Random Thoughts

Adam was gone to Florida for the last few days for a Leadership Summit training. He finally got home late last night - well, actually early this morning. It's nice to have him back.

The Abby had her last ice skating lesson of the season today. Jacob didn't skate for this last session, but they both got to enjoy the party afterward. It's been fun to watch them make so much progress, and have LOADS of fun learning!

Less than two weeks until my Lasik.

Leah, Tammy and I are going to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in April - 6 weeks from tomorrow!! I cannot WAIT!!

I'm tired of cleaning my house. You'd think that if we could put a man on the moon, we'd as humans would have found a way to create a "self-cleaning house" by now.

I'm beginning to think that the reason it's required for me to wear glasses for 2.5 weeks before having lasik has much less to do with any changes it makes in my eyes, and much more to do with the fact that I will practically worship the ground the Dr. walks on once he makes it so that I don't have to wear them anymore!!!

ACK!! I hate my glasses! It's SO going to be worth it...

A Milestone

I've scheduled my Lasik procedure! I go for my pre-screening on my birthday - Monday, March 3rd, and then my procedure is on Friday the 7th. I am both excited out of my mind, and very nervous. I've been wanting to have this done for YEARS!! In order for my eyes to be ready for the exam and procedure, I have to go without my contacts for 2 weeks, and that means that I take my contacts out for the very last time TONIGHT. I'm not looking forward to wearing glasses for 2.5 weeks, but I know it's going to be worth it.

Man, it just occurred to me that I won't be able to see when I'm getting ready in the morning... Try wearing glasses in the shower. Try shaving your legs while half blind. Try putting on make-up with glasses in the way... But again, it's going to be worth it!!

New Community

The message at New Community tonight was so unbelievably incredible, I just have to tell you about it. We're in the middle of a series on the 10 Commandments, and Jason Miller talked tonight about #6 - Do not murder. Like he said - at first glance, that may not seem critically important or relevant to the average person. But he talked about how anger can be just as dangerous:

21"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder,^[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother^[b]will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,^[c]' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell. (Matthew 5:21-22).

It's not a new concept - I'm familiar with that passage. Jason's message, however, is what was so phenomenal. I can't stop thinking about it - and I hope I don't for a while.

If you didn't get to hear the message, you'll be able to find it here. It's not up yet, but it will be soon. It'll be free until next week, but after that you'll need to buy it. But trust me, it's worth every cent.

Oh, and keep in mind as you're watching that he's a 25 year old college student. You won't believe it. Seriously.

California

Ok, so it's been a while again since I wrote last. I never was a good journal-keeper. I'd write faithfully for days, even weeks sometimes, and then it would be once a week for a while, then once a month or so... Then I'd think to myself, "What's the point now??" Yeah, good to know that things don't really change, even 25+ years later.

So the main reason I haven't been active lately is because I was in California for a few days for work. One of the things like I like best about my job is the opportunity I have a couple of times a year to be a buyer for the store. We travel to whatever city happens to be hosting the Craft & Hobby Association tradeshow to check out what new products the scrapbooking and crafting manufacturers have to offer us for the upcoming season. (Kind of like Fashion Week, only with paper and stickers - definitely still just as glamourous, trust me!) Then we spend as much money as we can manage in a matter of 36 hours or so. It is HARD work (you're just going to have to trust me), but also a lot of fun. We walk MILES over the course of the day, we barely see the outdoors (at least not during daylight hours), we typically eat lousy convention center food (if we eat at all), and we work into the wee hours of the morning - just to get up EARLY and do it again the next day, and the next... Until we're done. It can be brutal. It has been brutal.

This trip, however, was an exception to this rule. Julie, Jeri and I arrived in Anaheim, California on Saturday afternoon, and the weather was spectacular. Sunny, almost 80 degrees, and palm trees. The cab driving us from the airport to our hotel had the windows down and it felt fabulous! (and those of you who know me well understand how unusual that is!) We, of course, dumped our belongings, didn't even stop to go to the bathroom, and hit the ground running. We always spend the first night attending VIP events and receptions, and this trip was no different. Cranked out orders for a couple of our bigger vendors and called it a night - by only 9:30-ish, so we grabbed a late dinner (very late, considering it was past midnight our time).

The nice thing about the shows in California is that Pacific Time feel VERY good to someone like me. I'm a night owl. My ideal schedule would include sleeping from 1 or 2am until about 10 or 11am. So when we get up at 7:30 to get ready to go, it's like I've slept until 10:30 and I still feel GREAT! Of course, that really only works the first day or two and then you're on CA time, but it's still much easier than traveling EAST!

We spent our first full day as normal - racing from booth to booth to collect catalogs and order forms, see new product, take pictures, hear about show specials, and place the occasional order (we only do certain ones on the first day). We've got this process down pat. We're a well oiled machine. By the end of day Sunday, we had every catalog from every scrapbooking vendor at the show. We then left the convention center (in the dark) and took everything with us to dinner and worked around courses. We stayed until they basically ushered us out, then we found a table in the hotel bar (which was also closing) where they'd let us camp out until we were done. Each of us pulls from the stash of catalogs and proceeds to decide what we do and don't want to buy, will it sell, how much of it we can sell, if there's anything else out there like it, which is the better choice, etc, and then fill out the order form. It's a VERY tedious process, but again, exciting at the same time.

We had been lamenting the fact that the weather had been SO nice all day (or so we'd heard) and we hadn't even seen a minute of it, so we made the decision as a group to do whatever it took to get done as early as humanly possible the next day, possibly allowing us to leave the building while the sun was still shining. That meant staying up until every catalog had been poured over and every possible order form was filled out. Turned out that we hit that milestone at about 3:30am (6:30 our time - in fact, I got a text message from a South Bend news station that school was closed for the day, and I hadn't even gone to bed yet!). The girls went to bed and I finished up the computer side of things (posting pictures to our store's flickr account, posting on the store's blog to inform customer's to check out the pictures, and sending out an email for the store) until about 4:30-ish. Again, brutal (though the 3 or 4 Mountain Dews with dinner definitely helped), but worth it to walk into the 2nd day of the show so far ahead of normal.

Monday was spent dropping off orders and taking more pictures, but we finished early - a record for us - at about 2:30pm. We immediately raced back to the hotel, dumped our stuff and headed straight for the pool! We actually laid in the sun, poolside, for about 30 minutes - until the sun dipped below the Hilton across the street. It was the most spectacular sensation. Keep in mind, our kids had been home from school DUE TO BITTER COLD, BELOW ZERO TEMPS, and where we were it was literally 100 degrees warmer! I almost felt guilty. Almost.

We tied up some loose ends on Tuesday - didn't get done as early as we'd hoped - and spent another 20 minutes in the sun before our car came to pick us up to take us to the airport.

Some other highlights/memorable moments from this trip: the omelets, "we're hot, in California, in the dark", Julie's unusual walks, Jeri and the pump, delayed flights, a cancelled flight, the curb outside O'Hare, getting home a day late, the walk to the convention center, and many more.

Enjoy some more pictures from the trip!

Oh my goodness, I am seriously falling behind on this whole "keeping up the blog" thing! Seriously, how hard is it?!? Part of the problem, I will say, is that I don't feel like we've had a whole lot of exciting stuff going on around here lately. But there's still been stuff, and here it is:

Thursday - Home cleaning up until the kids got back from school. Homework and then to the mall for dinner with the McMullens, the Ruths, Mom, Katie, Steve and his girls. Quite a crew! After dinner the kids and I went over to the McMullens (with Debbie) to watch the season premier of LOST, which was INCREDIBLE!! We had loads of fun trying to figure out the mysteries, codes, secrets and plots. I can't WAIT to see where they take this show! JJ Abrams is a genius.

Friday - Another totally unnecessary snow day! Adam hung out with the kids for a while before meeting Tam and handing them off for the rest of the day. The kids got to spend time with their friends, playing in the snow, while I worked (bummer). Picked the kids up after and headed home for the night.

Saturday - Got up EARLY to meet Julie at work and drive downtown to do a short spot on WSBT about scrapbooking - specifically MEN scrapbooking (about things like football/Super Bowl, etc. - yeah, right!). I was back home by 8am and Jacob was already up and playing video games. Fed the kids and got them ready for ice skating. Adam took them so that I could go to work (another extra shift to go into "the fund"), and afterward they went to McDonald's for lunch with the McMullen's and Papa, and then back to the McMullen house so Adam could go to work. I picked them up and got them home for baths before dinner with the gang at Fazoli's and church. Rob talked about injustice and what we as a church are doing about injustices that are occurring locally, regionally and internationally. It really got me thinking about getting back to India soon... Afterward it was back to the McMullen's for some hanging out and to discuss the book we've been reading as a group - Sex God, by Rob Bell. Lots of heated discussion on these chapters, but man, it was fun!

Sunday - SLEPT TIL NOON (shameful, I know!) and then got up and made lunch for the kids and me (Adam was at work). Then we went grocery shopping - which might be the stupidest thing to do on Super Bowl Sunday! We did survive it, however, and got home in time to make some brownies and stuff for the get-together at the McMullen's that night (I'm starting to think that we should probably just move into their basement, as much time as we spend there!). The Verduins, Ruths, Leah Hudson, Jami's brother, Matt, Fred (papa) and I, along with our respective children, descended on their house for pizza around 5:30. After dinner, the men took over the family room and the big-screen HDTV, the kids went down in the basement to play, and the women took the kitchen. Adam got thereGreat conversation - had too much fun, and didn't see a single play of the game! Stayed WAY too late. Again.

Monday - Adam got the kids up and out for school - I slept in, again. Typical day off for me. Adam worked for a little while. Kids got home from school, did homework and then packed up for ice skating. From there we took the kids to the McMullen's for a double-date night - Amanda needed some $$ and was practically harassing me to babysit, so we let her! Tam, Daryl, Adam and I went to Outback for dinner, walked Barnes & Noble, had a mudslide at Hacienda (yum!), and went to CVS to grab some medicine for Ty and to get my passport photos taken (THAT was fun!) in preparation for the big trip in April. Good night with great friends.

Tuesday - Kids up and out to school, me to work. Things are exceptionally slow as we enjoy the calm before the storm. I leave, with Julie and Jeri, for California on Saturday and our biggest tradeshow of the year. Get to spend some serious money, and none of it mine. Now that IS fun!! Anyway, got home in time to get the kids off the bus. Homework was done quickly because Adam had big plans for the kids - tickets to the Hannah Montana 3-D Concert Movie Extravaganza with the McMullens! I stayed home and got some work done while the kids went out and had some serious fun with their dad. Good stuff. Home, dinner, bedtime.

Wednesday - (today) Work. Came home, homework, got the kids ready for ice skating. Adam took the kids to skating and I went back in to work (yet another extra shift!). Long day. About 12 work hours total. Ready to crash.