50 Shades of Magic Mike, Say What??

Lately, I've been thinking about what goes into my mind and heart.  I've been convicted (even more so lately) about what I watch and what I read.


You may have heard of the book series called "50 Shades of Grey."  I heard about it a couple months ago through my gal-pals on Instagram.  I had never heard of the series before, but everyone was reading the books.  Someone posted that if anyone wanted the books, she would email them out.  So I put my email down, she emailed them to me, and I started reading them on the iPad.


I read the first chapter and remember thinking, "Why is everyone reading these?  This is boring."  But I kept reading.  Actually, I read about 100 pages before I had to put it down.  It was awful.  I could not believe that someone actually wrote those things down.  In a book.  For everyone to see.


These books have caused a lot of controversy in the past several weeks.  Basically, what it boils down to is this:  porn.  Yep.  I had no idea what they were about when I started reading.  Now, I don't even care to know what happens.


I choose not to read these books because:

• I don't want my husband looking at porn on the computer, so why would he want me reading it?
• These books are not about sex within a marriage.  They weren't written by a Christian, and they are fiction.
• I have been convicted that these are not what God wants me to read.

If you choose to read them, fine.  That's between you and God.  I'm not going to judge you.  But let me show you some Truth.

Philippians 4:8 (NIV84) says,

"Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praisesworthy--think about such things."

In the New Living Translation, it says

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.  Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

I don't think those books are pure, lovely, or admirable.  They definitely aren't praiseworthy.  Have you ever heard the saying, "What goes in, must come out?"

Jesus talks in Matthew about what makes a man clean or unclean.  It says,

"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?  But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.'  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander."

Matthew 15:17-19 (NIV84)

Also, in James 3:9-12 where it talks about taming the tongue, it says,

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers, this should not be.  Can both fresh water and salt water come from the same spring?  My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?  Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

The same is true for what we put into our minds.  We can't be watching,  reading, or listening to things that are mean, hateful, and immoral and expect positive, uplifting, pure comments to come from our mouth.  It doesn't work that way.  Only when you are immersed in God's Word can you rid the worldly thoughts and actions from your life.

In college, I watched a lot of movies.  Some of them are ones that I'm not proud of.  When Tyler and I got married, we didn't think we needed to be watching R-rated movies.  Actually, when we moved to St. Louis, my cousin told us that they look at Plugged In before they decide whether or not they are going to watch that movie.  So we both downloaded the free app to our phones and look up each movie before we decide to watch it.

Well, the hype now is all about "Magic Mike," with Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey.  Yes, all of the girls want to watch this movie because these actors are so "hot."  I knew what it was about (strippers) and decided that just for the heck of it, I would look to see what Plugged In had to say about it.  No worries, I had no desire to watch it in the first place.

I read the review and was appalled at what I saw.  In the "Sexual Content" section is says, 

"To detail every [insert a more graphic description than what I want to share on my blog] we see would take pages.  So I'll provide a few representative examples with as discreet a description as possible."

Wow!  Usually, Plugged In has a pretty good review of movies.  This movie has got to seriously be awful for him not to write a full description!

Fellow Christians, we cannot be feeding our minds with this crap!  God calls us to a higher standard of living.  Satan wants us to think that it will be fun to see movies or read books like these.  But I don't know about you, when I come out of a movie that's awful, I don't feel very happy about it.

I challenge you to re-think what you read, watch, and listen to.  Would it be pleasing to God if you read, watched, or listened to it?  Are your kids going to think it's okay for them to be able to read, watch, or listen to it?

Becoming a Proverbs 31 woman (or a Man of God) is not easy.  This is a step in the right direction, though.

Click here to see the full review of Magic Mike.

Commuting

I'm slowly learning the ways of St. Louis drivers.  They are ridiculous here!  Actually, I'm not sure if there's a place that drivers aren't ridiculous.  I've figured out that people in Springfield are just bad drivers/don't know how to drive and people in St. Louis are idiotic drivers.


So in my two weeks of commuting to work, I've come up with a few things that I've discovered.  If you ever come to STL, maybe this will help you out.

• Use outer roads to avoid the congestion mess on the highway. We are fortunate enough to live just south of Interstate 64, which leads right to the city.  In order for me to get where I'm going, I have to take 64 to 270 (which goes around the city).  There's about 2 miles (or so) of outer road that I can drive to avoid the Interstate.  When I actually have to get on, I'm in the exit lane for 270, so it works out perfect!
• Speed limit 60 mpg?  That's code for, "You better drive 80."  No joke.  People drive fast here.  You definitely don't want to get ran over, so you have to drive traffic speed.
• Everyone tailgates each other.  There are basically two reasons why:
• 1.  You're going too slow, and they can't get over to pass because everyone is passing you.
• 2.  They don't want to let others in between them and you.I don't necessarily drive traffic speed since I'm driving the opposite direction of everyone else.  I do try to drive the speed limit (or 5 over), and people will tail me.  I just think that if they want to go faster, then they can go around me.  It's something that I will have to get used to.  My dad always taught me that you give the person 1 car length of space for every 10 mph you're driving.  I may not give that amount of space all the time, but I definitely want to have enough space where I can slow down in time if the person in front of me does something stupid.
• Drive fast down the exit lane.  Now I know this sounds silly, but it's a simple trick that I've learned.  When getting on the highway, most of the lanes are "exit only" to the next exit.  So I can drive down that lane until I absolutely have to get over (and I just passed a whole bunch of traffic).  However, the prime time to squeeze in is in front on a semi truck.  They're at a slow speed and it takes forever for them to get up to speed, so I can sneak in front of them.  It's perfect!
• Talk on the phone with a headset.  Every afternoon I call my mom (and sometimes my dad too) and talk to her on the way home.  I've learned that my hands free headphones make it sooo much easier to concentrate on driving.

The multiple lanes freaked me out at first.  I'm a small town girl where I only drove on a 4 lane highway growing up.  I never knew the meaning of "driving defensively" until I moved here.  I quickly learned that it's better to have 3 other lanes to pass people in (when I do want to be a speed demon) than just one other lane.  :]

I'm adjusting.  It's not horrible.  Who knows, I may be a pro in a few years and have more insight on how to drive in crazy, city traffic.  For now, this is all I got.

Taco Casserole

I know it's past Friday, but yesterday was pretty busy for me.  I still wanted to post this recipe, so I thought I'd go ahead and share it on Saturday. :]


Last week I made a Taco Casserole.  It was really good, surprisingly!  Now I say that because I hate beans.  They are gross!  But I'm trying to make healthy choices and beans are healthy for you.  So I will eventually learn to like them.


Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs ground beef or ground turkey
• 1 package taco seasoning
• 1 can (16 oz) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
• 1 can (11 oz) Mexican-style corn or whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 cup coarsely crushed tortilla chips
• Assorted toppings, such as sour cream, sliced green onions, shredded lettuce, and chopped tomatoes

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Brown meat in a large skillet on medium-high heat.  Drain the fat.

• Stir in seasoning mix, beans, tomato sauce, and corn.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low; simmer 5 minutes. 

• Spoon into a 2-quart baking dish. 

• Sprinkle with cheese and tortilla chips.

•  Bake for 5-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

• Serve with assorted toppings, if desired.

This is a super easy recipe to make.  It's also really cheap to make.  Happy cooking!

Just the Beginning

Tyler and I had to privilege of going to North Carolina this weekend to see my best friend marry her Prince Charming.  It was a beautiful weekend, and I thought I'd share some pictures with y'all! (That's North Carolinian talk for ya...)


We left on Friday morning and flew out.  We sat by this guy on the way out.  Check out his eyebrows!!

Mackenzie and Jason were married at a beautiful venue called, "The Arbors."  It was an outside wedding with beautiful scenery!  

I just loved Jason's family!  They made us feel like we were part of their family.  It was so great. :]


After the rehearsal and dinner, the guys got out their instruments and did a little pickin'.

Mackenzie joined in singing with them!  (She's holding her niece, by the way.)

We did some late night, last minute projects for the wedding day.

The wedding day was fairly relaxed.  We had a girl's breakfast and put up some of the decorations.  Amanda, Mackenzie's sister-in-law, was gracious enough to do our hair.  She did an AMAZING job!  Anyone living in NC should go see her for any hair needs!  Seriously!

Here are some pictures of the Bride getting ready:

She was an absolute vision!  When she put her veil on, it took a lot not to tear up!  My momma told me when I was dress shopping, "The white dress is only a dress until you put the veil on."  Boy, she was right.  She was a stunning bride!

I would have taken some pictures of the ceremony, however, I thought it might be weird for the bridesmaid to be pulling her phone out of her dress to get some shots.  So those will have to come later.

Here's a picture of me and Tyler.  He sure looked handsome!!

The reception was gorgeous as well!  Here are some highlights:

The groom's cake, which was modeled after his own mandolin!  How awesome!

Family Photos

Gift Table:

Her Bridal Portrait (sorry for the reflection):

The Toast!

Cake eatin'

First Dance

Daddy-Daughter Dance

Momma-Son Dance (there were some technical difficulties and the song messed up, so Jason sang the whole song to his momma!  It was so special!)

This is a series of pictures.  Jason was taking her garter off, and his nephew didn't like it.  Haha (I really don't know if he did or not, but it makes for a good story), and he came running up and knocked Jason over.  It was quite funny.

It was a beautiful weekend.  I was so honored to be a part of it.  It was special to be able to witness this time in her life.  I remember talking with Mackenzie when we were younger about our Prince Charmings.  We have several stories and inside jokes.  I truly believe that Jason is her "match made in heaven."  He's soooooo perfect for her.

The one thing that was unmistakable this weekend was the love her new family has for her.  They love her to pieces and have welcomed her into their family with open arms.  She's the puzzle piece that fits perfectly.  I am so incredibly happy for her.

To the new Mr. & Mrs. Wood:  Congratulations!  May God bless you and your marriage.  Always keep Him in the center!  You are so perfect for each other, it's not even funny.  I love you both and I'm excited to see where He will take you.  Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your special day!!

Big-Girl Job!

Two days of work down, a million more to go! :]  It hasn't been too awful yet. I started yesterday morning out with a 25 minute commute to work.  It's all highway driving, and it's not that bad.  In fact, I'm commuting the opposite way than the whole city of St. Louis is.

This is what my commute looks like both ways.  I can drive 70 mph if I want to, while the other traffic is barely moving at all.  It's pretty sweet.

I had to fill out a whole bunch of new employee paperwork yesterday when I got there.  Weird as it sounds, I like filling paperwork out.  It doesn't bother me one bit. :]

The best thing happened to me though.  I was totally excited about getting my own desk.  I didn't have one (really) at Summer Fresh.  I was shoved in the back room with a table and a computer.  So I figured I'd at least get a desk in this job.  No!  Not only did I get a desk, I got a WHOLE ENTIRE OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh, I can't wait to decorate it and make it mine!!

After all the paperwork was completed, I dove right in to processing invoices.  Hmmm....seems like I did this at my Summer Fresh job.  It is quite a process of just learning the new accounts and where things go in the system, but overall, it's fairly easy.

Nothing like processing the invoice for your own drug screen. :]  I find that amusing.

I also rearranged all the pens that were on my desk from the last lady.  I only like to write with black pens.  I use red occasionally when I need something to stand out, but black pens are basically the only thing I like to write with.  I separated all the "weird" pens out and put them in their own cup.  If anyone comes to visit me in my office, they can use those.

Here's the picture of my door. :]  I will add more office pictures when I get it all together how I want.

Today was more of processing invoices.  I will be glad when I know the chart of accounts so it won't take me so long to process them.  In about 2 or 3 months I should be at that point.  

I hope that I will like this job.  So far everyone has been really nice.  I hope that I will be able to show them the love that Jesus has for them.  I want to shine for Him!  Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me this week!  I really did feel those prayers.  God knew the exact job that I needed, and I'm getting experience in both the accounting and medical fields!  A double whammy! Woo!