Humility is like underwear - essential, but indecent if it shows.

OK - I am now ready to update.Took a month sabbatical from xanga and now I'm back and ready to tell you about the Hershberger's - basically because all my friends and family tell me that I better write or else Xanga is gonna kick me off  .

So let's see, I'm not sure if anything has happened of interest lately or not - ooohh I know, Matt and I went on an amazing trip into the NASCAR world. Very, very cool - go to a race sometime if you can, even if you aren't a racing fan - it is amazing feeling the power and watching the speed of those cars. I just praise the Lord up and down that Matt is not a racecar driver - although I know that it would increase my prayer life - kudos to race car driver's wives - I don't know how you can stand it. Aaaaaanyway, so we have good friends who own a racing team that race (CJM Racing - Car #11) in the Busch series and they took us and our pastor and his wife and son and girlfriend along to a race in Dover, Delaware. People, I stood beside the pit crew for almost (200 laps or maybe 250 - I'm not sure - I'm not very good with numbers ) watching cars fly past me so fast that you could hardly track them with your eyes - frankly it almost gave me a headache trying. What an experience watching the crew change tires and do whatever it is they do in about 2 seconds flat and get that car back on the track. I am a big fan now - although this experience totally ruined me for watching it on TV - it's much too boring after experiencing it in person, so I'll probably only watch a complete race if they take me back again in person. Hint, hint!!!! The very coolest part about this is that people's lives have been changed because of this racing team. The owners are committed to using their racing team for God's glory and to reaching the NASCAR world for Jesus and they are doing just that. Ministry while rockin' the track - it doesn't get much better than that.

The bravest of my 4 member BFF just completed a 10 day fast with me the other week. Matt and I and Mark and Megan decided to do a 10 day fast/cleanse together - just because we all wanted to cleanse our bodies and maybe lose some weight. Well, one person only lasted half a day, Mark made it 5 or 6?? days and Megan and I made it the whole 10 days and lost some weight and are feelin' good. I have now lost 15 pounds total and hope to lose about 10 more, plus my thyroid has shrunk which is a big PTL for us since my doctor wanted to surgically remove it and I was very resistant to the idea.

I realized during this time how addicted to food I am - I'm not even just an emotional eater - I'm a 24/7 eater and actually I felt like some food chains in my life have been broken through this fast. But not any pride issues that I have, because honestly, I told too many people about this fast and pride alone was the only thing sometimes that made me stick with it - well that and knowing that my BFF was in this with me.  Thank you Megan for being guillible enough to do this with me - I know we'll laugh about this later.

Yesterday my precious Aunts and Little Grandma helped me turn 3 bushels of apples into applesauce. The kids even got into the peeling action a little bit using the apple peeler - so much fun getting to turn the handle. I have such great memories canning and freezing in Grandma's basement (I can still smell the apples they kept down there all winter) with all the aunts and cousins when I was a kid and though it isn't much fun now that I'm older, I hope my kids will look back on these times with fondness.

Madi went on her first field trip the other day to the Wilderness Center and brought home a paper with a list of all the things that the kids in her class said that they enjoyed best about their day. All the kids talked about what they enjoyed that they saw in nature - trees, birds, leaves, snakes, etc... Madi's favorite thing was that she got to see other people - specifically the other kindergarten class that went along with them!! Do you think maybe my daughter goes to school for purely social reasons??

Well there's much more to write, but the girls and I need to go set up their closets and pull out some winter clothes. Cold weather sort of hit us over night and now we should be getting snow next week and I think the shorts and tank top my daughter is wearing might not be warm enough.

TTFN