Pictures from the Living Christmas Tree

You probably can't see me in the picture where I'm wearing black. That is the dance that nearly killed me, but I made it through all 7 shows!

I Did It!!

The Living Christmas Tree has now come to an end at my church and I made it all the way through all seven performances without, falling, freaking out, or dying. :-) My main goal was to see if I could get back out on stage without being on anxiety medicine and my second goal was to be able to hopefully plant a little seed in one persons life. I think that I accomplished both those goals. Every time I would be in the aisle I prayed before hand that God would put someone in front of me that I could reach out to just a little bit. I was a little bummed at first because I kept seeing people in front of me that I knew and that knew to be Christians, but I think that there were a few who weren't and for that I am grateful.
A side not that is sort of hilarious to me, but a former student and his family were sitting in front of me when I was dancing in the aisle and he told me afterward that his dad asked him if he wanted to get my number so he could hook us up. I thought that was pretty funny!
Overall I think that my time in the Living Christmas Tree was one I will not soon forget, but probably not one I will repeat next year... I'm exhausted!
I'll try posting some pictures soon!

Tonight's the Night...

I will once again be on stage performing. I have not performed on a stage in over three years now so I am extremely nervous! Tonight I will be performing and singing (kind of) in my churches Christmas production, The Living Christmas Tree. I know the words, the moves and all the cues, yet I'm more nervous for this tonight than I have ever been for any other production I have ever been in. I think if I decide to do any community theater after this I will not be auditioning for any musicals in the near future. I forgot how hard it is to sing, dance and smile. If anyone does read my blog, please pray that I will remember everything I'm supposed to tonight and that I don't fall, faint or freak out! My main goal tonight is to do this all for God and to show people how amazing He is, the true meaning of Christmas and how Christians can have fun at church and even dance :-)

The Class... My New Favorite Show

As some of you may know I love the TV show Friends and can pretty much quote a show verbatim every time I'm watching it and even when I'm not. I told my self at the beginning of the Fall TV season that I was not going to take on anymore new TV shows (which did not happen). I accidentally set my DVR to set a show entitled The Class. I was meaning to record How I Met Your Mother (funny, funny show) and they had switched the times on me, so long story short I began to watch The Class. It is from the creator of Friends and is somewhat like the show except it follows 8 people and not all of the people hang out as 8, but their lives intertwine after one of the characters decides to get his third grade class together to propose to his girlfriend (also from the third grade class). Unfortunately for the guy she dumps him at the party and it show begins following these 8 characters. The reason I blog about this is because Mike, my brother, Eric, and myself were able to go and see a taping of this show. It was one of the funnest things I have ever done. First of all they sat us in the front row off to the side, which was awesome. Second I have decided that I could very well work in the TV show environment (I always said I would only do stage stuff). Third that coolest thing about the whole taping was when at one point about 4 of the characters the two creators, the director (who also directed and produced all of Cheers and many, many others) were standing right in front of us, about 10 feet away. I could care less about getting free stuff and dancing around to the music with the warm up guy, I just loved being able to hear conversation that the writers were having and the actors. The actors were all great some even would wave and smile and make eye contact with us. At least I like to think it was me, it was probably someone behind me. :-) I just think that everyone should watch this show. It's hilarious and the entire cast seems like they have a lot of fun working on the set. Watch it Monday nights at 8:30pm on CBS. If you haven't seen the show you can watch all the episodes for free at their website. The Class... My new favorite show!!

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

I have decided to venture back into the blogging world! I know that many of you have missed the absence of my blog, but now you can once again be enlightened by my thoughts.

I recently turned 26 which was sort of hard, but not as difficult as turning 25 last year. Anyway, our church puts on this big Christmas production each year called the Living Christmas Tree. As some of you know I majored in theater when I was in college and haven't really done anything since then (production-wise that is), so I decided to contact the person in charge of the dancers and other groups to see if there might be a spot for me in the big production. Well, it turns out that there was a part in the opening number where I get to do some choreography and dance with fake hand bells. I was very content with this although I thought it would have been pretty fun to be one of the main dancers. Well, yesterday I got my "wish" I not only get to be in the opener, but I also get to be in the other Stomp type number. If you are unfamiliar with Stomp, it's a musical play that incorporates banging on trashcans as drums and other things. I have a part where I get to hold a fake tambourine, in this Stomp-type number, which to the average eye would not seem to difficult. Not until halfway through do you see my true exhaustion and the fact that I am not a hip hop dancer, nor will I ever be. I have to participate in a dance that is so fast I look absolutely ridiculous at this point every time we do it. I am so tired after this dance I actually could barely control the shaking of my body when the entire dance number was over. I figured out that every other person doing this dance is the average age of 21 years. 5 years ago I could have done this and been energetic about it, not so much now. If you don't hear from me in the next few weeks it will be due to the fact that I fell down dead on stage during the dance number from hell! I'm gonna go soak my feet now.

Riverside Construction.....Aaaaaaah!

Tonight was a great night at church until I left. Let me tell you a story...

I got into my Honda a drove off to In & Out Burger. I ordered my food, they prepared it and gave it to me. I then took off for home and deicided to go the way I always go. It's quick and easy and the most direct route home... or so I thought. I got to one section of my drive and said to myself, "Oh yeah, they're doing construction on this street and the next one, oh well it won't be that bad!" So as I'm grooving along to some sweet tunes on Star 98.7 I all of the sudden come to a complete stop becasue the dork in front of me and the one on front of him can't merge into one lane. Finally we start moving again and the left lane opens up again, but only for about 100 feet then more arrows telling us to get over again. Okay I must stop here to say... Why don't they just section the entire left lane off and not open it till later when there is nothing left to section off? Anyway, I am then ready to turn right onto the main street I take home (this one has eighteen times more construction on it) and about half way up the street the left lane is being worked on again. I being the smart Riverside driver that I am know that the left lane will likely be closed and remain in the right lane, but other do not and must get over. Now, I hate traffic, but I do think the proper merging technique in traffic is to for each right lane car to let in one left lane car. But no, this is not how everyonr thinks. The car in fron of me is staying right up on the butt of the bus in front of him, so I must now let two cars in. Just not right! As I'm driving along at 2 mph I can smell the delicious cheeseburger sitting next to me and just as I begin to drool the lanes open up and I am flying now at 50 mph when once again I see brake lights. This time there is no construction just people who don't know how to drive on the open road. I finally make it home after 30 minuts of being on the road. Not fun. It has been proven that it takes about 13 minutes to get from my church to my house and if I was at In & Out Burger it should have been more like 10 minutes.

(In the middle of writing this I had to go and deal with something, I am now back).

All in all, if you plan on visiting the beautiful land of Riverside in the near future... don't! Come in January when most of the construction will be done!!

GOOOOOOOALS!!!!!

Towards the beginning of the summer I posted a blog and in it I wrote that I had some goals I wanted to meet this summer. Well, I'm sorry to say that most of those goals were not met. Here were the goals I didn't meet and the reason why:

Goal #1: Learn to play the guitar

I have wanted to learn to play the guitar for a really long time. I can play the piano and read music somewhat well so I figured that learning to play the guitar wouldn't be that hard. This all would have been great had I not broken my finger at the beginning of the summer. I unfortunately had a splint on my finger for half the summer so my lessons did not ever happen. I would assume it's a bit difficult to strum a guitar when your right ring finger is jutting out straight.

Goal #2: Take a dance class

This was all set to go until my beautiful sister backed out. I was really excited because my sister and I were going to take a Hip Hop dance class (yes, I know I am probably the whitest dancer ever) through parks and rec here in Riverside. She is in Color Guard at her school and it takes up her entire life, especially in the summer. (Grant it her high schools band and color guard ARE going to the Rose Parade in January.)

Goal #3: Write a Play

This one doesn't really have a valid excuse except that my creative juices have not been flowing lately. Everytime I think of something to write about in my head, it ends up being pretty cheesy when I put it down on paper.

Although none of these goals were met I don't feel as though my summer was a waste at all. I did meet some unexpected goals though:

Unexpected Goal #1: I rode a gondola up to and then stood at the top of a 10,000 foot mountain
Unexpected Goal #2: I have made it almost two months without taking medicine for anxiety!!
Unexpected Goal #3: I am starting a visual arts team for the high school students in our church

I would love to meet my goals at the top someday! Maybe I'll shoot to achieve those goals by the end of the school year! We'll see...

A Fly

Right now I'm sitting in the office at my home and laughing at a fly. You may think that I've lost it and I am completely bored, but this might just be the dumbest fly on earth. It keeps flying around and around and running into the mirrored closet doors. You would think that after about 50 times of hitting the closet (and I'm not exxagerating) that it would fly off to someother part of the house. Nope, it's still flying into the mirror. Fifty One... Fifty Two... Fifty Three...

School Begins Without Me

Well, school has finally began again for the students in Riverside. I didn't have to go back with them because I am in the process of taking the CBEST to become a substitute teacher. I resigned from my job of 6 months at Madison Elementary School and I will never have to be a instructional assistant again (unless I have this lingering desire to go back and do that again)! I am sort of excited to sub and sort of not. Here are my fears:

1) I won't pass the CBEST when I take it in October and will look stupid and have to retake it in January or February.
2) I will get bored and lazy between now and the time all my paperwork goes through to actually sub.
3) I will be called every morning at 5am (the butt crack of dawn) and I will be a grouchy sub all day long or I'll pick up the phone and hang it up never getting a sub job ever.
4) I will have to take a TB Test for the eightieth time in three years (really it would only be the third time)
5) I will have to be fingerprinted again and the same lady who took 30 minutes the last time will be pulling at my fingers again and again. (Apparently I have fingers that don't fingerprint well, who knew?)
6) I will not get a job at all and all my precious time and money will be wasted (not to mention the fact that I expelled a lot of brain cells taking a test to be a sub)

Hopefully none of that will happen or if it does at least I'll have already gone over the scenario several times in my head. Until then I guess I will just enjoy my time off and pray that I pass the test!!

Friendships are Hard

I wasn't going to post anything about this, but I feel as though I need to get it off my chest.

Have you ever thought that your life was going pretty good and you had no worries about anything? I felt like that until about a week ago when I went to check a message I had received on myspace. I had received a message from a girl I went to high school with and who I had always considered a really good friend. The message went a little something like "...now that we are mature and older... why didn't you like me in high school?" Now grant it I'll even admit that I have never been the greatest friend to some people, but I thought that after being out of high school for 7 years that I wouldn't have to deal with something like this. Apparently it has been festering with this person for sometime. The one thing that I can't understand about the question she asked me is that I never didn't like her in high school and I have never not liked her. I have disliked peoples attitudes in the past, but I have never even thought that about this person. I am an extremely sensitive person and when I read this it inititally hurt me, then it made me mad and now I have no idea what I'm feeling or what to write back to her. I have been mulling over it for a week and praying about what I should say, but I really dislike confrontation. I obviously don't want to be harsh in writing back and I don't want her to think that I don't like her, but I want her to know that I was hurt by her statement. I guess I'll just continue to pray about it until I figure out the right option.

Book Meme

Okay, I've been tagged by my wonderful husband, Mike to do this Booke Meme thing. Here goes:

1. One book that changed your life: I don't know if this changed my life, but it changed my perspective on dating and marriage. Boundaries in Dating by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: I read books constantly and I read them multiple times. I think it's because I read fast. I have read Roots by Alex Haley about 4 times (you know you've read a book a lot when the cover has fallen off) and I've read all the Harry Potter books twice.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: I would want a book that would keep my interest so yes even though it's the go to answer I am going to say The Bible becasue even though it comes as one "book" it's many books that all have extremely interesting stories. I would probably want The Message version though, just to be able to read it in a modern day language.

4. One book that made you laugh: As You Like It by William Shakespeare. I know it's weird that I can laugh at Shakespeare by just reading it instead of seeing the play, but I studied it so much in high school and in college that I can read it pretty much understanding every word without looking it up. Plus any play is more amazing when you can read it and imagine what it looks like.

5. One book that made you cry: I've cried while reading a whole lot of books, but the one I can think that made me cry most recently was (now please don't laugh) The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares.

6. One book you wish had been written: How to Cook a Meal and Clean Up Without Actually Doing Any Work! I hate cooking and I really do not like having to clean up everything after I've cooked it. If there's a book out there like this please let me know.

7. One book you wish had never been written: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Now I was an English minor in college and I love reading, but this book is the only book that I've ever gotten Cliffs Notes for. I had the hardest time reading it (I fell asleep everytime I opened it up) and I will probably never read it again.

8. One book you’re currently reading: I am reading a lot of books right now, but if I have to pick then it would probably be The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I see it every time I go to the bookstore, but I never buy it.

10. One book you’d like to write: Junior High Drama: On and Off Stage. I have wanted to write this for a while. I think I would incorporate original scripts in it and make it a book for junior high students and maybe give them insight into a few things. I don't know, it's all still in my head. I think I would also like to write a book for wives of youth pastors. I just wish there was something like that out there that I could have read or could read, maybe there is and I just haven't looked. I feel like thenwife of a youth pastor is such a strange ministry to be involved in because there is this hidden thought among parents and volunteers that you are the "lady youth pastor." My working title is: Oh Crap, I Married a Youth Pastor! Now What Do I Do? :-)

Okay, I now tag John Snyder and Stephen Perry. They are the only two that I can find that don't have this on their blogs and I have no idea if they even read my blog, but I guess it's worth a try.

Going Public: San Francisco

I know it's been an extremely long time since I've blogged and I'm sure the two people that read my blog are itching to know what I've been up to. :-)

July was extremely busy for me, including the first week of August. Here's what I did:

After getting back from vacation Mike and I leapt right into Going Public. I was not looking forward to it. You see, Going Public is a Choir Tour/Mission Trip, more emphasis on Choir Tour than on missions in the past (at least that's what I'd been told). I have nothing against Choir Tour, especially since I went with my church all four years of high school, but I was not looking forward to going as a leader on a trip where I wasn't going to have much to do. Yet once again in my life I was wrong and I found that I enjoyed it a ton and was sad when it ended. I learned a whole lot of things on the trip. The first being that high school students are amazing and no one should ever underestimate the things they can do and the difference they can make. I would have to say that the trip in its entirety surprised me by the amount of missions type things we did. About two-thirds of our students were in the city of San Francisco doing things like working at the Rescue Mission, doing manual labor at a church, fixing up a place called Page Street Baptist Center near The Haight District and Evangelism all over the place. I was with the one-third of students that were in the suburbs at Western Hills Church doing a Kid's Club and Sports Camp. I was able to help with the Kid's Club which I love doing and was right up my alley.

I also learned that those punk kids in junior high can grow up to be pretty amazing high school students. As a lot of people know I am not very good with clingy people or students who have no respect for adults or leaders. I had the opportunity to work on this area of my life while in San Francisco. I was put in a room with two other girls, one which thought that I didn't like her because she was such a punk in junior high (and yes she was a very punky, annoying kid in high school) and the other girl in my room is kind of clingy and says things that are very rude most of the time. I was actually very disappointed at first with my room assignment, but by the end of the week I'm glad that I was put into that situation. I'm not saying that these girls still don't do some things that I'm sure will get on my nerves in the future but I look at them in a whole new perspective now. They are both just girls that need to be loved and they need to be told that someone cares about them.

Overall, God gave me a whole new outlook on Going Public and I am definitely looking forward to going next year and making all new memories.

Oh! One absolutely, amazingly, awesome thing we got to do was go to Monster Park where the San Francisco 49ers play. We were able to go to the locker room, the field, the steps (I stupidly ran up thinking I could do it just like the high school students; almost killing myself and/or passing out I'm not sure!), and the press room (media and written).

Smelly Horses

This week we are on vacation with my family and this morning we all went horseback riding in the rain. Yes, on our beautiful summer vacation it rained. Not just a little rain, but we're talking about large drops. Overall it was fun and it was pretty awesome seeing Mike on a horse, especially a horse called Buster Brown. Although I felt sorry for my brother who was behind Mike and Mike's horse kept farting. Above are some pics from our vacation so far.

Student Leadership Conference

As I'm sitting here in beautiful Mammoth Lakes, CA on vacation I decided that this is the perfect opportunity to write a blog about my experience at the Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback Church.

Day1- We arrived at Saddleback after a very short drive. Some of our students were amazed at how close Riverside is to South Orange County. The students played on some of the bouncy blow-up toys and Mike and I went to a Leaders Meeting. The meeting went a bit long and Mike and I were some of the last people to eat while all the other students and leaders started pouring into Tent 2. A bit hectic to begin, but we survived. Doug Fields taught about the Make-up of a Leader and had some really good things to say. After the first session we took our students to the Irvine Spectrum were we rode the Ferris Wheel and Some of us had Funnel Cake.

Day 2- The morning session was excellent with Kenny Luck speaking. His daughter was in my C-Group at Saddleback so it was really cool to hear him speak. We also heard Matt McGill who I'd never heard speak before, but I loved it because he was short and to the point (good for my attention span) and he was extremely real with the students. After the session we met with our team to do this race type game called "Experiential Leadership." We were in classrooms before lunch where the students did some team trivia, human knot, ping-pong drop, etc. After lunch the students in these same teams did an "Amazing Race" (my favorite reality show) type game where the students had to build a pile of sand 4 ft. high, count parking lot spaces and much, much more. In the afternoon session we heard from an event planner from Disneylnd and Eric Rees who is the Pastor of Ministry at Saddleback. Listening to Eric made me regret not having gone to Class 301 when we were at Saddleback. At the night session we heard from Nick Vujicic, who has an amazing story about liiving a life without any arms or legs. He is an amazing man of God who has inspired many people. After the night was done we went back to the hotel and played Mafia with the students.

Day 3- The morning session had a few speakers that didn't really impress me too much so I'll just move on to the workshop time. In the afternoon the students were able to attend workshops given by different people, some from Saddleback others from other churches. I went to Mike's which was okay and I also went with some girls to a workshop about Breaking Down Barriers and beginning a Girl's Ministry. It was good to hear that every church struggles with how they can reach out to all girls. The afternoon was fun because we took our students to Laguna Beach and then to Fuddrucker's for dinner. They seemed to have a good time. The night session was pretty good with the guy from Dare2Share, Greg Stier, who has some pretty funny stories even though I'd heard them before. Also there was Erin Kerr the Pastor of Evangelism at Saddleback. They both had some really good things to say. After this session we took the students to Golden Spoon.

Day4- There was a super session in the morning on Friday. The two speakers were Dee Eastman and Jim Burns. Both which were very good and had some really good things to say. We ended the conference and the session with a time for Communion. It was a very awesome experience. After the conference we took our student to Wahoo's and introduced them to the experience that Wahoo's Fish Taco is. We actually arrived home early.

Overall, my experience at this conference is one I will never forget. It was worth the 3 nights in a hotel just to see how much the students learned and to see the look on their faces when they finally got what Purpose Driven is all about. You can only explain things so much but until a student sees it carried out it won't be real to them. We will definitely bring students to the conference for a long time.

Dynamic Duo Strikes

As you can see from the pictures our 3 month old Honda CRV was tagged yesterday. Some high school girls were getting back at Mike for telling another high school student about them tagging his car in pink and white. To make a long story short, they found out and decided iot would be fun to do it to our car while at church. I do have to say that it's better than getting your house toilet papered or your car like students used to do to my car when we were working with Junior High. It kind of makes you feel loved.

I will be posting about the Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback as soon as I get more time!

Rialto, Subways and Hollywood

Yesterday was aweome, exhausting and something that I'm pretty glad is only done once a year. I took thirteen teenage girls and one adult to Hollywood, CA!

My day began at 4:30 in the morning as I was extremely nervous and woke up at that time and could not fall back alseep. The reason I was nervous is that this was the first ever event I have put together and done by myself minus my amazing youth pastor husband Mike. As you can see this might make one a bit nervous taking thirteen girls to Hollywood (or Hollyweird), CA. We met at the metrolink station at 9am in the morning and our train pulled out at 9:36am. Our ride was pretty uneventful until we told some of the girls that they could get off the train to get a snack at one of the stops on our way to Union Station. Little did we know that the train only stopped for 30 seconds at all stops except our previous train station in San Bernardino. The train began moving and five of my girls were not on the train. Luckily the train stopped as they saw the girls running and they all jumped back on. I was glad we did not lose them in Rialto, although its only like 20 minutes from Riverside. The remainder of our two hour trip was uneventful. When we pulled into Union Station we hopped on the Los Angeles Subway and took the Red Line up to Hollywood and Highland. We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum which was surprisingly not that exciting to High School girls (Junior High girls seem to love it). After this we wandered over to Hollywood and Highland. Some of us went into Sephora and ended up getting free makeovers, which was pretty sweet and I ended up buying $20 eyeshadow (Calypso) which is not normally something I would do, but this eyeshadow is the best. After the girls had their makeovers we walked over to Grauman's Chinese Theater were some girls took a picture with Marilyn Monroe, shirtless Elvis tried to get in our picture(creepy), a tall, caped, one-eyed dude scared Julie to death by growling at her, Spiderman hit on Brianna and there were pirtates everywhere. We then took the Subway to Universal City Walk, shopped around, and had an amazing dinner and Buca di Beppo. Some of the girls thought that our waiter was hot and were flirting with him until they found out he was 24 years old. I thought that was pretty funny! After dinner and a little more shopping we took the Subway back to Union Station. The subway was as crowded on a Saturday night as the Subway in New York is at rush hour. We had a uneventful ride back to Riverside and arrived on time. I think parents were relieved that their daughters came back alive and well from Los Angeles. I did not get to bed until 2am, but you can find out why if you read Mike's blog. Overall it was a wonderful day to get to know students and it made me look at ministry and say, "I'm really glad that I'm not a youth pastor, just a volunteer!" :-)

95 Years Young

A few weeks ago my family (minus Mike) went up to Santa Barbara to visit my great-grandma for her birthday. My beautiful Great-Grandma Mildred Ashley just turned 95 years old and she is one of the most amazing women I've ever known. She is also the most coherent and alert 95 year old woman that I have ever known. She is the mother of 5 girls, the grandmother of 15 grandchildren, the great-grandmother of over 30 great-grandchildren and the great-great-grandmother of 2 great-great-grandchildren. She has lived by herself for over 30 years until the last few months and she still loves the Los Angeles Dodgers (Go Dodgers!!) and knows almost all the players batting averages and facts about them. All this and she just had her little pinky toe amputated. Another amazing thing about this woman is that she is always caring about others and their well being. The women in my family all live to be very old; at one point I actually had all 4 of my great-grandmas alive. Amazing!! I hope that if I live to be as old as 95 that I will even just a little bit as awesom as Mildred Nordman Ashley!! :-)

(The top picture is my daddy and my grandma, the bottom picture is my brother, sister, grandma and me)

"Be"

Last night I attended my third high school graduation of this year. I was excited to go because one of my very first students in ministry was graduating. I was also not so excited because I was tired and I'd already been to two high school graduations and have heard enough "Pomp and Circumstance" to last me a lifetime. This graduation was quite long but it also made me think, which most graduation ceremonies don't do. The graduation was for Woodcrest Christian High School here in Riverside. As I was listening to each of the students give their speeches, watching pictures of all thier senior class and listening to students sing (shout out to one of our high school students, Lynnea Erwin, who did an amazing job singing) I really came away with more from the message than anything. The speaker said he wanted to keep the message short (which he did and I was thankful for) and tell the students one letter. That letter is "B" or as he said not really just one letter but one word, "Be". He had three points:

1. Be, rather than just do
2. Be, just don't pretend (Be real)
3. Be in contact

Now grant it the last point really doesn't apply to me, but the other two really tugged at my thoughts. Am I a person who just does stuff to fill my time? Do I pretend to know things and do things that really I have no clue about? Do I try pleasing other people, when I should really be pleasing to God? I want to be more pleasing to God and not try to put up a front to other people.

I believe that even though I went last night to the graduation just to show my support for two of our high school students, I came away with much more, maybe even a better understanding of who I need to "be."

Another 3 Weeks?!?!?!

Yesterday I was very excited in the morning because it was the day that my splint was coming off my finger and I would be able to bend my entire right ring finger. Not so much was the luck of one Nicole Christine Lovato! I had a different doctor (such are the ways of Kaiser) andfirst he told me that I would have to have the splint on for three more weeks and after that I would have to wear the splint at night (kind of like a retainer) for about three more weeks. It wouldn't have been so bad except that they had to extend my finger a little bit more and put it in a completely different splint that makes my entire finger stay straight. This makes it very difficult to write and do many other right-handed activities. Moral of the story boys and girls: Open your hands when trying to catch a dodgeball and if you do happen to break your finger while playing this extreme game, don't wait two weeks to get it checked out!

Amazing God

I know that I haven't written in a while, but I forget that I have a blog page. Today I realized something that I've know for a long time, but I really stopped to think about it this afternoon. I am able to worship an amazing God who loves me no matter what, who walks with me no matter if I'm having an awesome day or a crappy day. Sometimes it makes me incredibly sad to think about all the pain that Jesus went through on the cross so that we could live with God forever. Then it makes me incredibly happy to know that He did die on the cross so I can have eternal life and live with Him forever! This summer I have a lot of goals (learning to play the guitar, take a dance class, write a play, etc.), but my main goal this summer is to go deeper in God's word and study more and more about how much He loves me and each and every person in this world!

More Tales of a Broken Finger

Today I ventured to Kaiser again. This time to the Orthopedic Doctor. He had great news for me and some not so great news for me. The great news is that I got a new splint cast thing that doesn't cover my entire finger and make my finger stiff. The not so great news is that I no longer can pursue my career apirations to be a hand model because for the rest of my life I will have a crooked right ring finger. Unfortunately I waited too long to actually go to the doctor after the initial break, that unless I have surgery (which could possibly give me a stiff finger) there is nothing they can do since the bone has already started to grow back together. The other "exciting" news is that I have arthritis in my finger now and will for the rest of my life because of the break. I do have to say that I have taken this surprisingly well. I keep telling myself there's really not much I can do since it was just one of those freak accidents. I do have this to finish with though: I don't think I will ever be playing dodgeball again (at least not with high school students, possibly preschoolers)!

Broken Finger Woes

So, I broke my finger two weeks ago and didn't actually have full knowledge of the break until about two days ago! I finally decided to go to the doctor after two weeks of complaining about how much my jammed finger still hurt. You know it's not a good sign when the doctor takes one look at your finger before asking what's wrong and says, "Oh! That doesn't look good, we should have it x-rayed." I preceded to have my finger x-rayed and after getting the results back the doctor kindly informed me that I have a broken right ring finger. I am very sad at the moment because it is very hard to do anything with only three fingers (the pinky by itself is worthless). The incredibly sad thing about my broken finger is that it broke from getting hit by a dodgeball that a high school student threw. Oh well, at least it's cool to have my first broken bone!

This is my very first blog and who knows if anyone will ever read it. My husband, Mike said I should start a blog , so I did. I have no insight to anything exciting. I am just a youth pastors wife who works at an elementary school and have a pretty uneventful life. I did just break my finger. The first ever broken bone in my body. I wish I had a cooler story, but I broke it playing Dodgeball against some high school students. I hopoe that if you are reading this you enjoy my frequent or infrequent ramblings.