Saturday Doings

This post was supposed to have a few pictures to accompany it since I meant it to be a glimpse into a typical Saturday in our household. But alas, we forgot the camera in Ciaran's classroom. Oh well, maybe next Saturday. All right, here's a list of doings for the day.

-An early morning grocery run to Meijer, battling the blinding snow and wind
-Donuts at a local bakery
-English Premiership soccer viewing (back in bed)
-Time alone with the Lord and to-do list making
-Cleaning and laundry
-A short nap
-Making tacos and Spanish rice (yum)
-More cleaning and laundry and paperwork
-Grading papers
-More laundry
-A drive around town to look at houses
-Making stir-fry and egg rolls (so we don't have to cook tomorrow)
-Michelle: Blog patrolling / Ciaran: Woodworking videos online
-Devotional Time/Review Sunday School lesson for tomorrow

Just a brief recap of our day. See dear family, I told you we have an incredibly low-key life down here! And this was a pretty typical Saturday, except usually (when we aren't getting a lot of snow) we head in to our classrooms for at least a couple hours--sometimes we go to our individual rooms to work, or I pack up my work and take it to Ciaran's shop so we can be together. Fun stuff eh?! I hope everyone's having a wonderful Saturday. Have a happy Sabbath tomorrow!

A Challenge

I don't know if any of you are like me, but I love patrolling blogs. I'm the classic lurker. I rarely post comments, but I keep up with about twenty or more different blogs weekly via my Google Homepage. I read blogs focused on everything from biblical womanhood to missions to teaching to personal finance. And then of course I read the blogs of family, friends and even mere acquaintances. Some would argue that blog reading can be an incredible stealer of time(and they are right in some instances), but lately as I struggle to develop good quality female Christian friendships in this new town, I find myself consistently encouraged and challenged by the women who write many of these blogs. In the coming weeks, you'll probably see many posts related and written in response to some of their posts. Take yesterday for example:

I was doing my daily blog patrolling and saw a post on my Google Homepage from the girl talk blog entitled "School of the Word." This, of course, greatly intrigued me and I clicked on it only to receive an excellent challenge as I navigate these upcoming years as a married woman without children. The post is directed toward single woman, but Ciaran and I have been discussing a lot lately how to use these years (years in which we do not have children) wisely. In the post, Carolyn Mahaney encouraged us to use this time to study doctrine and grow in our walk with the Lord; to diligently pursue this time in study. Then the post linked to a list her husband C.J. recommended as "must-reads." Topping the list was J.I. Packer's Knowing God. I have read bits and pieces of this book over and over, but I know I have never read this book cover to cover. So last night, I got into bed an hour early and curled up with my Bible, journal and Knowing God, and dug into the riches to be found there. Oh what a sumptuous feast! God drew me so close to Himself in that simple hour and I fell asleep meditating on the character of God. What a perfect evening.

Well, I've spent enough time typing away here tonight, but before I end, please be in prayer for Ciaran and I in the coming weeks. We are going to be meeting with the pastor of the church we've been attending since October, to discuss doctrine/theology, membership, serving in the church, etc. We've been holding off for quite some time hoping to catch wind of a local church committed to Reformed theology, but haven't been successful thus far. I'm fine with getting more deeply involved in an Arminian church (in the absense of a clearly Reformed church) as long as I know that right up front. Hence our meeting coming up in the next couple weeks. Please be in prayer for us to maintain a humble and surrendered heart to God as we navigate this process. Thank you so much!

Hyundai Superbowl Commercial

My favorite Superbowl commercial this year was the "Angry Bosses" Hyundai commercial. I have it below, check it out. Now for the reason this is my favorite. Ciaran and I are about to buy a Hyundai Elantra and a Hyundai Sonata. My local mechanic told me to unload my car ASAP since I've already dumped more money into it than its worth (he told me this back at the beginning of January) and since Ciaran's car was totaled back in November, we've been searching for two cars this past month. After a very long month of car shopping, we've finally settled on the two cars as I've mentioned above. This week we're working on financing and hopefully by this weekend we'll be proud Hyundai owners. But as we've sought the counsel of family members throughout this big decision, we've been struggling with the proper pronunciation of "Hyundai"; every person has pronounced it differently. So being the rather anal person that I am, I looked it up this afternoon after church and found that it's pronounced "Hunday, rhymes with Sunday." When I told Ciaran how to remember how to pronounce it, he laughed. Then we're watching the Superbowl tonight and this commercial came on and at the end they comment on the proper pronunciation of it. Too funny! We laughed. Enjoy the commercial.