it's good to know your limits

i love flavored lemonades. no, i don't think you understand. i can't get enough of them. i will literally drink them until i make myself sick. my absolute favorite drink of all time is rasberry lemonade. the thing is that i know i have a tendency to overdo it when i order a fruity yummy lemonade. and yet, do i try to limit myself? absolutely not. i just can't help it.

so, chili's is a favorite place of mine. they have excellent strawberry lemonade. i went to chili's today to meet with some people from my new church. they called me and said they were running a little behind. that was absolutely fine. i told them i would go in and get a table and have a drink. so, i go and i decide to order a blackberry lemonade. yum. (but not quite as good as a strawberry or raspberry). anyhow, i pretty much drink that first one in less than 30 seconds. i'm telling you, i'm addicted.

our waitress was amazing and had a refill for me in no time. i was mostly through the second one when the ladies i was meeting showed up. actually, the waitress was bringing my third refill as the ladies were sitting down. and the said something about how they took too long because i was already getting a refill. i smiled sheepishly and said, actually i was just finishing my second and this was my third. i made sure to tell them that these lemonades are my weakness and it wasn't because they were late that i had already had that many.

now, i do know my limit. usually, i can only drink three and then i start to really feel the effects of the sugar. the thing is, that by this point, the waiter or waitress has figured out that i guzzle them and usually brings me a fourth. well, then i feel bad because they have already been so nice in getting me all my refills so i try really hard to drink the fourth.

today was no exception. by the time i was halfway through the third one, i started to feel the headache and stomachache that accompany my gluttony of flavored lemonades. this one seemed notably worse than usual. the stomachache wasn't that bad. but oh my goodness the headache was awful. i could barely concentrate. and! my shoulder muscles started to hurt and feel weak. that was weird. all i wanted to do at that point was lay down and die of a sugar rush gone bad. thankfully after maybe 5 or 10 minutes the feeling passed. so i was able to finish my third and take a couple drinks of the fourth.

i'm just saying, it's good to know your limits. and to always push those limits!

saturdays

there's something about saturdays that are just different. you can feel it. even if you've had every other day off in a week, saturday is still special. i like it.

in other news, i went to a wedding today with my friend megan. the bride was beautiful but i'm sorry i have to say that the wedding and reception were less than thrilling. and, the message was just not well done. it made no sense. it was about zaccheus. which is fine. i was really curious how he would tie that story into a wedding. but he didn't really. and, half of the sermon was just repeating one of those silly, sappy God emails about how God would put our picture in his wallet or on the fridge. i was just sorely disappointed. i wish i would have heard one of our new graduates give a wedding sermon instead!

on that note: CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE WHO GRADUATED TODAY!!!!

on the road again

that's right. i can't wait to get on the road again. i'm leaving today to start my trek to lee's summit missouri where i will work in a presbyterian (gasp!) church this summer. i'm really looking forward to working with this church and this pastor. i'm also very glad that i'll be in the midwest again, though i'm not looking forward to how hot it's going to be. i can't wait for a thunderstorm!!!!

good luck and Godspeed to all the graduates!

john 1:18

stir my affection
stir my affection
stir my affection for You
for You're my only hope

You Yeshua explained the way
He moves as just an ordinary man then again
You're the first
Jesus and by Your hand we move
You're the image of the invisible God
You are God
You are God

bring fascination
bring fascination
bring fascination of You
for You're my only hope

from "chapter one" by shane & shane

it seems i have misunderstood

this often happens when i don't have specific obligations or a set pattern to my days. my misunderstanding has been in regards to dates. i knew that my last final was due on the 9th. for some reason, i have been operating under the impression that the 9th is thursday. i have probably thought this since at least the beginning of last week. imagine my surprise when i just now discovered that the 9th is tomorrow! my paper is due tomorrow! this is actually fine. i'm not any more or less stressed about it. i had actually intended to do it today. but, knowing my history, had i thought it still wasn't due until thursday, i'm sure i would have procrastinated. i am just very thankful that i have figured out my error now. i have plenty of time today to get it done and still have time to fulfill my other exciting date of going to rachel and tara's to watch american idol!

i am not allowed to go into book stores anymore

i went in to barnes and noble to get one audio book for my upcoming drive home. one book. one.

now let me tell you what i walked out of the store with: four audio books. three teen lit. books. one dig deeper into credit card debt. and that familiar partridge in a pear tree.

i'm beginning to refind that old book nerd that seems to have been hiding for a while. i'm blaming it on being able to read fiction for two of my classes this past semester. now i just can't get enough.

in case you're wondering which books i got, i would love to share that information with you right now. audio books = "can you keep a secret" by sophie kinsella. this is to fulfill my need for slightly crappy fiction aimed at lonely women. "the fabric of the cosmos" by brian greene. this is to fulfill my need for science and theory. "animal farm" and "1984" by george orwell (these two came in a set so it looks like i only bought 3 audio books...). these are to fulfill my need for classic literature and the need to understand some allusions that often go over my head because i haven't read these books.

in other news, today was a completely lazy day. i hope you don't judge me by what i'm about to tell you. be prepared for total languorousness. i slept in until 11. i decided to make some breakfast and watch "what not to wear". i went to not one, but two movies at market fair. the first was "in the land of women". i loved it. i'm sorry jenny smith, i love you but we just have very different taste in movies. i think we can still be friends though. also, i was very impressed with the trailers for new movies coming out. i'm pretty sure i will have to see the three that they showed before this movie. one was with john cusack who i adore (the movie is "martian child"). one was for "across the universe" which looks like a very good story and done in a moulin rouge-y sort of way. the last one was for "the ex" starring zach braff, who is freaking hilarious. the second movie i watched today was "spiderman 3". i was less than impressed. i mean, it feels good to have the completion of the story and the resolution of story lines but i just don't think it was well acted or well written. there were previews before this movie for other movies i will have to see this summer: pirates of the caribbean 3 and shrek 3. i hope those trilogies end better than the spiderman one. although, i know i wasn't impressed with the 2nd pirates movie... i'm sure i will like the shrek movie at least.

and finally, my room is a complete disaster. i had been keeping it fairly clean for about two weeks now. i must admit that this is because i kept having guests over. not just ordinary guests but one who was a potential roommate (who is now, in fact, going to be my roommate), two who i'm subletting to this summer and one who had to live in the same room for several days. now, all the cleanliness angst i've been holding in has exploded all over my room. it's okay. i like a little mess in my daily life.

all right, i think that may be all the news i have for now. peace.

may the fourth be with you

hahaha! okay, so i'm not that clever on my own. one of adam's schoolmates that i met this week is that clever. don't worry, i told him i would steal it from him and he was okay with it. in fact, i gave him another interesting date (march 4th ... the only day in the year that's a command) in return.

this week has been really good (as anticipated). right now i'm dead exhausted though so i don't know if i'm going to remember all the highlights accurately. obviously the most notable highlight was spending time with my friend adam. even though i don't think we hung out much ever, even in college where we had overcome our high school personas, we have a lot of interesting history together and it's fun to reminisce. it's also fun because adam and i have very similiar personalities so it's just easy to hang out and talk about silly stuff as well as deeper stuff. mostly though, adam spent his time at the conference and like i said before i was going to relax. i actually did end up working a lot more than i was scheduled this week. this is good because i need some funds for my upcoming drive from new jersey to missouri.

i went to a couple worship services at the conference and one seminar led by kenda dean. these things were very soul-filling for me. at least, they were able to help slake some of the thirst that my dry, dry soul has been suffering from in this drought called seminary. i probably went too far with the metaphor in that sentence but i'm too tired to erase it and start again. i'm just saying ... i forgot how good worship is.

two nights this week, some of adam's classmates invited us over to play board games. the first night we played risk. i have never played risk before and didn't quite understand it. once i finally got the rules down, i realized i was beyond being able to strategize and would soon be out of the game. ah well, i still had fun! seems that i still have the ability to trash talk even when i'm in a room of complete strangers. oh i forgot to mention that before the game, adam had taken me to dinner but neither of us was really hungry so we decided to drink dinner instead. i'm sure that helped me loosen up so i could function cleverly in the new social situation. i really liked and was impressed with the garrett seminarians. a good group of people. i especially seemed to get along with stephen (the one who enlightened me about may the fourth). i think it's just encouraging to know that there are people out there that you can meet randomly and for a short time and still have a very fun time with and be connected in God's love. oh gosh, now i think i switched from grossly poetic to overly sentimental. i just want you to know that i'm writing this post after less than four hours of sleep and a long, long day at work.

all right, back to the highlights, last night we played monopoly. i've never been good at monopoly and that makes me very much less competitive. i know i'm not going to win so i just have fun. sometimes i have tendencies to take games too seriously ... but i've tried to work on it and last night i was totally fine when i was the second person to go out. it did make me feel better that adam was the first person to go out when i have viewed him as the monopolizer of monopoly (that is, adam loves the game and is very good at it and probably usually wins).

okay, i can't think of any more major highlights of the past couple days ... unless you count my "very informative" tour of princeton where i pointed things out by saying something like "there's a pretty building" and most of my answers to questions were "umm, i don't know".

how early is too early to go to bed? 8? 9? i don't know how long i'm going to last...