Provision

God's Provision is sometimes unexpected, and usually not the way we would have done things ourselves; but it is always the best option. Let's look at Abraham and when God told him he was going to have to sacrifice his only son, from Genesis 22...

So back in the day, Abraham and his wife Sarah had no children, and they were very sad. But let's fast forward to when God granted him and his wife with a child - Isaac - hooray! Then fast forward some more, and God says,

"Take you son,  your only son, whom you love - Isaac - and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you."

And you know what? Abraham doesn't even question it (at least not that we read in the Bible anyways), and just sets off on this journey up the mountain. So they walk up there, and Isaac notices there is no lamb, so he asks his father about it. And Abraham just replies simply, "God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son."

Then they get to the top, Abraham builds the alter, and then asks Isaac to lay down on top of the wood. (I am seriously just wondering about all the thoughts running around in Isaac's head at this time?!) Then right before Abraham is about to "slay his son," the angel of the Lord calls out urgently, "Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy."

And you know what? God provided a ram to sacrifice instead. And because Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his one and only son, God made a gigantic promise to him...

"I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore."

God may test us and lead us to incredibly difficult (and sometimes seemingly impossible) situations. But God's Provision will always show itself. Again, it may not be the way we want or expect or think we need, but it will be exactly as God plans it. He provides for us in so many ways; ways we don't even recognize or realize, and it truly is an amazing thing when we take a moment to reflect on that.

I want to make just a small list of some of the provision's God has blessed me with:

A paycheck - even if it's not a job I love

Rent-free living with great parents after graduation

Family who continually love and care for me

A church I love being at, with a youth group that makes me so happy

My sweet and loving boyfriend

This list could go on and on and on, but I wanted to keep it short...

Think about this today - what are just a few of the ways God has provided for you lately? Take time to thank Him for those things/people/situations, and then look for more provisions, because I'm sure there are some you're missing. 

Blogger friends, add your link below, and grab my button to link back to me. So glad to have you join me! :)

Pasta: Greek Style

Last night my Grandparents took my parents and I out to dinner. We went to a nice place up in Thomasville, Georgia, The Plaza Restaurant, and all had a lovely dinner together. All four of them got fried chicken meals for dinner, but I was trying to find a "healthier" option, so I went with pasta instead of fried food... does that count as "healthier?" Whatever, I don't care - because it was amazing.

I got Greek Spaghetti (one of the two chefs there is actually Greek, so there are a good number of great Greek options on the menu) and I loved it. I definitely want to try to recreate it myself sometime. Although I will probably use bow tie noodles instead, because I just prefer "short" pasta's, rather than "long" ones... Anyways, it was just chicken, tomatoes, kalamata olives and feta cheese, tossed into the noodles with garlic and oil, and sprinkled with fresh herbs. Yummmmm. (But I didn't eat that bread, because it was not actually yummy at all...)

Romantic candlelight dinner - with my parents and grandparents... ;)

Dinner was yummy, but it was a good thing Jeff wasn't with us, because my breath was kickin' after that meal. Oh well, it was worth it to eat such deliciousness.

And I'm keeping this short today, and redirecting you guys over to my new friend Hallie's blog, because I'm guest posting for her today! Remember those pumpkin cupcakes I made a couple of weeks ago? Well I shared the recipe on her blog today, so go check it out! Click HERE to go visit my post on Hallie's blog :)

And here's a silly picture of myself from the car ride last night, just to entertain you guys a bit... ;)

Happy Hump Day! :)

Plateful of Yummy

Guys, I'm on a roll lately with recipes and cooking and what-not. Like for real, and I've been loving it! Last night Jeff's Mama was a bit under the weather, and so I volunteered to go over and cook for their family. I made a delicious meal, in fact a Plateful of Yummy, and so I of course wanted to share it with you lovely people!

SIDE NOTE: There are now 50 of you lovely people! I remember just a few months back in the spring-time, I had only like 12 followers, and now I have 50! What an amazing surprise and excitement and blessing! So glad to have you here, now feel free to share my blog with another friend as well ;) And thank you to those first 12 that have been faithful the whole time! (Which is mostly my family and closest friends, so definitely Thank You to y'all.)

Back to business now though...I haven't yet come up with an official name for this recipe, but maybe by the end of the post I'll come up with something. It's a giant rice and veggie and chicken concoction, sprinkled with some cheese on top. Yum! It's really yummy, but more importantly sometimes, it's super easy. Also, it's pretty healthy since it's brown rice, meat and fresh veggies! (I mean, I'm not a dietitian or anything, nor did I figure out the calories, but I'm saying it's decently healthy, OK.)

Ingredients
3 cups (uncooked) brown rice
diced green bell pepper
1 sliced zucchini
1 can sweet corn (drained)
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can diced tomatoes with garlic (slightly drained, but leave some of the juices in it)
1 pack of Perdue Short Cuts southwest chicken (it's precooked, and so yummy)
Shredded Colby Jack & Cheddar cheese
Salt & Pepper
Olive Oil

Directions
Cook rice according to directions. While rice is cooking, continue with the following steps...
Heat olive oil on medium in large skillet, add in sliced zucchini & green bell pepper and S&P
Dice up chicken a little more, and add to skillet
Once zucchini and pepper's are sauteed almost completely, add in corn, beans and tomatoes
Make sure everything in skillet is heated through
Once rice is cooked and skillet stuff is ready, mix it all together in one big pot!
Serve with sprinkled cheese on top

And here a few extra things to note...
+I wish I would have included some onion as well, because I love cooking with onion
+For last night, I left out any spice or kick (just to be safe) but I would like to try it with some red pepper flakes or something to kick it up a notch next time
+You could also experiment with some additional spices like cumin or chili powder to kick it up too

This recipe fed 5 people, and two of us had seconds. And there's still leftovers! So keep that in mind when preparing it, and scale it back if you're making it for fewer people. Or make this same amount and eat it for a few days, in a few different ways! Like for my lunch tomorrow, I think I might probably heat it back up, and stuff it in a pita with some salsa and cheese. Sounds so good, right?! I think so at least :)

So that's that. A quick, yummy, "healthy" recipe that will feed you and your loved ones. Oh, and I forgot to mention it's pretty cheap too! All of those ingredients (minus the olive oil because we already had that) only cost about $15! Awesome price for the amount of people it serves! Try it out, and let me know how it goes for you, or how you chose to alter it, if any at all!

But I still couldn't come up with a short, simple, catchy name for this - so please feel free to include some suggestions in the comments below! Thanks friends :)

Happy Cooking, and Happy Eating!

Pinstagram of September

Disclaimer - this was "scheduled" to automatically post on Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m., but for whatever reason I appear to not know how to actually do such "scheduling." So this was supposed to be the end-cap to September, but since I'm sometimes blogging inadequate, we'll just throw this out as the second post for the day because there are some pictures in here I didn't want to be left "unseen" by my blogger friends and followers :)

Sooooo......

Here's an end-of-the-month Pinstagram phone dump! (I figure "Pinstagram" is just going to be a regular word around here from now on...hope that's OK with y'all that I make up words sometimes.) If you want to see all of my Instagram photos, but don't have Instagram yourself, you can check it out online HERE. Ya know, just if you wanted to :) If you do have it, you can just follow me, my username is "HalieRenee88"

#tbt to Nicole's wedding reception in 2010 (tbt = Throw Back Thursday)

Lunch date with my sweet boy :)

#tbt of "Senior Girl" in high school, from 2005!

My first time trying the ever-so-popular macaroons!

Mint bracelet, mint nails, mint dress. Love the matchy-matchy!

Baked homemade pumpkin cupcakes. So good. Should I post the recipe?

"Fall" M&M's? Looks like Seminole M&M's to me!!

After-dinner coffee run for my fam one night with Jeff.

Tribecca white pizza from Red Elephant for lunch one day.

Opening game of football season, with my beloved 'Noles!

Cute little print-out desk calendar at work.

Squishy face Squirt.

Nail art supplies and colors.

Yummy tuna sammy for lunch at work.

Cute little shop in St. Augustine.

Pretty sunset.

Bike all loaded, and ready to go to St. Augustine for the weekend!

Simple, no-design nails, but loved the colors together!

Plum Polish, Pinterest Recipes & More!

Guys. It's OCTOBER! That kind of snuck up on us and came out of nowhere! Am I right?! At least I ended the month of September with a pretty great weekend. :) So here's a few of the things that made up my weekend.... although it seems like the only things I took pictures of was food, so that kind of stinks :( But I assure you - I did actually do more than just eat all weekend, even though that's exactly what it looks like I did...

Anyways, last Thursday, (even though that wasn't quite the weekend yet but I didn't blog about it last week...) I painted my nails, and this is absolutely my most favoritest mani I've given myself yet! I absolutely love the purple-y color, called Plum Seduction by Revlon. I actually just found this sitting on the bar in our dining room, and no one even knew who's it was! So I called dibs, obviously. And apparently this color is "all the rage" this fall, and everyone is all excited about this shade they're calling "ox blood." I'm more fashionable than I knew I guess... ;) But I also love the gray and the stripes (turned out way better than my first attempt at striping!). And just look at that little heart! It's so precious and I'm in love with it, and literally can't stop looking at it every ten minutes or so...

Then Friday night, Jeff's parents and Granny took us out to eat for dinner, and treated us to a fancy meal at Outback! They had a coupon for a free bloomin' onion, so of course we got that to share. Then for our meals, we did this awesome deal of a 4-course meal for only $15, and it truly was a great deal. I could NOT eat it all, and what a great price! I got a small cup of clam chowder with a wedge salad (this salad was so super amazingly delicious!) to start with. Then a 6 oz. steak with garlic mashed potatoes - that I scarfed up once again before remembering to take a picture, of course. And we got cheesecake to-go, with raspberry and chocolate sauces for topping - which I also forgot to photograph. It was all so yummy, and we had a nice time with them, and it was such a special treat!

Then after dinner, Jeff and I had planned on going bowling, but we were way too stuffed and didn't think we could stand, much less do the tiniest bit of "physical activity" at the bowling alley, so we just went back to his house and watched about six episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" instead! Such a funny show :)

So Saturday morning, we had to make up for our giant dinner from Friday night, so we went out to the St. Mark's Trail for a bike ride! We had planned on doing about 10 miles, but we decided while we were out there that we were going to push it a whole lot more. So we ended up riding 16.75 miles Saturday morning, and it felt great! (Click HERE to check it out on my RunKeeper profile.) It took us about an hour and 15 minutes, which was a pretty great pace. So close to my goal of "Ride the entire 16 mile trail at St. Mark's" by my birthday! So next time, we'll take two cars to park at both ends (because I'm quite sure I can't ride the whole thing there and back...), and I'll ride the whole trail from one end to the other! Then I'll get to mark through another goal :)

The Saturday afternoon we got some Chick-fil-A nuggets and chocolate milk for some protein recovery, and wandered around Target picking up a few things each of us needed. That afternoon I made THREE Pinterest recipes (although one was a definite fail) for our FSU football game watching party (which I will share the recipes for 2 of them later, maybe), and stayed home with my family watching the game in our Garnet & Gold. And we killed USF! We are now 5-0, and holding strong. Go Noles! :) Also, Saturday was my Mama's birthday, so we gave her presents and my sister made a cake, and we enjoyed celebrating another year of her life!

Cowboy Caviar. So yummy and relatively "healthy" as well, since it's mainly veggies!

Pepperoni Pizza Cupcakes. Delish. I mean, it's just a mini pizza, so what's not to love?!

Then afterwards we met up with my friend Sara at a Mexican restaurant for her to eat dinner, but there was a birthday party or something happening, so we kind of got booted out. Luckily by the time the party started she was done eating, so then we hung out at her house for a while, just watching shows and laughing and having fun!

Sunday morning was a big celebration day at my church and we had a good time all together. We had one church service instead of two, and it was fun having everyone together. Then we had a giant dinner-on-the-grounds kind of event for lunch time, which was yummy and fun. My family sat with another family we've been friends with forever, The Clemen-fields (mixture of Clements & Whitfield), and we had so much fun together! Sunday afternoon I did some errands with Jeff, and came home to make dessert for my my Mama's big family birthday party out at my Grandparent's house. So this makes Pinterest recipe #4 for the weekend! These also turned out great, but I baked them a little too long, so next time I'll need to take them out of the oven earlier. Oh well! 

"Slutty Brownies" - sorry for the blurry picture...

Then we went back over to Sara's house, because she unexpectedly got a new dog yesterday (Fo' free!), so of course we had to go over and see her! She got a two-year-old pit bull/boxer mix, and she's the sweetest dog! She saved her from some idiots who were tired of her and going to hurt her, so it's a great situation for both her and the doggie!

So see, a great and fun and busy weekend to round off September, and welcome in October. Hopefully Florida weather will realize what month it is, and chill out with all this humidity and heat nonsense. I'm ready to enjoy the crisp, cooler weather again, but it's kind of difficult right now! Hope you're all having a good Monday, and a great start to your week, and your month!

And today, I'm linking up with my usual bloggy ladies for our weekend recaps, and Mani Monday! Those ladies are: Sami's Shenanigan's, Covered in Grace, Synfully Delicious, Life on Leroy and Glitter & Gloss.

Packages of Books

Alright firstly, I want you to go check out the blog Mary in Marriedland, because she has been doing a series called "City in 5 Photos," and today my photos are featured! Yay! It's so weird and also so cool seeing my photos on someone else's blog. Mary is also a pretty cool gal, and I think you'll probably like her too :) And second, now onto our regularly scheduled broadcast...
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Over a month ago I signed up to participate in a book swap with other bloggers. We got to sign up, select the styles of books we like, and then we got matched with a girl to send a book to, and another one to receive a book from. Then we all sent Packages of Books all over the country! And today is finally the tell-all and link-up! Thank you to the following ladies for organizing the whole thing, and giving us this fun swap! Can't wait to do it again!

MK at From the Guest Room and Kaylee at All Things Bright and Beautiful

So... my book came all the way from Arizona, from Jessa at Life of A Sport's Wife! She sent me "Daring to Dream" by Nora Roberts. It's a super easy read, and I flew through it pretty quickly. I've never read anything by Nora Roberts before, but it was pretty decent. I probably wouldn't have picked this book for myself (only because I've never ready her before), but I did actually end up enjoying it! However, it was book one of a three-book trilogy series. I haven't yet decided if I am going to read the rest of the trilogy, or if I will simply pretend like that was the end of it all... But this marks book number 2 of my 6 before my 25th birthday. Guess I better get scootin' and read a little faster, huh?!

Anywho, here's some pictures of my book and the cute and sweet little card Jessa sent me!

And I sent my books all the way up to Vermont to Kathleen at Espresso Yourself. I sent her two of my favorites off of my own Top 10 List. I sent her "The Mermaid Chair" as well as "The Secret History" because they're both so great. I hope she enjoyed them as much as I do! I also sent her a cute, tiny calendar I got at the Dollar Tree, and picked up one for myself as well. :) Check out her blog for her reveal and to see if she did in fact enjoy the books!

I made this cute little twine bow! Wouldn't it look perfect on a brown-paper package?!

And I'm linking up today with Aunie for "Just Because Fridays" over at her blog, AunieSauce!

Proclaim

Again, music spoke to me last night during youth. There's just something about praise and worship music that can get my attention and make me focus in on God just a little bit more than normal. Even if it's only for a few minutes before I get distracted by an out-of-control sixth-grade boy... The power-ballad style of praise and worship is probably my favorite, and last night it was the following words that really caught my attention in just such a song.

"You are more, You are more

Than my words will ever say.

You are Lord, You are Lord

All creation will proclaim!"

Check out this video and listen to the song "Forever Reign" by Hillsong, where those lyrics above come from...

Another one of my favorite lyrics from that song is "You are Light, You are Light, You have covered all my sin." And I like that because (News Flash!!), I've got a lot of sin that needs covering. I mean, don't we all? Can we all just be honest and real about that? But here's the awesome part, we can RUN into His arms, and He will accept and comfort and forgive us. There is literally nothing that can compare to His loving and just embrace. Nothing.

But back to the "proclaiming" part... it is our job as humans to worship and praise His holy name. Because if we don't, the Bible tells us that even the rocks and hills will cry out to magnify Him. Check out this little excerpt from Luke when Jesus was entering Jerusalem (or in church-speak = The Triumphal Entry)...

"As he was drawing near - already on the way down the Mount of Olives - the whole multitude of disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!' And some of the pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.' He answered, 'I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.' " Luke 19:36-40

So you're telling me that if people weren't worshiping and glorifying our God, that rocks and stones and hills would do it instead? How crazy is that? Does that show you how important worship is? I've heard these verses before, and I understood them then, but today I think my eyes have been opened up just a little bit more, and I've got a new perspective on it now. Isn't it amazing when scripture that we've heard "a million times" stops being just words, and becomes reality? It's amazing how the Holy Spirit works sometimes, huh?

(I hope my thoughts haven't been too jumbled today. It feels like I was a bit all over the place here...)

Blogger Ladies -- Link up with me to share one of your more Thoughtful posts from the last week or so, and again, just put my button on your page or post, and link back to me please... :)