30 days

I spent a lot of time over the weekend talking with Michael about life things. We have experienced some stressful times recently. Beyond specific things, in general adjusting to life after graduate school has been a change for both of us in different ways, and some other changes are coming. I think any time after a person reaches a big goal there is a time of soul searching and making sense out of what life is now that the goal is met. I have felt somewhat dissatisfied with some parts of my life and some things I would like to change, but seem to sometimes fall back into the same patterns. The more we talked, the more I felt like a lot of what I was feeling boils down to a spiritual issue. Sometimes I do not allow myself to be filled with God's peace or continuing to make myself teachable to what it means to be content.

Sunday evening we watched the sun set at lake hefner, and decided to commit to 30 days of prayer together, reading the same scriptures, and having a time to discuss what God was showing us in His word. We both reflected on the amount of time we spend on our computers and how little time we spend in our relationships with God.

I hope over this next month we both grow closer to God, to each other, and can create a better spiritual habit for ourselves.

I have thought about this verse over the past few days, and I think God inspired words like these for people like me as a reminder that rest comes from Him and not from attempting to carry our own burdens.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:29-30

I praise you Father that you are a God of peace, and because of Your great love we are not consumed, for Your compassions never fail, they are new every morning....great is YOUR faithfulness!

Owning a Cat = High Water Bills

This video came attached to an email this morning. I don't forward emails anymore because I think it's annoying and no one wants to get that junk, but I'm not above sharing stuff on the blog.

Read the following story and then watch the video. DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT NOW, NOR WILL I EVER LIKE CATS. I ALSO DO NOT KNOW THESE PEOPLE, BUT I THINK THEY DESERVE A HIGH WATER BILL FOR OWNING A CAT.

Jennifer and Jim kept getting huge water bills. They knew beyond a doubt that the bills weren't representative of their actual usage, and no matter how they tried to conserve, the high bills continued.

Although they could see nothing wrong, they had everything checked for leaks or problems: first the water meter, then outdoor pipes, indoor pipes, underground pipes, faucets, toilets, washer, ice maker, etc. - all to no avail. One day Jim was sick and stayed home in bed, but he kept hearing water running downstairs. He finally tore himself from his sick bed to investigate, and stumbled onto the cause of such high water bills. Apparently this was happening all day long when they were not at home. Knowing that few would believe him, he taped a segment of the 'problem'.

This is exactly why I don't own a cat... well, this and the allergies.

A good weekend

We had a great weekend, with lots of downtime, fun time, and together time.

Saturday morning we went to one of my favorite breakfast places, Turquoise Cafe. Heather found it when she was in law school at OU.

Michael with his breakfast tacos and chili rubbed breakfast potatoes


Me with the Oatmeal Brûlée- fabulous oatmeal: Maple-cinnamon oatmeal topped with cream anglaise, dried fruits, caramelized sugar, and Ada pecans. I am not a huge oatmeal person, but I love-love this dish!

We came home and napped, Michael mowed the lawn, and I did some work stuff and cleaned the house. Then we went to the Edmond arts festival. I had a corn dog (I don't eat corn dogs in real life, just the state fair/art festival kind of life). Michael had a gyro. We shared some curly fries and a brownie avalanche. We milled around the art stands a bit, listened to some music, and enjoyed being outside. Then we headed to the movies and saw Baby Mama, which turned out to be just as cheesy and ridiculous as the previews made it look! :)

Today we went to church, had lunch with friends, and rested. We also began running again after taking a week off. (Yes, we are going to try to keep it up, in answer to your comment, Nicole :)
We printed out these schedules and put them on the fridge for a visual aid of what we are working towards and what we have accomplished. The schedule is to get us on track training for a 1/2 marathon in November in San Antonio. Check out the link for the race, and we are serious about other people joining us! Let us know if you are interested in going, and or in the running schedule.
Hope you had a good weekend too, and have a great new week!

Mitchell Karaoke Night

I'm staying after work tonight to meet Annaleise on campus for the Faculty & Staff Appreciation Dinner and I'm kind of bored.

In an effort to pass the time, I thought I'd post this video on YouTube of the two of us doing karaoke a couple years ago. The sound isn't very good, so you might want to turn up your volume.

I think it's classic... I hope you feel the same way.

Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon

We ran on relay teams this morning in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.


Me looking out the window at 5:27 AM, looking at the rain, and thinking really...this sounded like an OK idea at the time...


Of course Michael was his wonderful chipper self.


The signs showing us where to go


Michael leaving me at my relay station to drive to pick me up at the next relay station. Good thing I got that water resistant jacket because it was raining and freeeezing!!


Me crossing the finish of my relay leg. Although I only did a 5K, I had not been doing the training Michael had and did 13 minute miles- which is super slow. But I did not throw up or die, and I was able to finish (those were my goals, I tried to keep it simple!)


Michael high-fiving his teamates. Note John d. on the left, poised and ready to give pounds.


Us afterward squinting into the sun.

Although it was early and freezing, the being a part of the race was a great experience. In my leg of the race I saw a man wheeling himself in a wheel chair, watching him was so emotional for me I had to look away because I was about to start crying. Running up the hills was difficult enough for me and I can't imagine the strength it would take to do in a wheel chair. Throughout the race I was amazed by the strength I saw in people. Michael did awesome on his leg and I am "real proud" as Grandma Hartman would say!

Michael's addition to this post:

I'm disappointed to announce that the white, wicking running shirt I ran in today did not lend itself well to sweat bunnies or chickens. Oh well... maybe next time.

I am pleased to note that my relay team came in 17th out of 224 teams in our category (Coed-Open). Our team mile pace time was 8 minutes and 46 seconds and mine was 9 minutes and 16 seconds. It took me 57 minutes and 30 seconds (new personal best) to finish my 10K leg, which was the last leg of the race. Lest you think I'm bragging, In the picture above, the guy in all black that I'm high-fiving ran his 10K in 39 minutes (that's about a 6 minute 20 second pace)... STUD-MUFFIN!!!

In my opinion, the last leg was by far the best leg to run because 1) you get to cross the finish line and 2) people are cheering you on like you've been running the whole marathon, which is kind of fun.

Despite some moderate to severe (no bleeding) nip chaffing and a little bit of soreness in my inner thighs, I actually feel pretty good right now twelve hours after the run. Now that I've run two 10K's I will say that I definitely prefer running them in the afternoon versus the early morning. There's just something unholy about getting up at 5:00 a.m. to go running.

All in all, today was a good day. The Redbud was fun, but I really enjoyed today's experience of running with AM and all the other thousands of people that participated a lot more. I think we decided today that we will try to run a half-marathon this fall. Let us know if you'd like to join us. There's one in San Antonio in mid-November that might be fun.

Best part of the run? Someone handed me a Powerade and cheeseburger right after I finished running which I proceeded to devour completely in about 50 seconds. What a great post-run meal! If only I could run as fast as I eat.

festival of the...

We decided to be "crazy" and have a week night out last night. We went to the festival of the arts downtown with Heather and David. Really it was more a festival of food than art...

Us in the myriad gardens


the Roberts


Sisters


we saw a big turtle and a little one


heather with her bratwurst and my curly fries


The dessert heather and I shared: warm chocolate fudge cake- a chocolate cake with warm fudge in the middle, covered with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, homemade whipped cream...Amazing!


A picture Michael took...not even sure what to caption this one...


Part of the city skyline...this one tiny angle is what I imagine it might look like looking out of central park...


we watched a brass pouring by some artists... (i felt about as disappointed as when I found out the penguin performers at the fair were not real penguins!)

We had a fun night out in our city! You should check it out!

weekend in review

We spent the weekend in Texas this past weekend...as I was uploading some pictures I realized what a poor job we did documenting our fun, so bear with me, we will have to work with what we've got...
We went down Friday night, got really dressed up and were taken out to a fabulous restaurant in Dallas (and took no pictures). We both had really great filets- and some of you will be proud to note that I restrained from asking for ketchup this time.

Saturday we went to IKEA... I had never been, and lets just say it was amazing and overwhelming. I will have to go back when I have more time.

Here I am looking at what I am sure is something fab in IKEA.


We went to IKEA because I saw they had finger puppets online, AND they were super cheap, AND I wanted to buy some because I have been borrowing them at work for some of my younger kid sessions from my friend Heather (who was my friend way before work), so now I have my own puppets!! (although none of them are the pretty princesses she has). I was super excited...Man that was a long explanation.


Then we went to Sprinkles cupcakes, because I have wanted to for a long time. I have a friend that raves about them, and Oprah does too.


Here is our selection, coconut, strawberry, and peanut butter chocolate chip, (and then a fake one to fill the box). They were delicious! I hope we can go back next time we go to Dallas-there were so many flavors to choose from!


Here is Michael sampling the coconut.
From here on we got ready for the North Texas Alumni Chapter Auction/Dinner, and went to several other events where we took no pictures.


On the way home Sunday night around 11 PM I noticed we took no pictures together, so we took this awesome one of us in the car by holding our arm out...


Then we got more and more tired and began making silly faces


My silly platypus face

Over all we had a good weekend, Michael's work events went really well, and we got to have some fun together too.

April Showers bring:

I planted daffodil and tulip bulbs this past fall. It was my first time to try them. I took this picture in early march of the daffodil bulbs beginning to surface. I thought about the bulbs during ice storm 2007 (followed by the wind noise), that although the ground was frozen and the weather was harsh, below the surface flowers were preparing for spring. That led me to think about how sometimes people just see us on surface, but God is working on the inside of to prepare us for great things or working on our hearts to prompt us to change and grow in Him.

Spring is finally here and my flowers are blooming. I didn't believe my friend when she told me pansies could survive the winter and would bring great color, but it was true!

I learned something new about tulips: one day I came home and they were all closed like this one above

Another day they were all open like this one. So I googled it, and found that depending on light and temperature tulips will open and close their flower to protect the pollen inside to have the best chance of survival. I thought how cool that even flowers are equipped by God to take care of themselves. What a great and mighty God we serve!

I would like to see some research...

Every spring when these characters come out to entice those driving by, I wonder...how much extra business they get from having lady liberty and uncle sam out waving like crazy at people?! And what does lady liberty do doing the slow season?

Sweat Bunny or Sweat Chicken?

I ran a 10k today and I thought I'd post a gross picture of what my t-shirt looked like when I was done running:



Depending on how you look at the picture, the big circle in the middle of my t-shirt kind of resembles a bunny or a chicken. The bunny is pretty obvious with the circle being the head and the two points coming off the top being the ears. The chicken, on the other hand, is a bit more abstract. If you look at the bunny's left ear and pretend that it is the tail of the chicken and then if you look at the bunny's right ear and pretend it's the chicken's head, you'll start to see the chicken emerge. It looks like it's sitting down on top of it's eggs.

Annaleise is probably not going to be very impressed that I posted this picture, but I've recently developed a fascination with the various sweat animals that appear on my t-shirts after I've been running and so I felt compelled to share.

What do you think? Chicken or bunny?

Update on a Goal

One of my goals for 2008 was to run a 10K. Seeing as how I've never really been a runner (and by that I mean I'd never run more than three consecutive miles in my life... and that was a rare occasion) I spent the first four weeks of 2008 trying to get to the point where I could "easily" run two miles.

By the end of those four weeks, I was comfortably (not easily, but comfortably) running two miles. At that time, I began the 10K training program below:



A blue X means I completed that day's run. A blue square means that I did not complete that day's run. Not to make excuses but the one blue square is because I had a migraine headache that day and the thought of moving, much less running, made me want to vomit.

I post this to inspire any would be runners out there who have been deterred by their lack of previous running experience. I played high school football, have terrible knees, had knee surgery in high school, and I will run a 10K as part of a relay team in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon in three weeks. If I can do this, so can you. If you're free that day, April 27th, you should come out and cheer us on.

In the words of the great running prophet, "Just run baby!"

And.. not to be outdone by "Just run baby!" I also want to remind you of the lyrics so eloquently penned and performed by Sheryl Crow herself, "Run baby run."

She was married to cyclist and Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong, so obviously she must know a thing or two about running.

We will see how long it lasts...

I have started another just for fun blog...may be interesting to some and not to others:

http://myadventuresincooking.blogspot.com/

Chesapeake Sunset

While the cat is away the mice will play....Ew, I can't believe I referenced that...I hate mice!


BEFORE


After


I painted the kitchen "chesapeake sunset" the other night while Michael was out of town. I wanted it to be a warm gold color. It turned out a lot brighter than I thought it would, but it is such a small space that it is not too overpowering. The curtain and clock are new. I am not sold on the curtain, so I may keep looking. YAY for being in our house two years and starting to do somethings I have wanted to do! :)

NEVER OPEN THE DOOR FOR A CRYING BABY!!!!

I recently received this email from a family member... (and you wonder why I get scared and have a crazy imagination...) Luckily this arrived a few days before Michael is going out of town so I will be HOME ALONE and totally prepared for an attack! Hopefully I won't hear any crying babies!!!

Because of recent abductions in daylight hours, refresh yourself of these things to do in an emergency situation... This is for you, and for you to share with your wife, your children, everyone you know. After reading these 9 crucial tips, forward them to someone you care about. It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do : The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do!

2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you... chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won't see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. (DON'T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it . As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:

A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat

B.) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.

C.) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side.. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably in a zig -zag pattern!

8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP!!! It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her "Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night. Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby.

This e-mail should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America 's Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana I'd like you to forward this to all the women you know.

It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. I was going to send this to the ladies only, but guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it onto them, as well.

Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it's better to be safe than sorry. Everyone should take 5 minutes to read this. It may save your life or love one's life!

I feel like this should end with, "FORWARD THIS ON TO TEN PEOPLE IN FIVE DAYS OR SOMETHING VERY VERY BAD WILL HAPPEN TO YOU."

Easter Weekend in Review

We had a busy weekend!
Friday Michael had the day off. We hung out at home in the morning, went to the gym, and then took the boys to the zoo. I can get in free now with passes from my work. YAY!




Of course we saw giraffes because they are my favorite


George climbing at the zoo park


Tummy slide


Friday night we went to the Melting Pot for April's birthday


Sean and April at the melting pot


Saturday morning we went with the family to see Horton Hears a Who. George sat by mom.


Isaac sat with me, then heather, and by the end of the movie he was asleep with Michael. And snoring. The little boy in front of us turned around after the movie, pointed and said, "THAT IS THE BOY THAT WAS SNORING!" :)


Then we dyed easter eggs. Isaac liked to make the eggs "plop". (Which turns out also breaks real eggs)


Flower dying eggs




Michael tickled Isaac and made silly faces


I made the coconut cupcakes from my cooking class


Sunday morning we went to breakfast with our Mitchell family at the Renaissance Hotel downtown.


Afterwards we went to church at the Wellington, where my dad's parents live. Then we took them to my parent's house for lunch.


Here I am with my Easter basket from my mom. The bowl is a serving bowl to my new dishes I got for Christmas. There were also snickers eggs and caramel ghirardelli chocolates, marshmallow rabbits and more candy. Oh and also an iTunes card for Michael.

We had a great weekend with lots of fun!