my 3 month hiatus, pt. 1

Hello Blog.coms,

So, I see that my last post was Aug. 7! Man, you guys must really be missing me by now. I kept telling myself that I was going to write more meaningful posts about things going on in the world, like politics, religion, international affairs, Lady Gaga, etc. But I just ended up being absent from the blog-scene for 3 months. So I guess it's back to the ego-centric ramblings about my life, for now.

This is the first of a series of posts catching you all up on my life. Hopefully I am not too boring.

Sharp Top Cove
Jasper, GA
June 28-July 5

I realized that I never told you guys about Young Life Summer Camp! Actually, most of you reading this probably went to camp, or have been before, and so I don't need to explain what it is. But on the off chance that you happen to have no clue, lemme 'splain.

Young Life is an interdenominational Christian outreach organization that serves middle school and high school age adolescents. It exists throughout the United States and in many countries across the globe. I have been involved since I was a wee teen myself back in Newburgh, IN. In college, I was a volunteer leader at Bloomington High School South, and now Tim and I are on the "Committee" which serves sort of like a Board of Directors for the organization at the local level.

Anyway, we went to CAMP! I mean, leaders take kids to camp every summer, but this was the first summer that we took a group of adults as Adult Guests! Tim and I loved getting to know other adults from our area better, and experiencing YL camp from a whole new perspective. I loved watching Young Life leaders care for young people in such a sincere and simple, yet intentional way. In the midst of hilarious skits, delicious food, and amazing facilities, the camp speaker described Jesus Christ in a way teenagers can understand. Young Life does all this without alienating religious jargon or arm-twisting appeals. I love it. At Young Life, people are accepted exactly where they are.

Plus it is tons of fun. Here are some pics of the adults having some kid fun.

Anne, Abbi, and me getting ready to drop from the "Big Swing"

Tim and Brett Rice sliding down the stand-up water slides!

Tim and me on 1800s night. Remember that beard? Ew.


Okay, so who wants to go to Young Life Camp next summer?

beardface.

Hey there blogbuds.

This is a blogpost dedicated to the ever-changing terrain that is Tim Felton's face. Speaking as objectively as I can, I would say the face possesses some conventionally attractive features: good symmetry, strong brow, proportionate mouth. In fact, it has even been compared to the likes of Tom Cruise before.

However, these features are not what I love most about Tim's face. I believe two things make Tim's Face stand out above others: Variability and Elasticity.

1. Variability - Tim's face is constantly changing. The design of his facial hair, the bushiness of his eye-brows, the depth of the bags under his eyes....always different. He also changes up his look by varying the length (and greasiness) of his cranial hair. It's unpredictable and exciting.

2. Elasticity - I like to smoosh Tim's face with my hands. He likes to smoosh my face too, but my little flat Asian face is not nearly as elastic. Tim's cheeks stretch out and squish together really nicely, providing minutes of entertainment for the smoosher. Tim also enjoys contorting his face for his own personal entertainment. I have caught him doing this in the bathroom mirror before, when he didn't think I was watching. (He also makes up voices to go along with the faces, but that's another blog post for another day).

If you haven't seen Tim recently, I will update you on the latest look. He had been growing his facial hair out since the end of October and it was longer than you would ever desire a beard to be (unless you are a wizard of some sort). Unkept and scraggly, it was an excellent place to store excess condiments and cookie crumbs.

In case you didn't know, I am not the kind of wife that cares about her husband's physical appearance. I don't care how he dresses or what his facial hair looks like (1). In fact, I sort of enjoy when he looks a little gross, it keeps all the hot ladies at a distance. This being the case, I encouraged Tim to see if he could muster the endurance to grow the beard for an entire year.

But he couldn't do it. A few weeks ago, he decided he was done with the beard and told me he was going to shave it off.

Here is a picture of the beard-removal process (2). He paused for a moment at this point wondering if he should leave the three long pieces hanging down. Josh and I begged, "Please, no." So he continued buzzing.

In typical Tim Felton style, he collected the beard trimmings, created a grotesque beard-ball, and placed it on my plate while I was eating my sandwich. This is my grossed out face.

This is a picture at a friend's wedding later that day.

Josh is just sprucin' it up a little, I mean it is a fancy occasion.

In conclusion, I will leave you with a little collage I made to highlight some of Tim's best looks over the last couple of years. Enjoy.

lovecare.


Footnotes:
(1) This is apparent if you have ever noticed how he dresses or what his facial hair looks like.
(2) I apologize for the chest hair exposure, I realize no one wants to see that, but I was just too lazy to try to crop it out.

On Stealing Blog Posts.

In which intellectual property is snagged from under my nose.

When you start blogging about your life on a regular basis, you start to experience things through bloggy-colored glasses. For example, you are going about your day and you hear something intriguing on the radio and it gets you thinking, and you think to yourself, "this would make a good blog post." Sometimes, I even start piecing together witty descriptions and clever insights in my mind, preparing for what I might compose later in my blog post.

Well, a few weeks ago, some friends and I witnessed the Grand Opening of Will Rose's mud oven. As we were enjoying the backyard pizza bonanza, I had one of those blog-post premonitions.

I am totally blogging about this later. I need some good pictures though. Crap, I didn't bring my camera....

I asked Colleen if she had a camera, but Josh eagerly intercepted with, "I have my camera in my pocket." He reached into his pocket and tossed the camera to me.

Sweet, now for some blog-worthy photo ops.

I snapped a few pics, and asked Josh to please send the pics to me or post them on the ol' facebook, and he agreed.

The next day, I open my Google Reader only to find this post waiting for me over on Josh's blog, Bravo Deploy Satchmo. (What a dumb name for a blog, by the way (1)).

I got scooped!

Oh well, it was a pretty good blog post, pretty much as good as I could have written about the night (except I probably would have included less about the actual pizza and more about how cute Brett and I look in this picture).

Anyway, if you wanna find out more about the Rose-mud-oven-pizza-parTAY, check out Josh's version. You could also just start reading his blog as it's pretty entertaining(2).

I will be back soon with an original post....unless Josh has already taken that idea too...

lovecare.

Footnotes:
(1) see this post.
(2) Was that a good enough plug?

move, pt. 2

Welcome to Sunset Hill! (1)

yo yo yo bloggle-heads!

I am sorry that I have been out-of-blogmission lately, but life has been very busy. I have several things I will be blogging about in the near future (you can't wait, can you?), but first things first.

Sunday, June 14th, Tim and I said "Good-bye" to our super cheap, energy efficient, west-side Cooperative apartment and said "HELLO!" to our slightly less cheap, super cute, window A/C-ed, nearer west-side house! Unfortunately, we are not buying the thing, just renting it, but it's all very exciting nonetheless.

I don't know about you, but the process of moving makes me want to vomit a little. I hate packing and moving and unpacking. I always end up losing things, and breaking things and realizing that I have never once in a year-and-a-half cleaned behind the oven...and I get exhausted from it all. So, I enlisted some back-up.

This is Barbara Wenstrup. She created her own major at the University of Cincinnati in order to pursue a career in Professional Organizing, and she LOVES moving. The process of moving incites as much enthusiasm in her it does nausea in me. We hired her mostly for her energy, which is always bubbling over.

In addition to our PrOrg (Professional Organizer), we also have some great friends who lent us their cars and arms for the day! Thanks to Apr-izzle-Wizzle, Jeff Mahrt-heart, Jimmy Mann (a Bloomington legend), and Daniel Robison (the voice of WFIU) for your carloads of help!

Thanks J'Millionaire, and Roses for hours of hard labor, Badgers (and badger fetus) for the use of the trailer, and Orrs for the specialized skills you brought to the table. Also special thanks to the Mushmouths for lending us your baby for the day.














Oh yeah, and thanks to Jessica for her...charm.

Overall, moving day was really fun and exciting. That night we had dinner in our new living room, seated around the dining room table that is now functional. It is my favorite room and I love gathering around a full table with home-cooked food and smiling faces.

Though we are enjoying the extra space and the proximity to downtown, the main reason we moved into this house is because we long to live in more intentional community. What I mean by "intentional community" is simply making an effort to share life with others. Will, Colleen, and Kevin Rose(2) live down the block from our house. This makes sharing life together more convenient. We eat together. We pray together. We help each other with household projects. We share each others' space. We take care of each others' pets(3).

I have never really lived in a neighborhood where you borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor or watch each others' kids. I have had neighbors who I think would do those things, but I have never thought to ask. I have grown up learning how to do for myself, make decisions for myself, provide for myself. And though I believe a sense of personal responsibility is valuable, I believe I have lost-out on a really precious sense of communal responsibility. Taking care of your neighbor, and letting your neighbor take care of you. It has been really great so far.

We have a houseguest, our friend Ryan, for a few weeks, which is really fun. And we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our roommate, Brandon, who is allegedly moving in any day now. He is stealthy.

So come over and hang out with us at our new pad. You can eat with us, play games, watch movies, do Tae-Bo, or sit on our front porch and heckle passing cars!

lovecare.
Footnotes:
(1) The Roses discovered that the name of our little County neighborhood is "Sunset Hill." From the hill on which our neighborhood is built, you can look east out onto the city. It is a pretty sweet view. And if you are downtown (or the parking lot of B-Dubs), you can probably watch an equally sweet view of the sun sinking behind our little hill.
(2) Will's brother, aka "The Guff"
(3) Well, we feed Jose when the Roses are gone. I am sure they would return the favor, if we had a pet. On a side note, when Jose is hungry and cooped up inside, sometimes he goes a little crazy and attacks your ankles. It is so cute.

just a tidbit

The only thing about the iphone that makes me want to buy one is Snoop Dogg's application.



it's the capital s-n fresh-double o-p, d-o-double g-y, d-o-double g, ya see?

Dorkfest 2009

So....growing up, I was one of those girls that always tried really hard to be cool. The older I got, the more I realized that this was just an impossible feat. So I eventually learned to start embracing my more uncool characteristics (like my obsession with Dawson's Creek or my aversion to frequent showering). So it was only a matter of time before I found myself engulfed in the quintessential nerdy experience, leaving with me the mark of NERDdom forever.....

Dungeons & Dragons

Okay, so I am happy to report that I did not actually participate in the game, merely spectated with a grotesque curiosity. Like when someone says "eeew, I think this milk is spoiled! Here smell it!" And you go ahead and take a whiff, even though you know it will be completely putrid. My husband (A.K.A. "Ruric the Dwarvan Warrior"), recently rekindled his love for Dungeons and Dragons ("DnD"), when a high school buddy invited him to join a "campaign" this summer. He eagerly agreed and then buried his nose in the DnD manual. He spent the last few days studying and creating his character and backstory. I was really taken aback by the amount of preparation required, and even more appalled by the giddiness that ensued while Tim, Will, and Brett chattered away about elves and magic spells and battle axes....

I guess I sort of thought I would enjoy the game because I really like other dorky things along the same lines. I love fantasy movies like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I also really like to play epic board games like Settlers of Catan. I also really like any excuse to sit for long periods at a time with friends and eat tons of junk food. So, when Tim told me that he was going to play this summer, I was a bit excited to finally witness this cultural icon of our generation firsthand.

So last night, I sat and watched as my friends encountered giant owl-beaked skeleton monsters and evil banshee ladies. They weaved their way through the dungeon, bravely fought their opponents, craftily escaped danger, and rolled lots of dice. I eventually fell asleep on the floor amidst the battling and spell-casting...and 5 hours later, I awoke to the happy sound of potato chip bags being crumpled and discarded. (The game was not finished by any means, they had just finished a level....er, something like that).

Overall, I am glad I went and watched. It was pretty entertaining, and I decided that if someone had lured me into the world of Dungeons and Dragons back in my junior high days, I most certainly would have loved it. But for now, I will settle for making fun of my friends and their geeky past time.

Whether you like to play DnD or prefer snickering at its absurdity, you might like the following DnD related bits of pop culture:

1. James Franco hearts DnD



2. The Milwaukian Comedy Troupe, the Dead Alewives, did this bit about DnD, apparently its pretty funny if you have ever played before. I thought it was pretty amusing and I have never played. This link will take you to a website that has 2 clips. ----> "Where are the Cheetohs?"

3. Everyone should watch the movie Darkon. It is not about Dungeons and Dragons, but the even dorkier practice of LARPing (Live Action Role Play) which is basically DnD on steroids.

Here is a link to the movie's official website. ----> Nerdumentary

Here is a link to the Darkon Wargaming Club's website. ----> Nerdclub


Peace be with you, Blogstaz,

lovecare.

move, pt. 1

bloogies.

Last week, my office relocated to a new building (shown above). We had to move out of our old place when one of the other tenants moved and we couldn't afford the rent on our own. Before it was home to the South Central Community Action Program's Owen County office, our old building used to house the Center for Behavioral Health (i.e. Centerstone) and before that a Doctor's office. I spent almost a year there, with its institutional white walls, dirty carpet, tiny half windows, and prototypical doctor's office sliding glass window ("Sign in here please, the doctor will be right with you.")

Though our new place is much smaller, it also much more inviting and comfortable. We were also allowed to paint the interior walls! (SCCAP paid for the paint, and our new landlord painted - chaching). As some of you know, my boss entrusted me with the task of choosing the colors for the walls. After much deliberation and facebook consulting, I finally decided on the following colors:

Soft Duckling
Dusted Bronze
Delta Clay
Jalapeno Jelly

(sweet names, huh?)

Anyway, most of you probably could care less about where I work, or what colors I look at all day long, but I couldn't think of anything better to blog about, so deal with it.

Here are a few pics of the interior.

First, is my office! Wall colors: Soft Duckling and Delta Clay

Next, you see our reception area (and our volunteer receptionist, Cindy). Wall colors: Dusted Bronze and Jalapeno Jelly

Aside from the parking wars waged by our neighbors (the friendly Baptist Church, and the congenial Insurance Co.), we are very pleased with our new building. The best part is that we are across the street from the Circle K - Polar Pops - boooyah!

So, if you find yourself in Spencer, IN Mon-Fri between 8:00 am and 4:30 pm, stop in and say "Hi!"

lovecare.