Amazing....

This was the experience of a lifetime. My friend Maggie had a baby boy, Eli Raymond Shadburn, on Friday afternoon. I was there for every moment. It was amazing.

Random Showing

Today a realtor called Shana and asked if she could show our house. A young couple is moving to Atlanta and only had today to look at houses. I think our house was the last one they looked at. I was out walking the dogs while they were here and saw them taking pictures. We certainly didn't expect to show our house the week between Christmas and New Year's. I was on a mad dash to clean the house when I got home from work and get out in time for them to get here. We really need to sell our house. Keep praying!

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a....a...a...Turducken?

Last Saturday we had our family Christmas get-together. It was a great time with around 50 people at my parents house. This year my contribution was a Turducken. It was the first time I'd ever attempted to make this concoction of poultry. The basic recipe (if there is "basic" for this thing) goes something like this:

1 - 18 lb. Deboned Turkey (all bones removed except legs and wings)
1 - 6 lb. Deboned Duck
1 - 5 lb. Deboned Chicken
3 lbs. Roasted Garlic Stuffing (store bought)
3 lbs. Andouille Sausage Stuffing (homemade)
Several feet of butcher twine
Much patience and an extra pair of hands

This picture shows the birds in layers... On the bottom/outside is the turkey, then a layer of stuffing/sausage, the duck, more sausage and stuffing, then the chicken, then the remainder of the stuffing and sausage.
Tying it up...notice the giant "needle" in the bottom right of the picture. It was almost like doing surgery. Be glad there are no pictures of the deboning process.
Here are the extra pair of hands I mentioned before...thanks mom.
She's never afraid to get her hands dirty.
Almost ready for the oven...
Here we have the fully prepped mutated bird which strangely
resembles an over-inflated football.
Basting with Garlic/Paprika Butter
Finished...after 3 hours of prep time and 10 hours of cooking. I got up at 2am to put it in the oven so it would be ready by 1pm (it took an hour of resting time).
The conclusion: Who knew that a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey with loads of stuffing would be that good? It sliced up easily (with no bones). In each slice you would have gotten a little turkey, a little duck, a little chicken, and a little stuffing. It was a fun process. It would have been much harder had I not had the tools and the space to prep at work. The process was long but worth it. However, it will be a while before we try this again. If you'd like to try it....well, have fun!

Taking Back Christmas?

I am constantly reminded at work that this is the "holiday" season and not Christmas. I am sometimes the sign maker at work and made one for our $4.99/lb standing rib roast (best price in town, you should all buy one). My boss told me to have it say something like "perfect for your holiday dinner." I asked if I could put "Christmas" instead of "holiday." He said no. I asked knowing what he would say. We do have a large amount of Jews who are shopping for Hanukkah. However, we also have several Christmas trees and Santas up around the store. Also, as many of you know I watch the Food Network quite a bit. They're not using the word Christmas at all either. It's all "holiday." Red and green are "holiday" colors. It's a "holiday" tree. It's also "holiday" music (yet it all talks about Christmas). You get the point.

The Christian argument will come in a bit, but first, this just doesn't make sense logically. My manager at work is NOT a Christian, but celebrates Christmas. He even gets mad about this stuff. From a non-Christian perspective it still doesn't make sense. Santa is only around for Christmas - not any other holiday. Same with red and green, Rudolph, jingle bells, trees, wreaths, and all that other stuff. So logically, it makes absolutely no sense to generalize all of those things to somehow include all the other winter holidays.

Now, for the Christian side. I don't think this should upset Christians one bit. Really. You shouldn't get mad about this. Really? Really. Why? If we (fine upstanding Christians) say Christmas isn't about Santa, snow, presents, wreaths, food, music, and blah, blah, blah, then why do we get upset when the world renames the world's version of Christmas to "holiday?" So yeah, really. I'll get upset when they start renaming baby Jesus to "baby holiday, born to Mohammed's Jewish cousin named Martha." We should have gotten mad several generations ago (I know we weren't around) when "we" let Christmas be stolen by department stores and the fat guy with the goods. Don't get mad when they call it a "holiday tree" when the tree in your window has nothing to do with Christmas anyway.

*note...I'm not saying don't have a tree and all that other stuff...it's plenty fun and nostalgic (I love that stuff as much as you!)...my point is to challenge the logic behind the battles that we choose and why we choose them.

Job Stuff

Well, some of you may know this, but some of you may not. I was notified in September that I would possibly be layed off from my job. Well, it has come to pass. My last day will be December 13th. I knew that this would most definitely come, and wasn't sure how it would come. Fortunately, Busker gave me 2 weeks notice, a luxury they hadn't given many others. So, I got a job at night working with Josh at Fresh Market a few weeks back. It is a lot of fun, and I believe I posted about that earlier. So, this is kind of a bummer right around Christmas time, but we know that there is a purpose and a plan for this as well. It was this time last year that I was trying to look for a job and it was a little difficult because of all the holidays. I didn't get the job here at Busker until February. So, I hope that it will go a little faster this time. I have a handicap in that I will not be around for long because we still have our house for sale. Our plan now is to get to seminary in the summer or fall. We have a long time till then, so we are pretty confident that our house will sell this time.

So, if anybody knows of any body hiring for temporary help for anything let me know. I will do almost anything short term. My resent research shows me temporary jobs don't pay near as much as regular full time jobs so I will have to keep Fresh Market. That is OK, it is kind of fun and mindless. Something I haven't had in a while. It is kind of nice not having any responsibility.

Final House Update

The votes are in. It appears that we are staying in Georgia for at least a few more months. The end of November has come and gone and the girl bringing the last would-be offer on our house has backed out. The contract with our real estate agent is also up (we will not be relisting with her).

When we started on this journey to Kentucky we set Nov. 30th as our do-or-die date to sell. It was nearing the date that I had to be registered for classes and it would still give us enough time to find a place to live in Louisville. That date has come and gone (can you believe it's December?).

So here we are. We are relisting our house with a new agent but we will be doing all of the leg work (which costs us a lot less). He will list our house on his sites and all of the real estate sites and then if/when we get a contract he will do all of that work as well. We are responsible for following up on all of the leads and doing all of the showings...which we pretty much did with our other agent at full price. Our timetable is now much longer which puts less of a burden for us to sell quickly in this cruddy market. If we sell soon...great...we'll find a temporary place to live until school starts.

Shana and I aren't worried or anxious. As Shana posted (scroll down a bit), we do believe that God is sovereign and this is where our faith in that God is lived out. Would we love to be going to Kentucky for school next semester? Absolutely. But I've said since the beginning...I know God wants us to go to seminary. When He wants us there, He'll get us there. He'll sell our house when the time is right. I suppose we could go ahead and move "trusting" that God wants us there now, but that's not where we are. There is a point where you can be presuming upon God's will. I'm not comfortable with that. God also tells us to be wise with our money. Going to Kentucky with a mortgage in Georgia isn't being wise with our money.

We do have some prayer requests that we'll put out there. But before that I would like you to note again that these aren't prayer "concerns." We've been called according to His purpose so we know that all things will work together for our good. So in your prayers and ours we will acknowledge God's control over everything and make our requests known to Him. He is working this together for our good...so knowing that Shana is being laid off soon (request #1), and will be looking for a job during a time when no one is hiring (request #2), but has a job at the Fresh Market with her meat cuttin' husband (request/praise #3), and that we still need to sell our house (request #4), we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, and that God is sovereign and in control and not simply "allowing" this to happen because He is Working this out for our good (and His glory). With these truths and promises (and this incredibly long run-on sentence) we humbly lay these requests at His feet and we wait on our Lord (by the way, waiting on the Lord, that thing we don't have the patience to do - including me - somehow really does renew our strength). He is the author and perfecter of our faith. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

PS - There is a picture of the Fresh Market's dynamic duo coming soon!