guess i'll go on living afterall...

NBC SET TO AIR "FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS" in April

By WSJ Staff

Everett Collection

“Friday Night Lights” fans, rejoice.

The critically-acclaimed but low-rated sports drama currently airing on DirecTV will make its return to NBC on April 30 a couple months ahead of schedule. Originally slated to air on NBC during the summer, the show — which stars Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton and is based on the 2004 movie (itself based on a 1990 non-fiction book by Buzz Bissinger) — is currently in its fourth season.

The move was announced today, as NBC revealed its post-Winter Olympics line-up. Since the network announced it was canceling the ill-fated “Jay Leno Show,” sideliners have wondered how they would fill the additional five hours of primetime programming.

The solution? Pretty much as critics had predicted, with “Law & Order” episodes all over the new schedule. Plus, new drama “Parenthood,” which is based on the Ron Howard movie, will premiere at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, March 2, following “The Biggest Loser” and Jerry Seinfeld’s reality show “The Marriage Ref” will premiere at 10 p.m on Thursday, March 4.

NBC’s new line-up, as seen below, begins March 1.

top ten

here are the top ten reasons why i should not, for any reason, run long distances or races of any kind:

10. i have heavy bones. not easy to carry around for miles on end.
9. the idea of a "runner's high" is completely lost on me. i have, however, experienced several water break highs and walking break highs.
8. these things typically start before the sun comes up.
7. i find gu disgusting. just seeing used packages laying on the ground makes my gag reflex set in.
6. the "optimal" running gear involves a LOT of spandex. no thanks.
5. hills make me break out.
4. there is a greater than 50% chance of my toenails turning black and falling off due to the constant pavement pounding.
3. summers are too hot; winters too cold.
2. i never know which side of the road is the correct side to be on and am so over "elite runners" snubbing my ignorance.

1. runner's trots. need i say more?

and the one and only reason i will continue to run and sign up for these events that push me physically, mentally, spiritually and in every other way possible...

let me just tell you... i love these crazy liz-adies. never ever ever ever would i ever think i would want to be apart of a freaking athleticly-based anything, but here i am, two halfsies in, and it is ALL because of them.

i love the fact that we HAVE to train and there's no way we're doing it alone, so we keep each other accountable, adjust schedules as needed, and make the time. we therefore find ourselves with hours on end to catch up and untangle the webs our lives get into simply by running and talking it out. training with these precious friends of mine makes me better. period paragraph.

so after an hour delay... wind... sweat... up hills, down hills... bright spots of PETIKEI and others waving along the route... a little tik tok and a lot of serious prayer... we ALL crossed that finish line on sunday morning. we did it and we did it together.

there were definitely some times over the past three months that i would have rather watched the food network from 9am saturday to 9pm sunday and skipped a few of those dreadful, never-ending town lake expeditions. or skip a run after work because i wanted to go to happy hour without being a sweaty, hot mess. or told the girls, "you go ahead and do it this time; i'll just be the loudest cheerleader for you at the finish line!" it would have been really easy to do that.

but i just flat would have missed out.

donald miller wrote a book last year called "a million miles in a thousand years." i would be shocked if i haven't mentioned it before now, because this book has changed how i view every aspect of my life. the book essentially tells us that our lives are supposed to look like movies that we'd like to sit down and watch, not a boring, monotonous, anti-climatic, waste of time. one of his major bullet points is to purposefully create "inciting incidences" to make your story what God designed it to be. he says "...humans naturally seek comfort and stability. without an inciting incident that disrupts their comfort, they won't enter into a story. they have to get fired from their job or be forced to sign up for a marathon. a ring has to be purchased. a home has to be sold. the character has to jump into the story, into the discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story will never happen."

the word picture of our lives being a series of stories, woven together with ups and downs and memorable situations and people we'd never know or places we'd never go if we hadn't been intentional in making sure we pushed ourselves gets me all kinds of warm and mushy inside.

so, in conclusion: i had a great 3M halfsie with my girls and can't wait to do it again next year. oh and i hate this but two of us didn't make the picture above and that would be amy "powerhouse" chapman and little kitchen! how we didn't get a full group pic, i'll never know. i also just came across this quote from the book that you must get (like now) and it was one of my favorites:

"if i have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, enjoy your place in my story. the beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as i have created you."

preach it, donald. xoxo, sem

just because

it is the most gorgeous of fridays and this weekend is going to be full of straining and grunting and possible lung collapsing (read: 3m halfsie on sunday)... so how nice to look at that sweet little flower telling us all to have a happy day.

signing off... but a full report to come on monday!

sem

no you're not, no you're not, no you're not

it was a good run. i successfully dodged the incessant "you don't watch american idol?!?!?" ghats from friends, family, and strangers on the street for the past five years, but have finally given in and started watching again. don't get me wrong- i love the show and will always remember where i was the night kelly clarkson clinched victory and belted "a moment like this" with confetti fluttering around her, knowing the world would no longer be the same for any of us. then before i realized it, we were on to another season and it was no longer a fun, tuesday evening chuckle, but a freaking four-hour minimum weekly commitment. so being the trailblazer that i am, i bucked up against the fox's mind-melting, brain-hypnotizing, life-monopolizing powers-that-be and quit watching just to spite them.

but petikei and ellen have pulled me back in and i have got to say with utmost sincerity that i have missed simon cowell and life is better with him in it. he makes me laugh almost as much as tracy morgan. i love how he gets so annoyed and has no patience for any of this, even though he's getting paid $2,100 a second for sitting in a chair and drinking coke for days on end. he is the whole package and in honor of me re-joining society, i am posting my favorite moment with him so far. his british accent and out of control analogies could not be more spot on and hilarious and i love him.

i did it

if you'll notice, i have a new little blog icon to the left of this post. i've fought it for months because i just didn't get the hype. but after taking some time to scroll through for myself, i am now a believer and will forever be.

i love the pioneer woman.

"ree" as some people refer to her (because i think that is her first name), is this really funny lady that has lots of hobbies, but i am mainly interested in her recipes.

so hop on over and take a look. it's 2010, why not?

sweet poison

i think it's fun that a lot of people set new year's resolutions. i never really have, mainly because i know i'll make this huge deal out of it and when i decide i'm bored/tired/annoyed with the whole bit, i'll quit, then feel like a big, fat failure. soooooo, why not just not set yourself up for that beating? good idea.

however, 2010 is already chalked full of surprises. first and foremost being that i have a new year's resolution. sitting at santa rita the weekend after christmas, my overly-observant friends noticed that i had just ordered my fifth diet coke since we'd been there less than an hour. nbd, right? i mean, it wasn't my fifth,

say, shot of whisky, or my fifth large bowl of queso- get off my back. things could be way worse. then one of my friends, cheryl, started telling me about a lady who was diagnosed with throat cancer recently, after never smoking or being around a smoker or any of the suspect situations that would lead to that awful disease. apparently this lady's "thing" was diet coke. she drank it non-stop her whole life. now. clearly i cannot say for sure this lady got the big c strictly from, um, pounding one diet soda every 10 minutes when she's out eating mexican food, but it did get me thinking that maybe i need to take a look at exactly what diet drinks do to me.

the major culprit in these drinks is the aspartame. i've heard for years now that aspartame is this deadly chemical that is pumped into basically everything i eat/drink, but my main problem with quitting my consumption of it is 1) it's in everything i eat/drink and 2) is the government really going to know all this super secret intel regarding the fatal drug aspartame and just sweep it under the rug and watch people slowly slip away and DIE from it?! i just cannot imagine it being that dangerous and yet still being allowed to be used. naive? i choose to think it's more me being pure of heart.

essentially aspartame is a man-made, zero fat, zero calorie fake sugar that is put into things making it taste as though there is real sugar. anytime you see "sugar-free" anything, you can bet your new hunter rain boots there's aspartame in there. the biggie for me is clearly diet dp, but i also drink crystal lite peach tea like it's the nectar of the gods and that has aspertame in it, too. so does orbitz gum. most likely so does your light & fit yogurt. and your skinny cow ice cream sandwiches.

so i've done a little research, really just wanting to find out why it's so bad and what it does to us. from multiple sites, i discovered that when aspartame enters your body and gets into the small intestine, it converts into formaldehyde (remember science class, kids?), which then converts into formic acid, which is what ant sting venom is made up of. and then it wrecks havoc on everyone's systems differently. the laundry list of symptoms can be found here... quite a few, huh? there are so many and who knows if your struggles are due to aspartame consumption, but maybe it would be worth it to try not to put it in your system for the next month or two? see what happens?

i've been off the stuff for the past two weeks and i think and dream about diet dr. pepper every night, but guess what? i swear my skin texture is better. crazy, right? and i haven't had trouble with my contacts blurring up. and i'm not as bloated (tmi). and oh my gosh what if this cures my cankle?!?!?! only time will tell. but i swear i'm convinced it could happen.

the other thing to note is that a lot of us drink diet cokes because we don't want the calories. well one of the huge side effects of aspartame is a craving for sweets. so you end up drinking zero calories of toxins, but going and having a

dozen tiffwiches to make up for it. when they tested the chemical in rats, the ones with aspartame in their diet were heavier. go freaking figure.

i am no expert. and am not real sure about any of this. if you want to know more, i'm sure you can buy about a billion books with plenty of scientific details and facts pointing to how everything in our country is tarnished and poisoned by something and we're all going down together unless our meals start consisting of 75% raw, organic veggies. but i thought i'd share a little of what i'm doing to cut down on at least one thing i know isn't benefiting my health in the least. and, lucky you, i found just the graphic to really drive the point home...

good stuff

"i discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even such a limited and limiting life can open up into extraordinary vistas. taking your children to school and kissing your wife good-bye. eating lunch with a friend. trying to do a decent day's work. hearing the rain patter against the window. there is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that. all the more compellingly and hauntingly... if i were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything i was trying to say... it would be something like this: listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery that it is. in the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." -listening to your life, frederick buechner

i'm too dead dog tired to write anything else, so you'll just have to wait for my riveting entry about the hidden dangers of aspartame and why i'm giving it up in 2010. but i couldn't not post that quote. man, i'm not good at listening. funny thing is that it's really not that difficult of a task. i have a feeling we're staring a year for the record books in the face, so here's to listening and loving and not taking our moments for granted.

and also here's to humidifiers. please work your magic tonight by taking away my hacking cough so i can stop popping ricola cough suppresants like candy because i just saw they have aspartame in them and therefore i've already broken my resolution.