Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Dental Hygiene and Sound of Music


The other night I had dinner at my friend Amy's house. I love hanging out with her and her family. After we ate Christopher disappeared upstairs. Amy went to see what was going on. To her discovery he was flossing! He came downstairs and told us how it tasted like peppermint candy, and offered everyone a taste. We all differed except for Hannah.


Christopher disappeared upstairs again, and came back down asking "Anybody want some?" He had climbed up to the top shelf of the medicine cabinet to get the whole container of floss. He was trying to give us all s piece. Its nice to know he is worried about our dental hygiene!
 

Meanwhile Hannah sat in Amy's lap asking her to sing the last verse of "So long, Farewell" and pretended to fall asleep.
 "The sun has gone to bed and so must I...Goodnight"

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Tie Dying Central!

I added up that since June I have tie dyed somewhere around 75 shirts. Our church high school group did their rendition of Godspell this past weekend, so my boss had asked for me to tie dye some shirts for the kids. I also made a tie dye shirt for each member of the Hungary team.

I really don't mind doing it at all, actually I kind of enjoy it! I've done this for a long time...back when I worked camp at the Y, and I'm sure even times before that! One thing that I haven't tried is tie dying black shirts, until now. I asked a friend of mine who is helping with the Godspell if he would like me to make him a shirt. He asked if I could make a black one, and the challenge intrigued me. After a few trials and errors I finally figured it out!

Here's how:
Materials:
Tie Dye (I like the kits since they come with squirt bottles)
Rubberbands
Rubber gloves
bleach
water
plastic (to protect your counter tops)

Step 1: Wet the shirt and lay it out flat.











Step 2: Grab the center of the shirt and twist the shirt to create a spiral
 Step 3: Place rubber bands tightly around the shirt to keep the spiral shape.
 
Step 4: Using bleach in one of the squirt bottles add bleach to the shirt. Be sure to get it in between the layers. I like to put bleach on every other section of the shirt. 
  
Step 5: Let the bleach sit until the bleached areas change from "rust" to a "yellowish white" 
  
Step 6: Once the shirt has changed, cut the rubber bands and wash the shirt as usual in the washing machine. 
  
Step 7: Lay the shirt out flat and with the tie dye kit put various colors where you would like them. Try to follow each spiral to be one color. 

Step 8: Allow the dye to sit on the shirt. The longer it sits the better (I try at least 24 hours)
  
Step 9: Rinse the dye out of the shirt until the water runs clear.  
 
Step 10: Allow the shirt to air dry. Wear and enjoy! 
 
 
This really turned out better than I thought it would! 
 
Coming soon...Godspell pictures...but I have to sift through the 1,335 that I took and pick which ones I want to post! 

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Picture Walk

On Friday O and I decided to go on some picture walks. I love fall (if I haven't said that enough yet) and I love photography...so why not capture the things of fall that I love?!

I gave O my little point and shoot camera while I used my digital SLR. We walked around his school's campus and took a picture of the beautiful chapel there. We also walked around his neighborhood taking pictures. Here are some of the pictures...the first is a few of O's pictures, and the second are mine. Enjoy! :)




Saturday, October 18, 2008

Stayin Alive...

I heard this on the radio the other day...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/10/16/disco.song.health.ap/index.html

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Transition...

tran·si·tion –noun

1.movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept, etc., to another; change

The thought of transition has been on my mind the past few weeks. Fall is my absolute favorite season, the beauty of the leaves changing, the hot muggy air moving to cool crisp breeze. Putting away the shorts for sweatpants...and football jerseys. I. LOVE. FALL.

Looking at the definition I like the thought of passage. We pass through all things of life. Sometimes we stop and stay for a long while, and others its a short trip. God uses each stop to mold us and change us, but I think that He uses the actual passage and transition to grow us even more. Transitioning can be from something bad to something good, or something good to something better. Being the maximizer I am, I always try to think of ways to do things better, but sometimes that means I need to admit to the failures of what came before the new ideas. That isn't always easy.

I think the hardest part of transition is the ending. We should strive to end things well. Whether its the end of an era, a job, or a relationship we should strive to do everything in our power to make sure we can't do anything to make the end better. Sadly, even if we do accomplish that the ending can still be messy.

Ever since I was little I have always been horrible with goodbyes, so having to end relationships is the absolute worst for me! Looking back at the some relationship passages I've been though I see some that were very difficult to end, but now that I have come through the passage and I'm on the other end I see why it needed to happen.

I think about the leaves changing and how beautiful they are...and it makes me wonder why God makes the death of the leaves something so captivating. I think that it might be a way for Him to show us the importance of having a good ending. If you view the leaves as the transitions or passages of our lives the ending is when the leaves change color and fall to the ground, then the winter season of the barren tree is a neutral zone to pray and try to figure out what we can learn from the past, and look to what lies ahead. Finally spring comes and the leaves grow anew and it is time to grow and learn from the new beginning. The transition is complete.

This year I have had a few transitions to grow through, and I know that there are many more to come. Here are to great endings and even better beginnings!!!

Monday, October 13, 2008

8...7...6...5...4

8...7...6...5...4 are the ages of all the kids I had in the mini-van on Friday on our way to a birthday party! S and O's family is very close with another family who's mom had to be somewhere at the exact time of the party and asked if I could take her 3 oldest kids. So I packed R, J, S, T, and O all in the van and away we went! The party was at Pump It Up, a place filled with moonbounces and other inflatable apparatuses for the kids to play on. I was very impressed with the staff there, they gave the kids free time, but also engaged the kids in activities.
Here are some fun pictures from the party! 
 O climbing up and hopping over! 
S was too fast for me to get once he jumped over! 

J sliding away! 
 
I tried to get all 5 of the kids to hold hands for a picture...they did it...but sadly S and O didn't make it in the pic! This is really cute of R, J, and T though!  

Thursday, October 9, 2008

What do you do in your Staff Meetings?!

We have an all staff meeting the second Thursday of each month. We come and share a meal together, and discuss various things that are going on within the church. We always share some laughs...and today we shared a ton of them! Here is a glimpse of our staff meeting today...



Yes, That's right! We built our own Marshmallow Launchers and shot each other with marshmallows! It was a blast!

What did you do at work today?! :)

Monday, October 6, 2008

Phone Drama Continues...

This morning I woke up and went to text someone. I wrote the text and hit send. I got a message saying TEXT FAILED (NETWORK PROBLEM). I tried a few more times...and continued to get the same message. On my way to work I called Verizon Customer Service. They tried sending me a message and saw that I wasn't receiving any messages either. Since I was on my phone at the time I had to wait until I got to work and call them back on the land line.

After calling them back and being on the phone with them for 40 minutes...we didn't get anywhere. I tried to call someone with it and realized that I COULDN'T MAKE ANY CALLS! So I drove to verizon and told them the problem and that I wanted the env2. I read a few reviews and they all agreed that the env2 was better.

The woman told me that it wasn't the phone, it actually was the network. They were having a problem with people who have just activated phones. I still stuck with the env2.

Its not as fun as the glyde, but its seems sturdier and I like it. The best part...I can download free ringtones from myxer.com!!!! Something I couldn't do on my old phone! yippeeee! :)

(And now Amy B and I have the same phone!)

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Gone Swimming...

Yep, swim...or should I say drown is what my cell phone did this afternoon. I was laying on the couch extremely content reading my amazing book when my cell phone slid off my lap and landed IN MY GLASS OF WATER!!!! What are the chances?! I immediately grabbed it, took out the battery and grabbed a towel and my hair dryer. I dried it the best I could and then blasted it with the hair dryer, on the cool setting because I didn't think the heat would be a good thing. Once I thought it was as dry as I could get it I put it back together...I saw the verizon logo...but then blackness. I went online to see what they said about saving a wet phone and all the sites said DO NOT USE A HAIRDRYER...oops.

What was my next thought?! I should call...oh wait...my phone is DEAD I can't all ANYONE! So I drove to my friend Amy's house to show her. We decided I should take it to Verizon and see what they say.
To make a long story short, the woman at verizon said I could either pay $50 to get the same phone (which I hated) replaced or do my upgrade early where I would get the sale price on any phone, but I would lose the $50 rebate they give you. So basically I would be out $50 either way. I decided to go look for a new phone.

I was torn between the Samsung Glyde and the LG enV2...but I let money make my decision and I now have the Samsung Glyde. Its a touch screen with a full QWERTY keyboard...2 things that I have never had in a phone. The enV2 doesn't have the touch screen...but it has the QWERTY keyboard. Right now I don't know how I feel about the touch screen. I like it, but I have also gotten very frustrated with it today...and accidentally started calling people! OOPS! I have 30 days to return the phone if I don't like it...in which case I will save the few extra bucks and get the enV2.
Here is a picture of the Samsung Glyde:
And the LG enV2:

If you have either of these phones and have some knowledge on which to stick with...I would love to hear it!

Lesson learned today: Don't drink water and have a cell phone near by!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

A Blast from the Past!

Yesterday I was in Target (one of my favorite stores) perusing  the clothes when I heard someone having an interesting conversation on their phone. I looked over at the person thinking that's interesting and as I passed them I stopped and back up. She told the person on the phone to hold on for a minute and looked at me and said "Hi Erin!" It was my high school dance teacher, someone I was extremely close with in high school.

She told me that she hears about me every once in a while from students who go to my church (apparently she has pictures of me up on the door to her office), and asked what I was up to. I told her how I'm still working with the high schoolers at my church and loving it. She said that she still has a cookie recipe in my hand writing that I gave her in high school and she uses it all the time. She thought of me the other day because I was one of her "tap girls" and she really wants to do a tap number this year. She asked if I would be interested in helping her choreograph a tap piece and help teach her some more tap. I started laughing and told her that I haven't danced in 10 years. She thinks that I could easily pick it up again, especially tap, and that she would call me.

I called my mom to tell her about this crazy interaction and talk about how absurd it is to think that she wants me to choreograph for her, and how I don't even have tap shoes anymore. My mom immediately said that she would buy me new tap shoes and how great it would be to get back into it.

I danced from the time I was 3 until I graduated high school. It was my life! I was at my studio at least 5 hours a day 6 days a week, involved in competitions and a teacher at my studio. I tried to dance some when I was in college, but I really didn't like the program so I focused on ministry and other things instead. Dance is something that I definitely miss in my life, but at this point I have so much other stuff going on, that I really enjoy I don't really have the time, or the discipline to try to get back into it.

I've basically decided that I'm not going to do it...I think I would embarrass myself...but if my dance teacher is persistent enough to track me down and call me (she didn't ask for my number) then I might rethink it.