Guest post- A hero is what you make of them

Regarding heroes I made this picture of people that fascinate my in movies. These
are my favorite actors put into one picture. Now this is quite a large group of people
for a topic on heroes and I would probably only consider one or two of them people
I Idolize, but the point is there. I chose actors specifically for this post because the
serve my harmonic paradox perfectly. You see maybe only a handful of these people
are good enough people in real life to be able to consider them heroes, but what they
play often in the movies are people you can connect with and adore. What I wanted
to say with this post is simple this. What is it that your hero does for you? It doesn’t
matter if they were good people or if they got everything right, because sometimes
the best heroes are the ones who didn’t always get it right. But the thing about
heroes that make them heroes is this, first, what did they overcome that you feel like
you can’t. Then second, what is it about their character that attracts you to them.

The first is a fairly simple, but is the strongest part of knowing your heroes. One of
my favorite heroes is my grandfather who passed this past February because he
lived a life seeking God. As a writer and as a youth with my future ahead of me, it is
very often times difficult to want a God seeking life for myself, when it means I have
to give up my ambitions to him so that I can better follow him. Now God will help me
through my youthful ignorance, as he has many times, but it is important to me to
have my Grandfather as a hero.

The second is a little more complicated and where I get a little bit weird. My heroes
that I like because of character traits are probably William Wallace, Edward Teach
(Blackbeard) and Aang (Avatar the last Airbender). Now there are many friends
and real life people I see as heroes as well, but I figured these would be easier to
see and explain. Now there are not a lot of similarities in these characters, but their
biggest quality is manifested in three different ways and that quality is what I like
about them. That quality is strength. Being a brother of three sisters I often see
myself as a weaker male compared to some of the roughed up, manly guys my age
and that is a self-consciousness I deal with a lot, but there is different manifestations
of that quality in my heroes as I said. In William Wallace there was a strength to
lead, and a strength to inspire. He was a leader of leaders and he was courageous
above all else. Then there was Edward Teach (Blackbeard) he was a brute, but he
was a smart brute. He was power in its most raw form and he wielded it well. (even
though he did so rather greedily and it became his downfall.) Blackbeard was a
powerful man and understood the power of fear. (That I only find interesting, I just
like his authority not his evilness.) Then there is Aang, He is the most like me in the
sense he takes the peace-keeper qualities when he meets confrontation, but he also
understand and uses his power very decisively. He is precise and he is disciplined in
his strength and that is what I love about his character.
Now I poured into this far more than I intended to, but I hope that you can take

something away from it. You should know your heroes and know why they are your
heroes, because knowing ones self and knowing what your inner goals are and what
your strengths and weaknesses are can help you to be the best person you can be.
What I really want you to get from this is that a Hero is not the person who shares
your interest, that is what friends are for. Heroes should be someone that above any
reasonable reason you like them because there is something about them that makes
you want to be better.

Thank you Rebekah for letting me guest post and I hope you all enjoyed
my little post and picture. Please feel free to check out my other writing at
www.myimaginativescribbles.blogspot.com, would love to have your comments.

Sincerely, Rhett

P.s. (From Bekah) I wrote a post for Babywearing International (VA-MD-DC chapter), and it should be up on their blog in the next day. Check it out- http://beltwaybabywearers.blogspot.com/

Shaky

For those of you who have not heard (or do not know that I am in the DC area) we had an earthquake around 2pm today. First thing I want to say, is that though the media definitely has over reacted (just like it does for anything) I disagree with the people saying that it was not a big deal. If you compare the quake to Japan, or even those in CA, it was fairly minor. But if you compare the quake to the East Coast's history with quakes, and especially DC, you will find that it was quite a big deal indeed. When it happened, I was in the living room sewing and watching a show with my little brother. All of a sudden the house started shaking (slowly) and I thought it was our dryer. (Our dryer will sometimes shake things on the top floor) As the amount of shaking grew and grew I thought the dryer was going bonkers. When I was about to run upstairs, things started falling off of shelves, and I realized that this was NOT the dryer. At this point my thoughts were quite amusing.... (all thought in about five seconds)"If it's not the dryer, what is it? It feels like an earthquake. I have never been in a earthquake, how would I know what one feels like? Ok, this is definitely an earthquake. But there aren't earthquakes in DC. Ok this is DEFINITELY an earthquake, out of the house!" I grabbed my youngest brother and ran out of the back door, while screaming to my 14 year old brother "It's an earthquake! Get outside RIGHT NOW!!" Now the back door leads to a porch, that overlooks our backyards (and has no stairs down to the back yard.) As the porch starts to violently shake, I think to myself "If this gets any worse, will it be safter to jump off the porch or run 30 feet through the house to the front yard?" (Note to self: Next time a random earthquake happens in DC, and you are running for safety, try running to a door the leads to SOLID GROUND!) Riley finally makes his way onto the porch just as things stop shaking, and says "Nice job going out to second story porch during an earth quake Bekah." Ha ha I know, I'm a genius right? ;) (Yet another side note, I LOVE our neighborhood. As soon as I ran onto the back porch, I heard tons of neighbors yelling to see if anyone needed help and if everything was ok.) (Just to clarify, all of the last paragraph happened in about one minute and thrity seconds.) I got back inside, and of course, get on Facebook to see how many of my friends also felt it. Well it's officially about 30 seconds after the quake and there are already 5 status' up asking if other people felt it (I love FB :) I then google the quake and find an article from USA today saying that the Pentagon and Capitol were being evacuated, and that it was 5.9 in magnitude. (I LOVE google more...  the news (on TV) took 5 minutes to change over to quake news!) Then I start trying to call my mom to let her know we are ago (she was out of town) and my sister to see if she was ok. It ends up taking me an hour to reach my mom and almost two hours to reach my sister. So, there is my story, wether you wanted to hear it or not ;) It was quite the exciting day, and I am so thankful to God that no one was hurt, and almost no damage was done. (A couple things broke, but for the most part, every thing is looking good here!)

As I have been thinking a lot about the quake, I realized just how wonderful it is to have a stable God. I mean, our lifes have "quakes" all the time. And sometimes I find myself running onto back porches that sway instead of solid ground (God.) I keep wanting to write an article on God's faithfulness through all times. I don't have time right now, but hopefully I will soon.

Thank you all of my wonderful friends and family who called to make sure I am alright. I feel very loved!

P.s... we are having a guest post tomorrow from my good friend Rhett over at My Imaginative Scribbles. I can't wait!

~Rebekah

Cooking for ten-And other random things

These past few days we have been hosting a family of 9 at our house. I had a blast. I also learned a lot. Cooking for 10 definitely takes some extra time, and a little extra effort. But I found it to be very fun.  The first night I made two different types of Frozen lasagna and some baked yellow squash and zucchini. The second night took a little more time, but I found it much yummier (besides, I always like to cook as fresh as I possibly can!) The second night I made lemony steamed chicken with asparagus and sweet potatoes. The latter two were easy as I just tossed them with some olive oil and salt and then baked at 400 (with the chicken for about 20 mins.) The origin of my thinking came from this: recipie. I wanted to make fish for dinner, but when neither of the two stores I went to had good looking fish, I decided to go with chicken breast. I basically used the a couple of different ideas and threw them together. Here is what I did. It was simple, easy, and oh so yummy!

Take the chicken breast and cut two slits in it so that you can stuff some spices in.
I used these spices:
Chopped onion (fresh)
garlic (I didn't have any fresh)
Parsley
a sprinkle of paprika
generous amounts of lemon pepper
salt
some olive oil
and a squirt of lemon juice.

I placed it on a foil square, and rubbed all the spices in, then I folded the square up around the chicken to make a sort of packet, and then I stuck it in the oven at 375. (About 35 minutes for the boneless, and 50 for the bone in.)

A few other things I learned while cooking..
if you are wearing a shirt with ruffles on it, when you eat crumbly foods (like popcorn, rice and cupcakes) make sure you dust out the ruffles. ;)
Cumin is wonderful for coloring things, even when you don't want them colored. Like your white shirt, or your white stove, or even your beige floors. And Cumin takes a LONG time to scrub out. So beware next time you put your Cumin towards the front of your spice cabinet.

The spices

 The table before

 And after

And just a picture I liked :)

~Rebekah

Little eyes, little ears.

I remember growing up, thinking that one day I would get to drive. I remember looking up to anyone who could drive as someone who was "really mature." Even when I was 15, I still thought that people who could drive were cool. They were the "ones to be". Now that I have my license, my perspective has changed a little. Just today, a ten year old girl asked if I could drive, when I replied yes, I have my license, she was like "Wow, that's so cool! Your so lucky. I want to drive." It reminded me that not to long ago I was that girl.

The same has happened in so many area's of my life, but the one I see the most is babysitting. All growing up, I LOVED having a babysitter. It meant that we got to spend a fun night with people that spoiled us, and that we got pizza or some other type of treat. We also got to watch a movie, and maybe eat popcorn if we were extra good. Babysitter nights were the bomb.  And the babysitter's were the best part. I adored each one we had. I thought they were the coolest, and I wanted to be them. I looked up to them like no other person. I can still remember LL and KK (a babysitting pair we had, their real names were Lauren and Kelsy.)  who totally rocked at making frozen pizza and mac and cheese. And they read the best bed-time stories. 

But now I am that babysitter. It's my turn to be the expert mac and cheese cooker, and to read bed-time storys like never before. And now I have littles that look up to me, and ask me to tuck them and hold them, and play with them. And I try to daily remind myself that the position I am in is a gift. And that all the little girls that look up to me, they aren't just watching while I make the mac and cheese. They are also watching when I start to lose my patiences with their younger brother, or when I frantically race through a night because I packed way too much into it. And if they come over to my house they are also watching when cut my mom's instructions off, and when I whine about taking the trash out. Little eyes and ears are all around me. And a lot of them think I am cool. 

I want to take this role seriously . This "role" is something little one's will try to copy. And I sure as heck don't want them back talking to their moms. It's not just me that is going to be effected by my behaviors. It's many other's, including those that look up to me. And I want those effects to be good ones. One's that set and example of Christ and His grace and love. 

So a warning to all of you out there-even if you are still young and look up to your babysitter's-be careful and watch what you do.

We have a family with 7 kis staying at our house right now. So that will make 7 little pairs eyes and ears to watch out for!

Strength, Courage, Wisdom.

When I was about 10 years old I found the Serenity Prayer on one of my mom’s old magnets. With my oh so wise 10 year old brain I thought it was the most amazing prayer ever. Though I am a few years older today, I still think whoever wrote the prayers must have been a genius (or really close to God!) I used to keep the prayer in my night stand drawer and pray it at night for people that where hard to deal with. Over the years, the prayers has slowly faded to the back of my mind, and I haven’t repeated it’s oh-so comforting words to myself in at least a year.

This weekend, I got the chance to water ski and wake board. These were some of the most physically challenging things I have ever done. There were quite a few times where I had landed in the water bad, the breath had been knocked out of me, and I was ready to say I am done right there and then. But then I would remember that it was not on my stength I was doing any of it, It was God’s. I would say I wanted to do it all over again, and off I would go. I would get scared when I finally made it up on the water. I was literally flying through the air, and it was exhilarating, but scary. Then I would crash. While I was trying and trying again, suddenly a portion of the Serenity prayer popped into my head. (Don't ask me why) I repeated over and over to myself a jumbled bunch of words that went something like, or really nothing like the prayer (I think it went along the lines of. "God give me strength, and courage, and oh a little bit of wisdom too"). . They were what kept me going (or God working through them) for the next several tries.

After the fun experience of wake boarding, I got to thinking, why did I push myself, why did I keep trying? That feeling that I got, the smile on my face when I finally stood up on the water and boarded for almost an entire minute, that was why I did it. That is why I kept pushing myself. And that is why I try any new thing. I think that is why most people try new things. The feeling of accomplishment, of knowing you just finished something that you couldn’t do ten minutes ago, that is beautiful.

So I will conitue to try new things, even if they scare me. I will continue to ask God for serenity, courage and wisdom while I do them. And will definitely contiue to accomplish things. If I never try, I will never accomplish, and if I never accomplish where would that leave me?

Just incase you are wondering, yes, I am very very sore. Yes, I discovered muscles I did not know exsited, and yes I do feel like an 18 wheeler ran over me. I still think it was worth it though :)

~Rebekah