Questions

Today I was filling out an application to volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center.

One of the questions was "What is a Christian?"

Now this should be a pretty easy question for me to answer right?

I have been going to church my whole life.

I've been a Christian since I was 11 years old.

I took Bible and theology classes in college.

I read the Bible daily and talk with Stephen about theology all the time.

"What is a Christian?"

My mind went blank.

I felt like a moron.

Then I had a flashback.

About three years ago Stephen and I took our church's membership class.

The first thing the pastor did was hand us index cards and asked us to answer this question,

"What is the gospel?"

I wanted to sound smart in my answer so I thought I would use some of the big theological words I had heard Stephen use.

Words like, "imputation" and "propitiation" and "sanctification".

So I wrote my answer and felt all smart and handed it in.

After that class Stephen asked me what I had put down.

I told him my answer, very proud of my vocabulary.

Stephen looked at me and said "That's what Catholics believe."

Dang it!

So now here I am with the question "What is a Christian?" and two little lines to answer it on.

I learned my lesson and steered clear of the big words and tried my best to give a good answer.

I think those kind of questions are so difficult because there are the simple obvious answers like,

"A Christian is someone who believes Christ is their Lord and savior."

But that really doesn't cover it.

It's like someone asking "What is the United States?" and answering,

"The US is a country located in North America."

It just doesn't cover it.

There is a more theological answer such as,

A Christian is someone whose heart has been regenerated from its sinful depraved state to understand the glory of God and recognized their sinful nature. This person then repents of their sin and believes that Christ is the son of God who came to earth and died on the cross and rose again to cleanse us of our sin so that we might be in relationship with God. A Christian then continues to live their life striving to glorify God in all they do and turning away from sin.

But its also more than that,

A Christian is someone who lives life every single day with the knowledge of God as their maker and savior, with a joy in the fact that they have been saved inspite of their sins, with a love for all people as God's created beings, with a hatred of those things in which grieve God and a never failing hope of eternal life with Him.

Even that doesn't cover all it is to be a Christian.

I guess what I am getting at is that to define a Christian takes more than what can be put into a two sentence dictionary description.

Just to be safe I should probably run my answer by Stephen to make sure its not Jewish or Muslim or anything.

Peaches

Before Stephen's family came to visit I cleared off the camera memory card in anticipation of all the pictures I would take.

In doing this, I came across a lot of random pictures I never did anything with.

One of the pictures was this one.



This is Peaches.

We had Peaches for about a week about a year ago.

Here is the story.

We had gone to check out a Christian book store at a shopping center we hadn't been to before.

We wandered around the stores to see what there was.

We saw a pet shop.

Pet shops that actual sell pets are still strange to me being that there aren't any in California, at least not that I have seen.

We of course decided to go inside because even though we have 4 pets at home we just love seeing more.

It was a dirty little hole in the wall type place.

When we first walked in, out of the corner of my eye I saw a little cage on the floor and something white and fluffy inside.

I went over to look and my heart broke.

It was a tiny kitten, much to young to have been separated from its mom.

It was filthy, covered with fleas and was all crusty around the nose and eyes.

They were selling it for $20.

I stuck my fingers through the bars and she rubbed up against them with a pathetic little meow and purr.

Stephen quickly dragged me away knowing all to well what I wanted to do.

As we walked away from the store I felt so awful leaving the poor thing there.

I then came up with a great idea, what if we got her and then took her to the cat rescue place that we got Giselle from?

Stephen said "If you call the rescue lady and she says she'll take her then we will get her."

So standing outside the store, I called the rescue lady and told her where I was and our plan.

She agreed to take the kitten and said that the store was notorious for its poor conditions.

Then she said something so awful that I hung up the phone and literally ran into that store and got that kitten as quickly as possible.

She said "Those kittens are sold so cheap and in such poor conditions because they are bought by people who use them as bait for pit bull fights."

The thought that someone could take that adorable little fluffy kitten to be torn to bits by dogs was so horrifying to me.

So we got her, took her home, named her Peaches and nursed her back to health and gave her to the rescue where I am sure she was quickly adopted from.

That wasn't the last time we brought that lady a rescued cat.

We'll save that story for another time.

Containers

I love containers.

I love containing things in containers.

My favorite of all containers are glass ones.

They're like doorless cupboards, organized clutter.

They give me the warm and fuzzies inside.

They make me clap my hands and hop in place.

I have your basic containers of all-purpose flour, sugar and brown sugar.



I have containers for cooking utensils and 3 different kinds of oats and 4 different kinds of rice.



I have containers for different kinds of flours.



I have containers for spaghetti.



Containers for lasagna noodles.



Containers for wine corks.



Containers for beer caps.



Containers for change.



Containers for colored pencils.



Containers for sketching pencils.



Containers for mini colored pencils.



Containers for paint brushes.

\

Containers for buttons.



Containers for my brains.

Wait, where is that jar?....

It’s around here somewhere.

Anyways, in summary,

I love containers.

The end.

Motivation, or Lack There Of

Monday started out well.

I walked the dogs, went for a run, cleaned the entire house and had dinner made by the time Stephen got home.

I felt pretty proud of myself.

Hm, “proud”...as in having pride.

Pride...isn’t there some saying about that?

Something in connection to tripping? Or maybe it was falling?

Oh well.

Tuesday came with my main chore to mop all the floors.

We have no carpet, not even a rug.

It’s a lot of floor to mop.

My subconscious (or not so “sub” conscious) knew this and kept me sleeping past my alarm until 7am.

Then I suddenly contracted a terrible case of ADD.

I was distracted all day long.

Greatest distraction of all time: Etsy.com

Etsy, I hate you.

I love you.

I can’t get enough of you.

You’re ruining my life.

Never leave me.

I need help.

So distractions, that was what I was talking about right?

Ok, so distractions, lack of motivation and laziness led to a day of unproductiveness.

This spilled into Wednesday as well.

And Thursday.

And today.

Dang it!

Being a homemaker is hard!

All day there is no one to keep me accountable.

To tell me to get off this darn computer.

This feeling of “unaccountability” lasts until around 4:30.

This is when I realized Stephen will be home in about an hour.

With Stephen comes the dreaded question...

“What did you do today?”

This question haunts me daily.

Stephen, clueless of the stomach knots this question causes, asks me this everyday to be kind and caring and curious about my day.

Darn you and your caring!

Maybe if I posted a big sticky note with that question written on it to my computer I would be more productive.

I might try that.

This week has been a bit of a failure for me as a homemaker.

Praise God His mercies are new every morning. (and Stephen’s too :o)

Praying for another chance to glorify God better tomorrow.

Amen.

The Shadow

Ever had that feeling that someone is following you?

It’s similar to that feeling you get when you know someone is staring at you.

That recognition of a presence.

The presence of someone, or something, that has set its eyes and intentions on you.

I had that feeling this morning.

It was early morning, the sun was just peaking over the hills.

I was walking with Lilo at my side when I felt it.

The presence.

I turned, almost out of pure instinct, to find out what was behind me.

There was nothing.

Just a glimpse of a shadow out of the corner of my eye.

So I kept walking.

The presence returned.

I turned.

The shadow darted.

I knew there was something there.

I continued walking.

Then before I knew it...the shadow was in front of me!

Staring me in the eyes!

Then rubbed up against my legs with an evil growl.

Or was it a purr?

Not sure.

This is what I saw.



A black panther on the prowl, AKA our kitty Bagheera.

He followed me and Lilo all the way down the street and back.

He kept trying to rub up against Lilo's legs and Lilo just kept trying not to trip over him.

Silly kitty.

Pesto

We planted two basil plants in our garden.

This wasn't a mistake.

Like the two oreganos.

I don't even use oregano.

But now we have two.

So back to the basil, we planted two, on purpose, to make pesto and enjoy fresh basil whenever possible.

If you don't have basil plants, its a lot cheaper to just buy pesto because making it takes a lot of basil.

It's really easy to make.

Start with your ingredients.



Process.



Have I mentioned I am in love with my food processor?

I seriously don't know how I lived so long without it.

Put in freezer safe jars.



It will keep for 3 months.

Arrivederci!

That's goodbye in Italian.

One of the few words I remember from the two weeks of Italian class I took.

I begged my mom to let me take the class at the community college when I was 15.

Begging was required because the textbook cost $80.

And because I already had my language credits (sign language).

And because my best friend was taking the class and we had elaborate plans to travel to Italy and marrying Italian men.

I told her "It will be good for me. I will use it all the time. I will work really hard in the class."

She fell for it.

Kinda like when I begged for a keyboard promising I would play it all the time.

She should have learned her lesson.

Two weeks into the class I came home crying begging to quit the class.

The teacher's style of teaching was immersion.

As in she would walk up to you and ask you something in Italian and you were supposed to answer back in Italian.

Hard to do when all I could say was "Bonjourno" and "Mi chiamo Megan".

It was too much.

I cracked.

Crocodile tears flowed.

Mom cracked.

Waste of $80.

Hense the two weeks of Italian.

Arrivederci.

And pardon my ramblings.

Hurricane Season

You probably didn’t hear it on the news, but a hurricane swept threw Oahu last week.

Because of this hurricane, I have neglected my blog until it blew over.

It was Hurricane In-Laws.

There was a calm before the storm and then it started to build.

First to hit was my father-in-law and his significant other.

The next day it was my mother-in-law and her husband.

Then the following day it was my sister-in-law, her husband and two kids.

A couples days later it was my uncle-in-law and his wife.

It then became, the perfect storm!

And they all stayed with us.

Just kidding!

All joking aside, my husband’s family came to visit for labor day weekend and they stayed at the military hotel near Waikiki.

We had a great time.

Busy, but great.

More to follow.

Still cleaning up the aftermath.

Sneak peak: