Separating From Ed

     Church of the small things.      Now you know that my favorite new author is Melanie Shankle, the author of "Sparkly Green Earrings," "The Antelope in the Living Room," "Nobody's Cuter than You," and of course, "Church of the Small Things," a Bible Study devotional that I recently went through with the ladies at my church. "Church of the Small Things" empathizes the divinity and power in small, seemingly inconsequential moments. The book revolves around seeing how God uses the things in our lives, like packing a lunch or helping someone, to make a difference in the Kingdom of God.      Since I liked Melanie so much from the "Church of the Small Things" companion book that I borrowed from the library, I decided to read her other books, too. "Nobody's Cuter than You" is a memoir on friendship in which Melanie describes all of the meaningful relationships that she's had in her lifetime, starting fro...

     In my last post , I opened with "Hey, y'all, " which in case you don't know, is totally out of character for me. I completely hate the word (should it really be considered a word?) " y'all " and have never liked it. In fact, I can probably count on one hand how many times I have actually said this in a real conversation (thanks to my three years as an RA and eventually getting bored of greetings such as "folks," "everyone," and "is anyone in here??").      So why the usage? My new favorite author, Melanie Shankle, better known as "Big Mama," using it quite a bit in the book "Church of the Small Things" which is the companion book to the Bible Study that I am doing right now at church. Trying to channel my inner-Melanie is why I used " y'all" and y'all  are just going to have to deal with it.      Melanie is from Texas (duh, seems like a no brainer) and thoroughly embracing all o...

     Hey, y'all,  I recently discovered my new favorite way to eat, no, devour , carrots that I had to share with you all. It is so easy, too, which makes it even better.      We received an "indoor grill" as one of our wedding presents (thank you Taylor and Misha!) last year since we had placed it our one of our registries. I'll be honest, we don't get it out very often which is probably due to two things: 1) I make a lot of crockpot meals and 2) Growing up, my family primarily only used our George Foreman for turkey of ground beef burgers, never anything else. But, when I decided to cook some chicken on it recently, I thought I would add some vegetables, too. Best idea I had all week.      I originally was trying to come up with a way to make grilled vegetables how my dad makes them on his outside grill. It is one of my favorite side dishes ever that he makes and it is so simple. We typically cut up potatoes, carrots, and onions, a...