quote of the day

Cali plays with Erica...

Erica: "No girl! I'm not trying to play amputation with you!"

Speaking of chickens...mad props to the Gamecocks for winning their 2nd straight College World Series! It killed me not to be able to watch all the games, as I was without cable. But they pulled it out without me which is ok too. Way to put South Carolina on the map, Go Cocks!

Home is where the chickens is

Starting on Friday I no longer have to be homeless! For the past month I've been living with 2 Crottsies, a dog, 2 chickens, and 1 bunny that me and Cal see every night in the yard. Turns out married people are really good hosts and not so tough to live with. I've loved getting to live with Erica again and Stephen can grow a mean garden. The guest room perhaps is too small for me and a 4 month old puppy but I really enjoy having my own bathroom. The conversation that has happened in the house is probably my favorite part about living there, we all had some good talks and you know I love talking about stuff that actually matters. God reminds me very often about how lucky I am to have such awesome friends in my life and even ones who'll give me and my dog a roof and a bed when we're homeless for a few weeks. I aspire to be as hospitable as those Crottses. I also aspire to have my kitchen be that coordinated, but that will come later. With homelessness behind me, I'm ready to move into my new place. To decorate it the way I want (which I will NEED help with), to play my music as loud as I want, to let Cali run laps in the fenced in yard, and everything else that is good about living at your own place. Everyone should come over a lot.

quote of the day

A bunch of 25 year-olds at a cook-out...

Johnathan: "So what's the difference between an egg that has a baby chicken in it, and one that you scramble?"
Me: "Well hens lay eggs everyday."
Nicole: "Oh I know this! My Mom explained it one time. There has to be a male chicken to fertalize the egg."
Johnathan: "How does that happen?"
Nicole: "And I think it's after the egg is layed!"
Me: "That aint right. How?"
Erin: "He pees on it!"

quote of the day

Sarah Hinson: "I have this friend who's on the radio. The other day I heard her say, "Hi I'm Leslie and today I smelled a baby." Wait...I said it wrong."

Friday Favorites

My favorite after work activity.

It's amazing how much your dog loves you, isn't it? I mean I'm constantly punishing Cali for peeing in the floor, chewing my clothes, barking at 7am, yesterday she knocked my whole pizza and my coke off the coffee table. But every day when I get off work, her little tail is going a thousand miles a minute and can't wait to get out of her crate to jump all over me. I'm usually only gone for about 7 hours a day but I can't wait to get home and play with her, she's so fun. She's even more fun now that she's not chewing everything in site and fetching really well. Who says I can't be a working mother?

Ridin' Solo

Let's get real for a second, being one of the few single people in your group of friends sucks. NOT because I'm up all night thinking about some perfect guy that I've made up in my head or what my wedding colors will be. The natural need to "fit in" and to feel a part of something is always inside humans and not one of us is free from it, whether you'd like to admit it or not. So of my closest friends, I can literally count on one hand those without a wedding ring, engagement ring, or in a serious relationship. Side note: when you're in your 20's, every relationship seems "serious" for whatever reason. Anyways, so I have this really great old best friend who talks to me when I get whiney about things. She told me about this quote that she found on the back of a record she just got that said, "comparison is the thief of joy." Thanks Theo Roosevelt, how freaking true is that? I've been handed the single card for almost 25 years from a God who sees it best that way, and if I sit and compare myself to all of my friends who aren't single then I'm literally destroying myself. I get really mad at how I think the world views relationships and being in love and all that. It seems that what everyone should be working for in life is to fall in love and get married and be perfect and until then, you just have to deal with whatever else there is. But in all reality, that's just an enemy feeding me lies and telling me that I have to be like all of my friends to fit in or feel good about myself. I hate that crap. Singleness can do stuff like fly to California for vacation if you want to. I think I will.

Things I Love

I was talking with some co-workers last week about how I should start consistently bringing my lunch to work. We all know that city goverment parks and recreation isn't the best paying job in the world so this is a smart idea. I was telling them how if I had a cool lunch box, I would be more motivated to bring my lunch. That makes sense right? Well the very next day following this conversation, I came into my office to find a new shiny red lunch box on my desk from Kathy, the Recreation supervisor and best boss in the world. She said "That was the closest thing to Carolina colors I could find." And those are the people I get to work with. Today I brought in my ham sandwich (and I think from a local pig, thanks stevo) and will carry around my lunch box because I'm cool now.

Other things I love:
1. Rory Mcilroy for winning the US Open Championship. He ended the day 16 under par and single, which makes him a brilliant golfer and future husband. I need help planning our Ireland wedding, folks.
2. Gaffney for showing me a good time this weekend. Me and Dad hung out and ate a lot, I saw my best friends and a hilarious movie, and Cali got to run around our neighborhood like a fool.

Friday Favorites

This is Laura. She is a new homeowner and my best friend since 7th grade. Today's addition of Friday Favorites is dedicated to her house. It's my favorite house in the whole world. It has newly painted walls, a wireless door bell, some light switches, and a shiny red door. My favorite thing about the house is Laura, actually. I'm so proud of her being a grown-up and spending lots of grown-up money on a new place. She's got her cute black lab in a fence and is ready to take on the world. What makes Laura really cool? Well, she does stuff like buys a house, takes road trips late at night when she's not supposed to, listens to her ipod while grocery shopping, has to stop to take pictures in a big field of sunflowers, etc. She's adventurous ya know. She's one of my most fun and favorite friends and we've had lots of fun together (seriously, go look at our friendship on facebook, it'll blow your mind.) And if you're ever in town, stop by and give her company. But I won't tell you where she lives because that's creepy and who knows who reads this blog. Thanks LB, for giving us all a new place to hang out and crash while in Gaffney.

and for the quote of the day...

Amanda: "The first thing you did in the morning was check AIM. Not get ready, not eat, not pee, AIM. Oh and you KNOW that away message was pointed at somebody!"

quote of the day

Janna: "It was called a blind date because he literally blindfolded me."

Camp Camp Camp

It's scary how awesome my 3 best friends are. Not only are we absolutely adorable, well educated, and employed, but we can conquer the outdoors too. We've all been lots of places with and without each other, but never ventured to the great outdoors together. I'm thinking there's a reason for that. Not that we all didn't have a fabulous time, it's just that we're lucky we ate on saturday night. I don't think we were quite prepared to build a fire lasting long enough for dinner and dessert, but our hobo's were really yummy. Erin burnt two fingers, Laura got the most bug bites, and me and Erica tied for the least amount of showers award. Saturday's 5am raccoon visit was probably the main event as me, erin, and erica screamed and dove head first into the tent while Laura slept through the whole thing. I truly believe God gave us to each other so that He could get a good laugh every now and then. As stressful and busy as my life has been so far this summer, a weekend in the woods and at the beach was exactly what I needed, with my 3 favorite people in the world.

Quote of the day(s):

Erica: "I be lookin like Davy Jones Locker up in that picture!"
Laura: "Our music minister?"
Erica: "That giant squid."

Erica: "Laura, do you want to go swimming in the ocean?"
Laura: "no."
Erica: "me neither."

at chickfila...
Laura: "OMG good thing you have a placemat!"
Erica: "Leave me and my drippy sandwich alone!"

right after the raccoon attack:
Erica: "I bout went all blair witch on that thing!"
Erin: "I can't find my chapstick!"

Erica: "At first I thought, oh that's Laura. And then I thought, oh that's too weird."

Friday Favorites

Most people don't know that breakfast food is my absolute fave. Pancakes, waffles, bacon, eggs, french toast, syrup. You just can't beat that crap. I don't like the time of day that breakfast is set for, but I'll eat it any time of day really. A breakfast food that is kind of underappreciated and I just recently started to love is bagels. Why are bagels SO GOOD? Confession: I had never had a bagel until college. Story time: In Santa Cruz, my freakin awesome discipler, Dawn Kirk would wake me up against my will on Tuesday mornings to have bible study. She took me to Noah's bagels in Santa Cruz for our first meeting and I had to look like an idiot and tell her I've never had a bagel and wasn't sure I was ready to give cream cheese a chance. But she forced me to eat a bagel from that morning until 5 weeks later when she left. It wasn't really forced, I ended up loving them. So one night, me and the roomies found Bagels that had been sitting on the shelf in our room for 4 weeks. They were totally green and smelled horrible. Instead of throwing them away, why not put them on Dawn's door step at 3am? She loved us.

Now a few years later, Grace and I go to Panera every sunday morning between worship team practice and church and eat bagels. Thanks Dawn.

quote of the day

From the office next door.

Amanda: "Yes?...."
Donna: "This is Donna."
Amanda: "I thought this was your cell phone. I was confused."
Donna: "I'm in the closet."

quote of the day

Grace: "When things are numbered, aren't they usually called highways?

Me: "Can I draw a picture of who I think is a fox?"
Chris: "No. We don't want a picture of Zac Efron on Savannah's mobile."

Friday Favorites (monday edition)

The first rule for someone who works with youth is that you’re not supposed to have favorites. But let’s be honest, there’s always a favorite. Since my job is youth programming, I get to hang out with some really fun and silly young people. Out of all them, I have to say Tara (see left) is my favorite. Tara joined the Youth Service League (which is the summer program I run) 4 summers ago, the first summer I worked for PRT. She’s now a junior at Northwestern and this year joined the Rock Hill Youth Council so luckily I get to see her a lot. This weekend, Tara came along on our annual YSL retreat with 32 middle schoolers as a "junior chaperone." Some high school kids have maturity issues and don’t really know how to handle certain situations or know how to be in charge. But this was no problem for her. She was telling girls to go to bed, to get over themselves, to clean their cabin, and she was MVP of capture the flag. She’s pretty mature for her age overall, and just so much fun to be around. I love kids who are overly positive about life and can always find the good in situations and laugh about things. That is totally her and I can learn a lot from youth like that. Thankfully I have a couple more years to hang out and be silly with her, we’re really good at that. And I mean look at her. She’s precious.

quote of the day

"If all you're doing is taking the Gospel in and not giving it out, think about what that does to your soul? Someone once told me it's like having spiritual constipation."
-Kim Schmidt

quote of the day

Attention boys:

Laura: "If you're gonna go on a date with me, don't get me flowers. Give me a gift certificate to Wal-Mart or something. Something I can use."