Will you be my Valentine?

Back After a Brief Break....for Bookless!

Madison's Central Library was built in 1964...and shows every one of its 48 years. Thankfully it's finally getting a renovation! (Well, being demolished and rebuilt.) To celebrate, the Library put on a great event entitled "Bookless":

Dozens of artists came and painted, destroyed, rebuilt, reused, embellished, installed, and created art throughout the entire building after all the books had been relocated for the duration of the construction. Some artists used the usual suspects - paint, wood, clay - while others used leftovers from the library - old microfilm to make butterflies, ceiling tiles to create furniture, return slips to wallpaper walls, and book pages - in a myriad of ways.

 Nikki Johnson, White Portal

They also had a fantastic little photobooth set up with mustaches, glasses, old books, etc. So basically, Laura, Cec, and I are famous:

                            

All photos above courtesy of madisonpubliclibrary's Photostream

There were walls to paint, crafts for kids, live music (Cecily's new favorite, Yid Vicious), heavenly tea (yeah, Dobra Tea is the bomb), old slide shows, and more. And, of course, Cec the artist stole the show with this great shot of her addition to the paint wall:

In a word: awesome. It was a blast. Can't wait to see the new building!

7, 6, 5...

Obviously studying has taken over our lives and we have not been able to update this in a while. But the big day is soon approaching! And here's 7 new things I have learned about the holidays:

7. The stores are INCREDIBLY busy the week before Christmas....now I don't know why I haven't learned this before, I must have always done my Christmas shopping earlier. But this year, I have not even started, and heading out to the mall and finding a parking spot is the worst!

6. Secret Santas and White Elephant gifts are the best! Not only is there a mystery person behind it all but there is a potential for some pretty awesome crazy stuff! One of my personal faves was this duck tea infuser Mary got from Cecily.

Haahaa, isn't that hilarious?!?! So cute!

5. This goes along with number 6, but deserves its own number. We had a white elephant gift exchange a couple weeks ago for SP Young Life and Cecily got stuck with a present that, when it was wrapped, looked like a human body under the tree. We soon found out that this mysterious present was nothing less than a life size mannequin Avatar. Shoot, we don't have any pictures of this gift, but let me just say that it is hilarious! We decided to place her on our front deck on the second story and we got some crazy looks from people as they walked to and from the Kohl Center.

4. Peppermint Schnapps in Hot Chocolate! Oh my gosh, so good! It was a nice little reward for finishing finals!

3. These YouTube videos make me laugh out loud! I think I've watched them each about 10 times this year already:

2. It's really hard to get into the Christmas spirit when there is no snow on the ground!! I'm starting to think we're not going to have a white christmas :( There's something about snow on the ground that makes the cold more bearable and brings the Christmas spirit to life! Now that I'm done with finals, I wish I could curl up by the fireplace reading a book while looking outside and see a thick blanket of snow on the ground with snowflakes falling down....can you just imagine it??

1. I am going to miss my sisters at 205! I can't believe I'm not going to be seeing some of you girls for almost a whole month. Hopefully most of you I'll be seeing sooner than the beginning of the semester....but still! Being away from the girls for break is going to be so sad! I'm so used to living in a full house, laughing until my stomach hurts at the late hours of the night, coming home and hearing all their voices.....I'm going to miss you girls so much over break! And as we all go our separate ways, I pray for safe travels to all of you and a splendid holiday!

Eight Days to Go!

A week from now, it will be Christmas Eve. What with finals, last-minute shopping, parties, visiting, overeating, Christmas music on the radio, colored lights on almost every front door....it's easy to forget how beautiful the Christmas Story really is. I just ran across this video, and my heart melted. I'm in love with these kids. Plus, they all have Auckland accents, so try not to "awwwww" at every word....like I did.

 And this one is worth watching too, just for the party scene at the end. Can you imagine the party up in Heaven that first Christmas? We can't even comprehend the joy, amazement, and euphoria of Jesus' birth.

Two thousand fifteen years and three hundred sixty-four weeks ago, a fifteen-year-old girl gave birth to a baby in a barn. 2,015 years and 364 weeks later, we sit here, ready to celebrate that beautiful, awesome, glorious, momentous night.

(And to bring things full circle to "eight maids a-milking", I guess Mary was a maid in a barn, not exactly milking a cow, but still....)

"And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." - Luke 2:10

9 Ladies Dancing....with Praise

Dancing.....well you can imagine with a house full of nine girls there is definitely some dancing going on. And let me say, this dance comes in all sorts of variety. We've had some break dancing going down, some raves, and even interpretive dance. I'm sorta bummed we don't have any video of us dancing.....oh wait, I do!! Haaahaa, I have been questioning whether I should even put it up.

So, here are some snipets of dancing involving some ladies of 205:

On another note:

Can I just say that Study Day is one of the best days of the semester! What other time do we get to hang out in a huge church that provides us with TONS of food and a lot of options for student study. Now, the most difficult part about this day is actually studying. Blackhawk Church provides us with silent studies, group study space, basically we can roam wherever.

But here's the thing that really gets me...the worship. Oh my gosh, I can't even put to words how much I am in love with Study Day's worship. The music team provides us with an hour of glorifying God through music, which for me really is my favorite.

I wish I could find a video clip or something, but no such luck.

So, as we continue our countdown til the birth of Christ, the ladies of 205 were dancing with praise.

Some of us getting super pumped for worship:

Psalm 149:3 "Let them praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him..."

10 Drummers, 10 Cookies, 10 Pounds... Whatever.

I may or may not have a sweet tooth. Let's just say my buddy Sugar and I are pretty good friends. In fact, let's include chocolate, sweets, cupcakes, cookies, fudge....let's be honest, I've got it bad. (So bad I'm using an adjective instead of an adverb.) And these cookies? They're my very favorite.

If Heaven consisted of eating these every day, all day for eternity and nothing else...I would be content.

The recipe comes from this excellent cookbook:

 

Funny story: I LOVE this cookbook. It got me through high school. (I bake when I’m stressed, don’t judge.) And I really, really wanted it here at school with me, seeing as I am the only one in the family that ever used it – but I could. Not. Find. It. I looked everywhere, but it was Gone with a capital G. My mother, however, had a horrible hunch as to what had happened to it: after moving out of our house at the end of the summer, my mother had taken a huge box of old books to a use bookstore…and she just knew that this guy had gone with. As soon as she realized this, she returned to the bookstore to try to find it…and if not it, then hopefully the same one. But lo and behold, it was like God Himself had hidden it there, and no one had bought it!

Thank you, God. And St. Anthony (you’re the bomb).

So now that I have my precious cookbook back, I’m going to share the best cookie recipe ever with you. Here’s what the page looks like in the book (my family has always written in our cookbooks about what was good or not, when we cooked/baked it, etc.):

As you can see, it’s well-loved. But here’s an easier-to-read version (with tips!) with my personal touches on it:

So bake them. Eat them. Love them. Die happy.

P.S. You and your friends/family/roomies may or may not eat the entire batch before the cookies have time to cool down. Not like I’m speaking from experience or anything.