ok fine, no nap

I would rather be napping but apparently my mom would rather be vacuuming...so I'll blog.

Here's the rest of my superfuntime weekend. Alex was in town and I was assigned to Alex entertainment duty for Monday morning. The first order of business was to go to the post office to mail some stuff. Kinsey had no idea there was a post office downtown and was pretty upset that she had been walking to the one across from the courthouse all these years. Alex and I thought it was pretty funny and made fun of her all morning. Her response was always, "Are you sure it's been there that whole time? I'm SO MAD!"

We did some shopping, I found these cool pencils made from rolled up Chinese newspapers:Then...(drumroll)....BALDY'S!! My fav-o-rite.

mmm

the only place where i get the same thing every time
(chicken and jack!)i would also like to take a moment to point out that this is kinsey's first cameo in my blog. apparently she's been a secret reader for some time now. i like talking to her about her wedding and she's not too cool to hang out with you. that's all you really need to know about kinsey. (jk)then kinsey went home and we went to the q bar for some afternoon pool. Alex and I used to play pool and have a pitcher of miller lite every wednesday before bible study.

then alex left and i went hoa #1 for some milky tea and was pleased to see that abbie kampman was working. it was so fun talking to her. she's so great. then deedee called and i got to see her and kari and then deedee and i went and got betsy for dinner at quinton's, another favorite.

deedeebetsy

(aparently i only take pictures of people drinking?)

So there it is, yet another successful trip to Iowa City. Perhaps my last for a long long time. Weird.

beautiful

the most wonderful time

i had an amazing weekend. cate and i have been wanting to hang out to do some holiday baking and finally figured out a day that worked so i headed to west liberty on saturday afternoon to get that done. it was so fun. we made lots and lots of goodies and watched lots and lots of satc episodes from the last season that cate had never seen. it was perfect.

sugar cookies

toffee bars with hershey's bars melting on top.
super fun way to put chocolate on something.
rice crispies for scotcheroos
cate was listening for them to snap (crackle or pop) and then one did really loudly and we had to retake this picture after we were done cracking up.food coloring is funfrosting! we were done being creative after cookie #5

i decided that my favorite thing to do when i stay over at my married friends' houses is to put my toothbrush in their toothbrush holders.

and to add to their holiday decor

(that's my sock)so yeah, fun stuff. part two of the weekend is coming up next and it was pretty much just as fun. good times.

I got a fortune cookie today that said:

"You will receive unexpected support over the next week. Accept it graciously."

Pretty great.

is it really too much to ask?!

all i want is to be able to crochet and read at the same time.

and it's raining. can you imagine how great it would be to crochet AND read while it's raining outside?! with christmas lights? come on!

some things just must be too good for our earthly hearts to contain.

although i did just get TWO emails from Kate. that'll have to do.

stop hurting america

I heard a comment on NPR about Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN's Crossfire and I finally remembered to look it up. I know that it's old and I know that everyone has seen it but me but it's so good. And sadly, still relevant. If you have 14 minutes of your life to spare I definitely recommend checking it out. Even if you don't have 14 minutes, just watch from minute 2:50 and stop when you get bored. I'll be the first to admit that the Daily Show swings way to the left but I really appreciate and respect that Mr. Stewart addresses that the last thing we need is partisanship. I'm guilty of it too and I'm quick to judge based on political affiliation so it's good to hear an intelligent and respected celebrity call for members of the media to stop the noise.

Here are a couple of my favorite lines:

-How does it pay?
-Not well, but you can sleep at night.

-...and maybe this explains quite a bit, that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.

-This is theater...how old are you?
-35
-and you wear a bow tie...and listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not a smart guy because those are not easy to tie...but the thing is that you're doing theater when you should be doing debate. It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery.

-You're on CNN...the show that leads up to me is puppets making prank phone calls...what is wrong with you?!

-You have responsibility to the public discourse
-You need to get a job at a journalism school I think
-You need to go to one

It's almost painful to listen to these men try desperately to get a word in edgewise and try to get back to what they thought this interview would be like. They just don't know what to do when getting faced with the tough questions they accuse him of not asking.

I haven't seen a clip of Jon Stewart that made me respect him this much since the video seen here, which was hard to find a copy of.

that's a lot of wonder

Fark had a link to a site listing the 7 wonders of each state. It's pretty funny to scan through them. i must admit i hadn't even heard of half of the Iowa ones. All of the Illinois ones are not only in Chicago, but within a one mile radius of one another if that, which is weird. Oh and also, one of the Nebraska ones is in South Dakota. Pretty funny. Check out the wonders of your favorite state!

international mail is expensive...you'd better hurry

so i order this book online from amazon for about a dollar. i'm really excited about it and i'm eager for it to arrive. one day my mom says, "did you see that you got a package?" I'm excited to hear this and look around at the various places the mail usually ends up but don't see any packages. "It's out in the garage, it's pretty big," she says. Hmm...big? So i figure it's a used book so the person probably just sent it in whatever box was laying around but then I see that it's a rather new, quite large jones soda box...huh?!

Confusion sets in.
I open the box.

Dude! A case of Jones Soda! Score!

Ew gross! Turkey and Gravy Soda! Sick!
HA! It's from Alex!
Wait...and my picture is on it.
Of course.
And it's that picture...of course.
She sucks.
How did she even get that picture?

If anyone would like one (or 11) bottle(s) of Turkey and Gravy Jones Soda with my picture on it, give me your address. Actually I can really only give away 10 because I have to send one to Jess because she's my co-star. Details - the picture was in Legoland at the Mall of America on Matt's birthday forever ago. Jess made me dress up like a pirate and I clearly was not as amused as she was. I make this face a lot because my friends are ridiculous, as proven by this post. Oh and it tastes horrible...kind of like chicken broth and sprite.

OH! PS! She also sent a case of Jones to Amy - who got an ACTUAL GOOD FLAVOR OF JONES! GGRRRRR.

see, i've been right all this time

There is a category of movies from my childhood that are usually beloved but somehow I've always found them creepy and unsettling. Also in this category? Pete's Dragon and the original Willy Wonka. I can't believe everyone isn't totally freaked out by those movies. I'm sure there are more. Then I remember that my favorite movie growing up was The Neverending Story, which is pretty darn creepy.

Anyway, I found this Mary Poppins mashup on YouTube and then found some other pretty good ones so I thought I'd share.

more

i found some more pictures. here they are:

the obligatory picture of eli eating fried cheese
it happens every time.

this is jess hiring dan and them both questioning the decision

i got some of this. yum.and some of this.

The calendar is 12 little sheets with the calendar info on one side and just the design (suitable for framing!) on the other side. It's little and perfect.

There are no pictures of Crissa or Alex and only one of Dan. Sorry guys. Maybe you should do more fun things that I want to take pictures of.

overdue

These are the pictures from my most recent jaunt to Chicagoland.

The first order of business when I got to Jess's was Thai food.
If you know me at all, you'll know the excitement I felt when the waitress kept putting down little dishes full of condiments. It was a joyful moment.

Jess and my phoneAfter sharing a big plate of fried stuff, Jess said "do you want to go see the tiny cemetary?" I thought this was just some sort of display in front of a gravestone store but they were real graves. Some of them were from the 1800'sgraves in a strip mall
a whole new level of suburbia

we went to ikea for a new comforter
Jess found this chair which was both rocky and bouncy

i made her bounce even though a lady was watchingi also got some alarm clocks (all of which I ended up giving away)
and some glogg, which I left at Crissa's

we went into the city to find something to do and we found the cookie monster
we also found bryan (definitely fun)
we talked about starbucks and then he suggested the art salethis is what i got at the art salethe one that says magic has letter-pressed reindeer, they're fun

I also got these. They were 5 for $1. Eli got one and so did Crissa.
We even got a free tiny paper crane.

Bryan got some scarves. I was nice enough to model one for him on the cold walk back to the car. He was nice enough to model one for himself and ask me to take his picture because checking himself out in the windows wasn't good enough. He's one of the funniest people I only kind of know.

my friends are smart

Sometimes I'm really excited about who my friends are. This post by Yudai made me really proud to be friends with someone so intelligent and insightful. He wrote this after a recent visit to Hiroshima. Hopefully he's okay with me reposting it.

The justification of nuclear weapons as deterrent of war is flawed and outdated. First and foremost, the indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons makes them illegal, especially when targeted at cities and children (because international law provides that blood of children should not be spilled ie: children should not be used as tools of war). Second, with the amount of nuclear weapons in the world, Mutually Assured Destruction between two warring states would go beyond the two and definitely have the potential of destroying the whole human race (through nuclear winters, black rain, radiation etc.) So the term "Mutually Assured Destruction" is more accurately, "The Complete and Utter, Indiscriminate Destruction of Everyone and Everything on Planet Earth." Third, the proliferation of nuclear weapons does not actually reduce the risk of war, it only guarantees the maximum amount of destruction and suffering when one does occur. Look at the results of North Korea's A-bomb test in October...it almost caused a war. It definitely did not make the world a safer, more stable, more peaceful place.

The ice age, stone age, bronze age, industrial revolution, and not the modern age of computers and electronics and nuclear weapons. Modern? Hmmm...Aren't we just doing the same things that we've been doing for eons and eons, just with bigger, prettier weapons? Modernity should include justice and peace, diplomacy and communication; an era where war is as obsolete as one of these:

Because, after all, wouldn't PEACE be the ULTIMATE deterrent of war?

He's so right. Can you imagine how impossible it would be to see war as a solution to a problem if we truly knew peace?

civil war?

Yesterday NBC made the fairly inevitable decision to begin calling the Iraq situation an official Civil War. Frankly I'm not sure how it has taken this long for someone to make this call. President Bush has remained firm that it's not a civil war, however common sense definitions indicate that it's fairly obvious that the situation collapsed into civil war several thousand deaths ago.

Here's what Wikipedia says:

"A civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight for political power or control of an area. Political scientists use two criteria: the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy. The second criteria is that at least 1,000 people must have been killed in total, with at least 100 from each side."

Fairly obvious?

Tony Snow seemed to think it was fairly obvious that it can't be called a civil war when he spoke to the press yesterday. According to him, a civil war is "where people break up into clearly identifiable feuding sides clashing for supremacy in a land." Thanks for clearing that up Tony...obviously you and the President have it right...that's not what's happening in Iraq...

The issue is obviously a lot more complicated. How do you calculate the impact of America's involvement in the situation? I can't help but feel that our sloppy war tactics forced these people into a certain degree of desperation that could lead to a huge increase in violent outcry. I also get a little panicky thinking that there's nowhere to go from here except chaos and although I would love for our troops to come home, how horrible would it be for us to drive them into war with each other and then back out. Let's ask Somalia how that worked out.

I guess in the end all of this "civil war" mumbo jumbo doesn't really make much of a difference. We can continue calling it "sectarian violence" for as long as we like and in the end it's just semantics. People are still killing each other. We are still failing to bring peace. It's still really sad. I wonder how much peace we could bring if we redirected the millions of dollars being spent every day on this war away from military spending and put more of it toward meeting the real needs of the Iraqi's. Millions of dollars. Every day. $6 Billion every month. Do you know how many goats you could buy for World Vision with that money?! LOTS!

World AIDS Day

December 1st (Friday) is World AIDS Day. Awareness is a really powerful tool that we have in the fight against this pandemic and World AIDS Day is a good excuse to brush up on your knowledge of the disease and what you can do to help out. World Vision put together a list of 12 things you can do (action steps!) to join the fight.

Number one on the list is a quiz to test your knowledge of the disease.
I got 9 right. Now it's your turn!

I'd really encourage you to check out the list and see what you can do. Most of the options don't require money or even a lot of time, just a little awareness. They also have a lot of holiday gift ideas that will have a real long term impact on people and families all over the world. I mean seriously, why would you not give someone a goat on behalf of your brother who is impossible to shop for?!

dticd

Remember a while ago when I got to go to Iowa City and hang out with Cate for DTICD (Downtown Iowa City Day)? Here are the pictures. Yes, there are only 3.

We checked out the bead store and I got this one. It's clear but from the sides you can see that the edges are green. It's pretty neat. I think I'm just going to hang it from clear jewelery wire but I haven't gotten any yet.

We wandered around downtown and checked out the cool stores, stopped by Starbucks to get my markout for Cate (she chose a box of Wild Sweet Orange Tea) then headed to Old Chicago. We got the usual (pepperoni rolls and chicken alfredo pizza) then went to Stranger Than Fiction.

Cate calculating the tip

Getting caught taking her picture

captain random

i thought i should dump a couple pictures i found on my camera before posting anything for real. here you go:

this is why my room got a little update- holes in my sheets
it was really sad because they were really great sheets
chocolate covered potato chips that luke and i tried out
they weren't bad. the salty/sweet thing was definitely going on.
the kids next door made a snowman when we got some snow a couple weeks ago. it was the first snow so there were leaves all over him. he was melted the next day and there was just a wet scarf in the yard. it was sad...but really cute.
ok i think that's all of the random ones.
peace out.

hi there.

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. Life has been pretty full these past couple weeks. I got to go to Chicagoland for a few days right before Thanksgiving which was really really good. I didn't take enough pictures (what was i thinking?!) but I'll post the ones I have as soon as I get my camera out of the abyss of my car. I had to work on Thanksgiving. I was supposed to open and then be done around noon, in plenty of time to have Thanksgiving with my family but instead I covered for someone who was scheduled wrong so I totally missed family time. I know I'll get to see everyone at Christmas time but it was a little weird to completely pass over Thanksgiving. When I got home everyone was gone and my parents were napping so I microwaved some sweet potatoes and pouted...but only for a few minutes because i had to go to bed immediately to be at work by 4am for "early morning shoppers" of which there were approximately 5. Ok enough with the pity party, I love my job and was happy to help out when needed and I'm glad I got to eat sweet potatoes. Oh and the funny story of the year is that my cousin walked into the wrong house on Thanksgiving. He looked around, didn't recognize anyone, got confused, turned around and left. Pretty funny.

Now between work shifts I'm filling out paperwork, getting a new birth certificate and a replacement social security card, filling out immigration forms and sending packages to Kate with last minute "America" stuff before I won't be able to anymore. I'm really thankful to be living at home during all of this because the little things that could potentially stress me out (or at least just annoy me) are just taken care of. When my printer is out of ink I can just run to the basement for a new one, there are always stamps and envelopes, sometimes my laundry is even finished for me and waiting by the stairs when I abandoned it in the dryer after grabbing clean work pants and running out the door (after I put them on). Pretty nice.

Ok that's all for this sad excuse for a blog. I'll make it up to you, I promise.

an open letter to eli l. steenlage

that's all.

i've gone global

uh, hello?! did anyone notice that FINALLY someone in AFRICA, land of my HEART has read my blog?! woohoo!! I think it might have been Kate (that dot is totally in Mozambique) but still! Now someone on every continent has been to my blog. I'm so famous it's not even funny.


PS who are all these other dots? I definitely don't know all of those west coast dots...or the east coast ones for that matter. well anyway, welcome dots. er, bienvenue...les...dots...or something.

spending money like a champ

so...i've been buying stuff. and feeling guilty about it. it's been a long long time since i've had a regular paycheck and now that i have an income i'm becoming more liberal with my spending. that's what we'll call it. liberal spending. to my defense, i'm still a total tightwad. i haven't bought anything without some sort of discount or intense online research so in my head that gives me permission to shell out for some cool stuff. i still really hate accumulating things and it's hard for me to justify spending money and raising support at the same time so it's about time to put a lid on it. but really most of the things i bought are things that are long overdue for replacement (flip flop season is over, i've been using the same wallet since i stole it from mary-claire in high school, etc.). so there's my justification. thank you for playing along, now look how cool:

cute, right? eight bucks and in my size. come on!

the queen bee bag i've been dreaming of for YEARS

finally an fm transmitter/charger that works and isn't designed by an idiot!

that's pretty much it. there may have been some stationery (only a little!) and a book or two (just the ones that the library doesn't have!) and some new sheets (the old ones had holes...come on) and a matching pillow (so i'm a sucker for stripes) but that's pretty much it. seriously.

spitting cobra

this is what kate found in the bathroom in the middle of the night.

i'm almost done

i try not to be too political on this blog because about 80% of the people in my life disagree with my politics and most of the rest just don't care. i just needed to share some funny election-related internet stuff just in case you have a sense of humor about the situation. i'm not even going to talk about how the president told the press corps today that he lies to them to make them shut up. at least this year no one at my job said "burn her at the stake" when i told them how i voted.




ps- as i'm writing this, stephen colbert and john hall are harmonizing the national anthem like nobody's business. you should be looking it up on youtube.

good news i couldn't even have voted for

Peace out Donald.

no news links yet (except ones that say Rumsfeld shows no indication of stepping down) to show you because the press conference just started. now i have to leave and go to work with an extra spring in my step.

seriously. go. right now.

would i have made that picture this big if i wasn't serious about this?

this is a problem

this isn't even a liberal rant, this is just sad.

Army Recruiters Accused of Misleading Students to Get Them to Enlist

Nov. 3, 2006 — An ABC News undercover investigation showed Army recruiters telling students that the war in Iraq was over, in an effort to get them to enlist.

ABC News and New York affiliate WABC equipped students with hidden video cameras before they visited 10 Army recruitment offices in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

"Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?" one student asks a recruiter.

"No, we're bringing people back," he replies.

"We're not at war. War ended a long time ago," another recruiter says.

Last year, the Army suspended recruiting nationwide to retrain recruiters following hundreds of allegations of improprieties.

One Colorado student taped a recruiting session posing as a drug-addicted dropout.

"You mean I'm not going to get in trouble?" the student asked.

The recruiters told him no, and helped him cheat to sign up.

During the ABC News sessions, some recruiters told our students if they enlisted, there would be little chance they'd to go Iraq.

But Col. Robert Manning, who is in charge of U.S. Army recruiting for the entire Northeast, said that new recruits were likely to go to Iraq.

"I would not disagree with that," Manning said. "We are a nation and Army at war still."

Manning looked at the ABC News video of his recruiters.

"It's hard to believe some of things they are telling prospective applicants," Manning said. "I still believe that this is the exception more than the norm. … I've visited many stations myself, and I know that we have many wonderful Americans serving in uniform as recruiters."

Yet ABC News found one recruiter who even claimed if you didn't like the Army, you could just quit.

"It's called a 'Failure to Adapt' discharge," the recruiter said. "It's an entry-level discharge so it won't affect anything on your record. It'll just be like it never happened."

Manning, however, disagrees with the ease the recruiter describes.

"I would believe it's not as easy as he would lead you to believe it is," he said.

Sue Niederer, whose son, Seth, joined the Army in 2002, said she was all too familiar with recruiters' lies.

"They need to do anything they possibly can to get recruits," Niederer said.

Seth was sent to Iraq and was killed by a roadside bomb.

Niederer said she was not surprised by what ABC News had found. She believes it's still a widespread problem. She said that recruiters told Seth he wouldn't be put into combat.

"Ninety percent [are] going to be putting their lives on the line for our country," she said. "Tell them the truth. That's all. Just tell them the truth."

Link

i'd really like more symmetry

This is what my blog looks like as a graph. I won't pretend to have any idea what it all means but it was pretty cool watching it create itself. I bet Chris Zinkula knows what it means. Click here to get one of your own or try out some other sites. So far the coolest I've seen is for BoingBoing.net. Try it out!

now if i just had blogger beta....

a few months ago my computer freaked out while i was doing some template stuff on this blog and it deleted all of my links. it was a horrific day because just a couple weeks before that i accidentally deleted all of my saved bookmarks as well. i remembered a lot of it but there are still a lot of cool things that i bookmarked that i will probably never find again. all in all it was a good lesson because i never would have admitted or really even realized how addicted i am to the internet and collecting cool internet stuff until it was all gone.

then, joy of joys, while i was cleaning up the basement before main event i came across a piece of paper with my handwriting all over it. turns out it was the scrap of paper i scribbled a ton of links on the first time i decided to put them all up on my blog so LUCKY YOU my links section is back up and running. the paper also had a bunch of other stuff on it, like Ben's(?) phone number and several to-do lists. i deciphered that the paper must have been right before new year's last year because there's a bunch of "before chicago" type stuff on it, like "look up train schedules" (which i never actually do), "look up good ethnic food" (which is dumb because the best places are the ones that won't be on the internet), "borrow socks" (your guess is as good as mine).

another quirk i have (a tangent to the list-making tendency) is that the night before a busy day i often make a detailed list of what to do in the morning. i think that in my head it makes sense to organize how to be as efficient as possible down to an excruciating level of detail. for instance part of this list is "wake up, shower, breakfast, dry hair, brush teeth" and it's in that order so that my hair starts drying while i eat and i wait to brush my teeth until after i dry my hair because it's annoying to brush my teeth immediately after i eat because of the residual cereal gunk in my teeth that will just end up in my toothbrush if i don't wait a few minutes. i don't know why i can't just have a routine without having a thought out reason and written order to how things are done. you don't even want to know what that list looks like if my car needs to be cleaned out or if there's laundry to be done. there are usually several drafts.

wow, i'm crazy.

sorry, i just can't help it

1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:30am

2. Diamonds or Pearls? diamonds. although not if it's a conflict diamond
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Marie Antoinette
4. What is your favorite TV show? Globe Trekker, The Office, anything on the Travel Channel, Arrested Development
5. What did you have for breakfast? a granola bar and lots of coffee
6. What is your middle name? Jo
7. What is your favorite Cuisine? anything ethnic, Thai, Japanese, Mexican
8. What foods do you dislike? lots of meat, pizza hut, processed foods
9. What is your favorite potato chip? i don't really like potato chips. but i do like sun chips
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? the new Decemberists and my mixtape from Yudai
11. What kind of car do you drive? 2003 Oldsmobile Alero

12. Favorite Sandwich? anything you can make into a panini, with pesto and lots of vegetables
13. What characteristics do you despise? selfishness, arrogance, ignorance
14. What are your favorite clothes? pajama pants or skirts
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation? Mozambique to see Kate, or Japan, or Arizona/California. Basically the far away places where my friends live.
16. What color are your eyes? Hazel
17. Favorite brand of clothing? anything basic like Banana Republic or Gap, although I only wear free T-shirts, pajama pants and work clothes
18. Where would you want to retire? Africa...or maybe Colorado
19. Favorite time of day? morning usually
20. Where were you born? Waterloo, Iowa
21. What is your favorite sport to watch? Swimming or Baseball
22. Who do you think will not send this back? probably you
23. Person you expect to send it back first? blah blah blah
24. Pepsi or Coke? Pepsi
25. Cats or Dogs? both, but probably dogs
26. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Usually a night owl, but usually accidentally.
27. Pedicure or manicure? I've had a pedicure once. It was okay.
28. Do you prefer funny or mushy cards? I prefer blank ones that are pretty
29. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? umm...no
30. What did you want to be when you were little? a marine biologist
31. What do you have in your trunk right now? (it's funny if you accidentally read the previous answer in response to this question) an african mat, some yarn, a can of red spray paint and some sparklers
32. What is your best childhood memory? riding bikes to buy gum, anything at my dad's house or with my brothers
33. What are the different jobs you have had in your life? Hy-Vee, Burge, day care, Hollywood Video, Hallmark, the dealership, Naomi's Kitchen, Starbucks, lots and lots and lots of babysitting
34. Favorite Holiday? Flag Day
35. What is your favorite dessert? chocolate cake, or anything warm with ice cream on top, like peach cobbler or a brownie
36. Favorite Summer getaway? Minnesota or Lake Michigan
37. Ever been to Africa? Yes!
38. Glasses or Contacts? Glasses, but only because I ran out of contacts. I hate them.
39. Ever been toilet papering? of course
40. Been in a car accident? a couple
41. Favorite day of the week? thursday or friday
42. Favorite restaurant? here it's Rudy's, in Iowa City it's Baldy's
43. Favorite flower? I have really liked hydrangeas this year
44. Favorite movies? Royal Tenenbaums right now
45. Favorite Pastime? um, email surveys, duh
46. Favorite ice cream? Phish Food, or mint chip
47. Favorite fast food restaurant? ick. Subway?
48. How many times did you fail your drivers test? none!
49. From whom did you get your last email? Sojourners
50. Sandals or tennis shoes? sandals
51. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? any book or cd store
52. If the speed limit is 60 what is the fastest you will drive? 68
53. Bedtime? I can't seem to fall asleep before midnight
54. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? you
55. Last person you went to dinner with? i just had lunch with my stepmom and sister in law. dinner was the work meeting last night at brown bottle

56. What are you listening to right now? whatever Pandora is playing...right now it's Iron & Wine
57. What is your favorite color? blue. and brown lately
58. How may tattoos do you have? one
59. How many people are you sending this Email to? I'll probably just blog it.
60. What time did you finish this email? 10:50pm

homesick

Sometimes I just want to go home. I just want to be done and go to heaven. I feel selfish (and extremely un-spiritual) for feeling this way. I know that it's mostly the cold and gloomy weather and the fact that life seems to be taking longer but going by more quickly. I know that the chemicals in my brain have a hard time figuring out that I am a person who is blessed and provided for and that I should be happy and joyful and easily entertained. Things just seem hard sometimes and I feel especially like I'm in a place far away from the place I was made for. Nothing in particular. Nothing that can be fixed. Nothing that will go away any time soon.

On an entirely different note (and another reason that I shouldn't be so whiny) - I had a really fun work day today. I've gotten to know some coworkers and working is more fun now because I feel more comfortable and can carry on easy conversations with the people I'm there with. I'm officially a certified Barista as of today, we got out the stuff for the Christmas drinks (red sprinkles! yay!), and I was voted "Partner of the Month" even though I've barely even been there for a month. Oh and I had a fun talk with a customer about music and ran out to my car to get the Decemberists CD for him to listen to. Turns out he was having a one on one with someone ("someone" being the funny guy at Main Event- who walked in during the Decemberists conversation and marched...yes, marched around singing 16 Military Wives) and they sat in the store reading the Bible and praying together (a sweet thing to see at work).

See? I'm blessed. I've also come to an important realization lately that is significant if you know me really well. I have this...we'll call it a quirk...where I need everyone to like me. I really like being the favorite. I don't really like a lot of attention and it's not that I think I'm great, I just want you to like me. I don't know why. It's a weird sinful tendency. Well getting a new job and therefore meeting lots of different people all at the same time has made me realize that sometimes I have to sacrifice being liked by everyone in order to be true to who I am. A couple of challenging situations have come up that have brought to my attention that my difficulty in saying "no" to people has caused me to sacrifice my integrity and my personality. It's nothing huge- just realizing that it's okay to choose which topics of conversation or social outings to be a part of even if it means people think I'm a snob. If you're thinking to yourself, "Shouldn't she have learned this lesson in 6th grade?" the answer is Yes. I would go into more detail if my little brother didn't read this.