Almost Wordless Works for Me Wednesday

HonorMommy tagged me quite a while ago to pick a pic at (somewhat) random to share. So, in an attempt to be a little less wordy than normal, here's the seventh photo from my seventh folder on my laptop:

You can see that Annalyn is grinning, but what you can't see is that she's grinning at her dad, standing outside the window. Here are a few more I like from that "photo shoot":

P.S. Taking pictures near our back windows in natural light works for me!

Me, Myself & Lies: Intro

My closet is occasionally organized and neat.
But somehow, my clothes end up all over the place . . . not so organized.
What does your closet look like?

Wow. What a great first meeting we had last night! Debbie, Hip Mama and Chelleybutton joined me to discuss self talk, negative thoughts and giving ourselves a thought closet makeover.

I’ll include the highlights of our discussion here; please add to what we have in the comments!

[And please remember: ANYONE is welcome to join this study and this conversation at ANY TIME. Come one, come all!]

Think about your closet. Is it perfectly organized, with matching hangers? Are all your long-sleeved shirts hanging together, right above all your shoes lined up in neat rows? Or do you have piles of clothes strewn about, with a pile of boots and flip flops fighting with belts, purses and random boxes?

Jennifer Rothschild, author of Me, Myself & Lies, draws a beautiful analogy between our clothes closet and our minds. She says that everything we’ve ever said to ourselves over the years makes up our thought closets. And those thoughts are now wardrobing – or covering – our lives.

Whew. I’m not sure which is heavier. The fact that I actually said “strewn about” with a straight face, or the fact that the junk I say to myself is coloring how I live. Right – what do you think?

Jennifer points out that if we heard someone else talking to another person the way we talk to ourselves, we’d be upset! But she also acknowledges that these negative thoughts have become a habit. They’ve become normal.

Or, as she puts it: “Normal. Like cancer.”

Do you have this problem? Do you find yourself calling yourself names? I do.

I call myself stupid. Fat. Lazy. Sometimes all at once! And I’m ready for what Jennifer calls a thought closet makeover.

Debbie, Hip Mama and Chelleybutton pointed out that we’ve got to start replacing these negative thoughts – whatever yours look and sound like – with positive ones. With God’s word. With His truth.

The scary thing is that each person has a constant inner dialogue containing anywhere from 150-300 words each minute! And as Jennifer points out, if you don’t control your thoughts, your thoughts will control you. She says that the only way to gain a little control over your thoughts is to monitor what you tell yourself.

All of this made me think of Philippians 4:8 – “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

And Debbie reminded us of 2 Timothy 1:7 – “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Jennifer describes our thought closet as being organized into six different shelves or bins. Strangely enough, they spell the word “closet.”

C = cares and concerns. Our worries, the what-ifs.
L = likes and dislikes. Our personality and preferences.
O = objectives and goals. Our dreams, plans, to-do lists, etc.
S = secrets. The things we don’t let anyone see.
E = eternity. As it says in Ecclesiastes 3, God has placed eternity in our hearts.
T = treasures. The people, memories and priorities that are most precious to us.

Which of these areas needs the most help in your closet?

I’m not sure where all my issues fit yet, but I’m looking forward to figuring out how to turn the lies I’ve believed and told into redeeming truth. Because as Jennifer reminds us, every wrong word and every life that is spoken can be redeemed by God!

This week, we’ll do the daily study in the member book. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, I suggest calling the Lifeway store nearest you and picking one up soon. We’ll discuss this first chapter next week.

An accompanying video is available on the Lifeway website, and that’s where I’ve pulled a lot of Jennifer’s insight from for last night’s discussion and today’s post. However, each video costs $5, so you absolutely don’t have to download them. The listening guides in the book have answers that you can get from the videos . . . or online. And I just know we’ll have plenty to talk about from the homework.

I am looking forward to diving into this study, getting to know some phenomenal women better and learning what truths God has to speak to my heart. Join us each Monday night at 8 pm CST for a live chat or each Tuesday for a recap post and comments.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
(Psalm 19:14)

Me, Myself & Lies: an online Bible study

We'll start our Bible study tonight. Do you have your book? If not, you've still actually got a week to track one down.

Thanks to the popularity of Jennifer Rothschild's Me, Myself & Lies, it is listed as out of stock on the Lifeway website. This may or may not have a little something to do with another blog studying it this summer.

If you are having trouble finding a book online, check your local stores. Especially the Lifeway stores. The Lifeway store near me had several; I believe you can order and pay over the phone and have it shipped to you. The number to my store is 816-746-8080. Or, call Lifeway customer service for help: 1-800-458-2772.

Here's how this study is going to work:

Each Monday night, I'll put a live chat box on my blog. The chat will be open from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. (And that's Central Standard Time.) If we need to go longer, we can, but our goal is to keep this to no more than 90 minutes.

Each Tuesday morning, I'll post a recap of our discussion and open the comments to any further discussion.

Tonight, we'll introduce ourselves and briefly discuss the introductory session. The next week we'll dive into the actual study. Each week has five days of individual study, and we'll discuss what we learned and the book's session answers on the following Monday. So, to break it down:

June 8: Introductory session
June 15: Discuss Week One
June 22: Discuss Week Two
June 29: Summer break (sorry! I'll be on vacation!)
July 6: Discuss Week Three
July 13: Discuss Week Four
July 20: Discuss Week Five
July 27: Discuss Week Six

I'm so excited to study this book with you all! If you have questions today, just e-mail me (see Contact above).

The essential ingredients

I finally got around to fixing my cheesy chicken last night. I took some pictures, but here's the thing: they didn't look good. So, I'm just going to suggest you fix the dish and judge for yourself.

One thing I noticed, though, was that my ingredient shot looked awfully familiar:

It turns out, I use cheese, cream-based soup and/or onion in almost all of my favorite recipes.

What ingredients do you use a lot of? Do you have certain "staples" or "go-to" foods that you always keep on hand?

Saturday Review: Summer Movie Previews

Mark and I have had the opportunity recently to see two movies in the theater. Oh, actually, Mark saw a third movie with my dad. Of course I want to give you a full review of the second movie we saw, but for today, I want to talk about my favorite part of the movie-going experience.

No, not the popcorn. I’m talking about previews. I’m using the summaries from IMDB, but don’t worry. It wouldn’t be a movie post without my valuable (ha!) opinion.

My Sister’s Keeper (June 26) Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) looks to earn medical emancipation from her parents (Cameron Diaz and some guy) who until now have relied on their youngest child to help their leukemia-stricken daughter Kate remain alive.

I think the preview said the sick daughter has kidney disease not leukemia. But whatever. Both times I saw this preview, I turned to Mark and said, “Absolutely not.” And then I glared at the screen until it was over.

Because seriously? I’m pretty sure this one will make me cry. For days.

However, I hear from many (including my sister-in-law) that the book is great and the movie surely will be, too.

Public Enemies (July 1) The Feds (including a very angry Christian Bale) try to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s.

We’ve seen this preview twice, too. And both times, Mark turned to me wide-eyed and said, “Awwwww, yeah!” The first time, I wanted to clarify exactly why he was interested in this historical bang-bang-shoot-em-up flick. (Right – it’s a mystery!) I said to him, “Because you’re so excited to see hot Johnny Depp without the freaky makeup?”

Turns out that wasn’t what he’d been thinking. But my history- and action-loving husband is definitely going to see this. As it’s rated R – which surely means it will have more violence than I really prefer – I’m not sure I’ll go with him.

The Ugly Truth (July 24) A romantically challenged morning show producer (Katherine Heigl) is reluctantly embroiled in a series of outrageous tests by her chauvinistic correspondent (Gerard Butler) to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love. His clever ploys, however, lead to an unexpected result.

And hijinks ensue, of course. I know, I know – this will be the typical rom-com, the usual chick flick, a piece of silly fluff. But you know what else? I like that.

Besides, somebody has to support Smitty in her undying love of all things Gerard.

Funny People (July 31) When seasoned comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler) learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship cause him to take a relatively green performer (Seth Rogen) under his wing as his opening act.

For me, Adam Sandler is either on or off; there’s no middle ground. I can’t tell you how often we quote Happy Gilmore or how many times I’ve watched The Wedding Singer or 50 First Dates. But Little Nicky? Anger Management? Uh, no thanks.

But his “grown-up” movies – Click, Spanglish – have been pretty good. More serious than you’d expect and not exactly uplifting, but good. And I have a feeling this one will fall into this category.

Then again, we laughed a lot during the preview, so it might be pretty funny, too. I hope it’s both – good and funny.

Julie & Julia (August 7) Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams) are featured in writer-director Nora Ephron's adaptation of two bestselling memoirs: Powell's Julie & Julia and My Life in France, by Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme. Based on two true stories, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends...until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

Mark saw this preview first and tried to explain it to me. Needless to say, I didn’t quite get it. But then, when we saw the second movie together, this preview played again. And I. Must. See. It.

Meryl Streep is fabulous, always. And Amy Adams has really grown on me in the last couple years – I really like her. And she plays a woman in a job she hates who decides to find some meaning in her life through blogging. Hello?

I can’t wait for this one.

Post Grad (August 21) Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) graduates from college and is forced to move back into her childhood home with her eccentric family, while she attempts to find a job, the right guy, and just a hint of where her life is headed.

Oh, look, it’s Rory! And she’s graduated from college and can’t find a job! And she doesn’t know what to do with her life! And there are cute boys!

Seriously. I will see this. It will probably not change my life. But I know I will love it anyway.

What summer movies are you looking forward to?

Family Recipe Fridays: Cheesy Chicken

I would really like to have a photo for you. But as I’m sure you know, sometimes things just don’t work out like you want. After all, I also really wanted to post this recipe the last two weeks.

I was waiting for a photo. Hmm. Okay, then.

When Smitty, my maid of honor, planned a wedding shower for me, we decided that our moms should be invited to the party. I’m not sure what prompted this, but the result was my mom, Mark’s mom and Sandi’s mom joining my girlfriends from high school at a sweet reception in the church fellowship hall.

Without looking it up, I don’t remember any specific gifts I received that afternoon. Except one. Well, two, actually.

Mark’s mom gave me a flannel nightgown and a cookbook.

See, Marilyn was cold-blooded. Not in the heartless sense, but in the it’s July but I still need a sweater in the shade sense. And so her gift of a flannel nightgown was a kind gesture, meant only to help me deal with my upcoming life with a hot-blooded man.

I suppose you can take that however you want.

I never wore that long-sleeved flannel nightgown. But the cookbook? Oh, it’s a treasure. It was a compilation of recipes from Marilyn and her friends at church. At the time, it wasn’t very interesting, but I have come to really love that book. While it’s been so comforting to have some of Marilyn’s recipes (she died in 2001), our favorite dish is actually one that someone else shared in the cookbook.

So, now that I think about it, this isn’t even a family recipe. Well, whatever. It’s our family’s recipe. And I’m sure I’ll pass it on to someone.

Cheesy Chicken

• 6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 cups cheddar
• Some chopped onion (no, I don’t know how much)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• Splash of milk (yep, I said a “splash”)
• Black pepper
• Rice (I use two bags of boil-in-bag rice)

Bake the chicken for 30 minutes at 350 degrees (or until cooked through). Drain water and any fat. Mix cheddar, onion, soup and milk. Season with pepper. Spoon mixture over chicken. Bake for another 15 minutes (or until cheese is melted). Serve over rice.

I used to serve it with Lipton’s mushroom rice, but that makes it awfully salty. Sometimes I cut the chicken breasts in half, to make smaller serving sizes. But really, no matter how you change it up, Cheesy Chicken is mighty good.

For more (actual) Family Recipes, head over to the Vanderbilt Wife. And for some mouthwatering recipes, check out A Southern Fairytale.

Do you have a favorite family recipe? How do you feel about flannel?

Things I Love Thursday: Jose Pepper’s

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your . . . order.

My love of Mexican food has been well-documented. And I enjoy a wide variety of Mexican food, both in dishes and in restaurants. But we definitely have a favorite, a place we frequent so often that our favorite waitress actually knows what we will order.

I did throw her for a loop last week, though, and ordered the special.

Jose Pepper’s is a local chain in the Kansas City area, and we are blessed to have one within a few minutes from our house. And just a few minutes from my office. It’s a good life we lead here.

Seriously, we eat at Jose Pepper’s at least twice a month and always on major holidays such as birthdays and anniversaries. I realized we had a problem/issue/committed relationship when we ate there on Mark’s birthday . . . just 11 days after eating there on my birthday . . . and a couple months after eating there on Annalyn’s birthday.

Because what one-year-old doesn’t want to celebrate her big day with chips and salsa?

Actually, that kid of ours, well, she’s definitely ours. Because she looooves chips and salsa. She’s recently discovered cheese dip, and I’m telling you, it has changed her world. She does the most annoying and disgusting cutest thing: I give her a little chip with some dip, she sucks the dip off the chip and then hands it back for more.

Every time, I tell her, “We don’t double dip in this family.”

And every time, Mark snickers and says, “Whatever.”

Whatever, huh? I’ve noticed that he’s not the one dipping and dipping and dipping for her!

Anyway. I love Jose Pepper’s, because it is good, Americanized Mexican food – just the way I like it. Plus, the chips are thin and salty, the salsa is thick and mild, and the quesadilla gives the appearance of being almost healthy.

And did I mention the coupons?

Every few weeks, we get a Valpak, a bright blue envelope filled with useless coupons and flyers. Plus one brilliant promotion from Jose Pepper’s. In each Valpak, we get three coupons for free espinaca con queso. And if you get free espinaca, why wouldn’t you go there? Often?

[For the uninitiated, espinaca is a white cheese dip with onions, tomatoes and spinach. It is delicious and, I’m convinced, sent straight from heaven. And I say this with confidence, because one time I tried to make it. I followed a “just like Jose Pepper’s” recipe and everything. But it was not the same. It was not just like that free dish of cheesy goodness. It just . . . wasn’t right.]

And to top it all off – the friendly servers, the good chips, the yummy espinaca, the faux healthy quesadilla for me, the steaming fajitas for Mark and the little cups of applesauce for Annalyn – they play good music at Jose Pepper’s. I don’t know where they get it piped in from, but when I can hear the Beastie Boys, circa 1994 Janet Jackson, the Eagles and Jesse McCartney in one place? Well, I’m a happy camper.

Just to clarify – we order more than applesauce for Annalyn. But after chowing down on her double-dipped chips, all she has an appetite for is 4 oz. of applesauce.

Our family loves Jose Pepper’s. Does your family have a “place”? A “regular”? A restaurant where the waitress knows what you’re going to order?

For more Things I Love Thursday, head over to The Diaper Diaries.

A List of Important Things You Need to Know

UPDATE: Congratulations to BeckyJo and Debbie! (And thanks to Chelley for giving us a second book!) Your copy of Me, Myself & Lies will be on its way today!

For everyone else, please join us anyway. If you are having trouble finding a book online, check your local stores. Especially the Lifeway stores. The Lifeway store near me had several; I believe you can order and pay over the phone and have it shipped to you. The number to my store is 816-746-8080.

See you all on Monday! We'll chat live at 8:00 p.m. CST.

1. I’ve just learned that our Bible study book is out of stock on the Lifeway site. According to Beth Moore’s blog, you can call customer service and have them find one at a store near you. That number is 1-800-458-2772. However, I also have one book to give away. The trick is going to be getting it to you in time for our first session on Monday. So, if you want to do the study with us and haven’t gotten your book, leave a comment on this post before midnight. I’ll draw a random winner – and ship the book – tomorrow. (If you don’t know what study I’m talking about, you can read about it here.) And don’t worry – we’re just talking about the study in general on Monday. We’ll discuss the first chapter the following week.
2. Some of you may have noticed that I have begun replying to your comments via e-mail. If you’d like me to reply to you that way and haven’t gotten such a reply, that’s because I don’t have your e-mail address. The easiest way to make this all happen is to have your e-mail address linked to the account you sign in with. Colleen explains how to do this on her very helpful (and funny as all get out) blog.
3. I just want you to know that I have not forgotten my promise to share with you everything I’ve learned at the social media conferences I’ve attended recently. I even have a handy dandy folder with all my notes. It’s just hard to boil it all down to one post, and I haven’t gotten it done yet. But I will. Hopefully before people start talking about Web 4.0 . . .
4. I am now officially in love with two things named Arrested Development. Yes, you needed to know that.
5. Please help me out. I can’t decide which of these things is funnier: Awkward Family Photos or the literal video version of Total Eclipse of the Heart. What say you?
6. If you Twitter, you can follow me. I can’t guarantee wit or wisdom. But if you’re not a interactive marketing specialist here to make me money, I’ll probably follow you back.
7. My blog friend Annie is in Africa right now with the Mocha Club. You can read about her adventures at the Mocha Club blog (or click on the widget in my sidebar). And you can help for just $7 a month.
8. I wish with all my heart there was an easier way to make numbered or bulleted lists in Blogger.

Because I really don't have enough things to read.

I haven't been to the library lately. I have two overdue books and one book on reserve, but I just can't make myself go there. Partly because it's a pain to go with Annalyn these days. Apparently, it's more fun to push buttons on the self-checkout machine than to sit still while Mommy checks out her books. But partly because I just can't handle picking up one more thing to read.

But that's crazy! I love to read! Reading is my favorite thing! How can I feel this way? Where are these feelings coming from? Why am I exclaiming so loudly on my blog?

Oh yeah. If it's not the 118 blogs I subscribe to, it might be the five (5) magazines I'm reading at one time.

And I wonder why my head hurts and my eyes are getting blurry . . .

What's your favorite thing to read? How many magazines do you get each month?

You’re mowing the yard? Okay, I’ll empty the dishwasher.

We’re all about equity of workload at our house. So when we reached Sunday evening of this busy weekend and Mark said he’d mow the yard, of course my contribution was taking five minutes to empty the dishwasher.

Never mind that my to-do/wish list for the weekend had no less than 27 items, while his simply read, “Mow the yard.”

Ah well, it doesn’t really matter. When it came down to it, we decided to just lay on the couch and watch a movie. As anyone with a yard or dishes knows, it will all be there in the morning.

We had a great anniversary weekend. Despite a scare with a rash, Annalyn was healthy enough to spend the weekend with my parents. (According to our pediatrician’s nurse, the rash was roseola, which apparently is harmless. And it went away after a day or two.)

I began the weekend by taking full advantage of my Friday evening alone, doing such wild and crazy things as going to Hobby Lobby and Archiver’s to shop for scrapbooking supplies, driving through Burger King and splurging on a Whopper Jr., balancing my checkbook and watching Stacy and Clinton give Blossom a makeover. I was living the life, I tell you.

For our big anniversary date day, Mark and I drove over to Columbia. We didn’t go to school there, although we both wanted to at various points in our lives, but we did live 90 minutes north. In the middle of nowhere. So we spent those early years of our marriage traveling to Columbia whenever we needed to shop at a mall, see a movie in a theater with more than three screens or take a random road trip on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

More than once during our day, I noticed how we didn’t lack for topics of conversation. I love that. I love that even after all these years, we still want to talk to each other. Of course, even though our drive there was full of talking and laughing, our drive back was more jamming to the oldies on the radio and sitting in comfortable (or, for me, falling asleep) silence.

We ate lunch at a winery near Columbia. I’d made sure to have reservations, because I saw that they were having an arts and crafts festival there on Saturday. Turns out we didn’t need reservations and the festival may not have been the most successful of events, but, oh well. Our lunch was great, and the bartender was kind enough to take our picture. And even though we laughed at the fancy-schmany menu that used about 12 words to describe mashed potatoes, even Mark enjoyed the "frou-frou crap" that we ordered.

Gorgonzola cheesecake with tomato basil coulis and toasted Tuscan bread. In other words, yummmmmm!

Then we headed on in to Columbia, but since it was a crazy 90-something degrees out, we decided to figure out a Plan B. (Plan A was walking around downtown, checking out all the little shops and maybe getting some ice cream.) Plan B turned out to be doing a little shopping at the mall (Yes, we have malls here, but how often do we get to shop without a stroller and diaper bag along for the ride?) and then seeing a movie.

After taking in our old person (but cheap!) matinee, we headed downtown to walk around. The sun wasn’t so high, and the weather was a bit more tolerable. Of course, by then, the stores were mostly closed, so we just walked for a few blocks, admired the many bikes parked outside the many bars and dodged a few smelly hippies. (Ah, how I love college towns!)

And then, the best part of our day: Shakespeare’s. See, the whole reason for Saturday’s field trip was to eat cheap pizza and snag some new plastic cups. And eat pizza and get cups we did. Because we're classy that way. (Hey! We did start the day at a winery!) Anyway. We also sat and watched the college kids walk around and wondered if we’d ever really been that young. And we debated whether we like Shakespeare’s pizza because it’s good or because it reminds us of that fun time in life. And as we remembered that we'd always said we'd like to live in Columbia someday, we considered whether or not a college town would be a good place to raise a family. And that led us to look through all the pictures of Annalyn on our camera and talk about how much we missed her.

Here's our pizza. I considered showing you the empty pan that we were left with afterwards. But that's just too embarassing!

Things have changed, I guess. But you know, that pizza was delicious. So maybe some things stay the same. All in all, it was a good weekend, and we vowed to do it more often.

But first I’d better go empty the dishwasher.

What's your favorite place to get pizza? And how was your weekend?