I am SOOO Sore!

Man! I am so sore! I can't believe how sore I am from dodgeball. I felt it creeping up on me before we left the Middle School devo last night, and sure enough, I am feeling it today. I know Mike is too. I haven't had such a great workout in quite awhile. And I am wiped out today. I think I will be turning in early to recoup. How sad! :) And I have a bruise on my ring finger on my right hand. It is big and purple and it hurts! Ewwww.

Middle School Devo

Tonight, instead of small group, we went to the middle school devo. James did a devo for them, and several of us went in support. We had SUCH a great time! It really was a blast! When we first got there, I have to admit, I was a little intimidated. There were tons of kids. There were several boys playing basketball, and little groups of girls all around giggling and talking. I commented right then..."Wow. It doesn't change much when you are adults, does it?" It looked like our group. Boys playing basketball, and the girls sitting around talking. I am sure the subject matter was different...maybe. :)

After playing around waiting for everyone to arrive, we prayed and then had pizza for dinner. (Don't worry, I didn't cheat on my diet. I waited to eat until I got home. Painstakingly waited until I got home. That pizza was calling my name!) After eating, we sang a few songs led by some of the boys. They were so sweet! I hadn't heard some of those songs since 9:00 devo. ACU'ers will know what I am talking about. They were so great. The pitch was a little high for me, but I have a man voice, so that really isn't surprising. Then James did a devo about gossiping. Good for kids and adults to hear, thank you very much. He did a great job.

THEN...we got down to business. We played dodgeball. Holy cow! We played adults against the middle schoolers. We won the first game. We lost the second game. We lost third game. WHAT???? Yeah, we were down by a game. Then we came back with a vengeance, thanks to Mike who was our sole survivor and took out 4 girls who had managed to stay in the game. We just played and played and had a really great time.

I really admire Bryan and Heather for their commitment to this group. They are doing a great job, and you can tell the kids adore them. It was also a really great group of kids. I hope they enjoyed having us there as much as we enjoyed being there. It sure did make me feel sick when one of the kids called us old! I am sure we are ancient to them! I have not had that much fun since our kickball practice last year. I can't wait until our rematch against the middle school kids. Revenge is ours!!!!! We may have to recruit others to our cause! ;)

My New Diet

I decided that I was going to start the Leslie Sansone diet this last Monday. She provides 10 days of meal plans and exercise plans. It is very realistic, albeit too little food for one such as myself, and easy to do. I have stuck to it pretty well. I did fall off the wagon a bit on Tuesday when I joined the ladies from work for our weekly tradition...40 cent wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. I thoroughly enjoyed my 8 Garlic Parmesian wings with celery and blue cheese. By the way, they are seriously not on my diet. Anyhow, I have tried and tried to stick to it the rest of the week, without the exercise portion, of course. I was going to try and try on that part, but I figured I was suffering enough on the diet part that I didn't need to put my body through that kind of shock and torture.

Also, on Wednesday I waited too long to eat and didn't have a snack in between meals, which meant that I was doomed for the gall bladder attack that followed. How does one with no gall bladder have gall bladder attacks you say? Good question. It is what Mike and I like to call PGBS, or Phantom Gall Bladder Syndrome (think along the lines of Phantom Limb Syndrome and you get the gist). After I ate, I felt tons better. And guess what???? I am 3 pounds down!!!! Horray! And in only 4 full days of dieting with no exercise. I really wonder what I could accomplish if I would ever do anything all the way and stick it out. My potential would be endless. (I hope you are appreciating my self-deprecating humor.) :)

Anyway, I will post the end results on day 11. I have 5 more days to go. Maybe I can lose 3 more. Keep your fingers crossed that I make it through the weekend.

The Biggest Loser

What can I say? I am a Biggest Loser junkie. I freaking love that show! I cry every time I watch it. The contestants are so sweet. They have worked so hard and are so proud of themselves, and with their new bodies have come new attitudes and higher self-esteem. I was pulling for the first female biggest loser in Biggest Loser history. I even went online last week and voted for Mark because I knew that if Roger won the vote that he would win the whole thing. It would ruin the women's chances of winning the whole show.

So tonight is the two hour live finale. And guess who won...

ALI!!! That is so exciting. She lost 112 pounds. Amazing!

I just love that show.

Spiritual Gifts Assessment

I went to www.highpointechurchofchrist.org and took the spiritual gifts assessment, and I was surprised by some of my gifts and unsurprised by some. We heard such a great sermon on Sunday about spiritual gifts; and I read James Nored's blog entry about others struggling to know what their gifts are and how to use them. So I decided to figure out what my strengths were and how I can use them.

I felt during the question and answer part that I was answering negatively to so much. There are so many questions about sharing your faith and ministering to others, and while I have a firm belief in God, I have such a hard time sharing my faith with unbelievers. I can talk about it all day long with my fellow Christians, but I am really shy about sharing with others. Well, now I know why! It isn't one of my strengths. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be a focus, but it's understandable why it's hard for me.

Most of my strenghts are pretty obvious to me. Administration (Tasks) is my #1. Duh...who wouldn't have known that? I love to organize and make sure everyone is on task to get the job at hand completed. I am like that at home, at work, at church. I carry my planner everywhere I go to make sure that I am not missing anything. What a great way to be able to help at church! It reminds me of organizing class materials for each individual class and theme for last year's VBS. No wonder I enjoyed it.

Helping was #2. I am truly my parents' daughter. My mother is a social worker and my dad is always including "less fortunate" people in our Thanksgiving celebration. I am often a volunteer for doing things that directly benefit others. I love helping those who are less fortunate (a characteristic of my mother) and including those who might otherwise have nowhere to go (a definite characteristic of my dad).

Prayer was #3. I struggle with my prayer life. I believe in the power of prayer. I pray daily for others, my family, my friends, my life, knowledge and wisdom to do what is right, and so on and so forth. I also am trying to gain more maturity in my prayer life. I don't like rote prayer, but it seems as though my prayers are often repetitive and redundant from day to day. I yearn to be able to pray mature prayers and also to pray in confidence in a group (that one is a REAL struggle). How intimate is your prayer life when it consists of your deepest and darkest thoughts; how difficult to share that vulnerability with others????? Definitely something I need to work on. But be sure that I am always praying for those that have requested it and that I see need it. I do believe that even an immature prayer can move mountains.

#4 for me was Mercy. Ohhhh, where to begin. Mike always promises me that one day I can get my non-profit job that won't pay the bills. I so look forward to making that move and helping the less fortunate in a way that I can't now. Again, probably something that I got from my mother, but I ache for those who ache, hurt for those that hurt, cry with those who cry, and make jokes so that all of the above can laugh. I am quite self-deprecating in such instances, and sometimes self-deprecation is quite humerous.

Last but not least was Service. I often end up doing things that others don't like doing. Not because I like them, but because they need to be done.

Now that I know what my gifts are, I can feel good about the way I use them. I mentioned at small group last night that sometimes people just assume that I will like teaching a class at church. I know that most women enjoy (or are at least good at) teaching children. I am not particularly good at it, and I really don't enjoy it. I love helping in class (note gift #2), but I am not much of a teacher. Now I know why and I don't have to be embarrassed that I don't like doing it. I think that gives me more direction in choosing an area in which I will be enthusiastic about serving.

Not that this gives me an excuse to not attempt to grow in the other areas. Evangelism, ministry, teaching, shepherding...these are all at the bottom of my spiritual gifts chart. These are pretty important aspects of my faith. I need to be able to share my faith with those who don't believe. I need to feel confident enough in my knowledge to share it with others. I need to not be afraid that I am cramming my beliefs in another's face. I can only imagine how my faith will grow when I am able to share it with others and see them grow! While working to put my strengths to work in my life, I hope that I can further my spiritual walk by sharing it with others.

Thunderstorms and Tornados

At 4:00 this morning, I was awakened to the sound of rain pelting my roof and wind blowing my house down. It sounded like a freight train was rushing towards my house. Being from West Texas, I know that is not a good sound. So I thought that Mike probably needed to wake up so that I could run my "I think there is a tornado" theory by him. As soon as he was awake, we heard the sirens going off. (Side note: Mike isn't a real big fan of tornados. Apparently in Northern Virginia they don't get them. Who doesn't get tornados?) Anyway...We jumped out of bed, I told him to run get Andrew, I grabbed Reagan and Roxy, and off we went to cram into our closet.

Now, for some reason Andrew was not nearly as concerned as we were, and I had to send Mike back out to go get Andrew because he still hadn't made it into the closet. When that didn't work, I headed out and there he was digging in the fridge. I think the conversation went something like this: "Are you insane? There is a tornado and you are jacking around looking for food!?! Get in there right now!" Then I thought about how we didn't have any emergency supplies. So I went in search of a flashlight, 1 bottle of water (for three adults and two dogs, I might add), and my alarm clock so that we could watch the time slowly tick by waiting for the storm to pass. By the time I got everything gathered up and got us all crammed into our closet, we only had to wait approximately 5-7 minutes before we were out of the worst part of the storm.

Then I had to get my clock plugged back in by the bed, set the time and the alarm for 45 minutes later when I was to be getting out of bed. I can only imagine that the rest of our street was sleeping peacefully as the storm waged outside, while my house was scrambling trying to get in our "storm shelter". Meanwhile, Andrew is laughing at us the entire time because he obviously thinks that I am totally crazy and Mike just goes along with it...

Will my life ever be normal?

Gaite And Paige

Mike and I recently became an uncle and aunt. A first for both of us. We are so thrilled with the arrival of my sister's twins. Gaite and Paige are about the cutest things ever. I must say, I am truly in love with them. I love being an aunt! It is so exciting and they are just terrific. They were so tiny when I first rushed to Abilene to catch my first glimpse. Gaite has been steadily getting bigger and bigger, while Paige has been gaining weight at a much slower pace. That poor little baby has acid reflux and just can't seem to hold much down. Gaite doesn't seem to have a problem with that. That chubby little baby has the cutest fat tummy.

My sister sent me the sweetest pictures them. They just turned 6 weeks old. Is it possible it has already been 6 weeks?!? They are getting so big. Here are some pics of them.

Here they are sleeping together in the hospital. Gaite is on the left, Paige is on the right.

Again, in the hospital with G on the left and P on the right.

Here they are (G on left, P on right), where they are sleeping together and little Gaite is sucking on Paige's finger. How freaking cute is that? I love these babies. They are so special and such a blessing to our family. I can't wait to see how they grow!

I've Arrived At Last

Well...here it is...my first blog entry. I have been blog stalking so many people for so long, contemplating creating my own blog. I have done it at last. I am so very excited! I am going to bore everyone with useless information that no one will care about. I will be neither witty nor will I be insightful. This is soley intended to curb my blogging appetite. I am sorry if you came by expecting more, but I do hope that you will come back!