RAMBLING ABOUT BOOKS AND MOVIES

Saturday night, we went to the Drive-in. Opening Coyote Drive-In last summer was one of the best things Fort Worth has ever done. It's one of my favorite places to go. Even if you aren't into movies as much as my husband and I are, I still encourage you to check it out. They have a big covered sitting area and Canteen that's perfect for hanging out with friends during nice weather. Saturday they had little fire pits spread around for those not so nice weather days. They usually have live music and lawn games to entertain yourself while everyone waits for the sun to go down. This winter they even opened an outdoor ice skating rink! All that and your choice of TWO movies (they have 3 different paired options) for $8! I don't even get paid to promote them...I just love it that much. So, seriously, you should go some time.

As I was saying, we went to the drive-in Saturday night and saw this little movie called "Divergent". And "300:Rise of an Empire".

Divergent was awesome. As a non-reader of the books, all of it was new to me and I was very intrigued by the whole Faction system and thought Tris's character believably developed through the course of the movie. I am definitely excited about the future movies and consider myself already a big fan of the series. However, I did feel like there was a lot more information I needed, that is probably in the books and didn't come across as well on screen, such as a more in depth look into the system and each faction, and also the love story. I feel like Tris and Four went from "What makes you think you can talk to me?" to "I love you" out of no where. When she uttered those words, I literally thought "What?? I thought it was just getting to the 'we kinda like each other' part of this relationship". It just didn't develop enough for me for what I think they were ultimately supposed to be to each other. I know books create more of those connections because you are inside their heads and know what they are thinking and feeling and that's harder to get across on screen.

So that brings me to this...

Anyone who knows me even remotely knows how much I love to read. Like really passionately LOVE books! There's not too many earthly material things that make me happier than getting a new book. With that being said, I rarely will watch a movie and then choose to read the book. I feel like it ruins the imagination that comes with reading for me. I'm no longer using the words and imagery to make the story in my head, but instead the scenes from the movie. Only twice have I watched a movie and immediately thought "I need to read it". First time with Beautiful Creatures. And now with Divergent. Both times because I felt like I needed more. Honestly, since watching it Saturday I have become a little obsessed- downloading the faction symbols as my phone background, stalking the author on social media, even taking all the little quizzes to see which faction I would be in. So it is no surprise to me that 3 days later I have the entire trilogy set. I can't wait to get started!

Happy Reading my friends!

Oh- PS- my review for 300? I honestly couldn't tell you anything significant about it or even how it ended. That boring.

CHURCH, CAVEMEN, AND CHANGES

Exciting day here in Caramville. Yes, I said it...go with it. 

Sunday is weigh in day. Proud to say, I am down another 2.2 pounds this week, bringing my total loss to 13 pounds, since starting Paleo a month and a half ago. Chris is down 14 pounds! It's just the start and I can't wait to see how much more successful we will be as we continue this lifestyle.

I've had a lot of people asking me about Paleo and exactly what it entails. I am obviously not an expert or any sort of nutritionist to explain the science behind it. I am just a beginner and can only share my experience with it thus far. As well as the research I did before I decided it was for me. I gave a very brief summary of it before and how I connect to it. I found a couple infographics that simplify and describe it pretty well for anyone who is interested in knowing more. Y'all know how I like visual learning. =)

Today is the day we also officially became and were introduced as new members of Eagle's view Church in Saginaw. God led us here almost 3 months ago and we already feel so much a part of the family. We have made so many connections and met so many great people. We feel so blessed to have found such an amazing church home and look forward to what God has in store for the future of EVC.

Next week, we conclude the series "Labels" that we have been doing the last couple 

months. I have learned so much about what the Bible says our identity is Christ is versus what the world may say that you are. If you click on the logo above, it will take you to our website and their is an option under media to listen to the current sermon series. I encourage you to check it out.

Our Wednesday night LifeGroup has been doing a series called "The Reason for God" which is basically a pastor talking with a group of atheists, non-believers, etc as they present their questions/concerns with the Word of God. Not necessarily for the purpose of how to witness to them, but instead it really makes you dig into the Word to understand what you believe and why you believe it. Instead of just taking everything at someone else's word. We also just joined a new Sunday night LifeGroup where we are beginning "The Explicit Gospel". All in all, very excited for the things I have been learning and what I will continue learning.

Lastly, as you may have noticed, I changed the bloggy-blog up again. I think I'm finally satisfied and will be keeping it. For a bit. Let me know what y'all think.

ART JOURNALING AND CUTTING DOWN MY TIME WITH GOD

I'm not sure if I mentioned it here on my blog or not but one of my goals going into this year was to study the Word of God. Not only with the quick daily devotion where I devote a whole 2 minutes to God out of my entire day, but truly STUDYING. I decided to start with Genesis and just work my way through the Bible, chapter by chapter, dissecting as I go and seeing what God had for me to learn. I am not following any sort of "Read your Bible in a Year Plan" or anything because I do not want to feel rushed or that I absolutely had to get "this much" done. No time limits, no skim reading to finish, just God teaching me. So with the excitement that comes with all new goals, I promptly got started on researching different methods of study, bible marking, etc and came up with a system that works for me. I created my own color-coded Bible marking key (to pacify my OCD before making random marks every where and "ruining" my bible in my mind), pulled out my awesome NLT Parallel Study Bible and trusty KJV, and made the goal to do my study at least 3-4 days a week (on top of an actual daily devotion). In addition to the reading and marking, I decided to take notes on each chapter I read, as any good student would do. Because I learn visually and by writing things down, my note taking has morphed into a Bible art journal. I write, I doodle, I color. I am not an artist by any means but I love it! 

The whole process usually ends up taking a couple hours at least, and with that being said, I have not been as faithful to it as I wanted when I excitedly set my goal. In all honesty, I just picked it up a couple days ago for the first time in probably a month. I'm only on Genesis 13 and we are 3 months into the year, to give you an even further idea of how much of a slacker I am. I found myself thinking "If I could find a way to cut down the time, then maybe I could be more consistent". But the more I thought about my "process", (For those of you wondering...I read the chapter in my NLT and then my KJV. I use my coding key to mark my KJV. Then I read the study notes in both bibles for that chapter. Lastly, I do my journaling for my study.) the more I realized there's not one part of that I want to cut out because it all fits into the way I learn and retain. Then another thought slapped me across the face- How SELFISH am I? I easily spend 2 hours reading, watching TV, etc almost every day. But my first thoughts when it came to God's time were "How can I make this take less time?".

As I did a friend's hair this week, I was listening as she talked about dealing with the transition of being a parent to young children to being a parent of adults who no longer need you to "mother" them. She explained how frustrating it can be to only be in the loop of things when your child needs something or even just calling to vent their frustrations and hard times. Not frustrating because she doesn't want to be there for them in that way,(Let's be honest, we all just wanna call Mom when we have a rough day) but because her desire is to be included in all the happy, every day occurrences too. She went on to say how she wanted their time. Not because they stood to gain anything from it or because it felt like an obligation, but simply because they wanted to enjoy time with her. As I thought about the conversation later, I thought about how great a comparison that was to our relationship with our ultimate parent, God. 

God just wants a little of our time. Not only when we are going through a hard time and need his help, not only when we need a favor, not only what we have left over at the end of the day week month- in my case. He wants us to talk to him about the good things. He wants us to spend time with Him, not out of obligation or fulfilling some "Christian duty", but because we WANT to. 

Too many people think "God has the entire population to worry about...He doesn't care about my little day to day things". Wrong. The Bible calls him our Father for a reason. He does care. So instead of thinking of ways to cut down my study time, of getting it "out of the way", I need to enjoy that time with my parent because I love him. Because He loves me more than I could ever fathom. And because I am honored and humbled that He cares a whole lot about spending time with me.

A SEASON OF CHANGE

Wow. So obviously I'm not the best at keeping a blog. So many things I could try to blame that on- lack of anything to write (except I think to myself at least once a week "I should blog that"), too busy, my computer is super slow (it is, but I just got a new one this week!), etc.- but it comes down to one simple thing...Laziness. I simply never want to put in the effort on the nights I am actually home to write a post. Maybe now that I have my fancy, super fast, really cool computer- Shout out to Apple MBA!- I'll be better. No promises. 

Let's play catch up in the life of Tiffany. Here's some of the highlights since last time. 

Sadly, our beloved maltipoo, Oliver, has gone to live with another family. One of those "for the best but still really hard" changes. He really needed to be somewhere he was rarely left alone or at least left with another dog or something because of his severe separation anxiety. There were A LOT of tears (notice the puffy face in this picture taken that day), but he is just with the most perfect family who loves and spoils him rotten and we still get to see updates! 

We have since adopted a cat. Callidora "Callie" Caram is our newest furbaby. She has been quite a change but we just love her. She is a completely defiant little princess who loves attention.

A happy, fun change is I got a new car! Hooray!

Also, after months and months of praying and trying to make sure it was God's plan, we started the journey to look for a new home church. We were soon led to Eagles View Church in Saginaw and have been growing and learning so much through the current "Labels" series. We have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the people through our Newcomers LifeGroup and our Wednesday night LifeGroup.

And lastly (that I can think of), a month ago Chris and I switched to the Paleo lifestyle. If you have no idea what that is, this guy can explain it better than me. But basically, it's eating the way our hunter-gatherer ancestors did pre-agriculturally. For me personally, it connects in the way that everything we need has been provided for us on this earth. For thousands (millions?) of years, our bodies were accustomed to eating from this earth rather than from a factory. It's not a "diet" (Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc) or just about weight loss. It's an overall diet lifestyle that has many health benefits. Anyways, does that mean I'll never have a Braum's hamburger or cheesecake ever again? No. But so far we have really enjoyed it, without feeling deprived, and have been pretty successful. Now I just got to get back into running. Anyone wanna buy me a gym membership? =)

And that's basically where we are now. Changed and still changing. Life has really been in a season of change lately. Not only for myself, but for a lot of those around me. Today, as I was thinking about the things I wanted to pray about, it hit me how all 3 of my older sisters are going through pretty big life changes right now. One is in the process of adopting two precious babies, one has just become a stay-at-home and homeschooling momma, and one is going through a divorce and making the transition to a single mom. So as I prayed for each of them this morning, I was thinking about how life is ever changing. Sometimes these changes are planned, sometimes unplanned. Sometimes they are good, sometimes bad. Sometimes God has set us on one path, just to lead us to another. And sometimes we just take a little detour along the way. Regardless of the change or the circumstances behind it, our faith becomes important and must be strong. Change, even when it's good, can still be hard. We just have to remember that God has a plan and is in control. He knows more than we do about the long run and as long as we are seeking Him, He will guide us where we need to be. So I encourage you, if you are also going through a season of change, to hold on to that.