random thoughts

Would You Like to See My Classroom(s)?

2010-08-31T12:22:00.004-05:00

Up first is my Typing... errr... Keyboarding.... ummm... Touch System Data Entry classroom (the name has changed a few times, this latest new name drives me crazy!):

Disclaimer: you'll have to excuse the patches of torn paint that can be seen in some of these photos. I've asked repeatedly in my 7 years here to have my room painted over the summer. The torn paint appeared when the Christmas lights held up by packaging tape left by the previous teacher were taken down when I came to Hildebrandt...

looking over the left half from my desk:
(on the wall is Claude Monet's Dusk and The Seine Near Vetheuil as well as printing instructions way off to the left)

The front of my classroom -- bulletin board with school information, work turn in area, and reams and reams of printer paper! In the past I've covered that brown chalkboard on the far left with colored butcher paper. I think I'm going to find some contact paper that is subtle and cover it permanently. This year I may hang my Mary Engelbreit posters there. I rotate between those and my patriotic poster collection randomly over the years.

looking over the right side:
(on the wall: Vincent van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows, Cafe Terrace at Night, and Starry Night.

And this is my Exploratory Language classroom down the hall:

This year, because of the number of students we lost to a new school opening, a lot of us are teaching two or more classes. I'm teaching Explortory Language this year -- a course that looks breifly at a wide range of languages and communication to allow the students to see the history and shaping of language/communication and to also help them decide which foreign language they would like to persue. It should be a really fun and interesting class... As long as the kids are interested. Unfortunately some have signed up or were dumped into the class without understanding what it is and we have some challenges to overcome...

Coming into the classroom:
across the top of the white board is a topper with all the flags from around the world. I think on the blank bulletin board, I'm going to hang a few photos from my Russia and Mexico trips OR a big poster with "Hello" or "Welcome" in various languages.

My desk area. Desk is a little bare, but that's what happens in a secondary classroom!

So excited to have a window to let in some natural light! I have two of these small guys and I found this awesome suncatcher at the dollar store!

student computer area (though, we'll just go to my computer lab down the hall when needed) :

(on the wall above the computers: The Acropolis of Athens in Greece

a closeup of the bulletin board I made from flashcards off the dollar rack at Target: famous landmarks from around the world. I have two sets so I could hang the descriptions next to each landmark photo.

from the front of the room looking back.

(on the left is school information and on the right is a poster titled The Art of Currency, showcasing with history of various types of currency from around the world.

a week of experimenting...

2010-07-07T09:31:00.007-05:00

So, on my trips to visit my (second ;)) cousin, we have fallen into the habit of experimenting in the kitchen. The last time I was in Omaha (in October for our 30th birthday blowout weekend!), we tackled Julia Child's Beef Bourguignon -- or as we referred to it, Beef Booya. I'm sure Julia would not have been impressed with our nickname. haha. And yes -- we were indeed inspired by the movie Julie and Julia.

So, this time around we decided to continue our new tradition. TR has been researching and using raw milk lately, so we had a bit of fun with that. First, in an attempt to use some of the soured milk that she had on hand, we made a really great custard pudding (the recipe is about half way down). It was perfect with fresh berries.

We also attempted cream cheese (first numbered bullet halfway down at link -- it had a great texture, but tasted a bit off -- we weren't sure if the milk had gone too bad or if that was normal, so we ended up chucking that experiment). Homemade yogurt in the Crock-Pot was the last milk experiment.

One of our first new "meal" type recipes was from Jamie Oliver -- we tried out his Crunchy Garlic Chicken. It was a really great crusty chicken with a lot of flavor. We ended up with not enough coating, so we assume our chicken was a lot bigger than Jamie's. That night we also tried out his french dressing from an article on Jam Jar Dressings. This also turned out pretty well and I'm interested in trying some of the other ideas he lists for these.

One afternoon, we were sitting on the couch and TR begins describing this amazing thing her grandma has always done with rice crispy treats. I realize she's describing my grandma's rice crispy treats. ;) Well, they are sisters afterall. Turns out, we've both grown up eating these treats... So, it seemed only right that we make them this week. I present the Jones Family "Secret" Rice Crispy Treats (I'll post the following recipes in their own posts. be sure to click on recipe titles to not miss out):

On the Fourth of July, we decided to be all-American and have homemade hamburgers and potato salad (courtesy of James) and finish off with apple pie. TR makes a killer crust and we decided to tackle Pioneer Woman's Apple Pie recipe. We didn't do the last couple steps with the pecans and caramel sauce, mainly because we didn't have caramel sauce, but it was awesome with just the topping she gives instructions for.

our pie ready to hit the oven!

fresh from the oven...

and topped with freshly made whipped cream.

For our final recipe, we moved on to homemade tomato sauce. Our friend, Sarah, had given this recipe out quite awhile ago and we had been drooling over it since. It turned out extremely well and is most definitely a keeper! It's an intimidating looking recipe, but actually quite easy. It's a perfect recipe to triple and can for later use.

our tomatoes during the boiling and skinning process.

It was a fun week in the kitchen and I think we definitely have set new precedents! This will be hard to beat... but, I'm sure we'll find something new to tackle on the next trip. :)

What I'm Loving -- Edition 2

2010-06-29T19:55:00.003-05:00

I think it's time for another What I'm Loving post!

Up first -- got2b smooth operator smoothing lotion (click what's new, then smooth operator). I looooove this stuff!
I was previously using another brand of serum that promised to help hair stay straight and frizz free. However, I recently received a sample of got2b's smooth operator and tried it out. At first, I thought the scent was a little much, but honestly it has grown on me and I really like it now, especially when I randomly catch a whiff of it throughout the day. Smooth operator makes my hair incredibly soft and silky, keeps my hair from flyaway frizz, helps protect my hair from heat damage, but the very best part? My hands are not sticky at all after I work it through my hair! Even after washing my hands with soap and water when using the old product, I would still feel a little sticky sometimes... Not so with this stuff! My only complaint? It comes in a pump bottle that does not screw back down into a closed position. I travel so much that this is a really big deal for me. I just took this product in two (one being extremely long) car trips and one flight and managed to not have even one mishap with it (despite my eye makeup remover dousing several shirts!), however, I would imagine I'm extremely lucky to not have had the pump spout pushed around and leaking by the time I reached my individual destinations.
**Via BzzAgent and a BzzCampaign, I received a sample of got2b smooth operator as well as coupons for a free full size product. I was not otherwise compensated, nor was I required to write this particular review.**

On to my next big find -- I have never ever been so excited about a hair accessory. See, I have thin hair. So, 99% of hair accessories either A) don't work for me or B) look ridiculous. Ponytails look kinda silly on me because I have like 10 strands of hair, so they just look limp and lifeless. I have always wanted to toss my hair up in a messy bun and be done with it and no product has ever let me do that. Sticking 25 bobby pins in thin hair doesn't do much for a simple look either. Enter my trip to Walgreens one Saturday in May. I went down the hair aisle just to see what they had and discovered Goody had a new product: Spin Pins. Yes, I was skeptical. No, I did not want to spend 6 bucks on a product that probably was going to get buried in my bathroom drawer along with a dozen other hair items. But, in a moment of optimism, I grabbed them. WOW! Am I impressed. Goody claims that the Spin Pin does the work of 20 bobby pins. I believe it! It securely holds even my limp hair in a nice, yet loose / kinda messy bun. The pins look like a really long bobby pin shaped into a double corkscrew. It's so easy to twist my hair in a bun, screw in the first pin through the top, then I screw in the second pin from the bottom. I do have to add one sometimes two regular bobby pins to capture a few flyaways, but I'm cool with that. I've worn my hair in a bun for the past several weeks. I seriously think I may wear my hair this way for the rest of summer! Spin Pins come in brunette and blonde; I have the brunette one simply because that was all Walgreens had; however it still blends in my blonde hair. I'm really excited to try the Modern Updo Maker pin as well.

Here's my hair after a 10 hour day in one of the first days I used the pins. Never would my hair hold up like this with just bobby pins! A little wispy, but not bad! I've gotten better and find that I can easily get my hair up in seconds. This is a big deal for me! Once and awhile my hair is honery and it takes a couple tries, but I'm always successful! Excuse the bad lighting and therefore blurry photo...

This dress. So who wants to buy the pattern and make the dress for me? I'll take those patterns/colors on the fabric, too. Thanks. ;) I don't know if I'm brave enough to tackle it myself... But I'm loving the maxidress trend that's popular right now and I love the hippie/patchwork vibe on this dress! hmmm. Maybe I'll get brave and order the pattern myself to try. ;)

ummmm...

2010-04-07T11:30:00.015-05:00

so, apparently it's been a year since I last wrote. wow. I seriously had trouble for a few seconds figuring out how to start a new post. haha.

Sometimes I figure Facebook does a good enough job updating my friends on my life. But, I think some of you that (used to) read my blog may be missing some stuff? Though you probably gave up on this blog a long time ago...

So a quick catch up.

~ my girls' Bible study
~ THE MOVE to Illinois
~ Lost and Found Ministries
~ a new Ford Escape!
~VBS planning and Summer planning begins

I'll try not to ramble too much about the above items, but I needed a bit of a list to hit the highlights. :) And, yes, my list is random and out of order. Much like I live my life. Does this surprise anyone? I think not. :)

~ my girls' Bible study ~
I've taken on the role of Bible study leader for the 9th and 10th grade girls in our high school youth group. Last semester was my first go at it and we've continued on this semester. I'm solo leading it because we simply couldn't find a second person that fit well with what we needed. Turns out that's been good. Our youth group is still growing, but for some reason this age group for girls is small. Only 4 or 5 regular attenders small. ha. the 11th and 12th grade girls is nearly 30 strong, and our incoming 8th grade group is HUGE. but... these current 9th and 10th girls? small. and only 3 of them actually attend study. but they are faithful. :) We're a flexible group. We meet at church, at Chick-fil-A, at Starbucks... Wherever we feel like we want to go that week. This semester we're studying Discipline The Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot. The girls are mostly enjoying it, though sometimes it's hard for their age to relate to the examples Elliot lays out.

~THE MOVE to Illinois ~
So, mom and I have finally convinced dad to move back to Illinois. That's the short story version. :) Mom and I have been ready to go back to our family and our roots in Illinois for years. And we finally got dad on board around Thanksgiving 2009. Well, sometimes he's on board and sometimes we're dragging him along the tracks next to us. ;) It's a semi-slow process though. First, we have to sell our land in Trinity and the house near Tomball. Everything is on the chopping block to be sold. I created a website to sell the land, house, and equipment, furniture, etc that we don't want to move for reasons of convenience or just because it's time to let them go. It would be nice to wrap this all up over the summer and move then, but like I said -- everything has to be sold first! We've had some interest in both the house and the land. It's possible we have our buyers, but we're not holding our breath quite yet. Also on my plate is a job search! I've applied to the state board in Illinois for my teaching certificate. I would imagine they will be issuing me a provisional certificate and give me a year to complete some type of requirement of some kind. I should be hearing from them any day on that. When that gets settled, I can start applying seriously.

~ Lost and Found Ministries ~
Last May, I joined the board as secretary for a ministry founded by my cousin, Teri Rae, in 2006. Lost and Found Ministries is a non-profit ministry that is currently focused on short term mission trips, domestic and abroad. The basis for the ministry is 2 Corinthians 2:14-17. You are welcome to become a Facebook fan. ;) Currently, we are in a holding pattern as we wait for some things to line up in a red tape sort of way. But, we meet weekly via chat on Google and talk. Ah, modern technology! ;) We are also studying Fearless by Max Lucado as a team.

~ a new Ford Escape! ~
It was time to trade in my F150. It was starting to give me a few problems and it was certainly the gas guzzler. I was not impressed with the idea of going to a car size vehicle, yet I had to be frugal with what a chose. I needed better gas mileage and lower payments (which would include a rollover from the fact I was upside down on my truck). I would have loved to get another Jeep Cherokee. Or to look at Toyota 4Runners. But... they were out of my price range. The Ford Escape seemed to fit my needs. It's like a mini Explorer. The only downside I see is the limited leg room in the backseat, but really -- what do I care, I don't ride back there! ;) And the big pluses? Lower payments, lower insurance, and better gas mileage means I'm saving a little bit in three areas, making a much happier bank account! ;) So, meet my new Escape:

~ VBS planning and Summer planning begins ~
Yes, you read that correctly. Year number 3 of directing VBS is upon me. I'll be working with the youth pastor on the 5th and 6th grade program this year. Last year, we split those kids off from the younger kids giving them a VBS that fit their age a bit better. It went really well last year, so we're doing it again! I co-directed with my friend Kim last year and she is staying on to direct with the children's pastor over the younger group. So VBS planning is about to be in full swing. Elsewhere this summer, I plan on an Omaha trip which will include a quick weekend in Missouri to meet with the other two LaF board members. The Omaha trip will probably be a short one, (hopefully at least 2 weeks though) at the end of June, and then it will be back to the heat of Texas to hopefully pack, pack, pack!

And I think that wraps up the most excitement around here. I shall try to update more often. perhaps an entire year won't pass by this time before I venture into a blog post. Considering this is a marathon post and if you've made it this far, I am seriously impressed! :)

what i've been up to.

2009-04-06T22:43:00.002-05:00

to my, ahem, roaring crowd of 2... a little update. this may be a long post about a lot of little nothings.

march brought a lot of busy weekends. the first weekend brought reverb. i've been working with the high school youth quite a bit -- mainly just going to prime time, the sunday night worship and group study. kim, do you remember spiritfest at graceview? that was pretty much what reverb was. the students stayed in homes of tbc families in small groups. they were divided by their age/grade levels (junior high through high school) and each group had two college students (that drove home from their college lives to spend the entire weekend doing reverb). on friday night, we had a concert with gatlin elms. throughout the weekend, our speaker brandon, led 4 sessions with the kids. the rest of the weekend, gatlin elms led worship. the in between time was filled with food, bowling, and hanging out. we had about 60 kids, i think. it was a huge success all around. tons of work went into and the kids had a blast.

i did a lot of group driving, working in the kitchen, and trying to catch the sessions and worship time. my group to drive had cassidy as their college leader. it was neat to hang out with her a bit and watch her interact with her girls. she's a pretty amazing girl.

a few photos (click on them to make them larger)...

shaun kicking off friday night.

gatlin elms concert.

the speaker, brandon.

a few of the 7th and 8th grade girls i drove around
with cassidy and samantha.

worship with gatlin elms.

the group.

the college students, our leaders.

the, ahem, adults...

all the photos from reverb are courtesy of dee. i wish i was half the photographer she is!

the next week was spring break. pretty uneventful, since it rained for over half of the week. sigh. klein isd took a week earlier for spring break than most of the area school districts. the following week was, of course, beautiful weather... on monday, before the rain started, i got to head downtown and hang out with jamie and her boys for the whole day! we had a fun day eating at lupe tortilla (yum!!) and a quick target trip. i also got to hit up old town spring with a friend on tuesday. i hadn't been there in years, so it was fun to wander around and do a little shopping... and of course, eat at the infamous wunsche bros cafe.

the bell boys.

jamie and i.

i went camping the third weekend in march at inks lake state park. amanda invited me to go with a group that her cousin had pulled together. it was a fun weekend. but, wow, was it cold friday night. and the ground was hard. i think i got my fill of camping for awhile! ;) we visited longhorn caverns on saturday afternoon. i hadn't gone on a cavern tour since years ago, when my family went to meramac caverns when we lived in missouri. so, it was a lot of fun to walk through them and hear the history behind the caverns. sunday afternoon, amanda and i stopped to take pictures in the bluebonnets near chappell hill. that was fun... i'd never really done that before!

a partial photo of the field we stopped in.
oh, alright... the ditch on the side of the highway.

indian paintbrushes and bluebonnets.
shhhhh... i actually like the indian paintbrushes better.
but don't tell my texas friends...

finally, march wrapped up with the tbc ladies retreat. i had been working on the planning committee since january, so it was nice for it to finally be here and see our work come to fruition. it was a fun weekend, with lots of laughing, eating, and bit of shopping. and of course a speaker and worship. our retreat has been at round top for the past few years. we schedule it during round top weekend (which has turned into round top week or more, i think), so we get to head out for antique and junk shopping on saturday afternoon. there are tents upon tents upon tents of junk and vintage and antiques. i love sifting through that stuff. no good buys, this year though. i go with the wrong group to do the real digging for good stuff. i swore last year and i'm swearing again this year -- and i mean it this time ;) -- i'm switching shopping groups. :)

whew. march was busy! april is uneventful, so far. or so says my calendar. right now, the event to look forward to is flying to omaha in july to visit teri rae and her family for two weeks!! :) of course, that's after vbs in june... i'm directing again this year with my friend, kim. i'm sure things are about to pick up in that planning area real soon. we've been doing a little planning and recruiting... but it's time to hit the ground running on that!

what i'm loving...

2009-03-07T01:10:00.002-06:00

My Messy, Thrilling Life. Brin at Freeman House writes a really great blog. Those of you that follow Pioneer Woman and MckMama will find that same little something over at Freeman House. But, she is closing her blog on her 30^th birthday next month. I am incredibly bummed, because I just discovered her a couple months ago! I’m busy trying to read her archives and I’m finding some really great words of wisdom and some yummy recipes buried there. I’ll be sad when I can no longer check in on her blog… She really is an inspiration on so many levels.

Greek yogurt. Yum. My favorite right now is Greek Gods Honey. Greek Gods has other flavors… but I love the honey flavor too much to stray. Plus, I have this thing against Pomegranate potpourri (it’s stinks, okay?) and it’s all I can think about when I see the carton of yogurt. I’m not a fan of figs… so, the fig flavor is lost on me, as well. But, the honey… Yum. It’s just a distinct hint of honey flavor behind the yogurt. And I love the firm, creamy texture Greek yogurt has as opposed to the thinner versions.

This Wicked Stitch Designs camera bag. I'm really in love with this bag. This bag company is pretty darn cool with some great bag designs... but the best part is that you get to pick the fabrics you want used in your custom bag! But, I would lovelovelove to have this exact bag.

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I read this book quite awhile ago, but it's been on my mind lately. I think I need to pick it up again and reread it. Unfortunately, I lent it out and I'm pretty certain I'll never see it again... but that's another story. Anyway, I'm usually much more into crime and political dramas and suspense books. But this book... oh, this book. It's the retelling of the story of Hosea (yes, that Hosea, from the Bible). It takes place in the Gold Rush of 1850 where a kind farmer marries a prostitute. An unlikely relationship becomes a story of love, trust, and hope. The story is also a reminder of God's unconditional love for us. hmmmm... looks like Amazon has a few used copies for about 3 bucks. Time to order a new copy.

wild Olive tees. Very cool Christian tees! A little bit funky, a little bit classy, and an awesome message. Plus, 10% of the profit from each tee goes to non profit organizations and charities. Currently, they are spotlighting Shaohannah's Hope. I'm loving the "rooted" tee...

Crested Butte Ski Trip

2008-12-30T14:34:00.013-06:00

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post... I went as a leader to Crested Butte with the TBC youth. What a fun time! It was great getting to know Shaun and Abby (our youth pastor and his wife) and Guy (another adult leader) better. It was a whirlwind trip, but full of memories. Of course, I'm sure the most memorable is the missing van keys. But, I'll get to that in a moment. We started out Friday night, so that we could drive straight through the night (hoping the kids would be less restless and would sleep -- in other words... leave the drivers alone. ha) We had an uneventful drive up until we got to Monarch Pass. It was a bit of a tense drive going over. But, we made it just fine. Here's a photo from my passenger seat (I drove the dead-of-night-middle-of-nowhere-Amarillo-to-Raton portion). The van/trailer in front of us is Shaun, Abby, and several kids:

Once we arrived in Crested Butte, it was time to grocery shop. Note to self -- Do not grocery shop after a 20+ hour drive with 18 teens. Talk about delirious decision making. The remainder of our time was spent skiing (well, for some!), playing Catch Phrase in a huge circle, cooking and eating, and hanging out. I did attempt to ski, but between my ineptitude and a so-so instructor, I was doomed. Someday I may try again. But, the second day of skiing of was a great day for the skiiers (lots of powder), so I chose not to weigh down any of our team with a crappy skier. :) Instead, I hung out around the lodge, drank overpriced coffee, and went down to the town to browse the cute little shopping district:

The day of our departure promised a storm in the afternoon. So, Shaun and the rest of us leaders decided leaving first thing Tuesday morning was wise (the kids were supposed to get in a half day skiing). So we start the packing up process with a departure time of 10:30. About 9 am, one of the girls asks for the van keys. Shaun can't find them. We do a little searching. Still no keys. More searching. No keys. Turn the couch cushions and Shaun's room upside down. NO KEYS. Okay, time a for leader meeting. Start looking at contingency plans which range from the ridiculous to the plausible to the most inconvenient. At one point, we think we've found them in the console of the (locked) van. Call a locksmith. Turn out to be Shaun's Xterra keys. Tear the van apart. No keys. We've moved on to just laughing at this point. What else are we going to do? The locksmith turns out to be our saving grace. He moves mountains for us to get things moving in the middle of the day, the day before Christmas Eve, in a small town. After many many phone calls with the rental company, the locksmith, the Gunnison (nearby town at the bottom of Mt. Crested Butte) Chevy dealership, and others, we find out we can indeed get a new key made. So starts the shuffling of kids down the mountain. I sit with a group at the Gunnison McDonalds, Abby sits with a group at the condo while Guy drives back and forth getting us all down. Shaun goes with the towed van to get our keys remade. After an hour or so at the McDonalds, Shaun calls me -- we have a key, he's on the way, Guy is bringing in the last of the kids, and we have a full ten minutes to get on the road before we lose daylight mid drive and therefore don't want to risk Monarch Pass. By the grace of God, we make it safely and we are officially on our way. At the time we originally planned to leave before our early departure decision was made.

We had some amazing kids on this trip. Such a fun group and also well-mannered. They were great at offering to help cook or clean up. Always remembered to say thank you to Abby and I after we cooked for them. And we also got a few compliments on a well behaved group from various locals. Including at the McDonalds where I contained half of them for over an hour during the van madness.

We pulled in to TBC right on time and I rushed home to do laundry and start the second part of my Christmas vacation... Omaha! The rest of the Ski Trip photos (nothing real exciting and all from my camera phone, but pretty nonetheless) can be found in my Facebook album.

MckMama's Rebel for a Cause

2008-12-11T21:21:00.006-06:00

I just donated a small amount to MckMama's raffle-way, Rebel for a Cause. She has teamed up to create an AMAZING giveaway based on raffle tickets sold to donate money to three incredible ministries. MckMama has blessed me so much on her blog and in her story of her sweet baby Stellan and the miracle that God performed in her womb. And in her incredible sweet way, she has created a way for her blog readers to recieve something while supporting these awesome ministries. I would be totally blown away if I won this incredible Canon package; but more than anything, I just wanted to be a part of this in some little way. And, yes, my donation was very small. But, one thing that I have learned while raising money for missions trips... God takes a small amount and simply multiplies it. There is no other way to explain it. It just multiplies. Like the fish and the loaves of bread. So, God, multiply my donation and send it on it's way to bless many hearts.

Home for the Holidays at TBC

2008-12-10T22:32:00.011-06:00

This past weekend our church did a huge event called Home for the Holidays. It was actually a two day event filled with all sorts of fun! We started out Saturday morning with a luncheon and tea for the ladies. We had somewhere around 25 tables set up. A different woman (or sometimes two) in the church was responsible for decorating and hosting each table. I shared a table with our music pastor's wife, Amanda. I had a lot of fun getting to know her a little bit better while we were setting up the table and then on throughout the morning. Here's a photo of our finished table with our combined decorating items, skills, and ideas. (Excuse the bad and uncreative photography, I just couldn't get a good angle and finally quit trying. ha.)

We were entertained by a thought provoking skit and had a wonderful message by one of our ladies. We also got to sing a little Christmas music. Finally, we had a wonderful lunch catered by Mel's. There were so many fun tables to look at, too. Ours was by far the most simple table, but I think it still looked classy and we did get several comments on it.

Sunday night was the BIG NIGHT. It began with a performance by our children's choir, Awaken. They did a fun little musical... It really was precious. Then we all moved outside. We had three bands come in for concerts. Lindsey Kane is just the neatest girl ever! We (the ladies' ministry at TBC) met her at our retreat this past March when she came in as our speaker and worship leader for the weekend. She just fits so well at TBC and we all wish she would move to Tomball. :) Only if she brings Jenny, her percussionist, with her, though! We love her, too.

Next up was Gatlin Elms. TBC has a strong connection to this band as well. One of the guys is one of our very own TBCers. I had never heard the guys live before and they really were fantastic!

Our headline band was the Robbie Seay Band. These Houston guys are really making a strong statement in the Christian music industry. It was quite cool to see them live, also.

Amidst all the live music we had a live nativity, Santa on Candy Cane Lane, food, hot chocolate, wassail, and lots of fun! It was a huge success, especially for a first year event. We've already started talking about "next year".

And with the end of that, I can breathe normally for a few days. Until it's time to pack and leave for the ski trip. And then on to Omaha! Stay tuned for those updates. I'm sure I'll have some good stories and photos.

i must be crazy.

2008-11-22T17:06:00.003-06:00

Just sign me up for the insane asylum, because I just cemented my craziness. In the matter of 3 days, I booked my Christmas vacation solid. SOLID. Let me start at the beginning...

I've been keeping an eye on plane tickets to Omaha, Nebraska since about April of this year. I didn't have specific date to fly, but I knew I wanted to go see my cousin. Well, the summer went by and there were no good deals. I looked a bit for a long weekend during the school year... nothing. Until I put in a search for tickets on Christmas day. I found an awesome deal! So, in the matter of few short hours I made plans and booked my ticket for December 25th through January 1st!! So exciting!

Then... I get a phone call from our youth pastor Friday evening. He needs another chaperone / relief driver for the high school ski trip. Free ski trip? Um, yes please. So, now I'm leaving on December 19th at 5 pm (um, did I mention I get off work at 4 pm on the 19th?) and driving to Crested Butte, Colorado! We come back at 2 pm on the 24th (please God, don't let us be late!). I'm pretty excited about the trip! I've never skied in my life (please God, don't let me break anything!) and don't own a single ski item. I've got some borrowing prospects that should work out really well. My goal is to not purchase much besides socks and other personal stuff... Because remember that Omaha trip? I need a winter coat for that! I live in Texas. I use heavy sweaters and sweatshirts for a "winter coat".

By the time I get back, I'll have a whole three days before I go back to work! I think I may be sleeping those three days... ;)

prayer alarms

2008-11-07T17:56:00.003-06:00

i'm really horrible at remembering things. i just made a commitment to pray for courtney and her family monday morning, as they face another morning of unknowns with maggie's adoption. but, like i said... i'll probably forget all about it until i read her update on her blog. so, i'm setting the calendar on my phone with an "event" at 9:30 am to pray for them. i keep my phone on silent at work, but it lights up when i get a text or an event reminder, so i usually catch the message on time. i've found this works great for praying at a specific time for a certain issue or just things that i need to make a note to myself about. sure beats writing it on the sticky note that i will inevitably lose!!

after the rant

2008-11-05T17:54:00.004-06:00

after i've wallowed in my attitude since about 8:30 last night and posted my rant below. i read this article recommended by my pastor. it makes me feel better than i have all day. go read the whole article. but this is my favorite part:

"So this is no time for Christians to go into the bunkers. No time to wail or moan over our retirement plans. This is a time to repent, to pray more, to give more. It’s a time for Christians to lead, encourage, and minister to a faltering country in a faltering economy.

This is a time for the Church to get serious about Christian discipleship. Enough cheap grace."

oh and read my post below. it was therapeutic writing it and i'd hate for it go unread! ;)

the day after

2008-11-05T17:35:00.005-06:00

someone asked me today how i felt about the election results. well, here's how i feel.

i was very sad, disappointed, and angry this morning. this is beyond being bummed that my party "lost" last night. i am deeply concerned for the future of this country. just as adamantly as obama supporters believe that good change is coming, some of us believe that change is indeed coming -- but it won't be good

i was not completely enthralled by mccain. i had issues with him as well. but, obama's politics are way beyond what i can support. this feeling i have has absolutely nothing to do with the color of his skin, his birthplace (wherever that is), or his lack of experience. my concern has everything to do with what he has promised to do and his voting record.

i already donate money to charities and causes that i deem appropriate for my bank account and my beliefs and my wishes. i do not appreciate the suggestion of higher taxes that will force my money to go to programs that i do not agree with or to people who do not work to their full capacity.

i believe obama has marxist tendencies and mccain should have hit hard on that.

my feelings also have everything to do with the people he may very well be placing in his cabinet, in the supreme court, and/or in other prominent positions and what their political history is. i have seen and heard the histories of the men and women that obama has surrounded himself with. many of them scare me. and i see these as being very viable prospects for obama to chose from.

i agree that america is in a hard time. our economic crisis is a huge worry. i am not discounting this problem. but, i don't believe the answer lies in electing a president that is so ill-informed and inexperienced. yes, i believe in the checks and balances of our government. but, both our house and senate are now majority democratic. it will be even harder for the republican minority to make a dent.

after 9/11, anne graham lotz (billy graham's daughter) was asked about how God could allow something like 9/11 to happen. she replied:

"I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it."

well, i just wonder if that's not what's happening now. however, i still believe, that ultimately God is in control. He feels our hurt and anger right now. He has a plan. and He will be vindicated.

it's now time to rebuild the republican party and take it back to the days of ronald reagan. that is what we need now.

having said all that. congratulations to those of you who are overjoyed and excited about obama's election. i truly hope and sincerely pray that the next 4 years are not as dicey as some are projecting. i don't want to see terrorism on our doorstep again or out of control taxes. what's done is done. all we can do now is hope for the best.

so, here's to drinking the kool aid america. i hope we're ready for this ride.

dear mr. obama

2008-10-31T15:45:00.002-06:00

this is a really powerful video that has been circulating the internet and youtube for a few months. today, it made front page news on the fox news website. i have a couple friends that are posting it on their blogs as well. from my understanding (and that understanding includes men i have known directly involved in the iraqi war), the majority of the soldiers feel that the war has done good. and if we were to pull out now we would undo everything. this video is one soldier's opinion. it's a shame our mainstream liberal media can't find more of these soldiers, rather than the ones that are disgruntled. not that i am downplaying the tragedies of war. but, i am saying that our media finds the worst of the worst stories and refuse to balance it out with the good ones. anyway, i'll quit rambling (for now) and post the video.

pick a chef 2008

2008-10-20T14:35:00.002-05:00

as many of you know (i think), i have several of my recipes posted on recipezaar. i mainly post them out there for easy access. when someone asks for a recipe, it's easy to direct them there. the ones posted are ones that i get requests for quite often. or ones that are a little different and not already on recipezaar. i do like to be the different one, you know. ;) last spring, i was "adopted" in the pick a chef event. a fellow recipezaar-ite chose three of my recipes to make, photograph, and then review. i was pleased to get such high comments from her that this year i decided to "adopt" myself. i made four recipes, but my by far favorite was the creme brulee. it's not quite as good as i've had in restuarants, but pretty darn close. and it was very easy to make. i was also "adopted" this year and once again my recipes were given high praise! pretty cool, eh? you can check out the rest of my recipes here.

vintage aprons

2008-10-18T08:21:00.003-05:00

i just found this fun blog. i love vintage aprons! i'm just always too cheap to buy them. but this fun little contest could make me the winner of one! i guess you can go enter, too. just try not to hurt my chances too much. :) enter here.

lauren's wedding

2008-10-07T22:24:00.005-05:00

i had the honor of attending lauren and russell's wedding this past weekend. liz and i have been friends since 5th grade. life often takes us down different paths and puts different people in our lives, but we are always in the background of each other. there are so many sweet memories of our friendship. and hilarious memories. and wild memories. and... well, you get the point. :)

i was so excited to get to see her family, as well. the boys (andy and john) are all grown up. and while i have semi kept up with them through the world of myspace and a random target run-in a couple years ago -- it was amazing to see them as young men. and so tall. i mean seriously. TALL. and lauren's mom, susan, looked incredible. she was so beautiful in her gold outfit, beaming in joy for lauren and russell.

the wedding was in dallas at arlington hall at lee park. wow. was this place ever amazing?! the chandeliers, the decor, the history -- the entire place was beautiful and exquisite. the ceremony was outside and then we all went across the path to arlington hall for dinner.

i drug amanda with me for the weekend. i needed someone to do my make up. ;) seriously, it was fun to get away for a couple days and just hang out. and besides, i needed someone to get lost with me every time we ventured out (stupid google maps and construction!). our hotel was really nice and we slept like queens in the fluffy beds. on sunday, we dropped in on the state fair on a whim. it was fun to walk around, but it was pretty hot and we were tired. so, we didn't last long, especially since the entertainment didn't start for a couple more hours and we had a long drive ahead of us. and besides, like ellie posted -- it's all about the people watching anyway! ha.

so, here is a sample of my favorite photos. go check out the rest of them here.

my mosaic

2008-10-02T19:34:00.004-05:00

this was so fun! here's the rules:

Answer the following 12 questions about yourself:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you?
12. Your Flickr name?
Type your answer to each of the above questions into Flickr’s search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite and copy and paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows)… Enjoy!

mosiac maker is a cool website that lets you take photos from a flickr account or your computer and build them into a mosaic in a variety of sizes. you don't have to sign up to use the free service, just build your mosiac then save it to your computer.

here are my answers:

1. kelly
2. chips and salsa
3. tomball high school (i cheated on this one, went to page 2 because page 1 was mostly a kid's senior pictures)
4. black
5. wentworth miller (sigh)
6. coffee
7. italy
8. creme brulee
9. world traveler
10. friends
11. ecelectic
12. mcmullen (i cheated again. i don't have a flickr account, so i just used my last name. close enough, right?)

and the photo credits... you can click on the link to see the full photo, and if you're really curious, why it showed up in the search for my answer.
1. The "R.Kelly"- Song..., 2. homemade fresh tomato salsa & guacomole, 3. the Stage, 4. Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo, 5. 299496522_fffb454ec4_b, 6. coffee & the city, 7. Venice, 8. crème brûlée, 9. World Traveler, 10. Friends silhouetted, 11. Vienna - Hundertwasser Haus, 12. McMullen County Line Sign (McMullen County, Texas)

ok, now it's YOUR turn. and leave me a comment if you accept the challenge, so that i can come see them!

autumn

2008-09-23T09:45:00.004-05:00

yep, this is totally my post from last october. but i was reminded of it after reading queen b 's (one of the blogs i unashamedly stalk) post today. and i just want to add starbucks pumpkin spice lattes to this list. it's a major oversight that it didn't make it on the list last year. what was i thinking?! i guess it's a little early to be dreaming of autumn, since the texas weather didn't get the memo on the first day of the fall solstice. but, a girl can dream. anyway, without further ado... my love affair with autumn.

i. love. autumn.

i love...

pumpkins and gourds
leaves turning vibrant shades of amazing colors (well, not in texas, but i can still visualize this from when i lived up north)
indian corn
cooler weather -- those beautiful crisp days when the sun is shining brightly and the sky is so blue without a cloud in sight
yummy soups and sandwiches
thanksgiving day!
cozy fireplaces (okay, once again, notsomuch in texas...)
the scent of wood fires burning
hay mazes
warm, yummy cider
fall festivals and craft shows
the colors -- orange, yellow, gold, brown, red all melded together to create a kaleidoscope of fantastic proportions.

getting back to "normal"

2008-09-19T20:52:00.002-05:00

today i had to finish (okay, start) preparing for jamie's shower. so i ran around the woodlands and tomball checking with la madeleine (i'm hosting it in their back room), gathering materials and a gift. things are starting to come back to normal. though, there were several places still closed because they have no power. and there are a lot of down power lines and trees, pretty much everywhere i went.

klein isd is still closed. most campuses reopen wednesday, except for those without power. well, hildebrandt is without power still. i've heard two conditions for those buildings (seeing as how my administration hasn't contacted me yet, i'm going on rumors). some say we will return 24 hours after power is restored and some say 48 hours after. but, they do have to have time to check the buildings and restore food service after power is up.

interesting thing i overheard at target today. as i'm shopping for jamie's gift, i overhear a woman on a cell phone. the cell phone is an important observation. she's also shopping at target -- there were items in her cart. as she's doing all this, she's complaining to the person on the other end of the line about how FEMA has been removing the POD locations. really? you're talking on your cell phone and shopping at target while whining how your free food, water, and ice is disappearing?! amazing. now, believe me, we (as in my family) were not prepared the way we should have been for hurricane ike. we lost everything in 2 refridgerators and 1.5 freezers. everything. we did have plenty of water and food (maybe not what we wanted to eat, but it was food). ice is a whole other story. we needed ice badly and it was very scarce. we rationed our driving so that we didn't need fuel as much as usual. there are ways to survive without FEMA. especially in our area of houston suburbs. and that's all i'm saying. it just takes some responsiblity and maturity. and if FEMA is your only chance of survival through this... accept it graciously and get on your feet as quickly as possible. and don't whine on your cell phone while shopping about the unfairness of the POD moving on.

hmmm...

2008-09-18T17:50:00.004-05:00

as i catch up with my blog reading, i saw this post from last friday. i think it's still a fitting reminder.

we have power!!

2008-09-18T17:50:00.002-05:00

so, after 131 hours without power -- we got it back today!! we are very excited.

we are also very, very grateful to our wonderful neighbors. after 3 full days of yard work on our part, we were still looking at the majority of 2 trees in the front yard and 3 trees in the back yard. then this morning... one of our neighbors showed up. about an hour later, another couple across the street showed up. we cleaned the front yard of ALL tree debris and got most of the backyard done. the tractor needs a new tube in the tire, though, so it's currently out of commission. the stuff left in the backyard needs to be pushed around with the tractor... so... we're done for the day.

i've uploaded more photos to the facebook album. check them out here!

oops...

2008-09-17T11:32:00.005-05:00

so... i just realized that it is wednesday, not tuesday. so, that means... we've been without power for 103 hours. i thought my first estimate seemed not as long as it felt!!

and, i posted a few photos on facebook with captions. you can see them here, even if you don't have facebook. (click on the photos for the captions...)

another day...

2008-09-17T06:46:00.003-05:00

i'm still alive despite the lack of electricity and running water. let me just say it's been 76 hours since we've had power (and will probably be longer). just throwing that out there. ;)

klein isd (and most other districts) have pushed their start date to monday. i found out that hildebrandt (my building) has sustained a good amount of damage. the covered walkway outside my side of the building is torn up. the roof caved in over one of the computer labs on the other side of the building from me. and the roof leaked pretty badly in the main hallway; so that carpet is probably ruined.

we spent the day yesterday working in the yard. we didn't get very far. there's a lot to clean and, of course, we had problems along the way. one of which was a malfunction of the generator. it blew up our directv receiver. yea.

i went to amanda's to take a shower and use her internet last night. and then i managed to talk her into going to la hacienda for dinner. there was a 20 minute wait! and then the kitchen closed at 8. it's so weird to have a curfew imposed by the counties. i believe 10 pm is the general rule. but one of the main underlying meaning behind many of the city and county officials' decisions -- let's not be like new orleans was in the hurricane katrina aftermath. so far, we've done well. hopefully, we've died down in the national news a bit as well.

today is more fun in the yard (i'm ready to go back to work instead of this! ha).

i'm off to town to get fuel and non-perishables at the store. pray for me. ha. this could be a whole other adventure to post when i get home. or whenever i get internet next...

hurricane ike part three

2008-09-16T06:51:00.000-05:00

i'm really not sure why i started this running timeline of hurricane ike. probably out of sheer boredom sunday evening. but, now that i'm online for a few minutes, i'll post it here for posterity. i'll split the timeline by each day and post them seperately. i started with friday evening / saturday, so keep scrolling until you find part one.

Monday, 6 am
Dad leaves to pick up the tractor from Trinity. I go back to sleep; it is too dark to do anything anyway. Our water is completely gone. Not even a trickle when you turn the faucet.

8 am
It’s a beautiful day. Thank goodness for nice weather during these days without power. Hear on the radio that one particular power company will be down for a minimum of 3 weeks as they have to rebuild their plant (or something). Gee… I hope that isn’t the one that supplies our company.

9 am
It’s time to face the refrigerator... Nothing is remotely cold anymore. We fill up about 5 trash bags from 2 refrigerators and freezers (keep in mind they are not full bags, otherwise they would be too heavy). We do find a handful of salvageable items. Half frozen tamales cooked on the grill becomes our lunch later on.

1 pm
Dad has brought back a generator from a welding machine. It takes a little while to get it running, but finally we are able to plug in one refrigerator, run the septic system, and charge cell phones. Unfortunately, we were unable to save anything in our deep freezers. We’ll let those refreeze once we have power and throw the contents out later. Trash pickup is tomorrow and the load is already heavy without those bags.

5 pm
Find out we are among 5,972 other households in our zip code without power. That puts us in the group of lower outages than most zip codes. Not sure if that’s good or bad. However, it does confirm that we are NOT on the power company grid that is rebuilding. Hallelujah!

5:30 pm
Got to watch a little of the news while the generator ran. Lots of devastation all around us. We’ve also realized that the phone line is out – so no internet access, despite the generator! Talked to my grandma in Chester. Just as the news yesterday suggested, Ike visited them in the form of thunderstorms and power outages Sunday. Of course, all of their power has been restored.

6 pm
Dad brought Arby’s home for supper!! Definitely a highlight of the past couple days.

hurricane ike part two

2008-09-16T06:48:00.002-05:00

i'm really not sure why i started this running timeline of hurricane ike. probably out of sheer boredom sunday evening. but, now that i'm online for a few minutes, i'll post it here for posterity. i'll split the timeline by each day and post them seperately. i started with friday evening / saturday, so keep scrolling until you find part one.

Sunday, 6:30 am
My parents start to leave for Trinity. We’re worried that the cows are out and that the RV is turned upside down. Or worse. Dad’s truck gets stuck in the backyard. I try to pull it out with my truck. No such luck.

8 am
My parents leave in my truck. I go back to bed. Not really tired, but what else is there to do?

10 am
Neighbor knocks on the door. We have water! I take a shower.

11 am
I decide to head to Tomball in my mom’s blazer… Again, what else is there to do? I throw my laptop in with me, hoping for power at Starbucks so that I can use their Wi-Fi. Target, Lowes, HEB, and Wal-Mart are the only places open. Water is really high on 2920 just before Tomball – but that’s not unusual when we get a ton of rain. Power seems to be out in most of Tomball. The signal lights are ripped down and hanging at some intersections. Can’t find Wi-Fi; not even in the hotel parking lot. Other than no power, Tomball seems to have fared well. Nothing interesting happening, so I head home the opposite way I came to check things out. Loooong line at the tool rental place; they must have generators left. Or people are renting bulldozers and such to clean up the mess.

Noon
Get home. Read some more. Finish my book. Take a nap. Listen to the radio – find out that Klein ISD won’t open until at least Thursday the 18th. I suspect it could be longer, but I guess it depends on how quickly power is restored.

3 pm
My parents get home. Amy and Glenn come over to pull my dad’s truck out of the mud. We stand around and chat. They leave as Kim and the kids pull up. We chat. After they leave, we warm up leftovers on the grill.

7 pm
Sit around and listen to the radio for awhile. I’m jealous of my friends that text and say “we have power!!” We still speculate that it will be a few days for us – there is nothing of priority around us to put us at the top of any “list”. No hospitals, schools, or shopping centers. Our food is definitely at the end of it’s life – even in the fridge and freezer. It’s not really cool in either one of those anymore.

8 pm
Head back to my room and my open window to read. Hoping that “cool” front the weathermen are promising hurries up!

hurricane ike part one

2008-09-16T06:21:00.002-05:00

i'm really not sure why i started this running timeline of hurricane ike. probably out of sheer boredom sunday morning. but, now that i'm online for a few minutes, i'll post it here for posterity. i'll split the timeline by each day and post them seperately. i'll start with friday evening / saturday:

Friday Evening
I watch Fox News all evening reporting live from Galveston. Geraldo is the main entertainment as he practically gets blown away by the wind. Finally a little after midnight, I shut down my laptop. I crawl in bed and watch Fox News until I fall asleep.

Saturday, 4 am
We lose electricity. I wake up because my fan turns off. I go back to sleep.

Saturday, 5:10 am
I’m fully awake now. The wind is pretty fierce.

Saturday, 5:20 am
Amanda texts me. We chat back and forth for a few minutes, deciding Hurricane Ike isn’t so great.

Saturday, 5:30 am
A tree falls in the front yard. But, it is way too dark to see exactly what happens. The wind is too fierce to open the door fully and look safely. So, we sit in the living room listening to the radio and the wind. This goes on for another couple hours.

Saturday, 6:30 am
I text Jamie. They are safe and they have electricity! Lucky ducks.

Saturday, 6:45
Daylight starts breaking through the rain and wind. We can see which tree is in the front yard now. It’s extremely close to the house and we’re lucky it didn’t break off further down the trunk. We discover 3 more trees down. Are pretty certain one has taken out part of the back fence.

Saturday, 7:30 am
I go back to bed for a couple hours.

Saturday, 9:30
I pick up a book and read by the window light. The hurricane winds are over. They have slowly ceased over the last few hours.

Saturday, noon
Dad and I decide to take out the Teryx and check out the neighborhood. We’re pretty sure we got the worst on our street. Probably small tornados were touching down around our house. Though one of our neighbors nearly had a tree in their bedroom – it stopped just short of that. Decker Prairie Rosehill Road is a mess. Several power lines down. Most of them have trees sitting on top of them. 2 houses have trees lying on their roofs. Allenwood has several trees uprooted and laid over. Amazingly no one seems to have a tree in their house, though.

The rest of the day:
Play dominoes, warm up fajita meat on the grill, read more, chat with neighbors in the yard, text friends to find out how they fared. My cell phone is not working well; calls in and out only go to voicemail. Texting works better, but I usually have to send the text 6 or 8 times before it goes through.

never forget...

2008-09-11T08:10:00.002-05:00

quotes from president bush's statement in his address to the nation
september 11, 2001, 8:30 pm, edt

"Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. And we responded
with the best of America -- with the daring of our rescue workers, with the
caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way
they could. "
"This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. "

timeline and images on the morning of 9/11
9/11 remembrance video

love this.

2008-09-10T21:42:00.003-05:00

i really enjoy reading the confessions of a pioneer woman blog. i just absolutely love her. love. her. today's post was just a wonderful story. i have to share. i can't be the only one sniffling over here. maybe it's just pms... nah... this one is a great story.

hmmm...

2008-08-30T09:09:00.016-05:00

okay, seriously, i don't know if i can do this. but, i'll give it a shot because i've been tagged by courtney. is there really 6 interesting, random things about me?! oh and another thing... i don't have 6 blogging friends that will actually do this. oh well. i'm still game. except for the part where i started this entry 6 days ago and am just now coming back to it. but, i won't mention that.

here's the rules:
1. post the rules on your blog
2. write 6 random things about yourself
3. tag 6 people at the end of your post
4. if you are tagged, DO IT and pass it along

and here are my random things:

1. i have major issues with the misuse of grammar and the misuse of apostrophes. i know, strange. this is a random fact all in itself, because why in the world would i choose those two things to be picky about in the english language?! obviously, all lowercase letters don't bug me. ;) but, seriously -- when people use "good" when they should use "well" that just grates on my nerves. it's all i can do to not correct perfect strangers when they incorrectly use those words. and apostrophes! come on people. apostrophes are for contractions and to show possession. please, stop using them to make a word plural!! thank you.

2. i was born in chester, illinois, home of popeye the sailor man. it's true. elzie segar was born and raised in chester. he based his characters on real people that lived in the town with him. after he died, his son took over the strip and a few years ago created a dog for swee'pea named chester to commemorate the town. every year, the weekend after labor day i believe (hey! that's this weekend!), the town celebrates with the popeye picnic. popeye enthusiasts come from all over the world to participate. it's much more than bringing food to the local park and sitting on a blanket-- it's a full blown 3 day event with a huge agenda.

3. i have a good eye for layout and precision. when i'm making invitations, programs, newsletters, websites, etc, i will obsess over the slightest off center detail. and i can usually eyeball it exactly without the help of rulers and / or guidelines. i often notice these minute details in printed publications. they drive me crazy. typically no one notices it until i point it out to them.

4. i have an etsy shop. but i never sell anything, probably because i don't promote it to anyone. and i keep telling myself i'm going to go back and make the "shop" area creative and classy and cool, but i never do. so, it's totally uninteresting. oh, and i keep meaning to add more button magnets, becuase i think it's totally lame that there is only one set on there. i also have more ideas of projects to add. but, alas, there are not enough hours in the day.

5. i despise slow internet connections. which is exactly what is happening to me today at work. it just totally frustrates me and wears on my already thin patience.

6. i majored in marketing and minored in general business at sam houston state university (i have no school pride, by the way -- it's kinda sad. kinda). i was 6 hours (2 classes) from having a second minor in family consumer sciences. i never noticed this until about 3 years ago. it apparently slipped the attention of my advisor as well (thanks, dr. abshire. way to advise me). it's not even worth going back for now. but it sure would be nice to say that i had it. so, i kinda pretend that i do. after graduation, i went on a couple interviews, decided that wasn't what i wanted to do and subsequently entered the alternative certification program through region iv. i became certified in business and then this past spring break tested to become certified in family consumer sciences.

whew. six random facts! so, if you're still with me.... i tag:
~ kim
~ julie
~ teri rae
~ erin
~ random blog stalker
~ random blog stalker

{i know there are stalkers out there... ;)}

rapping police officer

2008-08-22T22:43:00.005-05:00

either we were all a little delirious after 5 days of inservice or this is truly funny. i'm going with a little of both. ;) we ended our last meeting this week with the video below. we all nearly died laughing so hard!! i think even those of you that don't teach will get a laugh out of this...

praying them home

2008-08-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

sunday afternoon:
if you keep up with world news, you may have heard about the very current conflict in the republic of georgia. family friends are currently part of a small team there on a missions trip and they are very close to the conflict. you can see a glimpse of the last few days via ellie's blog. currently, they are hopeful that the airport will be open for them to fly to amsterdam today at 8 pm cst (monday, 5 am in georgia). if it is closed, they will head back to catch the last convoy out to armenia 7 hours later.

sunday evening:
update: it seems they are on their way home!

monday morning:
the team didn't quite get out when i posted last night's update. the delay was at the tbilisi airport (bombs dropping on or near the airport forcing them to deplane, but then replaning later on), but now the team is on their way home. an email came in this morning from them while on layover in amsterdam! ellie's blog has the email posted.

shower and birthday fun

2008-08-10T20:50:00.012-05:00

whew! saturday was a busy day! here lately, my saturdays have consisted of pure laziness, i'm ashamed to admit. but this past saturday was quite different. in fact, i had 4 invitations for saturday night! what a social calendar, i have. ha. anyway, saturday morning started off early when i got up to make watermelon fruit bowls for kelsey's linens and lace bridal shower. **if you click on the photos, you can see them much larger.**

after a quick shower, i headed over to mimi's house to help set up the brunch.

we had a fun time with all the ladies and, of course, eating. :) below, the bride-to-be with the hostesses -- mimi, myself, kelsey, and shelby.

i headed home from there and watched a bit of the olympics and took a quick nap. i had to rest up, saturday was also amanda's birthday! we headed down to the galleria area (i hadn't been there in years!) and went to the fox sports grill for dinner with several friends. great food and of course the important thing was having the texans game on one tv screen and the astros game on another. and, actually, i caught michael phelps winning his first gold medal (and shattering the world record for the event) of the 2008 olympics on a third screen! i looked up just in time!

here's amanda about to enjoy her birthday sundae. see that green envelope sitting next to her? that would be from me: a birthday card containing tickets to the maroon 5 and counting crows concert!! woohoo! the fun thing about that gift is that i get to benefit from it also! :) ulterior motives... what?

after dinner, amanda, sherry,and i headed over to the movie theatre to watch mamma mia. it was soooo good. i was even able to get past my aversion to meryl streep, it was so great! being in the galleria area still and at 10:45, we had some interesting people watching to do, as well. ;)

it was a great saturday. and a pretty good way to end my last weekend before i head back to staff development. i'll be at work wednesday and friday, though our official first day is the 18th. the kiddos return on the 25th.

so annoyed...

2008-08-02T12:33:00.002-05:00

i love the cool little gadget that allows me to list the blogs i read and gives me updates on their last posting. saves me from stalking everyone -- now i know when a new post is up at just a glance. but, there is one blog that refuses to link properly. i have tried and tried and tried to get it to post to the thompsons and it won't!! ugh. i give up. see, it works here in this blog, but if you click on my bloglist on the right side... it won't link! and, yes, i'm using the exact same text for both links. ;)

please pray!! (update july 22)

2008-07-20T23:26:00.005-05:00

please pray for my friends, steph and kyle, and their baby girl suzie. suzie was born 3 months early friday, july 18th. she is currently in NICU at a hospital far enough away from home that steph and kyle were given a room in the ronald mcdonald house across the street. their faith through this is truly inspiring...

tony snow

2008-07-12T13:06:00.003-05:00

this makes me sad.

www.foxnews.com

praise God!!

2008-07-11T11:15:00.003-05:00

it's a girl!!

smoke on the mountain

2008-07-11T10:03:00.006-05:00

i love the ad players. i've been to a small number of performances: Driving Miss Daisy, Pride and Prejudice, and The Heiress. but there have been so many more that i have wanted to go to. i always drool over the website, but usually miss out. sometimes i just suck it up and purchase a couple tickets and decide that someone will go with me if i beg enough. :)

one particular performance that my mom heard about was Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming. it's the third installment of the sanders family taking place in 1945 at mt. pleasant baptist church. the sanders family reunites for a bluegrass gospel singing when the son takes over the pulpit for his brother-in-law.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adplayers/2594941204/sizes/l/

so for mother's day, i bought the two tickets and then presented her with a little promotional poster so that she would have something to open. she actually cried. because for some reason (that she still clings to, no matter what i say), she thought that this performance was over christmas and i had let us miss going at all. anyway, last night was the night. we had been talking about chinese food the day before so on amanda's recommendation we went to kim son. i had the best lemon chicken and the second best vegetable fried rice ever. unfortunately we didn't get to linger and enjoy an appetizer or dessert. we had a little traffic and accident bottleneck on both 290 and 610 (gotta love houston traffic, ugh.). anyway, i still highly recommend kim son. and the prices were very reasonable for great food in downtown houston.

it was a really fun night and we really enjoyed the ad players interpretation of smoke on the mountain. i just wish we could have seen the first two installments that have run over the past years. maybe they will bring them back. the performance was filled with old baptist hymns that we were singing along with. sometimes even out loud when the characters would pull the "congregation" (the audience) into their performance. there was plenty of laughing and also a lot of Biblical truth as the characters would step forward and tell personal testimonies.

if you have never been to the ad players (and you're one of my houston readers), GO!! you won't regret it. smoke on the mountain runs through august 31. who knows, you just might see my mom and i there again. ;) the 2008 / 2009 season was printed in our program last night, though it doesn't seem to be on the website yet. there are several great performances coming up. John, His Story and the houston premeire of Last Train to Nibroc are two of the performances for the season. also for the kiddos -- check out the children's theater, currently performing Samson.

finally...

2008-06-22T00:51:00.005-05:00

i have a new laptop! after putting it off for a very long time (after this happened), i could no longer stand it. i had to strike a deal with my dad to swing it, but luckily i have the best daddy in the world and he helped me work it out. so far, i'm liking it. i desperately wanted a macbook, but i abandoned that dream in the reality of affording something in the very near future. so, i went with another hp. i really liked my hp and had no problems until chris spent a day with it and... well... let's just say it was never the same. although -- i should have attempted a repair long before i did -- had i done that, it may have been salvaged. oh well. so, here i am with the vista operating system. hopefully, that doesn't ruin my excitement over my new laptop...

vbs photos

2008-06-22T00:00:00.001-05:00

just a few photos from vbs 2008. hopefully more coming as others post their own photo galleries.

just fyi...

2008-06-18T23:47:00.002-05:00

312 VBS kids and 100 volunteers have not killed me... yet.

we're having a great week. so far, good feedback on all things. hopefully photos will be coming... oh and kim and i are having a blast with the walkie talkies... the unfortunate others with radios are probably regretting the fact that we were put in charge, therefore earning us this privilege.

vacation bible school

2008-06-13T22:47:00.009-05:00

i have had many things going on the past couple months. a few changes. and just a lot of busyness. one of those things is directing vacation bible school at my church -- tomball bible church -- this year. i'm directing with a friend of mine, kim. we've had a lot of fun and we're really excited about next week. we've made a few changes -- hopefully for the better. and we have a fun ongoing skit for every morning. our stage looks great. the music is awesome. our coordinators are mostly under control as far as their workers go. rooms are decorated. copies of various activities and bonus verses have been run. things are going pretty well. but, please pray for us next week. this is the biggest children's outreach that we do. tbc is kinda known as being one of the best vbs programs in the area. having said all this -- if you think of me next week, please pray:

for patience -- i lack patience, especially when i'm tired and hot or when i think something is already clear enough.
to make quick and wise decisions when needed.
the ability to take care of the needs -- seen and unseen -- of our volunteers.
for a great turnout of community kids, as well as our own tbc kids.
to bring children to know Jesus and to foster a relationship with him.
for all of us to be well -- satan has been working on some of us, physically!
to appreciate all the work going into this week from all of our volunteers -- even when their attitudes make me want to scream.

and if by chance you are reading this and want to bring your children, your neighbor's children, or just some random kids you pick up off the street -- go to our website and register those little darlings! i promise they will have a blast. and i shall update next week with all the fun (and maybe some not so fun) that occurs. if you're lucky -- i'll include some photos... :)

2008-05-24T23:34:00.006-05:00

this is so heartbreaking. however, because of the transparency of this family, i can almost see God knitting another incredible testimony.

the chapman family
in memory of maria
the service

be sure to watch the video at the second link. precious.

you know what bugs me?

2008-04-28T22:27:00.009-05:00

and my true friends know that this is a very dangerous question... ;)

but, seriously...

i was on myspace earlier and looking at random people's pages (not neccessarily ones on my friends list -- so don't go stalk them and figure out who i'm talking about -- i'm speaking in general terms here). i am really annoyed by the vulgar, profane, and generally disgusting graphics, phrases, backgrounds, etc (and i'm talking about the extreme stuff here -- the "f" word repeatedly, suggestive photos, vulgar comments, etc). but, you know what is worse? the ones that then post under their "about me" section how they are "Christians" and "Jesus is my hero!" and "I love God!".

now, we all know that i'm not a perfect person. and i don't pretend to be on my myspace page (or anywhere for that matter -- i'll be the first one to tell you that anyday). and i laugh at my share of off color things, i mean let's be real -- some of it is darn funny. but, it really bugs me at the number of people i saw with really offensive junk on their page and then they talk about how God is number one in their life. basically -- if you're going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk.

so, that's my vent for the evening. you can all relax now. i'm done. for now, anyway.

how well do you know me?

2008-04-22T00:06:00.001-05:00

Create your own Friend Test here

only in tomball...

2008-04-18T21:13:00.002-05:00

so, i went to target this evening. my first priority when i got there was the bathroom. i desperately needed to go. of course 3 of the 4 stalls are full and the 4th is "out of order". sigh. so, i stand by the paper towel dispenser praying i don't pee all over myself -- i mean, i seriously needed to go. i had drank a dr pepper on the way home from work and then about 3 glasses of iced tea at dinner... so i was dying. anyway, i'm impatiently waiting... and finally a door opens. out walks this woman with a pregnancy test in her hand. yes, folks, that's right -- a pregnancy test. i'm sure my mouth was hanging open at this point. in fact, i almost forgot that i needed to pee so badly. i mean, how random is that?! so, she smiles at me, says hi, and wraps her test up in a tissue, sets it on the shelf above the sink and washes her hands. meanwhile, i'm still standing there, because the woman in stall #2's little girl decides she's done waiting on her mom and needs her own stall. so, she beligerantly stares at me (okay, maybe i imagined that -- i was in pain by this point) while she waltzes in to my stall. ugh!! finally, it was my turn and i quickly got out of there. i texted amanda afterwards to tell her my story and as she eloquently put it "only in tomball".

i passed!!

2008-03-24T19:55:00.006-06:00

i totally winged a certification test this afternoon. i was attempting to gain certification in another subject area -- which will open doors to teach a few more subjects.

a little back story --
at one point, during my 5 year career at sam, my degree was food science and nutrition. well, that was short lived because i soon realized that i would need a masters to be able to do anything worthwhile (i.e. a registered dietitian). i was not interested in more school at that point. enter my marketing major. immediately after graduating, i started looking into getting my alternative teaching certificate through region iv (in texas, regions are what districts are to individual schools). little did i know (i didn't realize this until about 3 years after i graduated -- big thanks to my advisor, not), i was six hours -- yes, that's right, two measly classes short of a minor in family and consumer science (the big umbrella under which food science and nutrition is housed). i still have a strong interest in nutrition and about a year ago decided that it would be fun to teach a nutrition type class. i'm not talking about home ec (though the fcs certification does cover that subject), but a real nutrition/food science/food prep class. i even signed up for the test, but never went through with it -- pretty much just chickened out.

which brings me to today's exam --
i finally signed up for the exam about 2 weeks ago. i scheduled it for today because it was the last day of spring break. i went into this exam with no preparation. there was a study guide on the website, but it really talked about the structure of the test. there was very little about the material i should study -- oh, except for the list of about 3 dozen different textbooks. riiiiight. i just decided to go on common sense. i totally don't recommend this for, say, a math certification test... however, family and consumer science deals with consumer behavior, nutrition and food science, food preparation, hotel/restaurant management, child development, elderly care, sewing and textiles, interior design, etc. well -- i had a nutrition/food science/consumer behavior schooling background. i have quite a bit of restaurant and food prep experience. child development was covered a bit in my education classes. i've done a bit of sewing. so all of those mini experiences mixed with common sense -- i figured i could do a pretty decent job winging it.

still... during the exam there would be some tough questions where i thought -- crap. i just wasted an afternoon, gas, and money taking this stupid test!! then, there would be the easy ones -- yes! i am so going to pass!

so, you're given 3 hours to test. i finish in a little over an hour. i walk out and the proctor says, need a break? um... no... i'm finished. so he goes to his computer and drones on about how i'm lucky to get my results so quickly, the testers down the hall (taking a different exam, i'm sure) had to wait all morning for their results... blah, blah, blah. so, finally he prints, hands me a paper, and says congratulations! i was slightly surprised and even said "really?!" haha.

so... needless to say... i'm quite excited! and a little proud of my accomplishment. :)

i've been MIA...

2008-03-12T20:47:00.006-06:00

yep... i've definitely been missing. seeing as how i do not have a computer to call my own right now, i bum computer time when i can. klein isd blocks my regular haunts (myspace, blogs), so work is not an option. my dad's laptop is not too healthy -- it heats up way past what is probably safe for me and the hard drive; and last night i swear i saw a puff of smoke come out of the side vent. the desktop is just slow. in fact, as i type this my fingers are a good 3 to 4 letters ahead of what is appearing on the screen. very strange. i try to keep up on my blog friends that i like to stalk. in fact, i've even taken to printing posts from my shrapnel so that i can read them later and really absorb what i'm reading. gila has an amazing writing talent, and i'm hooked on her aftermath story of being an unwilling witness (and thus seriously injured) of a roadside bomb in jerusalem. of course, i'm still hooked on cf husband and a little closer to my own life is clay and megan's trip to eastern and western europe as they prepare to be missionaries there.

anywho -- another reason i have been MIA -- not much exciting going on. yet, i am SUPER busy. well, actually, i guess there are a few things to share.

chris, his dad, a couple other guys have started a company (yes, my husband is embarking on yet another job). i won't go into all the details, but it is an oilfield company (of course, what else is there? ha). they've got quite a few irons in the fire as far as the company is concerned, but things are looking good.

i wrapped up my part of the committee for western days a couple weeks ago. western days is an event that our church started doing for the first time one year ago. it coincides with -- the rodeo of course. it's a fun filled day of food, games for the kiddos, petting zoos, pony rides, and a snake exhibit. i worked on the craft vendor area (much like like i did for fall festival -- lining up crafters and getting them settled that day). it was a busy weekend and the weeks before were busy preparing, but i love it. :) my friend lisa from sunshine farms was a big hit. she was at fall festival, too, and i know she had some repeat customers. if you ever are wanting some fabulous homemade/handmade soaps, lotions, sugar scrubs, body talc, etc -- check out her website. chris loves her caribbean bay bar soap and i love, love, love her patchouli line. i've been out to her farm too, great fun for a pretty, sunny afternoon!

next week is spring break!! thank goodness. it's a rough week at school. it was all i could do not to call in a "mental health" day for tomorrow. the kids are just nuts. i tried to do something a little different with them today and give them a break from our long-winded typing tutorial. well, i was met with whines and grumbles and total disregard for the directions. so, after a disastrous first period, the rest of my classes went right back to typing in the tutorial. sigh.

well, i'm off to scour my closet for something to wear tomorrow. if i don't torture myself with that tonight, i'll be staring at my clothes in the morning -- which means i will be running very late! :)

psstt...

2008-03-12T20:35:00.004-06:00

i just put up a handful of posts that had been on my myspace blog. they are from 2006, but i just thought they deserved to be in one place with the rest of my posts. click on 2006 under blog archive to find them.

bump and update

2008-02-16T16:13:00.003-06:00

my laptop. in a kagillion pieces. one itty, bitty crack deep inside constituted this massive disassembly. i am now told that there is a great possibility the reconstruction may not be so easy. it seems my computer "technicians" can't quite remember where all the pieces go and how they fit back together. anyone want to donate to my "new laptop fund"?

UPDATE:
well, this past monday the laptop was put back together after an attempted repair. remaining after the reassembly was 6 screws and a small unidentifiable metal peice. after a brief test it seems the repair and the hours (literally) of putting it back together were in vain. my laptop is h-i-s-t-o-r-y. the good news is i have ordered an adapter to (hopefully) pull all my files off of my hard drive. the bad news? because of other expenses right now, there will be no new computer -- laptop or desktop -- in my future. :( so goes my life...

caleb

2008-02-10T12:25:00.001-06:00

just wanted to share yet another blog that has touched my heart. please read teri rae's post about caleb and his recent diagnosis of lymphoma. i went to his own journal on caring bridge and was impressed by his entries, his thoughts, and his faith during his battle with cancer. please read about him. thanks. :)

this could be a problem...

2008-02-01T20:57:00.001-06:00

my evenings...

2008-01-18T21:13:00.001-06:00

fox news. my laptop. and my chocolate lab hogging 3/4 of my chair. i'm pretty much a nerd.

confessions of a cf husband

2008-01-16T17:52:00.001-06:00

as courtney said on her blog earlier, one of the neat things about blogging is reading your friends' blogs. and then checking out blogs of their friends. basically, you could go in circles for hours. however, sometimes you stumble on something really amazing. such is the case here. courtney posted a link this morning to the blog of a husband telling the story of cystic fibrosis, a needed lung transplant, and a precious wife and baby girl.

please take a few minutes to visit them and their story. i did and i was so moved by their story that i want to link to them as well. and they will be in my prayers daily.

to give you a brief overview -- tricia has had CF her whole life and while preparing for a much needed lung transplant, nate and tricia discovered they were pregnant. nate's blog is now devoted to keeping family and friends updated on tricia and gwyneth's progress. this family needs our prayers! visit them here: http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/

worship

2008-01-14T18:19:00.001-06:00

i wrote this a little over a month ago when i got to work one morning (relax, i get to work an hour early so i wasn't totally ignoring my classes... ha). i kept forgetting to email it to myself so i could post it here. i have to do that since anything fun and entertaining (myspace, facebook, blogs) are blocked by the klein isd filters.

i was thinking about worship on the way to work this morning. I was listening to a CD that i burned with only 4 songs on it. i was too lazy to add more the other night, yet i wanted to burn it so that i could listen to a couple of my new favorite worship songs. one of the songs is “Jesus paid it all.” this is an old hymn (words written by elvina hall in 1865) revived, very recently, by Christian artist kristian stanfill. these are some amazing lyrics.

it reminds me of something that was said by our new worship pastor at TBC a couple weeks ago. at least i think it was him that said it… i racked my brain this morning and i’m thinking it was him. anyhow. he said there are two thoughts on the idea that some worship leaders lead their congregation to repeat the same stanza or phrase over and over. some feel it’s repetitive. some feel it’s more of a meditation on the words. to be honest, i’ve never really had an opinion on it, simply because i enjoy singing. and a lot of times, i am in a state of praise and worship and i am meditating on the words. i guess i’ve kind of done that subconsciously so it’s never really been “annoying” or “repetitive”. still, his words stuck with me. and i began to analyze the lyrics this morning in the bridge of this song as stanfill repeated them multiple times. it’s the most passionate part of the song. the part where he (and i, while i'm singing) cry out to God.

o praise the One who paid my debt
praise, exalt, honor, celebrate, love the one -- jesus, my savior, messiah – who paid my debt – my debt, my death. he didn’t pay my library fine. he experienced the death i deserve. he was hung on a cross. with nails in his hands and feet. he wore a crown of thorns. a CROWN of thorns. we easily get annoyed when we walk too closely and brush against a vine with a couple thorns. he had hundreds of thorns on his head. his forehead. not one of the most callused areas, in fact a pretty tender area of flesh. yet, he did ALL of that – for me. so that i wouldn’t have to.

and raised this life up from the dead
he breathed life into a soul that was lost, lonely, dead. so that i should live for him. why wouldn’t i give him my all when he paid the ultimate sacrifice for me. my soul should continually rejoice and praise him. i am not dead. i am alive in Jesus Christ. my God. my Savior.

isn't that simply amazing? and beautiful?

i’m a visual person. i learn by visual prompts and i do better with maps than i do written instructions. so, i guess it makes sense that while i am singing and worshipping, i visualize in my head. i tend to "see" the lyrics in my head in pictures. or sometimes i just picture myself at the feet of jesus or at the throne of God. so, borrowing another favorite lyric, if you see me in church "with my hands lifted high to the sky, when the world wonders why, i'll just tell them i'm loving my King!"

one of the best parts of Christmas...

2007-12-30T22:23:00.000-06:00

is giving. well, that's one of my favorites anyway. i think one of my highlights was the look on our parents' faces when we unveiled the beautiful handmade cedar gliders that we bought each of them. they totally weren't expecting it and to tell the truth, it was completely last minute and impromptu. (as is most of my life. ha). but, one of the best gifts this year.

the rest of the christmas pictures can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mcmullen.kelly/Christmas07

they are not edited or captioned. yet. maybe i'll go do some of that now... there wasn't anything overly exciting (the best part is just being with the family, in my opinion), so i won't write about it here. i'll let the pictures tell the story...

christmas with the family has begun...

2007-12-18T07:15:00.000-06:00

kelly, cassidy, houston, chris, adrianne,

mamaw, garrison, zac, casey,

chad, ashley, pawpaw

thanks to ashley's persistance and planning... we all spent the weekend in saratoga with chris' grandparents. it came about because we knew that thanksgiving was going to lack a couple cousins and christmas day will also lack a couple cousins. we're all at points in our lives that we have to work around our "other" families and jobs (hospitals don't close on holidays). so, we decided to find a weekend outside of a normal holiday. december 15th and 16th was it. only john and ashley's husband, andy, were unable to be there. but, we had a blast. we all arrived late saturday morning with food, board games, and not much of plan. after lunch, we set up the christmas tree and the other christmas decorations. then, the guys headed outside to play football. the photo is real crappy becuase i was just shooting and not even looking at the previews. had i looked, i would have realized my flash was fighting with the direct sun. however, i wanted to get back inside to the cookies that the girls were baking!

football and cookies.

soon after the cookies were baked, we brought out the games. we played apples to apples for much of the afternoon until dinner. then we broke out taboo. taboo nearly ended our family. there was much debate on the use of words and the scoring of points and when the points counted and when the words were vocalized during/after the buzzer. it actually got rather heated and there is much vicious, unresolved debate on who actually won. in case you're wondering -- it was the girls. fair and square. just don't ask the guys.

playing apples to apples.

before taboo, when we all liked each other. ;) actually, we spent most of the weekend at this table. eating, playing games, arguing, playing games, eating, and just talking.

sunday morning we headed to west end baptist church. we took up 1 1/2 pews! and of course we were introduced as "sam and mildred's grandchildren that came for the weekend... would you all please stand up?" we were the talk of the church that morning. :) chris' grandparents were positively glowing.

it was definitely a great weekend. with tons of pictures to show it. i'm so thankful for this family!

the nativity project

2007-11-10T20:05:00.003-06:00

i have a really great missions project to share with you guys (all 3 of you who read this... ha). my cousin, teri rae, told me about this project and i absolutely fell in love with it. the elim christian center in poland began the nativity project about 3 years ago to help the needier families in their church. the inspiration came about during a time when the church was experiencing a 90% unemployment rate. many women in the mission had never sewn nor constructed handicrafts before, but classes were held and the women learned. they now sew and handcraft nativity sets. beautiful nativity sets. i had seen the pictures on the website and thought, "these are cute," but when i unpacked the box -- i was simply blown away by the detail, the craftsmanship, and the overall beauty of each individual piece. and i think the stories of the women are even more beautiful than the sets themselves.

i want to share one woman's story with you...

this is iwona, standing in front of her home and holding her contribution to the nativity project --the mary dolls. quoted directly from the website: She has 7 Children, and God has
blessed her so much through the Sewing project. God has also provided her family
with a proper stove through the Nativity Sets, which works on bottled gas. (She
previously had a wood stove, and one hotplate).

the steps leading to the children's room, just inside the home.

iwona's old wood stove.

iwona's new stove. one thing that strikes me in this photo -- notice her newfound pride in her kitchen area. before, there was no hanging rack for her dishes, no cloth or backsplash covering the counter and back wall.

the old toilet... basically a hole with seat. and no running water.

her new toilet. and a bathtub!

even a washing machine!

iwona and her family are so grateful for the items they have been able to purchase with her earnings from the nativity project. her story is far from being the only success story stemming from this project. please click on this link: http://www.elimcenter.pl/mission_center/pdf/m_o_s_03.pdf to read about two other ladies named iwona (apparently, a popular name in poland!) and a lady named basia. one has come to know Jesus as her Savior through the project, one bikes 12.5 miles round trip to deliver her dolls and restock her supplies and one supports her children and her mother through her nativity earnings.

i recently received a box of 10 sets that cassidy and i put together. i've sold about 5 of them so far. if you are interested in purchasing one for yourself (or maybe for someone for Christmas!), please contact me. the sets are $130, but they are worth every penny. between the beauty of the set itself and the stories of the ladies who pour their hearts into handcrafting each one...

the contents of each box can be seen in detail here: http://www.elimcenter.pl/mission_center/pdf/large_set.pdf

on a side note... cassidy and i had a blast (as usual) putting the sets together. even through the point that we realized we were on box number 7 and we had 4 baby Jesus' left. ha. that was fun. since baby Jesus is packed on the bottom of the set and we had to open 6 boxes to locate which one was missing a baby. need i even say that it was the last box we opened?

here are our doll assembly lines:

i LOVE autumn

2007-10-23T21:14:00.000-05:00

i. love. autumn.

i love...

pumpkins and gourds
leaves turning vibrant shades of amazing colors (well, not in texas, but i can still visualize this from when i lived up north)
indian corn
cooler weather -- those beautiful crisp days when the sun is shining brightly and the sky is so blue without a cloud in sight
yummy soups and sandwiches
thanksgiving day!
cozy fireplaces (okay, once again, notsomuch in texas...)
the scent of wood fires burning
hay mazes
warm, yummy cider
fall festivals and craft shows
the colors -- orange, yellow, gold, brown, red all melded together to create a kaleidoscope of fantastic proportions.

quick update.

2007-10-22T18:09:00.000-05:00

chris feels fine today, with the exception of a very stiff neck and back. he insisted he would be fine if i went to work, so i did. when i left, he was still in bed. when i called him after lunch he said again that he was fine but still very sore. he had already watched 3 movies by that point. :) right now, i believe we are on movie number 5 or 6 from what i can tell.

and, now, a little picture for your enjoyment. this is chris standing in the doorway of his ER exam room -- impatiently waiting for his ct scan and neck xray. and harassing every nurse that walked by. please notice the boots and spurs he still has on. typical chris.

never a dull moment...

2007-10-21T22:38:00.000-05:00

well. i had an unexpected, exciting afternoon. and not in the good way, necessarily.

chris and i started the morning off rough with a little disagreement before church that basically left me in the church parking lot and him leaving in a huff. when i bummed a ride home after church, chris was already gone to the property in trinity with one of the horses and the 2 cow dogs. i wasn't surprised, i pretty much figured he would do that. well, i did some stuff around the house and was outside reading when my dad called. he told me chris had had an "accident" and i needed to head out to trinity. at that point, all i was told was that he was okay, but had been thrown from the horse and had been very confused and disoriented after it initially happened. somehow, he had managed to get my dad on the phone who in turn had managed to get our neighbor over to check on chris. we also knew that chris had managed to call a friend, wesley, that was supposed to be meeting him on the property. wesley and a couple other guys from chris' office were headed out to trinity also. i was able to talk to wesley on their way (flying, apparently, at about 90 miles an hour) who confirmed that chris was completely disoriented and had no clue where he was following the fall. chris apparently called him and said, "i'm hurt and i need you to come help me." when wesley asked him where he was, he said "i don't know, i think on my ranch."

i had called vivian by this point and we started to head the direction of trinity ourselves.

we were able to piece together what happened by comparing the phone conversations chris had. chris was not much help because he had absolutely no memory of what happened. chris had unloaded the dogs and the horse and was about to head out to bay up the cows. the new cow dog is a young dog that wanted nothing but to attack the horse. the barking and nipping at the horse's feet caused the horse to buck and jump around. chris rode it out and was trying to control the dog with a shock collar, but there was no stopping the dog. eventually, he was thrown from the horse and slammed into the steel cattle trailer. whether he was knocked out or the wind was knocked out of him or whatever happened he doesn't know. but, he somehow came around, loaded the dogs into the cattle trailer (even separating them by a gate inside the trailer) and proceeded to back the truck and trailer up and move it as if he was going to leave. by the way, the horse has run off and he hasn't even attempted to go after her. at some point he got out of the truck and layed down on the ground. he tried to call wesley, but didn't get a hold of him. so he called my dad. once my dad realized he was seriously hurt and not being silly, he got on another phone (so that he wouldn't have to hang with chris -- because he was telling my dad he was going to hang up and go to sleep) to call a neighbor. when the neighbor arrived, chris didn't know who he was and "whose dogs were in that strange trailer, and where was he?" he slowly came around and got his bearings. shortly after this, wesley and the other guys arrived. everyone agreed that he needed to go to the hospital. but, in typical male form, chris did not want to go. of course, he finally was convinced. :)

in the mean time, vivian and i are headed to huntsville. once we all arrived, we waited for quite awhile in the ER. finally, he was called back to check his vitals. everything was normal there, which chris thought constituted a ticket home. ha! we insisted he stay and allow them to do a ct scan and neck xray. of course, i called casey (who is a trauma nurse in an austin ER) and she absolutely insisted that he had to stay and get the tests done. after much waiting and sitting, the results from the scan and the xray came back just fine. the ER doctor determined he most likely had a minor concussion and would be fine as long as no other symptoms came up. so we were allowed to leave.

he's really sore and will probably be barely able to move tomorrow morning. he is still confused about what exactly happened. he has no idea how he was able to get the dogs in the trailer and move his truck. frankly, all of us are. which is kind of scary... at least he didn't get out on the main road and start really driving off somewhere.

he'll be home tomorrow "taking it easy," so feel free to call him and chastise him for going out by himself today. :)

happy birthday to me...

2007-10-07T23:08:00.000-05:00

well. today. i turned. 28. still a couple years from... shudder... my 30's. ;)

the day started out a little blah -- but i won't go there, because it got progressively better.

i had many birthday wishes via myspace, video message on my phone (mom and dad singing happy birthday -- so lovely), a serenade at church from a precious friend, and a couple phone calls. thank you, thank you to all my dear friends and family that made my day special. i needed it in a big way today.

one birthday wish i missed with all my heart didn't come. the ever faithful birthday card from my sweet grandma. she was on time, actually early, every single year for 27 years. it was tough not receiving that card this year. i don't even want to think about christmas right now and how much that will hurt...

anyway, back to the happy part!

i had a fun lunch with amanda at the ole' favorite -- rancho (rancho grande, but we're on single name terms with that place. we've been going there since the early dismissal days of high school, probably before.) it was complete with whipped cream all over my face. i'm sure i'll have pimples in those spots by tomorrow. ;) i endured all that, but didn't get a free dessert! despite amanda's comment to "take one for the team." yeah, that backfired. she did get a lovely picture though. check my myspace comments for that one... love-ly.

but, i guess that's okay... because, my neighbors remembered my birthday and brought a huge slice of tiramisu over for me. it was incredibly good. and it was from HEB of all places! i was pleasantly surprised -- because that means i can go pick up a slice from there now and then. i mean, no, i won't. because i'm starting a diet. tomorrow. or sometime next week... ;)

we were supposed to head over to scott and viv's for one of scott's famous dinners from the grill... however, vivian isn't feeling well from a minor knee surgery on friday. so, we decided to do that another night.

around 6ish, i went to ask chris and brent (our friend staying with us) what time they wanted dinner and brent offered to take us out. so, we headed out to macaroni grill. it was amazingly good. i hadn't been there in a couple years. we did a the full meal -- appetizers, main course, dessert. hey, it's only my birthday once a year... right?

and, now, here i am -- stuffed and sleepy and happy and thankful.

i am so not good at this...

2007-09-28T19:53:00.000-05:00

yep. here i am again. at loss for words becuase i haven't written on here in so long. sigh. i'm just not good at keeping up with this. that or i never have anything interesting to report! i think it's the latter. okay. maybe it's both.

i'm coming up on the last bit of the first six weeks at school. i'm so surprised at how quickly it has gone by! i'm not sure if it's because i've had a student teacher or if life at hildebrandt is just more relaxed and less stressful this year. i'll be sad to see my student teacher go. it's been really nice having an extra adult body in the room all the time. it really helps to have someone there to back me up when i have to run to the bathroom or check my mailbox or track down someone i need to talk to. but, alas, she will be leaving me october 5th.

our a/c unit finally gave up for the last time. we had been babying it along for several months, lately. last thursday, it just up and died. we had a friend that owns an a/c company come out and look at it and he suggested we go ahead and replace both the outside unit and the attic unit. they had lasted their 25 years and were pretty much toast. so 5 days and a few thousand dollars later, we are nice and cool again. thankfully, our friend that's staying with us had a window unit, so we were at least cool at night.

i'm a deer lease widow this weekend. chris "had" to take some guys out to the company deer lease for an elk hunt this weekend. i'm sure it's just a devasting thing for him. ha.

i'm headed out tomorrow for a busy day. i need to get my oil changed (kinda overdue on that), scout out some craft shows (hopefully get some vendors for our church's fall festival), pick up my contacts, and hit the mall for a couple things. i'll probably be driving in circles. :) oh, and grocery shop. and get dog food. the list goes on...

time for an update!

2007-08-28T20:27:00.000-05:00

well... as some of you know... my trip to illinois turned out a bit differently than i had hoped and planned. a few hours after i wrote the post below, my grandma passed away. it was about 9:30 wednesday evening while i was on the phone with my mom and my dad was on the phone with my cousin who was at the hospital (which of course, my parents were together driving). of course, i kept my thursday morning flight and met my parents in illinois.

despite the real reason for being in illinois; i really, really enjoyed my time there. i miss going back there so much and i manage to just "forget" that while i'm here in texas. then, when i'm there i spend all this time wondering, "why don't i come back here more?!" so, i guess you can say i learned a life lesson. and i will be making more of an effort to get back to illinois and my family more often.

two days after i returned from illinois, it was time to head back to work. i've spent this week sitting in meetings and presentations over a handful of important and useful things, but mostly time filler junk that applies to about 25% of the audience. i'm quite frustrated this school year, because i'm just not organized and ready for the first day of school. and yet, all that staff development has consisted of is sitting in a chair listening to someone talk. i've also spent a ridiculous amount of time sitting in a church parking lot with 5000 of my fellow klein employees attempting to leave convocation. that was just insane. for now, i'll refrain from hopping on my political soapbox. i don't have the energy to type all my commentary on the "poor little esl and special ed kids we're letting fall through the cracks." sometimes i feel like that's all we concentrate on. it sure is this week, anyway. makes me just want to barf.

in the midst of illinois and before the start of school, we managed to finally sell our lake house. it was quite a process of back and forth for various reasons. i'll spare you the details... but it's sold. and we ate it on the selling price. but, we'll chalk that up to another life lesson.

so, i have to admit... i started this blog entry a few days ago and kept getting sidetracked from finishing it. now, as i type this, it's the evening of the second day of school. i think it will, overall, be a better year. we have 1000 less kids on campus (because of the new school opening) and the hallways are much more pleasant now. most of my classes seem like they will be okay. i have a few rugrats, but that's always going to happen. i have a student teacher this year and we get along pretty well. it's different having someone watching me and basically critiquing my every move. not that i feel pressured, really, it's just that i know i'm supposed to be shaping her for her own classroom. ah! the responsibility! hopefully she'll pick up my good habits and weed out the bad ones. ;)

so i guess that's a good update for now... :) until something something else interesting happens...

an hour later... i'm re-reading my post and i just want to clarify something. i could change my wording in the paragraph i'm going to refer to, but i'm just not going to. i'm referring to my comment about esl and special ed kids. what i was trying to convey in that paragraph was that we concentrate so much on those kids during meetings and inservice. i do understand that they need a different approach and a different teaching style. but, i get so tired of the district making us feel as if they are more important than the rest of the kids. i had one mini-meeting about esl kids one day. a motivational speaker during convocation that cried about the insensitivity of america towards the less fortunate kids and the minorities. and finally a 3 1/2 hour (yes, three and one half hours) meeting about "the yellow brick road to success" with special ed kids. not once did i hear about what i can do with my regular, english speaking students to help them (and me) discover what makes them work harder and achieve more. so, just wanted to add that in, in case i sounded like an insensitive racist. ;)

leavin' on a jet plane...

2007-08-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

so... i'm leaving first thing thursday morning for st. louis and then driving on to my hometown in illinois. my grandma (my dad's mom) is in the hospital yet again. however, this time it looks quite a bit more serious. i must say that it has been "serious" for her in the past several times before and somehow she pulls herself back. however, something feels a little "different" this time, according to the doctor.

i'm long overdue for a visit to illinois. and i really meant to try to go this summer, but i just never put it together. this morning i felt like i need to go this time. as the day has gone on, i've already changed my flight to one 3 hours earlier and now i am hoping that i make it to the hospital before she is gone.

my awesome sister, cassidy, is once again helping me out. she's my chauffeur tomorrow morning and will be house sitting and dog sitting and horse sitting for me. (i told you she was awesome!)

it's been awhile...

2007-07-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

hmmm... so, i thought maybe i should post a little update. nothing terribly exciting to write about, but i'll see what i can come up with. ;)

the first interesting thing -- and, acutally, quite exciting for me -- is that cassidy is home!! it almost didn't feel like 7 weeks while she was gone. i guess i was busy with this and that and didn't dwell on it for long. but, it's great having her home! i definitely missed her the most at night when i was online and she wasn't there to chat with on im. so, we've been making up for that.

our friends daniel and rachel had their baby girl, ava, saturday. on our 6th anniversary, no less! so, we actually spent the evening of our anniversary at the hospital visiting them. our mutual friends, jackie and ashley, also came out. so, afterwards we went over to katy mills mall and hit bass pro shops (for the guys) and the rainforest cafe. eating at the rainforest cafe was a treat. we had jackie and ashley's little girl, taylor, with us. she's a lot of fun to be around. she just turned one, so her little personality is definitely showing!

well... my closet has not gotten cleaned out. that's one of my major projects to work on this summer. and the days are counting down and i don't have a clean closet. haha. procrastination, what? i need to locate a good consignment shop for some of my clothes. i know there is stuff in there that i don't wear or can't fit in anymore that are still good enough for a second hand store.

i only have about 3 weeks left before i have to be back at hildebrandt. i've already spent a couple days up at school trying to get a couple new teachers set up. seeing as how there is only one keyboarding and one desktop publishing teacher in each school, the "newbies" often lean on other schools' teachers to get them started. i don't mind so much, though. kind of forces me to get my own assignments in order. i'm thinking of going up one or two days in between now and the 17th to work in my own room. i think if i spread it out a little before i "have" to be there, i can get some stuff done.

well, i'm off to clean out the fridge. trash day is tomorrow and i have a few things that are not doing so great hanging out in the fridge. ;)

maclaren parker bell

2007-07-10T17:51:00.000-05:00

i finally got to meet maclaren today!
jamie called me yesterday to let me know she and maclaren were ready for visitors... so, off i went to downtown houston this morning to pay the little guy a visit. he is just precious and was so good while i was there. i'm not much of a baby expert... but maclaren has the longest legs and fingers and toes i think i've ever seen on a baby. he's going to be tall and lean like his daddy, i believe. check out those toes in this photo!

here's me looking just lovely after sweltering in the 106 degree heat index today. and, of course, the proud mama.

and here's toby. he holds a special place in my heart because i helped find him a home with jamie. he's been feeling slightly neglected with all the attention maclaren gets, yet he is very good with the new little guy around. he just comes and takes a peek at him now and then and then goes on his way.

houston race for the cure

2007-07-09T00:03:00.001-05:00

so... i'm thinking about doing this. anyone interested in forming a team with me? my friend amy - her sister-in-law beat breast cancer last year - brought it up tonight. i've thought about it in the past, but never have followed through, because i didn't want to do it alone. maybe this will be the year?

houston race for the cure

the neverending rain of summer 2007

2007-07-05T19:53:00.000-05:00

so, someone told me today that it has rained 17 out of the past 18 days. well, i don't believe them. because, it sure feels like it's rained a heck of a lot longer than 17 days. i'm seriously starting to think i know what noah felt like. i thought it might be interesting to list the realizations i have come to over the past days of rain and thunderstorms.

~ i've given up vacuuming the carpet every time a muddy paw print shows up. the dogs come in with wet feet every time they venture outside.
~ i dump 1 to 2 inches of rainwater out of the feed buckets and sarge's dog food bowl every time i go to feed.
~ i've only filled the horse's water trough once in the past 2 weeks. typically, this time of year i have to fill it - at the very least - every other day.
~ i automatically put on rubber boats when venturing into the backyard.
~ i don't bother to wait for the rain to end before i leave the house to run errands. i'll only get stuck in the next thunderstorm a couple hours later. might as well leave when i planned to.
~ i have forgotten what the sun feels like.
~ the yard may never be dry enough to mow.
~ i shouldn't bother straitening my hair. the incredible amount of humidity ruins my attempt. yet, i stubbornly continue to do it. one must hold on to some normalcy.
~ driving through massive amounts of water collected on the side of the road doesn't even make me slow down.
~ the trees are so waterlogged that every time it rains, new branches break off. i'm praying a tree doesn't fall over.
~ i base the clothes i put on before leaving the house on "how will this do when i get drenched?" "will the hem of these jeans/pants drag through water puddles?" "how do these shoes handle massive amounts of water treading?"
~parking in the driveway has become a strategic operation. what position will avoid the most puddles and allow me to get back out without having to touch any grass (because i will get stuck in the muddy grass)?
~ i have learned to watch tv around flood watch and thunderstorm watch messages.

now for a few photos...

the horse pen. i feel so sorry for them.

where once there was grass. the camera strap got in the
way of my trusty rubber boots.

sarge stays in a perpetual state of muddiness.

what i wade through to feed twice a day. my lens got a bit foggy.

***disclaimer -- i am by no means implying that my bout with the rain is more disturbing than some of our neighbors suffering real flooding. i am thankful, so thankful, that it is not worse for us... however, i thought it was fitting to blog about my own experience with the seemingly neverending rain.***

update from cassidy!

2007-06-21T00:15:00.000-05:00

well, nothing can say it better than their own words! this is an email from cassidy and samantha about their honduras experience, so far. one of cassidy's biggest fears was that she would be so homesick. well, i think this email confirms that she definitely is not so homesick! haha. this particular email was sent to several of the girls' supporters, so i feel comfomfortable sharing it with you all. especially since i know some of you have specifically told me you are excited for and are praying for them.

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and the preparation for the trip is coming along. We are already feeling this is our home. Bill and Mary are two of the most amazing people we have ever met. What a privilege to be living in their home. I can tell that throughout these seven weeks the Lord is going to teach us many things through them and the boys. Mary is our best friend and Bill is our protective father. How awesome it is to work along side these two on a daily basis serving the Lord.

Immediately when we arrived, the younger boys flocked to us. They are so cute. However, the middle aged boys took a couple of days to see what we were all about. Some of the older ones are still “observing”. Overall we are already extremely close with all the boys and can’t imagine leaving them.

Thursday morning we and Mary were driving to the project and we got in a small car accident. It was not Mary’s fault but they tried to blame it on her. She remained calm but it scared her a bit because it was her first wreck. Later that day, a man from the group here from Florida fixed her car. Praise the Lord they did not have to put it in the shop. That is only one of the examples of how Satan tries to discourage us. One of our main desires to come here for seven weeks was to see the ins and outs of the lives of missionaries.

A typical day is to get up and leave around nine. We go with Mary to run tons of errands every morning. At 11:00 o’clock we pick up Michael and head to the project. Usually the boys have already eaten lunch so we grab a plate and eat quickly. The rest of the afternoon is spent with the boys playing, having their devotional, working on homework, or helping Mary out with anything she might need. We eat dinner with the boys pretty much every night. It consists of beans, rice, eggs, bread, and sometimes some meat. We say our goodbyes and leave around 6:00 to come home. The first thing we want to do is jump in the shower because we smell like sweaty children. :) Many nights we spend with Bill and Mary on their bed eating dinner and watching TV or hanging out with some people our own age that we have met. Overall, our days are long and tiring but so rewarding. Like we said earlier, we can not even imagine coming home.

Some prayer requests we have are:

~Financial support for Bill and Mary and for the project. They fully rely on the Lord but right now this is a huge struggle.

~Safety in everything. We take a lot of taxis and walk places and for those of you who have been here know how "interesting" they drive.

~The older boys have a hard time trusting us from day to day. It is like we have to win them over everyday and make them know that we love them and still care about them. We completely understand why because of their past and because of groups coming in and leaving as soon as they begin to get attached. Anyway, pray that the boys would be 100% sure that we love them every single day and that we are here for them.

~Please pray that in everything we do and everything we say, we are representing the Lord the way He should be. Let us have the light of Christ wherever we go.

~That the Lord would give us strength and endurance.

We love you all dearly,

Cassidy and Samantha

green cottage designs

2007-06-16T10:59:00.000-05:00

check out my latest venture:

green cottage designs

give me a "j"!

2007-06-15T21:40:00.000-05:00

j! i got your j, i got your j.

give me an "e"!
e! i got your e, i got your e.

give me an "s"!
s! i got your s, i got your s.

give me a "u"!
u! i got your u, i got your u.

give me an "s"!
s! i got your s, i got your s.

what's that spell?
Jesus!

King of Kings!
Jesus!

Lord of Lords!
Jesus!

he's coming back!
Jesus!

whew! another year, another vbs. ah, how i love vbs. it's such a wild, crazy, exhausting, wild, fun, encouraging (and did i mention wild?) week. but, it's worth every exhausting minute. we had a tough curriculum this year for our story hours, but we had an amazing story teacher that practically rewrote it so that our 5th and 6th grade girls (my age group) could get the most from it. i really loved how she presented the gospel every day to the girls. typically, wednesday is salvation day at vbs. while we (obviously) make that our goal for the whole week, wednesday was typically the day we hit the gospel hard. but, this year, the girls heard it every day.

i've taught vbs for several years now and this year i felt my age! i came home everyday just beat. i really don't know what it is. i mean, vbs is only from 9 - 12:30. but, i am more tired after a morning of vbs than i am from teaching 7 full class periods during the school year. but, like i said, it was worth it.

i know we had a couple girls in our age group that accepted Christ this week. quite possibly one or two we don't know about, just because they can be shy about it sometimes. and of course, many little seeds were planted. we had a lot of kids not from tbc attend. we usually do. the church is in a part of tomball that really lets kids and parents see what's going on everyday and see the signs leading up to the week. that right there is advertising. plus, well, we're just known for the best vbs in town! it's true. we work really, really hard to make our skits and music entertaining, engaging, and full of truth. sometimes that means rewriting the skits (or at least "tweaking") and finding our own music. but, our drama and music teams are up to it. and they do an amazing job. the proof is in the numbers -- we had 315 kids on our lowest day and 345 on our biggest day. plus, we hear it in the community. after vbs each day, many of our volunteers head out to lunch or run errands in their t-shirts. many come back the next day with a story of how they saw someone that stopped them and said, "i went to a tomball bible vbs when i was a kid! that was the best week ever!" i swear i'm not making this up, in fact i'm "one of those." i literally remember sitting in a darkly lit room memorizing the books of the bible at a certain church for vbs. when i experienced vbs at tomball bible (granted it was from the volunteer perspective), i was blown away at the time, thought, blood, sweat, and tears that goes into vbs week. and the result of all that work was simply an awesome week of good fun for the kids. we even have grown men take vacation time to be group leaders for the 5th and 6th grade boys!

so, that's what i've been up to this week. i think it may take me a week to recover! ;)

what a lady...

2007-06-14T18:25:00.000-05:00

ruth bell graham dies at age 87:

http://www.bgea.org/RBG_Default.asp

the angels are dancing in heaven for her arrival this evening. what a welcome she must be receiving.

random dreams...

2007-06-10T00:40:00.000-05:00

someday, i want--

to own an used bookstore/coffee shop.
to open a wedding/party planning business.
to travel europe -- as many parts of it as i can.
to visit australia.
to return to russia.

--among many other things.

please pray with me!

2007-06-06T16:47:00.000-05:00

well, this morning my little sister, cassidy, went off on a plane to honduras for 7 weeks. she and a friend, samantha, were given an amazing opportunity to live in the home of orphanage directors (bill and mary) for the next 5-6 weeks. the orphanage is home to about 22 boys ranging in age from toddler to 17 years old. cass and sam will be helping around the orphanage mainly in school type lessons. english and math especially. they also took a bunch of craft supplies with them to share with the boys. at the end of that time, our church missions team will arrive. cass and sam will join the team at the point and participate in the scheduled mission trip. which will be more interaction with the boys in the orphanage as well as more community outreach in the village.

cassidy has been so excited about the opportunity for several months. but, 7 weeks is a long time to be away from family and friends. not to mention the fact that she is giving up a big portion of her summer to do this. and the comforts at home -- like air conditioning, food they are used to, english, their own rooms (among other things). on the other hand, they will gain so much more than they are giving up for this experience.

please pray for cassidy and samantha throughout these 7 weeks for:
~safety
~staying healthy
~bonding with the boys and other children in the village
~their time with mary -- she is so excited to have girls come stay with her! she is surrounded by boys and hungers for "girl-time."
~comfort while being away from their families, especially -- and also their friends.

and you can also pray for their families here at home. i know i am going to miss cass terribly. and i can imagine it's going to be tough for scott and viv, too. and for sam's family. while we are excited for them, we are also selfishly missing them! :)

my creations

2007-06-03T15:34:00.000-05:00

every once and awhile i feel crafty. i get inspired by so many things around me. i love to pick up a new "crafty" magazine or walk through hobby lobby or jo ann's crafts and come up with new projects. of course, i'm a bit ADD when it comes to this stuff. i get impatient halfway through a project and sometimes i don't follow through with the materials that i bought. i attribute part of that to the fact that i don't have a "craft room." someday, in my dream home, i will have a designated "craft room." with a huge table on which i can create my projects and tons of storage to store my huge supply of craft "stuff." hey, i can dream, right? ;)

anyhow, i thought i would share some of my crafty creations over the past couple years. sadly, i don't have photographs of everything i have made and given away. i am sorely tempted to take photos of every single project from handmade note cards to the larger things like jamie's bulletin board. but, it seems slightly prideful and i refrain many times. i also have buried photos before the time of digital cameras somewhere that i haven't included here.

my creations

mighty to save

2007-05-27T21:38:00.000-05:00

so... today was the last day with our current worship pastor at tbc (tomball bible church). he's a really great worship leader that is the whole package. great voice, amazing talent on the guitar and piano, wise insight into the words of a song and the ability to tie into the sermon. he also would occasionally share a song he had written with us. really neat guy. he's brought so much to our church through music and drama.

anyhow -- today was just an amazing worship service. we sang a song that is fairly new to us. we've sung a few times in the past few months. i absolutely fell in love with it the first time we sang it. i had previously tried to find it online, but couldn't. well, tonight i finally found it! i actually even came up with a video, also. i just wanted to share the words and the music with you. it's just one of those that makes you want to raise your hands to God and sing your heart out. the video itself is poor quality, but it's so much more powerful if you can hear the words, not just read them.

everyone needs compassion
a love that's never failing
let mercy fall on me
everyone needs forgiveness
a kindness of a Savior
the hope of nations

Savior, He can move the mountains
my God is Mighty to save
He is Mighty to save
forever, Author of Salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

so take me as You find me
all my fears and failures
fill my life again
i give my life to follow
everything i believe in
now i surrender

Savior, He can move the mountains
my God is Mighty to save
He is Mighty to save
forever, Author of Salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

shine your light and let the whole world see
we're singing for the glory of the risen King... Jesus

Jamie's Baby Shower and the Quilt Show

2007-05-06T11:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I had the privilege of co-hostessing Jamie's baby shower along with her sister-in-law Kimberly, a good friend Mary, and Julie. I think this picture is the first one since the three of us lived together in our University Place apartment in Huntsville. Oh, the memories... haha. Jamie and I manage to meet for dinner every other month or so, but I hadn't seen Julie in way too long. It was good to hang out with both of these girls... Plus, I got to see so many girls from my Sam Houston days. I swiped this photo from Julie's blog... Thanks, Julie! :)

This is a photo of the bulletin board I made for the new little guy's nursery. It's unfinished... I'm going to add his name in the upper left corner. But, that will have to wait until he makes his arrival somewhere near June 20th. Jamie and Josh have decided to keep his name an absolute secret until then!

Before the shower, I dropped my mom off at the airport -- she went to Pennsylvania to stay with my dad until he comes back in November. Then, I headed on to Huntsville for the shower. Much to my enjoyment, I had time to stop by the Airing of the Quilts, an annual quilt show on the square. My mom's friend Gloria is an amazing quilter and had many of her quilts out. Unfortunately, I never found Gloria but I had a lot of fun looking at all the beautiful quilts. I was wishing I had my camera to capture the quilts blowing in the breeze -- they were hanging everywhere along the square! -- but, I had to settle for using my camera phone.

oops!

2007-04-30T22:06:00.001-05:00

i meant to post where the rest of my wedding pics are. they are unedited, uncut, and uncaptioned. but they are up! so, enjoy! i'll post more as i gather them from others (that's a big hint to those of you harboring pictures!) and hopefully the photographers pictures will be up soon also.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mcmullen.kelly/CaseyAndZacsWedding

casey's wedding

2007-04-30T21:58:00.001-05:00

well, the wedding whirlwind is over! i can hardly believe it came and went already. the last couple weeks have been so full of wedding and shower plans and now it's all over!

wednesday night began the weekend of partying. those that were in town met up at del pueblo for a dinner. nothing special, but we got to meet some of the groomsmen that had come in. thursday the guys went to play golf and then pick up their tuxes later in the day. i spent the day preparing food and gifts for casey's lingerie shower/bachlorette party. i had a blast hanging out with the girls and just pampering casey. she got some really pretty things. we also got to get to know a little more about casey and zac's relationship. earlier in the week, cassidy and i came up with some questions for zac and then we videotaped his answers. during the shower, we asked casey the same questions, let her answer, then played his answers. it was quite hilarious. especially since zac couldn't just answer the questions... he had to do costume changes for each one. that night we headed to a house owned by a family in our church. they were incredible and let us borrow their house for the weekend so that the girls could all stay in one place. it was so neat to be able to do that. on top of that, they totally pampered us. it was like staying in a hotel!

friday i had several errands to run and the girls worked on folding the wedding programs. that evening we got up to ashelynn manor for our rehearsal. the people at ashelynn manor were great. they were very helpful and had us through the rehearsal in no time. we headed to the bake shoppe for the rehearsal dinner. then, it was on to the rosenbaum's (zac's parents) house for a party. we got to meet some extended family and just hang out. we then headed back to the ikel's to find beds for all the girls (we had acquired a couple new girls that needed beds). i helped cassidy a bit with her toast, hung out a bit with some of the girls that hadn't gone to bed, and then ashley and i headed back to my house and bed ourselves. however, when we got home, chris and chad had just gotten home from the rosenbaum's. (chad and ashley are chris' cousins). so we hung out with them a bit and cleaned up some of the leftover shower food. by this time it was about 3:30 a.m., so we decided to head to bed.

saturday morning was really special. suellen plachy invited the bridesmaids over for a brunch. she and her daughter ellie served us a wonderful array of food and let us have some girl time. and of course, it was quite a teary girl time. casey shared with each of us why she chose us to stand with her on her wedding day. we also got to have a really neat prayer time with her. it was definitely a very incredible morning. and very emotional. it's a good thing i didn't bother with make up. it would've all been cried off if i had. after that, it was on to the showers and then to ashelynn manor. things just flew by after that. we did our hair and make up, barely got dressed, and then it was time for pictures. i can't wait to see the pictures from the photographer, he seemed pretty on top of things and i think he had some creative stuff going on.

the ceremony was one of the best i've experienced -- despite the fact it was 40 minutes long, my feet were dying, the sun was in my eyes, and bugs were crawling on me -- but truly it was incredible and i was so blessed to be standing up there. it was such a sweet time. casey and zac wrote their vows, they had a couple friends sing/play guitar, and they shared communion as their first thing as husband and wife. their pastor from austin did an incredible job with the ceremony.

the reception was one big party. i got to visit with several people, but there were several i missed talking to. i guess that's par for the course... casey and zac's first dance was something only casey and zac would do. they choreographed a really fun dance to a fast paced song (the name slips me) and kept it a secret from everyone until the music came on. it was simply amazing.

it was such an incredible weekend. i loved how God was woven into so much of everything that happened. i've watched casey grow up from a young girl to a Godly woman. her relationship with zac is nothing but Christ-centered. it has been so amazing to watch casey over the past years become the woman that she is and to now watch her and zac create this relationship. i admire casey deeply and praise God for what He has done in her life. after the rehearsal friday night, i took casey for one final wedding dress fitting (a whole other story completely) and on the way casey and i had a chance to talk about a certain subject. her words to me were so touching and so wise. i could hardly believe the truth that effortlessly came from her. she is so passionate about her relationship with Christ and it just pours out of her. i thank God for her and that relationship every day.

while i'm on the subject of gushing about my sisters -- i have to say cassidy and i have had a blast planning this whole thing. cassidy and i have always had a wonderful relationship and i admire her on many levels also. she, once again, showed me her wise and beautiful spirit the past couple weeks. i absolutely love spending time with her despite the fact she is 10 years younger than me. yet, in so many ways, she is if not equal, but usually wiser than i am. i just can't even imagine what i have done to be blessed with these girls in my life. but, i am abundantly grateful! my cup runneth over!

okay -- one last gush -- i've only met a handful of casey's austin friends. this weekend i got to know them better and got to meet a few new ones. her bridesmaids were amazing girls and the way they have each affected casey's life is simply written by the hand of God. i love every single one of them and only wish they lived closer!

the dog catcher, cassidy, and i. and bear.

2007-04-27T00:18:00.001-05:00

so, it's been a very eventful day. and, you know, everything just can't go smoothly. i just had to share cass' and mine's experience with the dog catcher. yep. the dog catcher.

this morning, i head over to pick up the paper for the programs from scott and viv's. cassidy was there alone, so she decided to head to the printer's with me. we walk out of the house, get to the truck and realize the paper is inside. so, we walk back in, get the paper and try to leave. bear decided at that very moment to snake by our legs and run out the door. well, when bear does that and the gate is open... he's gone. we see him directly in front of the neighbor's house and are on our way to go call him in, when the animal control truck pulls up. at this point, we have no idea why he's even in the neighborhood. but, i'll get to that in a minute. so, jerk-face dog catcher says to me (because i'm closest to him) is this the same dog we picked up a couple weeks ago? (let me just say, that yes, bear did get picked up and was put in "jail" for the night until vivian drove downtown to rescue him) anyway -- i stall because i am not about to admit that. finally, i say i don't know. he very rudely says "you don't know if you own dog got picked up?" by this point, i'd had enough of his rudeness, so i said back in the same tone "i don't live here." cassidy tells him she does. she says "can we go get bear now?" he says "if you don't, i will." cass says "well, you're blocking the driveway." he doesn't understand the problem. so she says, "bear runs faster than i can, we need to take our truck." so, he asks for her drivers license and says he'll "wait for us." very sweet of him, hm? well, by this point, we have no freakin' clue where bear has gone. if the jerk hadn't grilled us we could have had bear back by then. 10 minutes of searching later, we found bear. we pull into the driveway, make a big show of shutting the gate, putting bear in the house, climbing in the truck again, open the gate, and pull out. then he grills us about the rabies tag, or rather lack of, on bear. which is why he is there. he was coming out to check up on that today and just happened to arrive when bear darted out. impeccable timing. then, he drags meshack into the ordeal. poor meshack is laying peacefully on the porch. but, he doesn't have a collar on, so jerk-face has to ask about him. he wants proof of rabies papers on the dogs. well, of course, cassidy has no clue where those are and says as much. he finally relents and says he's writing her a warning, not a citation since her "parents should have taken care of it." such a thoughtful guy, he is. he sits in his truck for what seems like 5 minutes to write his little "warning." gets back out and "explains" the warning to us. he wants to know "how do you spell meshack? m... e...?" cass says "whatever, it doesn't matter." he didn't like that much. good thing i didn't say what i wanted to -- "you know meshack? like in the Bible? meschack, shadrack, and abednego?" then he goes into "why" she is getting the warning, because "when we got home, our dog ran off." WHAT?! i'd had it at this point -- so i say "we hadn't left yet! we opened the gate so that we could leave! and he was right in front of the neighbor's yard! we would have had him back in if you hadn't blocked the driveway!" he looks at me and says "if you don't stop right now, i'm going to write you a ticket." WHAT?!?! the DOG CATCHER is going to write me a TICKET?! he can do that?! i literally bit my lip so as not to say the words i wanted to -- "go ahead, make it legible though, because i want to frame this one!" he finished his little bit, cass signed, and we got in the truck. and preceded to die laughing. if he only knew how much he's been mocked this evening. oh and he was parked behind me so i couldn't pull my truck out and i am convinced he would have sat there longer if a car hadn't needed to get by. so he inched forward and blocked 3/4 of the road so that i had to drive in the grass to get around him. he also checked out my plates as he pulled past me. what a loser! i'm sorry he can't get a real job, but it certainly was no reason to start the whole exchange with complete rudeness and accusations.

so that began our morning. and really i could go on, because that wasn't the only issue in this crazy day... but i just really had to share my dog catcher story. anyway, it's been a long day and tomorrow is going to be just as long. so i'm headed to bed!

new picture and a busy week

2007-04-22T10:37:00.001-05:00

so... i finally posted a picture. i'm pretty displeased with most of the pictures of just me or just chris and i right now, which is my own my fault because i try to stay out of pictures as much as possible. so, when i go to post pictures on facebook, myspace, or here i get annoyed at the selection. but i will remedy that this week! there will be many photo ops because tomorrow begins the wedding week whirlwind (say that three times fast!)...

the partying begins wednesday night and will last until saturday night. i may need a week to recover! and even before then, monday and tuesday will be busy as i wrap up last minute errands. i'm abandoning my little darlings at school to a sub on thursday and friday. that in itself is something to look forward to. now, i just have to structure my week so that they will have plenty to do rather than drive the sub mad.

anyway, probably won't be much new this week, but definitely check back after the wedding. i'm quite sure i will have plenty of stories and pictures to share!

climbing down from my soapbox...

2007-04-17T23:01:00.001-05:00

alright. let's move on to a much lighter subject! what's going on in my life?! many of you are probably reading this because i sent out an email saying that i've started a blog! skip down to my first post to read about the reasons. i'm going to use this post to update some of you that i've been out of touch with for far too long!

the most exciting upcoming event is one miss casey mcmullen's wedding. casey is chris' oldest, younger sister -- for those of you saying "who?!" the big day is april 28. we are in full wedding mode these last days before the wedding. the actual ceremony and reception is at a wedding facility called Ashelynn Manor. they have taken much of the work out of it for us! which is a totally new thing for me. i'm so used to be in control and having 25 dozen things to do at this point. a little strange for me. ha. but, despite that, i have found something to be in control of. cassidy and i are planning the lingerie shower/bachelorette party. we've got some great things cooked up and we are very much looking forward to it!

other than that -- it's the same old thing. chris is working mostly in mcallen these days. he heads down there for about a week to 2 weeks, depending on what's going on. he comes back to tomball for about 2 - 4 days -- again, depending on the work and what we have going on. he's also doing a lot of roping and still enjoying that.

i'm in my third year at hildebrandt teaching keyboarding. i take advantage of chris being gone during the week and try to catch dinner with friends or just have some "me" time. i'm all about that "me" time. ha.

we've still got the ranch in trinity with my parents. we have around 20 some head of mama cows and calves right now. and one bull. he's a happy bull. ;) we're up to 4 dogs these days. it's an absolute madhouse sometimes with all of them. 2 chocolate labs and a blue heeler/border collie mix -- which all live inside. and a black mouth cur that lives outside. 3 of the 4 are males -- so we have more dog testosterone than we need.

and that's really us in a nutshell right now. like i've said, i plan on just using this to keep everyone updated on my random thoughts and our more interesting activities. this post should catch everyone up on us for now. especially for those of you that haven't had an update in way too long. as usual -- ask questions, leave comments, tell me what you think!

virginia tech

2007-04-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

well, i promised that i would be commenting on current events periodically. here's the first one.

i'm already seeing the first rumblings of

"we need better gun control laws!"
"guns should be outlawed!"

now, don't get me wrong. i'm very deeply saddened by what happened yesterday on the virginia tech campus. it was a horrible, heinous crime.

but, i do not believe that gun control laws could have helped much here. in fact, if the staff and faculty were allowed to conceal, maybe it would have been a much lower number than 32 (i refuse to count the gunman as a "victim").

many people do not realize the extensive background checks, lectures, and laws that are in place for concealed handgun license holders. a couple years back, chris went through the CHL class and now lawfully carries a concealed handgun. well, not all the time. he certainly doesn't just strap it on for kicks. it's usually in his truck. though, being in mcallen a big part of the time, i think he does keep it on him more often. anyway -- the point is -- i've heard a bit from chris about the seriousness of these CHL classes. CHL holders are taught many different tactics to diffuse a violent situation without pulling their weapon. you may only, lawfully, pull your weapon if your life has been threatened. if a CHL holder even pulls their weapon on someone, they must call the local police and file a report. if someone is shot, there is an extensive investigation that ensues. i daresay it is even more extensive than a random shooting by an unlawful person. if the CHL holder is found at fault -- their punishment is just as harsh, if not more so, than a random gunman. there are no second chances. period. end of story.

i have to say, i am extremely glad that chris has his CHL. he was in jasper, texas a couple years back and pulled his gun on a group of guys. he had stopped at mcdonalds to buy a milkshake (his diesel truck is too big and loud for the drive thru -- though we have all told him the drive thru is the way to go, now! ha), when he walked back out 4 black men were sitting on his tailgate, which they had helped themselves to lowering. they preceded to call him a "redneck" and telling him they were going to kill him, among other things. he didn't have his gun on him, but it was in the truck. he managed to get his keys in the door and reached in to pull his gun out. he showed his gun to the men and after a few choice words the men disappeared. i truly believe the men were intent on causing harm that day. and there was definitely an outnumbering in their favor.

take a look at the following sentences from john lott. lott wrote this article april 9, obviously before yesterday's bloodbath. i admit i don't know lott or his philosophies any other subjects, but i found this article quite interesting and in my opinion, very true.

Gun free zones may be well intentioned, but good intentions that is not enough. It is an understandable desire to ban guns. After all, if you ban guns from an area, people can’t get shot, right? But time after time when these public shootings occur, they disproportionately take place in gun free zones.

It is the law-abiding good citizens who would only use a gun for protection who obey these bans. Violating a gun free zone at a place such as a public university may mean expulsion or firing and arrest, real penalties for law-abiding citizens. But for someone intent on killing others, adding on these penalties for violating a gun free zone means little to someone who, if still alive, faces life in prison.

to read the full article, which i fully recommend, by lott, go here: http://johnrlott.tripod.com/2007/FoxNewsStalkers040907.html

i believe that if the faculty and staff of virginia tech had been allowed to conceal, things may have turned out differently. it would not have stopped cho seung-hui from beginning his rampage yesterday. it would not have saved every single victim's life. but, maybe, just maybe, some of the lives could have been spared.

well, i'm sure this is going to stir up some controversy. let me know what you think. i won't hold it against you, if you won't hold my opinion against me. ;) oh. by the way. yes, i do plan on getting my CHL in the near future. i've wanted to for several months, but the timing is always wrong. it's a full saturday class. actually, it might be two full saturdays in a row? can't recall right now...

if you're interested, i also recommend reading this post: http://lonestartimes.com/2007/04/17/politics-of-the-gun/ it outlines several arguments and rebuttals to the claim that europe is "gun-free," another outcry that i've heard a few times today.

why?

2007-04-17T21:50:00.001-05:00

so, i've decided to start a blog. a little late in catching up with everyone else? maybe. but, i'm finally here.

why, you ask, do i start a blog? why do i think people actually care about my thoughts? why do i think you care about my life and all it's events? because you love me!!! haha...

no, seriously.

i'm pretty horrible about keeping in touch with people. it's a sad truth that even i recognize. it's made me feel very guilty in regards to many of my friendships. hmm. if i can call them friendships anymore! i've let the ball drop on so many emails that it was my return to respond to. ugh, it's just a maddening never-ending circle. i don't reply. i put it off. then, i'm embarrassed that's it taking so long to respond, so i put it off again. then it's so freakin' late i just give it up.

so... my mission with this blog? to keep my friends and family up to date with the goings on in my life. yes, i suppose, this puts the responsibility on you. now, you have to come to me to catch up on my life! ha. but, at least it's something.

i don't promise daily accounts of my life -- many of you are sighing with relief right now -- but, i do promise updates on me and some of the more important events. as well as my random thoughts on current and political events. i tend to get on a soap box sometimes. you can skim those or argue with me. whichever you prefer. and i'm sure chris' name will be mentioned a few times -- sometimes in good terms and maybe sometimes in bad... just kidding, just kidding.

okay -- enough of this introductory crap! enjoy! leave me comments! update me on you!

My Hospital Experience

2006-09-05T21:16:00.001-05:00

Well, I thought I would tell a little about my recent (very recent) hospital stay at the lovely Tomball Hospital. Not that anybody really reads this -- but now I can say "What? You didn't see my blog?" when everyone complains that I didn't tell them about this little adventure. haha

So, Sunday night at about 10 pm I got this severe pain/cramping in my lower abdomen, sort of on the right side, but kind of all over. I suffered through the night and on into the morning. Even telling Chris to go ahead and go roping with some friends Monday morning. I'm kind of stubborn. :) So, a couple hours after he left, I realized the pain was going absolutely no where and I needed to get to the ER. I called the best mother-in-law in the whole world and so started my Labor Day adventure. The ER doctors ran tests for appendicitis at first and then kind of starting ruling that out. I did a CT Scan after I had to drink this horrible "fruit punch iodine cocktail" as they called it. Which, of course, I threw up almost a 1/2 of what I drank. Cassidy, my sister-in-law was amazing. She was there for the 4 times I puked that junk up. She was my trashcan holder and face wiper.

Eventually, they started thinking I had a cyst on my right ovary. So, they admitted me and moved me to a room. Shortly after, I went down for an ultrasound so they could get a better look at the cyst. After all that and a one night stay in the hospital, it turns out it was a cyst that had managed to rupture. The pain I was in was from the bleeding and fluid from the rupture. Basically, my body will/has reabsorbed all that. Apparently, it is not uncommon for women to have small cysts and sometimes they do rupture like mine did. I go to my regular gynecologist next week, so I am sure I will have more information and questions answered then. I wasn't impressed with the gynecologist on call at the hospital and I knew I was seeing mine really soon, so I didn't go into a bunch of details with him. I expect to know more this time next week.

Anyway, that's my adventure! I'm taking tomorrow off again to just kind of rest (as most of you probably know, there is no sleeping through the night at the hospital -- vitals, blood drawn, empty and beeping IV bags) and to make sure everything is pretty much back to normal.

The Russia Memoirs

2006-07-02T00:48:00.000-05:00

So, Russia is the first Missions Trip that I did NOT keep a journal throughout. I can't believe I allowed myself to do that! Hopefully, I will make myself sit down and try to write a little bit about my experiences. For now, here is an overview for any of that are interested...

The basis of our trip to Russia was to team up with 4 local churches to run a camp on the Black Sea for teens. This was the very first time for the camp and it went remarkably well, all things considered. Apparently, it is a feat in itself for 4 seperate groups to come together and actually be able to plan something. To allow Americans to come in and help was another big feat. The camp went really well. The kids had a blast. It ran smoothly -- from a Russian perspective. As Americans, we had trouble getting accustomed to the laid back, casual feel of the whole camp. We were used to being in a certain place at a certain time and having every single minute of every single day planned. Not so for a Russian camp. We had a lot of down time and planned times for activities were a little loose. But, as I said, it all worked out and it was an amazing time for everyone. We had over 100 campers, many of which were non-Christians. On the evening that the Gospel was fully presented, 36 kids came forward to give their lives to Jesus! It was an amazing sight. I was expecting a handful of kids to come forward, because there usually will be in that type of situation. But, I almost fell out of my chair when they just kept walking up and the entire front of the stage was full. I almost couldn't catch my breath and my eyes filled with tears. God was moving in tremendous ways that week and it all hit me in those few minutes. It was such an incredible feeling. Everything that I had experienced during my time in Russia, good or bad, was worth it at that moment.

Russia Pictures!!

2006-06-23T08:50:00.002-05:00

Visit here to see a few of my Russia pictures!

Russia, Here I Come!

2006-04-19T20:46:00.000-05:00

So, God willing, I am officially going to Russia! I am so, so excited. If you haven't read my previous blog about Russia, it covers a little more about the trip itself.

I'm turning in my final application materials tomorrow (I had to wait for an expedited passport name change because it was still in my maiden name -- there was an exorbitant amount of money!!). I just finished writing my prayer support letter this evening and will be sending those out shortly (some of you will see those soon!). In the mean time, I still am coveting your prayers. Specifically for:

~ Raising my support money -- $1200.
~ My visa application and letter of invitation for Russia -- we are in a hurry for these and since my passport is just now coming in, well, we are time crunched.
~ Absorbing all the information about Russia. There are a lot of things that I need and want to know about the culture, religion, and people of Russia so that I can knowledgeably minister to those I will be working with.

RUSSIA!!

2006-04-01T13:35:00.000-06:00

I am prayerfully considering a Russia missions trip this summer. There are 9 slots for our church to fill for a trip through EastWest Ministries International. From what I understand, it's a one week camp for Russians age 14-21 plus some adults. We'll be basically hanging out with the campers - hiking, walking to the beach -- the Black Sea! -- and group worship times. Most won't speak English; so there will be translators.

I'll be heading to my first meeting, completed 20 page -- yes, 20 page! -- application in hand, Monday evening. Would you please pray with me -- that if this is what God wants me to do this summer all the doors will be open wide for me?

This is a much more involved missions trip than I have ever participated in, mainly because of where we are going and the oppurtunities that we will have while there. I'll keep everyone updated on my final decision. This is something I really want to do, but I want to be sure that the "want to go" is not blinding me from what God's will is. This is why I need some prayer warriors! And, some of my most faithful prayer warriors are right here in MySpace!

Oh yeah! I almost forgot... Another reason I am so excited about this trip -- my sister-in-law Cassidy is also submitting her application to go. We are so looking forward to sharing this experience together. She is an amazing sophomore in high school. I'm so proud of her!

yep -- i'm from illinois...

2006-03-24T22:00:00.002-06:00

You know if someone is from southern, middle or northern Illinois as soon as they open their mouth.

While these are ALL true -- the blue lines are specific ones that my dear friends have so sweetly pointed out to me over the years!
Oh! And one thing I definitely want to clear up -- There is more to Illinois than Chicago. Just because I say I am from Illinois does not mean I am from Chicago. In fact, I have never even been to Chicago!

~ When you say "the city" - you mean Chicago.
~ You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
~ You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July.
~ Stores don't have bags; they have sacks.
~ All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, or animal.
~ You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, soddie, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
~ You know what "cow tipping" and "snipe hunting" is.
~ You spent a good deal of your high school nights hanging out at DQ.
~ "Vacation" means going to Six Flags.
~ You don't pronounce the "S" in Illinois like the rest of the world.
~ Whenever anyone mentions going out for steak, the first place you think of is Ponderosa.
~ You know more than one person with a septic tank.
~ You pronounce the invisible "R" in the word wash.
~ Down south to you means Kentucky
~ You have no problem spelling or pronouncing "Des Plaines"
~ You think Chicago is a completely different state from Illinois.
~ You know the answer to the question, "Is this Heaven?"
~ You know where all the Yoders live
~ Detassling was your first job
~ You've ever been on a "Geode Hunt"
~ Your idea of a really great tenderloin is when the meat is twice as big as the bun and accompanied only by ketchup and a dill pickle slice
~ You learn your pickup will run without a muffler
~ When asked how your trip was to any foreign, exotic place, you say, "It was different."
~ You consider being called a "Pork Queen" an honor
~ People from other states love to hear you say "Illinois" and other words with "Os" in them.
~ Your dream vacation is a trip to Rock Home Gardens
~ You drink "pop." (Actually, I call it soda, but that's a sin here in Texas where every carbonated beverage is "Coke." I will not get on my soapbox... But -- Coke is a namebrand, folks.)
~ You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Illinois.

Life Requirements

2006-03-14T23:15:00.000-06:00

There are some things in life that should just be required. For everyone. Maybe by the time you are a certain age, I don't know. But, they should be required none the less. For instance, waiting tables. To eat in a restaurant you should be required to wait tables for one night, preferably a Friday or Saturday, in a busy restaurant. Just to experience what it is like to juggle 72 things at one time and keep a minimum of 5 or 6 groups of people happy. Some would learn, very quickly, that their entire meal does not rest on the shoulders of one person. There are 72 things going on in the back that the customer never sees or knows about. Unfortunately, some believe it is okay to take out their meal's frustrations on their waiter/waitress. Then there are those that just go out to eat in a bad mood. Why do you start out the night like that and then take yourself to a public place? I will never understand.

But I digress.

I recently read the book, Night by Elie Weisel. Yes, this falls into the category of something everyone should be required to do. Elie Weisel survived the Holocaust after being deported, crammed into a railroad car, losing his mother and little sister to the gas chambers, and struggling to survive with his dad in various concentration camps. An amazing book. A stomach turning book. It will make you groan out loud in pain for this teenage boy. It will make you think about all that you have taken for granted. Freedom. A bed. Food. Water. Your family. Your life. And so much more.

Which brings me to my next life requirement. Visiting the Holocaust Museum. I went today with Cassidy, my sister-in-law. The pictures, the videos, the handwritten documents, the spoken accounts, the various other objects from the Holocaust era. It was all so surreal. For instance, the photograph that I can see so clearly in mind right now, it may as well be sitting in front of me. It was a series of photographs actually. Photographs of Jewish prisoners digging their own graves before they were shot, either execution style or in the back of the head. There were other photographs. Prisoners waiting in line to go to the gas chambers, some of them not even realizing that was where they were headed. Families separated upon arrival at a concentration camp. The women and children on one side, the men on the other. Often this was the last time these families would be together. Photographs of piles (piles and piles and piles, unimaginably high) of shoes, clothing, eyeglasses. These were all discarded by prisoners before they headed to the gas chamber. I might add, that a lot of times the prisoners still did not realize that was where they were headed; they thought they were taking a shower. Photographs of prisoners enduring medical "experiments" conducted in the camp. I can see, in my head, the picture of about 8 children sitting in a group. They had burn marks on their bodies where they had been "experimented" on.

The videos. Videos of young German boys joining the Nazi Army. Videos of the ghettos and life in the ghetto. Dead bodies in the street being picked up by officers and then dumped in a pile. To be burned.

So many things I saw today, I can not do justice with my words. And so much more that I don't have room to type and you don't have patience to read. You must see it to believe it. How can anyone deny the Holocaust? There is too much evidence and history there. We must remember what happened so that we will not be blind sighted again and sit idly by while human beings are destroyed. I read a quote on a magnet in the gift shop. I know I will not get it right, nor do I remember who said it. But, it went something like this:

"First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not Jewish.

Then, they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Next, they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up for me."

By the way, it was not only Jews who were targeted during the Holocaust. We cannot forget that the Nazi party worked to systematically eradicate the mentally ill, handicapped, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists, and Socialists. Now, I may not agree with everything that some of the groups stand for or believe in, but they also did not necessarily deserve to be treated the way they were. And, there were those that worked to save and hide the targeted ones. Some of them were ultimately arrested as well.

One thing that struck me today was the systematic and organized plans that were layed out to make the Holocaust happen. This was not something that was worked out between a couple of people and simmered out over a few months. This was a nation of people that blindly followed their leader and participated in the murder of innocent lives. This was a massive operation. Oh yes, I know there were many that tried to reverse what was happening and would do anything and everything in their power to protect the innocent. As I mentioned, many of these also ended up in the concentration camps. If they weren't executed on the spot.

And by the way, yes, I am aware that there were other times in history when humans were mistreated. Why do I dwell on the Holocaust? Why has the Holocaust always been such an interest to me? I don't know. All I know is what I saw today.