Seven Quick Takes

1.
We missed all of the snowfall in the DC area and fully expected shoveling ourselves IN to our parking space. But when we arrived home, we saw that our spot was all clear and someone had shoveled a path to our door. Turns out a friend had emailed our address to the people we hire to remove snow so they would clear it with a Bobcat. The pile of snow on our front yard is taller than Kim. Yay for neighborly neighbors!

2.
We were out of town so we could go see the space shuttle Endeavour launch. It was amazing! I will never have adequate words to describe how it felt.

But I can try. We got on the tour bus at 1:30am for the second night in a row, hearing on tv that it was about a 60% chance of launch. On the way there our expert guide, Wayne Owens regaled us with details about the launch and NASA in general. You would think after three days with us he would run out of stuff to say, but because he is awesome, he didn't. Once we got there, the skies were clear and we heard over the speakers that mission control was giving a green light for the weather, which had not been the case last night. Kim set up the camera as close as he could, so I spent a good portion of the countdown sitting on a blanket with my back to the shuttle, vaguely wondering if Kim was looking out for alligators.

The built in hold at T- 9 minutes was when excitement really began to build. As each positive report came in, the 4000 folks sitting in the area got just a little more excited. When the countdown started again, people were practically giddy. Someone sang the national anthem over the loudspeakers and by the time they were done there was 5 minutes until launch. Those five minutes went slow and fast at the same time. Everyone counted down from 10, and then there was this tremendous light, with no sound, like there was a rip in the planet and the Sun was on the inside. So bright and beautiful. As it ascended, It turned night into day, and I stood there slack jawed in awe. Then the rumbling and noise came. The engines sound like a rapid fire pop pop pop pop pop with a low frequency bass sort of feel running through your body.

I had my eyes on Endeavour until it disappeared into the sky, which took about 5 minutes. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.


3.
While we were in Florida we went to see Sherlock Holmes at Disney Downtown. All the pizazz of Disney, with none of the money spent! Woot!

4.
I met two astronauts this week. We just know them as Andy and Richard, but they were so great. Andy has logged about 150 days in space, which is a very long time!

5.
It was really nice to spend a whole week with Kim by ourselves. Even when the weather was bad, or we were waiting for a flight we were just blessed to be spending time with each other. We make each other laugh so much, which is, in my opinion, a crucial part of marriage.

6.
I like to bust out with a goofy face or two during picture time:


7.
I miss the kids. Kim is on his way to pick them up now, but I won't see them until later. :(

http://www.conversiondiary.com/2010/02/7-quick-takes-friday-vol-69.html

Reading the Bible in a Year

So, as a little background, I grew up Catholic, with a Charismatic Catholic mom. And while my mother is quite a captivating lady and can spin quite a yarn, that's not the sort of charismatic I mean. According to Wikipedia the Charismatic Catholic movement is like so:

The Catholic Charismatic Renewal is a movement within the Catholic Church. Worship is characterized by vibrant Masses, as well as prayer meetings featuring prophecy and sometimes glossolalia, or "speaking in tongues." This movement is based on the belief that certain charisms (a Greek word for gifts), bestowed by the Holy Spirit, such as the abilities to speak in tongues and to heal (which Christians generally believe existed in the early Church as described in the Bible) should still be practiced today.
A dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, who is believed by Christians to confer various gifts.

A Catholic church in Ann Arbor, Michigan describes charismatic prayer:

"A charismatic style of prayer is common at Christ the King. People are free to raise their hands in prayer and during songs, many pray their own prayers audibly, some pray in tongues, etc.... They pray with expressive or charismatic prayer at monthly parish prayer meetings, at the beginning of parish meetings, and most especially during certain moments in the Holy Mass. These are some of the external markers of a charismatic parish. Internal markers include a radical surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all parts of life, a strong adherence to the Gospel and the teachings of the Catholic Church, and the pursuit of strong friendships centered on Christ."[1]

So the Catholic I grew up with, and the Catholic you may know are a little different. There are stories told about my youth where I thought sea gulls were the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and I thought Jimmy Swaggert was the President since I saw him in front of a podium wearing a suit a lot on TV. And while I definitely felt a strong connection to Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, it was a childlike connection. I didn't reach a point in my walk with Jesus where I felt strongly compelled to engage in the charismatic activities my mother was involved in. I didn't read my Bible with joy, but rather in this fashion of "I need to read this thing all the way through." I did not know the Catholic Bible was different than the Bible non-Catholics read.

So even though I have been a baptized believer since I was about four, I knew very little about the Bible. In fact, what I did know about the Bible came from one book, and it wasn't the Catholic Bible. It was this Jehovah's Witness children's book of bible stories my grandmother had been given.


As far as Bible stories go, some of my favorite grand slams are in there. but flipping through today, I got a big giggle of "Dinah Gets into Trouble" hehe

Anyhoo, back on track. I could tell people a bit about the Bible, but not oodles. I am now at the point in my walk where I want to know more. I've taken several very good Bible studies and feel as if I have a few tools in the tool kit before I set of on this Bible reading on my own. But starting off at the beginning and just reading through didn't work so well. What do I know about reading the Bible? Should I read straight through and get stuck at the begat-o-thon? Jump around by whim? No, I needed a plan. A plan with checklists. A plan with places to read through the Bible, but which isn't sporadic.

I needed(and Elizabeth Garn had recommended it ):
The Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan
http://www.navpress.com/dj/content.aspx?id=138
*raise the roof* blogistsas, because it keeps me organized AND competitive. Because I need a little competition to get me through Leviticus.

I am just behind by Acts for right now. I find it very repetitive at this point with Saul and Barnabas roaming throughout the ancient world. I know I should thoughtfully pray and try to glean information from it, but I figure reading the Bible at all is better than giving up because I'm not doing it right. So speed reading through Acts it is.

Ruby Rating 3/5
Bible progress 23/300 or 7% done.

Happy Anniversary, Kim!

Eight years ago:


We had a full Catholic Mass (I grew up Catholic, Kim was baptized at Bible church during college) then promptly left the Catholic church.



Look how little Julia was!



Thanks for being the butter to my bread. I love you.

She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls

Proverbs doesn't mention cleaning snow off your car while it is dark out, but I think we can agree this is implied.

So the house is bad. It's really bad. Sooooooo bad. But one thing I have been totally on the ball about lately is making sure I have a plan for dinner each night. I have been very guilty of letting Kim do this entirely too often after his long day at work. Granted, sometimes I do legitimately have migraines or overwhelming fatigue and pain, but I can admit I allow myself to get lazy and rely on my husband who can cook a little too much.

So I've made sure to make a plan each day as I am driving home. We have vacuum packed most of the meat and poultry we have bought recently, so I can defrost it quickly in the sink. I haven't copped out with chicken nuggets in a few weeks! I've even made... salad. I know. Salad. Though I am not good at salads. I like salads, but I lack salad creativity. My mother in law can make a mean salad, so I should ask her for some tips when she comes in March.

This weekend I HAVE to start working on the house. I am putting the Christmas decorations away, so that should help motivate me. But it's really not good over here. I'm scared!

Ruby Rating - 3/5

Dry & Chapped Hands: A repair guide for Nurses and Mothers Alike

So, working in the nursing industry, I wash my hands a lot. Because I don't do the laundry or dishes much at home (Kim's office is by the laundry room and he does it most of the time and we have a dishwasher) and haven't been changing baby diapers in quite a while I don't wash my hands ridiculously often at home. I wash them, let me clear, but just not as much as I did when the kids were little. On the other hand, I wash my hands countless times a day at work, and I hand wash dishes a lot for my clients while I am there. As a result, this past week my hands have become terribly chapped. On the verge of having cracking knuckles, which would make using hand sanitizer intensely uncomfortable, I set about repairing my hands with vigor.

So, my guide for preventing and caring for chapped, cracking hands:

1. Don't wash your hands in hot water. Use warm water. It works just fine and will dry your hands out a lot less.

2. Pat your hands dry instead of rubbing.

3. Use hand sanitizer if you can instead. For me, this is a lot less often than you would think at work because I have to wash my hands between patients, and after dealing with patient incontinence, including diaper changes and taking out the incontinence briefs in the trash. I wear gloves the whole time, but regulations state you should actually wash your hands with soap and water. I use hand sanitizer as much as I can in between.

4. Use gloves when you do dishes. At work, I use medical gloves, but dish gloves would be more cost effective and ideal at home. This protects your hands from the hot water you should use on dishes.

5. Use hand cream after you wash your hands. Honestly I don't have much time for this at work. It makes the gloves slide around and I don't like that. But if you can prevent your hands from getting over dry with plain old hand lotion, why not try to do that? At home I use lotion every other time I wash my hands.

6. Let's assume you abused your hands this past week. The baby was sick and you had to wash hands every 10 minutes. Now for the choose your own adventure portion of the post!

If they are:
a. chapped (looking like a dry dessert or red, but not cracked open) put on an intensive hand cream and some cotton gloves to lock in the lotion. I am typing with a pair on as we...type..er... poor English.

b. If the lotion stings, or if your hands are cracked and possibly bleeding, break out the aloe with lidocaine from summer. Put some of this on the sensitive/cracked areas, then follow up with an unscented, dye free balm like A&D ointment or Aquaphor. After THAT you can put on the hand lotion and gloves. If you have one of those paraffin hand things like my sister does, this would be the time to break it out.

Your hands could potentially look swollen and very red after moisturizing them because they are damaged. Mine looked like I had a run in with a toxic chemical and were very VERY attractive. Throw in some ragged cuticles and... can we say hand model awesomeness? Or not. At all. But the next morning they looked much better. Still dry, but not horrible. Or red and puffy. You will have to keep on top of them until they are normal, which for my OCD hand washing sister is never, or for the non-OCD folks reading the post probably a few days. Start protecting them now, because cracked hands are awful.

Recommend products:
A&D Ointment
Aquaphor
Sally Hansen Salon Severely Dry and Chapped Hand Remedy
Neutrogena Hand Cream (the ointment stuff)
Vaseline
Gloves in a Bottle Shielding Lotion

Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments and I will add them to the post.

Merry Christmas!

We are up in Pennsylvania celebrating Christmas with Kim's family. I always find it a struggle to mesh secular Christmas with the celebration of Christ's birth and this Christmas has been no exception. We didn't manage to make it to church yet again this year since we made it up here so late, but I would like to take the family to my sister's church Sunday morning.

I find myself a bit caught up in what I have received this year, or rather what I have not. I keep praying for God to make the true spirit of Christmas alive in my heart. I want to feel the joy over Jesus' birth and what an amazing gift God has given us. Instead I feel a bit bummed. It's been a rough season this year, I guess. I am so glad I went to RBC's Christmas worship spectacular. The music and preaching really hit the right spot for me, and I am trying to think of Pastor Minter and D.R.'s messages today.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my Christmas jammies and Whaler's jersey from Kim and the kids. The Christmas jammies were a tradition started by my father. He gave my sisters and me fun jammies each year. Most of the time a colorful plaid which coordinated but didn't match each other. When we took a break in the middle of opening gifts (hey five kids take a long time to open presents) we would run and put on our new jammies before coming down toeat breakfast and open our stockings. Then we would finish up opening gifts and break out the Monopoly board. Then someone would get mad because the older siblings were winning and throw the board, scattering the pieces all over the family room. When I was little, it was me, then my little sister took up the torch, then finally my little brother. Ahhh the warm and fizzy memories. I miss a lot of our Persing Clan traditions.

So off I go to finish Christmas for today. Soon Kim's dad will come for a third wave of Christmas. Tomorrow more distant family is coming, and then we are driving over to Annie's house for another wave of Christmas. Hopefully I will feel Christmassy by then. Sorry for the downer of a Christmas post, but it is what it is this year. lol Merry Christmas y'all!

Today I want to give up.

I suck at life right now. I'm a horrible homemaker, and mother and wife right now. My house is ridiculously messy. Not just a little messy, or "gosh it looks like a bomb went off in here", but horrific. When my older sister told me her house was a wreck when I went there last week I was expecting something awful, but it looked as good as my house could look if I cleaned non stop for months. My messy and your messy is probably very different. And I don't like living this way. I want to give up, run away, and hide.

That is all.