Fun NPC Pictures

Ok, so these are fun for me. :o) Here is the bookstore that all my lovely volunteers set up on Sunday. We have been selling books like crazy - yay!

Just a little taste of my life this week. :o) It has been really fun and really tiring all at the same time - so now I am off to bed! I will have more pics of the store as a whole tomorrow. Peace out.

Loooooooong Days

Hello from San Diego! I am ti-red. Yesterday and today were long, but everything came together beautifully. We set up the store yesterday and had our first customers this morning. WOO HOO!

Me and Maureen - the store mavens

Our volunteers are AWESOME and despite the long hours, we are having tons o' fun. I got to go out to eat with Leslie and Joel and some of Joel's registration friends. It was a great chance to sit down for a while and meet new people.

Random moment of the day: I walked over to the mall to pick up some BBQ chix from CPK (YUM!) and there was this guy just laying face first on the ground. I almost didn't seem him as I turned to get on the escalator, but turned around to see what everyone was looking at. And as I turn around on the escalator, there is a guy two steps down videotaping the scene and chuckling under his breath. So these guys are just playing around, probably for some YouTube video, and all of these people in the mall are staring and looking concerned. Some people close the the guy were even saying "Are you ok?" and crouching down low to see if he was breathing. So I just kept on walking too hungry to care about whatever YoutTube nonsense they were doing. Random - I never see these kinds of things in W. Michigan. :)

I am off for tonight... Sleep tight world!

San Diego

I am here! It is sunny out! WOO HOO!

I am excited to be out in San Diego for the next week and a half. I will be working until Friday helping put on the National Pastors Convention. Kevin is coming out on Thursday and on Saturday we will drive up to LA to watch the Pistons beat the Clippers, then keep on heading north to Santa Barbara. After some time in the wine country on Sunday, we will head back to LA to meet up with some college friends we have not seen in forever (yay V and Tim!). On Sunday we are going to hang out with another set of friends who live in LA (yay Lappenga family!). Needless to say we will not be bored. On Tuesday we will make our way home to Brody (who will follow us around the house mercilessly, afraid that if he lets us out of his sight we will leave again).

It is only 5:40 out here and I am BEAT. I have been on my feet aworkin' away since 8. Tomorrow I have to start set up at 6 (eek, good thing I am still on MI time). Hopefully all will go as well as it did today. We have a BIG task in front of us.

As for tonight, I am going to get some work done in my room and then we are headed out to the ocean (woo hoo!). Hopefully I will have pictures to post later. To all my Michigan readers, I am sending sunny thoughts your way (hopefully real sun will follow). :o)

Berenstain Bears

Who didn't love the Berenstain Bears growing up? How can you resist wholesome furry bears who wear exactly the same clothes day in and out? I loved these books growing up. My favs are here and here. The Messy Book was the first time I felt the pull to be organized. Oh how I really wanted my room to resemble Brother and Sister bear's clean and organized room. I even begged my mom to buy me pegbaords for my room because they had them (and somehow I believed they were the magic that would keep my room neat). I believe I owe my Real Simple subscription to the effect this book had over me. It was the beginning of my want to be organized (notice I said want to be, not am).

So, why the ramble on a kid's book series? Because today I got to meet Stan and Jan Berenstain's (the creators of the books) son Mike. The big Z is publishing a Christian line of the books and he was in talking about them. This is one of those days that I love my job, one of those days when I remember why I have always wanted to work in publishing. These are books that I read ALL the time when I was little and now I am part of the process of getting them out to more kiddos. I get to meet authors and illustrators. I know, I am a total book geek, but I love it. I love being on the other side of the curtain even if 99.9% of my time is not near as fun as the .1% when I get to encounter things like this.

The Bright Side

Every inch of me is cold. This is probably not helped my the fact that I just ate ice cream, but I refuse to let the weather dictate my dessert. I don't dislike winter, I am just getting tired of being constantly cold (especially my toes!) and I am sick of my winter clothes and my skin has forgotten how to hold an inch of moisture. So, before I go into a rant about winter, I am going to stop and look on the bright side:

1. The writer's strike is OVER. I am beyond glad - that means the Office will be back in April. I am going to try hard and not wish March away.
2. I am leaving for San Diego in 4 days. Even though I have to work, the end of my time there will be spent with Kevin and some good friends we don't see near enough.
3. It is almost March which brings the official start to spring (even if we don't see its effects til May). March also brings a fun girl trip to Fife Lake. I am very much looking forward to chilling with the girls and watching chick flicks.
4. This movie looks really cute and I think I am going to make Kevin take me to it while we're in San Diego. :o)

I am easily distracted, because already I feel better. So, what are you looking forward to in the near future?

Expectations

Today for lunch I was expecting to eat my yummy leftover cashew chicken from Chinese lunch with the girls. All through my workout I was dreaming of cashew chicken, pushing myself just a little harder with the promise of Chinese yumminess at the end. I finish, shower, primp, run upstairs to the kitchen area, open up the fridge and NO CHINESE.

That's right. Someone decided to take my leftover Chinese. Ridiculous. I am mad. Because have I mentioned that I REALLY wanted those leftovers? I looked through both fridges (nothing), racked my brain to make sure I had actually put it in the fridge yesterday (I did), I even looked in the freezer (again, nothing).

So now I am eating a salad from the cafeteria. Not NEAR as good as my Chinese. I can't believe I had to pay three dollars for it (I'm cheap, ok?). My general good mood has been tweaked and that fact makes me even more ticked. I mean, does not having my Chinese affect me that much? Today it did. It is all a matter of expectations.

Beating Winter

We have gotten dumped on with snow lately. It is piled high all over the place. My dog can barely find somewhere to squat when we go out on walks because the snow is taller than he is. The temperature just barely broke into the teens today. And, bonus, we got our first rays of sun in 11 days - 11 DAYS! Needless to say I think winter is getting to us all.

I was talking with my friend and co-worker today and though we both love winter, we are getting a little cabin-feverish and sun-deprived. She mentioned that she is bringing spring in early by going tanning (or trying to tan - I love that you forgot to turn the lights on Becky!). A couple of fake rays can go a long ways to ushering in spring fever.

I, on the other hand, am counting down the days til I will be in sunny Southern California. I don't leave for 11 days, but I am now checking weather.com daily too buoy my spirits with 70 degree forecasts. I just need a 10 day thaw out and then I can come back and face the rest of winter.

Kevin was cursing winter as he shoveled more snow onto the mountaneous banks on either side of our driveway. He would like to trade in our 10-day vacation to Cali into something a little more permanent.

So, to all my friends who are battling winter, just know, that we will win. Hang in there and eventually the snow will slide away. We will put the boots and gloves and scarves and hats into their closet bed til next year. Spring, that far away event, will come. It always does.

This Weekend

I loved this weekend. Now, I generally love weekends, I mean, who doesn't? But this weekend was wonderful. It was stunningly ordinary and I loved every minute of it.

Friday evening kicked off with dinner at Boberino's with Texer, Renee, Steve, Kristi and Kevin. Then we met up with Aletha, Greg, and the Strostras for the GR Symphony Tribute to the Beatles. It was way fun. I kept leaning over to Kevin and saying, "This is my favorite. No wait, this is my favorite." I feel sorry for people who don't really like the Beatles.

After that we headed over to Mixology for drinks with Greg and Aletha. It was great to catch up with Aletha since I don't see her everyday anymore. And it just felt good to be out and about in GR. It wasn't too cold, so rather than rushing from place to place, we could stroll about. Plus, I think I was a bit buzzed (alas, I am a bit of a lightweight) so everything just seemed so much brighter and better.

Saturday was Kevin's birthday and we just hung out together all day. He is not one for brithday celebrations, but I am! So while he slept in, I went out and got him bagels from Big Apple, groceries for a big breakfast on Sunday and all the fixin's for his fav dessert - creme brulee. Too bad the torch I bought to carmalize the sugar needed gas, which I did not have - oops! We ate them anyway, sans carmalized sugar.

Sunday I woke up to blistering winds and drifting snow. We made it to church, but didn't travel out after that (which was just fine by me). In the words of Speyer's florist friend Konstantine, "I love it when nature just makes you stop." Because today I was glad that it was snowy out. It made being inside with Kevin all the more better - knowing we could just be all day. There was not where to go to, nothing to do. I loved every minute of it.

And this is why I loved this weekend. Time with friends, celebrating my husband, snowy walks with the dog, sappy movies on tv, good music, laughter. Nothing spectacular, but lovely mundane things that made me love every minute of it.

Fat Tuesday

mmm... these paczkis were deliscious!

Happy Fat Tuesday! I happen to love Fat Tuesday. It is tied to childhood memories of decadence. We hardly ever got doughnuts, but we always knew that when Fat Tuesday came around there would be paczkis (prounounces poonch-keys) for everyone. And, as it was the last day before Lent, it was the day to get in all the tv watching, chocolate, fast food, or whatever it was you were giving up the next day. Once lasy hurrah for indulgence.

Growing up Catholic, Lent was a big deal. All motions and doing and waiting and withholding. Ashes on the forehead, no meat on Fridays, parish-wide fish frys, extended prayer and devotion times after meals, giving up something. It was a rhythm ingrained in my being. I never thought twice about any of it. I jumped through all of the hoops and waited for Easter, that day when the strange haze would be lifted and life would go back to normal.

It wasn't til I got to high school that I realized that God was not going to smite me if I ate meat - none of the other kids were abstaining. I remember my first time. It was pepperoni pizza. I didn't intend to sin, I was just so hungry that I dug in. I realized what I had done too late. The funny thing was, I didn't care. The crossing of the proverbial line felt a wee anticlimatic.

Now Lent is something real to me. Back then it was a thing I did, but now it is a conscious decision. I will go to services tomorrow and come out with ashes smeared on my forehead to remember that I am dust and nothing without the God who created me. I may give up something, I may not. Maybe instead of pining after ice cream, or chocolate or fast food, I will spend the next forty days contemplating the great sacrfice made and the love that makes forty days of haze seem like such a small act in comparison.

Comfort

Today was a rough day that capped off a rough week. The weather was rough. Work was beyond rough. And (at times) I was rough. And now it is Friday. And I had nothing to do.

Kevin had a guy's night planned and the week had drained most of the energy out of me making going out really unappealing. But at the same time, staying in with the house to myself left a little to be desired. I needed comfort. I needed people. So I went to my parent's house.

When I was little I used to lay my head in my mom's lap and she would smooth my hair and tell me stories or how much she loved me or how I was growing up too fast. This was the ultimate comfort. Thoughts of fights with friends and run-ins with bullies faded into the music of unconditional love. My mom just let me lay there. She let me be.

So I plugged in my iTrip, blasted the Moulin Rouge soundtrack (because Ewan McGregor singing is just the cherry on top of the comfort sundae) and coaxed my car through the snow to my parent's house. I climbed the stairs to my mom's sewing room and we talked and yelled out the answers to Wheel of Fortune as she sewed. My dad lured us downstairs with coffee and Bailey's (brought over by yours truly) and we watch Funny Face and poked fun at Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. I didn't even care that I had just seen it a couple of weeks before, because old movies and my parents just go together - AMC and TCM are mainstays.

We capped off the night watching the Redwings (well, my dad and I watched, my mom tied off her quilt). My dad's pessimism juxtaposed against my optimism. I won out when Zetterberg scored in the last two minutes followed by Draper's empty netter (for which I jumped up and down). I let my parents conversations lull me by the fireplace.

And now I feel a bit more normal. Less cranky. Tended to. I have homemade bread in my belly and fresh memories drying in my brain. And even though I am too old to lay my head across my mom's lap, I know that I can always crawl home and let their easiness smooth over me.