spiced apple cider

this is one of my favorite recipes! Passed down by my wonderful mom of course :)

Hot Apple Cider

3 parts 100% Apple Juice-depending on how much you want to make, I use at least one bottle
1 Part 100% Cranberry Juice
3 Cinnamon Sticks
1 teaspoon of cloves held in either a coffee filter or a tea ball
Sugar to taste

Combine ingredients in large pot on stove or crock pot. Heat on high heat until simmering then reduce heat to low and cover. Let steep on low for at least one hour. When cider is spiced to your taste remove the cloves (you can remove the cinnamon as well, but I usually leave the sticks in).
If the cider is too tart you can add a bit of sugar (I usually end up adding a little less than 1/4 cup of sugar). Serve while still hot! Can be stored in the fridge, and drank cold or hot!

another story excerpt

here is another excerpt from the story I am writing. I am kind of having a hard time editing it and I tend to scrap large sections and start all over about three or four times. Argh. It is a little frustrating, but I do like this section fairly well so here it is grammatical errors and all! Enjoy
p.s. if you know me then you know my first car was a 1990 grand am and my dads truck is indeed shiny and blue. However, I have exaggerated the feelings and circumstances in my story. I really didn't hate my blue car that bad! and I really didn't feel poor! just a disclaimer out there esp. if my parents read this! haha.

"I was driving my old early nineties four door sedan behind my dads shiny blue truck. Ugh what was I getting myself into? I couldn’t believe I was seeing teenagers pass me on the highway driving BMW’s and Lexus’s. This was going to be terrible. I was arriving at my first college to make my first impression in an old, faded blue, tank of a car. Great. We stopped for lunch briefly and I changed into my white shorts and tennis shoes in the dingy bathroom so I wouldn’t get too sweaty while moving. If I had to be known as the poor girl I was going to go looking like the cutest, freshest poor girl any of those college girls had seen."

holidays are coming

so the holidays are just around the corner! Don't forget that there is a wonderful web site called Etsy out there to meet your holiday shopping needs. It is a wonderful idea to buy hand crafted items for Christmas instead of something from a department store! Here are several of my favorite shops on etsy...of course mine is #1 :). Also, keep in mind that you can usually request custom items from sellers on etsy, all you have to do is send them a message and see what they can do!

http://southerncharmcrafts.etsy.com

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7541630

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7400794

Obama wins peace prize

Ok, ok. So I log onto facebook this morning only to find that half of my friends have status updates that pertain to Obama winning the Nobel peace prize. Granted it is just an award, but what did Obama really do to earn it? I just find myself wondering how much the other nominees are hurting right now when they think of all the hard work they have done compared to Obama. International relations is Obama's job, it is expected of every president and comes with the territory. Oh well, what is the world to do? We have a president that we treat like a hollywood movie star, of course judgements are going to be jaded and Im sure this is not the last award that he will win simply because he promises change and disguises his spending with promises he cannot keep.

One article I read had this quote, and it pretty much sums up the fact that we now view our president as some movie star who cannot fall out of our good graces. No matter how much you love Obama, this really should bother you on some level.
"It is unfortunate that the president's star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain: President Obama won't be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility or backing up rhetoric with concrete action."

finding God in fiction

So I was reading our book club book which is "The White Company" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (you know the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes). Well, this has been an all time favorite novel of mine since I was in middle school. It is all about the hundred years war and knights and ladies in distress. Well reading it as an adult I have been finding many things in it that I missed as a child. My favorite quote that I have ran across is this:

"A man is but a beast as he lives from day to day, eating and drinking, breathing and sleeping. It is only when he raises himself, and concerns himself with the immortal spirit within him, that he becomes in very truth a man. Bethink ye how sad ...a thing it would be that the blood of the Redeemer should be spilled to no purpose"

how true this is! Without the spirit of God in us we are falling into nothingness. God made us to seek Him and to follow Him in our lives. Of course we all make mistakes and none of us have a perfect Christian life, but if we are aware of the spirit living inside of us, if we are aware of God in our lives ,then we are realizing our full potential as Christians and can work towards becoming better followers of Him. How sad it would be if the blood of the Redeemer was spilled to no purpose! How sad it would be if we turned our backs on God and stopped trying to better our walks with Him. How Sad it would be if we forgot what He did for us and the life He offers!!

What an awesome reminder that you can find God anywhere. He will find ways to speak to you even when you are reading a book you haven't picked up since middle school. AMAZING!
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Company )

fall moons

There is just something about walking outside on the first cold night of the year and looking up into a clear, crisp sky. The stars look brighter, the moon looks brighter, and the air smells cleaner. How awesome that fall has arrived and it looks like we are actually going to have a cool fall this year in NC. Well, needless to say being in the house all day, and walking around outside at night time with Lela brought out the inner hippy and I wrote a poem...yes...I wrote a poem. Go ahead and laugh, but here it is. Of course, the grammar may need a little help (it has, after all, been four years since poetry class).


There are people dancing on the moon
Hand in hand through the misty white light,
The night surrounds their mirth and merriment
As they go round singing to their gods and angels.

boredom can lead to productivity

So, since I don't have a job and am going to school I have found myself with a little free time on my hands. So, I decided to go back to writing little stories here and there (mostly for my own amusement). Here is the first paragraph of the new story I am starting. It does not have a title yet and I probably won't post all of it, but every now and then I will try to stick an excerpt on here for a little reading. So, right now this is titled "A Southern Life" but probably it will change titles about five times before I am done with it. It is a rough draft, but I hope you enjoy the opening sentences of my new story. If you know me you might see hints of my own life in this story, but I try not to make it too personal.

By: Marissa Smith

It was a hot august day in North Carolina and I was sitting on my twin bed just staring at the brown cardboard moving boxes piled around me. I had spent the past week shopping and going through my things deciding what I should bring to college with me. I had carefully chosen things that were not too childish or girly and had just tossed a blue scrunchy into my trash can. I was always aware of the fine line between being girly and tom boyish and i preferred to fall slightly into the tom boyish side while sticking my foot into the girly side now and then. For example, i keep my hair long and dyed a dirty blonde but prefer jeans to skirts and never wear high heels unless it is Sunday. I wear makeup every day but never curl my eyelashes and i always use chapstick instead of lipstick. I prefer knitted mittens instead of leather gloves, and i would rather go on a camping trip instead of having my nails done. These characteristics are not the most desired ones in the south, but I'm not about to become the classic southern belle with bleach blonde hair, perfect nails, mini skirts and high heels. Anyway, if i did that I would have to perfect the southern accent I had worked so hard to get rid of since middle school. I still broke out into my southern twang when I talked really fast, but for the most part i had mastered a very subtle southern accent that most people wouldn't even pick up on unless they were from the true north and could tell a southerner from a mile away. But, no matter how proud I was of my speech, I was a little nervous about heading out to college. I couldn't help but wonder if all the girls there would be perfectly put together sorority gals who would leave me looking like a complete geek. Of course, I was going to a small school in the mountains so I could be completely wrong. It was quite possible that I would be faced with a bunch of hairy granola loving hippies who would frown upon my cell phone usage and my "made in china" department store clothes. I groaned as I rubbed the bridge of my nose, there was just no end to the terrible possibilities. But, the only way I was going to find out what college was like was to pack my bags and head up there. So, I groaned and heaved up one of my boxes and carried it out to my dads already full truck.