The Watchdog

Poor Ben has been pretty sick the last few days. Luckily, he has had someone to watch over him and keep him company! Neither have moved from this spot too much since Monday.

Stormy moves from the ottoman to Ben's feet, but thats as far away as she will get. Ah, quality time...

Almond Cinnamon Heaven

If you are ever in the Harding/Trousdale area, you have to stop by one of my favorite places for lunch, Unique Flavors. I started stopping in this place over 2 1/2 years ago, and am now and forever a hopeless addict. Their food is fresh, perfectly seasoned, deliciously creative, and (even better) reasonably priced.

The motivation for me telling you about them is because we were just in there for something to make us forget that it dropped back to 30 degrees today, and about the time we were finishing our Southwestern Quiche, we got a whiff of this intoxicating smell.
Snickerdoodles? Sugar cookies? Hmmmm...
So I go up to the counter and ask if I can buy one of whatever just came out of the oven. "An Almond Cinnamon cookie? Sure!".
Oh, come to mamma.
I kid you not, I wish I could send one of these to every single person I knew. I wonder if I can grovel on my knees enough for them to give me the recipe. It was so good I told my girlfriend I was with that I wanted to send them flowers; between her eyes rolling back in her head and her second bite of the cookie, she nodded in agreement. (Just so you know I am not exaggerating. Good cookies are hard to come by!)

Alright, well, let me know if you ever want to stop in, I'll join ya.
Love and Cookies,
Dae

Here I Am

When we first moved to the 'boro, my main concern was the commute I would have to make to and from work every day. Ever since graduating from college my commutes to work have been under 10 minutes. Now they were going to be 45 minutes on a good day. Well, thats just a wasted hour and a half of my day, was my first thought.
A few weeks after burning up I-24 Monday thru Friday I came to the realization that I wasn't bothered with the commute at all, and it didn't feel wasted. It turned out to be my quiet time, my one-on-one time with my Lord. More often than not I am enjoying a Watermark cd or listening to the Sirius Spirit channel.
Well, the past few days for some reason have been a little more 'real' for me. You know those days when you feel a little more in tune, or touched, or connected with what is going on around and in you? A few things have happened either to me or to others that I know that have made life take on a different perspective. Without going into dramatic detail, lets suffice it to say that I know everyone has peaks and valleys, and these peaks and valleys are what make up the roadtrip we call life. They color our canvas, and they make us who we are. And sharing that journey, no matter what road you are on, can be a blessing to you and others if you share it.

So last night I was on my way home, and turned on the radio, which for some reason was tuned into 89.1FM. Didn't even know that station exitsted. And this song started playing which I still don't know the name of and haven't been able to figure out on Google. But I can't get it out of my head, and in the chorus it said "I am sold out to Christ". Huh. Interesting description. Like that.
Then I started replaying our preachers sermon from Sunday in my head.

He had asked us what our name in Christ was, then asked if we were willing to be renamed. Like Abram was given the new name Abraham, or Sarai was changed to Sarah. Back in those days their name wasn't just a name. It was an accurate description of who they were.
So what was my name? Was it Anger? Bitterness? Doubt? Complacency? And am I really willing, and do I believe, that Christ can change my name? Would I accept it?
See, those who know me know two things: 1) I have a very hard time letting go- of anything, and 2) I tend to like to be in control. So, for God to change my name would mean that I would have to go against those two rules. This is something I deal with constantly in my relationship with Christ. I want Him to be in control, but its still scary.

Then about half way home I put in my Watermark "Purest Place" cd, which I kid you not, always brings me to tears. So we know whats coming...
The song "Knees to the Earth" starts playing, and thank goodness I had on my glasses because my contacts would have been flooded out.
There are times in my life when I feel far, and times in my life when I feel so close to my Christ that I know he is holding me in a bear hug. Last night I got a bear hug. And I realized it had been a long time since I sang the words in that song. "I owe my life to you my Lord, here I am". (You can click there to hear the song)

Its nice to know that God is always waiting no matter how long it takes me to raise my hand and say here I am. Praise Him that he meets us wherever we are. I am rejoicing that last night I was met on I-24 in my Honda.

"You've got to be kidding me"

This has been our most-used sentence of the new year. I have pictures to post, but no camera cord, so those will come later. Even the pictures don't do our home improvement project justice.

Just to let you guys know what we have been doing in all that free time I mentioned a while back, here is a brief recap:

Several weeks ago we noticed a few cats by our front door. Then we noticed them going underneath our front steps. This is when the sentence was first used. Skip ahead two weeks- then we noticed this smell. And Ben and I both happen to be super-sensitive to smells. Sentence is now used with a little more gusto. (Oh, and just fyi Ben is allergic to cats, keep this in mind.) Long story short, Ben and his dad discover these cats have decided to use the crawl space of our home as their spacious litter box. Lucky for us we have vapor barrier and can just pull it up and clean up the mess easy, then block off the holes these creatures have been using right? Right. Did you know that cat pee is toxic? If you don't either get it up or put hydrated lime powder on it, it continues to smell. Forever. I cannot believe I am writing about this it is so revolting.
So we both get on our hands and knees, pull up the plastic vapor barrier, are about to pat ourselves on the back for tackling our first homeowners' nightmare, as Ben is wheezing and puffy eyed from being in the same area as the cats were, when Ben gets back underneath the house and sees two cats pop out of a little hole.
This hole is where the air ducts were inserted in the concrete wall that seperates the main part of our house from the master bed/bath. The master bedroom in our 1950's home is renovated from the old garage area, so the crawl space does not continue past the living room. This concrete wall goes through the ground. And is surrounded by brick on the other three sides. Our favorite sentence is now punctuated with throwing off gloves, masks, and staring into the oblivion of 'what do we do now'. Ok, so I forgot to say that the smell only happens to be in our master closet. No where else in the house. Just our closet. So after emptying the closet of clothes and racks, removing doors and tile, and cutting into our closet subfloor we discover there is no way for either of us to squeeze down there in between the support beams and water pipes. We need a bigger hole.
So we patch up the one in the closet. Out comes the bedroom furniture. Up comes the carpet and padding. Particle board and plywood are removed, and an 8x4 hole is cut into our bedroom floor. Ben cleans up the mess underneath, blocks of the access hole these devil creatures have been using, and we are now in the process of rebuilding our floor, one new Shopvac and jigsaw later. We would not be surprised if we were invited to the wedding of any Home Depot employee in the near future since we have spent so much time there.
I cannot wait to be out of the spare bedroom, hang up our clothes that are right now all over the office, and get rid of all the sawdust.
I said at the beginning of all this that 20 years from now we will look back and laugh. I have changed my mind. I won't laugh. I will look back and think "You have got to be kidding me".

We did take a few breaks yesterday afternoon to watch the playoff games, and eat some really good fried chicken and mashed potatoes courtesy of Emily. Even though the Colts and Cowboys lost by 4, we had friends and comfort food, and cats out of the closet.

And finally- a few shots of the floor. Unfortunately I didn't get any before we layed down the new plywood. Sorry you had to miss the deep dark hole of gross.

Just a post

A few things we were thankful for this holiday season:

We had a blast visiting with all of our families! Zack, my youngest brother (the 6'2'' 15 year old in the middle of this picture) I hadn't seen in almost 2 years, and shock doesn't come close to the look on my face when I saw him. He hopped the pond and came over from Japan for a few weeks, and we got to hang out with him in New Albany before he headed to Texas to visit our grandparents. Our nieces and nephews on my side were also all there for Christmas with my brother and sister and their families (somehow my sister and brother in law snuck out of getting in most of the pictures...but one of my favorites is of the proud grin Charles has on his face when him and his daddy get the same hoodie! Love it.)I also managed not to get a picture with two of my favorite people in the whole world, Mama Di and Daddy Steve, where we camped out for the holidays. Let me tell you, the years and years that I have known the Coleman family the one way to describe them is walking examples of Christs' love. Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn't know what to do without them! Here they are at Jan & Scott's wedding

We also had an awesome time on New Years with Bens' parents, his brother and his girlfriend coming to stay with us for the weekend. We went shopping in downtown Franklin and in the 'boro, cooked a ton of food all weekend, went to see movies, and watched a little football. I can't ever figure out how to explain how lucky we feel that we have such awesome families. Blessings abound, I tell ya.
Now we are trying to adjust to the semi-normal life. We're not quite sure what to do with ourselves. With the football season over Ben has weekends free, and with all of his class work done he has evenings too. I don't have any work trips until mid-May. So, we may actually go see a few movies, get pictures on our walls, our garage organized, do a little painting, and have a few lazy Saturdays scattered in there too. Oh, and once this 18 degree weather stops cramping my style, I'll be able to run more than 2 miles without my lungs protesting in frozen horror. Here's to a great 2008!