52 Dozen. Week 8. Can You Say Random??

52 Dozen. Week 8.

Visitors and the Random People in Your Life.

I know not everyone enjoys visitors but I love them! I love hosting people in my home, making them feel comfortable, having fun, making them want to come back, serving them food, letting them know that I appreciate them making the effort to swing by, even if it is only for a minute (literally).

For this week’s cookies I told myself that I would give the next batch to RANDOM people without setting out a plan for why they’d be getting them. This made baking the cookies pretty cool because I spent my prayer time literally praying for the people God puts in my life in the most unsought after ways. These are people that I didn’t particularly go looking for; they just landed in my life.

Do you have anyone like that?

Perhaps they turned into one of the MANY random friends you have on Facebook. You know the ones I mean, the people you meet once and they friend you on Facebook and to be polite you accept their friend request so you end up seeing pictures of their family and life but aren’t actually apart of it. Other people you meet randomly through a common friend or interest and become close friends who you learn a lot about and end up seeing all the time. Other random friends are people you work with. Although you choose to go to work each day, let’s be honest, you know the people you’ve intentionally sought after to have a relationship with and those you haven’t. And then there’s family. You acquire family when you get married or when someone else in your family gets married. They’re nice people but not necessarily people you would be friends with if you weren’t married. I’ve acquired quite a few sweet and funny people in my life through my marriage; the same is true for when my sister got married. I acquired a funny brother-in-law who makes my sister happy and they both make a great team as parents of my nephew. I don’t think I ever would have known my brother-in-law if my sister hadn’t married him, and obviously I wouldn’t have my adorable nephew. You see? Random people that join your life because of the path God put you on. Cool to think about right?

So here is goes: the random people in my life who received cookies this past week…

·      I had the privilege of hosting my in-laws as visitors this past weekend.

·      I had a friend swing by (for literally one minute) to pick up a bag she ordered from me (I sell Thirty One as one of the many efforts to save for our upcoming adoption).

·      Several co-workers who were literally on my list for an encouraging pick-me-up.

(I know when you see the recipe and review for these cookies you each will be sad that you didn’t make a random appearance over the last week. )

My in-laws were actually planning to be here the week after Christmas; I was very much looking forward to it because we didn’t have any family here for either of the holidays. That was a first for our 7+ years of marriage; we normally got to see at least one member of our family. But last minute they changed their plans and weren’t able to come. I was surprised how upset I was about it. I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to it or how much I valued hosting people in my home. I had several things planned for that time. My husband had taken off of work an entire two weeks anticipating their visit so when they weren’t able to come it left our family of three lots of time to spend with each other, it was a wonderful way to end the year but it still made me sad to remember how far we really were from family.

As a rescheduled time, my in-laws came this past weekend since my husband’s birthday was only two weeks ago. It always seems like there are tons of events the weekends that no one is coming into town and as soon as someone is visiting there is nothing going on. This led us to spending a good amount of time at the house.

My mother-in-law and I went to an art studio to paint some pretty door-hangers and I got three things out of the experience: time one-on-one with my mother-in-law to just relax and do something fun together, a really cute anchor to hang on my garage door, and a job offer. I guess the studio has been looking for artists to hire and they saw my piece and thought I’d be a good fit. It sounds like a great opportunity to do a job that would be pretty relaxing and fun (and some extra money put away for the adoption) so I’ve made contact with them to see what this would look like; pretty random, right? (I’m sure if it works out for me to do it I’ll have even more random people in my life!)

As a family we went to a bowling fundraiser for Big Brothers Big Sisters since my husband is a Big Brother to a 5^th grader in a school nearby his workplace. He’s been meeting with this kiddo for a little over 3 years and he’s made huge positive changes over the past few years. I wouldn’t say all of it is due to my husband meeting with him but having a regular, steady, safe, and supportive relationship that meets every week makes a huge influence on someone’s ability to succeed. It’s pretty cool to know my husband was willing to sacrifice time he could have been doing anything else in order to mentor this young man. (Sorry, that was a bit random too…I’m a roll with proving my point about random though right?)

Anyway, back to the topic of cookies to be handed out! Of course my in-laws got cookies, they visited with us and made a long trip to do it, 9 hours is a pretty long drive, one we have yet to venture with my son, we have flown the times we have been down! I know that even though we don’t have cable and we live pretty quietly for several hours a day (nap time and an early bedtime) they were good sports and I was happy to get the time with them. My father-in-law even helped my husband put in a doorway for the bathroom we are putting in our basement (I’ll save that info for another post).

The next person who appeared at my house was very random but actually someone I intended to give cookies to sometime this year anyway, a sweet friend I met while learning about essential oils (yes, I am that all-natural-as-much-as-possible lady so we do essential oils in our house until medicine is necessary and we do vaccinate). This sweet friend was the one teaching the class on essential oils at a local shop where we learned all things cloth-diaper (yes we do that too). Since I was becoming a direct buyer, we had to keep in contact outside of the class and she added me to a few Facebook groups so I could dive into the world of essential oils with some resources in hand. Since we were already friends she saw when I posted an invite to a Pinterest Party at my house and wanted to come. I was SO glad to have her respond and then come. I posted it to purposely invite people I didn’t necessarily hang out with all the time and having her respond and come was really encouraging! While there we got to talk about her adventures in the world of adoption and we seem to have very similar hearts about parenting so it left me eager to see friendship blossom between us. The bag she was picking up was linked to a party she hosted and was for a little girl she’s currently fostering. Even when we hooked up for me to give her catalogs to do her party we ended up talking for about an hour in a parking lot. I’m really looking forward to seeing where our friendship leads. And just to prove how randomly God can put people into your life, it turns out she is the cousin of one of my son’s teachers at daycare! Crazy right? So yes I gave her a big bag of cookies when she swung by to pick up her newest diaper bag!

The last dozen cookies were divided among several co-workers. I’m a part of a new small group at work that plans to help make employees feel appreciated…I fear I may have started this conversation but I am pretty happy to see where it’s led. If you remember my first post of the year I gave cookies to several social workers that were working on the most recent death of an infant in our county. I decided an encouraging hand-written card and bag full of cookies for each worker (including the supervisor) would offer some much needed reassurance that others appreciated them. I specifically asked the supervisor to keep it anonymous. It sounds like he did and he didn’t abide by my request. Although he withheld my name from the workers who got the cookies he passed along the story of my deed to my supervisor and our department directors. He expressed how moved he was that someone completely unrelated to the case or the workers would do something like that. He also expressed how much it meant to the workers who received them and what it meant for him as a supervisor to be able to have that form of appreciation to give them. Since this news traveled to the “top” I haven’t been treated any differently but I think it spurred the conversation of how to build similar efforts and involve others so we could impact more workers and show each other how much we are valued in the often thankless work we do. Thus, this work group was formed. In our first meeting my anonymous deed was mentioned along with some other efforts to spur positive work culture in our agency. Consequently this led to each member of our small group being assigned several names of other employees to give some form of anonymous encouragement to: a card, a candy bar, a baked goodie, a funny cartoon, a decorated office door, etc. There were lots of ideas but each person had the freedom to choose what they would to share the love and pay it forward as an experiment to see how far the efforts would reach. Of course I chose to give them cookies and a note!

For me, this year of cookies meant being intentional and thoughtful, committing to the people God has placed in my life, to love on them through cookies, and spend time thinking and praying about how God has chosen to weave our lives together (whether they are in small or big ways). This meeting was pretty cool because I felt like this act of obedience of using a love of baking was playing a very small role in stirring some of God’s intentions for my workplace. It feels so good to work underneath people who love others and several who are very outspoken believers in Christ. I can clearly see how God has placed us all together in this line of work to reach our community in some of the most practical yet overlooked ways. I’m so grateful to see how I’m a part of God’s big plan for our small town.

I know that God is calling my family into deep waters in the near future…but this small act of obedience in giving what I have to offer and being intentional about it is teaching me to hear Him more clearly and see Him at work in others’ lives as much as my own.

What can you do to change the world God has placed you in?

I hope this scripture written by Paul encourages you to find that purpose God has inscribed into your heart.

2 Corinthians 9:6-8

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

And in case you’re a music lover like me, perhaps a song will help encourage you to dig deep and discover that gift God has given you to share…

“I said, God put a million, million doors in the world
For His love to walk through
One of those doors is you

Oh, we bring the kingdom come
Oh, with every act of love
Jesus, help us carry You
Alive in us, Your light shines through
With every act of love
We bring the kingdom”

-Jason Gray

Hot Cocoa Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/4 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 4 packages (or 3/4 cups) hot cocoa mix
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup Marshmallow Bits (you could substitute with mini marshmallows or just cut up the large ones into small pieces)

Instructions

1.      Heat oven to 350°F.

2.     Beat butter and sugars in large bowl with standing mixer until light and fluffy.

3.     Add eggs and vanilla; mix well.

4.    Combine next 4 ingredients. Gradually beat into butter mixture until blended.

5.     Stir in chocolate chips and Mallow Bits. Cover and chill 1 hour.

6.     Drop 2 tablespoons dough, 2 inches apart, onto baking sheets.

7.     Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

8.     Cool on baking sheets 5 minutes; remove to wire racks and cool.

Baker’s Review:

These cookies tasted best warm for obvious reasons…HOT COCOA cookies. They still tasted wonderful at room temperature but seriously had a hot cocoa essence when warm because of those gooey marshmallows and the melting chocolate made it seem so rich. I actually used the cocoa packets with mini marshmallows in them as well as using several large marshamallows I already had and cutting them into little pieces. I also used dark chocolate chips. These weren’t the most toddler friendly cookies because of the marshmallows and the fact that my son’s teeth are taking FOREVER to come in so he has about 8 “half” teeth and three whole ones (insert shameless giggle because they make his little smile so adorable). These cookies were very easy to make despite having the ‘separate’ bowl mixtures. I think many non-bakers shy away from recipes that require a set of dry ingredients and a set of wet ingredients but I promise most of those are the best tasting cookies because all ingredients are given a fair shot at your taste buds. Put everything in one bowl and hope they mix well sometimes leaves you with an inconsistent mixture of ingredients. Anyway, back to the cookies, everyone who had them gave them rave reviews and I definitely recommend them for a cold night with a cold glass of milk…and heat them up for about 10 second before eating. Yum!!