Newest member of the family

I would like to introduce the newest member of our family - Charlie.



She is a wonderful, energetic, little thing. (or huge as James would like to call her.) She is long and she reminds me of the weiner dog on Toy Story that is a slinky. When she goes around a corner, her back half is moving a different direction till it catches up. She is a hoot! It is hard to get mad at her because she gives you those sad, "I'm sorry Mom" eyes...





She is great with the kids, great with the dogs, great with the cat, sort of. Angel (our cat) likes to chase Charlie and scare her. I guess Angel just wants to make sure Charlie knows who the alpha female in the house is.


Anyway, she is a beautiful dog and we are happy to have her.

I am a Novelist!

Well folks, for those of you who are interested in my writing Journey, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) was a success. I finished a 103 page book with 50085 words last night about 1015pm. What a huge relief and the feeling of success is overwhelming. Most of the times the words just came and I can't even remember some of what I wrote.

All that said, there is still a lot of work to do on my first ROUGH draft, but I think the story is a good one. Of course I am biased. I will start that probably after the holidays, if I can wait. :-)

Anyway, I just wanted to share this in my blog sphere. I have some trophies to share too!

The aftermath...

Pain, Pain and More Pain.... It was fun too... Did I forget to mention the pain? I was so beaten up by mud and nets and dirt and Stairway to Heaven that wobbled 20 feet high, that I couldn't even bare the thought of getting on the computer to give you the down low on the mud.

I am supposed to be writing a book right now, but I am taking this short moment to share some pics that my mom took after we got done. Let me tell you, we all looked so pretty before the race. Oh and we didn't come in last. That is always a plus. Story goes like this...

We start off and there is a long stretch of running...(mostly walking for us, I felt bad for James.) It is James, Chris and me. I think it was 1.6 miles to the first obstacle, which was the Wall. It was about 6 or 7 feet tall. You have to climb it and go over. I did it! Wa hoo for me...first one down and no mud yet.

We get to the next obstacle 100 foot tunnel, cool. No problem, no mud yet. Slide right on through.

There there is the English channel. 100 yards of water and mud. That was fun because there wasn't much mud, but a lot of muddy water. Silly Chris walked in front of me with his white shirt and I decided that I had to take big hard steps. He got a little muddy. :-) That was fun. There were individuals that were coming by us the opposite way, a couple of them were being funny and "swimming" instead of walking in the thigh deep water. We were laughing at them.

Obstacle 3, um....there's the mud...ewwww. Can I back out now? It is thick and gross. Are you sure I can't back out. There is a line and I have to watch everyone go down and lay on their stomach for a Marine crawl under the wires. One by one...then it's my turn. EWWWWW...Did I already say that? Not only that, there was a drill sargent their yelling at everyone, threatening to send us all back to do it over if we don't get down. No thanks, stomach it is. Oh, yea, it's going straight down my shirt getting caught in my sports bra. That was fun.

In the midst of all that, there were a couple of water stops too...no cups. Wonderful!

Obstacle 4, log walk. No mud, thank you Lord! It was like walking across a log. No problem for me, I have great balance. Whew!

Obstacle 5, Mine field. It was basically like the Marine crawl above except for it was only 2 lanes, one going each direction and it was not as muddy...more like sticky mud. Still gross.

Obtacle 6, Cargo Nets...ever heard of Gladiators! It was a net up one side, thrown over the top of the bar on top then hanging down the other side. Kind of like a triangle. Yup, I climbed up about 15 feet to the top and got stuck. Couldn't get my leg over because I was looking at it swinging in front of me on the other side....James had to grab the bottom of the net and pull it straight to get my legs back under me. I got over and scooted on down and yes, I conquered a small portion of my fear of heights and I did the happy dance in front of about 100 folks standing in line on the other side and sang out loud, "I did it, I did it!" Yea for me... I heard a couple folks laugh, but I think it was James and Chris! Thanks guys for your support! :-)

Obstacle 7 - Hole to Hades... run down steep grass into concrete ravine, and back out the other side. The cheat sheet said steep, but they didn't lead me to believe that it was a trap, mice can get in, but they can't get out. Thank goodness my awesome husband could, because he helped pull me and Chris out! :-) Thanks babe!

Obstacle 8...Called the Quigley...I don't even remember this one, but it was a Marine crawl one too. I am sure it was muddy and gross...from here on out, I think they were all gross...

Obstacle 9 - The mud slide... Wa hoo! Got to bipass this one due to someone injured in the mud pit on the other side of the slide. Sorry dude who got hurt, but thank you.

Obstacle 10 - Slide for life....You climb probably 100 feet to the top of a moutain of dirt and slide down on plastic into a huge pit of water and mud. It reminded me of a waterslide, with dirt instead of water... math lesson for the day, water + dirt = mud ... in your shirts and shoes and ears and pants pockets and nails and nose and eyes...I think you get the picture. If you didn't have it everyone before this point, (which I did) you did now. Then you get to sludge out of it and try to climb the mud wall, not hill, to get out. Again, thank you to James for saving me from the pit of hell.

Obstacle 11 - Over n Unders - Imagine, 4 logs hanging about 3 inches above the water. In order to proceed through this, one must go over one log and under the next...whichever order it doesn't matter. I think I forgot to mention that there was a tv crew on the course filming for a tv show...well lucky me, they caught me on this one. My worst most embarassing one. Please God, let the edit crew cut me. I am not that cute... Anyway, I jump in and realize the water is deeper than I thought...it is just above my waist. I go under the first one, over the next, sort of, I kinda threw a leg up and pulled as hard as I could till I splashed over. Under the next one and the last one was a bit higher and lucky me, I get to over over it. I guess I did the math wrong and wasn't paying attention to the height. After a couple of tries, I got over it, camera spying me the whole time...then realized that I couldn't get a hold of anything to help me get out. The wall to this pool of mud was flat. I started to panic, since the camera was in my face my this time and the marine who happened to pick my lane offered to give me a leg up. I rolled out onto my back and got up in the cameras face and smiled really big. I was totally embarassed. Thank goodness for nice guys. James and Chris had come through on the opposite side of the course, so they were waiting on me.... probably they saw the camera and didn't want to be seen with me... just kidding guys!

Obstacle 12, it was supposed to be the tubes, but I don't remember them...

Obstacle 13 - Rope swing...I would call it the rope drag though. It was so muddy you couldn't hold on, you just slid right on down.

Obstacle 14 - The Stairway to Heaven. Actually it was a ladder from Hell. It was about 20 feet tall with the wooden 2x4 ladder rungs about 4 feet apart. The area you had to climb up with about 10 feet wide and each section had 4 areas. I headed for an open one and turned my fear of heights off by saying, don't think just do, don't think just do. I couldn't get my foot situated on the rung, so I decided to throw my knee up then stand up from there. That was how I got to the top. Once safely at the top, my feet strattling the ladder, my arms wrapped tightly around the top piece, I realized that there were other people also moving up and they were making it sway in the wind. I looked down and the only thing that would catch my fall were some small foam pads strewn about the ground. There was lots of open areas and I thought to myself, what if I hit there...it might hurt there. I came back to reality and the guy next to me was coaching his wife, "C'mon honey you can do it. We are almost there." I pretended he was James talking to me and I moved my other leg over and got down as quickly and safely as I could. Whew. When I got out of the way of the other participants, once again, I did a happy dance and threw a couple of jumps in, I did it, I did it... whew, I was still alive.

Obstacle 15 - Hurdles. Big logs, gotta go over them and they get higher as you go. I needed help on the last one, but I did those too. Did I ever tell you that boots are heavy when they are wet???

The last 3 obstacle were the same as we already have done, but on the way back, you are wet, cold, tired and muddy.

Obstacle 16 was the low crawl with all the mud and the mean drill sargent that was waiting for you to screw up so he could send you back. I was so tired by this time, I almost didn't care, almost. Most of the water was gone by that time, so it was sticky mud and sticky mud is hard to get your body to move through...did you know that.

Obstacle 17 was the tunnel. It was easier this time, because we were wet, you could just slide right on through.

Back to the English Channel. 100 yards of mud and water. It was so hard, I thought it would never end. James had booked it on ahead of us through it, but Chris and I could barely walk. I remembered thinking back to when we went through it the first time, there were people "swimming" through it. Now I know why and I felt bad for laughing. I was so tired, I wanted to cry, but we kept trudging through it.

Right on to obstacle 18. The Wall. This time, I was so tired, I didn't know if I could get my leg up to go over it. Thanks to one of the kids watching the obstacles...young Marines, he gave me a lift up to the first place my foot would stick and I made it over.

Now we just had to make it the rest of the way. James coaxed me into running by trying to beat a couple that was ahead of us. I thought he was talking about the one right in front, we beat them. He was talking about the couple who was in front of them. We almost made it.

I was so proud. I didn't throw up and I didn't cry. I wanted to, several times, but didn't.

My body is killing me now. I have pain in places I didn't know there was pain. I also have bruises in places that I didn't even know I got hurt. They are nasty and ugly. Mud did it. Next time I see mud, I am going to stay way away from it. It is mean and angry and takes out it's affliction on people like me. Stay away from it.

So, with our story being told, only from my perspective, by the way... here are some after pictures. The water bottles we are holding have beer in them, by the way. They had run out of cups. Our finish time was 2 hours and 20 minutes or something like that. There were lots of lines that we had to wait in... seriously. I'm not kidding. Seriously.

Enjoy the pics I will upload the before pics when I geth them from my mom.

Until we read again...

Chris, Steve, James and myself...see how pretty we are?

Um, not so pretty anymore...

We should have done this for our wedding...it would have been cheaper... :-)

Chris trying to be macho... mud is your friend...love the mud...It was drying and shrinking...we needed to be cleaned...unfortuneatly, the fire truck ran out of water before we got to be clean... It was a long drive home.

Mud Run Monsters and more

So, tomorrow is the big Mud Run. I've got my boots and long pants. I have a black tank top that will not move too much so it won't drag me down. I also have butterflies in my stomach which has set it on fire because they are flying around so fast. I feel like I am going to throw up all the time. Why, you ask? Because part of me thinks I may be in over my head. I think I might actually drown in the mud. Enough scare tactics. God, please give me the strength to 1. Have a good time and not wally in the mud. 2. Have enough energy to finish the race not in last place. 3. Make you and my husband proud. Thank you and Amen.

On the More note,
I have started my writing challenge and almost finished the first week. I have 10002 words as of this morning and I am going to need to hit 12500 to stay on target for goal. My thing is, I am going to have days where I can write and write. Other days, I may not be so lucky. That is where padding comes in. I need to be sure to write whenever I can.

Anyway, I just wanted to update everyone on the goings on in my life. Keep me in your prayers and thank you for your encouragement.

Until we read again...

It's all good, then BAM, right in the kisser!

I feel like I have been punched in the gut. Yesterday things were flying high and everything was going to be just fine. Today, things are still going to be just fine, but the evil one is crawling all over me trying to smother me. Do you ever feel like that? Like you are wrestling and you're just trying to stay inside the circle, but your opponent is overpowering you and you are about to lose?

Money. Isn't it the root of all evil? That idol is something that I struggle with. Wants and desires. It would be so great to get a __________ with this and that. Wow, wouldn't it be cool to have __________, then everything would be great! I would love to have _____________, it would make my life so much easier. Check out this _____________, if I had a ____________, then I could do __________. Fill in the blanks with anything you want. Everything fits into someones category.

I am an Alderman in our little town, which is basically a council person. We open all our town meetings with a prayer for God to come work through us to do what is best for our town. I think that is awesome. Right now, I am also on the "committee" for our neighborhood group who is working on a gas lease with a local company. We are dealing with HUGE amounts of potential money for close to 400 acres worth of land. I think that myself and one other person are the only Christians on this team. Not once did either of us offer to pray prior to beginning our meetings. God was totally left out of these decisions. Why? I thought about praying more than once. Maybe God even placed it on my heart more than once to say something. Would the other have declined? Probably not, so why didn't I do it. Greed. My eyes were dollar signs and all I could see what the potential for a lot of freaking money. James and I talked about all the good things we would do with it, but I never brought it to God. I knew that once we got that money, everything would be just fine. Now, don't worry, we didn't spend it. We knew there was a possibility that it wouldn't come, but I was sure that that it would.

So, I say all this to say, with the economic downfall, it is pretty much a certainty that the gas company will pull out of their negotiations. That monetary windfall, gone. Is it possible, that due to the fact that we were greedy and left Him out, we are reaping what we sowed? Yes. Is it possible that maybe this would have happened anyway? Yes.

I laid awake last night allowing Satan to take over my thoughts. Tell me how disappointed that God was in me for not standing up when I should have. God was probably disappointed, I am sure, but would He chastise me over it? I don't think so. Maybe this is an "Idol" check for me. I let money get the best of me and I need to remind myself to let God get the best of me and bless me from His side of the green pasture. Whether it be money or not. We are blessed to have EVERYTHING we could possibly need. If we don't get the big green, then so be it. We still have enough and that is fine with me. I am blessed beyond measure.

God, thank you for reminding me of that. Money will not define who I am or what I have. You, alone, will provide for us in ways that we can't even imagine, when we keep our eyes set on you. Thank you Lord, for being the everlasting provider.

Until we read again...

Interesting email on Obama

For those of you who know me, I am a pretty far right conservative. I can't understand, when I read what Obama is all about, how any Christian would be willing to sacrifice what God's values for the values of Obama? They aren't even close to lining up.

Here is an email I had forwarded to me that is biblically based and states where I stand pretty clearly. I checked out snopes and it is undecided yet who actually wrote it, but the words are very well written and I think should be read by everyone, Obama fan or not. After you read it, if you question the details, take the time to google them and see for yourself if the stated facts are true.

Be blessed, Until we read again...
(Sarah Palin for President 2012!) :-) wt

The following statements are from an email that I received and copied to my post.

Why I (A Black Man) Can't Vote For Obama
Huntley Brown - is a fabulous concert pianist, man of God and is a black man.

Why I Can't Vote For Obama
By Huntley Brown

Dear Friends,

A few months ago I was asked for my perspective on Obama. I sent out an
email with a few points. With the election just around the corner Idecided
to complete my perspective. Those of you on my e-list have seen some of
this before but it's worth repeating..

First I must say whoever wins the election will have my prayer support.
Obama needs to be commended for his accomplishments, but I need to explain
why I will not be voting for him.

Many of my friends process their identity through their blackness.
I process my identity through Christ. Being a Christian (a Christfollower)
means He leads, I follow. I can't dictate the terms. He does because He is the leader.
I can't vote black because I am black, I have to vote Christian because
that's who I am. Christian first, black second. Neither should any one from
the other ethnic groups vote because of ethnicity. 200 years from now I
won't be asked if I was black or white. I will be asked if I knew
Jesus and accepted Him as Lord and Savior.

In an election there are many issues to consider but when a society gets
abortion, same-sex marriage, embryonic stem-cell research,
human cloning, to name a few, wrong economic concerns will soon not matter.
We need to follow Martin Luther King's words, don't judge someone by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character. I don'tknow
Obama, so all I can go off is his voting record.
His voting record earned him the title of the most liberal senator in the
US Senate in 2007.
NATIONAL JOURNAL: Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007(01/31/2008)
To beat Ted Kennedy and Hilary Clinton as the most liberal senator, takes
some doing.
Obama accomplished this feat in 2 short years. I wonder what would happen
to America if he had four years to work with. There is a reason planned
parenthood gives him a 100% rating. There is a reason the homosexual
community supports him. There is a reason Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro,
Hamas etc. love him. There is a reason he said he would nominate liberal
judges to the Supreme Court. There is a reason he voted against the
infanticide bill. There is a reason he voted No on the constitutional ban
of same-sex marriage.
There is a reason he voted No on banning partial birth abortion.
There is a reason he voted No on confirming Justices Roberts and Alito.
These two judges are conservatives and they have since overturned partial
birth abortion. The same practice Obama wanted to continue.

Lets take a look at the practice he wanted to continue.
The 5 Step Partial Birth Abortion procedure
A. Guided by ultrasound, the abortionist grabs the baby's leg withforceps.
(Remember this is a live baby)
B. The baby's leg is pulled out into the birth canal.
C. The abortionist delivers the baby's entire body,except for thehead.
D. The abortionist jams scissors into the baby's skull. The scissors are
then opened to enlarge the hole.
E. The scissors are removed and a suction catheter is inserted.
The child's brains are sucked out, causing the skull to collapse. The deadbaby
is then removed.

God help him.

There is a reason Obama opposed the parental notification law.
Think about this: you can't give a kid an aspirin without parental
notification but that same kid can have an abortion without parental
notification. This is insane.

There is a reason he went to Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years.
Obama tells us he has good judgment, but he sat under Jeremiah Wright's
teaching for 20 years. Now he is condemning Wright's sermons. I wonder why now?
Obama said Jeremiah Wright led him to the Lord and discipled him. A disciple
is one in training. Jesus told us in Matthew 28:19 - 20 'Go and make
disciples of all nations.' This means reproduce yourself. Teach people to
think like you, walk like you, talk like you believe what you believe,etc.
The question I have is what did Jeremiah Wright teach him?

Would you support a White President who went to a church which has tenets
that said they have a:
1. Commitment to the White Community
2. Commitment to the White Family
3. Adherence to the White Work Ethic
4. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills
available to the White Community .
5. Pledge to allocate regularly, a portion of personal resources for
strengthening and supporting White Institutions
6. Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the
White Value System
7. Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

Would you support a President who went to a church like that?
Just change the word from white to black and you have the tenets ofObama's
former church. If President Bush was a member of a church like this, he
would be called a racist. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton
would have been marching outside.
This kind of church is a racist church. Obama did not wake up after 20
years and just discovered he went to a racist church. The church can't be
about race. Jesus did not come for any particular race. He came for the
whole world.

A church can't have a value system based on race. The church's value
system has to be based on biblical mandate. It does not matter if
it's a white church or a black church, it's still wrong. Anyone from
either race that attends a church like this would never get my vote.
Obama's former Pastor Jeremiah Wright is a disciple of liberal theologian
James Cone, author of the 1970 book A Black Theology of
Liberation. Cone once wrote: "Black theology refuses to accept a God who is
not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not
for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him."
Cone is the man Obama's mentor looks up to. Does Obama believe this?

So what does all this mean for the nation?
In the past when the Lord brought someone with the beliefs of Obama to lead
a nation it meant one thing - judgment.
Read 1 Samuel 8 when Israel asked for a king.
First God says in 1 Samuel 1:9 "Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly
and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."
Then God says 1 Samuel 1:18 "When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the
king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day. 19 But
the people refused to listen to Samuel. 'No!' they said. 'We want a king
over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a
king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.' 21When
Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD.
22 The LORD answered, 'Listen to them and give them a king.'"

Here is what we know for sure.
God is not schizophrenic.
He would not tell one person to vote for Obama and one to vote for McCain.
As the scripture says, a city divided against itself cannot stand, so
obviously many people are not hearing from God. Maybe I am the one not
hearing, but I know God does not change, and Obama
contradicts many things I read in scripture, so I doubt it.

For all my friends who are voting for Obama, can you really look God in the
face and say, "Father based on your word, I am voting for Obama even though
I know he will continue the genocidal practice of partial birth abortion.
He might have to nominate three or four supreme court justices, and I am
sure he will be nominating liberal judges who will be making laws that are
against you. I also know he will continue to push for homosexual rights,
even though you destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for this. I know I can look the
other way because of the economy."?
I could not see Jesus agreeing with many of Obama's positions. Finally, I
have two questions for all my liberal friends. Since we know someone's
value system has to be placed on the nation,
1. Whose value system should be placed on the nation?
2. Who should determine that this is the right value system for the nation?

Blessings,
Huntley Brown

I can do all things through Christ who strenghtens me!

Ok, so most of you know about my running and getting into shape for the body abusing Mud Run, (which is on November 8th by the way.) Well, my goal right now has been to run 3 miles. At the beginning of September, when Jessi started school, I picked up where I left off at the end of May. I could run 1 mile straight, then run/walk the other 2 miles. As of last week, I am up to 2 miles running then walking the last one mile. Yeah! I thought that I might be able to run 2.5 miles yesterday, but I was sadly disappointed, sort of.

I started my run like I normally do, getting my breathing in rhythm with my feet hitting the ground. When I hit one mile, (13 minutes) I was starting to feel not so good, I started thinking that maybe I wasn't going to make it today, my chest started to burn while I was breathing, my legs were not so good and my head started spinning. When I hit a mile and a quarter, I knew I wasn't going to make 2.5 miles and decided that I had to make at least 2 miles, since that is what I did last week. I started nearing the 1.5 miles and realized that I didn't know if I could even make that. Something wasn't right, but I didn't want to give up and disappoint myself or anyone else...(not that anyone else even cared except maybe James.) As I crossed the 1.5 mark, still running, I couldn't stop. I wanted to, but I couldn't. All of a sudden, I started to cry. I wanted to stop so bad, but I couldn't. I knew I was going to have to find a way to get to 2 miles. Then it hit me. I couldn't stop because I didn't want to let God down. I shouldn't care what anyone else thinks, just Him. So, with tears streaming down my face, I ran on. I pictured the Holy of Holies standing at the 2 mile marker waving His arms at me, "C'mon Wendy, you can do it! I know you can!". I chanted in my head, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!" Over and over in my head and you know what? I ran that last half mile and I finished that mile in 12 minutes! I had tears coming down my face from whatever was happening in my body and I finished it.

I hope that my story inspires you to keep going even when it hurts and you don't don't think you can. That is when God steps in and provides His strength to pull you through to the finish line. You won't need any other cheerleaders, but one.

ps- I will try to do better at updating my blog...I didn't realize so many folks like to read what I have to say! :-)

Until we read again!