MrsDrPoe: Fun with Nicknames

I love nicknames. I have about a million for my dogs, my family and my friends. Most of them rhyme with the name itself or with another nickname. And of course they evolve...that's what makes them fun. When I remember that we used to call Sascha "Sushi" it reminds me of when we first got her and she stayed with my parents for a summer while I was at Penn State for an internship. My brother's girlfriend at the time really liked Japanese food, so the name stuck. See? Fun memories.

Mr. Poe is not a big fan of multiple nicknames for the same person/animal.

One of my good friends decided last night that she would call me her baby's "ex-lax". Apparently every time that I've been around him recently he has had massive diaper messes. Definitely different- but I'll take it. Just call me Aunt E for short. :)

MrsDrPoe: Another Week Gone By

So nothing much has happened since last Friday, with the exception of last weekend's events. Last Saturday, Jady Copeland came down from NYC to teach at the annual Youth Forum at EH. He went through chapters 1-6 of Zechariah - he made some great connections between the passages and the coming of Christ. Even through we were the oldest folks there, we learned a lot, and we got to meet a lot of younger brothers and sisters. We also attended a graduation celebration for our three high-school senior members.

Afterwards, since we were dressed up with no place to go...we decided to go on a date to Red Robin...

And Ashley Park, where we went into a really cool candy store:

and a store that sold all kinds of teaching material. We found this particular book a bit interesting:

Apparently Little Golden Books finds gouged out eyes too graphic for children.

Sunday we relaxed between services and ate a pretty great meal...
After evening services, Mr. Poe and I ran with a very special friend of ours (more on her later). Snoosh (Sascha) got tired just thinking about running:

MrsDrPoe: Knitting Baby Gifts

Happy Foto Friday! The first item I'd like to share with you all is a project I've been working on for a friend of mine...a baby hat:


And booties:


You can get the pattern here, but you'll have to create a (free) account first. Happy knitting!

MrsDrPoe: Technical Difficulties

I'd like to apologize for the craziness that has ensued today. Several of my posts had been deleted, so I'll be replacing them as quickly as possible. :)

MrsDrPoe: Putting Jesus in a Box

For this Theology Thursday, I invite you to open your Bibles, where we will be looking at several instances where individuals attempt to put Christ in a box.

Wait...what? A box? Like these??


Well not a literal box, my friend! Based on knowledge of what these individuals saw/heard Christ could do, each of them has some (limited) conception of His power. For instance, if we look in Mark 2:1-11 and 5:21-24, 35-43 we see two examples of individuals (a paralytic and his friends and a synagogue ruler, Jairus) who have the faith to know that Jesus has the power to heal both the paralytic and the dying daughter of Jairus. Subconsciously, however, these individuals are limiting the power of Christ (ie putting Him in a box) in that they believe that the sick person must be acknowledged by Christ and presented to Him.

If we compare these two events with the one discussed in Luke 7:1-10, we see that the individual in this story (a Roman Centurion who was friendly to the Jews) also has the faith that Christ is the only one who can heal his servant. This centurion places Christ in a bigger box, believing that Jesus can, acknowledging the sick servant, simply speak healing words from far away.

We can see an individual extend the box size again in Mark 5:25-34, when a woman who has had a flow of blood for 12 years believes that she can simply touch the hem of Jesus' garment (without His acknowledgement) and be made well. It could be argued that the box extended past a physical realm in the gospels when individuals bring their loved ones before Christ to have demons removed from them.

What is interesting to me is that, even though Jesus tells the paralytic (Mark 2:5) that his sins are forgiven him, no one comes up to Him after that and asks for that forgiveness. All of these "boxes" in the gospels are way too small.

So the question that we must ask ourselves is - do we put Jesus in a box? Do we "limit" His power to an amount that matches our understanding of what makes sense to us? Christ is the Word and the Word is God (John 1:1-5). He was there in the beginning when all things were created. He is all that is, was, and will ever be. His power and nature are incomprehensible. God essentially defines Himself in Exodus 34:6-7:

Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and
abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing
the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and
the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

The nature of God is so hard for us to wrap our heads around, but trying to box Him in any other (necessarily smaller) nature gives us a false sense of our God and is, thus, an incorrect response to the power of Christ, which is so much greater than we will ever understand.

MrsDrPoe: Buffalo Chicken Tacos

Happy What's for dinner Wednesday, I'm actually "cheating" in that this recipe was actually made for lunch on Sunday. It was pretty tasty though, and I'm sure we'll be making it again soon (but not too soon for possibly obvious reasons). This recipe was also adapted from the back of a Knorr Rice Sides Buffalo Chicken flavor package (serves 4).

The ingredients: 1 package Knorr Rice Sides Buffalo Chicken flavor, 3/4 bottle of Moore's Buffalo sauce, 1/4 cup onion (thinly sliced), 1/2 cup green bell pepper (thinly sliced), 1Tbs olive oil, 1.5 cups cooked and diced chicken* (not shown), flour tortillas (not shown).

Prepare rice in a 2 qt saucepan according to directions on the back of the package.

Place oil, onions and peppers in a small skillet and saute on med-high till onions are translucent and peppers are slightly softened.

Turn the burner down to low, and add the cooked chicken* and buffalo sauce to the cooked veggies. Stir to coat.

Once the rice is finished cooking, place a tortilla on a plate. Layer the rice and then the chicken mixture on top. As an afterthought I wouldn't recommend this much filling in a single taco ;). Add sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese if desired.


Wrap and serve. This one was Mr. Poe's, and it was so big that he had to eat it with a fork. Mine was smaller and easier to handle.

*I had some left over empanada filling (cooked chicken (~1 cup), corn (~1/2 cup) and cheddar cheese (~1/4 cup)) that I used instead of cooking more chicken.

MrsDrPoe: The Hollands

Howdy! I've decided to add another aspect to the blog: Poe's Pals. Periodically I'll post a profile of some of Mr. Poe and my friends from near and far. For the first profile I present to you...the Hollands:


We have known Mr. and Mrs. Holland for a long time. Mr. Poe works with Mr. Holland, and Mrs. Holland, Mr. Holland (junior) and I often hang out and do our grocery shopping together:


Mr. Holland (junior) doesn't care too much for shopping. He prefers eating, sleeping, playing and being cute:


The Hollands also have some furry babies...Moo:


and Isis:


The Hollands are basically fantastic people (obviously we think so or we wouldn't hang out with them so much). They love the Lord, and they are continually striving to learn more about Him and to do the things that the Bible commands us to do. They were instrumental in our transition to the Atlanta area, providing both encouragement and useful information.

(Again probably obviously) I spend more time with Mrs. Holland and Mr. Holland (junior), so I know them best. Mrs. Holland has been so gracious and understanding in helping me get used to children. I didn't grow up around many kids younger than myself, so I have been a bit anxious about my ability as a future mother (Lord willing) to care for my children. After spending a significant amount of time with this family, I feel much more prepared for the task. So Mrs. Holland and Mr. Holland (junior)- I and my future children thank you so much for your help!

Mrs. Holland is also one of the most patient and laid back people I know (although she doesn't think she is). It is so nice to talk to her when I'm frazzled! Like on Tax Day this year - I had an issue with my return and had to run into the local IRS office to fix it. Mrs. Holland and Mr. Holland (junior) journeyed with me into the heart of the city to deal with my problem. I don't think I could've gotten through the ordeal without her aura of calm sitting beside me! And when Mr. Holland (junior) cries in his car seat during our grocery trips, she simply croons "Hey...it's ok little man." I haven't had experience in this area, but knowing myself, it will be a struggle to act so patiently!


Mr. Holland (junior) is also one of the best babies I've ever seen! He's super cute, is relatively easy to pacify, and seems very attentive and intelligent (with an engineer dad and an English whiz mom how can you not be??). He has been growing by leaps and bounds since we first met him. I hope that my future children are as cute and well-behaved as he is!

MrsDrPoe: What in the WORLD is CFD?

Well good afternoon again! What another glorious day that the Lord hath made! Today is Thesis Tuesday, so we'll be discussing one of the many things that I love - fluid mechanics. (Note: please recall that I'm currently working on my dissertation but I love alliteration.)

My research is in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is simply employing computers to simulate fluid flow. While that sounds simple enough, it is actually quite complicated. There are 4-5 rather large partial differential equations that govern the flow of a fluid; for the majority of the "real life" scenarios that we are interested in, these equations cannot be solved exactly. So we must utilize computers to obtain numerical approximations to derivatives in these equations in order to achieve a solution. WHEW!

I have decided, since most of my readers (as far as I know) aren't really familiar with these concepts to dedicate the first several of these Tuesday posts to an undergraduate level discourse on fluid mechanics, in hopes that you can gain a better understanding (and perhaps a love) for the subject. So here goes nothing!

A fluid is any substance which continuously deforms (or flows) when a shear stress is applied. Engineers typically think of forces as coming in two flavors: normal and shear. Here is the difference:

a normal force is one perpendicular (at a 90 degree angle) to the notebook (here "into"), while a shear force is one parallel to the notebook (here "across" or "along"). Both liquids and gases possess this trait of flowing when a shear force is applied, so both are considered fluids.

If you've ever taken a chemistry class, you know that everything is made up of atoms. Groups of atoms are called molecules. If we look at a glass of water:

we don't see all the tiny molecules that make up this liquid. But if we zoom in reeeeeally far:

we can see that the liquid is made up of molecules with some space in between (approximately 0.00001 mm). (Recall that for gasses, the space in between these molecules is larger - close to 0.0001 mm.)

If we say that the water is 10 degrees Celsius, we're really saying that each molecule is that temperature NOT the space. So when we know properties or characteristics of a fluid, we actually only know those properties or characteristics at certain points (where molecules are located). This is known as a discrete field. The opposite of a discrete field is a continuous field. Like the name suggestions, for this type of field, we know all the properties/information about this field at every single infinitesimally small location in the field. The difference looks something like this:

Typically, we make what is called the continuum assumption. This assumption means that we will be treating fluids as continuous fields, even though we know that they are discrete fields. This assumption is valid when the spacing between the molecules is very small. For most situations of interest, we are looking at fluids at full scale (water in a cup), so the spacing is very tiny, and the assumption is valid. For nanoscale situations (really zoomed in view of water), the spacing is considered relatively large, and this assumption breaks down.

Well, I think that's enough for one day. I hope that you've found this somewhat interesting and that you'll tune in next Tuesday for the second installment!

MrsDrPoe: Kroger and Walgreens Deals

Hello hello! Happy Money Monday! Today I have two deals to show...one from my Kroger purchase on Friday:

I purchased 4 loaves of bread, 2 bags of tortilla chips, 3 packages of Knorr flavored Rice Sides, 1 family package of instant vanilla pudding, 1 package reduced fat Chips Ahoy, 2 strawberry 1/3 less fat Philadelphia cream cheese spread, 1 bottle of BBQ sauce, 2 jars of jalapeno peppers, 12 boxes of Ronzoni pasta, 2 cans of crushed tomatoes, 2 ears of corn, 10 yogurt jars, 2 boxes are margarine, and 2.29 pounds of apples. I had 6 coupons for the pasta (making it all free) and 1 coupon for the margarine.

Total before coupon: $86.28
Total saved: $41.84 (~ 49%)

I didn't make any trips to the drugstores myself today, but my good friend let me spend her money for her:

In three transactions she got 2 tubes of toothpaste for $1.21 each, 2 bags of Pampers diapers for $4.63 each, 1 bag of Pampers wipes for $3.20, 1 bottle of Almay mascara for $3.20, 1 bottle of Almay foundation for $11.80 and two packs of candy for $1.01. Pretty good day :).

For the coupon match-ups, go here. I hope this post wets your appetite for savings and couponing! More deals will come in the following weeks, along with some helpful tips on saving money!

MrsDrPoe: Post-hiatus Haiku

Happy Mother's Day
Late Because we were busy:(
Guess I am a giraffe