Have you (or anyone you know) ever said that "Jesus Was Just a Good Moral Man, not God"? Well, ya'll, there is a FATAL flaw with this statement! You have GOT to watch my video, peeps, to find out what it is. This is BY FAR my favorite video I've made so far in this series!!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soZZXrOrr0s (Feel free to share this video with anyone else who might be interested in evaluating the facts! :)

Ya'll. I have been missing for about 50 billion years from this blog. I kindaaaaa forgot I even had a blog. FAIL. However, this is so typical of me. Again, you are reading a blog called "permanently at lunch" so you can't be toooooo surprised, amirite? :) Anyway. Sometimes this world seems so freaking crazy. People have QUESTIONS. What type of questions? Well, things like “Was he just a good man?” “Or was he God?” “Was he a lunatic?” HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW????!!!!!! We are talking about Jesus, of course. There is little question that he actually lived. But miracles? Rising from the dead? Some of the stories you might hear about him sound just like that—stories. You might say to yourself, a reasonable person would never believe them, let alone the claim that he’s the only way to God. BUT, a reasonable person would also make SURE that he/she understood the facts before jumping to conclusions. If you truly value your mind—if you truly value facts—if you truly want to evaluate the information, then please watch this series I am doing. And since you know I am goofy as crap and you know me personally, I pray you will just give it a quick watch. No shaming. Just literally talking to you. With all my weird quirkiness and eccentricities hanging out for all to see. I am presenting information from Lee Strobel, a Yale Law School Educated, award-winning investigative journalist at Chicago Tribune who decided to dig up information about Jesus and his life. He began the journey as a hardened skeptic and atheist. But how does he end up after studying the facts? Was he able to find any real evidence for Jesus’ existence and/or God-hood? Don’t you owe it to yourself to actually find out the truth? By the end of his TWO-freaking-YEAR investigation, he personally concludes that it would actually require much more faith for an atheist to maintain atheism than it would to trust in Jesus. I believe he is right, especially after studying the facts. What will you conclude? Lets hang out (online, of course, as you all know I am up to my ears in kids at this point, so if we did it in real life, lots of screaming and poop would happen [by the kids, of course. Unless you plan on screaming and getting poopy. I hope not.]) Strobel interviewed thirteen leading scholars and authorities, asking the tough questions about Jesus and the biblical narrative of his life. Let’s find out what he discovered along the way… (Note: This is a SERIES…so you gotta be patient, peeps, while I make each video. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Especially not with little people hanging on their legs all day. :) The video I have linked today is my 1st video which addresses if Jesus himself thought he was God, or if others made that up about him. I have also already completed an intro video and a subsequent video which addresses the following: Was Jesus Just A Moral Man? How Do We Know? Was he Just A Good Teacher? God? Check out today;s video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT1NYffZqQ8

Ya'll. I have been missing for about 50 billion years from this blog. I kindaaaaa forgot I even had a blog. FAIL. However, this is so typical of me. Again, you are reading a blog called "permanently at lunch" so you can't be toooooo surprised, amirite? :) Anyway. Sometimes this world seems so freaking crazy. People have QUESTIONS. What type of questions? Well, things like “Was he just a good man?” “Or was he God?” “Was he a lunatic?” HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW????!!!!!! We are talking about Jesus, of course. There is little question that he actually lived. But miracles? Rising from the dead? Some of the stories you might hear about him sound just like that—stories. You might say to yourself, a reasonable person would never believe them, let alone the claim that he’s the only way to God. BUT, a reasonable person would also make SURE that he/she understood the facts before jumping to conclusions. If you truly value your mind—if you truly value facts—if you truly want to evaluate the information, then please watch this series I am doing. And since you know I am goofy as crap and you know me personally, I pray you will just give it a quick watch. No shaming. Just literally talking to you. With all my weird quirkiness and eccentricities hanging out for all to see. I am presenting information from Lee Strobel, a Yale Law School Educated, award-winning investigative journalist at Chicago Tribune who decided to dig up information about Jesus and his life. He began the journey as a hardened skeptic and atheist. But how does he end up after studying the facts? Was he able to find any real evidence for Jesus’ existence and/or God-hood? Don’t you owe it to yourself to actually find out the truth? By the end of his TWO-freaking-YEAR investigation, he personally concludes that it would actually require much more faith for an atheist to maintain atheism than it would to trust in Jesus. I believe he is right, especially after studying the facts. What will you conclude? Lets hang out (online, of course, as you all know I am up to my ears in kids at this point, so if we did it in real life, lots of screaming and poop would happen [by the kids, of course. Unless you plan on screaming and getting poopy. I hope not.]) Strobel interviewed thirteen leading scholars and authorities, asking the tough questions about Jesus and the biblical narrative of his life. Let’s find out what he discovered along the way… (Note: This is a SERIES…so you gotta be patient, peeps, while I make each video. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Especially not with little people hanging on their legs all day. :) The video I have linked today is my 1st video which addresses if Jesus himself thought he was God, or if others made that up about him. I have also already completed an intro video and a subsequent video which addresses the following: Was Jesus Just A Moral Man? How Do We Know? Was he Just A Good Teacher? God? Check out today's video here:

Flair for the Dramatic

I don’t know if you’ve gathered this or not yet, but I can have a bit of a flair for the dramatic.

Sometimes, when things change, I can be all ZOMGoodness!, I’M DYING!

Right.

Anyhoo.

This pretty much carries over into every aspect of my life. I can’t figure out if I am dramatic because it adds a certain degree of spiciness to life, or if I am somehow hardwired to catastrophize every situation.

I will let you know once I figure this trash out.

Back to the subject at hand.

I shared the other day that we are adopting (Or rather, opening ourselves up to adoption, and the timing will be left up to the Lord).

Anyway.

As time creeps onward, my dramatic self rears its head.

My mind starts to go crazy:

“What if I never get another moment alone to myself?”

“What if I can’t ever go out to eat again?”

“What if I can’t ever buy myself something again?”

So…I have been justifying doing crazy actions (Does this surprise you? It should not.)

For example:

I bought an entire bag of Cadbury mini easter eggs and ate them by myself over the course of two days. Why? I figured I would never be able to eat something alone ever again. So, classically, I went overboard and ate them all. This makes sense to a rational person, I am sure.

I bought myself two new pairs of pants. Why? I just knew I could never buy myself clothes again because I would buy all the clothes for the kids (This also is rational. Clearly.)

I stayed up until 2:00am. Why? I knew I would have to go to bed early with the kids, so my rebellious self rose up inside me and told me stay up. Did I regret this decision? Yes. I was a zombie the next day at work. And a grouch, too.

Now, while I recognize that I will have to do some cut-backs on my spending, it is not as melodramatic as my crazy brain convinces me it will be.

However, apparently, my husband has caught the same “Oh-my-gosh-we’re-going-to-be-parents-soon” bug too, because he just came home with matching iPhones for us. He said it was necessary as we wouldn’t be able to make any more big purchases after this time.

So somehow I am going to have to reign both of us in. But until I figure out how to do that, I will be here. With my Cadbury eggs. Hoarding them to myself. While calling someone on my new iPhone.

Bizarre People Crack Me Up

Having kids--It’s a weird thing. But not in the sense that you are thinking.

I am thinking more about the weird behaviors of those surrounding the people about to have children.

I have noticed several things about pregnant women.

#1 People think that your personal space no longer is yours. They feel as if they can come up to you at any point and start rubbing your stomach. This is extremely awkward.

Sometimes when I see people being awkward? I like to make the situation even more awkward.

For example: I work with a woman who is pregnant right now. So…people come up to her all the time to rub her stomach. Especially working at a school, many of the kids feel like they can touch you whenever they want.

Therefore, when a 15 year old 8th grader walked up to my teacher-pregnant-friend and rubbed her stomach? I decided I was going to rub the 15 year olds stomach. Without her permission.

She hasn’t rubbed my pregnant friend’s stomach again. :)

(Disclaimer: I do have a good relationship with this kid, and so it wasn’t *as* awkward as it could’ve been. But it DID get my point across!)

Anyway.

Back to my list:

#2 People think that they should give you weird unsolicited advice.

My guess is? The pregnant person would ask for your advice if they wanted it.

And my personal favorite…

#3 People decide to tell pregnant women their HORROR birth stories. Like: “Do you know that when I was in labor, I was in labor for 57 days and at the end I birthed a unicorn zombie child who looked like a troll??”

Pregnant Lady: “Uhhh…Ok?”

So, you might be wondering why I am talking about all of this ‘other-people-weird-behavior-when-someone-is-having-kids’ topic.

Because people are just as weird to you when you are adopting.

Case in point:

The other day I was sharing with someone that my husband and I really felt called to adopt and that we were moving forward with the process.

Do you know their response?

“Oh my goodness! Are you SURE you want to do that? I had a friend who adopted, and when their kids grew up, they MURDERED their adopted parents!!”

How am I supposed to respond to that?

“Um. Thanks? I’m pretty sure that only happens to about 0.0000037% if the adopted population. But thanks for the positive and uplifting story??”

People are bizarre.

For real.

Insanity.

My mom and sister came into town to visit us this past weekend.

As you know, I own two dogs. The yellow one and the black one. My black dog is extremely energetic, while the yellow one mostly lays around in a lazy haze all the time.

My sister also owns two dogs. Her dogs are pretty similar to mine. The first is a golden retriever. Which, it were even possible, is even lazier than my yellow dog.

But also? She owns a golden doodle. I think it would be calmly understated to say that the dog acts like it is jacked up on methamphetamines all the time.

Let me give you an example of how our weekends go when the dog is around.
(P.S. Her dog’s name is Dolce. And my yellow, calm dog’s name is Nala. Keep that in mind.
P.S.S. Dolce is a large male who is the most un-masculine dog ever. His bark and cry is about 30 decibels higher than the sound of nails on a chalkboard)

Me: Hey Sarah! I’m so glad you’re here! Welcome to our… DOLCE! No! Down! Get Down!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry .

Me: How was your trip?

Sarah: Oh, it was good. DOLCE! Stop! Come here!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry.

Me: How long did it take you? DOLCE! Stop licking Nala’s butthole!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry. (Licks Nala’s butthole some more.)

Sarah: It took about 3 hours.

Me: Oh, good. Are you hungry? DOLCE! Stop licking Nala’s hoojoo (aka my word for her private area)

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry. (Comes over and jumps up on me because I told him “no”)

Sarah: Yes, I could eat. DOLCE. Seriously, dog. Stop.

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry. (Jump on Sarah because she told him ‘no’.)

Meanwhile, the other dogs lay around calmly, acting like nothing is going on. We all settle into catching up. However, while my sister, mom, and husband can all ignore Dolce’s crazy actions, somehow I am unable to block him out.

So here is the rest of the evening:

Sarah: How is your job?

Me: Oh it’s good. DOLCE! If you don’t stop licking my dog’s butt I am going to kill you!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry.

Sarah: Here, I’ll hold him over here so he will stop crying.

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry (His thoughts: if only I could get back over to Nala to lick her butt, life would be grand)

Me: How’s your job? DOLCE! Stop crying!

Sarah: Good.

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry.

Me: Why don’t you get this dumb dog neutered? Maybe then he would stop being so obsessed with Nala!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry

Sarah: Because I think he acts like that because he has some dog form of obsessive compulsive disorder or possibly ADHD.

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry

Me: Well, you need to get him some Ritalin!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry cry (Yes! I escaped! First item of business? Licking Nala’s butthole! Oh no, she raised her teeth at me! What does this mean? It must means she likes it! I am going to lick her butt again! Oh no! She attacked me? What does this mean? It must mean she loves me! I love you too Nala! Let me lick your ear!)

Me: DOLCE! STOP LICKING NALA!

Dolce: Cry cry cry cry cry

You might be thinking to yourself: Why do they continue to keep such an insane dog?

Well, he is adorable. And sweet. And I guess that trumps that fact that he is a total moron.




See? All four dogs. Dolce is the one in the sweatshirt. It supposedly helps calm him down. I am convinced that nothing short of a brain transplant will do such a thing.

I'm Finally Back!

Annndddd….rigghhhhhttt. So, HEY! How are you? I’m just grand. I am going to pretend like I haven’t just disappeared off the map for OVER A YEAR.

Wow. I didn’t realize I was that bad.

OOPS.

Anyhoo!

You are probably wondering if I died.

I did not.

You might’ve wondered if I contracted a creepy disease.

I did not.

Or…you might’ve wondered if graduate school finally killed me.

It did. But eventually, I guess I came back to life at some point.

So…where do I start?

I can’t believe I have neglected my poor little blog for so long.

On the upside? I logged into my account today and realized I had written 70 posts before I disappeared. That impressed me a little bit.

Also? I started to read some of my old posts. And cracked myself up. So that’s always positive. At least I make myself laugh, even if no one else laughs along with me. :)

So, what have I been up to you might ask?

Well, here’s a quick rundown of my past year:

1. I finished graduate school! WAHOOOO!! That was probably the most difficult time of my whole entire life, and we will just leave it at that because, hello, this is not a depressing blog.

2. I developed an unhealthy obsession with drinking lattes after my husband bought me an espresso machine for Christmas.

3. I noticed weird spots on my teeth from drinking so many lattes. So, I whitened my teeth back to their normal state with those handy dandy Crest Whitestrips. And…then had to stop drinking my lattes. My vanity won out over my desire to drink lattes. BOO.

4. I got a new job with my new education! Now I work in a low income, high needs school with kindergarten through 8th grade kids. And I love them.

5. Brandon and I are working on writing a book together! “WHAT?”, you might say. I know, it’s crazy. We’ll just pretend that that is the reason I took such a freakishly long haitus from this blog.

6. Brandon and I are in the process of adopting. Another: “WAHOO!”

7. I had to buy “old people shoes” because my back started to hurt from standing up all day. Who am I these days? I have chosen hideous style so I could have comfortability. I have officially crossed over into Lameville.

So see…not everything was doom and gloom around here. Despite my intense burn-out phase after grad school and resulting “I hate school and work” phase, everything else has been good.

My husband is still outrageously handsome and awesome.

I still think I am hilarious and crack myself up.

I continue to believe my two dogs are my children.

And…despite my long break, I still do want to blog.

So people! Welcome me back! Because the FUNNNNN has ARRRRIVVVVEDDDDD . Again. (*clears throat*)

Meh.

I am quite possibly the world’s worst blogger.

When I started this blog, I had grand dreams of magical posts I would make all the time.

Yea…

Those dreams flew out the window.

I apparently was extremely delusional this last summer (when I started this thing).

I think I had forgotten temporarily how crazy busy the semesters are in grad school.

And then I started this year, and clearly the blog posts have been…sparse.

Lo siento, people. Lo siento.

Anyway. I think once I graduate (In only a mere 12 weeks! That’s right, 12 WEEKS and I will be a masters graduate. PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!) , I will be better at posting.

I will probably start Manna Monday up again, and I will definitely begin telling all the wonderfully crazy stories of my life too.

In the meantime, I guess you will have to just be patient with me and my sparseness, as I don’t really see me getting motivation to write more anytime soon.

Does this motivate you to keep reading my blog? Probably not.

Man, maybe I should lie to you.

PEOPLE! I AM GOING TO WRITE EVERY DAY! ITS GOING TO BE GREAT!

Don’t believe it? Well, crap. Neither do I.

I do know that in a week or so, I will have a quite entertaining story for you.

So stay tuned!

More entertainment is coming your way...

In Sickness and In Health

Sickness.

Ahhh, what a glorious thing.

I got back from a 2 week vacation to be welcomed home to a disgusting flu. Was this not exactly why my last post talked about wearing a SARS mask? Exactly.

I had a fever for 3 straight days, and have been lying in bed wasting away for the past 6 days with a deathly and racking cough. YAY! PARTY AT MY HOUSE!

I am under no delusions that I do not look like a homeless and dying rat at this point.

I really do feel bad for my poor husband.

For the past 6 days, he has been welcomed to the overwhelming stank of sickness mixed with greasy hair and overall grossness.

Now if he isn’t attracted to me at this point, I just cannot understand what is problem is!

Come on, people.

Dark circles? Greasy hair? Stank of 11 horses? The makings of a beauty queen.

I am really quite appealing.

Anyway.

I had some time to think in my sickened state.

My husband has been working so hard lately. He hasn’t been able to come home until around 7:30pm, or 8:00pm.

Now, my husband is a teacher. That means his school dismisses at 4:00pm and he has been working 12-13 hour days.

So why the late hours?

Well, afterschool he has graciously decided to tutor several of the students who are falling behind.

Why? Because he’s amazing. And also there’s a cash bonus…that always helps:O)

But also, the state’s annual testing of the kids is coming up soon too.

That means he has to prepare additional lesson plans to the ones he is already writing.

This makes for very long evenings, and a very tired husband.

As I have been sick, I have really been unable to put one foot in front of the other so even though he has had late evenings, I haven’t been much of a support.

As soon as my husband got home yesterday, he literally collapsed on the couch and didn’t move for hours.

So I decided to kick my own rear into gear. I got my freaking sick, coughing, stanky butt up and decided I was going to be a servant like Christ was.

I knew that Brandon wouldn’t cook anything because he’s too tired, so I whipped up a meal.

I may have coughed all over it, but at least he had something to eat!!

I encourage all of you to do the same. Do something servant-like for your spouse today.

It won’t necessarily be easy, but that is why it is called ‘service’.

Service requires you to leave ‘you’ out of the picture, and focus totally on someone else.

And so for me? I did that yesterday. I haven’t quite accomplished the same feats today…but here’s to hoping I will…

Yesterday, I took my vows seriously to love in sickness and in health.

Because who ever said that just because you were the sick one didn’t mean you didn’t have to continue to truly sacrificially love the other person?

The SARS Lady

So we are traveling to Florida for Christmas this year.

My sister lives in Florida with her husband and has lived there for 5 years.

However, for the past 5 years, she has traveled to Ohio (and us as well) to visit my mom.

Well this year she proclaimed that we needed to come to her home, instead.

We agreed that possibly it has been unfair up until this point.

So what is the point of this story (besides just to ramble), you ask?

Well, we are flying.

Now generally, I am not afraid of flights.

Despite the crashes you hear in the news, I am not terrified that my plane is going to get highjacked.

Nor do I think it is going to explode in the air and crash to the earth.

I also don’t think it is going to have a failed engine and again crash to the earth.

Do you know what my fear is?

Getting sick.

I have mentioned my germaphobia before.

If you are an avid reader, you know this.

If you are not? You suck. And also? You are way behind on my germaphobic ways.

ANYWAY.

Planes severely gross me out.

I mean severely.

You have to sit in these nasty fabric seats where thousands have gone before.

Don’t tell me someone hasn’t splashed their vomit onto the seat before as they puked from being motion sick.

And I guarantee someone has sneezed lots of boogers and disgusting germs all over them too.

I can also guarantee that the people who clean the planes are not steam cleaning the seats.

So where does that leave us?

In germ heaven.

Not only that, but you are stuck in a plane with nasty sick people.

They are all coughy and sneezy, and you are breathing in all their recycled air.

Blech.

Make me barf.

The worst part?

My theory of the plane being a septic system of germs is totally confirmed every time I travel.

Why?

Because every. single. time., I get sick.

Every time, people.

So I casually mention this fact to Brandon.

This is then followed by my solution: I will simply wear a germ mask on the plane!

Genius, people! Genius!

Brandon’s response?

“You CANNOT do that, Elizabeth! People are going to think you have SARS!”

He goes on to explain that there is no way on earth he is going to be seen with the SARS lady and that if I choose to wear this mask, he is going to change his seat.

I wish he were kidding…

Sigh.

What am I supposed to do people??

I have no other choice!

I can either wear mask and have people running, screaming, and crying from the plane because they think I have SARS…

Or, I can spend Christmas sick.

I guess you might hear some running, screaming, and crying because I am SOOO wearing that mask.

I so am, people.

I am NOT going to spend Christmas sick.