Our bounty

They keep growing and growing and growing! I had very low expectations for the plants that I planted, but we have had bookoos of tomatoes and enormous cucumbers.

I talked with my grandma about how to make pickles and I'm so sad because my cucumbers are too big :( I am going to have to pick the next ones sooner.

We have some green peppers that are on their way to being pickable as well. It is amazing to eat the food from our own garden.

I want to be a revolutionary

One of the greatest injustices we do to our young people is to ask them to be conservative. Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary. To be conservative today is to miss the whole point, for conservation means standing in the flow of the status quo, and the status quo no longer belongs to us... If we want to be fair, we must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo.

A quote from Francis Schaeffer. I really like it!

What do you think about it?

Lets take the challenge...

Ladies, this is mostly to you, but I bet guys play the comparison game in their own ways too. Take about one minute to read this blog post... lets take this challenge :)

Hope... a quote

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are anger and courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

- St. Augustine

I came across this quote today.

I like it!

I have the best husband in the world!

I love Matt so much! He is really amazing, not just for what he does (which I am getting ready to tell you about), but for who he is, how much he supports me and makes me laugh.

I hate cleaning the bathroom, especially the bath tub. My former roommates know this all to well. But, in our house I try to do the maintenance cleaning on a regular basis, no hair in the sink, not gross rings in places that we don't want them, etc. But, for the past month my normal cleaning days have been filled with travel or work or weddings or something of the sort, so our bathroom was disgusting!!!

I wish I had before and after pictures for you...

Well, Matt took all day yesterday to deep clean the entire bathroom, I mean took everything out of it, washed it all down to the nitty gritty and even painted the toilet paper holder. Amazing!!

Here is to my husband! He rocks!

My latest on Trafficking

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A thought to ponder...

Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn't really know very much. But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes...

From Paul's letter to the Corinthians

Friends and Family

Last week Matt's grandmother passed away. Its one of those situations where there is sorrow for death, something that doesn't completely make sense, but there is peace in believing that she is better off now than the suffering that she experienced the last few years of her life.

We made a quick trip down to Birmingham, AL. Matt's family comes from a part of town called Mountain Brook. It is beautiful! There is southern charm that just oozes from the streets. I got to hear stories from Jonathan (Matt's oldest brother) about Mimi (their gma's nickname). She lived a full life, held strong convictions and cared very deeply for her family. Her memorial service was a celebration of her life.

Going down there with Matt's family also gave me a chance to get to know them better (as you realize from my previous post). I am starting to feel like a sister to them now. Jokes, love, truth, picking on each other, etc. Very Cool!

Some other pics are from a wedding we recently got to go to. This dress is the one Matt gave me for Christmas... it took me 6 months to wear it out, but I got so many compliments on it, you are bound to see it again! Thanks babe! I got to pick out Matt's ties for AL and he wasn't too excited about the ones I picked out, but I like them and the one he wore grew on him throughout the day :)

my favorite quote from my brother in law

The running joke of the few days I got to spend with Matt's brothers down in Birmingham was that I some how majored in Oprah in college and was a pro at helping the boys get in touch with their feelings. We did a lot of analyzing and laughing, but no tears (yet!)

Several times, there were conversations that began to turn towards the emotional and someone would say, "I sense an I feel statement coming on..."

We then later were discussing how much we used technology like facebook, twitter, and blogs. We asked Andrew if he was on twitter and he responded... "That is like 24-7 I feel statements to the world... I have trouble even doing that with ya'll, what do you think?"

I love that! It didn't occur to me how insightful that quote was until I read my previous blog post and thought, hmmm.... for the expressers, this is my "I feel" statement to the world outlet in many ways :)

screaming on the inside

My life goes in waves... where I have a ton of balance, when I feel like I have all the time in the world, and when I feel like my head is spinning and I'm not doing anything to my full capacity... well, right now is the time when I feel like I'm running with too much on my mind to reflect the way I want, to see the people I want and I don't like it.

Now, I will preface this with, May has been crazy with traveling so much on the weekends and even during the week, with weddings and cramming all of my people time into the pockets of days that I happen to be in Raleigh. My hope is that as the traveling slows so will the racing in my soul... i'm going to check back in in a week or two and let you know if its been the in and out or if I'm trying to do too much.

The problem is, I don't know what I want to give up or even if I need to... Here are the things that keep my nights and weekends filled up...

Eating Disorders Anonymous-- If you read back through blog entries or remember how long it took me to get this started and how much I felt a calling towards this, you could understand why this needs to keep going.

Jubilee-- The human trafficking group I work with. I was reminded again this morning of one of the reasons I am so passionate about this injustice and travesty that happens locally and globally, but I feel a bit overwhelmed at times and wonder if anyone would care if I stopped coordinating everything...

My husband-- Our relationship is one of the most precious things to me. I will say that our travels together have provided some great time for us to connect and I am thankful for that. But, I have to protect time with him because its easy for me to just fill up all my nights with girlfriends or church people or new relationships or work or this group or that group. I'm thankful that he works a lot too because then we kind of are on the same wave length with balance in our relationship. He so special to me and I am thankful for the time that we get to spend together.

Our Families-- I have to admit that our families often fall in our priority lists because they aren't in front of us all the time. This makes me a little sad because I wish we had more time to build and grow relationships with both sides of our families. I recently got to spend quality time with his brothers and it was so much fun and then a quick trip visit with my parents reminds me of how great they are too!

Home Group-- Our church community is so precious to me. This is something that Matt and I get to do together as well and we get to connect with folks and it provides opportunities to grow as a learner, lover and giver. Not something we can give up.

Meeting with Friends and Visio Dei Folks-- This is one of my favorite parts of my job, but I prefer to meet for lunch or coffee or walk. But, since most people aren't as flexible as myself an I often want Matt to hang out with other couples, it feels like I'm cramming things in sometimes and feel guilty when I can't find a night to have dinner with people I care a lot about or want to get to know better. Its hard for me to balance my needs with what I see as potential friendships and God working through relationships with folks. Not mention friends that I don't get to see as often as I would like and we have to work for months in advance to plan a night to see each other, things like watching tv shows together, playing Bunko, etc.

NOFO-- I manage at Nofo every other Friday night. I was seriously considering giving this up as I was going on my run this morning. But, is it enough to make a difference? I really enjoy it and its my one opportunity to work the night shift on a regular basis and that is fun for me. Plus, it brings in an extra $100 or so a month, which I enjoy as well.

So, that is just a window into whats going on with me right now and how come my blog posts have been few and far between over the past several weeks.

I don't want to let anything go... in reality I just want to add more... where is my little green planner? Gotta check and see whats on tap for this week!

The joys of a small kitchen

On Memorial Day I spent several hours cleaning and rearranging my kitchen. I was so proud of myself for all the success I had. We threw out stuff we didn't need and consolidated things so I have an entire counter with nothing on it. This is a huge accomplishment for us!

However, this means that I put everything else on the other counter (microwave, toaster, coffee maker, blender, knives, kitchen utensils). These are all in the space between our wall and our stove (about 3 feet, if that?) Well, I was jazzed about it, until this morning.

I was making my usual eggs, toast, juice, coffee and water and failed to notice that the cord from the coffee maker was in the toaster slot... i was only toasting one piece...

As I was cooking my omelet (I've perfected these now)! Something went "Pop!" and "Spark!"... I was sooo lucky that we didn't start a fire.

So, no more working coffee maker, we will go back to using our 4 cup pot (a good thing probably), but we have a bunch of cone filters if anyone needs them...

No more working fuses in the kitchen, Matt didn't have time to fix it before leaving...

But, our $10 microwave survived! Yeah! Oh yeah, and I still got to enjoy my omelet and made Matt's waffles in the oven. Delish!