Mary, Martha, and a Message for Moms

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(Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Diego Velázquez, 1618)

I'm driving home from work and call my wife to let her know.  As soon as she answers the phone I can hear it in her voice; she's completely stressed out.  She's trying not to talk to me about it because she doesn't want to have a heart that is grumbling or complaining, but I can tell.

I don't hear my son yelling or crying in the background or even trying to talk to her nonstop while she's on the phone.  I ask her how he was today and she tells me he was really good.  Okay, so she's not stressed over anything my son did.

The conversation continues for another few minutes as we talk about what we each did that day and what's for dinner.  Finally, unable to figure it out on my own, I just ask her, "Is there something stressing you, my dove?"  There's silence on the other end for a moment and then, "Well... it's the house."

Oh, this subject.  My beautiful wife is nearing the third trimester of pregnancy, has an almost 3 year old son who demands nonstop attention, talks to you about everything, and wants to run and explore (provided you're there running and exploring with him).  And as the old infomercial goes, "But wait, there's more!"  She's also in a lot of pain, my son was born asynclitic.  It's said to be the second hardest type of birth (the first being breach), and one of its unfortunate side effects, for my wife at least, is some lasting bone/muscle damage that's making her second pregnancy very difficult.  She's doing some physical therapy to help, but it can only do so much.

Needless to say, she's exhausted and can't walk for long.  I've been trying to take care of the things she can't keep up with, but I'm no mom.  I'm dad, which means housework gets done like a triage ward.  So clutter can stick around for a while, dishes sometimes pile up (especially when the dishwasher is clean and needs to be unloaded), but it's not like we're living in filth mind you.  I may be dad, but even I make sure the house is sanitary

Still, seeing the clutter stresses her, not because she's a perfectionist, but because she feels like it is a constant reminder that she's not doing her wifely duties.  I know she's being serious, but it always makes me laugh when she says that.  As if the Bible taught that a wife had to do all the laundry and all the dishes and the vacuuming.  It annoys her that I laugh, but you can blame my dad for it.  He drilled it into his sons' head that there were no gender specific chores.  If mom was doing dishes or sweeping or moping we'd better be in there helping her or doing homework.  Knowing how to do laundry was my brother's fault though; he knows what he did.

So I get home and I find a picked up house.  After we got off the phone my wife felt so guilty, despite me telling her not to worry about it, that she cleaned up the clutter.  Which was sweet and I tell her thanks, but she spent the rest of the night and much of the next day in pain.  The trade off isn't worth it.

In Luke 10:38-42 we're given a unique look into Christ's friendships outside His disciples.  He comes into the home of Martha and her sister Mary was there and Jesus sat down and began to teach.  Mary sat down and listened, but I love how the King James Version puts what Martha did, "Martha was cumbered about much serving."  Not just distracted, cumbered.  She's hindered, she's hampered, she's obstructed by the serving.

Martha wasn't just making sure people had a place to sit or getting dinner ready like a good hostess, she was being obstructed by overly focusing on the material concerns of how her home looked to her guests.  And what was Jesus' response when Martha finally got mad that her sister wasn't helping?  He rebuked Martha for letting the material keep her from enjoying the spiritual.

And this isn't just a thing for pregnant moms either.  Even before the pregnancy, my son consumed my wife's energy.  But here's the thing, hardly a day goes by that my wife doesn't send me a picture of my son's smiling face, or my son snuggled up to momma all worn out.  As Jesus put it, my wife "has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

So don't get stressed out about a house that gets a little messy, don't be ashamed to invite friends over, and don't stop investing in the good portion.

Mary, Martha, and a Message for Moms

Married!

Yay - we got married and it is almost our 1 month anniversary!

Married!

Amazing Soup Extravaganza

Sunday night Matthew and I set out to make a homemade chicken noodle soup -- we even wanted to make the noodles ourselves! It was great fun, but took quiet a few hours. Patrick and Jan helped us indulge in the masterpiece. Below is the recipe if you are interested and wanted to try it out for yourself. (This was all inspired by a family friend's blog: http://greavesrecipes.blogspot.com/ --- Thanks Greaves girls!)

Amy and Matthew Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Serves 4

Before Beginning

All Ingredients needed:

1 egg, beaten 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon baking powder (optional)
2 tablespoons milk 1 cup chopped carrots
2 cups chicken (1/2 a chicken) 1 cup chopped celery
10 cups water 8 chicken bullion cubes

Preparation:

1. Set chicken to cook with a crock pot

2. While chicken is cooking, make sure you have all the ingredients

3. When chicken is finished cut up and place into fridge until it’s ready to add to the soup (Step 4 in “Preparing the Soup”).


Preparing the Noodles
Start noodles 3 hours before hand

Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon baking powder (optional)
2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. Combine egg, salt, milk. Add flour in ¼ increments (For thicker noodles add backing powder to flour before mixing.). Separate into two balls.

2. Roll out dough, and let stand for 20 minutes.

3. Cut into strips and spread to dry—dust with a little flour. Let dry for approximately 2 hours

4. Drop into hot soup(Step 4 in “Preparing the Soup”)—cook about 10 minutes

Preparing the Soup
Ingredients:
1 cup chopped carrots 8 chicken bullion cubes
2 cups chicken (1/2 a chicken) 1 cup chopped celery
10 cups water

Directions:

1. 30 minutes before the noodles finish drying set water on stove and bring to a rolling boil.

2. Once boiling add carrots, celery, and bullion cubes.

3. Bring to a boil and cover. Lower heat and let cook for 10 minutes.

4. Add chicken and noodles. Let cook for an additional 15 minutes.

5. Season with Salt and Pepper.

Amazing Soup Extravaganza

My AWESOME Richardson Adventure

Today was an amazing awesome and exciting day. Though to understand the significance of today, we must go back in time just a little. Right around 2 weeks ago, Amy’s roommate decided to make a chore chart without talking to Amy about it first. An action which Amy and I both felt was a little like treating Amy like a 5 year old (we totally had a chore chart when I was a kid, doing enough chores got you stuff. I think I got a NES game for doing it once, and the chore chart Amy’s roommate made came complete with color coding and daily reminders). Obviously, Amy (and myself) were slightly offended at this action, but no one ever talked about it.

Enter today. Amy has noticed that items that belong to the roommate are slowly, but steadily, disappearing. When Amy tried to talk to her roommate the night before she got a very cold shoulder, and when we woke up this morning we found two EXTREMELY interesting things. The first was her roommate had deleted all of us off facebook. Just BAM! Gone. The second thing was her roommate had posted a craigslist add looking for someone she could move in with.

Okay, so obviously this girl has been majorly offended but rather than talking to Amy rationally and maturely, she’s going around and subversively making plans to just leave (and by extension leave Amy stuck with the bill). Well, this concerns Amy and I, and so we spend most the day attempting to contact her roommate via various methods. After about 4 hours of intermittent attempts, Amy finally gets a text message that says, “What do you want.” (note the period and not a question mark). Amy responds that she feels like she needs to talk with her roommate over the phone and not via texting. We get no response.

Finally, Amy asks me to just come over because she feels that her roommate will not be returning that evening and we want to watch the premiere of the new season of “The Office”. Shortly after I arrive (around 5ish), we finally get a very long e-mail from her roommate, not a call, just an e-mail. The gist was the roommate felt that Amy wasn’t pulling her fair share of the work around the apartment.

Now I must take a break to make a very quick side note that this apartment boarders on immaculate. Both Amy and her roommate are diligent to put away the dishes they dirty and keep the common area relatively clean. In fact, Amy is extra diligent to leave nothing of her own in the main area for prolonged periods of time out of respect. The worst you could find in that room are a couple cat toys of the roommate.

Amy again pursues peace with this kid and replies that she would love to talk with her roommate, and the roommate promises to be home early.

So Amy and I head off for free Chick-fil-a night (time is now about 5:45) where we have an awesome time. On the way out of the parking lot, we notice that there’s a lady with her car stalled out in the middle of the road. I go ahead and hop out and offer to push her car into the next parking lot (just a little down the road). I get a couple steps (slow steps, it was a VERY heavy car) and two other young men come and join me (thank goodness!). The three of us get it pushed into the parking lot and Amy and I head out.

We still got an hour and a half-ish before “The Office” comes on, and we’re expecting her roommate to get home shortly after she gets off at 6-o’clock. So we put on Wall-E and chill out.

Her roommate doesn’t show up. No sooner had "The Office" turned on then her roommate walks into the apartment (8-o’clock on the dot, way to get home early). Amy is initially turned down when she attempts to talk to her roommate, so I hide out in Amy’s room and Amy tries again. With me out of there, the roommate starts to pack-up all her dishes and silverware while Amy tries to talk with her. Amy says she can clean more and the roommate (quite angrily) replies, “Well, I guess that’s okay for now.” But the conversation doesn’t really end, Amy tries to figure out what’s going on, but the roommate refuses to actually talk. Instead she just keeps packing her stuff and giving non-committal answers.

Finally, Amy comes back into her room and begins to sob. Nothing is getting solved, it’s just escalating. I go out into the room with Amy and politely confront her roommate. I tell her that we all need to talk and try and get this peacefully resolved. To which I’m angrily told it’s doesn’t concern me.

Now of course this is completely false. For starters, this is my girlfriend we’re talking about, and further, I kinda have some long term plans with this Amy of mine, her roommate is giving every indication of splitting leaving Amy with some sever finical repercussions. The kind that can damage a credit report at a time when it really needs to be spotless. I politely tell her as much at which point she turns off in a huff, stomps into her room, slams the door in locks it shut! What are we, teenagers?!

So I begin talking to the roommate through the door. I say we really need to discuss this, that some feelings were majorly hurt and Amy wants to reconcile with her roommate. I explain that we understand that the roommate believed she was being communicative by making a chore chart, but it wasn’t true communication.

Dead silence from the room. Okay, so reconciliation is a no go, time to switch gears a little. At this point I politely explain that we really need to get it resolved because the two of them entered a contractual agreement whereby both individuals are finically obligated to the apartment. That means that if one of them leaves, and the other can not pay the full amount of the rent, then they both get evicted and it goes on BOTH credit reports.

This finally causes a huge eruption, where the roommate yells out, “Who said I’m leaving! What makes you think I’m leaving!” Though I didn’t respond to her taunt, the answer is the craigslist ad and all the packing, just an off hand thought. Regardless, I continue to try to politely reason with her and finally tell her that this isn’t how two Christian people should treat one another, that we need to reach a peaceful solution. At this point she storms out of her room with her purse. I make sure I’m not in her way, nor do I attempt to stop her. Amy and I really are attempting to open dialogue and don’t want anything misinterpreted. She storms down the stairs and opens the door. She turns around and screams “You’re not my F****** father!” slams the door, locks it and heads off. Nice.

It doesn’t end there however! Amy, at this point, is way scared. Her roommate has gone off her rocker. She’s adamantly refused our every attempt of peaceful dialogue and has begun to demonstrate acts of aggression (though fortunately, it's been limited to verbal and physical only to doors), and I’m trying to calm her down. Shortly there after, the roommate returns talking on the phone (being prompted by someone with what to say). She tells me that she wants me out, that her name is on the lease and if I make her fell threatened or uncomfortable then I have to leave.

I ask her if I have threatened her in anyway. She’s quick to respond no. I calmly and quietly let her know that Amy is also on the lease, that I am her invited guest and she needs me right now, I’m not about to leave and legally she cannot make me. She threatens to call the cops and I politely respond “You are welcome to do so.”

So she leaves again. Amy is freaking out that the cops are gonna come and sure enough, 15 minutes later we hear sirens. Humorously, however, it turns out to be an ambulance and fire truck, something happened to someone else in the apartment building next to us.

Amy and I sit down for devotions and another 15 minutes pass. There’s a knock at the door and who is it but the friendly Richardson Police. We go ahead an invite them in and explain what’s all going on. The two of them inform us that they cannot legally make me leave. Moreover, as the conversation progresses and they learn the why this argument began, the more they begin to laugh. Amy goes off with one of the police men to talk with her roommate outside while me and the other chat it up inside.

The two of us hit it off quiet nicely and more and more his jaw drops to hear about the happenings of this argument. It ends with him basically telling me that this is ridiculous, and it’s clear that he has found this whole thing to be a humorous waste of time and the roommate was crazy for calling it in.

Amy comes back in at this point and I let the officer know that we had been packing and were actually just waiting to talk with them before we left. We didn’t want the roommate calling them and then them not hearing our side of what happened. If she was going to blow all of this to an absolutely ridiculous proportion just to avoid talking with Amy, then we weren’t going to let it get us in trouble.

So Amy finished packing and as she’s coming downstairs, one of the officers runs up to her and says, “You know you don’t have to go, right?” AWESOME! The officer was completely on our side, they were really wonderful guys. I shook their hands and thank them for coming out. Amy joked with them and apologize they were brought out on something so stupid. “You know… women!” Amy told them as we left. The two of the laughed and one commented that he had two girls of his own.

Meanwhile, Amy parted pleasantly with her roommate. She asked if she was moving out, to which the other replied “Well, I pretty much have to now don’t I!” To which Amy, cool as a cucumber, replied, “I’m sorry it went down like this.”

While both Amy and I recognize that her roommate brought this down on her self (she consistently refused to talk with Amy and instead chose methods such as chore charts, secret craigslist postings, and one sentence quips as she ran out the door so no one could respond, then she continued to defend her grossly inappropriate, and un-Christ-like attitude to the point that she called the cops at a point where Amy and I were quietly watching TV in her room, sorry but she built this house of cards with her own hands one piece at a time), we don’t harbor her any ill will. We find it tragic that her roommate so consistently choose the path of immaturity, but that’s life. We’re trying to make sure that the roommate can get out of the lease as quickly as possible since she has non-stop made it clear that she she no longer wants to live there anymore. And we’re praying that matures past this self-destructing attitude that is, quiet frankly, inappropriate for a 22 year old.

And that’s my incredibly AWESOME Richardson Adventure!

My AWESOME Richardson Adventure

Happy Valentine’s Day (Part 2)

As you may have noticed, this is a little past Valentine’s day, but I want to make sure people have plenty of time to see and post on Amy’s posts before I make a post. Besides, I had a part 2 in mind for Amy and mine’s Valentine’s day.

Amy and I are both very practical people. Neither one of us wanted to go out on Valentine’s day itself since we both knew the places would be crowded, and that just doesn’t sound like a fun, romantic trip to be surrounded on all sides by strangers.

So we celebrated our Valentine’s day the Wednesday before Valentine’s (you can read her post below if you want to see more about that). And it turned out to be a rather good thing that we did celebrate early since I got sick on Thursday with what I assume was an allergy attack that turned into a nasty little infection. It had me out of it all for several days.

However, I decided I wasn’t quit done with Valentine’s day. If we weren’t gonna celebrate on V-day itself, then we should (for at least this year) celebrate it again the following Wednesday too.

So it was that I set up a date for Amy all before hand. I rented a movie, chose which restaurant we were gonna go to (it was a pizza place by DBU that we had never tried, turned out to be less than awesome), and bought some really colorful flowers who’s name I can never quite remember.

Thanks for being so amazing Amy, for always listening to my ideas no matter how far fetched they may be, and for being so understanding of how much school work I always seem to be working on. I love you Amy Grace!

Oh and here's a funny little comic from Frazz

Happy Valentine’s Day (Part 2)

Dad's Cancer and Dallas Aquarium

My dad has a new blog spot which he will be using exclusively to update his cancer info and other posts. Here's the URL

http://www.txbennett.blogspot.com/

Also his cancer levels have dropped to almost a third of what it was originally! Praise be to God for bringing the cancer levels down to this point! (also as an interesting side note, I find it interesting that people believe God heals people, but not that He first gives them (or at least permits it) the illness first.)

Amy and I had a fun date day going to the Dallas World Aquarium (Zoo). It's not too large, takes between 2-3 hours to go through, and is a blast for peoples of all ages! The one drawback is that it is VERY expensive (~20 for an adult). Mom and dad knew Amy really wanted to go see it, so for Christmas and her graduation they gave her two tickets for herself and a guest. Fortunately, Amy chose to take me with her!

We started our little date day by trekking over to a Chili's (courtesy of a chili's gift card given to Amy by her sister and brother-in-law for graduation) in the area where we discovered that they were out of hamburger meat and corn on the cob. Apparently, the New Year's Day parade floats had stranded the delivery truck on the wrong side of town! We were, however, able to manage and had a wonderful lunch. Then we headed a few miles down the street to the Aquarium were we had a TON of fun. Here's some pics!

Amy by the penguins

This was Amy's favorite bird there, it had a little mohawk that it could move up and down

They had baby toucans that you could feed a berry to. This little girl was brave enough to try it out, but she got her finger bit a little.

Amy and I liked this bird cause its tail looked like a heart.

BATS!

A random penguin that acted like the king of the little rock it was on.


A really great photo of Amy! If only I could get rid of the flash....

I got some really great photos of these jellyfish.

Some Mayans came out and did a little show (it was kinda lame)

Look out for sharks!

Amy, I just said to look out!

I liked the way the seahorses tails wrapped around the coral like little sea cowboys had tethered them outside a saloon.

Amy and me at the aquarium!

Lazy cat!

Amy doing an EXTREMELY cute flamingo impersonation.

As we were leaving we ran into a parade. Amy was so excited that when she noticed it she RAN to see it!

See how excited she is?!

Thanks for the awesome date Amy!

Dad's Cancer and Dallas Aquarium

Graduations, End of Semesters, and an Old Bed

This past week my girlfriend graduated from college with Bachelor's degree in Communication with a minor in Psychology. I'm way proud of her! Here's a picture of her and her sister at her graduation. Congratulations Amy!



Today I was faced with daunting task of getting my room assembled. Each semester I am forced to remove all my possessions from the room at my school, and find some manner of temporary abode for them in my room. Fortunately, my mother had some spare boxes and I was able to store much of it in an unused corner of the garage.

But I get ahead of myself. Before I could even think about what I was going to do with all the junk that was filling up most of my car, I first had to make space for it in my room by getting it cleaned up. As I began the first round of cleanings, I had an awesome idea. Earlier, my mom had mentioned that since the frame for my bed was broken, I should just use the frame that my Grandfather Bennett had made for me when I was 8 months old (By 6 months, I had made it quiet clear to my mother that I would not stand being in a crib).

It should have been easy, right? I take the pieces out of the garage, dust them off, put them together and I'm done. 30 minutes top. I have come to adopt a new moto in life when it comes to projects: "The easier a project should be, the more time it's going to take". Things started out bad when my shoulder informed me that I had slept on it wrong and was going to make life unbearably painful the more I tried to use it. But I was determined to get this done, so I muscle through the pain and attempt to do this two person project by myself.

Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue with an extra pair of hands and a pair of Aleeve tablets. We managed to get the frame together when I realized that the box frame (the thing that the matress sits on) was too large to fit in the frame my granddad made. Oh well, that's no big problem, for as long as I can remember, we've always just used a piece of plywood with this bed and it's worked fantastically.

After a short debate with my mom about how wide I should get the plywood cut, I run off to Lowe's to procure my item. As I'm walking in, I decide that my mom was probably right about erring on the side of caution with the width of the board and decide to get it cut to the exact width of the frame. A short time later I leave with my cut plywood (which cost me an extra 5 dollars since someone had mislabled a section of plywood), arrived home, and carried the wood upstairs. With mom's help we set the plywood in place only to find it was an inch to wide. Oops.

Thankfully, mom is used to dealing with frustrated Bennett men, and we quickly cut off an inch of the wood and fit in back into place with no problems. I hope that this bed will continue to last me for another 24 years and my kids will get to enjoy the bed that their great-grandpa made for their dad. All in all, it goes quite nicely with my wood shelves, the Benny's Place sign, and the bookcase, the desk, the floor... my room is very woodsy. Here's picture of the bed.


The washcloths are there to keep the metal bolts from damaging the mattress, and the suitcase is only there because I'm going to use it tomorrow to go see my best friend (who isn't Amy ;) ) in our annual Christmas time get together.

Oh, and after we finally got everything worked out with the bed (7:30) I was able to get my stuff in from my car and got done around 10:30. It was a very profitable day which started at 11:30 with me heading out to do the last of my Christmas shopping!

Graduations, End of Semesters, and an Old Bed

2 years!

Though I do not have time to fully list how wonderful my girlfriend Amy is, and all the various things she has done for me over the past two years, I must take a moment to write a simple happy 2 years of dating (it was on Saturday)! And get right back to studying Chinese for my midterm tomorrow!

2 years!