I know what you’re saying… again??? Really?? We just figured out your silly new URL…
Well this time it’s for real. I moved over to Blogspot because, at least at the amateur bloggy level, there is a lot more ability to customize and make your blog your own. I think once you hop on over there you will understand;)
So make sure if you’ve linked to this blog anywhere (AKA on your blog roll) that you update that link!
My new address is http://thealbrechtsblog.blogspot.com
See you there!!
I wrote a few weeks ago about John’s call to the church of Ephesus to return to their first love, Jesus. God used that Scripture (Revelation 2) to convict and move my heart back to him. Since then, I’ve been BLESSED to spend a lot of GREAT time in the Word over this Christmas break.
However, I don’t want to lose sight of that imagery once I throw myself back into the busyness of school. I want to continue treating Jesus as my first love, my deepest love, and my most desperate Love. So, I made this simple background for my phone. I want a constant reminder to meet with Jesus throughout my day, and what better way than to attach it to the very thing I use for communicating, social media, and even as a watch! Since my iPhone gets so much traffic throughout the day, I’m hoping this reminder will help me to better keep Christ at the front of my mind.
Feel free to save this for yourself and use it as your own personal reminder to meet with Jesus today!
…with blessings.
I really should feel overwhelmed by the blessings surrounding me every day, but today I feel especially surrounded, and especially grateful.
I am married to a wonderful man, and after a weekend without him, I’m so glad to have him back!
Christmas break has been a fantastic opportunity for us to spend a lot more time together and it has been so refreshing! Cooking breakfast, laughing, making plans for the upcoming season in our lives, and watching hilarious videos (of cats) on youtube. Needless to say, it has been a much-needed opportunity for quality time.
Over the past few weeks I’ve felt especially encouraged by Jacob. He’s been quick to spur me on and has been so supportive in the ways I feel the Lord is stretching me. Eek! Not to mention, he’s been incredibly patient and gracious to me, even though he’s been working crazy hours (and HE has the right to be the tired one!!). The Lord uses Jacob frequently as a model of his grace and faithfulness. I’m a blessed woman.
I’m so thankful for this refreshing, encouraging break and for my great husband!! So here’s to the last two days of break and welcoming in another semester of school. My LAST one, I might add. :)
God is so good. SO GOOD.
Do you forget that sometimes? I do. I really don’t understand why I do… but I do.
But over the past few weeks, God has been tugging at my heart, reminding me what it was like when I first fell in love with him. He’s also been planting seeds. Exciting seeds! Seeds bursting, eager to bloom.
I’m not sure what those seeds are, exactly, but I’m praying about them. Praying and letting my excitement grow.
Our God is big, and I’m ready to be used. I’m ready for those seeds to grow!!
Jacob and I traveled to Ohio to visit my family for Christmas last weekend. It was a weekend packed with visiting grandmas, aunts, uncles, family friends, and some of my very best friends from high school… and it was much needed.
Although we were exhausted upon arriving back home, I left feeling so refreshed from that time with family and friends.
Monday was our designated “catch up with friends day,” so we packed in a lot. :) So thankful for these women (and Abbie, who we got to see later in the day and isn’t pictured above!), who carved out some time during their busy lives to spend with us!! We even got to see Sarah’s sweet little sister, Brooke, who hung out with us so patiently for two hours! What a star two-year-old! ;)
Thank you ladies for staying consistent in my life even though we’re states apart. Praising God for you today… those few hours on Monday mean so much to me!
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:22-25).
I think this one has got to be my FAVORITE of all the Christmas posts… and it was so simple!!
Homemade Chai in a Mason Jar!
I found this recipe here and I made it for myself about a month ago. Since then I have tea just about every morning and I thought this would be a perfect addition to both my mother’s and mother-in-law’s gifts this year!
I started out with these ingredients…
Stuck them all in a bowl…
And mixed!
As you can probably see, the mixture is not very fine at this point, hence the blender.
The blender turns it into a beautiful, fine powder that mixes perfectly into your steaming water.
I filled a jar for both moms and, as you can tell by process of elimination, that’s our gigantic jar in the middle. Clearly, I planned to make a LOT of tea for myself/I have judgment problems with everything related to size, weight, etc. I accidentally bought a HUGE jar. Oops!
Here is the finished product! Chai tea, complete with directions.
*You can adjust the flavor of your tea with the amount of mix you add to the hot water. I prefer 3tbsp, or about 3 spoonfuls, but you can adjust accordingly!
Also, the ingredients listed above made about 2 1/2 batches of this stuff! So great!
This post is so delayed because we didn’t do Christmas with my parents until just yesterday!! I put together little “gift basket” type gifts for both of them. Last year I made my dad a “mustache mug” and it turned out to be quite a hit! So I made them BOTH some fancy mugs this year.
I got the mugs from Target, just like the one from last year. It’s the perfect size for them to get maximum coffee from their Keurig.
**Please note the paint pen I used was NOT a regular sharpie… I tried that dumb idea that’s been all over Pinterest, but the Sharpie just wiped off every time. Very frustrating. So, I re-did the mugs with this pen, let them sit for 24 hours, and then baked them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. I left them in the oven to cool for another hour or two and then they were ready to go!
I thought Dad might get a kick out of this one. :)
And Mom’s fancy mug. There isn’t a mustache for her… but since there are now 2 mustache mugs at the house, I thought hers should be a little different. And it’s like a “good morning” from me every morning!
Hope y’all had a WONDERFUL Christmas and HAPPY NEW YEAR!:)
By this time I normally would have been working on a “2012 in Review” post for a few weeks, ready to hit “publish” this morning… but I’m taking a different route this year.
2012 has been full of ups and downs, struggles and victories, and celebrations of new lives coming together. It’s been a great year on the outside, but it also has been a giant spiritual struggle on the inside for quite a while now.
I’ve struggled to dig into the Scriptures with a hunger for the Word I once I had. I’ve been apathetic toward spending time with the Lord and my attention span quickly dissolves when I finally convince myself to sit and try to focus.
This past Sunday the Lord moved in my heart, stirring up all the pieces that had settled into the dust. I clearly heard him speaking to me, addressing this problem I’ve been struggling with and angry/depressed about for what seems like so long now. When John writes to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:4-5, he says, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.” I have abandoned the joy I had in Christ. That joy we all experience when we first meet him- we are so excited to dig into the Word and read until our eyes fall out! We’re eager to pray- all the time and about everything. We’re eager to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn. I’ve forgotten my first love and let myself become apathetic about what I sometimes feel I’ve “read so many times already.” (How arrogant is that?!)
So it’s time to repent, Lauren, and return to your first love. It’s time to do the works I did at first, when I first fell in love with Christ. It’s time to sit at his feet and soak in every word he says. Part of the “works I did at first” included spending a lot of time with other women studying the word together, both older women, women my own age, and younger women. It’s time to return to intentional community, and the Lord planted some exciting ideas about those very things in my heart yesterday.
I asked the Lord to give me fresh eyes when I read his Word, and he did. I’m so excited to tell you that I could not get enough of Bible last night, and it was so, so refreshing.
So in light of the new year, I am returning to my first love and pursuing him the way I did at first.
For the grace of God has appeared (!), bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce all ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us for all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11-14) What beauty!!
MORE PRESENTS!!!
My mother-in-law, Teresa, had me stumped for a while. Here’s (part of) what I came up with!
Granted, that is OUR door, not my in-laws, but I needed somewhere to display that pretty wreath for pictures:).
I can’t tell you the second part of her gift until after we see my parents, because I made one for my mom, too!
However, I must give a shout-out to Mosby and her mom for helping me via picture text while I picked out the arrangement for the wreath. I sent her picture after picture at Michael’s because I was shooting for a winter-not-Christmas-not-fall looking wreath… and I struggled. I just like browns and golds too much!
The biggest picture is the arrangement I ended up buying. The brownest one was my first, but it was way too fall-ish.
Do you think the wreath looks like a “winter-but-not-Christmas-or-fall” wreath?
I’ll post the second half of her gift and the rest of the handmade Christmas gifts after we celebrate with my parents! Happy crafting!
Awkward
-The fact I’m in my pajamas every. single. time. the mail lady or FedEx guy comes up to the door to deliver a package. That’s also the time when I realize just how much the television is BLARING.
-I worked a lunch shift last week for the first time in probably six months… and it showed. When I greeted my first table, I brought them their silverware, checked over their receipt to see if I needed to make any salads, and then told them to “enjoy their meal”… which they didn’t have yet. They looked at me blankly so I tried to recover by saying, “Which I will bring out to you as soon as it’s ready!”…………….. duh. I sounded like an idiot. I also said “Good afternoon!” to them when it was still morning, which they also very kindly pointed out to me. Great.
-Not knowing we had a roast beef sandwich on our lunch menu (this is what I get for only working dinners all the time… rusty.) and stammering all over the place in response to the customer.
-My server book with all my money, receipts, pictures, Bible tracks I’ve received (yeah, for some reason I’ve kept those for fun?) and the rest of the junk I keep in it falling and scattering all across the floor on my way to deliver a drink to a table. Mind you, he was the only customer in the entire restaurant at that time and this fiasco occurred right in front of him. That felt good.
-I thought THAT was really awkward until the NEXT night when I spilled my entire server book into the TRASH CAN and across the floor. That got the attention of an entire table, who proceeded to watch (and laugh) while I dug through the trash to find my receipts and cash that fell inside…
-A party of 13 asked me to sing our dessert menu to them… Seriously??? That is so awkward. And embarrassing. And mostly just awkward. I didn’t do it. Maybe the most awkward part is that after they left I wished I had?
Awesome
-Have I mentioned Christmas BREAK?! Trying to soak this one in, seeing as it is the last one I’ll have ever.
-Coming home from work one night last week to see Jacob had wrapped presents for me and put them under the tree! Not only was I excited about just the presents themselves, but he also used pretty paper to wrap them (that coordinates with the rest of the presents) and tied ribbons around them!!!! Ribbons!! With bows! I also have these cute little tag cutout things (from the wedding) that I’ve been using to label the presents, and he even punched those out and labeled the presents! My heart melted from his serious effort to go along with my Christmas cuteness. Gosh, I love that man.
-I got all A’s this semester! Woop!
-We had a WONDERFUL Christmas with Jacob’s side of our family, and now we’re looking forward to Christmas in Ohio with my side next week!! Counting down the days!
(Awkward & Awesome is an idea borrowed from Sydney @ The Daybook)
