David & Solomon

I am enjoying my archaeology class so much! We finished the beginning of the Iron Age, the period of the united monarchy in Israel and shot through 500 years of the divided monarchy to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in the matter of about 45 minutes because my professor wanted to make sure we got into the time of Jesus. You think he might be a believer? We finished last week with King Herod’s rebuilding of the Temple Mount. It has been awesome. I am learning so much. The readings have been amazing. And next Tuesday (April 29th) is the last day of classes. I’m so sad. I really want to take this class again. If it weren’t for the drive to College Station and the fact that I’ll have graduated and won’t be a student at the university, I would. I am going to have to look into Concordia and see what classes they teach. I know they have an Old Testament class. Of course it won’t be the same as Archaeology of the Bible, because I really like the archaeological evidence that proves it. But I would still be learning about the Bible.

This weekend I read about the closest parallel to Solomon’s Temple found to date and a third reference to King David found on a pharaonic mortuary relief in Egypt. It’s just amazing! And these articles, written by scholars, archaeologists, trusted experts in their fields, state over and over again how the archaeological evidence corroborates the Biblical record. My professor was exactly right when he told us a few weeks ago when we started this new section that we could use the Bible as a guide from here on out. It was so cool last Thursday when he got so excited explaining to us three separate extra-Biblical sources found in the archaeological record regarding the measures King Hezekiah took to strengthen and protect the city of Jerusalem from attack by the Assyrian Sennacherib. We thought he was going to jump up and down. It was exciting. Find after find illustrating the same stories we can read in the Bible. It’s just unbelievably exciting. This class has made archaeology so much more for me and higher learning well worth it. I really want to go to Jerusalem now.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Well, another week has almost gone by. Time is flying by fast. I want it to slow down. Roger is going to L.A. next week to visit friends and I know that time is going to fly by fast and then we'll be at the end of April. That only leaves a month for us to hang out together until he has to go back to work full time at the end of May. Oh, if only we could keep living like this. Yeah, I'll stop dreaming now.

So we had a great anniversary weekend. Sorry, we forgot our camera Saturday night. So we don't have any pictures of us dancing the night away. But the benefit was great. We had a lot of fun dancing and socializing and the benefit raised a lot of money for Ty. He was there which was a real treat. He's so little because of his health. It's quite sad. He's almost seven and he's smaller than my nephew who is going to be five in May. Ty is going back to the Mayo Clinic for more testing and such. They still don't know what's causing all his health problems. He brought a tear to our eyes when he said in his tiny, whispery voice after the live auction and raffle, "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." It's so sad that children that young and innocent have to deal with such things. It's just not fair.

On to the next topic, I had to give up my ring Monday. We went to see John so he could solder my rings together and do a new appraisal for our insurance. I know "giving it up" sounds so harsh, but I just got it. And I don't get it back until next Monday. We're going to College Station this Friday and Saturday for Parent's Weekend at A&M. Then Saturday evening we're going to Houston for an Astros game with Kezia's family and Sunday Kezia's sister's children are being dedicated at their church. It's been hard without my ring so far, so I'm sure this weekend will be tough. I keep checking my finger for it and feeling for it because I'm so used to it being there. I keep feeling like I've forgotten it or lost it. I can't wait to get it back on Monday. We'll take some pictures then.

Roger's spending this week working on electrical stuff on our back patio. He's adding a ceiling fan, track lighting for his grill, an outlet for the rotisserie motor on his grill, a motion sensor light for the yard, a new light fixture at the back door and installing GFCI outlets where they should be in the kitchen and bathrooms. We made a new friend at Home Depot on Monday in the electrical section who happens to be a retired electrician and volunteered to come over and help us. Talk about a blessing. I can't wait for them to be done so we can have them over for dinner and use the grill so they can see all their handy work. It's going to be so nice out there. We'll actually be able to use our entire backyard now. They bought all the materials today and will do the work tomorrow. So I won't be here to take any pictures since I'll be in class.

Speaking of class, I made an 80 (B) on my test last week! Yeah. Not great, but better than I thought I did. That gives me an 87 in the class so far. I am going to try hard to make a high A on the last exam to hopefully pull my grade up to an A for the class. In class we are entering the Iron Age which has even more references to the Bible than before. We ended our last section of material at the Late Bronze Age with a highly debated topic in the field of Biblical Archaeology as to the dates of the Genesis patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc). We read an article by Kenneth Kitchen in Biblical Archaeology Review (1995: 21/2) illustrating with archaeological, internal and external Biblical evidence why he believes the dates of the patriarchs to be the Middle Bronze Age. It was a really interesting article and I loved reading how he compared so many aspects of the Bible to external sources that establish reliability of the Biblical time periods. If anyone is interested in reading it, let me know and I'll email the article to you if you can't get access to it through their website. There are always interesting articles in this journal.

Lastly, I've entered a USAT sanctioned triathlon the last Sunday of April. It's called the Ranger Triathlon and it's being held at and benefits the Texas School for the Deaf and I'm really excited about it. I haven't done a triathlon in over five years. But I'm pretty sure I'm ready for it. It's basically a mini-triathlon with a 200m swim, 6 mile bike and 2 mile run. I had to time my 200m swim for lining up purposes of the triathlon. Since the swim portion will be in a pool and not open water, you're lined up by time so faster swimmers aren't swimming over slower swimmers. I was quite surprised by my time which was 5:23 and that was two weeks ago. I have lengthened by swims since so I'm pretty sure I'll be faster by the actual race day. Now I've got to start working on training for the bike portion and transitions. I have to be able to fix a flat or any other incident that might come up by myself with no help from anyone so I need Roger to show me how to do all that bike stuff again. Since it's a USAT sanctioned event, they are pretty strict with the rules. I had to become a member of USAT to be able to participate. Since I had to pay for a year membership, I'm going to try to do some other mini or half triathlons during the year. I'm not ready for a full triathlon and I don't know if I will ever be ready for that. But I am planning to add another day of swimming each week starting next week. We'll see how it goes.

Okay, that's it for now. This is too long as it is. Check out more pictures of Roger grilling and other house pictures on the right. Chao!

The Holy Land

Okay, my class, Introduction to Biblical Archaeology is starting to get interesting. Now that I’ve starting doing the assigned readings this weekend, my interest has been perked. The readings start with understanding what Bible Archaeology is by understanding the geography of the area which also affects the political (and religious) aspects of the region. And we’re also getting into the history of the region. I’ve never understood completely the conflict with Israel, Palestine, Jordan, etc. I mean, I understand they are fighting over who should own Jerusalem because it is a holy city to three faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But I’ve never been able to keep it all straight. So I think this part of the class is going to set it all straight for me and help me to finally understand it all. I wasn’t a huge fan of going to the Holy Land before, but since becoming a Christian and learning more about the Bible and where it took place, I’ve become more interested in it. But I can feel this class is really going to enhance my interest in it and I am becoming more and more intrigued with going to see the places I read about in the Bible. I do think it would be really neat to stand on the land looking at the exact places some of the stories of the Old and New Testament took place. I wonder if there are any walls of Jericho still standing. I can’t wait to get further in the readings. I’m glad we have four weeks of introduction. I’m going to need at least four weeks to keep it all straight.

As for what’s going on with Roger’s case, I’m hoping he will blog sometime this week with the latest updates. He has spoken with his assigned attorney and will meet with him twice before the hearing on Feb 13th. But I’ll let him go into detail. Please keep him and his case in your prayers. Thanks!

Let The Jokes Begin

Well, today was an interesting end to a good start. I started school on Tuesday. I’m so stoked, my last semester of school. The semester just started and I’m already excited about graduating. I even have a cap and gown already. My mom’s friend Tribbie is letting me borrow her cap and gown from her master’s graduation at A&M this past December. All I have to do is buy a tassel. I tried it on Tuesday night and it’s perfect. That will save me some money. Thanks Trib. We know the graduation will be either May 9th or May 10th. Once the university goes through all the graduation applications they receive by the end of this month, they will know how many students are graduating from each department of each college and will create a schedule to make it all fit into four ceremonies, two on each day.

As for school, my class, Introduction to Biblical Archaeology, so far has been interesting. I’m not as impressed with the professor as I hoped to be. He doesn’t use any of the available resources or technology the university has created to make his life or the students’ life easier, except for electronic course reserves at the library. Those are old hat if you ask me. The class is packed and you have to be in the room at least 15 minutes before to get a decent seat. You know I like to sit in the front and so far I’ve had to sit about half way up. It’s hard to hear him even with a lapel microphone. I’m going to have to start getting there earlier. Even though we got the “this isn’t a Bible study” lecture the first day of class, he mentions specific scripture and stories from the Bible often. He’s even mentioned Jesus a few times. So for me, it is a Bible study because I’m learning things about the Bible I didn’t know previously. For the next four weeks, we are covering the introduction to Biblical archaeology before we get to specific times periods. We will cover 10,000-8,500 BC to the first century AD. So far we’ve been given a 45 page reading assignment. But of course, the textbook for the class isn’t in the bookstore yet, so the prof (actually his teaching assistant) had to scan the pages in for us and post them on the library electronic course reserves. I don’t think it will be in when the bookstore says, (not surprised) so I ordered mine from Amazon.com (saved $7) and it is already on its way to me. I bet I get my book before the bookstore gets them in.

As for swimming, Thursday was my first day to actually swim. It was great. Everything came back to me, breathing, head placement, arm and leg movement, torso twisting, a few strokes. But I’ve decided to take a stroke clinic or two depending on the cost so I can get further instruction and correction. I was tempted to attempt a flip turn on Thursday, but decided to wait a few weeks. I did a workout I found online. It’s part of an eight week program, but I plan to spread it out since it’s been two and a half years since I’ve swam regularly. The pool was set up for 25 meter lanes. I swam for a total of 45 minutes to one hour with a short 15 minute break in between for a fire drill that required the entire rec center to be evacuated. Turns out workers in one area of the rec center smelled gas so the staff decided to be better safe than sorry. I can appreciate that since I was in an area closer to the boilers and natural gas and heat don’t mix well. It was disturbing to my workout and the cold outside didn’t help. We weren’t allowed to go into the locker rooms to grab more clothes or anything, just evacuate.

So there we were soaking wet only in bathing suits and they are telling us we have to go outside where it is 41 degrees. Yeah, we were happy about that. I had one towel already and they gave us as many towels as we needed plus these huge insulated parkas the swim team uses. I was happy to see those. They helped a lot but it was still cold. We finally went back in and I resumed my workout with a short warm-up. I wish I had some kind of abacus or counting frame to keep up with my laps. I swam about 200 meters before we had to evacuate. That was a 9 minute warm-up and the start of a 9 minute skill refresher. Then I did a 22 minute main set plus a 5 minute cool down. I think in total I swam 700 meters which is about 0.44 of a mile, almost half a mile. Not bad for my first swim in two and a half years. I was starving after that and my legs were slow. My right hip hurt a little also, but I have been doing some yoga hip openers to help with that. I’ll be doing yoga everyday to combat the pain I’ll feel from all this swimming. The time of day I swim isn’t busy at all. I plan to continue swimming at that time. It also gets me in a locker room shower before a swimming conditioning kinesiology class gets out filling up the locker room.

As for the title of this post, two weeks ago I started having pain in my left lower jaw. It has progressively gotten worse, but slowly. I have no idea what I did to my jaw. (Here’s where the jokes begin.) There has not been any popping, grinding, ear pain or headache, just pain near the joint when I chew (more jokes), but not any when I talk (even more jokes). Around Tuesday of this week it actually started getting a little stiff and was tough for me to open. So on Wednesday night I decided I better go to the doctor before it gets worse and I can’t open my mouth at all. (Insert more jokes here.) How would I eat? I’d starve! I did some research online about jaw pain because I wasn’t sure if I should go to the dentist or my PCM. The census online was to go to a TMJ specialist, but I am not comfortable with my dentist at all and on Thursday morning I made an appointment with my PCM. By Thursday evening, thank goodness after dinner, the pain started moving up the side of my face and giving me a headache. I did not feel well. I had previously tried Tylenol and Advil but neither helped. At my appointment, my doctor examined the area externally and internally (which wasn't pleasant) and decided to send me for x-rays. She also gave me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 3 with codeine. I went straight to the lab for the x-rays hoping they’d be able to get the results to her the same day. After a 30 minute wait in the lobby and ten x-rays in different positions, I was informed the results wouldn’t get to her until Monday. So I have to wait to see what’s going on.

I turned in my prescriptions and ran all the rest of my errands before picking them up to go home and take them. I was planning to work when I got home, but that was before I found out I was going to be prescribed those meds. I wanted to get them in my system as soon as possible. I ate a small meal as to not have an empty stomach then took a half pill of the muscle relaxer and one Tylenol 3 with codeine as the pharmacist recommended. I waited a while and felt nothing. So I took the other half of the muscle relaxer and that helped. I was actually able to chew with no pain. I started to feel a little woozy when I stood up from the Tylenol 3 with codeine and decided I better stay down for a while and that I didn't need the second one yet. I think it has worn off a little, hence being able to blog, but I can’t take anymore for a bit. Darn.

My plan for tomorrow was to go for a long walk in the late morning as it warmed up to 52 degrees and cut plywood for the attic in the early afternoon. I’m not sure how I will feel tomorrow when I wake up, but I can’t drive or operate machinery on either medication. So I have two options, go with the pain until after I do those two things or take the meds and not do anything at all. I probably shouldn’t go for too long of a walk on muscle relaxers and Tylenol 3 with codeine. I wonder if I could walk at all. I was really hoping to be done with one side of the attic this weekend. Oh well, they say when you own a home you never run out of things to do. So putting that off a little longer won’t make a big difference. It will also give me time to hit my family up for help. :)

Weekend Update

Wow, time has flown by this weekend. So fast, I meant to blog on Friday but got distracted and forgot completely this weekend. So this is a little late.

I turned in the first draft of my 20 page research paper on Friday. Yeah! So glad to be done with that. We are supposed to get it back on Thursday, Nov 15th with feedback. The final is due Tuesday, Dec 4th. This is also the last day of classes. Praise the Lord! I'm so ready for this semester to be over. This has been a tough semester. When I was in college full time, I didn't have so many distractions so it was a lot easier. Hopefully next semester, my last!, will be a bit easier. I will find out tomorrow when I meet with the Anthropology advisor if I have to take one or two classes next Spring. Of course, I'm hoping for one, but we'll have to see if they'll substitute one of my junior college classes that's not fitting into my minor requirements. But I do know for sure I am going to take Introduction to Biblical Archaeology next semester. I can't wait. I'm really excited about it. I already reviewed the professor and the book we will be using and I'm even more excited about it. Both got great reviews. Finally college classes I will really enjoy.

So I did the Susan G. Komen race for the cure on Sunday. It was awesome. I had such an awesome time. I can't wait for next year. It's already set for November 2, 2008 and I plan to do it again. I woke up a little later than I wanted on Sunday morning. After waiting in line for a shuttle to the race, I didn't arrive until 8:00 a.m. Once I got off the shuttle and approached the race area, I knew I was never going to find my group. It was so crowded, I couldn't get through the crowd to where we were supposed to meet. And it turns out I would have never found them anyway because I couldn't locate the River tent because there wasn't one. So eager me decided to run to the front of the race and see if I saw them and if I didn't I'd go back and try to find them. Yeah, good intention, not a good plan. There were so many people there. By the time I got up to the front and of course, didn't find them and I was almost at the end. So I gave up trying and decided to keep enjoying the race. By then I stopped jogging and starting walking. There were so many groups of people supporting a loved one or friend. Everyone was having a good time. People are so funny and entertaining. There was a live band on the side performing, cheerleaders from local schools cheering all the way along, girl scout groups cheering and chanting "Early detection is the best prevention, I am the cure!" and even a group of dog lovers with their dogs cheering everyone on. It was great. After I finished and got some water and some sun chips and a soyjoy bar, I went back to the end to see if I could see my group come in. Of course, I didn't but I watched for a long time as people crossed the finish line. It was amazing. You could tell crossing the finish line was a big deal for the survivors. Their friends & family would cheer for them and someone would go ahead to take that milestone picture of them right at the line. It was inspiring and made me teary eyed at the same time. I'm telling you, everyone was having a great time. It was like a huge party. I posted my pictures on Flickr. I took a lot of pictures, most were blurry because I was moving. Sometimes I'd be in the moment of what ever was happening and forget to take a picture. And I'd think after, oh darn it, I should have taken a picture. It's hard to experience something though when you're looking through a camera. You miss the whole experience. So I forgot to take pictures going through the starting area. There was just so much going on and the atmosphere was on fire. It was truly unbelievable. So check out my pictures to the right or click on the link above.

Here are the stats from the race:
Race Participants: 21,057
On-line teams: 1063
Donations: $792,454.95
Registration fees and donations: $1,290,455.43

Not bad. I'll bug you all again next year in time for you to join me. It was a lot of fun. But next time, I'm not going to try to meet anyone at the race, but go there together. I did find two team mates right as I was about to leave. I was glad to at least meet two of them, especially Heather White, our fearless team leader. And they gave me the wonderful hat I was supposed to wear during the race. :)