Ohhh.

Pardon the unintended, far-too-long hiatus. There is something to be said for procrastinating on doing your copious amounts of homework during Spring Break: Don't do it. So, needless to say, the last couple of weeks have been non-stop. Homework, preparing speeches, helping my brother move into his super sweet apartment downtown, keeping up with my online Old Testament class. Oh and work. 

Speaking of work... Yesterday I went in at 10:30. At 10:45, the power went out. At 12:15, it came back on. So what were we doing for that hour and a half that we had no ability to make espresso drinks or frappuccinos? We cleaned. Ohhh did we clean. We were able to serve iced tea, iced chai, and iced coffee while we had it, by keeping track of what we sold and making change from the tip jar. Inevitably, people came in and asked, after we explained that we could not make espresso drinks because we had no power, if they could have a latte or a frappuccino, or if they could use the wifi. How many times did I say "Well that requires electricity, and we don't have it right now"? I have no idea. On the bright side, we got everything cleaned we could possibly clean, so our store is bright and shiny now. 

Last night, I watched a movie with some friends of mine from high school. The movie was titled "Devil", which I found to be all too appropriate. You might be wondering, "Why in the world would anyone want to watch a movie called "Devil"?" Believe me, I was wondering the same thing all last night while I was waiting for the Devil to appear over my bed, ready to cause my horrific death by some injury to my neck/throat. Brief synopsis: Five people get on an elevator in a tall office building. About twenty floors up, the elevator gets stuck. The lights begin flickering, and one by one, as the lights flicker off for thirty seconds at a time, each person is violently killed. As the story progresses, the police and fire department are called to try to rescue the people in the elevator, while the passengers are frantically turning against each other, trying to figure out who is killing them. One security guard, a Spanish Catholic, knows exactly what is going on: The Devil has taken human form and is one of the passengers, causing the lights to flicker and killing each person. Freaky.

 I went through various methods of dealing with my fear: closing my eyes so I couldn't see the Devil appearing over my bed, keeping my eyes open to convince myself that nothing was actually there to take my soul, praying out loud for other people, ect. There is a reason I don't watch scary movies: I can't sleep until the sun comes up. I know that this movie had a message of forgiveness, which was cool, but when you're drifting between the grips of sleep and wakefulness, you forget the forgiveness and manage to focus only on the scary devil person. If you can handle scary movies and you think this one might be good, go for it. If you can't handle scary movies, definitely don't try to handle this one. 

Eggs!!

So I did an informative presentation on eggs yesterday for my Speech class. Here are a few quick, cool facts!

In Macedonian local lore, if you share a birthday or even birth month with a dying relative, your days are also numbered. Cheating death can be achieved by sharing the yolk of an egg with this relative while standing on opposite sides of a stream.

In Mergentheim, Germany, if someone falls gravely ill, that person must tie a white thread around an egg and throw it into a fire. If the shell turns black, death is near.

In Morocco, a woman who has a very young son and is preparing to give birth again must keep an egg close to her during labor. After delivery, the egg is given to the older brother to ensure that the siblings will like each other. If the egg is eaten by someone other than the brother, the newborn baby will grow up to hate the mother.

Across Europe, eggs have been used to tell fortunes. This is usually done by piercing the shell and catching drops of the falling egg white in a glass of water. The shapes formed by the white are interpreted by an unmarried woman who is looking for clues to her future husband’s profession. A ship means a sailor, ect.

In rural Russia, eggs can help you become friends with supernatural forces. The house sprite, or spirit, sometimes takes the form of a snake. If a snake is seen around the house, it is good to offer some egg pancakes to it. If the gift is accepted, you have the loyalty of the sprite. If not, your house will burn down.

Occasionally, hens lay eggs with imperfect shells or eggs without shells at all. In England, such eggs are traditionally called “wind eggs” because it is believed that the hen had been impregnated by the wind instead of the rooster.

In parts of Hungary, if a black hen lays a soft-shelled egg, it is destroyed upon discovery, because it signifies terrible omens: The earth is softening beneath a member of the family, which is a metaphor of impending death.

Many cultures consider unusual eggs – misshapen, empty, yolkless, shell-less, or ones with the yolk and white mixed – to be laid by the rooster instead of the hen.

In 1474, legal proceedings were brought against a rooster accused of laying an egg for purposes of practicing witchcraft. The rooster was convicted as a sorcerer in the form of a bird and burned at the stake with his egg.

If you are stressed out at work, beset by bad luck, or missing a deceased relative, there is hope. In Jamaican culture, if you sneak into a church yard at night and offer an egg to the deceased, along with rice and rum, the ghost will accept the food and offer to help you and give you good luck.

The average chicken egg weighs about two ounces, or sixty grams.

Don’t know if an egg is good or bad? Drop it in water. If it sinks, it’s still fresh. If it floats, it is old and should not be eaten.

To avoid a situation faced by Ramona Quimby when she smashed a raw egg on her head, spin the egg on end. If it wobbles, it is raw. If it spins easily and smoothly, it is hard-boiled and is safe to crack on your head.

The color of the eggshell does not relate to its nutritional value.  Red hens usually lay brown eggs, and white hens lay white eggs.

One hen can lay about 250 eggs in one year.

Older hens tend to lay larger eggs, but double-yolked eggs are produced by younger hens whose egg-laying cycles are not quite in sync yet.

The world’s largest chicken egg was laid in China in 2009. It was 6.3 centimeters wide, 9.2 centimeters long, and weighed 201 grams, being a little more than three times heavier than the average chicken egg at 60 grams. 

The ostrich egg is the largest (in reference to mass/volume) example of a single biological cell. The longest single is the nerve cell in giant squid and other huge sea animals. 

Eggs are the only naturally edible source of vitamin D.

Eggs are good for your eyes, hair, nails, liver, brain, nerves, and heart. 

Eggs make a great facial mask and shampoo.  

Tattoo?

I am thinking about getting a tattoo with the line from e. e. cumming's poem "Above all things you shall be glad and young": "I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Criticisms?

I am not the Judge.

Do you ever experience those times when you think you are over something that hurt you, and then discover that you aren't? And it ruins your day because you are mad all over again, not only about that thing that happened, but that you aren't over it yet? Today I was rudely reminded, or brought to awareness, of something that happened to me about a month ago, and to my surprise I was angry all over again. And then I was grumpy because I had not moved past the hurt and humiliation like I thought I had. Does this happen to everyone? Or am I just a grudgy person? I always thought I was the kind of person to get over something in five minutes, or at least over night. I guess not.

In church on Sunday, the sermon was about how, as humans, we are not wired to deal with decisions of right and wrong. God did not create us to choose between these things.  He told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But because of sin, we are faced with these decisions every day. Choosing between right and wrong, good and evil, puts us in a position to decide who gets punished and who gets rewarded, even if just in our own minds. "What is the chief end of man?" "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." NOT judge everyone. When we decide who gets what, we become judges. But there is only one Judge. If we presume to judge our peers, then we are assuming the role of God.

Instead of assuming the role of Judge, we should turn to the one and only Judge. When faced with a decision, we shouldn't decide by ourselves that this person is wrong and we are obviously right. We should turn to our Father and say, "What should I do with this?" I guarantee that He will help us out.

Maybe I need to turn to my Father about this situation that hurt me and ask, "What should I do with this?"

Thankful Things

When I was young, my parents would convene our family in their bedroom or in the living room or some other place in our house big enough to fit all of us, for family prayer time. We divvied up different topics of prayer to each kid: our family, guidance for the government, protection for the military, school, etc. Once I got smart and said "Can I pray for everything tonight?" Surprised, my parents said yes. I proceeded to bow my head and say, "Dear God, I pray for all the problems in the world, that You would fix them. Amen." I think my dad thought it was cute, but I tried to pray the same thing the next night and it didn't fly.

Before we prayed, though, we would be asked for our "thankful things" - things for which we were thankful that happened during the day, or just something for which we were continuously thankful. We were required to come up with at least one thing, and usually we could. If we couldn't, we would say something like "I'm thankful to that I am breathing."

This all came out my attempt every day to find joy in the everyday details , which turned into "For what am I thankful?"

I am thankful...
- that my friend is late to coffee this morning so I can sit and be thankful
- for the sunshine outside
- for money to buy a Bumble (chai and banana - freaking awesome)
- for this baby 
- for breathing
- for this wonderful fiesta/hispanic/mambo music paying at Shades
- for my best friend, who agreed to do a Bible study with me
- for my wonderful boyfriend

And a lot of other things that I

Baby laughs = the best.

The Stresses of Life... The Beauty of Life...

I feel like I have been wining a lot lately about how much I have going on, and I apologize. I'm sure you don't really care about that haha. Hopefully after Tuesday (tomorrow), things will slow down and life will be normal again.

However, it's time to focus on the positive things in life. God has given us such a wonderful opportunity here - living on this planet that He created, eating the fruit of the earth, and being able to know Him. Why, then, do I focus so much on the crap of life? Deadlines, homework, work meetings, stressful situations in which homework partners don't hold up their end of the bargain.

Yesterday in church, a man spoke about God showing him to enjoy the everyday details: his daughter's laughter and the light in their eyes, the smell of coming rain, bringing home a paycheck and putting food on the table. He spoke about Christ's death for us, and how His sacrifice is present in those wonderful, everyday details. We take communion to commemorate His suffering once a month for 10 minutes on a Sunday before moving on to announcements and lunch, but we should acknowledge and appreciate His Table every moment of every day. He encouraged us to take notice of the everyday details, and to "drink deep" from the cup of communion as we notice them.

Today, I am sitting at Shades of Brown, a local coffee shop on Brookside. It's dreary and cold outside. My shoulders are sore. Where are those little details for me today?

They are in my cup of hot coffee.
They are in the jazz playing on the speakers.
They are in the smell of rich espresso coming my way from the machine across the bar.
They are in the little girl tottling around with her mother, pink ruffled jumper, bright blue tights, short, tousled blonde hair, chubby face, bubbly giggle, endless curiosity.
They are in the beautiful, fluffy Alaskan Malamute outside, waiting while his owner enjoys a cup o' joe.
They are in the barista who always seems to have words of wisdom about how his day is going.
Oh, and they are in the sun peeping through the clouds to make the day warm.

Those are the little details that remind me of Christ and His love, and that make me happy to be alive.

What are the little details for you?