Anemia

I was scheduled to give blood today, but fortunately my iron-levels were too low. I say "unfortunately," because I had such a bad experience the first and only time I gave blood. No... the phlebotemist didn't poke around in my arm too many times. The actual giving wasn't too bad. But, I was worthless the rest of the day... and I ended being sick all week long. I realize these things may not have been directly related to giving blood. So, I keep telling myself I'll give it another try, because I really do think it's a good thing to do. But, I always leave a bit happy when I find out my iron levels are just low enough that I can't give. :)

Have a happy night. We're still in the countdown...

Social Butterfly

I was kind of hoping Baby Natalie would make an appearance this weekend. I've been waiting for the call. Odd thing is... I've received phone calls during the night the past TWO nights! Craziness. I rarely get calls after I've gone to bed, so it's been very odd. My first thought is.. "what's happening?"... then "who could be calling me at this hour?"... then... "oh my goodness... Michelle's gone into labor!!!!" However, that's not been the case. Two nights ago, I had a call about 3:45 AM. There was no one there. So - wrong number or something. Then last night, I got a call at 1:15 AM, but it was my friend, Mike, trying to convince me that Michelle had gone to the hospital. I didn't fall for it, though. I felt pretty certain I would have gotten a call before Mike! :) I better anyway!!!

So, it's actually worked out well that there hasn't been a baby yet. I had no less than five different offers for fun activities today - 1) go to the lake with my friend Melody and her family, 2) have dinner over at my friend, JW's house, 3) drive-in movie with a large group of friends, 4) dinner/cards and Tim & Laurels and 5) dinner/etc. at Jim & Babs'. Obviously it wasn't humanly possible to do all of those. So, I ended up doing #1 and #2. They all sounded fun, though. The lake was particularly fun! I was a bit hesitant for several reasons... 1) the baby watch, 2) needed to mow my lawn, 3) a bit of a 3rd-wheel arrangement, 4-10) swimming suit. :) But, in the end, I thought it sounded like a lot of fun... and I was right!! We water skiied and tubed. I wasn't planning to water ski, because last time I tried, it was a miserable failure. But, I went ahead and tried it anyway. It wasn't great, but I did at least get up... if only for a few BRIEF moments. I have a nice bruise on my inner thigh, though. I though I had enough padding there, but apparently not. :) So... it was tons of fun, and I got some sun. But... now I'm fairly exhausted. So, I'll say goodnight now.

"Goodnight!"

"Diary of an Old Soul" by George MacDonald

How many helps thou giv'st to those who would learn!
To some sore pain, to others a sinking heart;
To some a weariness worse than any smart;
To some a haunting, fearing, blind concern;
Madness to some; to some the shaking dart
Of hideous death still following as they turn;
To some a hunger that will not depart.

To some thou giv'st a deep unrest - a scorn
Of all they are or see upon the earth;
A gaze, at dusky night and clearing morn,
As on a land of emptiness and dearth;
To some a bitter sorrow; to some the sting
Of love misprized - of sick abandoning;
To some a frozen heart, oh, worse than anything!

The messengers of Satan think to mar,
But make - driving the soul from false to feal -
To thee, the reconciler, the one real,
In whom alone the would be and the is are met.

It's raining babies!

You've no doubt heard of the song, "It's Raining Men." Well, very soon, it's going to be raining babies. Here are the official due dates...

Aug 8 Michelle (my sister)
Aug 10 Laurel
Aug 18 Babs

So, as you can see... it's going to be a crazy month of babies. We're really expecting Michelle's and Laurel's any time. Since Chelle is in KC, I've let her know that Friday afternoon (7/29) would be a good time to go into labor, as that will allow me to make it up there for the whole experience. I saw Laurel tonight. She's waddling quite a bit more than normal and seems to be very uncomfortable. I think Tim's expecting it sometime in during the coming week.

Anyway... I continue to pray for these ladies and these families. Not only are they dear friends of mine, but I have at least a vague idea as to how dramatically their lives are about to change! I'm anxious to bear witness to all these little miracles! :)

By the way, folks...

... I made it to 3.0 miles last week. Some people can make it in 30 minutes. I made it in a month. :)

An Attempt at Nose-Piercing

This past weekend, I pulled a wire hanger from my closet and noticed a moth (not a moth, really, but a piece of fuzz) floating near my face. With my cat-like reflexes, and forgetting what I held in my hand, I attempted to swat at it. As I did, the hook of the hanger caught my right nostril. Ouch! I thought I may have pierced my own nose, it hurt so bad. I expected there to be blood pouring out of my nose, but I apparently didn't injure it too badly. It just hurt like the dickens.

So, beware, my friends, of the nefarious wire hanger.

Some big shoes to fill! 

Erin 

Erin & Aunt Krista 

Fathers and Daughters

It was brought to my attention today that boys/men can be intimated about dating a girl who has a strong relationship with her father. I hadn't ever thought of that before, and I wouldn't have guessed that to be true. But, I checked with a guy friend of mine tonight, and he seemed to agree. (The original statement was made by a girl-friend of mine.)

I guess the theory is that if a girl has a good relationship with her father, that usually means he's very involved in her life. It also implies that he'll be attentive to who she's dating and will go to great lengths to make sure she's only getting the very best. So... obviously the bar will be set very high for any potential suitors.

That makes perfect sense to me. It just makes me wonder if I'm a little bit too verbal about how wonderful my father is. :)

Love you, Pops!

Sacrifice

I'm not exactly sure what I want to tell you tonight. I have a variety of thoughts running through my head. First, I'll tell you about the softball games last night. We had the early games (6:30 and 7:30), which is unfortunate given the heat advisory. My best guess is that it was somewhere between 101 and 105-degrees when the first game started, with the sun blazing down on us. The first game was pretty miserable... measured both in sweat and score. :) But, I did catch a nice line drive. (I was playing 2nd base.) It was hit pretty hard and stung a bit when it hit. The umpire standing behind me asked me later, "did that scare you?" I'm not sure if expected that a ball hit like that would be scary for a girl or if HE was just scared of it. Either way, I responded, "no." I mean, it was hit right to me. I didn't have to do anything... except sacrifice a blood vessel in my finger. It's nice and purple today. :)

We were trailing pretty bad in the second game, but in the very last half of the last inning, we scored five runs and tied it up. Surprisingly, we held them for two or three more innings! Finally we up at bat again (bottom of the 8th inning, I think). First two batters (including myself) got out, but then one of the guys on our team got a home run... not out of the park, but far enough out that he could fly around the bases! It was an exciting end to a soggy evening.

Go Team!!

There IS such a thing as a stupid question

“There’s no such thing as a stupid question.” I’m sure you, like me, have heard this phrase a countless number of times – usually it’s coming from the mouth of a teacher or supervisor of some sort. Well, I was put here on this earth to prove those people wrong! Now, I could give you a multitude of examples of truly stupid questions I’ve asked, but I’ve reserved this place to tell you about the quintessential stupid question.

I used to be an auditor in a public accounting firm, and I traveled around to various client offices to perform financial statement audits. In the course of my work, I got to know personnel at each of my clients; however, some clients were fairly sizeable, so I didn't know all of the personnel. I’ve got pretty good at calling up someone from a client’s phone list, introducing myself and then going to meet with them in person. Okay, I think that’s enough background. One fine day I needed to call someone in the credit department at my client’s office. The room I was sitting in was practically in the middle of the credit department, so I knew when I phoned “Amy” that she was, most likely, sitting right outside my door. In fact, as I was talking to her on the phone, I noticed a girl right outside my door who was also on the phone. Her back was toward me, though, so I couldn’t verify it was her. So, in all my brilliance and professional training, what was it I asked so as to verify it was her?

“Are you on the phone right now?”

I Can't Hear You!!

Well, I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm developing allergies. Many people say, "I never had allergies until I moved to Tulsa!" So... maybe they're just now hitting me. No, my nose isn't running, and my eyes aren't watering. However, my ears are plugged up. It's not extreme, just annoying. It almost feels like I'm at a high altitude and my ears need to pop. Or, it kind of feels like I have a head cold... with none of the other symptoms. Physically I feel fine.

So, I've had some friends and co-workers suggest that a decongestant might help... or maybe an antihistamine. I haven't made it to the store yet to get anything. It's been going on for two to three weeks now... about the same amount of time I've been running. Hrmmm...

I have definitely been outside more this year than other years, so maybe there's some truth to that. Of course, maybe I'm just losing my hearing. :) Several of my friends may agree with that... "what?"

Speaking of running... I'll be doing that again in the morning. So, I best crawl in bed. Zzzzzzz....

Countries

Here's a list of other countries I've been to...

Mexico (Juarez and Ensenada through Tijuana)
Spain (Madrid, Burgos, Segovia and San Sebastian)
France (Paris)
Germany (Kiel, Berlin, Lubeck, Frankfurt airport)
Bahamas

I think that's it. Here I felt like a world traveler. I guess I had better get busy traveling!!!

States

Here's a list of all the US States I've been in...

Kansas
Oklahoma
Colorado
Missouri
Nebraska
Texas
Arkansas
New Mexico
Arizona
California
Utah
Illinois
Michigan
Florida
Georgia (Atlanta airport only)
New York
Washington D.C.
Maryland (Airport to D.C. only)

I think that may be it. I don't have a map sitting here with me. I'll have to verify later. It also seems like maybe our family went to Wisconsin?? I'll have to do some investigative reporting to figure that out. :)

Progress

I've been running fairly consistently the past few weeks. I'm back up to 2.25 miles. (The most I've ever run at one time is 3.0 miles.)

It's strange that I would be running at all, given my history with running. My Senior year of high school marked the final year of physical education, and one of the "tests" we had to take was running the mile. Our goal: run it under 8 minutes. I guarantee you, I've never run an 8 minute mile. Supposedly we would have three attempts to master this 8-minute mile. I had P.E. the last hour of the school day, and it just so happened that our softball team had a game right after school. Most of the girls on the team decided to walk/jog the mile slowly... figuring they'd have other chances to run the mile. I, on the other hand, was determined to NEVER RUN THE MILE AGAIN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!!!!!!! So, I ran, and I ran hard. You'll be happy to know that I finished the mile in 7:59!!!!! Yes... it was a modern-day miracle. However, I didn't make the softball game. I was so exhausted from running that I finally told the girls to leave without me and tell the coach I wouldn't be at the game. It took me quite awhile to make my way to the office (upstairs and on the opposite side of the school)... in fact, I had to stop and sit down in the hall to rest up for the remainder of the journey. When my mom came to pick me up (probably 20-30 minutes later), apparently my face was still beet red. But on a happy note... I made an "A" in P.E. that quarter. All of my softball girlfriends never had another chance to run it and so got "B"s.

You probably wonder how I ever even thought to start running again. Well, my last year of college, I had a crazy group of friends who made a pact. Among other things, this pact called for each of us to get at least three cardiovascular workouts a week. They were easy to get if we were all doing something together... raquetball, tennis, etc. But, I didn't have a good activity to do by myself. (There were harsh punishments for not getting the activities in. Mostly the punishments consisted of taking someone - the person who called you out on not getting them done - to dinner. Obviously to "call someone out" first, this meant frequent midnight calls at the designated end-of-the-week. I even got a call near midnight in a hotel room in NYC. Fortunate for me, I had run stairs in the hotel... my sister, however, was not so dedicated and suffered the consequences when she returned home.) Anyway, I decided to go running one day... see what it must be like. I remember being impressed that I could run one whole mile without stopping (after five years or so of NO running). I made the mistake of mentioning that to one of my friends. He suggested we should run together, which I quickly shot down. One day at work, though, he left me a note that said, "Would you be interested in either running or playing raquetball after work?" I responded, "RAQUETBALL would be fine." However, somehow he overruled me, and we started running together. As they say, "the rest is history."

I haven't run all the time since then, but I have found a few people here and there who run and keep me consistent for a period of time. So... hopefully this current trend will continue. :)

Another SYDM Uncertainty Quote...

"There is only One who is certain; everything else exists in the realm of uncertainty. To place our trust in anything other than God is nothing less than superstition."

SYDM Quote on "Uncertainty" - by Erwin McManus

"Don't wait for Him [God] to remove all the uncertainty. Realize He may actually increase the uncertainty and leverage all the odds against you, just so that you will know in the end that it wasn't your gifts but His power through your gifts that fulfilled His purpose in your life."

100 lb. Weight Around My Ankles

This past weekend was extremely busy and didn't allow for much R&R. So, naturally, I headed into the week feeling very stressed and overwhelmed. It just seems that I have so much to do and I'm falling further and further behind. My house is a wreck, and every night seems filled with responsibilities. Though I should have attacked some of those last night, I came home, did a bit of reading, napped for about an hour and just took it easy. It's amazing... I can't really fully relax, though, with a messy house. I was supposed to go to St. Louis this weekend with a group from church for a mini-mission trip. However, I've made the command decision to stay home and catch up on things. I was going to need Friday off for the trip, so I think I'll go ahead and take that day off anyway. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I'm feeling unsettled about a few things right now, and I'm looking forward to jumping a couple of years into the future. I'm reading "Seizing Your Divine Moment" right now, and the chapter I just finished, Chapter 3, is on "Uncertainty." So, I suppose it was very timely. The one certainty (and really ONLY certainty) we have is God. That should be enough... right?

Reflections on days past

Well... it's official. I'm old. I actually used the phrase "when I was in my twenties" today. I caught myself as I was saying it and realized it's the first time (probably of many times) I've used that phrase. Golly.

It's been an enjoyable but busy weekend. I had two softball games last night. I started out being fairly disappointed in my play, but I ended up hitting pretty well and making a few good plays. (I also made a few bad plays to balance it out!) We ended up losing the first one (barely) and winning the second (barely). But, all in all, it was a fun night... good weather... it helped that we played the later games (8:30 and 9:30). After the games, a couple of friends came over and watched a movie. So, it made for a really late... I mean... early night. (3 AM to be exact.)

I ran around most of the day today... met some girlfriends for lunch. We've been reading the book "Wild at Heart" and trying to learn a bit more about the men in our life. (I know... you're asking "What men?!?!") Anyway. All I've gleaned from the book so far is that I do not understand men in the slightest. And, I'm starting to rethink my need for one. After that, I ran about town to get a shower gift for a co-ed cookout/wedding shower for this evening. Bought some stuff for them... bought some stuff for myself, too. I got home just in time to get ready for the shower. The shower was fine. I was stressed out on the way over there... I've just had way too much going on lately. And... the cake I had ordered looked absolutely terrible. Matt and I took a picture of the cake to serve as proof to take back to the store where it was purchased. However, unbeknownst to me, Matt erased the pictoral proof and was about to re-take a picture of the cake when he dropped his camera into the cake. No kidding, folks. He wiped out a nice chunk of the icing.... it figures of course that the crappy writing remained unharmed. So he spent the next half hour trying to remove icing from his digital camera. But, I think the shower was a success. It was nice to see Joe & Allisha (who will wed two weeks from today). I think we helped them get a bit more prepared for their new life together.

I'm home now and ready to crawl in bed. Tomorrow's going to be a booger of a day.

Krista

Great Expectations

A friend pointed out to me today that I've lagged a bit behind in posting to my blog. :) So... here goes. I won't attempt to catch you up, because way too much has happened this past week. However, most of it isn't that notable.

I spent this past (4th of July) weekend in Kansas City visiting my family, attending weddings, host(ess)ing baby showers, painting trim and playing with my niece. It was an enjoyable, but incredibly busy weekend. While I was home, I took time to visit my Grandma. I hadn't been there long... just barely sat down when Grandma maneuvered around to look at my hands. She said, "I was just checking to see if there was a ring on your finger yet." Ha! I responded, "Did you think there MIGHT be?" I haven't given her (or the family) any reason to hope that might happen in even the distant future, so I was a bit surprised and actually thought she might be confusing me with someone else. :) She said, "you never know." Well, Grandma... I pretty much know. Then she went on to tell me about how her sister, Esther, never got married... never seemed interested in it. I think she meant it to be somehow encouraging... Um.... thanks, Grandma. :)

Well, I've started running again and will do so tomorrow morning. So... I'm going to hop in bed. But first... MY highlight from the weekend was seeing my niece... she gets very excited when Aunt Krista comes to town! And I can (obviously) use the confidence builder!!!