High Five for Friday #1

I've been following Lauren for quite some time and, guys, I think she's just adorable.
She has this "link-up" thing that she does, which I've wanted to join for quite some time now.

Let's just pause for a moment and comment on how inept Esther is at "social" blogging.  I don't have any idea what the purpose is of a "link-up" or if I'm even saying or spelling it correctly, but here we go anyway:

1.  I got to work on Saturday morning to find this beauty right out my windshield as I parked my car

2.  On Sunday, I dropped everybody off at Camp after church and felt like taking a country drive.  I found some tall Pines and could not have been happier.

3.  This doesn't look like it should be a highlight of anybody's week...

but when it happened, I knocked on Seth's door and he immediately came to help.  It was such a good example of the fantastic community I live in and a reminder that I should be immediately ready to serve others.  Even if I can't help them with their flat tires, I can at least make them dinner or something.

4. Speaking of which, this week, my sweet roomie was sick, which was not a highlight, but it did give me a great excuse to get in the kitchen and make some chicken soup. I had a wonderful time listening to Needtobreathe and Phil Wickham, chopping veggies like my life depended on it.

5.  A dear dear friend will be leaving camp soon and I've been milking every moment I have left with her close by.  We had a lovely night in Bastrop this week and caught this view in a parking lot.

From (1) one parking lot to (5) another parking lot.  How's that for full-circle?

Sometimes

Sometimes people you love have unexpected health issues and surgeries as a result.
Sometimes one of your second-graders in Children's Church, the precious doe-eyed one with dimples and shaggy hair, sits against the wall, and when you go to check on him, he tells you he just wants to blow up all the supplies and burn the whole place down.
Sometimes the sun doesn't shine for days.
Sometimes it hits you that you might be single for the rest of your life and you have to fight Apollyon as a result.
Sometimes you cry and you don't know why.

But sometimes, oh friends
Sometimes you call your Mom and she already knows because she's been praying for you for the past three days so you don't have to explain anything and you can just listen to her voice for a little while.
Sometimes the wind is at your back and the sun is on your face as you jog next to a precious friend.
Sometimes you are unexpectedly in possession of a new (to you) car.
Sometimes your boss sets half an orange on your desk just because.
Sometimes you escort a nice Grandfatherly stranger to the Marmax on a golf cart because he has nothing better to do than to drive all the way out to camp to see if it's easier to fit 7 or 8 chairs around a round table, and for a minute, the two grandfathers you lost are right there beside you.
Sometimes a friend whom you haven't talked to in a while sends you just the words you need to hear.
Sometimes Orion comes out of hiding and reminds you again that you're not alone.

Today Was Sunny

The past five days or so have been possibly some of the worst I've had in many years, culminating with me crying in the office last night in front of my director and the CEO, both of whom I love and am incredibly comfortable with, but really, Esther?

(Sheesh, how about that for a crazy run-on?)

Okay, so maybe some of you have really good memories that stretch all the way back to the episode where Esther cries in the dentist's office.  And maybe those of you with the long memories are beginning to doubt all of this Esther-really-doesn't-ever-cry business that I keep trying to feed you.

But let me tell you, ask anybody outside of my family, and they have probably never seen me cry.

I mean ask anybody outside of my family other than the CEO of camp, my director, and my dentist...

I mean, seriously.  After the whole crying-in-the-dentist's-office experience, I felt like I was scarred for life.  I had no idea how that happened.  It was just like it came out of the middle of nowhere.

Also?  I'm pretty sure he was scarred for life as well.  I had an appointment last week, and he was about as nice as he could be.  I mean, talking to me like I was an emotionally fragile 5-year old kind of nice (which, come to think of it, is probably pretty much how he views me now).

And do you think he mentioned a single word about my wisdom teeth, which are all four still firmly lodged in my mouth?

No sir, he sure didn't.

In the office yesterday, it was the same way.  One minute, I'm talking like a normal person, the next moment, I'm sobbing.

Many times, I've expressed to people how frustrated I am with this crying-less-than-once-a-year way of "handling" my emotions, or rather this lack of emotional maturity and appropriateness.  So maybe this crying-at-the-drop-of-a-hat method of emotional expression is just a step on the journey to learning how to cry at appropriate times?

No, don't answer that.

One thing I did notice was that, aside from the real reasons for the emotional turmoil of the last several days, there was hardly any sunshine to be seen until yesterday afternoon.  Now, we all know that Esther does not do well with lack of sunshine (see item number 1), so maybe that had something to do with it.

Maybe I'll never know, and maybe that's okay, but I do know two things:

1. Currently I'm listening to Jack Johnson, Michael Franti, Bob Marley, Colbie Cailait, and Van Morrison, and if that doesn't cheer you up, you're probably not entirely human
2. Today was sunny

So, folks, I'm pretty sure Esther-who-doesn't-cry-all-the-time is well on her way back from wherever she ran away to.

Stressed

No, of course I didn't leave a tube of bright red tinted lip balm in the pocket of a pair of khaki pants when I washed them with every other pair of pants I own besides two the night before a week-long trip to Georgia.

I would never do anything that scatter-brained.


Post-script: Don't worry, guys, I survived, and so did my pants. Also, I did something so unlike myself - I didn't freak out! I just took them out of the dryer, put them in a hot water wash again immediately, and hung them to dry.

They no longer resemble red Dalmations and I am not stressed.
The end.

Recipe: White Chocolate Raspberry Tart

Another family favorite for you tonight.

I don't even remember where my family got this recipe, but it is a fairly recent addition to our repertoire (within the last 10 years or so).  And, I'm telling you, there are not going to be leftovers involved when you take this tart anywhere.  It is a crowd-pleaser for sure.  There was a time when it was unheard of to have only one of these tarts at any family function.  Honestly, though, the always-two-tarts reputation is hard to keep up because the ingredients for this recipe are rather pricey . . .

Ingredients:

• 9-inch pie crust (I use the roll-out frozen kind)
• 1 lb of white chocolate, chopped (I use most of a 16-ounce bag of white chocolate chips)
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
• 4 cups raspberries, rinsed and divided (I use two packages of Driscoll's - not quite 4 cups)

Illustrated Steps:

1.  Bake crust according to package directions (or recipe if you're an over-achiever) for unfilled pie.


Don't forget to stab the crust with a fork multiple times before putting it in the oven, to prevent it from bubbling.

2.  Place chocolate in medium glass bowl.



and enjoy the little details while you're at it . . .



3.  In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil - a full boil, not just a simmer.


Also, remember to stir it so that it doesn't curdle on the bottom of the pan.

4.  Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is thoroughly melted.


If your chocolate hasn't melted and the texture looks kind of like your great grandmother's tapioca pudding, your cream wasn't hot enough.  Don't freak out.  Since you made sure to use a glass bowl earlier, you can stick it in the microwave for thirty seconds and then stir it.  That should do the trick.

5.  Stir 1/2 a cup of Mascarpone cheese into the mixture until it's all smooth.




This is the only brand of Mascarpone I've ever been able to find.  If you live in a larger city, you might have more options . . .


This is not smooth - stir it until it looks just like it did before you added the cheese.

6.  Place half your berries (make sure you rinse them, please) in a single layer on the baked (and partially cooled) crust.



7.  Pour chocolate mixture over berries and top with remaining berries



Isn't it pretty?

8.  Admire it for a few seconds and then stick it in the refrigerator along with the leftover cream, which is a pretty good, if incredibly rich, creamer for coffee.



The tart must refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving, to have the right consistency.  Store it in the refrigerator until you're ready to serve it.
I guarantee you won't have to store any in the refrigerator after serving it.

Recipe: Waldorf Salad

With the holidays upon us, I started thinking maybe I could share a few of my favorite unhealthy (Calories don't exist during the holidays.  Wait, you didn't know that?) recipes with you.  I know, I know, I've already admitted to you all that I'm no expert cook, but these are all tried and true family recipes that I know are actually good.
And also?  If I can make them, anyone can.  So, I present to you Waldorf Salad:
This recipe comes from a kids cookbook that my dad's mom gave us girls a while back.  It's one that her girls (and probably Dad too) learned from.

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped apples
• 1/2 of a lemon
• 1 cup sliced celery
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsps sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup mayo

Steps (with pretty pictures, of course)

1.Chop three or four large apples, or enough to make 2 cups. (I use Honey Crisp, so they are quite large and I could probably get by with only two and a half, honestly)



Put them in a pretty bowl.



2. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the apples, so they won't turn brown.



Remember to take the seeds out of your lemon before you squeeze it into your apples, or this might happen.



3. Slice enough celery to make one cup (about three or four stalks according to my calculations).



Don't forget to string your celery.



In order to string celery, place your knife right behind the ridges on the outside of the stalk and make a short incision about 1/8 inch long; place your thumb on the outside of the ridges, then pull straight down to the other end of the stalk and you should have pulled off a lot of strings that look like this:


Add the celery to your apples



Mix it all up nicely.



4.  (At this point, you're supposed to add 1/2 cup of chopped pecans, but I completely forgot to buy the pecans and it turned out fine without them, so I'll go ahead and say pecans are optional - It's delicious either way.)

5.  Add your sugar and salt (I just give the salt shaker a little shake over the apples and celery and call it an 1/8 tsp).



6.  Whip the cream.  In order to whip cream properly, you should put it in a chilled, deep container.
Also, beating with a rainbow-colored whisk guarantees good results.


Oh hey, did you hear about the chef that got arrested in New York the other day?
He whipped the cream and beat the eggs...

7.  Mix the mayo with the whipped cream, and add that to your salad.  Mix the whole thing gently and chill before serving.

My recipe says to serve it in lettuce leaves, but I just serve it in a bowl and I'm sure it tastes just as good...

Sick Day

In college, I always gave myself one day out of the semester on which to be sick.  I'd feel a bug of some sort coming on, and give it one day.  Just one day.  On that one day, I would literally lie in bed and do absolutely nothing until I felt better...all day if necessary.

This actually always worked out very well for me.  Maybe because I rarely get sick.
I do, however, tend to run my body into the ground.  I stay up late, eat on anything but a well-regulated schedule, and sleep with my hair wet more often than I should.  So, eventually, after several months of this sort of treatment, my body would say "Okay, Esther.  Enough is enough."

Turns out, after college, I still need about one sick day a semester, and today?  Today was sick day.
But this time, I didn't feel it coming.  It came out of the middle of nowhere - I jumped out of bed at 4am to go vomit (TMI? Sorry.) and went back to bed, and repeated the performance about three times before I realized this was actually happening and I was not going to be able to go to work today.
It was quite a bummer because I actually really like work.

But I actually really liked today too.  Today I:
drank yellow Gatorade
ate M&Ms (not too many, though)
also ate chicken noodle soup
got plenty of mail (my birthday and Sarah's graduation are both coming up soon)
watched National Treasure 2.

After all these good things, and feeling somewhat better, I debated the merits of going in to work incredibly late, but decided that, just like in college, I needed that one full sick day.

So I stayed here at home where I made Peppermint tea in the morning, using my new kettle, which I'm pretty much in love with.



And drank Chai Green tea out of my favorite mug in the evening.  By the way, if you haven't heard of Chai Green tea, please go hear of it immediately.  Regular Chai has never been something that I crave, but man, this Chai Green business is wonderful!



I put my Christmas Tree up a few weeks ago


I may or may not have shamelessly stolen (*ahem* borrowed *ahem*) it from the unused LOT stash...

And I have these HUGE Christmas lights (also borrowed) hanging all along my living room wall


Seriously, they're enormous.  I've started hanging Christmas and birthday cards between them, and one bulb is as long as the short side of your average rectangle Christmas card!

And, as I said in an email about Lights of Tejas the other day, I love Christmas probably slightly more than your average five-year-old, so my otherwise dreary day was quite cheerfully spent at home.

Stay tuned tomorrow for one of my favorite recipes!