Fellow Bloggers Share the Love Shout Out

After a bit of a lull in the blogging world (at least among my friends), everyone put up a new post, all of a sudden. Go check them out! (And I have to say, it's always a little thrill when you get a comment, so be a peach and leave some while you're poking around.)

Courtney is lamenting the Astros and thinking about her daughter's tiny feet.

Meredith and Ken are learning how to sew--Ken made his own shorts! I talked to him today, and he said his next project is a shirt for the cat. Not sure how well that will go over. :) But Meredith's pillows rock.

Lori is the bargain queen and is testing a new online coupon class. Let her know if you want to be one of her test subjects.

Amanda wrote a great entry on temptation and our calling to make sure there are no chinks in our armor.

Major Prayer Request

Before I move on to posting a fun post, I wanted to ask you to pray for our friend's sister, Sara. Her husband, Joe, was killed in an accident last week. They had 4 children, and obviously, the family is really struggling. Here's a link to an article about what happened: http://www.twincities.com/ci_6489960?source=most_emailed

Prayer Requests, Round 2

Here are some more prayer requests:

1. The S's just had a miscarriage and are devastated. Please pray for peace and healing for them.

2. Praise: Jeremy came home from the hospital! This is great news! However, please pray for his continued recovery--Julia says it will be quite a road. They are still trying to figure out which drug to give him long-term, and it's a long process.

3. Pray for Brittany and Matt, who are taking a big leap and moving to Indiana for Matt to pursue a master's degree in atmospheric science, something he has always been interested in. They are excited about this new period in their lives and glad to be pursuing something Matt was so obviously created to do, but they will miss Boston a lot, especially their friends and their church. The move is happening extremely fast, too, so pray for as little stress as possible!

4. Sarah & Ryan are going on a mission trip to Haiti this Saturday. Pray for safety and God's effectiveness. Pray they'll be open to whatever the Lord has for them to do.

5. Pray for Liz as she takes the Bar this week. Also pray for the remainder of the funding for the Monk Tour to come in quickly.

6. As far as I know, we should continue to pray for Matt, who needs to hit bottom with his drug addiction. His parents are very worried about him but are trying to handle the issue with godliness and tough love. Pray that he hits bottom hard and soon so that recovery can begin.

7. Pray for Brittany, who needs to hit bottom, as well, in order to learn some wisdom. She is a very young woman trying to make it on her own without having had much parental guidance or support. She is spurning wise counsel, lying to those trying to help her, and being manipulative. Pray for hard lessons to be learned so that her life won't continue as it is.

8. Will is looking for a police job in New Haven, CT, as well as some other small towns. It'll be awesome for him and Stephanie if he gets one of these jobs, so pray for that to happen!

9. Pray for Baby Benesh. Please pray for his/her health, and you can just go ahead and start praying now for us to be good parents! I'm sure we will need all the wisdom we can get.

I Killed It

A couple of weeks ago, I was getting ready for work on my late day (when I don't go in until 12), and I popped a potato in the microwave to bake while I was getting dressed.

So I finished blowing my hair dry, came out of the bathroom, and smelled smoke. Actually, I saw smoke, too. I immediately started running around the apartment, trying to find the source of the smoke, because I'm thinking, "Dangit, I'm late for work, but I can't leave until I make sure the house isn't burning down!" I checked the candle--it was fine. I checked both laptops--they were fine. Then, as I was trying to figure out in which area of the apartment the smell was strongest, I thought, "My potato!" So I went running into the kitchen and opened the microwave door.

I have never seen anything like this. At least, not in a microwave. This potato was not just burnt; it was totally charred. You know how when your campfire is about gone, there are black embers that still glow red around the edges? It was like that. Totally black, but with some bright red, glowing edges. It looked like a piece of charcoal.

So I tried to pick it up with a spatula so I could put it in the sink, and the thing broke in half. It was then that I saw that it was totally charred throughout.

When we got home that night, I showed Nathan what had happened, and he laughed. Then he tried to use the microwave, and that is when we realized that it was dead. I had killed it.

I don't know what exactly killed the microwave, but I have a hunch that the potato might have been flaming.

Lesson of the Day: Do not microwave a tiny potato for 10 minutes. (I blame this lack of common sense on my pregnancy brain.) Reasons not to turn your food into charcoal:
a. You avoid your house smelling like a smoker lives there.
b. You avoid the embarrassment of calling the landlady, who is 72 and lives above you and will freak out when she smells smoke, to tell her not to worry, that you simply nuked a potato.

The Obligatory Comment on Harry Potter

I read online today that the latest (and last) Harry Potter book, HP7 we'll call it, sold so many copies this weekend that its revenues were higher than opening weekend for the HP movie. HELLO. That is huge. I think that there were 8.3 million copies sold--just in the U.S.--this weekend. That worked out to 5000 a minute.

And yes, Nathan and I were one of those 8.3 million. We really like Harry Potter. We have all the books, and Nathan re-read all of them in preparation for reading the last one. I re-read the last two. I pre-ordered the book from Amazon, got a huge discount and free shipping, and didn't even expect to get it until Monday or Tuesday (we weren't one of those people in costume standing in line at midnight on Friday--although there were a ton of them in Harvard Square, renamed Hogwarts Square, on Friday afternoon, and we did enjoy walking around and seeing all the costumes). However, our copy arrived the day the book came out, on Saturday, so I got to start reading right away.

I finished that sucker in 24 hours. All 759 pages of it. And it was great.

That's all I can really say. I don't want to give anything away for any of you who want to read it but haven't yet, and Nathan has sentenced me to silence until he is done. It was killing me, not being able to talk to him about it when I got to an exciting part. But in a nutshell, a lot of questions are answered, a few people die, and the end is very satisfying. I liked it. :)

Blueberry Picking

We went blueberry picking this weekend! I love blueberry picking. We've been once before, a few years ago, when we picked a whopping 12 lbs. of blueberries. It was ridiculous. Ridiculously wonderful. We had blueberry crisps all summer long, and it was awesome. We didn't pick 12 lbs. this time, but we got plenty! And we had some fun. We headed out early in the morning, before it got hot and crowded, and we had a really fun time picking, eating, checking out the animals, and going through the hedge maze. The place is called Honeypot Hill in Stow, for anyone who wants to go.

The New Hair

Oh my gosh, I love my new haircut! Compared to that last picture, it just looks 100 times better. Yay!