October and November 2012

...hi!  

I've outdone myself in neglecting this fun little blog the months of October and November.  I usually get at least one blog in a month...but carrying on.  I always think of this little slice of the internet as my scrapbook, and there were some really fun things in the past two months that went on that I do not want to forget.  I want to get this out of the way so I can move onto newer posts without it looming over me that I wanted to note these fun things:

• I went to the Becoming conference!  I got some great ideas, some major inspiration, and had so much fun.

• I organized a women's day conference.

• Went to the dentist for the first time in years, and thanked the Lord again for His major kindness in sending excellent doctors my way.  My dentist is awesome; let me know if you're looking for one!

• Helped throw a baby shower for my friend Sarah!

*Yard wreath!

*There were 18 cards, and everyone selected a card and wrote a note to EA for her to open on that birthday.

*Hostesses

• So many good & fun church things.  I really, really love my church.

• Made birthday cakes for a one year old's birthday party!  And acquired a shiny new scar when I put my arm in the oven.

• Was part of another fall women's craft day.  Yarn wreaths, coasters, and cards galore.  I LOVE these days!

*And way was glad my friend Erika came!

• Started the process of grad school.  That sounds more definitive then just researching some programs in town and emailing program heads, but at least that ball is rolling now.

• Had a sweet-sweet birthday party.

• My dear friends Skelli and Keth (or Kelli and Seth, your choice) got married!

• Turned 27.  In the Bahamas.

• Tried to sell my car.  Anyone want to buy a Honda?

Weekend Rewind

Linking up!

Saturday!

Saturday was the Moore's annual Labor Day BBQ.  I went over on Friday night when they put the hog (literally, an entire hog with certain parts missing) on the pit and the beans in the hole (in the ground).  Both were incredibly good.  What was also incredibly good?  A full Saturday with my friends!  In the morning I spent a bit of time with Zakiya and ran a few errands with Tiff before heading out to the farm for the day.  Saturday was wrapped up with a movie with Rebekah and Tiff.  I stayed awake for almost a third of it.  :)

Chicken coop!

 Clementine!

New roommate, Tiffany.  I was on the tire swing for a while and my arms are still killing me 2 days later.  Pitiful.

Sunday!

My church didn't meet yesterday so were encouraged to visit elsewhere.  After visiting a new church (during which I texted my friend at work about how I was ruined because I had to get over assessing the signage and hospitality to first time visitors...ruined) I ran, and then went home and cleaned!  I had aspirations of going to visit a friend, but somewhere between finishing mopping and cleaning the shower every bit of motivation in my heart left.  I wrapped up the night reading & finishing a book and working on a project.

Today!

Haha, still considered the weekend!  I have a full to-do list right beside me and a ton of motivation to get it done, so this should be good.

weekly sampler, last week in august 2012 edition

This week!  This week I...

*Worked!  40 hours spent at work, and thankful for each of them.  I just love the people I get to work with!  We had birthday lunch on Tuesday at Last Resort that I had to miss, but the admin girls celebrated Cookie's birthday on Wednesday at Depalma's which was way fun.  And way good.  (Meatball sandwich with a cucumber/olive/tomato/onion salad on the side).

*Summer is almost over.  SUMMER IS ALMOST OVER.  Since Labor Day is around the corner I wore my white skirt and dress one more time.  I also, after wearing them all summer, managed to spill on each while wearing them.  I am lamenting a bit in heart that summer is almost over, but the temps in the 90s all week calmed my fears that it'll be cold soon.  

*I had 2 nights at home this week without any meetings or obligations (though I could have filled one of them if I had had transportation).  They were really needed!  On one of them I fell asleep at 8:15.  It was marvelous.  

*The car saga update:  my car is still at the doctor, and I've been blessed with the generosity of friends giving me rides and two friends even lending me their car (THANK YOU Brookie and Emily). I should have mine back Tuesday, which will launch me into getting little fixes on it done to get it ready to sell.  GULP.

*One of my besties came home from Africa.

Yes, there were tears, and yes, Dave at work may have been deafened with the screetching that went on upon being reunited.  Thank You, Lord!

Purple Wedding Shower

My friends Alison and Elise said it best yesterday, "southern women throw the best showers."  It's true!  They're so fun!  This weekend I was part of throwing a shower for my dear friend Kelli with some of my dear friends and it was a fun & pretty party!

The details

Purple wedding shower?  Purple is one of Kel's wedding colors, so I found invites with purple.  From there we found some purple napkins and rolled them (and they looked like rose buds, accidental bonus!) and I made a banner with their names on purple paper.  There were also some purple tulips on the food table.

Guests & Presents

Prayer

Hostesses
*Missing Mary R! :(

I can't wait for Skelli and Keth's November wedding!
**Skelli and Keth.  That came out of my mouth one day when trying to talk about them, and occasionally it comes back into play.  Fortunately I didn't put that on their banner I made for the shower, or their guest book...I don't think.

car saga part 1

Almost a year ago, my car stopped working coming off of 316, and I had to be towed back to home.  Definitely a situation I could have done without, but I lived and learned.  Last Saturday I was coming into home and my car sorta did the same thing.  Fortunately, I was pulling into home so I called the tow truck and had my car taken away on Monday morning.  I distinctly remember saying to someone, "this should be wrapped by Wednesday or Thursday!" and hoping it wouldn't wipe out too much of my savings.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I get a call Monday at around lunchtime and the friendly folks tell me my car needs a new transmission to the tune of $3,100.  I'm not going to joke here folks, I started bawling.  I had NO idea what to do.  Then I quickly wised up and started calling people who are way smarter than me.  One person started calling around trying to find me a better deal.  Another quickly offered abundant support, saying "Well, I don't know what to do or what to tell you, but but I sure can support you emotionally!"  I was given really, really good advice over a couple days.

This week was topsy-turvy.  Take out a car loan and fix the transmission?  Sell it for what I can (with an out transmission) and work on getting a new car?  And back & forth, and back & forth, and back at forth.  I sent this email to my friend Julie because this was my case for about 2 days:

So this car thing can be best summarized with this:

I get mostly set on one decision with the car, yay!

Then I get more (good) advice, which makes me (wisely) question my decision.

Back to neutral ground.

I go the other way on the decision with the car, yay!

Then I get more (good) advice, which again makes me (wisely) question my decision.

Back to the middle.

Finally, I committed to a decision:  Sell the thing for what I can and buy a new car.  Done and done.  Brooke had picked me up from work and I was telling her why this was the good plan, blah blah blah when my phone rang.  It was someone who I had called for a quote at the beginning of the week and hadn't heard back from.  He tells me a price less than HALF for what I'd been hearing. Saywhat?  Don't you know I JUST made the decision?!  What??  We talk, and I hang up the phone.  I'm pretty sure Brookie who could hear all of the conversation was smirking.

Right back to the drawing board, but with a better option on the table.  Call my peoples (who I can't thank the Lord enough for) and get their input, which lines up with what I was thinking when I heard about this:  fix the car, get it running, drive it for a couple months, then sell it and move forward with a new car.  Yes, I could (obvi) keep my fixed and (well) running car, but I think it's time to change wheels (and I can sell it for more the fewer miles it has on it).

My car's at the doctor now, and I'm borrowing a friends car for the weekend.  That's all I know.  I don't know when it's going to be fixed, but I do know a ball is (finally) rolling instead of just sitting idle on the court.  I do know this:

• I am so, so, so, so, so, SO THANKFUL for the people in my life.  I have never felt alone, and I have been more than well advised and taken care of.
• I have learned some new things.
• I trust the Lord even more than I did last week.

Thank You, Lord.

Here's to part 2 (and probably part 3, good gracious...car buying...I'm hoping to wrap that up FAST because I can over-think something to death). 

time flies

...if you're having fun or not.  I try to keep Monday's as a "work-night" and work on all the other things that I want to accomplish/get ahead on/et cetera for the week.

Tonight I had lofty ambitions to:

• Get done with school work
• Finish some birthday cards
• Start some drafts for a couple publications for church
• Update an online calendar
• Grocery shop

What I've done:

• Gone to AT&T and Peach Mac to have my phone looked at, to be told that some g-mail accounts are just experiencing trouble right now (yay my phone's not broken!)
• Finished some birthday cards (*all belated)
• Grocery shopped

All the home-work things?  Bah ha ha.

Today at work we had our long-range planning meeting, where dates start to be set for January-August 2013.  I'm thinking about that tonight, especially in light of how fast this evening has slipped away from me.  How do I expect my life to be different in January 2013?  Not employment status or anything, but what new things do I hope to be walking in?  How will my dear relationships that I have now have gone deeper?  What skills (aka photoshop) will I pick up?  Will I be hitting consistent mileage on runs?  There is a song in Tangled (if you haven't seen this movie yet, call me.  We'll fix that real fast.) that goes "waiting on my real life to begin."  The Lord speaks to me SO much through this movie, and this is a part that really hit home.  I'm not waiting, my "real life" has begun.  I'm living it now.

Intentionality is something that is really important to me, and I'm wondering how intentional I'm being right now?  Those things I listed above, and others; I don't want those to slip away.  And I want to push myself to dream more!  Hmm...

but now, I'm off to be intentional with finishing my list above.

Weekly Sampling

Spaghetti Squash
I discovered spaghetti squash this week.  OMG.  I was invited to a friend's for dinner where she served it.  What she did is that after roasting it she scooped it the squash and put in a skillet with a can of tomatoes, some seasonings, onion, and feta cheese.  The very next night I went to Publix and bought my own and replicated it.  I only wish I had added ground beef too; I don't think that I'll ever buy spaghetti noodles again.

Iphone
My iPhone no longer receives my email.  Help?  I'm working up to go see AT&T tomorrow.  Meh.  But one thing I learned about it this morning is that I can "name" my alarms.  I did.  And it makes me laugh.  Hoping that it'll make the 5:45 call to run easier!

*While I was sorting out my alarms I had one set for 2:45 a.m.  Why on earth was I setting an alarm for that time?

D-i-a-n-A
My current #1 pet-peeve:  being called DianE.  No, that's not my name.  It's DianA.  Granted this probably bothers me more than it should because my father frequently called me Diane, (it just ticked me off remembering how he did; definitely the cause of the issue!) but he signed the birth certificate (not that it had the correct add...never mind, I'm done with this rant) so he had no excuse!  My two favorite instances this week of being called the name which I shall not be called by:

• In an email that I signed with "Diana" and had my work signature of "Diana" underneath it got a response of "Thanks, Diane!"  WTHeck.  But that individual did respond a couple days later with "I think I called you Diane, sorry!"
• My former campus minister (who I interned in his ministry for 2 years) walked past me this week and goes' "Hi Diane."  Given that he sees 1,000's of people a year I let it go, but still.  Boo.

Lighbulb

In my bathroom this guy exploded with a cloud of smoke and I caught it when I noticed it was hanging on by a thread.  Now to get the base out of the fixture.  I'm thinking of calling an SOS to the more handy people in my life on this one, but I will google it first, in case it's anything like my Thursday morning.  

Thursday Morning

I woke up Thursday morning to run with a terrible headache so I stayed in bed another hour and a half. At 7:30 I told myself, "self, you'll feel better if you shower."  I turn on the water, let it get good and hot, assess my hair and see that it needs washed, and then hop in.  Well, I hopped into a freezing cold stream.  I fly out and go check the water heater, which is silent.  Uh-oh.  Hair gets crafted into a new up-do and I email my landlord.  He comes over after we all get off of work and comes in with tools.  The fix?  Flipping the breaker.  

Belt of shame

One afternoon I was running through the sanctuary at work and I saw boss lady wearing a tool belt filled with donation envelopes and pencils while refilling the pews and I stopped dead in my tracks and said, "what are you wearing?!?!?!"  I quickly began calling it the belt of shame.  Well, I had to wear it this week.  Another day in the office...