I brought my camera (thanks again Chris and Marni) to church a couple of weeks ago, in hopes of taking pictures for my friend Dan to use on the church's website. I got a couple different kinds of shots, and had a good time doing it. However, it appears that these won't be pictures of our current church building for long. We're moving buildings into the Latino Community Center on Easter Sunday, and I'm pretty excited. The church building has reached it's maximum occupancy, and it's been difficult having to meet at 1pm every week. Hopefully with the new change in buildings we'll be able to meet earlier, and it will enable for more growth of the church. It should be interesting to see how things turn out. I'm looking forward to it.

Day Numero Uno

Today was my first commute to work on my bike and I learned a couple of things:
1. Just because it's 74 degrees in the morning, it still can turn to 44 degrees by 3pm---bring pants!
2. I need a loufa at work
3. People like to honk RANDOMLY while you ride your bike. It doesn't matter if they are 6 blocks away, or right next to you, I think that some people see bikes and think "I MUST HONK! I MUST HONK!"
4. I've decided that I don't like the hills that the glaciers left, and my thighs don't like them either
5. I really like my messenger bagt
6. Did I mention the 30 degree weather change?
7. It takes just under 30 minutes to get to work (26) and just over 30 minutes to get home (32)
8. I need to find another route that will stretch # 7 to 45-60 minutes.

In the morning I wake up...when I put on my make-up, I say...

THANK YOU CECI!!!!

Here's the story, I had NEVER worn make-up until this past January when my sister informed me that she wanted to get me a make-over as a wedding shower and wedding present. I got really excited, seeing as I NEVER wear make-up and was finally ready to become an adult woman!

The experience at the make-over was an interesting one. I sat down and the lady asked me if I had oily or dry skin. "Ummmmm, I don't know." After a series of other questions she determined that my skin was indeed dry. Then she asked me what "products" I used to clean my face. That was an easy one, "Dial hand soap". After the audible gasp of my two sisters and the make-up artist we continued the make-over. It was at this point that I thought to myself "oh my gosh, I have A LOT to learn about this stuff". I went into absorbant mode, I tried to catch anything this lady was saying and kept asking her to write it down and would tell her "no, I really DON'T see a difference between one side and the other side of my face". Now, you have to understand my reasoning. I was trying to figure out exactly what she was doing, so that I'd be able to do it myself when I got home with this stuff. HOWEVER, I didn't communicate that very well to anyone. Unfortunately, it lead to a big misunderstanding. Fortunately, it led to a really good discussion with my sister, I learned that I need to vocalize my emotions a LOT better, AND I got some awesome make-up out of it.

Now, I had intended to try to use my new make-up frequently, but I feared that it wouldn't happen. How do you go from wearing NO make-up to wearing it ALL the time....

VERY EASILY!! I LOVE WEARING MAKE-UP. I put it on in the morning, and it makes me so happy! I feel pretty for one of the first times in my life, and I feel confident as well. What a great feeling! And all for something that takes me 7-10 minutes in the morning! Now that's worth it!

Anyway, Here's a before and after picture from this morning. I'm going to breakfast with Ryan and some of his family, nothing big, but I feel good! :) Thank you so much for taking me to get a makeover Ceci! It has made a world of difference!

The biking bug has spread...

Today the 'ol Raleigh M-40 hit the road for the first time in...well, I think years! I live about 8 miles away from my job, and Ryan and I have been working on our budget lately. That, coupled with the fact that I've been trying to get in shape all equates to one thing...biking time! (Chris, Marni and my bro' Dave have all added to the desire to bust out the two wheeler as well). Anyway, the saga began last weekend when I loaded my bike into my Jeep to take it to the nearest bike shop to get fixed up. I had tried to just take it out on the road, but the poor bike needed some TLC after being neglected for so long. The handle bars had deviated a large bit from center, the break pads on the front wheel were also off center, and the tires were flatter than flat. I decided to ask my Pastor where to take my bike, since he is an avid cyclist himself, and he hesitated stating that he could fix it for me and save me some time, money and heartache. It was only then that it dawned on me that I could probably figure this stuff out too. So I went home, Ryan turned on the Playstation and played some baseball while I went to work on my bike. It took me about a half an hour to figure out and fix! So today I went to Dunhams and got a helmet and a tire pump. I got the wheels full of air, and they didn't deflate on me like I expected and I took the bike out for a spin. I was trying to gauge what my ride to work will be. I rode about 120 blocks, and had a good time. Things I learned from today though, are that I need some of those toe holder thingys or something so that I can feel comfortable standing up and pedalling on all the hills, and I should probably bring a light with me in case it gets dark on the commute home. Other than that, I had a pretty good time, and think that I'll enjoy the new commute to work and home. It'll save some money, workout time (indoors that is) and hopefully will lead to some more fun adventures. :) Here's a couple indoor shots after I got home. Chris and Marni, hope that you notice the "matchy matchy". That's what I was going for you know. Doesn't matter that I'm totally using a granny seat, on a heavy mountain bike and tennis shoes to ride, but I was matchy matchy. :) Hopefully I'll start riding more consistantly starting this Saturday. The plan now is to ride to work Monday, Wednesday and possibly in April (and to the prayer meeting on Saturday), I can't ride on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays until I'm not working those nights, and I don't work in a safe area of town to be riding around at night by myself. Anyway, those are the current plans, we'll see how things go.

Good message

Recently one of my friends taught a message regarding worship. He had a lot of good content, but one of the things that I was really impressed with was his discussion of worship being a way of life and a reflection of our imitation of Jesus. I often times limit my expression of worship to song and music, but I was really impressed through his message about how much more there is to worship. For instance, one of the gifts that the Lord has given me is the gift of healing. What that means practically is that the Lord physically or emotionally begins to or totally heals people. It's fun to pray for people, especially when you can see them healed. It encourages me, but for that person it gives them freedom from whatever else used to weigh them down. It's a neat thing to be able to pray for someone to get healed and to see them get healed and freed. Anyway, on Sunday I realized what an intricate connection there is between praying for healing for someone and worship. It actually IS worship for me to lay my hands on someone and pray for their healing because when they are healed it causes them to turn to the Lord in thanksgiving and worship. My act of using my gifts blesses other people, brings freedom into their life, and results in worship from that person and myself as we marvel at his goodness. What a neat thing! I don't have to be limited to solely singing to worship!! Praise the Lord that he is an artist, and ALL creation will bow down before Him.

I was marveling the other day at what an artist the Lord is, as I was looking through my pictures from Hawai'i. The Lord is such an artist. These pictures are all from the islands, but each one of them reflects God. One has a star in the middle, another has every single pertrusion pointing upward and "bowing" down to the center, and on and one. It is absolutely incredible the things that the Lord has orchestrated, and they all reflect his beauty and his glory. Our God loves us so much, that he would hide small flowers in the wilderness for us to discover their beauty and enjoy the scenary. What an awesome God!

Spring Forward...

I'm glad that we get to spring forward an hour every year. It really makes me happy to loose an hour of sleep. The only thing that consoles me is to know that this fall we'll gain that entire hour back. Woot woot. :)
In all honesty, I didn't wake up more tired than usual this morning, so that makes me happy, especially since it looks as though it'll be a busy day. Here's the run-down:
1) I woke up this morning and took a shower, by the time I got out of the shower my brother-in-law was at the apartment practicing worship with my husband.
2) Got dressed, and came out to practice with them
3) Heading out to the prayer meeting before church
4) HOPING to drop Ryan off before church (his team is on for worship this month), and head off to starbucks to get some work done. And by work I mean:
a) Assignment # 1 - Papers on Ruth, Proverbs and Esther
b) Assignment # 2 - Papers on Ezra and Nehemiah
c) Assignment # 3 - Book Report on "Church Government", which may I say the following
1. This is one of the worst grammatically written books I've EVER read
2. The use of cliches should be limited to conversational speech, and NOT professional writing. And if it is used in professional writing, it should be used SPARINGLY.
3. A book written about church government should be about church government and not the author's personal anecdotes regarding the US govnerment.
4. If you are writing a book on church government, and would like to compare it to the US government, fine. However, please actually know what you are talking about before doing so. The US is NOT a true democracy where every singular vote counts in the election of its presidents. Rather, we are a representative democracy, or a democratic republic. Hence, "and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".
d) Assigment # 4 - a 15 page rough draft on Crossing the Jordan and the model for discipleship. (I'm actually looking forward to writing this one, but we'll see if I get to it after church today).
5) Head to church
6) Ryan is leading worship in Racine tonight, and I said that I would go, however, I don't know if I'll be able to because of all the above stated assignments.
7) Racine?
8) More homework, homework, homework.
It should be a fun and full day today, enjoying the sun, and the newly married mourning doves that have just taken residence outside out apartment window. Hmmmmm, how to get rid of those mourning doves...

Not strep throat...

Last night I told Ryan that I was hoping I had strep throat like my nephew Dugan, because I didn't want to go to work today. Well, I woke up about three times last night having difficulty swallowing, but when I did a self-administered strep test it came back negative. I was slightly disappointed because here I was with a sore throat, and no free ticket home from work. I went to look at the schedule at work, and much to my delight I saw that I was listed in the "out" column. Ryan was supposed to have surgery today, but we cancelled it, and my boss didn't put me back on the schedule. Once she got into the office I asked if I could go home and she didn't have a problem with it. I GOT THE DAY OFF WITHOUT HAVING STREP! I went home to have a chill-ax day. Instead, I slept from 10am-5pm. Hmmmmm, perhaps I actually WAS sick.
Anyway, the married life is going well. My hubby made me soup for dinner, and stopped to get himself a fish sandwich. He wouldn't let me go grocery shopping either tonight because he wanted me to get nice and rested so that I wouldn't get sicker. He's great.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll be feeling better, and that'll be nice.