High Five for Friday

Yay for Friday!  I'm happily linking up again with Lauren @ From My Grey Desk.  Here's what made this week's Top 5:

1. Celebrating my 100th post on Wednesday.  Lots of recipes over the years...thankful for all I have learned and having this blog as a platform to share all of it with you.

2. Completing a sweet, rich, edifying Bible study on 1 Peter that has met on Tuesday nights since September.  Led by Cas Monaco, a woman of great wisdom and strength, this study challenged me--in my own walk with Him, in my relationships with family, friends, and co-workers, and understanding His gospel's call on my life, a call that gives great hope and simultaneously draws me out of my comfort zone.  As it always faithfully does, God's word has meet me in every way and from every angle, and while there a number of verses that mark the year's journey through this study, His Spirit most often brings to mind verses from Chapter 3, that His intention is to mold me into a woman whose "adorning [is] the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious" (1 Peter 3:4 ESV).  Like Sarah and other women throughout His redemptive history, my prayer is that the LORD refines me to be a woman who continually puts her hope in Him (3:5) and therefore, a woman who does not give way to fear (3:6).

3. Enjoying perfect running weather on the American Tobacco Trail.   I'm not a marathoner by any means, but I do find a long run (as in excess of 3 miles) graciously therapeutic for my all-too-cluttered mind.  It gives me time to pray, to listen, to process, to offer up to Him all of my heart and mind and let Him speak truth over me, usually in a podcast from Mark Driscoll @ Mars Hill in Seattle.   I was one who never even thought about running until about two years ago, and now I can't imagine life without it.

4. Going to Six Plates in Durham tonight with Doc, Amber and Robb.  Excited to try it (I've had this place on my list for a long time) and spend a relaxing Friday evening with good friends. I plan on nabbing one of those sassy, high-backed red chairs.

5. Starting Hamlet with my seniors this week.  No unit makes me happier to teach as both my former and current students well know.  The play is complex, gripping, and downright witty.  And to share some of that wit with you without making you read the play, here's some Hamlet-y humor in a cartoon from The New Yorker: