#floristproblems

Okay, so I just thought that was an amusing hashtag, but out of curiosity I did check - and yes, it's on twitter. There's not that many. But still. It's there. That's hysterical.

The funny thing about jobs to me is hearing the stories that happen behind the scenes. The things you never think about happening because all you see is the finished product. Like hearing that house staff clean the seats at an outdoor stadium before every game. Seriously? Someone has to do that? I figured at an outdoor game, I'd just have to take my chances with the dust! That actually gets done?

Likewise, I never thought I'd come home at the end of the day and say "Y'know what? My thumbs feel like they're on fire."
Since I was on corsage work all day long for Mother's Day & the last prom of the season, my thumbs got a lot of repetitive use. And then I stabbed one of the them on a sharp wire and blood gushed out.
I did not know blood could gush out of your thumb. But I can now assure you - it can. It was pretty funny. Sort of.
Also, I have glue stuck under my fingernails. And somehow on my jeans. 

But it was all good. I was actually really pleased with my corsage work today (oo, maybe I could snatch a pic or two tomorrow!) which is really the first time I've come off a load of them feeling that way. I'm pleased. I didn't even really do a high quantity of them - at all- but the few I had were very time consuming and specific.
But while Mother's Day has been going on - and I do need to get the final, official count on this - I'm pretty sure we've taken a dozen family pieces this week. Eleven of which were made or will be made before the week is technically up. Crazy. Good crazy.
Or sort of. Wait. I mean. Um. I like making casket pieces? It's good for business? See? This never sounds good. I can never say "I get joy out of making casket pieces" without that sounding terrible.
You guys get it though. You love me. (Right? Right?)

Meanwhile, I've recently discovered a blog (thanks Dave!) entitled The Introverted Church which is pretty great.  I'm not really crazy about the introvert-power movement that seems to be trying to happen (and is pretty funny when you think about that) but I do like reading through a lot of their thoughts and opinions on the subject in general. Its amusing to see kindred spirits who can say things like But I like spending hours in total solitude. Also, I do struggle with a lot of this at church, so it's not only nice to see others talk about the issue, but relate to it as well. 
Out of curiosity, a few months back I decided to retake the Keirsey Temperament Sorter to see if I had changed any as an adult. I was just wondering if anything had shifted. But nope, I'm still happily an Idealist/Counselor, an INFJ. (Excepting maybe the whole "prophetic seer, psychic" thing. Hm.)

Anyway. Speaking of being an introvert - and one who really does like watching quietly, and not just by how I gain energy - I visited my first charismatic church last Sunday! (No worries, I have no plans to leave my church.) I shall blog about that soon.

Easter weekend.

Last night I tried to write a post about how awesome I thought it was that the drought was finally broken over Easter weekend. But the words weren't coming out right and I eventually gave up. Nonetheless, I still think that's pretty cool. Listening to the rolling thunder and pounding rain during Sunday morning services wrapped it all up together for me. A shadow, a mirror, a reminder of the resurrection in a sense. New life. New growth. Things that were once dying, or struggling along, salvaged. A double blessing: the celebration of life, the celebration for rain. Jubilation for both falling hand in hand. And in the back of my mind the whisper:
I feel the thunder in the sky, I see the sky about to rain, and I hear the prairies calling out Your Name...

I had a beautiful Easter playing with my kids. The Kime's & McBrides came down Saturday and Sunday and I soaked up some lovely family time. Unfortunately, the storm cut the time short, but I still had a chance to spend time with all of them. They enjoyed their Easter baskets. It was really nice.

The next two weeks at work are potentially heavy. This week is Administrative Professionals week, but that's been slow these past few years so I'm not expecting much there. The local prom is this weekend. Two weddings this weekend, one major and one minor. The following week is Mother's Day week. Caskets are beginning to stack.
I'm actually pumped about the weddings. One of them is going to be quite different from anything we've done before, with lots of fun tropicals and unusual touches. Also, its a setup, which we haven't had in awhile. I may not be a part of that particular team, but I should be flying out there anyway to take pics. It'll be a nice change of pace. Any pretty pics, I'll be sure to share.

Did you know the baby elephant was born at the Zoo? (Thanks Travis!) I'm so excited! (Go to the link, you can vote for her name.) They won't be on display for awhile, but once they are I'm so ready to finally see their new home and see the new calf. In the meantime, there's a live elephant cam, but I haven't been able to catch them on that yet either. I love elephants!

March is wrapping up.

For Regina's birthday we celebrated in Bricktown by eating at Zios, capping it off with Marble Slab & watching Suckerpunch. For the record, I had never had Marble Slab. It was delicious - not quite Coldstone, but delicious. Rainbow Galax*E. I just can't turn down cake batter ice cream (as long as its not blue.)

Suckerpunch was curious. I wouldn't go see it again, but it held my interest. The first twenty minutes were really beautifully shot, and the soundtrack is outstanding. While admittedly my expectations were sunk pretty low, it was better than I thought it'd be.

It's 38ish degrees outside. Why, March? Why?

There's not much more entertaining than watching the cast of my church trying to catch a squirrel. My favorite part was Carolyn telling Harold he better not get bitten because she didn't have time to take him to get a rabies shot.

On Friday some salesmen-in-training will apparently be coming to our shop to study how a flower shop operates, so they can better understand the inner workings? Our representative recommended us? I think this whole thing is really strange, especially when you consider all the hundreds of other shops in the state, but okay. Sure, we do a lot of business. But, uh. I'm still skeptical about this whole thing. It just sounds weird.

A few weeks ago iTunes stopped working on my computer. I have now completely - completely- uninstalled anything to do with realplayer, quicktime, iTunes, iPod, apple, etc. and reinstalled it. Nothing. iTunes has encountered a problem. Any thoughts?

I'm looking forward to the Medieval Faire this weekend. Hurrah!

I've spent the evening watching clips from Disney movies of the 90's. They make me smile.

Tis the Season...

I had (originally) planned on blogging for each day of Christmas Week. It's full of activity this year and I was hoping to respond to each night.
But since it is so full, I usually come home and crash afterward instead. With no days off this week at work, and with all the activity, I'm purposely trying to get extra rest (despite the fact that work has been, bizarrely, slow.) So. Recap.

Sunday: The Christmas Service
Sunday was nice. We've canceled drama rehearsals for the month (for which I'm grateful despite how much I enjoy them) and I spent the afternoon at home. Woot.
That evening was our Christmas service at church. All in all there were 22 of us - a small gathering, but there. When Gary asked for twelve volunteers we suddenly realized to our amusement we would have more onstage than in the audience. I love my little church.
The past few years we've always had a very serious candlelit service, which is beautiful and I always enjoy it, but this year was much more lighthearted and a nice change. There was one candle at the front, one that is there for every Christmas service and made me smile - one candle to remind us of Christ. We opened with requested favorites such as Jingle Bells, Have a Merry Little Christmas, Silver Bells, Rudolph... And then Pam spoke up that we had not sang Rudolph with the opening lines of the reindeer names, so we started the whole song over from the very beginning. :)
And Gary asked us for our favorite Christmas memories and after prayer he read the Christmas story, pulling from all the gospels to complete it. We sang a few more requested Christmas carols - this time ones from the hymnal - and Gary finished up by reading another story of the birth, this time by Max Lucado. The final piece of the evening was darkening the church and lighting our candles in the quiet. In the midst of the the flickering glow I marveled at the churches that met like this in the past and meet like this today - hidden away for their safety, with only candles. For a moment a palpable connection with believers already gone and others now tucked in pockets of the world. A reminder to remember my brothers and sisters in chains.

Monday: A Double Celebration with Friends
The annual Christmas party! Christmas Party Part 1 was held at the Nickersons house where feasting was commenced. Turkey, the garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, cheddar biscuits...it was all deliiicious. Philip, Kelly, Eric, Cambria, Holly, Sam, Brad, Regina and myself all gathered around their table. And after cleaning up....
Christmas Party Part Deux! The Hinsons household. Old photos from college graced the television, we reminisced, unwrapped gifts and spent the rest of the evening relishing each others company. And there was an aaamazing double-layer dark chocolate cream-cheese icing cake with dark chocolate chips by Holly herself. Yum. Yum.

Tuesday: Bricktown Bonanaza
This evening after work I made a trip up to Bricktown - I had to leave a little late due to a very unexpected family piece right at ten till five. But Imy graciously finished it and I was able to leave and arrive just in time to see the kiddos getting their pics with Santa. Then it was off to Chelinos for the 12 of us to devour (in my case) delicious quesadillas.
During dinner a man making balloon art came up to the table and delighted all the girls with varying shapes. Anna & Amy received a ladybug and teddy bear respectively that could be worn on their wrist (this was very cool! I had never seen that before) while Ashia requested a motorcycle and a very eager Ashlyn loved her puppy dog. They were really well made and I thought it was wonderful how four balloons totally made their night. Balloon man was awesome.

Anna: Knock, knock!
Who's there?
Anna: Um...rock!
Rock who?
Anna: Rock-aren't-you-glad-I-didn't-say-banana!? Ahahahaa!Knock, knock!

Good times, good times. Finally soaking in the season, I'm ready for the rest of Christmas week.

Bonus feature! Christmas videos!
Every Christmas as a kid I watched the Sesame Street Christmas episode several times. And while I do remember them singing Feliz Navidad while ice skating, mostly I watched it for the Cookie Monster segment. That was my FAVORITE. And for a few years I could never find it on youtube, but you can noooow.... :)







Also awesome this week: the lunar eclipse happening on the winter solstice that hasn't happened in some odd 400 years. It was totally worth getting up for - but if you're like me and didn't - here's a time lapse video of it out of Florida. It's worth the watch clocking in at just over two minutes.

"On Saddle Ridge Raaaanch..."

Admit it. Singing that makes you want to swing your lasso. Yeeee-haw!

So it's VBS week at my church. As I'm sure you've gathered after that opening, this years theme (brought to you by Lifeway) is Saddle Ridge Ranch, the cowboy extravaganza. So far we've made cowboy hats, colored bandanas, picture frames and tomorrow night we'll make ostriches. (Ostriches? you say? Ostriches.)
I thought about explaining why, because there is a reason, but naaah. :)
The cowboy hats have been a really big hit. This year I'm teaching a combined class of missions & crafts. And so far, it's been a lot of fun.

There are two major reasons this year is so special.

Part Uno:
This year five of my kid cousins decided to come and I was super excited by that. Getting to spend two hours with them each night is awesome and I love being in their company. Watching Amy & Ashia enjoy the dances so much and seeing Carson, Ashlyn & Anna's excitement over their cowboy hats...that makes me muy happy. I love it.

Part Deux:
Honestly, my heart's in it this year. I'll confess: the past two years I've really dragged my feet, reacted lackluster, blah blah blah... I mean, I've tried really hard to be into it. But I could never quite get myself there.

This is what changed:
I had one particular boy almost every year I've taught. He's the subject of one of my favorite stories. The first year I volunteered I taught preschool and asked the kids if they would draw a picture of someone they could tell about Jesus. And he replied: "I'm not going to draw someone about Jesus. I'm going to draw Doc Oc!"
I told him I was sure Doc Oc needed Jesus too so that was okay with me.

I don't remember him my second year. I taught preschool again.

The third year I taught music and this boy haaaated it. This has never been his thing.

Fourth year I was supposed to help with missions, but mostly ended up helping herd kids. Boy did not want to be there.

Last year, my fifth year (this is my sixth year? really?), I taught crafts. He still didn't act crazy about being there, but he was older now and had calmed down. As long as he made whatever crafts we needed to make that day, I would let him make whatever he wanted after. Since I had one class of four older boys, they wanted to make death robotic space monkeys (and they did) and not sheep. This was fine with me.
But he really weighed on my heart. He was the epitome to me of all kids who hated VBS. It had become this monster in my mind. And while I did pray for the kids and love on them, a lot of my conversations with God went like this: "Do you see this? He's miserable. Miserable. This is ridiculous. Why do we do this? If it stopped at fourth grade, that would be fine. He's too old for this. He's bored. He's making sheep. Why do parents make them come?", etc. etc. etc.
Then grandpa got sick and I was away from church and the week I came back this boy went up to the front during benediction and announced to the church he had been saved. I was floored.
I have no proof VBS did anything. But if it did something, anything, to work in his heart a few weeks earlier, to open the door, I take back everything I said. I was ashamed of myself. I still feel VBS can become something we do out of habit and not prayer. But if it pricks the heart of even one boy then all the VBS' are worth it. Especially a boy I never ever thought in a million years it would touch.

So this year was special. And while I'm glad to have my evenings back, I've also had lot of fun this year. Thanks to all the kiddos, who made it awesome.

But that was when I ruled the world.

Our church drama team had a performance this morning. This particular skit is done completely in blacklight, so we had darkened the windows with foil to completely black out the sanctuary. We were rehearsing before Sunday School. I flipped off the lights, hit play on the cd player via the light of my cell phone, flipped it off and BAM!

There was a door. An unfortunate door. That I had not heard close behind me in the sound booth.

Thankfully, it was not that loud of a clutzy move. Instead, I stood at the back with my hand over my mouth trying not to laugh and listened to my team try to figure out if I actually had ran into the door or if they misheard.

Next time I'll try to follow through and fall off the step down at the same time.

Doooon't stop, beeeelievin'....

I assure you, blog, I have not been ignoring you. I have been simply uninspired.

So far I have managed to surpass my two-minute-in-a-half-hour-session walking/jogging time to five minutes and 40 seconds. Not all at once (mrr), but still any improvement right now is encouraging and I'm very grateful for it.

The Top Ten of the Rar. Keep Moving. Playlist:
1) Only the Young (Journey)
2) I've Just Seen a Face (Across the Universe)
3) You Already Know (Train)
4) The Devil is Bad (W's)
5) Any Way You Want It (Journey)
6) It Won't Be Long (Across the Universe)
7) Ma Ya Hi (American Remix) (O-ZONE)
8) Seperate Ways (Worlds Apart) (Journey)
9) The Sound (Switchfoot)
10) Lights (Journey)

There's more on there, but it's being switched around and whittled down.

In other news, VBS is coming up in about three weeks and it's (truthfully) probably the first time I've looked quite this forward to it. We're cutting it down to two hours instead of three for one thing which I love. Take into account we start at 6:00 PM. Little kids at 9:00 at night? They no longer care. They just want to go to bed. I can't say I blame them after 3 hours every night. So to make up for the time cut we're smashing together crafts and missions (my class) which I think will work fine. Most of the classes, except maybe bible study, don't use the full 30 minutes anyway.

Admittedly a lot of my old underlying frustration with VBS came from feeling it was too "churchy." Make sense? It's been around forever. I wasn't sure it was even accomplishing anything anymore. And I don't remember being too fond of it as a kid. So with all these thoughts in mind, my view of VBS was tainted and with each passing year I had more and more trouble volunteering.
That is, until last year, where my view was altered entirely.

Ah! That sounds like a blog post. Inspiration! You'll have to wait.

Mmm....I'm trying to be good and healthy but all I can dream of is chocolate chip cookie bars.

Curious Links:
Taxi Driver Relies on Yap-Nav (Dun dun dun...The Return of Ananova)

Infinity Pool on the 55th-Story of Hotel (Now World's Most Expensive Hotel)