If you were wondering....

He came at 6:45. :-)

*insert jeopardy music* (the four-hour long version)

I'm here waiting on the AT&T guy. Don't you love when they say, "he'll be there in between one & five?" I get nervous to go to the bathroom. What if he comes JUST as I sit down?? & that's no fun... no one likes to feel rushed when going to the bathroom!

I also get nervous when the first two hours have passed sans phone man. What if he forgot? At what point should I call? I know the answer to that one would be "after 5, duh," but then that means he doesn't come today, & that means I have to wait on hold for 2 hours again to schedule another appointment for a couple days from now & he has to come today! See what I mean? It's stressful waiting in a four-hour block!

For those of you anxious to see what is to come following the previous post, don't hold your breath too much! All I know is that I think I'll soon do a post on salvation, & that verse captivated me yesterday so I thought I'd share it with you. Don't you love when a verse does that? The words flow so well, almost melodically, & not because it's poetic (although it may be), but because it is TRUTH & it hits you right in the heart, & you can't stop thinking about it.

So we'll see what comes. :-)

eventually more to come...

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

Hebrews 2:3

Communion hog

So today we had communion at church. This was exciting, because in the past year, we have missed most communions due to being back in Sunday School with our second graders. So yay for communion.

Anyways, so we file out of our row & stand in line to grab a piece of cracker-type "bread" & some grape juice. File, stand, take, walk, sit back down. Once we were seated again, waiting on everyone else to get theirs, I tapped Josh on the shoulder. He looked over & held up my cracker - a big piece nearly as long as my forefinger. He grinned & shook his head at me, in that "you are ridiculous" kind of way. I think he called me a goober or something too.

It's true... in the two seconds I have to scan over all the cracker pieces I have to choose from, I quickly spot the biggest available & take it. I love bread. & crackers are bread-like.

I was hungry too, does that make me less ridiculous??

A walk in the park

Josh & I took a lovely walk last night. I just love San Antonio terrain. I love all the oak trees (they just grow on their own - that in itself is amazing, coming from Midland). It really is pretty nice outside in the morning & late evening, even though it is sweltering during the day.

On our walk we talked about what God is teaching us & specific issues He has us praying about & researching through scripture. He is teaching us a lot & we are both hungry for scripture & have the desire to know what it says & what it means, making sure everything we do & believe can be traced back to scripture - personal opinions & experiences mean nothing if they cannot be backed up by the Bible.

I am going through Hebrews & I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't gone through it in a while. I'm taking 5 verses at a time, reading them, studying them, listening to the Holy Spirit speak truth through each chunk of scripture.

Lindsey is coming to spend the day with me! It should be a fun time.

I am also excited to receive the cookbook I ordered, it will come by mail any day now. Claire recommended it to me, & I bought it for 31 cents. :-) I love new recipes! Especially easy ones!

Very feminine

Yesterday my fingernails were as long as I think they've ever been, not gross long, but pretty long. One always breaks so I end up cutting them all short, but they were doing really well so I wanted to see what it would be like to have long fingernails... it's kind of annoying. So I cut them. But I felt pretty despite the irritation. I always felt like there were two prerequisites to being a wife - you must have pretty cursive writing & long pretty fingernails. I hadn't written in cursive since elementary school, but thanks to weeks of addressing wedding invitations then writing thank you notes, I write in cursive again. But the fingernails... well, I did it once, that should be enough!

I am dog-sitting for my parents' dog Riley. She's a bichon, which Sage is half of (other half scottie). It's funny looking at them both & seeing similarities they have. Like how they sleep.

Since they are from the same breeder, we like to think they are related, so they call each other "Cousin Sage" & "Cousin Riley," naturally.

I think I shall go start a new book!

Book Review: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

This is a doozey of a book to be my first review, but it was indeed July's book, so here we go!!

This book is based on the myth of Psyche & Cupid. If you are not familiar with the myth, there is a summary in the very back of the book - it would have been nice to read that BEFORE reading the rest of the book! Needless to say, I was thoroughly confused the entire time I read the book. In my defense, I don't know that Lewis wanted it to make sense entirely - as we discussed in book club, we had to come to several conclusions on our own, & even still we are not sure of them.

The plot: the myth is retold from the perspective of Psyche's sister, Orual, the ugly one (Psyche's beauty is praised by all), & is Orual's journey to learn about the gods, & why they do what they do, specifically in regard to her sister Psyche. She writes out her story as a charge, an accusation, of the gods, while putting a different spin on the original myth. Her accusation is most of the book, then a small section at the end is her "answer" to the accusation (all told in story form).

What we talked about in book club: Apparently CS Lewis was really into myths, & he thought myths of gods to be the result of early humanity's search to understand THE God. So he used this myth to eventually point to the only God. (There are entire courses at seminary based on CS Lewis so we had to find this out from one girl's brother-in-law who is a pastor.) The book made a lot more sense to me after we all talked it out, mainly because I just needed a background for the book to understand it & what Lewis was aiming at. There are several themes running through the book that I became aware of after the book made more sense to me (but I definitely didn't catch them as I read it).

Recommendation: Hmm, I think one day I'll read it again, having an appropriate understanding of the book, & I'll probably like it more then. But if it sounds intriguing to you, do read it & let me know what you think. :-)

Blog overhaul

I felt the itch for some change in my life, & here you see the result! I changed up the template, & added labels to each post so you can read all of my posts about "our home," or whatever topic, by the click of a button (see left, scroll down). I also changed the title. As you should know, I love coffee, & to me it represents relationships, conversation, focus with the intent of listening (whether this is all with another person or with the Lord), as I feel that this blog, why I blog, is to not only keep you updated on what's going on in our lives, but to share my thoughts with you, things God has impressed on my heart, or things that randomly pop into my head (& I would think you read it so you can know these things as well, any other reasons I would like to know of :-) ).

I have also decided to start putting up more recipes & pictures, & I will be introducing book reviews. I am in a book club for our church so I think it would be fun to review the book we read each month (& perhaps some of the books I read on my own).

Hopefully I'll become more diligent about posting as well. :-)

C

We Recycle Now.

I know right? First we get all gas-conscious by trading the SUV for a Corolla, & now THIS?! Are we GREEN??? Okay, probably not. One day I just decided we should start recycling. San Antonio something-or-other-recycling-whatever provides homeowners with a green bin that you can fill with recyclables & they pick it up once a week. There is a lot of stuff we just throw away that we can recycle!! I have a complex about hating to be wasteful, so this fits in perfectly with my mental issues, plus it's good for the environment & what not. So, you should recycle too. :-)

This weekend we had lots of fun with Paige & Jason. We had planned on floating the river, so we went to the spot that Josh & I like, away from the beaten path, & the river that last year took us an hour & a half to float was this year going to take FIVE & a half hours!! It is so low because of the current drought. So, we opted to kayak instead!! Aren't we adventurous?? It was fun (altho it got really tiring toward the end, especially since the wind starting making the water flow backwards for about a mile making it seem like we were paddling upstream), but at one point Jason's kayak knocked mine from the side, pushing me to the right, & right into a tree stump - where a WATER MOCCASIN was nested!!! Oh my. It was really big, & it couldn't have been more than 4 feet from my face. I freaked out juuusstt a little bit. I don't think it ever moved, but I had instant visions in my head of it's big, white fangs bursting forward & sinking themselves into my face, causing me to die a painful death in the middle of the Guadalupe. But alas, I lived to tell the tale. I think it will be a while before I go hanging out in snake-infested waters again tho....

C

Jesus & friends

We have some new friends. Their names are Caleb & Laura (their blog is to the right, The Schafer's blog, if you are interested). I am so blessed by their friendship. Within two times of being around each other, the four of us instantly became good friends, & it's because so much of our conversation is based on the truth of the gospel. We talk about God's Word, how He is working in our lives, about lies & deception we see, about how we struggle & need accountability (this last one is something that should be done girl to girl, guy to guy by the way). They have encouraged us to be bold in speaking to strangers about Jesus. Together we have made packages to give to the homeless we see. Laura & I set a precedent of being real, admitting neither of us like putting on any kind of facade & knowing that whatever the other says is real & honest, not what we "should" say. They are in our life group, along with other amazing couples, & along with these relationships, just being at our church for the past year has painted such a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ to me. There is so much love, service, encouragement, prayer, accountability, & support in that church, all based around truth & unity. God sure knew what He was doing when He told us what the church should look like. It should point us & others to Jesus, & I am amazed that God has allowed us to be a part of something so glorifying to Him, not just our church body, but the personal relationships Josh & I have with others.

At the same time God is trying to teach me how to love people. Selflessness is a difficult thing to master, mainly because the only way we can be selfless is by keeping our minds on Jesus, & unfortunately in a world of self-made agendas & pursuits, that is a battle. But He is showing me how to love & serve, not just people I know but people I don't know as well, & with a right heart, without judgment, with compassion & mercy. Apparently this is hard for me.

God is doing a lot of things, some good, like the first paragraph, some challenging, like the second. But I am so thankful that He finds me worthy of refinement & blessings.

I am so excited... we are planning a vacation! We had thrown around a few ideas of places to go, since we'd like to take some sort of vacation each year, but everything was a little (or a lot) on the pricey side of things. But, Josh's BFF (aeaeae) Zac just moved to DC, & we just earned our second free flight with our credit card (we pay it off each month, we just use it for the benefits & to boost our credit score), SO we are planning a trip to DC! We are super excited. We have never been there, & Zac will be a great tour guide since he has seen all the sites. We are also planning on taking the AmTrak to Philadelphia. It will be a really fun (& cheap!!) vacation!!

Jason & Paige are coming to stay with us this weekend, yay! We have some fun plans... it will be a good time!!

Have a great fourth of July!

C