Frosty 5K...

In my last post, I mentioned that I had picked up running again after completely giving it up about 2 years ago when my 4th child was born AND I started homeschooling. I just figured, this is just a season of life that cannot include exercise. To be fair, it's pretty difficult to find time or energy to exercise when you're sleep deprived, have 4 young children to take care of all day long, and then figure out homeschooling along with that. Our associate pastor's wife and I have been talking about getting back into exercise for the past year or so since we live near each other and we're both in the same boat - except she has 6 kids and is homeschooling 4 of them. Then one day, she sent me an email saying let's move beyond talk. We were both motivated by a guy in our church who had picked up running and was trying to get a group together to sign up for the Frisco Frosty 5K on December 11th. So in mid-September, we started the 'couch to 5K' workout program and today, we ran the Frosty 5K!

I ran a Susan Komen 5K in Phoenixville back in 1997 in about 25 minutes. I certainly wasn't looking to beat my last time today, but I ran today's 5K in 28:20, ranked 18th in my age group (about 78 women) and 240th overall (about 800 runners), which gave me about a 9 minute/mile pace. I wasn't training to 'race' today, but rather to have fun. And it was fun! It's definitely motivating to be with a group and have people you know cheering you on. It feels great to be back into running and I'm looking forward to another 5K in the future...when my legs don't feel so sore!

News from the sick house...

It seems as though everyone in our family, excluding Sarah, has come down with symptoms from a nasty stomach bug. I was the first to go down on Saturday, which as most of you parents know, it is never a good thing for momma to get sick. As we say down here, when momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! Plus, John was gone all day working on his sermon, so I was left to hold down the fort while feeling miserably nauseated. Thankfully, the kids played extremely well together all day so I was able to parent them from the couch. After all of the kids woke up from their afternoon naps, however, I was really feeling wretched. Shortly after that, John came home and then his mom came over and offered to keep all 3 kids overnight so I could finish being sick, get some sleep, and so John could finish up his sermon. WHAT A BLESSING it is to have family so close by and so willing to help!
Later on that evening, we got a call from John's mom saying that Christopher had thrown up all over his bed! Gross! I had just had my last sick episode and collapsed into bed. The next morning, I felt better but incredibly dehydrated and spent. I called over to John's parents house to see how the kids were doing and to offer to take over, but they insisted on keeping the kids who were all contentedly playing after breakfast. Christopher didn't eat or drink anything besides water, but was already at work on his giant dinosaur puzzle. So I got to work disinfecting my kitchen and bathrooms before collapsing again. The kids all came home around lunchtime and Christopher fell asleep while reading his dinosaur books in bed. Then John came home from church feeling sick to his stomach! Either we all caught this virus at the same time and place or it is highly contagious with a fast and furious latent period.
When Christopher woke up from his nap, I asked him if he was hungry or thirsty, to which he said, no. He said he was still tired and then said to me, "But you could stay in here and read to me about dinosaurs..." So we read LOTS of books yesterday and put together numerous puzzles. As the day went on, Christopher still wasn't eating or drinking very much, but he was playing like his old self. I figured he was over the worst of it until he woke up this morning and threw up again on the way to our room. Poor guy! After I got him and the floor all cleaned up, I said to him, "Christopher, I'm sorry you're still sick. I thought you were getting better." He then told me, "Well, I feel better as long as we're talking about dinosaurs. When we stop talking about dinosaurs is when I start to feel sick again." Ha! How's that for a prescription?!
So I sent John into Christopher's room to talk to him about dinosaurs while I got the girls some breakfast. You would think that he went through a miraculous healing or something by hearing the volume and excitement in his voice from the other room! Next thing we knew, he was running out of the room to grab his big dinosaur books to show Daddy what he was talking about...since Daddy doesn't know as much as he does about dinosaurs.

Pictured above are Christopher's big dinosaur books that he reads over and over and over again. No exaggeration, he can identify every dinosaur on every single page of these three books. I know this because he has shown us several times. Today he took us through the fat book in the middle and even gave us some facts about most of the dinosaurs in there. The middle book is one we got from the library and have already renewed once. It is due back this Saturday and I'm wondering if we might owe some money on this one since it has been so 'well loved'. Honestly, I'd be happy to buy it since I know he'll be sad to see it go. Ah, but I remember there were about 4 shelves of dinosaur books upstairs, so that should help to assuage his loss.
We concluded that talking and reading about dinosaurs really did help Christopher to feel better. The video below will show Christopher feeling just fine as he reads the book, Go Dog Go, by P.D. Eastman to Sarah. What cracks me up is that regardless of how slowly he reads, he does it with inflection in his voice and everything!

Many reasons to love living in Texas...

I've got to say that other than dealing with the unbearable heat of the summer, it sure is nice to be back in Texas. Ok, so the scenery is not nearly as beautiful here as it is Pennsylvania, but the people sure are friendlier and the customer service is SO much better down here! What's funny is that I was born, raised, and went to college in Pennsylvania, so you'd think that I wouldn't have culture shock returning home. But I am always stunned at how rude people are in public and how unhelpful people are in grocery stores and whatnot whenever we go back to PA. Nobody waves hello from their cars or around the neighborhoods, people just look down as they walk past, nobody asks me if I'm finding everything alright in the store or if I need any help out to my car (heck, I had to bag my own groceries), if you ask someone for help they act like you're bothering them, and if the cashier starts talking, it's usually to another teenager across the aisle and not to you. I chuckled to myself as I read the standard note below one cashier's name tag which said, "I'm here to help you!" I wanted to ask, "But are you really?" I mean, really?!?

John and I noticed the service get better and the people get friendlier at every stop the farther south we drove on our way back to Texas. People start talking to you about just anything at gas stations, everyone from truck drivers to cashiers will coo at your babies and talk to your children, and customer service sounds more like, "Are you findin' everything alright?", "Is there anything else I can get you?", "Here, let me get that door for you.", "Y'all have a good day, now.", and, of course, "Y'all come back!" And yes, even the teenager cashiers and baggers will ask you these questions and help you and your children out to your car. I remember getting nutritional advice from the butcher at Albertson's when he noticed that I was pregnant. I asked him to help me find the ham hocks, and when he showed them to me he stopped and said, "You're making that dozen bean soup, aren't ya?...What you really need are these pork bones because they're much tastier, they've got more meat on 'em, and you need to be eatin' your protein." I found the whole conversation very endearing.

Yes, I've seen the joke lists of "you know you're from Texas if..."
- you pick your parking spot based on shade instead of distance
- you've ever burned your hand on your car door handle
- you start your car to cool it down instead of to warm it up
and on the list goes joking about the heat. All very true, but another equally true one that I've come to appreciate is, you know you're from Texas if you wave to people you don't know from your car. I remember the first time I came to Texas and John waved to someone as we drove out of his neighborhood. I asked, "Who was that?" and he said, "I don't know." "Then why did you wave to him?" "Because that's what you do."

Ha! Not where I come from! But after living in Texas for 8 years now, I wave and smile to perfect strangers without even thinking of it. So maybe it's hotter than a firecracker down here, but at least we can talk about it with the people in line at the store or the pharmacist, who will probably recommend a good sunscreen and then tell us to stay cool.

The deception of going digital...

I have recently undertaken the monumental task of getting all of our family photos into albums...in chronological order. I thought I was doing myself a favor because I had completely and unashamedly given up on the whole scrapbooking enterprise because I realized how unbelievably unrealistic it was to sort, crop, matte, frame, decorate, journal, etc. the sheer volume of pictures we have accumulated over the years. In fact, the last thing I tried to scrapbook was a baby album for Christopher and I think I made it from birth to about 1-2 months old before setting it aside, never to be picked up again. Nearly 5 years and 2 more children have come along since then, along with a flood of photographs documenting every stage of their development, not to mention every family get together.
The thought of beginning this process where I left off was rather daunting, so I thought I'd begin with photos from Hannah's birth and fill up the albums until I was caught up to the present. I quickly filled up 4 1/2 albums (each album holds 300 4x6 photos), so that's approximately 1300+ photos taken in the first 11 months of Hannah's life. Last night I backtracked and started filling a new set of albums beginning with Sarah's birth (11/20/04) going forward until Hannah was born. I filled 5 albums but still have a year's worth of pictures left until Hannah's birth date. And there's a pretty sizable stack of photos from that year! Needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed.
What overwhelms me even more is then backtracking to the year and 1/2 before Sarah was born. Christopher, who was our firstborn child and the first grandchild on both sides of our family, saw his fair share of camera flashes as a baby. You remember me kidding about my mom being a "Chinese tourist", true to the cultural stereotype? Well, I have tangible PROOF that she cannot enjoy life without a camera in her hand! Every time she would fly down to Texas or we would come to Pennsylvania for a visit, she would take a gazillion pictures and always give us the duplicates. Last night as I was going through pictures from Sarah's babyhood, I picked up a LARGE stack and showed it to John saying, "See this stack of photos? These were taken over the span of 4 days...ALL by my mom." And that was after Sarah was born. Before Sarah was born, we traveled to PA and my mom traveled down here more frequently. We also went to Maine with my mom and her sister as well as to Vancouver TWICE with my mom and all of our Chinese relatives. You can only imagine how many times we posed for group pictures...
So I have filled up 9 1/2 albums (that's nearly 3000 photos) and I'm still swimming in a sea of photographs stored in boxes...but I am determined to press on. Another thing that I find amusing is that I believed the myth that switching from film to digital photography would lessen the load of pictures we actually develop since you "only develop the really good ones." The problem with digital photography is that you end up taking a gazillion MORE photos than you would with film and a good fraction of that gazillion is considered a 'keeper.' Plus, even if some pictures don't turn out perfectly, there's always photo software to edit your not-so-perfect prints.
Now that I've ranted and raved about this overwhelming task, I must say that I've really enjoyed seeing all of these pictures again! It's so nice to get them out of boxes and display them in such a way that we'll actually get to see them. My kids have thoroughly enjoyed flipping through the albums as well...something I would NOT let them do with pictures just shoved in a box. Where to store these giant albums when I'm finished is going to be another task for another day...

Martin Luther King Day

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is tomorrow. Here is his incredible "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". May I suggest taking a moment on Monday to read it?

Friendship is a means of grace

Jonathan Leeman, whom I have great respect for, introduces us to some thoughts on a topic that is often under-appreciated and, in fact, crucial to the life of a healthy, godly church: Christian friendships. Jonathan quotes Mark Dever as saying,

"If you don’t have friends in the church, you deprive us pastors of some of our best tools for reaching out to you, especially when you’re hurt or beginning to stray."

Jonathan then goes on to say,

"Friendship is one of the primary means of grace the Lord uses to keep church members growing in grace and bound to one another—like the sinews between muscles. Friendship helps church members to fight sin, disciple younger Christians, and spur one another on to love and good deeds."

(In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that Jonathan's father is the director of music/worship at our church and is a very fine musician with a pastor's heart.)

Why I'm not excited about Windows Vista

Well, after 5 years of waiting, Microsoft finally rolled out its latest iteration of Windows today. I'm not excited about it at all. Five years ago Microsoft promised to completely redo the essentially DOS file structure system that has always remainded below the surface of Windows. They promised that with the new Windows Longhorn (as it was originally called) you would actually be able to find the files you needed. But about two years (and who knows how many millions of dollars) into the project, they reneged on that promise and started focusing their attention on making Vista pretty. Whoop-tee-do. Substance has been abandoned for style. That's how I read it. And it just makes me want to ditch my PC and go with the Mac. I started using computers a year or two before MS-DOS was introduced. I first learned on a TRS-80 Model III. Then I went to DOS. Then in college I switched to a Mac. I loved it. It was built as a graphic user interface from the bottom up. But after college I was forced to go back to PC because that's what they used in my first few jobs. But I quickly realized that Windows 3.1 and 98 were nothing but a GUI tumbtacked upon a DOS system. It was clumsy and cumbersome. I'll grant that Windows XP was a huge improvement over previous versions, but Microsoft continues to show no vitality, no creativity, and no real progress in their products. Others do the real work. Then Microsoft buys them out and markets their products. But with their cash-cow, Windows, they still just can't seem to go it right. Microsoft is like the federal government: no one is happy with it, but there's no alternative. Maybe I really will bite the bullet next time and buy a Mac.