Lists

Top 5 Awesome Things Right Now

1) Getting to celebrate my birthday again because Karen wanted a chance to help me celebrate. I have the Transformers card, Diet Dr. Pepper present and Birthday button to prove it.

2) Actually feeling rested for once

3) Finding the big, huge hole in my bank account as I fill out $1500 worth of disbursement forms. I KNEW I wasn't spending that much money on groceries!

4) Watching my little sister plan for her wedding, and more importantly, watching her interact with her finace. They are just so stinking cute together! I am supremely excited for their wedding, and I am overwhelmed at how she managed to find such an amzing guy!

5) Putting together my birthday present...pictures soon!

Top 5 Super Un-Awesome Things Right Now

1) Digital TV is suck-tastic. I can only get 3 chanels (sort of) that I want to watch. It drives me batty!

2) I have no groceries in my house right now.

3) I have just over a week before I leave for WorkCamp get back and go straight into VBS. So Much! So Fast! Not enough time!

4) I left my phone charger in Topeka so I went and got a car charger. This would be great it I had a more than five minute drive to work. Phones do not charge well in five minute increments.

5) We are moving offices in the next month or so. Now, this is a pretty awesome thing in general. I'm actually very excited about my new office. However, I will no longer be sharing an office with the lovely Karen. For someone who was VERY unsure about sharing an office with anyon, I am very broken up our impending seperation. Yes, I know she will be about 10 feet away, but still, it won't be the same.

Life seems so much better after a restful vacation! I can't wait to show you what I'm up to at home!

AAARRRGGHHH!

(insert loud, cathartic scream here)

I have tried my hardest. Really, I have. I didn't want to let you down any more than I did before I left for China. You just have to understand that no matter what I do the stupid videos simply will not load. They won't. Doesn't matter what I try or what computer or what internet access, nothing.

It doesn't help that my frustration level is already high, as I haven't been home to do anything but collapse in a heap on the couch for an hour or two then crawl myself into bed. You do not want to see the state of my apartment. The laundry has reached dangerously high levels, as I haven't even finished laundry from China yet. (Sorry, mom, but it's true.)

It's been the longest three and a half weeks of my life it seems since I got back from China. I've been working like mad crazy. Last night a meeting here at church got done at 9:45 and I felt so frustrated that I'm was highly unprofessional towards the end of the meeting. I just couldn't stand it anymore.

I am going home for some much needed R&R next week.
I am going to dinner and a movie tonight with friends.
I am going to do nothing but clean and veg tomorrow.
I am going to make it...I think...mostly.

Pretty Picture Post

585. I have 585 pictures and videos from my trip to China. I have no earthly idea what I am going to do with all of them. I posted some of them onto my Facebook profile. I went to the store and had 150 of them printed up for a scrapbooky thing I'm doing. There are plans in the works for me to combine not just my pictures but the pictures of other people on the trip onto one big mess of pictures.

But I get the sense from some of you...(cough)Jamie(cough)...that you would like to see and hear more about the trip here on the blog.

So I present to you, in no particular order, my favorite pictures from China 2009.

Why do guys wait 3 days to call?

Okay, I can't figure out how to embed this, but PLEASE, PLEASE go watch it.

Funniest. Thing. Ever!

Updating Your Blog in 10 Easy Steps

1) My Pastor announced his resignation in church and the congregation and I began to deal with this unfortunate news. Please pray for Pastor and our congregation as we look to what God has in store for our future.

2) Traveled across the world to Yunnan Province, China.

3) Spent two weeks doing eyeglass clinics with 15 other phenomenal people out in rural China. We were seriously out in the middle of no where (4 flights and 2 bus rides out in the middle of nowhere). We handed out 1200 plus pairs of glasses to over 900 people! Mind blowing doesn't even begin to cover it.

3) Slept on a glorified wooden box in Chinese hotels for two weeks and desperately miss MY bed.

4) Ate pizza in Asia marking it as the third continent where I have eaten pizza. It wasn't fantastic, but after two weeks of Chinese food it tasted amazingly good.

5) Traveled for 32 plus hours to get back to Chicago freaking my body clock out in the process.

6) Discovered that I no longer had the ability to sleep because my body was fighting to stay on China time.

7) At nearly the same moment, discovered that I had a ton of work to do and nearly collapsed into a sleeping pile of goo on the second day back to work.

8) Finally sort of got my stuff together...in the broad sense.

9) Left to go to Belleville for a conference/meeting on youthesource.com (link in the toolbar). Check it out!

10) Got the message that I needed to update my blog :)

Take a look later for videoblogs from China! I'm not making many promises about how often I'll update, but I'm going to try. LOVE YOU!

She is Alliiiivveee!

Today, as I walked from my car to church, not one but two people stopped me to say the exact same thing...

"You are alive!"

This amused me to know end because 1) Dude, you are standing right in front of me. Thank you Captain Obvious. and 2) I wanted to make several different witty remarks from Young Frankenstien, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't get the reference.

Now, if people who work with me on a daily basis are concerned as to my survival after the past month, I figure you guys must be as well. I am here to assure you that I am alive. I've just had a month of working more hours that I would like to admit. I haven't had time to watch TV, knit, clean house, cook, or really even breathe, which might explain why people are concerned about my mortality.

Last night I called my family last night, talked to my sister about coming home in June (I've been homesick like you wouldn't believe!), cleaned half the apartment, set up a time for the internet tech guy to come by, and slept nearly 12 hours. I'm feeling SO MUCH MORE...alive! I'm planning on posting about the China trip this week, so check back in a few day.

LOVE YOU!

How to explain...

Every time I've come to blog for the past few weeks, I sit at the computer screen and I try to think of words to describe what is going on in my life. So I sit...and sit...and sit...and stare at the screen until I sigh in frustration and x the screen.

I'm not really sure how to explain everything I've been doing. On one hand, I have these amazing new friends who I get to hang out with all the time now. They are smart and funny, and oddly enough, they don't seem too think I'm too much of a geek to hang out with. On the other, the crazier my life gets and the more I'm with my friends the more I start feeling an ache to have a partner (yes, read a romantic guy type partner, groan) in all of this.

Things are so busy at church that some days I don't even have time to think. Which on one hand is good, because I love the work I'm doing so so much. On the other hand, it means I have so much less time for myself, and for balance.

I didn't give up TV for Lent but I haven't really watched but a few shows in the past few weeks. Maybe my brain is trained for reading during Lent. I've been ravenous to read, reading whole books in single sittings. It's nuts. I've gone through half my library books in a week. Any really good book suggestions?

And I'm leaving to go on a two week Mission Trip to China in SIX WEEKS! And I haven't even told you guys about it!!! I am so excited and nervous I can hardly talk about it. So maybe if you guys are still listening...
You ARE still listening, right?
I'll tell you all about it this week. Since we are caught up...sort of...