Oops

I forgot that I was going to post pictures, and I haven't actually loaded my pictures onto the computer yet. Although I only took about 20 and then just relied on everyone else to take pictures with their cameras. I have stalked facebook to see some of said pictures and they are good, so when I get the cd and/or steal some pictures from family and when I get motivated enough to load them onto blogger, you will be able to see what a great weekend was had by all. My nephew is adorable, but I'll also wait until the pictures to really brag on him.

Off to watch Gilmore Girls!

Just a few things

I'll do bullets for the highlights since not much is going on.

* I talked to AT&T yesterday. The lady laughed when I told her I received a bill for 1 cent and then removed the charge from my bill.

*I am currently in Chicago with my mom awaiting the arrival of my brother, sis-in-law, and nephew.

*Because of the above, I only had to work 3 days this week :) HOORAY!

*I had a 6 year old client Tuesday. She was talking about heaven and how people in heaven get to fly because they are angels. She continued to talk for awhile and then said something else about heaven. I asked her, "Do you think that you will like heaven?" And she said (in a very excited voice), "I've never gotten to fly before!" It was very cute.

*I got to be in charge at AWANA last night. I took a new leadership position as the T&T girls co-leader. So, the past couple of weeks I have been following Kimberly around to learn the ropes. She was out of town this week, so I was completely in charge. I think I survived :). Well, I'm still here and they haven't called me to demote me back to a listener yet!

*This week is National Single's Week. So, if anyone wants to send me a card, I would gladly accept them. You could even include money if you want to! I would only use it to treat myself to something special when I go out as a single person. I promise.

That's all for now. I'm sure that I will be posting mucho pictures in the near future.

Weekend in Missouri

This weekend I was able to visit Ashley and Andrew in Missouri. I was super excited since they moved a year ago and I had not been able to visit until now. I took a half-day off of work so that I could get there a little bit earlier on Friday evening. This is the sunset I drove into. I was actually trying to get a picture of this random stretch of rainbow, but the camera didn't capture it. If you look to the right where there is a tall dark thing and look to the left of that, you can sort of see the rainbow. Yes, I was driving while taking this, I'm sorry to say!

When I arrived, Andrew and Ashley took me to campus to a pizza place called Shakespeare's. It was really good! And Ashley even got me a free cup (you get one if you order a soda, but none of us did, but she asked anyway!). We then drove around campus a little bit so they could show me some of the sights. Then we went back to their apartment and we did what we do best--play games! (Ashley sent me three of her pictures before I posted this, which I was glad of because the only picture I had of Andrew was really blurry (see below) and it didn't look like Andrew spent any time with us from the other pictures!)

Saturday afternoon, Ashley and I hiked up the hill to the stadium so that I could see the pandemonium of a home game. It was crazy (and a lot like the GG episode where Rory and Lorelai go to a Yale game!). Ashley let me borrow one of her Mizzou shirts so that I wouldn't look out of place, which I would have because I brought a hot pink shirt to wear on Saturday! At least it wasn't purple, since they were playing Furman. Oh, and these are the cheerleaders, in case you couldn't tell! :)

Ashley's close-up of us. She was smart enough to put the stadium in the background!

My close-up of us. Notice the plain white building in the background. And our matching yellow shirts!

The Golden Girls. That's what their called. :) M-I-Z
Z-O-U!

Saturday afternoon Ashley and I relaxed on the couches and watched a lot of high quality TV :). Then Ashley cooked Andrew and I dinner. Then Ashley and I went to see the new movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." It is an animated movie based on a children's book. I highly recommend it. Just in case any of you wanted to know, if I ever have a terrible, horrible, no goo, very bad day, I have a new saying from the movie (which only Ashley may be able to understand), "I don't understand fishing metaphors!!!" After the movie, we went back to the apartment to get Andrew, who chose to stay home and watch football and do more studying, and we went to Andy's which is a frozen custard place. Yummy. Although, after the movie, Ashley and I were unsure if we really wanted to see food again for awhile!

This is my artistic attempt to take a picture of the sign from almost underneath it. And I was too lazy to walk a few steps away to take it! :)

And here is the blurry picture of Andrew, just to show that he was actually a part of the day!

Thank you Ashley and Andrew for a wonderful weekend!

Things that make you question your eyesight

This is the cell phone bill I got in the mail yesterday. There is so much to say about this. But let's add up the stupidity first:
1. they had to pay to print my three page bill
2. they had to pay to mail me the bill
3. if I choose to mail in my payment, I would be spending money on the check, a stamp, and the ink in my pen
4. if I choose to pay over the phone, they will be paying the processing fee for my credit card

what are the chances that if I don't pay it, I will get a late fee added, bringing my total to 25.01?

Have I mentioned how ridiculous I think this is???!

"But I don't have any black dresses"

....Diana answers when Anne asks "Can I have a lock of your jet black tresses?"

I LOVE Anne of Green Gables! And I was able to watch it with two friends last night, one of which has never seen the Anne of Green Gables movies!

If I use the phrase "the depths of despair" in the next couple of weeks, it's because of this movie too. Or if I call anyone a kindred spirit or bosom buddy. You get the idea...

I refuse to believe I am going gray!

Yesterday I was sitting across from my 14 year male client when he says "Did you get highlights in your hair?" Here is my very mature response, "No. That's natural." While in my head I was thinking, "thanks for pointing out my gray hair!" And what 14 year old male notices such things anyway?! :)

Another crazy dream!

Friday night I went to see "All About Steve", the new movie with Sandra Bullock in it. When asked what I thought about the movie, I replied "It was really horrible. But super funny." I can understand why the critics gave it really bad ratings, and yet, I was not disappointed that I went. Anyway, not the point of the post. During the movie, the main character and her two friends encounter a tornado and have to hide in a drain pipe. That night I had a dream that Kari, Kinsey, and I were on a really big bridge over a lot of water and all of a sudden a tornado was coming. Except we had no where to hide and no time to get away. The tornado hit the car but it just kind of shook it and then we were okay.

Then last night I had another tornado dream! This time a bunch of us were at Brooke's parents' house (which several of us were for a bonfire last night), except it wasn't really her parents' house (this is common in my dreams, where the place is completely different but I know it is a familiar place to me). We were outside and all of a sudden we saw a huge tornado and we had to go into her parents' basement, which ironically was like a big cave under the house :). We all made it and the dream changed from there.

These tornado dreams, while strange, haven't been a complete surprise to me. When I was younger I used to have tornado dreams on a fairly regular basis. Most of the time in the dreams as the tornado was coming, there would be no where to hide, so I would have to dig some sort of hole or sit in a ditch and the tornado would just go over me. There was always some fear involved that the tornado was going to get me, but there was never any casualties of the tornado or devastation to the places around me.

So, like I've said before, where is a good dream interpreter when I need one?!

Scripture Saturday

I'm thinking I might start blogging on Saturdays about what I have learned in the Word during the week. Maybe not every Saturday, but some Saturdays. I am learning that when I don't have a busy Saturday it is a good time for reflection.

This week (through Thursday) I am finishing up the Beth Moore study of Esther. It has not been my favorite Beth Moore study, but I have really enjoyed digging into this book of the Bible and learning more about the history of the times and the character of Esther. The most interesting part of the book of Esther is that in the 10 chapters, God is never mentioned. But the one thing Beth is teaching is that just because His name is not expressly stated does not mean that He is not all over the pages of this book.

I have also been reading a book called Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. Don't worry, it's not a book about the sins we can respect, because there are no such sins. But it is a book about the sins that we as Christians tolerate in our lives, even while we look at the more unacceptable sins in others' lives with contempt (which, I learned this week, is a form of the more acceptable sin of pride). So, to say this book has been kicking me in the behind would be an understatement. I have been convicted to read some of the chapters the day after I read them because once I read the chapter, I often see the sin more clearly in my life. In one word "YUCK!" Sin is yucky. I also get convicted because I don't want to pick up the book and be even more convicted, so I choose to read something else instead! I would highly recommend this book to my readers, but with the warning that if you are not ready for God to be working in your life, you should not read it.

Lastly, some of you knew that I had been working to memorize the book of Colossians. This week, I realized that I am done! A couple of weeks ago, I finished memorizing through the book, but wanted to continue to review it so that I knew I had it down pretty well. I think I can get through the whole book with only one or two helps. So, then my mind went to the question “What should I do next?” I’ve been contemplating memorizing a psalm or another one of Paul’s books. But I think I made the decision to tackle James next. I am very excited and plan to sit down with some index cards today so that I can be ready to memorize. My prayer is that I won’t neglect my review of Colossians so that I don’t forget it. I have also been reading the John MacArthur commentary on Colossians which has really reinforced what I have memorized. The joy of memorizing Scripture is the chance to really meditate on it as you are memorizing and be able to recognize themes in the writing and work to apply it to your own life. One of my favorite verses from the memorization is 3:10, which says that we are “being renewed in knowledge in the image of [our] Creator.” The more I learn, the more I reflect the image of Christ to others!

I finally got...

Not a computer.

Not that item on my grocery list that I can't seem to find when I go to Walmart.

Not a new car.

Not a husband.

But......
......................

A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT!


Okay....wait....don't stop reading....focus back here for just a second....
I'm JUST KIDDING!

What I really got was a new phone and new phone plan with Verizon. A little reluctantly. I have been a customer with Cingular/AT&T for 12 years and have really enjoyed them. Strange, I know. But I think that I have only had to call customer service a handful of times in those 12 years. But, my phone was breaking, and more and more people were switching to Verizon which was causing me to have to really watch my minutes. So, because my phone was breaking, and I thought the buttons were going to pop right off every time I go to use it, I decided it was time to make some changes. So I walked into Verizon. The process was very easy and I hope the service will be as good for me as AT&T has been.

And for those of you who know the process of how things work in my life, I'm pretty sure I have been talking about switching to Verizon since Danell had to switch her service from Cingular to whatever she had to get because she lived in the country and I all of a sudden had to watch how much we talked because we no longer had free mobile to mobile. And I think Danell got her service switched a year and a half ago (isn't that about right, Danell?). That's how long these decisions take for me, folks.

Now, if you're still mad at me for joking about Facebook, here is something that might make you happy. I don't think my new phone has the feature where I can count down to my birthday. Sad times for me. :( But happy times for all of you that I annoyed with the countdown :).