It's Been Awhile

Yes, it has been awhile. My best intentions do not always come to fruition.  Much has happened since I started The Joy Panda last winter. For awhile I had limited internet access, which made it even more difficult for me to consistently update a blog. Excuses aside, I do wish to continue with my blogging endeavors. But please be aware that this blog may be about to undergo an evolution. My interests are so diverse that at times it is hard for me to focus on a limited range of topics.  This summer I worked a full time job at my local animal shelter, which re-sparked my passion for animal care.  So I may be writing some pet related articles. I also adopted two cockatiel parrots recently, Fable and Lore.

They have won my heart and I am continually exploring how to help them live happier and healthier lives. I would like to write about them some. I have also gotten back into running, so health and fitness is an area of interest right now. I am even considering taking up Taekwondo again. As of late, I have become keenly interested in topics of simple and sustainable living. Maybe I will write about that some. On top of all this, I am doing a pastoral internship right now, mentoring ministry school students. So, topics of spirituality and relationships may also pop up here and there. As always, creativity is a major part of my life and I want to keep writing about that.

I do not want this blog to simply become a random mess of me, "Oh, let's see what crazy venture Miranda Joy is up to right now." No, I would rather not make this all about me. But I really love my life and I love sharing it with other people. Chances are if something interests me it's going to interest someone else too. I want to encourage others to live their lives to the fullest. That is what this blog is all about.

So I guess my point is, I am not really sure what this blog is going to look like in the
future. I am debating whether or not I should simply start afresh with a brand new blog. But the core values of this blog still stand. So, please bear with me as I figure all of this out. I appreciate your input.

Sincerely,

Miranda Joy    

I'm An Artist

I started painting on canvas fourteen years ago at the age of ten. I was drawing and playing with Crayola watercolors long before that. Some of my first memories are of me sitting at the kitchen table scribbling away in coloring books with my mom. My dad worked his way through college and seminary as an illustrator for Sunday school curriculum. He is a talented artist in his own right and he taught me the principles of perspective and shading before I could even write my own name. I began private painting lessons when I was ten and continued to learn artistic skills on my own and in school. I even minored in art for the short period of time I was in college.

So it is safe to say that I have been artistic my whole life. I really can't say that I am a naturally brilliant artist. But I have always loved creating things and creativity was always highly encouraged in my family. My skills did not evolve over night. I have had so many people look at my work and say, "Wow, I could never do that. You are so talented!" I have to admit that that is one of the most frustrating things for me to hear as an artist. People may think they are giving me a compliment by saying such things, but really such a comment denies the amount of hard work and years of practice that went into the skills that I now have. I was not born with the ability to draw and paint. Just like I was not born with the ability to knit and sew. I was not born with the ability to ride horses or train dogs. I was not born with the ability to cook or even the ability to keep my house clean!

So many people view creative ability as this elusive lottery that some people win at birth while the rest of the world misses out. That is just not true! Yes, it is true that some people might have natural advantages over others for a particular creative skill, such as a keen sense of observation, great fine motor skills, a natural sense of rhythm, etc. But everyone is born with an imagination. Everyone is born with a creative nature. That creative nature may be expressed in different ways, such as music or dancing or interior design. But it is all based in that same raw creative potential.

Something everyone must keep in mind is that creativity is like a muscle. If it is not used and exercised it will atrophy and grow weak until it is apparently useless. Even an artist with the greatest natural talent will become rusty and regress in their skills if they do not exercise them. I am a testament to that!  There was a period of time from 2007 to 2011 where I did not touch a paintbrush and where I could count the number of complete sketches I did on one hand. Why did this happen? I got busy with life. I started a career as a horse trainer and found that I had no time for creativity. I thought I needed to focus all my time on my "real" job. At first this was by choice, but then after a while I couldn't draw anything even if I tried. Did I suddenly forget all the years of artistic training that I had? I may have forgot some techniques, but if that was truly the problem then it would have been easily remedied by reading a book or two. No, I had neglected my creative "muscles" and had chosen to believe a lie that my creativity wasn't worth expressing to the world. Once I started believing that lie I found it quite impossible to create anything at all.

Thankfully, such a state of atrophy can be remedied. In the fall of 2011 I went through a process of rediscovering my own creativity. I realized that I had greatly neglected my creative nature, an essential part of who I am. And I also recognized the lie that I was believing about my creativity. The interesting things about lies is that once you KNOW they are lies they actually can't deceive you anymore, unless you choose to let them. So I began to tell myself that my creativity was worth expressing and that what I create has value. The amazing thing is that as soon as I did this my artist blocks shattered! I was able to be creative again and right away I was producing drawings and paintings and even dabbled in techniques I had never tried before. There was a bit of an adjustment process where I had to re-acclimate myself to the many techniques I once knew (I am actually still in this process some). But there was a huge difference in how I viewed my own work and how I approached painting and drawing. When I realized that my creativity had value in of itself, apart from the finished product that came from it, my perfectionism began to melt away. Perfectionism had kept me from expressing creative freedom. Attention to detail is a gift, but perfectionism is a lie that says if you mess up and don't get things just right then whatever you create will be garbage. But that's a lie!

Before my four year artist block I was never really able to call myself an artist. I felt that in order to call myself an artist I needed to reach some standard of perfection. I was always striving towards that standard but could never quite reach it. But now because I value myself I openly call myself an artist and am experiencing creative freedom that I've never experienced before. Is my artwork like De Vinci or Van Gough? No, but it doesn't have to be. I am just as creative as De Vinci or Van Gough or Mozart  or J R R Tolkien or any other artistic person in the world because I was born with a creative nature. How I choose to exercise that nature is completely up to me.

Now, you may be thinking, "But I have NEVER used my creative muscles. Isn't it too late for me?" Not at all. You have probably been exercising the muscle in other ways and just didn't realize it. All arenas of life require creativity, and all arenas of life can be made better by increased creativity. Choose your arena and just start exercising. You were born to be creative. So just start creating. You are already amazing.

Miranda Joy

Crockpot Cocoa

Christmas and New Years may have come and gone, but hot cocoa season is still in full swing. I spent my winter vacation with my family in my home state of Maine, where we got a generous serving of snow. I have grown quite accustomed to the warm and dry climate of California, so the wet and cold conditions of my New England home chilled me right to the bone on more than one occasion. But that did not bother me one bit. It was a perfect excuse to try out this recipe for Crockpot Cocoa.

This was so easy and honestly the best Hot Cocoa I have ever had. It was an instant hit with my family. We made it three times while I was home! Give it a try. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Ingredients:

2 cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
6 cups of Milk
1 can (14 oz.) Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1/4 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Instructions:

Put all ingredients in slow cooker, set on low for 2 hours. Whisk periodically to incorporate all the chocolate chips. Serve with whipped topping or marshmallows if desired. This recipe would be great for when you have company over. It makes about 8 or 10 servings. Our family of six were all able to go back for a little extra. Enjoy!

Miranda Joy

Sentimental Value

While I was at home for Christmas I was poking around in the basement and I came across my childhood sewing box. When I was five years old my parents got me and my older sister sewing boxes for Christmas. Mine was blue and my sister's was pink, they were just like the sewing box my mom had purchased for herself. They were filled with basic sewing supplies and a cross-stitch kit to make bibs for our baby sister, who was on the way. I am not sure if I ever finished that bib, but that was the start of it all for me. I have kept that box all these years and it has a lot of sentimental value to me.

So you can understand my distress when I found it in the basement with the lining falling apart inside. I brought it upstairs and sat at the kitchen table to go through the box's contents. My mom walked by at that moment. With a sigh she commented, "Oh, that old box probably isn't worth keeping at this point." "Probably not," I sadly agreed. But I still hated the thought of throwing it out. I had always imagined giving it to my own daughter one day. As I played around with the sagging satin lining, my mom watched over my shoulder. There was really no way to mend it by sewing. I could tell that the lining of this box had originally been glued in place. Then my mom made a suggestion, just as the same idea came to my mind.   "Maybe you could fix it with the glue gun?" My mom is so smart. I just so happened to find my old glue gun the night before. Happy day! I fired it up, squeezed, squeezed, squeezed and managed to reattach the satin lining while only burning myself once. I was very pleased to see my box almost as good as new. This box is not heirloom quality, to say the least, but its sentimental value makes it irreplaceable  Even though I could have easily thrown it out and bought a better made one, to me it was worth it to take the time to fix it.

As fun as rediscovering my old sewing box was, something just as fun was what I found inside it. It was like stepping back in time. I found little bits of embroidery thread and fabric from past projects and a vast array of buttons and beads which I used to diligently collect, but never use. I found a simple doll pattern that had gone unfinished, a piece of fabric that looked like the makings of a primitive Barbie dress, and a small drawstring bag that was only a few inches of stitching away from completion. The most interesting thing to me was the draw string bag. I just barely remember starting that project, though I don't remember exactly why I wanted to make it. I was an adventurous young girl that loved the thought of finding and hiding treasure. I had seen so many movies with precious little bags of gold, I am sure I wanted to make one to keep my own coins in. I can only guess I was about ten when I started it. It was made from jersey material that I had probably salvaged from an old sweatshirt. I can imagine it took me a few days to piece together a bag that would only take me 30 minutes today. It was so close to being finished, I couldn't just leave it that way. So using bits of thread I found in the bottom of my sewing box, and a few pieces of yarn I found in my old bedroom closest  I finished the drawstring bag that was 14 years in the making. What treasure did I decide to put inside it? My collection of random buttons. I think my ten year old self would be pleased.

So, what sentimental items do you have hidden away in your house? Is there a way you can pull them out, re-purpose them and bring them back into your everyday life? I would love to hear your ideas.

Miranda Joy

Braided Calzones

I am a huge fan of Pinterest. If it were not for the fact that I have limited access to the internet at my apartment  then I could easily spend all my free time pinning and repinning. I especially love browsing through recipes and pinning yummy ideas away for a later day. A few months ago I found a recipe for braided calzones. The recipe used pre-made refrigerated dough, which made it super quick and easy to make. I pinned it away for later, but this week when I went to go revisit it I was disappointed to find that the page had been taken down. I wanted to make it for my family while visiting with them over Christmas break. Feeding a family of seven (plus the brother in law and nephew) can be a challenge for us at times, so we are always looking for yummy meals that are easy to make for a large family. And as Italian food lovers, calzones were sure to be a big hit with my whole family. So I decided to try my hand at making braided calzones myself. It was a raving success!


Ingredients:

• Refrigerated pizza dough
• Your favorite jarred pizza sauce 
• Favorite pizza toppings (we used pepperoni, hamburger and green olives but you can use anything you like)
• Mozzarella chesse
• 1 tbls melted butter
• Garlic salt/garlic powder to taste
• Parmesan cheese to taste

Tools:

• Pastry board
• Rolling pin (or your hands)
• Pizza cutter (you can use a knife, but it tends to stick to the dough too much)
• Baking sheet covered in foil, lightly greased (I forgot to grease it... don't do that. Will make the dough stick )
• A preheated oven (follow the preheating specifications on the packaging of your refrigerated pizza dough. Mine said 375 F.)
• A pastry brush (I couldn't find mine, so I just used a spoon to spread the melted butter)

Instructions: 

• Flour your pastry board and your hands. The dough I bought was quite sticky.
• Place the ball of dough on the pastry board and roll it out flat with the rolling pin. Your goal is to make it into a rough rectangular shape. I found that it was easiest to accomplish this by picking up the dough and stretching it into the desired shape and then placing it back on the board to smooth it back out. Be careful not to work the dough too thin. I made this mistake with my first calzone. It still turned out fine, but it stretched and tore a bit too easily for my liking. I think it's better to have it too thick than too thin.

• Transfer the dough to the baking sheet.
• Spoon the pizza sauce down the center of the dough, leaving about 1 inch without sauce on each end and three or four inches without sauce on both sides.
• Add whatever pizza toppings you want on top of the line of sauce. My family has varied tastes. We made three calzones to be split between six people. One with pepperoni and green olives, one with hamburger, and one with hamburger and pepperoni (we added olives to half of that one). The possibilities are endless. Next time, I want to try adding ricotta cheese and spinach.
• Cover your toppings with a generous amount of mozzarella cheese. In my family, the cheesier the better (come on, it's not like we eat calzones EVERY day).

• Now for the fun part: braiding!
• Using a pizza cutter, cut slits into the sides of the dough from the outside edge to about 1/4 inch from the sauce. Space the slits about one inch apart. Do not make these tabs of dough too thin. I made this mistake on the first calzone I made and it made the tabs hard to work with and easy to tear.
• Starting at one end, take one of the tabs and lay it across the filling at a diagonal. Take the tab opposite of it and cross it over the first tab, at an angle. 
• Continue in this manner, alternating side to side, until you reach the middle of the calzone. You want to be sure to cover up as much of the filling as you can as you cross the tabs over each other. Try not to leave many gaps. 
• Switch to the opposite end of the calzone and cross the tabs over each other in the same manner.
• When done it should look kind of like a loaf of french bread.
• If the ends of the calzone are still open, pinch them shut so that the sauce does not run out when baking.

• Brush the top of the calzone with melted butter.
• Sprinkle garlic salt or garlic powder on top to taste (this made such an impact! I don't remember this step being in the original recipe I found, but I think it is what really makes the calzone).
• Put the calzone in the oven to bake. We baked three at a time, which took about 25 minutes, if you are only cooking one then it should take less time. The top of the calzone should be lightly browned. If in doubt, following the recommendations on the packaging of your refrigerated pizza dough. 
• About 5 minutes before the calzone is done baking, sprinkle parmesan cheese on top and return it to the oven. 
• Once the calzones are golden brown on top, remove them from the oven. Let them cool just a few minutes. Cut them in half and serve. For our family, half a calzone was more than enough for one person. 

These calzones are beyond delicious and super easy. They were an instant hit with my family. My dad even ventured to say they were the best calzones he had ever had. Well, I'm not sure about that, but I gladly receive my family's compliments. Give these braided calzones a try and let me know how they go for you.

Miranda Joy

The Joy Panda's Heartbeat

The content of this blog will not be much different from the many marvelous blogs that are dancing around out there right now. I intend to write about the topics I love most: painting, crafting, cooking , homemaking and life-living. I am a perpetual learner and a natural teacher. I love to dabble and share my experiments. I gladly welcome feedback and actually welcome people telling me, "I know how to do that better." I enjoy the outdoors, I dream of having a family, and I am discovering my inner fashionista. These are the sorts of things I love and plan to write about on my blog. So if any of this resonates with you, I encourage you to stick around.

But before I get started writing about any of these things, I think it is important that I state the core values that drive this blog. Whether we realize it or not, everything we do, say or create comes out of our core values: the beliefs we carry and the lenses through which we view the world. Every person, family, business and organization operates out of a set of core values. Our core values are the heartbeats of our souls and the driving forces of our actions. I have personal core values that drive my daily actions, such as my core value for a good nights sleep (I always try to get at least 6 hours a night, preferably 8), my core value to never stress out about anything (especially money), and my core value to treat every person I meet with the same respect I expect to receive  Though some may call these "rules", I don't see them that way. Core values are guidelines by which I make my decisions, not regulations that tell me what I can't do. They are not limiting factors, but liberating standards that I have chosen to adopt to help get me where I want to be. So, in order for you to understand me and The Joy Panda, it may help to understand the core values that drive this blog.

1)  I will not violate my core values.  This may sound cyclical, but it is so important. If you don't first choose to follow the core values you set for yourself then you will never be successful because your actions will be going against what you believe to be right. Even if it is a seemingly small matter, it can lead to further violations that will sabotage your vision for a good future. Like I mentioned earlier, core values are not laws to be followed as much as they are statements of ones character and standards of behavior. I may act outside of my core values from time to time (such is in the rare occasion I only get 4 hours of sleep instead of 6) but I must realize this violates my character and that I must not let that become a habit that goes against what I believe to be right. But there are some core values that carry more weight and have greater consequences if I do not follow them, such as moral issues. But just because one core value may seem like less of a detriment if I do not follow it does not make it less important, because either way I would be violating my belief of what is right and would be sabotaging my own future. I carry no shame for past mistakes that have been made right (another personal core value of mine) but I also refuse to live a lifestyle of compromise. So how will this shape my blog and affect you as my readers? I will never write anything that goes against my stated core values, and if I ever do I give you permission to call me on it.

2) The world is a beautiful place full of beautiful people. This core value is a lens through which I choose to view the world. Call it my chronic optimism if you want. So much media out there chooses to focus on the ugly, I choose to focus on what is beautiful. It is through this filter that all my blog posts will be run.

3) Nothing is hopeless, I will not pretend like it is. This one is pretty self explanatory. I truly believe that their is hope in every circumstance, no mater how difficult that circumstance may be. There is always a solution, though I may have to go looking for it. I made a choice awhile back to never portray hopelessness in anything I create and to never talk in a hopeless manner, because even if I might feel hopeless for a time I don't actually believe in hopelessness. This will be the flavor of my blog: absurdly hopeful.

4) What I create has value. You will never see me put down my own ability or creativity, and I will never put anyone else's work down either. I will openly admit my need for improvement, but you will never hear me say, "I'm bad at this," or "This project is junk," or "I'll never be as good at this as that person." Any time I try something new or express my creativity in any way I am acting out of who I truly am inside. To call my creativity junk is to call myself junk, which is a flat out lie. If I did it, it has value, whether anyone ever pays for it or not. The same goes for you. This leads directly into my next core value for The Joy Panda.

5) The World is becoming a better place and what I do helps make it that way. This core value is at the very center of why I am writing this blog. Despite all the readily available news reports of violence, disease and economic troubles; I truly believe that the world we live in today is much MUCH better than the world our grandparents and great-grandparents lived in. You might disagree, but that's ok. It is not my goal to make you agree with me (a personal core value of mine is that I never base my relationships with anyone on whether I agree with them or not). I believe that our choices to do what is right and our actions to live out of our true characters are what are shaping the world around us. When you live life to the fullest as the person you were born to be you dramatically impact the future. But these dramatic impacts are composed of many many small life moments. The little things that make us come alive. I believe that looks like us taking the good that is inside us and sharing it with the world. In other words, I think changing the world looks like expressing our creativity in our everyday life. This may sound simple, and it is, but it is truth. No innovator ever changed the world without expressing their creativity. So THAT is what The Joy Panda is all about. Changing the World, One Creation at a Time.

I am sure my list of core values for this blog will grow with time. This post is a bit deep, I admit. Most of my blog posts will not be this way, though don't be surprised to find one like this from time to time. I love to think and express my ideas. Expect lots of fun filled projects, clever household remedies, inspirational art, yummy food and  trendy fashion; with only an occasional philosophical rambling like this one. Thank you for reading. I look forward to sharing my Joyful Journey with you.

Miranda Joy