Ready, Set, GO!!!

The time has arrived for my challenge to myself of cooking from Pinterest everyday for the month of February.  I am starting out tomorrow morning with a fun recipe that will surprise the kiddos for breakfast.  We eat dinner at church on Wednesday nights, so I am gonna get up earlier than normal to begin my month of fun and new recipes. Just as a preview, this week I am doing a breakfast, crock pot meal, lunch, and pasta.  Tomorrow's breakfast idea promises to be a made from scratch color creation that will hopefully surprise and astound my children. 

Also, just as a reminder, I am gonna have a cooking themed giveaway as well.  I will take all the comments during each week of February and use random.org to generate a winner once a week, so the more you comment, the higher your chance of winning.  So, one entry per comment, one entry per person you send to the blog (they have to comment and let me know you sent them), one entry per follow (either Pinterest or the blog), and one entry per pin (just pin my blog on Pinterest and let me know in the comments section).  Hope everyone enjoys the month of fun new recipes. 

Exciting News!!!

Well, January is quickly coming to an end.  It has been a very strange month in our house, but one that has gotten me thinking quite a bit.  One of the things that I have always wanted to do is cook my way through an entire cookbook (think Julie & Julia, but I had the idea a while ago).  I have been talking to my mom (bless her heart, she listens to my crazy ideas without judgement), and got the idea to cook my way through Pinterest.  I have been trying lots of new things that I find on there, so it just kinda seemed like a natural thing to do.  I am going to try desperately to blog my way through February cooking stuff I find on Pinterest (and hopefully remembering to take pictures as I go).  I will try to post a menu of what is coming up on Saturdays or Sundays ad my grocery list.  The goal is to cook at least one meal from Pinterest everyday.

I am gonna tie it in with a cooking themed giveaway as well.  I will take all the comments from the month of February and use random.org to generate a winner once a week, so the more you comment, the higher your chance of winning.  So, one entry per comment, one entry per person you send to the blog (they have to comment and let me know you sent them), one entry per follow (either Pinterest or the blog), and one entry per pin (just pin my blog on Pinterest and let me know in the comments section).  Hope everyone enjoys the month of fun new recipes. 

So, what do you think of the idea?  Am I crazy? 

Crisis at the table!!

So, I am having a slight  crisis this week.  Maybe a bit more than slight.  It hasn't been the greatest start to the new year, but I have really tried to keep a positive attitude going.  For the most part, I have actually been able to not get really down about things other than just a few moments here or there.  That is until tonight.  We are sitting at the table, eating dinner, and I happened to flip my hands over (palm side up).  Holy cow!!  There they are!!  That's right, just 4 days before my 31st birthday and I have wrinkly hands and fingers.  How can this be?!?  Now, I realize that this is not the biggest crisis going on today and probably makes me sound really vain (which I'm not!!), but for some reason it has devastated me.  Not "curl up in a ball and eat until you can eat no more" devastation, more like "oh my word I am getting old and soon I will too old to do stuff I want" devastation.  Again, I do realize how stupid this sounds, but I think this is the first time that I have really accepted the fact that I am getting older.  I like to think of myself as still a college kid, but obviously I am no longer able to go there. 

That brings me to my question.  When did it hit you that you are a grown up person with grown up responsibilities?  Am I the only one to have it hit this late?  I have 2 kids and a husband and a house and all those responsibilities, but it honestly hasn't hit me until I saw my wrinkly hands.  I will be ok, but I sure do feel differently.  Maybe I need to head to bed, it is after 7:30 pm here afterall.  LOL!!

Moral Victory?

     If you know me well at all, you know that I am a huge University of Tennessee fan.  I bleed as orange as it gets and have been known to become seriously depressed or insanely happy over a game.  Most people know not to call my house during a ball game because I either won't answer or will very agitatedly try to find out what they want quickly.  That being said, I spent today with my amazing mother at the UT vs. UK game at Thompson Boling Arena (Glad Dad had to work, LOL).  What an amazing game.  UT led the entire game . . . until the last 2 or 3 minutes.  Did we win?  No.  Did they play one heck of a game against an amazingly talented UK team?  Oh Yeah.  Am I excited as ever about the future of UT basketball?  Definitely.  However, I said something to my mom on the way to the car that I just keep coming back to.  I told her that I am happy about improvement, but I am really sick of these "moral victories."  You see, UT football had an awful year, but held LSU and Alabama to practically nothing for the first half of those games.  You guessed it, two moral victories.  UT basketball lost by 2 points two nights ago to Mississippi State (#20), and just lost by three point today to Kentucky (#2).  These are huge games for a team that has been through the turmoils that they have been through and with a new coach.  They also show some amazing promise for an unranked team.  There ya have it, moral victories.
     Sometimes, I wonder if God looks at some of the battles that we all go through as "moral victories."  Does he ever look at the struggle that takes place within us and have a moment of pride that we even hung in the game?  Does he ever get down about the things that are going on in the world like I do about the things going on in UT sports?  I like to think that God looks at the struggle that we fight to get to where we are going and thinks "job well done."  I am afraid that he sometimes looks at these moral victories like we do as fans and picks them apart about what one move could have changed the whole game.  I think my new goal is going to be not so many moral victories as real victories that I can add up in the wins column of life.  I want God to be able to say "Wow, she's the real deal," just like the fans today were saying about Jarnell Stokes.
     Someone once told me to be the kind of person that makes satan say "Oh crud, here she comes" when my feet hit the floor in the morning.  I want to be the kind of person that goes to heaven with more actual victories for God than moral ones.  I want to live the kind of life that helps others on their road to actual life victories as well.  Maybe, with some more work, both UT sports and I can start having some more of those real victories.

Twice in a week!! It's a record!!

     What a day, and for once that isn't because of how trying it was.  Today brought a couple of calls that I had been waiting for, an opportunity that I had been hoping for (and the realization that it wasn't in the right format for me at this point), and enjoyed some family time watching "Heidi" (the one with Shirley Temple in it).  I finally heard from Fireboy B's ear doc about his surgery tomorrow and the ear plugs that he will need after it.  Not a huge deal, just tubes and a scope of his eardrums with a possibility of taking out the adenoids.  He has been having problems with ear infections and is kind of on the verge of hearing loss, so hopefully tomorrow will help take care of all of those issues.  I am honestly not real worried about the surgery, but if you are the praying type and would like to say a prayer for him, his surgery stuff starts at 8:30 am EST tomorrow (1/5).
     The opportunity that came to me today was to teach as an adjunct instructor for a local community college.  Unfortunately, this particular class was an early morning class two days a week and the location is at a high school 2 hours from my home.  It is a dual studies class, so it would have been neat to teach, but I am not in a place in my life right now to travel that far that much.  Gotta spend time with Prissy B and Fireboy while they are little and still like me.
     This looks like it is gonna be it for the night, Fireboy is wanting to snuggle tonight.  I will try to report tomorrow.

Exercise as a devotion?

Well, I say it every time, but I really hope I am actually back this time.  Lots of things have gone on since the last time I blogged, but I am hoping a new year will bring new commitment to the blog and myself in general.  I'll get right down to my nitty-gritty question/ thought that I had today because it is proving to be a nagging thought that may be a possible solution to something I beat myself up over all the time. 
     If you have read my blog, you will know that last summer I did a Bible study that really got me focused on spending my time with God every single day and really had me focusing myself in some new spiritual directions.  With fall came school for the kiddos, more babysitting crises, and a much busier schedule for all of us.  Since we were doing this basically from scratch this year due to Mr. B's new job, it has definitely taken me a lot of getting used to.  Somehow that time that I set aside for myself to be with God was not getting done.  I had started working out and was beginning to lose some weight, and it became a choice of one or the other.  Now, I know some of you are thinking that there is no way that I couldn't do both, but work with me for a minute.  Everything was going great working out (I picked that because until my body becomes His temple, then I am not truly living his way in the first place) and I got bronchitis.  Several steroids, and steroid shots in the shoulder later, I am ballooned back up to the heaviest I have ever been and looking down the barrel of shoulder surgery right before Christmas.  I quit everything that wasn't mandatory and kind of sulked my way through the holidays with pain in the shoulder and an annoyance with lots of little things. 
     That is, until today.  I am not a fan of new years resolutions because I don't know of anybody that actually manages to keep them, but I sat here today and started looking at some websites and realized that I don't want to look like this anymore.  So, back on the treadmill for me tonight.  The best part is that while I was on the treadmill, I had my iPad listening to music.  I had tried to find a good treadmill playlist, but couldn't find any that didn't have songs that I hate on them, so I just turned it on TobyMac and got started.  Then turned it to Casting Crowns and kept pushing.  Then I realized, maybe my best time with God, the time that I can worship and praise him doesn't have to be quiet,  in a chair, by myself.  Maybe it can be when I am belting out my praises in song to him while doing my best to make my body the temple it is supposed to be.  Maybe the reason that I have a hard time sitting and doing a devotion for more than 5 minutes is because I need that music to express myself.  It is almost always the music in worship that leads me to the Lord and makes me feel more in tune with Him.  Why can't it be the same way at home.  I have been trying to make myself fit into the box that others I know have, but tonight, while walking on the treadmill, singing praise to the Lord, and shedding tears of joy, I felt that sense of being that I found during the Bible study last summer. 

What do you think?  Can your time with the Lord be full of music and exercise or does it have to be quiet and meditative?