Food much?

I get a lot of questions about food now that I've been living as a volunteer with a volunteer's budget... "Do you have enough to eat? What kinds of things can you all make and eat? Do you eat together? What about allergies? Is anyone vegetarian?"

To summarize my answers, we choose to cook one meal per week, so each of the five of us in the house cooks one night a week. Recently, we made up a chart that helps us remember what day we're responsible for and to have a better idea of how many people we'll need to prepare for. As you'll get a better understanding of through the pictures, we are just entering the time when we are most in and out traveling due to the nature of our work. 

Starting this week, Hannah made stuffed peppers for us on Sunday. As Jessie was still here, we had six people in the house. As we all work in the same place, we've figured out it's nice to have leftovers taken care of through have extra from the night before. In essence, we cook double the amount we need - if we have six people, we make enough for twelve meals. 

Hannah made thirteen peppers in total. :) What did she use to stuff them, you may ask? Quinoa, cheese, corn, beans, and a smattering of spices. They were delish!

We have varying diets, but have much to be thankful for. We all are flexible enough in cooking, ranging from learners to "the seasoned," and everyone tries the food! And we are getting pretty good at learning what people like to eat. I like experimenting with meals, and nearly every week am trying a new recipe. Per a suggestion from Kelley, our archival intern at the office, she offered this stew recipe and trying it on Monday, it turned out pretty great. I think Harold was a lovely pumpkin. :) In the end because his bottom wasn't totally flat, he turned out looking more like Grumpy cat. Thanks to Jessie for modeling!

 I believe Theresa's quote was, "Kristen, I've got to tell you, I'm anxious about trying this! 

She loved it.

Laura and Jessie and I also thought it was pretty tasty!

Laura's supper on Tuesday, as you can see, was polished off in a hurry. Ben and Hannah were out to Iowa visiting for a summer workcamp and talking about BVS, so it was just Laura, Jessie, Theresa, and I for the pumpkin and Laura's delight: chicken tacos!





Ben remembered having Common Meal at the church two Wednesdays a month, but involvement changed and it hadn't been happening during the summer and fall months.
He found Cat had an interest in cooking, and gathered Laura, Hannah, and I to help organize the volunteers to help set-up, prep in the kitchen, and clean-up. We've been having around 30 people come to meals.
It's a great way to meet folks from the church and get to know people in a new setting. It's also fun to eat Cat's food - she is an excellent cook!
So, this week I was in line to organize help, and I also was the photographer. I got some action shots of people who helped and those who attend church. It was a "soup"er meal, with a GF potato and leek soup and Italian Wedding soup.

 

Good food and fellowship was had by all!

Thursday, Hannah made a great lasagna. As we've all been in the house together, we've also been finding our niches and what is easy to make. Hannah's lasagna recipe from home is a BVS house favorite. Something about that Ricotta... 

Ben was switching it up for the house and wanted to host a relaxing Friday snack and movie night. After going to Emily's for a Christmas celebration, this popular and tasty spread is now dubbed, "The Emily Dinner."

I enjoyed a weekend out with friends in Indianapolis. The food adventure continued! For the first time since November (note previous November post) Saturday's lunch was splitting a gluten-free, delightful cheese pizza with Kelley! It made my day. :) Our visit to the Indy Children's Museum was awesome.

Kelley, Brandon, and I made nachos for our Saturday evening supper. 

(At the house, per regional differences, we go back and forth between "dinner" and "supper".)

 
As conscientious as we are with how we budget and spend our money, we will on occasion go out and splurge. Inevitably, we all chose chocolate - hot drinks, chocolate cake, and a chocolate cheesecake. Fun fact: the tree behind Laura, Hannah, and Theresa was made out of chocolate. 












For those of you keeping track, you may be wondering if Theresa was going to cook this week... Due to the flexible nature of our house, Saturday was originally Theresa's designated day to cook. However, there were enough leftovers that consensus was to put off cooking until Sunday supper. She made a bean, corn, and salsa soup, perfectly warm for the snowy night we have here tonight.

Our weeks will look a bit crazy from here on out and food scrambling will become the norm. However, all six of us enjoy eating, and we will definitely be having some chocolate from time to time.

For now, peace from the BVS house and stay warm! 

With love,~Kristen

The New Year

I've never been one to get really excited about the New Year or make crazy New Year's Resolutions. I don't see the new year as a new start as much as just a continuation of what already was. This new year however, marks the start of many new things for the house and myself. I find myself both excited and anxious about what lies ahead.
The start of 2015 brings the beginning of a new phase of the workcamp season: on-site visits! Both Theresa and I will spend the majority of the next few months traveling around the country visiting the locations of our summer workcamps. I'm very excited to finally be hitting the road and meeting with the organizations and people who help make the magic happen this summer! It's also a bonus that some of my traveling will take me to warm locations. This afternoon I leave for Camp Pine Lake in Iowa, along with Ben, who is traveling with me to do some recruiting for BVS in the area. At the very end of the month I will be in New Orleans, meeting with an organization called Captsone, and the first week of February Threresa and I will fly to Los Angeles together to plan for our workcamp there. As excited as I am to travel and see new places, I will miss the consistency and routine of Elgin life that I have gotten used to the past few months. It's been nice having everyone in the house and being able to spend a lot of time together.
The beginning of this year also brings a new member of our house! Jessie Houff, the new orientation assistant, moved in on Saturday. We are so excited to have her living with us! Because this is the season of travel in the Elgin BVS house, she leaves on Thursday for her first orientation in Florida. We wish her luck!
Not much else is new in the house. We have been busy playing games and staying warm inside. The weather this weekend has been great in Chicagoland, however, and some of us have been able to get outside to soak up some sun. I'm sure we will see more snow in the next few weeks, but for now, the weather has been a good reminder that spring, and more new beginnings, will come before long.

With love,
Hannah

A silly poem

Here's a silly poem about our first weekend back in the house after all being away for the holidays:

Friday nights at the kitchen table
An unconventional family dinner
Bread broken, stories shared
A few hours of games with many-a-winner
No laughter was spared

Saturday mornings in the living room
A reader and a writer
Breakfast without words from you or me
Soft music on the player
Giggles, sighs, and sips of coffee and tea

Sunday, out and about and around the house
Time for worshipping our creator 
A Special Olympics basketball tournament
Practicing Spanish like a dominator
Undecorated the tree, then on to the new week we went


In peace and with love,
T

'Tis the Season

Christmas is one of my favorite seasons. I love the parties, the celebrations, the decorations, the desserts, the time spent with loved ones, the lights, etc. The list could go on and on. As cliche as it sometimes feels to admit to loving this time of year, there is a lot to celebrate. I have often felt that the holidays provide a good time for me to reflect on how much I have to be grateful for.
I feel very blessed this year to be spending this time of celebration and reflection in Elgin. A year ago I never could have imagined that I would be here for this Christmas season, but I am extremely thankful that I am. It has been a busy time for our house. We've attended a variety of holiday celebrations with church and work friends, and while I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent at these parties, upon reflection I realized that some of the most memorable times these past few weeks have come from some of the seemingly mundane things that have happened.
It's a good reminder that sometimes it's the little things that mean the most. I'd like to share some of these moments that have stood out to me and helped me remember all that I am grateful for:

Decorating:
A few weeks ago, Kristen, Ben and I decorated our house for Christmas. Our house has collected an odd assortment of decorations and lights over the years, and we joyfully put them all up. My personal favorite are the LED lights, pictured around the frame of the doorway leading into the living room in the photo below. I appreciate how they brighten up the room and add color to the sometimes dreary and dark winter days. During decorating it was also fun to discover the various ornaments that have been collected over time. I am grateful to those who have left decorations behind that we have been able to use to make our tree much less bare!

Baking
Saturday night Ben and I made cheesecake and cookies. Baking is one of my favorite holiday hobbies and I usually make dessert for my family's Christmas celebrations. It was fun to be able to bake in Elgin and to learn new recipes! We also ate too much chocolate and both fell into a food coma.








Spending time together:
Our work schedules often send us out on the road, but, for the most part we have been lucky enough to all be around for the holiday season. It's been great having all of us at the house for an extended period of time, and it has allowed us the chance to better get to know each other and build deeper friendships. The other week Krsiten and Theresa taught us how to play the game Euchre. We have also had times of story- sharing, listening to music, and reading in the living room together. We've been blessed to share so much laughter and memories these past few weeks.

Laura and I depart tomorrow to go home for the holidays, Kristen and Theresa leave on Friday and Ben will be gone at the beginning of next week. As we head our separate ways, we are excited for time spent with family and for new stories that we will be able to share with each other when we return.

Happy Holidays!
Love,
Hannah

Greetings and Christmas wishes for you all from the BVS house!

We are certainly in the festive mood here, after having many Christmas gatherings to enjoy, spreading decorations all over the house, and listening to Christmas music at work, in the van, and even some piano now and then in the house. 

Last Saturday was the beginning of a festive series of events. Saturday morning Ben and I traversed to Tuba Christmas, Naperville-style. We have host families with the Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren, and we happen to be in the same extended family. Ben, Nevin, and Duly brought tubas to join in the 75-person tuba ensemble. Tuba Christmas performances, for those who are interested, happen in various cities throughout the U.S. featuring tuba-lovers and players from all stages of life who come together for a rehearsal and performance. This particular ensemble played outdoors for their first set and in the lobby of the nearby mall for their other performance of the day. We made it a family affair, and it was fun to be with several family members who were able to come out and watch, then shop for the afternoon. Click here to catch a snippet of the music and TV feature with our Channel 17-famous Ben and Nevin.

Ben and I left shortly after the second performance so that we could make it to bell-practice rehearsal. Ben is tackling the responsibility of directing the church bell choir, and it is going very well. The congregation really has enjoyed our first performance and I think Ben is pleased as well. :) He does a super job in leading us all, especially as we are a group of mixed expertise.

To round out Saturday, the house met the rest of our Sunday School class in our instructor's home. Jim and Peg were wonderful hosts and we had a lovely potluck, with everyone providing their specialties. Jim, of course, made a crowd favorite of Apple Cider, and there was homemade bread, two casseroles, and many other tasty items. Good stories, laughter, and movie-watching were enjoyed by all who were present.   

Sunday was an eventful church time as our housemate, Laura, helped lead us in worship and we heard a powerful sermon of race and conversation, followed by an impromptu time with a couple of co-workers to check out some puppies. The fur therapy was perfect (ha, purrfect) and I just about came home with my new best friend, Olivia, the darndest gray-haired cat ever. She and I would have been inseparable, I just know it.

We returned home for a bit, then the women of the house made it out to our Spirited Sisters meeting for a fun caroling adventure with others from church. I was invited to help lead some carols by playing piano. Having this much spirit and love in one place really helped me to get in the mood of Christmas and start the Advent season for me. 

Monday we had the night in, which was certainly a blessing to enjoy and relax in each other's company. It felt like being back in Indiana for me: we taught, learned, and played Euchre for the first time as a house! On Tuesday we had a secret santa gift exchange and party at Kelley's, the Brethren Historical Library Association (BHLA) intern. 

Wednesday we watched White Christmas with Emily, who works in the BVS office. All of us enjoyed the cheese and fellowship with each other. Thursday, Laura and I went to a staff dinner, as this was the time of the year at work that we get together as a group for a couple of days for staff meetings.

Friday we had a night in.

Wow, it has been quite the week in the BVS house. I am continually learning new information at work, new things about housemates, and things even about myself. While I am looking forward to my time at home on vacation during Christmas, I can't help but think back to all of the fun things we've been able to experience and grow from.

We are have so much to be thankful for. Maybe it sounds weird to have that here, but I remind myself of this daily. I am thankful for experiences, even if they are not ideal and uncomfortable. It has been a busy week and I am learning to take time out to step away from people and the sense of hyper-responsibility I know I feel. Living in community can be tough for many reasons, and there are none that are the same for everyone. I found this week especially has been challenging in working and spending free time in celebration with company. Celebrating is awesome and I wish that I could be up for parties all the time. However, I am realizing that my capacity for spending time with those I see often stretches me even more. There are weeks when we find ourselves doing our own thing and weeks when getting a moment, 30 minutes here or there for rest, is a great feat and extremely satisfying.

Both of these scenarios are real... and hard to admit sometimes, even to myself. We all go through our own difficulties and frustrations. Some weeks go by easier than others, some difficulties are easier to move through than others seem to be.

It is good to remember that in this anticipation of Christmas and the celebration of the birth of Jesus, taking time out to reflect and focus on the good times we've shared with one another and all of the things we are grateful for could quite possibly be what we need in this time of busy-ness and preparation. It certainly is a journey and we all are figuring it out - together.

Thanks to all of you for joining us in the journey and we are grateful to be included in yours as well.

Peace and love to you and your loved ones as we are surrounded by the Spirit this Advent season.

~Kristen

Divisions of the Elgin House

I can remember being on Youth Peace Travel Team a few years back and needing to come up with an interesting way to introduce ourselves to a new camp each week. We came up with something we called "The Divisions of Peace Team." We would take turns announcing an identifier among us then stepping forward to reveal who fit that category. We would go with some basics such as the guys, the girls, the blondes, the brunettes, etc. Then we would move on to some of the trickier ones such as who shaved their legs (one guy and one girl), who could knit or crochet (three of us), or number of piercings (because we all had at least one by the end of the summer).

The Divisions of the Elgin House similarly run surface level and much deeper. As we've been adjusting to living with each other and going through some of the honeymoon phase these first few months, we've slowly moved beyond the obvious similarities and uniquities and are beginning to find unknown common ground where we may not have expected it. Just today, Theresa found out that I know how to spot when spinning across the kitchen. I don't actually know how or where I learned it, but it's something we have in common. Laura and I both had our tonsils out when we were 18 (note to readers: 18 is pretty late in the game - cut those puppies out sooner if at all possible!). Hannah and I were the chief Christmas-light-putter-uppers when we were growing up. It feels like I find out something new Kristen and I have in common every 24 hours.

One division of the house that has come to light (literally) lately has been Christmas decorations and music. How early in the fall can you begin with Christmas? The sooner the better? Not until after Thanksgiving? Sometime in early December? This guy would prefer to fall more into the final category there but has been working with handbell music for a few weeks now and had to subject myself to it sooner than I normally would. Christmas lights went up outside the house a few weeks ago because the weather was amicable. However, they didn't get switched on regularly until after Thanksgiving. This week saw the box of Decorations from the Decades unpacked and spread throughout the house. Whoever left us the LED multi-colored lights, we love you to the moon and back!

We will surely find more divisions among ourselves in the months to come - some to strengthen our bond as a house, others to drive us up-the-wall and into our rooms. Regardless, these are the divisions that teach us to appreciate that which makes us different, endowed with a wide array of gifts we may never fully see for ourselves. Hopefully we'll have the fortitude to call them out for each other as we see them.

Thanks to Big Daddy D for the Christmas music playlist while I wrote this.

Hanging out with some cool Sr. High kids

Hi all,

The cold, wintery weather has officially set in. This is the first blog of many that I’ll be writing this year while there’s snow on the ground.

The past two weekends I had the opportunity to hang out with COB youth for weekend retreats and conferences. Last weekend Hannah and I served as female youth advisors for the district fall retreat at Highland Ave. It was nice to get to know some of the youth from our new church and the rest of the district, even if they thought we were also youth all weekend. :) We volunteered at the Northern Illinois Food Bank, played lots of games, ate pizza, and hung out together.

Group photo from our time at Northern Illinois Food Bank!

This weekend Ben, Kristen, Hannah, and I traveled to Camp Mack for Powerhouse/Regional Youth Conference. There were lots of shameless plugs for BVS, workcamps, and CCS.  I was the female advisor from Highland Ave. for the weekend and loved hanging out with the youth and other advisors- playing games and worshipping. I also learned how to play the card game Eucher, which I thoroughly enjoyed! It was wonderful to be able to visit a Brethren camp that I hadn’t been to yet.

One of the slides from the workcamp presentation Hannah and I made at Camp Mack! 

And now, I’m back home in Elgin. But, not for long!

Blessings,

Theresa