Simplicity by Sabrina

I am a big fan of bows. I have been for years and have made quite a collection. I used to have a big basket full of all of my bows (like I did when I was little), however, the bows I was collecting now were a lot smaller and harder to find in a big basket, especially when I would get ready fast in the mornings (I am one of those try to get ready in 20 minutes type of people).

So, I decided to clip them along the fabric insert in the basket that I had. I soon realized that this would only work for the bows I wore most often because I had too many bows for that to work for all of them. I kept thinking and tried to find things online to help inspire me, but I only found organization for headbands for little girls. I know that basically all adult women do not wear bows anymore (I don't know when it is normal to stop wearing bows because I have for basically all of my life), so I realized that I would have to come up with the idea on my own.


While in Hobby Lobby one day, I found a beautiful white frame and I had the perfect idea! So that day I bought it, along with white ribbon, and went home to make my creation.

Here's how to do it:

Materials:

11" x 14" Frame (I chose white, but there are so many options! Mine is similar to this)

Grosgrain ribbon (at least 7/8" wide, but it can be wider, depending on the size of your bows)

Glue gun

Scissors


How to:

1.  Figure out how many rows of bows you want to have. I did 5, but it really depends on how many bows you have and want to store. Mine stores 6 big bows along the bottom and close to 40 medium and small bows on the upper rows. As you can see, they are squished, so you may want 5 rows and spread out the bows among the rows so it is not so overwhelming.


2. Measure out where you want your rows of ribbon to be glued. I actually did not do this part. I totally eyeballed it, but you can tell. I did leave the bottom row higher and closer together to the other rows so that it was easier to store the bigger bows, so that is definitely something to think about!

3. Hot glue one side and stretch the ribbon as taut and you can straight across and glue to the other side. Repeat for as many rows as you want. Tip: I didn't hot glue an end, because I thought it would mean that I would get burned, so I left a tail on both ends and trimmed it after.


4. Let glue dry and trim the ribbon edges to desired length. Clip on those bows and hang in a convenient place! Enjoy the easiness of finding a bow quickly and storing it at the end of the day.



How do you organize your accessories? I am still looking for a good way to organize my jewelry!

Some may not know that The Giver by Lois Lowry, written in 1993 and made into a motion picture in 2014, is actually the first book in a series. I didn't know until two years ago when I decided to reread the book from our bookshelf and Travis mentioned that there were more books in the series. Since then, we have collected all four books and I recently finished the last book called Son.

This will mostly be a review of the last book, but in order to properly review it I will allude to the other three books. There may be a few SPOILERS just to give you fair warning, but if you want to know what I think of the book and the series in general in a gist, just scroll down to the end.

While The Giver follows the story of Jonah who becomes The Receiver and how he eventually escapes the dystopian community he was brought up in with a baby Gabriel, who was going to be put to death because he did not meet the standards of perfection of the community, the story of Son is the culminating story where we learn about the mother of Gabriel.

Plot Summary: 

BEFORE

Her name is Claire and she was designated to be a Birth Mother, which was not a sought after position in the community. While no one ever said it out loud, it was always implied that being a Birth Mother had no prestige, honor, or intellectualism to it. When Claire is 14, she is deemed ready to be have a baby and is impregnated. She soon delivers her baby, but in a strange and scarring way.

They blindfold her during the process of labor and tie her hands to a bed so that she cannot move freely. She is in labor for awhile before they realize something is wrong with her, so they drug her and give her a C-section without telling her ANYTHING that is happening. She wakes up with a huge scar on her belly and never gets to see her baby. Soon after she recovers she is reassigned to work in the fish hatchery instead of having more children (typically each Birth Mother has 3 children and then is reassigned). She is confused and feels shame for wondering what she did wrong that her birth did not go well. Instead of getting answers from the Elders, she finds out the number her child was assigned and that he still lives.

After being at the fish hatchery for awhile, Claire decides to visit the newchildren wing in the childcare center in the community. Her baby (number 36) was there and Claire visited often and got to know him. She felt this bond with him that she could not explain and often dreamed of having him with her. Claire was confused by these dreams and desires because no one else seemed to feel them. You eventually learn that she was not taking "pills" that the rest of the community was taking that help mask emotions and desires.

Claire learns that her baby was not thriving because he was labeled as "difficult" and would not sleep through the night and had a hard time adjusting. He was going to be released to elsewhere (another term for being killed). On the other side, Jonas (from The Giver), had gotten to know the baby and knew his name (Gabriel). He realized what was going to happen to Gabe and decided to take him and run away. He does so and Claire tries to run after him when she realizes Gabe is gone with Jonas, but ends up running onto a supply boat, gets lost in a storm and washes up onto a beach into a completely different culture.

BETWEEN

She suffers from shock and amnesia for awhile, but stays with a kind woman in a hut named Alys. Slowly memories come back to her while she gets to know the people on the island and has experiences (she sees a birth, holds a baby, etc.) Word spreads that Claire had a baby but no husband, which was looked down on by the people of that culture. Claire does not care and realizes that her purpose in life is to try to find her son again, no matter the cost. She does not want to go back by water, but instead decides to climb a mountain and travel out that way.

She befriends the only person that has attempted to climb the mountain, a boy named Einar that lives at the bottom of the mountain as a shepherd. He attempted to climb the mountain before, but became lame and lost a foot on his travels. It is not revealed how this happened at first, but everyone assumes he fell. Claire is determined to not have this happen to her. She trains for years to make sure she is strong enough. Finally when she is ready, Einar reveals the way in which he lost his foot: at the top of the mountain a man approached him and offered to help him. Einar was stubborn and decided to reject his help. The man pulled out an ax and chopped off his foot, so Einar warns Claire to accept help from the man.

Claire makes the climb and encounters the man at the top. He offers to help her find her son at a steep price: Claire's youth. Claire agrees, remembering Einar's warning.

BEYOND

Claire is transported where Gabe is, but she is an old woman now and feels she cannot tell Gabe who she really is because it would be a burden to him. Gabe is a sprightly young man by now but he is confused about where he comes from and seeks for a family. Jonas is in the same village as Gabe and has his own family (he married Kira from the second book and has two children, one of whom is named Matthew after the hero of the third book), but Jonas watches out for Gabe.

Eventually Claire reveals her story to Jonas, who tells Gabe when Claire is on her deathbed. Jonas tells Gabe that he has to defeat the evil man who took Claire's youth from her. Gabe sets out to do so and finds him close by on the other side of the river from his village. He uses a special gift he has to realize that the man was no man at all but the embodiment of evil. He defeats evil by speaking of hope and happiness, which sucks the life out of evil and he kills himself.

Gabe returns to find that he has broken the spell and Claire is restored to her youthful self.

What I thought: 

I really liked some elements from this book and it was especially poignant to me as I have recently become a mother. Going through a labor like Claire's would have been frightening because she was not told anything and could not see or experience anything. It would be like experiencing all of the scary, weird parts of labor and not enjoying the best part: the baby!

I could also identify with the strong feelings Claire had for Gabe in the beginning. She was alone and could not understand the bond of mother and child, but it is a very deep, biological bond that is hard to explain unless experienced. I thought Lowry did a great job explaining how important these feelings were to Claire.

The book is divided into the three parts: Before, Between, and Beyond. I liked the Before part (what is mentioned above), however the Between part takes a sharp turn in the plot. I like the characters and that it is juxtaposition of two very different cultures and experiences. Claire learns about things like colors, animals, music, and plants. In a way she is still a child in a lot of experiences.

Probably my favorite part of the book is when she decides to look for her son and starts training to climb the mountain. The book talks in detail about the exercises that Claire does to get strong and prepare herself. I particularly enjoyed this part because it is what I am trying to do in my life as well. My motivation for working out and being healthy is my daughter. I want to be strong so that I can lift her in whatever way she needs (she is over 20 lbs, so I have my work cut out for me!), play with her, and just be a good, healthy mother. So I think of her when I lift weights or go running and it helps me try to take care of my body in a better way. Claire does the same thing in the story and it made me think how all parents make sacrifices and try to be motivated for their kids.

The Beyond chapters are interesting because they involve the man who took Claire's youth from her. It also builds up to the climax of Gabe finding out that Claire is his mother. The end where Gabe has to defeat the evil man I thought was a great build up to a rather lame way of defeat. Also, there is no resolution at the end of the story with Claire and Gabe, Claire and Einar (who she proclaimed her love for earlier in the book), or even between Jonas and Claire. I thought there would be more resolution at the end of the series, but we are left hanging on some points, which I did not like as much. Overall, it was a good book and I would recommend the series (although book 2 and book 3 are not as interesting and not quite as necessary to read), however there were some parts that were left to imagination that I wish would have been addressed. I mean, if you have to read four books in order to get to an ending, I feel like there should be a pretty darn good ending! But that is just my personal opinion.

In short, here is the breakdown of Son:

Genre: Dystopian Young Adult Fiction
Number of pages: 393
Reading endurance: You need to read three other books before this one, all of comparable length. Medium reading endurance required.
Good Moral: Yes! It shows the importance of family, relationships, and choosing things for yourself.
Favorite Quote: "If she had not made the trade that had brought her here she would perhaps be back with Einar now, helping him tend his lambs, cooking a stew they would share in their hillside hut, talking together by the fire in the evenings. But she would not have found her son. She would never have seen Gabe again, would not have watched him grow into the lively young man he had become. She knew it was a trade she would make again, given the chance" (pg. 306)
Recommend? Yes

 Around Christmas time when people decorate their trees, some choose to put an angel on top, some put a star, but for some of my life my family has decided to put a bow on the top. I always thought it was cute and I liked the idea, but Travis said that at Christmas a star is what belongs at the top of the tree. I remember sighing and saying that he was probably right, but I like bows SO much.


But now that we have a year round tree, I can put a bow on top of it during the year and still have a star on it during December. I love seeing the daisies and roses popping out of the tree. It makes me think that spring is not too far away.


Happy Valentine's Day!

This year we decided to celebrate by going to our favorite used bookstore in town called Haunted Bookshop. Every time we go there I feel like I could spend a long time there! And I don't think we have ever left empty-handed.


 Here are our spoils for the day:


J is for JumpShot is for Juliet because A Basketball Alphabet is clearly what she needs :) (Travis found it and I thought it was perfect.)

The Agatha Christie novel is for me because it has been a LONG time since I read a murder mystery and this one looked good because it is about a couple who is really into solving crimes and maybe gets in over their heads solving one.

The Jewish Stories was Travis's pick. I admit I was not as excited about this one, but I flipped through a couple of stories and I think it will be cute to read as a family when we celebrate Passover (Yes, we celebrate Passover and yes, I know we are not Jewish, but maybe I will blog about it one day and tell you why we do it!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

And Happy Reading!

As part of our continuous Valentine's Day date, Travis planned the activity that we would do this year while I planned the dinner. We got to go out last night for dinner, which was great! We stayed out late and had fun together.

When I woke up this morning, this is what I saw...


Normally some wives might be mad at seeing the mess, but I was so happy because I knew what it meant--homemade bread!

Travis told me this week, "To you, the smell of bread is so romantic, so that is what I planned for our Valentine's Day date activity." My man knows me well. Haha.

Bread #1:
English muffins
He woke up early and made homemade English muffins and I have to say, they were PERFECT! They were on the griddle when I came into the kitchen, so I got to see him work his magic when he cooked them.



Travis and I were saying that when you see English muffins in the store, you assume that either a baking master or a machine made them and how can one even attempt to make them look as good at home? But, he definitely did it and they looked and tasted great. We made egg sandwiches and they were very good!


Bread #2:
Ciabatta bread
We have made this recipe before and it is mouth-watering good! Ciabatta bread is always a treat that I spring for when we have some extra grocery money, but since we have learned how to bake it, it is totally cheaper, but just more labor intensive. The starter has to be done the night before and it needs quite a bit of work to knead, but it is a great bread with a nice, oily taste.



Bread #3:
Homemade pizza
For lunch Travis planned on homemade pizza, but he pulled out all the stops. We tried a recipe with feta cheese, prosciutto, mozzarella cheese, sweet peppers, and parmesan. Travis also made the tomato sauce from scratch since we had some extra tomatoes, which was also a treat. Travis says it was the best pizza he has ever tasted. The crust turned out perfectly--not too crunchy and not too chewy.


Bread #4:
Homemade rolls
We have tried a few roll recipes and we have some favorites, but Travis decided to try one more for me and he did most of the work on this one since our baby girl needed some loving and attention this afternoon. It is a french roll that turned out crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. We had it as an after dinner snack (because Travis also made a good Jambalaya crock pot dinner). He bought a Fontina cheese to eat with it (we have become lovers of expensive cheese whenever we can get it!) and it tasted really delicious!


I didn't think that I would marry someone who loves to cook and bake this much, but he sure did surprise me this Valentine's Day with some amazing bread!

I can't wait for Valentine's Day so we can finish the third part to our date and one of my favorite Valentine's Day traditions for us! Stay tuned for my last Valentine's Day post :)

I have always told myself that if I ever posted a recipe on a blog that I would ALWAYS post the recipe first because who really wants to scroll through your life story before reading the recipe you posted? Has anyone else ever noticed that recipe blogs have WAY too much commentary before you actually get to the recipe? Well, I decided to change things up, at least on this blog.


I don't know if my mother always baked sugar cookies around Valentine's Day, but I have memories of multiple years of her doing it, so I am calling it a tradition. The part I loved the most about it was she would bake what seemed like a hundred heart-shaped sugar cookies, frost them all pink, and write all of our names on them so you knew that you had cookies just for you. I remember watching her get out the cookie decorating supplies and spell our names onto the cookies. I was always particularly impressed with her ability to fit my long name on cookies. As you can see from my frosting abilities, I do not have cookie decorating gear (maybe one day...), but I am here to say that sometimes simple is best!

Since my mom is known as "Grammie" in our house, I decided to call it Grammie's Sugar Cookies. Also, for some reason my mom has not posted this recipe on her blog, so I decided to do it here.



I especially love this recipe because it is easy! I usually half the recipe because it makes a TON of cookies. I made mostly big hearts and I still got 2-3 dozen out of making just half of the above recipe. I also love that this recipe does not require you to chill the dough. Most sugar cookie recipes say that the validity of the recipe depends on you chilling the dough for at least 2 hours, and in some cases 24. Sometimes we just don't have time for that when we want sugar cookies now! This recipe is perfect for that, but if you need to chill the dough then this recipe works just as well for that too. I also like the vanilla flavor of this recipe and sometimes I double just the vanilla part so I can taste it more.


Sugar cookie tips:

If you want thicker, softer cookies then do not roll the dough to a quarter of an inch and instead try a half an inch. Likewise, if you want thinner, crunchier cookies then roll it out thinner.

If you are using all cookie cutters that are around the same size (like you are using a snowman and a star that are about the same size) then use only one shape when you are cutting it out each time. It helps save on space so you don't have to roll it out so many times.

Put all of the same shape and size on a cookie sheet to cook. The cookies will cook more evenly.

Use parchment paper and light colored baking sheet. Parchment paper makes it easy to remove from cookie sheet and light colored baking sheets prevent burning.

Be vigilant when cooking sugar cookies! The first batch might need 10 minutes, but most likely the second will need less time, especially if they are thinner. The best time to pull them out is when you can BARELY start to see a little brown around the edges.

If you are wanting to do multiple layers of frosting, make sure the first one dries completely--it is better to even wait overnight--before adding the second layer. This also makes it easier if you mess up and you can just scrape off the wet frosting while the dry frosting stays!

You don't need fancy cookie decorating equipment to write words. I only used a ziploc sandwich bag filled with frosting. You can definitely tell, but I think it is still worth doing.



Happy Valentine's Day!

Love,

The Williams Family

This past week I was in charge of a luncheon for our church that was supposed to feed 70 missionaries. I had a lot of help in pulling it off and I am so grateful. But the person who probably helped me the most was my dear husband. He willingly made 10 lbs. of refried pinto beans that were delicious and he didn't even make a big deal about it! And then the morning of the luncheon he helped me make 9 lbs. of rice so that it could be fresh because who likes leftover rice?

It is times like these that I realize that I definitely married up in the world because who else would spend their day off of work to help cook for 70 other people just because your wife asked you to?

I only got to snap one picture the whole day because of the busyness of it, but I am grateful for the experience. (I mean, how else was I supposed to know that all of our burners actually can work at the same time? haha)

Travis said that it will give us practice to cook for our posterity when we are the grandpa and grandma of the family. So maybe our skills can be put to good use in another 50 to 60 years.

At the end of the day, especially the 10 lb. rice and bean kind of days, I am glad that I am in this life with someone who is pretty amazing. And we are in this thing together, rice and beans and all. And I couldn't imagine anything better. :)