Ode to the Christmas cookie

Every home has their Christmas/holiday traditions.  Anyone who knows the Parsons family knows that we churn out Christmas cookies like a bunch of Keebler elves beginning on Nov 26th.  And I absolutely love it!

All of my previous roommates have fell victim to this tradition as well, as I love baking Christmas cookies more than any other Christmas tradition and have done my best to carry out the family legacy.  I learned to love it from my mom, who learned to love it from her sister and her mom, so I guess you could say its in my blood.  

I will probably never live up to the high cookie standards that have been set in place by the great Becky Parsons, but I will do my best.  

Seriously, this woman makes thousands of cookies for Christmas.  I'm not exaggerating y'all.  For example, I asked her for her famous buck-eye peanut butter ball recipe.  The list of ingredients I received was in pounds.  As in pounds of butter, pounds of flour..... and a little disclaimer at the bottom that said "this will make about 300 buck-eyes."  Seriously mom?  Seriously.  Lets just say there were a lot of internet conversions to look up, as I was not in the business of trying to make 300 buck-eyes.  This woman makes cookies and she don't play around.

Anyway, this year I did step my game up and make about 14 different kinds of cookies.  My all-time favorites though are the sugar cookies that you get to decorate with icing.  And I really miss doing this with my family, so we had a Christmas cookie decorating Skype date!  It was so much fun :)

I was pretty pleased with how my cookies turned out this year, with the exception of a few small mishaps.  For instance, I may or may not have had to sift out all of the walnuts from a giant bag of trail mix because I forgot to buy them for my thumbprint cookies..... (there may have been a lingering hint of dried cranberry...).... and I attempted to make some pinwheel cookies that qualify as an epic Pinterest-fail.

This is what they are supposed to look like:

And these are what mine looked like...... (insert sad face here):

I think they look kind of like vaginas.  

But I totally gave them away in the cookie plates anyway because they tasted good and I need a "filler" cookie.... haha (mom, please don't disown me).

But overall, Gunner seemed pleased with the results, including the little Cal Poly me and, of course, a Wolfpack and Spartan fellow in the mix.

See the vagina cookie peeking out from the bottom?  

Anyway, I'm so happy that I have this tradition at Christmas!  Its so much fun to share with everyone :)  Yay eventual diabetes!

Love, 

AP

All you need is love

Today at work one of our mares aborted.  She was in her 7th month of pregnancy (horses have a gestation period of about 11 months, so she was just starting her third trimester, to put it into perspective for the non-horsey folk).  This particular mare is very old and was a high risk pregnancy, so sometimes these things just happen.  But it still sucks.

The mare had a pretty difficult time with the abortion (the fetus was incorrectly positioned) and required a lot of assistance from us.  When the still-born baby finally came out, it was about the size of a medium lamb, maybe 40 lbs or so, and the mare tried desperately to get to her new baby (she was restrained so that she could not get to it).  She knew immediately that something was very, very wrong and became so distressed that we had to heavily sedate her for both her safety and our own.  It was truly heart wrenching to watch.  If a horse, an animal, can become so distressed over the loss of her baby, I cannot imagine the pain of losing a human child that is likely (hopefully) the most important thing in your world.

Everywhere we turn this week, we are overwhelmed by the tragedy in Newtown, CT.  The news.  Social media.  Conversation.  The papers.  Political rants about gun control.  Heart-felt outpourings of grief and sadness.  Desperate cries for answers.  Religious posts about prayer and faith.

All week long my heart has been overwhelmed by the sad, sad truth that we live in an utterly broken world tainted with evil (Ephesians 5:15-16; 1 John 5:19; Ephesians 6:12).  That is an undeniable fact.  Unfortunately we see it every day.  War.  Oppression.  Murder.  Sex trades.  Liars.  Thieves.

I have quietly absorbed all of the political discussions and passionate "calls to action" over the past week.  And I agree with the one underlying statement from all parties, no matter where they stand.  And that is a call for change.  Something needs to change.  But what?  Gun laws?  Mental health care?  Security measures?

Will any of those one things stop evil from occurring?  Sadly, no.  The world needs love.  Laws will always be broken, and people will always fall short in some capacity, but true love will never fail.  The kind of love that Romans 12 talks about.  The kind of selfless love for others, for your community, for your world, that does not allow the Satan any room to enter.

And while there is much pain in the world as a result of its brokenness, there is hope in the midst of this hurt, and life in the midst of death.  I have hope for this world, and faith that a new kingdom is coming, because my Father has promised it to me.  I have faith that great things and great loves will rise from the ashes of this tragedy.  Yes, there is evil in this world, but there is also a Savior who gives us the ability to conquer this world (Ephesians 6:10-17; Galatians 1:4-5) and to live with hope and faith and love instead of drowning in despair and being overtaken by darkness!

I know there are those of you who aren't Christians and will probably read this and think that myself and many others singing this same song are being "too religious."  And that's fine.  You are entitled to your opinions and beliefs, just as I am entitled to mine.  I know that Christ is my hope and my salvation, that I can do nothing of value apart from him, and that I find my rest in him.  But regardless of your beliefs, I dare anyone to tell me this world doesn't need more love in it.  Because we all know that it does.

So that is my challenge to you.  Instead of posting passionate views about gun control on social media, post about how to love the world.  Post encouragement instead of starting political arguments.  I'm not saying that political discussions don't need to happen, but I am saying that love is a more powerful tool that needs to be at the heart of all changes our country is facing.

I have hope for the future of our world, because I have the confidant faith that a new kingdom is coming, where there will be no evil.  Want to know a fun bit of irony?  The mare that aborted today..... her name was Hope :)

So much love,
AP

Lighthearted food for thought!:
The tragedy of first position

Throwback Thursday

Remember how I started doing "Throwback Thursday?"

Today's gem comes from Jan 2005 (also known as my freshman year at NC State).  Although this is a terrible picture, it has significance for multiple reasons.  This was at our very first ticket campout for NCSU vs. UNC basketball tickets (aka the freakin' coldest night of the year).  This was the first time we (Lisa, Larisa, Davys, and myself) hung out with the Grantham boys (Adam, Marcus, Stafa, and John) and thus began the adventures of lifelong friendship!

We were such babies!  And I just think this picture of Davys is hysterical, so I had to add it :)

Happy Thursday y'all!

AP

Gustavo is always right.

Per usual I'm playing catch-up.  But only because so many awesome things have happened in Nov-cember (that's the end of November and start of December, in case your deciphering skills are a bit lacking).  Following a super fun Thanksgiving, Hannah, Gustavo, Luci, Landon and myself headed out into the wilderness to do some camping and hiking in Sequoia National Park.  SNP is the bottom half of my top-ten list of National Parks in the US (side note:  I rank everything.  For those who are curios, the top 5 list: 1. Zion National Park, 2. Yosemite National Park, 3. Glacier National Park, 4. Joshua Tree National Park, 5. Shenandoah National Park.  Moving forward....).  It is a super cool piece of history in my book, and fall was the perfect time to visit it!  Weather was absolutely gorgeous and we enjoyed two nights of camping in and two fun hikes while we were there.

For starters, since we left on the Friday after Thanksgiving, we simply packaged up all of our turkey day leftovers in aluminum foil and reheated them over the fire for dinner.  We also ate left over turkey sammiches while on the trail and at a fabulous chicken, veggies, and soup dinner the second night.  Everyone involved definitely agreed that it was the best Thanksgiving leftover idea EVER.

Oh yes, that's right!  Stuffing, sweet potatoes, and turkey, campfire style!

I bet you are wondering about the title of this blog.... As we are driving up to SNP, we were playing the "super-hero" game (i.e. if you were a super hero in real life, what would your super power be based on your personality).  I was promptly deemed Captain Sunshine, with the power of spreading enthusiasm to any possible venue.  Gustavo decided that he can magically make things happen.  His claim was that all he has to do is say that something is going to happen, and it will happen.  He followed that statement by saying "For example, we are definitely going to see a bear on this trip."  I promptly explained that this was highly unlikely, as we were staying in a very populated portion of the park and I was skeptical that we would see any wildlife except for birds and possible a squirrel.  Gustavo repeated about six times that night (as we were locking our food in the bear locker) that we would definitely see a bear.

Sunrise.

No bear.

Breakfast.  Delicious.  

No bear.

Drive to trail head.

Bear.

And 3 massive bucks.

I kid you not.  Didn't get a picture of the bear, but did get some of the bucks (they were pretty stellar)!

So I'm thinking it is a coincidence.  Gustavo now says that we will see a baby sequoia tree.  As a collective group, we are not sure if there is such a thing as a baby sequoia tree, since these things live for like 3,000 years.  So during our hike alllllll day around these awesome giants Gustavo is pointing out "baby sequoia trees."  I simply took a picture to compare to Google later, being the skeptic that I am.

Turns out, he's right!  That is a baby sequoia tree!  It will one day grow into this:

Bottom line, Gustavo is always right.  The first day we meandered around the massive old trees and were absolutely amazed at their size and the history surrounding them.  

The General Sherman.  Largest living thing on the earth by mass.

Self timer picture 1.....

Self timer picture 2.... this just makes me laugh.

On the second day, we took a more difficult hike up to the Marble Falls, which were breathtaking!

Overall, a successful trip (hey, Gustavo was right again!  He said it would be awesome!).  

TTFN,

ap

(no food for thought.  I've given you enough pictures to think about)