October 31st…

I’m not a big fan of Halloween.  Dressing up can be fun, and fall festivals and carnivals are fun, but so much of the “celebration” seems evil and dark.  However, there are two things that I want to mention here.  First is that Stephen, in order to get free ice cream, dressed up as what he likes to think is his alter ego.

In case you can’t tell, that is foil on his ears.

Second is this video.  I laugh every time I see it.

Two yums and an ouchie

This is the view outside our windows.  It’s actually fall in Texas!  To me, fall means pumpkins and pumpkins mean yummy deliciousness.  A few days ago I made pumpkin pancakes which officially are very yummy.  I even got to use wheat flour to make them a little healthier.  Yesterday, I used the leftover pumpkin to make pumpkin bread.  The recipe I use yields the moistest most fall-spicy pumpkin bread I have ever had.  Plus I got to use my lovely RED bread pan.

The recipe yields two loaves which is good because it does not last long around here…even though there are only two of us.  As of today, there is only one loaf left.

YUM!  Such moist, spicy, raisiny deliciousness!  I have a feeling that this will be around alot in the next few months.

On another note, this is what happened to my foot last night:

The bread knife viciously attacked me…I’m not quite sure why.  All I was trying to do was get an apple out of the fridge.  Why it had to jump me is still a mystery. Fortunately my medical daddy was online and able to advice me in the best course of action.  A few minutes later my foot looked like this:

My sweet husband finished my mission and brought me these as I sat incapacitated with bleeding.

Apples and peanut butter…pretty much the best snack…and he even made them look pretty!

The sounds of a foreign language

One of the funny things that I experienced in Mali was my siblings singing American songs.  They didn’t speak English so the results were sometimes hilarious.  I sometimes wonder what I have sounded like singing songs in African languages that I don’t speak.  Did I say anything intelligible or was it all gobble-de-gook like this unfortunate singer?

Two months ago…

I married my best friend.  It’s been a wonderful, blessed two months and I know that it will only get better.  Anyway, I thought I’d throw some pictures up here to commemorate the day.

It was a happy and worshipful occasion.  We are both immensely thankful to God who brought us together and blessed us for His glory and His purpose.

MRS.A back together again

Two weekends ago I was blessed with some girl time.  My roommates from college and I had a weekend reunion full of fun times.  We went to an Aggie football game at the new Cowboys Stadium (which is monstrous).

Before the game, we were very excited.  Aggie football is a big deal and our team had played pretty well in the pre-season.

After the game, the atmosphere had changed just a bit.

These were the looks that we wanted to give the rude Arkansas fans  after they threw dirty napkins at us.

The next day we did the typical Texas thing and went to the State Fair!

We ate “fair food” like fried oreos and fried snickers

and tried out all the cool new cars.

We also did a shout-out on MTV TR3S, test drove the new Camaro, tried out all the massage chairs we could find, and went to a pirate show.  It was a great weekend full of laughter, silliness, and the reminder of how blessed I was to live with these girls.

A Nobel Prize winner?

The big news around the world today seems to be that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Reactions range from excitement to anger to everything in between.  I do support some of what Obama is working toward…this world needs more international cooperation and less aggression but what has he really accomplished?  He has spent less than a year in office and was nominated for the prize after only two weeks in office.  Yes, he has pursued an international agenda that includes peace talks in the Middle East and negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program but what president hasn’t?  What has President Obama done to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan?  What has he done to fight the gross human rights abuses in Darfur, Congo, Zimbabwe, China, North Korea, and other nations?  Has he spent years fighting and faced intense personal hardship for his promotion of peace and human rights as some of the other candidates have?

The Nobel committee does not release the names of the other candidates but two of the favorites were Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident.  I am not familiar with the work of Hu Jia but Tsvangirai has worked for years to promote democracy and human rights in a country oppressed by a dictatorial regime with no regard for its people.  He has been jailed, beaten, faced personal loss, seen his followers and friends murdered and tortured, but through it all has persevered and has brought hope to Zimbabweans and wrought small, but important governmental changes which have loosened the grip of the regime.  He has worked with other countries to promote the good and protect the rights of the people in Zimbabwe.

The consensus seems to be that President Obama was awarded the prize because of his rhetoric and what he promises to do and promises to work towards.  To me, it would be more logical and more in line with what the Peace Prize stands for to wait until the end of his term in office when he perhaps has concrete results.  There are other years for him to win the prize.  To pass over men and women who have campaigned tirelessly for years and faced personal hardship and turn to a man with more rhetoric than results cheapens the Prize.

oh dear

Yes, I do realize that it’s been two months since my last blog post.  Can I help it?!  Alot has happened!  I got married, started a new job, my parents moved back to Africa, I moved and had to set up my own apartment…blah, blah, blah.  Actually, just put it down to me being too lazy and unmotivated.  I did start a lovely blog post last week about my experiment with cooking the oh-so-yummy steak au poivre vert but then my husband’s computer went whack-o and unfortunately the pictures were stored there and now I can’t get at them.  boo.  anyway, to my readers (who are few but I hope faithful) I am sorry and I hope you won’t drop me completely.  This is my acknowledgment of the problem and promise to try to do better.  Please stick with me!

An evacuation, American style

At 3:30 last night, our doorbell rang…twice…and then someone started banging on the door.  When your doorbell rings at 3:30 in the morning you immediately think it’s a crazy person, or I do anyway.  I peaked out my window and couldn’t see anything so of course my imagination starts running wild and I think some crazy person is lurking around our house.  I decided to get up and see what my parents (who I knew had answered the door) had found out.  When I got to the hall I heard them talking with the police who were asking for access to our backyard.  My imagination switched gears and I thought that they were actually looking for a crazy person hiding in our neighborhood.  EEEK!  It turned out that we were being asked to leave the house because there was a “mentally unstable” lady next door with access to high-powered weapons.  She was not supposed to be there and was not responding to the police.  A SWAT team was on the way and it was possible that things could go badly so we elected to leave.  IHOP is one of the few places that is open at that time so that’s where we headed.  An hour and a half later, after some pancakes (which were very good, the coffee not so much), we headed back hoping that the situation had been resolved.  No such luck.  We joined some other neighbors and the police at the command station.  It was kind of cool to see how the “operation” worked.  The SWAT team had broken into the house and were searching for the lady and the occupant’s dog.  The police have an SUV command station that has just about everything you could want.  They even used Google to pull up pictures of the neighborhood…pretty good use of technology if you ask me!  Anyway we got to hang out by the street for awhile talking to the police.  We met our neighbor and got the full story from him.  Apparently this lady regularly fed his dog while he was out of town so she had a key.  A month or so ago she actually stole his dog.  He was able to recover him with the police.  He had been in Oklahoma when he began to receive text messages and calls from the lady stating that she was in the house and not coming out and had the dog, etc.  So he called up the police and hightailed it back to Texas.  After searching the house and the neighboring yards, the SWAT team was not able to find her or the dog so we were allowed back to our house.  It was around six.  It was a little scary coming back into the neighborhood but I figured if the SWAT guys couldn’t find her then she couldn’t be here.  Her car is still here and I can’t imagine how someone could have snuck past all the police who had secured the area but I’m not an expert in these things so who knows?  So around six we finally got to go back to sleep!  I hope they have found her by now and rescued the dog but I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

An example for our times

So Job was this guy who was incredibly rich, respected, and upright and blameless.  He had thousands of animals, ten children, lots of servants, and was called “the greatest man among all the people of the East” (1:3).  Personally, I don’t think I would have minded being the greatest among all the people of somewhere.  But anyway, he was a pretty rocking guy…a “good” guy…a guy for whom you’d always hope things would go well.  Unfortunately we know that’s not what happened. 

Satan and God have a meeting and the end result is that God allows Satan to take away everything that Job has.  EVERYTHING (minus his wife who doesn’t end up being very much encouragement anyway).  It’s pretty funny the way the Bible puts it…a messenger comes to tell Job that all his oxen and donkeys (and the servants that watched them) are gone and he’s not even done with his message when another messenger comes to tell Job that all his sheep (and the servants that watched them) are destroyed.  That messenger is still speaking when another one runs up to inform Job that his camels (and the servants that watched them) have been stolen.  Again that messenger isn’t finished talking when still another one runs up with the news that all his children are dead. 

So in the space of probably like 10-15 minutes, Job has gone from being rich and powerful to having nothing–ZIPPO.  Now a typical response for the world would be to fall into depression and bemoan your horrible fate and wonder why in the world this could happen to you.  Why, God, why, you’d probably cry.  But take a look at what Job does…”At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head.  Then, he fell to the ground in worship” (1:20).  Back up, rewind.  He got up and tore his robe and shaved his head.  Ok, that makes sense, that’s mourning, right?  But let’s focus on the next part.

“Then, he fell to the ground in worship.”

In worship?! 

The man has just lost all his worldy possessions, and he had alot.  He had lost all his children.  Not only did he probably love them, but being able to pass on your name was very important.  Everything gone, in 15 minutes, and he worships.  Doesn’t bemoan his fate, doesn’t get angry, doesn’t ask why, he falls down in worship. 

Personally, I’m already very convicted at this point.  It takes alot less for me to complain about my circumstances.  I’ve gotten upset because my best friend’s been taken away.  But then Job goes on to say “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.  The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (1:21).  This is a man with a pretty simply view of life!  “God brought me into this world with nothing; He’ll take me out of the world with nothing; He gave me stuff and now He’s taken it away.  I will praise Him.”  He acknowledges that everything that he has, is actually the Lord’s.  It was Him who blessed Job with it and it is Him who has the right to take it away.  Is that how you understand your possessions?  Are they God’s and you’re just watching over them for Him or are they yours and you have the right to use them as you see fit? 

I also see in this passage an example for our times.  We hear so much about how bad the economy is and how so many people have lost jobs and money…wealthy people losing millions and then committing suicide.  Would that we all reacted as Job did!  We should acknowledge that everything is God’s and it is God’s right to do with all our possessions as He sees fit. 

And we should worship, always.

My dress!

Most, if not all girls will agree with me when I say that the wedding dress is one of the most important things for a girl getting married!  Some of my bridesmaids and I went shopping months ago for dresses.  We found one that I really liked but it was more than I wanted to spend.  I know it’s an important day but realistically I will only wear it once.  So, I ordered a copy from China!  There are dress factories there that have set up businesses making low-cost dresses for order.  I did alot of research and decided to go with Milly Bridal.  I was really impressed with the detail they gave on what materials they used and how they sewed the dresses.  They were very helpful throughout the whole process and even sent me pictures as the dress was being made.  I’ve been nervous on and off.  If it didn’t turn out well I would…well, I don’t like to think about it.  Anyway, today, I got the dress!!!!

I was just a little excited.

The BIG moment!

I can’t share pictures of the trying-on and further excitement…my fiance reads this blog.  But the dress fits perfectly!  It’s a little long and needs a bustle but I am very pleased.  It really is beautiful and well made.  If you’re not into spending thousands of dollars on a dress you’ll wear once, check out Milly Bridal (www.millybridal.com)!