Menu Plan Monday!

Hi friends!

So the monthly menu plan is currently on hold for the moment, not because I didn't love it, but because we're currently discussing some potential changes to our diets for the season of Lent (which begins Feb. 17) so I didn't want to plan out an entire month and have it all change. So for the next couple weeks I'll share my menu in weekly installments, and will have more to share mid-month. Happy cooking!

Monday: Baked Halibut Steaks with veggies and feta
Brown Rice Pilaf
Steamed Broccoli
Tuesday: Vegetarian Spaghetti with speedy red sauce
Garlic Bread
Salad
Wednesday: Youth group
Thursday: Two-Bean Enchiladas (also vegetarian)
Brown Spanish Rice
Friday & Saturday: dinners to celebrate Becca's ordination!

Frail Hands

This morning in worship we were talking about worship. We've been looking at the different areas and ministries of the church and this morning was "worship." Pastor mentioned that there is only so much talking you can do about worship before you just need to do it, so they left an extended period of time and space for people to do just that. We talked about how everyone worships differently, and sometimes the best way to worship is to watch others express themselves to God in different ways. So all over the sanctuary were different spaces set up for us to use our unique gifts to worship in different ways. There were easels with art supplies, kneeling pads placed at the foot of the cross, artwork around to reflect on, and soft music playing. They gave us about 15 minutes of pure freedom, to worship as we saw fit--through writing, drawing, sitting in silence, painting, kneeling, etc. At first I though, "oh dear, this Presbyterian church isn't going to know what to do with this." And some didn't. But many loved it. Many tried something new. Many were exposed for the first time to the idea that drawing can be worship. Writing can be worship. It was beautiful.

One elderly woman, probably in her 80s, almost immediately got out of her pew and made her way to the front of the sanctuary towards the cross. She was beautiful. She radiated God's love and joy. As I watched her, I wrote this:

Frail hands

Hands that have touched, caressed, soothed, and held many in their years
Hands shaking slightly
Raise above her body. Both hands, raised,
Stretching, reaching out towards the cross.

Her stark blue sweater stands bright in contrast with the gray stone walls.
Hands raised in exuberant praise
And exaltation to the One who is clearly the
King of her life.

Frail knees shake and creak as she lowers herself upon a kneeling pad,
As she kneels before the cross.
Those hands, those beautiful, wrinkled, shaking hands
Stretch out once again, raised in adoration, raise with abandon
As a child reaches out and raises her hands to her Father.

Friday Family Update!

Here's the latest from the Kennedy household this week!

**1**

Last night I innocently asked my husband if he wouldn't mind breaking out his manly power tools next time he took a day off from studying to help me mount/brace a really tall bookshelf to the wall (it was mounted at one point but not into a stud and had come loose). He says "sure, lets do that now." This turned into a 4 hour long project that involved removing every book, labeling each book with our names, categorizing them by subject, alphabetizing them within their categories, and then labeling the shelves they went on so we know what's on each shelf. (Yes, the shelves got anchored into studs as well). It was quite the project but it looks great now! And when the big earthquake strikes the shelves should stay upright :)

**2**

Last Saturday I got the chance to spend the whole day with the girls celebrating Tera, as she's only about 3 weeks away from marrying Dave! We drove up to Santa Barbara for a nice lunch and some wine tasting. I definitely loved spending such a gorgeous day with such great friends!

**3**

My little niece is already three months old!! I can't believe how fast she is growing up and how much I adore her! Seriously, isn't she just precious?? I got to video chat with her yesterday--she's holding her head up, making great eye contact, smiling away and constantly moving, kicking and wiggling. I love her!

**4**

I get the chance to speak to the youth Sunday morning at church which I am kind of nervous about! I'm supposed to give my testimony, which is fine, but I'm trying to come up with some kind of creative or more narrative way of presenting it rather than just saying "so I was born into a Christian family...etc etc" I've been thinking about it a lot and am not sure I have a great solution yet but I'm working on it!

**5**

Both of us have been sending out resumes for ministry positions all over the place. Right now, we're not so concerned about location as getting some contacts made so we've been checking church staffing websites daily and sending out resumes quite a bit this week. It's a long process, most ministry positions can take 6-12 months to fill from the time they start accepting applications, so we're not anticipating having anything lined up in the next month but hopefully by the fall we'll have an idea of what might be next for us. Right now we are kind of in a "don't ask us what's next, we don't know, we'll let you know when we do know something!" phase of life :)

**6**

My other new project is thinking about a big change I'm contemplating making for Lent. Charles and I have talked about it a bit, and are doing research, but we are seriously considering going vegetarian for those 6 weeks. I have several reasons for contemplating this, and I'm kind of excited! My hubby says he's game to try, so we'll see. Stay tuned as Ash Wednesday gets closer to see what we decide and how this plays out for us!

**7**

One of my favorite moments of the week came when I was hanging out in our apartment courtyard chatting with some of the women. A three year old came up and asked us how the words to "Rock a bye baby" goes so two of us started telling her. We got to the line "when the bow breaks..." and before we could say "the cradle will fall..." she interrupts us with "Daddy will catch you!" We decided that was a much better way to end the song. And a pretty great testimony to her daddy's parenting--she's only three and already knows that when she falls, Daddy will catch her. I wish the teens in our youth group still believed that about their parents. And in some cases, I just wish it was actually true, that their parents would indeed be there to catch them instead of making them feel horrible for their mistakes.

1,000 Gifts Week 4

This week I am thankful for...

61. Playing "Epic Musical Chairs" at youth group on Wednesday (NOT just a game for a 4 year old's birthday party!)

63. Dinner with Jenn and Becca on Tuesday evening. Yummy soup, bread, wine and salad.

67. Coffee dates with two great high school freshmen.

70. Getting to see The Blind Side last weekend--a terrific movie!

72. Getting to video chat with my smiling, giggling little Lily yesterday :)

75. A sweet text message from my honey this morning while he was at the beach.

76. Getting to talk to Papa on the phone for about a half hour Monday (I never get to talk to him!)

79. Time spent laying in the grass in a park watching the clouds while on my jog the other day. (Yes I got exercise too, the cloud watching came while doing sit ups in the grass!)

How bout you? What are you giving thanks for this week?

Menu Plan Monday!

I know I haven't done this in awhile, I've been working on the monthly menu plan, but this month for some reason I drifted away from it a bit. I think a couple of the recipes didn't go over as well as I had anticipated so I don't want to make them a second time just for the sake of sticking to a plan. So I used the same ingredients and found different recipes. This is what's for dinner this week:

Monday: Broccoli Cheese Soup, french bread, salad
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Youth group
Thursday: Pesto Chicken Pasta and salad
Friday: Lentil Sausage stew
Saturday: Enchilada Casserole
Sunday: Left overs

7 Quick Takes Friday

Your weekly update from the Kennedy household...
**1**
I finally finished up our 2009 photo album, uploading all our year's worth of digital pictures to shutterfly.com in order to create a photo album to have printed for us. I did it last year as well and for our wedding album and they turn out beautifully, so I'm excited for this to arrive! 100 pages chronicling our first year of marriage...

**2**
If you have seen the news this week you know that southern california has been hit hard by some impressive storms. I haven't seen anything like this since 95 when our whole town seemed to flood! The rain and wind have been so strong we even lost the life of our neighborhood squirrel. He didn't make it through the storm. Our part of town hasn't been dealing with flooding although there are a few trees down in the neighborhood, but other parts of the city are a mess. I still think it's a nice change from the monotonous 70 degree weather though :)

**3**
I think the weather is making me really tired and unmotivated though. That would be the one downside. I've been wanting to do nothing but curl up under a blanket with a book this week (which makes sense since it's down-pouring outside). So it hasn't been the most productive week ever.

**4**
Plane tickets have been purchased! I get to hold Lily again on February 11th! She's being baptized on Valentines Day so I'm heading back to Providence for a long weekend with the family. Charles will be attending Dave and Tera's wedding here in town that weekend--we're both sad we can't be at both events but this was one of those weekends where we had to decide to divide and conquer!

**5**
We watched an unbelievable movie last night at the recommendation of my cousin Jeff. He mentioned it this summer when we were in Seattle and we finally got around to seeing it. The Power of One came out in 1992 and is a story about apartheid in South Africa, and the power of one white college student who was determined to take steps to see it end. It was an incredibly powerful story that both of us loved. When I see movies such as this, about racism, the Civil Rights movement etc, I'm always struck by a strong sense of the injustice that was at work (which is probably appropriate, the way blacks were treated by whites for centuries has been nothing but unjust). However last night I was struck powerfully with a new response. The whole time I was watching I felt a deep sense of shame at the color of my skin. I wished I wasn't white in that moment. I felt so ashamed of the history of oppression that has been brought upon countless countries and societies by white Europeans throughout the centuries and I wanted nothing to do with it. It was an interesting experience that I'm still processing, but one I think we need to have ever now and then in order to keep the cycles of oppression from returning (not that they have ever gone away, but that's another blog post for another time....)

**6**
Tonight we're going to dinner and to see The Blind Side (finally!) to celebrate our 10th monthiversary (which was yesterday). It's been a couple weeks since we've gone on a date and I'm ready! (And I'll be able to cross off two movies off my 28 movies to watch this year list after this weekend!)

**7**
For those who were wondering if I was still a fan of my new Kindle now that I've done some reading on it, the answer is YES! I love it! I have read all of Dan Brown's new book and am almost done with the third Twilight book and I really am enjoying the convenience of it. I think I read faster on it too, I'm not sure how that's possible but I seem to be getting through books faster these days. My Kindle also has a new name. Her name is Rory thanks to Jenn :) Rory is my favorite Gilmore Girls character who loves reading, so it seemed like an appropriate name :)

Happy weekend everyone!

1,000 Gifts week 3

This week I am thanking God for...

41. The rain that is providing LA with much needed water (even if it's a bit of an over-load in places!)

47. A two day Company of New Pastors retreat in Malibu Monday-Wed. (more about that in another post)

49. Celebrating 10 months of marriage this week

50. Making homemade French Onion Soup last night (something I'd always wanted to try) which turned out delicious!

53. Watching The Power of One last night-a beautiful, tragic and inspiring movie about apartheid in South Africa.

60. A fun trivia night at youth group on Wednesday. I ended up on the all boys team which turned out to be a blast :)

Jesus, thank you for these and the many other gifts--great and small--that you provide for us.