Surprisingly delicious

I used to be the pickiest eater growing up. I lived off of spaghetti, pb&j, chicken tenders, cheese pizza, and McDonald's (with lots and lots and lots of ketchup). Then this miraculous thing happened in college.....I started eating anything and everything.....turning into the human garbage disposal that I am today. (It's truly amazing that I'm not fat.) So in order to make up for my 20 years of terribly boring and unadventurous eating habits, I now jump at the chance to try anything new.
Well while I was at work tonight, I had such an opportunity. One of the other caregivers was snacking on Doritos and cottage cheese, so I gave it a shot. Result: DELICIOUS! You should seriously try it. And if you don't try it then you will probably annoy me because unadventurous and close-minded people do that to me. I think it's due to the fact that I, myself, used to be boring but have seen the light....so now it is my goal to give everyone the same joy that I have received from this new lifestyle. I mean, why would anyone consciously deprive themselves of goodness? I just don't get it! So go ahead.....try it out!








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Longing to Belong

Eddie Vedder has a new ukulele album coming out! I'm so freakin pumped! This is his cover of Pearl Jam's "Longing to Belong" (I love the lyrics):

I'm falling harder than I've ever fell before

I'm fallin faster, hoping I'll land in your arms
Cause all my time is spent here
Longing to belong to you

I dream of circles perfect, eyes within your face
My heart's an open wound that only you replace
And though the moon is rising, can't put your picture down
Love, it's a frightning way to fall

And when the time is right, I hope that you'll respond
Like when the wind gets tired and the ocean becomes calm
I may be dreaming but I'm longing to belong to you

In the past week....

• I passed out while watching 127 Hours. For those of you who don't know, this is a true story about a young man named Aaron Ralston who survived 127 hours in a canyon with his hand trapped between a boulder and the canyon wall. After being stuck for five days, Aaron finally comes to terms with the fact his only chance of survival is to amputate his arm. He does this by applying enough force on his arm to break his radius and ulna, and then proceeded to hack away at his flesh with a dull pocket knife. You think that sounds bad? Well what came next was what really did me in....he had to dig deep in his muscle tissue and rip through the nerves and tendons with his fingers because the knife wouldn't cut them. Now, this was simply more than I could handle. I started to get the familiar pre-pass-out tunnel vision, something that I have learned to recognize and manage in other circumstances, but I didn't even have a fighting chance this time! I was literally out within seconds, falling onto the shoulder of my friend sitting next to me. I awoke from dreamland moments later, all sweaty and nauseous and feeling sooooo embarrassed that I passed out in front of my friend....while watching a movie, hahahaha! I am already looking forward to the numerous blackouts that will occur during PA school....I only pray that I get over it quickly!

• I "competed" in an indoor triathlon. The reason I put "completed" in quotations is because I didn't really go into it with the intention of anything other than surviving. It was only a 10 minute swim, 30 minute bike and a 20 minute run, so I knew it wouldn't be too difficult.....but since I am historically a sprinter and had never done anything like this before (or swam or biked in a year), I decided to play it safe. For each event, I settled into a comfortable pace and stayed relaxed, not wanting to overexert myself. Well as it turned out....I succeeded in under-exerting myself, haha. I mean, how does a person do any kind of triathlon and not even feel tired or sore afterward?!  I would have liked to at least feel a little pain to show I did something! So in the end I placed 6th out of 8 competitors total, all of whom were at least 10-30 years older than I. Looking back, I wish I had pushed myself....but at least now I know what to expect for the next time!

• One of my very best friends, Anna Louisa Leutheuser, got engaged to Will Dunham!!! ("I could not have parted with you, my Anna, for anyone less worthy"). I am so so so so soooooo excited for them and I simply cannot wait for their wedding this fall! After living with Anna for four years, I am certain that it will be the most beautiful wedding of all time because she has been planning it for years....believe me, I've seen pictures of "the vision" and they're stunning! I love you, Anna. Someday I will be calling you to come help my mother plan my wedding....because I am clueless!

• I GOT A GUITAR!!! And it's a GIBSON! WOOOHOOOOO!!! I have always wanted to learn how to play the guitar but have never had the opportunity. Now, I am so very grateful to have been given this amazing gift by a great musician that I have come to know during my time in Okemos. I wish I knew how to repay him for his kindness. I feel so blessed :)

In my dreams...

I don't allow myself to do this very often, but over the last couple of days I have been shopping online.....it has led me to these two items that I really really really want! And to be fair, I honestly need one of them....

• I am trying to learn some more complicated songs on my uke that have a lot of picking in them. Well, I've discovered that my budget ukulele doesn't exactly measure up in sound-quality when things start to get technical.....so here is my dream uke:

Isn't it pretty?! :)

Also in my dreams, I would have the musical talent to be able to translate guitar tabs into ukulele tabs because it is very difficult to find the songs I want to play for the ukulele. For example, I would love love love to have the tabs for:

William Fitzsimmons - "Passion Play"

Nickel Creek - "Doubting Thomas"

Train - "Marry Me"

Another annoying thing about the ukulele is that people who play the uke apparently aren't country fans. I can't find ANY country songs for the ukulele. I mean, come on now! Seriously?! I guess Hawaiian and country don't naturally go together....but I'd like to make it work.

• I'm starting PA school in three months! WOOHOOO!!!!! And that means I need a new laptop. I found an AMAZING deal on this Toshiba Satellite for $579 (originally $899)......but the deal only lasts for three more days! Ughh! Why does everything cost money?! Maybe a rich man will come into Mongo tomorrow and leave me a $600 tip?!

          ...but I won't hold my breath....

Doubting Thomas

I wanted to share/reflect on one of Oswald Chambers' devotions from his book My Utmost For His Highest. I had actually dog-eared this particular page last year, but it's impact on me was no less profound this time around.

[On a side note...one of my many odd obsessions applies to the condition of my books, where it literally causes internal pain when any crease, bend or mark alters their perfection....but I'm proud to say that I'm slowly overcoming this strange phobia for ease of referencing quotes/pages of interest]

"The woman said to Him, 'Sir, You have nothing to draw [water] with, and the well is deep.'"

 - John 4:11

"Have you ever said to yourself, 'I am impressed with the wonderful truths of God's Word, but he can't really expect me to live up to that and work all those dtails into my life!' When it comes to confronting Jesus Christ on the basis of His qualities and abilities, our attitudes reflect religious superiority. We think His ideals are lofty and they impress us, but we believe He is not in touch with reality - that what he says cannot actually be done. Each of us thinks this about Jesus in one area of our life or another. These doubts or misgivings about Jesus begin as we consider questions that divert our focus away from God. While we talk of our dealings with Him, others ask us, 'Where are you going to get enough money to live? How will you live and who will take care of you?' Or our misgivings begin within ourselves when we tell Jesus that our circumstances are just a little too difficult for Him. We say, 'It's easy to say, "Trust in the Lord," but a person has to live; and besides, Jesus has nothing with which to draw water - no means to be able to give us these things.' And beweare of exhibiting religious deceit by saying, 'Oh, I have no misgivings about Jesus, only misgivings about myself.' If we are honest, we will admit that we never have misgivings or doubts about ourselves, because we know exactly what we are capable or incapable of doing. But we do have misgivings about Jesus. And our pride is hurt even at the thought that He can do what we can't.

My misgivings arise from the fact that I search within to find how He will do what He says. My doubts spring from the depths of my own inferiority. If I detect these misgivings in myself, I should bring them into the light and confess them openly - 'Lord, I have had misgivings about You. I have not believed in Your abilities, but only my own. And I have not believed in Your almighty power apart from my finite understanding of it.'"

Wow. How many times have I said this! "Oh, I don't doubt Jesus....I doubt myself." Ugh! What a load of crap! And God is just so amazing; He really wanted to drill this point through my thick skull today because after reading that this morning, I read Acts chapters 3-4 this evening. In these chapters, the apostles Peter and John performed a miracle in the name of Jesus Christ by healing a crippled man outside the temple. Then later the believers prayed, "...enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus"....and after they prayed "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly" (4:29-31).
Okay, Kate, where are you going with this?! Well, how many times have we limited God because of our own incompetence? Even today, I don't give God enough credit to heal my wounds and answer my prayers, let alone use me to perform a miracle! But why not?! Peter and John did it! Over and over the Bible tells us to pray and we shall recieve, but we are a society of doubting Thomases. Lord, give us faith although we cannot see. Enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness and perform miraculous signs and wonders in Your Name. Amen.

Home

I'm at home right now and it is wonderful! I've been able to spend time with my parents, celebrate a friends birthday, play with my niece and nephew AND I have enjoyed more than enough good food :)

So in honor of being home, I made my first ukulele recording of the song "Home" by Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeroes. It's an amazing song introduced to me by Katie Holsinger. The video quality is kind of crappy and the sound is a little off but I promise to get better! :)

[Oh, and be sure to notice my new chairs in the background! Love them!]





God > "Intelligent Design"

Ask just about anybody, I am a nice person....not to mention extremely non-confrontational. However, there are two things that I would happily enter into a friendly debate with anyone about: God and evolution. Yup, they do exist! Both of them. And quite happily I would add.
I am currently reading/rereading a book on the matter.....it's the best "textbook" that was ever assigned to me in college: Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search For Common Ground Between God and Evolution by Kenneth Miller. In this book, Miller convincingly constructs an argument against both those who deny evolution as well as those using science to justify a materialist worldview.  I absolutely love the way that he uses the mechanisms of evolution to point to an all-powerful creator. It makes me even more awestruck that we have such an amazing God.
There are soooo many incredible arguments that I wish I could syphon straight from the book to your brain, but since I can't do that, I will share a sample from my last night's reading (it's kinda long....but you should stick it out anyway):

"To an anti-evolutionist, when new species appear in the fossil record....it must be a product of design. This makes the fossil record a tool for recording the actions of the designer. We must say, then, that it pleased the designer to design only microorganisms for nearly 2 billion years of earth's history. He then began to tinker with multicellular organisms, poducing a bewildering variety of organisms that survived only briefly. In the Cambrian era, roughly 530 million years ago, the designer produced an extraordinary variety of multicellular organisms, many of which were the first representatives of what we now regard as the animal phyla....Even in the Cambrian, he was not yet interested in designing a vertebrate....That came later.

Then, as we have seen, the designer produced one organism after another in places and in sequences that would later be misinterpreted as evolution by one of his creatures. And just to compound that misinterpretation, he would ensure that the very first limbs he designed looked like modified fins, and that the first jaws he designed looked like modified gill arches. He would further ensure that the first tetrapods had tail fins, like fish, and that the first birds had teeth, like reptiles. So thoughtful was this designer that after having designed mammals to live exclusively on the land, he would redesign a few, like whales and dolphins, to live in water - but not before he designed creatures that were literally halfway between land and swimming mammals. In working this magic, the designer chose to create forms truly intermediate between walking and swimming mammals.

It would be nice to pretend that this description is nothing more than an irreverent polemic, a nasty poke at the opposition. But it's not. It is a fair description of just a tiny bit of what any advocate of intelligent design must believe in order to square such beliefs with the facts of geological history. And this is just the beginning.

Intelligent design advocates have to account for patterns in the designer's work that clearly give the appearance of evolution. Is the designer being deceptive? Is there a reason why he can't get it right the first time? Is the designer, despite all his powers, a slow learner? He must be clever enough to design an African elephant, but apparently not so clever that he can do it the first time. Therefore we find the fossils of a couple dozen extinct almost-elephants over the last few million years. What are these failed experiments, and why does this master designer need to drive so many of his masterpieces to extinction?

Intelligent design does a terrible disservice to God by casting him as a magician who periodically creates and creates and then creates again throughout the geologic ages. Those who believe that the sole purpose of the creator was the production of the human species must answer a simple question - not because I have asked it, but because it is demanded by natural history itself. Why did this magician, in order to produce the contemporary world, find it necessary to create and destroy creatures, habitats, and ecosystems millions of times over?

I have no doubt that some will read these questions as blasphemous.  How dare I (or anyone) question the motives of God? But keep in mind who is really reponsible for dragging the designer into the crucible of science. If we wish to make sense of natural history by invoking the miraculous to account for life's every twist and turn - and that is exactly what [believers of intelligent design] wishe to do - then it is the invoker himself who has presented in court the motives of the Creator. It is the advocate of design who wants to hold his designer responsible for every detail of life. Ironically he's the one, not the evolutionist, who has made these questions necessary.

In the final analysis, God is not a magician who works cheap tricks. Rather, His magic lies in the fabric of the universe itself. The fossil record is not a series of sequential tricks fabricated for no purpose other than to mislead. The fossil record represents, with all of its imperfections, an epic of evolutionary change, the history of life on this planet grand in its range and diversity and magnificent in its detail. It is the record of the historical process that led to us. It is the real thing, and so are we."

I mean think about it! Isn't a God that designs the mechanisms of evolution smarter than the God that an advocate of intelligent design depicts? Seriously! Read this book! Come to understand how ingenious and amazingly cool evolution is and know that GOD set it all into motion for HIS glory....and that all things, including evolution, work for His ultimate good plan.