We’ve moved!  Menu Monday is being held at the new page.  Please go HERE to see it!

If you’ve been wondering why I’ve been so quiet on here lately, you’re about to find out.  I have been busy setting up our new cyber home and it is READY!!  We’re not only getting new features and a new look, but a new name as well.   Drum roll please.

Faith and Family:

…is now Fully Balanced:

You can now send me emails…please do, I love hearing from you all!   I have also set up a Facebook page for Fully Balanced, so you can now follow us on there, as well as through an rss feed and email.   All of these can be found in the top right hand corner of the home page:

I have created some pages on Fully Balanced where you can find links to articles, blogs and books on a variety of topics.  I will be adding more links to the pages that are there now as well as starting other pages in the future.

Guess what?!  We have a Pin it button now, as well as other sharing buttons for places like Facebook, Google +, Twitter, StumbleUpon and others.  Be sure to pass on the posts you like so others can enjoy them as well!

Menu Mondays is getting a face lift too.   Remember the little icon you used to have to click on in order to see the recipes people have shared on our Menu Mondays posts?

Well, now you can see the recipes right away!

And, lastly, we have a new About Us page, which expresses my heart for the new Fully Balanced blog.

Fully Balanced was born out of a burning passion to find, and help others to find, balance in all things. A desire to keep myself and others walking the road God intended us to walk instead of constantly falling into the ditches of extremism on either side.

Too many times I have watched people live a life of extremes where very little, if anything, is in balance.

- Children are raised with no boundaries at all, completely free and wild, or else they are raised with strict, suffocating control.

- Some couples are taught to wait forever to have children, or better yet, have none at all. Others are taught to marry young, have children immediately, and to have as many as possible.

- Some women have no problem walking around in next to nothing at all and others are obsessed with being covered from head to toe in numerous loose layers to completely hide any God-given curves they may have lest they “cause their brother to sin”.

- In some churches the teaching has become so watered down, the standards so low, you can hardly recognize them as Christian. But then there are others where people are emotionally manipulated and controlled until their view of God is so twisted they want out of Christianity all together.

- There are people who eat everything imaginable with no thought of health at all and others so obsessed with eating healthy that it becomes a god in their life.

And on and on it goes. It’s time to throw out the extremes. It’s time to be FULLY BALANCED.

For anyone concerned that Fully Balanced will be changing and lose it’s personal touch, don’t worry, it’s not.   I will continue to share recipes, songs that speak to me, and every day experiences just like I have been.  I personally am just on a journey of finding balance in all areas of my life and so will be sharing that with you on there as well.  Thus the new name of the blog.

All of the posts currently here on Faith and Family have been added to the Fully Balanced page so there will be no loss in content as we make the move over to the new page.

Please go HERE to see the new Fully Balanced blog.

 

****** IMPROTANT NOTE******

For those of you who are already subscribers of Faith and Family – you will need to resubscribe on the Fully Balanced page in order to keep receiving new posts!

 

I had heard a lot about the Disney movie Tangled, but hadn’t seen it until recently.  After watching it, I just sat there for a few minutes taking it all in.  There was SO much in there that I could relate to from my experience with the patriarchal movement and also a spiritually abusive church.  There are few movies that so completely resonate with me like that.  I’ve wanted to write about it for some time but then this morning I read an article by John at Recovering Grace that describes many of the things I had seen.   In it he talks about the analogies he found in the movie regarding misplaced authority, fear-based protection, the emotional trauma initially experienced by those who break free, the need they experience of a guide afterwards, and most of all our ever-patient heavenly Father.  So rather than write the same things here I am simply going to point you to his very well-written article.  You can go HERE to read it.

***** We have moved!!  Our blog is now located HERE *****

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and decided to give it a try.  It’s like eating chocolate chip cookies, oreo cookies and brownies all together.   It’s delicious.  I did find that it tastes best after it’s been sitting for a day.  Like a lot of desserts it needs time for the flavors to shine.  We also decided that while it can be served with vanilla ice cream, we prefer it plain.  I did also change the cookie ingredients a little bit to match my own chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Play around with it and see how you like it best!

Ingredients:

1 c. butter
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. white sugar
2 lg. eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 c. semi sweet chocolate chips
1 pkg. Double Stuffed Oreo cookies
1 pkg. fudge brownie mix
1/4 hot fudge topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare 9×13 baking dish by spraying the pan with cooking spray, lining with waxed paper and then spraying the waxed paper with cooking spray.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.  Add dry ingredients and mix together.   Stir in chocolate chips.  Press cookie mix evenly across bottom of prepared baking dish.

Top with a layer of Oreo cookies.  You may find that you need to cut some of them in half to fit along the edge.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, prepare brownie mix according to instructions on the box, adding the 1/4 cup of fudge topping to it.  Pour brownie mixture over Oreo layer.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and continue to bake for another 15-25 minutes.  It is done when a toothpick inserted 2″ from the edge comes out clean, or with moist pieces clinging to it.  Cool completely before cutting.

To halve this recipe, use an 8×8 brownie mix and half the cookie dough.

Linked to:  Tasty Tuesday, Tuesdays Tasty Tidbits, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table

Don’t forget to add your recipe links to our Menu Mondays recipe link up below! As always, please link directly to your recipe (not your home page).  Also, as is customary with blog parties, please link back here so others can join in the fun!