and the soul felt its worth

Happy Christmas! Since the CAKES Christmas blog-post is quite a responsibility, I am going to make this short. I hope you all are having lovely Christmas seasons and enjoying time with family and friends. I pray that the joy of this season is drawing your hearts closer to Jesus and stirring up awe at His grace. Last night at the Christmas eve service, my pastor opened the closing prayer with this:

"Heavenly Father, what a privilege it is to be Yours."

This is so simple, but such a beautiful truth to remember. My prayer for you is that during this season you are remembering that you belong to Him who sent us the greatest gift that could ever be given. How sweet it is that "the most wonderful time of the year" can last all year because of its true and marvelous meaning.

<On a more shallow note: roommates, I got a Kitchenaid mixer (not the stand kind though)! Yay! Now we have a mixer!>

-S

fall semester 2011 - check!

finals are over and half the CAKES have gone home.  the rest of us will be out of berkeley by the end of the weekend.  it's supposed to be a good feeling, right?  the end of finals? 

for some reason, as i walked out of my last final this evening, i felt no sense of joy. in fact, i was feeling quite the opposite. perhaps the best way i can describe it is as an absolutely overpowering sense of weighty relief (is that an oxymoron?  too bad, because that's how i felt). this semester was hard. and draining. in so many unanticipated ways. and i think the weight of all the would-should-could have beens came crashing down on me in that moment with the realization that it is finally over.

but God always knows what He's doing. soon after getting back to cakes-ville, my mommy called and then a little later emailed me this video (hence the Chinese subtitles).  it is kind of long, but i am sure you are all either done with finals or need a reason to procrastinate, so watch it. to the end.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feVmD4dlW28&feature=player_embedded

i am not particularly inclined toward liking biology right now (checked my bio 1a grade on bearfacts already and it wasn't great), but this is undeniable. it cannot be coincidence. for those who trust in the Lord, He will literally hold you in His hand and carry you all of the days of your life.  Psalm 33:18 says that "the the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love".  the God who created the universe knows intimately your every action, word, thought, and feeling.  so i better believe that God has wonderful things in store for me - this semester was meant to cultivate my trust in this truth. 

i'm sorry if this was a little heavier than anticipated for a post-finals post =P  have a wonderful Christmas break!

~A

happy finals week.

we are ice cream eating fiends!

this was bought last thursday. today is tuesday. better stock up with finals coming up, which means ice cream will be a necessity to soothe the stressed soul (well, that and the bread of life)!

-- C

tis the season...

...of finals. and although i would love to fast forward past these next two weeks til the beloved day of december 16th (sooner for many of you lucky ducks), i must continue to remind myself of certain truths as things begin/continue to get crazy and hectic. the one that seems most encouraging is that finals are temporary, and will end. however, maybe this is not the most important thing to remember about finals.
in this season of my life, i am a student. and being a student, if done for the right reasons, is glorifying to the Lord. i do not wish simply to get through these exams; my earnest prayer is that these next two weeks would be a joyful offering to the Lord and an act of worship that brings a smile to His beautiful face. and the wonderful thing is that i can still honor the Lord and steward well what He has given me even if i don't get an A in a class. and so this is my prayer for CAKES in this finals season:

that this apartment would be a place of rest when needed and of productivity when needed, a place of encouragement and peace, and a place that would undoubtedly foster an eternal perspective for my roommates and i. i pray that we would have patience with one another and give and receive grace freely. i pray that it would be a place where we can rejoice with one another and celebrate this wonderful season of hope, grace, and boundless love.

-S

presenting FCAKES

as most of you already know, attrace is a member of For Christ's Sake, Cal's Christian a cappella group. (they are really good and their concert is coming up this sunday. you guys should go)

but most of you probably didnt know that there are also other members of CAKES with singing talents. sadie, kelsey, and i (cindy) are also in an a cappella group called FCAKES. the three of us were just minding our own business one night (i was probably doing/complaining about doing mastering physics and kelsey and sadie were probably making dinner), when all of us started singing Glory to God. and then it hit us, why don't we start an a cappella group! and hence the beginning of FCAKES. we have been around since last semester and we are slowly building up our repertoire. here's our set list for this fall:

we perform every thursday at 12:25pm in front of sather gate. and we will be opening for Testimony, stanford's christian a cappella group, who will be opening for FCS this coming sunday. hope to see you all there!

-- C

this is what I do.

I bring back things to the apartment after being home. More stuff. Every time. Roomies, I apologize. I just can't help it. Here are the latest crafty additions, the fruit of my Thanksgiving break labor. And just you wait til we decorate for Christmas...it's gonna get crazy in the 309.

[coasters...only 3, but it's a start]

 [not a latest addition, but the paper chain of Christmas is getting shorter!]

 [a Christmas tree made of old jewelry...got the idea at a vintage fair in Alameda]

[the bathroom's very first crafty addition]

-(in case you don't already know) S

Waiting...

"God, you know how we are made.  We are unsettled and anxious with the unknowns of life.  We do not trust that our waiting can be good for us.  We want answers and solutions and we want them as soon as we can receive them.  Help us, Lord, when we are forced to live in these liminal spaces.  Open up space in our hearts and minds to trust You, even though we do not have the evidence we need before our eyes. May Your Holy Spirit speak to the depths of our souls, trusting that You are always at work.  May we be still before You."

This was the "Prayer of Confession" at church this morning, and oh how true it rings.  (Waking up at 8 am and attending service at First Pres?  Quite out of my ordinary Sunday experience, but rather worth my while.)

As hard as it is to believe sometimes, waiting can be a gift, a very good gift from our God above, as it forces us to trust in Him alone. I pray that I will believe this more and more each day, especially as today is the first Sunday of Advent - a time of hopeful expectation and anticipation, waiting for the nativity of Jesus and Christmas.

Happy Advent, everyone! (Or you know, all three people that read this blog =P)

~A

domestic divas!

This semester Emily and I (Kelsey) have transformed into quite the domestic divas. Well, at least in the baking aspect. We both co-lead separate small groups, and every other week we bring dessert, and since we're on the same lead/snack schedule, every other weekend we experiment with new dessert recipes! It's been quite the adventure. It usually happens like this: we find a recipe online (often on the beloved Pinterest), get any ingredients we don't already have, pull it up on the computer and bake away! Emily usually takes the lead, she's more expert than I am.

Emily here.  Only objection to the preceding paragraph is the last sentence. I am an expert at baking a total of three recipes in my mom's oven. I am not an expert at these new recipes whose names are so long I have to look them up every time someone asks what they're eating.  Kelsey is an expert at finding such recipes.  I am glad.  It is my personal conviction that the longer the name and the more extensive the ingredient list, the better the cookies taste.  If we have to go to multiple (read three) grocery stores to accumulate exotic ingredients (read cashew butter), even better. And now back to Kelsey.

One of our more exciting baking endeavors happened earlier this semester, late Septemberish perhaps. This one wasn't for small groups - we decided we wanted to bless some of our friends/siblings at college by sending them cookies! [Addendum by Emily: Baking cookies for Laura was more about filling the big birthday box and less about blessing her.  Sorry, Lau.]  We used three different cookie recipes to make somewhere around 100+ cookies! [More like the +.] The three recipes were: pumpkin oatmeal white chocolate chip dried cherry, chocolate cookie with peanut butter filling, and cashew butter banana! Mmmm.

So, we were off to a great start of what ended up being about 4.5 hours of baking. [True. We turned off the oven at midnight.] We were in the middle of our second recipe - cashew butter banana. I was standing next to the oven (probably sneaking tastes of the batter [I saw that!]) when a huge puff of burnt-smelling smoke invaded my face. Panic. Open oven. Black cookies. How could they be burnt already? It had only been just a few minutes! I glanced at the temperature dial: 500 DEGREES?! That's right when the smoke alarm started screaming at us and we frantically opened windows and fanned the air with pillows. I guess as we were running around in our tiny kitchen - one of us bumped the dial way (WAY) up.  Oops! At least we only had one tray in there at that point. Here's what it looked like:

[These cookies are supposed to be light brown. They are not chocolate cookies. Sadly.]

Emily back again.  This evening, we tried a new recipe. Hold on, let me look up the name.  They were peanut-butter-banana stuffed peanut butter cookies.  They passed the ingredient test: I have never baked with peanut butter chips and we would have had to go to two grocery stores to find them had we started at Trader Joe's. We were smart and went straight to the Berkeley Bowl. Not smart to do it on a Sunday night, but we made it out of the store without reading the Psychology Today magazine by the register. 

[Yummy! Notice successful addition of chocolate chips and coordinated apron and shirt.]

Highest adrenaline moment: realizing we forgot to top the half-baked cookies in the oven with chocolate chips. 'Twas a quick fix though. We pulled them from the oven, strew chocolate across the pale peanutty domes, and flung the tray back in the firey roaster.  In less than 2 minutes. 
Lowest adrenaline moment: waiting for the filling to harden in the freezer. For 40 minutes.  We could have covered at least 20 trays of cookies with chocolate chips in that time.

Well, that's the news from CAKES. Here's to experiments and domestic adventures. Like living with live turtles.

-K & E