Archives for 2012

American Idol Top 12

March 14, 2012 by Amy 2 Comments

Phillip – I seriously cannot help but smile when this guy is on stage. He picked the perfect song and it was just so natural and fun to watch. Well done!

Jessica – Last week was definitely better. This one didn’t quite show as much control and I think there was a little screeching/yelling going on. And yes, those pants are amazing.

Heejun – Oh, Heejun. That is one of my favorite love songs ever and I really, really want to like it but it’s so pitchy. The ending got better but overall, just not the night for you.

Elise – I was surprised how much I lived this song for her. That raspy part of her voice I love really shined through. Good to see her positive tonight!

Deandre – At first I looked at Scott and said He’s not singing that right. But by the end I thought he had a handle on it better and really, I still believe he has a beautiful voice. He just looked like someone was beating that song out of him for most of it.

Shannon – Oh boy. Breathing was not the issue with this. She should have worked on the notes first. Ouch. Some of those hurt. How did the judges not hear that?

Colton – Daughtry! Great advice to sing something people know. I had no idea what this song was but I kind of felt like I may be listening to an original Colton song. (ah! I typed that before JLo said that!) I really liked it.

Erika – Hated parts of that arrangement but otherwise that’s the most I’ve ever liked Erika.

Jermaine – Aw I actually liked his song.

Skylar – She sounded alright I guess but I didn’t like that arrangement much. I spent more time trying to remember what it ought to sound like than enjoying it.

Joshua – Yes, sir! That is the Joshua I fell in love with. That was amazing!

Hollie – No doubt she is amazing.

Favorites: Joshua stole the night for me

In trouble: Deandre or Heejun 🙁

Psalm 112 – Wealth and Fear

March 14, 2012 by Amy 3 Comments

A verse in Psalm 112 was brought to my attention yesterday about my fear of the unknown in regards to the adoption. I read the whole Psalm though and have been mulling it over ever since. We all know I like formulas and lists and I couldn’t help make a few out of this psalm. Psalm 112 describes believers and the blessings they have. I saw two categories of descriptions. The first is a list descriptions of those who fear the Lord:

Find great delight in his commands
Gracious
Compassionate
Righteous
Generous
Lend freely
Conduct affairs with justice
Freely scatter gifts to the poor

And the second grouping of descriptions are ways in which these believers are blessed:

Children will be mighty
Wealth and riches in their houses
Righteousness endures
Good will come
Never shaken
Remembered forever
No fear
Secure hearts
Lifted high in honor
Wicked will be vexed

Although I was reading this in regard to my fear, the benefit of wealth caught my attention as I was talking to my mom recently about how we all have our different journeys and have many different experiences regarding finances. Do these verses guarantee riches if you are believer? I don’t think so. There is a commentary on this Psalm I read that has stuck with me in regard to the wealth and riches:

They shall be blessed with outward prosperity as far as is good for them: Wealth and riches shall be in the upright man’s house, not in his heart…He shall have wealth and riches, and yet shall keep up his religion, and in a prosperous condition shall still hold fast his integrity, which many, who kept it in the storm, throw off and let go in the sunshine. Then worldly prosperity is a blessing when it does not make men cool in their piety, but they still persevere in that; and when this endures in the family, and goes along with the wealth and riches, and the heirs of the father’s estate inherit his virtues too, that is a happy family indeed.

I also love how this commentary said it:

Temporal blessings follow the service of God, exceptions occurring only as they are seen by God to be inconsistent with those spiritual blessings which are better.

A previous pastor of mine would always say, “God gives you what you need, when you need it.” I think this wholly applies to this situation. If having wealth and riches would lead you astray from God, is it really a blessing? No. Wealth is then a weight. But can it be a blessing if our hearts are still bent toward God? Yes! If our hearts are bent toward God, then we see those actions from the first list…generosity, lending freely, scattering gifts to the poor. It’s a beautiful cycle, really. Again, that doesn’t guarantee wealth, but it is a case for wealth.

In either case, I cannot make it about the wealth or even about the lack of fear in my earthly circumstances. It’s solely about fearing and loving the Lord. I have to trust out of that, he will give me what I need when I need it. Furthermore, our eternal reward when all the rest of this fades away is what matters most.

Challenge for today: does your life reflect the qualities of those who fear the Lord?

Adoption Approval

March 13, 2012 by Amy 7 Comments

Although I announced on Facebook and Twitter, I couldn’t let another blog post be written until I said here that we got final approvals on the adoption. I emailed yesterday just to get an update and the DSS worker said that the home study had been turned in, approved and the only thing lacking was a letter out to us. We haven’t gotten the letter but I confirmed that all approvals were complete.

Our paperwork is done.

My first reaction was just happiness. I honestly couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. This is really happening. But I won’t lie, I’m scared to death. I think Scott is too. As you can imagine, it’s just one big question mark on how this is all going to turn out. So many variables play into this we cannot even begin to guess on which to worry about. It’s just like standing in front of a pitch black cave. No idea if there’s gold or a bear awaiting you. No idea if you should run in glee or run the opposite direction to save your life. I’ve said it many times but I’ll say it again that this is a complete God thing. I believe with my whole being that if God brings us to it, He’ll bring us through it. That doesn’t mean easy that just means He’ll know what to do in the hard parts.

So I get really scared and then I go see little fellas like this one and a lot of the fear goes away. Sure, there are still a lot of unknowns but he isn’t unknown. Something about seeing a face does something different to the story, doesn’t it?

Many have asked what the next steps are. From now, we are available to be matched. They have a group of DSS folks that sit down in a conference room with available parents and available children and basically duke it out to figure out who should be presented to whom. If we are chosen as a candidate, we will be brought in and presented with all of the child’s information that is known. If we proceed, we get to have an in-office visit with him. If that goes well, we will have some in-home visits. If that goes well, we will have an extended stay at our house which will ultimately move to full adoption process if it goes well. At any time before the adoption is final, we can “give him back”. It sounds insensitive but they do want to ensure that the child is placed in the right home.

The amount of time before we are matched is unknown. It could be as little as two months and up to years. I’ll admit it makes all the unknowns even more unknown. Do we plan Christmas with another child or will the kids be in middle school before all this goes down? We don’t know and the bottom line is we can’t plan.

If you aren’t already, can you please pray for us? I’m not feeling anxious in the least as far as anxious to have this part over with. I’m at complete peace with the timing. It’s after we are placed that I’m a little fearful of. But please do pray for timing, a God-ordained match so much that it’s clear that it’s a God thing, and also please pray for Emma and Lexi. Lexi has been having a hard time with the concept lately and I just want to be able to handle that correctly. I’m fine with her not being ok with it if that makes sense. It might be part of her testimony that she’s not ok with it. I just want to respond accordingly so God gets done what He wants done. And finally, do pray for me and Scott that we have the patience, selflessness, love and wisdom we need through the rest of this process.

Thank you all so much for your support already, I’m so glad to have you along on the journey.

Weekend Recap

March 12, 2012 by Amy 2 Comments

Friday night was a tad unusual for us. First off, I need to tell you about dinner. I fixed spaghetti but this time I used quinoa noodles. Both girls had seconds and Scott declared it the best spaghetti I’d ever made. For local folks, I got them right off the shelves at Harris Teeter. I love that their tag line is “You’ll never go back to ‘plain’ noodles again.” It’s all true. We won’t.

So after our delicious spaghetti, I got the kids off to Scott’s parents’ for the night but Scott had been at the chiropractor’s office since lunch time. He had agreed to trade out some work but realized quickly that he bit off a bit more than he could chew. So after I took the girls, I headed to the office with him and helped him clean. He had taken down a wall so there was dry wall dust everywhere. I had my Dyson and I have to say it was a tad weird to vacuum the elevator in the same building where I used to take my kids to the pediatrician. You know those moments where you go in one place when it’s being used for what you’re used to and then you go when it’s closed, everything seems eerie? Like maybe the church sanctuary when all the lights are shut off? It was that kind of weird. Like, I used to carry my baby in this elevator when she was 3 months old to get shots in the office on the 2nd floor and now she’s 9 staying with her grandparents and I’m vacuuming it at 9:30 on a Friday night. Just weird. ANYWAY.

Saturday morning Scott and I decided to get some errands done. I somehow managed to get him to go to Hobby Lobby with me. I bought some candles that have timers on them for my new sconces in my bedroom. They come on at whatever time you turn them on and then stay on for five hours. I love walking into the bedroom after the day and seeing them on.

After that, we went to a local farmer’s market to get some dirt for my new raised beds Scott built for me. Yes, we are actually doing this. I will have a victory dance the first time I eat a vegetable from my garden. In fact, I may not eat it. I might just set it on a shelf like a prize. Just kidding. I’m going to eat it. Actually, I may have to sell it to pay for all the wood and dirt.

Saturday evening we headed out for some Mexican. It was the first time we’d eaten out in nearly 2 weeks and I admit it felt a little like I was cheating on my kitchen. I was disappointed to find out they put flour in their refried beans. What’s a Mexican trip without refried beans and rice? Well, a taco and a lot of chips and salsa it turns out. It was still yummy and it was nice to get a break from cooking.

Sunday was church, dinner at Scott’s parents’, an afternoon at my parents’ and a whole lot of grocery shopping. I’m telling you, the grocery bill hurt this week. It was kind of ok the first week, uncomfortable the second and third but this fourth week of spending hundreds of dollars on groceries is downright painful. I keep telling myself it’s almost like medication. It’s healing our bodies and preventing who knows what. But still. It hurts.

Know what else hurts? The Monday morning after Daylight Savings Time switches. Scott, the early riser, is at work today and I just could not make myself get up without any sunlight outside. We got up 30 minutes late and rushed so we were only about 10 minutes behind regular schedule. But ouch. Not a great way to start a week. Hope your weekend went well and your week is great!

How We’re Coping with Gluten-Free – Week 3

March 9, 2012 by Amy 9 Comments

We’re going on 3 weeks of our diet changes. One thing I want to be clear is Lexi is not particpating fully in either of these. While she eats some of the gluten-free products and I make all of our dinners GF and milk free, she still eats the regular bread, cereal, ice cream, etc. And while Emma is milk-free, Scott and I are not. So we drink regular milk, have GF products that have milk in them, etc. So basically we’re managing 3 different diet needs.

But even that said, this week was SO MUCH better than last. So much. While I’m not 100% happy with what we ate (wish we could have had less red meat, less grains and more veggies), we ate and there was very little complaining. I was tallying it up last night and I realized I had cooked every meal for ten days straight other than Sunday dinner at Scott’s parents’. That’s a lot of meals in a row for me. I’m sure it’s some sort of record. And I have to say, this week I kind of liked it. While our grocery bill has obviously gone up, our eating out category has drastically dropped and it feels good to know that while the meals aren’t perfect, it’s a lot better than fast food. And ya’ll? I like the meal planning. It’s worked out great for us to either shop on Saturday or Sunday and buy for the whole week.

I thought I’d share some recipes and products that have absolutely saved us these past 3 weeks, broken down my meals.

Breakfast

Van’s blueberry waffles. Emma eats these every morning with syrup. OJ for a drink.
Granola bars. I sub with Bob’s Mill gluten free oats and Bob’s Mill gluten-free all purpose flour (and 1.5 tsp of xanthum gum so it will hold together) and I have a bar every morning for breakfast with some OJ. Emma would eat these but she can’t have the butter in them.
I bought Bob’s Mill Pancake mix but haven’t tried it.
Crystal swears by these waffles.
We also do bacon, eggs or a smoothie as alternates.

Snacks

Lots of fruits for the girls when they’re at home. Their favorites are bananas, apples, grapes and kiwi.
Zucchini bread
Banana bread
Smoothies with Silk Vanilla Almond Milk

I always have at least one of those breads made. I alternate between the two and Emma eats that for snack after school. I’m pretty sure she would eat the entire loaf if I let her. I wish it didn’t have so much sugar in it but I’m just going with it for now.

Lunch

Rudi’s or Udi’s Gluten-free bread. It’s not the best thing ever but Emma has been a trooper and eats her PB&J’s at school.
Vegan mayo. I use this to make Emma some tuna salad for her. Sometimes I put it on bread for lunch and sometimes she just eats it as a snack after school.
Glutino’s pretzels. Both the girls love these.
Pre-packaged fruit. I don’t know what it is but they hate eating fresh fruit at school. Is it not cool? I don’t know. But the packaged fruit is the next best thing.
Applesauce packs

Dinner – main course

Steaks
Salsa chicken in the crock-pot. Just put a few chicken breasts and a jar of salsa in. Shred it towards the end. You can either make tacos out of it, put it over rice or just eat it separate.
Spaghetti with alternate noodles. We tried rice noodles last time and trying quiona noodles tonight.
Manwich. We tried Rudi’s hamburger buns and they were horrible. They soaked in all the juice and made it very dry. We all ended up opening up the sandwich and eating the meat plain which was just fine.
Sweet potato chili. This was delicious. Scott’s parents and my sister all tried it and liked it. Lexi wasn’t a fan and I think she hate some sort of leftover that night.
Amy’s gluten-free, dairy-free spinach pizza. Emma will eat the spinach pizza but I buy Lexi and Amy’s small cheese pizza and just bake them together.
BBQ. Put a boston butt in your crockpot all day with a little water, salt and pepper. Shred after you get it out.
Pot Roast. I don’t like potatoes and carrots in mine so I just put a chuck roast in with one package of onion soup mix and 1/4 cup of water. I even made the gravy with corn starch.

Dinner – sides

Baked potatoes. Earth fare has non-dairy cheese and sour cream Emma uses while the rest of us use regular.
Refried beans. Emma didn’t like these but Scott and I loved them with the salsa chicken.
Any kind of Alexia potato fries. We’ve done both yukon gold and sweet potato.
Spinach. Turns out we like spinach. Lexi of course hated it but Emma asked for me to make it the next night.
Cauliflower mashed potatoes. I made this with the roast and put the roast gravy on them. No one knew it was cauliflower instead of potatoes. Amazing. It felt so good to get up from that meal and not feel too full.
I also use canned or frozen corn, green beans, carrots or peas as a side.

Desserts

Chocolate Cookies
Earth fare Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies
Dairy Free ice cream. You can get this in any store. Just look for a yellow wrapping at the top.
Oatmeal raisin cookies. These didn’t bake well for me but it still tasted good.
Peanut butter cookies

Miscellaneous

Smart butter is what I use for Emma on popcorn, potatoes, bread. I actually really like it and use it too.
Dino’s BBQ sauce. I got this recommendation from Katie and it’s really fabulous if you like it both sweet and a little kick. It was too hot for Emma and Lexi hated it but Scott and I loved it.
Agave nectar for sweetner in smoothies and coffee

So that’s what the last 10 days or so have looked like.

In really good news, Scott has seen no acid reflux at all. Before, he would only see a few good days in a row before he’d need to take some medicine. He did have one incident this week when he ate gluten by mistake and threw it all up that night. The doctor said it was a normal reaction when you are cleansing yourself from gluten. He also said it could be related to the bad fats they used to make it. I think that speaks a lot to how his body must be changing because of the diet changes.

Emma has only had one stomach ache in the past week and it was one morning she woke up and I can’t say it wasn’t just because she was hungry. She was fine as soon as she ate. She also has been MUCH more regular.

As for me, I’ve lost another pound or two, I rarely get bloated and my skin is looking so much better. Someone at work just saw me for the first time in a few weeks and immediately commented on my weight and skin. That was a great confirmation for me. I’m just enjoying having no cravings. For at least a week now, I haven’t had ANY food after dinner. We eat between 5 and 6 and sometimes don’t go to sleep until 10 or 11. I think that’s huge.

Truth be told, I’m not sure we’ll go back to gluten. This week really proved to me we could happily be gluten-free and I’m not impatiently counting down until our check-up at the end of the month. Feels great!

He Seeks

March 8, 2012 by Amy 2 Comments

Since finishing the Bible a few weeks ago, I struggled to get back into a reading routine. I have a stack of probably 20 books I’ve queued to read and yet I couldn’t jump into them. But there’s this one book that has completely captured my attention and it was suggested by one of the ladies in our Bible in 90 Days accountability group. The Promised One: Seeing Jesus in Genesis.

I love Genesis. I’m almost certain it is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Once you start seeing the Bible for the story it is, the connections to Jesus and the full circle moments are astounding. For anyone that would say the Old Testament is unessential or antiquated I’d beg you to start reading. The intricacies that God planned out are just beautiful.

The Promised One’s first section was on the creation. I was shocked to see the similarities between the creation story and Jesus. Here are just a few:

Genesis	Reference to Jesus
In the beginning God created.	Jesus was the Word going out at creation and doing the work of creation Ps. 33:6 and John 1:1-3
The Spirit of God hovered over the emptiness before creation	The Spirit came upon Mary to conceive Luke 1:34-35
And there was light	Jesus is the great light Isa 9:2 and John 8:12
Let us make man in our images, after our likeness	Jesus is the exact representation of God Col 1:15 and Hebrews 1:3

The connections goes on through Genesis 1. I don’t want to list them all because I don’t want to spoil it. It’s such a rush looking these up and seeing them. Really seeing them. Of course I’d heard all of these in bits and pieces but to bring it all together like this is pretty amazing.

The one that really got me today was in the second section where we study the fall of man.

Genesis	Reference to Jesus
“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”	Luke 19:10 says Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost

Let that sink in for a moment. In the same way that God came looking for Adam and Eve in the garden, knowing they had done the one thing they weren’t supposed to, Jesus came into our world seeking us in our sin. He seeks us in our sin. Do you get that? He’s not a God that pushes us by the wayside when we do something wrong. He doesn’t leave us to figure it out on our own. He seeks us. Just like he said to Adam and Eve, he says “Where are you?” “What have you done?” Not to condemn us but to bring forth a confession in order to redeem us and bring us back to Him. Yes, I’ve heard this before but something stirred fresh inside me this morning when I thought again of his great love for me.

I don’t know why this just came to me, but Beth Moore’s sister has a powerful story of how God absolutely chased her down in the pit of alcoholism and redeemed her life. Whether it’s an addiction or indifference, he’s still seeking.

So here’s my challenge for today. Jesus is walking with you. He wants to talk to you. He’s seeking you out just as you are. Answer him.

American Idol Top 13

March 7, 2012 by Amy 2 Comments

Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder. I just wonder if they’re setting these contestants up to fail. The one person they always say not to sing and then they make every single girl sing it. Hmph. Tonight was pretty rough for me in the first half but the second delivered a few gems. I also have to admit it was very sad for me to hear the phrase, “I didn’t grow up listening to Whitney.” Sad, folks! OK, so let’s get to it.

Joshua – I love Joshua and he sang it alright but I just felt like the song choice was poor. It came across like a cheesy show opener.

Elise – This definitely wasn’t her gig but I still appreciated the full rich parts of her voice.

Jermaine – This was by far my favorite performance from Jermaine so far in the competition. But I’m not sure how much that’s saying since he has yet to wow me.

Erika – I just don’t see what the judges see. I think she sings everything right and all but I just don’t enjoy her staying in that low register for so much of the song.

Colton – That was rough for me. I can’t stand how he slurs his words. I barely understood half of what he said. The end got a lot better though and I love when he belts those notes.

Shannon – Yikes! Where was our beauty pageant moment? This should have been a slam dunk for her and that key change was just horrendous. I feel bad because I think she probably CAN do the song.

Deandre –I didn’t care for this much at all. It’s interesting Stephen mentioned Nyema because I wasn’t much of a fan of hers either.

Skylar – I was nearly clapping when Mary said to dial it down. Exactly what a mentor needed to tell her and it sure did pay off. I really, really enjoyed that. She can slay a note but it’s nice to see her build to that instead of feeling like you get a beat-down the entire song.

Heejun – Have I mentioned this post how much I love Heejun. “I love you more than Jimmy.” He’s a RIOT. This probably wasn’t my favorite song of his. It was pretty enough it just didn’t blow me away.

Hollie – Hollie totally stole the show at this point. That was right up her alley and I found myself singing along and actually feeling like I was listening to a Whitney song.

Jeremy – Jeremy hasn’t wowed me to date but I felt like that was beautiful. His tone really shined through for me tonight.

Jessica – Ya’ll I just cried through her entire song. That was so perfect and so Whitney. A little of me mourned Whitney’s death for the first time and at the same time celebrated that Jessica just pulled that off. Wow. I honestly don’t know that I’ve ever cried watching this show. Simply breathtaking.

Phillip – Phillip just makes me smile. I love to watch him sing and play and he’s just got this cool vibe and looks so cute doing it. I really don’t even know if the judges know how to judge him just because he’s so unique.

Favorites: Jessica, Hollie, Skylar, Phillip

In trouble: Deandre

Movie Review: John Carter – GO SEE IT!

March 7, 2012 by Amy 10 Comments

This is not a typical movie review for me. Not just a checkmark for a blog post in exchange for free movie tickets. Pretty please read this. There are no spoilers so, read on!

You all know my love for Friday Night Lights, right? I mean, LOVE. If you don’t know my love, you should know I helped create a fan site, ran a podcast and even visited the set in Texas two years ago. Like, serious fandom here. I loved every single character from Friday Night Lights (Texas Forever!) but we all know I geeked out a little for Riggins. I mean, who didn’t love 33? For reals.

Taylor Kitsch’s first movie since FNL is this John Carter (of Mars – which they dropped last minute). I admit, I was REALLY SCARED for 33. Can Riggs really pull off being a super hero in a sci-fi? Am I really even interested in spending 90 minutes (it’s actually 2 hr 10 min) watching aliens on Mars? I’m not a fan of sci-fi. The promos were super sketchy. His voice was altered in some way and there were really weird things showing up on screen. I just was terrified Kitsch’s career was over post-FNL. In fact, I nearly canceled watching the screening because I just was so uninterested in seeing this movie.

But ya’ll. Ya’ll!!!!!!

John Carter was AWESOME.

You know how you watched Avatar and it was a bunch of weird looking people but you really loved all the weird looking people and there was a heart and a cause to the storyline? That’s the closest thing I can come to this story. I also think of Sherlock Holmes where it’s a period piece and the writing is really SMART. (PS Mark Strong from Sherlock Holmes is in the movie.)

First off, I need to say I know nothing about John Carter of Mars from the books. I’m just an uninitiated movie- goer. I went into this thinking it was going to be just an overblown action movie but it turns out this is truly a character story. What they don’t highlight in previews is John Carter’s history on Earth and then the conclusion back on Earth and you see this troubled guy and watch him evolve and by the end of the movie it’s so satisfying you just want to fist pump and clap in glee.

Taylor Kitsch completely blew me away. The days of Riggins are simply a shadow of this actor that showed up in this movie. He delivered lines with confidence, showed emotion like Riggs and had the physicality of a super hero. It wasn’t cheesy at all.

The other characters are amazing. Did you know William Dafoe (Spiderman) was in this? How about Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes)? Or Thomas Haden Church? The female character played by Lynn Collins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) was strong and smart and she just knocked my socks off to tell you the truth. I really thought she was just going to simply be eye-candy for the guys but they really played to her intellectual and physical side. And I don’t just mean sexual physical side although she certainly was sexy in the movie and was only half-dressed for the whole thing.

They had this adorable dog-ish character that really lightened the mood. In fact, there were several humorous moments but not enough to take away from the action.

What I love too is that aside from the violence it was a clean movie. Only one swear word I remember and that was just to the dog so he would get out of harm’s way. No sexually overt scenes other than that they were barely dressed but I honestly was not distracted by it. The violence wasn’t even gruesome.

I’m telling you, this really blew me away. I am so pumped for Kitsch and so glad his career is going to sky-rocket after this movie. X-Men was pre-FNL, his movie The Bang, Bang Club certainly didn’t get the coverage he needed but this is going to be his turning point on the big screen. He’s got Battleship with Rihanna, directed by Pete Berg (also directed FNL) next and then Savages with John Travolta after this. He’s going to be a huge movie star. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Do not let the sci-fi-ness of the promos scare you away. I really think they’re playing to the wrong strengths of this movie. If you like a movie with a good storyline, likable characters, a good romance and some serious action, you’re going to love this! Here, I’ll even link you over to Fandango to go get your tickets! Go!

Disclosure: Disney gave me two free tickets in exchange for the blog post. I loved it anyway though and all thoughts are my own. Clearly.