Some Random Thoughts...

ENGAGE:
The final proof of the magazine is at the printer. That means I won't see it again until it is done and back in mass quantity. I am sure there will be little things that are missing or just wrong, but I feel good about the finished product overall. It will be online at the SOCC site once it comes back from the printer, so check it out if you want.


VACATION:
Tim and I booked our flights for our vacation to Florida today. Praise God! I am so excited an so looking forward to some time away. We haven't really had a vacation since last February (we took time off in September to move, but that doesn't count as a vacation). We are going to see some good friends, see some pretty beaches, and hit Disney for two or three days. yay!



THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS:
This is the last weekend for the show. I am sad it is almost over, but will enjoy having my weekends free-ish again...sometime soon. With a wedding next weekend, then palm sunday and easter, then Komen training, it doesn't look like that will happen until the beginning of April, but it's all good. I will miss the cast and crew, though. It has been a wonderful experience!



A FRIEND THAT ROCKS
If you have never read my friend Cindy's blog, you really should. She's amazing and beautiful and wonderful. Her "No Redhead is an Island" post still has me in tears. If you want to know the meaning of friendship and vulnerability, check her out (plus she's an amazing woman of God that just astounds me with her heart daily).



RENT

Liz (who hasn't updated her blog in forever so I won't bother linking to it...hint hint) just told me that adam pascal and anthony rapp are going to star in the 2009 tour of RENT. This makes me so very happy. They are....yeah...it'll be a dream come true to see them, regardless of the rest of the cast...(and yes, the get a picture, because they're just that wonderful. Deal with it.)


THE RACE FOR THE CURE
Because of some wonderful friends, I am almost done with my fundraising for the 2008 Race for the Cure already. Yay.


Overall, it's been an interesting week...lots of thoughts in my head, lots of life been lived...

Changes...

like many of my friends, I have become bored with my simple blog, so i've been doing some editing, changing, and creating today...i'm sure it's a work in progress, but also sure it will probably stay looking similar to this until something new strikes me...

thoughts?

oh, and thanks to SquidFingers for the background tile!

Remember This?

This is the sun (or at least a drawing of the sun). It is bright. It is yellow. It warms the world and helps plants to grow. It aides in photosynthesis. It is warm (did I say that already?) and I can't remember the last time I saw it.

I am hungry for some sunshine right about now. This dreary overcast weather with the snow and ice and junk falling has me singing the winter blues...

Please sun, come out to play soon!

Racing Again

Mom and I signed up for the 2008 Komen Race for the Cure today! I love this weekend for many reasons - the Race is amazing. The experience of thousands of people all coming together to celebrate one thing is powerful. Celebrating being a survivor of breast cancer is a powerful thing, especially as a woman who has been touched by the disease on many different levels.

The other thing I love is spending the weekend with my mother. Just having one weekend a year for us is something that we've come to cherish - time to just hang out, laugh, reconnect, and do all that fun stuff. Spending time with mom is great!

This year mom and I are also volunteering the day before the race. We've wanted to help for a couple years, and are actually doing it this year. If you would like to help us raise support for Komen Indy and the race, please click here (to donate online). Even if you can't give money, please pray for the race, the people who participate, and the thousands of women who will face a breast cancer diagnosis this year!

Magazine - Done

I dropped the magazine off at the printer today. Hallelujah. Hopefully it turns out well. should get the proof in a few days. It was a crazy, STRESSFUL adventure. Hopefully people like it.

Tomorrow I get to tackle the compilation. That makes me feel like I'm in WAY over my head.

When Life Changes Around You

I've realized something lately - my life is constantly changing. I am a strong believer that change, in general, leads to good things. But, that doesn't mean that it's not really hard sometimes. I've noticed change in big things and little things...


Friendships change. I've noticed this is little ways. I don't talk to the people that used to be my closest friends in the world nearly as much as I used to. It's not because I don't want to talk to them, but I've felt lately that their lives are too busy for me, too complicated for me, and that due to distance and just life, we're not as close as we used to be. I mourn that a lot, and have thought about it a lot lately. I have also felt myself pulling away, because I don't like feeling hurt and...unimportant.


At the same time, I have found new friends in unexpected places, so I guess that is just the circle of friendships. don't get me wrong, i still treasure my friends so much, but I am starting to feel like I have a different, somehow smaller, place in some lives...

Opening Night

Yesterday Through the Looking Glass opened, finally. The show went surprisingly well, and was attended by 60 people, which is a great opening for a community theater show with little to no publicity. Overall the show went well. It was exciting and wonderful to be back on stage doing live theater again. Was it perfect? No. Was it fun? Yes!

Since I have also been stage managing, I haven't had a lot of time for "character" development, although my character sleeps until the very end of the show before waking up in time to deliver a couple lines...and go back to sleep. What surprised me is that I find sleeping on stage for an hour to be surprisingly difficult. Eyes shut to the action, moving from one spot to the next, I have basically NO idea where I am on stage for the majority of the show. I just hope everyone else is aware of where I am, because I could be front and center in the middle of their scene and never know it!!

We have five more shows before the curtain goes down on my first community theater experience in a long time. I will be sad when it's over. I've made some new friends and reconnected with a part of me that I hadn't been able to tap into for awhile.

Through the Looking Glass

After a month of rehearsals and countless trips looking for inexpensive costumes and carrying prop boxes around in my car, Through the Looking Glass will open Sunday at 3:00pm at the Monroe County Public Library.

My first experience with the MCCT has been exciting, interesting and somewhat exhausting all at the same time. I have missed theater a lot more than I realized, and being involved, even on a small scale, has made me realize just how much theater is a part of who I am. I will write more after the show opens, but here's the schedule:

Sunday, February 17 at 3:00pm at the Monroe County Public Library
Friday, February 22 at 7:30pm at the Cinemat (Bloomington)
Saturday, February 23 at 7:30pm at the Cinemat
Sunday, February 24 at 7:30pm at the Cinemat
Saturday, March 1 at 3:00pm at the Brown County Public Library
Sunday, March 2 at 3:00pm at the Monroe County Public Library

The show runs a little over an hour and is free (donations accepted at the Cinemat performances). If you want some free entertainment and want to know whether or not this show is appropriate for your family, email me or leave me a comment.

Book Review: Thursday Next

Thursday Next: A First Among Sequels

I changed one of my "What's in a Name" reading challenge books to this when it finally became available at the good ol' public library. I have been a fan of Jasper Fforde and the Thursday Next series since my friend Annie bought me the first two books several years ago. I enjoy the books because they're about books...about bringing to life that mystical realm between the written word and the 'real' world. While they are science-fiction to a point, the Thursday Next series is really a group of books for people who love books, are fascinated by the writing process, and have a big imagination.

While Thursday Next was not my favorite of the series, it was definitely an interesting and entertaining read. I loved that much of the book took place inside the Book World as Thursday had to to contend with the different written versions of herself. I found the Thursday1-4 and Thursday5 characters fascinating because I could identify with it. There is the real person, and then the parts of our personality that come out in different situations. And, with Thursday, she realized that she didn't always like what she saw, so she tried to fix it. The result was a softer Thursday, but one that wasn't really her, either.

The hardest part of the book for me was the last couple chapters. I won't give it away, but I had to read it a couple times to get it to make sense.

I would give this particular Thursday journey 3.5 out of four stars. Not the best, but still true to the series.

Book Review: The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm is a book I have wanted to read for years, but never really sat down to do so. When I was home for Christmas, I saw that my mom had it on the bookshelf, so I picked it up. I remember watching the movie and getting sick to my stomach in the middle of the storm, so that could be why I put off reading the book for so long. Anyway, here are my thoughts.

The book is powerful in many ways. Writing about an event so catastrophic and about a group of men who died at sea has to be difficult. The author admits several times that no one can know for sure how the Andrea Gail spent her last hours at sea or what happened to the crew that went down with her. Instead of glamorizing the storm, Junger interviewed people who survived, asked the right questions, and was obvious when he was doing nothing more that speculating as to what could have happened.

The fishing community of the American northeast is a hard group of people. They live by the sea and they know they could die by the sea. The risks the longboat fishermen take every time they go out to sea is huge, and everyone knows that the final journey of any vessel could be just around the corner.

The perfect storm was a weather-anomoly of the highest form. Several different storms packing huge punches all come together to create a massive storm that literally changed the lives of thousands of people. Hearing the true stories of rescue swimmers, boat captians, and those waiting on land for their loved ones to return was very insightful. I am one of those people who generally likes to read to be entertained, so I tend to avoid most non-fiction. However, this book is told with such passion and attention to detail, I would recommend it to anyone. It is sad and heroic at the same time. It is the story of not just the Andrea Gail but of the people of Gloucester and the lives they live.

How do I love you?

No sooner met but they looked; No sooner looked but they loved; No sooner loved but they sighed; No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE


In honor of the day, here is one of my favorite pics from the wedding. (Someday Tim and I will take new pictures where we both look good, but until then you just get the wedding).

There are so many reasons I love my husband. It would take a long time to list them here. So, I will keep it down to just a few.

We laugh together. A lot. Sometimes at each other.

We smile together. A lot. Often at each other.

He makes me feel beautiful.

He makes me feel smart (even though he is way smarter).

He loves God and believes Him.

He's kind to everyone.

He sacrifices for others.

He loves deeply.

He's passionate.

He's honest.

He's a leader.

He's mine!

I love you, hon!

Life in the Sick Lane

I should preface this post with one tiny fact - I HATE being sick.

That being said, this week I have:

• coughed hard enough to almost pass out
• gone through a jumbo-size box and a half of Kleenex
• spent 3 hours at the 'walk-in' clinic
• taken approximately 6 different medications
• had two prescriptions filled
• eaten the equivalent of one meal a day
• watched way too much HGTV
• missed two days of work
• not gotten nearly enough sleep
• had a fever and threw up, two things I haven't experienced in a long time
• whined and complained about being sick
• moaned and cried about my aches and pains
• rubbed the top layer of skin off my nose...ouch

It's true, i don't handle being sick well, especially when it takes all my energy just to sit up in bed (although I did manage to make it to work for about 6 hours today, so I guess that's an improvement). Being sick always makes me want my mom. She would turn the couch into a bed, make sure the remotes and books and kleenexs, the "special" trashcan and a regular trashcan were nearby, make soup and give my popsicles and put the right amount of ice in my drinks. She would rip my toast into little bites and rub my head and back until I fell asleep. Maybe that's why I didn't mind getting sick so much as a kid.

Living alone or with roommates for several years, I learned to hide the soft Kleenex's from them if you wanted them when you needed them, that soup doesn't make itself, and shared fridges mean there is always a shortage of pink popsicles. And, honestly, being married I didn't expect a lot to change. But, God is good to me, and he gave me a husband who tries so hard - who stops and gets more kleenex when I run out, who rubs my feet to put me to sleep, who wants me to stay in bed even though I know my coughing is keeping him awake, who indulges 9:00pm mashed potato cravings and surprises me with a light breakfast in bed when I think I'm doing better. He goes to the pharmacy for me, and sits quietly so I can fall asleep.

This week i've felt worse than I've felt in a long time, and I hope that the end is coming, but am not too optimistic right now. I've also felt the love of my husband and the care of my friends...and the strong hand of God telling me that it'll all work out fine and everything will still get done, even if I don't sit at my desk for a full 50 hours this week.

Ain't Those Internets Wonderful...

I found this place online where I can put in my current body statistics and it gives me this....

Then I can put in my goals and it gives me this....

Now if that's not a reason to continue with the diet, I don't know what is...

YIKES!

Hello, Stress...

So, a little over two months ago, one of my good friends at work left to take another job. I know he did it for all the right reasons and it sounds like he's made a great decision for him and his family...but right now, I REALLY wish he was here! He implemented some big changeds before he left, and now he's gone....and I'm a little freaked out trying to fill his shoes, in even a small way!

Tim and I were discussing it the other night and he said, "Two years ago, who would have thought that Jason leaving would impact your job more than it would mine?" And it's so true. Two years ago, I didn't want him to leave, selfishly, because I didn't want it to throw a bunch more stuff on Tim's already overflowing plate. But now? The hole he left (and it's a pretty sizable hole, at least to me) is definitely affecting me more than Tim.

I'm sitting here online, trying to find graphics for a magazine I have NO idea how to graphically do. I'm trying to design something that makes sense, and I feel like a blind person in a dark room. So, I'm a little freaked out. Do I like that people have faith in me? Sure. But wow...this is a lot...and I'm a lot unsure about what to do and how to make it look.

I know it's a strange blog post, but it's what is on my heart right now. Hopefully it will turn out looking okay and making sense....

wish me luck!