WFMW: Easy Dinner Recipe

I love easy dinners. What I love more than easy dinners are easy dinners that taste really good. Everyone knows that pork chops and mac n’ cheese is easy, but you can only eat that for so long before your whole family is like “nooooo…….mac n’ cheese again???!?” Last week Roman posted a picture of one our favorite meals and he was asked by several of his friends to dish out the recipe. Your wish is my command!  :)

Creamy Pesto Chicken

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. butter

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (cut into cubes)

1 can condensed cream of chicken soup

3 cups bow-tie pasta

½ cup pesto sauce (we use the basil kind, not the original kind)

½ cup milk

½ cup Mozzarella cheese (optional)

Directions:

1.       Melt butter in a large skillet. Add the chicken and cook until firm (about five minutes). While the chicken is cooking, go ahead and start cooking your pasta in a separate pot.

2.      Add the soup, pesto sauce and milk in with the chicken and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook until chicken is cooked through.

3.      Optional: sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top and stir it in. (Because we all know that cheese makes everything more awesome!)

4.      Drain your cooked pasta and add it to everything and *boom* you’re done.

5.      Post pictures of your amazing dinner to Facebook

I discovered this recipe scribbled on a piece of paper in my recipe drawer about three weeks ago and decided to give it a shot. I have no idea where I wrote it down from, or how long it was hiding out in my drawer, but I’m definitely glad I ran across it! We may or may not have eaten it once a week for the past three weeks……   O:)

Easy, delicious dinners work for me!

“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” ~Romans 8:14

Creative Writing

When I was in eleventh grade, I had a pretty awesome English teacher. Every day, he would start our class with a "creative writing" exercise. We had a journal. We had fifteen minutes. We had to write. Sometimes there would be a specific topic on the board; sometimes we had the freedom to pick our own topic. The point of the exercise was just to get us writing something. This same English teacher was the one who chased me down the hallway at school when he found out I had picked Accounting as my major for college. He was convinced I was making the wrong choice....that I should instead try to be a writer or an English teacher. I thought that was silly because I always hated grammar. Seriously, who actually enjoys taking a sentence and diagramming it?

Oh c'mon, don't tell me you can't remember that. It's not that you forgot, it's just that your brain is blocking the awful memory of THIS:

Okay, so my drawing might be a little *off*, but back to my point. I graduated from high school and kissed sentence diagrams and creative writing sessions goodbye and buried myself in numbers........(that sounded much more exciting in my head.) Only I never really stopped the creative writing sessions. I had a prayer journal, actually prayer journals, that are filled with random thoughts, prayers, drawings, and ideas.

Fast forward a couple of years and you'll find me halfway through college realizing that maybe Accounting wasn't my thing. I didn't want to quit after all of my effort so I just pushed forward and graduated. Three days before my graduation from college I launched this blog, and a year and two months later I launched a second blog, Faith, Marriage & Family .

I wouldn't call my college career a mistake, because it did land me the job I have now which has sustained me and Roman's way of living and provided us with great health insurance. And it does provide a nice "back-up plan" should things turn south in the future. But I am excited about where God is leading us next. I don't think I will ever be forced to diagram another sentence (Dear. Lord. No.), but hopefully I can make "creative writing" my job profession in the near future.

One thing is for certain, I won't ever stop writing-no matter where life leads. Not because I feel like I have to keep writing, but just because I love it. I love reading words. I love writing words. I love books. I love blogs. I just love everything about writing. Call me a nerd if you want, but this is just something I'm passionate about. And I'm glad that I get to do something I love and have such awesome people surrounding me as I do it (that would be you, my dear readers.)

So hats off to you guys for being so supportive and awesome, and here's to a bright future full of more creative writing sessions and less sentence diagrams. Because seriously, who needs those things anyways?

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"  ~Jeremiah 29:11

Creepy Crawly

I hate creepy crawly things. Snakes. Spiders. Alligators. The entire bug species. Except caterpillars, those are pretty cool….only because they turn into butterflies. But there is one particular bug that has earned my particular hatred.

Roaches.

I hate them. I hate them more than anything. I pray all the time that God would simultaneously kill every single roach on this planet in the most awful way He can think of. I think He doesn’t because He likes to laugh at the funny dance I do every time I see one.

I’ve always hated roaches, but after my incident at our first home my hatred increased. We were living in a trailer (read: really hard to keep roaches out of them), and we were having some issues with roaches in our cabinets. One day while Roman was at work, I decided it would be a good idea to clean out the cabinets in the kitchen island and give it a good spray with some roach killer. I drug everything out and washed everything and got ready to spray. I was really excited because so far I had not seen one single roach.

That’s because they were lying in wait for me.

I stuck the spray can inside the cabinet, pointed it at the upper corners and pressed the trigger.

When I say that the next ten minutes were the worst ten minutes of my entire life, I am not joking. They were worse than any illness I’ve ever had. They were worse than any migraine. They were worse than any tragedy I’ve had to endure. The. Worst. At least fifty roaches came pouring out of every opening in my cabinet. They were flying at my face. They were crawling on me. I am 100% certain my neighbors probably thought I was getting violently murdered, because I was screaming louder than I’ve ever screamed before. Seriously guys, I’ve had nightmares since then. It was AWFUL. Roman was at work, so I called my parent’s house. My dad answered the phone to his daughter sobbing on the phone about how much she hated trailers and roaches and living next to the woods and summer time and how she was going to live in her car where it was safe. When he finally understood what I was talking about, he drove to my house with some heavy duty bug killer and caulk. He spent the next two hours sealing up the cabinets and killing every roach he could find. I have the best dad ever.

I tell you that lovely little tale so you can have a very deep appreciation for my roach hatred. And to ask if there are support groups for traumatizing roach event victims. The bad thing is Roman hates roaches just as much as I do. So every time we find one in our house, the conversation goes something like this:

Roman: I killed the last one. Your turn.

Sarah: I can’t do it.

Roman: It’s your turn.

Sarah: No really, I can’t do it. Please kill it.

Roman: You.

Sarah: You.

Roman: Please???!??

Sarah: No you. PLEASE.

(I normally win, because I have the best husband ever.)

Two nights ago, Roman and I were lying in bed right next to each other talking about our day as we got ready to go to sleep.

Sarah: What was that?

Roman: What?

Sarah: It felt like a bug.

Roman: Now I feel it too. It does feel like a bug.

*move covers around, feel around bed sheets*

Sarah: Maybe it was just the pillow case or something.

So last night Roman was in the shower and I was catching up on some reading while I was lying in bed. All of a sudden, it felt like there a bug crawling along my arm. Naturally, I freaked out because the edge of the pillow case was obviously not down by my hand.

Y’all. It was a roach. I SLEPT WITH A ROACH TWO NIGHTS AGO.

I immediately ran to the closet and grabbed a shoe and when I came back, it was gone. I spent the next five minutes carefully pulling back the covers while standing in a defensive stance with a sandal in my left hand, praying desperately that God would help me find the worst thing He had ever created. I finally spotted it, and beat the crap out of it. Seriously, I hit it about ten or fifteen times. Because, you know, you can never be too sure about roaches. You have to make sure you kill them real good.

I seriously debated sleeping on the couch last night. I mean, I had a ROACH in my BED. But I finally convinced myself that he was alone and that if I slept on the couch I wouldn’t get much sleep and that I was probably safe. Of course, for the next half hour I tossed and turned because every time a stray hair touched my back I freaked out and flapped my arms around like a chicken.

If any of you actually like roaches, you are no longer my friend. Unless you can deal with the fact that I am on a personal vendetta to kill every single one of them. And don’t tell me that they serve a purpose, because I don’t even care what that purpose may be.

So if you ever come over and find me standing on top of the bed with a sandal in my hand flapping my arms around like a chicken, you’ll know what’s going on.

Seriously, there’s got to be a support group somewhere for this.

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is Mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” ~Romans 12:19

TGIF Friday

Thank. God. It's. Furlough. Friday. 

Life in the Casterline household has been hectic at best and slightly chaotic at worst over the past two-ish weeks. I will be the first to say: it stinks not getting paid every Friday, but I totally needed today off.

My washing machine and dryer are busily humming away and I am trying my best to get caught up on all the household stuff that needs to get accomplished.

• Six (!!!) load of laundry
• Dirty dishes
• Grocery shopping
• Balancing the checking account
• Vacuum/Mop
• Clean the bathrooms 

And all the women across America nod in understanding.

What makes the six loads of laundry sound really bad is when I tell you that I stayed up until 1 a.m. Wednesday night doing two "emergency" loads of laundry because my husband was out of socks, and I was out of clean pants and underwear. Lovely. TMI? I'm sorry. 

But sometimes, that's just how life goes. I'm sure you understand, right? Please tell me I'm not the only one who gets behind on housework. Because as much as we would like to say that our houses are Pinterest-worthy clean and tidy and organized and spotless and perfect, I would guess that more than half the time they are anything but. 

But gosh-dern-it my house is going to be clean by the end of today if it's the last thing I do. And then tomorrow afternoon I am going to be a complete bum and maybe go to bed at seven o'clock at night. 

In other news, my dog decided to mark his spot on top of the litter box. Yes, as in, he peed on it. So that was a fun experience to clean up. That's also how I came to the conclusion that I should probably mop my floors today. Nothing reminds you how badly you need to mop your floors than when you have to get down on hands and knees to clean something up.

And all the women across America nod in agreement.

I hope all of you lovely peeps have a great weekend. Word to the wise: get some laundry done. Because two loads of laundry on a Saturday is a lot better than six loads of laundry on a Friday. That sounds like something that should go on a fortune cookie. Ahem. 

Here's to a better weekend (after I dominate my to-do list) and a less hectic week next week (as well as more consistent blogging!).   :)   :)  

"For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called."  ~Isaiah 54:5

Wait on the Lord

Whew! Has anyone else's week flown by, or is it just me? I'm all off-balance because I've been doing training all week at work. So not only have I spent my entire week struggling to stay awake and NOT spending my time in front of a computer screen, I've had to spend my entire week learning about statistics. 

I did not enjoy college. One of the main reasons I didn't enjoy it? My statistics classes. Imagine my joy when I was asked to attend a statistics class for a week by my boss. Now you understand.All I'm saying is, thank you God for games on my phone and strong coffee.....because I've totally needed them both this past week.  ;)

I was talking to my Pastor yesterday about some things, and a comment he made has been stuck in my mind ever since: "We will just have to wait on the Lord and see what He does."

At first, it seems like something simple, but when you stop to think about it, that one sentence really is quite profound. 

Roman and I have been dealing with some heavy stuff lately. I may go into more detail later, but here's a quick run-down:

• Some health-female stuff on my end
• Financial problems (can anyone say "government furlough"???)
• An issue with a close family member

In all three of these problems, I'm incredibly limited on what I can do. Sure, I can spend money wisely, but when you lose $550 of your net pay per month due to a furlough, there's only so much you can do. And as far as the other two items go.......well, my only real option is to pray about them and leave them up to God.

That is why that one sentence has really stuck with me. As Roman and I walk through some tough times together, we can take comfort in one thing: the Lord will fight for us.

The Lord is working on my health issue.

The Lord is working in our finances.

The Lord is working with my troubled family member.

My one true job in all of this is to simply hand everything over to Him in prayer, and then wait to see what He does. And oh yes, stop stressing about it while I'm waiting.  ;)

I'm sure Roman and I are not the only ones dealing with at least one difficult issue right now, so let me just encourage you to wait and see what the Lord will do in your situation. I promise you He will not leave you to walk through this alone. You may not see the results of your prayers right. this. minute. But rest assured, He's working on your behalf!

Tomorrow is my furlough day, making today my "Friday" (the only good part about a furlough!), so I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!! Tomorrow I'm going to make believe I'm on the beach and eat ice cream. Because seriously, my brain has GOT to recover from all the statistics. Sheesh. 

"The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still."  ~Exodus 14:14

WFMW: Building a Box-Garden

This summer, Roman and I...okay fine, really just Roman, tried his hand at gardening. In one aspect, it worked out really well. We had an abundance of squash, zucchini, and cucumbers and were able to give some away. Some of the plants didn't do as well, such as the watermelon, tomato, and bellpeppers. But one thing we quickly found out: weeding is annoying. And so we didn't do it. At all. Causing our garden to look like this:

Picture that mess on a much larger scale, because that is only the last few plants of our garden that are left after Roman mowed the rest of it down.

We He really didn't like the work, but we really loved all of the fresh produce our garden produced. So for our fall garden, we decided to try building a box-garden. The way a box-garden is constructed is supposed to drastically cut down on the growth of weeds, which means it requires less maintenance. Sold. So for anyone else who is curious, here are the steps we took to build ours:

Step One: Gather materials.

You will need four boards to construct the box, a plastic tarp or some trash bags to lay on the bottom (this is what helps stop the growth of weeds), and then dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. Oh yea, and then you'll need to actually buy what you want to plant in your garden. That's kind of necessary as well.

Step Two: Assemble the box.

Pretty simple. All you do is lay out the boards in a square, then screw the corners together. Just make sure that everything is nice and even on your corners and Voila! You have a giant box.

supervisor dog not required

Step Three: Lay down the plastic.

Before we laid down the plastic, Roman scalped the grass in the box with a weed eater, just to further discourage growth. But if you don't have a weed eater, this is not required. After he got done, we had a thick black tarp that we laid down in the center of the box. We then went around the edges with large trash bags, placing them under the boards and covering the entire area. You can see in the second picture where we pulled the edges of the plastic out from under the boards by a few inches. We did that just to ensure no sneaky weeds would start growing up under the boards and find their way into our garden.

Step Four: Fill the box with dirt.

I'm not going to lie, doing this step in the heat of the day with 90% humidity made me think I was dying. We had gotten some dirt from my dad's house (he shoveled some into a trailer with his tractor), so we had to shovel out all of that dirt from the back of the trailer into the box. We paused halfway through to break for lunch (and cool off), so that helped. But still. It was a lot of dirt, yo.

Suddenly, I hate gardening

Step Five: Get everything nice and even.

Pretty straightforward. You just want to make sure your dirt is as even as possible so all of your plants have enough soil for their roots.

Step Six: Figure out the spacing for your plants.

This will definitely require you to do a little bit of homework on what you're planting. For instance, squash and cucumbers need a TON of room to grow, whereas bellpeppers and tomatoes do not. So figure out what kind of room each of your plants need, and then space them out accordingly.




Scoot over cucumber, you're all up in my grill


Step Seven: Plant your plants.

This part is easy. Just dig the holes and place the plants inside. We bought actual plants (obviously) rather than seeds. Sure, buying the plant is more expensive (we paid $3 for each plant), but you generally have MUCH better success rates over planting seeds, and you get your produce quicker, so that works for us.

Step Eight: Water your plants.

Duh. But just in case, don't forget this last step. How often you water your plants is determined by what you planted and how much shade your garden gets. Our garden sits in direct sunlight pretty much from sun-up to sun-down, so we water our garden just about every day. If you are new to gardening, you will just have to use trial and error to figure out what's best. If plants look like they are drying up, water more. If they look healthy and are growing, keep doing what you're doing. Look at you, you gardening pro.

I'm ready for my close-up

And for all you haters out there, look whose flowers are still alive. MINE.

Haterz gonna hate

Box-gardening really work for us!!

Note: I am not a gardening expert and neither is my husband. So anything I tell you to do may or may not work for where you live/what you plant. Don't hate me, let's just be friends, m'kay?

"Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God." ~Psalm 92:13

Thank You!

I just want to say thank you for all of the support and encouragement you all have given me in the creation of the new blog-Faith Marriage and Family. So many have you have said such kind words over the past week and they mean so much to me! You guys are the BEST!!

It’s crazy to me how quickly this new blog has caught on, and I can tell that God has big plans with it because the enemy has been pushing hard against me this past week.

I’ve had some awful days at work. I’ve had some not-so-great news from the doctor. I’ve had some allergy issues this week and some bad headaches. I’ve lost a bunch of sleep. And oh-my-goodness the finances. Holy moly. The enemy has been throwing everything he’s got at me, and for a little while it seemed like he was winning.

…..especially when I cried so hard Thursday that I gave myself a migraine. Ahem. Just keeping it real, folks.

Thank the Lord that we serve a gracious God! For every dart the enemy has thrown at me, Jesus has been with me every step of the way.

For every hardship, He has given me peace.

For every doubtful thought or lie from the enemy stating that I’ll never be the writer I want to be, one of you have offered encouragement—without even knowing I needed it!

For every financial situation, He has made a way.

For every bad doctor visit, He has given me hope and healing.

I’m telling you this just to simply say, when things go wrong in your life as you are trying to do what you know is God’s will, take heart! This only means that the devil doesn’t like it because you’re doing something right! And as long as we are following Christ’s will for our lives, all of these hardships will be totally worth it. He will fight for you and give you the peace and strength you need to make it through, I promise!

Again, thank you all for your support—your prayer and words of encouragement have meant so much to me this past week. Keep the faith, dear friends. And let’s continue to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ, because we never know when they might need a smiling face and helpful words!

“And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:22

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?’” ~Matthew 16:24-26