it curdle, quickly ran to Google and found that if you add 1 Tb. of Lemon Juice to a 1 cup measuring device and fill with regular milk (preferably whole milk) in 5 mins you will have buttermilk! Yay for science!

After getting all the ingredients mixed together and against my better judgment, I decided I’d roll out the dough and cut them using a scalloped cookie cutter. I do swear that I shall never do that again, biggest mistake ever. I should have stuck with the way mama taught me! So for the last half of the dough I chose the classic version of hand rolling. That worked much better! I popped those bad boys into the oven at 450 degrees and 12 mins later:

I tried them 3 ways; with honey, with cranberry apple chutney, and with butter. All fairly good but honey was my favorite. Here is the recipe if you’d like to try this yourself:

2 c Bisquick
1 c Sweet potatoes (cooked & mashed, I used a can here)
1/3 c Sugar
1/4 c buttermilk (1 T lemon juice + 1 c regular milk = buttermilk)
+ cinnamon to your liking
+ nutmeg to your liking
(you can change this up adding your favorite spices here)

Mix all ingredients by hand until dough is smooth. Roll out on lightly floured surface to 1/2 inch thickness (don’t kid yourself, if you have no biscuit rolling skills stick with the hand rolled version). Cut with biscuit cutter. Bake at 450 for 10-12 mins (makes approx. 12)

Thanks again to Jennie Scoggins, the Connection Cafe (rip), and the lovely lady at whatever farmers market Jennie went to and found this!

baked with love!
Rachael

Baking out of a box can be boring so I like to throw random ingredients into whatever it is I am making. Like the other night I had a box of yellow Lowe’s Foods cake mix in my cabinet and I felt the urge to bake some XL cupcakes…so I did! I did a few plain, then some with blueberries, some with banana slices and some with chocolate chips. May I note that the boys at work, particularly Jesse, love it when I go on a baking spurt. And I made the off side comment that if one day I am a stay at home mom I would totally open my own bakery.

Baking is therapeutic for me most of the time…unless I’m cooking for a bunch of people I like to experiment with my foods. Jennie Scoggins gave me this recipe for Sweet Potato biscuits, which I’m going to try making with Pumpkin instead.

So now, I’m looking for a few different home grown recipes for bread. In particular the kind I can bake as loafs. White, wheat, pumpernickel, give me what you’ve got. If your grandma’s mother had some notes scribbled on a piece of paper with ingredients that look relatively close to bread, give it to me! I want to try it. Even if I have to bake with lard, I’ll try!

xoxo

Here we are, it’s October 14th and it has suddenly become winter! I must say that the weather has been teetering on the verge of summer for the past few weeks and now it feels like winter has arrived. I’m some what torn, honestly. I like the fall. I like the smells of fall, the look of fall, the taste of fall. It’s nice. And today felt like a typical winter day in NC: rainy and cold. Not freezing, because it never really freezes around here until spring (ironic right?). Then I looked at the 5 day forecast and what,
pray-tell to my eyes behold?

It’s going to be this way all flipping week! Except for Friday, the day I have to be inside for 9 hours it will be decent outside and I will envy all those who get Friday’s off at my office. What a bummer!

But on a positive note, I will assisting one of our volunteer’s in a shoot for the 10 year anniversary of PC3 on Friday and will have some sweet things to post afterward!

Winter and I are a twisted tale of delightful woe!

commenting my now begin

She’ll make your heart beat fast and your cheeks flush and that smile that she loves, you’ll have that on your face every time you see her.

She’ll have perfect long locks of hair that make you want to wrap your fingers in them just to be closer to her.

She’ll make the hair on the back of your neck rise when she walks past. And the scent of her is what you will crave more than life itself.

Don’t worry, she’ll be perfect.

Do Not Worry-
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Every once in a while I am subtly reminded of things like fall. It’s not that I’ve forgotten what fall is like, but when the seasons change I tend get all nostalgic about my life. See, no matter what life stage I am in I tend to make very strong associations between things and people. Like music. Someone mentioned the Early November to me during a conversation this past week and I immediately flashed back to high school. And in one moment I experienced the entire 4 years of my emotions and feelings and memories that were high school for me. All the good, the bad, the funny. And even now as I’m living my life I find myself doing the same thing. Certain colors or smells make me think about particular people. Like flannel shirts, they make me think of my dad. And the smell of rice and beans makes me think of Kenya.

This past weekend I spent 48 hrs at Camp Dixie with the high schoolers from my church. The place was incredible. And it wasn’t because of the music or the games and definitely not because of the food, but it was because God redeemed all my bitter camp memories from when I was a kid and made new ones in their place. I hated camp a kid. Always got picked on in the most ridiculous ways and I was always the one who called home crying. Camp used to make me home sick. God has a way of turning our worst memories into some of the most endearing, intimate moments with Him. And I know that sounds cheesy but it’s pretty cool. I like camp, it made me feel young again; not that I’m old or anything, but when does a group of 23 year olds play capture the flag? Get my point?

But back to the memories thing. I love the fall mostly because it’s the promise of winter and that means Christmas and that means crazy crazy times with the family! Which is both exciting and never-racking!
And I don’t think anyone really reads this but if you’re out there, what’s your favorite memory of a season?

xoxo
Rach

So here is a quick run down of things:

> Celebrated Carter’s 23rd birthday

That was fun. We went to the little dipper and had cheese and chocolate… any girl’s two favorite things!

> Celebrated Hannah and Casey’s wedding!

This was an event! We both moved her out and had a wedding all within the confines of 5 days. I was great fun and now I’m living alone.

Oh and this photo was taken by Kevin Millard, a great local photographer who shot their wedding… you can check out his work at http://kmiblog.com/

>Filmed a TON!

Since I’ve been full time I have been involved several (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6) video shoots.

Our most recent work can be checked out at www.themeeksquad.com

> Went to Ocracoke for our last summer get-away!

We spent most of our weekend on my dad’s small skiff fishing for flounder. I didn’t catch a single fish but I did get knocked in the face by the boat. It was a nasty little fight we had and the boat go the better of me but I did have a huge hickey shaped bruise on my chin for the better part of two weeks!

That’s about it really, Not that I haven’t been doing other things but most of the rest of my time has been spent sleeping.

xoxo Rach