Nothing is impossible

So, I'm a youth minister. Meaning I'm here to minister to youth. Well, let's be honest. I've dealt with some difficult questions but up to this point my main job has been to 1) plan events and 2) make sure the youth behave. [record scratch] Well, that phase is over.

And when a student came to me with a real problem, a deeply unsettling issue that was consuming her life, I felt so.... ill equipped? unworthy to offer advice? lost? all of the above. I mean, this is a life that I'm involved in. My actions and words have lasting impact on her future- depending on if I truly push her into Christ or just coat the problem with cliché feel good phrases and hugs.

And what's easier? Hugs. Absolutely. But that's not my job.

Thankfully, I have some very wise people in my life who encourage me daily. And today I was reminded that God manifests himself in the impossible. In things that are possible, why would we need God? No, He is glorified in the situations that we could never work out ourselves. And faith is knowing that that very thing is possible.

Luke 1:37 "For nothing will be impossible with God."

And so, it doesn't matter if I'm equipped for this. It doesn't matter if I can relate to her. God is fully able. He is absolutely equipped to fill every need. And I am an instrument.

Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

2 Corinthians 5:7 "For we walk by faith, not by sight."

Chicken Cordon Bleu

One of my favorite dishes to make is chicken cordon bleu- it looks fancy schmancy but it's actually pretty simple! And it's pretty hard to get wrong. So, here's how it goes. You will need:

1 cup milk

1 cup dry bread crumbs
skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - pounded to ¼ inch thickness
salt and pepper to taste
sliced ham
sliced Swiss cheese
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
½ cup heavy cream

Sooo, you're supposed to pound the chicken and make sure it's all flat and even. And you should. But, I didn't and it was fine. So once you've pounded your chicken, place a slice of swiss and ham on each piece. If you're using thick sliced ham, then one piece should be plenty. I was using thin sliced deli meat, so I used three pieces for each chicken breast.

Roll each piece and secure it with toothpicks (Necessary, but they totally complicate the rest of the process) And then season with your favorites- I used salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Place the milk in one bowl or plate and the breadcrumbs in another.

Dredge each piece of chicken in milk and then roll it in the breadcrumbs. The toothpicks actually made it really difficult to roll it, so I just pressed the crumbs in.

Heat the vegetable oil at medium heat and brown all the sides of the chicken.

Then combine the cream of chicken soup and heavy cream at medium and salt and pepper.

Place the chicken in a baking dish and pour the cream sauce over the chicken. Bake for 30 minutes or until juices run clear.

Plate it up and TA DA! A super snazzy dinner made simple.

Support OMBC Youth through Etsy!

That's right!

Visit http://www.etsy.com/shop/LiveLaughLynae to order a special handmade goodie and ALL of the proceeds will go towards an Oak Meadow Baptist youth project- it might be helping a student go to summer camp, filling a care package for the homeless or funding a mission trip.

If you live in Austin, your item can be delivered without a shipping charge.

These items make wonderful gifts for children and adults alike. They are also perfect for weddings, whether for your flower girls, to coordinate bridesmaids or for a lasting alternative to live boutonnieres.

Items can be made in any color and custom items are available. Right now, you can order the following:

· Floral hair pinsFloral hair clip

Floral elastic headband

Floral hard headband

Floral sash

Floral boutonnieres

Floral magnets

inspiration photo from http://www.etsy.com/listing/63491439/red-fabric-flower-magnet

Floral pins, bouquet and individual

inspiration photo from www.emersonmade.com

Cutest Duet Ever

We interrupt this series of craft to tutorials to introduce you to Jorge and Alexa Narvaez, the absolute cutest dad-daughter duo on youtube. So check out the video and just try not to get that song stuck in your head. It's definitely new new favorite song :)

How to Decorate a Youth Room with No Money, Part Four: Recycle what you've got!

Remember when we trimmed off the insulation board to make the bulletin boards?

Well, I took that extra strip, spray painted it with the paint from our letter project, and painted on our theme verse with some extra face painting supplies.

And voila!

A lovely accent to the wall. I attached it with the same poster hangers used on the letters and bulletin boards.

Of course, there is a bit of discrepancy in the size of the words, but I like the perfectly imperfectness of it.

How to Decorate a Youth Room with No Money, Part Three: Banners

As someone who is victim to shopping Etsy for hours, I have come across a fabulous and easy to DIY trend- banners! Whether it's fabric, paper, triangles, circles, matching, coordinating or completely mismatched, I think they're adorable.

Here are some inspiration photos for birthdays and showers:

Love. I have one in my dining room actually. But I digress.

Martha Stewart has a lovely template to make your own! find it here

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/click-print-banner

Now, the template makes 3" circles but I wanted to make mine bigger so I used the PrntScr button to capture the image and enlarge it. I cut each letter out of card stock, punched holes and threaded it with curling ribbon. I traced a paper plate onto coordinating scrapbook paper and matted half of the banners with it using double stick tape.

And here's the finished product! Easy peasy :)

How to Decorate a Youth Room with No Money, Part Two: Lettering

After Christmas we got an exciting new addition to our youth room.... a ping pong table! It was a big pain to put together but now that it's all set, we have a blast before and after our worship services playing floor pong. Anyway, the table came in a gigantic cardboard box. So, to recycle the box, I decided to cut out the name of our meeting space and our ministry to post on the wall. We have a lot of wall space so I thought this would be a great way to fill some of it.

So first I traced my letters on the cardboard and then I carefully used my utility knife to cut it out. If you attempt this, be very careful! I found it easiest to pull the blade toward myself (not directly of course, I'm not that dumb). But whenever I was holding the box tightly to have maximum control of the knife, I ended up with several cardboard cuts, which are way more intense than paper cuts. Ugh.

So, finally I ended up with this:

Because it's difficult to make accurate curves with the utility knife sometimes you have to kind of just stab the cardboard until you've made the curve. Consequently, some of the letters came out a little rough or had weird sharp or misshapen edges. I used scissors to clean all the edges up and round it all out.

Then I took all the letters outside to spray paint a sage green color. I found some leftover spray paint in the office from some Welcome signs.

I set up the letters against a tree one at a time (down wind after the first try) and sprayed them green.

Now, I started off with what was leftover in the cabinet. But after 7 letters and two coats each, that can was totally empty. So at Lowe's, I picked up this stuff-

It's really made for things like outdoor furniture, but it cost the same as the Krylon and worked soooo much better. With one can, I finished all of the rest of the letters with one coat. It covered all my outlines which I missed and was actually more the color I wanted. But it did take a little longer to dry. Even when I hung the letters, it was still a little sticky.

I hung each letter with an adhesive foam poster hanger, easily removable but strong enough to hold way more than a piece of cardboard.

So for not using a level and pretty much freehanding everything, I'm pretty pleased. I really like the whole imperfect look :)

Stay tuned for more budget decorating ideas!

How to Decorate a Youth Room with No Money, Part One: DIY Bulletin Board

Since Oak Meadow Baptist Church has opened the doors to our brand new building on October 31st, the youth room has remained sadly plain due to 1) my balance of role of youth minister and full time student and 2) the lack of decorations in our previous 12' by 12' room in the portable building.

We had a small bulletin board in the room in the portable but because it would look silly in our new giant space it is now adorning my office. So I began looking for a giant board for our youth room. Buuuuut if you've ever bought a bulletin board, a regular 2' by 3' bulletin is around $30. And I

was looking for something at least 6'. Then I found this post

http://grshortstop.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-make-large-custom-bulletin-board.html and decided to make a couple boards for our room.

So first, these are the supplies you'll need to make your own:

An 8'x4' foam core insulation board- about $10 at any home improvement store

3 yards of fabric in a fun print

Duct tape and a utility blade or X-Acto knife.

Start by measuring the width of your fabric. If you need to trim the insulation board, the utility blade should make it super simple. I just kind of freehanded it because I didn't want to walk back downstairs for my measuring tape.

Then, spread the fabric out and place the board on top, face down.

Use the duct tape to tightly secure the fabric around the board, starting with the corners.

This is easiest with two people to secure the fabric really tightly, but if you're working alone like I was, you can pull sections at a time and use small pieces of tape before covering the entire outline with tape.

When taping corners, it's a lot like wrapping a gift. Don't worry about how the tape looks because no one will see the back!

Then it's done! To mount it on the wall, I used adhesive poster hangers because the board is very light and I didn't have a drill on hand to use anyway. If you do this, just be sure and space several evenly along the back and press firmly onto the wall.

Add photos, fliers, or banners and tada! Done!

This project not only makes a great bulletin board but could be used as a cool headboard or a decorative art piece. Happy crafting!

Red Velvet Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

So, today was David's 22nd birthday and in honor, I made one of his favorites- red velvet cake! It was my first time to make it so I thought I'd chronicle it for anyone else a little nervous to attempt it. I based it around the recipe from www.joyofbaking.com. You will need the following ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons liquid red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 1 - 8 ounce (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 - 8 ounce (227 grams) tub of Mascarpone cheese, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9" round pans. (If you want to place parchment paper in the bottom of the pans, you can, but I didn't have any so I didn't.)

In one bowl mix together the flour, salt and cocoa and set aside.

In another bowl, beat the butter until its soft.

Add the sugar and beat it until it's light and fluffy.

Add each of the eggs one at a time and beat until smooth.

Then, add the vanilla and make sure to scrape down everything on the sides of the bowl so it's all combined!

In a measuring cup, whisk together the red food coloring and buttermilk.

Add the flour mixture and the milk alternately, starting and ending with flour.

In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda and vinegar. Let it fizz and then quickly fold it into the batter.

Quickly divide the batter between the two pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While that's baking, you can start on the frosting. I really like this frosting because it has a light texture and still really good cream cheese flavor. The recipe made the perfect amount to cover the entire cake.

Beat together the cream cheese and mascarpone cheese.

Then add the vanilla and powdered sugar.

Gradually add the whipping cream and beat until it's thick enough to spread. If you have a whisk attachment, you can use it but I don't and it turned out fine. When adding the cream, it will be pretty runny at first but will thicken!

After the cake it baked, let it cool completely. Don't be impatient like me and take it out of the pan too early. If you do, this will happen :/ Yes, one side totally tore. But thankfully, under all the frosting you can't tell and it tastes just as good!

Cover one layer with frosting. Place the other layer on it upside down to get a nice flat surface.

Then pile frosting on top and spread evenly with an angled spatula.

When it's all done, garnish with coconut or chocolate curls! I grated white and milk chocolate to finish!

Aaaaand done!