being children

This morning I woke up to a group of children racing several different rolling contraptions (i.e. scooters) down the street in front of my house while screaming at the top of their lungs. It was awesome! This is how it should be. I thought about going to their homes and shaking the hands of their parents.

jump in my car

check out this video starring David Hasselhoff (courtesy of Nic)

caring for our needs

I read this tonight and thought it was worth sharing ...

Depend on the Lord; trust Him, & He will take care of you. - Ps 37:5

"God is committed to caring for our needs ... After all, how can we fulfill His mission unless our needs are met? Will God enlist us in His army and not provide a commissary? Of course not.
'I pray that the God of peace will give you everything you need so you can do what He wants' (Heb 13:20). Hasn't that prayer been answered in our life? We may not have had a feast, but haven't we always had food? Perhaps there was no banquet, but at least there was bread. And many times there was a banquet." --- max lucado

i went to hawaii ... it was beautiful

universal studios

Joy and I went on a little vacation to Universal Studios last Wednesday. The park was almost empty so we didn't have to wait more than ten or fifteen minute for each ride - it was great! We both hadn't been since we were very young (at least ten years ago) so it was fun remembering things as we walked through the park. The biggest disappointment was the brand new Mummy ride. Although they had cool/high-tech lockers to put your stuff in (accessed only with your finger print!!) the ride itself was fairly weird and demonic. In the end of the ride I think you are actually taken to "hell" while voices are yelling - "we have your soul" ... I yelled back "No you don't! I'm going to heaven!!" I think they heard me. They got the message. The best part of the park was the behind-the-scenes Studio Tour. We had a really fun tour guide and I enjoyed seeing the side of film/tv production that we don't always see. Waterworld was pretty great too. We sat in the soak zone. I didn't know we would get THAT wet.



Stand By Your Man (he is real ... seriously ... and he was freaky)

Joy's Heart-throb (apparently she likes muscular men)

no explanation necessary

this little piggy went to market ... this little piggy stayed home

my head is in a shark ... that is crazy

I think she has done this before ...

getting ready to enter Terminator 2

river god

rolling river god
little stones are smooth
only once the water passes through
so I am a stone rough and grainy still
trying to reconcile this river's chill

but when I close my eyes
and feel you rushing by
I know that time brings change
and change takes time
and when the sunset comes
my prayer would be just this one
that you might pick me up and notice that
I am just a little smoother in your hand

sometimes raging sometimes swollen high
never have I known this river dry
the deepest part of you is where I want to stay
and feel the sharpest edges wash away

by Nichole Nordeman

new

is this a joke?

I was watching a Christian music video on You Tube today when I came across a video called "Anna Nicole Smith - Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior!" I was surprised by the title, having never heard Anna Nicole profess Christianity, so I clicked on the video out of curiousity. To be honest, I am not really interested in her life and death ... it is sad that she died but the reality is that she really didn't offer much to the world while she was alive and all the money and fame she spent years fighting for did not follow her to heaven!

So, if you are curious ... here is the video interview.
I was even more shocked by the interviewer (you'll see why).

some stuff from today

Had an amazing divine appointment this morning . . . one of the best I've had in a very long time. I love God. I love watching Him work in the lives of other people. It makes me love Him more.

Picked up one of our 6th graders from school. We enjoyed frappuccinos while walking the mall together. I pointed out her boyfriend - some nasty guy with nappy hair and piercings all over his body, huge black boots and chains hanging from his waist. She quickly got the hang of my "game" and pointed out my boyfriend about 30 minutes later - ripped t-shirt, pants below his butt, tattoos and nasty hair. I was impressed.

My brother wrote a song called "Skies Above" and recorded it in a studio this past week. He posted it on his myspace today.

I never thought I would love iTunes as much as I do. I think it is like marriage - you get out of it what you put into it and it keeps getting better and better because I keep discovering new and exciting things every day! I downloaded a few songs by Sean Watkins (of Nickel Creek). One called "Coffee" is all about a girl he had a crush on in high school and recently ran into at a local store. He wanted to ask her out for coffee, but he was too nervous. So he wrote a song about her. Then he ran into her at a coffee shop a few weeks later. Weird.

Tomorrow I am going to clean my house. To you it might sound crazy, but I have been looking forward to this day. Perhaps no one will ever understand the therapy it gives me. Baking cookies has the same effect ... so, maybe I will do both.

Had dinner with Joy at Macaroni Grill. Don't eat there ... I just don't think it's worth it. The food costs the same as Olive Garden, but the ambience is worse, the quality of the food is worse, you don't get soup or salad with your food (unless you pay more) and you will never have Nicole Corpuz as your server - that is a sad reality. However, they do have an amazing waitress who sings "Happy Birthday" in Operatic Italian. It was nice eating dinner with my friend too.

I am having lunch with a guy from my school tomorrow. I have been in online classes for six months now and have not met any of my fellow students in the flesh ... it will be nice to actually put a face with the name I've read on the screen hundreds of times.

Ended my evening with a fascinating conversation. I was on the Dizzy's website reviewing the upcoming shows and I discovered a "piano wizard" named Rob Schneiderman. I thought it would be quite amazing if he ended up marrying Emilie Schneider, so I quickly shared this information with her. I received the following response ...

"I actually dated Rob Schneiderman a few times. It was weird though because he started talking about marriage on the third date. He wanted me to hyphenate my name. So I would actually have been Emilie Schneider-Schneiderman. Now, this wouldn't have been too bad ... except that I'm really into this gender neutral thing these days, so I told him I would only hyphenate my name if I could do it as "Schneiderperson". Therefore I would be Emilie Schneider-Schneiderperson, which would be a heck of a lot better than Emilie Schneider-Schneiderman. He didn't like the idea, apparently, since he threw down his napkin right there at Mr. A's and stomped out the door without even paying for our vichy-sois!"

simon in the sun

Simon has been enjoying the warm weather this morning.

He is panting loudly to cool himself off while laying in the sun which is conveniently streaming through my window and onto my bed. I was watching him and wondering what it would be like if we, humans, had to cool ourselves off the same way. That would be strange.

photo of the day

photo of the day

star wars

I am sitting in Panera and working on homework. There is a young boy (maybe 3 years old) with blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. All the other kids at the table are bored, but he is playing with Star Wars figurines and yelling, "I see you Obi-Wan Kenobi!" and "Darth Vader, where is your helmet? Put your helmet on!" and "prepare to die ... die! die! die!". He just stuck Darth Vader's head in a baguette and is yelling, "Help me! My head is in bread!!" This kid is amazing.

A couple weeks ago, Gaby and I went to Vegas to pick up our Pastors' grand-niece (2) & nephew (6). The boy had brought five Star Wars figurines and insisted that Gaby and I play "Name that Star Wars Guy" with him. The game went something like this: the boy would hold a figurine in his hand and say, "Okay, I am in Star Wars. Who am I?" Then Gaby and I would name millions of different characters from Star Wars until we got it right (we both had seen very few episodes of Star Wars, so we got creative). It was fun ... for the first 10 minutes ... but I think we played for over an hour. Since he only had five figurines, the level of difficulty for the game decreased dramatically. Eventually, we convinced him to play "20 Questions" which was an instant success. We taught him to start out by saying, "I am a thing" or "I am a person" or "I am a place" ... but he liked to say, "I am some thing" or "I am some person". It was cute

Here is an example of what we had to guess --- "Okay, I am some thing. I am tall and I grow and and I have coconuts on me and then sometimes I die." (very tricky!)

photo of the day

it's a new season

Today was my first day of vacation during this transition of jobs. It was wonderful!! It really is a new season for me - naturally and spritually - and it feels good. My March is like January ... a brand new start ... an adventure ... the turning of a page ... a time to re-evaluate my life, my goals, my dreams/visions and make some strategic plans for this next (exciting!) season of life.

I have the next three weeks off. Crazy! I don't remember having time like that ... it seems so unreal. I have already created a mile-long list of things I want to accomplish. Most of them are pretty darn fun.
I am determined to have fun (I always do, but I want to have overwhelming amounts of fun in the next few weeks!).
My first day was already amazing . . .

Highlights from today: got up early to take Pastors Carl & Julia to the airport, spent time with the Lord, bought a hazelnut latte (yum!), took Simon to the dog park for a couple hours, went on a run with my iPod (listened to "Jenny, Jenny" by Little Richard, "Born to Fly" by Sara Evans and "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth, Wind and Fire ... it was powerful), did laundry while listening to Ray LaMontagne (beautiful! when he sings it feels like he is whispering the words in your ear!), watched The Ellen Show, took a nap on the couch with Simon, made a delicious salad for dinner, watched a movie with Robbie, had my computer fixed by Joy's father (aka "Miracle Man"), laughed with Joy, ate Java Chip ice cream before going to bed.

Life is beautiful.