My weekend in Iowa (potpourri style)

Oh man, Iowa.

Somewhere in the middle of a field I called Sarah and asked her if she'd go on the starbucks webpage and find a location for "rural Iowa." Had she been available it would've probably turned up negative. Probably. I tried to take a detour to Waterloo - I hear they have a mall there. I followed the signs but found out it would've been several hours out of the way, so I quickly turned around. I even explored the sights of downtown Story City. No luck, a downtown without a starbucks? and a 25 mph limit?? Unbelievable.

I ended up getting a coffee at McDonalds in Story City...turns out that McDonalds doesn't make good coffee.

Other stuff that happened? It rained pretty much the whole time. Ally, Amber, and Alicia ran the half marathon in the rain while Bobbi, Christine and I, and Val (Ally's mom) hung out and drank good coffee and waited for them to run by to hand them banana-halves.

We went home, changed into dry clothes (the girls ran fantastically by the way, woohoo!), and went to the house where Ally nannies to hang out with Addison and Ivee. Ivee painted Amber's fingernails and she had Christine do a lightbright and had me color in a princess. They had a yippy little dog, Oreo, that bit all of us. Oreo had a polo shirt.

Then we went home and ate food for the rest of the night. We watched Elizabethtown, and played Apples to Apples.

The adjective was feminine, the turn was mine. Christine says to me: "you won't pick mine...it's too obvious." I picked up the cards and saw that one of the nouns was "women." And laughter ensued. There were other funny ones too, but I'm going to need reminding.

I told them that I went to Memphis and walked, like the song.

"You love that song" - Christine
"me too!" - me
"....I know" - Christine

And we laughed.

I told Bobbi, matter of factly, that I like things that are funny. She replied, "I like things that are sad..."

Christine, Bobbi and I shortcutted through some grass at one point. Amber recalled signs from Colorado that said "shortcutting causes erosion." She reminded Christine of this fact. The grass had just been cut so Christine just replies "you know what else happens besides erosion?" Then she showed us her foot with grass all over it. And we laughed.



We'd gotten out a phone book to find a Starbucks in Des Moines for the ride home. Ally was trying to convince me to give it up and go to a local coffee shop. I was pretty stubborn, but decided that since I was in Des Moines I should get coffee that I couldn't get back home. A few hours later we found ourselves at Caribou Coffee.

Aannd pictures:

Playing Headbanz:


Bobbi holding Oreo:


Ally, Amber, Oreo, and I:


After church this morning (they gave out free panera!!)


Amber holding Caribou (notice the nails done by a very talented four year old):

Four things

1) I went to General Mills today for a meeting. Seriously, it's like Willy Wonka's Candy Factory in there! After the meeting we went to the store, and I got 3 boxes of Team Cheerios. (3 bags of Chex Mix too, the guy working there implored me to try the Bold flavor - I'm looking forward to snacking on the road tonight).

2) It should be noted that the moments when I'm alone in my car, singing along with Kasey Chambers, are maybe the sole moments when I feel like I can really sing. I swear I'm hitting the same notes. When she belts out the longer notes, I do it with, and man, you just can't tell our voices apart (I swear). So I've been listening to her family's band, Dead Ringer Band, a lot lately and there is this song called "Why." I've listened to it three times today. Melodically, it's perfect. Bring on the pluckin', you know?? You gettin' my jive?

3) Kasey Chambers has the voice of my inner dialogue. This is a truth that you cannot argue. A little high, a little whiney, a little honky tonk, a little angry...you catchin' what I'm throwin?

5) I was told to leave work at 3...and if I don't go voluntarily I will be forced out. Seems my awesome coworkers insist that I get to Iowa earlier than 10:00, so yeah!! T-minus 116 minutes til I'm on that road, blaring the Kasey Chambers. Just blaring it. This is all I've thought about all morning. My heart is in Iowa.

Said moments ago...

"Everytime I hear a can open, I think about biting into a human skull."
- Jessica Snively

The last four days of Ozzie (long)

Utmost... has been really good lately. Prefacing is for real writers, so I'm going to skip that part and get to the spiritual meat right away!

Today's:

"Be instant in season, out of season." - 2 Timothy 4:2

Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant "out of season." The season does not refer to time, but to us - 'Be instant in season, out of season," whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.

One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say - "Now I will always be like this for God." No, you will not, God will take care you are not. Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.

Yesterday's:

"Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you." - Luke 10:20

As Christian workers, worldliness is not our snare, sin is not our snare, but spiritual wantoning is, viz.: taking the pattern and print of the religious age we live in, making eyes at spiritual success. Never court anything other than the approval of God, go "without the camp, bearing His reproach." Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have the commercial view - so many souls saved and sanctified, thank God, now it is all right. Our work begins where God's grace has laid the foundation; we are not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God's sovereign grace; our work as His disciples is to disciple lives until they are wholly yielded to God. One life wholly devoted to God is of more value to God than one hundred lives simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and that will be God's witness to us as workers. God brings us to a standard of life by His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that standard in others.

Unless the worker lives a life hidden with Christ in God, he is apt to become an irritating dictator instead of an indwelling disciple. Many of us are dictators, we dictate to people and to meetings. Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced it with an "IF," never with an emphatic assertion - "You must." Discipleship carries an option with it.

Sunday's:
"Labourers together with God." - 1 Corinthians 3:9

Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on Him. A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration on God, and this will mean that all the other margins of life, mental, moral and spiritual, are free with the freedom of a child, a worshipping child, not a wayward child. A worker without this solemn dominant note of concentration on God is apt to get his work on his neck; there is no margin of body, mind or spirit free, consequently he becomes spent out and crushed. There is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that God's blessing cannot rest. But the other side is just as true - when once the concentration is on God, all the margins of life are free and under the dominance of God alone. There is no responsibility on you for the work; the only responsibility you have is to keep in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your co-operation with Him. The freedom after sanctification is the freedom of a child, the things that used to keep the life pinned down are gone. But be careful to remember that you are freed for one thing only - to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.

We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."


Saturday's:
"We all with open face beholding . . . the glory of the Lord." - 2 Corinthians 3:18

A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we never know we are standing alone. "All men forsook me . . notwithstanding the Lord stood with me" (2 Tim. 4:16-17). We must build our faith, not on the fading light, but on the light that never fails. When "big" men go we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, the one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves.

Allow nothing to keep you from looking God sternly in the face about yourself and about your doctrine, and every time you preach see that you look God in the face about things first, then the glory will remain all through. A Christian worker is one who perpetually looks in the face of God and then goes forth to talk to people. The characteristic of the ministry of Christ is that of unconscious glory that abides. "Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him."

We are never called on to parade our doubts or to express the hidden ecstasies of our life with God. The secret of the worker's life is that he keeps in tune with God all the time.

Kasey Chambers, New Orleans, and my "Employee Spotlight" Profile

I had to write out a profile for the new employee spotlight wall in the breakroom a while back. Favorite color, favorite quote, favorite movie, favorite song, someone you look up to, etc.

It's causing a miniature fuss!

On Friday one of the senior employees (not the old kind of senior, but the important kind of senior) in my office came up to my cube and introduced himself because I'd written about my foot going through the floor in New Orleans and he'd volunteered in New Orleans in January and wanted to talk about that with me. It was a really cool and uplifting conversation to have!

Then today I get this email from this guy Matt (the one who used to go to the Rock a few years ago). He emailed me because my favorite song is a Kasey Chambers song, and he loves Kasey Chambers so he told me he'd seen her live a few times and he not only had all three of her albums (as I do) but he also has this live album, and an album from Dead Ringer Band (the band she has with her brother and her dad).

Then he emailed to say that those albums were actually on our S: (share) drive under his folder...

So now because of my employee spotlight profile in the breakroom I know another ACNielsener who gutted out houses in New Orleans and I have 32 new (mostly) Kasey Chambers songs!

I'm listening to the live album right now, she just said something about going to Melbourne the next night. She has an Australian accent....

Jodi wants to see more updates?? How's this one for you! After racking my brain for nearly a full minute, I came up with a childhood memory that you might mildly enjoy:


In first grade I was given the task of "wastebasket carrier" during someone's birthday celebration. I carried the wastebasket around so that the people in the classroom could throw their candy wrappers and paper plates into it.

I was holding the wastebasket in front of me, probably not paying any attention to where I was going and walked right into Ms. Hall's behind. She fell, butt-first, into the wastebasket. I have a tendency of blocking out memories such as these, but Ms. Hall reminded my parents and I of this at a barbecue years later.



I'm sorry...I guess my life just got way too boring for the blogosphere.

easy as store bought pie

It's no secret that ever since I came home from Plainfield I have made homemade popcorn just about as often as kittens nap.

Just now I was again making popcorn but decided tonight that I should sprinkle not only salt on it, but also two little scoops of sugar.

Kettle Corn! Kettle Corn!!

You too can make your very own kettle corn, it's a snap!

What is this?

I just opened up a wrapper of Giant Smarties, and noticed an alarming amount of them were purple. Of the 18 sugar patties, 10 of them are purple! 10 of them! The last 6 are all purples - that's right - 6 purples in a row. This is not a mistake, and it's not a coincidence, okay? The Smarties people are laughing it up at this moment thinking about who is gonna get their prank purple wrapper of giant smarties. Look no further, Smarties people, that person is me.

Also, happy 22nd birthday to Jenna!!

Chili Dog Queen of the Universe.

couple things

last friday was Saved by the Bell: The College Years. It was the one where Kelly fell in love with her professor. They kissed and then it was to be continued. It will not continue until this friday, but it might continue at 7am, and I don't watch until 7:30 - it doesn't matter though. I saw the wedding, she marries Zack in the end.

This morning was the episode where Jessie's new step-brother Eric comes and lives with them and everybody hates him and they bribe Lisa to date him so they can get a picture of him driving Mr. Belding's car. Lisa's driving though, and the flash blinds her, so she crashes it. The episode I saw was the continued version of that episode - they have a lottery to raise the 600 dollars they need. Eric finds out it was a rigged lottery...then they tear apart Belding's car in shop class...Screech gets trapped in a pile of tires, and eventually Eric pulls through and fixes the whole car up.

Last night Alyssa and I were driving Tian home, and I go "Tian, why were you so bored yesterday" and his reply was to do an impression of me and then Alyssa. It was spot on! Please click on his link to your left, and you will see his own post about it.

Dick Enrico and Walk the Line

Celebrity Sighting Alert! Wee-ooh, wee-ooh! Today I was at Lake Calhoun, approaching the playground on the east side of the lake when I saw a familiar face, could it be the moustached man from the tv? I do think so! It all happened so fast, but I turned around to again see that thick black hair that was covered by a hat...a hat that said "2nd Wind." Turns out even celebrities walk around lakes.





On a different note...last night I finally saw Walk the Line. Okay, okay, I know, but I really liked it! At the very beginning of the movie, after his brother Jack (the "good one") dies, his dad said that God took the wrong son. Immediately I thought "nuh uh! He's Johnny Cash!"

The thing that really stood out to me about the movie was how excruciatingly horribly it portrayed Mr. Cash. When people think about Johnny Cash, they normally think "prison ministry," "moving songs," etc. Am I wrong? That's at least what I was thinking going into this movie. Music changes people, and Johnny Cash has been a prime example of that! What I loved about the movie was how it highlighted all of his weaknesses, all his mistakes. It was like, one thing after the other, "Why are you kissing groupies, Johnny Cash?? Why are you cheating on your wife? Why are you hanging up pictures of June Carter in your house?? Why do you keep taking those pills???"

God doesn't make mistakes. God chooses to use broken, sinful, weak people to do his work. There's a scene in the movie where he wakes up, clean, and June tells him that God gives second chances, and this is his. The next scene has them going back to church (First Baptist Church, by the way! That was our New Orleans church!) Thankfully, God actually gives people more than just one second chance and He wants to give the broken, rotten people of this world clean slates to do His work!

On a related note, Happy Easter.

Yesterday's and Today's episodes of Saved by the Bell

Every morning at 7:30, Saved by the Bell plays on TBS. I catch a bit of it pretty much every day. I thought it would be good to fill you guys in on what episodes were playing.

Yesterday was the episode where they have to figure out their heritage. Jesse Spano finds out that her ancestors were slave drivers. Zack finds out one of his great grandfathers was the chief of an American Indian tribe. Zack has to do well on his presentation or he can't run in the track meet (where he is the star in the mile). Then his mentor dies and Zack is forever changed (until the next episode).

Today's episode was the one where Violet (Screech's girlfriend) is forbidden from seeing Screech anymore. The glee club puts on a show (where Violet is the star) but she runs off to the bathroom to cry. They get her on stage, she chokes because of how upset she is - Screech pops on stage and gives her just the strength she needs to finish her solo.

Okay, I gotta go to work.

Reunion!

I'm going to Des Moines in 17 days to see these three girls! I'm so excited!! Ally and Amber are going to run the half marathon while Christine and I cheer them on from the sidelines, as we sip coffee (unless C2 changes her mind about running). I'm so excited!! I love them! I love seeing them! I love driving to Iowa!!! I love coffee with Christine!

PS - not to jinx it, but I think Christine is coming to visit MINNEAPOLIS this summer some time. Be prepared, Minneapolis, just be prepared! We'll probably watch movies, go to starbucks, laugh, eat pizza, dance during credits, hit up Sebastian Joe's, and maybe even go to The Rock...

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I get to see Ally and Amber and Christine in 17 days!!!

Dearest Jenna,
Come to Iowa. Please.

Love,
Christine

Taken Yesterday

My mom and my nephew.

First thing I did at work today

I unscrewed the lid of my nalgene, not realizing how full it was, I tilted it toward my mouth, and poured it all over my shirt and jeans.

What was the first thing you did today?

Giant Smarties?

So many of you know that smarties are my favorite candy:

But did you know that there is also such a thing as Giant Smarties?

I discovered this today. I also discovered that there is such a thing as baby chick-o-sticks. The more you know....

Just a few things

I had a fantastic weekend.

Friday we ate at Applebees. Most memorable moment: Will drinking mountain dew from a four foot straw.

Saturday Sarah and I went on a very enjoyable jaunt around calhoun and talked about goood things.

After sitting and reading for awhile, I met Sara D for coffee!! I love Sara, it was very good to see her and talk to her for a long time. I hope to do so often from now on! Then I talked to my mom and dad on the phone for a bit, and then I found a message from Jessie L. who I hope to get together with soon!! I can't even remember the last time I saw her!

Then I went out for chinese food with Emily, Anna Leisa, and Sarah. It was good to just sit back and laugh with each other. The four of us went from there to Starbucks (my third coffee shop of the day!) and we sat around a table and read a bit from Colossians. I really love the passion these women have for the word. They just willfully chose to spend their Saturday evening pouring into the bible. Awesome!!

The next day we had small group which was good - we listened to a seminar from Faithwalkers, and ate chicken.

Then I went home and watched The Firm. Three times in the last month I've seen two thirds of it...Sunday I finally watched the whole thing.

Yesterday, Adam's New Orleans blog was posted! Check it out here to get his day by day synopsis of the trip.



Last night I went to Caffe Latte with the Monday night women. We met and ate food and talked. Jodi and Maren posted pictures from last night. Please click those links!

My dear friend from Ohio, Emily, whom I met at LT this summer has finally started a blog!


That's all I got!

Love,
Christine