Archive for March 2013

O glorious day!

The Jewish leaders called for Jesus to be killed, but did not have the authority to do so themselves under Roman rule.

The method of execution – crucifixion – was a Roman cross.

The Jews called for his death. The Romans provided the means of execution. This makes both Jews and Gentiles responsible.

And yet, Jesus had both the power and authority to stop/prevent his unlawful trial, his torturous beating, and his death. But he endured it all, laying down his life willingly – taking the punishment and suffering the death that I deserve.

The story doesn’t end there, though. He arose on the third day proclaiming victory over death.

Romans 8:31-39
English Standard Version (ESV)

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who diedβ€”more than that, who was raisedβ€”who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

β€œFor your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Recap part deux

I am in a much better mental state than I was yesterday so maybe I will do more of a race recap. Ok, maybe I am not in a better mental state, but I can write more about race day without being snarky and judgmental, and maybe purge some of the angst from myself so I can write about what I really want to write about.

I can’t tell you how much I love having heated seats. You really can’t beat them when you are wearing running tights and your butt is cold. This is one of the reasons I drive us to races. Karyn has fallen in love with my seats too. πŸ™‚ But that really isn’t all that relevant. I just want to express how much I am thankful for heated seats.

I bought a parking pass when I registered, and was so glad because I wasn’t up for a shuttle to/from NetApp to the race site. I get motion sickness, and bus rides are pure torture for me. Anyway, so we head up there and I am thinking that I know what road to turn onto from Hwy 55, but I was wrong and so we had a little not so scenic side trip before I stopped and looked at the directions again. Anyway, so we get there, and the lot was nearly full, and as the guy was directing me into a slot, a car whipped in behind him and got it. It was the last slot, too. The guys manning the traffic at the street had let 2 cars into the lot more than there were slots for. These things happen, and they are just volunteers. I ain’t hatin’. Except on the person who slot blocked me. Anyway, the 2 of us extra vehicles got to park in VIP parking. “Yo, VIP!”

I actually ate some of the gummy fuel things they were giving out. I keep pretending that didn’t happen as I know they are just sweetened chemicals. So really, eating the gluteny pizza was not the only “food” fail. And then there was the stop at Starbucks afterwards. And why can’t every Starbucks make a triple venti caramel macchiato with extra caramel the same? Tasted great last week on post. Tasted like mostly espresso there. Eh, what do you do?

Did I mention I could barely walk yesterday? I’m still sore today, but mainly in my back.

I really really hate this “song” and always have, but since I referenced it…

Race 3 down

Karyn and I ran the Tobacco Road Half Marathon yesterday. My time was 3:20:53 which was about 22 min slower than the City of Oaks Half Marathon last November. But you know what? I didn’t and don’t even care because there is no way I should have been able to run that half. Yes, walkers passed me. Yes, when Karyn met me at mile 12 to make sure I finished, she walked as I “ran.” But I finished it, and celebrated by glutening myself with 2 slices of Papa John’s pizza. Karyn might have heard moaning that shouldn’t have been heard. lol And this is as much of a race recap as I care to do. Oh, and I am sore as heck today because I did not properly train. Not that I didn’t have a training plan. I just missed a LOT of training runs.

‘Cause I like to eat

I think I have made 2 contradictory statements about cooking before. 1, that I hate it, and 2, that I kind of like it. They are both correct because while most of the time I hate cooking and will only do it because I want to eat real food and not processed chemical-laden stuff, sometimes the mood hits me, and I actually enjoy the sights and smells of preparing food. And either way, I like to eat. πŸ˜‰

So after mentioning that I made my own cream of chicken soup to avoid gluten (even though I glutened myself twice that day), MacBros wondered how I did it without flour. And through some Googling, he found a site selling all kinds of gluten free stuff and blogged about it: Gluten Free Noodles? Me, being me, I felt obligated to link whore, and explain how I did this.

First off, I will produce the original recipe for what a friend from way back in the mid-90’s at Tinker referred to as “rice shit.” He loved it, and was going around asking “Who made this rice shit?” I thought it was hilarious, and, yes, that is what I call it. Anyway, I got the recipe from a cousin at one of my wedding showers because the cousin who hosted it thought it would be a great idea to have everyone attending to give me a recipe. My whole extended family likes to eat. Both sides. πŸ™‚

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First translation, “oleo” = margarine. That is a pet peeve of mine that my parents heard me complain about for years because they would not drop the “oleo” label and call margarine margarine. And having looked it up, perhaps I will stop complaining about that word. After all, I have been known to call margarine “butter” which is most certainly is not. Anyway, I used real butter instead of margarine, and locally produced butter at that. πŸ˜‰

This is the recipe I used to make cream of chicken because of that pesky gluten intolerance I have: Cream of Chicken Soup Substitute But I used Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour as opposed to ordinary bleached wheat flour. Yes, I realize I admitted earlier in the post to having glutened myself otherwise twice that day. And yes, I am paying the price, but thankfully I don’t get migraines with a glutening. And it isn’t so bad as I expected so maybe praying over the communion bread did help. I didn’t pray over the movie theater popcorn that I wouldn’t have eaten had I not been the keeper of the bag due to keeping my children separated in the theater because they fight. But I digress.

Next came the Homemade Cheez Whiz. I didn’t alter that recipe in any way, though I only buy white cheddar because cheddar isn’t naturally orange, and the stuff they use to make it orange bothers me. I know, who knew? I did not, however, use my food processor as it was not clean, and so I used my blender as a food processor. I should have just cleaned the food processor right then and charged on because blending cheese is tricky. But I made it work without injury. πŸ˜‰

And I used brown rice, but rather than buying fresh broccoli, I followed the recipe and bought it frozen. Stop judging me. lol

Maniacal Monday #15

1. I went grocery shopping Friday night. With. A. List. But I had the hubster with me so there were things picked up that were NOT on the list.

2. The hubby has been asking me to make my rice…stuff. It’s official name is broccoli casserole, and it calls for cream of mushroom chicken soup, most of which contains gluten and so I can’t eat it. It also calls for Cheez Whiz which I won’t eat. I substituted real butter for margarine also because I won’t eat margarine if I can at all avoid it. Anyway, so I had to make my own gluten free cream of mushroom chicken soup and my own cheez whiz. Oh, man, cheez whiz is much better with real cheese. πŸ˜‰ Overall, the casserole tasted way better, but without the processed stuff, it needed salt, and even after adding salt, I didn’t get it salty enough. That said, I’m ok with that because I am not supposed to use a lot of salt, but when I think it needs salt, it is probably greatly lacking.

3. Petra and I went out partying Saturday night. By party I mean dinner and a movie because that’s how we roll. Anyway, we saw Oz the Great and Powerful. And Sunday night I saw it again with my kids. My kids did not provide me with quite the entertainment Petra did because they didn’t get my side commentary and quoting from The Wizard of Oz, Galaxy Quest, and The Fellowship of the Ring.

And yes, I loved it and will be getting the DVD. And need to watch The Wizard of Oz again. πŸ™‚

I want to see this just on GP.

4. I did something Sunday that felt so rebellious and unbaptist. I took communion at a church where I am not a member (going against my closed communion upbringing), it was regular bread and not unleavened (going against the whole unleavened bread with communion “rule”), and ate the bread knowing full well it was gluteny bread. It has been at least a year since I had bread with gluten, and oh, man. It was soooo good. Just that little bitty bit was enough to reignite the flames of gluten craving. And enough to have me all bloated today. :sigh:

5. And, since Karyn went to the beach over the weekend with the extended family, I set out to do my 12 mile run alone. And oh, was it ever an epic fail. I made sure to dress appropriately for the warmth and sun, but forgot to take water with me, and started off entirely too fast. I didn’t do a full 4 miles before I got so sick that I not only stopped running, but called the hubby to come and get me. :headbang: I may or may not have cried. And I may or may not be able to run the half this weekend.

6. Sunday afternoon/evening I told the kids they had 15 minutes before we left for the theater. I then proceeded to eat one more time, and they came up to my office to rush me. Jamie picked up my acoustic and started playing, and she is really doing well with the guitar now. Then she said to me, “Give me a song to play.” So I played this:

She was like “No, that’s too much stuff to do.” I told her it was not, and to give me the guitar where I proceeded to start playing it (with great difficulty because it’s be a WHILE and I couldn’t remember the chords right away. Had it crossed my mind, I would have told her to learn this one:

As if I have ever mastered it. πŸ˜‰

7. I really don’t have anything else (that is for public consumption).

Funday Friday #13

This was a weird week. I should have known it would be weird when I woke up Monday morning at 2am to a panic attack. For those who don’t know, panic attacks have been an issue for me off and on since I was about 6 or 7. For several years instead of panic attacks I would have just anxiety, and a full-on panic attack was drug-induced. This is why I tell doctors not to give me codeine. Anyway, I had them really bad for about 2.5 years after I got out of the Air Force, and that’s when I noticed a pattern. Panic attacks follow periods of high stress. Later on I noticed depression follows the panic attacks. But I am digressing. I woke up with chest pain, and before I could get all the way awake and reason the pain out, the panic set in with “I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK!” That got me all the way awake, and I had to talk myself down with “No, it’s gas. Chill out.” I went right back to sleep, but the repeat was a couple hours later. This led to an all day fight Monday wondering if it was the panic or if I was sick because I just felt like crap all day.

Tuesday morning I got up as normal, feeling fine, and went to the bathroom like normal, only after I sat down it ceased to be normal. Didn’t even have warning cramps. Just exploded. At that point I knew that Mondays events were me getting/being sick. I called in Tuesday, felt bad for doubting Jamie saying she was sick on Sunday, and realized that James and Rick each had it also to varying degrees. James not as bad, Rick worse. Chad managed to escape the bug. And yes, it was a bug because we didn’t all eat the same things. Weakness and achyness lasted the last couple of days from the bug.

Monday night I finished Chad’s scarf (and I wove in the ends of the hanging yarn before I gave it to him).

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I was so sick of working on that thing, but I really didn’t appreciate how easy it was until I started on a scarf for Jamie that involves actually following a pattern. For Chad’s, I just did 1 stich and the rows were all 20 stiches wide, and I just knitted until I was satisfied it was long enough, which was about 5 1/2 feet. For Jamie, I decided to make a Slytherin scarf. Of the first 44 rows, I’ve done 4.

I wandered around yesterday on 3 hours sleep, plus the half hour nap I took at lunch. I was a complete wreck, and I don’t know how insomniacs manage to function.

I laughed so hard at this:

Weekend randomness

I know. I never blog on weekends. lol

So John was going to leave me a snarky comment this morning telling me to post, and discovered I have been. Apparently one of my rss feeds sporadically works (or not at all). Any of the feeds displayed on the page should work. Should. πŸ˜‰ Anyway, that explains why I hardly have any visits besides Facebook and Google searches. Not that I had a large readership base to begin with. hahaha!

The half marathon is 2 weeks from tomorrow. Karyn and I ran the American Tobacco Trail today as one of our final training long runs. This was the 11 miler. First of all, I gotta say, I love the Tobacco Trail! But, I kind of rolled my ankle at about mile 6. By mile 9 I was about to die (figuratively) because my shin was cramping and my foot and ankle were screaming. Thinking it would be worse if I tried to force out the last 2 miles, I painfully walked back. I kid you not, my knees and thighs are more sore than that ankle.

This has grown on me.

“And where do we go from here?”

I have started, and deleted this post about 3 times now. It’s gone from snarky to whiny to incoherent. As I sit here trying for the 4th time to get this written, this version may be snarky AND whiny AND incoherent. See, there are events and conversations behind it that would give it the necessary context, but I don’t want to blog about those. But there was one conversation that has kind of served as a catalyst for wanting to write about this because something was said that kind of shook me up and made me think.

At one point I said essentially that doctrinally I am still a baptist. Then later as I thought on it I thought “But culturally, I don’t think I am.” This brought up the realization that I have been a baptist my whole life – 12 years longer than I’ve been a believer. So naturally, me being me, I “have” to question whether I have picked baptist churches as an adult because I am altogether baptist or if it’s because that’s all I know. I mean, seriously, up until the past month, aside from a handful of base chapel services when I was active duty, the only non-baptist church I had ever attended was a Catholic church with my best friend in high school for a few months.

There are some things that I am sure of.

1. I don’t want my “Christian experience” to consist of just church attendance. That’s performance. I did that for my entire childhood as a deacon’s kid. I don’t want to just play the part at church services and functions. Like I said, been there done that.

2. I don’t want to go through the motions and not get out of my comfort zone. Kind of like #1, only I want to perform in a way that brings glory to God and not attention to me. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

3. I want to reach out to the lost, particularly the unchurched. You know, the ones who don’t know how to “perform” as a “good Christian” is supposed to. Rough, crude, and unpolished. The ones that folks who grew up in church and never openly rebelled/strayed don’t know how to relate to.

4. I don’t want to “get our country back to God” by means of political activism under the banner of the church. We cannot ever change a culture of any kind through politics. No law ever changed a person’s heart. Plus, the USA has never been nor will ever be the new Israel which is to say we, as a country, are NOT God’s chosen people.

So far, this seems to be kind of a ramble, but whatever. That’s what happens when I don’t fully contextualize. πŸ˜‰ Where I am right now is with my family looking for a new home church. Let me tell you, when you leave a church where you love each and every person there, it is like breaking up. It’s not pleasant. It hurts. It hurts you, and it hurts them. But sometimes you have to move on for the sake of the whole family, and when your kids don’t want to go anymore, and you reach the point that it is nearly impossible to force them, it’s time to move on. Hence the dilemma. Do I continue to press for a baptist church out of tradition? And I have come to the conclusion that what I want is a church faithful to scripture, zealous for evangelism and discipleship, as focused on children and youth ministries as adult, and not afraid to open up in worship and in life (meaning, you can’t be open if you “bite and devour” aka gossip and backbite).

I think I managed to hit snarky, whiny, and incoherent. Therefore, since I have labored over this post for well over a week, I leave you with a little “Flyman.”