Monday, January 30, 2006


Yay....Pictures to Share!!!!

Let the Freak Show Begin...

I had a great weekend. This weekend was the St. Louis youth gathering for Jr. highers. It was an event I had been looking forward to for quite some time. My best friend was speaking. Jacob's Road was the band, which meant not only was there going to be amazing times of worship...but I would get to see Carrie...who totally rocks my face off. I knew some of the area youth leaders bringing their kids...Laura and Aaron were going to speak...and my group was being chaperoned by Aubrey and I. I was going to be surrounded by so many cool people I could hardly stand it.

Things were looking good (except for the fact that I had a couple kids drop out because of illness the day before we left.) Friday morning I picked up the 12 passenger van and drove it over to church. Me driving a 12 passenger van is in itself an event to laugh at. Not to worry...I'm an excellent driver. We loaded up the van and headed to STL. The trip was pretty uneventful. We arrived at the hotel and I got to see friends that I love so dearly...but I also had 4 Jr. highers waiting for me to take them downtown and show them the city. So we went to the arch and saw the new stadium. Things were going great until we got out of the van at the restaurant we were going to eat dinner at and one of my girls told me there was a flat tire on the van. Dangit. So I call the rental agency and they send someone over to fix the tire, only we're in a very crowded parking lot and the simple tire change turns into a major production...at which point my mother saves the day and picks up my youth and brings them to the gathering so they don't miss the beginning.

When I finally arrived at the gathering that night, I felt good...like things were under control...until I realized I hadn't medicated my youth that needed to be medicated. eek. So I had to run to find the appropriate meds and bring them down. The only problem with that is that one of the kids medicine totally knocked him out and he slept through most of the first evening. But we got that all straightened out the next night. It's a good thing I only had 4 to look after this weekend. It was the most stress free gathering I have ever been at. It's not that I didn't have moments of stress...it's just that it was WAY less than any I had ever been on before...probably because there were only 4 kids to keep track of. It was fun to see the kids kind of have mini transformations over the weekend.

Saturday night was Crazy Dress night at the gathering and in preparation for the dance that was about to go down...Aubrey and I pulled out a bag of freak show attire and got the kids, and ourselves ready to impress with our craziness.

It was at this point of the weekend that I realized I really am quite the freak show. With Danielle and Laura to encourage and support me in my freak showness, I think there were moments when it just all came out...crazy...but Danielle said something to me that night that made me realize why it's so good to have friends like that...she said something about making sense when we were together. Like most people look at us like we're weird (probably because we are) but when we're together, it just makes more sense...because we're weird together. It makes me happy to have friends that you can just let the Freak Show out with. It's good stuff people...you should try it.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Hello High Speed Internet!

Well I just want everyone to know that I am no longer a prisoner to dial up internet...I have had to use dial up, really slow dial up, since I moved away from North Carolina. Today the cable man came and hooked up the high speed internet service. Very exciting! : )

This weekend I am taking my jr. high youth to STL for a gathering. It should be fun!!!

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Jealousy

I'm not usually the type of person to be jealous...really jealous. I like me...I like my life...I don't want to really to be other people or have their stuff. But this morning I am jealous of someone I hardly know...for a very stupid reason. It's an evil thing isn't it. It makes me dislike this person even though I don't know them. It makes me a worse version of myself. The scariest thing about jealousy is that sometimes you can't even see it...for me it's all internal. I could keep it inside me and hide it. Fortunately I see the immaturity and stupidness of this and am going to do my best to let it go and be happy with my life, because I am...it's just right now there is small place where the the grass is greener in someone else's yard...not the whole yard...just a patch.

On a different note. Laura and Aaron moved in with me yesterday. I'm so happy about it. I love them. I love how they make me laugh and remind me that life is to be enjoyed. And there's nothing like going to the grocery store and cooking with these two. The first thing laura did when she got to my house was rearrange the kitchen. These people have a passion for food and food preparation! So now my kitchen actually makes sense and I have more than just old cool whip and beer in my refrigerator! They're wonderful people and I hope all of you can have friends like Laura and Aaron in your life!

Monday, January 23, 2006

The Learning Channel...

Wow...usually I tune into this channel to watch things such as, What not to wear. As I was flipping through my gazillion channels last night, I was intrigued by a commericial that popped up on TLC advertising their upcoming programs. The one that caught my attention was, "The Story of the 627 pound woman" Ok so I admit I was sucked in. I sat on the couch for an hour watching the story of this very large woman and her gastric bypass surgery. She was still very large afterwards but she lost a ton of weight. It was crazy...If that wasn't bizarre enough after that came the story of the half ton man. That's right ladies and gentlemen. This man weighed 1000 pounds. Let's just say these shows were enough to make me stay away from Mc. Donalds for a while. wow. I mean what would it be like to weigh 1000 pounds. So at this point of the evening I had spent two hours watching shows about insanely obese individuals, but it was the next special that was really interesting. It was about this weird pregnancy. One woman had become pregnant and gone to the hospital with severe, what she thought were, labor pains. They said she couldn't deliver normally so they'd have to do surgery...but she heard a woman next to her in the hospital screaming in childbirth pains and saw her die so she just got up and left...a little later the pains went away. GEt this...46 years later she starts having pains again...goes back to the hospital...turns out that the baby died inside of her and her body made a protective calcified layer around it and it had been inside her for all those years. So then they did surgery and took out the calcified baby...WEIRD.

Basically I watched a whole bunch of weirdness on television last night. But it's pretty amazing how our bodies function...that's for sure...thanks to the learning channel I now know that a stomach can become large enough to hold over 3 liters of stuff...and that if a baby were to die inside of me it's possible that my body could produce a calcium protective cover around it so I wouldn't get infection.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

*sigh*

What can I say...everything about last night made me happy.

The Revival of Tae Bo Tuesday (thanks aubrey!)

Big glass of wine

2 Hours of American Idol

Talking to Kim G. on the phone

what a way to end the day!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

What does this mean???

No, I'm not getting ready to go all "catechism" on you. But if anyone out there is in the business of interpretting dreams, I would love it it you could tell me what this means...

As I closed my eyes to sleep last night, I found it hard to actually fall asleep, and then when I finally did, there were a whole lot of messed up things going on in my dreams. Since I can't remember it all I will just recount a small portion of it that I think sums up the entire strangeness of it. At one point in my dream I ended up in some kind of river, not a small shallow river, but a big one, and as I was going through the water I turned into a fish, I mean totally into a fish, and then there was this bigger fish with big teeth that was trying to eat me. I remember it trying to bite me and then I swam under the water (Because until this point we'd both been on the surface which is strange for fish to swim on the surface like that) When I swam under the water everything turned into a cartoon. I was now a cartoon fish and the big fish was still there and I was trying to swim behind it and bit it, even though I was WAY smaller. Well then we chased each other around and finally we came upon this under water ancient world. But the ancient world wasn't cartoon, just the water and us. But then the big fish turned into a person (a cartoon one) and was walking on the ground of the ocean, and then I turned into a cartoon person. And for some reason I knew something was wrong. Then the person and I were on the same side for a moment...and I walked into one of the ancient rooms and I was a real person again, and there was no more water...and some how I was a part of this community that was ready to blow up...and then I had to ride a ten speed bike across mountains to get somewhere to save someone but after that it's all pretty blurry for me any more.

is this weird. is there something wrong with my brain. I mean who turns into cartoon fish in their dreams.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Would the Real Rick Beck Please Stand Up...

Seriously...if I could find this man I would take off my shoe and do some damage. At 8am the phone rang this morning. I could almost anticipate how the conversation would go because this call surely wasn't for me. No one who knows me would call me at 8am.

I pick up the phone. "Hello" I say.

"Would the owner of (insert something here, I would write it but I couldn't understand the man due to the fact that his English was not spectacular) be home."

I say, "Excuse me."

He repeats his question and then says, "Rick Beck. Is he home."

I silently pat myself on the back for having figured out (before ever answering the phone, or looking at the caller id) that it would be for this man who has be the cause of great consternation in my world the past few months. I, very sweetly, tell the man that this is not Rick Beck's phone number, nor does he live here. I have never met the man and don't think I will be meeting him any time in the near future. He seems confused. I'm not sure what's so confusing. I felt like I was very clear in my statements, but he doesn't give up easily. He asks me, "Is this your phone number."

"Uuhhhmm, yeah."

At this he asks me how long I've had the phone number. I tell him for almost 6 months.

"Interesting," he says.

I don't know how interesting it is, but I decide to go with it. He tells me that on December 23rd they had a phone call from Mr. Beck from this phone number. I tell him that no one could have called him from my number because I am the only one who uses it and I didn't call him. Then, being the incredibly intelligent person that I am, ask him,

"When Mr. Beck called you did he tell you this was his number, or do you have a machine that registers the actual numbers that incoming calls are coming from?"

And he tells me that the only numbers they have are the ones that people give them. So there ya have it folks. There is a man out there by the name of Rick Beck who once had my phone number, no longer has it, but continues to call creditors and tell them that my number is his number and I get all the harassing bill collector calls. Great. Just what I needed.

Friday, January 13, 2006

It was inevitable...

My favorite children's book begins, "The time has come, the time is now." If you can name that book I'll give you a gold star. Anyway apparently the time has come for winter here in good old Southern Missouri. Yesterday I was gloating in the fact that it has been so warm. Seriously...since Christmas it's been between 55 and 70 degrees. That seems a little strange for me...even after living in North Carolina for a few years where the weather is more mild than good old STL and certainly warmer than Minnesota! But still 70 degrees in January.

Well last night during our first voter's meeting of 2006 our handy dandy weather radar radio starting going off; telling us that severe weather was on its way to our area. So we start the meeting anyway and wait to hear the radio beep to warn us of anything that was particularly going to hit our area. The funny thing is that for Christmas my mom gave me this key finder that I put on my key ring so that when I can't find it all I have to do is whistle and it beeps to tell me where my keys are (pretty cool if you ask me!) Sometimes though loud noises will set it off, and last night was no exception. Someone made a comment that made everyone laugh (for the purposes of my story here we'll say it was me because then you will all think I am funnier than I am...sneaky of me isn't it) Well the laughter caused my keys to beep which caused everyone to be silent and about 5 people to stand up and run to the weather radio. At this point I start laughing because I know it's just my keys...which set them off again...which really started to through people in a panic. Of course they didn't believe when I said it was my keys going off...they were sure our church was going to get blown off of the top of our hill with some crazy tornado or something.

But to give them some credit there was severe weather all over our area last night. It hailed, and it was LOUD. I looked out my back window and there was about an inch and a half of hail the size of quarters. It made me so happy I had a garage! But today it is cold. It's in the 30s which feels a little more like winter.

and lindsey this is for you....I kind of wish it would snow. I know, I know...I hate snow. But I want it to snow just once enough for me to go sledding. Anyway I guess it's time to say hello to winter.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

In Desperate Need...

I am in DESPERATE need of a pedicure. Seriously, my feet look awful. This is a truth that has escaped me until this point because, well, I don't really pay that much attention to my feet. I'm sitting here at my desk and I'm having a particularly stressful morning. Budget stuff=frustrating. My desk broke=frustrating. Trying to get all my junk in order for 2006=frustrating. Can't find cords for the archaic printer that's in my office=frustrating. So anyway I'm sitting here and I glanced down at my flip-flop covered feet (yeah it's jan. 12th and I'm wearing flip flops because it's 60 degrees...CrAzY!) and was horrified at the state that I have let my feet slip into. I need to find someone to take care of this mess. I guess that might be a little bit of an overshare, but there ya have it.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Probably not worth reading...

I'm not sure I have anything interesting to say today. I'm really just posting becuase it's been 5 days or something. I'm sure my loyal fan base is eagerly anticipating what other clever, wise, though provoking, and thoroughly interesting things I have to say.

I hope you're not disappointed.

I've started a couple posts in the past few days but never finished them because I just didn't think they were that interesting, or well written. My parents came to visit this past weekend, and I am convinced they are the best parents in the entire world. Thanks to them I have a wahser and dryer, things hung on my wall, clothes put away in their proper place, and christmas decorations neatly packed in boxes until next year. So that's a good.

Work is going well. I've been really busy. The new bible study I'm leading got off to a good start with 40 people at the first one. That's exciting for me becuase that's a lot of people to have show up for anything around here! So I'm hoping they all come back next week!

I guess that's about all I have for now. I'm going back to the book pile on my desk and I'm going to fill my mind with the wisdom of others!

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Evangelism Part Deux

Ok...still working out the Bible study for Sunday, which I'm happy to report does have quite a lot of digging into scripture involved.

Anyway as I was looking through the Old Testament and reading through this book by John Bowen on evangelism I was struck at the emphasis on community. Hmmm...the picture we often get of evangelism is from evangelists like Billy Graham or something like "Evangelism Explosion" or "Dialogue Evangelism" and while those personal, tete-a-tete moments are very important in some people's faith developement, I think we often overlook the attraction and evangelistic nature of a welcoming Christian community, where people feel safe to ask those spiritual questions and have room for spiritual developement.

What are we doing in our communities (or congregations) to be that type of community that Moses was asking the people of Israel to be when he said, "So just as the Lord my God has charged me, I now teach you statutes and ordinances for you to observe in the land that you are about to enter and occupy. You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the people, who, when they hear all these statues, will say, 'surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!'" Do people look at us and say, "wow they are a wise and discerning group of people."

Do people feel free to come into our Christian Community and ask the "God" questions that they have without ten people jumping on them and preaching from our soap boxes the right answers to them and telling them how wrong they are to have thought anything else. Do they feel welcomed into the community, like they could belong here.

Just some of my thoughts on the issue today.
I Want To...

Write a book. This feeling has been coming on for a while now. I wish I could say it was because I had an area of expertise that I felt I could write on and contribute to the betterment of society. Unfortunately I don't know enough about anything to write a serious book...so I'm thinking a novel will have to do. Although I don't really have a great story line, or even character to that this desire for writing is springing from. I think it's more of a feeling of something inside of me trying to get out.

It's like when I was in Florence and we went to see Michaelangelo's David. As you walked down the hallway to this magnificent statue, there were other pieces of work, presumably unfinished statues that in themselves were awe-inspiring works of art. The amazing thing about these statues is that it really looked like the people were trying to escape from the stone. Those half-done statues kind of show my feelings.

But where do you start when you're writing a book. I can't even puncuate properly! I'm a grammatical nightmare. And where on earth am I going to find time to write a book, and if I did would it just be another book that sits on the the shelves of Barnes and Noble that everyone looks over, if I was lucky enough for it even to get to that point. I think I've been reading too much Jane Austen. I have a high regard for her writing style and the way she develops characters, and maybe I'm just wanting to be like her.

On another note, my TV is broken. Not that I've watched in since the World Series anyway, but American Idol starts soon, and I'm a complete AI junkie! ah well, maybe without the TV I'll have more time to start writing that book.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Evangelism...

My brain is full, too full. My stomach is starting to tie itself in knots, and I feel like I could cry. I am starting a new "bible" study on Sunday morning. I use the quotation marks on "bible" because I'm not sure how much of the Bible we will be getting in to...and that's something that drives me nuts too (if I'm going to lead Bible Study, I want to be in scripture ya know.) Usually I am so directed in what I'm going to teach, lead, or facilitate when it comes to Bible study...and I love doing it. I'm always comfortable in front of a group of people talking about something I'm passionate about and believe. And here I am as the new Director of Christian Outreach of a congregation preparing to teach her first official series of studies on Outreach and Evangelism and I feel like I'm grasping at straws to find something worth saying.

In light of some recent events in my life, and due to some self "searching" I have been doing brought on by the books I am reading preparing for this class, I feel like I don't even have a clue what I'm talking about. I went to school for this right? I'm supposed to be a professional...people are looking to me as an authority on this subject (a thought that makes me want to smile and laugh, and run and hide at the same time)

Here's what I know. On Sunday morning people will walk into my "classroom" and they will expect me to give them a system, or teach them a cookie cutter method that will help them share the gospel with the non-christian people they know to the end that they don't feel like idiots and their friends believe in Jesus and are saved. And instead I will tell them that there is no such method, and there is no system. I can't give them "7 things that highly effective evangelizers do" Because I don't believe that. And I feel like the church (not just the church I work at, but churches in general) have fallen pray to the "diet pill" society that we live in and are looking for a quick fix to our little problem with declining church membership...becuase that seems to be what people in the church are worried about...declining membership. I'm not trying to overgeneralize here...I know there are people out there who are genuinely concerned with the souls of the people in their lives, and those they don't know. I know there are people who are desperately seeking to live lives of Christian witness.

I just feel like there is a big moutain ahead of me...and something that usually excites me has me all confused, and is causing an internal struggle that I haven't struggled with in a while. So i guess on one side of things my brain and heart are at least focusing back on the ideas of evangelism and outreach...not subjects that were stimulated for me in previous work...so I will take that as the blessing in this whole situation, and pray that God uses me in some way shape or form through this study.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Happy New Year Miss Crabby Pants...

Ack...today I am crabby. I am openly admitting it to my blogging world. I think I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed or something. I can't quite figure out what my problem is. I am frustrated with myself for always wanting to be a people pleaser...but not always liking what I have to do to please them. I'm not sure if this makes much sense, but it always seems to me that at my busiest points of the church year, someone comes up to me with a great idea that they've had. Their ideas usually are legitimately good. The only problem with it is that they very rarely want to actually do the work to make their great idea happen, and they expect me to carry out that portion of the equation. Me, being the people pleaser, trys to find every way to do that, but one person can only do so much and I always end up frustrated with them for putting stuff onto me that's just getting in the way of things I am trying to accomplish. so today that's part of my frustration.

The other thing is people saying things that aren't 100 percent truthful trying to make themselves look better. It drives me nuts....

And then there's my television. I broke down and bought a Play Station 2. I really, really, REALLY wanted to get the Dance Dance Revolution game, because I'm a big old nerd like that, and I finally did it. Only last night as I was trying to hook it up to my television I couldn't quite figure it out...and between my cable box, vcr, dvd play, and PS2 there are so many wires coming and going that I can't figure it out.

Ugh...Frustration. I hate being crabby...and I want my tv to work. ah well...tomorrow is another day.