today at work, i had lunch duty. this happens every thursday. i didn't bring a lunch to eat, which happens almost every thursday. i also had a meeting, so sweet debe picked up a zaxby's zalad for me.
anyone else feel dumb reading "zalad?" 'cause i sure did typing it. but for the sake of continuity and brand recognition, i'll continue it throughout this post.
after my delicious and surprisingly filling blackened blue zalad, complete with two pieces of texas toast, i went to our break room to throw away my scraps. because no one likes a front desk that smells like warm lettuce and cheese. that, and every trash can in our entire office (like, twelve) is not actually a trash can, but rather a wastebasket, which is very limiting space-wise.
of course, someone else had been to zaxby's, and their zalad container was hogging the entire trash can. so i had to crouch down by the tiny trash to rearrange so i could fit my zalad container in there.
i mentioned the texas toast, right? two pieces? well, i only ate one of them.
as i was crouching, with my zalad bowl in hand and that second piece of butter-soaked white bread toast bound for the dumpster, i had a change of heart. i couldn't let it go - i needed to eat that second piece. i then proceeded to wolf it down, still crouching next to the trash in our break room at work. four bites, one gulp, no shame. the whole thing took less than one minute.
at this point in the story, i'd like to point out the toast never entered the trash. it was entirely contained in plastic, until it wasn't.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
i don't know, rebecca, do they?
sister on the phone tonight, talking about getting a dog:
"do they even make dalmations anymore?"
let's start out with a goldfish and take it from there.
"do they even make dalmations anymore?"
let's start out with a goldfish and take it from there.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
little surprises
first of all, it's been a while. i honestly don't even know if this post will make it to the viewing public, because the blogger interface looks so different. i hope i'm doing this right. note to self: blog more so you'll see changes coming and be better equipped to deal.
quite a few things have happened/are happening in our life in hometown. i really have lots to share but today, i want to tell you the story i just lived. it's just a little story, in a little town, that i was blessed to share today, but i think it's pretty awesome.
i help organize our church's involvement in the presbyterian church's casserole kitchen ministry (follow the link if you'd like to get involved!) on the first saturday of every month. there's a lady who comes every time, and her name is ida mae. i think she's something of a local character. i also am the volunteer coordinator of the starkville community market (facebook link here) and saw her there this morning. after the market, and after i'd filled up my car with gas, i'd started on my way home when i saw ida mae walking home with her bag of vegetables and some flowers. she doesn't walk very well. and i heard the Still Small Voice, asking me to do a small thing and offer her a ride home. so i did, and she accepted. but i didn't take her home.
instead, she directed me to her neighbor's house, the one with the yellow truck. she told me he's 89 years old and recovering from pneumonia, and she wanted to go check on him and fix his medicine for him before she went to the casserole kitchen. we pulled in, and i got out with her, determined to follow this little path i'd been led down. she took me through the back gate.
knockout roses. day lilies, in orange and aubergine and pink and yellow. a covered cart of 50-year-old cacti. green plants on tiered tables. manicured grass. a pear tree. and an old man wearing an msu hat eating cereal on the porch. ida mae introduced us, and said she wanted to show me his garden. he commented he'd had to cut off his peppers, because the wind was knocking them down, and that'd he bought 2 trees once for $5, when he really couldn't afford more than 50 cents, and how mad his late wife had been. and then ida ma took my hand and gave me the tour. she showed me all of his plants, all of his flowers, all the different paths in his garden. she told me he still mows his own grass, and probably had that morning, even though his sight isn't very good. then she took me down to the back. tomatoes. peppers. rows of vegetables. ida mae's black and white dog. a grapevine, even. more lilies.
this backyard was the most beautiful thing i'd ever seen. i could see the love and the care and the attention this man had devoted to his bit of earth, and i was amazed. and i'd have never seen it. i'd have driven by his house and overlooked it and never have thought anything like this existed, just like ida mae said. i'd have never known that the lady who comes to get a hot meal, who can't walk very well or even uncurl her fingers, who probably doesn't have a lot in this world, takes care of her old sick neighbor simply because he needs it. i'd have never known this story.
i left ida mae to take care of her neighbor and drove home. i couldn't help thinking how God is exactly like that. He asks us to do small things, things we may think are uncomfortable or inconvenient or unimportant, and then shows us enormous beauty and kindness we never expect. so often we ignore Him, and we miss it. today, i was blessed by two pretty inconspicuous strangers, and i got to share a piece of that story and that beauty. what Love the Father has for His children.
quite a few things have happened/are happening in our life in hometown. i really have lots to share but today, i want to tell you the story i just lived. it's just a little story, in a little town, that i was blessed to share today, but i think it's pretty awesome.
i help organize our church's involvement in the presbyterian church's casserole kitchen ministry (follow the link if you'd like to get involved!) on the first saturday of every month. there's a lady who comes every time, and her name is ida mae. i think she's something of a local character. i also am the volunteer coordinator of the starkville community market (facebook link here) and saw her there this morning. after the market, and after i'd filled up my car with gas, i'd started on my way home when i saw ida mae walking home with her bag of vegetables and some flowers. she doesn't walk very well. and i heard the Still Small Voice, asking me to do a small thing and offer her a ride home. so i did, and she accepted. but i didn't take her home.
instead, she directed me to her neighbor's house, the one with the yellow truck. she told me he's 89 years old and recovering from pneumonia, and she wanted to go check on him and fix his medicine for him before she went to the casserole kitchen. we pulled in, and i got out with her, determined to follow this little path i'd been led down. she took me through the back gate.
knockout roses. day lilies, in orange and aubergine and pink and yellow. a covered cart of 50-year-old cacti. green plants on tiered tables. manicured grass. a pear tree. and an old man wearing an msu hat eating cereal on the porch. ida mae introduced us, and said she wanted to show me his garden. he commented he'd had to cut off his peppers, because the wind was knocking them down, and that'd he bought 2 trees once for $5, when he really couldn't afford more than 50 cents, and how mad his late wife had been. and then ida ma took my hand and gave me the tour. she showed me all of his plants, all of his flowers, all the different paths in his garden. she told me he still mows his own grass, and probably had that morning, even though his sight isn't very good. then she took me down to the back. tomatoes. peppers. rows of vegetables. ida mae's black and white dog. a grapevine, even. more lilies.
this backyard was the most beautiful thing i'd ever seen. i could see the love and the care and the attention this man had devoted to his bit of earth, and i was amazed. and i'd have never seen it. i'd have driven by his house and overlooked it and never have thought anything like this existed, just like ida mae said. i'd have never known that the lady who comes to get a hot meal, who can't walk very well or even uncurl her fingers, who probably doesn't have a lot in this world, takes care of her old sick neighbor simply because he needs it. i'd have never known this story.
i left ida mae to take care of her neighbor and drove home. i couldn't help thinking how God is exactly like that. He asks us to do small things, things we may think are uncomfortable or inconvenient or unimportant, and then shows us enormous beauty and kindness we never expect. so often we ignore Him, and we miss it. today, i was blessed by two pretty inconspicuous strangers, and i got to share a piece of that story and that beauty. what Love the Father has for His children.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
update
news flash: i can run 13.1 miles. more on this later, as it really deserves its own post. plus, it gives me time to scrounge up cell phone photos from the lawyer and my mother.
the real point of this blog is to tell you to shop at deep south pout from april 23 - 28, and here's why: they're helping a family in starkville bring home their son from africa. how cool is that? read more about it here: http://thewesgordonfamily.blogspot.com/2012/04/deep-south-pout-is-helping-bringmaxhome.html
here's to bringing max home!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
feeling the burn
today is not my day. let me count the ways.
slept in too late to go running. i also didn't run yesterday. it's going to rain all day, which means no running today and no jackson trip with dad to see becca.
while making breakfast, i managed to burn black plastic into my palm. i left some tongs too close to a still-red stove eye and grabbed them without thinking.
then, i set the same tongs back onto the same eye and burned more black plastic onto the stove.
my coffee got cold during all of this. more proof that i should drink coffee before doing anything else, always. so i heated it up, apparently far too long, and coffee erupted all in my microwave.
i'm not sure i should get out of my pajamas, much less out of the house.
adventures of sister in blogland
sister's got a blog!
while my blog is about my life observations and/or the troubles i find myself in, her blog is more productive. she will be blogging about the paleo diet and exercise. to me, it (paleo, not the blog) sounds un-fun, but then i've never liked a diet, ever. no doritos, no deal. i gotta be me.
check her out!
p.s. sister, you may want to post again...
speaking of exercise, did i tell you i am running a half-marathon? becca, anna and i are all running the big d in dallas. i've never run more than 10 minutes straight on a treadmill in my life. currently, i'm up to 5 miles non-stop. i can't get over myself. i've made some other self-discoveries as well. i don't like to run indoors on a treadmill, and i'm getting really good at spitting. wish us luck april 15!
Saturday, February 4, 2012
rocky the flying squirrel
if you've been to visit us, you know we live in a little tree house in the woods in the middle of town. we're surrounded by woodland creatures: deer, 2 barking foxes, sink-lovin' lizards, owls, creepy crawlies, and a whole mess of kung-fu fighting squirrels that passionately battle out turf wars in our walls at least 4 times a day. our woods are also home to at least one flying squirrel. let me tell you how we met.
last friday morning i woke up at 5 am to some strange shuffling sounds. i heard papers ruffling and metal dinging and some scraping noises. i knew we had our first intruder and woke up the lawyer so we could have the classic "i-heard-a-strange-noise-downstairs" moment. so, down the stairs he went to investigate. he came back to bed empty-handed, said it must have been the dog, and promptly thanked me for making him feel like a man. i tried to back to sleep until 6, convincing myself roxy was just continually readjusting her position on the futon. loudly.
it is pertinent to note roxy was silent throughout this entire episode.
at 6 am, the alarm went off. i got up to silence it and heard a crash. silence from roxy's corner. our intruder was still at large and now breaking stuff. i ran downstairs, turning on all the lights and trying to find out what had fallen. as i entered the kitchen, i saw my kitchen spoon holder and a glass jar knocked over. and on the stove, peeking over the rim of a roasting dish, was a teeny tiny squirrel.
he was so cute, all balled up and looking at me from across the kitchen, as if to say, "oh, did i wake you? my bad, kids." i took a picture first, like anyone should, then thought about how to convince the little fella back out into the wild blue (ok, dark) yonder. someone had left peanut butter on the counter, so that seemed like my best bet. squirrels like peanut butter, right?
wrong. rocky was not having it. perched on the window ledge, i was all in his face with a spoon of peanut butter, and he was all, "why you think i want some peanut butter? who told you squirrels like peanut butter? get that spoon out of my face" and scurrying around behind the electronics, threatening to fry himself and start a house fire at the same time. let me lay this out for you - the lawyer and i were in our jammers, in the kitchen with all the lights on, me with a spoonful of peanut butter and him with a box, trying to communicate "get out of our house please" to a wide-eyed flying squirrel and our dog, our domesticated animal of prey and noted hunter of rodents, continued to lay on the futon totally unaffected. until she smelled the peanut butter and came out to beg. that's when rocky took a flying leap from the top of the door frame to the open pantry and threatened to overturn everything in it. after some instinctual quick moves on the lawyer's part, an open back door and lots of arm flailing and "no, rocky, not that way!" from me, rocky finally got the hint and took off. roxy's quizzical looks into the pantry were not a contributing factor.
i still have no idea how he got inside. i still am absolutely baffled by roxy's non-behavior. now all the creatures will have no fear of us. our house will be overrun by april. we might as well leave all our doors open. at least the peanut butter will be safe.
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