They call me Nolte

At my new desk in my new classroom!

The desks are arranged, my class roster is set and slowly but surely I am pulling materials and creating a classroom schedule.   Ready or not, the kids are coming in less than a week!

a weekend overview in pictures!

I spent last week in my new classroom organizing books, digging materials out of boxes and planning for the new year.  That also meant that I was able to return to one of my favorite routines: packing lunch!

I went to the MN State Fair with my friend Shannon.  We ate some really delicious food.

My friend April got baptized.

And my friend Cris got baptized too!  These are the women I'm in Bible study with at my new church, they take pretty good care of me!

a new year

My planner is out, my heart is open.  A new school year is approaching. 

This year I am praying for

• good working relationships with my support staff
• the wisdom to establish clear classroom routines with my students 
• love to enforce the classroom routines 
• energy to learn all that I need to in order to teach these new precious kiddos 
• creative and accessible lessons - regardless of how tired I am! 

It's still surreal to me that I get to call myself a teacher by trade.  Children have so much to offer to the world and my heart is ready to conquer the task of learning with them.   We all have a lot to learn together, I just pray that I can trust Jesus to equip me to do it each and every day.  

tis the season

 As stated in a previous post, summer seems to be a time when people willingly leave the comfort of their  homes in order to socialize with their neighbors, explore the freshness of walking trails a plenty. and of course make plans with friends without the fear of them being sabotaged by looming snow storms.   In order to capitalize on this universal willingness to socialize, I made plans to have one of my friends over for breakfast  the other day.   While some people shy away from committing to early morning plans, I think that  there is something energizing about waking up to a warm & sunny day knowing that I have proactively opened my life up to others.  The only problem with breakfast plans, is the small detail that I don't actually like breakfast.   No coffee, cereal, or yogurt for this girl.   I recognize breakfasts importance in the sense that I do actually need to "break the fast" at some point in time, but that doesn't mean that I'm on board with an early morning helping of cinnamon buns.   In order to not let my anti-breakfast preferences ruin a good opportunity to spend time with a friend, I had to come up with a game plan.   That plan had two parts: part 1: wake up early enough so that "breakfast" feels more like a mid-morning snack and less like actual breakfast.  Part 2: Coconut & banana flapjacks.   The recipe for these bad boys came all the way from Australia, believe it or not.

nutella lipstick

 Way back in 2006, when I wasn't too busy eating copious amounts of nutella or meeting kangaroos, I was spending my free time exploring the local cuisine around me.   I picked up a cookbook on one of my last days there as a gift for my boss at the time, but before handing it over I scored the recipe for the pancakes that have given me hope to someday becoming a breakfast lover after all. 

Coconut and banana flapjacks

2 eggs, separated

2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup coarse thread coconut, lightly toasted

1 ripe banana, peeled and mashed

Beat egg yolks (reserve whites), milk, sugar and vanilla.  Combine flour, baking powder and salt, Add to egg mixture and beat until smooth.  Mix in the coconut and banana.  Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes or up to 3 hours in the fridge. 

Whisk egg whites to soft peaks and gently fold into mixture. 

Heat a frypan.  Spoon ladlefuls of batter into pan and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes.  Flip flapjacks to cook other side once the bubbles that form on the top start to pop. 

Pizza & a Movie

It's amazing how much our childhood can shape the things we truly love, isn't it?  Because my mom loves Anne of Green Gables, I also love Anne of Green Gables.  Because my dad loves the water, I also love the water.  Because my mom loves to thrift shop and garage sale, I also love to thrift shop and garage sale.   Because my dad loves stove top popcorn, I also love stove top popcorn.  I guess that's a huge reason why I can be incredibly thankful that I was brought up in a loving family!  

Another thing that I grew up with was homemade pizza.  Yes, this is delicious as it sounds!  My mom use to make pizza from scratch, including hand-crafting the dough. whipping together her own sauce as well as chopping all of the ingredients.  After a labor-intensive afternoon for her, my siblings and I were invited into the kitchen to pick what we wanted on our pizzas.   Once our pizzas were assembled and in the oven, we would usually gather in the living room for family movie night.  

When I started working last year I was bound and determined to take this family tradition and create a new version of it with my friends.  That idea quickly fell by the wayside when I faced the reality of how exhausted I was by the end of a work week.  While I don't anticipate being any less tired when I wrap up the school week this time around,  I do have a better game plan in place to keep pizza night more of a possibility then it was last year.  That's right, I have made my very own frozen pizzas!  I called up a friend, shared my idea with her and we spent a long afternoon kneading dough, mixing sauce, chopping ingredients and assembling our very own frozen pizzas.  It was fun and will hopefully encourage me to invite friends over for some Friday fun even when I'm tired.  Who says homemade pizza has to be fresh, anyway?!    

Fresh air & Fried Rice

Psalm 138:8a - The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever. 
Truth has a way of taking anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and insecurity and putting them to rest.  Tonight, Psalm 138:8a has supernaturally calmed my heart and stilled my thoughts.  

I believe that it is always Gods desire to communicate truth to us, but I never cease to be amazed at how alive Scripture is, especially when I come to it with a heavy heart.  Tonight my heart was heavy for a lot of reasons, mostly triggered by the upcoming school year.   This heaviness isn't sadness, instead, it a deeply rooted ache that is the result of how much I miss my students and how significantly my heart yearns for reciprocal and healthy community.   After dissecting why I felt this way, I had no ability to dismiss these feelings on my own.  Yet, because of Christ, I am able to claim Psalm 138:8a - the LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; His love endures forever.

So, other than missing my students and longing for reciprocal and healthy community, what have I been up to?  I'm so glad you asked:

In light of the upcoming transition from summer vacation to a new school year, I have been enjoying life at a slower pace, filled with things like walks to the library, extra time at the gym, uninterrupted morning devotions and of course, plenty of time to cook!  There are two things from that list that I would like to pay special attention to, because they have brought an unexpected amount of satisfaction to my days.  The first notable activity is walking to the library.  Sometimes I get really nervous about taking long walks by myself, especially if I haven't fully decided where I am going, so in order to still take advantage of this walking weather and ditch the nervousness, I needed to have a final destination in mind.   Without missing a beat, one day I decided that the library was the perfect final destination, so off I went.   The adventure is not complete without picking up or dropping off a book which means I have the added incentive of checking an errand off my to-do list without my car keys in hand.  I think one reason that I have been especially blessed by this very insignificant task is because it reminds me of all of the hours I spent running last summer in anticipation of my first half-marathon.   I can't help but walk and think about how truly faithful God has been to me, and how graciously He has walked with me as I have worked through a lot of the hurt I was carrying from grad school only one short year ago.   Plus, who doesn't love breathing in the warm sweetness of summer air?

The second thing that is noteworthy, is of course, cooking!  Unlike most normal people in the summertime, I think I have turned my oven on everyday for some reason or another just because I won't have the kind of time to cook at my leisure once the temperature encourages oven-use once more.   As a result, I have been sweating profusely but making great food like chicken enchiladas, poppy seed bread and cinnamon buns from scratch.   One meal that thankfully utilized my stove-top, instead of my oven was Chicken Fried Rice.   Yum!   
This is now the second successful recipe I have prepared using The Everything Freezer Meals Cookbook  by Candace Anderson and I couldn't be more excited about having this rice in the freezer, where it is patiently waiting to become my lunch in the fall.   So, if you are in the mood for some simple, at-home Asian cuisine, you've gotta try this:  

Chicken Fried Rice 

2 cups rice

4 cups chicken broth

1 shallot, chopped 

1/4 teaspoon ginger 

3 tablespoons vegetable oil 

2 eggs, beaten 

1 cup chicken, cooked

1/2 cup frozen peas 

1/4-1/2 oyster sauce, to taste

1/3 cup soy sauce, or to taste 

Sesame oil, to taste (used on reheating day) 

Freezing day: In a large saucepan, bring rice and chicken broth to a boil over medium heat.  Turn the heat down to low and cover the pan.  Cook for 20 minutes.  Put rice in refrigerator until it is cold.  In skillet (or wok), saute shallot with ginger in vegetable oil for 6-8 minutes.  Add eggs and stir until scrambled, about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Stir in rice, chicken, peas, oyster sauce and soy sauce.  Cool.  Freeze in freezer bag.  

Reheating instructions: Defrost in the refrigerator overnight and heat in skillet over medium heat for 15-20 minutes until it reaches desired temperature.  Toss with sesame oil. 

frugal

It's no secret that I love to cook, so it also shouldn't be a surprise that it order to do all my experimental cooking, I spend a lot of money on groceries every month.   For a while, I justified my purchases by rationalizing that there are far worse things to spend my money on, and as far as hobbies go, at least this one helped meet a need as well as offer a creative outlet.   So, really there is no issue with this not-so-little expense of mine, right?   Um. . .not exactly.   You see, the groceries I purchase are dictated 100% by the recipes I want to cook in a given week, not by sales or even need.   It was a harsh reality to accept, but I consider purchasing groceries on a want basis, not a need basis the same as being an impulse shopper.   I want to spend my money responsibly because I earn it responsibly.  Sounds logical enough, right?  But how do I gauge responsible shopping?  To start: be smarter (and more practical) about the groceries I buy and consume.  

Um - not super excited about all of the work involved in spending less money on my groceries. . .

In theory, this is a great starting point, but then again, I had to ask myself "how am I going to learn to spend less then I was previously when I felt like I was already pretty reasonable about what I was willing to spend?" I talked to a few friends about it and they all agreed that they felt like they too should be spending less money on their groceries but weren't sure how to accomplish that goal.   So - in true Erica fashion, I turned to the library for some answers and here's what I found:

How to Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half

How to Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half by Steve and Annette Economides.   What I learned?  My mom totally could have written this book.   Also, my greatest take-away was to know my "buy price", meaning, many grocery stores sell the same/similar items but most of the time they are priced a little differently.  So, to know your "buy price" you need to know where you can purchase the item you want for the best price.  That price becomes your "buy price" and any time that item is at or below your buy price you can purchase it, but if it's above, you can't.   Steve and Annette recommend going to the store you do most of your shopping at and creating an inventory of prices for yourself so that when items go on sale, you are able to quickly identify the sale for its true value.   This book is a goldmine of tips, tricks and frugal principles that support responsible spending habits, but I think for me, the one thing I need to do the most is learn my prices so that I will recognize the good (and not so good) prices when I shop.   There isn't a person out there who doesn't love a good deal on clothing, so why wouldn't we also strive to grocery shop the same way?  As any good retail shopper knows, hunting for deals doesn't compromise the quality of your purchase, it simply gives you freedom to buy more for less. 

restored.

As each day of this year has unfolded, it has brought with it newness and redemption that only Jesus can provide.   When I started the school year I told the Lord that I was done with my life being characterized by stress.
I strongly believe that stress comes in many packages and is in most cases, is an inevitable part of this life.  However, I don't know about you, but for me stress robs my ability to see how powerfully present the Lord is in my dad to day life and therefore shifts my faith and focus from the Lord onto myself.   Nothing about stress feels good or prompts good decision making, but I had no idea how I was actually going to combat the many stress-filled realities in my life and actively choose Jesus over the bondage of stress.  I remember saying to the Lord, "I know that my good intentions to not let stress ambush my life and compromise my faith are not enough to actually live in a way that honors You. . .so I'm asking you to help me find positive ways to manage my stress." 
I have no idea how to articulate how graciously God continues to answer that prayer in my life, other than to say that every time I take the time to surrender my stress through activities like lap swimming, my heart is transformed and my ability to experience the Lord is restored.   It feels really good to be able to take a deep breath and feel my heart swell with gratitude at the graciousness of the Lord.   There is no one like you, God!  

reuniting

There is something about summer that enables people to come out of hyphenation, clear their social calendars of unnecessary obligations and reconnect with their friends.  Reuniting with friends is a pretty fantastic way to enjoy a warm summer evening if I do say so myself.  The crew pictured above are the fantastic women that endured two years of grueling graduate school with me.   We sat through hours of class together, studied in each others company and ate a lot of snacks.   It was really special to coordinate a special night out simply for the purpose of enjoying each others company without highlighters and research articles in hand.   We were able to catch up on what everyone's been up to now that our paper-writing and lecture listening days are behind us.