Untitled.

Authentic Relationships

2011-04-09T14:33:00.002-05:00

Just started this book, Authentic Relationships by Wayne Jacobsen & Clay Jacobsen. Three chapters in, and I'm challenged beyond belief and have underlined probably half of the book so far. I need to read this book one sentence at a time so that I can chew on each line and let it change me.
A couple of highlights from just the first chapter:

anyway

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People need help but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan,
a children's home in Calcutta

Isn't that good? But wait, there's more. Here, the book is talking about Zacchaeus, and the story of how he went to see Jesus in a crowded area, climbed a tree to be able to see better, and Jesus approached him and invited himself to Zacchaeus's house for lunch. This was incredible, because everyone hated Zacchaeus, a tax collector. Picking up in the book now, they write:

Zacchaeus had met someone who was truly focused on others--someone who took an interest in him without trying to manipulate him for his own purpose.

Zacchaeus had never seen anyone act that way before. The Romans used him to do their dirty work, and his own countrymen loathed him for it. He had learned long ago that to succeed in life he had to take care of himself even at the expense of others. But this approach to life had left him a lonely man. Jesus penetrated his loneliness with a simple invitation to lunch.

That was the only miracle Zacchaeus needed. As far as we know, he didn't see any blind eyes opened or any lepers healed that day. The simple acts of one anothering--an offer of lunch, an opportunity for a new friendship, and a few hours of conversation--rocked his entire world.

...Every encounter Jesus had was like that. He did not engage people for what he could get out of them, but for what He could give them out of God's life. Because he was not focused on himself, he was able to touch people with the deepest treasures of God's love. And that made all the difference.

Adventures in the Oklahoma wilderness.

2011-03-06T21:00:00.007-06:00

So, I woke up Saturday morning in the mood for an adventure. I spent the morning online, trying to find something interesting to do outside of the city. We headed east!

We stopped in Chouteau at the Amish Cheese House. They sell spices, candy, jellies, honey, canned goods, cheese, meats, etc. etc. It was very neat. We bought several things, and had lunch there...sandwiches on homemade bread with homemade (I think?) cheese. It was so delicious.

I wish I had a picture of our lunch. Delish.
From there, we continued east. We were on Highway 412. A few miles from Chouteau, 412 splits into turnpike and 412 Scenic Route. They run parallel to each other and join back up 30 miles later or so. So...Google maps told us to take the turnpike, but looking at our map, we're thinking that the scenic route is probably going to get us to the right place too, and hey, we're on an adventure, right?

According to Wikipedia, Scenic US-412 is one of only two scenic special routes in the country...the other is in Maryland. I don't really know what that means, but I believe it. I believe that there is no other place in the country quite like that 30 mile stretch. OK, maybe I'm being a little bit dramatic about that, but seriously, Caleb and I kept seeing things that just made us go, "Really??? Did you just see that?" For example.

Vacuum cleaners perched atop fence posts.

Pecan Grove Family Mobile Home Park.

We could've taken pictures about a dozen more oddities we saw along this road, but then we never would have gotten to....

Natural Falls State Park! Home of a 77-foot waterfall, accessible by a 3/4 mile hike through the woods. Fab.u.lous. Pretty much my idea of a perfect Saturday.

Stream below the waterfall.

The water was so pretty. Like, a dark blue-green, and pretty clear, actually.

Small waterfall along the stream.

The big, tall, pretty part of the waterfall.

Looking down at the bottom of the waterfall, from the top.

It was a very happy day. Oh, I forgot. While in Choteau (since this is the 3rd time I've written that name in this post, this is also the 3rd time in like 15 minutes that I've had to double check how to spell that name!!), we also stopped in this little...I guess you'd call it a flea market, but it was better than any flea market I've been to. Maybe all of the flea markets I've been to were just really picked over. There were tons of treasures in this place. Amazing. Came home with these antique blocks for my momma...

...If I can bring myself to give them up, that is! They are so cute.

Here are the goodies we brought home from the Amish store. Raspberry, peach, and apricot jams, noodles, pecan crunch (like peanut brittle), peach cider, jerky, dried parsley, poppyseeds, cream of tartar, cinnamon vanilla nut cappuccino, lemon cheesecake spread mix, cinnamon rolls, and cinnamon bread. Mmmm Mmmm.

And, last, I also came home with these silly things from that flea market place. Yellow cowboy boots? I think I've been in Oklahoma too long. :)

6th Consecutive Snow Day = Creativity.

2011-02-08T19:35:00.005-06:00

So, we've had this massive blizzard here in Oklahoma last week, with another 8ish inches of snow predicted for tonight/tomorrow morning. All this time in the house has found me cleaning, cooking, and watching TV. Today, it was time for something new!

I found inspiration and instructions here.

I made a yarn-wrapped wreath with felt flowers. Ta-da:

It took forEVER to wrap the wreath with the yarn, but it was worth it:

Making the felt roses was fun, although I kept burning my fingers with hot glue.

Close-up of the flowers (so cute, right? I want to make bunches of them!):

My friend Tricia came over today and spent part of the day crafting with me. She decoupaged (sp??) these letters...how adorable are they??? (even though they are OU :)

Ah...so fun! :)

Thoughts.

2010-10-14T15:36:00.006-05:00

I'm at home, sick, from school today with a yucky bug of some sort, so after a full day of sleeping and trying to recuperate, I thought a blog post was in order.
Things we've been up to lately, and thoughts I've been having lately.

Church-hunting. I love visiting different churches. I love belonging to a church family (of course), but I really love visiting other churches. It amazes me how I can walk into a place where no one knows me, and yet join with them in singing and prayer and feel an incredible sense of unity with strangers. As my mom says all of the time, and I find myself saying more and more often, Heaven will be good.
Speaking of feeling unity with total strangers...it's been a fun K-State football season for us. We found that a group of K-State alumni here in town meet at a local sports bar to watch games together. Haha...it feels like an un-awkward family reunion, with people we don't know.
Whenever we get stopped by people because of our purple apparel (which happens more often than we thought it would), it just sort of feels like we're talking to an old friend. I think it helps that K-State doesn't really have bandwagon fans...probably since this bandwagon isn't really going anywhere. Maybe that will change a little if K-State basketball lives up to the hype this season. Probably not, though. I don't know. I like our fans. I like sincere people...people who are sincere fans of any team...or anything, really. Sincerity is good. I think about this stuff a lot. I think about the things we are passionate about and what that says about us. Okay, done with that now.
More later.

Summertime!

2010-06-14T22:25:00.004-05:00

A few highlights from the last couple of weeks:

Conference realignment truths and rumors...what an emotional roller coaster. We're happy with where we're landing. Still in the Big 12, minus Colorado (who cares) and Nebraska (whatever).
Camping trip with friends from church...what a weekend! Aside from the humidity and two dozen bug bites I discovered last night, it was so much fun! Camped at Beaver's Bend State Park in Broken Bow, OK. Involved a lot of steak, a tiny raft, campfire envy, many trips to the "comfort stations," a lot of boat talk, and lots of great conversation and company.
First trip to Big Splash water park, resulting in first sunburn of the year. Why can I never remember/believe that the sun still burns, even on cloudy days??
Our church is meeting in homes this summer, while we prepare for new space in the fall. They met in our house a week ago, which was fun. It felt nice having people in our house...we need to invite people into our home more often!
The week before our church met in our house, I looked around at our kitchen and dining room, which was still mostly covered with the ugly wallpaper that the original owners put in. Awful. Awful. Awful. I peeled it, sanded the drywall, primed, and painted two coats of "water chestnut." It looks SO much better. I am so proud.
Spent lots of time with Miss Megan...at the splash park, watching movies, sidewalk art, getting Ocean Water from Sonic, painting nails, having sleepovers.
Next project is to unpack all of the boxes that didn't get unpacked when we moved. There are quite a few...and right now, they are occupying our spare bedroom. Someone needs to plan to come visit so that I get some motivation to get this bedroom cleared out! :) Any takers?

Bailey

2010-04-26T20:48:00.002-05:00

Bailey

Meet Bailey, the newest member of our little family. She entered our lives almost four weeks ago, and she is pretty much the greatest thing ever. She's now a little 15-week old beagle puppy, who loves her bed, loves chewing on everything, loves to lick bare toes, and loves to cuddle.

Of course, there are the not-so-good things about having a puppy. Although she hasn't had too many accidents, she really doesn't seem to be getting the whole potty-training thing. So, if you have any secrets, please let me know. Also...the chewing. She hasn't ruined too much yet, but she did chew through a lamp electrical cord and a video game controller cord. Annoying, but not devastating, I suppose. We have this bitter apple spray that is supposed to keep her from chewing stuff. It works really well, but I can't really go around spraying every single thing in our house that she's not supposed to chew on. Oh well. We just try to keep a close eye on her.

More pictures to come.

Wednesday!

2010-03-24T17:31:00.002-05:00

It's Wednesday, which means several happy things.

The week is over halfway over.
I'm about to leave for Journey Group, which is always wonderful.
K-State plays in the Sweet 16 tomorrow...which means I'll be wearing purple to school.
9 weeks from TODAY, I will officially be on my summer break.
Spring weather is HERE!

Spring break was fun...full of great visitors! Jennifer & Valisha (a couple of my old roommates at KSU) stopped by on their road trip to Texas. Jason, Susan and Amanda (3 of Caleb's siblings) were here for a few days, and my mom & brother were here for several more days! It was great...and they helped us work on our house a ton! We got the livingroom/entryway painted. Twice. After SOMEBODY got a coat of paint on it and then decided she hated the color... won't mention any names. Anyway, it's now a deep shade of green.
We also got our bedroom painted. It was an awful shade of lilac. It's now a nice shade of mocha. So, I still don't have any pictures to show you, but that's on my to-do list for tomorrow evening. We'll see if it actually happens. They're sitting on my camera, patiently waiting to be uploaded.

Okay, so this was a mostly pointless blog post, but I just felt happy about it being Wednesday. Later gater.

Neglected No More.

2010-03-06T15:35:00.003-06:00

Hello, my long-neglected blog. When I haven't blogged in like months, it gets harder and harder to do it, because I feel like when I do blog again it should be this really great post or else it's just a waste of everyone's time. Well, this isn't going to be a really great post, but I wanted to break the ice anyway. :)

So we bought a house. And we love it. And, we're diving right in, making it our own, making little changes...all before we've really even unpacked. I've unpacked the important things, but there is still a huge stack of boxes in an unused room that is still waiting for my time. It's so much more fun, though, to pick out paint chips and window treatments and light fixtures. So...I've let those things consume my free time. Today, we went to Lowe's and actually purchased our paint, new exterior doorknobs/locks, blinds, a couple of light fixtures, putty for the holes, etc, so now that I have stuff I can actually DO, I am afraid the moving boxes may be forced to wait even longer. Spring break is coming up here in a week, so I'm excited to vanquish some of the yucky wallpaper (hopefully) and get some pretty paint on the walls. So exciting.

This afternoon I put a new doorknob and deadbolt on our front door. I am so proud of myself. I feel like it makes the whole front of our house look better, but you probably can't even notice it.

I need to take pictures. I'm a lazy picture-taker. I don't take them enough. I will, though. Soon.

So, now that I've broken the weird--did I quit blogging?/do I have nothing to write about/what should I write about next--thing, I will feel less weird next time coming back and posting pictures of all our little home-makeover victories! :)

Also, my new kitten was born Thursday, March 4 (!!!), so here in about six weeks I will be very excited to show off my new friend!

Happy Saturday!

Revelation Song

2009-10-25T21:21:00.002-05:00

This song has been running through my mind for weeks now. I hear it almost every morning on my way to work, and I just can't get it out of my head. Not that I want to.

Revelation Song

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Holy, Holy is He
Sing a new song to him who sits on
Heaven's mercy seat

Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord God Almighty
Who was, and is, and is to come
With all creation I sing
Praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You

Clothed in rainbows of living color
Flashes of lightning rolls of thunder
Blessing and honor, strength and glory and power be
to You the only wise King

Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord God Almighty
Who was, and is, and is to come
With all creation I sing
Praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You

Filled with wonder, awestruck wonder
At the mention of your name
Jesus your name is power
Breath, and living water
Such a marvelous mystery
Yeah...

Holy, Holy, Holy
Is the Lord God Almighty
Who was, and is, and is to come, yeah
With all creation I sing
Praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You

Adventures...

2009-10-18T21:11:00.008-05:00

Our weekends recently have been so fun! I actually have taken some pictures, so I thought I could share. Several weekends ago I took my niece Grace out for a girls' night to the Secret Keeper Girl tour, which was so much fun! Here we are before the event:

Two weekends ago, we went to the Oklahoma State Fair. Hello baby piggies...

Chocolate-dipped cheesecake = A-MA-ZING.

Grown man in Disney's Cars hat, also amazing.

Hello, chicken.

Last weekend, we were planning on going camping, until WINTER decided to make an early debut. So, instead, we went camping in our living room! It was very fun. We set up the tent, ate our camping food, and sat in our camping chairs. Wish I had taken pictures of that, but I didn't.

This weekend was fall break at my school, and Caleb took Thursday and Friday off from work. We went down to Dallas for a nice long weekend away. First, we visited the Texas State Fair.

Next, we went to see the musical Mary Poppins. We were early, so we sat outside taking pictures.

Then, Caleb said, "Smile like Megan." Megan = 4-year old niece whose posed smiles look very forced.

Later, we went to our first NBA game, the Dallas Mavs vs. Detroit Pistons.

The Mavs had two retired jerseys hanging from the rafters...one of which belonged to a KSU alum! So, we thought that was pretty cool.

Of course, after this I stopped taking pictures. I'm terrible about taking pictures. The rest of our weekend looked like this:

Friday: sleeping in (yay) and shopping. We spent the morning/early afternoon at IKEA, and the late afternoon at an outlet mall. It was fun. We were mostly window shopping, but we did find some good deals and got to dream a little. We ate at Rainforest Cafe that evening, which was fun.

Saturday we went to Six Flags over Texas. Caleb and I have very different ideas of a fun day at a theme park. My idea of fun is to get there early, ride as many roller coasters as many times as possible in the amount of time that the park is open, and go home exhausted. Caleb's idea of fun is to sleep in, get there around noon, ride the following rides once: antique cars, canoe ride, and the train, and go home sometime around late afternoon. This is NOT an exaggeration. Honestly, those were the three rides he wanted to go on. We compromised. Lame. Next time, I need to go with a roller-coaster buddy. We left early, and I was a tad grouchy. However, the grouchiness dissolved with pizza and ice cream while listening to K-State trample Texas A&M. (Also helping the mood were the scores of KU, OU, and NU games...)

Today, Sunday, we visited some of Caleb's family down in Dallas. We went to church with them and enjoyed Mexican food before heading north.

I think life is going to slow down a little for a couple of weeks. We're settling in down here, anyway. It takes me a really long time to feel like a place is home, but this evening when we finally drove back into Tulsa it sortof kindof maybealittlebit felt like home. Maybe.

The nose knows.

2009-09-09T22:06:00.005-05:00

This little guy made his debut in my classroom today, and he made my classroom a much more pleasant place to be. :)

Tiredness

2009-08-20T20:38:00.003-05:00

Extreme tiredness has set in.

This has been my first full week of corralling 160ish 6th-7th graders and trying to teach them a thing or two about subjects and predicates in the mean time.

...and I am utterly sleepy! I got home last night and fell asleep, woke up for an hour or so, then went back to bed, slept 8 hours, and woke up still tired.

I love school, I love the other teachers, I love the kids (most of them...no, let me take that back. I love them all, and I like most of them...), but by the end of the day I just want to stop talking/thinking/making decisions and just EXIST. I was trying to teach my students about linking verbs and state-of-being verbs this week (a hard concept to grasp at first--how are words like "be" "am" "are" "was" "is" etc...verbs?), but after this week I feel like I have grasped state of being verbs in a whole new way. I get home and I want to just "be". Not DO anything, just BE. The act of "being" is enough action for me after a crazy-full day with these wonderful, lovable, squirmy, crazy pre-adolescents!

I just didn't realize how exhausting it would be. Sleepy...sleepy...sleepy.

The good news is, I'm not emotionally exhausted yet! I wake up sleepy but excited to go to school, plan lessons, grade papers (for the most part), and watch the "Ah-ha!" moments when a sweet little face goes from being puzzled to being master of the English language. Love it. Love it. Love it!

Cute moment of the week:
First day of school. 6th graders wandering the halls, scared, trying to find their classes.
On most of my students' printed schedules, it has their English teacher as "Ms. STAFF," because they hadn't hired me yet when the schedule was printed. So, several times throughout the day I had students coming up to me saying, "Umm, excuse me. Are you Miss Staff? Because my sheet says I'm supposed to be in Miss Staff's class." It was hard not to laugh, but you just couldn't, because they were so genuinely concerned about getting to wherever they needed to go to find Miss Staff. So cute.

Speaking of sleep...I'm going to go get some. Happy almost Friday!

One year ago,

2009-08-09T15:38:00.002-05:00

I love him so much more now than I did then, which I didn't think was possible. We thank the Lord for a wonderful year of life and love, and pray for many more years to come!

Lately...

2009-08-05T22:04:00.007-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, our friends Robbie, Gail, Sarah and Jason came to visit and see the musical Wicked with us. We had an amazing time, and while Robbie & Gail went off for an evening to celebrate their anniversary, Caleb and I got to spend some quality time with a couple of our favorite kiddos...

Cuteness.

A few days later, we had some other friends from Manhattan come down to see Wicked and stay with us. We went to the Tulsa aquarium, which I hadn't been to yet. Loved it!

And, finally, I have a job! I'm the newest addition to the staff at Glenpool Middle School in Glenpool, Oklahoma, a suburb to the south of Tulsa.

I want to tell the whole story of how the job came about, but it's probably too long for a blog post. If you see me, please ask me about it, because it's a good story. Basically it can be summed up by saying that the Lord is absolutely faithful and absolutely better at orchestrating minute details than I could ever be. After months of searching and applying for every English opening I could find, this pretty much fell in my lap, thanks to a few...no, make that SEVERAL people who spoke up for me!

I'm thrilled...it's a 6th & 7th grade position, and I will be teaching writing & grammar...my passion in language arts! I do need to brush up on my grammar...I'm going to pull out the old A Beka textbooks. *grin* I'm a little nervous about the sixth-grader part, but only because I haven't been in a class with kids that young before. It will be an adventure! I report for new teacher orientation tomorrow morning.

A couple pictures of my classroom... it's very much still in process. School starts next Thursday!

My corner (note the K-State football and basketball posters...)

The front of the room...

Far side of the room...

Okay, so it's not that exciting yet, but it's a start! More to come when it's all cutesified.

I like lists.

2009-07-13T21:23:00.004-05:00

Things I like about this new life in Oklahoma:

We live close to a beautiful walking/biking trail!

Quik Trip on nearly every street corner—49 cent diet mountain dew and yummy taquitos.

Wearing purple in the land of maroon and orange.

Caleb’s brother and his family being nearby.

There’s a dollar theater in town, although I usually just want to watch movies on the couch with my hubby.

Caleb having a job where he gets off at the same time each day.

Things I don’t like about this new life in Oklahoma:

It’s been too hot the last few weeks to use the walking/biking trail.

Lack of teaching jobs.

Roads that aren’t free to drive on!

Not feeling like home / not having friends here yet.

This summer, I’ve enjoyed:

A visit from Jason and Susan.

Having the nieces over for a slumber party.

Having my mom come visit!!

DVR.

Hours upon hours of alone time. [Not sure if this qualifies as something I’ve enjoyed or not, but it’s been unusual, anyway.]
Participating in a ladies Bible study with my sister-in-law at her church.

Doing my own “personal investigation” (via books and the internet) into the Nicole Brown - Ron Goldman murders…Did O.J. do it? I have made up my mind as to what I think happened…

Trusting God with the big stuff, and trying to trust Him with the small stuff.

Visiting a very unusual church.

Sending and receiving lots of postcards from all over the world via postcrossing.com

Upcoming events I can't wait for:

Amanda coming for a visit!

Robbie, Gail, Sarah and Jason coming for a visit / seeing Wicked!!!

Finding out what the school year holds for me.

Oklahoma, U.S.A.

2009-06-04T19:26:00.002-05:00

Hello! I'm alive!

We got all our boxes moved into our apartment down here last Monday, and we spent last week with my family in Branson. This week, Caleb started his new job, and I have been slowly chipping away at the mounds of boxes.

We don't have internet yet...so I'm here at the library. As soon as we get it, I will have lots of pictures to post from this whirlwind of a month we just made it through! Now, back to those boxes...

Glad he didn't bring home old cauliflower boxes.

2009-05-18T22:11:00.003-05:00

Caleb went to the grocery store this morning to pick up some old boxes for us to pack for moving. They gave him old apple boxes. We opened a couple of them and this is what we found:

Apples!! These, and about a dozen more granny smith apples! So exciting! They must have been store-rejects because they were pretty bruised up, but that didn't stop me from avoiding packing to use them in...

apple pie

and apple butter.

Yum! Thank you grocery store for the great moving boxes and the great apples!

We'll take one Tank, please.

2009-05-18T09:58:00.004-05:00

First of all, we are planning on getting a cat sometime this summer for three reasons:
1) Our apartment allows pets.
2) I love cats.
3) I have an amazing husband who doesn't like cats, but is letting me get one anyway.

So here's how all of this happened:

Alyssa over at Hardboiled Integrity (great blog, by the way--I highly recommend it) recently wrote about her own kitty that she got from the city's animal shelter. This reminded me of my own plans to find a kitty once in Tulsa, so last night I started looking up Tulsa animal shelters and found listings with pictures of cats who needed new homes. Needless to say, I spent a good chunk of time perusing the cat section. This made Caleb impatient, as he wanted me to go watch a movie with him. So, to appease the cat-hater in the household, I told him we could look at dogs for awhile. (Even though we've agreed that we are NOT getting an indoor dog because they too high-maintenance for us)

As we were looking at dogs, we discussed different breeds and which ones we liked/disliked. We found that I strongly disliked pugs and Caleb strongly disliked chihuahuas. But then we came across this little guy.

Umm...adorable, no?!?! Turns out he's a chihuahua/pug mix! Ironic, right? Well, we're in love. Caleb wants to name him Tank.

Unfortunately, Tank is only 4 months old, and our apartment complex says dogs need to be at least a year old before they can come live with us. With a face that cute, Tank surely won't remain unclaimed for another 8 months (nor would we wish that on him). But seriously, how precious is he?

Not my cup of tea.

2009-05-10T16:55:00.002-05:00

I wish I had remembered my camera cord. I have so many great pictures!

It's been fun, but I really don't like the city. This trip has rid me of any desire I might have had to ever live in a city. I really do not like it. (I don't think Tulsa counts as a city. I think I will like it.)

That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed visiting. It was pretty great to see the NY Stock Exchange building; the Tiffany's that the scene from Sweet Home Alabama was shot in; the Statue of Liberty; the place where George Washington took the oath of office; and ground zero (especially ground zero). But, visiting is enough for me. Before I go home, though, there are a few things left to look forward to: shopping in Chinatown, going to the top of Rockefeller Center, and Tuesday night we are going to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway!

P.S. I miss CRC too much.

Rambling.

2009-05-07T16:04:00.003-05:00

I would just like to note that two weeks ago I said that our three favorites on American Idol were Danny, Kris and Adam. And I just wanted to say how excited we are that they are the top 3! Woot! Well, actually, I really don't like Adam. But I didn't think there was any way he was going home.

I am currently sitting in my Carissa-friend's dorm room, chillaxing while she's in a review session for her last final.
So far, I have done the following:

Cried when leaving Caleb behind. (This whole week away from each other thing is new for us)
Flew here on a really teeny tiny plane. It was cloudy most of the flight, but at one point the clouds cleared and I saw one of the great lakes.
Found Carissa--she was the really tall one...not too hard to find.
Felt overwhelmed by the noise in the city.
Felt overwhelmed by the thousands of people around me.
Felt overwhelmed by the number of cars honking at other cars.
Felt overwhelmed by the fact that we were on the subway, which was under the road, which still baffles me.
Stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all the other people on the subway.
Really stuck out like a sore thumb walking up Fordham Road in the Bronx...felt extremely overwhelmed by the types of people I saw here.
Only saw one other white person amongst the thousands of people on that road.
Just generally felt overwhelmed.
Came back to Carissa's campus, where I felt much safer than I did on the scary road.
Took a nap.
Helped Carissa with a paper.
Took a shower, because the airplane, bus, subway and Fordham road made me feel gross.

I'm such a baby.
That, and just such a small-town kind of girl. I think I'm okay with that. Carissa says that after a few days I won't feel so overwhelmed by it all, but I'm not buying it. She also says that downtown Manhattan feels much safer than the street we walked up today. It had better, or I will have a very tense week. :)

Tonight we're going down into the city.
Alright, I'll try not to post again 'til I have pictures to post! Wait, I think I forgot my camera cord. Yep, I did. Nevermind. I will be posting again without pictures, but I will at least try to take some pictures so that I have some to post eventually.

I'm rambling.

You crowd, you cramp, you're still the champ...

2009-05-06T10:48:00.002-05:00

I'm leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for New York City to visit my good friend Carissa. I'm so excited, but sad to be leaving my hubby behind for a week.

The slipper slide into summer has begun!

Yesterday: last day of student teaching!
Tomorrow: Go to New York
After that: Graduation
After that: Caleb leaves for a week for training in Arkansas :(
Meanwhile: My birthday/Jason's birthday! And saying goodbye to Jas for the summer.
Meanwhile: I pack up all our STUFF for moving.
Then: Moving day!
After that: Mini-vacation with my parents in Texas!
After that: Caleb begins job, and I begin summer of freedom.

That's a lot to cram into four weeks, but it's (almost) all fun/exciting/happy.
Hopefully I can update this while I'm in New York...I'll be taking lots of pictures!

101 Update

2009-05-01T15:32:00.002-05:00

I'm so looking forward to the summer. It's my first summer since 7th grade that I haven't had a job and I am thrilled! But I am not going to sit around being a bum all summer. After we move, I want to spend a big chunk of time making our new apartment a home (an organized one!). I have lots of ideas of things I want to do with my time, but in addition to everything else, I really want to make some headway on my 101 in 1001 things list. Speaking of which, I have made some progress over the last 5 months:

#7. Go to a play/musical.
I took Caleb to see A Christmas Carol at the KC Rep theater the day before Christmas eve. It was awesome!

#8. Go to Nelson's Landing.
A couple of weeks ago we went to Nelson's Landing with our friends Mitch and Elise. Owned by the family of Jordy Nelson, beloved K-State football player, we have wanted to visit Nelson's Landing ever since we have been in Manhattan. The food wasn't terribly special, but it was a fun little trip to Leonardville with our friends.

#25. Plan a surprise trip for Caleb.
I surprised Caleb over Christmas break. Just an overnight trip to KC to see that musical, eat at Cheesecake factory and finish a little Christmas shopping.

#61. Try a new hairstyle.
I chopped off my hair right before student teaching, and chopped it even more last week.

#72. Accumulate at least 25 young adult novels.
I have 5/25 so far: Twilight Saga and "Night"

#96. Send 5 postcards through www.postcrossing.com.
I did this in March--it was great! I have received 5 postcards back from all over the world. You should really try this, it's great fun!

That's all so far. I hope to get more done this summer. I really like my list, but there are some things on it that I think will be impossible for me. Like giving blood and trying sushi. Yuck. What was I thinking?

We love American Idol.

2009-04-23T07:34:00.005-05:00

Caleb's favorite all along has been Adam. I think he's alright, but I guess I'm not a huge fan of his voice. It's really high and I think he's really feminine. That's just me.

My favorite all along has been Danny. Of course, I fell in love as soon as I heard his story--his wife died just a few weeks before he tried out for AI, and he just seems so genuine and fun.

Kris...he snuck up on us these last few weeks. Depending on the moment, we like him even better than Danny and Adam. We'll see...I think it will really come down to who performs the best on the right night.

Or maybe Adam already has this in the bag. That's another option. :)

Anyway, we love the top 5. They are definitely our favorite. Hoping these three guys will be the top three. :)

Images from americanidol.com

Yum!

2009-04-22T17:40:00.000-05:00

See above picture for the most delicious thing we've eaten in the last...well, it's been awhile.

We bought Gail's Peaches and Cream pie at the Challenge Auction Sunday night, and it was simply delicious. It didn't last long around here...

Hilarity ensues.

2009-04-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

My kind of forecast.

2009-04-15T16:37:00.006-05:00

noaa.gov

Jesus has risen! And so has my blog.

2009-04-14T15:55:00.008-05:00

Whew! Sunday, we celebrated Christ's resurrection from the dead, so in the spirit of Easter, I am officially resurrecting this blog from the death it has been sitting in during the first four months of 2009!

Alright, I'm going to hit the high and low lights of the semester. And, because I'm sitting here right now trying to think of things, I'm sure I will forget a lot. Let's see.

Caleb graduated. (Okay, technically that was last semester, but I'm really behind.)

I made 46 11th graders read The Great Gatsby. In doing so, I made about 42 enemies.
My Grandpa passed away suddenly in February. He fed me my first ice cream...and many, many more servings of ice cream over the years.
Memories of Grandpa include: raspberry bushes, a strawberry patch, corn patch, picking green beans, raking leaves, jumping in his compost pile, picking cherries, scary dog in the backyard, desk with lots of nick-knacks that could be used to play "doctor" with my cousins, calculators, his laugh, patches from the army, stories from the Depression, comics, rack rummy, scrabble, his blue chair, tennis balls hanging in garages, green Dodge truck, falling asleep ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE, the smell of that truck..., trips to the post office, picking up pecans, funny faces, his hands, Christmas lights that are up all year, painting the house, finding shells in his gravel driveway, the blue school bus, rose bushes, him bringing me his yellow roses, riding in the wheelbarrow, riding bikes on the sidewalk, yellow sandy stuff in my socks to keep away the chiggers, and the story he told over and over about the time little Amy caught a fish and asked grandpa to put it in her pocket, and the squealing sound she made when he actually put it in her pocket

...We will see him again.
Caleb accepted a job offer in Tulsa! He will be working on aviation and transportation projects. We're excited! Here's what his office looks like from the outside...
We went to Tulsa over Spring Break and looked for apartments. We found one, and we had a good time driving around the city. My favorite thing about Tulsa:

There are QuikTrips everywhere. I love QuikTrips.

I just adore rain and storms. We've had a couple so far this spring. I took pictures during one of them. Angry clouds:

I took this after the rain. I really like it, but I'm not sure why.

We went home over Easter. This is home. Doesn't it just look like home?

Love it.

Tag!

2009-01-01T19:22:00.003-06:00

A month ago, Chris and Anna both tagged me to write six random things about myself. So, I'm slow in getting to it, but I didn't forget! Here we go...

1. I love cemeteries. No, I'm not into creepy-crawly scary things, I just love LOVE love an afternoon spent walking through a "new" cemetery. I love reading tombstones, finding out about what was most important to the person whose shell is buried there. I like to be reminded that this side of the grave is only a tiny blip in eternity.

2. I'm a big fan of Postsecret. Two of my postcard/secrets are published in the most recent Postsecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets.

3. As of Christmas break, I am officially addicted to the Twilight series. They are so good! Shallow, but addicting.

4. Caleb and I hope/plan to adopt a child from overseas someday.

5. If I hadn't majored in English education, I would have majored in interior design, math education, graphic design or statistics.

6. I love playing board games. My favorites...Apples to Apples, Beyond Balderdash and Loaded Questions.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! Caleb and I have been so busy--graduation, finals, Christmas, seeing both families, New Years... We're just now getting back into the swing of things. Caleb is back to work roofing here in Manhattan, and I start my student teaching experience Monday! Hopefully here in the next couple of days I'll find time to blog about the recent events in our lives. Happy New Year!

2008-12-17T23:26:00.002-06:00

-C.S. Lewis

I Am Second

2008-12-12T17:36:00.003-06:00

Two posts in the same day--crazy, I know.

All this one is, though, is letting you know about my new favorite web site:
www.iamsecond.com.

It's full of short videos of people sharing their stories. From Joe Gibbs to Jason Castro to a guy with a sex addiction to a girl who had an eating disorder. It's people, being real about where they were, where they are now and the fact that they are not first. They're second.

I spent hours the other night watching every video and re-watching my favorites. You should check it out. You might find your story somewhere in there.

NBAF and priorities.

2008-12-12T17:03:00.006-06:00

National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility. NBAF.

I'm pretty excited about this. NBAF is leaving Plum Island and making its way inland. Most people I've talked to are either apathetic about it, or they haven't heard of it. Well, in my personal opinion (as well as the opinions of a whole lot of other people) this is huge news. HUGE.

"The most important economic development in Kansas since railroads."

"K-State and the city of Manhattan are poised to be the epicenter of a Silicon Valley of animal health for this state, America and the world."

"This event will go down in our state's history as one of Kansas' finest hours."

I feel like this is just huge for this community, and we don't even know it. I keep bringing it up in conversations, "Have you heard about NBAF? Can you believe it's coming to Manhattan?" I've been getting a lot of blank stares.

Admittedly, I'm sure I would have a blank stare, too, if I hadn't been in on the anticipation over the last two years at my job at the veterinary college. (I know, I'm a nerd--it's not just a job to me, I'm really interested in it.) Two years ago, we were one of 12 sites being considered, so I guess most of us thought it wouldn't happen. But we knew it would be incredible for us if it did... We watched it narrow to five cities, and now to one--US. It doesn't seem possible. I really feel like this is going to turn Manhattan upside down in a lot of ways over the next twenty years. And, that excites me. And makes me want to tell everyone.

*sigh* The excitement, and others' apathy, has made me realize my lack of excitement/action/proactivity about the far better news of Jesus Christ (one who turned not only Manhattan upside down, but the world). People all over are walking around, either not knowing about Him, or not caring, and do I get on the shuttle, excited to mention Jesus to the stranger next to me? Not quite. I bring up NBAF.

Hmm...Jesus, make my love and motivation for You outweigh and overwhelm my passion and love for anything else.

I'll be talking less about NBAF in the coming days.

For your viewing pleasure.

2008-12-09T22:33:00.001-06:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sure to make you teary-eyed.

2008-12-07T09:12:00.003-06:00

Our first Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorating...disaster.

2008-12-02T21:24:00.016-06:00

In a complicated turn of events, my mom was unable to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year. So I got to do it! It was pretty fun, preparing so much food! I was exhausted by the end of it all, but the cooking itself was great fun. PLUS, I get to mark off my first item in my 101 in 1001 challenge!

# 14: Learn how to cook a turkey.

I cooked one! I put it in a maple-flavored brine overnight and cooked it Wednesday morning. It smelled so good in the oven. I couldn't really taste the flavor of the brine in the turkey, but it was supposedly makes it more tender. I didn't notice that, either. Well, anyway, it was good. Just nothing different than your average turkey, I would say.

So, I don't really know how to carve a turkey...
I just sort of dug in and started chopping off anything that looked like meat. ??? Probably not the right way to do it. *shrugs* Oh well. It tasted good!

Here's the insides of my caramel-apple pie. Doesn't that look ridiculous? There's a layer of apple pie filling, a layer of streusel, a layer of caramels, then another layer of apple pie filling, streusel, and caramel. More than 800 calories/slice. I know, I know, you aren't supposed to think about caloric intake on Thanksgiving, but seriously--800 calories? I only had a bite. I don't really like apple pie anyway.

I tried a new recipe for pumpkin pie that I found through Food Network. I HIGHLY reccommend it. I don't like pumpkin pie, but this stuff...is amazing. It has cream cheese, and it just tastes really different from regular pumpkin pie. The texture is awesome. You can find that super recipe here.

Gail's famous sweet potato casserole was a hit!

I also tried corn casserole, which I had never made. Yum. And of course, typical Thanksgiving goodness--mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade rolls (Which didn't really turn out right. They were really flat), pecan pie bars and cranberry sauce from a can (the BEST!).
It was a fun adventure, but I don't think I'll feel the urge to cook that much again for awhile. Here's my family eating:

After lunch, we played board games and watched football/napped. I love board games. My favorite is Apples to Apples:

I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures the rest of the time we were at home.

Friday, we celebrated my mom's 50th birthday with chicken pot pie, ice cream cake, ping pong and more board games, this time Pictionary and Beyond Balderdash. (By the way, if anyone knows how to draw Sweden in Pictionary, let me know. I'm clueless.)

Saturday we went to Iola to Caleb's grandma's Thanksgiving celebration. We went to his sister Susan's house that night with Jason, Amanda, Jeff, Beth and Debbie for homemade pizza, Guitar Hero and movies: Get Smart and Flightplan.

Sunday we went to the Baptist church in Garnett, where we really enjoyed the sermon and hugs from friends we hadn't seen since the wedding. After spending a couple hours with Caleb's parents and getting graduation plans ironed out, we headed home to Manhattan. The mission: to buy a Christmas tree and decorate our space for Christmas before we started the hectic week ahead.

Well, we were mostly successful. You can't see it too well, but after several hours wrestling with the stupid tree and tree stand, we got it to stand up (crooked, but it was upright!) and we decorated with lights and ornaments and...well, it was beautiful. See?

Nothing fantastic, but it felt so Christmasy. And so...ours. It was wonderful.

Was.

We finished, drank eggnog and ate cookies, read a Christmas devotional and settled in on our futon to watch Elf. We slept on our futon after the movie was over...until around 2 AM, when we awoke to the loudest noise. Our beautiful tree crashed down onto the tiles, breaking lots of glass ornaments. It was the saddest thing. Really. It's pretty depressing. Our beautiful tree is now leaned against the wall, waiting for Caleb to have the time to patiently spend another few hours helping it to stand upright again. So sad.

And, that's my story! Two weeks 'til Caleb graduates! One month till I'm Mrs. Coltrane to dozens of juniors at Manhattan High School! Exciting times!

Mission: 101 Things in 1001 days

2008-11-11T14:29:00.009-06:00

Alright, the mission is to accomplish this list of 101 things in the next 1001 days. It's a project that lots of bloggers have done and blogged about, and I'm jumping in! I being Amy Jo. Caleb is intrigued by this project and wants to help me accomplish my goals, but he is wholly unsupportive of my goals to teach him to whistle and to get him to come to our high school reunion.

I will document my progress here on our blog [we just got a new camera, so i can take pictures!]. You can find more details at the home of the 101 in 1001 project here.

Begin date: Nov. 11, 2008
End date: Aug. 10, 2011

>Other Places<
1. Go overseas somewhere.
2. Take Caleb to the ocean.
3. Take Caleb to a Chiefs game.
4. Go camping.
5. Go to a concert.
6. Go to a national park.
7. Go to a play/musical.
8. Go to Nelson's Landing.
9. Go to a drive-in movie.
10. See a comedy show.
11. Visit the Manhattan Zoo.

>In the kitchen<
12. Learn to make raspberry jam.
13. Learn to make apple butter.
14. Learn how to cook a turkey.
15. Make homemade pizza.
16. Make homemade salsa.
17. Make orange julius.
18. Make homemade eggnog.
19. Make homemade alfredo sauce.
20. Make crepes.
21. Decorate a big cake.

>Relationships<
22. Write a personal letter every week for 10 weeks.
23. Send birthday cards to each niece and nephew.
24. Send care packages to our siblings in college.
25. Plan a surprise for Caleb.
26. Invite some nieces/nephews to come stay with us.
27. Spend a day of quality time with my mom.
28. Spend a day of quality time with my dad?

>Things I've never done/tried<
29. Try sushi.
30. Grow my own lettuce.
31. Write a letter to an author who has inspired me.
32. Get a massage.
33. Geo caching.
34. Get a pedicure.
35. Watch a scary movie.
36. Have a garage sale.
37. Give blood (??? scariest thing on this list for me.)
38. Watch the British version of the Office.
39. Improve blogging--participate in Sunday Scribblings for 3 months.
40. Send Christmas cards/letters.
41. Submit an article for publication. (besides through the College of Vet. Med.)
42. Write a letter to the editor.
43. Watch an Indiana Jones movie.
44. Learn how to give good massages.
45. Sell something besides a textbook on EBay.
46. Send a fruit/veggie via USPS.

>Things I've never succeeded at<
47. Get an indoor plant. Keep it alive.
48. Sort through all the STUFF I own, get rid of most of it.
49. Take daily vitamins for one month.
50. Import all my Cd's into ITunes.
51. Create an address book.
52. Teach Caleb to whistle.
53. Clean entire apartment--top to bottom.
54. Find lipstick that I like.
55. Convince Caleb to go to our high school reunion.

Just for me:
56. Read the whole Bible.
57. Get a pet
58. Make a wedding album
59. Watch the sunrise.
60. Watch the sunset.
61. Try a new hairstyle/color.
62. Give up pop for one month.
63. Wear high heels with jeans.
64. Play in the rain.
65. Ride a horse.
66. Lose 20 pounds.
67. Memorize a chapter of the Bible.
68. Watch a documentary.
69. Go to a Christian conference of some kind.
70. Go tubing or try water skiing.
71. Read something C.S. Lewis.
72. Accumulate at least 25 young adult novels.
73. Pay off at least half of our student loans.

>Buy<
74. a camcorder.
75. funky pasta.
76. a fire-proof safe.
77. a complete outfit purchased from thrift stores.
78. a piece of original artwork.
79. an ant farm.
80. a pair of boots.
81. a unique pair of earrings.
82. a sweet "English teacher"ish poster for my classroom.
83. a new board game.
84. a GPS.

>Creative stuff<
85. Learn how to take good pictures (buy a how-to book, something)
86. Send more secrets to Postsecret
87. Write a poem.
88. Paint a picture.
89. Create an interesting wall in our apartment/house/somewhere we live.
90. Participate in Project 365 (well, try at least 5 days/week), post pictures to the blog.
91. Top to bottom--decorate the living room.
92. Create a sweet top for our coffee table.
93. Make a flower arrangement.
94. Make a K-State wall/collage in my classroom.

Widening the lens:
95. Send a Christmas Shoebox
96. Send 5 postcards through www.postcrossing.com
97. Buy something off of a stranger's Amazon wish list.
98. Sponsor a child.
99. Make a friend from Nepal.
100. Meet my neighbors.
101. Do a service project.

Uh...huh?

2008-10-07T14:42:00.002-05:00

Long time, no post. The weeks have been running together lately.

School, football, sleep, work, cook, hang out with friends...

However, the last few days have been more interesting, I suppose you could say.

>Last week our hard drive crashed. So, no computer for awhile. And of course I didn't have anything backed up so there went about 15 months-worth of photos, lesson plans, papers and music. I was pretty frustrated for a few days, but I'm getting over it.

>We spent the weekend in Tulsa with several of Caleb's siblings...SO great! Love my in-laws.

>AND, our wedding pictures are finished! Yay! You can view them here. That's only 100 or so of the 800+ he gave us, so if you're ever in the mood to see more, I would love to show you. And I'll probably also make an album or two on Facebook. And a few on here sometime this week.

For now...

Good News!

2008-09-12T08:26:00.004-05:00

First, Gail found a solution to my spoon problem. The spoon with a hole in the middle is:

"Ideal for stirring soups, stews, sauces, and more. Pointed end allows you to scrape the corners of the pot. Hole makes stirring through thick sauces easy and smooth."

Ah ha! Makes sense!

Second item of good news, is that Apple just announced their 4th Generation of IPods, and they are now making YELLOW Ipod Nanos! This is exciting! Not that I need an IPod--it annoys me that they come out with a new generation every year, but I am excited about the yellow.

And, third item of good news is that it's raining. And it's going to keep raining. I love rain.

This, that and the other.

2008-09-09T14:35:00.000-05:00

It's only the third week of school, and I already have gone almost three weeks without posting on here. Oops.

Today is our one-month anniversary! Yay! Caleb celebrated this morning by bringing me pancakes in bed--yum.

I help write the vet school's monthly newsletter, Lifelines. This month, Joe, my boss, put in a news blurb and photo from our wedding! You can view that part here: http://www.vet.k-state.edu/depts/development/lifelines/0809.htm#Ticker

So, the first two weeks of cooking in our apartment didn't go so well. I would wait till we were hungry to start cooking, then I wouldn't know what to make or what ingredients I needed. So, we'd end up looking through cookbooks and recipe cards, running to the grocery store, cooking, then eating around 9 or so. *sigh*

For the time being, I've discovered my solution, and so far, it's working great! It's http://www.e-mealz.com/. They send you a week's worth of meals and recipes, and the grocery list you need to cook all of those meals. You can choose the store you want to shop at, and they plan your meals around it--so, one trip to the grocery store during the weekend, and we're set with meals for the week. So far, it's seriously saved me a ton of time. You do have to pay a little, $15 for three months, but I decided it was worth a try. Last night we had pepperoni loaf (not the most appetizing title, but really delicious, actually) and tonight it's Swedish meatballs. I even made the meatballs ahead of time. What a little Martha Stewart I am.

In other kitchen news, I am in a quandary. Did I spell that right? Quandery? I have no idea. Spellcheck says both are right. Whatever. I have this utensil. It looks like this:What on Earth is this thing? I've asked--several people, and no one knows! It's a spoon/spatula thing with a hole in it. Help! Does anyone know what this is?

And, lastly, the Wildcat football team is dominating no-name football teams by obscene margins. We endured the rain and the chilly weather Saturday night for over four hours to watch us bring home a decisive 69-10 win over Montana State Saturday and a 45-6 win over North Texas the week before. Let's hope we're actually good this year, and not just good against no-name schools. I'll keep you posted. Go CATS!

School is here!

2008-08-25T15:52:00.001-05:00

Today was Caleb and my's last first day of school. Finally. After 18 years, next fall we won't be starting school. Well, he won't. I will, but then again I'll be the teacher.

This morning before my class I picked up a Q-card and a coupon book, my two essential first day of class items, so I knew the day was overall going to be a success.

I also picked up my ICAT t-shirt, helped a freshman find her class, and sat through an introduction to British literature 2 class, as well as worked for 6.5 hours. So, an extremely successful day, I believe.

Now if I can just figure out what to make for dinner...

And so, it begins.

2008-08-24T14:44:00.001-05:00

We're back, unpacked, and we finally have Internet. Apparently my version of Vista had a problem that the IT desk at K-State had never run in to. Great. They fixed it for me, though, after four days and four trips to the help desk. I am absolutely in love with our little apartment. It's...really small, but it's cute!

The wedding day was amazing...honestly, it was a blur. I'm excited to get pictures back from it so I have proof that yes, it did indeed take place. Okay, so I already have a few from my bridesmaids.Many more to come, but those are a couple of my favorite snapshots so far.

We enjoyed our honeymoon. Spent three nights in Tulsa, just kind of hanging out and checking out the city (we plan to move there next summer). Then we spent three nights at a cabin on Lake Tenkiller, a really big lake southeast of Tulsa. It was nice, relaxing. We watched a lot of Olympics, mostly Michael Phelps and the women's gymnastics team. We also rented a boat and took a picnic lunch out on the lake one afternoon.

Both of our brothers made it to Manhattan this weekend. We're excited to have family in town.
School officially starts tomorrow. I like Manhattan so much better during the summer when students are gone. Lines are long everywhere and traffic increases by at least 60%. Oh well. It's our last year here, and we're going to make it great!

I'll try to get some pictures taken of our apartment soon. That or you should just come visit and see it for yourself!

Update coming soon!

2008-08-20T17:31:00.000-05:00

Well, we're married! We're back from the honeymoon, and we have most of the business side of things taken care of. Changing your name is kind of hard work!

We don't have internet at our apartment, so once we do...a big update with pictures is coming soon!

Hello World!

2008-08-03T19:27:00.000-05:00

Welp, here we are--Caleb and Amy Jo on the 'net. You found us.

Just wanted to touch base so there's something on the site before we handed out our wedding programs telling you all that this was our blog site, only to have you get here and find an empty page.

We're only six days away from the big day! The last year has flown...and dragged on...at the same time. Well, whatever the last year has been like, we're less than 140 hours away from man and wife.

Plans have gone smoothly. By now we just want it to all be over so we can get on with life!

So anyway, welcome to our site! We hope to update often with news, thoughts and pictures.

See you soon!

Caleb & Amy Jo

Testing testing...

2008-05-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

1.2.3...