Josh & Shana

We have relocated to the same blog address. No one should be able to still get this feed... I don't think anyway. If you're still getting this go here: www.stringerhousehold.blogspot.com and re-subscribe. Thanks!

Check out our new video. We had a nice walk in the snow yesterday and some sledding today. Thanks to Shane and Jess Sander for babysitting Truett for a few minutes and letting us borrow the sleds. It was a nice date for us.



We're supposed to get a few more inches on Sunday. Craziness.

Well, we got about 6-8 inches of snow today - depending on who you ask. Either way it was a nice snow. We're supposed get another inch or so tonight along with 20-30mph winds and temperatures in the low teens. Hopefully we'll keep power this year and the roads won't get too bad.

Anyway, here are some pictures in no particular order...

Our Top Three Super Bowl Commercials:

Oh well. P.C. wins out. Congrats to the Saints. They earned it.

I figured, just before the game starts, I'd throw my prediction out there for the Super Bowl. I'm looking forward to actually watching a really good football game regardless of who wins. However, I just can't bring myself to root for the Saints. I know. I know. It seems un-P.C. and maybe un-American (because the city of N.O. "deserves" a Super Bowl win) to root against them but they whooped the Falcons twice this year. I've never liked the Saints and I actually d0 like the Colts. I'd also like to see Peyton Manning get another ring. I think he's probably the best QB of all time and another ring would add to that idea. I like the story of New Orleans. It would make a great documentary or something about hope and joy for the city, but I just think the Colts are a better team. Not a much better team. But a better team.

So, not that it matters to me a whole lot, but I'm thinking
Colts 37 Saints 31

The score looks close, but I don't think it will be that close. The Colts will be up by a few touchdowns and then the Saints will make a comeback, but in the end, I'll go with Peyton and the Colts to win it in Miami, where snow isn't on the ground.

By the way, we're supposed to get 6 inches of snow on Tuesday. Yay.

I was talking to a friend the other day about contests. Man it would be nice to win some free stuff at contests. Well, here is my first attempt. I read about this blog on my friend Jennifer's blog. It is the Modest Mom Shop. A very cute name. Well, they are giving away a free clothing item. There are some really cute skirts. I really like them, I will let you know if I win something. You should check it out if you would like to enter to win, although I am sure that will narrow my chances.

I think everybody needs some.


Shana and I are big goober Toby Mac fans. I think I've explained on here before my love for music. I think I'm pretty eclectic when it comes to my choices for music. Its probably surprising to some. But, judging by what I've heard from this album, "City on our Knees," "Showstopper," and now this background song "Tonight," sounds like a winner. Can't wait. Thanks mom and dad for the iTunes gift card for Christmas. Nice how that works out.

Here are the load of books I have for this semester. Some of these I read for my J-term class a few weeks ago. The best so far.... "How To Read A Book." You should check it out if you're much of a reader and have a hard time with speed and retention (like me).
My classes this semester:
Greek (online w/Dr. Pennington)
N.T. Theology (Tom Schreiner...he wrote the big red book with the same title as my class as well as being the editor of the NT portion of the ESV Study Bible)
Systematic Theology III (Russell Moore)
Hermeneutics (Jim "the human cross-reference" Hamilton)

Its hard to not be really overly proud of where I go to school. I think when I graduate I'll not have really realized the greatness of the professors here so I try to take in as much as I can while I am here. Other Southern grads will commiserate I'm sure.


And now for the snow. Last week I posted something about us "Expecting Again." Well this is what I meant. Yes, I know what it sounded like. THAT WAS THE POINT! Ha! Anyway here are pictures from the morning walk with Zoe. She loves the snow. As do I.

Our apartments.


And now for my favorite four legged girl:

I care nothing for the Florida Gators (unless they're playing UGA). However, I do care about the Gospel and I think Tim Tebow does too. Read this.

Ok, I got a hot piece of information yesterday from a friend while working up at the seminary. Talking about saving money, which is a hot topic around here, a friend suggested Christian Healthcare Ministries and Medi-Share for healthcare choices. We are currently on the Seminarian plan with the school. Well, these plans are non-profit christian organizations. Has anybody used or currently using these companies for health insurance? If we were to switch over to one of them, if approved, we could save tons of money. Any feedback anybody has would be much appreciated.

I've been meaning to make this post for a while. Its a little glimpse into what I do. Most people know that I cut meat but I don't think anyone really knows how it works. Over Christmas I worked a few overnight shifts to get ready for Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve. All I did was cut, trim, and tie tenderloins and standing rib roasts. I don't remember the exact totals but it was a few hundred of each. So, here's a look into my "tent-making" job.

The tools of the trade:
6" boning knife, 10" cutting knife, and a sharpening steel. The key to doing the job correctly and efficiently is having sharp knives all the time. A dull knife leads to cut fingers and a tired hand.


These next two pictures are all of the the cases of Angus and Hereford beef tenderloins and roasts that we went through.... in two days! That's a lot of bovine.



This year we also got some USDA Prime Tenderloins (Filet Mignon). Super expensive yet very rewarding to cut. This is the Ferrari of the meat world. These things pretty much just melt in your mouth.


This is how I operate. I line up about 12 of these babies and work in an assembly line fashion. Trim all of the fat off one by one and then come back and tie them up....


....like this.



These are the rib roasts. Some people call them Prime Rib or Bone-in Ribeye Roast. All the same. This is my favorite piece of meat. They weigh about 17lbs each. Don't get freaked out if/when you ever buy one just because they are big. They're really easy to cook.


This is what one looks like after we trim it. Trim it? But there's still a ton of fat on there right? Yep. The fat is where the flavor is. You can cut it off when you serve it but that stuff just melts over the meat while it cooks *drool*. The butcher twine is to hold the bones on the meat. We cut the bones almost all the way off - partly with the saw and partly with the knife - so that when you serve it you can just clip the strings off and have a boneless roast to slice. You get all the flavor from the fat and the bones without the hassle.


Here's 20 something of these things. These were just the Angus orders for Christmas Eve. I had another cart like this loaded up with the Hereford Beef. We would then cut these down into whatever size the customer ordered (3 bones, 5 bones, etc.). These 20 probably covered about 75 orders. (Notice my radio. Hey, it gets boring in that cold room by yourself for 10 hours).


Anyway, that's what I do. 3 years ago (yep. 3 years I've been doing this) I never would have imagined myself as a butcher. The Lord has amazing ways of doing what He does. If I never learned how to do this I'm not sure how we'd be paying for school right now. So anyway, I just "celebrated" my 3 year anniversary at The Fresh Market. I really enjoy the "work" part of what I do and I like to think I do it pretty well - at least I try to. The Lord has used the Fresh Market to teach me a lot about myself and the gigantic world of lost people that are around us. I'm thankful to the Lord that he has taught me how to "make tents." I'll do it as long as I need to - but truth be told, I'll be glad to move on - one day.

*Disclaimer: no cows were harmed in the taking of these pictures. They were already dead.*

First, I apologize to everybody for thinking we are pregnant again. I know Josh is hilarious right. He says he did that on purpose. So, if you would like give him a hard time about it. :)

Second, I am extremely proud of my Martha abilities lately. I have mastered one of Judy's biscuit recipes. As you can see below. This is really exciting for me. As you know, my husband is a great cook and it was his idea to get Judy's recipe. Well, he attempted it many times and they never would rise up. Well, I did it once and had that touchdown emotion overwhelm me as they came out of the oven perfect. Since then they have come out perfect every time.

Third, this was my adventure for today. I love having a wreath on my door. Not just for Christmas either. Growing up my grandma would make her own festive wreaths for her door every month. I remember helping pick stuff out to put them together as a little girl. So, I guess you could say that it stayed with me. I would love to have a wreath for my door for every month. Where would I store them all right? One thing at a time. Well, my girlfriends at home in GA will be happy to know that I finally exhausted my Micheals giftcard they gave me over a year ago for my birthday. Yeah I know, I guess you would say I milked it. Well, technically I still have like 25 cents on it. I went the other day to see what I could find for a wreath for our door. Well, I only had 8 dollars left on my giftcard and all the premade wreaths were way more then that. With coupon in hand I wondered around the store with Truett in Ergo trying to figure out what to do. Just my luck (well if I believed in it) there was a women in the store making wreaths. I sat there and gleaned some ideas from her for a minute, and then off I was to accomplish my idea. With 8 bucks left and a coupon from the Sunday paper, I could only afford a wreath base (with no decor on it). So, I decided to bring it home and try and pull something together. If it didn't work I could always take it back. I had these flowers. They were a gift many years ago from Judy. They used to live in a pottery vase, then they were revamped into a door hanger wreath thing (i have no clue what to call this thing). If you have seen any of our video tours of our apartment you have probably seen them hanging on the door. So, it was time to reuse them again. I cut off the stems and hot glued them into my wreath. The ribbon I had in my wrapping stuff. I bought a ton of ribbon like this in the gift wrapping section after Christmas one year. I got it for 90 percent off. I believe I got this stuff the first year we were married. Can you say it has lasted me. One day when I run out of stuff, I will go restock (after Christmas of course). You probably are asking how I got this stuff hot glued into the wreath. This by far is probably my proudest moment, bread bag ties. Whenever I get bread I take the ties off and put my pampered chef clips on the bag. For some reason I have been collecting the ties in my kitchen drawer. Not knowing what I might use them for. Well, they came in super awesome handy today. I am super proud of my gorgeous wreath that I made on a dime. Please if you think it is ugly, keep it to yourself because I am on cloud nine :)

P.S. A special shout out to Rachel L. (my neighbor) for letting me borrow her cordless hot glue gun, I literally couldn't have done it with out you. That thing is awesome I have to get one, one day.


Lastly, I made brownies from scratch last night. We have been dwindling down our sweets stock because we were going to try and loose some weight and get fit again. I especially would like to before I get pregnant again. At least get my abs back. Well, all that to say there were no sweets left. Josh was craving so I decided to check my favorite cooking website allrecipes.com to see if I had all the ingredients for any good brownie recipes. Sure enough I did. They turned out awesome. I also got to try out my new brownie pan that we got for Christmas from one of our students. Yeah you guess it, it is the brownie pan with the divider thing that was all over the infomercials. It is really cool. I have to say that I like it.

Well, that is all for my update now. It is really long.

P.S. still wanting a snuggie

Ok, I know this is going to be one of those weird random posts, but here goes nothing.

It was a big gift item pushed this season for Christmas, and I am sure lots of you got them for Christmas or other gifts. If you got one and have no clue what to do with it or don't want it, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give it to me. I really want a snuggie.

Ok, so this was my blog plea for a snuggie. Thanks or listening.

3-6 inches of snow today? Its possible. I'm guessing that we'll have more around 2-3. I'm able to make such predictions because of my extensive weather background. Actually I'm just hoping for less. South of us is supposed to get up to 10 inches. I hope it stays south.

I'm in the library working on a paper. Whether I'm reading or writing I typically have music in my ears. Its usually some combination of jazz, soft instrumental, or movie soundtracks. Wordless background music that helps me think. A while back I discovered a great website called Pandora Radio. You may have used it before, I think its been out for a while. But if you haven't I'll explain. Its a streaming website that lets you pick what you want to listen to. You get to create your own radio station. When creating a station you type in the name of an artist or song that you like. For instance I'm a big fan of Need To Breathe. I entered the band into the awesomeness engine (that's my title for it) and it begins playing one of their songs. Next, it searches the database for bands like them and plays their music. Its great to get to hear new artists that I wouldn't normally get to hear and to hear other music that I like. Based off of Need To Breathe I've gotten Bebo Norman, Mat Kearney, and David Crowder.

So for studying I have two stations that I listen to. The first one I typed in John Williams (the composer who scored Star Wars, and pretty much every Steven Spielberg movie ever). So for the next several hours I get movie scores from Gladiator, Last of the Mohicans, and Schindler's List (and tons of others).

My other station is one I just created on whim that I am now listening to. I typed in Charlie Parker. Probably the greatest jazz sax player ever. The next three artists: Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt, and Miles Davis. So sweet. Give it a try.

Here is Truett hanging out with Madelyn (Danielle's girl). She is 10 weeks younger than him. Danielle sorry if I spelled her name wrong.



Truett here playing with Scott (he's a student in our small group).

Today I made a guest appearance on my friend Andy Darnell's blog. You can find the post here. I wrote about "The Sin of Busy." Its basically a summary of last semester and the convictions that followed. Andy was also kind enough to post the audio of the sermon that I preached over Christmas break at my home church (Christ Church of Metro Atlanta). Check it out.

In case you haven't heard, NBC is dumb. I'm a Conan fan over Jay. Always have been. Even though in my advancing years I can't stay up as late as I used to I sometimes catch Conan's opening monologue. He's really funny and it stinks for him that all this has happened. Well, in the large scope of things I really don't care, but he's a funny guy.

FoxNews.com has a slideshow featuring the best jokes that have been told since the late night feud started. Better though, watch this video:

Here is a video from this week. Maggie gave Truett these food holder things. I put ice in them and Truett loves it. He is kind going in and out of teething so I think it feels really good on his gums.

I realize that most, if not all, of the people that read this blog will care absolutely nothing about this post. Heck, I'm surprised I care. But I saw this highlight this morning from the ECHL Hockey League which is the league that the Gwinnett Gladiators play in. I have no idea who the players are or even the teams but this is flat out awesome. Enjoy?

While home we got to spend a lot of time with Zach, Lauren, Jonathan, Andy, and Caitlin. We were so happy to get to see them bunches. I could watch Jonathan and Truett play for hours.



Here Truett is opening a present from Zach and Lauren over Christmas.



This is a super cute video of Truett and Priscilla over Christmas.

This was after Christmas. We came home to a week of snow. This is a fun cute video. Sorry it has taken me forever to start posting stuff. I promise I will get to Christmas stuff too.

Today in my class a pastor in town for the class shared some personal news about Haiti. He had been on many mission trips to Haiti over the past several years. He and his church had developed a relationship with a network of very small churches there. Among those and other churches that he knows of 25 pastors died in the earthquake. 25! TWENTY-FIVE! 25 churches are without their shepherds in a very spiritually dark country.

So, how does that number fit into Pat Robertson's response the the earthquake? If you haven't heard what he said you can find it here.

Basically he says that this could be a blessing in disguise and that Haiti made a deal with the devil some years ago and now they are being punished by God. If we learned anything from the 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina tragedies and now this, its that Christians have no shortage of representatives of people who are willing to add an "I told you so" to unbelievable catastrophes. Guys like Robertson are the evangelical version of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. I could say more like that but I'll refrain. Its not constructive at all.

So, in that vein I will point you in the direction of two responses and one video that could be a response.

First is Donald Miller's response. (Thanks to Andy Darnell for posting this on his blog). I know, I know. Its Donald Miller. I'm not down with everything that he's written or represents either, but I think his response is fair and displays some wisdom and maturity.

However, the other response worth reading is from Dr. Albert Mohler. "Does God Hate Haiti?" I think its an indirect response to Robertson, but more than that its a Gospel-centered response with a properly applied theology. I know you're busy, but if you choose to click a link and read these read this one first. I'm proud that this man leads the school I attend.

Lastly, I've been meaning to post this video for a while. It's a clip from a sermon preached by Matt Chandler (who is currently undergoing chemo for a brain tumor). The title of this clip is "Jesus Wants the Rose." Watch this through the lens of the Haitian tragedy.



Jesus wants Haiti.

One of these days I'll post something meaningful on here. Today is not that day. On YouTube I subscribe to this channel SGSA (Stupid Game Show Answers). I think I've posted stuff from them on here before. This is quite funny, especially if you enjoy Gilbert Godfreid being Gilbert Godfreid. Enjoy you fool!

I'm in a J-Term class for this week. Its Ministry of Leadership. Great class so far. Great reading. One of our first exercises was name a great leader. The second guy in the class - from Lexington - names Coach John Calipari of the University of Kentucky. Probably a good example, but my first thoughts were, "The last two colleges he left both were immediately on probation." My prof just said, "I guess when he was at Memphis and UMass he wasn't so great, but now that he's at UK he is." Well said Dr. Atkinson.

Someday we'll get some Christmas pictures up, but as for today we have a very familiar scene out our window. Its been snowing since early this morning. Its still snowing now (3:15pm). It will probably snow some more tonight. Its not near as much as last year (hopefully it won't get there). At times its been heavy, but I'd describe this snow as "thick flurries." I know that's not a weather term but it'll work for now. I'm guessing that we've had about 3 inches so far. Surprisingly that's what the weather guys have been predicting. Its a nice snow. Not icy but fluffy and kind of wet. The problem? We haven't had a day above freezing in a while and we're not supposed to for a few more days. So, this could get messy. But for now its nice. I have the day off work so we've gotten to spend some nice time together as a family. Its Truett's first snow after all...not that he has any idea about it. The picture below is Big Will and little Will trekking up the hill to do some sledding. You can see from our railing how much we have so far.

This is going to be short, but more will come with regards to our Christmas Vacation. However, right now I'm watching a really bad movie and I need something else to do. I've seen two movies via "on demand" and two via the theater this week. The two in the theater - Avatar (on 3-D) and Sherlock Holmes - were fantastic. The two via on-demand - G.I. Joe and (now) Four Christmases - are the worst movies I've seen this year. Why is Vince Vaughn still allowed to make movies?