I recently went to the Getty with my husband and 2 small children. It was wonderful. We spent all day and the children loved it. Going to a gallery with children really is a great experience. They ask questions and they make you think about how to answer.

My son liked the sculptures. I liked the Greek art and nude paintings. Fortune on a bubble with Chance throwing lottery tickets into an urn amused me greatly. My husband liked the landscaping and the photos.

Then there was the religion art. It really made me think. The Bernini exhibit was spectacular. The detail of sculpted hair and of the clothing was wonderful. Not all of the subjects represented the Catholic church, but those are the figures that stood out most to me. Something in the flow and volume of the robes conveyed power and great authority.

One of my favorite paintings was of Pope Clement VII by Sebastiano del Piombo. The shade of red in the cloak had a shimmer that made me stand in awe. It was beautiful and powerful. All of the portriats of Popes had an amazing reference and attention to detail especially in the clothing which seemed to transform them from men to men of God.

Then there was the imagary of Christ. I grew up in protestant church in which we worshiped an empty cross, the idea being that we worshiped a resurrected Lord rather than a cruicified Lord. Mary was little more than a conduit between God and man. She was certainly not someone to whom excess attention should be draw lest we fall into 'idolatry'.

I quite enjoyed the portraits of the Holy Family. Mary nursed Jesus. In public even. As a mom who breastfeed 2 children cumilatively more than 2 years, I quite appreciated seeing those images. Jesus was in a family. He was once a baby. I was always told he was born to die. My mom even drew a picture of baby Jesus on a cross once to illustrate. Um, yeah, weird.... I liked seeing Jesus in this context a lot better.

Some images that were disturbing to me and a little scary to my son were the various images of crucifixion. They were hard to look at and then I realized in that in context they SHOULD be. On the way home my husband and I discussed the significance of showing images of a crucified Christ vs. the empty crosses of our youth churches. My husband felt that the crucifixion images were used to create a sense of guilt. We theoried that Protestants moved to the empty cross as a part of a complete move away from what they viewed at the time to be an oppressive Catholic Church. Better to have an empty cross with the freedom to add their own imagary symbolically then the loose the cross all together - as some churches have, by the way. I think the empty cross in this context is a tragedy. It takes away the suffering and the sacrifice. If, as my family indicated, Protestants worship a resurrected Lord, than the image should be an empty tomb or ascention. An empty cross seems rather irreverent.

Ironically enough I reflect on all of this as someone who has 'deconverted' from Christianity. My husband and I are athiests. Still, if someone were to invest themselves in Christianity it would seem to me that it is best to it with great reverence and awe and without censorship.

Oh, and I highly recommend the Getty. :)

I made the chicken S had linked in her LJ. It was sooooo good.

I will now, always and forever make whole chicken like this.

I have never picked a chicken so clean for leftovers before in my life.

My husband thought it should be worshiped.

My 3-year-old son ran in circles around the kitchen island with a twist and lock container of dark meat on an oven mitt platter. It was like he was carrying the torch of awesome chicken.

It would be wrong if I neglected to post the recipe link.

Bookmark it. Seriously:  www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/MY-FAVORITE-SIMPLE-ROAST-CHICKEN-231348

I make whole roasted chickens. I make whole roasted chicken a lot. Almost once a week.

I buy them when they go on sale for .69 cent a pound. The limit is usually 3. Barring limited space in the freezer I buy 3.

I buy the biggest birds I can find because I have heard the meat to bone ration is higher in bigger birds and therefore they are the best bargain .

My problem is that they usually take forEVER to thaw in my fridge! More than once I have pulled a bird from the freezer, stuck it in the meat bin and let it defrost for 5 days only to find it rock solid 2 hours before dinner. I run it under water. I massage it. I cuss at it. I throw some marinade on it stick it in a ziploc bag and make a different dinner plan.

So I happen to have a whole chicken in the meat bin. There is no way it could possibly be defrosted right? I think it's been 6 maybe 7 days. I have it tentatively on the calendar for Sunday dinner, but I have pulled the leftover shredded Cornish game hen from the freezer just in case. I'll make the chicken on Wednesday. But I have an appointment on Wednesday.

Then my mind goes to a a place I know it should not go....

Whole chicken in the crock pot.

I have tried this before. Not good. Whole chicken contains bones. Small bones. Trust me. Not good.

But I google "Whole roasted chicken ... crock pot" anyway. Maybe there is a trick I don't know. Maybe some culinary insight that will make it awesome.

I see recipes that boast "Fall off the bone!" No thank you, good sir! And then I google 365 crock pot. If anybody knows whether or not this experiment is doomed to failure or not, it's Stephanie...the crock pot lady.

Sure enough, a whole lot of chicken parts, even some wings. No whole chickens. If she isn't going to pull the trigger on it neither am I...again.

So that's that. I will roast the bird, in the oven. I'm thinking by Wenesday it should be thawed. I give it a poke. Soft? What! I flip it over, the drum sticks wiggle away.

All that googling and the bird is thawed. Today.

But it's too late. It's quarter to 6 and I've made a different dinner plan.

Perhaps the hardest part of starting a journal is focusing your initial thoughts. I have plenty to say, just not all at once.

Today in cycle class one of my favorite songs was playing. It's one of those songs I have a visceral reaction too. It's One Republic: Stop and Stare:

This town is colder now, I think it's sick of us
It's time to make our move, I'm shakin off the rust
I've got my heart set on anywhere but here
I'm staring down myself, counting up the years
Steady hands, just take the wheel...
And every glance is killing me
Time to make one last appeal... for the life I lead

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're 'here' not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, can u see what I see

They're tryin to come back, all my senses push
Un-tie the weight bags, I never thought I could...
Steady feet, don't fail me now
Gonna run till you can't walk
But something pulls my focus out
And I'm standing down...

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're here not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, you don't need

What u need, what u need...

Stop and stare
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be
Oh, do u see what I see...

I like the irony of being on a stationary bike and listening to the words of this songs. There might be other subjects that it brings to mind that I can write about later, but for now I'll just focus on the ride.

That bike is a sanctuary. It's made me stronger, lighter, maybe even smarter. It's therapy. It's an amazing thing to find you're stronger than you thought and getting stronger all the time.