VACATION!!!...is over :(

Why does time leading up to a vacation seem to s l o w d o w n? And why does the moment you are on vacation time seems to speed up? Sigh, I guess that is something we all have to deal with (unless you are a weird person and you don't take vacations).

We were on vacation last week, in case you hadn't guessed. This year we went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my husband's family; all of the family. There were 10 adults and the one and only grandchild. I'm sure Sean and Cong will remedy that soon, I hope, because we will not be the ones to give that sole grandchild some cousins.

We left last Saturday and spent a week up on the Keweenaw Peninsula. If you are wondering where that is at, it's at the very tip top of Michigan on Lake Superior. The weather was mostly pleasant, although there were a few days that were extremely windy resulting in me having an allergy attack. But don't worry, even though I stayed inside all day on Wednesday I was able to read most of a 600 page book. I didn't feel the least bit guilty for doing nothing all day, I love vacations.

We stayed in a 4 bedroom cabin at Gitche Gumee Bible Camp and enjoyed the services and the food at the camp. You can't go wrong with homemade bread at every meal. My hips and thighs seemed to like the homemade bread a lot, I gained about 4 pounds this year. Last year was worse, I gained 8! My husband's family has been going to this camp for 40+ years, but this was one of the few times the entire family got to go.

I would like to say that we took fabulous pictures and that they are attached to this post. However, I think that you will be disappointed to know we really didn't take that many pictures. I am a terrible picture taker, meaning I just don't take them. My husband is a little better and the 7 pictures that were taken was when he had the camera. Below is the best one of the 7. Isn't it just beautiful? You might also notice a smattering of color in the trees, they were beginning to change into their Autumn hues.



We arrived home on Friday and went to go pick up the dog at the pet hotel. Here she is enjoying some play time with the other dogs. We got her home and she slept for about 12 hours. On Saturday she got up to go outside, came back in and ate some food. She then slept for about another 12 hours. I think she had a good time playing with all the other dogs.



Now it's over and we are back to our jobs and reality, counting down the days till our next vacation. At least Labor Day is just two weeks away!

A Simple Life

I have decided I hate being busy. I am not one of those types of people that has to be involved in a lot of different things, going this way and that way all the time. I always wonder how it is that people that seem to always be occupied with an activity never get exhausted. Or, maybe they do get exhausted and I just never observe them in that state.

I used to be that type of person, you know the busy one. I started to become the busy type when I was in my junior year of high school. I was home schooled and by that time in my high school career I really had finished up most of the requirements for graduation. I had just 3 classes left to do; Science and English for my junior year and then just another year of English for my senior year. I also took 4 different music classes at the local high school. I started working full time as well hanging out more with my friends in the evening. I was busy to say the least, but I enjoyed it. I think this was because of my new found freedom of being 16. I was able to pretty much go where ever I wanted as long as I was home by midnight (even on school nights) and I told my parents where I was going and whom I was going to be with. My senior year was pretty much the same.

When I got to college I started out by working 32 hours a week as well as taking 21, yes 21, credit hours. As a requirement of my major (voice) I also had to practice voice 10 hours a week. Plus there was the social aspect of college as well. It is no wonder that by the end of my freshman year I was exhausted. And I don't mean just tired all the time, which I was, but there were days when I literally could not get out of bed because my body would not let me. I had to learn to scale back and not be as busy. My sophomore year was more manageable with only working 25 hours a week and taking 12 credit hours.

After my sophomore year I did not return to college. I really just wanted to work for awhile and since I am prone to being a workaholic this worked out well for me. I ended up working three jobs, one full and two part time. You would think that I had learned my lesson from college, but I did not. It wasn't too long before I was just exhausted.

When I went to Russia I decided that I would make it a point to take one day off a week. When you are in full time ministry this is actually something that is hard to do. But I was determined. I figured I would be better used if I wasn't exhausted all the time. Every Saturday I unplugged the phone, slept till noon, and generally did nothing most of the day. This really spared me from getting too exhausted.

I should probably note that when I get exhausted I'm not just tired, I literally cannot stand or sometimes even sit up. If I do attempt this I will half faint, I know it sounds kind of silly but a doctor did tell me that is what it is called. Half fainting is like fainting only one does not lose consciousness. I kind of think it would be better to all the way faint because then I wouldn't feel myself hit the floor, because that is not fun. I think the record so far for me half fainting in one morning was 14 times. I know you are gasping right now. I assure you that after about the 10th time it was kind of comical.

I tell you all this because this year has been busy, very busy. I also have been reflecting more lately and have come to the conclusion that I want a more simple life. I do not want to be doing things, going here and there, just for the sake of doing them. I also do not want to be doing things just because I cannot say no (which I really have a hard time doing sometimes). I have decided that I like things simple. I like going home to my house after a day of work (at one job) and sitting down to dinner with my husband. I like putting on my pj's the moment I get home in the evening. On Saturdays I like sleeping in and not doing anything. I like to sit on Saturday mornings and sip my coffee while reading a book. As I have gotten older I have discovered my limits, both physical and emotional.

I have now decided to start a journey of leading a more simple less hectic life. I'm not sure what that will look like. I know that I want to get rid of some things within our home we really have no need for. We have 25 boxes of stuff that we packed up when we thought we would be buying a new house. That was a year ago and we have yet to really need anything out of those boxes. As I continue along this journey I will be sharing more about leading a more simple life.

What do you think? Are you leading a busy hectic life? Or do you think that I am crazy for wanting a less busy life? You can be honest and tell me I'm crazy. :)

No Time to Write - Love is in the Air

In case you haven't noticed I really haven't posted much in the past week. This is because of this happy couple:



This is my brother-in-law Sean and his lovely wife Cong. They are celebrating their wedding on Saturday and there has been a flurry of activity going on in preperation for it. This picture is from the day they actually got married. They had to get married a little bit sooner than anticipated due to visa issues for Cong. This Saturday is when they were supposed to get married. Now we are celebrating what has already transpired. I will do a full post on the wedding, including pictures (if I remember to take any), in the next week or so.

Some Tips on Buying and Selling on Craigslist

So this is more about personal experience with Craigslist, not necessarily something that will help you navigate/buy/sell on Craigslist. (I really cannot offer any advice on that terrible ugly dining room table that has been in your family for generations and that you want to get rid of now that grandma is gone. The only advice I can offer about that is: take low quality pictures and the first person to call about it get their address and just drop off in their lawn in the middle of the night, then it can be their ugly dining room table and not yours.) After our experience last night with a treadmill and combined with some of our friends experiences I thought a post might be necessary.

Tips for buyers:

Have patience, just because the person you are buying from is not at their house 30 minutes before their scheduled time to meet you doesn't mean you should call them every 5 minutes until they show up.

Don't expect a money back guarantee. You bought it, you exchanged cash for an object, you generally cannot get your money back. If you want to try and get your money back don't show up at the sellers house asking for your money back without the object in hand, seriously!

Be leery of going into certain neighborhoods after dark. If you must go and look at, let's say, a treadmill after 10pm be sure to have someone else with you, preferably a male with some martial arts training (like my husband).

Tips for sellers:

Don't give out too much personal information on the phone, some people might just be wanting to steal your stuff. If it's an item that you can take with you meet the buyer in a very open and public place.

Be accurate in your information. If you aren't sure of all the details of the object that you are selling, look them up before you post.

Don't smoke pot right before someone is supposed to come over to your place to look at...ummm... let's say a treadmill.

Have the right tools on hand so that you are able to take apart a treadmill, for example, to fit through the door. It's best that your buyers aren't waiting around in your pot smoke filled living room while you search for an allen wrench.

Don't have people come over to buy your stuff after 10om if you live in bad neighborhood. The drug deals that take place two doors down from you just might deter them from buying your treadmill. (But not us, because by golly we were not going to travel to a terrible neighborhood, risk our lives or money, and not have anything to show for it.)

These are just a few tips, not all of them happened to us. By the way we bought a treadmill last night, can't wait to use it. Although it does need a good scrubbing, kind of smells like pot....

Quest for the Dress

It is the year for weddings in my husband's family. His oldest sister is getting married in November and his younger brother is getting hitched in just a few weeks. I have been to the bridal store quite a few times in the past two months helping the bride-to-be's pick out wedding dresses. That got me thinking about my own quest for a dress. Here is what I wrote about my experience five years ago when I was looking for a wedding dress of my own.

I do want to put a disclaimer on this post that this was my experience, if you had a wonderful wedding dress shopping experience than that's wonderful!

I actually started looking at wedding dresses before Michael proposed to me. I thought that it would be a good idea to go and look at them and see what was out there. This lead to frustration. I didn't want to try on a dress before I had a ring on my finger in fear that somehow he would change his mind and not want to marry me so I didn't want to start trying on dresses because that would be "buying the cart before the horse." I went to bridal shops and boutiques around the greater Des Moines area. To my disappointment there are not many around here. I could, if I wanted to, drive all over to the numerous small towns outside of the Des Moines area. I started wondering how women got married in this state, there is nothing out here. I was also very frustrated over the price of these gowns. I would find one that I liked and then I would look at the price tag: $1200!! You've got to be kidding? It's a dress that you will wear once for about 4 hours and never wear again.

This is what would normally happen when I would walk into a shop or boutique. I would walk in and take off my shoes (you have to take off your shoes at small bridal shops, don't ask me why.). I would then start to peruse the dresses. By this time very pushy sales women who weren't married would start asking me a whole bunch of questions. I would politely tell them that I was just looking. Then they would walk away for about 5 minutes. They would come back and ask me what style of dress I was looking for. I would respond by saying: "Something with sleeves and no beads. Also if its under $200 that would be great." They would look at me and stare at me for a few seconds before replying. I knew that they were thinking: "this girl is crazy". They would point to a rack at the back of the store, they would never help me or walk me to the rack; they would just point. I would walk to the back of the store where I was greeted by really hideous, awful looking dresses that were left overs from 1987. Most of them had big poofy sleeves and lots and lots of beads. While I wanted sleeves on my dress, I didn't want poof nor did I want beads, but all of these dresses were in the price range I had inquired about of the sales girl.

I would also get unsolicited advice about how my wedding should be, not my wedding dress, my wedding. At one shop after I had told one of them what I wanted my dress to look like she told me that I shouldn't put so many expectations on the dress. I should try on the strapless ones too and have a more open mind. This led into a whole talking to about how weddings will never turn out how we expect them to be and how I should just spend those few extra dollars to make my wedding the most important day of my life. I told her that while a wedding is an important day it will not be the most important day of my life. She stood back with a look of horror on her face. While I understood that I should have a more open mind I know what I am comfortable with and a strapless dress is not one of them.

At another shop I was looking around and one of them (sales woman) was trying to force a strapless dress on me. I was so tired of wedding shop clerks forcing the ever popular strapless dress on me that I said to her: "Why would anyone want to look like a slut on their wedding day is beyond me. A wedding isn't the celebration of what the bride looks like, but that she has abstained from sex and that two people are coming together in a union that was ordained by God. I don't want a strapless dress, I don't want everyone looking at my breasts, they are not there for everyone else, they are there for my husband!"* With that she backed off. I was really frustrated with her and everyone else trying to persuade me into something that I was not going to wear. After that experience I decided that I was should stop looking for awhile. I quit for about 2 weeks, in that 2 weeks Michael did propose to me and then I had a ring on my finger, it's a beautiful ring by the way.

One day I got an e-mail from one bridal store announcing their annual $99 sale. I was actually excited about this, even though I hate this store because its huge even though there is a lot of selection, but with a larger store there are more of those pushy sales ladies who aren't married. So I enlisted the help of two of my friends here in Des Moines and we came up with a game plan. The plan was to get in and get out. The store opened up at 10am on Saturday. Michael, who had been in Washington DC all week was coming in and was expected to be home around 11am. I really wanted to see him, but I wanted a dress so I set a really strict time frame. Besides you can't stay too long at those stores because you can get overwhelmed very quickly. My plan was to be done by 12pm.

Brenna, Angela and I met at 9:30am and drove to the other side of town. We arrived at the store and already there were a lot of people looking at dresses. We started looking at dresses, we found a few that I wanted to try on. So we went to go put them in a fitting room, we were greeted by one of the them. She told us that I needed to register with them to try anything on. So I went, not too happily, to "register". I had to give my name, address, phone number and date of wedding. We didn't have a date set yet so I didn't put one down. I also didn't include my phone number. They immediately asked me about my phone number. I told them that I might give them my number if I bought a dress but I wasn't making any promises. I didn't want one of them to call my cell phone in the middle of the day and waste my precious minutes. They never asked about the date. I went into the room with 4 options; 3 of them fit my criteria, one them didn't because Angela wanted me to try on a strapless dress just for fun. So I put on the first one. It fit and was beautiful. I came out of the fitting room and Brenna zipped me up. I stood on the little step and then did numerous spins for Brenna and Angela. Then Angela went to find me a veil to try on with the dress. While she was doing this one of them came over to see how I was doing. She told me that the dress would need alterations and that they could do that for me. I told her that it just needed to be let out a little through the waist and that it wouldn't take much to do that. She told me that it was a very complicated process and that they would be happy to do alterations there at the store, for a fee of course. I asked her if she knew how to sew, she told me no. I assured her it wouldn't be that complicated and that I would find someone to do it for me, like my mother. She also told me that I could get 15% off of the veil. I looked at the price of the veil $70!!! No way I could make one for $15 that looked exactly like the one that she was holding. Thankfully it was busy and she had to rush off to someone else who was spending more money than me. I had found my dress!

I went back into the fitting room and tried on the other dresses, they didn't "feel" right. I got dressed again and got my dress and went to go pay. At the cash register the woman checking me out started to ask me if I needed this or that. I told her all that I wanted was my dress, that's all. She then asked me what my wedding colors were. I started to say white, black and dark red, but I got out white before she started talking to another one of them. She then said to me that that was nice and she liked those colors. I only mentioned one. She then told me that she has been a bridesmaid 22 times. It actually re-enforced my suspicions of them, they are actually never married women who live vicariously through others in a business that can be ruthless, thus making them rather pushy. I paid $115; $99 for the dress and then $10 for the heavy duty garment bag, $5 for tax. I made it over to Michael's by 11:30am.

Did you have a similar dress experience? Did you know it was "the one" the moment you put it on?

*I also want to note that while I will probably never ever wear strapless you may feel very comfortable in a strapless dress. If you do happen to wear a strapless dress while in my presence I am not thinking that you are a slut; I did say this to a sales woman out of frustration and if I had to do over again I probably wouldn't have said it.

Random Russian Remembrance

The hallways are filled with music. Children of all ages are singing as loud as they possibly can. It's about 11am and almost time for lunch. Their chapel is just after our chapel and for some reason they sing much louder than the children in our chapel. In this school there are actually two schools; one American and one Russian. I happen to lead music for the American school chapel hour, and yet I cannot get our children to sing as loud as the Russians. They are full of energy, perhaps this is due to having to sit still all morning in class, now they are able to move about and release some energy. The school I teach at is mostly made up of missionary children from Korea, there are a few Americans, a few Germans, a few Indians, a few Japanese, but mostly Korean. I pause at the chapel/gym/choir room/band room/classroom doors. I look inside and I see happy faces of about 35 Russian children. They are singing in English, or at least trying to. Their music leader for the day is Sam, he is a single man. He is tall with blonde hair and brown eyes, I think he is about 40. I think he is originally from California, but is a bit of a free spirit and moves around a lot. I'm in love with him, as is every other single female teacher in both schools.

A boy of about 12 steps out to take a phone call. He is wearing navy blue dress pants that are fraying at the hem. His brightly colored knit sweater has a few holes in it. In Russian I hear him say: "Grandma, you can't call me at this time I'm at school." I hear her voice on the other end of the line, but can't make out what she is saying. "I know, I'll come by and bring you some food and make you dinner after school." He pauses again to listen. "I love you too grandma." He hangs up his phone and puts into his pocket, he pauses and takes a deep breath. I see a little glisten of wetness in his eyes. I realize that this child is probably the only one who takes care of his grandmother. I imagine that after school he will go to the local market and pick up some tomatoes, cheese and brown bread. He may stop in at the butcher and pick up some sort of meat. I imagine him going into a dark building with no lights on in the hallway and climbing up five flights of stairs because the elevator has not worked in about 30 years. I imagine him pulling out his key and unlocking the steal door that provides some security for his grandmother's apartment. I imagine him entering a 300 sq. foot apartment with a small kitchen, a small wash room, and a room that is for both living and sleeping. I imagine him cooking a delicious meal for his grandmother and after they have eaten he finishes up his homework. Such is the life of many people in Russia, they bear one another's burdens and mostly without complaint. The boy goes back into the room and joins the other children in singing this American worship song: "Forever God is faithful, Forever God is strong, Forever God is with us, Forever, Forever..."

Yesterday Chris Tomlin's song Forever came on the radio and this lead to a Random Russian Remembrance.

I've Rediscovered the Library

When I was a child my mom would take me and my sisters to the library all the time. Our local library was within walking distance and sometimes we would all take our bikes, sometimes we would walk or, if we were in a hurry, we would drive. I knew our local library like the back of my hand. I remember going to the library for everything. If we needed to write a research paper, we went to the library. If we needed a good book to read during the summer months, we went to the library. If we needed to use a computer to type up said research paper, we went to the library. The library had so many interesting things in it. There were so many books to explore, not just fiction but also non-fiction. When I was in high school I would often stop at the library on my walk home from my choir classes at the local high school. (I was home-schooled in high school but took music classes through our local high school.) I could spend countless hours in the library just hanging out and reading. Then I discovered Barnes & Noble.

I don't know why I decided that buying books was more fun than just borrowing books for free. But by the time I was a senior in high school I was working a full-time job and had the money to buy the books I wanted to read. Over the years I kept going to the book store to buy books. The book store was just as interesting as the library, but I could keep the books and never return them. You know what's funny? I very rarely read the same book twice. There are only a handful of books that I've read twice and most of them were checked out from the library. For approximately 15 years I've supported my book addiction by purchasing books. You know what that gets you? A lot of books that I will probably never read ever again.

Last August my husband and I wanted to get our house on the market to sell. We decided to par down on our books. We donated about 4 large boxes of books. Now that we have lived without those books for almost a year, I don't miss them. I have decided I'm not going to buy books anymore, okay maybe I'll buy a few but only if they are used ones off Amazon. Since this declaration I have started to go to the library more frequently. I have to admit that the library in our neighborhood is no where near the size of the one that was close to the home I grew up in. The Central library downtown isn't as big either :( but it's library either way and I get to check out books for FREE!

Do you have any fond memories of your local library?