Thankful Thursdays 5/27/2011

391 Friends who want to camp out
392 falling asleep to the sound of cicadas
393 finding another awesome place to watch the sunset
394 kindergarteners
395 coworkers who care about each other enough that they get emotional at going away parties
396 an awesome Sunday night concert at church
397 answered prayers after a really long time
398 packing
399 finishing up everything at work that needs to be done before vacation
400 heading out of town before the storms rolled in
401 generous people who let me stay overnight while they are away
402 neighbors who stop by to check on me
403 awkward moments with single guys in their mid 20s
404 time alone with the Lord while driving
405 West Virginia mountains
406 West Virginia rest areas
407 hanging out with a friend in Philly
408 Pei Wei
409 Rita's Water ice

410 target
411 double coupons
412 great gas mileage

She Wanted a Truck

Back in the fall of 2000 my parents were in the United States visiting, I was a sophmore in college, and it was determined that it was time for me to purchase my first car.
What I really wanted was a purple Toyota Tacoma.
I had a list of reasons why the truck would be an awesome vehicle for me.

What my parents determined was best for me was a Ford Contour, I could choose either red or white.
They had a list of reasons why the four door car thing would be a good fit.

They being the people in control of my bank account, the one I was forced to put 50% of my allowance (a whole 10 SR, or about $3) every week into for all of my growing up, had the final say.

A red Ford Contour is what I drove back to campus in.

That red Ford Contour was a great car, and I drove it for a long time. Eleven whole years actually.

I drove it an innumerable number of times up north to Rumney in college.

My mom, brother, and I road tripped in the Ford Contour to look at colleges for him and visit DC and NYC the summer before 9/11. My brother and I got lost on the wrong side of the Potomac while trying to park it after dropping Mom off at the Holocaust museum, then we valet parked it in a sketch parking garage and didn't tell Mom. It was hard to explain when we had to ask a guy for our keys afterward.

I took lots of trips to retreats, the mountains, and beach in college with her.

My younger brother borrowed her many times his freshman, my senior year of college, returning her with signs that said things like "Go immediately to the gas station, I've been driving with the empty light on for about 25 miles."

After my college graduation we road tripped it out to Michigan. The trusty Ford Contour got me through grad school with little more needs than an occasional oil change. And of course gas to get me back and forth to work.

At the end of grad school we road tripped again, out to Minnesota to visit my cousins. It was just me and Connie through northern Michigan.

I got my first ticket in her. One for speeding my 2nd year of grad school. And one for following to closely on my way back from Minnesota.

Then at the end of June of that summer we road tripped it down to Kentucky for my new big girl job.

In Kentucky Connie started to require a little more maintenance. First she needed a new timing belt.

Then the air conditioning wasn't working.

She started acting funny. But she still got great gas mileage. And she was completely paid for. I kept driving her. People started to make fun of Connie, she was getting old and wrinkly really.

Then came the eggings.

Occasionally over the years there were times when I would think "it really would be nice if I had a truck, like all the times I moved in and out of dorms and apartments when my parents were 7 timezones away.

Or when I was going on camping trips with friends and we had gear. Or when I bought a new tv with my roommate and we were trying to shove it in a little four door car and had to take it out of the box to make it fit.

Here she is were we parked her before the infamous LBL hiking adventure

But for the most part Connie served me well, and I drove the life out of her.

So after the eggings stopped, it was determined that a new vehicle was in store for me.

I took two last road trips in Connie, one to meet my Mom in Fort Wayne, IN, and one to meet my parents in Branson, MO. Both times I was concerned that she would be able to make it through the trip without breaking down. She did, just barely. It was time for her to retire.

This time, I wasn't relenting, I was getting a truck, maybe not a purple one, but a truck none the less. After doing a little research, I determined that I had been right all along. In fact the Toyota tacoma gets about the same gas mileage as my dear contour got.

I talked it through with my dad, and he was all for it.

Mom on the other hand had a lot of concerns. I'm still not really sure why exactly. My favorite one was that if I got married and had kids, I wouldn't be able to haul them around with a truck. Jokes on her because my truck actually has a special hook thing for car seats which straps it to the frame, safer than buckling it into a minivan. And um, I haven't used it, because, well, I'm not married, and I don't have kids. But if that ever changes, don't worry, I'm ready, or at least my vehicle is.

Anyway, since I got my truck I have done a lot of hauling.

And each time I feel the need to take photos. I don't know why.

This is the first time I hauled stuff. Water and Gatorade for work. Made the task much easier.

This was on a recent trip to meet my mom, and transfer some furniture of my grandmother's including a table and chairs, as well as some china. This wasn't the final packing job, but you get the idea.

Here is the back of my truck filled with wood after the recent storm.

The truck, which doesn't have a name yet, I'm thinking Beloved, is about to take it's maiden voyage long road trip. We are headed all the way up to Rumney (with many stops along the way) and then we are bringing back my grandmother's dresser. Yup, definitely couldn't do that with Connie.

Thankful Thursdays 5/19/2011

376 jock jams blaring in the weight room
377 low key weekend reading good books
378 getting to know some people at church a bit better
379 kindergarten Sunday school
380 impromptu dinner with friends
381 a lovely evening walk
382 catching up with Christi
383 insightful conversations
384 speaking and hearing truth in love
385 summer hours
386 camping trip planning
387 a good run (I know I say this a lot)
388 the bridesmaid dress finally coming
389 the bridesmaid dress only needing hemming and not major alterations
390 free firewood

Thankful Thursdays 5/12/2011

355 Amazing weather for the conference track meet
356 watching an athlete who worked really hard to come back from an injury succeed
357 old friends in town visiting
358 a good nap after a long day
359 cooking out with coworkers after a long weekend of work

360 good conversation
361 campfire

362 s'mores
363 Mexican strawberry marshmellows
364 enough open space to see the stars
365 celebrating our student athletes
366 seeing seniors who were once freshman getting ready to graduate
367 hauling wood in my truck

368 being able to help out my co-worker and my neighbor at the same time
369 farm eggs

370 higher yardage than I've done in years
371 a really fast run
372 talking with a former student athlete about career plans
373 consistent time in God's Word
374 being paired to teach Sunday school with someone I've been wanting to get to know better
375 a lunch break at Pedlar's Mall, everyone needs an occasionally lunch break trip there

Why I Love to SWIM!

I've heard the story so many times that sometimes I actually think I remember it happening. My older brother was on swim team and I as the younger sister wanted to do everything he did. My dad was helping out with his age group, and so every afternoon, I went to the pool with my dad and brother and played while some 8th or 9th graders watched me. I kept telling my parents that I wanted to be on the team. Finally one day they told me I could join the team when I could swim the length of the pool. What my parents didn't realize was that I could almost do it already.

Most of my childhood memories involve the pool, whether it be swim practice, candy bar relays on Wednesday nights, meets on Thursdays, or just hanging around during intersession, my friends and I were always at the pool.

I remember the first time I ever did a flip turn, I was about 5 or 6, it was in the fall and a cold night. We only had outdoor pools. I was swimming with the older kids because there weren't many younger kids who swam in the fall. I had been trying and trying for several days and finally, I did it, I remember Mr Boudreau getting so excited, and some of the older kids too. I was so proud of myself.

Swimming was something I was pretty successful at.

I remember in the second grade we were doing a drill called block busters when I dove in, my thumb got caught in someone else's suit straps, and it was dislocated. I remember that it didn't really hurt, it just looked really weird. My brother road his bike two blocks home to get my dad, who raced in the suburban to get me, and take me to the emergency room. I remember the ambulance ride to Dhahran because they couldn't reduce it in RT. I remember siting in my swimsuit freezing and begging for a fiberglass cast, so I could still swim.

Two weeks later I was granted my wish, a fiberglass cast it was, and patiently my mom used an air compressor and hair dryer to dry it out every night after practice.

My mom loves to tell the story of the day I was swimming at the national meet, I had already swam in the regionals and qualified for nationals, cast and all. I was up on the starting blocks and some lady in the stands said "look at that poor girl, her parents are making her swim with a cast on."
My mom replied "Don't kid yourself, if I had it my way she would not be up there, and I would not be spending every evening trying to dry that thing out."

At the end of the spring season, we always had the "fun meet" where we did all sorts of fun relays.

I think we were trying to hop down the pool and try to keep the hat dry.

The older kids had to push a watermelon covered in Crisco down the pool

I know that there are some horrible coaches in this world, I have seen some in action, but for the most part, I was blessed with some awesome swim coaches who encouraged me to push myself. They spent countless hours working on timing sheets for meets, setting up for meets, coaching us as we swam. I am so grateful for all the time and energy they expended on me and my teammates.

During the 1st Gulf War, otherwise known as Desert Storm, swimming was actually the only thing that was a constant in my brothers and my life.

By the time I was in about the 7th or 8th grade we occasionally did doubles, swimming in the morning before school, and again in the evening.

When I went off to boarding school and everything was new and different and I was on my own as a 15 year-old, again, swimming was my constant.


In high school doubles weren't really occasional anymore and I am pretty sure that there were times when I wasn't actually awake.

And yes it's true, that after a lot of daring and joking from my high school coach, I did in fact shave my head.

It grew back, and I can now cross that off my bucket list.

After high school I decided to take a break from swimming. What I thought would be a short year or two break turned into ten, and then last spring I started swimming again with a local triathlon club.

And I was reminded of the peace I experience as I put my head down and go, back and forth, back and forth. One of the things I really love about swimming is that I get to spend time alone in my thoughts. Swimming is relatively mindless for me, I don't have to pay attention to much. There is no one yelling my name, or asking for this or that, or trying to talk to me about something. Or if they are, I can't hear them.

Everybody

Needs

To be alone

in their thoughts

sometimes

He Arose!

I was reading a blog post by Ann Voskamp about tomb-centered Christianity and I was struck with this thought, am I living my life in light of His death for my sin, or am I living life in light of the empty tomb?

And what exactly does it mean to live life in light of Jesus, who victoriously conquered death?
I mean what does that look like?

Does it mean that we run around all happy and bubbly all the time?
The reality is that life is hard sometimes. It's not all happy and bubbly all the time. Even though I a living a redeemed life, it's still hard sometimes. There are still heart breaking things that each of us walk through.

Just ask my friends Mike and Becka they have walked through really hard times, and are still walking through really hard times. I'm pretty sure that there are days they don't feel like lifting their hands to the heavens and praising God.
I'm sure that they are not dancing around like this.


At times I want to, and maybe I do dance around like that. And what a cool thing, and so many shoes for people in need.

But as we walk through the everyday humdrum, and the heartaches and hard times, I don't know about you, but I'm not dancing my shoes off.

Recently I read a book by Mary Beth Chapman, called Choosing to See, I'll let her explain it herself.


I have been reading through the Gospels over the last several months. I am in the book of Luke right now. I have been struck in a new way with the reality of the resurrection. Sometimes I hear stories so many times that they become mundane to me, I've heard the Easter story yearly, for my entire life. It has been refreshing as I have read through the 4 accounts recorded in scripture to not so much focus on the crucifixion, but instead to focus on the resurrection. Don't get me wrong, the crucifixion is clearly an important and integral part of the story, but so is the part about the Risen Lord.

So what I am wrestling with is this: what does it mean and look like to live life in light of the empty tomb?

Thankful Thursdays 5/5/2011

Some thanks on Cinco De Mayo

327 a productive day
328 power being restored

329 my air filter that helps me breath (and doesn't run without power)
330 a clean fridge

331 memories of our houseboy Maurti, who was basically part of our family for most of my childhood
332 a swim with the swim bike runners
333 getting to prepare a video for our graduating seniors
334 not loosing all of the food that was in my freezer during the power outage
335 Arwen's wedding invite in the mail
336 a great night of movie watching with friends
337 last official workouts of the semester, YAY summer is right around the corner!
338 a word of encouragement from a friend
339 conviction
340 grace
341 countdown to vacation
342 a raining Sunday in bed reading
343 celebrating our seniors
344 sunny days
345 comfortable running shoes
346 fresh mango
347 laughter
348 Brady in the mud
349 time alone in God's Word
350 iced coffee creation at home
351 a peaceful evening run
352 vacation plans coming together
353 a good chat with a down the street neighbor
354 long yardage days.

Save The Males

There is this one scene in the movie Bridget Jones Diary, after she has been arrested for carrying a large stash of drugs for a friend's boyfriend, that makes me laugh. Bridget Jones is sitting in jail, surrounded by whole bunch of Thai women.

One of the them asks her why she is so sad, the following dialogue ensues

What is wrong?

Bridget: Mark Darcy definitely...
...doesn't love me anymore.

Thai girls: Ohhh.

Bridget:You see the trouble is it was me who chucked him.

Thai girl 1: He treat you bad?

Bridget: Yeah, actually, he did.

Thai girl 1: My boyfriend treat me bad too.

Thai girl 2:- Me too.
Thai girl 3: Mine as well

Bridget: Then you know all about it. You think you've found the right man, but then there's so much wrong with him and he finds there's so much wrong with you and it all just falls apart.

Thai girl 1:Don't tell me. My boyfriend, he seem really nice. Then he start to hit me. Make me work on street.

Thai girl 2:My boyfriend, he say he love me but he do no work, and make me work 20 hour a day. Then he make me take heroin drug.

Thai girl 3: What about you, Bijjit? What your bad boyfriend do?

Bridget: Well, er,...he really didn't stick up for me at this lawyers' supper,... and, um, then he would fold his... Oh, same sort of thing, really.

It's as if all of a sudden the light bulb goes off in her head and Bridget realizes that her "bad boyfriend" wasn't such a bad guy after all.

I think I need to preface what I am about to say next with a disclaimer. There are some men in this world that truly have problems, who are unhealthy people, who abuse women in a variety of different ways. This is not the kind of men I am talking about.

I think sometimes we are all guilty of similar behavior. We sit around complaining about various and assorted men in our lives.

I've been in groups of single women, where we sit around and bash the single men we know. We come up with a variety of reasons they are terrible. I have at times participated, I am not proud of this fact.
We say things like...
"They are selfish"
"They send mixed signals"
"They don't dress well"
"They are loud and pesky"
"They are to quiet..."

I have been in groups of married women who do the same thing.
"My husband works too much"
"My husband doesn't make enough money"
"He doesn't tell me nice things the moment he walks in the door everyday"
"He hasn't gotten to the end of my 73 item to do list this weekend"
"His mom is annoying..."

What I've come to realize is that the man bashing really says more about the women complaining than it does about the men.

What it says about the women, is that they are choosing to view the men in their lives based on the men's ability to fulfill ALL of their needs, which ultimately is impossible for them to do. It also says that the women are choosing not to see the men as God's creations, His precious children.

Sometimes I feel like we women can't make up our minds. Recently I was having a conversation with some friends about what it means to be a gentleman. I found it interesting, because so many single women I know say all the time "where are all the gentlemen?" But then the moment a guy holds the door open, or offers to carry something, we say things like "what, does he think I am weak? Does he think I can't do it myself?"

Partly this is a regional phenomenon. Moving to Kentucky from the North and Northeast has radically changed my view on this. I remember when I first moved here, having to get used to allowing men to open the door for me. Now, when I am visiting the Northeast, I find myself standing there, with a group of people behind me, watching for the door to magically open. I am so used to not opening doors when there are men around, even if they are strangers, that it creates a quite comical scene when I am in places like New Hampshire.

Ultimately my point is this. There are a lot of great men out there, who love the Lord. There are a lot of married men that love their families, who are trying hard to follow Him, provide for their families, lead their families. There are a lot of single guys who are doing their best to be good brothers in Christ to the single women in their lives.

I think sometimes we women need to pray for them instead of complain about them, and cut them a little slack.

Why the mud?

When I brought Brady home she was a cute little pup.

We immediately started working on things, like not chewing everything in sight

I quickly learned that she is super cute, and super loving, and super social. AND SUPER DEFIANT.

I was repeatedly told by my Aunt, who has always had well behaved dogs, that I needed to socialize her.

So I took her to work a lot that first summer when she was a puppy.

The kids made sure she was hydrated.

We also took trips to the lake to learn how to swim. She loves to swim.

She was unsure of the water in some friends' pool last summer.

but she eventually got in. She was a good pup and used the stairs to get in and out, so as not to damage the lining.

Brady is a hilarious friend.

She loves to pose for pictures. I don't normally dress her up, she had the bandana on because she had just gotten a grooming from the pre-vet students. It's cheep and they clip her nails, which I hate to do.


But what Brady really loves is mud.

She also loves to swim in lakes, ponds, and the ocean.

But those are just substitutes for mud.

Nothing makes her more proud of herself than to plop down in a mud puddle and roll around.

It seems that every time I take her to the dog park, she will play and frolic with the other dogs, until she finds the mud. Often the other dogs will just watch and stare.

She comes out looking like this.

That was last summer. Notice the pride and contentment with herself. And also her refusal to look at me because she knows I am not happy.

Saturday I took her to the dog park, there were a lot of other dogs there.

She found a mud puddle, she laid down in it. I told her to stop and get out. She listened, for maybe the first time ever. At least she wasn't completely covered in mud, just her undercarriage.

She still got hosed down thoroughly before being allowed back in the house.

So yesterday it was sunny out for a brief period. We went for a walk and it started raining.
We stopped at the softball game, where they were in a rain delay.

Brady refused to sit under the tent. She sat nicely like a well behaved dog, but out in the rain where she could get wet.

Here she is. I think if she could speak she would be saying "you can make me sit and behave, and you can refuse to let me roll around in the mud by keeping me on the leash, but you can't make me sit under the tent. So take that."

Bugs in the rice.

There are times in my life when it is undeniably obvious that my childhood, though an exciting adventure, was very much bizarre.

When I came back to the United States for boarding school, there were things that I knew were different about my upbringing, no one had to tell me that.

Though my friends and I had tried to stay current, we were definitely out of touch with current culture here in the US.

What caught me off guard at times, still catches me off guard sometimes, are the little things that I just assumed were normal. The things that pop up out of the blue and throw me off a little, and remind me that though I have been in the states for most of the time for the last 15 years, the desert and community that I grew up in is still a big part of who I am.

One day, late in my college career, my junior or senior year, I was down in the athletic training room fulfilling my clinical hours. I was treating a student athlete when she said, "You will never guess what I found in my rice, it was so disgusting."

Me: "were there bugs?"

Student athlete: "How did you know?"

Me: "It's not that unusual to have bugs in the rice. Just throw it in the freezer for a couple days, it will kill them. Then when you cook the rice the bugs will float to the top and you can just skim them off."

AWKWARD SILENCE

Student athlete: "are you joking? I'm not freezing it and skimming the bugs off, I'm taking it back to the store for an exchange."

Me: "Why would you do that? If there are bugs in your bag, there are probably bugs in the whole shipment, so the bag you exchange it with will have bugs too."

Then I looked up from what I was doing and noticed that about five people were staring at me.

"You are so weird" someone said.

"What? It's not normal for there to be bugs in the rice here?" I replied

"No Cate it is not normal"

"Oh, I didn't know" was all I could think to say.

And still pretty much anytime I throw rice into a pot I am still amazed that there are no bugs.

Thankful Thursdays 4/28/2011

301 Successfully rearranging furniture without killing myself
302 a clean and organized house
303 being able to help a friend who was locked out of their house
304 being able to rearrange my afternoon to spend time with a friend who needed it
305 setting out the fancy china for Easter dinner

306 the ushers at church having to set up more chairs
307 This song on easter morning



Casting Crowns was not at my church, but my church's worship team performed it

308 having people over for Easter dinner
309 having really good, healthy food for Easter dinner
310 various and assorted friends meeting each other
311 hearing my brother describe almost catching a foul ball at a Red Sox game
312 the Red Sox finally sweeping a series
313 someone I know being okay after a really bad car wrack
314 talking to my mom for over an hour on the phone
315 talking to my niece and nephew on the phone
316 a really great hair day, it doesn't happen that often for us curly haired girls
317 feeling cute in an outfit
318 vacation plans coming together
319 the gift of a cadbury egg early in the morning
320 that the tree fell across the street and not onto both my truck and my house (it did however take out the car belonging to a neighbors friend. had it fallen differently it would have done a lot more damage.)

321 that the riser did minimal damage to my truck when it fell

322 my electrician neighbor
323 friends with power to cook food and charge phones and take showers
324 catching up with friends I haven't seen in a while
325 basements during storms

326 the indoor s'more maker, it's good for more the just s'mores

here we have hot dogs

Storms

I knew the storms were coming.
I had been getting alerts on my phone all day.

I went to bed knowing that at some time in the night the sirens would start humming and I would travel down two flights of stairs to my basement.

But the sirens didn't come, and instead I was woken by the sound of wind, it sounded like a freight train.

I ran down stairs and as I got to the first floor of my home I heard a huge crack.

I dove for my couch and then heard a series of what sounded like explosions.

Then I waited, and it was dark and silent, for a moment.

And then I heard my neighbors calling.

I stepped out onto my porch, a giant tree was down, on my neighbors car, and all the way across the road.

This is what it looked like the next morning

I noticed there were flames coming from the roof across the street.
Later it would be determined that it was actually just the tree on the roof and not the actually roof itself.

I looked at my truck, parked in my driveway, there was a metal pole and wires on it.

The rain was coming down pretty hard, thankfully. It put out the fire.
About 20 minutes after initially noticing the fire and my neighbors calling 911, the fire department showed up.

"Ma'am are you and everyone in your house okay?"
"Yes me and my trusty pup are fine"
actually I didn't say that but I told him I was fine.
Then he surveyed the scene and determined that is was not safe.

"MA'AM DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THESE POWER LINES!" he sternly told me.

"Thanks" I replied, chuckling in my head. I really wanted to say "bummer I was planning on running around barefoot." It was 2 am or there abouts, I was tired, adrenaline was pumping, and I was stuck on my porch.

The rest of the night was unrestful bouts of sleep, interrupted by the really loud walkie talkies of the power company as workers walked around reporting outages and damage.

In the morning when I finally was able to get off my porch because the power lines in my yard were not live anymore, I realized that we were trapped on our block

I stood in my yard and called both my homeowners insurance and my car insurance.

I was able to walk to the end of my block where a friend picked me up to take me into my office so I could do somethings that had to be done. Then I went to a meeting, then a coworker drove me home.

This is where she dropped me off.

.

This is in front of my house.

I ended the day hanging out with some friends, catching up and eating dinner where there was power!

And then I "slept" on my couch last night as another round of heavy storms rolled through, thankfully this time there were no trees downed on my street or damage to my property.

Though power has been restored to my street. My house is still without, as I waited for the homeowners insurance to approve the cost for my electrician (and helpful neighbor) to be able to start to reinstall the stuff that is suppose to be attached to my house. Then of course 10 minutes after it was approved, it started raining and lightening and thundering, so he couldn't work.

I am still without power though anticipate getting it back tomorrow.

Fun times I tell ya, really fun.