The Randomness

Hey, hey, hey! Happy spring time to all!

Well, I hope in this blog, I will be able to keep my thoughts in order and not ramble. I just want to make sense and, in love, let my feelings be known. So, here goes....

Isn't Hollywood interesting. It's an amazing, fascinating, offending, captivating, distracting, immoral machine that never stops running. You never know what it's going to spit out next and just how shocking it might be.

I blogged a while ago about Spanglish and the message that was so contrary to scripture and God's view of marriage. Today, I'm not really pin-pointing any particular film but just the overall feel and level of immorality that reigns supreme in so much that's being made these days.

I don't think God ever intended for His children to be blindly led by the standards and values of Hollywood. And, God has been telling me lately that it really is okay to take offense and not be cool with a lot of what is deemed by the entertainment world as awesome.

God has been so good to Will and I in drawing us to Himself and giving us the desire to live holy lives and to truly be set apart. It's interesting, though, when you are truly seeking God and His will in your life, how satan will come against you so strong. He not only tries to get you in areas he knows you are weakest, but he starts to prey on you in other areas.

But, I find comofort in the following verse from Romans.

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

There are so many distractions out there, both good and bad, and I've come to find out that even the good can get in the way of that closesness with Christ that He so desparately wants, and I so desparately need.

I hope this was an encouragement and thanks for keeping up with my ramblings!

Hello again. Well, as some of you may know I married a bit of a gamer, but what you may not know is that I myself love video games too. I grew up playing Doom on the PC and from there went on to Mario Brothers and all that glorious series had to offer. I had an older brother, so I definitely dabbled in some fighting games as well. Street Fighter, Streets of Rage and the subject of todays blog...Mortal Kombat.

Will and I downloaded Mortal Kombat for the 360 a couple of months ago and have been enjoying reacquainting ourselves with some of our old warrior friends. We had fun with it for a bit, but grew tired of it after a while. What was especially annoying was the inability to defeat the grand master, Shao Kahn. That got old fast.



Well, the other morning, on a whim or so I thought, I decided to play a little MK. I truly believe now that it was fate leading me to play that morning. I will share with you why. Once again, I made it through them all and there was Shao laughing at me and waiting to bash my brains in with his giant mallet. I chose to play with Sheeva, the monster like man-woman. I manged to defeat him on the first round (done before) and got destroyed on the 2nd round, which was the usual pattern.



Here comes round three and I had little hope within me that I would ever stand a chance. He started his usual routine, where he lunges at me and takes about 1/3 of my energy with each lunge. I knew if I stayed where I was that he would deplete me rather quickly. I decided to go after him in this brand new technique and as Will and I watched with eyes amazed, I took the last of his life with a powerful uppercut. There he was on the ground, defeated.

Never in Will's wildest dreams, did he think he would marry a woman with such amazing dork-like qualities. I leave you with a picture of Will. I think he is reveling in the knowledge that he married a gamer!

Hello! Happy springtime. It's finally warming up, and if feels amazing!

Well, my twin cousins came for a visit a couple of months ago, and they brought Twilight with them for me to read. I was intrigued, but it sat on my shelf for about 1 month and a half. I finally picked it up and decided to give it a go. Wow! It is certainly popular for a reason. What a great read. I felt like a giddy teenager the whole time. Well, I finished the book mere days before the movie hit Blockbuster. Perfect timing.

I'd definitely heard mixed reviews about the Twilight movie. My cousins abhored it. Hated the actress who played the main character, Bella. They thought she couldn't act. Then there were some who thought it was okay. But, I was surrounded by people at work/church who LOVED the movie and thought it was just the best thing ever. They went to see it 5 and 6 times.

Well, personally, I was disappointed. My main concern was just how inconsistent it was compared to the book. Things were added, taken away and totally mixed up. And for someone, like my husband, who hadn't read the book, it was rather slow to him. Neither of us hated it, but we certainly didn't love it either.

However, there was one scene that was AWESOME. We love Muse and their song "Supermassive Black Hole" was in the movie. I think this scene was ridiculously cool. The quality isn't the best, but hopefully you can get the idea.

I send my love to all of you faithful readers!!

Okay...so I am more than ready for the warm weather to be here. We're springing forward this weekend which means more daylight, which means a giddy Sarah. Will and I are looking forward to being outdoors and enjoying the extended evenings.

Well, I've recently been quite bombarded by commercials for the iphone. You know the ones..."Need to split a check for 5, we've got an app for that", "Going skiing and need to know how much snow has fallen, we've got an app for that". As a result of that bombardment and as a result of being around people with bad phone etiquette, I've developed quite a distaste for the iphone. I'm a mac girl and a technology girl, and I admit that it's cool as junk, but I'm over it.



I recently saw an "app" for books on the phone. Really? I want to hold a book in my hands. I want to feel the cover and the pages and smell the goodness that is a book. I don't want it to be read on something the size of a phone.


Regular cell phones are enough of a distraction, and I want to have real conversations with people without the slow glance down at their iphone or blackberry. It's like I'm interesting, but what's on this screen is more interesting. Seinfeld did a bit about that on Conan the other night. It's so true!

I'm not bashing any of you for having one. I'm just stating my own personal opinion and boy am I opinionated!

Love to all!!

Slack doesn't begin to describe how horribly behind I am in blogging. I have struggled to find true inspiration. I started a couple of blogs but just didn't finish them. I think I was preparing for this one.

My mother's mother, Gwen Lutterman, known to family as Grummy, passed away on Feb. 8th around 4 in the afternoon. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer only 1-2 weeks prior to her passing.


Will and I were totally blessed to be able to fly to Richmond 1 week before her death. At the time, we had no clue how far along the condition was, but we knew it could have been quite bad. I am so glad we made that decision to go. We were able to sit with Grummy in the hospital and talk and pray and laugh. She was in good spirits, and it is a wonderful memory that we have. When she went home a few days later, she was told she had between 1 and 3 months. It was 2 days. When I knew there was no way to fly there to see her one last time, I decided I would write a letter and email it to my mom for my mom to read to her. I'm not going to share the letter word for word, but I will share some highlights.

Some memories with my grandma:

1. I was introduced to the Chronicles of Narnia because of my grandma. I found these set of books when I was around 12, on her bookshelf, and they were so intriguing to me. I asked if I could borrow them, and devoured them all in a short amount of time. When I think of those books, I automatically think of her. I was able to take that set from her bookshelf home with me. I will cherish that forever.

2. Growing up, we lived next door to my grandparents, so we spent a lot of time together. I remember my brother hiding one of Grummy's shoes when she was there so she couldn't leave. She would tell him she needed to go, and he wouldn't give up the shoe. It was a constant thing. I loved it!

3. My mom and grandma were really into organics for a while and would get chickens and eggs and beef from an organic farm a few hours away. They would always go in the summer, in the blazing heat. I remember Grummy would pack a bag of healthy snacks. Nuts, veggies and a banana. That banana would permeate the air as we drove along. I would drift away in the hot back seat to the smell of a potent banana.

4. I remember spending the night with grandma a few times. We would pop pop corn and watch Andy Griffith episodes. Grummy always called him Andy Griffin. I never corrected her and thought it was so cute when she said that. I call him Andy Griffin sometimes in honor of her.

5. Winter consisted of puzzles being worked indoors. I love working puzzles because of her. Summer would consist of games on the porch. Games like chickenfoot (domino game) and some card games. Coca Cola or Root Beer and games. Ahhh, the absolute goodness of that.

6. Prayer. My grandma was a pray warrior. The six years my brother and I travelled and did music, she was constantly praying for our safety. I knew that whenever we set out, we were being prayed for and wouldn't stop being prayed for until we were safely home. I'm sure she didn't stop praying then either.

My grandma was a humble, God honoring, woman who pursued holiness and morality in her life. She is truly missed, but she is in Heaven with her Lord and Savior. That is pretty awesome.

In addition to the books, I also nabbed a sweater of hers. I'm wrapped up in it now, as I write this. I appreciate your prayers so much as we've been dealing with all of this. It's definitely been a tough time, but God has been completely faithful and has offered such a peace. He is truly amazing!

Love to you all.

Hey there, all. I have been quite slack in my writings as of late. I apologize and shall break myself in with a synopsis of the events of the last couple of days. I start with a picture of Will and myself, for kicks, from our amazing Christ Mug Party, last Friday.


So, Thursday, I'm at the church working, hanging out with some people, and my friend, Jordan, says that he's gonna do a 10 day cleanse. Hmmm, interesting, I thought. Upon further investigation, I found out that several people were gonna do it. So, I was like, maybe Will and I should do this! I told him about it, and he was like, why not??


Here's how it works. You don't eat a thing for 10 days. Each day you must drink a half gallon of a mixture of the following; lemon juice, water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Due to the fact that you are getting no fiber and it is, after all, a cleanse, you also drink a laxative tea at night and do a salt water flush in the morning. Which is exactly what it sounds like. A quart of lukewarm water and 2 teaspoons of salt.



So, Will and I go to Harry's fresh market on Thursday night and get all of the stuff we needed. We were excited! I was having/still have a horrible time with my allergies, but I figured I'd do it anyway. We went out for a farewell to food dinner and woke Friday ready to start. I was feeling miserable already, but we took our containers of juice with us (which looked like urine) and began to drink throughout the day.

OH MY GOSH! That junk was super nasty. The cayenne was so hot but, we managed to get through Day 1 pretty well. Day 2, my allergies are murdering me, and just getting the juice down is like gag city. We do the salt water cleanse in the morning. It was like drinking the ocean, but it worked. Later in the day, my mom (a fasting/cleansing expert) calls, and I get advised from her that I shouldn't be doing this while sick. At that point (6PM) we were both pretty miserable and decided we should stop.

The thing is, the not eating was totally doable...it was that juice that killed us. I think there is a cleanse that is in pill form that doesn't require the intake of nasty juice.


I want to encourage Lauryn, Jordan and Bobo, who are still going strong! You can make it. I'm so proud of you, and so is this random man, who is giving you two thumbs up. Hallelujah!

Happy Sunday wishes, friends. It's been a busy but great week, which I need to blog about at some point, but I need to tell you all about my birthday weekend before it's too far past it.

My official birthday was Wed. the 29th of October, but Will and I celebrated on Sat, Nov. 1st. I knew ahead of time that he had surprises planned for me but had no clue what it all entailed. I only knew that a nice dinner would conclude the day. Will had various stops mapped out and in between each stop, I was blindfolded and totally shocked at each location. First was Starbucks drive through and my fav- a skinny vanilla latte. While sipping and blind, we headed to the next stop, which was Target. Of course I didn't know this. He allowed me to remove my blindfold, but I kept my eyes closed all the way through the store, and I was lead around like a blind woman. He was throwing me off the track with comments like, do you smell ham? We're in the deli. Or is it bologna. I was confused because I kept hearing music. Ahhhh.....we reach a moment where he allows me the gift of sight, and there before me is the docking station we've been wanting. He said, "It's time". So, surprise #2 was getting us well under way.


Next was on to lunch at this spot in downtown Alpharetta that I've so been wanting to go to. It is a fresh Mexican/California type spot. So incredibly yummy. I was so happy.

Blindfold on and onto our next surprise. We come to a stop, and I find myself outside of a spa. What?? Will, the amazing one, had scheduled a 1 hour deep tissue massage and pedicure! I was so happy and shocked that I wanted to cry or pee or something. I haven't had a massage in like 8 months. It was so good. Perfect. And, my toes are still looking great! It was then on to Bed Bath and Beyond where I picked out a new blanket for our couch. Our other one was falling apart. I think we made a wise choice.

Last stop is pamper to the max, but I haven't tanned since May or so and it was an expense that wasn't necessary. I accepted my ghostly pallor, but Will booked a little tanning session for me and set me up for a month's worth! I know. He is awesome. Really.

We chilled for a bit and then headed out for dinner in Crabapple, which is this quaint town near Alpharetta. They have an amazing southern cuisine restaurant called Milton's. It was the perfect way to end the day. Shrimp and grits for me and fried catfish and grits for my man.

The icing on the cake was coming home to watch the Gamecocks destroy the Tennessee Vol's. What a stupendous day! I feel like the richest woman on planet earth. And the thing is, I don't even require these things to know that I have the exact man that God picked out for me. Who loves you, Will Troutman??