new favorite blog.

A couple weeks ago my brother-in-law introduced to my new favorite blog, Stuff Christians Like. If you share my sense of humor, then you'll love spending hours reading through all the previous posts. To whet your appetite, here are excerpts from a few of my favorite posts:

The "pray if you feel led" prayer. You might think the prayer "Closer" is the one with all the power, but don't be misled, the Opener is in control. In addition to often choosing the Closer, they set the tone for the entire prayer circle.... More than that, they don't need to worry about the Closer or fear someone cutting them off. They can pray and then relax. Their job is over and done in a matter of seconds.

Church names that sounds like clothing stores. Imagine you're at work on Monday and someone says, "What'd you do this weekend?" You can reply "I hung out at Elevation." Your friend will then say, "Is that the new hip hop dance club? At which point you can then say, "No, it's a church" and then proceed to share the entire gospel with him. OK, maybe you shouldn't do that, but at the bare minimum, saying you went to "Elevation" is going to at least keep the conversation rolling where if you said, "I went to 'God is Awesome, Praise Sweet Baby Jesus Cathedral' over the weekend," your friend is going to throw an imaginary smoke bomb and climb out of a window.

Christianizing your Facebook profile, a how-to guide. Step 1: Your Name: Don't just use your name on your profile. ...Name your profile something like, "Forgiven1" or "WashedinBlood." Step 2: Status: Write something a little longer like, "Matt is stuck in the moment, the moment when my eyes will look up to the Son, the Son that's always been there for me, arms around my life, for now and evermore."Step 4: Quotes: If you don't have a quote from CS Lewis on your profile page, I'm not sure you're a Christian.

xxxxx

sometimes, it's the little things.

I was looking at a recent Target receipt and this is what I saw:



Notice how all my items are categorized. This may not seem like anything to be giddy about, but if you're me then it is. You see, Paul and I are pretty vigalent about recording each and every purchase we make, not only to keep track of our spending as a whole, but also to keep track of our types of spending. So when I enter Target reciepts, which have loads of diffent types of purchases, I have to organize and decode all the items so I can enter them into the appropriate category. But now it appears Target is doing my job for me. Way to go, Target! Somtimes it's the little things that make me happy.

xxxx

happy election day.

It’s Election Day, so I can’t skip out on a voting-related post. Of course, I’d rather poke my eye out than discuss my political persuasion, so here's a little voting history from Yahoo:


Why do we vote on a Tuesday ... in November?

The short answer: We used to be a nation of farmers.

The long answer: Congress chose November because the harvest was over and the weather wouldn't be bad enough to prevent people from traveling.

As for Tuesday, people used to have to travel overnight to their polling location. (In 1845, horse was the preferred method of transport.) In an effort to avoid religious days of rest, Congress chose Tuesday, leaving Monday and Wednesday as travel days. Tuesday was voting (and horse-resting) day.

Be sure to get out and vote today! And after that, just sit back and know that God is in control.

xxxx

i love paris.

Made this for work recently. What a fabulous trip! Brings back great memories of a fun vacation and time in my life. Miss you, girls!

why i hate potlucks.

Nothing like the smell of ground beef to get your day going.

I'm spending part of the morning making crock pot tamale pie for a church potluck this afternoon. Fortunately, the extra hour has afforded me some time to cook. But you know what? I hate potlucks. In fact, I call them pot"bad"lucks. Not only do you have to get up early to make the meal for the potluck--a few extra hours early if you're involving a crock pot, and let's face it, what potluck dish doesn't involve a crock pot?--you have to figure out the logistics of carrying and reheating the dish at the potluck location.

Now, you might be thinking, "Just pick up some cookies or bring a bag of chips and dip." It's true: People who bring dessert to a potluck have it easy. They can bake ahead, sleep in, and forgot about any reheating logistical nightmares. I would gladly make some brownies from a box for a potluck. But, unfortunately, my husband has a penchant for volunteering to bring a main dish-- a habit that is a little annoying considering he's inevitably not the one to actually make the dish. Even if we did sign up for a side item, a bag of chips would be out of the question. It's one thing for a single guy to show up with something ending in "itoes," but married women are expected to cook. I'm pretty sure it's in the church bylaws. (Insert Kristin's mini-tirade on how married women are expected to make cooking their ministry.)

Rather than simply complaining, I might as well do something useful with my time here and share the recipe for tamale pie (which is really nothing like a tamale or a pie, but that's what it's called anyway).

Tamale Pie

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1.5 cups milk
1 egg beaten
1 can corn, drained
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
3/4 c. corn meal
1 packet chili seasoning (I'm hoping enchilada seasoning can make a good substitute)
1 can sliced black olives (optional if your husband hates olives)
shredded cheddar cheese

Mix everything in a crock pot and cook on high for 3-4 hours (I think I usually do close to 3.) Add a bunch of the cheddar cheese on top and let it melt before serving.

xxx

national blog posting month.

November is National Blog Posting Month. NaBlPoMo is a challenge to post every day on your blog without exception and excuse. Yeah, right. While I have no intentions of actually blogging every day for an entire month--I would last, oh, about two days--I thought accepting the challenge of posting more often (let's say a few times a week) would give me the jump start I need to get back on the posting horse. Apparently, I've been a little lazy lately (or so someone named Mom gently pointed out to me). So, here we go....
xxx

eli stone.

It’s hard enough to find a tv show that Paul will sit down and watch with me. It’s even harder now that we got rid of digital cable and have mostly pbs, and E!. (Even I can't handle that much The Girls Next Door.) So I was delighted to recently discover a light-hearted gender neutral show called Eli Stone.

Have you seen it? I was reluctant to watch after seeing previews of lawyers doing dance numbers and elephants walking the streets of New York. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover a uplifting primetime show for adults that is sweet, funny and thoughtful, sans gore and language. (So, I'm sure it will be cancelled soon.) Eli Stone is about a lawyer who starts having visions of the future. He uses the visions along with his legal prowess to help people. Here's a synopsis from abc.com:

With a newfound resolve and sense of his life's purpose -- even if that means being a prophet -- Eli Stone (Jonny Lee Miller, Trainspotting) ended the show's freshman season by making peace with the Almighty and by having his brain aneurysm -- and the source of his fantastic visions -- removed. ...But will Eli's visions cease now that he is free of his aneurysm? Or will they establish once and for all that he is a modern day prophet? The show's second season answers these questions in ways that will surprise viewers and will reaffirm how the show's fresh and accessible approach to issues of faith and spirituality.

I love Eli, I want to get to know him, I want to see his character develop. And it’s not like a tv show is going start to talking about Christ, so having a mention of a higher power, of God even, is progress, and the message of the show serves as a good reminder to us all: You can’t ignore what God has called you to, as much as you try to escape it, and he’ll tug, and tug, and he’ll make his plans happen anyway.

Give it a try--you won't be disappointed! (Especially is you're a girl who likes a {little} more heart and relationship than Fringe, can provide.) Let me know what you think!

seriously?

This can't be for real...can it???

http://www.youvebeenleftbehind.com/faq.html

xxxx

i never talk about god.

You can’t see what time I’m posting today, so I’ll tell you: 12:37 p.m. Wait, you ask, aren’t you supposed to be on your Wendy’s to get a post-second church service home-style chicken Go-Wrap? Yes, I am. But I’m at home, still in my pajamas having just finished off a cup of coffee, slice of pumpkin bread, and episode of Brothers & Sisters. Do I feel guilty? Nope. Should I? Don’t know. But this post really isn’t about whether or not I should have been at church this morning, but more what I’ve been pondering in the absence of doing that.

First, just because I never write about God here, doesn’t mean I don’t ever think about Him. There’s just not a whole lot to say about Him when you’re writing about Lean Pockets, apple orchards, and comfortable shoes. Just wanted to clear that up.

Where am I going with all this random business? Not actually sure. But I really wanted to talk about God because He has been on my mind this morning. And so have the topics of fear and waiting. Such have been the cornerstones of my life: afraid to change, go, trust, connect, try, etc. and impatient in waiting for “my real life” to happen.

I live in an almost constant state of fear—fear that God will turn my comfortable life upside down completely in an instant without warning me that it’s going to happen. And so I try to make sure I have at least one “bad” thing going for myself—kind of like insurance so that something really bad won’t happen. I also try to hold on to parts of my life and keep them as my own so that God can’t have His way with me. In a sense, I really don’t want to know what it would be like for God to be completely in control. I really have trouble focusing on heaven, and the purpose of being here on earth. It’s not about comfort, happiness, fun, it’s about obedience and relationship. Not that these things are mutually exclusive. He just wants it all to be in the context of Him.

I really like the post I just read at the blog, 97 Seconds with God: “I used to be afraid that God was going to make me a missionary and send me to Guam….I honestly thought that if I gave my all to God, that if I turned over my whole life, he would turn it upside down instantly.” Later in the post the writer says, “I think the truth is that when we turn ourselves over to God, he doesn’t make us into someone else. He makes us into who we have always been. He amplifies the parts of us that are true. He purifies the dreams we’ve always had or the skills we’ve always used. He doesn’t turn poets into mathematicians or scientists into painters. If anything, I think he gives artists even more colors to create with, scientists even bigger labs to experiment in…I’m a writer and when I gave my life to Christ, he didn’t ask me to stop writing. In many ways, he asked me to start writing.”

So nothing profound or earth-shattering happening here. Like you didn’t already know that I have fear issues, right? I think it's probably a pretty common concern to some extent anyway. So there you go.

so sweet.

Found this on the seat of my car the other day. I love when I get a sweet little surprise from my hubby as I head out for work. Makes me smile and the day a little lighter and brighter.



Happy Monday!

the dark side.

I went to visit my hairstylist the other day, intending to get rid of my way-overgrown highlights:




**
Yeah, just a {smidge} darker than I intended. I guess that's what I get for telling the hairdresser "do whatever you want." I definitely like it in theory; I love dark hair on people, and I think this color would look awesome on someone else. I'm just not sure about it yet. I'm assured by various people that it's "rich," "New York chic," "very fall," "sexy," and "rockin'." And, hey, if I'm going to pay money for color, it might as well be different, right? Of course, now I need a new wardrobe since I'm no longer a "spring" but a "winter." Honey, where's the credit card ...



**Okay, I feel a little guilty not mentioning that my green eyes
in the after photos might have had a little help from the magic of Photoshop.

xxxx

windy city.

Hello, Kristin, welcome to your first hurricane.

Remnants of Hurricane Ike ravaged the Midwest yesterday. Among other damage, Ike left waist-high floodwaters in Chicago, and near-hurricane force winds left 1.5 millions homes without power between Louisville and Columbus. Read more about it here.

With Cincinnati included in the massive blackout, Paul and I were without electricity for much of yesterday. But we are now among the blessed few to have power restored. Praise God for that, as well as for sparing any damage to our house. Just a few tree limbs are down in the backyard.

The winds were and subsequent blackout were an unexpected end to the weekend. I was playing around the Internet in the early afternoon when the power went out. Nothing like the loss of power to get you up off your butt. I spent some time organizing and cleaning the house, and washing my delicates in the sink. Fresh out of anything else to do that didn’t require electricity, I poured a glass of wine and sat down with Love Walked In. Paul and I ended up at Paul's parents’ house, about 30 minutes NE and also without power. The blackout gave us a great excuse for an impromptu BBQ with the family.

Back to today. I’m sitting here typing up this post from home. My office, along with most of the city (over 500,000 locations), is without power so we get an unexpected day off. After the previous, taxing week, I’ll take it!

An apartment building near our house. Thankfully, no one was injured.

what does this remind you of?

Nope, it’s not a shot taken inside Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s actually from the set of the photo shoot I’ve been directing this week. What, not very scrapbooky, you say? True. Nine-five percent of my time is spent working with suburban, stay-at-home scrapbookers, but every now and then I take on a book from our more “artsy” imprint, with authors that create things like mosaic skulls.

Regardless of the imprint, every couple months I have to spend a week playing hostess to one of my authors and directing a week-long shoot of instructional photos. Typically, the photos don’t involve a “set” like this one; they usually consist of some manicured hands and a gray background. Needless to say, this particular week was…(ahem)…interesting. (It was also trying, but that’s a whole different story.) But, hey—maybe I have a future in crazy set design. What do you think?

xxxxx

road trip.

Last weekend Paul and I made a short (2 hour) road trip down to visit friends in Louisville (that's "loo-uh-vul" for all of you in California). After a stop at Ben and Kristina's apartment we piled into the car and drove down to Starlight, Indiana to visit the orchards and taste the best down-home cookin' I've had outside of Cracker Barrel (hello, best chicken 'n' dumplings ever!--where have you been all my life?). Despite the unfortunate heat, we had fun riding the pickup trailer out to the orchards to pick fresh blackberries and apples at our leisure. Bringing home farm-fresh blackberries, my favorite fruit, was a sweet treat for me; blackberries from the roadside stand is one of the things I miss about Orange County. As I noted how interesting it was that simply picking fruit on a farm was such a novelty, Paul replied that, yeah, I'm sure the Latino men walking the rows as we picked blackberries would beg to differ.

Along with the fruit, I brought home a few photos:

{tim gunn would be proud}

If you don't already know, "Make it work," is Tim Gunn's catch phrase on Project Runway.

Sure, Tim, I'll make it work. I tell my designers that pretty much every day. "You design the book to make it pretty, and I'll make the text work." I often find myself with a bunch of instructional photos, and scrapbook pages and words that don't work together, or don't explain things well enough for the reader, or don't match the concept of a book. Yesterday was no exception. But since rewriting the whole book and taking all new instructional photos was simply not an option, I spent the afternoon reorganizing, tweaking, and coming up with rather brilliant ideas to make the book even better than acceptable. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, so I got really excited about how well I was making it work (I guess that's why I do this editing thing), and it made me think of how Tim would be proud of me.

{lessons learned: Part 2}

I finally get it.

I have been surrounded by teachers for most of my post-college life; almost all of my friends are elementary school teachers, and most of those are early elementary at that. I've always felt pretty sympathetic to the plight of a teacher. With exception of summers off and long holiday breaks, I've never, not once, wanted to be a teacher. I have no illusions about teaching—I know it can be difficult work and frustrating at times (or more often than not!). I know teachers earn their pay and work really hard. At the same time, I have to admit--please forgive me!--that on occasion I’ve been known to secretly roll my eyes at the complaining about “low" salaries (um, hello, you only work nine months of the year), hours of work (um, hello, you leave school at 3pm), and difficult special-needs kids (um, hello, you have aides.)

Well, last weekend I gleaned a little bit of insight into what it's like to be an elementary school teacher. I finally get what my teacher friends were talking about--and I have to say that any complaining is totally justified!

If you read Part 1 of my Sunday School experience in this post, then you know in an effort to finally get involved at church, I signed up to help out with children’s Sunday School this month. This week, the kids were sent to drama class, an opportunity to--with the help of two teachers and myself--dress up and act out scenes from the story of Joseph. Sounds fun, right? Wrong! Well, not for me anyway. I ended up as the babysitter for an exasperating little boy with ADHD (or something like that). The teachers and I were content to let the uncontrollable boy do his own quiet thing with the bucket of costumes while the other kids acted on the other side of the room--at least he wasn’t disrupting or hurting anyone. But every five seconds he wanted to do something different—everything ranging from hiding under the table, sitting in the teacher’s chair, running in circles around the room, to yelling at the other kids, and twirling a rope too close to the face of classmates. And every time you even attempted to talk to him or take away the rope or whatever else, he would scream bloody murder and run away. I’m not trained for this kind of work! How does one deal with this? This kid should have come with an instruction manual. On the one hand, the range of bad behaviors was disrupting to the class, on the other the intense screaming was even more disruptive. Ugh. Anyway, I’m sad to say that over the course of the class, my heart was not softening toward this little boy at all, even though I knew he couldn’t probably control himself. I was angry that he was taking away from the experience of his classmates, and, frankly, taking away from my experience as well.

So, now I see I’m pretty clueless about teaching, but I will never roll my eyes again! I see how immensely hard it is to be a teacher. I only had 15 kids in my class—with three adults. Most kindergarten rooms have no fewer than 20 kids. Now I see why special-needs kids have assistants. And if they don't have help, how incredibly disruptive and difficult that is! With these conditions, I’m really amazed kids learn anything in public school. So, thank you, teachers. Hats off to you! You rock!

{backyard surprise}

Yeah, you don't find this in Orange County. So fun to discover them tonight!


See the bit of blacktop on the bottom right? That's our driveway. They came so close! And as you can see, there were two of them.


I followed this one followed into the woods of our backyard--which, I rarely venture into....except, apparently, to follow big animals that could conceivably hurt me. So very Artemis of me!

x

{lessons learned: Part 1}

(Sorry, this post is really long. I took the liberty of bolding the important parts for all of you who tend to skim.)

I've felt called to help with Sunday school for quite a while. It’s one of things that I’ve always been afraid to try because I don’t have any experience working with kids. And I have always felt like God has been leaning on me to try it out before I say, "No, that's just not for me."

In an effort to start getting involved at church, I took my first task to be signing up as an assistant in children's Sunday school this month. I felt really good about my decision...right up until the night before. The whole evening I spent dreading the next morning, and wondering what I had been thinking. Part of the problem was not having a clue was I was actually going to be doing, nor what exact time I was supposed to show up. I woke up several times during the night at the end of one anxious dream after another. I even had a dream that I planned to leave the house a half hour too late--which was actually a blessing, because I had actually planned to leave a half hour late and only the dream made me realize my mistake (thank you Lord!). That first Sunday morning, I arrived at church, stomachache and nerves tagging along. Though he wasn’t slated to help, a very sweet Paul stuck by my side that morning to help out and provide moral support for me. Fifteen minutes into it, while all the kids were gathering in one room for worship, I was fine though, and Paul went off to the worship service. At that point I was surprised to find myself in my element--directing lost families into the correct room, locating colored nametags, handing out snacks and ensuring that each kid was sitting in their assigned row.

God decided it would be "funny" to assign me the class of 15 almost first graders—you know, those adorable kids who have zero attention span for listening to boring Bible stories. While the teacher told the story of Joseph, I sat amongst the kids agonizing and analyzing what I should do—if anything—as the kids whispered, shook their snack cups, looked pretty much anywhere but at the teacher. Thankfully, our real task was to help the kids make wind socks. I did much better assisting the kids with a specific task...and a crafty one at that—than figuring out what appropriate course of behavior control was supposed to be. But even during crafts, I was forever on edge about what I was expected to do with wound-up Sunday school students.

Fast forward to this last Sunday, as the kids started to assemble themselves for worship. Somehow, I ended up as the only adult in the room that knew what to do. So without missing a beat, adeptly directed families, assigned colors, guided kids and wrote missing nametags. After a frustrating and disheartening hour with my first-graders, I felt confirmed in what I’ve always known--that my passions and gifts do not lie in working with a class of little kids. Not that I shouldn’t help out or get out of my comfort zone, but teaching kids—at least a class of them--is simply not one of my spiritual gifts. And I think that’s okay. But this wasn’t the lesson I learned. Those two mornings spent stepping up to the plate when called, organizing and directing and taking charge—that was so far out of my comfort zone, but at the same time came so naturally. I have the gift of administration. I can get the job done. I pay attention to details and notice when people need help. (Yes, you’d think I would have figured this out by now, but that’s a whole other issue.) Thank you, Lord, for enlightening me.


x

{if I had too much money...}

...and I was required to buy frivolous things with it, I would buy this handbag. Oh, how I love Orla Kiely. Her bags make me swoon. With the money, I'd probably also buy a few dozen things from the new Pottery Barn catalog and get DVR, too.

x

{three things}

A little fun courtesy of Elements of Style...

1. What are the last 3 things you purchased?
I purchase so much it’s hard to keep track!
*foam letter stickers
*an iron
*a blowdryer
(Yes, we had small-appliance issues last week.)

2. What are the last 3 songs you downloaded?
I don’t usually download songs, but I download lots of TV shows.
* Army Wives (totally hooked!)
* Gossip Girl (not a fan)
* The Closer (always a solid choice)

3. Where were the last 3 places you visited?
* Orange County
* Italy
* Chicago

4. What are 3 of your favorite t.v. shows?
* Grey’s Anatomy
* Project Runway
* October Road

5. What are your 3 most prized possessions?
* my wedding rings
* the Bible I got when I was 20
* my leather purse from Fiesole, Italy

6. What 3 everyday things can you not live without?
* tv
* Burt’s Bees chapstick
* coffee

7. What would be your 3 wishes?
* to know, love and worship the Lord as much as humanly possible
* for Paul and I and everyone else I love to have good health forever
* to get DVR for free

8. What are 3 things you have not done yet?
* give birth
* buy a house
* go to Canada

9. What are your 3 favorite dishes?
* Orange chicken from Panda Express
* Gorgonzola ravioli from Prima Vista (with a glass of Barbra D’Asti)
* Kroger brand rising crust supreme pizza (with a glass of Crane Lake Petite Syrah)

10. Name 3 things that freak you out.
* spiders
* thunder storms
* being in the house alone after dark

11. If you could describe yourself in 3 words, what would they be?
* artistic
* committed
* detail-oriented

12. Name 3 random things you are good at.
* throwing things in the kitchen together to make a tasty meal
* using punctuation correctly
* remembering names and dates (I get that from my mom)

13. What are 3 things you are currently coveting?
Only three???
* this chair from Pottery Barn
* DVR (and a flat screen to go with it)
* a gorgeous new bathroom with subway tile