Friday Five

1. So, sorry about disappearing...again. Whoops. Life has been so busy! Let's see, what have we done since I last blogged?

2. The biggest thing is that my parents came to visit us. We had a wonderful time together, but boy were we busy. Rusty can usually take off a day or two while my parents visit, but that wasn't the case this year.

3. This year my dad took on a very big project. Daddy built me a 7' x 40" bookcase for my kitchen. The weather was wet and cool, which made the process of staining long. See how beautiful it turned out?

4. Another big thing is that I took on the role of being Assistant Director of Hannah's Prayer Ministries. It is such an honor to serve the beautiful women of HP.

5. I attended the Chick-fil-A Leadercast that was simulcast at my church. It was a fantastic experience!

Friday Five

1. I met up with two HP friends (Lizzie & Peggy) of mine up in Baltimore on Saturday. We had a great time! We ate at The Cheesecake Factory where we savored decadent avocado eggrolls, noshed on delicious chicken lettuce wraps, and finished up lunch with a light and sweet lemon raspberry cake. Sooooooo good! Then we went to the aquarium and marveled at many of God’s creations, our favorites of which included the octopus, puffins, and dolphins. After that we walked around and shopped/window-shopped and finished the day at Panera for dinner. All in all, it was a wonderful day.

2. I made a yummy crab stuffed flounder this week. The smell of the crab and fish drove Gus crazy! He jumped up on the trash can – something he hasn’t done in months. I realized that I had kind of set him up to fail by putting crab scented stuff in the trash. I should have put everything into a small bag and taken it out as soon as I was done. Good thing the trash bag was mostly full anyway, so we could just take it out. Poor Gus thought he was being tortured with yummy smells!

3. Speaking of Gus, he had his first adventure outdoors this week...on a harness and leash, that is. Rusty really wants to be able to take Gus out on a leash. Tuesday evening we slipped the harness on Gus easily, since he didn’t know what it was. He did not like it and was slinking around the house at first, like the harness was weighing him down and keeping him close to the ground. I got one of his favorite feather toys out and got him to play and realize that he could still jump, but Gus still kept licking at the harness. Wednesday evening we put the harness on again (without too much trouble), attached the leash, put him in his carrying kennel, and took him outside. (We used the kennel so he could feel safe and come out at his own little pace.) It took him a minute of hesitantly taking little steps, but he came out of the kennel and walked around with curiosity mixed with nervousness. He was sniffing everything, of course. We are looking forward to the next warm day when we can take him out again.

4. I made some delicious lettuce wraps this week. I looked up a bunch of recipes and went from there. They turned out great! Recipe coming soon...

5. We had some beautiful weather this week...in the 60s and sunny! Loved it. Loved. It.

Friday Five

1. I picked up a small vacuum last Saturday since we have to vacuum up kitty litter every few days due to an enthusiastic kitty. I got it home and excitedly took it out and put it together. It wasn't until I had everything out that I noticed that it was missing the charger. Great. A small cordless vacuum doesn't work well without being charged. Good news though - I was able to exchange the vacuum last night. And yes, I did check to make sure this one had a charger.

2. I am going to help my BFF tomorrow with a crafty project for her oldest daughter. We are decorating a paper turkey. Should be fun.

3. Have you started Christmas shopping yet? I have some things, and should probably pull it all out to make sure I remember everything I have. Shhhh, what I already have is classified TOP SECRET!

4. Rusty and I are going to a church barn bash tonight. Should be a great time - pig roast, desserts, bonfire, wheelbarrow joust, games, entertainment, and more! It's going to be in the 40s this evening, so I am going to be sure to bundle up. Brrr!

5. If you have a few moments, can you pray for my friend and founder of Hannah's Prayer Ministries, Jenni? She had a stroke on Tuesday which caused a seizure and left her unresponsive for a number of hours. She is still in ICU but hopes to be moved to a regular room in a few days. She is having some double vision in her left eye and a little paralysis on the left side of her face, but she is able to talk.

California Girls

I’ve been meaning to share a few fun photos with you from my trip to California several weeks ago. I’m happy to report that my girlfriends are as willing to take silly pictures as I am. Enjoy the goofiness!

On the lamb

In-N-Out...animal style!

Nice ears!

Walking her ballon dog. Yes. Her ballon dog.

Minnie Rach

Fish tacos at Wahoo's!

Me and the Duke

CA Trip

I am on my way to beautiful California where I will meet up with the other ladies on the Board of Directors for Hannah’s Prayer Ministries. We will be taking care of a bunch of business-y things for the ministry and fellowshipping together. I’m really looking forward to it.

Rusty, however, thinks he might die of starvation and boredom while I'm gone. I've assured him that he will be fine...and made sure to provide him leftovers. I don't think he'll waste away before I get home.

I find it ironic that it will be a lot cooler in California than in Maryland, as in highs in the 60s/70s instead of 90s.

Did I mention that we will be near the beach and there is a pool at the hotel? Ah, yes. It will be tough, but somebody has to do it.

Meeting Up

I met up with a sweet friend on Saturday for lunch in DC. We went to Jaleo - a Spanish tapas place. We ate until we were stuffed and then walked around DC.

Megan posed with the sailor at the Navy Memorial.

We walked until we found a cute park that had a picnic bench in the shade. There was a pool and ducks and even a little waterfall. We sat there for hours and talked. I wish I had taken a picture there, but I was too busy chatting.

Thanks for a wonderful day, Megan! I had a blast.

A Mother's Day Letter

Today can be difficult for many, including women longing for children. It is for this reason that I wrote a letter that is featured on Held today.

Grab your coffee, a few tissues, and a prayerful heart and head on over by clicking on the button below.





I also want to share a fabulous free resource with you. Holley Gerth has written a resource called When Mother's Day is Difficult and has it available on her blog to download.

Exciting new things

I have two great blogs to share with you today.
_______________________________________

1. As you may have already read, I am blessed to be part of a wonderful team at Hannah’s Prayer Ministries that is launching a new blog, Held, today. I am so excited!

I pray that this new ministry touches many hearts. We hope to bring community, comfort, friendship, growth, acceptance, and laughter to each person that reads. Will you join us?
_______________________________________

2. I am honored to say that my sweet friend, Jenni Saake, is featuring today me on her blog, Given Me A Thorn. Will you join us there to learn about contentment?

Inside Scoop!

I have something wonderful and exciting to share with you, sweet bloggie friends.

It’s very exciting!
Did I say that already?
Well, it bears repeating.
It’s that good!

Are you ready?
Here’s a hint.
Click on the Held button over on the right.

The ladies at Hannah’s Prayer Ministries have been hard at work creating a new blog, Held. One that will offer support and comfort, as well as education. The launch of Held is ten short days away.

Will you join us?
Will you follow our blog?
We would love to have you.

Friday Five

1.  I can’t start this week’s post without mentioning, however briefly, the tragedy still unfolding in Japan. I am heartbroken and can do little but pray. The Japanese are an amazing and resilient people. Will you join me in prayer for them?

2.  I have an exciting announcement! This week I joined the Board of Directors for Hannah’s Prayer Ministries. I am honored and excited to serve these amazing women.

3.  Speaking of Hannah’s Prayer, I want to tell you about an awesome opportunity for any woman struggling with infertility. We are planning a retreat in sunny Costa Mesa, CA, for June 24-26. This will be an amazing time of fellowship, understanding, fun, support, and healing. I went to a retreat two years ago and it was simply amazing. The theme this year is, What’s Your Story? Our speaker is Holley Gerth who is, among other thing, writer for DaySpring Cards and co-founder of (in)courage.

4.  I made the best Beef and Broccoli ever on Monday. Seriously. The beef was full of flavor and tender, the sauce was amazing, and the broccoli perfectly cooked. Stayed tuned for the recipe.

5.  My brain isn't functioning so well today. The last few days I have been working at a fast pace, my little brain working on overtime. But today? My brain is mush.

                                                                 

Feel free to join me in Friday Five!

If you do follow along, be sure to post a link in the comments.

Friday Five

1.  I was able to spend a few minutes visiting with a dear friend on Sunday. She and her hubby were driving past where my parents lived on their way home and they stopped to visit with me! Loved seeing you, Nae!

2.  I gave my dad a puzzle of DC for Christmas. He pulled it out and started sorting pieces with mom. I joined in while they were putting the edges together. Even Rusty helped for a while. We made great progress on it before Rusty and I left.

3.  We are getting our new dryer delivered today. It cannot come soon enough for us! I am so over wet clothes laying everywhere, but mostly I am over rough towels. Blech!

4.  There was a major change with WW on Sunday. I go to my meeting to find out all the information tomorrow. I did gain a few pounds over Thanksgiving but I know it could have been so much worse. I am anxious to learn the new program and I am sure this will end up being a good thing for me. It will take some getting used though.

5.  I got a wrong number text message last night at 10:40. It woke me up. Evidently Rico's party is tomorrow. If anyone wants to go, they are meeting at 8:00 pm in Alexandria, VA!

Friday Five

1.  Our dryer stopped drying. It runs, but does not heat. Great. Wonderful. We have been having to air dry everything. I went to Target to buy a second drying rack. I was shocked to see how much those suckers cost. $40? No thanks! I managed to find one for about $15. Anyway, we have wet clothes hung all over our house and they are taking forever to dry. When we get back from Thanksgiving we have to figure out what to do next. Get a new one? Risk fixing it and paying just as money as if we did buy a new one? I hate appliances.

2.  One of my coworkers gave me a jewelry party catalog. Some of the stuff is nice, but man is it pricey! $130 for a long silver necklace?! Um, no. I did, however, find that I really wanted a long silver necklace all of the sudden. I went to the mall and found an awesome necklace for, wait for it, $6.35. Yay!

3.  To scan or to pat. That is the question. Or so we thought. We decided to go ahead with the body scan. No touching me please! We arrived nice and early, ready for long lines and lots of waiting. Sure enough, the security line was long. We stepped into the queue at 5:45 am. The line moved surprising fast. As we got closer to the front, I saw that there was only one of the body scanners. Ah ha! This may be good news for us! We put everything all the belt (bags, shoes, coats, belts...basically everything) and were waved to the regular x-ray thingy. PTL! No body scan or aggressive pat-down for us! We were through the security line by 6:00 am. Only 15 minutes! Wow. Just, wow! That was really fast. I applaud you BWI. Good job.

4.  It has been great to be with my family, even when one person is playing a game on the computer, one is watching football, three are looking at Black Friday sale papers, one is working on scheduling for homeschooling, one is playing games on her phone (me), two kids are reading books, and one kid is playing in another room. :) Of course, just a short time later we started up a rousing game of Apples to Apples. Love that game!

5.  I get to meet Esther Okerson today! It is amazing how you can become such good friends with people online. I never would have thought that so many of my closest friends would be started online. Any by online I mean HP, er, Hannah's Prayer (for you non HPers).

Hope

My pastor talked some about hope today and it reminded me what God started teaching me last year.

It all started at a bible study on joy. At the end of the night, the leaders passed out bedazzled rocks with the word joy on them. They ran out of joy rocks right before me and I was handed a hope rock, of all things. I was angry at God. How could he give me a hope rock? I sat there staring at it, incredulous. Just after this I went to a retreat. While there a sweet friend talked about our hope in Christ and that is when it hit me – I was combining my hope in God with my hope to have children. This is something good and pleasing to God, but still I needed to separate the two things.

Ever since then I've been dealing with what hope is and isn't. Our hope in God has to do with his character; his overall plan that we can not see; his provision (no matter what it is); his promise to always be with us; his deep and unfailing love. This hope is not something light and easy...it's hard won; it's raw and gritty and real; it's rough around the edges from our fingers digging in with all our might; it's the belief that we can trust the path that God has us on to be the right one (even if it's not the one of our choosing).

It's hard to hope when it hurts so much, but I have learned that I was putting my hope in God to have something in return. I wanted it so badly that I could not see how I was mingling the two things together too much. Mingling our hopes is easy to do. In fact, it is much easier than recognizing that there are different kinds of hope. The hope for children is one, and the hope in Christ is another.

A friend on HP shared the following about the French words for hope:

French has two words for hope. The first is "espoir", as in I want/hope to have something.

And then there is "espérance", which my bilingual dictionary translates as "hope, expectation". There is no equivalent in English. But get this - here are translations of the definitions of the word from a monolingual French dictionary:

1.  Feeling of confidence in the future, enabling one to wait with confidence for the fulfillment of one's desires; hope; e.g. "to live in hope, the hope of a fine future"

2.  Person or thing which is the object of this expectation; e.g. "You are my only hope"

3.  Theological virtue through which the Christian adheres to God as the supreme purpose of Man in order to obtain divine grace and eternal union with God

Praying for renewed "espérance" in our Lord and His plans for our futures - remember Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future. (I just checked an on-line French Bible and of course it uses "espérance".)

What cool information, right? I love how that describes the two kinds of hope. Awesome.

Hope is one of my big words in life now. I have it written on rocks, screen savers, jewelry, ornaments, and more as a reminder. My hope is in Christ!

HP Connections

I recently saw a blog post at (In)Courage about forming deep connections online (http://www.incourage.me/2010/08/community-online.html). Boy, can I ever relate to that! There were a few things in particular that stood out to me and reminded me of Hannah's Prayer.

"They don't get my Masterfully cobbled together community. Where distance is meaningless, age is irrelevant, and a mutual longing for uncovering the future where faith, purpose, and passion intersect is ultimate. Where friendships are not marked by years of shared history, but by sharing authentically in the present."

Yes! I could not have said it better myself. I have beautiful friendships with women all over the world that understand me better than most of my in-real-life friends. HP is an amazing and loving collection of all sorts of women from all different cultures and walks of life that have come together to support and lift each other up. I am able to pour out my broken heart to all these women that let me know that I am not alone. I am understood. I am loved. I belong.

"But, for the record, real community happens online. Just like real community happens in life. And God is there, right in the middle of it, with a big smile."

I do believe that God smiles down on HP. I believe he laughs with us and holds us close as we weep. The HP community is full of comfort, understanding, love, support, and compassion. I don't know what I would do without them. ♥

Girls Weekend - group shots

Waiting for our table at the Che.esecake Factory. Yum.











Group pictures before leaving on Sunday.










Posing with our new tote bags from Meg.

Girls Weekend

Seriously. Good. Times.

Girls weekend - Laughter

We laughed SO MUCH our stomachs hurt. I think mine has finally recovered.

Girls Weekend - Lava!

The magic chocolate lava cake was had a little to much lava. Luckily we all had our priorities straight and quickly grabbed our cameras to capture the moment instead of cleaning it up. We left that up to the only man in the house.

Anticipation

I get to see a handful of awesome HP friends tomorrow and I am super excited! I feel like a 10 year old waiting for my birthday. Do you remember that kind of anxious excitement? :) I know that there will be lots of talking, laughing, picture taking, silliness, and even crying. Good times. I fly out to Ohio tomorrow afternoon and will meet NaeNae at the airport. We will rent a car and drive to Kirky's house to meet up with Heather, Megan, and Kirky Sarah (of course). Wootles! Oh, and I get to meet the Kirky22s, I mean, the twins. Woot wootle!

There are a few other HP friends that I would dearly love to see. You know who you are. *wave* Maybe at the next HP retreat. Here's hoping!