CW

I had an excellent weekend in Champaign. I think it's more fun to be an alumna at these things. I'm told it was the 40th anniversary of CW... started by U of I...which is cool. Anyway, I love it how much U of I pride always comes out when we host stuff. Blue and orange napkins, decorations, programs, pens, blue shirts and orange ties, the "greetings my name is:" name tags. It makes me smile a lot.

All the current U of I girls had to lead discussions groups so I got to hang out with Kaleigh, and Callie, and Kim, and Nic in the kitchen and help get food ready for supper. When I say 'help' I mean make lemonade and fill water glasses and get in the way. And I didn't have to be very social...

We sang in the architecture building afterwards- that was pretty cool. And got to see more of Ern than I wanted to. :) O well. I did get to talk to Dona and some other cool girls that I never ever see anymore.

I stayed at Hessel house, always a pleasure! I miss those girls mucho. But I might see them tomorrow. and go to NC with them- yay!

observing both sides of a prank war is good stuff.

blessings.

10

emails in my inbox. the high this week was 40. it was a long week.

i baked pies yesterday and they were really good.

kendra's dress is close to being done. it needs a final fitting and hemming and all that good stuff. then i just need to make a cummerbund and it'll be ready for the stage. :)

life is crazy. God is good. I'm tired.

blessings.

um...yeah...

I think the warm weather has scrambled our brains. :D

if you were at my house today you might have overheard some interesting conversations- for the record, none of these came from me.

unnamed to protect the innocent #1: "do you think I could get a tan from the toaster?"
unnamed to protect the innocent #2: "no, I don't think the toaster gives off UV rays."
(I was cracking up from the other room)

walking out of good friday services: "you know, if it wasn't cloudy, the stars would be really pretty tonight."

talking about the "April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring? (pilgrims, duh) and it was mentioned that the original ending to the rhyme is "happy hours." Which makes it sound much more Irish. we laughed a lot.

Happy Good Friday- Hallelujah for the Blood!!

green things

my plants are growing!
I'm pretty excited to try out my new cold frame. :D


I might be a little bit ready for spring...
Blessings.

pi day

• my plants are growing! hopefully they won't die between now and when I put them outside in my new cold frame that my super cool dad made for me. :)
• my car is in the shop again... this time it's the alternator. woot. anybody have a car they want to sell? it has to be blue, and 4-door, and automatic (I can't drive stick), not foreign, be pretty sporty and have a fairly accessible engine. but I'm not picky.
• i went to the menno relief sale tonight to work and they didn't need me. so I walked around... and said hi to all my old menno friends. and decided that it might be the second biggest AC crowd outside of the leo sale.
  
• somehow I agreed to make my cousin's costume for her musical. the smallest available pattern is a size six... she's a size zero. um... um.... I don't know how to do that! thank goodness for mom. it's a medieval dress, so i have 8 yards of lavender satin to play with- woot!
  
• in case you forgot, today is pi day. I didn't have time to make any pie.... so sad.
  

Blessings.

blue was just a kansas summer sky

Or March sky.
Somehow I made it all day on 4.5 hours of sleep...

Kansas was really fun. I kind of procrastinated on finding a ride until Friday afternoon. But it was all good, because I ended up going with BDY, J-nell, and Natedog. It was an uneventful drive out, and we made it in time for the supper and singing. It was really good to see Kansas people and U of I people, although I barely got to talk to any of them for very long.

I got to spend the night with Marie, Kristi, and Brit at Stefani's house- good times. Kristi set her cell phone alarm for 7 on Sunday morning and I set mine for 8 and they both went off at the same time; we were kind of confused as to which was correct. But... we figured it out and we weren't late for church. :)

The wedding was beautiful, Caleb and Bethany are both so cute. And they managed to have the shortest wait in a reception line ever! Props to them for that.

We took the scenic route back to the interstate... our fearless driver and navigator were busy reminiscing so we got to experience some real Kansas roads. :) The ride home was slightly disappointing (side note- I'm using hyperbole here)- we didn't stop for Jackstack and Bandanna's was "shut" so I have yet to experience that place; but there was lots of good music and conversation. I didn't get home until 1 (St. Louis is definitely not on the way to Bern) so I've been pretty much in a fog all day. O well, I'll survive and it was worth it to be there. At least I wasn't crazy like some people who drove out in the middle of the night. :)

Blessings.

Bookends

Sometimes I go for weeks with 'nothing' to do and then I get crazy busy all of the sudden.

Tuesday evening Elise had "the girls who were in bible class together + Heather" (we need a name or something) over for supper and games. It was good to be with them again. I don't know what my problem was though, I was soooo tired and I ended up going home really early because I could barely keep my eyes open enough to play moods.

Last night Gab and I went to Champaign to hang out with Karen K. It was a great time. I had to drop some stuff off at the Shaker for Matt so we said hi to all the Shakerites and Ern. Some things never change- the smell of the Shake and the smell of Ern. We stopped at Walmart for old times sake. I didn't wear my whale p.j.'s because Gab didn't wear hers... We ate supper at Za's on Green street- so good. We've been talking about going to a ballet or something similar for a while... so we checked out a "studio dance" at Krannert. It was... um.. interesting. I liked parts of it. Parts of it were just plain weird. But, my horizons were definitely broadened, so it was not a bad experience. Plus I can say that I've watched five people push a grand piano around a stage for no particular reason and then 'dance' around it. yeah. interesting really isn't a very good way to describe it. Then we ate Coldstone and came home.

I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night... and I had to sit through five hours of safety training today. So boring.

I'm going to KS tomorrow!
Blessings.

...Old friends, Old friends Sat on their park bench Like bookends...

Snow and Mud

This has been an excellent week. I went skiing and mudding and my old roomie Meg announced her engagement to Dale!!!! Two total allstars! I'm super excited for them!

Kaleigh and Kendra B and I got up really, really early yesterday and drove to Chestnut Mt. to go skiing. I had such a good time with those girls. They're lots and lots of fun! It was Kendra's first time skiing, always kind of nerve wracking because I would have felt awful if she didn't have a good day. But she did really great! The weather was pretty much perfect and they got snow the day before... so I got to ski on the most powder/real snow that I've ever been on. I was really glad for Curves... because I felt halfway in shape/in control of my skis... which I love. And I even went down a few more slopes than normal. I'm not usually very adventurous. It was really great. We had good times in the car, we never did see a post office, although they made me take a picture next to a deserted "Tradin Post." Haha. Kendra and I were a little bit late to testimonies... but you'll have that. I'm not even very sore today! Pretty much an amazing day.


There were four baptisms today, so church was very full. Abby came over after and we went for a pretty long walk. It was so nice outside! We were going to go look at my plants in the shed and the barnyard is a soupy mess since everything melted. So... we decided to drive my car rather than get all muddy. Um... my car is heavier than it looks because we definitely got stuck in front of the shed. And dug some really deep ruts trying to get it out. Ab and I had to give up and get Dad and Shelly to get it out. The one good thing was that I ended up in my bare feet stomping through mud puddles and almost falling face first in the mud. :D The ground is a lot colder than the air.... but once your feet go numb the gravel doesn't hurt as much. It was quite the experience...

Blessings.

i'm afraid of the phone

I've had the same cell phone for 4 years now... total number of calls: 1371, total minutes used: 35:01:04.

*grin*

....

um... I guess I just don't have anything to say!

i can't wait for spring

I had a pretty quiet weekend. Skiing didn't work out so I had all Saturday to do all kinds of fun things. Like sit around. And finish "Knife of Dreams" finally.... that whole series took me almost two years! Craziness.

I started some flowers in my mini greenhouse in the shed loft. I'm pretty excited.
Sometimes when my dad goes to the store he brings me home super cool surprises- like the clamp light in the picture. (The fluorescent fixture is "borrowed" from the house)

The one downside... I have to haul water up these stairs.....so hopefully something grows.

Blessings.

Die Gruppe

thanks to Dalestyle for the picture...




on another note,
Happy Singles Awareness day! Shelly and I were singing that to the tune of happy birthday tonight... with great emphasis on the "many more" part. :D

the frozen north

So I had an excellent weekend. Two of my old roomies live in the twin cities, so a bunch of people with 709/champaign connections road tripped up to visit them. There were 17 of us plus a fly-in... it was a great group. I kind of miss people already. I'm pretty pathetic, I know.

We went snow tubing, and played games, and saw Amanda's apartment, and visited a conservatory and zoo, and went ice skating, and had a wonderfully random supper, and pretty much had a blast. I like Minnesota. I like how they don't hide in their houses when it's cold.

Some of my highlights:

• driving and discussing "A grief observed"
  
• Gab's iPod
• the flowers at the conservatory
• ice skating and playing tag under the stars even though it was 20 below zero.
• piling 14 people into a 7 passenger van on the way to church
• playing who, what, WHEN, where, why
• Seeing Bovee
  
• supper- I shared a picnic basket with Marcos... others weren't so lucky and ate from baby plates, flowerpots, camping cook kits, sand pails, and with marshmallow toasters... funny stuff.
  
• Boo-boo Blakey's car... which I may or may not have had anything to do with.
• Chilling with some super cool girls
• talking WOT with Sprout
• Listening to some random music lecture d.j. nicalicious found in the van
• having Natalie ride shotgun and Sarah explaining things
• the "Send Help" sign
  

Lowlights (few and far between):

• almost hitting Steffen's van
  
• my van not starting before church
  
• my van still not starting after church
• a completely frozen van
  

Although, even though thawing out the van was a hassle and annoying I think some of the guys were enjoying being mechanics for an hour. :) Props to boo-boo for taking one for the team and losing some hearing finally getting it started with ether.

My alarm went off way too early this morning. And it was a very busy day.
Blessings.

Cousins

Scott and Ned were in Champaign this weekend to visit Neal and Kim so Saturday morning Jake and I drove down to see them. Matt decided that they needed to experience Merry Ann's so we met them there for breakfast. That place is so greasy. Ned had The Stack and afterwards said he felt like he had eaten a brick. :)

We went to the Shaker after breakfast because the boys wanted to let their food settle or something... then we headed out to marriage hill at Orchard Downs to go sledding. It was really great- the temperature was perfect, the snow was packed, and it wasn't super crowded. We did have to avoid hitting a lot of little foreign children... but they were cute so it was all good. Scott and I could not keep the tobogon straight. Every time we tried it we would go sideways and then somehow end up in the snow. Most of our spills were pretty major; Ned rolled over me at least once, and I ended up under the sled another time.

So then we cleaned up and cooled down at the Shaker and headed to Neal and Kim's for the rest of the day. We played Rook and Wii and ate food and played with Cailer and Brock. Jon W. was there so there were enough people for two Rook games...Kim and I got trounced by Ned and Jake. It was bad. Kim and I had fun at subway trying to order 7 subs... they were a little flustered.

I didn't get enough sleep, as usual. The guys all stayed with Matt so I got my own bedroom and bathroom at Neal's. It was nice. Church in Champaign was good. The Hessel girls had ISU guests, so I got to see some girls that I don't normally see, and Dona. :) Jake and I left right after church for home, which was good because it started thundering/lightning/raining/snowing not long after we got back. I was having enough issues with his psuedo 4 wheel drive blazer on snow this weekend, I really didn't need to drive in any more of it.

Blessings.

If at first you don't succeed

try, try again!

So my second attempt at taffy was a success. Woot! I made it exactly the same, so who knows what happened the first time. Maybe it worked because I wasn't making it for other people... or because I was reading WOT while stirring... or because the atmospheric pressure is lower...

I had to call Grandma in florida to tell her. :D It's 80 degrees there and it's going to snow a lot tonight here. eeessh. I'm trying very hard not to be jealous.

Shelly and I pulled the taffy, the rest of the fam just wanted to eat it, and in my very humble opinion it turned out really good. Much better than at oak run. Of course shelly knows what she's doing... unlike some people... *cough* So anyway...

It's going to snow!
Blessings.

top three

Louis L'Amour books:

1. The Lonesome Gods
2. Sitka
3. The Haunted Mesa

and then of course all the Kilkenny stories.

I went to Oak Run on Friday. It was fun. Even though my taffy was a complete bust. (I talked to two other families that tried making it that same night and theirs failed too... so maybe it was the weather) I was told that I should stick to making pie. We played a lot of "I have never" and I have a bruise on my ankle now.

Otherwise, it's been a lazy weekend. :)

I found out

That I'm not very good at ping pong. O well. I still like to play it. I can't throw darts either. :D

Sydney's baptism was this weekend in Champaign so I went down on Saturday afternoon and chilled with the Hessel house girls and Kaleigh. We played ping pong....with eye protection just in case a light bulb got broken. :)


For supper we went to Cheddar's with some other yg people. The first thing our waitress said to us was, "are you Apostolic?" and then proceeded to praise the Lord (she was Pentecostal) every time she checked on our table. It was pretty funny, because that's the second time in a week that somebody asked if I was Pentecostal... the first time was a creepy guy at a Bloomington gas station...

It was good to be in Champaign again... Sydney's testimony was good... singing afterwards was great.... Kristen and I lost badly at ping pong to the Koch's. When everybody left Sprout and I sang through the Phantom of the Opera- great fun.

I didn't get MLK Jr. day off. *sigh*

Blessings.

graffiti

There's a super cool website called Wonderful Graffiti where you can get words and quotes to put on the wall. I just got some today. I like it a lot. This is a picture of my wall. *grin*

I've been listening to The Hobbit on CD while working on Gab's birthday present. (It's today- Happy Birthday Gab!)

road trip

It's been a good weekend. I spent most of it with people who have Chicago accents.

Sydney, Jody A., Markus, Nic, and I carpooled up to Belvidere Saturday. I was told that we were picking up a 15 year old (no license obviously) so rather than squeezing into a car or Jody's SUV we took our minivan. Which shakes. It's perfectly safe though... We were practically there before we discovered that we didn't have to pick anybody up.... *sigh* O well. At least we weren't squished. And we got to listen to my random music collection.

There was the usual supper and singing at Josh's house and then sitting around and talking. Natalie was there... and Bob... and elgin girls. Jody and Sydney and I stayed at the same place overnight. That was fun. :) After church we sang for some older ladies and then ate, of course.

It was kind of a quiet ride home. Nic was grading papers and he let me do a stack.... I learned about the parts of the eye. Kind of cool. High school kids write funny things when they don't know the answer. Then we talked about our favorite mammals and running away from moose and random stuff like that. :)

work tomorrow. mur.

Blessings.

plumb tuckered out

It was a long week.

I have to be at work at 6:30 now.... half hour drive.... waaay too early for me.

Learned a new test for biochemical oxygen demand and it's demanding.

Helped sew 50 pairs of pajamas for Magdalena. Which I love.

I'm going to Belvidere for the rest of the weekend with some people. I've never been there so it should be a good time.

Blessings.

blazes (or the lack thereof)

Why do weeks seem so much longer when there are holidays in the middle of them?

Last night I went to Jeremy and Brett's good-bye party at Heidi's because they're going to different places in Africa for a few months. It was good to see them again. And all of the other friends that we have in common. Old roomies, old neighbors, Chris and Ashley, interesting conversation (kitty vs. airplane scrubs, lighting trees on fire, the price of hogs)... it was a good time.

Mom took the Christmas tree down today and Jakey and I tried to burn it. It was a little too windy and damp outside because we couldn't get any of it to stay lit. Lighter fluid didn't help; it burned away and the tree never caught. O well, at least we know that it wasn't a big fire risk.

Blessings.