My sister was making coffee cake with my niece tonight and I ran over to the stove to see what was going on. I said “What’s that for?” My sister replied “Back off, it’s for church.”
When you hear that and it is in regards to food you can feel disappointment immediately set in. This beautiful dessert is not for you but “for church.”
Then I thought back to when I was a kid and I would hear “You can’t have that, that’s for church” all the time with food. “Don’t eat that jello salad, that’s for church. Stay away from the casserole that’s for church.” You would get so frustrated because there was nothing else to eat in the house except this supposed holy food.
Now my brother was a food hog. He was the type to drink all the milk eat and all the cereal in one day. Mom could buy weeks worth of groceries and he’d eat all the good stuff after midnight. As a result, “it’s for church” turned into a phrase to deter my brother from eating us out of house and home. Soon everything became “for church”.
“Dont eat that chip dip — it’s for church” (and nevermind that you just saw me eat out of the container for the last 15 minutes.). “You can’t have those chicken patties, that’s for church.”
Because I was the youngest I was not privy to this food ruse and I soon became of a victim of “it’s for church” starvation.
Eventually my brother caught on and started to use the ploy against me and things like poptarts and Faygo pop got added to the church list.
Finally I figured things out about the food in the fridge when I realized that we didn’t go to church that often or even at all. So why are we making and giving all our food to a place I only went on Wednesday night and on holidays? Were we good kids because we feared the Lord enough not to touch His lemon bars or were we bad kids for using God’s house to protect our food from our pig of a brother?
Nowadays a lot of food in the kitchen is for church and it is so tempting not to sneak a sample. When I hear “it’s for church” however I am a little skeptical, after years of the phrase being a food security alarm I doubt the motives of the chef.
My sister finally admitted that the coffee cake was for consumption at home. She just wanted me to leave her alone while she baked.

Cobb family vacation was not recession proof this summer. Original plans was a roadtrip to South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore. That fell through and we opted for a trip to Michigan and it’s beautiful lakes.
We headed to Lake Otsego to camp for two nights. Just the usual–hot dogs, marshmallows, campfire, and scary stories. My sister had a RV so her family and my mom could sleep in there.
But the real fun was in the big tent. The first night my two sisters and two nieces got yelled at for being too loud at night by the very stern park ranger. We weren’t doing anything wrong– just giggling and steam rolling each other (now this may be just a Cobb or Michigan thing but steamrolling is when you roll over whatever poor soul has to share a bed with you during family get-togethers as you are rolling over them and squishing their organs you yell “steamroller”– fun is had by all).
The next night my oldest sister came to camp and we like to make something called a “Ty Sandwich”–we smoosh Ty between two sisters in a loving hug– Ty’s mouth maybe saying “stop” but her giggles say “I love it”. We also told her about the angry park ranger and how we couldn’t be loud or they’ll kick us out. We decided to torture her with steamrolling and as we rolled over her we covered her mouth and said “no one can hear your screams”. Imagine four sisters and two nieces beating the tar out of each other and they are not aloud to laugh or scream. It was great fun and very memorable. We totally had the church giggles and tried to be completely still when we saw a lantern walk by the outside of our tent. Luckily we did not get busted by the park rangers for illegal steamrolling past quiet hours.
Pack of hot dogs: $3.99 Bug spray: $5.99 Campsite rental: $25 per night. Torturing your sisters in the great outdoors: Priceless.

I bought an iPhone and feel that now my life is complete. I don’t have to walk the five feet over to my desk and use the computer anymore. Now I can just stay in my bed and do all my texting and facebook in a complete
Slothlike position. Now if only the bathroom could be closer.
I havent gone completely crazy yet with the magic gadget. But I haven’t gone through all the apps yet.
I have such high expectations for the phone. I hope it doesn’t disappoint me. Could I disappoint it by not being as cool as those people drinking starbucks and brooding through my tweets? Quite the high expectations.

Slept in today–11 am TX time, 1 pm GA time–oops. Woke up to the sound of the smoke alarm–BREAKFAST IS READY! Had eggs and ham with hashbrowns. It was a good start of the day.
We went to the El Paso Saddle Company and big souvenier store. I didin’t find anything I wanted. I saw an Indian blanket I liked, but it was made in India. Oh, cruel irony, Columbus.
For lunch we went to Wienerschnietzel, a fast food chain of hot dogs. It was nothing special but I can say I went somewhere that had “the world’s best wieners.”

Dinner time was a trek to the desert to Cattleman’s Ranch.  It has been voted one of Texas’ best restaurants and I agree!!  They have a steak called the Cowboy that is 2 lbs.  I settled for the 10 oz NY Strip Steak.  While we were waiting for our food to be cooked (and possibly to be slaughtered) we went out on the Ranch and looked at their mini-zoo.  They had rabbits, ostrich, goats, Texas Longhorns and Buffaloes.  Our favorite was the snake pit.  It is a big cage with about a dozen rattle snakes inside.  We could see them slither around and one started rattling at us through the mesh.  Maran was scared and all through our walk we would grab her and make hissing sounds.  Also the buffalo sneezed water at Maran.  Back at the dinner table my steak came and in the first bite I was in love.   I have had steak before but now I realize the importance of cut and quality–like diamonds, steaks are a girls’ best friend.  I ate it all!!!  I don’t think I could ever have another steak in my life because it could not compare to this one.  I also had a baked potato.  For dessert there was apple pie. 

There was no eating after this point. I think you can figure out why.

Breakfast: Coke, coffee and potato burrito from a local stand. Yay!!! I love potatoes in Mexican food.
We drove around to different missions in El Paso. The blistering sun made us stop for a drink. I had a strawberry Fanta and a bag of Reese’s Pieces. The pieces were gone by the time we got to Mesilla, New Mexico. A little town with a square of restaurants and stores. We went to Peppers Restaurant, but it is also called the Double Eagle. I think it has one name during the day and another name at night. While eating there I realize that this is where my brother and his wife got married. I gave my sister a tour and recounted the event of about 5 years ago. I had tortilla soup as I was not super hungry. I had a Pepsi which I hate, but this one didn’t taste too bad, maybe I was imagining it was a coke and the mirage showed up on my tastebuds. The soup was good and it wasn’t too hot, but I kept coughing like a dork because I had a tickle in my throat. People were looking at me like I was some wimpy white person who can’t eat spicy food. It looked like I was over-reacting to the spices, but just a cough.
We found a shop called the Chocolate Lady. I bought a chocolate covered marshmallow. It was HUGE. On the car ride home I at it and I got a little sugar-shocked about 1/3 of the way thorugh. But I had to push through–it cost 2.50! The marshmallow inside was pink and it had a little strawberry flavor. I took a swig of left-over strawberry Fanta to wash it down. Problem was the Fanta had been in the car for 3 hours. I think it was about a 90 degree drink!
My sister-in-law made green chile enchiladas for dinner. I was very good and it was my first time having green chile enchiladas, I’ve usually had the red chile ones.
My brother took us around El Paso after dinner. We went by Fort Bliss Army Base. We went up some mountains and saw the sunset. He showed us Juarez City in Mexico from afar (it is too dangerous to go there because of a drug war). He showed us the Rio Grande, which is not even a stream because it is so dry right now. I also saw our tax dollars at work with the border fence. I guess we do need the fence since there is not treacherous river to swim through. My favorite is seeing the big fence and then 5 feet later there is no barrier–hello, they can just go around! We went to another mountain and it was dark so we saw all the city lights below. The mountains and desert are very pretty.
On the way back to the house we had a hankering for Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I had a strawberry glazed. My body is not objecting to my food choices–yet.
Who knows what food discoveries I’ll make tomorrow.

Today was a day to go down in history of nutrition. A veritable cross-country journey of junk food. We started the day in Arlington, TX around 10 am. We went to Whattaburger for breakfast. I had a honey-butter chicken biscuit and tater sticks (hashbrowns) with a nice breakfast coke. The Honey-butter was AMAZING but the chicken was no Chik-fil-a.
We slurp down our breakfast cokes and have to stop at McDonalds for a brunch coke.
A few hours later we stop again. All through Texas they have Dairy Queens all right off the highway. The hot sun, the hilly region turning more into desert makes me feel like I’m dying of heat. We pull off and I get a nice Heath Blizzard.
We drive for more and more hours. It doesn’t seem that long (yet) because I’ve never seen this type of landscape before. I am amazed that I can see things for miles and miles because the land is flat and not obscured by trees. We go to a gas station and I get a sprite and fries from Mickey D’s and Starbursts. We are just not hungry for a meal all day. I finish off the candy and realize that my cup is empty–not even an ice crystal. We are about 2 hours from El Paso, so I eat a bag of potato chips (small bag) from last nights dinner. I pretend that I am thirsty and dying in the desert because there is no civilization in sight. I threaten to cut open a cactus for milk.
We finally get to El Paso and we go out for pizza with my brother and sister-in-law. This will be my only nutritious meal of the day: green chile and ricotta cheese pizza and ham and pineapple pizza. There was some salad–green stuff! I had 2 more cokes.
I would say that my calorie count was about 4 calories per mile and we drove for 700 miles today. I always say that if you are moving the calories don’t count (well, I say that when I walk and eat at the same time).
I think tomorrow I’ll have to drink a gallon of water to flush out the damage I have done.

I am thinking about cancelling my MySpace Account. I just checked it today and my mood is listed as “Janey is excited about the Christmas Season”. No one has added me as a friend in months and the apps on there are trashy.
I am totally dedicated to Facebook and the “cleanliness of it”. Meaning peoples crappy music/graphics/glittering angels don’t get in the way of me reading the comments or profile info. I prefer my stalking to be on a white background and easy “wall to wall” links.
I will probably cancel MySpace by the end of the week. I first have to salvage my old blog postings. I shall put my “greatest hits” up on the Wordy Press.

Yeah, the Amazing Race is back on! Sunday television lives again!

5. Slippers. They keep your toes warm, but unlike socks they don’t get wet or pick up pokey things off the floor and stick to your feet. I like the slippers with a hard sole so you can wear them to the mailbox or to the grocery store (or to church, like I did on accident one Sunday). They look and feel like shoes so you can get away with going in public.

4. Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows. Makes a great night snack and marshmallows have no fat so you won’t feel AS guilty as some snacks. Also, it has less caffeine than a coffee so you don’t feel jittery but soothed by the warm milk.

3. A heating pad. I have a fear of electric blankets so I have this awesome heating pad with automatic shut off. If I fall asleep with it on I won’t die in a fire because the heating pad turns off after 30 minutes. I try not to use it every night because I don’t want it to hurt my back. I have a sister (who shall remain nameless) who uses hers everynight and it looks like she has giant red rectangle on her back. She has a heating pad outline tattoo.

2. Something to snuggle with. We all have our preferences with this one. I currently enjoy my Hillsdale College blanket. It is made out of material that feels like a big old sweatshirt. I also like to snuggle with my kitty, Fluffykins if he doesn’t do A.) Sleep directly on my head or B.) Bite my feet everytime I move. Otherwise he makes a great 2nd heating pad.

1. A good book. Hopefully your room has a comfortable enough temperature for you to be able to keep your hands outside of the blanket. Sometimes I have to use the flashlight under the covers strategy to read in bed. My current bedtime book is my new Quest Study Bible. I’m rockin’ it New Testament style and this Bible has all the notes and references of a regular study Bible but they place everything in question form. It is much easier to read and it doesn’t have 50 footnotes per page and then only 5 verses like the study Bibles.

Did anyone proofread this man’s script before they put it on TV? There are about 4 fantastic lines, can you guess my favorites?