The Flans

conversations

2011-10-31T11:50:00.001-07:00

(setting: we have just driven by a sign that says "seasoned firewood")
me: seasoned firewood? what's that? did they sprinkle a little cinnamon and nutmeg on it?
mark: no. not even close.

(setting: i have just said something rude)
mark: wow, that's very...ubiquitous of you.
me: i don't think that word means what you think it means

denise: i do not want to write this essay.

mark: i'm sorry, i wish i could write the essay for you.

denise: well, thanks babe, but it's supposed to be brief and to-the-point and those aren't exactly your strong suits

mark: well, i may not be brief, but i'm to the point

denise: so you're long-winded and to the point?

mark: i mean, it takes me a while to say what i want to say, but i always make my point in the end

denise: you know they changed the astrology signs. you're a cancer now.

mark: cool

denise: do you even know what you were before?

mark: yeah...poseidon

denise: no

mark: no, i mean...presario

denise: presario? as in, a compaq presario? i think the word you're looking for is 'pisces'

(setting: i literally just woke up, it's like 7 am)

denise: what does "dog and pony show" mean?

mark: i don't understand how your brain works

denise: i heard it in a song and i need to know what it refers to

mark: you literally just opened your eyes, when did you have time to think about that?

denise: just tell me what it means!

our sense of humor

2011-10-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

when mark and i were doing our premarital counseling, our pastor had us take this 100 question test that was supposed to tell us, out of 10 areas, where we differed the most. and then we were supposed to focus on those areas in our counseling. they were things like, family, money, etc. we knew we'd have some differences but we were really surprised when our #1 area of difference was "personality." i mean, what? how can our personalities be that different? but i guess in several ways they are. i am a typical virgo (meaning perfectionist, critical, nit picky) and am kind of an introvert. a night alone is like a dream to me. mark is very laid back, almost nothing bothers him. and he is an extreme extrovert - a night alone to him is like a nightmare.

so i guess our personalities are kind of different but there is one thing we have the same- and that is, our sense of humor. and the other night, this commercial made us crack up hysterically for about 5 minutes. we kept watching it over and over.

where to eat in boston

2011-07-31T16:41:00.001-07:00

for fourth of july mark and i went with some friends up to the greater boston area for one of my best friends' weddings- i speak of kristen marvelle, now kristen kavanaugh. we went with our other dear friends from charlotte and had a really great time, AND we went without verity for almost a week. that was hard - we missed her, but we got to do a lot of fun stuff that we wouldn't have been able to do with her there.

the couple :)

at the rehearsal dinner

at the wedding!

so let me get to the point of this post - food. food can really make or break a trip. mark and i went to jacksonville, florida on vacation one year and we hated it. we had a horrible time. when someone asked me why, i was like, well for one, nowhere we ate had good food. good food at a good restaurant can make a bad trip way worse or a good trip a million times better. so i thought i'd share about the places we ate in case you are headed to boston. which i'm sure is not likely. so i guess i have no idea why i'm actually writing this post.

in plymouth, ma (where we stayed for the wedding):
t-bones roadhouse: for breakfast. the best breakfast i've ever had for this little - mark
and i ate breakfast with tip and coffees for under $10.

blue blinds: this was a really cute breakfast and sandwhich shop with homemade organic breads. i had a delicious sandwich here but i wish we could've eaten breakfast here too, it looked awesome.

ali's galley: so this was a random little "butcher shop" right near our motel that i never would have gone in, but staci and tanner did and then flagge us down. they had awesome sandwhiches with meat that they sliced right there. i had a sweet n'sour sandwich and when i ordered it on wheat bread the woman behind the counter said (in thick boston accent) "wheat bread? why don't you just order it on cardboard?"

in brookline, ma (where mark and i stayed for a few days after the wedding):
upper crust pizzeria: this was a great pizza place a la brixx in charlotte, but i thought it was better. mark thinks brixx is still better. anyway- thin crust, whole wheat and great topping options.

j.p. licks: this is an ice cream place. when tanner and staci were dropping us off in brookline we looked for a place to get coffee. instead we found this place and got giant ice cream cones. they had a lot of crazy flavors, like cucumber (which staci got) and el diablo, which had cayenne pepper in it.

boston, ma:
sam lagrassa's sandwich shop: we ate here because we tried to go to a place i read about in fodor's boston and it was closed. and the two guys in front of us who were trying to go there were like, "oh it's closed. let's go to sam's." and of course we didn't know where else to eat so we just followed them. it was HUGE sandwiches, really fresh and yummy. we had to eat in a standing room only section.

quincy market: this is like a mall's food court basically. it was my least favorite place we ate, but it was still good. i had a lobster roll from one of the vendors. it was yummy. but it was also a greasy $14 sandwich on white bread. there was tons of other options though and you could get fresh lobster. and giant cookies and giant slices of watermelon. giant a lot of things.

so if you're ever in the plymouth, brookline or boston, these are my recommendations :)

verity's favorite game

2011-07-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

v's first steps!

2011-07-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

my favorite part of church

2011-06-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

well, ONE of my favorite parts of church, is the "kids corner." I know a lot of churches don't do this anymore, but during our service, before the message, our pastor asks all the kids to come up front. and then you know, he has a microphone and asks the kids a question and lets them say their answer into the microphone. i already have a little anxiety about what verity might say into a MICROPHONE in front of our whole church someday.

i've heard some funny stuff in the past few years. (yes i record these right along side my sermon notes) here's a taste:

pastor: what is a toy that you have that you used to really like to play with but now you're kind of bored with?
kid: my sister.

pastor: what are some things your mom doesn't like?
kid: my mom doesn't like coming to church

pastor: do you know of any sports that are in the bible? (he was looking for fishing by the way)
kid: golf
kid #2: lacrosse

pastor: (the week of Christmas) what's going on right now that you're probably excited about?
kids silent.
pastor: come on, what season is it? what time of year?
kid: winter!

but there are also some really good kid answers that make you realize kids are listening and they're understanding important concepts. like these:

pastor: what was the deal with the pharisees?
kid: they were hypocrites because they said they loved god but on the inside they really didn't. they were just pretending. (this was a 4-yr old).

pastor: when you sin, does god punish you?
kid: no, because he already punished us in jesus for all our sins (again, a 3 or 4-year old).

so "kids korner" is my favorite part of service b/c 1) it's funny, but because 2) it reminds me what a serious task we have in parenting and what sponges our kids are at ages 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. it reminds me that god has entrusts a child to me to shepherd, raise, parent and guide, and that it starts now.

FINAL thing- related to this, Mark and I are doing a parenting small group now, watching a video series and doing curriculum called "Getting to the Heart of Parenting" by Paul Tripp and it's really good. We recommend it. :)

verity in the tub

2011-06-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

yikes, it's been like a year or something since i've updated our blog. what have we been busy or something? here's a new video of the bebe:

she's 13 months now and a ton of fun. she is on the brink of a lot of things. she can take a couple steps, but isn't quite walking. she can say a lot of mumbo-jumbo but no actually words. except for "no," "uh-oh," and "yeah."

daddy's girl

2010-10-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

verity is teething. maybe. she drools like crazy and is OBSESSED with chewing things, particularly this frozen teether (pictured above) in the shape of a foot. but we have yet to see any teeth.

also hilarious: she is obsessed with cups and drinks. as soon as she sees one of us pick up a drink, she tries to pounce on it. her eyes get really wide and she starts reaching out for the drink and opening her mouth. i have some video of this i need to share with you. i've tried to get her interested in a sippy cup so she stops trying to grab my coffee cup but she gets frustrated because she can't figure out how to get the liquid to come out of the sippy cup.

so we're having a lot of fun with her these days. she smiles a lot and laughs a ton and she is such a great, chill baby. and mark is still his funny self. here's one of our latest funny conversations:

me: guess what size pants verity is wearing
mark: um, i don't know...small? medium? large? how fun can this game be?
me: no. baby sizes are by AGE. guess what size her pants are.
mark: 10 months? 11 and a half months?
me: do you honestly think they sell clothes in size "11 and a half month olds"?

(by the way, she is 5 months old but was wearing 18 month pants. it's the cloth diapers- they make her bum huge.)

video of verity

2010-09-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

well it's about time i bring you a video of verity. she IS over four months old now. so this is her. warning - this video may be boring to those of you who are not family or those who are not in the mood to watch a swinging infant talking to herself. also. it may give you a little motion sickness. i had to tape her in her swing because the time she talks the most is in the swing. and if she sees the video camera, it's all over. she gets quiet b/c she's so entranced with the camera. hence, the poor angle this is taken from. but maybe you'll like it anyway :)

and here's one with her face :)

goodbye house, we love you.

2010-09-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

in case you somehow missed my massive facebook mailing, we are selling our house. we love our house and we love our neighborhood and we have enjoyed our time there. but times, they are a changin'. (we are staying in Charlotte. just looking for something different, something closer to my parents.) so, if you're looking for a new house, visit our blog and check it out: http://www.8300bristolford.blogspot.com/.

we are also offering a referral fee to any friend or family member who refers the person who ultimately buys our house. 300 smackers. so if you KNOW anyone looking for a house, send them our way. and then take a vacation (okay, a small vacation) on us.

it truly is a very pretty place :-)

homeade popcorn

2010-08-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

soooo you were expecting a baby update. but no. what brought me back to the blog was the best popcorn i've ever tasted. and we made it home-ade. HA. why did we do this? a couple weeks ago i decided to get rid of my microwave. because "anything that gets that hot without fire must be from the devil." (ellen) haha, i don't know, maybe cooking food in the microwave is bad for you, maybe it's not. i mainly did it for the counter space. and i honestly haven't even missed it. hello, you can reheat everything on the stove or in the toaster oven. my only issue with no microwave was popcorn. we love popcorn. and we could no longer press our 'popcorn' button and have it ready in 2 mins and 30 seconds. so. last night at the store we bought some organic popping corn and tonight i used this recipe to make it on the stove top. the only thing i changed was that i used coconut oil instead of canola oil like she has in the recipe. it was AMAZING. (and by the way, i am loving coconut oil right now to cook with. it's delicious and allegedly really good for you. read about it here.)

okay, enough about the popcorn. here's some pics of the babe. :-)

and here are her 2 new achievements:
this week, we were sitting together and she was staring at her hand which was balled up in a fist. then she opened it up wide like she was giving someone a high five, and then she put it back in a fist. she did this a couple times. i watched her discover her hand! #2 is that yesterday i was holding my cell phone up to take a picture of her and she wouldn't take her eyes off of it. wherever i moved it, her eyes followed it. and that was the first time i'v seen her be able to follow something with her eyes. it's crazy watching a person do things for the first time.

verity at four weeks

2010-06-17T17:19:00.001-07:00

now that i have a child, i am amazed at people who have children and still manage to blog. who has the time? not me. right now i often feel like i'm sleepwalking through my day. a LOT of days i find myself sitting on the couch in my sweatpants, having just made my coffee and eggs and it is noon. and i feel like i have not done anything yet. except fed and changed a baby of course.

anyway, i'd like to write more but i'm simply too tired. here are some pics of our sweet daughter with her grandma and great grandma. enjoy.

she's here

2010-05-23T16:31:00.001-07:00

so on wednesday, my due date, i wrote a little prematurely that there was going to be no baby that day. i think i wrote that post about 7 am. and at 1:30 pm, my water broke. at 4 pm i started having contractions. and at 12:30 am on thursday morning, our baby daughter, verity pearl flanders was born. wow. here she is:

we got to the birth center at about 6:30 pm and my midwife lisa gave me some unfortunate news- no i was not as far along as i thought and no, i was not gonna have the baby in the next hour. she suggested we go walk around and get something to eat. so we went and walked through a nice neighborhood close to the birth center. it must have looked hilarious to people to see a very pregnant women having contractions on the sidewalk in front of your house. not to mention all the joggers that passed by us and a nine year old boy on a skateboard who i must have terrified. i mean, i was really having contractions. i threw up in front of someone's house. good thing we don't live in that neighborhood. then we went to food lion to get some snacks. had a few contractions in there. again, must have looked hilarious to people shopping in the store. i felt like i was about to die. but little did i know it was just the beginning.

we got back and a couple hours later, lisa checked me again and said i was complete and whenever i felt like pushing i should push. YES. this was music to my ears. and i felt like pushing. i pushed for about 2 hours. which felt like an extremely long time. with the help of mark, the most encouraging and amazing husband i know, and three excellent midwives, and god's grace and strength, i delivered her at 12:35 am thursday morning without any pain medication or epidural. it was thrilling.

today

2010-05-19T04:14:00.000-07:00

so today is a big day. it's our 3 year anniversary. and also, i am due today. although i am pretty sure there is not going to be any baby action today. pearl seems to be taking her time. so we will probably go out to dinner at mama ricotta's to celebrate 3 yrs of marriage and i will order a salad and an entree AND a dessert and people will ask me, "when are you due?" and i'll say, "today," and they'll give me a wide-eyed look like, "wow, shouldn't you be at home in bed waiting for that baby to pop out?" i've been getting that look for the past week. people are so funny. as if being really pregnant means you shouldn't go to parties or to the grocery store.

i will also probably go to harris teeter today. twice. i mean it's super doubles week, and if i miss out today, i might lose my chance.

when i call people (i.e. my mom) i've started opening the conversation with, "hi, don't worry i'm not in labor." last week i called mark at work and he was with a customer but he answered and said, "are you okay?" and i was like, "yeah, i'm fine, you don't have to answer your phone when you're busy, i can leave a message." and he says, "uh, denise, you're 9 months pregnant. i have to answer my phone."

so any day now people, any day.

my husband's quirks

2010-03-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

i figured now's as good a time as any for updating you on some of mark's quirks.

whenever he does laundry he sorts like items together even if they don't actually go together. for example, towels. there are bath towels and kitchen towels. he puts them all together, and whichever there are more of, that's where he puts them away. so i frequently find our bath towels and washcloths in one of our kitchen drawers. and i find our kitchen towels in our linen closet with our bath towels. i have learned to be okay with this.

so he also puts all white socks together. mine AND his. everytime i go to my sock drawer and can't find my white socks, i remember, oh right, he puts all the white socks in his drawer. i cannot figure out why he does this.

he is a man of extremes. for example, somewhat recently he decided he wanted to eat healthier. i said, okay, and made some recommendations, such as not eating two bowls of ice cream every day, not ordering chicken alfredo when he's out to lunch, etc. he said, "no, i need something harder than that." so he decided to go vegetarian and went and bought a bunch of vegetables to start making "vegetable smoothies." i consider myself a healthy eater, but his "smoothies" were disgusting. they looked like puke. (by the way, this phase lasted about 2 weeks.)

another extremes example - last night he thought he was starting to get sick, had a stuffy nose, etc. I recommended nyquil. He was like, no, I'll just eat some garlic cloves. So he ate three garlic cloves. PLAIN. that was his remedy.

he surprised me the other day though at his attention to detail in one case. i recently ran out of my usual shampoo, and bought a different kind (pantene pro-v) that i used to buy all the time. literally, the first day i used it, he says to me, "did you change shampoos? you're hair smells like what it used to smell like when you lived at the fountain." and yes, he was correct. after one day of the shampoo he could remember that the last time he smelled it was FOUR years ago.

how to shop at CVS

2010-03-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

so i have gotten completely sucked in to the world of saving money. maybe i have been influenced by my money-saving husband. i'll let you know when i come up with my own business idea; then i'll REALLY be mark flanders' wife.

anyway, i want to tell you how to shop at CVS because some of you have expressed interest. basically, you can shop at CVS for all of your household items and toiletries and get most of them for FREE or extremely discounted.

here's how it works:

CVS has a loyalty card, like a VIC card at Harris Teeter. It's called an Extra Care card. Go into CVS and get one. You have to scan your EC card when you shop.

Every week CVS puts various items on sale and offers Extra Care Bucks (ECB) back when you buy them. for example, this week, Oral B toothbrushes are on sale for $4 and when you buy one, you get $4 in ECB. This is basically store credit that prints out at the bottom of your receipt. You can then use the ECB to buy whatever you want, even another Oral B toothbrush to get you more ECB.

So you walk into CVS, pay $4 for a toothbrush. Get a receipt for 4 ECB. Walk back and get another toothbrush, use your 4 ECB to pay for it and then ANOTHER 4 ECB will print out at the bottom of your receipt.

So the idea is to combine coupons and ECBS to make things free.

Here is what my trip to CVS this week looked like:

I started with 7 ECB from the previous week.
Transaction #1
I bought:
(1) Oral B Cross Action toothbrush $4
(2) Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner $3.49 ea
Coupons I used:
-.75/1 Oral B Cross Action PG 2/21
-$3/2 Pantene Products PG 3/07
-$7 ECB
Total Due: $1.21
Get Back $6 ECB ($4 from Oral B, $2 from Pantene)

Transaction #2
I bought:
(1) Gillette Fusion Razor $8.99
(1) Tide Detergent $5.97
(1) Tide Stain Release $3.99
Coupons I used:
-$4 off Gillette PG 2/07
-$1 off Tide PG 2/07
- $3.99 (free Tide stain release when you buy Tide detergent)
-$6 ECB
Total Due: $3.96
Get Back: $5 ECB ($4 from razor, $1 from Tide)

Transaction #3:
I bought:
(2) Pantene shampoo and Conditioner $3.49 ea
(1) Dawn dish soap $0.99
Coupons I used:
-$3/2 Pantene Products PG 3/07
-$5 ECB
Total Due: $0.56
Get Back: $2 ECB (from Pantene)

After tax the amount I spent was about $6.50 and I ended up w/ 2 ECBs to use next week.
Value of the items: $37.92
That is about 80% off.

AND here's the really good part: I am still learning how to do this, so it will get even better. I want to get to the point where I don't pay for anything. I am learning how to do this through Jenny, the lady who writes www.southernsavers.com and she notes on her website that in the Spring 2008, her Current CVS savings was – $757.89. Total spent in cash for Spring 2008 - $15.68. I mean, are you kidding me?

Go to her CVS-ing guide here: http://www.southernsavers.com/getting-started-guides/how-to-cvs/.

get your groceries 70% off

2010-02-20T15:47:00.000-08:00

here's how:

super double coupons at harris teeter. they are my new favorite thing/addiction. normally ht doubles coupons up to .99 but this week, during "super doubles" they double coupons up to 1.98. Thus, if you have a coupon for 1.98 off of something, you actually have a coupon for 3.96 off of something. i know.

let me share what i walked away from harris teeter with on wednesday:

soft scrub cleaner (free)

soft scrub extra strength cleaner (.99)

2 cans planters mixed nuts (2.50 ea)

quaker oats (.45)

smart start cereal (.09)

2 glade plug-ins (both free)

diced tomatoes 28oz (.99)

suave lotion (1.14)

2 suave deodorants (both free)

italian sausage (2.95)

4 bunches of asparagus (2.50 total)

3 bell peppers (1.25 total)

bag of spinach (1.99)

16oz mushrooms (1.49)

whole grain bread (1.85)

borden cheese singles (.19)

6 dannon yogurts (.33 each)

2 johnsonville summer sausage (1.27 each)

the retail value of all of this was $96.28. and i paid....drumroll please...$25.96. if you have not taken up coupon-ing, please, i beg you- join me. (see www.southernsavers.com for how to do it.)

later on in the week i also got these items completely FREE: aquafresh toothpaste, 2 wholy guacamoles, 16oz sour cream and 2 bottles hot sauce. and 3 lbs of ground chicken for 50 cents.

EVOO for 50 cents

2010-02-16T05:49:00.000-08:00

yesterday i bought this bottle of extra virgin olive oil at harris teeter for fifty cents. i thought i'd share how, so you can do it too. it is regularly $7.15 at harris teeter, but this week it was the e-vic item. (e-vic is a weekly email from HT telling you what the basically secret item is that's on sale for e-vic members. it's not advertised in the store. if you're not signed up, go to harristeeter.com and sign up.) so for e-vic members it's on sale for $1.99 this week. sunday's paper had a red plum coupon insert w/ a coupon for 75 cents off. HT doubles coupons, so whala- grand total was 51 cents exactly.

the e-vic sale ends today though, so you'd have to go today to get the deal. also, if you're not signed up for e-vic, once you sign up, you won't get the e-vic discount until next week's item.

thanks to my dear friend amy savage who introduced me to the new world of "coupon-ing." :-)

24 weeks

2010-01-24T11:38:00.001-08:00

some updates. every time i tell someone i am 20-something weeks along, they say, "oh, you must be feeling great then! this is like the honeymoon period of pregnancy." false. that is not exactly how i'd describe it. basically the only thing i'm comfortable in is stretch pants and a sweatshirt. so i pretty much wear yoga pants and a hoodie whenever i'm not at work. i'm hungry all the time, so i carry various snacks with me at all times (grapefruit, almonds, yogurt). but i'm kind of going back to being nauseated by some things again. last night we had fajitas and half way through, i had to give mine to mark and eat cereal for dinner before i lost it. i'm pretty tired a lot of the time. and i have trouble concentrating on people talking to me for long periods of time. i can normally carry on a several-hour long conversation, but lately, i start to zone out after someone's been talking to me for like fifteen minutes. it's not that i don't want to pay attention to what they're saying, i just can't. mark probably appreciates this actually because he doesn't have to talk as much for me to be satisfied :-)

to report some funny things he's said lately:

mark: what are we doing for the superbowl?

me: going to brian and lauren's party, remember?

mark: oh yeah, when is it? saturday?

me: nope. it's sunday, just like all the other superbowls for the last fifty years

mark: please don't tell anyone i said that.

mark: are we eating lunch with them?

me: yeah, i'm pretty sure we are

mark: well, should we prepare for the ulterior?

me: do you mean 'alternative'?

(this is actually from a while ago, but i laugh about it almost every day)

mark: (coldplay's viva la vida comes on the radio) i love this song. i just wish i knew what it was about.

aaron ohare: oh, it's about this guy who used to be like a king or someone really important, but then he lost everything. and now he's saying he sweeping the streets he used to own.

mark: oh, cool. did you read about that online or something?

aaron: no, i just listened to the lyrics.

pearl's new clothes

2010-01-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

new clothes for pearl courtesy of aunt staci. notice the bird theme :-) (also, we haven't come close to naming her yet, pearl is kind of her pre-birth name.)

my big swing list

2010-01-13T13:42:00.000-08:00

my dad and two uncles have something they call "the big swing list" or just "the list" for short. whoever irritates them enough, they add to the list. some people on The List include Richard Dreyfus, Bono, and a lot of infomercial stars. They all have to agree to put someone on the list. the other day my dad sees Steve Martin on tv and says, "we really oughta add that guy to the list." my uncle thought about it for a second and then says, "no, he really doesn't bother me that much." i think harrison ford is on the list. i asked my dad recently if there were any women on the list and he said something like, "no. but it's not because we're opposed to that. none of them have annoyed us enough yet i guess. but tyra's getting pretty close."

anyway- i have my own list. not people though. companies. and i would like to share them. these are in order of increasing dislike.

1st- Kinkos: Kinkos has been a nemesis of mine for a while. they are ridiculously overpriced and they make me feel like an idiot every time i go in there. "you mean you don't know how to use the laminating machine? you poor, pitiful, foolish girl."

2nd- Radio Shack: Radio Shack is a horrible place. Any time I go in there no associate can help me. Usually they are on their cell phone talking to a friend and don't care to assist customers. But even when not on the cell phone, they still just DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. Last time I was there, the employee could not help me find a cord to hook my digital camera into my computer. I think that should be a pretty basic request.

3rd- Flying Biscuit: I know I will have to defend this because probably all of you love this place. It went from being my favorite breakfast place to my least favorite. I went there after work recently b/c I am pregnant and was starving and craving a specific food item- a skillet meal. you know, potatoes on the bottom, then meat and veggies, then 2 eggs cracked on top. yum. they do not have a skillet meal there, but they were having one as the special, so i got it. it was awful. when the waitress asked me if it was good, i said, "not really." and she just looked at me, like, oh, i'm sorry. but that was it. Why did you ask me if it was good, if it doesn't matter to you either way? From now on it is OPH, Le Peep and Zada Jane's for me.

4th- HARRIS TEETER: Harris Teeter, I have loved you for a long time, but I have come to realize something in a drastic way. You are RIDICULOUSLY overpriced. Recently they had a great sale on chicken. Buy 1, get 2 free. It came out to $1.66/lb for chicken which is amazing. When I was leaving the store, the cashier says to me, "You saved 63 dollars with your VIC card today." And at first I was smiling, congratulating myself as I left. But then it hit me. That means that on any regular day, without this sale, Harris Teeter is overcharging me by about $63. I can't stand for it anymore. Yesterday I went in to HT to grab an apple for a snack b/c I was starving. Guess how much, for ONE apple? $1.31. Over a dollar. Apples are 50 cents each at Trader Joe's. But HT was more convenient for me, so I overpaid. Harris Teeter is basically charging an 80 cents convenience fee for apples. I can't take it anymore.

me at 18 weeks

2009-12-21T19:54:00.001-08:00

fyi, taking pregnancy photos is so awkward. what do you do with your arms? and what other time do the words, "did you zoom in on my stomach?" ever come out of your mouth? but anyway, here you go:

mark at 18 weeks:

(this is him showing me what to do in the photo. haha, nice face.)

being pregnant makes things funnier

2009-12-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

i don't know why, but it does. maybe because my emotions can sometimes be a smidge out of control. maybe because i often find myself eating a family size bag of salt and vinegar chips and sleeping until 10:30 am. (what is this, college?) so anyway, here are some of our laughs as of late. mostly related to pregnancy.

me: (laying in bed) i'm going to make some goals for tomorrow. three goals. okay, my first goal is to make myself a smoothie for breakfast
mark: (breaks into uncontrollable laughter)
me: WHAT!
mark: denise, i just think if you're going to set goals for yourself, you shouldn't make one that you're going to fail on in the first 30 minutes of the day. it will be bad for your self-esteem.

so i have basically gone from being a disciplined student and worker who gets up early in the morning to spend time with the Lord and make myself an omelet for breakfast to someone for whom making a smoothie is an unattainable goal.

me: did you rent transformers?
mark: no, you told me i couldn't
me: i didn't say you couldn't, i said you could rent it but i wouldn't watch it with you
mark: oh no, that's a trap. i know a trap when i see one.

mark: did you take your prenatal vitamin today?
me: no, thanks for reminding me.
mark: how many days a week would you say you forget to take it?
me: what is this, a quiz? i don't know
mark: seriously, how many days?
me: maybe...three?
mark: denise! our baby is going to be born with three eyes!

pancakes and other news

2009-11-11T17:57:00.000-08:00

recently i have been eating a LOT of pancakes. and i am not talking your average bisquick pancake. or aunt gemima. or whatever. these are good. whole wheat pancakes with fresh fruit on top and HOMEADE whipped cream. i have eaten these for dinner every night for, roughly, the past week and a half.

(and yes, that is mark's shoulder as he leaned out of the picture. okay, okay, i'm not exactly ansel adams.)

why am i eating pancakes for dinner every night you ask? i am pregnant. :-) okay, i said it. i'm 13 weeks pregnant today. and i have been SICK. i think i'm actually coming out of it now, but the nausea has been the worst at night. mark has been forced to make his own dinners (i.e. stop at wendy's on his way home from work) and i've been eating a lot of plain-tasting stuff. a lot of carbs. a lot of pancakes.

about mark. haha.

2009-10-23T09:39:00.001-07:00

hello...it's been a while. i don't have much on my mind, but i'm at work and a smidge bored, so here goes. i'm at work at Bonitz (mark's company)- i am working the front desk here now on Fridays. it goes a little something like this: "Good morning, Bonitz, this is Denise..." for about 6 hours :-)

mark has been a great husband lately. let me give some examples:
the other morning i woke up and i usually sit in our living room and read for a while before i get ready for the day. so i go to the living room and mark had made me a fire in our fireplace before he left for work at 7:30 am! It was one of those cold mornings and it was awesome.

my work schedule now is kind of weird, so i work 10 hrs on wednesdays and i'm off on thursdays. on thursday morning mark called me and asked how i was doing and i said i felt wiped out from the day before. he said "you should just relax today, you worked so hard yesterday. why don't you just read, take a nap, watch a movie, stuff like that." um, yes please. i was expecting him to say something like, "why don't you clean the house?"

he usually lets me park in the garage and he parks in the driveway. but the other night, the night before it frosted bigtime, he parked in the garage and i had to park outside. but the next morning, when i went out to my car i realized he had pulled my car in the garage before he left for work. so the frost was gone and i didn't have to scrape. how kind.

this morning we rode to work together and i had a really bad headache, but as some of you know, i have a hard time swallowing pills sometimes. i know, i'm a grown up and it's kind of ridiculous. but whatever. so i was trying to take a pill with water and i was getting totally frustrated. i was laying back in my seat with my eyes closed saying-
me: do they have chewable tylenol?
mark: what?
me: do they have chewable tylenol?
mark: what?! i can NOT understand you.
me: (screaming now) DO THEY HAVE CHEWABLE TYLENOL?
mark: yeah, they have it for little babies.
me: oh my gosh, i want to die.
mark: (singing now) chillable towel, chillable towel...oh, chillable towel (that's what he thought i was saying all along)
but all that to say, when we arrived at Bonitz he says to me, "i love riding to work with you." and he meant it.

last night we were driving and mark says to me:
did you know that daylight savings used to be in september but the government moved it back so we would go shopping longer?
me: yes, you've told me that fifteen times now
mark: oh, the government should realize it cannot maintain control over the citizens by turning back the hands of time.
me: what? is this like, 'proverbs by mark flanders'?
mark: yes. i think i'll write a book. proverbs by mark flanders.
(later we are at tanner and staci's house and staci says, what are we gonna do if it rains during the marathon)
mark: just receive the rain. you know, receive its showers upon you.
me: is that for your book?

beach trip and new nephew

2009-09-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

some pics from our trip to bald head island, a very amazing beach.

why do i include this picture you ask? because mark took this photo and after he took it i asked, "mark, is it good or should we take another?" he looked at the camera and said, "yeah, it's good." i guess it's good, except for our white faces and mel's HEAD BEING CUT OFF.

that's better :-)

and let's welcome to the world our new nephew, noah david flanders:

mark's birthday

2009-08-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

so this is a little delayed, but here are some pics from mark's bday.

this is mark receiving his favorite gift, cracklin' oat bran cereal. he is basically forbidden to buy it on a regular basis since it is FIVE DOLLARS a box. but he got at least a month's supply for his birthday.

and this is the cake i made him: chocolate sour cream cake with cream cheese peanut butter frosting. oh yes.suffice it to say, he had a good day.

what does this look like to you?

2009-06-30T08:01:00.001-07:00

that's right. it looks like success. "congratulations on all your success, you smell terrific." we have reaped some grape tomatoes this year and now our little green bell peppers are growing! so please invite yourself over sometime for a homegrown, organic salad.

this is our life

2009-06-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Denise: I hate driving the Infiniti. Can you give me my car back please?
Mark: Denise, the Infiniti is a luxury sedan
Denise: Mark, it’s seventeen years old
Mark: When that car was brand new it sold for $40,000!

Mark (looking at a puddle of water on the bathroom floor): so, did you take a shower inside the shower or outside of it this morning?

Denise: Mark, can you do me a favor and taste this brownie and tell me if it’s good?
Mark: What if I don’t want to?
Denise: Is that really a possibility?

Also, two times recently when we were riding in the car together, a song came on and Mark says to me, "this song always makes me think about you." Were the songs gushy love songs? False. The first one is a country song (by Sugarland) that is about a girl whose alarm goes off but she oversleeps, has to go to work with no coffee, no shower and arrives an hour late with two different shoes on. And you should know the second one: “..you’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no…” How exactly does that song describe me? I thought I was the epitome of consistency. ☺

if you see this man..

2009-05-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

...run.

funny

2009-04-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

so the other day i made a couple of cakes (actually it was two cakes that would eventually make one two-layer cake. are you following?). of course, after i took them out of the oven, i was in a hurry, going somewhere so i had to leave before they cooled. so i asked mark,

denise: mark, in like thirty minutes will you flip these cakes out of the pans so they can cool the rest of the way on the baking rack?
mark: sure

i come home way later that night and walk into the kitchen. and what do i see? the cakes are upside down on the cooling rack, STILL IN the pans. he just took the cakes and turned them over and set them on the baking rack. so i am dying laughing because he obviously misunderstood and probably thought i was insane for asking him to turn cakes upside down after thirty minutes. like how could that possibly help things.

another conversation. and this is just a smidge embarrassing.
me and mark are outside looking up at the sky trying to find the one constellation i know- orion.

mark says, pointing: well, that's north. so then that's east, south and west.
denise: Never Eat Soggy Waffles. if you say it and go around clockwise, then that's how you can know which way each direction is.
mark: do you really need an acronym to figure that out?
denise: well how do you figure it out?
mark: BECAUSE I'VE SEEN A MAP BEFORE

garden begun.

2009-04-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

so as many of you know, last year mark and i planted a garden which failed miserably. we reaped zero fruit of our labors. but, let's be honest, there wasn't much labor. we basically threw some seeds in the ground and watered them like once a month. lol, what were we thinking. anyway- over easter weekend mark's family came to hang with us and help us tremendously in repairing our broken fence and building a new garden. below you have proof that i actually did some of the work.this photo was taken right before mark corrected my form in hammering nails. as you can see i was holding the hammer at the very top which was obviously incorrect.

so here's what it looks like now:

and here is mark with his best friend :-) (his nephew isaac.)

2009-04-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

This guy is unbelievable.

funny things mark has said lately

2009-03-06T21:11:00.001-08:00

me: good morning

mark: i had a dream last night that another girl hit on me...and i was like, whoah, jesus loves you, but i'm married

me: what are we gonna do when mary comes in town to visit us? we need to have something fun to do with her

mark: we could go downtown to that museum, discovery place. i think they have like a kids fun zone or something.

me: mark, mary is in college.

me: what's wrong

mark: i just got stressed out because there were piles and piles of dishes in the sink and i had to wash them all before we went out of town for the weekend

me: well, you didn't have to wash them

mark: (throwing his hands up in the air in despair) and that is a fundamental difference between me and you

updates

2009-02-27T06:17:00.000-08:00

so mark told you i have gotten into 24. yes, this is true. we watched the whole first season in basically a week or two. but what he did not tell you is that he also likes it and is obsessed with one of the main characters- tony almeida. when i call him he answers the phone, "almeida." and then when i call to ask him to stop by the grocery store on the way home, he says something like, "copy that, i have teams in position. we're a go."

another topic-
something i have realized about myself recently is that i absolutely hate doing errands. some people love errands. i do not. yesterday i saw a $27 charge on my credit card from blockbuster. so i call. apparently, i turned in a video 6 days late. now they are going to credit my card back since i turned it in (minus a $1.25 restocking fee) but i just thought to myself, why can't you turn things in on time? i always have library fines on books. i drive til my car is almost completely empty before i will stop and get gas. and if we run out of something at home, say glass cleaner, i will most likely take a few months to replace it. why? i hate errands. i hate spending time driving to walmart or the post office or the video store. (there may be more to it...like laziness?) anyway. i explained this to mark and after i was finished, he said "getting gas is not an errand."

the flying biscuit

2009-02-11T13:26:00.001-08:00

this morning i went to the flying biscuit for breakfast with my dear friend staci. at 10 am. on a wednesday. it was actually packed and i wondered, do any of these people have jobs? but we were there too, so they must also work in libraries or hospitals or places of that nature. so it was AWESOME. if you live in charlotte and haven't been, you should. i got an oatmeal pancake with peach "compote" whatever that means. then when we were leaving the server said, would you guys like coffees to go? yes. and then she brought us like 20 oz to go mugs of coffee. which we sat at the table and drank for the next 45 minutes.

it was a delight.

24

2009-01-31T09:59:00.000-08:00

Denise is really into 24 now. A little delayed. Although I didn't start getting into it until last season. We now stand before an inevitable marathon of veg-ing out on 6 entire 24 hour periods to catch up with the current season. There's a part of me that doesn't wish to undertake this grand adventure. While at the same time, it is so hilarious to watch Denise cringe, writh, and wince at every move Jack makes.

We started with the first 4 episodes last night. We'll see what happens with this. At least we know Jack survives, and Tony Alameda. ha

Well, I need to run, I'm hanging out at AAA Automark and they just dropped a 234.00 bomb on me. Come on Murphy, leave me alone for just a second!

Flan

Amazing stuff

2009-01-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

merry christmas

2008-12-20T20:17:00.000-08:00

so i really tried to get a christmas card out this year. i L-O-V-E christmas cards and am very thankful for all of you who sent me one. mark and i even took the above photo and i was going to upload it to shutterfly, make a card, mail it out, etc. but we are busy and it didn't happen as planned...so consider this your christmas card from us :-)

a story. the other night mark and i were laying in bed and he has his eyes closed, is drifting off to sleep but he says to me, "will you sing me a song?" and i almost died laughing because he sounded kind of pitiful and has never asked me to do that before. i started singing, "..miss independent, miss i'm sufficient, miss keep-your-distance..." (which for those of you who don't know is an excellent kelly clarkson song) but mark goes "stop! stop!" i thought he just didn't like my song choice but then he goes, "i can't believe this is happening to me. i mean, i've always heard this existed but i've never experienced it for myself." i was like, "what?!" and he says, "tone deafness. i never knew it was real. but that's what you have." he then proceeded to try to give me a music lesson. he would hum a note and then he would make me try to hum at the same pitch. this went on for about 20 minutes and finally we decided i was not making any progress and i would just have to live with this condition.

sky mall

2008-12-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

so, i was recently on a trip in which i spent 14 hours getting from charlotte, nc to providence, ri. during part of that time i sat on the plane out on the runway for an hour or so. i didn't have anything with me to read so i ended up reading Sky Mall for about two hours. i'm sure many of you are familiar with sky mall. it is a catalogue of endless, ridiculous items that you can purchase right there, while you're on the plane. if you're not familiar with it, picture oriental trading company meets brookstone meets the word of faith healing movement.

i will mention just two items that i read about in sky mall. the first, and most appalling, was a hooded sweatshirt. but first a little background information for the product- according to the advertisers, it has been proven that positive words can alter the consistency of water. Therefore, if you were to wear a sweatshirt with positive words all over the INSIDE of the sweatshirt, it would alter the consistency of the water inside you, and you, being 2/3 water, could become a completely different person. the sweatshirt was selling for $79.99. i cringe to think of anyone actually purchasing this and i am basically infuriated at the idiots selling it.

#2 from sky mall: a personal size microwave, complete with a handle, that you can carry with you everywhere you go. do you ever want to reheat your coffee or pop a bag of popcorn, but don't want to get up from your desk to do it? now you don't have to! oh wow. i think the advertisement should've read, do you hate people and want to avoid them at all costs, so much so that you'd rather not go to the breakroom to reheat your coffee on the off chance that you'd run into someone? are you too lazy to get up from your desk for five seconds? this product is for you. (okay that might be a little harsh, i know some of you, including my brother in law Ryan, are probably actually interested in the personal microwave. but still. come on.)

to the makers of sky mall: you are ridiculous.

bach-ing tonight

2008-11-18T18:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't been a single man in awhile but tonight I'm re-living what its like to be batch-ing. Denise is out of town for a theology/academic conference and I'm home taking care of the house. I was worried tonight about Denise, she had to wait 3+ hours to get on a standby flight at the Newark airport alone, while I sat helpless in Charlotte at a network association dinner listening to the guest speaker talk about self-defense and the threats we will encounter during our lifetime. This was a completely random topic for this kind of event, had little or nothing to do with construction, but of course, the night my wife is alone and distant, I get to sit for 45 minutes and listen to heinous acts of violence in Charlotte.

I love Denise very much. For all others who love her, I am privileged with seeing her in an out of all kinds of elements as her husband. She is the most interesting person I've ever met, and I like to meet people. She is incredibly book smart, and has amazing common sense and intuition, both areas of which I am weak.

She is so honest and real with her feelings, I never have to worry about her being fake or sly with me. If she's holding a grudge, she'll recognize it and tell you so, which doesn't necessarily mean she's going to let go of that grudge right then and there...but she will.

She has exponentially increased in her tendency to forgive. She has learned to forgive herself since she's been thinking about the gospel full-time for school, and as a result, has been able to forgive others quick.

I really have received a gift.

And now I'm motivated to exercise my constitutional rights with a gun, get back into boxing, lift weights, and protect this gift the Lord has given me. The guy said tonight that criminals expect you to freeze when they threaten you, and he said that your best response and best tactic is to use your brain and think. Meaning...think fast to figure out how to get away, and/or fight back.

-Mark

i voted

2008-11-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

so today i voted. who did i vote for? cherie berry. i just cannot bear the thought of stepping onto an elevator and not seeing her face staring back at me on the elevator door.

on another note, my voting experience was awesome. it was about 1 mile from my house and it took about 5 minutes. that was a pleasant surprise. i had packed like four hours worth of stuff to do in purse just in case. but it was not needed.

a little story

2008-10-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

so the other night i made chili for dinner. i called mark from work and told him i had made chili and that it was in the fridge and he should heat some up for dinner. later when i got home i asked him how it was and he was like, oh it was so awesome. great.

so the next day i went to make pasta and i was like, where did all my spaghetti sauce go? i could've sworn i had made a lot more than what was there, but i was like, oh well, i guess this will be lightly sauced.

so then later that night mark came home and we were going to have the leftover chili for dinner. i get it out of the fridge and start putting it in bowls and he leans over my shoulder
and says: um..the chili i ate last night did not look like that.
denise: what do you mean? this is the only chili in there.
mark: no, what i ate was in a small blue container.
denise: mark, that was spaghetti sauce.
mark: i ate spaghetti sauce for dinner?

and we died laughing. he had literally eaten a bowl of spaghetti sauce for dinner. not meat sauce, just plain, tomato sauce. i was like mark, i asked you how it was and you said awesome. he said, it WAS awesome.

my recent letter to our senators

2008-09-23T18:04:00.001-07:00

Dear Senator Dole/Burr,

I don't know if you'll actually read this but I'm contacting you in regards to the economic relief issue you're working long hours to understand and remedy for our country. As a Republican voter and supporter for NC I'd like you to know that I am against the government stepping in to relieve these companies.
As a child, I was disciplined for things I did wrong, which taught me to change my behavior and do things the right way the next time. If we bail out these companies, practices similar to theirs will continue to be practiced, in different manifestations as soon as they are allowed to function again. If we let the companies die, I am willing as a citizen to let that affect me financially in order for the American economy as a whole to be disciplined and reformed. We are much better off disciplined and free than spoiled and controlled. Let's learn from history and let the collective aggregate knowledge of the "Invisible Hand" work under God's direction and sovereignty.
This is all the power I hold, to simply write to you and make my voice, maybe, be heard.

Sincerely,

Mark Flanders

more conversations

2008-08-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

mark: what's with everyone in the olympics getting caught doping? how can they live with themselves, having everyone think they are olympians when really they are cheating
me: i guess they just figure everyone does it. everybody cheats. i mean, remember that bobsled team that the coach got caught putting weights in the front of the sled, or something like that?
mark: that was cool runnings.

mark: did you know rainn wilson has a podcast?
me: who is rainn wilson?
mark: dwight. from the office. he writes about books and like, people who write books.
me: you mean authors.

me: what's wrong? (mark has been trying to write a long paper for a few hours and he looks frustrated.)
mark: i'm not smart. i'm just not smart. do you think i'm smart?
me: well....you're well-rounded.
mark: so you're saying i'm fat.

(next scene: i am laying on the couch because i accidentally fell asleep in the middle of the day and slept for 2 hours. mark comes bursting inside the house and jumps down on top of me on the couch. so he is giving me zero time to ease into waking up.)
me: ugh...go awaay...you're ruining my shalom.
mark: your shalom?
me: yes- my shalom. my peace. i had peace all around me until you came in here.
(keep in mind i have just been sleeping and my mascara is now smudged underneath my eyes and my hair is frizzy and dented.)
mark: you sure don't look like shalom.

you smell terrific

2008-08-22T16:24:00.001-07:00

mark does this to me almost every day when he's sitting out on the porch reading and i am inside cooking. it's still funny.

setting goals

2008-08-13T19:07:00.001-07:00

I'm having to write my goals in six areas for my "Foundations for Ministry" class:

1. Spiritual Formation
2. Relational Health
3. Integrity of Character
4. Personal health and well-being
5. Vocational Experiences and Competency
6. Ecclesial Connections

Its hard. Whenever I'm writing goals down, I have to avoid a lot of optimism and steer more towards practical things I will actually do. I've written 10 pages on all these goals and after finishing, I'm laughing inside because my first goal should be that I actually look over all this work again.

I'm going to try to get Jarred J. and Josh A. to help me follow through on some of the specifics that I've set.

One of my personal health goals is to eat one bad meal per week. That is probably the most difficult goal I've set. To be honest I've been convicted several times over the past few weeks over the verse, "their god is their stomach." Philippians 3:19. I used to fast, I haven't fasted in a very long time.

Anyways, I'm sure you've heard the saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." Well, thankfully I was assigned to plan, but try writing down some goals yourself...

Denise has written down a goal, tracking daily her grocery budget. She challenged herself by knocking down the previous month's expenses for groceries 25% and she's on pace now to make her goal! Its such a little thing, but its added a little fun to our day.

"Do it, do it."

2008-08-04T18:24:00.000-07:00

me and mark have had a few funny conversations lately. i think i've told some of you about them, but for the others, here's what we've been talking about lately:

mark: you are really one in a billion, you know that?

me: thanks. what are you gonna do if i die?

mark: uhh, probably wait a few months and then start looking

me: a few months??

mark: a few...years?

me: i thought you said i was one in a billion

mark: yeah, that means there are like 6 or 7 other girls just like you

(next scene. we are driving. mark is driving slow as usual.)

me: mark, why are you going five under?

mark: i'm trying to go the speed limit

me: don't worry about the speed limit, just drive.

mark: that's the wrong advice. i know the wrong advice when i see it, and that's it.

the next one is actually me and emurr.

me: i think i want to work in an orphanage, like in haiti or guatemala or something. but i've never worked in an orphanage, so i don't know what it's really like or if i'd be good at it.

emurr: you know there's an orphanage in charlotte

me: an orphanage?

emurr: yeah, a real, live orphanage

me: i think they're called children's homes

emurr: whatever, there's one in charlotte.

also, here's a story from mark's office. they apparently hired a guy to do mark's job before they hired him but the other guy didn't work out. mark's co-workers said the kid would like disappear right before meetings and just not show up to stuff. so they started calling him waldo, as in "where's waldo". but they just started calling him that and he would be like, why are you guys calling me waldo, and they'd just laugh and say, "cause that's your name!" one day they actually taped a where's waldo poster to the door of his office. these guys are like 50s-60s. so needless to say, waldo was fired and mark was hired. and the bar was not set too high. their nickname for mark is ned, as in ned flanders, the crazy neighbor in the simpsons. so we were at a knights baseball game with mark's company this weekend and they kept calling him ned all night. well when we were leaving, one of the guy's wife said, bye, nice to meet you ned. and her husband started dying laughing and he was like, no honey, that's just his name at the office. his real name's mark. we just call him ned. she goes "oh." i think she had never seen the simpsons and it did not make any sense to her why they'd call him that.

my cousin Will

2008-07-23T19:18:00.001-07:00

Will is pretty impressive when it comes to sports. I played with him this weekend quite a bit and he is almost as good as me when it comes to golf. Here's a video of him in action!

Notice a certain quote: "Past the women's.." where Will remarks that he hit the ball past the Lady tee box. We had made it crucial in our game that day that each man hit it past where the women tee off from. Thought you'd like to know that....

2008-07-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

isaac ryan bunch

2008-07-14T19:06:00.001-07:00

isaac, bored with us

with uncle mark

with uncle david

with dad :-)

so this is our nephew, who was born last thursday and who is adorable. mark is in love with him and today when he got home from work he was acting really weird. when i asked what was wrong he said, i miss isaac. and then he said that he wants to have kids. i asked him when and he said, like in two years. so i said, okay we will talk about it then. and then he got upset that melanie and i painted over the baby room so that i can use it as a guest room now. but, seriously? should i have left it baby blue with airplanes all over the walls for the next 2 years and 9 months?

it looks great now- it is kind of a mango color. the exact color is titled "apricot surprise." i will take a photo for you all manana.

ps. i am really trying to enforce the baby calling me tia mercedes. everytime someone says, look isaac, it's aunt denise, i say, uh hem...it's tia.

Labor pains

2008-07-10T00:41:00.001-07:00

It's 3:45 am on Thursday morning and I can't sleep here at the hospital. Denise is asleep on the floor next to me in the chair and my mom and cousin are trying to sleep. I had starbucks at 8pm and I'm still feelin it, I think being in a brighter-than-day hospital waiting room is contributing though.

Amy is at 4 cm, which I didn't know before but one has to reach 10cm of contraction before actual delivery begins. I can't imagine, I know guys we've always tried to hold on to the equivalent pain level of getting hit below the belt but really, think about that rush of pain for 8-16 hours in waves every 3 minutes guaranteed. Now I'd most likely tap out after the first 2 waves. Just knowing that another one was coming would make me cry like a sissyman.

Anyways, watching Amy a little here, a little there has made me think of the part of scripture where Paul says, "my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!" (Gal 4:19) And I wondered how short our life is, compared to eternity, like 9 months in the womb to an entire lifetime. This life, and all its pains are only for a short while, we need to do now what we won't be able to do then, and do those two things (witnessing and trusting) by looking forward with hope to the next existence promised to us.

I told Denise tonight that sometimes I picture the heavenly scenes and think of the huge gatherings / concerts we'll participate in and how Jesus will occassionally appear as the lead guitarist or blow us away with an amazing drum solo. I enjoyed last Sunday's sermon Driscoll gave about how we will hear Jesus sing at the great wedding feast of the Lamb. Looking ahead to these days has helped me see the joy I have in Christ during those monotonous days, the ones where you can sometimes feel like a waste of space as far as kingdom building/disciple-making/prayer-full days go.

Come on Amy...you can do it!

it's july

2008-07-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

hi, i don't have much to say but thought i could update you on our lives. we are in summer school right now- taking one class each and mine is over on friday and i cannot WAIT because i will have august off from school so i will just sleep in every day and then lay on the couch eating potato chips all day. not. i will work. but this class that i just took was amazing and so helpful to my life and thinking. it was called cultural apologetics and was about understanding the culture around us so that we can better share god and the gospel with it. i have numerous resources to suggest to you from the class. these include the books: unchristian by david kinnaman, total truth by nancy pearcey and religious literacy by stephen prothero. i think i need to do a post about total truth because i learned an awesome lesson from that book, but i'll have to write it later when i feel like thinking. (i literally just finished writing an 8 page paper)

mark's sister is about to have a baby and we are so excited! we are going to have a nephew. just call me tia mercedes. (that's spanish for aunt denise.) also, in family news, mark's brother is about to get married in two weeks which we are also really excited about because it is about dang time (just kidding if you're reading this) and we are getting a new sister-in-law that we love!

some things i want to do this summer that i have not done yet are to paint my front door red and my shutters black. right now they are green and green. i do not think mark wants me to undertake this project because he thinks he will end up doing all the work. we'll see. i also need to paint our guest room which we now call our "baby" room because it has airplanes painted all over the walls for a baby boy. however, we do not have a baby boy, nor will we in the near future, so i want to paint it either a light green or mango color.

guess who

2008-06-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

we haven't posted in a while. so i thought you'd enjoy these fun pictures. some of my faves.

Bad week for:

2008-06-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

The Week magazine puts out a list of "Good week for..." and "Bad week for..." every week. Here are a few of this week's.

Bad Week for:
Hoarding, after a Massachusetts apartment building burned down because of fumes from 45 gallons of gasoline stored in one couple's apartment. The couple, police said after arresting them, were trying to save money by stockpiling gas before the price went up again. (okay- this could have actually been me and mark. we were talking about doing this the other day.)

Political protestors, after rumors spread that Denver authorities plan to control unruly demonstrators at this summer's Democratic National Convention by unleashing a new infrasound weapon that makes people poop in their pants. For security reasons, city officials will not confirm or deny they've acquired a "crap cannon" but say their crowd-control measures will comply with federal and city requirements.

And this is my new favorite magazine.

unchristian

2008-06-04T16:19:00.000-07:00

so i have a book recommendation. i had to read this new book called "unchristian: what a new generation really thinks about christianity...and why it matters" for a class at gordon. it is by David Kinnaman who is the president of the Barna Group, which is a research company that a lot of you have probably heard of. if you have heard a statistic on religion, morals or spirituality lately, it was probably determined by these guys.

so the book- kinnaman has basically spent the last 3 years doing research and surveying hundreds of thousands of Americans to find out what they think of christians. people surveyed were asked, among other things, what words describe Christianity. The top 6 responses were as follows:
1.hypocritical
2.too focused on getting converts
3.antihomosexual
4.sheltered
5.too political
6.judgemental

(not in that order, that is the order that he discusses them in the book. number one was actually antihomosexual.)

so the book is EXTREMELY interesting and has been extremely helpful for me in thinking about myself, how i treat people and how the church treats people. if you are in ministry at all, i would suggest buying it now.

one funny thing from the book that i have to share-
In their surveys when they asked twentysomthings outside the christian faith to identify the best-known Christians, the top 5 answers were:
the pope, 16%
george w. bush, 13%
jesus, 9 %
billy graham, 7%
mlk jr., 6%

when they asked twentysomethings who are christians, their top responses were:
billy graham 29%
george w. bush, 17%
mlk jr., 8%
jesus, 7%
mother teresa, 7%
mel gibson, 7%
james dobson, 5%

according to christians, mel gibson is one of the most famous christians of all time. just behind jesus and mother teresa.

what my darlin has on ebay

2008-06-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

Check out Denise's ebay spots...

Guess Shoes

Rehearsal Dinner pair

Banana Republic

She's so savvy. I need to take lessons eh?

why are man hole covers round?

2008-05-16T12:14:00.001-07:00

answer: because man holes are round.

this post is on behalf of the fitness couple. it is taken from the reliable source of wikipedia. my favorite is number 8.

The question of why manhole covers are typically round, at least in the U.S., was made famous by Microsoft when they began asking it as a job-interview question. Originally meant as a psychological assessment of how one approaches a question with more than one "right" answer, the problem has produced a number of alternate explanations, from the pragmatic and satirical ("Manhole covers are round because manholes are round.") to the philosophical.

Reasons for the shape include:

1. A round manhole cover cannot fall through its circular opening, whereas a square manhole cover may fall in if it were inserted diagonally in the aperture (A Reuleaux triangle or other curve of constant width would also serve this purpose, but round covers are much easier to manufacture.)
2. Round tubes are the strongest and most material-efficient shape against the compression of the earth around them, and so it is natural that the cover of a round tube assume a circular shape.
3. The bearing surfaces of manhole frames and covers are machined to assure flatness and prevent them from becoming dislodged by traffic. Round castings are much easier to machine using horizontal boring mills.
4. Circular covers do not need to be rotated to align them when covering a circular manhole.
5. Human beings have a roughly circular cross-section.
6. A round manhole cover can be more easily moved by being rolled.
7. If an automobile rolls over a dislodged manhole of another shape, the sharp corners could puncture the automobile's tire, whereas a circle doesn't have corners.
8. It's easier to dig a circular hole.
9. Tradition
10. Aesthetics

Other manhole shapes can be found, usually squares or rectangles. Nashua, New Hampshire may be unique in the U.S. for having triangular manhole covers that point in the direction of the underlying flow. The city is phasing out the triangles, which were made by a local foundry, because they are not large enough to meet modern safety standards, and larger triangles cannot be found.

control + s

2008-05-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

i don't have much to say but i wanted to get that jesus camp bumped down a little on the screen. so i'll tell you something weird about myself. among the many other things that i do not trust in this world (like how manholes were allegedly made round for a purpose. i mean, yeah right.) is "control + s." or in my case, since i have a mac, it is "apple +s." i do not use apple + s because when i do it, i see no results or confirmation that my document has actually been saved. so every time i do apple + s, i also go up to my navigation bar and click File -> Save. Only then do i feel the security and peace that my paper has actually been saved. To make this OCD even worse, i have a fear that my computer will crash at any time and i will lose my work, so i email like every single draft i do to myself. that way, if it disappears from my computer, it's still there in cyberspace.

jesus camp

2008-04-27T09:50:00.001-07:00

Anybody seen this movie? I watched it last night, its 1:20 minutes, so its a quick dip. My thoughts are still very primitive in development about it but overall I was a little disturbed over it. I felt angry too at the adults who are defining their success and effectiveness over how the kids react to their challenges and sermonettes. I may be off-base but I sensed a TON of pride present in the leaders and parents and didn't at all think that they were walking humbly before God. I tended to side with the radio show host who was appalled by the entire topic, but had an interesting discussion with Denise after about how we would raise our kids. For example, I think I would try to tell them equal amounts of argument for either side of evolution and creation, but in the end definitely make sure they knew what I believed and why. In the movie, the parents would only explain how ridiculous evolution is and that "we believe the Bible, so creation is true." Now I agree with that statement but I believe also that we should explain out of humility and an anti-fundamentalistic attitude, the concrete reasons why the Bible is true and authoritative, and also why teleologically, ontologically, and fundamentally creation is easy to believe. www.dictionary.com

I think what I've learned from seminary also is how important it is to know what issues are worth contending for and what issues are worth being diplomatic about. The people in this movie more resembled Muslim extremists than Christians. I know that's harsh but watch the movie and tell me what you think. In your comments, send me a link to your blog.

And lastly, 6 year olds, speaking in tongues, is always a little freaky to watch, especially with Indie-film-esque music playing in the background. I'm not saying I don't think people should speak in tongues, I pray that I would, but that they should do so either privately, or do so for the edification of the body as found in I Corinthians 14:22-24, I Cor. 14:39-40. Well actually, I'll save you some time:

I Corinthians 14:22-24
23 So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? 24 But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all,

I Cor. 14:39-40
39 Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues. 40 But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

I have more to say, but Denise is schooling me with studying. So I'll possibly get to write more later.

Flan

what are you eating

2008-04-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

so i came home the other day and caught mark eating this snack. i said, gross, what are you eating? he goes, bread and butter. like it's no big deal. except it was like fifteen slices of cold butter on a piece of bread. basically an entire stick.

i have a dream

2008-04-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

it has long been a dream of mine to one night, when everyone is asleep, to go throughout the world and change all of the car make and model stickers on everyone's cars and just switch them all around so that when you wake up in the morning, your acura is now a honda and your infiniti is now a camry. i figure, it would be too much work to change them back and most people would forget what cars are which anyway. i think this would be a good socialist, leveling-of society type thing to do. as in, sorry lexus owner- your lexus is now a kia.

anyway, i literally think about doing this at least once a week, but i think i've found two people who have already done this! there are two guys that live at the top of our street and i drove past their cars this morning and was like, no way. both of their cars are ROYAL blue, which is not an appropriate color for a very expensive car. the "lexus" sedan looks an awful lot like a honda accord and the "mercedes" suv looks a lot like a ford escape. could this really be happening? could they have bought affordable cars and just switched the car make stickers? maybe i'll try to get a photo so someone else can help me decide.

a dream that my uncle patrick has is that the three named people (John Michael Montgomery, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Michelle Geller, etc.) would fight the one named people (Cher, Bono, Madonna, etc.) in an all out brawl. maybe his dream will come true too.

stuff christians like

2008-04-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

www.stuffchristianslike.net - this is hilarious. go ahead, peruse. included in his list are: side hugs, getting people to like us, kissing dating goodbye, donald miller, chic-fil-a and slowly turning against oprah. wuahahaha.

the wonderful analog world

2008-04-04T18:15:00.001-07:00

So the other night Denise and I are simmering down afer a long day at work and we decide to give the ole' tv a shot. Presto. Channel 111 yielded an old episode of "The Office". Yes, we had found CBS. It was a little fuzzy so we pulled the tv out of its cave and lengthened the amazing antennas to 4 feet! We then sat back and watched FREE tv. Unreal this feeling is.

On another note, I witnessed while driving on Albemarle road a showdown. 10:00pm. One big man, two cops. Out of my peripheral, I see the cops jump the big guy, twice the size, easy, of either cop, tackle and wrestle him to the ground trying to get cuffs on. The big guy shrugs them both off like a leather jacket and proceeds to beat both cops in the face and ribs as I'm on the phone with Denise, speechless. Thankfully, one cop pulls a tazer and fires it into the large scary man and he starts jolting. I've never seen a tazer go off but its loud, and for a second I thought the cop had just shot the guy!!

Then, the unthinkable, the big man gets up with the tazer wires hanging from his back while the cop is pulling his electro-stunner trigger trying to subdue him. Big hoss starts hitting the cop again! This is totally going to be on a cops episode next year. I had to go after I saw this part of the standoff, to my chagrin but I didn't read or see any news about two beaten or dead cops today. So that's good. All in all let's just say that I felt a little burdened to pray for those two cops, knowing they both probably got kids at home. Unbelievable job?

Its one thing to watch two drunk white dudes fight but when there are cops involved, and weapons, it definitely effected me all day today. But hey, its not about me. Just thought it was interesting how I couldn't get the violence out of my mind when I'm surrounded by it in movies. What must it be like to experience that? Wow.

no socks

2008-03-26T14:33:00.000-07:00

so i have to tell this story. for the last few weeks mark has been dropping not-so-subtle hints that he wanted me to buy him some dress socks. (since he wore carharts and tennis shoes every day at his last job, he has never needed dress socks and he probably owns like three pairs) so anyway, every night for like two weeks, we'd be getting ready for bed, and he'd go, man, i really need some dress socks. and i would say, why don't you buy some. basically he wanted me to do this errand for him. but i never did. so the other day he was getting ready for work and didn't have any clean socks, so he wore his boat shoes, without socks, thinking that this would be fine. he gets to work and basically all of the guys there let him have it. they're all in their 50s or 60s. they were like, mark, did someone tell you it was casual Friday or something? and, are you looking for the flooring department? (because apparently the guys don't dress as nice down there) then later they were in a sales meeting and at the end, the guy leading the meeting asked if anyone wanted to recognize anyone else- meaning for a job well done. and one of the guys goes, i'd like to recognize mark flanders, for not wearing any socks today. so basically mark left the office that day, drove to tj maxx and bought some dress socks. and he said the lady who was the cashier looked down at the socks and looked back at him and said, i have never in my life seen a man buy his own dress socks.

remember this?

2008-03-23T18:58:00.001-07:00

this is for everyone who was at this party two summers ago. for those who weren't- a bunch of us were hanging out and all the sudden, (is it 'all the sudden' or 'all of a sudden' or 'all of the sudden'? who knows. it's a doggy dog world.) mark went into the pool and started splashing around like he couldn't swim. our friend mason stripped down to a speedo and ran, jumped in and "saved" him. the video's a little dark so it's kind of hard to tell what was going on. but it was hilarious.

welcome to the neighborhood

2008-03-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

well, we are now living in the new house and getting adjusted to living about thirty minutes away from all our friends. i would say that being farther from friends is the only negative i can find to living here. our neighborhood is awesome and has some quirks. one being that the city does not pick up our trash because we do not pay city taxes so we had to hire an independent trash pick up service. "he's an independent communications consultant. which means he's unemployed." (what movie?) anyway- our trash can got delivered the other day and i went out to look at it and on top it said No Hot Ashes in huge letters. But I thought it said No Hot Asses. Which I thought was hysterical and laughed at for about ten minutes. Yesterday we also received our first issue of "The Cambridge," which is the neighborhood newsletter. It's basically two sheets of white computer paper that asks if anyone wants to be in the neighborhood watch program or rent the clubhouse out for a birthday party. It does however, offer advertising. A full page for $50. One of the two full page ads in the "newsletter" was for Aflac insurance, purchased by our next door neighbor Joe Gussman, who is very northern and also very nice. Sidenote: the other full page ad was for an Allen Tate agent who listed all the homes in Cambridge that are for sale right now. So if anyone is interested in moving...let me know. So anyway, Mark and I are reading the newsletter together last night and he's like, "Awesome! Business card ads are only $7.50. I should put one in." And i was like, for what?? And then I realized that he has about thirty businesses he needs to advertise. Golf ball sales, GypsyBug.com, used laptop purchasing, and the list goes on.

we are LOAN owners!

2008-02-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

Mark here to say that we now have a place. You're all welcome anytime. The closing wasn't as crazy as I thought it was gonna be. The "stack" of papers people must sign was hyped up a little too much. Maybe it wasn't so bad because I had been practicing my signature...

Denise said I needed to do a better job of expressing my feelings on the blog...haha. I'm not laughing at her, but with her. But, to honor that request, and not to write mere itinerical entries I'll tell you a little about my feelings.

I feel like we're moving to the promised land. This is what I wrote in my Bible this morning while reading Leviticus. I laughed at myself b/c I'm ridiculous but I am just so grateful for how the Lord has provided for us. He has performed some of those freaky financial things for us that you hear about during "sharing time". He's really been faithful. And secondly, just the fact that we've been in this transition mode from this apartment to the house for about 2 months now its just really begun to wear me out. So I can't wait to open those boxes!

The Lord has really lifted me. He is so great and big. My language is so inadequate. Reading about these great leaders in our church history class has humbled me and made me realize how little I have done. (i mean, there are dudes in the reformation period that baptized over 100,000 people!) But that's where the Lord has filled me with joy, because I realized that I am only a worshipper, not some guy who's got something to prove or do. So that's helped me focus on him, and his greatness, the way he allowed those men to rough him up and laid his hands down to be nailed. Its so different from me, I use all my energys to save my own life, to make myself look/feel good. He aggressively lost his own life. That was his mission.

If you want to get a more clear pic of this, listen to Matt Chandler's podcast on his present series of Luke, he has totally re-opened my eyes to the way Jesus lived with the sole purpose of dying to himself. UNBELIEVABLE new stuff I've never heard.

Matt Chandler - the Village Church podcast

the famous redwood

2008-02-24T18:29:00.000-08:00

oh my gosh, i just found this picture on mark's computer. he must be documenting the growth of his redwood. (which by the way, has now moved from the windowsill in the front of the house to the laundry room where there is more sunlight.)

unmazing

2008-02-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

i think i invented a word tonight. it is called unmazing. it is when something is amazing in a negative way. like i cannot believe he did that, it was totally unmazing. feel free to try it out in your own conversation.

"secular" work vs. ministry

2008-02-19T13:28:00.000-08:00

so i thought i'd write my thoughts about our first class too. (denise) i basically was falling asleep about 2 hours into the 8 hour class when mark nudged me to wake me up and then wrote $325 on the sheet of paper in front of me. as in, that is how much money i am wasting if i sleep through this class.

so, anyway. my biggest takeaway from class was when Dr.Rosell said that he thinks one of the biggest problems in the church today is the false idea that there is such a thing as the division between the secular realm and the spiritual realm. the idea that if one man is a doctor and one man is a pastor, one does "secular" work and the other does "ministry." he believes that the bible does not at all teach this and that humans made it up. i think it's interesting because so many people i know hate their jobs because they don't see a ton of purpose in them. they are bored with work, always want to be doing something else, or can't wait to retire. but what if they saw their jobs as ministry? so often people who do regular jobs are told that they are doing ministry when they use the money they make to support missionaries, or use their homes to host bible studies. but that is not what i'm talking about. what if we all saw our 9-5, Mon-Fri jobs as our ministry. and i'm not talking about evangelizing all day at my company. but there are tons of ways to do ministry within a workplace. i heard a quote the other day- "A Christian is someone whose life makes it easier to believe in God." How can I live, speak, pray, think so that this statement is true about me?

i guess some people may still hate their jobs because they are just wrong for them. but some people, including myself, might start to find more joy and purpose in what we do. if we could erase this idea of a secular and spiritual realm, there'd be no yearning to retire early so we could just do ministry the rest of our lives. no- our lives are purposeful right now. as someone in class said, "All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests." the levites were one of the 12 tribes of israel called by god to be set apart from the other tribes. some were the priests, some were not- they had other jobs and other obligations. and they were just as "called."

okay, last thing- and this has nothing to do with the above. i want to write about the movie "To End All Wars" but i don't want to give it away for people who haven't seen it. so this is just a heads up- i'm giving you one week to rent it. after that, i'm spoiling the ending for you on here.

Gordon

2008-02-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

We had our first weekend class and what a joy it was for me...(Mark) I absolutely loved it! It was the first class in which I have sat for 7 hours listening to any lecture and not blink. I didn't even want to take notes because I tend to miss what the speaker communicates if I write it down. So I watched Denise take notes..haha.

Dr. Garth Rosell was our teacher. He has been teaching this class for 40 years. Unreal huh? He is extremely gifted, he made me want to re-read the 100 grueling pages again because I felt like I had missed something.

He not only just told us dates, but helped us process the implications of what Martin Luther wrote, and helped us see how insanely disciplined John Calvin was despite his life of sickness.

I don't know I just really soaked it all up. What topped off the weekend was a great night with Aaron (O'Hare) my best friend, and Stacy his girlfriend. We loved eating with them and then fielding Aaron's barrage of questions about what the definition of a church is and what qualifies as a church and what should happen in a church. It was something he had been chewing on and wanted to get our thoughts. I loved it. I learned a lot, about what I just expected, and also what really is.

We'll see you guys next week. In the meantime, check out my "bots". (blog-on-the-side). It's a little experiment. www.flandaddy.blogspot.com

we love u.

Name your terms...

2008-02-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

ok...so my efforts were futile on the last blog announcement. So here we go. If you will follow through and sign up for one of those offers...most of them being free...then leave a comment here outlying your terms for me to "scratch your back". Be it a dollar or two. Or a co-operative sign up to get you your stuff. I signed up for Drew (my cousin) yesterday and got him his referral and it was free for me.

So post your terms here, or email them to mflanders15@gmail.com. I'd be happy to return the favor. Or you can just do it out of the kindness of your heart :)

remember click here: Get your TV or cash reward.

So now here's the blog entry:

Denise is asleep on the couch, taking a nap before our little party at Joe's tonight. She has been a magnificent wife to me this whole month. So here's my brag list. She has cooked me 15 meals in the past 20 days. She has kept our house PRISTINE because we're trying to get it rented by March. She has made cakes for the guys in my small group, the one last night being a chocolate/buttercream/mocha cake!!! She has not once "nagged" me to do something, when there were lots of things I needed to do. She smiled and was super pleasant to be around, during her headaches ya'll, I would ask her how she feels and she would laugh and say, "uh, gotta headache", I'd then be blown away at how she had been smiling and paying attention to me. When I get a headache, I want to shut down my whole world, its pathetic. And lastly, she has encouraged me daily with her rising 3 hours before she has to be at work to read her Bible. And she looks like she enjoys it from her cozy little setup every morning.

So really, I'm blessed and have thanked God for her many days this month. So for any of you doubters out there...Denise is my nominee for wife of the year.

Scratch my back

2008-02-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

I'll scratch yours? I'm trying to get this tv for the new house. It's free totally if I just do a little work. I signed up for the free ringtones offer and now I just have to get 20 of my friends to sign up for one of these offers. Help me out? Then shoot me an email on somethin you're working on and I'll get on it.

Thanks guys, I really want this tv so I can have something decent for ya'll to watch while I grill out for you at the new house. cha ching. Here's the link.

42" Plasma TV

just another vid

2008-02-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

we bought a house...

2008-01-31T04:20:00.000-08:00

...and now we are broke. but we are happy. here's a little preview-

we signed our contract last night and we close on february 28. if anyone is interested in renting our place starting in march, let me know. :-)

video entry eh?

2008-01-27T20:01:00.001-08:00

Husband.

2008-01-21T18:13:00.000-08:00

(loosely inspired by Jason Cowan's "Wife.")
Husband. He’s very weird.
He’s growing a redwood tree from a tiny, pinecone looking seed that he found in the redwood forest and then protected for a WEEK until he could get it home, put it in a red coffee mug, and sit it on the windowsill. This morning, he walked over to the window, pulled up the shade, leaned down, and said, “come on little redwood.”

Sometimes I want to melt with how genuinely childlike he is. My car is consistently an absolute mess. One day he tells me, “Hey I made up a song that I think will really help you.” It went, “Bring in one thing from the car, next time it won’t be so hard.” He sang me the song in complete seriousness.

When he gets up in the morning his hair is completely insane. It is matted down and up in like five directions. If he happens to not take a shower that day, he will actually leave it that way well into the day.

If he gets antsy or feels like he’s been around all women too long, he’ll drop to the floor and start doing push-ups. If someone asks why, he’ll say something like, “The estrogen was just getting to me.”

His mom has told me when he was young, it was like he was the president of his own little country. Once, he got his brother and sisters to “play church” in the living room. He proceeded to deliver a “sermon” (at age 7) and then he asked them to put their heads down and thumbs up if they wanted Jesus to come into their hearts. If they did, they could have communion. If only there were a home video of this.

He’s very gentle.
In the morning he wakes me up because I basically refuse until the last possible second. He’ll pick up my arms one by one and rub them “to slowly get the blood flowing.” Then he’ll leave and if I still don’t get up, he’ll call me from downstairs and tell me it is crunch time.

He always makes the coffee. He always cleans up after dinner. He always says “You’re beautiful” and “I love you.” Whenever we argue or hurt each other’s feelings, he refuses to let it go without talking about it. He forgives easily when I am the one who wronged him, and he apologizes quickly when he is the one who wronged me.

He is very patient.
There are about a million things I do regularly that get on his nerves. These include not washing the spatula that I used to make my eggs with in the morning, overreacting, and repeating a point over and over when he got it the first time. But he doesn’t freak out or remain perpetually angry with me. He just says, one more time, “Oh look, here I am cleaning the spatula again. If only someone had washed it this morning, it would be a lot easier to get this crap off.”

a dime a dozen

2008-01-18T19:00:00.001-08:00

what is up with the expression "a dime a dozen?" you CANNOT buy a dozen of anything for a dime. you can't even buy a dozen pennies for a dime.

a few road trip photos

2008-01-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

me and kal and stac inside a giant redwood tree!

climbing up a mountain on pfeiffer beach in big sur, california. the view at the top was amazing.

rocks on pfeiffer beach

me and mark on the coast of big sur, california

long rides...Sunday thru Tuesday

2008-01-11T00:38:00.000-08:00

My inspiration...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Duj_g0WuQF8

and once more...trying to impress the ladies...

Sunday morning we awoke and checked out and found that they charged us the normal amount, so either my reasoning worked, or they just gave us the discount to as not to receive a bad review. We left in good spirits as we climbed the last leg of the road to the GC when we realized that because of the snowfall, and the heavy fog surrounding us, that we probably weren’t going to see jack. We reached the top and could see absolutely nothing. Bummed a little we went inside and looked around for some silver lining. We found a cute breakfast place and sat down. We prayed and thanked the Lord for all he’d provided so far and then asked him for a slight clearing of the weather so we could see what he made there. We finished breakfast and walked outside to find that we could see about a half mile where before nothing. We thanked the Lord and hiked around. Absolutely gorgeous.

After that we drove on into California, after passing through the Mojave Desert which was an experience, see http://www.shawnandkalle.blogspot.com/ for details. But we arrived in the evening at Joshua Tree National Park. Unreal rock climbers paradise. We got to our campsite just in time to catch the sunset. We ate hotdogs and s’mores and played 20 questions where the boys stumped the girls on these two items: “crossword puzzles” (Shawn) and “heat pad” (Mark). We went to bed at 8:30 just because it felt so late. We got frosted on and woke up at 6:30 to catch the sunrise. Jumping around on these rocks was so much fun. My back was feeling pretty good thanks to prayers from friends.

Leaving from there we went on to LA where just outside we stopped for an In and Out burger, introducing 3 of 5 members of our party, namely the girls, to the goodness that lies inside. They loved the fries especially but loved everything, so I’m proud to know them. (even more) We stopped at Autozone and got some help replacing the flasher relay in Shawn’s jeep. With everything running an hour later we got back on the road and pushed hard through 5 o’clock LA rush hour traffic, not recommended. We now have been driving for about 4 hours and are trying to figure out if the mess we’re driving through (rain) is what we’re going to camp in tonight. Hopefully we’ll find some cheaper accommodations? Will update in 24 hours.

Our Seattle Trip...Friday n Saturday

2008-01-09T16:22:00.000-08:00

On Friday after work we piled into Shawn and Kalle Stinson’s cars and headed west. Our first stop was in Memphis, pulling in around 12:45am. Thankfully one of Shawn’s friends hooked us up with a nice place to sleep. We woke up and went to breakfast at Brother Junipers’ where we were assured our stuff would get stolen out of our cars. Thankfully, the Lord protected our stuff as we watched our cars while eating in the infamous Memphis.

Our next stop was yes, Amarillo, Texas. We beat George Strait to the punch and made it to “Amarillo by (morning)” by nightfall. After a big Texas meal, that proved to us that NC bbq is world’s better than Texan bbq, we slept and woke up to Arizona. Arizona is a lot bigger and just went on and on. We were on I40 all the way until here where we broke north for about 60 miles to see the Grand Canyon! It started to snow while in Arizona and ended up with 18 inches. We put on the 4 wheel drive and got to our hotel. The guy tried to charge us 20 bucks more than previously revealed on the phone. I reasoned with him for about 5 minutes during which I learned how I can lose an argument to someone who doesn’t argue back but just says the same thing over and over. I need to adjust my skills.

more to come...

rejected!

2008-01-02T14:58:00.001-08:00

Hey ya'll. Well we heard back a lot quicker than expected. I'm a little sad but we tried! Our offer was too low and the bank was already negociating a closing date with some chump who offered more than we did. Oh well. We're starting over. It was fun though! I still reccommend low-balling. We'll keep you posted.

We made an offer!

2008-01-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Quick update...and I'm realistic that no one has probably been checking to see when the next post was going to be but I (Mark) wanted to use my day off to blog a little. We met our realtor this morning and made an offer on the REO (bank owned house) in N. Charlotte! We asked for 25% off the price they have it listed at. I know, it sounds crazy but we don't mind getting shut down or no response, cause' hey, if we don't find anything else, we'll bump up our offer slightly and try to get them to take the bait. It was a pretty cool way to start 2008. On your comments, if you so choose, put your link in to your blog. I'd love to learn.

my first words...

2007-12-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. Its' Mark, I'm blogging for the first time ever. Not sure what to say except that today we're going to look at a bank-owned home in North Charlotte. I have this obsession with getting a house that doesn't have major issues and working hard on it to get it up to what it could be really worth. So its not flipping, but I guess its kind of like making your home, without the price tag. We looked at the house today with Denise's parents. Her Dad, Paul, has worked as a home builder for 20+ years so it was great to have his input. They think its a lot of house for us, 4/3, (bedrooms/baths) but its such a good price! We could turn that sucker around. Its exciting but I want to pay close attention to their wisdom and also to the Lord. Proverbs 24:6 says, "for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory." If anyone knows, Solomon does.

In related news, I start my job at Bonitz on the 14th after our trip to Seattle. I'm ready for a challenge and to learn a new industry and career. I can't wait to learn how to sell better and also how to put together my own projects. I'll be selling ceiling tile bids to contractors. Hoping they'll use our guys to solve their ceiling needs.

Lastly, just wanted you guys to know...the book I'm reading right now, What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper is unbelievable. It is broken down to chapters on all the commands Jesus had in the four gospels. The way he writes the scriptures into his prose is almost natural as if he's inspired himself, haha. I've found it to be a book that is discipling. I've learned so much and have been compelled by the Spirit while reading it to confess my disobedience, and then ask for his empowerment to carry out his commands. It is key for going deeper into this invigorating reality that is Christ resurrected. I want to use it to teach and disciple others as well. More to come....

Call us Flan

2007-12-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know if we'll be able to keep up as much as we'd like to but we knew that if you wanted a quick update on our life and say didn't have the chance to call us up and talk for an hour then you could always just hit our site and learn.

So here's a few quick updates-

After talking and praying about our future ministry and the possibility of moving to Asia, we have decided to stay in Charlotte for now. We love the people and the culture in Asia and sharing the love of Christ with them so bad, but we don't think it's the right time. We keep praying for the Lord to send us. :-) But for now, we consider ourselves missionaries in Charlotte and it's fun and challenging to have that mindset in the place you've lived in for years.

February 1 we are both starting seminary at Gordon-Conwell in Charlotte. We are both nervous and excited to go back to school. But we are totally excited about learning and being challenged and trained. It's a nights and weekends school, so we'll both continue to work. Mark at Bonitz (a new job he starts in January) and me at the YMCA where I've been working the past year and a half.

Kalle and Shawn, two of our best friends, are moving to Seattle in January. We are very sad to lose them to the west coast but we are thrilled for their adventure and for the 9-day road trip we'll be taking with them out west as they move. Staci is going with us and we are excited for the road trip across the country!

Mark's older sister Amy is pregnant! There will be a new little baby in the house as of the end of June and the family is totally excited. (I feel like I've said "excited" about thirty times in this post. I need to get a thesaurus out or something.)

That's the big stuff for now. Merry Christmas!