Medal Count

I'm really getting a kick out of the Olympics right now. Oh my stars... did you see our guys on the high bar aparatus in the Men's Gymnastics Team Finals???

Olympic Medal winners at NBC Olympics.com!

Spoon

I went to get a cup of coffee this morning and got to thinking about something that I have seen at almost every coffee maker just about anywhere.


A spoon.



Resting on the counter-top.



With a small drop of coffee on it.



Why is it there?



My hope beyond hope is that it is as simple and innocent as someone stirring their hazelnut creamer into their coffee and then forgetting to either throw the spoon away (if it's plastic) or put it in the dishwasher.



However my fear is that it is something much more sinister entirely.



I think it's actually possible that someone thinks that I am going to take this spoon, that's been sitting on this germ-infested counter-top, that's been in the questionable contents of someone else's coffee cup - someone else, mind you, that I may not even know well enough to remember their name - and put this spoon into the contents of my coffee cup and then drink those contents along with all the germs I've just introduced to it.



Yeah.



Right.

We love some Skittles

Nathan got Skittles today out of the candy bowl at church.

On the way to the car we opened them and he had one.

"I love Skittles," he said. "They don't suck."

????

"You mean you don't suck on them?"

"Yeah."

"You chew them, right?"

"Yeah."

Oh... okay.

Foodie Friday - What would Carlos drink?

The Tour de France. The television event on Versus that I look forward to every summer. My man has even admitted to getting sucked into it with my influence. We may even play around with a "Fantasy Team" competition next year.

But, it is now over. Actually, by the time I actually post this, it will have been over for about 2 weeks. But since it never gets any headlines, I figure most of you haven't heard a thing about who won.

His name? Carlos Sastre. His country? Spain.

I love how his son is lifting up his hands in victory here at the final ceremony. Wants to be just like dad.

How did the Americans fare? Not bad. We had one, Christian Vande Velde, who finished 5th - which in terms of the biggest, most famous road bicycle race in the world... not bad at all.

If you really want to geek it up, you can see the standings here.

So in honor of the Tour de France Champion for 2008, Carlos Sastre of Spain, I present this week's Foodie Friday: What would Carlos drink?

Sangria, anyone?

We were invited recently over to a friend's house one Saturday evening. It was to be an evening of good food, better fellowship, and better still drinks. Our friends had requested Sangria.

After the idea was brought up, we all stood there and thought for a minute... none of us had ever made Sangria before. Which we all thought was odd since it had Mexican origins.

So I stepped up to the challenge and began doing some research on how to make this drink. One thing I found out... it doesn't have Mexican origins. It is Spanish in origin. Southern Spain to be exact. Read more of its history and origin here.

I found what looked like a good recipe and tried it out.

What I found was that it's mostly a "by taste" sort of thing. The recipe above was not bad after making some adjustments, which may have been necessitated by the absence of certain spirits in my cabinet that I was not willing to go spend the money on. I added a little more sugar and ginger ale. A couple of times I used some blood orange juice (an italian soda) which made it interesting. I used cherries as well as strawberries.

So, on a hot summer evening, with good food and great friends and fellowship, Sangria hit the spot for us.

And, being from Spain, I can use it to toast the new TDF Champion.

Congratulations Mr. Sastre! It was a race well done.

As a note: Obviously I have not been in France photographing the race. I accessed these pictures from the Team CSC-Saxo Bank website and are creditted to Tim De Waele.

Work hard, and then let Jesus

I got a wild hair on Saturday morning before I met with my friend K for our Bible study time doing No Other Gods by Kelly Minter. I actually decided to go outside and do some yard work.

*gasp*

Yes, I know.

But, believe it or not, I like the occasional time of working in the yard. There are such immediate results. And I tend to think a lot while I’m doing it. It sometimes ends up being a very refreshing time of quiet for me as long as the kids are otherwise occupied.

And as long as the physical labor isn't too hard.

Because if the work is too hard, then it's too much like... well... work.

On this particular day, I for some reason decided that it was time to dig up that rosemary bush that’s been slowly dying over the last year. I’ve said countless times over the last 6 months or so, “Oh, I need to just dig that thing up and start over.” But I guess I kept holding out hope that it would pop back to life. But no. I realized that it had finally given up the proverbial ghost.

So I got out there and with the loppers cut off all the big branches. Then, I began to dig and pull up the roots. It’s so obvious it was dead because the roots weren’t hanging on at all. They all came right up. The whole job took less than a half-hour.

But that half hour was so full of spiritual lessons for me. I thought about this dead thing that had been sitting in my garden, just taking up and wasting space that could be used for something that was alive and useful. I realized that same thing could be said for all these things that I look for my life in, things that I make into idols, and how they take up room in my heart that could be filled with the life that Christ gives.

I also think I had been putting off digging the thing up because I was afraid that it would be too hard. That it would be too much work. And yet it wasn’t, because it was already dead.

I am the first to admit that letting go of some idols is hard work. However, I have to wonder that if I would go ahead and realize that they are already dead, since they are not producing fruit, and let the Master Gardener take over, if the job wouldn’t be a ton easier.

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:30.

But I think the hard work for me comes in admitting them and recognizing them. Once I can agree with God on what I am putting before Him, then I think I can let him clean house.

If I would go ahead and start just filling up with Him, wouldn’t He just take over and kick out those idols that are dead anyways? I have to believe that He would.

We’re not done with this study yet, and I am anxious to see what these last couple of weeks hold. But one thing I think K and I have realized already is that this is going to be a continual process.

Both of us have some idols and false gods that are very deeply seated in our personalities and psyches. These are the areas where we are most vulnerable to temptation. For me, one of these areas is independence, which leads to distrust, unbelief and pride. This is an area that I have to be extremely diligent about taking captive each thought and going back time and again to seek cleansing from Jesus.

Wordless Wednesday - Summer Fun

I'm entering this in a "Summer Fun" photo contest at 5 Minutes for Mom. Nuthin' more fun than a day at the pool, huh?

You can also see more Wordless Wednesday posts at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Not Worth the Calories

I lost a bunch of weight last year and slowly, over the last 4 or 5 months, I’ve gained a little back. I've been trying to re-lose it. I've been going to an aerobics class 2-3 times a week now on top of getting on my elliptical trainer each... well most mornings. I also have a favorite phrase right now when it comes to food that I'm trying to talk myself out of eating.

For certain foods, I just have to keep telling myself, “It’s not worth the calories.”

The bad part is that, unfortunately, there are some things that definitely ARE worth the calories.
For instance, a co-worker celebrated his 40th birthday last week. We took him out to lunch and we surprised him with a cake, which the whole office shared. While my lunch was definitely not worth the calories (IMO Olive Garden rarely is), the cake... oh the cake...

As I was sending out the email to everyone about joining us for cake, I recognized that almost everyone I know in the office was on a diet of one kind or another. So, I made sure that they realized that this cake was totally going to be worth the calories since this was not just your ordinary grocery store cake. I had ordered it from a local bakery called Hot Chocolates.

It wasn’t as pretty as something from Charm City Cakes (Ace of Cakes), but boy howdy… it was goooo-oood.

It was this same day that I read Psalm 29 in my quiet time earlier that morning. In verses 1 -2 the idea of God’s holiness and worthiness of our worship just hit me upside the head.

“Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.”

I began to think back to what the Lord had revealed to me about His holiness just a month or so ago and began to link that to how completely and perfectly worthy He is of my worship.

And then it hit me as I was typing my email to our office-mates about the cake that our false gods and idols are SO not worth the calories, so to speak.

Not worth it at all.

Ever.

Not even those good things that God gives us that we have managed to distort and turn into objects of our worship… they’re not worth it.

Including the church.

Some of our Christian brothers and sisters in the Episcopal church here in the U.S. are going through a difficult time right now. However, the Bishop of Springfield was quoted last week as saying, “We are all idolaters. I discovered in 2003 that I had been putting TEC [The Episcopal Church] in front of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I committed myself not to do that any more. In 2006 I realized I was still working on that process. I am doing a lot better.” He then ended the interview with this statement, “The challenge is this. I am to give up everything for Christ.”

Are you willing to give up those most precious things to you for Christ? Am I?

That’s a hard one isn’t it? Especially when we feel that it is something that God himself has given us. But it is easy to take a gift from God and let it become the object of our worship rather than worshipping the Giver of the gift.

Abraham may have let Isaac, a gift from the Almighty God, become a false god. But, he was willing to give Isaac up, and had faith that God was perfectly in control and that He keeps His promises.

Can the same be said for us?

Will we realize that all those other false gods are just not worth it? Not worth the calories and extra weight and baggage they bring with them?


I'm starting to get it. But just like with food, I've got to keep reminding myself.

Sarah's future husband, take note...

Sarah and I were talking on her bed while she was winding back down to go to sleep once we got home Friday evening. I asked her if she missed being at home and she nodded a very definite yes. One thing she said she missed was praying with us.

She also told me that she had a difficult time going to sleep that first night for several reasons. For one thing, some of the camp staff was outside their cabin trying to kill and get rid of a wasps’ nest so there were lots of lights. (Flashlights, maybe?) But more emphatically, she said that she felt weird being in a “wood room” in a “wood bunk bed that wasn’t painted.”

Apparently the rustic look isn’t for our girl.


Sorry, Papa, an outdoors-man grand-son-in-law is likely not in your future from our side of the family.

Pickin' & Grinnin'

We went to pick Sarah up from camp today (Friday). But first, I had to pick up Nathan who had spent the better part of the week at Nanny’s house. So I had to drive about 30 minutes west before heading back east.

I got in the car to leave my office at 2 pm. A few brief stops later, I got out of the car at the camp in East Texas at about 5:50… yes…. Nearly 4 hours in the car. And that’s just one way. Right now we’re in the car headed back home at 9:30 pm and we still have at least 1 ½ hours to go.

And the amount of time in the car is not the really disturbing part – although in and of itself it’s pretty disturbing. The disturbing part is my man. Not him, per-se, but his involvement in this pickin’ up process.

He left his office to meet Nathan and I on the way. So, I called him once we got back on the road after a tearful goodbye to Nanny and a stop at Jack in the Box for a potty break. He was already well on his way, so it was obvious that he was going to make it to our meeting point well before we did. And he did, in fact, get to the rendezvous point about 30-45 minutes before we did.

Here’s the disturbing part: we were meeting at an outlet mall. So here I am, in the car with the 3 year old, reciting the Cars movie, talking on the phone to my husband, who has time to kill at an outlet mall. What’s wrong with this picture?

Oh, and then he proceeds to tell me about how he bought himself some shoes. WHAAA?

It’s. Just. So. Wrong.

But, there are so many things that were right this afternoon/evening…

* Picking up my son and getting some kisses

* Picking up my daughter and getting some kisses

* Hearing all about her week at camp and how “swimming was great until I got stung by a wasp, but I’m not allergic, so it was okay, and it was just a little red bump and then it went away.”

* Having dinner with a dear friend; one of those friends that has touched my heart and left an indelible mark on me.

* Realizing how full my car feels with my two kids asleep in the back… and how that feels just right.

As I was driving along toward home tonight, thinking of all these things and pondering them in my heart, if you will, I realized… I was grinnin’.

Foodie Friday - The truth about German Chocolate Cake

The truth about German Chocolate Cake is that I think it's gross. I'm not a nut kind of gal (no, I'm not allergic - I just don't like them in my food thankyouverymuch) and German Chocolate Cake has tons of several different kinds of nuts in it. I'm just not a fan.

However my dad is. A big fan, in fact. Of course my family is very dessert oriented, so there are many others desserts he likes as well (like pecan pie, Blue Bell Ice Cream, cheesecake, oatmeal raisin cookies, etc.)

And since today is his birthday and since I'm not close-by to give him a hug and a kiss, or even make him a birthday cake, I am using this blog to make him a virtual birthday cake. A German Chocolate Cake. Much the same way I remember making these cakes for him when I was younger. That's how he knew the cake was especially for him, because he knew I wasn't going anywhere within 10 feet of it once I was done making it.

Blech.

Now, first a bit of history for you.

Did you know that German Chocolate Cake did not originate in Germany? It's not German. At all. Well, I guess that one of the people involved in its development could have had German roots, but the cake itself... not German.

The following is paraphrased from Snopes.com:

In 1852, a man named Sam German developed a sweet baking bar for Baker's Chocolate Co. who named the bar for him by using his last name: "Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate." (Side note: other sources say that Mr. German founded Baker's Chocolate... so I'm not sure which is correct.) Fast forward about 100 years and a recipe ran in the Dallas newspaper, submitted by a local homemaker, which caused a frenzy and noticeable increase in sales of these chocolate bars. The company began distributing the recipe and it took the country by storm.

In my looking about, I found several recipes that I'll share with you along with the disclaimer that I have not and will not personally try any of these recipes:

This one is accredited to Cook's Illustrated (pictured above) and I pretty well trust ANYTHING they come up with. It's bound to be good if you like German Chocolate Cake.

This one is from David Lebovitz who seems to know a thing or two about the subject of sweets.

Or for a different and interesting twist, try this one which hails from the Bridge Street Bakery in Waitsfield, VT.

So there you have it. As far as my friend the Internet can tell me, that's the truth about German Chocolate Cake.

And Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you.