i'll tell you mine if you tell me yours

BS

NO, I'm not talking about that word with bull in it.

Blog-Stalking.

That's right, I said it.

Definition: consisitenly viewing people's blogs who you don't know or who don't know you follow their blog. even if they know you (or know of you) and you view their blog without their knowing, that is blog-stalking. basically, if you aren't mutual "followers," it's blog-stalking.

You know you do it. You know you don't subscribe or follow or comment for fear that the blogger would find you creepy or weird.

I blog-stalk a LOT. And I'm not going to divulge my favorites to stalk for above said reason. (don't want to seem creepy or weird)

Anyway, I would like to conduct a social experiment of sorts. Or maybe I'm comment-hungry. Who knows.

BUT, if YOU blog-stalk ME, I would like to know. I implore you, stalkers, LEAVE A COMMENT. I do it so much, I'm dying to know who stalks me. I promise, I won't think you are creepy or weird. In fact, I will be flattered. If I know you, if I don't know you, I don't care, LEAVE ME A COMMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!

And if you reveal yourself, I will become a follower and devoted blog-fan. In fact, maybe we blog-stalk each other and don't know it! We are destined to meet!

Also, if I don't receive comments, I might develop a severe inferiority complex and fall into a deep seated depression, resulting in a loss of job, friends and happiness.

Summon your eagle powers.

Sometimes, it is more healing to make a pallet and watch a stupid movie than to have intimate conversations.

This has been a rough week for the Byrd family.

First off, I would like to have words with April 15. I would like to tell it to hurry up and get here because it is stressing my husband out. Poor Tommy has worked SO HARD this week. It is just the nature of tax accounting and it will be over soon, but it has been quite a doozy for him. This is probably the roughest week he has had yet.

Secondly, my sister ended up having an infection and had to go back into the hospital for surgery. SHE HAD A BABY 4 WEEKS AGO. Things happened pretty much like this:

Saturday: her c-section incision started to get a little inflamed and tender.
Sunday: Still inflamed, she called the Dr, and they said to come in on Monday as long as she didn't have a fever
Monday: Went to the Dr, definitely infected, started penicillin
Tuesday: Hi infection, glad you decided to RUPTURE. Blood everywhere.
Tuesday night: Oh hi surgery, guess we have to open Jenn back up to get the infection out.
Wednesday: Wound vacuum attached to Jenn's OPEN WOUND. CAT scan. Oh hi, STAPH. And goodbye Austin, Jenn can't hold or touch you.
Thursday night: finally found out it's not MRSA strain of staph (the deadly one) so Jenn can hold the baby again.

She is in the hospital till Monday. She has to wear the wound vacuum for a MONTH. This is basically a tube coming from sponges that are inside the open wound, sucking out all the nasty STAPH-y blood and pus.

Friends and family took shifts staying with Jenn and the babe during the days and my parents took him home at night. Last night, her husband stayed the night at the hospital with her and the baby.

There is ALOT ahead of them, so please keep them in your prayers.

So as you can see, it was quite a week. Between work and the hospital and my night class, Tommy and I hadn't seen much of each other and were pretty on edge. So we cuddled up and watched Nacho. It was good. :)

austin.

Can't believe i haven't blogged about this little monkey.

Meet Austin Trevino Scogin, my sweet little nephew. (loving the wrinkles...) It has been so fun being an aunt! and I am so blessed that I am close enough in proximity to help out my sis. This week (my spring break) I got to hang out with them a whole bunch.

As you can see, he is a really cool little dude.

He can be really really sweet....

And really really cranky....

But he and mom are doing great. My sis is such a good mommy!

Private Lives

The new episode of House last night was intriguing. It was about an ultra-blogger who gets sick and asks followers for medical advice. She is super transparent on her blog, literally documenting every detail of her life...except one, which ends up being the answer to her diagnosis of course. The shows touches on the idea of "private life" as a modern invention and the new concept of "community" with the new global network.

You can watch it online if you would like. All those bloggers out there would relate. www.fox.com

The Case for FAT

I have linked some interesting articles below.

if you are at all interested in health/nutrition, I recommend reading these articles in entirety, though parts are very science-y and boring.

basically...Americans are killing themselves. not with fat but with FAKE fat.

some nuggets to chew on:

from here
The following nutrient-rich traditional fats have nourished healthy population groups for thousands of years:

For Cooking
Butter
Tallow and suet from beef and lamb
Lard from pigs
Chicken, goose and duck fat
Coconut, palm and palm kernel oils

For Salads
Extra virgin olive oil (also OK for cooking)
Expeller-expressed sesame and peanut oils
Expeller-expressed flax oil (in small amounts)

For Fat-Soluble Vitamins
Fish liver oils such as cod liver oil (preferable to fish oils, which do not provide fat-soluble vitamins, can cause an overdose of unsaturated fatty acids and usually come from farmed fish.)

The following newfangled fats can cause cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, sterility, learning disabilities, growth problems and osteoporosis:

All hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils
Industrially processed liquid oils such as soy, corn, safflower, cottonseed and canola
Fats and oils (especially vegetable oils) heated to very high temperatures in processing and frying.

Saturated fats, such as butter, meat fats, coconut oil and palm oil, tend to be solid at room temperature. According to conventional nutritional dogma, these traditional fats are to blame for most of our modern diseases--heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, malfunction of cell membranes and even nervous disorders like multiple sclerosis. However, many scientific studies indicate that it is processed liquid vegetable oil--which is laden with free radicals formed during processing--and artificially hardened vegetable oil--called trans fat--that are the culprits in these modern conditions, not natural saturated fats.

Humans need saturated fats because we are warm blooded. Our bodies do not function at room temperature, but at a tropical temperature. Saturated fats provide the appropriate stiffness and structure to our cell membranes and tissues. When we consume a lot of liquid unsaturated oils, our cell membranes do not have structural integrity to function properly, they become too "floppy," and when we consume a lot of trans fat, which is not as soft as saturated fats at body temperature, our cell membranes become too "stiff."

and from here
Vegetable oils are more toxic when heated. One study reported that polyunsaturates turn to varnish in the intestines. A study by a plastic surgeon found that women who consumed mostly vegetable oils had far more wrinkles than those who used traditional animal fats.

The hydrogenation process was used on both cottonseed oil and lard to give "better physical properties"—to create shortenings that did not melt as easily on hot days. (Do we really want our food altered merely for convenience?)

Although trans fatty acids are technically unsaturated, they are configured in such a way that the benefits of unsaturation are lost.

The particular mix of fatty acids in soy oil results in shortenings containing about 40% trans fats, an increase of about 5% over cottonseed oil, and 15% over corn oil. Canola oil, processed from a hybrid form of rape seed, is particularly rich in fatty acids containing three double bonds and the shortening can contain as much as 50% trans fats.

Foods containing trans fat sell because the American public is afraid of the alternative—saturated fats found in tallow, lard, butter, palm and coconut oil, fats traditionally used for frying and baking. Yet the scientific literature delineates a number of vital roles for dietary saturated fats—they enhance the immune system, are necessary for healthy bones,provide energy and structural integrity to the cells, protect the liver and enhance the body's use of essential fatty acids. Stearic acid, found in beef tallow and butter, has cholesterol lowering properties and is a preferred food for the heart. As saturated fats are stable, they do not become rancid easily, do not call upon the body's reserves of antioxidants, do not initiate cancer, do not irritate the artery walls.

Disclaimer: Don't go out and eat a stick of butter. There are still appropriate percentages of fat which you should consume. This details what kind. And that you should be consuming fats.

I will stand on my little soapbox about wheat. Too many diets target FAT as the culprit of weight problems. Know this: while you may lose weight on a low-fat diet, you probably are losing important muscle mass as well. Those high-glycemic foods like white breads, rice, pasta, potatoes, corn, etc do much worse things for your body...they cause malabsorption in your intestinal tract , cause insulin spikes (and crashes), cause bloating and fatigue...and alot of other things. And don't confuse this with the idea of a low-carb diet. Carbs include grains AND fruit, vegetables, and legumes. We like the latter 3 carb sources. Grains have only been consumed for 500 generations – that is, only since the transition out of the Paleolithic into the Neolithic era approximately 10,000 years ago. They are MODERN (relatively).

Anyway, I'm not an expert. And while I agree, I still drink my Diet Coke everyday (only 7.5 oz) and occassionally we have to splurge on potatoes or pasta. While we do make sandwiches we use whole wheat (with no partially hydr. oil).

That's my soapbox. Try eating this way...it feels great!

words of wisdom...from a MAN.

Had a bit of a meltdown last night.


Lately, I have been sort of melancholy (notice the adjective...I in no way mean depressed) about my life. I feel like this is PRIMETIME in life...full of energy, no kids, lots of time. I feel that so many friends and acquaintances are doing these awesome, adventursome, Kingdom-moving things...selling everything and living in a third world country, working and living overseas, traveling, ministering to the poor/homeless/youth/etc.


I have dreamed of doing BIG things. Dreamed of leaving, going, serving, loving, and impacting. I still dream them. I'm still passionate about it. I know I can't paint and predict what it is exactly going to look like in my life. But lately, I've felt like this dream is nonexistent. I feel like life is in neutral at this point. I'm doing a job that I'm over-qualified for. I haven't gotten involved in any ministries at church or the community b/c I'm waiting to start teacher certification classes and get that done. Basically, I have felt purposeless, outside of our overarching purpose of "Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength" and "go and make disciples of all nations".


Well last night, I came home, and Judge had used number 2 in his kennel. Not only that, it was all over his feet. So I dumped him in the tub, stepping on some of it in the process. I just got really really ANGRY. And I couldn't snap out of feeling lousy after getting everything cleaned up. And I realized that all this had been in the back of my mind and I was mad that it felt like my life was resigned to cleaning up dog poopoo.

So I was explaining my discontent to my dear husband, when he looks at me and says: "sounds to me like you aren't very happy with the size of your garden."

Huh?

He says, "You say you feel ineffective and aren't seeing fruit. Well, how many kids do you see a day on average, one-on-one?" I say "about 9." He says "And one of those kids gave you a valentine saying they love and appreciate you. How often does a teenager say that? Most of my clients don't even know I exist and you influence these kids everyday. Because I know you, I know that you live Christ-like, so you are effective. But it sounds like you just want a bigger garden. You DO have a purpose...and you can't belittle your current garden...it needs to be pruned and cared for. Be faithful in little and....what?...(yes he actually pauses for me to finish this verse)"

"You will be ruler over much"

Sigh. Damn. That's convicting.

Turns out, my life is fine as it is going. It's God's will and all that. My discontent is ME. Wanting what I don't have. (hmmm isn't that coveting? which would be a sin.) It's true. I want the Lord to give me more. But the thing is...that requires more of me. Am I giving more of ME today? Everyday? How much am I sacrificing my comfort/security/time for the Kingdom in the things God has currently entrusted me with?

I am led back to a post by www.benandkatieinhatie.com

He writes:
I kept expecting my change in circumstances to make me into the person I wanted to be and knew I should be. Despite the fact that in nearly every season I just mentioned there was very little personal development.

How true this is of myself. I believe my effectiveness is proportionally related to what my circumstances are. And if God would just give me more, I would be really great. But my effectiveness depends on how much I allow Jesus to change and sanctify me. "He who is faithful in little will be ruler over much."

Jesus, change me. I am so sinful and stupid. Thank you that you save me from myself. Thank you that even in my stupidness, you still let me be a part of your plan.


Ugh. Jesus forgive me. I need me to change.

Coming up...

Life is about to get busy...

-Celebrating my sis's birthday this friday.

-Haircut on saturday.

-Next weekend I go to WACO for Sing.

-My sis is scheduled to have her BABY on the 25th--yipee!!! Just call me "Auntie."

-The 27th, I have my first face to face training for teacher certification (did I ever mention I am getting my certification? turns out I love crazy students about as much as I loved crazy adults...maybe I'm crazy?) from 9-4.

-The 27th, Clint Justice and Kimberly Keller's wedding is in Dallas, that evening.

-The 27th, my neice/nephew will be 2 days old and I will HATE being anywhere but the hospital.

-Every Tuesday and every Saturday from the 27th I will have face to face training. BOO...till April. (but it's ok because then I can be a teacher)

-It's tax season! Which means I'm married to an accounting MACHINE until April 15th. He's such a computational stud. Can't wait for the revelry which will ensue in April!

-Spring break in March...will be spent eating up time with above neice/nephew. And sleeping. Maybe tanning? (if the sun ever decides to visit again) Maybe a visit with some friends? a trip to Waco? who knows.

so there's alot going on. but before we know it, it will be SUMMMMMMEEEERRRR!