whey-ing in

It wouldn't be Christmas without an annual trip to Frankenmuth to visit Bronner's (the world's largest Christmas store... it's seriously out of control) and to walk around the distinctly Bavarian-themed village. Here is Kevin being his cheesy self in front of the aptly named Haus.

Justin, Nelia, Matt, Kevin, and I took Stephanie, Robert, and Jolee for a fun day of shopping. The adults (loosely defined) split off to visit Bronner's and the village while the "younger" set hit the outlet malls. I had to break down and buy a generous hunk of gorgonzola and and a block of their famous chocolate cheese.

At Bronner's, Justin and I finally settled on a beautiful blown glass ball for our annual ornament purchase- after vetoing ornaments in the form of disco balls, a garlic clove, pickles, firetrucks, and even an octopus.

Tonight we went to see the Chronicles of Narnia. I was SO glad that they left the story intact. I was bawling like a baby of course. The effects weren't that great but the story was very true to the original, and that is what gives it heart. The girl who played Lucy was absolutely precious. I can't wait to own this one on DVD.

and the oscar goes to...

The 2005 Best Display of Nerdiness to Sara Miller... wow, I even out-nerded myself yesterday when I was the only one in a room of all librarians to know the answer to a trivia question... who was MSU's first librarian and where was the original library located? That is what happens to people who read plaques on the wall in their dorms and remember the useless content for the rest of their lives. (answer for you OTHER nerds who want to know: Linda E. Landon and Linton Hall.) I wish I could remember where I put my keys instead of something I read while wasting time in my undergrad dorm!

I had another scary work moment today. A prof asked me to come and give a lecture on library resources to his class in the spring. Yikes. He is an expert on the main database that I'm going to talk about too. There is no longer any doubt in my mind as to what I'm going to be studying over Christmas break!

Looking forward to the weekend - a visit to Grand Rapids and some shopping at Great Lakes Crossing. That is, if this snowstorm that we are supposed to get tonight doesn't immobilize us. They should have it cleared by Saturday I hope.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

My shopping list is almost wrapped up, except for a few stocking stuffers. I was browsing the dollar store for that purpose the other day and I saw this lovely toy... for that non-malignant girl in your life. (Click for a bigger view.)

This weekend was another busy one. On Friday night we went to the annual pastors' associational Christmas dinner. Saturday was Jerri's wedding shower. I finally got to meet Tim's mom. We always tease him that we don't think his family exists because we have known him for over 7 years and have never laid eyes on them. By a freak chance I actually got to see Tim's brother last spring, and then finally his mom yesterday. His dad is still in the realm of the mythical as far as I am concerned! Anyhow, it was a nice shower and nearly all the girls there had gone on Focus trips or overseas in some way so it was cool to talk about all the places we'd been. I was going to give Jerri some Febreeze and Beano, but I was good!

Saturday afternoon and evening we got our Christmas tree. Matt's fire station sells trees every year so we got a nice fir from them. It smells delectable. I know the picture is small but for some reason it wouldn't show any bigger... it's me in their shiny new engine. Matt even let me honk the airhorn. :-) Speaking of Matt, he had his testing for his hazmat training this weekend and scored the top in his class, getting a 50 out of 50 on his written exam. Since he got the best grade, he got to be the incident commander for their practical exam. Needless to say we are all very proud! He is busy using his extensive knowledge to concoct new ways to combine dangerous chemicals to clean out our downstairs bathroom. :-)

Justin and I also bought our tickets to Oklahoma today. We'll be gone from Christmas afternoon until the evening of Jan 6th. We have some time planned with the family, New Years' in OKC, and the Life Impact conference after that. We're really looking forward to it, especially getting to see Ruby and Granny June who we haven't seen in at least 2 years.

too cute

Today was really busy with meetings, a funeral, and a new to-do list from my boss. The more I have to do at work the more excited I get about it... it's still such a strange phenomenon for to me to enjoy work. I am loving the challenge.

I got to have lunch with Denise today at a cute little restauant in cute little downtown Mason. After lunch we went to the cute little five-and-dime next door. For those of you who don't know, Mason is a little town just south of Lansing that has an incredibly well-preserved old-time downtown. There is a huge, beautiful old courthouse (see pic and click for original site) in the middle of the square surrounded by all the aforementioned cute little shops. Mason is so cute, in fact, that they sent a crew from the show "Three Wishes" to do an episode there becuase it is such a "perfect" representation of small-town America. Denise has it on good authority from her mom's hairdresser (like I said, small town...) that Mason may be on their Christmas Special and possibly be visited in the spring... In the meantime, there are plenty of cool old houses there for Justin and I to drool over.

By the way, Peng has put some pictures up of Thanksgiving. You can see them here. Peng assured me that the captions don't say "This was the worst food I ever tasted!" in Chinese!

where's waldo?

I think we finally found out who the boogeyman is.

here comes the rain again!

What started out as a little dinnertime prayer walk resulted in a run for cover! I'm trying to dry off a little bit before I have to go back out to the reference desk. Too bad I'm at work or I would have stayed out in the downpour. It's 60 degrees here... one day of a break before we go back to snow, snow, and more snow. I look like a wet poodle right about now.

We had a really nice Thanksgiving. Luckily I was feeling better and managed to cook a turkey, stuffing, corn casserole, garlic rosemary mashed potatoes, fruit cup, apple crisp... and Justin pitched in with his famous gourmet green bean casserole. Jerri brought over some homemade rolls, pumpkin pie from scratch, and her family's traditional macaroni salad. There were nine of us... me, Justin, Kevin, Tim, Jerri, Jerri's friend Jean who was visiting from Oregon, Peng and Xiaolei, and Carrie who unfortunately couldn't stay for dinner. I'm afraid that my inner Martha (as in Stewart, not Mary And) comes out at holidays. I love cooking, and I love setting the table. I was giggling like a little girl at the though of using my great grandmother's china and her cute little teacups. It was a bit frightening. I'm not sure if I'll ever understand my love of dishes, but such things are sometimes best left as a mystery!

Gretchen and I went Christmas shopping on Friday and I managed to get 90% of it done. It's a good thing we didn't go early... there were rumors of fist fights and carjacking at Wal-Mart in the wee hours of the morning. Nothing like the Christmas spirit I tell you!

Friday night Jerri's friend Jean had us over for a party. It was nice for me to be somewhere where girls were in the majority for once. :-) It was fun to catch up with Jeff & Kim and to get to know Jean and Xiaolei better. It was Jerri's birthday too, so Jeff and Tim came out of hiding in the back room for a few minutes to eat cake, then disappeared into the virtual world of Tiger Woods Golf again. Random whooping was about all we heard from them most of the night.

Saturday night Justin and I attended our first murder mystery party. It was a 50's theme; Justin had to dress up as a greasy mechanic and I was a chick named "Barby Q." (pic here!) If I get any pictures I will put them up. The highlight of the evening was Andy's impersonation of a drunken Russian rocket scientist, followed by a stellar karaoke performance a la Britney Spears. Just when you think you know Andy... he never fails to surprise! Speaking of karaoke, it took a few hours but we were finally treated to a number by Justin. His heartfelt rendition of that unfogettable classic Christian hair-metal hit, Stryper's "To Hell With The Devil," was something that words can't really describe. Even better was when Denise misread Stryper as "Stripper."

sniff

'Tis the time of year for sniffles and congestion, unfortunately. I was laid up for most of the weekend with a cold, but we still managed to get some stuff done. Went to see the latest Harry Potter movie on Friday, opening night, with Justin and Marie. It was cool to see the book portrayed on film but unfortunately it wasn't nearly as well-done as the third movie. The visuals and the feeling of being "right there" just didn't come close. Oh well. I'll still go see it again just for the pure fun of it!

I don't think I mentioned that no one showed up to my instruction session last week! I had eight people registered initially, the it was revised down to five... and then none of those five showed! Oh well, at least I have the material prepared and I've been able to help a lot of people with similar needs since preparing.

Today I got to have lunch with Justin, Matt and Tina. It was good to see her and catch up. We had lunch in a local shopping center here and I am starting to get the Christmas shopping bug. Usually I'm at least halfway done with my shopping by now but I haven't even started yet!

Preparing for Tim's bachelor party...

schneit es

We had our first snow last night. Just a dusting, but enough to make the ground white and make me realize that the only outdoor winter footwear I own are hiking boots and big blue and white moon boots, both of which look incredibly hot with gaucho pants. I ended up wearing my Birkenstock rubber garden clogs to work this morning, and let me tell you what a fashion plate I was! I haven't had so many disdaining stares at my feet since I used to wear those clear plastic Doc Martens in high school! God puts us in really interesting situations sometimes... I am right smack in the middle of my first one-paycheck-per-month cycle and there is no way I can buy new boots... I guess I'm needing to learn some sacrifice and humility right about now.

We had a fantastic turnout at our churchwide Thanksgiving dinner last night. There must have been over 100 people there. The dinner is the only thing that some members' families will come to, and it was great not knowing nearly 2/3 of the people there. I met friends, kids, grandkids, you name it. The food is always fabulous too... the best thing about having so many Southern folks around is that they can all cook a mean pot of turnip greens. I'd never had greens before coming to Immanuel, and now I can't get enough! It's my one saving grace if Justin wants to eat at Cracker Barrel!

This afternoon I have to teach my first instructional class here at the library. It's on "Finding Company and Industry Information." If any of you are interested at all in what I'm doing at my job, you can see my powerpoint here. I also updated our research guide here. Don't worry, I don't expect any of you to actually look at it! It's all pretty boring library nerd stuff!

We are having several guests for Thanksgiving dinner next week. So far we have Tim and Jerri, Kevin, and my co-librarian Peng and his wife Xiaolei who just arrived from China a few weeks ago. Peng loves taking photos and has a Flickr site here. I have already promised Kevin a big ol' batch of garlic rosemary mashed potatoes.

snow is coming...

We had a really nice long fall here, stretching into November... then one day it was windy and it was over. And now- our first snow is supposed to fly tomorrow! Tim, the skier, is quite excited- however, Justin is prophesying gloom and doom. He's never quite gotten used to the cold, gray monotony of a Michigan winter.

We got to see Amy this weekend as she regaled us with tales of her new Office Space-like cube farm and her company choir. Luckily she missed the Indiana tornado by about 40 miles.

Speaking of tornadoes, did you SEE that video taken by that crazy guy in Iowa standing outside as the tornado was yards from him? Here is the link if you missed it. What a nutcase!

FINALLY a video for you!

OK, here it is! Click the picture to watch the movie. It may take quite a while to download but it's worth it. Make sure your volume is turned on so you can hear them scream like girls! :-) Also make sure you watch through to the end to see them get drenched.

Kevin, thanks so much for your help in taking and uploading this video!

For those of you who are just tuning in, the video is of Justin, Matt, and Kevin at Lake Michigan last month (October) during a thunderstorm. They got a little wetter and colder than anticipated!

csi pawcatuck

The excitement never ends in my hometown. Apparently my neighbor's yard was invaded this morning by wandering cows. Forget robbery, assault, homicide... these cows are ruthless! I am wondering if the crime lab had to take samples of "evidence" left at the scene. Photos courtesy of Mom.

kosher hot dog

Our music video night on Friday was a whole lot of fun as you can tell from Scrappy's pose. I'm not sure who decided to put the yarmulke on him but I think it was Matt who pulled it out of our random costume and clothing item box. As soon as Tim downloads his pictures I will have some more to share.

We had one major mishap. The video camera somehow recorded double... so we didn't catch most of the music videos. We did have fun making them however.

extreme girliness

Denise, being considerate as always, thought that we should surprise Kathy with a "stress-relieving massage" from the student salon here in town. So, last night we all trouped out to EL and lost ourselves in the girly universe for a while. Denise got a manicure and I got a haircut while Kathy was having her treatment. I think Kathy was a little confused when we turned into the salon... she had a "what on earth are we doing HERE?" look on her face. It was pretty funny. Wish I had thought to get a photo. The scary thing was that I kept thinking how much the guys would enjoy getting either a massage or a pedicure. I had this picture in my head of them all lined up in the la-z-boys getting their feet pampered. I really need to stop letting my imagination run away like that!

Catching Up

I really miss my blog with this crazy new schedule! Let's see, where did I leave off...

This past weekend was pretty eventful. Friday I had my wisdom tooth out with no problems, thank goodness. It was nice to have a day at home. Saturday I cooked jamablaya in the crock pot and Mike came over for dinner. Sunday we had a TON of visitors at church, it was so exciting! We went out to lunch afterwards and almost half of us there were new people.

Sunday afternoon I got the privilege of spending some time with Mary, one of our new visitors. She is going through a lot and needs prayer. It is really obvious that God is working in her life and drawing her to Himself. If you get a chance please pray for her that she'll make the decision to give her life to Him. She is pretty much face to face with that decision now.

I have to brag on our church for a minute... it's boasting in Christ because of the Christlike attitude our members have been showing, and I am so proud of everyone. Mary said to me on Sunday that our church was the first one she felt comfortable at and she knew she wouldn't be judged. I was so happy to hear that - we try so hard to accept people as God has accepted us and it was nice to hear that it has helped someone.

Last night (Tuesday) was a bit of an extravaganza. The last Star Wars movie came out on DVD and the basement filled up with fans pretty quickly to watch Annakin turn into Darth Vader. We really are a bunch of nerds! :-)