Memory Monday ~ Weekend Update

It was a fun weekend starting with the wonderful K-Lamb Foster's birthday! We celebrated with dinner at Freebirds then headed back to the Fosters' for some epic ice cream cake and a fun game night (where the girls crushed the guys in Taboo)!! ;)

Saturday was lunch then grocery shopping then a really good talk then my first cooking lesson with the kind and awesome Miss Kelly Marie!  (Including peeling and chopping sweet potatoes, juicing lemons, mincing garlic, marinating chicken, making a strawberry salad, and preparing asparagus - all for the first time on my end). We listened to T-Swift and One Republic while chatting and cooking... it was fun and honestly easier than I'd expected. (Time consuming, but not hard, so that's good!) We pulled out the extra leaf on my kitchen table and brought in my chairs from outside and the computer room chair and Mary Engelbreit stool for extra seating - it was eclectic, I guess. lol 

Note to self: Time for me to buy some fold-up chairs soon! 

JEM, Chet, Karli, Laura, Evan, and Jessica came to join us for a good, healthy dinner - (strawberry/walnut salad, asparagus, seasoned sweet potatoes, and rosemary lemon chicken)!! Chettles promptly put in Pitch Perfect as our background noise during dinner, rewinding it to see his favorite parts later. lol  We had fun, as per usual, and the girlfranz were very excited to see everyone as well! lol

Pics = JEM excited to try our cooking, SamSue... probably peeing on my couch :(, Kelly fanning the smoke alarm when it kept going off - lol, Bellsy being precious, Chet and Karli talking to Jessica on speakerphone, Laura reading my new book (Scary Close by Donald Miller - it's going to be AMAZING, I can already tell), and me, just mincing some garlic, which was weirdly my favorite part of the cooking lesson. lol After dinner, we watched Brooklyn 99 and then randomly watched figure skating for a while, where JEM knew a surprising amount about Ashley Wagner. lol Good times!

Yesterday, I went to LifeChurch, hung out with Kristin, and had a Parenthood season 6 marathon (11 episodes in one day... out of control! lol) I'd never watched it until yesterday, but I really liked it! I have one more episode to watch tonight, then Laura and I will be watching the series finale together this Thursday after our walk/jog at CP -- get excited!

So there's my ridiculously detailed weekend update. Happy Monday, gang!

Martin Luther King, Jr. (Quotables)

I recommend seeing Selma, a movie that honors the life and light and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. I still can't get over the courage, wisdom, love, and Godly self-control he displayed in the face of very serious and deplorable persecution and unfounded hatred. He was truly a man of God, a light shining amidst great darkness and evil, and he helped to light the way for so many others and strengthen them to choose action over passivity and love over hate. These are just a few of the brilliant, inspiring words he spoke in his short 39 years here on earth -- even now, I want to soak them up and serve God that faithfully with a similar integrity, hope, and courage!!

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite HOPE."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to JUSTICE everywhere."

"A time comes when silence is betrayal. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends... He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it."

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the LIGHT of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that MATTER."

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?"

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to FORGIVE... There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.  When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.  We have guided missiles and misguided men."

"No one really knows WHY they are alive until they know what they would die for."

"There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep LOVE."

“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for FREEDOM in the history of our nation… In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.   Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.  We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of DIGNITY and DISCIPLINE… I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream…  

I have a dream that one day this nation will RISE UP and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…"  I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their CHARACTER.  I have a dream today… I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.  This is our HOPE...  With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope… knowing that we will be FREE one day.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 1929 ~ April 4, 1968

Words of Wisdom Wednesday!

Canvas by my sister... see more HERE! =)

"There's this love that is burning deep in my soul, 

Constantly yearning to get out of control,

Wanting to fly higher and higher,

I can't abide standing outside the fire!"

"So don't you sit up on the shoreline and say you're satisfied.

Choose to chance the rapids, and dare to dance the tide!"

"I could have missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance."

"Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers!"

~Garth Brooks

(Concert tomorrow!!!)

New blog layout -- GET EXCITED -- I really love it!! :)
(I'm working on an Ultimate Quotables post for the Favorite Quotes tab... stay tuned.)
Happy Wednesday!