thursday's ten: choose your own adventure...

um.  it's been WEEKS since i've posted.  so today's thursday's ten is going to be a choose your own adventure.  each number is something i need to tell you about/update you on.  so...comment with a number or two and that will determine which order i go in!





1.  our housing situation...the amazing God-story
2.  anthony's job
3.  my new job(s)
4.  the recipes i've been trying lately
5.  how much weight i ACTUALLY lost on the diet :D
6.  wedding updates
7.  our indiana shower
8.  pinterest ideas that i've actually used
9.  women of faith in atlanta
10.  our friend's visit this weekend

SO.  all will be talked about (geez, i'd better get to typing), you just choose which ones first :D

and...yeah.  i promise i will get to my google reader now and start commenting on all your lovely blogs that i have truly missed SO MUCH.  in my defense i've been moving for the last 2 weeks and just got internet TODAY at the new place.  :-)

what i'm loving wednesday (8.10.11)

i'm loving that my schedule is getting ready to switch up for the FINAL time this year.  i'm going to have a 'normal' weekly schedule which means it will be SO much easier to actually schedule in a life ;-)

i'm loving fresh tomatoes from my garden (and from my dad's since i brought home an entire box last weekend!)

i'm loving the lifestyle changes that this diet has brought.  in my future i see stevia-flavored sweet tea, lower carb menus (at least 2-3 days per week with very few or no carbs), different approaches to cooking in general, and more balance between protein and veggies/fruits

i'm loving getting into a more realistic sleep schedule

i'm loving that we had a fantastic trip to indiana last weekend -- saw people i hadn't seen in years, some great friends, and ended up spending an impromptu evening with some great friends

i'm loving already meal planning with my future hubby.  i think we've come up with a system that will work so that we incorporate favorite recipes, have easy dinner nights, try out new recipes, and not get bored.  oh, and eat out once in awhile too :-)  our 'practice' month will be september

i'm loving our save the dates that we finally emailed a couple of weeks ago.  (feel free to visit our website if you so choose)

storm

in 2007 i wrote this bit of a memory.  in 1990 my hometown was flattened by a tornado, devastated.  in my own way, i share this as a tribute to those affected by the storms all over the south this week.  may you find strength and hope that there is "another side" and you will come out stronger.

in the meantime, my prayers are with you.
as are the prayers of thousands.

i will never forget a few years after our tornado when we went on vacation to nashville (ironic) and stopped at a restaurant.  the waitress, upon finding out where we were from, immediatedly sobered up and said "petersburg...that's where that awful tornado was a few years ago, right?"
when we confirmed she told us with tears in her eyes that her family had prayed for us all.
and somehow, that meant a lot.

so i hope 5 years from now a waitress is moved to tears when she finds out where you were this week.  i hope a teacher is able to comfort your children, and a pastor is able to shine God's love into your lives.  and most of all, i hope you find out something about yourself that you would have never known otherwise.  and i hope you forget -- but not really.

It’s on Wikipedia now. An article entitled “Lower Ohio Valley Tornado Outbreak”.3 sentences that are supposed to sum up that time in my life.

“Petersburg, Indiana was the hardest hit town affected by the outbreak. It was one of two towns in Indiana that were hit by an F4 tornado. Six of the 12 people killed in Indiana were in Petersburg.”

It’s a rather simplistic answer to the questions we all asked in 1990. I was 9. Mercifully, I remember little about those weeks, months, years after the storm hit us. The images I do have in my mind are vivid though, and have not faded with time. My next door neighbor and I crouching underneath her staircase, crying and holding on to each other sure that we were going to die. Walking out of her house after the freight train had sounded and long gone, and seeing the debris that covered our yard—like snow, in June. There was wallpaper from the nursing home that was flattened—we recognized it right away.We moved slowly through the next few hours—finally getting our power back after 3 days. We couldn’t leave the house for the longest time. My father was a police officer and when we finally left the house on Sunday to go to church, he was going to drive us through the worst-hit part of town on the way back home so we could see. The roadblocks wouldn’t let us through, even with his badge, because I was in the car. When we finally were allowed to drive through downtown, weeks later, I didn’t recognize it. The historic buildings—gone. Only a very few were left standing, and those were in pretty bad shape.

Slowly, but surely, our town was rebuilt. The Red Cross was a visible presence for months. Construction became a way of life. People cried a lot, but they soon shook off the tears, got on their feet and began trying to put the pieces back together.

I watched all of this, baffled. And then I forgot.
But I never did, really.

The next year we moved closer to town and I changed elementary schools. Only--this school had been destroyed by the tornado, so the temporary school was a system of portables connected by a covered walkway. I was reminded of the Storm every day at dismissal as we stood on those walkways.

And then I went to middle school, and I forgot.
But I never did, really.

A couple of years later we began attending another church. This one was brand new—because the original building had been flattened by the tornado. Every week as I walked through the front doors I saw the sign that said “Dedicated to the glory of God, June 1991” and remembered that it was because in June of 1990 their other church collapsed.

And then I went to college, and I forgot.
But I never did, really.

Thursday's Ten: about snow in tennessee

as the rest of the country, tennessee is kind of buried under snow at the moment.
and i think it's thrown everyone into a bit of shock!

you see,



{1) we don't get snow here very often.  once a year (well, season), normally, and just a light dusting (at least to my indiana-born eyes)
THIS season we're on our 3rd snow.  2 in december and 1 now.  which started on sunday.  which brings me to my next point...
{2} i've never seen snow last for more than 2-3 days here.  but it keeps.snowing.  which means we have a few MORE days of the white stuff even after it finally stops!
{3} some places have 5-6 inches of snow!  this is unheard of!  i only have a couple of inches, but my travels this week have taken me to some of the deeper snowed in areas.  i'm kinda loving it, i can't lie
{4} nashvillians...do NOT drive well in snow
{5} however, in their defense they usually have more ice than snow.  and tennessee is really hilly...much more so than where i grew up!  and even though it's been way more snow than ice this time around, they're expecting it to be as per usual, i think.  so we're driving down completely clear roads at 30 mph.  sigh.
{6} and school may as well be canceled for the month.  they haven't gone all week, and they've used up all 4 snow days plus 2 now.  because i work for educators, i have only worked one day this week (when she asked me to come over so she could run errands).  i JUMPED at the chance to get out of the house.  however, i am babysitting today, which means that i'm earning some extra cash which is really nice!
{7} all the sleds are sold out everywhere.  of course, not many places had them in stock, lol.  must.find.a.sled by this weekend.  my friend brittany and i have major plans to go sledding if we can find one!
{8} as i've mentioned a couple of times, we have awesome citywide snowball fights on the first day of a good snow.  if this season is any indication, there may be a couple more of these this year!
{9} tires.go.flat.  or low.  it kinda drives me crazy. 
(note to self: stop by gas station on the way to teaching piano today to pump up.  again.)
{10} but for all our mess, we're nowhere near as bad as atlanta.

noon on wednesday, atlanta

how about you?  or are you just so sick of the snow that you'd rather write about 10 things OTHER than the snow? :-)

Thursday's Ten: the random edition

i just realized that i have a LOT of stuff i haven't shared here lately, so (sorry) i'm lumping it into this post :)



1. i get to see bill clinton tonight! he's coming to campaign for the dem nominee for governor of tennessee...and while i'm not really into the whole "rally" idea, i couldn't pass up the opportunity to see a former president for free! i'm actually leaving the house in a couple of hours, having lunch with the boyfriend, and then hanging out downtown for the afternoon. *really* looking forward to it!

2. the whole burning of the Koran thing makes me sad and disgusted. until this morning i had not had even ONE person on my "friends" list on facebook even remotely supporting the idea -- at least publicly. and on my friends list are a LOT of conservatives --both in politics and faith, a bunch that have propagated the idea that our President is of the Islamic faith, and quite a few who are scared of anything but lily-white Christiandom. this morning, that changed. one "friend" i know vaguely from high school said something to the effect of "if he's praying and hears that from God, who are we to say it's wrong?"

on the one hand, i understand the reasoning.
on the other, i think we have to look at the fruit.
the last couple of weeks i've been learning more about the prophetic and how to operate in that gift. and i know this is "out there" for some of you, so bear with me, ok?
the thing about the prophetic is that the message should always be shared in love
if you discern that someone is struggling with depression
you don't want to say "oh, you're depressed and feel hopeless!"
you want to ask what to DO with that knowledge
and speak words of peace, hope and LIFE over them
because God wants to reveal His love to people

i can't help but think that this is similar.
and how on earth is burning someone's Holy Book
showing them God's love and Father Heart?

(i always lose followers when i write stuff like that, so goodbye 3 or so of you. :-)

3. we had an AWESOME time in st louis! i will post pictures here eventually...
although my iphone lost all the ones i took on friday and saturday. i was quite sad about that one...

4. 30 rock is my new favorite thing. in fact, this morning it's trumping all my ideas of getting ready to go see Mr Former President. that should tell you how much i'm loving that show!

5. this weekend is retreat with our youth group kids. since i missed camp this year i'm looking forward to finally meeting our new 7th graders!

6. twitter is becoming more and more addictive. oy.
honestly, i think it's because NONE of my former students or youth group kids are there. or not that i've found. and i'm happy to not have to wonder how people will take what i say there. it's nice :)

7. next weekend i get to take anthony to a place i spent quite a bit of time in as a child. holiday world is not very far from my parents house, and we are (hopefully) meeting one of my best friends from high school (angie) and her husband there for the day.
i'm excited about it...and really hopeful that it's all i remember it to be, lol.

8. and the NEXT weekend i'm going to arkansas (blech) with my friend natasha to see jason mraz! yes, i am fully aware that i live in music city, usa...and that he is here fairly often...but road trips are awesome and especially with good friends.

and for those of you keeping track at home, YES, this means that not one weekend in september am i home. C.R.A.Z.Y. here's to staying home in october! except that i probably won't be staying home the *entire* month...but more on that later

9. hmmm -- this is my favorite day of the year! 9/9 :) my favorite number is 9.
(when i was doing data entry earlier this year i got really excited when someone had entered the country on 9/9/09. i'm a dork...)

10. sometimes iced coffee makes my day. especially when i make it myself so it's way cheap. ahhh...in my new mug from the arch that is the *perfect* shape and size? sometimes it's the simple things...

Thursday's Ten: photos

so seriously? i started to write a blog full of 10 potty training tips. i wish i were kidding. this is NOT going to turn into a mom blog, especially before i'm a mom for pete's sake...but can you tell what i'm doing this week?

(btw, boys are much different to train than girls. just sayin')

instead, i think it's time to pull out a few favorite photos. mine will be from the past few months since i do this particular thursday's ten on a semi-regular basis.

share pics--caption if needed, stories if you wish!

here's mine:

1. emi loving me :)

2. a and i with my valentine's day flowers
3. the doggies i "sat" for (a's parents dog, a dog each from his 2 aunts and his grandparents 2 dogs) while they were in kentucky for the second memorial service for his granddaddy.

(yep, that's f-i-v-e itty bitty poodles!)
4. my friend laura's little girl being quite pleased with herself
5. emi's glamour shot
6. a pic our friend natasha took of a and i at the pub
7. at a friend's wedding

8. indiana field--i was a little obsessed and took a few pics :)9. my friend beth and her little boy "e". i have a couple of him that are adorable, but don't want to show them here without her permission! so you'll have to settle for his cute back :)
10. a self portrait i took at the rehearsal dinner for the wedding i was in almost a month ago (i'll post pics of that weekend with the professional ones come in). i just like this one because the dress is fun...and it zipped up with NO problem when it wouldn't even close a month before :D

Thursday's Ten: U-Pick 10

Hey all. Coming to you late today. I'm dealing with a lot today, so I'm not really "here"...and am a bit sleep-deprived, so I didn't come up with a fantastic topic like usual (yeah right!)



You know how Panera has the "U-Pick 2" deal? I always get french onion soup and half a sandwich...

Anyway, this is your own U-Pick list. Your topic, your ideas, your blog. I'm going to list 10 random things that are on my mind, but you go with whatever. Ok? :0)

1. I have a 30 before I'm 30 list. Hopefully I'll post it while I'm still 29.
2. I had dinner at 11:45 last night. Mmmm, healthy.
3. Easter is my favorite holiday of the year, candywise at least. (Christmas is really. But Easter has Cadbury mini eggs. And jelly beans. Ahhh)
4. Laffy Taffy has the WORST jokes on their packages. Do 5 year olds work there?
5. When I get a sinus infection my ear piercings get infected. How odd is that?
6. I love shows like "The Middle" and "Parks and Recreation". They did their research on rural Indiana...
7. I could do a 5K every week of the year. It's really hard to limit when there's so many I want to do...but the cost helps me there :-)
8. I did a bracket for the NCAA this year. First year in a long time. I may have caught the basketball bug again...uh-oh
9. I'm loving the Wii. I borrowed Mario Galaxy from a friend and I'm totally addicted (actually Anthony borrowed it, asked said friend if I could borrow it too...does that mean I borrowed it from Anthony or our friend or both?)
10. I've been craving a strawberry Italian cream soda for about a week. Must.find.strawberry.syrup to make one. World Market here I come!

Can I add a bonus? The Windows 7 commercials drive.me.crazy. Could it be because I've switched over to Mac or are they really that DANG ANNOYING?!

Ok. I can't really muster up more than that today. I love you all and still need your prayers and I work through some pretty major stuff.

Indy trip: the big town edition

Saturday after the parade and goodbyes to my parents and dog, we hit the road for Indianapolis.

We were on a Trader Joe's Mission.

You see, in Tennessee we can't buy alcohol in grocery stores. This is a bone of contention among most TN residents who just want to do all their shopping in one stop and avoid a liquor store for wine...but after several attempts to change state law it STILL hasn't happened.

Well, Trader Joe's has this two-buck chuck, you see.

And ours in Nashville doesn't have it because of the above explanation.

So anyone who goes to a neighboring state with a TJ's is in charge of bringing back the contraband.

We had thankfully checked with a friend (actually, a former teacher of mine, lol) to see if alcohol was available for purchase on Sundays in Indiana. It wasn't, so we ended up making our first stop in Indy at Trader Joe's. There we purchased five (5!!!) crates of wine for people here. Up until tonight, actually, I've had 4 of them in my dining room. Thankfully, I've now sent all but one crate home to their rightful owners so I look like much less of an alcoholic now!

Um, yeah. So here we are loading the carts of wine into the car.


With the two buck chuck run out of the way, we went downtown with our friends Brian and Angie. His aunt and uncle (who we were staying with) recommended a couple of restaurants to him and we stumbled upon one of them. BARcelona is a tapas place and it was AMAZING. If you like to eat and share food with the table tapas is the way to go!





After dinner we realized that a.) it was way too late to go to the mall as it was closed and b.) we had an early morning the next day. So we headed to our lodging, but saw the Christmas tree (made of lights) and a few cool buildings along the way.




Angie and I have been friends since middle school; Brian and Anthony have only met this summer. This was a good way to bond the two of them though, since I'm in their wedding this May and Anthony will be doing the bachelor party thing with Brian and the groomsmen/friends. Soooo, we only bugged them a little while, then Angie and I retreated to our room to indulge in a time honored tradition. Milk and oreos...or in this case, Joe-Joe's!




Sunday DID dawn early, and we also found out that Brian's aunt and uncle were season ticket holders...and offered graciously to drive us not only to their church but also to the game. So we all squeezed in one car and headed off.


They worship in a humongous United Methodist church. It was a beautiful service, filled with choral numbers, handbells, and normal high church liturgy. I loved this change in venue from our norm! There was even a flute choir providing music for our walk in the hallway between services!


Angie and I changed clothes in the backseat on the way to Circle Center Mall, where we were going to have lunch. Nice little feature: on game days if you have $20 worth in receipts for the mall you can park for the game for like $3. Believe me between our lunches (and my after game dash into H&M while everyone else used the bathroom) we had plenty of receipts!

The driving around was much more fun when the driver actually knew what he was doing and I could take pictures :) Creative upshots here because I was in the VERY back of the vehicle and was trying to avoid defrost lines!




We had lunch then hiked to Lucas Oil Stadium. Even the walk was kinda fun.


WOW. This place is amazing!







If you follow football at all, you probably know how the game went. I did have very divided loyalties, so I would have been happy either way...which was handy :0)

We were among almost 100% Colts fans (there were 4 or 5 Titans jerseys around our section), and the Colts fans around us were very gracious to Anthony...and myself when I started Titans flashing!

All in all, our seats had a tremendous view

There was a marching band at halftime (such an Indiana thing!)

It was fun to see my favorite 2 teams meet up

I got an awesome picture of Peyton from the flat screen

There were fans more conflicted than I
(random jersey of the day brought to you by the Pittsburgh Steelers...with "Peyton 18" on the back...)

The temperature was 70 degrees because the roof was closed!

And we left the game smiling.

Anthony enjoyed seeing the game in the first non-Titans NFL stadium he's visited! I was happy to have given him that experience first :0)