recap

I’m Still Up

/ church, recap

I’m tired as all bananas, but I can’t sleep. Well, I’m sure I could if I lay down. I have a busy day tomorrow today and I should be getting some rest.

7am – get up
8am – drop off car at car place
830am – Bob Evans with Tami
10am-2pm – Grove Leadership Advance Pt 2
230pm-?? – NAP

I am supposed to hang with Chad and Christy sometime tomomorrow today as well, and I need to go shopping for some sunglasses and film for Vegas, and I STILL HAVE TO PACK. Oh, and call Mommy too. Busy, busy. And I’m still up.

Leadership Advance Pt 1 was great. Lots of ideas, lots of prayer. Lots of great things with the ministry. And of course, connecting with my friends. That’s one of my favorite parts. Oh yes, everyone send a huge shoutout to Tami. My girl got a new job at Nationwide. And she’s rejoining our small group. Good times will abound. Perhaps more cinnamon eating tricks. (NOOO yells swankivy)

Anyway… back to the Advance. It was really nice. We did some worship, some brainstorming, some praying and observing and learning. There was pizza for dinner and cookies and milk for dessert. Mmmm. 🙂

I’m looking forward to part 2.

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Lotsa Stuff

/ friends, recap

Allergies. They’re SO not fun. I’m tired and sniffly. And sneezy too. Bah.

Well, I guess I have kind of a long update to give you. Bottom line is that I’d gone after what I thought would be a dream job–well, at least the closest to my dream job I can get at Nationwide, but certain factors trumped that. I felt betrayed and upset and plain old STUPID. So, Chris took my resume, revamped it, and I’m going to go from there. I’ll remain a secretary while working on my writing at night in the meantime, but I know now that nothing I do will please them. My skillset is NOT for the administrative assistant position. I used to say “I’m better than this.” That’s the wrong attitude to have. Now, I say “My skills are better suited for something else.” It’s up to me to find that something else.

Naturally, I turned to retail therapy to cheer myself up. Meep.

Friday, Kelly P and I went to Morone’s Italian Villa for dinner. I LOVE that place and I’d wanted to take her there for months now. No one else’s sauce can touch theirs. It was a very pleasant dinner and evening. Good food, good conversation, GREAT company. I <3 Kelly P. She’s one of those people who I can be around for hours and hours and never tire of her.

Saturday, Jennifer (dewdropdew aka lamplamp) came over and we hung out. We went to lunch with Chad and Christy to Nazareth’s, a Middle Eastern place. For the first time, I had good hummus. WOW, it was yummy, with the bread. Mmmm. I had chicken over rice. It had all the spices. Very interesting flavors, let me tell you. Once upon a time, I refused to try new foods. And Lord knows I get into my ruts with meals. But now, I relish trying new things, at least once.

Anyway, after lunch, Jennifer and I watched Justin Timberlake DVDs, then watched Chris play Tombraider – Angel of Darkness. After Jennifer left, we went to Chad and Christy’s. Chad had grilled steaks and prime rib (MMMMMM!) and we had corn on the cob. Christy made her cheesy cauliflower which I’m sure I would have enjoyed if I’d liked cauliflower. It looked yummy. That was a fun evening, but by then, my allergies were really starting to annoy me. As were cramps. I was happy to get home and get to bed.

Today, I skipped Sunday school again. I hate skipping because there is so much good stuff going on in there. But I really wasn’t feeling well and needed to get the extra rest. Church was awesome as usual. EMILY (yoimemily) WAS THERE!!! So was Bizzy (otaku_witch). They make me smile.

I owe Emily a party. And I have to invite Bizzy and Becky too. We’re going to watch Fargo and eat macaroni and cheese. It’s going to be quality.

During worship, I went into this meditation. I can’t remember the song. But I remember I had this vision of me running and leaving this huge cloud of JUNK behind. I was running towards a light and when I got there, Jesus was there with a huge smile and his arms open. I ran to Him he hugged me and comfort me. Like how when Aidan runs to me with his arms open, I scoop him up and cover him with a million kisses. I completely lost myself in this “daydream” and I felt so at peace and so filled with joy.

When I first started going to Heritage, one of the first teachings was on learning how to pray. I usually feel badly because I don’t always pray that way. Sometimes my prayers are just little whispers. Or meditations. I feel like I don’t do it right sometimes. But God gets the message from me no matter which way I do it. So, I guess I’m doing okay.

After church, I gave Tami her birthday present: A S’mores maker. She loved it. And I socialized for a bit. I have a couple of friends to keep in my mind and heart and prayers this week for sure.

When we got home, Aidan had fallen asleep in the car. Chris took him and they lay in the recliner and napped. Then I napped upstairs. Chris let me sleep for a LONG time. I felt so good that I cleaned the loft and cleaned out my desk drawer. Now, I have only 3984789457893 chores to do instead of 3984789457891. I want to get the house looking fairly good because Friday morning is when…


iVY will be here!!!

But before then, I have lots to do.

Monday – see Vicki
Tuesday – Life Group
Wednesday – shopping with Christy
Thursday – CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN
Friday – iVY!! 🙂

Then, there are the chores:

– laundry (mine and Aidan’s)
– clean master bathroom/water closet
– wash bed clothes in guest room

And the other stuff:

– research Writer’s Market 2005 for potential agents/editors/publishers
– finish synopsis
– make mid-sized synopsis
– chiropractor Mon & Wed morning

I need to make more money. There is so much I want. DVDs galore. Clothes. Jewelry. Purses. WHY must I be so materialistic?? Not only that, but Aidan needs new clothes ASAP. See, his 12 and 18 month clothes finally fit him around the waist. For the most part. He’s so skinny–a lot of his clothes did nothing but fall off for a long time. Unfortuately, he’s pretty tall too. So, he looks like he’s wearing capri pants or something most of the time. NOT CUTE AT ALL. So, I need to head to Wally World and shop for him. Actually, I think that Gap Kids might be my place of choice. I’ve got Chris’s discount card. There is a certain outfit (3rd from the top, and the 4th one too) there that I want. But it’d be about $100 even with the discount. 🙁 I’d look so cute, too. But I need more money, dang it.

I took the S.H.A.P.E. ministry profile test last night. I got some interesting things as my spiritual gifts:
1. martyr
2. faith
3. pastor and hospitality

The one that threw me was pastor. ME, a pastor? I talked a little bit with Joshua about it today. He definitely agreed about the hospitality one. I agreed about the faith one. Martyr I can see, but not as number 1! I mentioned my doubts about the pastor one. He said he could see it. He could totally see it. ME??? Here is the definition of Pastor:

The gift of pastor is the special ability that God gives to certain members of the body of Christ to assume a long-term personal responsibility for the spiritual welfare of a group of believers.

Do you guys see that?

That’s a tall order to fill. But if it’s for God… BRING IT ON! 🙂 Anything for Him.

Okay then. I’m way past my bedtime. Good night. Have a gorgeous week. 🙂

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My Day & The Grove

/ recap

My day was interesting today. I got to work, and one of the guys I support had sent me an email, asking for editing. You’d better believe I jumped at the chance. I gave him suggestions and feedback, and this afternoon, he sent me an email with a smiley face saying that he really appreciated my work, that he used EVERY ONE of my suggestions except one that needed to stay as it was. ALL of them. Then he came by to personally thank me and said I just brought a lot of work on. I told him to bring it on. I LOVE editing, and if I can do more of that, my job will be much more bearable. I think I impressed him. 🙂

I am hoping for more editing work to come my way. I do enjoy it and it would definitely strengthen my writing background.

Thanks to those of you who kept me in your thoughts and prayers today. I will be updating soon (but hopefully not too soon) as details unfold. 🙂

I love my little boy. I just can’t say it enough!

I did end up going to the grove tonight. Aidan behaved very well for 45 minutes. He got antsy after that, and to be honest, I was getting antsy as well, so I didn’t mind taking him out of the room so he could unwind. It was a very nice service. It’s hard for me to get into it when Aidan is there, though. I’m always worried he’s going to freak out and make noise or something. And he constantly needs stimulation, while being quiet and sitting still. It’s a challenge. I don’t want to miss the services, though. I love being there with my friends. Speaking of, Tina looked so pretty tonight! I took a picture of her! 🙂 I got a HUGE hug from Abe. Christy was by my side the whole night, helping out with Aidan. I think I would have been overwhelmed had I not had her with me. <3. I can't say enough about how AWESOME she is. And Kelly P too. Ack. I don't want to name names because I don't want to leave people out! Um... this is a bit very freaky (first 2 links). Note to self: upload robots.txt file to photo album as soon as possible. Oy. Now this link is cool because I’m on that page. 🙂 Heehee.

Years ago, I put together a website for an awesome person named Rick Klaus: http://members.aol.com/mwpress I was going through it just now, and came across his Peace and Justice Quotes: http://members.aol.com/mwpress/quotes.html. Check ’em out. Good food for thought, I think.

(For some reason, LJ hates links to AOL member pages… Hmmm.)

Well, I need to go to bed. There is a NASTY bug going around at work, and people have been knocked out for days at a time. Our team is going down–actually, they ARE down and have been for days now. I don’t want to get it, so I’m going to get some rest and try to fight it before it starts. Unfortunately, a sore throat is already starting to form, and I feel tired and a bit weak. I DON’T WANT TO GET SICK!

Lastly, I’m very behind on emails. I’ll get to them soon, I promise.

G’night!

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Blabber

/ friends, money, recap

Journal time! YAY!

So, I had a fantastic weekend, yes I did. Friday, Craig, Chris, David, Aidan and I went to Japanese Steakhouse for lunch. That was good stuff. Once all the food is done, and drenched in ginger sauce, wow. That must be what food is like in Heaven.

Friday night–oh snap, what did I do Friday night? That’s right. I slept. Glorious, glorious sleep. Aidan and I went to bed at 6pm. It was awesome and desperately needed.

Saturday, we went up to Medina reconveyne with some of my old roommates from Harrison House! It was so much fun. Lee is still as crazy as ever. His personality is just great. He’s an awesome storyteller, too. At one point, he was telling us about how he got caught in a tornado while coming from Ann Arbor. He said he was driving along (they’d told him to get out because they saw the storm coming–they wanted him home and safe), and then he checked the sky. It was three colors. Sunny in front of him, grey on top of him, and GREEN behind him. And then he said the quote of the night: “When the entire sky is green, that’s a problem.” How fantastic is that? Well, anyway, for those of you who are curious, he ended up stopping the car and getting into a large overpass and hanging on. He was the first car to stop, then tons of others did too. The amount of hail was amazing, I guess. I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. Tornadoes terrify the living daylights out of me. It’s incredible that he knew what to do.

Anyway, they wanted us to sleep over, but I’m a dork and I forgot. So, I didn’t pack anything. No diapers, no contact solution, no medicine. So, we’ll have to go again. I took pictures, they’ll be posted in my photo album soon. Hopefully tonight.

Sunday was church day. There was no Sunday school which was great because I was tired! So, we went to church and then to Chipotle afterwards for lunch. That was fun, most definitely. At home, I tried to get Aidan to take a nap, but he wasn’t having any of that, so I finally gave up. Chris was doing yard work. Then we farted around on the computers (actually, only Chris farted), then headed over to Chad and Christy’s for dinner. They ordered pizza, and it was yummmmy.

Not too much happened over the weekend, but I had fun nevertheless. Again, just spending time with my friends. Seeing those I love at church. It’s awesome. 🙂

So anyway, yesterday, I was coming home from Walmart. By now, I was ready to be home. Heh. So was Aidan. But when we got to the tracks, a train was going by. Okay, whatever. I can deal. So, the train is going along, going along. And then it stops. Then it starts going BACKWARDS. By now I’m muttering “What in the bloody hell…” They let the gates up and people were allowed to cross. I’m guessing the train messed up or something. Let me tell you, it’s a bit unnerving to cross tracks and the train is RIGHT THERE. Never mind that the thing was stopped!

Last night, Craig came over. They helped maneuver the heavy TV around so I could hook up the electronics properly. It really is a sad day when you’ve lived somewhere for more than a year and you want to watch an MMC tape and remember that the VCR is not hooked up. But now, the VCR, DVD Player, Super NES, and the Playstation2 are all hooked up and ready to play. Yippee skippy. AND it looks nice there, not all cluttered. Not sure what was going on with all the extra cables and cords in the back, but it was not cute at all.

I can’t wait to show Aidan the Super NES! 🙂 He’ll have fun playing, I think!

*SIGH* So, I’m really truly going to crack down on the credit card use. I need to do something. And I will. Two of them are almost paid off, and I will have reached my goal of paying off a credit card by summer. Only it will be TWO that I’ve paid off. Yippee skippy! But then I have to work on the big ones. I know I can do it if I would just IGNORE THE BLOODY SALES!

So, I’m downloading budgeting material. And I’m going to have an allowance. Meep. An allowance of no more than $50 a month for fun stuff. More than likely that allowance will be lower. But I have to focus on paying off the cards, but most importantly, NOT RUNNING THEM UP AGAIN. So people, pray for me, think of me, keep me in line, okay? I need help. It’s been proven that I don’t have the discipline to do this on my own. *Sigh* BooHoo.

I just wish I was normal.

So, the friendship thing. Craig and I are emailing about that right now. I was telling him how there are some people who you can spend hours with, and then when it’s time for them to go, you still don’t want them to go. That doesn’t happen often and with a lot of people. So, I think it’s very precious and rare when it does. That’s how Jen*Jen and I discovered we were best friends I think. Well, it was one of the factors. 😉 She had come to stay with us for a while and when the weekend was over, she needed to leave and I WAS NOT READY FOR HER TO GO HOME! I feel that way about Craig, about Kelly P and Tyler, Kim and Tina also. Like, I really don’t want them to leave when it’s time to go. I also don’t ever want to stop hanging around Joshua or Abe or Monica or Katie or Mr. Matt. I just love all of my friends so much.

Yes, I am a dork. 🙂

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