Saturday, December 30, 2006

Poverty or excess

Lately I have been constantly reminded of how much "stuff" I have and this country has. As I made 15 different things for Christmas I couldn't help but think of people who don't even have Christmas dinner or are only preparing one thing for dinner. I had so many different battling thoughts running through my head while cooking like, well it is Christmas, this is what we do, but then I would feel bad that we got to enjoy all of this wonderful food and then had leftovers for days when I am aware that others have nothing.

As someone who enjoys going on short term mission trips I like to be aware of what is going on in other places and be reminded of how extremely blessed I am to have what I do. What I am struggling with is finding how to deal with these thoughts.

An example:

I dream of the day where I can design my own kitchen with 2 ovens and a great stove, and a warming drawer... As I think of that I begin to feel guilty because there have been families that I have served (in other countries) that don't even have an oven, a sink, or a bed....I want to help others, but at the same time I don't think I need to feel guilty for being able to have things.

P.S. I would really like to go on a short mission trip this summer, anyone know of any?

Friday, December 22, 2006

Merry Christmas!

I am so sad that the Christmas season is going by so fast again! And where is the snow?

I hope that you all have a wonderful time celebrating this season with your family and friends.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

If you like chocolate...

You must try the new Hershey kisses that are out. (I am not a huge fan of the milk chocolate kisses, because I think there is better chocolate out there.) BUT, Hershey's holiday flavors rock! The two that I really enjoy are mint flavored and peppermint. The mint is a chocolate kiss with a mint flavoring. Peppermint consists of white chocolate with bits of candy cane dispersed through out. Yummy.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

New Hobby?

I don't think so. Today was my mother's birthday. I decided a few months back to do something extra special for her birthday gift. I came up with idea of doing a scrapbook of our Disney trip this past summer. I haven't done one of these books in about 13 years.

I totally forgot what a BIG job this was. The time and energy that went into it was amazing.

As I would go to stores and work on the book, I was amazed at the beautiful pages people would make and just the whole creative aspect was fun.

Despite all the work, the book came out great and my mother was so appreciative of it!!! This made it all worth while.

Do you ever do something and think no one will understand or see what you do or how much time you put into something to make that work? Well this was the feeling I had with this book, but I was wrong. My mom recognized the time, energy, money... and that made me so happy and the fact that she couldn't get over it made me even more excited.

But, it will probably be another 13 years before I do another one. :)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

G's thoughts on the Bears

I love that there were SO many Bears fans in St. Louis!

Hester is a maniac.

Why is Charles Tillman called Peanut?

I am so sick and tired of all the talk about Rex Grossman. The poor guy! I know he needs to step it up, but that is all that is talked about, oh and the 3 or 4 pro-bowlers who weren't able to play tonight. My gosh, give Grossman some encouragement, tips, ideas...You could see the fear all over him tonight. And now all I have to say is we got our "Rexy Back"!!!!

Crazy upsets this week in football, wow!

Look out playoffs here come the Bears.

And how great that part of Christmas Eve will be celebrated with football. Oh yeah!

Sunday, December 10, 2006

"The Holiday"

So I LOVED this movie!!! I will not give anything away, but I will say that I think I liked it so much was because I could relate to a few of the parts. I want to see it again and I do have to say Jack Black actually pulled off a serious role. Wow!

A motto (in reference to men) that I have learned at times, I take from the Rolling Stones, "You Can't Always Get What You Want"!

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

So ridiculous!

I watch the food network from time to time. It helps me keep up on my culinary skills, get ideas, and get excited about cooking. Every once in a while I would watch Rachel Ray, but I was usually annoyed by her. She now has a talk show on and I have seen it a handful of times. I can't quite figure it out. Sometimes it intrigues me and other times I just turn it off. One of the things I get annoyed by is her always saying "EVOO", which stands for extra virgin olive oil. She says it over and over and over. Today on her talk show, it was announced that "EVOO" is now going in the Oxford Dictionary. What? Can I start making up words and abbreviations and get them in there too? Ugh!

Da Bulls

I attended my first Bulls game this year with Amy. When we walked into the United Center, the crowd was already extremely pumped and really ready to go. It made me even that more excited to be there and ready to cheer on the Bulls. This subtle observation reminded me of how much our attitudes can affect other people.

In case you missed the game, the Bulls were on fire! Nocioni and Gordon were scoring machines! I really enjoyed their warm up mix, how can I get that?!