GentleWhisper.com - By Amy Maxwell

Jeremiah’s first race!

2009-06-13T20:50:26Z

Jeremiah ran in the Smokey Hill River Festival Fitness Five two mile race this morning. At eight years old, he was the youngest and definitely the smallest in this adult race. There were about 18 runners in the eleven and under category.

Joel ran with Jer while Sarah and I waited at the finish line. The race volunteers were the first to notice Jeremiah turning the corner towards the finish line. They yelled, “Look at that little guy!” Most runners got a few polite claps. But everyone really cheered for Jer. I was so proud of him! His goal was to finish in under 27 minutes, he finished in 24 minutes 15 seconds! He’s going to do a 5k next.

GentleWhisper.com is Ten Years Old!

2009-06-13T16:45:02Z

Oh my, how did I miss this great occasion?

May 14th, 2009 was the 10 year anniversary of gentlewhisper.com!

On May 12th, 1999 I turned in my last paper at Evangel University and completed the requirements for my BA degree. Two days later I registered the domain name gentlewhisper.com.

I have neglected the site a lot since going back to school for my M.Div. But along the way it has been a good friend to me. Most of all because it has introduced me to all of you. My life would be dramatically different if it weren’t for GentleWhisper.com. Without it, I would have gone crazy when the kids were toddlers and I wouldn’t have met many of my closest friends.

Summer in Salina

2009-06-11T01:09:04Z

We’re spending the month of June in Salina, Ks. Joel has TDY orders with the Army National Guard. The four of us are sharing a one room hotel suite. It’s small, but it has a full size fridge, dishwasher and a range top. The kids share a roll-away bed that we fold out at the foot of our bed each night. Not much for privacy or peace and quiet.

Actually, it’s very peaceful right now. Joel went out for a run and the kids passed out over an hour ago. They’be been staying up late, getting up early and playing hard since we got here.

You’d think living in a one room hotel with two kids in the middle of Kansas would drive a woman crazy… Not yet. We’re really enjoying ourselves. I like Salina, and I don’t mind living in such a small space with just a few things. It’s easier to keep the place clean. I can’t ever get overwhelmed with dirty dishes since we only have four plates, four spoons etc. etc. I didn’t bring enough clothes for laundry to get me down either. Ahh I love the simple life… as long as it includes free wifi and a couple laptops, and it does.

We’ve had several adventures sicne we got here Thursday night. I’ll write separate posts to share those photos and stories.

Who knows, maybe I’ll be a blogger again someday. I’ve probably lost most of my readers after slacking so long. This is my 1,955th post though… I guess I might as well keep writing.

I’m tired of Hypersomnia!

2009-05-23T19:24:07Z

View my sleep study story and slideshow.

Isn't that great? I went to the doctor because I'm tired all the time. They did tons of test and told me that... I'm tired all the time. Yeh...thanks! But hey, he's the man with the fancy deree on the wall.

After years of constant exhaustion and countless naps that don’t help a bit, I finally got a doctor to take me serious. I went to a neurologist and had a sleep study done.

The first test was a polysomnogram. It showed that I have “elevated respitory effort related arousals.” That means I have a little trouble breathing when I’m asleep, this disturbs my sleep and keeps me from getting the normal amount of rem sleep. It’s not bad enough to call apnea or hypopnea… I don’t need a CPAP. [A machine to help me breathe while sleeping.] Instead, my doctor prescribed a dental snoring device. I don’t know if I snore or not… but the thing is suppose to reposition the mouth so that the airway stays clear… making it easier to breathe. I’m all about breathing when I sleep. It seems important anyway.

Since I didn’t have apnea, they kept me for a multiple sleep latency test. This measured how long it took me to fall asleep during four naps through out the day. It also checked to see if I went into REM during the 20 minute naps. I didn’t. That’s good! Going into REM during such a short nap would indicate narcolepsy. Thankfully, I don’t have that. But the test did show that I fell asleep within 3 minutes during each nap after a good night’s sleep. Apparently that’s not good. I consider the ability to fall asleep quickly in any circumstance to be a special talent… It’s not that I fall asleep when I don’t want to, like someone with narcolepsy might. I just can choose to sleep anywhere at anytime… and I choose to a lot. Ask my CHBOLC platoon. During officer basic, I slept standing up in the back of the classroom, slept at my desk during 15 minute breaks, and slept in the dirt with my head on my ruck…. anytime we weren’t doing something. My platoon leader shared some military wisdom, “Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep” I took this advice to heart.

The thing with hypersomnia is that you can nap all you want. It won’t help a bit… It’s not that I don’t sleep enough at night. I usually do. But I wake up tired. Naps are just as pointless. Sleep isn’t refreshing… but it’s always appealing. No, it isn’t because I’m depressed and want to avoid life. I. Am. Tired. I’ve been saying that for years, now I have scientific proof. The doctor gave me a sample of some very expensive medicine to try. It’s a stimulant that should help with the excessive daytime sleepiness. I’ll let you know if it works… and if my insurance will cover it!

They dont’ actually know WHY I feel this way. Ahh but they gave me a name for it and a couple prescriptions… that’s something! Now I can obsessively research and figure out how to stay awake… I’m sharing all of my research at squidoo.com/hypersomnia.

Editor’s note: Apparently I really am tired. Joel just told me about at least 5 spelling errors in this post. Ugh!

Sleep Study Slide Show

2009-05-14T23:56:57Z

After growing rather tired of chronic fatigue, I finally decided to get a sleep study. I checked in at the sleep clinic last night at 8:30. The bedrooms are in the basement so I never even noticed the tornado sirens.

They glued lots of junk to my head, put straps around my chest, stuck tubes up my nose and in my mouth and then told me to go to sleep… yeh. I spent most of the night dreaming that I was awake. I spent another large portion of the night actually being awake… but I’m not sure how much of my late night boredom was real and how much was imagined.

They told me that I could go home at 6:30 a.m. if the sleep study showed that I have apnea. If it didn’t then I’d have to stay all day today for further studies. [I can't hear the word apnea without thinking of the sitcom Mad about You.]

I woke up early this morning to the good/bad news that I had to stay all day long. I had to take 4 twenty minute naps 2 hours apart. Any of you who know me know that I’m generally thrilled at the idea of taking naps… the more the better. But they’re not as plesant when you’ve got stuff glued to your face and they come wake you up after a few minutes of dreaming about being in a sleep study. During my last nap, I actually dreamed that the technician came in and told me I would have to stay another two hours for one more nap test. I cried. In my dream… then she woke me up and told me I was done. Yay!

It took a really long time to get all of that glue/putty gunk out of my hair. I finally discovered that putting conditioner in my hair made it much easier to comb it out. That’s a free tip just for you googlers who found my site by searching for: hypopnea, sleep apnea or Daytime Multiple Sleep Latency Test. [Gotta get all those keywords in there.]

And now… for your giggling pleasure. I have posted photos of me looking ridiculous.

Pineapple upside down cornbread?

2009-05-12T04:21:30Z

I’ve never baked pineapple upside down cake. I don’t even remember reading a recipe.

But I had a can of pineapple, a box of jiffy corn bread mix and… a dream.

Ahhh and the results were delicious!

Here are some slightly obscure, rather vague instructions:

I drained a can of pineapple and put it in the pan. I simmered some butter, brown sugar and a little pineapple juice together then poured that over the pineapple. Next I followed the directions on the Jiffy box and poured that batter on top of the pineapple mixture. Cooked it for 24 minutes at 400. Let it cool, then turned it upside down.

140 Characters

2009-05-12T19:25:32Z

I decided that the daily “bite sized updates” was cluttering my homepage and probably driving some of my readers crazy. But… I like having them on my blog. I don’t always have time to write a full post, but I can share an interesting link or give you a brief insight into my life in a status update.

So… I moved the daily updates to a new category called 140 Characters. It’s called that because that’s the limit that Twitter places on posts. For some reason, I really enjoy the art of using exactly 140 characters. I’m not sure why.

The new category is hidden from the main page and my RSS feed. If you miss it, you can read those posts here. They’re updated each night at midnight. You can also subscribe in a feed reader.

Subscribe to 140 Characters in a reader

MercyMe Library on my doorstep

2009-05-11T21:28:30Z

The UPS man just delivered a little box…

What’s in the box? What’s in the box?!

Yes! I won a MercyMe CD/DVD Library from NewReleaseTuesday.com.

I told you I was looking forward to some new mercies…

Get your own MercyMe library at Amazon…

Duck Tape Creations

2009-05-06T02:20:28Z

Somehow an X-acto knife and some duct tape caught my attention yesterday… this is what happened next.

I considered not posting my first attempt at duct tape creations… in fear that I would out myself as a geek. [To those of you who didn't already know.] Rachel assures me that it will just “add to my charm.”

BeAwesome The Movement

2009-04-24T22:21:28Z

“Are you tired of being pathetic? Had enough of mediocre? Stuck in a rut, a pit, your too tight sweatpants? Then it’s time to BeAwesome!”

A few days ago my facebook status said something like “Amy is tired of pathetic and is thinking of trying awesome again.”

This silly statement started an ongoing conversation which morphed into a day of trying to do things for my family… which turned into a silly facebook group called BeAwesome The Movement … which got nearly 200 members in only 3 days.

Today, I created a web site for BeAwesome The Movement. Join us!

Joel’s first 10 mile race

2009-04-19T17:38:43Z

Joel ran in the Frisco 50k ten mile race yesterday. He ran a little over 10 miles in an hour and a half.

The kids and I stopped along the trail a few times so we could cheer him on. Here are some photos.

Chaplains Need Multi-faith Situational Awareness

2009-04-20T12:59:15Z

Oops!

The top Army Chaplain upset a lot of people when he called for a fast on the first night of Passover. [That means he called for soldiers to pray and not eat on a religious holiday when Jewish soliders eat a lot.] Read about it at Baptiststandard.com.

Maybe he should have used this interfaith calendar.

An online search reveals a lot of unhappy people. Some just don’t like Christians, evangelicals, Southern Baptists or chaplains in general. Others have legitimate complaints and show genuine concern for Jewish soldiers and chaplains. Some news articles call it inadvertent, others call the Army Chief of Chaplains ignorant. What do you think?

I wholeheartedly disagree with the personal attacks directed toward Chaplain Carver. He’s a great guy who loves soldiers. That’s why he called for the fast. Soldiers keep killing themselves! That’s something serious to pray about. However, scheduling the fast on April 8 was a careless mistake. Ch Carver or someone in his office should have caught that.

Some articles say CH Carver put the fast on the 8th because that’s a Wednesday and Baptists tend to have prayer meetings on Wednesdays. That’s understandable. It was a natural choice for him. It’s easy for each of us to default to our own traditions. It’s easy to forget something as simple as checking a calendar or asking for input from people of different faiths. There are so many different religious holy days we’ve never heard of. [Passover isn't one of those though.]

As a civilian minister or seminarian, you might not need to know the practices and beliefs of other religions. Things are different in the Army. As a special staff officer one of the chaplain’s jobs is to offer the commander professional expertise on matters of religion.

Chaplains are THE religion experts. We must have multi-faith situational awareness.

“Situation awareness (SA) involves being aware of what is happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives, both now and in the near future.” – wikipedia

Clarification:

Carleton left this comment:

“The Chief of Chaplains office checked with two senior Jewish chaplains before publishing the voluntary day of praying and fasting for the CHAPLAIN family. This proclamation wasn’t intended for the whole Army. People may also miss the purpose which was to call for divine intervention for the high numbers of Soldiers feeling so hopeless, they are killing themselves in record numbers.”

Getting tired of chronic fatigue

2009-04-05T23:18:17Z

Sarah and I stayed home from church.

I should be doing homework.

I’m so tired, I think I could die and not even notice until I’ve napped for a thousand years in Heaven.

A cup of coffee and an energy drink had no effect.

I need to be analyzing and evaluating deeply philosophical and theological writings…

I would evaluate the inside of my eyelids but I’m too tired to close them. That’s right… I can’t close my eyes… perhaps the energy drink only keeps your eyes open but doesn’t actually wake up any other part of your body.

I’d go for a run but it sounds Arctic out there…

OK, back to work. I’ll put off Lessing’s On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power for later. Maybe I’ll read about Rudolf Bultman’s concept of “myth” in The New Testament and Mythology…

Amy Jo and Abby Jo

2009-03-26T14:16:56Z

I finally got to meet Rachel’s beautiful baby girl! Here are a few photos of us together. I’ll be posting more photos on Rachel’s site soon.

Are You a Slave? – Proverb 22:7

2009-03-23T02:37:12Z

Thanks to Pastor Loralie and Pastor Mike, I got to preach at Central Assembly last Wednesday night! Long time readers will recognize parts of the podcast since I spoke on this text a couple years ago in one of my classes at AGTS.

Here you go: A new and improved sermon about debt!

Recorded 3/18/2009 in the New Community Service at Central Assembly. Download here.

Another look at suffering

2009-03-10T14:09:21Z

Good morning friends,

I know that many of you woke up this morning not knowing quite what to do next. Instead of waking up to a routine, rut or rat race, you find yourself in a dizzying fog.

Situations, sickness or sin have knocked you on your butt and you’re trying to get back up. Maybe it took you by surprise, or maybe you saw it coming. You might have even signed up for it. But here you are. Suffering. Carrying heavy burdens or trekking down unfamiliar trails. Wondering what tomorrow will bring…

This is it. This is when you decide. Should you take the route of fear, doubt or bitterness? Or will you call suffering what it really is?

Another lesson in trusting God and loving people.

Catching Fuzzies

2009-03-05T14:17:10Z

I opened the shades and morning light shone across the kitchen. Soon my children admired the lint dancing in the sunlight. “Fuzzies,” they call them. They tried to catch the fuzzies in a crystal jar, hoping to watch them float around inside. I told them it wouldn’t work… that they wouldn’t float with the lid closed, the air wouldn’t move them. They tried to catch them anyway, planning to watch them fall to the bottom. I told them that the fuzzies are everywhere, that we breathe them in all the time but we can only see them when the light is just right. Jeremiah asked, “What if the light was always right?” He answered himself, “Then it wouldn’t be special.”

A cup of stale store brand coffee

2009-03-04T22:12:56Z

Being a coffee hobbyist, I appreciate the differences between different roasts, blends, origins, and coffee brewing methods.
Some people say,
“Coffee is coffee”
They drink something that tastes more like dirt or cardboard.

I know people who are tea fanatics. They special order different loose leaf teas and know just the right way to store it brew it, drink it etc. I just put an old tea bag in a cup of hot water.
Tea is tea.
It would kill them to hear me say that. They know better.

I have a set of decent speakers hooked up to my computer. They’re good enough. They play music.
Speakers are speakers.
My friend has a high dollar, carefully tweaked system to play his music. With the speakers just right and settings just so, he notices the quality of each recording… I don’t know what I’m missing.

I wonder how much of life we go through not knowing it tastes like cardboard. I feel like each day of my life is a cup of stale store brand coffee. God offered abundant life but I just don’t know how much He has to offer.

Prayer is prayer.

God is…. god.

My first Sunday morning sermon… preaching to soldiers!

2009-03-04T15:30:59Z

This Sunday, the AGTS Chaplain Candidates ran a chapel service at Ft. Wood. Some of us led worship, prayed etc. I got to preach in the second service! This was my first time to preach on a Sunday morning and my first time to speak to soldiers.

Most of the soldiers were at Ft. Wood for BCT. (Basic Training) They’re a long way from home and going through some long hard days. I spoke to them about Psalm 139. God sees in the dark, He knows our ways, and He goes with us. Better than that… Jesus is the light, He is the way and He is God with us!

Hooah!

Civil War Chaplain Song

2009-02-28T21:13:32Z

Female Chaplain Recruiting and Retention Training

2009-02-28T21:05:50Z

I just got back from a wonderful week in San Antonio.

Here’s a list of some of our speakers at the conference:

CH (Major General) Douglas L. Carver – Army Chief of Chaplains
Major General Mari K. Eder – Deputy Chief of the U.S. Army Reserve
Brigadier General Anne F. Macdonald – Chief of Staff USAR Command
COL Charles E. Williams Jr.
CH (COL) Richard L. Pace
Reverend Dr. (CH) Chrys Parker, J.D.
CH (LTC-Ret) Karen Diefendorf
CH (LTC-P) Thomas Brouillard
CH (COL-Ret) Hugh Dukes
CH (COL) Stephen Boyd
CH (COL-Ret USAF) Gwendolyn King

They were all awesome!

And of course…. here are some photos:

Morning Cup: Jacobs Miester Rostung

2009-02-25T11:42:57Z

I’m in San Antonio, TX for a female Army chaplain conference. My growling stomach woke me up at 4 a.m. this morning and I finally gave up on sleep. Which means… I can have a cup of coffee. CH Patrica Nichols flew in from Germany and brought me some Jacobs Meiser Rostung coffee. It looked a lot more exciting than the complimentary hotel coffee so I brewed a cup in my Bodum Bistro Mug Press. Despite her accusations of coffee snobbery, I’m really enjoying my German coffee. Thanks Patti!

San Antonio, Here I come

2009-02-23T13:24:46Z

I’m flying to San Antonio this morning to attend the Army Female Chaplain & Chaplain Candidate Recruit and Retain Conference. At least three of my friends from AGTS are going with me. I’m sure some friends from CHBOLC will be there too. Patricia is flying in from Germany! I can not wait to see her. Please pray her trip goes smoothly.

Firefox Extension: Xoopit

2009-02-21T00:43:42Z

Xoopit

“If you use Gmail, you want Xoopit. Upgrade Gmail to search, browse and share files, photos and videos. Use Google Search while composing mail. Get information about people on a mail thread. Xoopit works for Gmail, Google Mail and Google Apps users.”

Xoopit offers a great firefox extension which makes Gmail ever so awesome. Yesterday they added a facebook feature. Now you can change your facebook status on gmail…. and you can see the facebook profile photo and status of the author of the email you’re viewing.

P.S. If you’re not using firefox, gmail or facebook…. you should.

Blogging in the car line…

2009-02-20T21:47:43Z

Thanks to a new netbook and some unsecured wifi… I’m bloggin’ in the car line. I could even post a photo… but the line is moving and I should probably not upoad photos and drive at the same time.

Oh… P.S. I’m a blogger again.