Ten Things I Learned in 2006 MEME

1. If you are at a public or family event with a small child and you have an endless supply of extra clothing that will not fit me when you hand your child to me it will pee or poop on me much to your relief because "better me than you" and "oh he was constipated yesterday" both can be cured by Aunt Allie.

2. A small faint pink plus is enough to throw your entire existance into a whirl but if you get your hopes up something horrible will happen so practice your patient game face.

3. I used to believe that your friends bailed you out of jail but your good friends would be the ones sitting beside you saying "well I didn't see that coming" or "it sounded like a great idea". Now I know without a doubt that your friends are the people who know you enough to use you as a reference on a job application and your good friends are the ones who know what kind of ice cream to bring when you pretend like you don't want to cry. Good friends know you just need to cry it out. Good friends let you hang up on them. Good friends are just there.

4. Love is not patient, love is not kind. The bible said it but what it meant to say is "love is pretending to be patient when him completing one more level makes you want to stab yourself in the eye with a stilleto heel and love is kind even when you are thinking about the top 10 ways to kill former friends using the objects in the room which appear harmless". Love is knowing you are wrong when you think you are right. Love is still wanting to kiss morning breath and hug the I-just-raked-smell. Love is the only condition in which the happiness of another is essential for your own. Love is an action & it is a choice.

5. People love people who plan things. People love parties that are well thought out. People love trips with agendas. People love having someone to call when they don't know what course to take. People love dependable. They do not however love any of those things if they aren't part of the plan, can't keep up with the plan or have another plan in mind. So if you're planning something. Plan on staying out of the way.

6. Elope. I know what you're thinking..."but my friends and family will be so DISAPPOINTED". Listen to me... ELOPE! You can't make everyone happy. So make the top 1% happy. For instance yourself and your husband, those people should be happy. Take 10 people go to Vegas get married by Elvis or Marilyn Monroe. Take a vacation. Spend the money on a new house. Just do it. Elope.

7. It is possible to change your entire life in one year. You can go from Pagan to Christian. You can change job positions at work. You can get married. You can get pregnant. You can miscarry. You can lose people you were close to. You can reconnect with the people you've lost. You can find your financial stability. You can lose your grip. You can know someone. You can forget someone. You can find God. You can lose your agenda. You are an incredible person... because God made you in a way that can transform greatly in a short amount of time.

8. Being bored is a choice. I used to scream down the hallway at my grandparents ranch in the summer "grandma I'm bored". She'd yell back "boredom is a choice". I'd say "there is nothing to do". She'd list the chores that could be done. I'd yell "that's no FUN". She'd say "fun is a matter of opinion." I get it now Grandma I really do. Fun is that moment you know the dishes are done, the laundry is up to date, the bills are paid and you can now play air guitar standing on the couch next to a friend.

9. Being married is the 2nd best thing on the planet. (The 1st of course being eternal salvation which rocks!) Having someone to talk to, someone to laugh at, someone to make laugh, someone to cry with, someone to hold, someone who loves your bed head, someone who takes out the trash, someone who loses the remote, someone who steals the covers, someone who lets you steal the good pillows, someone willing to go to the store twice in the same day to keep you from panicing while you're planning an event, someone who wants to be the parent to your children, someone who understands why you're leaving early, someone who never lets you win but always lets you play, someone who teases you, someone who won't make lists but still has them, someone who you will always love. BEST!THING!EVER!!

10. It's just another year. 2006, 2007, 3014 it will just be another year. Another day at work, a weekend with friends, a few trips to someplace to do something with someone and the pictures to show the co-workers and a couple million little things in the middle. It's just another year... and we're ever so thankful we made it through it.

FF

So it's time for Frankly Friday which is the point in the week where I acknowledge a great thing and a crappy thing from the week before as well as something I learned this week. It's a good way to keep the work week in perspective before moving on to the fun filled weekend. I was a slacker last week and I didn't post one. You people need to keep me on my toes.

Friday Fab- This week I was bless need with a lot of time with my neice and nephew. I'm watching my nephew (otherwise known as the cutest baby ever) again tonight. Overnight. It should be a blast. He's so stinking cute. He's starting to crawl. It's adorable.

Friday Flop- Work this week was a pain in the neck. Especially Tuesday when I had to drive to at training in the rain. That was totally not worth it.

Friday Fact-"An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. " I found a site this week which gives you random facts. That was one of them. I've been amusing myself all week with things like "45.2% of people pee in the shower. " and "In Holland, you can be fined for not using a shopping basket at a grocery store! "

FF

So it's time for Frankly Friday which is the point in the week where I acknowledge a great thing and a crappy thing from the week before as well as something I learned this week. It's a good way to keep the work week in perspective before moving on to the fun filled weekend. I was a slacker last week and I didn't post one. You people need to keep me on my toes.

Friday Fab- I think the fab thing for this week would be the Katina's concert that the Hubby and I went to with J and some friends from work on Monday night. For the Hubby I'm sure his fab was the next night when he went to the Days of Reckoning Tour with his brother but I really enjoyed the Christmas songs and getting to hang out with one of my girlfriends.

Friday Flop- Last night was a total flop. My BFF was supposed to drop off a bunch of baby furniture and she never showed up and she didn't return my calls and it was much drama in many directions. The part that was a flop though was the part where I worried about her all night long. I think she's not in the best relationship and when she didn't show up I spent the night contemplating showing up on her steps.

Friday Fact- 239 degrees is a far cry different than 240 degrees when you are making pinoche Christmas candy. That one degree will keep your candy from getting hard. It was bruttly unedible and I will be throwing it away tonight and trying again. Oh well. No harm...no foul.

FF

So it's time for Frankly Friday which is the point in the week where I acknowledge a great thing and a crappy thing from the week before as well as something I learned this week. It's a good way to keep the work week in perspective before moving on to the fun filled weekend.

Friday Fab- I'd have to say that there was one day this week that will stand out for a long time as proof Jon is awesome, that day which involved a lot of dish doing, desk assembly and assorted laundry was fabulous...not just because I didn't have to do it but also because he did it out of love.

Friday Flop- What's up with the header of this blog? I dunno how to fix it. It breaks daily. And why is my right side margin so big. Sigh. Flop. Definitely a flop.

Friday Fact- Sometimes things you expect to be awful are awesome and sometimes things you expect to be fabulous are flops.

FF

So it's time for Frankly Friday which is the point in the week where I acknowledge a great thing and a crappy thing from the week before as well as something I learned this week. It's a good way to keep the work week in perspective before moving on to the fun filled weekend.

Frankly Friday Fab- This week I got to see a few people I haven't seen in awhile. Like my father and one of my closest girlfriends. Both meetings were awesome and I'm still raving about them today.

Frankly Friday Flop- Today is my Employee Appreciation Dinner at work. An event that I run, which I am never recognised at, and which eats up a ton of my time and energy so that other people can be rewarded for just showing up. Sigh.

Frankly Friday Fact- Christmas makes me horny. I think it's all the happy thoughts and romantic carols. I don't know.

FF

So it's time for Frankly Friday which is the point in the week where I acknowledge a great thing and a crappy thing from the week before as well as something I learned this week. It's a good way to keep the work week in perspective before moving on to the fun filled weekend.

Frankly Friday Fab- My friend JMH came by to visit last night while I was watching my nephew. Although we haven't hung out in awhile we immediately fell right back to the way things used to be. We laughed, we mourned, and we giggled. I love being able to tell a story and have someone cover their face with glee or remembering something from "back in the day" and having someone do the "no no no" handwaive because they want to cut in with another detail you forgot. Mainly, I love knowing that JMH is back. I missed her.

Frankly Friday Flop- So about two weeks ago my MAC mascara went missing. It was missing for six long makeupless days. Six. Then I found the cat playing with it on the floor in the kitchen. A floor I had just mopped by the way so she brought it there from somewhere else. Well, it's been three days since I lost it again. Sigh. I so miss having on makeup. But we're broke so I'll have to be half done for awhile.

Frankly Friday Fact- Some people will never stop judging you. That doesn' t mean that you can't still love them. It doesn't mean that trusting them was a bad choice. It does mean that occassionally you are going to want to hit them with your car. Don't do that. It's a felony.

How about you do you have a Fab, Flop or Fact?

F.F.

So it's time for Frankly Friday which is the point in the week where I acknowledge a great thing and a crappy thing from the week before as well as something I learned this week. It's a good way to keep the work week in perspective before moving on to the fun filled weekend.

Frankly Friday Fab- Jon made chocolate chip cookies for me last night. He's one of those sweet guys who will do something for you if he knows you really want it. Like yesterday when he picked up my car from work, took it to be washed, and then brought it back clean and shiny and parked it in the parking lot. Or when he walked over a mile to the store last night to get baking soda, not baking powder (which I bought on accident) and then he came home to make me yummy cookies. He even made me 6 cookies with no chocolate chips which are my favorite.

Frankly Friday Flop- Well I already mentioned the baking soda verses powder thing so I can't use that one. How about the fact that I cut off all my hair and dyed it a color that doesn't happen in nature? No. Ok. Well then my flop would most definitely have to be Sunday when I had a cold and Jon and I both slept through the alarm clock and missed our Spiritual Formations class at church and Sunday Services. Luckily we can listen to the sermon online. But nothing says I'm a religious weirdo more than listening to a sermon on your PC at work.

Frankly Friday Fact- This week I'm hiring a book keeper at work. The thing I learned is something I'd like to share with the rest of the world... HR managers aren't as dumb as you think... I don't believe you're time at McD's counts as inventory control experience, or your time spent on Ebay counts as sales management, your time at Mervyn's on a cash register is not accounting and your brother in law is never a good reference. And yes... I got resumes from all of those types of people.

How about you do you have a Fab, Flop or Fact?

Love = Laughter

Love is laughter and good food at our house. Usually this is accomplished by a Board Game night. Part of being a Newlywed is being really excited when people come over for dinner. Our way of affording this time of fellowship and laughter is by charging $5.00 for an all you can eat dinner with snacks and dessert and then providing great games like Cranium (pictured here) for our friends to enjoy laughing, humming, dancing, drawing, sculpting and flexing their smart muscles for.




















This blog is part of Love Thursday by Karen over at Chookooloonks

Instant Comfort

Mom to the Screaming Masses always has great creative writing ideas over at her blog. Today's is a list of things that give you instant comfort.

Here is my comforting list-
1. Knowing God's grace is more forgiving than my scale or my friends2. My Newlywed Hubby's smile in the morning complete with bed head and sheet lines on his cheeks from the pillows3. Hugs from my daddy (something a girl doesn't outgrow)4. Baby giggles, excited kicking and big eyed wonder5. Cool autumn night breezes over my fluffy down comforter and squishy pillows6. Musicals that you can sing all the words to7. The hallmark channel when no one else is home8. Pepsi with lots of ice9. Old pictures that make you smile like you were there even if you weren't 10. Life stories and child hood memories11. Cream tuna on toast (recipe available on my blog tomorrow)12. Hot showers with no time limit13. Positive bank account balances14. Dinner with friends15. The smell of a clean house

25 cents about Friends

Amazingly enough my heart has learned to bounce. Fragile and delicate emotions have replaced themselves with a quarter machine novelty. Like a little red rubber ball I had when I was little, how I remember how it bounced. I remember vividly throwing that ball as hard as we could and watching it bounce from harsh angles and hard services until it ran out of momentum and rolled unharmed under the refrigerator or behind a bookshelf. As a child I was bewildered by that ball, how it took what force I gave it and became something so much more entertaining than a seamless ball of rubber. I never once acknowledged the damage that kind of reckless abandon leaves behind. Broken. That's what little red balls leave behind. It never even notices. Crash. The lamp is cracked. Smack. Someone got a black eye. Bang. Another stack falls down onto the fall. Wosh. Water spills on to the carpet. And then we rushed off to the ball, to find it, hoping it wasn't lost and completely ignoring the scene it created. It never stopped, it couldn't hear, it couldn't see, it didn't care... it just bounced when it was forced to. So now I'm an adult, the allure is gone and I am scared. I see my heart rebound after harsh words or hard questions and I am terrified. I am happier without hearing you, I am happier without seeing or feeling you. Happy. And yet so dangerously unaware of what you need before I am lost, slipping out of sight...rolling out of your mind.

Love God With All Your Mind

The Monte Vista Chapel's Women's Book Club started this week. We'll be meeting once a month (each time at a different members house) and reading books about philosophy, religion, apologetics, relativism etc. The first book we'll be reading is J.P. Moreland's "Love God With All Your Mind".
The following is a review of the book from Amazon:
The mind plays an important role in Christianity. Unfortunately, many of us leave our minds behind when it comes to our faith.
In Love Your God with All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland presents a logical case for the role of the mind in spiritual transformation. He challenges us to develop a Christian mind and to use our intellect to further God's kingdom through evangelism, apologetics, worship, and vocation.
If you are interested in joining the book club you can sign up on Monte Vista Chapels website or by letting myself or Nicole know. Our next meeting will be on November 7th. We;ve got about 6 group members already but I think that all women could gain from having an educated response to apologetic arguments. If anyone has any questions just let me know... I'm just getting the word out.