so...& other thoughts

i've moved!

2009-11-19T00:42:00.000-08:00

well, it's just a virtual move. i won't be posting any more to this site. please visit me now at http://godfreymindi.wordpress.com

hope to see you there.

the UK by car

2009-09-01T01:50:00.000-07:00

this trip to the UK i have yet to be in london. when i arrived, i went straight out to the soul survivor events and spent 10 days there. then i headed to eastbourne to stay with friends. over the weekend, we went to greenbelt & to grapevine, two other festivals. we also stopped off at my friend's mom's in cambridge before heading back to eastbourne. it was quite the road trip. here's a little map to give you an idea:

View Larger Map

A: london heathrow, where i started
B: the royal bath & west showground, home to soul survivor, weeks b & c and momentum
C/G: eastbourne, where my friends live, and home to christian music & publishing
D: cheltenham race course, home to greenbelt
E: lincoln, home to grapevine
F: cambridge, where my friend's mom lives

it was fun to get to see so much territory by car & i love that it's really green here. san diego is fantastic, but there's not much green. the best part was the people of course. lots of time to chat with a friend, and opportunities to meet new people plus see friends from the states.

UK Update

2009-08-24T03:38:00.000-07:00

i am having a fabulous time hanging out with my friends at soul survivor. soul survivor is held on the UK version of a fairgrounds and the exhibit hall is in a cattle barn. most delegates camp but i'm in a b & b, which is lovely and has fantastic breakfasts. my typical day has been: wake up, have a lovely breakfast (when i haven't hit the snooze & opted for toast), head over to the event site, hang out with friends, go to part of the morning session, get some lunch, help on the spring harvest exhibit til tea time. have tea, go to part of the evening service, back to the spring harvest exhibit, then back to the b & b for bed. so, this morning i'm missing the morning service to catch up a bit on email & blogging.

i realize this isn't loads of details, but here are a few random thoughts on my UK visit so far, in no particular order, some of which i'll unpack later & some are just here. if for some reason you, dear reader, have a wish for me to unpack a specific one, feel free to comment and i'll do my best.

i think choosing a marriage partner might be as simple as saying, 'you are someone i can love, respect & who i have fun hanging out with and whose faults & foilbiles i can live with on most days without it driving me nuts.'
hope is often hard, but worth it.
the church at large is most likely failing to recognize in kids ages 8-11 the ability to begin understanding God at deeper levels. which in turn likely means we're not giving our young teens and teens enough respect and challenge in discipling them.
and the previous thought leads to the thought that if in youth ministry (and this is a sweeping statement i realize), we were better at discipling our teens in a way that allowed them to feed themselves spiritually, we might be spending less time scratching our heads at how to keep 18-25 year olds in the church.
how possible is it in current youth ministry models to use the training model of 'i do, you watch; we do it together; you do, i watch (& coach); you do for someone else'?
in the UK, there is an event volunteer whose sole job is to sit amongst a huge stack of fire extinguishers with a radio, a phone & a megaphone, just in case a fire should break out. it's a UK safety requirement.
it is possible to run a large scale event without a minute-by-minute for the plenary session, but it seems to require a production team with quick reflexes.
people from the US speak American and people from the UK speak English and there is a difference.

girls & violence & youth ministry's response

2009-06-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

i've been wondering lately if teen girls are becoming more violent. the thought started last week, when in my small group of 7th grade girls, one of the girls shared she'd missed the last group because she was suspened from school for beating up another girl. her revelation opened the proverbial can of worms as the girls started sharing about the fights between girls at their schools and i was a bit surprised at the number of fights they talked about and the violence level of them. i ended up scrapping the lesson i'd planned on women of the bible and switched to an impromptu one in conflict resolution. we talked about turning the other cheek, letting things roll off us instead of reacting, where we find our true identity and how, when and where to get help. it's been a little over a week since that small group meeting and it's been something i've continued to pray about and ponder.

this morning i saw this segment on the today show:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

it reinforced my concerns about increasing violence between young women. i hadn't considered making sure that conflict resolution was in a regular rotation of teaching topics, but i'm certainly planning for that now. and it made me wonder, as a youth worker, what other biblical life skills in i should include in my curriculum planning? i hit the traditional biggies: parents, friends, dating & sex. what life skills do you regularly include in your teaching?

Top Ten Things I Love about the UK

2009-05-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

so i've been asked repeatedly just what it is i love about london/the uk, usually with a laugh that it must be the accent. and while i do find the accent charming (of course when i'm there, i'm the one with the accent), here is a list of 10 things i love about the uk. there are more, but this will be a good start.

10. broader world view: the national news there consistently carries more stories that are global in nature and considers the story's impact on the globe.

9. public transport: with an oyster card, you can go anywhere in london by tube or by bus and you can catch a train to anywhere else you want to go in the country. also, love that it's easy to walk most places in the center of london.

8. the history/age: i'm completely fascinated by the history and how old things are. in the states, 200ish years is old. in the uk, i think it has to be at least 400 years old to start being old.

7. going to the cinema: i went to see a movie in theatre in leicester square. it reminded me of what it was like to go to a movie in a 50's movie in a way; it was somehow more elegant. first, choice of popcorn--sweet or salty--brilliant to have the option. second, assigned seats. i'm sure not every theatre was like that but i really did like it.

6. the authors: i know this next bit is geeky of me, but i'm okay with that. i love shakespeare. jane austen. chaucer. and then there are modern authors there i love: katie fforde, marian keyes & maeve binchy (technically irish, but closer to english than american), nick hornby. one of the trip highlights was picking up marian keyes' new book in paperback & katie fforde's new book, both before they were available here.

5. manners: the vast majority of everyone i encountered in the uk were terribly polite. well-mannered. and chivalrous. men opened doors. lifted my luggage up stairs in tube stops. i hear people complain about the british being stiff and reserved, and i think that while that can be true, more often than not it's just people being very polite and proper.

4. the museums: i hate to admit it, but i'd never seen a da vinci painting, a vermeer, van gogh, picasso, or botticelli or reuben in person until i visited the national gallery. totally amazing art that has literally endured centuries. this trip i also went to the national portrait gallery and the churchill museum and cabinet war rooms. all incredibly fascinating and places i look forward to visiting again.

3. the food: americans complain about not finding good food in london & i have absolutely no idea where they're going. whether it was curry take-away, wagamama, paella from a street vendor, sandwiches at pret, or nutella & banana pancakes, or traditional fish & chips, everything i ate was yummy. oh, and then there was the chocolate. galaxy bars, rose & violet creams, vodka truffles. and then the food halls. for someone who loves to cook & bake, the food hall at harrods is a bit like heaven i think. if it hadn't been for the walking, i'd have gained 20 lbs.

2. fairtrade products: along with being a little more environmentally sensitive (all the grocery stores charge for plastic bags & encourage the use of reusable bags), there is also a higher demand for fairtrade products at reasonable prices. tea, coffee, chocolate, and clothing seem to have a particular demand by consumers on fairtrade. for example, cadbury dairy milk, the uk equivalent to america's hershey bar, will be made from fairtrade cocoa by the end of the summer. and you can purchase fairtrade t-shirts at marks & spencers 2 for 8 pounds (us 2 for $12). okay, if m & s can offer that deal, surely old navy or target could offer it here in the states.

1. the people: the dry sense of humor, the propriety, the warmth paired with reserve, the "stiff upper lip", i could go on and on, but i do love the brits.

editor's note: i wonder if the uk tourism board is hiring. i might be really good at marketing the uk. :)

london days 3, 4, & 5

2009-04-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

editor's note: i'm a little behind on the posting and photo upload. what can i say, i've either been running around london or resting up to run around. below is a really short synopsis of the last 3 days with more detail to come later.

day 3 (saturday): this was 'market day' in which i went to the portobello road market and walked the entire 2+ miles of it! from there, i went to camden town and found the camden locks & market. camden locks will be a return stop on future visit. the waterway looked lovely & the locks interesting from what little i could see of it through the insane crowds. i came back to hotel, took a little nap and went to the 'mall' next to my hotel. made for a relaxing evening after a day of a *lot* of walking. i did find lots of fun things to buy for family & friends, lots of odd things i'm not sure i'd ever seen before or at least not in that quantity (as in shop after shop and tons of stalls selling minimum 3 inch platform shoes), and discovered some really yummy food. i didn't do much in the way of photos this day, but did do some video which i'll upload at some point.

day 4 (sunday): attempted to go to st. paul's for easter service but discovered i'd lost my tube pass so i spent too long looking for it and realized if i dashed out the door right then i could just make it to the church around the corner, which turned out to be greek orthodox and not easter for them yet. i ended up sneaking out during a hymn since i found myself still tired, a bit disoriented and with the beginnings of being cranky. i headed back to the hotel, changed, took a little bit of nap and then started over, which worked much better. i went to the westminster area and walked around a bit and toured the churchill museum & cabinet war rooms which housed the british government & war command during ww2. completely fascinating! from there i walked over to the southbank centre and explored it a bit before meeting jeannie & max, friends from the states who happened to arrive in london the day after i did, for dinner at wagamama. so much fun to be with them. we went to the london eye together after that and then we took the tube to our respective stops together.

day 5 (monday): packed up and checked out of my hotel, then went to the national portrait gallery and wandered around there for quite sometime. i could have stayed longer there which surprised me. it's also on the list to revist on a future trip. from there went to knightsbridge and to the wagamama in the basement of harvey nicks. (yes, i love wagamama & the only place in the states where there is one is boston which is terribly inconvenient when you live in san diego!) after that, i went to collect my luggage which i'd stored at the hotel and then take the tube & the london overground (yes you read that correctly & i didn't know there was one until yesterday either) to watford junction, which is where i met a friend of a friend to drive to minehead for the event i'm at for the rest of this week called spring harvest.

so, that brings us up to now in a short version. really, really excited to be at spring harvest this week. will post more as time allows.

london travelog day two (click here for pix)

2009-04-11T01:20:00.000-07:00

editor's note: each day of my trip, i'll post in a few consistent categories, as well as make the post title a link to a photo album.

overview: leicester square, picadilly circus, parks and buckingham palace, and trafalgar square and the west end were the areas i roamed today.

sights & observations: the plan had been to go to st. paul's but being good friday, it was open only for services. so i headed to the 1/2 price ticket booth at leicester square. there wasn't anything with a discount ticket that i was dying to see, but i did spot a movie at the odeon theatre there that i did want to see & it was one that seems unlikely to be released in the states as it was about british pirate radio in the 60's called the boat that rocked. movie was fabulous!

and the experience of going to a movie here, at least at the odeon theatre in leicester square, was completely different than going to the movie in the states. first of all, you choose your seat like you would if you were going to live theatre. second, at the concession, i was asked what kind of popcorn i wanted: sweet or salty. never once have i had this option at home. i chose sweet which was good-we'd call it kettle corn! next the theatre was huge and had a stage with curtains. the curtains opened, two sets of them, and the previews and 'adverts' began. then the second curtain closed and reopened for the start of the film. and then i loved the movie. need to locate the soundtrack before i go home.

after leaving the theatre i wandered to waterstone's, a five story bookstore in the picadilly area. was very excited to find a 3 for 2 on books including a couple of books by my favorite uk chick lit authors katie fforde, whose new book isn't available in the states for another few weeks, and marian keyes new book in paperback, which is still only in hardback at home. for my third book, i picked up a copy of miss pettigrew saves the day. i LOVED that movie and am excited to now read the book behind it.

from waterstone's i went a few blocks down to fortnum & mason, kind of like harrod's only somehow, more refined & elegant. a friend recommended having tea there, but being easter weekend, the wait was really long. instead i wandered through the food halls. so facsincating! i've decided i love food halls and wish we had them in the states. while our grocery stores are convenient, they just aren't as interesting or have as much eye and sense appeal. oh, and they had simply the most gorgeous wedding cakes i'd ever seen on display. should i ever need a wedding cake, i'd like it modeled after the chandelier cake here.

since i skipped the wait for tea at fortnum & mason, i was hungry and went in search of food and found a hole in the wall curry shop. i got a chicken curry take-away and wandered a bit further to the green park and had a little al fresco late lunch in the park. from there i walked to buckingham palace and then up the mall back to trafalgar square and to the national gallery, which i adored on my last trip to london.

since there were still tickets available for the picasso exhibition, i checked that out. while i obviously respect his work, for me personally, the majority of it is disturbing. it's just disjointed and unsettling. so i left picasso and headed up to the old master's and the early italian renaissance art. because much of it deals with religious themes from the early catholic church, it was good for reflection on good friday. one of the things i noticed this time is how there are quite a number of paintings with elizabeth and mary and john the baptist and jesus as infants. in most of them, there is an obvious intimacy between the two women which i found interesting that it was there since most all of the paintings were done by men. just something for me to ponder for a bit.

after the national gallery, i came across an older gentleman playing the most amazing waltzes on his violin. the classical music he played was completely a contrast from the lime green tux and neon pink cowboy hat he wore. i watched and listened for awhile. he seemed to be having a great time. from there i wandered across the street to st. martin in the fields, and was mesmerized by a statue in front of the church. i could also hear the concert of handel's music drifting out. from there, i wandered back thru the west end to picadilly circus before taking the tube back to the hotel. i'd thot i'd stop into a pub between my tube stop and the hotel, but i was wiped, that i just came back to the hotel and crashed.

food: started the day with a latte & croissant from a local coffee shop. next stop was the movie where i proceeded to eat almost the entire container of 'sweet popcorn' which didn't leave me hungry for quite sometime. when i finally was hungry, i found a curry shop and a yummy, oversized chicken curry. so good! i capped off the evening with an orange cream and a violet cream chocolates i'd purchased yesterday at harrod's. apparently in english chocolates, the use of flower oil from roses and violets is quite popular in making creams. and it's really good. it has a delicate flavor. i think some of these need to make the trip home with me. i am down to my last two chocolates, so i think i need to replenish that supply :). oh, and i stopped in a couple pret shops (see yesterday's post) in search of the crayfish and rocket sandwich. no luck. oh well.

today: it's market day! off to notting hill & the portobello road market, then up to camden for the market there.

london travelog day one (click here for pix)

2009-04-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

editor's note: each day of my trip, i'll post in a few consistent categories, as well as make the post title a link to a photo album.

overview: i made it to london on a plane that actually arrived early! made it to my hotel where my room was ready so i unpacked, took a quick shower, and headed out for my first adventures: kensington palace, kensington gardens, & high street kensington, where i checked out a few shops and ended up at harrod's.

sights & observations: on the walk to the palace it started drizzling and i opened my umbrella. i was the only one who did. apparently, londoners don't find a bit of drizzle enough of a reason to use theirs. in the palace, it's a little daunting to realize that despite how much of it you see, there's so much more you don't--apartments that are still in use by the royal family. there were two exhibitions in addition to the tour of the state apartments. one was the last of the debs, about the last group of debs to be presented to the queen in 1958-lots of fabulous vintage dresses that i took a few photos of. the other exhibition was of some of the more notable dresses that belonged to princess diana. they were gorgeous but it seemed a little sad. the funny thing at the palace was the kid i nicknamed in my head "balkan urkel". he was about 4 feet tall, probably 8 or 9 with blonde hair that didn't seem to have ever met a comb. he was wearing cordorouy cargo pants held up by white suspenders over a red shirt that was tucked in. the pants were high-waisted and about 4 inches to short. he was a coltish kid who was totally clumsy. it was apparent he'd had a growth spurt he hadn't grown into yet. "balkan urkel" would bolt through the state apartments, invariably tripping over something or bumping into something. i have no idea how his parents stayed calm. i was nervous watching him that he'd manage to hurt either himself or something priceless.

wandering through the gardens after leaving the palace, i saw a guy old enough to be my dad teaching a guy my age the finer points of speed skating on roller blades. and a group of boys playing king of the mountain on the marble or granite borders of the steps leading up to the albert memorial. between them they spoke 3 different languages-a fact that wasn't apparent til their parents came to claim them and tell them it was time to go. you never would have guessed they didn't know each other from their laughter and play. it was entertaining to watch, especially since the smallest boy was really ruling the 'mountain'!

food: i love to cook & eat and as i have friends who love to cook and eat, this will be a daily feature. so, for lunch, i stopped at a shop around the corner from the hotel called pret a manger. so yummy. it's fresh, no preservatives, and healthy. i had an egg salad and bacon sandwich. why i haven't i ever thot before to add bacon to egg salad sandwiches? i love both. it was also interesting to see a few unfamiliar things including a wild crayfish & rocket sandwich. i have no idea what it is, but i'm tempted to try it just for the adventure.

then there was the food halls at harrods. really, harrods deserves its own post. but as a teaser the food halls are amazing. i'm thinking i'll go back there today & try and get some pix. it's almost overwhelming the amount and diversity of choices there. including in the chocolates. i picked out a few to try. a champagne truffle, which was amazing. and a vodka truffle, which was unbelievably yummy. i still have a few more to sample. and finally for dinner, i found a noodle shop not far from the hotel where i got a shrimp wonton and a bbq type chicken & noodle takeaway. i posted photos of these to the link above. both were good, but the shrimp wontons were a total surprise and my favorite of the two. instead of being like the wontons we have in the states, shrimp or crab mashed up with cream cheese; these were whole, tailess shrimp, wrapped in one end of the wonton and flash fried. they were fresh, yummy, light and crisp--no grease at all. they coud become a favorite snack.

misc. on the underground on the way back from harrod's i noticed a totally cute guy. i was watching him surreptitiously, when he totally stuck his finger up his nose, and then put that same finger in his mouth. i was so surprised i gasped aloud and then nearly burst into a fit of giggles. i was relieved we arrived at my station just a moment later. the other little oddity is that i kept getting stopped and asked for directions. it happened at least 4 or 5 times yesterday. i was actually able to help 3 times which just entertained me. and everyone who asked was surprised by my accent. it seemed they didn't expect me to be american.

today: plan on visiting st. paul's cathedral, then over to the picadilly circus area for trips to waterstone's and fortnum & mason. tonite, i'm going to the national gallery since it's open late.

london info request

2009-04-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

one of the fun little bits about my london trip is that my friends jeannie & max oestreicher will be in london on some overlapping days. we decided to meet and have dinner at wagamama and visit the london eye together.

my plan at the moment (subject to change) is to wander around knightsbridge and kensington when i arrive on thursday; st. paul's, national gallery and maybe a show on friday; notting hill & hopefully a couple other markets on saturday; church, the tate modern, wagamama & the london eye on sunday, and i haven't decided what to do on monday before my train leaves.

my friend max is looking for some restaurant suggestions on his very cool blog over at the shnazzy blog, so check that out. and if you have any ideas for me, that'd be cool too.

2009-04-06T19:47:00.001-07:00

have had a quiet night in for the first time in awhile. cooked dinner, watching a movie.

2009-04-06T17:43:00.001-07:00

good heavens! it's nearly 8, it's still light out and we haven't had dinner yet. i should do something about that.

2009-04-06T13:22:00.001-07:00

i've decided to stop by coney i-slander for a snack.

upcoming adventures

2009-04-05T22:55:00.000-07:00

in the midst of looking and listening for what God has next for me career-wise, he has provided me with the opportunities for a couple of adventures about which i'm very excited!

first up is my trip to london. it was something i'd planned for before i left ys, but the cool little God bit is that in addition to the 5 days in london is i'm going to stay on 5 more days to volunteer at an event called spring harvest. last fall i met a few lovely people from the uk who run a youth ministry event there-one in particular i've kept in touch with since then, wendy. she also runs spring harvest and i'm going to volunteer at the event in minehead (there is a simultaneous one in skegness) from the 14th to the 19th. i'm so curious to see and learn more about spring harvest and to experience the church in the uk a bit, plus i'm excited to see wendy again. i leave wednesday for london and spend 5 days there before going onto spring harvest. i can't wait!

the second adventure doesn't feel wholly real yet even tho i've booked a plane ticket and am working on it already. i've been asked to train youth workers in singapore alongside my friend dr. amy jacober. this is totally a God-thing. i'm so excited and honored to be asked to spend time working with & training this group of youth workers. this trip isn't until july, but i have lots to do for this.

both of these are adventures that i feel like i only have the time and space to do because i'm in transition. i'm curious to see what other adventures come my way as i continue the journey.

2009-04-02T10:55:00.001-07:00

family is otherwise occupied so finally headed out to run errands i've been trying to get to for two days.

list girl

2009-03-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

i have always been a list girl. i always have several lists going at any given time. for example, currently going are:

groceries
ideas for my blog
books to read
errands
movies to watch
tasks for the godparents 50th anniversary celebration
packing for trips to tulsa and london
ideas for a couple of clients
youth ministry ideas
gift ideas for upcoming birthdays, holidays, etc
and of course, the generic to do list

in the last few weeks, without the typical work schedule, i've lost control of my lists, more so than ever. recently i bought a lovely pink moleskine plain notebook to use as my current journal. and tonight, i bought a lovely pink moleskine ruled notebook to gather all my lists. together, i think they'll make a nice little memoir of this season of my life.

because after endings come beginnings

2009-03-03T23:25:00.000-08:00

one month and one day ago, i was laid off from my job at ys along with 13 others. yesterday was officially my last day as a ys employee. it is the ending of a dream job that lasted nearly 9 years.

my time at ys has been amazing and such a gift in so many ways. i've met, worked with and become friends with a wonderful and slightly wacky group of people and have ended up with friendships that will continue long into the future. i've had the privilege of serving youth workers from all kinds and sizes of churches and have learned from and been blessed by the stories of so many. i've been able to work with youth ministry professors and students through the ys academic support network and had more fun and learned more from them than i would have ever imagined! i spent time with denominational youth ministry leaders and loved connecting with them just because of how much they wanted to encourage and equip youth workers. and then there are the dozens of youth workers who've volunteered at the conventions who've become friends and with whom so many memories have been created. (for some reason, the one that popped into my head was my fake birthday courtesy of scott riley & friends!)

of course there are all the ways i've grown professionally. for example, i can pack, label and shrink wrap a pallet. not a skill i had before going to ys. seriously tho, i can't begin to list or describe all i learned at ys. it's rather diverse. for example, in addition to the pallet packing, i leave with skills ranging from basic html programming and database management skills to the ability to create direct marketing strategies and direct art for ads and campaigns.

finally, i leave ys more confident, more comfortable in my own skin. and with a richer faith that is simultaneously more simple and more complex.

the ending of my season of life at ys is truly bittersweet. there is a part of me that is heartbroken. i have truly loved being able to serve with youth workers alongside an amazing team of people. i will deeply miss working with this team and serving youth workers on a daily basis. somehow though, alongside the sad, is the hope and excitement of what is about to begin. i'm starting to see some clues in some opportunities to do some freelance work by which i'm both excited and challenged and in an least one opportunity to do some speaking. all of the opportunities that have turned up so far were completely unexpected and totally show God's hand.

i used to tell people who would ask me about working ys that for most of us who worked there, it was a crazy God thing that we ended up there--something that was especially true for me. and so in this ending, i can't help but believe that God is in this too, just waiting to show me what else in my life is ready to begin.

girls & self-esteem

2009-01-28T07:53:00.000-08:00

today i ran across this article:

when girls don't like themselves

Girls' Game Plan for Low Self-Esteem

An article from David R. Smith at TheSource4YM.com

According to ...

and while i agree with the author, for me, as a woman and a youth worker, there's a piece that is neglected.

the author says at the end:

"As we spend time with our kids, we should teach what "self-esteem" truly means and what it doesn't mean. Our girls don't need to try to measure up to an impossible standard that the world has created. We need to remind our girls that God doesn't care about outward appearance- he cares about the heart (I Sam. 16:7). Students need to be careful who they are listening to, what they are watching, and ultimately, what they believe. And it's up to us to help them do that.

In addition, we must help them understand that everybody has problems; it is how we deal with them that makes or breaks us. Low self-esteem is a reality for far too many girls, but they need to be lovingly reminded that everybody faces problems in life. If teenagers learn to handle their problems responsibly, they will soon see that their quality of life drastically improves. If they don't, they can make matters worse. Self-destruction will never be the solution for low self-esteem."

the neglected bit is what kind of culture do we create in our ministries for our girls? as women, what do we model for them? the highlighted bit in the quote above touches on it, but i want to unpack that a little. what i mean by this is:

are girls of all shapes and sizes given the opportunity to be up front? whether it's for games, student leadership roles, reading Scripture or whatever?
are there women leaders of all ages, shapes and sizes working with the girls in your group?
as women leaders, are we talking about this diet, that diet or negatively about our own bodies in front of the girls? or do we talk about nutrition or the things we do like about our bodies?
when we compliment girls, are we complimenting their appearance more than their character? or do we notice and compliment their character most?

creating opportunities for girls to serve is important and does help their self-esteem. but they also need us to create ministries that celebrate all girls no matter their appearance, personality or intellect. the world tells girls continuously that they must be smart, thin and gorgeous. but having our youth ministries be places where none of that matters, where girls are loved just as they are, will help girls hear and understand the whisper of God that says "you are my beautiful creation that i love!"

7th grade girls & relationships

2009-01-27T23:43:00.000-08:00

this year i'm working with a small group of 7th grade girls. our group has grown to 16--fortunately, i have 2 co-leaders. as we're approaching february and valentine's day, i wanted to do a series on relationships--friendships and romantic ones both. to get started i pulled some questions from ys's middle school talksheets books and came up with a questionnaire to learn what my girls thinking is around these relationships. here are a few interesting observations:

the majority of the girls feel like they can be good friends and would like more friends (11 of 13 and 9 of 13 respectively)
only 2 felt their parents should have a say in their choice of friends. 7 were firmly against it and 4 weren't sure.
the majority of the girls feel their friends really care about them, like to hang out with them for who they are, and are fun to be with. (11 of 13 on all 3)
on the other hand, 11 of 13 think their friends may talk about them behind their backs.
all 13 girls believe that guys and girls can be best friends.
all 13 girls believe it is okay to date non-christians.
10 of 13 girls think middle school isn't too young to start dating and 7 think middle schoolers can be in love.

there were 4 questions that were situational and the girls had to decide if it was no big deal, a big deal, or it could go either way (maybe). here's the breakdown.

you're at a party and people start playing games involving kissing: 6 no big deal; 4 big deal; 3 maybe.
you're close friends with a member of the opposite sex and you start liking that person: 7 no big deal; 3 big deal; 3 maybe.
you're asked out by a member of the opposite sex: 11 no big deal; 2 big deal (no maybe's here!)
you're home alone after school when a close friend of the opposite sex stops by to hang out: 1 no big deal; 7 big deal; 5 maybe.

we're going to have some great discussions over the next few weeks!

52 books: #4 part 1

2009-01-27T21:21:00.000-08:00

book 4: plan b further thoughts on faith by anne lamott. 2005, riverhead books. 320 pages.

it's a bummer in a way to be only 4 weeks into this book a week experiment and have fallen slightly behind schedule. i've read 15 of the 24 chapters and likely i'll finish up tomorrow night. but being a bit behind my self-imposed schedule is worth it. i love reading ms. lamott's writing. she uses words as both music and paint. there is rhythm and rich imagery in her words and i just enjoy taking my time with them. and then there are the thin places. places that her writing touches my soul in ways for which i have no words of my own, only tears. some are joyful tears and some are tears of deep grieving which need to be released.

i'll write more about my overall impressions of the book when i'm finished, but for now, here are a couple favorite quotes:

"when God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship; when God is going to do something amazing; He or She always starts with an impossibility."

"the usual things helped: some distance, prayer, chocolate."

"if regular people spotted your hidden, angry inside self, they'd draw back when they saw you coming. they would see you for what you are--human, flawed, more nuts than had been hoped--and they would probably not want to hire or date you."

"everyone has been having a hard time with life this year; not with all of it, just the waking hours."

"in fact, i'd like to skip ahead to the resurrection vision of one of the kids in our sunday school, who drew a picture of the easter bunny outside the tomb: everlasting life and a basket full of chocolates. now you're talking."

"age has given me what i was looking for my entire life--it has given me me."

52 books: #3

2009-01-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

book 3: waiter rant by steve dublanica aka the waiter. 2008, harper collins. 302 pages.

a co-worker bought this book and i borrowed it from him. it's a book i'd joked about writing when i was a server and worked in the restaurant industry. actually, since my table-waiting days, i've always said that if i ever had one sermon to preach in 'big church', it would be about how church people (not all, but a frighteningly large percentage) walk right out of sunday morning church just to generate hell on earth for those unfortunate servers stuck working the sunday lunch shift. the post-church crowd is known worldwide (i've waited tables in a dozen states plus canada) for being the highest-maintenance, lowest-tipping crowd you ever encounter. not to mention the messiest. but i digress.

this is one of the many food service industry truisms the waiter hits on in his book. while the main storyline certainly revolves around him, the anecdotes on his customers and what happens in restaurant life is spot on. anyone who ever worked in food service will identify with and appreciate this book. and anyone who hasn't but either a) thinks they can be a chef or other food service guru, b) has had a high number of 'bad' service encounters or c) just finds other subcultures of our society interesting will also find this to be a good read.

and for those of you, dear readers, who have found yourself in group b above, the problem might not be your servers. please cut straight to appendix a: how to be a good customer. yes, i said it. the better customer you are, the better service you'll get.

next up: plan b: further thoughts on faith

52 books: #2

2009-01-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

book 2: shoe addicts annonymous by beth harbison. 2007, st. martin's press. 327 pages.

this book was a christmas present that i think was meant as a subtle hint--as in if there is such a thing as a shoe addicts anonymous, i should begin attending meetings immediately. seriously, i have shoe issues. currently in my living room i can see 22 pairs of shoes. that doesn't include all the ones behind the couch and in the closet. but i digress.

this is a fun, chick-lit read. centered around four women who, for various reasons, can no longer afford their shoe addictions. they form a meeting based on a mutual shoe size to trade shoes and feed their never ending compulsion for fabulous new shoes. along the way the four who began as strangers find friendship, find more of their identity beyond the shoes, and solve a mystery along the way. and i have to say, that for a self-confessed shoe addict like myself, the ending has the ultimate dream job.

while this little book won't win any literary awards, it's a nice, enjoyable read at the end of a stressful day.

next up: waiter rant

52 books: #1

2009-01-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

book 1: she's come undone by wally lamb. 1992 simon & schuster, inc. 465 pages.

this book was a gift from my friend brandi. she's a huge fan of wally lamb's writing. when i told her i hadn't read any of his books, she promptly bought me a copy of this one. at first, i felt like i was rubbernecking at an accident site. i kept reading with a feeling of dread. i could almost hear the type of music played in movies every time something bad or sad happens. ultimately, i ended up being mesmerized by this book. the story of a woman's unbelievably tragic childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, she's come undone's heroine somehow captivates you with her humor and pathos and you just keep reading in hopes something good happens for her.

and regardless of what happens to her, (no spoilers here) lamb's storytelling is engaging enough to keep the pages turning--in my case fairly rapidly--until the end.

next up: shoe addicts annonymous.

52 books-an idea

2009-01-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

i'm a book girl. i love to read, i love books. if i'm feeling blue or bored or lonely, a trip to b&n or borders is usually a good pick me up.

but lately, i've been doing more reading that isn't just for work. it's just for me. in the first 2 1/2 weeks of the year, i've read 3 books, which makes me wonder, can i read a book a week? and books that aren't for work?

well, i don't know until i try so i've decided to give it a go. i'll post thoughts about what i've read and a preview of what's next up. here goes...

6 random things about me

2008-12-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

i was tagged by my friend max, and as the only person he tagged, i feel special and a little bit honored as well as compelled to post this now, just after reading his post. so here goes:

1. hi, my name is mindi and i'm addicted to shoes. there are currently 21 pairs by my front door. we won't talk about how many are behind the couch, under the bed and in the closet.

2. i love seasonal dishes. i have themed serving plates and dishes for christmas, valentine's day, and easter.

3. for my 14th birthday, my parents gave me a canon ae-1 set: camera body, flash and a couple lenses. over the years, i added an auto-advance, more lenses, filters, etc. i was a photographer for the hs yearbook and newspaper and continued into the first couple years of college and then burnt out and sold it all. in the last year, i've really begun to miss having a great camera.

4. i really need to update the photos in my house. the pics of my neices and nephews that are up show the oldest at 8. he's now 16.

5. my favorite website is the bbc in pictures page. it's updated daily.

6. two of my closest friends were born within a week of me. one, i've known since birth; the other since sophomore year of college. i enjoy reminding both of them that i'm the youngest even if it is only by 6 or 5 days respectively.

and there you have it. 6 random things about me. as for tags, if you're reading this & haven't done this meme, consider yourself tagged.

'comfort' food

2008-12-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

as a kid, i was a finicky eater. my mom was a terrible cook. there was some circular relationship between the two. i didn't eat much so mom didn't attempt much. and when she did the results weren't good which made me reluctant to try new things.

it all changed in 7th grade when i took my first home ec class. the first cooking project was actually making peanut butter cup candy. mine were great. the teacher said i must have a knack for cooking. after that, i decided i loved to cook. i learned what i could from other cooks in my family, home ec, recipe books. by my junior year, i was making all the holiday meals for our family--thanksgiving, christmas.

i still love to cook. i love to cook for friends and entertain. i love to cook as a stress reliever or when life gets overwhelming. there's something soothing and cathartic about it. and i love that there's a finished product in a reasonably short amount of time. and i also love that when i cook for friends they feel the love i put into it and find it nurturing and comforting as well.

tonite, i cooked for the women in my small group. we had spinach-artichoke dip with chips, paula deen's chicken georgia, roasted yukon gold & petite red potatoes with carrots, green beans, crescent rolls, and for dessert, pumpkin cheesecake pie. we shared our hearts and lives with each other over dinner.

and i think that is the real comfort of food, the way that it brings us together.

quote of the day

2008-11-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

just came across this quote. i love it.

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
Mother Theresa of Calcutta

church marketing

2008-11-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

i've been thinking a lot lately about what attracts people to jesus particularly due to this election, a talk by francis chan, conversations with a new british friend about religion and life and politics in england, and knowing some 'churched' teens who are struggling with having a faith worth calling their own plus a long conversation with a youth ministry educator about the 'disney-ification'of the american church.

all of this has messed with my head and heart in really good ways--challenging my assumptions, thinking and complacency.

tonite, i received a targeted ad saying "Loud Music at Church? You bet! You'll get loud music, relevant messages, great kids' programs and a casual atmosphere."

really, we've got jesus and the best marketing hook we can come up with is loud music at church? i get that we need to have the gospel be understood and relevant, but is loud music going to be that draw?

i'm sure i'll post more about all of this in the coming weeks, but for the moment, i'm just shaking my head about how the church is positioning itself sometimes.

childhood memories

2008-10-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

so, as a little kid, i grew up on sesame street and schoolhouse rock. tonite online, i stumbled across this gem from sesame street. i didn't remember this song having verses!

bizarro dream

2008-10-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

for as long as i can remember, whenever i am overtired or overstressed or some combination of both, i have really odd, one might even say, bizarre dreams.

this morning, i woke up dreaming that greg kinnear, lauren holly, allison janney and dakota fanning were making chocolate chip cookies in my flat in london. greg kinnear was doing a really bad british accent which allison janney was mocking him for and lauren holly was defending him for and dakota fanning was rolling her eyes like 'grown ups are really idiots'.

i can't figure out what led to this cast of characters in my dreams. i can account for the london part--i was shopping online for flights last night to visit london in december and even the chocolate chip cookie part as a new friend from the uk gave me some yummy chocolate chip cookies over the weekend. but the rest, well, i have no idea.

an update

2008-09-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

just a little update on what's going on in my corner of the world (in case you were wondering. if you weren't, please disregard this post and go back to whatever else you were doing, but thanks for stopping by.)

what i've been doing: working. really mostly working. getting ready for the crazy fall season: national youth workers conventions in sacramento, pittsburgh, nashville. association of youth ministry educators & sales conference in grand rapids--getting ready for more new books to be launched there. all of these are events i'm really excited about.

and when i'm not working: building relationships with my new small group of 7th grade girls and my 2 new co-leaders. 3 weeks in, so far, so good. this wednesday will be week 4.

most fun memories from the summer (in no particular order--by the way, i'm feeling very parenthetical as i write this): the death of snake in my yard (okay, not really a 'fun' memory but it was a highly memorable event), girls weekend with my best friend from childhood & another good friend, and a trip to the tall ships festival.

normally, i go thru klutzy phases but: i've been more of a mechanical jinx recently--car repairs (several), blue screen of death and the demise of my old laptop, and my tv just decided to stop turning on.

biggest surprises of late: how much tv i can find online if i want but how the only time i really miss it is in the morning during the morning news and today show; how much i love my sony reader; how much i like peach green tea from whittard of chelsea (trying to give up my diet coke habit)

a couple of book recommendations: my name is russell fink (fun and surprisingly captivating characters) and reading lolita in tehran (fascinating memoir that prompted me download henry james books and the great gatsby to my sony reader)

and if you've made it this far, thanks friend!

snakes in my yard!

2008-07-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

so a couple weeks ago i had a graduation party for my small group girls at my home. the girls and their little brothers went swimming. one of the boys noticed a "super wiggly worm" in the pool. i looked at and realized it was a baby snake. i got the skimmer and fished it out. i'd thought it was a rattlesnake, but wasn't a 100% sure. one of the dads didn't think it was a rattler so we chucked the little thing into the canyon area across the road. these are pix of the little guy in the skimmer basket.

today, i'm pretty sure it was a rattler and we found him momma. when i went outside this morning, my friends who are housesitting next door told me that their little guy who is 2 and his grandpa were met by a huge rattler on their way to the pergola which sits to the end of my house at the end of a square that has 4 little box gardens. they were trying to figure out where the snake had gone when i came out. i walked around the area carefully and didn't see or hear any sign of it. i got a shovel and a hoe out of the shed just in case and went to cleaning up after the party we had last night. dave (housesitting next door) & i started down the path to put up an extra table when he said snake. sure enough there it was about 8 feet ahead of him, a big rattler who was making a meal of a squirrel. this pic is of the snake waiting for his venom to paralyze the squirrel. we were deciding it was going to be super gross to kill the thing mid meal with shovel or hoe when the gardner showed up. woohoo for the gardner who wasn't grossed out enough to not kill it mid meal. and yeah for him disposing of the remains of the snake and the squirrel.

and i have to say, i'm still queasy. i may be all day. watching a snake kill something on tv is gross, but seeing it happen 6 ft from you is so unbelievably disgusting. i know the whole circle of life and nature's way, etc., but it's still just really gross!

great chick flick movie lines vol. 3

2008-06-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

from the holiday:

iris: "you're right. you should be the leading lady in your own life for god's sakes!"

in my head right now

2008-06-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

there are a couple thoughts that have been dancing around in my head for the last day or so. at first they were just waltzing around and now they're holding a rave with a full-on mosh pit. i'm hoping that putting them down here as place holders will get them to sit down and be quiet for a few minutes.

the cynicism, sarcasm, bitterness continuum. is it a continuum? is it a cul-de-sac? i know they're related but i'm trying to clarify in my head how that relationship plays out. plus, there's a tie in this to the 'out of the heart, the mouth speaks' thing.

moving beyond isolation... when one finds they've become isolated, how do they begin to repair that? how do they figure out how they got there so they don't go back again?

as i have time in the upcoming weeks to dance with these a bit more, i'll update this.

great chick flick movie lines vol. 2

2008-06-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

sweet home alabama: earl smooter to melanie: "you cain't ride two horses with one a** sugar bee."

surprising myself

2008-05-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

i'm a fan of sex and the city. i love the clothes, the shoes!. i can relate to being single and past 35. and yes, i'm very excited about the movie. i'm going to go see it friday nite with a friend. and i can pretty much count on one hand the number of movies i've made it a priority to see on opening day.

so here's what's surprising to myself: there's a part of me that hopes the character of carrie has a happy ending that doesn't include big--or any other guy.

i grew up on the fairytales that end with the princess getting the prince and everyone living happily ever after. and typically, i'm a hopeless romantic who wants to believe the fairytale ending--that true love wins out. that there actually is a true love for everyone. i have a shelf full of chick flicks and chick lit that all have exactly that ending.

but as i'm writing my own life story, i'm learning that i can have my own happy ending as a single woman. realizing that i'm almost rooting for carrie to have a happy ending as a single woman tells me that i really might be on my path to my own happily ever after. it also tells me that i want a pop culture princess to have a happily ever as a single so that i and other little girls have one more happily ever after to look at in the fairy tales.

great chick flick movie lines: vol. 1

2008-05-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

as a chick flick aficionado, i frequently encounter great lines that i've decided to start blogging in an ongoing series. to start, here are two from today:

the wedding date: nick to kat "i think i'd miss you even if i'd never met you."

elizabethtown: claire to drew: "don't call me before you get home. i want you to get in the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened."

wrangling the messies

2008-05-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

as a kid, messy was never an option for me. everything had to be in its place--at least on the surface. drawers, cabinets and closets could be messy, but anything visible had to be immaculate. there was never a speck of dust and every bit of tchotchke had its exact spot. a very exact spot. when i was a teen and was acting out at my mom, i'd go around the house & just barely nudge all her little figurines and tchotchke. there was never a dust circle to disturb so i never knew how mom knew, but she knew they weren't in their proper spots and she'd spend how ever long it took to nudge everything into just the spot they were in previously. (i'd later learn that mom has obsessive-compulsive disorder and that was one of the manifestations).

anyhow, as an adult, with my own place. i enjoy a certain amount of messy. i don't mind my most frequently worn shoes being in a pile by the front door along with a stack of my currently rotating purses. i don't mind a few dirty dishes left overnite in the sink. or a pile of clothes that needs to be put away for several days. but there's a limit. and actually, messy cabinets, drawers, etc. can drive me a little nuts after a certain point.

i have reached that limit and hit that point. this long weekend, i'm on a declutter mission: clean out the closets & drawers. put the winter shoes back in their boxes, purge the old clothes, toss out or donate stuff that isn't being worn depending on its condition... a clean sweep. i'm looking forward to it... all the fun begins saturday morning ;). i should get some rest.

thinking about risk

2008-05-20T23:34:00.000-07:00

i think i know why it's 'jump first, fear later'. if you think about things too long, it's way too easy to let the fear set in. and when you fear first, you rarely jump.

movie watching

2008-04-02T23:12:00.000-07:00

over my vacation, i watched 4 movies:

juno (i know, way overdue)
penelope (fab chick flick to share with girls of all ages)
miss pettigrew lives for a day (favorite of the week-a must have dvd when it releases)
death at a funeral (i laughed a lot but i don't recommended for those who don't like british humor, can't laugh at dysfunctional families or are easily offended)

tonite in catching up on my blog reading i saw this post from my friend josh. he posted the american film institutes top 100 films for 2007 and noted in bold the ones he'd seen. i've done the same here:

The American Film Institute's 2007 list of the top-100 American movies

1. Citizen Kane, 1941.

2. The Godfather, 1972.

3. Casablanca, 1942.

4. Raging Bull, 1980.

5. Singin' in the Rain, 1952.

6. Gone With the Wind, 1939.

7. Lawrence of Arabia, 1962.

8. Schindler's List, 1993.

9. Vertigo, 1958.

10. The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

11. City Lights, 1931.

12. The Searchers, 1956.

13. Star Wars, 1977.

14. Psycho, 1960.

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968.

16. Sunset Blvd., 1950.

17. The Graduate, 1967.

18. The General, 1927.

19. On the Waterfront, 1954.

20. It's a Wonderful Life, 1946.

21. Chinatown, 1974.

22. Some Like It Hot, 1959.

23. The Grapes of Wrath, 1940.

24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982.

25. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962.

26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939.

27. High Noon, 1952.

28. All About Eve, 1950.

29. Double Indemnity, 1944.

30. Apocalypse Now, 1979.

31. The Maltese Falcon, 1941.

32. The Godfather Part II, 1974.

33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975.

34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937.

35. Annie Hall, 1977.

36. The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957.

37. The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946.

38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948.

39. Dr. Strangelove, 1964.

40. The Sound of Music, 1965.

41. King Kong, 1933.

42. Bonnie and Clyde, 1967.

43. Midnight Cowboy, 1969.

44. The Philadelphia Story, 1940.

45. Shane, 1953.

46. It Happened One Night, 1934.

47. A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951.

48. Rear Window, 1954.

49. Intolerance, 1916.

50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001.

51. West Side Story, 1961.

52. Taxi Driver, 1976.

53. The Deer Hunter, 1978.

54. M-A-S-H, 1970.

55. North by Northwest, 1959.

56. Jaws, 1975.

57. Rocky, 1976.

58. The Gold Rush, 1925.

59. Nashville, 1975.

60. Duck Soup, 1933.

61. Sullivan's Travels, 1941.

62. American Graffiti, 1973.

63. Cabaret, 1972.

64. Network, 1976.

65. The African Queen, 1951.

66. Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981.

67. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966.

68. Unforgiven, 1992.

69. Tootsie, 1982.

70. A Clockwork Orange, 1971.

71. Saving Private Ryan, 1998.

72. The Shawshank Redemption, 1994.

73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969.

74. The Silence of the Lambs, 1991.

75. In the Heat of the Night, 1967.

76. Forrest Gump, 1994.

77. All the President's Men, 1976.

78. Modern Times, 1936.

79. The Wild Bunch, 1969.

80. The Apartment, 1960.

81. Spartacus, 1960.

82. Sunrise, 1927.

83. Titanic, 1997.

84. Easy Rider, 1969.

85. A Night at the Opera, 1935.

86. Platoon, 1986.

87. 12 Angry Men, 1957.

88. Bringing Up Baby, 1938.

89. The Sixth Sense, 1999.

90. Swing Time, 1936.

91. Sophie's Choice, 1982.

92. Goodfellas, 1990.

93. The French Connection, 1971.

94. Pulp Fiction, 1994.

95. The Last Picture Show, 1971.

96. Do the Right Thing, 1989.

97. Blade Runner, 1982.

98. Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942.

99. Toy Story, 1995.

100. Ben-Hur, 1959.

random sunday morning musings

2008-03-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

so i took a 48 hour computer sabbatical--i haven't been online from Friday @ 9am PST until Sunday 10am PST.
that makes my random saturday musings random sunday musings
being unplugged was nice. returning to being plugged in i feel very behind
chocolate chip cookies from paradise bakery are a good thing in the denver airport
talking theology with a southern baptist who became an atheist who became a transcendentalist who's currently exploring channeling makes my head hurt
on the other hand, i'm glad the person i had the aforementioned theology conversation with sees enough of something he finds real in my faith to have the conversation with me
why women should rule the world should be on everyone's reading list--i'll do a separate post on this
i'm on vacation through the 25th-number one vacation goal: no alarm clock except easter sunday
i'm visiting fam and friends in OK which will be fun
i hate being exhausted and having insomnia
two desserts in one night is fun especially when you're sharing them with a friend
a cool thing about good friends--you're never too old to stay up half the night talking and giggling
i'm going to hobby lobby this week...my favorite craft/art/project store ever that sadly we don't have in san diego
tulsa and grand rapids might actually be the same city only one is snowier

random saturday musings 2

2008-03-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

since i have a habit of reviewing my week and noting things that stuck with me, i've decided to also try and make a habit out of sharing a few of those here every saturday night.

i just might be a quirkyalone meaning i'd rather be on my own than in a lame relationship or settle just to be in a couple (note to self: order book)
i'm looking forward to my trip to ok for easter
i'm not looking forward to packing (i wish there was a service that would do my laundry and pack for me)
it's always a good idea to keep popcorn & cake mix on hand when you host small group at your house
i still wonder if i'm being selfish when i'm happy for a friend who's beginning a new adventure but sad for how it will change our relationship
i've finished 3 of the 4 books i set out to read this weekend--not sure if i can finish the 4th by monday
i'm excited that we'll have an extra hour of daylight in the evening but i really hate losing an hour of sleep

ambitious reading days

2008-03-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

i'm trying to catch up on my reading. i perpetually have books lying around in various stages of progress. at the moment on the table behind my couch, there's rhett butler's people (so far so not as good as gone with the wind) that i'm having a hard time really getting into, but am determined to read. there's also my sister's keeper by jodi picoult, probably waiting for my next flight. enduring lives which i recently finished and real sex: the naked truth about chastity which i've been using as a resource for curriculum for my middle school girls.

this week, i'm focusing on some work-related reading plus one other book. one of the cool things about my job is that we publish really good books for teens--invert books. i read them so i know what they're about first-hand. we have a bunch of great new ones that have just released or about to so i'm reading those. this evening, i finished it's easy being green by emma sleeth which released today. i'm almost finished with generation change, an upcoming book from zach hunter that will be available in april. also on the reading schedule for the weekend are confessions of a not-so-super model (i've read excerpts but i'm excited to read it from start to finish) and wisdom on...making good decisions.

the plus one other book is why women should rule the world by dee dee myers. she was the first female press secretary in the white house. so far i just love it.

in the upcoming week, i'll do a little post about each book i'm reading this weekend.

thoughts from a volunteer small group leader

2008-03-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

i lead a little small group of 8th grader girls. we've been together as a group since they started 6th grade. in just a couple months, the girls will move onto high school. over the last few days, i've had opportunities to talk to the girls parents for a variety of reasons including having coffee with a couple of the moms last night.

as i've been thinking about this, i keep noticing how blessed i feel to have good relationships with the parents. i can think of times, especially in my early years as a youth worker, that it just wouldn't have occured to me to get to know the parents of my girls, especially being a volunteer. now, a little older and hopefully wiser, i can't imagine not getting to know the parents of my girls.

below are a few things i've learned as a volunteer working with parents:

introduce yourself. send a letter, email, or make a phone call to get started. make a point to meet them in person.
make yourself available. be sure they have your phone number and email. let them know you're available as a support and resource for them and their student.
help them connect to the larger ministry--make sure they're in the loop on total group events, upcoming outings, etc. (i can occasionally be absent-minded about this)
remember that they're trusting you with the most precious thing in their life. as much as you love the kids in your group, you'll never feel about them the way their parent does.
remember that you're not the parent. don't try to be one. and don't criticize the parent's choices to the student. instead, be the student's adult friend and a good listener. when appropriate, you can sometimes help a student see their parents point of view.
i have a friend who's a school teacher who tells the parents of her students, "i'll only believe half of what your child tells me about you, if you'll believe only half of what your child tells you about me." the idea being kids can sometimes exaggerate the good and especially the bad about the grown ups in their lives.
partner with the parents--encourage them to help their child's spiritual development.
tell the parents ways you see their child growing up--if you have a reason to praise a kid, be sure you let the parent know too.

if you do these things, when things go well for the kids in your group, the celebration is even bigger. and if things go wrong, the kids have a group of adults around them who can work together to love and nurture them into better places.

random saturday musings

2008-03-01T21:32:00.000-08:00

cars are good; car maintenance is a pain
i like orange vegetables--butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, yams
haricot verts are just french style green beans
i like cooking for friends and having them over
i don't like cleaning before and after i have friends over, but it's a necessary evil
dublin dr. pepper is available just 2.7 miles from my house and i just found out this afternoon
our country needs accessible, affordable health care for everyone
easter candy is better than valentine's candy
prices are really going up at the grocery store
what does it say that my 3 fave celebs at the moment are all food network hosts: guy fieri, robert irvine, and duff goldman
i love being a volunteer in youth ministry more than being a youth pastor
meeting our parent company's new ceo was good--i'm really excited we have a woman ceo
i'm looking forward to going to oklahoma for easter
if barack obama really is going to be the democratic nominee and the next president, i sure hope he figures out a way to come even 1/2 close to the hype he's created for himself
if barack obama is the president and can't live up to the hype, i think bush's current approval ratings will look really high
i still think if the democratic party genuinely wanted to fix things and not play politics as usual, they'd figure out a way to run a clinton/obama ticket; clinton focusing on foreign issues; obama on domestic and after a 4-8 year run, then obama could run and the dems could potentially have 16 uninterrupted presidential years

and i'm home from grand rapids

2008-02-25T22:22:00.000-08:00

what do you get when you add snow + pizza + the skit guys? you get an event for youth groups in grand rapids that is a whole lot of fun.

we (ys) along with the skit guys and compassion hosted a free event for youth groups. free pizza and lots of laughs with the skit guys. it was sort of a "launch party" for their new dvd series called you teach. volumes 1 & 2 have just released and volume 3 will be out in august.

there were a few hundred people there, lots of pizza and mostly a lot of laughs. seriously, the skit guys are a hoot. "have you ever heard how dodgeball started? it started as dodge rock. you knew when you were out." and then there's the need harmony video (i'd link to it, but it's not available yet). i'm still laughing when i think about it. as someone who's dabbled in online dating, it is just painfully funny.

oh, and the snow. it snowed--a lot--while we were there. it was snowing when we got off the plane monday afternoon and didn't stop until mid-day wednesday. much to the chagrin of the michigan residents who are completely sick of the stuff, i really love the snow. it's so pretty and i love how everything is so clean and sparkly and still in the midst of a snowstorm. of course, it's much easier to love snow when you're only visiting and you don't have to shovel any of it.

and finally, in case you're unfamiliar with the skit guys, here's a video of them i found on youtube.

excitement!

2008-02-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

so there's been a little excitement going on in my work life lately. recently i was promoted to marketing manager, resources. i'll still get to work with our denominational and network partners and the youth specialties academic support network. the rest of my time and energy will be focused on connecting people with our resources: books, curriculums, dvds, etc. i'm really loving the new role.

tomorrow morning, i head to grand rapids to sit in on sales conference. we'll be presenting about 20 new resources to our sales team so they can start working with retailers to bring the resources to local bookstores. i'm so excited about this new batch of resources--there's great stuff for youth workers: new bible study curriculum, some encouraging words from one of my favorite people, some cool new stuff for teens... i should stop for now. anyway, i'm looking forward to this week in michigan. except for the cold. that i could do without.

oh happy shopping days

2008-02-16T21:45:00.000-08:00

yesterday i stopped by borders just to browse for a bit and they had a huge clearance section, and there tucked away on a top shelf in a corner was a copy of Rhett Butler's People. it was a hardback copy marked 75% off! and all of the ones at the front of the store were regular price. i took it to the register and asked if the book had something wrong with it or if it was just mismarked. there wasn't anything wrong with it, and it was mismarked, but the border's associate honored the discounted price anyway! i brought it home for only $7! i've had to hide it from myself because i was reading it instead of getting my chores done! gone with the wind was the first "grown-up" novel i read and i fell in love with it immediately. i read the entire thing in just two days as a freshman in high school. and i've seen the movie a ridiculous number of times. i'm so liking reading more about rhett. the funny thing for me is that when i read what he's saying, i totally have clark gable's voice in my head.

these shoes were my other happy shopping moment of the weekend. i found them marked 1/3 off in the clearance section at my local dsw shoe warehouse. they were just so fun i couldn't resist trying them on just for kicks. and then they fit perfectly so i decided to splurge. as i walked away from the clearance section, i saw a whole stack of the same shoe for the regular price. a sales associate was there so i showed her the shoes that were marked sale and pointed out the display of regular priced ones. apparently my pair was from a previous shipment so it didn't matter they'd received more at the regular price, mine were still on clearance. so yes, i now own these adorable and fun shoes. they're therapeutic in my recovery from the recent loss of my favorite knee-high, high-heeled, black boots that died due to irrepairable heel breakage while in chicago o'hare.

it's been happy shopping days. and now i'm stopping while i'm ahead.

a bad day

2008-01-22T22:12:00.000-08:00

so i don't typically post news stories, but i couldn't resist this one from the bbc. my favorite part is, "Crocodile attacks and shootings are rare in Australia.
To suffer both at once is - to say the least - unfortunate."

read the whole story here.

editor's note: i just reread this post 3 weeks later and that line still just cracks me up. i mean seriously, the guy is shot while they're trying to save him and the best way it can be described is "unfortunate". it's just so understated. and so part of why i love the uk.

good line

2008-01-08T23:39:00.000-08:00

i'm a fan of sex in the city now that it's on tbs. not that i agree with everything, but if you're single and over 30, there's some pretty funny stuff in it.

tonite charlotte says "i've been dating since i was 15. i'm exhausted. where is he?" i saw that on a t-shirt in the turner store at cnn center last fall and seriously considered buying it. all i can say is "ditto".

looking back

2008-01-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

ok last post was late october (really didn't mean to go that long without posting) so looking back, here's where i was:

st. louis (national youth workers convention--8 days)
atlanta (national youth workers convention--8 days)
tulsa (thanksgiving holiday--7 days)
colorado springs (meetings--2 days)
pasadena (core test--1 day)
tiajuana, mexico (staff christmas party--1 day)
tulsa (christmas holiday--12 days)

if you're counting that means i was gone for 39 of 67 days since my last post. that's just crazy! and since this post has developed a counting theme, the last 67 days have also held:

18 flights
1 piece of luggage "redirected" (note: the "redirected" bag was on xjet--and my non-stop san diego to tulsa flight--the only non-stop trip i took and they couldn't get my bag on the plane!)
1 plane bathroom not working (also on xjet--"we'll be landing in tulsa in about 2 hours, try to wait.")
3 movies (4 if i count seeing enchanted twice)
hundreds of photos taken (i took our ys photo album pix from st. louis & atlanta plus part of the ones from mexico and lots of family pix)
countless hugs and laughs with friends & family

and then there's the food. here are the highlights of where i ate

ted's cafe escondido (fabulous chips, salsa, queso, tortillas and the best sopapillas ever)
sonic (love the 1/2 price happy hour on sodas)
braum's (crinkle fries dipped in chocolate shakes)
chick-fil-a (favorite option in the cnn center in atlanta)
coney i-lander (ah, the best little coneys smothered in chili, onions, mustard and cheese--they deserve a post of their own one day)

the only regret over the past couple months is that i have a bunch of tulsa friends i either didn't get to see or didn't get to see enough of, but that is something to change and look forward to in the new year which will also be the subject of my next post.

fire update & thoughts

2007-10-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

To answer the questions I've been getting about the fires here...

I'm fine. My house was on standby for evacuation on Monday so I packed up the irreplacable items and put them in storage at my office. I've left them there because we've been on the border of an evacuation area for the Harris fire since then. Monday & Tuesday night, I could see flames in the distance. This afternoon, we received conflicting instructions on whether or not to evacuate. We've stayed put because we can't even see the glow of flames and the sheriff hasn't shown up to tell us it's time to go.

There is a ton of devastation here. I've come to the conclusion that tornadoes are preferable to fires. When you survive a tornado, you're more likely to find a few belongings. With a fire, it's just so rare to find anything that's survived intact. Tornado warnings and watches last hours; the tornado itself is over in minutes. Fires last for hours that actually stretch into days. Fires rain smoke and ash for days; they have to be fought. Tornadoes are gone as quickly as they arrive. The commonality lies in the ability of both to bring out the best in people during the worst of times; to cause one to evaluate their priorities; and to remind people that memories and life are to be cherished and treasured; the rest is just stuff.

the victory & defeat of shopping

2007-10-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

today, i bit the bullet and went shopping. it's the time of year when i typically find i need to add a few items to my closet. i was dreading this trip. i knew i'd gained some weight. i was not looking forward to seeing the tags in the back of the clothes.

i was fairly sure i'd need a 16... a size i haven't needed for 3 & 1/2 years; a size i'd promised myself i'd never need again. i took the 16's to the dressing room and they were clearly TOO BIG! i was thrilled and went in search of the 14's. whew. i was relieved. my comfortable, i feel healthy, look healthy weight has me wearing 12's and the occasional 10's. Knowing I only need to drop a single pant size feels really doable! i was very excited and relieved.

but then came my shopping defeat. there's an adorable pair of nine west shoes i've been ogling since i first saw them. they went on sale so i decided i could afford to splurge. i couldn't wait to wear them. and then, they didn't fit well. i tried several different sizes, all without success. i looked for another pair i also really liked, not as much but i liked. and they didn't have anything close to my size. defeated by the shoe department, i took my smaller-than-i-thought-i'd-need jeans and went home, mostly smiling.

the kiss hello revisited

2007-10-12T05:25:00.000-07:00

it seems the brits are quite confused by the new array of greeting options with the wider acceptance of the kiss hello.

how i know i'm under the weather

2007-10-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

i woke up yesterday thinking i had a migraine. i went back to sleep for a little bit and woke up again and realized, it wasn't a migraine, i was seriously stuffy. couldn't breathe, my sinuses hurt and i was running a low grade fever.

today no fever but still not feeling great. and i know i'm under the weather because only 4 foods sound good: toast w/butter; chicken noodle soup, mashed potatoes and mac 'n' cheese. i like these foods anytime, but they're the only things i want when i feel yucky.

if i wake up like this tomorrow, i'll call the doctor. no time to be sick--convention is next week.

but what are we teaching our boys?

2007-10-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

marko has a great post here about dove campaign for beauty. i'm a big fan of this campaign. i've struggled with my self-image off and on my whole life. i believe in teaching girls they are beautiful just as they are. that they don't need to be skinnier, bustier, blonder, or more of anything but themselves.

the caveat is that girls want to be thought of as pretty. we want to be found attractive. so it's not just enough to change how women view beauty. we have to do more than teach girls that they are beautiful just as they are. we have to find a way to teach boys to see beauty in more shapes and forms than cover girl, super model packaging.

i think this can and should start in our youth ministries. for male leaders, do you pay equal attention to all the girls in your group? not just the bubbly, outgoing, popular girls? do your male students know that you find your wife beautiful? and what beyond her appearance makes her beautiful to you? are people's characters and inner qualities celebrated more than their appearance or athletic skill?

so, that's all. i just read marko's post this am and this is what started spinning in my head.

a few dating lessons

2007-09-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

every so often, i get my nerve up and dive into the online dating pool. obviously, it hasn't been successful yet. but it has been a learning experience. here are a few things i've learned:

on photos:

glamour shots/commercial headshots shouldn't be used. anyone with sense knows those have been retouched. and in most cases, that look is not what you'll be seeing when you meet up at the coffee shop.
if it looks like there's any possibility, the pic could show up in a mug shots book or be on a post office wall, don't use it.
please make sure your photo is from this decade. that also goes for your hairstyle.
if you're going to have an animal in the pic with you, it should be cute and alive. no dead fish, no dead deer, no insects of enormous size. and no pics of your dog (cute) with a dead bird in its mouth (yech!).
if you're going to post an action shot, please make sure it's your good side. and your back side or camera angles looking up from about the knee area are pretty much never your good side.

on interests:

everyone is interested in a) traveling; b) making more money c) doing something to make a difference in the world; d) meeting in a coffee shop for a first meeting. my advice on actually being interesting: a) go someplace. take a trip and stop waiting for the perfect traveling companion. b) skip the money talk in your profile. it's pretty safe assumption that no one wants to make less money and that everyone wants to make more. contentment with financial status would be something interesting. c) actually be doing something to make a difference in the world. what are you waiting for? volunteer now...don't wait for your life partner to get started. d)come up with something, anything besides a coffee shop for a first meeting.

and finally, on emotional baggage:

i think there should be some way devised to weigh a person's emotional baggage. seriously. as in if your past isn't really in your past, you should exceed the weight limit for emotional baggage. for example, if you've only been out of rehab for a month, and it was your second time through, this is not old news. or if you've been divorced for more than a year, and you still refer to your ex without the ex qualifier, well, this is not old news. in both of these cases, your emotional baggage has exceeded the acceptable weight limit to embark on a new relationship journey.

hope & hamstrings

2007-09-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

yesterday was walktheirwalk. i blogged about the event here.

to everyone who sponsored me, prayed for and encouraged me--a huge THANK YOU! it meant the world to me.

in coming days, i'll post some additional thoughts. for the moment i'll just say it was a really great experience and it truly did help me recapture some hope. and my hamstrings and calves may never recover--they only hurt when i move them.

finally, it's not too late to give. oh, and here are some photos of the day that my friend renee took.

oh, how i love tim gunn

2007-09-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

one of the very best parts of project runway is tim gunn. i'm a huge fan. i love his 'make it work' attitude. we quote it at work in our department a lot. tonite i watched the premiere of tim gunn's house of style. here's a couple of nuggets of wisdom i gleaned from this episode:

i can not control how i am perceived, i can only control how i'm presented.
my closet is in serious need of an overhaul.
a key to walking with confidence is to listen to my inner soundtrack...note to self: get an inner soundtrack.
i should buy his book.

since bravo is putting SO much time in between project runway series, i'm glad they found another vehicle for tim. if you're looking for me on thursday's at 10 pm... i'll be watching tim.

regaining hope

2007-08-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

a huge chunk of my life--until my early twenties--was spent raising funds for project concern through their event the walk for mankind which later became the walk for children. i walked, did mailings, served on the youth action committee and eventually ended up during my college years working with media relations, leading the youth committee, and doing presentations about the walk and what the funds raised meant to the people that project concern served. i spoke to elementary school kids, middle and high school kids, church groups and civic communities--anybody who'd ask us to send a speaker and talk about poverty and how a difference could be made. eventually the walks were phased out. and with it a lot of my activism died. i don't think i even fully realized that until this spring when we (ys) published 'be the change' by zach hunter. every so often i'd read something or hear someone say something to the effect of 'it's great he's got that youthful energy, but he'll grow out of it'. everytime i heard that, i'd have such a strong, deep reaction. "dream stealers" i called them. when it was appropriate, i'd share how they should keep that opinion to themselves. or question why they felt the need to seemingly hope or flat out expect that zach would or should 'grow out of it'.

about a month ago, this came up at my women's group. i melted down. i started down the questioning road but realized this wasn't about zach. it was about me. somehow, when the walks ended, i lost hope about being able to really change the world. i needed to find a way to regain that hope. about the same time i learned about walk their walk, a walk-a-thon put together by my friends jody and kathryn. the proceeds benefit the community of twachiyanda, zambia. kathryn and jody visited this community to see the impact that our middle school kids had there through one life revolution & world vision. they came back truly changed by their experience and this walk is an expression of that.

so as part of me regaining hope, i'm participating in the walk. walking 12 miles--the same distance the kids in twachiyanda walk each day to go to school. and instead of presents for my birthday, i'm asking friends & family to sponsor me in the walk. you can check out my sponsorship page and donate online at http://www.firstgiving.com/mindig. i'm nervous and excited--walking 12 miles is lot for me these days. but through jody and kathryn's trip and stories, i know that the funds raised by walk their walk will have a huge impact on a community the other side of the world. and in turn, that gives me hope.

oh the 0's

2007-08-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

so tomorrow i turn 40. august 28. the big 4-0. i'm trying to figure out what 40 means for me and here are a couple thoughts:

forty is fabulous! i won't be having any of the 'over the hill at 40' business going on. my dad and stepmom did an over the hill party for my stepsister. she's apparently more polite than i am. i'd walk out on that! here's my theory as to why 40 is fab--my thirties were better than my twenties and i liked my twenties better than my teens, so based on my personal story i have every reason to believe that my forties will be better than my thirties. i think i do keep getting better with age.

forty means your doctor likes to run tests. at my last doctor's appt., he scheduled me for a bunch of blood work, a mammogram--a baseline is required for women at 40 if not before, and an mri for my knee that my orthopaedic surgeon in ok had said would likely need surgery again around 40. both appointments landed on the actually big day. yippee! aren't i lucky? oh and just to add to this kind of fun, a ginormous pimple showed up on the end of my nose today! thank goodness for benefit 02 coverup!

regaining some lost hope! i'm going to participate in walk their walk to benefit aids orphans in zambia. i'll write more about this in my next post.

i'm sure i'll have a few more thoughts as time goes on, but for now, here's to fabulous 40!

i realized this evening that i have developed a new, must-visit-daily, web habit. allow me to highly recommend the bbc's "in pictures" page(s).

this page is updated with a "day in pictures" monday-friday with highlights being posted on the weekend. photos come from all over the world. in the thursday, aug. 15 edition, photos from india, japan, kenya, bulgaria, and germany among several others are featured and cover everything from a horse jumping competition to the commeration of japan's wwii surrender. it's also interesting to read the news from a non-american perspective.

so, there you have it, my recommendation of a spot on the internet not to be missed.

i probably shouldn't admit this

2007-08-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

but one of my all-time favorite movies is son-in-law with pauly shore. it feels wrong to admit that, but it always makes me laugh. it's on tonite...and once again, i'm just amused. i love the grandpa, the little brother, the goofy clothes. and my other favorite movies are just so unlike it.

the other movies i love, sort of an informal top 10:

gone with the wind--"frankly my dear... & fiddle-dee-dee"
love actually--hugh grant falls for the girl with "sizeable thighs" & an excellent soundtrack (uk version better than us--bought it in london)
indiscreet--cary grant & ingrid bergman in london, so fabulously elegant
chocolat--something a little mystical and magical about this one
bridget jones's diary--a tragic spinster, urban family, smug marrieds, poufs, & the best fight scene ever
pillow talk--doris day & rock hudson, a classic
philadelphia story--cary grant again...what can i say?
beauty & the beast--my all-time favorite animated flick
french kiss--i think it's highly underrated
and, as previously mentioned, son-in-law, which just doesn't make sense...

so what about you? what are your faves?

shopping hazards

2007-07-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

tonite i went to target and encountered the shopping hazard that has to be one of my biggest pet peeves: pack people.

pack people are those people who come to the store or mall in groups of 4 or more. the travel in a little pack that moves somewhat like an amoeba. they take up whole aisles; they block whole sections of displays all trying to look at the same thing at the same time; they are so inward focused, they are unaware the traffic congestion they create in a store. i loathe pack people especially when you politely say 'excuse me' to be able to manouever yourself through the aisle or to reach something on one of the shelves they've been looking at for a good 5 minutes and they treat you like you're the one being rude. i really detest pack people. and i frequently shop late so i can avoid them. but tonite in target, there were 3 groups of them, blocking entire aisles at times. seriously, does it take all 9 members of the family to pick out the box of mac 'n cheese?

the other shopping hazards i've encountered of late have been a little more exotic. a few nights ago, i was in target (what can i say i'm a regular there). anyway the lady in front of me in the checkout line is looking past me and getting very pale. i asked if she was okay and she says "oh my god! there's a giant lizard!" in a very frantic hushed voice. I whip around looking at the floor for the giant lizard when the lady walks next to me and points and says thru gritted teeth, "no, over there, on that woman". and there it is. a giant brownish green lizard that was at least 2 feet long. it's head and front paws/claws/feet (whatever the right name is) were on her shoulder, the rest of it was down the front of her chest and stomach. and the most bizarre part of all was that the lizard was on a leash--a leash with rhinestones and a collar full of rhinestones to match.

and finally, i've been working part-time at a friend's gift shop on the weekends. last weekend, a customer from behind me said "excuse me", and as i turned to help him, out of my mouth popped "oh my, you have a bird!". the guy was walking around, kinda like a pirate, with a giant cockatoo on his shoulder. i did manage to actually answer the guy's question.

seriously though, i've gotten used to people bringing their dogs of all sizes with them everywhere. i'm just not ready to regularly encounter birds and lizards when i'm shopping. i mean what's next--shopping with your pet python coiled around your arm? taking your mini-horse through the mall on a leash?

i know most malls are smoke free; and some now have restrictions on teens. i think i'd like to request my stores and malls be animal-free except for assistance animals. oh, and if they could be free of pack people, the world would be a much better place.

random fact meme

2007-07-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

i was tagged by gman

rules to play
1. players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

1. i sometimes think that heaven should sound more like cheering joyfully when your team wins than a choir.
2. i think the thought above could have something to do with i can cheer really loudly, but i have a terrible singing voice.
3. i currently have 9 purses and 16 pairs of shoes in rotation (out of the boxes--ready for easy use)
4. i keep all my shoe boxes--the shoes stay better longer and they're easier to store.
5. i'm attempting to knit my first baby blanket for a friend's baby who should be here soon.
6. i'm currently addicted to izze clementine and starbucks reduced-fat orange creme coffee cake.
7. my all-time favorite children's book is thee hannah! (i'll blog about this separately someday soon).
8. i recently became a brunette. now i just need to pick a new style.

i tag:

max
liesl
lizzy
jamie
lilly
alex
josh
dayouthguy

i've been sucked back in...

2007-06-30T22:58:00.000-07:00

for those of you who don't know, i'm a tulsa, ok native. in tulsa, they have a aa farm team for the texas rangers--the tulsa drillers. when i was probably in 6th or 7th grade, my dad bought a billboard in the outfield for the business he owned. with the billboard came four box seat tickets right above the home team dugout. my dad has never been remotely interested in team sports but he viewed the tickets as a freebie and he's never passed up something free. consequently, we went to a lot of baseball games. and it being aa ball, there are a lot of guys barely out of high school or college--late teens early 20's. and to a boy-crazy middle-school girl, sitting above the dug out was a little bit of heaven.

the guys playing ball were mostly really nice guys. they'd talk to me and explain the game to me. i'd only played part of a season of softball, so i was a little clueless. but thanks to those ball players, at one time, i could keep score and calculate an era or batting average. and in the process, i really fell in love with baseball. even though, i grew up and started dating real boys instead of daydreaming about baseball players, i've always been fond of baseball. i followed the texas rangers (parent club of tulsa) and the aaa club for the rangers where tulsa players moved onto conveniently located in oklahoma city.

when i moved to san diego, i tried to engage with the hometown padres, but i just couldn't connect. i was an al girl. i missed dh's and pinch hitters who were more likely to pull out a big play than the ones i'd seen in the national league. i'd been to a couple games a season most years since i'd moved out here, but just never really connected. about a month ago, a dad of one of my small group girls got us tix to go to a game. two of my girls play softball and the third thought a pads game would be fun. the seats were amazing. they were on a special deck of mostly season ticket holders called the toyota terrace. we were just a few rows back, about at 3rd. and the game we saw was awesome.

the pads were playing the reds. it was tied going into the bottom of the 9th and the pads won it with a bases loaded, no outs walk to kevin kouzmanoff. i could not believe i'd just seen a major league game won on a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth. it was also the game where kevin kouzmanoff came alive. he went 3 for 3 with 2 rbi's. and just like that, i was sucked back in. to the point, that i've been checking box scores, watching the games on the local sd network that shows them all, tracking the pads standing in the nl west (currently 1 up on the d-backs and 2 on the dodgers after beating them tonite in 12).

so as you can tell, i've been sucked back into a little baseball obsession.

it's been two months?

2007-06-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

i knew it had been a while since i'd posted but i didn't realize it'd been two months since my last post. i have a lot going on right now, both internally and externally. i'm sure at some point i'll post about some of it, but i was really logging on to post about the return of a former obsession from my youth. i'll post about that separately.

this is kind of a silly little post, but it seemed sillier to not acknowledge a two month absence.

alan rickman's too sexy

2007-04-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

so when i was looking for a clip of sense & sensibility on you tube, i discovered i'm not alone in having a thing for alan rickman.

this was my favorite find:

i'm so weird meme

2007-04-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

please, no comments from the gallery, but i was tagged by jay to do this meme.

i list 6 weird things about me and then tag six others to do the same. so, here goes.

1. i secretly wish i'd been a broadway and/or ballroom dancer. i will, just because i can and because i live by myself, dance my way across the house. it all started when i watched american bandstand as a kid and i would try and imitate the moves i saw on tv. oh, and in case you aren't aware of this about me, i'm a total klutz which makes being a professional dancer pretty laughable as a career option for me. of course, i'm not as bad as elaine in seinfeld.

2. if i could play any character in any musical on broadway, i'd want to play gertie in oklahoma just because i'm great at doing the obnoxious laugh. i don't laugh like her really, but it is a little fun on occasion.

3. i love guys with british, irish or australian accents. really, if you have one of the accents, i already think you're cute. i'm also fond of southern accents. this is reflected in my top 5 choices of men to be stranded on an island with: (in no particular order) hugh jackman, hugh grant, colin firth, harry connick, jr., & alan rickman. i know the alan rickman part is seriously weird, but i think it has something to do with the ridiculous number of times i've watched sense & sensibility.

4. i have this weird habit of holding my arms at my sides, bent upwards at the elbow, and then my hands kind of dangle down from my wrists. marko calls this posture "t-rex hands" and mocks me when i do it. because of this, i don't do this nearly as often which is good because it does look really weird.

5. i get freaked out by icky feet. callouses, corns, bunions, gross toe nails--eewww! it's not like i'm fascinated by good feet; i just get seriously icked out by gross ones. if i ever get married, my hubby will have to learn to like regular pedicures.

6. when i get really tired, i rub my face, my ears and mess with my hair. i don't know why, but i do. and when i catch myself starting to do that, it's time for me to say good night and go to bed.

so, there it is. 6 weird things about me. i'm sure there are more...and if you think you know some, well, keep it to yourself. i probably know some weird things about you too ;).

and now to tag 6 others--alex, lizzy, johny b, marko, josh, & max.

1 down, 4 to go

2007-04-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

so my doctor prescribed a 5 day dietary cleanse for me. my thyroid is a little off again and my weight is up so i'd started back on weight watchers. my latest round of blood work also showed my blood sugar is a little high, hence the cleanse. today was day 1. i've had 3 meal replacement shakes, 2 supplement bars, and a cup of grapes.

yesterday, i had a very good cheeseburger & fries for dinner. a good cheeseburger & fries is one of my favorite meals. it's not my best choice on weight watchers, but since it's the last thing i was eating for 5 days, i splurged.

i know this is only 5 days and i can do this, but i already miss eating. and it's only been one day. i'm avoiding the food network...and i can't wait til friday.

spring cleaning and materialism

2007-03-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

hi, i'm mindi and i'm a pack rat. seriously. i have issues with not being able to throw stuff away. i save notes, letters, silly momentos, gift bags, tchotchke, old t-shirts that i haven't worn since college.

when i moved to san diego, two of my friends came over to help me pack. i purged a LOT of stuff then: stuffed animals i'd had since my toddler days, notes i'd passed in class in middle school, birthday cards from my childhood, and a frightening amount of clothes i hadn't worn since high school. one of those two friends is an organizational whiz (though she'd deny it) and gave me a few rules of thumb to save me from my pack rat self (and to keep me from joining the ranks of the women in my family all of whom have drawers and closets that should only be opened while wearing a hard hat and garages and attics stuffed to overflowing).

one of those rules was to do spring cleaning. toss what doesn't work that can't be fixed. give away the clothes, accessories and shoes from last season that were never worn. clean out the files throwing away anything that isn't truly needed for tax records or insurance type reasons. get rid of things you just aren't using anymore. i've gotten good at this for me. and that's what i've been working on this past weekend and this weekend.

but i'm wrestling with what to do with a few things. for example, my toaster and coffee maker. both are the original ones i got when i first moved out on my own. they're probably both at least 15 years old. they're ugly, but they work. and my towels. i have them in a variety of mismatched colors. you can tell the history of my bathroom colors from my towels. my towels are faded and frayed around the edges, but they still work. so here's the dilemma all of this stuff still does the job they were created to do. they just don't look that good doing it. there's a part of me that wants to toss them out or donate them so i can buy new, pretty towels and cute appliances. but there's a part of me that feels wasteful, like if the items are still good enough to donate they should be good enough for me to keep and use.

i haven't quite figured out what to do. it's not like i need new stuff, i just would like it. but there's this little voice in the back of my head (it sounds more like my aunt than my mom which will make sense to you if you know them), that says "there are thousands of kids dying of starvation and starvation related diseases--do you really need a cute toaster?"

and the answer is i don't need one, but is it bad to want one?

quick thought about labels

2007-03-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

so, after reading a few blogs this evening and reflecting on some recent conversations with friends, i'm finding myself so frustrated with the assumptions that go with labels we use to categorize people.

i know we need some ways to group people and to identify ourselves with groups but i'm frustrated with the frequent easiness we assume the worst about people based on their labels. i'm as guilty of it as anyone, but i'm finding myself to be more sensitive to it lately.

emergent people frequently blog & comment about the ills of the evangelicals. evangelicals frequently blog & comment about the evils of emergents. both claim the other side has perverted the gospel. i have friends who've eschewed the use of the word 'christian' and prefer jesus-follower or something similar. i know there are lots of people who've used the word 'christian' in ways that are more political than related to the meaning i learned for the word 'christ-like'. and i also recognize that there are people who do very un-christ-like things while calling themselves christian.

the fact is that it doesn't matter how you label yourself or others, if you don't extend to others the love and grace that christ has extended to you, you don't bring him glory--you just pervert a whole new set of labels and create for the community of faith that chooses jesus more bad publicity.

for myself, i'm going to try to not judge others by their labels. i'm going to try to take people on an individual basis. i'm going to assume that regardless of the group people choose in trying to figure out their relationship to christ that they are trying their best in the ways they know how.

i don't expect myself to be perfect at this, or even good at it consistently. but i am going to try to assume the best about people. by trying to assume the best first i hope to be a little less suspicious and cynical.

fredgies, faith and doubt

2007-02-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

my small group of girls is so very wonderfully middle school. tonight, they were horsing around and one of the girls slid out of the little funky ikea rocking chair (pictured at right) i have and managed to give herself a wedgie. the conversation rapidly devolved to if you have a wedgie in the front it should be called a "fredgie" a front wedgie. they then spent several more minutes trying to figure out what to call it when you get a fredgie and a wedgie at the same time.

after bribing them with cookies & dr pepper, we finally moved onto the lesson. and somehow they were able to shift gears and talk about faith and doubt. we're using marko & kurt johnston's book my faith. tonite we were doing the section on faith and doubt. it's so amazing the questions the girls have...'how do we know we have the right god and that other religions don't?' 'what if sometimes i'm not sure god is real 'cause trying to spend time with him feels like i'm sitting alone talking to myself?' their questions are so sincere and you can just almost see their little brains trying to move from concrete to abstract thinking as they try to wrap their heads and hearts around big 'who is god?' questions.

and i'm just such equal parts amused and touched by their ability to go from fredgie to faith in a matter of minutes.

pondering updates

2007-02-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

so here are a few follow up thoughts from my previous post:

i'm remembering how to breathe a little more which is good. turning blue is really bad.
popcorn at the theatre has some secret additive. okay, i don't know that for sure, but it makes sense.
4 weeks...it took 4 weeks for my small group girls to get bored with my hs yearbooks.

and a few new thoughts:

doing a spiritual formation retreat for urban kids is an incredible experience
puppy-sitting means i leave the office on time
i could be jealous of the girl on the sit-com who's moving from socal to london
united airlines needs more competitive fares at the moment

and finally...

as much as i love pink...i'm really over all the pink and red in stores right now. i'm looking forward to feb 15...

pondering

2007-01-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

over the last few weeks, i've been pondering some stuff. stuff like

is it possible to be inept at leading the life you seem to have?
what contributes to staying in ministry as a long-time volunteer?
how do i discern between selfishness and drawing healthy boundaries for myself? (i'm realizing i may have grown up with skewed ideas of the two.)
is there at all an easy or graceful way to transition from being the child of a parent to needing to be the caretaker of a parent?
i think i've forgetten how to breathe. seriously, i catch myself actually holding my breath more and more often. i have no idea what's up with that.

and there's some lighter stuff that i've thought about too like...

if the top 5 guys on my dream list all have accents (3 british, 2 southern), i might be living in the wrong part of the world to meet a cute guy with an accent.
why is it that if i smell theatre popcorn, only theatre popcorn will cure the craving it creates? why won't popcorn i make at home cure the craving? it's still popcorn.
how many weeks will it be before the novelty of my high school yearbooks wears off for my small group girls?

so there you go. a little peek at the stuff i'm pondering. at some point in the next few weeks, i'll post some of my thinking since i'm not sure there are any easy conclusions...oh, and we're at three weeks so far of my hs yearbooks entertaining my small group.

food network confessions

2007-01-15T21:07:00.000-08:00

on most any lazy saturday or sunday afternoon, you'll find me curled up on the couch knitting and watching food network. i get lots of great ideas from the food network. i'm actually starting to think i'm really developing an addiction to food network. more and more often, it's not enough to just watch the shows. i actually feel compelled to try the recipes.

my three favorite shows--which are also the ones i've tried the most recipes from--are barefoot contessa, rachel ray's 30 minute meals and everyday italian with giada de laurentis. i also really like ace of cakes, but it's more american chopper in the kitchen than a show you can actually try in your own kitchen. i actually own cookbooks from barefoot contessa (confession: i've had hers for years--before she had a food network show. the photos are beautiful, it's more like a coffee table book) and rachel ray 30 minute meals 2.

the thing i love about these shows and cookbooks is they put together flavors i'd never think to. one of my favorite appetizers is from giada's show, honey & gorgonzola bruschetta. sounds weird, but it's so yummy and always gets rave reviews. yesterday afternoon giada had a recipe for cinnamon butter gnocchi on her sweet and savory episode. again sounds weird, but i typically like gnocchi and i love cinnamon butter so i thought, 'why not?'. so tonite, i bought some gnocchi and cooked it, made the cinnamon butter and tossed the gnocchi in it. and the weird thing is, i can't decide if i like it. i didn't hate, i didn't love it. i really just can't decide. so, if you work with me, i'm bringing some to the office tomorrow. you can try it and tell me what you think since i really think i need a second opinion.

baby, it's cold outside

2007-01-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

brrr....it's almost 11 pm here in chilly san diego. yep, you read that right. tonite is supposed to be one of the coldest nights in recent years here. i just checked weather.com and the current temp for my neighborhood is 32. it's supposed to drop down to 25 degrees...that's cold anywhere, but it's really cold when the typical low is in the lower 40's. i guess i shouldn't complain though, we could be under a layer of ice like my friends and family in tulsa.

it is a little nice to have a taste of winter. it's just too bad kids here won't get to experience the fun of a snow day. one of my favorite memories of growing up is waking up to some white stuff on the ground and turning on the morning news to watch for school closings. it was always a good sign to see a few schools up there. i can remember holding my breath until the list scrolled to the "l's" and our school, leonard, popped up. there would be much rejoicing. the breakfast would become french toast instead of cinnamon. the jammies would stay on and one of the local tv stations would put on a half hour of cartoons when the schools were closed. after the cartoons were over, we'd get dressed and bundled up to go out and play in the snow. we'd come back in to warm up with hot chocolate. we'd make popcorn in the middle of the afternoon. i could take a nap (i've always been a fan of naps). i loved those days.

for tonite, i'll just have to stay snuggled up in my flannel jammies under my fleece throw in front of the space heater and enjoy my memories.

remembering allan

2007-01-10T00:04:00.000-08:00

in the summer of 87, a guy--allan--that i'd grown up with in youth group and had dated for about a year when we were in hs, called and asked me to come over to his house for lunch. i'd only been home from college for a couple weeks and he'd graduated from hs about a month earlier (at the time, i was 19, allan was 18, but he was two years behind me in school.) we made sandwiches, went and picked up his little sister from cheer practice and just hung out. we watched st. elmo's fire and chatted, catching up on life. it was cool that we were still friends even after one of those drama-filled high school break-ups. we had fun that afternoon and laughed a lot. late the next afternoon, i stopped by the church and the youth pastor asked if he could talk to me. allan had committed suicide earlier that day. it didn't seem real--it'd been less than 24 hours since i'd seen him. to this day, it's still one of the saddest moments and memories of my life.

allan didn't leave a note and in the days and weeks after, there was so much confusion. i think i watched about st. elmo's fire about a hundred times looking for a clue. allan's parents were so great considering their loss. his mom especially tried to make sure i knew it wasn't my fault and that there was nothing i could have done. i did understand it wasn't my fault, but i think on some level i'll always wonder if there was something i could've done, something i could've noticed so that maybe allan would still be here.

the past few days i've been working on references to resources that we'll put in the notebook for this year's CORE training that youth specialties, the company i work for, hosts for youth workers. this year the topic is "helping hurting kids". among the topics that'll be covered during the day are suicide and depression. but it wasn't until this morning, it finally dawned on me why i felt so emotionally involved in this material. allan. in 1987, depression among teenagers wasn't exactly a big topic. fortunately, now there's resources and training on all kinds of crises that kids encounter.

in being part of a company that offers training and resources to help youth workers help kids who might be having the same struggles allan had, i'm finding a little more healing for the sadness i still carry over his death.

giddy at the grocery store

2007-01-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

some days, it doesn't take much to make me happy. today was one of those days. on my way home from work, i stopped off at the grocery store to pick up some caffeine free diet coke. i'd left work late and the thought of cooking was unappealing so i checked out the lean cuisine case.

and this is where giddiness set in. lean cuisines were on sale for $2 each and there's a new flavor--butternut squash ravioli--and this is where it gets even better...

it was right next to ben & jerry's lowfat frozen yogurt in phish food that was also on sale!!!!

my tummy is sooo happy right now. and my waistline is too. :)

family ties

2007-01-05T22:08:00.000-08:00

this past weekend, my parents--dad & stepmom to be specific--came for a short visit. they drove out from oklahoma and brought me the dining table that's been in my family for four generations. i'll post more about the table & its history later.

my dad likes to be on the go. sitting still at home has never been his thing. and my stepmom is a good match for him--she enjoys being on the go and doesn't mind going with the flow, very important when traveling with my dad or just being related to him. i have to say, i'm very lucky in my dad's choice of a second wife. they've been married for 15 years now and had dated for about 3 years before that. she's a great lady & lots of fun. and she's a very wise & grace filled person.

not long after she and my dad became serious, my dad tried to push her as part of the family. my parents had been divorced about 2 years and i was just starting to really deal with the divorce. a stepmom was more than i was ready for at the time. judy and i had lunch at her request. she told me she'd met my mom and that i had a wonderful mom. she told me she'd like for the two of us to become friends, but that she was fine with whatever pace i wanted to do that at. i really didn't want to like her, but i had to respect her graciousness and directness. eighteen years later, i just love her. she and i stayed up late talking after my dad had dozed off and it was one of the best parts of their visit. and there's a great deal of the time i think i perplex my dad. she takes it in stride and helps smooth things over and tries to explain it to him--and when she can't and he still doesn't get me, she makes sure he just accepts me as i am. she also does the same for him when he's driving me nuts.

there is one little quirk about my stepmom, that has become a bit of family comedy. she likes for her and my dad to dress alike. exactly alike. as much as possible. and since hanging out in san diego is casual, well, here's day 1 of their matching outfits during the visit...

and yes, there were matching outfits for the rest of the visit. it used to mortify me, but now, i'm used to it and rather amused by it. and since they obviously make each other happy...well, it's okay with me. as long as they don't want me to dress like them too!

great kisses

2006-12-27T22:18:00.000-08:00

never been kissed has been playing on amc tonite. so with that and the fact that new year's eve is only a couple days away, i started thinking about perfect kisses.

it's been ages since i've kissed someone romantically--more than a decade in fact. it just hasn't worked out that there's been someone in my life to kiss. i'm okay with that. as i recall, kissing was fun, but i'm okay with not wasting perfectly good kisses on mr. not-so-right, but i digress. there's nothing like a great perfect kiss in the movies.

the one that ends never been kissed is one of my favorites. but my all time favorite movie kiss is from gone with the wind. it's the scene where rhett tells scarlett she should be "kissed and often and by someone who knows how".

so, what's your favorite movie kiss? post it in the comments and if i get enough responses, i'll post a top ten list of movie kisses.

five things you don't know about me

2006-12-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

as mentioned in the previous post, i was tagged for this meme by jay.

so, here goes:

1. the weirdest holiday i've had was thanksgiving in '90. i was opening a chili's restaurant in edmonton, ab, canada and they don't have thanksgiving when we do. i sat with 4 other american trainers and we had cheeseburgers and talked about what we'd be doing if we were home with our families. that evening the franchise owner invited us to his home for dinner and he and his wife put on an american style thanksgiving dinner for the five of us americans. it's a fond memory.

2. i have a reputation in my family for teaching the next generation all kinds of mischevious things like how to lick & stick gummi bears, burping loudly, etc. the latest thing i taught one of the kids was how to floss his nose even though i've never actually flossed my own nose.

3. my selfish wish is to one day wear a beautiful ballgown and be whirled around a dance floor like anna is by the king in the the king & i. if you click on the trailer, you get a glimpse of the scene i'm referring to.

4. i have a 7ft artificial charlie brown christmas tree. seriously, the thing is scraggly and ugly but by the time i get all my ornaments (i have a huge collection) and lights on it, it turns out to be a rather pretty thing. just like charlie brown's.

5. i decided i wanted to follow jesus when i was five because of a poem by christina rosseti i'd memorized for the church christmas program. it's the last stanza of the "in the bleak midwinter" and it goes:

what can i give him
poor as i am?
if i were a shepherd,
i'd give him a lamb.
if i were a wise man,
i'd do my part.
what can i give him?
i give him my heart.

i told my mom and my pastor i wanted to give jesus my heart and that's where my journey with him officially began.

so, enough new info about me. i tag andy, lizzy & jamie (who hasn't posted recently but is missed).

hello again

2006-12-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

so, it's been quite awhile since i posted. i was gone for several weeks and then came home sick. and i'm quite terrible at posting while i'm traveling.

but by way of a brief catch up, i was in cincinnati for the 3rd of our 4 national youth workers conventions. following that i headed to tulsa for a week and hung out with the fam for thanksgiving. from there, it was off to charlotte for the last national youth workers convention in 2006. the last day of charlotte, i woke up with a nice case of laryngitis. it was downhill from there. i ended having a sinus infection, the beginnings of an ear infection and an upper respiratory infection which turned into a charming case of bronchitis. it's been this week that i finally have started feeling more like myself and like i'm recovering from all the past weeks have held.

most surprisingly, i've actually had a few emails of people wondering where i'd disappeared to since my little blog was gathering dust. it was nice to know that a) people do read this and b) that i was missed. one of those emails arrived today from jay. he also tagged me for a meme so for that see my next post.

wow! two posts in one day after weeks of silence. oh good heavens!

i'm not convinced

2006-11-12T23:36:00.000-08:00

i'm hearing a lot of excitement about the fact that the democrats are now in control of congress. people are convinced it's a new day and things are going to change for the better.

i'm not convinced. i do think things will change with democrat controlled congress, but i haven't seen a reason to believe that things will change for the better. i haven't heard a clearer plan for figuring out what to do about iraq from the democrats. i haven't heard a clearer plan for strengthening the economy and improving the dollar value against foreign markets. i haven't heard a clearer plan for reducing our national debt

i'm also not assuming that things will change for the worse. the thing is electing a bunch of people just because they're not republicans isn't going to solve anything. i think we need to start looking more closely at the individual than their party affiliation. it seems like we need good, smart, creative people to send to congress--people who can look towards the bigger picture of what's best for the country as a whole more than what's best for their career or their party.

i know i sound naive, but my one vote, for what it's worth, will be cast for the person most likely to do the best job irregardless of their party.

london on my mind

2006-11-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

i've always been a bit of an anglophile, but i'm a bit surprised at the ways in which my london trip is sticking with me. i miss it. it seems strange to write that or even think it since i was only there for four days but i do miss it. i'm trying to process what specifically i miss and what there resonated with me so deeply.

i'm having a hard time finding words for what god began stirring in me there. i can't decide how much my lack of words has to do with the newness of it and how much has to do with how busy my life is right now.

and my life is quite hectic right now. the day after i flew home from london i flew to austin tx for the first of four national youth workers conventions. after austin i flew to vegas to see elton john and from there to denver for a conference to represent my company. just monday i came home from convention number two in anaheim and tuesday i fly to cincinnati for convention number three. i fly from there to tulsa to spend thanksgiving with family and from there onto charlotte for convention number four before flying home to sd in early december.

for now i'm surfing the web looking for cheap airfares to go back to london after the first of the year, watching movies filmed in england (four weddings & a funeral, bridget jones diary, etc.), and enjoying the photos from my trip. i've shared a couple of my favorites here...the london eye at night and notting hill homes on a rainy afternoon.

why i love lucy

2006-11-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

lucille ball is my favorite actress and this month she's the star of the month on turner classic movies.

my love of lucy began my senior year of high school. my parents were going thru a divorce and i spent quite a bit of time with my aunt & uncle. my aunt would watch i love lucy every night on tvland and i'd watch along with her. it didn't matter how hard things were at the moment--lucy and ethel's antics would always crack me up. ever since, no matter how blue i'm feeling, lucy can cheer me up. i also find myself occasionally getting into a pickle that leaves someone saying i have some 'splainin' to do.

i became curious about her as i kept hearing snippets about her life and so i started reading books about her. when her autobiography was released, i received it for christmas and read it in a single setting. i learned not only was she quite beautiful and talented, she was also brilliant and savvy. she created the concept for the i love lucy show. when her marriage to desi ended, she became the first woman to head a studio...desilu productions--which produced star trek and the andy griffith show. she was a trailblazer in her industry.

but the two things i think i admire most about lucille ball is her tenacity and her capacity to love unconditionally. she persevered thru a variety of tough situations, being labeled a communist during the mccarthy hearings and nearly blacklisted not to mention her divorce from desi. and she loved dearly her mother and grandfather who raised her with some very strange and often harsh parenting styles. and despite their divorce, she and desi remained devoted to each other speaking to each other nearly every day until his death.

and so now you know why i love lucy... and in case you're wondering, my favorite episode of i love lucy is episode 113, l.a. at last, original airdate february 7, 1955 featuring guest star william holden. it's the one where lucy catches her fake nose on fire. i have a lucy doll based on this episode, complete with a fake nose with a burnt tip.

and then a bit of sadness

2006-10-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

so i know i did the right thing in not continuing a relationship with someone who had such different beliefs and understandings about what relationships look like and the role of women. there were also a couple other concerns that i had about the relationship that also added to the end of it. these other concerns are things that would have made a relationship hard, but one of the things is some past hurts that are still very present that he needs to work through for his own sake.

there are a lot of great things about the guy...the things that drew me to him in the first place. and a lot of ways in which we were really compatible; we had a lot of similar interests. and i had a lot of fun chatting with him and spending time with him. i have some very fond memories.

so even though i know i made the right choice, i'm still finding i'm a little sad...sad that he's still haunted by the past hurts, sad that our beliefs on some core things were so different, and finally a little sad that it didn't, couldn't work out.

why i'm not married...or back to blogging

2006-10-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

apparently i don't understand what it means for two to become one because i want my own identity. really. i was told that. my understanding is that we are to be mutually submissive, that our personalities and gifts are to complement one another, to use our gifts and skills to encourage and build up one another so that together we're better than we would be on our own. for me to do that, to build up a spouse, to complement him with my own gifts, it seems like i'd need to keep my own identity. but i guess my definition doesn't work for everyone. you know what though? i'm really okay with that. i'm okay with holding out for someone who shares my understanding of what two becoming one looks like.

and while i'm holding out, i'll have more time for blogging ;)

womanhood

2006-10-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

tonite some friends and i had a blessing service for a friend of ours who's pregnant with her first child and due in a few weeks. it was a wonderful evening where we celebrated with food, words and ritual the life passage of becoming a mother. as part of the celebration, my friends--who are all moms--shared storeis and memories of becoming a mother and the birthing process. my home was filled with love, laughter and the intimacy shared between women. now, the house is quiet and i find myself feeling rather melancholy. and i realize it's pretty unlikely i'll ever have a birth story of my own to share. i've known for awhile now that it's pretty unlikely i'll ever be able to become pregnant and in many ways i feel as though i've come to terms with it. but sitting here now, it's hard to not feel a little cheated because i'm missing out on this amazing part of being a woman. it's hard to not feel a little less female, less feminine. this statue is in trafalgar square. i took a picture of it for jeannie. i liked the statue, but i didn't feel particularly connected to it. i think i realize why now.

my new favorite city

2006-10-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

london. london is my new favorite city. two weeks ago today, i was shopping in the market on portobello road in notting hill (yes, like the movie). besides notting hill, my friend jeannie, who went with me, and i spent time at westminster abbey, trafalgar square, covent garden market, tower of london, a musical (avenue q), national gallery, harrods, and windsor castle. we rode the tube and spent quite a bit of time walking around london passing landmarks like big ben, parliament, buckingham palace & hyde park. we walked along the thames and saw the london eye, tate modern, and shakespeare's old globe. we crossed the millenium bridge and saw st paul's cathedral. we ate in pubs and at wagamama (we so need to lobby for these to come to the states). i had fruit beer at belgo--yum! i think my favorites on the food were the panko-crusted sweet potatoes & butternut squash at wagamama, stilton & wild mushroom tart at the pub near our hotel, and a pumpkin & parmesean tart i bought at the market in notting hill. also, the chocolates from harrods were quite yummy.

most of all, i just loved being there. i loved walking the few minutes from our hotel to the tube stop and passing little mom & pop markets and 3 pubs. i loved that our hotel had a little green park behind it and that it had narrow stairs and tiny halls. i enjoyed taking the tube everywhere and all the walking. it was fun to wander thru leicester square, covent garden and piccadilly circus. just wandering around london was one of my top 3 highlights.

another of the top 3 highlights was my visit to the national gallery. i saw so much in only 3 hours...rubuen, rembrandt, renoir, gainsborough, picasso, monet, manet, vermeer, van gogh, da vinci...i could spend days there. my favorite painting this time turned out to be this renoir titled the umbrellas. there was something so captivating about it, particularly the little girl in the lower right corner with the hoop toy. i can't say how much i loved this museum. i bought half a dozen postcards of art i loved. on my next trip, this will be a main stop.

the final of my top 3 was our visit to windsor castle. the trip is 45 minutes by train and you come around the final bend and there it is--castle! it's quite interesting and there's a ton of history since it's over 900 years old. we visited on a sunday and went to evensong at st.george's chapel. it was the most beautiful service. there was an all male choir and the acoustics were amazing. it was lovely, although a bit hard to stay awake since it was late afternoon, very quiet and we'd just eaten. nevertheless, it was a highlight of my trip.

i can't wait to go back...i'm looking for a deal to go back in the winter and spend my time wandering around museums for a few days. i want to see manet to picasso again at the national gallery and just spend longer there and i want to check out the tate modern's unilever series--giant slides you can go down.

sunset

2006-09-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

just a couple pics from sunset friday night. i thought the sky was so cool. and i have a new digital camera to play with so...

instead of blogging, iming

2006-09-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

so, my life is in a fairly hectic season right now. it's crazy busy at work as we head into doing 4 conventions and launching the campaign for next year's CORE. (sidebar: next year's CORE has such great stuff...stay tuned!) i'm finishing up a certificate in adolescent spiritual direction. i'm going to london for vacation in less than two weeks and heading to our first convention less than 24 hours after i get home--this seemed like such a good idea several months ago!

and just to add to the craziness, i made a new friend about 6 weeks ago. it's not serious at this point, it's way too soon for that. we are having fun getting to know each other though. instead of blogging, i've been iming during my online time. since we live at opposite ends of the state, iming is a great thing. the friendship is more than an online thing. we'd actually met in person and then started keeping in touch online. i went to visit him over labor day weekend and that weekend we decided to meet in vegas in october to see elton john's red piano and he's coming down here over veteran's day. i don't know what will happen--i'm just having fun and enjoying the growing friendship.

i just thought i'd share where i'd disappeared to.

how they met

2006-08-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

as i was dusting tonite, a book that's been tucked into the back corner of my bookcase caught my eye. it's called how they met by nancy cobb. it's an anthology of how famous couples met and when they knew they were in love. i bought it when i was doing bridal consulting years ago. it just got me to wondering about my friends out here in cyberspace. how did you meet your spouse/significant other? what was the moment like when you realized you'd found that one someone to do life with?

i'm looking forward to hearing your stories.

belay on

2006-08-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

belay: To secure (a mountain climber, for example) at the end of a length of rope.

when belaying someone, the belayer when ready says "belay on". this command lets the climber know the belayer is ready to keep them safe. the climber responds "on belay" to let the belayer know they've clipped in and are now depending on them for safety.

i have a friend who's going thru a difficult time. i want to help them but i feel helpless to do so. i've offered my prayers and encouragement as i can and while i know prayer is the most important thing, my prayers feel small and meager.

for some reason, i started thinking about belaying. it's so tangible when you're belaying someone. you feel the tension on the rope, you pull out slack or give the climber slack in the rope as requested. it's a tactile way of helping a friend, of keeping them physically safe.

if there's such a thing as an emotional belay, i say to my friend, belay on. i'm here for you. i only wish such a thing could be as tangible as the rope belay.

fun aunt mindi

2006-08-05T00:10:00.000-07:00

one of my favorite things in life is being aunt mindi to my nephews and godchildren. and i've had fun this week being aunt mindi.

i have a godson who'll be 14 in november and we've been iming. tonight i was also iming with his younger sister who's 10 and her best friend. it's been great to connect with them since i don't see them as often as i'd like because they live in ok and i live in ca. it was also kinda fun that when i told them i was coming for a visit in a couple weeks they were excited.

and speaking of that visit, i'm flying thru denver to meet my cousin's 5 yr old daughter and fly with her to nana's in tulsa. she actually calls me her 'fun aunt mindi' and is very excited about us flying together to nana's. i hope she still is when we go thru security in denver and mom & dad stay behind. i plan to have a few special treats to distract her just in case. either way, it'll still be a good trip.

the badge of busyness

2006-08-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

i wrote this article for National Network of Youth Ministries monthly newsletter. i saw a link to it on a friend's blog. it was a little surreal. i've written a couple articles now and i'm still startled when i run across them online.

but this one feels a little more vulnerable. as i relooked at it tonite, i realized how much i still need to pay attention to the level of busyness in my life. one thing i've been doing this week is spending time in my hammock swing. i've taken books with me but i end up just thinking, praying and daydreaming. sitting in the swing is something i'm going to try and do more days than not when i'm home as an intentional way of slowing down and just being. feel free to ask me how i'm doing with that.

so how about you? what's something you can do to be intentional about slowing down for at least a few minutes?

blogging from my porch

2006-07-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

a week or so ago, good friends gave me a great gift--a hammock chair. it's something i'd been wanting for awhile and hadn't gotten around to purchasing for myself. this afternoon i hung it.

it's been ridiculously hot for days but today is overcast and there's a lite drizzle off and on. best of all there's a nice breeze. i'm now swinging ever so gently on my porch with my laptop. really, this is brilliant. i may never leave this spot. okay, maybe for a shower and a snack, but then i'm coming back.

oh, wait, as i'm typing this, there's a hummingbird about 3 feet from me snacking on the flowers. this spot is just perfect!!

DC: faith, idealism and stewardship

2006-07-28T22:45:00.000-07:00

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.--Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865.

when i first returned home from dc, i blogged "there's also the bewilderment i felt in visiting monuments and memorials that ascribe to a higher ideal of america and americans than many of our current elected officials seem to be striving towards." i've been really pondering since my trip how my relationship with jesus should impact my role as a citizen. i've always been diligent about voting; but for awhile, i've been sensing that merely voting is just meeting the minimum requirement. our country is a bit of a mess at the moment. jim hancock identifies some of the biggest issues far more eloquently than i can in the "you broke it, you bought it" portion of this post.

quite frankly, it's more than a little easy to be overwhelmed by politics and the process especially when much of the process involves negative campaigning in an effort to either get or keep a job as an elected official. a prime example is our current gubernatorial race here in california. i've yet to see an ad financed by governor schwarzenegger's campaign; however, the california republican party is airing an ad that uses material from democratic primary candidate steve westly's negative ad's towards his opponent phil angelides who won the primary and now faces schwarzenegger in the november election. phil angelides' camp is running an ad touting him as "a leader not an actor". of course, both candidates would say they're for fixing immigration issues, cutting tuition costs, improving public schools, etc. but i haven't ever heard a clear plan that makes sense on how to accomplish these things from either one. it bothers me that campaigns focus more on the candidates than on the details of the issues. i feel like much of the time we focus on the candidates and the politics rather than the end results of the issues. and when we as americans allow candidates and media to focus on anything but the heart of the issue and how it impacts the everyday lives of people, we fail.

in dc, as i visited the lincoln memorial and read the words from his second inaugural address (excerpted at top), i was moved. his words were simple and got right to the heart of the problem: the country was at war, the war needed to end and america needed to heal. now i don't think lincoln was perfect, but it felt as though he was looking beyond himself, his agenda and focusing on the larger issues. in dc, i kept noticing as i visited the different sites that i had a vision, an awareness of being a part of something bigger than myself.

and for me that's where faith, idealism and stewardship come in. i feel like because i want to follow jesus and reflect him to others, i need to be more engaged in being a good steward not just as an american citizen, but as a citizen of the world. when politicians are campaigning on anything but the issues, i should do the research to find out where they stand on the issues. i should email or call my congressional representatives and let them know how they can best represent me. i should get involved in bringing issues that are neglected in the press and the congress to their attention--the genocide in darfur for example. it's also important that when i do contact my representatives, i do so respectfully and graciously even though it may feel futile.

i also need to make lifestyle choices that reflect good stewardship. i need to get involved in my community outside my church bubble. i need to choose to recycle. with curbside recycling, there's no excuse for me not to recycle magazines, newspapers, glass and plastic containers and pressed paper packaging besides the cans and bottles i have been. i'm sure there's more i can do, but for me these are realistic first steps.

project runway quote of the day

2006-07-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

robert to kayne: "she's a beauty queen not a disco ball"

i love robert.

my restless heart and mind

2006-07-19T00:07:00.000-07:00

i need to sleep tonite but my heart and mind are restless. the thoughts are bouncing around like a pinball.

my heart hurts for a friend suffering. i wonder how best to sit with her in her pain and to hold hope for her when she can't hold it for herself.
i'm mulling over my state of singleness, on whether i can or should hold out hope for a relationship and on whether or not doing so distracts me from enjoying all the good things in my life right now.
i'm saddened and disturbed by the current state of war in the middle east. on some level it reminds me of siblings in the backseat of the car punching each other and saying with each punch stop, no you stop, no you...
the amount of stuff at work that i need to get done this week--the to do list seems endless at the moment
concern for a friend whose parents are going through a rough patch
excitement for a friend whose newly engaged
how to find a rhythm of life that allows me to stay connected and grounded and flow in and out of my routine at home more easily despite upcoming travel
what it means for me to be an active citizen and participant in our government (stuff tied to my dc trip and global community stuff that's been rattling around for awhile)

those are the big things. maybe by putting them out there, my head and heart will take a deep breath and drift off to sleep.

you-had-to-be-there moments pt 3

2006-07-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

on the last day of dcla, a couple co-workers and i were the last to leave the center after making sure all of the pallets were properly inventoried and addressed to make the journey to the next event in anaheim. while we were finishing up, a huge thunderstorm blew thru. it was bad enough that all the people who'd already gathered down on the mall had to be cleared off the mall and into the nearby musuems and memorials for safety. for us, we watched the rain through the open dock doors. the rain stopped shortly before we left the convention center to hike back to our hotel. as we're making our way back to the hotel, we're standing on the curb waiting for the light to change. alex comments that we should move to a different part of the curb where there's less of a giant puddle to cross. just as i turn to walk that direction, a car passes too close to the curb, splashing the puddle onto me--one whole side was soaked. my two friends/co-workers laughed and laughed. my lament however was that when it happened to doris day in that touch of mink and renee zellweger in bridget jones the edge of reason, the both ended up kissing gorgeous men, cary grant and colin firth respectively. me, no. just the laughter of friends.

the final odd memorable moment of the trip was the cab ride when we changed hotels for the last night. there were 5 of us making the trip with luggage. i went out and asked the doorman to arrange for a cab that would accomodate us and all our luggage. he motions to the first cab over in the line up and asks if a suburban would work. i glance in the direction he's motioning and see a big vehicle done up as a cab. sure, i tell him and go into to get the rest of my friends and my luggage when we come back out and approach the vehicle, i realize it's not a suburban. it's a ford f350 converted into a cab with a camper top over the bed. it does serve the purpose as it will hold the 5 of us and our luggage. we pile our bags into the back of the truck and climb in. our driver who's wearing a cowboy hat (which fits since it is a big pick up truck he's driving) tells he's 85 and from south carolina. my one friend tells him we're rock stars and that we were thrown out of our hotel so that's why we're going to a different one. after that the driver talked the whole way to the other hotel, but so low we couldn't understand a word he was saying. it was all a little odd.

ah, the little moments that make trips memorable.