These also showed up on one of the girls’ wings in honor of Valentine’s Day. It’s always a good idea to make a single advertisement for your buddy in the dorm to put up on your sister wing :). Just to clarify for those of you who may not have a sense of humor, this was a prank and a joke. It is funny :). These images have been slightly doctored to protect the innocent and the guilty.
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Filed under: Community, Friends, FUN!, Girly-Girl, Hospitality, Student Comments, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
One of my dear, sweet RAs got engaged last weekend. I’ve known JP longer, because he was a summer intern in our office two years ago, but Noelle has become very dear to me this year. I’m rejoicing at this awesome pair becoming a permanent pair. They both love the Lord and want to please Him and I have no doubt that they will be able to do that together. At our leadership meeting this week in the dorm, we celebrated JP’s popping the question with pop, popcorn, popsicles, and pop’ems.
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Girly-Girl, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc
I love the thoughtfulness on campus for Valentine’s Day. People baked up a storm in my kitchen for other people. The guys from our brother dorm also came and surprised their sister wings. One wing wore all black and came in at 3:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, many of the girls on the wing they were surprising were awake and they got caught, but that is part of the fun. The put bubble wrap down the hallway and hung hearts and candy from the ceiling. They also put up advertisements for dates for one of the single guys in their dorm with a bio and tear off numbers at the bottom :). Another brother wing braided streamers and were thoughtful enough to ask ahead if there were cork boards or white boards by each door so that they would know whether they needed push pins or tape. Their willingness to craft and their thoughtfulness of the girls in the dorm warmed my heart. It was also very sweet because each treat the girls on a wing got whether it was from a brother wing or from their RA or ARA, I got one delivered to my door too. Here is a link to a video of one of the wings being decorated.
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In case that doesn’t work, here are some sub-par iphone pics that don’t give you the full effect of the festivities :).
My coworkers and I have a little lunch club going on. It’s actually the female RD meeting, but we take turns cooking for each other. It gives us a chance to try out recipes that we wouldn’t necessarily be willing to try on just anyone. This week I hosted and I got a keeper. Here is my version of Real Simple’s Sweet Potato Chowder.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound turkey bacon
- 1 whole orange, yellow, or red pepper
- 1/2 red onion
- 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
- 3 13-ounce cans chicken broth
- 3 mild green chilies
- 1 cup of frozen corn or half a bag
- salt to taste
Directions
- Cook the bacon in a large stockpot over medium heat until it begins to crisp, 6 to 8 minutes.
- Add the peppers and onion to the bacon and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the vegetables are tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Because I used turkey bacon, I also needed to add a little olive oil at this stage.
- Add the sweet potatoes, chicken broth, and chilies and simmer, covered, 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
- Stir in the corn and ½ teaspoon salt and cook until heated through.
I served this with ham, apple, and white cheddar mini-paninis. We had home-made peach fro-yo for dessert. The blueberry fro-yo was a flop :(.
Sweazy’s annual black-tie game night was this weekend. Here are a few pics of the set-up beforehand. It was a lot of fun!
Decor:
Metallic Garland Photo Wall and Photo Props
Lots of Silver and Gold
White Christmas Tree Lights (A Must at Almost Every Sweazy Event)
New Additions to the lounge:
Working Ping-pong Table
Pool Table from our Bigger and Better Christmas Event, but now with all the necessities to actually play.
Menu:
Flavored Popcorns
Gluten-free Pretzel Rolo Turtles
Red Vines
Snack Mix
Italian Cream Sodas (This was a first for me. Delish! A little ice, little half-and-half, lots of club soda, and some Italian syrup).
Just read a post by Stephen Altrogge on New Year’s resolutions, which I found very helpful. And so, here are my Resolutions for 2012,
Personal:
- Work on my handwriting each week as I write notes
- Stick to the Bible Reading Plan I’ve selected
- Hang out with friends outside of the dorm at least once every two weeks
- Spend 30 minutes a week working on a foreign language
- Work out once a week – I know it is small, but you have to start somewhere.
- Read one book for leisure a month or see one movie
- Memorize one verse a week
Ministry:
- Write a note a week. This is something I’ve gotten out of the practice of. I used to write notes all the time in college, even though my roommate said that no one could read them because of my messy writing :), but now a days it seems like there is never time or I don’t have the brain power to do anything worthwhile. That has got to change.
- Every Sunday spend time looking at the month ahead to prepare personally and better communicate to my staff
- Pray regularly for eyes to see how the Spirit is at work in people’s lives to encourage them with what I see.
- Dsomething spontaneous or silly with the girls at least once a month
- And I don’t know how to turn this into a resolution that’s doable since it is more of a mind shift, but here is an excellent post on caring for the person God has placed before you in that moment instead of being preoccupied with that girl on the opposite side of the room who you are not talking to.
Filed under: Christian Living, Community, Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, geography / travel, Home, Hospitality, role models, These are a few of my favorite things..., Travel
Okay, so I’m not staying at a Bed and Breakfast this week, but I am staying at a friend’s home at Mount Hermon. They are gone, but I am here. The hikes, the sleep, the quiet, the reading, the pinning, the video-watching, the outdoors, the indoors, and opportunities to hear myself think have been lovely. I haven’t slept as well since I don’t know when but definitely not since moving into the dorm. On campus there is continual life and noise. Even with the students gone there are fire alarms, car alarms, tennis players, knocks on the door, grounds crew people outside making noise, a crow flying into my window over and over in the morning to wake me up… I’m so thankful for the couple who see what God has given them as an opportunity to serve others and minister through hospitality. It makes me dream of someday being able to do the same. A retreat house up here would be nice because it’s only an hour away from the fam and because I am more of a mountain girl than a beach girl, but here they have the best of both worlds since the beach is only 30 minutes away :).
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- Love, love, love.
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- Wherever I live, I’d love to have a guest tree house like this :).
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Family, Friends, FUN!, Life, These are a few of my favorite things...
My cousin recently commented on the fact that I must be busy because I haven’t posted much recently. Indeed I have been. I went from caring for 88 college kids to hanging out with a bunch of munchkins. Friday the 16th the students checked out at 5pm and I checked into the Keller Day Spa er I mean Day Care at 5:30pm for a few days. My friend Heidi just had her fourth baby, so while she and her husband were in the hospital, I was home with the three boys ages 8,5, & 3. We had a lot of fun, but I discovered I am not cut out to be a single mom :).
I’ve also had time over the break to hang with my friend Laura’s son, Garrett, my nephews, Sean and David, my nieces, Katie and Isabella, and a few other kiddos. In a few days I also hope to meet my friend Sarah’s daughter Gigi.
Kid’s never-ending battery supply always surprise me but also enthuse me. It also amazes me how it is the unplanned and unpurchased kind of fun that they love best. The Keller boys preferred building a river and dams in the gutter to the playplace at McDonalds (although all kids do like McDonalds) and Garrett kept saying “Jen, boom,” interpreted to mean ”Let’s wrestle or how about you throw me around.” He was also content to just tell me to sit and watch him play only he can’t say “s” and instead says “sh”. These aren’t fantastic pictures since most of them are from my phone and are pictures of kiddos on the move, but this is what I’ve been up to recently.
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Filed under: Community, Friends, My life, Quirky, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
I love my job, so much so that I don’t spend much time blogging. I see more to be done than I can possibly do. My 500th post came and went without me even knowing because the last post was scheduled months ago :). Life is full but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My absolute favorite part of the job is the people I get to work with both in King Hall and in the dorm. Working with my RAs is probably my greatest joy. Here are the pictures from a recent photo shoot: the good, the outtakes, and the purposefully silly.
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Discipleship, Friends, FUN!, pop culture, role models, school days, Student Comments, Teaching, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
Does it come as a surprise to anyone right now that I despirately need to do homework?