lyrics

we sang the song below at church on palm sunday.
i probably hadn't been to church in 2 - 3 weeks, and had just broken lent the night before (one of two times). a woman from pakistan, a graduate student here, spoke about her family's persecution from their own government over their christianity, and another woman they knew who was in prison for allegedly speaking out against islam. this woman has contracted chicken pox, likely due from fasting during lent.
in prison.
that hit me like a ton of bricks, and still does. these people are suffering for the Lord - what have i done or had to endure for Him?

hope you enjoy the lyrics.

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
And make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

Behold the man upon the cross
My sin upon His shoulder
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished

I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

*disclaimer - please know this post is not bashing islam or muslims. i am simply relaying a story from a woman i heard at church.

oscar style

although i check msn's wonderwall multiple times a day, i don't really get in an uproar about awards shows and such. but i did watch the oscars. mostly. i fell asleep before the most important awards - best actor, best actress and best picture - but i got to see all the pretty dresses. below are my favorites, in no real order.

i personally prefer a little more skin showing around the chest, but i love the color and the sparkle. it just works for amy.

so, i may be a little biased because mila's my celebrity doppleganger, but this is my favorite look from the night. hands down.

a bit kooky, but really great, and on par with cate's signature style.

great color, great shape, and classy. well done, dame helen.

oooh, fluffy and sparkly! this dress makes us suspend belief that halle is not possibly a crazy mama bear.

scarlet on the worst dressed list? um, no way, no how. i want this dress.

total wow factor. jennifer hudson totally rocks this. flaunt it!

can't leave off natalie. she's just too cute, and the color is great.

points of interest:

1. who knew anne hathaway could sing?
2. her song to hugh jackman (swoon) was awkward.
3. how did true grit win nothing?
4. apparently, i missed out when i didn't see the social network.
5. reese witherspoon is still the cutest.
6. christian bale - lose beard, learn wife's name.

weekend of personal bests

for you, loyal readers and new followers, a new post. i feel energized. lord knows why, as i just saw the most roundabout movie i've ever seen: how do you know. no question mark in that title either. that should have been a tipoff. it had absolutely no plot, and no real resolution to a problem that doesn't really ever materialize - merely a long display of the cuteness that is reese witherspoon and paul rudd. and owen wilson, if you're into that sort of thing. so on that point, i can't complain, but wait for a boring day and order from netflix or something when you're sick or alone. just a personal comment from me to you.

1. i got all the shopping done, AND thought of a supercuteandmeaningful gift idea. yay christmas.
2. the house is sparkly and the laundry is done. not folded though. but done.

3. i danced with the law student to an avett brothers concert on tv. in pjs again. it's getting to be a habit.

4. speaking of pjs - i haven't put them on yet today. and it's after 7 pm! i've stayed dressed all day! i consider this a victory and a variation of normal routine for me.

5. we actually made it to church. football season keeps us out of town a lot, and on the weekends we are in town, we tend to be lazy and self-indulgent and skip church. it's always so refreshing to worship.

6. i didn't eat like crap and ruin a week of good decisions. well, minus that pack of twizzlers at the movie. why are twizzlers so good? i don't think they are real food, and they don't have much flavor. i guess i shouldn't question these sorts of things.

7. i managed not to puke when i cleaned up roxy's, but i did gag. the law student laughed at me. i was cleaning up yellow bile and foam and deer bone fragments violently expelled onto the rug (not the tile, of course, that would have been too easy) from the bowels of my dog, gagging, and he's laughing.

8. i organized our christmas cards. they now reside on our buffet and nestled in our tree. looks like even after going to all that trouble for that shutterfly promo for free cards, we'll be sending out new year's cards instead of christmas ones. because by then, maybe i'll have a shiny new camera.

now, it's off to put on my neglected pajamas and wrap some goodies. i hope all of you who have an extended christmas break get to enjoy it, 'cause i have to work tomorrow.

day 11

#11 - favorite tv show

our nightly activities often revolve around our favorite shows. nothing like snuggling up on the couch in our jammies with a good meal, some wine and the remote.

criminal minds, law & order: svu and law & order: criminal intent are our favorite crime dramas.

thursday nights are exclusively 30 rock and the office, unless the dolphins are playing.
like last night.

L O S T stole a lot of our free time.

our sunday nights are devoted to frozen pizza and hbo's series.
true blood, eastbound and down, big love, bored to death, entourage, boardwalk empire, curb your enthusiasm, the sopranos, the wire, treme, sex and the city (ok, just me)
can't wait for the new one! a game of thrones.
it's based off that fantasy series i'm hooked on now. see yesterday's post.

i love i love lucy - how appropriate! - and scooby doo.

but my absolute favorite show of all time? i'm pretty sure i've told you before.

the golden girls
image courtesy of television.gearlive.com

i have all 7 dvds and watch them in order repetitively.
make fun if you will. i'm not ashamed of this behavior.
jules and i often stayed in with a bottle of little penguin and these ladies instead of going out.
i miss that. for some reason, with the law student, it's not the same.

carolina in my mind

once again, i'm back from vacation with a big case of wanderlust and general dissatisfaction with my current geographical standing. however, every time i bring up the subject, the job-searching law graduate ever-so-kindly reminds me that 1) it is more realistic to get a job in our home state, 2) bar exams are expensive and not exactly in our budget, and 3) no one is going to hire him and pay for him to take the bar in a new state. sigh. but not really the point of my post. the real point of my post is to update you on our lastest cross-continential trip.

after a late night and an even later start, we arrived in carolina for a weekend visit with tim, sara and olivia. after about 9 hours in the car, we arrived to a home-cooked dinner and fabulous dessert (i'll post the recipe once i get it) and just hung out. saturday morning was a bit rainy, but nonetheless we drove up a big blue mountain (with limited visibility due to fog and rain) to pick blueberries. we were soaked in a matter of minutes, but the berries were delicious. we did have to abandon our trip out to sliding rock though. we went back home for fabulous italian takeout and a walk downtown. sunday began with church and lunch out. miss olivia did fantastically--hardly got upset at all! we drove to jump off rock to get a view of 5 different states over the mountains. you don't actually jump off though. there's a railing preventing people from being too literal. we went to park to walk around and let olivia watch the skater kids, then came home and cooked out. can i just tell you my fabulous sister-in-law cooked us not only dinner and desserts, but breakfast? i never cook breakfast, unless it's 9 am on a saturday and i have nothing to do. we had such a great time visiting with tim and sara and playing with olivia, we just hated to leave. she's so fun now! she's starting to crawl and has 4 teeth. she's starting to eat table food and will constantly talk to you. she especially likes to walk with you. she's so sweet i could eat her with a spoon! i'll leave you with pictures of the cutest family member:

olivia

2 brothers and a baby

best sunday ever

did that post title make anyone think of jessica simpson and her terrible song "you're my sunday?" just me? ok then. moving on.


today is a fantastic sunday, for a few reasons.

1. um, hdnet concert sundays are awesome. ben folds with guster was concert numero uno, and i'm currently rocking out to o.a.r. with a paintbrush in hand. 'cause that's how i roll. not really--i just like painting to music. more on this. (i fear, dear readers, this will be a lengthy post, as it's been unattended for too long)

2. breakfast at bbb's (big bad breakfast--overpriced and crowded, but so worth it) with the law student after a wonderful lounge-y morning in bed, of which there have been too few. my personal favorites: the with signs following, which i enjoyed today, and the dear american airlines, which features all your breakfast stars--eggs, ham, cheese and bread--cooked together, eaten with a spoon out of a little tin cup. and the fresh-squeezed o.j. is a must.

3. i'm still in my pajama pants.

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just want to share a few thoughts and goings-on with you on this lovely, 75-degree-july-in-mississippi-what? day. heck, it's been like this all weekend. first we get an actual spring, and now breezes in july. i must bring this up with those in charge of such things.

-there is no decent place in this forsaken little college town to get a decent hair cut, which, with all its vanity plate citizens and undergrads, annoys and confuses me. so i have to drive all the way home just for a wash and a trim. vegas, possum town, or bust. it's true. i'm so tired of hairstylists here who are able to mess up a hairstyle that consists of long layers and bangs that hit my cheekbone at an angle, and a husband who ends up looking like lloyd from dumb and dumber. seriously. the law student deserves better, don't you think?



(aaaand there's my attempt at uploading a photo into blogger. thanks for all your kind praise.)

-so, on my way home from possum town last night for above-mentioned ear-lowering, i pass the golden triangle's little gem and favorite strip bar, the pink pony. and i noticed there were a lot of minivans in the parking lot. we all know who drives those. gag me with a spoon.

-ever wonder what it is about the united states post office that drives all those female workers to get the mullet haircut? is this in their manual? take a look around next time you wander into that time trap.

-the song "whip it" is now playing on hdnet. whip it good! (ha, now it's in your head too.)

-the law student had a birthday! he's 29. i'm still 23, with a few years of experience. neither of us look even 25. so on his birthday, i promised to paint him a few canvases of his favorite sports teams and gave him a card (it was really a sweet card). on this card i write a few things, one of them being, "enjoy your last birthday in your twenties!" poor thing. he's handling it well though. i tell you that to tell you this: my mom wrote him the same thing. it's true--i am becoming my mother, and at a young age too. this is not the first occurance. once last winter, i tucked my camisole into my pantyhose (man, i hate those things. a man must have invented them). two thoughts went through my head: now, that looks better, nice and smooth, followed immediately by oh my GOD my mother does that! i also now listen to NPR programming and enjoy it, and a little AFR (american family radio) just to agitate me.

speaking of...on AFR last night on my way home, stephen baldwin and some other dude (ken mccullough or something) were duking it out over the religious conflicts of harry potter. really? harry potter? please. it's children's literature, not the paperback handbook of satan. ken doll took his wife to see it, posted it on facebook, and received assaults and judgements over his faith. and everytime a caller called in with a comment, mr. not-alec-but-stephen baldwin put words in his mouth and took it five steps to the right. no, stephen, that guy did NOT say parents could use harry potter books as a substitute for the Bible. he just simply said parents can use this, as they can use other situations with their kids, to teach them about God and what is real versus what is not. this debate issue was preceded by the topic of racism. racism and harry potter in the same conversation. which is more important? the more you fear something, the more power it has, and as christians, we do not have a spirit of fear. Christ has defeated all.

*disclaimer: i have not read the books (simply because i did not want to give in to trends or sensationalism--same goes with that whole twilight series, which seems far more sinister for a few different reasons) but have seen the movies and talked with others who have read the books, and seriously doubt these stories are evil/the gateway to the occult. i also do not have problem with parents being careful of what their children see/read.

(ahem...stepping down from soapbox now)

-it's 4:37 p.m. and i am still in pajamas. aaaaaahh.....

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hobbies

two current hobbies are pilates and the mid-town farmer's market on wednesdays and saturdays.

pilates is my new exercise of choice. it's fantastic for toning. you should see my arms, and i have abs again. my sisters are jealous. and i'm totally into it and would love to get certified. i'm teaching a class this summer, along with a dance class, so i always have to give the disclaimer and ask the class to please not hurt themselves. i hurt myself. i have a jammed sacral-iliac joint on my left side, which will now involve a few weeks of hydroelectric therapy (feels awesome) and some stretching to get me back on track, literally. dad (steve, the life professional) took me to his "bare-bones" chiropractic (fitting description) after my hair cut for a second opinion. i got adjusted all over the place--my back, my sides, and worst of all my neck-i'm always afraid of getting paralyzed. cowboy chiropractor literally had his knee on top of mine and jerking me back and forth. and then i got buffed. he had this large hand-held vibrating massager that he rubbed all the way up my back to my head. it all felt nice, and that little spot doesn't hurt when i bend over anymore, but i'll take that heated massaging water bed any day, thanks.

i try to go to the farmer's market every week. i'm really into eating locally grown food and eating healthy, non-hormoned, non-pesticided, non-processed foods, after reading animal vegetable miracle (see post here). at the market there is a large selection of fresh vegetables (way fresher than anything you'll find at the grocery store), pasture-fed beef, pork and poultry, free-range eggs (free-range as in chickens running around the yard, not free-range the legal definition which only allows for a door to the outside), herbs and now straight-from-the-cow, home-pastuerized sweet jersey cow milk. whole milk, with cream on top. it's like drinking a milkshake. it is sooooooooo good. a bit expensive ($5 for a half-gallon) but very comparable to organic milk* at the grocery store.

*which, by the way, is only called organic because they feed the cows organic feed, not because they let those cows roam around and eat grass like they are supposed to.

well, it's 5 o'clock here, which means i need to get on with a few things: canvases, cleaning up a bit after the law student and myself, and maybe dinner. dad always sends me home with meat and yesterday it was steaks and jumbo shrimp. i'll try to eat us out of house and home until friday, when we head to chicago with dad to see wrigley field. maybe i'll finally give him his father's day present.


hope you enjoyed catching up! now you can go rest your eyes.

much ado about nothing

this post really has nothing to do with anything, other than posting for the sake of posting. i am watching the golden girls (season 4, disc 3), in a t-shirt and friday's hair and makeup (really), and in the middle of lists: a grocery list, a menu list, to-do list, and wedding photo list. that's right: married 2+ years and i haven't ordered any wedding pictures. heck, i even have empty picture frames up in the house. this weekend i noticed my mom does too, so it must be genetic, not lazy. i like to think it's a reminder, a "to-do" of sorts, to get current photos up. i must rethink this strategy.

i've also GOT to stop going home all the time. every time we go to visit, we always end up bringing back more than we took down there. this past weekend, we took peaches and gave most of them away. in return, we brought back books, some gorgeous sapphire earrings of grammi's (a christmas present from the law student), my college diploma, delta gamma paddle, and a huge box of old penpal letters and some sweet adolescent pictures of yours truly. i really had no style. no wonder no one wanted to be my friend.

i am floating around some ideas for future posts--one outlining bathroom etiquette and a few horror stories, a book review (just finished salinger's franny and zooey, and it's hilarious), and a post about the law student's sweet grammi. she passed away about a month ago at 98 and a half. she was such a special person.

it's a quarter to 2, roxy is laying to my right snoring, and i have a long list--cleaning, bathing, shopping, training, exercising. happy sunday, folks.

p.s. we will have a NIECE by halloween 2009!