Filed under: My life
Please update your links or google readers. My new blogging home is http://gracefilledlifeinafallenworld.wordpress.com/. Stop on by :).
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: Family, Friends, FUN!, My life, school days, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, Travel, Vocation
- Adrienne and Raqel visited my family with me. My dad cleaned the house because he thought Adrienne might be a boy
- Spent Valentine’s Day with some of my favorite peeps: Joe and Heidi, Karrie, Dave and Tricia, Lisa, and Jess Stucky and then attended the big band concert
- Hosted Women to Women with Heidi
- Enjoyed the Idiot Abroad Dinner Club
- Had an informal interview on the beach for my dream job without realizing it
- Saw West Side Story :(, Beauty and the Beast :), Bill Cosby, The Gettys, as well as Miracle on 34th St. at The Million Dollar Theater in L.A.
- Discovered Cleo’s a trendy Middle Eastern restaurant close to the Pantages
- Enjoyed “Game Nights” and a bacon feast with RED, Adrienne, and Phil
- Made 500 cake pops and bars for the Ladies’ Tea at Church
- Went to Iowa and celebrated my Grandmother’s 90th birthday with the Wilhite Clan.
- Road Trip with Jessica Wiley Frederickson for Sarah Marquez Wiley’s Baby Shower
- Spent Easter with RED, Adrienne, and the Dennis Family
- Helped with Breakfast for Year End Show
- Said goodbye to dear friends: Jones Family and RED.
- Settled into my first apartment
- I became an RD after Dave and Karrie sang a job offer and after Joe gave me the RD Pep Talk
- Had my first and hopefully my last root canal
- Attended the Grand Baby Wedding for Bel and Bella
- I ran out of gas
- Survived August and learned a great deal about God as my rock, my defender, and advocate who knows my concerns, my needs, my fraility and my sin and despite all of that saved me and chooses to allow me to participate in His ministry
- RD, RA, and SLS Retreat and WOW Week
- Became friends with Sarah, Noelle, Natalie, Kaylin, Rae, Summer, and Stacey
- Had many house guests including Raqel, Kellie Zerlang, Laura and baby Garrett, Cynthia and Jodi
- Played Gotcha for the first time
- Went to the Pasadena Flea Market and became a fan of Good Will
- My sweet niece, Isabella, was born
- Became reacquainted with old friends
- Went back to school
- Completed C.E.R.T – Community Emergency Response Training
- Introduced to Dr. Mario, the best game ever :)
- Watched the Keller boys for a weekend when Mabel was born
- Celebrated 3 more holidays with the Kintner/Ramirez/Allen Families
- Started a new tradition of retreating to Mount Hermon for a few days after Christmas
So thankful for the days God ordained for me.
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, Friends, FUN!, My life, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
Coffee Stop at Starbucks – Always a good start to a day.
The Griffith Observatory – Laid on the grass, talked, enjoyed the view and the sun.
Lunch in Griffith Park – White sack lunches. We traded sandwiches and fruit just like on the playground. I’m sure we looked funny – a bunch of adults crammed at a table swapping items from sack lunches on a Monday afternoon in the park. If people wondered, “Don’t you work?” they never asked, but it’s fun to think about our answer, “We are working right now :).” Love it!
Hung out at the Grove – Anthro is always a favorite spot of mine. Here are some Anthro finds or inspirations:
This one is from Gap, but it is still inspiring. On a normal bench only two random strangers would sit down, but this actually provides seating for three:
Dinner in little Ethiopia at Merkado - spongy, stretchy, pancake bread to scoop up delicious zil zil tibs and various vegetables. We sat on interesting saddle chairs.
Dessert at Crumbs in Beverly Hills – completely different than dinner, but a lot of fun.
It was a good day spent with friends.
RD Day Away was yesterday. Pics soon. Day of Prayer today. No pics of that, but I’m looking forward to it.
Found this note on my whiteboard outside of my apartment door. It was from my first RD at TMC. Weird, but oh so fun!
Last Friday was Sweazy Tie Day. I didn’t know girls could look so cute in ties :). One of the guys’ dorms on campus did this and we thought it was fun and would be funny to copy them :).
John MacArthur Legacy/Welcome Center Opening – I snapped the shot too late. I wanted the shot with all the board members cutting the ribbon, but I didn’t realized I wanted it until the group dispersed.
Karrie with John McCain in her office. Don’t know where this came from. I love happenings on a college campus :).
Make a Difference Day – A bunch of students and staffers joined the community to help improve Santa Clarita. It was fun to work with Master’s peeps and locals at the Senior Center. Weirdest moment of the day was a lady asking us if we were there for the AA Convention. When we said no, she said, “Oh, you’re not drunks? Well you should go become drunks so you can join our convention.” I also liked the lady that said she joined a sorority that day because she flashed a Sweazy sign in one of the pictures :).
That’s all for now folks.
Filed under: Cool Finds, Friends, FUN!, Girly-Girl, Hospitality, My life, recipes, These are a few of my favorite things...
Missy’s Marinated Tomatoes - Delish and Not Too Shabby as Far as Nutrients vs. Junk
Chocolate and Raspberries – Love this combo. Don’t know if this counts as a recipe, but my girls ate these up. Making them again soon.
Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls - I don’t make the frosting. I make my own cream cheese frosting (1 stick cream cheese, part of a stick of butter, and powdered sugar to taste). This last time I also spread some pumpkin on the dough with the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
Pecan, Caramel, Pretzel Bites – Just got a request for this recipe. Once again, don’t know if this counts for a recipe, but they are a great trick to have up your sleeve and they are a great gluten-free snack or dessert if you buy gluten-free pretzels.
For a party tonight, I took the ingredients of my fridge, freezer, and pantry and made an apple crumble to go over ice cream. I didn’t taste it but someone called me a P.31 Woman. I think that means it was good, but it’s hard to tell with college students. They will eat just about anything. I mixed together four bags of cut up apples, 1/2 cup pumpkin, juice from one orange, sugar, and cinnamon. I placed that in a baking dish, poured one white dry cake mix over it, drizzled it with 1/2 cup melted butter, and baked until apples were cooked and topping was a toasty brown. Anything is better a-la-mode :).
Filed under: Community, Cool Finds, Family, Friends, FUN!, humor, My life, These are a few of my favorite things..., Travel, work
It’s good to go away and it is good to be home. I took advantage of the NANC Conference being close to my hometown and I went to visit my family last weekend. I drove up with my brother Jason and as usual half way to the Bay we stopped at Arby’s. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, we eat :).
It was so good to hold my little niece, once her daddy finished holding her ;) , and to have the reality sink in that J&B are parents and that we have a new member of the family to care for and love as long as she or we live. We are going to see her grow, learn to read, learn to ride a bike, have joys and sorrows, and hopefully, see her passionately love Jesus. Right now, she loves to sleep and nothing can wake her when she wants to sleep, but when she decides she doesn’t want to sleep there is not much you can do about it.
After a quick weekend with the fam, I met up with my co-workers for a quick trip to the city before the conference. It was drizzly and wonderful. We had lunch at a little cafe called Marios. It’s tiny and there really isn’t a kitchen. There is a large toaster oven and a panini grill behind the bar in which they make delicious sandwiches and pizzas. We saw the taping of a verizon commercial, had pumpkin spice lattes, road BART and busses, walked around Ghirardelli Square, climbed many a hill, and had a lot of fun together.
Some of the highlights of the conference trip were good conversations with friends. We all stayed at a large house and had times to sit, eat, laugh, and chat. The challenge with that many people staying at someone’s beautiful home is that something inevitably goes wrong or gets broken. The first mishap was putting dish soap in the dishwasher. Don’t ever make that mistake. Bubbles flowing everywhere. Yikes! If you do make that mistake, vinegar and salt help. The second mishap was the garage doors fiasco. There were two and that was our mode of leaving the house with all the doors locked. Unfortunately, when one would go down, the other would go up and then when both would close one would close and reopen. It was a good trip, but it was nice to get home and to sleep in my own bed. The last night of the trip in the middle of the night I got really confused and yelled in the middle of the night, “Whose in here?” I woke up two of my friends. When they tried to tell me that the door was just open, I couldn’t understand them. I was still processing who they were :). When one of them finally got up to close the door, she was ready to figure out the mystery and I was already back to sleep :).
It’s good to go away and it is good to return home.
Filed under: current issues, Family, Friends, FUN!, Girly-Girl, Good Advice, Lessons Learned, My life, Student Comments, These are a few of my favorite things..., tmc, work
1. Items hung on my walls including the frames from the flea market. Cherilyn, you asked for pictures; here they are. The step stool with the suitcase on it is also “new” from the flea market.
2. Sweet Notes from Villains. Never got anything like this in my old job :).
3. Refreshment and rest looks like this:
4. My niece is still new in my mind and she’s most definitely blog worthy (at least in this doting aunt’s mind).
5. Sweazy won Gotcha! I don’t know how many played, but out of an enrollment of 1000 students, one of my girls got 120 cumulative kills. We had a Sweazy Alliance. Our motto was, “Don’t forsake the Alliance for cute boys.” I stayed in until Friday at which point I fell on my sword for the Sweazy Victory Chain. I had to stay in all week to protect a Sweazy friend who was below me, so I resorted to participating in all the safeties available except for Friday’s. Friday I was sick in bed, so I didn’t yell out “Ninja” at anyone dressed in black that might have tried to assassinate me :). Here are the other day’s safeties:
Monday – ride an imaginary horse
Tuesday – talk on a banana like a phone
Wednesday – in song narrate your day and what you are doing
Thursday – waddle like a penguin
I have never been so paranoid in my life. I heard helicopters everywhere, I had my banana at hand while shopping at Costco, I had full conversations with the banana to my face, I semi-waddled into a class off campus, I wouldn’t open my door when a student that wasn’t from Sweazy knocked. I made friends and watched the girls build relationships with one another and think through issues of life far beyond the game as a result of what the competition brought out both positive and negative in their hearts, relationships, and lives.
6. I was sick over the weekend, but am on the mend. It was a good time to reflect again on God’s kindness in making me stop, rest, and eat better. I’ve never eaten so much chicken soup or rehydrated with such mass quantities of Gatorade. It was also a humbling reminder that I’m not all that important. God is at work and He allows me to be a part of that, but you pull me out of the equation and He is still at work. I needed that reminder to not be overwhelmed with the needs, demands, and responsibilities before me. If you start to think of yourself too highly and try to compare the demands before you to “your personal resources” (I put that in quotes because a friend recently reminded me that my time, energy, strengths, giftedness, etc. are not really my resources.), you are going to get overwhelmed or feel that your resources are overwhelmed. When you see, however, God’s responsibility and care for all those things which is matched by his infinite wisdom and limitless resources, you are not overwhelmed but in awe and energized to move in in the strength He provides. He is matching your time and your giftedness as a miniscule part of His resources at His disposal to a specific situation in which He is working for believers good and His glory. It also helps you prioritize as you see how He is working apart from you and that everything doesn’t and shouldn’t involve you.
7. We’ve celebrated a birthday and had wing breakfasts at my place. Here’s a picture of my favorite RA Team celebrating Natalie’s birthday as well as a few other pics for your enjoyment. We had a lemon and turquoise theme. Lemons are Natalie’s favorite fruit and turquoise her favorite color.
8. Tonight we had an event called Sardines and Shakes or Murder and Malts. This is a traditional Sweazy event during which we turn off the power to the dorm and in the dark either play Sardines or dub someone “the murderer” and play an intense game of hide and seek. We wash all the fun down with shakes or malts afterwards :).
9. My favorite blogger on contemporary Christian issues and thought, who is the recent author of The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion, has been around campus speaking in chapel, classes, and participating in a Q&A. My personal thinking and campus conversations have been shaped by his messages. His first chapel message dealt with all speech flowing from the heart and what that reveals. He challenged us to consider how all of God’s commands for our speech apply to how we communicate through email, texts, Facebook, or blogging. His next message dealt with technology’s use as a part of the command to subdue and have dominion over the earth, but he went on to show how the fall affects that in a way where technology starts shaping and changing us to recreate us in its image or to run our lives. It also draws us in and promises us fulfillment and happiness and encourages us to rest and trust in it. We can be idolatrous about technology. He challenged us in the midst of a world of beeps and distractions to think about how to limit distractions and carve out time to think. Shallow thinking = shallow living and the many beeps in our life on our phones, dishwashers, coffee pots, microwaves, etc. are not discerning in when they beep. They just do their job, as they were designed to do, drawing us away from whatever we are doing at the moment. You can listen to those messages by clicking on the links above or by going to http://www2.masters.edu/pulpit/ . I hope to consider and blog more on this soon.
10. NANC - well NANC itself isn’t new, but the NANC Conference will be new for me this year. I’m very much looking forward to it.
