Thursday, December 20, 2007

printer puke

so tim, if you have any questions about how we're doing without you....

twas the night before thursday
and all one could hear
was one printer stirring
its name was lanier

job after job
was directed its way
as the whole church prepared
for christmas day

flyers, programs
bulletins and more!
children's handouts
invitations galore!

suddenly an error
appeared on the screen
an error that i
had not ever seen

"waste toner is full"
it whined, "empty now"
it beeped and it blurped
(it practically had a cow)

i followed directions
but must have screwed up
as suddenly, without warning
the lanier blew up!

i stood in a powdery
cloud of coloration
coughing and choking
and cursing the abomination...

that is lanier, the deceptive!
lanier, the snake!
lanier, the cross-eyed
punk-faced mistake!

yay savin! go xerox!
and ricoh as well
but lanier, may you rot
forever, in ...

purgatory


Wednesday, December 19, 2007

they keep getting better...

fast track to the doghouse

according to victoria taft, well known portland radio personality,
the perfect christmas gift for "that special someone" is a gift certificate!

for botox.

merry christmas, honey...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

bad influence

the title of the children's christmas play (which will be performed this weekend with much pomp and ceremony by the tots and teens of grace community church)...
is the influence of a baby king.

(well ... actually there's no the, it's just influence of a baby king, but it was printed on the invitations with a "the" so we're changing it for all intents and purposes. don't tell the publisher.)

any-who, the title. riveting, huh? [eye roll]
i like ben sadler, our worship director's idea better:

children under the influence


hee hee

would you give money to this guy?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14147987@N03/2117584608/

Monday, December 17, 2007

stinkin hilarious

http://deputy-dog.com/2007/08/24/top-10-physically-modified-people-2/

yeah.

incidentally, they spelled despicably wrong.





edit: they fixed the link. it's not hilarious anymore, just gross. don't click on it.

disgruntled, yet sympathetic.

every morning i listen to 860 kpam while getting ready for work.
i like hearing bob miller, pat boyle, and ron calhan banter about politics, sports, and trivia.

today, monday, i turned on my radio just as the alarm sounded (as i always do), and instead of bob's familiar voice, i hear a stranger. a strange man invading my monday morning!

the strange man told me that bob, my morning caffeine, my weekday catharsis, my friend...
was in the hospital ... had survived a serious motorcycle accident.

and i, still in my sleep-stupor, was genuinely upset.
what right has bob to drive motorcycles irresponsibly (it was his fault) when i and so many others depend on him?!?

so i muddled through my monday morning, disconcerted, confused...


thanks a lot, bob.

oh, and ... uh ... get well soon.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Saturday, December 15, 2007

i love it when a plan comes together :)

i think it was someone from the a-team who said that. i don't remember which one, though ~ i was never big on anyone from that show except mr. T.

anyway, the plan... worship rehearsal last night was awesome! we had our first practice for the christmas eve service, and it is going to be sooooo cool! awesome ideas, and it all totally came together...

5:30pm christmas eve ~ like seriously, be there.


Friday, December 14, 2007

realms of grammati-lunacy

i love christmas carols. i currently have over 50 hours of christmas music saved on my computer ~ everything from handel and vivaldi classics to mariah carey.

sometimes, while listening or transcribing lyrics (for worship powerpoint at church) i come across a line that jolts me out of my routine ... and i spend a few minutes pondering one of the great traditions of this season:

ridiculous lyrics.

for example: one of the classics (and, incidentally, one of my favorites)... angels from the realms of glory

v.1
angels from the realms of glory, wing your flight o'er all the earth
-ok, we're a little weird with the "winging," but whatever
ye who sang creation's story, now proclaim messiah's birth
-that's pretty.
come and worship, come and worship, worship christ the newborn king!
-this is turning into a great worship song!

v.2
shepherds in the fields abiding, watching o'er your flocks by night
-can you pack any more shepherd cliches in one line?
god with man is now residing, yonder shines the infant light.
-infant light? sounds like e.t.
come and worship, come and worship....

v.3
-this is where it gets weird.
sages leave your contemplations, brighter visions beam afar.
-scottie, beam me to the brighter visions! ... ok bad joke.
seek the great desire of nations, ye have seen his natal star.
-"
natal star" sound like a mediocre christian punk band. except they'd spell it, like, "nataLL staRR"....
come and...


i love the message of the song, but "natal star"??? come on, people...

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

a few pics

so i haven't actually taken many pics recently...
but i've been spending a lot of time going through my archives and honing my photoshop skills.
so... here's a few.

i took this one last spring, back when i was still using my point&shoot. i like how we're both represented in the shot and our faces and hands appear to complete each other. :D

better half

took this one in september, i think...

to be a princess...

this one is from this last august. we went down to san diego county, ca for 2 days for joel's grandma's funeral. his dad and stepmom have an amazing rose garden.

the yellow rose of ... california


ciao

we're moving! eventually....

yup! we're selling the house.
joel will be starting school full time this summer (part time this january), and we simply won't be able to stay in the house.

we met with a realtor this weekend and began the process of selling our little home in a down market. he was actually really optimistic. woohoo.

we plan to put the house on the market in mid-january, and once it's posted we aren't legally allowed to make any changes without hiring a contractor. (oregon law - practically all you can do at that point is move the furniture and replace the toilet paper.)

so.... between now and then we need to complete as much as we can of the following list:
~replace electrical sockets
~replace front door
~repaint trim throughout house
~replace moulding in study
~re-roof garage
~replace bathtub surround
~tear down old fence in the backyard
~replace glass panes in garage windows
~get a bathroom mirror, instead of the broken shard we're currently using ;)
~install kitchen light

last, but definitely not least...
~pack up 90% of about 3 billion books!

Monday, December 10, 2007

does it get any more christmasy?

on sunday afternoon we made christmas cookies
4 different kinds!
with friends
and family
and even strangers
and it was loud and messy
sometimes loud enough to drown out mannheim steamroller, ringing in the background
and cookie frosting and sprinkles were flying everywhere
and the seahawks beat the cardinals on the muted tv

and it was snowing....


Friday, December 7, 2007

fixed!

...is the dishwasher. (after 2 weeks)
...and the bathroom plumbing. (after 2 months)

2 things that make life good.


now, a picture. this is the front of this year's christmas invitations for the church.
stock photo from istockphoto.com, photoshoppery by *me*.

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merry christmas!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

happy thanksgiving!

to be sung to the tune of "my bonnie lies over the ocean"

the turkey popped out of the oven
and rocketed in to the air
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair

it ricocheted into a corner
and burst with a deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen
completely obscuring the room

it stuck to the walls and the windows
it totally coated the floor
'twas turkey attached to the ceiling
where there'd never been turkey before

it blanketed every appliance
it smeared every saucer and bowl
there wasn't a way i could stop it
that turkey was out of control

i scraped and i scrubbed with displeasure
and thought with chagrin as i mopped
that i'd never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn't been popped!

by jack prelutsky

dr. roberts, i presume?

...would be my husband, in about 3 billion years.

he's going to med school!
god works in really funny ways sometimes... this time he worked through me getting run over by a truck. (ok, there were other things too.) joel has enjoyed taking care of me so much for the last 2 months, that he's decided he wants to do that for the rest of his life.

so... that means a few more years of pre-reqs (apparently a degree in biblical greek wasn't good enough...) we'll be taking math together next term. (review for me ~ i went higher in math than joel the algebra teacher did, believe it or not!)

then... mcat, med school, residency... oh my!


Monday, November 19, 2007

ashamed

a few posts back, i used the word "embarassed" in a blog title.

yes, a double irony has occurred in lalaland. the spelling nazi, in recounting her most embarrassing moment, spelled "embarrassed" wrong.


i am doubly embarrassed (sp?)


Friday, November 16, 2007

i've been listening to "world" music lately.

that's what napster calls it. it's where they throw everything that doesn't fit anywhere else.

i've downloaded cirque du soleil soundtracks, senegalese fusion, electronica-eastern-rock, celtic, klezmer, and a group called "bedouin soundclash" .... to name a few.



Wednesday, November 14, 2007

he won.

in other news,
i lost.

Monday, November 12, 2007

battle of ... um ... us

will be decided tonight.

joel and i play fantasy football. in the same league.

yeah....


so, this weekend, we are playing each other. and it all comes down to tonight. we each have 2 seahawks, and i'm ahead by a thread...

please think happy thoughts for deion branch and josh brown... they're my only hope...


Friday, November 2, 2007

i'm listening...

to christmas music!

and downloading more with our napster (yay cheap and easy (though glitchy) napster!!!!!)
even though i already have a christmas playlist that's over 40 hours of music.



it makes me happy.

Monday, October 29, 2007

what's your most embarassing moment?

mine happened yesterday.

i was on the worship team at church for the first time since my accident ~ and i was so excited! it was awesome ~ we had a great team, everything went really well...
until halfway through 2nd service.

the worship team was coming back onstage just as jay was finishing his sermon ~ passionately, in a soft voice, exhorting us to live like the bride of christ...
i crutched all the way from the back of the room with the team, and during his very last sentence...
monumentally tripped on the 3 steps to the stage.

i'm not talking about a little stumble, i'm talking arms and crutches flailing, rear end sticking out (toward the congregation) and all my weight landing on my bad foot.
it was more than worthy of america's funniest home videos.
you could hear an audible gasp go through the room.
jay paused his sermon, stepped toward me, and then (i found out later) decided to continue his sermon once he saw me keep going because he didn't want to embarass me. (how sweet.)


so i spent the afternoon with my foot and ego on ice, reflecting that life is too short to take oneself seriously, and it sure is a blessing to laugh!!!
(and that i am exceedingly glad that i have never developed a cursing habit...)

Monday, October 22, 2007

la-D-la

that's the name of my fantasy football team.

does that make me a fanatic?

maybe... i'm not going to to waste time speculating.
i have a game strategy to plan.

so does the general manager and head coach of the oc avengers:


another try...

now that's the face of intimidation.

~see pic large on black~

Monday, October 15, 2007

stolen

this is the editorial from last week's TIME magazine, written by joel stein. it's one of the funniest things i've read in a while ~ enjoy!

YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND
Yes, we're on Facebook. But I don't care about your cat. And stop poking me.

In the pre-internet days, neither of us would have even thought of calling each other friends. We'd have called ourselves friends of friends who met once and yet, for some reason, kept sending each other grammatically challenged, inappropriately flirty letters with photos of ourselves attached. Police might have gotten involved.

But now we're definitively friends, having taken a public vow of friendship on friend-based websites, wearing metaphorical friendship bracelets on the earnest Facebook, the punky MySpace, the careerist LinkedIn and the suddenly very Asian Friendster. As if that wasn't enough friendship for you, some of you have also asked me to be friends on the nerdy Twitter, the dorky-élitist Doostang and the Eurotrashy hi5. You message me and comment about me and write on my walls and dedicate songs to me and invite me to join groups. More than once you have taken it upon yourself to poke me.

This is hard to say to a friend, but our relationship is starting to take up too much of my time. It's weird that I know more about you than I do about actual friends I hang out with in person--whom I propose we distinguish by calling "non-metafriends." In fact, I know more about you than I know about myself. I have no idea what my favorite movie or song or TV show is. Last I checked, they all involved Muppets.

Also, you're a bit aggressive in our friendship. Would a non-metafriend call me up and say, "Hey! Guess what? I have a bunch of new pictures of me"? Or tell me he'd colored in a map of all the places he'd ever been? Or inform me, as Michael Hirschorn did in his Facebook status update, that he "is not making decisions; he's making surprises"? It's as if I suddenly met a new group of people who were all in the special classes.

The horror is, I can't opt out. Just as I can't stop making money or my non-metafriends will have more stuff than I do, I can't stop running up my tally of MySpace friends or I'll look like a loser. Just as money made wealth quantifiable, social networks have provided a metric for popularity. We all, oddly, slot in at a specific ranking somewhere below Dane Cook.
I'm sure social networks serve many important functions that improve our lives, like reconnecting us with old friends and finding out if people we used to date are still good-looking. And social networks all have messaging functions, which would be an excellent way to send information if no one had invented e-mail.

But really, these sites aren't about connecting and reconnecting. They're a platform for self-branding. Old people are always worrying that our blogging and personal websites and MySpace profiles are taking away our privacy, but they clearly don't understand the word privacy. We're not sharing things we don't want other people to know. We're showing you our best posed, retouched photos. We're listing the Pynchon books we want you to think we've read all the way through. We're allowing other people to write whatever they want about us on our walls, unless we don't like it, in which case we just erase it. If we had that much privacy in real life, the bathrooms at that Minnesota airport would be empty.

And like the abrasively direct ads for tinctures and cleaning products at the beginning of the advertising age, our self-branding is none too subtle. We are a blunt lot, in our bikinis and our demands that our friends go right now to check out our blog postings. We've gone 40 years back, to sales tactics predating irony, self-deprecation and actual modesty. We are, as a social network, all so awesome that we will soon not be able to type the number 1, because we will have worn out the exclamation point that shares its key.

Until we can build some kind of social network where we can present our true, flawed selves--perhaps some genius can invent something that takes place in a house over dinner with wine--I say we strip down our online communities to just the important parts. With enough venture funding--by which I mean the volunteer services of a dude who knows how to build a website--I hope to launch TrueSocialStatus.com on which users are allowed to submit only their name, their occupation, a photo, the square footage of their home and a list of any celebrities they happen to know. Then other people can vote, on a scale of 1 to 100, on how awesome they are. At the end of the year, the ones with the most points are made homecoming king and queen, which, if I remember correctly, should immediately send their scores plummeting. If nothing else, it should finally rid us of Tila Tequila.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

update on gimpy

so i haven't blogged, even though i've been laid up with not much to do.

what was there to blog about? i don't want to sit around and whine about sitting around all day... i never read other people's "whine-blogs" and i'm certainly not going to subject others to one.


so, i present... the opposite:
a short list, in no particular order, of some of the wonderful things about the past 2 weeks (exactly) since my accident:



~my incredible, wonderful, caring, patient husband - he works full time, heads up a ministry at our church, and for the past 2 weeks, has done all the housework, cooking, plus taking care of his invalid wife. always gentle and loving, not complaining, the picture of christ's love.

~everybody else - family, dear friends, church coworkers and friends, and some who i've never even met, cleaning our house, making food, coming over and helping me when joel's at work, sending cards and fun gifts, phone calls, and overwhelming us with grace and love.

~"music as medicine" - the book i just finished ... a symphony of grace when i needed it most.

~mary tyler moore and the gang on dvd - fun friends for lonely days...

~frozen vegetables - the world's best painkiller

~my new hairdo (thanks mom!) - it's cute, easy to manage, and looks great when i've been on my back all day!

~the er doc who took care of me - his name is jordan. he gave me such exemplary care; he even gave us his cell number in case problems arose over the weekend (they did) and called several times over the next week to see how i was doing.

~tupperware and plastic grocery bags - i can't carry open containers of food or drinks on crutches, so to get my own lunch or a glass of water by myself i need to put it in a closable container and put that container in a plastic bag with handles to transport... by the time i get to eating it i've already burned off all the calories!

~tim and the office crew at grace - they've done a great job managing while i've been gone - i can rest at home with confidence!

~pumpkin spice candles - mmmmmm......

~getting back to work - starting this last tuesday i've been back at work for 3-4 hour days. still taking it a day at a time, bumming rides off my coworkers (thanks guys!), and thankful for when i can be there.


lots more is popping into my head ~ like i said, this is a short list!
life is good!

Thursday, October 4, 2007

i don't really have an excuse

i should have posted about my accident sooner.
the only thing that's been preventing me is... nothing really.
i've been stuck on my back for a week now, computer on my lap almost every day...

blogger's block, i guess.


here's what happened:

i got ran over by a truck last thursday.
i was walking to work, and a truck was turning right onto hogan (the road i walk along) from a little side street. he had a stop sign. i watched him slow down, figured he was going to stop, so i started to cross the little side street. he did a rolling "stop" and accelerated right into me ~ never saw me (he said later that he was turning right and just looked left, didn't think to look right). i tried to jump out of the way, but my foot got caught under his wheel as he braked, and dragged along the road (not pretty). and i didn't get to drink even a sip of the nice tea latte i had in my pretty starbucks mug (which didn't break, by the way).

that's pretty much the extent of the accident part.
i got to ride in an ambulance to the hospital, i got x-rays and narcotics, and had to have surgery to remove embedded gravel...

and finally i got to go home!

and i haven't been able to leave much since ~ i haven't even been back to work yet. it's not healing quite right, so i had a ct scan yesterday. i've been on maximum doses of narcotics for a week now, so i may do something weird...

Sunday, September 30, 2007

i got to ride in an ambulance!

for the 1st time ever!

and have surgery and all kinds of fun stuff.

my computer's running out of battery ~ more later.

Monday, September 24, 2007

my baby brother

only has one year of teen-dom left.
he turns 19 today.
couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

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Sunday, September 23, 2007

my husband...

skeet-shot 6 out of 6 this weekend.

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and he knows greek.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

speaking of birthdays...

... the love of my life turns 28 tomorrow.

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were we not speaking of birthdays?

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

i went over a 14 foot waterfall!

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that one.

we spent sunday-monday in trout lake, washington, which is near bz corner, washington, which is near white salmon, washington, which is near hood river.
which is near portland. :P

on sunday we went white water rafting. the first time for me in 9 years, for joel in about as long. it was 60 degrees outside, & the water was 40 degree glacier melt. they gave us wetsuits.

it was 4 of the most beautiful hours i've spent in a long time, except for the part where joel fell out in the middle of a rapid. (he's trained as a white water rafting guide, so he was fine ~ i think the guide was more freaked out than he was.)

the waterfall was the only class 5 rapid on the trip, and the guide spent the hour and a half before it prepping us for any possible thing that could go wrong, and instructing us on exactly what to do to make it go right. it was over in about a second.

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Friday, September 14, 2007

heidi's 25!

had a fantabulous time at heidi's 2 surprise birthday parties. (good job, tim!)
took lots of pictures, which are available for viewing and downloading here.

here are just a few of my favorites:

Thursday, September 13, 2007

the odd couple

the most ambitious photoshop venture i have undertaken thus far ~ also my most popular on flickr.

playing at surreal mob bosses on our anniversary. :)

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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

catching up...

yay! august is over!

oh brother, it's september.

life keeps getting crazier ~ i have been telling myself that i would not blog until i could post pictures of our weekend with joel's mom and stepdad, our weekend down in california at joel's grandma's funeral with his dad and stepmom, our anniversary at the end of august, heidi's birthday last weekend... and instead of getting it done i just end up not blogging.

so now i shall blog, sans obligatory pictures. i still intend to post them all (probably sometime in november).


the church is in the thick of our building project ~ 2nd story, here we come!!!
i survived the jackhammering down the hall,
the constant beeping for hours on end during electrical work,
the fire alarm going off for upwards of a half hour at a time during alarm work,

but now, they are building right above my head, and i am working under a semi-constant rain of ceiling-tile stuff. i'm doing ok, but i don't know about my computer.
working here is always an adventure... lol.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

more tag...

so apparently several of the facts that i gave when tagged (see below: blogtag ) weren't good enough...

i'm not sure who's setting the rules here, i thought the internet was an irregulated institution.
i think i'm succombing to peer pressure. oh well.

anyway, i guess i owe the people of dotcomland 2 more random facts. so here goes:

1. i used to own chickens. i had them for about 8 years. they were pets ~ they came when i called them, it was great. we had no place to raise the baby chicks outside, but we did have an extra bathroom, so every spring we would set up the bathtub with a heat lamp and the chicks would live in the bathtub until they got too big and started flying out. it was awesome, though there's seriously nothing quite like using the bathroom with a flock of chicks staring at you...

2. i married my first and only boyfriend. :D

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

sunrise, sunset

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there are no ordinary people. you have never talked to a mere mortal.
nations, cultures, arts, civilization - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. but it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.


c.s. lewis "the weight of glory"

Monday, August 27, 2007

blogtag

i've been caught in a rousing game of blogger tag by heidi thomas.
:)

rules:
1. rules before fun
2. tag-ees blog 8 random facts (or lies... hmm)
3. tag-ees then become the tag-er and tag 8 other bloggers
4. comments must then be left, informing new tag-ees re: their tagged status



my facts:

1. i don't personally know 8 other bloggers who haven't been tagged... (i'm at the end of this chain) i suppose i could tag random people... that wouldn't be weird at all.


2. doesn't matter that i don't know enough people, because i LOVE breaking the rules! me no tag nobody. (don't tell me, let me guess: this is one of those "if you don't pass this on to 13 million people in 13 minutes, your grandpa, 12 children, and pet lizard will die in a nuclear explosion tomorrow" type things? ... doesn't matter ~ i'm still breaking the rules)


3. i have perfect pitch. really. please look at me like i'm a freak ~ i enjoy it. [eye roll]


4. i esteem sarcasm as an art form. i collect especially funny and sarcastic quotes ~ but i don't use them often because i hate to hurt people's feelings. 2 traits that don't go well together.


5. i have 8 piercings. & my husband has a tattoo. kind of.
(alright, he was stabbed with a pencil in grade school, but that still counts, right?)


6. i hate talking on the phone. hate it. even with people i love to talk to, talking on the phone sets me on edge. i cringe whenever i hear the phone ring.


7. i love wind. it makes me happy... i love how wind messes up my hair, how it sounds in the trees and makes the house squeak (we live in a 100 year old house), everything about it.

8. tomorrow joel and i turn 3! woot!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

lacking...

my myspace profile picture was described by a friend as

"definitely lacking in normality"

i think i'm going to adopt that as one of my life phrases.




of course, he also said my picture could be an ad for saw 4.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

my poor, pathetic car

it's sad, really.

it has no radio. (stolen last fall)
the windows don't work.
the front is dented in and the grill is broken. (my fault, see earlier post)
the back passenger window is broken in.
glass everywhere...

and now...

i have no front driver's side window. well, that's not true. it's in there somewhere.
it decided it's tired of coming out to play. so it went down and it's not coming up.
at all. ever. for no good reason.


but i've got a great camera!!!

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

cyberstrife

joel and i email during our workdays. it's fun. sometimes we get silly. here's a recent email i sent when i didn't think he was responding to me soon enough...


hi.

are you on an anti-emailing-lani kick today?
or do you not like me anymore?
or maybe you can receive, but not send.
or maybe the cyberfairies have the flu and aren’t functioning at full capacity.

or maybe...
they’re at WAR with the cybersprites, and fighting the epic dotcom battle of our times, the cyberfairies led by bill gates (known by his battle name, "tinkerbill"), fighting desperately against the cybersprites, led by steve jobs. the sprites are using chemical warfare (viruses), which fells the fairies by the millions, but they don’t give up, even though they don’t think they have the bandwidth to go on…

so are you going to email me yet?


what can i say... we're goofy.
so are you going to comment me yet? or are the cyberfairies still recovering from their battle wounds and unable to hoist the comment from your keyboard all the way to---

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

busy weekends!

last weekend we were at the grace family campout, and this weekend we had a wonderful time helping joel's parents (up from orange county) look for a home here!

haven't uploaded pics from this weekend yet (another day, another post... maybe tomorrow), but it's a mark of how behind i am that the following slideshow of family camp pics is entirely un-photoshopped!






here's one that i did photoshop, and i'll slowly work my way through more. hopefully.

dreaming of thistles

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Thursday, August 9, 2007

more pixing and headaches

still playing with my new tripod. actually, i'm still photoshopping my 1st experiments with the tripod. haven't had much time to play this week ~ we got home from family camp on sunday, and i crashed my car on tuesday, and the headaches haven't been very nice.

still fighting the headaches ~ they've come back with a vengeance the past month or so... almost every day. still taking my psycho drug for the headaches(topamax ~ or dopamax, i call it). still have holes in my brain. less head to hurt, at least. :)


this one's called capto lumen

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007

still pixing

my darling husband bought me a tripod.

i think it's because he got tired of endless sessions with me behind the camera, ordering him around for the perfect shot... now i can be perfectionist with myself. it's also nice because i can take night and low light shots, long exposures, etc...

here's a couple of my first experiments. they're kind of large because, well, they're better that way.

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ciao!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

i crashed my car today.

into an open gate.

uh-huh.

i've got skills.

ok, here's what happened:
i was running late to work, and didn't put my contacts in. (i'm legal without them, just nearsighted.) i drove my exhausting 2 block commute to work (lol), checked to see if the front gate was open....

ok ~ i'm going to digress for a second. we have this big old iron gate at our entrance that has not been used since i started work at grace. this week, we started construction on the roof for the second story of our building, and everybody thought it would be a good idea to start using the gate since the building will be less secure than normal. it was not shut before i left last night, but i checked this morning just in case. end of digression.

so... i saw that the gate was open, zoomed into the parking lot, and ran into the gate!!!
rather, the right side of the gate, which was partially closed and which i had not seen, being irresponsibly bereft of my contacts.

i ran into the gate going about 15-20 miles per hour ~ it caused a significant dent in the hood and broke the grill clear in half. the gate then rebounded and hit the passenger side of my car, dented both doors, and broke the back passenger window.


yeah.

the best part is: the construction workers on the roof of the church saw the whole thing.
talk about your most embarrassing moment.

Friday, August 3, 2007

excited!

we're leaving for grace family camp today!

yippee!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

blessings poured out

i accidentally printed 220 copies of "come thou fount of every blessing"
9 of which i actually need.


i wanted a fount, and i got a tsunami.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

the troutdale bite and bluegrass festival...

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was unenthralling
and disappointing
and downright boring.

we goofed off...

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found a rubber ducky booth ~is it ducky or duckie in the singular? i think it's ducky...
btw, what do rubber duckies have to do with bluegrass music? it's not like they were even cowboy duckies!
would that be "cowducks"? ~sounds like some kind of sick science project...

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i annoyed everybody by taking pictures every couple seconds and laughing maniacally at the results. i don't get bored when i have my camera.

here's my coolest of the day...

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isn't he dreamy? [sigh]


finally we ditched and went to the sandy. the same place i fell a few weeks ago and probably would have died a horrible, painful death if that wonderful guy (see above) hadn't saved my life.

(no, i'm not exaggerating!!!)

:P

Monday, July 30, 2007

better oxygen circulation to the brain...

i have 2 more holes in my head.
...better circulation, less drag, improved aural faculties...

:)

mostly, they're cute.
this makes 4. (8 total)


little red riding hood: "grandma, how many earrings you have!"
wolf: "the more bling to dazzle you with, my dear..."

Thursday, July 26, 2007

more headaches

yup.

not fun.





maybe they'll go away tomorrow.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

a wedding and a funeral

i am currently preparing music for a wedding and a funeral.

one of the songs i'm playing for the wedding is called "there's no remedy for love."
i can play whatever i would like for the funeral.

i think i'll play "it is well with my soul" ... a song written by a man who had just lost all of his children to a shipwreck.

i find it interesting to juxtapose the lyrics of the 2 songs.
why is it that weddings tend to bring out the most sentimentally trite in us, while the death of our loved ones (and the inescapable reminder of our own mortality) tends to encourage the most open attempts at profundity, at significance, that many of us ever make?

"there's no remedy for love.
nothing can change the way i feel
i'm hopelessly head over heels
for worse or for better"

when peace like a river
attendeth my way
when sorrows like sea billows roll
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
it is well, it is well with my soul

"there's no remedy for love
but i'd have it no other way
the symptoms are clear, i'm yours
for now and forever"

though satan should buffet
though trials should come
let this blessed assurance control
that christ has regarded my helpless estate
and hath shed his own blood for my soul

"there's no remedy for love
caught up in the concept of your kisses
of the mr. and the mrs.
of the steps our love is taking here"

my sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought
my sin, not in part but the whole
is nailed to the cross, and i bear it no more
praise the lord, praise the lord, o my soul!

"i'm lost in the magic and the mystery
in our own small part of history
our hearts have started making here
and i know there'll be no cure for me
but what sweet malady"

and lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll
the trump shall resound, and the lord shall descend
even so, it is well with my soul


... that i would live and breathe the words of the latter song, that i would live for the day that "my faith shall be sight" ... and not for "our own small part of history."
... that "my sin is nailed to the cross and i bear it no more" ~ i have no "sweet malady"

... that love is not a disease to be contracted! it is a gift from our lord, poured out freely
... that i, because of his great goodness, can love others with his selfless love!
... that it is not about the "concept" of any "kisses", but laying one's life down for another...


i don't want to just dis a nice wedding song .... but i do want to live a life of meaning, so that when i reach the end of this life, i will inspire others to contemplate HIS return! not my earthly journey...

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

vbs

we have over 300 kids signed up for vacation bible school this year at grace!
that's waayyyy more than we expected ~ yay!

next year, once the building project is done.... we will actually have the space to advertise!

this is such a fun week....
*kids everywhere~
*incredible food (that regular church staff are invited to partake of...)
*awesome decorations! (the church is decorated in a spy/space theme)
*cute skits and songs
*great people!!!

it's so hard to get anything done vbs week!

Monday, July 23, 2007

525,948.766 minutes in a year

after 6 hours of reading
10 minutes in line at midnight
2 years of waiting...

wait.... make that 8 years of waiting......

(i started when i was 12)


i finished harry potter.

the world has finished harry potter.
(except for the reeeaaaaallly slow readers ~ or those weird people who aren't willing to eschew sleep and food for the goal.)


now all we have to look forward to are the lame movies. oh joy.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

busy!

veryveryvery busy with work right now!!!

so..... i rearranged my desktop. (actually i did that before it got busy)

my inspiration was bella espresso in cannon beach.

i love that place.

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