My First Half-Marathon!

The Women's Half Marathon!

So I would never consider myself a runner. It took a lot of work for me to build up my mileage. I had started running last summer to get ready for the wedding and the most I got up to was 4 miles. Then after the wedding the running stopped, I was able to work out at the YMCA, we attempted P90x (lasted 5 weeks), & I got kinda lazy with exercising. The main benifactor for the Women's Half Marathon is Restore Ministries (part of the YMCA, it's a group counseling program) so I was hearing all about the race from work. Along with some girls I work with we decided to do the race, A MONTH BEFORE! hahaha. So I had to train fast! When I first started training I could barely run for 15 minutes without needing to stop & walk. I ran usually in the afternoons on weekdays & early on saturdays. The miles added on pretty fast. Before I knew it I was running 6 then 8 then 10 miles! I was really excited & ready for the 1/2.

The half marathon was held in downtown Nashville on September 25th. From what I hear the course is similar to the Music City Marathon with a few different turns. At 7 am over 6,000 women (& prob 5 men) took off for the first annual Women's Half Marathon in Nashville. My sweet husband brought his bike & met me at every mile marker to take a picture & see if I needed a drink.

(Mile 1)

There were definitely some tough hills, well the whole thing seemed like a hill! There were water & gatorade stops about every 2 miles, & around mile 6 they had fruit they were passing out.

(Mile 2)

The girl next to me is Robyn, she is a friend from the Y that ran with me the whole time. We had a good time trying to get through the race together!

(Mile 3)

Look at who all was at mile 3 & mile 11 cheering me on! Brannie, Sarah, Charles, & Jordan came to the race! Thank you so much guys it meant a lot to me to have ya'll there!

(Mile 3)

(Mile 4)

Throughout the race there were bands set up on the side of the road playing music to motivate us. There also was a dance team & different groups of people cheering us on the whole time :)

(Mile 5)

(Mile 6)

(Mile 7)

(Mile 8)

(Mile 9)

I'm not going to lie this race was pretty difficult for me but I really enjoyed doing it. It felt good to accomplish something that I have talked about doing for years!

(Mile 10)

(Mile 11)

I am also extremely thankful for the beautiful weather & scenery!

(Mile 12)

The last leg of the journey a.k.a. trying really hard not to pass out!

Homestretch!!!

At the end of the race there were soldiers to put the medal around our necks! Then it was time to lay in the grass! haha. I finished in 2.39 . My original goal was 2.45 so I was excited to beat that! I can now cross off completing a half marathon on the cubo lista! woohooo!

Me and my hot husband!!

My loyal supporters!!

On a side note, a lady named Lynn passed out 20 feet from the finish line. They tried to revive her and rushed her to Vanderbilt but she passed away the next morning. She had been training for a while for the half marathon so this was a real shock to her family, but the doctors found out that she had 90% blockage in her heart. She was only like 52. From what I understand she was a believer so pray for peace for her family as they deal with this loss!

Love you all! Goodnight

Marvelous Martes!

It's that time again! Marvelous Martes!! woooohoooooo!! This is our best from the past week. It's actually from Carrie's half-marathon she ran on Saturday.

Random and Maybe Not So Interesting Facts (2)

A few more random facts that you probably won't find interesting:

-Shaving hair does not make it grow back thicker. Read more here. So go ahead, shave that unibrow.

-You should not talk to Porter until he has had his coffee.

-Just because your doctor has not mentioned anything to you about your cholesterol does not mean you don't need to worry about it.

-The average user on Facebook has 130 friends. So check your friends list, it might make you feel a lot better about yourself!

-If you eat your boogers they won't actually grow into worms in your stomach (unlike my grandmother used to tell me).

-There is a full moon tonight (9/25/2010) in Baton Rouge, LA.

-The best movie ever made is Braveheart, followed closely by Saving Private Ryan, The Lion King, and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

-The average hot dog weighs 2 ounces.

-If you ever happen across a honey badger you should not try to poke fun at it with your finger. You should, however, set up strong boundaries with it and make sure it knows that there will be severe repercussions if it should choose to break said boundaries.

-On an average day, a vehicle sells on ebay every 2 minutes.

-Mississippi was named the fattest of our country's 50 states for the fifth year in a row with an obesity rate of 33.8%. 9 of the top 10 most obese states are in the southeast.

-Contrary to popular belief, guide horses do not live lonely lives, rather they lead a very happy and satisfying existence.

Random and Maybe Not So Interesting Facts

Ever wonder which fruit or vegetable has the most vitamin C in it? Ya, me neither.

- The earth weighs about 13,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds.

- Strawberries, Red Bell Peppers, Broccoli, and Pineapple all have more vitamin C content per cup than an orange.

- If a woodchuck could chuck wood, he would chuck as much as he could.

- That doggie in the window is $14.97.

- The moon is about 9 times the distance from Los Angeles to New York City away from the earth.

- The average squirrel can run up to 10 mph.

- Super-Squirrels can reach speeds up to 29 mph.

- That's not really chicken in your Chinese food.

- Apple Bottom jeans do not have apples in the bottom of them.

- The average pet store contains 5 x more mice than hamsters.

- Bartholemew is a baker.

- The average person has 4-6 dreams per night in REM sleep.

- A cow that eats grass is called a lawnmooer.

- The average person's breath Stanks McJanks.

- When you kiss a girl, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia.

- The best way to throw toilet paper is to wad it up in a small, tight ball, dip it in water, wrap 3 rubber bands around it, place it between your index and pinkie fingers on your left hand, turn your arm so that your palm is facing you, bring your toilet-paper-ball-loaded hand back past your left ear at a 32 degree angle and throw.

Blue Skies

Here's our pic for this marvelous martes!

Lookin' Up Into Blue Skies

Stupid Good Steak Marinade (Possibly The Best Ever)

This steak marinade is quite a doozy:

What You Need:

2-3 tablespoons Steak Seasoning (chef's choice)

3 tablespoons Oil - Vegetable, Olive, again chef's choice.

3/4 - 1 teaspoon Barbeque Sauce

2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

Maple Syrup

How To Concoct:

This will work for about a pound of steak, so if you have 3 pounds of steak, just do a lil' simple multiplication. Mix up all of your ingredients except for the maple syrup in a bowl. When you have it mixed up well, spread it evenly over your steaks. Drop around a 1/2 teaspoon of maple syrup on each steak and rub it in real good. Do this for both sides of your steaks. Let them marinade for at least 30 minutes, then go do yo grillin' thang!

MMMMMMMMM!!!!! Look at them steaks a marinatin'!

We were able to commandeer a Big Green Egg!

The finished product. Don't those steaks look sporty? And believe me, if my mamma had been present at the time and place of eating, I would have seriously considered slapping her (For sure I wouldn't have, because she is not only an angel but she would probably rip my ear off in return. But I'm telling you these steaks are good enough that you will at least consider slappin' ya mamma).

P.S. Try searing your steaks for about a minute on each side at a really high temp before you grill them! Super Good!

Baby Idolatry, Family Idolatry

We just started attending a new Sunday school class for newlyweds, which we are really diggin' by the way (being newlyweds and the class that is), and in the class this morning one of the people that is leading made a really interesting point (at least we thought it was rather interesting). We were talking about how you need to make sure you aren't putting anything or anyone above your spouse and Bubba (that would be the leader) said that it's really crazy how fast things happen, that you are newlyweds one day and the next thing you know you've got “these things that have come out of you” (yes, he really said that) and that if you aren't careful you will end up giving so much attention and love and time and devotion to “these things you are holding in your arms” (don't know why he kept calling them things, maybe 'children' would have been a better descriptor? haha) that you will actually end up idolizing them. And I guess the reason we thought that was so interesting is that you really don't ever think that you could actually idolize your children. You see parents whose lives are completely devoted to their kids and making sure they have what they need (or want) and can do the things they want to and participate in the activities they want to and are always home with them and always spending time with them, you look at these kinds of parents and really your only thought is "Wow! What a great Mom! (or Dad)". But Bubba made a great point, that you can easily give your children so much of your devotion and love and attention that you spend 18 years completely serving your kids and they move out of the house and go to college or get a job or whatever, and you are left alone with this spouse who you don't even know anymore because you have spent most of your marriage putting your children in front of your spouse, and now there is this wall between the two of you and even worse, between you and God.

When we went through our premarital counseling with Mike and Debbie Bivins back in Murfreesboro, Debbie told us that one of the hardest things you will face in your marriage is keeping your husband (or wife) above your kids and making sure you are serving your spouse before your children. And this totally makes sense now. I guess when you think of idolatry, you think about money, or maybe your job, or possessions, or power, or prestige, but you just really don't think about idolizing your family. You know Jesus addresses this very thing in Luke 14:26 –

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

And maybe this is why Jesus addresses it, because it’s so easy for us to get so wrapped up in our families that we totally end up serving them before God.

Sadly enough, it is all too common to hear of couples splitting up after having been married 15, 20, 30 years, and it really makes me wonder if this ‘family idolatry’ is not a cause for many of these divorces, especially those in Christian homes. I was listening to part of a sermon from Mark Driscoll and he said “The great evangelical idol is family” and I think that is such a good point. (check this clip out if your interested, it’s pretty thought provoking). He goes on to say that church has become all about family. We market everything toward families. We have all kinds of family friendly programs and we teach all about how to be a better mom or dad or husband or wife. And I think that most of us have this sense of entitlement, that not only does God want what’s best for us, but darn it, I tithe my 10% and I deserve God’s best. And I think that we tend to believe that God’s best for us is to grow up and go to college, get married and have children and live in a safe neighborhood where the kids can play. And if that is what all our lives become about, if this becomes the reason we wake up in the morning, the reason that we live, the reason that we go to church or even the reason we worship God, if this becomes our reason for existence, absolutely are we guilty of idolatry.

Romans 1:25 – because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!

And isn’t that exactly what I do when I put my relationship with my wife above my God? When I worship the creature rather than the Creator? Isn’t this exactly what happens when parents’ whole mode of being is to serve their children? Aren’t they worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator? Isn’t this exactly what the church is doing when it tells you to just come to God, he will give you a family, he will give you children, he will bless them and make sure they become Christians, he will give you a safe place to live and good jobs to provide a bedroom for every child you have? Aren’t we serving the creature and not our Creator??? And don’t we get so defensive about this? Because honestly, it almost even seems like you are doing something wrong when you try to love God so much that all of the rest of your relationships (especially that with your spouse or children) look like hate when compared to your love for God. It almost feels wrong. But couldn’t that be because we have our priorities so out of line? Because we have come to idolize our families, our spouses and our children? Because we have come to serve and praise the creature rather than our Creator God who has redeemed and saved us?? Man, God’s best for us is his Glory!! What more should we want for our lives than to bring praise and honor to the one who brought us out of the horrible pit of death and destruction and set our feet upon his rock and established our steps (Psalm 40:2)? What better for our lives than to glorify the One who gave us new life, who redeemed us and set us free from all the sin and death of this world and has given us new and eternal life through the death of his Son (2 Corinthians 5:17)???

And it is totally not a bad or sinful thing to serve your wife or children because God absolutely calls us to do just that (Ephesians 5). But God also desires our love and devotion above all else, including our families!

Just some food for thought, and just wanted to share about the baby and family idolatry because we really had never thought about it before! (and no, Carrie isn't pregnant!!)

Strawberry Cake!

So I fortunately inherited all kinds of wonderful recipes when Nathan and I got married! I have decided that I am going to start blogging about some of them as I make them. So for the first one, STRAWBERRY CAKE! Yum, it was very delicious. I have realized that the recipe is a either a pretty common one or very similar to others such as Paula Dean's. It was given to me though from a cousin. Not sure though if it is a 2nd, third, once removed, or whatever cousin. I guess I need to study up on Nathan's post about cousins. But any who it is from Charlene my dad's first cousin!

Here is the recipe:1 box of white cake mix, 1 small strawberry jello, 1/2 c. canola oil, 1/2 c. of water, 4 whole eggs, 16 oz carton of frozen strawberries thawed, 1 stick of butter, 1 box of confection sugar

Now for the combining part: add cake mix, jello, eggs, water, & oil all together. Mix well until there is no lumps in the mix. (Set aside 3oz of the strawberries for the icing) Stir the rest of the strawberries into the cake mix.

Icing: Combine the stick of butter (at room temp), the whole box of confection sugar, & the strawberries. mix

Bake the Cake at 350 until you can put a tooth pick in the middle & it come out clean.

Let the cake cool then add the icing. The icing doesn't look like it's going to be enough but it is plenty!

I got a little too anxious & didn't let the cake cool very long so the icing was drizzling off (all the better!) I also added a couple of strawberries to it for decoration. Make sure that you refrigerate it when you are done. ENJOY!

Marvelous Martes!

Marvelous Martes!

Well it's that time again. Another marvelous martes for us to show off how not good at photography we are! We went climbing this past weekend in southern Illinois and ran into this little guy. So here's our photo for the week!

Radical

Chapter 1 (continued)

Platt mentions in chapter 1 that he went to Sudan on mission trip and while he was preparing to go he received a Christian news publication in the mail. The front cover had two different headlines. The first (and largest) headline read: "First Baptist Church Celebrates New $23 Million Dollar Building" and celebrated the church's new sanctuary. The second (and much smaller) headline read: "Baptist Relief Helps Sudanese Refugees". So this article gets him all excited and he starts reading it only to find out that..."Baptists have raised $5,000 to send to refugees in Western Sudan." Wow. Platt puts it this way:

"Five thousand dollars. that is not enough to get a plane into Sudan, much less get one drop of water to people who need it. Twenty-three million dollars for an elaborate sanctuary and five thousand dollars for hundreds of thousands of starving men, women, and children, most of whom are dying apart from faith in Christ..... The cost of believers not taking Jesus seriously is vast for those who don't know Christ and devastating for those who are starving and suffering around the world."

This brings two thoughts to mind: (1) What would a church here in America, or better yet, here in the South, look like if it truly put the needs of the lost, naked, broken, homeless, starving and hurting before the "needs" of the church? An old, not-so-state-of-the-art sanctuary? Old (and not comfortable) chairs or pews? Failing sound system? Would this church even have any members??? and (2) Would I even go to a church like that?

Our Southern culture certainly embraces Christianity and being part of a church, and many people go to church simply because it's culturally accepted. It makes you look good, probably makes you feel good, and it's more or less just what's expected of you. If we all truly wanted to experience Christ and wanted to follow him, wouldn't, or shouldn't, our churches look more like the one described above?? But we like the comfortable. We (and I am totally including myself here) like the comforts of cushioned pews and air conditioning. We like knowing that our pastors are going to make sure we feel good when we leave church. We like to give our 10% tithe and forget about God for the next two weeks. We like to invite our neighbor or co-worker to the Christmas program and feel like we have just evangelized and spread the Gospel. We like the safe, comfortable, not-very-demanding, would never really call you to do that, just wants to make sure you are willing Jesus that we have concocted in our minds and in our churches. I am very guilty of wanting the comfortable (and I'm not just talking about $ here. It's also more comfortable to not tell people about Christ than it is to do so. It's more comfortable to not stand up for what the Bible says is the truth than it is to do so. It's more comfortable to worship the rational Jesus that "wouldn't really tell us not to bury our father or say good-bye to our family, or didn't literally mean to sell all we have and give it to the poor" than it is to come face-to-face with the God of the universe and turn our lives and all that we have over to him for the Glory of his kingdom. It's much easier to worship the God that just wants you to come to church mostly every Sunday and Wednesday and maybe go on a week long mission trip or retreat every now and then than it is to worship the God of salvation that calls us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses, sell our possessions, give all we have to the poor.

But, and this is super cool what Platt brings up next, Jesus does is not trying to ruin our lives or take away all of our pleasures or dreams or desires. Platt says it like this:

"Did you catch what Jesus said when he told the rich man to abandon his possessions and give to the poor? Listen again, particularly to the second half of Jesus' invitation: 'Go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.' If we are not careful, we can misconstrue these radical statements from Jesus in the Gospels and begin to think that he does not want the best for us. But he does. Jesus was not trying to strip this man of all his pleasure. Instead he was offering him the satisfaction of eternal treasure. Jesus was saying,"It will be better, not just for the poor, but for you too, when you abandon the stuff you are holding on to."

This is so true. It seems that I usually only focus on the first part of what Jesus is saying, to sell everything. But I have failed to realize that Jesus calls us to do this so that we may receive an even greater treasure than those we cling so desperately to. In John 10:10, Jesus says,"The thief comes does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Man, Jesus came to set us free from death and sin and all that we struggle with in this life. He also gives us freedom from living for the unsatisfying joy of materialism and wealth and power. Because Christ died on the cross we no longer have to spend our lives working and toiling in vain for things and possessions and relationships that won't matter for an eternity. But because Christ died on the cross we can now boldly profess a life of faith knowing that our work will no longer be in vain!

Platt: "You know that in the end you are not really giving away anything at all. Instead you are gaining. Yes you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way. So with joy- with joy!- you sell it all, abandon it all. Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for."

I absolutely need to begin to see giving in this light, that I am not just 'losing' my time, money, possessions, etc., but that I am gaining more than I ever could by the works of my hands. Truly Jesus is worth losing everything for. But am I willing to give up everything for him??

What a first chapter. So convicting and humbling, but at the same time, so encouraging!