Like and Love, Ramblings of a Theologian in Progress

I was anxiously awaiting the email that arrived. The day before, via facebook, a notification had been posted to fill out a form, hit submit, and cross your fingers to receive an advanced copy of Rachel Held Evans' new book,  Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, and being a part of the book launch team. The email arrived, as did the golden ticket (aka the PDF of the advanced copy). To put this in perspective, I have been an RHE fangirl since 2012 when I first read A Year of Biblical Womanhood.  I was just out of seminary, recently married, and trying to figure out life. The humor in her writing amidst her earnest questions about what the Bible calls women to be versus what a conservative, evangelical society told women. I loved it. On top of that, my church had RHE come in 2014 and I was able to meet her (and be her chauffeur) and she was just as gracious and funny as her voice in her writing posited her to be. I never had the same affi

It's the end of February! Which means another installation of #364daysofhealthier update. If I could describe February in one word, it would be: travels. We've been all over the place, which might have detracted from my general mental health to be honest. Our small explorer has now made it to 3 different countries and Austin, an oasis in Texas that could, by all definitions, be its own country. He's taken 4 flights, various trains, a bus or two, multiple taxis/Ubers (yay easily installed car seats). Where my sleep has suffered, he has slept for almost all and at least part of every flight. Fingers crossed he's as good on the way home. So what have I been up to this month? Well, I've branched out a bit from just focusing on physical health. Or I've tried to, some endeavors have been better than others. Highlights/lowlight - - Physical The Good Cycling! - I have surprised myself that subjecting myself to someone calling out random gears at me for 50 mi

It's almost February! Which means its time for the first installment of "What Crazy Things did Claire Try This Month?" My goal for this year was start the practice of a healthier lifestyle - mind, body, soul, and spirit. January was definitely heavy on the body aspect, simply because almost everyone seems to get into the "let's get in shape" spirit in January and I found a bunch of discounts and friend groups to go along with me on some of these endeavors. February should be a bit more balanced. AWESOME THINGS Houston Half-Marathon : above anything else I did this month for health, running the Houston Half is at the top of the list. I ran 10 of the 13.1 miles, so I hope to significantly improve my time next year by running the full race. If you ever get the chance, go out to the race track with signs or water bottles (or both) and cheer the runners on, I was surprised at how much of a difference it made. I'm already signed up for next year, and I&

For those of you who don't follow me on Instagram (@cehblanton if you want to), I've embarked on a resolution of #364daysofhealthier. As the hashtag suggests, this year I'm trying to focus on getting myself into a healthy state of being - mind, body, soul, and spirit. Last year was definitely the YEAR OF BABY. It was a hard year y'all. The pregnancy wasn't terribly hard, but the delivery was. Jack had to be delivered by emergency c-section and for someone who is a planner, the sudden decision that he had to be delivered NOW really set up those first few days and weeks and months to be really hard on me. On this side of things, I am going to be brave and confess that I had Post Part Anxiety/Depression and thankfully with a team of doctors, family, friends, and time, I'm in a much much much better place now than I was even 3 months ago. But one of the things I learned from that was that I do need to steal some time away from being mom-phdstudent-wife-cook-cleane