creativity block

If you were going on a date night tonight, where would you go? or what would you do?

I can't seem to think of anything fun/relaxing...

So I'm calling on you...what would you do?

The Results...

Here are some of the results of my bread making extravaganza, as promised :)

I thought the French Bread turned out really beautifully

And the bagels have been scrumptious too!!

Helmet Fire

A comment from the one and only Josh Owen, has indeed sparked this: the second blog entry by Ben. The comment was made about the verbiage that was most likely used in the cockpit on a day to day basis. Got a little story for ya Ags.

The phase of training I just completed was Low Level navigation or "VNAVs" as it is affectionately called here at Pcola. Cliff notes about VNAVs: fly low to the ground, no instruments to help you out, have to hit certain points such as towers and buildings on course and on time. The secret to passing VNAVs: find your points and get to them on time.

After a very successful morning flight the other day, I had to pass my check ride in the afternoon. I was flying with Captain Jones this particular day. Captain Jones informed me that she would not be helping me on my check ride, that indeed she was going to be a "voice activated auto pilot." I was going to have to get to all the points within 2 miles and make it to my final point within +/- 1 minute of my predicted time of arrival. After a successful take off and enroute journey to our first point, I realized I was somewhat lost (bad way to start a check ride). I directed her to turn north along a rode I new the first point to be near. After a few minutes of not seeing a point I was expecting to see after just a few seconds..."Uhhhhh ma'am, I think we're north of point Alpha. I think we need to turn around." (Which of course we were. In the debrief she informed me that she didn't think I truly ever knew how far off course we really were.)

Josh Owen, you know me well. The Lord has been teaching me a lot about perseverance, prayer, faith, and the the importance of judging myself honestly.

⁹But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -

2 Corinthians 12:8-10 (English Standard Version)

www.biblegateway.com

p.s. I made it to my final point exactly 59 seconds late. I passed.

Ben's Digs

digs: (from the urban dictionary)

home;place of residence "my bro just moved into new digs across town."

Well ok, its not his real home, but its been his second home for the past several months.

Let me introduce you to the T-6 Texan. What an appropriate name, right?

Its the plane that Ben has been flying in for the past several months! He spent a few weeks in the front seat, flying the plane & has now moved to the backseat where he is doing all the navigation!

He has been doing so well & working soo hard. The Lord has definitely answered many prayers in his flights! And he actually has only one flight left in the T-6 before he moves onto a new airplane!

I will be sure to post pictures of that plane too so you can get a visual of what he looks like up in the air :)

Baking Day!

Today is baking day! I got the idea from Rachel Watters and a blog post she made a week or so ago. I have been experimenting on and off with making my own bread, tortillas, etc... and usually make some kind of cookies for our boys at youth on Wednesday nights, and after reading Rachel's blog I decided the best way to get it all done would be in one swoop.

Hence, baking day. I usually have a hard time getting baking like this done because you have to take such a huge chunk of your day out to mix the dough, let it rise, punch it down, let it rise again & then bake it. That can easily take 3 hrs if not more!

So I have been planning all week to stay home most of the day today to bake & study Microbiology. A good combination, I think. Who knows, maybe my chapters will cover how yeast makes bread rise!

So whats on the menu, you ask?

Bagels...I am excited to try this out!

French Bread...more bruschetta on the way!

Flour Tortillas...a lot easier/faster than you'd think...no rising here!

Cookies or Brownies...TBA

I'll let you know how it turns out...especially the bagels! I am kind of intimidated by them!

Friday Date Night

Ben & I started a new "tradition" in our little family, and declared Friday to be date night. We realized that with him being so busy all week, he needs at least one night of the weekend to be spend w/ just me. Although we are together all week long at different times during the day, we are usually not able to really "be together" as he is studying, I am working on youth material, or cooking, etc...

He also thought it would be a good idea to have Friday date nights, so that he can decompress from the week and officially turn his work mode switch off for a period of time.

So there you have it, the conception of Date Night. Last Friday we had a really fun date night and went to a restaurant in town called Madison's. The food was yummy & the decor of the restaurant was even yummier. And if you know me, you know that if a place is aesthetically pleasing, I am all the more likely to enjoy it--even if the food is just "Ok."

The best part of our night was that we had a $25 gift card to Madison's that I won through Swagbucks.

I traded in my Swagbucks points, that I earned through simply using their search engine, for a Restaurants.com gift card! Even if you don't use Swagbucks, www.restaurants.com offers deals on certain restaurants in your area. You can buy a $25 gift card to a restaurant for just $10, saving you at least $15! not bad, eh? The only catch is that you can only use one gift card at a time, so if you are interested, don't go out and buy 4 $25 gift cards and think that you are going to get a $100 meal for free...not gonna happen.

But anyway, check it out...we really enjoyed our dinner at Madison's and it made Date Night a lot more affordable :)

Post it Notes (or a summary of the week)

The pace has really kicked up a notch this past week in the Carter household. Ben started intermediate training, which I mentioned in a previous post, and has been doing charts, studying & flying almost non-stop.

I started Microbiology, and to my great misfortune, am having to take it on Saturdays. Its interesting for sure, and something I have had experience in before, but 7 hrs in one day of any subject is a lot to handle. That and that its on a Saturday. At least it only lasts a few months.

We also started teaching the youth group at our church. I guess you could call us the youth leaders, but there are only about 6 kids to keep up with so its more of a small group setting than what some may think of as a youth group. And so far all the kids are boys, ranging from 7th to 12th grade. Thats a lot of testosterone. For our kick off week, I acted as "team mom" and brought some yummy cookies for the guys and we played Headbands, in memory of my Hawktree days in college. :)

The guys loved it, even though they had to wear my girly headbands...muahhaha.

We ended the study night talking about the Gospel, and will expand some more on it this week.

I will leave you guys with a quote from R.C. Sproul on what the Gospel really is. I really enjoyed his perspective, especially in the day we live in where the Gospel is often so skewed, even in "christian" churches. We are going to discuss it w/ the guys this week.

"There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the Gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications. People think they’re preaching the Gospel to you when they tell you, 'you can have a purpose to your life', or that 'you can have meaning to your life', or that 'you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.' All of those things are true, and they’re all important, but they don’t get to the heart of the Gospel.

The Gospel is called the 'good news' because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.

The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the Gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did. And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity."