Live to be forgotten.

I don't remember why "live to be forgotten" popped into my head the other day.  But it reminded me of the interview I saw at Urbana 2009.  Good stuff.  I've been praying and meditating lately about what that really means and what it means to weigh the costs to tell a great story with my life for the sake and glory of the Lord.

I love that Urbana keeps the previous Urbana's videos up.  After watching this video again, this quote stuck out to me:  "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply."  It's not new to me - I've been trying to live that very truth out.

If you've got a couple of minutes, watch 5:18-7:37.
If you've got a mere 10 minutes to spare, I'd highly recommend giving this a listen.

Interview with Patrick Fung from Urbana on Vimeo.

Also found this and enjoyed watching this last night:

Landing gear.

Last night I came home and felt like my head was going to explode.  Hauling home a brain at midnight brimming with information and emotions after falling asleep around 4am the night before wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

But opening the door to a tranquil apartment with serene Christmas lights lit and a gentle Sarah Min wrapped in a blanket offering to make me tea makes the unwinding process so much easier.

As we were talking about life, she asked how I was doing because she had noticed that I've been more stressed out lately - or at least would react more strongly to things than she's ever seen me before.  I nodded because I've been consciously aware of it but hadn't really stopped to think about it because I don't feel overwhelmed or stressed out about anything.  Maybe very frustrated at times, but as I examined my internal realm, there's nothing new and nothing that seems to have shifted in any way.

I told Sarah how over the past four years God has been shaping my relationship with Him, my character and my leadership in such transformative, drastic ways such that my internal changes would permeate into my external changes.  As I said that I wondered if God was preparing me in a way to have a more solid internal realm so that when I encountered all of these changes in my external world, my internal world wouldn't immediately crumble at the first sign of trouble.

What I realized, though, in regards to my recent behavior, was that the plane was landing.  At least, that's how I explained it to Sarah.

Most of the time when you're in an airplane, you know you're headed somewhere and are able to prepare to land.  You're very aware that you're going to be hitting the ground soon, and so the captain tells everyone to sit down, buckle their seat belts, and put away anything that may disrupt the landing process.  You can look out the tiny window pane and actually watch as buildings drift closer and closer.

But even with all the preparation and cautionary steps; even when you've mentally, physically, and (I guess) emotionally prepared yourself for the landing and know you're going to be just fine, there's still something unnerving about the moment the wheels touch the ground.

So I think that's kind of where I am.  I'm not in an actual airplane, so the moment where the wheels touch the ground actually lasts a little longer than a few minutes in life.  But I'm not completely stressed or doubtful about where I am or where I'm going.  I may be just a little extra sensitive or slightly insecure about the decisions I made to take certain flights with unknown destinations.

Needtobreathe therapy.

I don't feel like baking will cut it this time.

There's plenty to clean, but it only adds to the frustration.

Not really in the mood to journal.

It's too late at night to pick up Theoden, whom I've missed a lot lately.

This calls for my good ol' buddies, Needtobreathe.

The only way to describe this entire week:

Oh, the craziness.

Today, like many days.

It's not my birthday.  It's not Christmas.  It's not the weekend.  I haven't been physically or emotionally hurt.  No one sent me any random cards, letters or packages in the mail.  No one gave me flowers.  No one treated me to a meal.  I'm pretty sure someone has prayed for me today even if they didn't tell me they did.  Even if no one did, it wouldn't matter.  I'm not fishing for compliments.  I don't feel lonely.  I don't feel overwhelmed.  I don't feel like I'm missing out on something in life.  I haven't had a deep, thought-provoking conversation.  I don't think I've necessarily grown closer to anyone or further away from those already close to me.  No one gave me extra spending money.  No one gave an anonymous large donation to my ministry.  No one has given me an encouraging word.  No one offered me a ride to places I need to go.  No one gave me advice.  I'm not sick.  I'm not depressed.  I'm not apathetic.  I care - about people, about strangers, about issues, about myself, about my responsibilities.  No one has poured out their heart to me.  No one has asked how I'm doing and genuinely cared about the answer.  No one has entrusted me with a secret.  I've ruined my own surprises for the week, but I'm not upset about it...anymore.  I spent more money than I would have liked this month.  I don't feel pressured by anyone.  I don't feel constrained or restricted or bound to someone else's expectations. It's beautiful outside, but even if it wasn't, it wouldn't matter.  I'm not having a good hair day, but it's not a bad hair day either.  No one switched around their schedule for me.  No one went out of their way to do something for me.  No one has gone out of their way to reach me.  No one told me they needed me.  No one asked for my help.  No one wrote on my Facebook wall, commented on my photos, or liked my Facebook status.  No one told me they read my blog.  No one texted me.  No one told me they thought of me when they heard this song or read this book or talked to this person.  I don't feel beautiful but I don't feel ugly.  I don't feel like a failure.  I've been working hard but I don't feel like I've been working hard enough.  I feel lazy.  I feel productive.  I feel accomplished and I feel like there's much more to get done.  I'm not looking for someone's approval.  I don't need a hug, but they are welcomed.  I'm not settling.  I am not satisfied with the way the world is.  I am serving my family and my friends as best as I humanly can.  I hope for the best and plan for the worst.  I have many questions without answers but I'm okay with never knowing them.  No one has showered me with compliments.  No one has recommended the perfect outfit for me.  No one has broken my heart.  No one has played with my heart.  No one left me post-its with nice notes written on it.  No one showed up on my doorstep unexpectedly.  I'm not looking for attention from strangers, from men, from my friends or my family.  I didn't have a spectacular bonding experience with anyone.  There's a pimple on my forehead that won't go away.  I'm not fond of rejection, but I'm not fearful of it.  I'm more open to fast changes in life than I would have been five years ago.  I believe in the little things and appreciate the big things.  I haven't worked on a song in so long or written a blog post in a few days.  I'm not famous and don't really strive to be.  I don't need fans or popularity.  I don't need people to follow me on Twitter or this blog.  I don't have a routine or a lot of structure right now, but my life does not depend on it.                                

No one told me how much they like me.            
No one told me they love me or "showed" me how much they love me.

But I don't need to hear it or see it everyday.
I know that who I am with others is aligned with who I am when I'm by myself.
I know I don't need to carry my burdens on my own shoulders and that I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses ready to share those burdens with me.

I know I am loved and that people care deeply about me.
And today, on a boring, ordinary, lovely Tuesday, I feel completely loved.

Just a couple of extra treats I made recently.

These are also some things I've made that I haven't posted yet.  

I believe these were take two of these kinds of pancakes.  They're actually whole wheat apple cinnamon fair-trade coffee-flavored chocolate chunk pancakes.  What a mouthful (haha)!  These were the pancakes I made from scratch for Michelle and Nathan when they came to Binghamton a few weeks ago.  

Apple cinnamon fair-trade coffee-flavored chocolate chunk pancakes

They were inspired from the pancakes I had made just a week before they came.  I was in the mood for pancakes one Saturday morning and decided to surprise Sarah and make some for breakfast when she woke up.  I didn't want just plain pancakes and wanted to experiment, so I threw in some apple chunks because I had so many when I had gone apple picking the weekend before. I figured cinnamon and nutmeg go really well with apples so I threw some of that in there, along with some coffee-flavored chocolate chunks  because chocolate chunks are just delicious and go great with apples and cinnamon in pancakes.

Banana bread with non-fat vanilla frozen yogurt

This banana bread I made pretty much right when I came back from Expedition because I realized we had three really ripe bananas that probably should've been eaten soon.  But I don't like eating really ripe bananas as they are (I like to eat them when they're perfectly yellow and have very little to no brown spots - I know, even though the brown spots tell you that the banana is ripe), so I figured I'd just throw together some banana bread because I needed exactly three really ripe bananas.  Yum!

I went out and bought non-fat vanilla frozen yogurt as well, because I was in the mood for ice cream but knew ice cream would be a less prudent choice for my high cholesterol and that the non-fat frozen yogurt would make that treat a little more guilt-free.  I was right!

A ratatouille double date.

I used to be that girl that thought double dates were gushy and cheesy.  It was probably because I had never been in a relationship before and was half envious that people could even have double dates (doubly rubbing in my face that I was not in one), with the other half of me over-imagining what double dates were like, giving them more weight than the reality needed to have.

When Nathan and I hang out with Will and Kat, it's nice because we were all friends before we started dating so getting together is more like having dinner with friends that just happen to be dating.  We're not dating couples that have to try to figure out how to be friends.  Nothing has to be formal or awkward.  It's pretty sweet.

Layers of vegetables for ratatouille!

This should technically be a really old post because this dinner happened a while ago.  I don't really remember what inspired this dinner - I think I might've just seen a recipe for it in passing for something else and remembered how I'd been wanting to test out a recipe ever since I watched the awesome kids' movie, Ratatouille.  I wasn't really into cooking back then, but I knew I wanted to try it out one day.

The finished product

Ratatouille is super easy to make - you chop up a bunch of vegetables and voila, ratatouille.  You can probably tell from my pictures that I didn't have enough cheese to lay across the top of the dish, but I think it still turned out okay.

Chocolate bowls epic fail

Nathan attempted to make chocolate bowls for dessert.  We got some balloons and dipped them in this chocolate ganache-like sauce that he made to put them in the freezer.  Except the chocolate didn't harden enough by the time we wanted dessert, and the chocolate just stuck to the balloons.  So we ended up throwing some vanilla ice cream and banana rum sauce onto the tray and scraping the chocolate right off of the balloons.

Yeah...I know.  I think I only had one and mostly scraped chocolate off of the tray.

Sweet potato fajita night in the McNamara house!

This dinner was also from a long time ago.  We had a bunch of sweet potatoes and I had been wanting to make these sweet potato fajita things for me and Sarah, and since we had recently gotten avocados, we whipped up some guacamole and put together a mini-fiesta for ourselves.

Oddly, I've been finding that I've beginning to experiment a little more when it comes to cooking.  If there's a specific dish I'm trying to make, I'll follow the recipe as closely as possible, but if I'm just trying to figure out something to eat with out having to look a recipe up, I'll just experiment with ingredients and spices and herbs.  It's odd because I wouldn't normally do that kind of thing.  I guess it just shows how far I've come in the world of possibilities.

P.S.  It would've been the perfect end to the night if we actually watched Ratatouille that night, but alas, we didn't have access to the movie.  I'm still in the mood to watch it if anyone has it/wants to watch it with me!