Today is baking day!!!! See my previous post if you haven't seen the insanity. Anyways, I was super confident and not at all nervous about this GINORMOUS task until yesterday. Yesterday, I bought all of my "wet" ingredients. That's when it hit me. Holy moly.... pray for me.
In the meantime, I would like to show something else that was a ginormous task that turned out beautifully. I use Photoshop a lot at work. Crop people out, paste people in, erase facial or complexion issues, put someone's head on someone else's body, sit someone in a chair when they were originally standing.....you name it, I've done it. My latest feat is this beauty:
That photo right there is for my monthly magazine that I design, edit and produce or our office. That photo right there is actually 4 photos (yes, FOUR photos) meshed and molded together. I could not have asked for it to turn out any better. I kind of want to print it out and hang it on our refrigerator like you do with the artwork you're proud of when you are a kid. I wonder if Mitch would mind......
I had to run an errand at lunch today that look longer than expected. Therefore, I didn't have time to go home and have lunch so I had to grab it from a fast food place. I parked in a local store parking lot and just thought while I ate and listened to Air1.
It has really been a weird couple of days. All around me it feels like the world is rapidly declining and evil is trying to prevail.
I don't normally chime in on politically-infused comments people make on Facebook. I don't like confrontation and I don't like to preach to people. However, yesterday a girl I knew from highschool posted a status that said something to the effect that she hopes all Chick-Fil-A's burn to the ground due to a very public statement the owner made. If you are not familiar with it, click here for the full article.
I was not even aware of this matter until the girl from highschool brought it up. I chimed in on the post simply to bring up a contradition, not to start an argument.
"I respect that you have your opinions on this. However, the owners of Chick-Fil-A have never hidden that they are Christian's and Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin. So you're expecting people to respect your opinions and beliefs but you aren't offering that same courtesy for others? I normally don't chime in on things like this but it gets frustrating that everyone is such an advocate for homosexuality and gay marriage. If people choose to be advocates thats fine. However that does NOT mean that we as Christians must agree with you. You have the right to say what you want and believe in what you want so why should it be any different for anyone else?"
This turned into a very ugly debate. I truly believe that all of my comments came from God on this because as I stated before, I would not normally participate in things such as this. I don't like to be hated. I don't like people to think I'm crazy. God moved me to speak though. This girls husband and I were pretty good friends in Junior High. His brother was very active in this conversation and accused me of "using my god as a crutch and an excuse for hatred and intolerance". I was told that the Bible promotes racism, among other things. I was never rude or accusational in any of my responses. Her brother-in-law was very rude however and repeatedly deminished the love and power of my God and accused me of being stupid. Eventually, the girl asked me to stop posting and cease the conversation.
I don't know why, but this entire conversation left me with a sickening feeling in my gut. For the first time I actually felt like I was ready for Christ to come back so I could be done with this world. I'm not saying that I haven't always been looking forward to that, but yesterday was the first time I just truly felt a sense of dread and felt some sort of impending doom. This world is becoming a sad, sad place. The majority of the people who participated in this conversation are so turned around about who God is. Some even go as far to call themselves Christians. I won't judge their hearts and souls, but actions speak louder than words.
Then this morning I woke up and checked Facebook (because I'm kind of lame like that) and saw a status that a friend posted about his truck being broken into and computer equipment stolen. Then, I turned on the news and heard about the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado. Our world is filled with such evil and horror that it is sickening. There is a huge spiritual warfare battle raging right now.
In all honestly, even with all the bad things that have happened over the years, this is the first time I felt really probability of Jesus coming back soon. It seems as though everything is spiraling out of control with this world. It sickens me of what people are accepting and tolerent of in these current times.
My mindset has truly changed this week. I feel a real urgency to further God's Kingdom and live out loud. I feel like too long I've been hesistant to share Jesus with people and invite them to church because I was afraid of what they'd think. Lately though, I am feeling a desperation because of how many friends/family Mitch and I both have that are not saved and are not aware of the love of Christ.
Long story, short. I feel that our time is rapidly waining on this earth. I look forward to the day when I'm in heaven and am surrounded only by the love of Christ and all those who love Him with me. I also look forward to the heavenly body that can eat of the heavenly banquets without a concern about calories (that thought stemmed from what I was eating while reflecting).
I hope you have a blessed weekend and constantly keep our true purpose on earth in the forefront of your mind.
My in-laws are out of town. They are up in Oakland helping Mitch's oldest brother move out of his apartment and move back down to SoCal. Their (previously Mitch's) dog, Toby, is all by himself in the house since their other dog recently passed away. Mitch felt sad for Toby. Mitch begged his wife to let him bring Toby home for the night. Mitch's wife was hesistant. Then Mitch threw out the classic comment of "But you haven't cleaned the floors yet, right?" True statement (I am putting that off until next weekend so they will still be clean when my parents come the following weekend). After more convincing, Mitch's wife agreed.
See, I wasn't really brought up as a person that likes dogs in the house. I like dogs and I don't mind being in houses where dogs live, it just isn't anything I was really raised with. Think that I'm a weirdo, but I slept horrible last night because I was concerned he was going to go to the bathroom in the house (even though he never does that at Mitch's parents). Also, I kept hearing his collar jingle when he moved and it was just added noise that I wasn't used to. Anyway, I guess I don't mind the sacrifice because Toby seemed to have the time of his life. From the moment he got in the house, he was so ecstatic because there was so much new stuff to sniff and explore. He kind of took it upon himself to explore the house all by himself. It was kind of comical.
Yes, that is the amount of miles we just finished driving! We just returned from our two week road trip vacation to Yellowstone National Park and quite a few other places. 12 days. 8 states. 3,276 miles. Is anyone exhausted just reading that? This was our total route:
I've grown up doing these kinds of sightseeing vacations with my family and our fifth wheel travel trailer. Mitch loves to camp too, but he had never done anything like this. Therefore, we loaded up our trailer and headed up to Reno, Nevada to meet up with my parents, my sister and my grandparents (my grandparents don't have a trailer - they drove in their car and stayed at local hotels wherever we ended up for the night).
The first night, we left at night and made it as far as Bishop, CA. We spent the night in a Vons parking lot :) We drove and met up with my family in Boomtown, Nevada (close to Reno) at my dads favorite place, Cabela's. It's similar to like a Bass Pro Shop or Camping World or something of that nature. They have a zillion taxidermy animals in all of the Cabela's. Kind of cool...
Next stop, Idaho Falls, Idaho. This place has a really pretty man-made set of falls running through the center of town.
That's the Idaho Falls Mormon Temple in the background there. Next stop was Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming!
Old Faithful Inn in the backgroud and the crowd building as the eruption draws near
Often when you are in the park, there will be wildlife on the roadway. They do their own thing and there's nothing you can do about it. The rangers don't usually disturb them either. Therefore, experiences such as one we had our second day are not super uncommon. During our second day in the park, we were driving along and then traffic came to a dead stop. Word from the opposing traffic was that there was an entire herd of buffalo on the road. We waited and waited and waited. In the end, it took us just under 2 hours to go 5 miles. When we finally got up to the front, we actually got caught in the midst of it all. My phone was INSIDE the truck the whole time, so this shows you how close the buffalo were. No zoom was used.
After our time in Yellowstone, we took a day trip through the South entrance to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Grand Teton National Park.
In Jackson Hole, I found an interesting item for sale in the window of one of the stores.
After this part of our trip, we were initially going to go north to Glacier National Park in north Montana. Unfortunately and sadly there were two major wildfires up in that area. Therefore, we decided to head east and go to Mount Rushmore. Mitch had never been there either so it was super exciting for me to see him experience it.
This is the original sculpture made that displayed what the carving was initially supposed to look like. However, the artist died suddenly and the sculpture was never completed.
My mom, my sister and me taking an ice cream break at Mt. Rushmore.
Mitch and my dad
Since we were so close to Sturgis, South Dakota, we decided to go ahead and stop by there. Apparently this saloon has its own television show, but I've never seen it.
They have a pet donkey there that just wanders around named Emmit
Our next destination was Wall, South Dakota. On our way there, we stopped at a camping place to buy a couple of things. I didn't get the memo that this was common practice out toward the midwest.
Mitch with a pretty lady at Wall Drug
The HUGE ice cream that my mom got at Wall Drug
Pretty scenery and wildfires. There were SO many burning in each state!
Our next stop was Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. This is the base that my dad was stationed at when he was in the service. It is still an active military base. My dad worked on missles in silos such as this:
While we were there, we heard a plane coming in and it was one of the planes in the Air Force One fleet. That was pretty dang cool to see. Great timing! Props to my sister who was able to whip her phone out fast enough to actually capture a picture of it!
One of our last stops together as a group was Independence Rock in Wyoming. I love going to this place because there is so much history involved. It is so cool to visit a place that you learned about quite a bit in school.
Can you find us??
Shortly after, for practicality reasons, we split off from my family and headed south to go home. In southern Utah, Mitch and I stopped at Zion National Park because Mitch had never seen it. We stayed in a cute little campground nearby.
My freakishly awesome accidentally artistic photo of a tunnel we drove through
On the way home, we were about midway between Vegas and Baker, Nevada. It was 106 degrees outside and miserable. We saw a girl waving her arms on the side of the road and everyone was flying by her and her car. We decided to stop and help her. Her and her marine boyfriend had overheated their car and Mitch is a really good mechanic so he tried to fix the issue for them. Turns out we weren't able to fix it (after an hour of Mitch trying) and they were going to have to tow it to Vegas but we gave them some water and chatted while Mitch was working on the car and then went on our way after they had called a tow truck. We had helped another guy out the day prior who ran out of gas on the side of the road. This is one of the many things that I love so much about Mitch. He is so caring and giving and always willing to help anyone he can. He is a very selfless person.
So after we left the marine and his girlfriend, not 10 minutes later, this happened to us :( Sad day....
The road was just too blasted hot or something. Once again, Mitch had to endure being in the intense heat. Thank goodness he had thought ahead and brought everything needed to change this ourselves so we wouldn't have to wait for a tow truck.
Well, there you have it, a ridiculously long recap of our vacation. It was quite the whirlwind but so much fun. We saw so much and it was really exciting for me to see Mitch experience it for the first time.
