God’s Love Never Ends

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Coco

Now that you’ve eaten the best chocolates out of your Valentine’s assortment and your Valentine’s flowers have started to fade, it’s a good time to remember that God’s love for us is enduring–it outlasts every “Hallmark holiday” and withstands all of our faults.
Empty Box of Chocolates

If you’ve been to a Christian wedding, you’ve probably heard these words from
1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient;
Love is kind;
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
It is not irritable or resentful;
It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.

If you are disappointed that your partner did not give you “a Valentine’s Day to remember,” keep in mind that what really matters is that your love for each other goes deeper.
Hearts

Love that will grow and endure is watered with kindness and patience, in soil that is fertilized with truth and hope and weeded of envy and self-importance. That kind of love will carry you through the trials and tribulations that life will bring your way, even if the road is not paved with diamonds or lined with roses.

Heart Plants God’s love never ends!

Posted in Life, My Faith | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Why I Love Running

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Coco

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Posted in Fitness | Tagged | 14 Comments

***Ash Wednesday***

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Coco

Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent, a 40-day period of repentance and reflection that many Christians observe before Easter.

(source)

Although Ash Wednesday is a solemn holy day in the church calendar, it is not all doom and gloom. In fact, I really love the liturgy of the Ash Wednesday service in the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer. The opening prayer gets me right away:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have created and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.

I think being reminded of God’s forgiveness before we confess our sins reinforces God’s unconditional love for us.

On of the readings usually is Psalm 103, which includes these verses:

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,
slow to anger and full of great kindness.

He will not always accuse us,
nor will he keep his anger forever.

He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our sins from us.

To me, this Psalm is a reminder that God sees us apart from our shortcomings and wrong-doings. While we tend to define ourselves by our worst traits, God loves our whole selves.

After the Bible readings, the service continues with an invitation to observe a holy Lent, which begins:

Dear People of God . . .

I just love that phrase–maybe because it connotes a sense of belonging to God.

With the imposition of ashes the priest reminds us:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Ash Wednesday Selfie

 

While this may strike some as a macabre part of the service, I see it as a needed reminder of my place in God’s creation. So often I get caught up in myself and my own abilities–I think I can do anything, that I have to do everything–that I forget to place my faith and trust in God. It also is a good reminder that our days on this earth are numbered and so we should spend them wisely.

For the first time in ages, I am giving up something for Lent.  I also am renewing my efforts at daily prayer, and making time for the Daily Prayer podcasts based on the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer.

Are you giving up anything or committing to do anything for Lent?

If you got ashes today, has anyone told you that you have a smudge on your forehead?

Posted in My Faith | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

My ITB Injury Strikes Again

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Coco

It started that weekend I did back-to-back long runs. While it was very cool to see the rehearsal for the inauguration, I’m not sure it was worth the price that I’m still paying weeks later.

It is likely that my daily sessions with Jillian were a contributing factor.

(You can read my review of Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred here)

While I felt no discomfort while I was doing all those squat thrusts and mountain climbers, surely they took their toll on legs that weren’t use to hardcore plyometric moves.

Maybe if I had spent more time with Rodney Yee my body could have put up with it.

(You can read my review of Rodney Yee’s AM Yoga For Your Week here)

But I haven’t spent much time lately doing yoga, stretching, or foam rolling.

No matter what did me in, the fact is that my knee is effed up. Well, not my knee exactly, but along the outside, at a spot where my ITB is the likely source of the pain.

it-band-injury-running

(source)

Last year I dealt with  ITB issues on my other leg, closer to my hip. Does it ever end?

Just as I was facing up to the fact that ignoring the pain was not going to make it go away, I read Erica’s blog post about her recent ITB injury. She linked a great YouTube video with an ITB rehab routine from Strength Running:

 

I bookmarked it and added a set of Thera Bands to my fitness equipment collection, so I can do the exercises without my rubber tubing digging into my skin!

I took a week off from running over the last week of January, and have been doing the ITB rehab exercises most days. Right now, I can run 3.5 miles without a problem, but then the pain flares up just like that image above. With only 7 weekends between now and the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler, I am trying not to freak out. I can’t even think about “training” until I can run 6-8 miles pain-free.

Have you recovered from an ITB injury?

What do you do when an injury interferes with your race training plans?

Posted in Fitness | Tagged , | 15 Comments

Not So Guilt Free Chocolate Chip Cookies (And Palmolive FreshInfusions Review)

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Coco

February 1 marks the official start of lacrosse season for my son.

Matt at Delaney

While I am excited about cheering on his college team, I am not looking forward to spending two hours freezing my ass off in the bleachers! Still, I plan to suck it up and go to the first scrimmage next weekend.

This week, my Mom and husband decided to go watch this weekend’s intra-team scrimmage. My Mom wisely noted that my (freshman) son is more likley to get some playing time against his own teammates. But, I had a rough week at work and felt like I was fighting off a sinus infection, so I decided to stay home. The weather forecast (high of 30ºF with a wind chill “feels like” temperature of 9ºF) didn’t do anything to change my mind.

To allay my guilt, I decided to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies to send up in a care package. I used the Nestle® Dark Chocolate Morsels that I found at Target a few weeks ago, and added some finely chopped pecans to sneak in a bit of nutrition.

With 53% cocoa, do these have more or less cocoa than semi-sweet morsels?

I was surprised by how large these morsels are–probably 2-3x regular chocolate chips!

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Does anyone else still use a hand mixer? I have yet to invest in a KitchenAid® stand mixer.

The cookies baked up nicely.

Cleanup was easy with Palmolive® FreshInfusions liquid dish soap.

I was given the opportunity to try out this new line of liquid dish soap through Influenster. While I love the light floral scent of the Ginger White Tea variety, I’m not sure I like my dish soap to smell like flowers. I feel like I need to rinse my dishes more than usual to make sure my next meal doesn’t take like a florist shop. I think I just expect dishsoap to smell like lemons–maybe I will like the Lemon Thyme variety better. (I tried the Lime Basil variety, but it reminded me too much of lime Jell-O®, so I gave it to a friend.) The product itself is great–it foams up nicely and its concentrated formula cleans a lot of dishes with a few drops. I’m interested to see what other people think.

FTC Notice: I was provided a free sample of Palmolive® FreshInfusions liquid dish soap to try. The opinions expressed here are 100% my own.

Do you put nuts in your chocolate chip cookies?

Posted in Food, Product Reviews | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments