Oops!

Ok, so obviously I am having some technical difficulties with my blog! After I publish a post, my blog magically deletes all spacing and turns my nice little post into one very long run on sentence and I am one unhappy camper...

I did learn how to write in school..I promise!

So, please be patient while I pull my hair out trying to fix it! 

5 weeks with the infamous 5!

Have you ever seen Super Size Me? Super Size Me is a documentary about Morgan Spurlock, who eats every meal at McDonald's for 30 days, super sizes his meal every time they ask him. His documentary gave Americans a wake up call when at the end you find out he had gained 24 1/2 pounds in that 30 day period and developed some health problems.

Well, in a similar line of thought, I have been thinking about some things that are equally unhealthy in my life. I came across a list of five sins of attitude and speech and thought that they would be perfect for my experiment.

The Guinea Pig: Me (yikes!)

Time Frame: 5 weeks

Goal: To spend one week on each of the five sins of attitude and speech and write about how my week goes. I will blog about my personal struggles regarding that weeks topic and my encounters with anyone else (they will of course be anonymous) that may be manifesting the weeks topic sin!

The Infamous 5:

Malice - Ill will

Deceit - Being deliberately dishonest

Hypocrisy - Pretended piety and love

Envy - Resentful discontentment

Slander - Back biting lies

So, there is no better time than the present, let the experiment begin! Watch out malice, I'm watching out for you!!!!

An Anniversary to remember!!!

When I first started my blog, I had only been married for 1 year and 10 months! Just yesterday, Mark and I celebrated our four year anniversary! So much has happened in the last four years, but I can honestly say that each triumph and trial has brought us closer together and even closer to God. I used to tell people that the best thing about being married was waking up next to my best friend every morning, but now I am learning that even more precious than that is the joy of having a godly man as my partner in life! God is good! This year, we had some amazing surprises on our anniversary. First, Mark surprised me with my dream purse: a Louis Vuitton Tivoli handbag! I started crying when I unwrapped it! What an amazing treat! We ended going to our favorite Thai restaurant for dinner and enjoyed some awesome soup and tasty Thai teas. The huge surprise of the day came after dinner on our way home. Mark received a call saying that he is getting promoted to Sergeant First Class!! We were not expecting that at all and are so excited! I am so proud of Mark, and all of his hard work and dedication to doing a good job. He is one in a million!

Four years together, and looking forward to many, many more!!

Happy New Year!!

It is amazing to me that it is really 2011! I am looking forward to a lot of exciting changes. We should hopefully be moved to our next duty station by July. There are some bittersweet feelings when I think about this move.
Obviously it will mean saying goodbye to friends, a change from what has become the familiar and the norm. I am excited to see where God will take us, but I am trying to enjoy the time I have while it quickly passes!

So, here is a list of things I am enjoying right now:

- Beautiful winter weather! Only in Southern California can you wear jeans, a long sleeved shirt and flip flops in January!!! I am lovin it!

- Trips to San Diego. I love only being 2 hours away from beautiful San Diego! With Mark's military ID, we can stay at the Navy hotel on Coronado Island for an awesome price, and the ocean is so calming.

- Time with Mark. Since we have no family in town and not a lot of friends, we have really bonded together during the last couple of years. We are better and stronger for it, and I am liking that!

- My mom came for a visit this week, and we have had so much fun shopping, baking, cooking, drinking coffee and just talking. I am so bummed that she has to go home!

- Being gluten free for 2 years now! Yay me! It has been a time of learning to see food differently, to value feeling good over what tastes good. I am a different person this year, I have so much more energy that I am beginning to exercise regularly and I am loving the new me.

- Reading my Bible. It is my goal this year to read through the whole Bible for the very first time! I am trying to be consistent, and I am learning and enjoying every minute!

2011 is going to be a crazy year, but I am just planning on taking it one day at a time. There was never a better time then now to appreciate all the wonderful things in my life!

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

I have been putting off writing here for several months. It isn't that I haven't had plenty of interesting things to write about, it just seems that what I have been struggling with has been all consuming. Most of my life I have struggled with one major constant feeling. Loneliness. I was sick often growing up, and especially through my teen years, and I remember feeling very lonely. Fast forward to present day, and I am still struggling with the same loneliness. I have a very melancholy side, which I am beginning to realize only adds to my feelings of loneliness. I often feel like Eleanor Rigby from the Beatles song. This is totally depressing, I know! But I have finally come face to face with how I really feel and I can perfectly see that what I am lacking is contentment. Contentment is that inner genuine peace of the soul that no matter what trials God is allowing in your life, you are at peace with what He is doing. I need that, I want that. I desperately desire to have that inward peace that isn't just a passing feeling, but instead the attitude of my heart. My husband is a great example of contentment. I have never met someone who seems so naturally content, and yet I struggle and struggle! One man who truly mastered the divine art of contentment was Paul the Apostle. He was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, imprisoned, with health problems, and yet he was able to say "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content" (Philippians 4:11). Wow! I find the attitude of his heart to be amazing. I have been slowly reading the book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. I really do believe that as I read about contentment, and with the help of Jesus, apply it to my life that He will teach me what true contentment is, and then I will at peace. I appreciate your prayers

Oh, Yum!!

If you have never had dulce de leche before, I seriously suggest you give it a try! Mark and I were craving caramel apples last night, and after a quick google search, I came across this amazingly easy idea! As a little girl, I remember listening to my mom's stories of growing up in Bolivia and having dulce de leche and how good it tasted. Well, she was right, it is awesome! Here is the link to the recipe: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/03/dulce-de-leche-crockpot-recipe.html We indulged in it for breakfast with red delicious apples and it was amazing! I like the idea of using my crockpot to slowly cook the can of sweetened condensed milk to avoid any kind of explosion, but if you are turned off by the idea of boiling a can, quite a few people used small canning jelly jars and had the same result!

This little can has so many possibilities, I think it would be delicious to put a plunk of it in my french press coffee, maybe melt a little and drizzled over a spice muffin, or as an awesome pie...put it in a graham cracker crust with whip cream on top and some chopped nuts....yum

Remembering Bekah King

I would like to dedicate this post to Bekah King, a childhood friend whose life was cut short on August 2nd by a drunk driver. I have so many fond memories of growing up with Bekah! Some of my favorite childhood memories are of my time spent with Bekah and her two older sisters, Hannah and Sarah. Bekah was three years younger than me, and I always thought of her as a little sister. When we were in our teens I moved to a different city and lost touch with the three until a year ago when we reconnected online. I met with them at a Barnes and Noble a year ago for coffee and we laughed and reminisced about some of those fun times. I remembering hugging each one of them and promising to get in touch with them again next time I was in town. Never even thinking that it would be the last time I would ever see Bekah on this earth. She was a beautiful person inside and out, and I regret not being able to tell her how awesome she was while she was still alive.

When I heard the horrible news, I couldn't wrap my head around it, she was only 20 years old and had her whole life ahead of her. In this week of remembering Bekah, with many tears and prayers for her family, I have learned some very important things about life now, and I feel compelled to share them, in honor of her life.

1 - Every morning I now wake up thankful just to be alive

2- Life is too short to complain and fight about things on earth that will never matter in the end

3- I want the people in my life to know how special they are and how much I appreciate them now. Not when its too late.

4 - To live life well, "a life lived well is more precious than a life lived long "