california vacation 101

so, the law student and i are pretty set on going to the city of angels this may after his graduation. he'll no longer be the law student! i wonder what i'll call him...the counselor? the law graduate? the esquire? hmmm. i must give this some thought.

anyway, continuing. it's LA or bust. we are so excited to see our friends! haven't seen the boys since the wedding, and going months without seeing jules is completely unacceptable in my opinion. but, i'm running into a problem. this will be the first time i've been back to LA without going to visit the law student. on any one of my 2004 - 2005 cross-country romantic rendezvous, i had a pretty narrow objective.

(cut from tuesday afternoon to wednesday morning)

so, i started that post to get some ideas on fun things the law student and i could do while on vacation. i then began imagining the reality of our vacation. i assume our friends have jobs, lives, things to take care of, et cetera, et al, and will spend their waking moments taking care of these things. i personally don't want to use up all my vacation days staring at someone's apartment walls waiting on them to get done with errands, or going along on these errands (not that i'm that averse to it--costco can be fun), or worse--watching the law student and friends play video games--so we can all go out. don't get me wrong. i can't wait to see people (mostly jules), and the law student is really about to wet himself with anticipation. i know our evenings will be full of partying, hanging out and quality time with friends. i'm just worried about those 8 hours of daylight doing nothing. if i don't get out and do something active, etc., i'll become as big as a hippo and never be able to come home due to embarrassment. and yes, for short people, weight gain happens that fast. so yesterday, on our way to walk the roxy, i expressed these concerns with the law student.

he does not agree.

the law student explicitly informed me last night that he is going solely to visit his friends, and has no other outside interests. at all. he plans to see all of them, which led me to the question: "so, you think we're going to pack up every day and 'move' somewhere different and spend a night with all your friends? no sir."

"well, you can go spend the night with jules."

"oh, really? because she has to work and lives with two boys i've never met. and i won't have a car (not that i could drive in la if my life depended on it anyway). no thanks."

(which begs the question, where, and with who, exactly are we staying?)

did i mention our anniversary is right smack in the middle of our trip?

i did offer a compromise: something fun together on our anniversary and talking jules into faking a migraine and heading to the beach for a day, or something (here's looking at you jules. get on it). the rest of the trip would be completely impetuous. the law student did not confirm.

should be a fun and memorable vacation for everyone involved. anybody have any fun things to do in la solo?

please check this out

www.fallingwhistles.com

visit this site. read their stories. don't turn away. do what you are led to do for these defenseless ones.

on my heart

Luke 14:"Hate family, pick up cross, give up everything” - A lot different than admit, believe, confess & pray a prayer.

that is from david platt's facebook page. (check him out here for more information.) it's a pretty strong and discomforting statement, and yet, the gospel truth. but i never heard that in sunday school. i struggle with God's plan for my life--about how i am living for Him, showing His love through my every word, thought and action. i fail Him a lot more than i care to think about. it's easy to get caught up in myself, my "needs," my comfort. but my comfort does not advance His kingdom. i often feel very small and very inadequate and very much at a loss as to how to "do" it.

and then there are servants like Katie. here is a young girl who left her family to care for orphans in uganda. she has adopted 14 of them. she gave up everything to take up her cross and care for those the world has forgotten. she is an example of hear and obey, the hands and feet of Christ, obedience and faith, because faith without works is dead. now, i do not feel called to move to africa and adopt children, but she continues to inspire me to live out my faith, which still a work in progress.

and that is what i really desire--a life of servitude to my Father, for His glory and His kingdom. but that life is a choice, every day. every day, life and death are set before us, and we must choose which path to walk. our very lives, mortal and eternal, depend on it. americans have been given so much simply by being born in this country, and to whom much is given, much is expected. so i ask for prayer, that i may continue to seek my place and my post in His kingdom here on earth, and that i will not grow weary, or more likely, distracted.

march madness

it must be. i filled out an ncaa tournament bracket. i agonized over it (like everything else) as i inhaled an entire pint of cookies and cream ice cream and watched the bulldogs in the nit tournament. so much for feeling skinny.

i'm still very bitter that state was totally screwed on a tournament bid and think state players and fans have every right to be outraged over this gross miscarriage of justice (thank you, ncaa "no-standards" selection committee), but that ship has sailed. so, here are my top 4 picks: syracuse vs. kansas and duke vs. new mexico, with duke winning it all over kansas. this is my realistic bracket. i'm not very happy with it, but there you go.

ahh, but if only pigs could fly. then, i could have a hope with my fantasy bracket, which starts with kentucky being a one-and-done team. so, my fantasy final four 2010: texas a&m, unlv, vandy and texas, so a&m could beat texas and play for the championship. i'm a bit torn between unlv and vandy at the moment. i do like unlv's pom squad, but it's hard to break away from my sec loyalty.

we shall see. who are your picks?

flintstones kids

so, i read in reader's digest this past week that most vitamin supplements are useless, unless you are a woman of child-bearing age. i realize "woman" is mostly redundant but in these days i guess you have to be more than specific. this is mainly due to folate, or folic acid, that pregnant women need immediately for their growing baby, even before they know they are pregnant. folic acid helps prevent against spina bifida.

since we are still using nfp as our means of baby-proofing, pregnancy is a still a risk. i'm also barely anemic. lots of folks are deficient in vitamin d due to sunscreen. and i don't drink a lot of milk (because it's so good a little goes a long way, and it's expensive) and probably need calcium. vitamins seemed to be in my best interest. so this weekend i bought a bottle of pre-natal vitamins.

i'm waiting for the law student to find them and freak out.

friday

so glad it's friday! monday is corporate tax deadline (not that anyone cares), so i'll be sure to whoop it up this weekend.

i get to see my sweet sisters tonight!anna, becca, kissey

one lives in south MS, and another in texas. i miss them lots. i just wish becca could gchat with me all day like anna does. they are both teachers, something i could never do. i love hearing anna's drama and quotes from becca's kids.

in other news, thursdays just got better. i love the office and jim halpert and the contact embarassment michael creates (sometimes i can't even watch). 3o rock is awesome, smart and funny. jenna is my favorite character and the law student has a small crush on tina fey. i thought it couldn't get better. but i was wrong. has anyone seen the marriage ref? i laughed out loud last night. i mean, jerry seinfield, tina fey and eva longoria parker were funny last week and alec baldwin's opinions on marriage should be interesting, but the combination of larry david, ricky gervais and madonna was epic. and where do they find these couples???? who wants to air those battles on national television? i don't always agree with the decisions, or tom papa's perpetual facial expression (cause he only has one), but the commentary is hysterical.

speaking of sisters: sorry, but nfp is still winning. month FIVE and counting. (i know i'll screw this up and have to eat crow sometime, but not today.)

who's afraid of the dark?

that would be yours truly. it all started early this morning, around 2 am.

the law student and i were fast asleep. ceiling fan was on, bathroom fan was running, and the humidifier was humming along. and then the power went out. i, per usual, woke up immediately due to the lack of noise. the law student was a bit harder to rouse, but somebody (not me) had to get up to turn off the beeping battery back-ups, and then get up again to turn off our alarm system because i was too scared (and warm) to get out of bed. he was unhappy about that. and then, back to sleep.

but i got hot. then i got cold. and then i got hot again. it was dark. all our food would spoil in the fridge. our alarm system was off. what if someone came in through our guest room window? we'd never hear it! i heard bumps in the night outside. i heard roxy rustling in her box. and it was sooooooo dark. i couldn't see my hand in front of my face. my mind was getting a bit too creative so i tried to go to sleep, thinking i'd wake up and it'd be morning and everything would be all right. but i had bad dreams--about the bumps in the night and the predators who undoubtedly had cut the power lines in our neighborhood so they could break into our house. i tossed and turned and dozed in and out of dreams for about an hour, then finally drifted off.

at 3:30 am, our bathroom fan roared back to life. i shot up out of bed, scared to death. the alarm started beeping again. i stumbled in the dark (and just about killed my phone/flashlight) to turn it off, then reset it to ward off intruders. the humidifier had to be reset, as did the clock and our alarms. but i forgot about the coffee machine until i was in the shower this morning. so i hop out, soaking wet, to warn the law student about this potential disaster.

i like when i make the coffee. the law student tends to make too much or make it too weak. he's a man. so i panicked, thinking he would pour in more water, throw out the good filter with the fresh coffee grounds and generally ruin the pot of coffee i had prepared the night before. like he's never made coffee before or something.

ahhh, mornings.

p.s. does anyone else remember that nickelodeon show, who's afraid of the dark?

the battle of the bulge

well, the battle of the pudge. just an insight into the weight battle of a short person (with large muscle mass and the ability to gain it quickly, which also seemingly lends itself to a higher body fat percentage): it has no where to go. even just 2 pounds shows up quickly and obviously. all y'all tall folks (you know, 5'6" and up) can just fluctuate away and never show it. from hip to ankle, i'm only 33 inches (approximate). i've gone from 114-ish to 119-ish in a week. blaaaaaaah.

all i can say is, i'm so glad those little mini twix bars in the secret candy drawer are gone. granted, i ate most of them, but they are gone.

in other news

i have managed to un-follow my own blog, and near-simultaneously defeated google friend connect's attempt to make itself at home on my blog. i feel invincible. next up: downloading pictures from my camera.

instead of wussy wednesday

a passage of comfort. i was reading a bible study last night, that i haven't picked up in months, and this was one of the passages. it really spoke to me about a friend's struggles, and God's attitudes to our struggles in general, and i wanted to share it with you. God's timing is like that.

2nd corinthians, chapter 1.

The God of All Comfort

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

laziest post ever

the olympics are over. i'm kind of sad and glad at the same time. i loved them, especially the women's figure skating! i so cheered for the korean. although i somehow managed to miss ALL of the men's. the law student and i argued about the validity of the "sport status" of figure skating. we've agreed to not bring it up again. and the speed skating relay looked like organized chaos. i still have no idea what the point of curling is or how it came to be an olympic sport. and that commercial--is michael j. foxx canadian? i'm confused.

so, because i am lazy, please visit this post on a friend's blog. i think she sums it up nicely.

and i agree, spring. nickleback? barf.