Love Worth Fighting For

This was supposed to be a quick share but then I started talking about why I wanted to share it.  :oP

As mentioned in my Pinterest post, I've been clearing email drafts of random links from everywhere.  One of them was this song, Love Is Not a Fight, by Warren Barfield.

Source: Uploaded by user via Alvina on Pinterest

I heard of this song from the movie Fireproof.  A cheesy movie with a really great message.  It's about a couple, Caleb and Catherine, who are on the rocks and fighting all the time.  They are about to give up and get a divorce when Caleb's dad challenges him to a 40-day "Love Dare," (a real-life Christian devotional program designed to strengthen marriages).  He does it reluctantly, but silently without telling Catherine what he is doing.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so you can read the wikipedia entry if you want to know what happens without watching the movie.

Despite it being kinda cheesy and the actors not being that great (sorry, Kirk Cameron), it was a pretty powerful movie, and I am usually not moved by such things as movies!  Though I'm sure anyone can identify with the struggles, I felt like it impacted me all the more because I was married.  (And Tim and I don't even really fight!)

Anyway... one of the theme songs in the movie is called "Love is Not a Fight."  The lyrics are below and I encourage you to read it through.  So many people are getting divorces these days... sometimes it seems like marriages aren't worth it anymore.  We've become a very "me"-centric society and the minute something or someone doesn't make me happy, we move onto something that does.  But I want to think differently -- that marriage is a commitment made and not to be broken.

Love Worth Fighting For

By Warren Barfield

Love is not a place
To come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
Then commit to never leave

So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
We'll work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees

Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

To some, love is a word
That they can fall into
But when they're falling out
Keeping that word is hard to do

Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
But demand we give our all

Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for

I will fight for you
Would you fight for me?
It's worth fighting for 

 

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Have you seen Fireproof before?  What do you think about this song?

                        

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Yesterday we hosted a "Pride & Prejudice: Tea & Crumpets" tea party with our community group (aka Bible study). On a Friday night. :oP It was actually all Tim's idea. No kidding. :)

It was fabulous! People brought the yummiest desserts! I learned what crumpets are... English muffins! Or as wiki puts it, "a savory griddle cake." And that didn't seem very fun at 7:30pm on a Friday night, so we went with cookies and cakes and scones and other lovelies. :)

The spread! Tartlets, chocolate cake balls, cheesy scones, rice krispy treats, digestives!, coffee cake, and cookies. And tea of course!

Earl Grey Tea cookies

I made Trader Joe's Cinnamon Crumb Cake (so easy, so good!) and Earl Grey Tea Cookies! The tea cookies were a big hit and I was quite happy by how they turned out. Except they were a bit salty. And I just realized I had used salted butter instead of unsalted. Which explains everything. Which is great because that means when I make them correctly they will taste even better!!!

 

(Taken with Instagram)

Earl Grey Tea Cookies (by theKitchn)

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon Earl Grey tea leaves*
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon water
1/2 cup unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375°F. Pulse together all the dry ingredients in a food processor until the tea leaves are pulverized.

Add vanilla, water, and butter. Pulse together until a dough is formed. Form the dough into a log onto a piece of wax or parchment paper. Wrap the paper around and roll the log smooth. Freeze now, or chill for at least 30 minutes.

When chilled, slice the log into 1/3 inch thick pieces. Place on baking sheets and bake until the edges are just brown, about 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks.

Makes two dozen.

*Note: theKitchn said they got better flavor from ripping open teabags for the tea leaves than from buying more expensive loose leaf. I've only made this once, with Twinings Earl Grey Tea bags, so I don't have a comparison but I thought it turned out great with the tea bags.

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I am quite excited to try this with other teas... green tea... chai tea... oh the possibli-teas! heh heh heh. :D

What kind of tea cookies are your favorite? Or if you haven't tried any, what flavor do you think you'd like?

                

Hunger Games movie

(Source)

So Tim and I read the book a couple weeks ago. I ordered the box set at the beginning of April but Amazon ran out of 'em and they just shipped (20+ days later!) I requested the second book from the library but the line is L.O.N.G.

Excitedly, we went to see the Hunger Games movie last Saturday. Not to deter anyone from seeing it --- but we thought it was "okay." Don't get us wrong, it was an exciting movie, but we had some beef with the character development! And the shaky camera work made me dizzy at some parts. I suppose some people might not have seen it yet, so I don't want to spoil it but Tim and I both thought the book was way better.  Of course we know that movies don't usually cover books in their entirety, but we felt what was missing was kind of important!

I'm excited our box set is coming in next week (though I did just pick up The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Monday Mornings by Sanjay Gupta [the CNN doctor!] from the library today). I've also been going through Harry Potter since I never actually read the whole series when it was cool to be reading it. I had somehow managed to only read books 2 and 3 (sooo out of character of me to not read book one first?!) and then I believe... book 4 was too beastly of a book for me during a time in high school when I had a lot of work to do! I got it from the library, renewed it like 3 times and then gave up. But with all these exciting books this week, Harry book 4 will have to wait!

Have you seen the Hunger Games movie? Did you read the book first? Which one did you like better?