Alternative Burns' Night

Last-minute planning of traditional Burns' Night fare was not a good idea today. Not on a Burns' Night when Scotland's First Minister made another carefully timed speech tugging at the independence heartstrings of the nation. Certainly the Scottish National Party is leaving no national symbol unexploited as it seeks independence for Scotland. Above, the 'haggis chill cabinet' in our local Tesco on Saturday. The tartan swathing is new to Tesco's display this year. As the independence debate ramps up, so does the tartan. By 2014, the proposed date for a referendum on independence, we will be drowning in it.
By 5.30 tonight the haggis had sold out. Even that mostly unloved stalwart of Scottish cuisine, the neep, had disappeared.



So we celebrated with home-made mushroom risotto with roasted butternut squash. Shhhh...

Sprucing Up For Spring

Well, after 23 years, I'm finally adding more gingerbread to the outside of our house. When we first built, I was overly caution about how much trim was added not wanting the house to look like a wedding cake. Our house style, Carpenter Gothic circa 1835, is more plain than later Victorians.

But after living with it for so long, I've decided it needs a little more fancying up. So over the next 3-4 days, I'll be poring over online catalogues trying to find what I really like. If you're new here, the top house is ours. The following photos are possible trimmings, brackets, and gable decorations. Stay tuned for the final results.

Don't Waste Your Life

I finally finished reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. I really like his convicting, hard-hitting style.
Here are some portions from the last chapter entitled My Prayer-Let None Say in the End, "I've Wasted It". And now shall we who treasure Christ and know your love is better far than life lay up, like all the world, our treasures on this earth? Would not we hear you say, as you once said, "Fool, will not this same night your soul be taken back? And then whose will these barns of bounty be?" Forbid, O Lord, that while the world is filled with need we would sit down and say, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry." A terrible reversal waits such lovelessness. "Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation."
Oh God, such riches are a wasted life. Protect us, Lord. Grant us to hear and heed another call: "Lay up your treasure not on earth, but in the place where moth and thief will never come. Make treasures for yourself that cannot fail."
The answer is that in this life we may begin to treasure Christ, and here gain an aptitude for joy in him. It is delighting in his fellowship beyond all family and friends. It is embracing all his promises that there will be more pleasure in his presence than from all the lying promises of sin. It is a gladness in the present taste of glory and the hope of future fullness when we see him face to face. It is a quiet peace along the path he chooses for us with its pain. It is being satisfied that nothing comes to us in vain.
He calls us now to use our riches for the poor and to join him in this final task of frontier missions. Is not this, then, the way we lay up treasure in your house-to give our money and ourselves to make as many rich with God forever as we can? Grant that we move toward need and not toward ease.
As God lives, and is all I ever need, I will not waste my life...through Jesus Christ, AMEN.

Hindsight is 20/20 (duh!)

I would like to think of myself as a reasonably healthy person.
I exercise regularly, I generally get enough sleep and, a few indulgences aside, I typically eat pretty healthy.
However, even healthy living can get bit by the occasional flu bug.
And that's where I'm at presently: At home and sick with what the doctor described as a combination of strep and an ear infection. My temp has been spiked for the last couple days and I've had a headache that feels a lot like a team of jackhammers going to work on my forehead.
It's been a pretty uneventful couple of days. Mostly just watching a lot of movies, listening to a lot of music and drinking more than my fair share of water.
It's also given me time to reflect on where my healthy habits went astray to cause this sickness. In this case, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what went wrong. It can all be traced back to last Monday.
Monday happened to be a day off from work for me. Since my job at the Free Press is generally confined to a desk, my days off usually consist of anything but sitting around. Monday was no exception. Here's a breakdown of my activity that day, with the events being in order of occurrence:

• 90 minutes of racquetball (apparently a pretty intense session, as my coworker claimed to be worn down from it the next day)
• 5-mile run
• 40 minutes of rowing
• Donating/selling plasma
• 60 minutes of biking

Now, even without the plasma donation, that's a lot of physical activity draining water from my system throughout the day. Since plasma donation generally takes about a half-gallon of water from your system (and leaves you more susceptible to the flu, as mentioned in a previous post), it's not too far-fetched to believe that I was extremely dehydrated by the end of that day.
In my defense, I thought I knew what I was doing. I've donated my fair share of plasma, and I'm usually pretty good about keeping myself hydrated for it. If that wasn't enough, I gave myself a few hours after the donation to take a nap and drink some water before I decided to hop on an exercise bike at the Y and watch the Timberwolves game.
I felt fine after the biking and figured I took the proper precautions for such a cardio-filled day. However, when I woke up the next day feeling sore all over with a dry throat, it became pretty obvious that I bit off more than I could chew.
Two days later, enter sickness stage right.
Coincidence? I'm thinking no.

Blast from the Past: Modeling Career

1969

It wasn’t a long career … if I recall correctly, it lasted all of one day :-)

I have no recollection of how mom’s hairdresser convinced this essentially shy girl to be a hair model, but here’s proof that I agreed to a short stint on the catwalk!

İzmİr, Turkey

Gift From the Sea-Revisited

We're taking a few days vaca at Jekyll Island, GA. I'm reading Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh for the ninth time. It's a book that I never get tired of. If you've never read it, you must. It speaks to every stage of a woman's life.
As I was reading today, a sentence resonated with me. It said, "One falls under their (waves) spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which on lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today's tides of all yesterday's scribblings."
I want all my yesterday's scribblings to be erased. I'm up at 1:00 a.m. right now unable to sleep. I'm all out of sorts from all the travelling we've been doing for the past three months. The older I get, the less flexible I get about getting away from my usual routine. Or maybe it's just the back-to-back trips we've been making. Whatever it is, I'm topsy-turvy, and I don't like it.
So while we're here at the beach, I hope to lie flat and let the sun and surf do its good work.

I Made It!

The engagement party went off without a hitch on Friday night.  We had a cookout at a local state park.  Here's the cake I made for them; camo and girly pink.  It was a cute idea, but my execution left a lot to be desired.  Cake decorating is not on my list of talents!  Oh well, everyone thought it was cute anyway.
We had a crowd for Easter dinner.  Lots of good food and fellowship.  The kiddos had a great time hunting the eggs.  I had a great time hiding them.  I kept finding myself smiling and remembering the past when all the cousins would gather at Grandma Collins' house to hunt eggs.  I was telling my mama what a good time I had hiding the eggs and remembering all the hunts we had at Grandma's house.  Mama said that she just loved hiding the eggs too.  There were probably a hundred or more since there were so many cousins hunting them.
So hopefully this week will be a little slower and calmer; at least until Friday.  The whole weekend will be spent in celebrating our church's 25th anniversary.  There'll be lots of friends back to help celebrate, so it'll be good to renew relationships.  Summer, please come quickly!  I'm ready for a laid-back state of mind.  All these schedules are makin' me crazy!