Pictures

My sister Katie is here for the week, and here are a few pictures she’s taken of Ev….most notably of her black eye!!!!!  She fell off a chair the other day and hit her eye, and now she totally looks like a raccoon!  I’m kinda embarrassed to be taking her out in public, but all in all, she’s been pretty great about the whole thing.  

Watching Sesame Street and eating Cheerios

You know what’s the grossest thing?

When you take fish oil pills and then keep burping-up the taste of fish.  Seriously disgusting.

33 Weeks

Weekend Funny

This is really funny…. Louis CK on Conan O’Brien talking about how our generation is so spoiled by technology that we fail to be amazed by how incredible it really is.  True and very funny commentary on our perspectives today.  

The best feeling ever

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s just such a wonderful thing that I have to say it again.  

The best feeling ever…. slowly waking-up from a long afternoon nap, realizing that your daughter is still asleep, and drifting back off to sleep again…. and then waking-up after TWO HOURS to the quiet and not a whining, “MAma!  MAma!!!” because she’s still asleep!   It rarely happens, but when it does… magical.  

(I’m really cherishing these last few weeks of this before the baby comes to shake-up everything!)

Mentally MIA

Sorry no posts so far this week, and I’m not feeling any coming at the moment.  This is mostly Laurie’s fault since on Monday she taught me how to knit.  Yes, call me a knitter now.  A pretty pathetic one, but a tad obsessed nonetheless.  So I’ve been spending all my free time and typical internet/blogging time practicing.  I had the brilliant idea that maybe I could get good enough to make some things for Christmas presents, and I’m furiously trying to perfect my skills so that no one gets a scarf with big holes and empty loops in it.  We’ll see how that goes.  

Until then, if you’re looking for a beautifully knit present for yourself of someone else for Christmas, check-out Laurie’s Etsy store.

Any good book recommendations?

I’m looking for a few good fiction books.  Hopefully I’ll make it to the library this weekend, and I’d love to actually go in there looking for a few specifics since it’s so hard to browse with a child.  Well, really it’s just hard to browse amid thousands of books anyway since fiction is categorized by the author’s last name and how am I supposed to know the last name of the author of a random good book I’ve never heard of?  Hmmm???  

I like historical fiction (although not really early-America type stuff and not stories set in war times, that just bores me), I like girly, I like romantic, etc….  Not a big fan of fantasy-type books.  (no Harry Potter) Or anything remotely scary or suspenseful.  (don’t think of suggesting that new popular vampire-Twilight series)  And nothing too heady, if I wanted to really concentrate then I’d just pick-up a non-fiction book.  I need to escape into a really good story!  Clay’s going to be at yet another class all weekend and I need to not be bored.  

Any recommendations???????

It Won’t Be Like This For Long

I don’t know if I’m trying to keep my Southern roots now that I’m in the Pacific Northwest or what, but I’ve been listening to a lot of country music lately. I kinda get on kicks where I’ll listen to it a lot and then get tired of it and go a long time without it again.  I heard this song the other day driving in the car and it almost made me cry because it’s so relevant to where our lives are right now.  In my good moments this song makes me very sentimental, and in my bad ones it’s very encouraging.  (Sorry I don’t know how to embed this video, just the link)

http://music.aol.com/video/it-wont-be-like-this-for-long-sessions/darius-rucker/2235374

WHAT happened?

So, Clay’s birthday is today.  And I made a cake.  Sort of.  Please look at the picture and tell me if this isn’t the WORST cake you’ve EVER seen in your life!  WHAT in the world happened?????

You’re probably thinking that Evelyne got to the cake and shoved her hands inside of it.  Nope.  THIS, dear readers, is what the cake looks like now that I just finished icing it.  Yep.

First of all, this is not my first attempt to bake a cake.  I’ve made many cakes in my life, baked and iced.  They wouldn’t win any prizes or anything, but they were never looked bad.  So understandably I wasn’t assuming that this one particular attempt would have any problems.  I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.  I followed the directions on the box.  I cooked for the recommended amount of time and made sure it was done in the middle before taking it out of the oven.  Now I did leave them to cool in the pans rather than immediately flip them out to cool, but would that really cause such problems?  Both round cakes fell apart coming out of the pans, but I pieced them back together and thought, “Hey, no biggie, that’s what icing’s for, right?”  Well, with every stroke of my iced knife, a chunk of cake would rip off.  It was like the cake was too moist, the icing wouldn’t spread, it just stayed in a lump on the knife and the cake ripped every time I touched it.  So I pretty much resorted to using my fingers and dolloping-out the icing to somewhat cover all the bare spots just so there would at least be the taste of icing if not the look.  The final tumble of that big chunk came just as I was finishing….as though the cake was mocking me.

Really, I don’t know what happened!  I followed the directions just like I always do!  It was Pillsbury for pete’s sake!  I’ve done this a million times!!!  I have never in my life seen a cake so utterly impossible to ice!!!  Please, someone tell me what went wrong!!!

*And the worst part is that I’m about to take my gestational diabetes test in a couple of hours and I’m not allowed to eat anything, especially sugar, so I couldn’t lick-off all the chocolate icing that was covering my hands!!!!

An Evening with Shane Claiborne–Part 1

Sunday night our church hosted Shane Claiborne, co-author of Jesus for President and The Irresistible Revolution for a time of worship and conversation.  In the past few months I’ve been reading and processing Jesus for President, and it’s definitely been one of the most formative books I’ve read in a long, long time, so I was super excited to hear that we would get a chance to hear Shane in person.  I was also glad that it was something that Clay and I could learn from together since he still hasn’t read the book.  (despite much encouragement from me!)  We were definitely not disappointed, listening to Shane’s thoughts and experiences were great conversation topics for Clay and me on the way home, and he definitely expounded on some things that we have been asking ourselves lately anyway and helped us to take it just a bit deeper.

Here are a few things that he said that stood-out to me (somewhat paraphrased):

*Christianity spreads best not by force but by fascination.

*Rather than the church trying so hard to be relevant, we should probably expect to be a bit peculiar.  Maybe we should look to the Amish to show us how to create a contrast culture within the world.

– At this point he reminded us of the incident where a shooter killed several Amish children in a schoolhouse a few years back.  What stood-out most from that tragedy was the way the Amish community reacted to the shooter’s widow and children. They were forgiven, embraced, and welcomed as family.  They attended his funeral and gave a portion of the money that was given to the Amish families to the shooter’s widow and children. The Amish are very intentional about seeing themselves as citizens of the kingdom of God before their citizenship on earth, and their radical forgiveness was a testimony to the world of a people who put the values of Jesus ahead of their own feelings and the world’s standards of justice and entitlement.  People were baffled by their actions, they could not understand a reaction like that to someone who had done them so much harm.  When the Church follows the teachings of Jesus in a literal and serious way, we’re likely to be somewhat peculiar and odd to what is considered normal in our culture.

It made Clay and I wonder if there were things in our lives that would appear peculiar and strange to others… in what ways are we living-out our citizenship in a contrast culture?  I’m so over the idea that the Church has to somehow be cool enough to attract people, that they’ll want to hang-out with us because we’re so much like them.  Instead, I think that we should probably be weirding them out a good bit, but in a way that strikes their soul and makes them realize that they were created for the alternative reality that we embody.

*Does my Christianity remind others of Jesus?  What are others’ perceptions?

- He began by talking about the time when John the Baptist asked Jesus if He was the Messiah they had been waiting for.

Jesus replied, “Go back to John and tell him what you hear and have seen for yourself, that the blind and lame and lepers and deaf are healed, the dead are raised up, and the poor hear the good news of God’s kingdom. Happy is he who has no doubts about me.” (Matthew 11:4-6)

In other words, Jesus knew that there was plenty of evidence by His life and work to show people that He was indeed the Messiah.  He didn’t go into a long explanation of all the reasons and proof that He was who He said He was… He knew it was obvious if people were actually paying attention.  Similarly, does our life and work give evidence to others that we are His followers?  Are there things about us that make us peculiar enough to the world to where it’s obvious that we’re different?  If someone was to ask me if I’m a Christian, could I respond by saying, “Well, what do you see in my life?  What do you think?  Does it look like Jesus?”

To Be Continued…

Pastor Eugene Cho has the audio from the evening on his blog if you want to listen for yourself!