January's halfway over, can you believe it?

In our house, that means there are 2 birthdays coming up.

Cameron turns 39. My mama is coming to town to hang out with the kids so that he and I can go out for dinner. Besides that, there are a couple of gift ideas I have for him. I need to get a move on it!

Annabelle is almost 7. It goes by faster with the second kid and even faster now with the third. The last few years, I've made a special cake for the kids' birthdays. They tell me their dream cake, and I do my best to create it. Annabelle has told me a few things: it should be both chocolate and vanilla; it should be pink; and there should be a small version of both her AND Alexander on the top. I made a mini Annabelle last year, then Alexander wanted that for his birthday too, and now she wants that again. Maybe by the time they go off to college, I'll be a pro at fondant people.

Anyway, enough about my personal life. Here are some fun things you might enjoy:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have started making an occasional small batch of cookies. I don't follow a recipe, but I want to share how I make them.

1. Beat together 1/2 stick of butter with 1/2 cup of brown sugar. You can do it by hand or with a fork or, of course, a mixer.
2. Add a drop of vanilla and then 1 egg.
3. Then add in a sprinkle of baking powder, a pinch of salt, 1 tsp of cornstarch!, and about 1 cup of flour. NOTE: However much brown sugar I used, I use about double that amount of flour.
4. Mix mix mix then add in your chocolate chips or whatever you like.
5. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes. They're soft inside still, which is how I like them. :)

Homemade Pizza

Did you ever have that Chef Boyardee Pizza Kit as a kid? My mama used to get it, and I loved it. Once I got older, I wanted to try making it at home, no kit. I found a recipe for a copycat version of the crust, but that blog doesn't exist anymore! So here's the recipe I use now, roughly based on that now-non-existent blog.

1. In a bowl, add 2/3 cup of warm water, 1 tsp of sugar, and 1 tbsp active yeast (or 1 packet is fine). Stir that then let it get foamy.*
2. Add 1 tbsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1 1/3 cup of flour. It's a fairly loose dough, not like a soft bread dough.
3. Let it rest/rise for 20-30 minutes if you have the time.
4. Grease a baking sheet with a little olive oil (or you can sprinkle flour instead! I've done it both ways!). Spread the dough with your greased (or floured!) fingers until it spreads and covers the pan.
5. Add all your toppings.
6. Bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes.

*If your yeast doesn't get foamy, there are a few things to do. Keep it in the fridge from now on. Try again with warmer or cooler water. If you've got a meat or candy thermometer, you're aiming for 110-115F. If you do not have one, you can feel it with your finger. It should be like bath water; if it's too hot to keep your finger in it for more than a couple seconds, it's too hot. If it's more lukewarm than warm, add some more hot water. After a while, it becomes easy to tell! One more thing? It could be that the room is not warm enough! Wait a little longer, cover the bowl, stick the bowl in a warm place - try changing the environment too! And if none of that works, it could just be that your yeast has gone bad.

Gee-tar

I've been practicing guitar!

Cameron got himself a guitar around Christmas, but I'm the one who has been playing it. I started by figuring out some main chords, and now I look up songs that I like and try to play them. So many songs have chords that are too hard for me. I find songs that use the main ones I know: C, G, D, Em, Am, F, and a few others - I know 'em when I see 'em.

There's an app called Tabs that has chords for tons of songs. It's also got a section called Shots where you can upload a video of yourself playing an instrument and/or singing, and people can scroll through as if it's Reels or TikTok! You can get feedback and followers if you'd like. I'm just trying to improve; hopefully that feedback will be helpful to me. Hey you never know, maybe I'll become a breakout music star in my 40s 😄

Here Are 5 Random Things I Like That You Might Too

For what it's worth, these are not sponsored or paid ads or anything. They are things I like and want to tell you about! (If a link goes to Amazon, it's an affiliate link!)

1. ​Liquid IV - I kept hearing about this on a few podcasts I enjoy. It's a powder you mix into water. It's delicious and has vitamins in it. It helps me drink more water than I normally would! They call themselves a hydration multiplier, like, it's supposed to hydrate you faster than water alone. I'm not sure how that works; I just know that I love the taste, and I drink more water with it. :) FWIW the only flavor I have not liked is Guava. Everything else I've tried has been good!
2. ​40 Days Through the Bible - It's a devotional book I've been doing. I like the format a lot! Sometimes, devotional books are 1 verse and then a ton of commentary. I like that this one has more Bible reading, as well as questions to answer.
3. ​Spelling Bee - It's a game through the NY Times. I have the NY Times Crossword Puzzle app that has crossword puzzles, Wordle, and Spelling Bee. Lately I've been really into all 3!
4. ​Dan Hentschel - He's a TikTok creator. His videos are "life hacks" but they are just ridiculous. But at the same time, some of them are sort of clever. They always crack us up.
5. ​Blazers - Okay that link is the one I'm pretty sure I have. Except I got it for $25 at TJ Maxx! I also got a brown Banana Republic one from Goodwill for $3.50. But I think they just look so cool. Speaking of looking cool, I think Natalie Borton on IG is the coolest when it comes to style!

Nashville 2.0?

In October, Cameron was asked to speak at a conference in Nashville. He was going to go alone, but last minute, we all decided to go with him. It was 8-9 hours driving, but we stayed 8 days. The first few days, I was going with the kids to different places while he was at the conference. Then there were a few days when we got to do some things together. Anyway, we LOVED it. Nashville did not disappoint; and honestly there was so much we did not get to do.

At one point, a man on a party bus saw me wearing Charlie in the ring sling and loudly said, "Who brings a baby to Nashville!?" Thing is, Nashville has been family friendly for much longer than it's been a party town (it isn't a party town now, but you can find that vibe if you're looking for it!). The party buses (and tractors and barges...) are a new addition. And most of the city is really great for kids.

In the next month, there's another conference in Nashville that Cameron wants to attend. So who knows, we may be going back to Nashville pretty soon! If I remember, I'll put together my list of suggestions: what we did, what we planned to do but didn't, and what other people suggested to me.

Netflix and Hulu and the rest of 'em

I recently decided to take a stand on one little thing. It isn't big at all, but it will help me make certain viewing decisions.

There are literally thousands of excellent movies that are currently streaming on all the platforms.
There are thousands of excellent TV shows streaming.

We've got most of the streaming services you can get, so there's no shortage of options when it comes to what to watch.

I've decided that, unless something is excellent, I'm not going to finish watching it. I'm not going to waste my time watching something mediocre when there are so so many great options out there!

Peacock is probably my favorite these days. It's got The Office, which is what we turn on if we just want something familiar. It's got Dateline, which is what I like to watch every Saturday when they drop a new episode. And it's got a ton of movies too.

Here are a few things we've enjoyed recently on Netflix:

• The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker (True crime documentary)
• Kaleidoscope (Series)
• The Volcano (Documentary)
• Wednesday (Series)
• 1899 (Series - didn't care for the last 5 minutes though!!)

Unfortunately, Hulu and Peacock and the others do not have a "recently watched" or "viewing history" section, at least nothing I could find!

Georgia Gilmore

This week we learned about Martin Luther King Jr.

One story we read (watched, actually) was Pies From Nowhere. It is the story of Georgia Gilmore. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, she started cooking for people and selling her food. She used those profits to help the cause; she raised enough money to buy one of the station wagons that black people (who were not riding the buses) were able to use to get where they needed to go.

I thought that was a really powerful story. She was a cook, a baker, and she used that to help an important cause!

More Frequent Newsletters

I think I'd like to start sending these out some more! I stopped for a while, but I think I'll pick them back up again.

If there's something specific you'd like me to include in these, do let me know. I've got a hundred things I could include, but a lot of it I'm already posting to Instagram stories. That overlap doesn't seem like a good use of newsletter space, but I am not the reader/viewer. So please let me know if you'd like to see something specific here or if it's fine how it is!

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