My fortune cookie for the day:

"You are not illiterate"

Um, ok. great.

Spirit Song Adventure

I finally got around to getting some of the pics off my camera from my crazy weekend chaperoning this past weekend in Ohio... so I figured I would share the "madness" with you.
Basically, if you add all these ingredients together you get one amazing youth group trip... so take notes:

• 17 TBS. of teenagers + 4 TBS of young-at-heart Adults
•1 oz. of cute sister• 9 servings of "extremely healthy" meals (yes, I had cheeseburger breakfasts at least twice)• 1 lbs of chopped up chicken (or a good dose of fear before the ride)

• 2.5 cups of mixed rides-- finely blended• 13 cups of amazing bandsToby Mac

The Newsboys

• 1 part Crowder with authentic 80's key-guitar
• 1 cup of Dip n' Dots (two spoons)
Bake for 3 days in hot sun and drive for 8+ hours listening to random itunes favorites until completely exhausted.
Results may vary.
If done well, deeper friendships and relationships should be formed.

Live. Love. Learn. Go.
And don't forget to have some fun while you are at it.

I'm O.K..... or am I?

This quote from the book "Messy Spirituality" by Michael Yaconelli was extremely interesting to me..

"There is no room for pretending in the spiritual life. Unfortunately, in many religious circles, there exists an unwritten rule. Pretend. Act like God is in control when you don't believe he is. Give the impression that everything is okay in your life when it's not. Pretend you believe when you doubt; hide your imperfections; maintain the image of a perfect marriage with healthy and well-adjusted children when your family is like any other normal dysfunctional family. And whatever you do, don't admit that you sin."

How true this seems to be. Often in the past I have found myself falling into this lie that I have to hide my sin in order to be "accepted" and liked by others when in reality hiding my sin has only hindered me from being vulnerable and real... and even sometimes kept me at a distance from the TRUE community God wants us to partake in. Or I say I'm "ok" when really I'm not at all ok inside. I think over the past year or so I've gotten better at letting others in-- taking off the mask-- but it hasn't been easy for me-- and honestly it probably never WILL be easy. 

Sin likes to stay hidden, in the dark, tucked away from everyone... there it can grow, hide, simmer, whatever...but it is not until we expose that sin to "the Light" that we can truly be set free. 

so... think about it... what sins are you currently hiding that could use a little Light? And are you really "ok" or is it all just a farse?

Tuesday's truibute... on Wednesday

I was going to post pictures of my crazy Ohio weekend today, but I just realized that I grabbed the WRONG camera cable this morning on my way out the door. Oops. So, delay on the pics *sigh* Oh well... I will just do today what I was going to do yesterday but ran out of time to do... another tuesday tribute!! (well, in this case, a delayed one.. or a wednesday tribute if you want to get all jiggy-acurate on me :p)

This tribute goes out today--fittingly enough-- to my college roommate Jenn!

Today she embarks on a new journey in her life hundreds of thousands of miles south of me to Argentina. There she will be teaching in a private Christian school. Small classes, paid housing, all the gellato ice-cream she can eat-- how can it GET any better?! She is a very courageous gal-- going to a place that is so far away, giving up a higher salary job, leaving everything that she really knows (although she did study abroad there while in college, so at least she already has many friends/connections as a support system), teaching things that really she has little idea about like history, literature and geography. i'm going to miss her like CRAZY, but I know this is where God wants her right now and He's got some big plans for her life.

So here's to you Jenn.... thanks for:

• being such a great roommate for 3 years
  
• putting up with my randomness
  
• being my road-map-- because you know me and my serious LACK of direction
  
• laughing so hard we cry
  
• having such similar music tastes
  
• all the random road-trips
  
• teaching me how to REALLY play cards... Euchre and Kanasta (sp?)
  
• random talks about "nothing"
  
• meeting half-way dinners
  
• being the other half of "the Jen(n)s"
  
• sharing so many "Jenn & Jen Adventures" with me
  
• just being YOU!
  

Yeah.... God seriously knew what He was doing when He put you in my life. :)

Philly in Pictures

Ok, so I'm the kind of gal who loves pictures... and think they can speak to a completely different part of your brain than words can (not that i'm saying words aren't important... because they are, extremely, but pictures... yeah... they are just plain fun!) So without further delay.. here is a brief summary in pictures of our trip to the "City of Brotherly Love"...

The main point of going to Philly was to visit our college roommate Darcy-- who lives and works in the inner-city.
Definitely a different view than what I'm used to on my street here at home!
It was a girls-only-road-trip...Jenn and Me... and also Jenn's friends Adrian and Shannon. They are both amazing gals. Lots of music, and laughing... and cramming ourselves in tight spaces in the car.

We played lots of cards... Darcy was a card shark for sure...

We also ate some really good food..

And did some groovy site-seeing. It was so cool to be in the town where so much of our country's history was birthed. It also reminded me a LOT of Disney's "National Treasure" movie...

Independence Hall
"Should we try and steal the Declaration of Independence? I mean, come on.. Nicolas Cage got away with it!!" ;-)

I even got to see a parade on the 4th... now THAT was fun!

and random guys in skirts... always amusing...

The only thing that was kinda sad was the fact that our fourth roommate Heidi couldn't be there with us because she is moving to Taiwan... so we improvised...

Introducing-- "Heidi on a stick!" ;-)

Great trip.... good memories... wonderful friends.

God is good.

woohoo! so I totally survived last week and had an AMAZING time!! Little sleep, lots of friends and fun... wow. more details coming... for now, I'm off to bed!

MySpace and the Daily Show Collide

Being that I-- and many of my friends use Myspace, I found this clip from the Daily show particularly funny... so I just had to share...

NOTE: I'm sorry if you have dial-up.. you may not even want to bother... or try watching this at Panera... or mooching off someone else's internet. ;)

Also... shout out to my bro for showing me this link this morning. Totally made my 9 o'clock hour. 

The past 5 days...

Back from Philadelphia, PA... here are just a few highlights from my trip...

• Road-trippin
• Girls weekend
• Shaking steering wheel
• mysterious water that got all our stuff wet.. but we never could identify the source
• Laughing so hard SOME of us cried
• Philly Cheese Steaks
• Card games galore
• Heidi on a stick (our other roommate couldn't come.. so we drew her face and stuck it on a broomstick... it was almost like she was there.. err, or not)
• City of "Brotherly Love"
• DRENCHING thunderstorms
• Firecrackers that sounded like gunshots
• Honey hams that marked our parking spot
• The L
• Sticky, humid arms
• fire-hydrant sprinklers
• Mounds of Puerto Rico cuisine
• The Liberty Bell
• Constitution Hall
  
• Parades.... and guys in skirts
• Watching fireworks with thousands of people in downtown Philly
• mass exoduses
• 5am trips to the airport
• Loss of power AT the airport
• still making it home on time
• taking a jet to work... ah, what a ride

Amazing weekend + 4th of July...

i missed you guys.

Chinese Food Friday

Today's Fortune:
"You have a natural grace and great consideration of others."


Hmmmmm... I'm not sure that "grace" is so natural.... and the Grace that helps me be so considerate of others sure doesn't come from me alone... but straight from my heavenly Father... 

____________________________

I'm off to Philly this weekend for a road-trip with the gals. Probably won't have much or anytime to blog until I get back... please don't be too sad...

Have a good weekend and a sparkely 4th of July!

Randomness...

A fun musical group that I heard about on last weeks Relavant Magazine's podcast-- Indie Blockedappella. Seriously, I don't know whether I should laugh, or be in awe of these guys... Lots of current hits... all accapella. If you swing by make sure to check out their AUDIO page-- it's amazing!

If you are in the "artsy" mode (when am I NOT?!) and have ever written something with your finger on someones dirty back car window--you need to check out this guys unique artistic medium! I'm not sure if I could spend that much time on something that will soon be "blowin in the wind" but whatever floats his boat (and he sure is good at what he does!) 

If you are bored during the loooooong summer nights click here to get a coloring sheet of Billy Ray Cyrus 

Ok, so I wasn't so thrilled with the second Spiderman, but maybe the 3rd can redeem itself?????

Just a few tid-bits for now. Hope you are having a GREAT day!

I AM the banner ad Queen

90 banner ads... 

Yeah.. I'm not sure if they pay me enough around here....

where have i been this week? 
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Going crazy.

DUB-lishious

I never quite know what to expect when I go to work each day... and so I guess today was no exception. Around noon 2 huge semis pulled into the parking lot and started setting up "shop".
It was a bunch of cars from one of the magazines-- DUB-- that we advertise in monthly. Needless to say, it is one of the more ghetto/bling mags... so the spred of cars was only expected...
It was amusing because some of the sales guys that were walking around in front of me checking out the cars were appalled at the size of the wheels... muttering under their breaths you could hear them say stuff like -- "no wonder they had to drive these things in on trailers-- with wheels this size they would be horrible to actually drive!" I guess sometimes you have to sacrifice things like comfort and SAFETY to look cool ;-/ hmmm...
They even had 30 inch rims... the above pic is a "normal" wheel and a 30 inch wheel for a Hummer... to put it in perspective.... that thing was HALF my size!Yeah... I think they wanted me to be the next DUB model or something... :)

They even gave me a shirt and some ipod accessories! (um, I didn't tell them that I don't even OWN an ipod... yet) And yeah... the shirt was kinda small... but I guess models are used to that huh??


Just another day at work....

Lesson: Patience.

Ever have a time when you can just tell God is trying to "mold" you? Test you? Grow you? Sure, I think He does this all throughout or lifetimes, but sometimes I can really TELL when it's happening. Take last friday/saturday. 


Test 1: Go to Walmart. Decide not to do a layaway, so I need to get my deposit back. Total= $2.90. All the Customer Service Manager people seem to have disappeared. I hoped it wasn't the CSM rapture. Time spent in layaway = 25 min. Woah.. almost a dime per min. The cashier girl tells me that they should have paid me for waiting that long for so little...  I smiled. Good thing it's friday. No worries. 

Test 2: Saturday morning. Going to see Jenn. Need to work some stuff out at the bank before she flees the country. already running a bit behind schedule because had a zillion house chores and was trying to fit too much on my plate. Heavy computer for Jenn's brother in my arms I walk out to my car-- scheduled to arrive at my local right on time, when I see that I have a flat tire. Great. Thank goodness for brothers who are helpful. I can't believe those donut tires actually HOLD the car up! seriously it looked like a bike tire. craziness. Now im late. Now I have to drive 50 mph. Now people are "wooshing" by me and giving me dirty looks. Now I feel like I am crawling like a turtle. I probably could have ridden my bike faster than this! hmmm.... ok God.. WHAT do you want me to learn.. yeah. patience. I get it. 

Did I learn my lesson for the week? maybe... and maybe it will be an ongoing process.... we will see...

Tonight I'm baby-sitting three kids... could there possibly be a Test 3 on the way... hmmmmmmmmm. 




"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Colossians 3:11-12

Fresh Faced

Right now we have about 12.5 people packed into our little suburbia house... yes, the Cincinnati relatives are here. It's only for one night or so as they head back from their camping extravaganza -- but this morning when I got up there was a line for my bathroom so needless to say I kept it short and sweet. And forgot to grab my make-up bag. :-p So... it's a "fresh faced" kind of day. It's weird. 

Now, before you get any wacky ideas, I'm not a total cake-it-on makeup girl. I pretty much stick to the basics... a bit of coverup, pinch of blush and the good ol mascara... oh, and then a bit of lip-gloss for good measure... but nothing at all?! My face feels naked. Exposed. Out there with all it's imperfections. Yeah... I guess I've sorta gotten used to this world where we try to hide everything that's not right about us... afraid that if we let our "real" selves show, no one in their right minds will like us. But somehow we often fail to see beyond ourselves and realize that everyone else has boughten into that same lie. The irony... we we want relationships that are "real", honest and open, yet we are trying ourselves to be everything but those things. (yeah... wacky) So why do we persist in these games-- trying to be the exact opposite of what we are attracted to in relationships-- in order to be "accepted"? hmmm... maybe it's because we all fear rejection... loneliness or true vulnerability. It seems like since the fall we have always tried to run and hide... scared of being "naked" before God... and others. 

As I was reading in an article from Radiant the other day... 
"Fact is, there’s nothing more attractive, fun or friendly than a (person) who is willing to embrace (their) imperfections and be authentic about who (they are). Such disarming confi dence quells even the greatest of insecurities, and draws like a magnet others seeking honest relationship."

It's interesting how random things in life-- like not wearing makeup-- can shed light on other more deeper aspects in our lives... I have more thoughts to share at some point on this whole crazy "authentic" relationship thing, but it's time for work... so for now, I'm just gong to leave you with this quote...

"Be who you is. Cause if you ain't who you is, you is who you ain't."

Wacky Wednesday- As if Mornings weren't scary ENOUGH!

Folgers is apparently now filled with hallucinogens to help us tolerate our mornings. And I thought the Burger King Ads were scary! I honestly don't know what to say about this... but being a non-morning person myself I really just want to beat those yellow people, not drink the coffee.



Oh... and in other news... HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENN!!

And.. happy first day of summer to you.

Tuesday Tribute

Thinking about starting this new thing called Tuesday tribute... so... without further delay...
My first VICTIM!!

My brother!

Yes, and they say he's a genius...... sometimes I wonder.
Thanks bro--

• for fixing stuff that I get mad at (computers, cars, car windows, dressers, xboxes etc)
• for calling me... just because you can.
• for downloading episodes of shows I miss when I can't figure out how to set the VCR (no, i DON'T have a TiVo..)
• for calling me a dork... because we both know that I am one.
• for doing crazy things with me.. and MAKING me do crazy things... like ND dumpster diving.
• for making me smile... in the most random ways--- come on.. who grows a mullet just for "fun"?!
• for being the slickest dealer EVER.
• for hugs... even when you act like you don't like them.
  
• for just being you.... the "Rock Star" that you are

one word... AMAZING.

Road Trip : Mars Hill

**eek** somehow this post got stuck in drafts... my bad?

One car crammed full of people, bouncing around-- either to the ghetto hits of the 90s-- or maybe just because the shocks are shot on the car + a road-trip to Grandville, MI + a 6 o'clock service at one unique church called Mars Hill + one to many people from IWU (um, just kidding??!) + too much time spent in the Cracker Barrel giftshop + road trip back + blue mouths + pit-stop along the side of the road (due to small bladder and as mentioned above LACK of shocks in the car!) + repeatedly trying to get pictures of the beautiful sunset only to have cars, trees, or flags get in your way EVERY time + laughter till your sides hurt moment (ok.. maybe multiple momentS)??

= one GOOD time!

The man himself Rob Bell

Unique, but simple stage... I love the fact that it is in the round because during worship you can actually hear music being sung to you--- it's almost like a little slice of heaven... or at least I hope so!

Will the real Rob Bell please stand up?! ;-)

Seriously, if you are ever in the Grandville, MI area, you have GOT to check this place out!! Or at least watch a Nooma video or two...

Just Me and My Dad...

What I REALLY wanted to get my dad this fathers day....


But what we ended up getting him instead...

unfortunately it

all day...
But we still grilled. Come on.. we just love our dad THAT much.
(seriously.. I have wet-soggy pictures to prove it!)

So Happy Father's Day Dad! Thanks for all that you do for us and all your ARE to us! We LOVE you!

Set apart

Just thinking about some things right now... maybe will go into more detail later... but I was just wondering.. what are you doing right now in life to "set yourself" apart from the world? Or do you just blend in with everyone else? What does it look like to be a real follower of "The Way"??

This is the first time i've had to work for an entire summer..... 

... first June I've spent here at my cubicle....

.. I'm not so sure I like it.

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being an adult can stink.