MORE Simple Delicious Meals

Here we go with part 2 of the best simple delicious meals!
Key word: simple! I love making food, but I also love when the process isn't terribly complicated.
So enjoy these easy peasy meals!

Pancakes/French Toast
Time: < 30 mins     Difficulty: 1/10     Deliciousness: 10/10

I might be a bit biased here, on account of my deep love for breakfast food, but really pancakes and French toast are WHERE IT'S AT.
And of course, with the griddle from my Wedding Registry Must-Haves, it's soooo fast and easy!
Sorry, I know that sounded kind of like a commercial, but I just REALLY LOVE PANCAKES AND FRENCH TOAST OKAY?
And you can put anything you want on them!
Cream cheese, fruit, butter, honey, peanut butter, whatever!
(except my hubby - he can't have peanuts or his throat will be angry at him)

Bonus! You can (with lots of effort and some failures before this final result) make them in fun colors and shapes for holidays!



Pineapple BBQ Meatballs over Rice
Time: Several (inactive) hours     Difficulty: 1/10 (almost 0)     Deliciousness: 9/10

Y'all, this is sooooo easy. And SO good.
Step 1) Buy frozen meatballs, BBQ sauce, and a can of crushed pineapple
Step 2) Make rice in your rice cooker, dump the meatballs, pineapple, and sauce in the Crockpot, turn it on High
Step 3) Go about your day for 5 hours.
Step 4) ENJOY!

Roasted Corn Pasta Salad
Time: >1 hour     Difficulty: 4/10     Deliciousness: 7/10

This was so good! It's also pretty much a throw stuff together and eat it recipe.

This is also an awesome meal for leftovers later!

Get the full recipe here (we tweaked a few things just based on what we had).

Chicken Sweet Potato Asparagus Skillet

Time: <1 hour     Difficulty: 3/10     Deliciousness: 8/10

This one was so good and I felt good about it, because I mean, who could argue that this isn't a super healthy meal? And I just love how colorful it is! We threw in some leftover spinach we had and it worked great with it!

Get the full recipe here!

Crockpot Salsa Chicken Ranch Pasta

Time: Several (inactive) hours     Difficulty: 2/10     Deliciousness: 8/10

You know how I love my Crockpot recipes where I can just dump stuff in and be done. That was definitely this one. The only thing you have to do is cook the pasta in the last half hour or so of the chicken cooking. Easy! And soooo yummy!

Full recipe here!

I have even more, but I'm going to save them for a part three post!

Happy cooking!

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Author's Corner - Why There is a Lesbian in my Novel

Because they exist.

 I know this goes deeper than that, but it really kind of is that simple.

I know where the real shock from this statement comes from though.

I'm Mormon.

So don't I hate gays?

Absolutely not.

Nor do I believe being gay/lesbian/experiencing same-sex attraction is a choice.

I believe that, for whatever reason, God gives certain people that challenge, just like He gave me the challenge of depression. Of course, there is a unique struggle with being LDS and experiencing same-sex attraction that I won't pretend to understand.

But I do know this with absolute certainty:

It is entirely possibly to experience same-sex attraction and still be a worthy member of the church.

It is NOT possible to be/do anything that will pull you out of reach of God's love or Christ's power of redemption.

With this being said, I believe firmly in what God's prophets and apostles have said:

 "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose...God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife."

So yes, there is a female character in my novel who is attracted to another female.

Her name is Lillian.

But you might not even realize if I hadn't told you, or if you weren't in tune to that sort of thing.

And there is no instance of same-sex kissing, romance, or anything else along those lines.

I want my writing to be real.

I never want someone to read my books and feel like they can't relate.

So yes, I will have lesbians and/or gays in my books.

I will also firmly stick to the standards I know to be true.

I will have books that are wholesome, uplifting, and that can be read whilst still feeling the Spirit.

I will not write a book that encourages anything contrary to the commandments of God.

And I will stand by the doctrine of my church:

that God loves everyone, and that experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin.

If you have questions about my book, or about my beliefs, or about anything else, please ask!

And for you writers out there, I want you to write what you are comfortable writing, but I also want you to write the truth, which can be (and often is) outside of your comfort zone.

I want to be different.

I want to shine, not hide.

This is one way I am doing that.

Sweet Victory

I went to all three hours of church today.

That might not seem like something worthy of being called a "victory," but to me, it was.

I've struggled with attending church lately, and today was the first day in about two months that I successfully made it through all three hours. And I didn't even break down into tears.

It felt so wonderful to leave church, having been filled with the Spirit, having participated in gospel discussions, and having talked with and bonded with my sisters. I felt like I had truly won a glorious victory.

So I'm going to celebrate it as such.

Now, I might not perform an epic song at the Bubble Bowl, but I will find joy in myself today. I will praise myself for how far I've come, and I will enjoy the cookies I made (despite our oven's determination to burn our apartment down), and I will laugh and love with my family members, and I will thank my God for helping me reach this victory.

I'm willing to bet you have a victory to celebrate, too.

Maybe you finally made it through sacrament meeting without having to take a screaming child outside. Maybe you paid your tithing for the first time in a while. Maybe you called your mom like you've been meaning to for weeks, or maybe you set aside time for scripture study today, or maybe you finally got to your Bio 100 class on time last week.

No matter how small it may seem, those kinds of actions count as victories, in my eyes and in the Lord's.

Every moment you choose to try,

every righteous decision you make,

every step you take towards self-improvement

is a victory.

So celebrate it!

Charity is Like Pancakes

Do you see this beautiful work of creation?

How many of you have ever made pancakes that looked like this?

If you have, have you made them often?

Probably not.

This stack of perfect pancakes represents charity: 

the pure love of Christ.

Like perfect pancakes, perfect love often feels impossibly out of reach.

You're always going to slip the spatula, or not whisk the batter long enough, or leave the pancakes on one side for too long.

But you're trying.

And you learn something from every batch of pancakes you make.

I consider pancakes to be one area of cooking that I am good at, but when I first started making pancakes, it looked like this:

Seems crazy that I could mess up something so simple, but love may seem simple at first, too.

Be nice to people.

Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Forgive.

But when you get down to the details, charity is hard.

It's hard to love everyone all the time.
Not just hard. It's impossible.
At least while we're here in our mortal state.

Again, it comes down to doing the best you can.

Try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Try to put others first and yourself second.
Try to serve others with a willing heart.

If you're doing that, Christ can make up the rest.

So maybe your attempts at charity feel like this:

But maybe, that's okay.

Maybe your best is all that God asks of you.

I am Brave; I am Bruised

This is my face.

No, it's not my face after a big long cry. No, it's not my face after getting beaten up.

This is my face.

I've struggled with skin problems and eczema for at least a decade.

Most doctors said (back when I was 12 or so) that I would lose it as I got older, but it's continually gotten worse. Now that it's winter, I wish I could be frozen in gelatin or something and woken up later, although warm weather doesn't truly heal it.

My fingers crack and bleed. Same with the corners of my mouth.

I have bruises and scabs from when the itching is just too terrible to resist scratching.

I wake up in the middle of the night clawing at my skin, and I try to wear socks over my hands when I sleep so I don't do too much damage in the night. 

And I feel ugly and frustrated and quite literally uncomfortable in my own skin.

I'm not telling you this to pity me.

I'm telling you this because a) I know there are others out there who struggle with similar problems, and it is always easier to struggle with someone else than it is to struggle alone; and b) so that you know that I have not reached a place where I love my body perfectly all the time. Not even close.

But I am trying.

Today, I almost didn't go to class purely because I didn't want to be seen, or have someone else ask if I was okay or if I was having an allergic reaction to something.

Yes, it is entirely stupid and shallow to give up my own education for something like that, yet I was genuinely thinking about it.

But I'm here. I did it anyway.

So how did I get past that awful feeling that made me want to stay home?

In some ways, I didn't. My skin still burns and stings and I can't turn my head without my neck hurting, and I'm still angry and have a hard time looking at myself in the mirror.

But I thought about what my body really is.

My body is a gift.

It is capable of so many wonderful things.

It is a marvelous work of creation.

It is a symbol of my Heavenly Father's love for me.

My body may not be perfect, but it was made by One who is.

Tbh, I still wouldn't have made it out of the house without my own personal jam session with this anthem:

I am brave.

I'm putting my worst face forward, because I know there are more important things in life besides how I look.

I am bruised.

Literally and figuratively.

I am who I'm meant to be.

Just as God made me, even in this imperfect body.

This is me.

When Life Gets Too Hard to Stand, Stand Anyway

This is probably a variant you haven't heard before.

And no, I'm not saying that you shouldn't pray when things go wrong, because you absolutely should.

But you also shouldn't give up.

Have you ever had a dance teacher who, when your muscles were shaking so bad you thought you would collapse if you had to hold that extension any longer, said that the shaking muscles meant you were getting stronger? That if you held on a little longer each time, you would increase your strength and it would get easier?

Or do you hate plank as much as I do?

And all too soon you're shaking everywhere and you kind of feel like you're going to throw up, and somehow your arms and legs and abs hurt?

That's how it can feel when life gets tough.

Like you just can't stand it another minute.

Stand it anyway.

Find the strength to keep standing, to keep resisting the weight that's pulling you down.

Your spirit may be shaking.

Your heart might feel like you can't take it another minute.

But you are stronger than you know.

Show Satan (I hate that guy) that he's not going to get you down.

Turn to Christ and let Him take some of the weight off of you.

Allow your friends and family members to give you enough love and motivation that the weight becomes more bearable.

Feel that weight pushing you down, trying to get you to give in, to sit down, to call it quits,

and stand anyway.

Author's Corner - That's Garbage

Do you see this folder?

True to its name, it is full of writing that I have scrapped from my book, The Howl. 

All garbage.

All thrown away.

Want to see how full it is?

Pretty durn.

Wanna know why?

Because good writing takes work, time, and a willingness to write stuff that isn't that good in order to reach writing that is good.

It kind of sucks sometimes.

You write out a whole chapter, or two, and realize it's just not right.

There's one chapter I have written FIVE TIMES, and that doesn't count all of the minor changes I've made. Those are full on throwing it all out and starting over.

But ultimately, it's worth it.

It might take some digging through dirt to find diamonds, but there's glitter in there somewhere! So keep working, and keep throwing all that dirt away so that you can get to the good stuff underneath.