Fill it in!

It's Friday and I'm home, so I'm going to take up Lauren on her prompt/fill-in-the-blank question this week (check out her blog on add your own link!):

"If I could get away for the day, I would go...."
to Disneyland!  I say this mostly because my parents and youngest sister are actually there today and I would love to be there with them.  It's so great - I think I fell like this mostly because it's such a family tradition for me.  My dad's from LA, and so growing up, we'd take a road trip every couple of years down there to visit family, and we would ALWAYS go to Disneyland (also Knott's Berry Farm, In&Out Burger, and the horse race track, among others).  I know that some would say I'm too old to really enjoy it, but that's just not true!  The rides are still fun, the mood is just so fun and happy, and there really is just something completely magical about it.  I am a firm believer that everyone should visit at least once (if I could, I'd go once a year).  Favorite ride, you ask?  Well, it's between two - Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain.  Both are great on a hot day!

Long time, no write!

Oh dear, June was a busy month for me!  Sadly, I don't take photos, so I can't put my month into pictures, but I'll try to sum up the highlights in a few words:

• Alpha Gamma Delta - that's my sorority, and the past couple of years I've been not only doing finance advising (which I feel like I'm still not very good at) but also helping our House Association raise money for a new house.  In the process, I've made friends with one of my chapter's (Zeta Zeta) founding members.  She is FANTASTIC, and I spent a whole afternoon with her just chatting and writing Thank-you notes to alumnae who donated to our cause.  It was fantastic!
• Oregon - that's my homestate, and normally I visit a couple times a year.  This month, I flew out for my baby sister's graduation and it was WONDERFUL!  Admittedly I was feeling not-so-excited about the trip beforehand, since travel plans were a little uncertain, and I thought for sure Baby-Boat (Shannon) would be too busy with her high school friends to hang out much, but quite the contrary.  We bowled, laughed, and hung-out to my heart's content.  I loved seeing mom, dad, Jo-and-the-boys, Catie, Tracy-in-Olympia, and Baby-Boat.  Lots of great memories were made, see Tracy's blog for fun pics.
• Keane - that's one of my favorite bands, and I got to see them live at Boston's House of Blues for a great show with my friend Sonja.  Their new album (Strangeland) was released this year and is FABULOUS!  Check them out and take a listen for sure - You Are Young is a great place to start.
• Shakes and Sarah's wedding - these are two of my good friends and they were just married on June 30th.  Shakes is a good friend from college (WPI), and so the Institute Group (the core group of my friends that all met freshman year in the dorm call Institute Hall) got together for a week beforehand in a rented farmhouse in NY farmland.  AMAZING.  It really was a great trip, filled with lots of food and hanging out.  The week culminated in a beautiful countryside wedding and I already miss my friends.  CONGRATS, SCHUMACHERS!

There it is, June all nice and summed up.  I hope to write more than one blog post this month!

Rainy Saturdays

I love rainy days!  It's extra nice on a lazy Saturday, but I'll take it on a weekday too.  I always tell people that overcast or rainy days put me in a great mood, and I say it's probably because it reminds me of home.  I grew up on the Oregon coast and I think it rained about half the year.  :)  It just makes being indoors so pleasant and cozy!  Right now, I'm just planning on making some tea, reading the last of Devil in the White City, and then probably doing some chores.

This rainy day is also especially making me excited to visit home soon!  My youngest sister is graduating from high school and I'm SUPER excited to see the family.  I'll get to see my nephews, spend time with all four of my sisters, listen to music with my dad, and hang out/drink tea/chit chat with my mom.  I love my Oregon vacations!

Movie night

Occasionally I get on a classic movie kick to catch up on all those movies I really should have seen by now.  Last night = Oklahoma!  The exclamation point is apparently part of the title.  :)  It was so fun!  Lots of good sing-a-longs and great dance sequences.  But...what kind of an ending was that?!?  Since Oklahoma! should be well-past watched on most people's lists, I'm going to type some specifics about the end, but just in case you haven't seen it yet and don't want to read about the ending, here's your final SPOILER ALERT!  Here's my issue:  how does Laurey just traipse off on her honeymoon so calmly the day after Judd was killed by her fiance (okay, it was kind of an accident, and Curly obviously didn't TRY to kill him, but still)!  I found it to be a little bit disturbing.  I mean, she's the one who accepted his offer to take her to the dance!  I don't like to use the term "she led him on", but she kind of did!  I'm not saying Judd was a nice guy, but I found it a little abrupt for an ending.  I guess that's just life on the frontier for you.

After the movie was over, I went to the menu on the DVD and they had a sing-a-long option...so I did.  :)

2000 Miles

...is the name of a Coldplay song - okay, actually it's a cover of a song by The Pretenders, but I ADORE the Coldplay version obviously.  I suppose it's only obvious if you know that I am a Coldplay fanatic.  I LOVE THEM!  The first time I heard them was in the summer of 2000.  I was in London doing my humanities project, and I became great friends with this other young woman from WPI (Heather).  She and I had just finished our big papers and we had a free day.  We went to visit one of the other kids in his flat, and he was watching the Glastonbury festival on TV and this "new band", Coldplay, was up next.  Heather and I were instantly hooked and found our chance to bring back some authentic Brit music back to the US with us.  Little did we know what a HUGE hit they would be!

Anyway, I heard this song, 2000 Miles, on Coldplay's website two years ago during Christmas break, and my soon-to-be brother-in-law saw how much I liked it and found me a copy!  I had some computer issues for a while (it got fried in a lightening storm...seriously) and so I couldn't actually download it, and then all of a sudden today, it came to me - I CAN LISTEN TO IT NOW!  So here I am, just chillin to Coldplay.

I love music.  I can easily just get lost in a beautiful orchestral arrangement, or sad lyrics, or a memory I'm reminded of by a song, and it's wonderful.  Something about it just tugs at my heart strings, and tears (happy or sad!) just start to trickle.  Ahhhh, I love it.  :)  Up next on the playlist - Bon Iver, Bon Iver.  I am still in love with For Emma, Forever Ago, (Wolves is a good one on that album) but I'm ready to learn to love another album!

PS - I don't care that 2000 Miles is technically a Christmas song, I'm still gonna play it again right now.  : p

Tired

So, I'm not the quickest waker-upper, but man, this morning was TOUGH!  My body just felt so heavy.  It was so hard for me to physically sit-up!  I didn't even stay out late this weekend, and got a full 8-9 hours Friday and Saturday nights.  After I finally dragged myself into a vertical position, it took me almost 2 hours to shower, dress, eat, and pack a lunch...ugh.  Then at work, I prepared for a meeting with data that was barely even analyzed, and the first statement out of my mouth was incorrect and my boss promptly corrected me in front of everyone.  Ugh.  It's sometimes so hard for me to get out of those slumps.  After that meeting, I contemplated for a minute the idea of just telling my boss I was taking the rest of the day off sick!  I just felt so tired and ignorant and didn't think I could keep going.  This was at 11am.  :p  Oh yeah, and on the drive in to work, my "check engine" light came on.  Ugh ugh ugh.  Good thing I have a trusted mechanic!

Normally, I'm a pretty energetic person, but I felt like such a slug today.  I'm going to finish this tea, head for bed, and pray for more strength tomorrow!

Fill in the Blank Friday!

Another whirlwind week, whew!  Yay for Friday nights at home chillin' in my apartment.  It's so nice not to have somewhere to be once in a while.  :)

1.  Something that is very near and dear to my heart is,   my family, especially my 4 younger sisters.  I've been missing them a ton lately, and I'm looking forward to seeing them sooooon!

2.      Having fabulous coworkers   is good cause to celebrate .

3.  The most fun I ever had was     my trip to Paris with my mom two years ago!  What an amazing time we had.  I love just flipping through her pictures every once in a while because they are so beautiful and just captured our joy and the beauty of that city so well.  Perfect example to the left!

4.  True friends are   the ones who call you in the middle of the work day.  Thanks, Beka, it was perfect timing!

5. Something that makes me terribly happy is       being goofy and laughing with my family.  My dad loves slapstick humor, and sometimes I pretend not to like it, but I'm just trying to hold back my laughs at his cheesy jokes.  :)

6. A good way to spend a sunny day is     walking to Harvard Square, grabbing an iced coffee at Crema Cafe, and heading to my favorite little tree-lined grassy island for an hour with my book of the moment - right now, it's The Devil in the White City.

7.  My favorite celebratory food is   ice cream!  I'm not usually a huge sweets person, but I do love an ice cream cake celebration.

Props to The Little Things We Do for another great fill-in-the-blank.

New church family

Today was the second and last official commissioning service for my new church family - Highrock Quincy.  Our parent church, Highrock (in Arlington) sent out a group of 44 members about 4 years ago to plant a new church in the Brookline community.  Then this year, they're sending out a group of members to the North Shore (Salem) and another 30-ish members to Quincy.  The Arlington church had a commissioning service last Sunday, April 29th.  It was a great service and quite emotional for many members who have been in Arlington for several years.  I haven't grown such deep roots at this particular church since I only became truly involved this year, but it was still a little sad to think I won't be going back to that particular church any more.  I know it's just a physical building that we call a church, but I'm sentimental.  :)  I am very excited to be helping start something new in Quincy though!

So today, the Brookline church sent out 20-ish of their members to join us, and those of us who got the boot already from Arlington attended the service with them.  It's really exciting and a little daunting to know that this is it - no going back now!  I really want to grow deeper in my faith through this and also to just serve God and people more.  We'll see where He leads!

First ever Fill in the Blank Friday!

One of my sisters does this "Fill in the blank Friday" thing where she  fills in the blanks (obvi) on some fun questions and links up with another blog...you know, I should be more technologically advanced to get this whole "link up" thing, but I'm not sure I'm going to cut it.  I'm gonna give it a go for the first time.  :)

1.  When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is,   pee...geez, why does my first "Fill-in-the-blank" have to be a vulgar one?!?  I can't help it though, it's always the very first thing I do, immediately followed by putting a diuretic in me (yay coffee!!!)   .

2.   I can hardly wait for   my next vaca to Oregon to visit the fam.  It's going to be for my baby sister's graduation, and I can hardly believe she' old enough for that!

3.  The quickest way to my heart is     coffee       because     it is never too early, too late, or a bad time for more caffeine  .

4. A little known fact about me is that    I didn't get my drivers license until I was 26, and now I drive like a teenager in Boston...watch out. ;)

5. The best part about my job is    when my experiments work!  I love bench research and I love getting back results that make sense.  Yay science!

6. Something I just couldn't live without is    music.  Right now I'm listening to Takk by Sigur Ros.  One of my faves ever.

7.  Something useful that I wish I knew how to do is   start a fire.  I've been watching too many post-apocalyptic movies lately.

Emotional!

I had quite the late-night tear-fest last night that now in retrospect I can laugh at, so I figured I'd share.  Let me start by saying I got 4 hours of sleep on Saturday night due to celebrating a friend's birthday - good times indeed, but I had a lot to do on Sunday and no time for a nap!  Sunday night I got the usual 7-ish hours, but clearly this is not going to help my situation Monday night....

So fast forward to Monday night, around 10:45pm.  I am delivering 4 or 5 large bags of bread from Panera to my church building as I have been doing every Monday for several months now.  It's actually my last time doing this because on Sunday the 29th, my fellow church-planters and I are being officially commissioned off to Quincy, which means no more involvement in the Arlington church.  So, I go to leave thinking how I'll miss this place and...the door won't lock.  What?  How is this possible?!?  It's late, I'm exhausted, and I just want to go home!  What do I do?  I need to call someone to help, but the pastor who runs this bread ministry lives about an hour away (plus it's late and I feel bad about potentially waking him up)...so I text him to see if he knows what I should do.  No answer.  Crud!

Now it's 11pm and I'm starting to panic.  My next thought is to pray a quick "Help me!", and then I think to call my friend from small group, Carmen.  She's great and suggests I call a couple other pastors...one of which doesn't answer his phone, the other of which I don't have a number for.  OH NO!  Am I going to have to sleep inside the church to make sure nothing gets stolen?  Then I get a text from one of the pastors saying he's not in town, but that I should call a different pastor...one with whom I have no relationship and who actually scares me a little with his seemingly-serious nature.  AHHH!  So what can I do but call him - the second he answers, I just break down crying.  WHAT IS GOING ON WITH ME?!?  I'm trying to get out the words, and I have to say, he was nothing but kind and gentle.  :)  I however still couldn't stop crying, so he asked if anything was wrong ("no, I'm just being overly dramatic because I am running on empty!" I later realized), and finally I managed to tell him about the non-locking door.  'No problem,' he says 'don't worry about it at all.'  So I promptly left, still bawling in my car all the ride home.  :)  I'm sure I was quite the sight.

Ah, feeling so much better this evening - think I'll get to bed now so this doesn't happen again!

Busy bee

I'm always telling people how busy I am, but I have a hard time explaining what it is exactly that I'm so busy doing.  Since I'm now trying out this whole blogging thing, I figured I'd write out what a week-in-the-life looked like for me:
Sunday - Easter extravaganza!  I greeted people at my church's morning service, then manned the cotton candy machine after that for a few hours for our after-service picnic.  After helping clean up, I headed to a friend's house for Easter dinner (which was a mix-'n-match of Korean food and traditional ham and potatoes...yum!)
Monday - after work, I headed out to dinner with my "old girlfriends".  These are 3 wonderful ladies who happened to graduate 2 years ahead of me, so the only way I could categorize them to my other friends was to call them "old".  We went to The Helmund, which serves Afghani food - just another delicious restaurant in Cambridge!  Then around 10pm, I did my usual pick-up of leftover breads at Panera to take to church for donations to a local housing complex.
Tuesday - Small group night!  This week, it was my turn to lead the Bible study (which meant all my free time Sat, Sun, and Mon was working on that) - we read through Isaiah 40:12-26.  It's all about God as Creator and how He is in control of all circumstances.
Wednesday - Orthodontist appt right after work.  :(  My stupid "permanent" retainer partially popped off YET AGAIN and I needed to get it removed.  That's a whole other story.  Then off to volleyball and a drink (more specifically, the Champagne of Beers!) at our team's favorite dive, Paddy's.
Thursday - Another fun birthday dinner, this time with Jillian and Jenn, ladies who used to work at MassBiologics with me.  We went to Typhoon Asian Bistro - YUM!  Lots of sushi and deliciousness.
Friday - AGD had senior rededication, which is where the we as alumnae welcome the senior class officially into the ranks of the alums.  Then we headed to the Sole for a drink (and more sushi!!).  The girls were in the middle of Teeter-totter-a-thon, so we all stopped by WPI's quad to show our support.  I didn't make it back to Cambridge until 1am!
Satuday - Breakfast at McD's with one of my pastors and a couple other people from the Quincy church plant to talk about the new webpage we're going to use for our new church.  Then I drove down to Taunton to visit my friend Lisette and her dog Lola.  It was a fantastic day of just lounging around, eating, and narrowly avoiding disaster with an oven that had a mind of it's own...stupid clean cycle!
Sunday (today) - great sermon this morning about Jesus' first miracle - turning water into wine at a wedding.  There is so much symbolism there that I just never bothered to think about, very cool.  Then this afternoon was Quincy prayer meeting followed by cooking Pupusa's and Tres Leches cake for a potluck in honor of one of our small group members and her husband - they're pregnant with their first!

So that's what I'm so busy doing all the time.  :p  I'm exhausted after writing this!

The Big 3-1

Today, I turned 31-years-old. I'm calling it "Thirty-One-Derful" in anticipation of the great things this year will bring! I know, it's pretty cheesy, but I think that's fitting considering how I've always felt about blogs. I used to think these were just a vehicle for self-promotion to the world and so not me, but I feel like now that I'm officially into my thirties, it might be nice to do a little documentation of what is going on in my life. Plus, I've really enjoyed being nosy about other people's lives through reading their innermost thoughts on their blogs, so I figured I'd start one of my own. :)

This is really the first year that I didn't (and won't) have a formal party in celebration of my birthday, but I have to say, it's been great just the same, and a little humbling too. A newly-made friend of mine invited me over for breakfast this morning, and it was fantastic! This new friend, Carmen, is someone who I met at the church I started attending regularly this year, and her friendship has been such a blessing for me. For a while during and after college, I lost touch with what it means to really be Christian, and Carmen is one of the first new Christian friends I've made in a long time. She is so loving and so willing to serve, and she's just been a huge positive influence in my life. She made a delicious waffle breakfast for our friend Allison and I, and it was a great way to start my day!

The humbling part of my birthday - I went to a Maundy Thursday potluck with my new church family (the Highrock Quincy church plant group), and I managed NOT to tell them that today was "my" day. For people who know me, this was HUGE! I absolutely love attention, and so to be quiet and enjoy this day that we used to remember Jesus' last day before his trial and crucifixion instead of drawing the attention my way was a hard thing to do. But you know what? It was wonderful. And I didn't feel any less loved knowing that the 15 other people in the room had no idea that it was my birthday.

For those who did wish me a happy birthday, thanks! It was very happy indeed.