Babysitting story

I'm babysitting tonight. Before bed each of the kids was having a snack. Anna, who is 3, was having yogurt. And I was feeding Isaac, who's almost 1, some rice cereal and fruit. So, Anna was talking, talking, talking, but I was focused on feeding Isaac, so I was only half listening to her. All of a sudden I hear her say, "I LOVE barcodes." So I look over and she is looking at the barcode to her yogurt. I repeat her sentence back to her just to make sure I heard her right, "You love barcodes." (probably with a little bit of a question in my voice). And she says, "Yes, Teresa. Barcodes are my favorite things!" Alrighty then! :)

A Week's Worth of Updates

I have been in an extremely bad mood for the better part of a week (with residual effects going back a couple of weeks). I decided to wait to blog until I was in a better mood so that you would not have to be exposed to my bad mood even through veiled statements. All of that to say, I think I am on the mend! Sometimes I really hate being a girl and having to suffer through emotional stuff! You'd think that after almost 30 years, I'd have come up with a quick solution and could fix it every time. Oh, if it were only that simple!

I have continued to exercise, although not as frequently as I had the first week. I get around to it about 3 or 4 days a week, which I don't think is too bad. Here is what I have learned though. Through the years people have given me multiple reasons to exercise. I would just like to say, they were all wrong! :) Here are the things I used to hear from people and the reasons after a month that I think they are wrong:

1. Exercise will help you sleep better. Everyone knows my trouble sleeping, but let me tell you, exercise has not helped me sleep better. Lucky for all of you that it hasn't, as of yet, made me sleep worse!

2. Exercise will help you lose weight. Okay, I know this one is true, but I honestly have felt like I've gained some flab in the last month. But, I won't argue that if I keep it up, it will eventually go away.

3. Exercise will help you stay healthier. Hmmm...then why am I battling ANOTHER cold after only being well for about a month????

4. Exercise will help you feel better about yourself and give you more energy. Nope. I'm pretty sure that I hear my bones creak even more than I used to. And I. AM. ALWAYS. SORE.

So, there's my list :) And I know the first thing that is going to come out of all your mouths "Give it more time." "It will get better." "I'm so proud of you." Thank you for those words of encouragement. This is not me saying I'm quitting. I do actually like the exercise tape more than I thought I would and I have gotten to rollerblade a couple times in the last week. I just wanted you guys to know how things were going!

Yesterday, I was able to eat 2 of my 3 meals outside! I was very excited. I was at another training for work and we went out for Jill's birthday as a team. We went to Jalepeno's and were able to sit on their patio. It was a little windy, but I managed to not spill anything on myself! Then, I went to the fam's house for steak, potato and carrot packets, and grilled pineapple. Yummy! Then we played Hand and Foot, a very fun card game that they taught me about a month ago. And then we opened Dad's birthday present--the Germany version of Ticket to Ride. It was great fun. Dad said I could borrow it sometimes for game nights!

I think that's all I have for now. I need to go finish cleaning. I'm still debating whether dusting is on the agenda for the day. I'm thinking no, but we'll see! :) Have a blessed Saturday!

Comfortable Seat?

My mom just got back from a trip to Georgia to see Chris, Ann, and John. She took LOTS of pictures and gave me access to them all. These cracked me up. Apparently ZuZu is John's favorite toy. She is the most aggreeable and easygoing dog. A dream to have around kids. Mom said this was a common occurrence (obviously because you can see how many different outfits he is in!). But what cracks me up is that she is asleep for most of them! Sorry they are so small, I couldn't figure out how to make them larger! I love this one because it makes him the perfect height to sit at the coffee table!

A Sunny Day

It was a beautiful day today. We have been talking about what our ideal weather day would be. Today was mine. It was cool enough to wear jeans, with flip-flops! Hooray. But it was warm enough that I could have worn shorts to rollerblade in if I had wanted to. Yes, I got to go rollerblading after work. The park was SO crowded! I made it two laps before I got bored and hung out with a friend and her nephews instead.

Now I am laying in bed, enjoying my laptop once again. I guess I never posted the verdict. Apparently, the cord I ordered was not high-quality enough, so I had to order a better (i.e. more expensive) cord. But it works, so I am happy. Oh, and my window is open! I am so excited for my first open-window spring evening. I hope it helps me sleep well and sleep off the hectic week!

Not a Happy Camper

So, my roommate and I definitely do not smoke. And yet my bathroom has smelled like cigarette smoke all evening. FRUSTRATING! I have the fan on right now so hopefully when I go back in to get ready for bed, I will no longer smell smoke. The joy of living in an apartment complex!

There is a pasture on the way to Washburn that has sheep in it. They are so very cute. Especially the little lambs. Haha, the song Mary had a Little Lamb just popped into my head! :) Maybe I should go to bed. I just wanted you guys to know that the sheep make me happy. And they make me think of Guatemala. The Spanish word for sheep is oveja and is also the only new Spanish word I learned while in Guatemala. It came in handy when reading the farm animal book. Donde es oveja?

58 seats and 62 Koreans!

Yes, this is another Gilmore Girls quote. I can't help it, it seemed applicable to how we were packed into church for Easter service on Sunday! :) Ironically, I had to work in the nursery during 1st service and there was a grand total of 0 babies in the infant room!

Dad and Josh joined me for church which was a special treat for me. Amy and Daynah were in Arizona for the weekend. Pastor Chris preached on Luke 5. It's the passage of the calling of the first disciples (which, ironically I had just read for Bible study the day before!). Chris talked about four characteristics we can learn about Jesus from the passage. For me, it was a good way to reflect on who Jesus was, even at the beginning of His ministry. Because who Jesus was at the beginning of ministry is exactly who He was at the end of His ministry when He sacrificed His very self in order to give us new life in Him! I love that I can celebrate His death and resurrection each year, spending a weekend to reflect on it and praise Him for what He did for me!

Then Dad, Josh, and I went to Applebee's for lunch. After lunch I went home and took a nap! Then I did laundry and relaxed and read. It was a quiet afternoon that ended with a quiet evening. All in all it was a very relaxing Easter weekend.

LIARS!

Here I thought exercise is supposed to get easier with time! But after exercising 7 of the last 8 days, it just keeps hurting more and more. I know that if I keep up with this, it will get better. I know that the soreness is a good thing. But it's really hard to tell my body that right now. And yesterday the Wii told me I had gained 4 pounds since last Saturday! Go figure :). I knew there was a reason I avoided scales.

Oh, and I hope you guys like the new layout. The flower picture is a close-up of the flowers from the tree in the background of all the family pictures. I love these flowers and they only bloom for a short time. That time just happened to be while I was in GA!

Family Photos

As some of you know, the whole reason I went to Georgia a couple of weeks ago was to take some family photos for my stepmom. Here are the results of those pictures: I love this one because even ZuZu ended up in the picture! Taking pictures was a little chaotic because John was overdue for a nap and a few of my brothers, who shall remain nameless, hare not fans of getiing their pictures taken! But we managed to get a good one.

The "kids."

The siblings.

A Letter to the Lord

I often struggle with how personal to be on this blog. After all, there are a wide variety of people who read it, some people who read it who I may never have met, and some people who read it but never make themselves known. A unique opportunity and a unique way to share my heart. And still, so often I hesitate. It's easier to share the light-hearted stories, the quirky things about my day, and for the most part I am okay with that. Not that there is anything major going on, but today I decided to go the more personal route.

I just started a new Bible study and one of the first things I was asked to do was to write a letter to the Lord as if He had asked me, "Teresa, what do you want?" It was an opportunity to be completely real before the Lord, to share my deepest longings and desires. I won't share the details of the letter because it is meant to be between me and Him, but I will say, I still struggle with some of the things I put into the letter. I struggle with the pull of wanting Christ to be my greatest desire, but also wanting the selfish things of the heart (granted, the good selfish things, not the bad selfish things!). I want to want Christ to be my greatest desire, and I think some of the time He is, but then life crowds in and I want other things too. Anyway, the letter, which turned out to be three pages, is sealed at the back of the Bible study book. The goal is to learn through this study how to be completely real with God, how to grow to be His beloved disciple, and how to speak the truths of those desires to Him because He truly wants to know. At the end of the journey through the study, I will get to open my letter and read what I wrote.

My desire through this study is to KNOW HIM MORE! To learn not to fake my relationship with Him, but to be real and transparent, especially because He knows my heart anyway! To desire and long for Him, for His saving power for those who don't believe, and for His return! Will you pray for me, for my journey through this study, and for my desires to be in line with His desires for me? Thanks so much! And feel free to ask me how my journey is going. I would love to share with you!

I know, I know

I still haven't gotten to the paperwork, but I was checking some other blogs and I remembered what else I wanted to post about. Most days I really want to be a mom, but today was one of those days where I thought, maybe not (okay not really, but I was seriously ready to scream!). I had my just-turned-7-year-old client who loves to ask questions for a full 2 hours today. She LOVES to ask questions, and follow-up questions, and follow-up questions to the follow-up questions, until you finally have to say, "I don't know." To which she replied once, "You say I don't know a lot" as if I'm stupid. Here are just a sample of some of the conversations:

Client: "why are they working on the bridge?" (let me add in here that her older brother asked me the question yesterday and her younger brother asked me the question earlier this morning. I was seriously contemplating rolling down the window and asking one of the guys who were working!)
Me: "something must be broke or they might just be checking to make sure nothing is broke."
Her: "why would they do that?"
Me: "so that nothing bad happens while we're on the bridge."
Her: "why are you going so slow?"
Me: "Because the person in front of me is going slow and I don't want to hit the van."
Her: "why doesn't the van go faster?"
Me: "because there are a lot of cars in front of the van going slow and she doesn't want to hit them."
Her: "I don't see any other cars."
Me: "Trust me, there are other cars there."
Her: "why are the other cars going slow?"
Me: "because they're working on the bridge and we don't want to hit the workers."
Her: "well, I only see one worker. The bridge does have a lot of holes. why does the bridge have holes?"
Me: "because that's how they wanted to design the bridge."
Her: "why did they want to design it that way?"
Me: "I don't know why they wanted to design it that way."

And toward the end of the time at the office:
Her: "What's down this hallway?"
Me: "other people's offices."
Her: "why isn't your office down there?"
Me: "because it's upstairs"
Her: "why is it upstairs?"
Me (with the tiniest bit of exasperation): "because when they hired me they told me that was where my office was going to be and I didn't ask them if I could have a different one."

I did ask her at some point in time if she asked everyone this many questions, and she said no, sometimes she just asks me her questions! Don't I just feel special!

A perfect reason to post...

I am yet again procrastinating doing some paperwork! This week is Spring Break for most of my clients so I have been super-busy during the day. Plus, when I am at work, there is once-a-quarter computer work I have to get done that is due tomorrow, so I haven't been able to get day to day paperwork done. Okay, so you don't care about all of this. Frankly, I don't either, but it's the nature of my job to care, so after this post, I will be off to do at least some of the paperwork.

The real reason I decided to post is because I decided it was time to come clean in a very back-handed sort of way. I have begun a list of words that I have decided to delete from my vocabulary. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. Snow
2. Lunges (that looks really funny, but spell check says it is spelled right)
3. Squats
4. supercalifr....just kidding

All of that to say. I really want spring to come. I am really sore from five days in a row of a Pilate's tape. I decided to take today off, simply because I don't think I could even remotely force my body into thinking about lunging or squatting. My thighs don't like me very much right now :). They don't like when I sit or when I stand, when I go up or down stairs. They especially don't like when I forget that it hurts to do these things. At least, that's what I'm assuming they are saying, considering I haven't heard from them in awhile. All moaning and groaning aside, I have found that I actually like this Pilate's tape and hope to continue to do it on a regular basis. And as far as the actual exercise, maybe now I won't fall over dead the first time I try to run in ultimate Frisbee or Rollerblade around the park. And yes, Danell, I even did all of this without a Dr. Pepper or book to aid me! :)

Back to Reality

Well, I just finished my paperwork that is due tomorrow. Luckily I was able to multi-task. I watched the ACM awards while I did paperwork. Country music makes paperwork much more bearable. :)

Now I'm avoiding looking out the window because I think it might be snowing. I've decided that even if it looks like snow, I'm just going to pretend like it's rain. Because rain in April is expected. You know, because of the old saying "April showers bring May flowers." Snow plays no part in that saying! So, the white stuff I'm going to see tomorrow...all a figment of your imagination. It's just rain!

While the Roommate is Away...

I will do NOTHING! This has been the first Saturday in 3 weeks that I have had nothing scheduled in the morning. I have learned that I function much better from week to week when I can catch up on some sleep and have a relaxing Saturday morning. My roommate left town on Thursday, as did a lot of my friends, so I had my family over for dinner on Friday night. We had a great meal (in my completely biased opinion)! Then they taught me a new card game--Hand and Foot. And then we played some euchre. This is the first time since moving in last July that my family has all been here (so, I'm a slacker, what can I say!). After they left, I watched Bedtime Stories--a cute movie, I'd recommend it.

Then this morning I slept (well, stayed in bed at least) until 9:00. I spent some time with the Lord, exercised, showered, read some, and then headed out the door. Yes, you read the word "exercised" in that list. We won't talk about how sore I am now and the fear of soreness for tomorrow morning! I left the house to go to Dad and Amy's and between here and there I got hungry, so I stopped at Sonic. Now, Sonic is one of my fave places to eat, but I am not very pleased with them. A couple of weeks ago, I ordered a hamburger and ended up with a cheeseburger, which I sent back. Today, I ordered a hamburger, the guy asked specifically, and then confirmed. When the girl brought my meal, she read the ticket to me as "cheeseburger". I corrected her and she said, "I'm sure it's a hamburger." She walked off, I checked, it wasn't a hamburger! GRRRRRR.... So, I stopped a guy, asked him to get me a hamburger, waited, got the bag, made a rudimentary check and saw no cheese, so I proceeded to Dad and Amy's. When I got there, I opened the package only to discover they had tried to scrape the cheese off the pre-existing cheeseburger!!!!! I couldn't believe it. I gagged it down anyway because I was hungry. Have I mentioned that I really, really dislike cheeseburgers! But the Dr. Pepper and tator tots were wonderful!

Wow, that was a major digression! At Dad's house, I uploaded more pictures and used a Walgreen's coupon to print 56 pictures for $6.00. After that, I played on the Wii fit for awhile. Then I headed to pick up my pictures, went to Target to buy some new frames for the pictures, and headed home. Then I not-quite balanced my checkbook (there is a discrepancy that I just couldn't figure out so I am currently "taking a break"), put my pictures in frames and changed out a few other pictures, surfed the net for awhile, and am currently typing this. I am about to get some dinner and watch the other movie I rented (Eagle Eye). Oh, and procrastinate from doing paperwork for work. I think I have decided that I simply cannot do work on such a relaxing day. Who can blame me?

More Pictures from the Trip

A Weedy Seadragon. This was by far the most interesting fish we saw at the aquarium! Only God could think up something this creative.

Some type of shark with a saw looking nose. Not sure what it is called. Just googled it. It's called a Sawshark--aren't I smart!!! : )

ZuZu likes to pretend that she is a lap dog. She's also not supposed to be on the couch. I let her up a lot though, because it was so darn funny. She would "sneak up" one paw at a time and then all of a sudden be full-fledged on top of you and giving LOTS of kisses!

They always come in twos

I was just telling a coworker that I get blog ideas throughout the week but have no time to post them, so when I finally sit down I have about four or five different things I want to post about. This normally results in my posting three or four posts in one day and then nothing for three or four days. So, I thought I'd continue this tradition. Really I'm just at loose ends. It's only 9:00 and I'm kind of bored but I know if I go to bed I'll be up at 4 or5, which is NOT okay with me!

So, the 2009 Ski Trip has commenced. I went on the ski trip last year, although I didn't ski. Several people tried to talk me into going again this year, but I decided that I can only justify going to Colorado to sit in a condo every other year! The group left last night and I must admit I was a little sad to not be going. However, when I woke up this morning, tired from a full night of sleep in my own bed, I was very grateful that I wasn't in the van that was STILL travelling to Colorado! Seriously, I hope they have fun and part of me still wishes I could be there. I guess I'll just have to live vicariously through all of the fun skiing stories that I will hear for the next year. Oh wait, I did that last year, and I was on the trip!

I Am Kayak, Hear Me ROAR!

I will let that title go unexplained because an explanation would make it much less funny than it is to me right now. If you're a Gilmore Girls fan, you might recognize the quote and will get the connection to my post. Otherwise, I'll just leave you puzzled!

Recently I attended a tea hosted by a ministry at my church for women on their own. The speaker spoke on contentment. I had to laugh because God and I have been talking a lot about contentment lately! She gave a definition for contentment that I really enjoyed and needed to hear:

content--to bring to the point where one is not disquieted or disturbed by desire, even though every wish is not granted!

I mentioned a few posts ago that I have been learning some lessons in contentment. Oddly enough, as I approach 30 as a single woman, it has almost nothing to do with being single (where most of my contentment issues normally stem from!). For the past 3 or 4 months I have felt disquiet in my soul, frustrated but not knowing the source of my frustration. I couldn't figure it out because, like I said, for once I was content being single and had been for a few months. I have vital ministries that I am involved in at church. I have a good group of friends. I have a wonderful family. But something was causing me to be discontent. About a month ago, I discovered where that discontentment was coming from. For more years than I can remember, I always had a major goal or milestone to work toward. Graduate from high school. Graduate from college. Move to a new state to go to seminary. Graduate from seminary. Move to a new state to start a career. For the past three years I have been establishing my life as an "adult." I have a great job, a great church, great friends. But I recently realized that my life could remain just the way it is for the next 20 or 30 years! There is no future goal to work toward. Just more of the same. Now that I recognize this, the disquiet has eased some. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the life that I am living and am not looking to make any major changes right now. I think for me it had been the not knowing what was going on.

Now that I know, I can rest in the assurance that if there are no more major milestones to work toward, God will keep me satisfied in Him and satisfied in the life I have. He will teach me new ways to glorify Him in ministry, at work, in my family, and with my friends. He will give me the purpose and direction for each new day. He will envelop me in His love and grace and whisper to me each morning, "My grace is sufficient for you." And that will be enough. No need to be discontent.

And I can gladly paddle around in my kayak. I am kayak, hear me roar!