Apple Pie Crescent Rolls

Remember when I posted about going to the Apple Orchard?
Remember when I said I was going to bake a hundred apple type recipes the following weekend?

Yea.

Never happened.

But! Since I was trapped inside all day Sunday from hurricane Sandy, and didn't really have anything else to do but bake, I finally decided to try some of those recipes!

The first one was an incredibly simple recipe I got from my sister-in-law.

You literally start with only a few ingredients that you probably already have in your home, and of course apples!

1/2 cup of sugar
2 tsp of cinnamon
3 tbsp. of melted butter
1 can of pillsbury crescent rolls
APPLES!  I used 2 small apples cut into 8 wedges and it was plenty!

Okay so start off with your ingredients:

In a small bowl combine the sugar and cinnamon.

Unroll the crescent rolls onto a pan, brush with melted butter and sprinkle some of your cinnamon sugar mixture. (make sure you save about 1 tbs of your melted butter for later)

Next, peel and cut the apples. (You probably don't need to peel them but I wasn't sure how the apple peel would taste with everything else) Like I said I only used 2 of these SMALL apples cut into 8 wedges and it was more then enough).

Once you've cut your apples place 1-2 slices in each crescent piece and then roll them up. After they are rolled brush with the remaining melted butter and sprinkle them with the rest of your cinnamon sugar mixture.

Side Note: I probable should've added parchment paper on the pan,
 because the bottoms did turn out a browner than I would've liked...

,

Bake at 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown. Take out of the oven and serve!

I ate them when they were warm right out of the oven, when they were cooled off later that evening and then when they were re-heated the following morning for a breakfast pastry. They were delicious every way I ate them.

Yummy little bite size apple pies!

Wicked 10k

I love to run - Mark hates to run + Mark loves me + Races are fun = Wicked 10K!!!

Its the one race I can talk Mark in to running with me every year. And not only does Mark run it with me but his sister Ann and brother-in-law Jason run it with us too! It's a fun race where no body really cares about their time or their performance they are just out there to have fun. Everyone dresses up in cute and/or crazy costumes and run down at the ocean front. 

This year was a little more exciting because we got to welcome the first winds of Hurricane Sandy as we ran. Got pushed around by the wind a little bit and saw some pretty crazy waves but had a blast doing it!

This years costume...

PAC MAN!!!

Well Balanced Wednesdays

	A few weeks ago I had an idea. Not my most spectacular idea, but decent enough that I want to share it on here. You see, I LOVE going to my sister Erin's for lunch during the week. She lives less than 5 minutes from my work and it's the perfect place to take a breather in the middle of the day. BUT my lunch breaks always seem to go by too fast and I'm always caught up in the middle of a conversation with Erin that has to be cut off mid way through because I have to rush back to work. Well this year I get to get off work super early on Wednesdays, usually right around lunch time, and I thought to myself... why haven't I been taking advantage of this day to visit my sister without being interrupted by a clock that seems to tick twice as fast during the lunch hour??? But not only did I want to sit and visit with Erin, I decided that it would be nice if my visits with her had some sort of purpose. I talked to her about it and we decided to spend the afternoon together doing a bible study and some sort of exercise that way we could be improving our spiritual and physical fitness together.  Today was our first day. I was pretty excited about it so I decided to give it a name: Well-Balanced Wednesdays Adjective 1. having good balance or proportions 2. of balanced mind Unfortunately I am way better at training physically then spiritually and Erin is more motivated to improve her spiritual strength then physical strength. But we believe both are important and so we've decided to help each other become more well-rounded...well-balanced. Training both body and soul! We're doing a bible study called "Life Principles from the Women of the Bible". We started with Eve today...I love how you always grasp new truths when you re-read about the people and history presented in the Bible.  We kicked off our exercise day with some Pilate's Core Training. I was embarrassed about how much my abs were shaking with some of those exercises! Praying that God gives us diligence to stay on track with Wednesday plans! I'm looking forward to improving my physical and spiritual health. P.S.  Just so you don't think I'm crazy. I know today is Saturday... I wrote this Wednesday but was waiting to put a picture in it so saved it instead of published it and I just remembered tonight that I had never gone back and posted it! Woops.

Brileigh!

Meeting sweet baby Brileigh Ray for the first time yesterday! We enjoyed a full day of family, as I mentioned in my last post, and little miss Brileigh was the center of everyone's attention!

I've been married less then 6 months and I'm already wanting a little one!

Sunday Football

Enjoying a family Sunday at The Poindexter house!

Our cousins from Massachusetts are in town this weekend so we are soaking up all the family time we can get. We are having my sister Erin's home made chili - Her secret award winning recipe at our Harvest Festival's chili cook off (made with deer meat) Yum!

Watching some Redskin Football.. Which always ignited excitement in our house!

Waiting anxiously for our other cousins to get here with their precious one month old baby girl...

And planning s'more creations in the fire pit later this evening!

I'll post some more later as our day progresses. Hoping you're enjoying some family time this Sunday!

Oh Monday...

Feeling groggy and slow this Monday morning. I have a quick break at work between patients so I thought I would look up some encouraging scriptures to give me a little push for the day ahead...

Psalm 128:2
You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Proverbs 12:11
Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.

Proverbs 14:23
All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Ecclesiastes 3:22
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

Colossians 3:23
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters

And finally, keeping in mind that the things of this earth are temporary...

John 6:27
Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.

Happy Monday!

Apple Orchard

This past weekend Mark and I were blessed to enjoy time with his family in the mountains of Virginia. Mark's family has a tradition of visiting an apple orchard every fall for an Apple Festival and I've had the chance to be a part of this family trip ever since Mark and I have been together. Normally the trip consists of an overnighter at a hotel or just a day trip to the orchard and back home (its about a 4 hour drive from where we live.) However, this weekend we got to spend a little extra time together thanks to the perks from Mark's work. Since we are going to Texas next month for my cousins wedding we rented a cabin through a military time share website, well it just so happened that they were doing a buy one get one free when we bought the Texas cabin and so we were able to rent a time share in the mountains for our Fall retreat this year for FREE! How great is that? We got up there Friday afternoon and stayed until Tuesday morning... Marks parents enjoyed the time share for us for the rest of the week since we had to be back to work Tuesday afternoon.

We enjoyed a large street craft fair on Saturday. I wanted so badly to find a large home made plaque or wreath to take home, but everything was out of my price range so we just enjoyed looking.

We also went to The Cheese Shop where I didn't do as we'll staying in our trip budget.o BUT it was yummy foods that can be used for dinners so I'll just make sure to subtract a little from our grocery budget this month. 

(Soup Mixes, Dip Mixes, and Couscous)

 Chocolate Pretzels Right??

 Wrong.

Apparently you shouldn't assume treats are chocolate pretzels just because they look like chocolate pretzels. Because in fact, they could be chocolate graham crackers.

No matter...They were delicious anyways. :)

On Sunday we visited the apple orchard! We got Fuji's, red delicious, and jonigolds for snacking and then winesaps for baking! I can't wait to get into the kitchen and make something yummy! I'm using Pinterest for inspiration of course.

And then the highlight of our fall trip is always visiting the Poindexter's family friends... They make us delicious dinners, we play music and sing and enjoy playing games like Mexican Train Dominoes. (Have you heard of it? It was my first time playing but I loved it!)

Over all the mountains were beautiful! It was a wonderful way to welcome the fall season and I can't wait for the weekend to get here so I can try some of my apple recipes!

Redeeming Love

It's been a long time since I've been so caught up in a book that I just couldn't put it down. I grew up loving to read... My mom tells me I learned to read when I was 4 and never stopped. If you had walked into my family's house on a cold winters evening you would've most likely seen me sitting in our old rocking chair under a blanket with a book in my lap. Or if you had happened into our backyard on a lazy summer day I was probably floating in the pool trying to turn the pages of my book without getting it wet!

My love for reading was rivaled only by soccer when I was in high school. My closet was overflowing with books. But when I began college I quickly became overloaded with homework and projects. Any time I would try to pick up a book for pleasure my conscience haunted me, telling me I should spend my time studying if my nose was going to be in a book. That started 5 years ago...(I can't believe it's been that long!) and ever since its been hard for me to pick up a book and read just to enjoy reading. No book seemed to keep my attention and I always found something more productive that I could be doing. That is until I bought Redeeming Love.

I finished it today on the drive up to the mountains, where Mark and I are staying the weekend. I cried as the main character finally understood the relentless love of our God. I cried as I thought of all of the times God had pursued me with the same everlasting love. The same grace and forgiveness offered over and over no matter how many times I rejected it.

Through out the book the other main character...who represented the prophet Hosea... Demonstrated and offered the love and forgiveness to others that God grants us. And it convicted me of how little I freely give that to those around me. I have a tendency to determine who is worthy of redemption and who should continue to wear their scarlet letter. How humbled and grateful I am to be loved by a God who is good even when there is no good in me. Who desires to be in relationship with me despite all of my failures. And who sacrificed His own Son so I could come in to His presence clean and my sins forgotten.

This book has very mature elements in it and would not be appropriate for a young audience, but for mature adults I highly recommend it!

"P"

Found at Kirklands for $5! It's a good thing the nearest Kirklands is about 25 minutes from us otherwise I could see myself spending way too much money there. 

I'm still getting used to the fact that my last name starts with a P! Every once in a while when I'm quickly signing a receipt or a check I'll accidentally sign my maiden name. It's hard to change something that I've been practicing for 20+ years...thats understandable right? But even though it has taken a while to set in, I get extremely excited anytime I see something cute that is monogrammed with a "P". It's one of those things that makes me feel like I am proudly claiming my new last name. It gives me a sense setting myself apart from my father's household and instead bearing the name of my husbands household. : )

Twine Vases

Happy October!!! It is officially FALL and I'm officially getting sucked into all things that feel, look and taste like fall! I have plans to make fall wreaths this Wednesday with my sister, Mark and I are taking a long weekend up in the mountains with his family to go apple picking starting this Friday, and this past weekend I added some twine to a couple of plain vases I had sitting around the house...

Okay... I guess twine doesn't necessarily mean fall. It's always cute no matter what season you use it in, but since it is fall outside, my twin vases are falling under the fall craft category today.

These are the two vases I had sitting around. I have to be honest, I am not the best interior decorator. Have I said that before on here? If not, I should have, because its true. I mean, look at these poor things. I just stuck fake, left over flowers from my wedding decor, put them in left over vases from my wedding and set them on shelves. I don't deny that I need help in this area and thats why pinterest is so essential to me! It gives me inspiration!

...not that wrapping twine around vases is an earth shattering idea... but I was excited to do it and I think it really made my vases stand out on their shelves.

My tool: Twine, Craft Glue

First step was anchoring the twine to the bottom of the vase. Have I mentioned I'm not exactly crafty either? I'm learning as I go. You can see my first anchor was a bit messy, but I cleaned it up a bit on the next one.

After the anchor was dry (about 10 minutes) I started wrapping the vase. On the cylinder vase pictured above I wrapped the string around 5-8 times and then added some more glue. I'd let that glue dry 2-3 minutes and then wrap again. It didn't take long at all do this one. The other vase was little more time consuming because it had all of the corners. I just made sure I anchored the string at each corner with glue for first 3 wraps to keep it from slipping down. After that I could wrap it about 5 times before adding more glue to each corner and then wrapping again. 

Finished Product:

Like I said. Nothing earth shattering, but I think they turned out cute. 

(Can you see my burlap table runner? Fall is creeping into my dining room too!)

This is what the vases look like put back in their homes.

Built in bookshelf in the living room...

Floating shelves in the dining room...