odds and ends

well, i've been m.i.a., that's for sure. school's going pretty well so far. only 4 weeks in, it's hard to make any hard and fast observations. the delayed feedback on assignments, etc. is the only downside so far to online classes. i love not having to work my schedule around actually attending classes.

what else is new....nicole's dad is in town for an extended stay -- he's looking to rent a house for a month or two (she's hoping two, or longer). so that's new and different. i've started taking some yoga classes about once a week. i bought a six-class card, so i've been trying to space it out. i'm enjoying it so far; i'm week enough that it's a good muscle workout, and it's really good for my inflexibe body. i have a tendency to tighten up if i don't stretch regularly, so this helps. today i'm going to try "hot yoga." it's basically regular yoga, but they turn the heat way up so you sweat a lot. doesn't that sound like fun! :)

no profound things to say today. i've seen both The Prestige and The Illusionist in the past few weeks. Very different movies, that's for sure; but i enjoyed them both. The Prestige is very dark; obsession is a big theme there. The Illusionist is more of a classic mystery and with an underlying love story. i really like Edward Norton, so that's a plus. of course, i really like the actors in The Prestige too (Michael Cain, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman). Anyway, i recommend both movies.

happy Tuesday!

making preparations

So, I've decided that now's the time to start keeping tabs on the potential presidential candidates: what they're up to, what they think, what they've done or not done. I know a lot of you out there tend to keep up with this kind of thing ("news" and "politics" ;) on a regular basis, so if anyone has any good sources let me know. I'm looking for lots of good information without having to spend hours looking at millions of sources. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it....I'm into voting responsibly these days.

On a different note...
A few friends and I are encouraging each other to exercise with a little challenge we stole and adapted from one of their friends. Basically, we have a set number of days in which we are supposed to exercise, and if we miss a day, we have to contribute a dollar to our "jar" (it's actually a manilla envelope, but whatever). At the end of six months, whoever contributed the least to the jar gets the money. Then we start over. So far it's working pretty well...none of us want to give up our dollars! We'll see how it goes.

Happy Tuesday!

this and that

So registration worked out and this week i begun my first two graduate classes. Yay! I am nervous about some things, and a little stressed about some things, but not worried, if that's even possible or makes sense.

We got some cool weather again. yay!

Lots of weddings this year. Well, two that I'll attend, and one that I'll attend a post-ceremony celebration. Either way, it's quite a bit of festivity. It's fun to watch plans unfold.

Happy Thursday!

various things

Our trip to Texas and Missouri (briefly) was nice. We were gone a whole week, and I enjoyed the break. The families are good; my niece is as cute as they get (I know...I'm partial). once I get around to downloading pictures off my new digital camera, I'll try and post some on here. My dad's getting ready to retire next year, and he's pretty excited about it.

I'm frustrated these days because I put some things off and now have only 13 days to try and register for graduate classes for the upcoming spring semester. Only problem is, my username and password (given to me by the school) won't work on their web site (where you register) and of course the offices are closed right now for the holidays. !! we'll see what happens. I may be starting in the spring or fall instead. Oh well. Guess it'll be a learning experience either way, right? :)

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Lone Star State!

Today

Today, I'm working at Mattox Family Practice. Our good friend Dr. Mattox and his staff (his wife Kathy and our other good friends Ryan and Nicole) are out of town for the week, so Jeremy, Jeanette and I are taking turns answering the phones and manning the office while they're gone. It's nice -- I'm spending most of the day just chillin.' I've checked e-mail, done some web surfing...I brought my book and a movie, and I'm hoping to write a little as well. (of course, we all know how undisciplined I am in that arena). Anyway, just a little ramble.

'Tis the Season

Sometimes during the Christmas season I feel Scroogy: what's the point? I ask myself. Hopefully I'm celebrating Jesus every day. But still, it's important to really meditate on it now and then. And what about gift giving? Sometimes it feels like checking names off my list is more important than the giving itself. So I examine the reasons why I'm giving. Obligation? Or love. Honoring the gift given to me by the Father by giving something to someone else. So in that spirit, maybe I should be doing more charitable giving. Of course, that happens all year as well. And what about traditions? I had a long think about that last year, and realized that any time we establish traditions with our family or friends, it's not always (or usually) about the traditions themselves, but about bringing us closer together, celebrating our love for each other. So the key to keeping the holidays meaningful for me: being deliberate. At least, that's what I've come up with for now. :) Deliberately being thankful, loving, generous, thoughtful...at least, trying to be these things. I am far from perfect after all.

Peace

keith mccord

Mine and Jeremy's friend Keith McCord passed away Friday evening from cancer. He wasn't quite 30, married with a tiny baby boy named Lincoln.

It's odd. I'm probably a minority in this, but Keith is the first friend I've known to die; my other experiences have been with grandparents, etc.

Keith was an interesting guy. Pretty cynical, but we just gave him a hard time about it. He was super creative -- a writer, a musician, an artist. He loved computer games -- he and Jeremy could play for hours. Okay, days even when they'd get together for gaming weekends. He was a good friend. I got to know him best one semester at college when there were some difficult things going on; he had a lot of good advice. He and Jeremy were much closer than Keith and I ever were; they were housemates for a while. I know Jeremy will miss Keith.

Peace.

purple and black and blue

Those are the colors of my toe. Well, the colors are beginning to fade, but last week at this time they were nice and bright. Because I broke my toe. The middle one, to be exact, which is a big pain because you can't avoid the middle toe when you're walking and I'd been doing really well with exercising, but everything I like to do puts pressure on the broken toe. (sigh). Sorry. Whine fest is over. Maybe I'll learn to be less of a klutz. ;)

did you vote???

Today, as I was waiting outside the polls (after voting, of course) for Jeremy and Jeanette, I heard someone who had just exited the polls tell someone else that they voted for someone "because they have the same name as NASCAR driver."

Long live democracy. :)

Pumpkins

This post really isn't about pumpkins, but I couldn't think of a better title. :)

So, I got accepted to North Carolina Central University's master's program for Library Science. Yay! Now I can be the nerd I was always born to be. :) I probably won't start until next fall; summer at the earliest. But that's okay. With the business starting up this summer, I think I need only one major life happening/change/activity at a time. For my own sanity and stress level.

We watched the movie "Thank You For Smoking" a couple weeks ago. It was pretty funny. As far as theater movies go...I've seen Marie Antoinette and The Departed recently. (two in one month! Crazy). I enjoyed Marie Antoinette a lot more than I expected. You alternately feel sorry for her and think 'what are you thinking!' She (and King Louis) come across as very real, sympathetic characters. Kind of young and stupid, but you kind of don't want to blame them for being young and stupid. The movie really made me want to learn more about the actual history of that time period. Oh, and the music and sets and costumes were great.

The Departed was really good as well. A gangster movie for sure (language, violence, etc.), so if you don't like that genre you probably wouldn't like it. But it's a head trip in a good way. At least, I thought so. My friend Ryan didn't really like it.

Anyway.... happy Thursday!

Ummm....

....don't have much to say, but I feel like my blog is neglected. :)

Went shopping today; let's hear it for birthday money! But I bought a red pillow for our khaki couch that in no way matches our other (maroon and navy and khaki striped) couch. Somehow, I thought the maroon was more red...negative on that. So...keep it with forward thoughts (I'd like to get a neutral-colored slipcover for that couch) or return it?

That's about it for shallow thoughts today. What about deep thoughts? you ask. Well, the biggest deep thought around here lately is not worrying about the future, but taking things one day at a time. Reminding myself that God is in control. Also, I'm trying to decide what to do about grad school. Once again, I missed the deadline because part of my application somehow didn't show up in their office -- even though I know it got mailed. So do I say, oh well, and wait until summer? Or do I just say, forget it, and look at something else (cooking school, maybe. or landscape architecture. who knows). or even just forget it and enjoy life as a lifetime barista and wanna-be writer. (that's a whole other struggle right there. Why can't I make myself sit down at the computer every day???? What's my problem???? besides the obvious laziness, of course. And how do I fix it.)

Still enjoying fall. With all the pine trees around here, I don't get to see too many leaves turn (a few). But I'm lovin' the air and the smells and the light.

Later

So...where did September go?

Yeah...the last 30 days or so have just slipped by. Pleasantly, but without making much of a fuss, and without lingering that's for sure.

I may have mentioned Team in Training and Jeremy and I training for a marathon/half marathon. Well, unfortunately we're not going to continue the training this time. Since it's a fund raiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, participants are required to raise a certain amount of money. Today we had to recommit or bow out. If we recommited then we had to personally guarantee the full fund raising amount, regardless of how much we raised. Our fundraising didn't go like we hoped, and we didn't feel that it was a good time to guarantee almost $5,000. So...maybe another time. On the bright side, I feel like the training we did thus far was beneficial...I might even consider myself a "jogger" now. :) and we did manage to raise some money for cancer research, so I feel proud about that.

Jeremy and Dijana and Dean Shelby are visiting this week. It's been just what I needed...old friends whom I miss dearly. Now if we can just get some of our other dearly missed friends to visit! (hint, hint) I guess we could visit too, to be fair. :)

Anyway. Happy almost the end of September. And happy fall!!

some movies

It was a movie watching weekend, so I thought I'd pass along some recommendations. Went to the theater and saw Invincible with Mark Wahlberg. I really enjoyed it. It's based on the true story of Vince Papale, a walk-on player for the Philedelphia Eagles in the 70's. (sorry, don't remember the exact year). A feel-good, sports movie, yes. But a good one. It really makes you feel for Papale.

Also watched Dear Frankie and Prime (both rented). Dear Frankie is a Scottish movie, about a boy whose mom pretends to write him letters from his dad, then one day has to hire a guy to be the boy's dad for the day. Sounds like it might be annoying (the lying) and contrived, but it's not. To me anyway. The movie makes you sympathise with the mom, while still thinking her choice is pretty stupid.

Prime is about a 37 year old woman (Uma Thurman) who starts unknowingly dating her therapist's (Meryl Streep) 23-year-old son. Funny and dramatic, and of course Uma and Meryl are great. The son (I didn't recognize him from anything else) is good as well. There are a lot of very realistically awkward scenes, which is fun. And I like that it's a romantic movie where I can't guess if the couple ends up together or no until right at the end.

Hmmm...

Read a good book last week: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. Disclaimer: the book has a LOT of language in it; enough language to be rated R if it were a movie, but no other content issues. Anyway, it's about four people who end up on the same building New Year's Eve with the plan to jump and commit suicide. They end up talking themselves down and the book is basically about what happens after. It's a book that could be depressing, but somehow isn't. And it isn't a "Disney" ending either so...anyway, I enjoyed it.

What's new

I haven't been on the computer as much lately, but we finally set up our home office, so it's more convenient now. Disorganized still....but convenient. :)

So here's something new (and something some of you may be getting a letter about in the next month or so): Jeremy and I have signed up with Team in Training. What is Team in Training? you might ask. Well, it's a fundraiser for the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society. We train for some kind of endurance race, and while we train we raise money. Jeremy's training to run a marathon and I'm training to run/walk a half marathon. I did my first day of training yesterday..three LONG miles. :) But I'm excited. (excited and out of shape)

Other than that, Jeremy is now "Texas Joe's Construction, LLC" so that's exciting too.

And today the most exciting thing is a break in the oppressive heat. Yay!!

Peace

a little of this....a little of that

So, Texas Joe's Construction has officially opened up shop. For anyone who doesn't know, Jeremy has started his own screen porch business. Starting a business is scary! But we prayed about it a lot, and I am confident knowing God is in control.

Work has been a little different lately. My boss moved away, one of the full time baristas was hired as a manager, and one of the other full time baristas got a new job at an architectural firm. But the change is all right. Just takes some getting used to. On a semi-related note, I learned about something called Wickles yesterday. Anyone ever tried Wickles? check this out: http://www.wickles.com/wickles_pickles.php.

What else....
I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 2, and enjoyed it. I'm excited to see how they wrap up the trilogy. I also went to see The Devil Wears Prada. It was funny and very enjoyable. All of the actors were fantastic.

Anyway, I'm tired and feeling the opposite of verbose, so peace out.

hitting the ground running

Camp was really great. There were some challenging moments, and it was hot of course, but that didn't detract from the week at all. I felt like I interracted with the kids a little more/better this year, so that was cool, and I got to know the counselors better this year as well, which was awesome. Plus, it's always nice to get so far removed from every day life....it's nice for getting a little perspective back.

Of course, now it's back to life. I'm trying to regain some discipline with my writing, along with keeping everyday life things in order (you know...stuff like cleaning house, grocery shopping).

anyway, that's all for now. Peace.

Oklahoma...

Off to camp! I'm sad that Phil won't be there this year :( but that's life. Let's hear it for vacation!!!

VBS

So, this week at our church is Vacation Bible School. I LOVED VBS as a kid. The church I went to growing up always went all-out for VBS. Lots of decorations, awesome skits....it was a blast. One of my favorite years, was the year my dad (who has volunteered for a while at VBS) swung across the baptistry on a "vine" and wrestled a "crocodile." That, and getting to finally be in the big kids class, i.e. fifth and sixth grade taught by Francie Brock, who did a great job at helping us feel like cool big kids.

So what about all you out there? VBS, anyone? Any fun memories?