my new favorite thing

so, zach called when i was on my home tonight and told me that we might be having some company. immediately, images of overflowing laundry baskets, an unmade bed, and a sink full of dishes popped into my mind. I don't know why I've slacked off on my household duties lately... anyhoo- I didn't have very much time to whip up some treats for the boys.

I remembered this article I read in my Real Simple magazine several months back about using marshmallows instead of frosting on cupcakes. This is not the most gourmet thing I've ever baked, but it was pretty creative!

All you do, it pull the cupcakes out when there are 3 minutes left in the baking time. Put a large marshmallow on top of each cupcake and put back in oven for remaining three minutes. The marshmallows will still look like marshmallows, but they will be slightly melted. Push down slightly on each marshmallow to cover entire cupcake top. They are yummy and fewer calories than using regular frosting.

Spring Cleaning!

So, the laundry soap has been working out so well that I decided to expand my homemade household supplies to dish soap, kitchen surface cleaner, and all-purpose household cleaner for glass and other surfaces. I found super easy recipes, and I already had most of the ingredients. And for an added bonus, we made a party out of it! My friend, Kari came over to whip up some cleaning supplies with me this weekend.

First, Powdered Dishwashing Detergent. Let's be honest, our dishwasher is not wonderful. I practically have to hand wash everything before it goes in, so the dishwasher is just an extra measure for sanitation. I've been fighting with both liquid and powder detergent, and neither work great. There is always some gross residue left on the door or on the dishes. Yuck! If something is left on my clean dish after a run through the cycle, I'd rather it be something natural like baking soda or vinegar than some cleaning chemical.

Supplies: measuring spoons, air-tight container

Here is the recipe: Combine 1 part Washing Soda and 1 part Baking Soda (I used 4 cups of each) in a bowl to thoroughly mix together. Transfer to air-tight storage container. Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load. For an added boost, fill rinse indicator with white vinegar.

Next, Kitchen Surface Cleaner. So all of these Lysol-type cleaners that kill 99.9% of bacteria are unnecessary. Certain bacteria should be killed off; however, not all bacteria is bad. In the words of my friend, Lauren, "Support Bacteria. It's the only culture most people have. I am not infantile, you stinky butt poophead." So I'm ok with suppressing my OCD nature to scrub, scrub, scrub and embracing good bacteria! yay!

Supplies: small funnel, spray bottle

Here is the recipe: Funnel 1 part white distilled vinegar, 1 part warm water, 2-3 drops tea tree oil into a clean, empty squirt bottle. Gently swirl to combine. Vinegar and tea tree oil are mild disinfectants. Do not use on finished wood because the vinegar can strip the stain.

Finally, All-Purpose House Cleaner. This is for everything else.

Supplies: small funnel, spray bottle, stove (to heat water)

Here is the recipe: Funnel 2 Tablespoons Borax, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 cups very hot water into a squirt bottle. Shake or swirl until borax has dissolved.

I bought the supplies for all of the cleaners at the Dollar Tree, so I spent $4 on 2 spray bottles, a set of funnels, and one air tight container that I will use over and over again.

Now for the math nerd in me, the financial rationalization of cooking up these concoctions =)

Powdered Dishwashing Detergent

The homemade detergent comes out to about 8 cents per load. While store bought detergent costs about 46 cents per load (depending on brand and amount used). I cook a lot, so we end up running the dishwasher 4 times a week on average (that also means unloading it four times- gross).

Annual Cost of Homemade Detergent = $16.64

Annual Cost of Store Bought Detergent = $95.68

Annual Savings = $79.04

Kitchen Surface Cleaner & All-Purpose House Cleaner

We don't go through these quite as fast as dish and laundry detergent, but I'd say we purchase a bottle of each 5 times each year. Each bottle usually costs around $4.50. You probably have all of the ingredients except the tea tree oil. The oil is the most expensive ($4/ounce), but you only use a couple drops per batch.

Annual Cost of Homemade Cleaner = $5.95 (assume one bottle of oil, which is the majority of the cost)

Annual Cost of Store Bought Cleaner = $45

Annual Savings = $39.05

If you make and use all 4 cleaning solutions (laundry, dishwasher, kitchen, house) for one year, you will save almost $200! So, come on, this just makes sense! It makes financial, environmental, and social sense! A lot of you told me that you liked the laundry detergent recipe, so I hope you'll try out these also!

Gloria a Dios

Zach and I felt called to go on this mission trip to Nicaragua that would take place during his Spring Break. I cannot begin to share everything we experienced or are still experiencing. God is so good and faithful! The trip was organized by the Global Health Outreach and Christian Medical and Dental Association (Zach belongs to this organization at school). We had to do fundraising for the trip in addition to being good stewards with our own money. Coming up with the money to go would be a struggle for a single-income, newly married couple but more on that later!

As I had said earlier, we were called away last minute to a funeral the Thursday and Friday before we were to leave on the trip (that's 2 days before we were supposed to be in Central America). I'm a planner, but I could not have planned for that detour! 5:00am came early on Saturday, and we needed to get on the road to the airport (on only 3 hours of sleep)! We flew out of Orlando to El Salvador (during the layover I got reacquainted with spades, love it!) and finally arrived in Managua, Nicaragua late in the evening. Our team of 18 met up with everyone else to make our total team member count 50. Here is a breakdown of who was on the trip:

From the University of Florida-

• FOUR 4th year medical students
• THREE 3rd year medical students
• TWO 2nd year medical students
• THREE 1st year medical students
• ONE dental student, physician's assistant student, nursing student, physical therapy student, physician
• and me =) -- completely unrelated to the medical field!

The rest of the team-

• NINE more physicians
• ONE pharmacist, pastor, handyman, additional nursing student
• TWO dentists, dental assistants, nurses
• THREE additional medical students
• FIVE college students
• FIVE kids, high school and middle school, all whose parents were also on the trip

We had people from all over the country- New Hampshire, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, Boston, Chicago, Texas, Tennessee! One of the doctors was even in his 70's and went on the zipline (upside down)! We got acquainted with one another over a very nice dinner and went to bed early. The next morning, we had a team briefing meeting with some wonderful praise and worship and an ice breaker. We met our local GHO coordinator, Rolando. He works for GHO and lives in Nicaragua. He had organized our entire trip from hotels to the churches we would work with at clinic. Establishing relationships and encouraging a productive network of churches is a priority for GHO. Once our clinic packs up on the last day, the local churches are in place to follow up with patients who had been ministered to. We then loaded up our two yellow school buses (from Bibb County Georgia, really!) and headed for San Juan del Sur, about 3 hours south on the Pacific coast, where we would set up clinic for the rest of the week.

We stayed in this beautiful hotel right on the beach.
We ate breakfast and dinner right across the street, even closer to the beach. Each meal had rice (and lots of it). We also had fish, eggs, fruit... not too many veggies. Everyone loved the soda since it was made with real sugar, and the coffee was wonderful!
Here is our full team on the last day of clinic. The church in the background is where clinic was held all week.
Every morning we worshipped and had a devotion on the beach. It was a great way to start the day! Zach led worship with Yuneg (left, a doctor from Washington DC) and Brandon (middle, dental student from UF)
We had clinic Monday- Friday (only until 11am on the last day). The clinic opened at 9am, and we usually packed up around 5:30pm. Each morning a lined had already formed and went up the street by the time we got there. Our days were very busy! Each person would receive the Gospel and be prayed over, then they were sent to triage to see a nurse.
This is the medical clinic. It was set up inside a church. Different "examination rooms" were divided by curtains, and minor surgeries were performed on the stage at the back. Once the nurse determined what the primary complaint was, the patient would be assigned a doctor for further examination. The doctor would pray over the patient again.
Sometimes triage would send the patient to optometry to receive reading or sun glasses. Medical students, college students, even high school students would perform the eye easements.
Finally, the patient might end up at the pharmacy. This was set up in a workshop/garage across the street from the clinic.
The is the dental clinic. It was set up in a church identical to the one the medical clinic was in. Dentists performed cleanings and extractions all day long.
This is the Medical Mobile Unit. More invasive surgeries were performed in here. It's basically an RV outfitted on the inside with a sterile surgical room. Cysts were removed and abdominal walls were repaired here.
Here is Zach getting in on some surgery action inside the Medical Mobile Unit. Dr. Ries, director for GHO, is performing the surgery.
Zach got to suture up the patient! Steady hands...
Zach also performed a few joint injections!
I did children's ministry all week. We would have a morning and an afternoon session with lots of play time in between! Grace (far right) is a senior in high school and Dr. Ries's daughter. She was the other leader for children's ministry- we had a great time that week! Our translators, Ericka and Lenin, were wonderful with the kids! They knew most of the Bible stories and some good kids' songs to sing.
The kids loved singing "Yo Tengo Gozo". It's basically "I've got joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where?" You know, that song. But in Spanish.
Having visual aids was a MUST! We didn't realize this beforehand, but we always took some planning time to come up with a few sketches for each day. Here I'm sharing the story of the Resurrection. This little girl wants to know where Jesus is since He wasn't in the tomb!

And what is more precious than little kids praying? I would say a simply prayer, the translator would say it in Spanish, and then the kids would repeat it! So amazing to hear little voices praise God!
And some of the kids took it quite literally when told to close their eyes... and I guess, their mouths, too? haha precious!

I was also ambushed with this fun game! It's like london bridges.... and then it turns into tug of war!! ahhhhhh

All in all, we had over 100 different kids show up throughout the week! Praise God! 11 of the only children even prayed to accept Christ! We just had the most wonderful time loving on them and telling them about Jesus.
The medical folks would rotate through to children's ministry to help out each day. The kids loved Zach!
This little girl is Nicole. She was super sweet and snuggled right up next to me every day! She literally sang "Yo Tengo Gozo" all day long and was all smiles.
Stirling. This guy was my buddy all week. I introduced Zach to him as mi esposo (husband), and he stuck out his hand for Zach to shake! haha He had a surgery scheduled on the last day of clinic to remove a wart on his finger, and he asked me to be with him. He screamed and cried, but we sang "yo tengo gozo" through his tears about 50 times. When the surgery was over, he grabbed my hand, and we went back to children's ministry to do a craft. He stayed right near me until the bus pulled away at the end of the day... it just about broke my heart!

This pic probably should have appeared earlier, but this is what the street right outside clinic looked like. Not strange at all to have cattle or horses walking down the street! And every other yard had a huge pig. Chickens ran all over the place. Tons of skinny, stray dogs-- very sad.
One day fater clinic, the local baseball team challenged us to a game! It was legit baseball; it is, afterall, Nicaragua's national sport. Uh oh... they creamed us! But we got to share the Gospel with them and prayed with them after the game.
San Juan del Sur is kind of set back in the "cove" and flanked on either side with mountains. We ran up one of the mountains one cloudy morning, and this is the view from up top. Our hotel is right along that beach. This is the morning we heard about the earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan. We were humbled by God's power and reminded of God's soverignty.
There's Cosa Rica in the back! This is Cheryl, a 3rd year medical student at UF- and I must add that she just had a baby (her 2nd kid) 8 months ago. What's more impressive: her flat stomach or that she's a 3rd year medical student with 2 kids?
Zach beat us to the top, typical, but waited for us to get there! Look at our gross sweat... ewwww
Frisbee on the beach. Had to do it! Followed with a victory dip in the ocean!

Zach and me on the beach at night. We went to two church services at a community baseball field. The band was set up on trucks that were driven out to the pitchers mound.
The "GHO Choir" also led a couple worship songs in English. And the children from children's ministry came out and sang a couple songs, including "yo tengo gozo" for the congregation.
God displayed his beauty and wonder in the most breath taking ways! Look at these stars!

...and the sunsets...

This is Genada. We traveled inland to here on Friday. We enjoyed a very nice dinner and fellowshipping with our new friends.
Saturday was our free day. Some of the group hiked an active volcano. We went ziplinning!

The Lord showed us so much on this trip-- not just a new environment or new people, but He revealed more of Himself to us. Before we went on the trip, God was answering our prayers, and that did not stop once we were in Nicaragua.

Answered prayer #1: Dear Lord, if You would have us serve you in Nicaragua, please make that possible.

The "Type A" personality that the Lord has cursed blessed me with challenged my faithfulness. It looked like we would not have enough money to go on the trip. While Zach and I felt called to go to Nicaragua, I had decided that if the numbers did not work out, I would not go on the trip with Zach. God humbled me when I doubted that the Lord who fed 5,000 could not put a few hundred dollars in our accounts. The money we still owed arrived in the mail the week before the trip.

Answered prayer #2: Dear Lord, use our marriage to bring glory to your name.

We have only been married for 8 months, but this has been a re-occurring prayer for much longer than that. We were one of three young married couples on the trip. The new friends we made on the trip told us that they could see how much we love one another and how the Lord is using us together. They are encouraged by our marriage and hope for a relationship like the one we have. Praise God- it’s by His grace alone that we are married!

Answered prayer #3: Dear Lord, please provide encouraging companionship for me in Gainesville.

Who thought this one would be answered across the globe? I have struggled making friends in Gainesville, and I was able to grow close to the entire UF team (17 students). A few of the girls are going to start a small group, so we can get together weekly to spend time in the word and to encourage one another.

Answered prayer #4: Dear Lord, how can You use us to make a difference in only one week?

One thing I have always struggled with when it comes to short-term missions is "How can a significant difference be made in such a short period of time? What happens when we leave?" How prideful of me to think that I can bring anything to anyone? God uses minutes, days, years, lifetimes when you turn your life over to Him. Our life on earth is but a breath. While we were only in Nicaragua for one week, the Lord worked in mighty ways. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God, who makes things grow... we are co-workers in God’s service." Missions, domestic and international, is something that has been placed on our hearts, and we are just waiting for the next call!

Home At Last!

Home at last! And I’ve finally dug my way out from beneath a mountain of laundry. The past couple weeks have been amazing, but now it’s back to the regular routine (and I’m ok with that).

Life has been around the world and back since the Half Marathon (still can't believe I ran 13 miles without dying). The higly anticipated medical mission trip to Nicaragua was the very next weekend (blog post on that to come). We were leaving early on Saturday, March 5th. However, we were called away to a funeral a couple days before that. Grandmother Mary passed peacefully at age 90. Zach and I packed up on Thursday to drive 20 hours and spend less than 24 hours in Taylorsville, Mississippi. Funerals are usually a solemn family reunion of sorts but not "Mary B" style. We remembered funny stories and how loving she always was. She was a southern lady with impeccable timing- so glad we got to be there to say goodbye. Grandmother said she couldn't wait to get to heaven, and now she's finally there!

We drove through the night on Friday to get back to Gainesville to finish packing for our trip. 2 hours of sleep later, we were in the car headed to the Orlando airport!

We got back from Nicaragua, gloriously exhausted, late on Sunday night. The real world wasted no time in snapping us back to reality. I left for a business trip Tuesday to Friday, and Zach had a test on Friday. I left my studious husband in front of his computer, and I headed back to the airport. This trip took me to Raleigh where I got to see my old DC roommate, Noor! We spent the evening together doing the usual- Bikram Yoga (kicked my butt, as usual)and Chipotle! So good to see her and to catch up-- love those friendships where it's as if no time has passed. I hit sites all through Virginia and flew out of DC on Friday. I was making really good time, so Dad met me for an afternoon in Georgetown before my flight. I LOVE Georgetown! We had delicious crabcakes and windowshopped at my favorite Anthropologie. We topped off a perfect afternoon at Georgetown Cupcake. You know that show on TLC, DC Cupcakes? This is the store!


The line was pretty ridiculous as it went clear up the street! But we had to go- we were right here! They said it is always this crowded- from open to close. Note: If you want a successful business, get a show on TLC!

50 minutes later, we are in! Yummy-- look at all the cupcakes!!

Our selection- red velvet (dad's fav), lava fudge (my fav), st patty's day chocolate, lemon blossom- no bad choices out of the bunch! We split all four right down the middle and chowed down! My only regret is that I couldn't eat more than two cupcakes...