Christmas Break plans

Well hi, there, Mr. Bloggy. I've missed you. I honestly don't know why I haven't updated in such a long time. Maybe I haven't had the time, maybe my life hasn't been that interesting, maybe I haven't had the mental energy to come up with something. Whatever the case may be, I'm out for Christmas vacay and loving it already!! For my little break, I have a few things I want to get done or catch up on:

• clean my car thoroughly so it doesn't "smell" like Mom says it does. whatev.
• finish shopping/wrapping presents, of course
• maybe tackle the Christmas cookie adventure?
• laundry (does it ever end?!)
• read (I checked out 7 books from the library today - we'll see if I get to all of them by January 4)

Also, I'll be going up to Charlotte for a day or two to see the extended fam, babysitting my niece (as much as humanly possible), and singing at the Christmas Eve service at my church.

What little projects/goals/activities do you have planned for the next week or two?

Daniel Fast Day 7

Today's menu was pretty much leftovers, things I've had earlier in the week. I did get to have some natural corn tortilla chips with organic salsa. That was pretty tasty! My blood sugar has been hovering kinda low, so it's been hard. When it's low, that's when I get really hungry, almost ravenous. and it's hard to stay with the fast, but I've done it. It's also very hard to stay with it if I'm not prepared ahead of time. I have to be ready to face the temptations by already having my meals planned. This can also be applied in the spiritual realm. I have to be ready for daily temptations to sin, and plan my response ahead of time. I prepare myself to battle temptation by being in God's word and spending time with Him every day.

Daniel Fast Day 6

I'm telling you, I'm getting more and more anxious to be done with this fast. So I guess this is going to be the hardest part, because I know Saturday night at 6 is coming! And I can't wait for it to get here! I'm still learning that there are things deep in my heart surfacing that shouldn't be there in the first place...negative attitudes, complaining, anxiety, frustration. Oh Jesus, search me and know me. Clean my heart!

Breakfast

banana walnut muffins (surprisingly moist and delish!)

soy milk

Lunch

stir fry veggies over brown rice

natural potato chips (mmmmm)

Snack

2 rice cakes with natural peanut butter and honey

Dinner

corn and potato chowder (soooo good!)

a little bit of granola that Nina gave me

I always struggle with keeping a healthy balance when I fast. My mind seems to think in all-or-nothing terms, black-and-white. So I have difficulty wrapping my mind around giving something up only for a period of time. I almost feel guilty when I break the fast, as if I'm going back to "life as usual". Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you keep that balance?

Daniel Fast Day 5

Halfway through....

Breakfast

homemade breakfast bars - TERRIBLE! sooo dry

green tea sweetened with apple juice

Lunch

veggie stir-fry with brown rice

potatoes and green beans

Snack

homemade popcorn with sea salt

Dinner

celery with natural peanut butter and raisins

whole wheat pasta with steamed broccoli and cauliflower

asparagus with garlic

apple cinnamon raisin almond salad with natural peanut butter and honey

We had lifegroup tonight, so Sarah made a smorgasbord of food! Dessert was especially tasty once I added peanut butter and honey! :) I also made some banana muffins to try for breakfast in the morning. They will probably be super bland, but it was worth a shot! I found out today that the Daniel fast can be a great opportunity to tell others about my faith. A teacher asked me today, "So...exactly why are you doing this to yourself?" I told her that this is a way of denying my flesh or my appetite to focus on God, and a way for our church to unite and pray for each other. I'm really having to watch my attitude, though, and not complain. If I am constantly being negative about it, I'll defeat the purpose of the fast, which is relying on the Spirit's strength. God is showing me that I have a warped view of Him. I tend to base what I know about God on my feelings/emotions. I need to remember to base my feelings on the truth, which is God's word. "I believe; help my unbelief!"

Daniel Fast Day 4

Breakfast

Ezekiel cereal with bananas and unsweetened soy milk

Lunch

whole wheat spaghetti with roasted garlic spaghetti sauce

Snack

potato chips! I found some natural ones that are made with sunflower oil! woo hoo!

Dinner

vegetable soup and oven roasted potatoes

sweet potato chips with cinnamon and honey

Laura was so gracious to cook dinner for a few of us! I'm glad that I'm done with the whole wheat pasta, cause the consistency/texture freaks me out. It's kinda like licorice. Ew. I'm beyond excited about finding potato chips that are allowable on the Daniel Fast. Aahhh, they were so tasty. The Ezekiel cereal....eh. It was very similar to a raisin bran, but it just has very little flavor. The raisins in it and the bananas I added helped with the dryness. I found myself thinking, "It's already Day 4? Wow, this isn't as long as I thought it would be." I'm sure that I'll be ready to eat normal food again by Day 10, though. Some of the girls in my lifegroup have mentioned how they may continue a lot of the habits even after the fast is over. They have found new things that they like that they didn't realize were available before. I'm not so sure I'll carry on with many things...maybe a few, here and there. But I am definitely much more grateful for the foods that I normally eat!

Daniel Fast Day 3

Here's the menu from today:

Breakfast

natural peanut butter and bananas on Ezekiel bread

unsweetened soy milk

Snack

2 rice cakes with peanut butter and honey

Lunch (Rotelli's)

cup of 15 bean soup

peppers stuffed with brown rice, yellow raisins, onions, celery, and TOFU (what?!)

an extra side of brown rice (cause I still wasn't full)

Dinner

stir-fry veggies (broccoli, sugar snap peas, green beans, onions, tomatoes, red peppers, squash, carrots) with brown rice, seasoned with sea salt, curry, and thyme

Today's food has been pretty good. For those of you who don't know about Rotelli's, the owner goes to our church and was there the day that Pastor Rick called us to the fast. So he decided to offer a Daniel Fast Menu of about 7 or 8 items for members of our church! WOOO! It was so nice to go and have a meal already prepared for me.

This morning when I got to church, I was really dragging. I felt discouraged, hungry, and was just in an overall bad mood. But being around other people who are going through the same thing really helped me to change my outlook. I talked with friends who had a positive attitude, and it was contagious! God used that to remind me of the power of community. We weren't meant to live life and go through struggles alone. I am constantly worried that people don't want to hear about my difficulties or problems, but God created us to share each other's burdens. And just the simple act of having a cheerful attitude can help someone who is facing a hard time.

Also, I heard something very enlightening this morning during Rick's sermon. It's a quote from Richard Foster:

"More than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us....We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface...Anger, bitterness, strife, fear - if they are within us, they will surface during fasting. At first, we will rationalize that our anger is due to hunger, then we know that we are angry because the spirit of anger is within us."

Whoa. Talk about a smack to the head. It's so crazy what is surfacing in my heart during this fast...pride, anger, selfishness, laziness, negativity. And it's only Day 3!

Daniel Fast Day 2

So here's what I've eaten today:

Breakfast

natural peanut butter and bananas on Ezekiel bread

unsweetened applesauce

unsweetened soy milk (actually not that bad)

Lunch

natural peanut butter and applesauce sandwich using Ezekiel bread

peanuts/brazil nuts/raisins

Dinner

pinto beans, green beans with onion, and potatoes with seasonings

V8 Fruit Juice

Snack

2 rice cakes with natural peanut butter and honey

I made some chips using whole wheat tortillas, olive oil, sea salt, and fiesta seasoning. I can eat them as a snack with some organic salsa. I'll try that tomorrow or Monday. I spent the majority of my evening making some breakfast granola bars and dang it, they are disgusting. But I'm GOING to eat them because I spent so much time on them! I feel like all I do is get food prepared and cooked, and it's soooo much work. But while I was on my way to Lowe's Foods today, I realized that there is an important lesson for me to glean from this: waiting. Just as I have to take time to prepare my food - clean it, cut it up, cook it, cool it, etc. - God takes time to prepare us for seasons in our lives. What we may view as "waiting" or "wasted time", God views as an opportunity to mold us, shape us, make us holier. Without that time of preparation, my food would be nasty and not taste as good. And without some times of waiting, we can't really know God's grace and blessings when they are in front of us. I read an article by Candice Watters that served as a great reminder:

"...when we wait patiently for what we long for — and what we're longing for conforms to God's design — God uses the waiting to align our desires with His and refine us in the process."

Please, let me be honest with you. I by no means have understood this truth with my heart. Right now, I am choosing to believe it with my mind until my heart can grasp it. And while I'm on the honesty kick, I'm already struggling with this fast. It's hard. So if you think about it, please pray for God's strength for me. I want to do this!

Daniel Fast Day 1

My church is doing a 10-day Daniel Fast to pray for our church and to unify as a community. Today was the first day, and it's going well so far. I have to admit, I'm nervous about lasting the whole ten days, but I am trusting in the Lord for strength! Here's what I had today:

Breakfast

Oatmeal with chopped apples, cinnamon, and honey

Lunch

whole wheat tortilla with natural peanut butter and spreadable fruit (strawberry), peanuts/brazil nuts/raisins

Snack

rice cakes with natural peanut butter and honey

Dinner

whole wheat spaghetti with roasted garlic tomato sauce

Today, I've learned just how much we as Americans depend on convenience foods. Everything is prepared for us and stored in neat little jars or containers. We don't have to work for anything! Getting all of my food prepared has already been time-consuming. I am going to try and cook some meals tomorrow so I can have them ready for the week ahead. Pray for me, please! Pray that I will have the discipline and the commitment to stick with this!

5 People You Should Know

I just got home a couple days ago from Catalyst 2009 and yet again, it was AMAZING. I'm still kinda emotionally and mentally drained from all the incredible speakers and musicians we heard, and especially from all that God is saying to me. I decided to share with you 5 people you should know, and coincidentally, they were all at the conference!

Tripp Crosby - HUH-larious

Aaron Keyes - incredible worship leader, focuses more on leading people than singing

Chrystina Fincher - used to get on my nerves, but now I kinda like the way she punches and chews gum while singing

Matt Chandler - pastor at Village Church, funny, but lays it down!

Kari Jobe - crazy amazing voice, the ORIGINAL singer of Revelation Song, not those silly PhillipsCraigDean people

when-harry-met-sally-ish thoughts

I was at the pool the other day, and there was a family beside me in the pool - a man, his wife/girlfriend (I didn't see any rings, but he was calling her "babe" and the kids were calling her Mom and him Dad), and two kids. The wife/gf left to go back to their condo, so the kids were playing in the pool and the dad was sitting in the lounge chair. He had called someone, asking how they were doing because he knew they were facing a tough time. I gathered from the conversation that this person was either facing a separation or divorce or something like that, and he was offering encouragement and support. It concerned me, though, when he said, "you'll come out of this stronger, prettier, and better." I realized he was talking to a woman. Now, you may be saying, whoa, Melody, what's the big deal? He's just a friend, helping another friend. Now, I know there are extenuating circumstances, and I can't jump to conclusions, especially when it comes to strangers. But I can't help but think, you are asking for trouble if you are married and you are talking to someone of the opposite sex about intimate details of your life. In fact, I have a good friend whose husband began an affair by talking to another woman about her marital problems. It opened the door for an emotional bond, which then turned into a physical bond. I know it probably seems weird for me, being single, to be worried about how married people behave. But one of my goals is to live like I am planning to marry. I don't do anything by myself with a guy unless it is clear that it is a date. Thus far, no dates, so no alone time with a boy! Call me old-fashioned, but by opening myself up to a close friendship with a guy, I'm putting my heart out there without receiving some sort of commitment in return. What do you think? Can guys and girls be friends without one or the other expecting a relationship to come out of it?

The Big Summer Project

I wanted to remodel/redecorate my bathroom this summer because I thought it needed a more grown-up look. I had redecorated it when I moved back home after college, so it was time for something new again. Here is what it looked like before:

Can you tell I was going through an "I love Hawaii" phase? Ever since I went there in college, I loved everything tropical! I still do love Hawaii, just not on every single thing in my house. I did the border myself using sponges I had cut out and acrylic paint.

The first step was painting the walls a new color. I chose a tan shade, mainly because we already had a bunch left over from when we had the house painted a year ago. The light fixture has been there since we moved into the house in 1995. My parents had actually already bought a new light fixture for this bathroom when they remodeled their bathroom last year.

I definitely wanted to change the color of the cabinets. I thought about painting them white, but that would have been a lot more work and I didn't know if it would look right with the beige countertop/toilet/bathtub. So I decided to stain the cabinets darker. If I were to do this in the future, I'd probably get someone else to do it! It was hard and it didn't quite turn out the way I expected, but overall I'm satisfied with the results. I also put on new brushed nickel knobs. You can see a little bit of the old flooring in the before picture, but most of it is covered up by the palm tree rug. My parents actually paid for this part of the project. It was the most expensive part!

I chose to keep the white shelf I had in my bathroom, because I wanted to save money and I didn't see the purpose of buying a whole new shelf. It also took me a while to find the decorative items to put on the shelf.

It was hard choosing a shower curtain, because there are so many out there! I knew I didn't want anything too dark, cause it takes away too much light in the shower. I used to have two towel racks, but I didn't think all that was necessary, so when I changed the hardware to brushed nickel, I got just one towel ring.

The last part of the project was figuring out what to put on the opposite wall. I made some Scripture pictures and put them in a frame.

Whew! It was a bigger project than I had anticipated, but it was worth it. I like my classy new bathroom!

scripture picture frame

One of my projects this summer was redecorating my bathroom (it's coming in a future post, I promise!), so I decided to put Scripture on the wall. For a while, I thought I wanted to get a quote in vinyl lettering, but it turned out to be too expensive and I could never really find what I wanted. I'm a big believer in surrounding myself with God's Word. Deuteronomy 11:18 tells us to tie God's words as symbols on our hands and bind them on our foreheads. For me, this is one way to do that. Some people might think it's weird to have Bible verses in the bathroom, but hey, if I'm gonna be in there, I might as well have something worthwhile to think about, right? I finally decided to just get a frame and put my own pictures in it. I liked this frame - it has glass instead of a mat so my pictures could be as big or as small as I wanted.

Step 1: I used pictures from flickr and used the iPhoto editing to give them all a sepia tone. Then I copied and pasted them into Word and inserted the Scriptures that I wanted. I printed them out on glossy photo paper.

Step 2: I cut them using a paper trimmer so the edges would be straight.

Step 3: I measured the frame and placed the pictures so they'd be centered.

Step 4: Put them all in the frame with double-sided tape and voila! Here's the finished product!

I love this because it was cheap (basically just the frame) and I can change the pictures and Scriptures as often as I want! So how do you "tie these words as symbols on your hands and bind them to your foreheads" - how do you surround yourself with Scripture?

Bye Bye Brulets :(

Valerie and her husband Jason moved to Raleigh this past weekend because Jason is going into seminary. While I'm so proud of them making that decision and I'm excited for them, I will miss them so much! It makes me feel better to know that God has planned this for their family, and He is going to bless them in ways beyond what we could ever imagine. So a couple weeks ago, we had a party to celebrate Valerie's birthday and what the Brulets mean to us. We went to Valerie's favorite Mexican restaurant, Margarita's.

Then we went back to the Broussards' house for a movie. But this was no ordinary movie, my friend. This was the coolest movie experience ever. We used a laptop, projector, and huge speaker and watched the movie in the backyard! I can't take credit cause it was Laura's idea - she comes up with some fun stuff! We had movie theater popcorn, drinks, lawn chairs, and blankets. Before we watched the movie, we showed Jason and Valerie a powerpoint we had made, which had pictures and what we will miss about them.

We also had some birthday cake for Valerie. It was so much fun getting together with friends and doing something different. We will miss you, Brulets!

Hannah's baby blocks

I have a little niece arriving any day now, so I decided to do a quick little project for Hannah. My aunt gave Lisa some baby blocks to make Hannah's name, but they were all different colors and didn't match the nursery's color scheme. So I told Lisa I'd paint them for her. Here's how they looked before:

And with a little bit of white and pink paint, a paintbrush, and a steady hand (or maybe not so steady, cause I did mess up several times), here's how they look now:

I can't wait to be an aunt! I always love on babies, and this one will be no exception! Come on, Hannah, get here already!

beach day

So this post comes a bit late, but I wanted to have the pictures to go with it. We decided to go to Myrtle Beach State Park for a beach day and cookout.

It was sooo much fun! I actually surfed for the first time, if you call standing on the board for approximately 1.5 seconds as "surfing." But it was fun, nonetheless! Sarah and Travis were great instructors! Jessica and Jesse brought their crew...

and the Brulets brought theirs, too!

After surfing and swimming, we also played a little bit of net-less volleyball.

Then we were all super hungry, so the boys (and Summer) went to go get the food on the grill while the girls sat and talked. Then we ate a delicious meal of cheeseburgers, hot dogs, chips, potato salad, and desserts! It was yummy!

The whole day was a blast. I'm so thankful to have the beach so close and these people in my life! They make it so much more fun!

intrinsic motivation and chiastic structure

I've been doing a lot of learning this summer.

For part of the month of July, I've been taking a graduate level course at Coastal. In order to get my recertification in teaching, which is required every 5 years, I have to take at least one college course. I'm not getting my master's yet, but if I wanted to do that down the road, this course would be included. So I figured it's good to have it just in case! This is an online course, so I didn't have to go to any class meetings, but it's still a lot of work. I like the overall learning that I get from it, and it gives me great ideas, BUT...I feel like I would get more out of it if I could sit with a friend and talk about what I learn, rather than try to word it into formal sentences that "sound good." You know what I mean? I did discover that since I've left college, there are now little citation generators on the web: you just type in the information and it gives you the correct MLA or APA documentation for your bibliography. No fair!

I've also been learning from the bible study that my lifegroup is doing: Esther by Beth Moore. Lemme tell you, this woman don't play. I've come to love the teaching of Beth Moore so much. She leads us through the story and helps us to savor each moment and learn from each character. If I read a book of the Bible by myself, I tend to rush through it. She encourages us to almost take it word by word, so I can squeeze as much wisdom out of it as possible. That's what God's word is for, right? To be cherished, studied, considered, learned from. The original language is so rich and we miss a lot of that if we don't slow down. She not only teaches us biblical principles, but also literary principles, like chiastic structure. I would tell you to google it, but honestly I think it's easier to understand if you have someone explain it to you in person. I sometimes have to catch myself from idolizing Beth, because she is such an incredible teacher. I'd consider her a modern-day Paul. If you ever have the chance to do any studies by her, DO IT! You will learn so much and will draw closer to God because of it.

the inaugural post

I've been putting this off because how can I possibly come up with something good enough for the first blog?? But well, sigh, this will have to do. My summer has been going great so far! I've already remodeled my bathroom, and I'm putting the finishing touches on it. More about that in a later post! My parents and I also took a little vacay to Florida for a few days, which was very interesting, in a timeshare-annoying-deceiving-frustrating kind of way. The most entertaining portion was when the timeshare guy says, "Don't look at your watch during the presentation or I'll go really slow and take twice as long." Charming, no?

Yesterday, I finally got out of my lease (DON'T EVER LEASE! IT'S A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY!) and am now another step closer to actually owning my car. I'm financing it through my bank, so I feel a bit relieved now that I'm not paying a butt-load (should buttload be hyphenated? hmm.) of interest.

Last night, I went out with Robbie and Lisa and their friends from Texas, Meredith and Bryone. We went to Yamato and then we took M and B's little girl to ride some rides. I actually chickened out when it was time to take her on the little kiddie ferris wheel, but I managed to brave the racecars! I always love hanging out with them, though, because they make me laugh constantly! And their little girl is so adorable!

So, here's my first post! Let's hope they get better, eh?