25 Random Facts...all about ME!

Everyone seems to be sending me these 25 Random Facts surveys on facebook lately, so I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon. I realized that I'm a pretty boring person and had a really hard time coming up with facts that you folks that know me aren't already aware of. Here goes...

1. I hate the sound of fingernails being clipped. It literally makes me kind of gag.

2. I love flip-flops – so much that I wore them on my wedding day. (I got the chunkier ones that looked a little classier at least)

3. I had an extremely strong dislike for my husband (and I told him so too!) for an entire year before we started dating and fell in love. Now I’m the happiest wife I know and fall more in love with him every day.

4. My brother is a rock star in California and was recently nominated for a world music award.

5. My heart was broken in two once when I visited an orphanage in Thailand and saw a little girl with her “pet” cockroach that she was kissing, petting and completely attached to.

6. I love coffee so much that I roast my own beans in an air popper.

7. I’m extremely indecisive and completely stress out about the little decisions (like what to order at Starbucks) but have no problems with the big ones (like if I should quit my job and move across the country to plant a church).

8. I’m very claustrophobic and especially hate it if my head is crowded or covered.

9. I’m blessed to have not just 2, but 3 sets of grandparents (one of the perks of coming from a broken family) that are all my heroes in different ways. I honestly believe that I have the best grandparents ever and wouldn’t be who I am today if it weren’t for the impact they’ve had on my life.

10. My hair was jet black until I was 2 and then was bleach blonde up until my mid 20’s. Now I’m turning into more of a brunette with every passing year. (must be part of my indecisive nature!) :)

11. I hate shaving my legs and only do it if I am going to wear a skirt of shorts – which is rare occasion.

12. I have never spent more than 2 weeks apart from my best friend Missy in the last 10 years – up until last fall when I moved to Madison. Now my heart hurts every single day because I miss her so much.

13. I’m extremely frugal and am constantly looking for ways to save money.

14. Going to rodeos is perhaps my favorite thing in the entire world. I love them so much that not only did Steve propose to me at a rodeo, but I refuse to go home and visit my family unless it’s in August when the Northwest Montana Fair is coming to town so we can check out a REAL rodeo!

15. For some reason I just love Hello Kitty

16. In the last 11 years I have moved to 3 different states with 2 of the same friends every time. Including our most recent move to WI, these 2 friends have been a constant (to bad we're not characters on Lost) wherever I go. I guess I’m stalking them because no matter where they move to I’m always just a few streets away. Now I’m here in Madison waiting for them to sell their house in St. Louis so they can get up here and continue on with our tradition already!

17. Love for popcorn has been handed down from my ancestors. On any given night I can almost guarantee that out of my mom, grandma or myself on of us is eating popcorn for dinner.

18. Some of my favorite memories as a child were sanding down the old classic cars that my grandpa Quick restored or going on cattle drives with my grandpa Pederson.

19. Most of my dearest friends live far away and I don’t talk to them as often as I’d like, but I miss them terribly and think about them every single day. Proof that out of sight really isn’t out of mind after all!

20. I once hitchhiked in Brazil and got put picked up by a truck that was transporting highly flammable material. I rode in the back of the truck for a good hour sitting on top of a propane tank.

21. Since I was 9 years old I’ve had what the doctors call “chronic hives” that come and go a few times a day. I’ve been to all kind of doctors and nobody can figure out what I’m allergic to. When I moved to Madison 5 months ago my hives all of the sudden decided to go away.

22. I’ve been told that my brother and I have the same exact eyes and smile and I guess I’m okay with that. I like my brother and I absolutely LOVE his wife. She has got to be one of the nicest people in the entire world.

23. I absolutely hate talking on the phone, but email is practically my bff.

24. The older I get the more I’m really starting to realize who I am. It seems like a cry a whole lot more to.

25. Germany is by far my favorite country ever and if I could live anywhere I would probably move there. You can’t go wrong with good beer, great culture and really nice people!

Putting things into perspective....

I've been feeling discouraged these last few days because of how depressing the news is. It's discouraging that Steve still hasn't found a job, but seems even worse when everytime I look at the paper all I seem to read about is how bad our economy is and how the unemployment rates keep jumping higher and higher.
I am blessed beyond measure, but sometimes I feel the need to just get bummed out because things aren't working like I want them to and in my timing.

I was feeling rather justified in my gloomy mood until I got a call from one of my coworkers today. She's a few years younger than me and is happily married with 4 kids. Last month I rememember her telling me how excited she was that her husband would finally be able to have surgery on a tumor that's been on his arm for over 10 years. Because they don't have health insurance they've been on a waiting list to get the tumor removed. The tumor was removed just after the New Year, but in the weeks following the surgery they found some blood clots in his arm. They figured they could do a routine surgery to remove the clots, only in just a days time that clot had moved up to his brain and would be untreatable. She called me this afternoon to let me know that she wouldn't be at work because she was waiting at the hospital for her daughters to arrive so they could say good-bye to their Dad one last time before they would have to turn his life support off.
Obviously I was put in my place very quickly. My heart goes out to this young lady and I honestly couldn't imagine what she must be going through - one moment full of hope and the next preparing for life as a widow.

Suddenly knowing that I will come home to a clean house with dinner on the table because my husband is home taking care of everything while he doesn't have a job seems like a dream come true and puts everything into perspective.
I needed that good kick in the butt today and will go home thankful that I have a husband to hug. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know that I want to cherish every moment I have now. It's easy to roll along in life and think "that will never happen to me", but it seems like I'm constantly meeting people that believed those words just before their world was turned upside down.
My heart goes out to Tracy and her family during this rough time, please keep them in your prayers!

Lost on LOST...

LOST! Okay, I'm partially excited and partially extremely frustrated with the season premier of Lost. I've been looking forward to some new episodes for a long time.
We had some friends over and had a little Lost party on Wednesday to celebrate our favorite show coming back.

The thing that really frustrates me though is that they also seem to bring all of these different angles into all of the mystery and make things even more confusing rather than answering questions! AGH! I just want to know what is happening.

This is my theory from premiere, but what do I know? Here goes, I remember in season 3 (or maybe it was season 4) when Desmond had his encounter with Daniel in England. At the time Daniel talked to Desmond about the whole "constant" factor. With all this time travel you had to have a constant to hold onto in both lifetimes to keep you from going crazy which would eventually result in death. One of my theories about the reason why the 6 survivors back home have to go back to the Island is because they have to be the constants for all the survivors still on the Island. Parts of that don't make sense though because Ben is the one saying that they have to go back and he obviously doesn't care if the survivors on the Island live or die.

Anyway....all that to say I'm intrigued and can't wait to see what happens next.
From what I heard the show will be ending and all will be revealed in 2010, so I'm interested to see how they wrap everything up.

It's good to be known...

Anyone that knows me well knows that what I hate more than anything in the entire world is being misunderstood. I think it really is the worst feeling ever to know that someone has formed an opinion about who you are in their mind that is totally false. I hate feeling like I don't have the chance to explain myself and sometimes just wish I could yell out "No! What you're thinking I'm feeling is not really what I'm feeling!"
Anyway, so I've been feeling pretty misunderstood lately and it's just been so discouraging. This morning on my way to work I was just thinking through all of this and all the sudden just felt a sense of relief when I realized that the most important person - God himself knows me better than anyone. I love that I never have to worry about being misunderstood by God and I take so much comfort in the fact that He knows me better than I know my myself. I love that before I even go to Him in frustration about other people misunderstanding me He already knows how I feel.

Because I hate to be misunderstood so much I find myself always wanting to give others the benefit of the doubt and try and put myself in their shoes before I make any assumptions about them that may be false. The downside of being that way is that I often find that it leads me to take up offenses that are not mine to take up.
When I feel that the people I care about are being misunderstood it sometimes ticks me off just as much as if I were the person being misunderstood myself. I especially get bothered when it is something that relates to my husband.
Slowly but surely I'm learning though to let it go and live in the knowledge that really God's opinion of me is the only opinion that matters. I find myself often reflecting on the Psalm that says "search my heart and know me." I so want to be found secure in the fact that the God who created the universe loves me enough to know all about my insecurities and the little things that get me down. That is to me one of the wonders of walking in relationship with Jesus. Sure, He's perfect and I'm not, but in spite of my imperfection He knows me and He loves me still. What a comfort!

No easy buttons here..

It's one of those rare week days where it's after midnight and I just can't sleep, so I figured what better way to put me to sleep than to blog. :)
We have a community group that meets at our house on Wednesday nights and tonight a new couple stopped in that seem really great and it was very encouraging for me to have some fresh faces join us. It's so crazy because when we first decided to church plant we had no idea what we were getting into nor what to expect. We still are pretty much in the same boat, but it's been so funny for me to look back on the last few months and realize that this church planting business is so much harder and so much easier at the same time than I would have ever expected.
Without a doubt the hardest part for me was the season when I was living up here in Madison alone. On top of that it's been hard now that Steve's been here 2 months and is still having an impossible time finding a job. Also, it's been hard to get out of my comfort zone and make new friends because I miss my friends back home terribly, but most of the time I just feel that it's really hard but don't really know it is that makes it so hard if that makes sense.
As for the the easy part? The easy part has been depending on God. We have nothing else left to depend on and know that God is our only source and only hope and learning to rely on Him to provide our every need and give us the necessary grace to sustain us has really been our only option, which has really made our faith stronger. We really have nothing else to do but to hope in God and I have learned so much in the recent months about what it really means to put my trust in God and for that I am so grateful.
Because of all of that I have so much hope for the future and for what God has for this church that He would call 8 "nobodies" from St. Louis to sell their houses, pack up and move and start a church. We really are nothing without the grace of God, but we have everything because He is going before us.
Right now we're starting out small, but I'm encouraged with the great people that God has brought into our paths, not only for our church, but even apart from the church I feel equally blessed to have made some great friends to share life with here in Madison.
I find myself chuckling whenever I see that Staples commercial that has the "easy" button on it, because I find myself wishing that everything in life had an "easy" button to push. But then I have to stop and realize that if everything were easy I would never be challenged, never grow and never learn. As much as I absolutely hate hitting the rough patches in life I can't help but feel so grateful for all the obstacles I've had to overcome and all that I've learned through the overcoming. I know that this rough, starting out season will pass and instead of wishing it away or waiting for a better day I want to learn to embrace all that it has for me and learn as much as I can through the process. Thank God that He promises to never give me more than what I can handle!
And with that I think I'll try to get some sleep.....

Hello 2009!

We had a very Happy New Year. I have a really nice boss that suggested I take a day off and head back to St. Louis for a visit, so I decided to take her up on it! We had 4 days back home and it was fun to see friends and family. We even got to babysit the Thompson kids and had so much fun hanging out with my favorite little girls.
We rang in the New Year with Dale, Missy, Erica & Chad and then promptly went back to Steve's folks house to go to bed. I am so not a party animal anymore and rarely stay up past midnight. Is that a sign that I'm getting older?

Anyway...besides that we did the whole tourist thing while we were in town. We went on tour of the Anheuser Busch Brewery with the Roberts, Hallstens and Steve's folks and also went to Steve's parents favorite restaurant, Hodak's. That's when things kind of went downhill. I'm not much of a fan of Hodak's and really don't think there's anything healthy on the menu. Fried food is what they're known for. Anyway...so Steve decided to get some fried chicken (their specialty) and I stuck with a turkey burger. Not long after we had dinner Steve got pretty violently ill and stayed that way for the rest of our trip, our drive home and even a few days after we got back to Madison. It was miserable! I'm not sure if he got food poisoning or if it was because he just wasn't used to eating fried, greasy food like that. Steve's folks had the fried chicken too and felt fine.
Anyway, so that kind of ruined the trip a little, but nonetheless it was good to go home and see familiar faces. I can't really say that I terribley miss St. Louis, but I do miss the familiarity of our life there and most of all our friends. I was shocked at how much warmer it was in St. Louis compared to Madison. It was so sunny and bright there and after the kind of weather we had here it totally felt like we were on vacation in sunny California. It still amazes me that the weather can be so drastically different just 6 hours away.
On to another topic,I haven't had much time to think of what I'd like to see happen in 2009. I'm really not much of a "resolution" type, but I do like to set goals and re-evaluate where I'm at with the goals I set for the previous year. One thing I'd really like for 2009 is to learn Spanish. Once we start having kids we both really want them to be bilingual, so Steve and I have been trying to work on our Spanish in preparation for whenever that day may come. Of course I also want to work on eating healthier. Overall we eat pretty healthy, but I want to learn to start cooking more from scratch so that I know exactly what is going into my food. I'm no Betty Crocker though, so we'll see how that one goes. Other than that I'm not sure what I want to see happen in 2009. I really like to achieve goals that I set for myself and because of that don't like to set my goals in haste but prefer to really sit down and think them through and be realistic - the hard part now is just finding the time to sit down and do that!

I'm so excited to see all that 2009 has in store for us!