Out with the Old, in with the New?

I don't have a list of New Year's resolutions, but I thought I would share some things I plan to do in the New Year. A lot of them I started last year and have been worthwhile.

Bible Reading Plan
Wyatt and I read through the Bible in 2007 using the Discipleship Reading Plan. It targets about 20 minutes a day to get through the Old and New Testament in a year. This year we're kicking it up a notch to the M'Cheyne Schedule, which goes through the Old Testament once and New Testament twice. This site is awesome and will RSS the daily readings to you in what ever version you would like (mine is set to ESV).

RSS
That brings me to my next point, if you read blogs you should use an RSS reader. Wyatt got me addicted last year and my Internet surfing efficiency has increased 100 fold. I recommend Google Reader if you already have a gmail account. A sneak peak into my RSS reader and you would find BBC News, Desiring God Blog, Justin Taylor Blog, Joshua Harris Blog, Solo Femininity, Stand to Reason Blog, TheResurgence Blog, Hungry Magazine, Slashfood...and so on.

Shop Clearance
Walmart never ceases to amaze me. My best find of the year was a George brand black 3/4 dress shirt for $1 (marked down from $15.82)! I really can't remember the last time I spent more than $10 on a clothing item. Walmart and Meijer has seriously shifted my price points. January tends to be a great time to get 75%.

Get Creative
I'm not really into all the scrap booking and pre-packaged DIY that's popular these days, but I do enjoy making thing with left over items around the house. Lately I have been into making cards with buttons and wire. Also a great way to recycle and curb your carbons.

Try Something New
Its easy to fall into the same routine of the Sizzler on Friday night, must see Thursday TV, and Saturday morning freebies at SAMs. From the predictability of our monthly spending patterns, I am convinced the government could easily pinpoint a time to kill me at the grocery store if needed (sorry just watched the Bourne Ultimatum). The tea picture on the left might look odd, but it is some of the most delicious jasmine tea around. Happy New Year!



Thought for the day: The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. ~GK Chesterton

Merry Christmas!

I have been blogging my way through this year, so I don't have a year in review post this year.

Look for posts early in the 2008.

I do want to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Thought for the day: The God of all creation humbled Himself to become a human being—our Savior, Christ the Lord. Because Jesus was born He could die, bringing the abundance of life we enjoy through Him. May each of you rest in the security of the Babe who’s birth we celebrate this day.

Curbing my Carbons

I am trying to inhale as much propaganda about global warming as possible. Then I will be able to make a well informed decision and reduce my carbons. I was especially delighted to hear they are showing the Al Gore documentary in many elementary schools and Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Did I miss the news flash that the sun grew 5 times in size or we are changing our orbital pattern? No, the sun has not changed, but apparently if I change one light bulb in my house I will be one step closer to saving the planet from....

Global warming was the cause of the fires in California that lambasted the news for weeks. I guess arsonists are going out of style. Ok, so I might have been listening to a lot of conservative talk radio lately, but this is getting ridiculous. The number of things caused by global warming is sky rocketing out of control.

I watched the Democratic debates on youtube this week and Im pretty sure the amount of hot air released will drastically reduce glacier sizes this year. My podcast plug for this blog is Dennis Prager's daily show on Townhall.com. This is a great way to get your daily political/news listen on your way to work. I am especially fond of his theory that TV and widespread college education are making us the "dumbest generation ever".

Don't worry, I am still a huge proponent of Earthpark 2010. Wyatt and I had a chance to visit the future site at Lake Red Rock, Pella, IA over Thanksgiving. Latest developments show agreements with Rwanda to bring the Great Ape Trust.

Thought for the Day: "If you asked me to name the 3 scariest threats facing the human race, I would give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming, and Windows"~Dave Barry

Calling all Chicago Foodies

Forget Metromix, Citysearch and the like, Check Please! has gone BETA. This is especially exciting for me, since it was my favorite TV show before I stopped watching TV. Now you can take a peak inside Chicago restaurants from the comfort of your own computer.

Check Please! is reality TV at its finest. The show brings together 3 individuals to recommend their favorite restaurant and then review it with each other. The CP on TV site has a short clip taking you inside of the restaurant typically with the owner. Additionally you can watch the review by 3 different people online.

Several of the restaurants on the site are some of my favorite Chicago spots. Top of the list is San Soo Gab San for my Korean BBQ fix. Santorini's is a great Greektown spot featured where Wyatt took me on our first date : ) I first heard about Paprikash on Check Please. Wyatt had been craving Hungarian goulash with the "ball of noodles". I took the recommendation from Check Please and we hit the only Hungarian restaurant in Chicago.

If my entry makes the top of the list from 20,000 applicants to the show, I would recommend Toro. Great quality sushi at a nice price point. Mitch, the owner, makes the place with his hospitality, often giving free samples if you sit at the sushi bar.

Thought for the day: The disparity between a restaurant's price and good quality rises in direct proportion to the size of the pepper mill~Bryan Miller.

Grand Canyon Camping Anyone....Anyone?

Some people may say I am not an outdoors woman. Sure I enjoy a good 5 star hotel provided by my company every now and again, but I can rough it with the best of em. Does that mean downloading nature music on Itunes and putting up a tent in my living room...sometimes.

I can now say I have camped in 100 F and 32 F. Of course, Wyatt was the first to point out frost had formed on his hair after I took everyone's blankets in the tent, but I was there when it formed snuggled up in a cozy, warm...anyways. When the rental agent said he had a Mustang, I quickly replied Woohoo, without thinking about the lack of space for camping gear and Wyatt's sister Holly. I was concerned with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and garlic while shopping for foodstuff for camping, but didn't think about matches, firewood, hot dogs.

What a better place to camp than the Grand Canyon? I am still in awe of the beauty, which these pictures cannot do justice. We spent several hours hiking into the canyon. I was terrified of the drop offs where one slip of the foot would have been my demise. I am currently learning about humility and as Mark Driscoll would say--You [I] am ridiculous. So I laugh at the video now of my camping adventures.

I look forward to our next camping foray, whether in the living room or nature. Where do we go from here, only God knows...



Thought for the day: God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~Martin Luther

Who Ya Gonna Call!

Thought for the Day: 1. Chicken dance like no ones watching.
2. Arm wrestle a bouncer.
3. Race a taxi.
4. Hug a cop.
5. Break into your friend's house in less than 10 seconds.

Free GB Memory,WOHOO!

Ok, heres the deal...Google checkout is giving $10 off any order, so if you order $10 of stuff its free! Here's what I got, 1 GB Flash Memory ($30 on clearance for $10). Go to buy.com and try to find the best deal, if you can beat my $30 value let me know, I searched pretty hard for the best deal : ) 100% Free, Yesssss!

Thought for the Day: If this is your Christmas present for someone, don't feel cheap, it took a lot of work to find this deal!

Am I a One Issue Voter?

Abortion is an issue I personally have a very strong stance on. With the upcoming elections, I think this topic will come to the forefront again in the media. So how now shall we vote? Many people are up in arms that people would not vote for a candidate simply because he is pro-choice. John Piper offers an interesting article supporting being a single issue voter.

"No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was."

"So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those." Read the whole John Piper article.

Apologetics.com recently ran a podcast with this tag line--Right now America is up in arms about cruelty to animals but relatively quiet about the murder of its own unborn children. How did this state of affairs come about? Why are they not, at least, regarded with equal moral indignation and abhorrence? Listen to apologetics.com podcast on abortion for a relevant discussion on abortion and reproductive issues.

So what is all the abortion fuss about? Let me leave you with a description of the abortion methods out there today. Suction aspiration is a method used during the first 12 weeks where a hollow tube with knife-edged tip is inserted into the womb and rips apart the fetus and placenta and sucks it out into a bottle that is discarded.

The Dilation and Evacuation (D&E) inserts a pair of forceps into the womb to grasp the fetus and twists it until the bones are broken, skull crushed and spine snapped to remove the unborn child.

Saline Injection inserts a long needle into the womb which poisons the baby and burns off the outer layer of skin then labor sets in and the mother aborts the dead baby.

Lastly a partial birth abortion-the baby's legs are pulled into the birth canal and the baby is delivered except for the head, which is cut open with scissors and the child's brains are sucked out to collapse the skull to remove the body.

Thought for the Day: In 1960 alone there were 1.6 million abortions in the United States. Since 1973 there have been over 35 million babies aborted in America. This is an average of 1.5 million abortions a year. It has been referred to as "The American Holocaust". And the debate continues - Is it all RIGHT or is it WRONG?

When You and I Collide

Blogging at you now from Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. I have landed with 6000 other geeks to get technical. This is my second time on the strip. I have now stayed at the Bellagio, MGM Signature, and Mandalay Bay. They are all basically the same with nice rooms, expensive restaurants, and casinos. I have a view of Mandalay's six pools including a beach and wave pool with lazy river, which was voted best hotel pool in world? We will see.

No exciting strip stories, but I am anxiously awaiting my husbands arrival tonight. Oh, I did "win" $30 for previewing potential TV shows, watch out for Wives of Dallas, Women of Atlanta or Jersey Girls on the tube. We will be hanging out with his sisters in Las Vegas and then camping in the Grand Canyon. Look for some amazing pictures next week!

We have been making the rounds to several weddings this year, including our own. It has been great to catch up with friends and have mini reunions throughout. We recently celebrated with our friends Beth and Dan in the quad cities a la pictures. This might have been our worst dancing foray yet as it included not only the worm, but some crazy swing moves where I found myself flying over Wyatt's back and the limbo.

Thought for the Day: Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.

Food 911

Since I will not be cooking for the next week, I thought it would be a good time to post on food. This time of year the farmers market is in full bloom. The prices this year have been better than the year past, which of course makes me happy.

My favorites market items are heirloom tomatoes-especially the green zebra, peppers galore-serrano, poblano, jalepeno, bell, onions-sweet and vidalia, and eggplant. I just started cooking with eggplant and I am addicted.

I am trying to perfect roasted chicken, so far putting herbed butter under the skin has worked bet. I tried cream cheese as one recipe suggested, but it was too overpowering for my taste. A bed of cous cous is perfect to pick up all the jus from the roast. Roast onions and peppers are an easy and delicious accompaniment.

I will definitely miss the homegrown tomatoes as they are perfection dressed with just a little salt and pepper. The hydroponic or "vine ripened" tomatoes we have to live with at the grocery need a lot of doctoring.

I have been roasting eggplant lightly brushed with olive oil frequently. To give the veggie some taste I have been make some chimmi churri like sauces with cilantro, garlic, peppers to top. I made a stuffed Italian eggplant the other day which was an interesting and easy dish.

If I haven't mentioned before, I love to use Foodnetwork's website to search for recipes. The search engine is great and I find I start to like certain cooks recipes better. Tyler Florence is one of my favorites at the moment. I'm not big on the 30 minute meal recipes, but I do love Rachel's travel tips for food.

Since it is Oktoberfest season, I will end with German fare. We made a stop last weekend in the Amanas, which I blogged on in my Iowa travels. We had a nice family style German meal with plenty of Schnitzel with my parents and grandma for her 84th birthday. We make brats at home every now and then with German potato salad and artichoke salad. Sides of sauerkraut, mustard, and horseradish are a must!


Thought for the day: You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.

Son of Sam, Son of Hope

I first heard David Berkowitz's story over 2 years ago. A coworker asked me what I was listening to and I said the testimony of David Berkowitz on Focus on the Family. I went on to explain he was a serial killer who converted to Christianity. My coworker immediately said he is going to hell, but I saw David as God did--forgiven. I was overwhelmed with compassion for a serial killer.

Unfortunately FOF no longer has the podcast up, but I recently came across a video that relays the powerful story. Check out David Berkowitz's homepage where you can view several videos on the first page. The video is so much more interesting than me writing out his testimony, so I highly encourage you to listen (Video link)

A lot of people talk about being good people or classify certain people as good people. I imagine in their minds David Berkowitz would fall under the category of a bad person. Somehow there is this scale under the law or under personal choices that make them good people or bad people.

The fact of the matter is all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When I think of David Berkowitz , I see someone not so different from myself. How big is the grace of God? How deep is God's love? How wide is His mercy?



Thought for the day: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his troubles. Psalm 34

Emerald City Epilogue

Its been about 2 years since I called Seattle my home away from home. I enjoyed revisiting my old stomping grounds and exploring new ones with my husband. We spent the majority of our time wondering through the eclectic neighborhoods of Seattle and took a trip to the mountains to see the Snoqualmie Falls and go hiking. People always talk about how much it rains in Seattle, but we had 5 days of sunshine and 70s. In fact, NYC and Boston get more rain typically than the 38 inches Seattle gets each year. The Washington Coast is another matter, which receives a whopping 200 plus inches a year.

Coffee shops were on the agenda since this is where it all began in 1971, Starbucks that is. Luckily there are numerous independent cafes with a lot of personality and great espresso. Many shops were housed in old garages as seen in the picture. Lonely Planet had good recommendations as always.

Seattle is a geographic wonderland. To the North you have the San Juan Islands, Skagit Valley tulip fields, Vancouver, Whistler, to the east are the Cascades including Mt. Rainer and the Snoqualmie Falls, to the South you have Mt. St Helens, the Columbia River Valley and Portland, and to the West you have the Puget Sound, Olympic National Park, Hoh Rain forest and the Pacific Coast. If you plan to visit I highly recommend at least a week and check out all directions from Seattle.

We hiked around Snoqualmie Falls and found one of my favorite critters, a brown slug! I know it may be strange, but I had many pet slugs growing up and have a warm affection for them.

We visited Alki beach in West Seattle, where the water was surprisingly warm. It was low tide, so we made our way out to sea. I noticed a jelly fish close by and then Wyatt noticed one by him. Luckily we didn't wander

into a bloom of them. On shore, I managed to step on the top of one, but did not get stung.

We made a pilgrimages out to Ballard just North of the downtown area. Salmon were heading from salt to fresh water for spawning. At the Ballard locks, the have a fish ladder where you can view the salmon making their journey. Tons of salmon were jumping above the water too. We also made a trip to Mars Hill Church which was in downtown Ballard in a dark warehouse building. It was great to worship there.

Other activities included touring the Pyramid microbrewery and Chateau Ste. Michelle winery. The filtration equipment and heat exchangers made me nostalgic for chemical engineering. I could have been a brew master, alas.

Thought for the day: When you feel neglected, think of the female salmon, who lays 3,000,000 eggs but no one remembers her on Mother's Day.

No Intelligence Allowed

I had the pleasure of meeting Ben Stein a few years back and was delighted to hear he was venturing into documentary film making. I was even more excited to hear he would be taking on science and essentially the problems I addressed in my last blog.

Ben Stein has a long list of credentials including lawyer, comedian, actor, political speech writer, economist, and professor. I'm not a Gore hater (hey, I have a Gore '08 sticker on the fridge), but if I have to hear him narrate one more documentary I just might have to take that sticker down. So it is incredibly refreshing to hear an intelligent, funny and wonderfully gifted voice will be addressing a very poignant topic that needs to be revealed.

Essentially this film looks like it is going to expose the discrimination against many scientist who bring up any questions against Darwinism. Stein explains this is a matter of freedom stating Freedom is not conferred by the state: as our founders said, and as Martin Luther King repeated, freedom is God-given. A huge part of this freedom is freedom of inquiry. This includes the ability to inquire whether a higher power, a being greater than man, is involved with how the universe operates. This has always been basic to science. ALWAYS. Ben Stein is bringing to light the issue of how science is defined and ultimately practiced.

I remember back to my days of evolutionary biology in college where my professors frequently mocked the idea of God and that it had no place in the realm of science. You don't have to go into a science classroom these days because leading atheists Dawkins and Hitchens are bringing this message to you by way of the Best Sellers list and prime time TV.

Additionally, Ben Stein is Jewish, so I hope this film will open the eyes of some Americans who immediately dismiss any critiques of who they perceive to be Right Wing Christian wing nuts. I'm looking forward to a full review when the movie comes out. I hope you will be encouraged to check it out. Watch the trailer here.

Thought for the day: If science can't even disprove the existence of unicorns, how can it disprove the existence of God?

The More You Know, the Less You Understand

I have been interested in philosophy ever since I first read Plato's Republic in my early teens. I then dabbled in existential writers like Camus, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Objectivist Ayn Rand. I was just shy of a minor in philosophy in college where I was especially enjoyed medieval and religious philosophies of Augustine, Algazali, Aquinas, Anselm and the list goes on...

So I was delighted to find a new podcast and website that has thoughtful and interesting information on relevant philosophy, science, ethics in relation to Christianity. Special thanks to my friend Jen, who introduced me to the group Stand to Reason. The founder of Stand to Reason is Greg Koukl. He has a talk radio program that comes weekly as a podcast and this blog will touch on his most recent podcast Science-Is God Out of Bounds? (Subscribe here!)

The podcast is formatted to have around an hour to address a relevant topic, in this episode its science and then an hour of listener calls. Recent podcasts include discussions on Christopher Hitchen's bestseller God is Not Great, How Christians Should think about voting for a Mormon, and Raising Children to be Adults.

Greg is addressing an article by Edward Larson called If its Supernatural it is not Science. Larson makes the statement that even if God did create the universe, its not science. Science as it is currently defined is to explain the material world by naturalistic explanations. Thus science by definition leaves no room for the supernatural.

Greg raises a point that this definition is problematic. He draws a good analogy in that if you find a man with a gun wound, knife stab, and head lopped off, you aren't going to say he died of natural causes. In fact, you will probably search for an agent that caused the death. Why is it that science limits itself arbitrarily to rule out certain agents as causes?

"Is it possible that there are some nonscientific enterprises like philosphy, theology and ethics that might contribute legitimate, defensible conclusions that represent problems for some scientific views? If truth is really the object of the scientific enterprise, scientists should welcome it from any source. So Greg propose that the definition of science should not limit its causes to only the material world.

Greg also addresses scientism. Scientism is a belief propelled by Carl Sagan and others that science is the source of all reliable information about the world. Plainly stated, only that which can be proved by science is true. Society is infected with scientism and you will find a good number of individuals who dismiss anything that is not science. Science is fact and everything else including philosophy and theology may or may not be true, but we will never know.

The limitations of the definition of science as previously stated make this view a rather dangerous one to hold. If science is the only way to truth then science itself is self-refuting because science is built on a series of truths that cannot be demonstrated by science but must be in place even for science to be valid.


Check out more science related articles here. I recommend Sagan and Scientism, Unbelievable Unbelief, and Science Isn't, Science Is.

Thought for the Day: If the wager is your life, what odds will you take?

Where in the world are all the Christians?

The media would still have you believe Christianity is a religion that is synonymous with the right wing whose main concern is running the US. The majority of the world's Christians; however, are not in the US. In fact there are Christians in every country of the world, countries that you may have not heard of like Djibouti and Tuvalu.

Christianity is the only truly global religion. You will find missionaries in New Mexico from Indonesia witnessing to the Navajos. You will find Nigerians starting churches across Europe. The Chinese church is sending thousands upon thousands to the Middle East.

The world continent by continent has an almost even distribution of Christians today. This has of course changed over history and even the last 100 years. I am throwing out all these stats without support, but hey this is a blog. Operation World has a wonderful podcast and presentation where I have pulled these pictures on their website. Check out the YLG podcast and presentation.

The majority of the world's mission force comes from non-Western countries. To my surprise, Mongolia sends the most missionaries per Christian- 1 missionary for every 222 Christians. The next greatest sending countries per Christian are Lebanon, Singapore, Niger, and Nepal. I think this should send quite a message to the much wealthier churches of the West.

In closing, Operation World has a great resource that outlines all the countries of the world in good detail and also how you can pray for all the countries more specifically. I would highly recommend getting this book.






Thought for the Day: When man works, man works. When man prays, God works.

Food Roll Overs

I have too many food pictures, so I need to do a quick post to display them all. Wyatt and I aren't big on left overs. I personally like to get my knives and frying pan out and Wyatt likes variety. There are many terms for reusing left overs in new ways, my favorite thus far is Rachel Ray's coined name Roll Overs.

Lately, I have seen many recipes calling for a store bought rotisserie chicken. Recently, I saw a show where Tyler Florence broiled a chicken beautifully by cutting out the back with scissors, so I decided to use that for a base of several roll over meals. Not to mention the whole organic fresh free roaming chicken was 79 cents a pound, so I got a 4 pound bird for a little over $3 (about half the price of rotisserie I think). Meal 1: Broil chicken in lemon, olive oil, and thyme with roast vidalia onions, garlic rice and bulgar, and garden tomato salad.

I took my traditional America meal and transformed it into a Southeast Asian staple, chicken tikka. Meal 2: Sliced broiled chicken with reused tomatoes, vidalia onions with tikka spices, a touch of cream and topped with coriander over rice. Note: The broiled chicken was so tender on the second day and absorbed the flavors of the spices perfectly.

If you still have some left over chicken, try this last combo. Meal 3: Puff pastry squares stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese, chopped vidalia onion, mushroom and shredded broiled chicken served with brown rice and seasoned tomatoes.

Veggies can be rolled over too. I prepared roasted acorn squash with cinnamon and sugar as side dish in Meal 1 with roast pork and onions. Meal 2: I added the left over squash to chicken stock and blended with a submersion blended and added a touch of cream for a rich soup.

Finally frozen shrimp are a great way to roll over meals, ok so this technically isn't a roll over, but a good tip. Shrimp are sold frozen in larger bags at the store, often at significant discount. We especially like the jumbo freshwater shrimp cooked with shell on to keep a nice texture. Meal 1: Angel hair pasta tossed with grilled shrimp, roasted cherry tomatoes, Alaskan jumbo king crab meat, parsley, lemon, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. Meal 2: Spicy Cajun fried shrimp with lemon and green beans. Both meals are super easy and can be made from your pantry if you have the frozen shrimp on hand.

Believe it or not I have several other shots I wanted to blog about, but I will save them for later. I would love to hear about your roll overs and the largest number of meals you have made from stretching one option.

Thought for the Day: The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook. ~Julia Child